“Tell her that you want to finish school first,” Ravi said. “Then you can discuss marriage.”
The next time Melissa came to my place, I told her this, nervous to hear her response.
“Okay,” Melissa said. “That’s fine. I understand.”
I was relieved that Melissa did not seem upset. “Can we at least go steady, Kris?” she asked.
“What is this ‘go steady?’” I asked.
“I won’t date anyone else, and neither will you.”
“Oh. Yeah. We can go steady.”
Later, I asked Ravi Sood what I should have said. He was married to an American girl, so I figured he would encourage the relationship.
“It is okay to say yes,” he said. “But you should see how it works out first.”
Feeling that I needed to focus on school, I decided not to pursue a relationship with Melissa anymore.
One weekend, two coworkers from McDonald’s, Ken and Lee, asked me to go cave exploring with them. Naturally, I said yes, although I didn’t know what a cave was or what we would explore there. They went every weekend and collected rare stones. Sometimes they used a map, but other times, they took random paths and walked wherever they wanted.
I eagerly anticipated the adventure and invited Dhesi to join us. We navigated underground tunnels, and when the pathways became too narrow, we squeezed through single file. At other times, the passageways widened to allow us enough space to walk freely without stooping or bumping our heads on cold, drippy stalactites and various rock formations. As we walked deeper into the caves, waterfalls and streams flowed over rocks and gathered in pools. Ken and Lee marked each stream and waterfall on their homemade maps.
One time, bats flew at us from the darkness. Ken and Lee cursed, and we all bumped into each other, trying to run away from the flapping wings, high-pitched screeches, and beady eyes. We all yelled as we wildly swung our flashlights to scare the bats away, and we ran from the rest that weren’t afraid of a few flashlight-wielding explorers.
On our way back, the passage caved in, leaving a small opening. Panicked, we dug through the dirt and rocks with our hands so we could crawl out. With no way to communicate with relatives or friends on the outside, it took more than two hours to dig ourselves out. Our hands and legs were scratched and bleeding as we emerged. Dhesi and I never went back to the caves. I came to get a degree, I thought to myself. Not end up dead in a cave.
Chapter 4
The summer of 1962, Dhesi and I were still living in Ravi Sood’s rental house. Ravi came by almost every day to make repairs, and soon we became close friends. Ravi paid me fifty cents an hour to help him convert several houses near campus into apartments for UT students. I worked in the evenings, although I knew nothing about tools or repairs.
“I will show you as long as you are willing to learn,” he said. “Other students who helped me in the past were lazy and unwilling to learn construction.” He raised an eyebrow and held out a hammer. “Are you ready to learn?”
The work involved changing the interior of the house so we could separate it into two or three apartments, each with a kitchen, bathroom, and separate entrance. In one house, we spread insulation in the ceiling to conserve heat. Afterward, my throat itched and my spit and nasal discharge turned black. “Ravi, help me. Everything is coming out black, and my throat won’t stop itching!” I said.
“You’ll be fine after you wash up and clear your throat,” Ravi assured me.
In the back of my mind, I wondered if the dark material in the insulation would cause me to become severely ill, but after washing my throat thoroughly, the itching stopped.
Because I followed instructions and paid attention to detail, Ravi considered me a good worker. He noticed that I worked hard with my McDonald’s and traffic surveying jobs, and that I tried hard to adapt to the American lifestyle, especially important to him since his wife was American. Most Indians did not approve of Indo-American marriages, but it did not matter to me.
Years later, I would come back to Knoxville every two or three years to visit Ravi, and he always told me he would not forget one thing I taught him during our time working on the houses together. What could he possibly learn from me? I thought. I felt it was Ravi who taught me so much during that time.
Ravi said, “Remember when you were standing on the top of a ladder one Saturday morning, waiting for further instruction? I told you, ‘Wait, I’m thinking.’ You said, ‘Nights are to think and plan. Days are to work and to execute the plans.’”
As the end of summer neared, I talked to Ravi about working part time at McDonald’s and going to school during the fall quarter at UT. He said it would work, but perhaps I should buy a car because, with all my classes, I wouldn’t have time to walk a mile to and from work. One day we saw an ad in the newspaper for a cheap DeSoto. Ravi arranged for the owners, a father and son, to bring the car to a common place near campus so we could examine it.
“It’s a good car,” Ravi said after examining it thoroughly. “You should buy it.”
The father was asking $120 for the car. We offered $90 and then negotiated to finish
