That deadly concoction of motherly love!

One of the big, big things about living in desh (country) is that I am only one short, direct-flight away from baadi (home). Given the law of averages, this had to happen after 12 years of hopping trans-continental flights for 36 hours and going through multiple immigration and security checks. I have visited home about ten times in less than a year now, and every time, I come back with bags full of cooked food that lasts me a few weeks. If you ever want to know what you could and should not bring in an airplane, ask me! But more on that later.

This time, I came back from a crazy mom slaving in the kitchen for days to cook up a feast-to-go and running after me to take it all. My Aviation-IQ went up after a comically dark stint with the mango, and if there is one piece of advice I could give, it is to NEVER take aam pora’r shorbot concentrate (raw mango concentrate) in an airplane.

Amid a crazy morning after momma and grandma painstakingly packed me food for an army, she looked at me with puppy-eyes to take that raw mango concentrate that I was resisting, the one she had prepared with a lot of love and spices (pepper powder, mint, and a gazillion other things). I was arguing that I will not carry anything in a yellow water bottle with something she made to shield me from the 45 degree Celsius weather and prevent me from getting heat strokes. I have extremely low karma ratings as far as being a nice child is concerned, so I finally gave up.

I don’t know all the chemistry that went into whatever happened, but that bottle passed airport security miraculously. That same bottle would have led to a 3-hour long interrogation in a dark room in the US, leading up to them labeling me a budding terrorist and denying me entry for the rest of my life. But I digress here.

I boarded the plane and settled in with a rather steamy novel that I was going to read in the next few hours. As I was stuffing my backpack in the overhead bin, something prompted me to take that bottle out, lest it leaks. I imagined everything that could go wrong, and the worst circumstance that came to my rather unimaginative mind was a loose lid and spillage. I placed that bottle in between my feet while the airplane took off.

I knew there was a pop-sound as soon as we were airborne, but I thought it was someone goofing around and recklessly popping open a can of soda. Looking back at life in slow motion, most things often make perfect sense. Within the next 5 minutes, just when Jack was about to kiss Stella after 2 months of abstinence following a one-night stand, there was a louder pop-sound. This time, I looked below, and to my horror, the bottle had popped open with enough pressure to spit raw mango pulp all over my white clothes. An onlooker would have wondered how scared I was of flying that I could shit all over myself publicly in the middle of the day, the one of the semi-liquid kind, with telltale signs of the yellow spillage all over me.

I rushed to the restroom, the bottle in hand. It broke my heart to throw it in the trashcan, but I could not have salvaged it. I spent the next 20 minutes wiping the yellow goo off my clothes and sat through the rest of the plane ride shivering from wearing wet clothes as well as getting dirty, judgmental looks from the passengers. The swag with which I had entered the aircraft was all gone. I sat nervously like a mouse for the rest of the ride, praying that I do not hear another loud pop-sound from the restroom with some poor soul inside freaking out with their pants half-on and the pilot rerouting the airplane because there was yellow goo all over the ceiling.

Looking back, I can see why it was a bad idea to bring something that releases gas in a pressurized cabin. Mom does not fly, but I do. The rest of me and my food made it safe, and in case you are dying to know, it had chicken curry with posto, jhinge posto, potol posto, uchche bhaja, lau er torkari, lichu, jamrul, ruti, half-a-dozen gondhoraaj lebu, and even the bhaja jeere moshla for the mango drink. All this because I have a crazy mom who gets powered up listening to stories of people carrying things like ghee made out of barir gorur doodh (unadulterated milk from a cow someone keeps in their home), kilos of maach bhaja, and dhoka’r dalna, and tries to outshine them!

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Country Rap

Have you noticed how Bengali expats who congregate with other Bengali expats at the airport and bond while bitching about how India will never improve usually share certain common attributes?

One, they usually wear GAP or Nike clothing.

Two, the farther they get from the US (or the closer they get to India), the louder their rants get. They might not be as vocal in Houston or Seattle but will be very loud in Dubai. Perhaps the humid Dubai air makes them realize that shit is about to get real in a few hours.

Three, the rants are always, always in English. Ninde korar belaye accent diye Ingriji.

Based on what people say, it is easy to predict who is who.

"Ayi saala suorer bachcha plane ta deri koralo" -- A Bengali from India.

"Can't believe nothing runs on time. It's always sooo hard to get things done in India. This country will never improve" -- naak oonchoo expat whose patriotism is confined to missing and discussing aam jaam lichu tyangra lyangra on Facebook but dreads every moment of their trip to India. 

A curious spectator (sunshine).

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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My husband’s wife

Once in a while, I see a glimpse of human nature that broadens my horizon about the endless possibilities of human relationships. As I read a very interesting book, I am beginning to understand why concepts such as "one and only" and "happily forever after," concepts mostly in the human imagination have been persistently fed over generations. The idea of a husband and wife and two happy children playing on the lawn with the pets to make a perfect family. More on that book later.

I asked a colleague if she has plans for the weekend. She smiled happily and told me that she is organizing a birthday party for her husband's first wife and both are spending the weekend together with all the kids. I don't know why I heard husband but thought father, my social programming perhaps, but I embarrassed myself by asking, "Your step-mom?"

She was amused. She corrected me, "My husband's first wife, not my father's."

Wow. It takes a certain mindset and maturity, a certain degree of evolution and acceptance to be friends with your husband's ex-wife and plan her birthday. Most people I know in this awkward triangle would be ready to kill each other, and understandably so. I imagined a hypothetical situation of hanging out with my husband's wife (I don't know if I would want to be the second one or the first one if it came to that). Honestly, I don't know.  

I applaud people who can willingly be friends in complex relationships that might have involved anger, jealousy, hatred, and tears at some point. Especially because the husband, the binding agent in this case passed last year. So this birthday planning was obviously not coming from a place of compulsion.

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The art of saying “no”

I don't read through emails word-by-word, I skim through them unless they are really important or come from someone important. I get close to 150 emails a day from all kinds of people. Colleagues. University emails. Professional society emails. Urgent emails. Useless emails. Journal editors asking for reviews. Publishers trying to sell me their products that I will never buy. Survey requests. Scams. Phishing emails. Hapless students from abroad who tell me their GRE scores and ask where they should apply and whether they should study fisheries or pharmacokinetics (how am I supposed to know?). Random faculty from China self-inviting themselves as visiting scholars to my university and assuring me they would return the favor if I ever want to visit China. Unfortunate spouses who moved to the US allured by the promised greener pasture and after seeing only snowy pastures, email to ask me of their future prospects (Irony! Little do they know that I am still figuring out my future prospects in this country after all these years!). I skim emails because it is a necessary practice to save time. 

Acceptance emails/notifications are short and sweet. They start with the word, "Congratulations!" The message is delivered, loud and clear, without wasting my time. 

Rejection emails/notifications somehow become all about the person who rejected me. There are two paragraphs about how the selection process was daunting, challenging and how they had to skim through hundreds of great applications to select the best. The outcome is like a hidden gem, I am still on paragraph three and trying to understand what was the outcome of my application. Well, tell me you did not select me and move on. You do not have to make this email a sob saga about you. I have plenty of other things to do, other opportunities to apply for, and all I want to know is the outcome before I move on. I do not care how many applications you had to read. All I care about is I did not make the cut.

Effective communication is an art. Be objective, be succinct, and be precise. Tell me what you are trying to tell me in the first line. Don't make it about you. It is just an award, a paper, a grant, and not the end of the world.  

sunshine

A related post I wrote: I know it’s a no, but I don’t know why

Thank you for showing up

I rarely eat out these days. I love the discipline cooking at home brings in my life. But once in a while, the craving gets the better of me.

I had been daydreaming about Ethiopian food for a while, and after subduing it for a week, I ended up at the only Ethiopian place I knew in town. I had only been there twice before, with friends, and had loved their lamb preparation. This time, I was on my own.

When I showed up at 5:30 pm, the place was fairly empty barring a few tables that were occupied. Yet, my server looked around uncomfortably, wondering where to seat me. I looked around too, noticing tables for four and two. I asked if I could sit at a particular corner for a table for two. My server hesitated, asking if I could grab one of the tables outside the restaurant. It was a public corridor inside an indoor mall, and a fairly busy one too. I did not want to eat in the middle of a thoroughfare. Hence I politely declined, asking if I could sit inside the restaurant. So she found a corner and asked me if I could sit there. That corner did not have tables and chairs, only stools. One would have to stoop and eat unless one was sitting on the floor (which was not an option they provided). It did not look like a comfortable spot. I asked her what the matter was since so many tables were empty. She said that there was a major concert nearby starting at 7:30 pm and she was expecting a lot of people to show up for dinner before that. She did not want me to hold on to the tables for two and four.

I told her that I was on my own and I was going to eat quickly and leave since I was going back to work. I would not be lingering around. I had even looked up the menu online before I arrived and was ready to order right then. She did not look convinced and reluctantly gave me the spot of my choice before disappearing inside the kitchen.

I had barely settled in my chair for two minutes, placing my heavy backpack by me when the owner showed up. She told me the same thing, only more authoritatively. People would be crowding up for dinner soon, and I should choose that corner they were offering with stools instead of where I was sitting. I did not want to argue, I was hungry and was already beginning to feel humiliated. This place was bang opposite to the direction of my home and I had changed two buses to get there. All I wanted was a quick dinner before moving on with my life. Reluctantly, I dragged myself and my backpack out of our spots and took the seat she gave me. My hunch was right, the stools were uncomfortable, the food table was lower (not higher) than the stool and one needed to bend at a weird angle while eating.

I did finish my meal as quickly as I had promised but lingered for a while to see if the fictitious crowd showed up. However, I already knew the answer to that. Yes, there was some inflow and outflow of people. However, just like when I had entered, most of the tables remained empty. Instinctively, I always knew this is what would happen. When my server came with my bill, I told her the same. She smiled at me sheepishly and disappeared inside the kitchen.

This episode made me reflect on an aspect of human behavior I have seen many times- an attachment to the perceived idea of everyone showing up at the cost of failing to respect those who actually showed up. This is not the first time that I was witnessing it. How many times have we seen the host of a party constantly calling those who haven’t made it rather than spending time with those who actually did? Or someone planning a trip and then constantly sending reminders to those who do not want to join the trip rather than planning with those who said yes? Guess what? Those who did not RSVP or reply to that email or haven’t yet shown up at the party on time are not likely to. Yet, people remain attached to the idea of larger crowds, full attendance, filled up rooms, sold out shows, large numbers as an indication of success. When a meeting where only 10 people showed up is delayed by 5 minutes because the others did not, we actually waste 50 cumulative minutes. It doesn’t matter how many did not show up. The time you waste waiting belongs to those who showed up and not to those who did not.

The moment my server got nervous and told me that the restaurant would soon start to fill up, I instinctively knew that it would not fill up (not that I wanted it that way), not at least until I left. But she was attached to the idea of seeing a full restaurant, rather than taking care of that one person who actually showed up. I have been recently planning a trip and on asking four people, only one of them said yes. So I thanked the other three and started making plans with the one who said yes. Yes, a group of five would have been great. Actually, no. There is no evidence that a group of five would be great. It is my attachment to the idea that a group of five will make a great trip. In this case, only two of us traveling will make a great trip, because both of us are willing and invested in the trip. It does not mean that the five of us will not have an awesome trip in the future. Just not this time.

Businesses suffer. Relationships suffer. Families suffer. All because of the single-minded attachment to a larger crowd showing up (indicating greater perceived success) than being thankful to those who actually showed up. The inability to let go of what has slipped from the hand than holding on to what is still in hand. Think about how happy a customer I’d be had they let me sit properly to enjoy my meal, the one meal I was eating outside after months. Yet we continue to pine for those who did not show up rather than honor those who actually did.

When I paid for my meal before walking out of a still empty restaurant, this is what I wrote on the merchant’s copy of the receipt- “I wish you’d let me sit more comfortably and enjoy my meal.”

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Love is color blind

A grandma was fondly showing me pictures of her newborn grandson.

A professor grandma. A researcher grandma. A grandma who has spent many years working on feminism. Black history. Black feminism. 

I don't even know half the names of Black writers and activists she talks about. Excited, I scribble down the names. I am going to look them all up.

Between such conversations, grandma fondly shows me more pictures of her newborn grandson.

I am willing to overlook the fact that she just reiterated, rather unnecessarily, that her grandson is a US citizen. Others do it too, the ones who need constant validation that they fit in, but she is different. She is a professor grandma. She has somehow earned my respect. No human is without biases. I have mine too. 

And then, the unthinkable happens.

She says, "Look at my grandson. He has different colored hair than all of us. Since he was born in the US, he has brown hair. Isn't that amazing?"

My make-believe world of role modeling professor grandma comes crashing down. I look closer at the picture. Not a wisp of brown hair. I also happen to know the parents. Not a wisp of brown hair from there either. Is it my ageing eyesight? I wonder what other strange ideas brew in grandma's imagination. Grandma does not live in the US by the way. Grandma lives in Kolkata. Is love that "color blind"?

Genetics died a mocking death that day.

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Sans Antonio, not sans love

San Antonio, Texas.

I shut the alarm at 5:30 am and went back to sleep again, getting late for day one of the conference. When I finally left the hotel at 7:30 am, I looked like a mess, feeling as if a train rode over me. I had to attend an award ceremony and looked like I was going to be late for my own ceremony. It was a bad start to an important day.

However, my 64-year-old Uber driver showed up looking like a total diva. She wore a cute flower hat and had other floral hats and decorative paraphernalia in the car. There was a carnival going on and she was returning to work after a night of revelry. When I complimented her about how cute she looked, she even got off the car and posed for me before writing me her number, in case I needed a cab again. A true diva she is. I named my Uber driver the flower lady. She had brightened my morning on my first day in San Antonio.

Some of you also know about my love for biryani. Whenever I visit a new city, the first thing I Google is [name of the city + good biryani]. I did find one restaurant with good reviews, but the trip involved three bus changes and an hour and half of a ride one-way. It was 15 miles away. So I let go. Looks like I was not going to have my biryani in San Antonio.

But then, I was texting the flower lady's pictures to her, since she had scribbled her number, in case I needed a ride again. That is when I had an impulsive idea. I did not want to eat my biryani alone. I asked if she likes Indian food and she said she had never eaten Indian food before. So I asked if she would like to join me for a meal, and she readily agreed, much to my surprise (we are complete strangers, we only know each other's names). She even asked me if I would wear a dress or trousers. When I said that I did not bring a dress since this is a conference, she said that she will also wear trousers, like me.

"Why?" I asked.

"It's a girls' outing. I love to wear dresses for an outing, but I want to wear what you will wear."

I found her adorable.

So we met up on one of my freer afternoons. She picked me from my Airbnb and gave me a flowery headband that she had handmade for me. We went to the restaurant, I had my biryani (it was quite good) and packed some back, she had her first Indian food, we chatted for many hours, and she dropped me back home. We even wore our flowery headbands at the restaurant. I did not know that I had so much to talk to a 64 year old Spanish-speaking lady I have nothing in common with. By the way, she wears an Apple watch, and was getting her phone calls on her wrist. I've never seen a more fashionable and tech-savvy dida/diva. Dida is grandma in Bangla.

It feels good, having that human connection in a stranger city, someone to share your meals with. She offered to drop me at the airport when I was leaving town. While leaving, she said, "Take care. Maybe we will meet in Vegas again."

I wanted to wear the flowery headband for my conference talks.  

I got a ride, I got great company, I got my biryani, and I got a headband too. It's a win-win-win-win situation. 

A few days later, she took off from work to drop me to the airport. She refused to activate the Uber meter and did not take any money. At the airport, she took my address so that she can write me hand-written letters. And she got on her tip toes and planted two kisses on my cheek before driving away.

There is something about sunny places. I think it makes people way more nice, warm and friendly.

On that note, if you could live anywhere in the US, where would you live? Other than Seattle, I would live in Puerto Rico. It is truly my kind of place.

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(Py)airport Drama

Every time I land in Kolkata, something funny happens within the first 30 minutes. This time was no exception.

I had a seat at the very back of the aircraft. By the time I got off the airplane and stood in the long, serpentine immigration line, I realized that I was among the last few to stand in line. It didn't escape me that US or Kolkata, I always get to stand in the longer line. The line for immigrants like me is usually longer than those of US citizens and permanent residents, just like the line for Indian citizens is much longer in Kolkata. Anyway, I was tired, disoriented, and could not wait to be done. I had been traveling for the last 30 hours, mostly over the North Pole and parts of Russia, which meant that I had only seen daylight in those 30 hours. I could barely stand straight.

When my turn came, a young guy at the counter asked to see my passport. He barked, in a rather gruff and rude voice, "Passport dikhaiye." (Show me your passport, in Hindi).

One, I was a little put off by hearing Hindi (and not Bangla) in Kolkata, and two, I was a little confused about how to address him. In the US, one usually starts a conversation with a polite, "Hi, how is it going?"

Without thinking, I translated it and asked, "Bhalo achen to?" (Are you doing well?)

What happened next was unbelievable. You see, I had no interest in knowing how the guy was doing, I was merely being polite. But I had forgotten that cues of politeness vary across societies. In India, (usually) no girl smiles at a stranger and asks how he is doing. People get down to business without spending time on niceties.

Holy rangoli, the man actually blushed 50 shades of pink and purple. He avoided further eye contact, grinned like a monkey, and started shuffling uncomfortably in his seat and staring at his crotch while fiddling with my passport. He almost looked like I had married him recently and he was the coy bride. With utmost care, he stamped my passport and handed it back to me, nodding slightly, a nod that probably meant, "You stay well too!" He barely managed a whisper while asking me, "Aapni Dubai te thaken?" Do you live in Dubai?

"Na, US e," I replied, before taking back my passport and walking away. I have no idea why the gruff, Hindi-speaking guy was suddenly cooing and blushing and making small talk. My only explanation is, no stranger chick had ever asked him "Bhalo achen to?" (Are you doing well?) with a smile before. 

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Mother tongue speaks the loudest

The sign outside my office door has my name written in English and my mother tongue, Bangla. This creates quite a stir in the busy hallway with students, teachers, faculty, and other people walking around.

At the least, people stop and take a close look before walking away.

And some stop to tell me how beautiful it looks, asking me what language it is.

Some keep the conversation going, wanting to know more about the place I come from.

And some come inside my office, wanting to know what their name looks like in Bangla. They always leave my office very excited at having seen their name written in a foreign language.

This has sparked many a long, important discussions, about the history of languages, language politics, the brain of those who speak multiple languages, colonization of the English language around the world, diversity and immigrant power, and so on.

Some people are so inspired that they want their names written in Bangla too, just like mine. Because it's not fair that they can speak and write only in English whereas I have the advantage of flaunting my knowledge in multiple languages.

Of course, I did not plan any of this. All I have wanted for the longest time is to have my own office one day, and have my name written in my mother tongue along with English. And so I did, sparking so many joyful, interesting, and important conversations in the process. I know so many more people in the building now, just because they stop by to read my name, introduce themselves, and ask me to write their names in Bangla too. And that is the power of the human connection.

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Kon-Maring My Facebook

Of late, Kon-Maring my Facebook feed is the best thing that I have done for myself. As clichéd as this complaint sounds, I was being inundated with life-changing updates from people Facebook has bestowed celebrity status upon, updates I did not care to know about. I tried a couple of approaches of weeding these updates out, but like weeds, they kept growing and coming back, haunting me and showing me how meaningless and devoid of color my life was. Finally, I found my way out of this maze from the public propaganda of private matters.

Why was this important?

Unwanted information on Facebook is of two kinds.

I. Fast poison: News of violence, death, rape, murder, and the millions of opinions surrounding it from people who have no stake in it. Terrorism in Kashmir. Irom Sharmila Chanu’s fasting and the AFSPA. The outrage caused by Trump. Gun violence in the US. Terrorism in Europe. And the millions of discussions surrounding it that at the core level spark nothing more useful than anger, fear, sadness, and apathy.

Newspapers were meant to inform people. Now with Facebook, everyone had a voice, and everyone wanted to talk about what they thought of what they read. Looks like it doesn’t take much to outrage people either. Why is everyone looking for the recent Olympic medalist’s caste? Why are Indians not winning medals at the Olympics to begin with? My response would be why do you care about people looking at castes? Or why are you outraged by India’s Olympic performance when chances are high that you have never trained for one yourself? Why do you have to take every piece of information you read like a pile of shit and fling it around for others to smell on Facebook? Why do you need to engage with everything?

Friendships are put to test under the weight of political stances, armchair activism and people’s inability to respect differing or alternative opinions. In short, these things poison you fast.

II. Slow poison: Things I do not really need to know about. What you ate. What color lipstick you wore. How frequently your baby pooped. How Twinkle Khanna lashed out on Naseeruddin Shah and Karan Johar followed suit. What Shobha De said about India’s performance in the Olympics. Motherhood dare. Black and white challenge. Sari and ghagra challenge. How much shit I can spread around challenge. People engage. People bicker and argue. And people keep stoking the fire.

I was beginning to feel a growing sense of claustrophobia in this virtual space. Earlier this month, I turned 35, and now see more grey hair on my head than I have ever seen before. I am probably past half my time here, and still have so many things to experience. Is this what I am meant to read every morning? The brain-excreta of 900-odd people I had accrued as “friends” at some point? I have the right to shut-out information, just like I have the right to seek-out information. My wall was beginning to look like a battleground, and sometimes, an excreta-ground. Everyone had opinions. No matter how neutral I tried to keep it, everyone wanted to tell me how they disagree. I knew that it was time for me to disengage. My brain has a limited ability to soak up information, and I was done with this he-said-she-said and they-did-they-didn’t spatter of words. I wanted to read things that are more calming, creative, and uplifting.

What I was doing wrong?

I disappeared from Facebook once in a while, but kept coming back as it felt lonely. It’s a lot like dieting to lose weight. If you suddenly give up on food, you will only come back to binge before you know. Then, I started to weed out people. People I did not know. People I have never met. People I am not likely to meet. People I have not spoken in five years or so. But that only took me so far, bringing down the number close to 800.

Then, I started selectively “unfollowing” people whose updates were toxic. I recognized strange patterns in people’s behavior. Some only posted close up images of the makeup they wore. Some only shared news of shooting and violence. Some only spoke in numbers. Published five papers in six months. Ate nine kinds of starters in two hours. Traveling my seventeenth country. Visiting the ninth national park. Giving my eighth talk this year. Wearing my twenty fifth sari. Did ninety pushups at the gym today (hashtag loveyourbody). This quantification of achievements was perhaps coming from a place of lower self-esteem, where one constantly needed to validate one’s awesome life in front of an audience. I am guilty of doing the same at some point too. The yearly memories on Facebook make me cringe when I look back at what I used to write three or four years ago. Looking at others doing it made it more obvious. I unfollowed a 100-odd people who wrote the most toxic posts. However, it still wasn’t making me feel better.

What I did right?

One day, I woke up and knew exactly what I was doing wrong. I finally found the right way of culling through the clutter. Instead of unfollowing people who wrote toxic things and keeping the rest, I decided to do just the opposite. I unfollowed everyone by default, only keeping those whose posts I really cared about, posts that "sparked joy" like Marie Kondo writes in her book. Instead of making this a process of elimination, I made it a process of selection. And that changed everything. I started to unfollow people unapologetically, even my close friends, and soon, more than 90% of the people were gone. But I did not stop at that. I “unliked” most photography pages, food blog websites, and other random local community pages like “Durga Puja in the USA”, “Tulip festival in Seattle” and “Bengalis abroad.” Now, I only get updates from some 50-odd people I really care about, and a handful of other websites such as the HONY, NPR, Brain Pickings, TED, and Upworthy. Individually unfollowing some 750 people was hard, but a little bit of Googling helped. Looks like Facebook has a feature where you can mass unfollow people.

How did that change things?

Now, I don’t have to start my day scrolling through anniversary pictures, birthday cake recipes, silly kid videos, and restaurant and movie check-ins. What I read doesn’t elevate my blood pressure. I don’t have to be a shuttlecock in heated arguments and discussions. Power to you for hiking Peru on your wedding anniversary and taking 4,000 odd pictures, but I don’t have to be forced into looking at them now when I have a paper deadline in two days. It doesn’t mean I do not care for you or do not wish you well. It just means that I choose not to know every little detail going on in your life.

Since we act as mirrors to the society around us, my own posting on Facebook has also gone down. I don’t feel a compelling need to share everything I read that inspires me. I go to bed on time and get my full 7-8 hours of sleep (there is only so much scrolling one can do). I am reading more books. I am watching more interesting videos and TED talks. I am reading more research papers on my areas of interest. I am beginning to think of new research ideas. I am looking for research collaborations in Asia. I have a lot to fill up my time meaningfully and even if I did not, I do not have to be a slave to your colorful and scintillating updates that sometimes borders around narcissistic posts of your travels or your child winning a handwriting competition. I can always follow you back someday or look you up if I feel the need to. But if you cannot keep me engaged in a good way, I do not need to engage in your life’s drama anymore.

Adopting the process of mass-unfollowing changed what I do with my time. Let me know if you have other time-tested creative ideas of disengaging from things that surround you but do not matter. 

sunshine

A post in questions

Whatever you are doing right now, pause for a moment to sit back and think of this question.

“What would you do if the biggest problem plaguing your life right now is taken care of right away?”

The problem could be anything, but had to the biggest one in your life right now. What if you got the job you wanted in the city you wanted as well? What if your ailing child suffering from autism is miraculously cured? What if you found the person after waiting in loneliness for years? What if you got into Harvard Medical School? What if you got pregnant after years of trying? What if after being estranged for years, you and your partner got together? What if all your financial worries are taken care of?

In short, what if that one biggest thing worrying you right now is solved? How would your life look like from tomorrow? Would you go back to living a carefree, cheerful, fearless life just the way you wanted it? Would you start doing the things you promised you would when your worries are taken care of? Or like fluids, would the rest of the worries occupy the empty space in your life now?

I am not asking this question to the readers as much as I am asking it to myself. I wonder if I might temporarily start lacking a purpose, a direction in life if my biggest worry for the moment is taken care of.

sunshine

Cab and Gab

The older I grow, the more I become like my parents.

Back in Calcutta, whenever we went out as a family and took a cab, my dad would always hop in the front and start chatting with the cab driver, totally ignoring the rest of us. The rest of us would sit back bored and clueless. This was routine. While mom and sister and I loved hanging out with each other, my dad loved hanging out with the driver. We always wondered how come he had so much to talk to with every cab driver he met. With those who migrated from Bihar, he would start talking in Bhojpuri, and the conversation between long lost friends would never end. My mother, usually feeling ignored, would try giving subtle, sarcastic hints about the newly found member of the family. Dad would cleverly ignore all the hints. 

And now, every time I take a cab (which I did a lot during my recent trip to the US since I do not drive anymore), I somehow found myself chatting up with every cab driver. Inconsequential conversations about what they like about their city, how long they have been doing this, why they do what they do, and what interesting things they see on the streets everyday. It's not that we exchange phone numbers and become Facebook friends, the conversation ends every time I get off the cab. Talking doesn't even come to me very naturally. But when you are in a vehicle with a stranger, it only makes sense to talk. The conversations are interesting all the more because these are short-lived, with someone whose life is poles apart compared to mine, someone I am never meeting again. I wonder what my dad would say to that, other than, don't talk to strangers when you are alone. 

If I had a job where I had to take the cab every day, I would write a little book about all my conversations with the cab drivers.

sunshine

Questioning the mass tags

"Thanks Bogola Kanti Basu for nominating me. Let's start a game. I am an Indian gentleman and I love to wear lungis. I love lungis. Silky, flowing lungis touching my skin in fifty shades of colors, giving me a taste of freedom, liberating me and making me feel twice the man that I am. I am tagging some of those men who I think look excellent in lungis. I would request them to post their pictures in lungis and nominate/tag some of their man friends to post their pics in lungis and nominate others. Thus we would carry on the game. You can tag me also if you wish. Please copy-paste the text on your timeline along with your photo. It is not mandatory to play, but I shall be happy if you join. Come on dashing gentlemen, just do it."

The "instruction manual"-like tone of this post aside, this is what gender equity looks like when we talk of awards and nominations and playing tag on Facebook. It's a different story that I have never known a man who would start a thread like this.

In school, I never understood why (many) girls always went to restrooms in groups and giggled there. I need my privacy and the last thing I want is company in the restroom. And now, I don't understand why it is mostly women who indulge in these herd-based self-glorifying tag ceremonies. Sari wearing tags. Motherhood tags. Single women tags. Handbag tags. Wearing a sari is great, and so is being a mom. Why glorify it into a narcissistic obsession of elevating it to a mass-level ceremony? This probably stems from a deep-rooted conditioning (most) women have, where they derive their worth from how they look- the clothes and jewelry they wear (even modern women with careers), the makeup they put and the way they raise their children. I use the word “they” and not "we" on purpose, since I do not identify with them. What is the need for playing tag anyway? And why do men never do it (unless it involves pouring ice cold water on yourself)? Book-reading and movie tags are still useful since I get to know about new books and movies at the end of the day. But why should I care about the saris you wore and the makeup you used?

On a similar note, far more women post pictures of their wedding and continue to do so than men. I am not talking about the outliers. And none of the tags going viral involve career achievements, incidents of personal courage, or overcoming a disability. I wonder why?

sunshine

Black and White

Please share widely

A derogatory picture from children’s textbook depicting “beautiful and ugly” is being circulated widely and has been the topic for a heated discussion. A few things come to mind as I look at this picture that transcends the skin color divide.

1. “Beautiful” means light-skinned and “ugly” means dark-skinned.

2. “Beautiful” means wearing jewelry and “ugly” means the lack of jewelry.

3. “Beautiful” means having blonde hair and “ugly” means having dark hair. What people from the Indian subcontinent have blonde hair? This basically means “beautiful” is Caucasian/White.

4. “Beautiful” means some fancy dress and “ugly” means wearing a sari.

5. “Beautiful” means being rich, probably upper caste and “ugly” means being poor, probably lower caste and doing menial jobs.

I am not sure if I missed any other messages. First, why do we need to teach the concept of beauty and ugliness to children, especially using living examples? A pile of garbage is ugly. The devastation after a war is ugly. But people? Children pick on these cues very early, and now, this picture reinforces so many stereotypes, blatantly showing the aspiration of people from the subcontinent to look like a White person. Long before the evils done by the film industry or the skin care industry, beauty standards were set by the colonizers. We lost our souls and pride to them long back. We just did not know it. Why should a “beautiful” woman need to look this way otherwise?

Someone asked me what should be done. This is what I said. Teach the kid. Ban the book(s). Spread the word. Write about it. Detect the publisher of the book. Wage a campaign. Stop using fairness products. Stop reading books and magazines that promote these values. Stop dressing your children like Elsa and Anna and White queens and princesses because they are eventually going to grow up with identity crisis. Be mindful of the language used in matrimonial ads and boycott ads that promote discrimination based on skin color. Stop aspiring for a light-skinned daughter/son-in-law. The possibilities are as endless as our imaginations and our intentions.

sunshine

A random day of my life in Kolkata

Somewhere between pre- and post-2014, my perception of Kolkata changed. Pre-2014, I would visit Kolkata from the USA where I drove a car and was used to a certain individualistic lifestyle. Naturally, ma and I used to spend most of our time arguing over what mode of transportation to take, sullying the joys of going out together. I refused to take the slow-moving rickety buses, the dangerously-driven autos, or even the metro. My ma does not believe in taking cabs, classifying all cab-drivers as kidnappers, and we would often stand at the bus stop arguing about this. She later grew wiser, so instead of arguing, she would suspiciously nod and agree that we should indeed take the cab, admitting that buses these days are not reliable anymore. However, as soon as we reached the main road, she would hop on a slowly oncoming bus, shrugging and telling me that no cabs were in sight. She would be standing on the footrest motioning to me by vigorously flailing her hands, "Chole aaye, chole aaye, taxi paabi na." or "Hop on, you won't find a cab." The thing is, she didn't even wait for 5 minutes for a cab to show up. I see her innocent face and I know that I have been tricked. So now I can either stand my ground in which case ma leaves in a bus and I stay where I am, or give in and take the bus. At this point, the conductor joins her too in screaming and asking me to board the bus, "Chole asun didi chole asun." I give up, take the bus, and see a broad grin of victory on ma's face. "Shona meye amar, ma'er katha shunte hoy." "Good girl, you must listen to mommy." I promise never to travel with her again.

Post-2014, I am older and wiser, somewhat. I now live in Germany and do not drive anymore. I haven't even renewed my driver's license. I take the public transportation all the time. I know that it is convenient, environmentally friendly, inexpensive, and the right thing to do. So as I board my flight to Kolkata, I tell myself that I am only taking the public transportation. No more cabs for me. If I want to see interesting people, I must take the metro. My ma has never been prouder.

So one evening, I decide to meet a friend in the opposite end of the city. Kolkata metro is fast, convenient, and connects the city north to south. But taking the metro involves walking for ten minutes to the main road, taking an auto to the station, walking under the bridge and hope that no flying missiles from moving trains of the nature of used cloth diapers or flying excreta land on me, and then taking the metro. The humidity is killing me, my clothes uncomfortably sticking to me. I haven't even bothered to put on makeup. I was wearing a light rain jacket in June even last week when I was in Germany. And now, my sluggish sweat glands are working overtime. I take the metro and luckily find a seat in the reserved "Ladies" seat. I get busy trying to read a third-grade bestseller highly vouched for by my sister that was written by a celebrity-wife who clearly did not know what to do with her time. I am trying to focus on page 2, giving it a fair shot before judging my sister. I have a long way to go. The train stops at the next station, and I see a woman walking fast out of the corner of my eye. "Chepe bosun, chepe bosun," she instructs everyone sternly. I am hearing this phrase after such a long time. It means please squeeze in a bit to make space for me, and is said twice for added emphasis.

The thing is, obesity has significantly risen in the last decade or so with the Americanization of Kolkata. The booming "shopping mall culture" is a long rant for another day. While I am old-school and more used to being invited home and fed home-cooked food, people these days prefer hanging out at malls, walking aimlessly and looking at overpriced stores, taking selfies and partaking in Subways and McDonald's. Imagine flying all the way to Kolkata to watch people overdose on American junk food with gusto while I crave for two tiny shingaras, kochuris, and some jilipis. And I continue to embarrass myself in more ways than one. Recently, when someone asked, “Acropilos jaabi? Have you been to Acropolis?" (a recently opened mall in the southern fringes of the city that I had no idea about), I proudly beamed, "Gechi to. I was there last month, that is where I lost my passport." Before this Kolkata trip, I only knew of one Acropolis, the original one in Greece.

Back to my metro rant. While eight voluptuous women easily fit in a ladies seat 10 years ago, wriggling babies and hanging bags and all, the same space can now seat seven women, and a mosquito or two. The others look at each other clueless, feigning an act of wiggling themselves to fake an act of making space for the lady. But there is hardly any space left to make. Our warrior lady is getting impatient. So she screams louder, not even bothering to mask the underlying threat in her voice with courtesy. The other women feel perturbed now. However, I decide to play cool, and instead of looking up, continue pretending to read this horrible book where the writer talks about some first-world problem of her driver not showing up on time and she having to take an auto rickshaw. There is some action going on right next to me with some elbowing, rubbing sweaty arms, and muttering expletives. The warrior lady has made some space for herself finally, all of 2 inches that can barely have her touching her bum to the seat. As if on cue, the driver slams the brakes, breaking her inertia and making her real angry. So she walks over to me, and in that little space we had for 2 mosquitoes, she seats herself. What it means is that she is half-sitting on my left thigh now. And if that is not enough, her right hand, all bare and damp in her sleeveless blouse, comes and rubs mine. I immediately forget my book and with electrifying speed, try to shrink myself to half my width, almost wincing at my physical proximity with another sweating individual (with a fiery temper). As if traveling in a stuffy, sweaty metro was not enough, I now have a woman on my lap threatening me with her "Chepe boshun bolchi kintu!" while the metro sways at speed and makes me conjure traumatic images of getting a lap dance. I am repulsed beyond imagination. I try to think of my choices, or whatever remains of them. My book is long forgotten. I look at the woman on my lap, half-sitting on me and refusing to budge. I contemplate telling her, “Chepe boshte parbo na” (I cannot squeeze in, sorry and thank you). However, I don't think I have the courage to do this. Meekly, I obey her and jiggle myself some more, and when that does not work, go stand and offer her my seat. 

After 30 minutes of standing in the crowd, my nose precariously pointed at several armpits jutting from sleeveless blouses women love to wear, I get off the train in one piece, my lap still bearing the traumatic memory of the pseudo lap-dance it had recently received. Thanks to learning yoga for one semester in grad school, I had managed to stop breathing for most of my ride. I still have an auto rickshaw to take before I can reach my destination. I am smelling of 50 shades of sweat, and I do not even know which shade is mine. I try to squeeze myself in the right extreme of the backseat of an auto. However, my ordeal is far from over. A family of man, woman, and child come running, push me aside, and grab the entire last seat of the auto before I realize what is happening. The mustachioed man with a baby face is the first one to get in. Wow! There was a time when chivalrous men used to offer the back seat to women while flanking the driver. People have taken gender equity really seriously these days. So carefully arranging my half-flowing clothes, I seat myself by the auto driver, confident about smelling something new now- perhaps hair oil. In the next twenty minutes, the auto driver becomes a reincarnation of Keanu Reeves from Matrix, squeezing his vehicle in the lanes in between speeding buses and cars, zooming through approaching traffic in T-sections, making me sit even tighter to him, much to my dismay. Given a choice between falling of an auto rickshaw on the road or sitting uncomfortably close to stranger and smelling his hair oil, I prefer the hair oil.

I get off at my destination and try to enter the mall. However, I am stopped by two female security guards who deem it proper to pat my boobs with the metal detector before letting me in. From getting a lap dance to giving one to the auto driver to having my assets patted, my friends will never know the huge price I have just paid to commute from point A to point B. Ever since, I feign a heart attack whenever someone asks me to meet them at a mall during peak traffic. If that does not work, I just tell myself that 5 Euros (my bus fare in Germany everyday) is close to 377.87 Indian rupees. So once in a while, when I am not craving for any sort of adventures on the road, I just take the cab.

sunshine