Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The great American dream


This is a strange land with inexplicable lure! We were on our way to Boston downtown and the parking gate attendant at the Quincy Adams subway station turns out to be an Indian from Bareilly. I wonder what had made him come here. Was it just the instinct for survival which made him search for greener pastures or just a mad wish for adventure or a little bit of both? After all, not every man from Bareilly makes it to the USA and doesn't even want to. The man seemed reasonably happy too. Or maybe it was the thought of interacting with fellows from a land whose feel he longed to forget was actually making him smile then.

I'll never know because one can never ask these kind of questions outright. It'll only come out as demeaning or highly intrusive, a far deviation from the innocuous purpose behind my curiosity. So I'll be content by imagining a million possible stories on how the man got here. The American dream that drove him thousands of miles from anything even remotely resembling home to a little glass box in the suburbs of Boston is pretty difficult for me to comprehend. But dreams are too personal a thing to comment on.

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