Safety Blankets

Update: Odhani..is a Gujrati song....(i thought as much ..but read somewhere it was a punjabi song..and it's not like i'm fluent in Gujrati:)..so i didnt check further...but my first guess was right....)

I thought I’d just run through what the past week has been like…at least some of it…. Seriously if I were a character in an Enid Blyton story book..my name would have been Miss Worry-A-Lot or something… so here it is things are pretty ok for the moment and I have no immediate problems to worry about…and for some bizarre reason my mind creates all these kinds of niggling worries this is totally out of my element (well not totally) but this kind of freaked me out because I usually don’t think of worst case scenarios… anyway after a few nights of bad dreams ( now I understand what it feels like to have them ) and feeling blue.. I decided to get my teddy bear (the same as the one pictured above) out of the showcase and back to its original place( ok I know a 25 year old sleeping with a teddy bear might indicate even more serious problems… and for a person who as a child never felt the need to or had any type of security blanket ..the pink bear did provide a lot of comfort ) oh and btw..my flatmate is coming tomorrow …so it should be good ..(Yea I wouldn’t recommend staying all by yourself in an apartment ).

Anyhoo , like how in my previous blog I was consoling myself about being in t-town , today was a landmark day in that I was consoling my self about being in the A-T-L, honestly it isn’t that bad the same way ttown wasn’t that bad : )..also I had heard of the place even before I came to America, it’s a major city in the South East at least , and home to CNN and Coca Cola..etc etc. .OK enough convincing myself..

I’ve gotten used to the schedule of getting up early as well… and the train system here. .Today was the first day I took my mp3 player with me while traveling… I didn’t carry it with me previously because I thought I would miss the announcements I the train ..But I’ve figured out the stops by now ..and the announcements are pretty loud :)…

Today morning , I saw two messages sent by my friends from undergrad….one was an email that brought back some bittersweet memories and the other scrap was from a junior (very much junior) about how she missed hostel life… my first impulse on reading the bittersweet email was ..’Jeez . even if now I feel like forgive and forget..it would mean all this effort for nothing , I mean things could go back to before but then all this effort of trying to stay apart would be wasted… I hate wasted effort!!.’ , at the “missing hostel comment’ ..I couldn’t empathize at this point ..the time I missed hostel was the two years after I left undergrad and was at home with my parents in Udipi.. right now I miss Udipi.. I read the following line in a blog I was lurking around days ago “No matter where you are , there’s always someone you’ll be missing” or something to that effect…

So here I was with my (generic) Mp3 player…and all I had to listen to were these 100 hindi remixes, and very few songs I actually wanted to listen to( one Kid Rock and three Fleetwood Mac songs)… most of the songs were directly loaded from a party playlist my ttown roommate had created… anyway the songs made waiting for the shuttle less tiresome.. and sometime during the end of the day on my way back from work ..i chanced upon this song . not something I had heard before (definitely from after I left India)its called Odhni Odhae To , ( I later find out it’s a Gujrati DJ Suketu remix) , it was a timepass, catchy remix number and I replayed it quite a few times…it was one of the songs I found perfect for journeys…long journeys…. in India…with the concrete roads and the trees and forests in the side like the ones in my native place…long journeys to my native place… oh yea I’ve made them by bus …from Dharwad ( the place where I studied for my undergrad degree)….DHARWAD!!! Why , in Dharwad I would have danced to this song in one of the “Discs” or parties we had once ever so often …( OK ,folks from undergrad who read this will find this slightly sad and lame)…but while I may not have ‘partied’ the most in undergrad.. I DID!!!… I really enjoyed myself in those parties and did dance my heart out.. with my classmates, guys and girls , from whom I have for various reasons distanced away from … I’ve met many people since then and have been to clubs in so many other places ..but I never could get my groove back…it was like I had lost it forever in Hubli ( the place where those parties were held )…not in the last two months in party city Wellington ,I was totally devoted to work the first eight …not in Tuscaloosa , though I did make an effort to go out when I had a chance… Those undergrad parties once a semester where my one chance at truancy with hostel rules ..the one night I would stay out late … not tell my parents ( though parental ESP did catch me at times , its funny though ,how my parents gave up the security of knowing where I was day and night once I left India ; I think it would take a lot of courage and trust to do such a thing); at Rs 150-200 a ticket going to those parties didn’t come cheap on a student budget ..but somehow I had a reputation for being the girl along with another friend who always went for these things… this fact was brought back to my attention by a rejected orkut testimonial!!! ..i don’t know if it was a good thing or if people thought we were the only morons who actually bought tickets and went stag to these things , but we sure had fun in our own way and that’s why we kept going…

It’s been a long time since those parties …people seemed so different from how they were in college when they danced , and for a town which didn’t have much of a social scene these parties were a good thing, I probably spoke to some of my peers for the first time then.. Things have changed now …. Two of the nicest guys I met in those parties have passed away, everyone’s scattered across the globe, some people got married , some couples broke up, some others became couples…and its been months or years since I’ve really spoken to anyone from that crowd…..

While I know I was naive then and it would be easy to think that everyone else was more worldly wise ..the fact remains that how much we held on to illusions of maturity or worldliness at that age, we really were innocent ..and now I wonder what it would be like to once again be that naïve FOB( from Dubai .but in a bad way : )) nineteen year old girl , with dubious dressing sense ( I still have dubious dressing sense ,but it was worse then, and my parents would probably never let me out of the house with half the things I wear…), partying away with her friends at Hans or Naveen in Hubli : ) …no I don’t miss my hostel days…but I relish the memories…

Which reminds me..one of the first things I wanted to do after getting a job.was to join funk or modern dance classes. .guess THAT isn’t going to happen soon…
Also , for the amount I’ve dissed on undergrad the fact remains …during the process of moving to ATL ,being the credit card maxed, last assistantship stipend- have to move into big city Apartment complex- student that I was ..I was at a point in time short of funds : ) before I could ask my equally cash strapped student friends or approach relatives. The person who volunteered to help even before I had the slightest inkling of a need was a girl who stayed in the same hostel as me for four years and has known me for eight years. I guess she knew enough of my credit worthiness to lend me the substantial lump some that I needed : ) ….( Has anyone else noticed how easily it was to borrow and lend rupees ,than it is to borrow and lend dollars : ) )