In 1996, we visited the US of A. Not for a purpose any different from tourism.
And we loved it. Maybe it was the fact that our only foreign experience before that was Singapore, three years back. Or maybe it was the fact that USA was still relishing the after-effects of a fantastic decade. Or maybe it was the California effect, you know, sparkling roads, freeways, huge supermarkets, cell-phones, malls, fast-food eat-outs, you know the drill. This was 1996 and India was still a decade away from these things. But there was something else about that country, which we loved more than anything else.
We were in Anaheim, CA. We had checked out of our hotel early in the morning and spent the whole day in Disneyland. It was a mind-blowing experience. I had read and read and read about Disneyland wherever I could, (No YouTube back then L) and to see and experience all that by myself was overwhelming. I couldn’t wait to get back to Stephen’s to show off. So after a whole long day, we were tired and making our way back to the Bus stand. Which the “May I Help You” guys said was just a 15 min walk from the gate. Now remember we had checked out of our hotel in the morning and in America, they don’t have cloakrooms. People don’t carry luggage; they buy stuff on the road. So we were carrying a lot of luggage but still a 15 min walk was easy enough.
But the problem is America was a land of freeways and expressways. The transportation network is a web of complicated exits and intersections and a good thirty minutes later, after getting totally exhausted hauling the luggage through the footpath, we discovered we were just as far as we can get from the bus stand. To top it all, our bus to San Francisco left in just about 20 min. Tired and exhausted, with the night approaching, even Taxis were hard to get by. We were a family of 7 with as many as three kids and getting stuck on small town such as Anaheim for another night would have been disaster.
We located a small car rental service closed for the day nearby. We went in and told our situation to a very bored American who, it seemed, was just getting ready for dinner. He had one look at the great Indian family that we are, and promptly opened his garage and hauled out his huge SUV. We reached the bus-stand just in time for our Greyhound. That guy did not charge a cent. Now that was the best thing about that tour. American hospitality.
I can, if I want, cite a few more similar experiences as well, but let’s not bore you. Just think how Indians would have reacted to such a situation. If you have gone around in India a lot, you will know how Indians literally plunder American or any western tourists who come to India. Half a thousand for keeping your shoes and a host of other hostilities if you don’t pay up. Isn’t India renowned for its hospitality? Wonder what the West thinks about when we talk of our hospitable culture.
On another note, five years later on a fateful September morning, two planes rammed into two very important buildings on the opposite coast of America. And it forever changed how Americans looked at us Indians, Pakistanis or any brown-skinned Asians. Hostilities and mistrust have cropped up. People have got divided. Boundaries built where they should not exist. I shudder to think how that American in Anaheim would have reacted to seeing a stranded Indian family now.
I wish I could go back to 1996, when most of the Americans had not heard about Afghanistan or Iraq.
