America through my Eyes – The Begining

Am not a great believer in palmistry. But from childhood everybody whoever read my hand, the first thing they would say is that, “Boy! you have no foreign tour.” Since our country is considered to be the land of mystics every other guy here knows a thing or two about palmistry. Or atleast they claim about it. Its actually a very good excuse to hold the hand of that pretty face in a conservative society of ours. Most of the time the prediction vary immensely form one person to other. In my case this statement always was constant. And that irked me! Slowly it bore into me that I have to prove them that atleast once I will go to a foreign land, and that too, not as a tourist.

But as I was growing up and struggling to make a room for myself in this crowded world, it seemed that I would never be able to make it. My wish of reaching out atleast for once would remain as a day dream. But from childhood I am a fighter. I had to be. Everything came the harder way for me, or atleast I felt that way. So I always worked my way keeping that dream of mine in mind.

In the course of time, I got a job in this company which has a global reach. I knew it from that day of joining; this is it. Am going to make it now. It is bound to happen now. It happened in a year and half later. I did not force it. I did not asked for it. But one fine day I was asked to file for the visa. July 11th was the day for my interview in the American Consulte. That was the first time I entered the consulate. That first experience was, itself, overwhelming. First was the security check; comparable to any high-security prison. After that I entered the courtyard along with a bunch of other suitors. We were then escorted inside. The first problem was the door. I never seen a door without a handle. It was really strange to me. I was fumbling when a man approached. Bestowed a disgusted look on me, and pushed the horizontal bit on  the door and the door clicked open. I was astonished to learn that! Inside, compared to the room, there was a huge crowd. I was under the impression that the “Interview” will happen in a room with one or more consulate official seating at the table and there will be chair for me. But to my disbelieve what I found is that it is just a window, like the one you can find in any railway ticket counter or a movie ticket counter.

There was a huge queue standing to get the green signal for the “Land of Oppertunities”. It was an interesting mix of crowd. There was this old couple who wants to meet their son thousands of miles away. There were these musicians who wanted to try their luck in America. I saw there were two persons taking the interview in two counters - one is a stunning blonde and one is a bulky old man, who with beard and proper dress can fit to be the Santa. I was called to this gentleman.
“Good Morning!!”, He greeted me. I reciprocated. “We need to take your fingerprint. Left index first.” I obliged. “Very well sir! Wish you happy journey to the United States!” I was taken aback! I was expecting some sort of grilling. This was surprising to me!! I waited for a few sec, uncertain, but when I saw him bundling my paper with a rubber band, I gingerly left the window. AM THROUGH!!
Never in my life I got through something so easily.

On reaching office I told to my supervisor that am through. ” Good. In that case prepare to fly by this weekend.” He snapped. It was Tuesday and he is asking me to go to the other side of the world on Saturday! Is he crazy? I begged him like anything to postpone it for atleast a week, but in vein. So I had to start a fanatic sprint to prepare myself. I did not even had a proper size suitcase to pack my belongings for such a long stay. (I was told the assingment was atleast for a year.) Bought a V.I.P. suitcase of jumbo size. Somebody suggested me to buy a suit as there might be some office party with strict dress code. I did not had one. And did not had time to choose. So just stormed into the Reymonds showroom and they butchered me like a well seasoned meat. Someone told me that the cell phone I had, would not work there as it had to be “Triband”. Frankly, I didn’t know what triband was, to begin with. So went into one Nokia shop and they milked me as well. I had to buy a N70. Bought some spices. Who knows I might not get the red chilli powder over there! And all my food would be tasteless. I couldn’t take that risk. I did a crash course of cooking with my mom - the greatest cook of all time. Besides all these I also had to followup with my office bureaucracy of getting the ticket and foreign currency and all. I had to go through a medical test to ensure that am not carrying any deadly virus to the States. On top of that, I found the perfect apartment that I was looking for past one year. And the bank people also got this oppertunity to make me dance to their tune before they could give me the loan. it was Thursday when I was at the medical center for the tests when I got the call.
-”Hey man! guess what…”
-”What?” I said.
-”uhu, you have to promise to treat me first.”
-”Cut the crap man. I am in no mood to play these kind of games. Talk straight or am gonna hang up.” Rupak was getting on my nerves with the petty joke. He was taken aback with my cheesy reply.
-”Cool down yaar, my friend. Your journey date is postponed to next Saturday.”
I screemed so loudly in joy and disbelieve that everybody in that clinic was surprised. I got one more precious week to prepare!

One incident I must mention here. For US visa petition I needed a special size photo. Its somewhat different from normal “passport size” photographs. 5cmx5cm size with many other size specifications.I went to our local studio. As soon as I mentioned the size the retorted,”Going to US, eh?” Had to admit. Immediately the price came as 100 bucks for two. Where the normal passport size photo costs around 2.5 to 3 bucks, this is outrageous. I snapped,”Why are you charging so much? Is this some kind of fine for being the so-called fortunate one to make it to the US?” I did not wait for the answer. Later I found some other shop where I got it done for just 15 a piece.

The week flew by like a rocket. Suddenly I found myself packing exacly the way Jerome K. Jerome described in his book, “Three Men in a Boat”. It was Friday evening and my room was looked like it was ransacked by some hoodlooms. Mom and Lali was helping me to pack. At around 2am in the morning the packing seems to be over. Rest of the night past almost sleepless thinking what are the things that I forgot to pack. Each time something came to my mind; it came with the immense urge to open up that jumbo suitcase and check if I packed that stuff or not. And stopped short because of the dread of opening that mammoth. Next day morning onwards various people came to meet me for the last time. The feeling was like, I was sentenced for gallows and my well wishers are bidding farewell. It was a heavy-set atmosphere. In the afternoon I rode that battered scooter of my father to help Lali catch the bus. Evening time Goju and Ari came to see me off. And then we set off for the airport. Mom, bro, sis-in-law and puchki, the little one, my only niece, accompanied me to see me off for the journey to the unknown.

It was July22nd, 2006 and the flight time was 11:55pm. It was a Singapore airlines flight. Fisrt stop Singapore. There I had to change flight to Los Angeles plane which, before reaching LAX, will land at Tokyo to refuel for the 9hrs flight over the Pacific. The total time was around 24hrs. Phew…

I was feeling pain especially looking at my mom’s face. She was trying hard to put on a smiling face, more so to hold back tears. We left home at around 8pm as the reporting time was 2hrs prior to the flight time. We reached the airport at 9:30pm. At the gate I took a trolly to houl my giant suitcase and my duffle bag. Touched the feet of my mom, bro and boudi, sis-in-law to show my last respect, probably, for a very long time.

I pushed through the gate of the International lounge. Here on am alone. Totally alone…..

                                                                                                (To be continued….next part – The flight)

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