Every day after that day

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

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

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

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

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

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Robbed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My passport is gone, but is replaceable. 

Thank God my US visa was not in this passport. 

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

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

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

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2014

2014 was a remarkable year for me in many ways. It brought in many a heartbreaks, and boundless joy. This is an exercise for me to remember some of the significant things of the year.

January

First day of the year, I bid goodbye to Seattle after a wonderful holiday break. I land at the airport in the middle of a cold and wintry night. It had snowed the day before. In the process of driving back home on the freeway, I skid on black ice, not once, but twice. I am about to hit the side rails, driving at 50 mph on an 80 mph freeway, holding on to the steering for life, and waiting to be hit by any car, either from behind or head on. My life flashes by me in a few seconds. A miracle happens, and the car stops, barely a few inches from the guard rails. I am alive and unscathed, and have the presence of mind to not linger there, but quickly drive. My hands are shaking, I keep driving for the next 60 miles with my emergency lights on, and that was the longest night in my life. I come home and break down. I had a minor whiplash, and suffered from mental trauma. So much that it took me at least a month until I started feeling normal while driving again. I take the next day off to recover, but have to eventually go to work. For many weeks after that, something strange happened to me, and I stopped piling up food in the fridge. I started buying only as much as I would need for the next two days. For some reason, I could still not accept that I was alive, and stopped buying things, in case something drastic happens again.

February

February is a blur. The only thing I remember is driving to attend Saraswati Puja. This time, I was extra careful, and drove only during the daylight. Winter is at its peak, and every day is a misery. The Midwest sees a record of low temperature. I pray to God everyday that I don’t have to see another winter in Nebraska. In the midst of everything, I win a dissertation award, chosen among the top three finalists in my field. 

March

The beginning of March was the Academy Award ceremony. We watched it at a colleague’s place, who had cooked up a storm. Winter is kind of about to end, although it is still very cold. The ides of March, I learn that my contract will not renew next year. The job hunting starts. End of March, friends visit me from Seattle and Boston. It is the first time someone visits me in Nebraska. I had left hope that anyone would be even remotely interested in seeing this place. I was wrong. The last day of March, I have a conference presentation in Pittsburgh.

April

Beginning of April, I am away for conferences. After the one in Pittsburgh, I take a break at Washington DC for a few days, and meet up old friends. The train ride from Pittsburgh to Washington DC turns out to be quite inexpensive and relaxing. I visit the World Bank, and get very inspired about working there. I next go to Philadelphia for another conference and meet up with more friends. I realize that I have more friends in all the corners of the US than I have had in any other country. I am visiting Philadelphia after 6 years, and miss some of my old friends who used to live there. The weather starts to get better in Nebraska by mid-April. I discover a fantastic sushi place, and start frequenting there for the happy hours. The job hunt is still on.

May

I start going to these Friday art walks (held in many cities on the first Friday of every month), and start enjoying the experience. The job hunt is still on. I have applied to a bunch of places in the US, more than I can keep track of. But nothing seems to be working out. I am still hopeful, my visa does not expire until the end of August. Memorial Day, another friend from Idaho visits me. I am amazed at how many people are starting to visit me. The weather is much better now, leaning towards the hotter, humid side. I would prefer that any day over the cold and snow. I start driving more, and exploring the nearby lakes and forests. My friend and I are supposed to explore the Badlands National Park and Mount Rushmore. An hour into our 10-hour long road trip, my car breaks down for the first time. I have no clue what’s happening. We call the hotels and cancel our reservation, and spend the next 3 days at home, waiting for the car to be fixed. My friend is pretty cool about it, but I keep getting restless. This is the first time in many years that it is a holiday and I am not traveling.

In the meantime, I am still looking for a job, and now start talking to Indian friends who got a PhD from the US and then moved elsewhere. A particular friend who moved to Israel asks me to explore the options there. I am not terribly excited about Israel, I am still hoping that something works out in the US. I cast a wider net and start contacting faculty all over the country. In the meantime, I identify a good program in Israel, and contact the head. He asks me if I am willing to learn Hebrew. I say yes. Something in me is utterly lost and disappointed. He asks me to contact him in a few months, but in the meantime, contact a renowned research institution in Germany. This raises my hopes. I had loved Europe from my visits before. I contact the organization in Germany. End of May, I contact them. I hear back within a day, telling me that there is no available position. The next day, the head writes me back, asking if I would be willing to visit for 4 months. I miss going to my PhD graduation ceremony. 

June

I decide to go to Colorado for the first time, to meet my friend from college. I take the Amtrak to Denver (an amazing overnight train ride, cheaper and way comfortable than driving).  I meet my friend after 12 years and relive old memories. We drive down to the Rocky Mountain National Park, and other places like Vail. In the meantime, I hear back from at least 6 places I had previously applied to, asking if I am available to interview. I am on top of the world. I know that something is going to work out now. I had applied to two positions in Colorado alone. After my trip, I now start to hope that the job in Colorado works out. The rest of the month is spent interviewing with these places, and waiting. In the meantime, Germany has decided to offer me a position for a year (as opposed to four months), and now wait for my answer.

July

The positions I applied to are either not contacting me, or asking me for more time. I set a deadline of July 15, and decide not to prolong Germany. More friends visit me from Seattle for the July 4^th weekend. This is the third set of friends visiting me. Germany won the world cup football. And I decided to move.

August

August mostly involved packing, moving, and numerous trips to Goodwill. There was some confusion with the date of my moving out, as a result of which, I had to pack and move out on one evening’s notice. Although I was preparing for it for a while now, it was sudden. I hardly got time to mourn my move. By the first day of August, I had moved in with a friend. He sponsored a wonderful farewell dinner for me at a very nice local restaurant, where I had duck for the first time. I started for my first solo road trip in the first week of August. For the next 25 days, I was on the road, travelling 8,000 miles across 22 states. My three-week long criss-cross country solo road trip ended in Seattle. It started in the middle of the country (Lincoln, Nebraska), going south (Houston, Texas), north (Chicago, Illinois), east (Washington DC) and west (Seattle, Washington). The distance I drove was the distance between Washington DC and India, via Europe. I met 42 old friends in the process, and made 9 new friends. In this process, I also got a renewed Indian passport and a new German visa. There were no speeding tickets.

September

September 5^th, I sold my car. I lived for a month in Seattle, meeting old and new people, hiking Rainier and other places in Washington, and enjoying my last Durga Puja in Seattle.

October

I moveto Germany. I make my first friend there, a South Korean friend. I discover the only Starbucks in the city. I start enjoying the habit of watching huge cruise ships on a daily basis.

November

I make my second friend there. Also South Korean. I get my residence and work permit. I am slowly developing roots in Germany.

December

I visit my first Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt) in Germany. I have my first Glühwein (glow wine or mulled wine). I submit my first grant. I visit Calcutta.

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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.

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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.

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The joys of not knowing

            For the longest time recently, I have been stressed out about not being able to find a job. I am 4 months away from finishing my PhD, and most students from my cohort already have a job. I am an international student studying in the US, which means that I must additionally be in compliance with the rules and not stay unemployed in the country. Further, life as a single person (man or woman, doesn’t matter) is not easy. You are entirely responsible for taking care of you, and the love, understanding, and even the temporary financial cushion you need while you look for employment is missing. Come July, my apartment lease is going to expire, and I will not have a home to live anymore. It is battling with the uncertainties that have made my life so miserable.

            Needless to say, I have had multiple meltdowns over the last few months. I have stared at the ceilings wide-eyed at nights, clueless about where I am headed. When I started my job hunt 6 months ago, I conveniently omitted applying to places I did not see myself living in; the small towns in the middle of nowhere where I know I am going to be chronically depressed. I knew I have the time and the options, and I would always find something better. In retrospect, it was a mistake. US funding agencies are going through some significant sequestrations and budget cuts. Universities are having a hiring freeze, and labs are no longer hiring that many postdoctoral researchers. I almost got a job in one of the reputed schools in the South, and then they denied me the job because they decided not to hire anyone. Surely there is no way I could start counting my chickens.

            I started my job hunt with the mindset of exclusion. I don’t want to live in the Midwest. I don’t want to live where it snows. I don’t want to live in small towns. I would prefer a sizeable Indian community around. It would help to have an international airport and a Macys nearby. I want to do a post-doc in an elite school. Soon, I realized that I was doing myself a disservice with the high expectations I had set for myself. Finding a job is not just about my abilities and qualifications, it has a lot to do with who is hiring, who has the money, and who I am shaking hands with. So now, I am applying to every school, every interdisciplinary department, leaving no stone unturned, shamelessly proactively introducing myself to everyone. My adviser still thinks that I will have a job before I graduate, but that rejection from the southern school was an eye opener.

            Eventually, I have sensed a shift of energy, a detachment I have developed with this process. I am still proactively looking for jobs and applying. I am not ready to quit and move back to India for many reasons, but mostly because I don’t have a plan if I have to do so. However, I have realized that stressing myself out and comparing myself with those stellar personalities I rub shoulders with is not going to help. I have personally known people who have multiple job offers 6 months prior to finishing a PhD (or people who didn’t even need to finish their PhD), who have professors from Ivy League schools vying for them, wanting them to work in their labs, people who drive cross-country and make summer trips to Europe when they finish school because they have all the time, money, and a lucrative job waiting for them with a window office overlooking the sea. I’d have loved to visit Greece or Spain as a graduation gift to myself, but let’s be realistic here. We are talking about basic survival needs, the need to have a home and be able to feed oneself, fuel the car, and afford a gym membership without asking for help. So let’s not get ahead of ourselves and try to build some fancy vacation itineraries when it might not happen.

            Of late, I have realized that worrying about something unknown in future is counterproductive. And what’s so wrong with not knowing about the future. Why do I have to know what will happen to me months in advance? With some introspection and mental effort, I have started to enjoy this moment of not knowing where I am headed next. This way, I visualize my future whatever way I want to. At times, I think that I am going to be a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. Then I imagine myself as an educational adviser working for UNESCO in Paris. Sometimes, I visualize myself going back to Seattle and spending a few years scaling Mount Rainier and spending summery weekends by the beaches of Olympic National Park. Sometimes, I want to move to San Diego and enjoy the sun and the Pacific. Maybe I could work for the AAMC in Washington DC, since my dissertation topic is directly relevant to the medical workforce. Or I could start working on my DrPH degree on Global Health next year, and work in other continents like Africa and Latin America. And why education or public health? I could be a photographer working for Nat Geo, or better still, work for myself. I could be a writer visiting countries and writing about the lives of people. The opportunities are limitless when you have a vivid imagination.  In fact, the more I visualize my imaginary future, the more I realize that imaginations spring from the heart and not from the head.

            Imagination is a powerful tool to create and shape one’s future the way one wants to. We often think that external circumstances and other people shape our life events, but how often do we realize that what we become in life is a manifestation of who we imagine ourselves to be? I know I will eventually find a job, there is no denying that; if I don’t, I will probably be the only qualified person in this world who has been unable to find gainful employment, and I don’t see that happening. However, once I know where I am working, I will know, and will not be able to undo the knowing. But this moment of not knowing is beautiful too. The more I am fixated on the idea of finding a job in academia in the US, the more I see myself getting frustrated. Maybe I am not meant to be a professor in some US institution, and what is the big thing about being something or not being something anyway? Who am I to define who I should be or who I should not be? The more I imagine alternative possibilities, the more I find my fears allaying and my inhibitions dissolving. After all, the purpose of going through the graduate school journey, or of doing anything for that matter is to enjoy the ride, learn something new, meet someone unknown, learn a new skill, go to a new place, do something you have never done before, make a plan, fail, and do a better job at it, and most importantly, find happiness in what you do. I have done all this in graduate school, and to let the fag end of my journey be fraught with fears, insecurities, and frustrations would be defeating the whole purpose of educating myself in the first place.

            So I tell myself every day that it’s okay to not know everything that will happen to me in the next few months. I have 16 more weeks in graduate school, and I should just focus on being done. Things have a way of falling in place and working out eventually, they always have. The end of graduate school might be the beginning of a new chapter in life, a new journey to look forward to, something that will take me to a new place, and make my life meaningful in some way. I don’t, for a moment, underestimate the power of hope and imagination for that matter.

sunshine

28 and Unemployed - Part 1/3

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I was a month past 28. Barely a year out of graduate school. Recent owner of a car after 3 years of dreading and 1 month of learning to drive. Happy with a job that wasn’t necessarily THE job, but was something. It paid the bills, maintained my visa status, gave me something to talk about in typical Indian gatherings when people asked what I did, and bought me enough time to decide where I wanted to see myself headed. I was married to my job- a classic case of an arranged marriage. We met on campus, the recruiters hooked us up, and although I didn’t love it at first sight, I learnt to appreciate the perks that came with it- a name, a recognition, a box of business cards with my work designation boldly imprinted under my name, an unbeatable security, a boost to my self-confidence, a steady paycheck that took care of my passion for travel, and enough time and energy to pursue it. A double masters graduate (a PhD dropout actually), I told myself that I would never go back to school to finish my PhD. There was no pride living the life of an overworked and underpaid PhD student, and the smart way was to get a job and have a life. As I drove to work every morning, listening to the bleak updates of the recession on the National Public Radio, of people losing jobs and organizations downsizing, my heart reached out to these people I did not know. I told myself I was the luckiest person to hold on to my job, more so because I was single and did not have a “fallback option” for a husband. The security that came with my job was something worth every hour I spend doing mundane stuff in office, not knowing who would care about my work if I died working on it. Little did I know about the ill-fated layoff that was awaiting me.

When the clock struck twelve, I stood in the cold and rain, watching the fireworks explode over the Space Needle. Squished in a merrymaking crowd in a pub, I had welcomed the New Year with unemployment. No more playing office every morning. No more pay checks for an indefinite period of time. Unemployed, penniless, homeless, visa-less, and barely a year out of graduate school, I had cried broken-heartedly for all the catharsis in my life.

To be continued .....

28 and Unemployed: Part 2/3

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Do you know the one big thing that losing a job does to you? No, it does not drive you bankrupt instantly, it does not make you friendless, nor does it strip you off your visa status immediately. However, it strips you off your confidence big time, eating into your self-esteem, and leaving a dull void of self-doubt at the core. You know you are supposed to go out and meet people, network to ensure you find a job soon, but it seems you have ended up with legs made of lead. You do not want to meet or talk to people. The world symbolically gets on the train leaving the station and you stand there feeling deadweight, seeing the world leave you in slow motion. You hate meeting people, or even picking up the phone because they will either ask you how you lost your job, or will tell you not to worry at the time when you have lost your happiness, your sleep, and your old self beaming with confidence. You hide and sulk, stop taking calls, eat wrong, put on weight, end up looking even more pathetic, question your abilities, look at your degrees with doubt, and sift through your graduation album and cry. Suddenly your friends are nice to you, they take you out for dinner and do not let you pay, and there you are sitting and watching them suspiciously. As an outsider, it is a simple situation where you have lost a job, and you are supposed to move on and find a new job without making a big deal. However when you are in the situation, it is the biggest deal of your life. The voices in your head forever keep nagging, “Maybe I was not good enough”. Our upbringing trains us to deal with success, but does not train us to deal with failure. You tell yourself that you were the college topper, the best performing employee in your previous job, and it does not make sense that you don’t have a job anymore. Few realize that although it is sad to lose your job, you can sail through this phase of unemployment with style, so that the world around you would die to be in your shoes.

Did I sail through my unemployment with style? I do not know about that. I am a liar if I said I accepted reality and moved on. Oh, it affects me till date. It was one single, isolated event on a fine morning when I was told I was leaving. However, I have replayed that incident in my head a million times now, making me feel the pain a million times. I still have nightmares of being asked to leave my workplace. The face of my employers change, but there is someone I always see in my nightmares sitting behind a mahogany desk with an intimidating and overpowering expression, asking me to leave. I was scared, vulnerable, and somewhere in the subconscious, I learnt to believe that I will never be good enough to hold on to a job, friends, or relationships.

I tried for months to get another job, but nothing worked out. Tired of feeling sorry, I gazed out at the waterfront, and asked myself one sunny morning what I would do if I didn’t have to worry about money, success, or what people thought of me. Pen and paper in hand, I started to make a list of the things I would do if I got a break. I was single, unattached, healthy, enthusiastic, could live in whatever part of the world I chose to, didn’t have a child to look after or a mortgage to pay, no ties absolutely. I wondered how I had overlooked these blessings. As I kept writing, my “wish list” kept growing longer. There were so many things I had always wanted to do, waiting for the opportune moment that never came. My unemployment turned out to be that opportune moment in my life. I now had a plan for my life, and a fun plan indeed. My crazy list looked something like, “Going back to school. Traveling Europe. Visiting family. Learning a skill. Losing weight. Watching all the top movies on the IMDB list. Writing a book.” I knew I could not finish even half of them, but I was already excitedly planning my unemployment period. What a welcome break it was from the boredom and monotonousness of doing routine things that everyone around me did.

To be continued ........

28 and Unemployed: Part 3/3

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By January, I found myself sitting in music class, cleaning the cobwebs off my voice and relearning my Sa-Re-Ga-Ma. I used to sing with my grandfather as a kid. He took with him the culture of evening riyaaz when he died. 24 years later, I started my classical music lessons. Now that I was singing, I wanted to dance too. I felt self-conscious, I had gained a lot of weight in the last few years, but I had always wanted to dance with the local dance wing, and realized this could be my only chance. I auditioned with them for a show, and the weekdays saw me singing and dancing to the tunes of music for the upcoming show. My muscles screamed in pain, I no longer felt that nimble and flexible I used to feel years ago, and came so close to giving up at times but dragged on for that day I would be on stage feeling proud of myself. February saw me live that moment of pride, performing on stage.

I had a lot of time now but no money, so I started living with a close friend. I helped her take care of her baby, another unique experience for me. Baby and I became best friends, and I learnt skills like feeding a 1 year old, keeping her entertained, talking to her, making her learn new words, and singing to her. By the end of my one-month long stay with her, she was singing Sa-Re-Ga-Ma with full confidence. I had circulated the gift of music I had got from my music teacher, to baby. Taking care of the little one taught me love, patience, and the art of understanding little humans who do not talk to communicate or make themselves understood, not to mention bits and pieces of Tamil. Next, I moved to another friend’s place where I had another baby to take care of, not a little human, but a very understanding and communicative cat. Anyone who knows me would know how scared I am of animals, and I would not even go close to a harmless, innocent animal, let alone live with one. However, I saw this as another opportunity to get over my fears and take temporary responsibility of a living being. Kitty and I had the house to ourselves and we would often sit together in the evenings watching television, playing, or talking to each other. I told her stories and she responded by purring and mewing. We even watched a Bengali movie together once.

By the end of March, I had heard back that I was not granted an extension of my US visa. I was expected to leave the US, my home for the last 4 years. It was yet another calamity that came as an opportunity. I looked at Google maps and asked myself if the world was a playground lying invitingly in front of me, where would I like to play next. I had my answer. I sold most my stuff, packed the rest of my life in boxes at a friend’s garage, left my car in another friend’s driveway, and took off. I took a flight to New York, and another flight that didn’t stop till it reached India. I was in India after 4 years, meeting my family and friends. I rejuvenated myself, felt nurtured with unadulterated love and support that a family provides, and went back to work voluntarily at my old school where I used to teach 4 years ago. I saw this as a unique opportunity to re-establish my contacts, and to do something I was passionate about- teach. All it took me to be happy and feel useful was to discover something I loved to do, and start doing it again.

Before I knew, I had spent months with family, possibly more time than anyone living outside home could ever imagine. It was time to move on. The next 2 weeks saw me backpacking, living, and breathing in the places I had only read about and dreamt of, but had never thought I would visit in this life. I had always wanted to walk the streets of Vienna where my favorite movie “Before Sunrise” was shot, and I did it. I had always wanted to visit an active volcano, and here I was climbing Mount Etna in Sicily. I walked the streets of Dresden, had Gelato in Rome, got a first hand experience of marveling at awe inspiring work of Michelangelo in Rome, stood mesmerized by the beauty of Salzburg, visited the castles of Prague, walked inside the world’s largest ice caves in Werfen, hiked the Alps, even took a train that boarded a ferry while leaving mainland Italy towards Sicily. Map in hand and an indomitable wanderlust, my dream of backpacking Europe, traveling in trains, and living on a shoestring budget had come true.

The best things in life were spread out for me as a buffet, and in 8 months I got a taste of almost everything I had ever desired. Music, dance performance, babies and pets, meeting family, teaching, and walking the streets of Europe. But I still had to figure out my life and decide what I would do after this transitory honeymoon phase. This was my chance to start something new, and learn from scratch, since I had already made up my mind not to go back to doing bench science again. After 8 months of a journey that seemed more like a never ending fun vacation, I wanted to be a student again, but not in the same field studying cells and molecules and writing scientific documents. I wanted to learn more about how people learnt. I applied to a dozen schools, got around half a dozen admits, and went back to school. It was time to start working on that unfinished dream of a PhD. Life had given me another chance to do something I loved, and I grabbed that opportunity and converted my passion for teaching to the pursuit of research. These days, I work on how to make the process of learning more effective. By changing fields, I relearned my sciences from scratch.

My greatest lesson from this journey of unemployment was to see things I built over years, things valuable to me, crumble in front of me, and for me to learn to build from rubble and from the ashes of unfulfilled dreams again. It taught me how to be significantly detached from my dreams to be able to work on rebuilding newer dreams again. I have learnt that it’s okay to have nightmares about losing your job or not succeeding in life or see people leaving you, because your insecurities mirrored through these nightmares will only make you wake up and work harder towards your commitments to ensure that things don’t screw up in real life. I feel like a new person, free of baggage, unfettered from the thoughts of how the world perceives me, and secure in the knowledge that I have taken good care of myself through these months and haven’t failed myself.

My journey through these 8 months of unemployment changed the way I learned to count my blessings. The door that had marked the end of things was also the same door that marked the beginning of brand new, and a better life for me.

sunshine

27 and Unmarried?

This is a work of f(r)iction, and should not be confused with the author’s intentions of documenting her subdued desires of getting hitched, or claiming that she is 27, when she is long past that age.

"27 and unmarried? Hai Raaam !!! Are you romantically challenged? Kuch gadbad hai kya? Aren’t most girls your age already married?"

You know what shaped my romantic conditioning while growing up. The fantasy world I created from reading hundreds of Mills & Boon (MB) romantic novels, and Harlequin romances. Crumpled yellow pages, a cover best hidden in a newspaper jacket. No matter how much I tried to look indifferent, the size of the book and the fervent way I skimmed through the yellow pages always gave away what I read. Yeah yeah we all know about “the lack of variety in plotlines and their inevitable happy endings”. So what?

The problem is- my imaginary world of romantic hunks sauntering half naked in towels became more real than my real world and the men I met there. In school and college when my friends were mate hunting, I drowned myself in books with these fantastic men, vicariously deriving my romantic stimulus from them. A decade later when my friends have found their mates, I have woken up to the realization that I am perhaps running a good 10 years behind schedule. I haven’t been able to find someone on my own, and the random men I talk to every weekend as a routine of this arranged marriage drill, barely live up to my expectations.

My Indian forefathers had turned in their graves when at 14 I was convinced I was marrying an Italian. To my understanding, all my fantasy men resided in Italy, Greece, and France. Brought up with middle class values and dozens of Mills & Boons hidden between my text books, I have always wondered why the fantasy men I read about were so different from the real men around me - lovers, non-lovers, ex-lovers, buddies, colleagues and the ones I talk to these days, hoping that I would end up marrying one of them. Why was it that the Kamal Kishores, the Venkat Rajans and the Obhrokanti Kumars never stood a chance to these Jakes, Lukes, and Nicks?

No prizes for guessing that the fiction writers had transported me to this imaginary world of men who didn’t exist in reality. But it didn’t make the fantasy men any less appealing. You know why? Because they are self made. Born with a silver spoon, yet a go-getter. Exceptionally tall, always towering and above 6 feet (something which Bengali men rarely are). My mother never really understood my need to tiptoe to the man I marry, and still makes me talk to these short men with the notion that “a good character and a secure job is more important than height”.

My MB men are always dark. Brooding. Broad chested. Very angry with life. It seems every woman wants to chain him down, though frankly, I don’t know why none of his flings ever made it to the altar. His charm and virility increases as an exponential function with age. Very devoted to his huge family of 4 generations residing somewhere in Italy. Usually Greek or Italian (but never Indian). He travels all around the world and he owns a chain of art galleries or Victoria’s secret stores. Drives Porsches and Ferraris. Sleeps in boxer shorts. Doesn’t snore or fart or scratch himself like a hairy porcupine. Well toned. No hanging pot bellies or a receding hairline. Never found shopping in Walmart, IKEA or Target. Unparalleled sartorial elegance. He doesn’t do menial jobs like – coding, writing software, or cloning animals in the lab.

Reality bites. I remember talking to a doctor as a part of my mate hunting routine. I placed him in the genre of medical romances where the doctor always fell for the nurse. Then I discovered that the man got his kicks describing gory details of what went in the operating rooms. He was too engaged in conversation to notice me cringe as he described the entire process of childbirth over a cup of coffee. Who did he think he was, Dr. Gregory House? I mean, for all my dreams of him undressing me mentally, who knows if he was dissecting me mentally. No, things never really went anywhere with him.

My MB man owns private islands in the Bahamas, while the common man, even after topping the JEE, the IIT, and ending up as a software luminary, spends his entire life paying off mortgages for a house in the outskirts of Seattle. My MB man always gets attracted to the plain Jane no-non-sense girl with oodles of self esteem. In fact, I never wore makeup for years, just to live up to the plain Jane image. My MB man always initiates the first kiss and is never slapped for such unwarranted animal lust. Sometimes, my MB man is the father of the baby he never knew existed because he did not want to be tied down to marriage despite his miraculous procreative abilities. Sometimes, he is the only employer in the vicinity and offers marriage when you are least expecting it. Sometimes he is that man you find in the desolate island where you went for your last field trip. Soon, you are thrown into a situation where neither of you can do without each other. A hurricane strikes the island, he discovers a secret of his life you are the key to, or he simply realizes that you belong to an exotic species naïve enough to not use contraceptives during these accidental, unplanned acts of passionate love making.

I grew up firmly believing that the man I marry would be like one of these characters. The ones who would pin me down against the wall to initiate the first kiss. Not the ones who describe how pancreatic cancers are cured. My world of romantic fantasy came crashing down with every relationship gone haywire. Tainted are those, marred by the gory wrath of society, who are unable to sail through the trials and tribulations of a socially acceptable relationship. I saw this train filled with potential grooms leaving the station while someone pushed me frantically to run after the train. I thought of my MB men and my make-believe world in Italy and how happy I was there. I wondered why I didn’t find the Indian version of my MB man. While the world eagerly awaits Mr. Right’s arrival to put an end to my miseries of singlehood for life, Mr. Right is a split personality, who in his other personality, is a mama’s boy brought up with good values who only listens to mama.

My conflicting worlds confuse me – the one with the Jakes and Lukes, the one with people pushing me to get married to whoever was smart enough to make it to the US, and the world of these prospective grooms sitting in a train, one of which might be kind enough to marry me someday. While these worlds of mine collide, I bear a heavy burden on my chest, traumatized at the thought of dying an old spinster. My feelings remain unresolved so far- call it tragedy or consider it comical. Like my friend says, “27 and unmarried? Hai Raaam !!! Aren’t most girls your age already married?”

sunshine