US & USA

My journey to umreekaah started on a pretty glamorous note. Happen to bump into Tollywood's hot chick (Well! Not the latest, Really.) Illeana D'cruz ( http://www.idlebrain.com/movie/photogallery/ileana-pokiri.html ) at Mumbai Chatrapati Shivaji Airport. Took auto/photo-graph etc :-D (ob da!). Well there wasnt anything glamorous for a while after that. Sleepless for a night, we (krishna & me) finally boarded the flight. There was "Indiana Jones" followed by Red-wine, then "Kung-Fu Panda" followed by White-wine and finally "Sarkar-Raj" on the onboard entertainment set well punctuated by short spells of sleep. The 'toast' to america never happened all this while :-( Eventually reached LA, got picked up by a senior and was dropped at another's place.

Had some tough time on day zero night figuring out the inversion in the switch, the absence of the 'MUG' & the ready-made rotis.

Day one was going to campus, getting ID card, opening bank a/c (and talking to that moronic personal banking officer who 'actually' wanted to know what I plan specialize in), having a look at the dingy den that my roommates called an appmnt (for $1800 pm wohow!). The whole thing wasnt atleast as big as my swanky studio in bangalore. Then it struck to me that am in LA. Apart from this another thing struck me. Jet Lag + Fever! For two days there was a three second delay in my neuron network. Imagine having your head enclosed in an airtight glass container & you hear your voice after a delay of three seconds (approx the same round trip time LA-HYD-LA taken by your voice over a phone line). Your vision isnt doing great either. You try to reach for the dish tv remote, crash into the water jug which 'came in your way' & realise it after three seconds. Two days out of calender.

Jet Lags turned into Lets Jag. I woke up finally. Next two days are again out of calender as I went out for house hunting. Its still on. I am skipping all the routine stuff about what ppl write about us of a (neat roads, smooth traffic, courteous ppl, cereals for B/F etc etc).

I can't say it was a smooth landing in US. But it wasn't rough either. The desi seniors are pretty helpful (they dint charge me for that broken water jug & dint finish my mom's ravva laddoos), the univ building is awesome & the mild sunny weather with cool pacific breeze - Fantastic. Probably a beautiful place to watch the sunset sitting in your own sea-facing duplex flat. Smiling. Reassuring yourself why its great to stay single till you are 30 & rich.