The JOB- Daily travails

The JOB : Daily travails

“Excuse me, doesn’t this lift go to the ground floor”
“The who?” asked the venerable grey-haired gentleman sharing the lift with me.
“The elevator”, I stammered. After all those weeks of driving most folks in India crazy with my insistence on saying “elevator” and “flat” for tires, this was totally unpardonable.
“The what floor” “Ground, zero” . He looked at me incredulously, and said; “Don’t see no zeros here”. so I would have to walk down one story. Good am getting my exercise. But, I thought they believed in labor saving in this country. Strange place, I mused, getting off at the floor marked 1. The ground floor. Here they call it the first. Terribly convenient- in terms of making sense, if you ask me. And they even label it with a star in the elevator( maybe this is a very Texas thing, Let me see if they do it in other states too) But for someone who learnt on Babba’s knee “Second Storey is the first floor” rather puzzling. I have been using the steps- unless it is 12 I need to go to (twelfth, thirteenth… whatever).

No matter how much you prepare yourself to be in the USA, some things just take a lot of getting used to. Bathing is one of them. I know , Maa, I always bathed twice maybe three times a day, back home too. But imagine my chagrin, when the first time I entered a bathroom, there was no bucket. None of that familiar reassuring Dark Green big thing with a sediment at the bottom, and no Mug. For the first five minutes, I looked around. The pristine white tub and shower curtain glimmeringly mocked my dilemma. I know how to bathe in a tub, I have always used one, or the shower , but the baalti was an option always!
Same with the toilet paper. I know this is absolutely disgusting, but no amount of knowing that “abroad” you gotta use paper to wipe yourself, rather than the left-hand-and-water routine, get you used to the absolute lack of water by the loo. It is futile to hunt for the tap that is not there. My solution, do the job quickly, don’t think about it. The more you do, the worse you feel for the rest of the day. Learn to be detached from the mental consequences of the act. Maybe in a million years or so you may evolve not to be shocked by it, but that is a pretty long time!

Drinking out of a fountain is an art to be mastered. After an hour of watching several people, seemingly unconcerned about the dexterity they were displaying casually press the tap and hold their moths and quench their thirst without as much as spilling a drop, I decided I could do it. Why a child had just managed to drink his fill. I pressed and the lever and got a faceful of water, looked around, tried again, and only escaped with a few splashes. Moral- it is never as simple as it appears the first time.

And one needs to be careful of what one says.And how one says it. A “who” and the “excuse me” did make me wonder what strange pidgin English I had learnt. Then I remembered. Speak slowly. Most Indians speak very very very fast- maybe it is the rate at which we think. So if people expect us to speak slowly does this mean that... well never mind- as an Indian you must ahve got the whole idea, even without my completing the sentence.
Oh, yes and I discovered that no one- I repeat emphatically NO ONE actually makes that much sited classic mistake of calling an Eraser- something else- That is a myth. A real one.


And then there are things that you do not prepare for. Like the switches. They turn the wrong way to turn on. First few evenings you may actually sit in darkness wondering why all the bulbs are fused! But then you get used to this. As you do to the Venetian blinds not drapes. Plastic, the mind screamed. And I was reminded of the college hostel where the lazier people used to paste newspaper on the window panes to block out the world. Let me open the window to let the fresh air in. So I pulled, tugged, pushed, cajoled and finally cursed as a nail broke. And learnt that one just slides it- the wrong way.

Yes, everything in the US of A is the wrong way. Look at the traffic. Bitter experience has taught me, never cross a road alone. If in laidback small-town Arlington, it is a nightmare, imagine what Manhattan would be like, my very soul shudders at the thought. Whish side must I look to? Even a roller-bearing equipped neck could not take in the right and the left in a sweeping glance. Maybe doctors do a roaring business with lumbago patients, or perhaps those on the other side of the road are born there.
“So, how am I going to drive?” Ashu had chuckled after very nicely stashing away my bags in the boot, sorry trunk (and no I will not call it what we call it back home!! Thank you very much!!!) when I was waiting on the passenger side (or rather what I imagined to be the passenger side)of the car. Sorry I have not improved since. So I linger on at the back, near the trunk ( see you get it right if you try hard enough!!) and take the side the driver does not take. Simple process of selection by elimination.


But even as the survival instinct kicks in and our innate Indian adabtability, adjustment begins, homesickness rears its lonely head. That at least is universal. “You must miss your mother so much” said the sweet lady at the Payroll office, “And she must miss you too. I have a son your age; I get so upset if he goes away even as far as Dallas”.

At least the tears are the same everywhere.