The truth and nothing but...

the truth. I've heard this line most in hollywood movies during a courtroom trial. I never paid much attention to it.

Until I met Asli. She's one of the closest friends I have and though we have many many differences, I admire her a lot. There's a list, but the quality I've come to admire about her the most, is her almost religious need to stick to the truth and live by it. And this has made me think a lot about the truth, speaking it, hearing it, living it and the consequences of that doctrine.

The truth, plain and simple, hurts at the worse of times, most of the times it complicates things, but the best case is when you get this amazingly good feeling inside you on hearing the truth.

"Does this dress make me look fat?" - You must be careful here. The truth may hurt or simply complicate things. If you say "yes" too quickly, then there's doubt in the her mind. If you take a few seconds, there's doubt in her mind. Like I said complicated. Of course, this is probably the most trivial and inconsequential example (maybe).

"Yes, I'm sorry, it was my fault. I promise not to let it happen again." - This may or may not be true. Maybe it is your fault and you're admitting it truthfully; maybe it's not your fault and you're trying to soothe things over to , here we go again, stem the complications. I must be honest and say that I've been in both situations, and in each of them, I've felt a little dishonest.
When it is my fault, and I've meant the sorry and admitted to the truth, I promised that it won't happen again. Of course I intend to stick to it, but sometimes I do it again. And deep in my heart, when I speak the truth to myself, I knew that it would happen again. But the effort to not let it happen again was genuine. The second situation, well, that's straightforward. Everyone's been through it and I'm sure that everyone does, atleast I thought that, till I met Asli.

Then there are truths that make your heart flutter and fly all over the place, singing and dancing in happiness. You know the ones I mean. "I love you too.." from your sibling, parents, girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, husband, best friend. In these times, these words are given special importance and can only be uttered if you're "really really serious.."; whatever the hell that means. You love someone, you say it. Sometimes it will complicate things in a way that even trying to understand Special Relativity can't. Most times it'll give you or the recipient that feeling I'm talking in the beginning. Other ones which elicit the same feeling are "You don't have it..but please be more careful next time !", "I forgive you..", and my personal favourite which comes without hesitation from my best friends "Sure, no problem, time is not a problem. I'll do it. Don't say thanks and all that stuff.." You can count on these folk..

The ugly truths....and these are normally the most important ones. I say this because they normally tell us the "ugly truth" about either ourselves or of somebody else.

"Yes, I've been having an affair.", "I don't think that I love you anymore..", "I don't think that this is working out..", "I'm sorry, but you have terminal cancer." , "I think that I'm an alcoholic.", "I think that I have a lying problem.", "I think our son has a drug problem.", "I think that I'm ugly.", "Don't ever hit me again..".

Do we have the courage to face these? We've probably gone through one of these or (God forbid) several of these in our lifetimes..I've been through one or two myself, and I hope to say that I've come out a stronger and better (?) person. The truth never lies, only we do..

Anything more important?

We get caught up in our daily lives, unaware of what is sometimes important and should, must, take precedent. I’ve been caught up in my daily life almost everyday since the day I landed in the USA in July of 2003. It will have been a long 5 years this July and even though I feel that I’ve gained so much here, I haven’t thought about what’s been really important to me. The unfortunate circumstances that I had to visit Bombay this past week, the city I have grown up to love, has enlightened me as to what should take precedent in my life.

My aunt; my second mom, my family’s “ben”, was diagnosed with ALS and she sought alternative treatment in India. Western medicine had robbed us of hope but we are not giving up yet. I got a call from India at 3am saying that Aunty was rushed to the ICU due to respiratory failure. I was shocked; none of us expected the disease to progress within a week, even before she had a chance to seek ayurvedic treatment.

But my first thought when I saw Purvi’s number on my phone that late was that something horrible had happened to my parents or to Purvi. This is the single most fear that I have in the US; not whether the next experiment will work or whether I’ll have funding for the next year or inconsequential things like rent and bills. I fear that one day that call will really come. It is an impossible situation to describe and the whirlwind which flows through your mind and heart is unbelievable painful as it is sudden. Naïve or not, I hope that I do not receive such a phone.

The whirlwind of the next 7 days cannot really be described. I was the last one to fly out a week later to come to Bombay to meet her. I’ve asked myself every single waking minute why I did that. I love her. She is family and nothing, I mean nothing, can be more important than that. Was I coming because I was saying goodbye? I hope not. I look into myself and I must be honest that in a way it was a goodbye. I can only be positive and hope that everything will be alright. I was also coming to show her that I love her. I was coming to tell her that we’re her family and there’s nothing that we will not do for her.

And that’s what I want to say; there’s nothing that we should not do for our family. I’ve been a hospital baby as far back as I can remember. I remember more than the needles and the medicines and the discomfort, the many sleepless nights my mom and dad have held me in their comforting arms. I got spoilt then, and I’m still spoilt now. They’ve offered me everything they have and even what they don’t have. Sometimes I feel that I don’t understand and appreciate the love they have for me. Sometimes I even get annoyed at them when they try and push and pamper me. How dare I? Mom, Dad, I’m sorry…I love you and I should say it more often; I think we all should. Purvi you’re the closest. It broke my heart to see you leave but I knew that to you as well, it was family that was driving that decision. I love you.

My family to me is the anchor to my life. I’m generally a very closed person; a complaint I get often from Asli. I hate to be probed and questioned. I may be experiencing as much turmoil as any other person, but peace and calm are normally a phone call away. I love every single person in my family; present and those yet to come. You can count on me for anything and everything.

Yeh hai Bombai meri jaan ! (This is Bombay, my love!)

My best buddy, Nikhil, said a very interesting thing to me just before I left Bombay this past week. He said “you’ve really connected with Bombay this time.” I was in Bombay for exactly 6 days. I am currently studying in the US so going back home to me is a big deal, usually planned for 2-3 weeks. He said this to me when I called him from the airport to say goodbye. Even though I absolutely love coming to Bombay, I hate coming back for such a short time. Nikhil, you’re spot on..

Everyone single person whose been to a foreign country gets connected to a certain place or city which reminds them of “home”. And home doesn’t necessarily have to mean the place you were born or you grew up. To me “home” is the place which fills me with peace, calm and a really profound sense of safety. But at the same time, I get this overwhelming pull and a rush just thinking about it. Bombay to me is home. I’ve been born here, grown up here..but it wasn’t until this trip that I have loved it.

It was a very warm feeling that I got when the pilot announced to look at the Line of Control between Pakistan and India on my flight from New York. That feeling just got stronger as we approached Bombay. We were lucky, or not, to have to circle around the airport a few times because “the runway had foreign objects on it.” I heard groans from fellow passengers, but the added time in the air gave me a good opportunity to look at my city. The first thing I noticed is how beautiful Bombay is. I guess it’s true for any city in the night from the air. What’s unique to Bombay is that unlike most cities I’ve visited, it is not a planned city. Atleast wasn’t much planned. Land was reclaimed from the sea as needed. From the air, Bombay looks like a very very intricate henna pattern. Roads are not parallel to each other; there are no avenues and streets. There are no intersections to speak of. Instead, just like the curving patterns of the “mehndi”, each road will connect to some other road by a series of branches and gullies. Some roads will pass through entire “mini-cities” (at least that’s what I think of the slums in Bombay) while others will be wide avenues with traffic speeding through. There’re many dark areas, which I guess were either mangrove swamps (undeveloped land). The lights make Bombay look like a necklace, particularly an Indian designed one with the chaotic arrangements of the roads and buildings enhancing the visuals of leaves, flowers, etc. I absolutely enjoyed the delay of my flight.

When the flight landed and I collected my luggage, I made my way to the exit. Nowhere else that I’ve visited (and all my friends are welcome to correct this) have I experienced the welcome you get at Bombay airport. As you approach the exit, you’ll hear the sound of a very large crowd. As you step into view, you’ll see passenger’s relatives, their friends, distant cousins and a band of another 10 people you may or may not know well, ready with big smiles to welcome you. To pick me up was my dad, my brother-in-law Niraj and my cousin Nipa. I was actually surprised that more people didn’t come. This is true for almost every Indian passenger who was coming back. It’s also true for when you’re leaving; though you may expect a few more people to say their goodbyes. I love it. The smiles that I saw, the happiness is really heart-warming and fills you up with that much more excitement to be back home.

On the car ride back, I’d already ordered Chinese food. I was craving it. In the US, it’s actually called as “Indian Chinese” because its really a different category of food by itself. Indians have a flair for spicy food, and “Indian Chinese” is made to suit our tastes. A healthy dose of garlic, ginger, chillies is what makes this mouth-watering. Staple Indian Chinese includes Manchurian, a soy-sauce based dish with a dark ginger and garlic gravy with vegetable dumplings made of shredded cabbage, carrot and other veggies, Sweet corn soup, which is a cream-based mildly sweet thick corn soup, “Hakka”-styled fried noodles or fried rice. My two favorites are Wonton soup, a watery clear soup with steamed vegetable dumplings and Paneer Chilly, a spicy soy sauce stirfry of garlic, ginger, paneer (cottage cheese), hot green chillies and vinegar. Its normally had as a started. I must say that if you’re a fan of food, Indian Chinese is a cuisine you must experience.

I had an argument with my cousin Nilay the other day. I claimed that every Indian woman is cute or good looking. Of course that sounds a bit ridiculous even to me, but there is an attractiveness that I find in Indian women that I haven’t noticed in others. I think it’s the colors. Indian clothes are traditionally very colorful and I find them to be extremely flattering to anyone who wears them; especially Indian women. They look beautiful in Indian clothes, and all my friends look stunning when they’re dressed up for an Indian occasion. The Punjabi or salwar kameez I think accentuates the curves and the colors, the blues and greens and reds and yellows, draws the eyes. Sometimes it can be a bit overdone, but all in all, Indian clothes to me are very attractive.

This time I spoke to or tried to make conversation with as many random people on the roads or taxi drivers or autorickshaw (three wheelers) drives as I could. Indians are definitely more talkative and more receptive than my experience in the US. I never once got a dirty look from any of them and at best times the conversation would carry on for the duration of my journey. It was light and easy to talk to everyone, but that could be because I was talking in Hindi. At Colaba causeway, a hot-spot for tourist shopping, I had good laugh with one of the street sellers when he was trying to swindle me to buy some replicas of the Taj. I’ve noticed that in the US, mostly in New York, most store/street sellers will not hold you in conversation and sometimes even be downright rude if they know that you’re doing anything but buying. I guess it’s ok, but there’s no need to be rude about it.

The last thing that I want to mention is the traffic and the traffic patterns. I’ve always said that if you can drive a car successfully in Bombay, you’re good for any country in the world. It is chaotic !! You’re not only supposed to be aware of whats in front of you and the two sides, but also what the car in front of the bus you’re behind is doing. A two lane road will normally have atleast 4 lanes of cars so close to each other that the side-view mirrors are almost touching. Even in this cramped space, there are motorbikes weaving in and out of traffic and an occasional hand-cart, though I’ve seen very few of these this trip. It looks chaotic but it’s a very controlled chaos. Traffic can be as bad as any major city, but it works. There’re always a few knicks and dents on the cars and the bigger more expensive cars are more cautious than most, but you’ll never really come across a major accident during the day time. The sheer volume of cars may be the reason for this, but even on clear roads, the cars are moving along without hithches. I absolutely and totally love driving in this city. I didn’t get a chance to this year, but I wish I had. When I drive in New York, you’ll hear me say “Ah ! I better turn my Bombay driving mode on”.

There’s chaos in Bombay and I see Bombay in every chaotic situation. I’m always comparing a crowd or a bus stop or Penn station to situations in Bombay. I’ll always end up saying “If this was in Bombay, then….” It’s the beauty of Bombay and it’s the life blood of the city. Nothing is really ever completely organized, there’re few queues, if any, that ever remain a queue. Bribing is a way of life, though I wish and wish and wish that the corruption would come under some sort of control. There’s greenery and there’s pollution. There are beautiful beaches with beautiful sunsets and then there’s open garbage and litter bugs right there. There are beautiful buildings and slums neighboring each other. There are expensive malls and utterly dilapidated hutments standing shoulder to shoulder. And I love it all.. I cannot wait to come back. Asli told me the other day that Bombay will always be there to embrace me, this time, maybe for the first time, I embraced Bombay..