What is American? Coming from India ...

What is American?

Yesterday, my wife, Mamta, told me she was taping on our DVR, American President. One of our favorite movies – starring Michael Douglas as the American President. We also enjoy Harrison Ford’s movie where he stars as the American President and fights the terrorists on Airforce One… what an exciting movie! He beats the crap out of all those loonies one by one! My son’s favorite movie also.

From talking about the movie, Rohan (our son), Suhani (our daughter) and we started talking about different things. The other day, Mamta had asked whether we had enough American Cheese – I told her I call it “White” cheese or “Yellow” cheese. To that, my son said, that sounds “racist” dad. I told him, when I host my online innovation workshops. I show my customers presentation on the “whiteboard”. And I must have delivered about 100 presentations where I have talked about “whiteboard”, “black box”, “white walls”, “white collar”, “black pepper” and some even recorded. My favorite when we order “white rice” or “brown rice” or “fried rice” at Chinese restaurant, or if you go to Indian restaurant, we call it “Biryani” or “Pulao” or “Safed rice”. Our house has white walls and black furniture. The other day, my eight year old daughter Suhani comes home and asks me, “Dad are we white and do we have a black president?” We tell her the right thing to say is “Caucasian and African Americans”, and then I went on to explain to her about various differences, and that we are all Americans. We also talked about our plans for President’s day holiday (no plans, just relaxing).

So, this was a typical evening conversation at the Dalal Family dinner table. You are welcome to join us…

Welcome to America!

Coming from India ...

Our kids are born here, and are natural born American citizens. My wife and I immigrated from India, world’s largest democracy and a country of rich heritage and traditions. We are American citizens also. During the Christmas holidays – we also setup Christmas Tree, share gifts, and believe in Santa – we saw the movie SlumDog Millionaire – an amazingly tantalizing love story that has something for everyone. How many have seen this movie? Must see. My wife and I argued a bit about this movie. I thought it was great, and she enjoyed it too… however, she felt that it represented only a section of what India is all about, and again, the movie shows too much of the poverty and slums. And I do agree… but I told her the educated know India is much more than poverty and slums. Just like America, it is a land of dreams, freedom and opportunity. And the movie does go on to show that how even the poorest of poor can one day grow and win the highest prize! An underdog who goes on to win millions!

I was born in Ahmedabad, India in 1968 – born on October 31. I am a Halloween Baby… my mom did not know that… although my kids think I can be really scary. I call it CRAM – Crazy, Angry, Mad… just kidding! My daughter tells me “I have bushy hair”. I do…

I did my elementary, middle and high school in India. My proudest moment was securing a ranking within the top 50 students in the entire state of Gujarat in my high school exams – thereby providing me an opportunity to pursue any higher education in college that I would like. I also had a great time in my eleventh grade when a few of us friends went for an Oceanographic exploration at Goa, India – a must see beach city in the state of Maharashtra. The best time was going to Goa in a ship from Bombay, now Mumbai. Still fondly remember that trip.

I also spent about eight months of college in Ahmedabad before I moved to the U.S in 1987 with my sister, Situ. I started my undergrad in Electrical Engineering at University of Oklahoma, she began her Masters in Civil Engineering.

My father, who many of you met, provided me the opportunity to come to USA. He has been a great mentor to me over the years, and I am very thankful to him and my mother for their guidance and support.

My highlight when I was at OU: 1. Great education by my English instructor and Math professor Dr. John Albert 2. Securing first position in Putnam math competition, after getting inspired by Dr. Albert to participate. OU won the first prize after dozens of years. 3. President’s honor roll, and my very first job as Library assistant appointed by Mr. Wellburn.

One Saturday, as I was going to the library for studying, I saw this huge swarm of people going to the stadium, waving flags, high fiving each other, and chanting “OU, OU”… I got introduced to Football – American Football!! And I am a huge fan of Football now, albeit Texas Football and NFL. Why? I transferred to the University of Texas at Austin after my first year in 1988 because I got a scholarship from UT. And Texas, although boasting a huge football program as well, had better Engineering education.

It was at Texas that I met Mamta, my future wife to be during my second year in 1989 in the summer, when we were helping new students from India as they arrived for their education at UT. And we played lots of Volleyball together that summer. And the rest is history!

My highlight at Texas was getting EE scholarship, instate tuition, computer programming lab position nominated by Dr. Terry Wagner (thank you Dr. Wagner), Secretary position in Tau Beta Pi, Engineering Honors Society, and International Office Scholarship. The biggest coup: Becoming the Treasurer of India Students Association. My low-light: getting reprimanded for checking out professor notes over the weekend for a class that I did not take.

Professionally, I began my career at Honeywell Bull in 1992 after doing summer internship in the town of Seguin, Texas at Alamo Group.
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Part two of the story of Sanjay Dalal here...

Excerpts of Sanjay Dalal's speech at the Rotary Club of Newport-Irvine when I was inducted a Rotary Member on February 12, 2009