chapter 24

San JoseThe tried and tested method of following a couple of other passengers on landing at San Jose let us down. The carefully selected group we trailed led us to the wrong exit, and their good work done, dissolved into the day before we could appeal for guidance. After a mini bumbling peregrination, a helpful man directed us to take a shuttle to the right one where we had to collect our baggage. And who should we find waiting there but Nizar himself. The looks of delight were mutual.With broad grins we went to the luggage belt to find only my suitcase and Arpitha’s enjoying the rattling roundabout ride on the belt. Oops. The last of the Mohicans, we concluded; everyone else must have taken theirs and reached home while we had lost our way. We quickly yanked them off the belt like superheroes just in case we were fined for coming late—one never can tell with America, but, what do you know? It turned out ours were the first pieces of luggage to be offloaded.The belt soon brought along bags of six and more dimensions but we had to wait ages before VK’s suitcase showed up like a coy bride. We soon joined Nizar and were on our way home. The weather was cool, the company was great. Nizar couldn’t believe we had actually made it halfway across the globe. He blinked, incredulous, and looked at Arpitha in admiration. We told him to keep his eye on the traffic.Nizar’s wife Shaheeda had prepared a delicious lunch for us before leaving for office and we fell upon it like, er … starving Delta passengers. We had been served next to nothing even on the long flight from Chicago to San Jose. The second flight had a couple of airhostesses marching up and down like the Gestapo and flinging miniscule packets of biscuits or peanuts at those of us monkeys who weren’t asleep. It was a quick ‘blink-and-you-miss-it’ delivery. Two unfortunate teenagers three rows ahead who had chosen that moment to flutter their eyelashes at a good-looking guy across the aisle and missed catching the gimlet eye were left gazing wistfully at the handsome peanut-munching hunk.The evening was for walking. Shaheeda, a wispy, pretty pocket edition and a lovely person, returned and, just as we had done at Rajive’s, we went on a bracing walk around the neighbourhood. I can’t help mentioning yet again how pleasurable walks in the U.S. are—clean air, picturesque scenes, no garbage and hardly any people to bump into. With no walls to block your view of neighbours’ gardens, we gaped and gasped at the flowers in full bloom, especially the roses that appeared to be high on the popularity list.Nizar has the Western attitude to time and no one can beat him in punctuality. When on his annual visit to Trivandrum, he would call to say he’d come over at 5, you could be sure he would be at the doorstep at 4.59 so he could place his hand on the doorbell at 5. It’s another matter that there would be Third World problems waiting to foil his plans—the power would have failed, the doorbell wouldn’t ring, but he’d have no idea, and finally the power of his lungs would help him get our attention, 10 minutes after 5.Be ready at 9, he had told us, very gently, when we had finally retired for the night. And we were ready at 10.30, an hour and a half being our normal handicap. He understood this soon enough and indulgently made his adjustments. Shopping first, he said.Nizar wanted us to get to know his beloved country as best as we could in a short time, so he had planned visits to giant shopping malls. He took us first to an unbelievably huge store, ‘Costco Wholesale, San José’, where he had a membership of sorts. Everything in Costco cost a lot. And we could buy only in giant quantities. Nizar acted like a good guide as we explored the indoor giant spaces. You don’t need to buy anything, he consoled us, just look at the place, just look at the choices one has. So we looked.We went to another enormous mall next, stuffed with stuff and people slowly pushing their laden shopping carts. I cannot even begin to describe the sheer scale and variety of things available. We walked and walked along miles of aisles, so broad people could keep to the right even as they shopped and not bump into others as they dropped.We were spoilt for choice; that’s the problem when there is the world’s plenty before you. Or should I say China’s plenty? But we did buy gifts for relatives and friends, taking smart advice from Nizar on what to get.The sprawling parking lots complemented the gigantic malls—so huge and well concreted that planes flying overhead would be tempted to try their wheels there, and get some shopping done too.It was here that one of the mysteries we had mulled over at the beginning of our trip was solved—where were all the people? Well, here they were, calmly pushing shopping trolleys, queuing at cash counters with the patience they showed while driving on storm-hit roads and leaving with mountains of shopping in giant cars often described as ‘trucks’. This was one big, self-satisfied nation. And profligate too.‘Maybe malls are where the heart of the nation lies,’ I observed to VK later. ‘Not in Walden Pond.’ Sorry, Thoreau; apologies, E.O. Wilson. ‘It’s in these massive, incredibly well-organised, cornucopian covered spaces.’VK nodded, looking rather sorrowful, and added, ‘Just as India’s heart does not lie in Sabarmati ashram or a pair of British designed spectacles.’ Continuing in the same vein, he said, ‘Remember, this is the real reason why the Soviet Union collapsed. They may have launched the Sputnik and built nuclear reactors, but the only things they could mass produce were propaganda and misery. Just rumours of these malls must have done more to undermine the system than all the James Bond-type things the Americans may have done.’On the way to the Rose Garden, Nizar spoke about something else that was an eye-opener. People bought so much they did not have room in their homes for all of it. Therefore, they actually hired storage, in places built for it, so they could keep those things that were spilling out of their already well stocked homes. A second home just for stuff! Nizar did not say this but he seemed to imply that the market could be relied on to find a solution to every human problem.The Rose Garden proudly proclaimed itself ‘The Finest Rose Garden in America’, what else? I decided to believe it, for it was fabulous. There were roses all over the place, of all colours, sizes and smells, or no smell at all. This was before Covid came along, of course, to make you head to the nearest PCR testing centre if you couldn’t smell a rose.After a quick dash home for lunch, Nizar took us to Stanford University—the place that had produced one U.S. president and any number of Nobel laureates, and the new Twitter chief Parag Agrawal too. It was close to Silicon Valley, about 20 miles from San Jose. It is such a special feeling, to step into these hallowed universities that one has only read and heard about.Stanford has one of the largest campuses in the U.S. A few students were cycling about while we walked around the huge quadrangle, and strolled into the quiet Stanford Memorial Cathedral that stood at the centre of the Quad. Coming out, Nizar pointed out the lecture halls. We peeped into one, and visited the book shop on the campus. Nizar led us out and to the car.‘Guess where we are going next?’ Nizar asked, as we piled in. He should have known better than to pose this question to someone who is geographically challenged. Seeing my confusion, he offered a hint. ‘A place very close.’ He had seen VK studying the local map the previous day, so he might have thought the clue would work. Alas, I’m not a map person, so I remained baffled. ‘You’ll see your favourite there …’ he tried again.‘Got it,’ I beamed and came up with a convoluted guess. ‘The beach. The fish. Fish curry is my favourite.’Nizar gave up. ‘The closest beach is almost 30 miles away. We’re off to Google’s headquarters at Mountain View, just 5 miles away, and …’‘Google.’ I goggled. ‘Really? Oh, and Shaheeda works there. My favourite person.’ I felt like an idiot.‘Googleplex is the name Google has given its sprawling campus,’ explained Nizar in the car. ‘A combo of Google and complex, and also a play on the word “googolplex”, “googol” being ten …’‘Raised to the power of a hundred,’ I chipped in, keen to redeem myself.‘Exactly,’ Nizar said with a nod. ‘To indicate its hugeness.’‘Like all things in the U.S.,’ VK butted in.Shaheeda was waiting for us. ‘I’ll get you your visitor’s pass,’ she said, and led us briskly to a computer in the centre of the hall. There we caught The Efficient Mr Google napping. Glitches succeeded glitches. Info fed in would either not be accepted or disappear when she moved to page two on a touch screen device. Finally, after many heroic attempts, when everything was done and the print pass instruction given, the machine refused to oblige.‘To have this happen in Google,’ I giggled.‘Our Indian Railways has better operating computers,’ VK teased.‘Let’s try another computer,’ Arpitha offered a techie’s suggestion.‘Yes, let’s.’ Shaheeda gave Arpitha a grateful glance and we went to a sorry-looking computer abandoned in a corner that perked up on seeing us. ‘Use me,’ it begged.We did, and it worked, if not like a charm, at least like a wannabe witch’s first shaky spell. With the pass adorning my neck, I was all set to go inside and nose out the search engine’s secrets, when I found Shaheeda shepherding us out of the building. Maybe the more interesting section is in another building, I thought, since it had more than twenty buildings. But no, we were going to the cafeteria that I soon discovered was the most interesting section for everyone working there.‘You must go to the cafeteria,’ the security chap advised.‘Aren’t you taking them to the café?’ a colleague of Shaheeda’s asked after we were introduced.‘What shall we have today?’ I overheard someone ask, when a group of three passed us.‘We’re going to one of the most famous cafés here,’ Shaheeda announced and as we walked there, she described the different cuisines on offer.On the way, we saw two or three young men juggle clubs. ‘To keep the staff healthy,’ Shaheeda said. ‘Google cares about its employees. We have swimming pools, gyms, game tables, video games facilities. Or they can cycle, juggle, you name it.’‘Is this recreation time for them?’ I asked.‘No, it’s work time. But they have the freedom to go for the occasional break when they feel like it. So that it feels like home.’‘What fun,’ I thought. How diverting if the principal of my college had brought in such a reform. ‘Teachers, henceforth when you feel drained, you may indulge in some juggling. I will give you time in between classes for that,’ she would say. And when she announced, ‘Teachers! It’s juggling time’, we’d all prance out of the staff room with balls, clubs or rings. The more daring ones might bring blunt knives along. And we’d juggle in the corridors or out on the grounds. Would there have been more students to watch me juggle or to listen to my lecture? Would they have decided my true talent lay elsewhere, say, with the circus?My ridiculous reverie ended, for we had reached the cafeteria. We had to wait in a long queue to get the much talked about food, and when we finally got it, I wanted to tell Shaheeda her cooking was better any day, but didn’t—I didn’t wish to dampen her enthusiasm for the café.The campus had a college air about it, maybe because it had a lot of young employees, just out of college, and probably very pleased with all the perks Google offered. After walking around for a while, we left for Susan Cheryan’s house.Susan Cheryan was the girl with the curl, not only in the middle of her forehead but all over her head. I first met her when she was in class IX and I was her English teacher, fresh from college. She was an endearing, intelligent girl and a vivacious prankster. I still remember the heavily scented love letter she and her equally mischievous friends, Philo and Sudha, had sent me after I left the school. It was neatly typed on an attractive letter paper. I had taught them letter-writing and they had followed all the rules. ‘Timbuktu’ was the name of the place while the date was ‘Half past kissing time, time to kiss again’. Signed ‘From an ardent admirer’, it arrived in an equally fetching envelope. I had accosted VK, a little coyly, with it, and he had replied, sounding a little put out, ‘Why should I send unsigned letters when I’m sending signed ones? And the stink!’ He sneezed twice, closed his nose and closed the matter. I found out who the perpetrators were only years later when one of the trio confessed.Susan and I had stayed in sporadic touch and when she got to know I was in the U.S. and was actually coming to San Jose, she wouldn’t hear of my not visiting her. She sent me her address and we decided to meet.Nizar offered to take us there. Arpitha and I went in Shaheeda’s car while VK went in Nizar’s. Shaheeda drove fast and competently, but her conversation with her niece on the phone while driving kept me on the edge of my seat till we arrived at our destination.Without any sort of coordination both cars slammed the brakes at Susan’s at the same time. She rushed down to welcome us. I was seeing her after a long time, though the years sat lightly on her. We were overjoyed to meet each other and some time went in squeals, shrieks, hugs and pecks—social distancing was an unknown phenomenon then. The others stood around looking uncertain, until we remembered them and effected hasty introductions. The house and its sprawling surroundings offered ample proof that nature lovers lived there. It was set on a hill top and built on different levels. Flowers and trees abounded and if you climbed the steps to the top you’d get a fabulous panoramic view of the surroundings.Susan’s house is huge, and so is her dog, misnamed Pebbles. He is a very singular dog and should have been christened ‘Boulder’. He was excited to see people—doesn’t see too many of that breed, apparently—and showed it by jumping on us. As always is the case with dogs, he too, with unerring instinct, selected me as his special target. Nizar kept a polite distance and told us later that he had a dog allergy. I told him I had it too, and while his made him sneeze and sniff, mine made me leap on tables and chairs.We met Susan’s husband, Suresh, a quiet person who speaks through his hobbies—growing bonsai, keeping bees, making tables and doing other carpentry. Her older daughter was there too, a very pretty girl. Susan is a terrific cook and her culinary skills were on display at the fantastic spread she had got ready. We returned to Nizar’s with a feeling of deep joy and contentment.Nizar had planned the itinerary with great care. It was good for us that he was working from home; and this was pre-Covid—talk of foresight. He was an engineer who had given up his job at Microsoft to set up his own company. Being his own boss, he could give us all his time. He was the perfect host and the perfect guide. He had actually bought filter coffee powder and unearthed the decoction contraption, under the notion that we love filter coffee. I do like filter coffee, but only when someone else makes it for me; otherwise, I’m very contented with Nescafe Classic instant coffee. That had been our great indulgence when our salaries were paltry and we really had to plan our expenditure. Nescafe cost a king’s ransom, but we willingly gave in to the blackmail.He told us the previous evening that our next destination was Yosemite. Now, if you haven’t heard about the place, you wouldn’t have the foggiest what the other person was talking about. And I hadn’t. I know, I know, I have been hopelessly ignorant, as ignorant as an American is of India.Yousmiti? Yoursmi …? for often people swallow the last syllable. I felt reluctant to ask and expose my lack of awareness. Anyway, I would find out the next day, spelling, pronunciation, geography and all. I knew it was a national park, though.It’s an overnight stay, Nizar clarified, and it’d be cold. We quickly packed in extra warm clothes. He said he was lucky to have got us a room in a hotel, and I wondered what the big deal was. We never had a problem anywhere. Later I realised that it’s a favoured spot for tourists and Americans, and one had to book months in advance. He managed to book a tent in the outdoors for himself. It was a brave decision on his part—a wonderful host putting his guests’ comfort above all else—for he could easily have had a wild bear for company in the night.We left for Yosemite at 9.30. Yes, we actually set out at 9.30—Nizar’s devotion to punctuality finally shamed us into being on time. It took us about five hours, lengthened because of the mandatory breaks—a bathroom break, a petrol break and one for lunch. The journey took us through different terrains—barren mountains, fruit orchards, and acres and acres of land with no people about.VK, seated beside Nizar, was in conversation with him all the way, often crossing swords about politics. It was all friendly and often funny, but the two sides never came together or even gave signs of budging. Nizar was a free-market enthusiast. He had endless complaints about the bureaucracy, not just in India but also in California. Do you know how horrible the power situation is in California? Big government is to blame. Any idea how long it takes to get permits to repair your roof? Nizar would frequently pepper his arguments with quotes from Ronald Reagan and jokes about the old Soviet Union. VK would counter with stories of private sector corruption and inefficiency.‘How can this sort of landscape lead to a national park?’ I asked, when the two paused to breathe, and, as if on cue, we entered the wooded area. A river showed up—the Merced River—and became our companion, bubbling along on the side, and the heat of the plains gave way to a cool, bracing temperature. Huge trees wished to hold us in close embrace, and gigantic granite rocks loomed over us. Waterfalls greeted us and when we reached Yosemite, in Mariposa County, we were totally bowled over.We checked into Yosemite Lodge. A comfortable wooden room had been allotted for us on the first floor, with a big cosy bed and a neat bathroom. I immediately initiated a mini disaster. I went to inspect the washroom and the tap I turned on wouldn’t close. I appealed to the engineers and Nizar managed to stop the flow of water, but what I had begun, the other engineer, Arpitha, completed for, after she used the bathroom, the tap refused to obey anyone’s entreaties or force. Water gushed out.Nizar called the desk while I stood guiltily about, certain that this time we were going to be sued. What damages would they clamp on us? Would we be allowed to return to India or would we have to languish unwept, unhonoured and unsung in the U.S.?The desk responded promptly by sending a plumber who examined the tap from all angles, getting quite wet in the process, and pronounced it was the tap’s fault. Hurray! It was an old one and would be fixed soon. The Americans are honest people, I thought, relieved. We left him to it and went off to explore the place and, though American honesty had just been on display, we weren’t taking chances, and took with us all our essential papers, money, cards and wallets.We took tour buses to a couple of scenic spots before returning to the hotel to set out on a trek. I took a long and admiring look at Bridalveil Fall visible from the hotel front and wondered at the bride the veil hid. After completing the trail, we were debating on what next, when a tall, elderly man stopped—stooped would be more accurate—in front of our group. He smiled and asked, ‘Indians or Pakistanis?’‘Indians,’ responded VK. ‘Look at these engineering geeks,’ he pointed towards Nizar and Arpitha.That opening exchange led to an interesting conversation. The gentleman had once taught mathematics at Chicago University but quit, after twenty years, and joined the State Department, where he worked for the rest of his career. He let us in on a little secret. He was stationed in New Delhi in the Eighties, organising raids in Afghanistan. ‘What? We were neutral in the war. Besides, we were chummy with the Soviet Union,’ VK said.‘That’s what everyone thinks,’ he countered. Apparently, there was cloak-and-dagger stuff that involved India and the U.S. and our professor friend was right in the thick of it. He had been stationed in Pakistan too. Ooof. I rubbed my hands. Actually, I was feeling cold, but he gave me a pleased smile.VK later remarked that very few people in the States can distinguish between Indians and Pakistanis. He repeated the joke about the old couple in North Carolina who met a neighbour, a young Indian, at a party. ‘You are not from around here, are you?’ asked the man. ‘No,’ said the Indian, ‘I am from India.’ ‘How nice,’ the lady exclaimed, ‘Is that outside North Carolina?’Our professor friend asked a lot of questions and reacted very warmly to Nizar when he explained his start-up. Nizar designed and fabricated something called ‘embedded systems’—state of the art, custom-designed ones that the Chinese could not duplicate. His clients included CERN, NASA, ISRO and the European Space Agency.Nizar was also as American as the U.S. flag. Shaheeda had told us he once had a sticker on the back of his car that read, ‘I was not born here, but I got here as quickly as I could.’ In Seattle, where he had accepted U.S. citizenship, his voice resonated over all the others when he took his oath with a thundering, ‘I do!’ startling everyone else into stammering their oaths. Such was his patriotism he refused to use Chinese components in his devices, even though it would have been cheaper and profitable to do so.The professor chuckled when he heard all this. He obviously approved. It was wonderful to meet us, he said. He lived a retired life in California and spent much of his time visiting national parks. Rarely got a chance to meet Asians, he added.He asked VK to recommend a good book on ancient Indian history. VK beamed and suggested one by a U.S.-based scholar—Elephants and Kings by Thomas R. Trautmann.When the professor mentioned Chicago again, VK asked him if he knew Saul Bellow. The professor said in a dismissive tone, ‘Yeah, used to see him around the place.’ Clearly not a favourite.‘Why,’ asked Nizar, ‘given your love of mathematics, did you ever leave Chicago?’‘It was too cold,’ said the professor.Nizar spotted a chance to score a goal. ‘Took you twenty years to find that out?’ The professor joined in the laughter, laughing loudest.As we shook hands and said our goodbyes, we noticed a tiny lady seated on a bench nearby, like Patience on a monument. ‘That’s my wife,’ he said. She had sought a seat as soon as we began our conversation and had not uttered a word at any point. I empathised.After parting ways, our group trekked to the waterfalls—a splendid sight, but then we had seen Niagara. We attempted to get the spray on our faces; not a good idea for we got a little soaked and it was already getting very cold, though the temperatures didn’t get as low as the phones had warned. Even snow had been predicted. When we returned, we found the errant tap fixed.After dinner, we went to bed by 9.30. Nizar left for his tent. This was the first time he would be spending the night in a tent and he didn’t know what or whom to expect. We wished him luck—that it would only be tame animals that came to socialise with him.The next morning, we were relieved to see Nizar at the restaurant, whole and dapper. He didn’t have a harrowing tale to narrate, of wrestling with bears, shooing off bobcats and being kept awake by howling coyotes. ‘Pleasant place, the tent, and very comfortable.’ His eyes twinkled.‘No close shaves?’ I asked.‘Oh, yes, had one,’ he quipped, stroking his chin. ‘And a refreshing bath too.’It was now bitterly cold and we were grateful for our sweaters, thick coats, mufflers and monkey caps. Wishing to avoid the multiple-choice questions I’d face if I asked for a sandwich for breakfast, I went for pancakes, and so did Arpitha. They were not a patch on the ones in Chicago—my touchstone for excellence. VK and Nizar had eggs and toast.We returned to our room for it was time to check out. We’d just exited with our bags when I rushed back in. VK was certain I had left behind my wallet; Arpitha thought it was my sweater. I joined them soon, shoving a pen into my bag. ‘Has Yosemite stamped on it,’ I said to their baffled faces.‘You’ll end up like the free souvenir-seeking chap in If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium’. VK rolled his eyes. ‘And then I’ll pretend I don’t know you.’‘What happens to him?’ Arpitha, who hadn’t heard of this late Sixties movie, was curious. She wasn’t, by a long shot, going to the pictures or anywhere in the picture at that time.‘His suitcase bursts open and the souvenirs tumble out.’ I laughed. ‘How do my two miserable pens compare with that guy’s collection? He had taken the telephone from the wall and even a lifebuoy from a boat.’VK snorted while Arpitha chuckled. We checked out, and drove to view the falls from different angles, or, rather, in an attempt to find the road that would lead us to the Tunnel View, we ended up going round and round in circles, staring at the waterfalls from every side, and each view was as wow as the next. Sometimes it was the same wow … er … view. This was an occasion when I was actually grateful we’d lost our way. We finally stumbled upon the right route. I don’t know what I expected when I heard the name Tunnel View—analogy made me imagine a narrow view—but a splendid spectacle greeted us when we drove out of the Wawona Tunnel. Waw!Nizar was a trifle apprehensive of the swirling mist that accompanied us, believing it could mature into a fog and then what would we see? Maybe then it would have been a tunnel view in the actual sense, but we were lucky, for the mist that played hide and seek heightened the allure of the breathtaking scene. Once the car was parked, we rushed to ogle at the sprawling valley with the two granite wonders—Half Dome, a rock formation that looks like a dome cut in half on the left, and El Capitan or El Cap, a 3,000 feet vertical rock formation, a challenging temptation to rock climbers, in the centre with Bridalveil Fall, our old friend, to the right looking more coy and captivating in the misty garb.‘This, to me, sums up Yosemite,’ I took a deep, blissful breath and said. By now I was very familiar with the name, rolling it off my tongue with great ease, while swallowing the final syllable with a silent, fashionable gulp.On the return journey, Arpitha and I slept quite a bit while VK and Nizar continued their amicable verbal sparring. We had passed a lot of fruit farms on our way to Yosemite, and I had told myself we would look them up on our return journey. The stalls attached to some farms looked so appealing we got Nizar to stop at one, brushing aside his tip-off that fruit was cheaper in his neighbourhood. The multi-coloured luscious fruits were very tempting. There were apples, cherries, plums … all looking juicy and inviting. A very made-up girl with red cheeks and lips that put the apples and cherries to shame was at the counter. Strangely, VK didn’t notice the heavy make-up, or even the girl—he had eyes only for the cherries.We bought a couple of kilos of cherries and plums and before Nizar could even restart the car, had our hands in the bags. He politely declined our offer, and we were thrilled—a cherry refused is a cherry gained. We polished them off before we reached home, much to Nizar’s amazement. He watched, fascinated, when I turned the bags upside down on the off chance there could be an errant cherry hiding in the crinkles, but we had done our job of gobbling them up only too well. ‘Greedy pigs,’ he must have thought, though what he said was, ‘You must really love them.’That evening we met a few friends. Nisha Pillai and her husband were the first to visit us. VK and I had got to know Nisha while conducting quizzes and eventually became friends with her. She was an excellent quizzer who used to represent her college—The College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram, familiarly known as CET—and won our respect for holding her own in a male-dominated sphere. She had now settled in San Jose and we were delighted to meet her and her husband who worked for Google.We had hardly bid them goodbye when Yasmin, the daughter of a very close friend, Sheila, dropped in with her husband and their two young sons. The two boys promptly dropped off to sleep over each other on the sofa and had to be carried off when they left. It was so good to see Yasmin—we had practically watched her grow up into a beautiful young woman—and her family. She brought us melt-in-the-mouth cakes she had baked that we finished off even before her car had turned the corner.If it was Yasmin that evening, it was Yasmina who pandered to our palates the next day, earmarked for visiting relatives. ‘Visiting relatives can be boring’ is a sentence I’d often used in class as an example of lexical ambiguity. But it turned out to be unambiguously enjoyable when we visited two of my nephews and their families who lived on opposite shores of San Francisco Bay. They were meeting Arpitha for the first time, which made the visits extra special.Nizar, ever obliging, dropped us at the apartment of my nephew Afzal in Sunnyvale where Yasmina, Afzal’s wife, served a mouth-watering spread that was calculated to make us gain weight even before we left their place. When not munching, VK spent much of his time trying hard to get their sweet, frisky little daughter, Inara, to stand still for a photo. He didn’t succeed; we have only blurred images of her as memories of the visit.Laden with gifts and bursting with good food, we staggered into an Uber that Afzal had arranged to take us to Fremont where Haris, another nephew, lived with his wife, Shabana, and their three children. It was years since we had met them. There’s a special joy when you meet loved members of the family so far away from home. It was tea time when we arrived and VK predicted we’d be served tea that ought to take care of dinner, and he was spot on. We returned to Nizar’s, satiated in every sense of the word, and crashed straight into bed.Susan had suggested we drive to Carmel-by-the-Sea and we did just that the next day. It was a Sunday which meant Shaheeda, the workaholic Google-ee, could come along too. In case you haven’t got it, Carmel-by-the-Sea is a city called Carmel that is by the sea. Intelligible to every American and to me. Imagine the confusion if they had named it Carmel-by-Pelagos or Carmel-by-Mar Pacifico.We had seen the Atlantic; now the Pacific beckoned. I don’t know if we stared at it like stout Cortez and his men did, not having had the privilege of seeing them stare, or seeing them at all. Besides, Keats had got it all wrong. But I was struck silent all right, for I tripped and slipped to the sand from a rock. I stifled my involuntary cry; I didn’t want the others who had gone ahead to know. VK was already cupping the sea water in his pacific hands, almost as reverentially as he had the water from the Walden Pond.Carmel-by-the-Sea is a city beloved of artists, which explains the picturesque houses we saw along the way. Doris Day of ‘Que Serà, Serà …’ fame, lived there post-Hollywood. People still remember that Clint Eastwood had been the city’s mayor for two years, though they may not know Japan’s capital, such is the sway of the tinsel world.It is a dog-friendly place where hotels welcome guests with dogs or dogs with humans at the end of a leash. High-heeled footwear is banned there—too many people tripping on uneven pavements and way too many lawsuits in consequence, which probably is the real reason, not the twisted ankles. I had just proved that one didn’t need high heels or an uneven pavement to take a tumble, but whom could I sue? That rock? The Pacific Ocean?Coming back to Carmel, believe it or not, to this day, it has no street addresses. Most houses have legendary names like ‘Hansel’ or ‘Sea Urchin’. Desiring to retain the quaint ‘villageness’ of the place, the founders decided on doing away with street numbers, parking meters or street lights outside the downtown commercial area. So how does one find a house in Carmel, you ask? Go down the lane next to the big tree, take a turn where there’s a rose bush, keep going till you reach a cottage with two dogs, big windows and blue curtains. The rose bush might have disappeared. They may have changed the curtains. A dog might be missing. But that’s the one.The nearby Monterey Bay Point Lobos State Reserve is famed for its sea animals and birds. ‘See, a sea lion! A sea otter! And a seal!’ I squealed, though I couldn’t really make out the difference between a sea lion and a seal, pinnipeds, both. The seal I had spotted turned out to be a sea lion, lying immobile, as if sunbathing. We realised it was ill when a uniformed man approached us to ask if we had seen a lone sea lion on a rock. Yes, we nodded, thrilled to point it out. The man took a close look and then asked us to move back, not realising we’d have had to do a backward flip into the Pacific to obey him.The animal was injured and it was a risk even allowing people near it. The uniformed chap turned out to be from the Marine Mammal Rescue Service. Despite feeling sorry for the seal, we were quite elated to witness an actual rescue. We had seen so many exciting rescues in documentaries, we couldn’t wait to see the real thing. And wait we did, our patience tested for it appeared as if those involved were playing out the drama of rescue in slow motion. After watching the creature from a safe distance for what seemed like eternity, a girl from the rescue team took slow and studied steps to go close and observe it for a bit, before moving back, more slowly, if that were possible. When I watched the Derek Chauvin trial recently, the slow and deliberate way in which the lawyers inched to the main point reminded me of the sea lion rescue.A silent bunch of tourists had gathered to watch the rescuers who were watching the stricken creature. No one fed it or petted it or helped it in any way. After some time, we got the impression this was a Buddhist monastery and not a part of the U.S., if the constant cry of sea birds and the lapping of the sea on the rocks could be imagined in a monastery. What was the intention of the rescuers? Slow death for the sea lion so that they could carry off the remains and report a daring rescue that failed? We decided to leave; we’d have had to wait forever to see the full rescue, if at all. And then someone would have to cart our stiff bodies away; rigor mortis would have set in.We proceeded to other points on Point Lobos. There were plenty of vehicles. We had to queue up to get parking slots and traffic crawled near the beach and the parks. The drive along the Pacific coast was great; not an inch of the landscape was anything less than beautiful. But it was different from Door County. As we drove past a great number of golf courses, I wondered if the famous orange-faced man had played at any of them.If you drive along rural Kerala, the scenery would be equally breathtaking. Only, the billboards and the houses abutting the roads, in a melange of colours, shapes and sizes, would hide most of it. If you wanted relief from the hideousness of some of the buildings and turned your eyes to the roadside, you’d see mounds of litter and plastic. Roads, it was said, made possible a ribbon development. In India, it was a ribbon distribution of plastic and other waste.How come the Americans kept their country so clean? Nizar waxed eloquent on cleanliness and order being natural attributes of the world’s best country and people. VK observed that what was well done was the collection of all the rubbish generated—and an incredibly huge amount was generated—all of which was exported to Asia. One did notice that there were rubbish bins everywhere.In places like Wisconsin, there was no sorting of waste. Everything was destined for landfills. The waste generated at Amar’s flat—from food waste to discarded footwear or packaging—had to be dumped in a huge plastic bag, sealed and left on a rack in a shed. Every two days a huge truck turned up at his apartment complex. The driver did not even get off his seat. The shed was opened by remote control, the bags scooped up by a giant arm and deposited in the innards of the truck, doors banged and that was it. The truck did not have the smell characteristic of garbage trucks in Kerala, which signalled their presence to a wide circle around wherever they moved. People pinched their noses shut while birds and strays danced about joyously when these trucks turned up.New York and California had some kind of sorting at source, but it was not an easy system to follow. If you bought a cup of coffee, it was served in a paper cup, as tall as a bucket. But you could not throw it into the bin marked paper after use. It had to go into the one marked ‘other’ because it had a plastic lining which prevented it from being processed with used paper. There are more ‘other’s in this world than philosophers or post-modernists dreamed of.There were problems with waste disposal but New York and California were at least thinking about it and trying to improve with some sort of recycling policy. But India, we realised, was now following the U.S. model. Single use plastics had swept aside the old waste-not-want-not culture. Much of the garbage festooning our roadside and pavements was such plastic. We consumed plastics like Americans did, only we could not dispose of it like the Americans. For we were in Asia; where would we dump it? We were the dump.‘Look at oil,’ said Nizar, switching topics. ‘A short while ago we imported much of it. Thanks to the vigour and creativity of our private sector’—he was speaking of fracking and new oil fields—‘we are now a net exporter of fossil fuel. There is a bonus,’ he added, ‘the Saudis and Russians cannot arm-twist us.’‘Short-sighted thinking,’ countered VK. ‘You are ruining the Earth and instead of leading the world in fighting global warming and mass extinction, you are letting greed and short-term political goals dictate policy.’Nizar and he still agree to disagree on these matters, often over international phone calls. These conversations are often friendly arguments and though they are conducted with much good spirit, neither VK nor Nizar is willing to give in an inch.We got caught in a huge traffic jam—our first experience of one in the U.S.—but it was a very disciplined one. Nizar took a route home that took us along some more picturesque houses and beautiful scenes, and we dropped in at Madhav’s house on the way.