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This is Tara Patel. This is Caroline Zhu. I’m Nosh Medhora. And we are here today in the home of Nosh Medhora… Mm-hm. ... With the Houston Asian American Archive through the Chao Center of Asian Studies at Rice University,

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interviewing him about his experience immigrating to the U.S. Would you like to just start out with your childhood, where you’re from? I’m from, uh, uh Bombay in India.

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And, uh, I was born in a place called Hyderabad, and uh did all my schooling and, uh, growing up in Bombay. Could you spell the—Hyrderabad?

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Hyderabad. H-Y-D-E-R-A-B-A-D. Hyderabad. Okay, thank you. It’s over here on the—on your…

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Okay, perfect. Thanks. What was your childhood like, in Bombay? A normal childhood. Okay. Uh, nothing unusual about it.

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Um, we had, uh—we lived in a colony of about 64 blocks, uh like a subdivision. And, uh, we had a nice playground, nice, uh, walking area, exercising area.

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And, uh, we were very fortunate that we had two Olympians in our colony. You know, which is very unusual for a place like India. We had, uh, Gentle, from—R.

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S. Gentle, who was the guy who shot the winning goal in the Melbourne Olympics and India won the hockey tournament because of him. And, uh we had Papen for soccer, so we had two Olympians in

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our colony. And we used to play lots of games, lots of sports in—in there. And, uh, that’s one of the reasons we used to run a lot, you know exercise a lot, and things like that. So, very active childhood as far as athletics was

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concerned. Then, went to finish my last two years of schooling in a place cal—in a boarding school called Pungunee, which is about, uh, I’d say about two hundred miles away from Bombay. And, uh, there also we had a really nice time

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as far as, uh, physical activities and things like that was concerned. Then after that, I did my college two years— three years college in Bombay, not too far from my house. and, uh, then went to engineering college in a place

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called Sangli, S-A-N-G-L-I, Sangli. And, uh, Sangli was uh... uh…about I would say two-hundred-fifty miles from Bombay, and that’s where I did my engineering, in mechanical engineering,

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got my Bachelor’s over there. Then in my last year we applied to all colleges in the U.S., and I got accepted to Berkeley, uh University of California at Berkeley, which was at that time the number one rated school in

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mechanical engineering. And, uh, in ‘73 I came to Berkeley for my Master’s, in mechanical engineering. Came over here and, uh, in about ‘75 or so, mid ’75 I finished my Master’s and then headed toward Houston because

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Houston was booming at that time. Whereas California was not doing too well. So, moved over here, and, uh, I’ve been here since then.

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So let’s go back a little. Mm-hm. Um, so, do you have any siblings? Yeah, I have one younger brother. Younger brother… And he’s in India, he’s in Bombay.

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Okay. And what did your parents do? My par—my dad was, uh, like a—accountant and he was like a controller of one major company in India called Tata’s. T-A-T-A, Tata.

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Tata Oil Mill. Okay. And, uh, so he had a—accounting, commercial background. Was the community you grew up in, in Bombay, your colony you said, was it primarily Zoroastrian? No, no.

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No. It was totally a—a cosmopolitan type community, y’know. If was like uh... there were maybe six-seven Zoroastrian families, or... not more than that. But uh the colony was small enough that we knew

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everybody in the colony, you know we knew all the sixty-four families. So we used to mix with all their children and a lot of them went to our school, some of them went to my wife’s school. So we all had a very large

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group of kids growing up, you know. We would meet them at the bus—bus stop going and coming and y’know all that kind of stuff. So, very interactive as far as, uh, the children in the colony were concerned.

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And, uh, we also played together, because, uh, like I said, Gentle was, uh, he was in the Olympic team, and he was a coach for our school for hockey.

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So we used to go have hockey lessons from him later on in the evening, you know after school. So, very active area, you know. It’s unlike most other places whe—in India where you would not have

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that much interaction between—between the people living in one subdivision. So, fortunate, very fortunate to have that. So when you say the word, ‘colony,’ is this, like a neighborhood in Bombay, is it kind of a suburb outside?

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No, it’s no—no, it’s like this subdivision, okay; this subdivision is Concord Bridge. Okay. Okay, so it’s like—it’s like Concord Bridge. This has eight hundred homes, or twelve hundred homes… Okay. ... We had sixty-four—sixty-four, uh, units.

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Okay. So it’s like this subdivision, but on a much smaller scale, you know. So you mentioned that you went to a college, and then engineering college. Mm-hm. So, what was the education system like? It—in what way? Uh, like, ‘cause you went to college twice.

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Okay, the—the reason we do that is in India we had, uh, we had what you call, uh an intermediate science, which is like, uh... We had eleven years of schooling.

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And then he have two years of, uh, college before we can go to a engineering college. So we have thirteen years of uh engineering—I mean, total education before you get into a school—uh engineering college.

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You know like here, right after school you can go to into a college like A&M or UT or anything. And like, we had to do two years of additional college and then go into, uh, into

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engineering. So that—that was the system over there. That’s why I went to a—it’s like a pre... like a pre-science type, or a pre engineering type college. Is it that way with every major?

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Ev—every major. Okay, so everyone who goes to college... Every... Not... Okay like commerce, they go straight into commerce. You don’t have to, you know it’s four years of commerce. But for engineering you—you do two years of

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intro in science and then you, uh, that qualifies you to apply for the engineering college. So it’s little different than over here. You know, you have like a pre-requisite in college, and then you get into engineering.

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So how did you decide to be an engineering major? I always liked engineering. Okay. And, uh, right from the start. So, uh, I liked medicine also, but

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couldn’t get into medicine. But, got into, uh, engineering. Were your parents very influential in… Uh, not really, uh...

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they let me make my own decision on that. So, but I always liked engineering, I had an in—I had a aptitude for that, an inclination for that, so, that made it easier, you know. Did you parents

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make you—let you make your own decisions growing up for most things in life? How… Uh, more or less, yeah. They—they were—in certain things, they… they were okay with us making the

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decisions, like in the career that you choose, or, or the person that you wanted to marry, or something like that, you know. So that was good with that, you know they were good with that. So how did you decide to come to the U.S.

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for your Master’s? That was a trend that, you know a lot of our—the kids from our college were going into the U.S., or to UK for their Master’s or their PhD study.

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And, uh, UK was a little bit more difficult to get into. U.S. was a lot easier to get into. Uh, so, I just applied to... I didn’t apply to too many colleges, but I applied to like about three or

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four of them, y’know, and I got accepted in all of them. So, uh, but Berkeley was the best one of them, you know, the ones that I applied. And

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uh when I got admission into Berkeley, you know you could, uh... my—my down was over here and my, and my mess hall was over here—mess hall means the eating, the dining place. I just screamed all day to my friend, you know ‘Hey I got into Berkeley!’ Jumping

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all over the place and from my—from my room. Letting them know that you know, I got admission over there, so. Um, so what was your first impression of the U.S.

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when you came here? Uh, my first impression was very varied in the sense that when I came here my first day... uh, in Berkeley they have a school, they have a dormitory house called International

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House, there’s like three or four of them around the country. And, uh, I had already got admitted over there for the dormitory, for their, for their living assignment, you know, this thing.

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But when I went there I soon find—found out that, uh, they haven’t enrolled me in that I-House or International House. So, I had no, uh, accommodations, you—for that—for that day or that semester or that quarter— Berkeley was on a quarter system.

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So I said, ‘Okay now what am I supposed to do?’ So the guy sai—tells me, ‘Oh just go ahead and get an apartment.’ I said, ‘What’s an apartment?’ I didn’t know what an apartment was. You know, never heard of it, you know.

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So, he said, ‘You just go out some place, find a couple of friends, uh apartments are like two or three hundred dollars a month. And you go there and, uh, just make sure that, uh, you sign a lease.’ I said, ‘What’s a lease?’ You

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know, never heard of those words. Apartment and lease and things like that. So, okay, to make a long story short, I had to go and find two-three roommates whom I could—I could room up with because two-three hundred dollars was a lot of money at that

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time, you know. And, I went in and got two other roommates, and uh, the question was what do we do for that particular night, you know, we—we were going to sign the lease the next day.

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But, uh, or go looking for a place the next day. But what do we do for that night? So we went to a YMCA, and, uh, got ourselves booked over there for that night. Actually, one or two

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nights. And it was real funny, we went in there and, uh, about two o’clock or so, we hear some shooting going on outside, you know, there was a Wells Fargo across—bank, a Well Fargo bank across my YMCA, and the

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shooting going on. What—this—peeped out the window, what the hell is going on? And here you see these guys robbing that bank and the cops firing on them. And those guys were shooting back.

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I said, ‘What the hell is this?’ Where did—where did I come? You know, the very first day, here I am in this place where there—you know there’s a shooting—you know there’s a battle going on.

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I mean, it’s totally unheard of in India for something like that to happen. But, anyway, the next day we went to look for an apartment, and we saw a few apartments and we liked one, so we got, uh, the lease signed

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and one or two days later we moved into it. Uh, it had a swimming pool, and a gym, and all that stuff, and that was like ‘Yeah!’ You know, you don’t have private swimming pools in India except for the very elite.

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So we went out there and, uh, signed the lease, and then we had to move in, got our bags and everything. Of course we had only two bags, you know when you came from India. Then, how do you get groceries?

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How do you get this. You know it was an entire learning experience, you know. And then we had to go to school and go—go in for the registration, I mean for the, like a... uh, uh, what do

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you call that... pre… Orientation? Uh like an orientation. So we went there for that. Couple of days, uh the—the—those types of activities

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took place, you had to go there, they would acquaint you with the different buildings and everything. And, uh, mechanical engineering school was, uh, uh Berkeley is a very—was a—or rather is still, a very small campus,

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you know. And, uh, it had, when I was there I remember that we had something like a total of, uh, twenty-two or twenty-three Nobel Laureates over there. And thirteen of them were on campus, you know.

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So it was a very, kind of an elite type... professionally, very—economically very elite, uh school. So, uh, we...

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went around, uh, met all my, uh advisors and everything, you know, at different groups, and uh then f—I think within about a week or so we started college.

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And college was intense at that time, you know because the quarter system, you know you don’t have any... any relaxation or anything like that, you know, you just—you just boom boom boom one course after another, you know.

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So we had a few courses, uh I think three or four at that time, on our first quarter system. And then, uh, after you—after we went through the first quarter system, like the—it finishes on a Friday, you start one on Monday, the next quarter system, there was no break, you know,

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it was not like... that’s why my wife says, ‘Hey let’s let the kids have a break after…’ I said, ‘What break? I didn’t have a break!’ . So, uh, we went from one quarter to another quarter, you

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know it kept on going. And then I finished my Master’s coursework like in like nine months or so. But, uh, you couldn’t get a job at that time, because they had just had that ’73

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Arab-Israeli war, and—and the, and the unemployment was very rampant in California. California was going through a very bad time. R—uh, Ronald Reagan was uh governor of California at that time.

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And, uh he had done some few things that were not very—you know he had cut the budget for the school systems and college systems over there. And, uh, Reagan for all his popularity wasn’t a very popular person on campus, you know.

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Uh, he—he—he initiated a lot of cuts and all that stuff. Anyway, so, and, uh the aerospace industry with NASA closing down the, what was that the Gemini and the Apollo programs at that time...

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California was very hard hit at that time, you know, it had lot of unemployment. Unemployment over there was like, I would say even exceeding twenty percent, you know. It was very high, compared to like six-seven that we have right now.

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But, uh, so now I had to see as to where I can get a job and you know, and we always had loans when you come from India, so I had several thousand dollars worth—six-seven thousand dollars worth of loans to pay back, you know.

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Not much by these standards, you know when you consider that college students these days have, what seventy, eighty thousand average or something, or even more some of them? So that was pretty small amount at that time, but still quite a lot for me,

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you know, to—to have that, so I had to pay that amount back and then make sure that, you know, I get some proper training. When you come from a foreign country to the U.S., you probably know that you have like eighteen months—or—in which you can work for a company...

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before you decide to go back or you want to stay. If you want to stay then you had to get a—apply for the green card and all that stuff. So, we had to do all that, you know that process had to take place.

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And, uh, uh, California was not uh... conducive place for having jobs at that time. So I said, okay, uh there was article in the Time Magazine where they said—picture of Houston, and

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Houston was booming, and all that kind of stuff. Uh, if you remember, last year or so they had another picture of Houston booming in Time Magazine, and, uh, uh again, that’s one of the reasons why this huge influx of people

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from other states have been coming over here in the last few months, you know. We are—we are like having fourteen thousand new people coming into the—into the state, into Houston, every month. At that time it was

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like ten thousand, so it was still comparable, it was still a vast boom, you know, compared to other cities. And, uh, came to Houston in May of ‘75 and I been here since then, you

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know. Okay. So what was your first job in Houston? My first job? Mhmm. My first job was, uh, you remember when you go out for picnics and all you carry an Igloo? A little playmate.

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Uh-huh. A little Igloo? A cooler? Yeah. So there was a company over here called Igloo that was right on the corner of West Belt and I- 10 . Not too far from here.

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So I got a job over there and that was my first job. Well, before that I had a job at the University of California in Berkeley, where we were doing, uh, this was like many years ago, this was a pre-cursor to our safety glasses and lenses that we wear these

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days. Uh, we used to take a small bullet, like a little marble, and shoot it into a lens, a little distance away, and take high-speed photographs of how that lens shatters.

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And then we used to plot it, ‘Okay this is the velocity, this is how it broke, this is how it, you know, did what it did.’ So, we used to have hundreds and hundreds of small microchips, little pictures of… Mhm. ... the trajectory of—of that particular, uh, marble or that bullet.

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And, uh, those are the research things that are now used in making safety glasses, you know, like how strong they need to be and what they need to withstand, you know, so all that was done from that particular type of research.

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So, I did that for a few months and, then uh, because Arab-Israeli war that—that research money dried up. And then after that when I came to Houston—Housto—uh working at Igloo was my first job.

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We were making these ice chests and coolers, and all, you know, so. When did you graduate—when did you get your Master’s from Berkeley? In ‘75. Okay.

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In—in May of ‘75. So you came directly to Houston after getting your degree? Mhmm. So where did you stay in Houston? Uh I stayed with a friend, uh, and, uh...

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He was already—he was my, one of my colleagues, a senior guy from my, where I did my engineering in India. So I knew him, so I came here, stayed with him for a month or two. And then we became roommates later on, so.

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But that’s where I came and lived in Houston, with—with a friend. So what was your first impression? Of Houston? Yeah. Houston at that time….

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driving wise was very—Houston was very large, obviously, compared to Berkeley, you know, so that’s one thing. Distances were quite large. Uh, first impression of Houston was that driving was

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not as disciplined as it was in California. And, uh, now a few years later when I went to California, I thought Houston was better now than California. So that was my first thing, like ‘Hey, these guys are driving

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like crazy over here.’ You know. And, uh, I learned driving in California, so I knew all the—we used to have a video station, like small video station, not—not as sophisticated as we have right now. But a small one at the

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driver’s license office, and uh learned on that, you know, how to drive, and of course protocols also. So, I was well-schooled in all the laws, and traffic protocol

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that you used to have at that time. So, I really thought that driving in Houston was—was really quite bad, you know. Uh, social life wise, uh, since I had friends over here, you know, it became much easier to mingle with the other

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groups, you know, mingle with their friends. Uh, and then, uh after about I think six months or so... When you come back from work you have nothing to do in the evening, so I said okay, let’s do my MBA.

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So I got enrolled at U of H for my MBA program. And when I got into M— into, uh, the MBA program, the—the roommate that I came to in Houston, he was also doing his, uh,

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Master’s—his MBA at U of H also. And then, uh, he was also teaching one course, as—as a, as a... like a teacher in math course.

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And then one day he gets a call from the Dean saying that, ‘Hey do you have anybody who can take another math course for the—for the undergrads.’ So he suggested me, and I went there, interviewed with them and they said, ‘Okay you can start teaching from tomorrow,’ and—’What?’ It

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was real funny, we—we go into my first lecture room, and just for moral support I told my friend to come with me. And we go up there, and I think it was something like one-o-six room number 106, or something. So I told him,

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‘Hey I found 106!’ And that was 106A. So he w—he says ‘Oh I found 106, too!’ I said, ‘What?’ That was 106B. So there were two, like this is the room and there were two doors going into the same room. It was a huge class, like theater seating, you know big class.

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Huge one. And there was like, I’d say, something like... Y’all are graduate students, right? Or are y’all undergrads? Undergrads. Undergrads. You’ll probably know that undergrads classes can be large.

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So this was like something like 150 or something s—students in there, you know. A huge class. I said, ‘My god this is a huge class.’ You know I’d never been in front of 150 people or so, you know . So, then I started teaching over there.

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And it went very well, it was a nice experience, you know. And then, uh, next semester, it was really funny, uh the Dean calls me and says, ‘Nosh, can you take this one teacher who’s just quit, one professor. So can you take a graduate

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level class in math?’ I said, ‘Oh my god. He must be kidding me.’ You know, it’s quite petrifying to teach a graduate level class, you know, it’s not just an easy thing, you know. So, anyway I said, okay I’ll, I’ll take a little

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challenge, and uh... So I was teaching the graduate level math class, undergrad level math class, going to school, going to work... Social life was zero by that time, you know. I said ‘I can’t take this for more than a semester or

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so’. So then, uh... I think one—they found another professor or something, by the next semester. So, so that—that of course went away for the graduate course.

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I still continued with the undergrad course, so I was teaching for quite sev—several semesters. And, uh, finished—and uh after that I finished my Masters— my MBA in ‘82.

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At U of H. And, uh, you’re going to school only for... in the evenings so it’s like only two hours each—each day, you know. You don’t have more than, more than that, so... that was one thing that, uh, maybe one or two less—

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one or two classes a day or something like that, you know. So I took little longer than—than an average person taking full-time courses. But, uh, finished that in like four, four and a half years or so.

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Not bad, but, not as fast as a regular full-time person. So you started your MBA in ‘78? ‘70...

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no, earlier than that, probably ‘76 or something like that. ‘76? ‘76 to… Okay…Okay… So 4, 5, 6, about—about 5 to 6 years…

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5 or 6. ... something like that, I can’t remember And then, I would take courses in summer also, so that—you could speed up the process, you know. Summer was very hectic, and, as you know, it’s like really intense.

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So, took classes in summer, tried to finish the coursework as much as I can. When you’re doing part time it’s a little bit difficult, you know it’s very drawn out… Yeah. ... You can take only two courses a semester.

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Um, just to clarify, so your, um, your job as an engineer was part-time at that time? No, full time. Full time, and you were also working as a teacher, and also MBA program. Okay.

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That’s what I’m saying; my social life was just about zero. Okay, so, um... yeah so were you on your student visa at that time? I was on a student visa and, uh, I was in the program where you could

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work for one and a half years. So, uh, you could work—I could work legally. And then, I applied for the green card, so that process takes a year or two.

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So, in ‘78 I get a call from my lawyer saying that, uh—I had an immigration lawyer—saying that, uh, you got the request to get your visa—to get your green card visa in India, you had to go to India

00:27:55.270 - 00:28:08.340

for that at that time. Okay. And, uh, the interview was like within a week or so. I said, ‘What?’ You know, I mean that’s r—really fast. So, I said ‘Okay.’ So I had to make arrangements to get the ticket and all that

00:28:08.340 - 00:28:20.140

stuff and—and go to India and, uh, in just about a weeks’ time. So, uh in ‘78 I went to India and that’s where I got married to, you know ‘78 November.

00:28:21.270 - 00:28:34.990

And, uh, so at that time I was already on a legal status, from then onwards, you know. So you were already permanent resident. Yeah. Then I became a permanent resident.

00:28:37.580 - 00:28:52.040

Are you a citizen of the United States? Yeah, now I am. When did you get your citizenship? I think it’s ‘78, so ‘70—9, 5, 14, about ‘84, ‘85, you had to wait for 5 years, uh so about ‘84, ‘85

00:28:52.110 - 00:29:09.150

somewhere in there. Can you tell us more about how you met your wife? My wife was a neighbor of mine in India, in the—in the colony, in the sixty-four blocks. Mhmm. She was one of them. And, uh, we knew her family

00:29:09.150 - 00:29:19.300

and knew her and uh her sib—her brothers. So, uh, that’s where I met her… Mhmm. ... and then when I was in my third year in engineering, I...

00:29:20.840 - 00:29:35.130

I think in my first year in the college that I went to, that intermediate college, we moved from that particular colony to another location. So, I could not see them that much, you know, but I would—every time in—in the vacation time I would go and meet

00:29:35.380 - 00:29:48.210

them. It’s not that far but, uh... so that time I wrote to her, that ‘Hey would you like to go for a movie?’ You know. I was in engineering college at that time, so that…And then wrote to her.

00:29:48.260 - 00:30:02.000

She said ‘Okay,’ so you know, and then we just became friends, and... I mean we already were friends, but it became more, more involved, like a relationship, and then that’s how I met—you know met her and developed the relationship.

00:30:03.170 - 00:30:18.500

So, then when I came here, uh, I was here for what from ‘73 to ‘78, about 5 years, and we were corresponding every so frequently. And, uh, one of the first things that I did when I got my first paycheck in that—in

00:30:18.500 - 00:30:29.090

that—in that research assistant job that I had was to get a tape recorder. You—you know one of those things like this. Uh-huh, yeah. But a bigger one.

00:30:29.090 - 00:30:40.610

And older, yeah. With the tape and everything, this is probably digital and all. So, uh, we went out there, got that tape recorder, then we could exchange cassettes, you know.

00:30:41.250 - 00:30:51.340

Okay. Instead of just writing letters. Because making phone calls at that time was very expensive, you know. Mhmm. We couldn’t afford it. I would call maybe 2 or 3 months I would call one time, but that’s about it, yeah.

00:30:52.950 - 00:31:07.630

And they didn’t have a phone at home, so you would have to call somewhere else or call her at the office or something like that, so. How did you make plans to get married? Uh, it was very quick because I had gone there on a, you know very short notice,

00:31:07.630 - 00:31:23.900

so I told my, uh... I told her family that, uh, ‘Hey I’m coming there, so arrange for the wedding to take place.’ And, in India it’s very difficult to get a place where you can get married, you know, uh, they are booked like a

00:31:24.010 - 00:31:36.370

year in advance. And, uh, we went to the facility, and there was one facility that had, uh, an opening on 30th of November. And, uh...

00:31:36.530 - 00:31:48.790

it was really curious—it was really funny that they had an opening, you know, especially when they are booked for a whole year. And, India being little religious and superstitious, uh,

00:31:50.670 - 00:32:05.340

uh...30th of November that year was a no-moon year… Uh-huh. ... no-moon day, no-moon, or like a new moon, okay, so... Uh for some reason we don’t do cere— auspicious ceremonies on that day.

00:32:07.080 - 00:32:24.180

And, uh, so we just registered this thing, you know the hall, and, uh, my mother-in-law said that ‘Why don’t you get an okay from’ my grandparents, my mom’s mom, to see if you can get married on that day, you know.

00:32:25.710 - 00:32:43.790

And, uh, she—when we called her she says, ‘Don’t forget I was born on a no- moon night.’ So it didn’t matter. So that thing went away and, uh, we got married on 30th November, ‘78, on a no-moon night.

00:32:45.860 - 00:32:54.910

And—and y’all don’t think of these things… Yeah. But I’m sure you know... those are the issues that you run into, you know. Did she immediately come to the U.S.

00:32:54.910 - 00:33:07.100

with you? She came—she came about two months later. Okay. Because it took that long to process the visa and everything. And now it takes much longer. But, uh, no, she

00:33:07.100 - 00:33:24.630

didn’t come right away but she came like—I came back in December and she came here on Novem—on, uh, Valentine’s Day on Decem—I mean February 14th. So I go—uh I had a business trip over there from my company, from Igloo, on—on the East Coast, so I said, ‘Okay, I’ll surprise her.’

00:33:25.620 - 00:33:34.650

And, you know, went there with flowers and all, and I was waving out to her. And of course she—you know at the airport—and she’s not expecting me there, you know she’s just thinking she’s going to take a flight from

00:33:34.950 - 00:33:50.220

New York to Houston. So, went out there and uh, here I’m waving out to her, and she’s wondering, ‘There’s somebody waving out you know, who it is, you know.’ And only when she parked closer did she realize that it was me. So,

00:33:50.390 - 00:34:04.220

went there and, uh, uh, we had to change terminals, we had to go from the international terminal to the domestic one. And 14th February, very cold winters over there in New York, obviously. So, it was snowing and all that

00:34:04.220 - 00:34:19.380

stuff, and heavy snow on the ground also. So we had to take uh an internal shuttle bus to go from the international terminal to the domestic terminal. And, uh, in the excitement of seeing me and everything, she had

00:34:19.720 - 00:34:33.910

kept her entire—she had made a little package of her passport, her tickets and everything, in one little bag. And she kept that bag on the—on the bus, and we just got down at the—at the terminal, at the domestic terminal.

00:34:34.520 - 00:34:48.680

We go to the counter for the—for the airline, the airline counter, and she says ‘Oh my god, where’s my bag?’ I said, ‘What bag?’ Says, ‘It has my passport, my tickets, and everything.’ I said, ‘Oh my god, you probably left it on the—on the bus.’ Then she realized it was on the bus.

00:34:49.710 - 00:34:59.110

Okay, so what do I do? So here I kept everything with her that I had, and I’m running after that bus, in sub zero temperatures, in New York at the airport. And I

00:34:59.110 - 00:35:11.430

re—and I would keep running after it, running after it, and, uh, by the time I get there it would start going again to the next stop. So finally I got a cab. I said, ‘Follow that bus and get me to that bus, you know.’

00:35:11.600 - 00:35:26.290

So the cab driver, you know drove like crazy and got me to that bus, and then I just flagged the bus and said, ‘Hey, I just want to get something for my—that my wife dropped.’ And luckily it was still lying over there. So I took that package, took the tax back to the original

00:35:26.610 - 00:35:38.000

place where I started from, and uh, by that time it was too late, the plane had, you know- Aww. —ready to go for Houston, so we had to spend the night in, uh, in New York over there. And then we came

00:35:38.000 - 00:35:49.340

back the next day. Additional fares, everything, you know, we couldn’t… So additional expenses, but still that’s fine, you know. But it was quite a funny incident that you know, you had to run after that bus

00:35:50.260 - 00:36:01.210

in the snow and all that stuff. So is your wife also Zoroastrian? Yeah, she is. Okay. Did you have a Zoroastrian wedding? Yeah, we did. Okay.

00:36:05.760 - 00:36:19.650

When you were growing up, was Zoroastrianism a big part of your family, a big part of your childhood? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, a very big part. Were y’all— I mean we—we were religious, but not overly religious, I think.

00:36:19.650 - 00:36:36.980

Okay. But—but we would still observe, like major holiday—major festivities of our religion, you know. So… So let’s talk more about your job. Okay. So after your first job, did you, uh, like, did you decide

00:36:36.980 - 00:36:45.980

to change... between jobs? I changed, then after that... Igloo was a manufacturing company. They made things, you know, coolers and

00:36:46.050 - 00:36:59.470

things like that. And I wanted to get into pure engineering itself, you know like designing things, and... So in, uh... when was that... In ‘80...

00:37:02.260 - 00:37:17.230

in ‘80 I changed jobs and went from Igloo to a company called Bechtel, Bechtel Engineering. And, uh—B-E-C-H-T-E-L—I remember Bechtel was, rather is one of the largest engineering companies in the U.S.

00:37:17.230 - 00:37:33.970

Uh, they have lot of construction, and they build the Hoover Dam and all, you know many years ago. So they are a company from—based in California. But they have an office here in Houston, which is a major office for oil and gas work.

00:37:35.910 - 00:37:50.470

So I moved into engineering in—in 1980, and I remember, uh, at the orientation, I met this VP from, uh, he was a fellow Berkeleyite, who graduated

00:37:50.570 - 00:38:02.840

maybe 2, 3 years before me. And we was saying, ‘Nosh, uh, you know we got jobs over here that’ll last through the turn of the century.’ This is 1980, turn of the century is 2000, twenty years away.

00:38:03.770 - 00:38:15.100

In two years, the bottom fell out of the engineering market, you know. I don’t know, y—y’all might be too small for that. But, uh, at that time Houston had a major, major downturn in the economy.

00:38:16.210 - 00:38:29.570

A lot of people were laid off and I was laid off, and uh, uh, it was really sad that, you know, a good worker was laid off because I didn’t know anybody else besides my—my own project, you know I was fairly new at that time.

00:38:30.950 - 00:38:47.100

So, and then in November of, uh, ‘82 we had our first son. And, right after, right after that, just a few days after that for Thanksgiving, they tell me that, you know I’m not gonna have a job.

00:38:47.330 - 00:39:01.900

Oh. You know, here we have a new house, a new person in the family joining us, and, uh, no job, so. And my wife was working, you know. She—she worked, uh, so she was a big supporter of the family when I didn’t have

00:39:01.900 - 00:39:17.400

a job. So it was quite a struggle, but you know they would call me on and off and send me out to other locations in the U.S. where they had some openings. So that way I was little lucky, but uh they would send me for like four

00:39:17.400 - 00:39:32.710

months here, four months there, a month or two in between, no job, you know. So it was kind of on and off, and then finally got another job, I mean with Bechtel itself, uh, going to Bay City, which is like 120 miles from here.

00:39:34.200 - 00:39:50.950

But the good thing was, uh, they had four days on and four days off. So, we would drive, I had—I had a carpooling guy. We came up from Sugarland and go to Bay City, which was 120 miles away. And, uh, do that

00:39:51.610 - 00:40:07.930

going and coming, so that’s 240 miles every day. And, uh, we would carpool, uh, and, uh, this was like 10-hour shifts, so like four 10-hour shifts. So you finish 40 hours in four days, then you have four days off.

00:40:08.620 - 00:40:23.190

So that kind of helped. You know, that way I could relieve my life with the baby and everything. So, uh... but those were tough days, because uh my wife was alone with the baby for that long, you know, for four days.

00:40:24.290 - 00:40:39.670

But we somehow managed, and uh, went through those times, you know. What does your wife do? She was a—she joined as an admin with Exxon, but she had an engin—she had an economics background

00:40:40.190 - 00:40:55.760

in India. And, uh, it was very unique, she... When she graduated from school, high school, she did a stenographic examination, which is like an admin type thing, typing and shorthand and things like that, so you could take—

00:40:56.140 - 00:41:12.060

you know, be a like a secretary or admin. And, uh, and she worked over there for like 7 years, and she got a lot of experience in doing lots of multiple things. So when she came here, uh...

00:41:13.280 - 00:41:28.370

I wanted her to go to school, and, you know, study and then maybe start working. But she saw the loan that I had, 5-6000 dollars, and uh, that sense

00:41:28.370 - 00:41:40.800

kicked in that ‘Hey, we need to pay off the loans before we do anything else.’ But, we paid off the loan in one year, so it was not a problem, you know. But, uh, what she did was she joined Exxon, and

00:41:42.470 - 00:41:57.370

started over there as an admin and then worked her way, and then by the time in 2011 when she retired, she was like, a... geologist admini—uh she was in the permitting group, where they would...

00:41:59.030 - 00:42:12.610

I don’t know how much you know about the oil and gas industry, but uh there’s a certain group that will tell you—okay, when you have to do an amount of drilling in this a—this area, you have to get right-of-way permissions from

00:42:12.610 - 00:42:27.790

the railroad commission, from the mining commission, from everybody and their brother, you know, basically, to make sure that all the regulations have been taken—uh, have been done properly. So, and then when you start drilling that well, it’s called

00:42:27.790 - 00:42:39.890

spudding the well, that’s what it’s called S-P-U-D. And she was the last person in the chain where, only if she gave the okay you could start spudding the well, Exxon could start spudding the well over there.

00:42:41.190 - 00:42:54.720

And then you had—she had to take care of things like, uh, whether there’s money for that, whether there’s approval from the regulatory agency, all the regu—all the regulatory agencies have given their go-ahead on that.

00:42:56.430 - 00:43:10.360

Uh, all the landowners, and all the agencies, you know, in that area would say—say for example I’m drilling on this property, and this belongs to me, you know, and my family, and I know Exxon wants to drill there. Obviously a big name company drilling in their property, they’re

00:43:10.360 - 00:43:22.210

going to get as much as they can, right? So what they’ll say is, ‘Okay, you’re going to mess up this road of mine, so you need to build a new road for me. I just have a, like a caliche type road, you know.’ So they’ll say, ‘Okay, I

00:43:22.210 - 00:43:39.850

want a nice concrete road, or paved road.’ And then say, ‘Okay, we don’t have a swimming pool in our facilities, so put a swimming pool in there.’ You know so—so those are all the things that, that— that, that the clients can make a request on.

00:43:40.140 - 00:43:52.210

Which is very unusual, you don’t realize these things, but you know that’s what they do. So, they will eventually, you know, get as much from Exxon as they can. They can’t get money, it’s a—they have—they can get the money from the sale that they make of the oil

00:43:52.210 - 00:44:04.170

and gas. But they can’t get additional money, so this is what they do, they’ll say, ‘Okay you make this for me, or you make that for me.’ So all those things have to go in their request, and Exxon has to approve that, and then she will do the final thing

00:44:04.250 - 00:44:18.440

that ‘Okay, now everything is in order, and you go ahead and get that crew.’ Because once you have a crew out there, for any type of construction activity, it’s uh, they make less than an engineer would, but imagine they are doing that.. 24 hours a day.

00:44:19.140 - 00:44:31.190

Okay, there’s drilling going on 24 hours a day, so you just have one person, and that person is on the clock 24 hours, and there’ll be like 200 people, 100 people over there working, so it’s a lot of

00:44:31.220 - 00:44:43.720

money. All those rigs cost a lot of money, so, uh, you have to make sure that everything is okay. In certain places, like in Wyoming or in California, you cannot drill because a

00:44:44.320 - 00:44:53.820

the winters are so severe. So you can drill only from like April through maybe, say, October. So you just have about a 6-month or a 7-month window.

00:44:54.710 - 00:45:03.690

And then after that, all drilling stops. You know, you can’t take your equipment up there in the mountains when it’s, you know, completely snow-bounded. They don’t, uh, clean the snow over there.

00:45:04.690 - 00:45:13.980

Or even in California, where you might have a spotted owl, or something, you know making—you know there’ll be one tree in that—in this—in this area over there that has a spotted owl or something.

00:45:15.630 - 00:45:28.740

You can’t—you can’t drill ‘til that spotted owl has all his babies done and they’re all flying away by that time. So—so now you have a certain, you know, restrictions that you have very limited drilling time in these areas.

00:45:29.320 - 00:45:45.520

You know, very, very small. And you need to make sure that whatever you have—all the permitting and all requirements are done. So, she was doing that. So, um, did you and your wife learn English in India?

00:45:45.820 - 00:45:56.840

Mhmm. Okay. Yeah, our schools were English schools. Okay, so basically you speak English… Yeah, right from the beginning. Okay. Um and what language was spoken in your family?

00:45:57.340 - 00:46:09.870

Uh, we spoke Gujarati, G—it’s a Indian language. G-U-J-A-R-A-T-I. Gujarati. Gujarati, okay. Did you speak Hindi at home at all?

00:46:10.000 - 00:46:19.710

We spoke Hindi, but not at home. Hindi—uh, I mean we knew Hindi because of all the interaction, so we could understand and speak and write and everything.

00:46:20.200 - 00:46:29.680

But uh, we—it’s not practiced at home. Do you still speak Gujarati? Yeah, yeah. Did you teach your children Gujarati? A little bit, not too much.

00:46:30.240 - 00:46:42.340

Uh... and, uh, the reason for that was, uh first we did teach them only Gujarati, and uh, and uh... It was real funny, in Gujarati, water is called pani.

00:46:43.570 - 00:46:57.440

And, uh, my boy, uh, at the daycare, uh, when—whenever my wife would bring him in the eve—I would leave him in the morning and she would, you know, go to work early so she could get off and bring him early, you know, in the evening. So, he would, uh,

00:46:58.160 - 00:47:08.750

come and drink tons of water, you know, as soon as he got home. And, my wife was wondering, ‘Why is this going on?’ You know, ‘Why is he just drinking so much water when he—as soon as he gets home?’ Didn’t

00:47:08.750 - 00:47:22.950

realize it, so she asked the babysitter what’s going on. And the babysitter said that, uh, she said that—my wife asked her that—’Do you give him water?’ She says, ‘Yeah.’ And then she said that, ‘He’ll ask me, ‘Give me

00:47:23.250 - 00:47:36.760

pani.’ And I don’t know what that means,’ you know. So, then we said okay, we better lean away from the Gujarati and try to, you know, get more English indoctrinated. But they understand Gujarati completely.

00:47:37.090 - 00:47:44.070

They don’t speak it that much. They speak little bit of it. But they understan—if you and I are talking in Gujarati, they’ll understand the conversation, you know.

00:47:45.060 - 00:47:54.370

But they won’t speak much in it. A—they’ll speak a little bit, but not that much, you know. They’ll understand most of the words in there. And Gujarati is a fairly simple language,

00:47:54.370 - 00:48:05.080

it’s not very complicated, you know, so—so they could get gist of it. And nowadays we use lot of English words also in it. So they can—they can get from the conversation as to, you know what you’re talking about. Um,

00:48:09.470 - 00:48:20.290

so you mentioned that there were times that you kind of got on-and-off for a while, because of the economic… Mhmm. …. issue in Houston. So when did you, um, settle down again?

00:48:21.150 - 00:48:36.640

Uh... Houston economy didn’t improve till about, uh, became bad from ‘82 onwards till about almost 5 years later, about ‘88 or so, is when, you know, the job situation began to improve and engineering companies

00:48:36.640 - 00:48:48.570

began hiring people back again. So it was about 5 years, but I would say, a—1 or 2 years were really bad out of those 5 years, ‘cause I would get on-and-off all the time.

00:48:49.730 - 00:49:07.910

So about ‘88 or so, we began to get into a sit—‘87 was really bad when my younger son was born. At that time we had to, you know, really scrounge around, and I had to do odd jobs like, you know, throwing the paper, or working the pizza

00:49:07.910 - 00:49:16.550

delivery at night, to get some more money, you know. So ‘87 was a really bad year. ’87, ‘88 were bad years. But a—right about then, when things

00:49:16.550 - 00:49:30.440

were really bad, it began to pick up, fortunately. So, about ’88, ‘89 is when the Houston economy began to pick up. So you originally got laid off in ‘82? ‘82, mhm. Okay, and it was about 5 years later until you got a stable—

00:49:30.650 - 00:49:43.380

Right, but it was on-and-off. Yeah. It wasn’t like off for like 5 years or something, you know. Yeah. You couldn’t survive at that time, or so I thought. So did you work, uh did you continue working for the same company?

00:49:44.320 - 00:49:59.960

Yeah, I did, I did work for Igloo, I mean for Bechtel for... till about ’86, ‘87 or so. And in ‘86 I was laid off again. And, uh, that’s when the other odd jobs came in, the

00:50:00.010 - 00:50:11.730

pizza, and the delivery and all. And then I had— about ‘88 I started with a company called Stubbs. S-T-U-B-B-S. Stubbs. They were in way 45 South.

00:50:13.530 - 00:50:26.940

And, uh, things began picking up from there onwards, you know. And then I went back to Bechtel, Bechtel called me back in. And I worked at Stubbs for about a year, year and a half, and then went back to Bechtel, and, I

00:50:26.940 - 00:50:40.740

was with them for total of 9 years or so, yeah. Then after that, I got... tried to do some business of my own in, uh, in a startup company. So I did that for about a

00:50:40.740 - 00:50:57.600

year, and then, I got a call with an engineering company called ABB Lamas, and they did offshore projects, you know like oil and gas, and drilling and all, offshore. So went with them and then I was with them for a few years,

00:50:57.600 - 00:51:11.590

five-six years, and, and then I got, uh... ABB, what they did was they had an offshore division that closed down in end of ‘74. Sorry, end of 2004. And, uh...

00:51:12.920 - 00:51:28.310

they had like, uh, by that time now the government had new restrict— new, uh regulations on—on companies that close down, you know. You had to give money for a certain number of years, and—I mean not years, certain number of months, you know.

00:51:28.430 - 00:51:38.630

First they could just lay you off right away. That’s what Bechtel did, you know. But here these companies now had to pay you for like 6 months or something like that, you know some—some new laws.

00:51:39.420 - 00:51:55.190

So they kept us for that long, and they said, ‘Okay till the end of the year in 2004, we will, you know, keep on, uh keep you on the payroll.’ And then, in the meantime they also give you, send you to classes for how

00:51:55.440 - 00:52:10.090

to interview a per—you know in a company. And they would get you references and things like that. But at that time, the engineering field in Houston began to get so good that you could get a job, almost, if you could breathe, you could get a job, you know, it

00:52:10.090 - 00:52:27.260

was like that. So you… I got a job with Exxon, my wife’s company, but not through her, just on my own. But I was in downtown and she was in the north part, so, uh, so I was in Exxon for 5 years, and I was in the oil and gas, and

00:52:27.260 - 00:52:44.360

the subsea equipment type thing, subsea environment. And subsea environment is very different from onshore, obviously, you know, you cannot see where they are, but you’re drilling, you know, you might… Your drilling hole might be 3,000 feet below, you know, surface of the sea,

00:52:45.030 - 00:52:59.460

and then you gotta go another 5-6,000 feet below that, so you all go in about a mile, a mile and a half deep into the subsea environment. And that’s very challenging. The equipment has to be obviously a very, very first class order.

00:52:59.460 - 00:53:12.580

It has to be super first class. You know, because you can’t expect, you know, something down below to fail when you are drilling so deep. So it was a cutting-edge of technology, you know, your pressure and all will going up, cause you’re so deep into

00:53:12.640 - 00:53:26.710

the sea. Uh, everything has to be, you know, all the painting, all the wiring, all… Everything has to be extremely high-tech, and extremely high quality, you know, you couldn’t… So we have to test all those items before,

00:53:27.310 - 00:53:41.420

before you use them into a subsea part, and then we have some projects in Africa and all, you know… So I went there, made a couple of trips over there. And then when we installed the—I had 2, 2 projects—so when we

00:53:41.420 - 00:53:56.990

installed that—we used the Skandi Neptune, it was a vessel that would do deep-sea drilling and deep sea—not drilling, but deep-sea installations. And the Skandi Neptune has what they call as a ROV, which is a remote

00:53:56.990 - 00:54:09.910

operator vehicle, and the remote operator vehicle we bought that goes down, and you know, take pictures and makes you, you know, do all the installations , and you can see what you’re doing. So what we did was… We

00:54:09.950 - 00:54:26.370

started my project using the ROV and Skandi Neptune, and the Skandi Neptune a year later began, uh, to get very—a lot of press coverage because, uh, remember we had that BP oil well spill, you know.

00:54:26.370 - 00:54:41.730

Mhmm. The, uh, the one that, uh, the platform blew out, the BP platform in the Gulf, so that spilled billions of ton—gallons of, you know, uh, oil all over the place. And that well was, uh, a deep-sea well, and it was not

00:54:41.790 - 00:54:53.860

capped for almost two and a half—three months. So it was spilling oil continuously. Everybody high rate . So what happened was, uh, the Skandi Neptune was uh, using its

00:54:53.860 - 00:55:06.060

ROVs—they had, they had two ROVs on there— using it up. Its ROVs would have a fixture on that well and take a picture of that well spilling oil. And they would show that in the congress, you know.

00:55:06.340 - 00:55:14.910

You know, in our U.S. Congress in Washington. So Skandi Neptune began getting a lot of popularity because that’ve been… I was in that vessel for several weeks, you know, so I

00:55:14.910 - 00:55:29.490

know everything about the ship. And uh, eventually they kept that well, but after it had leaked several thousands, several millions of gallons of oil, you know, into the sea. Uhm. So, uh, and then,

00:55:31.310 - 00:55:49.150

uh, after that, I got into uh this company that does like uh offshore drilling, and offshore design. And what they do is, uh, we make uh platforms for them, you know oil platforms, dr—you know, drilling

00:55:49.150 - 00:56:02.050

rigs in platforms. So, I got into that. And I’ve been working on that since What company is that? It’s uh, Mustang. Uh…the company itself that I

00:56:02.050 - 00:56:15.960

joined was Allianz Engineering, and they got bought by another group. And Mustang and Allianz merge into one group. Okay. So you’ve been in Houston since—

00:56:16.230 - 00:56:26.140

’75. ’75. H—What neighborhoods in Houston have you lived in? I always live in the north, the northwest. So we lived in the North, near , I don’t know

00:56:26.690 - 00:56:38.450

how familiar you all are with Houston, but it’s north, near 290. I always lived in that area, and then we moved into this neighborhood, which is kinda the west part, which is always on the north side, you know. We always

00:56:38.450 - 00:56:49.110

lived in the northwestern part of Houston. How many different homes have you had, here? One, two, three. Two apartments and three homes.

00:56:49.110 - 00:57:01.730

Okay. Hmm, we’ve been here for, like 21 years. In this home. Okay. And how have you seen this area change since you’ve been here?

00:57:01.730 - 00:57:16.820

A lot. A lot. You see, Claremont, and that you probably crossed when you came here. Mhm. Uh, those were just one lane roads, you know, in many years ago. You could see jack rabbits, and things

00:57:16.820 - 00:57:27.390

like that going at night, you know. And when we came here too, you know, you still have rabbits moving around. You still see once in a while you see some rabbits. We have a lot of… There’s a park on Eldridge.

00:57:28.480 - 00:57:41.910

Lots of deer over there. And uh, recently with the floods in like May, uh, a lot of the deer would disappear, but the park was flooded, so they couldn’t, so they have to come more towards the road.

00:57:42.760 - 00:57:56.840

So all the deer, uh, near the road and all, you know. So lots of wildlife were all in this area earlier Only uh, Hugly , two subdivisions over here, now of course, they got so many, you know, a lot of businesses come up, a lot of industry, and a

00:57:56.840 - 00:58:14.740

lot of. None of them were there, you know, twenty years ago or so. . So, this place has grown quite a lot. Houston has grown tremendously, you know. How have you seen the demographic change?

00:58:16.390 - 00:58:34.830

Uh, demographic change has been, uh, like, uh… A lot of influx of uh, of uh, Mexican culture. Mhm. It was there earlier, too. But not that much. Now you see a lot of uh, Latin and Mexican.

00:58:35.180 - 00:58:51.030

Not just Mexican, but I would say, Latin. People from Latin countries, uh, all the workers, and all… You know the construction workers and all… A lot are Latin. Uh, big influx of, uh,

00:58:52.160 - 00:59:03.890

other Indians also. Other Asian communities, you know, Chinese and Japanese, and… And, uh, with software engineering becoming so popular in Houston, a lot of, uh,

00:59:04.860 - 00:59:22.330

software workers are Asian, either Indians or Chinese, or Korean. So a lot of these other countries, workers from other countries, have been inculcated into our, into our companies, and our, and our settling areas. Uh,

00:59:26.230 - 00:59:37.900

it wasn’t that mix earlier, you know, when I first joined Bechtel, or when I first joined Igloo. Didn’t have that many mix of other communities. But now there are… Becoming more international.

00:59:38.570 - 00:59:53.960

So Houston has become a very very major international community, you know. International city, uh, the subdivisions right around us that cater to people from Venezuela, people from, you know, certain other Latin countries.

00:59:54.690 - 01:00:07.340

A lot of Chinese in this area, too. You know, a lot of software engineers and all, who are very, uh, who have come here maybe like first generation, or second generation people.

01:00:08.400 - 01:00:19.910

So a lot of changes as far as demographics is concerned, you know, in a, on a international basis. So that’s... So what is your current social circle like?

01:00:21.920 - 01:00:38.050

Current social circle is, uh, mostly Zoroastrians. Uh, of course, we have a lot of, uh, activities with some of our people at work, also. So they would be Americans, and a mixture

01:00:38.090 - 01:00:52.030

of Americans and all, but mostly Zoroastrian. And a lot of Indian communities also. We have a lot of Gujaratis and lot of Christians. We have different groups of all these people.

01:00:52.300 - 01:01:06.670

We have the Zoroastrians, and we have the Gujarati, and we have the Christian. So kind of, mixtures of all three, you know, so… You said that, when you came to Houston, you already knew people here? I knew people through my friends, who already here.

01:01:07.260 - 01:01:19.390

Okay. And then, of course, we’d like to have more contacts, and things like that. Uh Hou—the Zoroastrian community in Houston was very small when we—when I came here. Just had maybe 10-15 families.

01:01:19.390 - 01:01:33.970

You know, not too many. And all that functions, and all… We used to have clubhouses. We used to rent clubhouses, and have a function over there. Then as we began growing in Houston, we began to get more, uh, uh we needed a

01:01:34.050 - 01:01:50.150

place. So we would having Sunday schools in one of our friends’ place you know, she would keep her home open for all of us to go there. We send our kids to Sunday school and all. And uh, then we began outgrowing that

01:01:50.150 - 01:02:01.600

location also. So we said, ‘okay we need to have a place over here,’ which is the Zoroastrian center. I don’t know whether or not you have been there. Mhmm. You have, right? So that Zoroastrian center is uh, we developed…uh,

01:02:02.510 - 01:02:20.310

about 15-20 participants got together, and we paid some seed money into it. And uh we made that—we bought that cen—we bought that location. And then we go there, church and, and uh, and uh hall and

01:02:20.310 - 01:02:30.870

everything out there. So what you see is—all there right now is what we have contributed to. And we were very active in that. My wife, especially.

01:02:31.060 - 01:02:48.210

And uh, we’ve just built that center, you know, since inception. So what it is right now is, a lot because of what we started off. Has Zoroastrianism been important in raising your children?

01:02:48.900 - 01:03:03.650

Yes. Uh, they… Yeah definitely, you know. We did bring them up with Zoroastrian principles and things like that. And we’ve always inculcated, you know. Zoroastrianism is simple and, and, and in its teaching that…

01:03:03.770 - 01:03:13.180

Good thoughts, good words, good deeds, you know. Help brothers when you’re in trouble and all that—when they’re in trouble. We’ve always had, like uh,

01:03:15.790 - 01:03:30.930

Zoroastrian principles for them to raise. And, and, and we— Zoroastrianism is very strong and make you think on your own. You know, you say, ‘okay, think on your own and you’re responsible for your actions.’ So it was something that

01:03:31.360 - 01:03:44.190

my kids have been brought up with, you know. Uh, all throughout the, to think independently, and to think that your actions are going to have consequences, and it’d better be good consequences other than bad.

01:03:45.970 - 01:04:01.440

And hopefully they’ll keep them, keep those throughout their lives to…So. How old are your kids right now? Uh, my older one is 31, and my younger one is 26. And what do they do? The older one has a computer business in

01:04:01.440 - 01:04:17.230

Austin. And the younger one, he works in my company, he’s an engineer, too. Mechanical engineer. So he works with…in my company—not with me, but in my company. Mhmm. Have you ever taken them back to India?

01:04:17.380 - 01:04:30.720

Oh yeah. Lots of times, and uh. They enjoy it. Uh actually, as a matter of fact, last year when we had been there, my younger one would want, with a buddy of his , he

01:04:30.720 - 01:04:43.790

went and toured India in the South and the North. He did independent of us, you know, just went on his own. So yeah they, they’ve got a feel of India, they like lots of things over there.

01:04:44.710 - 01:04:56.870

And their cousins and all are all grown up, you know, similar age, so they drank with them, they take them all to clubs and all. . When they’re there, so.

01:04:57.200 - 01:05:08.180

And uh, they’ll go hiking, or they’ll go camping over night, you know, so. So they have a good sense of, uh… They don’t speak that language very well,

01:05:08.490 - 01:05:26.400

you know, but, but so they can, they can get around. So… So have you seen India changing? India has changed a whole lot since when I came here. Uh lots of uh… We were not travelling that much,

01:05:27.240 - 01:05:41.040

when we were little. You know, we just went to our grandparents’ place or some place. We never stayed in hotels, or anything like that, couldn’t afford that. Uh now demographics in India have changed.

01:05:41.040 - 01:05:55.060

Where the middle class has become very, dominant, you know. Of course there are still the poor people, and still the uh, still the rich people. But the middle class was this much when we left, and now they’ve become this much . So you know, a lot of affluence in the middle class.

01:05:56.830 - 01:06:11.280

Jobs and all have changed a lot. We were like uh, salaries were not very high at that time, but now salaries are very high, and people make good money over there,

01:06:11.390 - 01:06:25.880

and they spend the money… All our nieces and nephews, they all like high-fashion people, you know. They’ll be wearing jeans and all from here, or clothes from here ,which we don’t use.

01:06:26.420 - 01:06:40.640

You know, but we know the names, you know. So when we were going there, they asked us for some clothes, or things like that, which are high and tight. And uh, India has changed a whole lot in that

01:06:40.690 - 01:06:52.580

respect, you know. And people travel a lot more, you know. They travel a lot; they travel very frequently over there. In my time, it was very uncommon, you know, to travel by air. So.

01:06:54.050 - 01:07:08.500

Actually, as a matter of fact, the first time I set foot in a plane was when I came to the U. S. So that was 20, 23 years, you know. Mhmm. Now people, you know, how many times have you travelled in a, in an airplane, you know.

01:07:08.830 - 01:07:22.960

It’s really common. Have any of your other family members come to the U.S.? Yeah. My uh nephew, my brother’s son, he came to Carnegie

01:07:23.410 - 01:07:36.750

Mellon. Okay. Uh. My wife’s brother has come here. And my brother and sister-in-law came just two months ago, on a— visited the U.S..

01:07:37.260 - 01:07:54.790

They are visiting their son and—who went to Carnegie Mellon, and now he’s in California. So they met him, and uh…they came here for just a few days, four or five days. So we took them around… Houston, Galveston, Austin.

01:07:56.870 - 01:08:12.670

Since my older son is in Austin, we took them over there. And uh show them around the place, you know. Have you ever experienced any discrimination in the U.S.?

01:08:14.750 - 01:08:33.400

I have not as such, uh, when we’ve… In engineering companies, uh, a lot of the people go out of the country, to work, so we don’t… They culture in those engineering companies are different than some other

01:08:33.400 - 01:08:52.800

companies, you know, but uh… No I don’t experience any discrimination as such, you know. So uh, why did you uh choose to live in this particular area? Why did you move here?

01:08:53.000 - 01:09:09.270

Uh, we wanted to be in the north, the south, at that time, Sugar Land and all that stuff, they were not big name areas at that time. Uh, this area had very good schools and it’s important for us to

01:09:09.320 - 01:09:22.590

have good school for the kids. And uh, the busing system over here was uh, like, even if you’re half a mile from school, they’ll still come and pick you up, which is unusual in other districts.

01:09:23.220 - 01:09:36.240

They will have to have a mile, a mile and a half, or something like that. So that was very important to us, since our kids, you know we both were working, and you know it was important that the kids got picked up and dropped off, safely.

01:09:38.020 - 01:09:54.830

So good schools, and the busing was—and this area was the Cypress district, so we wanted to be in the Cypress district, Cypress-Fairbanks. So you have moved several times, right?

01:09:55.190 - 01:10:06.190

We just moved three times. Three times, yeah. Just to make sure. Mhmm. So what do you do in your free time, now? Oh my! .

01:10:06.760 - 01:10:23.060

Right now, I have a hobby of flying, so I fly on weekends, or on Fridays. Oh we have like three and—four and a half day timings, you know, we, uh, at work, we work only four and a half days, and so

01:10:23.060 - 01:10:38.470

Friday afternoon, I’ll go maybe flying or something. Go around Houston, Galveston, or something. Take some friends around. And uh, weekends, mostly it will be like, uh, social activities, you know.

01:10:38.820 - 01:10:51.350

Going to, visiting some friends’ places, or something like that. We usually do a lot of uh, bowling, go to the Top Golf golf place, you

01:10:51.390 - 01:11:05.080

know, Top Golf, where you just go and shoots some balls, you know, golf balls. So we go there. Go to some movies. Weekends are very busy… Weekends, I need a weekday to recover from a weekend!

01:11:08.660 - 01:11:23.150

So you mentioned that, when you first came to Houston, you were too busy to have any social life? Mhmm. So how did you start forming a social circle? Forming a social circle was easy since my friends were already here. And we could join in their friend

01:11:23.150 - 01:11:37.430

circle. And then the Zoroastrian friend circle was, uh, very small at that time. So as new people came in, we kinda helped them out, you know, not… Not in any

01:11:37.680 - 01:11:53.860

other way, but not monetary or anything, but, uh, to make them get into our friend circle, and make sure they know the right places to live, or things like that, and their kids and all, got with our kids so… We had a lot of families,

01:11:55.130 - 01:12:06.210

when they came here first, you know. In the early ‘80s. And all to, to get into the community, more or less. You know. So I guess

01:12:06.240 - 01:12:15.580

let’s go back a little. Um so did you decide to stay in the U.S. permanently after you got your degree? Yeah. Yeah. So, okay.

01:12:17.110 - 01:12:32.780

And why was that? Why was that? We liked the environment, we liked the freedom. We liked the chance that, your owning power—will be a lot more over here than in India.

01:12:34.780 - 01:12:53.160

And it was. Uh…and just, maybe a better life for the kids, you know, compared to, the ones that they would’ve had in India. More economic reasons than anything else.

01:12:53.440 - 01:13:08.820

And we also had like, the freedom of religion and all this, is a lot more over here, you know. So we could practice Zoroastrianism in a more reformist way than you could do it in India. India there, everybody regimented so

01:13:11.110 - 01:13:24.220

you could do that more freely over here, than we could do it in India. Can you elaborate on that? What kind of things are different practicing in the U.S.? Practicing in the U.S. like, uh, uh we have a Sunday

01:13:24.220 - 01:13:34.560

school. So we didn’t have formal training in Zoroastrianism over there. You know we didn’t have a school to go to, or a class to go to. So I learned a lot more

01:13:34.560 - 01:13:49.560

about my religion when we came over here, and we started discussing among us and set out what to do, what not to do, what our religion says, what it doesn’t say, you know. All those kind of practices, all those kind of discussions were gonna take place, and form, you know, at that time when you’re over here.

01:13:50.510 - 01:14:05.710

So uh, religious freedom also means that uh…we can discuss freely about our issues, whereas in India, you’re kind of limited on

01:14:05.790 - 01:14:25.410

that. So, that’s one of the things that really got us, uh, the kids can talk with other kids whereas I couldn’t talk that freely with my parents on issues of Zoroastrianism, you know, either do this or do that. So, it was

01:14:25.410 - 01:14:44.290

more religious freedom as far as uh, practices and concerns, you know, like uh, we have a very strong group over here, in, in, in Houston, and they do a lot of social activities like going to some uh, homeless shelters, the kids

01:14:44.600 - 01:14:56.910

will go over there. I’ll go to old homes, old age homes, and help out over there, so. We do a lot of, our kids do a lot of those types of activities, and we also, you know.

01:14:58.280 - 01:15:13.470

So we have involved in those places, volunteered for those types of places. You know, to make more—life more meaningful, maybe . The limitations in India,

01:15:13.470 - 01:15:26.300

were they because of government laws, or because of the community itself? Because of the community itself. Yeah. More uh, we do the same things that we do over there.

01:15:27.100 - 01:15:41.290

It’s just that they are more open and you know, more progressive than the ones over there. And over there completely, but uh… I think yeah. Yeah, yeah.

01:15:42.190 - 01:15:54.570

So when you got to Houston, you said there were about 20 Zoroastrian families? Yeah, we had very few, we had only 15-20 Zoroastrian families at that time. Now we probably have more than, I would say, about 150 or so?

01:15:55.680 - 01:16:13.400

So when you come into a huge city, how did you find the 20 Zoroastrian families? Uh. I guess it’s just through networking or something you know. Okay. Uh, Some of them, one of them I just ran into when I went to get my car, so there was this Zoroastrian guy working over there, you know.

01:16:14.970 - 01:16:29.530

So then when I began talking to him, okay, he had another friend over. He’s one of his niece, nephews worked for somewhere else, an engineering company. So I got to know them. Then you know. Some time earlier we just ran into some others, who had

01:16:29.530 - 01:16:44.410

just come in, were engineers earlier. That’s how we became friends, and got them involved in the community. How long after you came to Houston did it take for you to start establishing those connections? Not too long, you know.

01:16:44.590 - 01:16:55.590

Because we already knew some, few people over here. Okay. And was kind of easy. But somebody coming new, that’s, uh, that’s one of the things we did. When they came in new, we introduce them to friends’ circle and all that.

01:16:55.590 - 01:17:10.200

We still do that even now. We have 2-3 people coming from out of, out of the country. So we’ve made sure that they meet people who have kids of the same age. Their kids are small, so introduce them to the same area—you know.

01:17:11.000 - 01:17:22.030

Same age kids. And then they live in certain communities like Woodlands, or so. So we made sure that we, we introduce them to two families who live in the Woodlands or close by.

01:17:22.030 - 01:17:34.930

Okay. So. So are your kids married? No. None of them are. No. Do you have a preference for like, for them to marry in Zoroastrian community?

01:17:34.930 - 01:17:48.310

Yes we like for them to marry Zoroastrians, but I don’t know. Whether that’s going to happen, or not happen. So. We’re open to them marrying out of the country, I mean, out of the religion, if they

01:17:48.310 - 01:18:00.710

have to, okay. But we’d prefer that, they marry Zoroastrians. That would be the preference. It’s so much easier to have the same culture, than to,

01:18:03.280 - 01:18:14.030

than to not have the same culture. You know, I mean, marriage is quite strenuous even without all these… —additional things, so.. Uh it’s, it’s just a cultural preference.

01:18:14.030 - 01:18:26.780

And it’s easier, you know, for the spouses and the… To get along… To raise the kids. You know, all that is much easier if you’re in the same community.

01:18:27.150 - 01:18:45.100

But other than that, we’re open to… so I don’t know, where my kids are going to marry, but… Keeping our fingers crossed that they do marry a Zoroastrian. So. Is there much of a Zoroastrian community in Austin, where your

01:18:45.100 - 01:19:01.890

son lives? There, there is a smaller community over there, you know. But they have, they have like, very few families. Austin has a lot of kids uh going to study over there. But uh, Austin as a community has just a few, few families,

01:19:01.920 - 01:19:22.970

maybe 10 or 15 or 20 or so, you know, they’re not that big. So out of all the jobs that you have done. Do you have a favorite? All the jobs… I tend to like the one that I’m in now.

01:19:22.970 - 01:19:36.720

We’re doing offshore work, you know, building platforms, and things like that. Uh when you’re building a platform, you have a lot of, uh, things that you’re doing on a very high technical level.

01:19:38.530 - 01:19:55.150

Uh, all the equipment has to, as I mentioned earlier, works in very high pressures, very high temperatures. So you’re constantly on the, on the lookout for companies that can do that type of work. You know you have to work with uh,

01:19:57.160 - 01:20:14.290

companies that, that have a very strong uh testing program, or very strong design program, or very strong quality insurance program. So we work with companies that need

01:20:14.290 - 01:20:27.550

to do all these things very well, you know. And when you, when you tak—when you put something offshore, you always test it over here, you know, onshore, so that by the time it goes offshore, you don’t have a problem, because once you go offshore, you have

01:20:27.550 - 01:20:45.410

a problem, you can imagine, you’re calling from the middle of the gulf, 200 miles away, 300 miles away, something I have been working 2-3 miles deep in the ocean, so to change that part becomes very difficult. You know, it becomes very costly, very, in any breakdowns, uh, magnifies so many

01:20:45.410 - 01:20:58.800

times. You have to have that part right away. So those types of issues come up every now and then, so working in that offshore industry is what I really like. You know, it’s very intense, it’s very, high-tech, it’s very, uh,

01:21:00.800 - 01:21:12.120

you know. Pressures, like, when I started in the offshore industry it’s—we’ll have pressures working to— say 10,000 pounds pressure, psi. Right now we’re working in 15,000.

01:21:12.120 - 01:21:25.910

Now we’re going even more, you know, we’re going deeper, so we have to have 20,000 pounds pressures. And at those pressures, any little mistake… At 10,000 pounds, the… If water strikes your fingers, it will just cut your finger right away, at

01:21:25.930 - 01:21:39.980

10,000 pounds. So imagine at 15 and 20, you have to be very very careful that, all the equipment that you use is, extremely high-tech, it’s tested, it’s gone through the designed pressure in the lab, and everything, and it

01:21:40.060 - 01:21:55.650

works. So technology is pushing the drilling further and further, deeper and deeper to get more oil. You’re not finding oil at sea level, or anything like that anymore. So the challenge right now is

01:21:55.850 - 01:22:10.310

to, be in a place where you can uh, your testing and all these programs… Your quality assurance programs are very very high quality. And uh, with uh—when there’s being so pressed,

01:22:11.120 - 01:22:23.270

the booming—The booming in oil and gas industry is making that field very narrow, you know like you have to have a companies, that uh, vendors that do very selective work for you.

01:22:24.510 - 01:22:40.600

And very, very high quality work for you. So it’s, it’s challenge to find those types of people, and that’s what I like, you know. To, to work for the vendors, and uh, one of the things that I like right now is that, with my experience, uh I like

01:22:40.670 - 01:22:54.880

training young people, you know, in the industry. So we have… I’m supervising the group of about 15-16 engineers, you know. And some of them are about, a third of them or more are, young engineers, you know.

01:22:54.880 - 01:23:07.850

Really, one or two years of experience in the, in the, in the industry after they have come out from college. So I like working with them, you know, trying to see if I can inculcate into them a sense of uh,

01:23:08.210 - 01:23:24.680

how I work and, how to be more focused on what they are looking for, how to make sure that everybody is… The testing on, on these equipment and all requires a lot of back and forth between company. Between us and the,

01:23:24.950 - 01:23:39.900

and the vendor. So uh, you have to make sure that they keep the product on time, which is always a challenge, you know, we are late on so many of our products. And then the companies that use our products, like say Exxon,

01:23:39.900 - 01:23:55.090

or Anadarko, or Chevron, or Shell. They’re building something, they’re building a platform and that platform cannot be late. You know, you have to have. You book certain big lifting cranes, years in

01:23:55.190 - 01:24:06.870

advance. You book them three years in advance. Or four years in advance. So you cannot be late on that window. When that crane’s gonna be there, four years later, you better make sure that your

01:24:06.870 - 01:24:19.610

product, you platform is ready for it, for it to be installed in the sea, or in the gulf, you know. And uh, that’s the challenge that you have to be on time, you know, during this practice, you cannot be late.

01:24:20.630 - 01:24:38.810

So it’s a constant battle trying to find vendors who are late. And I’m talking things which are little bit different from your backgrounds. But uh, it’s like saying that I want a car ready in say, three years

01:24:38.810 - 01:24:49.400

from now. I want that car delivered to my doorstep three years from now. You know, you have to make it ready, you have to have the right paint, you have to have the right tires, you have to have the right motor, you have to have the right engine.

01:24:50.600 - 01:25:05.070

So those are the things that we run into constantly, you know, and it’s good to train the younger ones so that they can do all these things, you know, they got project management training, mechanical training, to see that how things change, you

01:25:05.870 - 01:25:18.320

know. A vendor can say: ‘Okay, I need, I need this of blue color.’ And painting for example, you know. Just simple painting is such a big thing when you go offshore. Because you… What do you know about painting?

01:25:18.780 - 01:25:28.120

How o— okay, it’s this type of color, or this type. Some painters comes and paints them, and it’s done. This is not exposed to the environment. This is not exposed to pressure.

01:25:28.300 - 01:25:40.270

This is not exposed to temperature. It’s, it’s a protective environment right? When you go offshore, you’re, you’re in the open… You’re subjected to, you know, uh environmental abuse.

01:25:40.970 - 01:25:53.660

Uh you have rain, heat, cold, humidity. All those things take place. So the coating that you have, that you use out there, the painting of the vessel and all, is very high-tech, you know.

01:25:54.370 - 01:26:08.270

They have to blast it in a certain way; they have to prepare it in a certain way; they have to have 3-4 coats of painting done to it, before it going offshore. So a lot of these companies, they just put one paint, like a, you know, simple paint. You

01:26:08.270 - 01:26:20.490

cannot accept that, you know, that has to be high-quality painting so that it last you 20-25 years, you know, otherwise it will get bad. Now stainless steel, for example. I’m getting a little too technical, but what I’m trying

01:26:20.520 - 01:26:33.210

to say is— —Is that, is that, stainless steel for example, you know that, stainless steel is a very good, uh corrosion chemical. You can use it, and it won’t get, bad. But these days, in the offshore industry, they found stainless steel

01:26:33.210 - 01:26:40.360

also becomes corroded. So now we have painted stainless steel too. First we were not painting it. Stainless steel was just used in its bare form.

01:26:41.750 - 01:26:51.990

And now we have to have stainless steel painted. And the vendors are saying, ‘why?’ So now the industries, these engineering companies are driving these industries to change. To change for the better, you know.

01:26:52.970 - 01:27:05.760

So a lot of innovation, like I said, first we were drilling in 10,000 feet of water, and now we had, all pressures, you know. Now we’re having, 15 and the 20 is coming up. So the industry is moving more and

01:27:05.760 - 01:27:19.550

more to a very strict level, which uh, a lot of the oil… mom and pop people around don’t see that. You know, think about it, when, when you know, when you are drilling one gallon of oil say for example,

01:27:19.580 - 01:27:31.910

compared to one gallon of milk. What are the things that you go through? Okay? And the milk. You get a cow, you milk it, you get the milk, you pasteurize it, you

01:27:33.210 - 01:27:42.700

bring it at the right temperature, and you bottle it and bring it to your, to your supermarket. Okay? You’re done. Not so with oil. You have to first find it.

01:27:43.200 - 01:27:51.380

It’s not as easy as you going and finding a cow. You know, you got to see where the oil is. Then you got to see how much oil you get for how many years.

01:27:51.380 - 01:28:04.710

So before you put a facility over there, that oil has to—that facility has to be giving you oil for like, 10-15 years. Otherwise it is not worth putting so much in it, you know. So then you go and see…

01:28:05.090 - 01:28:15.410

And, and drilling an oil is not like a well. When you say ‘an oil well,’ it’s not like a well. Like a traditional well if you think of. It’s still mixed with oil, it’s still mixed with gas, it’s still mixed,

01:28:15.410 - 01:28:27.790

uh it’s still mixed with sand. So you extract that oil from those wells. It’s not just as simple as making a hole there, and getting it. So you got— then once you get the oil out, you got to separate it.

01:28:27.790 - 01:28:40.670

You got to separate the gas, you got to separate the dirt, you got to separate all the mud that you have in there. And then you have to refine it for the, for premium quality, unleaded, or extra-premium, or diesel or whatever it is.

01:28:41.420 - 01:28:55.630

So it’s a very involved process, you know. People just think that you know, you just get oil and uh, and, and, and go to sea. When you go to sea… This is a, this is a funny thing. In spite of all these technologies that you put into it, a

01:28:55.630 - 01:29:03.090

gallon of milk is about 4 dollars. Four and a half, five dollars. A gallon of oil is, three something. So you figure that out, you know.

01:29:04.160 - 01:29:14.410

Why is oil cheaper than milk? When all you got to do is just go find a cow, get some grass, and, and, and get the oil—get the milk out of it. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s what the

01:29:14.410 - 01:29:24.240

industry is, you know. I mean, it’s, it’s driven by very high-tech—engineering is driven by high-tech management. It’s driven by high-tech construction.

01:29:24.760 - 01:29:39.040

And yet, the oil that you get, people about the price of oil. When you go to see what really goes into it, it’s just amazing, it’s mind-blowing. You know last time I saw a friend of mine has coming from my, from my uh boarding school.

01:29:40.000 - 01:29:49.450

And uh, I was explaining to them this analogy between oil and milk. And they were totally blown apart. You know, we went through Kemah which is

01:29:49.450 - 01:30:03.030

you know, has a lot of refineries and all, if you’ve been there. Or eastern side of Galveston, a lot of refineries and all over there. And there were amazed as to whatever you need to do to get to this gallon of oil. Nobody, you

01:30:03.030 - 01:30:16.390

know, the layman doesn’t understand that. You know. So, the oil industry has gone through a major, uh, upheaval, you know, a major, uh upgrading itself, to make sure it’s safe.

01:30:17.170 - 01:30:29.020

Can you imagine some, you know, there’s a fire in Exxon chemical plant. How much damage it can do, you know, how much disruption of lives it can cause. Or how much publicity can get into that.

01:30:30.070 - 01:30:43.800

So you have to make sure that all these places run safely, people don’t die in it, people don’t die because of it, or people don’t die when they’re working in it. You know, one fire can take several hundred lives. So you have to prevent that,

01:30:43.800 - 01:30:58.330

you have to make sure that your systems are supplied in such a way that, any increase in pressure is relieved immediately, you know. You don’t, you don’t make that pressure build up to a level that the pressure which can cause explosion. So there’s a lot of things involved in this

01:30:58.330 - 01:31:12.600

industry which goes unnoticed by the layman. Or lay persons, and uh, they don’t realize what our goal is into making safe oil, safe, you know. Next time you go to see a ga—fill up your gas tank, make sure that you understand what

01:31:12.600 - 01:31:26.690

I’m saying, you know, it takes a lot of effort to, to get that gallon of oil up to the level in which it’s filled up in a car in a safe way, you know. Even, you know, several years ago, it used to have lots of accidents even just filing the gas, you know, in your

01:31:26.730 - 01:31:38.940

car. And now there are so many technologies that, that prevent that from happening. So a lot has gone into that industry, which a lot of people don’t understand what it is, but it’s there, and it's working in the background.

01:31:39.690 - 01:31:54.280

And safety is a major concern in oil industry. You cannot just let anything happen, to… So when you go with engineering principles, you see those principles—they came to such a level, that they have to be made safe, you

01:31:54.280 - 01:32:05.980

know. The paint has to be current one so it lasts long. The pressure has to be the ones that cannot blow up. All the equipment that you use out there has to meet all those pressures. And uh, not everybody can make those types

01:32:05.980 - 01:32:21.930

of products. Very specialized industries goes into making it. Our pumps come from Germany, our, our uh hoses come from the UK, you know, very high-tech hoses that they can meet those high pressures. So a lot of

01:32:22.000 - 01:32:36.030

companies around the whole world are contributing to the safety of this industry. And we don’t realize that until you actually work in it. I know this is different from Zoroastrianism, but… . But it’s, it’s the

01:32:36.030 - 01:32:49.040

satisfaction that you’re doing things, certain things and doing them right. Okay. Yeah. So now that you’re so passionate about your current job, uh what is your future plan?

01:32:51.970 - 01:33:01.170

Uh, I’m old enough to retire right now. And uh, call it quits. But I enjoy doing what I’m doing, and how about—like you were saying, I do have a passion for it.

01:33:01.940 - 01:33:13.720

So I love teaching young kids, uh, get them inculcated to how to handle things. Uh, I love teaching the young ones. That’s one thing that, that’s keeping me

01:33:13.770 - 01:33:28.110

going. Uh, it’s very satisfying that they can learn from my experience. And they can learn from the experience, not only in managing things, you know, but in doing things like the right way in the sense that, in the timely manner.

01:33:29.130 - 01:33:41.570

Doing things in the timely manner is one of the things that it takes a lot of uh, discipline to learn that, you know. Uh, you think that—okay, so for example I ‘m having this product being built over here, and this

01:33:41.570 - 01:33:56.490

product is going to be delivered late by a month. Say, for example. Like I said, that crane is waiting for me on one particular day, you know. If I lose that window, to install that my, my platform by that

01:33:56.570 - 01:34:08.500

crane, I can’t get that crane for another year. Okay? So that platform has to be ready to the day that has that crane. Otherwise, I’ve lost

01:34:08.520 - 01:34:19.710

that moment. I’ve lost that opportunity. So getting young people to have that sense of uh, urgency, that sense of discipline—that you cannot slip on your delivery.

01:34:21.720 - 01:34:35.350

You cannot slip on your quality. You cannot slip on, on all the products that need to go in there, the way they are tested. So all those things is something that I really enjoy doing.

01:34:35.520 - 01:34:49.820

You know. And ‘til it is fun, then I’ll keep working until I’m not able to, you know. And if not, I would say, ‘Okay, I’ll hang up my tennis shoes, you know. . But ‘til that time, you know, as long as I’m healthy, and

01:34:49.820 - 01:35:04.100

can teach people how to do things, can uh, yeah because when you come out from college, you know, you have a certain set of rules that, that, a certain set of things that they teach you. They won’t teach you schedule, for example, they won’t teach

01:35:05.100 - 01:35:15.360

you—well in a way they’ll teach you schedule to some extent, but it’s not as much as you would when you were at the industry, you know. So we go out a lot in the fields.

01:35:15.400 - 01:35:30.570

All the young ones I encourage them to go out in the field, to be at the worksite, where they are making these facilities over there, constructing these facilities so they can see what all it takes to get over there, you know. Uh like I said, all these facilities have to be tested

01:35:30.570 - 01:35:46.900

before we put them on—and before the platform sails to the, to the gulf, you know. So all those things are—they are tested at the facility that we make them. They are tested before—after they are put on, on the platform, and they are tested

01:35:46.940 - 01:36:01.150

before they start commissioning it. So you have three sets of testings to do. And these kids need to understand that, you know, how to do the testing, how to go there and make sure that the painting is ready, the pressures are ready, the,

01:36:01.670 - 01:36:14.070

the right materials are used. Materials in engineering field is, is something that layman doesn’t understand. A lot of people do not understand materials, you know. How much, how much influence you have on materials, okay?

01:36:14.430 - 01:36:24.480

Uh okay. We have a wood building, we have a wood structure, or we have a stone building, or we have a stone structure. Our football stadiums are made to a certain standard, and things like that.

01:36:24.970 - 01:36:38.390

So when we’re, when we are in a normal working environment, in just social life. We do not have much uh, these things on materials, within engineering field, especially in the oil and gas, materials have played an extremely important role.

01:36:39.250 - 01:36:50.500

You know you got to have materials that are, very very cutting-edge technology, you know. Uh, they were not there 5 years ago. It’s that different. So the technology is

01:36:50.500 - 01:37:00.880

changing so much. Industry is being held by certain, uh, various strict standards, so you don’t have another BP explosion, so you don’t have another Valdez experience.

01:37:02.430 - 01:37:17.210

So those things are changing so much, these days, that uh, it’s important to keep up with the technology, and to make the young ones understand how these technology is helping them. So when you say that ‘you have a

01:37:17.210 - 01:37:31.390

passion for that,’ yeah, there has to be a certain passion to make sure that things don’ t blow up. You know, because now the industry, for example, the milking industry, not too many people going to die if they have a cow die, you know. But you cannot have that offshore, you know.

01:37:31.420 - 01:37:41.360

You cannot have that explosion, you cannot have that fire, you cannot have a safety incidence where… safety is a big thing offshore-wise, you know, in oil industry. Very very big.

01:37:42.310 - 01:37:55.310

So material-wise, safety-wise, and those types of things. And, and the passion to get them going in a certain schedule is very important. And that’s what uh I try to…I love to teach that to our kids.

01:37:56.360 - 01:38:16.550

My kids, too, because one of them is an engineer, so… Um let’s go more about your identity. Mm-hm. Do you identify as an American? I do identify myself as American, but with Indian values.

01:38:16.590 - 01:38:32.060

With Indian values. Yeah. Do you identify yourself as a Texan, or a Houstonian? Uh… Texan, not much difference in that, you know. Mhmm. But, but I would, you know, we go to all the rodeos, and

01:38:33.420 - 01:38:48.000

uh… We visit uh, all the cultural things, you know, that Houston has to offer. Uh go to the opera, go to…you know, so we do that, we do kind of have a mix of what

01:38:48.000 - 01:39:03.200

we, you might call Texan, or uh, or Houstonian, but uh… Yeah. I do—I and my wife we, we go to a lot of places. A lot of people don’t realize that there’re so many things we do in Houston. There’s lots of things in Houston,

01:39:03.310 - 01:39:21.760

you know, we don’t have an Empire State Building, or we don’t have a, you know, major thing like that… Comparable to the Empire State Building it would be NASA, in uh, clearly. So we do have that uh, as a, uh, as a uh as a landmark in Houston, you know.

01:39:21.840 - 01:39:36.820

NASA is very unique in Houston, uh, which is like this landmark, I mean, like New York Empire State, or something like that. Uh, there are lots of cultural activities that they base in Houston, which we partake of, uh, like the museum itself.

01:39:36.820 - 01:39:49.450

Like the Museum of Natural Science near your, near Rice. Uh if you haven’t been there, go there, there are lots of things that have… There’s an oil and gas section over there. It’s really unique.

01:39:50.200 - 01:40:00.220

Uh… Have y’all been there? I’ve been. Yes. The oil and gas section is unique in the sense that it has an elevator that you think you’re going down, but you’re not really going down.

01:40:00.220 - 01:40:15.460

There is a projection that makes you feel as if you’re going down. And it takes you into the depths of uh, like deep strata, or subsea, and you get a sense of what, I’m talking about safety, about you know, materials and all that stuff.

01:40:16.160 - 01:40:31.930

How that drilling is done, you know, so Houston is uh, right now, in the early ‘80s, when we had the crash, and people were laid off in Houston. Houston was just oil and gas, there was nothing else. Uh a little bit of the Med—of the Medical Center.

01:40:32.500 - 01:40:43.350

But other than that, Houston didn’t have much. Now Houston has so much more. The oil and gas has become so much more robust. The Medical Center has become very very advanced.

01:40:45.320 - 01:41:00.380

They also have their own technology, and they also leading edge in Heart Center, and surgeries, and things like that, orthopedic work, and all that stuff, which was not there twenty years ago. You know, so Houston is cutting-edge in lots of different, uh,

01:41:00.850 - 01:41:14.440

industries, which is why Houston is booming. More than half the jobs created in this country are in Texas. So think about that, you know, I mean it’s like, you’re doing so much more in this, in this area,

01:41:15.220 - 01:41:26.310

you said, Texas, and Houston, so that’s why I’m saying that, you know. It has a lot of uh implications as far as uh, what we are doing… We are obviously doing something right, right?

01:41:26.940 - 01:41:39.120

For 14,000 people to move into the coun—into the city every month. There must be… So they have to have homes, they have to have schools, they have to have, you know, roads, they have to have, you find that—you

01:41:39.120 - 01:41:52.590

probably don’t travel much, but when you travel, you see the Houston areas clogged up free ways, and the modified I-10 few years ago, it’s again clogged up. They’re modifying 290 now.

01:41:53.350 - 01:42:06.860

And 45, and few years from now, they will be clogged up. So you know, we are going through a very vast renaissance of the city, which was uhhhhh, which a lot of people can see.

01:42:07.280 - 01:42:18.390

Like in 5 years ago, all these areas in the west, are not as crowded as they were 5 years ago. Right now, near Eldrige , you see about 10 or 15 new buildings coming up.

01:42:19.150 - 01:42:32.310

Huge ones. My own companies has got 3, 4 new buildings. Where are they going to put all those peoples, where are they going to have the traffic…patterns for them, you know. You can’t have all these companies started 7 and finish at 5:30.

01:42:32.940 - 01:42:41.210

You’d have to stagger them so that, you know. You don’t have that much rush. So those types of things are taking place. A lot in Houston—changing

01:42:41.230 - 01:42:57.880

demographics and, and the culture of Houston. Okay, well, um, as you know, the interview’s gonna go online for researchers to understand the immigrant experience in Houston.

01:42:58.520 - 01:43:07.680

Is there anything else you’d like to say to contribute towards that purpose? No I think that’s it. You think you got it? All right. Well then thank you very much! Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.

01:43:07.950 - 01:43:10.200

Hope I didn’t bother you… you know . No.