The Dollar
I don't know whether I'm being ungrateful, hypocritical, confused or just plain myself by surrounding myself with all these questions. But where else can I write what I exactly think right? There comes a point in every person's life where one has to choose. And when we are all excited and packing our bags to move to a country 'saat samandar paar' translated 'across the world' we forget to take notice of the small details that become so important once we step into Uncle Sam's land. I'm talking about none other than the motive, the actual one and not the one we write in our statements to make the grad schools believe in us by saying exactly what they want to hear.
Since I stepped here, I've been surrounded by the debauchery of all these unanswered questions which are now coming down onto me like unforeseen rains of Mumbai; drenching me in their sheer intensity and urgency leaving me to feel like a naive person setting out in a thunder storm without the protection of so much as an umbrella.
You know when you talk to your alumni in schools at US before coming, what they don’t tell you is that you will be beaten to death by the loss of an identity. Am I an Indian anymore after having broken most of the rules that the demanding Indian Society imposes on me? Am I a United Statesian now, because I like parts of their philosophy for living and follow them? OR am I as the forms that I keep filling here an “Alien”? Funny term to be used for a human being in any context, but we abide by their quid pro quo and mark a tick against it, saying YES I’m an alien because I don’t know who am I anymore. Every time I’ve filled a form here, this term has mocked my pride and sense of belonging to a world I live in, rather mocked my living of a life. A life where I make a purposeful living through my choices, but I’ve agreed upon living without rights as a first class citizen and my memory for no sane reason runs to those history chapters where freedom fighters gave up everything for those.
I don’t know if it happens to others but unknown forces impel me when a conversation goes to evolve around Green things and stopping pollution and decreasing carbon foot prints. I can carry my own “Jhola” translated “ Cotton carry bag” to super markets, what I can’t do is disagree upon locals fighting with environmentalists from avoiding rain forests from depletion because a part of my brain remembers a mother in amazon basin who said on an interview, she wants the environmentalists from rich countries to stop having a vacation in their homes in the name of causes to avoid deforestation of rain forests when she is trying to feed her hungry kids at least one meal a day and only those perceived harms can provide her employment to keep her family alive. But the whole irony of the paradigm is I had a choice and I have a choice. I chose this and might choose it again too and if people ever know this before coming they will still choose this. Why is the question?
There are things people don’t share, like the disease of “nothingism” that’s wide spread in the lives of current aliens of US from India where they are waiting for something to happen. I don’t know to mock them for their over optimism, pity them due to their state or applaud them for their patience and the will to go on like that. I believe every alien of India worldwide knows that it is not alone there; that it will find at some nook or corner another alien like itself. The only place I think there won’t be an alien like me is perhaps North or South Poles with the absence of human civilization but with my bucket list to be there that will also be gone. Globalization is making only two types of aliens move around more : those form my country and those from my neighboring country which believes in mass production. I like to think of Globalization as heat transmission, heat flows from hotter regions to colder regions. And that fits the situation perfectly.
I am in my early twenties and God and my hormones make me go through this phase where I think I can make big changes in the world. Actually not just big, make big big changes in the world. Most of the times life seems unsettling and confusing. My mind is plagued with unanswered questions and unfulfilled dreams and at the moment I’m waiting for my next pay check and worrying from where some others will come from once I graduate. I want to see the angle from which people in their twenties are envied for their youth.
Coming back to the original line of thought, what is the motive? Is it being able to own fuel guzzling monsters without worrying about what the G-8s keep pushing the rest of the world for reducing carbon foot-prints to do? Or being able to post photos with new foreign places as back grounds? Or is it being able to have a drink or two without having to go for a guilt trip or being able to date people without having to marry the first person that comes along? Or simply is it the money? It has to be, last I checked 1$ = Rs 45.60 (Subjected to market trends of course) After all in the machine of the world, we come from the land which keeps churning the maximum number of CPUs and mathematical equations are important for our functioning no ??
Since I stepped here, I've been surrounded by the debauchery of all these unanswered questions which are now coming down onto me like unforeseen rains of Mumbai; drenching me in their sheer intensity and urgency leaving me to feel like a naive person setting out in a thunder storm without the protection of so much as an umbrella.
You know when you talk to your alumni in schools at US before coming, what they don’t tell you is that you will be beaten to death by the loss of an identity. Am I an Indian anymore after having broken most of the rules that the demanding Indian Society imposes on me? Am I a United Statesian now, because I like parts of their philosophy for living and follow them? OR am I as the forms that I keep filling here an “Alien”? Funny term to be used for a human being in any context, but we abide by their quid pro quo and mark a tick against it, saying YES I’m an alien because I don’t know who am I anymore. Every time I’ve filled a form here, this term has mocked my pride and sense of belonging to a world I live in, rather mocked my living of a life. A life where I make a purposeful living through my choices, but I’ve agreed upon living without rights as a first class citizen and my memory for no sane reason runs to those history chapters where freedom fighters gave up everything for those.
I don’t know if it happens to others but unknown forces impel me when a conversation goes to evolve around Green things and stopping pollution and decreasing carbon foot prints. I can carry my own “Jhola” translated “ Cotton carry bag” to super markets, what I can’t do is disagree upon locals fighting with environmentalists from avoiding rain forests from depletion because a part of my brain remembers a mother in amazon basin who said on an interview, she wants the environmentalists from rich countries to stop having a vacation in their homes in the name of causes to avoid deforestation of rain forests when she is trying to feed her hungry kids at least one meal a day and only those perceived harms can provide her employment to keep her family alive. But the whole irony of the paradigm is I had a choice and I have a choice. I chose this and might choose it again too and if people ever know this before coming they will still choose this. Why is the question?
There are things people don’t share, like the disease of “nothingism” that’s wide spread in the lives of current aliens of US from India where they are waiting for something to happen. I don’t know to mock them for their over optimism, pity them due to their state or applaud them for their patience and the will to go on like that. I believe every alien of India worldwide knows that it is not alone there; that it will find at some nook or corner another alien like itself. The only place I think there won’t be an alien like me is perhaps North or South Poles with the absence of human civilization but with my bucket list to be there that will also be gone. Globalization is making only two types of aliens move around more : those form my country and those from my neighboring country which believes in mass production. I like to think of Globalization as heat transmission, heat flows from hotter regions to colder regions. And that fits the situation perfectly.
I am in my early twenties and God and my hormones make me go through this phase where I think I can make big changes in the world. Actually not just big, make big big changes in the world. Most of the times life seems unsettling and confusing. My mind is plagued with unanswered questions and unfulfilled dreams and at the moment I’m waiting for my next pay check and worrying from where some others will come from once I graduate. I want to see the angle from which people in their twenties are envied for their youth.
Coming back to the original line of thought, what is the motive? Is it being able to own fuel guzzling monsters without worrying about what the G-8s keep pushing the rest of the world for reducing carbon foot-prints to do? Or being able to post photos with new foreign places as back grounds? Or is it being able to have a drink or two without having to go for a guilt trip or being able to date people without having to marry the first person that comes along? Or simply is it the money? It has to be, last I checked 1$ = Rs 45.60 (Subjected to market trends of course) After all in the machine of the world, we come from the land which keeps churning the maximum number of CPUs and mathematical equations are important for our functioning no ??
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