Amrika! - Part 6

1 comments Posted by Mariposa... at 8:24 PM

And, the last Sunday it was! I woke up with a start, brimming with happiness. A quick call home, "I will be back soon!", a quick shower, check out and there I have my cab rolling down the Santa Monica roads. I have a long journey stretched out in front of me. Sigh! the boring flight again...but yay! this time I know my welcoming incentive, and I smiled to myself.

Domestic terminals in the US are like bus stands. Everyone and everything is so laid back about a domestic flight here that you hardly feel you are going out of the gravitational force in sometime. Observation, a keen and cynic one to be precise, is a great way to pass off your time...and, so I did. Some quick observations, I jotted in my head:

1. US people are always dressed in the dullest of colors like black or brown or grey. But when it comes to their suitcases or nail colors or hair colors, they are bright ones, for example, bright red, fluorescent green, dazzling pink.

2. People here perpetually have some half eaten cake or peanut packet or rice crackers in their handbags on which they munch on when they are bored. US people, also, love carrying back a half eaten burger, or a leftover salmon fish off their plate.

3. People here move their heads backwards and forwards more than the amount of words they speak.

4. Girls here feel cold only on the upper part of their bodies. Most of them usually wear fat and huge jackets with the shortest of shorts below!

5.  Indian settled in the US are sure to recognize your Indian origin and ask you if you know Hindi...and then ask you why you are going back.

6. Kids look prettier and have better skin than any grown up in the US, anytime!

7. Americans do not talk much. Even if they are traveling with families, they either read, or knit or stare at a distance...but they just do not chat. As a result, US airports are unusually quiet places.

8. Kids always carry separate tinsy and cutesy little bags for themselves, where, I am sure, most of their clothes do not fit into.

9. Chinese food in the US is alarmingly awful! They taste sweet, ketchup-y, floury, boiled and oiled! Yes, I did try a Chinese lunch and felt like throwing up!

10. You can be very excited at the thought of getting a day extra to live while going to the US...but while coming back, you will, anyways, have to give back that extra time, when you arrive in India a day later from the actual day you calculate in the US.

Enough of observations...I was waiting at the San Francisco airport waiting to fly away. After all the formalities, I was comfortably seated in an Emirates plane. Goodbye, I waved...till we meet again!

I slept unnaturally during my flight back home...so, missed half of the food that came. Later, I went knocking behind the cabin crew, asking shamelessly for food, who was gentle enough to appease my hunger with a frankie, a packet of rice crackers and steaming cups of tea. I was tired of making friends by then, and hardly spoke to anyone on the flight. And, soon we reached Dubai. Wow! sleeping makes it fast! I now know the trick.

And, the moment I reached the waiting area at Dubai for the flight back to Hyderabad...I felt ecstatic! As the skin colors of the people darkened around me, the languages became more difficult to understand yet sounded so very familiar (what with all the Telegu, Tamil and Marathi blabber around me, I didn't understand a word, yet I felt them to be my own! It's like getting back to your lost children after ages, when you hardly recognize them, yet you feel the love), the volume and amount of chatting going higher, smell of familiar food and of course the dresses turning more colorful...I felt a sense of immense joy and comfort in me...I looked around to see people who relate to me and to whom I relate to with the most subtle yet strong way - with a common word called 'India', with the common taste for spicy food, with the common reasons for laughing out loud, with the common reasons for having tears in our eyes, with the common reason to stand up every time we hear the "Jana Gana Mana"...anywhere.

In the next five hours, I was going out of Hyderabad airport, collecting my luggage, dreading the customs and listening to random Telegu and Hindi all around me. It all sounded like music to my ears now...and when the half-asleep security bluntly explained to me the way out, I just smiled and said, "I don't understand Telegu, bhaiya...but I somehow get what you want to say."

As I sped home in the cab at half past three in the whee hours of an early Tuesday morning, I was welcomed home with a cool bout of Hyderabadi rain and random calls from friends and family all over. I wondered for the hundredth time why is it I love India so much...is it because I look like the others around me here? the food? the warmth? the cool rain? the inability to understand so many Indian languages, yet feeling proud of the diversity? the fact that I can easily wave and stop a cab or know exactly which buses go where? the comfort I get in fighting with the auto drivers if they ask too much money? the friends who all think like me? a family who talks a lot when we go out on vacations?...well, these can't be the reasons.

...I love India for the big reason that I belong to her, and I can always feel how much she is mine every time I say, "I am an Indian". It's the love a tree has for the place it has grown up in...my love for India has grown over the years...all the years I learned to walk, talk, read, write, think, live and love. My roots have grown very deep inside this land of wonders, so deep that if you tug at it, it pains deep inside the heart...and if you pull it too hard to uproot it, I will live without one.

 

Amrika! - Part 5

0 comments Posted by Mariposa... at 6:42 PM

I left Orange County on a Friday afternoon. It was a couple of hours' drive to Santa Monica, and I half slept on my way there. I was quite excited to be heading for Santa Monica, mainly for two reasons: one, I was waiting to meet an Indian colleague there and chatter in Hindi after a long time...and two, I was looking forward to dinner, which we had planned to have at an Indian restaurant.

The hotel that I was supposed to put up at Santa Monica had an antique look, which was supposed to be very posh and chic...well, guilelessly, I found it more haunted than anything else. With narrow corridors, dimly lit with those crooked antique shades, ancient designer carpets and brown, ragged paper on the walls...I almost used to dread coming back to the hotel after work. I practically used to run to my door after the lift door closed behind me. I half imagined getting strangled on my way to my room and dying in this unknown land in the hands of some ancient spirit...whatever! my imaginations always run haywire.

Santa Monica was in the Los Angeles county in California, and the notable differences of this place with Orange County was definitely quite attractive and lovable. The people here go out, party and enjoy their evenings - and, that was a big thing after the lazy streets of Irvine. On my arrival here, tired as I was from the whole day at office and the journey, I did not want to waste a Friday evening. Me and the Indian colleague went out for a scrumptious dinner at an Indian place - not to mention how taken aback we were to see a plate of bhindi sabji (ladies' finger curry) costing us 15 dollars...why, we would be able to get a shop full of ladies' finger at half this price in India! We had a relatively better dinner that night (India! Ahh, the land of spices!) as we gorged on to Biryani (garnished, strangely, with green peas), tandoori roti and butter chicken. The sea was close by to our hotel and we thought of going for a midnight walk along the Santa Monica Pier. Friday night as it was, it was totally lit up by colorful lights...giant ferry's wheels and other different rides were in full swing, and it hardly seemed so late. We checked into a beach side shack and had one of the most delicious Margaritas. We waded into the freezing sea waters, sat on the wet sand and only remembered to look at the time when we saw the sea waters were slowly advancing towards us due to a high tide.

Walking in the US is always a pleasurable experience, so walking back along the pier, and then along the sideways lined with restaurants and bars to our 'haunted' hotel even after 1 in the night was something I adored. The weekend that followed was a fabulous one! Saturday, as we had planned, was spent at Universal Studios. Going there wasn't much fun as we couldn't get the desired bus and had to take a cab all the way to that place, and that definitely burnt a hole in our pockets...a huge one! But once there, things were pretty fascinating. The Studio tour, the 2 hour wait for it, the spider crawling on my bag (yes! even US has spiders to scare me!), the different rides and the photo clicking sessions took up the entire day. We had a weird lunch of mashed potatoes, chicken (which looked like yummy tandoori murgh, but turned out to be a boiled-burnt chicken piece with over-sweetened tomato ketchup) and loads of coke. In the intention of not burning another hole in our pocket, we took the train, and then a bus back to our hotel. I won't term it as a brilliant experience though, as we had a couple of drunk black guys staring at us on the station stairs, a bearded old man wanting money at the bus stand (poor as we were with converting every dollar into rupees, how could we help US beggars!), an old lady who refused to answer us when we asked for the bus number and a sad, cold dinner at a sidey restaurant.

We were experienced travelers on Sunday and we booked a tour with an agency to go to Disneyland. This was something I was really looking forward to and yes, Disneyland did not fail to amaze me! With all the awesome colors, rides, music...Snow White, Cinderella, Pirates, Frog Prince, Alice in Wonderland...I almost had a peek into my childhood! The day went by in a jiffy and after a gorgeous firework show at 9 in the night, we rushed for the return bus. Tired, sleepy and dusty as we were, we were amazingly happy at our day's experience in this fairy tale land. We reached without hassle unlike the previous day and walked past the wonderful Third Street Promenade. Now, this Promenade is another of those places which I will remember forever! It resembled...ahh...a little bit like Indian roads on Diwali. The Promenade is a long lane that winds past the middle of Santa Monica and connects the beaches on one side and the main road on the other. The whole place is always lit up with the most colorful and pretty lights (the best ones I have seen in US so far). The lane is lined with the most chic of shops and restaurants to the regular cheap eateries as well. And, the best part of this place, were the street performers! A guy who plays the guitar with such magic melody that you are bound to get glued to the place, a girl who dances like a feather, twirling and twisting all over the place, a singer who plays the most awesome country songs ever...well, the Promenade is a place where you can't just go off from! We returned late that day, grumbling at the thought of office the next day and dropping off into bed like we haven't slept for ages!

The whole of next week my colleague was away to another place for work. I was tired of adventuring by then and spent a decent hotel-office-hotel week. I tried new eating places here, made friends with two Zimbabwean cab drivers who spoke about cricket, became real chummy with the office canteen girl who would pack me a box of marshmallows everyday, walked along the Promenade almost everyday and sat staring at the sea waves every night from my hotel window. It's been three weeks now...I want to go home, to India, to Hyderabad...

That Friday, I felt an immense amount of happiness in me! Two more days, and I am off to my own place...and in spite of all that you may have to say about India, I was jumping at the thought of returning to the land of real colors, of sunshine, of loud laughter, spicy food, warm air, drizzling rain, friends, family, love and joy...my real fairy tale land!

My colleague was back that Friday and we had an Indian dinner, a pleasant walk, and grand plans to spend the last Saturday in Amrika! Saturday dawned bright, sunny and we spent the day in a lazy, random and exploring way. After a long morning at the beach, we went for shopping. We went for dinner to an Italian place along the Promenade where we cheered with sparkling wine for the great time we had in US and how it made us re-realize our love for India!

"Good night Amrika!" one last time I murmured before wriggling into the warm blanket. Tomorrow I am off...back to my nest, back to my comfort land! 

 

Amrika! - Part 4

0 comments Posted by Mariposa... at 3:44 PM

I was dreading my first Friday evening in the US. It was around the end of the first week that I started missing my family and friends terribly. US is not a place where I can ever stay alone...on a second thought, I wondered, can I stay here for too long a time, even with friends and family? Nah! I decided...this is not a place to live, not at least for someone who is used to crowds, colors and brimming life...someone who is used to India!

The week had been quite an experience...an experience that ranged from working with people from a different ethnicity, knowing their ways of working, drinking sparkling water, buying vanilla scones for breakfast on my way to office, making cold sandwiches for afternoon snacks, walking back from office. Jet lag hit me around mid-week, and I had two full evenings snoring away peacefully after work. Everyday, I used to look forward to my post-dinner routine. After around 9 in the evening, I used to draw back the curtains of my bedroom window to get a full sight of the highway spreading itself under the night's sky, put on the local radio to some country music station and then jump into my bed beside the phone. Calling home was funny when every 'good night' of me was a 'have a good day' for them...updates on the weather, day spent, food eaten. Another thing I would really look forward to each day was a call from my friend in Hyderabad, after I hung up with my call home. Updates again, cribbing about work, missing India, what all I shopped, where all I went...and, how was Hyderabad doing, how much it rained, was there a bandh? I got a slice of an Indian day through these calls everyday, a flavor of my own life that I was so far from...

The early morning sunshine gushing in through my bedroom window used to wake me up before my alarm clock everyday. The cab that took me to office was never late and as the hotel receptionist would confirm me, it used to reach my place in just 3 mins. Thus went the first week, and it was Friday. One long week since I have come to this country...yeah, I miss home, I miss my India.

One of my colleagues invited me for dinner on Friday. I spent a great evening with her, her husband and their little pug, Tucker. We took out Tucker for a walk around their place. The pathway behind their house led to one of the most charming places in the whole of Orange County. We walked down till the banks of a calm lake that adorned the foothills of Santa Margarita mountains. Greenery, blue waters and an azure sky seemed the perfect ingredients to spice up the start of my weekend. I had one of the most tasty US dinners that day, yummy, cheesy pasta and white wine (the fact remained, it was Italian food that tasted so good in America).

The following weekend was great fun too. A trip to the San Diego Sea World on Saturday morning, followed by a breezy evening spent on the beaches of San Clemanto and fish tacos for dinner is more than I could have asked for. Early next morning, me and my colleague went out together to spend a lazy, girl-y Sunday. The  Sunday started with vanilla sugar scones, black coffee, a drive down to the beaches and tripping over at the parking lot, tearing my jeans, cutting right into my knees! But my enthusiasm overpowered my knee injury as we drove into a beach side breakfast place at Crystal Cove. I re-iterate, the roadside places in the US definitely serve more yummy food - we gorged on to a plateful of spiced scrambled eggs, one huge red strawberry, English muffins and a big glass of steaming hot chocolate with a dollop of whipped cream on top! Post breakfast, we spent a good three hours on the Laguna Beach. From wading into the sea water, building sand castles, watching the sea gulls run after the worms, the crabs running into their holes, the waves lashing against the rocks, to clicking endless pictures, making foot prints on the sand, counting the waves and paying a penny to a beach side guitar-player-cum-singer...I enjoyed Sunday! We also visited this beach side candy shop where I bought taffies and candies for home.

Orange County Fair came next. I am still to decide between a US fair and our Indian fairs...the roundabouts, the people and the crowds made them quite similar. But well, food tastes heavenly at the fairs in my country...and our lunch at the Orange County Fair, consisting of a turkey burger, potato chips and coke was nothing near the yummy Indian spices. So, Indian fairs, I vote!

Tired like anything, I bought dinner on my way back as I was sure that I would hit the bed much earlier today. And, yeah, as I expected, I slept the whole evening only to be woken up by my regular phone calls. I loved my weekend...It was a true traveler's weekend, and I was happy to have seen so much!

The next week went by as usual...vanilla scones, my sweet Starbucks coffee, loads of work at office, random shopping, lovely walks, counting the decreasing traffic through my bedside window every night and falling asleep...To wake up to my last day at the Orange County.

I am traveling to Santa Monica today evening, to the other office I am supposed to visit. Santa Monica is a part of the Los Angeles County, near to Hollywood and Disneyland. Wow! I was already looking forward to the weekend!

 

Amrika! - Part 3

2 comments Posted by Mariposa... at 1:56 PM

First Monday in the US was comparatively exciting. I didn't feel the Monday blues and I was amazed at my enthusiasm to walk down all the way to office. A walk down US roads is always a nice experience...no street dogs, no scary road crossing experience, no bumpy roads to topple over...


Office was nice but in-a-way-weird. People here were quieter, the office lights less bright, the window views a dull-grey (which made me realize how much I love the Indian sunshine), the air conditioning at least 2 degrees colder but the stationary supplies more attractive!

People here worked more continuously than in any other part of the world! Tea breaks and chit-chat sessions between work were definitely not their way! Most people, in this office, perpetually had a coffee cup, or a lunch plate at their work desk, from which they never ate or drank. I found it hard locating a water bottle, and later came to know that people here mostly drink 'sparkling water' (a fizz-ed soda, which they happily drink instead of water). For a handful of people who drank non-sparkling, real water, drank water from a big glass sucking on a big straw.

From boiled eggs to dried fruits, from white cheese to yellow cheese to cheese-with-holes, from beef steaks to lettuce leaves, from the food inside the fridge to the food outside the fridge...every eatable thing was always super cold...tea and coffee, anyways do not have any flavor or sweetness in the US, I reminded myself.

There wasn't much difference between lunch and dinner in the US. They always ate bread, butter, cheese and ham for everything. Some people only had arrays of unknown green leaves and stems on their plates at all times. Some people went swimming during lunch and some went jogging. Later they would have plates full of greenery at their desk for the rest of the day. I used to have experimental lunches everyday, and my experiments ranged from olive-oiled spaghetti, salt-free grilled chicken, endless greenery to some awesome cakes and puddings, may-be-lamb-may-be-pork meat and even raw fish!

My team took me out for lunch one day to a French place. I gracefully decided to order the same thing that they ordered, choosing not to be very picky and selective of unknown cuisines. But, as soon as I dug into the first fork-full of the 'salmon and fresh green salad', I realized my ignorance and mistake of trusting my team mates' judgement about food. I endlessly garnished the greenery and boiled, smelly fish on my plate with the olive-oil garnish, without the slightest change in taste. The only thing I liked in the dish were the small, pickled capers.

I had bacons for breakfast for the first time. As much as I imagined the name 'bacon' to be yummy and mouth-watering, I was quite disheartened to find hard, fried pieces of meat to be bacon! I liked the normal potatoes, eggs and breads more than the fancy bacon.

Some of the few eatables that I took a fancy here were marshmallows dipped in chocolate, scones, waffles, pink lemonades and mac-n-cheese. I also concluded that I like the smaller and cheaper restaurants in the US much more than the chic ones. No, it's not because of the price (my office card anyways pays it all)...but I feel commoners here, eat better and tastier food than the high society, sleek-legged, pencil-heeled groups.

One of the days during the long, busy week, I had gone for a walk along the back bay behind my hotel. The sun sets quite late here, so 6 o'clock in the evening gave me a sun-lit path along the back bay. I could clearly make out three distinct ways to reach the banks of the bay. One was notably meant for only cyclers, the other was a little higher and led to a small flyover, over the bay. The one I chose was the most empty path, quite untouched by human hand, wild and less spic 'n span that normal US roads. I walked along a humpy-bumpy trail, with wild shrubs bowing over from both sides. Butterflies and unknown flying creatures hovered around the bushes. As the breeze ruffled my hair and I kept walking along this beautiful way, I felt a sense of calmness and purity for the first time since I came to the US. Months later, I realized, that this lonely walk along the natural trail was one of the best sight seeing experiences that I had in the US. I didn't know the name of any of the flowers here, yet, they were among the best ones I have ever seen in my life. The bright yellow ones looked awesome against the cornflower blue sky...the white and brown ones looked like small cotton balls...I gaped at the sunset over the sparkling waters of the back bay...and, as the sun slowly slid between the shrubs, it left behind a cooler breeze, an orange streaked sky, a droopy sunflower and a home-ward me.

Twilight is perhaps not a known part of the day here, as darkness comes rushing as soon as the sun goes down for the day. My dinners in the US were way quicker than the ones I am normally used to...the reason being: one, I usually didn't go out hunting for food after it's dark (considering the daytime emptiness in Orange County, I didn't want to try the after sunset experience).; and second, the everyday experimental lunches at office made me hungrier before long.

Everyday, while walking back from office, I would take pictures of roadside flowers, highway sunsets and all the strange meals I kept eating. I discovered more eating joints, more friendly people, smiling dog owners who let me pat their pet dogs once in a while...and I taught Starbucks to make coffee my way! I at last started having a nice cup of coffee at least twice a day...over-sweetened by caramel and excessive sugar, milky, creamy and steaming hot. I found out a way to extract sweetness from these not-at-all sweet coffee and tea places. I used to describe my coffee as "extra sweet and extra milky caramel coffee" to get my normal, used-to doses of sweetness outside my own country!

 

Amrika! - Part 2

2 comments Posted by Mariposa... at 7:11 AM

Waking up next morning on a different bed, at a different place, in a different country is funny. For a split of a second I was lost, cold and stiff...but soon I pulled myself together, and was beaming at the morning that rushed in through the big window beside my bed.


I saw the clock and was amazed to see that it was just 7...tired as I was from the journey, I wondered how I got up so early! I realized that I have been woken up by a call from home. My father had inevitably forgotten the time difference and had thought it was evening. More than getting angry on being woken up so early, I laughed. It was funny the way my parents were telling what they did the whole of Saturday, and here I was sitting hundreds of miles away, still planning my first Saturday in the US. A friend had later asked me, "Are Americans a lot ahead from us in terms of education, technology etc.?" I had laughed and said, "No! they aren't ahead at all...They are 12.5 hours behind us!"

I needed some time to figure out things inside the hotel...the posh bath-tub, the tissue roll, the hot water tap, the rolled up towels, unfolding the iron table, the weird plugs-points. But I was soon ready...amazed at myself and my over-flowing enthusiasm. Who would say that I had just slept for 5 hours in the last 2 days!

Orange County is a sleepy area, that was exactly my first thought! How else do you see joggers at 11 am in the morning...and not a single person on the road even after the sun is up! I wanted to find out bus routes from the hotel receptionist, but felt quite a bit frustrated to know that no one whosoever, starting from the corporate heads to the receptionists to the sweepers take the buses much...they have cars. And considering cab fares look nice in dollars and give heart attacks when converted into Indian rupees, I didn't want to take the chance. So, I started walking. My first walk along the super clean, perfectly organized yet quite empty roads of US was something that I will always remember.

The people here have the strange habit of handing over maps whenever you ask them the way along with north, south directions measured in miles...all of which were quite gibberish to me then. I tried reaching a small eating and shopping area around my hotel called Bristol Jamboree. I asked ten different cyclers and joggers (they were the only people I could spot at a gap of every 5-10 mins) about this place. They answered in at least seven different accents, shocked by my very Indian accent and shocking me with their grammar-less, heavily accented American English. I somehow had a fair idea of the place I was supposed to go for my Saturday brunch. While crossing the street, I saw a red hand on the traffic signal. As I waited for the signal to turn un-red, I saw how nicely the cars move here...in a line, smooth and almost at the same speed. It was almost 15 minutes when I started having this weird feeling that the traffic signal might be a damaged one...it was just not turning any other color! As I fretted and looked around, I suddenly saw a button on a pole with a board saying, "Press here for crossing the road". Super elated, I pressed it, and within a couple of minutes the lights around changed, the cars stopped and the signal turned a bluish white walking man. For the first time, I crossed a US road...with a 15 mins wait, with a button pressed, with a happy feeling from this awesome discovery of crossing roads.

I ate at a rice-and-chicken place at the plaza...Hunger is the best sauce, they say...and so it is! I gobbled on a bowl of sticky rice, random sauces, saltless boiled chicken and half boiled vegetables. The place was suggested to me by the stationary shop attendant across the street. If "a friend in need, is a friend indeed", then this guy was definitely my first true friend in this strange country. He suggested sight-seeing places, he suggested eating places, shopping places...and best of all he found a bus schedule for me and the bus routes, not to forget the usual array of maps that came along with that.

I waited for the bus for 40 minutes, taking pictures of myself with my self-timed camera, resting it on the bus stand pole. I boarded the bus, which seemed a perpetually empty place. After changing two buses and asking another dozen people, I reached this place called Balboa Island. I walked along the bridge by myself, marveling at the beautiful yachts, at the cornflower blue sky, the picturesque surroundings and the colorful flowers. I took the ferry and crossed over to the other part of Balboa, the peninsula. I had an ice-cream all by myself, and walked for about an hour or so until I reached the ocean. It was fun to discover things by myself, open my shoes before walking along the beach, clipping the shoes with my bag handle, stare at the awesome waves that lashed against the sand...I was soon so close to the sea that I couldn't stop myself from touching the sea.

It's good at times to have ignorant, carefree people around you...you can do anything you feel like and yet not worry what people around you might think. So, I didn't feel too strange in rolling up my jeans and wading in the water, taking pictures and gaping at the waves, all by myself.

I guess I make friends too easily, no wonder I made friends with a cookie seller, and her friend a half clip-seller and a half air hostess. I was soon sitting beside them, chatting with them. It's good to make friends, I realized. I was saved the wait for the bus and getting lost finding the bus stand. I was dropped back at my hotel! I came back to my hotel after sunset. Jet-lag hasn't yet hit me that hard, I wondered why.

Tired of cold sandwiches and cold ham and cold drinks, I went to a Mexican joint the next day. I had a comparatively warmer lunch with tacos and beans...The coffee tasted strange from lack of sugar. Five packets of powdered sugar didn't help. Sweet-less, I concluded.

I went shopping half of Sunday, buying stuff for family and friend back home. I never found shopping this difficult ever before. For everything I saw, for every price tag that I checked, I fell aback. Dollars are a lot of money, I realized. And, money to me is rupees. Things were pretty costly here! "I am an Indian, a true one" I laughed!

In the evening, I went to see a theater at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. It was a half-Spanish, half-English musical and definitely, one of the things I enjoyed most in the US. Dinners were getting boring everyday...I can never be a burger eater, for sure. I craved for real food...even Sambar would do, I thought!

Yeah I enjoyed my first weekend in the US, in all sorts of weird ways...going around the place all alone, discovering bus routes, sightseeing places and eating areas, talking to the most off-beat people in the world - a stationary shop attendant, a cookie seller, a hair-clip seller, an air hostess and a Greek food restaurant owner! Normal people here are zombies, they travel only by cars and know nothing of the buses or the routes. Ignorant Americans, I say!

 

Amrika! - Part 1

3 comments Posted by Mariposa... at 6:25 AM

For the first 22 years of my life, I had never stayed outside my home, Kolkata, never gone around anywhere alone and had only gone to not-so-far-away places for family vacations. And, then suddenly, I started seeing places! It's difficult at times, to adjust to a place outside the warm little shelter called home where you have stayed all through...but it can be a lot of fun too. And, for someone like me, who loves new cultures and languages, moving around is quite a bit of an experience.


I had stepped out of home for Hyderabad three years back. And then seen Delhi, Gurgaon and Chennai during official tours. Then, "Amrika" happened! First time out of the country, flying over the north pole, sitting in the flight for 17 hours, drinking wine with a cheers with a random person on the flight, paying $5 for a one minute phone call to home, can be weirdly exciting!

On my way to the Hyderabad Airport...I felt sort of strange. An intriguing, bone-chilling feeling, not only because of the nip in the air, bu also because of the haywire thoughts about what the next three weeks will actually be like.

After heavy words like immigration, passport, stamp, visa and "why are you going to the US", I made my way to the international terminal. I am now a confirmed traveler, with most of my belongings checked in, passport and boarding pass in hand, all set to fly.

19 hours in a plane...with a stop over at Dubai. I never imagined I could survive it, until I actually did. The black Kenya guy who sat in the next seat and wasn't at all a nice person, the friendly Dubai-settled Punjabi couple who loved Dubai more than India, and who spoke only about the dirt and dust of India, the cabin crew who tirelessly went on serving food and beverages, the endless list of movies on the TV, the warm blanket with which I cuddled off to sleep several times during the flight, the book that gave me company when I was bored of looking at the TV screen - these were all part of an elongated August day, elongated by the flight, flying over the world, taking bits and pieces of the same day from every country. I get extra time to live, I thought...I get the same day with more than just 24 hours in it!

Waiting at the SFO airport for my next flight to Irvine was tiring. By then, I no longer felt amused at anything...Jet-lagged, tired, sleepy, I just needed a bed to drop into. It's been difficult - to pass all the immigration, customs, security, to get back the luggage, to buy a calling card...search for entry to the domestic terminal, ask a hundred people on the way, everytime feeling irritated at their lack of knowledge and their inability to comprehend Indian English accent at one go. I had the first taste of American food at the airport - a cold sandwich. Going forward, I realized, how much of cold stuff these people always eat...do microwaves sell that well here?

I had an NRI helping me get a taxi from the airport. As I drove down in the taxi towards my hotel, I saw that the roads were noticeably different. Cleaner, much emptier, more greenery by the sides. Sigh! Can't India be like this too? No, I don't crave for the emptiness, but we could do with a little bit more greenery and cleanliness. As my taxi drove into the front yard of the hotel, I came out and shivered. Fall in California, more around the Orange County, is not at all supposed to be cold...but I guess Indian skins are used to more warmth.

My hotel room overlooked a breath-taking view! The back bay of the ocean was calm with a silent gushing sound and the serenity of the area that I could see from my 9th floor room's balcony was beyond imagination. I at once fell in love with the place and my room. After a subway dinner, I was soon sleeping peacefully on the eiderdown bed in my room.


 

Hand-made

1 comments Posted by Mariposa... at 6:18 PM

It was one of those rush hours in the morning when the roads of the city are packed with the noisiest of traffic...numerous buses, cars, autos, taxis and bikes speeding on the tarred roads, deafening sounds of horns and the cluttering sounds of purses heavy with coins, course tip-top sounds of high heels or thumping of sneakers against the rough roads and the shouts of the conductors peeping out of the buses calling out for passengers.


Sree, like everyday, had walked down the lane from her house towards the bus stop. Her lane was a quieter place as it was away from the main road. Trees lined the lane and the whole road was naturally shaded against the harsh summer sun. She flipped opened her umbrella as she came near the bus stop. As Sree waited for a bus to come, which she would board to reach college, she saw a woman crossing the road and coming towards her. No, she was no normal woman. She was half naked, her hair in a mess with dirt and dryness, untidy, apparently smelly, she was murmuring to herself. Sree felt uneasy as this woman drew nearer. She stepped back and looked around. The woman came nearer, stared at Sree hard...and then murmured something in a way as if she expected a reply. Sree walked away to the other side of the bus stop. From there she could see this weird woman walking in a daze among the crowds in the bus stop, everyone stepping back and getting out of her way.

Thankfully the bus came, and Sree jumped onto it. "Mad women!" she muttered to herself. "Who lets them out on the streets?!"

While Sree goes to her college which is around 15 kilometers away from her home, let's take a look around her house. Her house is a small old construction in a quieter part of a place called Salt Lake. Her father is an old banker. Mr. Lahiri had a late marriage and a late child. Mrs. Lahiri stayed at home, hardly contributing anything to home-making. She was a nerve patient, had a weak heart and was diabetic. Added to this she used to be eternally tensed for her daughter, Sree. She wanted her to get married to a well-settled guy, who will take care of her in her absence. For some weird reason, she didn't trust her husband as much to take care of her daughter and she feared an early death would befall her, orphaning her child. Fights between the parents was something that Sree had been seeing regularly. Her mother used to shout at her father for everything - if their daughter returned late, if the bathroom tap didn't work, if the household help didn't come on time...Sree hated it and hated her mother for saying these to her father. For the past ten years, she had been seeing her father cook food when the maid wouldn't come, wash clothes when the washing machine refused to work, take care of the finances by working from day to night and being the only person at home who would talk normally to Sree. Sree hated returning home after college...home has become a living hell for her. She hardly recollects why the change happened.

Ten years back, she remembers it was raining heavily outside after a hot summers' day. Mr. Lahiri had come home very late. Sree and her little sister Trisha were in their room. They could hear their mother's voice over the thunders outside. They heard things being broken, they could feel the hostility and the grimness. Soon afterwards, Trisha had been put into a hostel. Sree had hardly seen her parents sitting together and talking pleasantly after that evening. A few months after that, Mrs. Lahiri had been terribly sick. She was sick and in hospital for days and days. And, when she came back, she was told to be in complete bed rest. Things changed all the more. Mrs. Lahiri never entered the kitchen after that, and became all the more grumpy and irritated. Sree grew up in such a place. She made through school and now into college.

After years of darkness, of a grumpy mother, an over-worked father, a lonely home, a missing sister, Sree found happiness in college. She found happiness in a guy whom she started dating soon after she joined college. Subham made life easier for Sree. Sree used to look forward to meeting him, to going for movies with him, to talk to him every night. Subham was 2 years senior to her and the matured way he dealt with things made Sree happy.

Like everyday, after college, Sree went to meet Subham at their usual meeting point, by the lake. Subham sounded happy yet low as he gave her the news. He has got through his dream company and would have to join in a couple of months. But this job meant he going away from Kolkata and working in another city, which means, staying away from Sree. Sree didn't know how to react. She didn't want to let go of him, yet she knew how much he needed this job, even for the smallest reason to approach her parents for their daughter's hand.

For days after that, Sree and Subham started planning...planning their future, how Sree can finish her college and come to the same city as him, and eventually get married. Things seemed nicely chalked out and by the end of that week, Sree was looking forward to a planned future, where she just meant to be happy.

It rained the previous night and the weather was nicer in the morning. Sree wasn't going to college that day. She was going to spend the whole day with Subham. "Just a few more days", thought she with a heavy heart. Her eyes suddenly went towards that mad woman. She was making a home for herself under the bridge. She had rugs around her, some leftover food, a broken mirror and a bottle of water. Sree suddenly noticed something that she had not noticed the day before. The woman was heavily pregnant. "Who would have done that!" she thought, and felt disgusted.

That night, she returned to a grim environment at home. Her father was sitting in front of the TV, solemn and quiet. She could hear the sobbing sounds of her mother coming from inside. She preferred not to ask anyone and silently went to her room. She felt weak. She wondered for the hundredth time what is it that made her home into such broken bits, what made her smiling mother change to someone so drastic, what made a jolly father suddenly become so old and tired, what made them send Trisha to hostel and never let her come home, even during vacations. Ten years back, her mother had told her that the sisters were separated as they fought so much. Sree knows that can't be the reason...where do sisters never fight?

Two months flew past, and Subham left for his job. He left early in the morning after a kiss a goodbye on phone to Sree. Sree had been awake and crying since early morning. When the morning rolled and the sun came out, she dressed to go for college. She felt miserable, lonely and knew how much she had started depending on this boy for the past three years. She felt tearful as she stood at the bus stop. She looked for the mad woman and saw her sitting in a comfortable position, trying to comb her hair, peeping into the mirror. Sree looked and thought how did it exactly feel to sit under a bridge, look into a broken mirror and comb a messy bunch of hair! Happiness is hand-made may be, thought Sree...and she tried to look beyond the sudden emptiness in her life.

She used to call up Trisha at times. She called her today, spoke about how she was missing Subham, how she hated coming back home all the more, how she felt Trisha was lucky to be staying away from all this mess...After Subham left the city, Sree's calls to Trisha increased, and they spoke more often, shared more often.

***

A year passed by. Sree was in her final year, looking for a job. A lot had changed in this one year. Subham was a full-fledged working man now, earning well, settled well. He had come down twice in the course of this one year. Sree and Subham had met then, gone for dates...not by the lake now, but to ac restaurants now, spoken, loved, planned...and fought. Somewhere Sree felt that Subham was changing, changing everyday. He had less time now, more friends...he didn't like speaking about marriage anymore, he hardly had the patience to listen to Sree's teary stories about her home. Sree could feel the distance, emotionally, more than physically. Trisha used to give her sensible advice and tried to make Sree happier. Sree and Trisha had actually, once planned to meet. Sree went to Trisha's place, telling at home that she was going for a college tour. Trisha was a big girl now, she had started college. She had a refreshing time with her sister and wished they had stayed together.

Sree's mother's condition became worse. She had regular migraine headaches, nervous breakdowns, high pressure. She became all the more grumpy and started searching for Sree's suitors frantically. Her only aim and goal in life seemed to be in getting her daughter married off to a good family. Mr. Lahiri started to come back home really late, to avoid his wife's regular tantrums and the darkness of a dark home.

The mad woman by the bus stop had a cute little baby boy. Sree used to see the woman caressing her boy, feeding him, lulling him off to sleep among the rugs. She wondered, "What a life this little boy has! A mad mother, a betraying father."

It was an August evening. Sree had been trying to call Subham the whole day, but he didn't pick up the phone. She was worried. At last, when she got the phone, she started screaming, a result of her tension. He got irritated on the other side and hung up. She called again. Calling, cutting calls, re-calling...shouting, abusing, cursing...it went on the whole evening. Sree had dinner with puffed eyes and when she went back to her room, she started on the phone once again. This time her mother saw it and she came to her room and started screaming. She was already sensing an affair in Sree's life. She didn't want Sree to choose her life partner...what if she chose the wrong guy! She was hysteric as she shouted and scolded Sree. Sree, for the first time, shouted back at her mother. Down as she was, she out poured all her buried distress.

"Stop it Ma! It's my business whom I talk to, whom i decide to marry...isn't it enough that I put up with a mad mother like you, a home which is anything but a home!"

Mrs. Lahiri stared in shock at her. "Enough" said she. "This is what I get to hear from an ungrateful daughter like you." She walked away, half sobbing, trembling and inwardly in great pain.

The next morning Sree went out for college. The mad woman at the bus stop was still there, her baby in her lap, her eyes fixed on him. She could sense a suppressed affection for her baby, behind the madness, behind some hidden pain, that none at this bus stop knew.

Sree got a call from her father around midday that day, telling her to come back home. She came back to find her mother lying silent in the hall. Several people had gathered around her. Sree fell on her knees, groping the air in front...

Trisha came reached around evening. It was a sudden heart attack when no one was at home. She just managed to call on her husband's phone and drop dead forever. Sree did all the rituals...everything in a daze. She couldn't believe it.

Trisha went back to her college a week after. Sree joined back in college for her final semesters. The first day she came back home, she found the house darker. She realized that now there's no one to light the lights of the lawn, no one to light incense sticks every afternoon, no one to shout at her father for the plumber didn't come, no one to murmur about Sree's growing age and her marriage...She sat on her mother's bed, in the darkness and sighed.

Things changed rapidly after this. Subham broke off with Sree, Mr. Lahiri retired, Sree finished college and joined a small start-up in Kolkata. Mr. Lahiri's health started growing worse. He had a high pressure and he seemed much older than his age. One evening, he called Sree to his room.

"Sree, I need to tell you this. I am scared I might leave all of you suddenly one day like your mother did...so, I need to tell this to you before anything like that happens"

Sree stared at him, stoned...she could sense a strangeness in her father's voice and she felt uneasy.

He went on, "Sree, Trisha is you Mashi's dauughter. Your mashi conceived her while she was still unmarried".

Sree knew her Mashi had died of cancer when she and Trisha were small. This piece of news shocked her...So, Trisha was her cousin?

Mr Lahiri cleared his throat. "So you mother was only yours. She wasn't Trisha's." A brief pause. "But Sree, I was her father."

There was a long silence. Sree looked at her father, lost, drowned in the reality that just unfolded in front of her.

Her father said more, "Sree do you understand what I am saying? Your mother didn't know about this. She knew we were adopting Trisha just because she was fatherless and orphaned as her mother died when she was just three months old."

The truth had come out later, through some wills, and legal documents...the truth which saw the Lahiri home shattered, that rainy night when the happy family broke forever.

Sree stood up and walked into her mother's room. She stared at her photo, now garlanded and smiling. She wondered when she had last seen her mother smiling. She stared across the room, to the bookshelves, to the albums where they had photos of the once happy family they were, photos of a Digha trip, photos of hers and Trisha's growing up years. Sree looked at her mother's sarees stacked on the chair, her medicines and the numerous matrimonial pages of newspapers that she used to go through regularly. Sree stared at these with tears in her eyes, and a pain within her...a pain that she knew her mother had been carrying along all these ten years. She could now see the darkness her soul had been much more than the darkness that Sree had grown up in.

That night, Sree thought a lot. And, in the morning she went to her father.

"Baba, can we have a new start? Let's have Trisha with us again, let's have a home again...and let us live again. I am tired of being dead, Baba."

Mr. Lahiri looked at his daughter with tears in his eyes. For eleven long years he had waited for forgiveness, he had craved for a new start. And, now, here stands his own daughter, who has grown to be a woman...who has done something that her mother couldn't do. Mr. Lahiri would never blame his wife...but, today, he was happy that Sree was his daughter.

That day, the mad woman at the bus stop was playing with her son with some broken toy parts she had found somewhere. Sree looked at her, her broken home, her shabby rags, her scattered possessions...and her baby, and the love in her eyes.

The bus has come. Before she put up her feet on the bus steps, Sree looked back. The mad woman looked at her. Sree looked and smiled at her...

Happiness is indeed hand-made...

***

Ma: Mother
Baba: Father
Mashi: Maternal aunt (mother's sister)


 

Re-loved

8 comments Posted by Mariposa... at 4:01 PM

I


For a 19 year college girl, it was spontaneous, it was new, it was real...for Her it was the first time, a craze, for Her it was Love...

She didn't know why it started and how it started. Just out of school, fresh into college life...She was learning to dress up, wear kajal, carry fancy bags...She was learning to have a boyfriend, She was learning to love...

And, so She gave all Her love to Him. She expected love back, and She got that. Cloud nine was easy to reach then, to love and to be loved was easy...

She was one of the very regular girls that you see on the streets everyday. And, like all other regular girls, she had eyes full of dreams. Like all other girls, she had a heart full of fresh, untouched love.

She was funny in the beginning, she hated college. She wanted to go back to school. Alas, her poor friends who used to wipe out her tears and pat her and love her to make her love her college and new found friends! She soon learned to accept the changes in life…And, soon she started changing…

She had friends, just friends, all over. Love to her was filmy and dramatic and she never indulged in those…until one day someone told her what a fool she was not to realize love, until someone told her how loving love was! She thought and thought…and felt suffocated. She soon opened the windows to let some fresh air come in…And, then she met him.

He was so different. Yet, all the differences summed up to a lot of liking…She was young, she was new to the world of love…and she wanted to see love…so she loved!

And, after a while, he loved too, or so his lips uttered. And, there was so much love…

Every date was recorded twice…once on her calendar with a red heart…once on her memory with a loving touch…and, they loved…

Love was then going out hand in hand, love to her was meeting everyday…love to her was talking on the phone every night, love to her was secrets, whispers and sweet fights…

And, she loved…

Love was then completing one year…love was then loving words on gifts…love was then writing poems…love was then cribbing to him about studies…

Love was college life, love was waiting for him…love was listening to him, love was crying after a kiss and goodbye…

Love was fun, love was having someone…love was “I Love You”s…Love was “I Miss You’s”…

Love was movie halls, love was sitting close…

Love was songs, music and six strings…

Love was dreams about him, love was talking to him…love was fighting with him…

Love was in having him with herself…Love was being possessive, love was only her and him…

Love was promises, Love was breaking them and saying sorry…

Love was fighting about a third person…Love was that third person taking her place…

Love was breaking up…shedding tears…looking back…Love was trying to move on…

She loved, she lost…her fairy tale love ended abruptly…And, she realized love!


II


Six years…she had grown to be a woman. And, like all other women, she had pains buried in her…she had a smile on her. She was successful, she was happy. She never meant to change, but she changed…she grew. Older, wiser.

Long ago, she had forgotten to close her windows, and after a long time the breeze blew in again. And she met him once again.

He had changed. Yet, all the changes summed up to the old ‘him’…She was older, she was wiser…and she was too old to love…yet she loved again! She re-loved.

No date remembered, no love shared…

No more going out hand in hand…yet being a shoulder to cry on, to lean on…

No fights, no whispers…she was quieter, she understood…

They had known one another for 6 long years now…so it was not the words, nor the gifts…it was just a heart-full of feelings…

No more waits, no more goodbyes…She was beside him…

It was just “being there”…

It was sitting face to face, eye in eye…

It was now just listening to him…it was just taking everything in…

It was in seeing him happy…it was only him and him…

It was then just a shout on a bad day, just a dry smile on a nicer day…

It was then having anything and anyone…just to see him happy…

It was crying to herself when he was sad…it was feeling happy when he was fine…

It was Re-love…

For a 25 year old woman, it was silent, it was continuous, it was true...for Her it was the heartbeats, a feeling deep-felt, for Her it was Re-love…

She now knows, it never stopped…she knows it’s there to stay. Into her womanhood...She was learning to act like a woman, cry silently, hide a heart-full of tears behind a pair of dry eyes…She was learning to love a man…she was learning to re-love…

And, so She gave all Her life to Him. She expected nothing more of Him. Cloud nine wasn’t easy to reach then, to love and to love all the more wasn’t easy...yet she re-loved.


III


She loved, she lost, she moved on…


She re-loved, she had nothing to lose…so she re-loved all the more…

 

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