Unity in Diversity

I am Indian in US pursuing his American Dream(a.k.a Masters). In short i am one of the countless Indian Diaspora at US trying to achieve something. Diaspora which stands for "Scattering of seeds" in greek.Better known here as "Desis". When i landed in US i heard that term quite often, and it set me thinking,for the americans we are all same, a single group of people irrespective of the differences that we have created among ourselves. I remember the first incident when me and a couple of friends were talking to an american friend. Me and my friend spoke in our mother tongue which my other desi friend did not understand. My american friend was quick to spot that and asked us whether we were talking in some other language other than "Indian" and we had to go round and explain to him that there is no language called as indian but rather a huge set of languages, he seemed totally amazed that in a single country there are so many differences despite the fact that all of look the same. That led me to think I guess whatever the differences we may have we still belong to the same country as the other people are not able to differentiate between us. Yet back home we seem to fight over petty things like language, region and whatnot. We seem to create more and more differences among ourselves.Yet amazing enough here far from home we seem to have forgotten our differences and become a single big family. I mean how often in India do you find people travelling in cars stopping by and giving you a lift? I met a friend from north india who stopped by while i was waiting for my bus(Which was unusually late). He offered to drop me to college. I was amazed as i had never ever met the guy in my life, yet here he was offering me a lift. I sooke to him about quite a few things(mainly about our country). When i got down i asked what made him to stop by and give me a lift and he replied promptly "Are yaar yahan to desis hi to ek doosre ki kaam aate hai". That set me thinking he wanted to help me out because he felt i was an indian and that was more than enough reason for him to take the extra trouble of dropping me to college. And i came to know from friends that this was a normal thing and even i was expected to do the same thing. I guess the desis here are willing to help one another because you remind them of something which they have left back home inorder to achive their dreams in this foreign land.But here its as though our differnces have blurred to almost non existance. If you are an desi you will find that all the desis around you will talk to you without any hestation never mind where you are from or where they are from . Its as though the distance has caused us to grow closer. Last time when we had a party i could count people from all over my country mixing together sharing their thoughts freely. It makes me realise despite our differnces there is some bold that seems to run deeper. When i read about unity in diversity in our history and civics books it felt great but some how i never had the oppurtunity to feel it myself. But out here i can see unity among our people which makes me realise how pround am i to be an INDIAN.

To Cook or Not To??

After a long gap of 3 months i am back at putting my view on the life at US. Now for every new guy who lands without any prior experience of that basic survial stuff known as "cooking" life suddenly becomes pretty hard and funny. Hard because all of a sudden you cannot relax and enjoy your life on your mom's cooking. Funny because you get your apprenticeship under the
guys who sometimes would have come only 5-6 months before you. Now i remember the first time i tried to cook it was harder than any courses i had done till now(For all my friends laughing there i ask them to try it out and then you will realise what i am talking about). Now my room mates told me "hey its not difficult to learn basic of cooking we will teach you in 20 minutes" i guess they never realised that how difficult is it to teach a guy who has no idea how rasam powder looks or sambar looks. The first time i cooked the my roommates realised what a duanting task they had ahead of them. The expression they gave was of pure horror like they had been given a cup of hemlock(poison) or something. For all you guys who are learning to cook like me, I can give you one advice,look at the faces of your room mates. Its a pretty much accurate description of your cooking.Whenever you start cooking you will see your roommates going through various stages based on your cooking expertise. The usual stages are "1.Shock, 2. Dread 3. Resigned Acceptance 4. Appreciation" mostly in that order(mind you its not easy to get to the 4 stage,however eventually you will get there if for no other reason but practice makes a man perfect and the fact that your stomach is on the line.). Now the first thing you have to do is to learn a couple of dishes really well. No i am not saying it because i feel for your roomates. I am saying it so that if you are living alone you can survive on your cooking. Once you get a hang of things you can start experimenting(Guys when i mean experiments please try be a bit moderate as the end products will end up in your stomach.) Now in my case after 4 months of hard work and persevarance(for all you guys who know me,read it as trial and errors) i am at a stage where i can say safely that i can survive on my cooking. But i guess its a vicious cycle for soon it will be my turn to go through these stages as a new bunch of guys will come for fall semester.

I guess for an MS student its one of those institutions where every new guy gets to shatter the idealic existence of the older roomates through that ancient art "COOKING or something like that".

My first month is USA

So guys after a great amount of thought and a great deal of persuasion from Abhishek i have decided to put down on paper my month experience in USA.I will try to tell you guys what to expect in usa from an "An Indian's Perspective". Okay here it goes. The first thing i observed when i landed in US was that these people seem to love to stay fit, no wait love is not the word to describe it you might say "obsessed". I mean you will find people jogging at any time of the day, when i say any time i mean any time morning 6, afternoon 12,1 etc and heck they even run at 12 in the night. For a guy from India you will really find it funny to find people jogging when you are planning to go to sleep. when i landed in new jersey i found people going for a jog when the temperature was 8-10 Farenheit degrees that too in shorts.
Coming to the matter of food, For indians who used to go to department shops to get neccesary items you will find the stores here very confusing they will have atleast 10 varieties of the same item and the store people will arrange it in such a way that you will get totally confused what to buy. My friends i went with for shopping seemed to buy things based on their nuritional value, i guess even a 2% increase in Calories is really bad for health huh.
Now the students in the university can be classified into 2 broad groups- one those who are fat and the other those who are fit, There is no in between. When a say fat i mean fat, there is no way you will find anybody like that in India, trust me no way you will find anyone(by the by if you happen to find anyone like that he should be prosecuted for eating 10 people's food singlehandedly).
The students here seem to take up all branches of study, wait did i say all? i meant all except "Computer Science". Hell my class has 75% indians and 20% chinese and sprinking of americans. The people here unlike back in india seem to be willing to take up any field. They have fields and departments which no body in india would have heard about.
Oh and the Local bus service- People in bangalore who constantly say that BMTC gives a very bad service(myself included) should come here one time, then they will realise how good a service BMTC is offering. Here the bus service runs properly for 5 days then on saturday and sunday they reduce it or in their own words they have a "reduced bus service". And mind you they are very particular about reducing it. On saturdays the bus service stops by 6 and on sunday by 4(in the evening). You might be thinking what about the night life during weekends, well you have to walk to find your night life which maybe anywhere 10-12 for downtown. By 10-12 i meant miles not kilometers, that is approximately 20 Kms.Here the only proper mode of travel is through cars, But for a student just from india that's a very expensive dream. Hmmm i guess i have streched this narrative long enough, Its about time I took a break(Lets just say for your convinience), I will stop it for the moment. Oh and Abhishek this one i am dedicating to you.