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Pioneer in India and America Apr 21, 2007
We are fortunate that, at just the right times, when confidence in the United States' fidelity to its roots are in question, a story comes along that reaffirms all that is best about the country's heritage and ideals.
Meheroo Jussawalla's "On Six Dollars to America" is just such a story. It tells how the United States opened its doors to a recently-widowed Indian woman who arrived on its shores with only $6 . . . the maximum foreign exchange the Indian Government would let her take out of her country. Bringing with her a well-trained mind and a will to succeed in America as she had in India, she became a living example of what America has meant . . . and should continue to mean . . . to its people and its world.
But there is much more. The book takes one inside an educated Parsee family before and after India's independence as the country's cultural heritage was addressing profound new challenges. The Indian portion of Dr. Jussawalla's story is that of a highly successful woman scholar and college principal, and tells of her trials as tradition met modernity in unexpected ways, especially after the death of her husband of twenty-six years.
In America, especially at Hawai`i's East-West Center, Dr. Jussawalla became a leading scholar in the epoch-changing field of high-tech communications, providing seminal thinking about the new technologies and their effects on governments, economies and societies.
Dr. Jussawalla's story is one of a true pioneer, breaking down barriers in both of the world's largest democracies, personally and professionally. Hers is a story that uplifts, encourages and warms the heart, written in a highly readable, very personal way. It is the story of a great Indian woman and of what America is at its best.
As reviewed by New York Times best selling author Ellen Tanner Marsh Mar 30, 2007
I concur with Ellen Tanner Marsh who writes, in part:
This tale of Adventure, Courage and Reward provides plenty of reasons for celebrating Jussawalla's own form of American freedom [while] serving as a unique commentary on Indian and world politics by someone who has been observer and participant as a professor of economics in both India and the United States.
Jussawalla's story begins in the 1930s in India, when British control was nearing its historic end thanks to the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi. In clear insightful prose, Jussawalla takes us on a tour of Indian history from the end of the British raj to the 1970s, through the eras of Jawahrlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Jussawalla makes no secret of her admiration for Nehru as champion of freedom and her dislike for Ms. Gandhi who advocated communism. Jussawalla's concern throughout the narrative echoes the importance of freedom- the freedom of women as much as political, academic, and economic freedom. In fact, it is during Indira Gandhi's rule that Jussawalla realizing such freedoms are no longer to be had in India, decides that she must emigrate to the United States.
In America, Jussawalla finds the freedom for which she has been yearning. [While] her work is laudatory of her newfound country, she constantly retains her global perspective, concerned with affairs of India, practiced in global economics, fond of the diversity of cultures she has found in her home state of Hawaii. Indeed the strength of this book comes not only from its personal dimension but also, equally important, from the author's ability to take a single political ideal, which finds its greatest expression in a single country and apply it globally. In so doing, Jussawalla shows us why freedom is not just an American ideal, but a worldwide need.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
A journey from India to America Mar 26, 2007
This is a book about courage, faith, will, and love. The author, Dr. Meheroo Jussawalla, was an unusual girl in the early 1930s in India. She was born into a Zoroastrian family, a faith dating back to pre-Judaism period in Greater Iran, with Ahura Mazda as the Supreme Being. Many Zoroastrians fled from Persia in the 7th century when they were persecuted by the Muslims who had taken control. They settled in the port cities in India. They excelled in commerce and industry, amassed wealth and were known for higher education. This background alone set Dr. Jussawalla and her family apart from the rest of India that was dominated by Hindus and Moslems saddled by a rigid caste system.
The book has three parts; the first is about her upbringing in India when the British colonial rule ended. The death of her husband threw the author into hardship aggravated by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's crack down on academic freedom. Dr. Jussawalla joined the exodus of Indian intellectuals who began to leave the country.
The second part is about her life in the United States, where she breathed academic freedom. The third part is about her life after she moved from US mainland to Honolulu, where she's been with the East-West Center as an internationally prominent expert on the economics of telecommunication.
This book is a fascinating story about a woman who grew up in Hyderabad and witnessed the birth of modern India. It is a success story of immigrants to America in pursuit of freedom. Above all, this is a story about faith in the face of adversity and of love for family and friends.
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