Thod(a)-Thod(a)

A lot can happen over a banana stem (thod in Bangla) from the garden. Sunday morning, I saw my neighbor chop a few of the banana plants in the garden. No idea what he was up to. Although I love the thod that my ma makes, I did not know what raw thod looks like. The neighbor-lady and I were chatting in the backyard when the neighbor-man handed me a shiny white, tube-like thing that looked like a rolled calendar, which was apparently the thod he got from the banana plant.

He put me in a huge dilemma with his neighborly kindness. I had never seen raw thod in my life, forget how to cook it. I looked at them helplessly and confessed that I do not know how to cook thod. “I love eating it though,” I added shamelessly, hoping that they would take it back and cook it for me. Instead, he asked me to try cooking it myself, explaining the basic steps.

Thod in hand, I called 911-aka-Ma. I think ma was more worried for me than I was. She again told me the basic steps. Keep peeling the hairy extensions, chop it finely, let it soak for a while in salt to get the moisture out, yada yada yada. In the meantime, the neighbor-man showed up and shared with me a bowl full of cooked thod, smelling heavenly of ghee and coconuts. Here is a person whom I have only known as a fellow faculty-colleague, writing papers and teaching classes, who chopped down the plant, sickle-in-hand, removed the thod, processed it, cooked it and shared it with the neighbor, and I am panicking.

Armed with ma’s verbal lessons, I decided to triangulate the information with YouTube videos. The first few I watched did not show how to process and cut the thod, they gave long lectures about how thod is good for diabetics, has lots of iron, yada yada yada. Finally, I found a few videos of villagers who grow and cut thod, sans any unsolicited gyaan about its health benefits.

Armed with three sources of information (neighbor-man, ma, and YouTube), I fell asleep. The next day, off I went to work, but kept thinking of the thod sitting in my fridge. Looks like once you were able to chop it all, it did not take much time or drama. No onion or garlic peeling. No adding groom moshla or other spices. Simply temper the oil with mustard seeds and red chilies and cover and cook until done. This much, I could do.

I usually come home late (as late at midnight sometimes) but I was distracted. I wanted to bite the bullet and see how I cook it. By 3 pm, I was home.

Peeling and chopping was the hardest part. My hands ached for hours, maybe even a day, and what came of it after chopping reminded me of my friend, G, who knows that I hate chopping vegetables, my fine motor skills are horrible. Every time I visit her in Seattle, during cooking all my favorites, she makes me peel and chop vegetables. Sometimes, multiple vegetables. Sometimes, vegetables for things she will be cooking in a week, just to torture me in the name of meal preparation. And when she runs out of vegetables, she makes me break and chop Thenga (coconuts). No matter how well I try to chop, she always looks at the chopping board and says, “Maadu kannu podardhu” in Tamil, meaning, “looks like the cow gave birth,” referring to how messy the chopping board looks. She asks me to chop beans and carrots measuring 0.1 centimeters. Which fully-grown, self-respecting mammal with permanent teeth chews such small pieces, I don’t know. She claims that the way something is cut determines its taste, but I highly doubt it and think she puts me through these cutting challenges to mess around with me.

After 30 minutes of working out my biceps and risking developing gout in my hands, I was able to cut it all. It still looked like the cow gave birth, but I didn’t care. I can chew the coarse pieces. I was half-dead after chopping and was contemplating going back to sleep. But true to what people said, after the chopping was done, cooking was easy peasy. And just like that, from not knowing what thod looks like, I learnt how to make decent thod in less than 24 hours. I was so excited that I shared some with the neighbor. After all, I had to return the bowl and according to tradition, we do not return empty bowls.

And with that, at 5 in the evening, instead of working in office, I enjoyed my first DIY thod, right from the garden, and became the first person in the world to have it with shingara. I did not wait to make rice; I had no energy left. When the neighbor-man told me a few weeks back that if he runs out of food, he will start chopping banana plants, I was terrified. I thought that chopping things from the garden is a terrible thing to happen. However, it was far from terrible, and quite an enjoyable process. The thod tasted quite ordinary, but for me, it was the best thing I had accomplished that day.

I portioned it off and left some for the next day before coming back to office. I really hope that when that mocha (banana flower) is ready, they do not make me peel it too. I have never made mocha, and I don’t think I can keep getting emotional about food from the garden.

Like my friend recently said, “It’s the time you have wasted for your rose (watering it) that makes your rose so important.” That’s why I wrote this post, for posterity, so that I always remember how excited I felt to cook thod for the first time.

 

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My first time in Jugarat

In 2006, when I first moved to Seattle, I met a girl at the orientation who could not say Gujarat. She would call it Jugarat. I had even written about it. However, I had never visited Jugarat myself.

Fast forward to about two years ago, I visit Jugarat for the first time, and what an introduction to the place I get! I was so excited to see what Jugarat looks and smells like. To me, it was the mystical land of Krishna and Gandhi and Amul and Garba. I had heard some odd stories related to Jugarat, about how a neighborhood family from Kolkata had moved there and when the child came back, she would only ask “Kem chho?” Not a word of Bangla. Or how that family’s daughter in Kolkata had eloped with a Jugarati guy after the tenth grade, or how an uncle whose first wedding we attended went there and found a new, Jugarati wife.

I stuck my nose to the window pane of the aircraft, trying to get my first glimpse of Jugarat in the fading sunlight that evening.

At the airport, I decided to use the restroom before picking up my bags. There were parallel stalls inside the restroom, all occupied, and I was surprised to see four parallel lines in front of those stalls instead of a single one. Back then, anomalies like this were out of my schema of understanding things; of course now, I am used to anything, even the lack of lines. So I had to choose any one line and hope that someone was not stuck inside that stall creating a bottleneck.

I waited patiently, and as the line moved forward, suddenly, I heard firing. It was the kind of fear-instilling firing that one does not easily forget. I heard loud firing from all the stalls- boom boom bam bam boom! And without realizing, thought bubbles started forming in my head. In those thought bubbles, I saw pictures of dhokla, thepla, fafda, handvo, khandvi, all under various stages of digestion. I clutched on to my chest instinctively, not knowing if I would survive the firing.

Finally, the firing stopped, almost all at once, and there was a deafening silence. The doors to each of the stalls opened. From inside, I saw four very fat women in saris emerging out victorious, slowly moving towards the wash basin.

Very wisely, I decided to turn back and run out, not looking back. I could empty my bladder later. I did not have it in me to go ahead and cross the war line after all that firing.

That was my first introduction to Jugarat.

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Why I am not likely to fly Qatar Airways again

There are mistakes. And there are expensive mistakes. 

The shortest life span of a US-India airplane ticket I bought was 4 hours. Things in my life changed in those 4 hours. I had to cancel my ticket.

Flights from the US usually come with a free cancellation clause for up to 24 hours of initial purchase. I have done that with Emirates and United. You just cancel your ticket online and get a full refund in a few days. No questions asked. This is the first time I was flying Qatar.

Apparently, Qatar Airways works on a different model. There is a button "Hold Ticket for 24 Hours" that I never saw. It could be that I was distracted, stressed, or maybe it was written strategically so that a first-timer who does not know will not notice it. Large business, after all, care about making money. They do not care about customers. Perhaps they design their websites accordingly.

When I cancelled the ticket after 4 hours, the system said that it will refund me the price of the ticket minus $305.00. It seemed odd. I called customer service. Apparently, Qatar Airways does not have a 24-hour customer service either. If you do not call within normal business hours for eastern time zone, congratulations, you have just been screwed. Again, the customer service is not really meant for serving the customer. 

By the time I could have talked to a human the next day, I might have crossed the 24-hour mark. I had to decide quickly. Note that I still had not realized that I have overlooked the "Hold Ticket for 24 Hours" button. How would I? When I had bought that ticket 4 hours ago, I had every intention of making that trip. I was doomed the moment I bought the ticket. Whether I was stuck to the plan or not, my money was stuck there.

If you watch air crash documentaries, it is never one thing gone wrong that brings down an airplane. It is usually a combination of different things, a chain of events gone wrong, often combined with human error. My situation was something like that. 

It took a couple of email exchanges and phone calls the next day to even understand what had happened. I admitted my mistake, told them that I am a first-timer with Qatar, it was a weekend and I could not talk to a customer service agent to understand what was going on. They train their staff well to maintain a robotic voice and keep apologizing for my inconvenience when they are far from being apologetic. For every line I said, they kept apologizing for any inconvenience. 

I wrote to the E-commerce support. I explained what had happened and said that it was my fault. I wrote about four emails in a week. In every email, I admitted to my mistake for not noticing that “Hold Ticket” button. Yet, after a week, I got a vague, impersonal, copy-paste email with words like “we regret to inform you,” “as per policy,” and “we look forward to welcoming you on-board on one of our flights soon.” I wonder if policy is meant for people, or people are meant for policy.

My final reply to them was short. I wrote that I hope this profit of $305.00 will supersede the loss of a customer, and hopefully, they never have to welcome me on-board.

Here was an opportunity for the airline to rise above their policies and make a lasting impression. I even told them that I was willing to buy a new ticket with the correct dates right away, a ticket that would cost me 5-6 times this $305.00 penalty. The math was simple. The intention to help was never there in the first place.

Sheryl Sandberg, in her convocation speech at MIT this year, said something that hit home. To quote her:

“They [the community leaders] understood that the most difficult problems and the greatest opportunities we have are not technical. They are human. In other words, it's not just about technology. It's about people.” [Link]

It’s about people only when the intention is to serve people. Technology forgets. Human beings don’t. My first impression of Qatar Airways will always be my lasting impression.

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Getting high

My world was spinning around as I was trying to word my sentences at work. For the first time, I have been on such strong narcotics. I can see how it has messed up my brain.

For starters, my landlady said that I came out of surgery howling. I had no reason to do that, but anesthesia affects the cry-centers of my brain. She drove me back and brought me home, and as she did that, I passed out on the floor. I lost track of time. I had no energy to get up. I remember wondering what if the bed shrunk and I fell off it? The floor seemed safer. Such were my levels of delusion. She called my insurance (I had no idea where my insurance card was and my speech was a disaster), got me my medication, shoved them down my throat with a glass of water, all the while when I was splayed like a lizard on the floor, only, on my back, my hands and legs stretched out. I heard her come and go and come back. I was conscious that way. But since I had lost my sense of time, it felt a matter of a few minutes. I am glad she has a set of keys to my apartment.

There was utter confusion, lack of sense of time, and blurry speeches after that. I slept for hours, but did not realize how time flew. My emails were no longer coherent, and I kept forgetting words. The next few days have been a blur. I have restricted my activities to mostly the basics- finding food, eating, and getting back to bed. But today, I dragged myself to work. Two minutes into my bus ride, a strong bout of nausea hit me. I was dizzy, the world was spinning around me. The parking department guy takes the same bus (imagine the irony, parking guy takes the bus). I vaguely remember telling him that I am going to throw up. He not only escorted me to my office, but came back to check on me during lunch hours. Soon after, two kind colleagues barged into my office and literally ordered me to leave. The bus ride back was equally terrible.

That brownie I had in Amsterdam, I only felt a fraction of everything I am feeling now, only for a few hours. Saying that it was fun was a stretch, but it was educational. This is not. It's only been three days, and I am sick of these constant bouts of nausea. I cannot imagine how people take these drugs on a regular basis for pain management. It makes you realize how hard life can get when you are no longer healthy.

I am addicted to books on neuroscience and the brain. Reading is something, but experiencing first-hand how narcotics affect the brain is something else. Everything you do without thinking- speaking coherently, walking upright, digesting food without throwing up, being able to have a focused vision, and even a sense of humor, everything is going to be compromised. I have been sleeping 12 hours a day ever since, and I am still tired. I want to go back and reread Jill Bolte Taylor's book. But I can no longer read at a stretch without feeling dizzy. If you haven't read the book, you must at least listen to her TED talk.

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Every day after that day

48 hours since my bombastic entry into Greece. My first armed robbery (armed because they stole my valuables from literally under my arm). Hundreds of messages from friends and family wanting to know how I am doing. How am I? I am okay. Trying to cope after coming dangerously close to having to sell a kidney. I feel 10 times heavier. I have splitting headaches and nightmares. When bad news comes in little installments over a period of time (like an impending breakup or obesity), one gets more time to prepare. But when the same dose of bad news happens in 60 seconds leaving you almost bankrupt, the mind does not know how to respond. It was traumatic to take another metro after that.

But then, there are many good things that happened after that. The Indian embassy gave me a temporary passport in 2 hours. I met Sara, a fellow traveler from Singapore. Together, we did some sightseeing in Athens and hiking in a nearby island. Disaster was about to strike again when while hiking, we were chased byan angry donkey and had to run downhill for our lives after huffing and puffing and hiking for 40 minutes. We never made it to the top again, the donkey blocked the trail. Robbed by Greek thieves and then death by a donkey? There would be no dignity for me after that.

Now the big question that was plaguing me was, should I or should I not go to Malta next? And the even bigger question. Will they or won't they allow me to take a plane to Malta on a handwritten, temporary passport? I decided to leave it to my fate. What saved me is that they did not steal my German residence card. That would have jeopardized my entry even to Germany as my new passport has no visa. Between stealing a passport and stealing a residence card, they somehow cushioned my loss by stealing the passport.

The people at the airport were a little intrigued by a new passport with no stamps. I decided to shut my mouth until being questioned. A handwritten passport could have been a problem. But I boarded the 6 am flight. When the security people at the airport in Malta wanted to check my passport again, my heart stopped. They could ask me to return. They did not. They said, "Oh, you have a new passport? No problem, the residence card is good enough."

All this seemed to have happened a lifetime ago. Greece and Malta later, I came back to Germany, applied for a new passport, obtained one, and flew eastward ho to Kolkata for a few weeks. The mangoes and litchis have been cushioning my sense of loss so far.

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Robbed

Less than an hour into landing in Athens, I was robbed off my passport and many hundred euros in broad daylight inside a crowded metro. I have been traveling alone for many years now. I have traveled close to 25 countries so far, and many of them on my own. I usually stay at hostels and fit in easily with an international crowd. I am not shy or awkward and stay extra alert while traveling. I can read maps and I can navigate my way around even in obscure little towns where I do not speak the local language. I usually show up at airports an hour extra ahead of time. I usually get two printouts of documents kept in separate places. I stick to the crowded parts of a city, do not venture out at night, and never go for a drink with people I have just met at hostels. In short, I do all that I can to stay safe and not get drugged or killed while traveling, and in general. Then how did this happen to me? It's a useful (and very expensive) experience to share.

After landing in Athens, I bought a € 10 one-way ticket from the airport to Omonia. This required me to take the blue line from the airport to Syntagma, and then change to the red line for two more stops to Omonia. I had a trolley suitcase on my left and a small handbag on my right. I got down at Syntagma to change to the red line. When the train came, a group of men and women got on the train from the same door as mine. They were a part of a big gang. But this, I realized later. The moment I got on the red line metro, these people kind of surrounded me and did not let me move. 

"Omonia, how many stops? Next stop?" one of them asked me naively. They were all standing too close for comfort. 

"Two" I said and tried to move away. The crowd would not let me. Have you ever played kabaddi? You will know what I mean. They closed in on me. A man on my left held my left hand rather amorously. I jerked away my hand. He looked at me and smiled, asking to hold my trolley suitcase which was in my left hand. I immediately knew that something bad is going to happen to me. Intuitively, yes. I turned to the man on the left to grab my suitcase. He just would not release my hand. He squeezed it just like a lover would do. That was when someone on the right took a bag that was inside another bigger bag and had my passport and all my money. All this happened in less than 60 seconds. They got off at Panepistimio, the station before Omonia, and walked out in a group. By then, I knew that I had lost something, and something big. I just did not know (yet) what it was. 

When I got off at Omonia, I was relieved to see that my purse was with me. But the relief lasted for a second. Because my passport bag next to it was gone. 

So here are a few things you need to know. This, I can tell from my experience and talking to the police as well as the embassy: 

1. These guys operate in huge gangs, specifically inside the airport (yes!!) and in the metro stations. Women are also a part of these gangs. I was told they are refugees, but I do not know about that. 

2. They pretend that they do not know each other, but they do. When they target someone, they just close in on them. 

3. They use a distraction technique, holding your hand amorously or smiling flirtatiously, slightly pushing a heavier luggage from your hand. But remember, they have no intention to flirt or take your suitcase. This is meant to distract you in one direction while someone is working in the other direction. And they work really really fast, within a minute or so. They just get off at the next station and walk out. 

4. Distribute your money. I was going to once I checked in to my hostel, but it was too late. 

If you are a victim of a stolen passport, do the following: 

1. Immediately go to the police station for tourists. I first went to the metro police, who asked me to go to another police station, and I had to go to three police stations until I found the right one. 

2. Cabs in Athens are super cheap. If you still have some money, just take a cab. 

3. The police does not care. They see cases like this everyday. I was told that sometimes they are involved too, but I do not know about that. However, you need to take the police report to the Indian embassy (or the embassy of your country) as soon as possible. That report was written entirely in Greek. At the embassy, someone will translate it and issue a "temporary passport" that will let you fly back to the country of your residence. It is a hand-written passport and mine was valid for one year. The police report is the first step. The embassy cannot do anything without that. 

4. The Indian Embassy in Athens is super nice and helpful. When I explained what happened, they said they will try to get me a temporary passport within the next day. It's just like applying for a normal passport. The embassy charged me € 126 for a temporary passport, and issued it to me within two hours. They are super nice people. 

5. Take your temporary passport and get back to your country of residence. From there, apply for a fresh passport. 

6. ALWAYS travel with a photocopy of your passport and a few passport sized pictures. This, I did not do. The embassy needs to get all the information from your passport, which is why you need to carry photocopies. 

7. Get in touch with the embassy of your country as soon as possible. They are the only ones who can and will help you. 

8. No matter how much shock you are in, don't forget to eat and drink water. An empty stomach and dehydrated body will do strange things to your brain. You need to be alert and make judgments very quickly. I am pretty sure I hallucinated the entire night. 

So how does it feel? To say that I am shaken and shattered would be an understatement. I was too afraid to go to an ATM and take out money at night, and had to wait till the next morning to find some of my confidence back. My legs had no strength to move. I have never felt more helpless in a foreign country where I knew no one and was not even carrying a cell phone. I would not wish this on anyone. But I am glad that I was physically not hurt (I was told that some of them carry razors and pocket knives too). The thing is, it's not that I suddenly realized that my stuff is gone. I knew all the time that something bad is happening to me. But they put you into a trance. They distract you. As a woman, I would watch out for someone who is holding my hand. At one point, I feared that I might be mauled or molested. But that is a distraction technique. All this will be over in less than a minute. And a woman traveling alone with luggage makes a great target. 

I have many things to be sad about, but many things to be thankful about too. 

My passport is gone, but is replaceable. 

Thank God my US visa was not in this passport. 

They stole all the cash, but my bank cards, and most importantly, my residence permit was in a different bag and were not stolen. Without my residence permit, I could not have reentered Germany. Although I was within the Schengen area, airlines and airports are super strict these days after the Paris/Brussels attacks. You need to carry your passport at all times. 

I wish the money went to someone needy. It is a lot, but I will earn it back eventually. Passport, I will have a new one. But what I really lost that day was my self-confidence. I felt violated. I felt like someone had crushed my confidence and reduced me to nothing. I had no strength to walk on a street without cowering and feeling like I will be attacked again. It made me feel small. It made me blame myself for the hundreds of things I could have done differently. But as long as you are alive, everything is replaceable. I saw Athens after that, and traveled some more with my temporary passport. 6-7 men robbed me in broad daylight. But 60 people jumped in to help me. I am grateful to all of them. And a big thank you to the people of the Indian Embassy. You went out of your way to do much more than getting me a passport promptly. You made me feel safe and understood. 

And lastly, a little bit of something that perked me up. Miss Universe 1994 Sushmita Sen had the same experience at the Athens airport in 2012. I am very sorry for your loss Sushmita, but this might be the closest I have come to saying "same pinch" to a Bollywood celebrity I like. 

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The Visa Officer

Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

My day did not start well. I got a letter (in German) from the visa officer, asking me to collect my new residence permit on a particular date of the month. Only, I would not be in the country that day, and would not be able to re-enter Germany without the new residence permit. The permit exactly looks like an EAD card or a driver's license. 

Let me back up a little bit. My old permit had expired two days ago, and I needed a new one to travel outside the EU zone. When I had told my visa officer last month, she had taken note of my travel dates and assured me that she will give me a permit before I leave. For safety, she had written down something in German on an official piece of paper and stamped it. I could show that paper at the airport, and they would let me in. Just that I would feel more comfortable showing them a proper plastic laminated permit, and not something scribbled on a paper in a language I do not understand that could be accidentally chewed on by a cow. Unlike in the US, my visa is not stamped in my passport, and my permit is the only evidence that I live legally and should be allowed to re-enter Germany. Also, unlike in the US, you are assigned to a specific visa officer who handles your documents and keeps track of your whereabouts. 

I had to take help of my department head's secretary to understand the letter. After that, she had to call their office, asking for a new appointment date before I left Germany end of next week. It was a long conversation in German, that included spelling my full name at least twice. Another instance when I silently ask dad what was he thinking when he named me, and wish my name was something super short, like Tan Sen instead. Although the secretary could not get hold of the visa officer, someone else told her that they would see what they could do. It was utter chaos. My discomfort continued.

True to the German reputation for speed and efficiency, I got an email an hour later. Just one line, written in German. "Visa interview Monday, at 11 am." The ways of the Germans amuse me. Fast, efficient, but utterly German. They know I do not speak the language, yet they email me just one line, in German. Sometimes, I email them in English and they reply back in German. Anyway, I was hugely relieved that I would have my interview in 3 days. As usual, the secretary wrote down on my appointment letter using a pencil what all documents I need to bring for Monday. 

I leave work early, and go to the grocery store. Tomorrow is a public holiday, and everything would be closed. Armed with bags full of chicken, vegetables, and fruits, I wait for the bus back home. I look at someone standing in front of me at the bus stop and she looks back. We frown, and then, both of us burst out laughing. It is my visa officer waiting for the same bus.

My officer, although German, is not White. She is not Turkish either, and I have wondered for a year what she is (I still don't know). To me, she looks hardcore Malayali, although given her name and last name, it is not possible. We are so amused to see one another, especially since morning, I have been making frantic phone calls and she has been emailing me. We board the bus together and find a seat. We still cannot stop laughing. She asks me about my upcoming international trips, and when I would be back in the country. It is just like making small talk with the random Sharma uncle or Sen mashima in the bus. I take out my appointment letter from my bag and ask her once more what documents I need to bring. She simplifies things and asks me to bring just my passport and old residence permit. We wish each other a happy weekend. She tells me, "See you Monday". I get off the bus and walk home, armed with my grocery, a wide grin on my face. What are the odds, I wonder, that in a city with a population of a quarter million people, I bump into my visa officer out of the blue?

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Skidding into the new year

Most people in this world started the new year making resolutions they will not keep, or traveling to exotic locales and showing off. Some did both.

For me, it was a day of miracles. I was traveling for the holidays, and was on my way back. The flight was delayed by a couple of hours, and by the time I landed at night, I saw that everything below was white. I checked the temperature to be minus 15 Celsius. This was going to be interesting.

While driving back home from the airport (60 miles away), my car skid on the ice, and spun out of control, not once, but twice. The first time was when I had just stepped out of the airport parking. I tried swerving to the left, but it swerved fully, and came to stop facing oncoming traffic. I was really surprised, as this was the first time it had happened. Quickly, I reversed the car on the shoulder and started driving. I could barely see the lanes, not just because it was dark, but because snow covered half the lanes. It was hard to tell if I was overstepping the lanes. I decided to drive slower.

The second time turned out to be almost fatal. I entered the freeway, and realizing that the speed was 60 mph and I wanted to go slower, I shifted to the rightmost lane. They had mostly cleared the snow, but not completely on the rightmost lane. During the day, snow melts, but at night, due to extreme temperatures, the cold water melts back to ice (ice offers less friction than snow). The moment I entered the rightmost lane, I felt my car spinning out of control. I made the mistake of braking, more instinctively than anything else. The car spun 360 degree a couple of times, barely missing a pole before stopping to face the oncoming traffic. It was like reliving an action movie in reality. A head on collision was inevitable.

Yet, both me, and my car had a miraculous escape, unscathed. Traffic was less, and the few cars coming in my direction quickly shifted lanes and zoomed past me. Thankfully, I was quick to gather my senses, move from the highway, and take the next exit. I was shattered. I had considerably slowed down and taken the exit, but the inner roads were worse. They had not really cleared the snow from the inner roads, and every time I tried taking a turn, my car skid. Finally, I found a parking lot, parked my car, and inspected the damage. The mudguard was caked with a thick layer of black colored snow (probably a mixture of snow and dirt). It was freezing and I could feel hypothermia setting in. I locked inside my car and howled for quite some time. I did not have the strength to drive back.

It is no use to think what could have happened when nothing happened. The skidding must have been for less than a minute, but it was the longest minute of my life. Sadly, after all this, I had to muster the courage to drive for 50 miles to get home. Emotionally, I was shattered. 

Today, I skipped work to skip driving, but tomorrow, and everyday after that, I have to drive. I do not drive rashly, do not drink and drive, do not text and drive, and do not even take phone calls while driving. I have driven for 4.5 years and more than 50k miles now, going all over the country, in busy cities and mountains. I was not even speeding yesterday. In fact, I was slower than the speed limit.

Driving is an enjoyable activity for me because I know how to confidently control and maneuver a heavy body moving at a great speed. Yet yesterday, I experienced firsthand what skidding and getting out of control feels like. Snow that has frozen into ice is dangerous, and trying to brake, even instinctively, caused my nemesis. This is the first time I have been in an accident. The rest of the 50 miles, I drove at 55 in a 75 mph zone, with my emergency lights on. It was a nightmare for me.

It's not an experience anyone should have to face, but now that I have done it, I am thankful to be alive and to be writing coherently, using correct English. Coming this close to a fatal accident and escaping unscathed makes you believe in miracles. Surely it was an interesting, although unexpected start to the new year. But like my friend says, now that you are done with it, there will not be any accidents for the next fifteen years.

sunshine

Shaken on a 5.8 scale

I experienced a 5.8 on Richter scale earthquake today. A first time experience for me. How did it feel? I was in the department, working on some papers, when it felt like a team of horses running and stampeding all around you. The glass window panes were shaking, and shaking badly. Within seconds, realization hit, and we ran toward the exit doors. Soon a huge group had gathered outside the building. It was the first day of the fall semester, and many were in classes. Professors and students had evacuated the building, and together we watched the glass windows shake. However, nothing shattered or broke. Even afternoon classes were not cancelled (much to my disappointment). Everyone was back to business, though unknown people kept making small talk, referring to the earthquake. I walked to the two libraries to collect a few non-academic, fictional novels, and both times, the librarians asked how it was, experiencing an earthquake of this magnitude. The irony is, living in the Pacific Northwest (an earthquake prone region) for 4 years, I had never experienced anything like this. However, this one seems to have shaken up more than half of the east coast.

I came home to discover (much to my relief) that everything in my room looked the way it was supposed to be. The mess in my room was more due to the procrastination of unpacking suitcases. Not a single picture had moved off its frame, not a single book had displaced. However, as I sit and work in my room, I felt two more minor tremors in the last hour or so. This time, I do not know if I am imagining things, or if it is just the couple next door.

sunshine

30 Rock(s)

Earlier this month, I finally did what I have dreaded the last 5 years. I left my twenties and stepped into my thirties. Not that I particularly had a choice, and not that someone came knocking at my door asking me if I was ready to be in my thirties, or if time should freeze for a while. Turning thirty came with a lot of contemplation, reflection, and introspection. If I continue to live the healthy life that I have lived so far, I would like to think this is where people break for the interval or half-time in movies. Of course, no one knows for sure.

I wonder how I would sum up my life. I wonder if I wrote a book off my life, how it would read. Certain times it has been a joy ride. Sometimes it has been painful. There have been achievements, yes. There have been failures and disappointments as well, lots actually. Did I get everything I had hoped for? Perhaps yes. Yes, there are certain things that I wish had never happened, or had happened differently. Such is life.

I wasn’t really trying to summarize my blessings, but I started to think of all those things, those eventful moments I have at 30 that I am thankful for, and all those things I wish I did. I am primarily an academically driven person, and I am thankful that my academics always got priority. I never had to choose work over academics because there was a dearth of money. I am immensely thankful for that. I have had an excellent education, although measuring education in terms of degrees defeats the purpose of education in itself. I have been fortunate enough to have two masters degrees, and to experience both, the Indian and the American system of education. I have been closely associated with two reputed research driven R01 universities in the US. I consider myself amongst the fortunate who came to the US as a graduate student, and got the opportunity to study without having to pay for it. I don’t think the experience would have been any better had I come for work on-site. My academic trajectory has exactly been the way I wanted it to be. I wanted to move to the US for academics (and not for work), and that is exactly how it turned out to be. Currently, I have a US degree to boast of, and another terminal degree in the making.

Traveling has played a significant part in my interest and development. I have lived and traveled in 3 continents. Sometime in life, I discovered the joys of solo, independent traveling as compared to traveling in herds, and have singly backpacked dozens of places. Along with travel came the interest in photography. Over the last few years, I have tried to better my photographic skills, and feel very special when a particular picture I took is recognized or appreciated. I am fluently conversant in 4 languages, and have workable knowledge of 2 more languages. I am proud that I got rid of my unfounded fears and learned to drive. I love my car (and camera) as much as I would love my family, and in the last 2 years, I have driven roughly a little less than the distance of the circumference of the earth at the equator (about 22,000 miles). I have visited 18 American states, 10 American national parks, and a handful of the wonders of the world. My first flight experience was 5 years ago, when I got to sit in the cockpit of the plane for hours as we flew over Turkey. I love visiting corners, and have been to the north western most and southernmost tip of continental US. I have had 2 full time jobs, one as a teacher and the other as a researcher, and survived a lay off during the American economic depression. I know functional salsa, and have performed on stage in Seattle 4 times, twice for dance performances and twice for a play.

I have spent 26 birth days with family, which is great. I have successfully managed to blog for the last 6 years. An activity that started out of fun and the need to do something with the extra time I had after graduating college soon became a driving motivation for me. I love my evolving sense of humor I have developed over the years, bordering on biting sarcasm mostly. I really like the way I see the world, myself included, and make fun of things around me. this wouldn’t have happened without the practice of writing for years.

I have had a brief (really brief) stint with modeling, when I modeled for a line of products. Don’t ask me more, I am not particularly proud of being in front of a rolling camera. I have managed to stay single, despite immense societal pressure and peer pressure. Most of my friends are married with school-going children now. I am not against marriage per se, I just didn’t want to marriage to become another one of those things in my check list of things to do before I died. I didn’t want to get into something without entirely being sure I was doing the right thing, just because the rest of the world has gone the same path. I have seen too many relationships going haywire, and till marriage happens, I am very comfortable living alone, globe-trotting confidently, and will not feel weird walking inside a restaurant having a meal just on their own or take a train and travel for hours just happy reading or seeing the world go by them. I would prefer it any day, than wake up beside someone not knowing why I married him in the first place.

On the flip side, there are things that I wish I had done by now. I haven’t read a single Harry Potter book, and haven’t watched a single movie from the Matrix series. I still haven’t visited Delhi, a city I have always wanted to see and know more of. I still haven’t written a book, despite contemplating it for years now. The list of things I wish to do, but still haven’t, is endless. However, beyond my entire list of achievements and disappointments, I consider my greatest achievement to be the fact that I have a job, a work life that defines my identity. I am neither financially dependent, nor work deprived. I would rather be swamped with work, looking for a vacation, than have my life as a vacation with ample time but no direction. Sometime during my twenties, my greatest fear was that I would live in the US, but as a dependent. Although I am a poor graduate student with no green card, multi-storied town house, fancy cars, or the so called achievement of bearing American children (like a friend once pointed out) to boast of, I am glad I steered clear of that dependent route, not succumbing to the panic of staying single.

I have had a great life so far. Fast-paced, eventful, and mostly the way I wanted it to be. But being 30 is not just listing the achievements and disappointments. For me, being 30 is also being wise. At 20, I was exactly the way people at 20 are. I was starry eyed, passionate, energetic, a dreamer, took up challenges, and believed that I could become anyone in life. At 30, I have an idea of probably who I am going to become, and am content with the fact that I will perhaps not become everything I aimed for, and am okay with that. Realistic is what I was not then, and am perhaps learning to be now.

sunshine

I Feel Like a Mixer Grinder

When I woke up that morning, it felt like a train rode over me. I had images of a large mass of bulls chasing me, their hoofs springing a blanket of red dust in the air. I watched them charge toward me until I could see nothing. I only felt hundred of pairs of hoofs stamping on me all over. It was not a dream or a morbid fantasy, it was very much a self-inflicted torture. You see, I have never fancied working out in the gym. God knows, I tried, not once, but multiple times over the last 4 years where like a small mass of bacteria, my mass has almost threatened to double itself in no time. I was big boned never a thin woman, but now, I was definitely obese, out of shape (unless you considered being round a shape too), and doing disastrously in my fitness levels. Euphemistically said, I had become a woman of substance. To make it worse, I fancied wearing a pair of shorts, or an off shoulder dress someday without people hurling stones at me for visual pollution. Hence, I tried running on the treadmill. I tried biking and rowing. But there was something claustrophobic about working out in the closed confines of a gym (Another bahana Miss. sunshine?). Not that it meant that running outside was an option. For some weird physiological malfunctioning, I am one of those extinct species who cannot run. Wait a minute before you try to look all enlightened and tell me that it is because I am not in shape or lack in fitness. Both those things are true, but that is not correlated to my running skills. For this has happened even when I was thin and fit. There is some internal physiological switch that turns off when I run. 20 steps, not more, and I begin to feel dizzy. 20 more steps and my jaws begin to hurt. 20 more steps, and I see things getting blacker in front of me. I don’t live to see the next 20 steps. I keel over and collapse on the ground. The bottom line is, I can do sustained moderate workout for an hour or two, but I cannot run for more than 50 steps. My system shuts down and even before I know, I have fainted.

Back to my post, gym has never happened to me on a regular basis for more than 3 days in a row. Then thanks to Facebook, I learned that there was something called Zumba. I had never heard the word before, and it sounded like an African reptile to me. I looked it up and learned that it was a dance class. No matter how unprepared I am for the gym, dancing runs in my veins. I don’t mean the elite ballet or the classical Kathak. I mean dance. Plain, simple, Jeetendra and Mithun da moves that happen in your head when you listen to music. Nothing trained, nothing practiced. My mother still takes great pride in recounting a particular childhood incident back from 1988 when my uncle was getting married. On a hot, June morning in Kolkata, no one was sitting at the wedding pandal except an old relative snoozing, and me being the only other person dancing away to glory to the songs of Disco Dancer and Ek Aankh Maaron. My father had reprimanded me for such, like he calls it, crass, un-lady like nautanki in bad taste, but my mother had beamed in pride. She just realized that I had something rare that no one else had in the family- the dancing genes.

When I read about Zumba, I knew I had to try it. I was not in shape, I was not fit, but it had to start sometime. However, nothing had prepared me for the level of pain I was about to put myself through. I enrolled for classes at the gym, took this opportunity to shop some more on the pretext of buying gym clothes and shoes, and I was there all prim and proper for my first Zumba class. The music began. The dancers warmed up. Then, it all happened. For the last one month, I have spent my evenings doing every kind of move that can be interpreted as domestic activity. Wiping floors in a circle in the air. Kick starting an old motorcycle. Riding an imaginary horse. Gyrating my hips as if I was the flour grinder of an Idli making machine. Starting a manual diesel generator during a power outage. Milking a cow while half bent on my haunches. Sweeping the floor hopping on one leg. Flying a kite. Vibrating as if I have been electrocuted. I have shaken my hips like Govinda. I have jumped and done acrobatics like Karisma Kapoor did in her movies from the 1990s. They made me shake my belly as if I was a mixer grinder or the belly dancer in Mehbooba O Mehbooba. They made me shake my hips as if I was one of those extras dancing to the song “Gutar Gutar” or “Jhopdi Mein Charpai”. I have felt red thinking of the consequences if any respectable member of my species saw me doing such obnoxiously hilarious moves. I have felt like a dancer from the song Appadi Podu or Yammadi Athaadi. I have been stripped of all my dignity. I am a venerable scientist in the making who secretly shakes her hips and booty in the evenings in so hilarious a way that the scientific society would disown her if they were to see her thus.

It has been an extremely painful process, shaking all that lard, just because there is so much to shake. When you have a qamra (room) in the name of a qamar (hip), the moves never go right, no matter how much you try to gyrate to it. They often ask me to defy gravitation and half bend like a frog while I do my moves. It kills my thighs and my calves. They make me hop like a squirrel. They make me jump on one foot as if I was weightless. Sometimes I am Govinda, shaking my well-endowed unmentionables. Sometimes I am Jeetendra (sans the white shoes, white trousers, and white shirts), kick starting an invisible scooter. Sometimes I am a Punjabi frog, leaping, jumping, and doing Bhangra. Sometimes I am a cricketer who leaps for the ball to prevent it from hitting the boundaries, knowing that there is no ball. Sometimes I am that mixer and grinder you use to make dosa batter. Sometimes I am that woman in labor who gets on her fours and kicks and writhes in pain. Sometimes I pant like an asthma patient, clutching on to my chest and heaving in rhythm to Dhak Dhak Karne Lagaa. If nothing, sometimes I am an overweight baby on my haunches, crawling. My ribs hurt as if someone has hammered the life out of them. My belly muscles, well hidden under layers of adipose, hurt as if someone has wrung the life out of them. My thighs cramp as if a dozen ungulates have stomped over me. My booty hurts as if the last 9:45 pm Amtrack train has just run over it. I hurt in places where I did not know there were places. Even the enervated adipose tissue in my body screams in rebellion, it hurts so much (body parts without nerves are not supposed to have the sensation of pain though).

Then why do I do it, you must be wondering. Because no matter how much you dread the physical pain, there is something addictive about loud music playing and you dancing to its beats. Only a person who enjoys dancing will identify with this feeling. After sometime, you numb yourself to the pain. You pant like a dog, you sweat like a pig, you palpitate like an asthmatic, you feel on the verge of having a heart attack, and you love the feeling. Some people attribute it to endorphins and pheromones releasing in the blood stream that makes you feel sexier. Some people attribute it to narcissism, looking at yourself in the mirror, tight hugging gym clothes and all, and you love it. Some make fun comparing it to role playing- playing the role of a mixer grinder, a washing machine, and a broom. I attribute it to a feeling akin to falling in love. You feel energetic, you feel light-footed, you run around as if you own the world, everything around you looks rosy and romantic, and you cannot wait to do this thing that you absolutely love- Dance.

Whatever it is, it gets you addicted. I started with visiting twice a week. It went up to four times a week. This is a lot, given that I am enrolled in many classes and am expected to churn out a lot of quality research work. Then I travel, do photography, and watch movies. I write blogs, and visit friends every now and then. I even do groceries and cook my food most of the time. I sleep as well, sometimes in classes, and other times, at night. This leaves me with almost no time at the end of the day. Yet I feel strange withdrawal symptoms when I skip my Zumba classes. I get cranky and unproductive, and keep doing the dance moves in my head. Those 60 minutes of class is sheer physical torture, and at the end of it, I come home and collapse, unable to walk without a limp. And this is exactly what addiction is. I am no better than a smoker or a person who does pot. I don’t care how it makes me feel, but I have to do it, else I am very cranky and unproductive. The high I get at the end of a strenuous workout, oh my God, makes me feel like I can jump, fly, levitate, conquer the world, and even escape gravity and fly off in space. I don’t know how much weight I am going to lose at the end of this, but I am surely going to end up as one hell of a weirdo who does Govinda somersaults and invisible sweeping steps when no one is looking, and feels great about it.

The grinding, mixing, blending, churning, and sweeping continues……

sunshine

Added as an afterthought: I don't do these Bollywood numbers I mentioned, these were comparisons merely borne out of my fertile imagination. If interested, check out these two songs that are particularly favorites of mine from the Zumba class:

Song 1 and Song 2