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    Tandoori Texan Tales

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      There were also suggestions that the company be taken over

      by the government. To pull the company out of this morass,

      the government had to be convinced that no matter who

      runs it, the price of electricity had to be increased to

      generate real resources. Having done that, the investors had

      to be convinced that the extra resource had to be ploughed

      back for buying better and more efficient machinery to

      produce more electricity cheaply. Then the real profits had

      to be shared between the labor and consuming public.

      At this point there was one local politician called Mohanlal

      Sukhadia who rose to prominence and held the position of

      the Chief Minister in the Rajasthan government for record

      number of years. For him keeping the city of his home

      constituency happy and prosperous was of paramount

      importance for political survival. Electric power is the basis

      for every other economic development he had in mind. The

      old cliche goes, “There is no Power as expensive as no

      Power”. He himself figured out that taking over a company

      that was being managed as best as it could be, was not a

      smart idea. He wanted the company to expand and grow,

      along with the growth of the city and all the new plans he

      had in mind. As a matter of fact, Sukhadia not only wanted

      Appanna to continue the good work he was doing in

      Udaipur but also nominated Appanna to the Consultative

      Committee for the State Electricity Board, so his knowledge

      and experience could be utilized for other projects,

      government had in mind. Appanna was also nominated for

      the State Productivity Council and was given medals of

      honor.

      215

      RAJ DORÉ

      By around the middle of 1955 it seemed like the dark

      clouds hovering around Appanna’s work were slowly

      clearing. Even then he would put some 16-hour a day and 7

      days work week.

      Pinnacle of Glory:

      In 1955 after graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in

      Commerce, Giri was going to start working on Chartered

      Accountancy with a firm Appanna knew in Indore.

      Meanwhile Vichanna informed that Siemens were looking

      for three fresh graduates to train in Germany for 3 years

      before being absorbed in Management cadre. That was a

      golden opportunity and Giri left for Germany in January

      1956. We all were terribly excited about the whole event.

      That was the first ‘Doré’ to set foot outside the country. Giri

      got excellent reports there. His weekly letter home was a

      family event we all would look forward with eagerness and

      excitement all week. We would sit around as Appanna

      would read it to us and we would be looking askance.

      Next to go overseas were Vichanna and Sarlamanni. They

      were in Germany too and came back with a whole lot of

      slides of Europe and gifts for all of us. Tape Recorder was a

      great novelty then. We were quite fascinated at listening to

      our own voices played back.

      1956 was also eventful for we got our first ‘Doctor in the

      House’. Yes Premanna passed from Madras Medical

      College with good honors and our pride went up one more

      notch. He had made all arrangements to go to Edinburgh

      and then to London for doing his MRCP. He came to

      216

      TANDOORI TEXAN TALES

      Udaipur to spend some time before departing overseas.

      Even his passage on the ship had been booked. There was a

      certain amount of nervousness on the parts of Appanna and

      Akka at one more son, especially a doctor son, going away

      for so long when their own age was advanced and health

      was uncertain. To make things worse there was a crisis in

      the international scene as Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt

      nationalized the Suez Canal and there was an imminent

      danger of a 3rd World War breaking out. With all this

      Premanna’s going to Edinburgh got postponed and then

      canceled altogether. He got a job at the General Hospital in

      Udaipur itself.

      Around this time our family had reached its zenith. We had

      gained a lot of stature in the society. While our family was

      known for Appanna, it was now also being widely

      recognized for Premanna. In fact there was hardly anybody

      in the city and even state wide, that was not some how or

      other touched by either. Akka had her own circle of friends

      and so did I. We were members of local country club. Even

      though Appanna himself was not the clubbable kind, we

      used to make full use of it with his membership. In a town

      of about 100,000 people we were one of the just a half a

      dozen family that became highly respected and recognized.

      At the end of a typical day we would all sit together or get

      into the car for a drive around the Fateh Sagar Lake,

      exchanging our day’s happenings. Premanna’s experiences

      in his medical world would never stop amusing us. If

      nothing else, he would tell us all about a ‘fantastic’ case of

      some latinized name for heinous medical malady. We

      would all wonder how such an abomination could ever be

      ‘fantastic’.

      217

      RAJ DORÉ

      There were times when Premanna and I were left alone at

      home with only the local servants who did not know any

      South Indian cooking. We asked Akka to give recipes and

      directions in writing. We experimented with cooking

      ourselves. We only had problem in getting the right

      proportions of different ingredients. The outcome was not

      always all that bad. We exhausted Akka’s year’s worth of

      grocery stocks in about a month in this process of learning

      by trial and error. Once we made Pudhina Chutney and left

      it on the grinding stone as we forgot to bring to the dining

      table. Next morning we found a rodent quite dead near that

      stone. It is still a mystery if our Pudhina Chutney was the

      cause. If we could figure that out we could have got a patent

      for pesticide.

      Premanna’s wedding to Prabhamanni took place in 1959 at

      Madras. We had taken some servants from Udaipur for

      help. One of them was Kishan Singh who knew no word of

      Tamil and was also one eyed. In the afternoon of the

      Wedding Reception, all the male members were having a

      siesta on the floor of a big hall. The groom woke up with a

      start and remarked that the trousseau for that evening’s gala

      was all crumpled and needed ironing. I woke up hearing

      that and said my suit needed ironing too. I volunteered to

      take his and mine to a nearby laundry. Slowly each man

      woke up rubbing his eyes and wanted to join the fray.

      Before long I was entrusted with the onerous task of getting

      a dozen suits properly pressed. I went to the laundry along

      with Kishan Singh carrying the load of suits. I got the

      groom’s suit pressed first on top priority and sent it back

      with Kishan Singh, as we were already quite late and

      dignitaries would have started
    arriving. I was to follow with

      218

      TANDOORI TEXAN TALES

      the other suits after they had been done. When I reached the

      Wedding, there was no sign of Kishan Singh and the

      groom’s suit. At the appointed time we were all dressed

      prim and proper, excepting the prima donna, who was still

      in his underpants! Kishan Singh finally showed up an hour

      late. There were half a dozen Wedding Receptions in the

      neighborhood that evening. He had lost his way and was

      looking for us in the wrong wedding. He could not even ask

      anybody for directions, as nobody would understand him.

      Moral of the story: Don’t mix an important assignment with

      a bunch of less important ones. You may call it a corollary

      of Murphy’s Law.

      Our parents had set a goal for all of us. They wanted that

      every single one of us must complete a Bachelor’s degree at

      the very least. Better if we chose to go higher. They never

      forced a choice of any particular profession. We were pretty

      much free to take any subject or line we felt comfortable

      with.

      After we returned celebrating Premanna-Prabhamanni

      wedding in September 1959, I went to Jaipur to attend the

      Convocation ceremony at my University there. I received

      my degree of Bachelor of Science. I came back and showed

      my picture in the gown and hood, bearing the rolled up

      scroll in hand. Appanna and Akka were sitting together.

      Appanna took the picture from my hand. The expression he

      had on his face is still frozen in my memory. The gray

      eyebrows over his eyes were knitted. He had that glazed

      look on his wrinkled face. Was it pride, joy, sense of

      accomplishment or just relief? May be all of it. He was not

      a person that was easily moved to tears. He could barely

      219

      RAJ DORÉ

      control a couple, ebbing in his eyes. That was of joy and

      happiness. It was not so much of a degree for me. It was for

      the Shepherd and Shepherdess whose last sheep had finally

      romped home.

      They must have felt like marathon sprinters having finally

      made it to the finish line. That was a long sprint from where

      we were ten years ago.

      THE END

      220

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Raj Doré is a Software Engineer hailing from a very

      orthodox South-Indian Brahmin family. He was born in

      Hyderabad (Sind), now in Pakistan, before the Partition.

      When the Indian sub-continent was divided, he and his

      family fled to India. He migrated to the United States in

      1977. He now lives with his wife Sumita in Dallas, Texas,

      U.S.A.

      He has B.Sc. (Mathematics, Physics & Geology), MA

      (Political Science) and MBA. Later he worked on MS (CS)

      at the Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

      He is a member of MENSA and INTERTEL, the high-IQ

      societies. His writings have been published in their

      magazines as well.

      He has traveled widely in Europe, South America and Asia.

      He knows English, Hindi, Tamil and German.

     

     

     

     
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