My trip to the USA

This write-up may not be as big as my Australian trip; the only reason that can be attributed is it happened 5 years back. But if you thought it will be small – eh! No. I have still managed to tickle my grey cells and come up with a not so long type.

This article is dedicated to the team members at Ramco's PMG during that time.

I was with Ramco Systems then when I got this opportunity to travel to USA for four months time (Jan 2000 – May 2000). I traveled with my manager Mr.Sankaranarayanan and a colleague named Nandakumar. Later, my team mate Vivek and another manager TS Krishna Kumar joined us. Our destination was the city of Ontario (one and half hour drive from Los Angeles). We had stop over and change of flight at Singapore and Hong Kong en route to the US west coast.

The Indian airlines flight that we boarded at midnight had some technical difficulties; the door wasn’t closing properly. I was thrown aback when I saw one of the crew member bringing in a hammer kind of thing. It was my first flight and I was surely expecting things to be not scary like this. Fortunately, the hammer wasn’t used and things became normal and we were on. The change over time at Singapore was a grueling 9 hours. We spent the time taking the free trip of Singapore and roaming the airport and sleeping for some time. Then we boarded the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong and from there to LA. We reached LA around 9.30 in the night and reached our place by taking a shuttle as advised to us before we started. We landed at LA and after clearing the customs and immigration, took the shuttle as told earlier to take us to the hotel where we will be staying for 2 weeks or so. The first things that struck me were the sheer size of the airport, roads, and supermarkets compared to what I had seen in India. But yes, I got used to it as the days went by and I guess this is the similar feeling each one gets when they land in US. Our colleague Srinivasan had prepared good south Indian meals and it was consumed in moments by us after been starved of a complete food for more than 24 hours. Another colleague Suresh Mangalath was there who took the great pain of getting us everyday to the office and dropping us back. My boss, after two months, took a car and rental and started reducing the load of Suresh.

The work was very hectic (believe me; it was like being in furnace). The customer was Sunkist, a company that produces all orange related items from juices to chocolate. Basically they try and make all possible products out of orange. They had implemented our ERP solutions and we were there to migrate to a newer version particularly the database part which had undergone major change. The initial two months was literal firefighting, and usually it stretched late into nights almost everyday and consumed few hours on Saturday also.

Pic: @ Sunkist (L-R)- Srinivas, Padmanabhan, Sankaranarayanan, Vivek, Krishna kumar, myself and Nanda (sitting)

L-R:Vivek, myself, Suresh Mangalath, Nanda, Krishna Kumar and Srikanth


But we did have fun and didn’t want to miss out visiting some places. The two places that I missed were Golden Gate Bridge and Las Vegas. Other than that, the colleagues (especially Suresh Mangalath) were very helpful in taking us to various places.

Sea World: They had tamed and trained killer whales and Dolphins. It performed so many feats as instructed and it was just amazing to see those big fishes executing some commands perfectly and after every feat, it will skid to the area where the instructor is standing to get a mouthful of fresh water fish as a token. We also saw the bird show where they had trained preying birds like Eagle, Vultures to obey their commands and entertain the crowd.

Pic: At Sea world with my boss and Nanda Kumar


Pic: Dolphin show



Disney World: We were given a map of all the rides and entertainment places. The Indians Jones ride was thrilling end enjoyable. It was a good day

Universal Studios: By this time, another manager Krishna Kumar and my team mate Vivek had joined the gang and six of us went.

Pic: Universal studios – Entrance


Pic: Universal Studios - Shark mouth


Pic: Universal Studios - Climbing to the top


Pic: Universal Studios - Roof top


Pic: Universal Studios - Enjoying Cafe Mocha


The studio drive was impressive where we were taken through the sets that were created and some of the spectacular scenes that were filmed – the killer shark that comes in Jaws, the bee that appears in Mummy, the sudden flash of flood, Apollo 13 landing, the infamous ‘Motel’ that appears in the film Psycho and Terminator. It was very interesting to know how those scenes were shot and funny that it produced such an effect whereas it all looked miniatures in actual. The climb to universal studios took almost 45 minutes after going through five stages of escalators. It was a spectacular view from the top and surely, it was a memorable day.

My boss was kind enough to grant me 2 days off. I coupled it with a weekend and visited my brother & family at Houston and had a good stay – nice food, learning to shoot basketball at my brother’s place, visiting the Rice University where my brother worked then, driving a Toyota (of course, within the small lane, but sure to give me the excitement).

Whenever we know that we are going to stay late, we used to go to the Dennys / McDonalds / Taco Bell. Otherwise, almost every weekend we used to drive us to the Balaji temple at a place called Malibu (don’t know if there is a connection to the liquor brand). We had three Business Champions testing and certifying the functionality after our work - Venkatesh, Balaji Ranghachari and Srinivas. Whenever we visited the temple, Venkatesh used to take us to Udipi restaurant where our standard order would be South Indian thali food – compensating for the whole week.

Pic: Card Session at the apartment.


Apart from that, we used to hang around the Ontario mall during some of the weekends. It was so big that we used to cover fewer parts of it and have the remaining for next time. Similarly the other places where we used to hang around and buy groceries / things to be brought to India were Wal-Mart and Costco supermarkets, 101 direct factory outlet shops where we bought good cordless speaker phones at 20$ a piece, the 99cents shop and so on.

Pic: At the Ontario mall after done with shopping


Interesting Incident: since we always work late at nights, we were given the access to the company by means of secret numbers which we need to key-in every time we enter. Only then, the alarms set will get disengaged. One fine day, Krishna kumar walked first punched the keys and the door opened. Just when we crossed the verandah, the alarm got activated and it started the siren. The alarm goes to security agency. Unfortunately, no one picked up there and so it got routed to 911. We were not sure on what happened and so kept walking here and there to contact some one. Meanwhile Krishna kumar went out for a smoke and suddenly he was on the spotlight, with a helicopter above him casting a white beam of light on him. KK froze and luckily he just stood still without doing any action that would have invited a gun fire. Moments later, a tall well built police officer came to him with a hound like creature (actually it was a police dog) and after knowing what we did, explained and advised us on not to repeat like this in the future. For few moments, we were like mice being rattled by the snake.

Good Samaritan: I had bought lot of things during my four months stay to be taken back home and given as souvenirs / mementoes / gifts. On the day of leaving, I had packed everything neatly, but at the airport, to my shock, I discovered that I had excess weight for check-in and had to unload close to 8 kg. I didn’t have anybody to see me off as it was a working day and so I was clueless on what to do. Just then one of the airport authorities, a Pakistani, came to my help when he saw me struggling to juggle around the suitcase trying to figure out which of those items to leave behind that would make up that 8kg. I was the only one in the LA airport who was sweating like hell, frantically packing, unpacking and readjusting. Finally, with his help, I got the right weight (was still exceeding the limited weight by 2 kg), but since he knew the airline authorities, he talked to them to allow me through. I still had a big carry bag and backpack. He advised me not to take both of them as it would invite a scrutiny. He suggested me to leave one of them behind, get a boarding pass and when the call comes for boarding the flight, get in as one of the last passenger so that they wouldn’t be keen to check the last few passengers. His suggestion worked.

Had it not been for him, I don’t know how I would have cleared the check-in at LA. For a moment, he forgot the nationality and helped me like a friend in need. I will never forget his timely help.

That's what my US trip is all about - Thanks for your time!!