The Amreecan

With sweaty hands and nervous face my eyes searched for a sign board of Kaivalya Shah or a site of familiar faces. As I impatiently waited sometime I saw another Indian family and smiled at them but in return got a weird stare. I gathered a few American currency coins from my bag and asked one of the airport officials for PCO. She had never heard of the term PCO or Public Call Office. She pointed out at a “pay phone” to me and told me that is all that is available. Suddenly I heard a voice from behind shouting out my name; finally they had arrived to pick me up from the SFO airport.

The melting pot, as its termed, USA has people from various nations coming into it. I often heard people calling me a “weirdo” or “nerd”. I had to dress appropriately so that a particular group of people start talking to me. I could not have my arms around my best guy buddy or else I would look “gay”. I couldnt use certain terms as they are offending to some people. The worst of all- i had to improve my accent. Accents or partticularly the indian accent is the butt of every joke. Amidst these diverse people I got lost my own identity as I tried to figure out the normal ways of talking, normal ways of living.....normal ways of life.

The smell of Mumbai rains fainted out, the sight of people attending natures call on the road faded out, the feel of people beside you in the local died, the taste of the unhuigienic pani puri left my mouth, the silence took place of the babble of daily noises in the mumbai market place.
"Hi, how you doing?" or "hey, wassup?" was what i said everyday as my gaze fell on any random person on the road. 'thanks', 'sorry','have a good day' became my punctuations. And finally i was trademarked by the bloating up of my belly, as i adapted this Fast Food nation.

I lost the Indian touch.
I became an Amreecan.