Interstate 540

Driving is one of the activities I like most. So, since I arrived here I was looking forward for acquiring an Arkansas driver's licence and to atleast rent a car. I searched many sites on the net to know more about procedures and essentials for getting The Natural State's licence and to my delight I found that any foreign national with valid International Driving Permit can drive a car for a year here in the US. Then the next task was finding a reason to rent a car and due to our New-To-US status I got a reason as well. On last Monday, we booked a cab to visit Social Security Office in nearby town called Fayetteville. We were four. Cab took us to the government office some 25 miles south to Bentonville. As we got down of the cab and walked four steps I saw a notice.. "Closed due to Columbus Day'. How on earth no one told us about this before we left the office! Well, we spent $160 just to go to Fayetteville and coming back. As we had to go back again.. I suggested others that we would rent a car and I will drive. Others were ok with the idea.

I rented a car a day before on Wednesday and drove around Bentonville to get the feel of numerous rules and offcourse right hand drive. Well, it feels bit strange to drive first. But the best thing is cars here are automatic. There is no clutch and no gear! Driver's dream! You can be more relaxed while driving here but at the same time you have to be more vigilant. You are always secondary to rules here and not 'apni marzi ka maalik' like back in India. You have to maintain some minimum speed, you cannot exceed the max speed. If you want to take turn you have to take it from certain places marked for turning. You have to give way to pedestrians and what not. But still I found driving here really easy first because traffic was less and second one can be sure about others as they will also follow the rules.

With the homework done, I took the car out on US Interstate 540 which goes through Bentonville. As soon as I got on it, pictures of Mumbai - Pune Expressway came in front of me. I love our expressway it's big and scenic. This 540 was 2X2 unlike our Expressway which is 3X3 and as more Americans use cars it was crowded. If you are coming from India or any other country which follows Metric system to calculate distance speedometers can give you wrong sense of speed. Looking 70 on the meter can make you feel like you can go little faster but you'are already going with 110kph.

Mid October is peak of fall season here, so trees lined along the freeway were showing how beautiful the nature can be. Some were bit ahead of their time and were full red, some like us going with the herd and were yellow and some of them were like government websites slow to adapt the change and were still green. As a driver you will be in two minds whether to enjoy the colors or look for the exit number. Another example of American planning, there have exits to highway after every mile or two but they have given numbers to those exists, you just have to remember the number and take it as your exit comes. No double minds there.

As we reached the SSN office did our job and were waiting for others to come, the security guard aged some 70odd came to us and said, 'I hope you are having great time in our country. We welcome you here. Enjoy your stay here!' and we replied together 'Yes we are!'

I know Cricket!

Not only day starts at wrong time in the US. Everything is wrong here.. If you are an Indian you would definitely think so! We have nothing in common. Absolutely nothing. We may be driving wrong way for all these years but always drive from the 'right' side.. these people drive right but well on the wrong side. We like to paint our roads red (power windows are for that only) but these people paint their roads with all kinds of messages and signs. 'Yield'! reads a sign at a crossroad near my apartment. Yield.. when I first read it I thought I should have WordWeb dictionary on my mobile! How can you use such difficult words to induce sudden halt of a speeding car! It sounds like you have riot police standing on the road. blocking your way and shouting 'YEILD'! These people don't stop there next they say 'State policy'! I was wondering Will 'Thamba! Rajyacha Kayda' do the same thing in Pune? Anyway, that's the different topic altogether.

People come to office in cars of all shapes and sizes here. Indian milk van type cars can be seen parked outside an IT office. Certainly this is not at all possible back home. If we bring our Nano here It will be used in garden for toddlers!

Apart from on the road they have signs all over the place. Here I want to tell my brothers and sisters from Pune If you think you're the best in the business then you need to come to America. You are like Graeme Hick or Darren Lehmann when it comes to putting up signs.. you always scored heavily at your home but there are masters outside! You have a lot of catching up to do!
'Caution! Someone may be coming from the other side!' Cautioning a person entering a loo! How cruel! Other side of the same door says, 'Push door slowly' it's better as you read that after you're done with your work! 'Cafeteria Closes at 2' I reached their at 2.01 lady at the counter gave me Ice cream sandwich and said 'I am allowing you to buy this because this is just one minute past and I am still at the counter' Punekars can you beat this?

That day I went to Bank Of America to open my account. An African American lady was at the desk. (And yes.. I not making any racial remarks here! just want you people to paint clearer picture!) That lady was wonderful and lovely to talk to. She took my passport 'Is this Kee-Tan?' I said in Marathi madhyam uchchar 'Ketan' and my team lead in his Tamil said 'KeTan' at the same time! She got it right! Then she went ahead and asked 'is this your surname?' Well this is another difference people here talk full sentences at banks and public places. They say 'How may help you? and don't just take their hand forward to demand passbook from you! Ohh yes I said to the lady at the bank, 'AapTe'.
'You people say A as O in India?'
'No it's Aa AapTe'
'Aaaapte!'
'This is one of the easiest Indian surnames for you'
'Ohh yeah certainly! Some of them are horror'

BofA has this different thing. You have to choose a picture which is shown to you each time you log in to your account. I was looking for some baseball or basketball pic. Then I asked her, 'You know cricket?
'Ohh yeah I know that!'
'Have you seen it?'
'Ohh many times.. it's just lovely little thing which sits on the rock!'

That's why I say we have nothing in common. Nothing not even English!

The Journey

After Long Journey (Lost the count after changing so many time zones J) I am finally at Infosys Office at Bentonville.

Journey was boring at times in the plane but was good overall. My journey started with Rakesh Roshan passing by my side at waiting area at Mumbai Airport. Plane was big and crowded. I couldn’t sleep much as the leg room was worse than in the bus. Saw great city of London from the sky. The city was beautiful with lots of greenery around. Heathrow airport is really huge with 5 terminals. Each one is amost of the size of Mumbai airport. There were people from all over the world. Indians were all over the place be it handling check in baggage, security checks, Forex counters, washrooms and what not. I decided not sit idle and to see as much Heathrow as I could and saw Paro and director of Dev D (kalki and Anurah Kashyap) walking together J. This airport was huge. Planes were landing almost a minute.

After quite enjoyable stay of 4 hours at Heathrow I boarded the plane to Dallas. Now after having Indian airhostesses and Public Announcements done in Hindi along with English, this was truly international experience with all British crew and majority of American travellers. A middle aged Mexican lady was sitting next to me who was talking in Spanish with everyone and saying Gracias to me at my every small gesture of help!

My plane took off from London and flew till Manchester before escaping through narrow channel in water between Scotland and Ireland and believe or not I saw both the Old Traffords (Cricket and Football) at Manchester! My halt at UK paid off!

After some 2 hours long journey, I saw some snow covered mountains coming out of Atlantic Ocean... and route map showed in my plane said that it was the sounthernmost tip if Greenland! My plane entered American continent through Canada and entered US at the Great Lakes. While landing at Dallas I saw huge truck running on US Highway with Wal-Mart written on it! :)

Then at Dallas Airport we all went to Customs and Immigration area. Where again there were Indians Mexicans, Chinese, Eurpoeans, Africans. We had already filled the form in the plane which I submitted to the officer after few simple formal questions and fingerprinting done he gave me clearance to claim my baggage. After collecting my bags I went for secutiry check for domestic flight I had to catch to reach North West Arkansas Airport.

There was a train which i had to board to reach to Domestic terminal. The domestic plane was really small and I rejected the food offered to me after eating whaterver offered to my in first two flights. I found one more Infoscion sitting beside me. We chatted for some time and after landing went to our respective places in the same cab. Got the first time experience of Left hand drive! :)


This place is just like village. Has lots of beautiful houses with lawns in front of them. Has clean and wide and smooth roads.


Got the key after reaching to my apartment. It is nice flat and currently I am the only occupant as the other guy has gone on a week long holiday.


I slept very less in my journey which is actually helping me to combat Jet Lag! So I got nice sleep at US night time! :)


Next update coming soon! Till then Cya!