𝗔 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗦𝗔

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.