Mr. Muhammed Khatri (Broadening Narratives)

Description

Muhammed Khatri, 57, is a cheerful Muslim limo driver living in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood. Mr. Khatri is enthusiastic about the opportunities available in the United States for anyone willing to work hard, an economic reality he experienced in sharp contrast to his difficult life in Bombay (Mumbai). The interview includes discussion of his childhood in Mumbai, his father’s work as an assistant to film director Kamal Amrohi, his early struggles finding steady work in India despite education, and his immigration to the United States in 1991. He describes door-to-door toy sales in the mid-1980s, the precarity of his family’s life in a one-room flat, and how driving taxis in Chicago before GPS—enduring multiple armed robberies—shaped his views on safety and work. He explains his arranged marriage, his pride in becoming a U.S. citizen, and his later decision to leave higher-paying long-haul trucking for health reasons and operate a limousine service under his own corporation. He attends Friday prayers at the Pratt & Western masjid, speaks Hindi and English (with Kutchi at home growing up), can read Qur’anic Arabic, and returns regularly to Mumbai while visiting childhood friends in Dubai. Other topics discussed include: the Khatri community’s roots in Kutch; accent and language adaptation in the U.S.; Devon Avenue dining and halal food; route knowledge and technology changes from pagers and pay phones to smartphone maps; comparative experiences of discrimination in India and the U.S.; naturalization and civic pride; and his guiding philosophy to choose happiness, health, and steady effort over money.