18 Year Olds Must Travel Alone...

...and ignore all the advice from friends that goes against the idea.

I always wished to travel and explore a city and its people all alone. The idea of seeing it with only my perspective gave me the highest thrills. So my last day in CA, I took the VTA Light Rail from Dowtown Mountain View and reached San Jose Conventional City Center in an hour.
This was finally the moment I had been living for. This was it, the beginning of an adventure.
As soon as the train passed and I faced the city, it dawned on me that I was a terribly meak and little creature to be alone in that enormous city.
Regardless, I mustered up some courage and starting walking towards the sign that said "Tech Museum round the corner." I thought that this would be the start of it. So I reached the museum, got in, decided that it wasn't worth seeing even before I saw any of it, and got out. Across the street was a little park and fountain. I thought that it was a nice place to ask for directions from people. I found out that the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum was about 3 mules away but the Art Museum was just around the corner.

Did I mention that I was on foot? Also, never go to the San Jose Art Museum on a Monday-it is closed.

Then I started the hunt for a bus that would take me to the Egyptian museum. The drivers who drove the downtown shuttle had no clue. It toom me half an hour to figure out that I could probably call the number on the bus stop and inquire. FYI bus # 81 takes you to the corner of Naglee and Park Avenue where the museum is and it takes about half an hour if you are standing on the intersection of Almaden Ave. and San something street.
It was already 4:15 and I was starving. So, I decided to look for some place to eat. On the way, I saw the Guadalupe River Park and decided to go there even though my body was dead from walking in the sun. Once there, I realized that it demanded a lot more time than I had. So once again I kept on asking random strangers if they knoew of any food joints nearby. No one did.
After another 20 minutes or so, McDonald's came around the corner to save the day. So I finished my lunch and saved the cookies to munch on along the way because I was terrified.
I finally caught the train back to Mountain View before daybreak because once there, I had to walk a considerable amount of distance to catch the bus back home and I didn't want to do that in the night.
I had a 100 epiphanies and learned a 1000 lessons:

• Get a map! I thought I'd be able to find a gas station and a map from there; obviously that wasn't what happened.


• PLAN the "adventure". It sounds really cool and fun to be spontaneous and go with energy but it completely fails.


• Get a companion! So that if you give yourself false encouragements, he/she can knock the facts at your face before it's too late. Also, their brain can work when yours is scared and panicked and hungry.


• Take a cycle? perhaps?


• It would also be better to be in touch with someone who knows their way around the city.

Anyway, it was quite ironic that every who tried to dissuade me from doing such a thing in the first place had to listen to my rants of how I am almost 19, have a brain and common sense, and can talk in English!

None of that actually worked. So I hope, fellow travellers, that you see the moral of the story.

Although, I'd like to add that I was glad I did something that took me straight out of my comfort zone and forced me to put myself into situation that challenged my abilities. Also, I got to do such an incredibly stupid thing at the age of 18 and not at 48...

Fear Justifies All Measures...or Does It?

I have a friend who is partly of the middle eastern descent. He told me that he is quite often the person selected for a "random" security check at the airports. While at the Chicago airport, I myself recall the entire security unit keeping their blunt stares at us as we entered the United States from India. And then today, at a book discussion in the University, I heard another story from an Indian girl.

We were talking about the reaction to the Japanese and other Asians who were mistaken to be Japanese, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. And it came tohow people react ou of fear and how things have changed after the 9/11 incident. So that girl had a Saudi Arabian passport and had some edibles with her. However, the whole family was stopped at the airport for two days to check if the food was harmful and could be a possible source of food poisoning...

People react out of fear, but I don't think it is justified. They are ignorant fools if they do that.

As I was talking about this with my friend, she recommended me to read The Assault on Reason by Al Gore. He talks about the relationship of politics, fear, and faith, and how politics uses fear as another contemplative device...

Flight of Freedom

On 15th August, Indians all over the world celebrated India's 60th year as an independent country. As far as I remember, that day was just like one of the other days when I woke up late because I slept late the night before, and pretty much spent the rest of the day in a trance because of my messed up sleep cycle... :<

That day, I recalled how my dad and I, among with countless other families, used to fly kites every year at this time; and I was the happiest little girl around because "my papa's kite is flying higher than yours!!!" Among other things, he is really skilled at that. (It is a tradition to fly kites on 15th August in India, just as it is to light fireworks in the U.S.)

However, this weekend, we visited some of our friends in North Augusta, S.C., and we all went together to celebrate Independence Day (late, of course) along with the Indo-American Cultural Association of America. We reached about half way through the program, but I think we were extremely lucky to be able to make it on time to watch a spectacular Bharatnatyam performance by Articulate India. If you visit their website, you'll know, that among other things, one of their aims is to perform their dance for a spiritual experience. The 'Ganesha Stuti' and 'Jai Janaki Jai' were the two dances performed by five men that day. The unbelievably amazing fact is that four out of those five dancers were blind, but no one could have known that by judging their performance that night, unless it hadn't been already told to us. Those who have no knowledge about classical Indian dances must know that they use extensive facial and and hand expressions along with foot tapping. To learn all this and be able to reproduce in front of large audiences with the same talent as that of a person with no visual impairment requires a great deal of strength, determination, and perseverance. Every time I watch another graceful Bharatnatyam performance, I feel great knowing the fact that people use dance as a true form of expression and to get in touch with their innermost selves... :-)

Kudos to them.

Parties

I graduated high school on 23rd May. It was a new feeling and I was definitely excited. However, this excitement was far more different than what was being shared in a bunch of graduation parties thrown weeks before the actual day.

My time spent in that school was only about a little more than two years. In that time, I met some wonderful people and shared a great time. And then came along that greedy urge for wanting more time with those people;good and bad, both work for me. After all, people are not just supposed to see and know the good in you, they deserve to know the bad too...and stick around.
And when they do stick around, you've finally found true friends.
I think I digressed right there.

Anyway, before all these parties started (the ones at Carolina Park), I thought that I would enjoy them as I am an extrovert and absolutely love to dance. At the moment, I did enjoy them! I had fun, non-stop fun. But after LPT (i.e two parties), I felt worthless. To elaborate upon that, it was a sense of "wasting" away my time and not being "productive", I guess?
Then, came along another bunch of graduation/birthday parties which were entirely different, and I figured out why- I actually socialized rather than dancing away the whole night/day. And there it was! I wasn't uncomfortable with the whole idea of "should I be partying like this every now and then?"

Since I have been talking about all these parties, I must mention how amazing they were in their own way! I learnt: some cool moves to go with the electric slide; "pop, lock, and drop it" ;SALSA, SHAG, AND SWING; some more cool moves like being a water sprinkler, jumping up and down while pushing a shopping cart; cleaning a sand funnel in a park with the utmost dedication; and being as cool as a three year old on one's eighteenth birthday!










On a serious note, I figured once again that it was alright to go and spend this much time "partying", as I have just begun to explore and analyze the world out there with all of my senses. After all, we can't rely on books to teach us everything. And then, a friend comforted me more by telling me that I would be able to handle the seriousness and the fun perfectly!

Although, I think I'll have to be cautious in college! ;)