INTRODUCTION

In 1996 Ishu my son sent a book of memories for my birthday gift. I tried to fill it but was restrained by the space provided and decided that I should write my autobiography one day. After we retired in December 2002, I and my husband travelled extensively and enjoyed the sights and scenes on this beautiful planet. It was a learning experience to visit the different people and cultures. During these trips I maintained a journal for some of the trips. I thought it will be good to assemble our travel experiences in a book and include some pictures. One thing I realized during these travels is one need not be very rich to see the world, but with careful planning and budgeting everyone who has a passion to travel can see this beautiful world.

In 1970 both of us came from India to the United States in pursuit of higher studies. We migrated from an economically developing country to a technologically well developed country. Common between the two countries is that both countries are large democracies in the world. My experiences of migrating to a new country where I live today can make a good story to write my autobiography that also includes my childhood, education and family background and my thoughts and convictions. An autobiography not only provides a unique outlook that helps to establish a family identity and foundation that can influence the members of the family for ages to come, but also be a valuable experience for others to emulate as well as avoid the thorns of the rose bush while plucking the beautiful and fragrant blooms.

I realize when the memories of the past are reflected after some time it is bound to be viewed with the current experience. As I was seventy five years old this September 22, 2017 and we just celebrated our golden jubilee on December 11, 2017 I thought it is the proper time to publish these memoirs in early 2018. First question to my mind is if I publish this book who will be the readers? Since this is not a fiction or a mystery but my life experiences in a foreign country and our extensive travels I envision many people migrating to different countries to make a living and travel different corners of the globe will be a good audience. Another group of people I intend to focus are the commuters to have a light reading while traveling and understand how a middle class family can realize their dreams. I imagine with my doctorate in education and dual master's in biology, my educational background should be useful to any working mother around the globe in developing her endeavors not only in higher education, but also be able to emulate my experience to combine being a successful home-maker as well as a professional. Women who join the workforce at mid-career after a lapse of a decade or more feel they are at the "short-end-of-a-stick". This is precisely what I had to encounter when I decided to go back to work after a decade, in addition to being confronted with alien culture and different professional norms.

Initially I thought of calling this book "Reflections" since it is covering my life experiences. Then I thought the title "Around the Globe", or "From East to West". But when I saw a rose bush in front of my house full of blooms with green leaves mingled with invisible thorns I felt like comparing the gift of life that God has given to a rosebush. If we look at our life filled with challenges and blessings each day and compare to the thorns and blooms of a rose bush I felt it is right to call this biography "Rose Bush".

I was born in 1942 in the state of Andhra Pradesh, South India. I had completed my education and graduated with a B.Sc. (Honors), Master's degree, worked for five years as a lecturer in a local College. I met my husband and got married in 1967 and moved to North India. After marriage we lived in the state of Utter Pradesh for two years where he worked as Town Planner. The culture, climate and landscape of North India were in stark contrast to that of South India I grew up. We left the country along with our 17 month old baby for USA on December 31, 1969 with $75 spending cash for family of three approved by the Reserve bank of India. We were fully aware of this transcontinental journey to Western civilization and demands of adjustments to our living routine. We arrived in New York on January 3, 1970 and lived in Pittsburgh, PA, from 1970 to 1988 where we had our son born on February 4, 1970. We worked hard in Pittsburgh and our efforts were paid off. That became the launch pad for our later years of life in the southern belt. We both graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, both our children graduated from high school after which we both moved down to south and settled in Jackson, Mississippi. Both of us enjoyed our work here and retired in December 2002 and continue to live here. We had lot of friends and visitors from work and community and continue to enjoy their association. Primarily this autobiography is the life story of a transplanted family with lessons learned as part of the experiences, emphasizing my life's journey through changes in time and society with influence of two cultures in different settings.

CULTURE SHOCK

2.1 SOUTH TO NORTH

We left Vijayawada and the train reached Jhansi station at 2 AM after one and half days. Our first stop in north India was Jhansi city where Mrs. Jain's parents lived. Mr. Jain senior came to receive us at the station. We spent a whole day at Jhansi with Mr. & Mrs. Jain. We visited his brother's shop during the day and left by afternoon. We reached Kanpur station after midnight. KR's two good friends Dr N.K. Jain and Mr. Girish Mathur came to the station to receive us. In the middle of the night we went to Dr Jain's house to meet Mrs. Jain and we reached the apartment in the cantonment area where KR lived. It was so cold and there was a cook that made terrible food. The kitchen was away from the main house and we had to eat whatever the cook brought us. I started adjusting to the new life in North India. Everything was different from what I was used to. It was very cold, people speak a different language, accustomed to a different cuisine altogether. My first impression of North India - there was a clear gap between poor and rich and an absolute absence of middle class population, unlike in South India. After three weeks of our stay in the Cantonment area KR was given a newly built quarters in the Motizheel area in the city. This area was more lively and had contact with the outside world. We lived in an upstairs apartment and observed that everyone in Kanpur lived outside during the day in warm sun and moved into the house by night. Normally the houses are not heated and people used a small heater to warm up the room. There were four apartments in each building with parking garages in the back. Everyone had small children going to schools. KR was busy with office and teaching in the evenings in the local government polytechnic. The days were long and people speak in Hindi and no one could speak English like in southern states. There was no telephone to call and had to wait till he came home. After we moved to the new apartment I tried to adjust and started to cook. Almost every other day we went to visit a friend for dinner for one month straight. People were warm and nice except that very few people could speak English and I could not speak Hindi. Several people invited us for a party and started to know the people. One day a south Indian friend Mrs. Chari came and invited us for lunch to their house. Mr. Chari was a mechanical engineer and family friends with the Governor, Reserve Bank of India in Kanpur. Mrs. Chari and sister in law Meenakshi from Delhi were good friends when she worked in Kanpur. KR had lot of friends in the local Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in nearby Rawatpur. The first IIT was set up in Kharagpur in 1951, and soon later in Bombay, Madras, Kanpur and Delhi. These were the visions of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru who wanted India to be aggressive in higher education especially in technical Thelds, which blossomed in late eighties with India leading the world in developing countries being the foremost in computer science and other allied scientific Thelds. Lot of south Indians lived in the campus working and studying. One day we met Mr. Rama Krishna Rao and his wife Santa in their house. They were very nice and she was like a sister to me. Actually Santa's sister lived in Delhi and is the wife of Mr. Ananda Rao, brother of KR's brother-in-law, Mr. Prabhakara Rao in Delhi. We used to visit them frequently and left after having dinner at their place. Several bachelor students used to visit us whenever they came to the city of Kanpur. We visited Jains and Mathurs almost once a week. Dr Jain was a professor of Agronomy in the Agricultural College and Mr. Mathur worked in sales for an Oil company. Dr. Jain raised a vegetable farm in his residence and had a good crop.

After a couple of months we both went to Delhi in the week of January 26th India's Republic day and stayed for a week with KR's aunt Chandramathi (father's sister) in Pandara road and visited his second sister's family in Karolbagh. His late sister's family also lived in Delhi and my youngest uncle a Naval Commander Satya Narayan, alias Buchi (my mother's brother) and family lived in the defense quarters. Aunt Chandramathi moved from Lahore in Pakistan at the time of separation in 1947 and ever since worked in the Parliament building. She took time off and showed me the city. We went to see the India Gate, Parliament building, Red Fort, Rashtrapathi Bhavan, Connaught place, Chandini Chowk, Teen Murthi Bhavan, and Rajghat. One night KR and I went to see the sight and sound show in the Redfort. KR's Sister and I went for shopping in Karolbagh and she helped me buy some items I needed for the house. KR's older Sister Meenakshi was a science teacher in Andhra School and her husband Mr. Prabhakara Rao worked as a Statistician in Poosa Institute. Their children Syam, Ram and Satyam were young and studied in the same Andhra School. We all went to see places like Kutab Minar and visited the temple in Birla mandir. One evening sister and I went to Dr KL Rao's house who was a relation to the family. Dr KL Rao an eminent engineer was elected Member of Parliament (Senator) from Vijayawada area and was the cabinet Minister for Irrigation & Power in the then Prime minister Indira Gandhi's cabinet. We met Mrs. K L Rao and spent some time with her. She spear headed the project along with Mrs. Durga Bhai Deshmukh and established Andhra School in New Delhi. One night we went to see Dr Bharadwaj and his family. He was married to KR's third sister late Dr. Parvathi. They lived in USA for five years on Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship and returned to India as pool officers in Mysore. Unfortunately she died in child birth and left behind her husband Dr. B. K. Bharadwaj, one son Satyanarayana, alias Babloo and two daughters, Prema and Nidhi. The paternal grandmother helped Dr Bharadwaj in raising the children. After his wife's death Dr Bharadwaj and children moved to Delhi and worked there. I heard of the family but I met them first time now. We had dinner with them and left. Dr. Bharadwaj was preparing to return to USA and applied for Visa permit. One day my uncle Buchi called us from Ramakrishnapuram where he lived with family. He was a Commander in the Indian Navy and said he will pick us after work and take us to his house from the bus stop near Pandara road where we were staying. We went to his house met my aunt and their four children. My aunt worked in a school and all my cousins were young and were studying in school. We had lunch with them and my uncle dropped us back. That Sunday afternoon he and my aunt came and took us to Buddha Jayanti National park in Delhi and dropped us back. After one week in Delhi we both returned to Kanpur. My sister in law packed dinner for the train. KR had office work in Allahabad, and Lucknow. One day we went by road to Allahabad and that was the first time I travelled by road in North India. I found a big difference in the landscape since people have to adjust their life to changing seasons. Along the road side were small restaurants called Dhabhas. They did not look like restaurants and we stopped at one of them for lunch. The owner came to the car to take our order. He made the food fresh while we waited and brought to the car. I still remember the delicious food he served that day.

We reached Allahabad by afternoon and stayed in a friend's house by name of Dr G.S.N. Murthy. Dr. Murthy was a District Health Officer in Allahabad and Mrs. Murthy's parents lived in the same city. Though the family was from Telugu speaking Andhra Pradesh, Mrs. Murthy's father was a Supreme Court judge in Allahabad and the family settled in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh for a long time. Dr. Murthy worked in army and joined the U.P. Government and settled in North India. They had eight children including one pair of twins. They were great friends of KR's sister late Parvathi and remembered her a lot. We spent three days in Allahabad and returned to Kanpur. One night in Allahabad, KR parked the car and went in to meet a person and asked me to wait in the car. The place was dark in midwinter and I saw a vendor came to the area with a cart selling a north Indian snack called Pani-Puri (a piece of Indian bread dipped in spiced liquid sauce). In about fifteen minutes a couple of cars came there and stopped. About four rich women got out of the car and rushed to the cart and bought the Pani-Puri. Not many people had cars those days. Eating Pani-Puri is as clumsy as eating the barbecued ribs and the women ate and enjoyed licking their fingers. I was surprised to see this amazing scene, which were my first impressions of life in North India that I was not familiar with. After ten days we went on a day trip to Lucknow since KR had to meet his chief engineer. Every time he left me in his friend's house and collected me back after work. In a different work assignment KR had to go to Varanasi (Banaras) office for a week. We stayed in a friend's house and visited Mr. B.N. Singh, a colleague of KR. We met a geography professor and his doctor wife. They were very friendly and all of us visited Saranath where Lord Buddha had his spiritual awakening. Then we went to see the famous Banaras temple. I always wanted to buy a sari made by weavers in Varanasi and went to the place the saris were sold. It was a new experience I witnessed. There were no grand show rooms as I knew all my life. It was a narrow lane both sides are small shops with owners sitting and waiting for the weavers as well as customers. We went and sat there while the weavers bring their new products and show. The owner of the shop recognized KR as his school classmate about thirty years back and they both remembered their school days. We purchased a sari and returned home.

Frequently we went out for produce market in Kanpur for fruits and vegetables and grocery shops. I was impressed with the variety available in fruits and vegetables. The collection was totally different from summer to winter season and prices were so cheap. Particularly I was surprised to see cauliflower in abundance at a low price. When I came to Pittsburgh, USA in 1970, I went to Kroger with Mrs. Jackson and saw cauliflower was priced at $2.98 and to my surprise that cauliflower in grocery stores sell at the same price in 2017 after forty seven years! I am amazed even today to understand how that cauliflower's price is not changed through years when all other items increased in their prices. Slowly winter was changing to spring and the weather was pleasant. I made friends with my neighbors and visited Mathur's family who were living nearby. The first holiday in North India was Holi, a festival of colors, which was new to me. I was told Holi is celebrated to welcome spring and shed all the warm clothes. At this time families and friends visit each other and renew their friendship and camaraderie. We had lot of people visiting us at this time.

I went to Guntur and Madras for two weeks in April and returned. I came to know that we were going to become parents. We started entertaining our friends for dinner with South Indian Cuisine. Summer was extremely hot and I saw vendors selling cold big ice blocks on the road. No one had air conditioners and a few houses had refrigerators in their houses. Sometimes we had sand storms and there were no rains. I enjoyed my life in North India. Meanwhile my father came to Kanpur to take me home for the delivery in July. He stayed with us for two weeks and when he was with us we used to take him out and returned home around midnight. Though he did not say anything at Kanpur, he did not like our coming home late after visiting our friends. As soon as I went to Guntur my father told me unlike Kanpur, to be home before sunset. I worked in the Women's College for eight weeks till the time of labor. While I was in Guntur my second sister Kausalya got married to a guy who was selected for post-doctoral fellowship in Canada after graduating from his doctoral program from IIT in Kanpur. We met him in our friend Santa's house and KR was responsible to make him decide to marry. Three weeks after Kausalya left for Kanpur my baby arrived on September 6, 1968 six weeks early. KR came after ten days and we returned to Kanpur after two months.