US - A New Place...

A new place – the “developed” nature is the one thing that surprises me the least of all – probably because I expected it and I knew that the roads would look thus, the cars would look thus, the houses would look thus, the hotel, motels and inns would look thus and the greenery would look thus, thanks to Hollywood. Lack of surprise isn’t akin to lack of appreciation though.

On the other hand, people are, very surprisingly, exactly like the movies too. Either Hollywood makes Honest-to-God movies or my eyes are deliberately seeking similarities. There’s this hefty African-American woman in her security personnel uniform, who pushes people in queues along by the mere use of language. There’s that very eye-catching young guy who’s got tattoos all over his back and hands and is moving around with a girl who has piercings on interesting parts of her body. There’s this incredibly jovial, funny and helpful African-American who initiates talks with you as if you were the one thing he was waiting for the entire day and when departing, thanks you for entertaining him with chatter while brushing aside your own thanks for guiding you to the location where the train to Terminal 1, Gate C21 could be caught. There’s this obese man sitting morosely alone, eating a huge burger while texting forlornly on his iPhone and constantly using the delete key to take care of that extra character that his fat fingers hit accidentally. There’s this attractive woman who is swinging her flat sandals by the toe while she’s talking sotto voce on her phone. There’s this family of two very harried-looking parents and their three children, two of which are mercilessly teasing the third one still in his perambulator, who’s then crying the place down because of which the others are shooting dagger glances or pitying glances at the ever-so-more flustered parents.

If Hollywood is an art, does life here follow it or does it follow life?

There are, of course, Indians everywhere. I have finally managed to put my belief to test that Indians are more Indian when they’re out of India. They believe in “help your countrymen” and carry suitcases for you, they give you their place in the Customs line if you are late for a connecting flight, they exchange gossip in the same way it would be exchanged at any Indian gathering – with a not-so-subtle attempt at trying to learn about your “background”, they invite you over for Indian food – quite forgetting that you’re yet not tired of American grub as yet since you haven’t had any, they offer free (but in this case, very welcome) advice and they even smile when they make eye-contact! (Yeah, I know. The last one is certainly not an Indian characteristic!).

Some, let’s call them stereotypically disgusting “pseudo” Indians are of course, also here, who start US vs India comparisons. If this topic starts and goes in the very predictable direction of establishing US supremacy and oft use of the words “hamare yahan…” and “tumhaare yahan…”, just use your hands to eat the food, wipe them on the table cloth, get up and leave. And if the conversation goes in a pleasant and realistic way, you know you’ve found your doppelgänger.




Shilpi Goel