CXXXI. Is 'Mea Culpa' Just a Fancy Way for Saying 'My Bad'? -

There are definite disparities in the way in which people speak and write when speaking and writing in the same language.

The distinction between said parties goes beyond diction. The whole concept of diction entails a deliberate phrasing of something in order to invoke a desired reaction. This applies to those who supposedly speak without thinking as well because, in essence, they are thinking — brain signals are still being used — however, they are not necessarily taking the time to think.

Differences in same-language speak can be correlated to the social strata that a person finds themselves in. In many cases, those who grew up in an under-privileged area, tend to speak with less grammatical correctness and even more rarely, intentional metaphorical meticulousness in order to drive home an abstract idea.

Sometimes, speakers of the same language and of similar capacities, have a limited knowledge bank of obscure or antiquated vocabulary. One day, someone whose first language was not English but otherwise speaks English fluidly and without any accent, (aside from an American one though I still do not know what that means), heard a TODAY show anchor refer to the country singer, Lady Antebellum.

The listener then asked me, “what does antebellum mean?” Immediately my American-educated mind that was required to house two years of Latin pedagogy in high school, SAT prep courses, and most recently a mind that took to independently studying for the GRE such that the practice of deriving definitions from prefix and suffix stems was engraved, thought up an answer.

“Ante” refers to before or prior to. “Bellum” refers to war. Therefore, Antebellum is an adjective to describe an environment that is about to or is presently, in the midst of war.
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I am a regular viewer of Food Network programs. There have been quite a few times during cooking competitions when a chef makes a dish that he/she wholeheartedly stands behind but is severely decried by the panel of judges who are chefs in their own right.

After the dish in question has been attacked by a barrage of facial expressions, there have been cases when the chef in the line of fire not only defends his/her dish, but tells the panel that if a critically acclaimed chef had created the very same dish, that chef would be praised.

I feel that the chef has every right to voice this hypothetical truism.

The judges always respond ubiquitously. They charge the chef with being unable to handle criticism. They may even accuse the chef of possessing an unhealthy amount of self-confidence.

But what is genius if not self-proclaimed?

When I write, I do not deliberately use words that are more than five syllables. I do not intend to write with prolixity. I write how I speak and how I understand. I write for people who want to read the facts as opposed to the equivalent of the a baby comes from a stork story.

Staging words so that they are less than five syllables is not the equivalent to flexing laconic writing muscles, it is oversimplifying.

Not everything can be broken down if the subject or imagery’s inherent complexity does not allow it. Ever wonder why physics and calculus are not considered the easiest of subjects? They are inherently complex subject matters, relative to, let’s say, a spelling exam.

Lexicon means just short of a lot to me. I say this because in the midst of picking up on subway-reading as a daily routine and having compiled a document that spans over 9 pages of typed words I cannot articulate definitions for, I clearly do not care enough about vocabulary to prevent me from creating said Word document.

Currently in the midst of writing application essays for humanities-centric graduate school programs, I have come face-to-face with a prompt that informs the applicant of what NOT to do.

Do not write poetically or in ‘purple prose.’

Admittedly, I could construe what the above alliteration presented from it’s own phrasing exemplifying what the phrase means itself as well as the context in which the phrase was positioned - among other obscene writing flaws.

I looked up the meaning for ‘purple prose’ and will relay the Wikipedia entry to you:

“Written prose that is so extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw excessive attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It may also employ certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader’s response.”

Since when did the concept of a description constitute the makings of a writer’s power trip?

If someone is reading a text that is not a script but that is still written with the intent of sounding as though the words were meant to be spoken, the writing time may as well have been better spent recording spoken words.

If the admissions committee covet a curtailed autobiography, void of whimsy but personable, they should have included the option to upload an audio file to their online application portal and do without the contradictory instructions.

Mea cupla is not just a fancy way for saying the altogether inane eubonics-classified “my bad.” There was a degree of thoughtfulness in conceptualizing the former, the Latin sentence turned common phrase used in English-speaking societies, in contrast to the deliberately shortened way for expressing fault.

CXXX. Recovery -

Upon the internship week ending, I go down the elevator with cell phone in hand, prepared to phone home as soon as the cold air hits me with blessed mobile service and wi-fi. I make a call back to my planet of civilized society, informing someone of my imminent arrival after the long two train rides away from Ground Zero - a leveled ground that invokes less than favorable thoughts in more ways than one.

I’m traveling away from a place where my effort is manipulated, crumpled, and thrown into the digital recycle bin.

The receiving end of my previously hurried phone call materializes and is a beacon of light emanating from the otherwise darkened sky-cum-living and inanimate storefronts-cum sidewalk macrocosm that is a direct result of the recent Daylight Savings time warp.

I walk up the stairs to my abode, mulling over the steps for carrying out my weekly recovery plan:

1. Take off clothes and put in hamper
2. Wash hands and glasses frames
3. Comb out hair before a triple shampoo and conditioner
4. Scrub away the residue of patronizing dummies and rancid subway fumes
5. Proceed to comb wet hair ever so gently so as not to break the maximally elastic brown strands framing my face.
6.Roll up the mane and tie a small square scarf loosely around my head, knot at the back, akin to the bandanna-trend for young American females in the nineties but more similar to the Kashmiri women’s style, revealing wisps of my never-dyed hair that I would furthermore love to wear outside if I weren’t mistaken for identifying with philosophies that I cannot connect with at all.
7. Cleanse, moisturize, and medicate face for the third time.
8. PJ’s.
9. Meal of the day.

Of course, in keeping with the integrity of all that encompasses recovery, as soon as the stream of fervid water bounces off my head, elbows, and shoulders, I refrain from carrying out the above listed tasks in an even remotely efficient manner.
I’m consumed by the warmth of a home, so different from college when I discovered too late in senior year that I had to find a recluse other than mom’s home-cooked food and an always clean bathroom with coral-pink walls and tiles, and a painted glass sconce to match.

I carry out the hair washing in an ever so slow fashion, knowing fully well and somewhat guiltily, that if someone, highly unlikely, were to use the shower soon after me, that person would have to wait a good 40 minutes before the water is no longer cold.
Essentially, I would be inflicting the same pain due to cold temperatures making contact with warm-blooded skin, that I aim to recover from.

The impetus for the undisciplined carrying out of my plan is so that I can defrost from the ice box that is my work-space from duress as opposed to the situations in which I can more effectively work.

The countdown begins - think New York New Year’s Day - as my future plans and holidays are fast approaching.

This past weekend I celebrated one of my favorite holidays, Bandhi Chhor Divas and simultaneously, Diwali. Not unfortunately because the symbolism and history of these days are always fortunate and auspicious, rather, quite disappointingly, the celebrated tradition coincided with the Western calendar for Sunday, or the day before I have to again suffer the brunt of people who serve no purpose other than to demoralize and disrupt.

Diwali weekend was my recovery: A little last-minute studying, tasty but healthy food, a tad bit indulgence in the form of sweet desserts exchanged among friends and family, and some exercise, all led up to and took place during Diwali day.

As the night beckoned on Sunday, I felt that leaden feeling of having to travel and spend my days in an office full of incompetent people again.

The night of Diwali is when I, with my parents, light diyas, earthen clay tear drop-shaped somewhat shallow bowls, in which mustard oil is filled to soak a single cotton wick.

The lighting was my recovery.

Afterwards, wearing my billowy patiala salwar, pants, kameez, long shirt, and shawl that complemented but was not inherently part of the duo, I headed to Gurudwara, a Sikh place of worship, and that was the recovery of all recoveries if there ever were one.

Upon leaving the last step of recovery, I met with an unexpected jolt of recovery.The quick meeting I’m referring to most definitely appealed to the dreamer in me.

Nonetheless, I managed to go to sleep with a semi-smile as I awaited the bittersweet slumber that leads to a new day, aging by the second under the circumstances of the unpaid, in both monetary and intellectual-growth terms, workplace.

As I am typing this, it is almost time for me to recover as the final workday winds down and is brought to a screeching halt just when I enter the train that had made its screeching entrance.

CXXIX. Wronged -

Those words hit me like a ton of bricks; my facial expression went unmoved, as if Medusa’s head had made a premature Halloween entrance and we had just made eye contact. I was unable to adjust my muscles, a rarity for someone who involuntarily expresses, especially those tendons and tissues that form the perimeter of my rather large eyes.

Like a truck just struck me, not that I would ever want to know what that would feel like, but I imagine would at the very least cause pure shock, I remained motionless.

I am making analogies in an effort to relay the pure shock of what I was told. I was not surprised necessarily, taken off guard perhaps… It just dawned on me, like a conglomerate of clouds had at that moment gathered above my head, or rather, above the car in which I was sitting in at the time.

I, who has to adjust, less so now, after having bruised my tailbone when I slipped on snow and landed flat on my back during my frightening lightweight 90 pound freshman days of college, and I, the avid walker, remained motionless.

Not now, I kept thinking. Really - now of all times? Now is the turning point for the better. All those years, all that planning, all for naught? No, that cannot be. That’s not right.

All throughout the already hellish internship-consuming day, my mind was preoccupied with the quote unquote news, or rather, untimely, development. I exited the end-of-the-day public transportation scene and sat in a car, a different one from this morning, reliving the lack of dialogue that had occurred: being told something and responding only with a frozen look.

Silence for some time, aside from television noise, and the words told to me this morning replaying in my head.

I could no longer withhold my melancholy, my stress, my feeling of having been wronged.

Like a whistling pressure cooker, a stalemate in every Indian household, I slowly, and steadily released my anger in a crescendo - first inquiring as to whether word of what I was told had passed to another pair of ears and then upon hearing validation that it did,vocalizing dissent.

This, that, and the other - was this development so inconspicuous that someone could not notice the wrongness of it all?

We’re, after so many years, equivalent to some several thousand thread-count and you have the (expletive in the form of a gerund) audacity to pick on a single strand and pull on it until all the stitching becomes undone and we become threadbare, at square-one once more? How? Why are you doing this?

Exasperation causes me to wonder if I was in the wrong: All these internal ties and -

- but I’m not saying to sever any tie. The tie is still there but there is cause for concern when that tie overlaps with the other ties because it inevitably will result in one big knot.

I am not wrong for believing that what seems to be transpiring, will result in no good happening.

The wheels are turning for each of us, hopefully they’re headed in the right direction, no longer turning on roundabouts, but suddenly I sense a change in gears, our bodies equivalent to a staggering car that has not yet stopped and God willing won’t stop.

This “new development” having materialized will be crippling if measures aren’t taken by the only person with the authority to do so, and taken soon.

I was so looking forward to this holiday season, to taking the GRE and exiting with a hopefully positive outcome, to sending in strong grad school applications by the deadline, to the soon to be home of my adulthood.

I am still looking forward to all of this but there is a haziness forming in front of these twinkling eyes, akin to the effect that cataracts that come with old age have.

CXXVIII. Charitable Mockery -

A lack of sleep has again made its presence. Only this time, the absence of supposedly good-skin-inducing slumber was due to a stress I didn’t have before. That stress is student loans.

Having made payments in a timely manner, sometimes even exceeding the required amount, I was sure that the initial amount had dwindled considerably, a little over a year out of college now. 

To my dismay, the scamming loan providers no longer sent me emails and charged interest rates I didn’t know applied to federal loans. I suppose this is my naivete. 

As per the usual, my parents never let finances, or knowledge of how to fill out a check, cloud my otherwise not-cheery-still-serious unpaid academic aspirations.

Though I do not consider myself a hippie, (although my style vector does point in the hippie-type paisley, muted and yet colorful, somewhat over-sized apparel that skims over the body, direction,) I have taken to pursuing an intellectually-driven, self-actualized place in the academic discipline that I want to pursue as a career.

“What did you expect?,” my father asked rhetorically as my face was mangled in exasperation, eyes reflecting the online payment portal in front of me.

“They’re not going to give you charity,” he continued, referring to the loan providers.

I am not sure what possessed him to use these choice of words. I never alluded to the fact that an elite education would be even close to humanely priced, much less charitable. In fact, I knew fully well that I would not compromise my educational pursuits for money, with my parents’ blessing of course.

I truly thought that the loan amounts were decreasing and coming to an end.

In the midst of filling out graduate school applications, paying for application fees, transcripts, and the pricey GRE, the undergraduate money scheme seems nothing short of unethical.

I should be making money; I should get paid for my work.

It’s no longer a matter of acquiring experiences or being greedy, though truth be told, I do fancy the “finer things” in life, whatever you want to infer from that. I do not care for trivialities and the concept of a vacation is a foreign to me, however, there is no denying my inherited classic New Yorker taste for what has already been tasted; In other words, what has already been within reach, or what has already been given to me - a charity of sorts?

This is me declaring that this God-forsaken, life-sucking, unpaid internship that requires hours in public transportation fit for the rodents that occupy the train tracks, is the very last internship I will ever pursue.

Walking on egg shells around a freezer-box and nonfunctional office is truly burdensome and despite my mental efforts to remain positive and not reduce my life span by stressing, I have only been counting down the weeks until this hell is over,

I already have plans for what to do next. They include, no more self-inflicted pain.

I cannot wait to be in the warmth of my home, among family who hold fort in other rooms, possibly surrounded by limited edition seasonal pies, only the crust of which I ingest, with the bleak, grey and dreary light, romanticized in its depth and darkness, streaming through the living room blinds, obstructed by the always real Christmas tree that bisects the length of the living room windows.

Give and take is a cliche, yes, but it is one that reflects real-world use. Unfortunately, anything that is given is equivalent to charity; in a non-synonymous in definition but rather in connotation, kind of way.

Take for example, the label of ‘charity case.’ If you were to be referred to as such, well, that would not be swell. Objectifying a living human being as a ‘case,’ never means well. For example, substitute “charity” with “mental,” if you will.

See my point?

I don’t want charity and it’s not that I cannot do something, like a retail job to help support my schooling endeavors, though having applied since high school has led to no response; rather, I cannot fill those positions. It’s not me, as my father says.

My resume reads as the inchoate resume of a professor about to reach tenure - purely academic and poignant in its linguistic embellishment.

Forces beyond my control have saved me from embarking on a path where I would be paid or given, money.

As far as my journalistic efforts are concerned, I am not given information. I am aggressively seeking out information, acquiring knowledge, producing content, and earning a living in non-monetary terms. I’m fulfilling a desire to think as I wish.

Ironically, I am also succumbing to not living as I truly wish, with the stresses of enduring an internship I want to leave but that I know will help to build my resume and expand my mind with a burden of onerous memories.

Charitable mockery - mocking even when I am in a position in which I am given nothing.

CXXVII. Zoning in on Zen -

Last night I succumbed decided to make a list, tentatively a running list, though I’m almost positive I won’t be adding or even looking at it any time soon, entitled something best left unsaid. The bullet-pointed sentence fragments were written with the goal of finding a zen.

Stress is wreaking havoc in tangible ways: A rapid heartbeat, eyebrows that are permanently fixated in a furrow, and rumbling sounds caused by the vibration of the gut against the outer layer of skin, has made its formidable entrance.

I am at once reminded of college in the wake of having experienced the above symptoms.

I’m connecting the dots and am finding a pattern among the opportunities that I am not given, but rather pursue as a matter of will, not necessarily choice.

There is a palpable sense of misery.

“Brush them off,” I tell myself. Brush off those outdated, aging, egotistical superiors at the unpaid workplace.

“A means to an end,” I tell myself.

Phone calls are made on speaker phone, audio is playing on desktop computers without headphone-use, and Skype conversations are mingling with the nonadjustable air conditioning that is set to the unknown numerical temperature of freezer-box.

I haven’t found my zen yet - clearly.

My jaw is set to an immobile grimace induced by the possibility of chewing on an endless supply of sour grapes.

I’m forced to remain at your standard - do as you do, when you do, as if that is some kind of justification. Allow me to clarify: substandard.

My creativity is sanctioned and left to accumulate in my head, ironically forming an onerous burden.

Patronizing pointed chatter fills my ears and I’m forced to retain a professional politeness that is so obviously fake, I think about simply cutting through the facade and lashing out.

I am constantly debating whether or not to verbally let these self-absorbed people know of my educational pedigree.
I worked hard for that Ivy degree. So hard that the aforementioned symptoms remained with me throughout my years in the dormitory.

At home I am advised to do declare my affiliation with my alma mater loud and clear. I’m waiting for the opportunity to do so.

That is being professional -not blurting out whatever it is you wish to say. Stalling and/or waiting, politically correct directness is prioritized over passive aggressiveness, which is held at bay unless really needed; those times when you feel as though a torrent of rightfully driven speech that is embellished with explicit language is the only successful way of putting someone in their place.

There is a double standard - Having been told the correct way of doing something and doing just that, another one does the opposite but is left unscathed by the burrowing of beady eyes.

Upon heading away form this horrid space, I beckon time to pass without my knowledge by closing my eyes and muting the announcement of the stops being made on the train. I try to not to list off the next stop, and the one after that, and the one after that…

Almost reaching the first stop to my eventual destination, my naturally large eyes form a squint and are two sizes too small.

Having climbed up the stairs, I breathe in the outside air but am unable to breathe out the subway stench that has burned my nostrils.

Homeward bound, I’m starting to find my temporary zen: A warm shower, face cleansed, perfumed, and in pajamas, ready to sit down for dinner and embark on my individual duties for advancing my life forward and according to my own terms.

CXXVI. Gaudiness Galore, Negativity Implores -

To be a sophisticate is contrary to remarking upon your material goods, quality-proof as they may be.

How do those who have means to purchase the newest models/editions of this, that, or the other, utilize said purchases without displaying them?

The wordiness of that question ensures that I remain vague because I am addressing a personal scenario. I do not feel a need to name the person or persons that I am referring to.

We all have something ‘nice’. We are all in possession of some luxury. You may suggest that I am falling into the generalization trap. If you’re reading this, you own, or have access to, a computer device. Perhaps you’re reading this on your mobile phone, your iPad, a laptop, or a desktop.

We all have problems.

In the past couple of years that we have welcomed the acronyms “YOLO,” “You Only Live Once”, and “LOL”, “Laugh Out Loud,” we have also embraced the apt-phrased “first world problems.” These problems may pale in comparison to problems faced by those people lacking sanitation, water, or food. 

It is worth remembering that problems are not comparable. If you’re stressed due to finances or burdensome educational expectations, the effects can be intrusive and obtrusive on life. 

I have a fading memory of high school, or quite possibly middle school, English class. We were reading Tennessee Williams’ “Glass Menagerie.” I recall connecting with the unhappy character though I was not unhappy myself. I think I was intrigued by such a far-fetched idea for a youthful girl who had Ivy League paraphernalia all over her closet door. Could anyone really be so unhappy if they had a choice?

The unhappy character was in a quagmire. He had to support his family economically, but in the process, he was dissatisfied with his job. The decision to adhere to the walls of the gaping hole that sucked him of life while providing for his life by means of monetary compensation, was a pain comparable to what others may experience without money.

So, how do we refrain from being gaudy while also tastefully displaying our worldly possessions?

You’re wearing nice shoes, and you know it. I own a pair of shoes that scream, “notice me!” There are people standing in front of me and I feel their eyes directed my way. They’re staring at my feet. Should I make eye contact with them, why, that may be considered gaudy. 

Social Media: Facebook posts, tweets, instagram too - all with the possibility of being connected and therefore redundant, are breeding grounds for the happy, well-adjusted, and annoyingly successful.

You do not want to boast and therefore attract unwanted attention.

Perhaps you don’t want good attention either, as in the form of “likes.”

You may just want attention. You want to serve a purpose, namely, to be a reactionary agent. So you post your work, self-proclaimed accomplishments that they are, and let them dwell on other’s news feeds.

People may proclaim oohs and aahs, serving to hamper your anonymity, yes, but also serving to suggest that you are better off than you actually are.

I suppose a need for acknowledgement embodies the feeling that you are better off than you once were.

Gaudiness is the consequence of straddling the past and future and means you’re in motion. Furthermore, how gaudiness is perceived depends on the subjective rose-colored glasses of your spectators, so to speak- and spectators’ line of sight, or their vision, is stagnant.

How’s that proclamation for gaudy?

CXXV. Air Out That Dirty Laundry -

*Picture: Residing in a world with dryer and washer abilities myself, the act of airing out laundry on a clothing line was a shock. The old-world charm compelled me to take a photo.

The lack of humanity, empathy for the other person without regards to race or faith, is increasingly prevalent in today’s day and age.

With the recent “rape culture”, bursting out the seams of India in particular: burgeoning across the frontier of the northwest, the tropics of the east, the coast along Arabian Sea, and the heart of the capital itself, the lack of respect for and among humans is nauseating to say the very least.

I was watching some old Hindi films songs shot in European countries the other day. I realize that whatever I was watching occurred on the sets of a movie. Regardless of this fact, the locals of the country were all smiles seeing a rosy-cheeked, erratically moving, but ever charming Shammi Kapoor shimmying among their populace.
I didn’t see spite or racism welling up in the eyes of the onlookers.

I then asked my father, a fully bearded Sikh, how he lived in Italy, back in the early 80’s. He said there was virtually no racism. People we were much more accepting back then. It certainly seems that way.

Call it mean, but my first deed of the day today, when my sleep was broken at 6 AM, was, with some deliberation, to delete a Facebook post I wrote with birthday greetings to a person I had been friends with in college.

I saw that she had answered a bunch of people’s messages, thanking them profusely. She had even thanked another person, whom she absolutely hated and told me so on more than one occasion.
She didn’t respond to my post and I know better than to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Bonding over our New York roots during sophomore year of college, by junior year she had transformed into a fraternity-pledging,secretive cult-type of person, rebelling against her parents by going out with someone they wouldn’t approve of, and whom she stays with today.

I didn’t judge her, although silently, in my head, I suppose I did.

She, however, chose to judge me. I was too “old-fashioned” she said as I honestly told her when I wanted to get married, the whole husband kids scenario. After attending the show my dance team put on, she met my smile with a grimace and said she thought we didn’t dance well, certainly not as good as the other team on campus whom she was besties with. She called herself their “groupie.”

She criticized the dancing my fellow dancers and I spent well over 40 hours a week perfecting, despite the fact that the hundreds of other attendees commended our technique and despite the fact that her BMI index is evidence of her never having danced a day in her life.

About 8 months after graduation we decided to meet up. She was still judging me. I was too sheltered, living with my parents. I was too sheltered, not having a paying job.

I never want to have the displeasure of speaking with that financial-job-holding sell-out who had originally wanted nothing to do with the business world, ever again.
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We all have flaws, but the lack of civility among people today has reached an all-time high.

When I send an email, I expect for that email to be returned. If I ask a question, answer “yes”, or “no.” If you have time, feel free to elaborate on your answer.
The point is: answer my email.

One of my editors asked me to send 2 paragraphs pitching a story before this past Friday. I did just that. I took time out of my day to research and write the email based off the research, not to mention the proofreading.

Today is Sunday, I have received no answer, and I could lose this story seeing as how what I want to cover will be ending this week.

Another editor asked me to cover community events in the area. I’ve traveled to, spent the day at, interviewed, transcribed, and took photos for 3 events. Only one of my stories has been published so far. He has not acknowledged the other two stories I spent days working on.

I’m trying to scale a wall that is 90 degrees perpendicular to the ground. Gravity is resisting me as I try to reach the elite status.

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I wanted to cover a grand opening of a new fashion design house, conveniently, not too far from where I live. I saw a compelling story here: They were opening up their new business in New York and the only other business was in the Midwest. Also, they showed at NY Fashion Week this year.

As a New Yorker, I’ll be the first to say that if you can make it here, you can most definitely make it anywhere.

I called both the designer and her business partner.

Two phone calls, two missed phone calls, two voice mail messages and an unacknowledged Facebook message later: I was finally contacted less than 24 hours before their supposedly grand opening.

The lady on the other line seemed reluctant to have me come in and ask questions/take photos. She asked me where I lived - why, I still do not know. She then asked when I could come in. Common sense dictates that I would come when it starts, at 12 PM. I guess she lacked common sense or was just confused - we settled on 12:15 PM.

After I had said I’d be there, she quipped in: “I’ll talk to so-and-so and get back to you to see if you can come in.”

She said that, I swear she did.

I then replied, “Please please get back to me.”

I have witnesses.

Anyhow, she never got back to me. On the day of the event, I announced that I would never be at the mercy of someone else. No, I am not going to cover this. I am not going to prostrate at the feet of people. No one is inferior or superior to me.

Over an hour after the event already started, I received a phone call. I picked up the phone, quickly exchanged pleasantries, and in a slightly more exasperated pitch than I was going for said, “I was waiting for your call!”

“I think there has been some kind of miscommunication,” the lady on the other line said. “Yesterday I said you can definitely come in. I confirmed it yesterday. I said I would call you only if there was a problem.”

LIAR - She was lying to my face. I was not about to partake in a “No you didn’t/Yes I did” type of an exchange so I just said, “Well, I’ll try and see if I can make it”, not that I had any intention of going and showing up when everything ended.

What an inauspicious way to begin a new business.

Karma is a you-know-what-profanity-to-insert-here and I do not plan on being on the receiving end of this linguistic equation.

CXXIV. Talk To The Wall-

When did all types of complications make their formidable entrance?

I have always stood by the idea that having a non-linear path and having an interesting story to narrate, are far more relevant and contribute far more to the world than does the path of the entitled and the easily acquired.

Still, the complications of income, or lack thereof, experience, or lack thereof according to a superior, clouds any lasting rays of optimistic light - almost like a Manhattan skyscraper that blocks sunlight. Almost -

There are complications among basic tasks that are carried out routinely, like eating or washing one’s hair. All these impediments to a meditative state of living have become a malicious malignant-like tumor, metastasizing every chance it gets.

My head was pounding yesterday, but not the normal, physical ache that I am usually able to relieve with a simple Tylenol.

The pounding in my head was different; It was the jumble of, “what are you doing today?”, mingled with “should you spend time walking for exercise or sit and study for the GRE”, with a pinch of “what are you eating?”

Pent up energy on rebuttals having gone unheard caused me to have to grant pardon as well as forgive and, hopefully, let pass rather than forget.

Clearly, nothing has been forgotten, hence the blog post.

Always competitive and fiercely pummeling through academia without regard for intimidation by others, I remained that staunch person-in-pursuit. That is to say, I would remedy whatever I considered to be rejection or failure by internalizing the scenario, nullifying the negative, and outputting the positive, or gaining brownie points.

Since college, however, my internalization, nullification, and profiting process, was lengthened by an addendum. This addendum was the subconscious component to an otherwise tangible protocol.

I was aware of walls being erected all around me.

*Note: I am not referring to the stereotypical use of the abstract “walls” being put up that has a negative connotation.

The wall resided in the grimace that my face would contort to as I walked through the library.

At this point I was not sure if the wall was good, because I would be more motivated,or bad, because smiling is healthier and less detrimental to my face muscles.

The wall resided in my ability to become a journalist - to walk up to people I have never met, introduce myself, and pry into their unspoken thoughts.

So this wall is a positive thing?

The wall can sometimes come off as bitterness because it once was, but it is no more.

The wall, I have concluded, is neutral. It is a vestige of the maturation that results from accumulated experiences.

So the wall is not equivalent to the complications I had associated it with at the beginning of this article. 

Though the towering walls that are Manhattan’s skyscrapers seem to place a sanction on chlorophyll, thereby contributing to city’s lack of green space, these walls do not necessarily block out the sun.

Instead, the darkly tinted glass panels reflect the sunlight down unto the passerby. 

CXXIII. Dr. House is My Homeboy -

Years ago, when I had taken to the T.V. Drama House, M.D., a certain episode really stuck with me.

In that episode, a patient, a man, falls in and out of consciousness, among suffering from other symptoms, and is subsequently hospitalized. He was treated by either the fictional House or his fictional residents - I forgot who.

Regardless, inevitably at the end of the episode, when a diagnosis is made for the patient, House finds a bottle of cough syrup among the patient’s belongings. The patient was ingesting cough syrup like it was no tomorrow because, quite simply put, he was a genius.

The man was a genius. He had an I.Q. that made him occupy a plane of existence above or below, but not on equal ground, with the 99% of human beings he shared his surroundings with.

This lapse in understanding between him and the majority of the world’s people made it particularly hard for him to retain any type of relationship. As with all things human and yet so unrealistic, at least in my case, he fell in love. The person whom he fell in love with, obviously occupied a rung a far way’s down on the I.Q. ladder from the man who she too fell in love with.

In order for the man to be content in his relationship, without lashing out at his significant other’s lack of prodigal intelligence, he decided to dumb himself down.
A chemical in cough syrup, if overdosed on, could cause your brain cells to die, thereby making you more base and dense.

Dr. House, a genius in his own right, felt for the man.

And I felt for Dr. House.
_________________________________________________________________

Today is the first day of classes at my undergraduate alma mater. I am officially one full year out of college and it was not until the past couple of weeks that I felt a tingly sensation that characterizes having missed something; Think homesickness.

As all of my acquaintances, friends, and people who overheard me on the phone while walking down Locust Walk know, I was overjoyed at having finally graduated and moved on and away from college.

I am not about to romanticize the image of campus, with its twinkling fairy lights hanging eerily and magically above the tree tops during the holiday season, although I suppose I just did -
Rather, I am about to tell you all how and why I felt for Dr. House.

I live at home, as I should since I am not in graduate school nor do I have a solid, high-income job.
I am pursuing multiple projects, unpaid internships, and freelancing without pay, in order to build up a repertoire of rare skill sets and journalistic clips. I’m doing all of this so I can bag an education and eventually a career that does not come easily otherwise.
That’s the plan anyway.

I want the people around me to peer-edit my articles.
I want them to hear of my big plans so that they can provide solid feedback.
I want them to hear of my struggle that is somewhat my fault but mostly is the fault of the world.
I want them to hear me air grievances about the impoverished and the other worldly injustices that occupy my thoughts after having read an article/novel, or watched a documentary.

Instead, I receive words of encouragement, which is all fine and well, however, I also bear the brunt of questions I have already answered.

As if I am speaking a different language, listeners seemed to not have been listening at all. Instead, they’re just free-floating bodies situated in front of me. They are sounding boards that do nothing but echo back once in a while because that is as far as the absorption process of what I am saying, goes.

While I was on campus, this wasn’t the case. Disagreements were here - in recitation, there - in the living room of my senior year suite, and everywhere else.

In this case, on campus, few or no one cared for me or anyone else, quite frankly.
Words of niceties and compliments were far and few between.
Encouragement was self-contrived only -  a compounded interest of sorts, derived from the competitive environment.

Despite being less forgiving, the campus environment was more balanced.

Still, I have honestly never been more motivated than now. Since returning home after graduation, its been a race. It’s been a race to change career paths, gain knowledge, legitimacy, respect, a possible husband (still no luck).

No matter what, I won’t change myself like that patient did in the House M.D. episode.

I’ll make the people around me understand with the future successes I am working towards.

CXXII. I've Taken to Reading -

I’ve always loved learning and mastering material without regard for the grade; I was an autodidact all year ‘round.

I wouldn’t even bother to relieve myself of this characteristic on All Hallows’ Eve when everyone else seemed to surrender themselves fully to their costume of choice. I may have chosen to be a witch every year, but  books containing a wealth of information on Wicca were still taken out, just so I could study up on what my costume really entailed.

Regardless, “pleasure reading”, has always been a loaded concept for me. I don’t read just for the sake of it.

Many times I have questioned the correctness of this decided upon action. I’m a writer, a journalist, but I do not have any particular favorite publications. I love to write, as opposed to read.

I think the controversial dual identity that is ‘reading and writing’, is directly parallel to the other controversial dual identity of ‘mind and body.’

To read and to write are two separate verbs, independent of each other; this idea is in parallel to regarding the mind and the body as distinct entities. In both case scenarios, however, there is an inherent connection.

Reading and writing and the mind and the body, go hand-in-hand. On a most basic level, you have to be able to read what you are writing. In a more abstract sense, reading is a skill that has a high success rate in honing the craft of writing. Your vocabulary proliferates when reading. Furthermore, as a reader, when writing, you can engage with your own prose as both the creator and the audience.

Most of the time, however, reading causes me to develop a headache, regardless of whether or not I am in a moving car. My head tends to feel heavy, almost vertigo-like, and I put the book down, briefly close my eyes, and then engage with the inanimate book so that it receives the brunt of my seething scowl.

On many recent occasions, interviewees, ranging from my age to the senility of the Huff Post’s science section editor, in sharp contrast to the otherwise youthful Huffington Post, have asked me what my favorite publications are and who my favorite columnists are.

Why don’t you ask me what my favorite color or number is while you’re at it?

The triviality of picking and choosing, in effect conducting my own mini interview on distanced writers and their affiliated publishing houses, serves no purpose.

Keeping in mind what my mother tells me prior to any pending interviews I have scheduled, to “be honest and be yourself”, I told my most recent interviewers that, many moons ago, I had once favored the columnist Joel Stein of TIME Magazine.
After one too many racial quips targeted at my own Indian heritage, I did not care for his overly touted reputation on a fledgling magazine that seems to slowly deteriorating into the Reader’s Digest type.

After providing my interviewers with my answer, I was met with quizzical stares. So much for being honest.

During my stint at a political campaign for a ridiculous office that holds no power in NYC, I met a fellow UPenn alum.
Upon finding out that I was a writer, he asked me what reading materials posed as my muse.

Reading is not a muse for writing. To believe that it is, I imagine, is the first step to committing what we now know as plagiarism.
I hate saying, writing, and/or typing the word “plagiarism.” It’s a dirty word that represents failure among academics and is akin to uttering “Lord Voldemort”, of the fictional Harry Potter series.

I told as much to the tall, burlesque, aspiring actor and fellow Penn graduate: “ I prefer writing to reading.”

When I do read, my choices are obscure and very specific. They include, but are  not limited to: Medical fiction and nonfiction, South Asian/Central Asian/Eastern historical fiction and nonfiction, semi-autobiographical novels, and journalistic books bound with erudite prose.

Anticipating having to justify my answer as we waited for the F train, surprisingly, he did not carry an expression of condescension as I expected he would. Instead he said, “I’m the same way.”

I have taken to reading recently because, now out of school, I am proactively increasing my knowledge bank.

I have taken to reading because I want to prepare for my GRE in a more creative and less burdensome manner.

I have taken to reading for diversion that is not found on hardwired monitors.

So yes, I have taken to reading for purposes other than writing.

CXXI. Constants Are in An Origin's Coordinates -

In the non-mainstream Hindi film, Pinjar, there is a scene where the lead actress finds herself in a field. Prior to this scene, she had been abducted by a man who fancied her and conveniently also came from a family that is holding a grudge for something unbeknownst to the audience, that her grandfather had committed back in the day. Some days, or perhaps weeks, after her abduction, she had tried to escape, only to be sent back to her captor by her own family who had decided to disown her.

Back to the scene in the fields: The actress makes a trip with her mother-in-law, the mother of her abductor, to the town of the man she was engaged to, prior to her abduction. While walking amongst the crops, she gets lost in the natural course her life was supposed to take. We observe scenes of her in full bridal garb, walking around the fire with her intended fiancee, and then at her new husband’s family home, playing the traditional Punjabi game of finding each others’ rings that are placed in a saucer of milk.

After the audience has insight into her thoughts, the actress snaps out of her reverie, and standing in the field, begins to cry. Tears are streaming down her face and whimpers escape from underneath the scarf covering her head.

One of the field hands, upon seeing this voluminous silhouette, what with her long tunic and equally long pants, addresses her as “daughter”, and asks what is wrong.

She answers in Hindi. The literal translation is that she was dizzy. The English subtitles, however, seems to better capture the what she was emoting: She was feeling “giddy.”

I was walking around my neighborhood a couple of days ago, like everyday, in an attempt to reap the fat-burning results that are promised by cardio. I took a slightly off course route this time, off the major avenue that is. I needed a change of scenery, so I walked without concern for where I was going because it is absolutely impossible for me to get lost in the place in which I grew up.

I stumbled upon the middle school I had attended. Completely unchanged in facade as it were, I spotted the exact room where I had math in seventh grade and remembered having scored 100% on one of the toughest tasks presented at the time. I remember taking the lead on this 2-person assignment. Turns out this pair of students, my partner and I, both went onto Ivies years later.

Here is where it all began to fall into place, I thought, “It” referring to my intellect and the formation of my ambitions.

I continued to walk a couple of feet and saw the little alcove facing the recess area. This alcove was the band storage room, where all the instruments were kept. I remember looking through the window to find a guy I fancied at the time and who I knew had lunch period at the same time that I had band. Unsurprisingly, he and I shared a common heritage.

So much has not changed about myself, I think.

Not even a foot later, I spot the bench where my classmates and science teacher hung out after a trip because it was close to the end of the school day.

I remember having told the teacher my aspirations of being a physician, an aspiration I no longer have.

That teacher is no longer alive, I found out a couple of years later while I was at college  and via a Facebook event made for his funeral.

So, things have changed, I think.

I kid you not, wind chimes were clinking to produce an eerily harmonized tune from a tree across the street from the school. It was not until I passed said pedagogical establishment that I no longer heard the chiming.

I was feeling giddy, much like the actress in the movie. I wasn’t crying, but my head held an abundance of simultaneous thoughts that seemed to warrant vocalizing, as if a preface for tears.

The past brought upon me an onslaught of a future I had pictured for myself.

I saw my 13-year old self at my birthday party at home. I was wearing a navy blue, ribbed tank with cut-off sleeves that I would never imagine myself wearing now. I remember sitting on the floor of my living room, back leaning on the partition to the kitchen, soft dark curls, my hair left natural, and lighter brown curls framing my face, staring into space in an attempt to see my future as someone who had officially reached the adolescent stage. As if reading my thoughts at that exact moment, I overhear an auntie tell my mom, “Reshmi looks so pretty. She looks like she’s growing up.”
That was 10 years ago and yet I remembered the whole conversation after I walked several feet away from my one of my alma maters.

Everything is different, but in some, ‘coordinates of the origin’ type of way, not so much.

CXX. Taking Things In Stride: The Cross-Section Between Patience And Procrastination

Patience - an ability that enables one to suppress restlessness.

Procrastination - the act or habit of putting off or delaying; especially regarding that which requires immediate attention.

__________________________________________________________________

As I have discussed very succinctly in one my earliest posts, I am perpetually dissatisfied, or not content, with the present.

Nowadays, however, I have noticed that in spite of my continuous efforts to plan out the future, I’ve managed to decelerate my dream-state stream of thoughts.

That is to say, I believe I have begun to take more in stride.

A few weeks ago I made a decision, blurry-eyed by vision-obstructing tears: I would no longer pursue self-inflicted challenges that would cause me to feel inexplicably discontent. I believe my exact words at the time did not include discontent, but rather, unhappy.

It goes without saying that it is mandatory to seek out opportunities to stay active in whatever sphere of professional work you so choose to pursue. You need to become an asset, a necessity, and in demand. Instead of supplementing this inevitable task with never-ending internal monologues riddled with stratagems for becoming part of an intellectual elite, however, I have supplanted to the idea that decisions are made, regardless of any will power attempted to sway any pending decisions.

Channeling energy into worrying about phenomenon that is beyond your will is counterproductive and wreaks of supernatural intention. All logic and scientific evidence suggests that stressing one’s self out over matters that are no longer yours to steer, results in adversity.

In short, if you are pursuing something that resists all constraints of reality, like graduate school admissions after you have sent your applications on their merry way, just picture yourself as Asa from Shahs of Sunset.
That is what I did a few weeks ago during the above described scenario in which I chose to be content rather than to partake in stress-inducing actions. I quite literally pictured myself in an acid green and printed floor length Kaftan, complete with feral hair around my shoulders, and both hands to my head, exactly as Asa had done when blessing her “Diamond Water" business, in an attempt to invoke the shaakra, or the mind’s eye.

If you’re ever so discontent about the present state of affairs that you have to take two aspirins, just picture yourself as the reality TV personality who believes she can control the outcome via a “third eye.“

It’s a most effective way at forcing you to take things in stride and to practice patience. No one wants to intentionally pull an Amanda Bynes, or for the sake of continuity, an Asa.

Taking things in stride requires patience. While this novel way of life has demystified my outlook on going through a day without stress-inducing headaches, this idea of patience is proving to be a hard bargain.

Patience is sold as a virtue and a parable to live by. Yet patience is only beneficial in negligible quantities that do not take the form of procrastination. Procrastination can be classified as a form of practicing patience.

Procrastination is taking things in stride to such a degree that each second is a unit of time meant to remain as content as possible while we are alive. I’m referring to the most basic type of happiness. The happiness that diversion entails.

That is not to say that if we were to perform the tasks needed to be completed but are otherwise put off, we would not be happy. We just wouldn’t know for certain that we would experience as much pleasure performing the task itself.

Herein lies the cross-section between patience and procrastination.

CXIX. Proactive Passive Aggression -

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a DVR recorded The Next Food Network Star, as per the request of my mother.

The contestants were being split up into teams. A woman who goes by the name of Lovely, was put on a team with one of the other contestants, Chris. Her twisted smile gave way to a smirk and a malicious sideways glance towards the approaching Chris. Chris gently took her by the shoulders and smiled, as if he were genuinely happy to be on the team with what was apparently an adversary.

Viewing this series of events play out, I felt a tinge of sadness intermingled with the urge to call that lady Lovely, what she really was. Let’s just say the expletive I’m thinking of rhymes with my favorite Halloween costume that I wore without fail, every year during my childhood.

As with all reality T.V. shows, the individual contestants’ testimonials are succinctly edited into the prerecorded goings-on of the competition. As a result, after the audience saw the slightly awkward interaction described above, Chris weighed in on what had transpired. “Kill them with kindness", he said.

I think this is a case of, easier said than done. If I were in that situation and the environment were not professional, I would confront if need be and say, “So you’ve made it clear you don’t want to be on the same team?“, or something else of that nature.

Say you’ve fought with your sibling or parent the day before. You’re still dwelling on said fight and have developed an ammo of possible comebacks in preparation for what today might bring.
Surprisingly, the other person calls you up and asks what you’d like to eat for dinner or perhaps makes some other, seemingly effortless, gesture that comes off as genuinely kind. The guilt that this provokes is sickening and I’m sure we’ve all experienced it as some point. So I suppose Chris to be logically correct when he says, “Kill them, [those who oppose you], with kindness.”

I know that I cannot stroke the feathers of the ruffled, however, I can understand how success can be the sweetest form of revenge. It’s not like I have a list of enemies, but it seems inevitable for me to encounter members of society whom exude less than favorable vibes. In fact, I seem to possess a radar for people who stare out of hate, forming preconceived judgments in their mind.

These persons include all the disgruntled employees who seem to hate his/her job and take it out an an unsuspecting consumer or if I remember correctly from my college days, on the unsuspecting hungry, sleep-deprived student. I’m talking about you, UPenn student dining staff.

I always did support those group of masked freshmen who climbed the over 6 feet gate closing off the cafeteria from the college house leaving poster boards saying, “Don’t be rude!” I think I can find the video online somewhere…

I’m opposed to all immature revelry that took place on my college campus, but this was a symbolic act. This was also the first time I felt a communality with my peers; we were in solidarity.

I happened to come across the YouTube URL address for the documentation of the “break-in”, only to find that it has been made private since then.

Regardless of the lack of evidence, these fearless freshmen, revealed to  have been hall mates, presumably the kind that cling to each other and attend each others’ marriages at some much later date, (unless they shared my mindset about the ideal marriageable age), were successful.

They successfully faced no repercussions while bringing attention to the swept-under-the-rug notion that the employees on campus, mostly locals who occupied underprivileged areas, had beef with the students whom they served.

The truth is, they did not serve us. Instead, they served the university. Regardless of this dichotomy, the staff believed that the Ivy League only accepted legacy students or buy-ins who vacationed in the Hamptons or alternatively, occupied a gargantuan house in the tropics of South Asia, the deserts of the Middle East, the man made territory of Dubai, or the plains of Africa..

Suffice it to say, after the little poster display in the cafeteria, the truth was projected and the tension was not only cut through, but seemed to be only cut for the purpose of being pasted multiple times, for all to see.

We’re all human and I’ll admit to being incredibly competitive - back to the human part: As humans, we have fallacies. What qualifies as a flaw differs according to perception, but no one is without at least one, whatever that may be.

Sometimes, flaws are enigmatic; they will either naturally transform, change via personal proactive will, or sometimes, alter as a result of a combination of doing something and doing nothing.

There’s a big event happening in one side of my family. The side that I do not resemble, physically. The 1st of 3 events took place several days ago, or was it a week? I think my attempt at trying to block it out has become successful.

Fortunately or not, memories are capable of being enigmatic, and certainly are by definition, transient.

Here’s some background as to why my usual excitement for such rare occasions dwindled to a decomposing raisin:

This heat-wave summer is wreaking horrid havoc on my skin. I believe it all started with my little trip abroad. As soon as I stepped into the air out there, I broke out.

Throughout my high school and college years especially, my skin was incredibly clear.
While in India during over 100 degree Farenheit weather and  without my special face soaps, my skin was, in fact, at it’s clearest.

So I have reason to believe that I contracted some airborne bacteria during my recent travels. This, when combined with my lengthy time in the sun, has provoked my skin to mourn - an unfamiliar concept.

Back to the event:

A couple of days before this family function, my skin was at, what I hope, its worst.

Virtually providing my own spa treatment at home on a daily basis, and never sporting any make-up besides ayurvedic Kajaal, or eyeliner, I stared at my reflection before leaving the house; a disgruntled female with her integrity in tact.

The event I was attending was for women only. As a female, we’re part of this exclusive group where we should be empathetic to the daily mandated functions we all have to perform in order to leave our house every morning.

Presumably then, no one would mention my flawed and completely sun-burned skin.

Yes, I do get sun-burn. I may not be extremely pale but let’s remember the combination of Punjabi and Puerto Rican-Spanish invokes a vulnerability to the sun’s rays.

My problem-area was called out not once or twice, but three times. The stares were palpable and the entire scenario was something I had never had to experience before.

“There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women.”
                                                                              - Madeleine Albright

Success is sweet revenge. I’m going to dig deep into my Indian femininity and ensure that this face will do me proud come events numbers 2 and 3 - here’s to the ancient natural science of proactive passive-aggression.

CXVIII. The Heuristics of Success -

I like strawberries - a lot. Let us refer to 13 blog posts earlier.

In my household, there is a running joke: If I like a certain food or dish, I will keep eating that coveted culinary treat until I can only be consoled by bubble gum pink Pepto Bismol tablets.

When it comes to all that can be classified as chaat or Premium unsalted crackers, I have no self-control. I swear, crackers had made up more than half of my body composition until a couple of months ago when I realized that consumption of said crackers caused me to retain an inordinate amount of water.

Turns out crackers can make you feel far heavier than a bowl of pasta. It’s that whole Na+/K- pump channel in your cells kind of logic.

Recently, the concept of self-control acting as an accurate predictor of success, has re-emerged, perhaps as a result of the “more is better” AT&T commercials which showcases kids in a classroom talking through childish logic in an attempt to hamper the 1 adult moderator’s challenges. 

A telling and monumental study was conducted some time back. Children were the subjects of the experiment. Individually, each child would be left alone in a room with a goody, whether it be a toy or confection. Left alone in an empty room aside from furniture and that sole distraction in the form of food or fun. The child was told that he/she would be given some prize, of an amplified value as compared to the prize in the room. So long as the goody already in the room was not consumed or played with, if it were a toy, the child could expect to reap a greater reward.
If, however, during the allotted period of time, the child had in fact took a bite from a marshmallow or perhaps bent the joints of a anthropomorphized figurine/doll, he/she would have forfeited a more gratifying gift.

Years later,during the depths of their young adulthood, the children were contacted by the cognitive scientists. From the resulting analysis of the matured specimen, a very telling pattern was forged: Those children who resisted the temptation in the room wound up as more successful in their professional lives than those children who chose to satiate their appetite for diversion at a quicker rate.

After my attention was again brought to this study, I became anxious: Could my lack of self-control, as described above, though trivially harmless, be detrimental to my attainment of success?

As anyone who has ever had an internal monologue can attest to happening, I quickly  countered the aforementioned thought not even a second later.

No; I do have self-control. Whenever I’m at a social gathering, I hardly eat at all. I have to maintain the hours I put into walking off extra calories prior to this little gathering during the time that I’m present at the event as well. At the end of the day, I come home feeling triumphant, hands on hip right under my lowest rib bone.

Perhaps I have most self-control when not in the comforts of a solo existence. Perhaps my prospects of success ride on the idea of working amongst free-moving bodies as opposed to an inanimate desk.

I know this to not be true either.

The beginnings of my quest for intellectual competence as opposed to sophomoric musings, occurred while I was alone, working at my desk, in my room, on my desktop computer: now a completely foreign concept to this laptop holding and open floor plan favoring adult.

I also recall freshman year of college when I had, almost quite literally, mastered calculus. I had calculated hundreds of problems per week for months only to hear my academic adviser suggest that I major in math - a scary, scary thought. The explanation for my little triumph was that I was determined to start off my college career with a high GPA. After that sleepless stint, I never pursued math again.

I do not have self-control while I am alone and hence certain logic dictates that I would be more successful should I be around others.

Yet history dictates that solo occupancy with my thoughts has caused me to achieve the successes, though in sparing quantities, that I have had til date.

The heuristics as pertains to any future success I may experience in my life remains unknown. As of now, I think the primary step is to know my self-worth, my secondary step, in turn, is not to settle, and the tertiary step is to only work harder until success is achieved.

Here we can discuss the semantics of success. I’m referring to the top of the top, the elite, the cream of the crop, the diamond garnet in the rough, because diamonds are frivolous, overrated, and ugly while garnets are original, rare, beautiful, my first memory of love for a jewelry in the form of my mother’s Kashmiri necklace that I broke, and the gemstone of New York.

CXVII. Bonafide Bouyancy: A Trip Abroad -

When I traveled from within the United States alone, for the first time ever this year, I was not leaving just a comfort zone, I was leaving my entirety, or what at least I believe is my entirety - my world.

I took off again, this time outside of the United States. I was and still am ready for this endeavor, however, only on my own terms.

After 2 days in that country, mostly hostile towards outsiders from my own experience, I left without a single regret.

Within the program I enrolled in, part of an obscure educational institute on the west coast that I am increasingly less inclined to consider as a worthy competitor to the seasonal east coast, I felt as though these 2 days gave me enough of an experience.
The month I would have been there would have been akin to a burdensome, sleepless, unhealthy trauma. I inhaled and exhaled cigarette smoke, was made to live in an oven that was easily over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and was not assigned any possible story ledes as the other participants were. The educational experience I desired was severely lacking and again - universities are ranked for a reason, but I digress.

On the flight, I found my aisle seat already had a neighbor. The window-seat occupier was a young female, who I gathered to be around the same age as myself. We exchanged smiles.

I was not too eager to converse, overwhelmed by motion sickness and legs cramped. She would make small commentaries like, “I have a collection of these airplane-distributed headphones!“ and “my seat can’t recline for some reason.”

In response, I would make audible sounds that could not mean anything in any language, I assure you. Just a quick acknowledgement here and there. was what I was going for.

As the plane was taking off, I realized how uncomfortable I was. There was no in-flight entertainment, the food was beyond sub-par, and the body odor was pungent beyond deodorant potency.

Furthermore, the scattered screens that were available to show 1 movie to everyone on board, hanging from above us so that we would have to strain our necks and croon to see, had a mileage counter, a time counter, a world map with a small pixelated image of an airplane, that represented us and our location over time.

You could say our destination was the very beginning of what can be considered “the east", and so as the route was trailing further across the Atlantic and Europe, I kept staring at the map. I was invoking some kind of telekinesis, willing with all my mental might for our plane to head straight to New Delhi, or back to New York.

I transported myself back 2.5 years ago. I was boarding an Air India flight. The seats and floor were colorful. The interior design of the plane was colored with saffron and vermillion. The air hostess greeted us with her palms facing each other as is the traditional greeting gesture for eastern religious faiths. She was dressed in a sari, complete with a bindi as well. Each passenger had their own screen for individualized viewing pleasure and the food was delicious and far too frequent for my normal calorie-intake, but nevertheless, welcomed.

My father and I had discussed how different my destination would be from India the day before I left. I knew the latter would appeal to me far more. With Hindi music in the background, I kept failing at finding the words to describe how I felt without being outwardly judgmental. My dad then came up with the most adequate word; “India is soothing", he said. Soothing; India is soothing. It is my home away from home.

In the country I just returned from, I was treated as an alien, and my Americanism, though outwardly minimal, was an inherent part of me that kept getting pointed out and then rained down on by incessant tisks tisks. If Starbucks is too American for you, then I don’t see the logic for why it has been transplanted in your country or dined at.

In India I was treated as another daughter of the nation.

This difference was to be expected though.

As I stared at the map and then the mileage counter, I felt weighed down by time, always a gift, and yet just as easily manipulated into a burden.

It was as if I was staring at the screens on treadmills which show the little dots blinking; One dot keeps blinking and then stops, so on and so forth, until all the dots forming the circle are alight, representing the completion of a mile.

The person next to me initiated conversation with a full-fledged question, disrupting my sadness. “So why are you headed here?“, she asked. I answered her and asked her the same question.

Though she was on her second cup of wine and I find any form of intoxication blasphemous, we were conversing like sisters.

We both self-proclaimed to the comfort of television, we quickly bonded over our east-coast roots, and admitted to never having done anything like this before. She was far more positive than myself, but she too was annoyed by the tortuous treadmill-like mileage counter.

I headed to the bathroom and came back with the intention of fake sleeping in an attempt to actually sleep so that time will pass and I wouldn’t have to lose my voice carrying a conversation with someone who would talk so long as she was able to.

Despite wanting some alone time, I was incredibly thankful for her friendly presence. As the plane landed, I was somewhat bouyant, both due to motion sickness and due to a lightness of not being the sole non-globetrotter at the airport.

I was enjoying the sea breeze and the prospect of writing in a new landscape. Shortly thereafter, I heard the azaan, the call to prayer, by no less than 10 minarets, from where I stood. Yet, this newness had a bitter taste. The people insisted they were not religious and yet they were. They dismissed their past, but prided themselves on it. The entirety of the 2-day trip was enough for a lifetime. The bazaar seemed to be filled with prodcuts from my beautiful and colorful India. So much so in fact, that I had to ask the vendors to only show me what was native to their country.

I found words from the languages in the subcontinent of India. Of course, modifications were made to these words as well. The connections made further distanced me from that place and those people.

While I prided myself on my positive demeanor entering into this premature-lived experience, and while I felt I saw and lived through all I needed to there, I am overjoyed to no longer be there.

"Welcome home”, said the customs officer as he handed over my American passport.

CXVI. Gossipy Gabbing -

Another birthday passed, I feel more prone to gossiping. It’s not just me either.

It’s almost comedic and sitcom-like at the sheer proximity between the person being spoken about and his/her distance from the speaker.

With the advent of technology, it is quite ironic how machinery has segued into making gossip more natural than ever. What with text messages, silenced and stashed underneath sturdy restaurant tables, and conference calls, initially an open conversation, free of judgment that transitions into a mass condemnation of the person who had to leave early; Gossip is the most genuine, organic, and non-awkward conversation starter.

Gossiping has negative connotations, but it is in no way a forbidden human fallacy.

As I mentioned in a previous post, adulthood is essentially an open window for judgement-forming. We have acquired experiences and like to draw from them when addressing matters of someone’s decision-making.

To gossip is to critically assess the decisions of another person, not necessarily only to reprimand said decisions. For example, my friend and I could be talking behind someone’s back in the form of compliments, on a wardrobe choice perhaps. A form of communication, the good ole’ two-way street colloquial definition, applies to  gossiping.

A few weeks ago, I was gossiping with one other person in tow. The conversation was completely eased and fluid, akin to a rapid-fire round. As if the time had run out, both of us looked at each other and went silent. A mutual thought fleeted through our minds at the exact same time: Were we doing something wrong?

The next thing I know I’m saying, “We’re just saying the truth. It’s reality.”

That one argument in favor of us not having our halos disintegrate, is the fulcrum on which gossip rests

The Oxford English Dictionary defines gossip as, n. casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.

“Typically” is antonymous to “always”. As we become adults, gossip is so naturally part and parcel of our conversations because we are more inclined to speak the truth.

Many of you may be furiously shaking your head right now, clicking your tongue, or perhaps even muttering expletives at your computer screen in an attempt to inflict voodoo-like hocus pocus.

Hear me out, please and thank you:

Remember when late night television was not filled with Broadway versions of disenchanted high school students and ABC Family shows that transformed topics like murder and sociopaths into G-rated material?

Think back to Bill Cosby’s show, Kids Say The Damdest Things. The crux of the show was a comedic medium for communicating how children speak without thinking. Kiddies tend to speak the truth.

As someone who has never and does not plan to ingest alcohol, I have only heard that those who reach a drunken state, overwhelmingly voice truisms they would otherwise keep on the down-low. (I would suggest that this statement could be gossip according to the definition provided above because I have not confirmed the degree to which alcohol is equivalent to fictional truth serum.)

However, a kid’s truth, is only half the truth.

A kid’s truth, is a single or series of observation(s).
Observations are what you and I see, however, it is what we know, that is the full truth. Say you saw someone who was heavily endowed with luscious eyelashes. There goes the observation. Did you know that she was dawning fake eyelashes? That my friend, is the full truth and my telling someone who may not have known is a form of gossip.

Gossip can make the world a better place. Let’s examine the popular series that came to an unfortunate downfall before I even bothered to watch the final season, Gossip Girls.

On the day of the Upper East Side natives’ graduation, everyone received the same text message from none other than Miss or Mr. Gossip Girl him/herself, cosigned with the infamous xoxo. The characters were labeled as follows: “weakling”, “the ultimate insider”, “coward”, and “officially irrelevant.”

The initial reaction caused by the un-silenced mobile alert, amplified by the acoustics of a privileged private school auditorium, was at once startling.
Upon opening the text, the reactions diversified. As you could imagine, the person called “weak”, was ticked off. The “ultimate insider” formed a half smile on his face, as if he were receiving a prestigious award at the baccalaureate ceremony the day before. The “coward”, well, he was cowering in his seat, and the “officially irrelevant” character was on the verge of tears.

After this fateful reflection at reality, looking into the mirror that is the cell phone screen, the characters transformed. Chuck and Blaire committed themselves to a full-fledged relationship. Both Dan and Blaire hunkered down and settled on NYU - a courageous decision if I may say so myself; though, realistically, I could see how everyone had to relocate here for the sake of the script. Serena deferred from Brown University, which wasn’t so earth-shattering seeing as how she’s one of those buy-ins.

Clearly, this example is partial; The fictional bleeds into reality like a particularly finicky Sharpie permanent marker bleeds into otherwise thick paper.

Regardless, gossip, an enterprise of adulthood, makes us realize that we’re not so distanced from our childhood selves. We shouldn’t be guilt-tripped when gossiping either. If anything, we’re more innocent for it.

CXV. It's Rhyme Time -

You’re tooting your horn -
        Seems you’ve forgotten the traffic sign that tickets for honking.
In debt once more , you begin to mourn -

You have ants in your pants -
        Just couldn’t wait to get a word in.
Accusations mount, but you challenged the wrong person, political correctness shield you from my rants.

You claim to comprehend a language that is mine, but not yours -
       So hear me out: You have coolie woolie.
Who knew that you’d be so insecure so as to show remorse.

You’ve got fever but it seems you suffer from some other ailment as well -
        Seems I struck a nerve.
Maybe you’ve caught  an infection because you exude a rotten smell.

I’m the original, supremely unique and real -
         Stylized since the mother’s existence in 1963 -
I’m the original whose maternal ancestry knelt in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Try me and you’ll dare not traverse -
          This ground I stand on, was and is mine,
For better and/or for worse.

You’re tooting your horn -
           Enough is enough; Go check out them rankings.
The red and the blue forever more, deflects you and your scorn.

Take what you want and get out of my hair -
            Alone I tread, competent, and without networking freebies.
Duplicate if you so desire; I’m off to preserve my aristocratic air.

CXIV. Travelers' Discourse -

Plane tickets were made, suitcases have been packed and weighed, hugs are exchanged, and the call for first class makes you doubt that you’re being still resides in the United States of America.

As if in an interrogation room with a tinted window-cum-looking glass, you’re sitting uncomfortably under artificial lighting while onlookers on the ground watch your fate play out in the sky above them.

The monitor in front of you eases your mind. You won’t become numbingly bored after all, despite the fact that you possess reading material.
Prone to succumbing to motion sickness after reading a few lines of text in a moving or even halted car at a red light, it seems unlikely that you will be reading anything on a plane that is constantly in motion.

The seat belts on the plane are far better than those in a car, though not as desired as AMTRAK seats that are void of any belt.
The air plane seat belts go across your lower abdomen, right above your hip bone, and can remain as loose as you want, without having to stick a couple of fingers between the belt and your body, like the cross-body, pressing-down on your sternum as if perpetually ready for CPR, seat belt that is found in automobiles.

Soon enough the plane starts rolling on its retractable wheels and a loud engine booms in your ears. You’d think the sound would stop but it only gets louder and remains so throughout the flight.

Soon enough, the safety video appears on the screen and you realize that it is far too close to your face and the volume is either too low or too loud.
Your eye lids become butterflies in distress. It should be alright since you have eye drops at hand.

The neck elongates and the head tilts back to an acute angle for the use of eye drops. The air conditioning above you blows into your eyes, effectively drying out your eyes even more in your attempt to moisturize them. Regardless, the liquid sears your eyes in a lovely sting, ensuring you of the over-the-counter drops’ validity.

The tilt of your head is ever so slight because you cannot lean your back. Now there are unusually high levels of saline tears that begin to streak your face.
The seat’s back is too erect, causing your lower abdomen to slouch underneath an unaccustomed degree of gravity. Cramps ensue due to your man/woman-made tummy ache. Remember, you didn’t eat anything in over 10 hours.

Attempting to stay positive, you open up your refreshed eyes and lift up your head, and the plane takes off.

Blood seems to have rushed to my head now and my insides again provoke trickery as reverse peristalsis is about to occur so that my line of sight focuses on the red paper-bag in front of me. Remember, I did not eat anything so nothing will come up no matter how much I gag.

Unable to sleep, unable to vomit, unable to move, and unable to watch T.V., I attempt to immerse myself in the newly published book from a writer I fancy.

Growing more and more nauseous as I read a fictional cancer patient’s narrative who is also nauseous, I am forced to put the book down, 140 pages later.

Arguably the most unnatural experience I have had to endure, traveling is bittersweet and is in no way a lifestyle.

If someone told me otherwise, I’d scoff and have no qualms in telling them off.

The recent article spread on social media called, “Why You Should Travel Young”, strikes me as an utopian internal dialogue that needs to be assessed by a therapist.

I need certain things to be packed with me: Outfit options, shoes, hair tools and products, accessories, soap, toothpaste and toothbrush, perfume, face wash, face cream, body lotion, etc. Even if I had made due without these items, they are necessary. I packed the bare minimum, in my opinion, for a trip I just came back from. Though large my suitcase may have been, it still weighed less than most others.

I am not high maintenance. I have, willingly, gone days without eating as a conscious choice. I have gone days without seeping as well. I have taken showers with freezing cold water that was rationed in a different country. Despite these archaic ways, I thrived and felt healthier than when I was sitting in a lecture hall or at home.

After all, the acquisition of basics is natural for humans to live on.

I had DVR'ed the Hindi classic Lagaan while I was away.

My father and I were watching the movie uninterrupted the day after I returned. He was enjoying the dialogue as I endlessly ranted about the non-Indian’s horrible pronunciation of a language that is not their own.

I asked my dad hypothetically, “how did they [the Indian villagers] upkeep any sort of hygiene?” There was a drought and traces of water were severely lacking.

My dad responded that they did what they needed to live. There was no form of hygiene, he continued.

“Their hair!”, I interjected. What did those people do about their hair? What about lice?

He told me that they went to the riverbanks and used mud as a type of soap.

I then told my dad that Harappa, an ancient civilization in Punjab. had internal plumbing. My dad then said that the progress had died with them and civilization started anew, without knowledge of the advancements developed prior.

Traveling entails starting anew, akin to the movement of time from ancient Harappa to early 20th century village life.

According to Ernest Gellner in an excerpt from one of my favorite reads, Nations & Nationalism, said,  “The general emergence of modernity hinged on the erosion of the multiple petty binding local organizations and their replacement by mobile, anonymous, literate, identity-conferring cultures.”

The transition from nomadic times to the era of  settlement, exemplifies the very unnatural act that is traveling. Furthermore, this act of traveling was as a group of kin or community and is like ensconcing yourself in breathable bubble wrap.

Traveling alone and without your kin is unnatural. Sure, you will get to experience and see novelty. You will explore and perhaps feel enriched from challenging yourself. Perhaps you will make friends, perhaps not. Maybe you’ll be able to communicate, but maybe you won’t.

I want to be alone when I want to be alone regardless of loneliness. I like grooming myself, looking back at my reflection as I comb through my hair, without another pair of eyes around. I suppose this need to have lone time without being completely alone is the equivalent to finding a niche; one of Darwin’s cases in point in describing the survival of the fittest.

Do not ridicule others for their anxiety and particularities when it comes to traveling. It is only natural and all human to fall ill, stomach churning and brows furrowed, at the thought of leaving behind what is home.

For those who characterize themselves as worldly globetrotters, smiling and feathers unruffled after having exited a plane or train, they are the same persons who believe life should be lived as though tomorrow were not available.

Well, if that were the case, I’d like to be in my comfort zone, among my kin, content and centered in a place that is my own.

CXIII. The Rebel Child: A Thing of The Past -

Yelling and hatred penetrate the air around me and the opposition party.

I sometimes find myself thinking: Wasn’t this phase supposed to have passed some years ago?

Even in less drastic circumstances, it is as though my adrenaline is pumping during conversations. I am perched on my racing shoes, waiting for my turn to speak, and  am ready to relay my disagreement, with an increasing frequency.

Openly discussing my outright disagreement with my extended family elders, something I would have never thought to do before, has suddenly become praiseworthy.
I told my father of the mini-debate I had with someone who is arguably the patriarch of the extended family. My father suddenly stopped and unmoving, he stared at me wide-eyed. “What did you say?”, he asked. After I had relayed the paraphrased version from my memory, he than said, “You didn’t do anything wrong”, as if to ensure himself, more than myself, that no harm was done.“You have your own mind.”
In fact, the elder whom I had a half-an-hour discussion with about career, finances, and family life seemed to have appreciated my presence, not for being the sole daughter of the family, but rather for my presence of mind.

Truth is, I throw around the word hate a lot and I do dislike many, many things. The few lucky things I happen to fancy include, but are not limited to: All things related to India (history, language, food, dance), shopping (for fashion items), academia (when examinations are not the focus), photography (when amateur enjoyment trumps technique), and writing/typing original content.

Way back when. as a young person of adolescence, I had rarely succumbed to the rebellious attitude. I never chose to hung out and logically couldn’t do so seeing as how my school day would begin prior to 7 A.M. and ended after 5 P.M. I never had the desire to go to prom nor date.
Dating is so filled with immature connotations; I just want to find someone who I can marry, is that too much to ask for? My God.
I never wanted to expose my belly button or eat out on a daily basis. The concept of allowance was non-existent and I was more than OK with that.

Yet these tentative days of young adulthood, I find myself in harsh disagreement with my parents, and many others, which is not so surprising if it weren’t to such a high degree.
Furthermore, the profundity of these disagreements loom large and encompass the core of how lives are lived. Why are you making this decision? How long did it take you to come up with? What you’re doing is wrong. I call out and call out and arguments ensue.
Some call this constant cynicism negativity, some call it a sorry excuse for pragmatism, and others call it judgmental.

I don’t need a happy pill.

What I need is an explanation.

For example, we all have emails that are meant to be regularly opened and checked, so I do not understand why anyone would feel the need to publicize that an email has been sent out over a social media platform when the recipients of said public service announcement, can easily read the email themselves. What’s the explanation for this?

When I express disagreement, I don’t swear or yell but I most definitely cloak the aforementioned under a diplomatic sheath that reads: “I understand your point, but…”

In this rebellious adulthood space that I am occupying, my disregard for “the other”, is masked in the form of scathing scorn that is so acute, it successfully produces a tension  in the air. I want you know, just like you want me to know, that we are at odds because we both believe that we’re correct. That is to say, the nature of this phase is to purposefully showcase one’s own opinion so as not to have any one person’s intellectual integrity be sullied.

Call me a rebel.

Young adulthood is as good a time as any to form your own solid conceptions of political discourse, morality, and life in general. Sure I am not as experienced as my elders, but after doing my laundry for 4 years, I prefer the generous quantities of detergent that I use instead of my mother’s preferred method of following the directions printed by the company.

Call me a rebel.

Despite the immigrant narrative I have heard, I cannot help but think that my lifestyle may be better suited in another country. Perhaps Geneva, Switzerland may fit my desire for a more content life. In providing a prologue to your upholding of the “American dream” argument that reads along the lines of illegal immigrants having  risked their lives to enter into the United States, I only find more ways to knock down your argument. I cannot empathize with those (mostly) men who crossed borders in the middle of the night only to be (in the majority), working for less than minimum wage and remaining in a stagnant position their entire lives despite the fact that this occurs  in a country where the standard of may arguably be better. I would have tried and fight the system in the homeland and try to build up near my kin.

Call me an insensitive rebel.

This rebellious nature is in contrast to the childhood phase. Now, there is no need to harp on internal determination to convince the opposition to follow your suit. In fact, a follower is equivalent to a plagiarist, at least in my eyes. So disagree with me if you will and you will find that the ensuing  quasi-argument will  almost always end in mutual guards-up: “Agreed to disagree” and “It is what it is.”
In other words, sorry I’m not sorry I still believe that I’m in the right.

Call me a rebel if you will.

CXII. The Culture of Consumption -

As I have mentioned in a previous post, when I find myself in the position of having to eat out, whether it be by choice, or by force, I try in earnest to choose the least fattening dish on the menu.

Whenever a salad is available, dressed in non-fat balsamic vinegar, without  the natural lard in nut-form, and devoid of avocado or meat, I don’t register a  second thought and, with conviction, order the salad.

I try to avoid eating bread in any form and if at all possible, I attempt to separate the solid vegetables contents from the sauce they’re drenched in.

On occasion, I splurge and eat whatever is in front of me. I have 2 explanations for this phenomenon, aside from the fact that I obviously can tolerate the food and may even go so far as to fancy it :

1. I am filled with anxiety to such an extent that filling myself up with food is a compensation mechanism that serves to translate the abstract into the tangible; namely: nausea, an upset stomach, and a feeling of bodily disproportion.

2. I feel obligated to finish consuming food as a form of respect. In other words, I am attempting to not disaffect a party of people whom I will no doubt have to encounter multiple times throughout the course of my existence. In avoiding argumentation, I appropriate appreciation towards the bearers of food by filling myself to the point of finding an unobserved nook where I can jog in place.

For the entirety of my college career, exactly 1 year from today, I would ingest less than 800 calories a day. The summer that followed commencement, I was more than inclined to keep this lifestyle static, albeit, with healthier choices and occasional choice of a potato-filled bread with yogurt as opposed to a veggie patty without the bun.

The primary reason for developing this eating habit, I know now, was to prevent weight gain. As a 4.0-obsessed freshman, I was sitting all day and studying.
What was originally a subconscious need to control my weight became the norm. Upon coming home, my primary care physician was more than alarmed, which in turn, alarmed me, and so I ate everything in site. Suffice it to say, I felt more sickly the more I ate.
Eventually, my diet adjusted for (slightly) more food intake.

Contrary to what people may think, I do not count calories. If I cannot bring myself to stand on a scale, quantifying how many units of energy I consume, a number that can easily be translated into pounds, would be contradictory to my wishes.

When I ate as I have been for the past 4 years, my skin was clear my hair became silkier and yes, thinner which was not a pro, and shopping became a case of seeing a runway model in the fitting room mirror minus 9 - 10 inches.

Till date, I do not understand why my parents and other family members always pushed food towards me and others my age.  I most definitely would not want to keep this legacy alive when I have kids. Sure enough, whenever I say this, I’m met with squinted eyes and am scowled at. How could anyone starve their kids?

The food spectrum goes from one extreme to the other.

Some ethnic cuisine almost completely phases out certain food groups.

I have said it time and time again, I am not vegetarian. Although, if I wanted to be vegetarian, that is my choice and my choice alone.
I could care less about little jabs made here and there by those who disapprove.
If I eat kebab after not having eaten meat in months, I am clearly not a vegetarian. I have no qualms about animals eating other animals. It seems as though people like to give me a hard time in this regard. I’ll get the nutrients that I need to survive, thank you for your concern.

As many inadvertent arguments that develop between family members and I when I refuse to eat meat, simply because I do not like it, there are  an unfortunate number of times where I cannot help but eat what is available; a compromise has to be made.

For this is the culture of consumption.

In a short time, I’ll be immersing myself among a people who are heavy meat eaters. When I say meat, I am referring to the distinction that is made between meat,(lamb, pork, goat, cow), and poultry, (chicken).

One reason for my dislike of meat is the chewiness. No matter how well cooked, the texture is naturally akin to rubber. With that said, chicken seems to be the least rubbery among meat/poultry products.

In the country where I’m headed, chicken dishes are not commonplace. If I am to survive in this foreign land, I’ll have to forsake my desire for vegetables. The non-meat dishes are heavily bread and cheese based which, as you can only imagine, will cause me to stock up on more pepto bismol more than I’d like to admit. I don’t think my stomach could handle it.

So here’s to the culture of consumption: From the small portion-sizes in Paris, to the chemical-induced foods of the Americas, what food you consume has never been an individual choice.