Hello viewers! We continue with Nimmi’s brother in the twenty seventh video on ‘Spinning into a Career’ and go on to the next chapter, ‘Postgraduation’.
There is a vacant plot in front of his building. He starts an auto garage. Joseph is six to seven years older than him. He is introduced to him by Nimmi’s father. He does mechanical work which helps him earn money. He expands his business and opens a workshop for the same. His father finances him. He begins a partnership business with Joseph, who has practical and theoretical knowledge. The plot where he has put an auto garage measures twenty five square meters. Many complaints are filed by the residents in the vicinity of the plot to the SRMC, the local body. The SRMC evacuates him from the place. He convinces his neighbors in the vicinity and restarts his garage. He has no dearth of money. In the evenings, he goes with Joseph and has one or two pegs of whiskey.
He joins a workshop in a technical school to gain practical knowledge. He works as an apprentice for one year. He takes repair jobs. He takes his customers’ gadgets to his shop for major repairs. He gets more money and orders for repair. After ten years he sells the garage to a building contractor. With the money he gets after selling the plot, he organizes a religious tour for his parents to the Vaishnav Devi temple in the Himalayas. He entrusts the money to his mom. He is proud of the fact he earns more than his sister who completes her education and is gainfully employed in a bank.
We shall begin with a new chapter, ‘Postgraduation’. Ruchi travels by local train to St. Thomas Gate to attend lectures in the afternoon. There are slow trains that take an hour or more to reach St. Thomas Gate. Lectures are delivered by eminent people of the time such as Akhil Bhandarwala, James Ezekiel and Molly Manpure in the Bhilai university which is opposite Bhilai lawn. Mr. Gale teaches Linguistics. The study of literature includes American and British literature, which includes poets and writers such as T.S.Eliot, Walt Whitman, Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters and others. Indo English literature includes Girish Karnad, R.k. Narayan, Rabindranath Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and English translations of literary works from regional languages. Ruchi likes T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, poems by Dylan Thomas and poems of W.B. Yeats, particularly ‘ The Wild Swans at Coole’. She also likes ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’ by John Keats, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare and Walden Thoreau’s philosophy of the simple life. James Ezekiel who is of Jewish origin, is the leading English poet in Sharanai.
Ruchi is also a member of the British Council Library situated near the Bhilai university. On her first visit to the British Library, she is on a path where a Muslim cab driver is standing. He tells her in Hindi, ” Beti, tum kisi acchi ghar ki dikhayi deythi ho. Yahan mat aanha, acchi jagah nahi hai.” The Muslim tells Ruchi that the way is not good for her since she is on a path where sex workers reside. He advises her to take another route. Ruchi remembers the good Muslim years later. She gets some good books of English literature to read, such as ‘ The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ by Edward Gibbon, dressed in ornamental language. She reads a novel written by Joseph Conrad from the British Council Library. Her stammering problem continues. She joins the Indo American Society to speak English fluently. It is not helpful because it does not solve the stammering problem.
Thank you for listening. We continue with Ruchi’s postgraduation in the next video. Till then, goodbye!
Video can be viewed on You Tube by typing, ‘Spinning into a Career’ by Usha Raman.
