Middletown CT USA

Amerigo Vespucci must be a happy dead man. Even the little 'go''ca'rting that people did with his name, ended up in christening of the most awe-invoking noun in recent times (save possibly 'Dust'bin Laden): Ameri'ca'!

I am sure Mr. 'Dust'bin Laden would have cared to disagree with me but unfortunately, he is too Laden with his own burdens to care about a non-American speaking about the virtues of America. (Readers: Please dont mind the 'go''ca'rting that I have done with Mr. Laden's name: I dont see his condition any better than a dust Laden dustbin in the stormy deserts of Baluchistan)

Anyway, I am here to talk about America, not what Americans like talking most about. You see its been a shocking first 4 months here.
In India, America is a fantasy land. You may never have known but this is what a street talk about America summarises into: You get to see porn on prime time, Booze is available like 'Thums up' there, You can have more than one car (thanks Henry Ford), You can change more wives than you change cars (you dont even have to thank Henry Ford for that), there are skyscrapers all around, Indians are really showing to America what India is all about etc etc.
Surprisingly, since that Delta Airlines flight landed in Cincinnati, Houdini has replaced George Bush as the president of America.

. The American concept of porn is watching Larry King live on CNN. My goodness, why has no one offered him a role in the 'Exorcist' series. Either hollywood is blind or I am the only one scared looking at him stare down at the camera and hiss out national news. Believe me sirs (in India), American TV is more clean than the Sushma Swaraj controlled Doordarshan and that "AajTak" deserves an Emmy!

. Booze. Well, the booze shops close at 8 in the evening, 2 hours before any sane mind would even think about drinking! Moreover, the driving school manual scared me so much that I dont even sniff on Heineken before I drive.For a fact, I have driven down the Mumbai-Pune expressway with 6 pints of Kingfisher in me.

. Cars. Well there are 1000s on the road, not one of them mine.

. Wives. Well I am married and I have as much to fear about my wife looking for other husbands as she does.

. Skyscrapers all over America. This is what I dearly wanted to talk about. You have to visit Middletown to see the wonders of the nature. I can actually touch the sky everyday! Its only 30 ft high here. Can you believe it??!! Ah well, I live on the top floor of the tallest building here. If this 2-floor building really scrapes the sky, the blue hemispherical cover I see everyday above must be the Holy Grail (You got it wrong Mr. Dan Brown!).

. American Indians. Definitely a proud association. But who I get to meet is a small cohort of newly Americanized or waiting to be Americanized Indians. I would be higly prejudiced in making a sweeping statement about all of them but a commonality that I could observe makes me believe that the newly naturalized Indian Americans are more American than the Americans themselves. I for one cannot catch their accent although speaking with the American lot has never been a pain. The extra effort that they spend in showing themselves Americans rockets them into being residents of some other planet. 'How u doon' becomes 'heeaw ve den'. Whether Germany beckons them or not I'm not sure but they top it up with an identity to prove themselves distinct from us, the H1B-not-interested-in-GreenCard lot. Somehow a card marks a genetic distinction between them and us. They smile back patronisingly, speaking about the issues of India as empathetically as Bin Laden would speak about the Cauvery water controversy. And, they add middle names to sound like RamKhelawan Alexander Yadav.

Do I hate these few people? Somehow, I end up loving them all the more. They show me the inherent complex that pushes Indians out of India. Of finding in America, an opportunity to be one among the equals. The humor is lost on us, the forever Indians, who would rather condemn the shortcomings of America than inculcate its great values. One among equals is not a homogenous community in India. There are so many groups of equals each greater than the other. That new Indian Americans turn out to be overzealous in their effort to be Americans shows their desperation to achieve symbolically(America) what they have not been able to achieve practically (India).

Democracy has opened up the world for India. Will that world be anywhere near to what America practises is for us to see. And I am not talking of the jazzy cars, the Hollywood and the Skyscrapers but of the value of individual dignity, the pinnacle of Democratic values that we Indians strive to achieve.

How have we been faring? Do we have the answer? Dont know, but I think we certainly have a question to ask ourselves - "How u doon Man??"