Prince turned pauper.

The last two weeks have been extremely hectic. First it was all the farewells from Tampa. Every day last week, I was either having dinner at a friends’ place or was going out with my colleagues. The toughest was the farewell I had at work cos some of the girls/women were crying! I was close to having tears as well but as you know TOUGH men don’t EVER cry. Well, at least they pretend not to. I was asked to say something and as you know, I feel very inconvenient at times like that but when I saw the tape later, I couldn't believe I was so expressive. Anyway, I finally left Tampa on Friday and drove to Louisville, Kentucky. It’s a 15 hour drive but I stopped over in Birmingham, Alabama at my best friend’s place. We went to a movie that night, “The Departed” which was great except for the bizarre climax. I resumed my drive on Saturday to Louisville through Tennessee. I was expecting it to be a beautiful drive but it was very normal. I’m glad my 100k miles old Civic made it this far carrying that entire luggage (and the driver). By the way, if you are ever driving through Alabama, Tennessee or Kentucky, don’t even worry about speeding cos there are no cops what so ever, except for may be in city limits. I guess the people in these states are too nice. Why else wouldn’t there be any cops? I came across one single cop after I passed Georgia; so you can imagine. In Florida, there is a cop every 10 miles; yet it has the most accidents in the US. Talk about crazy people. I think that the southern part of Georgia is the worst place to drive cos there’s construction going on all the time. I’m not sure what their problem is, they never seem to finish it. It gets very frustrating driving through that and weirdly it always rains when I am driving through that area making it worse.

I arrived in Louisville last Saturday. It’s been exactly one week. Let’s just say it’s been an extremely tough week. I still don’t feel comfortable at work but I feel much better than I did after my second day. As if to greet me, a cold wave hit this week. The coldest day of the year in Florida would have been warmer than this! Well, one way to look at it is that it’s not as bad as in Buffalo. There’s 20 inches of snow in Buffalo and it’s not even the middle of October. Frankly, I don’t understand why people even bother to live there. That is a truly God forsaken place. Take out Niagara Falls and there's nothing there. If you want to see Niagara Falls, you can always go there in the summer like most of the desi couples do; you don’t have to live near it. I haven’t been to Montana or North Dakota but I guess they are worse. You know what kind of crazy thoughts enter my mind? What’s going to happen if the heater fails during times like these? Ok, it’s treated as an emergency, but what’s the guarantee that some one will come out in that cold to fix it? What will happen if your car breaks down when you are going some where? What if you are taking a shower and the water turns cold even before you realize it? I’m quite sure that I would freeze to death if I were in any of those situations. Even watching movies where people are driving with nothing but snow on either side of the road for miles (seen Fargo?) makes me shiver! This place is not that bad. From what I hear, it doesn’t get much colder than this, so that’s one good thing. I haven’t seen much of the city but it seems to be small. I think there is the Kentucky Derby race course close by, so I will go there some day. But first on my list are the Mammoth caves which are like 60 miles from here. So that’s one reason for you to visit me. They are among the US national parks, so I’m sure they are great. But then again, you never know. We went to the Everglades national park once and that’s the most disappointing place I’ve ever been to.

As for the work environment, there is nothing much to talk about it. It’s very formal and rigid. There is a little desi group with whom I go to lunch. They seem to be very nice people. And there is one extremely pretty girl in the group as well. She’s one of those girls that you come across once in a year. And as you probably guessed, she’s married. If I was Shah Rukh Khan, I could probably still make a move on her and eventually steal her. But I’m not, so that’s the end of that story. Anyway, so here I am in a totally different place struggling to hold my own. Life used to be king like in Tampa. My cousin used to do the cooking and my brother used to do the dishes. All I did was go to work and flirt with the girls, or beat the crap out of my co-desi tennis and basketball stars and feel like Roger or Shaq! And whenever the cricket tournament came, I would get an extra trophy when our team made the final, even though all I did was just win the tosses. Contrast all that to my situation here. Now, I have to run from my car to my building, and sit in my cube for hours trying to figure something out. God knows when I will play tennis or basket ball again. Some times I wonder what the hell I need money for. In any case, all my money (what ever little I made/make) goes to India and in the future it will go to my wife (virtual as of now). I know for a fact that nothing makes me happier than playing and I will never be able to do it more than I used to in Tampa. I think one day I will sit down and think hard about it. At the moment, I feel like it’s a contest on who is going to blink first in this cold – me or my car!

Ps: Shah Rukh Khan is India’s most popular actor and in every movie that he makes, he falls in love with a girl that is already engaged or (worse) married and eventually either marries her or gets killed/dies of cancer.