Coming to the USA is such a stupendous task, it is like a huge event or you can say for some as difficult a procedure as it is to launch a rocket. I have seen people looking at all the pros and cons and various ways to come to this country, a country known as the Land of opportunity. Among the many who want to come here are the Indian students to pursue their graduate studies and for most of them it begins with a usual conversation at the workplace back home, Thu maga yen daridra kelasa idu, yen promotion illa, increment illa. I feel I am going nowhere working 9 to 9 here in this office, amele ee PM bere thale thinta irtane yavaglu, yaake ee golu maga; I am quitting and doing my MASTERS. Aha!!!! .This is how most of them end up coming to the USA, thinking that they will have a great time once they land here and leaving behind the ghost of their PM.

You declare your feeling to your cubicle mates and say, maga I have this plan and its better than what we are doing here, why don’t we do our Masters maga, it will be full majaa there and then starts the meticulous preparation, stacking all the documents required and a thorough use of the Google search engine to find the best universities. And all this is down the drain because majority of the students listen to some third person or counseling agencies advice and eventually get prepared to go to a school which they never would have heard off. From here the journey begins preparing SOP’s, (usually a purpose of someone else copied by others and modified to their needs) the financial documents and all the other stuff that you will have to carry to the Cell, “the visa cell”.

Next prepare to go to the American consulate in Chennai, the most happening place in India. You would have searched for a decent hotel in the directory and it will say 3 star hotels with AC and excellent service and you say WOW!!!! What a deal and book it, get down there and you will surely be shocked to see what you find, nothing more than a dorm fitted with an AC. You check into this place after going all round Chennai, thanks to the auto drivers who will only speak to you in Tamil and take you for a ride and ask you to pay an astronomical fare even if you have travelled only a kilometer or so. If you don’t look like the localities you had it…..

The consulate opens early in the morning and here you see the crowd all dressed in the same way, all in formals and religiously carrying the zip files having their documents in it. All of them looking sophisticated and yet tensed on what’s going to happen, even more concerned and tensed are the parents who stand there waiting for their children, as though their kids have gone to war and they don’t know if they will return or not. The discussions are profound in the huge line piled up to the entrance and surprisingly already half the folks there would have picked up an American accent, like they were born in the USA. The situation out there is even tenser than an India Pakistan match. It’s like a movie where everyone has a script and all of them have a pre planned answer to every question the officer asks, god forbidden if he asks something else you will see people sweating like they have run for hours on the treadmill. Stand in the line and you hear the number of rejects and you wonder will you make it or not, all depends on the mood of the officer, he actually has more power than the President of the United States. And it is here you will say the biggest lie of your life, the officer will ask will you work in the USA after your studies and you will boldly say NO.

Once you have got the visa, the announcement starts and even though you are only going to the USA somehow people treat you like you are going to the moon. Now is the part where you start purchasing all the stuff and start finding the airlines that is best suited for you, not the one that is most comfortable but the one that allows you to carry the most number of baggage’s cause you need to carry that big pressure cooker and all the utensils that you would have hardly used or know how to use. The cooking classes begin at home and your ears would have got seasoned to “don’t eat outside there, eat only good food at home” this warning is given every now and then, you will be least bothered to learn anything and will say let’s see what to do when the situation comes. The grannies will pack and give you all the possible pudis from saarina puddi to puliyogre gojju in addition to the world famous ‘MTR ready to eat’ that you would have already packed. Sometimes you feel whether you are travelling to become a chef or to attain a master’s degree. The scene at the airport is even worse, you have the whole extended family at the airport wanting to send you off and few bring garlands too, like they have been waiting for years to get rid of you, with so many people around you and the heavy garland on your neck all the passersby have to wonder, who the hell is this freak, is he some famous personality, I haven’t seen him any time before, all this to your embarrassment.

Land in the USA and you will think that you have to be at your best and speak the best English, all this will vanish instantly when you stand in the immigration line because you look for miles you will see only immigrants talking in some alien language and the officers will look at you like you are some alien come from outer space. Get out of the airport and arrive to the apartment and all your dreams of a huge carpeted fully furnished house are shattered, because most of the landlords only provide you with a stove and a refrigerator here. Now, the guy who wouldn’t have even folded his mattress starts setting up the entire house. Life takes a full U turn and is way different from the royal life that you lived back in India, where you order and everything comes within your hands reach. Here you come into a world where you have to do everything by yourself, from cooking to washing to throwing away your own trash. Sheesh!!! How tough is that, almost all of us have had servant back in India who does all this and you didn’t even know the existence of a kitchen back home. All girls there make it a point that you marry boys who have come down to study in the United States because I vouch even if they do not have a job in this recession period they surely will not disappoint you when it comes to the household chores. The fact is that they would have mastered these things more than the subjects in their universities.

Apart from this the students who come here do put in their best effort in their academics and also enjoy to the core, after all it is America and if you don’t make the best use of the opportunities provided who else will. Students do take up all the challenges and work during their semesters and earn a living, this surely gives you a lot of self confidence and a self satisfaction when you are able to fund your own education. As time goes by students do learn to manage things and find a solution to most of the trivial problems they face. It is commendable that most of the Indian students do well here and come out with flying colors and end up with good jobs and always look back and laugh at the simple conversation that triggered them to do their MASTERS and the journey that led them to the United States.