life on a chain - pete yorn

i live on a chain
and you share the same last name
as a joke
i sent a bottle of whiskey
as you choked
i knew it made you feel dirty

To describe the quality of a recent Bollywood film, a friend said it was a "Bollywood 7, global 5."

His rating system's become useful for us describing life here. At a local "posh" cafe where the ladies of leisure in Chennai lunch, another friend asked me about my gnocchi. It was a Chennai 8, global 3.5, possibly even a global 3.

You see, Chennai, and India in general (except for perhaps Mumbai and Delhi) lacks international cuisines. A few restaurants venture into "multicuisine," but I hold those places in about as much regard as "Jimmy's Chicken Shack" around the corner from my apartment in DC, which served "subs, Chinese, Italian, and fish." You need to be a little bit selective to do something well.

So even to have gnocchi in Chennai is a feat. (I know all of 3 restaurants in the whole city of 4.34 million which serve it.)

But was it good? Well, it was overcooked and the gnocchi were starting to mush into each other. The sauce was nonoffensive, but nothing to write home about (though I guess that's what I'm doing right now.)

Hence, the Chennai 8, global 3.5.

It works the other way, too, though.

Indian food? Chennai 10, India 10, global 4.

Availability and affordability of mangoes, watermelons, and other fruits and fruit juices? Chennai 9, Hyderabad 5, India 7, global 3.

Mustaches? Chennai 9, Hyderabad 9, Bangalore 7 (they are catching onto the Wester disdain for the mouche), India 7 (the north isn't as a big a fan as the south), global 2 (do I know anyone in America with a mustache?)

Ability to not be in a rush all the time? Chennai 9, Hyderabad 8, India 8, America 1.

My presence on the city's Society pages? LA 1, NY 0, Boston -2, DC 1, Hyd 7, and Chennai 8. Explanation: I had no money in New York, I had like no friends in Boston, in LA and in DC I knew enough people never to make it in the papers myself but knew people who did... and weirdly, in Hyderabad and in Chennai, my friends are at some Twilight Zone-like club where everyone regularly poses for the photogs for "Page 3." I did it twice in the last week.

Globally, I'm a 0. Chennai, I'm at least above 5, just because I'm a foreigner and I have pretty, tall, blond and brunette foreigner friends who drink and wear cute clothes.

Except - maybe globally I'm not a 0. I do give myself some props for doing whatever I've done in my 20s. Fucked up a lot but also did some cool shit, and a lot of it for which much of the general population wouldn't have been the best fit.

So if I'm a 5 in Chennai just by how I look and with whom and where I hang out, it's comforting to know that I think of myself in America or elsewhere as more than that, these days, just because of who I am.

Two years ago, that wasn't the case.

I've found that people who come to India in search of some kind of personal revelation or salvation are often disappointed. The reality of the country and life is here very different than doing bikram yoga or watching a Bollywood film in the States.

As I am almost about to leave, I'm very reflective these days. When I decided to move to India, I didn't come explicitly with the goal in mind of "finding myself." Rather, I came for a career change. And it's definitely been that: I have both the desire and the credentials to go forward with a career in international development.

But I will be ever-so-grateful to India for the other side of development, you know, the one as a person. How strange that moving here is what I needed to grow up, to forgive and forget, to get past myself, to stop worrying, to live for today, to not hate myself anymore.

People ask me if I'd consider going to another country after India. And my response, which surprises even me, is "probably not." Maybe Taiwan or China, given my background. But it's either the States, because it's my home, or else back to India. This country has just so much color and flavor and I have barely scratched the surface in my two years here. But mostly it's that I can never see myself loving another country as much as I have this one, nor even wanting to try. India's given me too much.

snow patrol - chocolate

this could be the very minute
i'm aware i'm alive
all these places feel like home

I gave my formal notice at my job: my last day will be Aug 28. My visa is good until the end of October, however, so I might stick around and be a bum for two months after finishing work... I haven't decided yet.

I've accumulated a lot of junk -- far more clothes than I'll ever need (I have knee-high boots, goodness knows why, and what will I do with all those salwar kameez back home?) And as I am clearing it all out to figure out what stays and what comes home with me --

More than anything else, I want to take back the "fuck it" attitude.

India's taught me that it's going to be okay in the end -- or if it's not going to be okay, there's nothing I can do about it. I can ride sidesaddle on a motorcyle without a helmet, multiple times, and nothing will happen -- but then an acquaintance stopped at the side of a road will get his legs broken when a car runs into a motorcycle which runs into him.

I realized a couple of weeks ago, while singing along to the music in a cafe as I frequently do now, that I never would have done such a thing back in the States. Well, why the hell not? What do I have to lose?

When everyone is staring at you anyway, when you are always a freak show no matter what you do, you just start to enjoy it, enjoy the freedom of not really caring. And over that time, that freedom turns into assertiveness and confidence.

These days, if someone does something I dislike, I am incredibly blunt in correcting that person immediately. I am getting better, though I still need to work on it, at giving feedback to folk with the assumption that they just didn't know that some kind of adjustment or correction needs to be made, and that we should work together to figure out what that adjustment is.

So I'm going back to a country where most interviewers will likely not believe any of my stories about my current job because they honestly could never happen in the States. I have no job, no plan, no boyfriend, no clear future and will turn 30 in a year-and-a-half.

Oh well. Fuck it.

I could focus on what I don't have, but why? It's much more fun to focus on what I want. I want to sing along to songs at cafes, so I will. I want to be ripped off less, so I bargain. I want to get my juice with ice and I want to sit in a booth instead of the uncomfortable chairs at a restaurant, so I ask.

At work, I want a certain level of quality from my staff, so I demand it. With my friends, I want them to understand me as clearly as I am, so I am blunt with them, too, even when it might hurt a bit.

It all works out in the end somehow. And if it doesn't, there's nothing I can do about it.

plumb - taken

i'll still be loving you
through the sadness and the madness here
and i'll always be with you
in the distance
that has taken you
from me

I was looking for a couple of good, interesting reads a couple of weeks ago at Oxford Bookstore. I grabbed "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell -- I was a fan of both "The Tipping Point" and "Blink," finding both quick, but thought-provoking reads. I looked for something a little meatier, and then I saw it --

I had heard about "The Last Lecture." I think I had done a search on Google for something on human-computer interaction, as one of my oldest friends is now studying it at University of California, Irvine.

Prof. Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. The university had come up with a "last lecture" series, where each week featured a different professor sharing the wisdom he would impart if it was, in fact, his last lecture in life, as if he or she was dying.

Prof. Pausch was assigned to give one such lecture. As irony would have it, he discovered that he in fact was dying around the same time from pancreatic cancer.

You can find his last lecture on YouTube; when I get the emotional strength one day, I'll watch it.

But back to that day at Oxford Bookstore. The book, "The Last Lecture," was a written and expanded version of Prof. Pausch's famous last lecture.

I grabbed it, and put it back. I grabbed it again, and put it back. I walked around the store two more times, inspected various books, and as I was at the checkout counter, I grabbed it again.

And the book has sat on my shelf for about a month now. One night, I finally had the courage (and also the desperation -- I really needed to read something!) to open it.

What was I thinking? I was bawling by the third page.

My own mother died after two bouts with breast cancer. I've witnessed what radiation and chemo can do to a person -- I've been the family member who has had to watch from the outside.

But what I appreciated so much about Prof. Pausch's book is that he gave me a glimpse into what it was like on the inside, what my mom must have been feeling and thinking in her last days.

Prof. Pausch explains in the opening chapters that he chose to give the lecture and to write this book because he wanted his three kids, who were all quite young at the time, to know without a doubt for the rest of their lives how much their father loved them.

After she found out she was dying, my mother came into my room every night when I was back in Los Angeles to give me a "good night hug." I was 19 and annoyed as hell at the little routine, but I get it now, I get it so much now. I know without a doubt just how much she loved me and the extent to which she went to make sure I'd know it for the rest of my life.

Prof. Pausch talks about how he spent his life realizing his childhood dreams, and later, how he helped others do so, too. Wow. What an inspiration there. I've spent so much time lately trying to figure out what I want to do next... and then I think back to the things I wanted as a kid, what were my dreams? I know what they are. And maybe if I just go back to working towards those things I've always wanted for my entire life -- well, that's the direction I've been looking for.

He writes about being a total arrogant jerk who would be right but would put down everyone else so no one would really care. I've always admired people who could admit their faults, and he does so, through and through.

Each of his stories are just a few page vignettes, which is great, because i can't handle to read more than one or two at a time without running for a Kleenex box.

That's okay, though. I know that this is a book i'll carry with me for some time.

Prof. Pausch died on July 25, 2008. But what a wonderful gift he has left for his kids and so many others who want to carry their parents and their wisdom with them after they're gone. Thank you, mom, and thank you, Randy.

abra moore - after all these years

i am with you now
we are dancing in the moonlight
you got me spinning 'round
i can feel everything...

A thunderstorm has struck Chennai and the power's out. (I'm using my laptop's battery and the data card at the moment. We're pros at dealing with power outages now.) The rain is amazing to listen to and the sky is lighting up with colors. The rain's also cooled things down considerably. Honestly, this is probably the coolest weather-wise that Chennai has been in two months. I have my windows open and I'm not sweating -- that's a first.

I'm sitting here in the dark, listening to Abra, and it just seems perfect. This song always carries me away to something a little simpler.

I am well aware that, despite me being a total Boss at work, i'm a ridiculous, sentimental girl at heart. (Me being a Boss is pretty ridiculous, too. Whoever thought I could be in charge of anything?) This song, this moment, it's a lovely, dream-like place to be.

ar rahman - guzarish (ghajini soundtrack)

tu meri adhoori pyaas pyaas
tu aa gayi mann ko raas raas

Alright, I feel like a bit of a schmuck quoting Hindi when I don't even really speak the language. But this is a beautiful song that just carries you away, and you don't need to understand every word to adore it for what it is.

"Guzarish" translates (as I understand it) to something like "I beseech you." Rather strong words, yeah? A kind of ultimate love song, an unrealistic feeling of adoration that only exists in movies, and even there, on a random Namibian desert with actress Asin walking by Aamir Khan and letting the cloth of her dress barely touch him in the wind. Oh, and he's bare-chested (and probably had to wax beforehand.)

I love this song. Not just because it is an ultimate love song, but because I distinctly associate with it "how I learned not to hate Chennai."

I vividly remember hearing it for the first time while watching "Ghajini" in theaters this past December -- not a great movie, but totally enjoyable, particularly among a passionate audience of Rahman fans, when I discovered just how much fun going to the movies here is.

I remember downloading the song, playing it like five times a day, and then searching the net for translations... and it's one of those songs which holds up. Yet, of course, it works better in the Hindi, the little of which I know.

And, months after I had become obsessed with the song, I remember the amazing joy of figuring out that it's my friend's angelic voice on the operatic solo in the background -- wow.

And so now when I hear "Guzarish," I think of a fantastic kind of love, a feeling of becoming more comfortable in my skin here, my on-again, off-again love affair with Hindi, and my friend. Certainly on my India soundtrack.

chantal kreviazuk - far away

let me know that you made it as far as forever
let me know that you hear when i cry, if you can
you're far away from me
you're far away from me
you're far away from me
come a little closer, just a little...

It's been eight-and-a-half years since my mother passed away, and I think I've dealt with most of the ensuing demons. I can talk about her having passed away, I can talk about having a mother, I can talk about not having a mother anymore, and I don't burst into tears.

It's amazing, though, that Mother's Day still gets me. My mom's birthday was in March and it didn't get me quite like Mother's Day does, probably because you are beat over the head with Mother's Day. Everyone is talking about how you have to remember to send flowers or do something nice for your mother; my inbox is full of spam for Mother's Day specials. It's knowing that almost everyone around you has the chance to tell their moms how much they love and appreciate them; you wish you had that chance, too, particularly when you wasted it so many years ago.

With some perspective, though... Mother's Day is still tough for me. But not having a living mother doesn't mean I can't remember her, love her, appreciate her in my own way. You don't need someone to be right there in front of you to remember then, love them, appreciate them.

Anyway, "Far Away" always makes me think of my mom. It has for the past eight-and-a-half years, as it came out around the time she died. And so, in my mind, it's for her. And on this Mother's Day, I'm going to be there right beside all you guys, except I won't have the $50 flower bouquet or whatever. Hey, mom, maybe I wasn't the best daughter for the first 19 years, but at 28 I still think you're tops.

we are scientists - after hours

this night is winding down, but
time means nothing
as always at this hour
time means nothing
one final final round 'cause
time means nothing

My friend ____ introduced me to We Are Scientists's "The Great Escape" during a mixed CD swap back in my government days. I would only come across this song, "After Hours," a couple of years later. Far too late for me -- it's exactly what I wanted to be listening to, jumping around after stumbling home at 3 am, exhausted from a late night but still running off the adrenaline rush.

On a good night out with my friends, we feel near invincible. Anything can happen when you've all had a few and the combination of alcohol and sleep deprivation allow you to talk about anything and everything, with a little more edge and frankness than you ever do during the sober day. I never seem to have enough hours in a day, unless it's Friday evening... who needs to sleep, anyway?

I am getting too old for this, and I know it. But ten years from now, when I want to reminisce about my good ol' wild drinking days, this song will take me right back.