Yesterday's Sunshine.......

When he came running up the slope ................ the mountain had seemed greener till a few moments before, the clouds a little nearer and the far away mountain slopes not so far away. But the world changed when he burst out shouting ....he had made it. He had just got news that the University had accepted him. There was hardly any time now. He would have to be there within a week or lesser if possible. I had never felt the ground slipping away from beneath my feet so fast. I turned away ...I think I did a good job of hiding some persistent drops of water in my eye .......and I am sure he did not guess. But I have later asked myself many a time........wouldn't it have been better to have let one stubborn tear drop escape and fall just so that he would have seen it ........ and realized and stopped and never turned to go away again. From that moment we hardly got time together. He never guessed or tried to realize the unspoken words......and I ......waited. I have no idea for what or why. It had just seemed so complete........him, with me , suddenly. It could hardly have been six month that he had intruded into my life, my mountains......... a new neighbor, eager to make friends, to get to know the people around. Before, the peaks sloping away in the distance .......had always seemed so remote yet so familiar. Somehow everything changed after he came. I had known myself to be independent and to know all...... after all this was where I had grown up. How could someone show me more about what I had explored and trekked so thoroughly. And yet he made me learn more about those same mountains that I had known more than him ....sometime. We ...would stand hand in hand at the edge of the slope............ drawing deep breaths from the steep incline in front of us and the vast greens behind. Those warm hands clasped in one another's...................... those clouds which bore witness. It seemed as if that was life. ...... this was life. There couldn't have been anything more complete....... than the understanding we shared. The dependency that had grown, the support we craved for from each other........ taking for granted that the other would understand..... it was not that we didnt fight. We would not speak to each other for days and then suddenly one of us would come running to show the other a new butterfly ...... and all the brawls would be forgotten. We saw the world through the colored eyes of a child and never knew when time overtook us....... and never realized that we would have to move on. And the same slopes that had been our playmate stood mutely watching as we said goodbye. A hurried goodbye kiss, a train waiting somewhere ........ it didnt wait for him to understand..... or did he. I always wondered whether he heard me say what I didnt say, I so wished he would. So wished he would stop and turn. I needed him so ...did he not need me too. I had always dreamt how when I fell in love everything would be perfect. My hero always at my side and always at my bidding. And I had realized that love was nothing like that. Love demanded as much as it gave........ but I had walked the world in his shoes and I wanted to share his life just as I had made him a part of mine. I stood alone on that slope that evening ....... it had been a long time since the mountain had seen me alone. And I wondered if it had been jealous ....and I smiled to myself and I felt the mountain echo my smile. And I turned to make my way back home as the lights started coming out ....dotting the cottages on the mountain side. inspiration : eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, a song playing on my ipod which must be "i never saw blue like that ", and alone at home ........

Yoga... and me

Its not that I have not tried yoga before. I remember the yoga classes I had dragged Monika into for a month and though we had enjoyed a trip to Coimbatore at the end of it, I know Monika will not ever bless me for that experience. What with all the asanas and the hypnotizing feel good talk ........... :)

I am just back from a yoga class. Luann and Sudhir and me ...... I loved it. I was quite the one out of shape....I didn't need the mirror in front to tell me that. Mine were the legs that wobbled when you had to raise them to the ceiling and hold them there. I wonder if I even managed to touch the ground without bending my knees once. It was Hatha yoga and they had music in the background. It was not the chanting music but felt something more akin to japanese ...... whatever it was .... it was soothing. The exercises were concentrated on breathing but involved a few of the asanas as well.
Towards the end of the class we were told to lie down facing up and to rest with long breaths. It was then that the instructor kept telling us to inhale love and acceptance and breathe out negativity, judgements, criticism, to feel the support and safety of the ground, to forget the day ahead or the morning behind us. He told us to think of three people in turn, one whom we loved, one who had just crossed our paths and one whom we found difficult and challenging and to direct our energies in wishing each of them well, assuring them of our good intentions.

I was so surprised at his words,...................was this what everybody wants in life. "Exhale criticism, negativity, judgements, inhale love and acceptance"........Was this the same question that plagued everyone. How did he know ...that I had been warping myself with these negative thoughts all day long. Or does everybody go through the same up and down as me everyday ?

That is a different matter altogether, that I have started to think of myself as a neurotic , nervous-disorder patient nowadays ........maybe thats why his words seemed soothing and to use the technical term in vogue "personalized " :).

I think a yoga class should be the next thing on my agenda. Maybe thats the only thing that will save me from insanity. :)

Reprimanding myself.

There are some things which I hate doing (like feeling sorry for myself) ....and those are usually the things I am ending up doing most of the time nowadays. It was of my own volition that I decided I am not going anywhere these holidays ....and then suddenly I had to fall sick which always takes a terrible beating on the emotional aspect of things. And thats it! Thats all I needed to feel sorry about ....about being left alone with no friends, nowhere to go and having only to work from 8-4 and then being too tired to explore anything else. The only thing I feel like doing all day is sleeping.

And if it had not been for me feeling unhappy and pitying myself at this moment then there are so many ...but so many things to do and laugh at. The most interesting would probably be the third point perspective. Standing aloof and looking at the world around you, whizzing by. I have led a comparatively sheltered life.............. no heart-breaks or heart-losses so far. And I have listened to both other girls and guys telling me about how they were let down. And somehow each side ended up saying that probably that is a characteristic trait of the other group. I wish I could tell them that it is the person and never the group that it is at fault. And speaking about fault, maybe even that I cannot be too hasty at judging.

I actually also screwed up one grade of mine.....and I think that is the cause that I am still deeply wallowing in self-misery/pity. Getting up and looking forward has somehow never been my cup of tea.

After a long time , yesterday I had to sleep with the lights switched on throughout the night becoz I was scared. Or was that also another emotional backlog !!!!

Usually at times like this only something drastic gives a sense of satisfaction. I was thinking of deleting my blog :) well thats only as far drastic as I can think. Unfortunately I cannot figure out how to do that and I need some pointers. Anybody out there ?????

Nature-ally

There is something which refuses to let me be tied to practical reality at all times. When I walk home from the University, I can't help imagine that the mountain in the distance forms the outline of a girl's face lying down , the pout of her lips and cheeks, her closed eyes ....... and here face turned to the heavens. I can't help but imagine that the house I just crossed with all its shuttered windows and practically with no movement to be seen anywhere might be the prison of the mad woman in the attic from the story ......(will fill in later when I remember).

A fickle brain, or devil's workshop or simply escapist .....well all of it has its charms. At the end of the day the house will just be a shuttered house and the mountain will just be another mountain. It was just that those moments of the girl staring at the sky and the mad woman following my movements from behind her shuttered prison just made them so real for a few moments ...... more real than they were never before.

I learnt today , yesterday........... its easy to mess up. Easiest when you put your whole heart to it bcoz you want it to go right. And there are those days, when you are least concerned about what happens bcoz it doesn't matter to you so much and ....that day everything goes right and you come out with flying colors. Is it bcoz you did not attach importance to it ......... that you just let yourself go that the latter(which mattered not at all) turned out better than the first(which mattered the world to you) or what !!!
Not in the mood to write anymore today.

Too abstract a post

Everybody has a past and we really don't give much time to think about it in our fast-paced lives. Its probably as some of you might argue, what people do when they have nothing else to do and failing memories. But sometimes there are these connections ..... and you are transported back in a second - and there you are...... standing in your school auditorium reliving a particularly embarassing moment or remembering and smiling to yourself at how you caught your parents acting Santa Claus.
If I sit and look back .....(not that I should be doing it, considering that I am in the middle of trying to get a filesystem working .....but both the monitor and I have taken to staring at each other for long intervals now and I thought I would take a break) the past that meets my eyes is one that kept getting better with time. And anything and everything that I could think of or want or wish for, I have had ......... maybe not at the time that I had wanted it but definitely when I had the maturity to accept it for what its true worth was and not just at face value.
With time, I have gained more acceptance not just because of myself but inspite of myself and those are things (things here do not even remotely come close to the word material) that I truly treasure because I know I am too lucky too have them. But further back in time, there are so many things that even if I were faced with today, I would try to evade , avoid .......... they were not unpleasant in themselves but I had lacked the courage to face them as I often have now as well.
But once I left my school days and went on to college, circumstances were such that I could not turn back and even if I have cried to go back to college after the long holidays at home ........... final year made up for all that in one swipe. You realise what you truly had when the time comes to part from it. College brought that realization to me more than once.
I sometimes wonder how important is acceptance, or rather if I may rephrase the question, how important is it to me...... and I know I give being accepted a lot more importance than I should.
I wonder if its the same with others as well......... and then I wonder (well you know how one trail of thought leads to another to another.....) why do I have this tendency to belong to a group and not just stand up alone ...... aside and independent. :) Maybe I was not built that way.
Everybody lives life on their terms, standing up for some principles that they believe in and believe to be right .......... and in the midst of it , in the midst of all this mumbo jumbo philosphy they are still trying to breathe and live and laugh ............... and in the midst of all of that , somewhere is where I should start learning to ..... too.

Laughing to myself.....

I had been thinking about starting this post off in a very philosophical tone (:)) just to show that I am on my way to becoming a philosophical guru) tone..... but as always, the blog itself takes a different turn when I start to write.
Thanksgiving was last week ...... and I don't know what kept me from writing about it for so long except that I had this project submission which finally got over yesterday night. Last week of semester, too hectic...lots ofprojects submissions and the finals. Among occassional spats, brawls and quarrels (I do sound like a cat here, don't I ?) thanksgiving day turned out too good to be true. Shalini and I tried our hand at baking a chocolate cake which turned out quite good.
Luann picked us all up by 11 and we were off to Sabino Canyon - her home. Her home was a cozy little house ....for me it seemed the coziest place to stay in. It had a backyard where she had planted bougainvilleas ......and it looked out to the Santa Rita mountains in the south. With portico chairs under an open sky,with the moutains far away....... I couldn't even dream of spending an afternoon otherwise. It seemed exactly like a cottage we would go to spend our holidays and where Maa would say ..... this is where you can just sit and write or read all day.

Sabino canyon is one of THE tourist spots here. It is interspersed with trails for hiking and I saw more people hiking and walking there than I have in my four months in Tucson. To say its beautiful is an understatement ........ if you look closely at the green mountains (green becoz of the saguaro or cactus) you will see the trails that wind around them and you would even be able to make out athletic people who had overtaken you on those distant mountain tracks. But what would probably be breath-taking ......would be when after climbing a little incline you looked back on a winding road and saw the green, yellow and autumn colored (....could find no better word to describe the color.......) trees standing tall over the road.
That was how Darjeeling was and that is what I love about the mountains. They seem so impersonal , holding back a mountain of secrets in themselves as if their lips are sealed.........and at the same time modestly displaying their expanse , and beauty. Some of the names which Luann pointed out and which sort of stuck with me were thimble peak, rattlesnake trail, esperrero trail, bluff trail......... I am sure I would have got lost pretty soon on the Rattlesnake trail....it was just a worn out path with rocks all around and quite a bit of climbing up and down and moving around the mountain side. I had been out of exercise for quite sometime (not that I ever exercise......my only exercise would be walking triangles in campus between department, work and home)...so you can guess that I was panting by the end of it. :)

The hike was energising but we were all ravenous by the end of it.... and the thought of the turkey seemed too inviting ..........(roasting in the oven in Luann's kitchen). During dinner, even though the turkey and cranberry sauce topped the list ...but they were joined by mashed potatoes, salads, turkey gravy, noodles in chicken broth , tofurkey (vegetarian turkey made from soy beans I think), a pumpkin pie, cheese cake with sweet potatoes and our chocolate cake. (It was quite a spread quite like a famous five dinner just before they start out on one their adventures).
Need I mention, we were too full to move after dinner....so we sat around the fireplace chatting, and exchanging thoughts ........ its been a long time since I have actually sat down and discussed something as if I were among friends. It was good to get the feeling back. My first thanksgiving ended on a brilliant note that day ...all thanks to Luann.
The week as all weeks go ....was just another waiting for the weekend to come. Though I managed to watch Kate and Leopold in between. :) Sweet movie and does bring a smile to yor lips.

Today I chance happened to come across this blog by Samit Basu becoz of Shalini. If I remember having read correctly, he gave up a management career to start writing. That ofcourse started me off on one of my day-dreams......... about why am I doing this ! Sitting here and studying when I could stay with my family and write. .....not that I write great :) but its something I like and which I can do with the least amount of stress or hardwork. .......... Well then I realised , maybe an authoress' life wouldn't be that easy too. (I am always looking for an easy life .......!!! :)) So why not just go ahead and do everything.....learn, study , watchmovies, write, read, hike.....I'll keep adding to that list :).
Today there were a lot of things which brought a smile to my lips. ........ right now what came to my mind was this comment by my physics tutor in class XII ........ you should be good at whatever you are, if you are a student be the best student you can be ..........(and he would end it off with) if you are a thief be the best thief .... :)
Well to leave you on that note.......bon voyage.

Aztecs , Indians and Ice-cream

Tucson has suddenly become cold..... its freezing when you stand in the shadows and warm , rather hot while walking under the sun. Luann, Shalini and I settled down on the lawn of the Arizona State museum where there was a mexican mask exhibition in the museum along with Indian (red-indian) jewellery displayed. Mainly ornate silver, german silver , brass and copper necklaces, bracelets, and belt buckles. Some of the necklaces had bear claws. There were even two pictures of the Red Indian, one in his office as a member of the US senate and one in his traditional costume with the feather head-dress and painted face. It sort of time-ported you to a different century.

Outside on the lawn, there were 4 girls and an old-man whom we later came to know was 63 years of age. Two of the girls were in the white flowing dresses with the head-bands...... like red-indian girls in pictures. The other two had elaborate head dresses on, with long feathers which swayed in the wind, and white and black dresses, and anklets which were actually made from seeds. The old man had long flowing gray hair tied back with a band. One of the girls had a rattle while the old man and the other girl held these hand-drums covered with cloth with short batons. The three of them formed a circle around a small platform which was arranged with two strands of the corn plant and some smoking incense and a conch. Then the drum beats started and simultaneously the three of them started their dance. They moved in and moved out, swayed and turned , constantly moving their legs, crossing them , bending and squatting and jumping back. The beats of the drums increased in tempo and then fell silent in waves. ......If you have heard the "dhols" of durga puja in Kolkata, you would know how your heart pounds to the echo of the drum beats, then you woul dprobably understand what I am talking about. I remember one time when as a girl I had been to this pandal as we call it, the place which houses the deity. I was right in front where the dhakis where.....the drummers. Then they slowly started playing their drums and moving around in a circle. The drum beats kept increasing till they were a deafening roar and the dhakis were dancing in a mad frenzy in the grip of their own beats..........pardon me for using a science term here, but it was probably the resonance of the drum beats with my heartbeat which made it pound so as if the sound was echoing through me.

At the end of the dance the old man talked about himself, an Indian, an aztec ...long washed out of history books. Did I not tell you that it was like being tele-ported to a different time. The last I think I had heard of Aztecs, was as one of the zones in the Crystal maze. But then the way the dancers were offerring their prayers to the sun, I did get a hint..... And also maybe bcoz as far as my limited history knowledge goes, I know of only the Incas and the Aztecs as those who worshipped the sun. The first dance as the old man later explained, was to ask dance to let them dance, which was amusing to hear.
Nevertheless, after that the three of us headed to Penguins where we tried out Peach Pumpkin, German Chocolate , and Chocolate Obsession flavors of ice-creams. Sitting under the warm Tucsan sun and eating our ice-creams while they melted ............ :) what could be better.

But thats not all what I have been doing on this long weekend due to Veteran's day. I got to watch three movies in two days. It started with Casablanca, and me falling head over heels over Ingrid Bergman and the story ....though I wish all old movies didn't turn out with such sad endings. It was a movie I had heard lots about......... and finally got a chance to watch. Then my department arranged for Charlie and the Chocolate factory movie (based on a book by Roald Dahl by the same name) to be screened using the projector in our classroom. This was part of the regular Thursday movie nights in our department. Only that, I haven't had a chance to attend many. This was a childrens' movie. There were a lot of songs and dances which I felt had direct Bollywood choreography influence. The movie did drag at times. Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka did not disappoint but he had a face masked with paint which hid a lot of his charm. The youngest boy from "Finding Neverland" starred as Charlie in the movie.

Later in the night, taking things a step further, Shalini and I watched Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in "You've got mail" for what must have been the fourth time for me. But I still did not remember all the scenes and many of the scenes brought different reflections this time round. Maybe I am getting old........they say that a book like Pride and Prejudice and other masterpieces should be read once every year or two .....bcoz each time it will bring a different meaning ..........bcoz of the change in your maturity and mentality and age. :) But the relationship that is shown in the movie has alwas been one of my favorites bcoz it so unknowingly touches your heart. "..but the dream of someone is still there......."- Meg Ryan. It just sets you off on one of the dreamy moods of the holiday season. Not that I do not dream on a weekday ......;)

Well ....a good weekend gone by and another week to look forward to. Semester is fast speeding by ........ it sometimes seems like I just arrived and yesterday was the 7th of August when I landed .........and sometimes it just seems like ages since I have seen home.

A spoonful of sugar....

Well the title of this post comes from the movie "Mary Poppins", starring Julie Andrews. It however does not have anything to do with the fact that I just finished watching "Sound Of Music" also starring Julie Andrews. But believe me, whenever you feel like losing yourself, and forgetting the world for sometime.......a movie is so much the spoonful of sugar you need to make the medicine go down.
Our professors here tell us to read a research paper more than once so that on the first reading, the idea becomes clear. The second and subsequent readings help you to analyse and criticize what has been done and proposed. I think , and don't kill me for the analogy ....that a movie works in quite the same way. I am not talking about every third movie ......but the masterpieces which are worth it and which you do watch a million times. Each time there is a little more detail that you pay attention to and which you would have glossed over the first time. It maybe the slight twitch of the eyebrow, or the pun at the end of a conversation or just the way that a card was flicked.......... its just what had added to give you the feel the first time that you saw it.....and which you are noticing only now.
Well ...by the amount I have been going on about movies, I should probably write my thesis on it rather than any computer science topic.
I sometimes feel I am so not meant for Computers. I should have taken Literature and studied about Jane Austen......... What all mistakes people end up making!! And all because computers seemed so glamorous when I had to take the decision about my career. I know I had refused to consider any other option because this seemed so much the "in" thing.
I should maybe take up something like creative writing as my minor now. That would be interesting ...I have even heard about courses in writing fiction and short stories.
What I would write before.... were mainly, rather only, stories - love or murder (because the only twist my love stories would have was getting one of the pair killed at the end :) ) ......... where the girl or heroine usually had long hair with curls bouncing on her shoulders. :) Yes sounds exactly like a sunsilk shampoo ad.
Anyway, right now when I write .......there are no heroes and heroines to compose stories on. And its more the story of my life, as and when it happens. Sometimes when I go back and read it ..........I can't say turn back the pages, hitting the back button of the browser would be a more appropriate term, I feel my life or anybody's life for that matter is so of a story. I think all of them would be great to write about.
And guess what!! I could become a celebrity overnight by writing them. Ahh! If only dreams had wings ...........:)) Well goodnight for today.....I guess three blogs in three days more than makes up for any blog writing inactivity in the last two months.

(I should maybe put up a warning in the description of this blog, "Do not venture to read unless you want to be gobbled up by abstract dreams and figments of imagination. I felt like using the word altruism in the last sentence.......I think the word means truth or practise. It has a very nice melody to it, but I just couldn't make a suitable place for the word in the sentence. Anyway it still finds a place.....if only in the next sentence. ")

To end with :
Climb every mountain, cross every stream,
Follow each rainbow till you find your dream.
- Reverend Mother
&&

To laugh like a brook that trips and falls over stones on its way,
To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray.
- Maria
&&

I have confidence in confidence I have.
- Maria

&&

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand.
- Nuns at the abbey

&&

Have you ever walked the footsteps of a stranger,
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew.
- Colours of the wind , Pocahontas.

The Truman Show

I find so much similiarity between the way my blog is and the Truman show. This blog is just turning out to be a narration of events and things happening to me and in my life, from my view-point. I guess it is sometimes interesting to read about a character's life, especially when you find things similiar in your life. Knowing how the character behaved in a similiar situation gives you the strength that if they could, then so can you. Drawing on that strength, it seems easier to go on. You have a light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to.
I took a day off today and yesterday night...(that makes a one and a half day off actually).
Yesterday night was to watch "A Roman Holiday". This is what ...I guess the fifth time I am watching this movie and I cannot say I am bored of it yet. But then yes, I do have an inclination for sentimental and mushy movies.... The movie was a nice spoonful of sugar. And right now, I think i'll settle down with "English August".
The conscious decision to stay away from studies and project is taking a toll too. At intervals of 5-10 mins I end up feeling I am wasting my time and that there will be this whole backlog of homework and studies to deal with.
Whoa!! Take it easy ...two deep breaths ...and I am trying to enjoy a holiday here. :)

Two roads.....

There are two roads in front of me now....I can choose to stay and continue for my Masters, and I can choose to give up and go home. I still can't figure out whether I am the one giving up so easy ........why so ...when I can see people take up the load with smiles. Is it a question of attitude....... well that was always something I had to work on.
There has been a point in my life where I have done this turning back stint already. I left my school in class 5 because I got admission in one of the best schools in the city. After a month I came back to my old school because I could not adjust. I am asking myself whether I should let history repeat. Why is it that I am letting this "not-coping" bit go so to my head, I am not sure.
Maybe if I had a same frequency gang of friends, I probably wouldn't have had time to think about all this. And yes, loneliness leads to depression leads to frustration to .... vicious cycle as it is, once you are caught in it, it is difficult to break through.
The only thing I keep telling myself, is that things are bound to get better. I am bound to make friends and find the right kind of company to enjoy with, sooner or later. The only thing is , whether I will be able to hold on for so long.
I miss speaking to Shobana, Shalini, Vishnu and discussing the latest music, and movies. Going out together or just hanging around beside the lake. I so curse myself sometimes for having done what I did. How could I have left Hyderabad . Then I had told myself that I choose to do so. Now even if I want to, I will not be able to choose to go back to Hyderabad . What I can choose to do is leave studying for master's and the only thing holding me back is whether I will be able to justify this decision to myself in a year's time.

Trick or treating.....

Life has been trick or treating me for quite sometime now. :) The term trick or treat is a halloween effect ....... after having read so much about it in books, I was actually able to see and experience it. To start off, Luann gave me a halloween bag of goodies. On the day itself you could see people dressed up in long witches hats.....dressed up as pirates with swords....I even saw a hobbit and goblins ......... and to top it all off I was able to glimpse Mars through this 21 inch telescope at our university observatory. I also saw the phoenix mars lander which is a surface surveillance gadget soon to take off for mars.
The best thing about halloween was the realisation that I am actually walking through and living in what were pages being turned in a book.

Apart from that, its been a long time since my last update, and that entire time was filled with ......welll i can't say back breaking labour, but yes, quite enough of it to keep me on my toes. For someone who would moan and groan before going to office every Monday and have fun throughout the weekend, living a life of only party and party harder ....... the last few weeks were work and work harder. There was too much of load....a diwali day project submission, mid term exams, reading reports and homeworks. There were so many times I just felt like putting my hands up, and leaving for India. Infact I was feeling like that just a few hours ago....or should I say a few minutes .....:)
(That is one of the reasons I am writing infact....maybe writing will put some sense back into my head). The projects were not or rather are not happening and finding out what was wrong seemed incomprehensible. Things haven't quite turned out right as yet but they are enough to worry about in the background so why spend the entire parah on them......(come to think of which, I already have done so.)

But guess what , having said all that, I don't think I would have been happier doing anything else than what I am doing now. Though it is making me cry ....its the only kind of work that makes me happy.(Ok, now if you can remember what we call this in english ....fast ....oxymoron!!). And even though I am really bad at dealing with the stress right now, I am sure I will get around it sometime.
What could be better than learning and discussing the ideas people have had over the years about those very things that we take as technology-for-granted each day. What better than to learn the origins of what turned into our text-books ............. but I only wish, I had 48 hours in a day. 24 seems by far too less.

Tucson is becoming more cold, and more beatiful. Daylight ends by 6:00. Sunsets are beautiful. And if you have ever seen pictures of red and orange and mauve sunsets , with clouds in shapes of funnels and striations....all that I can say is I get to see them live :).

When everything doesn't go right.

Today morning was not the best of all mornings. We had managed to get the bathroom door locked from inside and we had to use the other rest-room, which does not have a bath. I just dwiddled away some time in the office and then came back....... and after walking in the scorching sun , the only thing I could think of was I have to get a nap. After coming home and cooking for my turn, Niyanta and Nigel, the two under-grad freshmen who have joined this year came over. We all went over to my department where we had our grad tea. The feasting was on ice-creams and cakes. Soon after was the meeting for WICS, or women in Computer Science. I had three slices of pizza with coke. Then in the night we had a reception in the Arizona state museum for International Friends. The spread was awesome, with cookies, brownies, salads , dips, ........ but I was already too full to even think of another round.

Just sometime in the afternoon, I was telling myself how good life seemed. This seemed to be exactly what I had wanted to do always. The exchange of ideas, the freedom of expression, the teacher's love for what he was teaching ....and this automatically followed from his work in the area, the open debates and discussions and finding faults and criticising what we knew as facts, questioning the grounds, assumptions, validity , weaknesses..... it was a whole new experience, and something which I couldn't enjoy more.
:) It turned out in the afternoon that I got less for a slipshod assignment I had turned in. That was ofcourse enough to turn my smile to a frown. It doesn't matter but anyways.

The other thing I noticed was my english is totally going to the dogs. I am always out of proper expressions these days, searching for an appropriate word to phrase my thoughts in. When I re-read my last post , I realised how badly my english is decaying.
Thoughts for the day ....hmmm...... look at the flip side of the coin. :) and you'll find a reason to smile.

Something in the air....

Something is definitely in the air, life has been great for sometime. What this has done is given me some time to look around myself and appreciate the little things ....which would usually be clouded by worries on next paper submission, programming assignment , which data structure to use....and Tucson would be this hot scorching desert , nothing even close to California.....
But then when you actually see from that third eye, there is a clock tower which chimes every quarter of an hour. The ground in front of old main stretched green and provides ideal pastures for playing frisbee.....
On Sunday last, even though I had not finished the reading report for Monday , and I had a presentation lined up on Oracle's support for XML data, I went out with LuAnn to a pop concert. It was arranged on a grassy knoll sloping down to a stage. Only the stage had a half pod like covering...we were out in the open , under the stars and a full-moon night.
There were all these people, old couples, families with little children, everyone had spread out tehir folding chairs and spread out a picnic and were waiting for the concert to start and the full moon to rise.
The best piece of orchestra, that I loved.... was by Brahms. Why ! If you ever listen to Brahms and close your eyes, you'll see flitting images. I saw dancing ballerinas, one among whom was very beautiful. And she seemed to be flaoting across the stage on her tiptoes, in the spotlight, wearing the ballerina's white dress. And she seemed to be playing and teasing her lover...arguing , breaking up and finally having to leave him.....
well that was my imagination at play. But music does conjure pictures.......

My first champagne ...

I remember the first time my mother asked me "how is the college?", I had replied that "my department has an amazing view". My department building is the tallest in campus with ten floors. It commands a view in the northern side stretching right over the UofA campus , across to the Catalinas. The Catalinas rise up and stare back at you , solemn and grave. But the play of sun and shade is amazing. The clouds are usually low enough to either touch the peaks or cast their shadow on them. So the mountains are always alternate dark and light. And you can make out when its raining there .... becoz it will be a haze of dark misty clouds covering that part of the mountain. The picture below is a more distant view than from the ninth floor of Gould-Simpson building which houses my department.

What follows is a view of the Old Main, the oldest building on campus. The college was started with this one building, founded by two gamblers .....:)

Yesterday I had my first sip of champagne. I remember Vishal had told me as if he could predict it, that I would start drinking and had given me a list of advice in this regard. I knew I wouldn't.....there are very few things in which I trust myself completely but this was one of those exceptions. Champagne is different :) or maybe I am saying so to excuse myself ;). And I had heard so much about it that given the chance, I did not feel like letting it go. So, I has a sip...one sip. How does it feel .....like something hot stuck in your throat...just at the point where you swallow.
The occassion happened to be the birthday of my room-mate Savitha. And we made it to be a surorise pot-luck. Pot-luck is where each one cooks something and brings and it ultimately is a picnic of sorts. Our menu comprised of pakodas/bhajjis, tortilla chips, coke, sprite, chole, jeera rice, pudina rice, pao-bhaji, cake and custard with fruits. The last was prepared by Shalini and me and unexpectedly turned out to be quite a hit :). Later we (Subha, Shalini and myself) watched "Scent of a woman" in Subha's house. Al Pacino was marvellous....you simply get floored by his acting and frustrations and power in the movie. Chris O Donnell was very sweet. But my favorite part of the movie was the tango that Al Pacino dances with a beautiful girl. He plays a blind man.....but the way he leads the girl across the floor ...twirling her and stepping to the beats....well, why don't I just let you all watch the movie! :)

Can you imagine.....

Imagine steep mountains, a dark brown in color ....(a brown not like the one you get in camel water colors, a shade darker and a bit redder......) imagine green interspersed cactii or saguaro (pronounced "suaro") dotting the mountains, each saguaro a tall green post with an arm or two jutting out . From a distance they look like sentinels standing at guard .... Imagine two mountains racing each other down to a valley and then try and see the green plan land stretching out to the distant horizon where they are encircled by a range of blue mountains. A blue sky covering the scene and some white and grey clouds ...a briliiantly yellow sun rapidly disappeariing behind the clouds and then emerging again from below only to quickly drop behind the next layer of clouds in a magnificient display of orange, red and mauve.
Well , I didn't have to imagine all that bcoz I saw the sunset at a place called Gates Pass and I have tried to recollect it exactly as it happened. We were sitting on the mountain sides, perched on some white rocks and commanding a view over the valley. The best thing was just sitting with your face cupped in your hands and pondering in silence about nothing and everything ....as for just those moments you felt alone and not quite alone but part of a bigger universe. I know what I was wishing for ...to have all of you reading this sharing it there with me. But if wishes were reality then pigs would definitely fly .......:)
Now imagine a road which curves back from some height , and you have parked your car at the heighest place as far as you could have driven (beyond is a private house and you would feel jealous of the view they command but nevertheless.....). You stand there, your arms folded and look back over the road you came on ..... the road winds away into the darkness of the night but there at the place the road disappears lies the entire city of Tucson...(pronounced "two-saan" probably bcoz its too sunny :) ) .....glittering and shimmering in golden city lights. It forms an auditorium ...one of those roman colloseums, surrounding you and drawing you into it.
That was Campbell point.....
We also spent the weekend with LuAnn, in the botanical gardens ...feasting on a picnic of chicken salad and chips in a creamy cheese sauce, and home-made cakes. The botanical gardens had all variety of cactii also called "aguvae" I think. And the butterflies had just started flying in .... the pictures they formed seemed to be right out of an Enid Blyton story book.

Did I tell you about the story of my name ... well the story starts in Trichy when I put my entire name as my first name in the passport ...so it read Firstname Surname (obscured since people scared me about privacy) in the first name with no last name. I followed the same thing for applying for i20 , visa etc. When I landed here , it seemed my name had been entered into the system as FirstName surname NoLastName. Well they corrected that but they needed to have a last name and so put my entire name in the last name......which means my name is essentially now Blank FirstName Surname...that is no first name. I cannot think of any other permutation combinations that they could do with my name now ...and I am practically ok with anything as long as they have my firstname and my lastname in it somewhere. So there goes...is an identity crisis valid for me or what !!! :)

Rantings and ramblings of a.....maniac

I love to crib...its one of the things I am most comfortable doing as you would have seen through the remainder of my blog. And today , in retrospect gives me a whole lot of things to crib about.
I remember how whenever we had a bad day, or a submission went badly, or late, or we had managed to do and submit it in time,..... the reason ranged from depressed moods to hunger to me just urging them on , Monika, Sapna, Komathi(sometimes) and myself would head to the ice-cream shop in our shopping centre or s.c for short. Its amazing how spending a little money makes you feel good or better or temporarily satiated :).....

Anyways getting back to where I was, my day went badly because
1. I was having trouble understanding the head and tail of Dijkstr'a paper on the structure of a multi-programming system.
2. I had zilch or nil class participation today ...since it was the same paper that was discussed. The only thing I learnt was "take things easy " .
3. My interview for a job, the second round went horribly. It was very nice of them to try to match me with the kind of job I would like....namely data mining , but as soon as it came to answering questions part it back-fired .......I could recall nothing of any A.I algos I would have studied or not studied while passing Bachelor's .
Sigh! There is nothing worse than making yourself out to be a fool.....I mean proving that you ARE a fool to someone.

And just to get over these two incidents, Shalini has decided to accompany me to Gallagher theatre ...its the on campus movie theatre and we have an offer of one ticket free with another (student discounts books- are available all over campus which have all these great deals like free pizzas and movies).
Plus LuAnn has planned a weekend for us in downtown, for a festival celebrating the founding of Tucson. So there is a lot to look forward for the weekend. I am also planning on a new laptop ...not getting it free ...I have to buy it for now. And my brother is really after me to get an Apple, becoz the Ipod is free with it. Only thing will be getting used to the Tiger O/S. But I am still leaning towards Dell, since it will be out of my loan money it should be on the cheaper side with the best configurations :)..............

So long for now, who would have thought I would be having not-getting-a-job blues after having worked for a year .......

Classes... :) dawn of a new era

Yesterday the 22nd of August, I attended my first classes in the UofA. It was fun ....each of them in their own way.
Why ! Well I somehow never imagined that networks class would turn out to be studying papers over a span of forty years to see how the internet developed, of the then and now.....how the ideas were before their time, how some of those ideas are now taken for granted, like for example the basic concept of a distributed system for the internet. Next I had my Advanced Database course, and that turned out to be on designing databases for XML. The course may involve a project or final exam. The final exam option is to ease out the workload ...... but the project sounds interesting.
Today was Operating Systems, and though this too will cover the beginnings and progresses of the modern day os, today the professor concentrated on giving us a picture of "what is the so-called world of research", its currency of publications, from where the funding comes from ....which are the research labs in the country.
Well none of it is a piece of cake, even with a three day weekend I find myself wishing for an eighth day in the week just so I can complete reading all the papers and doing all the assignments.
But yes, it does give a new dimension to things, new examples to visualise what is going on around you and what was going around in the past.......

Apart from that, job search still on. :) Its difficult alright, to search for a job after having had the comforts of an office and a personal system .......and easy incoming hard cash. :) But for once, or for today, I am not complaining.

Warm welcomes

I am just back from a stint at the zoo. Oops, I guess I am starting off nearly at the middle of the chapter. Well here goes then ...... There is an organization called International friends here in Tucson, who arrange to have a student matched with an american family, so that there can be an exchange of culture of sorts. Yeah! I know, I never usually go into all this.....come to study , so why get into anything else but this was highly recommended by my senior here, Pooja. So I was a little excited when I was contacted by LuAnn a few days ago. She happens to be a judge here in Tucson.
She planned an outing for me today, August 21st, Sunday.
When today finally arrived I was looking forward to the evening with all smiles. This would be my first proper outing in Tucson and for somebody like me who scarce stays indoors or works 24 hours a day......it was going to be a welcome break. Shalini would have been left alone at home ,so she also joined in.
And it was precisely at 5:15 that LuAnn herself came knocking at our door. After a brief round of introductions, she handed over a complete goodie bag to me, there was a packet of wild rice with spices and instructions on cooking, some masala naans, a packet of sweets, a water-bottle and some Tucson postcards .....which she told me I could write home with. There was such a wonderful and almost carelessly included sense of warmth in her gesture and in each carefully chosen gift..... which astounded me.
Her other international friend, Sudhir from bangalore, was already waiting in the car with her boyfriend Dennis. They drove us to a restaurant called Chopped, where I ordered a chicken sandwich which was delicious. LuAnn, Sudhir,and Shalini opted for salads. The sandwich was delicious, and I got lemonade too with ice. LuAnn kept us alive with jokes throughout and asking us about what surprised us the most about the states and our first entry here. I replied it was the diversity in their topography ...India has the same thing but on a very small scale....and that people here were so friendly. They said New York would be different, Tucson being a small town people were very friendly.
We were met at the restaurant by two of LuAnn's friends, Sue a school teacher who had the summer off and had joined a research expedition to Africa on the trail of wild elephants. And Veronice or as LuAnn called her, V, who was a judge too and also an athlete. She was talking about having biked to Mount Lemon on the top of the Catalinas and then run down the slope.
The greatest thing about it all , was the amazing range of professions on that table......... and the backgrounds alone, of all the people sitting there, could have told stories till breakfast the next day.
We left Sue and V to go to the zoo. It was a 5-10 mins drive. On the way LuAnn pointed out the park, where people were roller-skating, doing squat exercises or simply running. The mountains bordered the lush green park surrounded by tall palm trees, and it was beautiful.
The zoo had an ice-cream safari on, and on going inside I had an ice-cream sandwich. It was ice-cream in between two slices of chocolate cake. I had been complaining just two days back of how I had not had a ice-cream since I had come and here I was.........
The zoo was not San Diego, .......there were kids all around , some having their faces painted , others with popsicle sticks, and with the word "popsicle" I felt as if I had stepped right into a story book chapter of the Five find-outers. But the zoo was not like Alipur zoo in Calcutta, where your nose warns you of what animal is next to come in sight. It covered a very small space and within it, it had tried to recreate the jungle atmosphere. Walking under overgrown bamboo trees hovering over our heads and thick bushes beside the walkway......our first encounter was with the rhino. Then the pelicans on one leg, zebras and antelopes....and there in a pond, the first thing which made me stick to the railing for a few seconds , were two little ducklings........a shade of brown and black , not much larger than the palm of my hand , who were wading from one end of the pool to the other in glee and showing off their newly developed swimming skills I guess. Their mother kept a watchful eye from the shore .....but they in their own companionship and the coolness of the water seemed to be having the time of their lives.
In Hyderbad it had been Charminar which had first made me stop and love the city. In Tucson, two little ducklings are responsible.
Later from the lion's cage to the rhea to the camdary (I have forgotten its name) to amazingly colored macaws and parakeets, and elephants, and tortoises that looked as if they were rocks, and a snoozing polar bear which looked totally like bruno while sleeping ...trying to snap its nose and running as if living his dream, and sprinklers which suddenly shot out of the ground and started watering the plants like in Jurassic park, and with melting ice-creams in our hands ,...........and a mountain which hovered in the distance but seemed closer , much closer .....
well that was how today turned out for me.
I was amazed by the warmth of it, the warmth of the hug LuAnn gave me with a wish for the "all the best" for classes, the drink Dennis toasted to the start of our classes...... this was the first time I shared a conversation on a dinner table about elephants and research on their dna , and mount lemmon and climbing and jogging it for your workups, and books and jhumpa lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, and Life of Pais..........three indians and four americans across sandwiches and salads ina restaurant called "Chopped".

Scattered reflections....

I was debating over the title of this blog-entry yesterday night.....whether to name it as "Randomn reflections" or what it stands as now. But I decided on "scattered" bcoz it immediately brings to mind scattered sunlight, scattered glass.....and holds much more warmth than "randomn".
I was writing my diary , musing and brooding and pondering over happenings, going back in time , forward in time, in a sense I was jobless. :) Till classes start from Monday I am, so bear with me. And it is truly said that an idle mind is the devil's workshop. So it was that I had so many millions of thoughts floating and roosting in my head that I thought I might as well put down the ramblings of a jobless, lots-of-time-at-hand, lonely and half-crazy mind.
Before I came to USA, it was one of the "THE" things to do. Somehow whether it was your company sending you or whether it was through higher studies, this was one way of coming to a different life. It was only a few days before coming that some true pictures actually started to unfold. Examples ??? ...... mugging, security, carrying ten-twenty dollar bills on your self.........
But even then that is only half the picture. There is always a difference in each of the situations life puts you into. When I was in college in Trichy, I was away from home (this will recur as a common factor again) .....we shared rooms, we were dependent on our parents for money, most of us were out of our homes for the first time and far away from it, and all of us .......the batch of 2000-2004, were trying to learn to survive. We had ragging, we cried back in our rooms to go back home, the stronger among us did not cry either in rooms or on the phone.....we attended classes after walking what seemed like two kms in the hot sun, half slept or totally slept in classes.........and we weathered it through, through to our final years and our graduation. And we emerged with Bachelor of technology degrees from NIT Trichy (bringing to nought the proud claim that the chemical people had had before of being the only btechs in REC). What developed were some of the best friendships that college brings....of having lived, shared and fought it out together through assignments and ragging and professors and pennilessness and treats and cycling and walking around campus...."chumma" (rec slang meaning "just like that").

The important word in the last parah........"weathered".

The next phase of my life pushed me into Oracle, quite before I could comprehend where I was and what I was doing with my life. The only thing I knew from the first day was, I know I am going back home soon. But that wa smy earning life, and when you earn believe me ....there is a confidence which overtakes you from nowhere. Money power ...you could call it that or you could call it as standing on your own feet, which is one of the most amazing things .... (I realise it only now and ofcourse, when my mother had told me I was too blind to think about it........I was getting money, enough of it, and all I knew was how to spend). When you earn, there comes automatically with it a sense of "I can afford it" and hence magnanimity. And things are happy, becoz you get to do what you wish and live how you wish.

The important words in the last parah........"independence" and "earning".

Finally, I land up here in USA. Back to student life, but not quite the same. Note you are not earning anymore, (you will probably soon in the future) and there is a loan at the back of your mind to be settled. So every dollar that you take out and buy eggs or rice or chilli powder.........something is calculating a multiply by 50 and you are stifling a groan of "Oh my god, so much for this!." Maybe once you start a part-time job and start earning on your own , the money power (now in dollars) will come back and you will be magnanimous again. But as for the part of fighting it out together, surviving, or for growng comradeship........forget it! Remember you are alone here and you have grown to depend on yourself for yourself. And your horizon has narrowed down a lot , you are here to survive so why care..........

The important unsaid words in the last parah : selfish, serve yourself.

Life ! probably teaches you a lot. Just living from day to day is a lesson. There was a time when I had seen nri's on Tv and pitied then and felt sympathy for them somewhat for having to celebrate festivals in an alien land, for having to shop and pay $5 for 1 kg rice. They immediately brought to mind, a wealthy dollar-making class but huddled and small. Yesterday when I was shopping in India stores where you get all the indian spices, rice, bournvita even......I realised I belong to the class of people I once felt sorry for.
At the end of it, it doesn't make much sense writing all this down, except that it is a phase of my life and when I look back, I want to remember that I once felt like this. For now, its just go on living ...and while at it and while going through it, keep the ray of light at the end of the tunnel in sight ....... and probably that will make life a lot easier for now...........till the devil has time to move out of your mind. :)

Opinions .... count ??

I have been attending orientation upon orientation ...today was GATO = graduate assistant teaching orientation. It is meant for all the TAs or teaching assistants, that is the graduate students who will be teaching american under-grad students. The entire program was based on a set of do's and dont's in class. We cannot discriminate, we have to give space, how should you capture the student's interest ...how to introduce new ways of making the class involved.
In some ways, I think it applies to American community as well and not only to the students. Space is something very important to them , so is not speaking out about your political reservations. But the point was, so many of us from different countries were sitting there and learning how we should treat American students, how they could come in chewing gum, or wearing night suits or keep their legs on the tables and we were not allowed to question. As to why this is amazing to me, is because we come from quite a different culture , where we do believe in independence, but we do also believe in respect. However informal everything is, and however much freedom is given to the students, it does seem to me that this is on the border line or over it.

I was contacted by my international friend. International friends is a group which pairs up students with American families so that there can be an intermixing of cultures. I found out my international friend is LuAnn Harley, a judge in Tucson. She already has some other international friends in the campus itself and she is arranging a get-together for all of us on Sunday which is very sweet of her.

Today was also the first time I was able to show my parents the house and me typing away at the computer using the webcam. And when I spoke to Maa later, I learnt how surprised and happy they all had been on being able to cross oceans and continents in a matter of seconds and see me like that....... And I was grateful to the same technology which has always seemed mechanical and robotic to me, for once.
I have been waiting for my brother to logon for ages and he has finally come online, so its back to harnessing the advances of technology for me again :) .......bye goodnight all for today.

UofA....Providence...God and ..friends

The University of Arizona, as I was introduced to on the morning of 8th of August, was a sprawling campus of red brick buildings. It ironically or what seemed extremely funny to us to learn, was started by two gamblers. The building they started off with is the oldest one on campus called Old Main. There is a fountain behind it which is beautiful to watch and which quite transports you, away from America to London.
Now, Tucson is a city surrounded by mountains on all sides. There are the Tucson mountains on the west, Reno on the east, Santa Rita on the south and the magnificient Catalina ranges on the north. My shared bedroom commands a view of the Catalinas, but the department of Computer Science, 9th floor has a much much better view of the mountain ranges bordering the city and the campus.....and they are breathtakingly beautiful. There are some seats in front of the large glass windows in the department, and you could sit there and spend hours looking at the peaks hiding in the clouds.
Initially when I had come, nothing had been impressive. I remember having said to myself, "They are just mountains, they were there in Jamshedpur also, for all I care. And in no way do they seem mine to me."
They still don't seem mine to me, but there is a familiarity which has grown over the last week and now I know they are trying to accept me, as I am trying to accept them . I am slowly learning their contours.....how there is a steep peak at the leftmost end and then a trough..... and how the clouds being vertical over them, means that it is raining there.....

Today we were cooking at home, and every little thing kept reminding me of Vishnu. How she would stand and monitor the pressure cooker and not let me just tilt the cap and take the steam out......today the cooker was taking a long time to let the steam out and I did just that, all the time remembering Vishnu and her admonitions of being a little patient. I try to find all of them among people here ...and I suddenly realise when I end up disappointed how the gathering here is not the same as at Hyderabad.......and I reprimand myself for having expected it to be. I feel Shobana will say a "haan kya" in her exact drawl, and Shalini will smile and start laughing the way she does.... ... and yes it doesn't happen. I know I have to stop moulding the present in the ways of the past. I remember cribbing about Hyderabad when I was there, wanting to be home and now I am cribbing about Tucson and wanting to be in Hyderabad but I guess living in the present is the best thing to do anyday.

It seems Oracle Hyderabad has a new building minus a tt board...I can't say much about that. I will always , always remember Oracle as Cyber Gateway.
And yes life does not seem so very negative and depressing as my writings might sound like.... I have been lucky in more ways than one and that could not have been without providence , god , fate ...........or whatever you call "belief". And ofcourse I always have the option of boarding the flight and flying back. So "ssssomebody stop me" a.k.a "Mask". :)

Fears and first impressions...in USA...final part.

When the flight finally touched down in USA....there was no special feeling, no great excitement, but yes a fear that I might be denied entry in customs based on anything. But it didn't turn out that way at all. When the immigration officer scanned my fingerprints, the only thing he said was "they are a bit dry".... which meant they were not getting scanned properly. Going on to collect my luggage, the next fear was they would have been lost in transit, they would have been shipped to some other plane ......worse, they would have split right down the middle.
Even when after the last baggage had landed and there was no sight of mine I realised I probably must go to lost baggage. But an attendant pointed out that luggages from SQ12 had been coming on another conveyor belt on the right as well. There, carefully picked from the belt and kept aside with a number of others, were my two suitcases. Thanks to Samsonite and I can say they are worth every penny (paise :)) you pay for them, except for some scratches......they hardly seemed to have made such a long journey right across oceans.
From there, just a submit of the customs form where they did not even see what declarations I had made or not made.....to the baggage checkin where they checked in my bags for Tucson and directed me to the domestic terminal.
Fears again...it was only 3:30 p.m local time.... what would I do till 8:30 in the night. I first found my way out and to my surprise found myself standing on an underground highway or broad road (it seemed like an Indian highway to me). There was a flyover on top....the flyovers were works of art ...twining and interwining and again untwisting .... they were amazing.
LA .... skyscrapers in the distance...clean roads and all Mercs, air conditioned volvo buses zooming by. My first impression of USA .....was not bad. The domestic airport was a bus journey away.... its supposed to be so huge you need buses to travel internally. Terminal number 7, I checked in , got my ticket. Then went in for security check. There, they had put some SSSS (quad s) category on my ticket which meant extra searching. I was rattled by the discrimination...I found another Indian lady behind me subjected to the same thing.
After that, I made my way to gate eighty something and there were open windows on one side from where the entire terminal was visible. There were boarding gates ....80 - 85 or more and in front of each were lounge areas. I sat before mine , roamed around a bit to see the shops .... pizzas, mc donalds, coffee, ..... and promptly fell asleep on my hand baggage. I was even dreaming .......but I kept waking up and checking to see if there were suspicious people around. I thought the time would never come for boarding, there would be announcements and the lounge would empty out and then fill again with passengers for the next flight.
Finally 8:30 and I boarded the UA6558 which was to take me to Tucson. It was one of the cosiest flights I ever saw...a very small one and you had to bend so as not to hit the ceiling. But the plane was full of old people who stay in Tucson and my companion was one such lady who was back from California, having attended her grand-daughter's wedding. Even in the lounge there had been an old couple who had been returning to their home in Tucson. The old man kept forgetting where they were heading, and the old lady would keep reminding him. The compassion and companionship between them was amazing to watch and feel. They would hold hands and pat each other's palm from time to time.....and this relationship here is something which I find most touching here.

The weather was bad, andthe plane had to take a detour...the pilot kept pointing out the thunder storm, we could see the lightning in the sky. And something more that could be seen was more planes in the sky. This was the first time I saw another plane flying while being airborne .......it seemed like traffic in the air.
Then the plane touched down with a loud bump and jerk and we were taxiing slowly into the terminal. I moved to the gates where my room-mate to be Savitha, met me....I was wondering if they would have reached. We both got my luggage which followed on each other's heels. We loaded the baggage in an indian guy's car who had come with her and drove off towards what was to be my room and my home or house :).
The roads were deserted but wide and every lane had a sign on the right saying "This lane mist turn right". We crossed hotels ...large taj like ones only near the airport. After he drove into the garage of the apartments I would be staying at, we tugged and heaved my 64 kgs of luggage up a flight of steps into our house on the first floor of University Gardens apartments, #206. I met my room-mate Shalini, fed myself on some left-over rice and dal......and got upset becoz I could not contact my parents at home or office...
It was 10:30 p.m local time, 11.00 a.m at home. I tucked myself up in bed and went into a dreamless sleep. Except that the night was punctuated by the roar of the winds outside and shutters fluttering in the wind, and I kept waking up all night. But the next day would be a new day...and my first day in Tucson.

p.s: Happy Independence Day to home. Its 3:00 in the morning there at your place and you all are still sleeping so I guess I turn out to be the most patriotic of all. :)

USA....and me. Part1- In Singapore and Tokyo

It started out with getting an admit, then it was the visa.......then massive loads of packing and finally, a journey day. I still did not believe or could not make myself believe, I was leaving for USA. Its such a big thing in India to be actually off to the states....immediately you join the ranks of (as considered by people in India) some lucky few. Well, while saying goodbye to Hyderabad and Kolkata ..it sure didn't seem like I was one of the lucky few.
So it was with some salty tears and nervous steps that I began this journey.
The flight was Singapore airlines. Once in your seat, you were in a totally different world. There was a screen in front of you and a remote attached to the seat handle. There was a blanket and a pillow.... (and I remembered how Maa had been worried I would be cold because I had forgotten to pack a shawl). The magazines in front carried all the in-flight movies to be shown, ranging from Madagascar to Lilo and Stitch to ......Plus music channels with one hindi and also a channel which continuously monitored the flight progress and mapped the route.
Whoa.....where was I :)...
The flight attendants were very pretty and helpful, with an ever-friendly smile on their faces. I slept but towards the fag end of the flight...It landed in Singapore at 6:30 their time...around 4:30 our time. Once I stepped into the Changi terminal........that was it! I lost my senses and a smile lit my face as I looked around. Firstly there were these walk elevators....once you used them and came to the centre of the terminal, you were literally surrounded by all foreign shops.... from prada to gucci.... scents perfumes, electronic goods, food, diamonds, singapore kimonos, mobiles, pdas ...you name it ...they had it and you could have it too provided you had money. The terminal was amazing.......even after USA I still think, that place has no equals. On top of that, once I saw terminals with free internet and hardly any crowds milling around it...imagine my glee at mailing home from an airport....not to say blogging too.
The next flight was at 9:45 a.m singapore time. This was the headache one, over the Pacific and into LA. The last one had almost completely avoided flying over the Indian ocean. This one would not have been able to avoid the Pacific even if it tried. But the plane itself was disappointing...it seemed crowded and clustered with very little foot space or corridor space.... and even the ceiling seemed lower than the last one.
I was puzzling over how an 18 hour journey plane can be such when a 5 hour journey one was luxury. In the flight itself, I kept dozing off......my head falling in front...and the two people beside me must have thought I was drugged. I was nearly missing lunch but woke up just in time to order a turkey. If you are wondering how it tastes, I did not enjoy it much ...and the plate went back quite as much filled as it had come. But they do make it colorful....you have small cheese packets from australia, salads with red berries....ice-cream which I had to skip for my throat.
I had thought the flight was a direct one , it turned out that there was a stop in Tokyo. I was smiling to myself to think that for a non-globetrotter I would be covering three countries in a matter of 48 hours...wow!! I forgot the name of the Tokyo airport ...but it was clean ....people were extra helpful.... more than people in Singapore (I had gone around in circles looking for a help counter there.)
It was a half an hour wait for a transit pass and we boarded our plane again. The plane had been cleaned , a new pillow and blanket placed. The movie range and music had increased.....I had a japanese girl for a co-passenger and another japanese s/w professional beside her. I relaxed in my seat and promptly fell asleep.
There was hardly much to be seen from the plane....but the pilot pointed out Mt.Fujitsu. It was like a towering volcano mountain in a bed of clouds and it was amazing to see it dominate the small circular window-holes for quite sometime.
Next stop ...... LA. But I have to crash in today so I sign off here. By the way I will keep my time of posting as Indian time for today ...maybe change it when I actually get to the part about USA.

From Singapore.....

This sure has to be a short post and it is sort of amazing to me that I can stand here and write ... guess where!
Right from the free internet at singapore airport. Its probably everything I had heard and more. For a change it is I who feels like a foreigner. Thats all I have time for now....ciao and off to LA.

Remembrances.

To all the writers who don't think of themselves as one......(and I could just rattle off names till I ran out of fingers to count) maybe you should try it before you dismiss it so dismissively. Ever since I have come across blogging and bloggers, I have found this amazing power of self-expression in nearly everyone's writing....and to think that there are so few writers in the world.
Well, below is an extract of a mail I got....which was amusing and entertaining and kept me laughing all through and I did warn the writer of the outcome of it being put up on my blog. With that I wash my hands off it and leave it with a bit of a background.....
The convocation ...yes the same one which I missed was held on july 23rd, and almost everyone from hyderabad, made it there. I had wanted to know how I would be getting my degree certificate, sinceI would be absent at the ceremony. This, sort of, comes in the dusk of it ......

Tring Tring.. Tring Tring..
Chid: May I speak to Ms. XYZ please?
Me: Speaking
Chid: No you are not speaking..
Me: I'm busy shopping these days
Chid: Yeah I know, but I thought you would have enough time to mail atleast
Me: No I dont
Chid: ok.. just wanted to tell u that you should be receiving the degree certificates within this week.
Me: ok. I will take care of that
Chid: And btw if you remember, I had asked you to msg me when u had the mobile with you
Me: I told you I dont have time and morover, I dont speak to Indian guys anymore
Chid: Hmm.. this was the girl who once said she would "keep in touch". ok then.. take care.. do feel free to drop a word or two when u r free :) bye
(And just incase you were thinking about it ...... the content is purely a conversation imagined by Chid and is not represented by facts (as all the serial title lines claim nowadays)).

Well......:) all I can say is...... just that.... I am glad for such moments which make me smile and remind me of my friends spread all around the globe (I guess I sure can say that now :) ).

Of decisions

I like writing for the simple fact that I can ramble on without beginning or end.....start somewhere and end somewhere completely different. And the greatest pleasure it gives me is the thought that someday I most probably will revisit and laugh at these memories or essays or blog-bits or whatever you can call them.

Now, that I am at home the most common question people usually ask me is "what do you do all day ?". Well I definitely don't sit in front of the computer hours at end, nor do I catch all the movies and saas bahu serials on tv. Books ..yes, they were always my first love and continue to be...though I do admit (and Monika, Sapna and Koms will probably corroborate this) that I should expand the genre to cover sci-fi, comedy and horror rather than only sentimental and romantic novels. Yesterday after a long time, Maa was reading out tagore's peoms to me. I had one childhood favorite...its about a little boy who is actually dreaming about this troupe of his, his mother riding beside him in a palki (palanquin). He defends and saves his mother's life from a group of dacoits who suddenly attack them. The cry of "haare re re re re" that the dacoits raise was one of my most favorite parts of the poem .....in its suddenness and its intensity. But ofcourse there are many poems and stories and songs more befitting my age which I should have but never did read. Maa read out one such, its called "shesher kobita". Its about a boy called Amit who liked to stand out for the fun of standing out.....he would adorn the opposite of what was the fashion trend and praise with full arguements that, which probably did not deserve it. His inclination towards girls was of the kind ...curious but not interested. He meets this girl on a mountain trip...and they fall in love. But in the end the girl leaves him to marry someone else....and she sends him a poem in the last letter she sends him ........which is how the story gets its name. The poem is famous.......for the fact that the simple lines strike true.....I don't remember the words exactly but the girl says
that amit has worshipped her as a goddess, in all her goodness
but now she goes to give herself to somebody who will accept her
for what she is ....as a human being with her own faults and values......

Before visa, I was sort of in the middle of the ocean with a no next shore to land on. Getting the visa brought back a lot of confidence and relief ...that yes, finally something might be, possibly coming true. I have written about this before ......about the confusion that confounds us all with what is best for us, the best next step. And I have to admit, the uncertainty which was preying and gnawing at me ....has completely disappeared. But it hasn't got replaced with enthusiasm. When Ayan asked me if I am excited about it, I did not for a moment know what to say . It just does seem like going back again to Hyderabad......or Trichy for that matter. Maybe I still cannot comprehend an eighteen hour flight over the pacific. So, when Maa speaks about it as a long journey and about not returning for quite sometime.......I can hardly comprehend or share. And it is then that I ask myself whether it is really worth it ....this going for myself, for my interest........... and the host of worries and distances that did not seem to matter for so long now come crowding back.......as if stretching a rubber band of time, distance and memories.
When I look back at the last month of eating and sleeping .......(and gaining kilos :)) the permanent thing that I have is company , whether of Bruno curling up beside me during the afternoon naps and keeping his eyes tightly shut so that no amount of cuddling and petting could disturb him, whether of my brother screaming at me for the remote or me scolding and re-scolding him , whether of Maa coming back from college and sipping her tea......(Baba is transferred to bakreswar) ........................
well there were lots of times when I felt as if I did not have an itinerary for the day like maa's college or Tukan's school.....but even then, staying at home and working at a nearby office or staying overseas and studying was a conscious decision I took......and I am still wondering at what cost !!!
But till then , latest harry potters await , and I am thankful to Tukan I got a second day hand at that and it took me two more days than him to complete...... :), and I missed my convocation and wearing yellow robes, and we dined out at hyatt as my treat ..... and time to go back, life is waiting. :) come to think of it ..... this is life too ......
:) :)

Full circle.

I read a post in the telegraph by this guy called Samit Basu. He writes a regular column called Look in the Telegraph. His comment was on Parineeta and went somewhat like this :
"If you have savoured watching parineeta as much as me then you probably would not have missed the last scene which resembled a cement ad.With Saif trying his hardest to break down a wall and none of his friends or family lifting a finger to help him and not even pointing out that there is a gate some three steps ahead - quite heart-rendering."
By the time I got to the heart rendering part I was laughing aloud. :)
Its refreshing to read people who have their own opinions and say on different matters....because its only then that you can think and rethink about the ideas that you had formed.
I have always found my brother to be more of a quiz enthusiast than me anyday...(he will gobble up any news piece and quiz me about it later and find immense pleasure that I will be staring blankly back at him).... and till sometime back I had also known him to be a america sycophant. It is only now that I realise that he is equally critical of the policies and american politics as the rest of us.... (or the ones who are concerned with discussing everything under the sun are). I however had had a complete overhaul of my opinions .... it seemed a great place to tour ....(one of THE reasons to study there). Their economy was thriving. People were so much in praise of it, I was told I would never want to return. Its cleaner there.....then the money factor ofcourse :) .......and life was much easier with everything or most of the things being readymade or automatically done for you. (I wonder when America got the head start !)
If any of you ever come across jhumpa lahiri's Namesake, it paints a very different picture.... a very different picture which makes you want to start re-thinking..... do you really want to head to this place at all! Its a picture of lonely Indians, to whom relatives are the static noises over telephones and webcams. Good news and bad news are but just that... there cannot be celebrations because you cannot share...cannot share physical proximity with the people to celebrate with. A place where you start celebrating and enjoying traditions like guy fawkes day and halloween ...irrespective of the fact that they are not/ were not what we grew up with. The book so far as I have read it... deals with the children brought up there who now find home-coming alien. Sort of the ABCD(american born confused desi) category. But then I recently read that nris are coming back to India. Now that is probably the best of both worlds. Earn and save in dollars and spend in rupees :)...............
Money factor .... now why that is important is hard to say. It is money which makes the world go round.(to a certain extent looks too ....we were hotly debating on this with my mother saying looks don't buy anything and tukan and me opposing her). Probably because with a certain amount of money comes a certain lifestyle, a certain level of comfort ...and once you get used to that ... bye bye to all those budgeted spendings. But then money buys you comfort not happiness. At a certain point money ceases to matter ....its then where the satisfaction level comes in....not with work alone but with life. And that depends on how comfortable you are with yourself .... bcoz only then can you make others feel comfortable around you. Well, by the amount of fundas I can write I am sure to follow on the tail of The monk who sold his ferrari :).............
So at the end of it ...its just a full complete circle ....... starts with you and ends with you ...... but it has a whole world of people in between the two 'u's..... and its yours to choose how delicately you handle it....... be happy ... nothing else matters and this is what matters most ...:)

Running away

Ever so often, I wonder why I frequent movies as much as I do. Then I realise that it has so much to do with the fact that during those two to three hours I am a nobody.........:) just like the hundred odd other people in the movie hall. Wouldn't it be great to be a nobody! no cares, no worries, no responsibilities, and you can actually sit and enjoy what people enact out as if its their life thats going on. And all you have to do is watch ........ all ofcourse for a mere three hours. But it always leaves me wishing that the illusion would stretch on.......to life.

So much for all escapist fundas.......

Had been to the hospital with Maa.The terrace door had slammed on her finger when she had taken Bruno out and even after fourteen days the swelling hadn't gone down....so we feared a fracture. But thankfully it turned out otherwise. I was there with her for about two hours in Ramkrishna Mission hospital. My cousin brother had done his post graduate studies here ...so we sort of knew the inside picture....what went on behind the scenes. Bappadada had quoted some hilarious anecdotes about a doctor's life. Sitting there, Maa and me could recall and laugh over most of them. The doctor on duty in the emergency ward would usually delineate his duties among the younger interns. So it would be them dispensing prescriptions and medicines, looking after the incoming patients. They would probably be round about the same age as me. They still have a long way to go as far as studies are concerned. Then they have to establish themselves, build a reputation and only after ..enjoy the fruits of reputation , a good practise and a steady income.
Compared to them, software engineers have life a lot easy. (no wonder I can sit here ....without a job ...on the confidence of some software boom that if I don't get my visa I can still get a job...somewhere :) ). When the decision of taking up biology comes up in class eleven ... had I really thought so far ahead!
I know what influenced me, I hated Biology because I just could not remember everything nor get myself interested in the dissections and innumerable scientific names or in learning pages of notes. Mostly students get an apathy towards cutting frogs and hence the decision is taken for them rather than by them.........but many others I know wanted to "keep both options open " at the end of twelvth and so opted for bio. Well good for them.... and at the end of it, I hope everybody landed up in the stream they wanted.
Ofcourse I had always heard life as an engineer is no studies, almost complete masti ("study well in eleventh and twelvth and you will never have to study later")..... it didn't turn out exactly like that but yes .... you can get by on a lot of pre-known concepts and by studying last nights .....so its more of "there is an exam tomorrow therefore study" than anything else. Based on where I stand today, I can endorse and re-endorse the fact. Today engineers can get easy recruitment, demand high pay packets...live their life in air conditioned offices...and generally complain about Bahrees' from the comfort of their offices when (and if --the referred article is still a controversy and a good topic of discussion :) ) the latter bring a slur on the name of out-sourcing or IT in India. But they don't save lives. They do save customers some time and bugs ..... but software engineers are not and will never be irreplaceable. They would never be god to anyone bcoz of having saved a life just in time or bcoz they brought a new baby into the world and made some woman a mother or bcoz they touched lives. They would always be god to their customers :)...bcoz only they know to put right the code which in the first place was created by them.
I had not started this blog with the thought of writing out a for and against arguement for software engineers, I being one myself can hardly sit and aim a kick at myself. :) But I think we left the human touch far behind when we started running behind money....I don't think that statement discriminates between doctors or engineers - it applies to both.
And between all this and an internet connection which truly gave up on us and hanged itself for three days, leaving us stranded (believe me .....that is literally how it feels :) ).....I totally forgot Sthiti's birthday. I am/will be a dumb-wit in the matter of remembering birthdays. Vishal sent a really nice mail which I needed very much... his motto was to just look at the mirror and say "U r great"...:) I could not help but smile.

If only I had this someone magically conjured up to manage my life along with theirs ...:) I guess I would escape again.

A morning in Lake market.

I could hardly believe that an entire week has flown off since leaving Hyderabad. Have I been busy ?.. not really... except when I was busy working myself up over visa issues and creating havoc for Maa and Tukan too. But I better not go into that.....there were so many unpublished blogs created and destroyed :) some, where I would hammer myself into the wall and others, where the insecurities would speak for themselves.
My mom and I watched Parineeta on Friday.....I love watching movies with her because she has her own set of likes and dislikes and I love argueing it out with her at the end of the movie. It was only towards the fag end of the movie that I realised I had read the story before (yup you can call it lack of recognition due to commercialised rehaul :) ) it was one of my favs written by sarat chandra chatterjee....but that said, the ending was made too dramatic ... too loud and garish for the rest of the movie. But what was beautiful was the relationship shared by lalita (vidya balan) and shekhar (saif ali khan)....the small jealousies of possesiveness, the companionship and togtherness, the play of feelings and of unspoken words was amazing to watch. Ofcourse Saif ali plays his role with `elan... and so does Vidya balan. Saturday morning.. found us in Inox at forum. I would never ever compare it to Imax. It lacks that something which I cannot put in words...even though both are these commercial multiplexes with huge screens. Kolkata crowd is a very familiar crowd of teenage couples and groups mainly, and marwari kids. Thats what is maybe the underlying difference .....I had seen Imax fill with families. The movie was Batman begins. Reviews : I love all superhero movies because of the message they leave behind. This one talked of facing your fears and had some amazing twists and turns in the story.... what was really great was it delved into how or what drove batman to become batman. Given that, I missed the theme music of spiderman or anything worthy of taking its place.
Sunday morning.. I made my way with Maa to Lake market. It is one of the many markets here in Kolkata where you still have to bargain your way through ...... and where the packed and parcelled vegetables and grains are yet to make their entry. Ofcourse it does mean wading through littered vegetables and fish markets... but it also brings a human touch... leaving it to you to decide whether you prefer air conditioned supermarkets over them ...... It was in this market, that I would find myself in, nearly every Sunday morning during my school days, clutching Maa or Baba's hand as I gingerly picked my way through the narrowly spaced vendors and their displayed goods. Their offers of chocolates would usually never meet with a no :)... there was this groceries shop where we would get all our groceries from. There were three people there whom I had grown to know. And the bill would usually run for miles... that too in a way of writing which had more curves than I have ever seen anyone write.....there was also this potato vendor who would count the money out in english .... "ram twenty thirty forty"... and to a new just inducted to maths small kid like me - he captured all the entertainment and charm of the english world for some seconds. I was probably going there after what ... some 6 or 7 years. And it turned out exactly as I had expected...there were two of the three old people at the grocery shop, they greeted me with smiles as if I had never left frequenting them...... "arre...kato baro hoye geche" (how you have grown)..."shedin ii dada ke jigesh korchilam meye aar cheler bishoy" (was asking your dad the other day about you and your brother). There is something about being recognised after all the years ... something about feeling that there is still the same bond - of a little girl coming with her parents to do the sunday marketing...and something that brings back childhood memories in a flood.........The potato vendor was also still there and even though as my mother later told me that we wouldn't have bought from him for some years now ... he called at our retreating backs "aloo chai naki" (do you need potatoes? ) Homecoming :) yes ..... rather market-coming. The openness and blatant lack of trying to hide their surprise or curiosity.... their gossips and chats ... and small questions about your life which ceases to make it just a shop-keeper and any other buyer bond ....the nuances of their human touch....I wouldn't trade all this anyday..... :) ..... At the exit to the market ...(not that it is a proper exit...there are two ways you can either use to enter or leave the market) a mango seller was intent on selling mangoes to Maa, insisting they would be very sweet ....since he had forced her to buy them.... and they were. One ended up as mango shake today morning and the other I have left to savour and eat...... I also finished reading Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh and have now moved on to White Mughals (Shalu's gift) and Hitch-hiker's Guide to the galaxy. Amitav Ghosh has established himself as my favorite writers .... his sensibilities, style, characters and their relationships (...I do keep going around in circles about relationships :)) weave you into the story ... I would recommend Hungry Tide as a good read. Looking forward to another lazy week ...gorging myself on mom's hand cooked food.....and fighting with tukan and playing with bruno. I also have Namesake and some more books lined up....and a visa interview in the horizon...:)
and I just realised this blog has also run to pages ..........