A trip to remember!

India over the last few decades has witnessed exponential growth in fields of IT Services. Oxford dictionary has included the term 'bangalored' to define the phenomenon of outsourcing IT and ITES engagements to India. Engineers from of various specializations, across different institutions, are joining into the bandwagon of becoming an IT Engineer or a 'coder' as they say. Reason - its the easiest way to earning decent moolah at the end of the day. Another juicy opportunity that majority of the 'IT guys' seek is an engagement at client location abroad! Earn, enrich your cross-cultural expertise and also visit the tourist spots in and around the place of deputation - what more could you have asked for? This has been the trend in majority of the top tier Indian IT companies. 10+2+4 Yrs of academic track, good communication skills and a decent enough aptitude is all that is needed to be a part of this phenomenon. Well, I am a 'coder' and a part of this IT gamut too!

Mid Jan '08 I set on my maiden flight to Los Angeles, USA. It was indeed exciting - so many a stories my friends had shared, so many a dream did I have! Landing at LAX and reaching the hotel at Pasadena was no less a challenge especially with a full blown jet-lag. Coming from an Indian metro city, the first thing that hit me was the traffic on the freeway. It was such organized, well thought out and disciplined. I reached the Hotel eventless to find there was no drinking water in the room, it did not take me long to realize that you do not have drinking water kept in rooms as you have it even in the cheapest 'dharmashaalas' of India - you have to buy water or drink tap water or die of dehydration. Walked two blocks down to 'Rite Aid' store and bought myself a water container, on the walk back I was almost getting run over my a 4x4! My ignorance at fault, - as is my habit, I was jay walking on Colorado Blvd. In US you also have traffic lights for pedestrians, you only cross a street when you see the 'green-man', or else you stand a chance of getting run over by vehicles zooming past at 50 miles per hour! Back at the room I changed, drank lots of water and dozed off on the couch watching TV. When I awoke, it was well past 9 pm and I was hungry. Went out to grab something to eat, only burger outlets - is that all people eat here? The lack of variety was sad indeed, second shock of the day.

Several shocks unfolded that day - there are signals for pedestrians to cross the road, no jay walking like Indians are so good at. Streets are sparkling clean, neighbourhoods are picture postcard beautiful, fancy cars, beautiful ladies on the streets and awesome steak for lunch. What more could a man possibly ask for?

Tourism has been very consciously and methodically promoted there – be it Disneyland Anaheim, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Hollywood Studios or San Diego Sea World! The US trip was truly a dream come true for this lad from Thakurpukur whose fore-fathers had to leave their homeland in one cloth at the time of partition, struggle for their existence in the initial years.