Here's to Biggles and Bert Lawrence andoh, just about everybody who's been nice to us...
Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down a road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant
I'm not ashamed to say
I hope it always will stay this way
My hat is off, won't you stand up and take a bow
from: Thank You For Being A Friend
( Andrew Gold )
Sunday, June 24, 2007
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ANXIOUS EXPAT...NOT A SAD STORY...
"This is the way the world goes...UGH!!".
[or: HILARIOUSLY HORRIBLE: Bring out the old into the new world]
by ANXIOUS EXPAT.
So it’s happened, huh, and part of your mind is singing “Oh I’m ge-e-tting on a je-et-et plane” and your heart is beginning to feel the first queer (no, not THAT way) twitchings of oncoming-nostalgia-that-is-waiting-to-hit. You’ve got the admission letter from the impressive-sounding Mentally Terminable State University; you’ve queued up for the visa interview with armfuls of bank papers and your I-20 showing the seemingly colossal fellowship amount and endured the surly sideswipes of the (“huh, probably jealous”) people you barely know or care about, and you’ve run the gauntlet of cheery parties from friends being left behind, hectoring from family elders and sniffly advice from parents and siblings (“we will call you every day if you don’t call regularly,” “do remember to eat healthy, beta,” “keep my shopping list in a safe place” “be careful who you date”) yadda-yadda-yadda. It’s done and you’re finally on your way. Here’s the airport, smelling of sweat and swill layered over with a distinctive aroma of unidentifiable but surely cheap disinfectant, where suspicious individuals eye you strangely and strange ones eye you suspiciously. You’ve stood hopping from leg to leg in the chaos of the airline check-in and triple-checked that your two bulging suitcases are indeed tagged correctly and will arrive at the same time and place as you. That was the first shock, wasn’t it, finding that the weight as told by the bathroom scale at home, the chakki-wallahs old-fashioned bucket-balance and the airline’s delicate hi-tech scale could be so different. Lucky the folks were still outside, squeezed against the precarious barricades, leaning over to catch glimpses of their departing hero(ine), so you could hurriedly drag some much loved items out of the suitcases and hand them over to the home team for safe keeping. Oh yes, all that is done too, and you can finally swagger up to the immigration counter. You’ll make eye contact and make the guy realize how glad you are to be leaving all this behind, this muck, this chaos, the noise and chatter. A much-anticipated moment which falls sadly flat when the wilting individual behind the counter barely glances at you before banging his stamp onto your passport as if he were wishing he could bang it on your head.
That was it? You’re really out of India now? No no, you’re in some fluorescent-lit no-man’s-land, trying to locate a hard fixed seat to rest your butt before boarding the plane. Around you the crowd of fellow departees eddies and flows from gate to gate, herded by nasal voiced females making announcements in a superiorly incomprehensible accent. Even while you’re trying to protect your carry-on and your feet from being pounded by said departees, you’re caught up in the tide, tossed about and find yourself bleating ‘yes ma’am, “no, sir” to the snooty b___ who snaps “Zone 2?’ “Zone 3?” like an emcee on a TV quiz show. You stumble onto the aircraft, and crawl, grope and collapse your way to your seat, your ears trying to adjust to the sudden change in pressure and heart thumping in tune with the musical whine of the engines. Oh ya, you’ve go-o-ot on that je-et-plane all right. Now you have time to look forward to your new life as an expat student and “enjoy your flight, ladies and gentlemen,” you will soon be spreading your own wings and flying high…The old world is below now and fading behind you, it’s time to say hello to the new world of hopes and dreams…the stuff of nightmare…
Whee-ee-eww! Two flights and one plane change later…all you remember is the swaying under your feet that’s called jet-lag accumulated while you stood outside the pathetically few lavatories on the plane, being shoved and glared at by feeble old people with weak bladders, while whiny young people with weak bladders and bossy mothers slimed past you into the next available toilet. You knew all those free cokes were a mistake, but you had no idea, none at all, no sir, how potent a mix they could be with the wee shots of free Bailey’s Irish Cream. Still, who could turn down the sweet young thing smiling at you from behind the trolley or the motherly old bat cooing at you and adjusting your tiny square of pillow and the handkerchief that passes for a blanket in modern aircraft? It moved you, in a misguided (sozzled?) moment, to confide to them all your hopes and dreams of making it big after you graduate, and paying off all those loans and buying a flashy Merc one day… They were real friendly too when you were inspecting the contents of the duty free cart, and they laughed uproariously at your clever jokes about “no money, no honey” too, and they seemed to believe your promise to buy something “next time you fly” on this airline. Odd, now you come to think of it how they became so busy right after that, they couldn’t even stop by your seat with a hot towel…No time to think of that now, you’re torn between deciding to get right in front of the human crocodile preparing for disembarkation, or to sneak quietly into the toilet for a final pee to get rid of all those drinks that are inopportunely making their effects felt on your bladder.
Hmm, so here goes your first step on American soil, well, concrete really, with a huge echoing hall at the end of that drab grey painted corridor. As you stride along trying to look nonchalant, there’s an abrupt reality check, in the form of a dull, faded yellow line where you are pulled up. A well-built, well made-up security woman, tapping her cosh-like baton meaningfully, gives you to understand that the slightest movement beyond this line, if unauthorized by her, might very well be your last. You don’t care to venture any witty repartee, the overwhelming atmosphere of neurosis nervosa is getting to you now, the strain and anxiety of the countless “other” nationalities in the immigration queue is rubbing off on you as you peer helplessly at your immigration form and wonder how the hell they expect you to stuff all the information they ask for into a teeny tiny couple of square centimeters of blank space. You cast about wildly in your mind to recall whether you’ve ever had any ghastly criminal deed in your short life that might rear up and scupper you now. The originally vast amount of fellowship dollars on the I-20 seems pitifully inadequate to support you in a strange land. You can feel the clamminess in your palms, the sweat crawling down your back, the dryness creeping up your tongue. You feel a mild push in the small of your back and a sharp clearing of throats as the folks behind you intimate it is your turn to cross the yellow line. The meaningful lady is nowhere to be seen, oh yes, there she is, putting the fear of the yellow line into an incoming herd of arrivals. She will not be coming to escort you up to the counter; you will have to go it alone. A gimlet eye fixes you as a colorlessly polite voice asks the routine questions that seem calculated to fluster you even further. Just as you brace yourself for the fall of a heavy hand on your shoulder and prepare to hold your head high in the moment of lowest humiliation if you are taken back to the aircraft in shame, you realize the person behind the counter is waiting, politely but impatiently for you to hold out your finger correctly for fingerprinting. Feeling mildly like a newly released convict (“you are in the system now”), you scuffle together your papers, trip over your carry on bag and stumble away to the exit, out into the sunshine, where orderly hordes of high-powered vehicles zoom up, deposit or pick up people and zoom away. There is surprisingly little noise and uproar, but a ruthlessly efficient posse of uniforms keeps you on the move along the pavement, giving you no time to lap up this parade of classy automobiles, every one of which you would love to drive and hopefully own. Like a pawn being moved relentlessly along its line of squares on a hypothetical chessboard, you feel very, very small and insignificant, a far cry from the confident over-achiever you were just 24 hours ago; Suddenly, you are very unsure of yourself and very lost indeed, another Gulliver in Brobdingnag, a worm in the midst of a gaggle of large, colorful, predatory birds…When you finally spot the tatty card with your name computer-printed on it, you almost fall upon the neck of the individual holding it, so great is your relief at finding any anchor in this fast-paced hive of buzzing bees. What a good thing you signed up for the free pick up ride by the International Students Association on your campus. A compatriot! An Indian (never mind north or south or whatever)! A friendly face at last!
Yeah, right. The face is friendly enough, beaming at you as you both thread through the parking lot (“wow, they park cars neatly in rectangles painted on the tarmac, not on top of each other”), apologizing for the disgusting condition of the car’s battered interior, sweeping aside crushed pizza cartons, half empty cans of soda and an overflowing ashtray to make room for you in a corner of the front seat. You’ve already made the bitter discovery that your companion will subtly ignore any hints that you need assistance heaving your luggage into the boot (remember it’s called “trunk” now, idiot) or offer to pay the toothy porter who came to your rescue at the baggage carousel (and you parted with a horridly disproportionate amount of dollars). Even before you’ve squeezed into the modicum of space available in the trashed out front seat, the car is moving, picking up speed as you merge onto the jungle of the interstate highway system. Your companion reminds you, with what you deem to be unnecessary condescension, that wearing of seatbelts is mandatory. As you clutch at yours (it’s stuck, anyway) and fumble with the clasp, you bite back an icy retort that seatbelts are found on Indian cars too, you are not a total ganwaar, (that's "peasant" in Hindi, so take that!), you are simply jetlagged and very near the edge of exhaustion. You decide for the present to let your gratitude override your irritation at this prissed up jerk who’s parading, like what, six months of being in the US over your 95 minutes of Americanization. As you gaze unseeingly at the landscape flashing by at 80mph ("not kilometers now!" you make a mental note never to behave like this, and to tick this loser off properly when you get the chance. What do these Indians think of themselves, you ask yourself indignantly, a few months away from the dear old homeland and they become pukka foreigners, hah! You find yourself overflowing with the spirit of righteous national fervor. You can’t wait to show them what real Indians are like…real Indians like you, of course...
“Here’s the apartment,” announces your unconscious tormentor cheerfully. You peer out of the window into a fast approaching gloom of twilight tinged with the dawning glow of halogen street lamps, at what appears to be a series of two-storied henhouses strung closely together. Lights are on in some windows, while rap music, interspersed with tinkling crashes and yells, percolates from an open door. A gigantic trash collection-bin intrudes its odiferous presence from around the corner of the block, but by now you are too tired to care, too tired to even perk up when a pair of bikini-bottom-clad topless females scuttle up giggling, still dripping from an unseen swimming pool, and launch themselves onto your companion. You haul your cases from the car, into a sparsely furnished living room and through to the room that will be yours for the next six months at least, and for which you will pay 400 of your precious dollars every month (“cable and utilities included”). Your recent escort comes in, smirking and patting out the damp imprints of the dripping females. “OK! So you’re settling in already! This is a cool place, y’know, quiet and peaceful and still close to campus (ya, just a couple of miles to walk each way) but far away from those noisy undergrad dorms and their wild parties (hideous crashing noises erupt from the open doorway, punctuated by feminine shrieks and masculine howls of merriment). Belongs to an Indian prof, y’know, and they don’t ask for a fixed lease like regular apartment places, and it’s cheap.” Your thrifty desi mind calculates that your 3-bedroom apartment probably nets 1200 dollars a month, and factor in the fact that the only “furnishings” supplied for this “furnished” apartment are a small desk and chair plus a full sized mattress perched on a precarious-looking iron frame with nasty-looking springs. All those single-bed sheet-sets your Ma packed are going to be useless…and what’s the point of having cable when you don’t have a TV?
But all these anxieties are for the future to come. Right now, you smile a sickly thank-you to the friendly face who you realize belatedly is also one of your new flat-mates (that’s “room-mates” for you now, dumbo), hedge an invitation to join the rowdies partying next door, accept an offer to be taken grocery shopping tomorrow and be shown around the campus before Orientation. You go back into your semi-unfurnished room, splash some cold water on your face, yank out a sheet and blanket (packed oh so lovingly by caring parental hands so short a while ago) and flop onto the mattress just as you are. At last you can be alone and recover your wits and take in the huge quantum leap of faith you have made. It’s time to turn your face to the wall, fight back the threatening tears and swallow the lump in your throat, and stop missing the family back home.
FAMILY! HOME!!! OH NO!!! You forgot to make the call and tell them you arrived safely. You’ve got the international calling card your Dad safely stowed away in your wallet in those last moments of hyper-efficient anxiety, but now you’ve got to crawl out of your makeshift bed and call the home team, waiting all agog to hear the adventures of their hero(ine)!! Oh well, here we go again…
[Being continued…]
[or: HILARIOUSLY HORRIBLE: Bring out the old into the new world]
by ANXIOUS EXPAT.
So it’s happened, huh, and part of your mind is singing “Oh I’m ge-e-tting on a je-et-et plane” and your heart is beginning to feel the first queer (no, not THAT way) twitchings of oncoming-nostalgia-that-is-waiting-to-hit. You’ve got the admission letter from the impressive-sounding Mentally Terminable State University; you’ve queued up for the visa interview with armfuls of bank papers and your I-20 showing the seemingly colossal fellowship amount and endured the surly sideswipes of the (“huh, probably jealous”) people you barely know or care about, and you’ve run the gauntlet of cheery parties from friends being left behind, hectoring from family elders and sniffly advice from parents and siblings (“we will call you every day if you don’t call regularly,” “do remember to eat healthy, beta,” “keep my shopping list in a safe place” “be careful who you date”) yadda-yadda-yadda. It’s done and you’re finally on your way. Here’s the airport, smelling of sweat and swill layered over with a distinctive aroma of unidentifiable but surely cheap disinfectant, where suspicious individuals eye you strangely and strange ones eye you suspiciously. You’ve stood hopping from leg to leg in the chaos of the airline check-in and triple-checked that your two bulging suitcases are indeed tagged correctly and will arrive at the same time and place as you. That was the first shock, wasn’t it, finding that the weight as told by the bathroom scale at home, the chakki-wallahs old-fashioned bucket-balance and the airline’s delicate hi-tech scale could be so different. Lucky the folks were still outside, squeezed against the precarious barricades, leaning over to catch glimpses of their departing hero(ine), so you could hurriedly drag some much loved items out of the suitcases and hand them over to the home team for safe keeping. Oh yes, all that is done too, and you can finally swagger up to the immigration counter. You’ll make eye contact and make the guy realize how glad you are to be leaving all this behind, this muck, this chaos, the noise and chatter. A much-anticipated moment which falls sadly flat when the wilting individual behind the counter barely glances at you before banging his stamp onto your passport as if he were wishing he could bang it on your head.
That was it? You’re really out of India now? No no, you’re in some fluorescent-lit no-man’s-land, trying to locate a hard fixed seat to rest your butt before boarding the plane. Around you the crowd of fellow departees eddies and flows from gate to gate, herded by nasal voiced females making announcements in a superiorly incomprehensible accent. Even while you’re trying to protect your carry-on and your feet from being pounded by said departees, you’re caught up in the tide, tossed about and find yourself bleating ‘yes ma’am, “no, sir” to the snooty b___ who snaps “Zone 2?’ “Zone 3?” like an emcee on a TV quiz show. You stumble onto the aircraft, and crawl, grope and collapse your way to your seat, your ears trying to adjust to the sudden change in pressure and heart thumping in tune with the musical whine of the engines. Oh ya, you’ve go-o-ot on that je-et-plane all right. Now you have time to look forward to your new life as an expat student and “enjoy your flight, ladies and gentlemen,” you will soon be spreading your own wings and flying high…The old world is below now and fading behind you, it’s time to say hello to the new world of hopes and dreams…the stuff of nightmare…
Whee-ee-eww! Two flights and one plane change later…all you remember is the swaying under your feet that’s called jet-lag accumulated while you stood outside the pathetically few lavatories on the plane, being shoved and glared at by feeble old people with weak bladders, while whiny young people with weak bladders and bossy mothers slimed past you into the next available toilet. You knew all those free cokes were a mistake, but you had no idea, none at all, no sir, how potent a mix they could be with the wee shots of free Bailey’s Irish Cream. Still, who could turn down the sweet young thing smiling at you from behind the trolley or the motherly old bat cooing at you and adjusting your tiny square of pillow and the handkerchief that passes for a blanket in modern aircraft? It moved you, in a misguided (sozzled?) moment, to confide to them all your hopes and dreams of making it big after you graduate, and paying off all those loans and buying a flashy Merc one day… They were real friendly too when you were inspecting the contents of the duty free cart, and they laughed uproariously at your clever jokes about “no money, no honey” too, and they seemed to believe your promise to buy something “next time you fly” on this airline. Odd, now you come to think of it how they became so busy right after that, they couldn’t even stop by your seat with a hot towel…No time to think of that now, you’re torn between deciding to get right in front of the human crocodile preparing for disembarkation, or to sneak quietly into the toilet for a final pee to get rid of all those drinks that are inopportunely making their effects felt on your bladder.
Hmm, so here goes your first step on American soil, well, concrete really, with a huge echoing hall at the end of that drab grey painted corridor. As you stride along trying to look nonchalant, there’s an abrupt reality check, in the form of a dull, faded yellow line where you are pulled up. A well-built, well made-up security woman, tapping her cosh-like baton meaningfully, gives you to understand that the slightest movement beyond this line, if unauthorized by her, might very well be your last. You don’t care to venture any witty repartee, the overwhelming atmosphere of neurosis nervosa is getting to you now, the strain and anxiety of the countless “other” nationalities in the immigration queue is rubbing off on you as you peer helplessly at your immigration form and wonder how the hell they expect you to stuff all the information they ask for into a teeny tiny couple of square centimeters of blank space. You cast about wildly in your mind to recall whether you’ve ever had any ghastly criminal deed in your short life that might rear up and scupper you now. The originally vast amount of fellowship dollars on the I-20 seems pitifully inadequate to support you in a strange land. You can feel the clamminess in your palms, the sweat crawling down your back, the dryness creeping up your tongue. You feel a mild push in the small of your back and a sharp clearing of throats as the folks behind you intimate it is your turn to cross the yellow line. The meaningful lady is nowhere to be seen, oh yes, there she is, putting the fear of the yellow line into an incoming herd of arrivals. She will not be coming to escort you up to the counter; you will have to go it alone. A gimlet eye fixes you as a colorlessly polite voice asks the routine questions that seem calculated to fluster you even further. Just as you brace yourself for the fall of a heavy hand on your shoulder and prepare to hold your head high in the moment of lowest humiliation if you are taken back to the aircraft in shame, you realize the person behind the counter is waiting, politely but impatiently for you to hold out your finger correctly for fingerprinting. Feeling mildly like a newly released convict (“you are in the system now”), you scuffle together your papers, trip over your carry on bag and stumble away to the exit, out into the sunshine, where orderly hordes of high-powered vehicles zoom up, deposit or pick up people and zoom away. There is surprisingly little noise and uproar, but a ruthlessly efficient posse of uniforms keeps you on the move along the pavement, giving you no time to lap up this parade of classy automobiles, every one of which you would love to drive and hopefully own. Like a pawn being moved relentlessly along its line of squares on a hypothetical chessboard, you feel very, very small and insignificant, a far cry from the confident over-achiever you were just 24 hours ago; Suddenly, you are very unsure of yourself and very lost indeed, another Gulliver in Brobdingnag, a worm in the midst of a gaggle of large, colorful, predatory birds…When you finally spot the tatty card with your name computer-printed on it, you almost fall upon the neck of the individual holding it, so great is your relief at finding any anchor in this fast-paced hive of buzzing bees. What a good thing you signed up for the free pick up ride by the International Students Association on your campus. A compatriot! An Indian (never mind north or south or whatever)! A friendly face at last!
Yeah, right. The face is friendly enough, beaming at you as you both thread through the parking lot (“wow, they park cars neatly in rectangles painted on the tarmac, not on top of each other”), apologizing for the disgusting condition of the car’s battered interior, sweeping aside crushed pizza cartons, half empty cans of soda and an overflowing ashtray to make room for you in a corner of the front seat. You’ve already made the bitter discovery that your companion will subtly ignore any hints that you need assistance heaving your luggage into the boot (remember it’s called “trunk” now, idiot) or offer to pay the toothy porter who came to your rescue at the baggage carousel (and you parted with a horridly disproportionate amount of dollars). Even before you’ve squeezed into the modicum of space available in the trashed out front seat, the car is moving, picking up speed as you merge onto the jungle of the interstate highway system. Your companion reminds you, with what you deem to be unnecessary condescension, that wearing of seatbelts is mandatory. As you clutch at yours (it’s stuck, anyway) and fumble with the clasp, you bite back an icy retort that seatbelts are found on Indian cars too, you are not a total ganwaar, (that's "peasant" in Hindi, so take that!), you are simply jetlagged and very near the edge of exhaustion. You decide for the present to let your gratitude override your irritation at this prissed up jerk who’s parading, like what, six months of being in the US over your 95 minutes of Americanization. As you gaze unseeingly at the landscape flashing by at 80mph ("not kilometers now!" you make a mental note never to behave like this, and to tick this loser off properly when you get the chance. What do these Indians think of themselves, you ask yourself indignantly, a few months away from the dear old homeland and they become pukka foreigners, hah! You find yourself overflowing with the spirit of righteous national fervor. You can’t wait to show them what real Indians are like…real Indians like you, of course...
“Here’s the apartment,” announces your unconscious tormentor cheerfully. You peer out of the window into a fast approaching gloom of twilight tinged with the dawning glow of halogen street lamps, at what appears to be a series of two-storied henhouses strung closely together. Lights are on in some windows, while rap music, interspersed with tinkling crashes and yells, percolates from an open door. A gigantic trash collection-bin intrudes its odiferous presence from around the corner of the block, but by now you are too tired to care, too tired to even perk up when a pair of bikini-bottom-clad topless females scuttle up giggling, still dripping from an unseen swimming pool, and launch themselves onto your companion. You haul your cases from the car, into a sparsely furnished living room and through to the room that will be yours for the next six months at least, and for which you will pay 400 of your precious dollars every month (“cable and utilities included”). Your recent escort comes in, smirking and patting out the damp imprints of the dripping females. “OK! So you’re settling in already! This is a cool place, y’know, quiet and peaceful and still close to campus (ya, just a couple of miles to walk each way) but far away from those noisy undergrad dorms and their wild parties (hideous crashing noises erupt from the open doorway, punctuated by feminine shrieks and masculine howls of merriment). Belongs to an Indian prof, y’know, and they don’t ask for a fixed lease like regular apartment places, and it’s cheap.” Your thrifty desi mind calculates that your 3-bedroom apartment probably nets 1200 dollars a month, and factor in the fact that the only “furnishings” supplied for this “furnished” apartment are a small desk and chair plus a full sized mattress perched on a precarious-looking iron frame with nasty-looking springs. All those single-bed sheet-sets your Ma packed are going to be useless…and what’s the point of having cable when you don’t have a TV?
But all these anxieties are for the future to come. Right now, you smile a sickly thank-you to the friendly face who you realize belatedly is also one of your new flat-mates (that’s “room-mates” for you now, dumbo), hedge an invitation to join the rowdies partying next door, accept an offer to be taken grocery shopping tomorrow and be shown around the campus before Orientation. You go back into your semi-unfurnished room, splash some cold water on your face, yank out a sheet and blanket (packed oh so lovingly by caring parental hands so short a while ago) and flop onto the mattress just as you are. At last you can be alone and recover your wits and take in the huge quantum leap of faith you have made. It’s time to turn your face to the wall, fight back the threatening tears and swallow the lump in your throat, and stop missing the family back home.
FAMILY! HOME!!! OH NO!!! You forgot to make the call and tell them you arrived safely. You’ve got the international calling card your Dad safely stowed away in your wallet in those last moments of hyper-efficient anxiety, but now you’ve got to crawl out of your makeshift bed and call the home team, waiting all agog to hear the adventures of their hero(ine)!! Oh well, here we go again…
[Being continued…]
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