By the time you realize there are many Americas, you are already in the America which is hard to escape

I cant exactly claim that, becoz lettsee, I went to America for the first time when I was 16 or so, in 1974.

I think my Indian parents exceedingly brave and they managed to save and pay cash for our trips, the 4 of us, and took us to New York, Buffalo, San Francisco and Los Angeles and oh yes, from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, with the help of kind friends, who they had good relations with.

In the 70s, people had more free time and willingness to ferry visitors around, I dont know if that is the case now.

We saw the UN, the Rockettes, although it was with an Easter Bunny, not a Christmas Show, so I think they were Rockettes, and Niagara Falls and Disneyland in California. Also Muir Woods, Monterey, Sausalito and San Juan Capistrano with the help of an uncle of mine and his wife.

My Parents got their green cards in the late 70s or 80s, I forget, and we got our greencards in 85. I get dates mixed up but it was 85 and then I came to work in USA in 1986, when I just filled out applications and mailed them snail mail, which wasnt even a term. I lived in Palo Alto in a small windy apartment on Alma Street and rode the bus to Stanford University, which was kind enough to offer visiting privileges to their library based on my ID card from India or maybe just on my saying I was a doctor and I looked up the advertisements in Science and Nature magazine and sent my home built CV which my uncle did on his old MS-Dos machine, or maybe it was a Mac, and then I xeroxed at Kinko.

So that is how I got my first job in Boston, which I flew to cross country to interview at and accept.