Having arrived at MIT the fall of 1975, I soon found Sangam, the local Indian student association, and many of their members became my early tutors for many of life’s lessons like cooking (don’t let the Sahara bread sit in the oven till they become like papad), clothing (standard issue Army Navy surplus parka and winter lace up boots), liquor (drink anything with alcohol in it) and entertainment (don’t miss the start of semester XXX 26-100 show).
As new friendships strengthened into a tight group that ate together frequently in the common kitchens in Ashdown or over at a friend’s place at Tang, thoughts turned to the summer ahead. The next year, 1976, presented a unique opportunity to attend the Olympics which were being held in Montreal for the very first time and a mere skip and jump away from Boston. As any red blooded Indian would have asserted in those days, it was a chance to at least see one sport where India was surely going to qualify, Field Hockey. For the younger generation reading this, yes there was a time when India dominated Field Hockey and that was men not women. India had won the Olympic Gold seven of the past ten Olympics. We were sure they were going to make it to the finals.
And so we splurged for tickets to the Hockey finals in Montreal. I forget how much we paid but it must have been a kingly sum for us starving grad students. The finals were going to be on the evening of Friday, July 30th. As I recall a group of 8 or 9 of us had bought tickets to the event. One of us, I think it was Lohit Konwar, but I might be mistaken as time fades memories, had a boat of a car – an Olds 98 or a giant Buick. Being cheapskate students, we somehow managed to pile into the tank the evening before and drive up to Montreal. No seat belts in those day 🙂
We arrived at night, found a pizza joint or was it a Greek place, and crashed at a youth hostel. By then we had heard the disappointing news that India hadn’t made it to the finals – in fact they hadn’t reached the final four. Pakistan was left to defend South Asian hockey honor. We cruised around Montreal in the morning and trooped into the stadium to watch Pakistan take on Holland for the bronze. The final was between the two countries down under – New Zealand and Australia, their version of the subway series. Had to look up the interweb to figure all this out since not much of a memory remains of the game.
What did stick out was the ride back. Again in the interests of financial austerity, we decided to drive back through the night to avoid having to pay for another night’s accommodation. It was thus that a scruffy band of Indians crossed the US Canadian border in the early morning hours only to be hauled up by the US Immigration. Obviously looking like a bunch of shifty-eyed drug smugglers, we were lined up and the car searched. Not finding anything of significance and realizing we were actual students, they let us go and we made it uneventfully back to Cambridge.
I still have a thread worn Olympic T Shirt from that adventure as I don’t think I am ever going to get any closer to one in my lifetime.
Recollections of Raj Melville as he wanders through the memory lane from over forty years ago!
MIT Sangam Reunion 