Amar G. Bose, 74, founder, owner, and chairman of the Bose Corporation, rocked the automotive world in August by unveiling a suspension system that could make all others obsolete. It uses computer-controlled electric motors to effectively cancel a road’s bumps and dips, giving occupants a glass-smooth ride. The system, more than two decades in development, is expected to show up on cars within four years. It may seem like an unlikely breakthrough from what many regard as a high-end speaker company, but since its founding in 1964, Bose has conquered science and engineering challenges in a variety of fields. The company, which employs 8,000 people, reflects its maverick founder and offers a unique model for revitalizing American corporate research and development. Bose was a professor of electrical engineering at MIT for 45 years.
Your father was from Calcutta and was a vocal opponent of British rule in India. When did he come to the United States?
B: He arrived at Ellis Island in 1920 with five dollars in his pocket.
Your mother was American. Was your upbringing more Indian or American?
B: We had a small house in suburban Philadelphia, and Indian people would come stay with us for days, weeks, or months. The food we ate was Indian, and both my mother and father were very deep into the ancient philosophy of India, so it could well have been an Indian household. There were challenges. The prejudice was so bad in the United States at that time that a dark person with a white person would not be served in a restaurant. My father, mother, and I would try it occasionally. We would sit there, and the food would never come. My father would ask for the manager. He would pretend to be an African American because the prejudice was against them, not Indians. He would say in a quiet voice: “I notice that we are good enough to earn money to cook the food, good enough to earn money serving the food, good enough to give our lives in the war for our country. Could you explain to me why it is that we are not good enough to pay money and eat the food?” When he spoke in a quiet voice like that, everyone in the whole restaurant would fall silent, too, and listen to it. Then he would say to my mother and me, “It is time for us to go.”
