Lifestyle Journalist | Digital & Print
“Mein kab oor sakunga? Maa’lum nahin… Leiken kabhie na kabhie mein jaunga zaroor, apne desh ko. Apne Punjab ko.”
Translation:
“When shall I fly? I don’t know… But someday I’ll surely go, to my land, to my Punjab.”
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Said by the character Baldev Singh Chaudhury, played by actor Amrish Puri in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge
LXXI. Globetrotter Conditioning -
“Oh this suits her. It’s good for her. She likes to travel…” - Mom
My mom has been saying this a lot lately: on the phone, in person, and by text, with regards to my recent decision to pursue writing, print media, and in short, journalism.
Whenever she would say this I would become slightly upset.
I was partially upset about the already informed people who would not leave the matter of Reshmi’s-life-change alone without milking every last drop of detail.
I was also partially upset because I am not allowed to even ‘like traveling’.
I don’t have opportunities to travel. All I know is Queens and the east side of Manhattan, really.
I like the idea of traveling. I would like to act out said idea and make it become a reality.
If she was more technically correct, she would have said:
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“She loves the idea of traveling. When we would go out on our many walks she would peer into the metal grated barrier, on the overpass, not taking her eyes off the cars whizzing below on the highway that led to greater things, other places and people, and novelty.”
“When we would walk she would look into the sky, catch sight of a plane that was taking off or landing from JFK or La Guardia Airport, and would follow it with her eyes until it went out of sight. Hoping and praying that she too could travel.”
“When she came home from Penn during breaks she would tell us about her classmates and where they traveled to, as if the packing and ticket-acquiring processes were non-existent, so that they took off on a whim.”
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Yesterday I went on a walk with my mother. Becoming increasingly anxious as the new academic year will be arriving next week and I will not be attending any type of school, I had to vent my pent up energy.
With that, I began to wade through the murkiness that had occupied my mornings, afternoons, and nights by talking, rather than conversing.
I was telling my mom and myself of my master plans that did not include back-ups, but instead, alternate routes.
I was the Map Quest and Hop Stop for my own mobility, navigating my own life.
My mom listened, or so I think she did. I tend to talk endlessly on our walks so it is not always a given that the she will be following along to the very end.
At one point I tell her that if I could pursue this one thought of mine it could set me apart and provide me with invaluable experience. I then confessed that I felt extremely uncomfortable just thinking about this thought because it included me living in another country for a period of time. Furthermore while I could understand the language spoken in the country, I was not at all comfortable speaking it.
My parents, I think, are used to my brother and I conquering a lot, but by no means conquering everything.
As a result, I think my mother was conditioned when she told me this:
“Reshmi. I told you to keep up with the language! Speak to your father at home, you’ll be able to speak it!”
In all of my 22 years, Dad and I have never conversed not even a single full sentence in any language other than English.
About to pique into an argument, the topic was dropped.
The next day:
This week is the beginning of my weaning process before I completely stop going to the gym.
I never had the intention of going to the gym, everyday, for the past 3.5 months. However, I felt obliged to go since I was not busying myself with any other task.
Not going to the gym has proven exactly as I thought it would: I have gained quite a bit more time to myself than I would otherwise have had, what with getting ready to go to the gym, exercising, traveling to and from the gym, and then freshening up.
I still needed to be active during the day though. So, I have resorted to my characteristic long walks.
Today, the most pleasant of days this entire week, I knew I had to get out of the house and walk. To where?
Upon my mom’s suggestion to walk to the large Barnes & Noble located near the campus of a private university that is attended overwhelmingly by locals who commute, (my attempt at not disclosing location), I refused to go.
Upon reconsideration, however, I realized that the walk was far, but by no means was it out of the spectrum of reality. I had walked much farther distances than this one.
The Barnes & Noble is one that I had passed numerous times while on the bus, or in the car. I never had actually walked along that route.
Determined to go today, I realized that I was anxious.
This was anxiety that I was familiar with. It was the kind of anxiety that I felt when I was about to leave home for Penn and I wanted to cherish my surroundings as much as I could before heading off.
I smiled to myself and then just as quickly as the smile had appeared, it had disappeared.
I smiled because I did not have to leave for Penn ever again in the foreseeable future. I would go on the walk along a route that was etched in my mind from five years ago. I would be returning home after.
Don’t worry your mind, Reshmi.
My smile went away as soon as it came because I knew that for my professional life and in order to know that I would love to travel, I had to stop feeling anxious and take in everything around me when I could. I had to learn from my college life and embrace the new, non-NY surroundings.
If I ever wanted to be that globetrotter I had to move past the college experience, which was not really traveling anyway, and embrace the opportunity to go out on my own.
This walk was remarkable. I felt like a determined adult with a destination and it is (still) absolutely beautiful outside.
I look down at my Blackberry and see the background photo that reminds me of my desires to see new places and people, to travel - it is a picture of a vintage book filled with photos of Kashmir that my parents brought back with them in the late 80’s. Here is where the Jhelum River flows from within the Potohar Plateau, the origins of the Oberoi.
Kashmir: the first place I so wish to travel to.
Fulfilling summer reading lists and part-taking in library book clubs have been the tasks of the parents of grade school children since the efficacy of Flintstones Vitamins reaped only a 90 percent on that last spelling test.
When the school-year ends, naturally, students tend to veer away from the book case and head straight toward the fashion district to purchase a new and shiny pair of over-sized glasses frames, with or without prescription.
The parents feel Punk’d as their children, now armed with slightly stylish smart-wear, still do not venture out to the library.
I was beginning to feel like that parent.
I am unmarried and childless
Still, after college I searched for books via my New York City borough library database. I searched for contemporary historical-novels based in south and central Asia. I also searched for non-fiction war commentaries, bound in poetic prose.
I needed to read, lest academia escape from my pores.
However, now well into the fourth month of the summer vacation that breaks up the academic year, I don’t feel like a complete dummy.
No doubt, I can definitely read more often and continue to sharpen my brain with drill exercises. However, I feel in the know, without any drill exercises save for writing I suppose.
Truth is, I had discovered that I feel in the know… yesterday, August 24, 2012.
The past four years in college I did not watch any news streams nor did I bother to pick up a paper that wasn’t published on campus. Making the NY Times website my homepage was a death sentence; headlines would catch my eye and one click would entail a series of more clicks due to the ingenious lower-right hand pop-ups entitled more articles [that might be of interest to you]. I did not have time. I needed to read my single-spaced, size 10 font, course packs, online uploads, and paperbacks.
Now, however, now I am in the know.
I am effortlessly following the 2012 campaign from the sidelines and am cheering for Fareed Zakaria’s reinstatement while simultaneously shaking my head in disagreement for Lance Armstrong’s impeachment.
Though I will not be walking the stony paths of campus next week, I also will not never again experience back-to-school shopping. Well, that was one awkward sentence; two negatives in a sentence! But, I wanted to make a parallelism.
I am a dummy! Oh no!
What I mean to say is that despite those catchy Target back-to-school commercials not applying to myself this upcoming year, that is not to say that they won’t ever apply.
I will be going back to school in the near future.
Truth is, I cannot wait to continue my formal education again, in a lecture hall, on a campus, preferably in the vicinity of my beautiful NYC.
College was a bubble.
I used to think the aforementioned statement was derogatory. Here’s to self-improvement; must be less cynical.
Indeed, college was a bubble- an ever-expanding bubble that housed knowledge, awkward acquaintances that may or may not make for future Facebook friends, potential beginnings of bad credit scores disguised among two-hundred dollar books, and the opportunity to mature an outdated childhood dream.
Post-grad life is another bubble. Rather, (and this applies more universally), life outside of the school year, even if it is just summer vacation, is another bubble.
In this bubble, we are subjected to vulnerability. If we forget our cell phone at home, we are made vulnerable because a blue-light emergency pole is not located every several feet.
Furthermore, in this bubble, outside of school, wearing your new Michael Kors, Anthropologie, and Sperry ensemble is seen, more times than not, as impractical rather than fashionable. In other words, appeased pairs of eyes will be lacking.
So be it; it’s time for those peeps to answer the Dial-America calls and subscribe to Marie Claire.
In this same bubble, wearing those “2012” university sweatpants aren’t seen as chic. Regular viewers of What Not to Wear are scrutinizing you and analyzing the sweatpants as some unfashionable way of you trying to deny stress.
So be it; it’s time for those peeps to recognize that you are not an adolescent and that your are not an experienced adult, but a twenty-something-year-old, impatient, degree-holding citizen who wants to change the world for the better.
I feel like a polymath more than I had while surrounded by ivy for the past four years. I am no longer compartmentalized into Health & Society and Political Science.
I too can read literature and gain what you had Miss/Mr. English major.
I too can understand the excitement behind every new Apple product thanks to Time Magazine’s most recent issue on how cell phones are changing the world, OK Miss/Mr. Engineer!
I too can understand why Samsung owes Apple $1.05 billion in that patent court case, alright Miss/Mr. Pre-Law?
I am in the know and am trying my best to not get out of it.
… apparently never had an appointment made with Miss Manners.
The boons of social media are almost endless. This I am sure of.
However, there are times when individual members of the Facebook community, for example, (not celebrity or other public pages), part-take in certain no-no’s that include being obnoxious, seeking attention, and successfully being sought after.
We have all fallen prey to the above predicament, however, not all of us have become victims.
There is a fine line between being real and doing something for yourself, and being straight up revolting.
I know this post is risqué so I’ll use myself as the first example.
I have a Facebook.
This past year I was more anxious than the norm. I had applied to programs for next year and with a week left until the end of my college career and less than month away from graduation, I finally heard of an acceptance.
After hearing all the Whartonites who had bagged high-paying jobs and planned on moving to my home, New York City, (yes, I am possessive, and if you think only one borough is New York City, then you clearly need to brush up on your geography), I was elated at being accepted to my first choice.
Turns out I ended up declining the offer.
I’m on my way to fulfilling that childhood dream of becoming a polymath.
I apologize, but I have to use an emoticon here: :)
Regardless, after I found out of my acceptance, in Mark’s Cafe, Van Pelt Library, and called my mom, who relayed the message to my dad, I took the twenty minutes left before class to contemplate as to whether or not I should change my Facebook educational status.
I really did not want any praise. I just did not want the pressure of others’ expectations. I also didn’t want others to think I expected reactions to this new notification.
Forget that ish, yo. Here’s to my future. Let people think what they want.
And so I updated my school information. It was incredibly cathartic.
Seconds later came the likes and the comments, which is actually quite odd for me. I am not the social butterfly.
However, those people who did comment and liked my profile update, are people who I respect and who’s happiness for me, though not necessarily desired, was much appreciated - props.
1. There are times, however, when I feel that cute ambiguities along the lines of: “[Insert city] bound!” is unnecessary when we all know you’re going to Harvard or Stanford Med. You’re not being humble by doing this. Be direct and say, “Oxford bound!”- you deserve that, or at least some of you do.
Take another status along the lines of “Oh hey there D.C.!” that can be translated into, “I’m in my over-priced crib in the middle of the city and starting my incredibly competitive internship at the White House, ya hurd? I mean, I know you hurd cause I made you hurd, ya hurd?”
2. The entire student body knew you were trying out for a unnecessarily exclusive Acapella group or pledging some almost-illegal fraternity. We know that your fate will be decided within this upcoming week and then you suddenly drop a lone character, word, or emoticon along the lines of: “ - " // "wow” // “:)”
You then have one-million and one likes because, like I said, the entire student body knows of your business and therefore qualify as your FB friend.
You also have the usual annoying questions that are repeated no less than 5 times: “omg Did you make it? Did you get in?”
3. Strategically making your profile picture of you and someone who you want to be friends with.
Say you’re in, I don’t know, a performing arts team. You want to become closer to a rookie and conceal your inner moody and bossy personality that others have witnessed, because, well, you want to come off as the mentor, the Oprah.
As a result, you take a picture with the rookies’ boyfriend/girlfriend, who you hardly know, make it your profile picture, and BAM- you’re in with the freshmen.
Be proud homie!
4. I’m all for technical jargon and “laugh out loud” never fails to save me when I have nothing else to say. However, anyone who respects the English language should not part-take in the recently revived use of cliches: “YOLO” // “FOMO”.
Stop talking in cliches that are concealed in the form of acronyms, please and thank you.
5. If you’re my friend, please use discretion and do not tag me in a picture where I look as if I weigh 50 more pounds than I actually do.
Keeping it real is by saying, yes, I am de-tagging/removing the picture from my profile… because, who wants to advertise themselves as an ungraceful ugly duckling/deer caught in the flash of a forever-camera-carrying person?
6. You should always advertise your blog posts, recent excursions, pictures of experiences that have been meaningful to you. Documentation in this era, though hardly in the form of letters and diaries, is warranted and necessary. We’re all human.
However, if a picture you are particularly proud of did not garner quite the usual 100 likes for whatever reason, have some integrity and leave it up there. You took the time to decide to use your social media platform as a way to share something you thought worthy, so who cares if no one responds this time around? They’re missing out.
7. When someone analyzes why you or someone else had liked or commented on a link to a Facebook friend who you may/may not talk to.
The whole point of social media is to share information and ideally, amalgamate ideas and create a discussion.
I love the idea of commenting on an interesting article that an acquaintance from high school, who I haven’t spoken to in almost five years, posted. I love being able to see new perspectives.
In the same vein…
8. If tragedy or some other event that is being covered by news outlets, occurs, please take the time to consider how your point of view on the situation will affect others.
If you are unlike me and have 1,500 Facebook friends, do not make false claims.
People will see this on their newsfeed and probably like your status because you’re you.
I read it and I gag because we’re from a similar background, let’s say, culturally. How can you be so brazen as to generalize a completely false claim for an entire people? You’re only succeeding in spreading the ignorance.
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This is getting lengthy and there will inevitably be disagreements concerning my enumerated list.
I feel like the more social media is becoming dominant, and the more I grow to appreciate it, the more I need to gather what I don’t like about it, in an orderly manner, and remember to not be so quick to be let down and boycott.
Yay for being organized and staying positive -
I think many of you have already deduced that I am, for lack of better words, old-fashioned.
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Every single person who ingests alcohol for perks, or in one verb, drinks, strikes me as incomprehensible.
Let’s put it this way: I went out to one of the three CVS pharmacies on my college campus one day, only to be met with rallies of rowdy people, makeshift security guards in the form of empty police cars, way-too-exposed and flab-protruding clothing, and semi-circular groups chanting “chug, chug, chug!”.
Unfortunately I looked in the direction of the cadence-like chanting, surprised at there being any sort of uniformity in a place where there are sometimes unhealthy desires to be unique. At the exact time that I had succeeded in cocking my neck so that my line of vision included the chanting group, someone in the middle started vomiting on the sidewalk.
It was St. Patrick’s Day.
I stayed in my dorm the rest of the day. It was noon when I decided to no longer venture outside.
I ended up selling my ticket to the on-campus concert I was supposed to go to that day.
I wanted to escape my college campus, where it seemed humanity was merely a concept to be mentioned in recitation for participation points.
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I hope that narrative has given you more insight into, well, me.
On to chivalry.
I feel that women are equal to men and just as strong, (if not stronger because of the whole pushing a child out of us, not to mention the monthly reminders of our ability to push a child out, as well as having to endure walking down the street and being bothered, even while wearing the baggiest of clothing).
However, I like the idea of being protected by male relatives.
I like the idea of having a husband in the future who would be willing to fight for me, not that I would want him to get into a fight, but I digress.
Despite what seemed to be the entire college student body being in contrast with the way I like to live my life, I happened to find chivalry at Penn as well.
For the first time I was subject to chivalrous acts by males not related to me. They actually exist?
From opening doors, to asking to help carry odds and ends, to giving up their seat and yes, let us not forget giving up that outlet in the library during finals time, I was surprised at the chivalry.
Until now, I thought only my father had possessed it.
Especially in family, I think there is way to treat a women. Her honor should be protected.
Cue in the remarks on how archaic this sounded… now.
I could care less about the remarks.
My dad always told me that, “girls should always smile and be happy.”
She should laugh.
She is not frail, but rather she is delicate and dainty.
She should dress well.
She should be a free spirit.
I can only speak for what I know to be true, and in Indian culture, females are depicted, and more times than not, act, in the manner described above.
I wish this would ring true. I wish… but after my crying, frowning, or scowling that had caused my dad to say the above in the first place, I would shake my head.
Unfortunately dad, this giddy nature is not the case in the here and now. I’m stressed. We’re all stressed. Life is not carefree and I worry about my career. I worry about the future.
That shouldn’t be though.
I want to be like, what apparently is my doppleganger, Nargis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcT4UHsjq7c&feature=relmfu
Though the odds of me prancing around a field is unlikely, being treated as though I have all the right in the world to, and furthermore, should prance around in an open maiidaan, (field), makes me immensely happy.
And that is why I will never forget this one dude who would always smile, greet, and open the door for me and every other girl, all of freshman year. This was not a crush by any means. Still, I’ll never forget how this guy was one of the only positive-anything during that dark first year of college.
We females should be treated with a certain kind of respect, reserved for us.
I know this statement comes off as ego-centric. In all honesty, I don’t know how to articulate what I mean beyond what I have said thus far.
I’ll just provide this anecdote then: There is a reason why the female population, according to Sikh philosophy, are referred to as Kaur, which translates to ‘princess’.
If you know where I can find it, please let me know.
I’m reaching that age where I cannot expect, even with parental/unconditional love-inspired blackmail, to ask someone to iron my shirt while I check my e-mail.
You know what I am talking about fellow peeps of South Asian descent.
I am talking about that age; don’t make me say the phrase with the four-syllable adjective preceding “age.”
My family never downplayed women as inferior or anything of that sort. However, women traditionally have taken on certain tasks and have not been coerced into doing so. I suppose this is where one can make distinct “sex” from “gender” and also make apparent how and why these two nouns often are used interchangeably.
(*Extraneous note: To those who state that we should not celebrate Raksha Bandhan because it somehow weakens the female, remember to not lose your culture and make ridiculous excuses for it.)
I have always made academia a priority.
From the Talented and Gifted program in first grade, to the Junior Fellows Program in middle school, to having to gain admittance into an elite high school, and at long last, attaining the Ivy League degree, I completely exploited my parents’ emphasis on education, with high honors, so to speak.
After graduation, taking this summer off was not a given by any means and it took a lot for me to finally say, yes, it’s time for you to adjust back into home-life, it’s time for you to clear your head and recover from that Urdu final that made your first instinct to read from right to left, and it’s time for you to, well, not indulge in studying.
So I thought I should start learning how to cook.
I should start helping out around the house and not let my parents do all the cleaning and cooking.
(No way I’m doing laundry as long as the washer and dryer are located where they are. I’m not scared, I’m just scarred from when I went to get my bike twelve years ago and found a spider on my shoulder in the process.)
I thought, but I did not do.
I have not cooked a meal, nor have I really entertained the thought of cleaning more than my room. The dorm cleaning experience was far from pretty and was an infinite times more burdensome than cleaning somewhere as pure as my home.
To no avail though, I still have not taken to domestic duties as I had challenged myself to do back in May.
Whenever my parents start to bring up the context of my age, our culture, and the home, I immediately chirp in, out of habit and instinct, that I needed to focus on my career - ya hurd?
My dad quickly said, “Of course! That is most important.”
Then there was a pause, and I felt bad and realized that I was not currently in the midst of paperwork.
I did not have any pending exam or paper and that if there was ever a time to begin to enter the domestic world, pre-marriage, it is now.
Domesticity gives an odd sense of leadership because you become depended on.
Right now I depend on my mother, and my father, but I’m speaking with respect to female gender roles.
I’m hoping the women in my family have passed on an intrinsic trait to me that will emerge in the future - the trait to cook well and clean with ease and to make a house a home.
I hope this trait balances with my own trait of attaining a successful and rewarding career.
Here’s to creating a legacy and to being an independent apprentice - apprentice to cookbooks and to the observations I make.
LXVI A. Richmond Hill, NY Gurudwara c. 1997
#Mistakenidentity
- Calm & Collected -
It is necessary to distinguish between, and emphasize the difference between, Sikhism and the faith that it is being mistaken for.
The Sikh Coalition Board Chairman, Narinder Singh, said:
“I grew up here in the United States. I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and I remember from the first Iran hostage situation to the first war in Iraq, to of course 9/11, and in each case we became a symbol of the other…. and it’s not about mistaken identity, this shouldn’t happen to anybody.”
This is mistaken identity. Like you said, we are “the other” in the United States. But why? Who is an American? What does he/she have to look like?
Furthermore, the Iran hostage situation, Iraq War, and 9/11 all have one thing in common. The “enemy”, or the other, were all predominantly of the same faith who we are being mistaken for.
—-
Outrage is all I feel in response to the shooting at a Wisconsin Gurudwara that occurred yesterday.
Yes, this was an act taken against humanity.
However, it cannot be denied that Sikhs were targeted.
We were targeted and this was a hate-crime.
It feels like the week after September 11, 2001 all over again.
I watched on as the first Gurudwara in North America, the place where I and many other people my age, had grown up and learned about our heritage in the library on the second floor that had a computer that could type in both English and Punjabi, was burned to the ground.
Although that fire was attributed to a gas leak, occurring only weeks after 9/11, we all had our doubts.
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I remember during a festival and everyone was on the block outside, conversing and such, when a non-Indian couple had made derogatory comments, annoyed that so many people were outside.
I could not have been more than 9 years old, but I heard what they had said and all I could do was to stare them down.
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As Sikhs we tolerate other religions and as a contributing writer to The Huffington Post had said, “We are not a god-fearing people, but a god-loving people.”
We celebrate, not mourn, we meditate, not preach, and our philosophies are timeless, not archaic.
We don’t retaliate. We cannot retaliate. We’re all human.
Still, we need to be proactive.
Sikhs were the first immigrants from India to arrive in America. We were known as “Hindus” at the time. Yet, we’re still treated horrifically, even after one-hundred thirty years.
In 2010 I went to India. My family has a fresh memory of being displaced from our home in present-day Pakistan, as do many other families. As a result, I wanted to attend the symbolic flag-hoisting ceremony in Amritsar, on the border with Pakistan, so that I can fully part-take in my patriotism of Hindustan, or India.
While there, all the Indians, millions you could say, were rallied into bleachers. Non-resident Indians as well as other non-Indian passport holders could have also sat at the front. However, I’m glad to have sat amongst the masses and be a part of the country I will forever be a part of regardless.
Suddenly foreigners, in tank tops and rugged looking-hiker clothes were at the front and were dancing.
Suffice it to say, I was infuriated. This is not some sort of exoticism; this is a country, a culture, a history, a norm.
My dad, always calm, was explaining how Indians are extra-hospitable to guests of the country.
Well, I say stop it.
This is not just one individual’s act, mom and dad. This is one of many acts. Many individuals make a group.
Education is the key to change but if people do not want to learn, they won’t.
So, let us make them understand.
Perhaps, temporarily, it should be more difficult for those of non-Indian descent to obtain Visas.
I am incredibly content to hear that the Sikhs of India are protesting as well.
Let us make the ignorant hear.
We have to force-feed them knowledge.
If you want to appreciate the culture, then learn about it and not make a mockery of it by dancing at a historical event so that you can attract attention.
It’s time to make you understand -
When the schedule of your day does not go as planned, it throws off your jive. Spontaneity wreaks havoc and laziness prevails.
Still, today has churned out oddly beautiful moments solely for myself.
You walk down the street, look around, and then either clean your nose on your sleeve if you are without tissue or do some other human action of necessity that is scrutinized by society; we’ve all been in this situation.
We think no one is around and after our basic human act has been committed, just then, out of the corner of our eye, we see someone staring at us from their window, or from the rear view mirror of a parked car.
Our heart beat quickens. What a violation of privacy!
We’re out in the public so our internal exclamation is null and void. How could we miss him/her?
We all have walked down the street and have remembered something funny we had heard and then laugh. Or, alternatively, we have focused on a rather disappointing memory that had caused us to cry or perhaps curse under our breath.
Again, the same scenario occurs. We notice that someone is either sitting in a parked car or in their living room and had a front row seat viewing of our private production.
What a violation!
Today I was that perpetrator.
In the midst of making a binder documenting my college era, I went to find a plastic sleeve for the 7 photos I had printed this morning, about 3 months after they were taken.
Instead, I found something else.
I found history. I found profound depth; especially in mostly khol-lined eyes.
I found that I was sitting down by myself and I was staring at pieces of what I can call my own.
I found my own dreams- I want to go to here!
And now I know why I have always wanted to go.
I know, I know!
I love that I stumbled upon what I did.
When you feel like you have discovered something, it feels immensely gratifying.
To think that I thought discovery was only in adjunct with a Nobel Prize and therefore almost an impossibility.
Here’s to being proven wrong, (*as long as it’s by myself) -
Do you know what I absolutely cannot stand? Before the people who know me quickly respond with, “everything”, that is not my answer.
In fact, I think I am going to surprise you with my answer.
I really cannot stand the recent morbidity redolent in public service announcements. I’m all for presenting reality and suppressing censorship as much as is possible before crossing the line that provokes inhumanity.
However, I just want happiness to permeate every second of everyday in everyone’s life.
We know that there are problems. We realize that heart ache exists, failure sometimes occurs, and frustration can creep up at any time, like when I brought home a fresh bunch of sweet red strawberries that fell on the floor as soon I opened my front door and the first thing I did was take out my anger on my dad. Sorry, but your pep talk was necessary.
We’re human and having a sounding board and a caring soul to console you, even if it is about the recent loss of amazing strawberries, is more than welcoming.
We just want to be happy; not much to ask.
At home, the television has been on more than ever these past couple of days. My family religiously watches the Olympics, chants U-S-A, and now discusses how my brother and I should have kept up with swimming after ten years of practices. All is forgiven though and I vow to put my children in fencing and tennis in the future.
These moments encompass a little bit of happiness.
Then the AT&T commercial on texting while driving comes on.
We’re human. We have hearts and we become overwhelmed when anything happens to a fellow human sharing our planet. We cannot imagine having something like this happen to someone we hold close - sadness.
I’m glad that 30-second commercial is over.
Suddenly the NY Presbyterian hospital commercials come on. Tales untold of patients’ lives once in jeopardy before medical practice intervened and saved, stirs the soul. I see their tears and can’t help but feel my tear ducts mimicking them.
Our hearts go out to them. In the process though, our minds contemplate what we just heard and saw.
Those commercials did the job.
We, the people, took notice.
We have heeded, yes we have heard and we’re sad.
We’re trying to process why such stories have to be told, why such adversity ever had to occur, and how we can help deter sadness from ever occurring again.
I know sadness exists. Maybe I am being naive, but…
… humor me! I want to immerse myself in happiness.
Exhibit A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB3oEHzakOw
Tell me we are met with adversity, but reflect the normalcy of it and the happiness that can, without a doubt, be found afterwards.
I mean, technically you don’t have to tell me.
I already know happiness is attainable.
I’m just saying to exploit every possible opportunity to be happy, even if that means dreaming that you will find the perfect guy who will catch you by the wrist, bring you towards him, and break out in a Hindi song.
For some unknown reason my right fore-arm developed a rash. There was nothing particularly ugly or even obviously rash-like. All I knew and still know is that it itches, sometimes more than other times. I am pretty sure the recent heat waves and my walks in the sun have caused a heat rash on my otherwise dominant and fearless right arm.
A few weeks ago, during the beginning stage of the rash, the itch was persistent. In order to prevent more irritation and allow for some healing-time I took off my kara. A kara is worn on the dominant-hand of Sikhs.
Before wearing this particular kara, the one that my dad had brought back for me from India during high school, and made of a different material than the ones I had previously owned, I never wore any kara on a consistent basis.
The other karas I had owned before then were made of a material that caused my arm to swell up. As if to challenge myself, I would randomly put one of the many karas I owned, only to be caught and yelled at later.
When you think about it, self-inflicted allergic reactions deserve a good yelling.
Anyway, back to taking off my kara a few days ago.
For the first time I can honestly say that I felt something missing. I felt my kara missing, mostly because it represented for me, strength, a certain fearlessness, and the fact that I am a Sikh.
If you were to see me on the street, you would have never known it. There is nothing which identifies me as a Sikh besides my kara.
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Taken from Post XXXIII (thirty posts prior):
“Aware of his presence, I looked at my kara, remembered that I was a Sikh kudi - Punjabi for “dudette”- and the dude had nothing on me, and so I looked up and flashed a threatening look right into his eyes as his hand hovered over my untouched Skinny Vanilla Latte.
He backed away and looked scared. Succ-ess -”
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It is not that I want to be recognized as a Sikh by one of my fellow New Yorkers.
It is just that I do not want to be in a position where, by habit, I look upon my right wrist only to not find what I am looking for.
As I re-read what I just wrote I know this is all super abstract.
Truth is, I never feel really at ease writing about what Sikhism is in relation to myself.
I am not learned on every aspect of my religion - I don’t know all the texts or the writing system in which Sikh scripture is written, gurmukhi.
All I know is what I know.
Product of a mixed marriage, my parents always claimed that the religion we chose to affiliate ourselves with was up to us.
However, I came to learn that a conversation between my parents, prior to the birth of my brother and I, was concluded with, “Yes, we will raise them as Sikhs.”
We all went to gurudwara every Sunday for several years. It was a place of meditation and safe haven for my family and I, more than anything else I think.
Only later did I really parse out what the gurudwara meant to me.
And only after this academic year did I realize that other religions did not have a place of worship where the female worshipers could go, and then I felt a smile spread across my otherwise worried face. I think my professor took notice. I could not help it though. I felt so happy to know that gurudwaras, concentrated in a nearby geographic region to the one my professor was talking about, had men and women sitting together, albeit on their own sides of the same room, listening, contemplating, and taking part in the complex and ambiguous act of praying.
There are times when I think that I subconsciously try and link the non-tangible aspects of religion to the tangible going-ons of my life.
So I ignored the whole sentiment I that I had felt, about something missing, until this past weekend when this feeling again emerged, spontaneously.
This past weekend I was trying to play volleyball. I was playing very badly but if you were in my circumstances, the female kind, you wouldn’t be so quick to call me out.
In order to correctly volley the ball, with the lower forearms outstretched, facing upwards and met at the wrist, (as I was taught to do by my great NYC physical education classes), I had to take off my kara and put it in one of the pockets of my denim shorts.
After the sorry attempt at a match, mostly due to the uncivilized lack of character of one, I literally felt unlike myself. Who do you think you are?
About to look at my kara, as if to say, “Look! I am Reshmi, hear me roar”, it was not there. I quickly dug into my pocket, extracted the kara and placed it back onto my right wrist.
I was so enmeshed in the game and took off my kara without a care.
As if a scene change in a play, the game ended and the first thought that had occured to me was to put my kara on.
What drove me to write about this?
I think most of us feel uneasy about speaking about religion. It does not make us who we are, but it sort of does at the same time.
We practice religion on our own, but we don’t want to be compared to others. We don’t want to be quizzed. We admit to not knowing even half of all that our religions represent, but we know what it means to us. We do not want be criticized for maligning anything. “Why so serious?”, we want to ask.
Just let us all be. Let us be, we want to say.
Two days ago I wanted to explore the new Punjabi channel that my Satellite provider sometimes gives for free during a two-week period. Rehras Sahib, or the night-time prayer, was being broadcasted. The channel zapped on and I was face to face with the gurumukhi script and an accompanying English translation.
I knew a lot of the ideas already, but I was also presented with some I did not know.
There I was, face-to-face with religious text originating hundreds of years before, projected on a T.V. screen, in the comfort of an air-conditioned bedroom. The minutes kept passing and I just stood there.
Just let met be -
These clouds are teasing me.
Does that sound silly? I think it does.
I am sitting on the floor of my living room - the light is not on but the blinds are open and it is mid, almost late afternoon.
The temperature has dropped about twenty or more degrees since two days ago and so the air conditioner is not on. The house feels comfortable and when I look out the window, the tree branches are swaying with the breeze, only serving to tease me more.
What am I being teased about?
The season is what I am being teased about. I am being teased for it being the end of July instead of the end of August.
The time, the here and now, are being manipulated to then and there, to that which I am waiting for, impatiently might I add, hence the feeling of being teased.
The coolness in the house has resulted due to the breaking of the clouds’ once stubborn stance to not release any precipitation.
It feels like it is 4 O'clock on a weekday, five years ago, and I have just stepped off the city bus, walking home in the comfort of early evening darkness, reminiscent of holiday-time.
I hear the television in background to the clinging of utensils and pots in the kitchen which are at the forefront of what I hear because the kitchen is closer to my bedroom.
I smell daal cooking and…
Am I getting old? Obviously I am but, after that flashback I literally just felt my eyes beckon the four p.m. darkness of late fall and early winter.
My eyelids had closed.
I had laid down only to wake up one hour later.
I never nap during the day. Yet, that sleep felt so warranted. That one hour of sleep was so cozy and I have to say that I am slightly disappointed that it if I were to walk out of my house I would be face-to-face with an over-achiever: 96% humidity.
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The Next Day -
It is absolutely beautiful outside.
I feel energized, though this is the first day since Monday that I have not worked out.
I feel energized and fresh, without the gym’s artificial air that is sweat-saturated clinging to the edges of my pores.
I feel energized because instead of eating two cooked plantains for dinner, I ate more than a serving size of vegetable Lo Mein at the incredible local Chinese food take-out place that is three blocks away from my house.
I feel like Reshmi, with one thing missing - the schedule for the upcoming Fall.
I looked at my bulletin board: There was a magazine cut-out of delicious-looking coffee and a two magazine page feature story taken from the University of Pennsylvania’s publication, The Gazette. This story was written by an undergraduate detailing the particular study life and study culture of the Penn student body: competitive, sleep-deprived, wired on Saxbys’ or alternatively Mark’s Cafe’s sorry excuse for coffee, and situated in some type of over-the-top technologically superior cubicle of Wharton or the liberal arts rooms with just the right amount of serious intellectual gloominess - no lighting and frigid temperatures.
I am going to miss that culture of mass studying - from the flash mob in Rosen Garden Reserve, to the long lines at Mark’s Cafe, to the dirty looks given by incoming students in search of a desk, to the hippies that just need an outlet and some floor space, to the nice dude who gave up his outlet so that I could finish a paper.
I’m going to miss this part of college- the part where I could expand my knowledge and think without being reprimanded by the close-minded T.A.’s.
I am going to miss the think-tank bubble that was the library.
Before college I had the ability to expand my knowledge as well and I think I miss that time more.
I miss what yesterday hath brought more…
… and I cannot wait for what decisions my inbox shall bring for this first post-grad season.
Maybe the world should stay in place so that it is no longer the treadmill under my feet, endlessly provoking my knees to buckle and my legs to give way underneath me.
I am sure that not all of us want to be global citizens; I have been unlucky enough to have met a few. A great deal of us, including myself, want to be that citizen of everywhere.
As we all grow older we realize the need to make, and inherently earn, money. Our needs become greater and our desires as well.
I think that needs and desires go hand-in-hand. Building a wardrobe brings with it the ability to be creative, confident, and noticed. A wardrobe is one foundational stone on the career path. Technology will keep you current. Skills for saving a file and burning a CD will become second-nature, another foundational stone on the career path. The career path can endlessly extend so long as you extend yourself.
I believe this to be true.
I want a job. I have never had one. I want to put money into the bank and not be not-so-quietly compared to cousins or family friends who have also recently graduated but have an income - thank you business majors.
I do not have a steady schedule. No one will hire someone for a month and a half. I do not know what my schedule will be come September because I am waiting on responses to places that I have applied to. I need to develop skills and learn from those who have established themselves in their respective disciplines, which is why I have applied to said places.
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Do not worry about getting paid Reshmi.
I’m not! I am so appreciative of the experience- you know that. I just feel like I should contribute-
RESHMI - stop. You will make money in the future. Just concentrate on your education. Everything will come in time.
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I’m sorry again Reshmi. I just started my own lab so we don’t have the funds to pay.
It’s more than ok. I never e-mailed you with intention of being paid. I just want the experience.
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Really?
I actually have just been directly compared to someone who has not graduated yet, is not a business major, has worked while attending a school that accepts so long as there are seats left in the classroom, and who lives at home.
I’m speechless. Did you forget that comparison refers to similarities? We have nothing in common. What the… I didn’t have a comeback in time- crap.
Mother, I know we are arguing, (yet again), but unfortunately I still believe you do not comprehend the life of someone who has fully immersed herself in academia.
You still do not understand that sacrifices will reap an infinite amount of opportunity and growth.
You still do not understand that even after all these years of application-writing, sleepless nights, and living on a diet according to a pyramid that should be endorsed by Starbucks if not for the possibility of being sued by the FDA, that I want something else.
I want something more.
Practicality may or may not have been disregarded, neglected, and maybe disowned. I do not know.
What I do know is this memory: I was about to go to college. Since my brother was already in college and had straight A’s, it made, (I’m sure), some sense to apply his way of life to myself.
You don’t have time for work-study. Just concentrate on your work.
That is what I did, as any good daughter would, heeding the words of her older brother.
Don’t worry about money. Use the card whenever you want. Do not buy the Used books to save money. I mean it Reshmi.
I bought the Used books when I could, as I would do any time, whether or not someone advises against doing so.
If I were a billionaire, I would still buy the used books, but I would probably take the opportunity and splurge on Tory Burch shoes and a Marc Jacobs handbag.
I would if I could and so this is what I do not understand:
The following excerpts are from the June 2012 issue of Vanity Fair.
“Antilla [name of the house], the recently erected 27-story, 400,000-square-foot Xanadu in Mumbai that Nita Ambani shares with her three children and Mukesh [her husband], 54, who is worth $22.3 billion…”
“Nita Ambani, a lovely 49-year-old brunette, measures her words carefully: ‘This is the first time I am talking about my home,’ she says exhaling. 'There have been exaggerated reports in the media about it, I must say.’”
Exaggerated? You’re blaming the media?
I don’t know if you realized this or not but…. your house has a name.
Houses do not have names and I am from the same culture so that is no excuse. Indians usually do not name their houses.
You know what has names?, hotels and mausoleums, like the Taj Mahal.
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Money makes the world go’ round?
I think yes.
Is that practical?
I think yes -
Inspired by the bright pastel nail colors that every fashionista seems to be sporting this summer, I decided to overcome the frustrating task of painting my fingernails.
(Painting toe nails isn’t frustrating because its minimum square footage enables nail polish to dry quickly. Furthermore, the toes do not function regularly as do the fingers, thereby reducing the chances of the polish chipping off and developing air bubbles or dents.)
During college, most of my peers’ lives seemed to be effortlessly perfect. Many, not all, of my college peers, laughed when I told them I had to do laundry. Furthermore, trips to CVS to buy a roll of paper towel was a foreign concept to them. When I spoke of the toils of cleaning my room, scoffs were audible and smirks were visible.
These essential life tasks were made equivalent to trivialities. However, everyone seemed to complete said tasks, albeit, without having to take the time to do so.
Time was a luxury for all of us at Penn.
Since time was such a treasure trove, the idea of painting my nails was out of the question. Settling into the lecture hall, my gaze would fall onto the manicured hands of members of the female student body. One day I asked one of my friends how she found time to paint her nails. Her response was, “I just do. It doesn’t take long.”
Still unwilling to take the time to paint my nails during the school year, I decided to paint my nails during my trips home. Under the impression that painting nails took no time at all I only saw disturbing results: Globs of polish would be on one nail and another glob would be on the carpeted floor. If I succeeded in the painting process, the polish would chip off within five minutes.
I became an entrepreneur and came up with my own formula for painting nails that has caused the polish to be smooth and in tact for over 24 hours’ time now. This formula is at odds with my friend attesting to the process being short.
Base Coat Application + Dry time+ One layer of polish (smoothly applied and with minimal overlaps in strokes) + Dry time (longer than the first) + Second application of polish + Dry time (Longer than the second) + Top Coat Application + Dry Time (longer than the first and second combined) = SUCCESS, albeit a long process.
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For the past couple of weeks I have been immersing myself in the realm of journalism - past and present.
Am I correct in thinking that experiences are a primary means of education?
In pursuit of some validation, I have been reading journalists’ memoirs and biographies and journalism students’ publications and multimedia presentations.
All this broadcasting viewing and biography reading seems to reap the same finding: All of these professional journalists have acquired experiences within the discipline before and after formal education.
These people have traveled, some domestically, some internationally. I don’t know how they can take off and explore, as if the now cliche stories that start out with, “I came here with five dollars in my pocket and a dream”, still hold weight.
Maybe they do, maybe they don’t.
If the nail situation taught me anything it is that throughout all the points of reference, all the research accumulated, the line of best fit is individual.
There is no formula.
You assess your points of reference and extrapolate from the pattern by superimposing the points onto the context of your life.
This is the process taken to successfully paint my fingernails and this is the process I plan on following from now until I decide to apply to graduate school.
This is what I like to call formulaic entrepreneurship.
I fully embrace my new adulthood.
That mid-life crisis that causes you to say, “Oh God, I’m 20!”, had made its way about a month after I turned 20 and ended a week after I had called my mom, embarrassed at myself for my uncensored confession: “I feel like I’m growing up…. I don’t know, I just feel different!”
I am ready to grow older, gracefully of course.
However, I do not take kindly to the recent “open-houses” that my parents have hosted in their attempt to sell our house and move on.
I do not like people coming into my home, scrutinizing it with their beady eyes.
I do not like these people oohing and aahing and then being so brazen as to bargain the price that, as it is, hardly reflects the value of the home I grew up in.
Moving would be awesome though.
Just a disclaimer; it is almost unheard of that children from Indian families do not return home after college. The Indian child goes from home, to college, to graduate school if they so choose, perhaps pursue an internship elsewhere, but he/she always returns home and lives with the family…until marriage when the new bride or groom officially lives in a new home and not some place that is a means, (that functions to prevent homelessness), to an end (to accept an amazing job offer).
Indeed, moving would be awesome. Fresh out of college, I am ready for a new place to go along with my new mindset.
As much as I love my room, I would love to separate my sleeping space from my work space since the combination of bed and desk in room, once the norm, now never fails to remind me of my dorm-life from the past four years.
Instead of having a desk next to my once-canopied bed, my new bedroom will have a bed obviously, an armoire for my clothing, and a vanity mirror. (Taking care of myself has been exponentially increased since my obsessing over getting-into-an-Ivy League days, hence the mirror.)
A separate workspace, or study, with one long conference desk in the middle of a protective circle of books that are lined up from floor to just short of the ceiling, will be for the four of us: My parents, my brother and I.
The reality of it all, is that I see that study as being my second room.
My brother is finishing off medical school outside of New York and is on call everyday. Therefore, the next time my brother will come home, much less for an extended period of time that would require him to make use of the study, is slim.
My parents’ work requires resources outside of the living space and so I highly doubt that they would use the study.
Oh hey there. That was another prospective buyer. They like the house, my home. Honestly, who wouldn’t? Why do I want to move again? Right, because it is time.
This is nostalgic trespassing - I should have made a “Do Not Enter” sign.
I hardly ever sit in my room anymore. Yet, whenever prospective buyers or investment-property seekers come bare-foot into my home, shoes taken off as per request, I take up residence in my room like an overly watchful TSA officer.
My room suits me to a tee. It really has matured along with me and has aged as well, to the ripe age of twenty-two.
It is time to move out and move on. As selfish as my desire to move may sound, it is really time for all four of us.
The realtor’s clients have walked around my house and there is less than a half-hour until the open-house is over, at which point my de-contamination mission begins: Opening windows, spraying Febreeze, and lighting scented candles.
My parents are not surprised at my antics but instead of annoyance, I sense their mutual desire to deny any type of foreign anything into our home.
This is nostalgic trespassing - I should have made a “Do Not Enter” sign.
“No hesitations” *clap, clap, clap* “No repeats” *clap, clap, clap* “I’ll go first” *clap, clap, clap*
“No you won’t” *clap, clap, clap*
“Try me” *clap, clap, clap*
(Refer to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-4VIWTXBqg)
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Fresh off the college boat, so to speak, I am reunited with my kin.
My mother and I frequently come into contact and even more frequently have impossibly insufferable arguments.
We are confidantes but by no means do I tell everything to her and vice versa.
Our bond is true to the mother-daughter, relationship; true to its very core as far as the universal relationship is concerned.
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“A mother without a daughter is like a boat without oars.”
The Tiger Ladies - A Memoir of Kashmir, by Sudha Koul
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This quotation reads such that women who have either one or more sons(s), but not a daughter, are at a stalemate.
She who is a mother, without a daughter, is afloat, but she is not moving forward.
I am wary about mass generalizations. Still, with regard to my own life, I can see how this quotation may be true.
Of course parents and children have a bond founded on unconditional love. However, biology is non-discerning. That is to say, females will always compare themselves with each other and competition will always be present.
It is true that I am the only girl on my father’s side. I did enjoy playing sports but I was not a tomboy by any means. If anything, as the only girl, I was inclined to showcase my feminine birthright: the right to have a pink room, the right to wear lace and tie ribbons in my hair, the right to wear jewelry and the right to have everyone else but me shovel the snow or take out the garbage.
However, I think a large part of my obsession with fashion and making sure to groom myself as a woman, with ironed pants and softly tousled hair, before venturing out into the world, is due to watching my mom getting ready.
As a child who did not yet understand how to style her hair, I remember watching my mom effortlessly put in her earrings and place a single bobby-pin in her hair, thinking to myself all the while, why don’t I look like that?
Eventually I grew up and realized the power of the flat iron and the creative genius that comes with shopping.
My mom and I feed off of each other.
We’re both females, both women, and both of us want to look good.
We share clothes.
We go shopping together.
We push each other to eat healthier and work out.
We fight over whether it’s tacky or just inevitable that bra straps show with sleeveless attire.
In conclusion, I understand where that quotation, extracted from Kashmiri folklore, is coming from and concurrently, this is me avoiding the problematic hanging quotation scenario, or quoting without explanation and/or follow-up.
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Relationships are oddly discombobulated products of our own doing.
Arguments largely characterize the ups-and-downs, contours, and the overall dimension of relationships.
Prior to the onset of an argument the waters are teased with disagreements.
Human behavior is provoked and peripherals become ever more acute so that the subtle head-shaking that reflects one’s disdain for another is noticed by this person who, sensing partisanship, sharpens or makes more acute, his/her senses.
Conflict has officially surfaced and the waves’ crests have piqued in height.
There are full-fledged attacks and rebuttals that range from cunning oratory to conniving blackmail.
Doors are slammed, second-floor tenants think they’re witnessing the first-ever earthquake in New York City in the last ten years due to dramatic stomping of the feet, and “silent-treatments” continue for days.
While at college I found easy ways to divert an argument.
Why did I choose to divert the argument while at college?
I chose to divert these arguments because the people on the other end of the line, not part of my college world, are the only people who, I know, truly care for me.
These easy methods included hanging up the phone, (though this ran the risk of hostility in the next couple of phone calls following it), and taking the phone away from my ear far enough to not hear coherent language, but close enough to know when the other person was and was not talking.
I have learned that it is easier to avoid argument with people who you care for and who care for you by saying, “yes”, “ok”, or “you’re right.” I know this now but I guess implementation has yet to be improved upon.
It is easier to do the above because there is no point in wasting time trying to prove your point to someone who will think they are right regardless. Just know that you are right, do whatever you want to do so long as it is not wrong, unjust, or immoral, and stop trying to change someone who does not want to change.
After all, biology is non-discerning -
Four days ago a great thing happened to me.
I want to write. I want to edit. I want to research. I want to travel and experience. I want to interact with humans on every level. I want to see my name published.
I do not want to pursue medicine.
And I decided that I am not going to.
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RE-BLOGGED From POST II :
“I had a Xanga. It was a thriving enterprise that lasted from seventh grade to the beginning of tenth grade - a long life of 4 years. That was six years ago.
The Xanga had a strong life.
For one, it embraced the career choice (writing/journalism) that the entire universe had decided for me and that I had attempted to suppress.”
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It is great to no longer suppress something that has inherently been the balancing factor my entire life.
When I was stressed, I wrote.
When I was procrastinating on homework growing up, I chose to do the “fun” work first: Writing that 15-page Collateral (term for research paper) at Townsend Harris H.S.
When I gained admittance into Townsend Harris H.S. I was skeptical at the irony of it all.
I was going to attend a century old high school, the building of which no one witnessed except for the accepted students and their guardians, that specialized in the humanities.
Courses in “Word Processing” and “Linguistics” were mandatory. Additionally, two years of study in your pick of ancient language, ancient Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, were also mandatory.
(Internally I was ecstatic but was still fascinated with the cult-like authority of physicians and the subject of medicine.)
I will never forget my first day at THHS. It was first band, (“band” is the term for “period” in THHS), and I was in NY Regents Math B.
The teacher announced that the first exam would be in two weeks and have about thirty problems and one extra question.
That one extra question was The “Writing Component” of the mathematics exam.
This was my humanities education and it was filled with many a two-page pop essays on literary analysis.
This became my way of life: Researching, reading, writing, and reporting.
Even my academic adviser at Penn took one look at my transcript, then looked up at me at me and told me to pursue a career in the humanities.
Everyone took notice except for me.
Four days ago a great thing happened to me.
I spoke with the dean of the school where I was going to pursue my post-baccalaureate studies, and then I walked to temple and contemplated and prayed.
I was confused at first. I felt odd. Then, I felt a sense of calm.
I felt like I was not resisting gravity for the first time.
I am no longer pre-med
I want to write and go to journalism school.
I came home and looked at the calendar my dad brought from Punjab.
Each page had a quotation from the Sikh scripture, gurbani.
As my present was changing and simultaneously, my future, I went to turn over the page of the calendar.
The quotation on the page read:
ਦੁਖੁ ਦਾਰੂ ਸੁਖੁ ਰੋਗੁ ਭਇਆ ਜਾ ਸੁਖੁ ਤਾਮਿ ਨ ਹੋਈ ॥
“Suffering acts as medicine when pleasure becomes disease.”
The diction is so fitting for this time in my life
A great thing is happening; And I am ready to make the most positive lasting mark on my life by changing my course of study.
Here’s to journalism school in the future -
Watching the Kardashians, I have come to accept, is no doubt a guilty pleasure.
Deliberately leaving a cookie’s worth of cookie batter left in the bowl, rather than on a pan slid into the oven, just so I can consume the creamy texture of the uncooked baked good, is also a guilty pleasure.
Deciding to go out with the family to eat at a place that is across the street from one of my favorite dessert shops, subconsciously knowing and almost expecting that half-pound of ladoos will inevitably be bought and eaten solely by myself, is yet another guilty pleasure.
We all have them.
We all have ‘guilty pleasures’.
Truth is, in the above scenarios the guilt never lived up to, well, the defined feeling and sensation that 'guilt’ provokes - adrenaline, blushing, butterflies, etc.
In the above scenarios, the guilt I feel is in passing and I successfully ignore the guilt, instead exploiting the pleasing aspect that is left in guilt’s wake .
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I detest staring.
I hate the ogling of those land-mowing pigs.
I cannot stand unnecessary eye contact by anonymous people, children included.
However there is a type of staring that does not bother me.
It is a quaint type of staring and is another guilty pleasure to add to my repertoire.
In no way is this staring lascivious.
No, this staring is so pure and is permeated with what I can only describe as kindness. I am so pleased that kindness still exists.
I feel safe under this gaze and I cannot meet it after the initial acknowledgement.
What a moment, this completely fleeting moment is, and yet this moment sets the tone for my day-dreaming for the next half a day or so.
Replaying moments like these causes me to be guarded. When I say “guarded” I mean to say that I regulate where I think about these moments.
So for example, one of the times I block out remnants of a gaze that gave way to a moment in time, (my guilty pleasure), is when I exercise. I had tried to think about such moments multiple times, believing that it would act as a focal point in my work-out.
Wow was I wrong - trial-and-error reaped a significant finding: when I was running on the treadmill, my legs would suddenly give out, and when I was moving to cardio salsa steps, my hips would move independently from the music, instead swaying in slow motion before I would snap back to reality out of dancing competitiveness, stupidly determined in my pursuit to prove myself a better dancer than the others in my class that functioned as a work-out rather than a dance workshop.
In short, replaying these moments succeeded in turning my legs into jelly rather than stabilizing my body or focusing my mind on working out.
It is sort of tragic at first, how the gaze is thought to be unrequited.
But then, it is so sweet, when the brief interception of the gaze occurs, followed by downcast eyes and subdued smiles.
Bittersweet - that is precisely the sensation that defines this guilty pleasure.
This conclusion has arrived in a timely fashion, for there are only some hours left for me to replay such a moment before it becomes forgotten in the midst of daily tasks, new experiences, and living life, witnessing kindness, and experiencing more beautiful moments -
LV. Blank Canvas -
The New Years’ countdown is no longer that climatic point in time (at least not for me). I guess the whole idea of hipster-chicness has diffused into every part of our lives.
It is no longer personal when the whole world decides to make a promise or some kind of resolution that will commence being carried out at 12 AM on January 1st.
The blank canvas traverses holidays.
On my birthday this year I counted down the seconds to my actual birth-time, constantly staring at the Satellite TV clock; A cringe here and a contract there, with rare spurts of giggling at the sheer stupidity of it all. 3, 2, 1 -
When I turned 22 I came to the realization that this was my new year and it could have acted as my blank canvas.
I was ill prepared to say the least, and so the day after my college graduation acted as the true blank canvas, (refer to the four improvements made in my life from the last post, Post LIV.)
Blank Canvas - def., n. The idea of starting anew, fresh, and on a completely unfurnished ground.
Having a blank canvas invokes a ruthless restlessness in all of us.
Just present a child or perhaps a minor in middle school with a blank paper. Odds are this child will immediately place their writing utensil to the paper out of excitement and may then become dissatisfied with the no longer blank paper in front of them because the initial fire ignited in them caused them to produce something without thinking that as a result, will most probably cause the youth to ask for another paper.
Two days ago my glasses frames broke. After the initial swearing session I could not help but feel lighter, as if a past burden had been disposed of and the prospects of a new glasses frame made me all too giddy.
The new frame would be the equivalent to a blank canvas.
This reaction disturbed me… had I subconsciously caused my glasses to break so I could purchase another one?
Disregarding the above I realized that reading too much into stuff is no doubt what caused me to lose many a point on many an exam, but I digress.
The blank canvas idea is so intriguing to a human because it is not change.
Most humans do not favor change or the unfamiliar; hence the objective of settling down and the downfall of nomadic times.
The blank canvas can, however, be a change, or not.
The blank canvas is a modification that is made on our own terms and so we’re not surprised with the outcome and instead gain a feeling of accomplishment for doing what we wanted with our blank canvas.
For example, the blank canvas that is space:
I’m moving pretty soon and will be leaving behind my room that, in my totally biased opinion, is the room with the most character in my house.
Despite leaving the room where I had developed thoughts, and had churned out some of my finest moments and suffered some of my worst flus, I am so incredibly excited to be moving.
I am so incredibly excited to have a new room, a blank canvas: I will choose the paint color(s), put up a vintage black-and-white, tapestry-like poster of a dancer that I found recently in one of my blog-searches, and one other wall panel; (* A montage of which is provided with this post.)
Suddenly “DIY”, Do It Yourself, an abbreviation I kept having to look up on Urban Dictionary, is now as common to me as is “lol”.
The idea of transforming old fabric into a cell phone holder no longer strikes me as trivial -
Who am I kidding?
I’m a New Yorker not a Kansas native without a neighbor and too much time on her hands -
White-Out is much too obvious.
Erasers inevitably smudge.
All we want is a ‘Blank Canvas’.
Don’t you hate it when you wish that you had the life of another?
It seems pathetic.
If you really wanted to do something with your life, then please, by all means, do it. Nothing is holding you back so make it happen.
We hear that all the time. I even tell myself that sometimes.
I finished college and I have been accepted somewhere of my choice for further studies. This is my choice. I want to be a surgeon. I truly want to go to medical school and I have wanted to since my first memory of interacting with a doctor.
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A Girl’s Dreams Consciously Not Applied:
Although I love (Indian) dancing and wish that I could pursue dance on a technical level and contributing hours a day for practice, I know that such a profession, living in the United States especially, is not practical.
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A Girl Turned Young Adult’s Life Goals, In the Process of being Realized:
In all honesty though, I have always been academically inclined in terms of enjoying learning and enjoying garnering knowledge, according to predetermined tents of the correct type of pedagogy.
A physician is no doubt what I want to be.
I always have had to work hard to do decently and have had to work 10 times as hard to do well which has only occurred rarely.
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Sitting at home for the past month I have achieved some things that I had wanted to do during this past month, for my betterment.
In our early twenties I think we all become struck with a life crisis:
We realize that we’re not getting any younger and if we want to make something happen that will have a positive life-long lasting effect, than now is the time.
So, having just turned twenty-two I have:
1. Definitively cut out all meat from my diet.
2. I have joined a gym and go five days a week.
3. I have rested and
4. I have gained my appetite back with a vengeance.
After the gym I come home and essentially, I’m home - I rest and I eat and then mentally prepare myself to wake up the next morning and go to the gym to exercise.
I have tried to get employed, I have applied to innumerable internships, I have sent out my resume, I have even e-mailed non-for-profit organizations abroad = Nothing.
All this effort, drive, and e-mails have amounted to nothing. No replies, no requests, no offers - nothing.
What am I lacking? These opportunities, (or lack thereof, is a more appropriate way of putting it), do not even require GPA which I see, as far as excluding personality flaws, is my only weakness.
I have tried to get into contact with doctors whom I can shadow: No interest on their part.
I have sent multiple e-mails to advisers, have made multiple calls and left messages to my future university administrators but have met with zero answers, zero responses, zero interest - Nothing.
I cannot register for classes if no one advises me.
What is going on?
Is this what recession feels like?
I am so driven and I do not want to sit at home. I want to travel and observe and experience.
I’m trying in earnest to make it happen, but nothing is happening.
All this built up apprehension has accumulated and today I just had to shed it off so I took two minutes and did what humans do when frustrated: I teared up and let out an inaudible whimper - I didn’t cry though.
I’m happy, really I am. I’m just frustrated: I’m that stubborn college grad always choosing not to believe that recession and the real world is difficult and then when I finally meet the post-grad real world I find that it is not exactly as described, but comes pretty close.
I think my whimpering session, if you will, was a combination of a college graduate realizing the real world is not a campus and having a flashback of myself as a girl thinking that everything will literally be at my finger tips.
I was wrong, everything is not at my fingertips.
Instead, everything is right in front of me;
We all are face-to-face with everything and us post-grads have been inhabiting the real-world long before our twenty-something year old selves.
Here is to staying positive and keeping at it -
Raftar. Dastar. Guftar.
Stance. Style. Speech.
Reshmi Kaur Oberoi
reshmioberoi.journo@gmail.com
@ReshmiKO
Long Island, New York
New York, New York
University of Pennsylvania ‘12
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism ‘15
Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy Professional Certificate ‘18
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