"Ramlila" - the program schedule for the Diwali Night said, and I almost jumped off my chair. Witnessing a Ramlila in the US was actually a wonderful occasion for me. Diwali celebrations here as well as in other states (as I gathered from my friends) were really eventful. It represents an overwhelming initiative taken up by the local Indian Community for making it a special day; it is really worth big words of appreciation. It was a treat to the eyes to see all of us dressed in traditional attire. Plus, the feasts and the community lunches organized by the lovely Indian families around really made up for all that longing for delicious Indian food I felt for so much time.

The next morning, I had a real surprise awaiting me inside my mailbox: that was the Telephone bill for the last month and it said "One Thousand Forty Two Dollars". There's no bigger torture for an Indian student at a foreign shore than to make him pay a phone bill of a thousand dollars a month. Actually we guys never made that many calls. Soon, we realized that there was an error in the Bill which the phone company acknowledged. Tackling the phone bills and expenditures in US seems to be another art altogether and needs lots of presence of mind. There are so many overhead charges for calls, such as taxes and Universal Connectivity charges, that even though the phone company might say that you are charged $0.50 a minute to India it actually comes to $0.75 a minute and you can be caught totally unaware. I have realized that a reliable calling card is a much better option of making calls to India because they are prepaid and you are absolutely aware of the expenses being incurred.

Staying here, I have to take care of so many things and so many dues and deadlines, missing even one could be detrimental to my credit history or my academics. This necessitates planning and scheduling each and every day of life in the US (at least the early days) till one starts getting the hang of it.

One thing I really miss everyday in the morning here, is the cup of tea which my mother or my sister used to prepare for me. A cup of hot tea is really hard to get and the thing I end up having is a can of "Cool Nestea" and that seems to be the only feasible substitute available as long as I don't prepare it myself. I had to change many of my eating habits here to actually adjust.

Another thing I miss is the daily Indian newspaper. There are so many of them here, conveying news from all over the world, but actually very few with Indian content. The Internet seems to be a really nice source of news updates, which almost all of us here visit regularly. But, unlike reading news in a newspaper, reading it on a computer screen is cumbersome to read in detail.

Food and newspapers are not the only things I have had to adapt to. The music and movie tastes of people here are actually in contrast with our choices and I was actually disturbed in the beginning to listen to their kind of music but now I seem to have started to like it. As I said, one has to change his lifestyle to adapt. It's true when they say "When in Rome, do as the Romans do!"

Letter 10

Nitin Ahuja

Letter 12