I am a writer, yes I am, No I am not. But yes I am definitely a thinker. Thinkers can write, they can write well. They have the art to modulate thoughts into words. Yes, I am a writer. No, not really. No, writers are different people they have inborn instincts to become celebrities. They are successful people, but am I. No I am not, successful people think high. They dream big. They can manipulate the themes, characters, stories, and dramas. They can convert true facts, and can dramatize them into fictions. They can write non-fictions, history, biographies etc., I cannot. I am not a writer. I think I am only a survivor. I don't know. I am not sure whether I have become unsure, or America has made me unsure. Dream America makes people unsure about themselves.

I am one of them. I am only an interpreter, narrator of events, and events are products of circumstances. There are several, but one quality I acquired out of nurturing is to form goals for achievements, and then work hard to get them. That is why I think positively, and do not easily get discouraged by hurdles or obstacles. And even if I do, it remains for transient times. I prefer doing things on a need to need basis, and usually complete the tasks assigned on me, and I do not believe in planning scrupulously, tiring me extraneously, and later to find that I had unnecessarily overworked without getting the required results.

Coming to the serious side of me, I am receptive, sensitive, tolerant, and accepting of people. I have low expectations from others, and get along fine with almost all so far. I dislike unwanted behaviors both in myself and in others, behaviors they are manifestations of irrationality. But I let people be, and I wish to be me. I forgive and forget, forgive, by making sure I don't encourage others to repeat. But of course there are certain people which cannot be helped.

I always used to consider work as worship, and never used to hesitate to accept challenges in life, of course not too expensive to bear with, which should lead to defeat in the end, leave alone disappointment. Dissatisfaction in life is not a cause but an effect of circumstances, and I think circumstances are a product of one's thought process in the end. Righteous thoughts lead to our formed opinions about satisfaction, and I can remain happy with frustrations out of tests, and joys out of achievements.

I know that personal tragedies are common place in this world, but problems of such dimensions may become difficult to manage if they fall on to youngsters like me, more so as I did not expect such adverse circumstances to happen in the first place, and to continue to pile up to such limits. Secondly I was alone, having been carried from Home town to new surroundings in US, facing the stress of immigration, and I found myself gradually becoming a victim of big disappointments, which never seemed to end. Was it dreamed America getting shattered, or test and trails of climatic, cultural, and economics shops, and the abbreviations of social norms being tormented thoroughly and completely? I still do not know.

I actually belonged to an upper middle class Muslim family of south Home town, with a bachelor's degree in commerce as my qualification. My father being a doctor by profession, teaching medical college students, and my mother being a plain simple housewife, were satisfied with our lives. I was reared up in a happy home atmosphere, with my younger brother and sister.

We were living comfortably and were grateful to God for the provisions.

This pathetic story began when I was a student of final year, and alliances were searched for me, because of my father's growing concerns about his health constraints over and above his physical handicap, due to post-polio residual paralysis. In the middle of year 2003, an NRI family approached us, proposing their son and US citizen for my match. They presented their best behaviors, and claimed to belong to a respectable religious family from my Home town.

The boy's father, claimed to be an Aerospace Engineer affiliated to NASA, and well placed in US for the last 3 decades. That their children were brought up in controlled religious environment with decent social values, and the boy being a product of liberal American society, also believes in equality of rights for women, and would respect his wife. I knew Americans don't lie, they reward the efforts, and they don't act mean without any reason. This is what I had been hearing about Americans' since long.

They said everything is best suited, except that the boy is not well versed with our mother tongue, a language spoken here. Just on this issue my father arranged some meetings of the boy with my mother, who did not know English and used 'Interpreters' to bring acquaintance. We children being the products of English medium schools, had no problem in communicating with the boy.

At that time my mother was feeling a little uneasy about the presentations, and the pretentious attitude of the boy's ignorance about knowing our mother tongue, only to realize later that he knew his mother tongue very well, and used to speak mother tongue at home in US too. Now going back into past I am amazed at his acting talent, which fooled us completely, and we believed in the reality that he did not know his mother tongue.

Seeing some reluctance from our side, his father claimed that his 2 older twin daughters married to sub-continental boys respectively, and were subjected to maltreatments by their husbands, to the extent that their younger daughter is unwilling to marry in Home town. He naturally meant that they understand the feelings of girl's parents, and would keep me happy, and would not let the history gets repeated in my case. He also assured my parents that the boy is earning well, owns a 'condo' of his own and has handsome savings to provide a comfortable living, and post-graduate education for me.

They also mentioned that he is almost completing his Bachelor's degree in corporate law, and has good prospects in future. He then added that they will take the guardianship of my younger sister, and help my brother to get a good footing in US, allowing re-union of the family over there. All was very impressive and we were influenced. It was a strategy well planned for the then prevailing sense of local mind sets. In those days, all upper middle class families were giving their children in marriages to US, UK and Canada. Some were even venturing into Australia and New Zealand.

They expressed their wish to fix engagement and to publicize the occasion, to help them to seek fiancée visa for me, and that they would share the expenses of the ceremony. I noticed some strange things in their behaviors, but could not pin point them, and was wondering whether I am being over cautious. I could not draw lines as to whether these are deviations from norms, or little different cultural characteristics between east and west, but I was feeling little uneasy myself.

They seemed to calculate and judge their wants very well. The established pattern was exaggerated importance to formalities and traditional values. There was a big show of obedience and concern, from the twin sons towards their mother. My parents believed in their words and acts, and agreed for the engagement. But I still wondered, whether the publicity they aimed at, was to expedite the visa processing, or to bind us to stay put in fulfillment of their...