Atul's Quest
Nader Habibi
Chapter Ten
The Golden Girls
The next day, Atul contacted me
to let me know that he had generated
some statistics for the All-India Family Contest data. I asked if his
roommate got sus- picious. “No. Not at all. Rakhil was very
grateful that I helped him with
entering the data into the computer,” said Atul. I scheduled an appointment for him for the next Tuesday and asked him to try to interpret the results by then.
As always, Atul arrived after 4:00 p.m. very excited. “Dr. H, you won’t believe how solid my
results are. All the hypotheses that we
talked about are confirmed by the
family contest data.’’
“That’s great. Let’s take a
look,” I said as I leaned forward and took the two pieces of paper
that Atul had brought with him.
“Would you like me to explain these tables while you are looking at them?’’
“Sure.”
“In the first table, I have shown the average skin complexion of the 230 parents. For
husbands, the color index average is 3.9. For wives, it is 2.7.
The difference
between them is statistically significant and shows that wives on average do have lighter skins,” said Atul.
“How did you come up with your skin color index?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I should have
explained that first. I looked at
articles that dealt with race and skin color
and noticed that they used an
index that categorized people into two or three categories such as white,
brown and black. Then, they assigned a numerical value
to each category. For example, 1 for white, 2 for brown and 3 for black.
The average skin color of the sample will then be measured as
the average of these index numbers.
Based on this idea, I designed a 5-point color scale suitable for
Indians. Since the complexion of Indians
generally falls between light yellow and dark brown,
I have used 1 for light yellow, 2 for yellow, 3 for dark yellow, 4 for brown and 5 for dark brown. “
“So, just for clarification, where will you yourself fall in this
category?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, I would be
at least a 4 or even somewhere between
4 and 5. To give you
another example, Sujita, the skinny Indian girl that you met last week
at the reception, is almost 3.5.”
“OK. Go on.”
“Based on the scale that I just described, wives are on average 1.1
points lighter than husbands. But there is more.”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted
him. “You know, the other day at the YCIAS reception,
there were many Indian women. And as I watched them,
I realized that the older ones, perhaps the ones over 30,
were wearing some kind of make-up that gave their
faces a lighter color. Did
you take this factor into account when mea- suring the skin complexion of women in those photos?”
Atul did not seem surprised by my question. Instead there was a confident smile on his face. “Of course I did. Applying whitening paste to the
cheeks, nose and forehead is a common
part of make-up for Indian women.
I always noticed how my mother’s face looked lighter after putting on her make-up. When I
was deter- mining the color scores of women in the family photos, in addition to faces, I looked
carefully at the neck and shoulders
- which are partly exposed
in some Indian traditional dresses - and arms. I was
even careful about the variation in the light exposure and
print quality of the photos. I have
some experience in photography, so you don’t have to worry about these kinds
of errors in my measurements. Of course, the whole process is sub- jective
because it is based on personal judgment. But this is true of any research that deals with beauty or physical appearance.”
“I’m glad that is settled.
The color differential between men and women that you have discovered is very interesting, but it is not
surprising. Based on what you told
me earlier, Indian men openly seek
lighter- skinned women for marriage.”
“The results also show that more highly educated and wealthier men
indeed succeed in finding such women,” Atul replied. “As you mentioned
last week, this research won’t be complete
unless I, or someone
else, collects a similar data set for lower-income Indian families
to see if the color differential still holds.”
“Good. Let’s move on to the next table,” I said.
“As you can see in the second table, I got some in- teresting results on how the age difference
between spouses and the wife’s education
interact with the color differential.’’
I looked at the second table on the first page, which showed two
education categories in the first column
and the skin complexion of the husband
and wife and the
difference between them in the first row. Atul con- tinued his explanation while looking
at his notes. “For families where
the wife has a bachelor’s degree or more, the skin
color differential between the husband
and wife is 0.87. For families where the wife has a high school diploma
or less, the color differential is 1.3. “
“And how do you
interpret this result?” I asked.
“I guess it means that Indian men are willing to forego
their desire for a more educated
wife in ex- change for lighter skin. Since all the fathers in the family
contest sample had at least a bachelor’s degree and for Indian
men the education of a spouse
is very important, this
result shows the trade-off between edu-
cation and light skin for women.
Isn’t this result exciting?”
“Yes. Indeed,” I said as I
moved the first page aside to look at the second page. “I see that you also have a table
for the age differential between the spouses.”
“Since the ages of all family members were available, I decided to tabulate the color differential against the age
differentials for all the parental couples.
My initial feeling was that when the age differential is larger, the color
differential would also be larger,’’ said Atul.
“Why do you
think that is the case?”
“Men who marry at an older age have more wealth and income. Therefore, in competition for light-com- plexioned
women, they are more successful. This is particularly
true in Indian culture because parents still enjoy a great
deal of influence on their children’s
choice of a spouse, and they encourage their
daughters to marry financially secure men,’’
said Atul.
“Atul, this is all very imaginative, but you are im- plicitly assuming that the only reason a
young woman
agrees to marry an older man is for financial security.
What about other motives?”
“If you notice in the third table,
I have divided the sample into three groups. Marriages
with less than 7
years of age difference, those with 7-14 years of age difference and those with 15 or more. In my view, when the age difference is less than
15, a woman might have romantic motives, but, when it is more
than 15, I doubt it.’’
“That is a matter of opinion.
But let’s move on. What are your findings
with regard to the age differ- ential?”
“Just as I expected, the color differential is larger for couples who have a larger age
differential. As you can see, the color differential for couples in
which the man is between 7 to 14 years older
than his wife is larger than
for those in the group with less than 7 years of age differential.
However, the color gap in the group with 15 or more years of age difference is not significantly different from the second group with 7-14
years of age difference. Of course, the number of couples with 15 or more
years of age difference in the family contest
data was only 17 out of 230,
which is too small.
So I decided to ignore this group and divide the obser- vations into two groups of couples with less than 7
years of age difference and
those with 7 or more. Again, the color gap in the first group is significantly smaller and confirms my claim that, when a
woman is much younger than her
husband, she also tends to have a much
lighter skin. This result appears in the last
line of the table.“
I found his explanation satisfactory and focused my attention on the
last table, which showed a comparison of the skin complexion of children and their
parents. As
soon
as Atul noticed that I was looking at the last
table, he started his explanations.
“In table 4, I have tabulated
the skin color of children against that of their parents.
For each family, I first calculated the average skin color
of all the children that appear in the
family photos. Then I calculated the difference between this average and each
parent’s com- plexion score. As you can see in this table, the average complexion of the children
is lighter than that of the father.
The difference for the 230 families, however, is small. It is only 0.4. Also, as expected, in most mar- riages in which the mother’s complexion is lighter, the children are on average
darker than their mother and lighter
than their father.
The fact that children are
indeed lighter-skinned than their fathers
implies that some kind of intergenera- tional whitening process is under way. But at the same time, the
process has a limited
effect, because the darker parent seems to have a stronger
effect on the child’s
complexion. Besides, the limit in this process
is the skin color of mothers who are darker than white Europeans.’’
I could see where Atul was heading.
“I guess you are going to tell me how unfortunate it is that Indian women do not have a whiter complexion.” We both laughed and I continued: “Anyways, good work. But keep in mind this is not the whole picture.
Until you have a comparable data set for lower class
Indians, you can’t make any generalizations
about how the skin complexion
of the entire population and its various classes can change from one
generation to the next.”
“Oh. I completely agree with you. Still,
I’m glad I did it. At least it confirms what most people
believe about the high demand
for light-complexioned women in Indian culture. One could also
conclude that, as the
upper class and the upper
middle class men choose lighter-skinned
women for marriage and produce lighter-skinned
offspring, the color gap
between the poor and the rich will intensify. “
“Let’s not generalize too much for now. Just be content with the results of this survey.”
“I am very happy with the results,
but I also found out something
strange while I was working
on this project.“
“What?”
“During last week’s reception after
the bank di- rector’s talk, did you notice an attractive
Indian girl with light complexion
who was wearing lots of jewelry?”
asked Atul.
“Yes. I
remember seeing a girl with this description. She was rather tall
and your Princeton schoolmate, Sujita, told me her name was Sweta.
Is she the one that you have in
mind?”
“Yes. Sweta Patel. She is such an active
girl in Indian cultural activities that I thought she would have definitely
participated in the family contest. But, sur- prisingly she had not.’’
“So? What’s so unusual about
her absence? Maybe her parents are divorced. Maybe she forgot.”
“But she is not the only one who did not take part in this contest. Sweta
has several girlfriends who are just as attractive. Like Sweta, they also have
much lighter skin and look more attractive than average Indian girls. These girls often socialize with
each other and are very selective
about close friendship with other Indians. The Indian students consider them snobs and
refer to them as the ”Golden Girls.” I
didn’t find a file for any of them in the contest.”
“So, you are wondering why these so called Golden Girls did not participate in the All- Indian Family Contest?” I asked.
“Yes. It’s very strange that all of them kept away,” said Atul.
I looked at him for a second and suddenly
started laughing.
After interacting with Atul for so long, I had begun to anticipate his pattern of thoughts.
He smiled politely in response to my loud laughter,
and I tried to control myself.
“Atul, I’m sorry, but I can’t
see a connection between their lack of participation and the issue of whitening.’’
“But they always hang around with one another, and they all have light
complexions. I think they wanted to hide something about their family
background. That’s why they did not participate in this contest,” said Atul.
“Do you really think whatever it is that they are trying to hide has something to do
with their skin com- plexion?”
“Yes. But it’s just a gut feeling. It’s just so strange that not even one of them took part in this contest. They always
encourage others to take part in various
Indian cultural affairs
and I always see them in every Indian
program. Since their skins are so white, perhaps one of their parents is of European
stock. “
“But why would they try to hide this fact from others?
I would guess this would be something to brag
about in Indian culture,” I said
“That’s right. Why?”
“Atul, I really think you are allowing your own ob- session with whitening to affect your judgment about other people’s
motives. I can’t speculate about these girls’ motives for staying away from this contest, but I’m sure there could be many
alternative explanations.
Let’s drop
this issue and just go back to your project. Have you thought about what you would like to do next?”
“But Dr. H, I think it is
worthwhile to find out if their motives for ignoring this
contest had anything to do with their skin complexions or not. If it’s OK
with you, I would like to
gather more information about the Golden Girls. I want to find out their exact motives.’’
“I don’t think this is a good idea. First of all, if any of
them finds out that you are asking around about their private lives, you
will be in trouble. Second, if anyone finds out about these tables and what you
have used the family contest data for,
then we will both be in trouble.’’
“I’ll be very careful and discreet. I’ll just try to find out
about the ethnic background of their parents.
That’s all,” said Atul.
“No. I’m sorry, but no. I
can’t allow any detective work. Let’s
just forget these girls and move on.’’
Atul was disappointed, and it was showing
in his face. I had no choice but to stop him before he got both of
us into trouble. He did not argue any further.
“As you wish,” said Atul quietly.
“I do have one other idea,” continued Atul. “Last night, as I was thinking about these
tables, I kept won- dering if I could study the process of
whitening in any other ethnic group.
It occurred to me that the wealthy Arabs in oil exporting
countries of the Persian Gulf might
also be engaged in whitening. I read once that most wealthy Arab men of
oil-rich countries marry Syrian,
Lebanese, Egyptian and
even European women. The skin complexions of women from these areas are much lighter than those of
women from Saudi Arabia or Oman. Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to look
at
the family pictures
of rich Arab men for signs of whitening?”
I immediately realized
that this topic could be of value to
my own project. I knew a Kuwaiti student when
I was an undergraduate, and I had learned a
few things about their culture from him. “Yes. It is an ex- cellent idea. However, unfortunately, these Arab Kingdoms
are extremely conservative, and men usually don’t allow strangers to view their family photographs. I have never seen a picture
of the royal families of Kuwait
or Saudi Arabia or Oman that included women. If you can’t see the women how will you
go about in- vestigating this hypothesis?”
“I also noticed this fact last night,
when I checked out the Web site of the royal family of Kuwait.
But you are forgetting something. The effect of
a whitening marriage could
also be detected by comparing the skin complexion of sons and fathers or, to put it in more sci- entific terms, by
the intergenerational comparison of skin
complexion,’’ said Atul.
“I see that you have already given some thought to this issue. This
project is much better than chasing after those so-called Golden
Girls, and I’m all for it. I just hope you can find enough photos of Arab royal families to gather the minimum number
of observations for a statistical
test. As you know, the results of a small sample will not be very accurate. Have
you also thought about how to find father
and son pictures
of these wealthy Arab families?”
“That is a real challenge. I was thinking of concen- trating on the Arab oil exporting countries of Persian Gulf. I thought
of contacting the embassies
of these countries in
Washington, D.C. and asking for pictures of their royal families. I can also talk to people at the Yale Center for International and Area
Studies, which
has
a Middle East Studies office. People there might be able
to help me get these photos.’’
“You know, I’m thinking that perhaps it would be better if you could enlarge your sample by including the wealthy citizens of
these oil kingdoms that are not necessarily members of a royal family. The key factor that
enables a rich man to marry a whiter woman is
his wealth, and there are millions of wealthy businessmen in these countries.”
“Sure. I’ll do that if I can get a hold of pictures that at
least cover two generations. Anything else?”
asked Atul.
“No. Just keep up the good work, and don’t forget to prepare
another chapter of the cover-up topic in a couple of weeks. I must send it to the department by Nov. 20.”
* * *
After he left, I took a few minutes to reflect on how the issues that we talked about were relevant to my Beauty and Development research. By then, it had become a routine process for me to
take some notes for this project
after every conversation with Atul. I thought
Atul’s idea for investigating intergenerational whitening in oil exporting
kingdoms had some po- tential. I had to wait and see if he was able to find enough pictures to come up with a
good-sized sample. The wealthy
Arabs had the resources to attract light-
skinned women into marriage. The
big question was whether they had actually done so in the last thirty years. And if the answer was yes, had it resulted
in a beauty differential between the older and the younger generations? If the presence of a
beauty differential is confirmed, then I have found a direct
causal link
between economic
growth and beauty enhancement. The
improvement in physical beauty of a rich society over a short period of time happens not only
because of better diet. It could also
happen through selective marriage with beautiful partners from
other societies.
Chapter Eleven
Atul’s Adventure
Novembers are generally cold in New Haven, but the November
of 98 was unusually mild. Some days, the
temperature rose as high as 58 degrees. I was
busy the entire first week of
that month with the mid-term exams and grading. Atul did not contact me
that week. I figured he must have been busy with his midterms. I was expecting him to call during the second week. It would have been ideal if he had been able to discover any signs of intergenerational
whitening in the oil-rich Arab kingdoms. But he did not contact
me that week either.
On Friday, November 13, I felt
a minor pain in my abdomen after returning from the library
around 2 p.m. At first, I thought it
was a mild case of food poisoning
from the Bologna sandwich that I ate for lunch. But the pain got worse and, by 4 p.m., it was so bad that I decided to go to the health center. Fortunately, the health center was only a block
away from my office, and I was able to walk the short distance. There were several people waiting in the emergency
room, but as soon as I walked in and
explained my condition to the
nurse at the front desk, she told me to wait in one of the examination
rooms. I waited for five minutes before a young female physician entered. The doctor,
who was most likely an intern, asked several questions, and I told her that pain was getting worse by
the minute, as I wiped the sweat off
my forehead.
The intern left the room and returned
shortly with another
older physician. It turned
out that I had a severe case of appendicitis and needed
surgery imme- diately. I was hospitalized and operated on that same evening. I left the Yale University Hospital after
two days – on a Sunday.
Walking upstairs
to my second floor apartment
that evening was a painful experience, and I had to take several painkillers to make
it through the night.
The next day, I wanted to make
it to my Monday af- ternoon class but did not have the energy for it. So, I
called the department and cancelled
it. I also asked them
to put a note on my office door for students. Staying home was a wise decision.
I felt much better
on Tuesday and went to office earlier
than usual. The custodian,
who was a Jamaican woman in her fifties, was still vacuuming the hallway when I finally
got to the third floor, breathing heavily.
“Good
morning, Dr. H. You are early today?!” “Good morning, Mary.
It’s because I have a
lot to
do.”
Mary was a popular character in the department. She enjoyed talking
to everyone about
her daughters and grandchildren. Ever since September, we
all knew that she was preparing to visit Jamaica for Christmas.
As soon as I opened the door, I
noticed an envelope on the floor. Someone
must have slipped
it under the door. It was sealed, and the only thing
written on it was
my name. In it, I found several pages of hand-written notes. It was from Atul.
Dr. H,
I have
been trying to reach you since last night. I called you several times
this morning, but you weren’t in.
Something important has come
up. I stopped by your office this afternoon and saw the note on the door. So I decided to write you this letter because it is
important that you be aware of certain facts in case something
happens to me.
Initially, when I realized
that the letter was from Atul,
I wanted to leave it aside until I had finished with my afternoon
class. However, as I casually
looked at the first paragraph, the
phrase “in case something happens to me” caught my eyes. I also noticed that, unlike Atul’s previous letters, which were typed by computer, this one was hand-written. So I decided
to read it
right away.
When I last talked to you two weeks
ago about the Golden Girls, you
thought that my suspicions were baseless and warned me against
trying to gather any information about their family back- grounds.
I told you then that I would not pursue
this issue, and I really meant
it. But two days later, I accidentally
found out where Sweta Patel’s mother worked, and since it was
not too far from New Haven, I
could not resist the temp- tation to go there and find out what she looked like.
What happened was that, two days after I talked
to you, I saw my roommate Rakhil eating
lunch
with Sweta and two other girls. That night,
I teased Rakhil about being so lucky to have lunch
with one of the Golden Girls. He said that he took a course with Sweta last year and helped her
out a lot. That was how he got to know Sweta and some of her friends. As we talked about the Golden Girls, I commented on the beautiful jewelry that Sweta always wore. According to Rakhil,
this was no surprise
because Sweta’s mother worked
at the jewelry department of J.C. Penney at
Trumbull Mall. It turned
out that Sweta and her mother had once taken Rakhil to lunch to thank him for helping Sweta with her course
work. Rakhil told me that Sweta’s mother
was an attractive Hispanic woman by the name of Maria.
After that conversation, I could
not help myself thinking about my suspicions about the Golden Girls. Since I
knew the first name of Sweta’s
mother and had her work address, I felt
a strong urge to go there
and see her. I was not doing
this for my IS project, and I did not plan to let you know about it. I just wanted to see what she looked like and never thought it
would cause any problems
or raise any suspicions. After all thousands
of people go to J.C. Penney every day, and many of them browse the jewelry section.
So I
went to
Trumbull Mall on Thursday
(Nov. 5). When I walked into
J.C. Penney, it was one past
noon, and there weren’t many people around. I cautiously
walked to the jewelry
de- partment.
Two women were standing behind the glass
cases and talking to
each other. One of them was a blond
girl in her 20s, so she could not have
been Maria. The other one was
a
shorter
lady with brown eyes and brown hair. She looked
old enough to be Sweta’s mother. I stood close
to the jewelry section and glanced at these two ladies as I pretended to be examining some men’s shirts.
I noticed that they both had nametags on. So I
only needed to approach them to find
out if she was Maria or not. I was a little nervous but
finally approached the glass cases and started browsing through the
large collection of earrings. After a few seconds, a customer ap- proached
the two women. The
blond woman responded to her, and they moved to the other side of the counter. The other salesperson, whom
I believed to be Maria, walked toward me and asked if I needed any help. She appeared
to be around 45 to 50 years old. I was not planning to have
a conversation with her and felt a little un-
comfortable for a moment. “Yes. I’m
looking for a pair of earrings,” I said and
pointed to a pair of gold earrings. As she reached
under the glass cover to retrieve the
earrings, I quickly looked at her nametag: ‘Maria Fuentes.’ I took a look at her face, this time searching for signs of resem- blance to Sweta. “The stone is ruby,” said Maria as she handed
them to me. I looked at the earrings for a couple
of seconds and looked at her
face again as I handed them back. I thanked her as I carefully examined the shape of her nose and eyes. “Would you like to see our silver earrings?” she asked before
I had a chance to turn
around and leave. I said ‘yes’ and followed her to the other side of the square-shaped
jewelry section. I asked her to bring out two pairs and asked
her a few questions to have an excuse for
looking at her face more carefully.
Since she had spent some time
showing me the various earrings, I felt compelled to buy something.
I chose an inexpensive pair of silver earrings. As she was processing my credit
card, I looked at her again, but I still wasn’t sure if she was Sweta’s
mother. When she handed me my card and the earrings, she said, “Thank
you, Mr. Divan,” and she said it not in English but in Hindi. I was surprised,
but at the same time I
took it as another indication that she could
have been Sweta’s mother.
I smiled and asked her in Hindi if she was from India. “No. But I was married
to an Indian man,” she replied. Then she asked me if I lived nearby. I told her I lived in Florida and was
visiting a friend in New Haven. "Oh! My daughter goes to school in
New Haven. She is a student at Yale,” said
Maria. I compli- mented her on the success
of her daughter and pointed
out how difficult it was to get into Yale. She proudly
pointed out that her son, who was two years younger, was a sophomore at Brown University.
I offered her another compliment. My compliments made her even more willing to talk. Fortunately, there were no customers around, and Maria’s
younger co-worker was eagerly as- sisting the few who occasionally needed
help. So I continued my conversation with
Maria. Maria had found her current
job after her divorce. I wanted to hear more about her marriage, and
I figured that, if I made up something
about my parent’s marriage, she might also open up. After all, it’s
easy to talk about your private life
to strangers
whom you are sure you will never see again. So I made up a
story about how my father left my mother because he fell in love
with a
lighter-skinned
woman. I was right! She not only revealed more
personal information about herself after
I made this comment, but she talked about
something that further confirmed my suspicions. ”Isn’t
that just like a typical Indian man?”
she asked, her mood becoming more serious. “There are so many beautiful Indian women with dark skin, but Indian men are unfortunately obsessed with whiteness. I hope you are not like that,” she commented
with a smile. “Oh. No, not at
all. How
about your ex-husband, if you don’t mind me asking?”
I replied.
She smiled as she nodded her head:
“Oh, my ex is passionate about whiteness. I would even say that, for him, white skin was like an ob- session.
The only reason he married
me was because of my fair skin.”
I looked at her for a second and
pretended to be confused by her response and asked her why she felt that way. She told me that, about five years
ago, she had gotten into a bitter argument with her sister-in-law. In the heat of the
fight, her sister-in-law had humiliated her
by shouting, “the only reason
my brother married you is because of your white skin - not for yourself.”
“I thought
about what my sister-in-law told me that day for a long time,”
said Maria. “The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was
true. When I thought about my husband’s be- havior from this angle,
suddenly a lot of things
made sense. Why would
a university professor from a
prosperous family marry a poor Hispanic
girl who grew up in a rundown neighborhood and did
not even finish high
school?” said Maria.
“But there is nothing unusual
about a man caring
about beauty more than social
compati- bility when
choosing a marriage partner,” I commented.
She smiled and continued: “Believe me, it wasn’t just
a question of beauty. He was obsessed with whiteness.
He always wanted me to find suitable
partners for his friends, and
the one thing that he insisted on was that they should have fair skin. I was happy to fix
some of my own friends up with his so-called friends,
who were either university professors or medical
doctors. I grew up in Bridgeport, which has a large Hispanic community, and I
knew lots of nice girls. So I regularly called them up and invited them to meet my husband’s
friends. These “friends”
came from all over the East Coast. You
might find it hard to believe,
but five of my high school
friends eventually got married to these Indian men. Two of them got engaged before
our wedding, and two others followed suit in the first two years of our marriage.”
I was
fascinated by these revelations and wanted to hear more about her husband and his friends, but her blond co-worker unfortunately interrupted our conversation
and referred a customer to
Maria. I thanked her
and said goodbye. On my way back to New Haven, I kept thinking about how Maria’s husband had used her as a matchmaker to find
fair-skinned wives for his friends: at least six Indian professionals and perhaps many more, all married to Hispanic girls. It couldn’t have been accidental. There was something
going on. Were there more Indian/Hispanic marriages? Were any other
Golden Girls, besides
Sweta, the fruits of such marriages?
Later that evening when Rakhil
returned from the library, I managed to guide our conversation to the Golden Girls and asked him if he had met the parents of any of the others. His answer was negative. But he did offer a valuable
piece of in- formation. Rakhil had once heard
two of them, Sweta and
another girl named Sonya, talk in Spanish. “I was so surprised,” said
Rakhil. “And when I asked Sonya where she learned to speak Spanish so
well, she said that her mother talked to her in Spanish when
she was a child.” So, based on this information, at least two of the Golden Girls had Spanish mothers. I
wanted to ask Rakhil more
questions about the Golden Girls, but I changed my mind after he
asked me why I was so curious about these girls. I made up an
excuse and changed the subject.
That
night, I spent a lot of time thinking about
how I could learn more about the other Golden
Girls. It was too risky to ask Rakhil or any
other Indian students, because they would have wondered
about my motives. After considering several alternatives, I finally came
up with a strategy. In my applied statistics class,
there is a guy named David Stanton. I
had helped him out with a couple
of class projects, and I knew that he was counting
on my help for future as- signments as well. He is working
part-time in the computer center of the administration office. There was a good chance that he could access the personnel
records of all the students who were currently registered.
The next morning, I sent David an
email and told him that I needed to talk to him as soon as possible.
We met in the afternoon, and I asked him if he had
access to students’ personal infor-
mation. He told me that he had access to all the student records,
but was not authorized to alter any information. I told him that I didn’t need him to alter anything.
I had already thought up a good excuse for what I wanted from him. I told him
that we (Indian students) were organizing a celebration
for several honor students of Indian
origin, and I wanted to invite the parents of
these students without letting the students find out about it. So I gave him the names of
eight Golden Girls and asked him if he
could give me the names and phone numbers of each girl’s parents. He was reluctant, because what I wanted him to do
was illegal. I told him it was for a good cause,
and I also promised to return his favor. After arguing back and forth for several
minutes, he finally agreed and promised to prepare the list over the weekend.
David called me
on Sunday (Nov. 8th). He had the
information that I had
asked for. He wanted to give me the list after the stat class
on Monday, but I couldn’t wait.
I went to his dorm that same night
after dinner. When David handed me the list, he mentioned that he had noticed something strange. “Five of the girls
on your list have mothers with Spanish names, and the other three names sound more European than Indian,” said David.
“Is that true? I didn’t know that,” I replied, looking at the list with
surprise. Then I quickly thanked him
and promised to invite him
to the ceremony. I also asked
him to keep this a secret.
When I looked at the list after
returning to my room, I was
even more puzzled. As David had noticed,
none of these eight girls had Indian mothers,
and five of them had mothers with Spanish
names. As I had expected, Sweta’s
mother was listed as Maria Fuentes. I
re- membered what Maria had told me about matching her
Hispanic girlfriends to her husband’s friends. As I looked at
the list, two questions
kept popping up in my mind. First, were these Indian/Hispanic marriages
part of a deliberate plan to match successful Indian
men with fair-skinned women?
Second, if indeed these were deliberate
marriages, then what was the motive behind them? I had a gut
feeling that some eugenic motive
was at play. I further
noticed that, in six cases, the parents had dif- ferent
addresses, indicating that they were divorced.
Although I had the names,
phone numbers and addresses of the eight mothers, only three of them
lived in Connecticut. I spent most of that day thinking about what to do with the list.
I even thought of contacting you, but I knew you would not have approved of what I
had done.
At the same time, I was worried about what might have happened if
the Golden Girls found out I was asking
around about them.
Well! It
turned out that they had already found
this out. When I left my last class of
the af- ternoon that day, Sweta
and another one of the Golden Girls by the name of Junita were standing
in the hallway. They were staring at me,
and as soon as I walked out of my class they called my name. I could tell from their look that they were not in a friendly
mood. I said ‘hello’ and tried to hide my anxiety.
“Why have you been trying to find out where my
parents live?” asked Junita angrily.
I was so frightened that I
could not respond for a few seconds and just looked
at her. When I was finally
able to overcome the initial
shock, I told her that I did not know what she was talking about. “Don’t lie. Just tell me what did you want
the home ad- dresses of me and some of my friends
for?” asked Junita again, even more angrily.
“Do you realize that what you have done is illegal,
and you will be
in trouble if we file a complaint against you?”
asked Sweta before I had a chance to say anything.
I denied
any knowledge of what they
were talking about, but it must not have been too dif- ficult for them to sense that I was trying to hide something,
because my voice was trembling.
“Are you denying that you
asked David Stanton to pull out our parents’ phone numbers and ad- dresses for you?” asked Sweta. Thank God most students had
left and the hallway was almost empty.
I could hardly breathe when I heard David’s
name. I just said, “Go to hell!” in a
weak voice and walked away from them. “I’ll go to the Dean’s
Office. You won’t get away with this,” shouted Junita.
I just walked away as fast as I could. As soon as I returned to my room, I
called David. I asked him if he had
talked to anyone about the list that he gave me. He swore that he had
not talked to anyone. “Then how the hell did these girls find out about it?” I
asked. David re-
peated his answer and, to prove
his innocence, reminded me that he would be in even more trouble than I would if the administration found out about the list. I asked him over
and over, and he kept denying that he’d told the girls anything. I asked him if there was anyway that the adminis- tration could trace the files that
he had accessed last week. He was not sure. We
were both frightened. I
told him that we must be consistent and both deny the whole thing if anyone ques- tioned us about the list.
I
did not dare to use the list after that en- counter with Sweta and Junita. All week long I
was worried
about what Sweta and the other girls
might do. I was expecting them or someone from Yale’s administration office to contact me at anytime.
But no one did. And as the days passed, I began to believe that they
had forgotten about the issue
altogether. By Friday afternoon, however, I realized how wrong I had been.
I
spent all of Friday afternoon in the library
and left for my dorm at around
5:30. I took my
usual route walking north on Prospect Avenue.
At the intersection of College
and Prospect, as I was waiting
for the green light to cross the street, someone tapped me on the shoulder.
I turned around and saw two men. One of them was clearly an
Indian, very dark-skinned,
tall and rather thin. He was
in his fifties. The other man had a
yellowish complexion. He was in his twenties and shorter (although he was
taller than I am). “Are you Atul Divan?” asked the older man. I nodded yes. “Can we talk to you for a
minute?” asked the older man. I
walked away
from
the edge of the intersection. “I’m Ramish Patel, Sweta’s father,
and this is my son Sanjay.” As
soon as I heard Sweta’s name, my heartbeat rose. “Do you know why we are here?” asked Mr. Patel. “I have a feeling it has something
to do with your daughter,” I replied.
“That’s right. I want to know why were you trying
to find out where her mother and I lived,” he asked calmly. His voice was not as threatening as I initially expected, but I was still frightened. After a couple
of seconds, I regained my con- fidence
and collected my thoughts: “I have no idea
what you are talking
about. Why would I want to get a hold of your address?”
“Don’t you deny it,” said Mr. Patel, while pointing his finger at me. “I know
for a fact that you asked a student named David who has access to student records for the
parental addresses of several Indian girls.
Just tell me what you were after.” He took a step toward me in a threatening way as he finished this sentence.
“I told you. I don’t know what the hell are you talking
about. This is harassment. First your daughter and now you are harassing me.”
At this point the younger man,
Sanjay, rushed forward and held my arm. “What were you
doing at J.C. Penney in
Trumbull Mall last week? Why did you
talk to an employee named Maria?” he asked as he pressed my arm even harder. I tried to
free my hand but he was stronger
than I am. I was so shocked by this
question. They even knew about my conversation with Maria, but how?
“You must
be out of your mind. I have never met anyone named Maria, and I haven’t been to
that mall in more than a month,”
I shouted as I
struggled to free my hand. As people began to notice the commotion, Ramish Patel
told his son to let go of my arm. I wanted to run away, but the younger man was too close. He would have grabbed me
before I had a chance to take my second step. I looked at both of them
and decided it was best if I just kept quiet.
The older man broke the silence. “You are lying. I have
proof that you made a purchase from the
jewelry department at J.C. Penney last week.
Look! I just want to know what are you searching for. We are both Indians. We are not each
other’s enemies. You know that what you did was
illegal. You unlawfully obtained
personal in- formation about eight students. Even if you don’t talk, David will, and then you will be in deep trouble. If you just tell me what were you after, I promise not to report you.”
I
just looked at him and walked away. They did not follow
me. I can’t even describe how horrible
I felt that night. I knew that they would
come
after me again. Sooner or later,
I had to stop denying the truth and give them some expla- nation. But what could
I say? I tried to contact you, but you were not in your office. I tried to call you at home, but
your home phone number was not listed. So I spent the entire weekend in the library
trying to keep my mind occupied. I tried to
contact David, but he was out of town. Sunday
night when I returned to my room, I decided
it would be too
dangerous to keep the notes and photocopies
that I had gathered for the whitening project in my unlocked drawer. I had kept all of these documents in three folders along with a
diskette with copies of my computer files on whitening. What if these people managed to search
my room! What if Rakhil was spying for
them? I wanted to put these folders
in my other drawer, which
had a lock. Unfortunately, it was too late.
The drawer was empty. Someone
had stolen all of my research materials on whitening. Rakhil was not a suspect,
because he had been out of town since Thursday, and I had seen the folders on Friday. I looked everywhere, but they were gone. Nothing else was missing. I can only think
of one person who might have taken these folders: Ramish Patel or someone on his
behalf. I really believe now that the Golden
Girls and their families are hiding
something that has to do with
whitening. Why else would they take away my notes on this topic?
Dr. H,
I’m very worried. I’m afraid that you might be in trouble
too. Whoever took my notes knows by now
that you are supervising my re- search on whitening. I’m very sorry about this mess. I will keep calling you until I
get a hold of you.
Regards, Atul
* * *
Stupid, stupid Atul!! No! It was I who was stupid.
Why did I not think of this
danger? I trusted Atul because he
seemed so conservative and obedient. I never
imagined he might
dare to do anything as careless as this. By the time I finished
reading Atul’s letter, it was 8:30 am. I had to
prepare for my afternoon class, but I was so nervous that I could not
even start. I
had to call Atul right away.
I had not even noticed that the message light on my phone was blinking.
There
were three messages from Atul: two from Sunday night and one from Monday morning letting me know that he would stop by in the afternoon. I called him. He was not
in his room, so I left a message and asked him to call me back as soon as possible.
First my surgery and now this! I decided to put the letter aside and prepare
for my afternoon class, but I
couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking about what the de- partment might do if
the person who took Atul’s notes sent them to the department. I
could definitely kiss my tenure
goodbye then. I tried to think
about how I should respond if the department found
out, but I was too anxious to think clearly. I was in no mood for teaching my afternoon class either. I
decided to tell the department
that I was in pain and
had to cancel my class.
It suddenly occurred to me that it would be too risky to keep any notes related to Atul’s research in my office. I kept these notes and my own notes on the Beauty
and Development project in a magazine file on
the upper shelf of a bookcase across
from my desk.
I looked up at the bookcase. The file was not there. It felt like
I was suffocating for a second. I jumped out of my chair and moved toward
the bookcase looking in every shelf from top to bottom. I searched my
entire office in panic. That particular magazine file had
disappeared. I looked around to see if anything
else was missing.
Nothing else had been taken.
I sat in my chair,
closed my eyes and tried
to control my feelings, which
were oscillating between
rage and despair.
Aside from the fact that the stolen notes could have
been used against me, I was also angry about losing all the
research ma-
terials that
I had gathered for the Beauty and Development project.
After a few minutes, I calmed down a little and began to analyze the situation. First, I had to find out who had entered my office. I called the
secretary in the main office and asked if anyone had
borrowed the spare key to my office over the past three days.
Her answer was negative. She said that departmental policy does not allow her to let anyone into
a faculty member’s office
without his permission. Even teaching assistants were not allowed to borrow the key.
So, if no one had borrowed the key to enter my office,
someone must have entered without a
key. I checked the door lock to see if it had been tampered with. There were no
fresh marks or scratches around the knob. While I was examining the door, the phone
rang. It was Janet Riley, the
department’s business ad- ministrator: “Midge told me about your phone call a minute
ago. Are you concerned that
someone has entered your office without your
permission?” I wasn’t prepared
for this question. “Oh. Yes… Actually I’m not sure. I can’t find a few of my books that I used to keep here in my office. I thought that perhaps one of
the faculty members had borrowed them without
telling me. I don’t know. It could also be that I have taken them home and just don’t remember it now,” I replied. “That’s too bad. As Midge told you, we never
give out the spare key for the faculty offices. The only other person
who can open the office doors is Mary, the cus- todian, and I trust her 100%, “ said Janet.
“Oh! I trust Mary as well. As I said, I might have taken them home a while back. It is not a big deal really. But thanks for your call.” Mary was already gone for the day. I saw no point staying in the office. I wrote down Atul’s phone
number on a piece of paper.
Before
leaving my office, I called his
room number again and left a message telling him to call me at home. By
eight p.m., Atul had not returned my call. It
was strange, considering how worried he sounded in his letter. I called him again. His roommate Rakhil an- swered. He said that Atul was there earlier, but left a few minutes
before my call.
I asked Rakhil
to write a note and put it on Atul’s desk where he would defi- nitely
see it. Atul had surely gotten my messages.
Then
why didn’t he
return my call?