Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Diet Coke

When on a muggy summer afternoon on a trip back to India I started craving
Diet Coke with ice I realized to my surprise that I had become American. No
one drinks Diet-anything in India and Indians, in India and in the
United States, want large sodas, no ice please.

Is that simply a morbid fear of water borne parasites lurking in the ice or
about getting the most soda for your buck? I don't know. All I know is that
my thirst for a Diet Coke with ice exposed an astonishing Americanness in
me.

The process has been so gradual I have missed the tell-tale signs. It no
longer strikes me as odd that I spell color without a u. And though I
complain incessantly about US foreign policy, when an uncle in India
lectures me on Imperialist Bully America, my hackles rise.

As immigrants, busy trying to hold onto shreds of our heritage, we don't
notice when we start caring about America and not just for the dollars.
While we often rightly criticize the US for being insular, had I stayed on
in India, I probably would never have acquired a taste for sushi, burritos
and of course Diet Coke.

That doesn't mean I don't have the right to protest the Patriot Act. Some
people contend that if any immigrant has any complaint they should just go
back to wherever they came from.

I complain because it matters to me how the US looks in the rest of the
world. I complain because I am more American than I care to admit. My Indian
nationality was a matter of chance. But I had a choice in where I lived and
I chose America.

A good friend of mine from India said he can't visit the US anymore not only
because he can't stand US foreign policy, but also he can't stomach the
"Yank accent." Of course though he'd grown up all his life in India he
delivered his little rant in a clipped polished accent that seemed to come
straight out of the studios of the BBC.

But I held my peace and just asked if there was anywhere I could find a Diet
Coke. And I'd like mine with ice, thank you very much. With a perspective, I
am Sandip Roy.