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!!!

You're gonna miss this...

..you're gonna want this back...yes, I am quoting that song from Trace Adkins...because that's what I am feeling right now.
Well, to say the truth, this is NOT my time for blogging, I have a statistics final tomorrow. Though I have revised the syllabus completely by now, I am never 100% confident that I can do all the sums and deductions perfectly tomorrow...so I need to study. But, there is something that I wanted to write down immediately, the feelings I am having right now are transitory so I'll not be able to write about this later.
Cramming up stuff just before the exams is what students all over the world learn (I am obviously not talking about the nerds) and when they can do that well, they feel proud. In my undergrad days, the only time I studied was during the preperatory leave. If I had 5 papers, I started studying 10 days before the exam. 2 days for each paper...well that was enough!!!
In grad school my days are NOT that easy, and even I have to study :-(
Assignments and projects keep me busy all through the semester...just before the exams I just hate studying...but the fun part is that, EVERYONE does!!!
Yesterday, my friend Atul and I were so bored that we planned to study together, he's in Civil Engineering and the paper he was writing, I had no clue to it whatsoever. Neither did he know a single line about software engineering, but still we studied together :-) My roomie, a med student and I exchange views on our papers and stuff and it feels good to study when she's around that to study alone!!! Last weekend, we 8 girls took a coffee study break and hung out...we need a break we said, but actually what we should ahve said was, "We need to study, we had enough breaks"...!!! Grad-school is hectic, but I dont know somehow we manage to have time for everything! I dont remember doing so many things when I was back home!!!
I complain about studies, that's true...I figured out I have been studying and taking exams for the last 20 years...eeeeeeeks...the thought itself is bad!! but....20 years from now, I'll look back to these days and sigh...I know I will...I'll remember a girl carrying a bright orange backpack, her friend sitting in the library with a laptop, and they talking about some stuff completely unrelated to studies...and fully enjoying the winter afternoon!!! I'll miss these days...for sure!!!
now I need to go back to testing of hypotheses (eeeek what an anti-climax!!!)

You are captivating

The thing is that I got my first Christmas gift...this is itself a very nice feeling. I always read in english books about Christmas gifts, but never got one. This year it was different. Receiving a gift always gives a nice feeling and more so if it is a surprise one, and if it is a book, and you know that someone chose that book having you in mind and if that someone is your friend!!! In my case, all the above points are true!!! So it is obvious that I am super happy :-)
The next part is more interesting. As started reading this book, I was astonished. It was as if I am standing in front of a mirror, looking at myself. The book is about "unveiling the mysteries of a woman's soul" and it is speaking to me, reminding me of my worth and my long-lost dreams.
Women in the 21st century have lost their feminism. The more feminist they become, the more they forget what their true worth is. There is nothing more silly than to imitate men. We are different and we should be proud of that. If man signifies power and strength, woman is for grace and beauty.
I would definitely lay stress on beauty, it is the inner as well as the outer one. Have you wondered why "Rupang dehi" is the first thing we pray for?? Why girls are so concerned about how they look?? Why is it that we feel great if the guy we love say that we look beautiful?? Because we love to be the Princess and we are waiting for our dashing Prince to come for us and love us with all his heart. I too feel that.
I was a tom-boy in my teenage days. I loved mechanical toys, I loved to play cricket, I still love many boyish things. But, somewhere in the deepest core of my heart I actually long to be the Princess of my dreams.
I feel good to think that woman is the crown of creation. The creation would be incomplete without us. And there is an awesome match between the dreams of a man and a woman. In the presence of a man, the femininity of a woman unfolds. She becomes more loving, caring and dependent on the man, which enables him to be protective and strong. A woman inspires the man to be a hero!!! This concept is beautiful beyond words....how we complement each other.
When I am bogged down with studies and chores and errands, when I juggle between video retrieval, egg-curry, walmart and PhD admissions, I take a moment's break. I put down my mop, shut down my laptop, leave everything for a minute and look out to the view from my balcony...to the Creation and tell myself..."the whole, vast world is incomplete without me. Creation reached it's zenith in me."
Someone said I am the "ezer kenegdo"... He said "You are captivating." Someone loves me very much...and that Someone is my Creator!!!

The Indian Ambassador

We are having something called the International Education Week at UAB now. Today it was about India, we had to tell people all about our homeland :-) I think if we really wanted to tell them everything from the Indus Valley Civilization to Chandrayaan, it would have taken ages, so we did it the grad-student way...putting up posters and explaining them (which we are very good at!!).
I love presenting stuff, be it a poster or a statistics problem. I dont know why, but I JUST love presentations!!! Perhaps it's because I get to talk a lot and there are people around me who listen, that makes me feel good :-) Surely I get importance, and that slowly has boosted up my confidence in public speaking and all good stuff...anyway, that's not my point... the thing is that we showed stuff about India today...
We have a group of Indian students, AIS and frankly speaking, I dont like most of my team-members there. I dont know how, but miraculously yesterday evening we got along so well, just too well, and we worked fast, liked what we did and ended up with some gorgeous and colorful posters and display boards. Seriously they were fantastic!!!
What did we put on them?? Haha!!! We had monuments, landscapes, science and technology, with Chandrayaan and our Agni, Prithvi, Pinaka, Brahmos, and Aryabhatta, INSAT...oooh the names themselves make me feel so proud. I almost fluff up!!! In Sci-Tech we had pics of Dr. Kalam, J.C.Bose, Sir C.V. Raman, Satyendra Nath Bose, Homi Bhabha and of course Rakesh Sharma!!!
The other posters were of weddings and dances. The center poster had our "Satyameva Jayate" (truth alone triumphs) with the Lion Capitol, our Tricolor and some of our statesmen. I obviously put some pics of Netaji, and I wore Mission Netaji badge also :-)
We showed artifacts...handmade stuff...nice things and did a glamorous rangoli outside with sidewalk chalk!!! Kathleen helped me a lot in that. She even helped me wear a saree :-) She's GREAT!!!
I wore a blue saree...and I know I looked good in that :-) Many people came, my professors Dr. Sprague and Dr. Bangalore, Marcie my project manager, my friends from all over the globe, my friendship partners...so many people... I love it!!! The people who serve food at the international cuisine are so sweet. They treated me like a princess!!! My friends were also asking me to advise them about what to eat. The butter chicken was good but I dont know why they colored it red!!! Rice was good, the veggies were also good. Sheekh kabob got a bit messed up. They were more like meatballs than kabobs. Anyway, they did a great job!!! Trent couldn't pronouce "sheekh kabob" properly, he was fumbling and saying some weird sounding things, when I said, "If I can pronounce CHEESEBURGER, you have to pronounce SHEEKH KABOB !!" and he got it right in the next try!!!
It felt so nice...sitting there wearing a saree, eating Indian food, the song "yeh jo des hai tera" playing in the background and sharing my culture with my non-Indian friends!!! There was a warmth, not only of the golden sunbeams streaming across the place but also of a promise of friendship and love that will last forever!!!

If you can dream...

Well, everyone knows that I am Princess Jasmine, so the title might make them think I'll be writing about some pink and silver princessy-stuff, but no. Though I love to be a princess and I love to have "magic carpet" rides, today I am thinking of something different...but it has got to do with dreams...dreaming of the past.

If I had a time machine, where in time would I love to go to?? This is a very difficult question for me to answer...I love Egypt during the Pharaohs, I love India during the Golden age...I even love late 19th century England...so I dont know where I'd want to go...hey wait!! I do know...I want to go back to my ancestral village...I want to be born in the same family but...but...but...250 years ago!!! That sounds weird...doesn't it?? Yeah...that's why I said you need to follow my dreams.

This thought came into my mind one evening when I was washing rice at the sink of my little kitchen of Denman Hall. Clad in "tinkerbell print" pyjamas and my hair tied in a pig-tail, I definitely had no resemblance to the girl from mid- 18th century Bengal. She was the youngest grand-daughter of a very wealthy landlord from the Ganga- deltaic lush green plains of eastern India.

There was a huge mansion beside a river in the place called Jessore (now in Bangladesh), and that belonged to the Ghosh family. They migrated there in like 1750s from the western part of Bengal. The mansion had orchards surrounding it and beyond the orchards were rice fields...and then the river. This girl is in my imagination, but I can see her whenever I want to. She's beautiful, with long black hair and large black eyes and the sarees she wore were light colored. In the summer evenings, she walked by the side of the lake...and you could hear her humming some tunes under her breath...the tunes filled the cool wind that blew from the southern seas and rustled among the leaves of the coconut and palm trees. Sometimes she just sat and thought...her mind wandered off to places she's never been to...
One day, she met a traveller...he was coming from some other part of the country and he was playing his flute...the girl could not stop herself from going and talking to the traveller though she was not permitted to do so. He told her stories of different places and the girl's dreamy eyes followed the traveller's tales...he'd been to Ceylon on a ship and had seen the raging waters...he's met different people from many places, merchants from many countries...he changed her world...she was fascinated.
But dreams are not forever...they dont last long...so the girl had to go back to her house among the other women, she couldn't live her life the way she wanted....the traveller went his own way... they never met again. He remained in her memories forever.
No, please...this is NOT a sad love story...this is the way our lives are...we meet some people and they fascinate us, but we are all travellers walking on our own tracks...sometimes our roads merge and we find some fellow companions...but they are not forever. We talk and feel good that someone is with us, but they will leave us sometime, and we are not supposed to leave our roads and go with others....cherish the moments you are happy and bring back the memories when you are lonely...and "if you can dream" you can always let your mind wander to nice places and in that way you can always feel happy...that's how we can enjoy life.