Apt# Y203 :-)

It is very funny how British english and American english use completely different words to mean the same thing, both claiming that they speak "english"!!! One of these words is "apartment", the thing I knew as "flat" for the first 23 years of my life. Now, the point I want to make is that I could never imagine living in a "flat" when I was small...I pitied those people (specially kids) who could not run up and down the staircases, have many nooks and corners to hide while playing hide-and-seek with cousins and have really big open terraces which could turn into lands of fantasy, kind of like Enid Blyton's "magic faraway tree"...all these thoughts actually came because I was born and brought up in my now 82 years old ancestral home.
Life in USA taught me a lot, and the most important lesson, I guess is adjustment. I was in a dorm for 2 years, my favourite Denman Hall, sharing a 1bhk apartment with a completely unknown girl from another country...but, as the girl was too nice, the whole experience turned out to be wonderful and left a good memory (a good memory is like the taste you have in your mouth after eating a good ice-cream... :-)...anyway, so I learnt how to live in an apartment...!!!
After I moved to Seattle, God upgraded me from gradstudent 3.21 to woman 1.0 and my lifestyle changed for the better. Firstly, Arnab is there to take care of me. I have someone to shout at if things dont work the way I expect them to and I dont have to take the decisions that I dont WANT to take :-) Getting a guy to look after you is a cool thing, girls, believe me...I am so much in favor of getting married :-)

Moreover, someone does the tough things suitable only for guys, like carrying heavy bags, assembling furniture...and and and...last but not the least, someone takes care of the finances, hahaha!!!! So it is obvious that I am very relaxed now :-)
This apartment is a good place to live in...the neighborhood is nice and the place is very beautiful with hills and pine trees all around...but to an outsider there is nothing that speciak to it...the extra zing that adds a sweet flavor to me and Arnab is the fact that this is our "home"...the first place where we moved together...
this apartment Y203 will always be special to us...
This apartment has seen the new home-maker, experimenting with new recipes, packing lunch, waiting for him to come back from work, assembling furniture, arranging books (not studying them!!!) and learning to adapt a new lifestyle with a new lifemate...this is my new home on this part of the world

"the silver sound of bridal bells..."

There are a very few stories in the world where the sequel is as good as or better than the first one. Louisa May Alcott's "Good wives" definitely is among them. Some parts become more relevant to a girl as she grows up and faces the bitter-sweet things of life, heartaches being numero uno!!! "In the garret", a poem written by Jo in "Good Wives" is one of my favourite poems and I am found to quote that in many places. Mostly I quote Jo's part...but now something is different, I am found to quote Amy's part..."Upon the last lid's polished field, legend now both fair and true. A gallant knight bears on his shield-- 'Amy' in letters gold and blue." I love this...someone up north is bearing on his shield my name too :-)
In "Rebecca", the girl once talked about bottling up memories...if only we could bottle the good times up and then take a look or sniff at them later...I like the idea...I would have cherished this time of my life forever.
Getting married is one of the most important phases of every human's life, but for a Bengali girl it is of IMMENSE importance. I was never a sterotypical bengali girl, and these couple of years of grad-school in USA have taken away the remnants but deep down somewhere I am so very bengali and so proud of being a bengali girl too. In early days, the girls used to leave their home and go to the family of someone whom they never had met before. In my case it's ofcourse not the same, and I left home for grad school before I planned to get married, so I really dont have any reason to feel worried, but I AM worried. there are feelings for which we dont know the reason, and this is one of them.
Dont think I am just feeling worried, I am feeling 90% happy :-) It is actually so unbelievable that I am getting married...!!! I, Ria, the girl who used to run down the staircases, jumping 2 steps at a time with pigtails flying, is getting MARRIED!!! INCREDIBLE!!! I seriously cannot picturize myself in a grown-up world, talking to my in-laws...oh no!!!! Moreover, there will be a guy with me all day...there will be shaving cream and razor in the bathroom,"not-so-good-looking" shoes all around, shirts and heavy jeans in the laundry, smells of guys perfume in the room!! I will have to visit the men's section of stores to find one particular grey or blue shirt...someone will be enthusiastically talking about cars and watches and spend sleepless nights watching football...strange life!!! Great change for a girl's life...but this is making me happy, because this guy is the one I love, this guy is my Arnab!!!

I have many things to learn now. Nowadays, though we say that career is more important to family, (I was one of the leading feminists in high school and college) I personally feel now, that family is more important (provided you have a loving and caring husband)!!! There was a reason God made me a woman, and I can feel that now. The love, the care I feel in myself when I think about Arnab, the way I want to depend on him...these all make me feel so happy and proud. I am having a wonderful feeling which I cannot articulate. Perhaps it is one of the best feelings a girl can experience as she blossoms into a woman. When she feels the love of the man she loves...when she hears "the silver sound of bridal bells in the falling summer rain".

???

If God comes before me (well, the pre-condition is becoming very strong here), let us suppose that such a thing IS possible, then what would I ask for?? Obviously the things or situations I ask for are the ones I would like to see myself in. How do I want to see myself?? I asked that to myself during a quiet time this evening. I really didnt think like this before...
I dont know what my good qualities are, neither do I know what qualities are considered "good", they seem to vary with time, relative "good deeds", nothing is "absolute" about those, so I cant really ask God to make me a "better" person. So does that mean I am very happy the way I am?? Am I perfect?? No, I am not perfect, but I like myself like this. My positives and negatives together make me who I am... a unique being in this whole wide Universe.
Yes, I know, if I were more sincere, then I would have done much better in my studies, if I were more nice and sweet, people would have loved me, if I were soft spoken, that would have made me a better person...(there are many more if-statements I guess, should try to put a nested-if loop) but, I cant change...I am what I am...what can I do to it?? I wouldn't even ask God to make me a better, nicer, sweeter girl. I am ok.
What about looks?? I dont know whether I care for looks. Girls do. I think I care a lot about my hair but I dont really spend a lot of time to do it. Natural looks, the look I was born with will definitely suit me the most. There also I am happy the way I look, for that's what my individuality is about.
I see myself in two strange visions...one is me climbing up a hilly road through a forest. It is dark, and raining. I am in my old pair of jeans and and old shirt, with a backpack and a dog is there beside me, or I am carrying my teddy-bear. I am climbing up with much difficulty and I am tired, but I dont know where I am going. I am certainly not a rock-climber and the weather is not good for hiking either...I dont know what this signifies...struggle perhaps?? The teddy or the dog signifies love without any expectations...those who love me exactly the way I am. I dont have any idea about the old jeans...that might mean "not caring about looks"...
The second vision is a beautiful one...that is actually something I want to experience in my life. I see myself, sitting on top of a rocky island, with the whole expanse of the ocean stretched below my feet. The waves crash by the island, and on top, there is the whole dome of the black night sky filled with myriads of stars!!! "Mahabishwe, mahakashe, mahakal majhe, ami manab ekaki bhromi bishmoye"...if I get to experience this before I die, I will be the happiest person.
The night sky can take away all my sorrows, all my tears...disappointments, rejections, insults, loneliness, lose their power when I see the vision. I dont see myself sitting and laughing there, I see myself thinking...reflecting, introspecting.
If God wants me to ask for something, I'll say that I need to have my way of appreciating such things like the moon over north pole and man's conquering of Mt. Everest, my power of thinking, the way it hurts me when I see people suffer. And I want kids and animals to love me. If these things are there with me, I dont need to care what else I do in my life.
To say about love, I want to add a line to my life. If someone loves me the way I am, without compulsion of family bonding or other obligations, then I DO NEED to realize that it is the BEST gift I can ever get in my life. I need to love him and cherish him as God's gift to my life.

chocolate, lime juice...

the story of a girl's growing up...my blog seems to be a reflection of my memories, but this growing up phase fascinates me...the way I am changing, becoming a woman from a tom-boy...this is, I think the most beautiful phase of my life till now.
I mentioned in the post about "Captivating" that women are made that way, the soft and beautiful way...that's their nature, but when I was in my teens I did not like this idea. I was like "Jo" and I hated "girlish" girls and wasn't really excited about boys or glitter nail enamels!!!
Time changes....and time changes us too :-)
I can feel how I changed because I remember my thoughts very well. From being "the rebel without a cause" I am becoming someone who is learning to forgive others and deal with their drawbacks in a gentle way. "Gentle" was an adjective no one could use while describing me, but that's what I am learning.
This transformation into a woman happens when there is someone to love you...love makes you glow and that radiance shows outside. Someone is there to make me feel wanted and special and loved...this feeling can never be described but felt, felt inside the deepest core of the heart...and believe me...love is the BEST thing that can happen to someone. It matters a lot in changing people :-)
As God prepares me to be THE WOMAN for someone and to be able to take the responsibilities that come with it, I pray for strength because I need to be the source of love, care and support for the one I love and another family, who would be mine :-)
"Love is patient and kind", so I am sure it will transform me to the perfect 'Eve' God wants me to be :-)

to our Air-Borne Warriors

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-- Rabindranath Tagore
This was what Rabindranath wrote as a prayer to God. Well, we all know that, and being a Bengali, I know the actual bengali poem as well...we know a lot, we hoist our National Tricolour and shout "Jai Hind", we watch the Republic Day parade...but we dont DO anything!!!
I was watching the movie Rang de Basanti...I think this is the 3rd time I watched it and immaterial of where or with whom I am, I invariably cry while watching it. Those are the same tears that well up in my eyes when I hear about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose or about the young revolutionaries, the Nationalists during our Freedom struggle, or when I hear about the death of our MIG-21 pilots...it's the same!!!
When I think a bit more, I find that NO, it's NOT the same!!! The freedom fighters were killed brutally, no doubt but they were killed by a foreign government. The MiG-21 pilots are falling prey to our own corrupted politicians who are busy filling their bank balances with money got by selling the brightest and the best of the Indian citizens.
I am not in a mood to write today. Staying away from my homeland, this distance is bothering me today, I am having many conflicting thoughts...my mind is again working faster than my fingers and I am writing in a confused and clumsy way I guess.
I have been hearing much about an all-loving, all-powerful God who forgives our sins and who is changing me for the better, making me patient and kind...but today, my homeland's calling!!! "Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab humare dil mein hai!!!" My thoughts are following Rabindranath's poems again...my everlasting source of strength and compassion, the poems that show me the way when I am in a dilemma. But now, I am remembering not a prayer, but a question...the "Question" he asked God...I cannot forgive the terrorists, nor the corrupted politicians, the state-sponsored criminals of the Communist Party of India, the cruel inhuman people who are scattered all over the globe. God, I dont need anything now, just give me strength so that I can vanquish them once and for all. It is a tough task God, but I need to do my part...show me my purpose, show me my way. I will have to be your warrior Princess..."hum Bharat ki beti hai, ab utha chuki talwar..."
And I'll end this note and my thoughts about it with a line from Kaji Nazrul's "Bidrohi"..."bidrohi ronoklanto, ami sei din hobo shanto, jobe utpiriter krondon rol akashe batashe dhonibe na, atyachari r kharga kripan bheem ronobhume ronibe na, bidrohi ronoklanto, ami sei din hobo shanto..."

Life is like a box of chocolates :-)

"Time has come", the Walrus said, "to talk of many things"...Gamow talked about I think everything in the Universe from the number system to biology and atoms to supernovae...I'll take a small subset from that and write about it.
I blog at weird times...12:04 pm on a monday is surely not a good time for blogging...but anyway, that's not the point :-)
If I consider the learning curve of my life, insight on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, then I'll see a big bang beginning there too. At time 0, it suddenly started. I knew NOTHING when I was born but the moment I was born I was overwhelmed with many things...sound, light, pain... that was the beginning of a wonderful journey called life.
Journeys are not always easy, and long journeys are most certainly not. They have ups and downs. I was a thinker from long back because I can remember myself sitting and thinking even when I was a child. I used to imagine stories about teddy-bears and various colored fairies (the violet one being my favorite). Enid Blyton's Noddy was kind of a Gospel to me :-)
I luckily, dont just remember myself thinking, but I remember my thoughts too. The stories that I read left strong impressions on me, specially the myths of Greece and Rome. I loved that book very much. Reading has always been my hobby and books are my best friends till now.
As I grew up from the fantasizing child to a more imaginative kid, I got interested in scientific books, and the outer-space, which had always been an awesome thing for me, started to motivate me for a career in science. But my interests fluctuate and the teens were those years when I was overwhelmed with emotions. I had my first boy-friend (a sweet puppy-love) who used to bring candies and bought ice-creams for me (isn't that cute?) and I was happy to be in love!! I became fan of Aravinda de Silva, the Sri Lankan cricketer (I am still his fan) and started reading the historical novels of Saradindu Bandopadhyay where beautiful princesses and handsome guys were the protagonists.
My mind ran riot!!!
I understood that writing would be a good vent to my feelings, but I realized too that my pen is slower than my mind. I cannot put to word all my thoughts...I wanted to be a beautiful princess, an astronaut, a freedom fighter and a cricket player at the same time!!! Crazy thoughts of the teens!!!
I wrote however, kept a journal and wrote down everything... when I was in class 9, i.e.when I was 15, I ran into someone who changed my train of thoughts completely. He's my mentor Devakalpa Ghose. He unfolded the world of physics in front of my eager eyes. His character showed me how different people can be and we should not judge someone just by worldly successes. He is still my idol and I look up to his advice during all my difficult situations.
Last two years of school were the most difficult days of my life. Preparing for the school-leaving and engineering-entrance exams at once was an ordeal and I hated those exams. Though I had a very loving boy-friend that time and we were in a strong relationship, those days were troublesome. I thought my parents didnt want me to think about anything but studies, and my relationship with them hit the bottom. I threw tantrums almost everyday and it was all very BAD!!!
When I joined engineering college as an undergrad in computer science and engineering, my social life started improving. I did many things and got involved in student-groups which gave me confidence. I started to mature as an individual. (Though I still did many a stupid thing!!!) I read autobiographies of many people like our Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, King Edward VIII, Charlie Chaplin, that helped me mature a lot. I found my identity as a girl, ambitious yet caring.
Coming to the United States was a GIANT LEAP in my life. There are pangs of growing up, I know, I can feel them. They are not good all the time. Sometimes they crush me, but something inside me stops me from falling apart. My life has become difficult, no doubt, because I have to do everything on my own...I am so far away from home and sometimes it does feel frustrating and lonely. Sometimes I have misunderstandings and bad feelings, but like gloomy days, these also pass and I see the bright golden sun again.
That's what I am and that's how my life is...it has ups and downs but is going well and I have to do lot more things. I need to be happy and keep others around me happy too. I need to love others without expecting them to love me back and I have to be a good human being above all.
1984-..... let's see what life has in store for me...I am excited!!!