1:30 PM.Saturday, the 21st May of 2016.
Room No. 115, Extended Stay America, San Jose, CA, USA
I arrived here last weekend, the 14th of May. Official trip. Will be here for another week.
Its drizzling outside. There is the prediction of rain this weekend. And the prediction did not go wrong. The sky was overcast with cloud since morning. In fact, since last evening, when I found the clouds hovering over the distant denuded mountains skirting the city. For the last few hours it has started drizzling. As I write, the intensity of the rain increased. What I can hear is only the sound of the raindrops falling on the parking lot and rows of cars parked. When the rain had abated for a few minutes, I stepped out to have lunch at Deny's, which is a few metres away from my hotel. I needed to give myself a break from reading. I closed my book. But then I dont have anything much to do also in this lazy afternoon. I look out of my window....The leaves had raindrops on them.
When it is just the rain and me, I wonder, why the melancholy thoughts from my distant past hover around me? My thoughts sailed with the clouds and took me back 14 years to the time when I first arrived in the US.
The First Time...
The year was 2002. I refer to my old passport, which has the photograph of the 17 year old myself with a thin line of moustache (which I have shaved off some years back) and a boyish look. It was not even a year that I had passed out of college. In May 2001, I was desperate not to falter in the final semester of engineering. And within a year, I was embarking on the near 24-hour flight to the opposite side of the globe. My visa stamping was done in Mumbai. I kind-of announced the world that I would be on the shores of the Pacific Ocean soon, mainly through phone and emails as the age of Facebook had not still arrived then.Co-incidentally I landed in this country for the first time on 14th May. That was in New York, After a night halt there, I would fly to San Jose for my final destination, Santa Clara (Santa Clara is the city next to San Jose). I was notified about my travel a week before my journey. So, I had very little time to prepare myself. And it made me a very clumsy traveler. Packed in things I didnt need and left out things which I should have brought here. The only thing I had in full steam was zest and excitement,
To begin with, I had arrived at the Mumbai airport with three check-in baggage! This was my first international flight. I only read that the maximum weight was 46 kg. Never bothered to note the maximum number of luggage. I am sure the Air India crew at the desk had a good laugh later on. Fortunately, I found a colleague going by the same flight and had just one check-in bag. In the flight I was peeping out of the window, looking out for any other aircraft close by. I had only apple juice instead of water and tried hard eating with the spoons and forks, at times even dropping a few off the tray table. I still remember the T-shirt I wore. It was a white colour T-shirt, on which my then fiancee (now wife) wrote with fabric painting "India - Hot curries, warm people".
When I landed at New York's JFK Airport, I was feeling quite cold. I didnt pack any warm clothes in the handbag. Somehow I managed to get a taxi and check in the Ramada Inn for the night. Air India had arranged the accommodation. I did not know how to call from there India numbers back home! On the street I met a Gujarati family, whom I asked and they obliged.
That night I was busy reducing the three baggage to two, throwing away some stuff I packed few days back. My early morning flight to San Jose was uneventful, at least I dont remeber anything about it today. When I arrived at San Jose, I came to know it is the famous "Silicon Valley". I was even more thrilled to be there. I checked in to a hotel.
Jet lag crippled me for the first few days and I didnt know how to cope with it. I didn't understand why I felt hungry at 5 AM in the morning, could not sleep the whole night and had the terrible headache in the afternoon. I had survived on biscuits and cakes for the first few days, as I didnt know a decent place around to eat. Not to mention, I had no car to drive around.
I entered the Walmart and Target and was lost by their sheer floor area. The huge allies, the thousands of varieties of the same product, the huge parking lot in front, I was like a kid in a toy shop.
On the roads, I watched the big cars zoom by. And on freeways they "flew". I wondered what happened in case of accidents. My colleague educated me about the "air bag"
"Can you show me how it opens and functions?" I asked the silliest of the questions.
"Well, my friend, then I have to hit another car or the building to demonstrate it". I was embarrassed.
It was a world that I was trying to cope with.
Remembering Dad's Words of Wisdom
I put up with one of my colleague's for some days at his apartment. One day, along with some other colleagues, we went to San Francisco and the famed Golden Gate Bride.We all have that one or two words of wisdom that our parents have told us and we hold on to them for the rest of our lives. For me, I remember my father telling me about the importance of knowing the boundaries, knowing when to stop. It started as a tips to writing good essays in school days. When should we move to the next thought and the next paragraph. But those words of wisdom extend to life as well. At San Francisco, my colleagues went to a Strip Club after visiting the Golden Gate Bridge. I could have gone there as well. I had the full freedom and nobody could have ever found it. I decided to stay within the boundaries that I had defined and drawn for myself. I walked around the city, clicking photos of the men, ocean and sea gulls. When one can resist the temptations in life against all odds, he shows signs of maturity.
Homeward Bound
I still remember , when I was shopping in Walmart one day, I saw an old man helplessly in his wheel chair shopping alone. He was too old to reach out for the vegetables in the store. I felt sorry for him. I realised behind the curtain of glamour that people commonly associate with this country, there also lies an underlying loneliness and solitude. When at the Walmart they greet you with "How are you?", its more of a courtesy than a real intention of knowing how I am. It comes from the tip from tongue and not bottom of the heart.Slowly the euphoria began to die down. Things in office did not go as expected. The wave of "offshoring" had just arrived and I realised that my first stint would not last more than a few weeks. Actually I felt happy. I was a fish out of water in US. Looking back, I feel, lack of preparation time and inexperience made me ill-suited to adapt life at US then. I didnt know what to expect and what to do. It all happened so fast before I could react - be it arriving to the country or leaving it.
The cab driver who dropped me at the San Francisco airport was a Punjabi Sikh, aged around sixty. He had a long white beard and wore a turban. I still remember his last words as he was taking out my suitcases from the boot of the cab,
"I have been here for the last fifteen years and yet I am a parai (stranger) here. Apna desh, apna hota hae (Our country is ours). I will stay here for a couple of years more. I will save some more money. And then I will pack my bags to apna watan (motherland) for good. Udhar apna kheti hae, zameen hae....idhar to kuch nehi. Na koi ghar, na yeh gari (There I have my own land. Here I neither have a house, nor own this car)"
I returned home with a lot of chocolates and gifts for friends and relatives. And bountiful of stories and experiences about the world that is so different from where I was born and brought up.
The World Now...
Since then I have in this country quite a few more times.Two weeks back, again, when I was informed about this US trip, it didnt excite me. It was business as usual. I was in office the whole day. Packed my bags in the evening. And took the late night-early morning flight to the US. I never updated my Facebook status or checked-in at the airports. I had plain and simple water in the flight (I dont drink alcohol) and used my fingers while eating, instead of trying to juggle with the spoons and forks and knives. I silently checked in my hotel room and got busy with the official work and story book.
The world around me has changed a lot in the last 14 years.Calling cards gave way to calls from Whatsapp. My grandparents and father who were alive 14 years back are no more. I am gifted by the most adorable daughter (six years old) , who finds it quite amazing that its day time here when its night at Bangalore.
And then some things never change: I still have my bags full of chocolates for family back home. Last week, when I went to San Francisco for official trip, I remembered by father's words about limitations.
And somewhere in between walking to the check-in counter with three check-in baggage to watching the monotonous drizzle outside the window on the parking lot and thinking about the family back home, fourteen long years have passed. And, what's more, a boy then has become a man now!
