Amreekandesi by Atulya Mahajan

Author:Atulya Mahajan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184004168
Publisher: Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.

It was November 24. It was the day of the great American celebration called Thanksgiving. Jassi had finally managed to get out of the shock of his hospital bill. He had attended Thanksgiving Day parties at his Indian office, but Akhil couldn’t get his head around it.

‘So they have a special day set aside for eating dinner with your family? But aren’t you supposed to do that everyday? I know back home we would wait for everybody to be home before having dinner together.’

‘Dude, you are crazy!’ Jassi didn’t get his roommate at times.

Akhil suddenly felt a lurking suspicion that he may just never fully understand America. There were just too many things they did differently.

Thanksgiving as such didn’t affect Akhil and his roommates, but the massive Black Friday sale the next day did. On that day, everything is supposed to be heavily discounted, so much so that people start lining up outside stores in the night.

It was the day students looked forward to all year to buy their electronics and a lot of other stuff. Priya and Akhil had done extensive research for the best deals, and had narrowed down on a couple of laptops they wanted from Best Buy. They checked around to see who all were planning to go shopping. Dilpreet was.

The group left for the mall at around 1 am in Dilpreet’s car. The store would open at 6 am, but they had to be there early if they wanted to get hold of any of the decent stuff. First come, first serve.

The Best Buy parking lot was bursting at the seams. Dilpreet parked his car in the adjoining parking lot, and Akhil, Priya, and Kedar joined the line. They had underestimated the crowd. The line was already half a mile long. There were people who seemed like they had been camping there for days. A group had a small tent setup. Many others were snuggled up inside sleeping bags.

The temperature was a chilly 35 °F. The desi group had gone unprepared, wearing only light jackets.

‘Guys, this is tough. What are we going to do in this cold for the next five hours?’ Akhil wondered.

Dilpreet patted him on his shoulder. ‘Relax Akhil. It will be daybreak in no time. Trust me, I’ve done this for many years now. Just watch the people around.’

They all took Dilpreet’s word. He was the veteran among them after all.

Akhil looked around. Most people in the line were Black or Latino. He wondered if race had anything to do with the Black Friday nomenclature and thought of asking Dilpreet, but decided against doing so.

The store opened before time, at about 4.30 am and people stormed in like a hurricane. It was like a melee of people trying to board the unreserved compartment of an Indian train. Utter chaos.

The lady who opened the door moved aside just in the nick of time, and saved herself from getting trampled. The store was soon swarming with people who seemed to be picking up whatever they could lay their hands on.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.