It is Friday, pretty cold even for the middle of November. We have fallen back from daylight savings, so in Seattle with the perpetually overcast skies, it seems to get dark at 2:30 in the afternoon. I came back home on a day like this and as I was going over my machine learning course, I poured myself a glass of eggnog for comfort. As I sprinkled some cinnamon powder and took a sip, the creamy sweetness filling me with goodness, I wondered from when did I start associating eggnog with this kind of comfort? I did not grow up relating eggnog to Christmas, or winter. The first time I had eggnog ten years back, I wanted to spit it out. It smelled disgusting, and the flavor of raw eggs in them brought me close to throwing up. The same happened with apple cider. Some of my other Indian friends and I were looking for places to spit it out and we finally emptied the cups down the drinking water fountain in our department.
I found telling a friend whose house we generally go for Thanksgiving, that I like it being dark and gloomy as we gather round the turkey. If it was sunny and warm outside it would be so incongruous. What happened in the time during the last ten years which has brought such changes in me? Things that I had no idea about are now normal facets of my life.
I think it is because I let myself absorb new things, and that I love talking to people, ask them details about how they spent the summer holidays, what are their memories of Christmas, and slowly get myself acquainted with the new culture, or cultures because as everyone knows, the US is a salad bowl of cultures around the world.
On the other hand, here's the chance to share mine. Last month, for the first time, I hosted a "Bijoya Sammelani" or get together after the Bengali festival of Durga Pujo. The fun part was other than one friend (just him, not his wife) was Bengali. The others were not Indians. They came to this gathering, asked a lot of questions about Durga Pujo, how we celebrate it, what we eat, how are we supposed to behave, and they ate all Bengali food. They even picked out bones of the treacherous fish ilish. There were fun conversations around, no gossiping, no uncomfortable jokes, just a lot of laughter over good food and good company.
It feels nothing different when you compare one day to the other, but when you look back a few years, you see stuff changing. The more new things we learn, the more new things we open our hearts and homes to, we just pave the way for a more enriched life.
I think it is because I let myself absorb new things, and that I love talking to people, ask them details about how they spent the summer holidays, what are their memories of Christmas, and slowly get myself acquainted with the new culture, or cultures because as everyone knows, the US is a salad bowl of cultures around the world.
On the other hand, here's the chance to share mine. Last month, for the first time, I hosted a "Bijoya Sammelani" or get together after the Bengali festival of Durga Pujo. The fun part was other than one friend (just him, not his wife) was Bengali. The others were not Indians. They came to this gathering, asked a lot of questions about Durga Pujo, how we celebrate it, what we eat, how are we supposed to behave, and they ate all Bengali food. They even picked out bones of the treacherous fish ilish. There were fun conversations around, no gossiping, no uncomfortable jokes, just a lot of laughter over good food and good company.
It feels nothing different when you compare one day to the other, but when you look back a few years, you see stuff changing. The more new things we learn, the more new things we open our hearts and homes to, we just pave the way for a more enriched life.
1 comment:
Thanks, been waiting for new entries for a while now.
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