Unquote

Love me when I least deserve it, because that's when I really need it.

- Swedish Proverb 

Today's drive reminded me of 9th of August, 2008 when it was 5 am and I was driving home alone. It was raining, it had rained incessantly for 4 days, all streets were clogged with water and it was the worst condition ever I had driven in. That was just after my cousin's wedding which was followed by some fun at his house. My parents and brother wanted to leave early so, I had dropped them home a lot earlier. Today it was smoother alhamdulillah. The roads were clear and 60 miles per hour seemed very less. The speed hardly shows unless there are turns on the freeways or when I open the window. Driving here is a lot different. There are too many rules and sign-boards always to look for.

I knew alhamdulillah another big change was expected in a very short time. I was praying for it. I guess from now even change will appear like routine. I always mock at those words from Spiderman: "with great power comes great responsibility". I like that converse: "with great responsibility comes great power". It's satisfying when we take care of our responsibility first and then exploit the power. As for Spiderman itself, it's fiction. I wonder why a few times today I felt my brain not working.

The food was ready when I reached home. One of my room mates had left for his night shift and the other had already crashed out - he leaves around 8 am daily. It's daal and plain rice. I have already had two cans of soda since afternoon so I will avoid any more of it with my meal. It's easy to get used to having at least a little of some drink with every meal. Dinner looks incomplete without it. Another point that amused me here was what we called 'soft drinks' in India is 'soda' here. Dr. Peppers is the one to give thumbs up.

Flower

It isn't what they say about you, it's what they whisper.

- Errol Flynn 

I have nothing to write except for a craving to write. I woke up late today which is a lot like what I do when I have nothing planned for the mornings. I am yet to finish eating the bowl of cereal I started a while ago - perhaps it's more than 35 minutes since I started with it. Once I am done with three paragraphs, the urge to write and the bowl I will get a shower and spend some time with studying. Most of the studying part which I have done in the past few days has been limited to the class room. In yesterday's class we were asked to create models for Semantic Web using RDF/XML, N-TRIPLE and Statements - at least this is how I perceived this second lab assignment which we did in the class and got graded. A classmate helped me with some programming part but he added he doesn't know what it was about.

The only downside of my laptop which bothers me is its low battery life. It hardly goes on for an hour and a half. This class of Semantic Web on Mondays starts at 7 pm and stretches till 9:45 pm though the professor has been letting us go earlier than that. It gets painful trying to conserve battery life by reducing the screen's brightness and making the processor sleep everytime the use of the computer seems not so important. All auditoriums in the Engineering and Computer Science complex have seating arrangements with power sockets for each of the audience but classes don't have that facility. To make things worse this class of Semantic Web is held for more than 80 students. The professor is classy!

Handling money here is not as simple as how it was back in India. It takes some time every few days to check my statements online, pay bills, keep track of all payments and finally do the math to decide who is going to pay how much. Perhaps I can't compare this to things in India - back there it was my parents doing the accounts and me taking care only of my money which was relatively in small amounts. Here I am responsible for all money sent to me by my parents and voluntarily I have taken up the responsibility of all the bills' collections of my apartment. For this month inshAllah today evening I will have to spend around an hour to settle all accounts with my room mates. There is a bunch of bills filed in the closet all of them payed by me. I am yet to learn a lot about taxes and credit here.

And Then...

'But I don't want to go among mad people,' remarked Alice.

'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat, 'we're all mad here. You're mad.'

'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. 

'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'

- Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Gone are the days when I used to start typing, go on for paragraphs after paragraphs and still have so much to share. Now, I need to be diplomatic, choose my words carefully and be sure of who might end up reading them. I always wanted to write for myself but that has hardly been the case. I end up having at least one person in my mind most of the times when I write. I would think words came natural to me. At least that isn't the case anymore. And no more do I ask anybody personally to read any of my blogs; apparently I even avoid talking about it. There are occasions I wish I could go back and delete some very old posts. But I need to stand up for them; not that I regret anything, I just don't like them.

It always gives me a feeling of being protected when I talk to my father's friend who lives here in Dallas. Alhamdulillah these days I get to meet and talk to him more frequently. Knowing that he is there for me gives warmth. I had met him for the first time a couple of years back at an uncle's place. He has been my father's and uncles' friend since their childhood. A year back when my father told him I was planning to study in America, he had asked me to meet him in Dallas. That day, I still remember, I wondered if I would really meet him or, I even thought, why he was telling me that. Today I know he is one of my closest people here and a person I look up to. He has been living in America for more than 31  years now.

Just around last year I had not even a bit of imagination of how things were going to be after a year. There were few things that mattered to me and I was worried about getting admits from good universities and a visa. I had not even imagined who I would be staying with, who all I would meet and spend my time with, who would become so dear to me and who would start making a difference to my life. I have made tens of friends here, got close to many distant relatives and made some of them a priority. It's been said we don't learn much unless we travel a lot. I just want this to be a start. I have many more people to meet, lots more to learn and a few things to forget.

Necessity

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
- Leo Tolstoy

We got all white lights in our living room today. We had soft white since we replaced the lamps provided to us when we moved in. Today we went to two desi stores, to Super Target and twice to Wal-mart. We even went to drop some luggage to one of my roommate's new apartment inside the campus. He will leave us tomorrow and by the end of February another guy who's already my friend will join us. The guy who joined us recently is from Mumbai. My third roommate is Pakistani. We are all already like best friends. They are my friends first and then comes the fact about apartment sharing. Life seems to change everyday. I have always seen changes with my parents, brother and friends from Hyderabad. They ceased to be with me since the day I left them. I don't have them with me now.

We were five guys today for dinner. I wasn't cooking today - I don't know why I didn't cook; we never have turns for that; we cook when we feel like; we have a tendency to feel that daily; alhamdulillah. When the cooking started, I began online talk with my mother followed by my father and ending with my brother. Later I had two of my most beautiful friends with me online. I wished we could stay; I have physical constraints on me one of them being sleep. It's more than five months I reached here. For the last one month I have been trying to understand something very important. It's so good I gave words to some people. Understanding is hindered for I need to keep those words. It is good.

The curry for dinner today was dominated by pieces of chicken and potatoes with tomatoes giving a humble backdrop. A cup of Pepsi following it made my mouth sweet. There are obviously sweeter things I always thank Allah for nevertheless. I don't break my words beacuse I can't take any guilt. I have always been a good friend; at least tried to be. I am not even sure I can bear to see the otherwise of it happening. But of course I will be here not getting anything to see. It feels neat and soothing most of the time when I tell myself I will leave everything to Allah. But then days like today come and in an instance everything seems going so hazy again.

A Chronology In Randomness

You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.

- Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne

Most of the cars in the lot are still fully sealed in a thick hard layer of ice. The leaves on the hedges shine when the bright sun looks at them but the crystal ice refuses to melt. Until a couple of hours back most of the leaves were frozen with coverings of solid ice on them. The harshness seemed to be reducing a bit then again the sun is about to set now. The present temperature is 4 degrees but it's going to fall back to freezing again in a couple of hours. It was around -9 degrees in the morning. University closed yesterday at 3 pm and will open only on Thursday now. There was some good freezing rain in the night and I hoped to see some snow. It didn't happened. It's just ice outside; no snow.

I had to recollect what all I missed since the last time I blogged. The difficult part was to decide what to stick here, what to delay and what to forget. Not much can be easily forgotten and there is not enough wisdom in me to guess what could end up being mistakes. All I have had always is hope; whether it's right or wrong. I have found wonderful friends in both my present room mates else my time here would have been bland and sore. Memories of back home still haunt me in form of dreams. When I wake up I am reminded where I am. It always takes a couple of seconds to get back to reality. I am yet to refuse I am glad I am here. I will never.

I thought my time at engineering went like a whisker. After almost two weeks a friend from Hyderabad called me only to remind me how beautiful my life is. She told me so much about her husband, so much about how happy she is alhamdulillah and how beautiful it is to be married. I remember telling her a bunch of things but all I remember now is I told her how I feel I never spent any time with any of my friends there. On the contrary there were weeks and months I was with them yet it all seems to be insignificantly small. I am not sad those days are over leaving me asking for more. I pray I get more in my time ahead inshAllah.

To come to think of it I recently realized a new dream. The bliss that seems all sinful got me to feel guilty about it - just because I felt that. I went half way to share it with a buddy but took a fast retreat. Some voices never fade, some faces don't stay, some people can't remain and love always denies them. It's the same thing over and over again asking for the same end. Back in the drawingroom in my home in Hyderabad there stands an antique showcase at least 80 years in age. It houses many more antiques inside it belonging to my maternal and paternal grandparents. But there's a sea shell my grandfather had given me some years ago which is not an antique. It has words engraved on it. They say "forget me not". I remember the last time I stood beside my grandfather's grave and could feel nothing but cried later after I reached home.

InshAllah now I will be able to visit the nearby Masjid frequently. It's in the city of Plano almost 7 miles from my apartment. Being independent here makes a lot of difference to social life and other possible activities. InshAllah I will also be attending conventions and other Islamic programs here in the coming days. I just can't thank Allah enough for making me free from public transport here. InshAllah in a day I will return the Accord I am using and get a Civic for myself. My parents are paying for it of course. I know someday inshAllah I will repay them for everything they do for me.

Canned

The excesses of love soon pass, but its insufficiencies torment us forever.  

- Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

The moment I entered the second class of the day on Tuesday I could feel myself inferior. There were all these people who seemed to be there a lot before time, waiting seriously for the class as if it was going to be something like a very formal workshop or a seminar or something and all of them appeared elder to me. Being my habit of sitting in the front row in every class, I silently moved myself onto the fourth chair in the front. I knew once again I was going to face a lot of competition for grades in this class, that I will have my team mates who would be elder to me and I have to put in a lot to get an A. I have this class again on Thursday at 5:30 pm. I have a three-days a week schedule. This particular class is for Software Project Planning and Management.

I had my dinner very late. We went to a movie in the evening around 9:40 pm. It was "Religulous". I felt so great for having parents who taught me about Islam so well that no amount of illogical talk assumed as logical can deviate me. The movie was a documentary trying to disprove Christianity, Judaism and Islam as logical. Alhamdulillah my faith just got added up. It's necessary that we learn how to answer people when they ask us about our religion. Just because the Muslim guys who were interviewed in the movie didn't know how to answer well, the director succeeds in making a mockery of Islam. Any halfwit or a person with weak faith would fall into such arguments and buy them.

There is a millions of dollars worth beautification project for my university going on currently. They are even going to build a park worth $20,000 for dogs. They seem to be spending a lot on everything except for students. There are hardly any scholarships, fee waivers or aids. With very few jobs available on-campus we students get more dependent on our parents. Somehow alhamdulillah things are fine with me. I know many students have problems here paying for their fee. They even transfer to other universities. I know it's worth studying here. It's good alhamdulillah.

The American Screw

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop. 

- Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland     

As I sat down at the table for a while I felt I had never been out of this place. Slowly the reality began to move up through the threads to the head to bang it hard and press the sharpness down. I am fine now but somehow couldn't figure out what happened. I suppose it was around 9 pm when my uncle dropped me at my apartment. Some minutes later a friend called me and I left for Denton. My friend who arrived from India a couple of weeks back came to pick me up with his brother. We went to his university. He is going to stay there now. I suppose University of North Texas is about 35 miles from my place. I am not sure when we are going to meet again.

I wanted to call my father to talk to him but I realized I had wished him his birthday just around 10 pm. I thought of calling up my mother but I had spoke to her too on my way to Denton. I like Dallas more than Houston for I know more places here and the place I call home in America is here. But back there in Houston I had my people. I miss them now. I miss my parents. This just seems to have become a routine habit - miss  a few people, get busy with something only to realize later that I was missing them. But it bleeds when I miss them. The head keeps getting banged harder with every memory moving in cycles and the sharpness getting more severe.

I saw the new schedule sometime back. My first class of this semester is at 7 pm. A professor from Washington DC will come over to UTD every Monday to teach us this course 'Semantic Web'. I had to take some elective, I wanted it to be something new and so I went for this one though I have little idea what it precisely is about. I have read some vague things about it and it sounded interesting. That's all I need to know to feel the need. I am not much into Computer Networks or Database Design though I would still go for one of these in the final two semesters as electives. The harder the head is banged, the deeper it goes. Someday it will break open this way.

As we left my friend at his university in Denton I recollected how I used to feel at the beginning of Fall when I was new here. He is new here now. I know he is going to think a lot, shed some tears, speak to himself, look in the mirror a few times but he will rise above the pain. That's what we all came here for. No success is achieved at the comfort of home. We all need to move out of comfort zones, let ourselves hurt, sacrifice and allow the groves to set in more firmly. The problem is with the head being hit so harder every few days. It's supposed to be driven in, not forced to cracks.

By the time we make this place our home the cracks gets filled but the head looses a lot of gloss. I haven't read much into what philosophy talks about religion but I do know something like abstractions are spoken about. Belief in God is said to be an abstraction, faith is called a high form of abstraction, love too at times is measured in abstracts like life and hope are. It's so soothing that Allah prescribes us straight forward rules which saves us from the pain of trying to find out what abstract which part of faith is or faith itself is. We have a set of rules and they take us to our end. Philosophy might help, prescription helps in concrete. Prescriptions fight cracks, smoothen the head and make the journey appropriate. Alhamdulillah.