She summoned the 14 year old me to the school staff room. I knew this wasn’t good news as I nervously stood at the staff room’s entrance.

“You don’t deserve the opportunity to be in the school band. You know why? It is your smile. It is very snake-like, very sly. And what is there to constantly smile about? Only mad people do that, smile without a reason. Are you trying to impress the boys?

Do you know the repercussions of that smile? Draupadi once laughed when she shouldn’t have, at Duryodhana, in the Palace of Illusions and eventually a war ensued. That’s the implication of a woman’s unwanted and dangerous smile,” she said.

“I will never smile unnecessarily,” my confused self pleaded shedding copious tears as I continued to stand helplessly, my head hung in shame in a room surrounded by teachers, “All I want is to be a part of the band team.”

***

I worked hard.

I learned to suppress my laughter.

I became very conscious about her smile.

Initially, I stopped smiling often.

Eventually, I ceased to smile.

I tried to turn into the girl she wanted me to become.

But.

I never played in the school band.

She had emerged victorious, taking away from me what mattered the most at that time.

I lay in shambles, defeated.

I pledged to myself. That one day I would have my revenge. I would win and she would lose.

***

Nineteen years later,

“Are you even aware of how gorgeous you look when you throw a simple smile on your face? It almost lights up the room,” my cousin cheerfully said.

“That smile of yours, it is contagious, and makes it impossible for me to be angry with you,” my boyfriend grudgingly said.

“A custom-word ring for yourself? Peace? You can get the word ‘peace’, but how about ‘smile’ instead, it defines you more aptly,” my coworker casually said.

“Are we at risk? You aren’t yourself today, you’re not smiling. That worries me,” my Project Lead speculatively said.

“You have a beautiful smile, never lose that,” my friend lovingly said.

Just like that, after all these years, I let go, unconsciously.

Winning or losing didn’t matter anymore.

– Children listen. With their ears and etch on their minds.

Earlier this year, my father was diagnosed with a very rare type of cancer; cancer in the duodenum. Having been a student of the sciences for the entirety of my life thus far, the first thing I did when I got this news is, look up what part of the body duodenum is. I didn’t even know if I was pronouncing it right.

But that is the ruthlessness of the C. It teaches you everything in a very short period of time. It teaches you anatomy, it teaches you that there is no prevention for this dreadful monster, it teaches you that you can only treat it but perhaps never cure it, it teaches you about surgical options, it teaches you all about chemo and radiation, it teaches you about their side effects, it teaches you to fight a battle with all your might and resources, it teaches you to have hope for remission, it teaches you to live with the fear of recurrence, it teaches you the value of life, it teaches you about winning the battle.

What the C doesn’t teach you though, is how to continue to survive when you have lost a loved one to it.

Yes, my father, my Nanna, succumbed to the C.

There. That is the first time I have actually said the words out, even in my head.

There are two reasons why I am actually writing this:

1. I realized that death is such a taboo topic for most people. I’m not sure if it is cultural or if it is just human nature across borders. Some people are just too afraid to talk about it. Some people desperately want to offer some kind of moral support, but just do not know what to say. They wonder what the right thing to say is. Nobody actually teaches us how to console or offer support to a heart broken person. Some others speak with you, and just skip the topic and try to shove it under the carpet with small talk, while your grief sits in the corner of the room like an elephant. I was overcome with emotion most times, but was also appalled by some insensitive conversations, and rather shocked by some people’s lack of sympathy.
2. My Nanna was a writer and a poet himself, a really good one at that. He was always very proud that I sought to pursue writing, in some way. And writing about this, is my way of dealing with my grief. Also, if it can help bring some sort of consolation to at least one grieving soul out there even for a few minutes, I am sure Nanna would be smiling down at me, wherever he is.

This part, the past few months, has been the hardest phase of my life. I remember thinking that my break up with my first boyfriend was the worst pain that could be inflicted upon me, but it makes me laugh at myself now. Losing a parent is far, far, far worse. This has to be the worst thing that can happen to anybody. But, nevertheless, I have found some coping methods that are helping me to learn to live with a broken, grieving heart. So I decided to write about them. All of these may not necessarily apply to a person dealing with the loss of a loved one, but that’s the magnanimity of grief and loss, nothing can wholly describe or completely encompass it.

1. Try to Have no Regrets:

Regrets are nothing but injurious to you. It may be impossible to not have regrets, like, you could have said this, or done that, or just paid attention, etc. And that is why I said try. It is okay, remember you cannot change what has happened and remember, things could have been far worse. Do not regret the things you could have done for them, be it that you didn’t call them more often, or meet them more often, or they didn’t see you graduate, or that they didn’t see you get married, or they didn’t see you have kids and so on. Nobody goes away satisfied. They could still have one more unfulfilled wish.

I was continents away from my Nanna went he went away since he was coping so well and then suddenly, my whole world crashed to the ground, without any notification. I regret not being there, I regret not getting to say my goodbye, but I shudder at the thought of being there and having to see him on a ventilator struggling to survive.  It is more comforting to hold on to an image of him laughing with me, discussing his favorite books with me, or simply being the strong father he always was. So try to let go of the regrets and hold on to the happier memories. Do not let the Dementor of Regret feed upon your grieving soul. Think of the things you did that made them happy, have multiple Patronus’. They help.

2. Avoid the What-Ifs and Buts:

The mind plays very dangerous games on you. It tries to draw you into a game of ‘What if we have done this instead of that’ or ‘But this didn’t happen to XYZ’s uncle’ or ‘Maybe we should have seen a different surgeon’ or ‘What if we had tried Ayurveda instead’ and so on. All this does is it sends you down a spiraling path of no return. Life is a bitch, and some things are just not in your control and sadly, you have to learn to live with this bitter truth for the rest of your life. Yes, things could have gone differently, and if they did go differently, maybe you could have had a few extra months and perhaps done everything they wanted to do and then what? Even if every sequence of the What-Ifs and Buts went right, nobody is ever going to be ready to let go of their loved one. Nothing can prepare us for this. So do no fall into this limbo.

Instead, maybe, now you couldperhaps check off something on their bucket list for them. My Nanna always dreamed of going to China and so I have decided to go there next year, and do the things he always wanted to do. Mostly for his sake, but also for the sake of my own grieving heart.

3. Anger Vs Acceptance:

Sometimes I am extremely angry that this happened to me. That I have to suffer this way. On some days I feel suffocated and chocked and irritated and angry. I did not deserve this. There are times when I still hope that I will finally wake up and realize that this is just a bad, horrible dream and that everything is okay back home. Oftentimes, I feel like an atheist, other times I feel agnostic. Some times I am sitting in a team meeting and have tears in my eyes for no apparent reason, other times I listen to really sad songs because I want to make myself cry. I am angry that certain friends haven’t called me after learning about my loss and offered support, and I am angrier that some close friends haven’t said the right things to me. I want to scream when people ask me, ‘How are you?’ I want to snap back saying, ‘I’m not fine, I have never felt this shattered before and the pain never seems to end,’ but you are supposed to gulp everything down and simply say, ‘I’m doing alright.’ I am angry that people don’t ask something more sensitive like, ‘How are you doing today?’ or ‘How are you holding up?’ or simply, ‘Hang in there.’ It suffocates me that I still have my Nanna’s number saved on my phone but I simply cannot pick up the phone and call him anymore or receive any ‘missed calls’ from him.

ALL THIS IS OKAY. You can be angry and you don’t have to accept what has happened. You can keep that saved number on your phone forever and never delete it. I am not asking you to get all delusional but, if you just lost someone you knew ever since you were in the womb, it is alright to be angry and not reach the acceptance stage of your grief.

And let me tell you this, you probably will never reach the acceptance stage and that is okay too. To think that you have them watching over you, guarding you and wishing the best for you is completely normal.

Ever since this has happened, all I can tell people is: My Nanna had the C and he didn’t make it or everything happened so fast and is over. I haven’t been able to bring myself to utter the actual words used in the English language, even the flowery ones. I feel that if I uttered them, they might actually become true.

4. Keep Away the Negative Energy:

Do not let the negative energy become a priority. What nobody teaches you is that all rituals, irrespective, which religion you belong to make mourning very taxing. I do not question religion or rituals but families often prioritize ritualistic practices over people’s loss. Nobody, absolutely nobody, can feel what you are going through when you are dealing with your loss. While some practices are just blunt and brutal, some families make it harder than it already is.

There were relatives who told me that all my Nanna wanted was to see his 31 year old daughter married and that he left without his dream being fulfilled. I was arguing with them that, yes, he wanted me to be married, but he also wanted me to be happy, that was more important to him than my marriage. There were some people who talked about assets and gold, and there were still others who were gossiping about what treatment could have been better, and some others who were complaining that there was no sugar in the coffee being served to visitors.

What irked me the most, but was also a moment of realization, was when two members in my Nanna’s family had a difference of opinion on the ritual protocol and they began to argue about whether the ‘meal offering’ must be placed at the head or at the foot of my father. That was it. I walked away, away from the wretched deathly hallows toward home, home that will never be the same anymore. I needed none of this bullshit. What I was going through was already extremely heart wrenching and to these people, this was some kind of an ego display theatrics.

This is the kind of negative energy you want to keep away. I feel that facing these situations, or involving yourself in them, even arguing with them to prove a point takes away from your loss. It makes your loss sit on the back burner. It makes trivial things appear more important, which isn’t the case clearly. Your loved one loved you very dearly. Let nobody tell you otherwise.

5. Find a Medium to Deal with your Grief:

This is very, very important. You need to let the pain out. The pain does not get any lesser if you do, this will stay with you and haunt you forever, but the letting out process eases the pain to a certain extent. You can choose whatever medium you want. Crying out loud in front of people, pouring out tons of silent tears while you are alone in bed or in the bathroom, confiding your pain in your friends, having long conversations with your family about the loss, going to grief support groups, reading books, reading books on dealing with grief, collecting pictures of your lost one, whatever works for you. But find that medium. One of my friends advised me that some people chose the wrong medium, like resort to alcoholism or doing drugs, only because that keeps the pain away, and that I shouldn’t take those up. Of course, so I don’t support mediums that cause self-destruction.

What helps me is talking about my loss. The pain it causes me, the unfair situation, the happy memories, and merrier times. I started to keep a journal and jot down all the little happy instances I can recollect. I want my future  kids, if I ever have them, to know my Nanna since they will not get to meet him in person. This post is a medium too.

My friends tell me I have become even more obsessed with cleaning. I am constantly cleaning the apartment and re-arranging furniture. I keep my appointments to the Ts and never cancel plans. It is my way toward some sort of satisfaction that I can still control some things, and that I will continue to control what I can since there clearly are things that are way beyond my controlling or fixing capability.

6. Let Each Person in your Family Deal in Their Own Way:

If this isn’t easy on you, it isn’t easy on your family either, your siblings and your mother, I mean. They could be in a far worse situation than you are. Do not put yourself in their shoes because you probably will never understand their pain even though you are all dealing with the same loss. Do not judge them or force them to confide in you. Just remember, in Rachel Green’s words, if you feel that it’s like there is rock bottom, then 50 feet of crap, then you, your family could be feeling the same, or they probably have a 150 feet of crap between rock bottom and them. Grief is so weird, it comes like alternating current, only there is no resistance, none at all.

What I am trying to say is; every human being is different. When the likes and dislikes are so vastly different between two individuals, how will two people’s modes of grieving be identical. It took me a few weeks to understand this.

When this great tragedy hit my family, my brother did not cry. For as long as I was there with him, he did not shed a single tear. I was very worried for him, worried that we would have to face a volcanic outburst due to all the over piled containment inside of him. I nudged him to cry, and offered him my shoulder to cry on, lent my ears to hear him out, and he did neither. He also refused to shave his head that was required as a part of the ritual. And when I asked why, he calmly said to me, ‘I do not want remember what I was made to do to him after he was gone, in the burial ground. If I shave my head, every time I look into the mirror, this is what I will remember.’ Reality hit me; I hadn’t even considered what the boys in our country, particularly Hinduism practicing families go through in these kinds of situations. It is just outright brutal. Of course, my brother was forced to shave his head anyway.

I simply said to him, ‘You don’t have to confide in me, as long as you have some medium or someone you feel comfortable enough to speak with, as long as you are unburdening the pain in some manner, I’m okay.’

7. The Ultimate Support System:

This could be your family, friends or simply acquaintances who are also grieving and know what it is to lose a parent. They are your backbone and you have to learn to recognize, and appreciate them.  Support comes in so many ways. Some people give you cards to console you and let you know they are there for you, some send you flowers, some friends come and meet you and stay with you, some of them, even if they aren’t physically there, say the right things you need to hear. Some simply ask the most mundane and banal questions that could mean the world to you. Every little effort matters and needs to be remembered. I always like to say, ‘Good friends clap their hands and cheer you through your ups but great friends hold your hand and pull you up through your downs.’

When I got the most devastating news of my life, a co-worker and friend hugged me real tight for I don’t know how long and asked if she could say a Christian prayer although she knew my Nanna was a Hindu, and I just hugged her back and shook my head in agreement.

An acquaintance who I barely know asked me, ‘Have you been getting any sleep and do you feel hungry at all these days?’ Such an inconspicuous question but it literally had me chocked. Because there are nights you cry yourself to sleep and yet can’t keep the pain away.

And to all these people who were my backbone, I made sure I told them how appreciated they were and how much their concern made some difference to my grieving processes.

8. It is okay to be Happy:

This is the trickiest one. There are times when you forget all this pain for some time and go back to being your old self. When you treat yourself. When you go shopping and buy yourself a new dress. When you go out on Friday night with friends and get drunk. When you simply turn off your mind and decide to go watch a newly released movie. When you take a vacation because you need a break. And this is okay. Do not be guilty about it. Ignore the judgmental looks people throw at you. Nobody decides for you about how you learn to survive, you do. You have been through a lot. And you don’t have to sit in the corner and cry all the time. If anything, your life isn’t going to stop because you choose to throw your hands up in the air and decide you’re done.  Your loved one never wanted you to brood all the time and waste your life. That wasn’t expected of you. Grief will last forever; you just have to learn to continue to do everything in life while you carry that void in your heart.

This has been one of the most difficult things I have ever had to write, but I just needed to put it out there because sometimes, I have felt extremely lonely and all I wished for was to hear from someone who was dealing with what I am going through. And yes, growing up sucks. Sometimes I wish I could just go back to being in 7th Grade where my biggest problems in life were fear of Gowri Ma’am and passing the Maths test.

For those of you who are interested, I chanced upon this website called Remembering With Roses. This company takes roses from events such as funerals, weddings, graduations, etc. and they have a recipe that makes the roses into long lasting, permanent black beads. They accept both fresh and dried roses and you can ship directly to them. I wanted to have something tangible from my Nanna, apart from myself, so I got a pendant made. When I wear it, I feel connected to him and it gives me a sense of protection from him, like he is over seeing me.

Here is the link: http://www.rememberingwithroses.com

October 21^st, 2016: Happy 64^th Birthday, Nanna. I love you.

“The most painful goodbyes are the ones that are never said and never explained.”

The year was 1998 and I had just finished my 7th grade exams. It was a typical day number one of the vacation. I woke up late, sat in front of the T.V with my brush in my mouth for more than 20 minutes trying to catch the latest film releases that summer, got yelled at by my mom for being late for breakfast, followed by home-made dosas and peanut chutney for brunch. As I gobbled up the last dosa, I breathed freedom. I was at home and this meant that I did not have to wash my plate. I lazily walked into the kitchen to dump my plate into the sink as I noticed my mother and my maid getting ready to make lunch.

I found myself a neat spot on the kitchen bench-top and flopped myself on it eager to catch up on their conversation. It was then that I noticed the weirdness in the air. My maid signaled to my mom and asked her if she wanted to tell me about it. My mom looked perplexed. I was just a curious cat so I pressed my mom to spit it out. And thus, she began.

A brief introduction; my mom ran a non-government organization (NGO) that had worked on some projects to provide free education to kids under 14 years, employment to single mothers, etc. She also participated in some sort of “women counselling” program where she did a lot from abc to xyz. Basically, she was all for women rights. 

“There is this three year old girl, a kid from the nearby village. She is in the hospital. I’m going to see her this evening”, she said.

“What is wrong with her?”

“She was raped two nights ago”

My mind went blank for almost 60 seconds. I was 13 years old. This kind of stuff was too much for me to take. But my mom continued.

“She doesn’t have a father. She was sleeping outside, on a cot, in between her mother and her grandmother. (Summers in A.P were really hot and most people slept on their terrace) This man came along, he was drunk. He picked up the little girl from in between those two women and carried her to the dumpster at a distance, threw her on a pile of garbage, thrust his shirt in her mouth and raped her. It was only 15 minutes later that her grandmother woke up and found her granddaughter missing and went looking for her. She heard muffled screams at a distance and gave out a shrill cry at what she saw. Of course rapist ran away but only after the grandmother got a good look at his face.”

“She is very sick. The sick, drunken bastard bit her all over, on her vagina and it was bleeding uncontrollably. He happens to be the village Sarpanch’s son so we have tracked him down. Me and my friends want justice for the little girl. Do you want to go to the hospital with me?”

I was numb and disgusted. A three year old girl! What kind of a demon does that.

She was tiny, with several bandages on her elbows, knees and forehead. My mother went to talk to the little girl’s mother, trying to comfort her, and telling her that they had found him. I was very uneasy. I did what I do with most kids, gave my index finger to her to hold. She din’t take it. She was expressionless, and just started and started and stared, into some sort of emptiness above my head. I wondered. I wondered if she could even fathom what had happened to her. I wondered if she would grow up to forget this incident. I shuddered and wondered about the society we are living in.

She hadn’t moved for more than 10 minutes now. She was wearing a bottle green frock. A doctor came in to examine her. He moved up to her to lift her frock and see if the wounds on her vagina were healing. The second he touched her frock, she became violent. She started to fight off the doctor’s hands with all her might and was screaming so loudly that probably the entire floor could hear her now. Her mother ran forward and tried to pacify her but the little girl wouldn’t stop her terror stricken cries until the doctor left her room. Her mom was all tears said that she had been doing this. The kid wouldn’t let anyone examine her vaginal wounds. My mother pacified her mother and asked if the little girl had shown any signs of speech. Then my mom turned to me and explained that the girl could speak really well. She had even started going to the local nursery free-education program. But the incident had muted her. The doctors couldn’t tell if she had lost her voice due to the shock of the horrific incident or due to the way her neck was handled during the same. They mentioned that if it was due to shock she would eventually be able to talk again.

I ran out of the room. I cried, a lot. I cried more that night. I could not get her empty eyes and her bottle green frock out of my mind.

The rapist eventually got away. Neither was he tried at court nor was he convicted. Huh! He wasn’t even arrested. He was after all the son of the Sarpanch. He faked a letter from the Government Hospital that said that he had been in the hospital for the last seven days suffering from diarrhea or some shit. The police refused to issue an arrest warrant.

I have thought of that girl many times ever since. I think of her when I read about Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander, I think of her when I read about the rape of any woman, in India or otherwise. I thought of her when I read about the public molestation about a 16 year old Gawahati girl by a dozen savages, I thought of her when I read about an independent 25 year old woman in Mumbai who was assaulted and murdered by her lust-filled watchman, I thought of her when another 6 year old girl in Haryana was recently raped, and I thought of her as I watched Haryana Khap Panchayats shamelessly tell the media that the cause of such rapes is women not being married early.

She must be 17 years old now. A teenager. Does she go to school? Does she remember the brutal attack? Will she ever lead a normal life? Does she have a boyfriend? Is she a strong and independent girl? How does our “society” treat her? Has she been shunned? How does she feel about denied justice? And most importantly, can she TALK?

I probably will never find answers to these questions cause I am like most Indians. I do nothing. After all, I have lived and grown up in a society that flops itself in front of the television every Sunday morning to watch shows that have been adapted from the epic, Ramayana, the one where the antagonist sneaks in and kidnaps a married woman against her will, in her husband’s absence, and where the protagonist rescues her from him but gives her as much respect as asking her to jump into the fire to prove her chastity and who abandons her when she is pregnant with his kids.

I moved to a new city in December 2011 and have been looking to lease a decent apartment ever since. It has been a very difficult hunt. That’s probably due to the fact that I have NO friends here. Initially, I was too busy to make new friends and later on, I was disgusted to.

I responded to a post on one of the “Desi” websites and checked out a place. I took an instant liking to it and the girl who had posted the ad liked me. We agreed on a few terms, the most important of which included that I needed the place for two months and would extend the lease based on my work agreement. She seemed totally cool about it and nodded her head like she was a Parkinson’s patient, desperate to share the rent and utilities with me. Two weeks passed. I was supposed to move in on a Tuesday. I called her up to ask her at what time I could be there with my stuff. And she bluntly told me that she wasn’t ‘cool’ with the two month agreement and had found a new roomie. This was the minute I realized that this apartment hunting shit wasn’t going to be easy.

Staying away from home, always in a boarding school or a hostel makes you meet people of all sorts. It doesn’t teach you much though. Or perhaps I haven’t learnt much.

Now there are some Indian names that you can use to christen both girls and boys. Being a little skeptical and hoping that it would be a girl who held the name, I dialed the number. Neither was the person a woman nor was the conversation a pleasing one. The most frustrating thing was that he asked me out on a date (without even seeing me). He wanted to go wine-tasting. The second one asked me if I was on any dating sites. The third one was the most ridiculous of the lot. He apparently got my number from one of the other two guys. He had decided to call me because I was from A.P. He asked me straight to my face (or to his phone) whether I am a “party-girl” and would like to live in with him in a 1 bed-room apartment. “Just like friends, you know,” he had added.

I decided to talk to my only guy friend (he’s going to be mad at me now for pulling him into every other blog) and bitch about these men. He then warned me that there can be no “just friends” when it comes to men and that too if they mention wine-tasting. To the best of my knowledge, girls, according to Indian men, fall into two distinct categories; the boring grandmothers and the party sluts animals. So, if you are this self-sustaining woman who stays away from home and is comfortable in western clothes, you automatically fall into the second category; the kind of person who will go and get drunk with a stranger or move-in with him. They will not let you be this woman who can be happy with her freedom and be respected at the same time. Do apartment hunting women scream “Available”? This kind of sexism disgusts me.

Restricting my search to “females only” I continued to search for a new place to live. I came across this girl whose ad I liked mainly because she stayed at a convenient distance to work. I called her up. Not only was she rude but she interviewed me with questions such as, “Tell me about yourself.” I informed her that I wasn’t exactly looking to share a place and would be glad if she could provide me with some information about the leasing office (I couldn’t find anything on the internet). She adamantly declined to even give me the apartment’s name and said that she would call me back in an hour. She never called back.

I wanted the name of the place at any cost. I asked a friend in Houston who is very good at talking to strangers to come to the rescue.  I say strangers because if you actually knew my friend, you would never believe that she is sweet-spoken. Anyways, my friend called her up and said she was looking to share this place. This rude woman told my friend that she would call back to confirm. And she did. She said that the place was taken but they had a good chit chat about the city for about 15 minutes. She gave my friend the name and address of the apartments.  She also told my friend about stores that I never knew existed in this city.

As my friend narrated the entire phone conversation to me, I interrupted, “Did you talk to her in Telugu?” I asked.

“Yes, she is from A.P”, She said.

You see, that’s where I went wrong. I had spoken to her in English.

The South Indians naturally assume that I’m a Gujarati because my last name is Patel. The North Indians think I do not deserve to a Patel because I can barely connect two Hindi sentences together. I went to a Christian minority college in Chennai that had no special rights for regular people. The Tamilians who listen to me speak in their language think that it’s an attempt of sheer mockery. I actually had a guy, who worked with me briefly, call me “Sambar rice”, when he found out that I was vegetarian. Another fancy name that I’ve heard is “Chennai chepala (fish) batch” because I prefer listening to original Tamil songs instead of Telugu-songs dubbed from Tamil. I am considered “dating-material” because I am out-spoken.

Our constitution says, and we brag to the people from other nations, that India is a sovereign, socialist, secular, linguistic democratic republic. This big fat essay answer looks pretty, only in the Civics notebook. Who follows it anyways? We will always be surrounded by narrow domestic walls.

My parents fell in love with each other when they were about 15 years old and they got married 10 years later, with a lot of drama because they belonged to different communities. I went to a school that helped me to realize that there is only one caste, the caste of humanity. I studied with people from different parts of the country for over a decade. I cannot read and write in my mother-tongue and I talk in English to strangers. My last name is Patel and I am not a Gujarati. I went to college that was in my neighboring state and I work in a country that’s half-way across the globe from my homeland.

Where do I belong?

And when the hell will I find a decent place to stay?

I have, for a very long time, been a victim of the Hewlett-Packard Company. I turned a deaf ear to many people who advised me to purchase a Dell laptop. I chose to pay heed to one very opinionated person and fate threw into my lap, a HP laptop and sent me swirling down a whirlpool for 3 long, very long years.

It took me a week in Sept 2008, to realize that I had made the wrong move. I do not clearly remember the exact make of the laptop mostly because I chose to call it ‘the steel dabba’. This laptop had a silver-steel finish to it and it heated up like a furnace. The steel touch pad would get so hot that it almost became impossible to ‘touch’ the touch pad at times. I would stare at it in disgust. Many a time I was tempted to break an egg and watch it warm into an omelette. The lab that I worked in did not have a microwave then. So I was also eager to explore if placing a cup of instant noodles with cold water would actually bring my lunch to boil. No kidding, but one of my friends hugged her HP laptop as she slept during winters because her room-mate was a polar bear from the Arctic and would not let her turn on the thermostat. Apparently it kept my human friend warm. 😀

“Buy a HP laptop along with a carton box full of Burnol ointment tubes” was a common joke. The frustration of an over-heated laptop shutting down right in the middle of  a mystery movie, or when you are sincerely writing up the last bit of your thesis, or when you have 10 more minutes to turn in your online assignment to Mr. Dracula, the alien stares your classmates throw at you cause your laptop makes a weird noise that sounds like you just started a motor engine right in the middle of the lecture, always having to carry your laptop charger (like a patient on IV fluids) cause your laptop won’t run for a single second without it; trust me, I have faced it all.

I may not have kept in mind my best friend’s birthday but I have definitely and distinctively marked on my calender, the day my laptop needed a warranty renewal. After complaining of an issue with the ‘heat sink exchange or whatever’, and having my laptop sent for servicing six times in two years, one kind man decided to replace my laptop for a new one. So I did get a new one. No heating issues. Just when I thought everything was going amazingly fine, one hinge of the laptop started to come apart. No, it did not succumb to a suicidal fall whatsoever.  Remember the friend who hugged her laptop in her sleep, the hinge of her new laptop came apart too. HP had tricked me and I realized that I had failed miserably to see through this trick. My warranty did not cover accidental damage, it was a limited hardware warranty.

When this news hit my head, I think I was more happy than sad. It gave me a stronger reason and the guts to push myself aboard, spend a 1000 bucks and coax myself into purchasing a Dell laptop for a tension free gadget survival. There! The decision had been made.

I was told that there was an offer. It sure was a good deal. A Dell XPS 14z, i7 processor, 8 GB RAM and 750 GB hard drive (in lay man terms). It saved me about 500 bucks. So I swooped in and grabbed onto the offer. My new laptop arrived with a big fat green label that said “REFURBISHED”. I was angry, very angry. Now I am not sure if I was angry because my laptop had two small scratches on it or because it was covered within a limited warranty, yet again. I decided to return it even without switching it on. I am generally an angry woman. A green label that mentioned that the use of refurbished products is ‘environmentally healthy’ pissed me off even more. I went through the ordeal of having to speak very patiently with a guy from Dell. He said that he was sorry for the miscommunication but I am very sure that he was not. He must have put me on hold and chuckled away to glory. Why else would he offer to take $ 35 off my purchase if I agreed to hold on to that gadget with limited warranty? “Are you kidding me, moron?”, I wanted to yell. The bloody state tax cost me $ 42. I held my breath and said, “Send me a (‘fucking’ in my mind) return label, already.”

Eventually I did purchase a new Dell laptop. I could only afford an XPS with the i 5 processor but the good news is that it covers accidental, theft, and hardware warranty for a whole year. It arrives today. As I sit here and track the status of my package every 30 minutes, excited and relieved, and typing into my HP that can barely sit straight or hold its screen and keyboard together but can make the sound of a running engine, I realize that today is the day my HP will rest in peace. I also realize how much our lives revolve around warranty/safety/protection in today’s world.

Why was I so fussy about having a solid warranty plan? Am I pessimistic? Was I looking for an optimistic exit in a pessimistic situation? Am I gearing up for a planned and easy future? Am I afraid of risks? Do I not know that often circumstances are never under my control?

Everything comes with a risk-free option nowadays that includes a small or big plan right into the near or far future. Gadget warranties, health and motor vehicle insurances, dinner dates, condoms, seat-belts, helmets, preparing for events way ahead of their deadlines, the fear of submission errors, procuring an employee’s emergency contact information the minute the employer offers him/her a job, planning a birthday party two months ahead, promising a friend to be there at her wedding, eagerly waiting for Sunday to catch up on the latest episode of Desperate Housewives, and the list could go on.

The question is: how sure are we about seeing the next day when we know that our life comes with no warranty?

As the clock struck 5:52 PM, I packed my bag and dashed to the bus that was bound homeward. It was too hot to be the first day of the spring quarter and the bus was empty. I flashed my bus pass at the driver who nodded with approval. I had a question for him and decided to ask him before he started driving. Here’s how the conversation went.

Me: Has bus no. 19 been re-scheduled? I happened to look it up on google maps and was unable to locate it.

Driver: No, it hasn’t. The new schedule will be out only in summer. I will keep you updated. I’ve seen you take this bus for two months now. Where do you work?

Me: Oh! Thanks. (Pointing to the building right opposite to where the bus had stopped) I work in that building.

Driver: What do you do ma’am?

Me: (Smiling) I am a Research Engineer.

Driver: Oh! That’s great to hear. You must be making a lot of money.

Me: Well, not really. You see, I just started working and am probably the most inexperienced on my team.

Driver: Okay, not now. But you will make lots of money in the future. Right?

I changed the subject to the sultry weather and walked to the seat by the window. Just as he turned the engine on and started driving, my mind went afloat.

Although becoming an Engineer was never an option that I had considered, I realized there wasn’t much of a choice if you had your roots in Andhra Pradesh. You either are an Engineer or a Doctor. I went to a school that taught me to be passionate about what I choose to do and to stick by it, the only sad part being you have no clue as to what you are passionate about when you are 15. It did not take me much to understand that ‘a doctor’ wasn’t something that was cut out for me. And if you studied pure sciences when you were in high school, you were given the benefit of choosing from a restricted group of various upcoming specializations in India like Biotechnology, Pharmacy, Microbiology etc.

So when I was ready to go to college, I had hundreds of people hovering over my decision. Sadly, these people were neither Engineers nor were they Doctors. Some of them were worried elders. The others were, however, a bunch of jobless people who chewed paan and gave free advice while flashing their orange teeth. When you choose something that sounds as fancy as Biomedical Engineering, you have to remember that you may turn out to be someone who is hanging in the air at all times. Besides, 80% of the people you talk to, your friends included, don’t even know what exactly you studied or you do. They think it is super cool to say BIO-%#*@^* and get away with it thinking you wouldn’t care. Well, how would you feel if I think Java, Oops, Pearl and Oyster are all same thing?

My memory remains crystal clear. The year was 2002. It had people telling me, “There is a huge SCOPE for this field. It is thriving in the U.S and the U.K.” Then they would dramatically turn to my mom and add, “My sister’s husbands’ brother’s wife’s brother-in-law’s  paternal uncle’s daughter’s donkey has a degree in this field. The donkey is a Biomedical Engineer. They make all these huge fancy machines that people use in hospitals. You remember the time when Uma’s husband had his stomach scanned by a machine that is 10 times bigger than the X-ray? That donkey designed it.” Precisely, those were the days when Apollo Hospitals had purchased its first PET-CT.

I felt the first adrenaline rush when I fixed a BP apparatus during my internship. I later inclined to research and faced the ordeal of working with and breaking bones. I found definite passion in this and decided to stick to it. Why else would I help with sawing bones at 10 in the night in a building that was rumored to be haunted.

Life moves quickly and soon I found myself with a Master’s degree. It was only when I was out on a seriously tiresome job hunt that the word ‘scope’ caught my sincere attention. I wanted to ask all the advising scholars who bragged about the ‘scope’ of this field to stand in a line so that I could whack their asses hard. As hard as the job hunt was kicking mine. What scope? There is no scope. I know that there are thousands of sick people dying every day and that a few hundreds of diseases stand invincible. And yet there is no scope for young researchers. God alone knows why companies are either too less in number or too huge in infrastructure. With companies expecting you to walk out of graduate school with over 5 years of industry experience, the immigration services leaching on you to show employment proof within 90 days of graduation, the novel taxes on the healthcare system, very few jobs, and extremely high competition, I wonder, “Does scope really exist?” It probably will, only if you are a shark in this rat race.

Now everything said and done, you will eventually fulfill those dreams. But what the bloody hell is it with “lots of money” when you are an Engineer. That’s like saying “All pastas taste the same irrespective of their sauces, be it alfredo, marinara, or pesto with basil.” No, not all Engineers make mountain loads of money. To my knowledge, it is the people who work with computers that do. That could be the only reason the film Chintakayala Ravi had its tag line as Software Engineer. If the other Engineers did too, the film would have been called Chintakayala Ravi-Chemical Engineer. If there was money with every Engineer, our Indian Engineering college Deans would happily call Johnson & Johnson to recruit students. They wouldn’t promise 100% placement merely by throwing Biology students into Infosys or Accenture.

Being a researcher basically means you belong to a typical Indian lower middle class family. Your pay check sustains you. You cannot decide for yourself or promise your friend, a trip to a beach in Florida during a long weekend in summer when it is only spring. You feel the urge to work on Saturdays.You do not fancy a 500 dollar iPad. You might prefer a 99 dollar e-reader and contemplate on it’s purchase for one whole week before you actually make it. A broken laptop is close to a broken heart and buying a new laptop seems like an extra month of house rent. You know the difference between necessity and luxury and you abide by it. You make sure you get your weekly dosage of protein without fail by drinking soy milk even though you are aware that it is expensive. Shopping malls don’t catch your attention even if you are a girl. A take out from your favorite Chinese restaurant is something remotely close to a festival.  If you decide to try a new brand of shampoo and it sucks, you do not throw it away even if it makes your hair look like crap. You use it until it is done. You are this espresso junkie who cares very little about crappy hair or papers strewn all over your desk. You keep your monthly expenses updated on an excel file.

Being a researcher also means you work like a donkey and like a donkey you enjoy doing it (Probably this is similar to the donkey my mom’s friend was talking about eight years ago).  So who actually cares about being called a nerd or having less money when you have no idea what your friend is talking about when she mentions that she has Monday Blues? Undoubtedly, I love what I do. And nerds have proved that nerds have high life satisfaction scores.

Phew! I had to get off the bus now. I looked at the driver as I darted forward to pull the chain and thought to myself, “Mr. Driver, if I really had the time and the money like a regular Engineer, I would use them to take driving lessons and buy myself a car. You wouldn’t see me riding a bus.” I looked at him again, smiled and said “Thank you” and got off.

As I slowly walked towards home enjoying the weather with Adele singing in my ears, I saw my landlady outside the house. She asked me if she could have a minute. I took my headphones off and she informed me that she had decided to increase the rent by a 100 bucks starting next month. I stared for a second and nodded my head in dismay when she added, “I’m sure you will not find it to be a problem. You are an Engineer. You make lots of money, right?”

Adele resumed singing in my ears.

Last week, at 2 am in the morning, I received a text from one of my friends. It said, “My parents want me to see this guy. He happens to be from Sathyabama University. Any chance you might know him?” I lay in bed, wide awake, desperately wishing I could help my friend. But I simply had to text back, “Girl, you know na, in our college boys and girls were not allowed to talk to each other. So I have no clue.”

I went to Sathyabama University, Chennai, for my under-grad education. Unfortunately, I do not have anyone to blame for sending me there. It was my very own brilliant idea. Apart from a number of factors for not being able to study in Hyderabad or Bangalore, Sathyabama caught my attention because it threw light on a path that could reunite me with a school friend I had been away from for two whole years. So I packed my bags, held my brother’s hand and marched into the campus. My parents thought I would do best if me and brother went to the same college.

Although I went to a boarding school my entire life, Sathyabama was a nightmare that had come to reality. This place had nothing but RULES and they sure were NOT meant to be broken. The most moronic ones on the list were; no electronic items on campus or in hostels (This meant no cell phones, no walk-mans or CD players, not even an iron box), dress code that included only salwar kammez for the girls with pinned dupatta, a stupid squad that was a team of dickheads who went around the campus all the time keeping a vigilant eye on us like we were terrorists (the lady squads barged into classrooms to check our bags for cellphones, love letters, and magazines/novels), and no talking to the opposite sex. Oh, and not to forget, the way we got our semester results. We were asked to assemble in one common area (I don’t remember what it was called). The entire college, say about 8,000 to 10,000 students. A list was made of those people who failed their tests. This list was read out; the name of the student and the number of tests he/she failed in. Arrears, they were called. I thank my stars for never being on the list. What else would you do but study if you never looked out of your umbrella. All in all, the Sathyabama experience was like the mean High School period we see in American films.

Well, Sathyabama was no IIT for us, even if the English scholar Jeppiaar thought so. This philosopher whose favorite lines are “Open window and let atmosphere come in” or “Boy boy talk no problem, girl girl talk no problem, boy girl talk I problem” was our Dean. (Here’s a sample of the shit this man talks- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq02OOzo1YE)  And, supposedly he was dumb enough to impose a rule that makes life hard for me even to this day. If a boy and girl were caught talking, they were given an Office Duty (OD). I’m not sure of the details strictly because I never got one. But rumor has it that the people “caught” talking were made to stand a under tree all day or work outside the Directors office, serving refreshments to guests who came by. They could also be suspended from college or totally kicked out, depending on the intensity of the conversation. I never really wanted to take the risk, and with the bonus of having an over-protective brother, I never looked up and out of my blue umbrella while walking on campus. You always had to carry an umbrella in Chennai either cause of the sun or the rain. With all this drama, the only way you could talk to a guy was when you bumped into him in the mall or on the train that took you home. During the first 2 years of college, I wished to enhance the beauty of our gang by adding a boy or two. It never really happened and by the third year I did not care at all. I had good friends and nothing in seemed short at that point of life.

Little did I realize then that I failed to pick up the tricks of the trade when I was supposed to and so even to this day talking to a guy makes me all nervous. So much so that I could just swallow raw goat meat rather than make conversation with a guy. I truly hold Jeppiaar for my “Adam-abhorrence mania.” My limited knowledge helps me classify men into two defined categories; the head-strong and the desperate. The former highly pisses me off and the latter pisses me off even more. The chatter-box in my vocal cords comes to a stand still and prefers deathly silence to talking to a guy. I believe I truly deserve credit for having met and spoken to many men all along the way, and kept just one of them as a dear friend. Now this guy is neither head-strong nor desperate. My hatred for Jeppiaar goes to the highest peak when I sit at lunch with a bunch of male colleagues and I’m literally tongue-tied. I get so scared that my face looks like a girl who just lost her favorite puppy in the park. At moments like these I pray to all the 65 gods I know, to send food to my table as quickly as possible so that I can at least pretend like I’m a greedy pig with sole interest in free food. When it comes to guys, I also suffer from temporary amnesia. I need to look at a guy’s face 5-6 times before I can register it in my head. This makes me look retarded and sound rude and inappropriate. I once asked a guy whom I barely knew for while as to why his parents had given him a name that meant ‘handsome’. I assumed that all men are insensitive and said, “What if you turned out to be ugly?” So it all comes down to this when I talk to a guy. I’m either this nut-case who talks utter nonsense that the guy listening to me is thinking loudly,”When will she shut her mouth?”, so loudly that I can read shut-up in his eyes, or I am this frightened caterpillar who just wants nothing but to turn into a cocoon.

I get so tensed on a first date that I often succeed in convincing my “couple friends” to tag along with me making it seem something like a double date. I know its not going very well when the guy is keenly staring at the cricket match on TV right above my head or looking at the chess board on the table. Now, I hate cricket and do not know how to play chess. So I quickly gulp down hot chocolate coffee and pretend that I burnt my tongue. If he’s sensitive enough, he gives a damn and then I talk about coffee and chocolates. But if he thought I was an idiot to sip hot coffee without blowing at it, its a lost cause. It is at times such as these that I wish I could give Mr. Jeppiaar a good piece of my mind for making me look stupid at both, the personal and professional front.

Although my problem is not among the life threatening ones, I do hope that one fine day when Krishna comes along, this Sathyabamaite can tell him apart from the crowd. And, that she is smart enough to figure out if there is Rukmini lurking somewhere in his wallet, behind one of his credit cards.

Grade 1- Aruna Ma’am: “You, there. Why are you biting you nails? Din’t you parents teach you any good habits?” (Yeah, Right! At the age of six, my parents should have practically treated me like Arjun on the battle field and enlightened me with the knowledge of the Bhagvath Gita)

Grade 2- Class monitor: “Chiiii…. Sahaja… You are biting your nails. Wait! Your name is going to Seema Ma’am.”  (Do that, and you are not getting my precious paper greeting card on your birthday)

Grade 3- Uma Ma’am: “Sahajaaaaa… Dirty girl! How many times have I told you not to bite your nails. Next time I see you doing it, I’m going to hit you on your knukles.” (Huh! Did you just forget the fact that I am the class “Social Studies topper” and also the effort I put in to decorate the classroom on your birthday?)

So on, and so forth. I wonder what’s the big deal with biting MY OWN nails. Mind you, I only bite them (and liberate them), I do not eat them.

According to various studies, it has been proved that the only live part of a nail is the one lying beneath the skin. The dead deserve peace, why don’t we give them that. You grow them, clean them, polish them, paint them, honor them, and waste half your savings on them during the weekend. The growing trend of salons dedicated specifically to nail care coupled with stupid people giving a shit to it makes me bite my own in awe when I read about their statistics. Go to Google maps and click on search nearby for places to eat. I did that once and found six restaurants near my home and 14 freaking nail salons. Man! Are you kidding me? Do they deserve that kind of importance? Probably the next time all you ‘nail growers” are hungry I should just serve you a plate of nails and even if one of the salon runs out of nails, you would definitely have another 13 out there. You would then think beyond this pedicure/manicure shit and demand for more technically life useful resources in your locality. I remember having 2 other ‘nail biting’ counter parts at school. When either of them upload their pictures on facebook, I cannot but look directly at their fingers. One of them, still has nail-bitten fingers. This immediately brings a satisfying smile to my heart; the other however, now seems to have beautiful fingers with long (polished) nails. (Deep inside my heart I would like to believe that those are fake ones she would have purchased for 20 bucks at a nearby salon, they are so accessible any day, any place now)

I resort to biting my nails when I’m nervous, happy, while reading a book, watching the climax of a film or series, and even when I’m simply bored. After all, they are my nails on my very own fingers. One boring evening, I happened to be watching a Bollywood flick: Chak De. The hockey match towards the end of the film got me tensed and automatically my nail-biting began. One brave friend of mine, hit me on my hand and said, “Why do you keep biting your nails?” I would have liked to scream, “What is your fucking problem. I mean, seriously!”. Okay! I have a habit. It’s not like all you smart humans out there are perfect souls.

I have also come across weird men who on the pretext of behaving like gentlemen say unbelievable stuff like, “The first thing I notice in a girl are her fingers and feet. She should have beautiful fingers.” Oh please, enough now! Whether you admit it or not, we actually know what you notice at the first instant. But if you still want to pretend like you are Pawan Kalyan from Tholiprema, staring at Keerti Reddy’s beautiful feet and falling in love with her, suit and cheat yourself. And, what really is this pretty nails thingy, like your moronic male ego is going to let you bend down and kiss your girls feet when you are actually making love. I’d rather suggest you thank your stars if your girl has the nail-biting habit, you have one issue less to worry about when she is driving you bankrupt with her expenditure.

Well, I believe I need to stop typing right now. Its rather uncomfortable typing with one hand while the other is busy with my natural nail cutter. 😛