In 2018, our member Mr S. C. Sarkar travelled to Austin, Texas, to visit his son. He was able to form a first-hand impression of the United States of America, a land he had until that point encountered only in books and films.
My daughter-in-law, her parents, and I boarded a flight to Delhi and then Doha, and finally reached Dallas, Texas. My son, who lives in Austin, drove three-and-a-half hours with his six-month-old son to receive us. It was evening when we were driving back, and my son was anxious to take us back to the comfort of his home. We were stopped by a car with blue-and-red beacon lights on its roof; it was of course the police, who informed us that we were fractionally over the speed limit. I was a bit apprehensive, but the policeman understood our situation and let us off with a cautionary word. And so, my first experience with America was a close brush with the law, albeit a not-too-unpleasant one.
Austin is picturesque with a mixed topography. There are hills to the west and the rest of it is flat. The roads were sparkling clean, and the green bits of the city were very well maintained. The city is planned in such a way that all the shops are to be found in malls. There are no standalone shops anywhere, no grocers, no individual, or local sellers.
I found it a bit unsettling that there weren’t too many pedestrians around, as is the case in Kolkata and other Indian cities, though the city itself was quite populated. Everyone seemed to own vehicles. The roads were packed with cars.
American roads were a revelation to me. The roads weren’t dusty at all, and I later found out the reason: they are paved with a top layer of gravel which creates a buffer between the wheels and the topsoil of the road where the dust collects. This prevents the dust, trapped below the gravel, from flying around.
While I was impressed with the road design, I was disoriented by the fact that cars drove on the right side of the street. The first time I got into my son’s car, I felt like something was wrong!
Though I was from India, I wasn’t too far from Bengalis. I saw many of my compatriots and Bangladeshis around, who ran many of the restaurants in the area.
My first impression of America was that it was heaven, but it soon turned out that it was a heaven which had sobering touches. As we drove around Austin, I saw beggars with placards slung over their chests, which read ‘I am homeless. Give me food and shelter.’ The sight of poverty in a country I had believed to be uniformly rich was a cause of surprise for me.
Nothing, though, besmirched my perception of Austin, a clean and beautiful city. When I returned to Kolkata after a few weeks I carried a piece of it back with me in my heart.

Our member Mr P. Dutta Roy looks back at his childhood in Shillong in pre-independence India, and his family’s move to Kolkata where he developed a fascination for tea.
I was born 97 years ago in Shillong. I was very naughty as a child. Perhaps it was because of this reason that my father admitted me in the school facing our house, so that my mother could keep an eye on me from our verandah. At home I was disciplined mostly by my mother, but I was free to do what I wanted when I went off to play.
In those days, hockey, and not cricket, was popular amongst the youth. It was very common for fights to break out during games. Somehow, whenever boys pick up their hockey sticks, they feel bolder and stronger. India was under the British empire then, and we would regularly spot British troops in Shillong. Armed with hockey sticks wenwould never feel intimidated even by the British regiment.
After high school, our family moved to Kolkata where I enrolled myself in a college. Those were troubled times in Kolkata, and there would be the occasional riot. Society was divided on religious and communal lines, but there was immense solidarity amongst us students. In college there were students from all communities, and there was never any conflict between us. During the riots, we, both Hindu and Muslim boys, would go out together with sticks to watch over the streets at night. We would man different parts of the street, and from time to time we would check with the next guard down the road: ‘Is all well with you?’ Immediately we would receive a reply, ‘All is well!’
In college they would conduct training camps for the army and the air force. I signed up and was selected to enter the defence forces. I always dreamt of flying planes, and so I chose the air force. Alas, the positions for pilots were full, and I didn’t make the list. After two years I resigned and started looking for a job. A cousin brother at Lipton suggested I join the tea industry. When I went to visit him at work, I saw him sip tea and swill it around in his mouth.
Much to my surprise, he then proceeded to spit it out! I was very intrigued. He explained to me that tea tasters were not supposed to drink the tea so that they may keep their palate neutral for subsequent tastings. I agreed to join immediately. My training took me to visit several tea gardens where I observed how different kinds of tea were cut and processed. I also worked in auction houses before finally becoming a tea taster.
After years of drifting from Shillong to Kolkata, and from college to the army, I finally made it in the tea industry. During my early years I would often hear a voice deep inside me shout out, ‘Is all well with you?’ but I could never articulate a response. Once I secured the tea taster’s job, I was finally able to answer back to that inner voice, ‘Yes, all is well!’