Before - After

I have observed that people change after coming to US. Don't worry. This blog is not about to tell you how bad I felt when I came to know that a certain person I know, has changed.

This is a draft of the changes that I observed in many people after coming here.

I will start with the easiest of all the changes to be noticed in a person, physical changes and diet.

Being a gulti,the very first thing I noticed in my friends that they started shaving their moustache, which some of them never did in their life time.

Ofcourse, there are some exceptions like Mr.SKA, who is still maintaining his gulti-macho look!

Then, they put on extra weight or loose too much weight, for whatever reasons.

After an year you suddenly realize that you are becoming fat and then on, you would start looking at the ingredients of the food that you eat.

You would eat all the fat in the pizzas at Pizzahut but when the waitress asks you if you need anything to drink, your immediate response would be diet coke.

Some of my folks even went ahead and changed their entire diet to have only protein shakes in the morning and egg whites and grilled chicken in the evening.

Forget about food, most people stop drinking the tap water after coming here. I used to drink the water of the boring pump at the end of my street whenever I

visit my village. Now, I make sure that my roommates buy only Pure Life.

Coming to workouts (say e-workouts), people get introduced to new techniques to reduce the fat in their body, such as fat burners and sonar belts.

Please note that these people do not workout at all but consume fat burners or put on the fat buring machine for buring their ever growing fat.

Last but not the least, non-drinkers get initiated with beers first. Then, depending upon their talent and capacity, they continue or upgrade or quit.

And boozers, they get introduced to new stuff, such as single malt scotch etc.After they try everything that is affordable by them, they start reaching

new scores in each segment. For example, Mr.AY, recently drank 100 bottles of beer. Beat that!

Social:

Then we start building contacts. Whenever you meet a guy or girl, you would make sure that you note down his phone number or address or email id or orkut id

or atleast his car number so that you can catch hold of the guy next time u see his car in any parking lot.

Then you would try to change your desi accent to american(read ammmmeerican). I have seen many people even practicing this rigorously, even when talking to desis.

In this process you would change your pronounciation from our good old british to american. It will be obvious if you observe the change in your own

pronounciation when you speak some words like 'Schedule','Route'.In some cases you would entirely replace the original words with the fancy american words.

For example 'yep' and 'nope' will take the place of 'yes' and 'no'.

Another thing I noticed is that whenever you see a desi guy around, you will stare at him as if you have never seen a desi before.

Even the guy at the receiving end looks at you as if you are a sinner. As if you do not deserve to be here.

Many folks who never watched a single film in their entire life become movie freaks after coming here, showing the boredom and lonely life out here as the cause.

Some people of the same category even become a bit extra passionate and think of movie making all the time.

Economical:

People dream that they would be thrifty when they come to US, to save some money and finally return when they accumulate some pre-dtermined amount of it.

So, they start searching for deals on the net whenever they want to buy some stuff. This works fine for sometime, but when it becomes a habit, they start

buying things that they don't need, just because they saw it cheaper on some website. Because of many such factors and credit cards,

people eventually come out of their indian 'Saving Economy' background to 'Spending economy' mode.

People say it's quite natural for a person to change over a period of time. Think of any friend of yours who was your best buddy types in school or college.

Think of him now. If there's no change in his social,psycholigcal,economical or atleast physical patterns, then you must take him to a doctor.

If time alone could change so much in a person, add another parameter to it, location and multiply the impact to see how both can change a person.

Anyways, all I want to say is that I have noticed many people, including my friends changing after coming to US. That's not bad at all, 'coz I have changed myself, ya noo..!!

O my friend.....

For some strange reason, this morning I wokeup with a string intent to listen to the songs of 'Happy Days'. Generally these so-called feel-good movies are not enjoyed by the certified psychos like me! May be I was missing my old friends.May be I was looking for new friends. I don't know the reason yet but the fact is that I wanted to listen to 'Happy Days'.

After listening to the songs, I started reflecting on the equations in friendship.

Life gives a certain shape to a person's thoughts, opinions and interests
which is nothing but ego or personality of that person. All these egos have a certain frequency and would be happy and joyful in the company of only those people whose ego frequency matches with themselves. So, if you go out and meet 100 people, out of which only 10 people have the same frequency as you, you would continue your relationship
with only those 10. This frequency match could be because of many reasons, like similar thought process, similar ambitions, similar economic background, not to forget the region, religion and cast factors in this. Of course, our movies show us the possibility of two friends who do not have anything in common, yet are bound together forever in their entire lives. As far as my experience(not a big one though), I have seen this only in movies, not anywhere outside. I strongly feel there would be at least one binding point between any two souls. That's because friends are chosen by us and so we would definitely consider some concrete factors (may be materialistic ones) to start a friendship.

After you start off a friendly relation with a person of the same frequency, you enter into a phase called maintenance of your friendship. In this phase, you start exploring the other person in various angles as the time progresses. It's not because you wan to. But because time poses you unlimited possibilities of possible mismatches in your personality traits. So, in your exploration, you would find different areas. In all these areas you would like your friend to think just like you.
Here you would assume that the people of the same frequency would have the same thought process.
So, you think that the way you think about this particular area is the right one. Some people are generous enough to give some room to the other person and allow them to be on their own terms. But some people, sometimes because of over-possessive or protective nature,
force the other person to think like them. This is when the other person observes a mismatch in frequency. But what happened to the similarities between you and your friend and all that frequency match?

The fact is that every person's personality will be based upon what he has gone thru in his past life. Depending on the similarities mentioned above, you tend to cross your paths in you lives. It does not ensure that the personality of the other person does not change over his entire life.
Moreover, you two were similar, not the same.
If you understand this and let the other person live his life without your intervention, both of you will be happy. What I mean to say is that however closer a relationship is, you would definitely have some gaps in it. That gap is sometimes called the personal and the most intimate zone to a person. This gap should be considered when you are trying to impose your thoughts and ideas on the other person. The same gap can be converted into room to the other person in the relationship. It's the room to think for himself. Room for himself. Otherwise, you would realize that the relationship is not working. We should not simply go by what they show on these stupid movies, where they show friends as people with absolutely no differences at all, for their entire lives!.

More on relationships later.

Cheers