Its been 10 yrs !!!?

Finding your own little heaven..

I woke up this morning with a beautiful thought. There were flashes from that evening at the end of the summer in California. It was a beautiful evening, but we were frustrated from not being able to go on the much famed '17 mile drive' as it was closed just that particular day. We drove along Sunset drive and then paced up and down the streets of downtown Carmel, which had this authentic european feel to it.

It was a random 'turn right' decision that took us to what I now call "my little heaven"... I had never seen such a breathtaking sight at the end of a road. The road ended where the beach began. We had reached "Carmel by the sea"... it really did seem like the far end of earth.



This really was the kind of place I wanted to be in with her.. the ocean without the clamour of the Santa Cruz beach. This was far more pristine.. crashing waves, white sand, scattered people, a couple on their bikes, a lady with her dog, another with her new-born. It was easily the most beautiful sunset I had seen. There's no way I can describe it, but it was like the sun was slowly but surely resigning itself into the ocean, leaving behind a colorful sky and a beautiful evening to cherish. The only indication of time would be the very apparent falling of the sun, otherwise it was all pretty much standstill.

Somehow, I thought to myself.. we're surely gonna return to this place someday. It holds a special place for me, creates a serene thought.. I think of how we just sat there talking about the past, the future, and talking nothing at all. I've always kept looking for my little heaven... something that brings about this calmness when I think of it. It didn't even have to be a place.. it used to be 'the saturday', then 'nowhere', and then this.. I'm sure we all have own little heaven.. its just about realising it when we get there, and then cherishing it for the time to come..

I wish there was a better way to thank the stranger who clicked this for us..

A sudden melancholy

It's that weird time again. Even when there's nothing apparently wrong, an irritatingly conspicuous feeling of morosity seems to have crept into me. For no reason. At all.

I haven't studied at all this sem, so I cant complain that my school is getting be depressed. If anything, I'm having a whale of a time at school. Its at times like these that I start thinking unnecessarily deep things. I feel I've change in some now-noticable ways. I've gone from someone who treasured his few deep relationships to someone who maintains a lot of shallow ones, which is not bad either.. its just that I miss being able to connect to someone whom I could really talk to, about just anything under the sun.. someone who'd listen me out too, without judging me or ridiculing me for my thoughts.

A depressing house, a seemingly never-ending long distance relationship, a dear friend who's just about being there, the anxiety of a job hunt, a lousy job that I do only to continue paying off my rent... these are really the only things I've been thinking about all day.

Its hard to smile through tough days sometimes.

Culture.. religion and the sorts

I got to know some Indians even in this jungle... thank god for cricket. My first impression of them was of a bunch of confused undergrads or ABCDs.. the usual, caught between cultures types, checkin out random babes while still listening to Penn Masala.

However some things changed that impression this last weekend. After our game, we went to one of the guys' place, the only non-student in the lot.. he cooked for us n stuff too. What then happened had really got me thinking. They shared all the work.. there was no dining table.. so two guys set up the place in the hall for everyone to sit around and eat, 2 others helped the "cook".. everyone settled around on the floor to eat.. and then they got into a prayer, the one that they recite before eating. For a moment I did feel ashamed I must admit as I was probably the only one who didn't know the prayer, and I was the last one to have come here from India. Ofcourse the next moment I consoled myself by the fact that I was not a religious person, and that I had a whole different set of values and beliefs, that I never prayed.

Looking away from myself, I moved my focus back on them... I still thought they were a confused bunch, but I now realised they weren't entirely lost. I've been to the homes of two of the guys, both houses welcome you with the Indian flag proudly displayed in the living room, though this was something even I had always wanted.

We ate over conversations about the things they did together, and how happy they were where they were. Once we were done, the group once again segregated, with each one taking on a role.. cleaning up, trashing, rearranging. I was told that if we had not used the plastics plates, one of them would even do the dishes.

They lived about 5min from each other.. so a really close-knit group. They had converted the lone Marathi also to Gujju-ism. I asked them if they ever thought about moving to a big city like NY or LA or ATL.. I didn't get a single yes. They were all so happy where they were, countryside Nashville. One guy explained to me that its all the same once you have friends where you are, the place doesn't matter. I couldn't agree more. I'd much rather be in Atlanta where I know people than be in a larger, grander NY where I know nobody. But then again, in a place like NY,it really doesnt take much to get to know people, so I'd get used to that in no time at all, so it shouldnt really matter. Then I guess its only about the depth of your relationships. Can that really keep you moving on?

I rode along with the group as we went bowling n just driving.. nothing to me suggested anyone wanted to leave all of this behind.. but who knows where their jobs would take them.

So maybe the size of this particular group wasn't large enough.. the demographics weren't too varied.. they were all gujjus.. known to be the more religiously conscious among Indians.. but looking at them.. I just thought.. do Indian parents here go that extra mile in bringing up their kids, afraid that this culture may corrupt them, that they end up raising them to be far more religion and culture conscious than most Indian kids? I know my aunt drives 40miles twice a week just to take her kid to a classical music class, the classes in every galli-nukkad of India are so scarcely populated, but I also wonder how long would their upbringing help them? What will happen when alcohol enters their lives? Would they begin to lose it? Would they take the songs about guns and gangs way too seriously?

Two guys from the group had been to this religious camp last week at the University of Texas at Austin. They told stories about how people just like them had been reduced to tears by the story of Abhimanyu. They were still sporting the spiked hair and loose shorts, but they had the tilak. All this makes me wonder.. will they just change, or will they hold?

As for me, I've come to believe that people like me just somehow grow way more patriotic after coming here, something that I don't understand. We're pretty much traitors to our country, yet we feel more proud of it now when we're away from it. We wanna go to India.. but just for a holiday. We're too afraid of the discomforts. We've traded a lot for comforts.

I go to bed listenin to a meaningless, yet famous song "This is why I'm hot".. but I'm gonna wake up at a crazy hour to see Sachin bat. Am I any different? I wonder..

Everybody loves Raymond..

Why can't lives of real people be like that of Raymond? He has legendary fights with his wife, the kinds that could end marriages, and yet, somehow, they're all real funny, helped by those background laughs. I think putting those fake background laughs in real people's lives could make their fights funny too.

Isn't it amazing that no matter how bad his fights get, they're still always settled inside those half hour episodes? They somehow always kiss and make up, or.. atleast kiss anyway.

Now I dont wanna be someone who gets jacked over and over and over by his wife, mom, dad, brother and whoever else crosses his path.. but I sure want things to end on a high note in every episode of my life. It sometimes reminds me of a thing that my dad once told me, that just stuck. After one of those wars with my sis, when we were both mighty upset, he came up to me and said "Finish all your fights by midnight each day.. don't carry them into the next day." It seemed to work almost everytime I consciously tried to settle things before the day ended. But soon I stopped trying cos people were either too pissed off all the time, or I found myself apologizing way too often of things that I thought were not my fault, and that probably wasn't good for my ego. But anyway, I'm sure I'd be more peaceful if I had kept doing that, eventually people would've realised what was going on.

Anyway, I wish I can get back to where I can see the funny side of everything, play those background laughs in my head to help me maybe, maybe talk funny things inside my head like those guys do in scrubs, ..simply cos I prefer being funny than being mad. Somehow, I'd just like to end each episode on a high.
"Life's too short to be pissed off all the time"