US story!

Being in India from my incarnation into this planet , whenever you land up in a new country all together you are bound to make some comparisons. Am no different from the rest. I will just make a list of things that strike the most in US and gradually compare with one in INDIA.



As soon as I came out of LA airport , the very first thing that i did was jaywalking , it means crossing the street when there is stop signal for pedestrians , luckily there wasn't anyone to give a ticket to me . Common , you have to excuse me here , I just had a tiresome journey and expect to look into a traffic signal which I barely followed when was in Bangalore. Off course only people staying in Bangalore could have crossed that busy road :). One more close thing that I observed is that people stopped their cars 10 feet behind. So , people do give lot of respect to pedestrians as against India , where there is pedestrians manage on their own.



In US , one thing that I liked is street addressing model , the system is so efficient that even a person like me who just landed can go from one gully to other gully.Every street is straight and will be given just a single name no matter how long the street is. May be because of this Google was successfully able to map any location in US. I guess people here rely on online maps to commute to new places ,having this addressing scheme life is made even simpler for them. In India , there is no such thing , only postman understands the terms main , stage , block so that only he can decode it. So , an alien can't commute here , that's a good thing then whats the point of being a localite. That reminds me to say that , if you ask anyone any place over here , they go blind even if it is somewhere around. Startling right? In India , almost everyone will have some idea , so throw away all the Internet maps , we have maps in people we say daily.


Just imagine that you are hungry in evening and just wanna grab a bite from a nearest bakery shop or a pani puri shop , off course in US u don't find them. Here there is no such thing as a small grocery shop , even to buy smallest of things you have to go to super markets. Obviously you can't find a supermarket in each and every street , so you have to commute. Contrast this with situation in India , super markets are divided into shops who will sell their own class of products like Stationary , fruits and vegetables , ration , pharmacy etc. If you are living in city you find these shops all over the place. So in India , it is demand driven , meaning whenever you want you will get rather than shop everything and dump in fridge!.


Finally , almost every naya Desi will first start to convert dollar to rupee for each and every thing you spend on. I bought a veg burger from McDonald's once , which was just minus chicken from chicken burger. For just a bun and a sauce ended up paying 2.30$ , that's 102Rs nearly . With hundred rupees in hand , you could survive for days with healthy food in my country. No wonder why people having dollar spend so lavishly . Luckily for us , dollar has dipped a bit now. In first week almost what ever you spend on your mind will automatically convert it to rupees and feel sad. This is in a way good thing , you will become a spendthrift and be more responsible about finances. This is one good lesson that am continuing to learn. Gradually you will reduce to convert and you get accustomed to this new currency.

With these handful of instances I dint try to prove whether India is better or US. Just that things are not the same everywhere , countries have their own way of dealing with issues and we have to accept however it is . I end this with relevant quote "Be a Roman in Rome" and chill.

Home Sick!

I remember the day when i got my VISA(Student) ,was so relieved to clear all my hurdles to enter US and start a new career. I thought my life would change , will be filled up with excitement. I knew i would miss my home , coz i haven't been out of my home for study/work purpose in my life. But this was overshadowed by purpose of studying in US.

I left to Los Angeles from Bangalore on July 31st , it was raining as if rain Gods where shedding tears as though they were sad i was leaving Bangalore!.When I was leaving home , I got a weird feeling , as if am going to miss a lot. I couldn't stop shedding a tear seeing my family with whom lived. So , i left India with sadness , but worst was yet to come. I reached LA on August 1st evening , went to an apartment which we(roomies from India) had reserved from B'lore. There were 3-4 people already in that place for temporary accommodation. So , I was well received by Gururja (was living there from last year).I was very tired , and slept till around 9 PM , had dinner prepared by inmates in apartment. But couldn't sleep after 4 in the morning. So , I woke up and called up home from calling card which i bought it from airport. My grandmother took the call i said about me reaching safe and all. She couldn't stop breaking down on phone , i felt really bad at that time. Having less balance , had to cut the call short. But sickness had set in now.

I kept on thinking about home all the nite , and finally woke up around 8:30 in morning. having no one to talk , started watching TV. Slowly one by one inmates in that apartment woke up and were busy with themselves like taking bath , preparing their own breakfast etc. May at this point , my home sickness shot up , i felt there is no one to think about me which i was quite used to. I felt really bad and was thinking how will i manage this change. After all inmates left , I was all alone in living room, being idle all thoughts started to pop up my head.I hate to admit , but shed tears. Now i really knew what exactly home sickness meant.


Now ,after 12 days I landed in US , I still have home sickness. I feel have spent a month now , it was that difficult to spend time here. I wonder , what is the point in leaving everything in India and come to have a sad life here.Virtually there is no social life here.I even thought of going back home. My friends who are hear from sometime now , say that's a common feeling , u will get used to after some time.I must say , feeling that i currently have now , is really awful. You will know the value of family and friends and most importantly you will miss comfort level that you had in home country. People coming over must be prepared to face this fact.

Initially i thought it should be easy to overcome homesickness , but am still struggling to be over it. When u r involved in some work , u will not feel homesick but if you remember something memorable about home , its hard to overcome the sadness of things that u miss.Hopefully , will be over once I start my MS program in full swing.