August 16th 2013: 12:00 pm Pacific Time, San Jose. "God!! Why am I like this? Why can't I change? Why don't you let me change?" are my pleads and requests to the Almighty. All the above cries are targeted towards my non-self improving personality which is always late and trying to catch up with the deadlines. The deadline is of course the arrival of the shuttle at 12:30 pm for the San Francisco International Airport. The work that needs to be done is checking for all immigration documents, packing, shaving, bathing and having a glass of protein shake. 30 minutes left and an hours worth of effort. You can do it GG. "You are a sharp and confident young man so what if you will hit 30 in an few years time." comes an internal voice. How about another round of email checking? Everything looks good at office front. Now Gmail. Papa sent another photograph of her's. She is looking beautiful in that pink dress but she feels so much beyond me. I suggested her to meet the new prince of England. But she decided dress up like the queen. 12:15 pm, now that's challenging enough. Let's do this. Remember to take the "Timeless Steel".
The shuttle arrived 12:40 pm. I am done with document checking, shaving, bathing and dressing. I look good in the black T-shirt with all the protein and time spent in gym beneath it. Again the internal voice "God!! when will this self vanity leave me. I am neither Bhagat Singh nor SRK". The drive calls and I tell him that I will down in about 5 minutes. Cash check. Credit/debit cards check. Documents check. Laptop check. Bags check. Its 12:50 pm. The driver calls again, "Sir, I have other passengers to pick-up. Please come ASAP". A soft-spoken squeak makes it way out of my mouth, "Yes, I am coming". Had it been Papa, it would have been an authoritative order to wait for another 15 minutes, "Arre, Wait!! We have paid for the service". I quickly move my bags and backpack out of the room, besides my apartment entrance, and pay my homage to the idols kept in my room. "Please get me back here safe", I plead. The plead, to the idols, is after nearly 6 months when I flew to India in February. I rush downstairs with the bags. The driver is kind enough to accommodate me even after the delay.
I sit in the shuttle and another Indian man is sitting in front. We exchange looks and he says hello. I acknowledge back but I do not apologize for making him wait. I want to but the moment had passed. It was time to sit back and enjoy the journey back to India. This time the trip is only 10 days with 4 days of travelling and one day of parade in front of strangers. There will be rejection either from the girl or her parents (could there be an acceptance?). Five days of recovery or mourning that another arranged marriage proposal did not go through. Dadi will again look on the side of my right palm to see if a girl is at all in my life. Ma and Papa will try to console me and then start looking for another girl to get me married. Baba will get emotional saying that 'please marry him before I go from this world'. And I will again blame myself for the proposal not going through and offer him fearful and empty condolences. And the aforementioned cycle will continue. Man!! I forgot to take "Timeless Steel". It's going to be a really long trip without it. Oh!! I also forgot to take the protein shake. No workout for a week. Muscle degeneration. It's too late, we are on the highway now.
This time I did not announce in office that I am headed to India. Only my manager knew about it. Last time I announced that I am off to India for five weeks and everybody thought I will bring back a bride. Turns out I came alone and became a butt of all jokes among office mates and friends. This time I went to office in morning to print out the ticket and boarding passes. And also fought with a person who helps in checking-in the code. We fight every-time I need to check-in the code. Then I dropped in an email to other two developers in my team that I am on vacation in the coming week. No uncomfortable questions asked. No need to come up with evasive answers.
But who is other more important protagonist, apart from me, in this story? She is Pooja. Well according to her that's her raashi name. Let's keep it at that. She's about to turn 25 on 17th August and is a typical Delhi girl. From photographs she looks decently beautiful and is well accomplished professionally. She is an engineer and holds an MBA from my university which is probably second to the IITs in India. An okay beauty with brains. Will 1800 $ trip to Delhi prove worthy enough? We pick-up a middle aged woman. She smiles at me as she enters the car. I do not return it. I feel so like a beautiful girl in Delhi with men ogling at her. "I am a many women man arrrre, sorry one woman man. Keep of me." We hit the highway which is crowded. I have nothing else to do but to stare in the endless blue sky. The blue sky with its stillness, deepness, calmness and nothingness. The blue sky with soft white clouds that look so soothing like reading Ma's email. The blue sky with dark clouds that signify turbulence, disturbance, chaos and anarchy. The blue sky whose nothingness and calmness I crave for but which is always filled with dark clouds for me. As the shuttle hits speed towards SFO (San Francisco International Airport), my mind begins to drift away. Its now trying to recollect where it all started.
The shuttle arrived 12:40 pm. I am done with document checking, shaving, bathing and dressing. I look good in the black T-shirt with all the protein and time spent in gym beneath it. Again the internal voice "God!! when will this self vanity leave me. I am neither Bhagat Singh nor SRK". The drive calls and I tell him that I will down in about 5 minutes. Cash check. Credit/debit cards check. Documents check. Laptop check. Bags check. Its 12:50 pm. The driver calls again, "Sir, I have other passengers to pick-up. Please come ASAP". A soft-spoken squeak makes it way out of my mouth, "Yes, I am coming". Had it been Papa, it would have been an authoritative order to wait for another 15 minutes, "Arre, Wait!! We have paid for the service". I quickly move my bags and backpack out of the room, besides my apartment entrance, and pay my homage to the idols kept in my room. "Please get me back here safe", I plead. The plead, to the idols, is after nearly 6 months when I flew to India in February. I rush downstairs with the bags. The driver is kind enough to accommodate me even after the delay.
I sit in the shuttle and another Indian man is sitting in front. We exchange looks and he says hello. I acknowledge back but I do not apologize for making him wait. I want to but the moment had passed. It was time to sit back and enjoy the journey back to India. This time the trip is only 10 days with 4 days of travelling and one day of parade in front of strangers. There will be rejection either from the girl or her parents (could there be an acceptance?). Five days of recovery or mourning that another arranged marriage proposal did not go through. Dadi will again look on the side of my right palm to see if a girl is at all in my life. Ma and Papa will try to console me and then start looking for another girl to get me married. Baba will get emotional saying that 'please marry him before I go from this world'. And I will again blame myself for the proposal not going through and offer him fearful and empty condolences. And the aforementioned cycle will continue. Man!! I forgot to take "Timeless Steel". It's going to be a really long trip without it. Oh!! I also forgot to take the protein shake. No workout for a week. Muscle degeneration. It's too late, we are on the highway now.
This time I did not announce in office that I am headed to India. Only my manager knew about it. Last time I announced that I am off to India for five weeks and everybody thought I will bring back a bride. Turns out I came alone and became a butt of all jokes among office mates and friends. This time I went to office in morning to print out the ticket and boarding passes. And also fought with a person who helps in checking-in the code. We fight every-time I need to check-in the code. Then I dropped in an email to other two developers in my team that I am on vacation in the coming week. No uncomfortable questions asked. No need to come up with evasive answers.
But who is other more important protagonist, apart from me, in this story? She is Pooja. Well according to her that's her raashi name. Let's keep it at that. She's about to turn 25 on 17th August and is a typical Delhi girl. From photographs she looks decently beautiful and is well accomplished professionally. She is an engineer and holds an MBA from my university which is probably second to the IITs in India. An okay beauty with brains. Will 1800 $ trip to Delhi prove worthy enough? We pick-up a middle aged woman. She smiles at me as she enters the car. I do not return it. I feel so like a beautiful girl in Delhi with men ogling at her. "I am a many women man arrrre, sorry one woman man. Keep of me." We hit the highway which is crowded. I have nothing else to do but to stare in the endless blue sky. The blue sky with its stillness, deepness, calmness and nothingness. The blue sky with soft white clouds that look so soothing like reading Ma's email. The blue sky with dark clouds that signify turbulence, disturbance, chaos and anarchy. The blue sky whose nothingness and calmness I crave for but which is always filled with dark clouds for me. As the shuttle hits speed towards SFO (San Francisco International Airport), my mind begins to drift away. Its now trying to recollect where it all started.
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