Clash Of Cultures

1. New Old World

Noor

As my plane approached O'Hare,  I looked out my window at the city of Chicago. It was a beautiful sight. The sun was out, its rays bouncing off the high-rise buildings that made up the Chicago skyline. Lake Michigan was a bright blue color. I had never seen water that blue. Back home, I lived by the coast of the Arabian Sea. The sunsets were gorgeous, but during the day all you could see was the grayish sand and brown sea water.

We landed as smoothly as one can expect for an Airbus and the passengers broke out in an applause.

Why do people always do that. I thought it was a desi thing. Apparently not!

The pilots are literally just doing their job. I don't get an applause after running a successful code

'Finally!! Home sweet home!', said the middle-aged man next to me.

Yeah, finally I'll be able to spread my legs like you did the whole 15+ hours on the plane!!

Men made me wary in general. Outside of my own father and brother and couple of family friends I had grown up with, every man I knew either ignored me completely or kept crossing personal and professional boundaries. I didn't want to die a spinster...I believed in love and marriage and a happily ever after. But at  this moment in my life I just wanted to be left alone to pursue my dreams. 

Honestly, one of the things I was really forwarding to in the US was being just an ordinary, brown, Muslim, immigrant woman. Those qualities should be deal breakers for most American men. Though, judging by the number of brown faces around me as I waited to collect my baggage, maybe Chicago wasn't the best place to come if I wanted to be left alone by desi people. 

The cab ride on I-90 was more of a slow crawl than an actual drive. It reminded me of my usual drive home from college, meandering through the evening rush in my stick shift Toyota. With horns blaring, and the smell of diesel in the air, the cars, motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws and even donkey carts sometimes, intertwined in an elaborate web, which you think would remain in a perpetual deadlock, but somehow people managed to keep moving forward.

I noted how despite the traffic here, most cars stayed in their own lane. And when someone did try to cut in to another lane, they used their turn signal and other cars politely made way for them. I chuckled at the thought of these drivers ever needing to drive in my home town.

As we inched forward towards downtown it finally hit me: I had left my nest!

For the first time in my life, I was going to be truly independent. I had traveled internationally before, but hadn't stayed away from home for more than a few weeks. A feeling of dread took over. I was not ready for this. I had literally lived in my parents house for 23 years. Why did I think it was a good idea to move to another country half way across the world?

I took a deep breath in. I deserved to be here!

If I had managed to survive 5 years of med school, I knew I would survive this. I remembered my father's parting words.

'Never forget who you are, and where you are from. If you stay true to yourself, no challenge will be insurmountable', he had said with tears in his eyes.

Making sure the cab driver hadn't noticed my mini-anxiety attack, I wiped away the moisture in my eyes. My family was my everything and I already missed them terribly.

Common on, get your act together. You want this.

You were born to be a doctor, save lives and change the world.