The Much Awaited/Dreaded Trip

A month too late in posting this... still this is how I felt a little over a month back.

Just a matter of a few months away from home & perspectives change yet again. When leaving home at the end of August I had thought I’d be back only around the mid of 2010. However a month and a half in this country and I already had my ticket for the home trip booked. Just three months here and I am already eagerly waiting for my month in India.

The things I miss most here are my sis, the food, the random walks, the noise of Delhi, my home, the eating joints, family, meeting friends, catching up with them over coffee, mom’s daant, bro’s & sis’s taunt on my fitness state or evident lack of it. I miss the shopping areas of Delhi even though I am not a big shopper, I miss catching movies in theaters, and I miss Hindi movies. I miss a shoulder to cry on when I am down, I miss sharing a laugh with a friend in the middle of the night like it used to be on campus. I miss late night food, I miss the festivities, I miss driving, I miss ordering take out on the spur of the moment even though I have food cooked & ready, I miss my neighbor’s kid, I miss my sisters smile & her enthusiasm about everything in the universe, I miss seeing her eyes lit with joy on hearing a compliment or receiving a gift, I miss taking her out shopping, I miss pampering her spoilt. I miss the random hugs; I miss maggi & gol gappe. I miss the chats with cousins, the bakar sessions with friends; I miss Delhi roads & at times the traffic too. I miss the long walks.

However, in spite of all this I am also dreading the trip home. The trip where I am treated as an exhibit to be displayed in the Matrimony market. I have always dreamt of finding the one I marry on my own & suddenly it feels as though the world is collapsing, coming crashing down right beside me. I have to go through responses to matrimonial adverts, a feat I haven’t yet accomplished and have managed to outsource. It seems lame & creepy and some other things I can’t explain to me to go through these sources. I am not that sort of a person, I think I am ready to stay single for some time to try and find my guy on my own. I do not want to be bull dozed into a marriage just coz I have younger brother who is all set to get married. Is it okay to get married just because he’s ready & can’t get married before I do? Why is a wedding so important that I have to give up my career, my dreams bcoz my family wants to see me married? It’s not like I am altering my dreams, it is giving them up. I might let go of all those dreams in a split second if I am in love coz then it won’t be giving up, then I’ll be dreaming new dreams of sharing a lifetime with someone and those dreams will be mine. Coz there is a lot of difference in doing something you are asked to do and doing it out of your own will.

Dear god, please give me the strength to stand my ground, to be myself, to make the right choices, to not get swayed by family & community pressures.

For now though I just want to go home, be myself, enjoy my time there with family and friends, visit places, go for long drives, listen to good music, eat mom’s food, exercise, shop, visit my friends, spend good times with them. I want to laugh till I have tears in my eyes & my stomach hurts. I want to be alive and have joy course through my veins. I want to be ME.

Human, Are we??

A lot of times we hear & read about companies & enterprises being human however, tend to see very few examples of the same in day to day life. During my trip to India I came across such an example & was very pleased to see some organization try & make a difference.

It was a normal day back home & I was out in the evening with my sister. Suddenly while crossing a market complex we decided to stop at a KFC. We parked the car & went in to grab a bite. We approach the counter and encounter a guy who can’t figure out what we are trying to order & me being my usual impatient self, get irritated & say to my sister…Is this guy dumb or what???. Turns out the guy was not only dumb but deaf as well. As we moved closer, he pointed to the badge he was wearing. The badge said “Pls point out your order”.

Never in my life have I felt so cheap & disgusted with myself. Here I am a mature sensible person or so I thought and I lack even common courtesy. I am so full of myself that I can’t even remotely appreciate the huge problems people face in their day to day life.

There I was standing in front of this guy who was beaming with joy at just being able to take our order correctly. As it turns out, that particular KFC employs several such (for the lack of a better word) individuals. I felt angry with myself for my behavior. However I was really glad that some organization was making a difference!