Elected officials are a variegated lot. Some do well. Some do poorly. I have seen them come. I have seen them go. And then, there are those who seem to want to
hang onto their posts as if for dear life.
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| Dr. Mathur at last night's Board of Education meeting. |
However, there are other types, some, who, with a large dose
of common sense and wisdom, choose to exercise what I term “walkaway power.”
It’s what a person will do when the recognition sets in that
it is time to move on. You have made
your contribution, you have accomplished your job, you are satisfied with your
achievements. In the end, you realize
that your energies need to be focused in another direction.
Such, in my opinion, is the rationale behind the decision
that Arvind Mathur employed when, after eleven years in office, he decided not
to seek another three-year term to the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School
District.
I’ve known Dr. Mathur from the time that he first called me
years ago to comment upon a blog post that I wrote concerning American
values. Something about his reading of
that short essay resonated with him and, during our conversation, a bond set
in.
During that chat, it became evident that Arvind Mathur is an
American patriot with an extravagant, fierce love for this country that is just
about as deep and as wide as it gets.
Let me tell you about him:
Arvind shared with me that he had come to the United States
in 1982 from India “with one suitcase and
$500 in my pocket” at the age of 21.
Determined to obtain a higher education but without financial resources,
he nonetheless applied to only one college, the Stevens
Institute of Technology.
He was accepted but, when he found out that the tuition was
$18,000 – today, tuition and fees are $45,000 – he opted out because he could
not afford the cost.
Shortly thereafter, he said that he received a telegram from
Stevens offering him a full scholarship, room & board, and a monthly
stipend. That event is what launched a career that would eventually see Mathur
earn a master’s degree in organic chemistry and, later, his Ph.D.
Mathur has been with Bristol-Myers-Squib for 25 years, a
firm with which he has prospered as an organic chemist with significant management
responsibilities for the activities of a large group.
His is not a singular story. There are many other such
personal stories at all strata of society in this country. He is not
the only such person to have achieved
success as a determined, hard-working immigrant to the United States.
Therein lies the message of this little tale and the prime
motivation for its publication – gratitude, gratitude for what this nation is,
and for what it has to offer.
If you listen to Arvind Mathur, he will tell you that “this country has given so much to me. No other country in the world is like ours.” It is “open
and welcoming – people here don’t realize it.”
He freely and passionately throws out words like “freedom, liberty, and justice. You don’t find it anywhere else in the world,”
he says. He should know: business responsibilities have taken him to
many of this globe’s most prosperous countries.
How refreshing is this attitude, especially at this
precarious time in our history.
Yet, Mathur has never lost his love of India, the land of
his birth and a nation of which he is still proud as “the largest democracy in the world.”
I like receiving calls like that!
(Click on the image for an enhanced view.)
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