I have never been away from home before. Life throws first timers at you. It was my first time. I am travelling to the United States of America. I like to call it THE STATES. I am aboard a flight, a couple of hours away to land, on the land of opportunities. I am hitched with a slight shade of mixed feelings, especially nervousness. And this shade is turning out to get darker as the time is ticking by. My mind is inundated with apprehensions and lot of questions. The people here will be different, have different culture, eat different food, have different lifestyles, etc. Will the people here be helpful? Will I survive in the cold weather? What will I have to eat (important, coz I don’t know cooking), most importantly will they understand my English! Because I have heard that American English is much different, at least in pronunciation than the UK counterpart that I’ve learnt. After I came out of the airport, I felt as if there was a void created. I was isolated, disconnected. There is nothing I can relate to. Before flying from India, I had my family, my friends, my colleagues and my people. Just after 19 hours, entire picture has changed! There is no one I can relate to. Somehow, I recovered from my trauma and recollected that I had a few friends whom I can rely on. The shade turned a bit lighter now. I took a cab and reached there. I received a warm welcome from them. The excitement of seeing them made me forget that I should pay the cab driver and grab a receipt!
My next stop. Day1 in office. That ghostly shade has gripped me again. More questions flowing. What will be my co-workers’ expectations? Will they look down upon me? How will they treat me? I am very anxious and trying to be more optimistic. I am much apprehensive about the people I will be working with. The reason being, when I had worked with them from India I learnt that these guys were damn good in their skills/domains. They were experts, well organized and admirable. Now, I will be sharing my workspace with them. Err……. Sorry, they will be sharing their workspace with me :) Mistakenly or non-mistakenly, suppose I pop out something unexpected, for sure I am going to make a fool out of me or invite contempt. What would they be thinking of me then! So I am more careful and uneasy, at the same time. But in the office, most of the things sounded other way round. People were very helpful and hospitable. They are good and cool. Many of them proactively offered me help to settle down. Another observation was that things over here move much faster than our India office. No process hassles. No red tape! ;) The office is just coooolllllll. It has high speed Wi-Fi connectivity. Roam around with your laptop, always connected! We have a coffee vending machine, though it doesn’t spit out many varieties of coffee but still it has its significance. Wondering why me talking about a coffee machine? Coz its Starbucks coffee vending machine. And yes it’s FREE, FREE, FREE! There are so many good things but still a slight shade of anxiety remains there. I hope with time the shade turns light, and lighter….. and vanishes one day.
Next, People. People are few but are good. You cannot take it for granted that you can find an address by just navigating around an area. Because there are no or few people to ask to if you are lost! You need to rely heavily on Google Earth for that. Now I got it why Google earth is perceived more as fun stuff than of any use in India. People here are helpful and law-abiding. A peculiar thing that I noticed here was that the Americans give away a smile to any passerby but Indians don’t smile at Indians passing by! Strange, I was surprised at this. Even after learning this, I still tried to give a smile to a few Indians here, but many of them, I believe, got confused whether to respond with a smile or turn their head 90 degrees. It made me wonder is my smile that disastrous? Funny, huh? :) I am not alone, same is the case with my colleagues here.
Next, Climate and Food. Thank God, I have arrived during spring. But still, 10 degrees Celsius is cold for me add to it the unexpected intermittent rains. An instance, it was too cold and raining too, my mind directed my hand to hold a pen. But my thumb and fingers were not able to obey the directions due to the freaking cold! The weather is more unpredictable than women. A colleague of mine shared a joke on weather “If you don’t like the weather in Seattle, wait for 5 mins”. Talking about the food here, they have different names but they all taste same to me. I really miss my home food (ghar ka khana) the rice, dal, bhaaji and chapattis. Are you wondering, How I am still alive? All credit goes to Subway and their team. I think I should take up a platinum card membership with them. It’s not that “I’m lovin it” but have no option. Currently, I don’t possess cooking skills, I hope the above undesirable options for dousing my hunger, will make me take up cooking and acquire these skills. I am having more burgers than chapattis, I am drinking more coke than water, When someone asks me “how are you?” I say “I m good” Oh boy! Am I turning an American? No No No. I still don’t have non-veg on Mondays and Thursdays ;) My appetite for spicy food has not evaporated yet. I still remember who is India’s prime minister and the names of idols worshipped in India. I also follow cricket. Nope. I am not Americanized yet. But there have been some changes or will be. My ‘going to’ is changed to ‘gonna’, my ‘want to’ is changed to ‘wanna’ and God knows what all things are gonna change.
Let me share an instance, once I happened to visit Subway, I ordered a 6” sub and asked them to put capsicum the guy started staring at me he said “What’s that?” I pointed my finger to it and repeated “Cap-see-cum” He said, you mean “Bell pepper”. I thought “what the hell is bell pepper, I have only heard of Black pepper”. Then I got to know Americans call Capsicum, Bell pepper. Welcome to America! There are many other things they call different here. They have an American name for most of the things. I am exploring them, everyday. Further, I went to the billing counter, the cashier asked “Receipt?” I replied “Will do”. The guy said “What?” I repeated my words. Situation remained the same. At last I had to agree on “Yes”. Listen to the guy’s reply “Sir, please speak English” I thought “WTF”. Still, I calmed myself by thinking “Maybe that guy is tutored to listen only to Yes and No” You see I mentioned the problem with English. Rather than English it is also an issue with the American name for everything you ask. I am coping up with it faster now. One more added to American dictionary recently, grams (chana) is called chickpeas here.
While interacting with people here, sometimes they just say something suddenly and I have no clue what they said. So I try to use this philosophy “It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and clear the doubt”. But this one doesn’t rescue you everywhere. There have been times where I clear their doubts. The only optimistic way you can take it is just say “It happens” :) Hehehe. I know it sounds funny. But, I am not the only one riding the boat, my friends too, assist me here.
Days are passing by, and I am settling here, still there is remains a hardly visible shade which hitched me in the flight. I am a Virgo so, bound to be a pessimist ;) I am pretty much positive about the future now, than, when I arrived here. I have my Indian colleagues working with me. Thanks to them, they keep me reminding that I can still speak Hindi/Marathi.
I personally feel, here, it’s more about working smart, being cool, sound cool and look cool. To me it seems, here everyone expects that they and people themselves, are be capable of knowing what to do, when to do, how to do things. You need to know something? Find it out yourself, be independent. But, still people will be around to help you out. This gives me a different environment to explore myself. I know many of you would say, and I too believe this must be viewed as an opportunity to bring out the best of me. And will do the same. I envisage that the hitch will evaporate with time and after this voyage I’ll evolve, different and better. There is something much better hiding inside me and I believe, this voyage is just a plot, which will unfold, to bring it out. It’s time for me to find that thing and strengthen myself. It’s time for me to come out on top of it, it’s time to do something never done before (for e.g. cooking :)). It’s time to achieve much more. It’s time to unleash the better self within.
It’s time to hibernate in India.
It’s time to reboot in THE STATES.
