It's Been A Chraizy Week.

So how was the first week of classes? How did it feel to get back to student life after almost a year and a half? How was the transition from an Indian university to an American graduate school?

Truth be told, it’s confusing, and the sheer hard work expected of you was just “chraizy”. As you see, I am slowly picking up bits and pieces of the American accent. Never mind the fact that my facial expressions seem hilarious when I try it out in front of the mirror.

Comparisons do crop up, no matter what. And they said this was just the warm-up week. Well, the warm up was good enough to get my ass on fire. On day 1, we were given handouts for the entire schedule this quarter. Yeah, we run on a quarter basis, which meant a fresh session started every 3 months. I went through my handout to find everything there- the chapters to be taught, the required readings and reference work, additional links, text books, exam schedule, class test and home work schedule, email ids of the professor, every bit of information was there. A careful examination of the schedule confirmed that there would be at least 3 exams, a weekly test, and a couple of homework assignment and readings for each course every week. And I was taking four courses this quarter.

The system is pretty different from the place I came, where there were university exams once a year. This meant that you could sleep and take it easy for the first 11 months, and slog your butt off the last one month. That’s how we were used to, no matter how unscientific it was. And the course combination there was like eating at home. Mom would force you to have every course, starting with the bitter karela and ending with curd/yogurt. Everyone in a particular department throughout the university was studying the same courses, and writing the same exam year after year.

The system here works like a buffet. It was pretty confusing initially, when I was told to pick and choose my courses. Pick and choose? My professors back home would have had a heart attack if I told them that I didn’t take up the biophysics course because I hated physics. Having said that, you just couldn’t randomly pick and choose your courses. It took a lot of careful thinking and foresight to decide what you wanted and what you could leave. Every system has its pros and cons. There, at least you would not have to worry about what courses you took and if you were particularly suited for that. Here, you have to worry. For you don’t really want to spend an entire year taking random courses and realizing at the end that you were perhaps meant to do something different.

Another huge element of surprise was the teaching system here. Classes are held in auditoriums, professors use the mic, every class is video recorded so that if you happened to miss a particular class, you could watch the entire lecture online. The coursework, homework, and everything you needed to know was available online. It might sound pretty naïve of me to find this overwhelming, because I have never seen this before. You remained absent, you got the class notes photocopied, and studied on your own. Simple. I certainly don’t remember the last time I got home assignments in college.

Students went to class in shorts and running shoes. They openly ate and drank in class. They took the class notes on their laptops. They called the professors by the first names. Ask me how uncomfortable it is to call someone grandpa-like by their first name. Ask me how I cringed in embarrassment when the girl next to me kept dangling her legs and showing off thunder thighs, while I was covered almost from head to toe. Nobody cares. As long as you got your assignments done, no one cares.

Home assignments could be typed and printed or simply sent via email. Isn't it amazing? Every out-of-class communication with the professors and the TAs had to be done via email. When you are new to the system, you just can’t help but compare the stark contrasts. Courses here weren’t named, they were numbered. So if someone asked you, “Are you taking the 489 this quarter?”, it would mean he is asking you if you are taking the certain agronomics course that is offered this quarter by a certain Prof. Hogan. And you could easily go up to a 60-something professor and say, “Hi John, I had a quick question about the classes”. There is no concept of good morning sir, excuse me, may I kindly ask you something regarding the classes sir? There are certainly no sirs and madams here.

Perhaps the best part here are the facilities you get, including free printing and scanning and photocopying, library access till late nights, 24 hours of building access, and the library resources. Any graduate student here is allowed a maximum of 2100 books (unless someone makes a request on a particular book), allowed to be kept for the entire quarter. I can’t help but think of my CU days and the way we used to huddle on the two computers in the department, carefully avoiding the irritable woman who used to monitor if we were checking personal emails. And the money we spent on printing and photocopying, I am sure the shop owner would have made enough money to add an entire floor to his home.

The bottom line is- we are entitled to every facility available under the sun. And that includes a handsome graduate assistantship, medical insurance, and other facilities. We wouldn’t really be worrying if the pay check would arrive on time or if it would be possible to find certain reference materials in the library. Worst case if the libraries here don’t have it, they can ship it from any library on this side of the US within a week. You wouldn’t hesitate if you wanted to go to the department post-dinner and study. As long as you had the access codes to the restricted areas right, no one would question, or even notice your presence. You could get as many prints as you needed, and see entire lectures on the web. You needn’t even pay for bus travel provided you paid some $40 at the beginning of every quarter. And in case you were taking the shuttle to the medical college, even that wasn’t necessary. If you didn’t understand particular courses and needed to start afresh, you would always have teaching assistants whose duty was to make sure that you eventually understood things. For as much as they graded your performance, you graded their teaching abilities too. You weren’t expected to worry about anything that would hinder your education and learning here.

The only thing you were expected to do here is study, and study more, and study as much as you could. Laziness and irresponsibility have no excuse. Plagiarism and using unfair means is unacceptable. And underperformers have no place here. If you wanted to hang around in the place, you have to perform. You have to study and do your assignments on time. You have to follow the system. You have to compete with your fellow mates and outperform them. There is no place for mediocrity. You have to be an achiever. You have to run as if your ass was on fire, even if they called it the warm up week.

Having said all this, I better get ready for the assignments tomorrow. Looking forward to yet another “chraizy” week of running.

sunshine.

720 Hours Of Learning.

It’s exactly been a month since I came here. Thirty days in a new country, with a whole new set of adjustments. Sometimes, it seems as if I’ve been here for ages. Sometimes, it all seems like a dream. I still remember that night when I landed here. My flight was delayed, my luggage hadn’t arrived, and I had no clue where was I headed for. I had just seen one picture of the guy who was to come to the airport. I had not even seen my host. I was tired, I was scared. When the guy dropped me off at my host’s place and drove away, I had felt like a drowned puppy discovered on a cold night and left at the doorstep of someone. And then, the kind human had taken care of me till I was strong enough to feel hunger or sleep.

The very next morning, G, my host had taken me around the house. The first lessons I got from her was how to use the faucets and the microwave. Faucets here seemed far more complicated than the ones back at home. I had never before used a microwave, and it was amazing how it could be used for everything, right from warming milk to cooking meat. Every little thing I saw amazed me. The first time she had taken me out, I had almost yelled in amazement, “Uui ma, so many foreigners!!” It had taken me some time to realize that I was the foreigner here, not them.

The next thing that had amazed me is the total absence of street dogs, cows, and lumps of cow dung trodden with bicycle tire marks. I had worn a new pair of shoes and when I came home, I was amazed to find the back of the shoes absolutely sans a speck of dirt or dust. As G rightly said, I was acting like a "dehati", overwhelmed with things around me. When I’d opened a bank account, I got a black tee shirt for free. Soon I realized that if you went to the right places, things like tee shirts and chocolates and candies and paper clips and letter holders and water bottles could be got free. I soon learnt that lifts were elevators, bathrooms were restrooms, notes were bills and bills were checks. I learnt that many words otherwise used normally are considered slang here. I learnt that pesticides were never “sprayed” and the car “dikky” was the trunk. I learnt that “Safeway” was a huge chain of store and “Subway” was a sandwich store. I learnt that the gas ovens were electrically heated. I learnt the difference between a credit card and a debit card. I learnt how not to hang up on voicemails but listen to the voice instructions and then leave a message as systematically and formally as possible. I learnt that when you inserted the key into a lock, you pulled the door towards yourself instead of pushing it. I learnt that there were specific “designated smoking sites” where one could smoke.

I learnt how to use a digicam, a laptop, and the coin-operated washing machine. I soon stopped getting shocked when they would tell me that the temperature outside was 65. For 65 was the temperature in Fahrenheit. I soon got used to a fresh set of units like mph, ounce, gallons, and pounds. I learnt not to confuse I 5 and I 90 with I 20, the former two being the interstate routes that intersected here. I learnt that you were supposed to change plates in a buffet every time you finished a course. There were days I’d keep waiting for the bus on the wrong side of the road, still used to seeing vehicles on the left. There were times I had dashed into people while walking on the left. Once, I had almost screamed out of shock when I saw a large vehicle approaching from the opposite end, thinking that G was wrongly driving on the right (I mean wrong) side. Soon, I learnt to figure out things by myself. I learnt that you crossed the road when you saw that white man and stopped when you saw the red hand. More importantly, I learnt that you must politely smile at the driver who stops his car to let you cross, even when the signals have changed. I learnt to read maps and find my way across the city. I learnt to transfer pics from the camera to the computer. I learnt how to use a memory stick. I was still using floppy disks not too long ago.

But most importantly, I learnt that it’s okay to ask for help. I learnt that it’s okay if you didn’t know something and even if you didn’t understand after repeated explanations, it’s okay to smile and apologize. I learnt that not all people know all things at all times and it’s okay to take your ignorance with a pinch of salt. I learnt that it’s okay to make a fool of yourself by fiddling with the faucets and getting drenched with the sudden outpour. I learnt that it’s okay to be clumsy with the elevator buttons or the door knobs. For more than people judging us, we end up judging ourselves most of the times. Most importantly, no wrong done was that wrong as long as it could be fixed with a smile or an apology.

If you could plot my learning curve for the last 25 years, taking the time on the x axis and the learning co-efficient on the y axis, you wouldn’t miss the sharp spike in my learning curve the last 720 hours.

sunshine.

Bad Food For Thought.

Back in India, I remember how mom used to urge me to learn to cook. She had tried every possibly strategy under the sun. She had tried to coax me with love, and then with anger. She had tried with emotional blackmailing as well. And the moment she did this, I would use fight or flight. There was something about the idea of cooking that used to scare me. What if I got burnt? What if the food was overcooked? What if I added certain spices and died of food poisoning? I used to be the black sheep in the family since both mom and dad are great cooks. That’s pretty much the picture back at home.

And then, I came here. I came to the land of opportunities. I came to the land of abundance. I came to the land where every small sized thing you order is still jumbo size by your standards. I remember the food I used to order initially, everything of the minimum possible quantity, and I used to end up taking more than half the food back home. I remember the stores where I was overwhelmed with the size of prawns and shrimps and potato chips packets. G, despite her classes, used to often bring me home cooked food (yeah, I know, shame on me). I came to this place where everything you wanted was cut and canned and ready to use. All you had to do is while your time in some nearby store, undecided whether the red bell peppers are better or the green ones. Bell peppers by the way mean capsicums. Egg plant isn’t a non-vegetarian plant produce, it’s our very own brinjal. Egg plant? How could an egg be a plant? And when G pointed to the cold storage racks and asked me to get her a packet of okra, I thought that okra was a Tamil word. Well, it isn’t. Okra means lady fingers.


Life so far here has been an immense learning experience. Let me not digress but rather stick to my culinary exploits here. On one hand we have the storage stuff. On the other, we have what I call the “pourage” stuff. You pour, you drink. Back at home, I remember how mom would fret that milk would turn rancid in the summers. I remember how she would peel, cut, dice, pulp, and perform the other verbs I wouldn’t even know. Here, there is no concept of boiling milk. There is no concept of making fruit juice or yogurt. You buy, you pour, you drink. Sounds cool, no?

What more, everything under the sun is available in flavors. I took a good 10 minutes to figure out whether I should take the strawberry flavored yogurt or the pina colada. I wondered if the Concorde grape juice tasted better or the passion fruit. Bell peppers were green, red, or yellow-orange. Potatoes were white or red. And the ones I thought were onions were actually jumbo-sized garlic.

I thought I had finally entered the land of the pizzas and the pastries and sushi and smoked salmons. I was constantly putting my connoisseurship to test, trying out on the Thai and the American food joints. When the department invited us for lunch, I was delighted. Mom, I told you I could do without learning to cook.

I was in for a surprise. The department hosted a grand lunch. There were so many trays of food that if you had your food from the first tray and started to walk, you’d feel hungry by the time you reached the last tray. And here starts the saga of how I got to make a complete fool of myself.

The food here wasn’t dal, chawal, naan, and dhokla. This was American food. It started with trays of fresh vegetables, uncut, uncooked. God knows how hard I’ve tried to stimulate my bovine instincts and enjoy the lettuce and the cabbage sans the green chilly or the lemons.

And then I didn’t even know half the fruits and the vegetables. I saw broccoli for the first time, the miniature version of mountain forests. Vegetables were to be followed by an array of sandwiches. I had a hard time figuring out which were the beefed, porked, hammed, or turkeyed. Everything other than chicken made me want to throw up. And chicken doesn't mean the cooked chicken curry from back home. Chicken here is eaten bland and boiled.


Post sandwich were packets of potato chips. Lunch looked like snacks. This was to be followed by varieties of something I mistook as white creamed pastries. So I cut out a large chunk of it. I was soon to discover my stupidity at the thought of having mistaken white cheese for pastries. And the dried raisins I thought were black olives actually.

So that was it- green leafy salads, sandwiches, pizzas, cheese, chips, egg-dipped cookies, cut fruits, and cans of beer and Coke. Where was the main course? Where were the fried rice and the reshmi kebabs and the fish fries and the dal makhanis and the gulab jamuns?

Seems every possible gastronomic nightmare I had started to come true. I would be unable to chomp on the pizzas that smelt of beef. There was no concept of curries, chutneys, and aachars. Soon I started to avoid the departmental lunches and dinners. I would no longer be allured by any seminar that announced “free pizzas and light refreshments”. The only good things I’ve had here so far are the chocolate pastries.

2 weeks of all this and soon I was only having the starters and the desserts in a meal. There was yet another lunch I had to attend and all I had were fruits and cookies that reeked of raw eggs. I had the appetite of an ant. I remember the day when I’d cried in relief when G had cooked simple chawal, dal fry, and south Indian vegetarian curry for me. It tasted like Heaven.

And then there was this Thai place I went to and since I didn’t know what was what, I ended up starting the meal with desserts. Well, this is because they had placed the desserts at the beginning and even that tasted like the sweetened and chocolatty version of Isabgol for curing constipation. You just couldn’t miss the constipated look on my face the moment I took a spoonful.

Also, let me tell you that the coffee here is bad. B-A-D. It’s strong, it’s bitter, and you’d add dozens of sugar cubes, yet you’d have the same constipated look on your face the moment you had a sip. The only good food I’ve had is in a Chinese food joint, where the food was somewhat “similar” to what I am used to having. Having said that, Chinese food here is in no way close to the Indo-Chinese food in Calcutta. Even the roadside "Gulmohar Chineez Hotel" in Calcutta serves better food.

One week of the terrible food and my digestive system went into the hibernating mode. Ask me how it feels like going to sleep on an empty stomach to wake up in the middle of the night and crave for paani puris, chicken rolls and dosas. So much for stubbornness and not learning how to cook.

I hope that the Americans aren't offended about how I found eating a nightmare here. I am just an outsider, with very different food habits. I remember how every time, I threw a tantrum when mom cooked bitter gourd or pumpkin curry. What I'd do to have it right now. 

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.

En-Light-ened.

When you are new to a country, there are these thousands of small things you notice that perhaps others do not. Ever since I moved here, I have been marveling at almost everything I see around me, the buses, traffic signals, and elevators. G decided to call me a “dehati”, since I was awed by everything I saw. 2 months down the line, I am sure I wouldn’t even notice these things.

I had shifted to my new home and I was looking around, trying to figure out the lights in the restroom. G had just dropped me, and a car full of my things that I had bought here. However, I was surprised that there was no light in the restroom. I asked one of my floor mates, “No light in the restroom?”, to which she mimicked my tone, making a weird facial expression, and repeated, “No light in restroom?” It seemed as if she was shell shocked that all this while she had lived there and there was no light in the restroom. Perhaps she didn’t understand my English. Perhaps she didn’t need light at nights in the restroom.

So once again I tried to figure out the lights when I touched the boards on the walls that looked like the electricity meter readers back home. Suddenly, my fingers hit something and the place was flooded with lights.

It is then that I actually got to see the switches. Those were the same stuff that had looked like the electricity meter readers. Here, take a look.

If you needed the light for say 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, or 30 min, you clicked on the necessary button. If you clicked on 5 min, the light automatically went off after 5 min. In the pic, there is this tiny red glow beside the 30 minute mark, that indicates that the timer had been set for 30 minutes.

I found this concept really cool. If someone forgot to switch off the lights, the lights would automatically go off after a while. And if you were done before, you could always use the last button and shut it off.

Amazing concept. Surely there are so many things to learn in this world.

sunshine.

The Mad Search.

I had always marveled at the way my friends lived in hostels while I lived at home. The independence they had would make me go green with envy. I longed to be one of them. I wanted the freedom to be able to stay up late nights and watch movies with friends (and snore the next day in class). I wanted to have a life where I could get back to my room, kick off my shoes, discard my jacket, and settle with a novel while no one would bother me about the mess in my room. I could wear what I pleased, I could eat what I liked, and have all the freedom I did not have currently. 

And then I came here. Thousands of miles away from home, there was absolutely no one to monitor what I did, when I got back, who I hanged out with, what I wore or what I ate. And I thought that was cool. So I kept coming back home and kicking off my shoes, not even bothering to keep them in their place. The towel after the bath would always be hanging from the door knob. And the study table was always strewn with papers. I loved the anarchy. I loved the disorderliness. And I loved the fact that there was no one to boss around.

Come Thursday night and I got a call from G. She is the lady who hosted me when I initially landed here. She told me that we’d be visiting the social security office the following morning and I need to get my documents ready. I hung up knowing that things were already in place. But then, I remembered an incident a few days back when I needed a signature on a form for the SSN from the students office and I was so impressed when they had promptly done it, quite unlike the way it happens in the offices back in India where you are asked to come again and again. What more, they had given me the form in a sealed manila folder, something I found was very cool. I remember telling G about it and then I had shoved the envelope somewhere. And the following day, I needed it.

So while I was planning to spend another of those lonely evenings reading a book, I started to search for the envelope with the little signed paper inside. Where could it be? Where indeed? I was usually not into losing things, but having said that, there have been instances when I have had trouble remembering where I put things. And ever since my departmental orientation started, I have had just too many sheets and papers shoved in my hands, papers that detailed out the departmental research or the class schedules or the lab hours. Papers that advertised for apartments and papers that informed us about weekend activities. Everyday I came home, I would promise myself to go through them and sort them into separate files. But I never really did that.

Today, I needed to look into every paper I had because I was unable to find that single white sheet that I needed the next day. And you wouldn’t believe how many things I ended up doing in that single search. Initially I started looking for it among the pile of papers that had accumulated over the table last week. And that included unnecessary receipts that found their way to the trash can. That included my degrees and certificates that I had let be just like that. I assorted them chronologically and put them in a file. And then I came across the printouts of some poems I had written years back, which were stacked into the drawer. There were letters from friends. There were manuals of my cell phone and my camera. There were scribbling of poems that were never really written. There were grocery lists and lists of things I needed to do the following weekend. There were phone numbers scribbled hastily (and I had no idea whose numbers were those). The evening moved on, and it is amazing how many papers I actually found while looking for that single paper.

I found all the visiting cards strewn here and there. The unnecessary ones again went to the trash can and the necessary ones into drawers. Then there were so many other paper clippings, snaps tucked carelessly away inside text books, phone numbers written here and there. I patiently pinned them on the cork board bulletin in my room.

Half an hour later, my immunization documents were in place, and so were my degrees and the official letters. The text books and the novels no more had papers and snaps tucked inside them. The pen stands were cleaned of pencil shavings. The hair fasteners had found their way to the right place. And so had the face creams and the makeup things. The chocolate wrappers had found their way to the trash can. My study table was actually looking more hospitable and a little less intimidating than what it had the last few days. But the paper was no where to be found.

Next the floors were cleaned of the clutter. The plates had to go to the sink. The chargers and the other devices were off the switch boards now, with their wires neatly fastened. The soaps and the shampoos were neatly placed back in their racks. I had to find out that paper. So next I neatly arranged the books I had carelessly looked into and put them on the table. The copies followed them. If I wasn’t so nervous, I might have actually started to notice that the place looked cleaner. The clothes were taken off the floor and put into hangers. The socks were put for washing. The shoes went back to their racks. And I actually found my chappals from under the bed and finally put them on.

Next my rain jacket, fleece jacket, and denim jackets (all of the three had their sleeves entwined together) were separated from the amorous embrace and folded neatly to be put in the closet. The suitcases had been looked into. I was tired. I was frustrated. I knew I deserved to spend the evening doing better things than hunting for the paper.

The room looked much cleaner now. But that wasn’t god enough. The only remaining area was the bed. So the pillows were soon put neatly, the blankets folded. I even took off the bed spread and dusted it. The papers and books on the bed had gone back to their right places. And there was at last some place for me to sleep. My clothes were rescued from the hinterlands of the mattress. The tee shirt was still no where to be found. My nerves were frayed from the search. Where could one single paper vanish? It had been more than an hour and a half now. Initially I was famished, but I had lost my appetite. I had wasted far more time and energy than was necessary for the search. And I could just not give up. What if I never found it?

Suddenly, like a ray of hope, a thought struck me. Well, I didn’t hope much, but I had nothing to lose. I bent down supine on the carpet, but saw nothing. I had no flash light with me, so with my phone, I tried to see whatever little I could. I bent and squinted and was soon on my belly, stretching out my limbs as much as I could in a strange yogic posture when I touched something. God, let it better be what I was looking for. I was sure I have had enough for the day.

And there amid the dust and a few strands of shed hair came out the envelope I had been looking for all evening. Had this been India, I might have found a few cobwebs and cockroach eggs as well. 

And it is after this mad search for more than an hour and a half that I realized a few things. I realized that it’s high time I got into the habit of putting my papers in proper files rather than deferring them till I actually lost some of them. And most importantly, I realized that it was not that fun to have all the freedom and not appreciate it. With independence came responsibilities, and people who did not realize their responsibilities had no right to enjoy their freedom.

Henceforth, I try to keep my things in place. I try not to clutter my room too much. I try to keep some free space in my bed to sit. And I just don’t go about strewing my clothes and stuff here and there. For it might be fine to wake up one fine morning and realize that the toothbrush is missing, and eventually go to the department without brushing. But the SSN office wouldn’t spare me the next time my credentials go missing.

sunshine.

Trin Trin Trouble.

Well, you always want to talk to your folks back at home when you are thousands of miles away. But then, sometimes this could be emotionally draining, sometimes weird, and sometimes damn funny. It took me a couple of days after I came here to get myself a phone and a calling card. And the moment I punched in the numbers and heard mom's voice at the other end of the line, I knew what I was in for. I must have guessed it anyway. People are always shocked when you call unannounced, and that too right from the other end of the globe. Somehow I couldn't decipher why she kept speaking so fast. When I asked her to slow down so that I could actually understand what she was saying, her first reaction was...."But it must be costing you a fortune."
Ah, so this is it. And all this while I wondered what dialect of Bengali has she picked up recently that 10 days I am gone and I am unable to understand what she speaks.

Its okay mom, I can afford it once in a while. So you might as well slow down.
Hereafter, the conversation got down to such a speed that I could at least understand what she was saying. But guess what she asks me the first thing?

I hope you haven't put on weight. And I hope you are having the low fat double toned milk and are not hogging on chocolates and meat.

Mom, this is what you have to ask me the first thing? For all you know, I might as well have had a hand to mouth existence, eating one meal a day.

Ah, but I know you too well for that, she says confidently.

Sighs. Its true, the way I have been eating the chocolates and the fruits and the desserts of late, I might as well join a gym before I am due home.

So the conversation goes back to normal chitchat, including the regular What do you eat? When do you get home? I hope you aren't into late night parties and dating. I kept on sketching a cartoon face as I tried to feign seriousness. For little did she know how lonely and how unsocial I felt here. Not that I was planning to tell her anyway.

Yeah, don't worry mom, I have decided to join a nunnery here. And I am already on my way to join the vegan club.
So that's my mom. And just before I am about to hang up, I give her some latest updates on my recently upgraded standard of living.

You know mom, I got a cell phone with a camera. Quite unlike the one I had back at home which I could use in self-defense, so heavy it was. There are not many eve teasers here. So I might as well use the phone strictly for conversation and communication purpose instead of going around hitting people on the head.

A phone with a camera? Don't tell me you have been seeing me all this while.
I did not know what to say.

So that was the gist of my conversation with mom. And then I decided to call up grandma. Well, I should have at least let her know beforehand. The poor lady almost had a heart attach on hearing my voice.

Hello, hello, but you are okay? Are you in trouble?

Of course I am okay. I just called to say a hi.
Well, if that was my intent, I should have kept some ear buds handy. Perhaps she thought that I was calling from somewhere in Pluto, the way she kept screaming at the other end of the line.

Relax, and be a little less loud. I can hear you fine.

Hellooo, helllooo, but it must be very expensive. You keep down the phone.

Ufff, but I can afford it.
But I was just talking in the air. Even before I had had a chance to tell her that I was fine, she had hung up. I looked at my phone. 2 minutes 44 seconds. 

The moment grandma is done conveying the basic information on a long distance call, she hangs up on her own. So after she had asked me if I was doing fine, and telling me that her fever was better, she kept down the phone. Sighs, she never even gave me a chance to say that I myself had fever last weekend.

So that's my family. You call, and the first thing they ask you is if you have put on weight.

Thankfully, dad was the only sensible man around to talk to. But then having said that, I wish he didn't take so long to figure out who I was. And that goes for Munnu as well. What, does it get so difficult to recognize a voice from the US?

I wish the next time I call home, my folks talk to me more normally. And grandma doesn't slam down the phone on her own.

sunshine.

Se(a)ttled In.

Shifting places is not a very easy thing to do. Leaving home and shifting places is perhaps more difficult. But shifting a country is one of the most difficult things. This happens especially when you have been pampered silly back at home all this while. When I landed in LA and was told that my stuff hadn't arrived, I was scared. I was tired, jet-lagged, and the initial excitement had started to wane. But then, things have a way of eventually figuring out. Eventually. So after another really cramped flight (domestic airlines are worse, trust me), I finally reached my destination at 2 am. The one thing that immediately caught my attention during the land was the way the city was illuminated with millions of lights. It was a breathtaking view. But when you are tired and jet lagged the way I was, you would perhaps not even notice if Tom Hanks was waving back at you. It’s p(h)unny, how sleepless I’d been to be in this place all this while.

Anyway, a lot, and actually a lot has happened since then. The only reason I have been unable to write about them is the simple fact that the library is closed on the weekends till school starts this fall. But just to give you a brief idea of my tremendous progress with things (and I assure you I’d be writing about them in detail later), I got myself a place to stay. Yup, ask me how amazing the experience was to get the keys to your own place. I just had to walk into my room and exclaim, “Wow !!!! This is gonna be my domain henceforth”.

And then I got myself the other stuff, among which are the bank accounts, id card, and blah blah blah. It so happened that we were all tired after hours of walking on the streets trying to find a place, and then we decided to go take a break and hence visit this place for the id card. And the person just asked me to sit on a chair and wait. I thought that it was lunch time, and the person was asking me to wait for another half an hour before he would actually even start to hear out why I was there in the first place. But the moment I sat, I heard a click. Ask me isn’t it criminal to click someone’s snap without even allowing her so much as a little time to comb her hair, apply some make up, and at least put on some perfume?

Anyway, a few visits to Walmart (and the other departmental stores) later, I am finally beginning to settle in. And the first thing I realized here is that it is criminal not to have a camera around. So that is one of the things I bought first. Apparently, the manual that came with it seemed heavier than the actual camera, and I am planning to spend the next few days getting myself acquainted with the manual before I can start clicking. Back at home, I could never imagine I’d be so rich to afford so many things at one go. But then, you need things when you are on your own.

So henceforth starts my life in a new country. I plan to write in detail about the stark differences I found here. Also I am planning to include more of pics henceforth. It’s an amazing place, and it would be foolish not to make best use of my camera. I am also planning to have a shift in address. Naah, I didn’t mean my apartment, I just meant I was thinking of starting a fresh blog since now I am in a new place.

The title of the blog wasn’t a spelling error. Those are my current coordinates.

sunshine.

On "Top" Of The World.

Okhayi (and that was the typical American accent I am trying to mimic these days), this would be the final, and the most exciting post about my first flight.

Mumbai onward, I was horrified to find a seat by the aisle. The traveling agent must have screwed up things big time despite my specific instructions that I have never seen a take off in broad daylight and wanted a window seat. And with the crowd out there, I didn't think I'd be lucky enough to get a seat by the window.

It seemed God had made some “air-tight” plans about my fellow passengers. On my right were those 3 seats I so really wanted with a happy South Indian family of husband, wife, and kid. So all I could hear at my right was the howling of the kid who deemed it fit to use his freedom of expression at the apt moment when the plane just took off. This resulted in tremendous chaos, followed by a flurry of Tamil conversations (or Kannada maybe), followed by total mess of the place during their constant eating sessions.

On my right were an old man, another old man, and an old woman. I might as well have been sitting besides a bunch of aliens who could do something better than sleep for most of the flight. This old man besides me soon blindfolded himself and went off to sleep. Breakfast later, the South Indian couple also went off to sleep, making me wonder why they needed a window seat when sleeping was their only priority. I didn't believe it that I was supposed to spend the next 22 hours this way, looking at the fellow passengers hogging and snoring besides me. Eventually the old man woke up and tried starting up a conversation. Initially they were short questions to which I nodded a simple yes or a no. I was not really interested in striking up a conversation with him. I told him how it was my first time on the plane and I wanted a seat by the window but had to end up there. And he kept explaining me how it’d have made more sense to fly to Chicago instead of taking the LA route. God, why couldn’t someone mix some sleeping pills in his food?

Soon, an air hostess came and politely asked him if he would like to shift upstairs, to which he smiled back and left. Good for me, I finally got rid of the seat divider (or whatever it is called), kicked off my shoes, took his blankets and pillows as well, got in an embryonic position, and went to sleep in those two seats much to the jealousy of the other people who were cramped in one. You don’t give me a window seat, and I show you how I pay for one ticket and manage two seats instead.

So I slept for God knows how long, but was awakened by someone. Groggily, I woke up and squinted at the perpetrator to find that he was the same old man. I started to get up.

Hey no, I don’t want to get in. Come with me.

Uhh?, I still didn’t think I understood.

Come with me lady.

Err…. Where? Are you a kidnapper or hijacker? I wanted to ask.

Hey, don’t bother putting on your shoes. Leave them like that.

Uhh… so the kidnapper was a shoe thief too?

So I was woken out of my slumber to be carried away to god-knows-where by this old man who didn’t let me wear my shoes. We climbed up the stairs and walked through the business class area. Man, what opulence these people lived in while we middle class people cramped ourselves. Suddenly the business class seemed a proper plane to me and the economy class more like a local train. Must be the old man wanted to show me how rich people traveled. But wait, wasn’t he walking past the business class area?

Come in. He opened a tiny door and motioned to me. I was still confused about his intentions.

You wouldn’t believe, the old man took me to the cockpit and got me introduced to the pilots.

This lady is on her first flight and didn’t get a window seat. So I thought I would show her around.

The co-pilot vacated his seat and motioned me to take it. I was dumbstruck, still unable to come out of shock. I looked at the old man helplessly.

He smiled at me and told me that he was a retired pilot and these were his friends. So while I was sleeping, he was here and asked his pals if it would be okay for me to come up for a while. To which they agreed. Initial introductions made, they went back to chat.

I stuck my nose to the windows again, and man, what a sight. The pilot told me that we were flying over Istanbul, and were soon to cross the Black Sea. My first reaction on seeing down was, “But why are we moving so slowly?” It seemed to me that we were flying over some huge playground at a very slow speed. Common sense prevailed when I realized that it wasn’t a huge playground I was seeing. Below me were hundreds of miles of desert stretching endlessly, and the slowness only seemed because we were almost 11,000 m above the ground. And wherever I saw, I saw sand with occasional patches of something gleaming. Those must have been some kind of rocks shining when sunlight fell on them. And then I saw small tributaries and distributaries of water bodies that meandered about and seemed as thin as hair. Before me was history spread out where thousands of years ago, people had invaded, kings had ruled and civilizations had thrived and perished. In front of me were endless stretches of clouds we were piercing through. We crossed the mountains as if we were crossing mounds of sand dunes.

The pilot explained to me the basic functioning of systems. I was amazed to find that he did nothing, just listened to some instructions, did and undid a few knobs and chatted with us. You wouldn’t believe that he was controlling a plane, a real huge airplane, and hundreds of people below were sleeping peacefully. I saw no steering wheel, no nothing. How was I to know how planes flew? Occasionally he would control a few buttons, and that’s it. There were thousands of knobs and switches over his head, with lights blinking. It seemed more like a spaceship to me. And the pilot seemed as if he was playing some video game on the computer.

So for one full hour, I was allowed to sit besides him and absorb in the sights around me. And like a child marveling at everything on his first visit to the science park, I kept looking at the switches, the machinery, and the sights around me.

When I came back, I just looked at the people still asleep or watching a movie and smiled silently. You’ll never know the sight you just missed buddy.

Yeah, ask me how does it feel to be on top of the world. One of the sights I would never forget even when I am too old to blog. I wondered how many were lucky enough to spend an hour in the cockpit, and that too on their first trip. Trust me, even a hundred good looking men sitting next to me couldn't have matched up to the sight I'd just seen there.

sunshine.

Day-To-Day Life.

This one was written during my flight to LA.

It was almost 11 pm IST. But darkness was nowhere to be seen. For almost the last 18 hours, I had been in bright daylight. This is exactly what happens when you moved along the direction of the rotation of the earth. And as I looked out of my window, all I could see around me was a thick, dense layer of white foam, as if it was a huge bathtub out there and someone has emptied all the soap and washing powder in the world. Suspended 36,000 feet above the ground (that is approx. 11 km), all I could think of was- Is that Heaven?

It’d been an eventful day. Earlier that morning, I’d landed in Mumbai. At noon, I touched Europe for the first time. Spent a few hours in Frankfurt, thanks to all the tech problems in the aircraft. After a few hours, I had almost crossed the Atlantic, flying above the rear end of Greenland. Whatever I saw out of the window, I’d seen it before only in the geography text books and in the National Geographic channels. Most of my fellow passengers were either peacefully ensconced in the arms of sleep or were watching some movie. Not me. Even after almost 24 hours on flight, I was all excited, looking out of the window panes. I’d heard people being indifferent about the excitement of flying on air, especially how boring they found endless stretches of clouds. And that was exactly what I spent my entire time seeing. God, those were the most amazing sights I could have seen. And as I cruised westward ho, I knew the daylight would thankfully continue for a few more hours, till I reached the US at least. That’s exactly what you’d call an amazng “day to day” life.

.
sunshine.

The First Time.

For years, I kept wondering about how it would feel like the first time I would be on air. It’s been amazing ever since I cleared security. I think I never wept a tear as my entire family stood waving at me because everything was so new. I couldn’t wait to board the plane. However, it was past 3 am and there was nothing much to see in the dark. So as I sat by the window seat, I was prepared to “feel” things rather than “see” them. It was just a short trip to Mumbai anyway, and I could always see things during the other leg of the journey.

So for what seemed like a lifetime, I kept waiting. I had got my first mild shock when after being escorted down a closed, narrow tunnel, I found myself directly entering the belly of the plane. I mean I saw no plane, but kept walking down the passage like it happens in underworld movies. Like an excited child, I kept my nose glued to the double window panes. Everything seemed frosty in the darkness. Yet I knew from the slight whirr the moment the plane started to move. Why did I feel that the plane was moving backward? It was weird, since I never knew planes could take off backwards as well. May be the seats were arranged the wrong way. You see, that was the first time, and I was not exactly supposed to know things. So all I could make out from the lights was that the plane was moving backward, and that too very slowly. The runway was beautifully lit with blue and yellow lights. However I did not know if these were the runway lights or the lights from the city.

However, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. After taxiing for some time, the plane came to a halt. I still had my nose glued to the windows while the man beside me had already attacked his orange drink. Finally, the plane started moving. However, you could not have imagined the speed it gathered in the next few seconds. As it was all dark, I just kept looking at the runway lights to get an idea of the speed. God, it was an amazing feeling. And then, the most unexpected thing happened. I suddenly felt a swarm of butterflies in my stomach while my ears heard nothing but static. And I gasped in amazement, my nose still glued to the window to see that we had already taken off. I saw nothing but lights, more and more of lights getting distant and dimmer. There were millions, blinking and shining, as if the ground below was studded with jewels. I was just behind the right wing and my goodness, they were so huge and powerful. Soon we were out of the city and there was nothing more to see but darkness. So for the next two hours, I kept staring at the blinking lights on the wing, wondering if all this was true.

So that was my first experience on air. I saw nothing, neither the green fields, nor the roads or the rivers. All I saw was the runway and the city with lights blinking like multicolored stars. The city of joy seemed nothing but a crown studded with millions of jewels. It seemed it was Diwali night and there were lamps everywhere. It was breathtakingly beautiful. A sight only the darkness could make me see.

sunshine.

A 12 Year Long Partnership.

We have been sharing a room for the last 12 years now.

We have spent nights talking and giggling over nonsense things. We have spent nights when I would switch on the fan full speed and she would go switch it off. We have spent wintry nights fighting under the pillows. And when she couldn’t cope with my might, she has woken up in the mornings to go open the balcony doors so that the cold breeze hit my head and disturbed my peaceful slumber. And instead of closing shut the door, I have been a lazy bum, pulling the blanket over my head and getting back into the arms of Morpheus (that’s the Greek God of dreams).

We have kicked each other, urging to take the phone call when it kept shrieking, waiting for attention in the next room. And we have done the same to the ringing of the doorbell. Abbe tu ja, abbe tu ja, last time main gayi thi, last time main gayi thi, is what we kept telling each other. We have hugged each other, feigning sleep while mom kept shouting at us to wake up and start studying for the exams. We have spent nights hearing our favorite songs in the walkman where one half of the headphone would be tucked in my left ear and the other headphone would be in her right ear. We have quarreled about what songs to hear, till we would decide to hear one each from each one’s favorite collection. So while I tolerated the Enrique crap, she had to put up with Jagjit Singh and Kishore. We have kept giggling at inane jokes the whole night, and then feigned sleep when mom woke up due to the noise and came to check on us. We have played silly games like who could burp louder. We have played missed call-missed call, and sent each other silly sms, lying side by side in bed. I have given her missed calls, my hands hidden well under the pillow while she would check it, thinking it to be from a friend. And then, we have scared the shit out of each other with those horror stories.

We have been together in our midnight adventures when we have stolen sweets from the fridge, gulping rasgullas and stuffing our pockets with chocolates. We have made each other the midnight coffee during the exams. And on our respective birthdays, we have woken each other from sleep to wish and give gifts. And when we would be unwilling to wake up on the Christmas nights to exchange presents, we have sung the Silent Night carol in the weirdest of adenoidal tones. We have sung the birthday song in a baritone voice to wake up the other person, all this done without the knowledge of the other people at home fast asleep. And then we have cut the birthday cake, opened gifts, had chocolates, brushed, and gone back to sleep. I have called her silly and foolish when she hung up her stinking socks on the Christmas eve. And when dad secretly filled up the socks with a hundred rupee note, she has called me a donkey in return. And then the next night, I was proved more foolish when I hung up my socks too, only to find it stuffed with shredded papers the next day.

We have slept with our backs to each other when we fought. When she was angry and I wasn’t, I’ve put my elephant-sized legs on her to irritate her. We have kicked each other, taking our turns till one of us got irritated enough to get up and start a pillow fight. And then, we have spent the night hurling pillows at each other. We have tried to bribe each other with chocolates when we forgot to switch on the mosquito repellant and were too lazy to get up and do it. And when I was down with fever, she has woken me up from sleep to feed me dinner, made me gulp those bitter tablets, and has lulled me to sleep again.

I have slept like a baby in her arms. She has snored like a hippo in my arms. We have slept on the floors in summer nights when both of us were too lazy to clean our beds of the mess of clothes and books. And then we have bargained over who would tuck in how much of the mosquito net and who would make the bed. I have slept with those pillared legs of mine over her while she kept kicking me in sleep. And when nothing would do, we have sung songs made horrible by us to disturb the other person. We have played silly games where we would give a word to the other person and ask her to sing a song with that word. And then I have given her words like Rangoon (mere piya gaye Rangoon) and ghonchu (main akal ka kolu hoon ghonchu hoon). And when she would sing a sweet song on moonlit nights when there was no electricity, I have sung a different song at a different scale on purpose to confuse her.

But mostly, we have spent nights switching on the fan full volume and switching it off, and hurling bed sheets and pillows at each other. Not to mention the way I’ve howled like a dog when she would be singing a sweet lullaby. And yes, I have secretly kissed her cheek just to see her smile in sleep. And she claims that she has done the same with me.

Finally, the 12 year long partnership shall come to an end. Henceforth, we shall be sleeping on our respective beds thousands and thousands of miles away from each other. And while she turns in sleep, I’ll turn in my sleep, our respective thoughts laden with memories of these sweet moments frozen in time.

Tonight shall be our last night together.

sunshine.

Legacy.

Legacy is something handed down to you by a predecessor. So while I leave the city in about 36 hours and am busy with the last minute packing, everyone in the family has given me something to carry with me.

Grandma gave me a jumbo-sized b/w snap of their wedding. Both looked so young and head over heels in love, and they made such a handsome couple. Grandma wore a Benarasi sari and looked freshly out of school, while grandpa looked no older.

And then mom gave me a bright steel blue South Indian silk sari dad had got her from Chennai on their 20th anniversary. Sis gave me a collection of CDs that had everything from cartoons to songs and movies. And the most amazing part was that she got me a CD from one of the family weddings copied. It was in the beginning of 2000 when we had been to Kanpur to attend a family wedding. There, we had danced for some 3 hours with the baraat, and everything was there in the CD for me to see. Such nostalgic moments.

And now comes dad’s turn. Guess what he gave me? A small wooden box. No, there was no jewelry or a wristwatch inside, the way they show it in those Titan watch ads with music playing behind. The moment I opened it, I almost stifled a shocked response to find a wooden toolbox with screw drivers, a hammer, nails, screws, and all those things you had last seen in the motor mechanic’s garage.

But dad, I am not gonna be a carpenter or a mechanic there.

Keep it. You never know what you might need out there.

Well, dad has a way with machines. He has a huge toolbox filled with the most amazing things you’d only get to see at a motor mechanic’s place. And then he has this knack for carpentry; he has designed every single furniture at home, and the moment he sees a piece of wood, he would go knock-knock twice and give his expert opinion about the type and quality of wood. I’ve seen him painting, I’ve seen him making furniture designs, I have seen him dismantling machines and then fixing them up. Surely he got himself into the wrong profession.

So now I must carry this heavy toolbox with things carefully taken out of his assorted toolbox collection. Sentiments are involved here, you see. When dad gave me that, it seemed as if he was telling me, “But these are not merely the components of my toolbox, this is my heart I am giving you. Take good care of it”.

Sighs. Legacy, you see. I must get back to my suitcases and take out some of the jeans I bought for myself. I can afford not to take a few extra jeans, but can’t afford to leave these things behind.

Men !!!!

sunshine.

Once Taken, Twice I Buy.

The women in my family are dangerous. They will cook you amazing food, love you, spoil you silly, and take your stuff. 

I learnt this lesson the hard way. First, grandma came to visit and I was enthusiastically showing her all that I had shopped. She started eyeing a particular handbag that I had bought on sale for hundred rupees. Her eyes were full of adoration as she kept fiddling with the handbag.

"Do you like it? Would you like to keep it?", I asked. 

She needed no second invitation. She grinned happily and stuffed the handbag in her suitcase. The grapevine has it that she has been going around showing that bag to everyone who visits, boasting about the granddaughter. 

On a similar note, I was flaunting my tee shirt to my sister. Being expensive, I waited for months for them to go on sale. Sister started eyeing a nice red and white stripped shirt. 

"Don't you think this would look great on me?", she asked. "You are yet to give me a birthday gift this year."

 And just like that, the shirt went in her closet. 

"Hey, wait! Isn't your birthday in seven months?", I asked. By then, I was just talking to the empty walls in an empty room. 

The next week, when aunt visited us and wanted to see all that I had bought, I lied that I lost the suitcase keys. Once bitten, twice shy. Twice bitten, I must lie.

sunshine.

Consequences Of Splurging.

Someone left a shopaholic into just any mall of the city for one full month. That shopaholic was me.

I finally decided that unbranded jeans were as good as the branded stuff provided you got them at the right place. Surprisingly, they would cost almost one third. So I ended up buying 7 pairs of jeans!

The problem is, 7 jeans weigh what 7 jeans should weigh. And it's not just about jeans. I always thought I wasn’t very organized when it came down to shopping. But now that I look at my suitcases, I realize that I have perhaps got myself everything I would need for the next five years. Thanks to all that extra help and effort by mom, you can find anything in my bags ranging from kitchen napkins to bottle openers. So when I was allotted roughly 70 kg in all by my airline, I was overjoyed that perhaps this way I would be able to carry almost half my home with me. I kept on shopping till I finally decided to start packing.

You know, my suitcases could be used as mono bath tubs as well. So like mini dragons, they kept on engulfing the things I kept stuffing. And then when I thought that I was a little more than halfway through, I weighed them and found to my horror that I was almost more than 10 kg overweight (not me, my bags I mean). There must have been some error. So I borrowed another weighing machine from the neighbor and got the same result. Holy shit !!! And I thought I was only half way through.

Now the trouble was that I wasn’t really sure what would I keep and what would I throw away. Of course text books weighed like baby elephants. So I took out a few books and somehow got within the safe weight limit. But wait, wasn’t I going there to study? Naah, the jeans had to wait. So I put back the books and took out a few clothes. And then I realized that I would need all the clothes in a cold country, but perhaps not as many cosmetics.

So for the whole evening, I have been taking out books, weighing the suitcases, and then putting them back, taking out clothes and weighing them again, and then putting them back and taking out a few utensils and kitchen items, and hauling everything up on the weighing machine. And if this continues, I am sure I’ll need a spine transplant before I leave. You see, I am in a mess. And the idea of leaving anything behind breaks my heart. And you know who has been having the last laugh in all this? My sister, who knows that whatever I don’t take (except books, which she won’t touch) will go to her.

How I wish airlines had no weight limits. 

sunshine.

“Suit” Yourself.

Continued……

Surely there had been enough of melodrama the last few days and I had told dad after the Sunday episode that if I was not taken to the wholesaler (or whatever) the very next day, I’d straightaway take the metro to Esplanade, enter one of those showrooms at Lindsay Street, blindfold myself, and pick up just anything my fingers fancied. Of course all these empty threats never work on dad. Nevertheless, on a clear, sunny Monday morning, I was dutifully taken to the wholesale market.

Now that’s easier written than done. Anyone who has been to a wholesale market would know the chaos and utter mayhem one gets to witness. So when we took a bus from Central metro past the Lalbazar Police Headquarter, little did I know that I’d be seeing a place that was a far cry from the grandeur of the shopping malls I was so familiar with.

For reason number one, keeping pace with dad when he walks is an impossible feat. And in wholesale markets, you do not have the benefit of buses, cabs, or anything more than hand pulled rickshaws. After the first few lanes, I did not even know where I was being taken to. Almost scampering through the lanes and the alleys, frantically trying to keep pace with dad, I could barely manage to steal an occasional glimpse at the names of the shops just to know where exactly I was. After a few incomprehensible street names, I found out that we were somewhere in Kolkata- 700 001. That had to be close to the Dalhousie, tea board area. The lanes at times were so narrow that I could not even walk parallel with dad. And then, I had to run like a scared kid, grabbing hold of his left hand (since he had his briefcase in the right one), lest I miss him among so many office goers. If somehow I was lost there, I had nothing more to help me than a few thousand rupees and a mobile phone. And even with that, I was sure I could never find my way through the place.

Every time I looked in front of me, I would see coolies and baniyan-clad daily wage workers carrying asbestos sheets and foam mattresses and screaming expletives, almost bumping into me. I had felt this scared and agoraphobic the last time I had been to the Chandni Chowk market. I had never believed there could be a crowd of this magnitude dashing into you every now and then if you were not careful enough. This is one reason I never go pandal hopping during the pujas. I feel claustrophobic.

And then, people would test your reflexes every now and then by spitting pan and expect you to acrobat your way through the filth and dirt. Or it would be the footpaths where one would wade through the giant chulhas, hot tawas, unwashed utensils and dirty water from these food stalls.

So after what seemed like ages of walking, I finally managed to scream and grab hold of dad’s arms to stop him and to know where exactly were we headed for and if at all he knew a particular place. To which he calmly said, wait, we will need to stop over at a few shops and compare prices before we make a deal. A few shops? I could almost feel the first bouts of dizziness as I approached a blackout.

But no, I couldn’t afford to black out just like that. If I did, dad would take me back home and then, my plans for buying a suitcase would be stalled. I faintly tried to remember brave women like Rani Laxmi Bai who’d fought battles. Surely I could tolerate this much of heat and sweat. But then, perhaps the Rani of Jhansi had never been to a wholesale market in one of the dingiest areas of the city, and if she did, perhaps she too might have needed a few glucose biscuits, a few sprinkles of cold water on her face and the smell of worn shoes and stinking socks thrust into her nose to bring her back to her senses (It’s a common belief to let the person who has fainted smell worn shoes. My theory is that if the person is strong enough to withstand this shock, he/she will live).

To cut a long story short, we finally arrived at a place that seemed to me was in one of the remotest corners of the world. A pan chewing pot bellied man soon asked the attendant to show us a few suitcases. This time, there was no air conditioned showroom, but just a dark room with a noisy fan that dated back to the days of Akbar and could have done with some lubrication. But there was a repeat performance of the Sunday melodrama as I saw dad carefully scrutinize every brand of suitcase they had stocked. The materials and zips were checked, the country of origin verified, the guarantee period known, the colors and the looks… ah, that was the only thing where dad sought my opinion. Surely I hated those 2 bulldozer sized suitcases he had chosen.

But dad, I won’t be carrying ballistic missiles in the suitcases. Why do you want me to take such rough and tough (filthy looking) stuff?

What if your suitcase breaks at the airport?

Dad has always had a fascination for rough and tough, unimpressive looking things, basically anything that has more of strength and less of looks. And it’s not just the suitcases I am talking of. And no, I’m not talking about my mom either.

So after endless rounds of haggling and haranguing, I am finally the proud owner of 2 suitcases and 1 cabin luggage, bright red and deep blue in color. And I can boast that I have got the best deal in the minimum possible price, unless of course your dad happens to be the owner of a travel gear shop. But wait, let me tell you more.

Dad never returned home with me. He packed all the stuff into the rear end of a cab, exchanged a few words in Bhojpuri with the cab driver (and I’d give anything to know what exactly did he told the cab driver), and waved me a goodbye.

But dad….

Don’t worry. He’ll make sure you reach safely. Just give me a call when you reach home.

Sighs !!!! So very typical of you dad. But thanks for the suitcases anyway. Of course we got them at a great discount. Plus, I got to write this post too.

sunshine.

When Shopping With Dad- III.

Why is shopping with dad absolutely nightmarish?

Reason three- Because sometimes, there is no stopping him.

It so happened that dad decided to help me buy the suitcases that I'd need. Good enough. This included a comprehensive theory session at home regarding which materials should one rely on, how does the fiber sheets inside the cases help keep it strong, what’s the basic difference between Indian “maal” and the imported stuff, how the suitcase he’d got from Hong Kong was lightweight but sturdy, etc. So for the last 15 days, I have been trying to set an appointment with dad. Yet either work at office or the rains or the uninvited guests or something else would crop up the last moment and delay our visit to the showroom. So on a clear, sunny Sunday afternoon, I almost forcibly took him to the showrooms selling travel gear at New Market.

At the showroom…..

We specified our budget and were shown different stuff by a rather impassive-faced salesman. Soon, I found dad examining the materials just like a quality control officer would do.

Come and see the inside material. It doesn’t seem very sturdy, does it?, he asked me.

Now when you are with a learned man, even the most ignorant of people have to feign some amount of knowledge. How was I supposed to know if the material was sturdy? As if I have been buying suitcases all my life. Yet I nodded my head in compliance with him.

He scanned half a dozen more stuff, asking the salesman every type of question. Kahaan se aata hai yeh? Material imported hai kya? Yeh channel dekhiye andar mein, it doesn’t seem very thick. Yeh material kya fiber ka hai? Kitna discount aata hai is range mein? Chinese cheezein kitni reliable hoti hain?

Frankly after some time, I had lost the conversation. I kept browsing through the prices of the rucksacks and the waist pouches, dreaming about a backpacking trip to Europe, while he kept scanning the hinterlands of the suitcase, unzipping everything, slightly tugging at the materials. I had never known there could be so many unknown things one could look for in something as simple as a suitcase.

Finally after an hour or so, I thought a handful of stuff had caught his interest. I had come all prepared with the money, sure that I was taking 2 large ones and a small cabin luggage home (and that was a lot of money I was carrying). So I started moving expectantly towards dad, wanting to make the final choosing on color (why did I feel that was the only thing I’d have a say about?).

Dad, the red one….

I think we should not restrict our choices to one shop.

We spoke these lines together. At the same time.

Eh?, I stopped after the word “red one”, not understanding for once what did he have in mind. You mean you still wanna look around? I didn’t believe I was hearing it.

Look, these are pretty expensive things. And who knows, we might get a better deal elsewhere.

To my embarrassment, the salesman had already got a hint that we might not be making business here. So he drifted off to the other customers, repeating the rote set of lines he had enthusiastically repeated to us a lifetime ago when we’d entered the shop.

But dad, this is not done. These are all branded stuff. Wherever you go, you’d get the same thing.

Arre yaar, apne baap pe bharosa rakh. I’d get you the best stuff. Whenever my dad uses this “arre yaar”, one must know that he is definitely going to do what he has had his mind set on. And there is definitely no stopping him.

But half the shops are closed on Sunday, I was frantically trying to make him change his mind. The suitcases seemed fine to me. Most importantly, the prospect of suitcase-hunting for a few more hours bothered me.

So what next dad?, I felt defeated. Exhausted. Irritated.

We will go to the wholesaler tomorrow.

Dad !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh come on, these showrooms at prime locations charge a lot of money.

But dad, mom said she won’t let us enter the house if we didn’t buy the suitcases today.

Arrey don’t worry. Tomorrow we’ll go to the wholesaler first thing in the morning. What does your mom know about suitcases anyway?

And your office?

I’ll go to office late.

Frankly, I didn’t look convinced.

What? You don’t trust your dad? I said I’ll go to office late. We are going to the wholesaler first thing in the morning.

So this is shopping with dad. He is taking me to the wholesaler tomorrow. Let’s see what brews there.

At the wholesaler’s place…. Coming up soon.

sunshine.

When Shopping With Dad- II.

Why is shopping with dad absolutely nightmarish?

Reason two- Because ignorance is bliss and he isn’t ignorant.

Most of the time, I prefer shopping on my own. However, there are things (like kitchenware, cosmetics and cotton socks) I have no idea about. It is then that I take mom along. Shopping with people who (like me) don’t have much idea about things is relatively simple. This is because they keep on experimenting all the time and don’t blame you if you have paid more than what you should have. However, there are people like dad, shopping with whom can be absolutely nightmarish. He will scrutinize every part of the article, trying to strike up a conversation with the salesman. Like recently I couldn’t decide between a pair of Reebok shoes and a pair of shoes from Nike. Had I been there alone, I’d just have closed my eyes and picked one. Not dad.

He took his turns to hold each shoe and bend them this way and that way. And then, he knocked on the sole and twisted the tongue of the shoe (that’s where the laces are) while all the time I kept wondering what exactly was he trying to do. We were told by the salesman that the sole was vulcanized (whatever that meant) after which, dad asked the salesman something else I could not even comprehend (some technical thing perhaps). And then, I was asked to put on both the pairs and catwalk the passageway till I knew which one was more comfortable. I wish I could do a little jive before I could tell him. For truth be told, I hardly realized the difference. It is then that he himself tried on the shoes (we have the same feet size) and finally passed on his verdict after some 45 minutes of deciding between the two pairs.

It is then that I finally got to buy myself a pair of shoes. Thankfully.

I’ll tell you how it would have been with mom. She would have chosen the reebok one, and then I’d have told her that the nike ones looked better. And then she would have agreed on the nike ones and I’d have started having second thoughts. This would have happened for 10 more minutes before we would have made a random selection. Vulcanization be darned.

You see, ignorance is bliss. Sometimes the lesser you know about things, the easier it is to make a choice.


sunshine.

When Shopping With Dad- I.

Why is shopping with dad absolutely nightmarish?

Reason one- Because we are ignored (not deliberately though) most of the times.

First, he walks so fast that I can never keep pace.

And then I hate this weird habit he has of striking up a conversation with every cab driver who happens to hail from Bihar, Orissa, or Delhi.

Chapra zila se hain ka?

The cab driver’s (with his broken Bengali) eyes would suddenly light up, hearing someone speak the dialect of his native place. Mom and I would silently give knowing looks to each other the whole journey. We would yawn, we would start talking on our own, but nothing would give dad the cue. He would be at the front seat so engrossed talking to the man that family would soon be forgotten. The contents of the discussion could be anything, ranging from the reason the man shifted to this city and took up cab driving to the local political scenario to who all live in his family to how much of dowry the brother-in-law demanded, basically anything under the sky. Had you not known dad, you’d have thought he and the cab driver have been best buddies in school and were separated at the kumbh mela. Mom and I would look thoroughly disinterested, trying to fix up our hair or applying lip gloss, trying to decipher broken pieces from the conversation progressing in fluent bhojpuri. And then when we reach our destination, the man would exclaim, aap bihari (or oriya, or whatever applies) hoke bhi badhiya bangali bol lete hain.

I would be on the verge of stepping forward to clarify the man’s wrong notions about my dad and his origin when (instead of clarifying the faux pas the person has just made), dad would smile at him and point at mom- ka karein? Apne sasuraal waale bangali jo thehre. And then the cab driver would speed away, his smile clearly indicative of the glee he’d experienced on having met someone from his “des”.

And then, dad would look at us guiltily and I would put my hands on my hips and make a face at him, saying- raste mein tanik hum se bhi baat kar lete. Ab chalein ka? (you could have talked to we lesser mortals too on the way. Let’s get moving anyway).


sunshine.

In Our Own Shoes.

It’s now become a ritual to meet her daily. Every morning as I get down from the bus and walk the long stretch down Theatre Road, I see the familiar sight of two human figures holding hands and walking towards me. As we approach each other, gazes locked, she makes it a point to smile at me and wish me good morning. I return the greeting as always with a smile, get near, and pat the kid on her head. This has been a routine affair for the last few months now.

Initially I used to feel very uncomfortable at the prospect of having a lady almost 10-15 years senior to me wish me “good morning ma’am”. Now, I have gotten used to it. Every morning, she makes it a point to stop and ask the kid to wish me morning while the kid shrinks into mumma’s shins. Then follows 30 seconds of polite conversation when she asks me about the progress of the elder daughter and while I give a brief account, I try to grab whatever I can of the kid’s cheeks. And then I smile sweetly at her and walk away. After a few steps, I turn to look back at her. And as usual, I see the familiar sight of mother and kid holding hands and walking down the streets.

I have a weird feeling whenever I look into her eyes. If I could trust my gut feeling, I think she wonders what would it be like to be in my shoes. What do I appear to her? A young girl in her mid twenties who is a teacher in the school where her elder daughter studies? A young girl who has a job, a career, a set of friends? A girl who holds the key (according to her) to her daughter’s academic performance? I would have shrugged off the gut feeling had she not asked me for my email id yesterday on the pretext of wanting to be in touch with me even when I am gone from here. Why? I mean, I wouldn’t be the daughter’s class teacher anymore. Then what might she want to have to write to me?

Perhaps she thinks I am lucky to have the life I do. Perhaps she wonders what it is to be in my shoes……

Strangely, I am sure she would be greatly surprised to know that her feelings are mutually reciprocated. Sometimes I wish I could be in her shoes. Everyday when I see the familiar sight of mumma and baby holding hands and walking down the streets, I feel an inexplicable pang. I wonder how it feels to be the mother of two kids. I wonder how it is to wake up every morning, get your kid ready (all the more since most of the time, I have trouble getting myself ready, leave alone attending to someone else), drop her to school, and discuss her academic performance with the teacher. I wonder how it feels like when a lady 10-15 years your junior bends down to pat the kid’s head.

Perhaps she will never know….

Perhaps it’ll be a long time before I get to know……

She wishes she could be like me….

And here I wish I had a life like her. At least the part of her life I get to see every morning….

Suddenly I realized that I was still staring at mother and child while I had already reached the school gate. I shook my head and smiled to myself. Life…. Somehow you always ended up wishing for the things others have, never mind whatever God has given you.

sunshine.