New ways in a new world
Sunday, October 19, 2003
By Frank Reeves, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03292/232288.stm
When Nalin Gupta left home in India to come to the United States to study at the University of Pittsburgh, he knew he’d soon be learning skills to prepare him for a career in business. But what he probably didn’t know was that one of his first lessons would deepen his humanity.
Nalin Gupta, an MBA student at the University of Pittsburgh, said his arrival in the U.S. from New Delhi, India, has changed his views of himself and others. (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette)
Click photo for larger image.
Gupta, 23, an MBA student at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, arrived in Pittsburgh recently after a grueling flight from New Delhi to Pittsburgh, via Frankfurt, Germany, and Chicago. All the more so for someone who was flying on a jet for the first time.
Even for Gupta, who describes himself as “a very confident person,” his first hours in the United States were a bit disconcerting.
There were flight delays at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
“Literally 30 or 40 planes waiting in queue. It was like everyone was stopped at a red light in a traffic jam in New Delhi,” he said.
And the flight from Chicago to Pittsburgh passed through less-than-friendly skies. “It was a small plane and not a very stable ride,” he said.
He managed with little trouble to get an express bus to Oakland, where the driver dropped him off at the Pitt student dorms – Litchfield Towers – on Fifth Avenue.
By this time it was around 11 p.m., and Gupta had hoped to find a room in the dorms to spend the night. But he was told by an attendant that the student towers no longer provided accommodations for international students. If he needed a cheap place to stay, he should check out the Pittsburgh International Hostel in the Allentown neighborhood.
The desk attendant offered to call a cab, and soon Gupta was being whisked across the city to the hostel.
When Gupta arrived at the hostel, he was given keys to the front door and shown to his bed. Soon he was sound asleep. But a few hours later, around 4 a.m., he woke up “ravenously hungry.”
He left the hostel to look for an all-night deli or convenience store, where he could get a bite to eat. The only thing open was a convenience store, not far from the hostel.
“I went inside the store and saw this guy who was working there. He looked Indian. I asked him if I could get something to eat. I was so hungry,” Gupta said.
The two struck up a conversation, at first in English. But soon Gupta and the store clerk started speaking in Hindi.
“I felt so happy to be talking to someone in my native language. Then you can really express yourself,” he said.
As the two men chatted, the store clerk began to make Gupta a cup of coffee.
“He gave me advice on finding an apartment. He gave me food and snacks to take back. He gave me his phone number and told me to call if I needed help,” Gupta said.
Two “American guys” came into the store, probably early-morning joggers, Gupta figured. They kidded the store clerk. “Is this your long-lost brother? You never make coffee for us,” Gupta remembered their saying.
After awhile, Gupta decided he had to get back to the hostel. He asked the man, how much he owed him. "He said. ‘That’s all right. There’s no need to pay.’ "
As he started to walk out of the store, Gupta paused, and, almost as an afterthought, asked the man where in India he was from.
"He said, ‘Oh, no, I am not from India. I am from Pakistan.’ "
Gupta was startled.
“I was a little bit quiet. Because you know we have been bred to dislike Pakistanis,” he said.
Since 1948, when the former British colony was divided between predominantly Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan, the relationship between them has been marked by rivalry and suspicion. On more than one occasion, fighting has broken out between the two nuclear powers.
In 1999, for example, there was an outbreak of violence after infiltrators from Pakistan occupied positions on the Indian side of the line of control, which separates Indian- and Pakistani-occupied areas of Kashmir. During the border clash, Gupta said he had a close friend, then serving in the Indian army, who was killed.
That a Pakistani store clerk had showed him such kindness “was more meaningful since it came from a man I have been raised to dislike,” Gupta said.
Gupta wrote his parents, telling them about the incident. They told him not to think too much about it and get on with his studies.
But Gupta said he hasn’t forgotten about the incident. Indeed, it has opened his eyes to the foolishness of his own prejudices. He’s become close friends with a Pakistani student at the Katz school.
“Within a month [of being at the University of Pittsburgh], I have shed a lot of old feelings. Perhaps this is a good place,” he said.
(Frank Reeves can be reached at [email protected] or 412-263-1565.)