Amrika! - Part I

For the first 22 years of my life, I had never stayed outside my home, Kolkata, never gone around anywhere alone and had only gone to not-so-far-away places for family vacations. And, then suddenly, I started seeing places! It's difficult at times, to adjust to a place outside the warm little shelter called home where you have stayed all through...but it can be a lot of fun too. And, for someone like me, who loves new cultures and languages, moving around is quite a bit of an experience.

I had stepped out of home for Hyderabad three years back. And then seen Delhi, Gurgaon and Chennai during official tours. Then, "Amrika" happened! First time out of the country, flying over the north pole, sitting in the flight for 17 hours, drinking wine with a cheers with a random person on the flight, paying $5 for a one minute phone call to home, can be weirdly exciting!

On my way to the Hyderabad Airport...I felt sort of strange. An intriguing, bone-chilling feeling, not only because of the nip in the air, bu also because of the haywire thoughts about what the next three weeks will actually be like.

After heavy words like immigration, passport, stamp, visa and "why are you going to the US", I made my way to the international terminal. I am now a confirmed traveler, with most of my belongings checked in, passport and boarding pass in hand, all set to fly.

19 hours in a plane...with a stop over at Dubai. I never imagined I could survive it, until I actually did. The black Kenya guy who sat in the next seat and wasn't at all a nice person, the friendly Dubai-settled Punjabi couple who loved Dubai more than India, and who spoke only about the dirt and dust of India, the cabin crew who tirelessly went on serving food and beverages, the endless list of movies on the TV, the warm blanket with which I cuddled off to sleep several times during the flight, the book that gave me company when I was bored of looking at the TV screen - these were all part of an elongated August day, elongated by the flight, flying over the world, taking bits and pieces of the same day from every country. I get extra time to live, I thought...I get the same day with more than just 24 hours in it!

Waiting at the SFO airport for my next flight to Irvine was tiring. By then, I no longer felt amused at anything...Jet-lagged, tired, sleepy, I just needed a bed to drop into. It's been difficult - to pass all the immigration, customs, security, to get back the luggage, to buy a calling card...search for entry to the domestic terminal, ask a hundred people on the way, everytime feeling irritated at their lack of knowledge and their inability to comprehend Indian English accent at one go. I had the first taste of American food at the airport - a cold sandwich. Going forward, I realized, how much of cold stuff these people always eat...do microwaves sell that well here?

I had an NRI helping me get a taxi from the airport. As I drove down in the taxi towards my hotel, I saw that the roads were noticeably different. Cleaner, much emptier, more greenery by the sides. Sigh! Can't India be like this too? No, I don't crave for the emptiness, but we could do with a little bit more greenery and cleanliness. As my taxi drove into the front yard of the hotel, I came out and shivered. Fall in California, more around the Orange County, is not at all supposed to be cold...but I guess Indian skins are used to more warmth.

My hotel room overlooked a breath-taking view! The back bay of the ocean was calm with a silent gushing sound and the serenity of the area that I could see from my 9th floor room's balcony was beyond imagination. I at once fell in love with the place and my room. After a subway dinner, I was soon sleeping peacefully on the eiderdown bed in my room.

Amrika! - Part II

Waking up next morning on a different bed, at a different place, in a different country is funny. For a split of a second I was lost, cold and stiff...but soon I pulled myself together, and was beaming at the morning that rushed in through the big window beside my bed.

I saw the clock and was amazed to see that it was just 7...tired as I was from the journey, I wondered how I got up so early! I realized that I have been woken up by a call from home. My father had inevitably forgotten the time difference and had thought it was evening. More than getting angry on being woken up so early, I laughed. It was funny the way my parents were telling what they did the whole of Saturday, and here I was sitting hundreds of miles away, still planning my first Saturday in the US. A friend had later asked me, "Are Americans a lot ahead from us in terms of education, technology etc.?" I had laughed and said, "No! they aren't ahead at all...They are 12.5 hours behind us!"

I needed some time to figure out things inside the hotel...the posh bath-tub, the tissue roll, the hot water tap, the rolled up towels, unfolding the iron table, the weird plugs-points. But I was soon ready...amazed at myself and my over-flowing enthusiasm. Who would say that I had just slept for 5 hours in the last 2 days!

Orange County is a sleepy area, that was exactly my first thought! How else do you see joggers at 11 am in the morning...and not a single person on the road even after the sun is up! I wanted to find out bus routes from the hotel receptionist, but felt quite a bit frustrated to know that no one whosoever, starting from the corporate heads to the receptionists to the sweepers take the buses much...they have cars. And considering cab fares look nice in dollars and give heart attacks when converted into Indian rupees, I didn't want to take the chance. So, I started walking. My first walk along the super clean, perfectly organized yet quite empty roads of US was something that I will always remember.

The people here have the strange habit of handing over maps whenever you ask them the way along with north, south directions measured in miles...all of which were quite gibberish to me then. I tried reaching a small eating and shopping area around my hotel called Bristol Jamboree. I asked ten different cyclers and joggers (they were the only people I could spot at a gap of every 5-10 mins) about this place. They answered in at least seven different accents, shocked by my very Indian accent and shocking me with their grammar-less, heavily accented American English. I somehow had a fair idea of the place I was supposed to go for my Saturday brunch. While crossing the street, I saw a red hand on the traffic signal. As I waited for the signal to turn un-red, I saw how nicely the cars move here...in a line, smooth and almost at the same speed. It was almost 15 minutes when I started having this weird feeling that the traffic signal might be a damaged one...it was just not turning any other color! As I fretted and looked around, I suddenly saw a button on a pole with a board saying, "Press here for crossing the road". Super elated, I pressed it, and within a couple of minutes the lights around changed, the cars stopped and the signal turned a bluish white walking man. For the first time, I crossed a US road...with a 15 mins wait, with a button pressed, with a happy feeling from this awesome discovery of crossing roads.

I ate at a rice-and-chicken place at the plaza...Hunger is the best sauce, they say...and so it is! I gobbled on a bowl of sticky rice, random sauces, saltless boiled chicken and half boiled vegetables. The place was suggested to me by the stationary shop attendant across the street. If "a friend in need, is a friend indeed", then this guy was definitely my first true friend in this strange country. He suggested sight-seeing places, he suggested eating places, shopping places...and best of all he found a bus schedule for me and the bus routes, not to forget the usual array of maps that came along with that.

I waited for the bus for 40 minutes, taking pictures of myself with my self-timed camera, resting it on the bus stand pole. I boarded the bus, which seemed a perpetually empty place. After changing two buses and asking another dozen people, I reached this place called Balboa Island. I walked along the bridge by myself, marveling at the beautiful yachts, at the cornflower blue sky, the picturesque surroundings and the colorful flowers. I took the ferry and crossed over to the other part of Balboa, the peninsula. I had an ice-cream all by myself, and walked for about an hour or so until I reached the ocean. It was fun to discover things by myself, open my shoes before walking along the beach, clipping the shoes with my bag handle, stare at the awesome waves that lashed against the sand...I was soon so close to the sea that I couldn't stop myself from touching the sea.

It's good at times to have ignorant, carefree people around you...you can do anything you feel like and yet not worry what people around you might think. So, I didn't feel too strange in rolling up my jeans and wading in the water, taking pictures and gaping at the waves, all by myself.

I guess I make friends too easily, no wonder I made friends with a cookie seller, and her friend a half clip-seller and a half air hostess. I was soon sitting beside them, chatting with them. It's good to make friends, I realized. I was saved the wait for the bus and getting lost finding the bus stand. I was dropped back at my hotel! I came back to my hotel after sunset. Jet-lag hasn't yet hit me that hard, I wondered why.

Tired of cold sandwiches and cold ham and cold drinks, I went to a Mexican joint the next day. I had a comparatively warmer lunch with tacos and beans...The coffee tasted strange from lack of sugar. Five packets of powdered sugar didn't help. Sweet-less, I concluded.

I went shopping half of Sunday, buying stuff for family and friend back home. I never found shopping this difficult ever before. For everything I saw, for every price tag that I checked, I fell aback. Dollars are a lot of money, I realized. And, money to me is rupees. Things were pretty costly here! "I am an Indian, a true one" I laughed!

In the evening, I went to see a theater at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. It was a half-Spanish, half-English musical and definitely, one of the things I enjoyed most in the US. Dinners were getting boring everyday...I can never be a burger eater, for sure. I craved for real food...even Sambar would do, I thought!

Yeah I enjoyed my first weekend in the US, in all sorts of weird ways...going around the place all alone, discovering bus routes, sightseeing places and eating areas, talking to the most off-beat people in the world - a stationary shop attendant, a cookie seller, a hair-clip seller, an air hostess and a Greek food restaurant owner! Normal people here are zombies, they travel only by cars and know nothing of the buses or the routes. Ignorant Americans, I say!

Amrika! - Part III

First Monday in the US was comparatively exciting. I didn't feel the Monday blues and I was amazed at my enthusiasm to walk down all the way to office. A walk down US roads is always a nice experience...no street dogs, no scary road crossing experience, no bumpy roads to topple over...

Office was nice but in-a-way-weird. People here were quieter, the office lights less bright, the window views a dull-grey (which made me realize how much I love the Indian sunshine), the air conditioning at least 2 degrees colder but the stationary supplies more attractive!

People here worked more continuously than in any other part of the world! Tea breaks and chit-chat sessions between work were definitely not their way! Most people, in this office, perpetually had a coffee cup, or a lunch plate at their work desk, from which they never ate or drank. I found it hard locating a water bottle, and later came to know that people here mostly drink 'sparkling water' (a fizz-ed soda, which they happily drink instead of water). For a handful of people who drank non-sparkling, real water, drank water from a big glass sucking on a big straw.

From boiled eggs to dried fruits, from white cheese to yellow cheese to cheese-with-holes, from beef steaks to lettuce leaves, from the food inside the fridge to the food outside the fridge...every eatable thing was always super cold...tea and coffee, anyways do not have any flavor or sweetness in the US, I reminded myself.

There wasn't much difference between lunch and dinner in the US. They always ate bread, butter, cheese and ham for everything. Some people only had arrays of unknown green leaves and stems on their plates at all times. Some people went swimming during lunch and some went jogging. Later they would have plates full of greenery at their desk for the rest of the day. I used to have experimental lunches everyday, and my experiments ranged from olive-oiled spaghetti, salt-free grilled chicken, endless greenery to some awesome cakes and puddings, may-be-lamb-may-be-pork meat and even raw fish!

My team took me out for lunch one day to a French place. I gracefully decided to order the same thing that they ordered, choosing not to be very picky and selective of unknown cuisines. But, as soon as I dug into the first fork-full of the 'salmon and fresh green salad', I realized my ignorance and mistake of trusting my team mates' judgement about food. I endlessly garnished the greenery and boiled, smelly fish on my plate with the olive-oil garnish, without the slightest change in taste. The only thing I liked in the dish were the small, pickled capers.

I had bacons for breakfast for the first time. As much as I imagined the name 'bacon' to be yummy and mouth-watering, I was quite disheartened to find hard, fried pieces of meat to be bacon! I liked the normal potatoes, eggs and breads more than the fancy bacon.

Some of the few eatables that I took a fancy here were marshmallows dipped in chocolate, scones, waffles, pink lemonades and mac-n-cheese. I also concluded that I like the smaller and cheaper restaurants in the US much more than the chic ones. No, it's not because of the price (my office card anyways pays it all)...but I feel commoners here, eat better and tastier food than the high society, sleek-legged, pencil-heeled groups.

One of the days during the long, busy week, I had gone for a walk along the back bay behind my hotel. The sun sets quite late here, so 6 o'clock in the evening gave me a sun-lit path along the back bay. I could clearly make out three distinct ways to reach the banks of the bay. One was notably meant for only cyclers, the other was a little higher and led to a small flyover, over the bay. The one I chose was the most empty path, quite untouched by human hand, wild and less spic 'n span that normal US roads. I walked along a humpy-bumpy trail, with wild shrubs bowing over from both sides. Butterflies and unknown flying creatures hovered around the bushes. As the breeze ruffled my hair and I kept walking along this beautiful way, I felt a sense of calmness and purity for the first time since I came to the US. Months later, I realized, that this lonely walk along the natural trail was one of the best sight seeing experiences that I had in the US. I didn't know the name of any of the flowers here, yet, they were among the best ones I have ever seen in my life. The bright yellow ones looked awesome against the cornflower blue sky...the white and brown ones looked like small cotton balls...I gaped at the sunset over the sparkling waters of the back bay...and, as the sun slowly slid between the shrubs, it left behind a cooler breeze, an orange streaked sky, a droopy sunflower and a home-ward me.

Twilight is perhaps not a known part of the day here, as darkness comes rushing as soon as the sun goes down for the day. My dinners in the US were way quicker than the ones I am normally used to...the reason being: one, I usually didn't go out hunting for food after it's dark (considering the daytime emptiness in Orange County, I didn't want to try the after sunset experience).; and second, the everyday experimental lunches at office made me hungrier before long.

Everyday, while walking back from office, I would take pictures of roadside flowers, highway sunsets and all the strange meals I kept eating. I discovered more eating joints, more friendly people, smiling dog owners who let me pat their pet dogs once in a while...and I taught Starbucks to make coffee my way! I at last started having a nice cup of coffee at least twice a day...over-sweetened by caramel and excessive sugar, milky, creamy and steaming hot. I found out a way to extract sweetness from these not-at-all sweet coffee and tea places. I used to describe my coffee as "extra sweet and extra milky caramel coffee" to get my normal, used-to doses of sweetness outside my own country!

Amrika! - Part IV

I was dreading my first Friday evening in the US. It was around the end of the first week that I started missing my family and friends terribly. US is not a place where I can ever stay alone...on a second thought, I wondered, can I stay here for too long a time, even with friends and family? Nah! I decided...this is not a place to live, not at least for someone who is used to crowds, colors and brimming life...someone who is used to India!

The week had been quite an experience...an experience that ranged from working with people from a different ethnicity, knowing their ways of working, drinking sparkling water, buying vanilla scones for breakfast on my way to office, making cold sandwiches for afternoon snacks, walking back from office. Jet lag hit me around mid-week, and I had two full evenings snoring away peacefully after work. Everyday, I used to look forward to my post-dinner routine. After around 9 in the evening, I used to draw back the curtains of my bedroom window to get a full sight of the highway spreading itself under the night's sky, put on the local radio to some country music station and then jump into my bed beside the phone. Calling home was funny when every 'good night' of me was a 'have a good day' for them...updates on the weather, day spent, food eaten. Another thing I would really look forward to each day was a call from my friend in Hyderabad, after I hung up with my call home. Updates again, cribbing about work, missing India, what all I shopped, where all I went...and, how was Hyderabad doing, how much it rained, was there a bandh? I got a slice of an Indian day through these calls everyday, a flavor of my own life that I was so far from...

The early morning sunshine gushing in through my bedroom window used to wake me up before my alarm clock everyday. The cab that took me to office was never late and as the hotel receptionist would confirm me, it used to reach my place in just 3 mins. Thus went the first week, and it was Friday. One long week since I have come to this country...yeah, I miss home, I miss my India.

One of my colleagues invited me for dinner on Friday. I spent a great evening with her, her husband and their little pug, Tucker. We took out Tucker for a walk around their place. The pathway behind their house led to one of the most charming places in the whole of Orange County. We walked down till the banks of a calm lake that adorned the foothills of Santa Margarita mountains. Greenery, blue waters and an azure sky seemed the perfect ingredients to spice up the start of my weekend. I had one of the most tasty US dinners that day, yummy, cheesy pasta and white wine (the fact remained, it was Italian food that tasted so good in America).

The following weekend was great fun too. A trip to the San Diego Sea World on Saturday morning, followed by a breezy evening spent on the beaches of San Clemanto and fish tacos for dinner is more than I could have asked for. Early next morning, me and my colleague went out together to spend a lazy, girl-y Sunday. The  Sunday started with vanilla sugar scones, black coffee, a drive down to the beaches and tripping over at the parking lot, tearing my jeans, cutting right into my knees! But my enthusiasm overpowered my knee injury as we drove into a beach side breakfast place at Crystal Cove. I re-iterate, the roadside places in the US definitely serve more yummy food - we gorged on to a plateful of spiced scrambled eggs, one huge red strawberry, English muffins and a big glass of steaming hot chocolate with a dollop of whipped cream on top! Post breakfast, we spent a good three hours on the Laguna Beach. From wading into the sea water, building sand castles, watching the sea gulls run after the worms, the crabs running into their holes, the waves lashing against the rocks, to clicking endless pictures, making foot prints on the sand, counting the waves and paying a penny to a beach side guitar-player-cum-singer...I enjoyed Sunday! We also visited this beach side candy shop where I bought taffies and candies for home.

Orange County Fair came next. I am still to decide between a US fair and our Indian fairs...the roundabouts, the people and the crowds made them quite similar. But well, food tastes heavenly at the fairs in my country...and our lunch at the Orange County Fair, consisting of a turkey burger, potato chips and coke was nothing near the yummy Indian spices. So, Indian fairs, I vote!

Tired like anything, I bought dinner on my way back as I was sure that I would hit the bed much earlier today. And, yeah, as I expected, I slept the whole evening only to be woken up by my regular phone calls. I loved my weekend...It was a true traveler's weekend, and I was happy to have seen so much!

The next week went by as usual...vanilla scones, my sweet Starbucks coffee, loads of work at office, random shopping, lovely walks, counting the decreasing traffic through my bedside window every night and falling asleep...To wake up to my last day at the Orange County.

I am traveling to Santa Monica today evening, to the other office I am supposed to visit. Santa Monica is a part of the Los Angeles County, near to Hollywood and Disneyland. Wow! I was already looking forward to the weekend!

Amrika! - Part V

I left Orange County on a Friday afternoon. It was a couple of hours' drive to Santa Monica, and I half slept on my way there. I was quite excited to be heading for Santa Monica, mainly for two reasons: one, I was waiting to meet an Indian colleague there and chatter in Hindi after a long time...and two, I was looking forward to dinner, which we had planned to have at an Indian restaurant.

The hotel that I was supposed to put up at Santa Monica had an antique look, which was supposed to be very posh and chic...well, guilelessly, I found it more haunted than anything else. With narrow corridors, dimly lit with those crooked antique shades, ancient designer carpets and brown, ragged paper on the walls...I almost used to dread coming back to the hotel after work. I practically used to run to my door after the lift door closed behind me. I half imagined getting strangled on my way to my room and dying in this unknown land in the hands of some ancient spirit...whatever! my imaginations always run haywire.

Santa Monica was in the Los Angeles county in California, and the notable differences of this place with Orange County was definitely quite attractive and lovable. The people here go out, party and enjoy their evenings - and, that was a big thing after the lazy streets of Irvine. On my arrival here, tired as I was from the whole day at office and the journey, I did not want to waste a Friday evening. Me and the Indian colleague went out for a scrumptious dinner at an Indian place - not to mention how taken aback we were to see a plate of bhindi sabji (ladies' finger curry) costing us 15 dollars...why, we would be able to get a shop full of ladies' finger at half this price in India! We had a relatively better dinner that night (India! Ahh, the land of spices!) as we gorged on to Biryani (garnished, strangely, with green peas), tandoori roti and butter chicken. The sea was close by to our hotel and we thought of going for a midnight walk along the Santa Monica Pier. Friday night as it was, it was totally lit up by colorful lights...giant ferry's wheels and other different rides were in full swing, and it hardly seemed so late. We checked into a beach side shack and had one of the most delicious Margaritas. We waded into the freezing sea waters, sat on the wet sand and only remembered to look at the time when we saw the sea waters were slowly advancing towards us due to a high tide.

Walking in the US is always a pleasurable experience, so walking back along the pier, and then along the sideways lined with restaurants and bars to our 'haunted' hotel even after 1 in the night was something I adored. The weekend that followed was a fabulous one! Saturday, as we had planned, was spent at Universal Studios. Going there wasn't much fun as we couldn't get the desired bus and had to take a cab all the way to that place, and that definitely burnt a hole in our pockets...a huge one! But once there, things were pretty fascinating. The Studio tour, the 2 hour wait for it, the spider crawling on my bag (yes! even US has spiders to scare me!), the different rides and the photo clicking sessions took up the entire day. We had a weird lunch of mashed potatoes, chicken (which looked like yummy tandoori murgh, but turned out to be a boiled-burnt chicken piece with over-sweetened tomato ketchup) and loads of coke. In the intention of not burning another hole in our pocket, we took the train, and then a bus back to our hotel. I won't term it as a brilliant experience though, as we had a couple of drunk black guys staring at us on the station stairs, a bearded old man wanting money at the bus stand (poor as we were with converting every dollar into rupees, how could we help US beggars!), an old lady who refused to answer us when we asked for the bus number and a sad, cold dinner at a sidey restaurant.

We were experienced travelers on Sunday and we booked a tour with an agency to go to Disneyland. This was something I was really looking forward to and yes, Disneyland did not fail to amaze me! With all the awesome colors, rides, music...Snow White, Cinderella, Pirates, Frog Prince, Alice in Wonderland...I almost had a peek into my childhood! The day went by in a jiffy and after a gorgeous firework show at 9 in the night, we rushed for the return bus. Tired, sleepy and dusty as we were, we were amazingly happy at our day's experience in this fairy tale land. We reached without hassle unlike the previous day and walked past the wonderful Third Street Promenade. Now, this Promenade is another of those places which I will remember forever! It resembled...ahh...a little bit like Indian roads on Diwali. The Promenade is a long lane that winds past the middle of Santa Monica and connects the beaches on one side and the main road on the other. The whole place is always lit up with the most colorful and pretty lights (the best ones I have seen in US so far). The lane is lined with the most chic of shops and restaurants to the regular cheap eateries as well. And, the best part of this place, were the street performers! A guy who plays the guitar with such magic melody that you are bound to get glued to the place, a girl who dances like a feather, twirling and twisting all over the place, a singer who plays the most awesome country songs ever...well, the Promenade is a place where you can't just go off from! We returned late that day, grumbling at the thought of office the next day and dropping off into bed like we haven't slept for ages!

The whole of next week my colleague was away to another place for work. I was tired of adventuring by then and spent a decent hotel-office-hotel week. I tried new eating places here, made friends with two Zimbabwean cab drivers who spoke about cricket, became real chummy with the office canteen girl who would pack me a box of marshmallows everyday, walked along the Promenade almost everyday and sat staring at the sea waves every night from my hotel window. It's been three weeks now...I want to go home, to India, to Hyderabad...

That Friday, I felt an immense amount of happiness in me! Two more days, and I am off to my own place...and in spite of all that you may have to say about India, I was jumping at the thought of returning to the land of real colors, of sunshine, of loud laughter, spicy food, warm air, drizzling rain, friends, family, love and joy...my real fairy tale land!

My colleague was back that Friday and we had an Indian dinner, a pleasant walk, and grand plans to spend the last Saturday in Amrika! Saturday dawned bright, sunny and we spent the day in a lazy, random and exploring way. After a long morning at the beach, we went for shopping. We went for dinner to an Italian place along the Promenade where we cheered with sparkling wine for the great time we had in US and how it made us re-realize our love for India!

"Good night Amrika!" one last time I murmured before wriggling into the warm blanket. Tomorrow I am off...back to my nest, back to my comfort land! 

Amrika! - Part VI

And, the last Sunday it was! I woke up with a start, brimming with happiness. A quick call home, "I will be back soon!", a quick shower, check out and there I have my cab rolling down the Santa Monica roads. I have a long journey stretched out in front of me. Sigh! the boring flight again...but yay! this time I know my welcoming incentive, and I smiled to myself.

Domestic terminals in the US are like bus stands. Everyone and everything is so laid back about a domestic flight here that you hardly feel you are going out of the gravitational force in sometime. Observation, a keen and cynic one to be precise, is a great way to pass off your time...and, so I did. Some quick observations, I jotted in my head:

1. US people are always dressed in the dullest of colors like black or brown or grey. But when it comes to their suitcases or nail colors or hair colors, they are bright ones, for example, bright red, fluorescent green, dazzling pink.

2. People here perpetually have some half eaten cake or peanut packet or rice crackers in their handbags on which they munch on when they are bored. US people, also, love carrying back a half eaten burger, or a leftover salmon fish off their plate.

3. People here move their heads backwards and forwards more than the amount of words they speak.

4. Girls here feel cold only on the upper part of their bodies. Most of them usually wear fat and huge jackets with the shortest of shorts below!

5.  Indian settled in the US are sure to recognize your Indian origin and ask you if you know Hindi...and then ask you why you are going back.

6. Kids look prettier and have better skin than any grown up in the US, anytime!

7. Americans do not talk much. Even if they are traveling with families, they either read, or knit or stare at a distance...but they just do not chat. As a result, US airports are unusually quiet places.

8. Kids always carry separate tinsy and cutesy little bags for themselves, where, I am sure, most of their clothes do not fit into.

9. Chinese food in the US is alarmingly awful! They taste sweet, ketchup-y, floury, boiled and oiled! Yes, I did try a Chinese lunch and felt like throwing up!

10. You can be very excited at the thought of getting a day extra to live while going to the US...but while coming back, you will, anyways, have to give back that extra time, when you arrive in India a day later from the actual day you calculate in the US.

Enough of observations...I was waiting at the San Francisco airport waiting to fly away. After all the formalities, I was comfortably seated in an Emirates plane. Goodbye, I waved...till we meet again!

I slept unnaturally during my flight back home...so, missed half of the food that came. Later, I went knocking behind the cabin crew, asking shamelessly for food, who was gentle enough to appease my hunger with a frankie, a packet of rice crackers and steaming cups of tea. I was tired of making friends by then, and hardly spoke to anyone on the flight. And, soon we reached Dubai. Wow! sleeping makes it fast! I now know the trick.

And, the moment I reached the waiting area at Dubai for the flight back to Hyderabad...I felt ecstatic! As the skin colors of the people darkened around me, the languages became more difficult to understand yet sounded so very familiar (what with all the Telegu, Tamil and Marathi blabber around me, I didn't understand a word, yet I felt them to be my own! It's like getting back to your lost children after ages, when you hardly recognize them, yet you feel the love), the volume and amount of chatting going higher, smell of familiar food and of course the dresses turning more colorful...I felt a sense of immense joy and comfort in me...I looked around to see people who relate to me and to whom I relate to with the most subtle yet strong way - with a common word called 'India', with the common taste for spicy food, with the common reasons for laughing out loud, with the common reasons for having tears in our eyes, with the common reason to stand up every time we hear the "Jana Gana Mana"...anywhere.

In the next five hours, I was going out of Hyderabad airport, collecting my luggage, dreading the customs and listening to random Telegu and Hindi all around me. It all sounded like music to my ears now...and when the half-asleep security bluntly explained to me the way out, I just smiled and said, "I don't understand Telegu, bhaiya...but I somehow get what you want to say."

As I sped home in the cab at half past three in the whee hours of an early Tuesday morning, I was welcomed home with a cool bout of Hyderabadi rain and random calls from friends and family all over. I wondered for the hundredth time why is it I love India so much...is it because I look like the others around me here? the food? the warmth? the cool rain? the inability to understand so many Indian languages, yet feeling proud of the diversity? the fact that I can easily wave and stop a cab or know exactly which buses go where? the comfort I get in fighting with the auto drivers if they ask too much money? the friends who all think like me? a family who talks a lot when we go out on vacations?...well, these can't be the reasons.

...I love India for the big reason that I belong to her, and I can always feel how much she is mine every time I say, "I am an Indian". It's the love a tree has for the place it has grown up in...my love for India has grown over the years...all the years I learned to walk, talk, read, write, think, live and love. My roots have grown very deep inside this land of wonders, so deep that if you tug at it, it pains deep inside the heart...and if you pull it too hard to uproot it, I will live without one.