Ready to tango?

I have come to realize what makes the US and India so much alike, writes Sunil Lala in Boston Diary.

When I landed in Boston on a cold (by my standards back then) September day in 1991, I felt, strange as it may seem, right at home. I had just arrived after a one year stint in Brussels, and compared to the orderly and proper ways of Europe, Boston seemed refreshingly chaotic, just like India. Most people consider India and the United States to be poles apart, and of course they are right in some ways.

But in more ways than one, Boston seemed very familiar. Was it the noise? The chaotic traffic on Massachusetts Avenue? Was it those pedestrians completely ignoring the traffic signals? Or was it those occasional car honks I heard? I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

As I got down from my cab and checked into the nearest YMCA, I realized that I had left my top coat in the cab. Now, in Brussels of course, the cab driver would have realized this right away, and would probably have followed me and returned the coat to me. In Boston, as in India, I had no such luck. The cab was gone in the blink of an eye, and a call to the cab company to retrieve my coat evoked a hearty laugh. They thought I was crazy. I loved it!

I moved into Boston University's married students' apartments off Commonwealth Avenue – even though I was quite single. A family that was visiting India for three months, sub-let me their apartment – which of course, was explicitly against the apartment leasing rules. The 'chalta-hai' attitude was the norm here. Every weekend, the apartment building's fire alarm went off as families cooked paranthas and pooris for breakfast.

As years have passed, I have come to realize what makes the US and India so much alike while being so different. It is the similarities in our basic attitudes that lie beneath the unruly traffic, our colourful politicians, our naked capitalism, and our can do instinct. Of course these attitudes have historically been driven by completely dissimilar set of circumstances. In the US, they are primarily driven by almost absolute individual freedom and liberty. In India, it has been the lack of resources and opportunities, and the sheer necessity of being the fittest in order to survive, that has driven the entrepreneurial spirit.