Graffiti

From a wall at gate A21 of Indianapolis airport. So true. "back home on the ground We discover that the gift the great wings gave us Is new eyes to see that This place where we live we love more than we knew"

Moving Notice!

Dear Few and Far Between Readers of this blog,

I am experimenting a little with my blog and will start posting at a new address from now on (http://massalachai.wordpress.com). The current address with still be valid and I will continue posting on both sites for some time until I decide on one I like better.

The new site is still very raw and I am somewhat technically challenged as far as website design is concerned, so you may see a lot of tweaking and changes to it over the next few months. Hope that does not annoy you enough to make you leave this blog. Please remember, your visits and comments are extremely important and a great motivation for me to keep writing, and any feedback is always welcome.

See you at massalachai.wordpress.com!

Shivani

That time again

I had to write this post right now. I am at work, sitting on my desk, deeply touched and speechless. A colleague who I don't know very well but do chat with sometimes, said that if I didn't mind, she would like to say a prayer for me and my family before we travel. Of course I didn't mind. Who would mind an act of kindness like that? Then she proceeded to say the prayer. It's hard to explain in words how it felt. All the anxiety that I had about this long travel, especially because of an incident with my son the last time that resulted in a trip to ER and us missing the connecting flight , just vanished as she said her prayer. It made me believe that everything will be alright. More than that, it is comforting to know that there are people who look beyond all the differences and treat me just the way they would treat a friend or a member of their family.

It may seem like something very small, but small things like this matter a lot when you are far far away from the place and the people who identify you. When someone goes out of their way, to shovel your driveway (that has 12 inches of snow, by the way) without even telling you because they know that you are alone at home with an infant and don't have a clue about shovelling snow from driveways, or when they literally make you ride with them to the airport so you don't have to park your car at the airport for a month. These are the things that are appreciated and remembered forever and we are thankful for having such people around us.

Incidents like these make me believe that you don't have to go anywhere to find God. God is inside the people around you only if you care to look deep enough.

Misguided traditions?

A couple of weeks ago, many Indians celebrated a festival called Karvachauth. The main purpose of this tradition is for married women to fast all day for the long lives of their husbands. You are not supposed to eat or drink anything after daybreak until after moon-rise once you have looked at the moon through a sieve, offered water to it and prayed for your husband's long life.

Like many other Indian festivals, this one too is blown out of proportions and highly romanticized by the Indian film industry. And there is the commercial side: the gifts, the dresses, the jewellery, the heena artists flocking every corner with long lines of ladies waiting for their turn to get their hands adorned.

I think this tradition is more popular in Punjab (a state in northern India) because we Punjabis make a big deal about everything anyway. So being a Punjabi , I have grown up with this tradition and have some great memories around it. I used to love watching my mother get dressed up and sit with her through the ceremonies and prayers. Then at night, we kids kept popping in and out looking for the moon. When it finally came (which was always very late), we would follow our mothers to a spot where it could be clearly seen so they could perform the puja (prayer) and we all could finally eat dinner!

This changed a little when I got married and had to fast myself. Not that I don't want my husband to have a long life, I do, most times anyway; but because it makes me feel like a completely different person than who I am. I have never been into wearing elaborate saarees and tons of bangles and whenever I am made to do all that stuff, I feel like I'm somebody else. Just to give you an example, when Indian girls visit their parent's house for the first time after they get married, they are supposed to really dress up, like a new bride, and 99.9999% of the times, they like to do that. Unfortunately I fall in that 0.0001% category. When I visited my parents for the first time after the wedding, I was in jeans and a shirt, everyone was shocked and I still get to hear about that from time to time.

Anyway, this whole background about my personality is just to assure you that not wanting to fast on Karvachauth has nothing to do with the fact that I cannot eat anything that day. Absolutely nothing to do with it, trust me! I still have fasted almost every other year since last eight years. I mean I had to when my mother-in-law, grandmother-in-law and mother call with expectant voices asking me whether I'm going to fast this year. After all, it is for the long life of their son/grandson/son-in-law. As per the folklore, if any woman does not fast on this day, her husband is sure to die soon. I don't think many people believe it, but they still do it to follow the tradition/socialize/buy new clothes and look pretty/make their mothers-in-law happy.

Although I have been a witness to this tradition all my life, this time I got a whole new perspective on it. My grandma-in-law (who I absolutely love, by the way) called and gave me a blessing very commonly bestowed on married women in India. "Sada Saubhagyavati" which literally translates to "may you be 'forever fortunate'" and implicitly means 'may you always be married and die married' or 'may you die before your husband does'.

The oddness of this blessing had never struck me before. Living in the US has altered my perspective on certain things and this new attitude will probably make it hard for me to adjust when we go back home. However, that's a different post altogether so let me just stick to the subject here. So for the first time in my life, I saw this tradition in a whole new light. Basically, it is all about making sure the wife dies before the husband so that she does not have to face the misfortune of becoming a widow. I can see where this is coming from. In the past, widows were not considered worthy of a decent life, not allowed to wear anything except white, no jewellery, no makeup, were treated like servants and survived on leftovers. To me it seems like it must have been long ago because I have not met anyone who went through that, but I would not be surprised if it still happens in small towns, villages and remote areas of the country. Heck even in a metropolitan city, life would not be easy for a single woman. The question is - does that justify staying in a bad marriage? I'm sure there are millions of women in India who are beaten up by their abusive husbands every day and still fast to pray for his long life. That is how we have been trained to think and behave since centuries. The degree may vary based on your social, financial and academic standing, but the belief is still there. A woman is responsible for everything, from keeping her family healthy and well-fed, to making sure her husband outlives her, and more recently, providing a second income to the family all at the same time. And this notion is so ingrained into us that we never even question it. We just assume the responsibility and keep teaching our daughters the same things.

Things are changing now, although a little slowly. I was never taught by my parents to treat my husband like God (really, according to Hindu belief, a wife should treat her husband like God!). They never told me that once I get married into a home, I will only leave it (figuratively, not literally) when I die. However, the other day I was talking to my mom on the phone and she asked about Chetan (my husband who was working that Saturday and was not home). She asked me if he ate anything before he left (in other words, did I do my duty as a good wife and wake up early on a Saturday to prepare breakfast for him). I found it quite funny that she was worried about his breakfast even when thousands of miles away and told her that I did in fact put his breakfast out on the table but he still did not eat it. She said maybe I could have packed it for him to take it with him. Now I absolutely love my mom and I know where she was coming from too. She has taken care of people all her life and wants to make sure her daughter is doing the same. So far, I have never questioned that. This time, my reply surprised not just her, but me too. I said "Mom, I am taking care of the baby and myself. I think Chetan can take care of himself". I may be wrong and everyone is certainly not the same, but to say something like this is huge. A "good" wife, mother, daughter does not say things like this. She takes care of people. I have never said anything like this before and that's why I was surprised myself too. Now I just want to clarify that this is in no way a reflection on my husband. He is the best ever, very unlike most Indian husbands and helps me so much around the house that sometimes I feel guilty about it.

So the whole point of this post is that after this enlightening experience, I will never think about Karvachauth in the same way, ever again. Depending on who you are, you may be thinking I am crazy or you may be nodding your head in agreement, or something in between. Like always, I'm not trying to prove a point, just sharing random thoughts. So thanks for listening! 

Just a song

I have a lot to write about but did not have the tempo to write this weekend. Instead, here's a video of one of my favorite songs of all time. It is from a Hindi movie called 'Swades', which means 'my country'. 

Swades is the story of a NASA scientist who goes back home to visit the woman who brought him up. He goes to her village, spends some time there and gets to know the people and their problems. Now he's back at NASA but can't stop thinking about the people. He wants to go back and make a difference in their lives, and eventually ends up doing that in the movie.

I love this song. Never fails to bring tears to my eyes. It is especially close to my heart because I also see flashes from memory just like the actor in this song does, and have some similar reasons for wanting to go back.

http://youtu.be/NYewUWgHblY

The video quality is not so good, but it has English subtitles! I hope you enjoy watching it.

The surprises

Whenever you leave your little world and visit another country for the first time, there are bound to be surprises. Inside your own little well, you do not realize how different the rest of the world can be. My first trip outside India and to the United States was filled with surprises, awe and a variety of other extreme emotions.

It was the first time I had flown on an airplane. Air travel was not that common within India at that time and it was my first trip outside the country. I still remember feeling like a child looking down at the houses and the streets and the cars getting smaller. I wanted to jump up and down and clap my hands. It still never fails to awe me. On the way back home, I was especially happy, because I was going home! I was traveling on Air France and had to make a stopover at Paris. In the flight, I was sitting next to a European guy who had no interest in striking a conversation. Neither did I because I was too busy looking out of my window. Then we flew over some snow clad mountains. I don't know which mountains they were but it was such an amazing view and I was so astounded by it that I had to share it with someone right then. Guess what I did - gestured the unfriendly guy next to me asking him to look outside the window. He looked at me like I had horns or something and went back to being unfriendly. It sounds a little juvenile now that I'm writing about it, but at that time, I didn't care. I was just too happy to care.

One thing that people usually notice when they come here for the first time is the large number of cars on the road but no people at all. Back home, you see all kinds of 'vehicles' on the roads - buses, trucks, cars, scooters and motor bikes, bicycles, pedestrians and even carts driven by bullocks, camels or horses depending on where you are. Not to mention the stray animals on the roads who make a driver's life even more interesting. If you don't know how to get somewhere, no worries - no GPS or google map required, you can stop anywhere, roll down your windows and ask the road-side vendors or anyone else and they will be happy to help. It's a lively place I tell you. So people visiting the US wonder initially why they cannot stop on the roadside or walk through a drive-through. I know someone who tried doing that. They did not have a car because they were just visiting for short term, and it was late at night and no eating places were open. So they tried to walk through a drive-through but were refused to be catered. The temperature was below freezing and the restaurant was closed except for the drive-through. I don't remember whether they found any food that night but we all found it pretty amusing how owning a car is crucial for a decent living especially in the Midwest.

Then there is also the thousands of varieties of every imaginable product in the superstores that boggle our minds. The amount of plastic products that are used in day to day life. The bottles, the cans, the ziplock bags, even the little stir-sticks by the coffee makers in the office. It took me some time to even understand the purpose of those things, and the first question that came to my mind was - why would you not use simple, stainless steel spoons for the purpose and just rinse them off when you're done? The amount of wastage I see happening around me is overwhelming sometimes. Some recent examples - I was helping out sorting, packing, disposing stuff for an office move not too long ago. In my desk drawer I found a whole bunch of unused stationary - writing pads etc, that were probably left there by the person who used that cube before. I took all that stuff to the office supplies area so that it could be used. One of the people who were coordinating that move was there. She saw me trying to put all that stuff back and immediately asked me to throw it away. I mean, that stuff was not even used yet and I had to throw it away? I'm the kind of person who writes on both sides of a sheet, even on the other side of a printed page, so these wastages bother me even more. Another example is when I went to a fast food place recently. I had ordered a veggie sandwich and they made me a salad by mistake. At the counter, I pointed out the mistake and the girl apologized and said my sandwich will be ready shortly. Then she took the salad box and threw it in the trash! Untouched, fresh food, in the trash. If I had known, I would probably have been happy eating the salad instead of sandwich.

Not trying to be self righteous or something, because I think a lot of this attitude comes from how you were brought up. When there is a scarcity of things, you learn how to appreciate them. Like a character in one of the Jodi Picoult books that I read. He was brought up in Alaska or some other very cold place that had  water shortages. When his wife visited his home town with him, she understood why he would not run the dishwasher till it was brimming full of dishes. By the way, I do that too.

All these recycling efforts that I see happening around me are really good. But why not control the usage in the first place and reduce the waste that needs to be recycled. When I was growing up, the fast food culture had not yet arrived in India. The restaurants in my small hometown served food in steel platters (called 'thaali') and bowls. Even the road side vendors that sold junk food, fresh fruit juice etc. did the same. Now with all the McDonald's and Baristas and Cafe Coffee Day's, I'm sure people back home have also started enjoying the conveniences of to-go drinks and stir-sticks. The younger generation doesn't think the stainless steel utensils are cool enough for them. Unfortunately, with the all the modernization that's happening, I don't see anyone going back to the old ways any time soon. It's not long before we too will have those recycling bins everywhere in an effort to undo the damage that we did.

My son, the spoilsport, is telling me that it's not a very good day because we are just sitting on the couch! I will stop the rant now. Thanks for listening :)

One World

I was not planning it at all but something happened yesterday that made me write this post. During a meeting at work, one of my colleagues described a software application which is not in a stable, working condition and has too many bugs to be usable, as "third-world class". He thought it was the funniest joke ever, but if you would have seen me at that time, I'm sure you would have seen smoke coming out of my ears.

I don't know what it is with the term "third world" that drives me crazy. I understand it is just an economic term assigned to a group of countries at a certain economic level in the world. I realize that most people don't mean to be offensive when they use it, but I still find it derogatory, especially when used in a context like my colleague used it. I wanted to tell him at that very moment that "Dude, do you have any idea how many doctors and engineers and lawyers this third world country of mine supplies to the whole world?". But of course, I kept quiet and even tried to laugh with everyone at the joke.

On second thoughts, maybe I took it too personally. After all, that statement is partially true. There are a lot of things about my country that I'm not really proud of, but I certainly don't want anyone rubbing it in my face. There are many other things that the world can learn from the "third world" countries and categorizing anything poor or low quality as "third world" comes across as ignorant at best in my opinion.

So what are your thoughts on this? Do you think my anger was justified or do you think I overreacted? If you're not comfortable presenting your thoughts in the open, feel free to leave an anonymous comment. I would love to hear from you.

Crossing Over (continued)

My first trip to the United States was the most memorable of all the trips that I subsequently made - for some good and some bad reasons.

I was here to spend 3 weeks in Denver at my company's headquarter at the time, at the '1800 Grant St' address that I knew so well but had never visited before. Denver is one of my favourite places in the US, mostly due to the fact that it was the first place in the US I visited and the beginning of learning so many new things about a world very different than my own. It also marked a turning point not just in my career but also in my life. Plus it's close to the Rocky Mountains which makes it such a fun place to be at.

I stayed at a Residence Inn hotel, the ones that have apartment-like buildings and kitchenettes. Unfortunately, I had been misinformed before leaving India that you cannot take any food with you while travelling to the US, and on top of that, I did not have the slightest idea of how difficult it would be for me to find some vegetarian food. All I had was some home-made snacks and instant cereal that my mom had packed for me. To cut a long story short,  I starved most of those 21 days. Breakfast used to be fine because it was provided at the hotel and there was stuff I could eat. I used to take the hotel shuttle to work and back in the evenings and was too much of an introvert to ask anyone for help. Even when I did ask somebody once about where I could find vegetarian food, he asked me to google it. "Really?" I thought. "And how do you think I will get there?". It sounds ignorant now, but at that time, I had no idea about the power of google and mapquest. I had lived my whole life without ever needing them before and its funny that now I cannot go through one day without using Google.

So I just used to survive on the breakfast bags they provided at the hotel which had a fruit and a muffin maybe. For dinner I used to eat Mom's snacks, but before long I was longing for some real food. One day I asked the hotel people about where I could shop for some groceries and took the shuttle to a Safeway close to the hotel. I did find some instant noodles that were vegetarian (I hope) and survived on them for the next few days.

Then one day as I was waiting for the shuttle outside the office, I met another colleague from the Chandigarh office who was visiting Denver. I had never talked to him before, but he was a kind guy and asked me if I needed help with anything. He said he could show me some places where I could buy vegetarian food and I jumped at the offer. I still remember I bought a frozen pizza and some frozen rice and Mexican refried beans. I was happy I was going to eat a real meal that day. Went back to the hotel, heated the pizza as per instructions, started eating and hated it. It tasted so bad, I had to throw it away. Then I tried the frozen rice (wondering why anyone would freeze rice) and the beans. Had to throw that away too. My taste buds were just not used to the spiceless frozen foods. So I just sat and cried and then had my cereal and went to bed.

One day I asked one of the friendly ladies in my team about where I could find vegetarian food and they decided to take me out for lunch. We went to a Mexican restaurant close to the office and for the first time in many days, I had good food. I was pleasantly surprised to find that some of the Mexican food was very similar to Indian cuisine. It was probably one of the happiest days of my first visit.

One of my colleagues from India office had just recently been transferred to the Denver office. He and his wife along with their one year old little girl were staying in a temporary accommodation across the street from the office. He invited me to his place for lunch one day. I still remember what his wife cooked that day. They were still living out of the suitcase, looking for a home and taking care of a baby at the same time. I was grateful beyond words and had to really restrain myself from asking them if I could please have lunch with them every day.

If you didn't know this about me before, you would know now that good food is really important for me. I did learn a lot during that first trip. In fact, on the subsequent trips, I would become an expert on finding Indian groceries and restaurants wherever I went and cooking Indian food in the hotel kitchenettes with the limited supplies I had. I also became more tolerant of the tastes of different cuisines and would actually miss them when I went back home.

I made a new friend, a very nice colleague who took me sightseeing and shopping on a weekend. She was divorced and had started dating again recently. All foreign concepts for me at the time, so discussions with her were really interesting. Also met a friendly and kind African-American shuttle driver who knew all about Gandhi and Bollywood. Above all, I gained confidence, personally and professionally. That I could train people who knew better than me in many different areas. And that I could survive going halfway across the world, alone, without having 'real' food for so many days, without having anyone to tell me how to survive, and still come back home safely.

In many ways, I am a completely different person than I was just 6 years ago. And it all started with that first trip. That is why Denver and 1800 Grant St will always be special places for me.

Life is cheap

Ten days ago, just a few days before the the 10th anniversary of 9/11, there was a terrorist attack in New Delhi. The latest one in a string of so many that we have started losing count now. It happened outside the high court. Some were young law students going in for their internship, many were there for a hearing of their case which they probably had been fighting for years in a hope to get justice. I wonder if they will ever get justice now.

Hearing the stories of these victims on TV is so painful I don't even want to watch the news anymore.  It's hard to imagine how painful it is for people who lost their lives, their limbs, their loved ones in a snap, just like that, because some crazy fanatic decided to play god.  

My father is a survivor of one of these terrorist attacks that happened a couple of decades ago. He was amongst the few lucky ones who survived a blind gunfire on the people traveling in a bus at night. He came home the next morning, still in shock and his clothes covered with blood. Physically, he was unharmed. I was too young to understand anything. Now when I think about it, replay in my mind the story of that night that he has told us so many times, I try to think of what the unsuspecting victims of such violent acts and their families go through. How do they get over losing a family member like that or having to live with the horrific memories of people dying around you, falling on top of each other, covered with each others blood. 

We were lucky that my father came back home that day. I don't know what our lives would have been like if he hadn't. I would have become a completely different person in a different place, most likely not writing this blog post.

People pray for peace on earth. I do too. I pray for the leaders of my country to wake up one day and do something about it instead of just condemning these attacks when they happen. Safety is the most basic right of a citizen. If a government cannot protect its people and keep them safe, why is it even there? I also pray for the victims and their families, no matter where they are in the world - India, US, Pakistan or elsewhere, that they find the strength to deal with it. And for us common people, who can do nothing but pray and try to raise our kids to be honest, aware individuals so that they can grow into honest leaders with a conscience.

Grass is always greener in the other person's plate

Okay, this title was just an unsuccessful attempt to be funny. It is the combination of an English and a Hindi proverb which basically mean the same thing. The Hindi proverb is translated as "The laddoo (a sweet, round, very yummy treat) in the other person's plate is always bigger than the one in yours."

We took a trip to one of the Lake Michigan beaches on the Labor Day weekend. Seeing all the people trying to get some tan made me think about this. On one hand, people with the perfect fair skin are trying to turn it dark. On the other hand, people with perfect tones of dark, are trying to turn it white by applying all kinds of "fairness creams".

Everyone who has grown up in India can remember seeing all those commercials on TV where a dark complexioned girl is shown having problems getting a groom (or a job as a TV show anchor), she starts using one of these fairness creams, turns fairer in 14 days (!!!) and voila, a price charming falls for her and selects her as his bride (or she gets that job)! I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds these commercials disgusting. They run major havoc on the self esteem of millions of girls who rub these creams on their faces day and night and hope to have the happy ending of the girl in the commercial. The only one getting happy anything is the cosmetics company.

Times have changed a lot, thanks to the modelling and movie industries. But these commercials have still not ceased. In fact they have gone a step forward - in addition to "Fair and Lovely", they now also have "Fair and Handsome" products (!!!).

Growing up, I was one of those girls. Can't remember how many times I was told by so many well meaning people that if only I was fair like my brother or all the home remedies I should follow to turn into Cinderella... I tried the fairness creams too. But quickly understood the scam behind them. Even now, while visiting an Indian grocery store, I sometimes get tempted towards those aisles. But I know better, and living in the US has helped me appreciate what I have. I am not afraid of the sun anymore and don't hesitate to get some more tan. Liberating!

Leads me to believe that we would all be much happier people if we start appreciating what we have been blessed with instead of looking at the other person's laddoo.

Crossing over

I still remember my first trip to the US very well. I was 27, out on my own, so far away from home for the first time in life. I had lived in a hostel before, but that is not the same because a) you can go home if you want, b) you have friends to talk to and c) you don't have to worry about what you are going to eat for the next meal.

So there I was at the Washington DC international airport, feeling lost in a sea of strangers, kicking myself for having made the decision to come, missing the husband and the family already and at the same time trying to figure out which train to take to go to which terminal. Then something happened. Somebody smiled at me. Another person smiled and yet another said they liked my handbag. And I'm thinking "Wow!  These people don't even know me! Americans must be really friendly people!". Because that is not what you normally see in India. I mean, if you don't know someone, you don't smile at them while passing them by on the street or compliment them. And you definitely don't discuss weather with them. I don't know why we are that way. Maybe because there is so many of us that if we start smiling at everyone we pass on the street, we will probably have stiff mouth muscles by the end of the day. Maybe it is a defense mechanism against the big bad world. By staying aloof, we make sure we don't trust too soon, and don't get deceived by strangers.

However, getting smiled at and receiving compliments from strangers did make me feel better that day. It gave me the comfort that regardless of the awkwardness of my situation, I still somehow fit in. Till date, my favorite people are those who make me feel like I fit right in.

More on my first visit in the next post..

Introducing my brand new blog

'Amreeka' is how people in a certain part of India where I come from, refer to America as. In that certain part of the country, some people could be so obsessed with the idea of making it big (or even small) in this land of dreams and opportunities, that they name their sons as Amreek, possibly in the hope that he will somehow live up to his name and go to Amreeka one day.

So this blog is about how an Indian sees Amreeka, about our hopes and aspirations, challenges and struggles, the void in our hearts which somehow starts filling when we are sitting in a plane looking at the flight map every two minutes to see the little airplane inch closer to the place we call home no matter where we live in the world.

It is also about things we love about Amreeka and Amreekis. Things that we would miss dearly when we go back home and talk about years later. "In 2011, when I was in America...".  Things that we don't love so much, will not miss when we go back but will still talk about years later.

What this blog is not - a judgement of what is right and what is wrong, or a pointing of fingers at any one way of life, and I sincerely hope it is not interpreted like that. Because it is all in good fun, and more than that, it is a tribute to my life in Amreeka, the people I got to know, and the friendships I will miss when I go back home to the place which is and will always be my favourite place on earth.