That night, I told the Kehirs what marriage arrangements were like in India.
“The parents choose a partner based on certain characteristics and requirements,” I explained. “Usually, the two people don’t know each other at all.”
“Wow!” Mrs. Kehir laughed. “I can’t imagine getting married in such a way.”
Somehow the discussion turned to other Indian customs.
“Aren’t husbands in India strict with their wives?” Mr. Kehir asked.
I nodded. “In small villages, sometimes the husband takes his wife to a dark room and spanks her if she does not behave or treat her husband with respect and dignity.”
They all got a big kick out of that, and whenever Mrs. Kehir disagreed with her husband in any way, immediately Paul or Mr. Kehir would say, “Take her to the dark room!”
Once Arlene complained about doing something Paul asked, and Mr. Kehir said, “Take her to the dark room!” Everyone laughed, and Arlene looked at them like they were crazy. Then we told her about the old Indian custom. It was fun for all of us, and we laughed about it at every opportunity.
After spending an enjoyable six days with the affectionate Kehir family, I visited the Cheemas, who lived twenty minutes away in Morristown, New Jersey. After I arrived, I filled the Cheemas in on everything.
“Wow, that is really something, Kris,” Billo said. “You have a bachelor’s in math, and now, you are starting a master’s degree in industrial engineering. You really do not give up.”
After I’d discovered that the Cheemas had moved to Delaware several years earlier, I’d called them and asked why they had left without telling me. I had also suggested that I could go to Delaware too and attend the university there. At the time, they both replied that I was not smart enough. Now, sitting in their living room over a cup of tea, I reminded them of their statement.
“Now look. I have made it back to the University of Tennessee,” I said.
“See, our comment was a challenge to you,” Dr. Cheema joked. “And look at you now. You have finished your bachelor’s and are working on your master’s at UT. We are very proud of you.”
After a wonderful reunion with the Cheemas, I returned to school. While I struggled with Applied Digital Computer Engineering, my Operations Research professor, Russ Buchan, livened up his night class with jokes. Tired at the end of a long day, most students were not in the mood to sit in class for three hours. Sometimes Professor Buchan told me a joke in the hallway, and then, when everyone took their seats at 6:30, he would say, “Hey, Kris has a joke to tell.” The students roared with laughter to hear American jokes coming from an Indian guy. Students in Nashville and Chattanooga, taking the course via satellite, went crazy hearing me over the speaker.
I liked Professor Buchan. He was passionate about industrial engineering and seemed to like me as well. In the spring, he became my major advisor, and I took Advanced Operations Research, choosing him to help me with my thesis.
As the deadline for payment of tuition approached for the spring quarter, I began to worry. Running short on money, barely able to buy food, I worried that I couldn’t pay for three courses before UT tacked on a late penalty. One day, Professor Buchan asked me if I would like to work part time at the UT Hospital and Research Center.
Surprised, I said, “But I have no experience in hospitals.
“Don’t worry about it,” Professor Buchan said. “You’ll learn.”
He scrawled the name “Macks McFarland” on a piece of paper. “Go see him about working there. You’ll be fine.”
The next day, I took a bus to the UT Hospital and Research Center. Mr. McFarland interviewed me, and a few days later, he offered me the job. The hospital paid me three dollars an hour, letting me work as many hours as I wanted Monday through Friday. Grateful that Professor Buchan had come to my aid when I needed the job most, I thanked God for helping me at just the right time. The mantra I recited one hundred and one times a day strengthened my belief while I went through a tough financial time, struggling to pay for my coursework. I knew God was teaching me to trust him and assuring me he would provide for me when I needed help.
I discovered that industrial engineers were breaking new ground in the healthcare industry, and in hospitals, they were called management engineers. Using time analysis, the industrial engineer determined the number of people needed to perform certain functions throughout the hospital. As a management engineer at the UT Hospital, it was my job to save the hospital money.
Each day, the Housekeeping Department mopped and waxed the hallway floors while the Laundry Department washed, dried, and folded hundreds of pounds of laundry daily. After obtaining the square footage of floors they cleaned and the pounds of laundry they washed, management engineers would observe the amount of time it took to complete these tasks and determine the minimal amount of people needed.
“What do you know about hospitals?” Sewa asked when I told him about my job. “What are you going to do there?” It became a joke to my Indian friends who couldn’t imagine what an industrial engineer would do in
