Time To Find Work

#USA

Post#18

Time to find work :

In the entire fiasco of my extended stay in India and my delivery I had missed the time frame to apply for residency. I would have lost one more year had it not been for Abhay’s college mate Lalita Pandit who was doing a fellowship in oncology at LA County -USC Medical Center in Los Angeles at the time. She found out that their internal medicine program had some unmatched positions and promptly arranged for an interview for me. I had to go shopping for a formal suit for that interview. 30 years back that suit cost me over $100 which was quite a pinch to the pocket ( Abhay’s pocket 😜). Will post a photo in it taken on the day of my interview. 

By mid March 1994 I had been accepted into the program to start in June. Aai was not happy about me starting work so soon when the kids were so little. She gave me the  example of Abhay’s sister who didn’t work till her son was older. I had to convince her that I am in a foreign country unlike Abhay’s physician sister who was in Pune. Situation with availability for residency for foreign graduates was highly unpredictable. Besides if I started now I would be done in 3 years and get more meaningful time with the kids when they would understand and remember their childhood. I think my gamble turned out to be right in the long run.

Next we had to figure out the logistics after I start my residency. There was about a 30 miles distance between Abhay’s hospital and mine. If we lived where we were at the time it would be a longer commute for me. We decided to find a place somewhere in between both our workplaces. That meant we would need 2 cars.

Car was the easiest part. We did some homework. Since the family was now larger with 2 babies in the home, a van seemed like the appropriate choice. We zeroed in on a Volkswagen Eurovan. 

Next we would need a good babysitter to take care of both kids while we were at work . Aai was going back to Pune once her visa expired. I looked up a  city resource for babysitters and started calling the listed numbers . Within the first 3-4 numbers in the list I found an Indian name: Aruna Thaker. I called her and then went to meet her. She was a homely middle aged lady living with her accountant husband and a teenage daughter who they had later in their lives. She was taking care of 5-6 kids aged less than 1-5 in her home . We liked her. Aai liked her too. We found a gated apartment complex in just the next lane from her home . It was a perfect arrangement. We could walk the kids to her home in 5 minutes from this place. By the end of March we had moved into this new apartment in Norwalk, California. The Eurovan came in handy to transport boxes from one apartment to another. In a few trips I was done moving. All by myself. Abhay was at work. Aai watched over the kids.

A couple of months before actually starting my residency we decided to get the kids used to a routine of staying with Arunaben (as she was known). The first day is still fresh in my memory. I had dropped off 5 months old Advait and 2.5 year old Amita at her place and come home and cried . I had never left them out of my sight except for the mandatory visits to the consulate in India and even at that time Amita was in the care of my mom and sister, not a stranger.

That evening I went to pick them up . Arunaben said they kept asking for me for a little while but soon started playing with the other kids. I got them home from her place and as I started getting ready to give them a bath I got the shock of my life. Advait’s back was bruised blue and black 😳😳. I carried him just like that to Arunaben’s home seeking an explanation. You know what was going on in my mind, right ? 

Well, she was as shaken as me when I showed her his bruises. She was terribly scared and started pleading “ I’m not that kind of woman ( who abuses kids)”. Something about her seemed earnest.

I told her show me where you had kept him. She showed me the crib she had placed him in. I felt the mattress. It was very thin and underneath were metal wire knots with open ends. The baby had slept on this and the wires had caused the bruises. While it was bad that these had hurt him , it was a huge relief that he was not knowingly abused by anyone. It was an honest mistake on her part to put him on that mattress. And she promptly made amends. 

Once the routine of their daycare was established, Aai and me had more free time at hand. In the course of our gappa (chats) she told me how her education came to a standstill when her family got her married at the age of 14. One didn’t have to be a genius to figure out how inherently intelligent she was despite not much formal education. She was well read in spiritual literature and did solo Keertans in Pune from an early age. I told her why don’t you learn English while you are staying here? She was game for it. So I went around and found an Adult school that was about 2-3 miles at most from our apartment. I enrolled her there. It was a 8 weeks class. I would drop the kids off to Arunaben, then drop her to the school. Again pick her up in a couple of hours. She was an earnest student and made friends with her fellow classmates and the teacher. She would be so excited when she came home, had so many stories to tell and so much praise for the teacher. On the last day of the course they had a potluck lunch. She had planned for days and cooked pineapple rice for everyone. It was a big hit. Most importantly the teacher had loved it and Aai was mighty happy about that.

The next 2-3 years I was able to leave the kids in Arunaben’s reliable and competent hands while I was away for work. One of us ( Abhay or me)would pick them up when we returned from work . They were always happy to go to her place because they could play with other kids. She really loved all the kids in her care like a grandmother. Aai also was able to leave for India reassured that they would be well cared for. 

Posting a photo in Patteda Anchu which is a Ganga Jamuna reversible saree with two pallus one at each end.