Once Upon a Time in America

It's been nearly twenty months in the US now. I have not got to the stage where there are multiple occasions when I think to myself 'Last year this time, I was...', which is an obvious sign of longevity. Besides, having just experienced my first power outage in the US, I feel like I have now seen everything. From a domestic sense that is, not from a Vegas-Miami-Night To Remember sense. Or even a Grand Canyon-Statue of Liberty-Thomas Cook Tours sense. But from a Make Lunch-Launder Clothes-Watch Football for most weekends sense. And here's what has happened....

The first (and easiest) thing one gets used to is the standardization. Standardization means that you only need to get used to an activity once, and you can be certain that that you can follow the same steps the next time you do it. It's why you can land at any airport and look for signs to the same transport options out - rental car being the most popular by miles (pun unintended) and the most standardized. That means you don't have to know how to haggle for the auto in Chennai. Or that the cab is more popular than the auto in Mumbai. Or that Bangalore may or may not have a prepaid auto option, depending on the weather and potential traffic situation in the city. Of course, the problem occurs when the standardization is not too easy to figure out, and no one understands the non-standard version. So I don't know what a Clipper No. 6 means, and my friendly neighbourhood Vietnamese haircut lady does not know what 'Medium, enough to comb' means. What the heck is comb anyway?

The second (and slightly more difficult) thing to get used to is that your relationship with the outdoors, and openness in general is restricted to parks or the beach. It's not like you can pop down to the potti kadai, get one Lay's Magic Masala packet for that Sunday afternoon craving and curl up by the window with your book.  Firstly, there's no Magic Masala, which sucks (come on Frito, missing a market here). Even if there was, you wouldn't get a small, one-serving packet. You will get a giant bag of potato, oil, salt and a sauce that goes on a 100 other foods as well. And last of all, there is no potti kadai. None. The best you can do is drive to a superstore, traverse an area half the size of Adyar and eventually give up and ask the assistant where to find some chips. By the time the whole ordeal is done, the afternoon has passed, you've lost your mood for the book and it's probably time to step out again. To run, or hike, or take DSLR photos. Because if you are outdoorsy in the US, you are either a runner or a photographer. Why else would you be outside! Which is the exact reaction I got during my first visit to a bank, where I had walked in the 100 degree Houston heat (yes, I referred to it in Fahrenheit, so sue me). It was a ten minute walk, but there was a freeway to cross. US visit tip: Don't 'cross' a freeway like it is Mount Road. Even under the freeway.

The third thing to get used to is time. Time, the same thing that gets stretched interminably in India, gets abused, not cared for, always assumed to not really mean what it actually says - that is very different. Of course we all know the Indian punctuality conundrum and how it is really difficult for us to wrap our heads around the fact that ten minutes later is actually a delay. But the more important timing changes are actually broader, and more regular. For example, lunch is at 11 AM. That's the time I'm usually brushing my teeth on weekends, but if you eat at that time 5 days a week, then you want to eat by then on weekends as well. And end up waking up on Saturday with a huge hunger pang. Then again, I'm also starting the work day at 7.45, so it's pretty fair to want to eat a big meal in about three hours. And of course, this cascades on to dinner times resulting in having 'supper' at 6.30. That is basically Aloo Bonda and chaaya time in India. So the stomach rebels for a while at this affront of having to eat a full sized meal at that time. Only for some time. After a while you stop questioning that 6.30 PM is the time to eat a full meal. Or asking '... and what else?' whenever someone offers 'salad' or 'sandwich' as a lunch option. So be it!

So here we are then. Twenty months and my biggest takeaways are potti kadais and aloo bonda, but they really are significant. I feel like I'm missing something from the whole Yoo Ess experience, but there's time yet to take some Patel pics, run the New York marathon, stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon, buy a DSLR camera...

Half-Baked Goods

Have you ever had those moments when some event, or some line, or some thought in your head felt like it could be your next great story? And then it just...

Should I wear this or the grey?, she thought to herself. The Grey, she decided, I feel like I should be inconspicuous tonight

"Hang a Louie", he drawled. I smiled and continued driving. "Aw, you missed it bro! I told you to hang a Louie" 

Sometimes I feel like there's a specific reason why the watchman at your local shopping center will make a huge deal of you parking your bike in a car space. I call it, The Theory of the Underemployed.

Doing anything in a group can be such a liberating thing, they both thought to themselves at the same moment, more than 8000 miles apart. While doing very different things.

And that night, for the first time in his life, he actually turned on a heater in his house.

The old man lit his cigarette, watching as the next stream of cars slowed to a stop at the signal. He put his banjo to his lips.

... and such things. I promise, one day, one of these will become a story.

Beautiful Thing

Never in a thousand years had I imagined that she would say that to me. 

We went back quite a long way, and she had always been the most beautiful thing I ever knew. I was hesitant to tell her that though, as I did not know how she would take it. It was just as well, better to be close to her, around her all the time than mess it all up with a moment of uncalled-for bravado. I was ok with that. It seemed for now, that she was too.

And yet here she was, sitting across from me, smiling radiantly as ever. My eyes were still tracing the upward curve of her lips, leading into those perfect cheekbones, before one splashed into her deep blue eyes. She must have seen me distracted because she was saying something again,

"I asked if you are coming for our girls' night-out. It'll be over at Katy's place, so it's practically a slumber party. It's gonna be..."

I must have been nodding along encouragingly. She kept going on about our night together in pajamas...

He suddenly realized he was still holding the phone, and she was still talking. How long had she been going on? What had he missed? Were they still talking about the same thing? What had they been talking about anyway? He tried to remember where he had lost track of the conversation. He started working backwards, with great difficulty, and arrived at a point where it looked like he had lost the plot. She had said something then, and he did not remember it. Something that had jerked him out of the conversation and into another plane. He even remembered thinking to himself, 

"Never in a thousand years had I imagined that she would say that to me"

Oh.

Why the Sehwag double hundred feels different

For that very reason actually. That title sounds so natural. The Sehwag Double Hundred. Because there is a need to brand it. Because there's already one before him. That was the one that was only called 'The Double Hundred'. That deserved the definite article. It was something as yet undefined by anyone, so there was no need to brand it. Like how we just call it 'The Sun'. Not the Walmart Sun, you know?

In a way, it's sort of unfair to Sehwag. After all, this IS the highest score on the planet in ODIs. But, it remains just a refinement of an already accomplished effort. The response to the double hundred itself was distinct. From the crowd, from the commentators, everyone. Compare Ravi Shastri's 'First man on the planet to do it, and it's the Superman from India' to Siva's 'Has he got it through the gap? Is it another four? Oh what a good shot... Oh hang on he's got 200 too!'. I'm exaggerating of course, but the focus itself was not on the 200 anymore but how fast he had got there, how everything had gone right for him etc.

And that's the second part that's been unfair to Sehwag. A lot has been written and said about his see-ball-hit-ball philosophy and his blank mind and everything. It's unconventional yes, but also simple. To the point of being too simple in fact, that it's not exhilarating anymore. When Sehwag reduces it to just two actions, everyone thinks 'oh yes of course, now it all makes sense'. And we all rejoice in how easy it is, and how effortlessly he does it. 

But human inclination is to celebrate the skill that it does not yet understand, and watch a master of the skill perspire his way to it. In all of what I consider Sachin's three greatest innings - vs Australia (the qualifier), Sharjah; vs Pakistan, Centurion; vs South Africa, Gwalior - the most enduring images have been of Sachin puffing/cramping/puffing & cramping. Contrast that to Sehwag's effortless coast to the 200, and then some more. One is a master painstaking working his way to an art, the other is doing a 9-5 job. One is a butcher, the other a sculptor. The act is the same, but the art, not so much.

In many ways, the first double hundred just ran to a perfect script. The 200 didn't come till the last over,. There was the incredulity of whether the country's favourite captain would deny the favourite son just because he was dealing only in boundaries. Surely after coming all the way to 199, where he seemed to stay for about an eternity, he wouldn't be denied for lack of strike! Hashim Amla got perhaps the greatest cheer in an away ground for stopping a boundary. It was a perfect symphony of rising notes leading up to the crescendo. Like Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. Sehwag's innings on the other hand was like Pink Floyd's Echoes. A constant trip where you barely notice the high points, because you just want to keep tripping away...