For Me the Snow Falls

Flurries on my tongue, for an instant before they’re gone

Melting away my worries – erasing messy lines that I’ve drawn

Between tangled thoughts and jumbled memories in my head,

Raining chilled happiness down through the mess instead.

As I tilt my head back and watch the flakes crash into me;

The always-hurt dissolves because I know they’re smiling silently

A thousand cold whispers hushing every voice in my head;

Putting out every burning memory of the words that I read.

I know you can’t see the crystals glistening in my hair;

I can see it in your eyes that you’re not here, you’re there.

But for now, in this moment, it doesn't matter and I am free;

For a million tiny diamonds are grinning at the sunshine with me.

Frost on my lashes, abandon in my feet and icy kisses on my skin;

The world is caught up in a dance, and somehow I've joined in.

The wind swishes her flurried skirt softly and smiles her knowing smile
For she’s blown magic into this moment, this world and this heart of mine.

Snow be beautiful beautiful happiness distilled into flakes;

Spectacularly, soundlessly telling me that everything will be ok.

The Conflict of Being Indian: Where watermelons have no seeds

[Stand forewarned: There be a bit of rambling below. But I think this is important, so skip through parts if you need to, but make it to the end? Please?]

I was Skyping with my maid at home the other day. It feels weird to call her that, somehow. She helps my mom with the washing and cleaning, so I guess that's what she is. But I call her Aunty and I care about her immensely. So I was Skyping with Aunty for a while - asking her about how her daughers were doing, whether it was getting cold over there and explaining to her how she could see my face from half-way across the world.

She asked me if I was eating alright and getting enough sleep and grinned was that I was using the washing machine all by myself. And then she paused. I could see her furrowing her eyebrow at my pixelated face on the screen, as she said worriedly, "Neellu dandiga unnaiya akkada?" (Do you have enough water to use?)

It made me smile and broke my heart, all at the same time. I told her that no town in America has a water shortage and the wonder in her face at that sentence broke my heart all over again.

I am an Indian. I come from a city where millions of people struggle to get by; where lives are seeped in poverty, corruption and exploitation. I come from a land soaked in traditions and customs and often choked by those very beliefs and rituals. That country is my home.

Today though, I have left it for a while. Today, I live in the kind of place where people complain if they happen to chance upon a watermelon with the seeds still inside. For all the watermelons here are genetically modified to have no seeds, presumably to facilitate easy eating. It's such a stark contrast it makes my head hurt. That such a contradiction could be stretched so thinly over two hemispheres makes my mind boggle. What right have I to be here? What right have I to chase a dream, when there's so much I can do for India back home?

Over the past year, before I moved here, I worked full time with a non-profit organization in Bangalore. And at the risk of sounding cliche, it was a life-changing experience. The NGO showed me stories that I shudder to think I might never have heard. I spent more time than ever before on the streets, in underprivileged communities, talking to the doctors, teachers, rickshaw drivers, daily wage workers, nuns, masjid committees and even government officials who make up that world. I wish I could put into words everything that I saw, felt and experienced, but words seem to fail.

I guess I can say that I heard her stories last year, for India is just brimming with stories. Tens of thousands of stories that prick and burn the very core of you, and tens of thousands more that leave you feeling helpless and frustrated. It is easy to see that we are a complicated, complicated country - with a unique, perplexing set of problems.

And so, I suppose it is easy to move away and remove yourself from all of it; keep yourself from dealing with any of it. It must be easy to live in America and visit home, disdainfully, wrinkling up your nose at the smells. I've seen it so often with so many people and so, I suppose it's easy. I suppose that it is easy to go back and look around with incredulity and disgust, like you forgot that you were ever a part of it. People do live in the middle of the chaos and corruption, the dirt and pollution, and live happily. We live happily. I hope I never forget it. I hope I can go back and be alright. Today, I've accepted my messed up country with all it's ten thousand flaws. I hope that wherever I go in life, which ever countries I live in, I'll be able to fly home years later, and accept all of those things again.

And to all of those nose-wrinklers, those incredulous visitors, those disdainful Indians, I say this: I am glad you left. Living in India is not for the faint-hearted. It is not for those who like to avoid issues and close their eyes to things that are difficult and complex and painful. Those kind of people harm India, and could never do her any good.

Living here is for the strong; for those who can take it. Living here is for those who chose to open their eyes to her problems. Living here is for those who can see her messy, beautiful soul and attempt to do what they can to fix her.

I'm not a romantic, I'm not deluded. I'm not saying that every Indian should drop it all and dedicate their lives to their country. I'm not excessively nationalistic, I'd like to think that I am a citizen of the world. I wouldn't call myself a social worker or a tree-hugger. I am a scientist, I love what I do deeply and I'd like to contribute to the world that I live in.

However, in addition to all of these things, I am also Indian. And I believe that being an Indian comes with responsibilities - to care, be be aware, to understand and to be a part of making a change, in any way possible.

Can we throw that wrapper in a trash can, despite the overwhelming pile of trash beside it? Can we remember that the woman who's sweeping the streets lives in a house with no electricity and no water? Can we understand that she will let her husband beat her because she cannot fathom any different? Can we open our eyes and see that the man who never pays tax believes that tax only feeds the fat politicians and that the benefits will never trickle down to him? Can we be aware that the man who takes a bribe from you has to pay off ten people above him?

Are we ready to listen with open minds and hearts to the stories beyond our imagination? Can we accept them for what they are? Being an Indian is not simple. It is a complicated and perpetually tumultuous conflict. And I know with all the certainty in my mind that one doesn't run away from that.

Travel Lessons

1.  If you start the day at 5:30AM watching The Godfather while waiting for your flight, you will end up doing the Don Corleone voice for the rest of the day. Air hostesses will throw you strange looks.     

<sigh> The burdens of travel.

2.  Neon socks are not exactly ideal travel attire, apparently. Guards at security check will stare/glare at your feet. Squinting at the raw fluorescence.

3.  I realized today that the dawn actually does chase the night. Literally. So this morning, as my flight took off, I could see the pre-dawn horizon through the window to my left, and it shocked me. How could I have been alive for twenty three years and not known this about the sunrise? 

What I saw through the pane was a sky entirely blue, except for a strip running along the horizon that was a deep, rich orange. Apparently, someone took a very large brush and dunked it in a tub of orange this morning, before dipping the tip in a pool of pink and running a streak across the sky - all along the horizon. 

That someone does this every morning, exactly the same way. The day starts as a strip of colour and pushes against the night, growing into it till it takes over the sky. I like that. It makes me happy.

Saying Hello to Miss Emily

I got off the tram a stop early while coming home today;

I wanted to dawdle a little in the crisp winter air along my way.

As I crossed on to Borsbergstrasse, a grin spread across my face

As I caught sight of Miss Emily, exactly where she stood every day.

I gazed at her complexion, well-worn with time and still managing a creamy white

As she twinkled at me from behind lace curtains and through soft candle light.

Her garrets curved happily, lit by the largest bay windows around;

Her kitchen smelled of warmth and cookies baked to the perfect golden-brown.

She called out to me softly, that lonely lady of times gone by;

And creaked open her wrought-iron gate invitingly under the evening sky.

Isn’t the cold just hateful, and would I like some cocoa with honey?

Won’t I come in and sit by the fire, tell her something funny?

She has such terrible nightmares, she explains; about things only she remembers.

Memories of horrific years gone by, stories of a war and its dying embers.

“Maybe some other night, Miss Emily”, I reply, with a sorry smile.

“I’ll come by to eat ginger cookies and stay a little while.”

She swishes her curtains and wraps me up in a large rotund hug.

She whispers that I must come back and slowly puts away the cocoa mug.

[I lived on Borsbergstrasse in Dresden for seven months in the year of 2011. The street was lined with the most charismatic mansions I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, all the way from the tram stop at the corner up until my dormitory building. A pre-war mansion, a Victorian looking mansion, a run-down scary one, a stern, austere one - all with their own personalities and stories, or so I like to believe. It made for very, very interesting walks home.]