And here I am....

Its 27th August'09 today and what a day to write my next blog. Exactly an year ago at this time i was busy getting ready to go. My flight was at 1 am and there were relatives, friends to see me off. I was all excited, anxious more i guess! I hopped onto the flight to stay away from home for this long first time ever in my life. I didn't think that way at that time but i surely felt a pit in my stomach the moment i got my luggage off the belt at the Toronto airport and was all alone in an unknown place, unknown country. I don't mean to sound all dramatic but thats how i felt. And there i was, all ready to take on this new life. I did feel homesick many a times, even now sometimes i think i should be home at that very moment but hey isn't it obvious considering i have always been with my family all my life!

Coming to think of the one year i spent here, it does seem shorter than it is. Time has swept by in a flash. I started cooking, which by the way was never my forte. And then so many other things that i did 'for the first time'. Masters has been interesting so far. And now that i know that i'm going to be here longer than i thought i would with my PhD, i think i've slipped into a comfort zone. Weird maybe but i'm getting used to this place thinking in hindsight that i have a long association with this place.Work is amazing, acts as an incentive to be here!

Its been an year and have seen all the seasons now all throughout the year. Just when i had almost arrived at a conclusion that 'Canada can never be hot', the weather showed its new face. Just for a week or so, but the heat and humidity made me forget that it snows here for like 5 months. The green surroundings would soon be laden with snow. And it'll be time for the snow sports! Things have changed and we just get used to this change. The definition of an outing has changed, the friend circle has changed, the eating habits have changed, change in attitudes and the list goes on.

I guess this has been the most dynamic year of all the years i can think of now. Just looking forward to more fun, more work, and many more things to look forward too!!

And after putting all the random stuff in this blog, here i am....

A novel experience

I thought I'll sit down to write on the first day of my teaching assistant-ship. But I hadn't done that even on the last day of my lab-work. But today Pink Floyd's 'learning to fly...' put me in a speculative mood and all those 'words I wanted to sit down and write' came gushing!

Yes it was a novel experience. Standing in front of the undergraduates, boasting about being a graduate student and their 'TA' for the term, striving to look smarter and most importantly elder than those who were well capable of intimidating me.... I enjoyed every bit of it! Spending three hours in the lab with six students, while they carry out the experiments did not sound like a very interesting idea initially. 'I don't really have a role to play' is what I thought. But in the first lab itself I was 'busy' solving doubts. The fact that I was able to guide them made me happy. I wanted to be able to answer any question directed towards me. I was being paid for that, I ought to have known everything, but I wanted to be perfect. Not because I had to prove myself superior, but because I was expected to be a facilitator. I actually saw myself looking for pragmatic approaches to solve the problems. I realized the significance of being 'prepared' before facing the students. And of course the realization of how challenging a teacher's job can be! And the cute guys in the lab.....!!!

All in all a great learning experience.

I belong

You realise the importance of your home country only when you are away from it!! I thought this was the most clichéd statement that people make, people that are away, people that have their near ones away. But I actually got to taste the flavor of its true meaning when something similar came from someone very close to me. We were all watching this Michael Wood show, a documentary on India, and my sister actually said "after seeing all this you sometimes feel, what am I doing here, why am I not in India!!" And that got me drooling over it for quite some time.

I was all amazed to see the rich history of India and the geographical magnificence of its origin. Not that I didn’t know about it. I knew almost everything that was been narrated in the show. But it’s their job isn’t it, of the people who make such documentaries, to make it look so enamoring that you tend to get awestruck by things you always knew about.

After giving some thought to the ‘where am I supposed to be’ question, I reached a consensus with my mind that wherever I am, whatever I do, I ‘belong’ to India. Even now after being away from home for good four months, it happens so many times that in some situation, one thought never ceases to creep in, the thought that: what would I have done had I been back home now! What if what’s happening here, happened when I was at home? May be apparently this feeling is too tiny to enable someone to gauge his or her attachment to the motherland, but that’s how I infer that I do ‘belong’ to my home country. And when I say that it’s not about which country I belong to. It’s not only the rich culture, the diversity, the values and whatever else India is known for, that makes me feel I belong there. I think it’s just my genesis that took place right there. And I guess every person somewhere deep has such a sense of belonging for the place where he grows as an individual.