---

I wrote this in 1993. I have tried not to change anything except some names of people I mentioned in the original piece from whom I have not yet been able to ask for permission.

---

I did my undergraduate degree at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur, a town near Calcutta. For the average IITian, going to US is a natural next step. Each year, hundreds of IITians go through the motions of GRE, TOEFL, AGRE, applications, recommendations. Strategic tips are part of the folk wisdom passed down the generations.

During my first year, I didn’t really think about what next. It seemed too early. Around that time, my uncle had sponsored the entire family to Canada. He had also sent me a newspaper article on the University of Waterloo, supposedly the best CS school in Canada. I promptly lost the article.

Had I stayed on in Sri Lanka and had the war not happened, I might have won some government scholarship for postgraduate work abroad, assuming I did well. Or I might have found a job in Sri Lanka itself. Since I did well in high school, I had always thought I would do some kind of postgraduate work, which implied going overseas.

In other words, even before IIT, the notion of eventually going abroad for higher studies was not foreign to me. It is unusual for the average engineering student in
Sri Lanka, a large majority of whom would start working in Sri Lanka after graduation.

Instead of reinforcing this expectation, IIT made me stop and reconsider whether I wanted to go abroad. The four years in Kharagpur, away from the realities and guarantees of my previous life that I had taken for granted, made me realize how important going back home was. Many fellow IITians didn’t understand this sentiment. They were still home. They still took the guarantees of their home to
be granted. Of course not all of them would change their mind even after they went away from home. The majority wouldn’t, just like the majority of the Tamils who went to UK long before the war (during the ’60s and the ’70s) chose to live in western countries.

In Kharagpur, I realized that I couldn’t be like them. I needed to return. This realization upset what seemed to be a foregone conclusion before: that I would go abroad to study and perhaps work. But the war severely limited my choices. I did write to the Electrical Engineering department at University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, inquiring about jobs; but I never got a reply. My manager at Hindustan Computers Limited where I had worked a summer had told me that if I decided to stay back in India, he would hire me. There was also the possibility that the head of the Computer Science and Engineering department at Kharagpur would give me a scholarship to do my MTech there.

I was somewhat leery about staying back in India. I was, after all, a foreigner. I could be booted off any time, unless I became a citizen. Without marrying an Indian, becoming a citizen would take a while. (The turn of events since ’88 have proved my misgivings about staying back in India.) Sri Lanka seemed unlikely. However, somewhere in the middle of my third year, I had already started the US application ritual. By the time I left Kharagpur, I had accepted a scholarship offer from Syracuse University from among the three offers I received. The future wasn’t clear. I had vague ideas of finishing an MS, finding a job to make enough money to help put my sisters through college, perhaps go back to school to finish my PhD and eventually return to teach in the University of Jaffna. (Jaffna is my home town, in Northern Sri Lanka.. right in the middle of the war zone)

Meanwhile, my family had gone through the Canadian immigration process (just like hundreds of Tamil families who had relatives in Canada). But, they decided to forego the last step. This was not a surprise to me: my father had turned down an opportunity to go abroad to work at least on two previous occasions.

But when I went home in ’88, it was clear that my family was seriously considering emigrating out of Sri Lanka. Their experience during the IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force) war during 1987-88 had been hard and bitter. Clearly, I was expected to pave the way for their emigration. My father told me that my first priority should be to get Ahila, my oldest sister, out as early as possible. Ahila was a medical student. None of us believed she would be able to continue in Jaffna long enough to complete her education.

By the time I boarded the plane to US, there was no novelty, no excitement. My goal was to finish my MS as quickly as possible and find a job in North America. I was also lucky to be free of anxiety: I was going to be a teaching assistant. There was to be a TA orientation for three weeks and we were to be provided food and accommodation during that time. That was a long enough break for us to look for permanent accommodation and attend to other needs. This arrangement was very useful. Unlike other Indians and Sri Lankans, when I arrived at JFK airport in New York, I didn’t have anyone waiting for me. I didn’t even know anyone in US. That didn’t bother me. I took the plane to Syracuse, went straight to my dormitory.

JFK was hardly a shock. It was dirty, noisy and full of people. The gate where my plane was to come had a failed public address system. The person in-charge was yelling at the top of his voice as each plane departed from that gate. How could I miss home in an environment like that? It was so much like home! This could be Calcutta or Pettah!

Syracuse was better. But it had the ambience of Peradeniya or an IIT campus. Sure, there were differences: vehicles were more disciplined, skins were whiter (or blacker), skirts skimpier… but nothing that was shockingly different. I completely missed the the common “I am in America” feeling that so many desis seem to experience soon after reaching the promised land.

When I went up to the room assigned to me in Sadler Hall, a tall smart-looking guy was just coming out of it. He was so happy to see me that he dropped the idea of going out, went right back into the room, changed back into shorts and sat on the bed waiting for me to talk! It was still two days before the beginning of the orientation; he had arrived even before that — loneliness was killing him. The next few days, I hung around with Peppe. I had no jet lag. I slept well the first night. When I went to the bathroom the next morning, I found a brahmin wearing pūṇūl and vēṭṭi (traditional South Indian attire) brushing his teeth. I thought nothing of it! America had completely failed to overwhelm me.

The next three weeks were a giant party. Eventually, Peppe and I found an apartment and moved in. Classes began. Very little was different. Sure, we had to cook our own meals. Sure, the flora and fauna were unfamiliar. Sure, people drove on the wrong side of the road. Sure, I always looked at the wrong side before crossing the road! Sure, I was earning a regular salary for the first time. Sure, there were many more women friends in my life (I did have a couple of women friends in Kharagpur, which was a lot in a place where most male students in Kharagpur probably wouldn’t even get a chance to talk to a woman in their four years there!). I did start meeting people from several different countries. But nothing was strong enough to overwhelm me. Life was normal.

Syracuse winters were reputed to be bad, by American standards. The only way I acknowledged this reputation was to get enough things to outfit myself during the winter. I had never seen snow before. In cheap Tamil books from the USSR, I had read about snow. Somehow, I had the impression that snow was crystalline… that it fell in the form in regular-shaped big crystals.

The first time I saw snow was in Prof Mattson’s class. The class had about 35 Chinese, 5 or 6 Indians and 5 or 6 Americans. In other words, the majority hadn’t seen snow before. We were facing away from the window. When it started snowing, Prof Mattson, in his characteristic tongue-in-cheek fashion said something like: “so, that proves the basis of the induction..and now assume that the hypothesis holds for all n, n < p, it is snowing outside, and consider the case when n=p….”. Half the class turned to watch the snow!

It was very light. It didn’t last for long. By the time we came out of the building, it was warm and there was no trace of snow. I quickly forgot about it.

The next Saturday, I woke up late. As usual, I started watching “Bugs Bunny” cartoon at 11:00. By the time it was over at noon, it had started to snow.

It snowed in style. It was a downpour. It was beautiful! Perhaps it snows once in 4-5 years in Napoli… so even though Peppe had seen snow before, he was mesmerized by the sight, too. For an hour, we stood at the window and watched. Now it hit me! I was in a totally alien place. This was a completely new phenomenon… yes, I had heard enough about it. I understood the physics. But this was snow for real, not things in pretty pictures.

After an hour, we decided to venture out. I put on everything I had because I didn’t know what to expect outside. I didn’t know what sub-zero temperature felt like. I felt like an astronaut stepping out into an unknown planet surface! It was white all over. I touched the snow. It felt so soft and fine; It looked so pure and innocent, so beautiful. I was reminded of amman kōvil tiruviḻā (festival in a village temple): when they bring in truck loads of white beach sand just before the tiruviḻā and dump it all around the temple so that people can sit on it… it looked just like this. But here, there was white beach sand even on top of tall, elegant trees, on roof-tops… I was happy like a child.

Peppe said I looked like the devil itself: a brown figure in a sea of pure whiteness… completely covered in dark winter clothes with a hood to match! He kept laughing. He took a picture of the devil to show folks back at home. I didn’t care.

That was the first time since coming to America, I realized how life has changed for me. Soon, I was back to the usual resiliency and once again, America ceased to amaze or overwhelm me. But that Saturday, I was happy, mesmerized and overwhelmed at the sight of snow.

I like clean, fine snow. I don’t like it when there is freezing rain or when the snow starts melting and gets all dirty. I don’t like driving in winter. But I like to walk. I like when everything is covered with snow, especially if it is sunny and bright. I like the crisp winter air. I like feeling cold. At home, I always keep the heating as low as possible (which really bothers people when they visit me).