2008- An American Odyssey

The year 2008 saw some thing that had never happened in the history of humanity. Its not Tatas moving out of Singur or Lehmand Brothers collapsing. It was me setting foot on American soil for the first time. Things were never the same again. Lehman Brothers filed for bancruptcy. Merril Lynch was bought over by Bank of America. Morgan Stanley and Washingotn Mutual are looking for buyers.

My first impression of America was very clear- you had to pay to survive with Uncle Sam. I tried to remove a trolley for my luggage at the airport. To my surprise I realised that I had to pay 1 dollar to use it. Yes Sir, in the US Uncle Sam charges for everything. Hardly had I paid the dollar and removed the trolley, as I was trying to help Archana, this Indian girl started taking the trolley that I had paid for. Well, in the Land of Uncle Sam , hum phir bhi nahi sudharenge.

The next scene is from a Hollywood movie-- As I was moving away with my luggage, a police officer with a small dog came by, told me to stop and made the dog sniff the luggage. I thought she was from DEA, maybe FBI. It was such a let down- she was from the Dept of Agriculture, checking if I had brought some plant/ seeds into the US.

I think Taxi drivers have a unified code of conduct irrespective of whether they are American, Indian, Chinese or Caribbeans. Our driver Milton (originally from Trinidad) told us the ride fro the airport to the hotel would cost $45. But by the time we got there it had changed to $58. Welcome to the dishonest Taxi drivers association of the world. This is similar to the Chennai auto drivers' club, except this is more organised. They even give you a bill.

One thing you have to give it to the Americans- the think BIG. The roads were wide, cars big. I don't know if it was the part of the problem or the solution. But seeing the number of cars on a Saturday afternoon I figured out why the US uses 65% of the world's oil.

My first day in America is unforgettable. I have had a lot of experiences in my 31 years of existence. But never have I been left stranded on the road at night on the first day of arrival at a new place. But yes Sir, it happened in America, thanks to another Taxi driver, this one only happened to be Indian.

First day in office was funny. I came in , I was shown my cabin and that's it. Everybody went back to their work. I was left sitting there wondering what to do next. So I went cabin to cabin in the office meeting people. Not to build up contact but to entertain myself- I was really getting bored now. Things did look up by the evening. My laptop had arrived. Ok, let me explain 2 of the most funny phenomena int he US.

Credit rating and television. Without credit rating you are a dead duck. You need credit for everything, even renting an apartment. In the initial days when I paid by cash for everything, people looked at me suspiciously. No one ever has cash there- all have cards. Now this is how you build your credit rating.

If you need to make a purchase, any purchase, even a $4.95 cafe latter super size from Starbucks, you use your credit card. Be careful of such rules because Indian shops only accept credit card for purchases over $10. Hum nahi sudharenge- Part-II. Now you buy coffee on credit card even if u have cash. Then you use the money from your account to pay off your credit card bills. Now your credit shot up a few points. Keep doing this for a couple of months and you have excellent credit. Now go ahead and buy yourself a new Honda car.

I couldn't help wondering - My dad would have a seizure buying anything on a credit card, leave alone coffee. But everything is plastic here. That's America.

What I told you so far would cost you $200 to have it form the mouth of a Consultant. Yes, in America they have consultants who help people build their credit.

The second phenomenon here is TV. You have all kinds of shows and programming, but I want to talk about just 2 aspects. The court cases and the advertisements. The court cases in TV are not like the ones we have in Hindi movies. The Judge does not say "Mujrim ko baa-izzat bali kiya jaa sakta hain or Section 302 ke tehet sazaa-e-maut di jaati hain". These are people -- girlfriends/ boyfriends, parents, parent- child, neighbours, ex-wives, husbands-- suing each other all the time over things like broken cell phones, dented cars to abused cats. There was also this case about a naked singer who had decided to have a camera installed in his house 24-7 so that all his actions would become public on You Tube. The only problem was that his girlfriend wanted the camera off between 8 pm and 8 am for her privacy. Wow! That was phenomenal and the judge even asked the man to sing a song in a thong post the case. I was wondering why all these people were i a court- they should have been in an asylum.

There was also the case of this jogger who ran into a cyclist and broke his ankle, but sued him and got compensation instead. Phenomenal. One girl actually sued her father for $2000. If I even thought about suing my dad for say 80,000 bucks, it would not stand in an Indian court.

The other aspect is advertisements. On American TV there are 3 basic types of Ads and they follow a cycle. There are ads for cars-- all sorts of cars, which take people to different places to eat. Which brings me to my second category of ads- food. Trust me there are plenty of these, but the most popular of these are for soup, chicken, shrimp and some other things I cant recognise being a vegetarian. But no matter what the food is there are 2 price points- $5 and $10 (actually $8.5). It seems to be a very sensitive price point for Americas. I am still investigating why. The funniest aspect is the declaration "just like home cooked meal" after every food ad. Well, wait a minute, if I wanted home cooked meal, wont I eat at home. Why would I drive to a restaurant to eat a "home like" meal? Shouldn't I be eating at home then?

This brings me to the third kind of ads which are for medicines. From headache, body pain to allergy, all kinds of medicines are displayed in ads. Being a doctor myself, this actually scared me. So the cycle is as follows-

The cars that drive these people to food and the food which makes them sick so they have medicines. So that they can get well and again drive in their cars. The last straw- Guess how long it took me to open a Bank of America account- Just 2 hours, with me sitting in the bank. It took me less then 30 minutes to open an ICICI account in India, with me siting in office. Isn't that crazy?