Trip to USA: After the completion of ME at the University of Roorkee in June 1970, Mohan was left with very little time available to him, for taking the flight for USA. He spent a few days at Jodhpur, and rushed to Delhi for the flight to London on his way to Toronto. Air India flight on 12 July 1970 took him to London with stop overs at Tehran, Beirut, Rome and Moscow. He reached London in the evening and utilized the opportunity, provided by the overnight stop over at London, for visiting Piccadili Circus, Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, West Minister Abbey and Trafalgar Square. Thereafter, an Air Canada flight took him to Toronto, where he was stamped on his passport as a landed immigrant of Canada. After a short stay in Canada at Galt and sightseeing with his uncle Jai Narain to Niagra falls and other places, he took the flight to Santa Barbara, via Los Angeles in USA, reaching Santa Barbara for the international summer program on July 19, 1970.
UC Santa Barbara: University of California at Santa Barabara stands on the west coast of USA with a salubrious climate and scenic environment, facing Pacific Ocean. The number of foreign students participating in the international summer programme of the university was fifty coming from different countries, speaking different languages and having different accents and different food habits. The participants were lodged in an apartment building at Goleta. The room rent was $ 6 per day and the meal charges were $ 5.60 per day. The expenses were adjusted against the scholarship admissible to the participants for the programme. The summer programme provided the participants, with opportunities for free mixing with each other and for the development of homely relations. Field trips were conducted regularly to different places in the region during the week ends, which helped considerably in providing awareness with the local environment and the development of fraternal relations between participants. Initially, there were some problems about food. The preferred food item for most of the people in USA is beef or pork. However, in most of the cafeterias, bread, butter, milk, boiled rice and vegetables and a large variety of fruits, fruit juices and frozen foods are freely available and therefore, the vegetarians gradually started relishing the available things. The orientation programme included one course on English and another curse on political, social and economic trends in USA during the week days. The course on English as a second language was conducted during the first three weeks of the orientation programme. The course had a laboratory orientation and was very helpful in understanding, speaking, reading and writing english for all those who had a faltering grip on english, as also to those who were proficient in english. The second course, which ran during the concluding three weeks, was related to political, social and economic trends in USA. The course was extremely helpful in providing an insight into the socio-economic trends and political systems of USA and family life of the common people in USA.
Family week: Family week was a special feature of the summer programme of Santa Barbara. All participants were assigned to different families of the region, for spending a week with them, from 7 August 1970 to 14 August 1970, for getting an exposure to the family life in America. Mohan was living in an apartment building at 2501, Francisco Torres, 6850, EL Collegio Road, Goleta during his orientation programme at Santa Barbara. He was chosen for spending the family week with the family of Don Michelson, who was a builder and a real estate businessman, living about 26 miles from Goleta. Mr Don Michelson personally picked up Mohan from his apartment at Goleta and took him to his house. Mrs Michelson was a very kind and affectionate lady and took Mohan to local places of interest, market places and restaurants and their family ranch, which was 250 miles away on the Colorado border. Mr Michelson had six children. Although Mr Michelson was a rich man, all his children were involved in different types of labour jobs for meeting their living expenses. Normally, the young boys and girls in USA left their homes at an early age, for living independently and in the absence of adult children, the parents spent most of their last days, either in hospitals or nursing homes for senior citizens. On the social side, the racial problems between black and white and people of colour, kept blowing, off and on.
Visit to Los Angeles, UCLA and Disney Land: The participants of the summer programme were taken for a visit to Los Angeles, UCLA and Disney land in the middle of August 1970. Los Angeles is one of the most populous cities of USA and Los Angeles Airport is one of the busiest airports of USA. Los Angeles was founded in 1781 and is well known for its diversity in educational, cultural and professional fields. Southern campus of the university of California at Los Angeles, commonly known as UCLA was established in 1919. UCLA. is one of the oldest public research universities of USA and is ranked among the top most educational institutions of the country. Los Angeles is also the land of Hollywood and Disney Land and a host of entertainment enterprises. Disneyland was the brain child of Walt Disney. He developed Disney Land as a theme park, at Anaheim in 1955. Disney Land brings live almost everything from the past, present and future at one place and is full of entertainment with hotels, restaurants, theme parks, lakes, boats and all types of rides. Mohan alongwith participants of the summer programme thoroughly enjoyed their visit to UCLA and Disney Land in a relaxed manner.
Berkeley: After the orientation programme at Santa Barbara, Mohan reached Berkeley on September 4, 1970 and while scouting for suitable living accommodation, with some of his friends, they zeroed in on Apartment number 201, 2220 Dwightway, Berkeley. California 94704
The apartment building was close to the university campus and Mohan, alongwith three other students, finalised the deal and started living there. The apartment had two bed rooms, one living room, kitchen, bathrooms and other essential facilities. Since, help is normally, not available in USA, they decided to share all household chores by rotation, including cooking, cleaning, dusting and other odd jobs. Due to constraints of time, they chose to take handy and nutritive foods like, milk, bread, butter, boiled rice, vegetables, fruits and juices of fruits, which were readily available in all cafetarias, for their breakfast and lunch and decided to cook a satisfying dinner in a relaxed manner in the evenings.
University of California at Berkley or UC Berkeley: The academic procedures in the university were very flexible.. The students prepared their own programme and finalized the courses proposed to be taken by them during a quarter, in consultation with graduate students advisor. Mohan had decided to take two courses on statistics and two courses on control systems during the first quarter, with the consent of the graduate students advisor. Mohan had a feeling, that, due to short durations of the quarters, the normal academic workload was heavy and all students remained over-worked for most of the time. However, due to the flexibility of the academic system and emphasis on fundamentals, Mohan enjoyed his studies at Berkeley, inspite of long and arduous working hours. For some time, due to the war in Vietnam, there was recession in USA and therefore, conditions were changing rapidly in the university. There were about 300 graduate students in the university at that time and only 50% students were able to get financial assistance. Mohan was one of the students, who did not get any financial assistance during the first quarter, which commenced in September 1970. The job market was very shaky. The students, who had completed MS and PhD in the previous years were finding it difficult to get suitable employment. However, the American students were generally care free and could be seen in the campus in all types of casual dresses. Most of the American students had undertaken world tours at some time, during their career. Second hand cars were freely available in USA under $ 500 and most of the students at Berkeley had their second hand cars. Looking to the conditions in USA, Mohan was worried about advanced studies of his siblings Alok and Nishith.
Settling down at Berkeley: Mohan had a feeling that the campus of the university at Berkeley was very crowded as compared to the open environment of the University of Roorkee. As the days rolled on, the academic engagements in the university kept him tied down for long hours in the university labs. Mohan was fond of reading general books during his spare time and he used to add some of the recently published books on his shelf every month. On weekends he tried to find time for meeting known people. Dr HS Mehta was from Jodhpur and Mohan was able to meet him off and on. Mohan went with Dr HS Mehta to Oakland for the Diwali function, where he came in contact with a number of Indian families and shared sweets and other foods with them. He was also in contact with Arvind Garde and Anand Garde, sons of Principal Garde of Jodhpur. Arvind Garde was living close to his apartment on Dwightway. Mrs Arvind Garde served him a Maharashtrian dinner on one of the week ends. Association of Indian Students at Berkeley was very helpful in bringing Indian students together, through the organization of literary and cultural events and visits to local places of historical and tourist interest. Everything was new and exciting. Fast moving traffic was almost unending on most of roads, lanes and bye lanes. Big super-markets and malls, offering anything to everything attracted large crowds. Sprawling farmlands, apple and tomato picker farms and big dairy farms were family enterprises, raised and managed by three to four members of the family. Mohan was fond of outings on weekends from considerations of exploration, relaxation and rejuvenation, trekking through scenic places, green valleys, forested uplands, bays and mounts.
San-Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay Area: San Francisco stands on a hilly outcrop of the Pacific Ocean in North California. It is one of the most prominent cities of USA and is the cultural, commercial and financial centre of North California. San Francisco has a sprawling bay, sitting quietly on its eastern side. San Francisco Bay has its opening from the Pacific Ocean and it covers large areas spread over a number of districts and counties . A two span suspension bridge connects San Francisco to Oakland and thereafter, the eastern highway runs through a number of bridges and causeways to reach Berkeley. San Francisco is a popular tourist destination and is known for its fog, steep rolling hills and landmarks including Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, fisherman’s wharf and China town. Mohan had an opportunity to visit San Francisco and Golden Gate Bridge with a group of 150 students on one of the weekends in October 1970. They reached Oakland by bus and then a cruise ship took them on a round trip to San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge and other places in the northern part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Golden Gate Bridge stands close to the opening of the bay from the Pacific ocean and connects San Francisco and South California with the highway running along the coast line of northern territory of USA. It has facilities for six lanes at two levels, with one deck above the other, each deck accommodating three lanes. Golden Gate Bridge used to be the longest bridge in the world and was treated as one of the structural wonders, with its suspended main span of 4200 feet ( 1288 m) and a total length of 8981 feet (2737 m). The height of supporting towers is 746 feet (227 m) and the clearance below the deck during high tide is 220 ft ( 677 m) to enable unhindered movement of ships from the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco Bay. It was very mesmerizing to witness the unending stream of traffic passing through the Golden Gate Bridge, almost at all hours of the day. At the same time, all types of ships, steamers and boats glide leisurely under the bridge. On another weekend in October 1970, Mohan had a similar opportunity to explore the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in a cruise ship. San Francisco Bay area is very densely populated and it looks like a mini USA serving as a repository of the past with five hundred years old trees and wild life, blended with fast developing farms, parks, industries and commercial set ups of the modern era. It is a great tourist destination and is served by 110 mile long cruise.
End of the first quarter at Berkeley: Sometimes in the last week of November 1970, Mohan went to San Jose with his friend Dick. Dick had done his B.S. in 1968 and was doing his graduation with Mohan at Berkeley. Thereafter, all time and energies of Mohan were sucked in by the final examinations of the first quarter held in the middle of December 1970. Thereafter, the university closed for the winter vacations for three weeks, from 18 December 1970 to 6 January 1971. Most of the friends of Mohan left Berkeley during the vacations and after the hectic days of the first quarter at Berkeley, Mohan had a fleeting feeling of loneliness. In the meantime, we communicated to him about the receipt of his Master’s Degree and Gold Medal from the University of Roorkee. Mohan was happy about it and wanted the attested copies of the degree and award certificate of gold medal to be sent to him, while retaining the originals at Jodhpur. Mohan had a very satisfying period of studies at Berkeley during the first quarter and had done well in the final examinations of the first quarter. Looking to financial conditions of the university, Mohan was not expecting any financial assistance from the university, during the second quarter, but, was happy and satisfied about the way his studies were proceeding at Berkeley.