**** FIRST FLIGHT ****

A lot of things happen for the first time in your life, however when you have too many of such first times that is when you term it as a shock. Furthermore when you have too many such shocks, that is when you realize that you are in America !!!!!

14th of July 2008 - A young lad rejoiced when a hot female VISA officer said, "Congratulations, you'll get your VISA in a few days". In case you haven't realized that young lad was me, Veerendra aka Veeru aka Veerya. I would have added more adjectives like hot, intelligent, smart, brilliant, witty etc etc, but I guess you were smart enough to understand that from the name itself. Anyway, so when I got my VISA my happiness knew no bounds, the whole atmosphere became merry, Mumbai suddenly seemed heaven to me and all I could think about was, how I had managed to scrape through each and every obstacle between me and my dream of studying in America. In a few days I would be pursuing my goal of pursuing MS. However little did I know that time what fate had in store for me and the Americans as well.


Fast-forward to the 9th of Aug 2008: My near and dear ones had come to the airport to see me off. It was the first time that I was ever traveling by an aeroplane and the first of the many firsts that I was going to witness henceforth on this educational and/or embarrassing trip. I bade a final goodbye to my cellphone which I handed over to my brother for care-taking, forever. Made a final few calls to all the people who couldn't come with me to the airport and headed towards the airport entrance. But wait a sec, how the hell does this cart steer ?? It was my first time with a cart as well. After struggling for a few minutes with the cart, I managed to get the gist of it's maneuverability and then I was moving about like an auto-rickshaw in heavy traffic. :)
Moving on, inside the airport we had a humbling experience with not knowing where to go next, not knowing what to do next and spending an hour in the duty-free shop with people staring at us with the "First time at the airport?" look. So finally after getting our cabin luggage checked twice and our shoes removed thrice, we finally got aboard the plane. I got the directions to my seat and there I sat all ready for my first trip aboard an aeroplane.

Before the plane even took off, I had a proper look at all the gadgets at my disposal. First on my chair was a small pillow, which I correctly identified. Then there was a shawl, which i thought was a life jacket and hence tucked it below my seat. And finally there was a remote. Oh lord, I am thankful to thee who gave humans the idea to fit tiny LCD screens behind every seat in an plane. That was the only thing that got me through the 16 hours of cramped legs and the grouchy female sitting beside me. An engineer by heart, I managed to decrypt the utility of the remote in minutes, I then glanced over to the grouchy female to my left who was still trying to figure out how the remote worked and gave her a "I pity you human !!" look. Then came the air-hostess handing out headphones. Now as a first-time passenger what do you do ?? You guessed it right .. look at the other people, whether they are paying for it or just grabbing one for free. When you are dead sure that the headphones are handed out free, then say "Yes, thank you!!!". The same logic applies to everything else that is handed out by the airline staff. That was why I missed my first round of cold-drinks as I didn't see anyone grab a coke before me. But better miss one round than pay money for it.. Right? Well, so where was I? Yeah .. the headphones. It turned out a bit humiliating when I had just given my neighbour so much attitude and now I couldn't find the socket where the connection for the headphone went in .. Ooops!!! This is when my buddy Santosh comes in. Well, he was with me all the time as both of us have come to the same university, but all this time I was so awed by the entire first-time flying experience that I forgot what all he did in the meanwhile. Anyways, he came to the rescue in time as he found out the socket before the girl managed to :) .. So again I gave her the "How cool am I !!!" look and plugged the headphones in and started my journey to the United States of America, one movie at a time.

So my plane set off from my motherland, taking me to a new land of new people and new experiences. All I could think of at that time was about, how much love and affection I have received from everyone back in India and when would be the next time I would get to meet all of them. Friends and foe, all have been equally close to me in the good 25 years of my life spent here and I was missing it all already. I kept reminding myself that I will complete my education as soon as possible and head back home to all the people who care for me, and whom i consider not just my friends but my family. And finally I was wondering that why on earth had I been through the duty free perfume shop, spraying each and every perfume on my shirt, which had now given my shirt a stink which made me want to puke.

Anyway, after a good 16 hours and 4 movies, the pilot announced that we were all set to enter our destination country. So here we were ..In the land of Hollywood, the hometown of WWE, etc etc .. on the brink of a new journey in life. Life has lots of challenges planned for us, and each obstacle will uncover more first experiences, some of them have already happened and I shall be updating them soon.