New school year

For as long as I can remember of my childhood, spring used to be the most exciting time of the year. This is because spring to me also meant new academic beginnings. The next grade. The smell of new books and notebooks. Baba painstakingly covering each one of them with brown paper and then writing my name and class in all of them with his beautiful handwriting. A new grade meant a new class teacher, new subject teachers, a new classroom, a new seating nook, and experiencing all the newness of the world with old (and some new) friends. There used to be a vibrant energy about week one, everyone wearing new school uniforms and looking ready to take over the world. And then, there would be new things to learn. New chapters, new knowledge, and new ways of making sense of the world. I used to be most excited about my math and science classes. Through those, I made sense of my world, fueled my imagination, met people in textbooks who inspired me, and nurtured my dreams (I had plenty, one of them was being an astronaut). My textbooks opened the doors to new and exciting worlds that existed mostly in my imagination, but were very real for me.

You can tell that I am a lifelong academic, and in a way, I am so glad that I never left school (rather, school never left me). For that is the only life that I have mostly known. This week has seen one more round of excitement, with the new academic year beginning. It might not involve smelling new textbooks this time, but there will be other things new. I am teaching a new online course, and this one is way outside my comfort zone. I have neither developed, nor taught this course before. The first semester, I was so scared of teaching that every week after class I would go and check if someone had dropped out. This time, twenty-five odd students will be spending their time and energy learning with me, and I am excited about facilitating their learning and leading this class.

I am also excited about starting a brand new research study I recently got funding for. I will be presenting at a key conference in Boston soon, and I am looking forward to a restaurant that serves Bengali food in Boston. I am also excited about kicking out those new papers and proposals that I have worked over this summer. You can tell that I never really got over my love for school. I hope that you are as excited about school (if you are in one) or about anything you are pursuing right now.

Cheers to new beginnings, learning and exploring new things, making sense of the world we created around us, and to a brand new academic year. 

sunshine

Love is color blind

A grandma was fondly showing me pictures of her newborn grandson.

A professor grandma. A researcher grandma. A grandma who has spent many years working on feminism. Black history. Black feminism. 

I don't even know half the names of Black writers and activists she talks about. Excited, I scribble down the names. I am going to look them all up.

Between such conversations, grandma fondly shows me more pictures of her newborn grandson.

I am willing to overlook the fact that she just reiterated, rather unnecessarily, that her grandson is a US citizen. Others do it too, the ones who need constant validation that they fit in, but she is different. She is a professor grandma. She has somehow earned my respect. No human is without biases. I have mine too. 

And then, the unthinkable happens.

She says, "Look at my grandson. He has different colored hair than all of us. Since he was born in the US, he has brown hair. Isn't that amazing?"

My make-believe world of role modeling professor grandma comes crashing down. I look closer at the picture. Not a wisp of brown hair. I also happen to know the parents. Not a wisp of brown hair from there either. Is it my ageing eyesight? I wonder what other strange ideas brew in grandma's imagination. Grandma does not live in the US by the way. Grandma lives in Kolkata. Is love that "color blind"?

Genetics died a mocking death that day.

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Sans Antonio, not sans love

San Antonio, Texas.

I shut the alarm at 5:30 am and went back to sleep again, getting late for day one of the conference. When I finally left the hotel at 7:30 am, I looked like a mess, feeling as if a train rode over me. I had to attend an award ceremony and looked like I was going to be late for my own ceremony. It was a bad start to an important day.

However, my 64-year-old Uber driver showed up looking like a total diva. She wore a cute flower hat and had other floral hats and decorative paraphernalia in the car. There was a carnival going on and she was returning to work after a night of revelry. When I complimented her about how cute she looked, she even got off the car and posed for me before writing me her number, in case I needed a cab again. A true diva she is. I named my Uber driver the flower lady. She had brightened my morning on my first day in San Antonio.

Some of you also know about my love for biryani. Whenever I visit a new city, the first thing I Google is [name of the city + good biryani]. I did find one restaurant with good reviews, but the trip involved three bus changes and an hour and half of a ride one-way. It was 15 miles away. So I let go. Looks like I was not going to have my biryani in San Antonio.

But then, I was texting the flower lady's pictures to her, since she had scribbled her number, in case I needed a ride again. That is when I had an impulsive idea. I did not want to eat my biryani alone. I asked if she likes Indian food and she said she had never eaten Indian food before. So I asked if she would like to join me for a meal, and she readily agreed, much to my surprise (we are complete strangers, we only know each other's names). She even asked me if I would wear a dress or trousers. When I said that I did not bring a dress since this is a conference, she said that she will also wear trousers, like me.

"Why?" I asked.

"It's a girls' outing. I love to wear dresses for an outing, but I want to wear what you will wear."

I found her adorable.

So we met up on one of my freer afternoons. She picked me from my Airbnb and gave me a flowery headband that she had handmade for me. We went to the restaurant, I had my biryani (it was quite good) and packed some back, she had her first Indian food, we chatted for many hours, and she dropped me back home. We even wore our flowery headbands at the restaurant. I did not know that I had so much to talk to a 64 year old Spanish-speaking lady I have nothing in common with. By the way, she wears an Apple watch, and was getting her phone calls on her wrist. I've never seen a more fashionable and tech-savvy dida/diva. Dida is grandma in Bangla.

It feels good, having that human connection in a stranger city, someone to share your meals with. She offered to drop me at the airport when I was leaving town. While leaving, she said, "Take care. Maybe we will meet in Vegas again."

I wanted to wear the flowery headband for my conference talks.  

I got a ride, I got great company, I got my biryani, and I got a headband too. It's a win-win-win-win situation. 

A few days later, she took off from work to drop me to the airport. She refused to activate the Uber meter and did not take any money. At the airport, she took my address so that she can write me hand-written letters. And she got on her tip toes and planted two kisses on my cheek before driving away.

There is something about sunny places. I think it makes people way more nice, warm and friendly.

On that note, if you could live anywhere in the US, where would you live? Other than Seattle, I would live in Puerto Rico. It is truly my kind of place.

sunshine

Craving Seattle

I was in Seattle recently. While leaving, I had the same feeling of sadness that I have experienced every time, no matter how nearby or faraway I live. The invisible and intangible umbilical cord keeps me tied to this place.

I took some time off during this trip to do what I love doing- reflect while passing some of the familiar streets and neighborhoods that were an integral part of my twenties. A bus ride from Green Lake to Fremont, Dexter Avenue, the troll, all the way to downtown. A walk from the Montlake Bridge to the university avenue. A drive through my previous workplace in Redmond. A trip to the Lincoln Square Mall in Bellevue. I do it every time. Yet, I never tire of it. 

Somehow, in the process of a laborious and complicated rubric cube solving exercise that lasted me seven years, I was able to find my way back, at least somewhat near Seattle. When I had left Seattle seven years ago, I had no idea about where life is taking me. Had someone showed me a crystal ball and told me that in seven years, I would move to the east coast, actually finish the PhD that I did not finish the first time, move to the mid-west, move to Germany, complete two postdocs, and come back, I would have only stared at them in disbelief. Yet, it all happened. And I was able to slowly inch back as close as I could.

Seattle to me is like falling in love with someone and never getting over them. This time, the people I met talked about skyrocketing real estate prices, worsening traffic, racism in the backyard, the rapid expansion of greater Seattle, and other such things. Yet, I am oblivious to these vices. In my time capsule, I am spending my 27^th birthday at midnight, climbing the troll and digging its nose for a goofy picture. I am a graduate student absconding from work and spending the day at the Gasworks Park, feeding ice cubes to the ducks and seeing how long it takes before they realize it. I am eagerly waiting for my Husky sticker to arrive so that I can start taking free bus rides again. And I am that poor student who is walking down the halls of the health sciences building, meticulously reading every advertisement to see if there is an experiment I could qualify for and earn a few extra dollars, cheap free goodies, or even a slice of pizza for my time. Sensitive teeth experiments where they alternatively squirt warm and cold water on your teeth and gums, sleep experiments, nutrition experiments where they feed you some liquid everyday for three weeks and monitor your blood sugar, respiratory experiments where you run on a treadmill and they monitor your forced expiratory volume, or ergonomics experiments where they ask you to type on a bunch of different keyboards and ask for your feedback. Someone asking for my feedback used to be novelty back then. That is why I did it all, with full gusto. 

I am insanely happy with where I am right now. Yet every time I leave Seattle, I do so with a prayer on my lips. That someday, someway, I find my way back to Seattle. That is my happily ever after dream.

sunshine

Building on an abundance model

The first recommendation letter I ever wrote for someone was under extremely ironic circumstances. An international colleague I had briefly worked with wanted a letter of support for their green card/permanent residency application in the US. I was a postdoc in Germany then, trying very hard to find a faculty position in the US. I applied for innumerable positions, almost a few every week, got Skype-interviewed by some, but never heard back. I never got invited for campus interviews. It was one of the darker times in my career when I was constantly engulfed in worry, self-doubt, and fear that the situation would never change and I might run out of my postdoc time without a faculty position. To write a letter vouching for someone about why they should be able to stay and work in the US long-term was ironic.

I did write that letter, a stellar one too. My situation was independent of their situation, and as colleagues, we support each other in our careers. But this was not before I emailed them back asking why they were considering me as a potential referee. What I did not ask directly was, "Why should people reviewing your application believe me when I myself have been unable to find a faculty position in the US?" I asked if a letter of support coming from someone outside the US would be effective at all. What they said was eye-opening.

“Are you kidding me? You are an international scholar who has worked in both the US and Germany. A letter from you would be incredible.”

The revelation was eye-opening. As intuitive as it is, I was not viewing myself as an international researcher. I was viewing myself as a researcher who was struggling to find a position in the US, and was hence working in Germany. Rather than approaching my situation from a position of abundance, I was approaching it from a position of deficit.

In life, reality is subjective, not single, and there are often multiple perspectives to it. The fact that I was struggling to gain my foothold in the US was a reality (more real for me). And the fact that I had work experience in multiple countries as a result was also a reality (more real for my colleague).

It made me wonder how often had I undermined myself similarly. How often I had focused on the “don’t haves” and not on the “haves.” I grew up in a culture where highlighting one’s accomplishments was considered bragging or showing off. And I now work in a culture where it is not just necessary, but imperative to highlight one’s accomplishments. We do that in conferences and meetings. We create websites to show the expanse of the work that we have done. It’s a cultural shift that takes some time and experience getting used to.

I often tend to think, “Shit! I have no experience running structural equation models.”

However, I usually don’t think, “I have some good grant writing and collaborative experience now.”

This email exchange taught me to position myself from a perspective of abundance and NOT from a perspective of deficit. I started enlisting every achievement I should have highlighted earlier. The list wasn’t spectacular, but not bad either. Along with being my own critic, I also became my own champion.

My colleague eventually got their permanent residency. And I got my faculty position. The department told me how excited they are to have a colleague with international experience. People started viewing me in a certain way only after I started viewing myself in that way.    

sunshine

What would you get rid of?

I was recently at a leadership workshop where they talked about attaining consensus with your team so that everyone is more or less on the same page. It brought to fore our personal values that we bring to the table at work, and how it varies across people. It was a fascinating conversation. The group activity we did was even more fascinating. I am sharing it here, hoping for some interesting conversation.

Imagine you are on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean. Due to bad weather, your ship is sinking. You, along with 15 other people, quickly collect your valuables, evacuate the ship, and get on a lifeboat. But soon, you realize that the lifeboat can only hold so much before sinking. You need to quickly discard things. You have no idea how long it will take for help to arrive, if at all. Rank the items in the order that you would discard first (number 1 is discarded first, number 16 is discarded last). Their respective weights and value is provided too.

We first took 7 minutes to do this exercise on our own.

Then we got into groups of 4 where we took 10 minutes to arrive at a consensus about the order in which to discard things. What it meant was that at the end of those 10 minutes of conversation, everyone had to agree.

Then, we got into groups of 8 and did the same. The point was to arrive at a consensus by discussion, without coercing people to agree with you. How quickly and effectively can you convince people about what goes and what stays in the lifeboat? Here is the list. Prices and weights follow the US convention, so apologies if some of them do not make sense to you. For me, many did not. Pounds and ounces really do not make any sense to me. 

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1. Deluxe emergency preparedness kit (30 lbs; $200)

2. Case of bottled fruit juice (27 lbs; $75)

3. Cell phone with video camera (5 oz; $500)

4. Service dog (50 lbs; $22,000)

5. Marine handheld GPS with compass (2 lbs; $450)

6. High power flashlight (8 lbs; $55)

7. Emergency hand crank radio (12 oz; $45)

8. Suitcase filled with clothing (40 lbs; $500)

9. Box of gold/diamond jewelry (40 lbs; $1,000,000)

10. Personal laptop with family photos (5 lbs; $300)

11. Five life jackets (15 lbs; $200)

12. Two bottles of whiskey (6 lbs; $100)

13. Irreplaceable cancer research samples (13 lbs; priceless)

14. Swiss army knife (10 oz; $35)

15. Cabana umbrella (12 lbs; $250)

16. Two bottles of SPF 15 sunscreen (2 lbs; $15)

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Remember, there are no right or wrong answers. It was eye-opening to hear what some people said. It also put me in touch with some of the assumptions and values I bring to the table. I look forward to your thoughts. I am not sharing anything from the fascinating conversation we had at the workshop so as not to bias or influence you. I might share those in the comments as we start talking.

sunshine

Why I don’t do Whatsapp groups

There is a reason I consciously stay away from Whatsapp groups. These groups are usually filled with a deluge of fake news, forwarded messages, inspirational quotes written by questionable authors, blessings from God, and low-IQ jokes I do not need to read. Some of these jokes are so sexist and misogynistic that I am surprised women (and men) share, read, enjoy, and smiley-emoticonize them. Most of these stereotype women as shopping-maniacs, mother-in-law-haters, diamond-hungry (from the husband) people who are unable to stand up for themselves. Then there are saints walking on water, doctors performing medical miracles and transplanting the liver where the lungs should be, dating and mating tips no one needs to know, and so on. You can see why I am wary of these groups.

However, sometimes, I share my number with specific individuals because there was a need to stay in touch or sync up at some point of time. "Let's meet in downtown at 6 pm. Send me a Whatsapp message when you get there." That kind of thing. But then, some of them start sending me good morning messages and inspirational quotes every day. Why? Did I ask for them? These messages are usually appended by multi-colored flowers or sunrises in the background. Why am I being sent these? Why don't these messages stop even when I am not responding to them? 

Sometimes, my phone dings a good morning message in the evening, just because it is morning in some other part of the world. Sometimes, there are twenty quotes by Einstein that Einstein never said. Am I missing some social etiquette that I am supposed to know, etiquette where you wake up and instead of making coffee or using the bathroom, start roll calling random people good morning messages?

All these messages get muted first, and then blocked for life. But my question is, if that person was walking in front of me, in person, would they repeat the same thing that they just sent me? Imagine waiting at the bus stop and someone walks by me, suddenly shouting, "Good morning! You look like a flower today. Strength does not come from physical capacity, but from will." Or someone stopping by in my office and saying, "When a girl says that she can't live without you, she has made up her mind that you are her future." Or, "For every girl with a broken heart, there’s a guy there with a glue gun." Who is this making such sweeping generalizations? And why are they sharing these nuggets of wisdom unsolicited, even though they never hear back from me? 

I am not asocial by any stretch of imagination, far from it. Those who have met me know that I can talk about different things for hours. But again and again, I find myself at a loss for words when someone shouts out that "The Indian national anthem just won the best anthem award of the world by the UN," or "Good morning friend, have a nice Sunday, be with someone who is good for your mental health." Because, you, my unsolicited Whatsapp friend, are certainly not good for my mental health.

I was cell phone-free for 2 years, between 2014 and 2016. Those were the best two years of my life.
sunshine

Of granulated garlic and maternal conspiracies

510g of granulated California garlic might seem like a very unusual gift to take back home, but there is a story behind this.

The day my grandma heard that I bought my tickets to Kolkata, she packed her bags and parked herself at my parents’ home. It didn't matter that I still had 2 or more months for the trip. Grandma wanted to have front row seats to the show of my arrival.

My best conversations with grandma are those where she tattles against Ma. Grandma is a great conversation-maker (unlike my Ma, who either speaks in monosyllables, or asks me one of the two questions, no matter what time of the day it is-

খেয়েছিস?

অফিস যাচ্ছিস?

Have you eaten? Are you on your way to work?.

Grandma told me about a conversation she had with Ma, deeply disturbed.  She said that ever since she arrived, Ma has stopped cooking.

Grandma: রান্না বান্না করছিসনা, বসে টিভি দেখছিস, কটা রসুন ছাড়িয়ে রাখনা, মেয়েটা এলে রান্নায় রসুন লাগবে তো।

Grandma: You haven't been cooking ever since I arrived, why don't you at least peel some garlic while you watch television? We'll need the garlic for cooking when the child (me) visits.

Ma: ছাড়ো তো, ও  এসে রসুন ছাড়াবে। ছুটিতে আসছে , ওর অনেক সময়।

Ma: She can peel the garlic when she arrives, she will be on vacation and will have lots of time.

Grandma is very concerned that Ma refuses to help in the kitchen, and wants to pass it on to me. Now, I do not have any problem with peeling garlic. Just that the ones you get in Kolkata do not have fat cloves like the ones in the US. They are only a tiny bit fatter than angel hair pasta. I have spent hours trying to peel them and chipping my nails in the process, my prehensile capacities seriously compromised after that.

It was time to confront ma. "Ma, is this what you said?" I asked. To which, she confidently answered, "I thought you love peeling garlic. Especially the ones that go in kosha mangsho, spicy dry mutton curry."

This is what emotional manipulation looks like. To think that very soon, my usability will be shifted to peeling onions, peeling thin garlic cloves, filling drinking water in the bottles, and opening the door when someone rings the bell. From the world traveler and leader and grant money negotiator and international collaborator and faculty and book editor and academic mentor and motivational speaker and the other different and cool hats I wear, I'll soon be the designated onion and garlic peeler, door opener, weight lifter (the person who lifts heavy grocery bags up the stairs), and the drinking water collector.

Forewarned is forearmed, and grandma has done her job well. The next challenge is for me and grandma to fight the evil forces around us together. Hence 510g of granulated California garlic- the first thing I packed in my suitcase to take back home.

sunshine

The zzzz-factor

I have a strong history with sleep. I can sleep through anything- power outages, rock concerts, nightmares, loud wedding music, ringing phones, earthquakes, heartbreaks, neighbors audibly performing their procreation duties, plane takeoffs, anything. Doesn't mean I sleep all day, just that when I got to sleep, I got to sleep. This is the biggest reason I do not go for evening movie shows. I have slept through 300, and I have slept through Harry Potter (the only exception being Dilwale, it was so bad, I could just not fall asleep). People complain of being unable to sleep in flights, but I often doze off even before the plane has taken off. There are few occasions when I have actually had trouble falling asleep. Those are handful, and I clearly remember most of them.

But today, I set a new record. People who know me well also know my frequent tryst with the dentist, and how often I have been visiting one (actually, two) for the past year. This smile does come at a huge maintenance cost. I am mortally afraid of dentists. Who isn't? However, I fell asleep at the dentist's today, in the middle of another procedure. I am recovering from jet lag and it was my sleep time in Kolkata. So sometime while lying on my back, blankly staring at the blinding lights and listening to the music of a drilling machine with my jaws propped open like an alligator's, I fell asleep. This is so unbelievable, it's not even funny. It's a different story that I'm sleepless now. The anesthesia has worn off. Forget sleep, I am close to forgetting my baaper naam (father's name) right now.

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Holy bally cow!

When you enter the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu (Nepal), the first thing you see is the posterior side of a huge golden ox sitting, with its balls jutting out. Photography is not allowed inside the temple, so it was not possible to take a picture. But the first thing that came to mind standing at the entrance was, "Holy cow! Such huge balls!" The bull in New York City would be put to shame.

I am still standing there, staring in awe when another traveler, a stranger steps by me and exclaims loudly, "Holy cow! Such huge ballistic missiles!"

Let's just say, there was a lot of synergy in our thoughts. 

sunshine

That picture (im)perfect day

The excitement of the first faculty photo shoot stirred up a lot of drama in my otherwise less happening life. The university photographer had contacted me many times to remind me that I needed a professional portrait for my webpage. And yet, I tried delaying it for as long as I could. Six months, to be exact. We all know people for whom, the excitement of the wedding shoot surpasses the excitement of the wedding itself. I could be going through something similar.

When I was scanning graduate schools in the US to apply many moons ago, what struck me (rather odd) was how happy faculty looked on their webpage. Where I was coming from, most people went “statue” in front of the lens. Yet here were professors rolling on the grass, sunshine lighting up their faces and showing perfectly aligned teeth, balancing pets on their lap as they posed for that perfect shot depicting the deceptively Utopian faculty life. The Utopian life where grant money flows freely, students flock to you looking for a project like ants to honey, and receiving awards and promotions are monthly affairs. Professors were supposed to look glum and serious- that was what I thought based on my worldview back then.

But more than a decade later, here I am, waiting for my picture to be taken. While procrastinating for all these months, I had hoped for miracles that involved fantasies of magically toning up, temporarily making the double chin disappear, or bringing an academic glow on my face. None of that happened. Instead, I developed dark circles under my eyes and grew lots of grey hair in these six months of chasing everyone and everything- department chairs, students, grant money, and deadlines.

I had to look like those happy people rolling on the grass for whom academia was like a carnival. And I now had my quirks too. I wanted an outdoor picture by a red brick wall. I even spent days wondering what I should wear to bring out the perfect faculty look in me. Should I match my clothes with the color of my eyes? Should I wear formals? Well, a formal jacket would be too formal and a casual shirt, too casual. I mean, given my role, I needed to look serious. But if I looked too serious, no student would want to work with me, and God knows that I have been having a hard time finding students. Since I am averse to pets, nothing or no one would be sitting on my lap. Considering all the time I spent in these weird, inconsequential thoughts around a portrait, I could have published a peer-reviewed paper in that time.

The day of the shoot, I had to wake up really early. I had to wash, blow dry, and straighten my hair. I had to apply makeup. It took me 90 precious minutes to do all this, minutes that I could have spent sleeping blissfully. In a forced bid to show me as me, I had lost touch of the real me. The real me woke up late every day, procrastinated until she had to spring out of the bed, get ready in 20 minutes flat, and leave home while combing her hair. If combing was too much, she would simply tie up the mess into a high ponytail.

What happened at work was even more anti-climactic. It rained like never before, washing away all my dreams of an outdoor photo shoot in front of a brick wall. Other faculty members gave me strange looks, some of them completely failing to recognize me. It happens when you show up at work every day without a trace of makeup, and then one day, you look like you are going to a carnival.

And then, I met the photographer- a petite woman a good ten inches shorter than me. And guess what? After months of procrastinating and planning, the shoot lasted exactly five minutes. Even shots (at the doctor’s place) last me longer than this shoot. As I was adjusting my shoes, she asked me not to worry as she would be only taking portraits. I might as well have showed up in my pajamas. The lady jumped on a stool, asked me to look a couple of different directions, and smile with different intensities. The stairway doubled up as the dark background. As I was trying to get comfortable thinking of striking a slightly sexy pose or pouting my lips, the dean of the school walked by. In between, I did manage to find a spot that had a brick background somewhere at a distance. The pictures were ready in a few days. I still don’t know if I looked faculty enough in them, but the selfies I took on my cell phone that morning before leaving for work looked way real and way more like me.

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A summer- in transit

I am in India this summer, as a visiting faculty. Campus life here comes with the comforts that are not a part of my everyday life. My home to my office is a good 3-minute walk. I do not have to take buses that run once in half an hour. I do not have to wade in the snow. I do not have to find parking. And then, just like all good things in life boil down to food, I make my pilgrimage from my office to the canteen four times a day- for breakfast, lunch, a meal in between lunch and dinner, and dinner. Meals are heavily subsidized, in price, not quantity. Suddenly, I do not need to go grocery shopping, cook, or clean up. And yes, breaks in between 3-hour long classes also come with tea, coffee, and sandwiches. Made. Served. All I do is show up, sit with my meals, and observe people. Some known faces. Mostly unknown faces. Some now-known faces that were unknown until yesterday. I continue to have trouble remembering names and putting them on the right faces. I just forgot that the canteen guy and I used to speak in Oriya many years ago when I first visited until he recognized me right away and started speaking in Oriya. But all that is irrelevant. My three main priorities these days boil down to teaching, remembering to hold Skype meetings with my colleagues in the US, and making that pilgrimage to the canteen multiple times every day.

If this honeymoon could last even a few weeks every summer, I'll be a happy academic.

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When success sucks

A recent conversion with a colleague hinged on women in academia who are single. Although this conversation was based on anecdotal evidence, I would love to collect data to examine some evidence-based trends someday.

Back to the conversation, we felt that there are far more single women than men in academia- women who have faculty or non-faculty careers, women who are highly educated. In the US, I see so many women academics roughly my age who are single. Conversations with more men (those who are highly educated as well) confirm what some of them want- women with jobs but not necessarily careers, women who will have the mindset to shift cities or countries or continents or careers. That is why, perhaps, I see so many Indian men making their annual pilgrimage to get married to someone living in India, but the reverse is so rare- a guy moving with the uncertainty that he may or may not become gainfully employed in the US right away. Count the number of women you know who got married and hence moved to the US, and the number of men who did the same. Not to mention that we shared sad, yet funny stories about women who have been called "too educated," "too independent," "too liberal," and "too ambitious." The same traits like ambition, independence, and education that make men attractive may not have the same magic effect on women. Then again, we are speaking anecdotally here, and trends always have outliers. So for every ten or hundred women who have experienced similar things, one of them will always say that the world is not as bad as we think and they did not have any problems finding their suitable boy or having to choose between a suitable degree and a suitable boy.

This reminded me of a fictitious short story I had written sometime back.

The matrimonial ad said- “PhD, research professor, based in the US.”

“How many responded?” she asked.

“Three hundred,” he said, sipping his coffee.

“How many responded?” he asked.

“Three,” she said. “A schizophrenic, an unemployed man, and you.”

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(Py)airport Drama

Every time I land in Kolkata, something funny happens within the first 30 minutes. This time was no exception.

I had a seat at the very back of the aircraft. By the time I got off the airplane and stood in the long, serpentine immigration line, I realized that I was among the last few to stand in line. It didn't escape me that US or Kolkata, I always get to stand in the longer line. The line for immigrants like me is usually longer than those of US citizens and permanent residents, just like the line for Indian citizens is much longer in Kolkata. Anyway, I was tired, disoriented, and could not wait to be done. I had been traveling for the last 30 hours, mostly over the North Pole and parts of Russia, which meant that I had only seen daylight in those 30 hours. I could barely stand straight.

When my turn came, a young guy at the counter asked to see my passport. He barked, in a rather gruff and rude voice, "Passport dikhaiye." (Show me your passport, in Hindi).

One, I was a little put off by hearing Hindi (and not Bangla) in Kolkata, and two, I was a little confused about how to address him. In the US, one usually starts a conversation with a polite, "Hi, how is it going?"

Without thinking, I translated it and asked, "Bhalo achen to?" (Are you doing well?)

What happened next was unbelievable. You see, I had no interest in knowing how the guy was doing, I was merely being polite. But I had forgotten that cues of politeness vary across societies. In India, (usually) no girl smiles at a stranger and asks how he is doing. People get down to business without spending time on niceties.

Holy rangoli, the man actually blushed 50 shades of pink and purple. He avoided further eye contact, grinned like a monkey, and started shuffling uncomfortably in his seat and staring at his crotch while fiddling with my passport. He almost looked like I had married him recently and he was the coy bride. With utmost care, he stamped my passport and handed it back to me, nodding slightly, a nod that probably meant, "You stay well too!" He barely managed a whisper while asking me, "Aapni Dubai te thaken?" Do you live in Dubai?

"Na, US e," I replied, before taking back my passport and walking away. I have no idea why the gruff, Hindi-speaking guy was suddenly cooing and blushing and making small talk. My only explanation is, no stranger chick had ever asked him "Bhalo achen to?" (Are you doing well?) with a smile before. 

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Power-less

I wake up with a start to a strange, sticky feeling on my skin. It is semi-dark, and I am not sure where I am. Instinctively, I grope for my phone and squint at the time. 4:15 am. The birds outside know no Sundays, they are chirping loud enough to wake the entire community up. Something feels very wrong within my body, but I am not quite sure what. Still lying on the bed that is soaking wet now, I stare blankly at the ceiling. The blades of the fan are still. They are not moving. Suddenly, it dawns on me. I am in the throes of a power outage on a hot, Sunday morning.

Nostalgia soaks me some more. I haven't felt the discomfort of a power outage for years now. It's amazing how the body remembers every little detail of how the discomfort felt all those years ago. Before inverters or emergency lights were in vogue, I studied using lanterns (we used to call them hurricane lamps) during long power outages. The planned power outages used to last an hour everyday during the summer months, but the unplanned ones due to faulty wires or storms lasted hours. In between, homework and exam preparations happened. I never got a note to school saying that assignments were not done on time due to a power outage.

As if on cue, a mosquito buzzes somewhere close to my right ear, lightly fanning the skin there. Out of sheer instinct, I slap myself hard enough to kill the arthropod in one go. Looks like that's a skill I did not forget either. Studying by the fire used to happen 20-30 years ago, and it was nowhere as romantic as candlelit dinners. I continue to stare at the ceiling fan, wondering how this indefinite power outage will affect me. Without power, there is no internet. Stored water will soon run out, and so will drinking water. Should I take a shower now, or assume that electricity will be restored in a few hours? Should I hurry up and finish breakfast at 5 am? Should I finish doing the dishes and other household chores that require water? How can I prioritize the things that require water? Almost everything requires water. Thanks to jet lag and the time difference with the US, I was working till well past 3 am, hoping to wake up late on Sunday. Yet, an hour's worth of sleep is all I get. It's so still outside, not a tree branch moves. Remembering the bamboo fans we used to have handy, I reach for an unbound textbook to fan myself, praying that I eventually fall asleep in the process. But sleep eludes me.

Suddenly, I decide to put my physical discomforts past me. Yes, it is summer and there will be surprise power outages, lack of water and internet, attack of the mosquitoes, and many such things. Yet, I see a ray of hope. Rather, I smell a ray of hope. It is perhaps not in my imagination and even amid all this discomfort, I can detect the faint but familiar smell of a fruit. I stop staring at the ceiling fan, get out of the bed, walk to the kitchen, and grab a big bowl. I wash two of the ripest fruits and head towards the balcony. There, I sit on the floor and enjoy the sweetest, freshest and ripest mangoes. No frozen mango, not from Mexico with preservatives galore, but plucked right from a tree probably within a ten-mile radius of where I was sitting. While summers sometimes bring power outages, may summers continue to bring me these mangoes.

Hello from Kolkata!

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Raaga Kumbhakarnam

After a long time, I was reprimanded, shouted at, and told that my actions would have consequences while I struggled to stifle my giggles. I was also told to go stand in a corner, and that I would be separated from my (fictitious) class.

It is hard to keep up with the energy of an 8-year old. Baby Kalyani is not only a music geek, but also decided to make me her student for the next few days the first time she visited me. So she spent the day teaching me her notes, sa ri ga ma, the arohanams and the avarohanams, the gamakams and the aakarams, and what not. I was expected to sing, so I sang along, sometimes repeating with devotion, and sometimes humming half-heartedly or inserting my own funny lyrics. I was patiently corrected, and, just like GRE questions, given easier or harder notes based on my previous performance.

I got my first warning when I was asked to repeat Raag Malahari. In my lack of imagination and control for poor jokes, I asked if Malahari meant green poop (mala + hari). I was asked, by the same Baby Kalyani who would hum sa re ga ma with me as a baby, to behave myself. So, I did.

I tired myself eventually and my battery ran out. So I told her that I would love to teach her a new raag and call it a day. She got all excited and perked up.

"It is a new raag. It is called Raag Kumbhakarnam. Puriyarda? Do you understand" I asked.

"Puriyarde. I understand. And how do you sing the aarohanam and the avarohanam? What about the taalam?" she asked.

And instead of singing, I started to snore. Loudly. Seriously. In different notes. High notes and low notes. Fast notes and slow notes. I snored like I was Kumbhakaran, and that was Raag Kumbhakarnam for me. I lay down, closed my eyes, and encouraged her to snore along.

That's when she lost it. She reprimanded and shouted and told me that my actions will have consequences. That once she goes back to Seattle, the first thing she would do is call her mom's music guru and tattle on me.

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Micro-aggression 101: Your English Sucks

I teach a late night class. I usually take the 9:30 pm bus after that, but that night, I was exhausted. I had multiple deadlines that week, it was pretty icy outside and I did not want to risk a fall in the darkness. I save my Uber rides for very special occasions when I have absolutely no energy to take the bus. That day, I hired one.

My workplace to home is a mere 7-8 minute, $7 Uber ride. Naturally, there was not much time for conversation. The gentleman asked me what I do and I said that I am a faculty.

"What do you teach?" he asked me.

"Statistics," I said.

"How do your students understand you in class?" he looked quizzically.

It took a while for what was happening to sink in. It was so surreal that although it was happening, I could not believe that it was happening. I speak English in my own accent which is not quite an American accent. None of my colleagues or students has complained so far. I have given job talks, I have taught 3-hour long classes, I present at conferences every year in front of large crowds. Yet it took a chance encounter with a man I do not know to question my ability to do my job properly. I wondered if he would have asked the same question to a White, Australian man instead of a brown woman. Let me make an educated guess here. He would have found the Australian man's English cute.

I felt repulsed. That seven minute ride suddenly seemed so long. I knew I did not want to fight this battle. I took a deep breath and said, "Look, if we care so much about pure, authentic English, maybe we should all move to England."

He rambled on for the rest of the trip about how it was so funny that India had so many languages. I did not engage anymore.

A guy I do not know and am never likely to meet again questions my entire gamut of effort of years that brought me to this point where I would tell, on being asked, that I am a faculty and I teach a course in statistics. Did you know that 75% of my class consists of immigrant students, those who moved from various countries to get an education in the United States? None of their native language is English. I don't think anyone in my class has ever complained that they do not follow what I say.

These stories of marginalization and micro-aggression are not trivial. Sitting in my ivory tower and socializing mostly with people in university settings for eleven years here, I have been insulated from chance encounters like this. As a result, I always thought that the US is very liberal, tolerant and broad-minded. The reality is, the US I know of is very liberal, tolerant, and broad-minded. This man taught me an important lesson in statistics that day. My reality was heavily biased due to selective sampling, making it impossible to generalize my sample characteristics to a population setting.

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