All We Are

When I was a small kid, I was in awe of my grandparents, for one main reason - my parents were not the boss with them. Their ability of talking back without getting sent to their rooms was almost God-like. Equally impressive was my grandfather's ability to conjure incredible tales of his adventures, like the time he came across a 10m long cobra or when he went to a village and drove away a tiger which had been terrorising the locals and stealing away the cattle. These tales brought too much pleasure to our credulous minds, and put us to bed tired, dreaming of lives that had been lived and those that were yet to be.

Eventually, I started to wake up to a bigger world, and the corner my grandparents occupied began to shrink. My trysts with love, hate, desire and ambition led me to unfamiliar paths, while everything known was gradually left behind. And all this time, my grandparents also grew and while I discovered my zest for life, they lost theirs. The once free flowing conversations had now thinned down to a trickle of words, and when I left for Europe, distances grew not just in miles.

Last year, the miles maxed out when they both passed away. I was left clutching some scattered strands of memories from my life in India, and was soothed by anything familiar - a whiff of masala on the street, a punjabi song playing in a discotheque. And now with that bout of homesickness subsiding, in a way, the cycle is complete. Now I, like the protagonist in my grandfather's stories, is out here looking for my place in this strange world, living my own tales to tell. And I hope to make them just as incredible.

They say that we are greater than the sum of our parts. Some parts define us, while others just hover around the periphery, touching our lives in little, invisible ways. These medley of parts, big and small, is all we are. We thank the bigger parts often. Here is a thanks to the little ones. Thank you Nana and Nani. I will remember you.

The Graduate

As a child, I remember watching the night sky for hours (rather hour, sigh...early bedtimes), and knew that one day I would become an astronaut and see the extremes of the universe unaided by a telescope. Every distant light twinkled with opportunity and every passing night brought me one-day closer to my dream.

As fate had it, this dream was soon dashed by the realities of growing up in a middle class family and less than 20/20 vision. And this September, I grew up to become an electrical engineer.

A proud engineer, I may add, as not only did he bust his chops over two continents, but also wrestle past a potential IAS officer, step over a could-be investment banker (a crappy one at that I think) and draw over the faint outlines of a writer/photographer and a social worker. Some of them false-starts, others just hobbies not taken seriously.

But is it true, that our lives have that one definitive calling, that one trail where every step feels right? The moments of clarity preached by the Karate kid's and Wake-up Sid's, which wear off by the time you reach the car and start complaining about the overpriced popcorn, are they really as true as they seem for those few minutes? Or are we just victims of oversimplification, and between the jack of all trades and master of one art, we might just have a few more options.

The next 4 years of PhD feel like a beginning of a journey of a different kind of "self-realization" like they say, as the electrical engineer tries to navigate past the self-doubts and arranged marriage, to test himself across a vast range of skill-sets and determine if an electrical engineer is all he is meant to be. He also plans to build some of those triceps they keep talking about. People will smirk, "another one of those lofty day-dreamers" they will say before going on to comment on his tiny eyes and how they are always closed in pictures. And he will stay firm. Because he knows no better.

But before that, its time to get wasted with drinking binges and affectionate females. After all, I just graduated.