scpotpourri

I remember the flight that took me to the US, 37 years ago. A young girl going there for my Masters.

Let me paint what the late 80s looked like in India. It was nothing like the India of today. Bangalore was a city with very basic amenities. Very few types of cars on the streets. Cars had no air-conditioning or plush seats. Very few restaurants to be had. Food was what was sourced locally. No malls. No foreign businesses for employment or retail. Not much of private enterprise. No cable TV. The landline was the only phone in use. No luxury available to the common man.  Smuggled goods were sought after. We didn’t complain because we hadn’t seen better.

Back to my flight to the US, my first time leaving Indian shores. The plane was huge and everything on it was on a need-to-be-there basis. The elegantly dressed air hostesses added class to the flight. The food was nothing I had seen before. Pretzels and coke. With or without ice. I couldn’t open the can on my own. Sandwiches, sautéed vegetables and grilled meats. I couldn’t imagine people actually ate such bland food.

Setting foot on American soil was an enchanting experience.  New York city –  the cityscape was captivating. Movies didn’t do it justice. Taking the subway into Manhattan was magical. Walking the streets amid the skyscrapers was delightful. Couldn’t believe man actually created that building and there were loads of them all around. The underwater tunnels were unbelievable.

Manhattan, Kansas, was at the other end of the spectrum – a small campus town, with no tall buildings or huge, congested homes or offices. Life revolved around the university. Very basic necessities available though in better class than what was in Bangalore. The culture shock was real.

Cleanliness all around. Broad streets with fancy (by Indian standards) cars on it. Was swept away by convertibles – actually had a ride in one. In the summer. I had landed there in the dead of winter. The Midwest was biting cold. For days on end. I enjoyed my first snowfall. The town wore a whitewashed look. The flakes came down with alluring grace. They appeared like shining crystals in the light on the deck. The morning after, the huge lawns on campus covered in immaculate white.

Food took a lot of getting used to. There were no Indian restaurants or even grocery store in town. Had to make do with the only international grocery store run by a Chinese family. I had my first burger with fries, my first Pizza with garlic bread and my first sub with chips. My initial reaction was disappointment.  They were painfully bland, some bordering on almost sweet. It took some getting used to. Chinese, Mexican and Italian foods were slightly better though those were tastes that grew on you too. Cocktails were easier on the palate. Beer and Wine – acquired tastes.

To live in the Little Apple, as it was known, one had to own a telephone and a car. It was the age of landlines. Luxury was having multiple outlets for the same number in the house – in the living room, bedroom and the kitchen. You couldn’t go out without a car. No public transport whatsoever. So you found yourself own a second hand one as a student. Automatic gears, heating and cooling were attractive.  I learnt to appreciate central heating and air-conditioning in all buildings… couldn’t survive the winters and summers without them. Buying things on credit and rent-to-own were new concepts to get used to. As were ATMs spread out onto convenient locations

Coming from Bangalore where the weather is pretty much the same all year round, I was first exposed to the four seasons in the US. Loved every one of them. If it was the warming up and filled with flowering shrubs and trees in Spring, the hot Summer at the pool or beach, the reds, oranges and yellows of foliage in the cooling Fall, it was the freezing Winter with snow, all of which I found extremely appealing. You dress according to the season. That meant a changing wardrobe every three months. Loved it.

Over the years the US changed. Back home in India, people saw that happening here as well. Standard of living went up. Luxury became affordable. The differential between what is now available here and in the US has dwindled to a very large extent. If I were to make my first trip to the US now there wouldn’t be much of that magic,  that enchantment that I felt then.

To the fantastic adventure that was 1989!