Tucson – First Impressions

First Dude: Dude! Look it is raining! Isn’t that great?! Should cool down the place a little atleast.

Second Dude: Are you kidding me?! This is Tucson rain buddy. This will not last for too long and will NOT cool down the place one bit.

This is a conversation between two students that I overheard as I was walking to class one day on what was a really really hot afternoon up until that point. There are no two opinions on the subject of what is going to be the first thing that one would notice in Tucson. And most of us knew that Tucson was going to be crazy hot thanks to Google and Wikipedia. It is not like I landed at the airport with a shocked expression and said ‘Where did all the snow go?! This is not fair! I am going back to Bangalore.’.

It is funny when people here ask you, “So how are you liking Tucson?’. The question is delivered to you with such tact that it probably implies that the person asking the question is expecting you to grimace and say ‘Yeah!! I don’t like it so much.’ So when I reply, ‘It is okay’, it is followed by another question along the lines of ‘meaning? is it good or bad?’ thus clarifying my understanding of what is the original intent of the question. I don’t know why, but Indians here expect other Indians visiting this place for the first time to hate the place by default. So it is funny to see their expression when you say ‘I love this place! It is fantastic! Like heaven!’.

I wanted to focus on new things that I did not know about the city. For instance, I never knew that the place was surrounded by small hillocks on pretty much all the sides. Just made me wonder if I could go back in time and explore the possibility of building an empire here. The city would be guarded on all the sides because of the natural defense provided by the hillocks. Unfortunately, I have no real expertise in building time machines. Maybe that could be my thesis subject!

The next thing that I noticed about the place was the beautiful sunsets. Now I know that sunsets, no matter where they are very beautiful, but this one for some reason is very very different. Maybe it has something to do with that additional picturesque effect provided due to the backdrop of the mountains or something. People say that sun rays here are high on UV content because of the depleting ozone layer here as compared to some other parts of the world. Maybe that might have some bearing on the beauty of sunsets! I don’t know. And to be honest, I don’t care. As long as I know that the setting is good enough and worthy enough to be shot using my camera, I am happy.

Tucson also represents my first taste of American culture, whatever that is supposed to mean. Not that I am not used to getting adapted to different cultures. I am from India! We have more than a billion people back home all of them belong to different cultural subsets with intersections aplenty. But this is different. Unlike India, where culture can be associated with the type of clothing, the food that you eat or the language that you speak, the culture in America is primarily dependent on the way you speak to and interact with people. The culture can be linked to traffic rules or to holding the door open for the next person after you have entered/left the room or to also learn how not to point at people using your finger for whatever reason.

I can see why some people can find this culture very very irritating and hard to get used to. I find the whole system of vehicles stopping for me at a pedestrian crossing positively annoying to say the least. This is because of two reasons. The driver is probably expecting me to cross quickly so that he/she can move. To me, I have to walk faster than my usual pace just because this person has stopped the vehicle for my sake but is forced to do it and is not really happy about it. The second reason is because there is always a good chance that the driver says ‘ to hell with you’ and go at normal speed instead of stopping for you. I am used to that from  my experiences in India and therefore prefer the vehicle to pass away and then cross the road when there is no apparent danger to my life.

There are not too many Indians around this place. But among the ones that are already here, I would say 98% of them speak Tamil. Which is why Tucson felt like Thambiland for the first few weeks.

There are plenty of other things that I am yet to experience in US or Tucson. In fact, I think the list is never going to end.  But first impressions are always special.

Will upload some of my snaps from Tucson on my Flickr page soon. Also, I have created a personal home page here.

Aadab Uncle Sam..Goodbye Mother India

The D day had arrived. 23rd of July,2009 Bangalore International Airport. I was all set to begin what was supposed to be a new chapter in my life. I was there with my family : my mom, my dad, my sis, bhaiya, bhabhi and of course my cute little niece, Poorvi. Those that mattered the most to me where there to bid adieu to me. And for some reason they were more excited for me. And me? I was not really sure what was going on in my head. I was anything but excited. I was just looking back. The journey that had started about an year back with that ridiculous test that goes by the name GRE (and I am not saying this because I am arrogant or something. I actually believe this.) , that then continued with searching and skimming through university web pages during office hours, that resulted in an exchange of a huge number of emails to seniors/profs/lecs/friends/family, that branched out towards that unnecessarily hyped up event called the  US visa interview had finally come to this.

I walked in towards the Air India counter a little while after it opened. As expected there was some confusion regarding the extra check-in baggage.

Guy at the counter: Sir, your total check-in baggage weight comes up to 64 kg and only 46 kg is allowed. You will have to pay blah blah blah.

I did not even bother listening. I reached out for the excess baggage ticket and showed it to him like some param-vira chakra that I had earned. Guy at the counter starts making calls and talking to other AI staff. Clearly he had no clue what to do. I was all cool and gave the person enough time to sort his confusion. I was in no mood to yell at him. I guess I felt sorry for these people given what has happened with Air India in the last few months. Unforturnately some other passenger did not share the same view point. He started losing his cool and yelling at the top of his voice, blaming the staff and calling them incompetent.

The confusion was finally resolved and we did not have to pay a single buck. I was all set to go to the next counter. But before that I decided to go and wave goodbye to my family who were standing on the other side of the glass door. I looked into my niece’s eyes. She also smiled back and said ‘ta ta’. I was not even sure when was the next time that I would get to see her. She would probably not even recognize me. I was touched and with a heavy heart I waved one final goodbye and started towards the next counter.

I dont even remember when was the last time I traveled using Air India. It must have been when I was six I guess. I was not really expecting many things to change. They had those entertainment units on the back of each seat this time around. But apart from that, everything else was just the same. Aunty Air Hostesses who had clearly forgotten to see a mirror when they dumped their make-up on their face. Cabins that were not properly pressurized etc etc.

I was too bored to be bothered. I switched through all the channels on the entertainment unit and there was nothing interesting. I then decided to watch that cricket movie starring that young actor called Harman Baweja (I think). The guy who tries to copy Hrithik Roshan in every sense (Can’t blame him of course, he is an actor. He should try and be someone that he is not). Dont ask me why I was watching this. I guess I wanted to have some fun by watching this bogus movie.

Anyway we reached Delhi within no time. Took a bus. Reached IGI. and within no time we were on our next flight heading out towards Chicago via Frankfurt. As it turned out, the Indian hockey team were also on board. Atleast that is what their jerseys said. I dont follow hockey and I did not really know anyone from the team.

I did not bother playing with the entertainment unit this time around. I figured it was a long flight and I better get some sleep.

I woke up to watch the beautiful mix of colours in the sky caused because of the sunrise. We were close to Frankfurt. We finally arrived at the airport and were asked to wait at a airport before we could catch the next flight to Chicago. Judging by all the !ncredible !ndia posters hanging on the walls of the gate that we were waiting at, I guessed that this must be a common waiting terminal for all flights that come from India. The highlight of the terminal was a german shopkeeper who had managed to chalk out a nice message and the menu for his place, all in shudh Hindi.

Two hours later we were on the flight again. Next stop Chicago. This time a plump looking German teenage girl was sitting next to me. This time I decided to play around with the entertainement unit. The German sitting next to me tried to do the same and by mistake pressed Hindi as her desired language. He he he!!! It was hilarious to actually see her trying to figure out what was being written on the unit. I finally had enough and helped her set the language back to English. She decided to watch some sad German movie. I decided to watch some of the sitcoms that were being offered.

The food in the journey so far had been lousy to say the least. Looking at the German girl trying to eat the rice with some typical Indian curry was real fun though. After playing around enough with the entertainment unit, I decided to turn towards my pod and watch some movies that I had copied onto it at Bangalore.

We were nearing Chicago. I could see the Sears Towers from a distance. We were just about to land when all of a sudden the pilot decided to take the plane to the skies again and give us all another tour of the Chicago city and Sears Towers (Actually he later announced that he could not see the runway clearly and wanted to try landing again, but I think he was lying and wanted to have another look at the Sears Towers.)

As expected at the Chicago airport, the American Airline official asked me to pay 100 dollars for the extra baggage. I had to flip out the param veera chakra out again (the excess baggage ticket that is) and mentally said ‘Up yours!’. All settled. The wait at the Chicago airport was agonisingly long. I had started my journey with a slight cold from Bangalore. And unfortunately that had intensified at Chicago. Swine flu?! I decided to spend my first buck in US of A. I ordered a cup of hot coffee. That helped me get through the agonising wait of almost 8 hours for the next flight.

I was way too tired by the time I boarded my last flight to Tucson, Arizona. I did not even realise that I was sitting next to a very pretty American girl. I was too tired. I slept throughout the journey, even through the landing and take off which had been very very routine events by now.

And there I was. Tucson, Arizona. Got out of the airport to be greeted by the hot breeze reminding us of the blazing hot sunny days that were waiting for us.

Routine stuff buddy. Seen enough of it in Sharjah and Dubai. Bring ‘em on!

More later….