Thod(a)-Thod(a)

A lot can happen over a banana stem (thod in Bangla) from the garden. Sunday morning, I saw my neighbor chop a few of the banana plants in the garden. No idea what he was up to. Although I love the thod that my ma makes, I did not know what raw thod looks like. The neighbor-lady and I were chatting in the backyard when the neighbor-man handed me a shiny white, tube-like thing that looked like a rolled calendar, which was apparently the thod he got from the banana plant.

He put me in a huge dilemma with his neighborly kindness. I had never seen raw thod in my life, forget how to cook it. I looked at them helplessly and confessed that I do not know how to cook thod. “I love eating it though,” I added shamelessly, hoping that they would take it back and cook it for me. Instead, he asked me to try cooking it myself, explaining the basic steps.

Thod in hand, I called 911-aka-Ma. I think ma was more worried for me than I was. She again told me the basic steps. Keep peeling the hairy extensions, chop it finely, let it soak for a while in salt to get the moisture out, yada yada yada. In the meantime, the neighbor-man showed up and shared with me a bowl full of cooked thod, smelling heavenly of ghee and coconuts. Here is a person whom I have only known as a fellow faculty-colleague, writing papers and teaching classes, who chopped down the plant, sickle-in-hand, removed the thod, processed it, cooked it and shared it with the neighbor, and I am panicking.

Armed with ma’s verbal lessons, I decided to triangulate the information with YouTube videos. The first few I watched did not show how to process and cut the thod, they gave long lectures about how thod is good for diabetics, has lots of iron, yada yada yada. Finally, I found a few videos of villagers who grow and cut thod, sans any unsolicited gyaan about its health benefits.

Armed with three sources of information (neighbor-man, ma, and YouTube), I fell asleep. The next day, off I went to work, but kept thinking of the thod sitting in my fridge. Looks like once you were able to chop it all, it did not take much time or drama. No onion or garlic peeling. No adding groom moshla or other spices. Simply temper the oil with mustard seeds and red chilies and cover and cook until done. This much, I could do.

I usually come home late (as late at midnight sometimes) but I was distracted. I wanted to bite the bullet and see how I cook it. By 3 pm, I was home.

Peeling and chopping was the hardest part. My hands ached for hours, maybe even a day, and what came of it after chopping reminded me of my friend, G, who knows that I hate chopping vegetables, my fine motor skills are horrible. Every time I visit her in Seattle, during cooking all my favorites, she makes me peel and chop vegetables. Sometimes, multiple vegetables. Sometimes, vegetables for things she will be cooking in a week, just to torture me in the name of meal preparation. And when she runs out of vegetables, she makes me break and chop Thenga (coconuts). No matter how well I try to chop, she always looks at the chopping board and says, “Maadu kannu podardhu” in Tamil, meaning, “looks like the cow gave birth,” referring to how messy the chopping board looks. She asks me to chop beans and carrots measuring 0.1 centimeters. Which fully-grown, self-respecting mammal with permanent teeth chews such small pieces, I don’t know. She claims that the way something is cut determines its taste, but I highly doubt it and think she puts me through these cutting challenges to mess around with me.

After 30 minutes of working out my biceps and risking developing gout in my hands, I was able to cut it all. It still looked like the cow gave birth, but I didn’t care. I can chew the coarse pieces. I was half-dead after chopping and was contemplating going back to sleep. But true to what people said, after the chopping was done, cooking was easy peasy. And just like that, from not knowing what thod looks like, I learnt how to make decent thod in less than 24 hours. I was so excited that I shared some with the neighbor. After all, I had to return the bowl and according to tradition, we do not return empty bowls.

And with that, at 5 in the evening, instead of working in office, I enjoyed my first DIY thod, right from the garden, and became the first person in the world to have it with shingara. I did not wait to make rice; I had no energy left. When the neighbor-man told me a few weeks back that if he runs out of food, he will start chopping banana plants, I was terrified. I thought that chopping things from the garden is a terrible thing to happen. However, it was far from terrible, and quite an enjoyable process. The thod tasted quite ordinary, but for me, it was the best thing I had accomplished that day.

I portioned it off and left some for the next day before coming back to office. I really hope that when that mocha (banana flower) is ready, they do not make me peel it too. I have never made mocha, and I don’t think I can keep getting emotional about food from the garden.

Like my friend recently said, “It’s the time you have wasted for your rose (watering it) that makes your rose so important.” That’s why I wrote this post, for posterity, so that I always remember how excited I felt to cook thod for the first time.

 

sunshine

Foucault’s Panopticon

Late January, 2020

Winter is coming to an end, and I am grateful for the remaining few early mornings that are chilly. One such chilly morning, I was eating breakfast in the kitchen when I heard the bells ringing loudly in the neighbor’s house. I stared out of the kitchen window to see the big banana plant obstructing my view. It is the morning of Saraswati pujo. I was not sure if I found it odd or relieving that I was not invited. It’s one of those things where you feel left out when not invited but don’t get excited either when invited. There were clear signs of a pujo in progress. More bells ringing, some conch-blowing, and the telltale burning smell of incense sticks.

I did get invited though, to a different house. I went there shortly before class. It was a ghoroa pujo, not a large gathering, everything done at home. No selfies or videos, no photo shoots, no dressing up and posing in front of Saraswati. There was kool (the berry) offered to the goddess. I had kool after a decade. The priest is a fellow faculty I have never seen in a dhuti before. I met a few faculty and their partners.

A particular woman I met first thought that I am her husband’s student and was surprised to learn that my office is located next to his. “How come I have not heard of you before?” she asked me. I am torn between a witty comeback and a sarcastic one, but I decided to nod politely and not say anything. I was there to pay my respect to the goddess from the department of education. But she is not satisfied with my nod. She added, “How come none of the maids told me about you? I have never seen you during my morning walks either.”

“That's because I do not have a maid and I do not go for morning walks,” I replied.

“Well, even not having a maid is news on campus. Anyway, good to meet you, will look out for you during my walks.”

I am not sure why some old woman who has never met me before was so fixated on bumping into me during her walks. It reminded me of Foucault's panopticon metaphor. People tend to modify their behavior when they know they are being watched, as Foucault writes in his book, “Discipline and Punish.” I know that I am being watched, my garden is being watched, what plants I grow or not grow, the kind of clothes hanging from the balcony, the kinds of shoes and slippers outside my door, the lights from the house, everything is being watched. Do I care? I don't know. I know that a bunch of maids watch me every day, because some actually knock on my door every now and then and ask me why I am not hiring them. I know that the sweepers who sweep my walkway watch me every day, they keep asking me if I need a gardener. And now, an additional person on campus will be watching me too, unable to come to terms with the shock that she did not know me before.

I got down on my knees, paid my homage to the goddess, thanked my hosts for inviting me, and left for class. My immediate neighbors are performing Saraswati pujo and not inviting me. I am watching them too!

sunshine

Of tea and coconuts

Our domestic help (wonder if there is a better term) in Calcutta knows that "didi" (elder sister, referring to me) lives abroad, and visits occasionally. I had never met her prior to a recent trip, but heard many interesting things about her. A woman in her twenties, she went ahead and had her system ligated after she was forced to conceive. These are stories you typically do not hear every day, even among the upper and empowered classes. 

Now this is not your average hourly help in the US who shows up in their car, cleans your mansion in silence, and leaves. Growing up with temporary help (those who do not live with us, but show up for a few hours every day) has been an essential part of my life in India. She is a little different though. She hates missing work. While every household complains of domestic help gone missing from time to time, this was surprising. I later learnt that every morning she arrives, ma makes fresh and hot rotis and curry, and feeds her a proper breakfast. Food is a great incentive, naturally. She was so happy to see us when we arrived from our week-long family trip earlier. "Chhuti nitey bhalo lagena tomar?" (Don't you like vacations?), I had asked. 

I am not a tea/coffee addict, and drink it only when I have company. She drinks a different kind of tea than the rest of my family. Her's is boiled with milk, spices, and ground cardamom, and I love that kind of tea. Every morning, she and I would sit and drink our cup of tea, chatting up. She talked about her family, her desher bari, and so many other things that I listened to with great interest. She now knows that I love coconuts, especially green coconuts, and she already got me some from the neighbor's tree. 

As I am getting used to the comfort of drinking piping hot cardamom tea every morning and chatting up, she disappears. She calls ma to inform us that her one-year old is suffering from measles, and she will have to stay home. This being a contagious disease, ma asks her to take her time until the little one gets well. With my tea drinking buddy gone, I have lost my motivation of drinking tea. I am leaving in two days, and will probably not meet her anytime soon. I miss her funny stories and her energy. I wish I could meet and say goodbye once.

As if hearing my thoughts, she rings the bell one morning. She is lugging a huge bag, and I rush downstairs to see what the matter is. She is looking haggard, like she hasn't slept in a long time. She is wearing her usual nightdress with the dupatta thrown in. It might seem a weird dress combination to someone not used to this, but this sight of wearing a nightie and throwing in a dupatta before you go outside is pretty common in Calcutta. She places the huge bag on the floor, careful not to touch me so that I do not catch measles germs. She knows that I am leaving soon, so she got me six coconuts. These are not coconuts really, but a stage between the green coconut and the ripe coconut (something she calls "laava", and not a daab or a narkol, although I have never heard of the word before). She got hold of the neighbor guy, bargained prices, and bought me six of these. These originally have a thicker shell that I am not so good at removing (I can break coconuts though), and she takes time to remove the shells, so that all I have to do is split these open. These have a very tasty, soft and white flesh (shNaash), and a lot of sweet water inside, much more than an average coconut does. She hands me these, wishes me luck, and leaves. I tell her that I have missed drinking tea with her, and she says that she hasn't even had the cardamom tea ever since. She has a sick baby waiting at home, and tells me that she felt conscious walking on the streets, not having combed her hair or preened up like she does. She still got me the coconuts though, taking me by surprise.

In my Calcutta trip, love has come to me in all shapes and sizes and ages and circumstances, and I have received it with open arms. Neighbors feeding me whatever they cook on a daily basis (kumro, chalta, tyangra), because I do not get to eat all this in Germany. Strangers (strangers to me, not to my parents) bringing me narkol naadu. People showing up to tie my sari, because I am not good at tying one. Friends inviting me home and cooking my favorite food. Friends calling me cabs because they have discount coupons that would save me some money. And I continue to accept love with gratitude, enriched by the daily life experiences of the immediate people in my life, collecting all the stories they tell me, creating memories, and feeling the magic of this place. 

Breaking a coconut to that.

sunshine

My Saturday Night Date

I come home from work starving to the point that I feel faint. I go to the kitchen to do the dishes, wondering what I could grab as a snack. We have a communal kitchen shared by the five of us. A man I have never seen before walks in. He has the most unusual accent I have heard.

"Hey, I am your new neighbor."

"Oh hi! Welcome. When did you arrive?"

"Two hours ago. I am from Tunisia. Where are you from?"

"India."

"Great. See you later. Here, take these dates I got from home."

And just like that, he left me a dozen dates and disappeared into his room. 

The dates were quite good actually. So I wasn't going to faint from starving after all. I came back to my room to look up where exactly Tunisia is on the world map. 

Somehow, people around me, mostly strangers offer me food all the time. I've long ago stopped listening to mom about not eating food from strangers. Today, last week's aloo parathe during the morning walk. My neighbor feeds me dinner every second day. Even this time on my Emirates flight, the lady beside me offered me her dessert, just like that. I promise, I was not eyeing hers, I had my own. 

sunshine

FAQs and a survivor’s guide to those visiting India the first time

Are you single?

Are you a woman?

Do your pestilential neighbors think you aren’t marrying due to suspicious reasons?

READ ON …

The maiden visit to the home country is always the most interesting. Most people would pay a handsome entry fee to merely come check you out and your ways of talking, eating, and walking, just like those visits you made to the zoo as a kid during the vacations, intently watching a gibbon eat a banana. Most listen intently to the way you speak, and are amazed at how you still haven’t forgotten Bengali or haven’t at least developed an accent while speaking Bengali. I tried faking an accent to not disappoint them, but it didn’t work. My Bengali-ness took over.

Anyway, I found that after meeting a few people, it became increasingly easy to answer their questions. It’s not because they asked easier questions, or stopped asking questions. It’s because all of them asked questions from the same question pool, just like our great University of Calcutta that has been reusing and recycling questions from the time Chengiz Khan had last invaded Russia or your grandfather had last watched Krishi Darshan on Doordarshan.

Q 1: Baaabaaa you look so different ..

Which euphemistically means you have put on weight and look ugly. The claim to the prolonged “baaabbaaaa” is not from ba ba black sheep. You aren’t a Bengali if you cannot drone a prolonged nagging baaabaaaa at the beginning of a conversation to show amazement. What it actually means, or if it was coined by someone great like Tagore, I don’t know.

You: Nod and smile

What you ought to do: Nod and smile. Don’t ask for explanations. You are not going to like being told on your face that you are fat.

Q 2: So what have you got from the US?

Don’t: Start giving an account.

Do: Keep them guessing. Say this and that. Don’t even bring them close to the room where you kept your suitcases. If possible, say NOTHING. Stuff some Hershey's kisses chocolates in their hands instead.

Q 3: So don’t you miss home?

Now this is a tricky one. If you say yes, you will be asked why you didn’t visit earlier. If you say no, you are finished. You will be portrayed as that insensitive monster of a child who never cared about old and ailing parents, and while the poor father was toiling hard and the poor mother was cooking for the family in the heat and humidity and missing you, you were gambling and having fun in Las Vegas.

Don’t: Try thinking of an apt answer.

Do: Smile and nod at an angle which could mean both a yes and a no. Say you’ve never been to Las Vegas or gambled.

Q 4: So when are you getting married?

A trickier one, with the question having many sub-derivatives. Some ask if you’ve decided to marry a foreigner [foreigner by the way is anyone non-Indian. So hopefully even Sri Lankans should qualify]. Some specify certain religions and races whose people you should never marry even if he is the last man with who you can repopulate the earth. Some demand that no matter who you marry, the ceremony should be in India. Some even ask you if you have come home to (secretly) get married.

Don’t: Let them believe you are as clueless as they are about your wedding. Never let them know you don’t have a plan or that useless software engineer bugger from the Bay Area fucked up the relationship and after 4 years of hanky panky, saying he needs more time to “figure things out” and you are too old, stigmatized and tired to find someone new.

Do: Smile suspiciously and coyly. Let them know there is something you are hiding. They will be dying to know the truth.

Q 5: So do you plan to become a citizen? Are you settling there?

The most unsettling of all the questions. For one, with the screwed up economy and your singlehood, you are light years away from a green card, let alone a citizenship. Your boss is making your life at work miserable and the last thing on your mind after 12 hours of coding or mixing chemicals in the lab everyday is to think if you are going to “settle” in the US.

Don’t: Try explaining things. Before you know, the neighbors would have found out how much you earn, spend, and save.

Do: Smile and nod making an angle which could mean a yes maybe or a no maybe.

And then there are some other questions you would have no answer to. Even the smile and the nod will not help.

Q 6: I’m not asking you your salary, but how much do you earn compared to India n standards? (You can almost see the currency converter in their heads ticking).

Q 7: So I’ve heard many Indian girls and boys in the US live together. Is that true?

Try saying: Yes, it’s called an orgy.

Q 8: So do you cook Indian food at all? No, you must be eating burger and fries, and beef and pork, no?

Try saying: Yes, and bull balls and bison meat too, transported all the way from Yellowstone National Park.

Q 9: Aren’t white people smelly and refuse to take a bath everyday?

Try saying: Yes, and it is sometimes required by the law in certain states that immigrants soap them.

Also try saying, yes, and we act that way too for days sometimes.

Q 10: Is there some good news we should know about?

Try saying: Absolutely. And look indicatively at those flab tires on your tummy.

While most questions are innocuous, bordering mainly on curiosity and lack of knowledge, answering them might get awkward after all that privacy and space you’ve had in the western society. No one really cares why you are not married or how much your earn away from home, unless of course it is the same desi aunty who is visiting her sonny boy back in California this time.

In summary, you can get away with most questions with an innocent smile and a nodding of the head which could mean a yes, no, maybe, probably, most likely, anything.

sunshine

Nosy Neighbor

Nosy neighbor: Where are you headed?
sunshine: Uhh... some shopping. In a hurry.
Nosy neighbor: Okay. Where?
sunshine: Umm.... here and there ... In a hurry aunty.
Nosy neighbor (looking suspicious): Here and there? What will you buy?
sunshine: err..... this and that ... In a hurry aunty.
Nosy neighbor: What time will you be back?
sunshine: Well, are you planning to invite me for dinner?

Nosy neighbor (LOL): You have an amazing sense of humor !!

sunshine: (Sigh !!!): (To self, while running down the stairs): What do I do with people who don't understand sarcasm?

Nosy neighbor: Show me what you get, okay?

SIGH !!!

-----------------------------------

Nosy neighbor: Well well, where did mom and daughter go this evening?

sunshine: How did you know we were away?

Nosy neighbor: Aunty knows it all beta. The front door was locked.

sunshine: Oh, we just went here and there.

Nosy neighbor: What did you eat?

sunshine: Oh, we just had some momos for dinner.

Nosy neighbor (looking at mom): So who paid for dinner? Mom or daughter?

SHEESSHHH !!!

--------------------------------------

Nosy neighbor: So how come you are home for 2 months now?

sunshine: It’ll be 4 months of vacation in all.

Nosy neighbor: So are you still paying rent in Seattle?

sunshine: Yes, of course.

Nosy neighbor: Your office gave you leave for 4 months?

sunshine: I’m working from home.

Nosy neighbor (looking confused): What does working from home mean?

sunshine: It means I stay at home and work.

Nosy neighbor: But I don’t see you working.

sunshine: Oh, I work when everyone is asleep.

Nosy neighbor: Call center type job?

sunshine: Yeah you can say that.

Nosy neighbor: So are you still getting paid while you are here?

sunshine: Of course. And aunty, please please don’t ask me how much I get paid !!!

-----------------------

sunshine

Wat-er you doing?

A house couple of blocks away is the cause of my annoyance these days. At the most ungodly hours of the day, sometimes during late afternoon, sometimes even later at night, the sound of water flowing down the terrace bothers me. This happens non-stop for about 30-40 minutes everyday. So what’s going on?

Nothing as significant as the water tank bursting. It seems the water tank overflows everyday and goes unnoticed at least for 30 minutes.

Now I have never really spotted anyone in the house. Sometimes when I spot the maid sweeping the marble floored balcony, I try shouting and signaling to her about the water overflowing, wondering how come I can hear the loud sound of water flowing 100 feet away and she, living in the same house, cannot. She gives me a blank expression most of the days, as if I have just asked her if she regularly watches porn on television. She stares at me blankly for a few seconds before she goes inside, dangling the broom in her hand.

I am told the owner of the house is a big shot, running several beedi factories.

I am told he owns multiple houses in the area, all three storied or more.

I am told the guy has strong political connections. He is even rumored to carry arms.

I am told he is a Bangladeshi [where Bangladeshi is a general term used for illegal immigrants from Bangladesh who make big money by unfair means and are trying to take over, a sharp contrast to the majority who live here and are tagged “bhadralok” with white collared jobs].

I guess I am being subtly hinted at not to mess with him.

I wonder why none of the so called white collared bhadraloks ever complain.

Dear beedi jalaile Bangladeshi owner of multiple homes, I don’t really care about what you do for a living. I don’t care whether you own a chain of beedi factories or carry arms and armaments. My intentions are pretty clear. First, I would like to box the ears of that maid who is hard of hearing and stares at me blankly whenever I try to tell her to switch off the water supply. And second, I would like to box your ears too, for being this careless, irresponsible brat who isn’t responsible enough to make arrangements so that water doesn’t keep overflowing and get wasted. What, are you shooting for tip tip barsa paani? Ever heard of words like civic sense, water scarcity, and basic sensibility?

The constant sound of water overflowing is more disturbing to me than watching Rakhi Sawant on television. What a sight it would be when you and your maid will hold ears and do sit ups in the middle of the road. Why didn’t anyone think of this plan to make careless people more aware?

Just because you don’t pay for water doesn’t mean it comes for free. It is for people like you that everyone of us is paying a price.

sunshine

My Neighbor Again.

This time, he is out of the city visiting his newborn and his girlfriend. Hence I send him an email.

To: neighbor.

From: sunshine.

Dear neighbor,

I am shifting and I need to know what I should do with your laptop and mails. If you want, I can leave them with someone next door, or I can take them with me for the time being. Do let me know as soon as you can.

Seven days later, this was the reply I got.

To: sunshine.

From: neighbor.

Dear sunshine,

Sorry for delaying to respond. I just come back from vacation. By the way, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ENGAGEMENT !!that's a great news!. If you don't mind, I would like to leave my laptop and mails with you. I will tell when I go back to home.

.

Engagement? I did not think I had mentioned to him anywhere in the mail that I was getting engaged. I mean I did not even know that I was engaged. All I asked him was to tell me what should I do with his laptop. Much as I tried, I was unable to make a connection between the two. I scratched my head and tried looking for a hidden meaning, perhaps an encrypted message. Maybe he was trying to tell me something important and all I had to do was decode the arrangement of the alphabets. Where was he vacationing? Did he land up in the underworld? I scratched my head and chin until the people around me in the bus suspected that I was suffering from dandruff problems and wasn't taking a bath regularly. Congratulations on being engaged? It was like telling him, I like to eat red apples, and he replying back, congratulations on being pregnant. There could still be some relation between red apples and pregnancy, but what had my moving out got to do with being engaged?

.

It took the great brains of G to finally decipher the not-so-encrypted-and-yet-so-subtle message hidden in that single line. Like the starting lines of Austen's Pride and Prejudice (It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife), when a single girl in the city moves out, it is a universally acknowledged truth that she has acquired a boy friend and is moving in with him!

.

This logic explained a lot. Especially why he had taken a break from the school for 3 months and was diligently performing the duties of fatherhood. 

.

Oh, how it breaks my heart to clear his misconception now!

.

sunshine.

Indecent Proposal.

So do you take a shower in the morning?

I was a little taken aback by the sudden intrusion of privacy. We were neighbors alright, and we worked in the same building. Yet what kind of a connection demanded an intimate question like this? For a moment, I wondered if I had body odor. Not that people ever complained I did. 

Well, yeah, I do.

Okhayi…good.

I wondered what was so good about it. We were walking together to take that bus to the department.

So are you going to take the shower again?

What?

Now? Would you?

Well, I don’t know. 

What was this guy up to? Irritation waned, and I had started to feel a little scared. Suddenly, the road ahead looked desolate. I could not wait to get to the bus stop.

You know what? I would be taking the shower. So you could take it with me, he offered suddenly.

My jaws dropped, and I stopped dead in my tracks. He did too. Why was the guy telling me all this in broad daylight, managing to look super cool and unperturbed? He was even smiling at me. He didn’t look drunk. He didn’t look stoned. Then what?

What did you just say?, I asked, trying hard not to lose my calm. Carefully, I squinted in the sun to look at his face as he repeated his offer again.

Would you take the shower with me?

I frowned as I read his lips. I wanted to give him the benefit of doubt. 

The what?

Shower? It was his turn to look confused now.

You mean? Please say it slowly?

Sh-aww-lle?

Did you say the s-h-u-t-t-l-e?, I asked slowly and carefully, reading his lips all the same. I even pointed to the bus stop a few steps away. You mean the white bus? The one that takes you to the medical center from the department?

Oh yeah yeah!. His face lit up. Would you take it with me?

Sure. Anytime.

With this, I heaved a sigh of relief. Accents can be funny. Asian accents, more so. 

Ever since, every morning we have been taking the shower together. The shuttle I mean.

sunshine.

Whoz Te Neighbor?

When I’d said a goodbye to G’s palatial home and landed up at my place, I had no clue about who my neighbors are. My floor was quite desolate, and I saw barely 2 people on a daily basis. Mostly Asians, they were unable to understand my English. Someone said, “I no engliss”, to which I exclaimed, “Oh, I know engliss too”, to correct my “engliss” just in time. A lady kept repeating the same thing I asked, mimicking me. So when I looked for the restroom lights, using my hands to gesture, “restroom, no switch?”, she mimicked me and repeated the same.

I occasionally met my eccentric neighbors in the common kitchen, not knowing what to do but smile. They smiled back too, and boiled noddles and pasta with funny smells. They used their chopsticks with great finesse. Here, I could not even use the dandiya sticks well. I felt lonely, unable to make even basic conversation. That'show the first few weeks went. I went to the department, came home, and went to sleep. Sometimes, I slept for 12 hours straight. My jetlag never left me, it seemed. I hardly met any Indians at the department. The accent others had alienated me. And so did stories of my classmates who spent their weekends fishing and canoeing. The most interesting thing I had come to doing in the weekends in India was watching Ramayana and Mahabharata on television. Certainly not doing "maach dhorte jawa" and "nouko chalate jawa".

I came home one evening, so tired that I did not know whether to cook or go to bed hungry. I climb ed up the stairs unenthused, taking the door key out of my pockets. I opened the doors and froze. 

You?

You?

What are you doing here?

What are you doing here?

I live here.

Me too.

What?

Yeah.

Me in 417.

Me in 418.

Really?

Yeah.
Looks like the Thai guy I had met in the department was my neighbor now. A few days back, I was chomping on my rubbery sandwich at the department orientation. He sat next to me and told me how bland he found American food. I always saw him studying in the library, while I was all up and about, excitedly going around Seattle and taking pictures. Now, the same guy was chopping cabbage in my kitchen.

I could not be more glad to find a familiar face.

sunshine.