I am a huge fan of walks in the night.

The roads glow orange. The streets are silent. The pathways show insomniac bunnies hopping away. There are not too many bugs to crowd around your head. The ducks and migratory water birds all sleep, their head tucked in between their wings and floating gently like diyas with the fire put out.

In a night walk, you can share the silence or reject a conversation. Words and feelings flow more freely, may be a bit more than what you would have been comfortable in the day light. Life is more clear, decisions come to you fare more easily, when you sit upon a cliff and look up at the stars.

Every step you take is an adventure. There are no lights, only shadows, and you feel your way around than seeing it. The wind is chillier and more sneaky, finding its ways to be closer to your body despite being fully covered.

The city lights reflect on the low clouds. One the walk back home, you have a little more time to think about the strangers who speed away on their vehicles, think about their stories.

And old songs come back to you, which you sing enthusiastically off key, comfortable with yourself and with the sweet mite of a girl who is a new friend.

Life, as of now is....

After one of my so called bouts of stupidity, I have decided to quit being a nice Indian girl, and live life a bit on the edge.
No, this does not mean bungee jumping - Im still afraid of falling.

This means that my inner Charlotte will be making way for Samantha. Ive been too mice, too naive, and now Im out to have my pound of fun and some more.

As a Charlotte, I was an incurable romantic, willing to put the other person before me, and thinking up excuses in my head for them.

As Samantha, I can be myself, kick men in the ass when they try to play me, and just have fun being myself.

And if and when I find some one really, really special, I might let Charlotte out a bit, now and then.


But not before that.

So I was told that I will finally make my parents proud: I will go to US of A; and that too, New York.
Coming from a land full of engineers and doctors, USA is considered as the promised land. There were many who wondered aloud that they have never heard of a state in US called Finland. "Surely you don"t mean Cleaveland?" They queried.

If you cannot go to India, the next best option is to go to USA to meet with family and friends. Friends from the past, their counterparts, new friendships in the making, new circles to be forged. Relations. to meet a nephew by blood, a brother in law I have never met face to face, to meet other smaller nephews and neices by love; stronger than the blood bonds.

Also, the chance to have some real sun, a real holiday. With friends. Wine tasting in Napa, shopping, the beaches, the museums, treks, hikes and shopping some more.

I am what they call wheatish in Indian matrimonial columns. I call myself dusky, with pride, and there were many times when i saw ( to borrow a red Indian term) the pale faces look at me and my tanned skin with envy. So in the morning when I stepped out to go to the embassy, and in the tram when a Nordic God with deep blue eyes and hair like the shining sun asked me if I was from Middle east or Egypt, my inner cat purred, but just gave a tiny smile and shook my head no.When I stepped out of the tram to my destination, he waved me goodbye with a slight smile, which I would like to think was tinged with regret. Any other day, I would have jumped back to the tram ( I am nothing if not impulsive ) to exchange numbers, but not today. Today, NewYork and California were beckoning, and blue eyes became yet another unknown stranger.

The embassy reminded me of a prison. huge walls, guards, security cameras. I was
called for the debriefing. And asked about myself. What do I do? Why do I have this contract and not anything else? How long have I been working for my company? How come my MBA is only for two years? ( at that question, i peeked a look at his ID badge and indeedy, he is an American - and then the way he has been asking questions made sense).And what did I do for my under graduation?

I did engineering.

Oh!

And what did you do it in?

I knew I would regret telling him it the moment the words were out of my mouth.

Electronics and Telecommunication. ( also known as branch of engineering which teach terrorists to make bombs)

He practically shoved the form which said that it would take at least a month for my visa to my hands. And all but shooed me out of the place. One month. At least. My managers letters didn"t mean zilch to him. Nope.

I came back, opened my laptop and canceled all conformed meetings at work and with friends. And then I tried to answer their questions about my non existent research and publishing of papers without any sarcasm and as much clarity as possible. I was especially stumped by the last question, where like a nosy relative whom one particularly dislike, they wanted to know what I wanted to do with my life and how long I plan to be in this country.

Nordic Gods, the next time any of you walk up to me and compare me to the beauties in Arab nations or in upper Africa, I am gonna give you a tight kick in the ass.I know its unfair, but don't think kicking the visa guy would have really helped.

There is an episode of HIMYM where Ted realizes that Robin"s dogs were all gifts from her ex - boyfriends.
So gals; and guys; let us look at the happy stuff : Yeah they were idiots to leave us/ nor reciprocate our crushes ( includes the preschool ones too) . Yeah they lead boring or unhappy lives now. Yeah, we will have our days of glory and will have our happily ever after.

So, being not bitter and being fabulous and magnanimous and all, lets take a look at the good things that we got and cool habits that we picked up. Five of them the max. Btw, saying "I learned how to identify an a$$h¤l£" doesnt count. Lets be positive here!

Here is my list:

1.American Dad: I was way away from home, and I met this cute guy who absolutely loved American Dad. But despite being introduced to the Smith family, we broke up.

2. A coffee mug: I stole it from one of my major ex-crushes. Stole as in; took it and told him I was going to keep it.

3. Trekking: I realized I have the stamina to trek all day when we went trekking in Chirapunji. My ex was the trek organizer.

4.
Books: From the coffee mug guy and the trek guy. Again, stole them; and explicitly told them that they are not getting them back. Aaah... the good times... ( wrt free books, not wrt lousy emotional choices)

Yup. Thats about it.

So... whoever reads the blog, do compose your list, and let me know by dropping a comment here.

Another tag! Again, created by me.
Now, on this blog, just post five bits of information about you which you have never shared with your blog readers before. No "I plan..." or "I hope..." here - lets look at what has already happened.


Here is my list:


1. I am learning Finnish

2. I bought a bicycle & have started cycling to work.

3. I am very sensitive to the long days of Finland and have started waking at 530 am without an alarm clock.

4. I resort to tags to avoid writing a blog post :)

5. I am not fond of chocolate as I used to be. [ This from the girl who conquered one of her worst fears for chocolate ]

All who read this, please consider yourself tagged and drop me a line once you have done the deed.