Impressions - Part deux

The name “Port Columbus International Airport” sounds very important and busy. In reality, it is anything but. It is a lazy little airport that belies its name. It is about as “International” as Bangalore, maybe even lesser because there are flights to more foreign countries from Bangalore than can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I think the only “International” place to which this airport hosts flights from is Canada.

I waited in the almost empty hallway to collect my baggage after taking a trolley by depositing some money from my credit card. Yes, I had to pay for the trolley. I breathed a sigh of relief on seeing my two huge suitcases, as I was sure that the airline would have offloaded them at Chicago judging that they were too big for the little plane I came on. I collected my luggage and proceeded towards the exit. I was instructed to “wait until somebody turned up” and “not to panic” if the person supposed to pick me up was late. The Indian Students Association (ISA) is doing a wonderful job in picking up new students and providing them with temporary accommodation – all free of charge.

After a couple of minutes, a car came with a very Indian looking person at the steering wheel. He took a look at me and apparently decided that I was indeed the fellow he was supposed to pick up. He asked “ISA pick up?” and I nodded my head. Kushagra then stopped the car and helped me load my considerable belongings into the car. He even asked “That’s it?” to which I understood that he was used to picking up students with much more luggage – no doubt packed by anxious parents convinced that they were sending away their children to some god forsaken place.

First impression – the roads of urban USA are not the velvety smooth ones we are made to believe they are back home. In fact I think some stretches of road in Bangalore are better (Cubbon Road, MG Road etc.). The roads of France and UAE are a lot better.

I engaged Kushagra in some talk. Ok, actually it was the other way round as I am not too open with strangers. Anyway, I learnt some things about Columbus, Ohio State University and also the reason for my being there, the Fisher College of Business. He too was a student there.
First impressions on looking at the sights outside the car window – these people think big. Huge roads, huge cars, huge buildings, huge plots and sites, huge signboards, everything was huge. The whole place was so very spacious. Bangalore in comparison – even Mysore – seemed claustrophobic.

We soon arrived at the place where I was supposed to live for at least the next year. My roommate Chetan was there and he helped me with getting my things into the house. A place was arranged for me in Mohit’s room. That room would later be my room once Mohit moved out. I was made to feel very welcome. Chetan had also fixed something for me to eat for which I was very thankful. I then called up home to inform my mother that I had arrived in one piece at my destination.

I was in no mood to take any rest due to my excitement in landing up in a new place. So, Chetan and I took a walk around the campus. The campus is very pretty with lots of greenery all around. The university is very old. It was established in 1870. In fact until the city of Columbus caught up with the university campus, the university was referred to as “The University in a cornfield” as that was where it was! I had a glimpse of the stadium – the famous “horse shoe” or just the “shoe” according to the locals (More on the stadium later). I also took directions to go to the Office of International Education as that was supposed to be my first port of call the next day.

I went to the Office of International Education the first thing next morning. There was a banner put up to “Welcome all International Students”. I got registered “into the system” so that I could get my university ID – also called the BuckID as the state of Ohio is called the Buckeye state – and a letter to get my Social Security Number, something similar to our PAN. I was then made to go through a small session with one of the counsellors at that place where she told us in great detail as to what all things I should be doing in the next couple of days. I then opened my bank account at Bank One whose representatives were manning a table at the registration room. It all happened so quickly and effortlessly that I was happy that my stay at the university had got off to a good start.

I then had to go to a place called Lincoln Tower to get the all-important BuckID. I had a bit of trouble trying to get to the building as I could see it but could not find my way to it due to some construction work going on in the vicinity. This was where Flavia, a Brazilian who was also at the Office of International Education with me in the morning, helped me out. She told me that she too was going there and since she had been in Columbus since the past year (as her husband too was a student at the university), she could guide me to that place. The reason why I remember her is that I found out the total lack of my fitness in that walk from the OIE to Lincoln Tower with her. I had to literally jog to keep up with her, all the more remarkable because she was very pregnant. I was panting by the time I reached Lincoln Tower.

At Lincoln Tower, I got my BuckID made which took all of thirty seconds (including clicking my photo, taking my signature and printing a card). I hope they can give PAN cards, DLs so quickly in India. This BuckID is an ID, a bus pass, a debit card, and an access card all rolled into one. This card is accepted in many shops and restaurants around the campus in place of cash. This card would be my ticket (quite literally too) to all the buildings of the university and to the local bus system, which I could ride for free by flashing this card to the bus driver.

This was also the day I found out that the university has its own captive thermal power plant! It is right in the middle of campus with a huge brick chimney. In fact most of the buildings on campus are made of red bricks or have a brick façade. This gives a very colonial feel to the whole campus, which is very pleasant. In contrast, there are a few monstrosities too that look totally out of place in a campus like this. The Lincoln Tower in fact looks very much like our Public Utility Building in Bangalore (including the colour scheme). The Wexner Arts Center looks like an unfinished building, with all the steel frames on the outside of the building trying to look like some “work in progress”. That is something I have never been able to understand about modern art. Why do these people make things that are so hard to understand?

The entire emphasis of the university seems to be geared towards providing as much space as possible for the students. Offices are deliberately kept either very small or very distant from most places the students would normally be. The aim seems to be to minimise and even eliminate the need for students to go to any office. Everything is getting online from registering for classes to paying the fees and even attending classes! Some professors do not insist on attendance to their classes. Instead they record their lectures and they are available on the net. Students can download these lectures and watch them at their convenience. While this may seem totally meaningless to us Indians – “What’s the point of going to a university if you are not going to sit in a class?” we may ask – it appears to be accepted here as just another way of reaching the students. Every student is given a mail ID and told that this would be the main means of communication in the university – from assigning homework to communicating the exam results. Students are strictly warned that “I did not see my mail” is not an acceptable excuse for anything.

To ensure that every student has access to computing resources, every library has a few dozen terminals so that students could use them. There are also dedicated “Public Computing Sites” which have nothing but computer terminals. Some of these are open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I guess it would be quite foolish for any student to even try and venture an excuse such as “I did not have access to my mail”.

So rigorous is this approach that the university has a Chief Information Officer, just like there would be in any corporate setting. His sole job is to make sure that students have the means and skills to use the computing resources on the campus. To that end, his office, the Office of Information Technology, conducts free training sessions in a variety of computing related topics for anybody who is interested.

Having been overawed by the scale of this university – this is the university with the largest student population in the USA – I decided I needed to take in more of this place in more manageable bites in the following days.

Impressions

Now that I have some time to breathe, I intend to put down some of my impressions of the USA – something that I have wanted to do since even before I came here.

I had quite an uneventful journey. It was comfortable, but boring. Apart from sitting in the plane in London’s Heathrow runway for half an hour after landing from Mumbai for want of a slot, there was nothing else that frustrated me (except the luggage at Chicago – more on that later). Of course, I did miss meeting my friend Arun at the Mumbai airport, but apart from that, there were no other goof ups.

As the British Airways flight descended to land at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, the very impressive skyline of downtown (“downtown” being an Americanism similar to our “city”, “pete” or even “Majestic”) Chicago came into view. This then was the famous America. I watched as the skyscrapers became larger and larger and then disappeared from view as the aeroplane banked to land. First impressions – the runway was as smooth (or as rough – whichever way you want to put it) as Bangalore airport’s.

We were given the immigration forms on the flight itself to fill up. Whoever complains of filling up the “old fashioned”, “bureaucratic” embarkation and disembarkation cards when travelling either from or to India should be made to go through the US procedures. Our poor derided officials will seem like angels to them.

Having disembarked, the foremost priority was to run to the immigration counters to beat the queues. It was a good thing that I did so because soon after, a couple of flights from China landed and the queues became extremely long. The immigration officer took a look at the size of the queue and shouted across to his neighbour “Entering factory mode!” He took a look at the first passenger to get to him (an Indian student) and asked him to take the I-20 out of the sealed envelope as there was “no state secret in it and it would make my job easier”. He shouted out the same instructions down the queue to all of us. All of us who had religiously guarded the sealed envelope (and there were quite a few) breathed a sigh of relief - all of us were no doubt worried about the dog-ears and the tears that the envelopes had developed over such a long and arduous journey. We no longer had to face the wrath of the immigration official, which we were sure we would face because of the mutilations!

Having read about the procedures before hand, I was expecting some intense grilling at the immigration counter. To my surprise, the queue in front of me quickly shortened, and it was my turn. I was greeted with a “Good afternoon sir, how do you do”. He then proceeded to examine my passport, I-20 and the I-94 card that I had filled up on the plane. He then entered the SEVIS number from my I-20 into his system, and satisfied that I was no terrorist, stamped my I-94, wrote that I was allowed to stay in the USA for “DS” i.e. Duration of Stay as per the I-20, stamped my customs form, wished me luck and sent me on my way. The whole procedure took hardly a minute. It was so fast, I actually waited for a few moments at the counter looking at him like an idiot until he called the next person in the line.

Next was claiming the baggage. Some careless baggage handler at Mumbai’s airport had broken the handle of my older suitcase. I somehow wrestled both of them into a trolley and proceeded to look for the means of conveyance to go to the domestic terminal. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I knew there was a free shuttle train that took passengers between the terminals once every 15 minutes. The problem was, it was an elevated rail system, and horror of horrors, luggage trolleys were not allowed on board! What followed was the saddest part of the whole journey. I had to take my three pieces of unruly luggage up an escalator. But, could I do it in one trip? No, I had to face the danger of leaving one of them below, take up the two remaining ones, leave them there, go back down and get the other one. It was a situation where I could have lost my entire luggage. The prominent notices cautioning people not to leave luggage unattended on pain of prosecution did nothing to allay my anxiety. However, a helpful lady suggested that I could take the elevator that was right there behind the escalator. Of course, that was what I intended to do I told her, and was on my way looking a bit foolish. It was not easy even then. Just try dragging two suitcases each weighing thirty two kilograms, each with a very high centre of gravity, while balancing a 15 Kg cabin luggage in the other hand, and you will know what I mean.

Once on the platform, there was another shock in wait for me. The notices said that the train would stop for only ten seconds and one was not supposed to prevent the doors from closing, again on pain of prosecution. The train arrived as I was formulating a strategy as to how I could not only get the luggage in, but also get it out once I reached my destination. Wonder of wonders, there was a porter standing at each entrance of the train to help people in a situation such as mine! I thanked God for all his graces. But the thanks seemed a bit premature once I found out my predicament at the domestic terminal.

Once I got off at the domestic terminal, I had hoped to get a trolley so that I could lug my luggage in peace. That was not to be. I had to do the exact drag and balance act all over again, but this time for almost half a kilometre. The mere memory of it gives me the chills even now.
Suffice to say, I somehow reached the American Airlines counter (which occupied the entire hall) with all my belongings intact. By this time, I had become somewhat of a spectacle, drawing stares all along the hallway. I presented my luggage and ticket to the lady at the counter. Her first reaction was “Oh, a paper ticket!" I was surprised. What else is a ticket usually made of? However, I later learnt that nobody issues paper tickets anymore in the USA for domestic flights. All tickets are “e-tickets”. They are bought online and all you get is a number. You take the number with you and if you do not have any check in luggage, you can check yourself in with the help of several “self check in” kiosks that are available at the airport.

This was not the end of my troubles. Following the new security regulations, the airlines do not receive the check in luggage. They just tag it and we ourselves have to take it to a counter where some government employee checks the luggage to see if we have any bombs. I had to unlock my suitcases before I put them in the X-ray machine. If they had decided to open my luggage and it was locked, they would have broken open the lock. In the event, they did decide to open the suitcase with the broken handle. The person who was supposed to do it was however posed with a problem. The case was securely bound with rope. I was watching him with interest, whether the rope would dissuade him from venturing an inspection. However, the images of a bomb going off on the flight because of this very suitcase must have made him think the better of it. My appearance with stubble, unkempt hair and a wild-eyed look (because of lack of sleep) must have swung the balance. He untied the rope, opened the suitcase, examined everything (even smelt the pudi packets), put them back in and tied back the rope in a far more secure way than I could ever hope to have done. He then asked me for the key of the suitcase, locked it and returned the key to me with a smile and a “Have a happy journey sir”. An attendant had done likewise with my other suitcase as it exited the X-ray machine. That however was not opened.

With a sigh of relief, I then proceeded towards the gate where my flight was supposed to be boarded. But before that, I had to go through the security check (the other one was for the check in luggage alone). In this one, I had to take out my laptop and put it in a tray. I then had to take my shoes off and put it in another one. Likewise, I had to put every metal thing in separate trays. All of them were then passed through the X-ray machine. When entering the security area, the guard letting me in had given a good look at my face, decided that I was not an American and had asked for my passport and I-94. This he promptly went and gave to his superior who was frisking everyone. After passing through the metal detector, all the foreigners – and there were quite a few – had to endure a thorough cabin baggage check and a thorough frisking. The fellow doing it actually warned me that he would be touching me in places that I would not be very comfortable with, but that I had to go through it because of security regulations. He then took out all of my things from my cabin luggage and very methodically piled it up next to him as I watched him sitting on a chair that was provided (oh yes, they were very courteous “Please have a seat sir” and all that). He then told me that I could zip up and collect my things and “have a nice journey”. All the foreign males where frisked in full view of everyone else. No, there wasn’t any indecent exposure, but imagine somebody touching your family jewels in front of two hundred other people and you’ll know how I felt. Thankfully, this seemed quite normal to the Americans and no one was rude enough to stare at us. Of course, I looked at my neighbour’s face for his reaction at the precise moment the security guard touched his unmentionables. He did the exact same thing. We gave each other a smile.

I cleared security a full one and a half hours before boarding. I spent my time reading my book and checking my laptop to see if it had suffered any damage in its journey so far. Of course, this was also my first opportunity to look in some leisure at some of the female species of the American continent. The sheer variety of specimens at that place would delight any anthropologist. Of course it did not disappoint me either to see so many of them in various stages of undress – the season being summer seemed to have made garment prices go through the roof. Modesty prevents me from going into further details – details that are more suitable for the company of other like-minded (and like-aged and like-gendered) individuals.

Anyway, the flight to Columbus was delayed by about fifteen minutes. Good, I thought. There were delays in America too, which apparently ran like clockwork. But, there is something about the atmosphere here that induces you to hurry, to stretch more. You feel like walking faster – because every one else is almost running. You feel as if you will be left behind if you are not fast enough. There is no such urgency in India, at least that part of India that I am familiar with.
The aeroplane itself was a very small affair. There was about three inches of headroom for me as I stood. Almost all the Americans had to stand bowed. And because the luggage rack was too small, I had to stow my luggage under the seat.

The pilot then told us that we were ready for take off. The air traffic here is such that by the time one aeroplane’s wheels have left the ground, the next one is already rolling for take off. It’s the same for landing too. By the time one aeroplane has reached the end of the runway after landing, the wheels of the one after that would have touched down. The whole system has the air of a glorified bus station. A bit more ad hoc than what we see back home with all the protocols that only one aeroplane has to be on the runway at any given time. To strengthen this impression, the pilot coolly announced that he would be going “a bit faster” so that we reached on time! That urgency I was talking about! I cannot imagine this happening in India.

It was a very short flight – all of forty-five minutes out of which the safety instructions took fifteen minutes and the snack serving another fifteen minutes. Indeed, no sooner had I put my cup into the steward’s trash bag (you cannot expect trolleys on such a small plane), the plane started descending and the seat belt sign came on. The plane landed in Columbus, the capital of the state of Ohio and my final destination in this journey.

My impressions of Columbus will follow in another instalment of “Impressions”..