the more I try to be nonjudgmental, the more I see myself being judged by others.

question 1: why do people hold family as so sacrosanct? and not just their own but mine too, in their opinion of how important it should be for me.

situation: diwali. apparently being alone for diwali is the saddest thing people (south asians) can imagine. really? even if the person being alone is me, and I am not sad about it, but rather seem to like it, to be away from all of that exaggeration and noise and crowd, and over what?!

related question: why does an honest statement that you don't miss your family on diwali dismay people? why does it make them judge me as inhuman and cold?

question 2: religiously fervent people pity people lacking beliefs and look at you with shock and abhorrence. why?

situation: because I have a cartoon of hanuman on my office desk that is in no way derogatory but still a caricature of his mythological strength. and because I'm saying that this country makes one question the very idea of religion and although I still pray I don't know what the target of my prayers is.

question 3: (and I know I've said this before umpteen times) why do women who are also mothers consider other women - who're not planning to make a family or don't seem to care for those questions - to be less womanly? and why do they talk about kids as if its my duty to have some, as if I don't have a life if I don't?

I hope someday Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich will try answering those questions on Radiolab. till then this post was supposed to only say that I love what they're doing. their podcasts are not just informative, they make me feel like I'm there with them, travelling, learning, seeing for myself. and each is heartwarming, and in some ways a revelation into human life and existence.

"one is still what one is going to cease to be, and already what one is going to become... "

its been busy. I know that when I haven't visited online sales on loft.com in a long while. and although because I'm in texas where 'fall' just means the end of scathing heat, I can't say for sure I had time to realize that winter is just around the corner.

so what's been biting me all these months? literally speaking, a small family of bedbugs that I hope is vanquished and dead (but that still gives me bouts of anxiety scanning my sheets for aliens and lint). but more broadly, I really don't know.

I know there are a couple random movies and stories and the ubiquitous phdcomic on our lives, but its still unbelievably annoying how each one of us goes through the same timeline of emotions although all of us stubbornly want to believe we are special. so I'm at that point now, where I'm on the market and about to finish, and well you should know the rest without me having to tell you.

But I do believe I'm different right, and therefore you do expect me to tell you how it is for me.

typically in the last year and a half, my campus and department, my school and its surroundings and the people have become both too new (and different; I mean why are there thousands more students around and why are there houses and buildings coming alive where there used to be fields earlier?) and too unchanged (have I really been living within 3 miles of my first apartment for more than 5 yrs? and did I really tolerate all these people for so long without a reason?) for my liking. I'm having a second life and identity crisis (the first was when I moved two-three jobs before coming back to school here and realized I'd found my calling for then at least) where I keep telling myself that I'm good, but something inside keeps asking in return, "For what?".

and here's the bit that does make me different: although I'm hunting for jobs and making multiple people spend their weekends writing letters recommending me, I am not really praying for a job. or am I but because these last years have made me a semi-atheist, the nature of prayers have changed, unrecognized? maybe that too. but the point is, I find myself instead thinking of what else I could do if that job does not come. I could make a baby while still reflecting on my calling for the next phase of life. or write a book instead. or volunteer for something I'd admire myself for but probably lack the courage to do (or else there wouldn't be self-admiration).

and then today I find (on the internet, where else; I'm an antisocial PhD candidate with no friends remember?) a classmate who was working with me for a brief period of self-searching (probably also for him) 5-6 yrs ago. and he has since then quit the pretense of academic research and is lending his head to creating advertisements, and hang on, is also publishing his first novel very soon, after having had a short story selected for some Indian award! am I shouting, that could have been me?? sort of, but I feel his sketches are way better than mine, and I still have to see his writing. but I am searching out my window at that immaculate scene of suburban america and wondering if its time to take a U-turn yet again. its been a great 5 yrs but now its beginning to sour.

happy diwali, all. I must go get a box of those samosas home that beat anything you find in India (they have Mexican cooks in their kitchen and boy have they beat us to it)!

Beauty

So what is beauty? In the days of Facebook when everyone is beautiful to their friends n family. When an exotic holiday leaves u with pics that receive zillion likes, that make u feel attractive. Make u feel appreciated, applauded.

Is beauty youth, or skin color, or mystery, or desirability, or a smile? Or dark long hair, or blonde shiny hair. Or is it daily highlighted eyes? so noone knows what they really look like.

Or what's behind you, or what ur wearing? Or the country ur holidaying in? Or is it being a bride (fget grooms, one can't talk of beauty with reference to men, right? Unless they're gay maybe. Huh!!)?

Or is it the profile of ur loved one?

No, no its probably a good selfie.

Come to think of it. I haven't known a single beautiful person. Everyone looks good, well almost everyone. But then maybe I'm getting the rules of beauty wrong. Or maybe I need to have more empathy with others, and I'd agree with them that they're each beautiful. At least the lucky ones.

its time to move again. not yet, right away. and not for good. but soon, for the time being.

5 yrs in this place and I'm yet not itching to, dying to, run? it is a sort of a wonder. but I do hate growing roots, that shackle you to the ground. and to the same people. while with more and more time spent nitpicking their faults, makes their novelty to you change to loathing, and then makes the loathing grow.

so then maybe its right, at least for us mortal beings. those who are known and will be remembered by only those they came in contact with, if at all. maybe its right, that for us, who have no larger impact on this world; transcendence is to tug with each other into deeper meanings: physical, political, social, supernatural, metaphysical, critical. with some minimum engagement, enjoyment, trust, honesty and commitment. to a conversation.

that's when you allow those tendrils of roots to grow. entangling with people, with locations, and situations.

au revoir

addiction and binge watching

in the old days, when all you had for eye entertainment was the cinema or the random movie on the tv, one sat down to it prepared. to give time. and therefore, it came as an event to break the routine of one's life. cos, not every Sunday movie on doordarshan was worth the patience or the sacrifice of homework/bed time. then came vcr, and then dvd. and one felt 'cool'er, being able to bring home a movie. being able to choose which oldie one wanted to watch on which weekend, and which pirated running movie one could steal in one's livingroom. but it was still a slight bit of an occasion. with friends and family gathered around. while the big screen lived on, but became more of an outing. more about the popcorn and comfortable seats, and the atmosphere. and conversation.

while all this while, for me at least, sitcoms, tv series, etc. were beneath my time. because those needed regular time-allegiance. and waiting. and giving in to both of those demands meant accepting the addiction. which almost seemed like an insult, given what it required and what it gave back, in disappointing return.

and then netflix happened. watching half a movie a meal, became common for me. and maybe for other single adults living alone. and it opened up the world of movies. from north korea, to japan, to bengal, to algeria, to chile, to .... , from indies to documentaries. and then, came coming around to even the sitcoms, and tv drama series. and that last one, started all this binge watching.

its hardcore addiction, to the drama of the lives of the characters who keep cheating, lying, crying, killing, failing, struggling, dying. and netflix removed that barrier of waiting when one episode ends, and before the next begins. and it removed also, the need to devote a particular weekly/daily date for the drama. now while you saw the credits and listened to the music of an ending episode, the next would threateningly (secretly welcomed) flash in the bottom corner as coming on in the next 10,9,8,7, ... seconds. and one realized, one might as well click on it than pretend that it came up on its own, against one's will.

and some people still reserved this kind of binge-ing for holidays, or weekends, but to me it was never precious enough for holiday time. so it spilled onto weeknights, when half an hour between dinner and spouse's phone-call would anyway not be productive any other way. or the other half hour between phone-call and bed would anyway go away just recollecting where I left off on that last proof in that paper's appendix. and that's how it came about, me watching season 6 of Mad Men in 5 days flat. after having waited months because season 5 left off with pathetic Draper getting back to his addiction of sleeping with others' wives.

and all of season 6 I chafed myself for having been taken in because of the brilliant actors, into this wretched drama of pitiful people. and don't get me wrong, I was addicted yes. but I still knew it wasn't worth it. and so the season began, one episode a day, at the end of each - me wondering what I ever saw in it; and having to watch some comedy after, to clear the bad taste in my mind's mouth. but the last three days, the consumer in me behaved differently. and this is not the first drama that brings that consumer out. I knew this was the last season, and that the drama would then end, either for sure, or for me at least for now. so I clicked on that 'next episode playing' a little too easily, a little less pretentiously. with hope now of ending this trauma for myself, for once and for all. of watching Draper die (in the real sense or at least out of character - no spoiler alerts here, this is just what I was expecting, having been so disgusted with him) and only crossing fingers to uphold Peggy, so as to leave her in my memory as the one reason worth the while for having given in to 6 seasons of this.

and yes today morning I feel free. if addiction brings guilt along with it, and if fight is difficult, I've found my easier way out. to give in, to die with it, and emerge out afresh from the embers of the pyre. it works till I start watching some Indian drama series, possibly the Mahabharata. cos who knows if those ever end.

the one and only good learning, an Indian schooling teaches you, is failure. and that's the one thing the American education system does not teach at all. or maybe very rarely, and certainly never after high school. if you're in college, it will give you a degree as long as you don't drop out. if you're enrolled into a graduate program, the worst you can do, is get a Masters degree. Noone will ever show you the reviled 'F', simply because the assumption is that if those before did not, then you are entitled to sail through this higher level. Even if, you know nothing that you must, given you are being certified.

maybe that's why Asian immigrants do so well once they are here. acquaintance with failure can be a huge win in life.

do i believe in coincidences?

when all of a sudden a random stranger's words make me forget those angry tears i was fighting to hide, de-redden my nose, and bring a smile to my face; then yes I believe it was a sign.

lately i've been reminded of my own adage over and over again. money does not matter as much on the positive scale as it does on the negative. beating your head against the lack of it, and against bureaucratic walls, gives you an extreme sense of futility. knowing how hard you tried, and how long you could go on without budging a stone from its place, gives you perspective.

and then you're waiting for the elevator after crossing the entire campus walking super fast because you cannot bare to spend another minute there with those people. one of the two elevators is out of order and it is news to you because this is not your building. the other arrives, two people get out. one remains. a brown man, and like all brown men, he smiles at you because you're brown too. you notice the elevator is going up rather than down. just like everything else in the world right then. you still ask, by habit "you're going up?" with a face that says the rest "not what I want". he replies "eventually it will go down". you smile politely, shaking your head to show "no, I'd rather wait". and then quick as lightning before the doors close in on your face, he says, "it's the only one!". and in a microsecond of a flash, you know he's right while you're already in, smiling at him, hiding your face at the same time. while he is still saying something, "you control your destiny"; gesturing with his hand as if the elevator buttons are the controls. before he exits on 4, he goes again, unasked, "If you keep 3 pressed continuously, it won't stop there, when you're going down to 2". it takes you a minute to get it, crane your neck out after him to thank him for the tip.

of course a girl steps right in, presses 3, and you have to wait for another opportunity to try it out.

maybe it works. you can press something avoidable out. but if its a Shabbath 'lift', it will stop at each level when going down, no matter what.