Reminders

I was late.

I was supposed to get up at 530am. I got up at 6. The call with my colleagues went longer than expected. I tried to cook for the first time, of all days, today. (Not much – Boiled some frozen veggies, toasted two slices of bread, added chilli flakes, oregano, the veggies and ketchup and made a sandwich Tada! – That’s one step for a cook and a giant leap for me.)

First difference – Why in the Kailasam doesn’t this place have these small dosa parotta stalls that are so common back home? There was one right up in my street. Huh. And why can’t the cute things called chillies be used in something in some form? Why this partiality against a vegetable class? My heart goes out to the neglected family.

So anyway, I was late. And I had to catch a bus.

Second difference – I don’t have my bike here. My adorable old green bike. You know the feeling that one gets when he/she has broken up (well I don’t know that feeling but I am guessing how it would be) with his/her whatever-the-appropriate-noun. Well anyway, I have that feeling about my bike. It’s like I broke my relationship with her, abandoning her with wanton hard heartedness but still longing for her. I am sorry my bikey. I now know your value. Sobs. Hope you will accept me back. Give me one more chance. I will be a better person. Sobs.

Third difference – There are no autos. Not even shared ones. Seriously. Can you believe that? No taxis. No rickshaws. Nothing. You know the feeling when you are completely, and I mean completely, at the mercy of someone that we feel paranoid and uncomfortable even though there are no warranted reasons to feel so but just because we are completely dependent on the thing? That is what I feel about the public transport system.

Fourth difference – The buses are fascinatingly infrequent. For the first time in my life I have taken a print out of a public transport bus service schedule, stuck it to the wall and go by it. In fact I am collecting data about this everyday – times of services, the variance and standard deviation of arrival times, walking speed etc. I am hoping to optimize my waiting time at the bus stop. Typical operations research exercise. I am actually excited about it. Wheeee! If the sarcasm was lost on you, I am merely pointing to the irony of a common man needing to do operations research to use the bus service.

Fifth difference – Quarters! No no...not whiskey or rum. Coins. Every satandamned machine here needs quarters. And the bus will eat only one dollar bills or quarters. Where in Osama’s beard am I supposed to get so many quarters? (and the washing machine and drier compete for your precious quarters as well). So I am hurriedly collecting coins from my purse and bag and stuff and every other silly stupid coin is there. What am I supposed to do with these pennies and dimes anyway?

Sixth difference – The pavements to walk on? They are just awesome. And almost all the houses have well maintained lawns AND so many people walk their dogs and the dogs are just lovely. The houses? They look so adorable. You know like a baby boy decked up in a suit with a bow? Or the strip in which Calvin has his hair combed for a picture? And somehow many of the houses have a fairy tale-ish quality to them.

So I was walking briskly down the pavement to the bus stop. There is a bus at 8.27 am. Time on my watch was 8.23. It would take one more minute for me to reach the end of my street where it joins a main road on which the stop is located. And I know the bus would come in between 820 to 835. And I was hoping that the bus hadn’t come early. I was almost running now. I was able to see the road. Just a few seconds away. And the bus passed my street. CRAP. I was running now. There was a chance that I can still catch it. And I turned the corner and I was running and I was a few steps away when the bus just started (which means the doors were already closed) and I was running out flat now but I knew I have missed it. As I stopped and sighed, cursing and wishing that maybe I could have gotten up one min earlier, I saw the bus stop (that was not a pun. I meant that the bus stopped and not the bus-stopJ)!!! I went up to the bus and the door opened and the driver, an African American middle aged woman who always gives a big smile and says a warm good morning every day, was smiling at me (Think she recognizes me because I am the only one who gets on at this stop and I had taken her bus -the 8.27am one- without fail for some days). She said “I was wondering where you were and then saw you running”.

I don’t know why or how but it did feel really happy. Then she was talking with me all the way till the stop I get down. Irrespective of the country or city, there are always some nice people, there are always things to feel good about, and there are always reasons to smile.

Aaaand I missed home so much that day. I missed my city. I missed my people.

It’s not the sad things, the irritation of not understanding the new system, the inconvenience of not having my bike or the lack of spicy food that makes me miss home. Many of these things feel good in retrospect and its nice enjoying the differences.

It’s the love, affection and warmth shown by people here that makes me miss home more. Because in that moment, in that elation of feeling happy and safe as I stand basking in somebody’s caring gesture, my mind tells me how exponentially more gratifying and meaningful I would feel when I am reveling in the affection of my own loved ones.

In that fleeting trance, mind gallops across the sweeping landscape of memories, stirring up, like dust under the hooves of an unicorn, images and words and laughs and hugs and smiles, all of which swirl and entwine in a psychedelic union that reveals itself in a simple unrevealing long silent longing sigh.

Love reminds us of love like nothing else.

I miss you guys.

All of you.