The America I came across was completely unrecognizable compared to what I had imagined. The humans all looked the same except they were far fairer than what I had expected, though there was another problem. They didn’t speak English! Well, let me explain. The English that Indians learn to speak is Queen’s English and the one Americans speak is…American English. Although the “colour” of sky is blue everywhere; here in US the sky has blue “color.” Well! It caused a lot of embarrassment…not for me but people who tried to introduce me to the American culture that you will eventually find out in my other encounters.
My boss, Kartheek, took me to a restaurant the day I joined…the waitress came and asked something. (FYI- Kartheek was here for over 25 years & married to an American girl. At least he remembered India was Bharat. Kartheek was my litmus test for testing my American language skills or my adoption of American culture… in a way.) First, I thought she was stammering, but then I saw Kartheek was also stammering. That was a clue for me that something was being said and also understood & responded to. I was never more ashamed of myself than this. My mom was an English teacher, and I had topped the school in English, but I couldn’t even understand the stammering business let alone speak.
The lady went away and came back stammering again. I had a very sober or what you call clueless smile on my face. She stammered again. Ah! I was very intensely listening as if my life depended on it. I thought she was asking about my pop. Well why is she asking about my dad? Again, clueless smile appeared on my face. Here the seasoned Indian came to help and said she was asking if I needed a drink. Pop is a drink?! This was beyond my comprehension. Well a few months later I went to Charlotte, NC and very confidently ordered pop and the waitress said, “sorry?” Turned out, here they called it soda not pop. Indeed, the America in my book was different.
People here also think of India in the same way. One day I was talking to the janitor of our building, and he asked me a simple question. I almost died hearing his question.
He was asking if I went to school on a horse or on an elephant. Damn National Geographic. This was just a preview though, I was to get more of this later.
Obviously, March in North Dakota those days (before global warming I mean) used to be quite cold. I was told that if I preferred not to die of hypothermia then I better buy a car. Of course, I hadn’t yet given up, so I started shopping for a “used car.” In India we called it a “second hand car.” But I had discarded that phrase long back when even Kartheek, the seasoned Indian boss, didn’t understand what I was saying.
So, I went to look for a used car. This time I took a colleague of mine with me who was my neighbor in apartment complex and also from neighboring county, Pakistan. My problem is like a quantum particle physicist. I easily find what I look for. The very first car I saw, I liked. But then it was Azam, the Pakistani friend of mine, who advised me not to buy it. He was talking about how the hood was damaged and the trunk had a hole in it and asking the owner if it had block heater, etc. What the heck was that? We did have a car in India but none of them had the parts Azam was asking about. So, I thought I could just go along for the time being.
I lost my first car, but on we went to the next one. This was an odd-looking Toyota. They called it a hatch back. It had only two doors and you had to fold the front seat to get in or out. Again, my love affair started. This time I wasn’t going to listen to Azam, but thankfully he too liked it, except for the fact that it had a big hole in the bumper. But I didn’t care, so we bought it and brought it home. Actually, Azam drove us back. This was my first big purchase in my dreamland.
After we came home, I could no longer contain my curiosity. As a student asks his master, as polite as I could be, I asked Azam. What’s the hood and the trunk? And what heater he was talking about!
Now it was Azam’s turn to have a clueless smiley face. He must have wondered in an awe. And then went on to explain, what the hood and truck were. Oh! I said, we called it “Bonnet” and “Dicky”. So, the Queen’s English word Bonnet became Hood here and Dicky became Trunk. I was to learn later that the stepony has also become spare-tire and a puncture had become flat tire. I had just realized I had to un-learn and re-learn every thing about the car, starting with the vocabulary. I had embarked on my encounters with cars in general and next was to come very soon when I took it to a mechanic and then driving. (FYI – I later found out that an Indian boy Sameer had also became Sam in US). Slowly America was having an encounter with me.
Slowly America was having an encounter with me.