Thursday, July 15, 2010

If I Regret

Night and morning are making promises to each other which neither will be able to keep.
- Richard Shelton
I remember the days I would put up a new post everyday before turning off my computer. I was back in India then. Looking at how the economy has been doing here in the US I know I am going to have a tough ride ahead. I guess it's always a difficult sleep for everyone who tries to think big. For once I even started wondering if I did the right thing by coming here. Not being a citizen of this country hurts my progress, not having a credit history is disappointing, time usually people take to build one seems to be too long and the means to get to that point even if the wait is accepted sound unacceptable to me. If I don't make it big enough then my very decision of leaving India and coming here would become bad. If I make it big enough, enough that I can say I made it real big, I might get too humble. Nothing is bigger than Allah.

It's a different world I see now than the one I used to when I published the previous post. I feel like calling my father again and ask him too tell me what I must do. But I know nobody can make decisions for me. If I am making a mistake, it might as well be mine. It always feel good to blame others when things go wrong but I would prefer taking it on myself. Decision making is the toughest thing. That's where experience counts. And when it comes to the most important things of life we usually don't have enough of that to help us, we are not in a position to explain it to others what we think of it so that they can guide us using their experience and it gets too risky for us to just decide on whatever our heart says for that moment.

With a friend I visited Winstar Casino in Oklahoma a few days back. My parents didn't ask my why I went to a place like that but as I expected I was expected to answer that question. My contention that I didn't go to gamble wouldn't suffice but I couldn't explain enough how much I enjoyed driving to that place at 2 am in the morning and getting back to DFW at 7 am speeding through the heavy traffic in HOV lane. It's a different thrill with a discrete intention. I am pretty much aware of my limits alhamdulillah. I don't even have to force myself to stay away from something when I hate it. I just hate it and with it ends every question.

I hate to see myself as those thousands of students who come to the US every year, finish their masters, join a consultant firm, work with it for a few years and get into a job for some other company directly, get a green card after 5 to 6 years, buy a house, have their parents visit them, see their children grow here and eventually just live here on their 40 hour a week job. Somehow I feel doing this could be lot better in India. Though quality of life is different back there, leaving our country and starting new life according to me must be more rewarding. I am just not in a position to talk any big. Ideas make no difference - that's where the bottleneck lies. We need plans and resources.

I didn't call my father for there days because I was afraid he would get mad at me. I spoke to him yesterday and then again today. I could figure out from him tone of voice he wasn't so happy with me but was just being good to me. It's hard and it's harder to explain. I know things will be fine soon inshAllah. They have always turned better in the past alhamdulillah and this time too it will be the same. What I am worried about is something else I might not talk to him again. I feel loosing the willingness to write more. It was different when I started writing. Many things cut across my mind. I even keep loosing people I can talk to. I don't write this as a problem or a complaint. It's just how it was meant to be. I will start with my classes in August and inshAllah it will be my last semester finally. I wanted to see my parents visit me but it doesn't seem like a possibility now. Even they don't seem to be interested. It's kind of difficult when I find nobody to talk to. But for the record, I am still in America and I am enjoying it. Things couldn't have been better.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Need That One Insane Move

I'm a scientist, remember, and I don't believe in fairy tales.
- Dr. Grace Augustine, Avatar
It's necessary that I write so that I can write more. I thought not graduating this semester would give a sense of relief and some time to think and put my bet on the right areas. The thought was perfectly right but as expected things never turn out as expected. For me they have always turned out better but I never forget other possibilities. It can't be a good idea to decide based on past experiences. I wish somehow I could have food - full meal - three times a day. It's been like ages since that happened. I think it was back when I was in India but even there it was never continuous for more than a couple of days at once. We rarely have breakfasts and lunches together at home.

We went for some bowling late in the evening. Two of my friends have left Dallas and one more will be leaving next week. People who started their masters with me are done with me now. Though of course I am glad for the decisions I have taken, I wish things had ended in some other way. I can't talk more on it - I don't even know what other way could have been better. Everyday comes with surprises and new people shouting. This summer might make a large difference to me. I am going to loose more people, spend more days with little food and spend more time in finding out how I can avoid those several years people take to start making bigger differences. No science talks about drops making oceans.

I laughed at my brother several times when he said he was taking horse-riding classes. I couldn't understand from where he got that very idea of learning something nobody in my immediate family is doing right now. But I happy for him - he is doing something of his choice and my parents don't stop him. If time pleases with me someday I will get myself a flying license. It takes around two years of part-time studying before I can pass the tests and complete the necessary number of hours. It gives me so much pleasure to think I never wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid. Horses excited me but I never thought of riding them. Like it is for all boys, guns were always amusing. My present visa status doesn't let me buy one.

I slept for several hours today and it's again time to go to sleep now. Some times I wish I could call all my close friends and relatives and talk to each of them for hours. But it's just like many other thoughts that just find some amusement for a while and fade away. I expect nobody to have such amount of time. I expect myself never to fall for such frivolous ideas. Calling is so easy, talking on the contrary is not. It's suffocating every time I listen to any phone that rings with the ringtone I had in my phone when I was in India. So much I wish I could use that phone again.

I at least wish I could find somebody to go on a holiday for a few days. I want to visit Key West, Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. We were having some plans for Spring break back in March but nothing worked out. This time around there is nobody who could possibly give me company. It's difficult to find company these days - the precise kind of people I would want to have for a particular thing I feel like doing. It accounts for the need to learn something new - doing it alone. It feels as if another phase has passed by. It's time to make room for fresh air. I am afraid of debts I am getting into which can't be paid with money. DFW is now filled with people who know me.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Though Only A Few Times

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.
-Confucius, Analects
It's 5:17 am, an hour has passed after I reached this place I call home and I have to go to work in the afternoon again. I was supposed to take a day off on Tuesday for this week but I was asked to swap it for another day. It was a mood-spoiler. I prefer staying close to the schedule but we have hardy done that in last two months. I even wonder if there is somebody who realizes it. Alhamdulillah I have never caused to make any difference to any schedules. I have so much to talk about but no heart to listen. This April seems so odd. This might be the right way to play it but not the way to win it.

It's taking me like a forever to write a post at this time of the day and I am disappointed for the reason I had to put 'blogger' in the address bar finally. I wish I had exciting things to write about or rather the excitement to write about them. Moments are so context based that it would take me several paragraphs to get to explain what I am talking about. Not that I have anybody to explain to, anybody to justify to, it's just me I need to let know of what's going down.

I have been thinking of printing all posts of this blog. When I shared this idea with a friend he felt I would be wasting money and time on it. It didn't disappoint me, it just made me sure that few things matter only to me even if they are worth nothing in the supposedly real world. It's easily going to take 600 pages; I can recollect how I would write every day and never missed to record every detail of what effected. I remember hardy of anything of that though. I just sit here today as a resultant product of all that and of course lots more.

I have two books on Java spread a little away from me on my left side. On one of those books there is a brown packet that has all lease's papers. I renewed them for my apartment for another six months. Then there is an automobile classifieds paper right behind the screen of my laptop; I have been going through things like these for over a month now; I found no time yet to show the result of that search. On my right is a leather jacket I bought a few days after getting back from India. I don't know what prompted me to get that; I bought it from Dillards and didn't want it to be from China. It is though.

I have been trying to study Java for long. It's almost like a necessity now. I want to stay in this country for long. After writing these few lines, I now feel, I can go on for any number of pages. But I stop with this one. It's good to hold back at the right times, always a good idea to think before talking and an awesome thing to keep patience. There is a bunch of people now I have to call, respond with some work or at least talk to say a 'hello'. It sounds like a burden at times but it's a commitment of my word. I was planning to visit India in July but decided not to because though it's a good idea, it's not something I should think about. It's so awesome to see children smile.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Oh Allah! You Are Awesome

Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.
- Eknath Easwaran
It's snowing again today. I could feel it like a deja vu when I was entering my apartment - the parking lot, the walkway and the plants look exactly like they looked the last time it snowed. That was four weeks back when we saw 13 inches of it. We played for hours in the university that Thursday and prepared biryani later in the evening. But back then I had different things in my mind - it was not 4:59 am and I was glad enough. Since that day I haven't had a day off. Though I don't feel it as a necessity, though I don't long to spend time doing nothing, though I know spending time without work would irritate my mind more and bring unnecessary thoughts into it, I would relish spending a day of that kind.

I feel good now that I can live with very little contact back to India. I talk to my mother daily but not to my father - it wasn't easy to reduce my number of calls. I realized I am no longer capable of putting everything into words and silence is generally misleading. My time on phone itself has come down to less than quarter of what it used to be. When I visited India I was looking for a change within me. Now when I am back I see my visit has changed me. I was glad to be with my parents; I have a list of people who disappointed me. I blame them for nothing though it could have given me comfort. I am rather bent on forgiving myself.

Even until a few days back it was difficult for me to imagine how I could hold things limited to me by not sharing them, now it seems so easy. Not that I have anybody I can call anytime I want and say anything yet expect some loyalty, I just don't feel like saying anything. I am not learning anything this way, it's just an optional way of living. I am not afraid of not being understood, I am rather more concerned with not understanding others. I am not an object using which somebody else's debt can be paid back. I have a life and dreams only my parents can put a right on. It just takes one day's of holding, one day of control - any knowledge can be buried.

Friday, January 15, 2010

London

I have 17 minutes more of Internet connectivity on my laptop. Of course, I had to buy it. I wonder why they can't just have some hotspots for free. I checked mails, sent messages to a few friends and let my parents know of my safety alhamdulillah. It was a tiring experience at Mumbai. Right from the terminal-transfer coach to the airport itself. It feels like they want to make things difficult there. It was relieving to see my seat on BA 138. I slept for more than six hours.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

It's Raining

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.
- Stephen Vincent Benét
Several facts went through me all through the evening I thought I could write before I decided I can let them go for the moment. I took time for myself today and did nothing. I lay for several hours thinking nothing half the time and trying to think about facts in ways I would have wished them to be for the other half; our thinking doesn't change them - they remain. I went on my house's terrace after it was fully dark in the evening. I watched lights that weren't there 16 months back, I stared at the buildings which seem to have recently appeared and recollected the building phases of my house. I could recollect from start to end. Recollecting this can never really make any difference.

Tomorrow I will be having many of my relatives and a few friends with me in the evening. I had imagined a day like this long back but never could think of how it would feel. This will probably be the biggest gathering in my house in last 19 years. We never had so many people visit us before. We wanted to have this done before we rented out our ground floor again. I had planned for a lunch with a group of close friends but some south Indian terrorists seem to be interested in playing spoil sport. Either ways I will keep myself busy this weekend inshAllah. I have some cousins I need to give time.

I tried for a while to think how I can change this. I felt myself like a fool, tried to think again but stopped. I am more relying myself on things I have already learnt rather than trying to learn anything new to move myself ahead. Things seem to have lost willingness to proceed. More of it is getting random day after day. Occasions are losing connections and ends hang illogically. The coming year is going to be very important. I will inshAllah finish my masters and look for a permanent job. My mother wants me to come back to India once I am done with my studies and find a job here instead of in America. I think otherwise. I believe otherwise. It just ain't happening.

I am pretty sure by now that I am not going to get what I am looking in the direction I am going and with the pace I am walking. It has to be something else. InshAllah this path too will give me a good life alhamdulillah. But that's incomplete. Things don't change overnight; miracles don't change lives of everybody; not everyone of us is a genius. Alongside the things I learnt, there was a lot I unlearned too. Perhaps it shouldn't have been that way. Perhaps that's how it should be. I don't even understand what I should ask Allah for - I get too shy, unsure and some times hesitant. At the back of my mind I keep getting the feeling that it was going to happen this way. It's something I have always been afraid of.

I was asked if I would have cauliflower for dinner today and I told my mother I won't. She heard it, asked me again and I agreed. I am being called now to have it. It's not that I don't like it. It's one of those very few vegetables I don't easily prefer. I have been afraid of few more things and like these fears which have turned into reality I pray to Allah things turn out to be better than how I have imagined. I am trying to make myself more flexible with my thoughts and beliefs. This puts me in contrast with people who have stayed with me for long but have changed in some other ways incoherent to my inclinations. I am losing people I can talk to. I am losing the will to talk.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Losing People

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.
-Billy Wilder
Grossly around 1 pm my phone rang thrice and I didn't receive any of those calls. One of the caller reached my brother's phone and I ended talking to him. It was a friend who wanted me to come over to Chowmahalla Palace. A friend had come over from some other city and he wanted to meet me there. I didn't commit to meet. Few minutes later I sent a text saying I was going to stay with my parents for the rest of the day. If somebody wants to meet me, he need not ask somebody else to ask me to come over to some place I don't even have a clue of. I slept after 5:30 am and it's always irritating to have somebody question my sleeping patterns.

I sleep when I feel sleepy. I wake up when it is necessary. I am not a slave of what others would term it. I could easily ignore everybody who talks irritating stuff but the problem is with those few who are supposed to be, and expected to be, soothing to my heart. In last few months there have been occasions when I have gone for more than 40 hours with no sleep at all when needed and have slept for 10 hours continuously when I could. I am glad there are many people who understand me. Many of them usually get me wrong.

I never thought it would take me so many days to write for this blog again. I wanted to write something at length but I guess just at the start of second paragraph I realized I was not going to last much longer. I am glad I could make it till third. I can be infinitely patient now. I can even wait for years to let somebody know the mistakes he or she has committed. I can wait to see how people have changed their perspectives and yet never let them know till they might still be able to understand what has happened. I am in India right now for 16 more days.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Among The People Of Menthol

"Hello Rabbit, is that you?"
"Let's pretend it isn't", said Rabbit, "and see what happens."
- Winnie The Pooh, A. A. Milne
Some weeks back when a customer wanted to make some money selling the beer he had, he asked my co-worker "do you drink beer?", he heard the answer "I drink only blood. Fresh human blood. You got some?". I have quickly realized how my body reacts when something annoys me to an extreme in a short period. I feel a rush of blood on my face beneath my skin. Alhamdulillah I always know what not to do when I feel blood on my face. Though I calm myself down quickly smiling more at those who face me, I know it's all amounting to stress.

One of our professors said there is a federal directive that some information on flu is read to all the students in the classes. A thing which many ignore, which he thought should be said prior to anything else, is the point that more people are dying with common flu than with the swine flu which seems to be more threatening. That's a different thing. What was important for the class is that we are not supposed to be in the university even if we are planning to sneeze after an hour. The professor said he would sit with us again to explain what we have missed if that happens. He will give us his time only after we get back to normal. He said he doesn't want to die.

Some medical agency is afraid that the virus causing common flu would mutate and grow into a deadly organism that could possibly wipe out a quarter of the present human race. That sounded like fiction to me. But I understand that's just the worst case. Keeping worst case in front of us helps us make smaller the effect of what could be already less than the worst. The virus will not mutate inshAllah, my co-worker bought no beer that evening - he stopped drinking eight years back, I know my store is not competing with Walmart on prices - every customer who fights will have to leave - and I met a man who spent 37 years in prison - he lives in west Dallas. 90% of menthol cigarette smokers comprise women and African-Americans.

Friday, October 2, 2009

The Story Continues In Texas

I hope you have lost your good looks, for while they last any fool can adore you, and the adoration of fools is bad for the soul. No, give me a ruined complexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins on a farmyard of Crow's feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me coming out strong.
- George Bernard Shaw, to Mrs. Patrick Campbell
I had been thinking of writing since evening without even a faint clue of what. I got back to my apartment at 1 am. I knew I had one curry in the refrigerator even if there was nothing else. I thought I could have it with rice. I realized I will have to cook some to enjoy the curry the way I wanted to. Instead I heated three tortillas and had them. It was satisfying but something seems missing. I had cup full of soda with five cubes of ice. I think I will have a banana after I am done with this. I badly need some continuous undisturbed sleep. It could be such a luxury.

The next holiday I will have will be in the last week of November when my classes end as scheduled. I haven't seen the schedules yet but I guess they will end in just around Thanksgiving. In December inshAllah I will go to India. I am looking ahead for that trip but I am worried about a few things. I want to be pretty clear with why I am going there and what I shouldn't be doing when I am there. It's 3:25 am right now and yesterday at the same time I was in the university studying. It gets so good with very few people around. Fall weather is a thing to enjoy. I find no time for that.

Some days back when I sent a message to my brother on Facebook asking him to shave his beard, our cousins interrupted and came in his favor. I asked them in a polite way not to interfere as I talk to my brother. My brother replied coming against me. I realized I was interfering in his life. It's such a great idea to have an evening for myself spending it under an open sky, watching the birds gather before they go to sleep, see the sun slide away and feel the air loose it's temperature. I will do it someday when I get to India. I wish there will be nothing to worry about then.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.
- Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
There's a sharp pain in my neck reaching up till my forehead travelling all through the center of the skull. That still seems to be alright. It hasn't reached my cheek-bones yet. I had a good dinner a while ago, of course sitting alone in the living with my laptop in front of me. It's always nice to be in continuous contact with at least one person and talk as if we have been talking continuously since nobody knows when. The day starts and the talk proceeds as if it had never ended. That's always a luxury. The ache seems to hurt my eyes now. I can have a pill but I guess I will sleep in sometime. I have class at 10:30 am.

Some days back I asked my father why wasn't sending me e-mails. He complained that it was I who stopped. I wrote to him the next day. He said he will reply. I reminded him thrice since then. It's been a week since I wrote. He hasn't replied. I am not going to ask him now. It has just become one of those thing I won't be talking again. It might seem naive of me talk to my father daily on phone and even expect him to write to me. They are two different media with different emotions. So much has been reduced to basics. So much has ceased to be exciting. My eyes are hurting me now. I need to sleep.

I need to wash the cup I had soda in a while ago. The ice in it hasn't melted yet. The paper towel I keep with me while having food is still there on the floor and needs to be trashed. I need to brush my teeth, turn the alarm on and go to sleep. All this seems so much and yet I keep typing. There is so much to be done after waking up. I can feel blood moving in my fists when I close them. It's something like waves turning on and off inside my fingers. My forehead's going to burst now. I wish I could stay up longer. Perhaps the best way to fulfill a desire is to shut it off. At least there won't be any artificial looking hope after that. My parents keep breaking the hope often that I keep building repeatedly.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Burning Up My Days

Pooh looked at his two paws. He knew that one of them was the right, and he knew that when you had decided which one of them was the right, then the other one was the left, but he never could remember how to begin.
- Chapter Seven, The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne
A little while ago I was having my dinner and looking frequently at the prayer mat that was lying on the floor beside a table in my bedroom. My mother had given it to me saying it was smaller in size and would not take much space in my luggage. A cousin gave me another prayer mat here which is of regular size. I guess I prayed on that one only once. The smaller one always finds me thinking about my mother. I spoke to her a few hours back alhamdulillah.

I am in the living room now and my eyes fall frequently on the white bowl left by my room mate on the table. He fried something to eat with the daal I prepared. I thought of having something with the daal and rice too but we are out of pickles. The lest time I went to a desi store I found pickles there had have asafoetida or sounf in them. The former makes my mouth taste bad and the latter makes the pickles sweet. I didn't get what I wanted.

Long back when I was in sixth grade I wanted to own a personal computer. I was always after my parents to get me one. Somehow it looked as the most exciting thing in the world. I remember my mother telling me I will have to wait for it and she would buy me the best one in the market when the time came. I was gifted one six years later. It was the best one available in the market those days. I had the best machine I or anybody I knew had ever seen. Very soon I realized this thing came to me when it was appropriate - at the right time.

I never really wanted to ride a two-wheeler. Bikes never excited me. I liked cars and always wonder 'how much longer?'. I remember once my mother asking me if we should buy a car or get another level constructed on our house. I wanted a car. Later I realized a car was a luxury but a house was an investment and informed my mother. By the time I was done with my eighth grade we had a new house and we moved into it just for a change. I was in love with the one we were living in but my parents said the new house was much better and tenants would spoil it if we rented it out. It was getting difficult for four of us to go out together because my brother and I were growing up fast. A year and a half later we bought a car. It came at the right time.

Back in August 2008 when my father's friend told me how careful I will have to be when driving in Dallas while changing lanes, I wondered if I was really going to buy a car there. A year later I had a car on which I had myself put around 8,000 miles. The time needed it. Even the day before I got my car, it looked artificial to me. I had always wondered how fast a six-cylinder car would move. I saw v6 written at the back of my car after I bought it. All that was important for me was my father's friend's call, just before he was taking off for India that month, to ask me to by that car. I needed it. It was the right time.

I have had a good number of similar experiences and I have thanked Allah relentlessly for making me more blessed than so much I know and yet I ask for some things that I know will find their right times a little after from the present. That looks more than a dream. I might as well run away from it. But I came to think of it again, there is something less than that what I am asking for right now. I thought I know the constraints. I know so less. I know of Allah for sure. Perhaps, I am living what I had feared for long. I don't like staying in my apartment these days. I have started not liking few more things. I have built new hatred.

That late night after shouting at my mother that I was going to leave the house immediately my father made me sit on the bed, hugged me and asked me not to leave. He wiped tears from my cheeks and also the wetness caused by them under my eyes. I have that feeling of having him so close to me still left. The day I was leaving my mother hugged me. I knew a single tear in my eye would make her weep. Her voice was very heavy. My voice was like a week yet confident kid. I realize I am going to have that kind of tone in my voice forever for such times. That's how my voice has been most of the times. I will call my father just before sleeping. If I call him now then I can't call him just before sleeping.

My neck is aching real bad. I don't remember when it was last I slept without having to worry about waking up to do something. I lost weight. I call myself sick when Google comes to my mind when I think about my mother. I found a few things that Google can't search for me. I found the limits of my body. I have experienced what happens when I drive after not having sleep for more than 35 hours. I know how awesome it is when even a person who thinks I am from Mexico smiles at me - it's the smile. There is nothing like a baby waking her hand at me just because I looked at her for a few seconds trying to ask nothing. Some times I just feel like telling some people "I will be good... please". And I try to forget.

I think many people think I am a fool. I wish they say that to me on my face. But I don't want them to. I love them. Everything was going great. Then something happened. I don't know what. Somewhere along the road I stopped for a while and started wondering what was going on. Then I forgot why I was there. There were directions, signs and maps to help me. I stared at them. Trying to see what I was forgetting. Or perhaps trying too see if I can find another reason to smile again. It's so easy to smile. I am going to remember these days. Alhamdulillah.