Hi guys. I am back from a short trip to USA and am amazed how smooth it was. I was prepared to be taken apart by Homeland Security, but in reality my bags were not even opened once. No security officer touched me even -- there was no strip search.

It would be an understatement to say that I was apprehensive at the beginning of my trip. On top of it I had a bad case of cough and cold. I had to cary medicines as well the ayurvedic magic herb haritaki, which is a great way to stop a ummanageable coughing bout. Break the haritaki fruit and keep a piece of ths skin in your mouth. Suck on it and in about 10 minutes you will stop coughing. It works till you keep it in your mouth and leaves you with a sweet after taste.

So its called Chebulic Myrobalan in English. Terminalia Chebula, if you want the scientific name. I wrote all that down and pasted it on the little plastic container in which I carried my supply of haritaki for the trip. Just in case they thought it was something narcotic. They had stopped someone for carying isabgol once.

At Chicago, my first port of call in USA, the pain was the long queue at the immigration. The guy took a look at me and asked why I was there. "Enjoy the show" he said as he let me through in about five minutes after recording my finger prints. Twice during my trip I offered to open my bags at the security check and was discouraged by the security fellas. "Your bag is fine" they said, probably noting my eagerness to open them along with the scanned photos.

This was cool. I wondered how George Fernandes managed to get strip searched, if they did not even touch a 33 year old 6'2 very very south Asian looking guy like me just pass through. Of course I did have to take my shoes off to pass them through the scanner now nd then and declared in my customs form that I was carrying in some fruit. What else is the haritaki but some fruit.

The US was cool man. Will tell you more later.