Musings of Princess Jasmine...

Well, first let me wish you the SPOOKIEST FA-BOO-LOUS HALLOWEEN EVER!!!
Though this was my second halloween in USA, I didn't really celebrate the day last time. I was feeling homesick then and didn't want to dress up. Which, I should admit is very unusual of me.
This time it was different!!! I prepared for halloween from...well, more than a month in advance...I was to be Princess Jasmine, because she's the Disney Princess I like most and my wheatish complexion and black hair would definitely match hers. One of my friends commented that if I dress up like Jasmine, I wouldn't really be dressing up because I WAS Jasmine already...but I think that's too much of a complement :-)
I love the concept of dressing up...it's not just fun but for one day you can be what you want to...you can wear a princessy gown, or can be the devil if you like...
My friends in UAB are the craziest bunch of people I've ever met and what I like about them is the seriousness with which they do the comic things. One of which was dressing up for this party :-)
There were so many different kinds of costumes and characters. There was Jennifer, dressed up as Cinderella. She's blonde, and was looking perfectly like Cinderella and there was a brunette girl in Belle's costume. We three took a picture together and I think the "Disney Princesses" were looking real nice. Someone was a Greek Goddess and some other was a peacock. Shuwen was a Chinese Ghost, she insisted on being called a Ghost but she was looking like a Chinese Princess. So was Mikoku, she wore a Japanese kimono kind of thing and was looking so pretty :-) Naomi was a fortune-teller, Iris was a girl-pirate, Anna was Audrey Hepburn from the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and she was looking so gorgeous!! There were angels as well, Manisha was the dark one and there was a white one too, and devils, and red-riding hood and French maids...everyone looked so cute :-)
Of the guys, Joker was the "in-thing" I guess, because I saw 2 guys dressed up like that. Junsong was a karate master, Trent was Osama bin Laden with my long white scarf wrapped round his head as a turban and a weird looking flowing grey beard!! But he was looking real nice :-) There was Su, dressed as Caesar but he called himself "Su-sar" which I think is a smart way of concatenating the names ;-) There was a tall guy dressed up as an Arab Sheikh and George was I think a Globe-trotter, Saurabh was the ghost from "Scream" and he looked real scary....
The decoration of the hall was also nice, with graveyard wallpaper and ghosts popping out from cauldrons. There were spiderwebs and bats hanging from the ceiling, but what I liked very much were the cute looking spooks that were made by hanging white tablecover on balloons and then drawing eyes and mouth on the covers!!! Candles put in paper bags served as lanterns and of course there were the sweet looking pumpkins put all around :-)
My roomie Kathryn was however, the heroine of the event, for she cooked for 200 people and helped in the decoration and cleaning!!! She didn't dress up but she always looks cute and it's fun when she's around :-)
A day of spooks and a day of fun!!! I will always remember my first halloween celebration at UAB....these happy moments will remain in my memories and later, when I look back to these days, I will see a golden gleam lighting up my past, the golden gleam that comes from the satisfaction that you have nice friends to share your happy moments with.
I love UAB!!!

the stars in the night sky...

There I was, sitting on a bench, on a wooden deck by the side of a lake. It is the middle of October and fall has started setting in Alabama. As I sat there, looking straight ahead where the sunset had left some golden aura in the cloudless sky, slowly the planets started shining. It was the exact but large-scale projection of my dear ol' planetarium in Calcutta. The smoky skies of Calcutta was never a nice place for watching stars and from my dorm patio, though you can have a great view of dazzling Birmingham, finding stars in the sky is a real ordeal. So when, I looked up to the clear sky over Lake Martin, I gave a gasp as I found the constellations taking shape...In Calcutta, a huge hospital guarded the view of the northern sky from my home. So I have never really seen the Pole Star. Yesterday, I found it shining above the branches of some distant trees. The North Star.... how nice it feels to look at it...some point that is fixed, and the stars revolve round it all through the year. Near the North Star were the constellations of Lyra, Cygnus and Aquila, forming the Summer Triangle. Vega always reminds me of Carl Sagan's story Contact, more so because recently I was reading it once more. There were Andromeda and Cassiopea, the lady on the chair and some more northern star patterns. In the south, Venus and Jupiter traced the cetestial equator on which one could see the amazing zodiac constellations.
It is not just the science, not the nuclear physics or the astrophysics that is important, but the stars, the presence of them fills me with awe and wonder. I feel so small in front of them...so tiny that my wordly feelings seem to just vanish. But, on the other hand I feel so special that I have got a chance to experience all these...Someone made me like this, with a unique identity and that is what I can feel when I am alone amidst the stars... as our poet said, I feel awestruck at the thought that I have been born as a human in this world full of different varieties of life and the Universe full of stars...and yesterday, the world seemed to be sleeping, not a sound could be heard apart from the soft lapping of water on the beach...I was there alone...facing my Creator...I felt a deep sense of happiness and fullness from within.

I remember, I remember

....the house where I was born.

125, Sarat Bose Road...the address of perfect happiness for me. It is a three storied building on a strong foundation and lots of light and air. But, there is a magic in that yellow house in Calcutta, a magic of family bonding that is there for 82 years and handed down for four generations.

Well, when my great grandfather Sarat Chandra Ghosh built the house in 1926 he said that his decendants would live there. Little did he imagine what that house would mean to his decendants. It gave shelter to his large family as well as many people from his and his wife's ancestral villages. There was not a single day when there was not any relatives staying there at the house.

Though now, in the days of nuclear families it is not possible to have so many people under the same roof, we still maintain the old tradition of a joint family. Growing up in a house with so many people around, uncles and aunts and cousins to pamper you and care for you is a wonderful feeling (and specially if you are the youngest of the lot)!!!

My home is some place where I feel I am safe and secure. When I enter that building, it seems all my cares have been taken away and I can rest in ultimate peace and happiness. Home doesnt really mean the building, but it means the people who stay there as well. I can never imagine being lonely there or not having someone to talk to. My uncles are the people who pampered me (or spoilt me), they listened to all my requests, took me anywhere I wanted to go, encouraged me in all crazy stuff and they are my best friends. My cousins, though I never think they are my cousins and NOT my brother and sister, are the closest persons in my life. Specially my sister. Even if we are lightyears apart, we would still be as close as before. I never miss her, because I know she is always, always at the back of my mind.

My parents are surely the best in the world. They have an uncanny capacity of understanding me, though I felt that after leaving home!! My mom knows me through and through. When I refer to some book or incident, if I just say, "you remember that incident in the Agatha Christie book..." she understands both the incident I am referring to and what book I wanted to say without having to explicitly mention either of them. She is my idol. I want to be like her. She literally "knows" stuff and she reads a lot. I am so proud that I have inherited her reading habit. My Dad is my source of strength. Without him, I would not be 10% of what I am today. My career, my life, my thoughts all follow him. He is my sole motivator. He pushed me to pursue a masters in USA, and he tells me everyday and every moment to reach to my full potential.

Though I am far away from home, I always feel that I'm covered with blessings and care from my family. My ancestors are looking after me for sure. I am so proud of my home and family. They are the BEST!!!

It's a small world after all

My life has changed a whole lot in the past one year. So much so that I feel I am a new person altogether, perhaps something like a coccoon transforming to a butterfly and spreading its wings to fly off.
I have been brought up as a very sheltered child who never did anything except studying and spending time with family and friends. I had freedom, but coming from a traditional household, that was limited too. 23 years of my life was spent like this...in one house with very less exposure to the outside world.
August of 2007 brought a sea change in me as I crossed the Atlantic Ocean. The first thing I felt was "the world is so GREAT!!!" I felt alone, yes I did but the experiences I started gaining was so wonderful that I understood why people from early days used to leave home to find the unknown...
wanderlust they call it. I feel that...
There are thousands of international students who come every year to the US for their higher studies and I am no exception. I am an FOB (Fresh off Board) who came to the US with high hopes. But I dont want to be just a masters student who wants to gain a high career, my aim is not just reaching the end point of the road but to cherish the sights and sounds I get to experience while I walk down that road of life.
And life has given me all wonderful things!!! I was so excited when I saw the Moon over the North Pole while on the flight from New Delhi to Chicago... it is wonderful and I am so lucky that I get to appreciate these facets of life.
Don't I feel homesick like the other internationals?? Yeah, surely I do. But I have another home here too. My friends from so many countries, Bangladesh to Brazil and Spain to Philippines make me feel so special and I understand that people from different countries, having different cultures, speaking different languages can be so similar to one another. It feels awesome to think that the people I spend time with now were literally spread out all over the world just a year back. Someone grew up in the deserted land of Libya, someone was in a bustling city of China and someone was a boy from the farmlands of Illinois!!! But they are my friends now and they make my life the way it is.
Not just my friends, but my advisor and my project manager are two people who have made my life a lot easier. When it comes to motivating a student, look up to my advisor. She understands the feelings of an international student and knows exactly well how much to push a student. Somehow, she has never forgotten her own grad-student life and NEVER pressurizes me to do something which is way too difficult for me. My project manager is kind of my guardian angel...from showing me how to write a check and to taking me for shopping, she is always there!!!
My birthday is always THE DAY for me. I love to get all the attention of people (I am quite a "demanding princess" to quote one of my friends!!!) I was rather doubtful how my birthday party would be this year. But, it seems people really love me, for not only did my friends prepare for a blast, one of them sang Happy Birthday in Chinese and my roomie prepared noodles for me as is a custom in her country!!! I was so moved!!!
Believe me, there are only two kinds of people in the world-- good and bad. And there are many many more good people than bad ones. The world is such a nice place to live in...and it becomes nicer when you have sweet people to share it with.
I love my life in USA so much... I now know the taste of hot dogs and sweet tea....I celebrated 4th of July with a cookout...I know football teams get 6 points when they score a touchdown... and today when a group of high school students were singing the American National Anthem, I felt that though this is not my original home, I love this country a lot because of the wonderful experiences I am having here...!!! I thank my parents for not just letting me come here but understanding that this would be the best thing for me.
I hope to have many more nice experiences here as I want to blend the east and west in myself and in people I am close to so that we get a next generation of world citizens who are rich in humanity and love for the humankind.