Love, Dona! ( Part 2)

Early Nov 1989, late evening.

After keeping me in custody while he was filling out paperwork charging me with breaking US laws, the officer allowed me to go. He took my mug shots, my fingerprints and handed me a motion or something stating what US laws I have violated etc. Earlier during the day he drove me to my apartment and did some preliminary search. Looked at my stuff....pics ...and took away my passport.  

It was so humiliating to go up to my apartment with my handcuffed like a criminal. My roommates were also in the same "work-boat", so after initial shock of watching me with cops, they were hiding and praying that I don’t reveal their names...

I did not.

The office escorted me out of the building. He blurred " You are a good man Mr. Sayed!"

What a feeling it was to be free again! Yet freedom it was.  To walk without getting noticed. To go anywhere I wanted. I walked and walked all the way to Cheshire Road, an off campus community near Georgia Tech - to my apartment!

Then I went into a serious depression...

Late Nov 1989

My friend Ted Schelling had come over to pick me up. He wanted to take me to some "Dinner for International Students" arranged by some Socio-Cultural organization at a hotel. I had told him and not going, yet he showed up. I was too depressed to be social. He was trying to get me out of my pathetic state of mind. Reluctantly I went with him.

By the time we got there, the program has already begun. The hall was full of international students from all countries. Not many seats were empty. I notice one empty seat in the last row.  Here I was with my unshaven and unkempt sitting there staring at the stage blankly.

The speaker mentioned something and everyone started looking at a pamphlet or something. I did not have one, so I looking around to see what it was...just then white women sitting on my left stretched her hand to show me what it was. I noticed her for the first time. She smiled. 

"You can look here!"

That was Dona!

That’s how I met her 25 years ago!!

At the end of the program, the Organizers requested the Americans present in the audience to invite one international student for the Thanksgiving Dinner to their homes. 

Dona invited me.

Early Dec 1989

Dona by knows the whole mess that I am in. She wants to help me whatever way possible. I am trying to be brave. But how much brave you can be when you are in a new country, have no job and need money for tuition for the winter session. And yes, you have a court case coming up. 

I call up various attorneys from the yellow pages about helping me out. They all quote huge amount. I have problem feeding myself where I am going to get that kind of money. My diet has become "Omletty" these days. I eat egg for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner. 

My recent frnd from India N.K. (who is a good story teller in Mumbai film Industry now) offers to take me to the nearest Kroger for shopping essentials. The nearest Kroger was miles away, poor KN used to drive three times that distance to pick me up, take me there, wait till I finish shopping and then drop me back home. 

After doing my routine of Maatam (Depression, reasoning and resolution) I have decided to fight it out. I can’t be home sitting all day feeling sorry for myself. I am not going back to India without a fight.

I need a job again. So rejoin the same job. I told myself “they can’t charge me twice for the same crime”

I am doing three jobs now. The Egyptian owner of gift shop was so kind that he hired me back taking a risk with me.

My day starts at 6 am. I am gift shop of Holiday Inn by 7 am. I take off from them at 3:30 pm and come home for lunch. Then I go to my on campus job at gymnasium for 2 hours and then I head for Sandy Spring to work in a Baskin Robbins Ice Cream shop till 11.

All day my mind drifts into calculating my earnings the day in dollars. Then I convert those earnings into Indian currency.

Every night while mid town to my apartment, I go to Georgia Tech to check my mailbox. I am desperately waiting for some letter to arrive from India. With heavy heart and hope I open my mailbox…. only to find letters for Jennifer Drummond, a girl who is sharing my mail box.

Nothing for me!

I come out of Student Center Post office and sit down on one of the steps outside.

I cry.

At the end of those crying sessions, I remind myself “ There is no India for you Shahid, no one except Maa. You are alone. You have to fight this all alone…this is home…. there is no India…. no India now!