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Seeds for Change: The Lives and Work of Suri and Edda Sehgal
Seeds for Change doucments how Suri and Edda Sehgal, refugees who each escaped dangerous and difficult circumstances as children, came to America as young adults (from India and Germany respectively), met and fell in love, and went on to have more astonishing experiences as talented and visionary business leaders, generous philanthropists, and proud Americans. As a crop scientist, seedsman, and agricultural visionary, Suri became a respected and pivotal figure in the development of the global hybrid-seed industry. He and Edda have shared their resulting good fortune with those in need around the world. Their personal history is a chronicle of remarkable events and people, but most importantly, an eduring lifelong commitment to helping others that is their family legacy.
298 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 20, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 13, 2015
This is a biography of Surinder “Suri” and Edda (nee Jeglinsky) Sehgal, the founders of the Sehgal Foundation. That foundation helps rural villages in India achieve clean water, improved agriculture, better education and more honest government, as well as funding conservation and ecological efforts around the world.
Both of them were refugees as children, Suri when his family wound up on the wrong side of the border during the partition of Pakistan and India, and Edda when her home in Silesia was about to be overrun by the Soviet Army during the end of World War Two (and then was attached to Poland in the post-war process.)
Suri grew up to become a crop scientist, specializing in hybrid corn, and came to America to pursue his graduate studies. Edda was invited to the U.S. to serve as the au pair for the Henry Kissinger family. They met and fell in love. Suri got a job with Pioneer, creating their first international research station in Jamaica, and the couple got married.
They settled down in Iowa and raised a family, and with a combination of hard work, diplomacy and good management skills, Suri rose to eventually become the president of Pioneer’s overseas operations. Unfortunately, there was a management change at the company, and the new CEO felt uncomfortable with the decentralized nature of Pioneer at the time.
According to this book the new management of Pioneer fired Suri and attempted to frame him for stealing trade secrets, as well as ransacking a subdivision in India that Mr. Sehgal had an independent interest in out of spite. (A book from the perspective of the Pioneer management might tell the story differently.) The ensuing lawsuits were settled in Suri’s favor, and the company he rescued was successful enough to create the Foundation.
There’s a lot to like about this book. Suri and Edda’s life experiences are interesting and shed light on areas not often brought to the attention of most Americans. Edda is very much depicted as Suri’s partner who he could not have succeeded without. If the text sometimes seems overly flattering, this is understandable due to it being written specifically to promote the Sehgal Foundation.
I found the writing style a little flat. A discussion of the children’s part-time jobs is given the same tonal feel as Suri’s trek across India as a shoeless refugee to find a relative whose location he only knows by a general region, which could use a bit more emotional weight.
There are genealogical charts at the beginning of the book (there are a lot of relatives that come in and out of the story) and a color photograph section in the middle. Citations are done in footnotes, and there is no index.
Proceeds from the sale of this book go to the Sehgal Foundation, so that might influence your decision whether or not to purchase.
I would especially recommend this books to readers with an interest in immigrant stories.
Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of this book in the expectation that I would read and review it. No other compensation was involved or requested.
Both of them were refugees as children, Suri when his family wound up on the wrong side of the border during the partition of Pakistan and India, and Edda when her home in Silesia was about to be overrun by the Soviet Army during the end of World War Two (and then was attached to Poland in the post-war process.)
Suri grew up to become a crop scientist, specializing in hybrid corn, and came to America to pursue his graduate studies. Edda was invited to the U.S. to serve as the au pair for the Henry Kissinger family. They met and fell in love. Suri got a job with Pioneer, creating their first international research station in Jamaica, and the couple got married.
They settled down in Iowa and raised a family, and with a combination of hard work, diplomacy and good management skills, Suri rose to eventually become the president of Pioneer’s overseas operations. Unfortunately, there was a management change at the company, and the new CEO felt uncomfortable with the decentralized nature of Pioneer at the time.
According to this book the new management of Pioneer fired Suri and attempted to frame him for stealing trade secrets, as well as ransacking a subdivision in India that Mr. Sehgal had an independent interest in out of spite. (A book from the perspective of the Pioneer management might tell the story differently.) The ensuing lawsuits were settled in Suri’s favor, and the company he rescued was successful enough to create the Foundation.
There’s a lot to like about this book. Suri and Edda’s life experiences are interesting and shed light on areas not often brought to the attention of most Americans. Edda is very much depicted as Suri’s partner who he could not have succeeded without. If the text sometimes seems overly flattering, this is understandable due to it being written specifically to promote the Sehgal Foundation.
I found the writing style a little flat. A discussion of the children’s part-time jobs is given the same tonal feel as Suri’s trek across India as a shoeless refugee to find a relative whose location he only knows by a general region, which could use a bit more emotional weight.
There are genealogical charts at the beginning of the book (there are a lot of relatives that come in and out of the story) and a color photograph section in the middle. Citations are done in footnotes, and there is no index.
Proceeds from the sale of this book go to the Sehgal Foundation, so that might influence your decision whether or not to purchase.
I would especially recommend this books to readers with an interest in immigrant stories.
Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of this book in the expectation that I would read and review it. No other compensation was involved or requested.
May 22, 2017
Marly Cornell has captured the essence of dignity and altruism in this biographical study of the lives of Suri and Edda Sehgal. The book traces these two lives from the most tragic upheavals of the last century, the partition of India and the upheaval in Germany during WWII.
While a testimony to honest effort and clear thinking, it is also a manual for business development in a world threatened by over-population and misuse of resources. Can business have a heart? This book makes the case that the heart can, indeed, make the business if the good of society is the measure of growth instead of the the accumulation of material wealth.
As a teacher and an artist, I found the book difficult to put down. If you want to read a book that is hopeful and inspiring in the face of the huge challenges the world faces today, here it is.
While a testimony to honest effort and clear thinking, it is also a manual for business development in a world threatened by over-population and misuse of resources. Can business have a heart? This book makes the case that the heart can, indeed, make the business if the good of society is the measure of growth instead of the the accumulation of material wealth.
As a teacher and an artist, I found the book difficult to put down. If you want to read a book that is hopeful and inspiring in the face of the huge challenges the world faces today, here it is.
October 29, 2022
2.5 rounded up to 3. I stepped out of my box and read a biography. My niece and I were discussing a disturbing book I was reading about WWII and she told me about a mass exodus from Pakistan (0nce part of India) to India that I never heard about and how her family escaped on a train. So I read a story about her family. I liked the included family trees, the maps and family pictures.
July 3, 2019
This book was near and dear to my as this is my friends family and their fascinating story. Her dad was always pretty quiet when we were around him and I had no idea what he’d been through in his younger years.
July 4, 2020
A wonderful book detailing the lives of a wonderful couple, their families, and what hard work and dedication can do to help others.
May 10, 2021
Inspirational
Suri and Edda grew up in challenging times but shows from adversity comes blessings. Adversity is our friend my friend.
Suri and Edda grew up in challenging times but shows from adversity comes blessings. Adversity is our friend my friend.
July 15, 2015
The genre of biography generally focuses on a sole individual, but Seeds for Change: The Lives and Work of Suri and Edda Sehgal by Marly Cornell tells the story—simultaneously harrowing and heartwarming—of a remarkable couple. Suri and Edda Sehgal met as young adults in the United States after comparable childhood experiences of being rendered refugees by the shifting of political boundaries defining countries. Suri’s family survived the ‘death’ trains that transported refugees in the chaos of the 1947 Partition that divided India into newly independent two countries: India and Pakistan; family members were separated but eventually reunited across the border. Due only to perseverance and sheer grit, Suri managed to finish school and attend college; in 1959, he left India to pursue graduate studies in agricultural science and seed research at Harvard University. Edda’s family comes from Silesia, a region that had at different times been German, Polish, Prussian, Bohemian, and Austrian. After a childhood shaped by the experience of WWII, she left Germany in 1962 for a two year placement as an au pair in the home of Ann and Henry Kissinger.
Perhaps it is the challenges faced so early in life that gave both Suri and Edda the courage to leave their families and culture behind and travel great distances to an unknown land without friends or family to greet them at the other end. It should be noted that Suri and Edda arrived in the United States prior to the post-1965 wave of immigration and at a time when communication with family would take weeks.
The book follows the childhoods of Suri and Edda on different continents and traces the aspirations that prompted them to leave home. Once they met and then, unbeknownst to Suri’s parents, married, the narrative follows their life and work in Jamaica, then Iowa—an epicenter of hybrid corn research.
Author Marly Cornell interweaves several narratives in this book, with humor and affection. Not only does the book trace the lives of two people and the way in which they come together to work as a team in pursuit of the science of seeds and raising of children, but there are several themes that will speak to a wide audience. Seeds for Change is the history of a family, uprooted by political turmoil and deposited in new lands, and the bonds that traverse generations and continents. It is equally a tale of the science of hybrid seeds and the interweaving of academic research, business and philanthropy—all directed toward improving the health and livelihood of poor people in developing countries. Perhaps most poignant is the insight this book offers into the two sides of migration. On the one hand, we feel the promise of post-war America for many in distant lands, both imagined from afar and palpably real. We see what it meant to become part of middle-class America, to adopt some of its core values such as the value and dignity of ordinary work. We also come to understand the way in which disruption, however, tragic, can also make people more resilient and open to the world. On the other hand, we see another story unfold in these pages, namely that of lingering and heartfelt ties to homeland among diasporic people. Patriotism need not include chauvinism. Nor must it be singular.
Meena Khandelwal, Ph.D., University of Iowa, USA
Perhaps it is the challenges faced so early in life that gave both Suri and Edda the courage to leave their families and culture behind and travel great distances to an unknown land without friends or family to greet them at the other end. It should be noted that Suri and Edda arrived in the United States prior to the post-1965 wave of immigration and at a time when communication with family would take weeks.
The book follows the childhoods of Suri and Edda on different continents and traces the aspirations that prompted them to leave home. Once they met and then, unbeknownst to Suri’s parents, married, the narrative follows their life and work in Jamaica, then Iowa—an epicenter of hybrid corn research.
Author Marly Cornell interweaves several narratives in this book, with humor and affection. Not only does the book trace the lives of two people and the way in which they come together to work as a team in pursuit of the science of seeds and raising of children, but there are several themes that will speak to a wide audience. Seeds for Change is the history of a family, uprooted by political turmoil and deposited in new lands, and the bonds that traverse generations and continents. It is equally a tale of the science of hybrid seeds and the interweaving of academic research, business and philanthropy—all directed toward improving the health and livelihood of poor people in developing countries. Perhaps most poignant is the insight this book offers into the two sides of migration. On the one hand, we feel the promise of post-war America for many in distant lands, both imagined from afar and palpably real. We see what it meant to become part of middle-class America, to adopt some of its core values such as the value and dignity of ordinary work. We also come to understand the way in which disruption, however, tragic, can also make people more resilient and open to the world. On the other hand, we see another story unfold in these pages, namely that of lingering and heartfelt ties to homeland among diasporic people. Patriotism need not include chauvinism. Nor must it be singular.
Meena Khandelwal, Ph.D., University of Iowa, USA
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews