- The speeding last few months that marked my first semester at Columbia came to a screeching halt last Tuesday. What a relief that was, considering that I seriously thought I was going to veer off the edge. Four months of taking in a new country, a huge university, a new apartment, cooking routines and tough classes, were followed by two weeks of backbreaking finals work. Average sleeping time was pushed to 5 a.m., and 16-hour marathons in the library became common enough. During the last few days of those weeks, I panicked about whether I was going to survive at all. But the body pulled through, so did the mind. We are capable of more than we give ourselves credit for, which is always a great thing to realize. (The grades turned out OK as well, so Ha.)
- My last submission last Tuesday, in fact, was very similar to those frenzied airport climax scenes of Hindi/Tamil movies, with the unnecessary chasing and speeding scenes, and so forth. Running from place to place looking for a printer, and then sprinting to Knox to turn it in, bruising myself on the way, only to discover that the office was shut, and then being asked to slip it under the door; oh will it be accepted, or will it not, and then the last minute resolution. Was all filmy and fancy. Only, during all the sprinting in the cold evening air, my ears weren’t covered. Pneumonia just about missed me, I think.
- And so there was a lot of hugging and screaming and jumping around with P when I got home. We also sat down and made an itinerary for the entire week on blue sticky notes, and put it up on our wall. And then I slept and slept and slept. When I awoke, night had fallen, and it was time for high spirits. How I love the holidays.
- We’ve stuck to the itinerary for the most part so far, about 80%, which is pretty damn cool. The remaining 20% consists of days spent waking up at 1 p.m., being shabby and dirty for the rest of the day, watching movies and generally decaying on the bed – stuff we had not accounted for when we made our ambitious plans. On some days, you DON’T want to stick to plans. Which are ALSO what holidays are about, no?
- But what plans are about – ice skating, shopping, museum trips, visiting friends, and so forth – have all worked out great so far. (And which have also burnt a huge hole in my pocket. Today is my punishment day – a day I spend at home completely, and not spend a dime on anything.)
- P and I wanted to put up little lights on our windows, and maybe even buy a little Christmas tree. Neither of which we managed to do. But I guess it is good in a way that the lights didn’t work out – I may have lost a little sleep over this unnecessary electricity consumption business.
- I wanted a white Christmas that would be perfect in every way, maybe even a Christmas miracle (not that I particularly needed one). Instead I got a Christmas debacle I think. We don’t always get what we want, even if it is Christmas. There is no Santa! It was Amma and Appa who left me the Spell Bound board game under my pillow all those years back! Oh, the disillusionment of it all!
- Last year, I might have moped and wept over the debacle. This year, I braced myself, walked into the kitchen, and with P, whipped up the most amazing chocolate cake ever. It was nearly perfect in every way – it was made of organic chocolate, it was eggless, and it was frigging awesome to eat. (It did crack when we turned it over from the baking dish, but we filled in the gaps with the smoothest chocolate frosting ever. A little like how I plugged the void created by the debacle with chocolate cake).
- While our wonderful cake was in the process of becoming wonderful in the oven, I attempted a last ditch effort to set right the debacle, but it wasn’t to be. It was crushing to realize I did deserve it, in many many ways. But I hit the town that night. I am coping well so far.
- Christmas day was… perfect. It was everything I wanted it to be. We woke up late, and then took a walk down our neighbourhood. I discovered a place, that I had trouble believing was even in New York City. The peace, the ravishing natural beauty, the winter mist that hung over the naked and gnarled, yet dignified old trees… it was a place I could have stood out in the cold in, for the rest of my life. And that was only the beginning.
- The Armenian Church in Georgetown, Madras, is my favouritest church ever. But it now faces competition from The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. I really lack the talent to describe its beauty. It would suffice to say that it was heartbreakingly beautiful on that day, beautiful enough to make believers even of the most staunchly agnostic amongst us. The tree was the most beautiful tree I have ever seen, the most beautiful tree I will ever see – huge and dense, decorated only with paper origami birds. No lights, no plastic, no nothing. The fool that I am, I just wept.
- P and I then enjoyed a super Ethiopian meal, giggling about this and that, providing much relief to fragile mental states. And of course, there was the beautiful chocolate cake to go back home to. Pretty perfect Christmas, huh?
- And then it snowed and snowed and snowed the day right after Christmas. Most of that day was spent sitting at the window and staring outside. We had a mild overdose of beauty over those two days. NYC was just unrecognizable. Now it is dirty snow everywhere, and very dangerous to walk around in. P almost fell once, and then actually fell once.
- After passing P off as S (who is currently playing with her new nephew in London – congratulations!) to the security guy at Hartley Hall in university last week, a bunch of us enjoyed an amazing two-hour session of TT. And I must say, I am very proud of my TT skills. At home, with super sporty Thatha, sporty Appa, college TT champ super stylish Amma and tennis playing sister Gundu (and I am pretty sure Ammamma will reveal a secret talent for it as well if she tried), who all have very low athletic expectations from poor old wheezy me, I don’t play too well. Being laughed at, even if good-naturedly, always brings my confidence down. But here, with friends, it was pretty damn incredible. I lack all style (seriously, how much style can you expect from someone who was nicknamed Flubber at school?), but my one technique, that of good ball placement, serves me well. It truly helped me kick a little ass that day. And I am sure I’ll only get better. And we hope to do this very very often henceforth. So yay!
- Hanging out with friends is great – it feels weird if we haven’t met in a couple of days even. We’ve added an interesting twist to our regular card games, which has resulted in some super surprising revelations about each other. We are also playing a new party game that R introduced us to, which is just super hilarious. I love how much closer we are all getting. It is also scary, at some level. I also dearly miss my friends back home. Skype sessions are long long overdue.
- We feed our friends at home pretty often as well, and that’s a super awesome feeling. I really am just an Aunt Flubber deep within, I think.
- Teaching R Tamil words has been among the most fun exercises we’ve undertaken in a while. Considering how quick to grasp he is, he’ll be talking fluent Tamil pretty soon. As it is, his “Epdi irukke, machan?” has been giving our friends the heart attack.
- I now have a beautiful bookshelf, bought and built by R, and I am reading my first non-academic book in over four months – The Pregnant King by Devdutt Pattanaik. I picked it up, at Crossword I think, because the gender role reversal seemed interesting, and it’s mythology, which I love. It almost didn’t make it to the US; it was the one book, when we were trying to reduce my baggage weight, that Appa kept sneaking back into my bookshelf back home. He found it endlessly funny that I would read something that sounds as corny as that, and even want to take it with me. Even here, my friends have the most fun calling it porn. But it has been good so far – the writing style is nothing to write home about, but the plot contrivances are intriguing, and the gender politics very very interesting and contemporary. It is funny and ironic as well.
- Orbit once called me an illiterate, because I hadn’t watched The Prestige. I laughed at him then. But one of the first things I did when my holidays began, was to check out the IMDB Top 250 list. And I was pained this time, to realize I really haven’t watched too many good movies in my life, if the IMDB list is anything to go by. So towards ‘literacy’ and overall better feeling, I’ve been watching quite a few movies during the day. R and P and I also have movie nights often, binging on cake and chips and green tea. A great ritual on cold nights.
- Our cake’s over now, and I miss it sorely. But there still are left over, slivers of the delicious cranberry cake with orange juice that R’s mum had made over Christmas. And after that, maybe we’ll bake another cake. Or maybe, I won’t need a cake at all. I realize that I have no reason to hope that the one huge sore thing in my life will set itself right, but I will try not thinking of the improbability of it all. A new year is round the corner, which will bring with it, everything we all ever want. There’s the DC trip, the Broadway show and the new courses to look forward to as well. It’s all good.
Happy New Year, everyone!
