There is a saying that nothing is constant except change. Yet there are many who strive very hard to ensure there is no change; they prefer to continue in their particular comfortable rut. And while there have been, and will be, times when I have been scared of change, I know it is unavoidable and is best dealt with head on. Who knows? It could turn out to be a good change!
I was in the U.S. pursuing my studies and had initially lived with another Indian student. She was a nice person and we got along fine for the most part except some issues towards the end. Anyway after a year or so, I decided I needed to move out but obviously I could not afford a place of my own. It so happened that another graduate student in my department was looking for a place and I knew her slightly. So we began house hunting together – she wanted a house as she had a dog and so we needed some garden space.
At that time several Indian friends kept urging me to move into their apartment complex – a Little India where almost all the apartments were inhabited by Indians. It was tempting. It would be so easy to settle in – I already had friends there, culturally I would be in my comfort zone and so on. But I resisted because I felt that having come so far from home, I should get to know other people from other cultures. So in spite of several offended Indian friends, I moved into a house with L and her dog, C. it was three bedroom place so after a while we got another grad student, a guy, M. It was the first time I was sharing a house with a guy who was not family! But I soon found they were the most relaxed of housemates; they were there if you wanted company or help, and not there when you wanted privacy and your own company.
It’s funny how some things one takes for granted, it seems so normal but to others it seems so strange. We had decided to share costs only for the things we used in common and we bought our food separately. So, one day I was late coming back from lab and was extremely hungry and just wanted to eat and settle down to finishing some work I had. Luckily I had some cooked rice in the fridge and I always had curds on hand. So I quickly mixed some curd rice and plonked some mango pickle, that I had picked up from the Indian store, on the plate and started eating. M wandered out and decided to keep me company while I ate and after a minute he asked, “Are you eating rice with yoghurt and a spicy thing on the side”. I nodded and kept eating. And then very gently, he asked, “Isn’t that a bit odd flavour-wise? Yoghurt is sweet and you are mixing it with rice…”. I had never thought of curds as sweet! And then I realised he was talking of the flavoured yoghurt which Americans seem to like a lot and eat like dessert. So I said, “No, this isn’t sweetened or flavoured. And by the way for my community, this is comfort food and standard part of the meal. It’s also excellent for when one feels vaguely unwell!”. He looked unconvinced but didn’t say much. Then he helped himself to some yoghurt and poured maple syrup over it and happily dug into this. It was my turn now to find that odd but ultimately I tried it and it was actually quite good. A nice low-fat, easy to put together dessert.
We ended up going blueberry picking, holding Halloween parties, and even going on a road trip. I dog sat for L, cooked Indian food for them and so on. We also had more serious interactions on topics like politics. At that time, Manmohan Singh was visiting the U.S. and there was a lot of discussion on nuclear agreements and stuff. And being well-read, M and L and I used to have long talks on our countries’ foreign policy, history and so on. It was a good learning experience. It opened my eyes to a different culture. I was able to see beyond the stereotype of red-neck Americans.
#StartANewLife
the chronicles of s 