Austin, Tx the land of greenery (actually part of a desert region).. That was what it was when i landed here in March. It was spring, a beautiful season here to enjoy. Then i slowly started realizing that this is as good a place as chennai.. hot, hotter, hottest!! Oh but i'm definitely enjoying every bit of it.. After all i wouldn't enjoy a colder region with snowfall every winter night. I didnt have to adjust a lot bcos of the weather. Yet he tells me winter is not like chennai, it will be biting cold.. i'm yet to see it ;-) But atleast there certainly wouldn't be any snowfall.. Texas isn't much like other states in US as it is down-south, sharing borders with Mexico.. The weather conditions are totally different from rest of the parts.
There are Walmarts here in place of Saravana Stores in Chennai. It is like a small India within US. However there are so many things here that makes me feel that the place is so American.. or rather Hispanic?? Not sure as more than half of the population here is Hispanic (as they would call themselves) or Mexicans. Next to spanish, i hear only Telugu widely spoken here!! Atleast in Austin, they rock! And then of course some English too.. After all, it is part of the States right!! Cost-wise too i find most of the products same as in Chennai. Either Chennai has become costlier or Austin inexpensive.. We should not say "cheap" here ok. Its a bad word! Some really Indian products are may be a lil costlier. Like a traditional or auspicious Indian showpiece or Indian Gods' photos etc., which we would probably not think of buying!! Even in India people hardly buy them! One good thing about India is that we still have the small bania stores or "pottikadai" or mobile vegetable vendors, with whom we can always bargain. And we also have the comfort of buying the veggies right at our doorstep. So we don't have to plan in advance what we have to cook for a guest whom we have invited home five days after!! In a way, it is being more organized here with your lifestyle. I'm still not so happy with missing the daily vendors.. I can't jump or run around inside my own home, cos that wud disturb the folks living right below on the Ground-floor (First floor, as they call it here). I have to yield to the pedestrians at the crossings and the malls here. Pedestrians will not run and cross just bcos there's a bigger vehicle trying to go past the road. We have to wait for them to safely cross the road! Isn't that a nice thing to do?
We can't dash against each other in any queue anywhere. At any given circumstance, even if the queue is long, the distance between two people is atleast 2 feet. Buses will patiently stop and pick up every last person who gets in. Nobody boards onto a running bus. There are no conductors in a bus. The driver helps you to get your ticket from the machine installed in every bus. He also giving verbal directions for handicapped or blind passengers, as to where they can find a seat. Nowhere can you find two people dashing at each other unnecessarily.. Everyone has their right of way!! The fact remains, that the area of this city is around 761sq.km with a population of just 757,000 whereas Chennai has an area of just 181 sq.km with a population of 4.59 million, if Wikipedia gave the right figures from 2009 statistics! I was hearing in a radio few days back here, an announcement which i heard every now and then during summer, that there is some "serious" drought here and there's going be water scarcity if plants are watered twice a day!!! So they were announcing to water the plants only once in two days! And at Chennai people don't have water to drink or bathe for God knows how many days.. That is called as drought in Chennai!! It is already September there with barely any rainfall.. Look at how organized the govt is here. It is all about planning and most importantly coordinating well to make life better. Well now i'm just 6 six months old for this place and everyone may think, she just left chennai and look at what she's talking. That's not what i mean. I have no intentions of giving up my motherland. It is not that all the cities here are so well developed. There are also cities here which are not so organized in terms of traffic or crowd. However there are so many things to learn from a developed country, no doubts about it. And the only thing i really wish that the Indian govt concentrates on is the value for human life. The rest will by itself fall in place.
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