Confessions of a desi: What holds us in awe during our first few days in Amreeka!

I liked the response I got for my post on Decoding Desis, and you could consider this as an extension. 

Now, if you are an Indian and came to the States as an adult - for education, your first onsite assignment, a holiday trip (aah u stinking rich brat!), or your honeymoon (first or not), you have to admit that a few or all of these things did leave you awe struck in your first few days here. 

• Voicemails. It doesn't matter that India is technically still a developing country, our rickshaw pullers, vegetable vendors, house maids, all boast of cell phones. So, we actually do consider the cellular revolution in the US with its really crappy prepaid plans and charges on incoming calls and messages as quite neanderthal, however, what fascinates us absolutely is the concept of voicemails. I cannot get more honest on the web than this: The first time, I actually rehearsed my voicemail message and kept re-recording it till my throat was sore and I was still not satisfied (I am still not with my current one). I did that on my office phone and home phone as well!

• Pedestrian signals. While the use of traffic signals in our home country has been the butt of many jokes, here, we absolutely get fascinated when we push the walk button for the very first time to cross the road. It actually amazes us that the drivers stop, don't honk, and continue to patiently wait for us to cross the road completely. What tops this, is that you actually have cops who ticket a jaywalker! The first time I noticed this in LA downtown, I was just mesmerized on the spot.

• The uniformed men! While on the cops, what is with the policemen here - forget policemen, even TSA agents at airports. 90% of them are so gentlemanly, polished and good looking. I still remember being of sheepishly giggly with a flirting TSA guy at an airport with a dear friend (If she reads this, she will know :)). ANd I will never forget the two amazingly handsome, polite cops who helped me with my luggage and got me a cab on my very first day in this country. I am yet to come across a good looking cop in India - that mouche and pot belly just doesn't cut it. (While, to be fair, I must admit the men in the armed forces in our country do have a very gracious air about themselves).

• Costco and Uncle Sam's. I mean I would not be a true desi if I did not mention these two retailers in my post, would I? The first time I went to Costco, my eyes rolled over a few zillion times. Who consumes such enormous amounts of colas, cereal, energy bars. Oh forget that. Who uses so much toilet paper - infinite rolls and rolls in a single package! (P.S. For the last so many years now, I have been a loyal Costco customer. :P)

• Black Friday. No, I have never stood in a black friday sales line. I swear. But, I have got out at 7AM the next morning to check out the hullabaloo. The stores looked like a tornado came and swept it away! For the first time, the madness of thanksgiving is really something.

• There is no ground floor! It is one thing to have a different metrics system and a date system - we are left confused with the pounds, the miles, and the Fahrenheit, and the mm/dd/yyyy, but didn't we Indians share with you over telephone lines (or pigeons) or something the concept of zero? You go to lease an apartment and you have to keep reminding yourself, that the lovely lady means the ground floor when she says first, the first when she says second and so on - ditto our state of mind in the elevators!!!

• Weather.com obsession. We had never partaken in conversations such as these: "Keep a light jacket for the evening, the temperature is going to fall." Let's begin on our drive an hour later, by then the rain would have stopped at the intended destination.", "It is 10F but feels like -10F because of the windchill". Thank you for teaching us how are entire lives can revolve around the forecast for the day.

• Portion sizes! Oh my, the pizza slices, the burger bites, the triple pancakes, single entree pastas, the humongous omelettes, the huge "small" coke - You are getting me wrong - we are all not exactly thin but our appetites are way less!

• The animals and birds! I don't if my fellow desis have noticed or not - but the average sized cat, pigeon, crow, squirrel and sparrow are much huge compared to their Indian counterparts. Not only are they huge, they are fearless.I have never had to fearfully cross a path because an adamant grey eyed cat refused to give some way. I was scared for dear life at the Battery Park in NY while eating falafels and rice because the birds would refuse to be "shooed" away. To make things even better, there was once a raccoon in our trash can in Schaumburg, IL and not to mention the number of deer I have seen cross the road in a hoity doity fashion in so many places :).  

• Parking lots. I mean there is parking every freakin' where. Not just malls, grocery stores, plazas, but even in the chaos of the downtown hub, during peak hours - somewhere, somehow you will find a parking - never mind the rates, never mind if you have to walk 10 blocks left or right or straight - but you can be assured you will get to park (under reasonable circumstances ofcourse - you cant be looking at parking in Times Square or Hollywood Boulevard now!). What is even better, is that you can chalk those parking spaces online while planning your trip. Every place is "mappable", like that :D.

Okay, my fellow countrymen in Amreeka, over to you. It is confession time :D.

Decoding Desis

You don't have to be in phoren (foreign) land long enough to know your desi pals. For the uninitiated, 'desi' is a term we Indians use for our fellow country men - it may or may not mean any contempt. Here's the Wiki definition.
(Afterthought: OMG, desis made it to wiki, now we have surely "arrived", haven't we?)

P.S. I am writing this post with a lot of hesitation so please take this warning very seriously.
If you cannot take a joke on yourself and are very sensitive about the whole Indian-ness and associated sanctity, this post is NOT for you. This post is just meant to sit back and smile in indulgence. I do not mean to offend anyone in any way.

Phew, with that halfhearted sincerely meant disclaimer, let's move on.

So, here is some dope on desis, which I have experienced personally in my various travels and stays in the supposed land of the billion dollar dreams.

• In the first few days of your arrival, the sight of fellow desis makes you smile (within) in a very reassuring way. As soon as you spend a month, you come to the realization that we are just about everywhere. There are only so many reassuring smiles that can happen. In about 6 months, you show visible distress as soon as you spot loud speaking desis who are obviously not as politically correct in their behavior and attitude as you are. A year into your stay, and you think that the diwali gatherings at the Indian temple are best avoided because your Indian network is already too big (and did they say H1B quote was already full, how do all these millions make it here every year :D). One more year down, and it surprises you if you reach an event or a grocery store, or a tourist spot and you don't spot a desi. Where are all of them? Am I at the wrong venue?

• A fellow desi who approaches you (in a store or a mall) with the opening statement, "Looks like I have seen you somewhere", is an Amway shark - who is looking for prey. He/She can make out you are the new blood in town. That statement is your cue - run, run as far as you can. 

• A simple rule of thumb in choosing the best Indian restaurant is that if a lot of Americans visit that place, it sure is not authentic - tastes have been tempered with. The best Indian grub in town is served by desis, to desis, from desis.

• It is culturally insensitive to ask desis what their Friday night or weekend plans are. Oil massage for our hair, threading, waxing, soaking and grinding rice and lentils for the week's dosa/idli batter, buying groceries for the week's cooking, vacuuming, and laundry are all not your idea of a regular weekend, right? Now, let's leave it at that.

• Most desis often will discuss with each other how the glorious era of the Great Indian Cricket conglomerate is fast losing its shine, and that they think IPL (Indian Premier League) is such a short change for the real deal that apparently cricket is supposed to be. HOWEVER, these people will hurry home and watch the highlights of every single match they missed and will be updated on every single wicket!

• Game Day, Super Bowl are events that most desis have adapted to. But how much ever interest we might feign, Cricket is THE religion. Refer the point above.

• There's this great belief that the first 100 in the queues outside any electronics store during Thanksgiving are desis. That IS true. But every desi will swear that he or she has never done it. So who are those? Well they are the ones who just landed.

• All those 7-11 jokes on Miss America don't really bother us that much. Back home, our parents insist on 'fair' brides for us in the matrimonial columns. And we are yet to have a 'dark-skinned' girl crowned as Miss India. Forget women, we wholeheartedly support Fair and Handsome (creme) for men too.

• Just because we shop at sales events and are lifelong members of Sam's Club/Costco, we are not cheap. We are smart people. We pay our taxes on time - our contribution way higher than the average. (It is another matter that we are also s$%t scared of the law that is actually implemented.) Even in the throes of economic crisis, we fuel the cash flow by travelling and and buying all those chocolates and iPods for our trips back home.

• Desis in general are very critical of fellow desis. We are easily embarrassed by our own brethren (most of the times, quite justifiably). A glorious example of this is that we refuse to rent in an apartment community where there are towels and other articles of clothing hanging in the patios. No, we even refuse to see the model apartment. 

• Dear American 'brothuhr', no desi will open up about this to you, but every time you refer to the massacre of Indians etc., we get goose bumps all over. It takes us a while to figure out you are talking about Native Americans - but during those few minutes, we have already imagined the worst.

• And finally, the English language. Most of us study English pretty much as a first language from kindergarten, yet we might mess up our w's and v's. Also, our vernacular tongues may make our speech highly accented, but hello, your deep south accents with the heaviest of r's evuuhh are no good either.

By the way, just a footnote, we desis are as diverse as diversity can be. Just because you have met a few, you don't know us all. We come in more flavors than you can imagine!

What are your favorite 'desi-isms'?