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Alex Abraham

Americans are wonderful, cheerful and friendly people, ready to lend a helping hand and even more eager to tell you of the glory and wonders of their chosen land. Everything I was shown or experienced, my bubbling hosts assured me was the mostest or bestest.

As an enthusiastic visitor to the United States, I am fascinated by the Yankee penchant for, and continuing love affair with, the superlative. Drugs and Dick Daviloff dominated the media in my last visit.

At the fag end of summer, on September 22, the Senate passed a tax reform bill reducing personal and corporate taxes — to which equal numbers reacted with praise and criticism. The Mafia drug-running business was estimated at $110 billion annually and the New York Yankees beat the Chicago Red Sox 28 to 24 in the World Series that only one country took part in! But through this all, my lasting memory of `the land of the brave and the free' was one of the constant and overwhelming need of everyone and everything to be the biggest and the best.

We arrived in New York one summer morning. The concerned and caring air-crew had served us a hearty breakfast. As the aircraft banked gently over the spectacular Manhattan skyline, crossing the picturesque Hudson river in a smooth descent over Queens and beyond to John F. Kennedy International Airport, my American neighbour leaned his not inconsiderable bulk over me to peer out of the window.

"Gawd!" he exclaimed with genuine pride, "just take a look. That's our beautiful lady, Mother of Exiles, recently restored and rebuilt. Ain't she a beaut? She's the grandest in the whole wide world!"

The fact that by his own admission he had seen only two cities in the world did not in any way inhibit his enthusiasm or reduce the authority in his voice. He had declared her to be the best, and the best she would be! We landed at JFK, and as we taxied across the crowded tarmac towards our designated gate he told me it was the "busiest" airport. Well almost, O'Hare in Chicago was. Similarly, he declared, that the Empire State Building was the tallest, the Lincoln Tunnel the longest, 5th Avenue the richest and Times Square the brightest. Who was I to question or contradict such spontaneous ebullience?

The loss of my effusive, effervescent travelling companion was more than made up for by the irrepressible enthusiasm of the many Americans I came across each day. Wonderful, cheerful people, friendly, ever ready to lend a helping hand and even more eager to tell you of the glory and wonders of their chosen land. Everything I was shown or experienced, my bubbling hosts assured me was the mostest. Over the following days I revelled in sharing their wonderment and unalloyed appreciation of and pride in all things American.

The Skyline drive on the Blue Ridge Mountains at the Shennendoah National Park was the most scenic. The Mississippi River was the longest (only if you add the Missouri), the Cadillac Allante the costliest, Peterson's chicken the tastiest, Wampler Turkey the meatiest and Florida oranges the juiciest. Continuing my forced, but welcome, education, I was shown the Mid Americas mall at Memphis — the longest — Diana Ross and the Supremes — the swingiest — Richard Pryor, the funniest. And so it went interminably on. Mary Quant and Vidal Sassoon were the trendiest, Sylvester Stallone the strongest and there was no arguing that Brooke Shields was the prettiest. In the midst of all this, who could blame Kraft cheese for claiming their brand to be the cheesiest? Alliterations apart, even in despair and despondency there was the ...est! Have you heard... billionaires Bunker and Nelson Hunt are the brokest? Meanwhile, I felt the gnawing need to share with my new friends the great and bounteous glories beyond US shores.

Tentatively, I plucked the courage and made a few attempts to tell my companions of the serenity of the sunrise at Mount Bromo, of the ancient grandeur of Luxor and Aswan, the magnificent rainbows in the chasm of `The Smoke that Thunders' at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe; of the beauty and grandeur of Alexandria and the Acropolis, Bunaken and Bali, Gorongoro and Gozo.

They would listen with scant attention or evinced a modicum of polite interest. I learnt then that in the land of ...est, all that glitters is indeed gold... but only if it is in the US.

My last stop was to Montclair, New Jersey, to visit my friends Gopi and his good wife Maria. Gopi had immigrated to `the land of milk and honey' twenty years earlier.

He had worked hard, progressed and prospered and acquired all the accoutrements of success in America.

A large mortgage, a home, three cars, a motorised lawn-mower, and a grand piano. A signboard on his lawn proclaimed it "The best house in New Jersey".

Over a sumptuous meal of roast turkey and spuds, followed by rich Christmas pudding, we exchanged happy memories of college days in Chennai. Tongue-in-cheek, I asked him, "Hey Gopi, how do you know that this is the best house in New Jersey?"

He neither blanched nor batted an eyelid. "Hey man, go out and read the signboard. It says so!"

I realised then that my friend Gopi had become a true Yank!

(The author is a Bangalore-based consultant and writer.)

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