Well, that was the third question, the 6.4" tall Afro-American
homeland security officer asked me in LA international airport
upon my arrival in US of A.
"What is your purpose of visit?"
"Business visit"
"How long are you going to stay here"
"For a week or two"
"Fine..given a chance, will you stay in US."
"Given a chance what..",I murmured.
Firstly, I did not expect this question.
I really don’t know how to answer this question.
But I replied back, "This is a hypothetical question, I don’t have an answer"
He gave a weird look and he said slowly,
"Young man, I am bound to ask this hypothetical question and sometimes
in the world hypothetical circumstances becomes reality. And you
are bound to give a genuine answer"
"Fine, I never gave a thought about that. I do not foresee any
circumstances either, and my work is based in London and
I will go back to London once my business trip is over."
He gave a sarcastic simper and asked me to go.
The chauffer who whisked me from LA airport is 6.2” tall, stout and muscular.
California weather was really hot and sunny, contrary to my self-made
assumption that California is cold. He told me that it is actually a desert.
When I asked the chauffer, whom do you support in the presidential elections
his answer was clear.
“Given the current economic crisis and America’s heavily criticised
foreign policy, Obama will be a right choice. He speaks sense.
I think he can bring back the sanity that was tampered by Bush.
And more over Sarah Palin stinks”
Apart from awesome and cool, seems the most common words/names
used in America now are Obama and Palin!
In America everything is big. Right from the toilet seats to car seats to trucks to pizzas to refrigerators to milk cans ,everything is big. The English they speak is kind of harsh(at least to me!).I am puzzled when the New Orleans Mayor asked his people to get their butts moving out of New Orleans during Hurricane Gustav.I wonder the kind of language they use. A cultural difference..??
America is bit bizarre, outlandish for me. Nothing is sacred in this country. From sex to divine, seems nothing is sacred to them. Nothing applies to everything that you think of .They question the rules, question the well established dogmas and they dazzle in something or the other and they just pop out of the page and hog international lime light. But whether they hog the limelight for right reasons or wrong reasons is a different matter altogether.
Fine.
I am hurt by the way Sourav Ganguly was treated by BCCI. Statistics and performance speaks for him. His performance was outstanding during the last two years, except during last Sri Lanka series. BCCI and the bunch of jokers like Dilip Vengsarkar and Kiran moore spoiled his career by unnecessarily putting pressure on him through their ad-hoc way of selecting the team and having different yardstick when selecting Ganguly.
The Prince of Comeback again proved that he is capable by hitting a century against Australia in Mohali test. People who watched his batting would have noticed the way he played. It was perseverance personified. Just after his century, he raised his arms and smiled to himself. He didn’t point his bat to anybody, he didn’t had any message for his critics,detractors as if they didn’t matter. It was a moment of glory.
Good bye Prince of Kolkata.We will miss you.
