My American Diary

Today is a great day in my life. I am going to the United States of America again after forty years. I am going with my wife Prova.

My flight is by British Airways. It will start at 9 p.m. from Dhaka for Chicago via London.

The preparation for the august journey began a couple of days ago. Today is the last day of it.

Almost the whole day was spent in placing our stuff of clothing and other things in two large suitcases and four handbags. Doubts were raised continuously regarding which things were to be taken in and which things were to be taken out of the luggage to be replaced by new things as if we were going to a country where nothing would be available.

I had to listen to all the unwanted counsels of my relatives and friends for and against almost every item of our luggage and in the last moment when the suitcases and the bags were finally closed, it seemed this was the most important job to have been done before the journey and rest of the activities that took place in the past couple of days like booking of seats in the airline purchasing tickets, obtaining foreign exchange from the bank and the first and foremost, getting visa from the US Embassy, without which the journey would not take place at all, were all trifles.

I took a nice bath in the afternoon. Earlier I had a haircut too. I had heard from people that one haircut cost no less than $15 in America nowadays. Therefore it would be foolhardy not to have it done here at a cost of only fifty cents in an air-conditioned salon, I thought. My two worthy sons who live in America and financially who are supporting our present journey did not give us any economic advice. They never told me to have my haircut before I boarded the plane.

‘Since you are coming in winter, carry your warm clothing with you’ That was all they said.

I had traveled to several countries abroad in the past and those were mostly cold countries of the West. I did not have, therefore, any dearth of experience regarding clothing required in those countries in various seasons. Yet after receiving counseling from many, one day I entered the famous Bongo Bazar of Dhaka City. From its narrowest lanes of shops I purchased a thick jackets, a pair of woolen trousers, woolen socks, thermal underwear and a monkey cap.

My wife did not show any interest in warm clothing nor she wanted to buy any like me. She was busy putting her sarees and blouses in the suitcases.

‘Look dear, you can’t wear sarees in winter in America.’ I said to her. ‘Better you buy jeans trousers or woolen pants, a jacket, and at best few salwar and kameezes.’

‘How do you suggest I wear teen-age girl’s dress in my age?’ She retorted back. ‘How my sons will feel when they see me in that dress?’

She started filling her suitcase and bags with packets of food and the cookies, which she had been cooking and preparing since days ago for the consumption of her two sons in America. Seeing the number of packets and the care with which she was placing them inside to prevent any damage or exposure, I thought, perhaps for every mother on earth, irrespective of species, there was nothing more satisfying than feeding offspring with her own picked food.

Many came to see us off at home. When at six in the evening we started for the airport I was feeling tired.

At Dhaka airport we had easy check-in at the airline and immigration counters, but waited an hour in the lounge at the boarding gate.

The large Boeing 747 standing on the tarmac was in view through the glass wall. Man is mighty today, I thought, watching the double-decker four-engine giant jet. It was no joke flying this huge machine with more than four hundred passengers on board across the continents and the oceans and reaching the other ends of the world.

Prova, my wife, is diabetic. She finished her daily measure of exercise by walking up and down the length of the lounge as many times as she could.

Within half an hour of boarding call, all passengers were seated inside the plane. After we fastened our seat belts, and the stewards finished their demonstrations of emergency safety procedures, the plane started moving swaying a little on both sides. After a few minutes of taxying, we heard an announcement of the Captain. There will be some delay in the take-off, he said on loudspeakers. Clearance was still to be obtained from Delhi, India, our next stoppage. The control tower was trying with Delhi and we have to wait.

I could not see much outside except the taxiway lights from my window seat. The plane now stood still on the taxiway. I started recollecting my first journey to the United States of America forty years back.

That was in 1960. I was young, 23, commissioned in Pakistan Air Force as Pilot Officer (Second Lieutenant) a year ago. At that time, in the regime of Field Marshal Ayub Khan, Pakistan was an important military ally of America, forming part of the so-called second circle of defense of the Free World around the communist Soviet Union.

America then not only supplied Pakistan military planes but also provided technical and pilot training to military personnel. Pakistan on her part gave the US the right to use her airfields and facility of a base near Peshawar from where the US could conduct electronic detection and aerial espionage over the South Eastern tips of the Soviet Union bordering Afghanistan. Pakistan also entered into military pacts of CENTO and SEATO.

I came to Karachi from Rawalpindi. It was some day in April 1960. When the four engine Super Constellation of the USAF Military Air Transport Service (MATS) touched down the Mauripur airfield at Karachi, my friend of Dhaka University, Anis, was with me. Anis came to see me off. There was no one else in Karachi who could come to see me off. Anis was studying MBA in the final year at Karachi at that time.

Anis had been my roommate in Fazlul Haq Hall, a dormitory of Dhaka University when we both were Honors students of Physics. Perhaps all matters and subjects in the universe were differently set for me and Anis, because there was not a single thing on which we could agree. We disagreed on everything on earth. Always we debated our views and quarreled. Our quarrels sometimes reached such heights that we stopped talking with each other. Depending on the severity of the scuffle, we did not talk even for months. Yet of all my friends I loved Anis most. He is still alive. Though we hardly meet the warmth of love that I had for him persists even today.

Before leave and farewell, I found a few Pakistani currencies, notes and coins, in my wallet left unspent.

I said to Anis, ‘I’ll be gone abroad for a full one year. What I’ll do with these notes and coins there? Please keep these with you.’

He burst in fire. ‘What the hell I’ll take your money for? Am I a beggar?’

‘Oh, no.’ I said. ‘Where do you find a king and a beggar here, Anis? If it’s so disgraceful, give it to some beggar on the street when you go back.’

Anis flared up again. ‘Why I’ll give the beggar money that’s yours? You give it yourself.’

This was the time when I myself got flared up. ‘Bloody fool,’I shouted. ‘Where do I get a beggar here on this runway?’