Tucson - First Impressions

First Dude: Dude! Look it is raining! Isn’t that great?! Should cool down the place a little atleast.

Second Dude: Are you kidding me?! This is Tucson rain buddy. This will not last for too long and will NOT cool down the place one bit.

This is a conversation between two students that I overheard as I was walking to class one day on what was a really really hot afternoon up until that point. And there are no two different opinions on the subject of what is going to be the first thing that one would notice in Tucson. And most of us knew that Tucson was going to be crazy hot before we had set foot here. It is not like I landed at the airport with a shocked expression and said ‘Where did all the snow go?! This is not fair! I am going back to Bangalore.’.

It is funny when people here ask you, “So how are you liking Tucson?’. The question is delivered to you with such an unique expression which implies that the person asking the question is probably expecting you to grimace and say ‘ Yeah!! I don’t like it so much.’ So when I reply, ‘It is okay’, it is followed by another question along the lines of ‘meaning? is it good or bad?’ thus clarifying my understanding of what is the original intent of the question is. I don’t know why, but Indians here expect other Indians visiting this place for the first time to hate the place by default. So it is funny to see their expression when you say ‘I love this place! It is fantastic! Like heaven!’.

I wanted to focus on new things that I did not know about the city. For instance, I never knew that the place was surrounded by small hillocks on pretty much all the sides. Just made me wonder if I could go back in time and explore the possibility of building an empire here. The city would be guarded on all the sides because of the natural defense provided by the hillocks. Unfortunately, I have no real expertise in building time machines. Maybe that could be my thesis subject!

The next thing that I noticed about the place was the beautiful sunsets. Now I know that sunsets, no matter where they are very beautiful, but this one for some reason is very very different. Maybe it has something to do with that additional picturesque effect provided due to the backdrop of the mountains or something. People say that sun rays here are high on UV content because of the depleting ozone layer here as compared to some other parts of the world. Maybe that might have some bearing on the beauty of sunsets! I don’t know. And to be honest, I don’t care. As long as I know that the setting is good enough to be considered for shooting using my camera, I am happy.

Tucson also represents my first taste of American culture, whatever that is supposed to mean. Not that I am not used to getting adapted to different cultures. I am from India! We have more than a billion people back home all of them belong to different cultural subsets with intersections aplenty. But this is different. Unlike India, where culture can be associated with the type of clothing, the food that you eat or the language that you speak, the culture in America is primarily dependent on the way you speak to and interact with people. The culture can be linked to traffic rules or to holding the door open for the next person after you have entered/left the room or to also learn how not to point at people using your finger for whatever reason.

I can see why some people can find this culture very very irritating and hard to get used to. I find the whole system of vehicles stopping for me at a pedestrian crossing positively annoying to say the least. This is because of two reasons. The driver is probably expecting me to cross quickly so that he/she can move. To me, I have to walk faster than my usual pace just because this person has stopped the vehicle for my sake but is forced to do it and is not really happy about it. The second reason is because there is always a good chance that the driver says ‘ to hell with you’ and go at normal speed instead of stopping for you. I am used to that from  my experiences in India and therefore prefer the vehicle to pass away and then cross the road when there is no apparent danger to my life.

There are not too many Indians around this place. But among the ones that are already here, I would say 98% of them speak Tamil. Which is why Tucson felt like Thambiland for the first few weeks.

There are plenty of other things that I am yet to experience in US or Tucson. In fact, I think the list is never going to end.  But first impressions are always special.

Will upload some of my snaps from Tucson on my Flickr page soon. Also, I have created a personal home page here.