Everyone. Welcome. Thank you for joining us tonight. As you can see this is being filmed by cspan for their booktv program and so if you can all make so that your phone ring tones are turned off that would be lovely. I would also like to let you know that some of the things that we have coming up. Tomorrow night lisa will be here with her mystery i found you and on monday another installment in the roundtable series hosted by a local literary magazine featuring several contributors to the new issue. Tonight we are delighted to have you all here for deepak singh. He is a contributor to pri, he has appeared in several papers and he is him today for his new book how may i help you . And immigrants journey. [applause] thank you for having me. My name is deepak singh and he is in the posters and everything im from india originally i moved to the United States about 13 years ago in 2003. I have an mba from indiana and i was working in india. When i came here, i came from a good educational background. I spoke well and came from a good wellknown organization. I had no problem getting a job but i was surprised that my mba and my education qualifications and my experience did not matter much. And also my accent. Come here have to speak like american. Said things that pakistan is that of pakistan. Or baghdad instead ofb. Anyway, i took a job in retail. And this happened. So i would say a few things about me. How i came to the United States. I was working for a woman in pennsylvania, her name is holly and i met her and became friends and we fell in love and got married in the came to this country. That is how america became my new home. Back in india my parents wanted me to get an mba. Im not the kind of person but they said it would give me a good job to make a lot of money get married and have kids and live happy forever and ever. I got the mba but i did not get a job that they wanted. I got another job on accident but it was a good accident. I also married a woman not of their choice but they like her anyway. So i came here and a lot of stuff in this book, in india theres a lot of prejudice if youre educated if you take a job people looked on you for doing something menial in the judge on the basis of that. So had that the back of my mind. I was constantly harvesting in the back of my head that people are judging me. What am i doing here . Michigan loser . No, i have a education in the degree but here i am and i know the tonics store. And was a come here . What i give this up in india . So im going to read a chapter and open it up so you can ask some questions. This is the first day, ive been on facebook only if humanism is a middle aged indian couple walking in. I took my name tag up and put in my pocket. I tried not to be the first one to talk to them and pretended to look like a shopper myself. I was embarrassed to be talking to another indian. I saw my parents in them. I cannot look at their eyes and they look at me. I went to hide in the bathroom. My boss came to the back room and said deepak, we have some indian shoppers that want to buy a dvd player and they want to know if it will work in india. I told them one of our team members is from india. He can answer questions better than anyone else can. She said with a grin on her face. I have to come out, the man smiled at me and said are you from india . Yes i am, i said and i smiled back. Which part . North. We are from mumbai and i have a question. My son is a Medical Square visiting him but now we are going back. The lady said and scanned me top to bottom. Okay what can i help you with . I said trying to avoid the next question. Back in india mothers of my friends often volunteered their sons salaries and then quickly asked mine. It was a way of judging their son. We are trying to buy dvd player but we want to make sure it will work in india. Let me see i said. And i walked to the dvd section. I studied at the university them and asked . No i am not. What are you doing here . Hes there with a curious face. I am working here, i said. He fired the next question. What is your background . Yes, the dvd will working in the i said. Okay good. My background is media i said. I am new in america. Im trying to find a better job. Yes, i was thinking about that. You seem to be an educated chap. You can do better than this the man replied. I dont know why but i was acting as if the couple would like to india and go straight to my parents and tell them what i was doing. [laughter] out of more than one billion indians in india and around the world the chance of the indian shopper in my store turning out to be someone who would know my parents was next to zero. But it did not matter. I could not get that out of my system. When that training finish i know business being in the back room unless i was on boxing merchandise. All of a sudden my first reaction was to avoid being seen anyone that looked to be indian. Although i did not know anyone, any of the indians that came to shove it seemed as if i could read their minds. When they saw me working at the store. You pathetic loser they seemed to say. You came to america to do this . I took a deep breath after the indian couple left. And the next few minutes a white lady came into the store. She looked to be in her 80s and walk slowly. My boss acknowledged me to take the initiative to help her. She came to me is that im looking for a bout of my life. My brain did a quick search. She took her wristwatch off and set it down on the counter. I found myself clueless. I knew that i had learned about finding batteries for watches but cannot recall anything. I asked her, you know kind of battery does it take . I dont know but you should be able to look it up on the computer. Can you . And i watched her. Other westerly list i wonder she had children or grandchildren felt sorry for her that a enrolled agent she had to come by herself to do this. My grandmother used to asked me to get her medicine or get letters. She never had to go anywhere. I couldnt imagine her going to buy a battery on her own. People would have judged my family very harshly she had to do that. Im sure my neighbors and friends would have thought we were foolish and selfish and irresponsible. While i was lost in these talks about the first customer cindy put on the screwdriver and walked towards me. She came to me, but her face right in mine and stared at me for a few inches away. I can see was her white face smiling but with gritted teeth. She said all right, what did you learn from the Customer Service training . I stood there and said nothing. She said let me remind you and dont you ever forget that every customer has to be greeted within five seconds of setting foot in the store. All right . I said i will never forget this. She stepped back pointed to the edges and said also, should welcome to the customer and not wait for him to come to you. I said okay and she raised her 170 and said all right. She smiled again and went back to what she was doing. I forgot to greet the customer and i had waited for her to come to me. Because i was not confident i will be able to answer the question. I printed out the receipt and handed it to the ladies. They looked at me and smiled one of them said work as they walked out i wiped the sweat off of my four head i felt danger the longest 20 minutes of my life. I looked at my watch and said it is almost time to go. Not yet another colleague of mine said. We had to do a few things before we close. When you grab the vacuum cleaner and i will count the money in the cash register. I wondered if ron hadnt quite help me because he was insecure and not a good enough salesman himself. I wasnt sure. I left work after a very long and emotionally exhausted day. My wife came to pick me up. The city buses stopped running after 9 oclock. After put on the seatbelt, she put the car in gear and we drove off. A few seconds later she asked me how was your first day . I did not know what to say. I wasnt sure of the 85yearold lady coming to get her watch battery was more shocking than cindy berating me for a bad Customer Service. For not being able to have the young woman that was more embarrassing. She looked at me and i did not respond. I said how was your day . I took a deep breath and she said its all right we can talk again later. That was the first chapter hope it gives you a small glimpse. I will be happy to answer any questions. Are you still selling and how is it going . Thank you for asking. Im not selling anymore. This happened 10 years ago. 2004 and 2006. I was working before i went back to doing radio and im a fulltime writer now. That is what i do now. Yes . What was the process when you wrote this book . Was it after . It was much after. It was too overwhelming when i was working you need to learn and sell and not get fired. So about three years later when i finish the work i started thinking i dont think i would do that again. Or i will go back to selling batteries and stuff i didnt know existed like shower radio. I didnt know why people listen to radio in the shower. It was once a motel mentored by one and you did not know what it was for. I started writing the book five years after i started i finished. I had a different perspective went back to india and thought about it a lot. I wanted to write for me and the people, my friends to know what it was like to work in retail for two years in virginia and so to americans with an extra syllable in every word. [laughter] what was it like . It was good because i worked with english front end that was different but i thought i spoke fine when i came to virginia in charlottesville. If you judged him as of drugs for you to be in virginia and people have very different dialect. A southern drawl. It took a long time for me to understand them and then to understand me. So it was rough in a lot of ways. The book is also not just about my experiences. It is about me, learning about my colleagues get the most shocking thing was how i learned about poverty in the United States. The people who were working with me, they were trying to make ends meet by seven dollars an hour. I do not have any kids. I didnt have any debt, do not have Child Support to pay or any kind of you know the people working with me had kids, they had to pay Child Support and childcare, healthcare, mortgages and lots of debt. They were just trying to do that while working with me. And i often thought that i can just quit this and go back to india. I can do what i was doing there and go back but thinking of the people like ron and cindy and jackie, they did not have a place to go back to. This was their life. If they got out of the retail so there will probably end up in another one. I developed a lot of empathy for my colleagues and it also help me reexamine my own self. Because i came from a highclass hindu. I was sitting on the floor vacuuming and cleaning and doing many jobs in a realize that what about the people that do this job on a daily basis in my home back in india . I never thought often that maybe they do this because this is what they are good for. They did not go to school, they did not have a job, i realized that after i get a good education to get a job it is not about a lot is where you come from what advantage you have some of certain family difficulties become a doctor. You can ask more questions i will keep going on. Did you work in retail in different parts of the United States or just in virginia . Justin virginia one store for two years. I got to know people really well and i also became a good salesman. The title of the book makes it sound like it is a sad story but i became one of the top salesman in the entire district. I was the best person to buy a cell phone from. [laughter] did i hear you say that you went to Business School . Sorry . You said he went to Business School . Yes in india. That have you all in your sales or Business Activities or even in your writing . Yes in writing, it did not help me get a job but it helped me knowledge wise i could talk to people, and learn a lot of organizational behavior and things like that so help me converse with a lot of customers and talk to them. Not just trying to sell them and pushed up on them but actually learn about my customers as human beings and have a conversation. A lot of times my bosses like that i talked to my customers, they did not like that i was talking to customers that that i was wasting time. So it helped me in some ways but it did not help me at a better job. Did it help you in your writing . It teaches you different kind of writing. Basically business writing. I was doing radio, writing for radio. I headed journalistic i was always observing while those working and so it did help me in some ways. But the mba did not help me much with writing. Im just wondering how you felt customers treated you . Good and bad. And because of my accent people cannot communicate so that was a barrier. So they did not want to deal with me because they knew it would take longer for me to understand what they were saying. So i thought they did not like me because of that but it was not, they did not hate me because of that but they thought, they wanted to come in and get their stuff and leave. They do not want to have to explain over and over. But some people said bad things but there were a lot of good people who were really gracious and nice and supportive and want to give me the time to understand. I cant say for a long time, this is my second day, this is my third day, this is my fourth day. Okay you have been every month thank you for sharing. I wonder if you would use awkward social mobility do i select that . Owner if you would use words. [inaudible] not pressure your question but this book is about my downward mobility. I started from india, had a good job. If i stayed in india i would probably have kept going up but here i took a dive and i went from a cushy job to standing on your feet for eight hours. That was in the beginning, right . No, i worked for two years. So i did the same, i did not move up. I mean my manager asked me to go for manager training so i can become manager but she was a manager and she also worked very hard. She also did pretty much the same thing that i was doing so i did not want to become a manager because it would not have meant that i moved to a different city. Or a different store i was with my wife was going to school for her phd so i wanted to stay close to her. I just chose to be in the store and in that position until i quit that i just quit. I did not do retail after that. Did that answer your question . Yes. I have another one. I wonder how this relates to your sense of dignity, however, you define it. My dignity took a big dent in the beginning. When i came, just to wear a uniform you know the shirt with pants a name tag and standing in front of the store on the sales floor every day and customers when they come in, they are nice to you but you have to be very nice to them. You have to smile every day. No matter what your life is, how unhappy you are you have to put on a smile. It is a hard job in retail. Be very nice to every Single Person. They do not have to be nice to you at the same time. So im not saying but you can take your dignity, someone says something and you get upset but you cannot be upset because you have to carry on. It is a balancing act. To brush off and keep going. You also learn, in my case what it was like to be human, what it was like to be a salesperson and being in sonos issues. I left that job and never went back but some people are still working those jobs and for immigrants to come here, they have subways and hotels in Dunkin Donuts and stuff like that. A lot of them are educated people. They do this because education is not valued, not at the same level. I met a lot of people doctors in indiana couldnt, they did not want to do the residency, 70 residency they did not want to do that. They wanted to send the kids to school so you know it is a lot of suffering. They give up a lot to come here but of course, america is offering not to move ahead but also you sacrifice a lot. What are your impressions. [inaudible] professionally, i learned that things get done in america. If you go to the post office, you can post your letter or mail or by stamps and is in a number of minutes per you say i will spend 10 minutes to do it. In india you can spend two hours and is still not done. A lot of bureaucracy and people and things dont work. This can be, it is changing but it is still a lot like that. Personally i think is hard to compare, i cannot say i feel this way or that way but you keep learning about america, is at best a country and induced betty lifetime, i am from the north and southern parts, it is like 20 other languages they do not know a word of. I have met many and easier than it is beginning was because i do not speak their language. And everything is different. Where do i start . It is a huge country and i am still in america. So i love both countries i am from india and i am here now and i am a good place to talk about both cultures. When i go to see my inlaws they live on 100 acre farm and at 5 oclock they can supper, not dinner. And so it is good, a lot of material there. Yes . Do any of your coworkers that you write about in the book have they read the book . And what are their reactions . I left the store and i did not, i lost touch with them before facebook and all of that so i wrote this five years after i left. And it was a high turn over. People came and they left in a couple of months. All of the people that i write about they were in my head. I cannot keep track of them. Hopefully somebody will find something and read it. I am not in touch with anybody. A still adjusting to the differences of the two cultures . Is a difficult . I am doing pretty well in the United States. I have adjusted. Sometimes when i go back to india i had to adjust there. It is reverse culture shock. Somebody asked me somewhere what is my next project . In 2007 i went back to india for a year and i built a house for my parents. Anybody ever do that . I built the house. Now with my hands but the contractors and i had to arrange very plumber and electrician and bricklayers, everything. So the first now to the last coat of paint. I built a house in nine months. And it was reverse culture shock. It was like i was driving oldsmobile here in america. My wifes big car. I went back to dry my honda. My honda motorbike. So we will back to india if you were just there, he lived there for a while and say i forgot this constant learning. Given the changes in the social and political environment again, since years ago when youre working retail. How do you think that challenges in the situation might be different from other people who are now in a similar situation to you in terms of being a highly educated person working a low wage job as an immigrants in the us . Good question, thank you for asking. I think the minimum wage has gone up. It was only five dollars in change when i got here it is eight or nine something now. It is 11 . Okay. Even 11, things have gotten expensive. So even if youre educated or not educated it will be hard to make rent, child care and everything. It is difficult. Maybe it has gotten better because wages have gone up but im sure it is hard. People who work in target, walmart, big stores and a lot of times do not have health insurance. It is difficult. My inlaws born on other farm and never left. Always lived in small village. Every Single Person who is related to them lives in one village. When i go there, Everybody Knows im deepak. Only one ground guy the whole village. So, everybody enchanted by the guy from indian, have lots of questions. Sometimes questions were kind of strange, like do you wear a turban. They met a guy a long time ago who wore a turn turban. One time any grandfather online was stopped bay gay who said, have you soon at the taj majal . My grandfather was like, what . Arent you from india . No, im from guatemala. Oh, im sorry. So there are cultural profile but people are accommodating. One book i wrote that id never eaten beef before i its beef there. Sew my grandmotherinlaw red the book and said she had to stonewalled start feeding me beef. I can tell you more. Its a learning experience. Ive been married 14 years so they know me now and i know them. And its a constant learning process. Thank you so much,. [applause]