‘I’m headed to Europe next week with my girlfriend, Camilla. It’s going to be a merry, merry Christmas!’ he nearly sings. The excitement is very evident in his voice.

‘That sounds fun!’ I laugh.

‘Are you Indian? A student here?’

‘I’m Indian, yes, but I’m not a student now. I’m older. I work here.’

‘That’s amazing. When I saw you exiting the Plaza, right at that moment I knew you’ve got all the dollar bills to have fun tonight! You need no cheap thrills!’ Antonio sings out yet again.

‘If I were a student, I wouldn’t have been able to book such an expensive place for myself!’

‘I’ve met some crazy rich Asian kids splurging in the city, and I’ve either picked them up from the Plaza or dropped them there,’ he informs me.

‘Unfortunately, Antonio, my family back in India is crazy as shit and rich as a shithole.’ I let out a sarcastic laugh.

‘My family in Mexico is a huge mess as well. Sounds just like your Indian family,’ he confides.

That’s the thing about America, you meet people and you talk to them without worrying about any judgements being passed, because they’re simply not concerned. It’s the best place on the entire planet to have endless meaningless conversations.

The rest of the ride to the airport is filled with easy banter. ‘Enjoy Europe!’ I say as I step out of the cab at the airport, and Antonio drives off with a quick wave.

Once inside the airport, I drop off my bags at the baggage counter and make my way towards the security check-in line. As I walk past the big, burly sheriffs deployed near the screening point, one of them calls me, ‘Hey! Can I check your passport?’

‘Of course,’ I reply. I show him my Indian passport with the American visa stamp, which allows me to live and work in the country.

‘You may go!’ he says, handing the passport back to me.

It’s not like I’m living here illegally, yet every time someone calls my name at an airport, I’m scared that I’ll be humiliated. There were many white people both ahead of me and behind me in the line, but no one was stopped. My visa ensures that I pay considerable taxes to the country. Yet, the government calls me a ‘Resident Alien’ on paper. And there are constant reminders of this fact everywhere, like that billboard that I had spotted outside the airport earlier. ‘Stop making excuses, VOTE!’ it had said, but I can never vote in this country. So, the truth is that when you leave the country you were born in, with your life packed up in a suitcase, and decide to live in a strange land, you’re in a state of perpetual identity crisis. And it’s not an easy state of mind to be in.