Missing you, my old friend

I can hear you outside, calling my name,
"Come quickly!" you impatiently exclaim.
I hear the ruckus, you are causing outside,
"Be quiet, I am coming," I sleepily replied.

When I come out, you embrace me joyfully,
"What took you so long?" you ask me angrily.
"I waited and waited for you to come,
So that we could play, dance and create mayhem."

"I know, I am sorry," was all I could say,
And you, my old friend, forgave me right away.
You started humming that pretty little tune,
"Pitter patter, pitter patter…" you began to croon.

My feet, you know, could never resist,
The temptation, which, in your sweet song exists.
You and I began our usual dance,
And soon we fell into that peaceful, ecstatic trance.

And then I opened my eyes to see,
That you were no longer there next to me.
I hear you whisper, "sorry my friend,
But our time together must now come to an end."

"Wait," I begged, "For a few minutes more,
It's been so long since I danced with so much soul."
"Wake up, wake up," I heard my sister say,
"Look outside, I think it's going to be a rainy day!"

If you could visit anywhere, where would you go?

Today was just one of those days at work, quiet, lazy. Taxes done, quarter ended, pay day…calm seas. Lunch was an unusually happy affair, with good food, laughter and intimate conversations, during which a question was raised, "If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

Our Berkeley intern, whose graduation present to himself is a backpacking trip through Europe, gleefully claimed Europe as his choice of destination. Some said Africa (for the lions of course), Australia (to check out some hot beach bods?!?!), India even ( their selection of spicy food…). They were all places I wanted to go. There are so many places in the world with so much beauty and history, how do you pick just one?

For me, that's an easy choice. If I could go anywhere in the world, there is only one place that I would always choose, my dimma's house.

For I have traveled far and wide,
And in the end I always find,
The love and warmth my dimma bestows,
Is truly a healing balm for my soul.

A mother, a friend and a mentor she has been,
Her unending wisdom inspiring me within.
So therefore, you see, my place of solace,
Will always be in her loving embrace.

Get well soon Dimma, we miss you!

a floating boat on the ocean of life

If we really think that home is elsewhere and that life is a "wandering to find home", why should we not look forward to the arrival?

~ C.S Lewis (British scholar and novelist)

Today, during my routine voyage to work, a bolt of nostalgia and wistfulness struck me. I had my Ipod on full blast like always and the songs played through my mind, not really registering, but having a serene effect on my mood all the same. And then that song came on, a bangla song with a sweet melody and pretty lyrics, nothing tragic just a simple song about a wandering soul. But for some reason every time I hear that song, something stirs within me. For someone, who is not usually emotive, those words make my eyes well up. Here are the lyrics with my own version of a translation to it:

Amar prothom dekha brishtir jole
Bhashiyechi phela khelar chole
Sheyi jol geche mishe kon nodite
Geche Hariye kon Sagare

The first time that I truly experienced rain,
I drenched myself playing tag with the water and my friends.
But the water and those games are now just memories,
Hiding somewhere subdued by the stress of everyday.

Majhi re, o majhi re
Dekhecho ki tumi tare
Nouko amar chelebalar
Kogejer…

Now all I can do is seek your help,
To find that little paper boat,
My friends and I made so long ago,
On a lovely, quiet monsoon day.

Amar prothom pawa aakar khata
Amar prothom lekha kobita
Sheyi chelebalar sopno hajar
Geche hariye kon sagare

That coloring book I used to scribble on,
And the rhyming gibberish I would babble on,
The childhood mischief that I was once famous for
Hiding somewhere subdued by the stress of everyday

Neeli ambar si naiyya meri
Leheron ki dhun mein beh chali
Gehre sagar mein tanha kahin
Geeton ko tumhari khojti

So here I am a lonely boat,
Drifting on the waves of life.
Looking for a place, you know,
Where I can relive those memories of mine.

Ekta jolshe jawa bikel bela
Ekta lalche sagarer jole
Jaye bheshe Jaye sopno bojha
Nouko amar kagojer

A rustic little house I see,
On the very edge of my reality.
And there I see myself also,
Playing with my paper boat.

Majhi re, o majhi re
Dekha hai kya tumne usse
Kagaz ki Nau mein hain bhare
Sapne mere…

Please, I beseech you
Help me find my paperboat
On it I have safe kept my memories
Of childhood lessons learnt so long ago…

(Movie: Bong Connection)

cover letter for all my future employers

Hi,

My name, you see, is Arinha Dey,

Myspace sent me looking your way.

I am told that you are searching for

The one, who online, will help you soar

So here I am telling you

That even though I know not much,

I am very good at research.

I browse the internet daily,

For facts and fun equally.

I also write incessantly,

Stories about people and places mostly.

I went to school to be a doctor,

But holding someone’s life in my hand,

Was a task, I was sure, I could not withstand.

For a while, then, I soul searched

Far, near and in many places of the earth.

One day my luck finally ran out,

The bank called I was broke and in a rut.

I looked for jobs but they were all in a lab,

And that I felt would be a drab.

At long last I found a job,

Affiliate manager is what it was called.

I had no clue what the hell that meant,

All I thought was “yaay money for rent”

But through my work, I discovered a world

That let me dream, write, browse and learn.

I blogged, I browsed, I designed

And slowly I started converting.

Search engines, banners, landing pages, EPCs

Terms I had never even heard of,

Were now a part of my everyday words.

I have a blog you may read if you wish (http://mooooftheday.blogspot.com/),

Just a place I use to unload my stress.

It doesn’t get much traffic or readers yet you see

But I am learning and improving quickly.

I see you do many cool things,

Blinklist, Clickmuse and other such money making machines.

I have some experience that my resume will detail

But I wish to learn much more,

And with your support I hope to prevail.

Please do let me know,

If there is anything I can help you do.

A chance is all I am asking for

To grow but mostly to grow with you.

Sincerely,

Arinha Dey

The laws of chemical attraction

Hi Guys,

So this is a random story I had written long ago and forgotten about since then. Its a story of a girl (you could say its autobiographical) and...well I guess just read and find out:

Revolving doors of life

You know that weird feeling you get when things just don’t seem to be working out. It’s that weird phase in life when you feel unimportant, fat, ugly, and stupid and pretty much every other negative and un-flattering thing that one can feel about oneself. It’s that time when you think back to the clichéd Hindi film dialogue of “I must have done something bad in my previous janam and this is my karma”. Most of you women might be thinking, yes of course I know that feeling, I get it every month, I call it PMS. For me, however, I call it my life, in general. I am not a sadist or under-confident or self-conscious, just unlucky. I do not exaggerate when I say that nothing in my life ever seems to go right, I really am serious about that. Nothing in my life ever works out the way I start out planning it. You know how they say when one door closes another opens? Well in my case it’s the other way around, if one door opens then the other most definitely will close. Here let me give you some examples.

More than half my life now, I have weighed at least a few pounds more than what I should for my age and height. At the ripe age of 21 extra mass is not always looked upon favorably. But somehow I managed to work around it and definitely do not undermine myself any longer for weighing a little more than most of my friends. However the even bigger tragedy of my life is that I happen to look like my father. Now my father is a very handsome man, who even now at his unmentionable age can make some of my friends swoon, but the point is that he is a handsome man and I am unfortunately his daughter and not his son. Being a straight female and looking like a handsome man are not always healthy for a girl’s love life.

As if that were not enough, my life as a whole is a complicated mess. I started college being inspired by ER and wanting to marry Dr. Carter. My desi (as in Indian or Asian Indian American if you prefer to be technical) parents, as awesome and sometimes non-desi as they are, figured medicine or biology might just be my calling and being 18 and in love with Dr. Carter (as already mentioned), I thought sure, yes I will become a doctor until chemistry happened. Chemistry dried out my passion for medicine and even for Carter. Chemistry was like a quicksand for my life, it kept dragging me into a deeper and deeper pile of shit until I was completely sucked in and couldn’t get out. And now, well in a couple of months, I will be graduating with a degree in neuroscience and a confused maybe even a missing passion for life.

So as you can see my life so far has been somewhat of a train wreck and considering the fact that I will be graduating in a few months, I needed to be rescued and inspired, pronto! This is where my story takes a turn and it turns so fast that I am still recovering from the whiplash of it.

So, one random day in January I am basking in the warmth of the sun (a very rare phenomenon in West Lafayette during January) in front of the PMU, when all of a sudden a huge dark shadow falls on my face. I look up and find myself looking at the most beautiful human being I have ever seen. He was tall, 6 something I am sure. He had an amazing body; I could tell even through his many winter layers and that smile, it would make even Brad Pitt jealous. As for the rest of his face, I mean seriously does it even matter? So anyways as I keep staring, my McDreamy (unoriginal I know but can I help it if that was the only way I could describe him) says, “hi Arinha right? I am Nick from your chemistry lab. I overheard you solving that problem today in lab and I was really impressed. I was wondering, do you think maybe you can help me out with this class a little bit, I mean I am seriously struggling. If you want I could even pay you for your time. So what do you say?”

Ummm I don’t know, what the hell do you say? “uh yah sure!” even though I know I suck (pun intended) at chemistry or do I say “I am really sorry but what happened today in lab is a freak accident and I am really not that great at chemistry myself” even though this is my very own McDreamy, as in the guy of my dreams, hotter than all hell, catch of a lifetime, love of one’s life (well maybe not love but lust definitely). So after an awkward moment (for him mostly I am happy just staring at him in silence) I say, “I am really flattered and I would love to help you out but considering I am not the greatest at chemistry myself maybe instead of doing a tutoring thing we can do study sessions before exams and stuff and that way we can both help each other out. What do you say?” I said that, I really said that to the guy I have been crushing on every waking and sleeping moment of my life since the day that I first saw him.

That I believe was the exact moment when my luck suddenly began to change. McDreamy happily obliged and whole heartedly agreed with my proposition. But as I said when one door opens in my life another closes. I mean yes I was given the dream opportunity of being in close proximity of the man of my thoughts whenever I so desired but suddenly I had to figure out a way to tackle the biggest challenge of my entire college career, hell the biggest challenge of my entire life, I had to figure out chemistry!

Okay no need to panic, panicking isn’t going to help. I needed to strategize and tackle this like an intelligent and hard working college student. So what exactly do intelligent and hard working people do? They research and read and practice (advice from my super-humanly intelligent IIT-ian dad).

Ok so that’s easy right, I mean there must only be like a million books about chemistry so what’s the big deal right? I just have to focus and I can do this…for McDreamy…absolutely I can do this. While researching for the doggone subject I realized that I must really be stupid because I just didn’t seem to get it. What the heck was wrong with me? I was researching, practicing even reading the god forsaken subject. I was spending more than just a few hours, I was staying up nights to figure this stuff out but somehow my brain just refused to absorb any form of chemical anything. Maybe I was just not born with the “understanding chemistry” gene. I mean my amazingly intelligent mother and even my super-humanly intelligent IIT-ian dad were not exactly smooth in the chemistry department themselves. So yet again door opening and door closing happen as a simultaneous phenomenon in my life; only in my life it happens in the reverse order…the door opens and then the same door closes. But I refused to let the door close this time…I stuck out my foot and put all my bodyweight…even the extra ones…to keep this stubborn door open.

This time around I realized maybe I am not that much on the heavier side as I thought…because this time around I needed some more bodyweight to keep the door open…in other words I needed HELP!!!!! So how hard can that be???? I mean there are only some 2000 kids in my class…a lot of them with As and some of them even dreamier than my McDreamy. So all I had to do was go and ask and I am sure one of them would be more than willing to help. But umm did I mention my lack of social skills???? Yah so I don’t do so well with strangers you see…I cant just randomly make friends with people or ask for help or just you know be social in general. What the hell McDreamy was total worth all this…I mean he’s the lust of my life….now how often does that come around right? I can do this…just remember the door is closing and I have to keep it open…McDreamy!!!!

So I am at recitation and I look around the room…blondes…jocks…McDreamy; it was as if I was cursed with the hottest boilermakers as my lab mates…under normal circumstances I would be more than happy just ogling at them but right now I was praying fervently for one just one normal, un-god looking mortal other than my foreign language speaking TA in the class. Finally I found him…he was kind of sitting in the corner…actual right next to me…he wasn’t exactly unattractive, he just had on glasses which made him a little less perfect and a bit more approachable than the rest of the lot. So I smile at him (I am told that that’s my best feature…so I guess now’s the time to put to test) and ask him if he figured out how to solve the problem…he smiles back (he has a really cute smile and dimples), nods and then delves right back into his notebook. Ok so he’s not much of talker…that could work. So again I smile at him (it seems to be working) and ask him if maybe he could help me out ‘cause I am kind of stuck. Again no words, just a smile and a nod...maybe he’s mute now that could be a serious problem if he’s to be my chemistry savior. But before I could get into panic mode…the dude finally spoke…and somehow magically transformed the initially “what the hell is this” chemistry problem into a “oh that’s it” chemistry problem. Suddenly I could see the bright halo over his head and white angel wings jutting out from his shoulder…my savior had arrived!!!

So after that amazing realization struck me I asked …actually more like begged…Damien (my savior) to share his bodyweight in keeping the door (McDreamy door) open for me. With his amazing smile and non-existent verbal skills Damien agreed to help. The next few weeks were bliss. Chemistry and I were getting along fabulously. I felt like Cinderella who was being transformed for a chemical ball (namely my chemistry final, which was worth a crazy percentage of my grade) and Damien was my chemical godfather. As the weeks went by I slowly forgot about doors (opened or closed), I forgot about being confused or challenged in life and I even almost forgot about McDreamy (almost as in I made sure we had study sessions almost every night so I could stare at him idiotically) I was totally carried away with overcoming the biggest challenge of my life. Suddenly medical school wasn’t looking so distant and that dried up passion for Carter was definitely getting a lot less dry.

Finally the day of the “ball” arrived and guess what?!?!? I got a “B”!!! I mean I never got more than a “F”…if I was lucky a “D” in chemistry and I got a “B”!!!!!!! it was amazing…even my professor was impressed…and promised to write me a glowing recommendation if I ever needed one. McDreamy was awed as well…and he actually said and I quote “I wish I were as smart as you”. If he only knew!!!

So I graduated with a decent enough GPA to apply and be eligible for medical school. I am best friends with my chemical godfather Damien. I still dream about McDreamy and definitely still consider him the “lust of my life”. And the weird thing is now I am a chemistry geek and while I am anxiously waiting to hear from UCSF, I spend my valuable free-time (the only free time I’ll get in a very long time) tutoring high-school and college kids in chemistry. Ah…the irony of life!!! Thanks McDreamy…

To push or be pushed…that is the question

Well it is the question when you ride the bus to work in San Francisco, like I do. The ten minutes I spend every morning on bus # 45 has taught me more life lessons then the 8 hours I spend everyday toiling away at my corporate job. Here are some lessons I learnt that some of you might find useful:

1. Always respect your elders. The cute old people get pretty darn nasty, physically and mentally (I have been the recipient of both violent pushing and evil eye glaring on many occasions) if anyone dares get between them and their seats.
2. Chivalry died many years ago (if it ever existed that is). After all the hard work that goes into their day, cooking, cleaning, working a 9-5 job, and staying up nights breast feeding their fussy 6 month old babies, men believe that they deserve to be seated, snug and warm, while an 8-month pregnant woman balances her laptop bag and protruding stomach on a constantly moving, crowded bus.
3. When packing your bags, make sure you pack your shoes outside rather than inside your bags. Today when I was chivalrous enough to sacrifice my seat for an older lady (by older I mean older than my grandma), a blonde haired, shorts claden, flip flop wearing surfer dude (not that I mean to stereotype, this is the honest truth) was nearly successful in knocking me off the bus with his worn out and interest smelling nikes that hung comfortably outside his backpack.
4. Too many ingredients spoil the dish. The bus ride (and sometimes even the caltrain ride) to work has proven to be a very useful science experiment, the result of which has led me to conclude that Indian curry, Chinese fish sauce and Victoria's Secret perfume can be substituted in place of chloroform to knock people out.

Hope these help you as much as they have me. The learning, I have realized, just never ends. Quirky people and queer places have taught me more in life then books and schools ever could.

P.S. 1 week down, 51 more to go!