5 Years !

Sometime earlier this month, I celebrated the completion of my 5 years of stay in the U.S. It meant a lot to me, since I have always considered moving to the U.S. as the biggest “good decision” I have made for personal reasons. It hasn’t been a smooth joy ride, I assure you, and it still isn’t. Things went wrong during the first few years, and I was never hopeful that I would be able to make it. I had to give up a lot, especially the security of a sheltered life, of a secure job, of the prospects of being gainfully married and raising a family. I was singly driven by my desire to pursue graduate school, and to establish myself as an academician. It became challenging and increasingly hard for me to keep myself rooted here (opting out of the PhD program in 2008, job layoff in 2009, resuming PhD in 2010, etc.). However, here I am, and here I was celebrating my 5 years of stay by taking a journey down the memory lane and remembering all the happy and not-so-happy moments that defined the latter half of my twenties.

Incidentally, I was out of town the day I completed 5 years. I was attending a conference, not presenting though. Academic daddy was invited to be there, and since he was traveling, he sent me instead. This was a huge privilege, much bigger than presenting at a conference, because in this case, someone revered in the field gave up his chance so that I could replace him temporarily and do the same kind of work that he was expected to do. I was expected to listen to the talks, evaluate the kind of research that was being done in the field, and prepare a synthesis report. This would not only give me a chance to network and meet the people in the field, but also train me in synthesizing information and making sense of them.

A quick scanning around the room revealed that as expected, I was perhaps the only “Indian-from-India” in the room, if you know what I meant. The conference started, people began to present their work, mostly in the field of developing education and bettering the school educational systems for scientific workforce development so that more students were motivated to continue into college. There was one spokesperson who got up on stage to present. I don’t remember the affiliation, but I remember listening to an impressive talk. The person had some great ideas, and was very enthusiastic about it. The person breezed through the presentation slides, and there was this last bullet point on the last slide that seemed somewhat odd, but did not register anything right away. I am not sure if I had read that point, or perhaps I was beginning to, but before I did, the person repeated what was written in the last slide.

“And hopefully this way, we will be able to stop the foreigners taking up our jobs.”

The crowd clapped and applauded. However, I sat there stone faced. You see, I had never once fooled myself into believing that this country is mine, and has embraced me lovingly. I was always reminded of the fact that I am here as long as I had my visa validated, for which, I had to struggle, compete, learn, and produce superior quality work. I had already faced the consequences of losing a job and thereby ending up without a visa (you get deported, what else?). Although I live here, I always knew I never belonged here, not only for the color of my skin or my Indian accented English, but because of the fact that I am a foreigner, and will always be one. But to be a foreigner sitting amidst a group of natives animatedly discussing strategies about how to keep the foreigners at bay was not necessarily the best conversation to hear. This country has given me a lot, taught me a lot of values. However, I believe that I have given this country at least a little bit in return, and I am not just referring to the taxes. I have given this country my hard work, my ideas, my skills, and my expertise. Look at the irony, on one hand, I was sitting there as the representative of my advisor, trying to become an expert in my field, trying to become “one of them” to help their children continue into college. On the other hand, I was also a foreigner and although this person never realized there was at least one foreigner in the room listening to the conversation, I was listening. I did not know then which side of the argument I was in.

That single incident, ironically on the 5^th anniversary of my entry into the US, changed the way I perceive things. It’s been a month almost, and memories of that initial awkwardness still remains fresh. Academic daddy, who is best known for his honesty and bluntness, listened to me recount this in pain, and told me somewhat impassively, “You get established for your skills, the value you bring into a group, and not because of who you are or what country you belong to. If you become a good researcher and have all the combined skills that most people in this field do not have, if you are the best in statistics and can analyze any large scale data set, America will value you. You can either sit and lament about what happened, or fiercely try to establish yourself in the field.”

Advice taken with respect daddy, but not without knowing that perhaps I would never be able to estrange myself from the things I felt at that point, being referred to as an outcast “who is taking our jobs away”.

On a different note, I had to fill out an expense sheet and a tax form by the end of it, listing my expenses. The lady at the conference counter looked at me and said harmlessly, “Oh, I am sure you do not need a tax form.”

Having known her for the last 3 days of the conference, I smiled and almost nodded a yes, assuming she knows best, but decided to confirm again. “You sure?”

“Uh, do international employees pay taxes?”

“Sure ma’am, I do pay my full share of taxes, I assure you”, I said as I helped myself to a form. “Surely us foreigners might be a potential threat who take up the jobs that your children rightly deserved, but we at least pay our taxes”, I thought with bitterness as I grabbed my form and left the conference venue.

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Made/Maid To Steal.

Someone from here was visiting India, and asked me if I wanted to send something home. After much thought and deliberation, I finally bought an mp3 player online to be sent home. It looked cool, all white, with better features than the one I have. I beamed at it with pride, not concerned about the price. It was a gift I was sending home. It had better be a nice one. My mom had insisted that I keep the new one and send them the one I use. I refused. Gifts are supposed to be new, unused, and not second hand. The day I went to hand it over to the person who was going home, I lightly touched the player once. I touched it because I knew that very soon the people dear to me were going to touch it. I could imagine sis jumping in excitement while dad tried to read through the instructions provided with the product and mom holding it in her hand, beaming with pride. I finally handed it over to the person.

On reaching India, the person sent me an apologetic email, saying that the mp3 player had been stolen by their maid. I was shocked. I asked if he was sure that the maid had done so. I mean I couldn’t imagine a maid listening to songs from an mp3 player, especially because one had to install stuff on the computer first. I was told that they suspected the maid had done it. 

Needless to say, I was upset. Here I had imagined my family rejoicing while they uploaded songs and listened to them using it. The next moment, I was imagining a maid selling the stuff to some guy and getting money out of it. The maid probably did not even know how much it was worth, not just in terms of money, but in terms of sentiments too. It was the first gift I was sending home. I wondered if the maid had ever touched the player the way I did, trying to realize that there was love and sentiment associated with the stuff she was holding, and certain people in the world were waiting eagerly for it. She must have probably thought that these stinking rich people who come from the US eat, sleep, and bathe in money. She had probably sold it to someone at a price much lower than what it was worth. But I wondered if she ever felt a pang of guilt, especially at taking possession of something which was not hers, and was sent with a lot of love. I was imagining my parents using it while in reality the player was destined to go to someone else’s hands. So much for all the money and the sentiments attached and the numerous attempts to create an account from the website it was bought from.

I wonder where my player is now. I wonder if the money (as they say) wasn’t hard earned because then, it would not have gone into unworthy hands. I wonder if the maid had the same sentiments attached to the player that I had while sending it back home. For all I care, the maid’s kid might be using the player as a prop vehicle and driving it noisily across the floor. I wonder why we develop an attachment for something, and then it breaks your heart to let go of it. Most importantly, I wonder if the maid even realized that it was not about money, but about the feelings attached, and the fact that someone is waiting for the gift. All of you must have had your prized possessions stolen some time, maybe the sari your mom gave you, the expensive pen your best friend gave you on your graduation, the watch your husband gave you for your anniversary. How did you cope, knowing that the thing of such immense value to you is in someone else's hands?

I wonder. This is because that is all that I can do right now. But then again, I wonder if it is better to move on and accept the situation, and go get something new. Is it wise to forget about the old player, since it was not meant to be with me from the very beginning?

It seems I am wondering about a lot about things these days.

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Science And Religion

Last weekend, a few friends drove to the nearby Gurudwara. I am not Sikh, and I had never been to a Gurudwara before this, not even in India. It was a lovely, sunny morning, and we drove for about an hour through the picturesque roads before we reached there. Since I didn't have a dupatta of my own or a handkerchief large enough, I was given a piece of blue cloth from the basket of colorful ones to cover my head. 

I visit religious places more out of curiosity. I am curious about the visitors, the buildings, the architecture, and what people do there. Here, I was curious to see what a Gurudwara looked like. It felt that I was in India and not in the US. There were hundreds of people, children running around wearing traditional Indian clothes, dupatta-clad women, bangles and all, in their bright salwar kameez. Most men wore colored turbans, and there was something about the whole atmosphere that made me long to visit the Golden Temple. I had recently watched the movie Amu, and that came to mind too. It was soon time for the Langar to begin. We were famished and we queued up.

The food was delicious. There is something about the food cooked in God's house that makes it so delicious. We sat on the floor and ate with our hands. I couldn't have been happier to be there.

A man was going around distributing rotis for people who wanted a second helping. I lifted my palms the way the others did. The man flung a roti at me, and to my horror, it went past my outstretched palms and landed on my lap.

The man was livid. He gave me a nasty glance and muttered a flurry of things that, although incomprehensible to me, did not sound nice at all. For him, I had done something that was sacrilege. I joined my hands and bowed my head, wishing that he would not create a scene. God's house was the last place where this should have happened. 

The man left, giving me vile looks. On my way back, I kept thinking about this episode in silence. Religion says that I had done something terrible (according to the man at least). Science says that some molecules of carbohydrates had defied the laws of physics and landed wrongly, either because the neurotransmitters in my brain weren't prompt enough to stop the direction of gravitational motion, or because the man's motor units (hands) didn't act in co-ordination with my neurons for me to time the catch well. The man might as well have been a batsman, the food a cricket ball, I being the fielder. So I went for a catch and I dropped it. I instantly regretted it, and instead of answering back, I apologized. I wish the man had responded differently. 

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