Bone Cutters
“We look at the world once in childhood. The rest is memory” (~Louise Glück, Nostos)
In the late night of March 12, 1971, I stood on the tarmac of a sleepy Calcutta airport looking at the sole gleaming airplane, with twinkling window lights against a dark sky. It was a ship of my desires, certainly my dreams. At 20, a few weeks shy of my 21st birthday, seven months after getting a blue-ribboned degree from a bejeweled college, I was going to New York by the most circuitous route possible. First to Bombay and then to Moscow, and over the Black Sea onto the Black Forest into the heart of Europe, landing in London on the 13th of March early evening. In those days when full fare-paying customers were rare for Air India, the airline added an incentive---an overnight layover in London, which I hungrily took.
When I touched down the next evening in New York, I had $8 in my pocket (the allowable limit of foreign exchange from India), one suitcase, a shoulder bag. Pretty standard for an immigrant (though I was on a tourist visa then). Didibhai, my oldest and only sister was meeting me and I’d stay with her, without worrying about my meals and spending money for the first three months. That was March 15, 1971. 53 years ago.
February 1971 with Ma
(Photograph courtesy of author. All Rights Reserved)
In all these years, I’ve marked each March 15th as many things ---escape from family expectations; fleeing violence and political chaos; dreaming of bigger, better, shinier images of my constructed self. This year, as I round the corner on the beginning of my 74th year, the perspective on the rearview mirror is substantial and what lies ahead is . . . well. . . anybody’s guess.
So the short version of the squinting behind ---is school, struggles, loves, jobs, marriages, children, divorces, failures, newfound joys and unexpected satisfactions. Acceptance of this life is creeping in. Good thing too as envy and resentment of all the multitudinous missed opportunities would make me a very sad man.
One of the things I do nowadays is I mentor groups of underprivileged urban students in India in soft skills via Zoom. I always have guests with me. Most are young Indians, in India and abroad. We all share our stories about careers and how to navigate the slippery slopes of failure, difficulties in life and steering toward what we think we want to do. I happened to mention that once in my mid-twenties, when my friends were all in academia or in reasonably stable jobs, I washed vegetables and cleaned a deli floor for about six months to pay the bills. One of my guests was not only astonished but grateful to have a stereotype broken, I think.
So for the record, here in chronological order, is the work I did to earn money. Of course, each entry has a story connected to it but those can wait.
1971 summer Painting boiler rooms of a school in the Bronx, NYC. Also in summer grad school
1971 fall – ‘72 spring Housemaster at school for the visually impaired and weekend duties at unit for students with cerebral palsy, Bronx, NYC. Also in grad school.
1972 spring Teacher’s aide, children with physical and cognitive disabilities, Queens, NYC
1972 summer Night doorman at coop apartment building, West End Ave, Manhattan, NYC
1973 spring – 1975 spring Started and ran cooperative daycare/preschool for 16-20 families, fees on sliding scale, Washington, DC
1975-1976 Public relations officer for nonprofit implementing federal pilot program for poor families in Washington, DC
1976 spring Bookstore clerk, Bookworks, Washington, DC
1977 Deli worker, Washington , DC
1977-1978 Bookstore clerk/floor manager, Sidney Kramer Books, Washington, DC
1978-1979 Bookstore manager, American Management Association, Manhattan, NYC
1979 Bookstore manager, Benjamin Books, store located in old Tower 1, World Trade Center, Manhattan, NYC
1980-1982 front-desk receptionist, shipping clerk, and trainee editor, Delilah Books, Manhattan, NYC
1982 Freelance proofreader and copyeditor in New York
1983-1986 Project editor, St. Martin’s Press, Manhattan, NYC
1983-1986 Freelance writer for sections of Fodor’s India travel guide
1986 Started Turnstile, a literary magazine featuring fiction, nonfiction, poetry, art, photography with volunteer group. The magazine folded in 1995. Manhattan, NYC
1986-1990 spring Editor, Prentice Hall Travel (including Frommer’s)
1990 summer-1991 spring Managing editor, Basic Books, HarperCollins, Manhattan, NYC
1991 summer -2004 summer Editor, etc., Prentice Hall Secondary (Pearson Education)
2004 summer to 2008 summer Multiple department head positions at Holt, Rinehart, Winston. Austin, TX, Boston, MA, Manhattan, NYC
2008 fall Started Green Comma, education services company, Somerville, MA
2009 Resume writing service (the US economy had collapsed), Somerville, MA
2010-2011 (fall) Multiple project leads in secondary education products, Quarasan, Chicago, IL
2012 – 2015 Exec. managing editor, Jouve, education development company, Brattleboro, VT
2015-2016 Exec. managing director, Six Red Marbles, education development company, Boston, MA
2016-2019 Consulting
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I have not changed the world except my own.
I have made many laugh.
I have made some cry.
I have wept.
I have loved some deeply.
Some have loved me deeply.
I have lived to hear the terms Dadu, Dad directed at me.
I am thankful for all my years. I wasn’t when I glimpsed the airliner against the night sky at what was then Dum Dum Airport.
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“Next Time is Next Time; Now is Now.” (~ from Perfect Days)
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