The Red, White and Blue…is Brown: A True Story
An Indian-American immigrant‘s incredible journey of triumph.
Based on audio recordings and interviews with Mr. Anthony Aruldoss (Wheaton, Maryland). The story is told from his perspective.
I was 15 years old when I ran away from home. We lived in Madras, India, called Chennai now, at a time when the city was far more rural than it is today. It was 1947 and the freedom struggle in India against the British was nearly over, but coming from a poor family I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about things outside of our day-to-day survival. I was largely ignorant to what was happening politically, and in my mind, I thought it wouldn’t affect me one way or the other.
Why did I run away? My father died young, and our family quickly became financially desperate. When he was alive, we lived a decent existence. Because he cooked for the British, my father would sometimes bring home leftover fish and meat for our family. Much of that fell apart after my father passed. My mother had never worked outside of the home, and indeed society at the time didn’t allow it. The delicate charade of being middle class in a poor neighborhood had dissolved away.
I had three brothers and two sisters and I felt helpless seeing them struggle financially. To help, I started working in an office as part of the maintenance staff. It paid 10 rupees per month which is the equivalent of making pennies each day in 2020. My boss was upset with me at work one day and slapped me in the face. I was already feeling hopeless, and when he hit me, I reached a tipping-point. I ran home and I was on a mission to escape the reality I faced. At the time, I didn’t know any better, but if I had, I probably wouldn’t have left home.
When I came to Bombay, called Mumbai now, by train, I had no money and I made the journey without a railway ticket. Back then traveling this distance of nearly 900 miles was unheard of, it was a big, big deal, especially for a boy like me. If they had caught me on the train without a ticket, I figured they would have put me in jail. But I took the risk anyway, hiding under a bench in the ladies-only compartment. As a boy who was small for his age, I was able to sneak in thanks to the compassion — and probably pity — of the women sitting there. This was a third-class compartment for ordinary Indians to ride in. The women would shield me from the conductor and one of them handed me a banana and some bread under the bench. I’d never been on a train before, and the two-day journey left me exhausted.
I finally reached Bombay, a city where I knew nobody and where I didn’t speak the language. It felt like I had transported to a distant planet. I was mesmerized by the tall buildings and felt overwhelmed knowing that people from other parts of India would never in their lifetimes take in such a sight. People on the street called me a “Kala Madrasi,” or “Black person from Madras,” which is a derogatory name for Indians from the South, who tend to have darker skin. I didn’t understand Hindi then, but based on the demeanor of people who said that to me, I knew it meant something offensive. I’d be called that numerous times over my years living in Bombay, and by then it was no longer a mystery what it meant.
In India at that time — and let’s be honest, even today — the caste you are born into often determines the opportunities you will have. Many families that were once Hindu converted to other religions including Christianity and Islam to escape the grips of oppression. Unfortunately, these caste labels still followed most of our families. I was raised Catholic, but the lower caste history of my family still meant that members of our community would live largely in poverty. Before his passing, my father was someone who had “made it” as far as my community was concerned. But that had all fallen apart fast. Sitting on the docks that day, a man walking by noticed that I didn’t seem to belong. By an unimaginable stroke of luck, the man was from Madras, and the same caste community as my family. He knew of my late father — so he put me to work, helping him in his duties as a butler.
The theme of chance events that change the course of my life begins here in Bombay. One could say that I’ve been lucky at times along the way, but I like to think that I just knew to keep my eyes and ears open, and I wasn’t afraid to take a leap when an opportunity came along. Some leaps were such a distance, that I had to fly from one edge to the other. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of hard falls along the way too, where it could have all ended. Despite the discrimination and oppression that I faced at times, the unexpected and profound kindness of strangers is another theme woven tightly into my story.
Though things were rapidly changing politically, and power was shifting back onto the shoulders of Indians, all things British were still a symbol of power and security. This butler was employed by British Naval Cmdr. T. Johnston. I went along to the officer’s home one day and stood waiting patiently outside until the butler called me in to help with some chores. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was grateful for the opportunity; I grabbed the first thing I saw, a pair of white shoes, and started polishing them. The butler liked my enthusiasm, so he taught me a little about his work and started taking me to the home regularly to help clean. I ended up meeting the British officer, his wife, and two boys. I eventually became quite familiar to them. During my childhood, I would play a game with marbles — a game that is well-known to poor kids throughout India — and I taught the British children how to play. We sort of became friends, and the family warmed up to me.
One day while I was working at their home, the family was entertaining a lady from the British High Commission in Bombay. They were having tea together, and I was in the room helping to serve. Something about the intense focus I placed on mundane tasks like serving tea caught her eye, and she asked if she could hire me for help in her own home. The Naval officer agreed to it, and I was happy too because the job paid 40 rupees a month. I thought I’d hit the lottery. Her name was Monica Mary Hughes, she had two daughters of her own and treated me well as a servant. While working there, I got to know some local Indian boys in the neighborhood, and we became friends. This allowed me to quickly learn Hindi, which was a completely foreign language to me until then.
When Mrs. Hughes received orders to return to London, she made it her mission to find me a job elsewhere. She took me to the British High Commission office in Bombay and got me a job as a messenger boy. Within weeks I was riding my bike all over the city delivering packages and letters. I learned the streets and neighborhoods by heart. Unlike the Bombay of today, cars were a rare sight. There were some trams and horses around, with a few British-made cars for just the wealthiest and most powerful in the city. It was a joy for me becoming an expert on the best shortcuts, which was helpful as I delivered to nearly 20 locations daily. My starting salary was 80 rupees per month. I thought I was rolling in cash. At this point, British rule in India had been over for one year, but they still had a presence in the country. Working for them was still considered a sought-after position. Considering where I had come from, I was proud of the “British High Commission” badge on my shoulder.
As a messenger boy, I was expected to carry my bicycle up six flights of stairs to storage when we weren’t out delivering. I struggled carrying it because I was so small. This was the Mercantile Bank Building and it still stands today as an imposing structure that stretches for a whole block. One day, after delivering all of my letters for the morning, I was carrying my bicycle up the stairs as the officers were returning from lunch. The Deputy High-Commissioner of Bombay, Sir Leslie Pott, saw me struggling up the stairs. I’d noticed him, but I was too focused on the task to feel self-conscious. Later that afternoon, the Indian-Jewish superintendent of the office called to me, “Hey boy, idhar aao!” (Come here!). I thought I was in trouble. I came into the office, “Yes sir, yes sir,” I said coming in, bowing my head. “The big boss says you’re not delivering anymore, you’re going to work inside now.” That day, I became a personal office attendant, officially called a “peon” to the deputy officer. I was so grateful for the job that I’d get my assignments done in a fraction of the allotted time. Commissioner Pott told me that instead of sitting idle most of the day, I should work somewhere where I could learn something. After a few years in Bombay, my spoken English and Hindi were both pretty good, but my literacy was still poor.
I was transferred to a post at a British library in the city, where I would have the chance to practice reading books and newspapers while on shift. This is where I solidified my ability to read and write without ever finishing school. One day at the library, I was reading a newspaper called The Times of India; next to me was the assistant librarian, Uma Mehta. She was a sharp young woman who was also my supervisor. The article’s headline was “His excellency GL Mehta has been appointed by the Prime Minister of India to be the new Indian Ambassador to the United States.” I looked at Ms. Mehta and said, “You have the same last name as this person in the article.” I said this mostly because I was proud to show off that I could read well enough to make that connection. “Yes, yes, yes,” she said, “That’s my father, we’re going to America.” I was surprised; I didn’t think she would actually be related to him. After a long pause, she asked me, “Tony, do you want to come with us?” I wasn’t sure what I’d just heard. At that time, going to America was like going to heaven. It was a place that you believed existed, but sounded too good to be real.
She asked me to come to her father’s home for an interview at lunch time the next day. I arrived at the home, and the Ambassador’s assistant was conducting interviews for various positions. Many tall, handsome, high-class appearing people who probably had personal ties to the new Indian political class were lining up waiting for their turn. I looked at the others and figured that I had no chance. While standing in front of their home, the Ambassador’s wife made eye-contact with me and signaled for me to come up. I thought to myself, “Is she looking at me?” I came around to the back door, since at that time, only those living in the home, or official guests, would enter through the front door. When I knocked, a handsome but ordinary looking man opened the door. He had a string across his bare chest and a dhoti on, which is a linen cloth tied around the waist. I remember he was very fair skinned and had silver gray hair. I figured that based on his traditional dress, and absence of a suit and tie, he must have been hired labor at the home. I told him, “I want to see madam,” asking for the woman of the household who had waved me down. He burst out laughing, and I was confused at first. He called to his wife, “Saudamini, you have a guest here!” Then it dawned on me that I was speaking to the Ambassador himself — I froze.
They invited me in, and having heard about me from her daughter, the Ambassador’s wife took a liking to me right away. I think she was impressed by how bold and courageous I was, even though I was a small, poor kid that society at-large would have turned its back on. She asked me, “before we go to America, do you want to see your mother?” I said yes, and she handed me 400 rupees, more money than I (and most Indians) had ever seen all at one time. Since I became a messenger boy, I had been sending my mother some money every month— not much, but what I could spare. I hadn’t seen them in the nearly five years since I fled to Bombay.
Looking at the way my community prepared for my arrival, you would have thought a king was visiting. The whole neighborhood was outside on the street to receive me, and everyone was saying “Whoa, he’s going to America!” I made my way back to Bombay after the short visit to Madras, and a diplomatic passport was waiting for me. The Government of India was allowing the Ambassador to take some helpers, and I was one of the four who would maintain the Ambassador’s residence in Washington, DC.
We left in August of 1952, on a ship called the RMS Multan. We sailed from Bombay to Aden, Yemen, then through the Suez Canal to Port Said in Egypt. Then from there we eventually stopped in Marseille, France. This trip was a blur, as I was completely overwhelmed, punctuated by periods of great clarity. The view from the middle of the ocean showed me for the first time how vast the World was, and how much more I still needed to learn and understand. I also remember a man that tried to sell me a sex-worker at the port in Marseille, pushing a girl toward me and repeatedly insisting something in a language I couldn’t understand. I had smiled at him vaguely and didn’t realize what the interaction was all about until we had left for London and I’d had some time to think about it. Almost a month after leaving Bombay, we arrived in London.
A bus picked us up from the port, and we stayed in London for a few days. Having grown up in British-ruled India, coming to London was surreal. I couldn’t believe where I was. I was surprised by how cold London was, and it felt like a strange and uncomfortable place at the time. We left aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth from Southampton, south of London, and arrived in five days to New York City. Seeing the high-rises appear on the horizon, I remember my heart was racing. A sight so extraordinary challenged all I thought I knew and inspired me at the same time. From New York, we took a train down to Union Station in Washington, DC. One of the chauffers at the Indian Embassy, Mr. Mallick, came to pick us up. Decades later, our driver that day would go on to become a millionaire businessman in Washington, DC owning a restaurant called the Taj Mahal.
Washington, DC at the time was considered among Indians to be a cradle of progressive western thought and ideals. But I arrived to find a different reality. It was a few years before Brown vs Board of Education and a famous local case called District of Columbia vs. John R. Thompson and Company. Schools in the district were still segregated, and many local institutions still had separate bathrooms and water fountains. Stores had signs such as, “Colored area”, while some explicitly advertised “White Only.” Though some Indians might occupy an ambiguous space given their physical features, my darker skin made it easy for society to simply classify me as “Colored.” I was treated as such. I’d left behind caste-based discrimination in Madras, to live second class to so-called “north Indians” in Bombay. I left Bombay to be again subjugated by a disturbingly structured form of racism promoted by the Jim Crow laws of the United States. After escaping some of the lowest rungs of society, I had reached the “promised land,” yet racism and prejudice seemed inescapable.
The Indian Embassy was a twelve-room mansion that used to belong to the Guggenheim family. I lived in this building from 1952–1958, for almost the entire tenure of Ambassador GL Mehta. We would host famous politicians and celebrities at the home, some for dinner and some as overnight guests. I would personally attend to many of our guests by handling their belongings and serving them dinner and drinks. The Ambassador was proud of me, so I wasn’t kept behind the scenes — I actually had the opportunity to meet our visitors face-to-face.
Among the many Indian dignitaries I met were Jawaharlal Nehru (then Prime Minister of India), his daughter Indira Gandhi (the future Prime Minister of India), Homi J. Bhabha (a physicist and the father of India’s atomic bomb), Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (the future President of India), Sir C.D. Deshmukh (the Finance Minister of India), Baldev Singh (the First Defence Minister of India and later a member of Parliament), Prafulla Ghosh (the prior Chief Minister of West Bengal), B.C. Roy (the prominent physician and then Chief Minister of West Bengal), General Shrinagesh (the Chief of Staff for the Indian Army), the Maharaj of Jaipur, and finally, Ghanshyam Das Birla and Naval Tata (both famous Indian business tycoons).
The influential people I had the chance to meet and serve was not limited to Indians. The Americans I met left just as much of an impression on me. These individuals included Dwight D. Eisenhower (then U.S. president: 1953–1961), John F. Kennedy (then U.S. Senator in MA: 1953–1960), Eleanor Roosevelt (then a UN envoy, after her husband’s presidency), Adlai Stevenson II (then Governor of IL), Henry Cabot Lodge Jr (then former U.S. Senator in MA), Richard Nixon (then Vice President: 1953–1961), and Lyndon B Johnson (then U.S. Senator in TX: 1949–1961).
I was about 21 years old, and though I was often in the company of some of the most powerful people in the world, I never had much of a social life, and romance was never a luxury I could entertain. In DC, I finally had some money and I had the city at my fingertips. I started to go out clubbing, meeting ladies, dancing, and drinking alcohol. Over time I drank more and more and got to a point where I lost my grip. I didn’t have someone I trusted to set me straight. I was “young and restless,” and I became an alcoholic. Around this time, I was able to get a Green Card and become a permanent U.S. resident. There was not as much competition back then, and my association with the embassy gave me an advantage. The Ambassador finished his tenure in 1958 and would be returning to India. He was upset that I wouldn’t be returning to India with him. He wanted to put me through school, so that I’d become a doctor one day. His family wanted to eventually help me find a girl in India and get married. At that time, I was out-of-control and chasing immediate rewards. What the Ambassador wanted me to do seemed too rigid and I wanted my freedom.
Once I left the embassy and was on my own, I was scrambling to find myself. For the first few years, I was homeless, an alcoholic, and unable to support myself or keep a steady job. I slept in parks throughout DC and would often sleep on benches in places like Dupont Circle. By the grace of some friends in the black community, I would occasionally be given a place to stay. Some of these families cared about me and would try to check on me periodically, but I choose to live a wandering life. Finally, after years of suffering, I reached a point where I couldn’t take it any longer. I remember in a haze climbing a bridge in DC and looking down, preparing myself to jump off and put the hardship to an end. But something inside me, you can call it providence, but I don’t know, made me decide to fight instead of giving up that night. Without any professional help, I managed to stop drinking and started looking for a job.
Initially I was so weak from the years of self-destruction, that I couldn’t hold a pitcher of water. I remember almost getting fired because my arm would start to shake when I tried pouring water for customers. Eventually, in 1963, I got a job as a bus boy and kitchen assistant making steak sandwiches. It was at a new posh restaurant in Capitol Hill called The Rotunda. There the owner came to respect me, and I got along well with the staff there. There were a few white women who were waitresses there, and at the end of every shift, they would each put a dollar or two in my pocket. The bartender would do the same. I’d walk out of there every day with a small wad of cash in hand. Eventually I managed to save up $4,000 and bought myself a Ford Fairlane 500.
I felt at home with the black community in DC. This community took me in and gave me a support system. Maybe because I had faced similar religious and caste-based oppression in India, I felt like we had shared experiences. Nearly all of my friends at the time were from this community, and eventually I married a black woman named Norma. We had a child, but it was still a vulnerable time in my life — we divorced after a short time together.
In 1964, for the first time in 12 years, I’d saved up enough money to return to India. My family hadn’t heard from me in a while and many in my extended family weren’t sure if I was still alive. Even my mother hadn’t heard from me in 10 years. Family in India didn’t have access to a phone back then, and even if they did, I hadn’t had the courage to call them. I remembered the name of a local leader in my neighborhood, Mr. Ratnavinayakam, and managed to send a letter to him. I asked him to let my mother know that I was ok and that I was coming to India to visit them. When he went to her home with my letter, she mistakenly thought she was receiving notice of my death and fainted immediately.
When I arrived in India, the reception was far greater than even my arrival from Bombay had been at the age of 20. At about 33 years old now, I was received like some famous celebrity. It was unheard of to have a visitor from America back then. I used some of my earnings from DC to throw a grand wedding for one of my brothers when I was there. My third brother didn’t have much education or manual skills, and to help him be independent, I bought six bicycles, spare parts and supplies for him. I also made sure he had electricity and a workspace, allowing him to open his own bicycle shop. After a little more than a month, I returned to the US.
I bounced around DC, working in upscale restaurants and hotels including the Sheraton, Hilton, and Showroom. Over time I got to know many of those working in the industry and climbed the ranks in the labor unions. At the time, I considered myself a radical left-wing activist. I was immensely popular with the cooks, the waiters and the hardworking people in the underbelly of the vibrant city. At the peak of my career with the MLK freedom struggle in full swing, I was energized to bring about change and fight for the most vulnerable.
After attending the “I Have A Dream” speech in 1964, I walked with MLK’s “Poor People’s March,” in 1968. I also conversed with Stokely Carmichael in the early 1960s, during a night at Ben’s Chili Bowl, as he was emerging as a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). These experiences gave me an appreciation for activism and our ability to bring about change. I won multiple union elections, and even made trips to Capitol Hill to lobby for our needs. There was one conservative club where I worked, frequented by the likes of Richard Nixon, where I was fired because of my union involvement.
One day, when I was already feeling on top of the world, I met my now wife, Dina Verdan. My life became more meaningful than I could have ever imagined. It was 1972 and I was dressed up in a shirt and tie, waiting in my parked Ford LTD on 21st and P street for a waitress with whom I had a date that night. Nearby was a church and I saw a group of Indian women gathering there, wearing traditional clothing and jewelry. It caught my eye because I’d never seen that many Indian-Americans gathered in one place before. I didn’t spend much time with others of my ethnicity (the waitress with whom I had a date was white), so I was drawn to the gathering — it reminded me of home. I had no idea there were that many people who looked like me living in DC. Before I knew it, a man named Rajamani walked out of the crowd and said to me “Hey Tony, I’ve been calling you for weeks and you never returned my call. It’s my daughter Hema’s birthday today. And you’re coming!” I had met this man in the past and we had become friends, but I’d never met his family before.
My date was already late, and the magnetic pull to attend this Indian-American event was too strong. I deserted the woman I was waiting on, pulled away, and parked at the church. My friend’s wife, the woman throwing the birthday party, asked me if I would pick up her friend who was also on her way there. I said I would and headed to a spot close to the National Zoo. I arrived to find that her friend was a beautiful Brazilian woman far out of my league, yet she was sweet and treated me like a real person. I worked up the courage and got her phone number that day. Soon after I met her, she went on a trip to California. I was so afraid that she wouldn’t return to DC that I figured out what hotel she was staying in, and using my hotel-union contacts, managed to call her room directly just to tell her how much I liked her. A few years later, we were married.
Like me, Dina had left behind humble origins in search of adventure. With her arrival, my whole perspective, the entire structure of my life, changed. She is the greatest asset that I have. She encouraged me to excel in my work, and with her moral support, I’ve empowered many friends in the U.S. and family in India to lift themselves up and make something of their lives. Together we have traveled to Brazil to meet her extended family and have been to India numerous times. Dina and I have been together for nearly 50 years. She keeps me honest and has helped me be healthy and socially engaged.
I’ve been able to continue supporting my family in India and the current generation is thriving there. My one and only son, from my first marriage, has been a part of my life throughout the years, and I am closer to him now than I ever was before. I adore him and my grandchildren. My son has also traveled with me all over India and has met his extended family there. I didn’t mention it before, but I named my son after a man who left an impression on me, who I met while working at the Indian embassy. My son’s name, is Jawhar.
We live a modest, warm, and loving life in our Maryland home. I was the only minority in my neighborhood when I first moved here — now 64% of Wheaton, MD is composed of people of color. The changes I have seen are tremendous, as if I live in a different world from the America I first arrived in. I can say confidently that I have achieved inner satisfaction and feel that I have lived to the fullest. There are friends with whom I’ve developed deep relationships along the way, and these connections have enriched my life in ways that I cannot put into words. As a proud American, I’m grateful to this country and its people for the life I’ve been able to create for myself here. In a land of “Red, white and blue,” this Brown man has also captured a piece of the American Dream. There is so much progress yet to be made in this country, and the great experiment continues. Despite many challenges, the universe sometimes bends in ways you don’t expect it to. With these twists and turns I’ve lived a life I never imagined could happen, when I ran away from home nearly 75 years ago.
