BACK HOME AT LAST
Vengrai Parthasarathy
On his first visit to USA, Vardhan was naturally excited. His son and daughter-in-law met him and did their best to make him comfortable. Here he was in the land opportunity, the El Dorado, paradise on earth, of which he had heard so much.
As he drove from the Austin airport there was wonder in his eyes seeing the orderly four-lane traffic . No honking, no auto-rickshaws cutting and weaving through a steady uni-directional traffic.Vardhan was fascinated.
After settling down,he decided one day to venture out on his own by foot. He was struck by the fact that there were hardly any pedestrians, except for a few joggers.
The post office was fairly close to his apartment and he decided to buy some stamps.There were three counters with sleek-looking girls ‘manning’ them. He went towards one and not minding another customer who was busy with his wallet (it is not purse here) , he tried to draw the attention of the girl to enquire about postage rates.
“Will you please get in the line?”, she told him, politely but brusquely.. What line, he asked her. She pointed out to about ten or twelve persons in a line, about five feet from the counter. Vardhan had not noticed them.Here it is one by one and no crowding and prodding near the counter; that was Vardhan’s first lesson.
Having been used to a different culture where one uses the elbow to make his way, this was strange to the stranger in a strange land.His elbows were itching. He picked up a newspaper on his way back and found it to be a humongous sheaf of papers , the equivalent of a week’s supply; a windfall for a raddiwallah back home! And, he found he had to spend some time to weed out the advertisement pages and many a ‘flyer’ wedged in between.
His grandson offered him a handful of candies, one day. After eating one, Vardhan made a neat ball of the wrapper and threw it in a corner. The boy went and picked up and neatly deposited it into the trash basket. Somewhat ashamed, he mumbled to himself, ‘they spoil the children at a pretty early age here’. From then on it was ‘When in Rome…’ for him.
Deciding to ‘do’ the city by bus, he sauntered to a bus-stand after taking instructions about routes and all that. Vardhan was now getting used to the idea of standing in a queue, irritating though it was, to this self-appointed ‘ ambassador’ of his country. Since he did not find the conductor (who in his mind would be wearing a cross-belt and leather purse) he asked the driver “Where is the conductor”? The Mexican driver asked a counter question in a zesty accent: ” What’s that again”? He learned that in USA the driver doubled for the conductor and issued tickets and ‘ transfers’ which will enable one to take a connecting bus with the same ticket.
‘This bus looks well-maintained, so clean’ , Vardhan said, striking up a conversation with the driver from his near-by seat. ‘ Yeah, its about twelve years old’,he said. He learnt later from his son that they do not burn buses here. How then do they protest or show their anger, Vardhan asked.
Looking askance at him the amused daughter-in-law said here they just protest by holding meetings, contacting their legislators, writing letters to newspapers. What about bandhs? Vardhan asked .”Don’t they burn buses?” he asked as a supplementary question. The d-i-l just gave an bemused smile and did not deign to reply.
The lav which they call ‘Rest Room’ here was spotlessly clean,in public places. Without the paan-splatter,the place lacked the atmosphere; the feel of a public loo was missing.It was more like being in a well-appointed reception room.
At a restaurant where a bunch of his son’s friends had taken him, he learned that for a bill of 60$ you paid about five dollars as tips. He mentally calculated that it amounted to about two-hundred rupees for which he can make half a dozen visits to Udipi restaurants in India. A hair-cut cost about the same amount; ‘I’ll be damned’, muttered Vardhan to himself.
When he had to travel again by bus Vardhan was shocked when the driver addressed him as ‘Sir’.This perhaps was the ultimate aberration,the last straw. His elbow was out of work for some months since he came to India and Vardhan was feeling totally out of sorts. The lights do not go out.There is water, even hot water in the faucets all the twenty four hours. Everything was predictable. This is too much; I must go home, he said to his son with a nostalgic sigh. And, he went and lived happily ever after in his Chinna Reddy Street house—
Back home to jostling traffic,haggling auto-drivers, blaring music from loud-speakers, noisy neighbours; Vardhan was at last in peace with himself. All was well with the world.