One of the day...

People everywhere, emotions everywhere, all kinds, laughter, tensions, excitement, nervousness, happy faces, grave faces, faces with all defined and undefined expressions; I could see all of them. Only face I could not see over there was mine, I knew what exactly I was feeling like but how it looks on my face was still to be unleashed. I was tired, after 19 hours of flight, I was excited, for being in totally new place, I was nervous, courtesy the stories of port of entry experiences, I was frustrated, as the line was moving so slow, I was eager, to call home and tell them I have reached. I still wanted to know how it looked on my face.

It took more than two hours to reach the glass window. The guy on the other side of the window was busy staring the photo on my passport; in between he would turn to me to match it. Finally he smiled and while handing my passport back he said, ‘welcome to America’. No questions asked, no answers given, I could see the reflection of myself in the glass and there was no sign of any emotion, in spite of all those feelings in my mind, I was still me. I took the passport back with a smile and next moment I was, searching my check-in luggage on the land of opportunities.

“Indian or Pakistani?’ cab driver asked while loading my baggage in the cab.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Not at all, just thought I would get an opportunity to speak hindi’ he said. I was happy to hear that. Rest of the conversation between me and Gurmail Singh was in Hindi. He was from Delhi, but settled here with his family, in fact he said he was more American as he has now spent almost twenty of his years in this country. I was eager to know more about the differences between the two countries and the answer he gave was totally satisfactory,

‘US is four times India and India four times US. Former regarding area, latter regarding population. This is what creates all the difference.’

Till the time I reached at my destination in New Jersey, day was already over. I don’t know how the day was, or maybe I know that whatever days i got, it was one of the day.