Split Personality

As i write this from the Tokyo airport in Japan, several emotions all bittersweet fleet through my mind. A good part of my twenties has been fragmented across two continents – the Indian subcontinent and the North America. It all began in 2005, when I went to the USA as a student to pursue my MS in Madison, WI.  The student years were immersed in excitement, new exposures and experiences. Undoubtedly, those two years were the best years of my youth making me independent in every way, and providing me an opportunity to meet my future life partner. Every year I came home for the winter break, bringing back boatload of gifts for my parents. Parting was always hard, but I always knew that I was coming back next year, and as a student I only thought about an year ahead at a time. Life gradually changed with a job in San Jose, and eventually getting married to my grad school sweetheart Bharath. Marriage is the beginning of a new chapter in life, but in our case it was a bit different since we are from two very different and distant parts of India. Every India trip I made after our wedding is spent between Delhi and Chennai. So, in the end I spend about 5 days with my hubby and the remaining days of my vacation with my parents and brother in Delhi.

The contrast of my life between USA and India is so striking that I feel that I am living two completely different lives. In the US, my life is centered around my hubby, school, work and friends. Weekdays are so busy, that Bharath and I sometimes don’t even spend an hour together. Weekends are better, and we try to spend some time together. I am usually chasing something when in the US- work deadlines, school deadlines and grades, events – in short personal goals and experiences. Sometimes it feels, that it is all centered around me. Once I land in India for 3 weeks of an year, I am just with my parents and brother for the most part of the trip, and that’s when reality hits. There is no school, homework, or photography – there is family whose lifestyle and health is deteriorating, and the imperfections of a developing world. The first few days go off in whining, and then the heart sinks into India. The clock turns back to the time when we were a nuclear family, taking care of each other, and with me being the most enthusiastic person in the family pushing every one to try new things, go to new places and live life to the fullest. It almost seems like a state of temporary amnesia of the past 11 months in the developed world of America. I feel responsible and accountable for all the miseries, and lifestyle of my family. Maybe it is too much burden to take, but the heart is overly emotional when you spend just 3 weeks of an year with your family, and it just seems yesterday when you were with them living your life, and being a part of their diurnal life and vice versa. Growing up is bittersweet: you gain independence, exposure and experiences but at the same time you need to leave your loving nest.

Over the years, parting after living this second life in India, which is agnostic of the life in the US, has been getting hard. I am in a position where I feel I have two brains, two hearts wanting two different things, and two lives with two sets of different people.  In a nutshell, I am living a split personality. Airports are my spiritual place, waiting at the airports gives me a false sense of not looking too far ahead, and worrying only about the next flight to catch. This temporary feeling of transit is beautiful, and makes you forget all the worries and concerns overwhelming you. Maybe thats how life needs to be lived - in a moment, instead of carrying the burdens of the past and the future- but thats easier said than done. Everything comes at a price - so does being an NRI.

A usual but not so usual day

Majority of the workforce would concur with me on my statement that  my Mondays to Thursdays are very hard to set apart. All four days start with going to work in the morning followed by returning home in the evening and fixing up a meal. The days end with eating food in front of the TV and falling asleep. The days are so similar that its hard to remember what I did on a Monday against what i did on a Wednesday. However, today was different. The day started just like any other day of the work week. I forced myself to leave the bed in the morning after repeated warnings from B, packed lunch and rushed to the office. At work also it was a usual day filled with a few meetings. Once i left work today, my day has been very different from other days of the week. I took the train back from work . After getting down at the station I saw an old couple trying to find out which train to take to San Mateo and how to buy tickets. I helped them through the whole process and felt really nice about it. My karma brownie point for the day! After helping them out, i walked to the library and picked up a couple of books. At the spur of the moment i decided to grab a hot chocolate at the bean scene cafe next to the library. I was deliberating for a few minutes if i should enter the cafe or walk back home. I thought that it should not take this long to make such a trivial decision and just entered the cafe. Here i am sitting by the window in the cafe and writing this blog while sipping my hot chocolate. The conclusion is that a very small change or activity in a typical day can make a big difference in your usual day setting it apart from the Monday to Thursday loop.

A day in your life is a pie.

I remember that as a child, i used to strive for happiness in everything. There were ups and downs on many days, but the happy days used to be completely happy. On the happy days, i expected everyone in my family to be equally happy as me. If i would discover some problem that any of my family members were facing on that particular day, i would try to resolve it, or atleast as i thought so when i was little :-). I would try to make everything around me perfect so that the day would be happy in every way. Looking back, that was one of those many things that only kids can see and do.
As we grow old, we realize that there is no state as perfect happiness. There will be concurrent issues and problems running in your life and in the parallel lives of your loved ones at all times. You have to steal a moment and confine yourself in the shell of that moment to feel the happiness radiating out of yourself. The combination and presence of different things and parallel lives can not let a 360 degress happiness circle be created.
As an analogy , if a day in your life is a pie then different slices of this pie belong to your relationship with different people. A slice might belong to you and your mom, another one to you and your sibling and so on. All these slices can not be equally sweet on a given day. If you are waiting for the day when you can have all the slices perfectly sweet, then you might be disappointed. Infact instead of waiting for that day, you should grab a small slice from that pie everyday for your relationship with yourself and make it as sweet as you want. At the same time each slice is different. Enjoy any slice that is sweet by itself in a small moment of your day without worrying about the other slices. The slices that are sweet today might not be sweet tomorrow and all the slices might not be sweet simultaneously.
Enough of the pie talk, i hope my analogy got the point across.

So long summer.

I hear the wind shrill sometimes, and sing beautiful notes another instant. I watch the leaves dancing to this music playfully and turn into beautiful colors as if someone cast a magic spell on them. I feel the cold but not so cold breeze dandle me. Intermittent showers burst from the sky painting everything gray. The sun parts these clouds pouring a golden glow on everything around. I could watch the leaves dancing and falling whole day while the wind changes its course every few minutes.

Welcome Fall..

Yoga - Path to rejuvenation

As a kid, we use to have a yoga class once every week in school. It used to be fun for two reasons. Firstly, it was an hour's break from regular academic classes and secondly all the girls could wear jeans for the duration of the class (instead of the school uniform which used to be a skirt). We had a very diligent yoga teacher, who used to try real hard to make the students reckon the benefits of this ancient Indian practice.
After middle school was over, i never practiced yoga seriously. About 3 weeks back, i was motivated enough after meeting a friend to commence yoga practice. I signed up for a monthly trial package at a yoga center. Since then, its been a wonderful journey.

I was probably the sloppiest student in the class when i started, and maybe I still am, but i am amazed by the progress i have made. Additionally i am stumped by the class turnout every time, most students being non -Indian and practicing effortlessly as masters in the class. Yoga has acquired a lot of popularity throughout the world, i am delighted that so many people around the world take it so seriously.

Its the only practice by which you can stretch each and every muscle of your body, which you may have never realized could even be stretched. It builds endurance, strength and flexibility. The balance that you feel physically and mentally after some serious practice is the cherry on the top. I am thoroughly enjoying it as its a challenging physical activity and needs a lot of mental focus too. Yoga has the power to obliterate most of the aches and discomfort we experience in our day to day life.

So, to all of you who are looking for something physically challenging and mentally rewarding, i encourage you to try or reinstate your yoga practice.

Layers within us

A chocolate shell with a delicious filling inside looks like a regular chocolate shell till you bite it and taste what lies beneath it. It could also be the other way, a colorful candy looks innocuous and you bite it, just when you realize it had a bitter liquid housed inside it.
We humans are even more intricate. Not just one or two, we are made of several layers, which are beyond our own comprehension. Most of the times, when we see ourselves, we look at the outermost shell. We live with this shell day after day, without exploring what lies beneath. Sometimes, a certain situation unique in its own way, acts as a catalyst for us to talk to our layer underneath the outer shell. On these occasions we might feel discontent, overjoyed, depressed , bitter or peaceful after a perfectly normal disposition depending on the nature of the filling which could be the sweet chocolate or a bitter gel. Its good to communicate with the layers below regularly for the overall harmony of yourself. There could be many means through which this could be consummated. Meditation could be one, music, wine and anything that makes you talk to yourself depending on what perpetrates the act for you.

Take a vacation...

I realized its been a while since I wrote. I usually pick up the pen, when there is something that takes me through a roller coster of contemplation. It could be something joyful, or something regretful or something forlorn. I did have a joyful time, about a month back when i went for about a week long vacation. Traveling always makes me happy, i like the whole package that come with it, like bookings, planning, packing, photography, walking, hiking. It makes me so happy that maybe i should consider starting some Vacation packages company after retirement ;-). Not just that, following our trip, we usually talk about it, share pictures, again talk about it, and that keeps the memories fresh for another couple of months after the trip. And trust me, a good vacation goes a long way in alleviating your stress, anxieties, and makes you come back all charged up and refreshed. So those of you who havnt traveled in a while, do consider doing a trip sometime.