I was transfixed. I was standing front row again, and again thanks to Village Voice, as Derek Trucks played the blues laced liberally with ragas. The 26-year-old slide guitar player is a disciple of sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, I would learn later. But you could tell from the first note, here was a musician who had spent years trying to understand the complex relationship between notes and emotions. And here was a rock guitar player with an instantly recognizable sound. The last time I felt about that about a guitar player was perhaps when I heard Carlos Santana, years ago.

"This is from your country, isn't it," asked a man standing beside me, as Derek -- nephew of Butch Trucks, who was the drummer of the iconic 1970s southern rock band The Allman Brothers -- launched into the alap that leads into Sahib Teri Bandi, a song from Derek's album Songlines. It was poetry. "We won't be able to watch him like this [for $40, the minimum price] very soon; he is getting too big," said another hypnotized fan, pointing to the fact that Derek was touring with Eric Clapton, and the British guitar megastar was playing songs like Layla with him. A few weeks after I returned to India, Rolling Stone did a cover story on 'The new guitar gods.' Derek Trucks was one of the three chosen.

"Brother can you toss me a cigarette," asked a black man. I had just got off the New York-DC bus, and was filling my lungs before the Red Line metro to Shady Grove, Maryland, to my sister's house. I gave the man a cancer stick. If I had a dollar for every time I was asked for a cigarette, or I saw an Indian, I'd be a millionaire. My sister was aghast. "Don't give them cigarettes or money, they will mug you." They won't if I don't? I wondered. I also wondered whether I was back in Mumbai every time I boarded a PATH train to New Jersey; it was always filled with desis.

I was humming Samba Pa Ti as I walked out the train to Jackson Heights in Queens, New York, with my parents, and sister's family in tow, for the Indian family dinner. It had been a long time since I heard the Santana tune. Next moment, it was being played by a mariachi band at the station. I put $5 into the two-man band's basket. I would put money in most musicians' baskets. My sister was even more aghast.

I was on the Internet like I never was. Heck, I was even on a 'social networking' site and people from all sections of the past were finding me: Schoolmates, college mates, even ex-officemates. Blame it on not having enough money to 'enjoy' America. I eventually decided I didn't want to be found so much, but for a while it was like another life. And it confirmed my belief that the world is too small for comfort.

I listened, perturbed, to a very close friend's ordeal: Somehow, every time he comes back into the United States - and he traveled quite a bit, thanks to his work - he is separated from the other passengers, taken into a room and questioned for hours by officials. They ask him the same questions and let him go after the same answers; every time, without fail. Another friend's wife, a Columbia student, narrated how she was admonished by Robert Thurman - known to the non-academic world as Uma Thurman's father and to the academic world as a towering figure who also has an actor daughter - for not having children despite being married for years.

"Are you gay?" asked an acquaintance. When I asked him what on earth made him think that, he pointed to my socks, which had turned pink, thanks to being in the same washing machine as something that was once red. I told him I was not. He said, "Be careful. Here in New York a pink sock is like an advertisement for homosexuals." I didn't know socks could be a sexual statement, but I never wore those socks again.

"Don't eat there if you value your stomach," offered a Manhattan passerby. I shrugged as I continued to the $5 Chinese buffet: "Don't worry. I am from India." I could afford little else, having set my eyes on a dream guitar at a Sam Ash store near Times Square, a Jeff Beck signature series Fender Stratocaster. I just had to buy it, food be damned. It also meant I had to give many a concert and many an idol a miss, including Dylan and, ironically, Beck himself. I did eventually buy the guitar at a second-hand shop. I will forever be grateful to New York-New Jersey-Washington guitar store owners for many a blissful weekend, playing guitars I know I will never be able to afford.

Srijato, my 3-year-old older nephew, loved the green guitar as much as I did. I could see the frown forming on my mother's brow, because she always maintained I was a fine son apart from the 'guitarer bhoot [ghost of the guitar]' which, to her, possesses me. America was like a collage, then.

Sumit Bhattacharya is a Senior Associate Editor at India Abroad