Story-time

There was a time when I used to write these stories which inevitably ended with a heartbreak or worse still someone in the relationship getting killed. :) At this time, I felt I could capture the dynamics of a relationship pretty well. I think I have lost the touch now. Today suddenly somebody reminded me of an arbit attempt at writing while in Oracle. And I thought I would keep them on my blog just for the record. :) Sometimes reading immature writing can also be fun. So below is the attempt at the story and below that is what my colleague had responded with his version of it. Happy reading !!

THIS AND THE OTHER NIGHT

When he saw her in the party, the first thing that struck him was that it had hardly taken him a second to recognize her. Even though the last time he had seen her was probably fifteen years ago … in the college graduation party.

He watched her from where he was standing for a few more seconds. In between the interrupting and unending stream of party revelers he could see that she still had that ease of making herself comfortable in any place new. The way she caressed her drink, the way she whisked her hair as if it was really long and not just shoulder-length, her guilty childishness which in those days would have everybody falling in love with her….including him. No, she hadn’t changed.

He walked up to her and unwilling to interrupt the ongoing conversation, politely cleared his throat. She turned, and a slight frown of recognition creased her brow before a smile followed on her lips. “Anci, and fancy meeting you here” , she said warmly shaking his hand. But behind her obvious delight at seeing him, he could sense a faint trace of uneasiness.

He smiled to himself that uneasy was the last thing they had been in each other’s company in college. Being the most talked about pair, there was hardly a weekend they had not spent together. They had been so comfortable in their own company ….. and with each other. Neither his friends nor hers had ever had any doubt that this was one couple destined to be together. Then what had gone wrong … or right …

He brought himself back to the present “Got a few minutes to spare?” he asked her. “Ofcourse”, she smiled and politely excused herself from her immediate circle. As she followed him out to the verandah, carefully skirting around the now almost all intoxicated guests, she shot him a question to start off the conversation.

“So what have you been upto all these years?” the hint of uneasiness and surprisingly unfamiliarity, was back in her voice, As if she was trying to fit into a long forgotten groove.

“Not much really”, he replied with his casual air, trying to make himself audible over the blare of the loud music. “After my MBA, got a job abroad. Now settled here in California, and you?”

“I joined an art course, after working for a year. The Art Academy organized a tour of some of the most famous art galleries in the world. This is our last stop. We will be here for nearly a month before returning to India.”

He couldn’t help wondering whether she would be having any grudges against him. After all, contact had been broken off so suddenly. He had got into his MBA course, and she had somehow ceased to matter in his life. The endless telephone calls of college life had seemed more like a burden. And then…his irritation, when asked about the long gaps. Finally the intervals had stretched, until one had never quite ended.

As he looked at her, now trying to make small talk about classmates and their present careers, he felt a pang of emptiness in his life. What if…..

He had actually never proposed, and she had never tied him down. Sort of like when you know that words fall short of describing what you share. Strange that he should now feel empty without her. Maybe somewhere, she had actually mattered more to him than he had thought. Strange that seeing her after all these years should make him remember… what her absence had made him forget.

“Married?” the question was directed at him. He replied with, “What about you?” It was as if the acceptance of this one word would seal the betrayal, and each one wanted the other to go first.

“Not yet”, she replied, turning her face away to the city lights, and leaning further out, over the railing.

“But isn’t it already pretty late for you…you must be what ..around thirty five” and then immediately stopped himself. He colored at his words, which he had flung out without even thinking.

She smiled wryly back at him “You are not supposed to ask a girl’s age, didn’t you know!!…. You are still the college student I remember, not changed a bit”, her eyes twinkled but they were misting with memories….he couldn’t say whether painful or not.

He tried to change the topic, “My parents are in India and they keep writing to me to come back, but my wife will not hear of it. Actually once you get used ….”

“Oh…so when did you get married?” her face was again turned away. There was a pause.

He turned to face her and said “About two years ago, she studied in the same MBA institute and …”

“Ofcourse”, she said now turning to face him as well, and smiling as if the pieces had just clicked.

“Its not like you think….Smita”, he said suddenly, defensively. “It was an arranged marriage”.

She didn’t reply for quite sometime. He, exasperated with himself for his outburst, emptied his drink in a single gulp and stared at the other corner of the verandah, as far away from her as possible. The party was still on in full swing and he could see through the open windows the dancing couplets, in each other’s arms.

“You know Anci, many a times in life a relationship doesn’t work out. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t work out. What matters is whether you are hiding from the fact that there was no commitment. Anyway it doesn’t matter, harboring hurt never brought anyone happiness and….”

Her words trailed off in mid-sentence as he felt a nudge at his arm and looking back saw his wife.

“Its pretty late,I think we should be leaving”, his wife whispered to him in a very audible voice.

“Smita… my wife”, he introduced them, pointing at each other in turn.

“Nice to meet you”, Smita shook her hand, “and all the best to both of you”. She raised her glass as if proposing a drink, then turned and slowly walked back to the room to join her friends. Anci stared after her for a few seconds, before turning to his wife. He remembered it had been a party like this in his final MBA year… when he had proposed to his wife.

And I thought …

Is it she? Yes its her… its been such a long time, years I should say, but a flash of hers in front of me was enough to dilute the years. Suddenly the dull party seems different, and in a queer way, so familiar to the college graduation party… probably because that’s where I saw her last.

I couldn’t help looking at her with undivided attention, didn’t realise how long I had been watching her… my spell got broken by the sudden announcement made by the host. I guess it was about the host’s engagement, but my mind was not into the party, instead it was experiencing flashes of the past, about her, her eyes, her hair, her hands, her palm, the back of her palm, her slender fingers, her flowing robes … I said to myself – “she must have changed by now”. I drifted into doing something, which I used to do so often in the graduation phase of my life… our lives. I remember the first time I noticed her, it was a warm sunny day and a sleep inducing class in progress. The teacher happened to ask a question to the class, I was anyway oblivious to it … till I heard a voice answer it. It wasn’t the sweetest of voice, neither was it jarring enough to wake me from my slumber, but there was something distinct, something which made my head turn, probably it was the way she spoke… that’s when I first observed her. And didn’t realize how and when I slipped into a habit of observing her. Of course it wasn’t as if I was staring at her all the time, nobody would had even figured out that I used to ‘observe’ anything except the books of Physics. But I soon mastered the art of observing, and I would often notice subtle things about her, the way she waved her hand when she spoke, the way she would remove the hair falling on her face, the floral patterns on the handkerchief clutched in her hand, the way she tilted her head when she wrote, the way she would hold the pen, the way she would respond when called by name, the way she would place her bag when she would sit, the way she looked at her answer scripts after the exams, the way she would sometimes look out of the window to see the lush lawns outside, the way she would hold a test tube in the chemistry lab, the way she would drink water from the cooler, and of course, the way she would smile back when someone smiled at her.

I was again observing her at a distance, this time, I wasn’t observing in the same sense, I was trying to figure out the extent of change in her. There she was, at ease, cheerful and cherubic, sporting a smile every few moments. Has she changed?

I was in deep thought, then I decided to walk up to her. I stood just a few feet away from the group, unable to decide what to say – should I call out her name? It’s been years my lips have spelt out her name, and I felt lightening struck. It used to be the word I loved the most, her name that is. It used to be a pleasure to say it out, and here I am, years down the line, with a lump in my throat and all knotted up. I have a feeling that god couldn’t see my plight any more, and made her turn. “Oh Hi ____, where have you been!?”, she gushed. I was strangely comatose, and she had to literally take up my hand for a customary handshake. I had started feeling a bit conscious….of what? of the past? of her? And I could sense it in her too … I had always been able to comprehend what she is thinking, how she is feeling. Don’t know how, maybe cause I observed her so much, it was second nature to me to read her mind.

I tried to smile, putting up a fake one. And I knew, that she knew, I was trying to fake it. She used to often tease me of being pathetic at bluff. I guess more than me, it was she who could read my mind. I tried to say something, but couldn’t decide what to say, stark contrast from the days, when we used to talk of everything under the sun. Hours used to pass, without the conversation showing any signs of drying up. She could sense the uneasiness, and said – ‘isn’t it beautiful out there’ pointing towards the lush lawns, under the twinkling sky. I looked at her, and we moved away from the crowd. No words required, a single glance said what we were thinking, a glance is all we required to know that both of us wanted to step away from the crowd… some things never change.

“So what have you been upto all these years?” she said trying to break the ice which seemed to have set between the couple who were known to be the firebrand couple of the batch.

“Not much really”, I replied with a casual air, but unable to talk eye to eye. “After my doctorate, got a job abroad. Now settled here in California, and you?”

“I joined an art course, after working for a year. The Art Academy organized a tour of some of the most famous art galleries in the world. This is our last stop. We will be here for nearly a month before returning to India.”

I couldn’t help wondering whether she would be having any grudges against me. After what all happened … or rather didn’t happen. Wonder what she must have thought about me while I went ahead to pursue a doctorate in the states. The phone call marathons of the college days had dwindled to calls of a few minutes, leading to frequent bickering about it. Slowly, but steadily, the distance took a toll. I felt she was no longer with me, and I think she felt the same. Ironic, that both should feel that the other has changed, while neither has … the ironies of life.

We were talking about our classmates, where they were, who all had got married, how many kids they have … but I wasn’t quite in the conversation. I was thinking. I was known to be a thinker among those who knew me – a thinker who thinks about so many things, always has so many things to talk about, is more of an analyst, an intellectual. I was thinking. But this time, it was my life which was flashing past me again and again. And a question hounded me, hitting me hard, and I groped to answer it – “how did I lose her… how could I?”

I had never proposed to her. Neither did she. We didn’t need to, did we? Anyone and everyone who saw us together, would always compliment us as a couple. It was something which was there in the aura around us. We complimented. Completely. And although never let out in words, we knew it whenever we looked into each other’s eyes. It was probably the biggest mistakes I committed, we committed, that we never spoke out the true feelings. Although on one hand, you both know and feel it, but sometimes it is essential to spell it out. After graduation, I got an offer to pursue doctoral study across the far seas. Although I was known to be very professional minded among friends, deep inside me what bothered me was a perennial question - “what about us?”

We were sitting in a restaurant, with the offer letter in her hand. She looked at it many times, then smiled back to me and said – “this is wonderful, you must take up this opportunity” I simply nodded my head. A bit later, she smiled again, and said – “and keep in touch”. I nodded again. Nobody said anything else. I wish I had. I wish … she had.

“Married?” the question was directed at me. I knew it was coming, sooner or later. And to be brutally honest, I was dying to ask the same. “What about you?”, I said.

“Not yet”, she replied, turning her face away to the city lights, and looking further away, at the fountain. For a moment, I felt she was hesitant to face me. And then, when she turned to look at me, I turned my face away. Imagine, two people who used to spend hours looking at each other couldn’t face each other … ironies of life.

“But isn’t it already pretty late for you…you must be what ..around thirty five” I blurted out. I tried to search for some words to say, but my quick wit evaporated in no time.

She smiled wryly back at me “You are not supposed to ask a girl’s age, didn’t you know!!…. You are still the college student I remember, not changed a bit”, and landed a pat on my arm. Sometimes little things can bring in a whirlpool of thoughts. Earlier in college days, I used to tease her for being a month elder to me. And every time I pulled her leg about it, she used to retort back by saying “u r not supposed to know my age” and start hitting me playfully on my arm. Some habits never change ….

I tried to change the topic - “My parents are in India and they keep writing to me to come back, but my wife will not hear of it. Actually once you get used ….”

“Oh…so when did you get married?” her face was again turned away.

There was a pause. When she looked back at me, I said “About two years ago, we were in the same institute and …”

“Ofcourse”, she said, smiling as if the pieces had just clicked.

I didn’t know what to say, my mind was thinking too much in too less a time. I was trying to figure out what she must be thinking right now. Is she sad? is she feeling betrayed? Is her smile real? Probably for the first time, I felt a fakeness in her smile …

“Its not like you think….”, I said suddenly, defensively. “It was an arranged marriage”.

She didn’t reply for quite sometime. I didn’t know where to look at. I felt as if an eerie silence had engulfed me. I tried to look towards the party hall, and saw a couple looking deeply into each others eyes. I stood still for a moment, and then forced myself to look away. I managed a glance at her, she was looking towards the horizon … maybe looking at the stars … which seem to be so close… yet so far.

“You know, many a times in life a relationship doesn’t work out. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t work out. What matters is whether you are hiding from the fact that there was no commitment. Anyway it doesn’t matter, harboring hurt never brought anyone happiness and….” Her words trailed off in mid-sentence. ‘Hiding from the fact that there was no commitment’ echoed inside me. For a moment, I felt as the person who has shied away from commitment I felt hollow from within. I was engulfed in random thoughts when I suddenly felt a nudge at my arm, and looking back saw my wife.

“Its pretty late, I think we should be leaving”, she whispered to me. I always bend down whenever she whispers to me, but somehow I didn’t do it this time. While she spoke, I just kept looking at her blankly. Stared at her, trying to recognize my own wife. Then I suddenly blurted out - “____ … my wife”

“Nice to meet you”, she shook her hand, “and all the best to both of you”. She raised her glass as if proposing a drink, then turned and slowly walked back to the room to join her friends. I kept looking at her walk away for a few seconds, before turning to my wife.

I looked at my wife for a few moments. It was in my second year into my doctoral studies when I met her. My move to the states – I don’t even know whether it helped me or destroyed me – was well appreciated by my parents and relatives. It was supposed to be the stepping stone to a booming career. It was to be the foundation of the rest of my life. Everyone was happy, my parents and relatives, my friends, everyone – except a couple of souls. The distance was taking a toll. It was becoming increasingly difficult to be the same old self. I could feel it, I could see it – I could see myself slowly drifting more and more towards work. Work became a way of life, labs became my home. I started exhausting myself to such an extent, that all I did was work and sleep. I could feel myself drifting away from everything, and looking around, I saw work as the only saviour. I didn’t even realize, that I had lost many more things apart from my sleep – my sense of humour (which is probably the first of things which attracted her to me) had dried up, thanks to the battering I had faced in the hands of the ironies in my life. Life had become colorless and clumsy, it was like a slow moving tortoise, who doesn’t care whats happening around, all it does is doodle at its own pace, and retract into its shell from time to time.

I woke up from my slumber on hearing a female voice, probably arguing with someone. My first reaction was of irritation, but as I turned around to say something, maybe something harsh, I saw a young lady, clad in specs, books in hand, looking at me in a strange way. It was only a few moments later that I realized why she was staring at me – I was nothing more than a haggard face, unshaven for days, who had dozed off on the keyboard in the early hours of the day, after a night long stint. Not to mention about my dressing sense, which I seemed to have left back in my mother land. I had seen many students come and go after a stint in the lab, often leaving with a forgettable impression about me as someone who keeps up to himself. I didn’t expect a different behaviour from her either. She came across as a warm person. And she had an inquisitive streak in her. Her inquisitive nature drew me into talking to her about varying things, from research topics to as diverse as the latest fashion trends in Milan. What struck me the most, was the astonishment similarity between her and ____ . I couldn’t help take a liking to her, more so cause whenever she was around, it reminded me of _____. I suddenly found myself in a different world, I started seeing ____ in her. But then, every time I saw a glimpse of ___ in her, it also reminded me of how things had fallen apart… or rather, how and why neither ____ nor I tried to hold on. I was on a road of a bitter-sweet journey, where every few moments, I would bump into landmarks, which reminded me of the past. Its hard to explain, to have someone besides you, who reminds you of someone endearing from the past. One moment I felt that ___ was with me again, a few moments later, I tried hard to get touch ground, get real.

I look around, trying to spot her in the party crowd. It is the graduation party, myself being one of them receiving the doctoral degree. Didn’t even realize how the past couple of years passed by. Probably cause I had her with me all the time, she, in whom I had seen an image of ____. I saw her from a distance, she looked at me and smiled. I reciprocated. It has been 2 years since I met her, and we share a very special bond. I owe a lot to her, in fact, I should say - she resurrected me. Standing there, on the graduation day, I felt a strange expecting look in her eyes. Does she expect me to … but I don’t think I can, I am so stuck up, with a feet in my past and another feet dangling somewhere in the present. I kept talking to her for a while, when she suddenly said – “what do u expect in life?” I was a bit taken aback at the sudden philosophical question I was facing. I let out a sigh. She looked at me with childlike curiosity, while I tried to look away, unable to decide what to say. I think she could sense what I was thinking. After a long pause, she spoke up again – ‘are you going to settle down in California?’

I knew the time had come to take a decision. I couldn’t leave everything hanging in mid air, I couldn’t face her imploring eyes any more … she seemed to be perplexed, cause I never gave a response when it came to the future, and now it was the graduation day. ‘What about you?’, I said, trying to avoid answering the question. She looked at me, I expected her to say something… but she kept looking at me. After a few moments, which seemed to be ages, she said something unexpected. ‘Don’t you know why I asked you?’, she asked. I looked at her, into her eyes, which were a touch misty, and suddenly felt a searing danger of losing her to time and distance, just the way I had lost ____. I decided not to lose it all again.

I looked at ____ walk away, while my wife stood besides me, holding on to my hand. I remember it was been a party like this on the graduation day of my doctoral study … when I had proposed to her.

Life happens...

I have two final exams in line and yet I cannot let this just pass without writing about it. Life happens.......and is happening all around me in so many myriad forms that I cannot help but stand and stare at it for sometime.

I don't know if it is true for everyone, so maybe I should write about it as from my perspective. But time and time again I have always got confirmation that the situation I am in or the feelings that I have or the thoughts crowding around my head ..... have been felt by others, have been thought by others, have been experienced by others....(those others by the way are called friends)... and in that confirmation I can make a generalisation.

Every girl or guy for that matter always dreams of that someone special in their life. That just one person who is so much like you but yet so much different that you want to spend the rest of your life with that person. What is amazing is how it gets manifested differently through different ages.

I remember when I was in school, it was such a big deal to have a boyfriend. It was something which caused your friends envy, made you a very talked about item and just the fact that you have a boyfriend gave you so much more importance. I don't think that any of us had the maturity at that time to understand even what the word "relationship" stands for. But I am sure that even having a sense of one was enough to make a whole world of difference.

Come college, you were much more grown up and a boy friend just for the sake of showing off did not make any sense anymore. You knew it was more than that, that it was a commitment and yet I know many of us who went into it just for the fun of it. I have seen very few college relationships actually go the whole way, but when they have they really are something remarkable.

Ofcourse, by then among us who are still searching or not searching and just waiting for life to happen, there are a lot of crushes, flirtations but somehow none of them stand the test of time or of the heart. You are left lonely yet again and still searching.

Professional life, and there is so much of time that you get to spend with people and get to know them better that this is probably where most of us commit finally. Ofcourse time plays a major hand in it, but also the fact that we have independence financially, able to sustain and maintain a life of our own.

However for me there is another phase of life which happened. University. Its a very different stage of your life (as are all the rest) in the fact that you have reached a level of maturity, where you know what you want from life, what your goals are, what your constraints are and you know the kind of person you want to spend the rest of your life with. But then since when did life happen on your terms. Even then, life springs such an array of surprises I never thought possible. Among the marriages of old collegemates, both arranged and love, I still see new relationships developing. New people falling in love and rediscovering themselves and I am so awed by the relationship that is love . I don't think there is anything that can be as sublime as the feeling of love. It makes you rise and yet you "fall" :). It is so many things, that it is difficult to put it into words. But time and time again that I have seen it happen I have been awed. Not everyone is lucky to find love or live the rest of their lives with the person they love, or maybe for many it happens at some point, but not at the right one. Its not as easy as it sounds, its not something which happens without its own demands, or that there aren't any compromises involved. But in itself...... it is so complete.

Hence, life happens........
I am still wondering what the point of the entire writeup is but anyways......sometimes yo uwrite just for the heck of it :)

title-less

Good that I named my blog "writers block". So nobody can blame me for not being on board.... for god knows for how long I havent even thought of writing. Even now I dont think I have anything to write about....... this semester has been only a roller-coaster ride of assignments and projects and mid-terms and messing each one up. But I know I want to write and for the time being and to fill the space up :) - this reason should suffice.

I had always thought I was not meant for computer science. After XIIth, "people" all around me had opinions like how engineering or medical were the only careers to be in. Even in that, one should take engineering bcoz you wont have to work too much and whatever you have studied in XI-XII should be enough to see you through. You can call me lazy-bones or whatever but I followed "peoples'" opinions letter for letter. The thought of not having to work too much was so enticing. Ended up taking something I didnt know about (I have never had had computer courses even in school) but according to people was the in-thing to be in, with less work and lots of money. Whole of my engineering life, thats all I have done. Frittered away my time. Grades in exams more or less came easy even after not listening in class. So I somehow never took interest in the subjects. Programming never seemed to work for me, and true to my "less-work" nature I managed most of the programs by ftp. :) (And for the record, shall we restrict that bit of information only till here.) I should have atleast found out how the programs worked, but as long as they ran when I had to show the output, I didn't care. Don't start about girls getting away with all this bcoz there were a good number of guys too who did the same.

I should have known life always gets even with you. Master's hit me full in the face. After a year of only pl/sql programming in Oracle, and having lost touch with even the little programming that I knew in college, I was totally drowning in my first semester. There must have been some rescue ship smwhr that I have managed to make it to the third semester. :) But it really took me a year - 1. to settle down and like the place 2. to love the subject that I had taken by choice but never understood.
There were so many details that make computer science interesting and alive. I first came to learn how young it was. :) (sorry for being such a romantic, but thats how I connect with things), I came to know that while I was being born what was happening in the field. That there were new languages and discoveries springing up in my subject even as I was uttering my first words.
People here know it like the back of their hand bcoz they have been through it. They have worked on the first mainframes and seen the first personal computers take the world by storm.
They have worked side by side with students, many of whom have gone on to make the next discoveries and I am part of that world as long as I am in academia.

Had I been given a choice when I was in XIIth I might probably have chosen english honors. I might have loved it or shirked it when I found the load of learning Chaucer and Shakespeare and Tennyson. But I have grown up loving books and I hardly think I would have not loved any of it.
That however will always be one of those I could have been ..........

I watched a spate of movies in between all this and I loved all of them except ahista ahista, either bcoz of assignment hangovers, or bcoz I was plain just taking time off from studies. Bas ek pal, kabhi alvida naa kehna, dor, lage raho munnabhai, don, ahista ahista....................... most of them were about relationships and hence were very close to my heart. Don was a little off beat and plus I missed the real twist , so I didnt end up liking it.

(On re-reading the entire post, it seems like the spluttering of a car which is reluctant to start, I think I have lost touch completely with writing, and it will take a lot of time and work to get back :).)

Leaving ... is difficult

I shouldn't ever look at College snaps..... I just have to start once and there's no end to all sentiments that come rushing in. Interestingly enough , and I know everyone who has tasted college life would say this..... How come I cursed it so much when I was actually there. Now the roads, canteens, everything seems so close to heart ....from thousands of miles away.
So I am at a college/university/school now too. How come its so different! Or is it that places leave their flavor only after you have left them and gone ! I Have always talked about how hot Tucson is ..... well that other day , while in the cat tran shuttle, it had rained ...... there was the smell of dried mud soaking in the rain, and Tucson looked beautiful. So much so, that I actually felt bad that I was going to leave it in a year. For all these days, all I have ever said is when am I going to leave Tucson.
Guess all I want is to hold on to something familiar, and when the time comes to change ...I resist with all my might. I loved Seattle, no doubt, and I should be happy to be going back there. At a point of time the crowded streets, too many people of Seattle used to remind me of home. Now I think I am kind of getting used to the empty Tucson roads, the hardly meeting any people when you walk to the university, the soaring Catalinas in the north and their play of shadows with the sun...... :)
So typically me ! Just when the time to leave Tucson is drawing near, I feel I will really miss it.

I seem to be living from assignment to assignment these days. The course load has exploded and all I can keep in mind is when the next assignment is due. Its fun ... sometimes not my kind but. I like the kind of fun which comes with less work. And I am sure the sentences are making lesser and lesser sense, I am not a good stay-awake-after-sleeping-only-4 hours kind of person.

So cheers Tucson ! and adieus !

Tongue tied - brain tied - whatever....

I have always been tongue-tied for as long as I can remember. There have been so many times when I have been asked the time, and all I can do is stare blankly at my watch trying to figure out what on earth the position of the two hands on the watch could mean. Or even worse, I would offset the time by an hour and people would respond that that's not possible. Then I would mutter an-under-my-breath apology and hurry away. Its always been like this - I wonder what it is between me and sudden questions. I can never get my brain to react fast enough. I might as well mutter something like "blargh" and that would make more sense than when I do try to speak coherent words.
Thats not the only thing, ask me the name of a person I meet practically everyday suddenly, or a birthday ........ I go completely blank. I think the key word is "sudden". Me and sudden dont go together ... I must have an extremely lazy brain, lazier than me.
Here, people are usually very polite and generally greet you with a "Hi, how are you? " or "How are you doing?" Initially I found it easier to smile than muster up an answer from the depths of my unresponding brain. Then I had this answer of "Good, how are you ?" sort of taped in to my brain so I could respond without thinking.
So guess what happens, a passing fellow asks me "Whats up ? " and all I can reply is "Good" and then due to some dull quick thinking manage to change the second half of my answer to "How are.....is it going for you ?"
I don't think I will ever change or rather my slow responding brain will ever change. !!!

To my brother.......(I have tried to avoid being sentimental)

The first little living thing that was mine, after my birds was my baby brother. Baby , because we had an age difference of 8 years but then it never quite turned out that, the age difference inspired him to call me "didi" or pay me respect. Rather it turned out to be the other way round. :)

So when my brother was born, I was just eight. And most of the sentiments echoed here are those of an eight year old girl which I am trying to jot down as I remember. I have never really written this down before, its always been those memories too dear to be penned down and yet can never be forgotten bcoz they are so much a part of you.

I had always wanted a younger sister when I was young. So when my mother told me that I was going to have a sibling, I had made up my mind that "it" would be a baby sister. I was so looking forward to the day when I would have my new play-mate. I could not keep my smiles hidden.
My brother was born at 1:00 a.m in the night, in Woodlands hospital, Calcutta on September 12th, 1989. I have a vague recollection of my parents leaving at night. And the next day morning my father telling me that I had a little brother. I was very happy to have a new playmate but I won't deny that my enthusiasm was a little dampened when I heard I had a little brother.

The first time I saw him, he was wrapped tight in a white cloth and placed among a score of other similiar babies. I don't even know if I had correctly pinpointed him when Baba showed him to me. He immediately also added "he has jaundice".

My brother was born with jaundice which is not an uncommon affliction in newly borns. But he was also born with a conflicting blood group to my mother's 0+. I don't know what the complications were but they started blood transfusions on him, they were drawing out his blood and pouring in my father's B+ blood group. Ok, if ithis doesn't sound correct, this is what I could make myself understand then.

I didn't know what all this meant, to me the gravity of the situation never struck. Every evening when my father drove me and other aunties and uncles to the hospital, all I would see was everybody's face going graver and graver. Those one hour visiting times with my mother on a white hospital bed, seemed so short a time to talk to her. And with everybody crowding around her, I would never even get a moment with her alone to tell her that I was miserable alone at home. Nothing went correctly without her, my food was not given at the correct time, everyone was telling me what to do. When would she be back. How my brother was, was one of the last thoughts on my mind. I think it was somewhere around the hospital room that I found a little notepad, the kind they give in hotels, and that is probably when my writing career as I know it ;) , started. Everyday that I visited her I would leave little notes of how much I missed her, asking her the same question of when she would be back, poems about things I don't even remember now.

Sometimes I would hear the grownups conversing among themselves, saying leave it to God. And also an unending babble of advice to my mom, my dad. What was most surprising to me was, there would be people and friends breaking down and my mother comforting them.
There were people who had been to Tirupathi and came back with flowers and prayers for my brother. Nuns from my school went to bless him and pray for him. When we waited in the lobby, my father would sometimes introduce me to other uncles and say he has been giving blood for your little brother since morning.
Every day in class my class teacher would ask me how my brother was doing and whether I knew anything. I would say with authority that I had overheard my father say "billirubin is 3".
I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. The only thing I did see was my teachers shaking their heads in anxiety.
The next thing that happened was my mother was released from hospital. I was overjoyed, even though the hospital with its white beds and air-conditioning and nurses and doctors in spotless white uniforms had left an indelible impression on me. My brother still was critical.
I remember this one particular evening when we went to visit him. He was being fed by a nurse who then cradled him on her shoulder immediately and everything that he had eaten so far he started vomitting. Woodlands had these strict rules of not allowing us in to touch the baby and we could only see him through the glass. That scene I will never forget, of my little brother upturned on a nurse's shoulder who was not even noticing while he vomitted everything. His little black eyes were wide with fear and ofcourse they still had him tightly wrapped in that white cloth, which made it seem as if the baby was not even able to breathe. That was when I guess my mom decided to have him moved to another hospital.
The next hospital was nowhere so sophisticated as Woodlands. When I first saw my brother I was in tears. His entire bottom half of the body had developed rashes becoz of being tightly wrapped in those cloths at Woodlands and which we had never even been made aware of. He had developed green diarrhoea. Now as he lay there on an open cot under a ceiling fan, he looked like a stick on "knathas" as we call them.
That was however not the end. From there he was shifted to another hospital so that we could have him treated by a better doctor.

The next thing I remember was one day coming home from school, and finding my father trying to mend this cradle. My brother was finally going to come home.
The next few growing years of his were awesome for me. When I first held those tight closed fists or tried to open them and have them close over my finger, my joy knew no bounds. I remember how when my friends first came and asked my mom whether they could take him on their laps I was so jealous. Jealousy was not something I understood them. All I knew was, he is mine and why should others love him or get to cradle him. I loved having him on my back and patting him to make him burp, I loved the tiny hands of his and the mischeivous smile. The first words he started saying was "ba-ba " bcoz thats how we would always commend him when he ate up his meal. He would sit on the table, a little bib tucked beneath his chin, cerelac or whatever gooey lunch he was having dripping from his face. He had a chuckle of a laugh and learnt quickly to play "tuki" or hide-and-seek with me. He is one of my most precious gifts and I don't think I will ever be able to thank God enough for him.
Ofcourse he never called me didi, he always assumed himself to be the more maturer and I always let him think so, he had a better judgement, a stabler mind and even in the thin frame of his could pack a punch or pull my hair so tightly that I would have tears in my eyes. I would always retaliate in full strength and send him spinning across the room, then we would both be bawling. Sometimes I wish he had been the older. Bcoz rather than be an example to him and make him grow up sooner, I became a kid with him. I even competed with him at Cerelac, I loved the brand that he loved. And so there were always two tins which were bought from the groceries.
Things haven't changed at all, if he starts a fight today I will still fight him back. I agree I respect his decisions much more, from my camera to ipod , everything was chosen by him. Ofcourse his demands are still preposterous, "why don't I work at Microsoft, then he could have the xbox for free". "How dare I call my dog my dog bcoz I was never there to look after him and he has to take him out every evening".
Today morning he said "How come you never write about me". In the afternoon, I dreamt of holding him as a kid on my back and remembered how we played pillow fights and turned somersaults which he was always so bad at. Everybody with a younger older sibling would probably have similiar experiences and fond memories to return to. Its just that I never thought about them at length so much before or rather dwelt on them. Today I am suddenly very nostalgic for that sweet little baby brother and me being 8 years old. This might be true for everyone, but to this day, to me, my baby brother as I saw him in the cradle and while chuckling and while crawling on the ground, is the sweetest little baby to me.
And this I dedicate to a 17 year old gawky teenage-brother , nearly a good five inches taller than me who has been gloating/harping on that ever since he became just a centimeter taller .......

Frozen

At first it was I won't blog, its just a means of drawing attention to yourself. Why would you want to share your life with other people. Next it was, oh what the heck, maybe I should maintain an online diary that will reduce my one to one emails of writing the same stuff over and over to different friends. I would restrict the diary (read blog) to only my friends , after all a url like 21writersblock is not an easy one to guess. Then it was, wow there are people actually reading my blog, people who don't know me or have just started knowing me. And now it is, my blog , a forum for thoughts and ideas and just mumbo jumbo about what I think ........ which to me are in no way mature or profound, but just that when I read them later after a month or two or when I am down, they sort of bring back a moment in time and a smile on my face - and I think "wow! did I ever think that way". Sort of like writing about your first crush in your diary and coming back to it years later and thinking ...... could I have really had a crush on this guy!
Its the same way with photos, when you see that picture with people frozen in action, some smirking, some having fun , some trying to make horns on your head, its so much a part of time that is frozen. That mood, that crowd, that feeling .... they immediately bring back a few more memories, of what we did before and after that photo was taken. Of the jokes that were cracked , of the moments that were shared and lived together. From then till now, there must have been so many incidents that might have changed you. Experiences as they call it, made you more mature, more ready to face life. But tell me if you would never wish to go back to that moment in the photo, which is frozen, given a chance. There are so many times I have looked at a photo, at an unknown face in the photo or someone I don't recall or someone I had met just once, and I can't help thinking : how did life treat them , what are they doing now ?
There are so many times I have seen a photo of a friend, seen the carefree smile on her face, and then turned to look back at a smile which is more knowing now, and not as much carefree.

Wishful thinking, but when you don't feel like working and you have an assignment due in two hours, this is where I guess your mind escapes to.

Knick Knacks

An ok day, except that I went through it as if I had just got out of bed on the wrong side. I remember reading the same expression in a Noddy book. Somehow that day would go all wrong for him, for starters the bell on his hat stopped ringing. Good old days, - childhood :) I remember I used to go to school in a chartered bus called Raja Service. We somehow had never thought of asking who is Raja. Anyway, today was not a bad day just that my mood was bad.

What scares me is this, and I am sure I caught this from Monika, I have started talking to myself. (Yes, yes just one more sign of madness) I will be walking along thinking about my stupidity in some random incident and exclaim out aloud. I am sure I get quite a few stares but I choose to hurry on as fast as I can, looking down and avoiding all eyes.

A rainbow over the Catalina mountains on the north side of Tucson reminded me of a song as I was walking back. I don't know why , rainbows can never fail to awe you. So it happened that after a long time, I was humming Sunshine on my shoulders. Its a beautiful song by John Denver. When I was small/young (both mean the same thing now - ages ago :) ) there was a beautiful ad which came on doordarshan and this song was played in the background. The best lines would have to be:
" If I had a wish I could wish for you, I'd make a wish for sunshine all the while."
What is most beautiful about those lines is wanting to make a wish for someone else but I guess I needn't have said that.

Back to my bookstore

I was back at Arizona bookstore today after days. I was hoping to find some book that would interest me. I usually need a book which grabs my attention fast, is usually about people, relationships and I am happy. When I entered the store I had no idea what I was going to pick up, so I made my way to the only section which interests me. Fiction. Maybe if you have guessed so far you will be able to guess the book I picked up too......but thats a far cry.
I started alphabetically and stopped at C. Yup, Mistress of Spices, by Chitra Divakaruni. The book caught my attention and I am 20 pages down. So I will not venture a review yet. I had read Rana Dasgupta's book for which he won a prize and the name of which is completely eluding me now. (Its some Plane to Tokyo or something) Though it started great, all the literary analogies had me in a whirlwind for a day or two. I think that book had the longest hangover on me becoz I could not digest everything in his stories or his writing.
I saw Yun hota to kaisa hota yesterday, thanks to Niyanta for having downloaded it. Its a good movie, different, and I think more striking if you have been through part of the process. The whole hype about coming to USA, the visa process, the plane journey..... I am homesick, waiting to get back home I guess. For someone who was known to run home at the slightest opportunity from Trichy, I think I have outstayed long enough from home.

Losing interest

I never had to try to write. Whenever I would sit down, there were a zillion things I wanted to talk about. I guess something has changed. Now even when I sit down to write, all I end up doing is analyzing my thought process. :) Which even to me is very boring , leave alone all those who persevere to wade through it.
When I had written that Seattle took away something on one hand, I don't think I put it in strong enough words. It took away the very foundation of my belief in relationships. I tried so hard to grasp on to something that I guess I had to let go of it all. Coming to terms with that, rather learning to accept has been the hardest thing in my life. The good thing ofcourse is, you know nothing can hit you harder. So I think my everyday pangs of worrying, fretting, anxiety have visibly reduced. Everyday is a great new day now because nothing that could happen could hit me as hard as the truck that already did.
And somewhere some part of me is dead, because what I believe in no longer exists.
We were having this discussion the other day about how, to everyone their worries seem the hardest and most important in the world. I am no exception, I have so often tried to rationalise with myself that there might be worse things in life, I just can't end up convincing myself.
Oh ...I think I am plunging too much into me myself again :) (seems kind of contradictory seeing that the entire blog is about that.)
I think I read this saying somewhere "Hope is the quintessential essence of man." So hoping, maybe I will start believing again in what I thought was once true.

Defining me

I have had this fascination about ice-skating. If you have ever seen ice-skating in the olympics you would know what I mean. You can't just sit there and not get absorbed in a beautiful ephemeral word (and I do so hope that is the correct word.) Guess what!! I got a chance to try it out myself. And even though I would have been quite the hippopotamus on skates, I had a great time trying something out which ....even in my wildest dreams I never thought I would get a chance to do. All thanks to Ramya. :)

In the last weekend that has been, (Labor day weekend) I have rediscovered myself and Tucson in many ways I had not thought possible. And yes, since the place is always defined by the people, you can say there are more than one responsible. There were 5 of us who hung out this weekend, with chats extending nearly till 2 in the night. If anything, it was reliving college. Life takes your breath away when you least expect it to.

Seattle gave me on one hand and took away with the other. (I have composed and recomposed this line so many times, its now almost a part of me. ) I agree I am always the complaining, whining depressive mode person, but Seattle saw me in my worst element. So why did I fall in love with Seattle ... it made me realize I can come out of a crisis alone, without whining to someone. It gave me independence, spending power, ........ and believe me, that changes the color of the glasses you are looking thru, at the world.

Why I didn't blog for so long ? I suddenly got very conscious. Ever since I heard, googling my name brings this up. I lost complete touch with blogs that I was reading , commenting on and following. I just shut that only writing part of my life. Took to a diary, and felt thats all I need. Still not sure why I came back. :) Something just made me appreciate life a little more. Something just made me feel a little young again. Something just brought me back to my blackboard. Probably the flow is missing, and I am leaving out a lot unsaid. I am happy ..... even though Tucson should be the one I should be in love with , Seattle is still quite my hangover. And till I have randomn thoughts like these , I guess I'll still continue to write.

My walk down downtown Seattle

I am watching "So you think you can dance" . Its similiar to the American Idol except every contestant has to dance. And then you have a similiar voting system. But so far they have danced salsa, hip-hop and next is contemporary something. So it might be that my concentration gets diverted while writing :) ............., but today has been a good day. I am thankful and I have been writing in my mind ever since I was walking back home. So its only fair I write it down.

So my office is about a mile away. And I walk the stretch everyday ...there and back. It is probably the only form of exercise that I get ...(but with the amount of eating out I have been doing it isn't really a lot of good :) ) But my eating habits is not something I want to dwell on here.

Downtown seattle is lined with an amazing variety of stores. I cross streets named Spring, Madison, Washington, Columbia, Main, Jackson, Occidental...and a host of others which I have forgotten. By the end of it I inevitably have unbelievably aching feet, trembling knees, and a distraught "if i had a chair i would sit down here" kind of look on my face.

So you have about three magic carpet stores, yes the same Kashmiri carpets exquisitely woven. Don't ask me the price, I have never dared to ask. But each one on display is so captivating that I continuously stare unabashedly(right word remembered at the right moment :) !!) at each window that I pass. There is a toy store called Magic Mouse and Toys, which is the only store I have visited in downtown and that to thrice, once to ask the price, twice to buy a birthday gift for two different birthday friends. The other neighbors are the book-stores.

Have you seen Notting Hill ? Then have you seen the bookstore Hugh Grant runs ? Well , then you won't have trouble imagining the wooden shelves, lined with books till the roof. There is something amazingly romantic about the brown shelves and the books from all categories nestling in them. Somehow , I have only window shopped ....browsed from outside the glasses , never ventured in. I have to spend some time in each soon. Considering they even inspired me to daydream about how great it would be to be able to spend your entire day surrounded by books.

The other store is Starbucks, :) (You've got mail ..yeh yeh !!) Well just for a bit of trivia, Seattle is where Starbucks started its first store. I have seen it too, it has 1912 written on it.

And finally I couldn't end without saying being "Sleepless in Seattle" is not difficult at all. Shobana and Vishnu messaged me after they saw the movie and in between my hike in Snoqualmie. I started reading the message from the end and it read "missing you and love you a lot." :) (I'll leave it at that !!) (I agree my mood is great bcoz the day went well! )

Hey there

Have been rocking in Seattle so far ..... I went hiking to Snoqualmie falls. Why it was hard is bcoz of this ..I am not a hiker, I am not a regular gym goer, I am not even one for routine work-outs ...... but if you had been to the falls , you would have wished you were into all this. Just to escape the immense tiredness and body-aches in more than a zillion places the next day. It was not a tough hike... slippery rocks were the only danger, and you did make a few trips and falls before you could actually reach the caves near the falls....... But once you reached there you could take enough snaps, from all angles of the falls to show where you had been. :)

Later in the day, the Amazonian interns group - Shweta, Sandhya, (Namita- did not join us in the evening), Natalie, Shashank, Jack, Jason, Brendan, Neil,Jake and me .... a group of eleven hogged on Mexican food at Mama's Kitchen, and then spilled into the movie theatre for Cars. It was not in the same humour league as Shrek 2, but you should see it to see how they have put characters into cars. And the amazing job they have done of it.

Then I ended up watching Ankhen, the one with aftab, amisha and esha deol and is basically about esha being a manic depressive. There is this book , Three men in a boat and this is not my first allusion to it, where the main character ends up reading a book on self-remedies and feels that he has every disease in the book . (Try it sometime - I am sure you will too :)) Well that was quite my case with the movie.... I do not want to end up being manic depressive ....... so I think the best option will be to stay happy. :) So for all the people I have been complaining cribbing to....I hope you have seen the last of that.

So how is Seattle! well with water everywhere, its quite a difference from Tucson. Sunlight shimmering on the bay.... ships and ferries leaving every hour, Oh did I forget to mention, I did not have to move out of the apartment after all so I get to enjoy the view everyday while I am in Seattle. But somehow mountains will always be where my heart is. When you see the overhanging branches on the mud trails, green ferns all around ....such a shade of green which the freshest showers of rain could only have painted in, the crunch of sneakers on the moist mud and twigs strewn about ....... the crooked, curving roads........ wow...could anything be more inviting. That was what is Snoqualmie, Ooty, Kodai ...Darjeeling and any hillstation you can remember.

Too much too soon...

Too much has happened and too soon to be able to spell out and bring you upto date on it. There were times when I almost abandoned writing , because I felt I did not want to put my thoughts up on the black board after all maybe.
But when you are sitting in front of a sunset , over a sea ...stretching to limitless horizons..... with a few yatchts throwing their shadows, and a ship ferrying across cars to a distant island, and the tell-tale traces and memories of a harbor cruise ship which had been docking in the same waters till yesterday ............. can you but not write about it! Alas! This will be my first and last sunset over the sea in this amazing apartment I guess. Tomorrow, my internship starts and so also my permanent accomodation at a new place. What started out with bungling mistakes.......
I checked in at my assigned apartment to find my room-mate was a guy, I very well had not known if that was a mistake or not on the part of my relocation manager. But they were very kind to find me temporary accomodation in a lovely single bedroom apartment , about which I have been gushing over till now........ and needless to say , the view was enough to make me fall in love with it.

But but but.... I left out a lot of details.... I am in Seattle, its a very green place but I was not having much fun with the housing worry at the back of my head all the time. Even then we visited about 3 major attractions, the Space Needle - amazing, X-Men 3 movie ...good but not great , Harbor cruise .....- very nice but cold.... , Aquarium and piers...stupendous with some beautiful videos and photos, Woodland Park and Zoo - great, Pacific Science Center - nice...with quite a few water shooting stuff and laser shows and dinosaurs.

Too much right ...I am sure life will soon settle down now ... but it was breathtaking while it lasted. I meant both the sunset and Seattle :)

I don't know.....

These seem to be my favorite three words all of a sudden. While coming , going, walking alone...anytime anybody asks me anything or even when I am speaking to myself ....the first three words that seem to jump out from my throat are "I don't know".
I have been worrying or trying to worry about so many things, at the same time, that for the past few days the world had completely shrunk to me.

Today is a little better ... :) maybe bcoz a database demo went well. And then maybe bcoz of Starbucks coffee "Double Chocolate Chip" which was heavenly ........ and I have sort of negotiated with myself to leave things to work themselves out. After all, when there was nothing in my hands, something did come up out of the blue.
If I have been talking in circles in the last few lines...its high time I cleared things up a little. What I have been referring to is internship interviews.

A lot of my friends are landing in the USA this year, well thats not surprising...... this seems to be everybody's ultimate destination. I am happy for my friends, just wishing they had landed up last year itself.

A lot of my friends are getting married, and I guess the rest of us are realizing that things are moving pretty fast and its not like college anymore and we don't have all the time in our hands and nothing to worry about..... as we used to.
Ofcourse this is besides the fact that some of us are feeling pretty old as well. :)

I have been shopping ....(a girl's favorite past-time you would say ...well that is one point I would never disagree.) When I go to the malls and just stand and look around ...there are so many things I would like to spend money on. And if you have noticed ...... what you spend money on varies from person to person. What I might consider is "great at any cost" maybe exorbitantly pricey to another person.
But mall trips inevitably remind me of this shop called Odyssey in Trichy. It was sort of my little treasure island. Ofcourse they used to advertise themselves as the Leisure store. You can sit read and not buy anything. But you don't travel all the way from college to the city, on a Central Bus Stand bus (CBS-bus) and end up not buying anything and come back. And once you are in the city ...who can even think of going back to the mess and having dinner. So TAB (a restaurant there - I forgot which was the best dish there. There is another restaurant called Rock City in MG. If you ever happen to be there, do not forget to try Dolmond Pepper Chicken) ended up making quite a profit from us.

Well so long, discussions like these always tend to make me hungry ...... and I am thankful they took my mind off of a lot of other things. :)
(Oh in case you are wondering why the regular movie reviews are missing, I have stopped my subscription to Netflix for sometime in anticipation of going home. But I did watch Notting Hill ........ again. And I loved it as always. Anybody need cds to be copied , send across a request.)

Catching up

I have a quiz scheduled tomorrow and for once (no actually like always), I am in no mood to study. So I watched two movies in a row ...thanks to Niyanta. Taxi number 9-2-11 and Water... diametrically opposite movies .....one lightens your mood and the other puts it in depressive mode. The only thing common in both was John Abraham. :) But I liked both .......... only I wish the order in which I watched them had been reversed,.......... water has totally put me off color.

Given that, I suddenly realized the thing called responsibility which for so many days I had not even considered as a speck in the horizon, is going to catch up with me soon. For so many days, I have lived for myself .......... earnt and spent with solely me, myself, mine in mind. Selfish yes!

This should be among my shortest and most cryptic posts yet ...though I can never credit myself for having so much brains as to accomplish all that..... in any case ........ Sionara! (hopefully this is the correct spelling).

Videos out

The videos are out.... but unfortunately the video cam battery ran out in between and so the complete skit has not been captured on tape. The links :
Part I : The one with the entry of grad students to America
Part II : The one with the class-room scenes

Things have been moving pretty fast since then ..some up and most down as usual. :) But today I have managed to mess up a company interview and I am still in the process of blaming unblaming myself for it. So in no mood to write ... will get back soon I guess.I am actually just back from watching Brokeback Mountain. I should have taken the movie more seriously but a night of less sleep can sure put you in a half-drunken stupor. So don't ask me for a review. But yes, you should watch it once atleast to know what the hype is all about.

Right now , I am banking on F.R.I.E.N.D.S season 1 to cheer me up and maybe All quiet on the Western Front too. Considering that I am in this sliding window of moving from one movie to the next and one thing to the next ...its a wonder I still get time to crib and brood.
:)

Tucson Dreams - the skit in the making

My golden anniversary post. (for the uninitiated - this happens to be my fiftieth post :) and I took 11 months to achieve it) .

With all due credit to the creative talents of the crew involved, please do not reproduce this in part or in whole without the xplicit consent of any one of the crew. Else we will feel liable to charge a copyright violation fee of $500 in cash or cheque or via credit card! :) Having said this, we have taken two scenes from a NCSU skit which was put up on Google videos. (A phone scene and a Rita scene.)

I had initially thought of adding comments but the skit has been so well documented that it needs no prompting from me. :) However , there are a few back-stage and on-stage incidents which did not make it in the documentation stage. I have included them if only for reminiscence. The first of these was Rahul's accident on the morning of the skit, he broke his leg. We missed having him as he was one of the narrators, plus one of the actors in the skit. If I randomize my guess, I think it was half an hour before the start of the function that the India club treasurer , Ravi accepted to help us out. And the rest we improvised.

I don't know how much you might identify with......but this is how we live out our grad lives and almost all the scenes are based on real-life incidents.

Tucson Dreams
Shashi Kiran Chilappagari
April 14, 2006

Cast and Crew
Archana, Jaikumar, Karthik, Niranjan, Preetha, Rahul, Sapna, Sarika, Shalini, Shashi, Shivram, Sunil

Scene 0: Introduction
What happens: Narrator introducing the plot and setting
We proudly present to you, the smash hit Fraudway musical “Tucson Dreams”- the story of a man in search of his destiny. This is the story of a man’s triumph over his surroundings, this is the story of every Indian abroad, this can as well be your story. So sit back and try to enjoy. If you cannot, then God help you.

Warning: If you are listening to this, this warning is for you. All the characters are real and any resemblance is intentional. Our aim is to offend as many people as we can and we consider ourselves successful if we can offend at least one person. If you are not offended, please see us after the show. We might think of something special for you.
Now, on to the show.
The time setting of the show is eternal. It has happened before, it is happening now as we talk and it will happen for years to come. So, let us just say that it is May now and there are many people back in India who have got admits here at the U of A. We will look at some of them.

Owing to the diversity of the Indian students here at U of A, it is almost impossible to fit a student into a stereotype. However, recent studies have shown that a grad student at the U of A is from Chennai, has studied in SRM or SVCE with probability 1/2 and if you address him as Mr.Krishnan, you are almost certain to get the first or last name right. So let us swoop down to Chennai and catch a couple of students there.

Scene 1: Coffee Day

What happens: Two students meeting at coffee day discussing admits
Music: (Tamil song - to be decided...Kottu dheekottu from Narasimha)

Here in the confines of coffee day at Nugambaakam, Chennai we see Mr. Anantharaman krishnan from SVCE and Mr.Manigantan Seturaman from SRM discussing their future plans.
Ananth: So you also got admit in U of A. Any aid or fellowship
Mani: no, macha. I wrote to all the professors in the department and no one replied.
Ananth: so you have any special area of interest like signal processing or VLSI
Mani: nothing da, whichever area has funding
**Narrator: You have just caught a glimpse what goes on in a grad student’s mind before he enters the US. Apart from trivial things like coursework, funding, area of research, he or she has to think of more important things like how much sambhar masala would be enough for one year.
(Ananth and Mani get up and are walking off stage)
Ananth: So when are you planning to leave for Tuk-son
Mani: Next Sunday da. I am planning to go to San Jose (pronounced as such and what everyone learns after coming to USA - the actual pronounciation is San-Ose) and visit some relatives there.
Ananth: Oh, I am on the same flight. See you at the airport!
Of course, one of the biggest concerns of an incoming desi student is exactly who will pick them up at the airport. Not to worry, the incoming students are in the safe hands of (PLAY SHOCKING MUSIC) the India club.

Scene 2: India club
What happens: IC members deciding on pickups
The IC has a five year plan in action for picking up students and arranging temporary accommodation. The committee members meet to decide on the logistics and every minute detail is worked out. The process is completely fair and reasonable.
Jai: (keeps reading out guys’ names, and gives sheets one by one to Rahul) **Karthik, Ananth, Manikantan, Vivek, Rahul, Kishore, Shiva, Srinivasan**
Trin Trin (phone ring)
On Phone: Hello sir, My good name is Srinivasan and I am at the tucson airport. Is someone coming to the airport to pick me up.
Niranjan: abbe koi banda airport se call kar raha hai, kya kare?
Jai: kuch tho bolo yaar
Niranjan: Actually, we are busy planning the pickups. Why dont you take a shuttle and come.
Jai: Ramu shamu, hey check this out man....Pooja, soumya, archana, preetha, sarika, shalini, radha, sada,
what ranganathan....you take this man..(giving it to Rahul) Lets get going man...good job.
Everyone exits.

Scene 3: Airport pickup
What happens: IC members going for pickup
Narrator: Now, back to our heroes. who are leaving their motherland and travelling across oceans in pursuit of their dreams.
tee titi tii tiitit ttiti (music in narrator's voice)
(They reach one end of the stage)
Narrator: Welcome to Tucson Intl airport. Flight IC 814 from India arrives 10 hours late.
(Karthik and Shivram walk onstage, totally transformed into cool dudes) (Hip hop music playing)
(Rahul stands waiting. He’s yawning, looks bored. K and S are totally excited).
Andy: hello sir, I am andy
Mani: hello sir I am Mani. Do you know the funding situation.
Rahul: Welcome to Tucson. Take your bags and come. (Walks off)
***Think of funny music - two guys fighting for a girl/some hot babe song types****
(Girls come on stage)***Funky Music..think hard perhaps music which has claps in it*** Niranjan and JK are totally excited now, waiting for them. Greet them all excited, and fight with each other to carry their bags.

Jise dhoondthaa ho mein har kahi
jo kabhi mili mujhe hai nahi
mujhe jiske pyaar par ho yaki
woh ladki hai kahaa
tee tit tit tit tee tit ti
Niranjan: Let me take your bags
JK: No no, let me
(JK tries to lift bags, Niranjan pushes him off)
Niranjan: You can’t lift those bags da. Let me handle it.
JK: Ok then. Carry them to my car. (To the girls) You know, I’m fully funded.
(Walk off)

Scene 4: Fundaes session
What happens: IC members going for pickup
The senior at the U of A is the epitome of a fatherly figure helping the clueless junior in every aspect varying from tips on cooking to helping the junior in deciding what courses to take. Of course, all without expecting anything in return. The overwhelmed junior does not know how to thank the senior. He can hardly believe that so much good can exist in this world.

Senior: I think you should look for an apt and open a bank account. Come on let me help you with those things
Junior: I really dont know how to thank you, sir. I really appreciate it.
Senior: come on no problem man, our seniors helped us so we are helping you. One small thing; when you open an account and find an apt they will ask who referred you. Just tell my name.
The new student is understandably homesick. So he buys a calling card and calls India. 1-800-375-4100
Sapna: Please press 1 for english . Para espaneol numero dos
Narrator: Hearing this Andy breaks down. JK sees this and asks him why he is crying
Andy; Sir, I bought a calling card to call India. The aunty on the other side says, press 1 for english and press 2 for spanish. I want to talk to my mother in Tamil sir...boo hooo...

Classroom Scene
What happens: Classroom scene
Narrator: With the preliminaries out of the way, the student sets out to the university eager to make new acquinatnces, ready to experience new culture, and explore life on an American campus.
(Karthik walks around, looks very impressed by everything around him).
Narrator: It is midday now, and the student is now on the lookout for food. His initial enthusiasm has been scorched by the Tucson sun, and he enters the nearest building.
(Karthik looks around, approaches librarian -Sarika)

Karthik: Excuse me, can I have a cheeseburger and one Pepsi please?
Librarian (looking angry): I’m sorry sir, this is a LIBRARY.
Karthik: Oh sorry. (Softly) Can I have a cheeseburger and one Pepsi please?
(Librarian points towards the exit)
(Karthik looks sad and walks out)
Narrator: Since the new desi student automatically multiplies any number by 46.44, finding food on campus is a tough optimization problem, with too many constraints. Thus our hero continues to wander on campus searching for food (think of a sad song to play)
***Sapaatu yetu ledu paatina padu brotheru***
(Music suddenly changes to a very upbeat tempo, and another students runs by him excitedly)
Niranjan (excited, shouting): Come on come on, free pizza in the Agriculture and Life Sciences Department!
(both run very excitedly)
(Bunch of Indian students standing and eating pizza)
(Niranjan says hi to many people around him)
(Prof walks around)
Prof: Thank you for coming to my lecture on ’The role of scavengers in the Eco-balance’
Niranjan: Oh it was brilliant sir, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything
(Prof walks off)
Karthik (confused): So what is going on here? Are you in this department?
Niranjan: We are in all departments man. Take one more pizza.
Narrator: Now that our hero’s hunger has been satistfied, he can now go for his first class with full enthusiasm. The new student is always a little apprehensive about the classroom environment. Will he be able to fit in? Will he be able to understand the accents? Can he relate to the unfamiliar faces around him? It is with these questions that he enters the classroom expecting to see it full of Americans.
** Same Tamil music playing in the background***
*** Everyone talking in Tamil, greeting him ***

Socialising scene
Indians have a reputation for being bookworms. As all of you know, this is completely false. We are known for being party hounds and social animals. At any American party you can see a lot of Indians hiding in the corners. Guys are known to pick up girls with lot of ease and we shall direct your attention at one excellent example of a desi student in action
*** English music playing ***

Jai; Excuse me, what is your name
Sapna: Rita
Jai: Rita ji, ek haseena ke liye yeh naa cheez pesh kartaa hai yeh shayari
Mein tere pyar mein paagal hu rita
Mein tere pyar mein paagal hu rita
if and only if sintheta/costheta=tantheta *****************

India club scene
Narrator: At this point in the show, we would like to pause for a minute and dedicate a segment to the India Club, without whose support, this farce would not have been possible. What happens behind the closed doors of the India Club is a matter of much speculation, and not much is known about this very dynamic and creative organization. Please keep in mind that the following reenactment is just a wild guess at what goes on in the Fight Club. Oh sorry, the India Club.
(Fast music - Mortal Kombat, people acting like they’re fighting)
(Need to fix fight sequence, make it funny)
(Music suddenly changes to Shakalya baby (try to rerecord it))

Narrator: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the president of the India Club!
Kishore: Stop your discussions people, we need to decide on Spring Fling by this evening.
******************************************

This was where the mikes gave up on us. And there were shouts of stopping and changing the mike as the jokes could not be heard. With all the actors on stage, and in the middle of the confusion, Shashi shouted out "freeze" and all of us on stage froze in place. He followed that with "rewind" and all the actors immediately did the best of rewind actions to the previous scene. And all this was impromptu.

******************************************

Guys (winking at each other): Heena stall
(Music slowly buils up, Mehndi hai rachne wali)
Girls: No no, we need to do something exciting and new. It must be original and thrilling. It must be totally mindblowing
(Guys yawning)
Narrator: Five hours later
(Music is now louder)
Kishore: Hey ok, the mail has to go out in two minutes.
Everyone: Ok, henna stall! Yay!
(Song - Mehndi lage ke rakna, everyone dances off)

Haircut scene
Narrator: Many months have now passed, we shall now take another look at our heroes (think of how to show long hair). They have found a new sense of fashion, and have also saved hundreds of dollars. All by avoiding haircuts for the past year.
Only one thing can make a desi spend money on haircuts.
The job interview.

Career Services
(K & S, carrying a big sack full of resumes)
(Looking very enthu)
(Go to a stall, resume in hand)
Person at the stall: F1 student? Next please!
(Keep going to stalls, same respone, people at stalls point to other stalls)
(K & S look very dejected)
Naa koi umang hai
Naa koi tarang hai
mere zindagi hai kyaa
ek kati patang hai

Niranjan and JK walk in looking very cool.

Niranjan: Why so sad man?
Shivram: What thale, no one’s taking our resumes
JK: What man, you came to the career fair to get a job? (N and JK laugh hysterically)
Niranjan: Follow us
(They go to a stall, person giving long speech about Tucson Police Dept)
Person at stall: Welcome gentlemen. The tucson police department is looking for strong, dynamic and energetic young people. You get to be part of PD is ..... (think of a funny speech)
Niranjan (looks very interested): Oh, fantastic. I see. Oh. Aha.
Person: Is there anything you would like to ask me?
Niranjan: Where are the T-shirts?
(Everyone takes T-shirts and they go off looking happy)
(Niranjan stops and realises something, goes back to stall)
Person at stall: Same speech...Midway, realises Niranjan’s been there before
Person: Have I seen you before sir?
Niranjan: Ah yes, I’m actually L, but I picked up an M shirt.
(Person looks sad, Niranjan walks off looking happy)
Person: Hey atleast give back the other t-shirt man!

Final Scene
Narrator: And this is how it came to pass, that in the spring of 2006, a change was in progress. The old stalwarts found new jobs, and moved on. Where are they now?
(Funky music - Kannada for Ninja/JK?)
(They walk on stage, full attitude)
JK: Very few people are lucky enough to work on a product that they have used to such a great extent, especially to solve their assignments. JK now works at Google, where he searches for the meaning of life. Narrator: Niranjan is now a highly succesful programmer with Microsoft. Any new bugs in future Microsoft products are mostly because of him. Rahul is now a PhD student who has taken upon himself the onus of heading the India club ably assisted bythe young blood Andy and Mani.
In this ever changing world India club remains as one reassuring constant and these three guys will make sure that the Tucson Dreams still goes on.
(Play some music)

Epilogue
If you have not realized yet, the show is over. All auience are requested to stand and applaud and show their appreciation by generously contributing tomatos and onions. Please note that we do not accept any frozen vegetables. Do not throw the vegetables at random. Form a line and wait for your turn. If you have not got tomatos, there is a stall outside selling vegetables and we have some discount coupons here. Now to the cast;
Andy played by Karthik Shyam
Mani played by Shivram Mani
JK, Niranjan and Rahul as seniors
Archana, Preetha, Shalini, Sapna and Sarika as the girls
Sunil the publicity manager
Shashi as the narrator

Back to the grind

It began with a very informal get-together... and some random ideas put together. But none of us could even have imagined that it would be a runaway hit. :)
I am talking about the same skit - Tucson Dreamz.

The posters here are the publicity stunts we adopted owing to the brainwaves of the "director". The best part about the entire skit was we had as much fun making it as people had watching it. This is the first time in the past 8 months in Arizona, that Tucson really rocked for me.


Which is why it is always difficult to face the assignment after all the fun is over...and you wish somehow yesterday had never ended. :) I guess its the same way after every trip that I have taken, every competition, every stage performance, .......... coming back to life from the stage is very difficult. :)

Awesome.....

Some days just turn out to be amazing. Whether it is because of the people you meet by chance or by decision, whether it is in something you participate or otherwise. Today happened to be one such day .... as varied in the experience, as in the dinner-buffet that I was lucky to have.

First I dug up this snap of the conference at San Francisco. Just one look at it serves as a great source of inspiration because it never ceases to remind me that there are millions of others like me with the same aims, aspirations, striving , succeeding and failing ........ working towards common goals, and best of all........ having the same dreams.

Then coming back to today, a group of students had sat down to write up a script for an Indian cultural fest coming up called Tarana. The skit revolves around the life of a graduate guy who comes from India to UofA and how he gets accustomed to the ways here and goes on to graduate. It focusses on the comedies of everyday grad life of an Indian.
- How just before coming here we refer to Tucson (pronounced Two-sun) as Tucson(pronounced Tuk-son) to all our friends
- How once we are here we go for all free food events .... actually for all freebies.
If there is news of a career fair where free t-shirts are available or free stuff, or a pizza store is advertising free pizzas ...... you are bound to find Indian students there.
- How we always smile and acknowledge other Americans(whoever greets us) but glance away on seeing fellow indians whom we don't know.

Just before leaving for the US, I had read a forwarded mail on how to recognize an Indian who has recently returned from the United states. .......... it included a few of the following anecdotes:
- he drinks nothing but mineral water
- he is always converting from kms to miles and kgs to lbs
- he tries paying by credit card for all purchases
and after that my memory lets me down. The point however is ....it seemed just a few days ago that I was sitting in front of my monitor laughing at these jokes. It seems so scary that I might be turning into such a nightmare myself, so soon.

Today evening, Luann and Dennis took me to a native seeds dinner. It was a formal dinner where all teh dishes were prepared from natural seeds of the region....... but non-vegetarian food was also there. So name something and I will probably say that I had it. The variety was amazing. What was even more amazing was, we shared our table with a lady from teh Tucson city council. Her brother happens to be one of the top 10 american sarodists who has been tutored by Pandit Ali Akbar Khan. Whats more, she happens to know Zakir Hussain since when he was twenty. I don't know about you , I nearly fell off my chair when I was sitting there listening to her telling everybody about the sarod instrument and about Zakir Hussain. The last I have seen and been completely bowled over by Zakir Hussain was in Hyderabad, where I went to watch a concert with Shobana. His personality never ceases to amaze me.
Anyway, I will be able to catch Pandit Ravi Shankar's concert in Tucson. And there still remain a few artists whose concerts I am still trying to catch.

My post's ending note I wanted to be on relationships. Have you ever wondered that even within your friends you have so many different levels of comfort, of familiarity. Mithra has written a very beautiful piece on this thought. Well once I got thinking...there were so many different relationships that came to mind. But I just wondered in how many of them did people go beyond themselves to think about the other person involved. I have been lucky to have friends, who, though ISD distances away, have kept me going by the very thought that they care. I could never thank them enough ...... be it for the mails out of the blue asking if I was still single or fixed :). (Should I add some more smileys here for the person I am targetting!) The best part I am thankful about is that they have never imposed, claustrophobic as I am with relationships which demand too much of me , the people whom I have crossed in corridors, gone to mess with and roamed around the whole of campus have turned out to be the ones I am comfortable with the most. I am not sure if it is college which sows the seeds of eternal friendship, for me it sure has ....... and it is only when it comes to my "this group" ..that I fail to differentiate between levels of comfort and friendship.
Isn't there a mail which goes, smile because you don't know who is falling in love with your smile. And feel happy because someone somewhere is thinking of you, well here's to all my friends. Hope you have a great day because I am thinking about all of you.
(And the above few lines are copied to the best of my memory from a forwarded mail:) but they seemed apt in the context).

Life

I wonder what it is that puts you in the mood to write and what it is that doesn't. I always thought your hobby is something that helps you to be happy when you are not. But it seems more like when I am not happy I can't write. :)

In the long interim period that I did not blog, there have been a zillion things that happened, came went, washed away ....... and somehow I was so absent minded all the time that while most of the things are there somewhere in memory , they do not agree to come up in sequence. (Effect of pursuing master's ...- "in sequence", "in memory" :) )

Memorable among these were, I went to attend a conference to San Francisco. SFO was awesome, the conference was equally motivating ..... there is a place called Sausalito which from the glimpse that I got of it I felt, was a wee bit of paradise. Best thing about California, which does not change everytime I see it,...... is that its so green.

I also caught some movies, somehow everybody nowadays calls me a movie buff, well in defense all I can say is ....atleast they give me a source of enjoyment and relaxation. :) But the movies that I caught, were Goodnight and Goodluck, The bicycle thief, Grapes of Wrath , ..... Fun with Dick and Jane. The last movie was one which I went off to watch alone. It didnt seem like a very novel thing to do .... I don't mean the going to the movie part, I meant the going alone part.
But it was only after one of my friends commented "Are you freaking gone mad" that I started to think if I had !! :) Then I finally came to the conclusion that I hadn't. Well until you go and watch a movie alone, or have fun alone and realise you don't need to depend on others to make you happy , you probably would not realise what I mean. Its just that I am tired of dragging people along to enjoy things that I enjoy and they don't. Atleast this way, I am not burdening someone under gun-point and I am doing what I llike the most.
So for this very nonsensical post, I think its best I end it right here before I let more sarcasm and cynicism get it by the throat.

Being anonymous....

I suddenly got it into my head that I wanted to be anonymous, and that this blog was not achieving it. With this idea in mind, I created another blog...... being anonymous certainly gives you a sense of power. No, I don't mean the anonymity you use to hurl comments from behind a bush or criticise with the purpose of condemning, I mean the power of being anyone you want. Ofcourse you will point out ...why do you want to be someone else. Good question! I don't have an answer other than that, at some point in your life everyone I guess would have wanted to be in someone else's shoes.
Well the idea of anonymity was a great hit with me yesterday, and today morning when I thought I would resume what I had started.......I realised I had forgotten the name of the blog or the exact title rather, the username and the password and everything which I keyed in returned with "incorrect password". :)

This was written and saved as draft about a week back. So the madness of being anonymous and otherwise have long since been replaced by other things , better or worse and new. I visited Tombstone - a town right out of a western movie, Bisbee - a mining town complete with a copper mine tour. I went on a trip to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum ...... and got some great pictures. (It seems I am becoming quite the photographer.) I also wandered in on a Spanish Harlem Orchestra and kept wishing I had had taken a partner who was great at dancing salsa, bcoz thats what happened - the entire audience was up, the guy twirling the girl , throwing her away like a doll and pulling her back close again. :) Sounds romantic, yes ... but it also looked like a whole lot of fun.
What else did I do ...I went on an outing with Luann , drove along the border of USA and Mexico, attended two cases - yup legal cases and lunched at a place called Tubac, a quaint little artists town. I think I have nearly covered the whole of Arizona.
I also started on a new book, The KiteRunner, - it has bagged a few laurels including the San Francisco best book of the year.
I also messed up my mid term exams pretty badly, am almost on the verge of buying tickets back home. There have been quite a few nights when I have gone to sleep with a smile on my lips thinking of all that I would do once I am home. :)

Finally , I found a temple. Savitha drove us to a place in no man's land between Tucson and Phoenix . Its a Ganapathi temple ....the idols are housed in what looks from outside, just like a house. But once inside, the golden idols and the rituals .....quite made me lose myself. I have probably never belived more in the healing powers of prayer than now....and I guess I needed it. Lord Ganesha quite transported me back to a rockfort temple set on top of a hill , on the slopes of which I can recall numerous conversations in numerous moods .........:) from boyfriend troubles, to bad grades to going back home to is it worth it :). And I cannot help but smile.
I wonder sometimes which of my posts don't hold a trace of REC. I should probably get out of this living in the past mode. But as long as it still makes me smile, who cares!!