The reason is very obvious and oh so common place! I never thought I would travel to this part of the world in my life, I hate long flights, a list of places to travel that did NOT feature USA- so that was the main reason this was to never happen... but guess what? Life had other plans! My husband is sent on a project to the US of A and the economy is so precarious we wouldn't dare refuse and sit without a project ('on the bench' as they call it in the IT industry), the worst bit being it is a long project one that extends into 2010 even! We brave our hearts and say we will manage living w/o seeing each other for a year, and yes, very predictably end of 3 months and I am missing him so much I decide to brave this flight....For some vague reason AJ(my husband) likes the BA a lot! So obviously when he books my tickets to Columbus, Ohio he books it on BA, which means I fly from Bangalore to London (thats 10.5 hours), stopover at London for 2 hours, then fly London to Chicago ( Another 9 hours), stop over here for 2 hours with a very hurried luggage transfer(!!) and then fly Chicago to Columbus for an hour by which time I really thought my legs had lost all motoring capabilities!! (Phew!) So it was no surprise that when I came out to meet AJ I was acting like a zombie!
I was busy wondering how do so many Indians commute all the way here so many times a year??! I mean truly what motivates them to sometimes even relocate so far away from home? For somebody who has spent her life settled in and around a ten kilometers radius in Bangalore, these were puzzling thoughts indeed!
For me, the US has been so different from being back home. I have actually grown up with so many girls who have this dream of coming here and settling down. This is the land of those dreams....girls who marry for the sake of coming here, who study engineering so they can come and settle here as they pursue their higher studies... ofcourse there are wierder stories that I wouldn't want to share on this forum, but any Indian who reads this will know what I am refering to! But yes, the gist was I was coming to the(pls read that in bold) US. 30 hours of flight time flew without me picking up the 2 P.G Wodehouse's I had brought along as I sat thinking these thoughts!
Ofcourse when I landed all I could think of was finding my husband in the small crowd....staying away for three months had made me miss him terribly! And when I did his first words were, "so how is the US of A?" Ofcourse, I didn't have an answer for him then!
After 3 full weeks of living in Columbus, Ohio, I did have somewhat of an answer to this question. Contrary to my belief that all of US had only skyscrapers and congested construction, Columbus was a very quaint and nice place to live in. Only downtown was a bit congested. (No wonder AJ was enjoying himself so much here!) And keeping with my perception of the US the roads were AMAZING!! What an asset to have! And so well planned! For me the headlines of this experience has been the roads- I mean if this were a movie the hero would be the roads!Everybody seemed to own a car to commute around, so one doesn't see much of public transport, but then with roads like these even a dud can drive! I loved the lane system and the planning for a seperate lane for people who want to digress from the given road! Now why can't the many Indians who have lived here come back to our country and help make our roads a little better I wonder...? Maybe we should send the Minister for transport/infrastructure on a study trip here.....?
Our community(Christopher Wren) is awesome, look alike buildings, mostly made of wood (which is something that we are not used to in India), spacious rooms and quaint balconies with nice views of the lawns outside which has a thriving animal life- squirrels and birds- make for a nice place to live in. These are certainly stark opposites of what we have in India- in our case the hero of the story (as I call it) is the population- so ther's a crunch for space, a crunch for opportunities (if not you,!) and a crunch for life. It is this crunch that gives us our strong 'survival' instincts, we grow up in a competitive world and live our life that way, always trying to outdo the millions around..... I don't see any of that here and I shall explain what I mean by that in just a second..
The authorities that are planning and maintaining this country must truly respect and appreciate human life because they put so much effort into making it easier for everyone unlike back home where we take it for granted. We were amazed to see some of the following: signs: as we drove near a school that reduced speed limits to 20 miles an hour during school hours; red cones so vistor's wouldn't step on a wire connecting camera's to a generator at the zoo; reserved parking lots for handicapped people almost everywhere-malls, zoos,communities; reflector road signs 1/2 mile ahead warning of any road repairs that may be driving into .... I know for Americans who are reading this these may all be very commonplace! But back home, who has the time to do all this?? I mean here the GPS has all roads and their respective speed limits mapped onto it, in India we will have newer gullies by the minute even before you finish keying in something on the GPS I am sure! People take such good care of their lives and the authorities are doing a great job helping them do the same. That is something I am taking home from here for sure as I leave this country now, the lesson to care for your life and for those around you!
I reached here on a Saturday and predictably the many Indians who are working with AJ all live in the same community (thats another thing that freaked me out, how can you work with the same people and stay with them as well?) There were some of them AJ wanted me to meet and we headed off on Sunday itself to tell them a "hi", a very sweet couple really who take real good care of AJ when he's here alone! Surprisingly I had no jet lag, had slept well the prev nite and was all set to go to the neighboring malls Don't blame me, being 5 ft 8" is not a great feeling back in India esp when you shop for clothes! So for me the US was a heavenly find! A whole new wardrobe that I cant wait to wear when I get back to work was what I was thinking!
Thru the week we went to many nice places around here- The Academy Park, The Easton Mall, Kohl's, Kroger's Market and Giant Eagles. I also did a lot of cooking for AJ- he's a foodie! And we Indian's are famous for the number of spices we have discovered and added to our pallettes, so if you have just salt, sugar, chilly and pepper we will just not survive! I spent nearly 3 weeks putting together a hot steaming lunch for AJ since he'd been coming home everyday. I never cooked when in India, we had a cook and she does all that is needed for us and my dad! So this was a change for me!
In fact, it was so different to find that when I was cooking if I stopped humming or if I switched off the TV g then there was an absolute dead silence!! Our house was right next to a state highway, people just did not honk here & the engines were remarkably silent too! Or when I was crossing the road, vehicles stopped to make way for me and when I entered a store someone always greeted me with a “Hi! How are you today!” The first few times I didn’t know what to say in reply, we are so not used to that. Then again, in India the employees of the store go all out to service you, in the US, we had to do everything ourselves: you collect your coffee, you clear the table afterwards, you fill gas yourself, you iron your own clothes, vacuum your house yourselves, wash your own clothes....... the fundamental difference of us having abundant human resources to do everything and here people being technology driven is quite clear! And the other part that was so different was the abundance of space, it was a luxury really! Roads were so wide, the parks were so huge, the malls were ENORMOUS, buildings were large.... it was so clear that this was a country built from scratch... and I guess somewhere these are the conveniences that lured all my friends here. So I decide to get in touch with some of them that are settled here and guess what?? I find that they all miss home so badly! But I guess all these conveniences soon become a habit that’s hard to rid of! Contrarily geeks like me just love everything about their country- the smells, tastes, sounds, feel and sights of India for me are like being on drugs! Keeps me high all the time!
I remember having this interesting conversation with an American once- if you compared the number of experiences an Indian would have had, say in a span of 30 years to that of an American’s, it will probably explain why we look a lot older! After all what is age but a number?! True age is measured by the number of experiences you have in the said time period and not by a metric measurement! In just getting from home to office I navigate thru 30 kms (less than 15 miles) that takes me more than 2 hours of driving thru choc-a-bloc traffic, pleading beggars and pedlar’s, several potholes and reams of pollution that’s swigging in and out of my lungs! After this visit I realise these are not easy experiences to have here!
So with the first week making me conscious of this dramatically new life, we decide to take a small vacation to the Niagara! Having come all this way there was no way I was going back without seeing the Niagara- we are total nature buffs, in fact AJ & I met on trek 4 years ago, before falling in love and getting married! So we are always on the lookout for natural wonders to visit together and Niagara didn’t disappoint. As I mentioned before, what was just equally amazing was the number of Indians we found there! So many Indians all taking the conducted tour of the Niagara, I think we Indians are very risk averse! We never go out there and explore on our own, we always like a little help in finding our way in any new place and I am sure the same is true of our neighbours as well coz I see a lot of them in these conducted tours. Anyways, AJ & I explored the place on our own and we really loved it. The whirlpool was a bit of a disappointment, that apart we liked the falls and the ride on the maid of the mist a lot! A pity we didn’t have a Canadian Visa so we could get some rocking photos of the Horse Shoe Falls, we got to see it up close from the boat but our camera was not waterproof And regarding the many Indians here in the US of A, I guess that is the gist of America really isn’t it? It’s a country that started as a ‘free for all’ come and settle here kind of attitude. So if India constitutes for one sixth of the world population it’s gonna constitute similar proportions of a free country isn’t it? As AJ gave me this logic I thought it did kind of make sense. I mean if the US started closing doors to anybody it really wouldn’t be the US anymore would it? It is a country for people from anywhere to come and settle and get that equal opportunity, after all, men are created equal as they said then at the time of creation of the USA! After this little discussion I stopped thinking about the number of Indians here and just continued having a good time here and sometimes when we saw Indians I also noticed how American they were in their lifestyle! So that’s that then....
Driving to and back from Niagara ensured we were more comfortable with driving in US now, so there was no doubt that next weekend we would getaway to another place. We started looking up places to visit from Columbus (many suggested we see Columbus properly- the Capitol, Museum etc, but then we are nature buffs, so these didn’t appeal to us), AJ’s colleague suggested Put-in Bay. We looked it up on the net, it sounded exactly like what we were looking for. The trip turned out to be a photography expedition for us- birds, flowers, butterflies and snakes all made for a heady combination for us photography lovers! Top that with a sudden storm and a drive back in some heavy downpour with hardly any visibility and you have our trip report in a nut shell!
We spent Saturday at the Columbus Zoo, I love animals and like a kid get very excited going to zoos, so AJ promptly takes me to one whenever he can. I thoroughly enjoyed our time at the zoo, it is amazing to see them put so much effort to make it interactive for the kids! I stood in the line to get my turn to touch the children’s python, I was the only adult to do it and before you ask, nope I don’t feel embarrassed at all! : D I am seriously thinking of getting back and dropping some suggestions at our zoo in Bangalore! From here we went to the quaint German Village, it felt so European! Like a little bit of Europe right here in the US. Three hours in the book store Loft made us feel very good and a stroll into Starbucks to be told the vending machine was being cleaned. A wait of 15 mins for our coffee... hmmm...we were getting impatient! (What was happening to us? In India we waited for coffee for fifteen minutes ALWAYS!!) The guy served us our decaf and promptly refused to charge us for it as he had made us wait!! Another new experience for us I guess....!
I couldn't believe 3 weeks had flown by so quickly! I wished I had more time there, but then taking even so much time off from work had itself been a miracle. Still kept my fingers crossed and hoped I could visit him again in 3 months time. It had been a nice and very different trip for me, many new things to see and learn from while being very far away from home! Little did I know what was in store for me then....!
I was busy wondering how do so many Indians commute all the way here so many times a year??! I mean truly what motivates them to sometimes even relocate so far away from home? For somebody who has spent her life settled in and around a ten kilometers radius in Bangalore, these were puzzling thoughts indeed!
For me, the US has been so different from being back home. I have actually grown up with so many girls who have this dream of coming here and settling down. This is the land of those dreams....girls who marry for the sake of coming here, who study engineering so they can come and settle here as they pursue their higher studies... ofcourse there are wierder stories that I wouldn't want to share on this forum, but any Indian who reads this will know what I am refering to! But yes, the gist was I was coming to the(pls read that in bold) US. 30 hours of flight time flew without me picking up the 2 P.G Wodehouse's I had brought along as I sat thinking these thoughts!
Ofcourse when I landed all I could think of was finding my husband in the small crowd....staying away for three months had made me miss him terribly! And when I did his first words were, "so how is the US of A?" Ofcourse, I didn't have an answer for him then!
After 3 full weeks of living in Columbus, Ohio, I did have somewhat of an answer to this question. Contrary to my belief that all of US had only skyscrapers and congested construction, Columbus was a very quaint and nice place to live in. Only downtown was a bit congested. (No wonder AJ was enjoying himself so much here!) And keeping with my perception of the US the roads were AMAZING!! What an asset to have! And so well planned! For me the headlines of this experience has been the roads- I mean if this were a movie the hero would be the roads!Everybody seemed to own a car to commute around, so one doesn't see much of public transport, but then with roads like these even a dud can drive! I loved the lane system and the planning for a seperate lane for people who want to digress from the given road! Now why can't the many Indians who have lived here come back to our country and help make our roads a little better I wonder...? Maybe we should send the Minister for transport/infrastructure on a study trip here.....?
Our community(Christopher Wren) is awesome, look alike buildings, mostly made of wood (which is something that we are not used to in India), spacious rooms and quaint balconies with nice views of the lawns outside which has a thriving animal life- squirrels and birds- make for a nice place to live in. These are certainly stark opposites of what we have in India- in our case the hero of the story (as I call it) is the population- so ther's a crunch for space, a crunch for opportunities (if not you,!) and a crunch for life. It is this crunch that gives us our strong 'survival' instincts, we grow up in a competitive world and live our life that way, always trying to outdo the millions around..... I don't see any of that here and I shall explain what I mean by that in just a second..
The authorities that are planning and maintaining this country must truly respect and appreciate human life because they put so much effort into making it easier for everyone unlike back home where we take it for granted. We were amazed to see some of the following: signs: as we drove near a school that reduced speed limits to 20 miles an hour during school hours; red cones so vistor's wouldn't step on a wire connecting camera's to a generator at the zoo; reserved parking lots for handicapped people almost everywhere-malls, zoos,communities; reflector road signs 1/2 mile ahead warning of any road repairs that may be driving into .... I know for Americans who are reading this these may all be very commonplace! But back home, who has the time to do all this?? I mean here the GPS has all roads and their respective speed limits mapped onto it, in India we will have newer gullies by the minute even before you finish keying in something on the GPS I am sure! People take such good care of their lives and the authorities are doing a great job helping them do the same. That is something I am taking home from here for sure as I leave this country now, the lesson to care for your life and for those around you!
I reached here on a Saturday and predictably the many Indians who are working with AJ all live in the same community (thats another thing that freaked me out, how can you work with the same people and stay with them as well?) There were some of them AJ wanted me to meet and we headed off on Sunday itself to tell them a "hi", a very sweet couple really who take real good care of AJ when he's here alone! Surprisingly I had no jet lag, had slept well the prev nite and was all set to go to the neighboring malls Don't blame me, being 5 ft 8" is not a great feeling back in India esp when you shop for clothes! So for me the US was a heavenly find! A whole new wardrobe that I cant wait to wear when I get back to work was what I was thinking!
Thru the week we went to many nice places around here- The Academy Park, The Easton Mall, Kohl's, Kroger's Market and Giant Eagles. I also did a lot of cooking for AJ- he's a foodie! And we Indian's are famous for the number of spices we have discovered and added to our pallettes, so if you have just salt, sugar, chilly and pepper we will just not survive! I spent nearly 3 weeks putting together a hot steaming lunch for AJ since he'd been coming home everyday. I never cooked when in India, we had a cook and she does all that is needed for us and my dad! So this was a change for me!
In fact, it was so different to find that when I was cooking if I stopped humming or if I switched off the TV g then there was an absolute dead silence!! Our house was right next to a state highway, people just did not honk here & the engines were remarkably silent too! Or when I was crossing the road, vehicles stopped to make way for me and when I entered a store someone always greeted me with a “Hi! How are you today!” The first few times I didn’t know what to say in reply, we are so not used to that. Then again, in India the employees of the store go all out to service you, in the US, we had to do everything ourselves: you collect your coffee, you clear the table afterwards, you fill gas yourself, you iron your own clothes, vacuum your house yourselves, wash your own clothes....... the fundamental difference of us having abundant human resources to do everything and here people being technology driven is quite clear! And the other part that was so different was the abundance of space, it was a luxury really! Roads were so wide, the parks were so huge, the malls were ENORMOUS, buildings were large.... it was so clear that this was a country built from scratch... and I guess somewhere these are the conveniences that lured all my friends here. So I decide to get in touch with some of them that are settled here and guess what?? I find that they all miss home so badly! But I guess all these conveniences soon become a habit that’s hard to rid of! Contrarily geeks like me just love everything about their country- the smells, tastes, sounds, feel and sights of India for me are like being on drugs! Keeps me high all the time!
I remember having this interesting conversation with an American once- if you compared the number of experiences an Indian would have had, say in a span of 30 years to that of an American’s, it will probably explain why we look a lot older! After all what is age but a number?! True age is measured by the number of experiences you have in the said time period and not by a metric measurement! In just getting from home to office I navigate thru 30 kms (less than 15 miles) that takes me more than 2 hours of driving thru choc-a-bloc traffic, pleading beggars and pedlar’s, several potholes and reams of pollution that’s swigging in and out of my lungs! After this visit I realise these are not easy experiences to have here!
So with the first week making me conscious of this dramatically new life, we decide to take a small vacation to the Niagara! Having come all this way there was no way I was going back without seeing the Niagara- we are total nature buffs, in fact AJ & I met on trek 4 years ago, before falling in love and getting married! So we are always on the lookout for natural wonders to visit together and Niagara didn’t disappoint. As I mentioned before, what was just equally amazing was the number of Indians we found there! So many Indians all taking the conducted tour of the Niagara, I think we Indians are very risk averse! We never go out there and explore on our own, we always like a little help in finding our way in any new place and I am sure the same is true of our neighbours as well coz I see a lot of them in these conducted tours. Anyways, AJ & I explored the place on our own and we really loved it. The whirlpool was a bit of a disappointment, that apart we liked the falls and the ride on the maid of the mist a lot! A pity we didn’t have a Canadian Visa so we could get some rocking photos of the Horse Shoe Falls, we got to see it up close from the boat but our camera was not waterproof And regarding the many Indians here in the US of A, I guess that is the gist of America really isn’t it? It’s a country that started as a ‘free for all’ come and settle here kind of attitude. So if India constitutes for one sixth of the world population it’s gonna constitute similar proportions of a free country isn’t it? As AJ gave me this logic I thought it did kind of make sense. I mean if the US started closing doors to anybody it really wouldn’t be the US anymore would it? It is a country for people from anywhere to come and settle and get that equal opportunity, after all, men are created equal as they said then at the time of creation of the USA! After this little discussion I stopped thinking about the number of Indians here and just continued having a good time here and sometimes when we saw Indians I also noticed how American they were in their lifestyle! So that’s that then....
Driving to and back from Niagara ensured we were more comfortable with driving in US now, so there was no doubt that next weekend we would getaway to another place. We started looking up places to visit from Columbus (many suggested we see Columbus properly- the Capitol, Museum etc, but then we are nature buffs, so these didn’t appeal to us), AJ’s colleague suggested Put-in Bay. We looked it up on the net, it sounded exactly like what we were looking for. The trip turned out to be a photography expedition for us- birds, flowers, butterflies and snakes all made for a heady combination for us photography lovers! Top that with a sudden storm and a drive back in some heavy downpour with hardly any visibility and you have our trip report in a nut shell!
We spent Saturday at the Columbus Zoo, I love animals and like a kid get very excited going to zoos, so AJ promptly takes me to one whenever he can. I thoroughly enjoyed our time at the zoo, it is amazing to see them put so much effort to make it interactive for the kids! I stood in the line to get my turn to touch the children’s python, I was the only adult to do it and before you ask, nope I don’t feel embarrassed at all! : D I am seriously thinking of getting back and dropping some suggestions at our zoo in Bangalore! From here we went to the quaint German Village, it felt so European! Like a little bit of Europe right here in the US. Three hours in the book store Loft made us feel very good and a stroll into Starbucks to be told the vending machine was being cleaned. A wait of 15 mins for our coffee... hmmm...we were getting impatient! (What was happening to us? In India we waited for coffee for fifteen minutes ALWAYS!!) The guy served us our decaf and promptly refused to charge us for it as he had made us wait!! Another new experience for us I guess....!
I couldn't believe 3 weeks had flown by so quickly! I wished I had more time there, but then taking even so much time off from work had itself been a miracle. Still kept my fingers crossed and hoped I could visit him again in 3 months time. It had been a nice and very different trip for me, many new things to see and learn from while being very far away from home! Little did I know what was in store for me then....!
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