I am sitting on the steel chair, typing on the laptop on the study table in front of me in a house at the top of a small hill overlooking the I-90 below. I am looking to my right, out of the big glass window towards lake Washington beyond the flyovers. The evening sun is going down beyond the hill bordering the lake. There are clouds around, lying low, bearing the water that makes the state, "The Evergreen State".
Its been 3 months now.
My first visit to US; onsite.
Its been a good time. People suggested that I take photos of the sun in India as I wont be able to see anything like that here. But, from the day I landed here, I have seen the sun every single day. It is now the 26th of Dec and I can see the sun shining brightly onto my desk. This has never happened here, or so they tell me. I am lucky, I must say then. It also keeps raining here...ALL the time; that was what I was told. :) you know the rest. Sun in, cloud out.
Leaving this apart, the green-ness of the place just so fills you, that you can't take it anymore. The green is so rich, so healthy...its so greeeen, it's a treat for the eyes coming from hyderabad. I have never seen a greener place in my life.
3 months have just flown by, but I have a vivid recollection of every experience I have had here.
The first month was totally unreal for me. I had only seen the US and its culture in hollywood movies and I have seen so many of them that the american way of life had become more of a reel fact than a real one! Everywhere I went , I felt I was in a movie. The greetings, the exclamations, the way of talking, the different dialects, the grocery super shops, the tellers, the helpers, the roads, the cars, the blacks, the whites, the girls and the jolly big fat lady.
I am used to it now and... blending in. I have to say that I like more things here than I dislike.
People are generally less tense, more talkative, more explicit in expression and more clear about what they want. And there is customisation everywhere, from the burgers and pizzas, to the 1000 types of cheese, to 0%,1%,2%, fullfat milk. From cars to houses to beds to groceries. Every single thing has a million varieties and you are supposed to be damn sure about exactly which 1/1 millionth thing you want. If you are not, you will be out of place, make no mistake. Pure capitalism, in the flesh. Its refreshing, even good, but it takes some getting used to.
Hmm...and I've got to tell about the traffic here. It is one of the most striking thing about US. There is a huge problem with it: it's too organised! I had to unthink so many of my personal driving tips, to comfortably travel everyday. Consider this, you are driving at 60 Km/hr(or arnd 35-40 Miles/hr) on the main road and there is a road joining into it from the left( in India and from the right in the US). In the US, you don't stop, you don't even slow down. You go past that road at 35 Mph. In India, if you do that, you will be involved in an accident where you'll lose you 1 hand, 1 leg, 1 spine and 1 head. I was shit scared the first few days, I went through Bellevue. I couldn't get over the crawl-through-intersections-to-be-safe rule I religiously followed in India. There is so much blind trust here, trust that everyone will follow rules, its insane. Accepting this fact is the first step to a successful stay in the US. :) And also, that is why the penalties are so heavy for disobeyance, of any rules. And all rules are very detailed and very well thought out to cover every scenario possible.
The blind trust syndrome is what also leads me to assume to be the reason for people here loking for specialists in everything. There is a specialist, an expert for every small thing here. If you want to build a house, there is an expert for lighting, an expert for windows, an expert for plumbing, an expert for walls, an expert for architecture, an expert for glasses on the windows, an expert for the fireplaces, an expert for every damn small thing that you can find in your house. People trust the expert blindly and education is important. That is why I believe, the education here stresses more on practice than theory and is not very easy to mug up and finish off either.
People here believe in proven results and proven results only. And so there is data collection of everything, and there are so many surveys and analysis of surveys and analysis of data and conclusions and debates on the conclusions etc etc. People here are very scientific, in the fact that they trust analysis of data more than promise. Most rules, laws are based on data analysis. Every product made, or even thought about is supposed to be based on data analysis. Analysis of present data is very much a part of people's mindset here. Every conversation has an analysis part to it based on the data present in somebody's mind and if more data is supplied to contradict an opinion, it is taken very positively and very openly. This, I think is one of the best virtues of people I have sen until now in America.( Of course there are always people who are otherwise but the general public is very open)
There are so many more things to talk about the US, so many comparisions with India.
I have them all recorded in my mind. Some are good, some are bad, but there is one thing that I've come to understand through this trip; whatever culture, whatever practices exist right now, in the US as well as India, are the ones that exactly fit the times and the places.
Another year ..
9 years ago
