the transition

The change is something that will not go unnoticed, even if you might try to. The flight is just different, something that just changes your life forever. If this just happens to be your first international flight, it can be a little nervous time. After all that apprehensions and packing, you are ready to fly.

The flight from India to any place in USA is time consuming. Ending up in cramps is nothing new, but this flight is something you might enjoy. The food and the connecting flights and a new face beside you, is not what all might enjoy. But, I did. Landing in Paris was wonderful a thought in itself. Wait, till you realize that there is no one to help you out with friendly advises about what to do next, but the screen that is all you have. Takes a minute, but you know what you have to. There you go, international already. If the connecting flight happens to be AIR FRANCE, its just good food. If food is something you can be cautious about, a strict vegetarian diet is a must. You can hear the complaints of some fellow passenger of getting a meal that was not vegetarian! Oops!

The flights might be comfortable, but traveling for hours and trying to get some sleep on the flight can be a little irksome. As you shift in your seat hoping to find that comfort position to catch some sleep, you think of trying out the gadgets they have popped up in you hand. You have a television to watch and channels of music to surf through, or even video games to play. You are the monarch in the air!

While you watch the display map if the flight, you realize with all that time, you have drifted far away from your country. The jolly security officials with their accented “namaste” in the USA, might just bring a smile back to your tired soul. You are not so far, are you? Finally, the destination. The airport takes you aback, it is something you have watched all these days in the movies sitting back home. It’s reality, where in you step into. The casualness of the place, the momentary sights that might embarrass you , till you realize you are the only one in flushed cheeks. The eateries, the people, the vastness of the airport terminals, the laughter of the passerby….all takes you in.

The roads are a wonder; self explained and organized so much, that it confuses you entirely. This is not what you had expected. The efficiency and the modernization of the toll bridges might take your awareness for while, till you realize your jaws have been dropped for a while. Oh….my!!!

The place is all scenic, the beautification mind blowing, till you can’t stop thinking that you favorite spot back home is much more beautiful but just that it’s not so well maintained. They just about beautify every place they can think of. The strangeness remains, till you suddenly spot Aishwarya in a TV interview in ABC and find her so close to you. The wonder clings on to you, while you eat or sleep or just visit a simple store. It is the hugeness, the vastness, the availability and the range that strikes you. Oh, or may be just everything …..the sofa that lies beside the road or the TV beside the garbage bin. This is what the place is, the carpeted bathrooms, the range of the simple corn flakes that you had hated. The cars and the temples and the very strange you that tries to get hold of every information that one can gather. The night mesmerizes you, the lights that make the night so unlike night, the thrill of seeing it all. All this, till you realize they are a just a part of you, you reach out for a paper towel with ease. You talk with that developing accent, eat burgers and doritos and call your home as India. You are a part of the place, yet so Indian. Yes, you have finally reached.