Summer 1978 - Purdue before Family Arrival

Summer 78

I arrive at Lafyette, Indiana, traveling by Greyhound Bus via Hammond and Gary. I have my apartment at 220-16 Nimitz Dr., West Lafayette, already allotted for me. The housing office is also on Nimitz Drive. I hire a taxi cab and reach the housing office, get the key to my apartment and get dropped off at the apartment.

There are two housing complexes for married students. The Hilltop Apartments
to the North of the campus are smaller in size - mostly single bed- room apartments. The one I chose is a two bed-room apartment on the corner of Nimitz Drive and Arnold Drive. It is already provided with gas stove, a full size refrigerator, dining table and chairs, two chairs, and washer-drier hook ups. I get running hot water. The apartment is quite spacious - what a difference from the accommodations I had at Evanston!

The School of Civil Engineering is within 5 minutes walking to the northeast of this apartment. There is a Thrifty Supemarket within 2 minutes' walking at West State Street in the northwest. Follet's bookstore is also in the same shopping complex. The purdue university airport is about 10 minutes' walking towards southwest of this apartment complex.

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I signup for Airphoto Interpretation by Prof. Miles as advised by Dr. Sinha, and Statistical Methods I on my own interest. Statistical Methods I should have been taken before the Multivariate Statistics at Northwestern! The instructor was a graduate student from the Statisitcs Department. Summer School is fast paced as the classes meet every day and there is more frequent homework and tests!

Life overall is much better now. Though I still do not cook, I can buy and store bread, yogurt and fruits in my fridge and eat more often.

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I am given a cubicle in the graduate student's office in the second floor of the School of Civil Engineering. The faculty offices are in the third floor. There is a computer room housing several remote terminals, a couple of card punching machines and a printer.

There are many more graduate students here. I meet Anil Bandhari again. He was the one who accommodated me in his apartment when I visited the Department a few months earlier. He is of Gujarati origin, Tanzanian by nationality on a German Scholarship. There is Jim Mckemson who helped me get the building key and the key to the graduate office. Anil explained how the office is named Graduate Higher Education in Traffic and Transportation Office (GHETTO). He also introduced me to McGraw Hill book club. I joined the book club and ordered couple of books and got the Handbook of Civil Engineering by Urquhart, Fourth Edition (10 Sections, 1200 plus pages) as a "free" gift. There is a Taiwanese, an Egyptian a South African (white), and a Guyana native sharing the same office. There are four or five Americans. There is another Graduate Students office housing T and T students where there are couple more of from India - Satish Mohan and Paul Khosla.

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I make arrangements for my family to come. Anil introduced OmPrakash Gupta, another Grad Student (Industrial Engineering) who was doing Travel Agency on the side. I arranged for air ticket for my wife and shildren to reach Purdue via London and Chicago.

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The course work was quite easy. I scheduled for my surgery during the semester break before FallSemester. I had hydrocele which was bothering me. I had taken medical insurance when I was at NU, on the advice of an Assitant Director for International Students Affairs at NU.

Anil gave me the ride to the clinic(Home Hospital) in Lafayette.

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I got admitted in the clinic the evening of the day before the surgery. In the night, the surgeon came to meet me and explain the possible after-effects of the surgery. Then close to bed time a nurse - a Pakistani gentleman - came to "prepare" my body for the surgery. As he started working on my left side, I told him my problem was on the right side! He confirmed that with the doctor and prepared my right side.

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As I am lying in the hospital bed, my thoughts go back home....

I had gone to the Voluntary Health Services Centre in Adyar sometime in the late 60s. I had to stay there for some blood test. The blood had to be taken when I am in deep sleep. My experience at VHS was quite satisfactory........

I remember when my wife had to be admitted to the Kosha Hospital in Triplicane, Madras. We were referred by our family ObGyn to her friend/surgeon in the Kosha Hospital. When we went there, we had no place to sit and we were standing under the tree. As we were standing, we saw some commotion among the lady outpatients, and the lady police (a novelty in those days) beating the patuients with lathi to quieten them. Then a doctor came out and shouted why we (I and my wife) are loitering. I had to tell her that we are waiting to see doctor so and so. "Why are you sohouting? You are not supposed to crowd here." I replied "Where are we to go and wait? I do not know who is shouting...."

Later it turned out that she was the doctor we were referred to and she had gone and complained to our family ObGyn about my rude behavior!

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Home Hospital is a municipal hospital run with taxpayers money and donations. The staff members were very courteous and the facilities were quite good.

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Hydrocele, I learn is a tropical condition/ailment and is not known here. In India, they usually perform the surgery with a local anesthesia.

Here they give general anaesthesia. Just before the surgery, the anaesthesiologist came and asked my name. "We are going to make you go to sleep Mr. Muthusubramanyam".

I felt a prick. When I woke up in what felt like a few seconds, I was told by a nurse that the surgery was over!

The doctor came and told me that the surgery was successful and I can return home in a few hours. Anil came to take me back to my apartment.

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In about a week my family came. I was planning to meet them at the Chicago O'Hare Airptort, and fly back with them to W. Lafayette.

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I am waiting at the airport, wondering how my wife is managing witht he two little ones. My wife has not gone north of Madras, and perhaps not travelled in a train within Tamilnadu without an escort, managed very well. My daughter was travel sick throughout.

My daughter spotted me first! When they came out I learnt that they had air ticket only to Chicago and not to W. Lafayette. O.P. Gupta had graduated and gone before the beginning of summer.

A cab driver (an Afro-American as most of them are) said he will take us. I told him we are heading to W. Lafyette, Indiana. He said he can take us! After we had gone a mile or so, he suddenly said he cannot go that far! I asked him to take us back to the greyhound bus station. He dropped us there and did not collect any money from us.

We travelled in Greyhound. There were just us four besides the driver (they refer to them as the conductor - they also collect the ticket, and drive the bus.) The children seemed to enjoy the bus trip. The bus has a built in sanitary toilet for passenger use, but no TV or radio as we find in Tamilnadu!

Additional Links:

West Lafyette
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lafayette,_Indiana
http://www.city.west-lafayette.in.us/home.html

(to be continued)