Going to America. The song was set on an infinite loop in Rajiv’s mind, and had played out about ten thousand times in the last two days.
He was after all, going to America.

That though couldn’t happen till he finished packing. Which would be once his mom was done stuffing fifteen packs of dals, and spices, and snacks, and soaps, and toothpaste, and shoe polish, and god knows what else, into his two suit cases which as per US regulations couldn’t weigh more than 64 pounds.
Not the pound that is the British dollar, but the pound that is the American kilo. (What sort of silly people weigh in Pounds. A woman weighing a nice 40 kilos would probably have a heart failure if someone admiringly told her that she looked about 90, and forgot to add the unit.)
Anyway, who cared. Rajiv had already converted to the pound system. He even went to the Agarwal sweet store and asked for 2 pounds of kaju barfi. He called them ignorant and they shooed him off. Their loss. He was going to America, kaju barfi or not.
Rajiv had grown from strength to strength the past 6 months. He was a wreck during the initial application stage. Only he knew how he managed to get his 95 percentile GRE score. In March he got notification of his acceptance to the University of Southern California (no funding, but his dad was rich enough to pay the thirty thousand dollars. Thank god for rich parents). He was the envy of his classmates, and the latest find for the babes girls. He was a lion. Soon it was time to get the visa. He had heard of so many stories where the visa officer rejected the visas of even deserving people. He was mediocre, on his best day. He was going crazy. He couldn’t afford turning back from here.
There was going to be no need for turning back. The visa officer liked his face, and wished him luck.
(more…)