At work

I like busy people. At around 9, when a particular bus from Seattle comes to Bellevue Transit Center and a bunch of people cross the street to get to work they radiate some kind of positivity. The same when they grab a cup of coffee from the local Starbucks, the baristas working like bees, or when at lunch people go out to eat with their co-workers, the whole place hums with a sense of purpose, of belonging.

Being an ENFJ, I love people and I get energy by being with people. Coming to work has its own set of positivity for me. To say that I love working would be an understatement. I am one of those people who feel charged after a relaxing weekend to get to work on Mondays. It is not that I don't like weekends, but I love Mondays as well, because I have things to look forward to, challenges to meet, problems to solve and people I love spending time with.

Other than providing an income, and giving a practical way to use the knowledge I acquired from school, there are a lot of things I learned about myself at work. I found out that I have leadership skills. Throughout my entire life in India I have been told to hold back. I was getting into too much trouble, I had (well, I still have) strong opinions and airing them was not a smart thing. Here. I am encouraged to speak up. I am learning how to lead properly, that is utilize the natural tendency but to sharpen that as well. I have understood that my level of enthusiasm is above the national average, and instead of yelling at others for their lack of energy, I am learning how to get people to feel more interested and take part in activities.

Problem solving, especially in the STEM field is a.. how do I put it... it is probably the only thing which can give you something close to superpowers! In the software world, we mainly deal with things intangible. You can see a computer, but you can't feel the lines of code that does most of the work. We see the life in those lines of code, and get unnecessarily attached to them. Just the idea of someone using tab versus spacebar can cause religious wars in the software industry. We are a bunch of crazy people, but we love our weirdness. NOTE: not all software engineers are introverts.

There is a comfort in knowing that in science there is the concept of absolute truth. What I mean is, like when you add two and two, the answer would always be four. Similarly, if your friend has guessed a random number between 1 and 100, and you want to find out what is it, math tells us you only need (at most) 7 tries. And that is true! If you do it right, you won't go beyond 7 tries. That's what binary search is about. If you need more tries, you can be absolutely certain that you are doing it wrong. There have been times when my code didn't run as expected and I started cursing it, or pulling my hair. However much I may do either of those, it does't help because the computer, unluckily is a non-thinking, non-feeling weird thing. It doesn't care. Of course I found out there is stuff I missed, or wrote wrong. Once that is fixed, the code runs. There is no gray area in between!

I need to conclude this article with the people part. Arnab once asked me if I go to work to work or to have a social life because he only heard plans for coffee, lunch, or walks. It is true, because socializing is a big part of my existence and my friends at work help that. We have almost a dozen people to eat lunch with, they are all crazy in their own ways. If you see us then, you'd think we are a bunch of high school or college kids who know each other for many many years. They are those people who know my deepest evil wishes, on whose white sofa I can totally put my dirty feet on, and they can also tell me to my face that I need to stop wasting money.

It is very clear that I have found the right place where I belong.

My kind of meditation

Nowadays meditation is well known in the world, both in the east and west. People do yoga and meditation a lot. There are even apps for guided meditation (some of them are really well). Meditation is definitely a very good thing to calm our minds, get rid of anxiety and bad thoughts, but it is not easy for me. I have tried it, and I am still trying it, but I have to put a lot of effort in just sitting still. Introspection doesn't come to me easily, I get distracted and charmed by the whole wide world around me that is filled with sights, sounds, smells, and of course people!

I have found my calm place in the water of the swimming pool. That is a place where I am mostly alone in my swim lane, and there is just water and me. With my swim cap covering my ears, and my glasses taken off to wear goggles, I am actually cut off from the entire world around me. Its just my arms and legs moving in a rhythm, and my head turning for breaths in a cyclical motion. The gentle lapping of water beside me, the bubbles in front of me, and the surface of the water as I see from below surround me in a world of calm. There is nothing I can do about anything in the world at that time, other than just swim. The black line below is a constant reminder of discipline and balance. You can actually translate that to a life lesson too.

Swimming has amazing health benefits, we all know that. It is the only one exercise that works on all our muscles at the same time, especially the hard to work on - core. It is immensely helpful for cardio, and our lungs. For kids who are still growing, it helps in bone development. I have been forever known to be a scrawny thing that eats very little (especially here in the US where portion sizes almost match my weight), but recently my appetite has increased and it has been catching the attention of people. "You want that too along with your lunch?" I have had friends ask me.

I knew about these physical benefits, but it is the mental ones have amazed me more. Just like they say in guided meditation, that with every exhale let the bad thoughts go away and with every inhale let the good thoughts come in, the same happens in swimming. You can imagine the cool water washing off all your anxieties and worries that you exhale, and with each inhale you get a fresh breath of life. Once you are in water, you don't have to really think of anything other that getting enough air. You can't see anyone else, and nobody can see you. Everyone looks weird in their swim caps and goggles, so looks don't matter there anyway. The stretch of blue-green water in front consists only of the good vibes that envelop us.

Floppy

People talk about Karma a lot these days, it has entered regular conversation, but I have actually seen good Karma in action once. That is when I got Floppy.

As a six-year-old girl I should say I was pretty well behaved. When I came to San Fransisco to visit my uncle and aunt in mid 1991, my dad specifically told me not to buy too many stuffed animals because I had quite a lot of them at home. Now, I doubt if I would have listened to that, but as a well behaved six year old, I did. There were tons of them around me at Disneyland, Sea World, The Universal Studios, they all had their fair share of stuffed animals being sold as souvenirs. I could have asked for them and I believe, if I was polite, I would be given a few too. But I didn't. I even remember picking up a penguin that had rolled off the rack and putting it back in its right place. It was not a minor temptation, because in the early 90s, stuffed animals were not found in abundance in India, and the good ones were very, very expensive.

That is when Karma watched me and decided to reward my good behavior. One day before we were coming back to India, my uncle's friends came and they brought a big stuffed animal for me. That was Floppy. He is one of the biggest stuffed animals I have got. Something like a cross between a teddy and a rabbit, he has the chubbiest face, big ears, and big feet. To say that I adore him would be an understatement. He is like my brother.

He has been beside me, quite literally for almost all moments of my life. He has held my hand with his fat paws when I was in school and my academics were not very pleasant. He has been patiently waiting when I left for the US, and then came back again to take him with me. He has stayed up at night when I was sick. Now, he is there when Arnab goes on business trips. He also keeps me company if I have to work till late night anytime.

Those fat paws and big ears give me a sense of assurance that Floppy is there with me through all good and bad days.

The Privileged Ones

It was just a normal day for me today. Getting up in the morning, breakfast, work, meetings, pizza lunch, little shopping, coming back home, dinner, and now lounging before going to bed. There was one good part about today, I had my yearly merit increase/bonus pay meeting with my manager, and like all the other years, I am very happy about it. On this Women's Day, I choose to be grateful because even though this was just a normal day for me, this still shows how privileged I am. This day without any extraordinary events is still a great deal fantastic to many, many, girls around this world.

Why?

When I woke up, I was given coffee by Arnab (not for Women's Day, he does it always). Even to this day, Indian women are told to serve tea to everyone in their in-laws house. I don't do that at my in-laws house either. I get served breakfast like every other person in the house, my sister-in-law takes care of that.
I had bacon for breakfast. Yes I was born in a Hindu household, but no one has ever put any restrictions on what I eat because of any religious reasons. I can eat what I want as long as it is not bad for my health.
I go to work, and I love it. I have been brought up to realize that I am good at studies and I should have a stable profession. I was pushed hard to complete my higher education and I am happy that I kept my parents wishes. They "wished" it only because they knew my potential and limitations. They didn't really tell me I can be whatever I want to. When I wanted to be a scientist, my father pointed out the problems, but he also explained how Computer Science would be a better profession for me. Fortunately, it has been so far. As USA is still struggling with a very minor percentage of girls in STEM majors, I am thankful about how my sister and I were brought up, and so were many of my girl friends back home.
At meetings I don't have to struggle to make my voice heard. I work in a team with very few women (if there are very few girls in STEM majors, software engineers won't pop out from deep space) but our ideas are given importance, our voices are heard, and we feel comfortable to "sit at the table" as Sheryl Sandberg says. I am encouraged to use the whiteboard and think aloud. I collaborate with my peers and love sharing ideas.
I have guy friends and I love them! No, Arnab doesn't have set rules for me about who can be my friends. Unlike many irritating men whose bloated male egos get hurt when their wives have male friends, I am fortunate enough to have a man who doesn't care about which gender my friends fall in to. He laughs when he hears our funny antics as I tell him what jokes we said at lunch time, or some hilarious compilation of out of context statements that is a signature thing in my friends group.
I don't have to ask for Arnab's permission to go shopping, but I love to go out with him. Actually I don't even buy my own clothes without him. Many women dread to tell their husbands that they bought something either because they overspend, or because their husbands control how much they should spend. Having a relationship where you are hiding an expense from your spouse can't be a healthy one. I don't fall into that category.
Dinner can't be enjoyed well if you don't eat together. We cook together, prep food together, and eat together. It is our own little family ritual. Today Arnab prepped dinner. I did the cleanup afterwards. A marriage is a team work, and we choose to follow that. I don't have to toil with cooking everyday because my husband would only eat fresh cooked food. My in-laws don't instruct me on what to cook for my husband. He is a grown up man, if he wants something that bad, he can cook that himself.
Lounging before bed. That is my me-time and nobody bothers me for that.
That is when I can sit, unwind, and retrospect on my day, and on my life. Even though I say that I am fortunate, I think there are certain things that I actually chose for myself. Yes, I was fortunate that my parents brought me up like this, but choosing a life parter has been a deliberate decision on my part. I could have been unwise, but I didn't. I gave this a lot of thought, as much was possible by my 24 year old brain, and I chose the right person. I was empowered to do that, for sure. I didn't have an arranged marriage, so I had to do all the thinking. Choosing my job is also a deliberate effort. I could choose to stay at home. I could choose to step back and not be so involved at work. There was no reason to step up to be the President of our Toastmaster club. But I did those. I did those to enhance my life. I did those to prove to myself and to many many generations of girls after me that a woman's life doesn't revolve only round her family. A woman has all the power to make her own world as charming as she wants to.
When my manager congratulated me today on one more "solid year" and discussed with me what technical details to put in my goals for the coming year, he was not encouraging only one employee, he was encouraging a woman to pursue her dreams and love it! The merit increase I got is not to make me feel smug, it is an honor to receive it for something I love doing. It isn't just for me either, it is for those men and women who paved the way before us, who showed us, time and again that a woman's place is not just in the home, it is in the whole wide world. 

For the lifelong love of learning...

... how to cook.

There is a Bengali story by Syed Mujtaba Ali, where one of the characters mention that if you are not interested in trying food from a different country, then you are not open to learn about a new culture/religion. It is true that your home food would always be your go-to comfort food, but the more you open yourself to world cuisine, not only would your tastebuds thank you, but your horizon would increase.

Even though I have started cooking French food, and a little bit East Asian
food, major cuisine areas like Mexican or Italian were still only limited to restaurant eating. Blue Apron has changed that for me (and Arnab, naturally).

I knew of Blue Apron for a few months before I decided to give them a try. We take fish, chicken, and vegetarian food from them and for the last month it feels like in our kitchen, we have traveled the entire world! I had no idea that pasta can taste so amazing, nor than African peanut sauce is a heavenly thing. I did not know that it would be possible to eat Thai food for lunch and Italian food for dinner the same day! We have reduced eating out by a lot, and the best part is that no food is wasted.


They send us the ingredients, carefully portioned out. So if I need a tablespoon of sake, I won't have to buy one full bottle. Similarly, if I had to find that myself, I wouldn't even know where to get the African spice blend. I did not know what a Meyer lemon is, or what kind of fish is Barramundi! But now, thanks to Blue Apron, I have cooked them and ate them. There is another great thing that happened. We are happily eating salads and our vegetable intake has increased a lot! I used to hate romaine lettuce, but with the unusual salad dressings I am making, even romaine is tasting great! I think the main thing is so much variety, it is not letting us get bored.

When the output is great, naturally the interest level also soar. Especially because I love cooking. A kitchen with beautiful prep bowls, a recipe holder, and wooden spoons have been my dream from a long time. It gives me good vibes, if that is a way to explain it. There is a great joy in cooking, making food from scratch, and then looking at the finished product with pride. And when that is food that I have not even seen or heard of before, like say, cannelloni pasta, then it is even better!

Blue Apron is named so because chefs wear blue aprons when they learn to cook. I bought this apron from the site so that it reminds me every time I cook, that I am always learning something new, and to keep my mind open, to stay humble, and to learn from my mistakes.

Let the girls grow free

Indian parents have different parenting style for boys and girls. As they rightly mention in the 2016 movie Pink, girls have peculiar standards to adhere to, where the length of their skirt, or the time they come home defines their character. So does having guy friends, or free mixing. Recently, I read a news article about a college in India which has made me wonder how we are trying to bring up our girls.

Indian colleges have come to news many times for following stereotypical gender roles. At IIT Kharagpur, one of my friends was told to not go out wearing shorts. Boys were not allowed to come even to the reception area of girls' hostels. In our college, we have never been able to go to the boys' mess, even for working on projects together. That is why, I didn't get a chance to work on our load runner and step climber robots as they were being built at the boys' mess. These are still lower on the rank of weirdness. One of my friends from a different part of India said that in the college shuttle, boys and girls were kept segregated. In the recent news I found that even in college canteens (cafeterias) boys and girls are told to sit apart. No touching, hugging your classmates are allowed and basically any kind of interaction between the two genders is being discouraged.

This is not normal.

In the human world, one has to invariably come in contact with people, and in most cases they would not belong to your gender. People need to be taught to mix freely with everyone so that "the other gender" is not looked as an alien being, and interaction with them becomes normal. As I changed from an all girls' school to a co-ed school around my teenage years, I saw this difference very well. Those girls who grew up with boys had no inhibition talking about periods or other girl topics with the boys. The boys also were a lot more understanding and now I find the majority of them to be much more accommodative and supportive of their spouses. That is because they have been exposed to girls as their playmates, classmates, friends, from a very early age.

In our society, when a girl is in her late-teens or early twenties, she is considered "good" if she does not have a boyfriend. Having a boyfriend still indicates she is too modernized. Having multiple boyfriends means she had questionable character. Parents still feel proud to say, "my daughter is pretty shy around boys." I feel that is a problem they should try to fix rather than being proud about it. If your daughter is shy around half the world population, that is a very serious concern. How would she interact with her colleagues later? Or her future male manager?

I don't understand how girls and boys who have led segregated lives manage to work on their marriages. Again, having an arranged marriage means you are an obedient child, where you have put full trust in your parents. I have a coworker, who very proudly said that he didn't even see his wife before the day of his engagement. Another girl saw her future husband at the airport on the day of her engagement. I asked her if she would be able to back out of the match had she disliked that guy. She said no, because she was utterly terrified of disobeying her father. These people get married, have kids, and mostly stay married forever because the girls know they have to compromise. Gender roles are strictly observed, and these days the girls do both household work and outside work.

Parents need to understand that controlling your kids lives by archaic rules are actually devastating. You are not letting them grow properly. If a girl always have to worry about what the society would say, then she is wasting her energy in trying to fit in, rather than trying to be herself. Mixing with boys is a necessary thing, and the earlier the exposure happens, the better. Let them know that boys don't come from Mars, they are just regular human beings with emotions. I have seen many cases where boys behave in utterly funny ways - from my friends in junior high, to my friends at work. They still don't know the right way to load a dishwasher, the toilet seat stays up, tables are wiped wrong, and they laugh at our sense of fashion. But that is the fun part of sharing this world with them. They are intermingled in our lives as fathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, friends, neighbors, teammates, or colleagues. The more we mingle with them normally, the more they would also learn about us, our feelings and our emotions. That way we would be able to create an interdependence where both genders can be empowered.

My "first born"

On Valentine's Day as people are celebrating their love in innumerable ways starting from fancy dinners, romantic getaways, or simply red roses and chocolates, I also want to celebrate my love that needs no language, no words of love, and not even the commonalities of a species. It is the special bond I have with my "first born".

With Mota in early 2010

Lightning, or as we call him, Mota is our first pet. Even though May is the eldest one, Mota is our first born as we adopted him first. A big boy, weighing around 14 lbs at almost three years of age, he was still quite shy. But it didn't take him much long to become a mama's boy. Within weeks he was snuggling with me, and I still remember the day when he first put his head on my lap and slept.

Over the last seven years he moved with us from our apartment to this house, has adapted to sharing his home and parents with his two sisters and has grown into a handsome orange and white cat. Whoever sees him, the first thing they say is "wow, he's handsome!" A social eater, he has the personality of a gentleman. He just retires upstairs if there are guests, if he comes downstairs then he watches people for a while before greeting them with a friendly head bump.

With me, he has a special bond. He just loves me beyond words. The gentle purring and kneading on my belly shows that he considers me his mom (cat-mom actually). Every night he would come to me, sniff my nose and then curl up with his head on my tummy. I never knew that this bond is so deep until last week when he suddenly fell sick. What at first seemed to be UTI was actually a case of urinary tract blockage because of tiny stones, like sand, in his kidneys. Even though it is very common in male cats his age, and is completely curable, to see him suffer and meow loudly terrified Arnab and me. On the car ride from his local vet's clinic to the pet hospital, I just kept my hand on his back to make sure he was breathing. The pain, as the vet told us was excruciating, but as the pain killer kicked in, his breathing became a little easy. They admitted him to the hospital within minutes of us bringing him there and the doctors immediately started doing the tests. For the next three days all we could think was of him.

Snuggles help him recover fast

This was the first time in our lives with Mota not at home. Even though he is calm and doesn't run around all day, the house felt different without his gentle presence. I am notorious for being a heavy sleeper, and up till last week, neither sickness, nor heartbreak, not even exam results have been known to disrupt my sleep, but with Mota at the hospital, I kept waking up every few hours and Arnab and I took turns to call the hospital to enquire about him even at night or early morning hours.

We are lucky to have workplaces that let us take days off because he was in the hospital. On last Friday, we were ready to bring him home. When we got him back, he was lethargic to say the least. He had a cone on to prevent him from licking his belly, and that made him wobbly. He would just plop down next to me and sleep. If I got up, he would awaken immediately. And then I saw he was actually holding my PJs while sleeping. That's when I thought that the whole biological relationship thing is so overrated. There is just one thing called love, and that doesn't care about what you say, what gifts you give, or what relationship you have with a being. True love has no expectations, it is that feeling which makes you feel good when the other person/being is just there with you. That is why for the whole of Saturday Mota didn't leave my side. He would lay his head on my lap and fall asleep.

Arnab and I spent two more sleep deprived nights as we had to wake up to feed him (he can't eat on his own with the cone on) and to give him medicines. We are also monitoring his water intake o that the same problem does not recur. It is tough. He is confined to the master bedroom now, also using the master bath, and our room is smelling like a cat shelter! We don't seem to mind, I guess that is what labor of love is all about.
To have a soul that loves me so deeply that he can feel completely safe when I am there elevates me to a position of being loved. It is a great feeling, especially because there is no expectation. To be loved by someone this deeply are those moments in life that makes me feel good to be a human being.

PS: The house is again feeling like home, as all five of us are here once more!