“I can see a smile on everyone’s face when I give them a peacock feather,” and “finger puppets can be your unconditional friend,” explains Jagdish Sachdev, someone whose name you may not recognize, but who, chances are, has interacted with you within the past few years. He probably gave you a small gift, such as a finger puppet or peacock feather, when you were a freshman to show you that Providence is a “warm, friendly place.” Maybe you even selected two bangles or a glass ring to wear out of his 252 Thayer Street store, Spectrum-India.
Jagdish established Spectrum-India on Thayer Street 41 years ago, and moved to his current location 4 years ago. Before moving to the U.S., he spent his childhood years near Delhi, India, and then went to Canada to study architecture at the least expensive North American university he could find. He worked in city planning in Rhode Island for five years, and then planned to go back to India until he got a letter from his brother asking for help starting an export/import business. This business developed into a fast-growing retail and wholesale company, and Jagdish ended up settling here in Providence to run it.
“I don’t consider one minute of it as work,” he says of his job behind the counter of Spectrum-India, where students and non-students alike buy jewelry, clothes, Bollywood movies, books, deity posters, and various Indian keepsakes. “I find young people very fascinating.” Jagdish originally wanted to carry out an Indian tradition of providing tea when customers (whom he considers guests, friends or both) arrived, but the logistics became too cumbersome. So, he gives out jewelry to everyone who simply browses or makes a purchase at Spectrum-India, in addition to an annual gift especially for freshmen, who “may be homesick” and need someone to reach out to them.
At this point in our conversation, a costumer asks Jagdish for the price of one of his items. “A million dollars,” he responds, “but I’ll give you a huge discount.” He then goes on to explain that with each fall comes “another crop of students . . . more progressive, globally oriented, environmentally oriented, and caring about making the world a better place than the year before.” Jagdish has observed some significant developments throughout 41 years running his business; notably, Brown’s transition from an all-male institution (next to Pembroke, a much smaller women’s college which Jagdish’s wife attended, where students received a Brown degree) to a more than 50% female school, and its growing environmental science program. He acknowledges that the microcosm of the Brown campus doesn’t represent the planet, but still feels very hopeful when students come into his store speaking of their passions for solving global issues. “No matter what the problem,” he says with a smile, “they are working on some problem.”
When asked what the largest problem facing our country is today, he brings up the economy, energy use, and other environmental issues like global warming. Globally, he sees education as “the best investment the world can make.” He speaks of the glass-half-full/half-empty analogy, calling students at Brown University “overflowing.” Jagdish believes each child starts out with “phenomenal potential”—a proverbial tall glass that, if left empty, represents potential lost.
The language we use, even in everyday conversation, is something Jagdish does not take lightly. This is why, when I use the word “difficult” to describe my Introduction to Neuroscience class, he offers me his own “pseudo-neuroscience:”
“Words have tremendous power and I want every young person to know not to use wishy-washy words.” Whenever young people come into his store and talk about themselves negatively, he makes a point to correct them. Therefore, he instructs me to eliminate “difficult” from my vocabulary and replace it with, “this is going to be a challenge, and I’m going to love this challenge.”
Rather than “negative, discouraging, or wishy-washy words,” Jagdish encourages young people to speak with “empowerment words” and “action words.” Hope has its place, he says, but he prefers that students say, “I will do such-and-such” or “I plan to do such-and-such.” He wants to see us learn to take compliments, because rejecting them “causes body cells to shrink.”
“Treat part of your brain as a coach, the remaining brain cells and body cells as your team,” he stresses. “Use encouraging words as a coach would. Use optimistic words.” But, I wonder aloud, isn’t there such thing as being overly optimistic? He says this is “the wrong question to ask me. Just be optimistic—period.” Jagdish has observed that, for most people he knows, wishful thinking is not as much of a problem as self-doubt. Brown students, the “potential leaders of the world,” he explains, “are blessed with gray matter” and therefore “need to expect a lot, and have a lot of opportunities, and at the same time, challenges.”
Plus, “if you shoot for mars, you can get to the moon.” He gives an example: In 1954, the runner Roger Bannister ran a mile under 4 minutes and shattered a world record that was for a long time thought impossible to break. Over the past several decades, many have surpassed him in speed, lowering the world record by 17 seconds, which Jagdish attributes to these athletes’ belief that running an under-4-minute mile was possible. Bannister similarly told Forbes magazine: “There was a mystique, a belief that it couldn’t be done, but I think it was more of a psychological barrier than a physical barrier.”
Jagdish thinks giant forward steps are even more plausible in the intellectual realm, an area that encompasses more Americans today than ever before. Those who have access to quality education can involve themselves in intellectual pursuits, as opposed to simply “feeding the belly.”
“Your hunger is intellectual hunger, and fulfilment of intellectual hunger is far more gratifying than the stomach hunger,” he says. “You can never overfill the brain. You can never get obese from satisfying intellectual hunger.” According to Jagdish, if today’s globally and universally oriented young people continue to satisfy their cerebral hunger, the world will continue to make progress more and more rapidly. His recommendation? To “accelerate development” of ourselves and of the world through positive attitudes, belief in ourselves, visualization, and eagerness to use our gray matter for the betterment of the world.
Most of all, he wanted me to know, “This business is the best thing I could have concocted for myself… It is a place of perpetual joy.” Meeting so many extraordinary people of all ages, he says, “keeps me young.”
His last tidbit of advice is to “care for every little creature on the planet,” which he already sees many of us doing: “I am very optimistic about the future.”I say goodbye to my philosophical, loving, and eternally optimistic unconditional Thayer Street friend with a new clear glass ring, saturated with newfound knowledge that forever will be embedded at the base of my finger.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Brown chapter.