2016 by 2

And just like that, half of eventful year is over. And what happened in these last 6 months?

1.     True to my word, I wrote more than 100 blog posts, a record.

2.     Got a faculty position.

3.     Lost my grandpa.

4.     Got robbed.

5.     Visited Kolkata.

6.     Traveled five new countries.

7.     Published a research paper.

8.     Got three grants rejected.

9.     Got two new passports.

10.  Almost got killed.

sunshine

Rules from a different era

As I rode the cab back home a little after 11 pm, I was reminded of so many late nights from a different era.

In my family, dad has always been the stricter one, laying out rules that we were supposed to obey and not break. I am sure every middle-class, conservative Indian family has those. Mom was more chilled out and malleable, and gave us more freedom, as long as dad did not come to know of it. For example, sleepover parties were a strict no-no, even if it was my best friend who lived a few blocks down the lane and our families knew one another well. I could spend as much time as I wanted to with my best friend, but I was supposed to come home to sleep. Being the rebellious one, I had tried to coax and cajole, and ultimately rebel, but no good had come out of it.

Dad had a strict rule, that the children should be back home early, preferably by evening. Now the good thing is, dad himself used to work somewhere faraway, and usually took the last metro home. So mom had made this amendment, that as long as I was safe and arrived home before dad did, and this socialization did not affect my grades, it was fine. She is pretty cool that way. But when dad made rules, there was not much room for negotiation.

I have gone through different phases of introversion and extroversion in life, and college was a phase when I had suddenly turned into a gregarious kind. I used to attend biology classes in southern Calcutta, and instead of immediately taking the bus or metro, I used to hang out with friends and walk to the metro station before taking a later train home. Some days, I used to spend some time walking with my best friend, having fuchkas, exploring the shops, and chatting up before coming home. That was also the time when I was taking an active interest in knowing the city, so I used to accompany my friends to Howrah, Maidan, College Street, Gariahat, and where not. The expectation was always the same- Be home before dad is home.

Now those were the days of a struggling, penuriousness student. I could not afford a cab, so I had to take the bus or metro back. While taking a late metro, I used to dread bumping into dad. Instead of walking, I often used to run, hop, and scramble my way home during the homestretch from the Mode (the home bus stop) to the apartment, a good 10-15 minute walk (I did not have much money for taking a rickshaw either). My heart racing and adrenaline rushing, I would pray that I reach home before dad did. I was rebellious enough to not follow his rules, but wanted to be respectful of mom too, since she let us have a lot of leeway. Sometimes, when he took an earlier metro, mom would text me, and make up a story like I was just 15 minutes away, fetching groceries for home. I do not know if being an overprotective dad was a gender thing, but I am not going to judge or analyze, especially after all these years. If nothing, it taught me that wherever you are, whatever you do, there will be rules, and it is best to play by the rules to avoid conflict.

Anyway, I graduated, moved out, and forgot all about rules. In the US, I no longer needed to come home at a particular time. I partied late night, stayed over at friends', went to Bollywood dance nights, traveled for work and fun, took late night flights, rented and drove cars at night, took off to other cities or national parks Friday nights, without being answerable to anyone. 

So that day, after a decade, I was coming home late (late by our family standards), and it felt like reliving my twenties. The only difference is that this time, I could afford a cab, and I was visiting temporarily. I usually do not stay out late at night in Calcutta now, I am just too lazy or jet lagged to beat the heat and traffic and go anywhere. As the cab stopped at the traffic light, I could feel my heart racing, me impatiently looking at my watch and wondering if dad is home. My own present response to memories more than a decade old made me uncomfortable. I don't know why I was worrying, it was probably old programming. I'm older, just as wise as in my twenties, and totally independent. But I hopped off the cab and scrambled upstairs, wondering if dad would be mad at me after all these years.

As expected, dad was home early from work. However, he never said a word about me being late, leaving me a lot relieved, and somewhat confused. Some old habits die hard. His did. Mine clearly did not.

sunshine

A strangulating mass of nothing

I have some stuff inside a few suitcases hiding away in a friend’s garage in a different country. Things I did not want to throw, and things I did not want to keep. Things I did not know what to do about. This time, I decided to go through them, and cull through the clutter.

And so I did, in the dark and damp garage. Going through stuff, and mostly throwing them. If I did not need them this long, I was not likely to need them.

Then, I opened a particular suitcase. Inside it lay a tangled assortment of cords, cables, and wires of every kind. Laptop chargers. Extension cords. Internet cables. Router cables. In blacks and blues and whites. I could have sorted through them and separated them. But something was so off-putting about the sight that I stared at it for a few minutes, shut the suitcase, and put it back. I did not have the mental bandwidth to sort through a tangled bunch of wires.

So many relationships around me are lying around, just like that. Unsorted. Not important enough to spend time or analyze them, yet just sitting around. People on Facebook I have never met. People I have met, but do not communicate with. Never said hi in years. Don’t really care about their status updates that have got nothing to do with my life. Never wish them on their birthdays. Couldn't care less about their annual trips to India, posting pictures of everything they do or eat. I have no idea what they are doing in my virtual world other than taking up space. Maybe someday, just someday, I would need them. Someone might just come in handy. Just like perhaps someday, I might be in need of one of these cords, cables, or ropes. That day, I will be happy that I did not throw them all away. Or maybe, I will never need them. But they will be sitting there in the garage, in a place where I don’t have to see them every day, taking up space. Because sorting through the mess is going to take time and effort. And I do not have the enthusiasm to do that. I don’t think I have more than ten close friends, and maybe a hundred good enough friends. I haven't spoken to more than fifty in the past year. But all eight hundred of them will be lying there dormant, witnessing every milestone in my life they do not care about, and sharing every milestone of their lives that I do not care about.

Just because sorting takes time and effort. And sometimes, it is easier to just let go and let things be.

sunshine

Summarizing January

The last working day in January is over. It seems like just yesterday when people were posting new year resolutions on Facebook that they are not likely to honor. And now, just like that, January is over.

I spent half of January in Seattle, a city I consider my home (although I no longer live there). One day, I was taking a walk when I had this crazy idea of grabbing a fistful of Seattle soil and bringing it back with me to Germany. I did not. Seattle is the only place that has this kind of effect on me.

This year, I resolved to write more. So far, I have honored it. I have buried myself in work these days. I once watched a movie called The Human Stain. It has a powerful line that stayed with me. “Action is the enemy of thought.” I go crazy when I think about life, living mine by yearlong contracts, trying to desperately find a faculty position and not knowing when this postdoc spell would end. My friends who started graduate school with me, both in 2006 an 2010, mostly have faculty positions by now. And I am floundering, from one Skype interview to the next, unable to understand why I am not making it.

So I decided to drown myself in work. I unfollowed a bunch of people on FB to steer clear of their uninspiring lives, generally cut down on the time that I waste on FB, and started working more. This month, I submitted two papers as first author. I just finished working on another paper as secondary author. Wrote a little grant. Got another paper published this morning. Started a new project in Asia. Won a scholarship, a little pot of money that will partially fund my trip to Baltimore this spring. I even moved offices.

Eager to welcome February now, more as a workaholic and a recluse. We often assume this divide between work and play. I think that when you enjoy what you do for a living, work becomes play. It doesn’t seem like a chore anymore. Whenever I work on interesting papers, I stop needing the alarm clock to wake up, and I am usually at work by 8 am. It is only when I do something that does not interest me that life starts to drag on. Like I said, work becomes play when you enjoy work. And play becomes work as well. I will start my country hopping in Europe starting February. Traveling is relaxing and all, but it is hardly play for me. I do a thorough research about where to go, what to see, where and what to eat, and so on. Like I said, the divide between work and play is not so pronounced for me. My work is my play, and my play involves a lot of work.

sunshine 

The Food-Medicine Theory

I think for a living. Which means that I continue to think sometimes even when I am not making a living. In this complex web of thought processes, I came up with a gem of a theory one day that answered many unexplained questions I have had in the past about relationships. Not just intimate relationships or romantic relationships, but relationships. Friends, neighbors, colleagues, basically any human interaction I have had. I call this the “food-medicine theory”.

Relationships are based on need. The need to get, and sometimes, the need to give. Most relationships are either like food, or like medicine. Let’s see how.  

Some people are like food in your life. You need food everyday for sustenance. That’s a universal truth. Nutritive, life-giving food, hopefully in moderation. But routine is the key. Sure, you could fast for a day or two. But barring that, you need food. Every day.

Now once in a while, you eat bad food, and have food poisoning. You stay away from that food. What comes in handy is a medicine. Something strong, that has a more localized effect to cure you off the ill effects of food. You may continue to take it for a while. But eventually, when you are cured, you stop taking it, and go back to eating normally. 

Human relationships are just like that. Some people are food. They are just a part of your being. You do not question their need or their existence. You just need them to stay strong, healthy, and functioning. You can perform the most mundane of things as long as you have them around. And they are here, to stay in your life.

But then, other human relationships are like medicines. They have a role, and a very important and specific one to play. They come in handy only when there is a crisis. A medicine is not something you open your eyes and look forward to having on a normal day. It is effective for sure. But it is temporary. Evanescent.

Both food and medicine are important. Neither one nor the other is superior, and there is no judgment on the value one brings to the table. One can be food to some, and medicine to others. That is totally okay.

However, confusion and heartbreaks happen when you mistake one for the other. I have been medicine to many, and many have been medicine to me. Yet mistaking myself as food has caused heartbreaks so many times. In any given relationship, it is so important to know whether one is the food or the medicine, and own up to that. Whether one is serving a temporary need, or is here to stay. That helps you to step away at the right time. You do not want to be hanging around when you are no longer needed.

I know that you need me, and I am happy to be around. But you did not always need me. You started needing me to get over a bad past. A trauma. An accident. An illness. I know that the day you heal and recover, you will not need me anymore. I might still be around, like a vial tucked away in some corner of the medicine cabinet for future use. But I will not be needed all the time.

The day I realized this, so many inexplicable things started making sense to me. Why did someone get so close so soon? And why someone took off and never reported? Why was everyone being treated differently at work? I have seen people completely fall out of love, and the same has happened to me (I am not talking of just romantic love). Perhaps they were, or I was the medicine. I had an important, but only temporary role to play. Once things went back to being normal, the medicine was no longer needed.

Of course every theory has its flaws, no theory is perfect. Sure, you can refute it and find many loopholes in what I just said. But if you can look beyond the flaws, you might see some value in what I just said. I hope that you have read one of these famous quotes in statistics, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” My theory might be wrong. But I hope that it is useful.

sunshine

Anonymous?

            Writing is an amazing way of connecting with people. However, people do not connect with you in vacuum, they need connecting nodes, for example, a name, a face, a city, an institution, a hobby, anything. We always look for reference points, for like factors. For example, read this:

"Today, I went to the movie theater and watched my favorite hero. Later, I also had dinner with my friend from school."

This will give you a vague picture. However, read this now:

"Today, I went to Totem Lake cinema and watched my favorite actor Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook. I was with my friend John from the UW. Later, we drove to Mayuri in Bellevue and had chaat and ginger chai."

All made up, but you will be able to visualize it much better, especially if you live in Seattle and happen to frequent Mayuri.  

           

            The problem with this is for people like me who prefer to stay anonymous in cyber space.

            When I started blogging in 2005, it must have been as a result of a late quarter-life crisis. I had finished school, had no job, was applying everywhere, the talks for an impending wedding was brewing at home, and blogging was the latest “in thing” to do. A lot of my friends moved to wordpress eventually, but inertia made me stay where I was. However, I strictly wanted no one to know about it. This way I did not fear being judged, and I could write just about anything and anyone. However, it was not a foolproof system. Anonymity is never foolproof, unless you work for the intelligence. Over and over, certain bits and bytes of information leaks out. I am not saying that it is bad, but it defeats the purpose of blogging anonymously.

            Over the years, two things happened. A handful of close friends of mine started reading my blog. And then, a handful of dedicated readers became my close friends. In fact something funny happened a few years ago. A friend of mine accidentally bumped into my blog without knowing that it was me, his friend, and he wrote a nice email to “sunshine” the writer praising me. He had no idea who I was.  

            A particular friend of mine is a huge supporter of transparency. She thinks that there should be no curtains, and everything you write should be out there for everyone to read, because hiding takes away the authenticity. I don’t really agree with her. Just because you have nothing to hide does not mean everything is for show (the same logic why I vehemently protest against couples sharing email passwords). And then, you always have people to worry about- current employers, potential employers, potential boyfriends, could-be-s and would-be-s, curious relatives, sneaking in-laws, ex flames, current flames of those ex-flames, psychos, serial killers, identity thieves, crazy admirers, nosy neighbors; the list is long and endless. Sometimes, a little post like “I hate my roommate, she never does her dishes on time” or “I hate her boyfriend even more, he is so full of himself” can be cathartic under anonymity, but with disastrous results otherwise.

            Over the years, I have always maintained an ambivalent “may be or may be not” stance towards anonymity. I did not want to write something like “My life sucks, I want to die” one stressful evening when PMS afflicts me, and then mommy calling me up frantically from Calcutta India and asking me if I should reconsider moving back and taking advantage of free food and free stay while I still could. Or write about my burning desire to drive cross country and then have my daddy force me to promise him that I would not venture into any such adventurous mission. Sometimes, I just want to elope, from myself, from the people around me, into this secret world of anonymity.

            Now that I am delving into fiction writing after too many years of planning and procrastinating, I am having serious thoughts about this “to be or not to be” (anonymous) thing. If I turn out into a successful writer, would I still want to write anonymously? I don’t know, I really don’t know.

sunshine

Expecting Less

My best friend from high school did not tell me she was expecting until she was six months into her pregnancy. That too happened during a conversation when I insisted she come visit me for a few days, since I did not have time to take off from work and travel three thousand miles to go see her, and she had to let me know she has been advised against traveling. I congratulated her and said all the right things I have no personal experience about myself (hope you are feeling well, hope you are not to scared, etc.). Yet in a certain way, I felt distanced. This is not because I have not embarked on the marriage-leading-to-family bandwagon myself. This was because despite being close friends, it took so long for me to know.

As a person interested in learning about human behavior and motivations (because this is what I research about, although from a different perspective and with a different population), I started thinking of the various factors that would have made her decide against sharing the news earlier. I know from personal experience that a lot of women do not share their news of pregnancy, do not buy clothes or toys for the baby until it is born, or do not like their friends photographing pictures of their babies. Although I do not get the point, I respect their decision and leave them alone. It might have been that. For me, it would be nothing short of good news like passing your PhD dissertation, getting a job, or buying a house. Since I would not hesitate to share such good news, again, I failed to see her point. My mother had a different take on it, a cultural and gender perspective perhaps, although in an absurd way. She said my friend must have been “shy” to share the news. Although I know what she means by being shy, it is a ridiculous concept for someone who is exactly my age, lives in the same society, and is of a similar mental makeup. I do not know if there are other reasons, but my most plausible explanation so far is the following-

With time, we tend to hang out with similar groups, and resonate with people who are similar to us. I sense she would have shared the news earlier if I had a baby myself, was expecting, or was at least married. Ever noticed that married people mostly tend to hang out with other married people, graduate students tend to hang out with other graduate students, and Bengali people tend to hang out with other Bengali people? There is a common ground, a common theme underlying all these instances, be it commonality in culture, language, marital status, or stages in your career. If this is the case, it is not good news for me. All it means is that yet another friend moves on with their life. When we grew up together and were great friends, we had common themes binding us. We were in the same class, studied the same subjects, took tuitions together, lived in the same neighborhood, and had the same friend circle. Now, we do not really have anything in common anymore.

I am too old to make new friends based on commonality (for example, single women in their thirties interested in academics, writing, and discussing the specifications of the camera they use. Imagine the odds of finding one in my town?). And it seems I do not fit into certain existing circles anymore. Which boils down to pretty much what I do in my free time anyway- play online scrabble (alone), read books (alone), watch movies (alone), and congratulate my friends during those occasional phone calls when they tell me they are getting married the next day, or having a baby over the weekend.

sunshine

Gratitude with an Attitude

About a year and a half ago, my friend called me while I was working on a health litigation case. The plaintiff was demanding a large compensation from the company who fixed sewage lines after a particular mishap when the restroom commode exploded and shit literally hit the fan, leading to a prolonged fungus contamination and related health effects. My friend was inconsolable; she said she had no money and was a week away from an international trip to India. I had lived the life of a poor graduate student for two years by then. She even offered to carry chocolates for my parents back home.

I wondered why a graduate student needed one month’s salary as a loan. This friend had previously plagiarized my statement of purpose after asking to read it, changing her name and the name of her department and school. She made it to the US and vouched that it was all her effort.  

I sent her a check, never asking her why she was in a financial crisis. People who let go of their pride and asked for a loan must be in dire need for money, and there was no need for me to compound her discomfort by asking for a reason. In return, I got a lot of phone hugs, a promise that my family would get a box of chocolate truffles, and her word that she will return the money as soon as possible.

I waited. And waited. And waited. I am still waiting.

Six months later, I sent her a reminder. She told me what a scumbag her PhD advisor was. The grants she was working on was put on hold and she was living hand-to-mouth.

I also noticed an update on her Facebook album where she and her boyfriend held hands in Florida.

Nine months later, I lost my job. I asked once more for the money. I did not get it back. However, there was a Facebook update a few days later about how excited she was planning a trip to meet her boyfriend in California.

One year later, she said that she will be visiting me in Seattle. I was impressed that she had decided to personally repay the loan. When she arrived, she told me that she wanted to visit Mount Rainier National Park. The money was never mentioned.

After a-year-and-a-half of asking, being unemployed for eight months, and going through her adventurous Facebook tourism updates, all I got were grieving emails about how bad it is to be a poor student. Imagine a poor person telling an unemployed person this. Then arrived the letters with enclosed checks with instructions that I should not deposit the checks since there was not enough money in her bank. Then came another set of letters telling me that I could deposit the checks in instalments. There were another set of checks that were claimed to be Fedexed but never reached me. Finally, I got an email from her.

“Just a quick (quick??) reminder that you can deposit the checks now. I am happy to be able to re-pay your loan and grateful for your help and patience”

The email felt nice till I came to the last sentence.

“Now that you will be a student and I will have a job after graduating, don’t hesitate to ask me if you ever need financial help. Love”.

For someone who stole my statement of purpose, asked me for money and did not repay it despite all the fun Florida/California, a boyfriend and family members in the US for help, and for someone who was helped without any questions asked, the last sentence of the gratitude email was something. I never replied to it.

sunshine

The right door

4 years ago, I had rejected University of Michigan, Ann Arbor to join UW, Seattle. I don’t really know why I chose Seattle over Ann Arbor, given that I knew nothing about either. Both schools were equally good in my field, and I didn’t really have anything against UMich. I was confused for a while, so I asked a few people. Most said Ann Arbor snows like crazy [I am not much of a winter person], though Seattle rains no less. I think I was more familiar with the name Seattle [thanks to Sleepless in Seattle]. Someone suggested there would be a strong Indian crowd in Seattle, thanks to Microsoft and Amazon. Then it was a big city [unlike Ann Arbor], etc etc. The decision was made for me. I was going to Seattle. It’s like- I had two doors in front of me, one with UW written on it, and one with UMich written on it. I had opened the door to UW.

Good and bad, my life in Seattle has been eventful ever since. I finished school, decided to say “no thanks” to PhD in a year, got myself a job, and started working. I hiked, I learnt to drive, I joined salsa classes, I acted and performed in plays, I joined the local dance group, and much more. However, I don’t know how life would have been had I chosen the door with UMich written on it. Maybe I would have finished my PhD. Maybe I would have learnt to like the snow and started skiing. Maybe I would be married by now. Who knows? My friend tells me the tango dancers network at UMich is amazing. Another friend from the business school speaks highly of the place. These are friends who went to UMich. But I’ll never know what was in store for me if I went to UMich, will I?

Today, I stand at a similar crossroad in life, only more difficult. I have 6 PhD admits with scholarships. Worse, 4 of them are similar ranking schools. I don’t really have a choice of city versus college town, as all of them are college towns. All of them are offering me similar packages. The time required to graduate is more or less the same. It’s like facing the same situation 4 years later, this time, only worse. 4 doors with different names in front of me. Which door do I choose? Of course no matter whatever door I choose, I’ll have an eventful journey ahead of me. But will I ever know what I missed out on? What if after choosing “A”, things don’t work out? I’ll always wonder what “B”, “C”, or “D” had in store for me. I was hoping my gut feeling would come handy and help me make a choice. But my gut feeling isn’t communicating with me. Mother suggested writing down all the names in little pieces of paper and asking baby Kalyani to randomly choose one. On a side note, my bollywood-influenced mother further listened to my plight and told me with all seriousness and sympathy, “I can understand, it’s like having to choose between Ranbir Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor for a husband. Both of them are so good”. I had cracked up on the phone 3 months ago when she told me this.

Anyway, I have kind of made a choice, but I had no reason to disapprove of my other choices. The super good schools that were my first choices all rejected me, and now I am left with decently good schools, and I just don’t know what to choose and what to leave behind. And I know that no matter what door I choose, I will always wonder what the doors I left behind had in store for me. Like my architect friend SD says, embarrassment of the riches. Sometimes faced with choices, you know this is THE one and you will not go for anything else. And sometimes faced with choices, you just don’t know what to choose to make you feel that was the right choice.

sunshine

Supper With Sunshine

Monday mornings are lazy mornings, with the weekend lethargy still suffused into you and the mind not being able to clear up despite consuming galloons of coffee. On a dreary such Monday morning, I switched on my office computer, not expecting a lot of fun during the week ahead. As I punched in my password, I looked far out of the window, hoping for a rainbow, a snowfall, or something remarkable to happen. Talking about remarkableness, the password clicked, and I told myself like I always do – “You’ve got mail”.

Skimming through the email subject lines brought my attention to a certain email that forms the basis of this post. A few lines of introduction about the person, and I was wondering does this guy need feedback about his GRE preparation, or is writing about the list of schools he has selected, and seeks my opinion even though his specialization is something totally different like robotics (I often get such emails)? A few more lines and I was wondering does this guy need a favor from someone big shot I know? An extremely respectful but lengthy email got me thinking while skimming through- “What does this guy want after all?”

Well, it seems that he is a regular reader of my blog, is visiting town for some official work, and wanted to meet up. Meet up fine, but to ensure credibility so that I do not misunderstand his honest efforts as that of someone wanting to make franship, he had the foresight to send me his resume, website, his research interests, picture galleries, and a couple more details. The only things missing were names of references I could call up and verify the existence of the reader. Phew ! So much for a meeting.

My readers know that I have never met a blog reader except that one time when we ended up becoming inseparable buddies, and we proudly continue to do so. Otherwise, I have never met any of my readers in person, not as a rule, but more because no one has asked me to. So influenced by Koffee with Karan, will there be supper with sunshine? Will sunshine agree to meet this reader who is visiting her city? Will the reader treat her as a blog writer, or will be able to see beyond her writings as a human in flesh and blood? Will he come with preconceived notions and half formed expectations, wanting to find such and such thing in the person whose writings he is familiar with? Or can they meet as two individuals, and not as a blogger and a reader?

Time will say.

sunshine

If Not Then What??

Ever wondered what you’d be if you were not who you are? No, I do not mean what would be the alternative career options or alternatives in locales, spouse, significant one, or whatever. You could tell me that if you were not a software engineer working in one of the leading companies in Bangalore today (just let’s say), you’d have taken up medicine and would be a doctor. But no, that is not what I mean. Have you just looked at random people around you and wondered that you could have been this person? Just looked at the woman in the bus and wondered- What if I was not what I was and I was this woman? Or maybe looked at someone and thought- I could never ever be this person. Never with a capital N !

I have been wondering for some time now the hows, whys, and the dynamics of who we are and who we are not. It is a difficult question to answer, deeply philosophical, and yours truly is not going to delve into things so complicated. But more than philosophy, I believe that who we are is only a matter of chance, probability, randomness, and a gamut of other factors like people and circumstances. What if you were not born into the family you were born into, but were born into the neighbor’s family? Would you still be the person you are? Or would you be something akin to the next door neighbor’s kid?

What we are is essentially a meshwork of our genetic framework, surrounded by an even more important network of our ambience, and essentially the environment that we live in and that continuously affects us and shapes us.

When the guy next door failed in his finals, I thought- Gosh, I could never be like him.

When R died due to alcoholism and reckless driving, I thought- Gosh, I could never be like him.

When my friend gave up a lucrative job to marry someone she did not even know, I thought- Gosh, I could never be like her.

When the astronaut I met recently showed me Jupiter and its moons, and told me all about the stars and the planets, I thought- Gosh, he is so smart. I could never be like him.

And then, there were a couple of other people I met that made me think- God, I wish I were like him.

You get the drift, right?

Why is it that we compare our lives in terms of other people’s lives? Why is it that we sometimes want to (or don’t want to) live other people’s lives? It is something I’ve often speculated when my mind just went blank and run out of ideas to think of.

Anyway, coming back to the point, I was wondering who I was if I was not who I was. What if I wasn’t born into the family I was born in? What if I had not come to the US? What if I was not Indian after all?

I wonder if I am beginning to show incipient signs of lunacy.

So the other day I came up with a theory that I called the random theory. I just forgot who I was for a moment and wondered who I could be. And I was surprised because the first thing that came to my mind was- I could have been a homemaker in a family who lived at Ballygunge Place. I don’t know how did the Ballygunge part (or the homemaker part either) came to my mind. Ballygunge by the way is one of the upscale neighborhoods in South Kolkata. The first vision I saw was the tall housing localities near the Ballygunge post office that smells of affluence.

But then, I could have been anyone, and I could have been anywhere. Maybe a hundred times different from who I am or where I am. I might have been a banker in Singapore. I might have been a rancher in Australia. I might have been a rodeo man in Spain. Who knows?

Have you ever randomly wondered about who you would be if you were not what you are?

sunshine.

Science And Religion

Last weekend, a few friends drove to the nearby Gurudwara. I am not Sikh, and I had never been to a Gurudwara before this, not even in India. It was a lovely, sunny morning, and we drove for about an hour through the picturesque roads before we reached there. Since I didn't have a dupatta of my own or a handkerchief large enough, I was given a piece of blue cloth from the basket of colorful ones to cover my head. 

I visit religious places more out of curiosity. I am curious about the visitors, the buildings, the architecture, and what people do there. Here, I was curious to see what a Gurudwara looked like. It felt that I was in India and not in the US. There were hundreds of people, children running around wearing traditional Indian clothes, dupatta-clad women, bangles and all, in their bright salwar kameez. Most men wore colored turbans, and there was something about the whole atmosphere that made me long to visit the Golden Temple. I had recently watched the movie Amu, and that came to mind too. It was soon time for the Langar to begin. We were famished and we queued up.

The food was delicious. There is something about the food cooked in God's house that makes it so delicious. We sat on the floor and ate with our hands. I couldn't have been happier to be there.

A man was going around distributing rotis for people who wanted a second helping. I lifted my palms the way the others did. The man flung a roti at me, and to my horror, it went past my outstretched palms and landed on my lap.

The man was livid. He gave me a nasty glance and muttered a flurry of things that, although incomprehensible to me, did not sound nice at all. For him, I had done something that was sacrilege. I joined my hands and bowed my head, wishing that he would not create a scene. God's house was the last place where this should have happened. 

The man left, giving me vile looks. On my way back, I kept thinking about this episode in silence. Religion says that I had done something terrible (according to the man at least). Science says that some molecules of carbohydrates had defied the laws of physics and landed wrongly, either because the neurotransmitters in my brain weren't prompt enough to stop the direction of gravitational motion, or because the man's motor units (hands) didn't act in co-ordination with my neurons for me to time the catch well. The man might as well have been a batsman, the food a cricket ball, I being the fielder. So I went for a catch and I dropped it. I instantly regretted it, and instead of answering back, I apologized. I wish the man had responded differently. 

sunshine

Wisdom Strikes.

Earlier this evening, this is a moment captured from my room window where the moon shines bright in the faint glows of the sunlight-streaked sky.

It’s past midnight, and as I sit sleepless in my room, lonely and bereft of human company, with the only sounds coming from the music in my laptop, wisdom strikes.

I am turning into an insomniac. I know I must sleep, but I sit wide awake, unable to decide what to do. There have been a thousand different ideas puzzling me, confusing me. I know not what to do. Or perhaps, I do.

When insomnia hits, it’s better to sit with your books and study. You either end up learning your chapters, or you ultimately fall asleep.

This is my theory.

A brief hiatus before I rebound with more ideas, and more writings.

The first yawn is almost on its way. Eureka !!!

sunshine.

Of Suitcases and Love.

Finding a love mate is pretty much like buying a suitcase.

One fine evening you visit a particular shop, look around and suddenly spot a particular suitcase you just can’t take your eyes off. You survey it trying to look intelligent and experienced, as if you have been buying suitcases all your life. You check on the quality, the material, the color, the durability. You tend to assess its reliability. You tend to take your best friend’s opinion. You suddenly imagine making a world tour, proudly showing it off. You check on the company. You check on the warranty period. You check on the price tag and are left in a dilemma. You know that it’s too expensive for you to afford. Yet you simply cannot bear the thought of leaving the shop without it.

You leave the shop, yet you can’t let the thoughts of the suitcase leave your mind. You try in vain to forget all about it, deciding that you could do with a less expensive one. After all, all you need to carry are a few clothes and a few books. You go to sleep deciding that you are better off without that particular one. Yet the very next morning, the thoughts of that particular one keep coming back and haunting you.

You have two options henceforth.

1st option: You spend a month making market surveys to find out reasons why you could do without it, doing everything to take your mind off that one. At the end of a month, you decide that you could not handle the pain anymore. What’s the use of such a life if you cannot afford a suitcase of your choice? Determined, you wear your best clothes, take out some extra cash from the bank, look your most confident self, and enter the shop, only to find the suitcase gone. Some customer had bought it a few days back. And no, there’s no second one of that particular model available, though the shop has been freshly stocked with hundreds of other ones with different colors and materials and designs, many of far superior quality and may be cheaper prices. Yet that one particular model is gone. You ask in vain if there would be fresh stocks arriving soon. Yet at the back of your mind, you know that it’s gone. Forever.

2nd option: You get impulsive, take out money from the bank the very next morning, go to the shop and buy it. You still don’t know if it’s worth the money and if you could strike a better bargain. Yet you are past caring. You have what you wanted, and that’s all that matters to you.

Now substitute the word suitcase with a man. It sometimes (though on very rare occasions) happens that you suddenly like a particular man for some particular reason, even if you people haven’t known each other very well. You know it doesn’t really make sense. Yet you suddenly feel a certain chemistry, a certain force of attraction, and every single man in the room ceases to shrink into being non existent for you. You know that this is crazy and that you are not really equipped to handle a relationship at this point of time. You aren’t sure if you are doing the right thing. So you keep analyzing the situation left and right, up and down. You try to find out umpteen reasons why it could end up in a disaster. You are scared of getting hurt. You have reached the age when you stop believing in love and you know that it is just one of the many routine processes you have to perform in life, culminating into marriage and kids and whatever. I mean a lot many people marry without love and then get used to the situation. You don’t really need to fall for anyone, let alone a person you have hardly known, at this point of time.

1st option: You spend your nights thinking and analyzing and finding ways to overcome the pull. You know this might not be the right thing to do knowing that you might always end up hurt. Your priorities are different. You don’t really need the unwanted hassles of relationships. You wait for him to make the first move since despite your modern thoughts, you don't think its appropriate for the lady to make the first move. You convince yourself of these facts for 29 nights. On the 30th morning, you dress up all prim and proper, ready to convey your feelings. You meet him over lunch. You guys get to talk and he excitedly tells you how he met a girl in the same party he met you a month back and how they got to be friends and how they are thinking seriously about things. Wham!!!! You see your dreams shattering into a million fragments and disappearing. Even the thought of having spent 29 nights pondering over it seems like a waste now.

2nd option: You decide to get impulsive and confront him. You aren’t worried about the outcome. Even if the answer is going to be a no, you would at least not spend further time and waste your energy thinking about the whole issue. And if it turns out to be a yes, then nothing better. You know that he isn’t a many things you want, and he is many a things you don’t want. Yet nothing really matters anymore.

We are always facing this dilemma in life, undecided about things. Most of the time, we don’t state things clearly. If we did, we could have saved ourselves from heartbreak. Yet we decide to keep things to ourselves and take our own sweet time to come up with a conclusion we should have come to months back. The possibility of getting a thing or not getting it always remains. Yet this way, we somehow increase the probability of not getting a particular thing we wish to have. And live to regret our actions (or the lack of it).

Maybe I need to take a lesson out of this post and talk to him soon. After all, I don’t really wish to increase my chances of hearing a no. I know this is crazy, but sometimes you have to get out of that logic-mode and let impulses take over.

I’ll meet him and talk to him on Monday after school. Wish me luck. I’ve just realized that I cannot do without he knowing about it.

I've never felt this impulsive about things. I need his help now. I’ve finally realized that I just cannot do without the deep blue Gior Dano cabin bag I’d seen in that showroom at Esplanade last week. Never mind the fact that it's exorbitantly priced. And the salesman of the showroom should be the first person to know this. Don't you think so?

sunshine.

Empty Boxes.

Everything I dislike comes in the form of empty boxes. Let me explain.

I hate this uncertainty. Most of my friends who’d applied to the US have started getting their accepts or rejects. Not me. Last month, I got an admit from one of the places, though not from one of those highly ranked ones with a bankable funding scenario. Naturally, I am not even considering it. But what about the dozen other places I’d applied to? Most of them claim that they need some 2-4 weeks to review my proposals. But that they have been claiming for the last 10 weeks or so. And I actually sent the stuff more than 2 months prior to the deadline because admissions were supposed to be on a rolling basis. The sooner you applied, the better chances you had. Now, finishing off everything 2 months before the deadline is not a matter of a joke. Not to mention the exorbitant price I had to pay to the Blue Dart courier services, which made so big a dent in my pocket. Mom believes in the “no-news-good-news” principle. She is naive enough to think that since they haven’t sent me a reject either, they must be spending all their weekends and free time going through my seemingly impressive credentials. Not that I’d vouch for it.

So the moment I enter the main gate of our apartment, my eyes are automatically glued to the letterbox for some promisingly fat stamped envelopes. From telephone bills to electricity bills to LIC Policy mails to credit card offers to invitation cards for weddings and funerals to the free pamphlets for catering services, home delivery, and high income job offers working from home, my letter box seems to have it all. I have a weird habit of taking out the contents of the box, deftly using my two fingers without a key. And it’s highly frustrating to use your skills to take out some pamphlets instead offering mehndi and facial at attractive prices from the local beauty parlor. The same goes with my e-mail inbox, which is inundated with blog comments, orkut scraps, personal emails, yahoo group emails, emails conveying the news of admits/rejects of friends, and of course spam mails from unknown Bobs and Richards who want to share their inheritance with me and ask me for my bank information. Not to mention those emails from the grad secretaries stating- “We have received your application which is being reviewed by the department. It will take us 2-4 weeks to get back to you.”

My life is turning out to be one of those huge empty boxes these days. Of course this gives me ample opportunity to write philosophical blog posts that none wants to read. Someone wanted to know my reasons for not replying to blog comments nowadays. It’s nothing but the very fact that I am too tired to even open my mailbox most of these days. And I don’t see much point in sending one week’s stale replies to the comments. Okay, excuses apart, though your comments mean a lot to me (I still compare it with the number of comments Munnu gets), the lack of replies are due to the sole reason that I am emotionally too tired to communicate with people these days. Hopefully this phase is not going to last long. 

Correction work is something else that has a story of its own. With the final exams just over, I have been making and breaking records by correcting papers for some 6-7 hours at a stretch everyday. Try that when you have to read and mark every answer 50 times. 3 subjects, 3 classes, 50 papers in each. I’ve been amazing myself with my resilience. And what are you supposed to do when you have to correct some weird answers like this?-

Q: What kind of a triangle is triangle ABC where angle A is 30 degrees and angle B is 40 degrees?

Ans: This is an impossible triangle, since a triangle should have at least three degrees.

Q: How do you measure the length of an object using a ruler worn at its edges?

Ans: No problem. I can still manage.

Q: How can you prevent the spread of water-borne diseases?

Ans: By not drinking sewage water everyday.

No wonder the empty boxes on their answer scripts are being adorned by zeros and the single digit numbers.

God, please fill up my letterbox and mail inbox with some news I have been looking forward to. I long to be my old self once again.

sunshine.

The Golden Period.

If there has been a particular time in my life I have been the happiest, this is it. Sometimes, all this seems like a dream. School life ended years ago, taking away with it all the magic. College life was much harder, with competition, weird syllabus, weird questions,  and the inevitable “What Next?”. Same with university.

All this seems to have happened a whole lifetime of suffering ago. A job has changed it all. It has made me realize many a things about myself, and the people around me. People no longer take me for granted. Most importantly, I do not take me for granted any more.

I still think of the day I went for the interview, sitting uncomfortably among others. I kept telling myself that I had nothing to lose. The job has made me realize what is it that I want out of life. For more than being employed and earning, I realized what kind of work made me happy. I am sure working in a call center would earn me much more than I do now. Five of my cousins are already into it. But teaching is something that I immensely enjoy, so much that it seems effortless. The timings and the ambiance suits me fine. Correcting piles of copies can be draining at times. But I plan my questions well.

Also, when you are the youngest teacher, people always look after you. I have started socializing with the other teachers, and I like it. The occasional treats and the parties they throw feels good. I have the advantage of age. Children love teachers who wear bright clothes and teach enthusiastically instead of sitting on a chair and complaining. I discuss everything from Harry Potter to Beyblades with them.

My school gets over by 2 pm. I have all the time to myself after this. Sometimes I go to the library or go visit friends, maybe even go for a movie or lunch. But most of the time, I get back home, shower, and settle with a book till I fall asleep. Sometimes, I write. Unlike earlier, I do not have to burden my brains and study, go for tuition, or prepare notes. Sometimes, I pick up books from Gariahat, College Street, or Wellington market before heading home.

Life could not be better. Ma wakes me up every morning, makes me some coffee, and makes me lunch. The only thing I have to do is to get myself ready. Back home, my steaming hot dinner is always there on the table. The only thing I do is clean my room in the weekends. I can save up my salary and spend it whatever way I want to.

I have friends who are still putting in long hours to prep for the NET exams. I'm not going to write one, I know that. This job I have is a great one-year stint, perfect as a transition job. Hopefully, I will get into a good doctoral program in the US by next year. Until then, I have no responsibilities to cook, pay the bills, care for family, and raise children. The other teachers come here to work. It feels like I come here to picnic. I am saving up my salary for my dreams. And being with the kids at school is a great stress buster. The moment I get in class and start scribbling formula and equations, I forget my worries. I feel certain and more confident about myself. And even if things don’t work out in the US next year, I'll get a B.Ed.

This golden period might not last forever. But the fond memories definitely will. So I am trying to make the most out of it.

Time to get back in the arms of Morpheus. The God of Sleep. Good Night.

sunshine.

I Feel So Lost...

Good times, bad times... these are the toughest of times. Seems the US has gone bankrupt this year and has no fundings for international students. As Anurag Mathur claimed, the Americans will always be "inscrutable" for me. I wonder what's gone wrong. People have no financial aid, people are retiring, people have fully occupied labs, people want engineers, people want biomedical science graduates, people are on their sabbatical leave.......and mainly, people are not mailing back!

And some claim, "You have excellent academic credentials, but sorry, I have no lab space." Period. I wonder how the schools are still running and making business. Or is it that something is wrong in my field of specialisation? Undoubtedly this is a highly specialized area. But things can't be so bad. Even most Canadian schools have only an M.S. to offer and not a Ph.D as a terminal degree. Should I have gone for something more broad like ecology, biodiversity, maybe pharmacology? A little late to ponder upon.

So out of the 120 odd schools I mailed to (and that means a rough estimate of 600-700 mails), I can only bank on 5 schools now. Bank as in they will atleast read my application if I send one. The rest don't even seem interested.

It's scary... it sure is. Little did I imagine that things would be so bad. There has to be something fundamentally wrong with the situation. Thousands of students make it to the US every year. Something is definitely wrong somewhere.

Needless to say, I am stressed out. Scared. I feel so negative these days that I do not even dare to start on an SOP. I just can't sound negative in my SOP, things are already screwed up big time.

And the worst form of anticipation, the most tiring form of waiting one can do is what I am doing these days. What did they say about the results? August last week? And then September first week? Second week? Well, the latest date was today, Friday, September the 23rd. No news yet. Maybe next week. 

And then, people keep asking me the same questions. "When are you going to the US?" What am I to do? Take my score cards and mark sheets and hop on to the first plane available?

Its depressing, its scary. I am exhausting my finances day by day. Transcripts, stationery, books, couriers, every thing comes for a cost.

Sometimes I wonder if ambitions would be the cause of my nemesis. I am wasting the vital years of my life chasing the American Education dream. I feel so disillusioned. 

Its been months since I've had a bunch of friends to hang out with. Months since I've watched a decent movie. Months since I've wanted to sit by a lake and watch the water and the birds.

I am tired, I am scared, I feel desperately alone, I wonder how long will my finances sustain me. I still talk to people, I blog, But every thing is so mechanical these days. I get those blinding headaches almost everyday. Mornings greet me with the intense pain in my stomach I was so used to 4-5 years back. But doctors and medicines cannot cure ulcers, not unless you have a peaceful mind.

Maybe I need to take a break in life. I seriously do.

sunshine.