Immigration was a breeze. Here is how the interview went
* Her: Hello.
* Me : Mumble...Mumble...
* Her: I said Hello!
* Me : Ohh! Hello!
* Her: What will you be doing in the US?
* Me : I'm visiting my aunt.
* Her: OK. Oh, you were born in England. Where's your British passport?
* Me : I don't have one. They changed the rules or something.
* Her: Your parents went to school there or something?
* Me : They were working there.
* Her: How long did you stay the last time you came?
* Me : Umm, around 20 days.
* Her: 20 days? Cool. Have a pleasant stay....
Customs was even simpler
* (I hand him my form)
* Him:
* Me : Thank you.
* Him: Okay.
* (No x-ray. Nothing else at all)
The New York airport was really crowded. People and people all around. Lots of them. Not heeding your advice, I had a cheeseburger at Burger King(yes, it has beef in it, and yes beef has cow in it and cows are sacred to Hindus, and you're probably a Hindu. But hey, food comes before religion, right?? Rather food is religion, right??) Here's what I think about the history of vegetarianism. The regions that were prosperous could afford to be snobbish. They could choose to say, "Pooh, I don't want to eat that. I won't eat cow. I won't eat meat". Since at the time when most modern religions were developing, India was rather prosperous, a lot of Indian religions stress upon vegetarianism. Christianity, Judaism and other European religions couldn't afford to have such fads, since there was not enough agriculture to support an entire population of vegetarians. The other extreme is countries like Thailand, Vietnam etc. Since they had even fewer resources, they can afford even lesser fads, and hence eat anything, including snakes and dogs and monkeys.
Anyway, since I had plenty of time, and since I could not sleep lest I miss my flight, I wrote most of the previous post sitting on the airport.
Soon I was in Boston. Came home, ate and slept for 11 hours state!! I could probably have slept for several hours more, but was unfortunately woken up. Ahh, sleep! Isn't it one of the greatest pleasures of life? The rest of the day was uneventful. Nitish - he's my 5 year old cousin - kind of took a liking to me.
Today, I went into Boston all on my own. I'm sleepy, so more about it later.