I was sure no one would believe the surreal story of how I was able to obtain my Foreign Reserves Office clearance, so I did not share it with anyone except Uncle Sant Ram. When I handed him my papers, he just shook his head in disbelief. No one else asked who my guarantor was.
Uncle Sant Ram immediately made all the necessary arrangements for my medical tests, which included a physical, blood tests, and chest X-rays. The American Consulate in Calcutta cleared my name for travel to the U.S., because Allahabad, where I had graduated, fell under its jurisdiction.
Family and friends quickly raised the money for my one-way ticket to the USA. My father promised to pay them back as soon as his life insurance policy could be cashed out. One of my cousins had a travel agency and made the reservation.
A group of relatives, including my parents who had traveled from Allahabad, came to see me off at the airport. We did not have enough money for my brother and three sisters to come and bid me goodbye. At the airport, my cousin pointed out that even though I had my ticket, some cash would be needed for travel before I reached my destination. A collection was taken, and all my uncles emptied their pockets. The money was converted into two crisp $20 traveler’s checks, something I had never seen before.
The sponsorship letter from Graham had arrived on September 11, 1958. I learned much later that a man I never met spurred Graham to write the letter to me. He was a young Marine serving as the helicopter pilot for President Dwight Eisenhower when Graham met him in the lobby of the White House on a visit there. Graham knew this Marine’s father, who was an admiral. Graham told the Marine to call when he got out of the military, and he would give him a job. Graham kept his word. Part of the young man’s job was to go through the files, and he found a stack of letters from me. I had written nearly every day, with no reply. The Marine went to Graham and said, “We need to do something.” And that’s why the three-line sponsorship letter finally came. Soon after I arrived in Wichita, the young marine moved to Pakistan to start a chain of Dairy Queens. He died two or three months later of cholera.
On September 17, 1958, six days after receiving Graham’s letter, I boarded an Air France flight to keep my date with destiny.
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