My mind feels like a kaleidoscope...

.......and not in a good way.

I have at least a million different colored thoughts running parallel and all leading to the same direction....astray.And I might as well be schizophrenic for the emotional roller-coaster ride I am going through. For starters, my brother came back after a long trip to India. I had been living alone in the house for over six months and I had gotten used to it. In fact, weirdly in my mind, I consider the house to be an entity with feelings. Don't ask. So at the moment, his returning is somewhat bittersweet. I liked being alone but I am also very happy and relieved he is back.Does that make sense? Then, of course, there is the joy of a relative returning from an overseas trip with a suitcase full of goodies. My mother, is of the opinion, I don't wear traditional Indian dresses often enough ( read, never), so she wanted to send me a salwar. I said , sure, just make sure it's not a pink thing. She sent me a pink salwar.

....

I am not upset or anything.I am happy to receive anything I am given. The irony just makes me laugh to myself. My mom was anxious that I wouldn't like it. I like it.It's pretty. Nonetheless, it's still hilarious that after looking through multitudes of stores for that perfect dress, she settled on a pink one,when my only requirement of a dress was : not pink. One of the reasons, I like this salwar is because it makes me shake my head and laugh every time I see it. It's too pink.My mom describes the color as...not pink, its more of an onion-ish tint. Yes,its a pink onion salwar. To make up for the pinkness, she also sent me a box of nut butterscotch candies that I love. I have already finished that. Feeling a little bit queasy now.

Then I am impatient. One of my best friends got into an IIM. For those that don't know,an IIM is to business schools in India , what the vatican is to Roman catholics. I am impatient. He's living my dream now. And I can't even embark on that dream in the near future. I am very happy for him and wish him a great amount of luck and success in his life. He's worked hard to be where he is at. I am proud of him,truthfully. He deserves it.

I would like to get into NYU someday. NYU is to me, what Mecca is to muslims. But again, take one look at the entry criteria. Required ingredients : Merit, finances,job experience. Merit is a matter of hard work. Finances,as I have come to understand, is a matter of luck...and some planning. Experience takes time.Min. three years like it says on their website.I am impatient to begin that journey. And there is still a long way to go.

Second choice is Harvard. There is something just about the name Harvard. Also , I like their case-study based approach to learning. Hrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...... Even writing about this dream makes me feel happier and rejuvenated. Suffice to say, I have a lot riding on this dream. My entire life. I guess in that sense, I should relish the wait. It is a life long dream of mine, I am almost afraid to get it too early.

Also, in a bid to stick to my ethics, I am probably in the middle of giving up a few things I loved and cherished. I am not happy, but I am right. Firstly, it doesn't do for one person to have two radically different career dreams in one life time. So goodbye Ph.D in philosophy. I pick corporate ambition over you. I had been toying with this idea for too long now, and even though I like how Dr. such and such sounds, it's a dead-end idea to play with. Especially for an international student in the United States of expensive lifestyles. Secondly, and this will be cryptic, because I am just annoying that way : Bird in hand is better than two in the bush. I know. I picked the bush anyway. Very soon I will have lost three birds. As things should be. I did it anyway. My justification is, I didn't want to regret and wonder what if. After I lose the birds, I think I will stick to pets that can't fly away/run away. Like turtles.

Finally, everything they ever said on step-mothers?

That's.all.true.

In fact, people are euphemistic.

On the issue of morality, or lack thereof..

I am a bit sick of this.

My Facebook friend list is beginning to look like a dalmatian lovers convention. But you can't say this out loud. People are still mourning the loss of "Amanat" / "Damini" or whatever the new name is, that has been bestowed upon the victim of the Delhi rape case.
The impassioned anger that bubbled forth on social networks following the case, has somewhat died down. Score one for the Indian govt for successfully hoodwinking the nation into thinking they cared.Young people are returning to their normal lives.Though they still pay their respects by adding a "like" to whichever "stop rape.kill the criminals" pictures that is currently doing the rounds. This gesture would have greater effect if they did not, simultaneously , go around liking pics of their favorite shirtless stars or make smart-mouthed comments on the figure of their favorite actresses.
And despite several round of debates on why rape happens, what to do with rapists,how many hours in a day do Indian policemen sleep, no one has been able to come up with any definitive answers.
I don't know the answers either and I realize, that the problem is a bigger ball of yarn than we think or know about.
Here, however, I would like to list some of the things that I really hate about my motherland. Please note the numerical sequence has no relation to the proportion of hatred I have bestowed on each topic.
Our culture
I don't know what the definition of culture is to anyone. But we have done a fine job of holding on to traditions and thus stereotypes. So now, mummies and daddies don't care what their children do, as long as their daughter and daughter-in-laws are as inexperienced as the vestal virgins. Please note I didn't write " as pure as" . Purity is a state of mind. Children lose it as soon as they stop believing in Santa Claus or the first time they say "My dog ate my homework". It has nothing to do with your anatomy or membranes therein.
Our by-stander culture
We are, it seems, a very curious race. We like to ogle at every roadkill on the highway and every little incident in our neighbor's household. It's really not our business but we like to watch then relate it to other people, whose business it also isn't. To say nothing of the fountain of opinions that flow as a result. Case in point the Delhi rape issue. You can hold as many candle light silent vigils or morchas or anything : its good, I'm glad somebody is taking actions for once. But let people know far and wide, that the two severely injured , unclothed victims lay on the road side for more than an hour before any help came. There were bystanders. They by-standed perfectly.
Double standards in our by-stander culture
Intimations from a mother to her daughter :
- Come home before its dark. In fact, let us chaperone you till you reach 50.
- Don't put on make up, short skirts, tight t-shirts.Pretend you are invisible.
- Don't jump around. I won't even explain this one.
- Dont talk to strangers, strange boys, boys that your family doesn't know.Just save us the headache and don't talk to boys at all.
Intimations from a father to his son :
- Come home.
Uneven fault distribution
You will be hard put to find one person with an ounce of responsibility. If something unfortunate happens to someone, its the victim's fault for being unfortunate, the police's fault for being just as normal, human and money-hungry as the rest of us, and the criminal's fault for..God knows..no one talks much about this category. It's never the society's fault for having a screwed up outlook in the first place. It is never the family's fault for somehow instilling acute sense of difference into growing boys and girls. It is nobody's fault that a girl child grows up very aware of the threats in society and how she has, by virtue of her gender, much more to lose, than a boy of her own age, in the event, some unfortunate catastrophe should occur. It is also nobody's fault that despite our puritanical, conservative, shallow-minded attitude, where parents insist they got you as a child from either the stork or the mela, pornography is freely available.
The govt. does its job and sues a film producer every time somebody smokes cigarettes in a film. The audience is influenced with cigarette smoking but of course, nobody takes any lessons home when item songs with the most suggestive and inappropriate body movements are played. That sells.
Like I said, its a bigger yarn of problems than we think. This isn't all. I'm just too lazy , disinterested and apathetic to continue.And that, ladies and gentlemen, covers problems # 4 through 6. Thank you for your time.