Budding romances

New addresses are like budding romances. There is the thrill and excitement of knowing a new city, its many hidden gems and secret nooks. Every day is a surprise, an exploration, a new page of a diary, a brand new chapter of a book. The thrill of discovering a restaurant serving your favorite cuisine. Or a cozy little coffee shop inside a quaint mall with your favorite corner, a little obscure, to sit and read in anonymity. A lesser known road lined with colorful trees. New sights of the changing seasons. Of streets never walked before, and houses never seen before. New smells and things that feel different under the skin. Who knows where this road leads to, and what stories lay in the nooks and corners of these buildings? The sun is the same, but the sunshine seems different, falling on unknown objects and making them glow like new. Like a snow-capped mountain or lavender field that gets you all excited while blasé drivers zoom past without stopping. As I walk back home every day, taking a different road every time, every new house excites me. I see little Christmas lights glowing inside, newly decorated trees, and wonder who lives here, what their stories are. Relationships are the same. They come with the excitement of the unknown, the smell of a new book, the newness of a spring flower. The world is out there for you, waiting to get explored, and discovered. Even the sparkle in the eyes thrills you, because it is new for you. That is how this city feels like right now.

With time, some romances fade, and others turn into love. When the dust of the newness has settled, it leaves behind the comfort of predictability. Knowing all the roads and where they lead to, where they start and where they end. Knowing every little restaurant and every little garden. Knowing exactly where to take the guests. And what roads to avoid during game day. Like living with the same person for 20, 50 years, and waking with them every morning, holding hands and feeling the same love every single day as you take a walk. Romance changes to love, and the excitement of the unknown to the comfort of the known. Because what you created in between is shared history, shared memories. Memories that are unique, like carrying a piece of their DNA in your heart. The city's. The person's. Calling someone and already knowing how they say, "Hello?" on the phone. Or respond when you call out their name in a crowd. On nights that I am working late and all is quiet outside, I can hear the horn of the train with routine predictability. I derive a strange sense of comfort from that sound, just knowing where it is coming from and that it happens every day, although I am sitting miles away from the train and cannot see it.

Because places are not much different from people. You live in them, you live with them. You grow with them, and they grow on you. Familiarity sometimes breeds contempt, and romance dissipates, love evaporates. Until you see things from someone else's eyes, from a new perspective, and perhaps remember what it felt like all those years ago. Because we are creatures of habit, and new places mold us into new habits. Like, I drop by the grocery store every day from work, even if I do not need anything. Because the aisles feel familiar, the people feel familiar. That is the comfort of familiarity. Then sometimes, I take a different bus home, and am surprised by the newness all over again. And thus continues my romance with this city, turning a little bit into love with every passing day.

sunshine

Nothing to lose

There are times in life when you take in a lot of garbage. And then comes a day when nothing really happens, but a small something tips you over. You realize that you have had it, and you are done taking in all the garbage. I think I reached that point recently.

It happened the same day I wrote my earlier post. I was walking back to my office, and the wind was strong. It was raining as well, and thankfully, I had my umbrella with me. I have very fond memories of this umbrella because I bought it on a rainy day during my trip to Europe. So it is a souvenir. Anyway. The wind was strong (Nebraska is infamous for that), and my umbrella kept turning the wrong way. There was no point in carrying it if I was getting wet anyway. So I tried to close it.

At that point, my finger got stuck in the umbrella, tearing a little bit of flesh and drawing a few drops of blood. I find the sight of blood very repulsive, and as I looked at my finger in horror, something in me flipped. Tears started rolling down my cheeks, mingling with the rain, as a bunch of school kids on an educational excursion walked by me. These were not tears of sadness or fear, these were tears of anger pent up for a while. The umbrella incident was totally random, but it invoked a strong sense of anger in me, because it was symbolic of the helpless situation I was in. And I realized, I don’t want to be helpless anymore. I don’t want to feel like a victim, because I have not done anything that should make me feel like a victim. I am done being in this toxic situation that I am in.

And suddenly, in my head, I heard my own voice. Screw you job! Screw you visa! Screw you insecurity. I don’t have to take this. I don’t have to live in a country where I am perennially afraid of the insecurities. I don’t want a colleague suggesting me ever again, even jokingly, that I should have tried hooking up with a citizen, like many people wanting to stay here do. I am done. I am so done with this life. It is no better than being made to feel like an outcast, being asked to sit separately, like the British did to the Indians pre-independence, or higher caste people did to lower caste people.

The epiphany of “screw you” perhaps came from self-worth, and gave me more strength than anything had given me in the last few months. I have a PhD (I am told that less than 1% people have a PhD, but in America or around the world, I do not know). I am in good health. I can speak in English. I can learn. I can relocate anywhere in the world. I can do math. I can think. I have the energy. I have the courage and determination to do what it takes. I can take risks. Most importantly, I am alive. Why am I forgetting all my blessings? Why am I constantly trying to fit in? When I moved to the US eight years ago, I had nothing. And I had nothing to lose. But now, what do I lose if I don’t find a job? Absolutely nothing. I just go somewhere else, and take my skills and ideas with me. I haven’t spent a single day for the last few years when I have not worried about a visa. No self-respecting academic should ever fear that. Because wherever I go next, I take my brains, and my ideas with me. I realized that a high school dropout is perhaps more fearless than I am, armed with fancy degrees and all.

This realization gave me a lot of strength. Often under duress, we tend to think that we are helpless. We are not. This will be my chance to reinvent myself, create my future, and start a new chapter in life. I am looking for a job, but I already have enough work to sustain me for a while. Then what am I so scared of?

When I get a job, this post will be shelved as one of those inspiring notes written during crisis. If I do not, these will become words that will dissipate into nothingness. In either case, I will have nothing to lose. And that thought that I have nothing to lose is empowering in itself.

sunshine

The Ides of March

A few months back, they selected my doctoral dissertation to be among the top three in the field. And last month, they told me that they do not have additional money to renew my contract.

The bipolar nature of academia baffles me. How could these two extreme things happen within a span of a few weeks, I cannot explain.

So I am back to looking for a job, a postdoctoral position to be more specific, not knowing what awaits me. It has been six weeks since that day, and I still haven’t found anything. But in these six weeks, numerous meltdowns and heartbreaking days of staring into the unknown later, I have had some profound realizations.

I have realized that I cannot control everything. That instead of resisting the waves, I can only learn to ride with them.

I have realized that the transition time between the end of something and the beginning of something else is the region of greatest possibility. I make the analogy using Lego blocks. Whenever something ends, anything, a relationship, a career, a job, a life, we lie like a pile of Lego blocks, broken, without direction, and feeling useless. But that is also the exact moment when we can recreate and redefine ourselves, mold ourselves into something new, create new possibilities, and become someone different. I think that if we were never broken, we would never get a chance to build ourselves again.

I have realized that the US is extremely unfriendly and unforgiving for people who require a job as well as a visa. Even when they have a PhD from the US.

I have started looking into my options in other countries, which I had not done before. The complacency of having a job in the US had stopped me from looking into my options elsewhere.

I have learned to reach out to other people. I don’t just wait for a job posting to show up. I proactively contact people, asking if they are looking to hire. Sure, nothing has come out of the effort so far, but failure is not the opposite of success. In fact, success and failure lie side by side, the opposite being not trying at all.

I have realized that people can ask to interview you, and you give a job talk with full gusto, only to be told that they do not have a position, but they will keep you in mind. What baffles me is, if they never had a position, why did they make me prepare a job talk and make a presentation in the first place? Human behavior is sometimes difficult to make sense of.

I have realized that there is more to me than what I do, my professional identity. When asked about who I am, I say that I am an educational researcher. However, there is much more to me than just being an educational researcher.

I have learned to be able to stare at the ending of something, and let go. If I do not find another job (with the visa in place) in the next few months, my stay in this country is history. I have been here for more than 7.5 years now, and to think that I might just have to leave everything I have and leave one fine day is heartbreaking. It is worse when you know that it was not your doing, and you cannot do anything to make the situation better. The feeling of paralysis that comes from helplessness is very difficult to come to terms. In fact these days, I notice in me a tendency to push doing certain things that bring gratification. The other day, my mom remarked that I need a haircut, and I told her that I want to save the occasion for the day when I find a job (equaling a hair cut with finding a job). I am seeing that the rice at home is beginning to get over, and a part of me is debating whether I should delay buying the big bag of rice until I find a job, because I don’t want to leave it unused if I have to go. The rice connection doesn’t even make sense to me, one needs to eat everyday, job or no job. Yet the prospect of spending for something makes me feel guilty, not knowing how much I might need to save for the rainy day.

I have realized that there will never be a dearth of work for me, even though there is a dearth of jobs. The number of papers I am involved in right now, it will take me at least a year to finish writing all those papers, job or no job.

I have started to notice myself as an observer, like I would observe someone else. Some days, I feel so lousy, it is hard for me to get up and get ready for work. Other days, I am naturally strong, telling myself that this is just a phase, and things will look better soon. I have better days when I feel stronger. But when I do not, the day drags on aimlessly, and inefficiency spirals, to make me feel even more lousy.

And of the many other realizations, I have also realized that I can look at the situation whatever way I want to. I can blame myself, my luck, or whatever. Or I can be kind to myself, and tell myself that it was not my fault. That come what may, I am in control of my life, and a certain external situation that was not created by me should not have the power to disorient me. Sure, I can choose to dance to the whims of fate, breaking a little bit every time the weather is rough. Or, I can choose to stay calm while the storm passes, because things will be better again. Is my pain greater than the collective pain of the world? I am looking for guarantees and securities in a world where airplanes disappear into thin air, and sturdy ships sink into the bottom of the ocean. Is my pain any greater than their pains? Or tomorrow if I was diagnosed with a terminal disease, will the job situation still bother me so much? It is all about perspective.

But most importantly, I just feel annoyed that anything should come in between me and my work. I dream of a day when I will be able to wake up and start working with enthusiasm, not having to worry about things like employment and visa.

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 

The rupee-dollar-rupee economics

When you are about to make your first trip to the US, everything seems expensive, especially if you are about to embark on a journey of poverty as a graduate student. No wonder you and your mom spend days making a list of things to be taken to the US, and making trips to the local stores to buy it. Soon the 23 kg of your suitcase is filled with bottles of hair oil, tooth pastes and brushes, beauty products, gamchas (if you are a Bengali), cheap plastic mugs (though you’ve just heard from the senior there that everyone uses toilet paper, and there is no concept of “washing yourself” after doing the big job), sanitary napkins, packets of spices, dry sweets, chaanachur, corn flakes, and everything conceivable under the Indian sun.

The first time you leave for the US, everything gets multiplied roughly by 50 (dollar à rupee).

The senior who told you about the toilet also told you that you will be spending approximately $400-$500 for rent in a shared apartment. You do a quick calculation and realize you will be spending a software engineer’s starting salary on rent alone. And that too while you are sharing the apartment with 2-3 other people. Every can of gulab jamun you buy is going to cost you the price of 80 gulab jamuns in India. You keep stuffing your suitcases- Indian spices, rice, aata, puffed rice, poha, and clothes till you realize you can take no more. This is while you are still in India.

The calculations continue even when you have landed in the US. You and your family does some more math to figure which way of calling is cheaper- from India to US or vice versa. Your granny starts weeping over the phone when you tell her that you have just spent some $200 shopping at Walmart. With time, your brain numbs to the constant calculations and conversions of currency (though your family’s doesn’t, they still ask you to hang up after 5 minutes of conversation, assuming it must be costing you a fortune). In a year, you no longer calculate how much you’d pay if you enjoyed the same commodity in India. In 2 years, you don’t even hesitate booking for a vacation to Florida, renting a car, or even buying a car (if you have had a couple of internships under your belt by then).

And then you make that long awaited trip to India, and things change.

Now that you are in India, everything gets divided roughly by 50 (rupee à dollar).

You eye that expensive sequined saree in that upscale Park Street shop you always drooled over from outside a couple of years ago, but never dared to enter. Now you confidently walk into the shop and ask for the price.

5,000 rupees only madam (this constant subservience and referring to people you don’t know and have no business of knowing as “syar” and “madam” and nodding your head still drives me nuts. Using “only” with everything you say is another one).

You do a quick calculation. A hundred something dollars only.

Cool, I will take it (you mom eyes you as if she has seen a ghost).

You go out with friends to that upscale local restaurant, eat to your heart’s content and ask for the check. The waiter looks at you with confusion when you realize, “Oh, I mean bill please”.

One thousand rupees. $22. Even less than what you’d pay for an upscale restaurant in Seattle for a single meal.

You look at others. “I’ll take care of the bill”.

Everyone eyes you with admiration. The neighbor aunty just made it a point to talk to a distant relative with a nubile prospective looking for a groom.

You start taking a cab to everywhere because you realize the cab fare will be equivalent to your bus fare for a single ride in the US. This is while your mom fervently protests and begs you to take that bus and save some money.

You go to a bookstore asking for the latest bestseller. You do some math. $4 only? Okay, I’ll take it.

You go to Barista and end up paying Rs. 100 for some horribly sweet coffee. Your friend baulks. You are unperturbed because you know you are paying a lot less than what you’d be paying for a Starbucks latte (last I got one it was $3.90).

You go to your favorite sweet shop, buy a kilogram of ras malai, and happily pay $6. That’s what you’d pay for a plate of two sorry looking rasmalais squeezed out off their juices in the US anyway. Hail India.

And even before you know, your bank balance has dipped by a couple of thousand dollars and your waistline has expanded by a few extra inches. But that’s a different story.

Personally, I feel prices of things in India have gone up by at least 4-8 times. My baseline of course is prices of things back in 2006. Fish costs more, sweets cost more. A glass of lassi at Haldiram’s costs you Rs. 24, something unthinkable in 2006. The brief 4 hours I spent at the New Delhi airport, I was horrified to skim through the prices of eating places at the airport. I could actually afford to buy nothing as I returned to India with 100 rupees and my credit card. If Kolkata is this expensive, I can imagine how expensive New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore are going to be. Yet I have spending power now, thanks to the dollar-rupee economics. So if you are a graduate student about to embark on a US trip, do not fret. Things might look very expensive now, but the next time you are here, everything is going to look dirt cheap.

Time to make another list now. This time, not the hair oil or the poha or Ganesh atta. This time, it’s sequined sarees and embroidered clothes and some jewelry.

sunshine

Cold Treatment

March 4, 2009

I find most people’s behavior in the US to be exaggerated and  melodramatic to the extent that it almost becomes obnoxiously comical. Talk about how your stupid kitty gulped down a bunch of carpet fur and got sick, or about how the man you were dating ditched you, and women will grab their chest and make a contorted facial expression, almost sinking to the floor saying “Oooo I am sooo sorry”. I mean, what is there to be sorry about a fat stupid glutton kitty eating fur or about a screwed up man who decided not to waste your time? 

People will get melodramatic for things as trivial as you getting on the wrong bus or your morning alarm not going off. It is nyakamo in its own way- ask any Bengali if you don’t know the word, I couldn’t come up with an apt translation, ooo I am soooo sorry (clenching my chest). 

You must be wondering what pissed me all of a sudden about the mannerisms of people. The move and the weather took a toll on me, not to mention my office colleague who was suspiciously sneezing for a while, and I caught one of the nastiest cold I can remember ever since I came here. It started with a choked voice and relapsed to get back to full-fledged chest congestion, sneezing, and a terrible migraine. While it was still benign last week, I was making myself some tea in the office kitchen while I coughed. This alerted my colleague, who asked me if I was doing fine. Showing her the bunch of Kleenex tissues I was holding, I told her how I thought I might be coming down with cold. 

This woman immediately flung her hand in the air with all her melodrama, made a funny face (only she thought it was funny), and exclaimed- oooo stay away from me, I don’t want to catch it. 

In India, this would be considered condescending. You don’t want to show that you put your interest and well-being before the person who is ill, even if you feel that way. What I am used to hearing when coming with a cold is- ahaare bechaari, kheyal rakhish (poor thing, take care of yourself) and not something to the effect of what she said. I understand that it is infectious, yet the first thing I would get a cold, I would derive great comfort holding my mom’s hand and going to sleep. Here, people would put you in an isolation room, especially if you have just travelled and arrived from India. 

People think India is infested with lice and rats and mosquitoes and viruses. Some believe that there is an Asian version of every disease, which you get when you travel to or from Asia. Ever heard of Asian chicken pox or Asian dermatitis? It is ridiculous people should believe such diseases even exist. So I decided to stay home on sick leave and went back to office only when I was done with most part of the flu. I still made it a point to carry disposable Kleenex tissues and not the Indian-style handkerchief to blow my nose. I was weak, had a terrible headache, and didn’t look that good. Instead of applauding me for not staying home for something as trivial as a flu, the girls in office again started moving their limbs and contorting their faces in a way that it would seem they have been electrocuted. It’s not that I was rubbing shoulders with anyone. I quietly stayed in my room, occasionally going to the kitchen to grab some tea. People dropped by to see how I was doing, and when they saw me sniffle as if a toad was stuck in my nose, acted a false run as if a mad dog was released to bite them in their you-know-where. Ooo--- stay away from me, I don’t want to catch a cold and miss work. That is what they told me. Frustrated, I just continued to work. I hoped they would spare me the melodrama and leave me alone instead of making me feel I had some STD. I wondered which was it that caused me more headache, my flu, or the paranoid melodrama it caused. It seems people have no faith in immunity, or the healing power of the body. 

sunshine.

2 Years Of US

This week I complete 2 years of my stay in the US. It’s amazing how so much has happened over the last 2 years. I had landed here in the middle of the night, all ready to fall apart. My initial few memories of the US were long winding freeway roads, and buildings and flyovers that looked all brown and grey in the darkness. And now that I look at my own pictures 2 years back, my mood turns different shades of grey. It is amazing how thin and young and naïve I looked then. These 2 years I haven’t visited home even once, and my parents already think I am one of those who fly away never wanting to return again.

Looking back, I think I have had a good 2 years. I visited 10 out of 50 states, got to see a lot of new places one would mostly see in Discovery channels or Yash Chopra movies, collected dozens of fridge magnets, made many friends, put on pounds and lost my original shape, and acquired experiences of all kinds. I finally tasted sushi and saw the Statue of Liberty, visited Stanford and went to the first night club, wrote my first scientific paper and got my first paycheck in dollars. I’ll never know how my life would have been had I stayed back, but I don’t think I want to know. I made my own choices and have stuck to them so far. Regarding achievements, that too shall happen soon. My conviction is that more scientific papers would be written and more conferences attended, more magnets would be collected till I am forced to buy a bigger fridge, and more things would be discovered in life. But this shall remain a lesson forever, that time and age and experience makes you more independent and accountable for your actions, and that if there is that little voice in you that tells you to leave the safer shores and your comfort zone and set for an unknown journey, then despite these clichéd lines, NOW is the time to sail towards the unknown.

It’s been a great country to live in, and though I still miss my folks, the place I grew up in and the way of life I was used to, this is home now.

sunshine

First Buy

The other day, I was wondering about the first time I made a dollar transaction in the US. In other words, what was the first thing I bought in the US? It was the day after I had landed here. My first (and my longest) flight did not prepare me for the basic hazards of travelling in compressed, dry, and closed compartments for hours, and I had left my cosmetics behind for fear of unwarranted security harassment. I had not taken into account how cold and dry it would be inside the airplane, and how it could affect my lips. I had barely crossed Mumbai when my lips started to get dry, itch, and irritate. I tried taking sips of water to keep them moist, but that only increased my frequency of restroom visits, much to the chagrin of my fellow passengers. My lips just got worse with every passing hour. By the time I had landed here, I could barely smile at the friend who had come to pick me up, or at G (my host). My lips were sore and bleeding, and looked as if some monstrous insect from Africa had hatched out of the eggs inside my lips. The next day when I went to visit my department for the first time and introductions were made, I could only exchange hugs, but not smiles. It was then I knew why people talked about stiff upper lips.

Anyway, G decided to relieve me of my miseries of severely chapped and bleeding lips, and took me to the nearest Walgreens store. It was my first time in a store as well, and just the sheer variety and quantity of things neatly arranged in aisles amazed me. There were so many choices for something as simple as lip balm that I did not know what to choose.

“Hmm…. Seems like you will need quite some quantity”, G remarked at the sight of my battered lips. I spotted this big jar of petroleum jelly, debating whether to buy it when G read my mind and told me that store brands were cheaper. The jar alone weighed 368 grams, and I wondered if I would need that amount. $3.49 each, it said, or 2 for $5.

I had barely been in the US for 10 hours and before I knew it, the consumer bug had bitten me. It was the phenomenon of buying in bulk whether I needed that much or not, just because it came much cheaper. And right there, I fell into the trap. The first thing I bought in the US was 2 jars of petroleum jelly, costing me $5 and weighing 736 grams in all. “Good buy”- G had remarked.

It has been 2 years, and I am still struggling to finish off the first jar. I can’t get rid of it, not just for the sake of old memories, but for the fact that there is so much of it all remaining to be used. And every time I go to a shop and see cute little chapsticks and lip balms of different flavors, I resist the temptation to buy them, just because I want to finish off these monstrous sized things first. It’s no longer a matter of wasting something worth 5 bucks, it is a matter of wasting half a kilo of petroleum jelly.

My first buy in dollars- 750 grams worth petroleum jelly ! God knows what I was thinking.

sunshine

Another Book Of Impossibilities

I recently finished the book The village bride of Beverly Hills written by Kavita Daswani, and these were my thoughts as I finished reading the last word in the last page. There are so many things unrealistic about this story. But in all, if you are willing to overlook the basic flaws in the flow of the story and forgive the writer for what according to me seems a weak build, you may want to take home a lesson- that nothing in life is impossible to attain as long as you want to put up a fight for it. 

In the story, Indian homey girl Priya gets married to Sanjay and moves to the US with her in-laws. A very typical Indian setting replete with traditions and customs, the book makes a quick read, sending the readers who live out of India on a nostalgia trip back at home. There are so many things unbelievable in the plot. For one, newly wed Indian brides from conservative families with super-conservative in-laws did not go onto their secret mission of becoming a Hollywood reporter from an insignificant desk manager wearing the most unfitting and unfashionable clothes. No one knows how someone on a spouse visa acquired work that soon, and transformed from the most unfashionable and sartorial-challenged person to one of the happening reporters in Hollywood. I mean going by this logic, I would have been warming up for the Stockholm podium to go get my Nobel Prize pretty soon. But the way in which Priya’s mom tells her how she belongs to the other family now, the way she ends up with a spineless husband and overpowering and possessed in-laws, the way she is expected to cook and clean and get food ready on the table before she leaves for work is totally believable. It reaffirms my initial belief that all they were looking for was a maid from India. 

No secret of course remains a secret for long, especially this one with such bones and muscles. But then, even after her husband was told of the truth, no one knows why she had to give up her job despite earning more than her bag-trader husband, and fly back to India. Like I said, you will be disappointed if you considered every nitty-gritty in the story. But if you read it and try to take the inherent message out of it, you will perhaps end up with a little less creases on the forehead than I did after I finished the book. Overall, a nice read as long as you can spare a few lazy afternoons or commute for hours everyday. The message of course is very clear, that only take as much shit from the husband and the in-laws and the world in general as your patience permits, and then screw them and fly back to India. Lots of elements of surprise, like this one. Did you know, Hollywood really liked convent educated, British-English accented news reporters to speak to? Duh, why did the author underestimate my judgment or acumen again and again? Another good review here. Hoping for something more believable the next time Kavita, sunshine. 

PS- One of the better ways to learn about new books is through other peoples recommendations. If you have read any book and liked/disliked it, or would simply want to write about it, drop me a line in the comments section or send me an email. I am always on the lookout for reading interesting books, and your effort would be highly appreciated.

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Sunshine Is Sadness Today

My aunt in India passed away last night. Somewhere in her late fifties, in an advanced stage of cancer. Bereft of life support system. Mom sounded very upset, particularly since she happened to be one of her closer cousins. And I lay on my bed in the darkness and listened to her on the phone, so many happy memories from a different era drifting in front of me.

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The trip we had to Orissa together. The way she always praised me saying what a good student I was. The onion pakoras and the goat meat curry she always made for me. The way she always chewed on betel leaves, leaving a distinct odor I always associated with her. My first badminton racket that she had gifted me in the seventh grade.

In the last few years that I have been here, so many members of my extended family have passed away. A couple of aunts and uncles, my grandfather’s brother and his wife, and a couple more. It is weird how mom would tell me on the phone, and I would lie on bed for an eternity, thinking of all those childhood memories, of the fun things we did together as family, of the trips we went to, of the family weddings we met at despite living far away, of those various pujas and religious festivals when we saw each other. The past, thankfully immutable, leaves me with these treasured memories while I realize that I will never see them in person again.

People like me who live thousands of miles away from the family will know what I am talking about. When we choose to be away from our families, we do so with the implicit understanding that there are people in our close and extended family whom we may never see again. We all know that death is coming, eventually. Yet we never seem to be prepared enough for it. 

My maternal grandparents, my only grandparents alive, are getting old. When I talk to them, I feel the helplessness in their voice, knowing well that they think they may never see me again. Even when my cool grandma updates me on the new bollywood movies (she is a big fan of bollywood), I cannot help but feel the uncertainty in her voice. I wish that they could visit me in the US someday. I wish I could go back and spend weeks with them, just like the good old days. Yet practicality expects us to move on with our lives, no matter how much we wish to change things.

It doesn’t matter how much I love my family, I know that they will not be there with me forever, and it is just a matter of time. What I absolutely hate is being informed on the phone, and then spending hours remembering the good old days, knowing that the dead will never come back. I know it is something I cannot change, but the pain of living away from family shall never leave me.

You will be missed, very dearly.

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Culinary Exploits

Disclaimer- This is NOT a food post.

I don’t even qualify as a reasonable cook. Till the day I left home, my mom, in her bouts of optimism, urged me to learn to cook the basics. And every time, I refused and (mis)reasoned. Not that cooking is gender-specific or status-specific. My dad is a great cook, and so are so many men. My mom had resigned, wisely predicting that a person who loves to eat will eventually learn to cook. And that is what happened, the hard way of course.

For one year, I tried to make what can be called “kitchen accidents” instead of food. When I finally got tired of eating out, I decided one fine morning, ladles and frying pan in hand, that I will learn to cook. Believe it or not, I had never broken an egg before that, let alone cook. I didn’t even recognize the names of most spices. I would sniff the spice and try to remember which dish would mom use it in. I still associate the smell of jeera powder with unripe mango sharbat mom made during the summer. I still do not recognize the pulses, let alone know how to cook it. I started my first day of cooking by adding turmeric powder to pasta. I am sure that Italians are still turning in their graves after that. Eventually, in the process of numerous hits and trials, numerous pan burns and food being disposed in the garbage, I finally learnt to make some palatable curries that saw me through the week. I didn’t have to be a connoisseur of food for that. And now every time I try something new that works, I excitedly call home. My proud announcement of “Mom, I made prawns today” is usually accompanied by a silence and a thud on the other side of the line when dad picks up the phone and announces that my mom has just fainted. Well, not really, but every time, she is on the verge of fainting when I tell her that I cooked something new.

Well, what spices did you put in it? Where did you get the recipe from?

Errr…. I don’t know. I put whatever I thought would taste good in that.

Such are my cooking expeditions. Browse through any cookbook or food website and I’ll realize that I don’t even recognize half the ingredients, let alone have it. So I have finally decided, that these websites are meant just for visual pleasure. If it comes to cooking, I’ll have to improvise with whatever little I have.

However, there are things that I learnt during my cooking expeditions. Like these-

--How well the food tastes depends on how correctly you cut the vegetables. A simple onion can be cut into a dozen different ways, depending on what you are making. And if you fry the onions properly, brown and un-burnt, half of your cooking is done.

--The key to a good flavor lies in the minimum usage of spices. If you are not sure about how much to put, start by adding little quantities. It is better to rectify a less spicy, bland dish than to uselessly try to mend an over-spicy, over-cooked, or over-burnt dish. But then again, it all depends on who you are feeding other than you, isn’t it?

--Green vegetables should always be added at the end, else they fade in color.

--Good food comes from good use of patience and innovation, rather than a lot of spices or ingredients. Especially if you would like to have male friends frequenting your place. They really appreciate it, especially the single ones, given the fact that they eat anything other than textbooks, computer equipment, and office supplies.

--If you are trying something for the first time and are not very confident, cook in small quantities. If nothing, your heart wouldn’t break while disposing it off in the trash can or passing it over to your Thai neighbor as an “Indian delicacy”.

--Cooking is like doing research. Sometimes nothing works and sometimes everything works. But then, it also depends on who you are. If you were Sanjeev Kapoor, I am sure even using turmeric powder in pasta would be cool.

--Writing food blogs may not be a good idea as a distraction from the midnight snacks hunger after all. If anything, the hunger just gets worse.

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Be My Guest

The host becomes a ghost when you can hardly see her. At least that is what my friend preferred to think. A friend back from my days of India, we made it to the US together. So I was delighted when a few weeks back, she called me up to inform that she was visiting me for a week. I don’t usually get many visitors, certainly not someone taking an airplane and travelling all the way to see me. Needless to say, I created a table on a word document, put the dates on the left, and made a list of all the things I had planned for us.

Now there are certain phases you have in your academic life when things don’t go the way you want them to. It doesn’t happen all the time, in fact most of the times, a grad student’s life entails nothing a lot more than the optional chore of attending a few classes, spending a few hours in the lab, and then the compulsory chore of chilling out with friends. At least that was the way things were with me. But then my advisor came into the picture, we got a few demanding projects to work on, and the rest is history. To cut a long story short, the last few weeks have seen me spending early mornings till late nights in the lab. Monday through Sunday, 7 days a week. Christmas, New Year’s, and any other holiday you can think of. Of course I am not the only one, my advisor has been at work too, strategizing new means of kicking my ass, but yeah, that has pretty much been the picture. I don’t know for how many days straight I haven’t seen the sky getting dark. I come in as early as I can, and when I get back, it is dark and raining. I see everyone going home, but no one in the lab has seen me go home in the last few weeks. And it was very nice of my advisor to drive me home last night. That too at 1:30 am in the morning (oozing with sarcasm).

Sounds incredible, huh! Seems like I have been on the verge of making some path-breaking discovery, or the spirit of Einstein has possessed me? Naah, it is this stupid deadline, and the constant urge to make sure that funding did not run out.

However, for as long as my friend was staying with me, I tried my best to be a good host. Certainly not by the standards of how my family would host someone back at home, but certainly my own way. For a record, I actually started to rebel and take the 8 pm bus home. I would be home by 9, and then we would start to cook. I made sure that I cooked at home most of the days. It’s not that I am an exceptional cook, but most places would be closed and most friends would have made other plans by the time I reached home. Now I am not the cooking type, but that one only thing I did for her in the whole day gave me such satisfaction. We would chat incessantly while she chopped the onions and I heated the oil, and man, it was such fun.

Mornings would start with me waking her up, making some coffee, and that’s it. Soon, I would be running for my classes, and she would have plans for the day. And while she got ready and I got late, I would sneak out of the house with the note neatly tagged on the fridge. This note contained the bus routes for all the places she had planned to see that day. Yeah, you heard me right, barring Sunday, when I finally decided not to report to office (my advisor did come to work and as a protest, I refused to pick up my phone), my friend has been seeing the city on her own. And she darn well did a good job out of it. She didn’t whine or complain, she rather sympathized. And know what, she saw more of the city in a week than I have seen in a year. She went to these places that I have just heard of, but never been there.

After she left, I was reflecting on how good a host I have been. Certainly she had no problems with me working and she seeing the city on her own. She didn’t even have problems making tea for me while I worked or cleaning the dishes when I ws too tired to do them. But I thought of the way I had grown up seeing guests being welcomed at home, and I am sure ma would disown me if she saw what a ghostly host I have been.

Now many people have been guests at our place. But when it was a close friend, the person would have better places to sleep than on a mattress. I don’t even have a bed at home, not that I am too poor to afford one, but I have never had the need to. So my friend slept on the mattress. I did volunteer to cook every night we did not eat out, but it was nothing grand. Dinner rather consisted of something that I can quickly concoct without getting tired, and not the elaborate dishes mom spent making all day. So there was no home cooked biriyani and chicken kebabs, there was the simple bhindi masala and potato curry and stuffed veggie omelets and my customized raita with loads of bean sprouts topped with crushed potato chips. Dinner was served in disposable plates (my friend suggested that) so that not much time is spent doing the dishes. Certainly a far cry from the ornate sets of china we were used to having in whenever people visited us. While mom would spend the day showing people around, and dad too would take an occasional leave from work, I kept working half the weekend. The only thing I did was call my friend from office every day to make sure that she was not lost in the streets of the city and what time she was hoping to come home. And then I would usually come home much after she did (I gave her a set of my home keys), make coffee and some dinner cooked in 30 minutes, and eat in disposable plates. Even the day she was leaving, I had a deadline to submit in the morning. So I arranged for a cab, gave her a hug, and that’s about it. No seeing her off at the airport, no parting tears and no farewell gifts (mom usually made this farewell caramel pudding for everyone). What more, when she was leaving, I told her “Come again”, and though my “come again” was heartfelt, my insides laughed at me sarcastically at the “come again”.

It made me realize how different our lives become in a different country. My intentions of “atithi satkaar” were still with all my good faith effort, but circumstances did not permit me to take either a day off, or to show her around and cook well for her. What more, I got late on my way to pick her up the night she arrived at 10 pm, just because I was busy finishing off the grocery that I haven’t had the time to do before. I know she was totally fine with it, and perhaps I am feeling a little more than my deserved share of guilt. But mom and dad back in India failed to understand why it was so difficult for me to take time out of my schedule and show her around. I am so glad she came, as I did not have to go back to an empty house for a week. But all that I did was more out of my need for seeking company and reinstating my sociable instincts soon to become extinct.

Anyway, she reached fine and told me that she had one of the finest trips here. She loved the city, loved the places she went to, and loved the bhindi masala I cooked. She is hoping to be back in summer. Only I hope that I am more with the what you call “Aantorikota” (whatever that means in your language) and have more time for people in my life then. Sob!

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Love At First Sight.

A year back, I was like any other starry-eyed girl who wanted to step out of home and see the world. And like most families, we grew up knowing that education and doing well in academics is the gateway to seeing the world, meeting new people, and doing something worthwhile. “Porashuna ta bhalo kore korte hobe” was what my professors said, meaning, you have to excel in studies. Hailing from a very ordinary family, that is what I believed too. Unlike my other friends, I did not have relatives in the US I could visit during summer. In fact, the first time I boarded an airplane was during my first trip outside home, to the US. 

My first stopover was at Frankfurt, but I never got out of the airport. Just stuck my nose to the huge glass panes, trying to see what Germany and Europe is life. By the time I reached Los Angeles, it was already dark. The connecting flight was delayed for a few hours, and as I stuck my nose to the glass panes trying to catch a glimpse of the much heard about “America”, all I could see were the tiny lights far away dotting the darkness, and several planes taking off. No landscape, no picturesque places, no tall buildings, no Hollywood, nothing. Even while landing in Seattle, all I saw were the blinking lights of the city. It had been past midnight then.

I neither knew the people who would pick me up from the airport, nor my host. All I knew was that my host lived in some remote godforsaken part of the city. So while the guys drove me from the airport, I had once again buckled myself up in the seat (the concept of seat belts was new, though not totally unheard to me then), and had stuck my nose to the glass windows to catch a glimpse of “America”. But even then, all I had seen were the silhouettes of tall dark buildings, freeways, paths winding in huge half circles, and headlights from the opposite direction. Once I reached my host's home (which I thought looked more like a garden house in the darkness), I was dutifully escorted and shown my room. And while my hosts had drifted off to sleep (it was past midnight), I had lain awake, unable to fall asleep due to a mixture of jet lag and excitement. I hadn’t pranced around the house in fear of stomping on their pet's tail in the darkness. So once again, I had stuck my nose to their window panes, awaiting daylight and trying to catch a glimpse of “America”.

And that I did. In the first few minutes of the morning light, what I saw was the most beautiful and most amazing sight I could ever have envisioned. No tall buildings. No expressways. No shopping malls. This was my first glimpse of the US in daylight. 

Who would believe that it was exactly one year since today? Time flies, huh?

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Weekends Awaited.

This is the long weekend, the Labor Day holiday on Monday. Now what’s the big deal about an extra day off work? Well, I would ask the same question if I was still in India. What’s the big deal about one extra day of holiday, when we already have so many, thanks to the numerous Gods and Goddesses and the great men of India, their birthdays, death anniversaries, weddings, and if nothing, the bandhs. No more holidays coming up for the next 2 weeks now? Let’s call it a bandh!

One of those many culture shocks I got here was after taking a look at the yearly calendar. Barring weekends and Christmas, I have counted MLK day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and two days of Thanksgiving. There might be more, but I only know of 6 extra holidays a year. No holidays for Makar Sankranti, Poornima, Karwa Chauth, and Maha Shivratri.

And guess what? My poor granny asked me the other day- Will they give you holidays for Durga puja? 

Most holidays (except July 4) fall on Fridays and Mondays (long weekend!). No holidays on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

This means you slog your butt off Monday through Friday. No midweek potluck parties, driving down to Spokane to meet your best friend, or attending musical concerts in the middle of the week.

Of course as a student, you have those one week breaks between quarters (quarters are 3 months each). But then again, not having classes doesn’t mean work stops. Research continues. Lab work continues (even with greater gusto). The only difference is that you don’t end up frantically searching in your planner the next date for the impending quiz or the exams every now and then.

And when you research in the area I do, most of the times there are no weekends as well. You can take the weekend off if you study political sciences or sociology. But lab animals do not understand holidays. They have to be fed and taken care of and monitored every day. If you plan to study the effect of solvent intoxication on the liver of a rat on day 4, it doesn’t matter whether day 4 is a weekday or not. If you know that a certain insect sheds its shell (ecdysis) between 5-6 in the morning, you have to be there between 5 and 6 am. You just can’t take off and come back after a vacation to Portland. You can momentarily stop its growth by putting it in the temperature controlled incubator for a few hours. But that is only if you need to run to grab some lunch at the nearest food place.

I have never awaited the weekends as eagerly as I do here. Because the work load in the weekends is usually low, and you do not have to start running and getting things done the first thing in the morning. Weekends doesn’t mean I run off to some island. It means I have more time to organize my life, clean my home, cook proper meals, and put my books and papers in some order. Weekends, I take my time and sleep until late. Late being 8 am. 

I am not complaining. I have learnt the art of working my ass off 5 days a week, 12 hours a day, surviving on sandwiches and eating meals in between running errands. There will always be deadlines. It doesn’t matter if you have to stay back in the lab and sleep on the couch. If you have a deadline, you better complete it. Excuses like stomach aches and granny is ill do not work here. Everyone is working very hard. There is no babugiri, government officers idling time, dozing off in offices or playing cards on the computer (Clerks in CU do that). You run with the rest, and try to outrun them. Come Wednesday and I am like- oh, is it just the middle of the week? Come Thursday and I am like- oh, just one more day. And come Friday, I am like- oh man, it is going to be over. Every time it is Friday evening, I return home with the knowledge that there would be two days of peaceful sleep, hearty meals, a walk by the beach, and most importantly, the knowledge that I have survived yet another hectic week.

Welcome to the work culture in the US.

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“Studies” Are Fun.

And let me tell you that I am not referring to the mundane, monotonous chores of mugging up lessons and puking them on the exam sheets, whether or not you can make heads and tails out of them. I am referring to the various studies that go on in the different research labs on campus that recruit student subjects.

So what’s the deal?

As an international student, I am not allowed to work for more than 20 hours a week to earn my stipend. However, summer is the only time that the rules go lax. For not only am I allowed to work for double that time and earn whatever extra money I can (provided I can find other part-time jobs on campus), I am also allowed to participate in as many studies as I can. But of course all this has to happen within the campus.

So how to go about searching for studies to participate in?

Look for flyers wherever you can. You will find them in elevators, in departmental bulletin boards, in restrooms, in corridors, in offices, and in other unexpected places. If the departmental bulletin boards do not suffice, go to the other departments and visit their bulletin boards. You will find flyers with detailed information. At the fag end of the paper, there would be the contact telephone numbers and/or the contact email ids printed multiple times and cut into thin strips. You can conveniently tear out a strip like you tear those coupons, and you are set !!!!

So what studies am I talking about?

You wouldn’t believe the number of studies one could participate in. Of course the list is not exhaustive, but here is a little description about the various studies I have come across and participated/tried to participate in-

Computer keyboard study- in a nutshell, this was an ergonomics study where they were interested to see what design of keyboards make people type faster. I am not allowed to give out the details, but let it suffice to say that first I was given the normal keyboard and asked to type for certain lengths of time while electric pulses monitored the movement of my wrist. Then I was asked to type in a totally different (and cool) looking keyboard and was asked to type using that. My words per minute, frequency of spelling typos, and other hand movements were monitored. What else, I was given a check at the end of the study.

Garlic study- they try to see the usage of garlic in the cure for cancer. Of course you do not have to be a cancer patient to participate in this. For multiple sessions, you eat the food they give you, and then they do the blood draws and ask you to fill up a questionnaire. It lasts for about 8-10 weeks and you get monetary compensation depending on how far you have gone with them to complete the study. So it is not just the money, the food is free too !!!

Beverage study- similar to the garlic study, they would give you food, and then certain beverages, and monitor your rate of hunger.

Dental Study- they test you for sensitive teeth. Let us skip the procedure, but let it suffice to say that they paid me some $150.00 for a non-invasive (no scissors, scalpels, cuts, and stitches), 2 hour study.

Hearing study- what is the range of lowest frequency of sounds babies can hear? How different is it from the range in which adults can hear? They take you to a sound-proof recording room and you raise your hand when you hear a certain beat. The beat gets softer with time. What more, you get a check at the end of it.

Mental study- ever suffered a mental trauma? Ever been abused by someone close and elderly, and still feel traumatized? How do your sleep patterns change when you think of it? Does your heart beat faster? Is there more adrenaline flowing when you think of it? You get the drift, right?

And then, there are others, like the diabetes study, the arthritis study, the baby study, the elderly study, the vision study, the smell recognition study, and so on, and so forth.

The incentives?

Most studies pay a handsome amount for your time. And then you get the satisfaction of knowing that you have helped further the research interests of the university. Your feedback is valuable in helping companies design better products. These companies could be software companies, drug manufacturing companies, or any other company selling anything from electrical equipments to teeth braces. Lastly, you get to know interesting information about yourself, like how well you can identify soft sounds (compared to the others), how fast or slow you type on a new keyboard, how sensitive your teeth are to certain substances and certain temperatures, is there fluid accumulation in your ears, etc.

So what do we do?

I and G vigilantly remain on the lookout for such information. And when we bump into something that looks interesting, we call each other excitedly.

“Hey did you see the study they are doing on people who feel suicidal?”

“Err…. But I do not feel suicidal”…

“Well…. Then go for this hunger study. Am sure you will be a perfect fit”.

“Great. Give me the phone number. And by the way, they are recruiting human subjects for a heart rate monitoring study in the physiology department”….

And this way, we glean and exchange information, call up the recruiters, participate in these studies, and make good pocket money. I tell you, the ways of this country will never cease to amaze me. For now you know, even studies are fun !!!!!!!

sunshine.