Americanised…

Howdyyyyyyyyyyyyyy….Its finally time for me to jot down some of my terrible changed lifestyles after being in the US. Well now those who think I am yappying off can continue to do so, cos you have no idea what it is to live in a country where you just cant fantasize about Indian food and think yeah lets go to that Darshini near our home and binge out on those lovely idlis, cutneys, dosas etc…  You will just see the downside of all that very soon…

So lets start this incredible post with how my day begins… My breakfast… Hmmm now if I was back home, I wouldn’t take a second look on those amazingly designed colourful well stacked cartons in a supermarket that claim to be an Ideal breakfast… But here as ironic as it may seem the CORNFLAKES turns out to be my everyday breakfast and even lunch on my sooper lazy days. Just imagine being kickstarting yourday with cornflakes swimming in a cup of white milk, and with addons of Strawberries or nuts or honey oats or vanilla and so on and so forth, and you just think wish there was masala dosa instead. Freakkkyyyyy.. Yes it is, and that’s where you slowly start adapting to the American lifestyle. You don’t realize the change that something u hated back home is turning out to be ur life jacket Yukkkkkkkkkkk… I just fantasize about the dosas and the vadas as I take a scoop of my source of vitamins and fibres that claim I could loose 6 Pounds in 2 weeks… How inspiring!!!! Oh yeah you did u notice this – you forget the kilos and all you know is the pounds and ounces, litre displaced by Gallons, kms by miles and you know you have caught on the American bug

Well discussed a lot on food, now lets get onto another terminology that I horribly hate here. We are called “Desis” by our own race. Towers of Sarcasm… I just cant understand why are we desis??? I mean we call someone a desi, this is back home – someone who must be from some long lost rural village that might take even Google sometime to locate on the Indian map, and we call Indians from cosmopolitans cities of India as “Desis”. Sorry but I kind of hate that word. And what I hate even more is f****** accent we try and put up after coming to America. Come on guys we have a decent accent don try to make it all weird. Its torturous to even hear some bloody junkie recruiter trying to put up a hideous accent and talk to you. She acts as if her 7 generations has lived and toiled around in America. I think we loose it all when we come here… We pretend to be Americanised…

Now let me touch upon the topic of shopping, this is my fav part where I have done a Ph D you can say on how we shop… Back home we wudnt step into a seconds sale or even a discounted sale. How many of us have really gone to a seconds Sale or a discounted sale until and unless its not Levi’s or Pepe or Nike that’s announcing it in a small little article in some news paper. Here on the contrary we turn out to shopping here only when there are discounts. Here the discounts happen in funny ways and you shop in funny ways as well. We bring winter clothing in peak summers cos they are on discounts. Yes they are cheap and more than they being cheap they fit our budget which is most important. We buy summer clothing in peak winters, this is the shopping mantra in the US. Offseason clothes for cheap and discounted rates. You are never choosy about the clothes here if they are on discounts, no matter what the color or the size we are ready to steal the bargain. Best thing is we buy smaller size clothes with the upright optimism that we may shrink down eating all the salads and cornflakes, which as usual never happens, cos beer is cheaper as well Am I being totally crappy head now, well may be but that’s what our psychology and our views become when we come here. And like I said before some traits of our roots don’t just vanish. Like Russell Peters said in one of his acts – “We are cheap man and there is nothing wrong in admitting it”. And may be this is one of the reasons that we have managed to survive out in this really costly country where a plain black coffee is more than 50 bucks. We might be the first ones in line for a Black Friday sale (ofcourse Americans also wait for it for the whole year) or any sale for that matter Its in our DNA… Just that they wait to buy a LCD TV or lawn mower and we wait to buy a laptop or even a GPS or colored printer

And we become all health conscious after we come here. You can see women of all ripened ages hitting on the threadmill to get all toned and look sassy… And there are some chicks like me too who are absolutely jobless and don have better things to do who also end  up for some free tv watching as we burn some of those ghee calories. One more thing I have noticed is that we don really socialize well with fellow Indians. I have hesitated to talk to someone I see and we act so pricy, with full on attitudes like “I don’t care and like to be alone”. Well why do I hesitate? I did some analysis on myself and found that I do cos I see only ladies with kids around and I want someone of my age group (whatever that means…). Well trying hard to cope up with things here, but its actually quite an insight to how we behave in Foreign countries Its been an wholesome new experience and may be I will share more when I happen bounce on somemore… But for now this is it about my process of dealing with my own Americanisation… Cheersssssssssssss…

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~ by Anjali on May 10, 2011.