I slept fitfully for the first half of the flight. I had two pairs of rolled-up shorts stuffed under my jaw to keep my head from lolling around. Occasionally my elbow jabbed his on the armrest, and I apologized. Each time he smiled politely and said, Oh no.
We were served seltzers and Coke somewhere over the Rockies. After the drinks were cleared, the man pulled out a laptop computer. I looked over at him and gestured at the two half-opened windowshades to my left. Sunlight came streaming through them onto our tray tables. Would you like them to be up, or down? Because of the laptop? I said. The man smiled and said, Oh no, whatever you'd like. I said, Whatever is best for you, it makes no difference to me. He continued smiling but expressing no real preference, so I said, Let's just leave them halfway up and down. The man slowly played chess against the computer and won.
An hour or so later, I began reading a stack of briefs on a copyright case. The issue was whether a federal court has jurisdiction to hear a state legal malpractice claim where the underlying event was the attorney's failure to file a federal copyright claim before the statute of limitations expired - the merits of the unlitigated copyright claim would have to be explored by whatever court ultimately heard the malpractice claim. It was extremely tedious and I took notes in the margins to keep myself awake.
The man kept glancing at my papers in a way that suggested he was not only interested in what I was doing but searching for an entry point for conversation. Finally, he said, Are you a law student? I said, Oh, I am a lawyer. He said, But you look so young! I said, Well, I did just graduate from law school last year. But twenty-eight is not really so young.
I said, And you, what do you do? He confirmed that he was an electrical engineer in a South Bay microchip company, and that he lived in Santa Clara. I asked him where he was from, even though sometimes that question can be tricky, and I hoped I would not offend him. He said, India. I said, Where in India? He said, Hm, well, it's in the Bombay region. I said I had lived in India for a few months, so he said, more specifically, that he was from Andhra Pradesh. I said one of my best friends was a second-generation Indian-American from Andhra Pradesh. I couldn't remember if R's parents were actually from there, but I wanted to make my new friend feel comfortable. I may have just sounded patronizing, but it's hard to know whether first-generation immigrants feel as irritated by the well-meaning conversationalist's hunt for thin geographical connections as their second-generation children do. He asked if I was from China, and I said no, my parents were from Taiwan.
My neighbor wanted to know about the time I had spent in India, so I told him I had lived in Delhi for two months but had taken a 40-hour train trip from Delhi to Chennai to visit a dear Tamil-American friend, with whom I then traveled to Kerala. He asked if I had seen the statue of Thiruvalluvar in Kanyakumari, and I said that the tip of the subcontinent was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. He seemed very proud when I said this.
He was not coming from Chicago, but from Florida. There had merely been a layover at Midway Airport, so he couldn't say whether he liked Chicago or not. He had just finished a brief tour of East Coast destinations with his parents, who were visiting from Hyderabad. They had gone to Niagara Falls and then to Florida, where he had cousins. His parents remained with the cousins to enjoy the beach a few more days, but he had to return to San Jose to get back to work. Work was project-based and usually 9-5, but this week he had to put in a few more hours.
I offered my name and then asked his. He paused, then said, Kalyan. I teased him: did you forget? No, no, he said. But many Americans seem to have a hard time with my name. Did I say it correctly, I asked. Yes, you said it just fine, he replied. Then many Americans should just try harder, I said.
Kalyan had studied for a two-year master's degree at Arizona State University. He said, in response to my question, that it was a party school, but the electrical engineering program was quite good and was ranked among the top thirty in the nation at the time he applied. I didn't realize until much later that my asking whether it was a party culture suggested to him that I didn't value his degree highly, so that he felt compelled to defend it by stating its ranking. But his tone did not betray any impatience or insecurity, just patient explanation. We exchanged pleasantries about the weather in Phoenix. I told him that my dad had come over to study for a electrical engineering master's at an American university also.
He said that if he were to be laid off from his job, he would have only ten days to find a new job before his H1B visa expired. I hadn't realized the window of opportunity was so slim, and I told Kalyan that the government should be doing all it could to recruit and retain educated professionals like him, and that a 10-day window was senseless. He concurred. I told him that 65% of my dad's company had been laid off and that he was worried about the same. I couldn't tell if all of my signaling to him that I was sympathetic to him, his life path, and his immigration status made him feel any more comfortable with me, but I was trying.
The captain came over the intercom to tell us that we were about to descend into the South Bay. Kalyan and I did not speak much more after this announcement. He gathered up his belongings and I looked out the half-opened windows, giddy in anticipation of the fine weather and family time. After we had landed, as we stood side by side in the aisle waiting to deplane, he turned, smiled and said, It was nice to meet you. I said the same, and smiled.
We walked off the plane together, and then I walked fifteen feet behind him until I grew tired of my snail's pace, and then I darted ahead and speedwalked past baggage claim to the ground transportation curbside.
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