My Great American Dream and Everything After

The Dawn of Reality

I liked the country for exactly 6 months. Surprisingly I even started missing my home country. I missed the dirty streets of Mumbai, Indian women, the rude people, the mangoes and everything I had never even thought about whilst in India. I realized you could take a man out of Mumbai but you could never take Mumbai out of him. All the luxuries I enjoyed in the foreign country seemed to fade when I thought about my friends. It was then that I realized my friends in the US had always advised me to stay put in the country. I was alone with my car, my iPod, my laptop, the gym, the bars and the shopping malls. Even though the kind and helpful people tried their best to let me fit in, I realized that I would always be an outsider. Christmas was not Diwali and no pizza could match homemade rice and “dal”. Oh and I missed the fish the most-the deep fried fish found everywhere in Mumbai. The list was endless. Reality had dawned. I was a stranger in a strange land.

But Then…

I had friends living in the US for over a decade now. My manager never wished to go back. Most of my friends by now hated India. It was then that I realized that the poor souls were living in a dream. An illusion which was made up of nice cars and gadgets. I wondered whether India was so bad.

People told me I was without a family and hence I felt so lonely. But I seriously had my doubts; the loneliness I was facing came from within. I longed for my culture.

Finally

I found a girl who had had a similar experience with the UK. And here we are now; together and enjoying every moment of our lives. We don’t have a car, nor do we have air conditioning. But what we have is culture. As I write this article, it’s beginning to rain outside. I know it will be flooded and I will have to pass through hell to reach my office. But somehow I know I will enjoy it. I have been doing it for years now. My father did it in his time and his father before him. We have all waded through the water, sweated in the summer and collectively cursed the Indian Cricket team.

America is a great country and I have come back with a lot of learning. I have learnt the art of small talk and the right greetings for the appropriate occasions. I am today a much more improved version, thanks to the US. But at the end of the day, I was made in India. And when I do become obsolete, it will be here, in this vast operating system called culture.

When I see so many people still desperate to get out of the country, I realize what they have been missing. People tend to see the illusions and fall for them. I only have this to say to them “Free your mind”.