Me, My Port of Entry and a Cup of Coffee!
This is a story about my arrival in the United States of America and some of my first experiences here.
I arrived in the United States of America for the first time with my husband in December of 1999. Back then I was coy, with a perpetual smile on my face. Please note I am saying ‘was’… needless to explain I trailed behind my husband unaware of the life in USA except whatever I had witnessed in news channels or movies. Before marriage, I had never seen an airplane or driven a car. Not only was the land and culture alien to me, but my own husband was a stranger too. Ours is an arranged marriage, meaning I was permitted an exclusive 15 minutes of private interview with the man whom I now proclaim to be my husband. We knew nothing of each other except the information we had exchanged through our bio-data. We were introduced to each other during a brief family visit and that is all we knew of each other. Americans cannot digest this concept of an arranged marriage. Sometime back I had the occasion to relate my marriage fable to some of my American friends. They were silent for an entire minute before they bombarded me with questions. Some of them call him the 15-minute man.
Upon arrival at the Washington D.C. airport we filled out long forms for our immigration process. I could not figure out why the airport was being referred to as our port of entry. We had arrived by a plane not a ship. Someone clarified that the immigrants had come to this country in hundreds and thousands…by ship. Hence the term ‘port of entry.’ This is the same reason why parcels are shipped and not posted or mailed.
My husband worked as a post-doctorate fellow with the University of Charlottesville at that time. In preparation of my arrival he had rented a one-bedroom apartment on Emmet Street. He had managed to secure some pots and pans from the University’s recycling department. I still have this first set of heavy stoneware plates carefully stored in the Attic as memory of our new household in Charlottesville. My husband left early in the morning on his bike to work and returned at noon to have lunch with me. I stayed by myself in the small apartment trying to remain busy as best as I could. Almost desolate in that apartment, I felt homesick. I missed my parents and I missed all the familiar things I had become accustomed to in India. Where are the people I had thought as we had driven back from the airport.
I had never seen a home quite like mine before in my life. Our apartment on the Emmet Street had wood floors. Now that I am an architect by profession, the wood floors were a cause of great awe when I stepped into the living room for the first time. I placed my luggage slowly on the floor as my eyes scanned the empty living room from corner to corner. That first time I walked sliding my bare feet deliberately to rub against the smooth wood planks. They were tinted in dark cherry finish, polished and cleaned. I was almost overwhelmed with the thought that I was to stay in that home and walk on those wood floors. Such beautiful wood floors. I had seen wood only in the old Indian homes and wood that was banned as a construction material in India was freely used in my apartment. The home was of wood and the closets were of wood. I later found that wood is a common and cheap material of construction in the United States of America. The electric poles were wooden. The radiant heater was another object of my curiosity and observation. The sight of four burners on the kitchen stove that burst into flames with the turn of the knobs brought back images of the two burner stove I had at my home in India and the kerosene stove that was used in emergency. The knowledge of hot and cold water being delivered at the desired temperature was assuring of not having to wake up at odd times at night to fill up pots and pans. A habit that I was almost used to in India at my parents home. Our apartment had a refrigerator in the kitchen and a bathtub and sink in the bathroom. These are items of luxury in India for the middle class where I belonged. The first refrigerator that arrived in my childhood home was when I was in 7th grade. Until then we kids were sent to our neighbors homes to borrow a bowlful of ice to prepare a cooling ‘sherbet’ for the hot summer afternoons. Even today my mother’s home in India has one cold-water tap on the one sink that is in a hallway outside the bathrooms. We now own a home that has many more amenities than our Charlottesville
The following months were like whirlwind where I remember only the underlying perplexed feelings. I remember carrying out the comparative analysis of the lifestyle, the culture, the day-to-day life pattern of people here and people in India in order to make sense of all that I saw around me. For instance I was literally shocked to see people selling their household items and found no immediate justification for them. I have known my grandmother to save even paper bags from grocery and recycle them resourcefully. The yard sales left me thoroughly confused. For me they signified the materialistic abundance combined with the casual attitude people have towards collecting objects just for the sake of it without any purpose or meaning. Objects collected I thought to conceal the emptiness. I found this fact quite unsettling that there were empty roads, empty homes, empty parks and empty phones with answering machines connected to them. This emptiness was cold and hard and a cause of great anxiety for me in those beginning days when I was learning to inhabit the new environment. I remember walking slowly and deliberately to pass my time in the neighborhoods and the parking lots. I literally remained perched on the windowsill most part of the day staring out at the road in the hope to see human beings. Someone reading this might think of the several things I could have done with the time I had in hand. True. When I look back at that time, I cannot but marvel at the free time I had then. But I was so brand new to the place and there were many things on my mind, such as my parents, my family and my future in the States that all I really wanted, was to express this anxiety someplace. And therefore all I could do was think about it and stare out the windows or write in my journal. If I did none of this then I sent e-mails and wrote letters. I also had the anxiety of being married, if you will please read between my lines here given the fact that it was an arranged marriage. Besides there were the tons of questions arising out of my mere daily existence. For instance the measurements were done in feet and inches and I was used to the metric system. How many pounds equal a kilogram? And how many liters equal a gallon. And why do people drive on Parkways and park on Driveways and why do you always need a doughnut in the car so on a so forth. So you see despite the free time, there wasn’t really any time that was free as such; it was all occupied with several questions.
An interesting event occurred one day and I am mentioning it because it gives an idea of how confused I was with the so called normal things of American life. Sometimes during the first week of my arrival in the United States of America, my husband and I decided to go out for dinner to the downtown mall. It is a place with cobbled streets having restaurants and boutiques on either side in the heart of Charlottesville. In the center of the street is the famous Paramount theatre with lights on its front canopy. There are many good eating-places here. The restaurants arrange their wrought iron dining furniture outside and in the evening the place becomes alive with people walking up and down the street. A few vendors setup colorful kiosks selling hot dogs, jewelry, painting etc. and people gather around them like ants around a sugar coated peanut. In the middle of the street is a water sculpture with an adjoining amphitheatre on the steps of which the local musicians gather in the evening to sing and play their instruments. The music adds lime-like jest to a plain glass of water. Overall the atmosphere at the plaza reminds me of Indian bazaars with lots of people in colorful attire. When we arrived there that day it was twilight. We sat in the dinning area arranged on the street and ate a vegetarian pizza. After dinner I ordered coffee and the boy waiting on us brought my cup and placed my cup in front of me.
I noticed that the coffee was black. I said to the boy “Could I please have some milk and sugar.”
“Sure” he said grinning from ear to ear and went inside the restaurant.
A few minutes later he came back with a small basket of tiny containers and packets of sugar like the ones they had served us on the plane. I was expecting him to show up with a pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar like they would in India if you ever requested it.
“Here’s your cream and sugar” he said placing the odd collection before me.
Thanks, but this will not be enough I thought to myself when I saw the meager quantity of milk and sugar. I felt famished. Should I explain to him that I add instant coffee in milk with 2 rounded teaspoons of sugar or should I just offer to make my own coffee by going in the kitchen. The Owner's of the restaurant would not mind, would they? Sometimes during my post-graduation years, I had been on a road trip in Himachal Pradesh in India with some friends. On the way back home we had stopped at a small roadside diner for lunch. It was a cold late afternoon and the Owner was huddled under one of the tables wrapped in his blankets for the afternoon nap. We woke him up from under the table. Feeling sorry that we had awakened him, I had volunteered to help him prepare our lunch. It was nice and warm behind the stove and I had gotten myself acquainted with him enough to exchange our phone numbers with the promise to see each other if ever he were in town again. He was grateful for all that help and had graciously tweaked the curries to our liking per my request. Maybe the good people here in Charlottesville won’t mind either if I step into their kitchen, since I would after all be saving them their efforts and could even teach them how to make an Indian version of coffee. There were quite a few Indians in Charlottesville that they could then cater to. But I did not offer to help, instead I said, “I am afraid but this will not be enough. Could you please fill my cup with 50% milk and 50% coffee and add two heaped teaspoons of sugar.”
He stood there for a while trying to make sense of what I was asking him and then he said, “What kind of milk would you prefer?”
White of-course, does America have multicolored milk. Bewildered I asked, “What do you mean?”
Straining his eyebrows he said rather slowly, “Would you like 1%, 2%, non-fat, whole milk or half and half?”
“Excuse me.” I responded back. I was literally confused with the new knowledge that simple milk could exist in so many varieties. I was of-course clueless and had no idea which type to pick from the variety he was describing. The only milk I had ever known was cow’s fresh milk delivered at our doorstep by the milkman at 4:00 a.m. daily in India. I was about to ask for an explanation when my husband replied, “Whole milk please.”
The boy appeared impressed as he left. After sometime he came back with my cup of coffee, which was now whiter to my relief.
“There you go. I hope you like it.”
I took a sip and was immediately sullied to realize that it was cold. The boy had added cold milk from the refrigerator.
“This is cold, could you please re-heat it.” I asked with a little irritation. He heard me and his smile disappeared. Coffee can be enjoyed in any one of the two temperatures. Either hot or cold, this was neither. Without a word he picked up my cup with a serious face as though he was thinking about administering some bitter medicine to that thing in my cup and walked back slowly. A while later he emerged carrying my prized coffee on a tray raised in midair with a triumphant smile of ‘I made it’
Placing my cup before me he said, “I hope this is right for you now Ma'am.”
I smiled at his emphasis on the word Ma'am.
I was gratified to see steady steams rising from my coffee. I held the warm cup in both hands and took a sip. The waiter stood there watching and ready in case I was to summon him on another task. I am sure he must have held his breath while I took that sip.
I smiled at him satisfied and said “Thank you, this is perfect.”
He smiled back. Relieved.
“Wow” he said, “I have never seen anyone drink so much creamer before. I’m impressed.”
My husband and I smiled back generously not bothering to explain that the entire population of India consumes this much creamer regularly in their teas and coffees. We paid him a hefty tip and left.
Later I received a crash course from my husband about the variety of milk available when we visited the local supermarket. Today I do not drink as much ‘creamer’. Neither do I drink whole milk, but pour a small stream of non-fat milk in my tea. I drink coffee rarely, but whenever I do, I still like it with 50-50 whole milk and two heaped teaspoons of sugar. Today things are different for me. The United States of America has become our second home. I drive to work and also enjoy driving long distances by myself. I have learnt the norms of daily life and black coffee does not surprise me any longer, though I still wonder how somebody can drink something as bitter as that. I have several friends and life is livable again. The nature of questions I face daily is quite different. Adventures still occur sometimes and I enjoy them thoroughly.
I arrived in the United States of America for the first time with my husband in December of 1999. Back then I was coy, with a perpetual smile on my face. Please note I am saying ‘was’… needless to explain I trailed behind my husband unaware of the life in USA except whatever I had witnessed in news channels or movies. Before marriage, I had never seen an airplane or driven a car. Not only was the land and culture alien to me, but my own husband was a stranger too. Ours is an arranged marriage, meaning I was permitted an exclusive 15 minutes of private interview with the man whom I now proclaim to be my husband. We knew nothing of each other except the information we had exchanged through our bio-data. We were introduced to each other during a brief family visit and that is all we knew of each other. Americans cannot digest this concept of an arranged marriage. Sometime back I had the occasion to relate my marriage fable to some of my American friends. They were silent for an entire minute before they bombarded me with questions. Some of them call him the 15-minute man.
Upon arrival at the Washington D.C. airport we filled out long forms for our immigration process. I could not figure out why the airport was being referred to as our port of entry. We had arrived by a plane not a ship. Someone clarified that the immigrants had come to this country in hundreds and thousands…by ship. Hence the term ‘port of entry.’ This is the same reason why parcels are shipped and not posted or mailed.
My husband worked as a post-doctorate fellow with the University of Charlottesville at that time. In preparation of my arrival he had rented a one-bedroom apartment on Emmet Street. He had managed to secure some pots and pans from the University’s recycling department. I still have this first set of heavy stoneware plates carefully stored in the Attic as memory of our new household in Charlottesville. My husband left early in the morning on his bike to work and returned at noon to have lunch with me. I stayed by myself in the small apartment trying to remain busy as best as I could. Almost desolate in that apartment, I felt homesick. I missed my parents and I missed all the familiar things I had become accustomed to in India. Where are the people I had thought as we had driven back from the airport.
I had never seen a home quite like mine before in my life. Our apartment on the Emmet Street had wood floors. Now that I am an architect by profession, the wood floors were a cause of great awe when I stepped into the living room for the first time. I placed my luggage slowly on the floor as my eyes scanned the empty living room from corner to corner. That first time I walked sliding my bare feet deliberately to rub against the smooth wood planks. They were tinted in dark cherry finish, polished and cleaned. I was almost overwhelmed with the thought that I was to stay in that home and walk on those wood floors. Such beautiful wood floors. I had seen wood only in the old Indian homes and wood that was banned as a construction material in India was freely used in my apartment. The home was of wood and the closets were of wood. I later found that wood is a common and cheap material of construction in the United States of America. The electric poles were wooden. The radiant heater was another object of my curiosity and observation. The sight of four burners on the kitchen stove that burst into flames with the turn of the knobs brought back images of the two burner stove I had at my home in India and the kerosene stove that was used in emergency. The knowledge of hot and cold water being delivered at the desired temperature was assuring of not having to wake up at odd times at night to fill up pots and pans. A habit that I was almost used to in India at my parents home. Our apartment had a refrigerator in the kitchen and a bathtub and sink in the bathroom. These are items of luxury in India for the middle class where I belonged. The first refrigerator that arrived in my childhood home was when I was in 7th grade. Until then we kids were sent to our neighbors homes to borrow a bowlful of ice to prepare a cooling ‘sherbet’ for the hot summer afternoons. Even today my mother’s home in India has one cold-water tap on the one sink that is in a hallway outside the bathrooms. We now own a home that has many more amenities than our Charlottesville
The following months were like whirlwind where I remember only the underlying perplexed feelings. I remember carrying out the comparative analysis of the lifestyle, the culture, the day-to-day life pattern of people here and people in India in order to make sense of all that I saw around me. For instance I was literally shocked to see people selling their household items and found no immediate justification for them. I have known my grandmother to save even paper bags from grocery and recycle them resourcefully. The yard sales left me thoroughly confused. For me they signified the materialistic abundance combined with the casual attitude people have towards collecting objects just for the sake of it without any purpose or meaning. Objects collected I thought to conceal the emptiness. I found this fact quite unsettling that there were empty roads, empty homes, empty parks and empty phones with answering machines connected to them. This emptiness was cold and hard and a cause of great anxiety for me in those beginning days when I was learning to inhabit the new environment. I remember walking slowly and deliberately to pass my time in the neighborhoods and the parking lots. I literally remained perched on the windowsill most part of the day staring out at the road in the hope to see human beings. Someone reading this might think of the several things I could have done with the time I had in hand. True. When I look back at that time, I cannot but marvel at the free time I had then. But I was so brand new to the place and there were many things on my mind, such as my parents, my family and my future in the States that all I really wanted, was to express this anxiety someplace. And therefore all I could do was think about it and stare out the windows or write in my journal. If I did none of this then I sent e-mails and wrote letters. I also had the anxiety of being married, if you will please read between my lines here given the fact that it was an arranged marriage. Besides there were the tons of questions arising out of my mere daily existence. For instance the measurements were done in feet and inches and I was used to the metric system. How many pounds equal a kilogram? And how many liters equal a gallon. And why do people drive on Parkways and park on Driveways and why do you always need a doughnut in the car so on a so forth. So you see despite the free time, there wasn’t really any time that was free as such; it was all occupied with several questions.
An interesting event occurred one day and I am mentioning it because it gives an idea of how confused I was with the so called normal things of American life. Sometimes during the first week of my arrival in the United States of America, my husband and I decided to go out for dinner to the downtown mall. It is a place with cobbled streets having restaurants and boutiques on either side in the heart of Charlottesville. In the center of the street is the famous Paramount theatre with lights on its front canopy. There are many good eating-places here. The restaurants arrange their wrought iron dining furniture outside and in the evening the place becomes alive with people walking up and down the street. A few vendors setup colorful kiosks selling hot dogs, jewelry, painting etc. and people gather around them like ants around a sugar coated peanut. In the middle of the street is a water sculpture with an adjoining amphitheatre on the steps of which the local musicians gather in the evening to sing and play their instruments. The music adds lime-like jest to a plain glass of water. Overall the atmosphere at the plaza reminds me of Indian bazaars with lots of people in colorful attire. When we arrived there that day it was twilight. We sat in the dinning area arranged on the street and ate a vegetarian pizza. After dinner I ordered coffee and the boy waiting on us brought my cup and placed my cup in front of me.
I noticed that the coffee was black. I said to the boy “Could I please have some milk and sugar.”
“Sure” he said grinning from ear to ear and went inside the restaurant.
A few minutes later he came back with a small basket of tiny containers and packets of sugar like the ones they had served us on the plane. I was expecting him to show up with a pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar like they would in India if you ever requested it.
“Here’s your cream and sugar” he said placing the odd collection before me.
Thanks, but this will not be enough I thought to myself when I saw the meager quantity of milk and sugar. I felt famished. Should I explain to him that I add instant coffee in milk with 2 rounded teaspoons of sugar or should I just offer to make my own coffee by going in the kitchen. The Owner's of the restaurant would not mind, would they? Sometimes during my post-graduation years, I had been on a road trip in Himachal Pradesh in India with some friends. On the way back home we had stopped at a small roadside diner for lunch. It was a cold late afternoon and the Owner was huddled under one of the tables wrapped in his blankets for the afternoon nap. We woke him up from under the table. Feeling sorry that we had awakened him, I had volunteered to help him prepare our lunch. It was nice and warm behind the stove and I had gotten myself acquainted with him enough to exchange our phone numbers with the promise to see each other if ever he were in town again. He was grateful for all that help and had graciously tweaked the curries to our liking per my request. Maybe the good people here in Charlottesville won’t mind either if I step into their kitchen, since I would after all be saving them their efforts and could even teach them how to make an Indian version of coffee. There were quite a few Indians in Charlottesville that they could then cater to. But I did not offer to help, instead I said, “I am afraid but this will not be enough. Could you please fill my cup with 50% milk and 50% coffee and add two heaped teaspoons of sugar.”
He stood there for a while trying to make sense of what I was asking him and then he said, “What kind of milk would you prefer?”
White of-course, does America have multicolored milk. Bewildered I asked, “What do you mean?”
Straining his eyebrows he said rather slowly, “Would you like 1%, 2%, non-fat, whole milk or half and half?”
“Excuse me.” I responded back. I was literally confused with the new knowledge that simple milk could exist in so many varieties. I was of-course clueless and had no idea which type to pick from the variety he was describing. The only milk I had ever known was cow’s fresh milk delivered at our doorstep by the milkman at 4:00 a.m. daily in India. I was about to ask for an explanation when my husband replied, “Whole milk please.”
The boy appeared impressed as he left. After sometime he came back with my cup of coffee, which was now whiter to my relief.
“There you go. I hope you like it.”
I took a sip and was immediately sullied to realize that it was cold. The boy had added cold milk from the refrigerator.
“This is cold, could you please re-heat it.” I asked with a little irritation. He heard me and his smile disappeared. Coffee can be enjoyed in any one of the two temperatures. Either hot or cold, this was neither. Without a word he picked up my cup with a serious face as though he was thinking about administering some bitter medicine to that thing in my cup and walked back slowly. A while later he emerged carrying my prized coffee on a tray raised in midair with a triumphant smile of ‘I made it’
Placing my cup before me he said, “I hope this is right for you now Ma'am.”
I smiled at his emphasis on the word Ma'am.
I was gratified to see steady steams rising from my coffee. I held the warm cup in both hands and took a sip. The waiter stood there watching and ready in case I was to summon him on another task. I am sure he must have held his breath while I took that sip.
I smiled at him satisfied and said “Thank you, this is perfect.”
He smiled back. Relieved.
“Wow” he said, “I have never seen anyone drink so much creamer before. I’m impressed.”
My husband and I smiled back generously not bothering to explain that the entire population of India consumes this much creamer regularly in their teas and coffees. We paid him a hefty tip and left.
Later I received a crash course from my husband about the variety of milk available when we visited the local supermarket. Today I do not drink as much ‘creamer’. Neither do I drink whole milk, but pour a small stream of non-fat milk in my tea. I drink coffee rarely, but whenever I do, I still like it with 50-50 whole milk and two heaped teaspoons of sugar. Today things are different for me. The United States of America has become our second home. I drive to work and also enjoy driving long distances by myself. I have learnt the norms of daily life and black coffee does not surprise me any longer, though I still wonder how somebody can drink something as bitter as that. I have several friends and life is livable again. The nature of questions I face daily is quite different. Adventures still occur sometimes and I enjoy them thoroughly.
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