Chesterfield lies in the quiet countryside of St. Louis. St. Louis is on a stretch of the undulating plains of Missouri. My uncle’s house, which is on an elevation, overlooks a couple of villas in the shallow to afford a view of the picturesque countryside. The quaint houses, vast stretches of grass and a touch of mist in the morning is just the sort of thing that puffs your lungs with some fresh air and leaves you with cheery disposition. If only you had high tea and hot scones -- the Enid Blyton style -- in the afternoon, it would make you want to ask your mate, a la Jerome K Jerome, "The weather’s a jolly fellow today! It seems that he will remain generous all day long. Old bloke, care to pull yourself up the lakeside for a round of fishing?”

St. Louis has a much larger Indian population than Minnesota. One needn’t be in the Census Bureau to actually figure that out. Global Foods, the local grocery store, will pretty much tell you. You have an alley dedicated to Indian food, where you have everything from biriyani mixes to Coimbatore vethalai and pogaiyal!

A couple of days back, I visited an Indian temple here. This one, unlike the one in Minnesota, was no church! It had a well architected Gopuram (the temple tower crowning the sanctum) and a whole range of deities. I must tell you: for half an hour, I felt like I was in one of those towering temples opposite the Mylapore tank! The temple seemed to be very efficiently maintained and run by dedicated NRI trustees. "The priest here," I pondered, "seems to be taking his job very seriously, unlike the ones back in India." My uncle cut my thoughts short, saying that the fellow did not have all his papers in tact, and was trying to sneak in for himself a Green Card through some religious quota, by hook or by crook!

I accompanied my uncle and aunt to a kind Indian gentleman’s place for a get-together. There were a lot of Indians I got to meet. I realised that making polite conversation was not my cup of tea. Certainly not, if I had a glass of wine in my hand!

But it was the weather that primarily played on my mind. It was as pleasant as Bangalore was and as clean as Bangalore was polluted. Back in Minneapolis, in the warmth of -20 degrees, I was even tempted, forced rather, into chimerical ramblings of how it might have been if the U of M were at St Louis. University of Minnesota at St Louis! It might have done a little better than BITS, Pilani at Goa. Or, actually, it might have not.