When D-I-Y gets annoying

One of the earliest Facebook status message that I posted soon after reaching the US went something like this -

How to buy furniture in the US
--------------------------------------

1. Make note of the product code of the furniture you liked at the display area
2. Go to the warehouse and locate the various parts of the furniture from the hundreds of bins there
3. Load them on the trolley, however heavy they are
4. Make the payment & check out
5. Load them on to your vehicle
6. Assemble the various parts of... the furniture at home, all by yourself

How to die in the US
---------------------------
1. Book your coffin (check online for any deals or early bird offers)
2. Assemble the various parts of the coffin
3. Walk/drive down to the graveyard. Make sure you carry the coffin along
4. Do the needful

 

In a place like India, buying a piece of furniture for me was all about placing the order and getting it delivered at home the same day (mostly at no extra cost) or in some cases having the carpenter come to your house and make the cupboard or table according to your specifications. Some of the privileges of being a developing economy with a burgeoning middle class, I presume.

 

For people like me, so used to buying ready-to-use stuff this Do-It-Yourself (DIY) phenomenon can be really irritating. The long winding task of reading through the fat user manuals, identifying which spanner to use to fix which part, and assembling all the parts kills the joy of buying the new stuff, whether it is a sofa, bicycle or a toy.

 

I should however add that after spending hours fixing the cot or the furniture, one does attain a sense of accomplishment.

Where hard work is respected

One of the things that really made my respect for the people here rise several notches higher, happened some days back. I have been taking tennis lessons in our neighbourhood and I just realised that the teenage boy assigned to teach us tennis in our coach's absence is not only a Class 11 student, but also represents our city Edina in the sport and most importantly, he works as a housekeeping staff in our apartment to meet his expenses.

I admit that it may not be too hard to find, back in India, students who work after their school hours. But in most cases these would be poor children, whose parents cannot afford to pay their school fees but children of rich businessmen learning the tricks of the trade, early on. For all other parents who can make ends meet, it is deemed an insult to make their child work, worse still as a housekeeping staff, when he/she ought to be attending tution classes or taking lessons in dance/music/sports.

Which is why the kind of importance this country gives for work and being independent amazes me. You are respected for what you make out of your life and not for whose son/daughter you are. The confidence the boy/girl acquires by earning his own money and the valuable experience gained by interacting with different people everyday cannot be learned from any book or taught by any teacher.

That day of my life 

The d-day is here. A day, which I thought, would never come in my life. A day when I will have to wait outside the tall, imposing, white walls of the US Consulate at Chennai, to get my visa cleared to fly to the ‘Land of dreams’.

During my college days a lot of friends and classmates were seen (or made sure that they were seen) with books like ‘How to crack GRE’. I looked at them condescendingly as I believed then that my mission was to stay here and serve the nation.

Seven years of being a business journalist and one child later, in hindsight it all appears to be laziness on my part. I was simply lazy to take up the challenge of preparing for competitive exams, filling up endless forms and writing statements of purpose.

My only link to the US till now has been meeting with and interviewing business heads who occasionally fly down to invest in one of the fastest emerging market that is India.

Now that the husband has moved to the US, I either have no other choice but to follow, or to put it in another way, things are easier for me now, to move to meet Uncle Sam.

That brings me to the question. Do I want to go to the US or not? Frankly I still do not know. I do not know what to expect out of this US sojourn. I have worked and been financially independent for the most part of the last nine years. My career too is at cross roads as the promotion that I have been seeking (and rightfully deserve) has not come my way.

So let me just take this trip with an open mind. Let me too live the life of an American. Let me see what it takes to be an American and what makes the country what it is today. Hoping to write more in the days to come.