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| Letter courtesy of Hasan P. |
A Story From the Life of Hasan P.
Ghostwritten by his grandson, Zain P.
My Friend and My Future
Many of the most satisfying and influential triumphs in our lives are only possible through the help of a friend. I work at Cornell as a physicist, building particle accelerators, and I have my whole adult life. I’ve lived with my family in Ithaca, New York, for 43 years now. I’ve raised kids and visited with grandkids here. Before that, I lived in Boston, where I got my Ph.D. and I went to Brandeis University. But when I was 14, I hadn't even imagined seeing these places. Without the help of my best friend, Vijay, I never would have.
I grew up in Bombay, India, and though I generally enjoyed my life, I eventually became dissatisfied with the standard of learning. I started wanting a better education when I was 16. I started going to St. Xavier's University, and I strongly disliked it. The teachers would give you notes to write, and you would write them, and then later you would regurgitate the exact same dull words for tedious exams. We never had a chance to think, and there was no practical application of anything. Everything we learned was boring and useless.
I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the school. Every day after classes many of my classmates went to the USIS, the United States Information Services inside the American consulate nearest to St. Xavier’s. It had an information center and a huge library with books on every college imaginable. The books described the histories and missions of the schools, as well as every single course that could be taken there. I went with my friend Vijay, and we would hunt for information about the best U.S. schools.
As much as I wanted to go to the U.S., I needed a scholarship if I was going to attend school there. My father had money set aside for me to go to college, but not enough for most American schools. The books at the USIS had information about scholarship programs at the beginning, so Vijay and I tracked down about 15 universities that were offering aid to immigrants and learned as much as we could about them.
I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get into any good schools, much less with scholarships. I had good grades, sure, but the systems for keeping track of these things in India are very different from the United States.
The Senior Cambridge examinations, the standard end of high school tests in Bombay, consisted of eight parts in different subjects. Each one was graded on a score from one to ten, with one being the best, and your best six scores were added together to get your final score. That meant that six was the best possible score, and that sixty was the worst. I got an eight, but I didn’t know if that would look like an 8/60 to schools in the U.S. where higher scores were always better. In addition, all grades were reported as percentages, and having a 50% in one of your weak subjects was not considered particularly bad. In India, someone who didn’t try would get a 0%, whereas in the U.S. they might get a 50%.
To make matters worse, teachers always wrote very short and perfunctory letters of recommendation, consistently along the lines of, “I have known this student for a long time. He has good character, is a very good student, and works hard.” This could easily be interpreted in the U.S. as, “He’s a fine student, but nothing special.”
Vijay and I sent out the applications we had prepared in December. Soon, however, my mother and I were to visit my sister, who temporarily worked at a school in Nainital. I couldn’t watch for responses from colleges because Nainital was 24 hours away by train, and so I asked my father to open any mail he got from the U.S. and send me the news.
A few weeks after I left, letters from colleges started to arrive, but my father was absent-minded and he didn’t immediately recognize the names of the colleges. Since the letters were addressed to me, he put them in our safe for me to open when I got back. What my father had forgotten was that most college admissions at the time required a reply within two weeks. If they didn’t get one, they would assume I was no longer interested.
Occasionally my father would run into Vijay on his evening walks, and they would chat. Vijay would ask my father whether he had gotten any letters from the U.S., because he knew my father could be forgetful. On the fourteenth day after receiving the letter from Brandeis, my father ran into Vijay.
“Have you gotten any letters from the U.S. recently?” Vijay asked.
“Actually, I think I did get one about two weeks ago. I put it in the safe for Hasan.”
“What! Two weeks! We’d better go check, see if he got any of the scholarships!”
He and Vijay immediately went back to the house and my father opened the safe. Opening the letter from Brandeis, Vijay started to read.
“We have to tell Hasan that he was accepted. With a full scholarship too!” He kept reading. “Oh no!”
“What happened?” my father asked.
“It says he was supposed to reply by today!”
They both stared at the ground, realizing that my perfect chance to go to America, the Land of Opportunity, was in jeopardy.
Back in Nainital, I was eating dinner with my mother when there was a knock on the door. I looked at the clock. It was 9:00 at night, and I wondered why anyone would call on us at this hour. My mother opened to the door to reveal a courier.
“A telegram for Hasan Padamsee,” he announced.
I took the paper and begin to read. “Full WISP scholarship at Brandeis… ”
I read Vijay’s note explaining what had happened.
My mother and I abandoned our dinner and rushed out into the night. We ran to the post office and ran in to send a telegram. I furiously scribbled a note to Brandeis saying I accepted the scholarship and would be there in the fall. A week later, my mother and I were on a train headed back to Bombay to prepare for my journey to the United States.
I was excited to go to America and to a new college, but I was apprehensive too. Going to a completely new place, for a few years at least, was an overwhelming prospect. But a few weeks later, Vijay got a telegram from Pennsylvania saying that he was admitted to college there. I was so relieved!
That July, Vijay and I went to Mumbai Port and boarded the Himalaya, a large Italian cruise ship. We didn’t know it at the time, but when we waved goodbye to our families we wouldn’t be back for 30 years. At that moment, I realized how important a supportive friend is to helping you live the life you want. Without Vijay, I wouldn’t have been able to pursue my dreams to study in the United States. We sailed off together, towards the New World and a new life.
