Birthday blues!

I turn 30 in a week. 

I was always terrified of turning thirty. I don’t know why but it was my scary age. I  wanted to make sure that by the time I turn 30, I should have done enough as a big chunk of my life would have passed by.

I can’t remember when I actually came up with this list but in the last few years, I’ve added to the list and its always been there at the back of my mind and I kept working on it for as far as I can remember.

Now that D-day is a week to go, I thought I’d see how I fared.

1) I should own my own motorbike.

This was the first one to come true. I owned my first bike, my pulsar 180 about 6 years ago. Though she’s not mine anymore, she’ll be my favorite one always. I own one now, which I am fond of too. So yes, that one’s done.

2) I should have run a marathon.

I ran my first and (I think) my last marathon last year. That was one of the most difficult things I did in my life and I’m proud of myself for that.

3) I should be able to cook a decent meal for myself.

Oh, yes, I can do more than a decent meal. I can cook a mean gourmet meal. Even at the risk of sounding immodest, I am a good cook.

4) I should have a blog and should write regularly.

My Blog. Here it is and I am actually putting up the rest of the list on it. About doing it regularly, I’m getting there. I’m trying. Aren’t I?

5) I should know what I want to do with my life, career wise.

I was confused for the longest time. But finally, I think this is what I want to do. I enrolled into a graduate program this year, one of the best things I did for myself. Hopefully, I should end up with a PhD in 4-5 years, but I am getting there.

6) I should have visited at least 2 foreign countries.

Counting Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, I’ve visited 4 countries. Not bad eh?

7) I should have learnt to play a musical instrument.

I started learning to play the guitar 3 years ago. Though I’m not extremely good at it, I can play a decent tune.

8) I should learn to swim.

I can swim all right, maybe not as well as I’d like to, but I cannot drown in a swimming pool. How I’d fare in deeper waters is a different question altogether.

9) I should be fit and in the best shape of my life. X

Well, I am fit but I am not exactly in the best shape. I got my gym membership a couple of months ago. I should get there in another year or so.

10) I should have a tattoo.

After thinking about it for soooooo long, I finally got myself a tattoo last night.

Yes, it did hurt a little bit and yes, it feels great!! With that I did indeed complete my list of things to do before I turn 30 and I still have a week to go. :)

Looking back, I think I’ve done reasonably well. 8.5/10 is not that bad. I thought it would be scary. But turns out, its not anything like I imagined it would be.

When I was younger, I looked forward to my tomorrows and I couldn’t wait to be older. When I am older, I know I will look back at my yesterdays, wishing I could go back.

For today, I’m content. Being just me and being 30 !!!

Out of the frying pan, into the fire?

Have I mentioned that I am a neatness freak? I like things to be organized and neat, so I can find what I want when I need it. My brain is not functional in an environment of disorder. So, it is very important to me for my workspace to be clutter-free. I’m not exactly a “Monica” but I’m close in a few aspects.

At work, we have this row of desks, which is shared by some grad students and some staff. My earlier neighbor was a mess, literally. In spite of having more space for herself, she would always find my desk-space more convenient to dump her things on. Her papers, stationery, food and anything else would land right on my desk as it always happened that her desk was so full of clutter already.

My other neighbor liked to drink warm water. So, she regularly filled up her bottle to the brim with scalding hot water and left it open on the desk (next to my computer) for it to cool. Imagine my plight when I discovered this for the first time. She was very sorry but not as sorry as I was.

I was delighted when I discovered another desk, which had freed up. So, I requested to move there. Since my new neighbor didn’t have too much stuff around her, there would be less clutter. Or so I thought. My happiness was short-lived when I discovered her chopping up her split-ends with my scissors and dusting her fingers on the desk. The same thing happened when she ate biscuits. Off came the crumbs on my keyboard.

The person who sits on my other side now is another story. She has all these lotions and potions all over her desk. Starting from moisturizer to perfume to hand-cream to face-wash, it’s all there. Considering that she practically lives there, I don’t blame her for making it so comfy. Add to it her collection of soft-toys and a soft pillow for her afternoon naps; could it get any weirder?

And I always thought, I was the weird one.

This is for you, V.

You ran away from home together, when you were still in school.

You committed all your first sins together like smoking your first cigarette and drinking that first beer.

You were a notorious twosome and they had many a nickname for you.

You know each other’s deepest darkest secrets.

You laugh at each other like there’s no tomorrow.

You call each other names that you would never tolerate from anybody else.

You don’t want to shop together because you know that you’ll end up liking all the same stuff and fighting over who buys it. Even when you don’t shop together, you end up with a similar wardrobe.

You can’t be any more different from each other, but you are still so much the same.

You really connect and can take off from where you left even after months of no communication.

You have so many memories together that you can’t even remember a life before you knew her.

She knows something is wrong even when you don’t mention it.

She’s your one-man cheerleader who also knows exactly how to cheer you up.

She has stuck by you through all your bad times and pulled you through it all.

She knows about all your unspoken fears, because she has the same.

She was mad when you left and 3 years later, she still gives you grief over it.

You don’t say it often enough but she knows what she means to you.

Only if you’re extremely lucky, just once in a lifetime you make a friend like that. I was lucky I did.

Getting out of comfort zone

I ate lunch all by myself today.

No, I wasn’t watching TV at home and no, I wasn’t at my desk.  I actually sat by myself in the canteen, all alone on one table and ate Japanese food, all by myself! And I actually enjoyed it.

I am so proud of myself.

PS: Yes, I’ve never done that before.

The Great Divide

It all started with a simple enough question, ‘Where are you from?’ This is a commonly asked question whenever we meet new people, considering that we are in a foreign country. My answer is a straight ‘India’. A recent incident and some more related incidents changed the way I look at my own countrymen.

I was out with a bunch of friends (all Indians) and somebody asked us the same question. The answer could have been a simple ‘India’ and that would have been that. Instead, that friend of mine chose to say, X, Y and Z are from south India and A, B, C and myself are from north India. I was stunned for a minute and wondered why he did that. It bothered me that even though we were from the same country, he still thought it was necessary to divide us like that, with a line between the north and the south. Why the division amongst our own people? It bothered me but I thought it wasn’t worth losing sleeping over and finally, I decided to let it go instead of confronting him about it.

But recently, I’ve noticed this weird thing amongst some of the so-called ‘north Indians’ I know, they actually think they are a better race and so should be clearly demarcated and separated from us south –Indians. What a load of crap! Really!! It was bad enough that they lived with the notion that south Indian means you are from Chennai and give you that condescending and ‘I am superior’ look. But to have that demarcation among friends, is really so shallow.

And off late, I’ve heard a lot of ‘you south-Indians this and us north-Indians that’ kind of thing that makes me cringe each time. I agree that India is a very huge country and the culture can differ a lot. But what really makes me feel bad is that, portraying such a division in thought in a foreign country just gives the world a wrong impression. Things are not much different than they were before independence. No wonder they used ‘Divide and Rule’ to conquer India. The fact that I’ve come across so many of similar-thinking people, it really makes me wonder, maybe, we are still divided. Maybe that’s why we haven’t really made great progress. Maybe until we think that we are all actually from one and the same country, we wont really go anywhere.

I wanna go home

One of the hardest things I’ve had to do so far is to move away from home. From the past few days, I’ve been missing home terribly. So just to make myself feel a little better, I decided to make a list of a few things from back home that I miss most. Of course, the list is not comprehensive. It’s just what came to mind first and at thins point in time. Here goes.

· Mom’s cooking. I miss those dosas and rotis and the very fact that she would make them on demand and knows just the way I like them without me having to say anything, I miss you too, mom and not just your cooking.

· My sisters…I enjoyed sharing all the fun times, fights, not to mention the clothes with them. We did quarrel quite a lot but we shared so much, that the fights seem so insignificant now.

·  My friends, my support system. I have lots of friends back home and more importantly a few very close friends, who were my world. I miss the fun we had, all the drunken nights, meaningless laughs and all the times we stuck by each other when anyone was going through a bad patch.

· Most of all I miss my best friend, V. Though we are still in touch, it’s not the same. I can’t run to her at the drop of a hat. I miss that.

·The chats, especially the panipuris at the friendly neighborhood bhaiyya. I was a regular, almost his favourite customer. My mouth is watering at the very thought of those perfect panipuris.

·My room.  Though now I do have a home of my own, it is not the same as my room, my own space and the fun of not letting anyone, especially my sisters to enter/stay there. The secrecy was half the fun.

· My cousins. I miss how we got together at anyone’s birthday and made sure that the birthday girl had plenty of fun and gifts.

·All the regular food outlets that I used to frequent. Yeah, I know this is the third time I’m mentioning food. I love food!

·I miss my bike, my baby. We had a ball, my bike and me.

·           I miss the feeling of familiarity, the feeling of being “home”. No matter how long I stay here or how many people I get to know, I’ll still be a foreigner. Or will I?

     Everybody says that things change with time and you will start learning to call a new place home. I’m not so sure about that. I’ll let you know in a few years. But I’m sure that even then I’ll still miss home as much as I do now.

So Helpless!

There are some things that you think can never happen to you. And when they do, it hits you so bad that it knocks you down. A very close relative of mine got diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago. She underwent chemo and radiation and all the painful ordeal of the damned disease. She fought it with all she had. And now it’s back with a vengeance. And I don’t know if she has it in her to fight it again.

It’s a well-known fact that we don’t know it all. In spite of the so-called “development”, we don’t really have an answer to all the questions. It hits you most when you know someone who is suffering from the big C.  You think that the best doctors can help you and they will help you through it but the truth is they don’t know it all too. They tell you that you have little hope and they tell you there’s only so much they can do. I know I’m being silly but wtf.

I really wish nobody had to suffer from this maniacal disease, that handicaps you in all possible ways, mentally, physically and financially. There are a million institutes out there doing research on cancer but we still can’t fight it like we should. I really don’t know if there is a right answer and if someone will ever get to it. I don’t know if anyone cares so much until somebody they care about fights it. But in the end, I hope they do find ways to fight cancer…I really hope they do.

And until they do, all you can do is pray and pray hard that someone is listening.