Glimpses from here and there

My favorite picture this week: napping in front of my school.

 

Look carefully. This is the shoe tree. When folks graduate, they throw
 their shoes up here. It creeps me out loads.

Being back

Being back is crazy. Just of a different kind. We are still wrapping up our second project (we had a two hour long presentation via Webex today). The paper with results from our original project got accepted at a Sustainable Development conference in New York and that's exciting stuff. But again it needs prep work. I've been on a couple of orientation panels at my school and the university and met lots of people. Tomorrow will be my first ever football game here (and tailgate) as long as the rain doesn't spoil our plans. This weekend is full of packing and moving. Classes seem intense this year with tons of reading and pre-work. The sun was out today and I took a nap outside school. And then another one back home. Naps continue to remain awesome. I am very excited about having proper furniture. Also, I miss home. I miss my folks. Sometimes it gets really quiet here (and it is surprising to me as I say that because in the past few days I have been trying to lower the noise and clamor of life).

The Worst Email Ever Written

This is fiction, made-up stuff

The worst email that was ever written was like a curse. No, scratch that, it was a curse. Once it was in your inbox, everything went awry. You sent your boss the email with those pictures meant for your boyfriend. You accidentally sent a copy of your bank statement to your mother. Who is usually not the best at email, but this one she managed to read this right away and called you ten times in a row. You think your brother may have a hand in this; he has never approved of what he calls your flighty ways and you can always imagine his self-righteous glee as he read your statement. 

Suggestions welcome

I am working on a piece to understand what motivates women to seek an international graduate education. I'd like to speak to both current and past students (who are studying/have studied outside their home country) and have a chat to learn more about why they made the choices they did. I'm starting to ask around and if you'd be interested in speaking with me or guiding me to someone, I'd greatly appreciate it! I'll be happy to give more details if required. Thanks.

My two bits on the Delhi Metro

Source:
http://respectwomen.co.in/life-of-a-woman-in-delhi-metro/

I vividly remember my first encounter with the Delhi Metro. It had been recently set up and made functional (especially the blue line which I was using) and I decided to use it to visit a book fair at Pragati Maidan. On the way there or back, I can’t remember clearly now, I recall sitting in a busy coach. A man was uncomfortably close to me and coming closer. I was younger then, and perhaps rash, so I gave him a few swift kicks to remind him that this was not okay. In retrospect my behavior is not very commendable either, but I forgive myself because I have let things slide in such cases more than I wish I had. This man started yelling brazenly ‘this lady is hitting me’ and it did not seem like if things escalated, anyone would help me out (notice the word rescue purposely not being used).

After that I stopped using the metro during rush hours and then pretty much all. I was hardly alone in feeling that unwarranted touching and ‘accidental’ brushing was going on during busy hours and otherwise. Soon the Delhi Metro launched a ladies compartment and I think it changed the face of the metro. I don’t think of transport as necessarily gender neutral. Especially not in India, where gender issues are a big problem. Traveling in crowded spaces for women means dealing with not just the regular annoyances of being cramped or pushed or having to board and deboard moving vehicles risking your life but also dealing regularly with the gropers and molesters. You have to pick your battles especially if travel is part of your daily routine. I don’t think you can spend all your traveling time fighting and possibly screaming and shouting. Especially when you know help is not always forthcoming.

Back (to the real world)

I am back in Minneapolis. Nowhere close to being settled, still have to shift houses and giant mattress that is the stuff my nightmares are made of. But I am back. It was a long, arduous journey, with stopovers at Frankfurt (reasonable) and Newark (delayed by 2-3 hours in addition to the 3 hour wait time. I had no watch or access to time and couldn't really tell. Which I think was for the best). It was a miserable trip, full of being sick and itchy-twitchy, hacking my lungs out and sneezing, and hallucinating. But who wants to hear about that. Or the fact that I love the world a little less after being in transit for 40 hours. Let me tell you about some of the other fun highlights:

Scored lots of free Internet at the Delhi airport by using sibling and sibling's friends phone numbers. Feel little guilty about extra customer representative calls they will get but since I was checked-in 3 hours in advance, needed some entertainment.

***

Reflections

I accept all the affection everyone is giving me at home with caution. Somehow, there is so much care and thoughtfulness, I am only a few minutes away from tears most of the time. I laugh to my family about my ability to cry-on-demand but it runs a little deeper than that. But I know that when I leave this bubble of familial love and foibles and hopes and hurts carried together for years, I will be back to my reality. Friends ask me to articulate my reluctance to give into my new life, to embrace it for what it is, and I am not able to do that well. I do enjoy it, it has made my world much richer and full of more hope and repair than it ever was. But I don't know if this is my eventual life. I am only just realizing that I am actually traveling through life. I used to wake up in Vietnam and realize with a surge of excitement, always tinged with incredulous wonder that this is my life, the one in which I get to explore.

***

Adulthood has meant making peace with occasionally cutting corners. There was a time when everything had to be just so (for me, for folks at home, in general in life). It was all full of discontent, irritation and the opposite of calm days. Now picking one’s battles feels like the right philosophy for life. Some things are more charming when worn out. I tell myself the smaller disasters, like the things I left behind or lost, are better than the bigger ones. Who is to know what is true.

***

Emails have in them so much power to affect  us. Just like letters did I suppose but I have never received an important message in my life via letters. I remind myself that even as I feel old (and remember dial-up modems with nostalgia tinged with relief at not having to use them any more), I am relatively young. I am happy to be in the 21^st century. Some people have other eras, decades they would like to go back to. None of that for me. In which world could I have traveled and built the life that I have now.

***

On some days, it feels incredibly hard to be away from home. I am not one for rose-tinting my view when looking at life or people. I have had strange conversations about how much I love my country where I have had to explain: I cannot be absolute in my affections, but to my mind that does not make them any less valid. But I remind myself of the moment I made the decision to leave, a beautiful light-filled Diwali evening, where I sat waiting and realizing that this could not be the life I will live any longer. Who is to say I chose rightly or not, only time will tell.

Thought for today

“It is often to the wary that the events in life are unexpected. Looser types—people who are not busy weighing and measuring every little thing—are used to accidents, coincidences, chance, things getting out of hand, things sneaking up on them. They are the happy children of life, to whom life happens for better or worse."

~ Laurie Colwin

The many everyday things of Hue

(Written a while back when in Hue, and now is as good a time to share it as any other)

It is easier to breathe here. It is hot, burning, lava-like and yet every once in a while there is a respite. Like the evenings. The occasional rainy days. The city is full of history, the streets full of bustle. Everyday brings something familiar and something new. I have fallen into a pattern, one that I will always associate with a happy summer. I know words and pictures will not do much justice to the experience. But I still try a combination of my favorite things: lists, words and pictures. 

The people selling lottery tickets, usually old. I was told it is considered unlucky to win as it splits families up over money.

A lottery ticket I bought.

Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach

Without Reservations is one of my favorite books. It blends language, cities, travel and reflection in a way that I tremendously enjoy. I don't remember how I came across the title, only that I was very grateful for having found it. During my stint in Vietnam, I found myself missing the book. It was an unusual feeling. I started re-reading it when I returned home and for the first time in my life made notes on a book, underlined text and committed the worst of all book-related sins, dogeared pages. I don't feel guilty though. This is one of the few books that I intend to take with me and there is so much in the book that I rather vainly believe reflects my life, that I am going to hang on to this copy for life. It also reminds me of my intent to search for (or start?) a book club that enjoys fiction. In brief it is the story of Alice Steinbach, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, who decides to take a year off from work and travel. She goes to Paris, London, Oxford and Italy and spends time there. She reminds me that to get second chances, one must first make mistakes. I can't offer much of a review, I am clearly biased. What I will leave you with are my favorite bits from the book. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did and they offer hope and comfort to you in the way they have to me:

Home (for now)

Leaving Vietnam was easier than I thought it would be. Leaving Hue city, not as much. By the end of my time there, I had a life, a routine I enjoyed and friends. Our work towards the end was chaotic but even so, the farewells felt difficult emotionally and were full of small kindnesses. Souvenirs and parties and gifts and trips and banana pancakes. We visited our ever-kind and gracious coffee lady (and maybe used an open window in her house to drop a gift when the coffee shop was shut), we said bye to people at the Indian restaurant, we had farewell parties with staff at CORENARM and with people at our hotel (Khach San Duong Sat). Spending time with a lovely three-year old Suri made everything a lot more fun.

The Goldfinch

I really, really enjoyed The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. In a nutshell it is the story of a boy who loses his mother to a bomb blast at a museum. For some strange, unfathomable reason he steals a painting 'The Goldfinch' and the rest of the story is about his uprooted life, his obsession with the painting, love for a girl who was also at the same museum, his abiding friendship with Boris, an almost orphan and his work in the field of art. I love the way Donna Tartt uses words to create imagery; this was also the reason why I loved The Secret by her. Her use of language and themes is what kept me engrossed. The story has a missing memory that changes everything. It is unexpected and yet once this secret comes to light, everything changes. The characters including the protagonist, his friend Andy, his love Pippa, his unexpected savior Hobie, his friend and yet not quite Boris are well-etched out. The story feel surreal and yet believable. It is set in our world, the world of flights and bomb blasts, of online lives and the constant scavenger hunt for culture. It is his madness, his obsessiveness that makes him both easy and difficult to love. Towards the end he even says it himself, that perhaps he is incapable of living a normal, good life. This book taught me the phrase 'three sheets to the wind'. This is hardly a review but more of a strong endorsement. I find stories about people's lives, with all their details and imperfections and irrational traits, enthralling and if you do as well, then this is a great book to read.

Vacation

“What we want out of a vacation changes as we age. It changes from vacation to vacation. There was a time when it was all about culture for me. My idea of a real break was to stay in museums until my legs ached and then go stand in line to get tickets for an opera or a play. Later I became a disciple of relaxation and looked for words like beach and massage when making my plans. I found those little paper umbrellas that balanced on the side of rum drinks to be deeply charming then. Now I strive for transcendent invisibility and the chance to accomplish the things I can’t get done at home. But as I pack up my room at the Hotel Bel-Air, I think the best vacation is the one that relieves me of my own life for a while and then makes me long for it again."

Ann Patchett, “Do Not Disturb,” in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

On leaving

Saigon was exciting and bustling and full of making new friends, laughter and honest, spirit-fueled talks. It jarred a little after the quiet charm of Hue. I had forgotten how cities can sometimes tug and claw at you, how they demand attention. I walked, I explored, I marveled at the public spaces, had fancy coffees and missed the simplicity of ca phe sua in Hue, saw a water puppet show, saw the city from rooftops and balconies. I met people who were lovely and kind and felt like a harbor in the dark blanket that so much group work had settled on me. Now it is time to head home, for I am weary.

Water puppet show - fascinating

Outside the theater

Ben Thanh market

Bye Bye Hue

"
Dear Hue,

I leave early tomorrow morning. I have a few days in Saigon and then I go home and then I go back to graduate school. I want to say goodbye to you. You were exceedingly kind to me. You welcomed me with open arms and warmth. As we arrived at the airport and drove through, I remember worrying about where I had come. I wasn't sure how I would survive my time here. But I did well. All because you are one of the best places I have lived in in my life (grad school dramas notwithstanding).

I felt more at home than I have for a while. You kept me safe and allowed me to explore without having to worry about crimes and harassment. I never worried about what I wore. I shouldn't have to but we all now how that goes down. It is one of the few times in my life, I have not worried and just been. It was wonderful. You helped me meet people who are wonderful and kind and warm and funny and who became friends. You allowed me to be a student, a tourist, a researcher and most importantly myself. You reminded me of how Indian I am (by virtue of my chocolate brown skin, my Indian eyes as I was often told) and yet I never felt like I was defined or judged by my color. I never felt the implication of being 'second-rate' that other parts of the world sometimes have managed to communicate. Khach San Duong Sat (the Railway hotel) was my home for 2.5 months and it became one with the kindness shown by everyone who works there. We shared food and chatted at the porch even when all we shared were fragments of different languages.