Superheroes; but also villains. For a generation, Henry Kissinger was the most hated man in India. In 1975, Sanjay Gandhi would overtake him in loathsomeness; but that bureaucratic suit, those thick glasses and that heavy accent would always make Indians shudder. And Nixon, too, who, with Kissinger, presided over the Bangladesh war; the way the American government always seemed to be on the wrong side of everything. Nevertheless, the young men and women queued up for application forms at the USIS in Marine Lines. The lines were long and exhausting; later, they left for the States. Returning for holidays, the men wore shorts, and T-shirts with the logos of obscure universities. Even their fathers began to wear shorts. On the rear windows of cars in Bombay, they pasted stickers with the names of those unheard-of universities, which others would be obliged to memorize in a traffic jam. What was it that took them there? Was it a desire for success and assimilation that Europe could not offer? And was it the ability, and desire, to merge (but not quite) with those crowds in Manhattan, or settle down in some suburb, or relocate themselves in the vast spaces in between?
~ Amit Chaudhari in Granta 77, What We Think Of America
