Conundrum and Cannabis.

This was supposed to be a Medium post but I have been told Medium is more for professional stuff so I moved my stuff here. I wanted to give the most quirky title to my first medium post but I guess this is what it is going to be.

My husband claims that he takes around 5–6 hours for coming with a title. I use to write something down and then think of a title. I should have stuck to that technique. It works for me. On the second thought, I probably might change the title. Incase I do, its “Who am I?” for now.

This is a loaded question. I don’t know how to answer this. I can say that I am a girl who studied engineering and did her MBA in Marketing and Finance. She got married to a guy who is more like a best friend. I think I just friend-zoned my husband. I live in Mountain View, the heart of Silicon Valley and I worked for Google’s Self Driving car Project. I left my job because I wanted to pursue my career in UX Design. I can further talk who my parents are and what kind of foods I like. I like to go to new places. I am not a music fan but people tell me that I have a nice voice.

I just summed up my life in a paragraph.

I once read a book in which the author talked about a friend who documented everything in a journal. He was intrigued if given a chance, how his friend could talk about himself because he had recorded everything. I used to try to be like that friend recording everything and then I just stopped. I became melodramatic and burnt all the diaries I ever possessed because I was upset about who I was. It seemed that burning all my personal stories would give me a second lease at life. Then I stopped. I did not write anything and even if I did, I wrote it and deleted it. It was a huge conundrum considering I wanted to be heard and still not talk about myself.

Anyway, the author of that book thought that his friend could tell anybody about his life because he could relive those moments again and again and never forget what happened. My 26 year old just summarized myself in a paragraph. Its not that I don’t have any significant moments to talk about. My Facebook feed says that I had fun last year but I don’t remember how I felt back then. Does that mean everything that I feel will be gone and all that will be left is the smoke coming out of a joint? (I don’t smoke by the way but the way I feel about this, I could not think of any other metaphor.)

So I have tried two things. I have tried to record my life and not record it. The first approach made me feel that I was not writing about a very exciting life. The second one certainly does not require me to fill in empty pages but makes me feel incompetent to answer who I was.

I don’t know what I am going to do about this situation but I did figure out a title for this post.

I dont understand

Understanding is a weird thing. I don't understand some things and sometimes you don't understand me! Its like when I hot my head to a wall, I know that it is going to hurt and bleed. You would logically interpret it and then decide you are bored.

I don't understand you and you don't understand me. We don't fight now. Not because we don't understand this. Its because we don't want to.

The girl who got lost!

There was a girl. She was once there and now she is lost.

She had simple wishes. She thought good things happen to everybody.

She is now lost.

She looked as if innocence had a face. When she smiled, the dew drops sparkled on the grass

She is lost.

When she moved, there were songs in the wind.
She danced like the rain falling on a tin roof.

But for now she is lost.

She was tall. She looked at your eyes and you will see joy dancing in them.


She was there. You just missed her. She just went away looking for a paradise.
There were some ashes where she was before. She is now lost.

Now they just say one thing:
There was a girl. She was once there and now she is lost.

Death of her!

I am scared!

I am scared of death!

I am scared of people dying, even if I don't love them or even know them.

I am scared of hearing about people I have met or even know vaguely about, dying and leaving the world as we know it!

Hinduism says that we keep on taking birth again and again on this earth. This theory is probably created to make us feel that our loved ones have never left us. It probably was created by somebody who thought that life is too dynamic.

For me, once they are gone, they are forever gone. They leave us, they abandon us, they are not the same ever again,they kill us. They don't love us the way they do right now. They never will. We will not love them the way we do right now.

I feel bad for a lady who loved somebody more than she loved anybody. I feel for her today because she will from now on always alone. She will be lonely till her last breath.

I want to travel and visit places all by myself. A part of me understands that it will be fun but then there is another part of me who thinks its wrong. Its not my duties which stop me.  Its wrong because I don't want to stay away from the love of my life. It is wrong to go. I wish I die before him, but I don't want him to suffer. I want him to be happy and if being happy means to kill some of your dreams, I will do it because my greatest dream is to live happily with him, so that when he goes away I stand there, smiling and thinking that we made the best of our lives. Even if we don't meet in some other life, we made our life today worthwhile.

He loves me! I love him! We live together! We have made our life worth loving! I don't him to leave, because after all he is the love of my life!


PS: Dedicated to Dr Bawa! I am sorry for your loss, mam! I hope the love of your life will forever give you strength to survive this!

It will be hot on Friday!

It was a long day at work. I reached outside his office exactly at seven. I text him I have reached. He comes down where I am waiting for him in the car. He has his bag on one of his shoulders. His shoulders are always drooped at this time time of the day. I know this because I come to get him everyday. He lets me use the car and walks to work everyday. I used to ask him before taking the car. Now I just grab the keys everyday and leave for my work.

We decide to go somewhere to eat. I always let him choose. I don't cook these days. I am so tired that I can't work in the kitchen. He takes me to a restaurant everyday.  He asks me about my day. I try to think of best of things and tell stories to him. He smiles and looks straight. I wanted him to drive. To drive gives you a feeling that you can go anywhere. Its your choice.

He is always quiet. I ask him about his day. Words need to be forced out of him, yet when he speaks, it all seems so obvious. Everything looks possible when he speaks it in his slow drawl. If there is a problem, find a solution and if there is no solution, don't complain and just endure. He checks his cell phone as we wait for the light to change green.

I interrupt our silent moments. We reach the restaurant. I try to provoke him to get a reaction. I say that we would not get a cooling system because he thinks its not required. He retorts. He had the expression on his face which said "stop being so difficult everyday". He says he is hungry and tired and we would discuss it later. I say it is going to be hot again on Friday.

We enter the restaurant and look at the menu. I tell him what I want and then I go to a restroom. He places the order and looks for me. He can't see me. He goes and sits on a table. He grabs his phone again.

I come and find him. He had got two paans and two lassis for each of us. I just take the lassi thanklessly and take a sip. It was sweet. I loved it. I didn't say it. He likes paan. He smiles and tells me he got paan for us. "I don't eat paan, don't you know?", I said. He picks his cell phone and starts looking at it. I stare at him for 10 minutes till the food arrives. "Why doesn't he say anything?Does he have nothing to say to me after such a long day? We have nothing to talk about just after a few months."

He was still looking at his phone when he said that we could buy a cooling system from Amazon too. He had looked it up online while I sat and wondered whether he has lost interest in talking to me. He did not want me to feel hot on Friday!

hello awesome

Its 3:54 PM and its a Tuesday. The man of the house has been out for more than 24 hours and is now on his way back home. Like a good wife, I have soaked some dal in the water so that we can have it for dinner.

I got a job. Everybody will now have no content to talk to me. They will probably ask how is it going and I will be like its going fine. That will be the end of it. No more questioning. You know how liberating it feels. Okay not as empowering as Rahul gandhi in his interview with Arnab Goswami.

It is a good feeling and I think I am in my happy place. My usability week last week at San Fransisco was a great learning experience. You know I always used to take the phrase "a great learning experience" very lightly. I have now noticed its hidden depths. I am not ashamed. I am just 25 years old. Soon enough, I will be 26 and then 27 and then 45 and then 55 and then I am assuming it will all go downhill from there. I will have "great many learning experiences" with stories to tell to probably volunteers in the community center. The past of the future will be glorified but we do not want to be concerned about that any more.

How I turned invisible today and had the best rajma chawal ever!

It was 12:45 PM. I still had 15 minutes to kill before I would start walking to watch Cinderella at Century Cinemas. I watered the plants on all the three sides of the house  with the front including the joint project of Nikhil's and mine, the orange tree and the lemon tree. I also watered the second side which got always left out. I made it in exact 12 minutes and then washed off myself to start my 30 minute walk to the cinema.

I got my self some nachos and a coke(Nachos in India were 100 times better). The movie began. There was nothing new in the story and I guess Disney people could not violate the already known tale of Cinderella and her lost glass slipper. The seats were like the lounging types so I could put my feet very comfortably and just relax while sipping the cold drink.

The movie ended at 3:35. I checked the schedule of the Mountain View(MTV) Community Shuttle and ran towards the bus stop. This is a new bus for people to travel across MTV without any ticket to different locations. I had some difficulty finding the stop and reached there at around 3:49. The bus was was scheduled to arrive at 3:50. I then, sat down and thought that I have missed the bus. I gave myself 10 minutes to wait because I was not sure if the bus had left or not. The bus came at 3:57.

There were four persons in the bus including a female driver, a lady with a kid and an old man. Actually minus the white driver lady everybody seemed Indian to me. So you know how in India, a bus tends to stop at every point in its designated route, even when there is nobody waiting at the stop. In the U.S. it is quite the contrary. The bus driver stops only if he or she sees a passenger waiting at the stop or if the passenger inside the bus presses a button for the "stop request" or well tells the driver verbally.

After a while I could hear the Indian lady with the kid arguing with the driver to have stopped at a particular stop. The driver said that she could not remember each and everybody's stop like that.(Seriously three and half persons in the bus and you can't remember). Anyway after a heated argument the lady with the kid got off on the next stop which seemed like a good mile away from the lady's original stop.

The old man wearing a pin striped shirt then asked to get off Sylvan. As soon as he got off, the driver got off the bus and started lighting a smoke. I didn't know what to do. To be honest, I have been treated invisible many a times. I am hardly a looker  and the only reason I was noticed in my class was because I used to answer lots of questions during class participation.

I thought to myself that if this was India, it would have been very scary. A driver stopping the bus while you are sitting all alone in it, is not a very comfortable idea for an Indian girl. Should I get off the bus? I packed some courage and stepped outside the bus. She was still lighting the smoke(How much time does it take to light a cigarette?)

I asked her if there is a problem. The lady turned and was seemed flushed. She apologized and said she did not see me there. She thought the bus was empty and wanted to just chill for a few minutes. I was in no hurry so I asked her to take her time. This time I sat in the front instead of the second last row of the bus.

She, herself started talking to me and told me how she had broken her toe while being angry in her dream. I asked if it hurt. She said it does but she had taped it and the swelling was less. I asked her why she did not go to a doctor. To this she replied that she had hurt her same toe six years ago and knew how the doctor would do it. She asked me what I thought of Dreams. When I told her that feeling a dream as if its real is the best kind of therapy anybody can get, she was surprised. I told her that dreams give us that power to be anyone in them. You do not have to get judged in the dream world. I also told her that from where I come from, dreams which come in the morning were supposed to get true. She liked the idea and laughed that next time she is going to dream a happy dream during the morning.

The lady driver was from Las Vegas and had moved here because she thought Vegas was no place to raise a child with most of the adults being addicted to gambling, alcohol, drugs etc. We agreed that the glitterati was too overbearing for us.

She asked me about what I was doing here. I told her about my home in Chandigarh and how I have recently gotten married.

It seemed as if she could understand the pangs of separation I feel after leaving my birthplace. We discussed how she should just go to the beach and leave everything aside for some time. I heard her longing for a vacation. It made me feel the value of this current time where I have no job responsibilities and tons of time to do whatever I feel like. It made me feel that I have something unique here and should try to make every moment of my present life count. Who knows I might just turn out to be a stone in my next life!

I went home and made some awesome rajma chawal which turned out to be one of the best meals I had ever prepared by now. I also smiled how I could easily connect with a white lady bus driver as compared to some other persons whom I seem to have nothing to talk about.


PS: Have you ever rubbed your eyes so hard that you felt that the eyeballs wills pop out?