I had landed in America –
the land of dreams – in the year 1994. It was perhaps not the right time to
dream! I had just crossed 40 and in retrospect, I think why would anyone take
such a risk? But then people have done crazier things. And I landed in the
first week of January in St Louis, probably the worst time of the year to begin
your life in a foreign land, especially coming from Chennai where my mother
used to pull out her sweater if the temperature hit a low of 23 degrees Celsius!
The initial days were
quite amazing. How can two countries be so different? A small thing like
switching on the light was exactly the opposite – and it took a while getting
used to. The vocabulary being used was different for even the normal things –
like the signal became the lights etc. I really came to understand the meaning
of XXXL size after meeting a few folks in the sprawling malls. And I realized
why my US born nephews were a bit disappointed with the ice cream cups in India
– I could eat a single scoop for days while my US friends ate double scoops in
a jiffy. And for the first time, I saw people crunching ice cubes with their
teeth! And later I came to know that dentists had a whale of time in the US!
And why not?!
I was given a rental car
and I started driving in a few days much to the amazement of some of my US
friends. Had they driven in India they would have understood – everyone follows
the rules unlike in India where if you follow the rule, you are dead. You need
to be more skilled and more aware of the emerging scenario(s) while driving. I
had a flat tire (that is how a tyre is spelt!) one day. A garage chap came in a
flash and replaced the tyre in no time. I was astounded to see him use a power
spanner to remove the tyre. My mind raced to the scene in India, where young
boys literally stand on the spanner to disengage the tyre! What a waste of
manpower.
Technology was all
pervasive even then (what expression can I use for the pervasiveness today?!). Everything
was process driven. I posted a mail to my friend who moved out of my apartment
which we shared. After a few days, much to my amusement, I found the parcel
back in my mail box. I took it to the post office only to be told that I should
write the from address at the top left hand corner and the To address at the
centre – and not as I had done – one on each side. The post office chaps
scanned the wrong side and it was sent to the from address! I just imagined the
letters being delivered in India – Mr. Mani, Behind Hanuman Mandir, Moradabad
or the 9 line addresses that you commonly find in India – especially in Bengaluru
with all the thousands of “palayas” and “nagars”. Like driving, our postmen
also need a lot more skill and a mini google maps tucked in.
And I bought something
from one of those huge malls – only to be given a “do it yourself” kit. At the
gas station (petrol pump for the uninitiated) you need to fill in your petrol.
And if you shift your house, you hire a “U-Haul” truck, load your belongings
and drive down to another city and leave the truck there! What a great idea,
Sir ji. No need for packers and movers and transport operators like GATI.
I soon realized that this
was a country that believed in the supremacy of the individual, privacy,
freedom et al. It was a culture, as Dev Dutt Patnaik says –“If you live only once, in one-life cultures around the world, you
will see an obsession with binary logic, absolute truth, standardization,
absoluteness, and linear patterns in design. But if you look at cultures which
have cyclical and based on infinite lives, you will see a comfort with fuzzy
logic, with opinion, with contextual thinking, with everything is relative,
sort of–mostly!?!” And all of us know where we belong.
If this
is so, I started wondering does the US have anything on “How to Live?” After
all it is a “do it yourself” culture and there are manuals for almost
everything – including how an operator has to answer his / her telephone at the
Post office! But my search was in vain as I could not find anything remotely
connected with the subject in question, though there were a multitude of
self-help books by psychologists, authors on subjects ranging from “Your Erroneous
Zones” to “Think and Grow Rich” and classics such as “How to win friends and
Influence people?, “How to stop worrying and start living.” How could that be,
I pondered. But is there a “do it yourself” type of book on the most important
activity in life – “living” available anywhere? Am I being too naïve or stupid?
