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.

La Voz Weekly

La Voz Weekly

My daddy is Strongest

He is the one who wears a new checked shirt everyday to work, combs his hair before sleeping at night and always thinks about shaving off his moustache but never does. No one knows where his glasses are and his pocket always has a new pen everyday( sometimes its Ganesh’s pen).They call him the Marathon guy with a Marathon brain power; I call him “dad” or sometimes pappu pager (sorry mom). That’s the guy with dedication, determination and hard work but occasionally on Sundays no one can beat him in dosing off for 10 or more straight hours during the daytime(now that’s hard work right there).

Whenever I am stuck up with some problem I don’t like to look towards him because I know that, even though he has way less knowledge than me in that particular topic, he is going to solve the problem in a jiffy. I don’t understand from where he gets these problem solving techniques. The other day he took his broker exam along with a friend of his, who knew a lot more than dad as dealing in the stock market was his job. But astonishingly they both got the same score.

He believes that one should live up to ones own dreams. No wonder we can find him in Matheran every weekend, sometimes without any company. Not only that, he does his best so that his children can live up to their dreams.. no wonder there is a red lancer used just for 2 months standing in his stilt. Loves adventure in life and encourages it within his family.(we are the ‘First Bungee Family’)

The best known quality which sometimes can be dangerous is his fast math solving capability. It proves to be good when he is dealing with his customers. But when it comes to me telling him about my grades it turns out to be harmful as I cant BS ( colloquial term in USA. BS stands for bull shit) in front of him as the jhol (colloquial term in India. the meaning of jhol differs according to the context but in this case its stands for manipulation) of marks can be spotted out by him easily.

The other day my I met a guy in the bus in Mumbai. We spoke for a while he sounded interesting to me and probably I did too so we decided to exchange numbers. He gave me his business card and in response I gave him my dad’s business card behind which I wrote my details. The card in front read:

Marathon Realty LTD.

Chetan Shah, Director

BTech from IIT Bombay and MS (USA).

I deliberately gave him the card so that I could not only to brag that my father is a director a famous (or soon to be) company of Mumbai but that he is an IIT graduate. Although my father never brags about his own achievements I take the privilege of showing off his achievements in front of my friends.

first day at blogspot

My grandfather was a great writer in gujarati. He has written various books and i dont know whether i am supposed to say this or not but he was also once upon a time Gujarati paper moderator at the SSC board. He always told me that penning down ones thoughts clears a lot of difficulties in life. One can know his inner self by writing. I dont know how far that is true but i decided to give it a try... that is the reason behind starting this blog.
Since this is no school essay i wouldnt emphasize on my writing skills( SAT 1200...Loser) .So this shall be just me jotting down my thoughts and interesting experinces in my life.

Some stuff in this blog might be offensive, viewers descretion advised.