I thought I'd have been the last person on earth to write a blog..... well.. obviously i turned out to be wrong.. (duh).. "when you think something won't happen to you... it will!!!" - my version of murphy's law.. anyways.. back to the blog itself..
I am at this stage in my life when I am at the door leading out from college life to the so called "real world", probably for the last time ... yeah.. yeah.. i know what i said in the first para... and i've been thro some interesting educational institutions...
The one that I probably miss the most would have to be my time at rishi valley... 6 years in boarding school... homesickness... washing my own clothes (!!!!!!) , taking care of my own stuff... no tV (unbeleivable!) .. no carbonated drinks(don't faint)... cribbing about the dining hall food... spending 20 mins in front of the mirror to look "dashing" (yes.. yes.. stop giggling)... lazy afternoons spent playing cricket... waking up early morning on a sunday to play volleyball(did i really do that?!) .... precious weekend movie screenings... drink 5 glasses of tea at sunday morning breakfast (the only day that tea was served!).. . dancing european folk dance with the girls on weekends.. :) .. biking to the vegetable garden to steal vegetables (?!!?!?)... fighting over turns for the measly mono tape deck.. and listening to the walkman on the sly.. ;) .. climbing over rock-ridden hills and taking in the absolute pristine beauty of nature... the first walk with the girl who took my breath away.. and then waiting every evening for those 10 mins... screwing up the biggest math exam of my life...
It was a totally different world.. all of us safely cocooned in it from the big bad world outside of it... and it turns out that I am in constant touch with so many of my classmates... some changes.. some the same.. all of us unconsciously bound to each other by that entity.. now just a name.. a secluded place that almost seems unreal.
Then there was college...
which after the kind of school i was in was absolutely not the place I shud've been in... located on a highway connecting two semi-urban towns... run by geezers from the last century who travelled into the future to make our lives miserable... where speaking in english was considered uncool.. (!!) ..
It was like dressing a goldfish in a space-suit... what in heaven's name was I doing there?????? As i gingerly enter the college office on the first day with mom ... there's a lady filling up a form for her son... and this mustache endowed tam-brahm with 3 white strips of "vibhudi" running across his forehead screams at her... "why are you doing it madam?! Let your son do it!!" I look at the "son" and his face mirrors the exact same feelings inside me.. (apart from the fact that he wanted to wring the tam-brahm's neck of course) .. i peep into his form.. and lo and behold!.. he's from delhi! ah!.. how fortunate i was then but did not realize that i was meeting one of those few whose "wavelengths" would match with mine in the dratted place for the next 4 yrs..
over the years, i developed a group of buddies who were every bit as mad as they could be each in their own way... :) .. i lived with them, ate with them, hung out with them, argued about every possible topic under the sun just for the sake of arguing (!!) ... and not once did i realize how much I was taking it all for granted... I met some wonderful people , people who were going to be very dear to me for the rest of my life (alrite!.. no more senti) .. and i took it all for granted...
of course.. i had gotten admission into one of the best univs for a masters programme in the united states.. going to live in the city of angels... what did i care?
but life has its little ways of putting you in your place.. i land in LA.. with expectations as high as they could be... I was coming from tanjavur to Los Angeles!.. ha ha ha .. what a laugh..
The first thing that feels like walking into a glass wall... was that there were only asians in my class!.. what happened to america??!! ok.. inhale.. exhale.. so what?.. isn't that good? I complete one semester and the only people I hang out with are my roommates... ok.. that's what most ppl end up doing.. the semesters get packed with work... and time bludgeons ahead.. and here i am .. the people who i used to hang out with left during the summer... and i suddenly realize to my startling disbelief that there are so few people who are on my wavelength.!
There are 60 other indians in all my classes and I know less than 5 of them to carry on a converstation beyond "Hi" ... What in the world is wrong ?? and to make it worse.. the profs get so itchy with giving us work that the semester is just a blur...
and i've reached this night.. when I've gotten a little respite from the "blur" .. and I sit and wonder why? .. Why am I in among the world's most cosmopolitan megapolises , in one of the best univs in the country and the world.. and haven't been able to find more than 4 people who I can connect with?
Check the irony of this... when i was studying in a college in a back-of-the-beyond place deep in the heart of tamilnadu, i made some wonderful friends.. and when i am in the supposedly "most happening" city .. I have lesser close friends than the fingers on one hand..
wonder what life has in store for me after this...........
