America, The First Impressions of

It's been about ten days I've been here and I think I am now eligible to write about my first impressions of the place and of course the people *grin*. They're friendly and as you enter any store they heartily ask, "How you doin' today?" to which they even expect a reply. and just to clarify, I'm NOT being sarcastic.


I received a very warm greeting as I landed in Chicago from my dad's friend Tuli Kaku, very loving Kakima and Bittu-dada. I spent my first two days in America in a posh suburb close to Chicago. Naperville was the most manicured place I've ever seen: all the lawns of all the houses looked exactly the same, all the streets were identical, even the trees were barred from growing beyond a height. The pinnacle of this artificial beauty (I have to admit the place was pretty) was the Dupage Riverwalk: a cemented walkway through the "wilderness", with the river flowing by, geese hobbling around, and even a cut down trunk designedly placed in the frothing waters of the river, to give it the wild look.

Chicago was a much more real place. The cluster of parked sailboats in Lake Michigan was a spectacle. At the centre of the city was the Millenium Park, and what amazed me most was "The Bean": a large metallic bean shaped thing which mirrors the Chicago skyline. The city was alive with people and it being a weekend, with families and kids.


Then I came to Purdue, the home of the Boilermakers, as their football team is lovingly called. As I was approaching the place I realized the consul-officer who interviewed me for my US visa wasn't joking; the place IS in the middle of cornfields. Acres and acres of cornfields. The country amazes me with it's proportions. Nothing is small here: their Macdonald's burgers, their CocaCola glasses, vast croplands, the people, all are big.

Honestly I hated my first day at Purdue, the place grew on me slowly. There were no people around, I had no friends on campus, the weather was cold and the culture-shock: Everyone sticks to themselves and tends to themselves. To give an example, I made sandwiches and I asked one of my housemates if he wanted some. He politely refused. We in India would take a bite even if we're not hungry just for the heck of it. But here this formality when it comes to stuff like food, is something I did not understand, something I took a little while to get used to.

Bright sunny days light up spirits and soon things started looking up. I started experiments and they were working, I made friends with my labmates, and one of them drove me to Indianapolis over the weekend. I met some other Indians on campus, among them a Bengali and relished a language-treat, most fulfilling. It's amazing how a little connection with home made me real happy.


I have been missing Bombay, but I am enjoying Purdue as well. Soon I will get myself a bike and my Purdue ID card with which I can go to the Recreation Centre!!!