Monday, September 27, 2010

Rants from a distant land

The last 25 days in my life in a way symbolize in concrete form the title of this blog.Things have happened completely out of the blue,unexpected and the pace of these happenings kind of left me unsettled. And now I find myself alone in a hotel room here in Irving,thinking of how to go about preparing my next meal.For someone who has entirely lived and been brought up in a 'home' environment, this is a remarkable change in settings. Things like groceries,cooking,washing clothes,searching for accomodation and the like were hitherto unbeknownst to yours truly.Not that I am complaining though. This 'onsite' opportunity is my chance to be independent,an experience I am sure will transform me as an individual,professionally and personally in equal measure.


Among the many things I stand to learn, the interesting ones include cooking,shopping for groceries,cutting vegetables,cleaning,washing clothes( the last one ,I tell you its real easy here :) ).And driving of course. As a first step towards the latter,I've learnt how to tie my own seat belt! :P Besides that I have already acquired skills like operating a microwave also,for which I repeatedly pat myself on the back in self congratulatory mode.

Its been one week now that I have landed here and I'm sort of getting used to this new way of life. Work wise it has been okay so far but the next few weeks and months herald a lot of challenges for which I must gear up to face and conquer. Lot to learn and explore for sure.Everything I do from here on will be new which makes it that much more exciting.

As for the place,Dallas/Irving is quite warm and the weather took me by surprise as soon as I came out of the airport. Although I was well warned about this, the similarity with Chennai's weather was prettly much there to be felt,minus the humidity. Things have cooled down a bit over the last few days with the onset of the fall season.But I have been told that Dallas is quite indifferent to those amazing fall colors that the leaves radiate elsewhere in this country.

One more thing that strikes me is the number of Indians in this place. Any store or restaurant you go out,you are invariably bound to bump into your compatriots. And there are these scores of desi grocery stores which try hard to look like an American supermarket selling Indian stuff but inside you cant help getting that distinctly Indian odour which actually amuses me. :)

Perhaps the only thing that I havent really liked about this place is the public transport system. The buses are pretty infrequent and run only at fixed times which makes it difficult for people without cars to commute. Thankfully I have a teammate who has a car and is kind enough to pick me up and drop me off. The number and sheer variety of cars you get to see here on the roads is quite amazing. Almost everybody owns one and that probably eliminates the need for a regular public transport service.

I can keep going on and on I guess, but that,in a nutshell describes my first week in the most powerful nation in this world. They really are blessed with a lot of prosperity.As a footnote,one more thing that I am trying hard to get used to is typing on a laptop. And this is tough! :)