Home

I'm starting to write at midnight with my family asleep in the next room and it all feels very familiar. As you're all probably aware, I haven't written in a while. No, not even stuff for myself, just me, that I've kept away from you all. Well, there is the occasional Goodreads review but does that really count? No, I didn't think so. Anyway, I've been actively trying to ignore the existence of this blog, passively letting it bury itself in the dredges that are anything but the top half of the page in Google search results for my name. Why, you ask? It started with distraction. Everything else in life grew more important. Other hobbies stepped in and demanded attention. I felt like I was spending too much time whining on my blog. A brief glance and you'd know my best writing was always when I was not feeling my happiest. I was making good art as Mr.Gaiman suggested but I didn't think it wise to let negativity fester in the artificial eternity we've created that is the cloud. So writing faded away. I also didn't want people who barely know me getting to read my innermost secrets by just Googling for me. It just felt very.... intrusive.

But this feels so natural, so organic. And looking back I'm not sure I'm any happier now than when I let my negativity supposedly fester, so I wonder why I ever stopped writing in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I'm exceptionally happy with life. But the day to day melancholia/boredom (Are they the same? They must be) remains.

So. Here I am.

I've been contemplating the meaning of home for a while now. And trying to decide where that is for me. And this feels like it. This act of writing at midnight with loved ones asleep but near by feels like it. And I'll take that. It plays well with my current theory that home for me will be multiple places and I'll just have to embrace it. So I'll take it. And I'll write my story by midnights.

How have you been?

The thing about visiting India and settling back into routine

I have a list of things to do that are at varying levels of unpleasantness. And immediacy. And importance. And so I choose to not do any of them and instead find a way to distract and occupy myself for the next half an hour or so until I drift into a 'semi-guilty but whatever' sort of sleep. Hence this post.

I'm just back from a short 2-week vacation in Chennai and I've had a week's worth of jetlagged hazy days and answering questions that went along the lines of "so how was your India trip?" The problem with being an Indian and visiting India is there is no simple answer to that question. Usually I get back from a vacation from a new place and I'm gushing about it for days on end. With India, life gets murkier. There were things that have changed tremendously. New buildings. New people in the family. Much changed friends. Older people. Auto drivers respecting the meter. There were things that were exactly the same as they were when I last visited and that ought to have changed. Prices were still high. Roads were still bad. The house was still a confused mess. Random men still commented on my boobs as I walked to the bus stop. Visiting friends and family I hadn't seen in more than a year was amazing but also a reminder of how different all our lives are now. There have been weddings, births and deaths.

Add to that the fact that two weeks is a short period to recover from first-world withdrawal and get used to the Indian way of life. I find that the longer I live in the US, the steeper my adjustment curve to the rest of the world gets, even if the place in question is a place I've lived in for the largest part of my life. I find myself biting down on the urge to yell at the people in SBI as they send me running from counter to counter for a simple task, the people at BSNL when I call to complain about the internet, my parents for not making my vacation seamless. I find myself trying to accept that electricity, internet, water are not taken-for-granted always-available utilities. I find myself having to relearn old habits, which truly is a lot of fun, like turning the heater on a couple of minutes before a shower, passing money and tickets back and forth in the bus when standing next to the conductor, tucking the folded bus ticket under my watch to hold it in place, looking to make sure I don't step on my dog every time I get up from the couch, dialing up to connect to the internet with a data card, crossing the road when not being able to rely on the fact that as a pedestrian you will be given every right of way.

And when I had to leave, it was more painful than I could remember it being. It feels like every time I come and go, it gets progressively more difficult to leave. I remember packing silently in my room and wondering why we choose to complicate our lives this way- leave the place we grew up in to sink roots elsewhere and divide our lives to varying degrees between all these places that we have touched. I remember wondering, as I have wondered several times before, if there is a way to bundle all the people we love into a personal universe and take it with us wherever we choose to go. I remember wondering how life would have turned out if I'd stayed back or if I'd lived in a time when travel was forbidden, to never feel this sadness at leaving and to never know what I'd be missing out on.

Now life has settled back into its usual pace and rhythm. Almost. There are still things that need to be gotten used to- a new job, a new longer commute, a new schedule. I feel like an impostor most of the time at work and I have to force myself to say yes to new work and new people even though I am paralyzed with fear that I will mess up mostly everything. "Yes (I will figure it out)". "Yes (I will wing it)". "Yes (I will fake it till I make it)". I vaguely remember a time when I used to feel the same way in grad school. And before then, I remember feeling the same way in high school right after I switched schools. I don't remember how long it took in either of these cases to form a comfort zone or if I ever did. In small ways though, I have been putting myself through this new-place-new-activity jitters-in-the-stomach feeling all through last year. I felt this way when I walked into a french class and I realized I don't understand a word that was being spoken. I felt this way everyday I walked in to my crossfit class, in to a warehouse with loud music and iron clanging and sweaty, groaning, muscly people. This "what have I gotten myself into?" phase is apparently the place where life begins if several popular quotes are to be believed and for now I will take that with a side order of kool-aid please.

I hate being alone at home and not entirely convinced of it. I hate hearing noises in the floor above that should be deserted but doesn't sound like it in the middle of the night. I hate my involuntary peek in to the closet right before I switch off the lights. I hate how my friends would grin and make fun of me if I recount this to them. I hate wondering why I am this paranoid and not others as much. Does no one else read the news? Are you as paranoid? Do you always check to make sure the doors are locked, even in daytime? Do you make sure you have the keys in your hand as you start walking to your car across a dark parking lot? Do you have nightmares of being attacked in your house?

Personal zeitgest of a 25 year old

OkCupid has a question that asks you if you would rather your life be interesting or good. I chose good. But I can see how interesting could also be nice. 2013 has been interesting, sometimes in ways I would have rather had it not be. At the end of 2012, I drove down to San Diego alone and in my lonesome journey (alone, not lonely) I passed time by thinking about the year that was and planning for the year ahead. And 2013 has been good mostly because I did everything I told myself I would do in that drive with myself. And life gave the rest. 2013 has been the year of girl friends. All of 2012 I moped that I didnt have enough friends, in particular girlfriends. That worked itself out last year. 2013 was also the year I figured out I would stay in America all my life if I could. It took a fiasco with my H-1B for the realization to hit me in the face but I'm glad I did because life would have been so irresolute if not for that. 2013 was also the year when I finally decided to get off my butt and do something about the things I was not so happy about. It was the year of my first intended job switch. It was also the year when I decided I'd try online dating. 2013 was about major lifestyle changes- going Paleo, going Proactiv, going curly girl- and happiness with the results. It was the year for the loss of an aunt, an almost loss of a family dog, a year for the wedding of a cousin and another going off to college. It was the year for friends and accidents, friends and weddings, friends and career switches. It was the year for traveling, the year for old hobbies, for books and art and music, the year for reconnecting with some good old friends just as it was for falling off the good books of others. It was a good year and an interesting year. I couldn't have asked for more.

2013 was for self-realization. I realized I am a jealous person. That I was prone to fits of anxiety that I was not doing all that I could do, being all that I could be, living up to my potential, losing out on my slice of eudaimonic happiness. And seeing other people do all the things I could and should be doing sends me into swirls of panic. I realized most people, even the people I was jealousing on (that should be a phrase), go through this and I realize that should prove to me this is inconsequential and unnecessary. I also realized that happiness requires some effort and one is not just handed it on a platter. And that one must surround oneself with art and music and beautiful things to live a life with art and music and beautiful things. I realized my support network is best populated with people who are in the same places in life as I am. I also realized it is immensely rewarding to talk to other friends too once in a while and to see the people they have grown into and to be inspired by them. With that in mind, I realized that it's time for a new support network, that it's time for a new city. But that's for a later time. That's for 2014.

Here's to an amazing year!

Saturday Night Laundry

Sometimes I channel Martha Stewart. I google for DIY carpet cleaning solutions, cook Italian, redecorate rooms, fix tears in cushions.

Sometimes I channel Virginia Woolf. I read Jezebel and shake my fist at the world, I write inflammatory posts and delete them because I dont think the world is ready for me, I pick arguments with friends and smile as I tear them up.

Sometimes I channel crazy party girl. I drink till I'm almost sick, I dance on chairs and fall off them.

Sometimes I channel calm and content woman. I build a fire at the fireplace, I pull my beanbag over and sit in it with a book.

Sometimes I channel the classy socialite.

Sometimes I channel the whiny, needy friend.

Sometimes I channel the lets-do-it-all-yolo yuppie.

Sometimes I channel all at once.

Sometimes I dont know what I am. And thence are these moments of dissatisfaction- where I go through my entire contact list to find all my friends busy and finally give up and load the washer for lack of a better thing to do, where I leave a party early so I can come home and curl up in my bed to my friends' eternal confusion, where I play the Beatles on my guitar at midnight hoping the neighbors are out of town.




I am lounging on my bed, all dressed up for a night out on town, with my new hair highlights and my in-your-face Russian Red lipstick, bored and irritated, listening to my laundry swirl, staring at the books next to me- all of them great, none of them interesting now- wondering if I should eat.

Life update and thinking out loud

Note to readers: I know I haven’t written in a long time. I can come up with an airheaded apology but I don’t know whom I’m apologizing to. Probably myself, because writing is an extremely fulfilling hobby. It helps you think things through, find solace in tiny black letters appearing on a plain white page and, as I have often mentioned here and which ultimately tipped me back over the edge to the world of penning, more importantly, preserving memories. Not the stark ones, the extremely joyous trip to , the time your boyfriend surprised you with , the day you got married or gave birth or other important life checkpoints. You probably have a facebook album for that anyway. Not even the days you were depressed to your bones and couldn’t find anything in your life worth the effort, if you would like to remember those sorts of things, maybe as a lesson to future self. I am talking about those quiet sorts of memories that disappear into dusty corners of your mind until a sudden snippet of a song or a flash of a dress in a shop window or any other random sensory stimulus pulls it out for a brief minute. The day you went walking in the park because you were bored, the drive down I-5, the time when someone started that absolutely hilarious conversation about horcruxes that lead you to a new perception of reality, that one sunset…unless you have a facebook album for times like those too (which I totally do not judge you for. I think any way of preserving memories is a good way, even if they are on the racks of data centers of social networking companies if not your own mind), those are moments lost for a really long time, possibly forever. I only have to read some of my older posts on this same blog to find validation to that claim. I have forgotten so much, so so much of the years past, even though I thought I was invincible and that I’d never forget. I look at faces in my friends list sometimes and I wonder how I know them and sometimes people talk about incidents in the past and I wonder how I could ever have forgotten that but I have. I repeat again my dear readers, writing is a beautiful hobby to have.

*Huge breath*

I am in one of those phases that you sometimes slip into even in the most splendid and best of days, where you wonder about your life and you wonder if this is where you want to be. And you feel sad because you seem to want to feel sad for yourself and the more you think, the more you attract sad thoughts.

I am thinking now of relationships, why it is so cold and whether I should buy a dog. The reason I haven’t gotten a dog yet is because I somehow feel like I would betray my dog back home in India. Another big reason is because I came to US with no intention of long term stay. I gave myself 5 years here and I told myself I was going back. The more I stay, the more this magical number of 5 multiplies. My roots here go deeper and I sometimes wonder why I should go back at all. The only reason I see is an inflated sense of patriotism where I think it is my duty to go back to India and contribute to the future of the country, to take up the challenge of democracy. Most days I wonder why that should be at the cost of personal comfort, my lifestyle and my career. As Siddharth’s character in Ayudha Ezhuthu said “I am an ordinary selfish person.” And with that comes ordinary selfish thoughts. But I digress. A dog would mean deeper commitments to where I am since I do not want to put any dog through the stress of uprooting homes and international travel. Now that I am being more honest with myself, I can see that I probably will not move for the next couple of years, so might as well.

With relationships- that entire category in my pie chart of happiness (does anyone get the 30 Rock reference here? Wasn’t the finale amazing? I’m going to miss it!) seems to be completely unoccupied. I usually avoid conversations about relationships when friends ask. “But what are your plans? What are you doing about it?” they would ask, and my usual response would be a shrug of the shoulders and that would usually be followed by a lecture on taking responsibility and initiative until the time they give up. To those who have not been in the loop with regards to my life, I realize I have to provide more detail. What my friends mean by responsibility and initiative is to join an online dating site like Match or OkCupid. Since, most of us do not believe in serendipity and meeting the love of your life in the supermarket aisle or in the park while you are jogging, or believe that the guy who is hitting you up at the bar is looking for anything more than a one-night stand and since the only place you get to meet new and interesting people these days is at work where everyone seems to be married or in a relationship already, the only conceivable way to get into a relationship seems to be by going online (If you know any other way, let me know). Sitting around and waiting for time to happen is not an option. I was listening to a TED talk by Judy Balan (you will find a link to her blog on the side) yesterday on serendipity and letting life happen and I do not subscribe to that school of thought. Yet. And if you are interested in why online dating is an algorithmically superior way to meet the kind of people you want to meet, do contact me and I shall provide you with a summary and conclusion of several nights’ worth of discussions we have had about the same. But as much as I know I should, I don’t think I have the mental makeup for online dating, yet. It requires a certain objective decision-making and precision and walking away from sucky decisions that I do not yet possess. So, in time, I tell myself and my friends. In time. I wonder when that time shall come.

It is cold. Coldness clings to everything it touches, like a skin on the carpet, on my bed linen and on my own self. Spring is definitely coming, the days are growing longer, the hills that surround the Valley are greening, I can go to bed without the heater cranked up to high and some days, just some days, I can walk outside in the evenings without an additional layer. But still the cold refuses to go away for good. Waiting and waiting.

To people wondering about me, my usual update: my life is pretty good. Do not let my whining post deceive you in to thinking otherwise. Friends are amazing. I would not be lying if I told you that I have finally found the friends I have always wanted to have, though it sounds unfair to my previous friends. I am taking French classes since I am bored (have I mentioned that before?) They are coming along fine though they are taking a lot more effort on my part than I’d originally thought. I finally joined the local library and I have been immersing myself in books since. And I learnt a new life lesson in the process- to a reader, you never truly belong in a place until you find a good source of books. And I finally belong. I am developing new interests (wine) and renewing old ones (guitar). I am sticking to my new year resolution of ‘get active, get healthy’. I am making travel plans, trying to be more fiscally responsible and stop eating out so much. I am getting back in touch with a lot of people I haven’t spoken to in ages. It’s a slow process but a rewarding one. I sometimes feel overwhelmed like I won’t have enough time to do all that I want to do but as a friend tells me, it’s a good problem to have. Work is plateauing a bit but with the hope of picking up soon. Car is amazing. House is great. Health is fine. But my doctor wants a pap smear on record, so I am mentally preparing myself (deep breaths) to make that call to fix that appointment.

Soon.

P.S. This is a new phase of honesty in this blog. Its going to take an effort, but I stop giving abstract hints about what is happening in my life or trying to sound cooler and nicer than I am. The flipside is I am taking the link of my facebook page so if my mother wants to stalk me and keep track of my daily ponderings and stress about my mistakes, its going to be harder for her to do so. But hopefully this will now be a near accurate record of the messed up state of my mind.

A Time of Change and a Time of Acceptance

I’ve been meaning to create a new blog for a while now, an anonymous one, and write more freely and honestly about life as it is now, a new blog that my old readers will know nothing about so I won’t be scandalizing and as a result alienating my old friends and readers and quite possibly members of my family. And then I realized what the heck, my family members have proved to be a lot more resilient and open minded at most points in my life than I gave them credit for and that the readers of my blog are changing just as much as I am, so maybe, just maybe, my fears of this scandal-causing and alienation-happening will come to pass. Anyway, just in case, I am taking the link to my blog off my Facebook page and any other places I might have put it up and taking a plunge to the deep side of the discovering-yourself-and-being-honest-about-it pool. 

Bonjour tout le monde!

Just learnt that and liked the sound of it so wanted to use it. False alarm people! Go back to your lives!


Abientot!

There was a lady we all know

Sometimes you get lost wandering. And you find yourself in a part of your universe you've never seen before, in an alternate reality where things that mattered so much before drop away and things you'd kept buried come alive again and you no longer seem to be the strict definition of yourself you'd come to terms with and you need to do the coming to terms with all over again.

That's where I've been. Busy. Bored. Dealing with a lifestyle change and all its accouterments. Fighting an idle mind playing truant. Filling gaps in the day with a thousand activities. Endless lazing about and discovering a new place and missing an old one. And talking and talking. New roommates. Old friends. Still the same old friends. Thinking random thoughts.

For people who want an update: I am learning to play the keyboard. I'd forgotten a lot of music theory I used to know from my guitar days and its an interesting experience trying to read two clefs at the same time and play them simultaneously nonetheless. I am learning French. I am reading Feynman's lectures in my free time. I am eating salads for lunch and doing jazzercise occasionally. I've lost the taste for alcohol. I volunteer to be the designated driver on most nights coz I know I wont drink much anyway. I still fondly remember nights of rambunctious revelry that have involved everything from dancing on and correspondingly falling off chairs to ending up on street pavements unable to move an eyelid. But now that I'm on the other side more often than not, trying to figure out how to move the person on the street pavement, I no longer find it all so very amusing. I am doing a project 52, though its not going very well on account of my laziness. But on the days I click pics, I end up taking so many that I tell myself makes up for the weeks I don't. I have become extremely cynical of relationships and distrustful of men. Every time somebody I know gets married, I think of the ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, all the old crushes and secret romances. And I wonder what those people think about. Every time I move, I think of how easy it is to transplant a life now- everything you own and everything you are in a couple of boxes in a car. Sometimes I think about how easy it would be to disappear now- if I tell my parents I don't want to be found and just up and leave to a new city, informing no one. I used to be the person who loved grand farewells. Suddenly I am seeing the beauty of just fading away in an air of intrigue. The romance in constrained choices. The curiosity in things that never used to define me. I am making friends with people I knew from what feels like a really  long time ago, on account of my roommate who is herself one such 'person from another lifetime'. I have a thousand things I want to do, a million thoughts bursting in my head and no mood to think or act. So I lie in my couch and watch the clouds go by outside my balcony. Life is dreamy.

It's tough trying to explain this to people who are tremendously mad at me for seemingly dropping off the face of the Earth. Its like suddenly I got bored of being the usual "It's been so long, lets talk" me and ran out of energy sustaining being myself. I could say I would try and be more like how I used to be and call everyone and mail everyone and blog a lot but I don't want to make no promises I might not keep.

Sometimes it is easy to forget what the point of starting this blog was- that there is no point at all. Back when everything I did had a purpose and every unit of energy spent was carefully measured and doled out, this was something I cherished- me time. Now that hardly anything in my life has a purpose, maintaining a blog feels like so much effort. But its still fun going back and reading your old posts, if only a little painful at the naivete of it all. I am even braving reading extremely sad posts from a long time ago that I try to never open because it reminds me of a time I don't like to be reminded of because of the stupidity and the pain I unleashed on myself through bad decisions. I am actually even listening to 'Stairway in Heaven' again, this time without the feeling of being overwhelmed by it.

I am back to this blog in the spirit of this week which has been all about paying homage to the past for me. i went back to LA for the weekend just 'coz I missed her so very much. I braved Carmageddon II to go to Santa Monica pier and stood amidst all the lights thinking about how very much I missed being in this city and how very much I would like to go back and grow old there. Its funny, the things I can commit to and the things I cant. But for now, I'm focusing on committing to keeping this blog alive if only so I can come back here 10 years later and laugh at my own petty self.



<3 p="p">Divya


P.S. May, I got your mail and I keep meaning to reply but like I said, I've gone crazy lazy. Tell me if you still want the stuff you were asking about.

Hey,
Its been a long time since I wrote. I know that. I thought I'd almost forgotten how until I was cleaning up my desktop today (amongst other things) and I came across a random post I'd written waiting for a train in San Diego's Amtrak station, cold and tired after an interview. And I remembered how effortless it used to be to write. And it reminded me why I took to writing a blog in the first place- to document the small things and to make sure they're never swept by the wayside of life. I'd forgotten a lot of stuff that had been on my mind then, a couple of months back. I wonder how much I would remember of today a couple of years from now.

I didn't do much today. I did some cleaning, some house hunting, some learning to play Texas Hold 'em, some eclipse-watching, some chilli-bajji eating and some random impulse following. I walked out of my friends' house not wanting to go back home yet and I randomly decided to take my new car for a drive. (I'd bought a new car last week. It's a Volkswagen Jetta and it deserves more than a passing comment but thats all it shall get today.) Not knowing where else to go, I drove to work, past endless lines of Cisco buildings along Tasman and past Cisco Way. And then, worried about the late hour and less than a quarter tank of gas, I turned back. It was a nice hour of just me, the car, the music and the road. And it was beautiful. I've been learning to do a lot of stuff on my own these days and not to get bored by lack of company. Now I'm beginning to see the beauty in it. Thats a personal landmark, right there.

Life's been dramatic. Life's been chaotic. And life's been overdriven by passion the last couple of months. So much so that I didn't want to take time off to write. But now, as life settles in to a little more structure, I will be here a lot more often.

Soonly!


Div

Playing with Magnetic Poetry

Got Magnetic Poetry's Happiness kit from my University store since they had a Valentines day sale going on. I've wanted it for a year now 'coz it makes me feel all writer-ish. Anyway that was what I came up with after the first half hour of making dirty sentences with different permutations of feel, vibration, glow and warmth. And before somebody else says it, I'll go ahead and say it is inspired by and an homage to e.e.cummings. I came up with it while my roommate was making fried rice on the side. Makes me wonder if e.e.cummings wrote all his poems from magnetic poet. Anyway, its quite fun. I had my doubts but I guess it really is helpful if you are stuck for words. So, this is what my freezer looks like now from the point of view of a crappy Samsung 1.3 megapixel camera mobile.

How has life been with you old friend?

Have you changed a lot? I sometimes wonder what it would be like if you walked in through the door. Would I still see the person I last saw? How is your family? I never understood them when I knew them and was always convinced they hated me. How are your roommates? The last I remember, you had your issues with them. How is school? How are things with your girlfriend? How is your house? How are things in general on your end of paradise?

The last we spoke, life was just beginning to get rough. I got jostled around a lot. I burst out one evening and that was the end for us. Since then, a lot of things have changed. I finished my course requirements for my Masters. Some friends graduated. Yet another phase of goodbyes has begun with packing and moving and sending friends off to richer pastures. I shifted homes. When I moved the last box out of my house, I stood at the threshold and stared at the tiny bubble of universe that I’d found and furnished and fought for and about and called home the last year and a half. And remembering how it felt to come back to it every day, make myself a cup of coffee and sit at the edge of my bed and talk on the phone, I called Maya to talk to one final time from the then empty space. I would have liked to call you. That place holds memories of you too. Most of them are colored sad though. I made new friends in my new home. We travelled together, celebrated the New Year together. We went to Vegas, like we’d once planned to go. I stood at the edge of the pool at Bellagio while waiting for the fountain show to start, threw in a penny and made a wish. I danced till my feet hurt. I went to Tucson for Srivi’s graduation. We walked around the empty campus and spoke about life. I cried when she was conferred her degree. I gave, I don’t know how many, interviews. I got the job I’d always wanted. I signed the offer a couple of days back. I got my Driver’s license the same day. It’s like 2012 is being extra nice to make up for the last year.  Life is good.

Life, now, is racing towards a phase shift. And I am tying up a lot of loose ends and racing along with it. And sometimes it makes me think of you. You’ve always been the one loose end that I’ve never been able to fix. I've given up wondering why or trying to set it right and just accepted it as one of those quirks of life. If that doesn't come from a place of wisdom, I don’t know what does.

I hear people talk of you sometimes and I itch to ask them what’s up with you. And I talk of you sometimes too. In parties after the celebrating is done and we are a little tipsy and somebody asks what was up with you and that person, and I laugh and say we were a little mad and I laugh again. I’ve always wondered if we’d meet again or rather when. Our world is too small to break it down into two completely disjoint sets. So I wonder when we’d meet again and as whom. And when we do, I will write another blog with all the answers.

Average thought process on an average evening

19:00

I am bored

19:25

Maybe I'll write something

19:27

What do I write about though?

20:00

*Phone call*

Me: Hello?

Friend: Hi. I am at this cool fort kind of a place and the girlfriend whom I ignored you for all these months is not talking to me or posing for pictures with me, so I am feeling awkward and need to project a cool dude image to all her roommates, so I need to act unconcerned and busy, so talk to me.

Me: Um ok.

Friend: So how's it going?

Me: Oh well, it started out with-

Friend in background: Oh wait, take one of me like this. With this hat on. One sec.

Friend to me: I'll call you in a minute.

Me:Bye

20:12

*Phone call*

Me: Hello?

Friend: Ok, talk now

Me: So as I was saying-

Friend in background: Ha ha. I'll tell you later. I'll tell you later I say.

Friend to me: I'll call you later.

Me:Bye

20:17

Me to roommate: You know about this article about how girls just use nice guys to get stuff done and to crib about their boyfriends and when they get asked out by said nice guy, they don't want to 'ruin the friendship' so the nice guys basically always get ignored and finish last?

Roommate: No

Me: That's ok I'll send you the link. But anyway, I'm gonna write an ode to nice girls- the girls who get ignored; the girls who set their friends up with their bff's and then fall off the face of the earth (or atleast the terrain of their friends' love stories); the girls who get called to proofread SOPs, Resumes, Cover letters, who get called up when referrals are needed for an internship, a part time job but never for holiday meetups because the 'girlfriend wouldn't approve'; the girls who get called when there is trouble in paradise and who sit through hours of "that bitch.." and "I cant believe she is doing this to me.." when they have a project proposal due the next day; the girls who will always be 'the best girl I've ever met, but..'.

Roommate: Dude I cant find my cell phone charger. Have you seen it?

20:40

Staring at laptop is nice

21:05

I am bored

21:11

Maybe I'll write something

21:13

On all the jerks I usually attract???

21:15

Gender stereotyping in the movies???

21:17

On why I am not a big fan of Selvaragahavan movies???

21:20

On how my mom is the coolest and I admire her more as I grow older and more mature???

21:35

Me: Back home?

Friend: Nope... In car...   Sent from my iPhone

Me: I'm bored. Want to write. Dont know what about though.

Friend: Write about why each of us is a hero and an asshole at the same time.

Me: Mmm... too deep. Something else?

Friend: How maturity comes with age.. How what we did few years back seems dumb now.

Me: Ok that kinda occurred to me in a different way. I'll work on that. Give me something else.

Friend: Environment. Sent from my iPhone

Me: achi peh

Friend: Seriously .. You can write it in a lot of depth if you research.

 *silence*

21:40

I am bored

21:43

Maybe...

21:43:20

Screw all of you. I am going to watch ugly betty and kill some brain cells.

Do I know you?

I wrote earlier about how I stuck this trackbar (yeah the Live Traffic Feed in the lower right) in my blog to figure out whether my family knows about the existence of this blog or not. After several excited data analyses the first few days after I got the trackbar, I gave up trying to imagine who could be reading my blog. Now, every time I open my page, I scroll over to see if anyone other than myself has visited it and try mapping it to people I know. I am fanciful that way. I try to imagine the lives of people who read my blog and whether I ever pass them on the street without knowing it.

That brings me to my question. Who are you, oh person from Richmond, Virginia? Do you live in Columbus, Ohio? Why is the DoD your Internet Service Provider? Do you work for the DoD? Do you VPN in to my blog? Do you like it? My blog I mean, not the DoD. Do I know you?

Who are you, reader from Scranton, Pennsylvania?

Who are you?

Time

I wonder a lot about the flow of time through my life. How it speeds up and slows down at will so I can never say if a summer went by too fast or too slow. I wonder about what I would be doing a couple of years from now, this very date. I try to remember what I was doing this exact same date, a few years earlier. It helps put your problems into perspective and it reminds you of the person you were. And dream about the person you might be. That's one reason I write. It makes the past a lot easier to remember and a lot clearer.

On prejudices

A few months back I wrote about prejudices, about how I was falling prey to the convenience of them- the convenience of fitting people into different categories that predict expected behavior so you would know how to behave around them. The problem with prejudices is the problem with any classification algorithm. You are trying to fit an infinite range of people into a finite set of classes. And even the strongest classification algorithm supported by the strongest of data has its flaws. And there will be outliers.

I have never been exposed to people from other parts of India much. Tamil Nadu has always been stereotyped as an extremely self-sufficient or in less flattering terms 'not a very convenient place to stay in if you are an outsider and don't know the language'. So we don't have as many out-of-state people per unit area in Chennai as, say. Bangalore. Thus I grew up conveniently ignorant of how the rest of India behaves and had no need to learn the prejudices and stereotypes that try to describe an entire group of people in a few words. Now that I am outside my little cocoon and meet new people from across India all the time (what better place to meet Indians than the US) I have given in to this deplorable habit of learning about stereotypes and trying to fit people to them. And as I do that, I also come into contact with stereotypes about Tamilians. Like any self-obsessed blogger, I love hearing what people think of me and how they perceive us as a people. And a lot of it is news to me. As a disclaimer I must state that my family is not the stereotypical Tamil family and a lot of that is due to my mom who is not the stereotypical Tamil mo. So the reason I cannot make any sense of Tamil stereotypes is not maybe because the stereotype is false but that I am an outlier. That being said, I feel a lot of the people I know would be outliers.

Myth #1: Our ability to speak Hindi and English
A lot of my friends can speak impeccable Hindi though I personally suck at it. But most of us are pretty good at English. Most shop keepers and auto drivers can understand English and the ones that do love showing off. So have no fear. But I speak for Chennai more so than any other city/town/village. So dont take this as a general rule.

Myth #2: Our food habits
I hate curd/yogurt. I prefer rotis more than rice.

Myth #3: Our language obsession
We are not all fanatical about our language. Speaking for myself, I don't understand a lot of the most beautiful words of Tamil beyond the ones I use in everyday conversations and the only reason I can read and write it haltingly is because my grandmother taught me the letters of the text from gossip magazines about film stars. And that is the case for most of the urban youth. A lot of us are more comfortable with English than Tamil and I agree that that is a sad sad thing.

Myth #4: Our chutney serving sizes are too small
Chutneys come with unlimited refills. Ask and it shall be given.

Now follow the Chennai myths.
Myth #5: Autodrivers rip you off if you don't know Tamil
First things first. There are no fixed auto fares in Chennai. The meter is for show. It hasn't been in popular use since 1998. Everything is negotiable when it comes to auto drivers. The direct implication of that is that you are only as strong as your negotiation skills. If you are an outsider, you are going to get ripped off because you are not going to know the standard fare for going from point A to point B and that is a chink in your bargaining armor. And trust me, our auto drivers are a hardened lot. If they see a weakness, they will swoop in for the kill. The end result? You will be taken for a ride, pun intended. It has nothing to do with the fact that you don't know our language. It is not personal. If you don't want to get ripped off, study up on the rates you have to pay and brush up your bargaining prowess. Else, call a cab. We do have them and share autos and buses for the faint of the heart.

Myth #6: Chennai Tamil is ugly Tamil.
This is a myth that people who grew outside Chennai love to propagate and stress on every time I comment on their Tamil. Chennai Tamil is NOT just slum Tamil. We are NOT just a city of slums. The slummish version is a stereotype that Vivek the Comedian made famous and we didn't mind because he was funny. But we do not all start every conversation with "Ae kasumaalam".

Some generalizations about Tamilians and Chennai are true. We are a coastal city and the climate is typical of that. It is extremely humid. We love Rajinikanth, more so because he is a humble and generous actor, than for any other reason. We are not yet completely conducive a state to outsiders but we are slowly becoming better at understanding what outsiders need and implementing it- English signs on all buses and road corners and most shops is one such step.

All being said and done, stereotypes exist for a reason and do apply for the vast majority and as long as you remember that there will be exceptions and take care to not judge people too fast you should be fine. And personally, I am going to stop subscribing to prejudices and trying to slot people. That can be my new year resolution.

My Australian cousin shot this pic. Due credit therefore must go the typical NRI Praveen Gounder

And it begins again

I've been meaning to write for a long time. After all a lot always happens in December. I have a lot of half written notes floating around in my laptop's disk from all the posts I meant to write but got distracted through midway- one about my birthday, another about my trip to Arizona for a friend's graduation, another about being awkward around strangers, another about getting drunk on other people's happiness and happiness sponsored tequila shots and yet another about pretty girls making bad relationship mistakes which was precipitated by my Arizona friend's roommate bawling her eyes out several times a day everyday over her boyfriend.

This note however is not about something that happened. On the contrary, this is about nothing happening and about how my life seems to have become stuck in stagnation and how i wake up everyday with an incredible sense of deja vu. I talk a lot about the minor events of my life, how I'm feeling on any given day and in general treat my blog as a diary with minimal explanation about why I am feeling what I'm feeling and minimal context. The reason is I have no idea who reads my blog and who doesn't. Over the last few years, some very random people have told me they read my blog, my ex-roommates aunt for one, and I dont know if I am comfortable with some people knowing some parts of my life. Not to be secretive or anything, but I dont want to worry my family or scandalize them. Which is why I came up with the very clever idea of tracking my audience (thats the bar you see on the lower right) but clearly it is useless for anything except to feed your ego. So I've given up. I think this is a personal dilemma every public blog writer has to go through- how much do I put on my page, how much can I reveal and how do I not use my blog as a vessel to showing off and projecting an image of you that is not the real you but the you you've always wished to be.

Anyway, breaking out of this digression, the reason for my worry these days is that I am planning on graduating in March and my job search still winds on. When I got my internship a couple of months back, I was pretty sure I was set for life, that I'd never have to face the debilitating waiting and applying and hours and hours of staring at job listings and the slow waning of your confidence with every rejection. I thought I'd know what to expect this time around. And that would prepare me better- to get a job and to deal with the pressure if I dont land one straight away. But even knowing what to anticipate doesn't really prepare you for the depression when it hits. And the fact that this time the stakes are higher, that I need to find a job within the limited time I have, does nothing to help. Its like a constant sour taste at the back of your throat, an itching niggling prick that pulls you back to it, even when you try and prioritize and concentrate on something else. I so tried to avoid reaching this point, starting January and my final quarter without a job. There are a couple of my friends in other universities who just graduated and who are still on the lookout for jobs and I saw what that did and does to them. Slowly counting down to a deadline, reaching it, stepping over it and now starting another and more final countdown while waiting for a call and an offer. I saw what the stress does to them and it scares me, makes me kick myself for every interview I messed up.

I miss my friend K. He's gone to India for the winter holidays and among all my friends he is the one person I miss the most. Which is surprising. He is my cribbing partner. Especially when it comes to jobs and relationships and sometimes money, which I guess covers the whole gamut of reasons to crib about. Over the last few months, we've perfected our own cribbing routine.
 "Why is our life like this?" I would go.
"Why should we always be put through this stress and worn thin before being given what we want?" he would ask.
"Why do some people always luckier than us?"
"Why is life so unfair?"
And then we would comfort ourselves with our weak and watery consolation, "Someday we would look back at this and laugh. And we can tell other people that we too struggled to succeed in life. And we would know we are capable of getting through life's incredible penchant for pressure tests."

I had an interview two weeks back with Qualcomm that I kicked ass in. I got a reject a couple of days back and ever since then I have been walking around like a zombie. And yes, that is what precipitated this post. Life begins to descend into the chaos it once was. I am running out of the money I managed to save. I've always had money, so it surprises me that it would mean so much to me and cause me to dissolve into a fit of panic every time I open my account details. I feel lost at times and find myself staring into space for long periods waiting for someone to tell me what to do. I find myself shying away from talking to people I am convinced will never understand this, alienating myself from friends who really have no clue and can only offer mindless platitudes. I find myself letting Led Zeppelin blare through my eardrums and I wonder if anything has changed at all from the last December 23rd.

I tried writing a personal Zeitgest for 2011 but I really cant see much that is worth mentioning and that has changed my life around in the last year. I am sure that is not true and my perception will change when my mood improves but right now if I had to choose a soundtrack that will describe the year with all its associated growth pains, I would go ahead and choose exactly the same song Google chose- "Sooner or Later" (I would have chosen "Good life" for last year too. Seems like the world or atleast Google search statistics  reflects my life, like the country and the protagonist in Midnight's Children which I just finished reading). Its sad that the prevailing sentiment at the end of a year would be "we made it". Here's to an overall better 2012 for everybody.

Coffee cravings and silent afternoons in the university

Am annoyed at myself. I just got mad at a friend. And he wasn't even doing anything. I guess thats why I got mad. 'Coz he wasn't doing anything. I was on the phone with him and it felt like having a conversation with myself. Or talking to a wall. Dont get me wrong. He was listening. But he wasn't really responding. Which was why talking to him was more like talking to myself. And talking to myself is a very bad idea. I tend to out think myself and go back on my own decisions of 5 minutes ago and rethink the common sense of them. And get annoyed at myself. Or at him because he felt like myself in this case. If it makes sense. And annoyed at myself because I got annoyed at him while the person who deserved getting annoyed at was myself. Is that even a coherent thought? I need coffee. A lot of coffee.

It feels like my system selectively metabolizes coffee so fast that I need a cup every hour. I realize I am beginning to sound like a crack addict. I need to check myself into caffeine rehab.

But before that, lets give you some context about my day, just coz I can. I am sitting in my spiffy new clothes, the clothes that were supposed to be my bday clothes (atleast that was my rationalization for going thanksgiving shopping when I neither follow thanksgiving nor christmas, so I really dont have any reason for going shopping except that there was a sale and I really cant say no to a sale but I'd feel bad about spending money for no reason, so  need a convincing enough rationalization. So there!) But now I have already worn my bday clothes so I guess I will have to go shopping again. (Yay!) And I am trying to study. But every time I decide I am going to study some distraction comes up and somebody calls/pings me. Thats the reason I am not productive enough- Technology! And the distractions cause me annoyance so I have to blog about it. And in a bit i will feel guilty I havent done anything all day so I will go study. After having lunch of course. A girl has to eat! Which I havent decided is a good idea or not because according to Hillfiger, I have dropped 2 sizes but according to Victoria's Secret, I have gained 1. I am not sure whom to believe. Commercialism is a confusing source of personal information.

I ran into the professor of the course I am planning on reading up on in a bit, near the vending machine. Gave me such sadistic pleasure to see him as devoid of a life as he cause me to be. University vending machine coffee on the day after thanksgiving.... sad sad life.

I might be visiting India in December again. Just coz I can. And also coz almost every one who mean anything to me in this country will be in India and there really is no point in me just hanging around feeling sorry for myself coz I have no one to talk to here. Might as well go back and hang around with them back in Chennai coz thats where the action in my life is going to be this December. But its still a might, and a rather big one at that. On that happy (or maybe not) thought to my friends in India, I shall take leave now. And get back to my reading about Virtualization.

Someone seems to be on a blogging spree -Life Projects

I think it is all the repressed need to have fun pouring out of me after the crazy week I've had. But I've been having this compulsive need to blog since yesterday and its not like I am doing anything useful anyway, so might as well give in.

Goofy (some) and pointless (most) stuff I've always wanted to do and hope to get around to doing someday.

1. Have a different coffee a day at Starbucks (including the secret not-on-the-menu ones) and write a review blog about them all. Aim: to discover the best coffee there is and get over my single minded obsession with short-Cappuccino-less-foam-whole-milk in the process.
2. Visit every city that has a Saravana Bhavan in the US and order Pongal Vadai and Filter Coffee in it.
3. Brew my own beer. I've been wanting to do this since a friend here actually did it. She still has the necessary equipment. Maybe soon.
4. Go to a strip club. I've been suggesting this as a surprise for every friend's bday party. Somehow always gets shot down.
5. Jump off a cliff. I never really thought I'd do the airplane thing. Always wanted to do the cliff thing like in Rang de Basanti. Maybe next summer.
6. Combine my Flickr page and this blog into a mega me project which will feature my recipes (if I ever cook anymore), my photos and my writing. Update it regularly. Maybe even turn it into a book.
7. Watch the top 100 movies on IMDb
8. Read all of the top 100 books recommended by Times.
9. Print a coffee table book with my pictures of all my travel. Better still, make it a coffee table book of a photo project, like the Red Couch. (I once went around taking pictures of dustbins in Andaman because they were so cute and interesting. Especially in the island of Ross. If you ever have a chance to visit Andaman and go to Ross Island, do notice the dustbins. I am sure some clerk in the Tourism Industry spent hours thinking up each.)
10. I really cant think of any more. Just want to end on an even number.

Sure, I wanna do the serious stuff as well- get back to my music, get back to my dance, buy a better camera, buy a car, buy a house, decorate it, travel the world, get married and sometimes in my idealistic moods, join Engineers without Borders and go to Africa. But for someone with chronic fear of long term plans, this is a good start. Baby steps people!

Divya Recommends

Its very surprising that I write a post about people calling my behavior irrational and the next day a friend points this out to me. This is long read but a good one.

Women are not crazy!

I told you so and other things

While its always satisfying to say it, its also annoying. It means people totally disregarded your advice and went on to make the same mistakes you did. A lot of my friends who totally dissed the bouts of loneliness and mood swings I had during my first quarter of grad school (and still do have) and classified them all as "random things girls do" or even "Divya's unexplainable behavior" are now going through the exact same thing. And what annoys me more is that they are so much better off than i was. The have me for one. They shouldn't be complaining at all with my awesomeness around. And yet they do. But yeah "In your face!" does have a nice ring to it.

Also, girls are such simple creatures. We get depressed, we have a crappy day. People yell at us, make us feel insignificant. Things are generally grey. And we look into the mirror and notice our hair is perfectly straight and the light really brings out the very expensive highlights we got put in and our mood instantly lifts. Its like the last couple of hours just didnt picture in the story of our lives. We wear good clothes on moody days just so we might have a reason to be excited. We get all smiley when someone takes out a camera. We ooh and aah over the smallest and cheapest of trinkets. And all you need to win us over is a fluffy $5 toy. How complicated is that!

On the personal note, I just dealt with a couple of deadlines and am just chilling now. For the last week, i slogged my ass off. I couldnt remember the last time I took a bath and slept peacefully and didnt wake to drag my laptop over and check my project mate's updates and start coding. And I feel sick at myself because I am dropping the course that I've really learnt a lot in just because I am worried about my GPA. It is an extremely cowardly thing to do and I feel so bad at doing it and keep fluctuating about it. But for some reason the idealistic me seems so much easier to quell now than a couple of months back. So drop its gonna be!

I have a constantly irritated throat. I've had it ever since I got back from India which is actually worrying since that was a whole 2 months back. I have decided I am gonna test out and learn how the medical system here works, which is about time. The systems here always confuse me. Why cant I just walk into the hospital and ask to be treated again?

Also, I bought a new lens!!! Its a Canon 50 mm F/1.8 lens. If you've been to my blog in recent times and also before recent times, you would have noticed the new change which is my Amazon wishlist on the bottom. I decided to add that in case some generous readers fall so much in love with me that they starts contributing to my well being and the prolonged continuation of my writing a la Julie as in Julie and Julia. Somehow, considering the fact no one even clicked on my ads and got me any revenue with my Amazon Affliate program, I strongly doubt it, bu hey no loss in trying. So anyway, that lens was on it for a long time before i decided I'm just gonna get it for myself. Like I explained to a friend, happiness doesnt seem to be coming my way by itself so I'm just gonna create my own. Pretty deep, huh? So my new lens is here and its waaayyyy awesome! Unfortunately though I haven't had a chance to test it out yet. Sadness. In case you feel bad that you couldnt get it for me, there are still a whole bunch of stuff in there that you can get. My bday is coming up in less than a month and I'm so excited!!! I hope it doesnt work itself into being a damper which is highly possible considering none of my friends are gonna be in town. But I'll be damned if I let my bday not live up to its expectations yet another time. I promise you I am gonna have one hell of a whopper!

I am on an FB detox diet. Like I said, I get to log in only once a week or so and I've realized that when you do limit your accessing, it is not as interesting anymore. I look at sappy statuses and laugh. I look at pointless updates about Aishwarya Rai's new baby and I laugh. I look at random shares of stupid moderately sexist photos and I laugh. Its like nothing excites me any more there. And now that I am actively job hunting, LinkedIn is more my thing. I check my page every few hours to see if someone's taken a look at it. And it always makes me so happy when I get a notification saying someone's downloaded my Resume. Well, as Bradley Cooper said in some show I cant even remember the name of, what is life if not replacing one addiction with another. 

Ta for now!