Chasing America: Of Lollipops, Night Clubs and Ferocious Dogs

Charming America is an endearing, heartfelt, and deeply funny account of one man's journey from north India to America. Rather than coming from the small town to the big city, a journey pictured in countless Hollywood and Bollywood movies, Singh travels from urban India to rural America, discovering kindness and confusion along the way and finding both delight and frustration in the minutia of everyday life.

Our bookshelves are filled with tales of western travelers discovering the mysterious and exotic in India. But this account is something different - a refreshing view from the other side, a much-needed - and anthropological - look at the strange in the mundane and the familiar in the supposedly exotic. In what is as much a fond recollection of a happy youth in India as an account of small-town life in America, Singh gives us a sense of the quirks, peculiarities and mysteries.

America seen with a newcomer's eyes while offering glimpses of a busy and loving Indian upbringing. Describing encounters tinged with both racism and understanding, he offers insights into the world of working class Indian immigrants in America, an underclass that seldom appears in representations of the American dream - over educated men and women staffing the Subway sandwich shops, motels, and convenience stores across America. This moving and humane accounts ends not by finding differences but by discovering connections.

Reviews

"Singh's rural American in-laws remind of this family in Lucknow and remind us that even in the many forms life can take, there is something immediately recognizable about home"

Sarah Pinto, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Tufts University

"Anyone who has pulled up roots and immigrated to America - or who wonders what such an adventure might hold - will be charmed by Deepak Singh's warm and funny memoir. For those who have been here all along, Singh gives us a fresh look at many of our surprisingly odd customs, and his insights make the reader appreciate the courageous spirit of anyone who begins a new life in a strange land"

Janis Jaquith, Columnist for Charlotteville VA newsweekly The Hook, public-radio commentator.

Deepak Singh was born in 1973 in the city of Lucknow, India. He has worked for the BBC World Service. He is a freelance journalist and a radio producer. He work has been featured on NPR's affiliate WVTF, PRI's The World, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and World Vision Report. He divides his time between India and America.

To learn more about him, you may visit www.deepak-singh.com