We decided to consult Nelson Nee, our foreign students advisor. Nelson told us to prepare a list of all the belongings lost in the fire, so we could get reimbursed. However, the owners of the house could not be found. They had left the city, and later on, we were told an investigation was going on. Police suspected that the owner of the house might have started the fire, because he didn’t make enough money from renting it out to students. As a result, Dhesi and I did not recover any money for our lost belongings.
In the meantime, Ravi Sood arranged for us to stay in a house he owned six blocks from campus. It needed renovation work, but he said we could stay in one room on the ground floor for thirty dollars a month.
I was still wearing the same grimy suit from the interview two days before. Dhesi and I desperately needed clean clothes. Once Nelson Nee contacted several churches and told them about our situation, a Baptist church near campus organized a collection and gave us clothes.
The clothes were huge on us. Dhesi and I, of small stature, knew nothing about sizes because all our clothes were hand-stitched in India. We held up our pants so they wouldn’t fall off our hips. The shirts were like small tents, and we looked ridiculous. All summer, we wore sleeveless undershirts instead, the coolest option and the best-fitting of all the donations. Still, the undershirts were so long they came to our knees, nearly covering the long underwear we wore in place of pants. It looked like we were wearing some kind of dress or nightgown, and people laughed when they saw us walking around the house or on the street.
The meager savings left from the money my father sent for spring quarter had burned in the pillow case. I needed money to pay for rent and tuition in the fall, but I could not tell my parents what happened. It would only worry them, and being so far away, they could not help me. My father was in no financial position to send me more money.
Desperate for a job, I contacted Mr. Regis, hoping he could hire me at his restaurant or knew of other opportunities. Mr. Regis lined up an interview for me with the owner of McDonald’s. He told me that if I wanted to work there I could start Monday, and my hours would be 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with a pay rate of eighty-five cents per hour.
“Go to the McDonald’s on Chapman Highway,” he said. “Talk to Bill. He’s the manager. He’ll get you started.”
The next day, I walked a mile across the river and met Bill. After asking me several basic questions, he said, “Well, let’s get ya started. Basically, your main job is to keep the place clean. You’ll sweep and mop the floor, pick up trash, those sorts of things.” He handed me a broom. “You can start right over there. Customer made a mess just now.”
On the fourth day of the job, Bill told me to pick up the lot.
I looked at him, confused, and he pointed to the parking lot. “Cigarette butts, cups, wrappers, whatever customers throw out of their car windows. Throw it in the dumpster in the corner,” he said.
The McDonald’s contained only one small room for making hamburgers, french fries, milkshakes, and soft drinks, with a basement below for storing raw food. The building did not have seating, so people ate in their cars parked in the lot, and then threw their trash into bins placed around the lot. The smaller pieces of garbage did not always make it into the bins, so I spent a majority of my time picking up trash and emptying bins into the dumpster.
I felt ashamed. I came to the US to earn a civil engineering degree and become an SDO, yet here I was, performing menial work only an untouchable would do in India. In India there are four primary castes: Brahmin, the priests; Kshatriya, warriors and nobility; Vaisya, farmers, traders and artisans; and Shudra, tenant farmers and servants. My family and I were in the Kshatriya caste. Not even included in the system were the Harijans, in other words “outcasts.” We referred to them as untouchables, because they were only allowed to perform jobs such as sweeping streets, cleaning up cow dung, collecting garbage, and cleaning the open sewer drains. Not allowed to touch anyone from the four castes, they could not even drink at the same well lest their shadow fall on us.
Bending over to pick up a dirty napkin and trudging over to the garbage can to throw it away, I thought about my Harijan friend from India, Neela, who attended primary school with me. Too little to hold prejudices, we became close friends. Another untouchable, Nachattar Singh, became a close friend in high school, and I always shared my lunch with him. Sometimes after school, I went to his hut, built of straw and mud, surrounded by other huts of the same material and children running around half naked. My mother did not mind that I was friends with an untouchable, although my father and brother looked down on the friendship. My mother’s heart softened toward Nachattar Singh’s mother, and she too visited the hut of straw and mud to bring food and kindness.
Even though two of my friends were untouchables, it didn’t mean I wanted to be one too. I was trying to make my way upward in society. As I picked up garbage, I felt so low I would sit behind the dumpster and cry. After a few minutes, I would dry my eyes. There was no one to encourage me but myself. Many Americans worked lowly jobs so they could attend college.
McDonald’s employees took a half hour lunch break and ate a free meal, consisting of a cheeseburger, french fries,
