H1 Hunks... the sequel

...a slice of my experience with the dudes on the other part of the planet...

Click here for the first part of the two part series

"So, where do you work?" a married H1 hunk, originally from Vijayawada started the conversation, on the way back from a car rental company. He had hired a car for the weekend too, like us (my roommate and myself), and was getting dropped at the same venue as us, after returning the rental car.
I mentioned the place.
"Oh! That is a nice place. When did you come to the US?"
"Four months back," I said, "What about you?"
"Five years back," he said, and asked, "Which place in India are you from?"
"Bangalore."
"Oh! Bangalore??!!! Then you must be very intelligent."
Yahoooooooo!!! At least one person on this planet recognizes my worth ;-)
I was pretty much happy because he said that, but was puzzled about the criterion. What had Bangalore to do with my intelligence?
"Why do you say that?"
"You know... I tried for a lot of companies in Bangalore. I couldn't get a job anywhere. Hence, I had to come here," he said.
Heh heh..... my roomy and myself uttered a few embarrassing laughs.
"Bangalore has all intelligent professionals. Especially, now, I have heard that all top companies go to Bangalore. It is soaring to great heights. It has a very bright future," he said nostalgically.
As an afterthought, he added, "I want to go there after a while, but don't know .....depends on whether I get a job or not," he gave a toothy smile.
Ma'an. This guy was steeped in inferiority complex.
"Don't worry, the market has expanded greatly now. Everybody is getting recruited nowadays," said my roomy, to placate him. ;-)

Now, now. We all know that America is a rich country, with everyone moving around in swanky cars, and wearing leather jackets. The H1 hunks are ogled by all in the eastern part of the world to be carrying around a truckload of money.
But it takes sheer hard work to collect that truckload.
It takes a lot of will to turn down the Subway bread at restaurants, to save few dollars, when you are accustomed to hogging at ' The Forum' when back home.
It takes a lot of will to turn down the weekend night at the nightclub, to save a few dollars, when you are accustomed to partying in Purple Haze when back home.
It does take a lot of will to sustain the unwashed clothes for weeks, to save a few dollars at the Laundromat, when you are accustomed to the 'bai' washing your clothes everyday when back home.
Also, there have been some popular stories about the dudes wielding the scissors, and the comb to help each other with the haircuts, to abstain from those expensive visits to the hair saloons.

Hence, remember. That truckload of money is through sheer hard work, and not a result of hour long commuting to work, to write few lines of code, waiting for the 5 pm bell to ring as in 'back home'. :D

"Car, car, car, car, elnodi car" echoed the haunting voice over the screens in Bangalore sometime back.
Food, shelter, and clothing are very essential for humans, so is the car for the humans in the land of Uncle Sam.
Desi dudes who ventured into the land of opportunities without a four-wheelers' drivers license would feel devoid of all opportunities. Yes, they always had their friend's bike to borrow to that late night movie, or the pillion seat of an Activa for a weekend afternoon lunch with buddies. But here, there are no buses, no auto rickshaws.
No car. No life.
Hence, the rush to get an American Drivers' License.
I had to get one for myself too.

"Sir, you may want to come again," said the bearded examiner after he took my driver's license test.
Whaaaat???!!! Did that mean that I had failed the test???!!!
I guessed I had.
"Ok," I said.
FAILED!FAILED!FAILED! .... thoughts echoed in my mind. Despite an experience of having driven 40,000 kilometers back home??!!!
Unfortunately, the examiner did not care about my historically proven road skills, especially in the toughest conditions in the world.
Nope...not on the Himalayas.... but on Hosur road.
He had a systematic checklist of things, to be performed on the roads inside the compound of the drivers' license office. If one doesn't pass the minimum number of instructions, one fails!!!
I have to learn the rules properly next time, I made a mental note.
But there are dudes who prepare damn well for the test. After having learnt the rules, they use the Google Maps to get the layout of the roads, signals, parallel parking place, etc in the drivers' license office compound.
And that, my friends, is true dedication!!!
(By the way, he failed the first time too :D )
In my second driving test, the more patient of the examiners sat through my immaculate performance, and at the end spoke, "Where are you from?"
"Bangalore, India."
"Oh! I get a couple of people from Bangalore. If you have driven there, you can drive anywhere in the world I guess," he smiled.

Just as important as the car, is a phone. The small device is a lifeline for the dudes to maintain their sanity amidst the pressures of the alien world.
Nope... I don't mean the phone-dating network. Those dudes will lose their sanity anyway, when they meet up with their date.
I am speaking about the endless voice chats that begin... on dot at 9pm in the evening.
The reason for this strange phenomenon is that T Mobile and few other GSM service providers give out free minutes of airtime from 9 pm till 9am.
Hence, phones begin to ring all over the US, in all H1 dudes' phones at 9pm, almost simultaneously as though heralding the birth of Harry Potter.
The dudes update themselves with their friends' lives, from their rotten bosses to their latest vacations.
And the dudes who are busy for long distance calls, are busy calling up longer distances on the Reliance and other undersea cables.
The calls vary from few minutes of India update to hours of remote sorting out complex family issues.
But yes, most of the conversations definitely would carry 'Alli eiga time estu?' [ 'What time is it there?' ]
'Nine thirty,' says the dude.
'It is 11 here......alli nightaa [ is it night there] ?'
The dude smiles, with a 'yes'.

"Ond KG akki, moor KG sakkare, ardha KG bele (one kilogram rice, three kilograms of sugar, half kilograms of daal)," I remember in my childhood, mother giving her orders on the phone to the local grocery vendor, who would send across the items on the rear carrier of the Atlas cycle of his assistant boy. "Nikon digital camera, Sony handycam, 1 gb flash drive," I could hear the crackling voice on the speaker phone of my friend, his friends from India giving him a list of e-grocery to be bought, at his place when he announced that he would be going to India for vacation. The list went on for the next few minutes, as the talk proceeded from a few hundred dollars to a few thousands.

Also, there was a new niece, recently wed couples, and excited cousins, who all had to be satiated by a shower of special presents.

The 'India shopping' for the H1 dude is one of the most special occasions, and also a very tiring one. After booking deals in the various web sites, it is the time for the shopping at the 'Premium Outlets'. The brotherhood accompanies the dude to the plush factory outlets, where they shop till they drop. They shop like there is no tomorrow. They shop till their cars can muster up the last bit of space inside it.
They become the dream boys for all the shop owners, and also for the custom officers back home.

"Take a flight with port of entry as Bangalore, dude. Don't take Mumbai, you will be screwed," the advices pour in from the brotherhood.

The dude does that, but later mentions on phone that he still had to pay up 3000 rupees as bribe to the customs.
"Didn't you say that Bangalore was safe?" I asked the other H1 dude who had come up with this advice.
"You don't know the amount of stuff he carried back. If it leaks out that he escaped for just three thousand bucks, Dawood would hire him next," laughed the other dude aloud

From the excitement of watching trivial bollywood comedies on the local screens, and local potluck parties at friends' places to the anxieties of tumultuous news on rediff.com and burgeoning real estate prices back home, the H1 hunks celebrate India in their everyday lives on the other part of the lonely planet. The Toshibas, the IPODs, or the SONYs do provide temporary escape from the mundane of the lonely life, but nothing compares to an occasionally visit to India, which is looked upon by envy by all in the H1 brotherhood.
Yet, the H1 hunks perform with excellence in the large halls of the American corporate, with a dream to be able to do the same in India, sometime later.
Often misunderstood, sometimes looked at with wonder, and sometimes with skepticism, the H1 hunks take all of these in their stride.
With a warm smile, that says ' I get you budd, but we gotta hurry home. I have got a meal to cook'.