Dear God,

I know we have had our talks and our rough times,

But I promise to be a better person and whine no more,

Well no more is a lie and we both know it ain’t gonna happen,

But I can try to be a good girl,so that you can make some miracles.

I promise to look after my four birdies and not touch or poke them in the name of love,

I love my parents way too much but I could still try some more,

I promise to appreciate every moment spent here and love my mom,my dad and my aunt

In return I just ask for a little miracle,just a wee bit of hope.

Will you please not to over-look me?Will you please also send me a ray of sunshine?

Your soon-giving-up-on-miracles child,

A

Depression-a fancy word,but so not fancy!

I am struggling to get just a single sentence right these days.So I am pretty much not yet set on writing,but I will just force this post out of me.

The whole of this past week was not a good one for me.I have cried every single day out of frustration and impatience and the thoughts of being pursued by bad luck.Yes Yes,I know I am not unlucky in the big picture sense but like I said when I am upset no logic works on my mind.It is this inability to understand logic and rise above the everyday-ness that I have come to fear.I term this depression even though I still think ‘depression’ is a very fancy word for us Indians.It is more like the new age lifestyle disease,which you do not want but you want inorder to flaunt.Of course it exists and I totally understand it when people are genuinely affected by this,but as far as me is concerned,I do not know if I have depression or I am just prey to bouts of it now and then.

I do admit to making up a lot of my problems and hyper ventilating about them.Like ,for instance,the whole of last week I took it upon myself to worry about every damn thing.The paperwork,the job hunt,the unemployment ratio,the snow,the traffic ,the noise ,the shiv sena politics and somehow thought I was at the vortex of it all.While I am but a tiny speck,and pretty much useless.Well to the sena for sure! I just kept getting irrritated when J said he was going away for the weekend with his friends ,and I felt horrible and jealous and even though the logical side of my mind kept saying he deserves a break too,let him just be.The illogical and predominant side kept whispering bad things into my mind like why are you just cooped up in your room eveyr weekend and why are certain people having fun.Or why are you having a ‘hard’ life and some an ‘easy’ one.Or even why should anyone have fun when you go on waiting for Vermont to say a yes.

See I know this is stupid and I know it all along,but I feel over-powered and it all translates into me being a horrible person.A horrible victim.May be this then is depression.Has anyone of you ever felt this way?Has anyone ever compared lives,despite knowing that comparing is essentially wrong?Have you ever self-pitied your life and later hated yourself because the very next moment you saw a poor beggar walk by in tattered clothes and still walking as if that wasn’t it?Or a physically handicapped person limping by and not crushing your defeatist attitude with one leap of his limp leg?

I have been there and felt that.Yet I know all of us also have to admit to feeling like our world begins and ends in the confines of the bubble we have created all around us.

I want to be a much better person and you know what I feel like I am,already for thinking this and understanding where I err.I also get little proofs of the fact that I am a honest person now and then.Like this friday ,the sadness of the entire week was about to culminate in a massive depression fest,by laying in bed and looking at the ceiling and making plans to punish myself and everyone else.But instead I was approached by my project manager himself who talked to me like a friend and wanted to know if everything was right with me and to express his concern about my pale looking face.I was very surprised and touched that I could find a person in him,and I could relay my fears to him.Oh thank God for the little but true mercies.That was a good end to my week.I also got to hang with one of my very good and few friends from my undergrad college ,A.He and I were meeting after 3 years and after lots of distancing now and then but meeting him reaffirmed that good friends are few and when found always some how stay on in your life.

I hope everyone had a good weekend and found their little joys and mercies.

Arrrgh !!! not able to write at all today.Started two blogs,had to keep cancelling out words,sentences and then finally just saved them for later use.I just do not seem to be able to write a single sentence right.

What is wrong?

I guess,it is just not meant to be today or tonight,whatever!

Have been having a good,normal weekend.Waking up late,going to bed very late,surfing the net aimlessly,feeling lazy and pointless but dreamy and happy.

Just my kind of weekend.

I am also going crazy waiting for the NOA from Vermont.What is happening there?I want to hurl abuses, but something good is preventing me from doing so,may be when I do get the approval I will have to vent on the excruciating long process that every couple whose one half is a US citizen and other half isn’t has to go through.Your life is in the hands of a bunch of slow-working ,insensitive or desensitized by habit government people.

But then on the other hand,I am also happy the wait period is being spent here at my home.I am so lucky,touchwood,that I got a job in my city.Really!! I mean,I totally have gone from being that I-wanna-be-on-my-own girl to I-just-want-to-stay-at-home person.Well,no I mean I have not changed entirely,just that the 2 years away has made me feel fonder of staying at home and I am not really in the mood to go hang out ,party all the time now.

Well well,I have to stop,I am not in the mood,so sorry!

I talk,so?

After a little deliberation and self-observation,aided by other’s helpful pointers I have come to the conclusion,I might be really either having depression, or that cool sounding Bipolar Disorder or just that OCD thing.I have decided to help myself.I initially decided to write about what could be triggering this,decided to break down this depression thing to little pieces to investigate and help see some answers.I mean I do not think I am in need of urgent help or I have bad tendencies.What irritates me the most is ,I actually end up not talking well to the people who love me and who really want to help me.I feel bothered that I become very stuck up and decide on harming myself mentally.I just punish everyone who wants to come close to me by shutting them out and behaving as though I can bloody well live without their sympathy( read-love).

But I will have to take it up in another post.(following soon hopefully).I wanted to focus my energies on something less depressing or rather not even connected to it.I just recently told J I know deep in my heart I am very very blessed and fortunate sans a few ups and downs now and then.But I am blessed,period.

Let me tell you all about my four bird friends.They are so cute and so tiny and they are yellow,blue and green.Everyday  on my way  back from work,I am happy that I am coming back home,to my mom’s tea,to my dad’s hug and to my little birdies.It is like having a tiny baby and then coming back home to some cute sights and sounds and some loving.I am not comparing birds with babies mothers! Just that they are like my babies.I have started noticing some very distinct personalities.So there is a swing inside the cage,the blue one has totally claimed its right to it.He always is swinging on it and if you find him not,then the moment you go closer to the cage,he jumps right onto it.He is not very bothered by food or the lack of it ,or the other birds.I think he is the self-engrossed maverick.

The two green ones are BFFs.They are always seen hanging out together,whispering secrets and sharing the news of the bird world.The one with the longer tail feather however is the more dominating one,he totally controls the tinier green one,and the tinier one seems to be a push over.Verging on the coward.But the two green ones are more concerned with food and drinks.

The yellow on the other hand ,I feel,is bullied a lot of times.And only strongly retaliates when provoked a lot.That involves some shrill noises and a lot of fierce pecking.But people,I love them all so much.I of course disturb them,that is my way of loving them and mouth weird noises.I used to do the same with Otto and do these weird dances in front of him when no one was looking and try to be silly.(I told you I was funny and weird and had a good heart)

Moving on.I am actually happy Priyanka Chopra won the coveted National Award.I think that girl has talent and uses it well.I am not sure about Kangana Ranaut though.I mean she does not even speak proper english,she must learn to do that pronto!

Work is good,this last week was less stressful and I think I am doing a good job learning and being a more responsible team member unlike my earlier job days about 3-4 years back.I was a rookie then.I have been observing some things though.Like ,the team consists of younger people,fresh off their colleges, all saddled with dreams.Their conversations remind me of things which I had myself gone through or done like around 10-12 years back as a young teenager.Mouthing those distasteful Britney Spears songs,Backstreet boys,the ever popular ‘Summer of 69′(this aint bad!) and thinking no end of oneself.You were like hep and cool if you knew these lyrics and sang along.You were cool if you had pizza and not idli.It just brings back those similar comparisons and sometimes I just do not feel very amused but I be a good sport.There was once this young guy who came out with us to the tea shop outside and decided to smoke and this other guy just pouncd on him and acted crazy ,like seriously ,he thought it was the gravest sin and should not be done.I kinda got angry that he took it on himself to prevent this sin from being done and did NOT let that boy smoke!I hate this kinda behaviour.I hate it when people play moral police.We are all doing fine,thank you very much.I might be doing a wrong thing or whatever,but I want you to know to stay within your restrictions as a friend.You can suggest,and advice,but not get violent if it is not followed.

That has always bothered me.I am a very free spirited person.My theory is,I might not do anything ‘wrong’ or ‘forbidden’,but I want to go about it my way.And please grow up about boys and girls doing every conceivable thing these days.I am just not able to put it all right,but you who know me,know what I mean,I am not glorifying smoking,just not accepting this forceful behaviour.

Blah blah.I talked a lot.

a doodle post-not so much!

Feel like rambling on.Like a drunk person.Speaking of drunk person,I remember the last time I was horribly hammered.That was july of last year in a then colleague’s party.Someone had to carry my sorry ass out of there.Apparently I had never seen so much of alcohol in my life,all very delectably arranged and I was literally purring with excitement.And  I did end up  barfing,yep I did make a fool of myself and I was falsely accused of hitting on J,totally did not happen.I am sure he did though.Speaking of J,I love his heart,and him.He needs good wishes everyone.

Wishes the wait to get an approval was not this long.This is ridiculously long people.I have done my bit,I have never ever had things easy.Well you will jump in right about here,with your cool ass attitude and ask me to think of the many deprived others who have had worse and I will feel guilty as a fool and lay calm.But tell me is it always possible to have a perspective?A good virtuous catholic perspective and not just any hanky panky perspective? Ha! I bet not.We all know we have a little mean bitch inside us,and she is so not your dish mama!

Right before this self-induced not-yet-formed depression started,I was feeling great,all dewy and dreamy.I was thinking of having a wedding ,a marriage,a job I would love,and I had total plans of revamping my career,of buying a second hand car off craigslist and doing the cool make-up,coming back home from my awesome job to the loving husband for some love and some microwave dinner.

Hmm,well,maybe microwave dinners were not such a great idea after all!I need to think,darn woman! I so miss walking in  the food aisles in the grocery stores.I could never have enough of the salivating with my eyes and with my mind thing.I miss going to CVS and Walgreens for absolutely no other reason but to stare at the make-up.That was ,well,orgasmic!

Speaking of an orgasm,I am keen on trying the Nars Orgasm blush?Whatcha think?

Okay I miss chugging my woodchuck ciders too! I loved them so and hate the fact that there is still a bottle lying in my fridge back ‘home’,my other home.I am coming back for that,and for J,for A&A and their adorable son HIP,for snotto,for my cool friends,for the Carolina love,for the pancake and waffle house,the ladies who served us when we were hungover and dirty and smelly,for the love I got for the open skies and quiet quaint houses in eerily huge spaces.

Feeling a little under the weather today.Throat hurts,exhaustion levels are very clearly visible on my face and swollen eye-lids,despite having slept a lot,having difficulty keeping myself propped up for long.But secretly I am kind of happy.

Because I feel like I have been running around the office,working a lot,infact ever since I joined,I am telling you there has not been a single day when I could think ‘Oh ,today is going to be easy on us,we could perhaps get off earlier’.But it never happened even once,and this weekend was horrible.This past week  and the run up to the  weekend was just awful.Working hard on many things ,suddenly something deciding not to function well as if a part of a plan to rattle me,and then me shifting into a panic mode to try to set it right.And plus I just felt like it could all have been fine if I did not feel like we are being watched every fuckin time! I want to reiterate, for me,it is very difficult to live with a sense of compromised personal freedom.I feel like I have lost my sense of humor around here.I think I have a great sense of humor,yes,infact I will go flaunt about me some.I rarely do and I will do it at the cost of losing my humility!!!

I am a funny person,I can make witty comments,but you also need to be able to understand me.I can also be very stupid funny(if the other kind is sophisticated funny that is).I do make my colleagues laugh a lot,but sometimes I miss my kind of funny.Well I  do not miss it miss it,but I know they will not be laughed at too much so I have refrained from making them.

hmm whatever,I am digressing.So the point is I am okay with being sick if I can just rest at home for a day,and feel happy.I have four tiny cute birdies now.I love how tiny and fragile they seem,I have started noticing their distinct individual personalities.Like one of the birds always sleeps on the upper front half of the cage,clinging to the cage with it’s tiny claws.It would seem uncomfortable right? I sometimes become the devil and feel like poking  them,but lucky for them,my fingers won’t go through the slits in the bars.I have also noticed a bully in one of them,the bully scares the rest away by flapping its wings at like 500 flaps per sec !

I like having them in my room at night,assures me that someone is with me.

I am asking all of you,my dear dear friends,to please pray for me.There is something on my mind,and those of you who know,know that it is very important to me,it will help me be with J and his awesome family and my friends,Otto and my city raleigh.Yes,I am 27,and I feel excited about this year.I want to be there,that place in my life now too!

Okay so the sickness is acting up,need to rest up some.

the year that was and notes to self!

This comes a day or two late but I just cannot write when I do not feel the ‘gentle’ nudge from within too bad.

So,another year sped by,much faster now that we are all looking back,but of course it was the same 12 months ritual.Each day stretched out and lived to its maximum.I had a good 2009 if you ask me.No year will be actually too bad on looking back,because looking back somehow makes you remember fondly the things that are now the past,good bad or ugly.It underlines the more important thing of having learnt something from something,and takes away the bitterness.I was not off  to the best of starts,what with problems with my work card and hav ing to deal with a system notoriously slow and whimsical.But at the end,really,all’s well that ended well at least!

But the past year was special, shared a lot of love,had fun with J and friends,otto my stinky dog  and just indulging in small flights of fantasies.Losing my job was not all that bad till the deadline of finding one started hitting me hard,and I finally swallowed it all by making a very very big emotional decision of moving back home to India.To my parents.

You know how everyone has an attachment to the cities that they  lived in long,or grew up in or had fun times in? Well for me,that attachment formed with a city I lived in for just 2 years of my life, from when I was 24 to 26.Yes it was late in my life to form an attachment with a city,but I never quite felt that connection with the city I live in now here.I did love the city I did my schooling in,but that was majorly because school was a good time and it was the school days I loved and cherished.Now that city is a little far placed in my recollection of events.Pune was good,though  pune also sometimes brings back some feelings of ‘complicated’, ‘misplaced’ emotions,but nevertheless pune was great!

But but ,Raleigh stole my heart,that coveted place ! I could not believe it back then that I really had to go.After days of anticipating the event,change in place,the huge shift,I finally actually moved back.And now,again thanks to the exercise of looking back,I am finding things easier to place in perspective.I miss Raleigh and America, that spirit in particular,if that had a name,but I also love being home.With my parents.In my room.Nothing makes me feel as warm and loved.

I think I would like to give some credit to myself  because in 2009 I did indeed battle some hard times,and I just survived! I took it in my stride and did not let anything get to my innate vivacious spirit.Of course I had rough times,but who does not! 2009 was great also because I felt a sense of calm with one of the most troublesome areas of my life-relationships! I finally,finally felt happy and settled.I mean I am not a philanderer.,but I am also not one who easily rests.I have a restless spirit,but I need a home to come back to.I started to feel less shaky and vulnerable to relationship troubles.Earlier I would have always mulled and spoiled my day if I had the slightest indication of trouble brewing in my relationships,but now ,thankfully,due to the lack of serious trouble,and also because I started regaining trust in myself ,that I  too could  be loved immensely,I have been hugely happy and calm.Touchwood!

I also am thankful for my parents,yet again.They helped me,stood by me,and just made seemingly hge changes and events seem easier.I love you so much ma and daddy.

For this  year,I really have not many wishes and no explicit resolutions.Except to make me stronger perhaps for whatever that happens,to be more accommodating of others(by others I mean people who truly deserve that!),try to feel less singled out because I really think I am not and there are lots of people living unjustified events in their lives,so I can most definitely try and to definitely be  less worrying about things!Yes, I want to worry less,I have had it with my worrisome nature.This won’t be easy either,again,will try!

(On the less philosophical note,I also hope that this is the year I finally join the club of ’smug married women’ tee hee!)

Bollywood Ahoy

So I thought,why not make a list of my all time favorite bollywood movies?I am not the hugest ,vocal fan of Bollywood,but I would be lying if I say I have not been touched at all by its signature too much histrionics,too much melodrama,the hip thrusting dances and the inexplicable songs and dances,you know ,the Bollywood stereotypes.And amid all these,I have genuine praise for some really superb movies.Some very excellent actors, ahead-of-their-times directors,unconventional story lines,or conventional stories made fresh by good acting.Some of the movies in my favorites list are actually silly sounding stories,but they had that innocence and fresh appeal factor,plus the actors did a brilliant task of making you fall in love with them.So there are some cliches but here goes:(and not in any order)

Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak(QSQT) – I mean who did not like this movie.Two innocent lovers,aptly portrayed by the young Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla,whose love was doomed from the start because of a old family feud.The songs,the romance they shared,their young chemistry on-screen almost tangible and believable.The film had a sad ending and these days I kind of avoid watching the end of it,but I think this movie is one of my all time favorite watches.Reminds me of a time actually when hindi movies slowly started making an imprint on my young mind.

Mr.India -Yet another movie of the 80s.This movie took the entire nation by storm.It was about this common man who chances upon a weird scientific project,wherein he gets to be invisible and avenge on his tormentors.Anil Kapoor was just the ideal actor for a role in which a certain amount of everyday common-ness was needed,to identify with the Indian common man.Someone who was as harassed by bureaucracy and the wrong actions of people in powerful positions.Sridevi is also one of my favorites,she just infused so much of vivacity and charm into a role and was never side-tracked by the real hero,Mr.India in the film.

Chandni-Yet another late 80s ,early 90s film.A Yash Chopra production,this movie was a typical Yash Chopra setting-Delhi,Punjabis,rich colorful celebrations of typical Punjabi weddings,pre-wedding rituals,then the one beautiful perfect girl and the one handsome perfect boy who must obviously meet and fall in love and go do their song-dance in man y countries ,have misunderstandings,fight,cry a lot,and finally,in walks another guy who is equally rich and charming,but obviously at the end,like a rule,the boy and the girl marry.But this movie is fond to me because it was one of my first memories of a movie which had great songs,which was so colorful and vibrant and it made me sad then.The actors obviously did a great job.I am not sure if I would be delighted at the prospect of watching this movie every time it came on tv,but it certainly tugs at my heart.

4)Monsoon Wedding- Oh I could watch this movie back to back to back and not be bored.Every single time I discover new cinematic excellences,the creative geniuses of so many creative minds,all under one Mira Nair production.This movie truly deserved winning the Golden Lion at the Venice  film festival.It is about a wedding in a well to do Delhi family,the interesting characters in that family,how they have these dark secrets,and at the end of it a very soft vulnerability all of them have which makes you feel for them,identify with them at some level.No one is spared the twists and conflicts of emotions.Delhi has never never looked so inviting and soaky romantic.A must watch people.

Taare Zameen par-Aamir Khan is truly India’s finest.He has come so far from QSQT.I mean all his movies are good,are different,not the same run of the mill stuff.He genuinely makes you participate in a movie and in its characters.This movie about a dyslexic child’s battle ,his trauma on being packed off to a boarding school by his father when his parents fail to understand why he is ‘different’ is so heart warming and okay so fine it comes with its Bollywood quota of some sad songs,crying and drama,but totally situational.You cry when the child pines for his mom’s love,when he slowly withdraws into a shell.You cry happy tears when he emerges out and when he finally finds his true self.Hats off to Aamir Khan for every time surpassing our expectations and setting new standards.

Sarfarosh-Wow,so clearly I love Aamir Khan.This movie is one of the best movies that deals with terrorism,not related to any particular incident but just how it spreads.How do terrorists operate?This movie actually boldly pointed out Pakistan’s name ! I think this was bold because this was 10 years back,and something like this always garners controversy.Aamir Khan was brilliant as the unassuming crime branch inspector,who with his able set of men go about stopping crime right where it takes birth,in the border small towns of India.

Black-A Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie.So expect a lot of crying,hence  carry a lot of tissues.This movie about a deaf,dumb and blind(wow!) girl and her relationship with her mentor,an aging professor,who decides to fight all notions that she cannot be educated and made to learn the language of love.Rani Mukherjee and Amitabh Bachchan turning in some of Indian cinema’s finest powerhouse performances ever.I cried ,cried and cried through the movie.I am not sure if I have the guts to watch it a lot of times,cause not always do I want to cry,but still a good movie in every way.

Satya- I think one of the best movies on the underworld,the Mumbai underworld to be specific.It follows the life of  a young man Satya who reached Mumbai in the search of  a new beginning and work,like millions of others.Except that he gets drawn into the wrong world,the dark under-belly of Mumbai.The crime infested areas,the slimy people,the fantastically shot scenes in the narrow Mumbai bylanes and gallis.Every frame of the movie reeks of honesty and really makes you fear of how huge the underworld business is.This movie has given us some of the best performances,Manoj Vajpayee as Bhiku Mhatre was just a new discovery and has since not lived upto even his own stellar performance.One  of RGV’s best.

Andaz Apna Apna- This was a light funny caper about a bunch of losers who are trying big time to be rich and famous the quick and easy way.Ask how?By wooing two young things(Raveena and Karishma) ,one of them who is the apparent heiress to a big fortune.Mistaken Identities,silly but genuinely funny moments,nothing too sophisticated,just gentle comedy and it makes you laugh so hard.The songs have a good olden day feel and somehow everything makes the movie so endearing.I think it was Salman and Aamir at their best,when they were just starting out in the industry.

So there goes! I definitely could not remember some more movies which should have made it to my list,and also these are not in any order.My choices are based on how good a movie is and also how much it has managed to affect me all these years in some way or another.

2338 Champion Court

I am someone who loves to live the past a lot.Now there is a difference in living in the past,which I also do,but I like living the past,re-living it and forming strong connections with the times that are by gone.

From the last some days,I have been swept by this big wave of nostalgia.I am just missing my 2 years in America,my student days and my school NCSU, my awesome room mates in 2338 Champion Court,my very good Indian friends I made while I was studying who shared the same feelings about the huge transition we had made physically and mentally,the house where I stayed my student life,the house I stayed in after that,my group of friends whom I met through my work in my company.I just could go on.I sometimes feel like I have not set foot entirely in this reality.I am still there,somewhere.In a limbo.A good,beautiful surreal phase.

I wanted to write something about those initial days of mine before they got lost under layers of new memories being formed every single day.

2338 Champion Court: This event happened to me in the Aug of 2007.Me and my beautiful 4 girls V,J,P and N all somehow bumped into each other and moved in together.We would be so much in awe of our home,our very own home.We would be thrilled to have a micro-wave which some houses in that locality were not furnished with.We would love the view from outside our windows,and the backyard steps.We would sit and talk about where we came from in India and how we landed up here ,all a cosmic set-up.Slowly,we grew from a group of girls to a family.Our only family in America.If we had bad days,or we missed our families back in India,or we just had terrible girl mood-swings,we knew we all were there for each other and there was nothing then which an amazing cup of ginger tea or some piping hot pakodas could not fix.(I am tearing up as I write this).I think one reason my stay in America was so good, was because I met my room mates.It felt like we were perfect for each other,and we defied the general notion that a pack of girls invariably ended up fighting and dismantling a good setup.We did great,we had bad days,sometimes alone,sometimes as a group,but we survived to tell the tale and to reminisce.That is all that matters really.

I remember some of those long ,lonely nights when Raleigh started growing colder,and the number of people on the streets thinned down,and we would be sitting in our homes studying.Some of those times were extremely lonely and painful.They would bring to mind images of times spent with your family,all the chattering and full throated laughters and the warm family talks and sessions.And here you were,so so far,sitting by yourself,wanting to break down and cry.The cold not helping much,and knowing that you had so much to finish in the next 2 hours.It just blew up at times.Even ‘lonely’ cannot do justice to what you felt those times.Then I would peek out through the blinds of my room’s window and see the neon lights flashing a little distance away in ‘Sammy’s tap and grill’ and wish what was it like to be there,drinking smoking,laughing.Would that make a difference?I guess not, but back then it seemed like our world was divided into two parts: home and everything else that surrounded it.

But some mornings,you just had to wake up to N either jumping and screaming and talking in her usual chirpy way,or V narrating a funny incident in her class or J making amazing food and talking to her now husband and P just listening in her beautiful relaxed ways.We also had 2 other beautiful room mates join us over the course of the next year.S was to be my room mate for a semester and a little more.She and I however spent few times together in the room,our lives gradually spilled from inside the room to outside,outside the home,with our different group of friends.But we talked and we have still been talking,about life,its peculiarities and how sometimes we have just wanted to shut ourselves to everything.I just hope the very best for S.

And there was our super cool L,who was my room mate in the 3rd and most terrible semester.She just infused so much of spirit into the house,.Every Friday she would walk in with her ‘Hey People’ and suddenly it would feel like how a  Friday should feel like. And we would just stop our very important projects and all for the time being to just feel happy for having survived another grueling week.

The last semester was esp hectic.Everyone was tired,everyone had not been home in the last 1 and half years,everyone wanted to just get done with school and  let loose.The exams,the projects,the bed bugs,the steadily growing cold,the days ending at 5 in the evening were not helping.It was like this  eerie silence which hung low over all  our lives in that last semester.

Now..everything is behind us.We have all set sail,some of us just married(congrats J),some of us are working,some of us left the country and some of us still are living in the past.But I think somewhere in our old home lingers the spirit of 7 girls who once stayed there and started their new journey …

(I have countless more memories ,this is not enough,will write more as and when….and I have no pictures of S with me …)

India!

I never quite understood so well what it meant to be an Indian.To live in India.Not until I went away,only to return 2 years and too many perspectives later.Firstly I think,wholely my opinion,that being an Indian is not the same as living in India.The two do not evoke the same feelings in me.Secondly, I think I am able to understand the deeper significance that being an India has in my thinking,my life and the patterns that are forming in my life.

I earlier took everything for granted.I never knew of the existence of a different world,so for me this was always my reality,and an unquestioned one.The traffic never was beyond ‘irritating’ and I was perhaps one of those millions of nosey two wheeler drivers who would butt in their tiny vehicles in every possible space they could find at the risk of displeasing others and violating rules.The roads never bothered the hell out of me,they were just bad and it was fine to live with it.Festivals never had a special meaning,we have a large number of them and in my family we have never been too keen to celebrate in the authentic Indian way,so I have not felt specially festive on any occasion.I was never quite aggressive and  aggressive and over-agitated people always scared me.Scared because it seemed to me like I always had to be the first in the line,always board the bus first,always have to be ahead of the pack.And the sea of crazy humanity made me feel incapable of being the go-getter survivalist.I am so not in a hurry to be anywhere and never felt that I have to ,have to be first to get something that probably everyone would get even if they got second in line.

America has plenty of extras as give-aways,no one is in a hurry ever.They know they will get that coveted give-away even if they reached last.Supplies never get over.But Indians know better.We are trained from an early age the art of survival ,be it the numerous tests in school,the hundreds of entrance examinations,the pressure to please everyone but yourself,the pressure to perform and give and not expect a lot.So coming back of course and observing is making a lot more sense to me.I know my fellow Indian who is scurrying away to catch that bus,even though he is the only passenger and even though the bus is waiting for him patiently,has the pressure of an entire family weighing on his worn down shoulders.He is running so that he feels he won it, he did it.He has to go work,make some money to feed the hungry mouths in his family,he is the hope of a lot of people,he is doing  a lot and not for himself.I will hereafter understand his struggle.

If you ever happened to travel on an Indian road and witnessed the traffic,I think if you looked at that through my eyes,you would see how the traffic is such a good indicator of an Indian’s way of thinking.We are forever in a hurry,even before the poor traffic policeman has signalled to start moving,the autos,the bikes the cars,everyone has moved well ahead of the line and already started moving.They do not want anyone else to zoom ahead.There is a hunger in them,to forever keep winning.Though there is no competition.We just know that.We all know that.

I travel by an auto everyday these days,and I have to admit,I am scared.If I make it back home safe in one piece,it feels like a tiny achievement for me.The noise bothers me.But I am enjoying observing my people.My people who are always taking the wrong turn,breaking rules,forever impatient and hence endanger their life and other’s too,my people who do not mind getting into fights if their vehicle is hit for their own mistake.And on a typical Indian road,esp now in the season of weddings, you can see everyone from every walk of life ,very interesting and one of a kinf characters.The young and cool and their hep bikes,the old couples driving their old vespas and bajajs,the omnipresent autos in their notorious maneuvers ,the wedding procession with their loud,heart thumping music blazing out of poor speakers,the drunken friends of the groom dancing on the road and indifferent to if their procession is causing a road jam.

I feel lost in this swirling crowd of craziness,chaos and in this canvas where everything is a 100 times brighter,amplified and noisier.Everything here demands something from your own little quiet space, it is like asking you ‘Look at me,I am going to shove it in your face’!.I miss the eerie quiet and the sometimes boring perfectness of the American roads and most of all I miss the option I had to chose to not participate in it all and yet be unaffected.

But all these conflicting thoughts melt away the moment I see my home.The clothes hanging out to dry in the balcony,the familiar peace and quiet hanging low and surrounding my home,as if it is a island having its own distinct identity from the similar looking apartment homes.

Home is where being back in India takes precedence.And then ‘being Indian’ is just an emotion,just that,not too larger than life for me.