Where do great stories come from?

Where do great stories come from?

They come from a Death Valley tent in freezing November.
They come from smeared Haldi and torn kurtas.
They come from families who know how to laugh freely.
They come from a naive auntie who loves you like one of her own.

Great stories are born, not created.

They creep down like a ray of sunshine, behind a cloud.
They announce themselves like a bolt of lightening.
Bringing a sudden shower of laughter,
They end with a fog of nostalgia.

Great stories are a happy coincidence, sublime accidents.

They are born from past hippie lives and current hipster-dom.
They are born from teenage escapades with a cricket bat.
They are born from sweet doggies and a mewing cat
They are born from high school math classes and sleepless nights.

Great stories spring about, when you don’t expect them to.

They start when two giggling girls are escorted out of children’s park.
They start when your best friends come together to set the dance floor on fire.
They start when you are getting soup in a Turkish small town.
They start when you introduce Holi and Bhang to a crazy bunch.

They deserve to be shared and not held back,

The release of emotions is what they desire,
The memories, the feelings, the rawness.
Share them, spread them, include them.

You never know who needs these great stories to ignite one of their own great ones.

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Travelogue : Seattle, Washington.

I got to get out of town after a looooong time, and it was awesome!

I was planning on visiting Seattle for quite some time and I was quite inclined to make it happen ASAP, come rain or shine. And boy, did it rain! My friend SP from Minneapolis, and I booked our tickets, and so we started planning.

I did not plan a whole lot for this trip, which was both good and bad in a way. I got a few suggestions from Mad and DD but the snowfalls and road closure put a dampener on those plans. all for good though, because instead of Mt. Rainier, we covered the Boeing factory! The drive to Everett was quite nice. It was raining(but, of course) and the surroundings were so lush and green! San Diego is freakin’ awesome but I do miss seeing greenery in SoCal. The Space Needle turned out kind of sad because it was all fogged out and there was no view except from the elevator. It was mean of them to charge full price with the rotating restaurant shut for construction and fogged out view, but ah well. The Chihuly glass garden turned out to be a great show stealer and was one of out favorite sites in Seattle.

We saved the most interesting, and sort of pretentious(but I am all about it!) Seattle experiences for the last day. The Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room is a must have experience, even if you are not a coffee person! We tried their flight and chose three delicious coffees. We saw beans getting roasted and ground, and packed. We saw crazy brewing methods and hipster men in fun mustaches. We learnt that the menu is ever changing because these are small lot batches from different parts of the world. One of the coffees that we chose was from India! The whole experience is like wine tasting, but leaving you super caffeinated instead of drunk.

If you like Portland, you will like Seattle as well, though I prefer Portland more. Maybe it is because we both are weird?! I do have a travelogue on Portland. But I highly suggest visiting Seattle, maybe during better weather conditions.

My friend and I pigged out on food and drinks and each night, managed to return to the hotel in good time to catch up on sleep and experience total relaxation. We needed some rejuvenation to break out of the funk, and thankfully, we got that.

Leaving you guys with some pictures and tips for Seattle trippage.

Space needle! So cloudy.

Chihuly museum of glass

Chihuly museum of glass

Chihuly museum of glass

Chihuly museum of glass

Blass blowing show at Chihuly museum of glass

Chihuly museum of glass

Pike Place

Starbucks!

Biggest store ever!

Fancy thingaling at Starbucks

India!

Art of tea : Starbucks Roastery

Starbucks Roastery

Affogato! So delish!

1. It will be helpful to get an idea about weather when you go. It was very cold and rainy when we went. I admit that I forgot about that when I booked my tickets. But in all honesty, I just wanted to go, come what may.
2. Carry your good warm jacket, and thermals, and umbrella.
3. Spend a good amount of time at Chihuly and do watch the glass blowing demo. It is quite interesting! It is every hour, am to pm.
4. Buy your souvenirs inside the space needle visitor center and not in the little shop outside. Ha!
5. If you are a Seafood lover, Seattle is the place for you. Hang out in the Pike Public Market and you will know what I mean. From what I hear, skip Mexican food.
6. Commit on spending a couple of hours at Starbucks roastery. And also keep a few minutes spare. As many know, coffee is a friend of the digestive tract. ‘Where is the restroom?’ is a common question with some urgency, that the servers get asked. 😀
7. The airport is kind of far from Seattle mainstay. There is a train from the airport to downtown Seattle and I recommend it if you opt to not renting a car. Also, parking charges are kind of exorbitant in Seattle. We used Lyft to get around and it was very reasonable. There are a bunch of bike shares too for a buck an hour or so!
8. There is a beautiful Japanese Garden by Capitol Hill which was closed for the winter season, but I recommend that.
9. I feel rather bad that we could not go to see Mt. Rainier and the reflection lake, but that makes me want to go back during summer. It is an hour and half drive from the airport, and can be covered in a day trip.
10. Pick for a hotel or AirBnB in downtown to stay close to the action.

 

Oh, snap!

Have you noticed a lull on my blog since a few months? No? you clearly lie. Because I have and the lull is so loud, its almost obnoxious. I keep thinking of going back and writing, but I feel like my fingers weigh a 100 pounds each and typing is way too much. How I wish we can get to the point soon that I talk, and the keyboard gets it and writes. I know the smartphones have that technology, but I dont have the accent that it requires! First world problems.

I wish I could just say, “You guys! there is so much to tell! But I am just being lazy!” Nope. Honestly, I have no material to talk about. There was a big change with respect to job and home, but that’s done and dusted. I wrote about it. How much more can I talk about a city and work environment change without sounding like a crazy confused person? It happened, it has been a mix of emotions, and that’s that. Should I write about my parents being here? But everyone knows how it is to be with parents for extended times. There is nothing much to talk about there as well! They were here for 5 months, and we had a good time. I tried very hard, and my behavior was marginally better than last time, which I kept on insisting and they nodded in agreement(or to stop making me shout anymore). Also, I was glad they were here, for the apartment change. I have WAY TOO MUCH stuff. But I am also sort of happy that all of us have our lives back now. They are at home, doing what they please, and same goes for me.

Do you want to hear about my life as a social butterfly? What do I even say about my friends and going out, and the fun nights to not sound like a ditzy chick? I had a good Halloween party, couple of dinners and brewery turns with friends, cozy evenings at home with family(parents + Abhi-Nish), a weekend trip with Shawn and Alicia, an anxiety attack at a party that I handled like a pro, and relaxing weekends by myself in this short time here so far. I am going camping over the coming weekend for our annual Malibu disco beach camping! Then there is thanksgiving dinner coming up in Orange County. My friends are also coming over for a Friendsgiving/Stock the bar party in December. I am atleast getting out of my home more than before and I deserve a pat on the back for that! But y’all know how that is. Everyone will be busy with the holiday season coming up so nothing to show off.

Is there any boy in sight? What a ‘haha’ joke. Don’t worry, I run away at the first sight of anyone interested. So nothing to write about here also.

So, if you have made it till here, nice! Here it is. my post about nothing. *Insert Seinfeld joke*

Look how far we’ve come…

I met up with my friends from my Lonavala days over the weekend in San Jose. We used to be a trio when we started college. All three of us from different backgrounds, found some common ground amidst the chaos of 20 girls sharing a large hall in the first 6 months. We were roommates as well for almost 2 years after that. It will be a mighty understatement if I say that ‘yep, we have had our ups and downs.’ What we had was a family drama that will last longer than your bag of popcorn. But, we grew up(almost!)

It was a very fun weekend with a lot of happiness sprinkled around generously. Looking back, I realized one thing. We all have come such a far way from what we were. It is quite astounding because if you stand from the outside and look at us three, you will be hard-pressed to find a common trait that binds us. Our similarities are indiscernible. We are 3 girls with a very strong sense of individuality, with 3 absolutely different personality traits and 3 ways of thought processes. We think on completely different levels from each other, yet mostly, the end is similar. It’s almost like we are trying to reach the same point, but we take different routes. 

Back in college, when we first met, we did realize that our backgrounds were so different from what we were used to. Yet, we had a common plane. Specially in the first year, having common subjects and living in the common hall and eating in the cafeteria bound us somewhat. Going forward, two of us were in Mechanical Eng department and one was in Computer Eng, but things were still similar to a level. Yet we had our very strong differences. Only commenting about myself, boy, was I rigid! A lot of changes came into my personality and behavior over the years as I got influenced by situations and people. S and A have had a more lasting and a very deep relationship with each other over the years and they both are much easier to understand than all three of us together. I did drift apart, but it was mostly okay for all of us.

Not that I have lost my sleep over it, but last weekend found me questioning the existence of common plane and if it indeed is important. Moo, Ani and I bond over a myriad range of topics. We love similar things and hate similar things. Our families have very similar traits. Well mostly the way we bond is Ani yelling at Moo and I. We do have our differences but that also just blends with the way we are. Maybe that is a result of us molding together as friends over the last decade. But with S and A, I am finding it very hard to point at what is making us tick now.  One has a Roomba and wears flipflops on carpets, one had no idea about Legos till a week back and doesn’t like mushrooms, and one obsessively drinks smoothies for lunch and hates Beiber and loves T. Swift. Interestingly, I have noticed that with almost every topic, among the three of us, two will have the same view about it and one will have an opposite outlook.

But I suppose, it doesn’t really matter. As long as we continue to laugh over the ridiculousness of PG certified but actually X-rated Bollywood, we should be good.

29 it is!

Another year older, another year gone by so quickly!

Yep, it was my birthday yesterday and I had a wonderful time with some of my favorite people.

Like all princesses, my birthday isn’t limited to a single day, but spans across the weekend. The celebrations started from Friday afternoon when my buddies at work took me out for a huge birthday lunch. They ordered a shot of Fireball and beer for me and the result was 10% of efficiency for the rest of the day. I kept myself awake at work by thinking of elaborate ideas to take a nap, but without real success. I should have taken a leaf out of George Costanza’s book of ideas like the hammock under his desk.

The celebrations extended in the evening when I went out for a Japanese dinner with Shawn, Alicia and a few others form the Softball team. I love Ramen and their Ramen was no exception and I really enjoyed the vegetable sushi as well after a very long time. I am not big on sushi because of a few wasabi related incidents in the past(fire in the brain and tears from eyes, nose and ears), but this sushi was quite good! Abhi, Nish, we have another new spot to go to! After the dinner, we headed to a real divey-dive bar, in Tustin where our group became bigger as more of our friends joined in. Now, it was a Karaoke bar with an open mic. We belted out quite a few songs like Bohemian Rhapsody, Sweet Caroline, etc. But the real highlight of the evening was the thorough butchering of Summer of 69 by Alicia and yours truly! I think we were hopping like bunnies more than singing! The DJ announced out that it was my birthday party and the entire bar was upon me to wish me.  We sang almost all the songs as a chorus to whoever was singing and by the end of the night, we had lost our voices. It was all worth it!

Saturday passed by in a whirl, where I did grown up things like laundry, vacuuming, renewing my apartment lease, crying at the depleting bank balance. I was expecting Abhi and Nish in the evening, but flight related incidents with their mom and sis postponed their visit to the next day. Shib called from Kerala after fighting with terrible phone network. I spoke to Hazra over video chat for quite a bit and the poor guy tried to order a cake for me which turned out to be a fail. I was so touched by his gesture and assured him that it truly was the thought that mattered to me! I headed out to the mall in the evening to use my discount coupons and birthday vouchers from stores that I may not shop full-price from. 😛 I ended my Saturday at the grocery store where I had an unexpected ego boost when the cashier gave me student discount without even asking me if I was one! To celebrate, I treated myself with some Chinese takeout. Yep, I love Asian food!

I spent most of my Sunday being lazy and talking to friends on the phone. Thank you Moo and Ani for the infinite wishes, and so much love to Ani’s Jonah for the cutest message ever for his PB Maasi! The xBF also called and we spoke for a long time. It truly made me happy and very satisfied that we now trying to get to a stage that we can joke and laugh and look back and look ahead without ruining our moods and dissolving into tears. It was good. Abhi, Nish showed up late afternoon with some absolutely yummy desserts and I finally cut my birthday cake/dessert and got to make a wish by blowing out the candle. Well, I think I forgot to actually make a wish! The day ended with another FaceTime chat with the folks.

Monday came bright and early and really hot with 100 F or 40 deg C and 9% humidity. More friends from work took me out for lunch and we had Thai food. Did I already mention that I am a sucker for Asian cuisine? I skipped gym yesterday and chilled at home with my friend Adriane to watch the presidential debate. We had my birthday dinner at Maggiano’s Little Italy and celebrated with the group of friends that I call the OC squad! Of course, the prime members are Shawn and Alicia. 😀

It was the culmination to a fabulous, celebratory weekend and I couldn’t be happier. I feel truly blessed to be surrounded by people who love me, care about me and keep me in their thoughts and prayers. No one can take the place of my parents, my family, but my friends come very close. I feel grateful.

I have entered the last year of my 20s. I am determined to make it worthwhile. I want to do everything so that I can look back and say that I ended up my 20s with a bang. God willing!

Pune-Lonavala-Pune

I have called Pune home since 2002. I came to the city just before starting high school and I was half-expecting to be out of there soon looking at the way we were moving every few years. My prophecy sort of did come true after 4 years, even though partially. I got into an engineering college in Lonavala and had to move to the college girls’ hostel, it being a residential college. Initial months were really hard, due to several reasons. But after 2 years and countless number of crying sessions, I found my groove and turned my life around to get the maximum out of it. I would not trade away any part of it and would do it all over again, any day. I am very glad that I stuck to living in the hostel and not outside in the city, or even at home in Pune, 1.25 hours away by local train.

One of the memories associated with Lonavala, besides the incessant monsoon rains, is all the traveling and commute. During my first 1.5 years, I had a boyfriend who was from north of India and was full time in the hostel since he couldn’t go back home as often. So, I would spend the weekends in the hostel itself and would go back home once or twice a month with all my laundry and to replenish my snack supply and get my fill with the doggie-doo. We used to get around 20 days of break before the final semester exams to study that were called preparatory leaves or the PL. I would even spend most of my PL in the hostel, either studying in the room or the library with the guy. Bad idea. My grades, friendships, personality, everything suffered. Soon after, I broke up with him during the second year. A lot of things changed with respect to friendship too and I switched rooms. Things got back to track, my life was beyond fun, and my grades shot up(almost 😛 ) after that.

My new roommates were all from Pune too and they would go home every weekend and would stay put there during the PLs as well. I started doing the same. When the college would end on Fridays, we would catch auto-rickshaws to the city train station and catch the evening local train to Pune. If we were late, we would catch the Pragati Express that would stop at Lonavala during its 3.5 hour journey from Mumbai to Pune. There was another train that stopped in Lonavala at about 7.15 pm or so, called the Deccan Queen, which is my absolute favorite train forever, and was an absolute delight whenever I could catch it. We had the morning and late afternoon trains’ schedules memorized and we didn’t even have to take out the time table from our bags anymore. We were of course keener to catch the local train because even if it was slower and more crowded, it was almost 1/3rd the price of the Express trains. Sometimes, we would have some class on Saturday morning and we would have to stay back on Fridays and that would be when we used to be on our grumpiest best, and repeating outfit from the previous week. It was not that big a deal because I literally wore the same t-shirts every week. My dating and social life was booming, but unless the plan involved friends and the girls staying back as well, weekends in Pune were not given up anymore. Also, just because us girls we lived together, it did not mean we didn’t see each other in Pune. We have spent innumerable weekends hanging out with each other, watching movies, shopping, and doing other shenanigans.

Friday evenings were the best, because we had the anticipation of going home. But Monday mornings were evil. We had to catch the 6.40 am local and that meant waking up at 5.30 am to reach the station on time. N started from the previous station or the point of origin and would catch seats for us. I got in on station 2 and Ani on station 3. We were always in the women’s compartment so it was easy to spot N and for Ani to spot us. Then our college decided to mix things up for kicks and changed the timings to start an hour earlier in the mornings and thanks to that, we had to catch the Sinhgad Express going to Mumbai at around 6.10 am. Now, that was murder! But I am very happy to say that I never missed a train. My obsession with time and punctuality saves me from such headaches. My dad had to catch that train on Mondays because he worked in Mumbai during the week, when I was in high school and then after high school, he had to come to drop me every Monday. It was our running joke how his Monday mornings are always going to be painfully early. But the last time he dropped me for my last week in Lonavala, I don’t know who was more emotional.

Another fun part of the commute was traveling with my dad sometimes on the way back. He would go to Mumbai for work at times on Fridays and while coming back he would tell me if he took Pragati or Deccan Queen. I would wait back for those trains to be with him while going back to Pune. He would stand at the door when the train would pull in and wave his hankerchief at me. I used to be so embarrassed but so amused with that. He still does that at times in crowded places to pull my leg. His office was in Chinchwad which fell between Lonavala and Pune. If I was in the local train, I would call him up 15 minutes before Chinchwad and if he was done and ready to go home, I would just get down there and we would go home together in his car. It used to take around 45 minutes, but I thought that time was precious. Otherwise I would get down at the second last station in Pune, say bye to N and catch an autorickshaw home where dad would pick me up half ways.

Such fun times have been had in the trains. On Monday mornings, we would always talk about how sleepy we were as soon as we sat down, tried to sleep for exactly 2.875347 minutes and then would start talking. Around exam time, we would come armed with books in hand to try and study but everything else happened like staring outside the window, chatting, my texting with the then crush, food, clothes, all this with the book open. We have had very interesting fights with other people in the trains regarding capturing seats and specially window seats. I have a vague memory of someone sitting down on me and me pushing the said person away. Most of the regular commuters sort of knew each other. I used to see a short-haired lady get into Sinhgad Express from my station till Mumbai and she would head back in the same train in the evening, every single weekday since almost a decade. She used to know when our exam time was depending on the amount of books open in our hands and would wish us luck. Someone had tried to snatch our seat once and she had spoken up for us. We have even been fined for sitting in a higher level compartment on a lower level seat ticket and it was not fun to meet Ani’s dad for the first time when detained by the Railway cop. It was not our fault and we had no idea we were doing wrong. Hmmpphh. Even waiting on the station for the train to pull in was fun. Whiling time away at Lonavala station was awesome because of yummy Bangalor Iyengar bakery products like cakes, muffins, puffs or Maganlal’s fresh Smaosas and the fried green chillies. Wait a minute, let me wipe my drool off the keyboard, be right back. Now, Pune station on Monday mornings was also fun.There were stray dogs around and the ones who lived there were particularly big and strong for some reason. They ate protein regularly due to the kind train station folks who owned stores there. It used to be funny when the big dogs would randomly stop by dad and I, and start sniffing our ankles and legs, catching on Moony’s scent. My dad would freeze and I would find that very amusing. One big event on Fridays, was trying to get out of the train in Chinchwad. It was a red zone with respect to crowd during peak office timings, and I had to shamelessly use my drawing sheet holder and backpack to push the crazy ladies out of the way to get out. It was a ‘you snooze, you lose’ sort of a deal.

How I miss all that. If I get to go back to the college for a day, I would start that right from a Monday morning, waiting at Pune(Shivajinagar) station and end it with a ride in Deccan Queen with the best chai in the world. For now, I have to be content with the memories. *Sniff* Damn you, allergies!

The dinner dilemma

“Baby, let’s go out tonight.
What do you want for dinner?”
“Sure, that sounds cool,
I am cool with whatever.”

“Where do you wanna go?
Entrees and desert to share.
Fine dining or fast food?”
“I don’t really care.”

“How about some Italian?
And that wine tonight.”
“Umm, I don’t know.
I want something light.”

“Let’s get some Ramen.
The weather’s cool.”
“We just had it few weeks back.
Not really makin’ me drool.”

“We can do some other Asian,
You sure like Pad Thai.”
“I want something spicy.
It’s not in my top five.”

“Indian sounds good,
To stir up the flavor,”
“We eat that all the time.
Curry over and over.”

“How about Pizza or sandwich.
We shall get that fast.”
“But baby, I will be hungry again.
That definitely won’t last.”

“Just tell me what you want,
Enough of this game.”
“I knew you don’t care for me!
All your loving words are lame.”

“No babe, I am sorry!
We will do what you want.
We shall go out and eat.
Or I will cook if you shan’t.”

“Meh, I don’t wanna eat at home.
Let’s just go out.
You decide where to,
That I don’t wanna think about.”

The BAE suffers daily,
Driven nuts by a girlfriend or a wife.
I may be strong and independent,
But this is also the story of my life.

 

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Haah! This is me day in and day out! With the significant other or with friends, my story is the same. I hate having to decide anything, specially cuisine and place to eat. I have almost cried because I couldn’t decide and have also made a few people shed tears by saying NO to everything. My strong Libran characteristics make it worse for me.

I hear the same going on with Shawn and his GF. This was partly inspired by one of his stories the other day. 🙂

The xBF had come up with an interesting solution. He would start asking what I was absolutely not feeling like having and then would narrow it down. So I had no other drama to entangle him in. Smart guy, him.

Public note : Girls, please don’t get mad at me. This comes from true experiences, but there’s no generalization. All of you who can make up their minds in a snap, I bow down to thee. 😀

The Converted Pluviophile

I hated rains.

The thought of going to school in my school auto rickshaw with rains banging on the roof, and my school uniform and shoes being wet, would make me teary. I would have a dark cloud looming on my head when I joined high school and I had to drive my two wheeler in pouring rains. Muddy waters splashing on me, my jeans getting ruined, my feet getting soiled, ruined any idea of relating any excitement to monsoon. Driving with glasses was even worse and made me long for teeny, tiny wipers in front of my face.

Then I joined college and my fight with rains got worse. I got admitted into my Engineering college in Lonavala and started my first semester during the peak of monsoons. For the uninitiated, Lonavala is in Western Ghats(mountain range)between Mumbai and Pune and is considered a hill station thanks to its height and cooler climate zone.  It is built as a resort town and my college is built on layers of hills where the Engineering building was on top of the hill and girl’s dorms and cafeteria were on the bottom. Great.

My introduction to the college was on a day where rains were raging a particularly bad fight against me and it remained the same for June to September, every year. Trudging along the road with the torrential rain on your face and back, in a parka(hey, raincoats were for kids and so not trendy!) was not something I looked forward to every day. An umbrella in that wind was like using a pencil to ward off a lion attack. The worst was sitting for class in dripping wet jeans that would form a puddle under the seat. There would be fights about keeping the ceiling fan on or off because half the class would be warm, and the rest, including me, would be cold.

The dorm rooms would be the worst. Every year when the semester would start in July, during the monsoon, we would be back to damp rooms that felt bone chillingly cold and smelled of mold. The lack of laundry facilities meant that we would have to arrange makeshift clotheslines in the rooms and hang our battle equipment aka clothes and parkas on them to attempt any sort of wetness reduction. I would join college and, thanks to the dampness and mold, I would fall really sick and would end up missing a week or two due to flu. Every single year. Again, stepping out for dinner meant braving those rains and a new set of clothes getting wet. Rinse, repeat.

And then it changed. How did it change, I am not entirely sure. Now, when I think of my days in Lonavala, I don’t see me fighting back. I don’t see the raging wet war and I don’t see the tears in my eyes when I hated the cold and dampness.

Every time when I even hear the name of the town ‘Lonavala’, I get this sense of wet fragrance. I feel I can smell the freshly showered plants and earth. I can see the drops falling on my face and covering my eyelashes. I can feel the moist breeze against my skin and I can almost feel my nose turning red from the cold. All my eyes can see is the vast expanse of lush green mountains with the pond that would fill up to the brim and have swaying tiny yellow flowers dotting the water’s edge. This view was right in front of the dorm. I see us, almost 13-15 young adults, hiking along a narrow stream trying to reach a hidden gem of a waterfall. I almost can feel Hazra giving me a hand to climb on the rocks, Shete pulling the hood of my bright red parka to annoy me, or Ani making fun of my black giant raincoat with side zips looking like a superhero cape, that I got over getting embarrassed off and embraced it whole-heartedly, when I would be the only dry person in class. 🙂 I remember jumping into the puddles with my friend SP and splashing around like a pair of toddlers.

View from the dorms in Lonavala…

I still get this image of me sitting next to the date-like-person at that time, on the benches overlooking the cliffs, and feeling the drops on our brows. I remember the kisses I shared, surrounded by dripping trees, or overflowing dams and lakes or bright green cliff-sides. Heck, I am guilty of using the rains, as my wingman, to put it in the nicest possible way. 😉

After I moved to the USA, my first December here was spent in splashing around in the puddles with my friends, getting drenched on the beach and wearing 3 wet sweaters afterwards and having hot soup. The next favorite rainy memory in US is the evening of Angel’s landing hike during my Utah camping trip in 2015. It was wet, cold, annoying, yet amazing.

Post spring 2010, California entered a state of perpetual drought where rains have eluded us since the last 5 years. Even the promise of a very stormy El Nino with dangers of floods has so far been empty.  The little rain we have had has been so sporadic that the longing I feel is almost like….. siggghhhh…

I wanted to spend a rainy day with the xBF picnicking on a Torrey Pines hike or walking around in the drizzle at Point Loma, before he left. What do I even say now about that.

For a person who hated rains, I have turned into someone who can’t tear away the romantic mystique from clouds and showers. Even if it’s cuddling in the bed under my giant comforter staring out of the glass panes covered in droplets, or it is driving around with wipers turned on at full speed, I have a smile on my face. Mind you, I absolutely love the sun and the warmth that it radiates on my skin. I love the brightness and the freedom that a sunny day brings to have an amazing time at the beach and in minimal clothing. Yet, I can’t wait for a wet season again in California and I will continue waiting with baited breath. I may or may not have someone to share the mysticism with. I may or may not have my bunch of friends who will do crazy things when it’s pouring. But I know that I will have me to soak it all up.

The foe has finally become the friend.

 

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Bhakti, this was going to be a comment on your post Ephemeral, to tell you about my love-hate relationship with rain. I almost finished typing it out before I decided to post it as a response instead of hijacking your comment section. And guess what? It’s raining outside. 🙂

 

Of San Diego State, past life and ‘Kardashan’ business…

Whole of last week, I have been sick. I discovered that I am allergic to the smell of roasting atta(wheat flour) that my mom was prepping to cook something. In 5 minutes, my throat started closing down, my nose got blocked and I developed a sore throat that resembled a cat post after the kitty is done filing her nails. Ugghh. I went to work on and off. On Friday my dad texted me if we could go to San Diego on Saturday to see the University. I had already thought of going to either LA or San Diego for a day trip, so it sounded great. Except, I was still sick and feeling like death. Sheesh.

But when I woke up on Saturday morning, I felt great! Except for the coughing, I felt fittum-fine. And then we headed to San Diego at 11 am and then we hit horrible traffic making sure that we took 2.5 hours to finish our journey of 1.5 hours. But we had carried homemade paratha and potato fry (Indian tacos to the rescue for non-Indians!) to calm our hungry tummies. What was intended to be a picnic food at San Diego State was consumed in the car like road-tripping!

We finally reached University and I could feel flowers blooming inside me when the campus came into view. It still looks and feels just the same. 🙂 Wave upon wave of nostalgia hit me, but it was all good stuff. I could see me yelling at Brian to put his shirt on while walking to the International Student center(It is California and people walk around shirtless in summer, even at school). I could see the East Commons where lab peeps and I sat eating our lunch boxes and Adam accusing me of eating cat food/porridge. There were the famed golf carts around that groundkeepers used, which the xBF also used to trim plants, to change trash can liners, and to give me rides. Not kidding, he has picked me up from engineering building, just to show me giant snails in the gardens, because I love looking at slugs(Go Figure.) Once he was working in flower area with his older non-desi co-workers and he cut up some fresh roses and tied them up with Aluminum foil for me. His buddies teased him about his ‘moves’ to red hot embarrassment that day! And of course the library! Where I studied less, and took naps more/ watched shows/ collaborated on assignments with Karen. Then there was Educational Opportunities Office, where I worked for 2 years as a tutor to undergrad Mechanical and Civil Engineering students, that helped me ease the burden on my parents and enabled me to pay for rent and school.

The iconic Hepner Hall…

It was a Saturday and I was not expecting anything to be open, leave alone Professors being there. But I took a chance and we went to see my Engineering building. Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. We got in and I took my parents to the Department, showed them the lab from outside, and even my first classroom! On a whim, I walked into the faculty area and ran into Prof. B who taught me a couple of classes. He recognized me right away and met the folks too. Being a true Indian, his second question was if I got married?! And then he went on to tell that parents need not worry, I will find a great boy. Haha! He was super nice and he offered to show them my lab. He said he will let Prof. M know later. Ooh we even spoke about our current mutual friends. 😉 You know who you are.

By a giant stroke of luck, he also let me know that Prof. M was at school today since the Research Symposium was on. I have participated in that when I was at school so I knew Prof. M would stick around till the last talk and key note was done. So, after we were done with the lab, we headed towards the library  where I was looking for the presentations. I saw a girl in a business skirt walking across the campus and I decided to ask her if the Symposium was still going on. She told me that the key note had just ended and it was at the Student Union. We almost ran there as I kept my eyes peeled. And sure enough, I reached the stairs and Prof. M was coming down! He stopped, did a double take and got mad excited to see me. 🙂 We spoke over there for almost half an hour, took pictures and then said good bye.

The folks and I got some coffee from the Aztec market and finally sat down. What had started off as a generally mundane Saturday had turned into an extremely fruitful visit to San Diego State. My professor, who is never at school on Saturday, met us, we saw the Lab, and we saw my old spots where I had left tiny pieces of me behind. My dad says visiting the University was at the highest spot in his list. He was very overwhelmed with emotions. SDSU is truly where it all started as far as my career is concerned and we shall be forever grateful.

Hepner Hall

Seagulls…

The famous golfcart

Aaah… Sun Diego…

Love Library

I also successfully managed to put my finger into the Koi fishes’ mouth. Just like old times.

Topping off the evening, we headed to Abhi and Nish on our way back where I learned Pav can be made from scratch and can be more scrumptious than store bought ones. After a fabulous meal of Pav Bhaji and tawa pulav and avocado custard, we set off for home. Mumbai ki galiyon se(Off the streets of Mumbai) should be Nisha’s kitchen’s name till she decides to open her food business.

I learned about another thing on Saturday night while watching TV at home. My very Indian mother who has been in the US for only one and a half month recognized this picture below as the person who is ‘Kardashan’ husband, father of North, insulted a blonde girl and is CRAZY! I think we have hit apocalypse and some magazine stories need to be banned.

This generation is screwed.

Why don’t I have new friends anymore?!

I was reading Pepper’s blog post here about friendships and I wanted to write a comment, which ended up being an essay on its own. So I thought, I may as well type out what I feel about my friends and friendships.
 
I was talking to a guy the other day, and he said something on the lines of, the more you live in USA, the lesser friends you tend to have. It made me think and I realized it’s not completely wrong. At least in my case, the statement holds weight. The only part being different for me was USA. This has happened to me every time that I changed schools or colleges. I have always had hesitation in talking to new people that I meet, and my insecurities about myself tends to compound the situation into total absurdity. I have switched so many schools, and my experiences with getting bullied, have made friendships difficult. For some reason, sustaining friendships was also a hard task for me. But it changed quite a bit in college, where I found some life-long friends(hopefully). Having verbal diarrhea is also not a big help.
 
Talking about friends in India, we were a group of girls and boys in the engineering college who are still together on different levels with each other. The girl group(we were roommates) is still together on Whatsapp. But my relationship with them is quite non-existent. The onus lies on my own personality issues too, but I will not take the blame on myself completely. I think I have stopped trying to please people, which was a compulsive habit even till a couple of years back and that has resulted in some acidic conversations. I do not feel welcome there, and so I don’t feel like I am a part of that group. Exceptions being of course Ani and Moo and I hope they understand my point of view. From the group of boys, I am friends with most of the boys who I was friends with earlier, but there are two people who are firmly within my circle of trust. Hazra and Shib are, and will always be family, and it makes me very happy that they are aware of this and reciprocate.
 
After moving to USA, I have switched between people and between groups and had reached a point where I needed only two people. The xBF and Abhi. The situation got weird after the xBF left, but Abhi made the time easier for me. We are not in the same cities. But he and Nisha are among the people I can count on if I get in trouble. Abhi is like the brother I would have had if I had one. I like to think that they are aware that I can be counted on if they ever need me to be there.

I have another really close friend who I work with and workout with(we recently paid extra for the gym membership, so that we can continue that after trying to work out alone since the last July). We have our lunch together where the other accompanies the person even if they have a lunch box, and we meet over the weekends to watch movies and have lunch again. We share stories, jokes, frustrations and work gossip and we yell at each other. People have mistaken us to be dating, but they realize eventually that we have turned into siblings, squabbling with each other. So that makes a grand total of THREE people around me who are friends in real sense of the word.
 
After a certain age, the dynamics of friendships change from complete buddy to people needed to spend evenings with, and even to call in case of emergencies. I may have a lot of friends around me, but friend-friend is becoming the Loch-Ness monster of people. There is a need to lower the bar of expectations when it comes to friendships. You cannot expect someone to show up when you crave a steaming bowl of Pho, leaving their partner or their kid behind. It is just like how you will not show up to spend an evening at the bar with your buddy during a work week. Situations change, priorities change, and the biggest cause of worry, proximity to each other changes. If we talk about making new friends in Grad school or at work, friendship thrives when you let your guard down, and that is seemingly impossible with so much competition involved. It is a cut throat world, and most people tend to hide their vulnerabilities.
 
When younger, friendship is a survival tactic. Proximity in school, college puts you together. You need someone to kill time with, to say the least. When family, partner, work and life are thrown into the equation, the unstructured relation of friendship becomes more vulnerable to collapse. It is no longer a real necessity. How well one deals with friends and balances relationships, depends on an individual’s personality and the need for social fulfilment. If they make a FRIENDS 2.0 I am sure Rachel and Phoebe haven’t met each other in 3 years. And Ross hasn’t heard from Joey since he moved away.

In the end, it all boils down to this insanely accurate definition.