In Search of the Deep Dish Pizza

Last night, my dear friend Javed arrived in Chicago, the heart of the "land of milk and honey". The Windy City, the hog-butcher of the world and the city of big shoulders is also the home of the deep-dish pizza. New Yorkers might think that their thin crust pizzas are rather elegant and stylish, but they look rather malnourished when placed next to their muscled Midwest cousins. So early in morning, skipping breakfast we drove deep into downtown in search of the deep-dish.

Since it was Javed's first day, the focus of the conversation was 'here vs. there'. It brought back memories of my own first few weeks in America and how comical 'Coming to America' can be. Like most of us he was well-stocked with:
a)bags filled with food and,
b)armed with some hilarious advice and suggestions from friends and relatives.

If all of us pool the various suggestions given to us we could write a book - A Beginner's Guide To Living, Studying and Working in America. The most confident and definitive advice is given by people, umm... who have never been here! When you confront them with it they defend it by saying that they learned it from someone who has. Since, these first-hand accounts were obtained from a close family friend or a relative you shouldn't have any doubts about their authenticity. (Miraculously, the gospel truth survives each retelling.) Also quite surprisingly, much of the advice given by people who have been here or lived here for years has proved to be even more useless. It does not matter if you are a motel clerk, or did not ever leave your university campus, or even if you got the "US-returned" stamp on a mere technicality (because you spent 2 hours in transit at JFK airport): the stamp makes you an expert on everything that has to do with America. The reputation of this expertise has somewhat suffered lately due to the profusion of 'experts' in India and has exposed its rather dubious nature, but even now an audience for a US-returned XYZ can be summoned quite instantly. I am always eager for information and I had lapped up all versions by first-hand and second-hand experts. I must atleast give these stories some credit for making my actual American experiences more engaging and vivid. In fact, I spend a lot of time seeking to confirm or disconfirm the various theories.

In addition, each person has his own personal idea of America. The skeptical quite naturally shy away from the Hollywood version but often cling to either the 'America: The Big Bully' version or a 'America: the Land of Freedom and Opportunity' version. Of course, there is some truth to the various versions but these truths are rather partial ones. People believe what they want to believe. Then you get here and face the reality of America. Nothing quite prepares you for that. At the same time, there is no such thing as the 'real thing' because we perceive the same thing so differently because each one of us has a different lens.

People deal with the reality in different ways: some rush headlong into America and consider it some wild adventure; then there are others who are in perpetual state-of-denial and are constantly trying to re-create or carve out an India within America. No one is disappointed, but then no-one is completely satisfied. You may get what you were looking for but might also end up with extras that you did not bargain for and that causes a shift in perception.

We walked block after block to find nothing open. Hunting for the traditional Chicago dish on Easter Sunday is not the greatest of ideas. The only food places that were open for business were the chain restaurants. Who drives 5 hours to Chicago to eat at a MacDonald's? The good Italian-Americans were in church repenting for their sins and we were out on the cold, windy streets paying for ours. It would have been some story if we had persisted walking for another couple of hours in our quest and then finally, found one place open before we starved to death. But, that's not how it turned out. We found a Panera and its lovely sandwiches were rather enticing and we walked in. Another day, another observation. On some days you might end up driving 5 hours to Chicago to eat at a chain. Reality is like shit. It happens!