The View From Behind The Wheel

I have the perfect answer. To the question, “When do you feel your most liberated self?”, I have the perfect answer. It’s got to be behind the wheels. But not just a car. Even when I am riding on the two wheeler, there is a fleeting moment of nirvana that repeats itself in a loop making sure my spirits are high. And take it from me, you can accomplish a whole lot of things during this moment.

Like solving a problem. Any problem. It could be at work, it could be in life, it could be at home, they present their own clear pictures on the road. The canvas is hazy and confusing when you try really hard to think about it but when you are traveling at 50 kmph(minimum), magic happens right in front of you. You fetch the right pieces from that jigsaw puzzle and it works during the first attempt. There is a friend who you hurt this afternoon that you realized just now. There are those lines of code that were giving you hell but you just figured out why or an alternate way to accomplish them. And that’s also the time you thought of this blog.

The instant is uninhibited. I know this because I find myself singing during the drive. Not loud, but to myself. I am not sure if there is a term called car singer or bike singer like a bathroom singer. Now my friends will vouch for the fact that I am a very very bad singer. It is so bad that it can be used as a weapon of mass destruction. The last time I sang was during a Karaoke night at a club here in Madras but that was because there were around 50 people singing along and of course, there was also a girl. But lets not get there. I’d go off on a tangent. (Like J here, been reading David Foster Wallace a lot these days)

The most obvious memory is from the drive on US 64. Late night, going west from the Outerbanks, and handling a V6, it couldn’t have been better. A two lane highway, with cars rarely passing(surprisingly on the night of July 4th, 2008), it was quite the dream. My mind throwing up a myriad of thoughts aided by a 100 mile long playlist, I was happy not looking at the speedometer. There was that huge problem at work that I had escaped from only because it was a long weekend. There was that movie that I was earnestly impressed with. There was that girl who looked damn cute on B’s Facebook friends list(had to go hunt her down asap). And about half hour later, the warp speed gave off, I entered the earth’s atmosphere and exclaimed, for the lack of thoughtfulness to conjure up a word to express myself, “BK!”. And BK, in his forever composed self, sitting behind me goes, “I noticed. You’ve been doing almost 90 on a 70 for the past half hour and I’ve been busy looking for flashing lights on all four sides”.

It was a miracle I was not pulled over that night. The last thing I wanted to do was burn a huge hole in my already tiny pocket. Maybe because it was North Carolina and not Virginia, where we were driving around for the better part of the day. But in the US, it’s funny. Over here in India, it stops being funny and starts being scary. There was a momentary lapse and I sank into my usual code/music/whatever phase again and 10 minutes passed. I found myself in the middle of peak hour 10 AM traffic on Mount Road. I remember wading through the signal at Valluvar Kotam last. Phew! Whatever happened in between. It was as if someone had mixed roofies in my drink and I conveniently didn’t remember a thing(Yes, I recently saw The Hangover and thought it to be infinitely brilliant. You should watch it).

So that’s that. Driving gives me a comfortable high. It doesn’t matter if it’s the I-40 or the Mount Road or the RTO road behind Lokhandwala. It just turns out to be amazingly rewarding by the end of it. So if I am not feeling great, don’t look for me. I am probably on the streets. An empty road and a full tank could be my greatest gift.

Switching Coordinates

Nietzsche said, “Love is more afraid of change than destruction”. The love for a city, a place, a pigeon hole is so terrified of change. And the logistics is only least of the problems. It takes quite some time to fall in love with the place you’ve moved in. And once you are firmly settled in the comfort zone, it is difficult to come out of it. But then as they say, change is inevitable.

In my twenty three years of existence, I have lived in three cities. Two in India and one, in the United States. And three months in a fourth city in the United States, that did seem like a lifetime. A wonderful one at that. I’ve been away from home for six years. Or rather, away from family. Four years of bachelors in Chennai and twenty two months of Masters and job search in the US of A.

But it was a family in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was the coming together of the most appropriate four characters. Each markedly different from the other, yet united not just by their quest for a better resume, but also attitude, respect for each other and the tolerance levels. I couldn’t have found nicer room mates. Ours was apparently the cleanest house at NC State. Or rather one of the few houses that was NOT infested with bed bugs! Why? Because we cared. None of us was the quintessential grad student having no time in his hand to do some basic household chores, cook daily or eat properly. The Crest Rd apartment did not have such rules. We cooked daily, never compromised on spending for food, vacuumed the house regularly and had as minimum furniture as possible. The learning curve is steep when you start living alone trying to co-operate with a bunch of people. Most folks don’t realise that and are never ready to change themselves in a certain way.

Raleigh, as a city, is all about tranquillity. With its myriad of oak trees giving it an effect of an enclosed township within a city, it is not difficult to fall in love. For all its boastings about the presence of Research Triangle Park and a fast growing US city, it is a lot cleaner and quieter compared to other major cities in the east coast. It’s probably due to the absence of a snowy winter. But given that, the weather can get quite unpredictable and at the same time, nice in a way. A rich academic culture with three major universities in the area, I’ve always felt Raleigh is the ideal place to lock your doors and get a degree, or open your doors and start a career!

To repeat, I did not have the traditional when-will-this-end type of grad student life. Not that we had a Bessie to go to on Sat evenings, or had a popular hangout in campus to order one coffee and sit for 3 hours. No, not like that. That was still a far cry. Just that, I quite enjoyed my 22 month stay in the United States to the fullest. I think I can say that about my room mates too as far as life in a broader context is discussed. We shopped at the Indian store regularly. Every week that is. Our bills at the Indian store alone has often touched $100, for a week. Why? Because the Ghee we bought last week got over thanks to Pongal and Kesari on Saturday! Or it would be time to buy that bag of rice. Absolutely zero tolerance when it came to food. Grad students are not supposed to live like that! Thanks to a responsible, matured beyond age room mate, who had become a mentor of sorts, we had the comfort of a car from the second semester. We had our regular trips to the temple. A weekly visit to the Indian restaurant during summer when we had all the time in our hands. We went on a number of road trips. I drove some great cars that I would probably never be able to buy in my life. I enjoyed New York City to the fullest. And so on. This was also the period when my writing improved incredibly. I became more regular in the blogging circuit and the concept of blog friends started emerging. Soon there would be more readers than posts, more friends on the net than in school and more accessible to contacts online than the next door neighbour.

Such all encompassing experience has to bring a lot of good into you. It prepares you for the life ahead in more ways than one. I have had to make some important decisions over the last six months. And the wisdom behind those decisions has a lot to do with the experience in a new country, new environment and the interaction with some new wonderful people. I returned to India about two months ago and though it was not hard, it was an uneasy decision to make. The last three months in the US were spent in New Jersey. At a beautiful house with some beautiful people. I wondered why I had not discovered them earlier. Much earlier. But better late than never, and am sure this relationship has a long way to go.

Remember that you have everything to gain when you get displaced. Try as much as possible, to get lost in this big bad world. It could turn into the greatest lesson of your life.

(This was inspired by Dsplaced, a project started by Jinal Shah and Mansi Trivedi)

Remembering the Campus

H has requested relief for the shift Fri 01/30/2009 12:00A – 5:00P. If you would like to sign up for this shift, please go to…

Its part of my b-day! please take.

Oh no! Belated wishes, H! I am sorry but I won’t be available. How are things?

Would someone like to answer Dr. S’s phones from 1:15pm-3:45pm on Feb.4?  If you are interested, let me know ASAP.

Thanks,

I really have to ask this. All the time that I was there, I never knew who Dr. S is, where he sits, which is his office and which phone is his. My hand was never the first to go up when this question was asked. And that’s precisely because I had no idea who the person is.

FYI -

2nd Floor Women’s Bathroom will be unavailable for about a week.  Renovations are underway to create a lactation station.  For those of you who are not baby inclined, it will accommodate breast feeding/ breast pumping.

Hehehehehe! I am sorry but though it is a genuinely useful information but reading about a bathroom in a building thousands of miles away with so much attention to detail is damn funny.

Hello Everyone,

Since we missed the previously scheduled All Staff Meeting due to the snow, we have rescheduled for the Sunday, 8 Feb 09 @ 6:30pm.  Please mark your calendars and check for conflicts now.

WHAT? It snowed there? For all those years I was put up there, it did not even pull flake to the ground. And it snowed so much that a meeting got cancelled? Hmph.

Hey!Any one want to go to the ball

Dancing from 8pm to 12am.  Semi-formal attire. $10 for single and $15 for a couple. A XYZ charity event to benefit UNICEF. Let know me if you are thinking about it, ‘cuz then maybe we could grab a bite to eat before we go.

T

Oh, I would have loved to go with you, T! But sadly, wrong place, wrong time. My twitter friends would like to take note of the fact that XYZ is the office where the PYT used to work. Oh, what chance that would have been!

Greetings,

If anyone is interested in playing tennis Sunday around 4pm let me know. It’s supposed to be in the high 70s so the weather will be too awesome to miss. If you need a ride or a racket let me know also.

Please bring something to drink so you dont pass out. Granted there will be certified people there who can assist you if you do but lets try to avoid the possibility of someone putting their mouth on you to do CPR
unless you really like that person and then it becomes a different story.

Well A, I know quite a few people who work at the gym and am sitting here pairing up you guys to know who can possibly give CPR to one of you. And you have to hear this out. I came up with some interesting matches!

So Ms. J, as you might have already realized, I am still on the Centre mailing list. It’s been three months since i graduated and a week since I shifted to India. It is quite funny to read these mails now. So, kindly oblige!