If you can read this, the b***h probably fell off." That's what it said on the back of the tee shirt of a fat man on a Harley Davidson, idling in front of us at a stop signal in downtown San Jose, California. Looking at the size of the man, I couldn't help but think that the b***h, rest her soul, had perhaps taken a wise decision. In the US of A, size matters. From cars to sandwiches, from shirts to stadia, everything comes in extra large sizes, meant to accommodate a population that seems intent on gaining as much weight as possible, as soon as possible. Strangely enough, this seems to apply particularly to the White American. The Vietnamese, the Mexicans, the Chinese and, of course, the Indians, who live cheek-by-jowl with the original Californian natives, don't seem to have this problem. Perhaps it's the diet. Perhaps it's the genes. Or perhaps it's because eating happens to be the favourite pastime for most of the populace, closely followed by, or perhaps preceded by, shopping. Within a 10 minute radius from the stop light where the fat man was impatiently revving his monster machine, there are at least six restaurants -- Lebanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Italian, Ethiopian and, of course, the all-pervasive McDonald's. Prices range from the ridiculously cheap to the prohibitively expensive. But, come lunch and dinner time, they all have queues. The strange thing is, people seem to waste more than they actually consume. During a meal at a Vietnamese restaurant, I was initially amused, then concerned about an all-American family that ordered dozens of dishes and tasted a morsel from each, before going on to the next one. The uneaten stuff they left behind at the table so casually could have easily fed three more families. Of course, this may have been an aberration rather than the rule. Yet, earlier that morning, when we went to a local eatery called Peggy Sue's for breakfast, I had seem similar wastage. People ordering large portions of everything, then leaving half of it behind. Perhaps that's the new way to diet. But the fact remains that, in the five weeks that I was there, I put on nearly five kilos. In fact, even the homeless in San Jose are overweight. Most, if not all, of the destitute men and women who lurk around apparently aimlessly, their worldly possessions packed in a supermarket cart, seemed remarkably healthy. A man who could be found muttering to himself outside our motel each morning was built like a sumo wrestler. Dressed in rags, he would always have a half-empty bottle of Coke, some chips and other assorted snacks sticking out of his various pockets. Though I never saw him begging, there were others who did not hesitate to ask for "spare change." Particularly in the evenings, when they gathered together for their all-night sojourns on the light rail (San Jose's version of the tram) and the all-night buses. I was told that many of them found these safer than the shelters provided by the state, which were apparently taken over by the drug addicts and other dangerous denizens at night. Speaking of diets, I'm a tea lover. So it came as a rather unpleasant surprise when I realised that a whole array of beverages that the Americans call tea don't have a bit of the brew in it. For the Yanks, anything made of herbs can be called tea. Things came to such a pass that I had to either read the labels myself or insist that any tea served to me at restaurants had real, unadulterated tea leaves in it. Peggy Sue's, to my mind, will always be associated with the US elections. Having incredulously watched the wires appoint, then pull down George W Bush from the presidency the night before, we arrived at Peggy Sue's for an early morning coffee. Suddenly, the man behind the counter, who in true American form was built like a Mac Truck, rushed out of the restaurant. Minutes later, he was back, gleefully waving a copy of the San Jose Mercury which proudly proclaimed: "Bush Wins!" I, in turn, rushed to him, demanding to know where he had got the copy from. "They're recalling it out in front but, if you run, you might just get a copy," he said. I ran and thus possess a newspaper which, I hope, will someday become a collector's item. "Pack it in plastic," advised the man at the counter. "You don't want to spoil it." Left hand drive, inverted light and other switches, ("Push up to turn on," was how a fellow scribe described it, tongue firmly in cheek), locks that turn counter-clockwise... America can be quite confusing for the uninitiated. Though I had noticed that drinking water was sold by the gallon at every store, I was sure that my stomach, which had survived five years on Delhi's tap water, would have no problems whatsoever with the water provided by the San Jose Water Board. It didn't. Not until a Chinese colleague, a California veteran, casually remarked: "Tap water? Oh, that's recycled toilet water." I drank beer for the rest of my stay. Language is another problem. No, it's not the American accent. It's the fact that thousands of Mexicans who work and live in San Jose don't understand a word of English. Many a time, while asking directions from young men on the street, I was met with a blank stare and then some animated Spanish. And the lady who cleaned the office, for instance, could only say "I don't know" in a singsong American accent. I never did figure out what she didn't know. If I hadn't known about this problem, I surely would have taken offence with a man who was in charge of renting boats and jet skis at Lake Tahoe, a ski resort six hours away from San Jose. "How many of you gentlemen speak English?" he asked condescendingly, as we descended down the pier towards the lake. Under the circumstance, I consoled myself by abusing him in chaste Hindi before sweetly asking him in as clipped a British accent as I could muster: "English? Wot's that?" After five weeks in the city, Ramananda Sengupta is undecided if he likes San Jose or not. Illustration: Dominic Xavier Do tell us what you think of this diary
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