Mind's Eye

Straight face me: “If I was not a Naini girl, I would have been a Cali girl..”
Uncontrollable burst of laughter from the other end of the phone, people do appreciate a good sense of humor!

Every time I visit California I am surprised at my ‘wannabe’ streak. However this idea is not so far-fetched, you are either a city girl or a country girl (for lack of better word for all things ‘nature’).
I am just saying give me some green hills, an orange sun, foaming waters, sandy beaches and I am a very content happy person!

On my flight to LA, I was reading about the scientist Nikola Tesla and his experiments with alternating current, wireless transmission of energy and Tesla prong and I feel somewhat inclined to define happiness in terms of physics. You are in a happy state when you find your resonance with a place, person or activity. You connect at your natural frequency, you are most alive, and your mind is unconsciously taking notes (some call it memories). These memories are like an incoherent map of happiness for future reference, a collage of images and experiences frozen in space and time. (key words-incoherent, frozen)

If I was to make a time-lapse video using images captured during my recent trip, the storyboard would look something like this:
LAX airport- colorful pillars you see just before landing, busy, makeshift structures at the arrival section; LA’s palm trees along the roads, curves, always moving traffic. Hit the freeway in the black shadows of the night against the backdrop of the city light. The black shadow of a hill appears right in front of you and as you race by the hill, it recedes and flanks you on the sides. The hills like the loyal sentinels hide away the ocean; however not for long, even the dark shadows of the night cannot conceal the foamy white waves from sight. You slide down the car windows and smile as the lights of passing cars, the wind, the sound and smell of the ocean all hit you at 80mph!

DSLR geeks tell me that making time lapse videos from RAW images is a lot of work but the human brain is unique, it can store millions of memories and string them together in the most beautiful way. I can close my eyes and see the stories that emerge from the images of the peaceful setting sun at the beach, the competitive full-moon following us all the way from Santa Barbara to LA, the picture-perfect postcard town of Solvang with its foreign Dutch air, the cliff with the view of a serpentine railway track running parallel to the shore, the quite ranches and big houses cleverly hidden behind tall trees.

Hopefully all the driving and parking lessons along the way will also stay in my head, at least till the driving test. Here I am completely banking on my Mind's eye!

Living alone

I guess I should keep an updatable memoir to keep an account of my experiences of living alone for the first time. Yes I belong to the set of the people who romance the idea of first time. The second time is never like the first! (end of discussion)
This will be like a record of the lessons learnt or changes in behavioral patterns.  So here goes the first moment of truth.

1. Living alone makes you cruel!
You no more have the King Arthur roommate who singlehandedly slays the army of multipedes that
invade your living space-the creepy insects with beady eyes in shady corners. You no more have the luxury to be saved, you have to pick up the arms and fight your own devils.
Within a week of moving into my apartment, I have already killed two cockroaches. One brutally drowned in hot water and the other beaten to death. I still have to deal with one dead body when I go back home.
My apartment manager tells me matter of fact, ma'am this is the wild South not the Mid-west.
Well I survived the East without killing a beast, (except for an unfortunate lizard which got squeezed between the door hinges and barred me from entering the room till the last trace of the remains was gone- ofcourse the room mate arranged for that). What memories!
This episode became more gory than intended, but hopefully the next will be uplifting.

2. Living alone makes you 'double-check' your every action..(07/07/2013)
'Dobuul check' is a phrase that I learnt in Kolkata, every time I would run a script or execute a query my team mate was in the habit of asking me to 'dobuuul check'. Well he was in the habit of asking everyone to dobuul check everything in life..
I remembered him, as I got out of my bed at 2am at night to just double check that I had bolted the door. Although I remembered clearly of having done so, I still choose to dobuul check.
I was never the person to check if the cooking gas regulator was closed at night or the doors were latched, there was always someone else to look after these errands. Also if this 'someone' was not around to do the same, I slept and woke up just fine with no care about the door or the gas regulator or anything else.. Now sadly the 'dobuul check' module is loaded, although slightly buggy...


3. GoodNight-GoodMorning system break-down..(11/11/2013)
If you can fall off asleep at night as soon as you get into the bed and close your eyes. Life is good.
If you can wake up at the sound of your alarm without getting too 'alarmed’. Life is good.
Needless to say that life is not good when the above 'ifs' don't hold true. Now there might not be a direct correlation between GoodNight & GoodMorning system break down scenarios and living alone but I do see a pattern.
I have come to realize the importance of the ‘good-night’ chat for a good sleep.
Back in the engineering days when we were not copying assignments, a bunch of us would be huddled together watching ‘Friends’- lack of resources for the communal watching. And as you walked back to your room with your roomie, you had the 5mins of good night chat about ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’.
Kolkata & Hyderabad followed the same pattern, though Kolkata was more fun-it was the time to curse the fools at work- ‘the today’ and making weekend shopping plans ‘the only tomorrow you cared for’.
MBA good night chats were about ‘submissions for today’ and ‘assignments for tomorrow’ at least for the first year.
The point is these ‘today-tomorrow’ chats gave a closure to the day and I could snore away peacefully having told all the stories/complains that I wanted to tell for the day!
Now when I find myself struggling to sleep, I have to pick up the phone and think of the nocturnal people I know. So living alone makes you understand the value of nocturnal friends to complete your ‘GoodNight’ ritual.

 Same is true about the morning ritual, at least for lazy people like me. Sometimes you come across another lazy soul like you and you instantly sign the most sanctus unspoken agreement about waking up late in the morning without ‘feeling guilty’ about it.  There is unconditional moral support when you miss morning class, show up late at work or improvise a super lazy Sunday morning record, and in some instances a partner in crime!
There are virtues of an early riser roommate as well, occasionally her goodness rubs on you and you have a proud day in a month! She is also your safety net when you fall too deep in slumber on an important morning.
Living alone you have to perform both the above roles by yourself to keep the ‘GoodMorning’ system running smoothly..- Not an easy task!
 

Walls vs Doors & Windows

Doors and windows are more eloquent than walls.

Walls stand silently for their entire life-they don’t move, they don’t make funny noises of their own but I have come across many a creaking doors and windows in my life. The best the walls can muster is to fail to block out the outside noise; however each door and window has its characteristic voice-the sound of unlatching and then the sound of force as it snaps open. You can also sense seasonal modulation if you are living in a place that receives heavy rainfall (moisture rich environment).

Walls stare back at you blankly, you don’t gaze at walls and ceilings unless you are really sad and then also the best the walls can muster is their stoic disposition-unaffected gaze. Walls hide away things- block them away from sight.
Walls define space; doors and windows represent a possibility to look beyond the confines of your space. Walls represent inflexible boundaries; doors and windows represent flexibility and freedom..

There are a lot of differences that one can create and write about but essentially the question is when do you create walls to shut out people and when do you leave a door or window of hope ajar?

photo credit sr
After a lot of knocking she finally sent me some pictures from her recent Jaipur visit.
Interestingly Jaipur is a perfect example of how walls(Jaipur city wall) with its seven gates(doors) and windows(hawa mahal) together give the city its unique character- Padharo mhare des!