My First impression

I have been in the US only 2 weeks now but my first words to myself are still echoing in my head. Words that get reinforced, every passing day. "Boy!! everything is so big around here." Right from the moment, I stepped into the cab at the airport, there has been that feeling of "Shock and awe". There I was - a slender 5' 11, lean and mean, being smothered by the cushion around, with barely my neck sticking out of the seat straining to catch the scenery.

The hotel rooms were thankfully small (normal size by indian standards), but there ends the exceptions. The size was what caught my eyes everywhere, and in some cases caused overloads at the business end of my digestive system as well.

Jumping from "3 Idlis-one limited meals with curd - samosaa/cutlet - and a relaxing dinner of rasam/thayir saatham" to "3 eggs,potatoes and pancakes - 2 eggs,toast and fries - cappucino - and a relaxing dinner of belgian waffles/foot long subs"........I guess this was what people were refering to as "Jet-Lag"(It is not that i had choice when it came to choosing the meals, these were the ideal choices considering the "Investment vs Return" tradeoff). It took me over a week to "settle" things down...whew!!

Not ones to take things lying down, we decided to get things moving along by cooking our own food - Target Walmart. Result Disorientation. An hour and a half later all we could select was one packet of bread. And as we stood before the unending rack of vegetables, me and my roomie, exclaimed almost at the same time - "Even the peas are so big....SIGH!!".

Considering the amount of food that goes into an average american, generations over generations, the girth is only natural. And on a boring day waiting for a bus, as one LARGE human being walked past , I was tempted to go "entha kadayile nee pizza vaangare"...

Well you can call that desperation at the effortlessness with which all the fat tends to get concentrated around a few waists, while the rest move along at a Hindu rate of growth. A classic case of the fat getting fatter and the poor getting poorer. hmmmmm...

As the days went past, the shrinking feeling inside me kept growing. But it was Liberty mami who came to my rescue. A sign board quoting the designer and architect who staked his claim to the liberty - "Everything is so big in America - even the peas". hmm, Wise people do think alike. What say people?