People in USA----------------
Very jovial scene in America was my usual morning walk or evening stroll in one of the sprawling gardens with my grand daughter Kashmira. Jovial I say, because that was happiest period of my life when I met hundreds of Americans going out for work, or their morning purchases or for jogging. In the parks I saw a number of Americans either jogging or baby sitting, playing with their babies or single-mindedly jogging with their water bottles. Many of them going out of the way enquired after me or at least remarked about little Kashmira, ‘How beautiful girl!’ or ‘wonderful eyes the baby has!’ more often than not they were attracted to her black, sparkling eyes. If I was walking alone, they simply smiled or just exchanged pleasantries. In San Francisco there are many Chinese people. But it is easy to know native Chinese from American Chinese. Hundreds of Chinese immigrate and stay in San Francisco illegally and work in many establishments. When I asked my son Amol, he said you can not work here without work permits, but I found a number of Mexicans and Chinese working both in San Francisco and Washington, without proper papers. Some Mexicans and Chinese can not even speak English.
Anyway I traveled a lot in both the cities and met Americans in all strata of society. I enjoyed visiting pubs, malls, railways stations, parks and number of places like super markets etc. but I found Americans lost in their own world, oblivious of world around them. Of course they have channel no. 27 a TV without borders which is window on the world. Americans have special TVs on China and Russia and of course free internet with its vast store of knowledge. Americans are most advanced people but common sense wise they no better than Europeans. Many Americans speak with you on their own, at least flashing their smile they utter ‘have nice day.’ Many Americans have said different things to me, I don’t remember them all, but here are some of the sentences. One black American woman admonished me to come in queue by saying, ‘Man, this is San Francisco, not your home, will you stand straight and follow me?’ Another white American woman said on the Clement street, ‘you are a handsome grand father.’ This she said looking at my grand daughter, Kashmira. The one gentleman, obviously drunk, because he was coming out of bar said, ‘are you homeless sir?’ I was taken aback but then I forgave him cause at that time I was wearing most shabby dress. I replied politely ‘no sir!’ then when I had lost my way on other side of Golden Gate park and searching for a stop of no 71 bus, one American homeless woman went out of way and explained to me how to get the stop and remarked, ‘you don’t look like Mexican, from which country you are man?’ I replied vey solemnly that I was from India. She had heard of Indians but she had not heard of India.