To this day, I still do not know the cause of Jasbir’s death. Receiving two phone calls within weeks of each other—each cutting off a connection with a person who had been important to me—was a blow harder than I knew how to deal with. Sadness overwhelmed me, and as I tried to drown it out with my daily prayers, I studied more than ever.
One afternoon near the end of spring quarter of 1967, my professor of Linear Algebra wrote a theorem on the board and asked if anyone knew how to prove or disprove it. This class involved a lot of in-depth theory and long algorithms to prove the theorems. Since the professor had recently returned from the military, he often needed to ask his students for the solution to a theorem. Of course, he acted like he was testing us, but soon we realized he simply did not know or was not completely sure.
When no one volunteered to solve the theorem, he asked again. I looked around, and still no one raised a hand. Slowly, I lifted mine into the air.
“Mr. Bedi, are you sure you know it?” the professor asked.
“I’m pretty sure,” I responded.
“Are you positive?” he asked.
“Uh . . . I’m not that positive,” I said hesitantly.
“Let’s see who is more positive in the class,” the professor said, looking around the room.
Another student raised his hand, and the professor asked him to write his solution on the blackboard. Annoyed that he hadn’t let me try, I raised my hand again, remembering a saying my friend Hamrahi told me. I’d met Hamrahi at Knoxville College, and we had become very close friends.
“Yes, Mr. Bedi?” said the professor.
“There is a saying in my country that only fools are positive,” I said.
The professor’s face turned red as the whole class burst into laughter.
At the end of class, one of my classmates said, “That was pretty brave of you to say, but you are going to pay the price for it.”
At the end of the quarter, I felt sure I performed well on the final exam for his class. But when I scanned the grades posted on the classroom door, there was a D next to my name. My jaw clenched in anger. My midterm grade was a B, and I knew I did well on the final exam. The professor had failed me on purpose.
Immediately, I went to the professor’s office, but he was not there. Storming off to my room, I hatched a plan. My heart pounded and my hands shook. I had worked so hard to reach this point. I was so close to earning a degree at UT, and now it might not happen after all these years. Paul Kehir happened to be packing his suitcase when I arrived.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“My math professor failed me!” I fumed, pacing the floor. I studied hard, and I know I deserved at least a B. I’m going to buy a gun, find him at home, and shoot him in the leg!”
“That’s not a good idea, Kris,” Paul said.
“I don’t want to kill him, only hurt him enough so he will realize he has ruined my career,” I said. “I might get thrown out of grad school now! I want him to walk with a limp or on crutches or be in a wheelchair so he will suffer for the rest of his life.”
“You shouldn’t do that,” Paul said. “It will not be in your best interest. They could put you in jail.”
“I don’t care. My life is already ruined. If I am taken to jail, that’s fine. At least this professor will learn he shouldn’t try to ruin somebody’s career and life.”
Jim happened to be walking by the room and overheard me. He came in and tried to calm me down.
“That’s not a wise thing to do,” Jim said. “You need to stop and think.”
I sat on the edge of my bed and crossed my arms stubbornly, still resolved to find out where the professor lived. The next day, the secretary of the Math Department told me the professor had only been employed at UT for one quarter and already left town. Disappointed, I returned to my room. The professor had been extremely lucky to leave town when he did because there was no telling what I would have done in such a state of anger. A week later, I received a letter accepting me into the industrial engineering graduate program. I was overjoyed and thanked God.
Chapter 8
“Kris, why do you want to drive a bus?”
I sat in an orange plastic chair and stared at the manager across from his desk. It was June 1967, and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) was hiring hundreds of temporary bus drivers for the summer, paying $3.50 an hour, about two dollars more than minimum wage. Chopra and I drove to Chicago soon after the school year ended, and we were contacted the next day to fill out applications.
“Sir, driving a bus is in my blood,” I answered. “My father is in the transportation business, and my grandfather was in the same business. I want to do it too.”
I really wanted this job, and the manager would never know if it was true or not. He would never attempt to track down my family background in India.
A day after our interviews, Chopra and I each received calls off ering us a job. We were to report to the bus depot office the next day for training.
“You must accelerate gradually and apply the brakes gradually,” the instructor urged. “Pretend an old lady is sitting in the very last seat, holding a bowl of hot soup in her lap. We don’t want her to spill even one
