My life-to-date has been symmetrically split into 21 year segmentsfirst 21 years in India, next 21 in the U.S., my last four back in India. The symmetry has instilled a hankering to stay in touch with both cultures. That, plus a primeval urge to escape the summer heat in Chennai, has led to my visiting the U.S. every year for about two months during April June. This year, my wife, I and our two kids found ourselves in Disney World at Orlando in late April.

 The kids at one of umpteen rides in one of the umpteen theme parks at Disney World

Our immediate observation was that the average U.S. resident had quadrupled in weight since our last visit a year ago. Everywhere we looked, behemoths strode like colossuses. Human limbs were scarcely recognizable as such. Thighs resembled tree trunks; shoulders and arms quavered like jelly mountains. Chins had multiplied like rabbits; cheeks had bulged like balloons. Next to them, we felt like teeny, weeny, itty bitty munchkins. It was as if the entire population had been super-sized. There was the memorable bus ride where four people of gargantuan proportions occupied the entire front and middle, making us squeeze into the back. We saw several people being turned back from Disney rides due to their, er, ah, non-standard physiognomy. There was no race, age, or gender bias to this overflow of flesh; white grandmas competed with young black men to see who could pack more pounds into the human frame. Rotund Hispanics vied with chubby Chinese for the perfect sphere look. It got to a point where we were worried that if one of these giants were to tip over, we would be crushed under the mass. So, we gave these specimens a wide berth, sometimes going out of our way for miles to circumvent a particularly obese object. Osama, give it a rest. The infidels will soon spontaneously burst, saving you a few good suicide bombers.

The Disney Resort in Orlando is a magical place, all right. Disney characters pop up everywhere, unannounced. One night, we ordered room-service, and Goofy personally deposited our meal on our heads by tripping over the rug. We could have sworn our chamber-maid was Minnie Mouse, going by the number of mouse droppings we found whenever we returned to our room at night. They do take care of you, and you do get value for your money. But the price you pay is that you are entirely cut off from the real world. Although we were nominally located in Florida, we could have been in Timbuctu for all the difference it made. The Disney folks want you to live and breathe Disney, shop and dine Disney, play and lay Disney. To leave the resort and venture out into Orlando, you had to risk your life, or at least your lifes savings on a cab-ride. You want to whiz around inside Disney resort, no problem. They have buses and boats and palanquin-bearers lightly, o lightly bearing you along wherever your heart desires. But the moment you evince an interest in leaving their cozy confines, they drop you like you have the plague. Total immersion, they call it. By the time you leave, they want you to bawl like a baby if you dont receive the Disney Channel on your cable.

Kids with assorted Disney characters

Readers Digest, displaying a hitherto-unsuspected sense of humor, had called New York the politest city in the world, and we felt that we needed to check out this oasis of decorum. Sure enough, the cabbie muttered Thank you before driving off with our suitcase, the toll collector yelled a cheery Have a good one! after cursing at us for hunting for quarters in our seat-backs, heck, even the mugger at Broadway & 42^nd whispered an Appreciate it! after depriving us of our valuables at gun-point while New Yorkers politely milled around us. At the subway station, the Customer Service agent showed us a polite finger when we enquired as to how we might catch the D train to Columbus Circle. The meter-maids are the embodiment of good spirits, especially when theyre writing you a ticker for overstaying at your parking spot for a nano-second. Your fellow pedestrians shove you out of the way with a hurried Coming through!. The soup-Nazi yells, No more soup for you! Delightful morning, isnt it? The kids steal your hub-caps a little more gently, almost suavely, if they see an out-of-state license plate. That creaky old anachronism (no, not your wife), Readers Digest, did get it right with Mumbai, of whom and whose denizens I have waxed eloquently on a previous occasion. Nowadays, Im more into waxing lyrical, or poetic. My wife is into waxing. You dont want to know.

Brooklyn Bridge in the background; one polite New Yorker tried to sell it to us

 Coney Island, living on past glory much like the rest of New York city

The Floridans (or Floridians, or Floridinians, or alligator-bait), unlike their West Coast cousins, the Californians, are a hardy lot. During our two-week stay in Florida, we saw one snake in the bushes near a beach, and an alligator (or crocodile, they all look the same to me) off a highway. Being from India, where snake-charmers roam the streets, and alligators grab elephants by their legs and wouldnt let go till the tusker cries Uncle!, we should have  able to take such visitations in stride. The natives were surprised to see us yell and scream and offer our souls to The Almighty in return for safe passage. That, however, was a mild reaction compared to the histrionics we indulged in when, despite our GPS, we got lost late night in Downtown Miami. Ms. GPS said Left and we turned left, right into a dead end. Ms. GPS said Oops!, even as we watched a gang approach with heavy artillery in their possession. We had just concluded a bargain with the Devil for our souls in exchange for safe passage (breaking the earlier deal with God, but hey, the Devil wears Prada) when one of the gang barked at us to Move it! They were part of a construction crew, and we were in the way. Soon, we were on our way.

As we drove up North from Florida, Georgia and South Carolina whizzed by, and we stopped only long enough to take a whiz. North Carolina was harder to rush through, mainly due to the abode of a beloved relative which happened to be on the way. We made about 700 miles per full day of driving, which is about as hard on the body as a 7-km drive on Indian roads. In the U.S., the journeys the thing, the destination is secondary. In India, I feel reluctant to navigate from one room to the next in my house; who knows what horrors lurk? It wouldnt surprise me to see a Toyota Qualis or Tata Sumo in the middle of the living room, bright lights blazing, horn honking, driver gesticulating wildly, wanting to know what your house is doing in his driving path. Traffic in the U.S. is so orderly in comparison that it boggled our untidy mind. Vehicles are backed up for 5 miles on a highway where only one lane is open, but the shoulder is invitingly vacant. In India, one lane + one shoulder would have equaled for vehicles moving alongside; in the U.S., people ignore the inviting, soft, rounded, curvy, seductive shoulder, and just sit and stew.

Pizza is everywhere on the Eastern seaboard. Even Starbucks serves pizza-flavored coffee in New Haven, CT. On a particularly gastronomically-challenged day, we had New York style pizza for brunch, Chicago-style pizza for lunner, and Greek-style pizza for dinkfast. For a vegetarian, pizza represents salvationtasty, yet meat-free, a combination in short supply in the Western world. I always say that eating a salad is like eating raw meat for a non-vagan. I want my veggies baked, or fried, or deep-fried, or processed in some way that enhances their effect on my taste-buds. Eating a salad is like kissing your sister (and not the pretty one either!).

The Stirling Memorial Library and Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, CT (where New Yorkers go to eat good pizza)

Use of credit cards is now a breeze in the U.S. Guy scans it, and returns it to you, and youre done. The first time, I waited for the guy (or gal, as the case may be) to give me a sales slip to sign; after a few seconds of this, the gal (or guy, its hard to tell at Starbucks) gives me a baleful stare, and wanted to know if theres anything else she could help me with. Properly chastised, I scooted, nay, scurried from her vicinity. After a few more encounters of the same kind, it dawned upon me that my signature on a charge slip was not required at most establishments. Since then, Ive burnt all my own cards and have embarked upon a hunt for other peoples cards.

The preponderance of smoke-free hotels is definitely a good thing. At some hotels, they still allow smoking on some selected floors, which are exhausted straight into the stratosphere. In India, you turn on the air-conditioner in a non-smoking room, and all of a sudden, all the smoke being emitted by every resident smoking bozo is being channeled into your room. What can I say! We Indians are good at gaping and aping, but we can never capture the spirit of the original. If Superman ever came across Krrish, Krrish will be Krrushed.

The price of gas continues to sky-rocket in the U.S. Pretty soon, itll be nearly half what the Europeans pay, and that would be terrible. What has the Euro-trash ever done to contain global oil prices? Nothing, nada, zilch. All they do is moan and groan, whine & dine. They hang on to the U.S. coat-tails, but, mixing a few metaphors, jump off the band-wagon as soon as the going gets tough and the tough get a few missiles. In India, petrol prices are as artificially controlled as the moviegoers libido by over-achieving censors, who then sell the cut clippings at street-corners for a thou apiece. What a country!

The balanced perspective in American newspaper editorial pages continues to amaze after a steady-dose of one-sided opinion pieces in Indian newspapers, led by that champion of jaundiced journalism, The Hindu (Motto: The only good American is Musharraf). In Chennai, we now have an alternativeDeccan Chronicle. Unfortunately, DC refuses to acknowledge that weather exists, and that city engagements happen. They like to think that cultural and climatic phenomena are beneath their notice, which is affixed to the hemlines of barely-there actresses. So, we bite the bullet and ingest The Hindu in daily doses, tilting leftwards in the process to the extent that we start considering communism to be relevant to the 21^st century.

American television, too, continues to impress. The newscasters get through a complete report without stumbling over their vowels. Sports commentators get through an entire event without fawning upon some eminent political appointee. Game show hosts manage to be funny, something beyond the ken of AB and his ilk. Political talking heads make occasional sense. Commercials are creative. Made-for TV movies sometimes outshine theatrical releases. Program sponsors remain mostly unobtrusive. Children act like children. The last time I saw a child actor on Indian television behave like a child, he turned out to be midget.

Speaking of TV shows, the ultimate in sitcom sophistication has got to be Cheers!

American sports, on the other hand, are on a downward spiral. Their NBA players cannot make free throws to save their lives. Actually, that would be a good premise for a game show a la Stephen King. Pro-basketball players get to shoot two free throws. If they miss one, the logo on their shirt gets stripped off. They miss two, they get killed. I bet NBA free-throw skills will show drastic improvement in a hurry.  They might even catch up to WNBA in a decade or two. Baseball has no black players, except Barry Bonds who may be in jail for perjury by the time this appears. Their track stars are off-track, and their field stars well, they never had any. The NHL is full of Canadians, and the NFL is tedious bedlam. Heck, even the Duke Lacrosse team is embroiled in a rape investigation.

 Miniature Golf in Cape Cod, MAone sport Americans are still good at

Hollywood continues to churn out flicks that fill the coffers, but have little to offer the enlightened movie-goer. The new Hitchcock, M. (Good-)Night Shyamalan, is starting to look more like the new Brian de Palma. A Disney ride continues to overwhelm the competition at the b.o. (box office, or body odor, as you prefer). Spielberg is out of spiels, it appears, and the power aint with George anymore. Light comedy now appears to be Hollywoods forte, with Jennifer Aniston popping up everywhere. Somebody, please revive Friends, and get her back to the small screen where she belongs

Patricia Cornwell and James Patterson are publishing a new novel roughly every other month, or so it feels like (even though they are two of my favorite authors). Sue Grafton is up to ZZ in the alphabet. Stephen King has gone cellular; I wish he would stick to short stories, where he has less space to expand. He never uses 10 words where 100 would suffice. John Le Carre is the one guy who goes in for quality rather than quantity, but his ilk are a vanishing breed. Dan Brown and John Grisham are collaborating on a new book tentatively titled The Da Vinci Judicial Code. Rowling is rowling in dough, but is at work on Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings of Fire.

The U.S. remains a heaven for travelers. The public toilets are clean, and free (Euros, take note!). Taco Bell serves more than 15 veggie items (not all are on the menu, though; you got to know to ask for them). Gas stations are self-serve (except in a few weird Easter states). Maps are clear enough that you can even navigate without a GPS, in a pinch. Highways are a joy to drive on (except in a few misbegotten Eastern states where construction activities appears to peak during rush-hour). Even the cheapest highway motel has a comfortable bed, and they leave the light on for ya A special aside to Atlantic City: You aint no Las Vegas, and youll never get there, sucker, Lucy or no Lucy!