Back to wilderness??

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.

no6 kalyani

13 Bagirthiammal street, is the house amma grew up in. It is in the heart of Madras, accessible to all places. Many early afternoon coffee sessions have turned extremely interesting listening to paati's stories about the house, and the innumerable people who lived in it at different times. The mamaram, thengai maram, magizham poo maram, malli poo pandhal are all too familar due to my imaginary head. I myself, a total T.Nagar and Madras fan, have passed by that house many a times (now an ugly apartment stands there) imagining how early Madras life would have been with the tram and all that. I kept wondering how so much emotion could be attached to a house. Appa, being a banker we had to shift several houses and one could not afford that kind of emotional attachment towards a place. I am happy I still have association with most of the houses/places/apartment complexes that hold great memories, except with No6 kalyani I guess.
The saidapet srinagar colony house is set in a "posh" locality and the only individual house, unlike the rest of the family living in tiny boxes. Periappa moved into the house when I (along with the extremely intelligent ganesh and sriram) just finished 12th std and was entering college. It perhaps does'nt hold any better memories than coimbatore, pallavaram or madurai, places where me and my cousins have had the best of times. But it is a place where I recognized I share an unbreakable bond with my so called extended family. They are really not that extended. It is a place where we lost both our grandparents, where madhu and vijay got married (not literally) and where we have had many a basketball games, motai madi singing and literature fights. The front room must have a sighed a relief, no more high pitched and off note shruthied people singing "sri meenatchi thaye". I must have been one of the very few creating the off note, for most of my family can sing. Well, it created a sense of belonging, so who cares about off-notes.
"The periavar" decided to move out and I guess we are going to have vague people take over that house. I think I will also be saying stories of its broad front yard, its sit out from where you could watch the kids (us) playing basketball with a coffee at hand, the motai madi which has been tortured the most by vimal trying out every musical instrument possible (listening to him practising them is usually a very difficult task, nevertheless we have been encouraging cousins. He would finally come up with a pehala nasha in his guitar, or play a song with mouth organ and say "guess which one it is?". Even the most raaga gnyanamed people fail at this)and its coffee+ aratai sessions, athai's shopping episodes, futile carrom board coaching for me and its huge kitchen which was always buzzling with activity (That is the best part). So i guess I have some interesting stories for my grand children, too!

PS: I think day by day, am getting too nostalgic in my blog! Will try to work on writing about the present a little more.