We have been invited to a Diwali get together at an Indian community centre in a suburb of Los Angeles. Diwali was a month earlier but Indians in the area are meeting to mark the festival and also use the occasion to have presentations from NGOs working in India. By the time my host and I reach, the programme has begun. It’s a big hall with a stage and groups of people are sitting around large tables. The hall is packed. We sit at a table in a corner. A group of adults and children are getting ready to present the song Vande Mataram. A pop version of the song starts and the group walks through the audience waving small Indian flags made of paper. Some in the audience too raise their own flags. At my table were pamphlets describing the achievements of the Ekal Vidyalayas and the benefits of cow urine therapy as well as some issues of tabloid newspapers published by local Indians. Halfway through the Vande Mataram song, a man dressed as Mahatma Gandhi (bald wig, dhoti, walking stick) accompanied by another in khadi climbed up on the stage. The audience burst into applause and chanted of Jai Hind; you could clearly feel the emotion for a land left behind. The compere then invited a gentleman, perhaps in his sixties, to sing Vaishnava Jan. At this time it was clear that most of the audience was Gujarati as they sat up to hear this bhajan composed by a 15 th century Gujarati saint poet. Those in the audience who were in their late 50s and 60s were singing along; the nostalgic look in their eyes was unmistakable. The song concluded the cultural part of the evening and was followed by illustrated talks by various Indian non-profit organizations about the work they did ' religious organizations like BAPS Swaminarayan sect, Jain groups, centres for India studies and others.

On trips like this, where one is making presentations of work day after day, it’s a little difficult to have informal conversations with people but a few interactions suggested that living in the US has not been easy for many. The economic opportunities have come with their own set of challenges. D, a senior computer scientist, returned to India in the late-90s after living in the US for over 20 years. “Why did you decide to return?” I asked. “Well, my parents were in India and were getting old, my children were growing up and I felt they needed to be in touch with their roots, and I guess, I felt some love for my country. You see, I came to the US for a PhD and after a point you realize that it is easy to integrate into American society if you live the way they live. Americans are not really interested in your culture, you have to live on their terms. It started getting to me after a point. I guess I went back for my children”. H left a lucrative practice as a chartered accountant in Ahmedabad and emigrated when his relatives sponsored him for a Green Card. He was already well past forty and had to study for two years to get fresh qualifications so he could practice as an accountant in the US. “I came here for my son; he had finished high school and I thought that this future would be secure if we came here. Left to myself I would not have come, I was doing well in India. But I would not have come if I had had a daughter. This culture is very bad for girls; from the age of 12 to 20 you have to be so careful. You would be disgusted to see what teenager girls do here; it is very difficult to bring up girls here.”

Others confessed that they had experienced racism; white colleagues had got promotions and salary raises while they had been neglected. They felt socially isolated in white neighbourhoods and tended to have friends within the Indian community. It was specially touching to hear that because of these circumstances many of them had become friendly with local Bangladeshis and Pakistanis; what would have been impossible at home became possible here. In its presentation, one Jain organization described how, together with Pakistani groups, they raised money for the Kashmir earthquake which devastated areas on both sides of the border. It was heartening to see sub continental animosities being overcome on another continent.

I am on my way from Dallas to Los Angeles via Austin. I am crisscrossing the country in an illogical way because the next stop after LA is New York. Its tiring and disorienting to sleep in new places every two nights but I am also happy to have small glimpses of different places. My eye is picking up all the differences between India and America - in size, speed and scale. I am reluctant to make big judgements based on fleeting impressions and hope readers understand that these random notes are just that - random notes.

At Austin airport, I am struck with idea that America and India are maybe not so far apart in some senses. There is a big group of girls and boys and it looks like they are on a school trip. They look uncannily like the undergraduate students I interact with at the design institutes in Ahmedabad. The same jeans, the same labels, enbellished with embroidery and worn and torn patches. Streaked hair, mobile phones and ears plugged to devices playing music. Eavesdropping is the key to insights, so I move closer to the group.

It turns out that they are undergraduate students and each one has a sticker on their jacket pockets identifying them as Gates Millenium Scholars. And when I hear them talk, they even sound like my students - “And my mom said, “Why are you late and I look at her, as in, and I am like, what?”. I feel like laughing - young people in upper middle class urban (actually, metroplitan) India speak exactly like this, inventing a new English language which is close to incomprehensible to those of us brought up on Wren and Martin grammar books.

Jet lag has given me an opportunity to watch TV at all hours of the day. So many of the shows here being aired in India too, and we are behind by probably a few weeks. I also realise how much Indian presenters (even in the vernacular channels) have adopted the manner and look of shows here. Later, I enter a clothes store and hear Rihanna singing ‘Unfaithful’, a big favourite among the young in Ahmedabad too.

It sets me thinking about East and West - in many ways the twain seem to be meeting. But is this the shape of things to come?

We are off to Dallas, my first flight within the country. At San Jose airport, we are assisted by a short, tubby, dark, woman in the airline uniform who looks like she may be Indian. She wants to help us with our check-in but we want to do it ourselves because we would have to tip her precious dollars. She senses our reluctance, switches to Hindi and tell us to just come along with her. Boarding passes in hand, we feel more relaxed about talking to her and it looked like she wanted to talk too. “You are from India, aren’t you, from where”. We tell her and ask where she is from. Her accent sounds Bihari. “I am from Fiji”, she says “But my grandfather was from India. From Bihar, I think.” Would she like to see the place where her family came from? “Yes, I want to. There is a wedding in the family this year (which will consume her savings); maybe next year I will have the money. Make sure you reach Gate 13 in 45 minutes”.

The plane takes off; there is a lot of laughter and conversation. The cabin crew is informal and I thought it was a group that knew each other from before. Its only after eavesdropping for a while that I realized they had just met. This is the leitmotif of flights within the country, No “kripaya dhyaan dijeye” scene; just chatter and jokes.

We have to change at Las Vegas. We get off the flight and I was completely unprepared for the scene that awaited. Slot machines everywhere. Disc shaped neon signs with lights in concentric circles, spinning with music. People sitting in front of screens, feeding money to the machines. I have to play, I decided. So I went up to one woman - 50-ish, platinum blonde curls ' and asked if I could watch her. “Sure, dear”, she says. I asks her what she is playing. “It’s my favourite. It’s called “Nurses’ Station.” I can’t remember the name of the game exactly but it was about different kinds of surgery you can opt for and as you press the buttons, the nurses tell you if you have insurance cover to have the surgery. If you do, you win money. I feel like laughing but you need someone with you who also finds this funny. I ask an attendant for an easy slot machine game and give myself a limit of five dollars. Within four minutes the machine has eaten up four dollars. Dr Pattnaik plucks at my sleeve. “Enough, Suchitra, five dollars are over”. He sounds really worried at my rapid slide into sin.

Dallas is easily the ugliest place in the world. There is concrete everywhere, everything is giant-sized, even roads inside the city have ten lanes. Actually everything in the US is giant-sized ' the cars look like trucks; my colleague from Orissa and I ordered a single breakfast (they kindly let us share) and we could not finish our halves (the omlette looked like it was made from about 12 eggs). We left the restaurant filled with guilt at the wasted food and passed by other tables with plates heaped with uneaten food. The supermarkets are HUGE and a banana goes from fingertip to elbow. If the word humongous did not exist it would have to be invented to describe this landscape ' huge, monstrous does not effectively capture it. (The word was coined, in America of course, sometime in the late 1960s).

We have a lunch meeting with the local desis ' discuss debt bondage over dal makhani. I am already getting tired of this. After the meal we insist on being shown the city; there is no public transport here ' the car companies have made sure such systems are never put in place ' and we cannot manage on our own. We would like to see the memorial to John Kennedy who was shot here in 1963. Our host cannot find the place and when we do it is deserted. The plaque says the memorial was designed by Philip Johnson ' an ugly, soulless, box which looks like a stall in restroom.

The next morning a limousine taxi comes to take us to the airport. The driver looks Indian but you can’t say for sure. When we are on our way, it turns out that he is from India, from Gujarat and from the Rajkot area. This is interesting and of course I begin probing, “Do you know where your family is from?” “My mother is from Dhoraji”. “Oh! That’s the place Jinnah was from”. “Really! You mean Jinnah was Gujarati!” “Yes, Si-ir.” It turns out he is a Memon, grew up in Mumbai and his father tried to look for work in Pakistan but nothing seemed to work out. We are talking Hindi-Urdu by now. “I have been driving a taxi here for 11 years. The mistake I made was that I did not get an education here. If I had done that I could have had a better job. You know, this car looks fancy but I work like a donkey.” “But the university system is good here; you can get qualifications even now.” “Yes, but I will have to study part-time and by the time I get my Master’s I will be about 45 years old and then every employer will say I am too old to hire now.” We are at the airport; he shows us where to go and how we can save money while check-in our suitcases. We part with wishes of good luck to each other.

Cheerful D (I discover later that his habitual expression is a smile) has come to pick me up in San Francisco. It takes me a few extra minutes to find him because he has an A4 sized paper with SHETH written with a ballpoint pen. The letters aren’t visible properly but it is more because I am used to recognizing myself by my first name. My son would be very impressed because D has come in a Mercedes. After stowing my suitcase in the boot I walk around and stand near the passenger door. D says, “You might like to go over to the other side ' I am sure you are too tired to drive!”

Over the next few weeks I discovered everything is the other way around. They drive on the right side of the road which is of course the wrong side; before crossing the road I was looking first right then left which is the recipe for getting run over. In true Pavlonian fashion I go over to the left front door of the car, then have to remind myself that the passenger door of the car is on the right. I have done countless pradakshinas of the cars and taxis here (I wonder what punya I’ll get for propitiating the gods of the American freeways so many times a day) to get to the correct door and by the time I get it right, it will be time to go home.

In the hotel room, to turn the light on you have to turn the switch off. In the lamps on the bedside some have switch you have to tug, some which you click twice to the right to light up, some which you press down for a long second. And there is no indication or instructions for this ' its either ESP or many minutes of fiddling in the dark. Every water and shower tap turns on and off in a new way ' some flip up and down; some from side to side; other go around 360 degrees rather like the quern in which you grind idli-dosa batters in south India. I have still to find a ‘normal’ one which just goes round anti clockwise to start the water and clockwise to shut it off.

Our first presentation was this evening in the Bay area in northern California. We spoke about seasonal migration in India and our work with children of migrant families to a group of some 120 people.

Most of them are people of Indian origin who are donors to the American India Foundation which supports our work with the children of seasonal migrant workers and has organized this ’summit’ (’Summit’ makes it sound really important; like we are solving the India-Pakistan conflict or something). Many of them are Silicon Valley types who have sold their dotcoms for unbearable amounts of money and are now venture capitalists who want to put their money into India’s ‘emerging’ markets. Some also own vineyards and make their own wine.

Our brief is to appeal to the heartstrings (so that the purse strings will loosen). We start with a slide show with images from Gujarat and Orissa (I tell them that MK Gandhi is our most famous migrant worker and everyone laughs'it goes off well. It also helps that before the presentation they have been served wine, cheese and crackers, roasted vegetables and some unidentifiable cubes of pink meat).

A question answer session follows and its clear people are moved and want understand the situation' do people have to go to the salt pans and brick kilns? Why can’t you provide alternative employment? How do you convince parents to leave their children behind when they need the child labour? And what is your definition of success? The seasonal hostels for children is very soothing for them; when the partner from Orissa talks about the economic structure which keeps these workers in poverty and debt bondage the audience is clearly uncomfortable. It seems that they cannot take the situations which are emerging along with investment possibilities as they do a manthan of the markets.

These are well meaning people, hearts in the right place. Maybe they realize that it will take more than an IT revolution to change this world they glimpsed this evening.

I am doing a final check to make sure I have everything - passport, tickets, contact addresses and phone numbers - last minute instructions to the household help. I am leaving on a three-week trip abroad. Just as I reach the front door, my mother-in-law comes and applies a tilak on my forehead followed by grains of rice, presses 101 rupees into my hand and hugs me.

I am puzzled because this has never happened before. This is not my first trip out of the country; neither is this some long trip away from home … Suddenly it clicked into place. This traditional ritual was being done because I was I was going to the place which is every Gujarati’s idea of El Dorado - the United States of America.

This place has such a special place in the Gujarati heart that they often do not even refer to it by name; they refer to it as tyaan or ‘There’! I first realised this while taking off my shoes outside a doctor’s clinic and saw a young man taking off a pair of the most beautifully embroidered boots. I admired them and asked him where he had got them and he smiled proudly and answered in a single word that said it all - tyaan. (Its a bit like when a married woman refers to somebody as woh (He) you know she is talking about her husband!).

So here I am, off to the US after a ritual send-off, finally feeling a ‘complete’ Gujarati!

I am off the plane after a mind-numbing, joint-stiffening flight.  The maida-laden, last breakfast does not help as I brace up for an encounter with Homeland Security which will decide whether I will enter this country or not. It’s about 10.00 in the morning. I have been warned ' “They are really tough ' my colleague’s brother-in-law’s cousin was detained for six hours, a friend of my aunt’s nephew was grilled for an entire morning”. I am nervous because I too am somebody’s neighbour’s something. “Try to go to a counter with a coloured person, the white officers are the worst”, I was told. I had already parted with my fingerprints in Mumbai in exchange for a ten year visa and I was curious to see what happened next.

I queue up. It’s a huge hall with many cubicles with officers in Prussian blue uniforms. On my right were two African American officers and one with oriental features. Or was she Hispanic? On my left is a handsome, blonde white American. The queue moves slowly; everyone is being closely questioned. And of course when my turn comes, it’s the blonde one that gestures to me to approach his counter.

“So what brings you here” he asks flipping through the pages of my passport. The counter is designed such that I cannot see below his face. I can hear the rustle of pages. “I have come for business meetings”, I say. That sounds important and serious. “So what kind of meetings?” He is clicking keys on his computer. “I have come on the invitation of the American India Foundation which supports our work with the children of seasonal migrants in western India”. “Oh! Where do you live?” “In Ahmedabad”. “Where is that?”

“North of Mumbai”. He nods; he has placed me geographically. “So what’s the population of India?” I am taken aback. “Well, about a billion and counting”. I can hear him setting my passport down with thump. “A billion huh”! He leans forward with something like concern in his eyes. “Is there place for everyone?” (I am wondering if this is a version of are there tiger and elephants on the streets but this one is smart). “It’s a big country, you know ” More clicks. “How big?” Is there a challenge in his voice? “It’s the seventh largest country in the world”. “You mean it’s bigger than America?” “No, no”, I soothed him, “not bigger than America”.

The conversation shifts. “So what work do you do”? “I work for a non-profit and we work with seasonal migrants who move in search of work for eight months of the year. We run hostels so children can stay behind in their villages and continue their schooling while their parents work at the salt pans and brick kilns”. “You mean these people come from other countries”?

“No, they come from the arid and poorer areas of our state and they move after the monsoon rains when there is no work on the fields. Some come from the neighbouring states”. “Well, it looks like you are doing good work”. I smile weakly. “Could you place your index finger on that little machine, first the right, then the left (or was it the other way around) and maybe you could just move to the left and look into the camera?”

The conversation shifts again. “So we are friendly with your country”? I realize he is referring to Indo-US relations. Is this a trick question? I nod and say yes, not completely sure if we are. “And we are friendly with Pakistan too”. Where is this leading? I nod once again. “But you are not friendly with Pakistan”? I cannot identify the tone of his voice; it is a complex mix of innocent question, challenge and I don’t know what. And I have a nanosecond to decide what to say. Sub-continental pride comes to the rescue. “It’s like this”, I tell him. “The people of the two countries share many cultural ties; it’s the governments that don’t get along. The area where I live, we have a long border with Pakistan you know”. “I know, that’s why I asked”. This one is smart. Anyway something in what I say appeals to him. He smiles. “I like that, the people get along, it’s the politicians that don’t”. Now what, I think.

“How long do you plan to stay? “Till the end of November”. “Well, enjoy your stay”. I can hear the thumps of his stamps on the passport. He smiles widely. “And I really enjoyed our chat. I love asking questions and you have been very forthcoming with your answers. Thanks, I really liked that. Have a nice stay and enjoy yourself”.

I am taken aback at his cordial goodbye. I recover my wits and smile my thanks and walk toward the bright California sunshine.