The Dream: How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions Read Free Page B

choice for children. Our hair was braided and tied into a single, bulblike knot atop our heads. Now it was time for Taj to make the transition to a
dastar-style
turban, the peaked turban one sees on most adult males.
    I guess in some ways the ceremony is the Sikh equivalent of a bar mitzvah. I wasn’t thrilled because I knew I would be next, and I didn’t like the idea of someday being forced to endure the same ritual. I had already suffered enough ridicule with my little
patka,
and I knew that a full, adult turban would only make things worse. I was tired of being picked on for being different. I wanted to blend in, to avoid notice, to disappear.
    I think I half hoped that my brother would refuse to have anything to do with the ceremony, because I knew my turn was just around the corner. There was a great deal of talk during the service about the turban’s significance, which has been an important part of Sikh culture since the time of Guru Nanak, who founded the religion five hundred years ago. The turban is part of the Sikh identity and speaks to our spirituality, honor, self-respect, moral values, courage, and piety. Leaving our hair uncut, and tying the turban daily, is a token of our love for and our obedience to the Sikh gurus. At age ten, I can’t say I fully understood much ofthis, but I sat through the ceremony with only moderate fidgeting, and when it was over,
finally,
I was among the first in line for food.
    That night, when we got home, my father continued to talk about the ceremony. Clearly, he had been very moved by the proceedings. His own father-in-law had been a priest at a Sikh temple in India, and my father had brought the religion and the culture with him to America. We went to local services on Wednesdays and Sundays, and after the Sunday services, I had Sunday school. We also had morning prayers every morning, the Japji Sahib, which my father recited in
Gurmukhi,
which literally means “from the mouth of the guru.” Although I had no idea what the words meant, I was urged to memorize them, and I was quite proud of the accomplishment.
    My father tried to explain it to me, as he explained other aspects of the Sikh religion over the years, and only a little of it stuck. I knew, for example, that Sikhs believed in a universal God and that they followed the teachings of the ten gurus, or “ambassadors.” I also knew that the religion had its roots in Hinduism and that—like most religions—it was focused on the idea of salvation. And I was familiar with the idea of karma, and of reincarnation, and with the fact that Sikhs viewed life as a cycle of birth and rebirth that stopped only when one was united with God.
    The summer after the turban ceremony, my father took me to India to acquaint me with my past. “I want to make sure that you never forget where you came from,” he said.
    “Okay,” I said. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I remembered absolutely nothing. I would always feel tied to my culture, and proud of it, but I felt more American every day.
    We first went to Chandigarh, to meet a large contingent of cousins on my mother’s side, and I can say unequivocally that I felt absolutely no connection to them. They weren’t particularly welcoming, and within days the visit had turned into some kind of competition. I was the dumb American; they were the smart Indians. They were older than I, and they would show me their battered schoolbooks and ask me to do one of the problems—algebra, for example—and of course I wouldn’t know where to begin. This would reduce them to paroxysms of laughter. “How stupid people get in America,” they would say. “In America, you learn nothing.”
    My father took me aside and told me to ignore them. “They are just jealous,” he said. “They wish they could live in America. But that’s the way people are. If they can’t have what you have, they will bring you down.”
    Before long, we left and went to visit my grandmother’s sister