Raajeev’s Corner

Berkley Stories

Raajeev’s Corner by Raajeev Aggerwhil

I was watching a Bollywood movie with my son where they showed a distraught Aishwarya Rai looking for her long lost lover in Europe. She was so happy when she magically found him on the streets of Milan. My son said, “Dad, why don’t they shoot scenes which are at least believable? These things don’t happen in real life.” I smiled and said, “But they do!” Then I told him the story of how I got connected with two of my closest friends, Rajesh and Sanjay, while doing my undergraduate studies at Berkeley in the 80’s.

I had finished my summer internship at Bell Labs in the Chicago area and was looking forward to starting the fall semester. I had just met Rajesh through a mutual friend, Jaideep, on that day. Rajesh had just arrived from India about two weeks earlier. When I was walking around Cory Hall, the Electrical Engineering building, I saw Rajesh sitting in the common discussion area. He seemed to be a bit lost.

Rajesh asked me if there were any places around to eat. Like me, he was also a vegetarian. That allowed for an instant bonding – common cultural background and common dietary restrictions! I felt it was my righteous duty to introduce this bright IIT gold medalist to a cheese sandwich, the American equivalent of Aloo-Parantha. Pizza could have been a good substitute as well. I took him to a local deli on Euclid Avenue where he had his first avocado and cheese sandwich. While we were enjoying our new world’s version of Aloo-Parantha, Rajesh asked if there were any local shops that carried 220 V appliances. I was a bit surprised because most people would go to these shops before planning a trip to back to India. The fashionable thing to do in those days was to take blenders, VCR’s, or two-in-one stereo systems (radio with tape recording capability) for relatives in India.

Back then, among my group of friends, I was probably the only one with a car. Definitely I was the only one with a car in good shape. I offered to drive Rajesh in my Nissan Sentra to East West Appliances on University Avenue. The block where East West Appliances was located had a Bombay Bazaar, an Indian grocery store and an India Sari Palace next to it. I thought he could also shop for some spices for a real Aloo-Parantha as well. Rajesh and I went in the appliance shop, looked around, came out and then went to Bombay Bazaar. When we came out again and reentered East West Appliances, I saw a young Indian man with a big smile on his face. Rajesh introduced me to Sanjay, his friend, from IIT Kanpur and his future roommate at Berkeley.

I found out that Sanjay had just landed from India. After getting admission in the Ph.D. program at Berkeley, he had informed Rajesh via mail, and they had decided to share an apartment together. In those days, there was no Internet, no emails and calls to India had to be booked through an AT&T telephone operator which would cost $12.95 for