My 15 Months in USA

Today, 15 Feb 2010, I am completing 15 months of stay here in United States of America. I remember the first day when I landed here with a feeling that I will not stay here beyondFeb 2009. But then life kept opening its surprises to me & I kept on accepting it gleefully.

It was a very tough day for me when I started my journey from Mumbai & Kavita knew it very well. I left my home with a heavy thought that I will not be seeing my sweetheart Rutuja for next 3 to 4 months at least. That thought was very very tough to digest & Kavita read it on my face very well although she did not mentioned about it till very recently. But I was all set for grabbing my chances in this Land of Opportunity. I must say that it is great country & you really feel very welcome. My first couple of weeks were really nice & easy in Charlotte. I received call from most of my college friends. Everybody welcomed me here & I was really cheered up to know that I have so many friends here. It was a very warm feeling. Its a different story that I have not managed to meet any of them so far & neither anybody has come to visit me. But I am sure, given a chance & with a careful planning it would definitely happen.

So far this journey has been very nice. Every single time, I knew that project is coming to an end, it would get extended. I never had a visiblity beyond 3 months and in worst case even 1 month. In Feb 2009, when I was about to end my project, it got extended for 3 months & I was able to get Kavita & Rutuja here with me. The feeling of seeing Kavita & Rutuja on Dulles Interanational Airport in Washington DC is simply not possible to describe. It is right up there on the top. Then the life became very very happy & joyful as I was having my baby with me. Initially it was tough for them to adjust but credit to both these lovely ladies. Then we all started to enjoy as weather gods also started smiling & it was summer time. A hell of lot better than those chilly wintery days. Summer was a great great fun.

I must mention couple of things here about my friends. I expected my college friends to be my support system here but as it turned out it was a whole lot of new & old friends who has made this trip an absolutely charming memory for rest of my life. Honestly I never expected Mangesh to drop into Washington DC just to visit me. Max I expected was a phone call or at the most a courtesy visit. But I was soooooooooooooooooo wrong. It was him who made it count for every month of summer. It was every single month that we were meeting each other. Sometime it was Washington DC, sometime it was Cleveland OH or sometime Philadelphia. It was indeed a great time. I also met Sherly, Mayuresh, Vasu.....real gem of people. Plus I met Jassi & his family. It was such pleasure to meet these two over here that too with the families.....means it was simply awesome. Toooo gooooddd..........

Plus I had a very very good friend circle here in Washington DC. It all started with Santosh, Kiran, Vilas all my ex-roommates. Then Aparna, Laxmi, Dinesh joined in. With addition of Rajeev, Shekhar Arati in later stages. It was a wonderful time we were spending together & we had a gala time throughout the summer. Almost every weekend there used to some plan. Either lunch or dinner or some outing. I really enjoyed the whole time over here.

Everything I feel is God's grace

Then I was facing another winter which I must say was a lot less enjoyable than the summer time primarily because of lack of outdoor activities but in all it has been some experience to be here in the chilly winter. To make matter worse, this had been one of the harshest winters in the history so on a positive side I am a part of that history.

Now also I am not sure how many more months I would stay here. Lets see & till the time ENJOY the ride.