When Thomson woods donated 750 acres of land to the Illinois state, his only condition was that the land should be maintained as it was. And as an honour to him the SIU campus till date is WILD. You would have huge deers, small fox and snakes as your passers by, and racoons to eat your garbage at night. Signs like "Fawning season, Deers can attack" and e-mails that warn you of a viper on the prowl are not uncommon. The first week I loved the campus having immigrated from a concrete sticky jungle. Then there were mood swings. I just hated seeing crawling objects all over, pest controling like I lived in the Amazon jungle and having to walk around a beautiful lake with the fear of attacking animals. When an inland tornado hit Carbondale it cleared out most trees but still left another 100 standing making it difficult to walk, and worse, we had to live without power for four whole days. Life stops in the United states without power. No gas stations, which means no groceries, no internet, no charging phones, no connection with the external world, no work, nothing. But plenty of sunshine, outdoor cooking,(most of our stoves work on electricity), late night on the lawn conversations, cricket with strange guys, eating at an "Agadhigal Mugam" and playing cards by candle light followed. It was a lot of fun, like camping from home itself. We were almost sighing when power was restored. I just loved the campus then.
Immediately, the whole India-wedding escapade followed. At one point of time, I had no clue what was happening and was not sure if I was the victim. Trust me, its a difficult job being a bride and trying to look good. The only things I really did the last one month was hop from Sundari to nalli to RMKV (in Madras summer), matching bangles with sarees and cleaning my feet obssessively for the "metti" episode. Its actually slow poisoning. At first your forced into it. At first you find amma and the chithi/periama gang continuously telling you that you have to shop intelligently, its your D-day, explaining why you cannot have a simple temple wedding, how yours is the only second daughter's wedding in the family etc. But before you know it you are deep into it with no one to blame. You are practically practicing your bridal smile, a bridal walk trying not to look like kudurai, deciding on "pinnal styles", deciding intricacies like whether an arching eye-brow shape or a normal one looks good with the bridal get-up and apadiye all cold feet is thrown right out of the window. I now understand how Indians have little or no cold feet. They have 101 ceremonies and 10001 people to worry about which leaves no room for anything. But its fun all the way. But yeah coming to the point, after all that, am glad to be back to Amazon jungle, even if I am missing the important other. I am glad to be back to MacDo meals, around the lake walks, biking across the campus, grocery shopping, Ipod walks, sitting around, walking around the lab like a zombie, PCR setting/gel loadings escapades, girls' gossip at the office, coffee at four at StuC, late night-nonsensical journal reading that will never ever help me in my research, eternally eating chana dhal and frozen veggies for dinner, uncombed hair and mukka pants, free food and PHD comics. Am back to the grind and loving it. And the cherry on the top is that its summer and its beautiful outside. The campus I described above is as wild and beautiful as ever.
