An Indian traveler hitchhikes across America

September 29, 2018 1:50 PM

Varun explains American culture in Hindi (with English subtitles) for his audience back home, visiting farmer's markets in Omaha, dollar stores in Miami, and touring Harvard Yard. But much of his journey is formed by his quixotic insistence on hitchhiking, and his encounters with truckers both Indian and native-born.

One theme of Varun's journey is his interactions with Desis living in the US, who open their homes, trucks and cars to him. The US, he emphasizes, is a place where immigrants from the Subcontinent can put aside their national rivalries and be united by their shared culture.

posted by serathen (12 comments total)

This is neat, thanks for sharing!

I was hoping I could find if he had made it through New Mexico on I-40, but I couldn't find any such video. I say this because I wanted to hear his comments on the Bombay Restaurant and Buffet in Gallup (Yelp, listed as Bombay Grill), an authentic Indian restaurant tucked inside/beside a truck stop (Google street view), which makes it ideal for long-haul Desis.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:09 PM on September 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Wow, great find! This led me to wonder if the Internet Archive might have similar but older travelogues, but all that turned up for me was the memoir My India, My America (1941) by Krishnalal Shridharani.
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:02 PM on September 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sharing with my friend who is an American professor of Hindi in Australia.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:47 PM on September 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Pieces like this are lovely reminders that humanity can be truly beautiful. It took me back to a time twenty some years ago when I was a young twenty something set on seeing the world with only a backpack, a passport, dog eared copies of Let's Go and Lonely Planet and a hostel card . Thank you so much for sharing!!
posted by Sequined Ballet Flats at 4:18 PM on September 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Hitching is a blast. The sense of freedom. Too bad it's gotten so much harder ... but as Varun shows, it can still be done! Waiting in a place with a view (even better, near a place with food!) can be the best, and very memorable.
posted by Twang at 4:35 PM on September 29, 2018

These are great.
posted by quaking fajita at 6:32 PM on September 29, 2018

Needs India tag as a cherry on top. What a great find! TIL about desi truck drivers
posted by infini at 12:46 AM on September 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

The world has changed. When I was in highschool (extremely early 1980s) I had this dream of backpacking around Europe but knew my Indian passport would make it expensive and difficult if not impossible - this was before the Schengen visa. Today, Varun can do this.
posted by infini at 12:55 AM on September 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oh this guy! he showed up in my algorithm recs when he was hitchhiking in southeast asia (i watched the one from thailand into malaysia)
posted by cendawanita at 2:11 AM on September 30, 2018

This is lovely.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 8:10 AM on September 30, 2018

These are so great! It's fascinating to hear what Varun finds remarkable about the United States (Walmart! Soil packaged in plastic bags! Being able to drive at 130 km/h on the highway because drivers stay in their lanes!) and his Virginia host's explanation of the statue of Robert E. Lee ("So he was a general for the Federalists?" "No, for the Confederates." "For the Confederates?! And there's still a statue of him?" Yeah, a lot of us don't understand it either). So much good stuff.
posted by skoosh at 3:54 PM on September 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

I love things like this! (I should probably make an AskMetafilter post asking for American travelogues by foreigners.) What's especially interesting about these videos is that he's trying to make it a "secrets of budget travel" series, yet he misses some obvious stuff, which makes me wonder whether Indians read a book like "Let's Go: India" and chuckle. The main problem here is that the subtitles are really hit or miss, so there's looong stretches of untranslated Hindi...
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:02 PM on September 30, 2018 [1 favorite]