Mihir Kamat

Tag: foreign

  • Diaries from Suburbia (Chapter 2)

    What it takes to make a home

    Dear Diary,

    I sit here in a vacant chair at a strange airport, feeling the weight of dirt and grime of three continents on my skin and hair. Home never felt more far away this moment, as the air felt warm and balmy as it washed my face. I cannot feel my legs, but I can feel very much the weight of my lifeless body, in wait of a warm bed.

    As I wait for my friends to arrive, my sleep deprived mind starts to roll footage from a few months ago. In the midst of a dreamy haze, I see myself sitting on my unmade bed under the toasty affection of my azure colored comforter. Wearing only a figure hugging t-shirt too comfortable to throw away and tattered shorts that gave any modicum of modesty a run for its money, I watched a rerun of M*A*S*H on cable TV. This act was accompanied by my shoveling handfuls of spiced, deep-fried rice flakes (or chivda as it is known in India) into my gaping pothole of a mouth. The weary mind can paint quite a vivid picture. I smile as the comforter under my backside feels soft, like heaven, and the four walls that surround me feel like a piece of my own self.

    Home, dear diary, is where the heart is.

    My phone rings, and not a moment too soon, dragging me out of my not-drug-induced stupor. I speak briefly to my friends who have reached outside and are in the parking area, waiting to pick me up. I hang up, stumble upon my wobbly feet and with all my remaining energy haul my carcass alongside my luggage towards the parking lot. I look right then left, a habit I would soon need to forget, to catch a glimpse of two friendly faces I had seen in person for the first time in seven years. The two musketeers were here to pick up the third. My two friends, my colleagues, my seniors, my two saviors, my knights in shining armor. I looked up to them ever since I was a young kid fresh out of college and had their advice in my ear every time I needed them. So what if they had been miles away from where I was and I hadn’t seen them in person before? It was as if we’d known each other for ages.

    Pleasantries exchanged, my luggage made it into the trunk of the car and we were on our way. I was a bit more awake now, soaking in the lights of the city as we moved into and then away from downtown towards a more suburban area. The hard laid concrete roads and well-lit street signs were a welcome break from the potholed tar beds we called roads back home as the car zipped and zoomed at seventy miles per hour. Try doing fifty on a Saturday evening on the pockmarked highways of Mumbai. It took about twenty-five minutes and we were here, at a house that belonged to one of them, and I was happy to take my shoes off and let my feet breathe. In a city of unknowns, I am eternally grateful for the hot meal and warm bed given to me at the end of that long day, and to both of them for taking care of me as one of their own.

    I had agreed to stay with friends for the first week until I got some sort of bearing on the new country and was fully over my jet lag. Whoever said payback’s a bitch has never hear of jet lag. The first week I was here, as soon as it turned five thirty p.m., my body decided that it was time to rebel against my natural instinct and take a nap. Never mind that it is summer and the sun is out until nine in the night, but my eyes wandered into nothingness a good five minutes before they shut down for good. I had no responsibilities yet so I could afford to sleep for an hour or two. But I made it a point to slap myself in the face and get up in a couple hours to help my friends with getting dinner ready. For that one week, I could sleep at will on any surface without the comfort or protection of a pillow and blanket.

    That week, I crashed at a couple of friends’ places until the week after, I had an apartment of my own.

    Apartment hunting in America was a challenge on its own. My place of work was about 15 miles from the city, and about the same distance from either of my friends’ houses. I had no car and no way of getting one, so I had decided to find accommodation close to work. The public transport in the area is abysmal and there are long waiting times, even if you want to hail a cab. Someone had so thoughtfully and strategically located this office far away in the suburbs, away from the crowds and the noise, yet surprisingly connected to one of the arterial routes that linked between the city and my friends’ homes. Genius, I said, having me at the center of a possibly painful tug-of-war.

    I had done my homework long before my travel date. I gave my friends a list of prospective properties to scout, pulled out from the internet, and weighed my options in terms of distance from work and rent. I did the unthinkable thing of selecting and putting up a down payment on a year’s lease, all that on a property I’d never seen personally. I chose to trust the instincts of my confidants and signed the contract electronically before even stepping foot in the country. It wasn’t hard; all it took was a series of blind clicks on the ‘I accept’ button on a bunch of serious looking lease documents, and a hundred dollar deposit, to reserve a dainty yet cozy soon-to-be bachelor pad. I had a roof reserved for my head even before I ever got on a plane.

     ***

    It is a week later, dear diary. It’s time to move in. I enter the long driveway of the apartment complex, lined in the center with cherry trees and on the sides with flowering shrubs. I’m immediately taken in by the tranquility and serenity available at a meditation farm meant for the rich and famous. There are more trees and flowers in one lane than I would expect to find at a park in Mumbai. There are lakes and ducks and a family of jackrabbits near every open area in the complex, and these indigenous fauna are known to come and nest right near an apartment’s patio. That’s another thing; I’d never thought I’d be one ever to have a patio outside my living room. Patios are lost on beings that have lived all their life in crowded cities full of skyscrapers.

    Luggage in hand, I walk towards the crimson door that opens into my empty apartment. I feel ominous, a pang of expectation, as I turn the key in the padlock, about to see my new home for the first time. The door opens and I enter an empty living room, freshly painted white and step on the pastel brown carpet that has just been steam cleaned. I turn and look around; greatly admiring the expanse, comparing the stretch of the area in front of me to the cubicle-like apartment blocks back home that made me feel claustrophobic. This apartment has a full-size live-in closet and includes a separate space for washer and dryer, you know, so that I stay indoors at all times in a temperature-controlled atmosphere.

    One must complete a customary process prior to a move in. The leasing company asks that we check each aspect of every room within two days of the moving date and make a list of anything in the apartment that isn’t working or not in good condition. It could be a leaky faucet or dinged paint on the doorways or blinds that won’t go up or down. They ask for this inventory for two basic reasons. One, to cover their losses in case something breaks on my watch so that they can get it fixed using a generous chunk of my security deposit. Two, to make sure that I sign off that everything was provided to me in the best condition possible so that I may not sue them later if something turns out to be unsafe or unsatisfactory. I think the protection is reciprocal. I also get to protect my interests and raise any flags and get them fixed if I please. This rarely happens in India. A tenant there is just grateful for having a place to stay, and everything else is negotiated on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. You either take it or find some place else.

    My front porch (is what the area in front of my door is called) had a package with my name on it, and it contained something special, nay, something of supreme importance as I would soon come to know. My internet provider had delivered a Wi-Fi router on subscription. Wi-Fi is considered amongst the baser necessities in America, right alongside food, clothing and shelter. I was the proud owner of Wi-Fi in an empty apartment that had nothing but my clothes and some stuff from back home, and a pillow and blanket that I carried around with me.

    In the coming days, I would acquire a mattress, a faux-leather couch and a set of easy tables that came in a box as planks with screw-on legs. I’d littered my kitchen counter with mail-order pots and pans, plates, spoons, cups, and other paraphernalia needed to start a new life.

    It’s hot but cloudy on a summer day one week from the day I moved in; warm enough to turn on the air conditioning, and dreary enough to turn on lights at five in the evening. I sit on my cushy couch in immodest shorts, slightly longer than underwear, transferring handfuls of cheese puffs from the bowl to my mouth. I have a Netflix subscription and I’m watching the next episode of M*A*S*H on my mobile phone using my newly acquired Wi-Fi. I feel a distinct purr in my belly caused by the incessant cheese puff stuffing, and I let one rip to ease off some pressure.

    Home, I know very well now, is where the fart is.

    © 2015 Mihir Kamat

  • Diaries from Suburbia (Chapter 1)

    Leaving on a jet plane

    Dear Diary,

    Constancy has a sadistic way of changing, constantly.

    Life changing things happen to all sorts of people, all the time. Things that made me not want to get out of bed, things that kept me from going to bed in the first place.

    Don’t think for a minute that I use the words ‘life changing’ loosely. You don’t expect to pack your bags and move thousands of miles away without making some hard and demanding decisions. Moving so far away from home, away from your well settled life. You can’t just close out a bunch of close relationships quickly and cleanly. Leaving behind the false hope of meeting again soon, only to linger on for moments in a tight embrace, spouting long goodbyes that last a few seconds. Goodbyes that somehow gave this move a fleeting sense of permanency.

    On a stormy night nearing the end of July, I moved to this strange country. You might argue that The United States of America is in no way a strange country and that thousands, if not millions of people make this journey to and from its golden shores, every single day. Strange, in this context, a mere substitute for its synonym, ‘unfamiliar’.

    It was, I agree, an opportunity of a lifetime. An opportunity to break away from my small, comfortable cocoon in the warm climes of the city that never slept and fly across the seven seas in the discovery of a new culture. I could imagine myself in the shoes of Columbus, an Indian man in search of a fresh new start, who looked west toward a land that many fabled to provide good fortunes. It was a chance to meet people I’ve been talking to over the phone for the past several years, knowing every inflection in their tone of voice by heart but never knowing what they looked like. It was a sweet pretext to travel the world to get to know and mingle with a plethora of cultures, a diverse people of varied languages and cuisines.

    But you see, dear diary, you cannot imagine what a single man, hailing from a tropical metropolis in Western India has to go through to embark upon such an epic journey. Let’s face it, I was quite likable back home, and the displays of affection from family and friends made every rational thought popping up in my head jump through every hoop imaginable.
    You can’t overlook the emphasis on the word, single. There is an unwritten rule in Indian households that until a son gets married, his mom is the only woman in his life. Things may or may not change post marriage, but until that fateful day arrives, he is solely his mother’s property. In my first week of arriving here, I got into an awkward conversation with an aunt and the first question she asked me was, ‘How did your mom let you get away with being single?’

    I wanted to explain my situation, but decided not to. How could I tell her that my last days at home were spent getting a series of lectures on the do’s and don’ts of living in a foreign country? How could I disclose that I’d been negotiating with my mom and dad, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters? Only with the sole objective of giving them a sliver of comfort, coping with the thought of letting me go? That I’ve had to make assurances, promises, and commitments that I wouldn’t get involved in any funny business. You may be twenty-eight, and you might have been a responsible for the past ten years, but your parents don’t trust you with any new found independence. How could I begin to describe their lackluster eyes and long goodbyes? That made me feel like I’m going to see them for the last time before going to the front lines to fight the next world war? There was my thought process too. Why was I leaving behind a lifetime of history and familiarity? Why was I giving up my support structure and the comforts of my warm, comfortable bed to sleep alone on hard floors and reused mattresses in an alien environment? Why was I leaving behind a crowded, fast-paced life in the hot-and-humid oasis called Mumbai and moving to a slow and spacious, soon-to-be-a-frigid American suburb, where time stood still for as long as it could?

    It was time, dear diary, to allay all those fears and put those anxious thoughts behind me. I stared through the open glass panes of Mumbai’s posh and crowded Terminal 2 airport at my family, my eyes moist and heart heavy after the recently concluded finally-final goodbye just a few minutes back. As I proceeded towards the check in and henceforth to customs, I waddled about the commercial expanse of the airport, browsing through useless paraphernalia tourists found interesting. Like an obedient student, I had followed the airline instructions and come in well before the two hour stipulation that most airlines require their passengers to report in. It also meant that I had that much more time to kill in the company of fellow strangers partaking in their journeys.

    The airport is a mystical place. There are different boarding gates to find, and escalators and conveyor belts to navigate the concrete maze. The seats littered with sleepy, irritated, shifty-eyed passengers carrying over packed luggage in one arm and noisy children in the other. Each one was silently praying that the locks will hold or won’t break apart, that the children will behave and that they would have the honorable occasion of meeting their baggage at their final destination. None of which had any guarantees.

    It might be amusing to note that the last meal I had while on Indian soil was a spicy chicken burger from KFC at two AM. I knew my staple diet from now on would consist of burgers, fries, pizzas, and sandwiches, but I couldn’t resist the warm and tantalizing smell of fried chicken wafting over in my direction. Its distinctive Indianized flavor trumped its American counterpart. The soft and juicy center of a crispy, deep-fried piece of chicken reminded me of a little piece of heaven. My country, my home, whose vestige I would be carrying in the garlicky aftertaste on my breath.

    I braced myself for my twenty-three hour long journey. In twenty-three hours, I would have the benefit of checking out four and a half airports, their customs and security checks, and their myriad and enigmatic baggage claim procedures. New York’s JFK counts as one and a half Airport, only due to its sheer size and volume of people it serves daily. Not to mention that I had to fly onwards to Suburbia from its domestic terminal. This monumental journey would require me to fly in three different aircrafts, two jumbo jets and a tiny aircraft that looked like a fountain pen with wings. I would have to deal with annoying passengers who took the window seat and had to pee a lot. Helpful flight attendants whose personal goal was to feed their famished passengers every five minutes And airline staff and crew that dealt with managing frantic, overlapping layovers as inconsequentially as one would scratch an itch.

    I never knew I could sleep sitting down in an uncomfortable economy class chair that had a stuck seatbelt. International flights at least provide headgear and eyewear and ear plugs to make it less painful, and regardless of all those luxuries I was able to get some shut-eye. At least until someone who needed to use the restroom kept brushing my arm every time they passed by. The sun rose in the European skies as I woke up to the smell of fresh eggs and coffee, and in a few hours’ time I would be repeating my ordeal at another airport. I looked into the eyes of the flight attendant who placed a warm hand on my shoulder, grinning as she served me my wake-up juice. With the brown elixir flowing through my body as the blood rushing through my veins, I sat as we descended into London Heathrow.

    The English surely are a warm bunch of people, but moving across their airport is as twisted and confusing as navigating multiple layers of purgatory. Stepping out at London Heathrow and finding your next destination is like following the yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz, across twists and turns and stairs and descents only following the specific colored signs. Getting out of one flight and into another, I might have walked close to three miles.

    I must observe that security at airports has reached a completely new level of paranoia. There are reasons to do this that are entirely justified, but now the rules of the game have completely changed. It’s no longer enough to prove who you are and that you’re not carrying the usual stuff such as matches, cigarette lighters, knives, guns, explosives, inflammable liquids, drugs and miscellaneous weaponry. You now also have to account for uncharged laptops, half-used perfume and shampoo bottles containing unimaginable amounts of liquid, and prove that you aren’t trafficking seeds or fresh fruits as part of your luggage. Not to mention the frisking, probing and disrobing at every checkpoint, something that is easily doable and diligently by an X-ray scanner and metal detector. However, for my safety and yours, these checks are deemed necessary.

    Finally, after hours of waiting and walking, I boarded a transatlantic flight destined for my new home country. Thankfully a shorter trip, loaded with in-flight entertainment and free booze. I found a delightful selection of movies and songs to keep me busy while the plane took off and landed hours later in the Yankee heartland.

    They say that New York is the melting pot of humanity and that you could find a person of every race and culture just by standing in the middle of Time Square. I’d say you can experience the same standing in the immigration queue at JFK, probably the largest airport I’ve ever seen. Volunteers and security staff, making sure that everyone gets to a checkpoint with the shortest wait time possible, managed the never-ending queues ever so efficiently. I answered the immigration officer’s standard set of questions, was stamped in and officially welcomed into the United States of America. A different pride swelled in my heart as I looked at the star spangled banner spread across the far wall, and I immediately felt a false sense of belonging. Maybe too early to tell, but I had arrived.

    As I reached out to the console to input five dollars for a trolley, a volunteer came rushing to my aid. He lined up my two suitcases back to back, aligned their handles together, and taught me how to wheel them along. That street-smart attendant just saved me six dollars. I thanked him profusely for it was truly a valuable lesson, I would have to lug those two bags the entire stretch of the airport across terminals before I checked them in for my next flight. Only in New York could they come up with such a pragmatic solution for a possibly mundane problem.

    I was now sixteen hours into my journey. Completely exhausted, carrying the smell of two different continents, I decided it was best if I changed my shirt. I found an empty stall and went ahead with my business, freshening up but only slightly. I walked out and exchanged my remaining Indian currency for some meager change, picked up some souvenirs from the gift shop, and settled down in a recess in front of the food court. The smell of food tempted me, and there were many options to choose from, and I zeroed in on Wendy’s where the pictures of burgers looked incredibly delicious.

    Fast food menus in the United States are misleading. A triple layered bacon cheeseburger is primarily a beef burger embellished with the paraphernalia mentioned above. For a non-beef eater such as myself, I found out the hard way. I would soon learn to appreciate the taste of beef, only because the exchange rate in my country versus the dollar is abysmal, and I had spent eleven bucks on a meal I couldn’t eat. I chewed on the food that I drowned with generous gulps of soda.

    It was now time to board my final flight that would bring me to the town that would be my home for a while. I dragged my tired arms and sleepy body into the next aircraft, sat my butt down in the narrow chair, buckled up and collapsed in the arms of sweet slumber. The short hour and a half flight concluded quickly, and I was here before I knew it.

    As the sun went down over one continent and rose above another, I sat in a vacant chair at another airport awaiting my pickup. I now have a new life, a blank slate, a different view outside my window for days to come.

    A fresh start.

    © 2015 Mihir Kamat

  • Diaries from Suburbia (Author’s note)

    Author’s note

    I’m too young to write a memoir. But I have an awesome story to tell.

    You see, almost nine months back, I left my home back in the warm climes of Western India and moved thousands of miles away to the United States, and as a result experiencing the joys of leading a single, independent life. My experiences in this foreign country, as time has gone by, have been a myriad blend of emotions; an assorted mix of enjoyable, amusing, frightening, confusing, stupefying, and a bunch of other emotions that put together, to be honest, are quite compelling.

    Diaries from Suburbia is a humble attempt to put in perspective my observations and opinions gathered on this grand and exciting journey. I plan to write this as a set of disjoint, serial stories rather than one, cohesive piece of work. In each part of this story, I unfold a different aspect of my new life, and share anecdotes and incidents to back up my opinions, in the form of a conversation with myself, similar to an inner monologue. I expect this sum of experiences to be funny, heartwarming, yet allowing myself sometimes to dive into incessant and naïve rambling.

    All in all, dear readers, expect a lot of fun. I leave you with some food for thought as you wait for the first installment.

    Nights are as bright as day, the days are as dark as night

    Surfaces don’t reveal what is hiding in plain sight

    What’s hot doesn’t burn, what’s cold doesn’t frost

    Nothing is what it seems in the land of the lost.

    © 2015 Mihir Kamat