Going to America

Going to America. The song was set on an infinite loop in Rajiv’s mind, and had played out about ten thousand times in the last two days.

He was after all, going to America.

That though couldn’t happen till he finished packing. Which would be once his mom was done stuffing fifteen packs of dals, and spices, and snacks, and soaps, and toothpaste, and shoe polish, and god knows what else, into his two suit cases which as per US regulations couldn’t weigh more than 64 pounds.
Not the pound that is the British dollar, but the pound that is the American kilo. (What sort of silly people weigh in Pounds. A woman weighing a nice 40 kilos would probably have a heart failure if someone admiringly told her that she looked about 90, and forgot to add the unit.)

Anyway, who cared. Rajiv had already converted to the pound system. He even went to the Agarwal sweet store and asked for 2 pounds of kaju barfi. He called them ignorant and they shooed him off. Their loss. He was going to America, kaju barfi or not.

Rajiv had grown from strength to strength the past 6 months. He was a wreck during the initial application stage. Only he knew how he managed to get his 95 percentile GRE score. In March he got notification of his acceptance to the University of Southern California (no funding, but his dad was rich enough to pay the thirty thousand dollars. Thank god for rich parents). He was the envy of his classmates, and the latest find for the babes girls. He was a lion. Soon it was time to get the visa. He had heard of so many stories where the visa officer rejected the visas of even deserving people. He was mediocre, on his best day. He was going crazy. He couldn’t afford turning back from here.

There was going to be no need for turning back. The visa officer liked his face, and wished him luck.

He had enjoyed the attention he had gotten ever since. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Boys, Girls, everybody loved him. Even the neighbor’s dog monty no longer snapped at him. He loved himself. He was going to America. He was already calling all his friends dude, and getting his 03′ Santro LS filled with gas, often confusing the petrol pump attendants. (One idiot actually dumped CNG into his car. Took him a week to get the mess cleaned up. Retards.)

He was gonna live the American dream. He was gonna make a lot of money. He was going away from the shithole called India. He was going to America.

For now, his mom was alternating between crying and packing. Little Jasmine was too little to really care. Rajiv felt a little weird. He was going to be so far from all this. And he saw the positive side of it. Wow. How cool is that going to be. This didn’t sound bad at all.

He was wearing his Calvin Klein jeans, a Banana Republic t-shirt, the Gucci shades his trendy-shopper mom got for him. He looked American. He felt American.

He knew all that there was to America. He had seen all seasons of Friends and Seinfeld. He had practiced that accent at all the local bars and coffee shops. He had switched from AajTak to CNN. He was no longer interested in Cricket. Move over Sachin, Barry Bonds was the new god. He loved black coffee. He even swore only in English. No more crude Hindi words for him.

He had what it took to be the next big shot Indian import. Only he wouldn’t be Indian for long. People wont even realize that he was from India. He was that slick. All those white girls waiting for him to rescue them from sick boring dumbass white guys were going to love him.

He was going to be a big deal. Huge.