I am back in Toronto. Home sweet home.
Right from the time I exited the самолёт (समल्योत = aircraft) to the time I arrived home (90 minutes), I must have received 12 Thankyou’s and 5 Sorry’s, approximately. Quickly I panicked to restore my North American ‘polite’ avatar which I had, after intensely painful efforts, buried for over 3 months. This avatar had a nasty habit of sneaking up in unexpected places when I was in India or even Russia – leading to embarrassing situations – usually causing me to apologise for being ‘polite’ in the American way, which again was met with glares and a sympathetic ‘oh, the poor boy is Americanized’ look.
I was walking in the very crowded Moscow metro when the tip of my wrist brushed against the tip of a woman’s handbag who whizzed ahead of me. Like any normal person in Toronto would, I thought she was rude for not apologising to me but nevertheless I said by reflex, “I’m sorry, извиненте!” (इझविनीच)
The huge lady turned around, stopped and giving me a look said, “что?” (श्तो = what?)
I laughed inside my head, said “ничего” (निचीवो = nothing) to her and left.
I spent many hours explaining to both, Americans and Indians, what the American ‘polite’ manners mean. The Americans don’t understand why Indians never seem to thank or apologise (one survey even put Mumbai as least polite city in the world – imagine!) and the Indians don’t understand why critical words like Sorry and Thankyou are treated like commodity and used hundred times a day. Well, cultural differences are so beautiful and I discovered that in spite of living in India for first 25 years of my life, I could not, after just 2 years in Canada, switch to a different culture in an instant. Predictably, it will take me some time to get used to thanking and apologising hundred times a day here too. 
Moscow from the sky
My Аэрофлот (ऐरोफ्लोट Aeroflot) flight flew from Mumbai to Moscow, change plane, Moscow to Toronto. Aeroflot served me BEEF in my Hindu meal (will make a post with pictures on my travel blog), they are known to flatly refuse to serve plain Water (which is what Indians drink), served a drink called “chai” which they think is tea (well it is Russian tea), their flight was 4 (FOUR) hours late and their seats are designed for discomfort. Yet, I flew them because I had to go to Moscow and the ticket cost was too good to be true. I discovered that the airhostess had a bias against, well, Russians and non-Russian-looking-but-Russian-speaking people like me on one side compared to other non-Russian-looking-and-no-Russian-speaking people on the other. boooo. Nevertheless I found this international discrimination less insulting than what happens in Mumbai between different ethnic groups ironically belonging to the same country…
As the flight landed, I was deeply touched to see the passengers clap as a ‘thank you’ to the pilot.
“Nyet nyet” my neighbor said wisely, “They clap to thank God that the plane has finally landed. It’s Aeroflot, Russian airline!”
View from my window
I was finally glad to be home. Toronto looks beautiful, wrapped in a blanket of snow and occasionally glittering with a scarlet glow from the rays of the sun. I tried to sleep, but I was still tuned to IST. Still I tried to get into my bed and catch some sleep something that was difficult to get without the familiar barking of street dogs…
Since it’s new year’s eve, I can talk about myself..
Time doesn’t stop, right?. I vividly remember welcoming 2008 in a pub in Israel paying $10 cover and welcoming 2007 serving food at a party in Toronto earning $15 an hour. But the best things in life cannot be bought or sold. This year I am going to spend time with my family, at home. Aai made traditional Puran Polis and ours is probably the only family having this delightful food on a ‘western’ new year’s eve.. hehehh… 
The Thatte’s. LtoR: Shrikant, Prachi, Manju, Priyank. At Chamundi Hills, Mysore, December 2008.
So What did you do in 2008? Most bloggers will blog about this, and I will too. For me, this was a very educative and travel-filled year. I visited 7 countries: Israel, Canada, USA, Peru, Russia, India and Bhutan (in that order) and I was never so close to my target of traveling to 11 countries by 2011. I also studied, worked, played Sitar, biked and did the usual interesting stuff.
You might know that I was officially homeless for past 4 months (although I lived in so many homes), so I am excited to go back and resume everything in Toronto. There is going to be lots of snow around and I am itching to skate on ice and wear layers of jackets that make me look like a young Sumo fighter.
Going out on 31st December is difficult, noisy, expensive and mostly frustrating. Also, it’s just another day in the calendar, no? I say this as I deal with a bunch of emails and text messages sent in an impersonal style.
I depart tomorrow, Mumbai to Toronto stopping en-route at Moscow. Do visit my Travel Blog since all travel stuff will be written there.
Happy 2009 to whoever is reading this. And may all your wishes come true.
cheers,
Priyank
The view of the window from that night is printed in my memory…
This incident goes back to December 18, 2003 at 03:15. The picture above shows the windows of my room (my parents place in Mumbai.)
My bed is about 3 meters away from the window. I left windows open at night but there was a window grill that kept us safe (or so we thought.) I’m a light sleeper, and wake up even if a needle drops! That night, some strange sounds ruffled my sleep. There are many sounds at night and I dismissed this disturbance too. But my eyes opened for a split second, and I glanced at the window.
The sight gave me the shock of my life.
The metal grill on the window had disappeared! The window looked like a big hole in the wall.
[Now let me explain. The windows are fitted with metal grills that have 3 screws fastened into the wooden frame on two holding sides. It is easy to unscrew them, remove the grill and enter the house. I've done this myself once when I forgot the keys. And now someone had done just that!]
So, I heard some noises, woke up in the middle of the night, saw my window opened and found a stranger next to my bed. What the heck was going on?
The intruder peered over my mosquito curtain (मच्छरदाणी) to see if I was awake. I froze. I shut my eyes so hard that they almost came out from the other side of my head. Have you heard the phrase “..was so scared, could hear his heart beat” or “…was so shocked that he couldn’t speak”? Ha! I experienced it! The intruder then scanned my desk, but found only thick volumes of Coulson & Richardson’s Chemical Engineering, which were probably the most expensive items in our house, but he didn’t know. He then went to the bedroom, where mom was asleep, via living room. I heard a familiar noise of the cupboard being opened.
After I told my heart to stop pounding and stop getting scared over an intruder, I started thinking (still lying in bed.) I had seen a wooden stick lying around and I got up and grabbed it. Probably useless since I couldn’t physically challenge that guy who was armed with god knows what. …He peered over the mosquito curtain to see if I was awake. I froze. I shut my eyes so hard that they almost came out from the other side of my hea…I went to the living room and opened the door of our apartment. It’s noiseless, and I can be quiet as a cat. I rang the neighbors’ doorbell. The lady (काकू) yelled from inside – “Who the hell is at the door at this hour?” (अीतक्या रात्री-अपरात्री कोण अालंय?) If I spoke, the thief would hear. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get help. So I said, “its Priyank.”
thudd… thump… I heard noises from the bedroom, the thief probably heard me. Now I knew he would emerge from my parent’s bedroom, enter the living room, go to my room and escape from the window. Armed with a stick, I came back into the living room too. I saw him. Something mysterious got over me then. I screamed and hit him. With a force I never experienced ever, I hit his forearm.
The stick broke into two, the thief let out a frightening painful cry, but still somehow escaped, empty handed.
By now, mom woke up, the neighbors arrived, and then the usual stuff…
: : :
Last night I casually glanced at the window and this whole incident flashed in front of my eyes. Pretty interesting, huh!
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Very hard to describe what I saw in the subway today. She looked like any other 35 year old mom with her 3 year old son. Yet, something was very different about them. The two were lost in deep conversations with each other, totally oblivious to the world around them. She was very mom-like, yet spoke to her son like a 3 year old kid. The child was very happy, very cheerful, asked lots of questions and seemed to be enjoying his mom’s company thoroughly. Not just me, but everyone else in the compartment were looking at the two!
That reminded me of a story.
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When you are 13 or 14 years old, you think that ‘nagging you’ is the sole purpose of your parents, isn’t it? 
On one such day, years ago, I was getting ready for school and it was already late. I was wearing my socks carelessly (as usual):
Dad (exclaimed): अरे जरा लक्ष दे! Hey, pay some attention!
Me (irritated): काय झालं? What’s wrong? – (To myself: ‘He is so annoying.’)
Dad: मोजे उल्टे घालतोएस You are wearing your socks inside out. – (I looked. Indeed the stitches were on the outside.)
Me (dismissively): जाऊ दे ना, कोण बघतय! Oh forget it, no one’s gonna notice anyway!
…
Dad: कुणी कशाला बघितलं पाहिजे, तु स्वतः नाही बघणार का? Why bother about anyone else noticing, won’t YOU notice it yourself?
Translation obviously not strong enough.
At that time I must have dismissed it as yet another ‘dad-talk.’ But in no time I learnt the immense value of this statement. I learnt the importance of setting high self standards regardless of other people’s low expectations. Doing things not to impress others, but to impress myself. I can write a long essay on this, but hey that’s not the intent of this post. So, picking up the cue ‘focus on other people, not on yourself’ from Randy Pausch’s ‘Last Lecture’, I simply wanted to say:
“Happy Birthday Dad!”
wait, that’s not all,
“Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad ”
Just in case you wondered who the awesomemost parents in the world were.
I was strolling in the park yesterday with my friend. Out of nowhere, a red maple leaf came flying by and landed on his hair.
“Oh …, I guess Fall is really here…!,” both of us exclaimed as I took the leaf off him and blew it away. It flew again for some distance and fell on the ground after what seemed like a brief but thoroughly enjoyable flight.
Red Maple Leaf
We looked at the landscape around and indeed it was covered with random yellow, red, golden leaves. Dominated by maple leaves but filled with such a diverse variety of leaves, so many shapes and sizes and colors, yet living together and yielding to the weather as a cohort. It seems so natural for nature to co-exist.
The green trees look colorfully dressed, like a forest on fire – yellow, golden, red, but it doesn’t matter. In a few weeks all of them will disappear leaving nothing but naked branches at the mercy of cold winds and snow.
So many things changed around me in last few weeks but I was too busy to notice.
::::
I had a strange dream last night. It was in the middle of nowhere. I was digging a trench. It was very deep. I spent hours and days digging this gigantic hole in the ground. To give you an idea of how deep the ditch was, imagine four elephants stacked on top of each other. The fourth one could barely reach the surface. Yes it was that deep and yes I was measuring the depth using elephants even in my dream (how geeky!)
I don’t know why I was digging.
As soon as the digging was over, I started filling it up. With bricks. Layer after layer arranged in a neat manner. I was building prototype of a city. So I started making little roads, houses, palaces, temples, gardens etc. In no time I created a model of a well planned city inside the big ditch. Being inside the earth, it was secret and sortof protected. The city looked very systematic and very beautiful, just the way I liked it – I loved my work.
No sooner had I finished admiring the work than I started throwing big stones on top of my beloved city from the surface above. One by one the buildings crashed, arches collapsed and gardens were filled with rubble. In no time, I had completely destroyed my entire city. For some reason, I thought that that was the natural thing to do.
Then I sat there, crying over the loss of my creation. (To clarify: I was crying over the destroyed city and not because I was the one who destroyed it.)
And then I woke up.
::::
A hundred more leaves must have fallen and mixed with the earth as I finish typing this post I have several useful interpretations of this dream, but if you do too, I would gladly welcome any insights.
cheers,
Priyank.
“Your website looks great, do you use Dream weaver?”
I get that question sometimes and it always used to bother me. But I don’t get annoyed anymore. Instead, I quote the following story:
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A photographer was invited to a dinner and he took along some photographs to show the hostess. She looked at the photos and commented, “These are very good! You must have a good camera!“
He didn’t make any comment at that time, but as he was leaving to go home he said, “That was a really delicious meal. You must have some very good pots!“
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Lance Armstrong, in his book It’s Not About the Bike, wrote a whole page describing some neat features of his cutting-edge bike. That description alone would make a bike enthusiast like me quiver. But he concluded it saying (paraphrased) – “But at the end, it’s not about the bike!“
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I worked for 3 years as a project planner. People’s standard question was: “Do you need to know Primavera and Microsoft Projects to become a planner?” (those are the two leading project management software.) I wish I could say “Yes”. A planner, like Isaac Asimov’s Hari Seldon, accumulates current data, examines macro/micro factors and uses historical behavior to predict the future. I wish it was as simple as clicking some “Tools > Plan Now!” button.
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I thought of the following people while I was composing this post. They (I think) get lots of comments about their ‘art’. Care to tell me:
° Nita, Prax, Bob – If online research is one mouse click away, why don’t we find blogs that are comprehensively researched as yours? Do you think that research is an art and online resources are mere tools? Taking it one step further, how much do you think have certain tools helped you become a journalist, stock market specialist and an astrophysicist respectively?
° Rambodoc – How much of today’s medical marvel is attributed to the surgeon’s instruments? (I desisted from using the word ‘tool’ – some readily available fodder for your twists that would occur anyway )
° Shantanu – About software tools and Dilbert’s talent! You are also welcome to add a story about chefs and foods!
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For a long time, I thought that I needed a brand new Sitar from Kolkata and only then I could play some awesome music. Fortunately, few months back I met some guru who plays the Sarod. He picked up my Sitar and played something beautiful casually.
“Wow! I didn’t know you played the Sitar too!” I said.
“No, ofcourse I don’t…. But I know the basics of music! “
I regret not meeting him before. But hey, its never too late
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To end this non-travel post, I leave you with a quote from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
If you are a wizard you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument. The best results, however, must always come where there is a strongest affinity between wizard and wand… An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand.
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Question to the reader: I think that it doesn’t really matter what tool you choose to express your talent. If you are not the right person (by birth or by training), the tool won’t make you one. What do you think? Any stories?
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