Memoirs      
1970s America – An Indian student’s journey
by Dr. Anil K. Rajvanshi

Chapter 6

India Association

In 1975 there were about 40 Indian students and half a dozen Indian faculty members at UF. Thus the Indian community was small and there was an Indian student association but it was nearly defunct and non-functional. During some of the Indian festivals like Holi, Dushera or Diwali some of the more active professors used to invite the Indian students to their homes and that is how we used to meet and know about who the other Indians in UF were. Hence there was a general frustration among the Indian students and community about the lack of a platform for getting together and sharing the news about themselves and India.

Having dabbled in student politics in IIT Kanpur I decided that it maybe worthwhile to resurrect the Indian student association. Udai Pratap Singh one of my IITK classmates was another proponent of this idea. So we both decided to do something about it. The first order of business was to find out who the Indian students and faculty were there in UF and get their addresses and phone numbers. So we arranged a meeting of all the Indian students (that we knew) and faculty members in Reid Coop in my room. We removed all the furniture from the room and arranged an Indian – style sitting place with mattresses and cushions (basically pillows). About 30-40 Indians - both students and faculty attended and that is how the first meeting of the new Indian student association took place sometime in fall quarter of 1975.

I had been warned by old timers that quite a few of the Indian faculty members had tremendous egos and they had always tried to control the association. I thought that was a sign of petty mindedness and so during the meeting, I stressed as much as possible the desire of all of us to work together and run the show. I profusely praised the faculty for doing a great job of arranging the get together of Indians and so assuaged their egos. Since I had taken the initiative I was elected the president. Immediately I made sure that the egotistical Indian faculty members would be the key advisors to the association. It was a different matter that they were hardly consulted later on because I found out that they had no new ideas.

I also informed the general body that since Udai Pratap Singh was equally responsible in getting the whole thing started he should be an integral part of the association though he was not a student at UF. In fact the whole show later on was run only by the two of us.

The first thing we decided to do was to make a newsletter of our association. So every month I used to call the Indian students and faculty, get all their news, get two pages of the newsletter typed up in Udai’s office and during weekends go to his office and make 50-60 cyclostyled copies. These copies were put in the mailboxes of students and faculty. After the first newsletter was delivered we started getting lots of phone calls from students and faculty with their news items because everybody wanted them to be put in the newsletter. This was before the era of internet or fax and so this was the only way in which the Indian community could remain connected.

We also planned to show every month an Indian (read Bollywood) movie and to arrange for at least 1 or 2 get together and dinners per year. These events allowed the Indians in and around Gainesville to come together and socialize.

In the mid 1970s, if I remember correctly, US had only one Bollywood film distributor who was situated in New York. So we contacted him and told him that we are a small Indian student association and would like to show the movies to a very small audience. I now forget the exact amount but he agreed to send us the movies at nominal fees, the only stipulation being that we would have to take 12 films per year. We did not have too much choice in selecting the films, but the distributor assured us that we would get the latest movies. The movies therefore used to be shipped in aluminum cans by the Greyhound bus and after their screening at UF again shipped back by Greyhound bus either to New York or to whichever place the distributor told us to send them since these movies used to circulate all over US. The distributor also stuck to the schedule quite closely so that the movies were shown on time and on the day that they were announced.

So every month I would book the auditorium in the Reitz student Union for $ 15 and a projectionist was hired for $ 5. The movie tickets were priced at $ 1/-.
The lady who used to book the auditorium in Reitz Union used to chat with me and had become friendly. One day she remarked, “You know I would love to go and see India but what is stopping me are the snakes!” I thought she was kidding but she was dead serious and was very afraid of snakes. So when I informed her that I had seen more snakes in my life in Gainesville than anywhere in India she was quite shocked. Such was the knowledge about India of large number of Americans and probably is true even today.

I hated Bollywood movies and found them really childish. Even in India I hardly ever saw them. So after getting the movie started I would come out of the auditorium and sit outside reading or talking to other Indians who would come out for a smoke or some other things. Most of the times the movie print used to be alright, but once we received a movie which had a really bad print and hence the reel broke down a couple of times during the projection. There was an immediate clamor by the audience that their money should be refunded! It was just like in India where paisa wapis used to be a regular refrain for the slightest problem in screening a movie. I could not believe that all the faculty members and even students would want their $ 1 refunded!

Showing movies made the India association very popular. It was the single most important reason for its success. We started getting Indians from cities like Jacksonville and Ocala besides a good number of Bangladeshi and Pakistani students also attended them. With a couple of well organized dinners during Diwali and Holi our association became one of the most active foreign student associations on UF campus.

In fact a lot of Pakistani students became my friends through the Indian student association. It came as a great surprise to me to see so much camaraderie between Indian and Pakistani students. This was mostly true for younger students of our age group (20-25 years of age). However some of the older ones secretly harbored grudges against Indians and once this led to a peculiar situation.

A middle aged female Pakistani student, who had come to US under Pakistan Government Scholarship, used to come regularly to India association movies and dinners. We became good friends. She used to treat me as her younger brother and never stopped giving me unsolicited advice! One of the constant advices she gave me was to never get involved with white American females! I could never fathom why she was so much against the American girls or felt the need to protect me!

One morning I got a phone call from the local police that an Indian female student had been caught shop lifting from a well-known store called Macys. I was aghast and also saw the news item in the local newspaper. So I requested the police to tell me her name and then I found out that she was the Pakistani student. The police later on apologized since they had checked only her UF photo ID. I also sent a letter to the local newspaper asking them to put a correction regarding the story which they put the next day.

It was really sad that after treating her so well she responded like that when the chips were down. Later on whenever she saw me on the campus from a distance she would try to hide and avoid me. We never talked again.

Getting news about India in those times of emergency was very difficult. My father who himself became one of the victims of emergency because of his closeness to H.N. Bahuguna did not write at all about the events taking place in India because of fear of censorship and harassment. The American newspapers were woefully inadequate about the international news since they were least interested in world events that did not directly affect them. Hence whenever I saw a new Indian on the campus I would eagerly talk to him about the situation in India.

One day in the student cafeteria I saw a short, bald and middle aged Indian gentleman eating alone at a table. I went to him with my food and introduced myself. He appeared to be extremely unfriendly and after some time started raising his voice telling me that he did not want any company. I was taken aback by his extreme rudeness and told him firmly but politely that if I beat him up nobody would come to protect him! This immediately brought about a change in his behavior. He was the chief secretary of Bihar and on the run from Indira Gandhi. I think he had aligned himself closely with Jayaprakash Narayan the person who started a mass movement in 1974 which led to the imposition of emergency by Mrs. Gandhi, and hence his desire for anonymity. In any case we became good friends but he left soon to go to some other campus. In those days such “Indira Gandhi refugees” went from one campus to another trying to discuss with students the issue of emergency and also to remain away from glare of publicity and information.

The activities of the association required a good deal of time and effort and I must have been getting really involved in them when I started getting regular nightmares that I had been demoted somehow to attend high school and I had failed to pass my Indian School Certificate exam. These dreams came very regularly and I used to wake up with perspiration. I could not fathom their meaning, but one day suddenly realized that maybe the unconscious was telling me that my real purpose of coming to UF was to get a Ph.D. and not run an Indian club! So I decided to reduce my activities in the association.

My efforts were further helped by the dissension in the association. As India association gathered momentum through regular movies (which also gave us good income), dinners and picnics some of the older Indian faculty members felt their control over Indian community slipping away. Besides they felt slighted by the way Indian students had behaved with the visiting Indian embassy official. So a prominent Gujarati faculty member decided to start a Gujarati Club. I vehemently opposed the idea because I told all the members that we are Indians first and then only Gujaratis, Maharashtraians, Tamilians etc. Nevertheless the greed for power knows no bounds so I knew that this would be the end of a cohesive India Association.

I therefore decided to resign and one day before the start of an Indian movie I announced my resignation in the Reitz Union auditorium. The audience was taken aback and vehemently opposed my resignation. Still I persisted and handed over all the material to the treasurer and walked out. I had been President of India Association for a little over 9 months.

I was also getting disenchanted with the whole affair since many times I had told the association members that we should hold discussions about some of the major issues in India like energy, education, corruption etc. and how all the Indian students and faculty at UF can work together to provide a solution to some of them. However majority of Indians in UF were not interested in such issues and wanted to see only Bollywood movies and have a few special Indian dinners.

For example I wanted to show good Indian documentaries and movies from great directors like Satyajit Ray or Shyam Benegal but most Indians were interested in seeing movies like Sholay - the Bollywood blockbuster. I did screen this movie and it was the biggest crowd puller of all times. To majority of them this was the India that they identified with. Any type of intellectual discussion about India was not very welcome or interesting because majority of the students were not keen on returning to India.

Nevertheless this desire to show good documentaries to the Association gave me an excellent opportunity to sample the Indian movies archived in the UF library. One movie that I saw is still vivid in my memory and made a tremendous impression on my mind. It was called “A day in the life of Prime Minister” and was shot by BBC in early 1960. The documentary showed Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s day from morning (breakfast) to late night dinner. The BBC team had picked January 26, India’s Republic Day for shooting.

So in one of the scenes Pandit Nehru was shown sitting in the front row watching the Republic Day parade with Krishna Menon the then defense minister and some foreign dignitary. It was quite a sunny morning so Pandit Nehru was holding a folded newspaper to shade his eyes. The scene showed Krishna Menon as per his nature continuously chatting with the guest. Nehru got quite irritated and said “Menon can’t you stop talking for a bit”. After this rebuke Krishna Menon kept quiet for a few minutes but again started chatting animatedly. By this time Nehru lost his cool and he whacked Krishna Menon on his shoulder with the folded newspaper and told him to shut up! I could not believe that the most democratic Prime Minister of India would behave like a school master with the Defense minister of India! I do not know whether this movie was ever shown in India.

I learnt a lot in running the association for 9 months and had a first hand experience of how we Indians fight each other even in a foreign land since we bring our own little India and our insecurities with us and thus it is very difficult to remain as a cohesive force.

Later on the Indian community at UF increased drastically. Hence today there are thousands of Indian students (both first and second generation) and hundreds of faculty members. Still whenever I visit UF few of the old timers left on the campus do talk nostalgically about the good times that they had when I ran the association.

– Continued

August 19, 2007

Government Scholarship | The Preparation | Landing in America 
Campus Life | Brush with Greatness | India Association | Marriage
Looking for Better School? | Exploring America | Graduate Studies
Teaching at UF | Decision to go back to India | Epilogue

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