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).

The lamb shank

A few weeks into my new job took me to my first out-of-town work trip. I was going to stay in a hotel overnight. Being the true researcher than I am, I had looked up a nice place to eat dinner. It had very high ratings, the reviews were stellar, and it was not too far from my hotel. I had even checked the menu beforehand, making sure I knew what I was going to order. I landed all tired, checked in to my hotel, dropped off my bags and headed for dinner.

I ordered the braised lamb shank, skeptical about how tough or tender it would be. I asked the waitress if there will be a bone and she said yes. However, she assured me that separating the meat from the bone will not be an issue. I didn’t quite believe her since I have eaten lamb before, but I went ahead and ordered nevertheless. I didn’t want to create a mess, struggling to use my fork and knife.

And while I was at it, I went ahead and ordered a glass of sangria too. I am not your average alcohol drinker, but I thought that would relax me after a long day. I had spent an entire day at work and then taken the bus for another two hours to get here.

The first sip of sangria sent me spiraling down to Heaven. It instantly relaxed my muscles and made my eyes droopy. I had first tasted sangria earlier this year and loved it. While the cheaper ones were, umm, cheap, the more expensive ones were a gateway to Heaven.

In between, my order of lamb shank arrived, all wonderfully flavorful.

As I put my knife and fork on the meat, ready to cut it, it came out of the bone on its own. It was so well-done that I did not have to struggle with it at all. I spent the next hour or so enjoying the most tender meat I have eaten amid sips of sangria. The meal was very expensive by my standards, and I absolutely knew why.

At some point, the sangria must have hit my head. For I was suddenly engulfed with a sense of guilt. Only a month ago, I was a penurious postdoc. I hardly earned anything. Since I traveled a lot, I traveled on a low budget. I took trains at odd hours like 3 am just to save some money. I made sure that I ate inexpensive food, which was often roadside Turkish food. Although Europe is considered food Heaven, the only time I had eaten at an expensive restaurant was during a Christmas celebration when the department took us out and paid for it. If I was going to be traveling all day, I made sure I was carrying home-cooked food. I ordered the cheapest food, skipping drinks and dessert. I always kept two apples and two bananas in my bag, in case I got very hungry. I realized that I was carrying two bananas in my bag even that day, more out of habit than need. Here I was eating one of the most expensive things on the menu, but still had emergency food in the bag. I even paid a fat tip that day.

The hotel I was staying at was a standard American hotel. It usually means a huge room, a huge television I never watch, a king bed, most of which goes unoccupied, half a dozen pillows never used, half a dozen towels in the bathroom never used, and so on. If you have stayed at one of these standard chain hotels in the US, you will know what I mean. The only noise came from the whirring air conditioning in the room. As I looked out of the window at night, I saw a parking lot, silhouettes of huge cars parked, concrete and cement, and not a soul in sight. This is in complete contrast to the hostels I was staying in even a month ago, sharing my room with travelers all over the globe. I usually had a twin bed and a pillow, and sometimes had to climb ladders to get to my bed. It would be buzzing outside with tourists, local musicians playing live music and what not.

It hit me that day that I will hopefully never have to live in penury again. But that also brought in a feeling of sadness. In the next few weeks, I learnt that money begets money. 

As a postdoc, no one sent me to professional development seminars (that would have helped me find a job sooner), and if I went on my own, I had to pay out of my pocket. As a faculty, not only were they sending me to professional development events, but were also paying for my transportation, food, and hotels (although I can easily afford it now). 

As a postdoc in Europe, I never owned or rented a car, I always took the public transport. Now, if I had to rent a car for work, my university reimburses me. 

I had to buy my own health insurance in Germany. Now, the university pays for my health insurance, although I can afford it. 

I had to buy my monthly bus pass in Germany. Now, the university gives me a free one.

I now have more rights and benefits, although I needed them more as a postdoc. It was a sobering realization, and a sad one too.  The hotel and the expensive food is a nice, kind gesture. But somewhere deep down, beyond this formals wearing faculty lives a poor traveler, happily walking the streets of Europe, eating cheap food, staying in cheap youth hostels, and enjoying live music from streetside performers.

sunshine

Why traveling is a pain?

Please share widely any post you like or identify with because:

1. I am trying to increase my reader-base.

2. I will be launching my first book (It is a travel memoir and I am the editor, more details later) by the end of the year. I could use my blog to spread the word.

3. Remember the short survey you filled out on the right side of this page (you did not?)? A primary data analysis shows that my reader population is very homogenous. All Indians from India/Europe/US between ages 30-40 who never share my posts. I was hoping to have an international readers' base, people from lesser known (or not so lesser known) countries, but none. Not even a German, although I write a lot about Germany. I wish my readership had more diversity.

Now back to today's post-
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Traveling is a human experience, and it has a darker side I seldom write about. I am backpacking for the rest of the week, and it's only been two days. Every day is different- there are good days and there are bad days. I'll just tell you things from this trip.

Traveling alone means being constantly alert about your passport, camera, and valuables, mentally calculating the number of things you have with you all the time.

Traveling means having to figure out maps and directions. Without a car, GPS, or even a phone and relying solely on maps and human beings, especially humans who do not speak your language can be challenging and exhausting. The lady at the ticket counter just told me she understands no English and I just explained to her, solely by drawing and acting, that I need to take the night train to Poland tomorrow and I need a sleeper reservation. Any one information in this gone wrong (Poland, tomorrow, night, sleeper, reservation) can mean trouble.

Traveling means not eating at times, since you are running to catch a train or there is nothing edible in sight. I could eat cardboard right now, I am so hungry, yet too tired to get off my hostel bed and venture out. I am craving meat and carbs, but I am munching on an apple instead.

Traveling means constantly keeping track of changing time zones, currencies, and languages. Keeping track of the Hungarian forint and the Polish zloty and how they compare with the Euro. 1 euro = 320 forints = 4.45 zloty. I've been constantly doing unitary method mental math for the last 2 days now.

Traveling means sometimes getting extremely homesick. When it happens immediately after a Kolkata trip, you don't even know if you are actually missing Kolkata or Germany. It can be pretty confusing. I will never do a yearlong backpacking trip. Homesickness will kill me. Two weeks on the road is my limit.

Traveling alone means going to the bathroom, lugging all your stuff.

Traveling means waking up and taking the trains at odd hours. Or not sleeping at all.

And being wary of cab drivers who fleece you. Or entering the wrong side of the metro with a heavy bag and having to take the stairs all the way again since many old stations have no elevators. The more tired I am, the more I make bad decisions. Under stress, even figuring out your east and west in a new city can be daunting. Not to mention the amount of walking I am doing in the summery heat every day. The sweat, the calluses in the feet, and the constant body pain that comes from waling and carrying heavy bags. Or sleeping in humid rooms since most of Europe does not use air conditioning. When you tell your hostel that you forgot to pack a towel and they charge you a euro, you go like, "really?"

Yet traveling is educational. It needs to happen. Just like getting an education is hard but one cannot escape it, traveling is that way too for me. It imbibes confidence. It builds character. It teaches you to be patient and learn to wait. I was all set to take the 8 am train from Budapest to Bratislava this morning, but my hostel never told me that their reception does not open until 9 am (they had some refundable deposit to return). So I waited, and missed the train, and took the 11:30 am train instead that was jam packed, and now I am all late. Sure, I could lose my temper and spoil the rest of my day. Or just move on.

I was dead tired from exhaustion by the time I reached Bratislava. But when the person at the reception told me that if I can get on a particular bridge, I can see the windmills of Austria at a distance standing on the Slovak side, it filled me with childlike excitement. I do not know why seeing the Austrian windmills should excite me. It just does. Just the way when I discover a random word meaning something totally different (and usually bad) in other languages, I get all excited and pause to take a picture of it.

Traveling under duress is hard. Traveling under time and monetary constraints is extremely stressful. But traveling must happen. For it keeps the brain active, the mind open, the heart loving, and the body fit.

sunshine

The Art of Giving

With time, I have grown disillusioned about the gifts we often give people, and what it means to us or other people. When I was little, there was no trend of giving gifts every time we visited someone. Visiting somebody usually meant getting a box of mishti (sweets) from the local sweet shop, and getting a bar of chocolate if there were children at home. That was the standard norm. No one expected any more. Gifts like clothes were restricted to members of the family, once a year during Durga Puja. And then there were birthday gifts and wedding gifts. But that was it.

Yet now, I see people getting each other gifts all the time. I have done that myself. You visit someone, and you get them perfumes, jewelry, home decoration stuff, and what not. If you visit someone’s home, you get them gifts. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Friendship Day, Hug Day, Housewarming, Baby Showers, the list never ends. I have often thought about the value these gifts have in our life. Wrapped in nice and shiny paper and presented in colorful bags using ribbons, where do these commercial tokens of love eventually end up? Is it merely a formality, or did it really mean something? When my sister got married, I got to see up close how much of gift analysis and gift abuse went on- Who gave what? How many? Who did not give what? Everything needed to be remembered in precision, because the same quality of gift would be given to them when they invited you. That part I understand, but what amazed me was the huge number of gifts that were recycled. Clothes and jewelry and kitchenware that did not live up to our standards, or were duplicates. Since what we wear is so personal, it is only natural that what we did not like, we would not wear. But that gift was a token of love to begin with, so it felt wrong to recycle it at someone else’s wedding. But what if that gift was a recycled one to begin with?

It also made me think of another fundamental concept- the value (and not the price) of the gift. Gift exchanges usually happen based on their prices, but what about the value? To me, a handwritten letter from a friend, or a travel postcard from a travel buddy means a lot more than an expensive brand of lipstick. I have carefully preserved every letter and card I have received over the years, but commercial merchandise did not mean the same to me. If this is the case, why send gifts to people, especially people whose homes are already brimming with stuff? What value does it add to their life anyway?

So a few months ago, I made a decision. I decided, no more gifts. Only presents. What is the difference? I see a present as something that is valuable for the present, not necessarily a piece of stuff, but an attribute that one will enjoy. For example, taking the time out to spend an evening with someone and have dinner, instead of sending them a gift for something. Remembering someone’s birthday, and calling them, instead of sending them a message on Facebook. Sharing a list of favorite movies or favorite sings with someone. Remembering what is someone’s favorite dish, and cooking it for them. Taking someone’s children to the zoo or the park, instead of giving them an expensive toy. Doing something, teaching something, or helping someone with your skills to show that you care. I had my moments of doubts, when I feared that people might criticize me behind back, calling me a miser. But I remembered the famous saying, “Be the change you want to see.” And I think that it has worked out well so far.

Last week, I was visiting someone in Philadelphia who agreed to host me although there is a baby at home, and they don’t exactly live in a palace. I needed to be there for work, and was on a tight budget. So I didn’t want to spend money on hotels. Also, I saw it as an opportunity to bond with my friend, spend time with her, and hang out with her family, including the baby. But once again, fears crept up my mind as I was faced with the gift dilemma. I was visiting the baby for the first time, and tradition demanded that I got something for the baby. But here was my dilemma. I could not carry something big from my place, because I was taking a flight and had baggage restrictions. I have no idea about gifts for babies. Even if I did, I do not know what the baby might already have. America is the land of plenty, where most people suffer from excess and not scarcity. And knowing how picky everyone is about clothes these days, I did not know what clothes to buy for the baby. Knowing how unwanted gifts are recycled by many, I did not want to give something that would be a waste of time, money, and resources. So I went there empty-handed.

But I have one skill that I could use to give them a present. I am a photographer. So one evening, we all went outside, and I took hundreds of family pictures. And on another day, I did an indoor photo session for the family once again. I know that new parents (or even not so new parents) love having pictures of their baby. So I put in the time, and made the effort to make the baby smile, give ideas to the mom about how to dress the baby up, and took hundreds of pictures of the family that they have been proudly showing off to their friends on Facebook ever since. And that serves my purpose and makes me happy. If I gave them something from BabiesRUs, I would never know if the baby liked it, already had a duplicate, or was being put to good use. But the value of what I gave them was immediate, and palpable. I think my plan worked.

So this is what I plan to do from now on. Give a present, and not a gift. Spend one-on-one time. Have conversations in real time. Listen. Write a hand-written letter. Send a thank you note. Take pictures of people. Take the children to a park, or do hands-on fun activities with them. Teach a skill. Take time to call people on their birthdays and not just send a Facebook message. Make an effort to meet people. No more expensive toys or jewelry or clothes. The more materialistic we get, the more we miss out on the human touch. And people have enough money to buy what we gift them anyway. So what is the point?

sunshine

Impostor Syndrome

“I am a fraud and they will soon find out.”

I have always wanted to research more about impostor syndrome (a psychological trait in which people do not believe in their accomplishments). This is because I know that I secretly suffer from it. It is a fear that comes on accomplishing something, that perhaps it was not deserved, and perhaps someone made a wrong judgment, and soon, everyone will find out that you are not as bright as they think you are. There is abundant literature about how women in higher education feel it all the time. It often comes from not having enough self-confidence, sense of worth, or mentors and role models who are like you (racially, gender-wise, etc.).

Although I suffer from it, I am now consciously aware of it, so that whenever such thoughts cross my mind, I make an effort to dispel such fears. But that was not the case few years ago. When I first moved to the US, it was to study at a top-ranking university in my field. I have always believed that I was perhaps not their first choice, and someone must have decided not to move to Seattle, and hence I got admission. It may or may not be true, but that is not the point. It shows how I never had the conviction that I could be somebody’s first choice.

Then when I got another acceptance for a PhD four years later, in a public ivy school very well known internationally, I had the same sinking feeling once again. I thought that they saw my previous school’s credentials and assumed that I am good, but they do not know that I am not that competent. I write this with a lot of sadness. I struggled through the fear that someday, my adviser would find out that I was ordinary, and be utterly disappointed.

I finished my PhD in 3 years. In 33 months actually. This shows that it had nothing to do with my mediocrity or luck. It was all hardcore hard work and dedication. The problem is that I did not believe enough in myself.

I have often wondered why I had such fears. Interestingly, I never had that fear in India. It started when I moved to the US. Also, I have this fear only with things related to my career. For my personal achievements, I don’t give two hoots about success and failure. But when it comes to career achievements, I feel that there is too much at stake. I wonder when and how I developed such a uni-dimensional trait. Think about it, I have achieved everything based on my abilities, and not any backing. I had no Godfathers in the field. Every college admission, every job I got was because of my own abilities. My advisers wrote me recommendation letters, but none of them used their contacts to get me a job. I have often asked myself, “Then why?”

With time, I grew conscious about it. So every time I would see myself achieving something and belittling my achievements, I would check my thoughts. It might have to do with personal identity. In the US, I never had role models who are like me. What do I mean when I say, like me? I mean, single, Indian, immigrant female. When I met immigrants, they were not single. When I met single women, they were not immigrants. And if they are single and immigrants, they are male. Your personal identity goes a long way in shaping how you see, or do not see yourself. I wish that instead of feeling what I felt, I told myself that yes, I deserve to be here, in this field, succeeding and making a name for myself, and I am not going anywhere.

So why am I writing this? Because I did the same thing today. My dissertation has been selected as among the top three in the US, in my focus area. I was not expecting it at all. So my first sub-conscious thought when I read the congratulatory email was, “They must have sent me the email by mistake.” Immediately, I checked my thoughts. I realized that once again, I was letting myself be a victim of impostor syndrome. None of the selection committee members know me personally, and it is impossible that they are doing me a favor by giving me this recognition. I have been selected in the top three, but they give only one award. So next month, they will let me know if I won it. It is a big honor. Yet momentarily, I forgot about all the hard work and dedication I put in my dissertation. I forgot how I strove to be the best, and produced a quality manuscript. Writing a 300 page document was no fun, but I forgot all about it. Instead, all I thought was, “Perhaps they sent me the email by mistake.” Later, I was pretty mad at myself for feeling that way. The conscious, saner side of me was rebuking the darker side for belittling my achievements all the time. It is as if I am my own enemy, seldom recognizing that I am capable of reaching professional milestones.

So this is for all of you like me, who suffer from impostor syndrome. Believe in what you achieve, and do not attribute your success to anything other than your own hard work. And learn to celebrate your success. It is so important, although I am guilty of not doing it. 

On a different note, I always felt bad that I do not have an "Awards" section in my CV. I have never really won any awards, barring winning a science quiz in the sixth grade (that I participated in because I had a crush on one of the boys), and a Sanskrit calligraphy competition in the seventh grade. I often eyed the awards section of my colleagues' CV with greed. You can imagine, being selected the top three was equivalent to winning the Miss. Universe crown for me (and I did not even have to lie about how I am going to save the planet, and donate all my money to the needy).  

They will let me know next month. If I win, I will be presenting my research at the conference in a few months. And even if I do not win, I get to start a new “Awards and Honors” section in my CV, and add a line there. I’m almost tempted to do a happy dance as I write this.

sunshine 

Des-Pair

The pair had remained together for almost four years now. Then, in a series of commonplace events, they were separated. Not once, but twice in a span of twenty four hours. Unfortunately, the second time, there was no opportunity for reunion.

The first evening, they were dining at a restaurant. It was not until she reached for the car door, fastened the seatbelt, and drove off that she realized one of her gloves was missing. Black and leathered, she loved it for years because of the way it fit snugly. The woolen ones usually did not endure rain or snow, but this one did, and she held on to it for years. She told him the moment she realized the right one was missing. He had instantly swerved the car and driven back to the restaurant they had dined at not even an hour ago. She was grateful, although she kept it to herself. Once there, she went inside looking for it, and the server told her that he had found nothing. They looked in the parking lot and the nearby streets as well. He even went out of the way looking for it in the freezing wintry night. But her black glove seemed to have disappeared in the darkness. Disheartened and cold, she drove back. It was while locking the car door that he had the insight to look inside the car. It was particularly dark, and she was thrilled when he had emerged from her side of the car holding her right glove. She had dropped it in the car and never found it.

The next evening, he had taken her around New York City, showing her places he liked. She had never really cared for the city, but she liked what she saw on that cold wintry evening. The city was shrouded in white after the snowstorm, and she was surprised to see that people moved on with their life despite the chilly winds and the freezing weather. The city definitely had a personality, people dressed fashionably, and during the few hours they walked, she was amazed to see hundreds of varieties of black winter coats, jackets, and boots. They walked in the snow, enjoyed some great food, warmed up to some aromatic coffee at one of the local coffee joints, and it was soon time to say goodbye even before she was ready to leave. The subway was somewhat crowded, and she saw the train enter the station at a distance. In a hurry, she subconsciously ungloved her right hand to pull out the ticket from her handbag in haste. It was not until the train started that she realized her right hand was bare. They were about to say goodbye, but she had looked at him helplessly, and the next moment, they had gotten off the train at the next station. It was not possible to get into the other side of the platform that easily, so they climbed back the stairs, got outside the freezing streets, waited for the traffic signal, crossed the road amongst the slush of water and ice puddles, found another subway outlet, and had made their way to the station, this time in an opposite direction. The train arrived, they boarded it, got off the next station, got outside, crossed the streets, and after about twenty minutes of taking trains and crossing streets, they were back at the point where she thought she lost her glove. Only, there was no glove to be found this time. They looked everywhere, on the platform, near the ticket swiping machine, even in the trash cans. He asked the lady at the ticket counter if someone had dropped off a missing glove. Only there was no finding it this time. She was feeling guilty for getting him late, and thankful for all the effort he had taken. She got fresh tickets and boarded the next train, holding on to her lone glove now.

The incident evoked her philosophical thoughts on her journey back home. Losing something that belonged to you was always saddening, no matter how inexpensive it was. However, the pain was somewhat worse when you lost something you had in pairs. A lot of memories get embedded in the process of possessing things, and of course there is this guilt associated with losing things, voices in your head blaming you for being careless, voices of your parents, teachers, and elders reprimanding you every time you lost a pen or a penny. But more than the guilt of being careless, it was the sadness evoked out of seeing a pair separated. She held on to the other glove, which was now useless to her. She would soon replace it with a new pair, and knowing her, she would not have the heart to throw the old one away. It would probably sit in her cupboard for the next few years, not having a use. She often misplaced her eye liners and eye pencils, but she never felt guilty about them. However, every time she misplaced an earring, she felt horrible about it. It was the pain that came with the separation of a pair. She wondered where her other pair was now, perhaps brazening the ice and being stomped over by people somewhere on the streets.

Sometimes, it is easier to get over the loss of something just by being single, compared to the pain and distress of losing something as a pair. No matter how well you move on to do great things in life on your own, make new bonds, see new places, and attain new heights, your other half always takes with them a little bit of you, of your memories, and of your life, leaving you a little empty inside, and forever reminding you that life would perhaps been a little different, maybe in a good way or in a bad way, if fate had not connived in a series of events to separate you. Your losses as a pair always outweigh your individual losses. Looking back, she could have perhaps been more careful with her glove. She could perhaps have not removed it. She could perhaps have not cared about missing the train, taking her own sweet time to ensure she was holding on to everything she possessed. In retrospective theory, you can replay the events as many ways as you want to. In practice, you just move on with your losses, your pains, and nothing more but a handful of perspectives.

sunshine

Five reasons I could never be a food blogger

Have you ever appreciated something, realizing you could never do that yourself even if you tried hard? No matter how much I love to write, I know I could never be a food blog writer. If I try hard, I “might” possibly succeed at romantic fiction, maybe articles like “100 things not to do when you are young and stupid”, or an article or two sometimes about a book I read or a movie I watched that no one else cared about, but never a food blog. I look at amazing food blogs I follow and go wow. I have a fair amount of childhood memories of flipping through the Bengali magazine “Sananda” (Aparna Sen was the editor then), getting straight to the “Rannabanna” section (the food section), which would keep me busy drooling for a while. However, the concept of publishing something you cook for others to see was not an option then. Now it is. Many of my friends successfully maintain food blogs and Facebook pages. It is a treat to go through them and drool. However, I cannot imagine myself having one. The reason? I’ll give you five, and let me know if they don’t seem good enough. I’ll then give you 50 more!

1. Lack of food vocabulary

I might have learnt 20,000 words when I was preparing for the GRE, but when it comes to food vocabulary, I find myself having the vocabulary of a 5 year old. I don’t even understand half the technical terms, that are not really culinary jargon but regular words. Simmer. Season. Croquettes. Couscous. Tortillas. Quesadillas. I don’t even recognize half the vegetables. Chives? Zucchini? Shallots? I could imagine myself confused in a grocery store looking for these vegetables for hours. I recognize what I grew up eating- potatoes (yeah Bengali people eat a lot of them), onions, spinach, and so on. It took me ages to find out that brinjal is eggplant and lady’s finger is okra. Then, I look at phrases and sentences and wonder if I could ever come up with words like these. “Remove with a slotted spoon.” Who the hell knew what a slotted spoon was? “Mix in a non-reactive mixing bowl.” I could never come up with the non-reactive word unless I took a course in culinary classes. “To a pot of water add the bay leaf, cardamom, cinnamon, clove and peppercorn and bring to a rolling boil.” What exactly is a rolling boil? “Add a drizzle of oil or ghee. Add a lime wedge.” I like the words drizzle (and not “put”) and lime wedge (instead of “cut a piece of lime”).

2. I don’t know the art of culinary foreplay

I like most food blogs, not only because they put up extremely tempting pictures of good food (that I assume tastes as good as it looks), but also because food bloggers weave a story plot around why they cooked what they did. Who cares about how you make fried fish or baked chicken, you can find the recipe from any number of sources. What makes it interesting are the stories writers weave around their culinary experiences. Stories about how the in-laws were arriving and one had to impress them with their culinary exploits. Stories about how the rainy, romantic weather prompted someone to make hilsa curry. Stories about how there was chicken in the freezer and zucchini in the vegetable tray and you could either go to bed on an empty stomach or make zucchini chicken. If I wrote a food blog, my posts would look like the salt analysis tests you did in chemistry lab years ago. Take salt. Add hydrochloric acid. Check for effervescence. Look for a precipitate. Discard solution. Add more sulphuric acid till you felt nauseated with the smell of rotten eggs that could also be coming from the lunch box of your lab partner and not necessarily out of your test tube. Similarly, take fish. Cut with knife. Fry with oil. Use Burnol if you burn yourself while frying. If it turns out to be too salty, feed it to the neighbors. You see, I fail to weave stories around what I cook, mostly because most of my culinary expeditions are borne out of hunger pangs, and not out of fantasies of food associations and fancy food related stories. I am just too straight to the point. I don’t know the art of culinary foreplay.

3. Culinguistically challenged: Lack of imagination in coming up with food names

I am extremely unimaginative when it comes to thinking of names of dishes. Who knew a little alcohol mixed to lassi makes it a fanciful “lassi with a kick”? Or a lot of green vegetables added to kababs could make it hariyali kabab. I always wondered if chicken do pyaaza is made of 2 onions. Is “murg-e-bahar” called so because it is made of chicken and all the vegetables that were threatening to become bio-weapons in the fridge? “Kadhai chicken” is made in a kadhai, I get it, but so is every other kind of dish I cook. I have never cooked a “kadhai-less kofta” or “bin kadhai ke aloo”. My culinary expert friends would die of shame if I told them I thought shiitake mushrooms are pronounced shit-take mushrooms. I would be very uncomfortable sitting in French or Italian restaurants because I have no clue what they would serve me with promises of making me some “Petite sautee de courgettes a la Grecque” or “ Poco rosso di zucchini con limone et olio della Toscana”. Even if they gave me their simpler English version of “Caramelized zucchini medallions in a light citrus reduction”, it is far more complicated for me to decipher the contents compared to something like, say macher jhol, kosha mangsho, or shorshe chingri (shrimp cooked in mustard sauce). I like to keep names simple, and take them at face value. I can’t imagine getting lost in between the rezalas and the marsalas (which sound like bad words or “gaali”s anyway, no matter how good they taste). Sure, I can try coming up with fancy names if you insist, but I don’t think you are going to appreciate them. Trust me, nothing is going to whet you appetite if I called Maggi “White flour curlers”.

4. "Present”ation: I have no future in it

When I see food pictures, I don’t just see the food. I marvel at how well food bloggers excel at “food modeling”. It seems it is not enough to place a dish of steaming hot pasta and take a picture. It is as bad as taking pictures of someone in their home clothes. You need to make them wear better clothes, take them to a scenic location, and then take pictures. Similarly the plate of steaming hot pasta should be accompanied by a flower pot whose flowers should be out of focus in the picture, but still visible enough. The bowl of fish curry should have to green chillies criss-crossed on it as garnishing. The chicken curry should be accompanied by the open pages of a food book again out of focus so that no one knows if you were reading about eggplants and cooking chicken. You need to use props- a recipe book, a glass of wine, a flower vase, a coffee mug, something to make your food look pretty. And just like you cannot make someone model for you wearing the same clothes everyday, you cannot use the same bowl, plate, or cutlery to take pictures of everything you cook. A deep-yellow curry should have a lighter plate in the background. A black bowl will background well against the white raita. Most of the food I cook looks yellow anyway, either because I put too much turmeric, or because my home has yellow lighting and I don’t know how to use my camera well. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I haven’t tried. I once made an omelet, put some tomato ketchup on it, and posted the pic on this blog when someone commented, “Hey it seems your omelet is wearing a red bandaid”. It cracked me up, but it told me a lot about my presentation skills. I figured if someone wanted to make an omelet, they could go to “n” number of great food blogs out there. They don’t need to come to sunshine blog.

5. If I cook and garnish and present and take pics and write blogs, when do I get to eat?

This is singlehandedly the most important reason why I could never write a food blog. I am just too busy waiting to hungrily pounce on the food, starting the process when I start cooking, munching on stuff, taking a ladle full of steaming soup even before it is done, picking up that piece of chicken straight from the cooking vessel and ending up with blisters on my tongue. Once my food is cooked and ready on the plate, chances are less that I will decorate it with flowers and fancy props to take pictures. Chances are more that I will pounce on it and finish every bit of it, licking my fingers, licking the bowl, and not stopping till I sensed that loud burp knocking the walls of my food pipe.

sunshine

A random day in my life

Disclaimer: Pretty random and boring post

I just took the 10 pm bus and reached home. That makes it a little more than 13 hours spent at the department. I had two core classes and I was almost ready to head home at 3 in the evening. But I have spent the last 2 days of the weekend agonizing. Last Friday, my advisor gave me some work that I dreaded doing. I almost wasted 2 days wondering how I would ever get that work done. You see, people say a PhD is great because you get to think innovative and discover something. All that is fine, but those glorious moments of innovation and discovery happens with a saddening low “once in a blue moonish” frequency. You spend years doing a PhD and you think you innovate something everyday? For 95% of the time, you do rote work, work that your advisor wants you to do and not necessarily what you want to do. It is not a bad thing at all, it is all a part of the training process. A PhD is not just about mastering a small area in your field, it is more about how well you can work with your research team, meet deadlines, develop interpersonal skills, communicate with others, work proactively, and think of ways of doing things that will make you look smarter and hard working. For all of you who think researchers work in isolation, spending all their time alone in labs, you are wrong. PhD is very much a social process.

So what rote work was I assigned this time? My advisor gave me a list of schools and asked me to find and print particular details about their school of medicine program. When I looked at the list, there were some 60 schools. Remember those days when you were just done with your GRE and were in the process of choosing schools and sending them suck emails (emails asking a professor if he has funding and is accepting students because you might just be the brightest student he could bag)? How I hated those days, going through school website, website after website, jotting down every tiny detail. It was a laborious, monotonous, thankless job. Now I was back to doing that. I had to show him results by Friday this week, and I had already spent 2 days in inertia, overwhelmed about how and where to get started.

This was not going the right way. With the finals approaching, I had to get this thing out of my life and move on. I decided to stay back and finish at least half the schools. Website after website, I skimmed through every detail he wanted with mechanical precision. There was nothing innovative, nothing to use my brains for, just a combination of commands (search, click, copy, paste, print) repeated hundreds of times. Slowly the surrounding sounds got lower, classes got over, people in the building left for home. But I worked, school after school, website after website, my back aching and me longing to come back home and sleep. No music this time, no chatting, no wasting time getting distracted, I worked on this for 7 long hours. Finally I was done, not half way through, but in its entirety.

I was so relieved after finishing it that I went on a feeling of high. I sulked for 2 days wondering how I will get it done, but it took me only those seven solid hours to get it done. I am sure tomorrow when he sees what I have done, he will smile, say thank you, and give me some more work to do. That is what everyone above you in authority does, isn’t it?

I know all this in theory, but what I like is the realization that obstacles are mostly in our minds. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist or are benign. Yes they are very much there, sitting and intimidating and overwhelming us. But once you let go of that inertia and start working on what you need to get done, even the most boring and monotonous work will be done. Those 7 hours were horrid, but now that I have put it past me, I feel so much lighter.

Not all days are productive. Some days I end up not getting a single bit of work done in the entire day. Friends, distractions, phone calls, and movies get in the way. Those are the days I feel so horrible about myself, so guilty, and so low. It’s like going on an eating spree when you are supposed to be watching your weight. Yet some days you drag yourself to the gym, and no matter how tiring those few hours of workout are, you come out feeling so good about yourself. Similarly for those days that are spent in inefficiency, it is days like this that give me a high. Some amount of solid work done, something to show to the advisor next morning, and I start feeling great about myself again. I know this is like the sine curve where efficiency will be followed by bouts of inefficiency. I know a few days from now I will be feeling low again, blaming myself for not working hard enough. Yet today I know I will have the best and the most relaxing sleep, because something that was due the following Friday has been completed by Monday evening.

Just a random day in my life as a graduate student.

sunshine

Edging towards Ageing

I was driving towards New York. It was this long drive that took me around 5 hours, and I was not even half way through. I wanted to see if I could drive that long without taking a single break. I zoomed passed all the freeways, my car consistently running 20 plus mph for every specified speed limit. This was what freedom and liberation must feel like, I thought to myself, Neeraj Shridhar screaming loud decibels from the songs of Love Aajkal in my car stereo. I got off a particular freeway to get into another, and the GPS showed a stretch of narrow, single lane, non-freeway road in between. It was a quiet day with barely any traffic. Good news, since that meant I might reach my destination sooner. I sped and zoomed for a while on the road, being the lonely driver that I was, till I saw a vehicle at a distance. It was in the same lane that I was in, and it could be an optical illusion that before I knew, I was right behind the car.

It seemed the car was moving really slow, although there was no traffic in front of it. It was an old car, and I tried to look through its rear glass to see who was driving. I looked at my odometer and here I was a good 15 mph slower than the speed limit (I usually drive 10-15 above the speed limit). It was frustrating, I tried signaling to the driver, I tried indicating, I tried to signal with my headlights, but nothing worked. I tried not to honk as it is rude, but I was so tempted to. I looked in my mirror and there was a steady queue of cars trailing right behind me. Who was this person driving the car ahead of me? If he had to drive slow, why didn’t he pull over and let us pass? Being the sexist that I am in certain things, I was so sure it was a dumb woman driving. It was a single lane narrow road and there was no way I could speed past the car as it was a hilly road with less frontal visibility. The car continued its snail’s pace for about 10 miles of that narrow, countryside road before it slowed down and pulled over to let me pass. I was fuming by this time, not knowing what kind of a person would drive so slow and not let me pass.

As I sped past the culprit car, I craned my neck to have a look at the miscreant driver who wasted so much of my time and slowed me down. There I saw an old man, all wrinkled and shriveled, clearly in his 70s. Something in my heart just tightened at this sight. I felt guilty that I had been frustrated at this old gentleman who could barely maintain the speed limit. Clearly at that age, it was a difficult task to drive, let alone drive in speed. It pained my heart to see him alone, something very characteristic of this country. Why would an old man in his 70s have to drive alone? Because it is a lonely place to be in at age 70, and still have to do your work on your own without help. He sure must be honked at and signaled whenever he drives. But, what can he do about it?

Scary enough, I imagined myself at that age, 40 years down the line, trying to drive my car with a line of cars honking behind me. Old age sure is a scary thing to transition into, when your faculties and your friends fail you, when you are left to be on your own and no one cares about your existence anymore. It’s scary to think that someday I would be frail, dependent, a nag, a constant complainer, a person lacking in judgment, ignored, unattractive, slow, a traffic hazard, senile, cantankerous, absent-minded, angry, forgetful, lonely, burdensome, out of touch, hard of hearing, have poor eyesight and judgment, useless, crabby, whiny, a hot ginger tea-drinking drinking arthritic, heavily bespectacled, liver spotted, fat, fumbling, frustrated, ineffective, slow, short tempered, out of shape, wrinkled, rambling, set in my ways, mean, childish, crotchety, complaining, alone, stubborn, incapable, decaying, humorless, pitiful, meddling, advice giving old woman. I could mention more adjectives if this doesn’t explain how I am going to turn out to be 40 years down the line.

Old age is a socially constructed omen. The society likes to paint rosy pictures of cute children holding their mommy’s hands, of industrious men wearing suits and making business deals, of teachers enlightening students and of lovers holding hands by the lake. But the society is not always inclusive of the older people. As I write this, I wonder who constructed the term “old age”, and how exactly do we know at what point we transition into old age. Is a 35 year old single man too old to get married? Is a 40 year old woman too old to try having a baby? Do we ever turn too old to fall in love? Why is it that we are always “too old” to do something? Too old to learn new tricks? More importantly, how exactly should I prepare myself for old age? Should I treat it like an investment policy and make lots of friends so that I am not left alone when I am senile? But then I am assuming that these friends will stand by me when I am old and frail. Maybe I can get married, but there is no guarantee that my husband will stick around long enough to cope with my failing memory and missing dentition. I will be like a baby once I am old, dependent and needy, only this time I will not have my mother around me to take care of me and help me grow.

Dear old man, I apologize for being impatient while you drove slowly. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to drive and take care of yourself at that age. I can only write this post on this blog, because some day I will be in your shoes, driving slowly, and someone less than half my age will get restless and worked up. This is how the world works. In chains and cycles.

sunshine

Plane of Reality

I have a Chinese girl in my class I meet once every week. The first day we met at the orientation, she told me that she was worried about the English spoken and written test every incoming graduate student has to take before they start their research. She asked me if I had similar concerns. I didn’t know the “right” answer to tell her. Yes, I was concerned, but that was not because of the test. It was because I would have to wake up on a Sunday morning and drag myself to write the exam by 8 am. I was more annoyed that the school is not convinced about my English written and spoken abilities, and I could not sleep till late on that Sunday.

I passed the test. She didn’t. It meant that she would have to take an English class once every week for the rest of the semester. Bummer ! If the class load and the research and TA-ing wasn’t bad enough, the last thing you wanted was extra class load. I empathize. The next time we met in class, she came running to me asking to me which day I was assigned to for the English class. I observed that she had assumed I had not passed the test. It broke my heart to tell her that I had, and didn’t need extra English coaching. She didn’t do a good job to hide her disappointment. She looked confused that how could I be exempt from it when she was forced to take it.

Ever since every time I meet her for my research class, she asks me how are my English classes going. It seems her perceived reality has accepted that being an international student, I too had failed my English class. I felt sorry for her, but it unnerved me a little. Last week when I met her in class, I saw her talking to an American student. She was telling her how difficult this part of the semester is with midterms and then pointed to me asked me if I was having a hard time with the extra English class. It seems it had never registered in her mind that I was not taking any English classes. Amidst rectifying her yet once again (to which she looked a little startled), some strange realization dawned on me too. I realized that we all live in our own realities, and sometimes the plane of our realities might not match that of others. Does that mean there is no concept of absolute reality? What is unreal to me might very well be someone else’s reality. Often we hear people recounting stories when we think to ourselves, “This is not possible, is it true?” This is because the things we do not believe in are the things that are beyond the scope of “our” reality.

This girl was clearly upset, not just because she has to take extra classes, but because her reality might be that she thinks she has failed herself by failing the test. So at some point, her reality started to believe that as a non-native English speaker, I had failed the test too, maybe in order to make her pain or guilt less bearable. Whenever she asked me about my English classes, she was very empathetic, and it was clear that she was not making fun of me but genuinely believed that I had failed the test. What she thinks might not be the truth, but it is her reality that she has spun around herself to make it less painful for her.

I looked back at my life and realized I might have done this at some point too, though not to this drastic extent. I might have known things which might not have been true, and on being corrected, I must have asked, “Oh, why did I believe it otherwise then?” Which means while 2 plus 2 is always 4, it might not always be 4 in some of our realities. It is a scary thought, and an equally interesting one. I would love to read up more about psychology and realities if I can find some interesting books. Think about it, how fascinating it would be if each of us lived in our respective realities, and there was no concept of an absolute truth. So though in reality I am a poor, Indian graduate student, in my mind, I could be a princess, a Hollywood actor, or a heart surgeon. Is that what we call the beginning of incipient lunacy?

I am not talking about my classmate anymore, and don’t mean any offence to any non-native English speaker, but why is it that we think some people are crazy? Is it because their plane of reality doesn’t match with ours? How many times have you heard your friend complaining how her famous mathematician husband doesn’t hear what she says, forgets to do household chores when asked to, and lives in his own reality solving problems? Is this how ideas in fantasy movies are conceived, by thinking of ideas that might not align with the realities of most people? My grandmother still does not believe that it is possible for someone to travel around the world alone and not be lost. She also doesn’t believe that it is impossible to board a wrong flight. Like people sometimes get on the wrong train, my grandmother believes it is possible to get on the wrong plane; that you can actually get on a plane and realize after talking to the other passengers that the plane is going to Tokyo while you have a ticket to London. It is her reality. I don’t buy it, I don’t believe it, but it is her reality nevertheless.

Maybe we have our own realities because it makes coping with stressful situations easier. If so, then are dreams borne out of our subconscious realities? So many times I have seen dreams about things I would not admit to in my conscious state. I often dream of snakes when I am stressed. This might be because in real life, I am very scared of snakes, and will neither visit the reptile section of the zoo, nor will get into a discussion involving snakes. Then why do I see something in my dreams that I am scared of in reality? Is this because I push away those things I am scared of in my sub-conscious, and while dreaming when our mental guards are down, those issues come up? Who knows !

If you have read a good book about psychology, dreams, or realities, please let me know.

sunshine

Efficiency Resolution

It was a new year party. We were transitioning into 2009. Amidst intervals of taking tequila shots and merrymaking, it was time to do the ritualistic new year resolution announcement. Everyone had to drink to a resolution and make a resolution. Everyone laughed about how resolutions were meant to be broken and stood good only a couple of days into the new year. People eventually reverted to their old habits, screw resolutions! As usual, someone said (s)he wanted to lose weight. Someone said (s)he wanted to get married. Someone said (s)he wanted to be a better person. But someone said something I remember vividly till date. (S)he said (s)he wants to stick to the resolution of an 8 hour of work schedule every day.

That’s it? Short and sweet, isn’t it? What was the big deal about sticking to an “I will work for 8 hours a day” resolution? Or so I thought then. But trust me, I am reminded of the resolution every day. I am not sure if the person who made it was able to stick to it, but I haven’t been able to. We like to fool ourselves believing that we spend a large chunk of our time and energy working, but do we really? In class, we check Facebook messages in the name of multitasking. At office, we check personal emails a hundred times, put on music, read the news, comment on our favorite blogs, and speak on the phone. Every time we are given an assignment we do not like to do, we let ourselves get distracted, go out for a walk, drink a glass of water, feel hungry or feel the sudden urge to talk to parents in India, or quickly scan who is doing what on Facebook. And if that is not enough, there are youtube videos to watch, friends dying to talk to you online, and news feeds on who scored a century recently or how the economic policies of the world is affecting the automobile industry. We feel that dying urge to be a part of heated discussions, comment on topics, wish our friends a happy birth day, like status updates like “Life is good, having fun in Hawaii” on FB, and read gossip about others we are better off not knowing. We check the weather and check fluctuation in flight prices from Texas to Florida, though Heaven knows we have no plans of visiting either Texas or Florida for the next few years. Some go a step further and look for online shopping deals, scan for furniture ads on craigslist that they would never buy, or simply forward feel-good emails to others on the pretext that, “If you do not forward this to 15 goats in the next 5 minutes, everyone in your extended family from Ullhasnagar to Jhumri Talaiya is doomed.

On an average, if a person spends 8 hours sleeping, 8 hours relaxing at home (that includes cooking, eating, watching TV, taking a shower, courting, socializing, having and taking care of kids, writing blogs, making travel plans, etc.) and 8 hours at the workplace, no prizes for guessing what time slot we choose to sacrifice for our distractions. Sleep time is our “own time”, and so is the time we spend at home. How is the math of doing quality work going to happen then?

It’s not a preaching post, it’s a self-realization post. I realized (shamefully) that I know how many common friends I have with a certain person “X” over the top of my head, and might also be able to tell you that although I know a friend’s friend only distantly and have never been formally introduced to her, I could tell you where she works, her pet’s name, what car she drives, and where she shops. But if you asked me to name the top five journals in my field or the top research papers on a particular thing I am working on, I will be mumbling, stuttering, scratching my head, and having a difficult time trying to organize my thoughts. So for the last few weeks, I have resolved to reach the department by 8 am and try to be productive. I have tried working in close proximity to my advisor and my other colleagues to take advantage of the Hawthorne effect (people consciously improving their efficiency simply because they know they are being watched). I have tried clicking on non-academic websites for lesser number of times. I have tried not taking phone calls or replying to personal emails. Less FBing, no youtubing, no blogging, and no unnecessarily checking the weather of a place where I do not even live. I won’t claim I have seen outstanding results, but I am still trying to better myself. Every time I need a break, I try taking a walk by the campus instead of checking updates of people I have no business knowing. I am yet to go a long (really long) way before I achieve desired results. But it never hurts to try, does it?

I feel great at the end of the day when I have worked on something, finished something, or achieved a target (which doesn’t happen very often). But some days are wasted, meaning distraction sets in and by the end of the day, you feel horrible armed with meaningless knowledge of who is going where on Thanksgiving and who is drinking what kind of coffee at Starbucks. These are the days I feel most frustrated and useless. Building self control is an exercise that takes time, discipline, and motivation. Which brings me back to the resolution my friend talked about earlier. This is the only resolution I have felt true to its core, and most difficult to follow. “My resolution is to spend 8 hours at work every day just focusing on work”. Sounds very simple, but try doing it. You might perhaps not succeed fully, but you will definitely end up knowing a few things about your self-control (or the lack of it) that you might not openly admit to.

sunshine