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Today is June 1st, 2023. My name is Advika Rajeev, and I'm conducting this interview for the Houston Asian American Archive. I'll be speaking with Dr. Phiroz Darukhanavala, a professional with over 40 years of experience in the oil and

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gas industry and a member of the Zoroastrian Association. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today about your journey. Thank you. You were born in Bombay, India on September 11th, 1948.

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Can you speak a little bit about what your hometown was like? Do you have any vivid memories or stories about where you grew up? Yes, hi, good morning Advika. Yeah, I have–I have a lot of great memories.

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I–I grew up in Bombay, which is now Mumbai, i n the 50s. And it was at that time, I would say, a much smaller city. Much less crowded.

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And I have some wonderful memories of childhood. We grew up—I grew up in a collect—what I would say, you know, in a flat, an apartment, which was part of a collection of three different buildings all interconnected with each other.

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Roughly about 15 or 17 different flats, as they call them. And that's important because they were interconnected, and unlike maybe the–the current situation in the US, it was a

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wide-open kind of community. The entire thing was a community. So we—I remember my earliest memories were as a child, playing throughout the entire, you know, building complex and

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downstairs. All the doors were open. Nobody can—and it was like an extended family and a lot of children around to play with.

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So, we always had some good company. The earliest—the city itself was quite charming at that point. There were trams running through the streets, double-decker trams and buses.

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And the way the apartment buildings are located, one side of the buildings was facing a–a main street, which was full of hustle and bustle of trams, buses, taxi cabs, bullock carts, horse-drawn carriages,

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all mixed together. And bicycles, lots of bicycles. The other side of the building, opposite, faced into a giant banyan tree.

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And the tree was huge. We were on the third floor, our flat was on the third floor, which is actually fourth floor by US standards. And the branches of the trees were—there was a huge balcony going around the

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entire building, so it was very open. And the branches would almost come into the flat. So, one side was a big city kind of environment, but you go to the back of the building and it felt like you were living in a tree house with

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all kinds of birds, eagles, and so on. So it was almost, as I look back, a bit of a magical childhood surrounded with a lot of people, never alone. And w-we were a part of sort of a middle-class

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family, not particularly wealthy. My father was an engineer with the municipal corporation as a civil engineer. So, he was quite busy, and my mom was a homemaker.

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So, she, along with her counterparts all across the building. So that's kind of some snapshots of things growing up. The main activity: we spent a lot of time with our

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mom. And my brother and I are two siblings. He was six years older than me, so there were a lot of cousins and others that we, you know, played with.

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And we would frequently go to the beaches, which were nice and clean at that point. Go to the zoo, or just take the tram and travel through the city from one end to the other.

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So kind of a–a wonderful childhood. Mumbai—Bombay, as you know, is in a–a temperate zone, so the temperatures were generally kind of mild. So there was a lot of outdoor stuff you could do in–in terms

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of games. We did not have TV at all. There was a radio, so all of us were hooked to the radio. We were all crazy about cricket.

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Cricket was the big thing we all played. But there were other interesting things like flying kites, playing with marbles. There are a number of games with marbles.

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And, of course, lots of bicycle trips all over the place. The city was kind of modest enough where you could ride in quiet streets without fear of getting knocked down. So in a nutshell, that's kind of where I grew up.

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That sounds amazing. It sounds great that you have such fond memories. You told me your parents' occupations, but what were some values that they established in you while you were growing up? Did their dreams influence your career path or your decision to move to the

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US? Not quite—well, they had—I would say without question, they had the most significant impact in terms of my value system. In particular, my father worked for the municipal

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corporation, and it–it was kind of a hotbed of corruption. There was a lot of stuff that builders and all wanted to get approved and they were not hesitant to give a lot of bribes, and some

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of his colleagues were quite deep into it. One of the greatest values that he passed on to me and my brother was that of integrity. You know, as a Zoroastrian community, particularly in Bombay—we were called Parsis—

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we were very proud of the fact that we had absolute integrity and honesty. So despite all kinds of attempts, he kind of resisted. He's one of the few people there who absolutely never touched a penny

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of illegal money. And–and so by example—and then he worked very, very hard. So the whole value system of don't take shortcuts, but work hard.

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Succeed at what you do, and do it legally, ethically, morally. And that was kind of—yes, we had prayers and rituals and all of that good stuff, but the essential values of Zoroastrianism, which is the good thoughts, good words, both of my parents actually

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lived it. And that, to us, was the biggest gift that they kind of gave us as we were growing up. And that has carried us through the entire, you know, lifetime. Of course, there was a high–high push on

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education and making sure you were kind of doing well at school. So—but that–that was not really the—there are quite different factors that brought us to the US. And I can talk about those separately.

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Your parents sound like great role models. What were some meaningful or memorable stories you have from your childhood? Do you keep in touch with any of your friends from your school years? Oh yeah. Yeah. Some of, you know, both school and college, we

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kind of maintain some connections or 50, 60 years—in some cases, we kind of lost connections as I moved to the US. Some of them moved to the UK, others moved to Australia, so there was kind of a mass migration, and–and many of them stayed in India.

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And so we often lost touch with each other, and all of a sudden at some social function or some conference, we kind of suddenly connect up. I just met, in fact, last year, a friend from school and college that I had lost touch for 45 years.

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And we suddenly met each other and we are now renewing our friendship. So, yes, the—those were kind of very, very deep relationships. Now, as far as schooling, I went to a Catholic school. Don Bosco was the name.

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It was the–the original priests and all were from Italy. It was an Italian Catholic order. A–A very good school. And one of the things I kind of cherish is that there–there was

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a—the classroom sizes were roughly 60 or so students in a class, which kind of seems large here, but it's pretty common there. But in that group of 60, I–I recall we probably had 12 different–12, 15 different religions.

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We had Hindus, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, on and on and on. And India is full of a–a variety of different religions. But–but through it all, we would still considered ourselves as Indians

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. And the value system there, not only from my own household but from others was—yes, they are–they are worship different religions, but we are kind of all live harmoniously together. So it was not an unusual thing to have a large number of

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religions all kind of together. Even in our neighborhood, the building across our street was almost entirely Hindu. Buildings sort of—a block down, there was a big

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mosque and there was an entirely—that who-whole area was occupied by Muslims. And it seemed like things kind of worked harmoniously. There was a kind of mutual respect. One of the nice things we did is celebrated each other's holidays, and we

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loved it because we had lots of [laughs] holidays at school, Hindu, Muslim, you know, holidays. And everybody would kind of share and exchange sweets and things like that. So, it was a pleasant experience, not kind of the

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acrimony we often see kind of nowadays. It's almost—sometimes feels to me like we may have gone backward in terms of religious divisions, and that's unfortunate. Yes, that does sound like an awesome experience that you had while growing up.

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You received your Bachelor of Technology from IIT, the Indian Institute of Technology. What was the experience like preparing for IIT, and do you have any critical memories you had during your time there? Lots of them. So, after I graduated from high school,

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it was a very, very competitive situation, and I was generally a pretty good student. And—so we had to work our tails off to kind of get in to pass the IIT entrance exam, which was quite brutal . But managed to do that and then got into IIT in

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Bombay, a suburb of Bombay called Powai. And that was, I would say, the first time I left home, and that was a completely residential university. And that was one of the most formative stages of my life because you

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left home, but you kind of build a community around a set of students who had come from all over India, they're just not from Bombay, and who are absolutely dedicated and thirsty about knowledge. So you learn not just from the professor because it

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was such a competitive thing, but from your fellow students. And there was kind of—being—staying in a dorm for five years, you kind of build a different family type of relationships with your colleagues and your

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classmates and your dorm mates that have survived to this day. We have reunions and so going on. This–this university, IIT, was at that time located in a suburb called Powai, which was near a lake, a–a really beautiful,

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isolated kind of area. So it was completely away from the hustle and bustle of the city, very peaceful place. And–and the focus was entirely on getting the best

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education that you could at that point. And–and I–I—most of it was highly inexpensive, almost free. It was one of the great things that the Indian government did after independence is put a lot of emphasis on education, and in creating

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these IITs, created, I would say, an absolute world-class institution. Did you—have you ever returned to IIT or have you seen any changes in the institution since your education?

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Yeah, I returned once, and I was shocked. We—when we went there—I was there in the 60s . And the IITs had just started about five, seven years ago. So, everything was fairly new and everything was

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wide open and we had our own rooms in the dorm. One person to a room, which was amazing. I went back after about 25, 30 years and I was shocked at how crowded the surrounding area had become, how crowded

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the university campus itself had become. And people were now—students are cramped like two, three into the same dorm room that we enjoyed ourselves. So, in a sense, the university has grown and prospered,

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but along with that has come kind of a crush in terms of crowding. And—but–but it–it is—from a technology standpoint, it has added so many great new buildings, auditoriums and so on, which it wasn't there at that time.

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And the–the kind of offerings were kind of limited to the mainstream things, like engineering, mechanical, electrical, civil and the most traditional forms of engineering. We now have kind of an enormous array of different fields available

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. But I–I would say it's still maintained its world-class status. And the admission process, I think is even more brutal than it was in those days. And–And that's a good thing.

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The best of the best go through it. What made you decide to move to the US to pursue your master's degree and then PhD at Case Western? Well, that's a great question.

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So, when I graduated, we kind of were close to graduating from one of the best institutes in the country in–in a very, you know, difficult field like engineering. So I would have expected to find a lot of [laughs] jobs.

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But, ironically, it was kind of difficult to get a job in any–any case, a job that required us to use the skills and the learning that we had developed. And to give you a bit of context about India in those days—this is in the 60s and

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70s—after independence, leaders like Nehru and all, I think they did a great job in developing health, you know, health of the population, education, they put a lot of emphasis. But alongside that, they also adopted a–a socialist

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model for the country. And unfortunately, a lot of different industries or most of the big industries were all nationalized as part of—so it was like pseudo communism, socialism.

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It was still a functioning democracy, but it worked under the structure of a very strong socialist state. So it crushed kind of the innovation part and everybody became sort of part of the government.

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The steel industry, airlines, railways, banks, you name it. Manufacturing. That kind of limited—the people were not incentivized to kind of innovate and do new stuff.

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It was more of a you join a large company and it was a bureaucracy. You just kind of—it–it did not excite me at all to kind of—and plus the jobs that were available were you kind of start at a particular level and then work your way up, or more of a post office model

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rather than, you know. And so coming from a–a top university, I–I–I would say almost half of our class looked outside. It offered—even when as a young child, one of my,

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you know—I–I think a lot of people's dreams was to kind of go out and explore the world, rather than just stay in Bombay or in India. And this offered an opportunity to go abroad, explore, and–and learn even more.

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And I would say about half of the class in IIT actually looked abroad. So–so that—these were the two big drivers: see the world and also look at broader knowledge and better

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opportunities elsewhere. So that—those were the drivers that kind of ultimately led—plus my brother, my older brother, was already in the US. He had gone through similar engineering thing.

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He had come here and settled down, and he would write to us all about the wonderful stuff in the US. So it–it–it was almost like a natural path for–for me to kind of pursue going abroad.

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What were—oh, sorry, go ahead. Sorry. Why Case? Why did I pick Case Western? As I was in the final year of our engineering course, there was a particular

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subject called operations research, which was a new field that was coming up. It was kind of an offshoot of industrial engineering, but it relied heavily on taking engineering and business and combining them by–by optimizing business processes using mathematical

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models. And–And–And that kind of appealed to me as something quite new and emerging, rather than the traditional engineering courses. Secondly, Case Western Reserve was the birthplace of this

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new–new field. It was where operations research started, so some of the professors were terrific. I had applied actually to 5, 6 different universities, including MIT,

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Stanford, Berkeley, Cornell. I got admitted to all of them. Part of the appeal was obviously that this particular field I wanted to pursue in, the origin was over there.

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Secondly, Case offered a kind of unique program where you not only did good solid theory, but you are expected—since it was located in Cleveland, Ohio, which at that time had a large number of industries. It was a strong steel town, automotive town

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and manufacturing, aerospace and so on. So, there were a number of companies with which the university worked to do real-world projects. So it was a really nice blend of theory as well as

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practical applications in real business. So that—the other part of it is places like Stanford—Cornell was a very theory-oriented program, so I really didn't want that. Stanford, Berkeley, MIT were terrific, but they were very expensive.

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Remember I was—we were taking loans and scrapping together in terms of rupees, a lot. It was like a fortune to come over here and spend that money. So, i-i-it—I remember Stanford

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sending me a letter saying, "Well, welcome to the graduate school, but we would recommend that you have a car [laughs] because people live off campus." And suddenly the cost seemed to be almost double of what—so, the combination of economics as well as the practical side of the program is what

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led me to Case. I think that was a good decision, because it kind of then led me to my other career. That sounds great. While you were moving to the US, what were some of the challenges that you faced?

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Was there any culture shock moving here? Enormous [laughs]. It's a number of anecdotes there. I mean, we had—remember we had not left India.

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It was not common. I mean, in fact, most of our time was spent around Bombay. We had not even traveled a lot in India in those days. So, it was—first of all, it was the first airplane trip ever.

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First time stepping on an airplane to go abroad, or–or to any airplane. So that was a–a totally new experience. We had—at those times, we didn't have Internet or connection or any of that stuff, so it–it was almost like a totally alien different world that we were

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moving into. We had kind of some ideas from magazines and all of that, but remember, we didn't have TV. So it was radio, which is mostly focused on India. So we landed in New York. It was like landing in another planet.

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And the second thing we realized is that when we were in Mumbai, we were reasonably well off financially. But moving to the US, we landed with a few dollars [laughs]. And so every cent was important.

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And we would, you know, to buy a cup of coffee, we'd think twice about, "Wow, is it worth spending some cents doing that?" So that was a–a–a big shock, but we landed there and I was fortunate to be assigned a host family, an

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American, a white American host family in Cleveland who were wonderful in the first few days of actually explaining to us even some basic things, like what is this food item and so on. So that was a learning.

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And then some of the most amazing cultural things was we had no idea about race, race relations or any of that stuff in India. There were different religions and all of that, but it was generally harmonious. And most people were about the same level.

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I–I–I remember one of our first trips to the university, Case. Case is located in a place where one side of the campus is almost entirely Black. Black, you know, inner city type neighborhood.

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The other side is completely white and Italian [laughs]. So, all–all of this was completely unknown to us. We landed here with no idea. So I remember our host family taking us to the university,

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and we were standing there and what separated the two sides was a lake, a lagoon, they called it. And they kept telling me, "You know, Phiroz, don't go to the other side of the lagoon." They didn't want to explicitly say what was the issue, the crime and all that.

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But say, "It's just not safe." And then, to me and some of my friends could not understand, "What are they talking about? I mean, this is a lake. What's–what's different—" and so on.

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It took us a few weeks to understand the differences . And all along it was "Don't go to that side because it is quite dangerous." Well, it so happened that one of the things we were always looking for was to make some money to survive.

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And there was a notice posted on the university board about a job which was offering at that time $3 an hour, which was like, wow! It was like being wealthy. So—but we realized that the job was

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tutoring in a high school, which was an inner city black high school. And it would be on the other side of the campus. So there was this dilemma why people tell us not to go there, but there's this

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wonderful job. Eventually, I think the $3 an hour won. We said, "What the heck? Why not go and–and try that?" I think that has been one of the most amazing experiences.

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I–I—we went there. I remember my friend and I both had applied and got in and asked to come and interview for the job and meet the principal. We arrive at the school at, say, 10:00 on a Monday morning.

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That was, you know, the appointment. We–we were used, by the way, to a school system in India, which was highly structured. And you–you kind of raised your hand, the teacher

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acknowledged you, you stood up and talked to the teacher, and it was completely, you know, con-conventional. No–no cross talk and so on. And here we go, we go to the school, go to the entrance,

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try to open the door, the door is locked. And we were saying, "Maybe we came on a wrong day or a holiday or something." But then we saw somebody inside through the glass. So we kind of knocked.

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And there's this person who comes and opens the door. He's almost a six foot, six inch, huge Black person asking us what we wanted. And we said we have an interview.

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So he–so he lets us in, opens the door, lets us in, and he locks it again. And it's just wondering what's going on. We went to the principal and so on. It turned out that these guys, the huge guys, were actually security

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guards who were there to keep the students in line from being unruly and so on. And–And that was a culture shock you wouldn't believe. And that started a two-year relationship of my trying to

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understand the Black community at its very, you know, where the community lived. And I—to this day, I kind of cherish that as a unique experience. I talk to my white colleagues here, and most of them

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have never experienced that. They know—we obviously meet, you know, Black colleagues at work. But they are highly educated and they kind of different class of folks. But to go into the neighborhood and spend a couple of years

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was absolutely mind-blowing. I mean, I remember basic things. The first day the student that—we were supposed to tutor students in mathematics and so on—they come on and say something like, "Gimme five," which is like a high five

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thing. And to us, first of all, we had a hard time with the accent and this kind of colloquialism, we thought, "He's asking for $5" [laughs]. And it took us a while to collect, kind of get to know the lingo. Now, interestingly, as we found them to be completely

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people we had never associated with, they found us to be—they had never met another Indian. So they were as curious about us and India. First of all, when they said Indian, their immediate thought was that we were

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"red Indians" and they were asking us which tribe and all of that stuff. So, unlike today where Indians are everywhere, it was very rare to find Indians then. So we spent a lot of time talking about each other's cultures

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. And over time we developed kind of a—I mean, it is true that there was a lot of—that–that there was risk there because the kids were from a place where there could be explosive and there was violence and all of that stuff going on.

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But at the same time, we kind of got to relate to them one on one and found it to be a–a very enriching experience. We talked a lot about their aspirations and goals and they—some of them invited me to their homes and so on.

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And it–it was tragic to see that their—the kind of the main goal there is to make money because they were all from a very poor neighborhood. And their role models was the local drug dealer who had two Cadillacs,

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or becoming a sports star, you know, an NFL, or NBA player and so on. There was very little of a role model about academics. So here I was trying to get them to learn math and so on, but their

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entire structure was around a completely different place, and many of them were from broken families and so on. So I–I consider those two years to be one of the most eye-opening times of my life, where once I moved out

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of there, I never associated with that kind of community ever again. But so I kind of was happy that for two years I was able to actually see that side of life. Quite amazing contrast with the other part of

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society that we associated with, which was the white society, which was affluent and well-adjusted and so on. So, culture shock-wise, that was an absolute eye-opener.

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That sounds very interesting. How did you decide on your career path as you were pursuing your master's and PhD? Were there any influential people in your education that set up you on your

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path? Well, we had some terrific professors. And as I said, the–the great thing about Case was there was a very strong, grounded theoretical stream, but also you were

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expected to do projects outside and also it helped you make some more money in scholarships and so on. So, very early on, one of the professors I was working with, he had a very strong consulting practice on the outside, so he got us

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involved in a number of companies in the Cleveland area where he had–he had consulting work. And that gave us a unique window into looking at how industry operated.

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It's one thing to have theory, but ac–actually applying that. And so over the course of getting my master's and PhD, we kind of worked on multiple projects. Now, one of the programs that had just gotten started

00:33:13.090 - 00:33:30.910

was a–a joint co-op program between Case at that particular department and what was then called Standard Oil Company of Ohio. It's one of the standard oil companies . And I–I was selected as one of the students to do that co-op, which

00:33:30.910 - 00:33:45.400

means that I continue doing my PhD work at Case, but I also would work about 20 years—20 hours a week at–at—in–in actually the–the company, doing projects for the company.

00:33:45.400 - 00:34:03.590

And for them, it was a great opportunity to look at new emerging students, and it was a path towards hiring. So it wa—I did that for two years and really enjoyed the work. They put me actually not on some, you know, makeshift work, but from

00:34:03.590 - 00:34:19.640

real projects that were quite significant. I was fortunate to have two bosses over there who were doing some very important work in–in Standard Oil. So they put me on those projects, I did well.

00:34:19.640 - 00:34:34.010

So by the time I was finishing my PhD, they basically said, "Don't bother to look anywhere else. We want to hire you." And kind of—I liked the company a lot and what they were doing.

00:34:34.010 - 00:34:48.990

It was at that time one of the largest companies in Ohio. But by world standard, it was not that great—not that big. But—so I liked that, and that's kind of how I accepted the job. It was almost—I never interviewed with anyone.

00:34:50.310 - 00:35:04.810

It was al–almost an automatic thing. So it was a very smooth transition into the thing. And I started in the oil and gas industry and spent 40 years [laughs], 45 years.

00:35:04.810 - 00:35:23.890

Sohio was then bought over by BP, so I became part of a kind of worldwide massive, giant corporation. Going off of what you just said, could you give us an outline of your career span and how you grew into the leadership position of CTO at BP?

00:35:24.520 - 00:35:43.060

Yeah. One–one of the—so I started with Standard Oil in the operations research group, which it was doing some good work. But at the same time, the company was just beginning to open up one of the largest oil fields in the world, which is the Prudhoe Bay field in

00:35:43.060 - 00:35:58.300

Alaska. And, one of the things you do in–in, you know, developing an oil field is to do large simulations, reservoir simulations of how oil would flow and–and so on.

00:35:58.340 - 00:36:17.900

The simulation was one of the key techniques in the operations research world, so I was well versed in it and done them for other parts of the company. But there was a gentleman called Ivan Mrashovsky, a Russian who worked in Standard Oil, who was kind of a world-class reservoir

00:36:17.900 - 00:36:31.580

simulation guy. And he had begun to build what was at that time the world's biggest simulation model for an oil field for Prudhoe Bay, because it was–it was the, you know, in the top ten oil fields in the world.

00:36:33.020 - 00:36:49.910

And it was a gigantic model. And he needed some help with someone who could help with the simulations and so on. So I kind of got associated with him and quickly realized that the model was huge and it was wonderful,

00:36:50.870 - 00:37:10.850

but we couldn't solve it without the use of one of the largest computers in the world. So he convinced management to buy a–a very expensive, a multi–multi-million dollar supercomputer, which does—and then they said, "Well, who's going to run it?" And since I

00:37:10.940 - 00:37:25.040

had the background of mathematics and some computing, they said, "Why don't you run the thing?" And it was like a shock. Here I was 32 years old. This was the fifth-largest computer in the world.

00:37:25.970 - 00:37:41.690

The other four were at, you know, national labs like Lawrence Berkeley. This was the largest of its kind. And here I was a 32-year-old being pushed. And this kind of brought to me the huge differences between the

00:37:41.690 - 00:38:00.760

situation in India, where coming from a top university, I could barely get kind of decent work, challenging work. And here, I was just fresh out of college, few years, and here an opportunity and they—I know I have to give credit

00:38:00.760 - 00:38:16.720

to the, you know, culture of the company, that they trusted me with something as humongous as that. And that's kind of what set my career. I moved out of operations research into the upstream business at

00:38:16.720 - 00:38:32.720

Skull, which is the exploration and production business, working closely with the Alaskan stuff. And then, over time, the company, Standard Oil, was bought over by British Petroleum in the mid-80s and I got

00:38:32.720 - 00:38:49.010

to meet the folks at British Petroleum who are—one of the young guys who was my age, who was kind of the deputy CEO of the American side. I talked to him and eventually he became the CEO of BP as Lord

00:38:49.010 - 00:39:03.830

John Browne. And that kind of created a long-standing relationship. Now, the–the culture in these large oil and gas companies is to move people around. They want you to get experience around.

00:39:04.400 - 00:39:20.510

So over the 40 years, I lived in, you know, certainly started in Cleveland then Houston. We were in Alaska for a few years, London, Dallas, Chicago. And so, we–we were kind of constantly moving.

00:39:20.840 - 00:39:36.300

It seemed like I had a new job and a new company every few years. But it was still—it was simply the same company but growing into quite different and bigger and bigger jobs. So, I mean, I think I had a–a wonderful career.

00:39:36.990 - 00:39:52.700

I loved it. Loved all of it, the people, the culture. It was a world-class company that spanned like 80 countries around the world. And although the initial jobs were local, as I moved into London

00:39:52.700 - 00:40:11.180

and all, most of my work became global across the world of BP. And that led me to kind of progressively move up the chain, you know, in–in different capacities . And I got to learn virtually every part of the business from upstream, downstream,

00:40:11.180 - 00:40:26.110

refining, to retail station. I spent some time in actual gas stations looking at pumps and all kinds of stuff. So–so that's kind of the journey, and it kind of took us as a family to a lot of different places we stayed in.

00:40:30.050 - 00:40:46.420

It sounds like an amazing experience that you had. In your experience leading multicultural teams for large projects, what are some of your key leadership takeaways? I think the–the key is to focus not on where, and

00:40:46.990 - 00:41:04.300

not on where people came from, but to assemble a team that actually was based pretty much entirely on meritocracy and–and competence. In order to succeed, you had to put those two things up front rather than

00:41:04.300 - 00:41:21.010

worrying about where people came from or, you know, what–what they wore or whatever. The second thing I've learned over the years is it is really important to have a team that knows more than you [laughs].

00:41:21.010 - 00:41:38.810

And my—many of the teams, since I often worked in technology, it is totally common for me to be the kind of least knowledgeable guy on the team . And I say that as a good thing, not that I was ignorant or anything, but

00:41:38.810 - 00:41:53.600

we kind of consciously went out and got the best of the best in terms of knowledge, people across the team. And then the challenge as a leader is–is to make that team work together.

00:41:53.600 - 00:42:09.890

Because when you have highly knowledgeable, highly experienced people, they tend to have egos [laughs]. We all do. And kind of my role as a leader was to kind of get them to work together.

00:42:09.890 - 00:42:26.310

And–And then wonderful things happen. The other thing is: never hesitate to ask for help. Many people and many companies try to do it all themselves. And we learned over time that reaching out to the outside world,

00:42:26.310 - 00:42:44.910

especially with a name like—name brand like BP, it was always—doors were always open. So reaching out to either universities or high-tech companies or to the entire ecosystem and bringing that knowledge into the company was critically important for success.

00:42:45.850 - 00:43:03.940

But I did, you know, those were the technology jobs, but I also did a number of operational jobs in managing businesses and so on at various places around. So that kind of—and–and–and I think there was something about BP which was special

00:43:04.330 - 00:43:19.660

and that was, I would char-characterize as class. Maybe being British, it was not acceptable to be rude or obnoxious to people. It was just not, and–and there was a sense of gentility, if you

00:43:19.660 - 00:43:34.030

will, in the company that pervaded everything. And that was very welcome. Compared to—I talked to some friends and some other companies where there's a lot of yelling, shouting, banging tables.

00:43:34.030 - 00:43:48.450

That was just not the style. So, it–it–it was a—plus, BP hired some of the brightest people in the world, especially in the UK, from Cambridge, Oxford, all kinds of top universities.

00:43:49.440 - 00:44:04.680

So it was a privilege to work with some extremely, extremely bright people, not only inside the company but outside. It kind of makes you a–a better person as you associate with extremely knowledgeable and bright folks.

00:44:10.010 - 00:44:27.990

Have you ever encountered discrimination in your career? How would you summarize the difference between your relationship working with coworkers in a corporate environment versus those in–in academia? You know, ironically, you know I–I know some people say they have,

00:44:28.020 - 00:44:45.630

but I cannot recall a single instance either in the US or abroad where I felt and–and maybe it's because of BP and the culture that existed there. I–I think it was always a question of what can–what can you do for me and if you

00:44:45.630 - 00:44:57.690

perform. And I did work hard and perform well, I–I felt that I was always rewarded. I mean, sometimes it takes longer than others at other

00:44:57.690 - 00:45:16.290

points. But and–and there obviously in a large corporation, there are politics. There are people who really, you know, wanted to push you aside or things. But I always found that at the top level, people I worked

00:45:16.290 - 00:45:33.880

with, I–I did not personally experience any kind of racial cultural discrimination of any sort. And that's sho–it's shocking to me. I–I hear so much in the media nowadays about how

00:45:34.180 - 00:45:46.840

awful this country is and racism, blah, blah, blah. But personally, I–I did not face that for whatever reason. Maybe I was lucky.

00:45:47.320 - 00:46:00.880

Maybe I was in the right place. Whatever you can say, I–It was nothing but good support from people around me. And I would say generally speaking, the company had that kind of

00:46:00.880 - 00:46:20.580

culture where they avoided—getting into these. So I know I–I–I–I'm very fortunate, I guess . And I lived—I mean, it's not just here, but even in the UK. I mean, there are cultural differences in terms of a-approaches to innovation and

00:46:20.580 - 00:46:35.790

so on. The US is a lot more aggressive and wants to try out things and if it fails, move on and so on. The Europeans are a lot more conservative. They want to understand, fully plan it out and then implement it: two different

00:46:35.790 - 00:46:46.890

types of cultures. Nothing is better or worse. It's just that in fact, it was a nice blend of the two sides merging together and helping each other out.

00:46:50.700 - 00:47:09.210

It's amazing that you had such a positive experience at BP. Not just BP, but in–in–in general, living in the US and in Europe I didn't really face, you know, [unintelligible]. And how maybe because we grew up, [unintelligible] me and

00:47:09.210 - 00:47:26.670

my wife and family grew up maybe speaking English quite comfortably and that was one of the benefits , so blending in was not–not difficult. And we also tried not to isolate ourselves into just a—there wasn't much of

00:47:26.670 - 00:47:41.280

an Indian community to begin with those few, but we mixed up with bits of, y–you know, Americans and everything. So there was a good kind of integration for me and my wife as well.

00:47:44.890 - 00:48:02.910

That's awesome. What's the most rewarding aspect of your career and were there any unexpected hurdles in your path? Well, the rewarding part is I've–I've kind of, from the beginning, had this urge to learn more and more and BP provided

00:48:03.510 - 00:48:21.780

an unbelievable learning environment. There are always new challenges, but you've kind of learnt a lot from that, not j-just, you know, how to solve them, but also new technologies which being more in the IT side of the house, even in the early days with digital

00:48:21.780 - 00:48:38.730

and simulations and so on, we were at the cutting edge of new technology development. So that–that was a very rewarding [unintelligible] feel in many cases that I was actually going to work. It was–it was a good thing to go there a-and kind

00:48:38.940 - 00:48:55.780

of always push yourself. That—the opposite side, of course, is the corporate politics. And a-amazingly, the closer you get to London and worked in London for five years, it was politics at its

00:48:55.780 - 00:49:15.190

worst where everybody was trying to, you know, jockey for place and so on. So that was kind of the unpleasant part, but overall, I'd say the ability to constantly learn and grow into areas of bigger responsibility is kind of very, very

00:49:16.000 - 00:49:34.610

challenging. And of course, I've been speaking more of the career. We haven't talked about the family side of it, which was quite the other rewarding side. So building off of what you were talking about regarding education, you said you had worked as an associate professor at several universities.

00:49:36.140 - 00:49:53.300

Which colleges were these and what was your experience like as an educator? Yeah. So as I was working at SOHIO, it a-again—it was partly scrapping for money, but also it felt like I'd gotten a PhD and a lot of knowledge in it. It–it just felt good.

00:49:53.330 - 00:50:08.870

I was working and applying some of that in Sohio, but it would be nice if I could kind of convey that to some of the students because a lot of the professors in these universities are often kind of theoreticians, good theoreticians.

00:50:08.870 - 00:50:25.850

But–but—Sohio was—had the opportunity from several universities in the Cleveland area. Case itself was–was the first one. They said, "Can you come back and give a series of lectures in our classrooms about what you're doing at Sohio and ask the students, you know–

00:50:25.850 - 00:50:42.600

you know, get that theory into some of those problems." So part of my teaching at Case was to bring some of the problems from a real world and throw them at students and say, "Now what would you do?" And came up with some good ideas there.

00:50:42.700 - 00:50:59.610

I also taught at Cleveland State University, which was a very large public university there. Again, similar I taught courses in operations, research, operations management and so on. And–and then there was a–a very boutique kind of

00:50:59.610 - 00:51:18.990

college called Baldwin-Wallace College, which offered an executive MBA program for some of the leaders in industry, people who are in the mid-management levels to kind of—and–and–and taught in the exec and–and at that point I was teaching some of the

00:51:18.990 - 00:51:33.990

more senior folks in–in the room. So, so I kind of did that as a part time as I was working full time at Sohio over the weekend. Many of them were late evenings or weekends.

00:51:39.030 - 00:51:48.360

Sounds great. Sort of transitioning away from the career aspect, can you talk about how you met your wife? Nilufer?

00:51:49.410 - 00:51:57.300

Yeah, fascinating thing. So I–I finished my PhD. I got a job at Sohio. I worked there for a year or so.

00:51:57.300 - 00:52:12.410

And then of course, remember, that was almost like six years since I had been to India in those days it was not that easy to just get on a plane. It was very expensive. And plus with the visa situation, it was kind of a

00:52:12.450 - 00:52:30.810

very complicated if you left the country coming back and all of that. So we kind of been a straight stretch for about five, six years. Remember, I—means—the only means of communication in those days is my parents. And, you know, my family's over there was writing

00:52:30.810 - 00:52:48.760

letters. It would take like a week or ten days to get there. Telephones were almost impossible and extremely expensive. You had to book a call and it would take two days to get through. So for six years had passed and so I obviously talked to

00:52:48.760 - 00:53:04.780

my managers at Sohio, said I need to get–go back and get a–a leave of absence for two months or so, because if I'm going to go there, I want to spend some time there. There was also kind of a thought about maybe if I can

00:53:04.780 - 00:53:21.190

find, you know, a girl or something, Parsi girl, which my parents were obviously pushing very hard. My brother, by the way, had married a Filipino girl in–in the US, and that didn't sit down quite well with my dad, who was

00:53:21.190 - 00:53:36.850

very conservative and wanted us to kind of stay married in the Parsi community. So as I've went back there after six years, they had already lined up like 18 or so girls that [laughs] I should

00:53:36.850 - 00:53:45.580

meet. It was not an arranged thing. It was an introduction. It think of it as like the dating app. They were functioning as a dating app.

00:53:46.030 - 00:54:02.050

And so I had a series of meetings of sometimes two a day meeting with these girls. And ironically, either the girls were not happy or I was not happy, or in some—many, many cases, the girls didn't want to leave

00:54:02.050 - 00:54:18.850

India. I'm not sure why we were talking, but the parents were kind of pushing them in that. So after two, three weeks of doing this, I was getting nowhere. And it was getting frustrating for me, for my parents saying, "What's wrong with you?

00:54:18.880 - 00:54:38.110

Why? Why can't you find somebody?" But–but then it's all about kind of luck, I guess, or destiny or whatever. When I was in Cleveland, I used to go to a young family, a Parsi family in Akron, Ohio, because

00:54:38.110 - 00:54:51.580

we love Parsi food. And she would cook really good food. And in one of—many of the trips there, I had met her father, who lived in Bombay, but we used to visit there quite a bit, so he knew

00:54:51.670 - 00:55:05.170

me quite well and we got along well. And so while I was in India for this two months thing, he suddenly found out and said, "Hey, you know, you're here. I know this girl very well.

00:55:05.770 - 00:55:21.330

Why don't you just meet her and see what happens?" It was just like I was at the frustrating point of not having anything worked out. And then I met Nilufer, my wife. We talked for, you know, a few hours and we kind of

00:55:21.720 - 00:55:36.900

clicked and liked each other. We went out for literally about four days, four evenings, and then the mothers got into action.

00:55:36.900 - 00:55:49.530

And my mom was asking me, "What do you think? You like her?" I said, "Yeah, she looks good." And then she immediately calls up the girls, Nilufer's mom. And the two moms kind of said, "Yeah, both of them seem to be happy.

00:55:49.530 - 00:56:05.760

Let's get on with it." And we said, "Fine." And we were engaged at–at literally the fifth or sixth day after meeting and I had to come back—remember, I was two months were getting over. So we were married in 15 days.

00:56:07.000 - 00:56:24.820

But it was a different mindset than you kind of liked a person. You kind of got together and then you made it work or a lifetime versus as I talked to my own kids here, they have a completely different aspect of where they want sparks to fly upfront and–and

00:56:24.820 - 00:56:39.730

really feel like they know a person date them for several years before. I'm not sure which is a better way, but it seems like the old way kind of worked. We were committed and we made it work and then that was 46

00:56:39.730 - 00:56:53.930

years of–of marriage till suddenly, you know, unfortunately she passed away last year. Uh, but–but, yeah. And so we were married and I came back.

00:56:54.380 - 00:57:07.200

She got a visa at that time, it was not difficult. She got a green card in like four months and she joined me kind of, you know, in 4 or 5. And that's where we started our life together.

00:57:07.650 - 00:57:25.440

It was a new, totally new experience for her as well and for both of us. So we kind of—and work-worked it out and there was all this moving and stuff. And the early days she—she did a few jobs, but then she got

00:57:25.440 - 00:57:43.810

pregnant with my first—daughter, Amy. And at that point, then she kind of decided to stay home and I was kind of supporting the family and she took care of the children. So it was more of a traditional thing till kind of the

00:57:43.810 - 00:58:01.570

children were old enough and off to school. Then she started her own business in what is called Kumon, which is a educational Japanese based educational system. And she started that in London when we were based there and we came

00:58:01.570 - 00:58:18.980

here. She started a similar thing in Chicago, and it grew to a very successful business until we both retired, you know, about seven, eight, nine years. Well, that sounds very amazing.

00:58:19.850 - 00:58:37.260

How difficult was it for both of you to move to the US and raise a family here without having the support system that you would have had in India? I mean, we—well, we did have some support. We had friends both at least in Cleveland.

00:58:37.280 - 00:58:52.610

We had our host family who became almost like a family to us. I mean, we were accepted in there, so they were always there in Cleveland if Nilufer or I needed some help. But we also had other Indian families that we—and Parsi families, there were

00:58:52.610 - 00:59:13.190

only like 4 or 5 Parsi families in Cleveland was a very small community. But the other thing that helped is every time Nilufer was pregnant, we had three children, two girls and a boy, her mom would fly over for six months and stay with us and kind of

00:59:13.190 - 00:59:29.290

help in the early days of, you know, getting the new infant up and going. And that was an enormous, enormous help. So we were not completely without support. But of course, it's not the same as having your extended family around.

00:59:30.350 - 00:59:48.500

But we coped, you know, we were young and —it kind of worked out quite well. They obviously always like in any marriage, there's stresses and tensions. And I know in our case it was mostly about finances because we had

00:59:48.810 - 01:00:05.550

—I'm kind of conservative watching every penny and being careful and making sure—I also face the reality at work that in my career, in 40 years, I've faced like 6 or 8 different rounds of massive layoffs. I was lucky I survived.

01:00:05.760 - 01:00:18.060

But at any point, there's no security and you could lose your job and income and all of that. So Nilufer is a lot more about let's enjoy life and not get this thing.

01:00:18.060 - 01:00:33.900

So we are always skirmishing a bit about the financial aspects. We were both very, very, very unified on the subject of children's education. There was no question that that was number one on our list.

01:00:34.140 - 01:00:46.770

I think that's kind of true for most Indian immigrants. And we pushed the children to kind of have very, very high expectations. And I think that worked out well.

01:00:47.310 - 01:01:04.010

My–my two older daughters are both doctors and my son is a robotics engineer at–at GM. So all of the three kids—while also moving around with different parts of the world, made the kids fairly independent.

01:01:04.310 - 01:01:19.860

It was traumatic a bit because they would lose their friends and restart, but they got to see, I mean, amazing parts of the world at a very young age that most people would only dream of, including living in Alaska for five years.

01:01:23.520 - 01:01:35.700

You actually led into my next question. I was wondering about what were some main lessons and characteristics that you aim to instill in your children? Were there any stories or experiences from your own past that influenced the way that

01:01:35.700 - 01:01:51.480

you raised your children? Yeah, I think more than me—remember, I was traveling a lot and was away, so a lot of credit has to go to my wife because she was physically present with the children a lot more.

01:01:51.480 - 01:02:07.950

But essentially the—her position was that we woul—she–she was going to raise the children the–the Indian way, meaning you kind of tell them and they listen.

01:02:08.250 - 01:02:25.470

And the children sometimes push back and say, we are American, we are this, that. And I think she was like, that's not acceptable over here. I'm your parent, I'm not your—this whole thing about being friends with kids came to us as like a hokey thing.

01:02:25.480 - 01:02:42.250

We were kind of the old fashioned parents would lay down the rules and–and that was the end of it, there was no debate. And by and large, I have to say, we were lucky maybe that our children were not rambunctious or, you know, they were quite extremely well behaved.

01:02:42.250 - 01:02:55.630

We could take them anywhere. And part of it is we set an example. The other thing I pushed very hard, I think, is the value of hard work, especially in studies

01:02:55.750 - 01:03:11.440

and in–in–in applying yourself to anything you do that don't get into quick fix shortcuts. There is no easy way out. You got to kind of apply yourself to it and stay with it.

01:03:11.440 - 01:03:23.920

Persistence and–and you will succeed. And I think—I hope I've kind of conveyed some of those to the children. I think I have: they're now doing the same thing with our grandchildren, so kind of happy to see that.

01:03:25.770 - 01:03:42.400

And of course, the–the core values that were passed on to me by my parents, which is the–the Zoroastrian —so actually general values from India about integrity and– and–and things of that sort.

01:03:45.000 - 01:04:00.720

Uh, that–that was quite, you know, living—it was—my wife was much more religious, if you will, in terms of ceremonies and so on was. But I think we both convey to them through living that kind of life that it–it is.

01:04:00.720 - 01:04:17.040

So to me it was more like live a Zoroastrian life, uh, rather than just rituals or prayers. So my wife was different. She was very much into going to the temples or center every

01:04:17.160 - 01:04:31.410

chance she got. So it was a good balance. Diving a little deeper into what you were just talking about. Can you tell me a little bit more about your journey with Zoroastrianism and how it influences your life today?

01:04:32.280 - 01:04:48.600

Yeah, actually in India, my dad was—my mo-mom was actually from a priestly family from a place called Udvada, which is the big center. It's like Rome for the Catholics or whatever Vatican it is where

01:04:48.600 - 01:05:04.300

the biggest fire temple is located. And her dad was the high priest. So she came from a very, very strong priestly family. My dad was not from a priestly family, but he was actually extremely

01:05:04.300 - 01:05:22.630

religious and pray several, you know, a couple of times a day. And so we were both pushed into going to Fire Temple so that now–now I would say that growing up, we kind of took that a little bit lightly with what we never really embraced that.

01:05:22.690 - 01:05:38.470

I mean, we always had access to the Zoroastrian Parsi culture because there are lots of Parsis around Bombay. So there was a sense of pride in the community. The community over several hundred years and established a

01:05:38.470 - 01:05:58.270

very strong reputation in India for being enterprising, for being and–and–cross–and most importantly, being an honest community where you could do business with a Parsi and never get cheated. So that kind of it–it by osmosis

01:05:58.270 - 01:06:11.900

that kind of Zoroastrian feeling or culture is that you just behave like this. You just don't cross the boundaries. And then watching my father actually practice Zoroastrian values in

01:06:11.900 - 01:06:26.780

his work when he was the—temptations were enormous people. Some of the people who took bribes and things, uh, retired as multi–multi-millionaires. And yet he would work with his meager salary and refuse to take a penny.

01:06:27.410 - 01:06:46.550

There were people would come to our house with envelopes and all kind and he would just push them out. So he—that kind of w-what stuck with us much more than just the religious things or prayers was watching them live Zoroastrian life of integrity

01:06:47.150 - 01:07:06.530

and hard work. And that was what I hope you know, both Nilufer and I hope to pass that along to our children as well. In the US, of course we—Cleveland was a very small thing, but when we moved to Houston at that, this was in the 80s, there was a reasonably

01:07:06.530 - 01:07:24.120

good sized community there and there was a lot of community spirit which survives today. I think Houston in my view, is one of the most active Zoroastrian communities in terms of getting together and doing things together. Uh, so we did take our children to Sunday School.

01:07:24.600 - 01:07:42.110

It was held at someone's house in those days. And try to kind of get them in touch with Zoroastrian values. We also actually, ironically, learned a lot more about Zoroastrianism after coming to the US .

01:07:42.200 - 01:08:01.670

In India, it was more of a ceremonial kind of thing and it was taken for granted. Over here, there was a more scholarly approach to it and an explanation to the children about the history and so on. So I–I think that two different...[muffled]

01:08:04.890 - 01:08:20.340

That's awesome. Are there any major festivals or holidays that you celebrate and are there any changes in how you celebrate them in the US as compared to India? Well, it's the same Zoroastrian holidays are kind of

01:08:20.340 - 01:08:37.830

there's one in March, called Jamshedi Nowruz, which is kind of spring welcoming in spring and so on. And then there is the beginning of the new year, which sort of happens in August, which is also called Nowruz and Pateti, which is kind of the start of the new

01:08:37.860 - 01:08:53.940

year. Now the things are there is a lot of controversy about calendars and so on going back and forth. So multiple different calendars and the Zoroastrian thing, but generally speaking, there's a big festival in March and one in –one in

01:08:53.940 - 01:09:13.710

August and–and those—and–and–and then there are five depending on how you count ten days of the year towards the end in August, which are supposed to be—which are dedicated to the departed. So that kind of—this we pray to the spirits

01:09:13.710 - 01:09:32.550

of people who are left us and those are kind of fairly and–and my wife certainly would take the kids to attend many of when–when–when we were living in places where there was Zoroastrian centers to attend some of those prayers fairly, you know, in

01:09:32.550 - 01:09:47.580

those time frames. And in between we kind of go to the—to–to different things called Jashans, which are occasional prayers that take place at the center and also a

01:09:47.580 - 01:10:05.000

mixture of the religious parts, but also social parts of socializing with other members of the community. So...I—as I said, I–I wouldn't—I–I well—I think of myself as a Zoroastrian in terms of leading a Zoroastrian life.

01:10:05.020 - 01:10:17.530

My wife was a lot more in terms of the ceremonial side. Of course, she left–led a good life. It's just that she was more active in taking the children into the ceremonial side of the religion.

01:10:23.050 - 01:10:37.060

What are the most important traditions that are part of your culture that you've maintained or developed? Did you start any new traditions once coming to the US? I–I don't think new traditions.

01:10:37.060 - 01:10:51.870

These were traditions that were there in India, but often we took them for granted. Over here, I think there is a much better recognition, for example, taking the children to Sunday school or a school where they were taught religious things.

01:10:52.240 - 01:11:05.410

N-never did that in India didn't. When we grew up, it was just you learnt it from being around other Parsis. Over here, there was a very definite—and it still goes on till today.

01:11:05.890 - 01:11:22.780

You know, Zoroastrian centres where children are taken every, you know, on Sundays or whatever to a Sunday school where they are taught about the basics of the religion, they're taught about some of the ceremonies and so on.

01:11:23.320 - 01:11:39.680

And of course the big ceremony is what is called a Navjote, which is i-initiating the child into the religion. It happens somewhere around the age of, you know, seven or 8 or 9 in most cases.

01:11:40.910 - 01:11:59.450

The–the–the other i-issue that constantly faces the community and it's a very difficult social cultural issue is, is intermarriage, marriage between people of—and there are folks who are extremely orthodox

01:12:00.350 - 01:12:15.860

conservative who totally frown on it. But more and more of the younger generation is kind of moving towards the more liberal view of—and–and that gets us into a real debate about who is a Zoroastrian.

01:12:16.400 - 01:12:32.620

Is this something that is preordained only by birth? Or someone who accepts Zoroastrian values and so on, considered Zoroastrian. And there are very complicated issues around this and different viewpoints.

01:12:32.980 - 01:12:51.650

I think the community is shrinking because, you know, the conservative view has prevailed and anyone who marries outside is often not considered this thing and that-that creates its own dynamic. There are lots of questions about whether the community is going to survive.

01:12:51.680 - 01:13:08.140

We are very small in number, about 70, 80,000 around the world, which is like nothing. And with the intermarriage—so I–I don't think this is a resolved issue, but the people have a lot of different opinions,

01:13:08.140 - 01:13:24.210

and that has come into much sharper focus, if you will, over here in–in the Western world than it was ever in India when we were growing up. Because there was a large enough population of Parsis and most people married into the

01:13:24.210 - 01:13:41.910

community. And so it is not happening anymore. So—these are unresolved issues and they are so deeply ingrained. People have multiple views on it. I–I would say generally most Zoroastrians are fairly

01:13:41.910 - 01:14:04.330

open-minded about it, even though they may hold a strong view, they're—they'll kind of understand what others are saying. I'm going off of what you were talking about, about different generations. What have you noticed about the changes in the younger generation of Asian Americans

01:14:04.330 - 01:14:18.900

compared to the–to those in your generation in terms of work ethics, productivity and eagerness to succeed? I think as a first generation immigrant, you are always, first of all, financially insecure.

01:14:18.900 - 01:14:35.610

So you try and work your tail off to succeed and you do everything you can to kind of maybe put off some activities or spending. So it was a lot more of our mindset.

01:14:35.610 - 01:14:52.830

And it's not just about Zoroastrians, but immigrants in general, is to sacrifice more in order to create a secure future for yourself and your children. And that was kind of, I–I would say, a prime driver for the first generation of us who came here.

01:14:52.860 - 01:15:11.980

Again, speak not just about Zoroastrian, but for my Hindu friends and friends and even immigrants from other countries. It–it was the kind of the ethic there, as–as our children grew up, were born here and grew up here, I think they are imbibed more of the

01:15:11.980 - 01:15:30.710

American values of, "Oh okay, the future is fine. We should look at it. But let's not forget enjoying ourselves today." So they're are a lot more into spending money today to have a good life and I–I say that-that's probably not a bad thing

01:15:30.710 - 01:15:42.260

in our case, being immigrants—at least for the children, they have something to fall back if there is a major crisis. They have parents and stuff here. We have no—there was no fallback.

01:15:42.750 - 01:16:00.450

And that kind of colored our thinking in terms of risk taking. So I'd say the younger children—younger children also, I mean I–I worry that they're kind of moved away from the–the community or the religious part of it.

01:16:00.480 - 01:16:19.920

They're a lot more into their own friends from, you know—rather than focus spending time or bringing their own children to the community. So the spirit of community or sense of community is probably breaking down in this second, third generation of

01:16:20.190 - 01:16:36.280

children. And it is an open question as to whether the cultural values that we brought from India are going to survive through a couple of generations, probably, maybe, maybe not, so– so that is a question.

01:16:36.280 - 01:16:51.940

The other thing is, when we were here, being Indian was kind of a rare thing in the 70s and all that. We were very small numbers. I think the children now have a great deal of pride in India

01:16:52.270 - 01:17:06.760

because they have seen how well Indians have done, how they succeeded, there are CEOs, so there are tremendous role models to look to. And there is, I sense, an emerging sense of pride

01:17:07.180 - 01:17:24.970

about being of Indian heritage, not just Zoroastrian, but more of the Indian heritage that their parents brought here. So that is a big change. They're very—the younger generation is a lot more confident in themselves,

01:17:26.080 - 01:17:41.330

tend to strike out now. There was a—in–in the first generation our children were pushed more towards the–the STEM subjects: engineering, be a doctor, an engineer, accountants stuff.

01:17:41.810 - 01:17:58.460

I se-I sense a lot of the children now and the grandchildren venturing into the arts, which was not something that most Indian parents were too thrilled about in those days. But I–I think times have changed and–and that's not necessarily a

01:17:58.460 - 01:18:15.410

bad thing. Just have to be careful that you don't waste your life doing something that you're not very good at. So if you're very good at the arts, there's nothing wrong with pursuing it. So I–I think the younger folks are a lot more Americanized in that sense

01:18:15.680 - 01:18:30.710

than India. But, you know, at the same time, at least for the next generation, I think we have imbued in them very strong values of what it means to be an Indian.

01:18:30.710 - 01:18:46.920

And I think that is carried through at least to the next generation. Time will tell about what happens in 2 or 3 generations. Do you have any advice for the younger generations or anything else that you would like to share that was not covered in the interview?

01:18:49.130 - 01:19:05.030

Well, I–I would say that again, I would keep bringing back the Zoroastrian values and actually they're not unique to Zoroastrian, there are similar things in other–other religions also, and that is this question of integrity in whatever you do.

01:19:05.940 - 01:19:23.330

Don't let quick fixes and making money quickly and all of that stuff derail you from your moral values. There is a lot of temptation, unfortunately, in the West to kind of, you know, cut corners and do what you can to get

01:19:23.330 - 01:19:41.190

ahead. Using not necessarily very ethical means. And ob-obviously that's true in India as well. But the advice I would say is in the long term , you're much better off working hard towards a goal and achieving

01:19:41.190 - 01:19:54.180

it through hard work and personal effort and try and always, always go into the pursuit of knowledge. Education is a terrific thing. Education never stops.

01:19:54.330 - 01:20:10.810

It's not just about a college degree. Fact: what you learn in college will be obsolete in a few years. So it's a–it's a question of lifelong learning —and integrity are kind of the two things—and hard

01:20:11.050 - 01:20:28.690

work. You combine all of those ingredients and you will be successful. I–I keep telling my children and grandchildren that I don't know—we have lived in a lot of different places around the world. I am not aware of any place in the world that has more opportunities for hardworking

01:20:28.690 - 01:20:42.820

people than the US. So we are extremely fortunate to be in this country. I get very annoyed when a lot of folks start badmouthing the US and you know racist this that it really.

01:20:43.780 - 01:21:03.060

Yes, I mean it's not perfect, but it–it is by–by a long shot the best place for opportunities if you have the right skills, right hard work, right work ethic you have ethics and integrity, you will succeed the more chance of

01:21:03.060 - 01:21:18.090

success here than anywhere in the world. So I–I tell the kids they should consider themselves extremely fortunate to be here at the right time. That's amazing advice. Yes.

01:21:18.690 - 01:21:29.370

With that, I would like to conclude our interview today. Thank you again, Mr. Darukhanavala, for talking with me. I really enjoyed learning more about your story, and I appreciate you taking the time

01:21:29.370 - 01:21:36.990

to share your story with us today. Okay. Thank you, Advika. Look forward to the feedback.