Part 5: Life in America
Chapter 24: Reality Sets In
Within a week, Bakul realized that our standard of living had gone down in this most affluent country of the world. She could not walk and go to the market to buy vegetables. She could not talk to her friends and mother in India. She could not see Indian movies. She had no servant to wash dishes or clothes. She had to vacuum clean her carpets and mop floors. On top of all these concerns, Parshuram was unhappy. He did not want to go to the USA. At thirteen years old, he was missing his friends.
Disappointed, Bakul asked me why we gave up a very comfortable life in Bombay with the Metal Box company. How could I explain? Her unhappiness made me sad.
On top of the disappointment and time to adapt to a new life, I began to struggle with my health. I started seeing blood in my BM. This happened daily with pain in the abdomen area. I started losing weight. I talked to Bakul about her.
My illness became a major source of Bakul’s worry. Mrs.Gore, too, who saw me daily in the plant, felt I had become very pale. She called me to her office one day and asked what was wrong with my health. She gave me a note from her doctor and wanted me to show the note to him.
Dr. Donoho heard my symptoms and felt I could have colon cancer. He would arrange for an immediate sigmoidoscopy in Wilmington Hospital. He offered to take me there the following week. When I told Bakul about the possibility of cancer, she broke down.
Bill Gore told me that if I had cancer and something happened to my life, he would take care of Bakul and the kids. Dr Donoho personally took me to the Wilmington Hospital.
Colonoscopy was not yet discovered, so a sigmoidoscopy was done with further internal examination by a cancer specialist. It was concluded that I did not have cancer; I had ulcerative colitis. This was a great relief for Mr. and Mrs. Gore and even greater relief for Bakul. Dr. Donoho ordered cortisone enemas four times a day with dietary restrictions. Bakul would prepare an enema in the morning before I went to the office, another when I came home for lunch, the third when I returned from work, and the last at bedtime. I was asked to eat only yogurt, buttermilk, thuli, and bland food. Bakul learned to make Rasgullas at home, and that was a delight for me. With her emotionally charged loving care and prayers, I improved in three months. My color was coming back, and so was my energy. With Dr. Donoho’s treatment and Bakul’s loving care, the disease has not returned in the last 52 years.
Chapter 25: Bakul’s American Life
To teach her to drive, we hired an instructor from a driving school. She would bring her car take Bakul away, and teach her driving. After about a week with her, one day, Bakul told Parshuram that the instructor lady always shouted at her and used a word she did not understand. What was that word, Mom, he asked his mother. She answered that she called her a bitch all the time. Parshuram got angry and fired that instructor lady. He asked me to teach her. I would take her to empty parking lots on Sundays and teach her. She picked it up pretty fast. In 25 years of driving our cars from 1974 to 1999, she had only one accident for which she did not get a ticket because it was not her fault.
To learn conversational English, Bakul attended a six-week course at the University taught by Dr. Asthana. After attending the course, the students attended a Christmas party, where they all sang “Holy Night.”
She grew confident enough to become a traveling saleswoman for Avon Cosmetics. Every day or on weekends, with two kids in the back seats, I would drive her to various apartment complexes, where she would walk up to the houses and ring the doorbell. Because of her pleasant personality and attire, she would usually be welcomed and be able to make a sale. She did so for almost a year, which gave her great confidence in dealing with strangers.
Chapter 26: Mother Arrived
My mother arrived in 1972 and became comfortable quickly. Every evening, the two of them would cook dinner and we all generally ate together. Often, the three kids might have their own meals. Mother needed an eye examination routinely. Bakul would take her to senior Dr. Kalin. She had no difficulty in conversations with the eye doctor. She explained about her mother’s retina detachment in India, and Dr. Kalin treated my mother with great respect.
My mother lived with Bakul and me since we got married. Throughout Mother’s life, which ended in 2001, Bakul treated her with respect and love. It was probably the most admirable mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship.
Because my father died soon after my birth in 1930, making my mother an eighteen-year-old widow, making her as happy as possible was my goal from childhood. Bakul helped me do so, and that made me very proud of her.
Hereafter, I shall fast forward. Bakul mastered driving and, to that extent, became independent and happy. She would take my mother and other old ladies to the meetings they all used to hold at various houses.
Chapter 27: Sea Colony, Eggplant Parmesan, & Romance
From 1985 to 2005, we bought and owned two condominiums on the beach in Bethany Beach: one with one bedroom and another with two. During Summer, we rented out to vacationers who loved places on the beach. In Spring and Fall, these units were available for us to use. We made a very good use of these properties.
Our first purchase was the one-bedroom unit in Sea Colony at Bethany Beach in 1983. During the off-season, Bakul and I would spend some week ends at this property. In this property a nine feet wide glass door directly faced the ocean in the living room. The bedroom was at the back with no view. So Bakul decided that we should spread blankets over the carpet below the glass door and sleep there so we could hear the waves crashing on the shore or rustling of the sea and see the sky and stars. This was always a romantically enjoyable experience. She remembered the song “AA Neel gagan tale Pyar hum kare” by Hemantkumar and Lata.
In 1989, we bought a two-bedroom unit on the tenth floor of the same colony. It, too, had a fifteen-foot-wide glass front on the ocean and a five-foot-by-15-foot-wide balcony on which we arranged a round table with four chairs for breakfast/dinner. We visited this unit frequently in late spring and fall.
I would call her from work on Friday afternoon and propose that we spend the weekend at the beach. She would make eggplant parmigiana, and we would leave at 4 p.m. Bill Gore had made her comfortable tasting wine with dinner, so on the way, when we saw a wine shop, she would ask me to stop and pick up a small bottle of red. I would ask her to do so. She boldly walked in and picked up the right-sized bottle.
At our unit, I would arrange everything for dinner on the balcony table. We would then have a most enjoyable Italian dinner on the beach while watching the sea and boats on the sea on the horizon. This used to happen fairly frequently until 2005, after which she was too handicapped with her posterior tibial tendonitis to manage these beach properties. We sold them off in 2005. Very sweet romantic memories passed there shall linger till my death.
Chapter 28: Building a Beautiful Home in a Picturesque Setting
Our company was growing rapidly, and with it, I, too, was becoming prosperous. One of our company's directors, who was also a taxation expert, suggested to me, “Shanti, you should live in Pennsylvania and die in Delaware.” He said that was an optimum strategy from an estate planning point of view. I took his advice.
Both Bakul and I started scouting around to find a beautiful piece of land in nearby Pennsylvania to build a beautiful home. We succeeded and built a lovely 6000 square feet home on a two acre property. When the beautiful home was built both of us together had tears in our eyes.
To have come from a one-bedroom apartment without a toilet in Vileparle, India, and now to build a magnificent home with five bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, was an event of personal joy that made us both emotional. We hugged and kissed with tears rolling down our cheeks when we saw from our bedroom’s large glass window a beautiful pond with a hill behind surrounded by tall trees. It is the cruel game of Maya how material achievements make us humans happy. We lived in this home for 25 years. Our seven grandchildren grew up playing in and around this house. Bakul gave parties on July Fourth, Thanksgiving and other festive days.
By 2015, we both felt it was time to unwind gradually. The first task was to downsize to a 1500 sq ft home with one-level living for both of us, who were advancing in age with attendant health problems. We found such a place in the city of Newark, Delaware. We moved into this small home in 2015 and got well settled in it.
Within a mile of this home, we have a grocery store, a pharmacy, a Physical therapy clinic, and a bank. So, for me, not much driving was needed for our daily needs. Both Parsh and Meena live much closer than before and can check on us daily if there is need or at least weekly if we are managing well.
Bakul and I have often talked about how every decision we have made has worked out well for us. One reason is that we both constantly talked about what we needed to do. Our communication was perfect.
