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". :)