Jobs in the private sector were available in Bombay and Delhi, but it was impossible to find a good place to live in those cities.  I had no desire to stay in rooming houses, so my choice was to pursue government or semi-government jobs, which were aplenty.  I took the first available job I found with the Bombay State Electricity Board in June 1959.  At almost the same time Gujarat and Maharashtra were beginning to be separated and I wound up with the Ahmedabad office located next to the Sabarmati Generating Station.  The job I was working on was to build a sub-station and then power lines that would reach across northern Gujarat.  I was told that within a few months I would get an apartment close to the office.  Simultaneously, Chandrakant, who was studying in Science College in Ahmedabad and living at Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya, got admitted to the medical college and dormitory.  Up until this time, my father had paid his tuition and as he lived at MJV his housing and meals where a half loan and father paid the rest.  Upon his admission to medical college, I took over paying for his tuition, dorm, meals and books.  I decided to stay in his room until I could get into the government apartments.  The arrangement was not above board but this type of thing was quite common.  I slept on the floor on a mattress that I kept under Chandrakant’s cot.  I would leave early morning after my shower and be out for most of the day at work.  I didn’t have to worry too much, but I did have to be careful not to be too noticeable.  The only thing that bothered me about this arrangement was that even though they were very kind, it was inconvenient to Chandrakant and his roommates. 

            The bus route to work was from the college to Lal Darwaja where I would switch to a bus that would then take me across the river, along Ashram Road to the Sabarmati area.  I would then walk one half mile to the plant.  This bus route was very long, about one and a half to two hours and ten miles long, and very costly at 1.5 rupees each way.  My total pay was 250 Rupees plus a 20 Rupee stipend for working in the city.  So out of 270 rupees about 25% would have gone to transportation.  So instead, I walked from the college to the railway bridge that had a pedestrian walk way and then continue don to the plant.  This walk was about three miles and that is how I got to and from work.  My salary of 270 rupees was split in three ways, one part to Chandrakant for food and books (tuition and housing I paid at the start of each semester), one part to pay my expenses (mostly food and a little pocket money) and the rest I sent to my mom in Kapadvanj to supplement the little money that my father was able to send to her.  In the beginning I got involved in sub-station construction but it soon became boring, mostly just technical estimating and record keeping.  Also it became clear to me that the apartment construction would take at least another year.  So I decided to change jobs and joined the design department of Bombay State Public Works Department. 

            It was here in Kadana that I started cooking for myself since the only restaurant in this remote corner of Gujarat served the lousiest food I have ever eaten.  I had to get all the necessary utensils from mom and I would cook rice, kichadi, dal, khator and shak for myself.  I tried to make rotli and poori but without much success.  After a few months, about seven or eight other engineers (bachelors like myself) came together and formed a dining club.  Most of the members were from the south and someone found a nice cook from Kerala.  The cook stayed in the home of one of the engineers and we would all gather to eat in his house.  Breakfast will always be South Indian style (idly, menduvada or upma); lunch was mixed Gujarati and South Indian and occasionally Punjabi food.  It was here that I tasted alcohol for the first time.  Though Gujarat had a prohibition on alcohol (and still does), Rajasthan did not and in this border area in Gujarat, it was readily available.  It was an open secret that most government officers, police officers and wealthy people consumed liquor, particularly along the border with Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.  The good quality alcohol was costly and the local had a bad taste and doubtful quality, hence I did not go much beyond tasting either of them.  I also learned how to drive.  The Public Works Department traditionally had vehicles assign to it.  Due to very poor road conditions on many sites they were generally four-wheel drive.  Executives would have their own wagon with driver, assistant or deputy engineers would have a Jeep with driver and the other engineers could borrow the Jeep for fieldwork as and when required.  Most government engineers learned to drive the Jeep when they had a chance.  I learned a little bit at Kadana and then later on during site visits from Ahmedabad.  I also got some practice on trucks at the bridge construction sites and in Bihar the company provided scooters when we needed.  Since mostly I drove on construction sites, I never got a license.

            This part of Gujarat was very different from where I was raised and had studied.  It is very remote and hilly and most of the people were adivasis (aboriginals).  The site was about fifty-two miles from Godhra, where the nearest railway station was.  About forty miles north of Godhra was town of Santrampur, formerly one of the old native states.  It was a town of about 10,000 and the seat of the taluka so it had government offices there.  The rest of the villages in this area were very small (about twenty to forty families) and the people lived on subsistence farming.   The only transportation in Santrampur was a twice-daily bus service to Godhra.  The dam site itself was twelve miles north of Santrampur.  A once daily bus to Santrampur was introduced for the people living at the dam site.  The bus arrived at the site at 5pm and left the next morning at 8am.  Thus the mail and newspaper came in the evening and if you wanted to mail something you had to do it by 7am.  The only local vegetables were onions and potatoes and the only fruit was mango when in season.  We had to import vegetables from Baroda, about 120 miles away. We had to test the local stone and sand for making concrete and the testing lab was in Baroda.   As a result, anyone that went to Baroda for work had to buy vegetables and fruits for the entire staff.

At Kadana, once a strange animal came close to our office.  We were of course in the middle of hilly and forested area and there were some foxes, rabbits and raccoons.  Some natives claimed there were a few wild cats like Cheetahs and Dipada (kind of like a black cheetah, but more dangerous as it comes out at night and you can’t see them.  They would attack anything while cheetahs generally did not attack people), but I never saw any wild cats.  This particular animal was not aggressive and moved very slowly like a tortoise but it was not a tortoise.  Even the local people did not recognize what it was.  Someone decided to put him in a big drum and took him to the Baroda Zoo.  I do not know the final outcome.

We had to employ the local people as laborers and we made sure the smartest were employed in the laboratory work that was done on site.  One of them, a man named Kanji, who seemed to be smarter than the others once asked where we take the concrete cubes.  We asked him if he wanted to come with us to see and he was happy for the opportunity.  Once in the Jeep and beyond the hilly area he became upset.  He had always lived in the hills and could not believe they had disappeared.  In Baroda he almost went crazy.  In those days, Baroda had a population of about 300,000.  But for someone who had only ever seen a town of 10,000, it was a monstrous place with so many people and automobiles.  We had to cut the trip short to make sure he got back to his familiar place as quickly as we could.  From Kanji I learned about the peculiar layout of their houses.  The structure was a big square about 20’ x 20’ with one door and another square 8’ x 8’ inside of that.  The inner square houses the family cattle.  The backside was the kitchen and dinning area, one side was for ladies, and another for children and older people and the front near the door was the man’s area.  Outside there would be a small-enclosed courtyard for daytime sitting and storage of hay for the cattle.  The whole house was made of mud and bricks with a thatched roof.   The idea was to protect the cattle and children from wild animals.

It took almost a year and half (until October of 1961) to put together the proposal to send to the State Government.  We then had to wait for approval from the state government and then for funds from the national government to be distributed to begin the project.  Both the approval and fund allotment would not come until many years later when I was in the USA.  Construction of Kadana on the Mahi began in 1970/71 and was completed in 1975.  The Narmada project which was the biggest and the most beneficial of the three would be entangled in national politics and would not be built until 1990.  It was largely completed in 2000 and part of it is still under construction.  Only the Ukai project on the Tapti went smoothly and southern Gujarat and Surat benefited from its construction by the end of 1965.  Once we were waiting for the approval to begin construction, we had nothing to do.  They would sometimes give us busy work, but mostly we were bored.  So for a while we played badminton and volleyball and at night we played bridge.

would be cheaper than the bus.  Also, at this time Jyostna and Anju took the bus to school daily.  Their school was almost two miles away and I did not like them walking to school.  They were young and the area wasn’t that great a place for walking, so for them to both go to and from school was 2 Rupees daily. With a scooter I could drop them at school and save a lot of expense.

            At home everything went smoothly for little more than a year.  I even thought father should find some job in Ahmedabad so we would all be together.  He was still living with Manu Kaka and he had decided to find a small place in the northern suburb of Borivali.  However, as per his habit he never said anything to Manu Kaka or to me.  One fine morning in March of 1963 he came to Ahmedabad and said he had a place in Borivali and he wanted mom and the kids to move with him immediately.  He of course he would not take grandma.  I was very mad.  If he had told me his intention earlier I would have opted for the Banas site job.  Anyway the four of them (Lila, Dinesh, Jyostna and Anju) moved to Borivali and Champa Ba went back to Kapadvanj.  She was on her own in the house without much company.  Rukhi ba and Girdhar dada were next door with Kika Kaka but somehow they didn’t mix too much, not even for meals.  She would later be moved to Borivali when she could no longer take care of herself.  Mahendra and Chandrakant were in their dorms until graduation and then moved to Borivali.

I continued my job for a few more months and looked for another job in the private sector to gain field experience, more responsibility and better pay.  In the government job I had reached the top of my grade and further advancement was almost impossible.  Promotion was strictly on a seniority basis and merits had no place.  Finally in fall of 1963, I got a job offer form a Delhi construction company called Tirathram Ahuja Ltd. that I accepted and resigned from the government.  I had two options, in Delhi I would get 500 rupees per month rather than the 300 from the government, but Delhi was far more costly than Ahmedabad and most of that increase would disappear.  If I went to the construction site in northern Punjab/southern Kashmir, where they had many bridge contracts for the army and national highways, I would get a free residence with a cook and free transportation.  So I opted to go for site work with the construction company as a site engineer for 600 Rupees, all expenses paid.  I had three assignments with Tirathram.  All three of the bridges were pre-stressed concrete bridges along the Delhi-Srinagar National Highway and very close to the Pakistan border.  We had to follow all requirements of the army.  We also had to entertain some army as well as central public works department officers.  It was my first prolonged experience of very cold weather with freezing temperatures.  The Himalayas were close by and we could see the snow covered summits.  Also flash flood was the biggest problem in construction.

My first assignment on the Ravi Bridge lasted three to four months.  The Ravi River is one of the saptsindhu rivers and a border between Punjab and Kashmir.  I was one of four engineers on the site.  During my stay on the bridge construction sites in addition to the work, I had a few new life experiences as well.  At Ravi River, the company had rented a big bungalow in which we all had our own private bedroom.  We shared the living room, dinning room and kitchen.  The company cook would prepare our meals, mostly Punjabi and tandori cooking.  Evenings and weekends we played cards or read.  Almost every one smoked and I too started smoking.  Weekends also meant parties and parties meant drinks, whisky, brandy, rum or beer, and food mostly chicken, lamb and vegetables curries.

The next assignment on the Basantar Bridge lasted three months.  Basantar River is a tributary of another saptsindhu called Chenab.  Here we were just two engineers.  The other engineer was very different.  We just tolerated each other.  Later on I learned he was regularly visiting prostitutes.  The place rented by the company was on the second floor; downstairs there was a store selling automobile parts.  There was a terrace above us.  On our first day at the place when I inquired about the toilet, I was told to go to terrace.  In rural India people go to the woods for toilet.  In this cold area it was rough, so the well to do built toilets on the terrace.  An outside wooden stair was built for the bhangis (a sudra) to come and clean the toilet.  Outside of work, it was very boring.  I had nothing to do except read the paper and magazines.  The nearest cinemas were at Pathankot, thirty miles to the south, or at Jammu, forty miles to the north, so went only once or twice.

  The third assignment was on another bridge on the Chatabal River and it lasted four or five months.  For this assignment I was promoted to resident engineer in charge of the job and got a 20% raise, I was now making 720 Rupees.  I would send money, about 400 – 500 Rupees via money wire home to my father in Borivali and he would distribute it to pay for schooling, etc.  While I now had more money to send, the family expenses were much increased now that they were living in Bombay.  On Chatabal I had my own place provided by the company with my own cook.  But the promotion also meant some unpleasant responsibilities.  One was the hiring and firing of people, the latter being the worst.  In India, corruption was a way of life and all government officers have to be paid off.  The company director that would come from Delhi would take care of the big officers, first class gazetted officers, but I was told it was my job to distribute the money to the lower staff.  Any delays meant an interruption to the job and loss of profit for the contractor and the blame was on me.  This was also one of the reasons for leaving this job.  During the one year that I was there some of the engineers left and I learned that there were better paying jobs available.  So I tried for other jobs, got a few offers and decided to take a job in Bihar, on the construction of a power plant.

Evenings and weekends were a problem to pass time.  The radio we had in Kapadvanj and Ahmedabad was now in Borivali.  A new radio would cost 200 to 300 rupees.  So I decided to do something else to pass my time.  During my school days at Kelavani Mandal school we had music as compulsory subject and had learned the basics of Indian music.  At the religious school (Pathshala) we also had to sing religious songs and were taught the harmonium.  In fact, we also had a harmonium in the joint family home that was later kept at Chiman Kaka’s place.  I decided I might learn back some of what I knew and bought a mouth organ (harmonica), the only instrument I could afford at about 20 Rupees.  I tried it in my spare time and after a few weeks of futile attempts I realized I had no aptitude for it and forgot about it.

Between this job and my new assignment in Bihar I visited Borivali and found mom unhappy.  Father’s nature had gone from bad to worse.  Dinesh was having severe depression (I just do not know why).  The apartment was much smaller than the apartment I had in Ahmedabad.  With no bedroom, the apartment was already a congested place for eight people (Kaka, Lila, Chandrakant, Mahendra, Dinesh, Jyostna, Anju & Champa Ba) and I would make nine.  It was one big room (living/bedroom) with a water  barrel in the corner.  There was no water supply in these outlying suburbs at this time and they had to pay people to bring water to the apartment that would then be filled in a large drum kept inside the main room.  The kitchen had a cot we had where my father and mother would sleep.  Each day and night they would have to stack and unstuck the gadhis in the corner.  The kitchen had a coal stove (saghadi) and a kerosene stove that was also used to warm water for baths.  The coal was brought into the house in a jute bag and kept outside on the otla.  In Bombay’s heavy rain the coal would often be soaked and made it difficult to ignite.  My mom had a hard time with the smoke and her eyes and breathing.  I wanted to get my mom a gas stove.  The gas stove cost 250 rupees, which was a very large sum at the time, and not many people had them.  At the time you had to apply for one and wait on a list for three to four months.  So, I applied and paid the 50 Rupee deposit for the stove so my mom could have some relief.  I left the rest of the money with my family and then left for my job in Bihar. 

During my visit to Mumbai, I had decided to take Dinesh with me to Bihar thinking he may do better out of that place.  I have no idea why Dinesh was depressed.  He had graduated from Science College.  I thought that if he was out of Mumbai and came with me to Bihar I could get him a job on the construction site.  That if he was busy me may improve.  I did manage to get him employed as a storekeeper’s assistant.  He seemed to like it and I thought he was coming out of his depression.  But after about six to eight months he reversed and he was relieved from his job.  He said he wanted to go back to Mumbai.  I could not get leave and wrote home about his coming and went up to Jameshedpur with him and put him on the mail train to Mumbai.

I began my new assignment with Dinesh in tow in the fall of 1964 with the Associated Construction Company (ACC).  I was put on power plant foundations for the first few months.  The plant was part of a big government plan.  Ranchi in southern Bihar was to have a heavy engineering plant, Bokaro in central Bihar would have a huge steel plant and Patratu, a small town in between the two, would use the coal mines nearby to produce the power to run these plants.  Bihar was completely different.  People in general were lazy.  It is the poorest part of India, the poor people I had seen in Gujarat looked far better off then the poor in Bihar.  Because of international politics the World Bank canceled its loan for the project under pressure from the USA.  The Soviet government immediately jumped in and provided the loan with the condition that all imported materials and designs would be Russian.  A huge Russian staff from Moscow and Leningrad was assigned to the project.  Most Russians liked it in India and were unhappy if they were called back to Russia.  The reasons were simple, back home they had crowded living quarters; here they were given spacious air-conditioned apartments.  There was a tremendous shortage of consumer goods in Russia; here they could buy whatever they wanted if they had money, which they did. 

I once took a newly arrived Russian for shopping to Ranchi.  Ranchi in those days had a population of about 100,000 and was the major shopping center for a one hundred mile radius. He was looking for shoes and at the Bata Shoe Co. showroom he had decided on a pair.  He wanted to know when he could have them.  When he was told right now he was amazed.  Soviet Russia had a shortage of shoes (just like many other consumer goods) and one had to order and wait a few months to get their shoes.  He was even more amazed when told he could buy as many pairs as he wanted.  He bought several pairs.  It was common for many Russians to buy shoes and clothes when they went back either for vacation or permanently.  Another odd thing was they all were very tongue tight and would not talk about anything except work.  Each one was suspicious that other one might be a KGB agent.

I got very good experience for one year at the power plant but my company got another contract for building a dam nearby to store water for the project and transferred me to that job. The living quarters stayed the same; it was only the work that changed.  I did not like the work, it was very boring but I had no choice.  Yet, somehow I spent more than a year on that job.  The money was good but to me the company administration was lousy.  I had more problems when the company’s manager and director both staunch Digambara Jains found out I was not a vegetarian.  Finally in March of 1966, I decided to find another job.  I resigned from the company and went to my parent’s home in Bombay where I hadn’t been in two and half years.