Transitions

Three years to the blog. Three years in Amreeka.

Three, and counting..

Travels and Travails

Right, so here's another one of those short quick updates. Between then and now, on expected lines, things changed, times changed. Some found greener pastures and moved on. Some continue to seek the same and await their turn to get there. Somewhere in between, there's yours truly who has obstinately stayed put, firmly planting his revered backside on a black leather couch somewhere around this place with a (de)famed laptop on his person - remaining a static nodal point in an otherwise dynamic world around him.

Sometime in these past few months, Florida happened - a technical conference and a short visit to the beaches being the highlights. A big guy and his spooky labmate had a reunion with an old mentor and pal, and made new friends over icecreams, geektalk and joyrides in amusement parks. Presentation aside, discussions revolved, for most part, on how the vibrations industry remains shaken up, and what might be needed to excite the field again (clean harmless puns for modal analysts partly intended, double entendre not so much). Economic constraints meant iPods and digicams were replaced by t-shirts and notepads as game bounties and raffle prizes.

Joyous over winning one such freebie, yours truly returned to dear ol' Cincy in time to celebrate V-Day in joyful SADness. Free entertainment was provided from the other end of the globe by this not-so-gentle man and this not-very-gentle-either woman, as oppressed(?) youth in Bharat found a..err..fitting.. response, in pink chaddis, to the moral policing of self-proclaimed guardians of Indian Hindu take-your-pick culture.

A little further down the timeline, Puerto Rico beckoned with open skies for an escapade to the Caribbean Islands. With biomechanic works behind one's back, figuratively and literally, binging sessions took over early evenings and went on till just short of daybreak. While some let the Margaritas and Martinis kick in, some downed lemonades and virgin Dragon Punches with equal fervor and greater sobriety. Liquor or no liquor, this exotic island managed to have both kinds floored end of the day. With a fun company around, arguments chitchats in dingy bars, flashy pubs and streets lasted all nights as profound thoughts were exchanged on infidelity, marriages, moralities, alcoholism and social orthodoxies in cultures across the globe - whowuddavethunk fluids could be so potent?

Efforts were expended in trying to pick up enough of Español to be able to order vegetarian foods and to strike conversations with random females - turned out it took a lot more than Spanish to accomplish either of the two around there. A day was spent exploring the historical Old San Juan. Known for its port and old Spanish forts, this lively town marked by narrow cobblestone streets and colors from across the palette stands in stark contrast to the more urbane landscapes of the capital city of San Juan. Activities off the seas included a small hike through the El-Yunque tropical rainforest. Ears were craned to hear the Puerto Rican Parrot sing, and eyes struggled to catch a glimpse of the Coquí, species native to this island. Somewhere during the stay, a night was spent by the rocks and the waters; the waves spoke for long, a bat listened - mutely and intently for once - and returned home wiser.

Bitten by the travel bug harder and deeper, a yearning for idly-vadas translated into a visit to the Big Apple and the wild Buffalo. A week was spent exploring the city that never sleeps and all its skyscrapers, parks and bridges. Bigcity fastlife was re-lived on the commute as New York City was criscrossed over red, blue, green and yellow lines. In the crowds, in the rush, in life and activity bubbling all over the place, Bangalore.. Bengalüru was remembered, as were words a friend penned. A weekend by the more serene and humbling Niagara signed off a memorable stay amidst friends - a personal highlight of the visit being a partial conquest over fear once exhibited for the canine species. Fear of the feline and the feminine continue to rank high on the list, on an sidenote.

Back to Cincy, back to the couch, back to the occasional labwork, back to the coffee, cream, sugars and biscuits, and to a much-abused companion in a laptop that holds its head high while lesser builds crash. Back to the home away from home. With a nest to come back to after the skies are explored, the travels and travails in life continue unabashed.

A smile a day. A cup of coffee spent over laughter.

A new place to visit. A new avenue to learn.

A penny earned, a penny saved, a penny well spent.

A good deed done.

A dream to chase. A dream to live.

To good times, now, always.

The world remains my oyster.

Colors. Blues.

Took in the breeze - cold, blunt.

Savoured it. Prayed moments froze.

Shalt pass, this too?

Sought sunshine. Leapt for it.

Caught nothingness. Embraced it.

Bliss. Or was it?

Fall's here. Nandãma Sharadaśśhatam, shall we? Will we?

Two, and counting..

The blog's second anniversary's here, and me gets into the retrospective mode yett egain. While it's been an eventful second year in the US, thank your stars not much of it has been/will be chronicled. This, as I have come to promise once too often now without ever living up to it, will be a short one. A few quick updates, then, between the then and the now.

I finally managed an A-grade. That the class average was an A-grade too is a trivial fact I pray you would be kind enough not to point out to me. The grade has been the high point of my academic life at Cincy this far, and I hope you would let me revel in my short-lived moment of glory.

'I am working on my thesis' pretty much answers all you need to know about all that I have been doing for most of last year, and by the looks of it, what I would be 'doing' for another few months in the least. Any deeper probes into my researchwork and date/month/year of completion would be met with severe verbal backlash and depending on your physique, with uppercuts, lowercuts and all darned cuts in between. Smile, throw a wazza!, be gone and make us both happy.

I've, over the last year, managed to take my name off the hitlists of atleast 4 people in Cincinnati - the ones who'd either threatened to squash me to pulp when sighted or 'd take long detours to avoid the remotest possibilities of running into me. Am working on the others.

My fear of the female species has come down, albeit by the tiniest of margins. The guy who'd break into a sweat in the presence of a skimpily clad female blonde next seat on the bus now manages to coolly throw a smile back at members of the aforementioned species. That, very often, is also where the stories end. One step at a time, they tell me. Fear of cats and dogs, on the same a different note, continues to remain high up on the list, with little change expected in the forseeable future.

The rest of yours truly remains unchanged for most part. Since I am at it, and since you look like you do have some time, I might as well run you through that list too.

I continue to remain a non-smoking unstoned teeto veggie*, and my respect for those who aren't, remains independent of the aforementioned attributes.

My cooking skills have improved by a decent margin. considering that I now cook for 4 other souls under the same roof, and that they have so far managed to wake up each morning without upset bellies or sore intestines. Sree even managed to down some of my concoctions with a certain degree of relish. Phew.

Lousiness with numbers, among other things, remains as spectacularly lousy as ever - academically, with grocery bill computations, and otherwise. My ability to pull works off the very last minute continues to amaze me, and continues to annoy people who happen to have a stake in some of those works. This is expected to continue till I get killed or till people entrust me with works no more, whichever is earlier. Am kind of hoping it's the latter.

My stay in the US as I have known this far is expected to change soon. Jobs, committments, money - things change, times change, people 'move on'. C'est la vie, they tell me again. Until then, may the luxuries of student life prevail - long cups of coffee spent over the harmless trivialities of life, icecream parlor visits post-midnight, long solitary walks across the campus at ungodly hours, the luxury of being permitted to work/sleep whenever The Force hits you - in pursuit of knowledge, pursuit of happiness, and pursuit of all that's good and healthy. Cheers to good times and great Pizza memories.

My lessons in life continue.

In loving memory of silent nights

"Your attention please. Your attention please. The Cincinnati Weather Dept has issued a severe weather warn....."

The weather warning system then goes on to say something about thundershowers, lightning and how staying away from windows and balconies is to be considered necessary if we wish to live to see ourselves graduate, but I practically lost them soon after the fourth beep. If a bunch of painful high-frequency hammerbeeps at 80 decibels wouldn't get your attention at 2 AM, I don't know what else will. And if that weren't bad enough, they played it over, and over, and over again - mercy's now a thing of the past around here. In public interest, they say, and I dare say no more.

It's now raining cats, dogs and fattened pigs here, and not too quietly at that. Wooshing winds, roars, pouring rains, lightning flashes, leaking walls and there goes the rest of my night down the drain, literally.

I chose the nightlife for the peace and calm it offered. Too much to ask, was it? I am switching back to the day now. Go find the town a new bat.

Rejoinder : I take my words back on the public announcement thing. In spite of what might usually be considered deafeningly loud announcements, people around me continue to sleep, blissfully unaware of all the happenings in God's green world outside our abode. As stats pour in, that's 2 of every 3 people in each home around here. Either the PA system is flawed in design, or some people are blessed with good sleep at nights under all circumstances. I envy these souls, and live in the hope that someday I end up being one of them. Pray for me, brother.

Midnight melancholy

A secluded lab. An antiquated workstation. Numbers. Patterns. A long day with its drudging mundanities. The occasional read. The occasional banter. Random solitary strolls at dusk. Food. Sleep. Caffeine. A dreary night, a desolate MLK, and a long lonely walk back home. Day after day, night after night - an interminable loop.

"Thus let me live, unheard, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie."
-Alexander Pope

Life?

Homecoming

It's a funny frame of mind when you're heading back home as a tourist in your own country*, when things you once considered trivial suddenly seem invaluable, even profound. Went home, shook off some of the phoren dust and rolled over in desi soil all over again. Some blast it was, I tell you. You should try it sometime.

(*Am pretty sure I've heard this phrase in a movie, but after a sleepless 10th night in a row, the name still eludes me. Help me if you can - it's driving me nuts.)

Visited a hair salon the first morning I land. Was good to see salons where men (emphasis added) charged you a trifling 30 roobees (about 75 of your amreeki cents) for a haircut, with the local radio belting out chartbusters from the 1960s and 1970s in the background. Ever heard this one on radio, all ye youtube lovers? And the icing on the cake - there was no karaoke, or for that matter, drunken ladies handling razors anywhere within the danger zone. Good times had just begun.

Woke up most days at 5 am IST (emphasis added) to the smell of steaming hot filter coffee. Saw cricket matches live, without having to scratch the unmentionables hunting for 'working links' and putting up with 'poor streaming speeds'. Better still, the Indian team actually beat the living daylight out of the greencaps (and as I write, they just gave the finishing touches to the ODI tri-series. Woohoow, boys!) . And if the games weren't entertaining enough, there were the ads. The variety, the wit, the sheer strength of the message conveyed, the crispness - loved this and this in particular. Ads, strangely, weren't worth missing anymore.

Helped sister with high school mathematics, or atleast tried to. Turns out she could solve cubic equations on paper faster than I could get my scientific calculator or Matlab to do the grillwork for me. And don't even get me started about geometric theorems and lemmae. 'Elementary' mathematics was never scarier. About time I stopped letting machines do the thinking for me - am getting back to first principles.

Got to call the shots at the menu each day, and each meal of the day at that. Was a welcome change from the oh-so-delicious 'veggie buhguh and smaaw fries'. Thanks Ma, thanks Grandma - you're the best. And the chaatwallahs, the roadside bonda shops, Hot Chips, Shanti Sagars, the Coffee Board - bless you fellas. Britannia was right all along.


Drinks for a change didn't mean choosing between the Dew and Dr. Pepper. Lassi, tender cocos, sugarcane juice, spiced-up gulpable versions of buttermilk, badam milk (hot or cold, for choice) or that all-time fave, lime masala soda with a dash of ginger - beat the variety, I challenge you. A teeto couldn't ask for more.



Hit the roads with all its bumps and potholes on Pa's Eterno - Shtreet Hawk shtyle and all. The brakes and the horn incidentally remain the only things you need to drive on desi roads (a foul temper helps, but that's optional). Had an autorickshaw steamroll my foot while I was waiting a tad too patiently for the red signal to turn green. As I was to learn a painful scream later, patience was never a virtue in desi traffic. Was soon bully-honked into giving way for everyone behind me not willing to wait. Oh BTW, the signal gleefully remained red while all those gentlemen and ladies went past it. Me? I waited, and waited, and waited..

Kept fiddling with the indicators and the wiper lever on Pa's car - what was once right's now wrong/left. Asked Pa haughtily if the new car he'd bought had cruise control and all that stuff, and was challenged to make it to the 4th gear within Bangalore in the first place. Goes without saying, I gave up.

Was back on the BMTC as soon as I got a chance to. Inspite of all those sealed-door buses, some of older doorless Leylands and Tatas still do the rounds in Bengloor. Some rides they were - one foot on those few inches of space left on the footboard, the other foot hanging somewhere safely out of view, one hand clinging onto the support rod or the window grill (the nearest of the two - though given the circumstances, the distinction barely mattered), and the other hand multitasking between feeling for the purse in the backpocket and scratching that itchy nose. "Saar, swalpa adjust maadi" ("Saar, kindly adjust. This 2-seater should be able to hold a third me) remains Karnataka's most (ab)used line. No more polite 'STOP REQUESTED' stuff, buses answer only and only to a WOLDEN!! shouted loud enough to penetrate through the hullabaloo. And if I thought fun was to be had only on buses, I couldn't have been more wrong.



Encountered cows, buffaloes, sheep and even a jumbo on highways and cityroads alike. Cabbiebhai was right, after all. On another note, was a relief not having to hunt for restroom exits when the higher forces called. The gentlemen's conveniences were always around. Shame shame, puppy shame?

Picked up the American street-friendliness attitude and tried it in India out of sheer habit. Went about streets in Bangalore nodding and smiling at every face that passed by me, with the occasional Namaste and Chennagiddeera (howsitgoin') stuff. Got a few blanks, a lot of stares and almost got killed for smiling at the wrong someone. Learnt my lessons and promptly got back to the pokerface.

Stuff like Mrs. Rai-Bachchan's first Karva Chauth still make the headlines on leading newspapers, taking precedence over what some might consider matters of higher importance. Recently heard, Facebook makes it to the covers of a leading weekly. We are finally catching up with the rest of the world, no?

Karnataka still has no CM. President Patil continues to administer the state. Hope she does a better job at it than she did with that co-op bank of hers. Maya Memsaab and Miyaan Mulayam have now penetrated down south, with Bengaluru streets lined up with their hoardings. Deve Gowdre, Hushaar! You've got company competition at hand. In national news, the High Command gets shielded away from any and all blame for calling (in chaste Hindi - she's getting better, I tell you) a certain politician the 'merchant of death', whose return to power is blamed on good governance. High Command Junior seems all set to become the next Prime Minister of India, if all goes fine. Will it? Will he?

Caught up with desi movies - Bollywood, Kollywood and even lived through a Jaggesh pickchar (Cincywallahs can consult Kiran BV for further details on that gentleman). Air India, in all its love for me, treated me to Nanhe Jaisalmer both ways over headphones that played stereophonic white noise all through the movie with an extremely well-engineered sound quality. I'd love to go on and on in praise of AI, but I think I'll save it for later. Besides, buddies back home have issues with us phorén-returned desis cribbing about anything and everything Indian. "We've aped the pizza-burger-coke and hip-hop culture from The West, haven't we? Who needs the good stuff - the customer-friendliness, higher standards of public hygeine, social friendliness, ethics for most part, and rules where they are needed? We've managed without them all these years, haven't we - why need them now? We are like this only. Chalta hai, you see. And who the beeping beep are you to do the talking? You get back to chasing your big American dream and keep your armchair musings about India's development to yourself. Leave India to us Indians." I am an Indian too, or am I?

Was a month of solid fun in India - the joyride that was Air India, the time with folks, catching (and catching up with) friends over lunches and weekends, the good food, the hours spent walking through the serene environs of IISc, street-cricket, the rides on buses through streets that have changed (and those that haven't), the idiot box, the ads, cricket, Bollywood, Kollywood, Kannada phillums, politics, and most importantly, all those intangibles about India I can never ever sum up in words. There's chaos, sure, and while that's part of the fun, some things are changing for the better in India, in spite of politicians. Mr. Advani might have come to regret it, but some of us still strongly believe in India Shining, India Rising and Incredible India, and in due course of time, will be back to contribute our mite for the cause. Empty rhetoric? Only time will tell.

Back to the US, back to gradwork, back to burgers, fries, 98 Octane, and back to cooking - though it looks like it'll take me a little longer to get off IST. Winter's about to pass, and here's hoping for a fun spring ahead. Cheerios.

PS. That wasn't too long, was it?