ACDIS Diaries - III

I leave Urbana-Champaign after three months. On board an Amtrex train to Chicago. Next to me is a pretty girl who works as a departmental store attendant at a town called Kankakee two stops before Chicago. She also turns out to be a student of Anthropology from North Carolina University and knows as much of Indian caste system as I do. Her brother is a truck driver and has traveled to over a dozen countries around the world on a truck driver’s income. If only a journalist’s salary could let me see half-a-dozen.

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Reach Chicago. The train was to arrive on platform one but arrives on five. So it is not just an Indian problem. Railways in America are privately run and train services are so inadequate that, to give an Indian comparison, a five hour journey from Ahmedabad to Surat might be via Indore, and take over 18-hours. Americans just prefer hitting the road. Despite the climate change buzz, their heavy cars – basically sofa sets on wheels – do not go more than 15 miles to a gallon. Essentially, Americans do not like anything that can reduce their carbon footprint. Whoever said practice what you preach!

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My introduction to Capone country happens right at the entrance. As I stand to get a cab, a black man gets going for me, hails one and promptly demands 5 dollars for the job. Denied, in comes sleet of abuses on India and Indians as I hurriedly put my bags and board. The Bangladeshi cabby claims that it could have turned violent and am lucky to have escaped without paying. But those five dollars have to go anyway. The cab drops me a block before my intended destination at Taylor and Racine. I decide to walk the distance. It is dark and both my hands have luggage. A boy comes again for help. "Sir, I can help," and before I react takes the suitcase and starts walking besides me. Am praying he does not run away. On reaching thanks is not good enough, am demanded money again. I proffer two one-dollar bills. "Sir, I am pregnant and hungry, this won’t even buy a burger." It turns out that the teenager is actually a girl and claims to be pregnant. I have no time or stomach to inquire so I give five dollars. A very different picture of America indeed.

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Trust Americans to make money even out of a bootlegger’s name. They have the chutzpah to sell both Lincoln and Capone with equal ease, sometimes even from same shelf. On way to Millennium Mile in a city bus. The smallest denomination bill in my pocket is 20 dollars. The ticket is for two dollars. Two women come forward with one dollar each and yo, I recover two of the five dollars I paid as alms. I have to change bus and the one to be boarded is just leaving its station. My driver rushes, overtakes, and with a gracious bow asks me to change. Who says Atithi Devo Bhava is only an Indian concept.

ACDIS Diaries - II

I arrange an Indian dinner for my new friends at ACDIS. My guests include one American physicist, a German climatologist, a Pakistani nuclear scientist, and an American student of political science. On the table is simple menu of chole-chawal, dal-roti, and paneer kofta, topped with moong-dal halwa for dessert. The spread is not even mildly representative of Indian food, but I can manage only this much for now. Talk veers toward respective cuisines. German is starch and protein, basically a combination of potato and meat in various forms. Pakistani is Indian almost (how much Pakistanis hate this). We get stuck on what’s originally American. Pizza is Italian, Burrito is Mexican, French fries are Belgian, Beans are from Iberia, and the Big Mac has German roots – etymologically ‘Burg’ means a fortification alluding to the patty surrounded by two breads. A Hamburger possibly draws its name from Hamburg in Germany. After much scratching of heads over rotis we come to the most original American food: Barbecue sauce. They might have reached outer space, but on culinary front Americans have just about managed to produce a burnt chutney!

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All Pulitzers are hogged by anti-Bush reporters this year. A Fox News anchor cries foul. Says media are so biased! The bulletin is on increasing gas prices. At US dollars 3.19 to a gallon (less than then prevailing Indian rate) Americans are going mad at the rise. Anchor asks an expert how higher crude price translates into costly gas at the station. The expert explains: “Look cookies are made of dough, so if the price of dough increases so would that of the cookies.” Uhh…the anchor can appreciate that. These are still my pre-TV days so I do find it dumb.

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A NewYork Post stringer is caught demanding bribe from a celebrity for not publishing a news item. The scandal is brought out by rival Daily News and is being talked out on news television. That’s heartening. It was in 1970’s that Indira Gandhi had branded corruption a global phenomenon. I get to see a sample myself. America has a raucous, diverse media with each reasonably sized town having its own radio station, newspaper, and possibly television channel. We in India have ended up following this model in a rather unhealthy manner. More of it in some later post.

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Chinese President Hu Jintao is visiting the United States. This is his first visit and happening at a time when tensions are particularly high on trade front between the two nations. America wants China to devalue Yuan and the Chinese are not obliging. Media expect some fireworks in Washington. But corporate America has offset any possibility of a showdown by fêting Jintao as a visionary. He begins his trip from Seattle, goes to Los Angeles for a rendezvous with Hollywood and then to New York for some more business. The fourth and last day is kept for Washington almost as an afterthought. Just shows the importance of government apparatus in Uncle Sam.

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It has been two months and I need a hair cut. But I can’t get it. No, there’s no strike by barbers in America but a cut is high on dollars. US dollars 20 for one hair cut is equal to my two year’s budget for the same. I hunt and finally get one discount store that gives it for eight dollars. Still close to a year’s budget but then I can not get greedier than that. So with a heavy heart I get one. Think I should extract maximum benefit and tell the barber to make them really short. I still have more than a month to go and would not want to spend second year’s hair cut budget as well. But it makes stuff easier for him. He just runs a machine round my head and is done in five minutes flat.