Badbad from Boston - Day 2

I do live in present but half the time i am reminiscing about the past and the remaining half, i am daydreaming about the future.

Today however was different. My second day in Boston - Sightseeingwise the first one :) Today i lived in past and mourned over what could have been an alternate future that i didnt have. 

I walked through two Universities/colleges that are in reality are huge & crowded cities. Harvard at Cambridge and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). I have visited a lot of colleges in Bombay and always found two very close to my heart. One - Ruparel - My own Junior college and IIT Bombay - We went there during Mood Indigo during my engineering final year and i had fallen in love with the place. I had never thought any other place would rekindle the magic again, ever but today MIT did. 

A little history on MIT is in order. It is a private research university founded in 1861. It has a 168 Acre campus dedicated to various buildings that house laboratories, classrooms, lounges (yes with neon green couches), libraries and endless corridors. Though it started off as an engineering and Applied Science's facility, it has now expanded into Biology, Economics, Linguistics, Political Science and Arts as well. The institute is on the banks of Charles River. As you get down the stairs in the backyard of The Great Dome, you see Boston's very impressive bay skyline. The highrise is no wonder in US but it still amazes you. Or may be it did to me cause highrises are a novelty in Dallas! 

First building that i visited was "The Stata Center" - It houses CSAIL, LIDS and Department of philosophy and linguistics. This strangely stacked building was designed by Frank Gehry - A Canadian American Pritzker Prize winning architect based in LA. 

Second was the Building 7 thats considered as the official entrance to MIT. It is also known as 'The Great Dome'. This building has endless corridors. All that you need is a strong pair of legs and energy to outdo its length. Its daunting! No wonder they call it "The Infinite Corridor". The backyard overlooks the Boston  Bay and i stood there for atleast half an hour clicking pictures and generally taking in the view. 

I also visited Simmons Hall and Kresge Auditorium - both build post war and represent contemporary architecture. I also chanced upon visiting the MIT Playgrounds and they are just as huge as the college buildings are! 

Some interesting trivia. The undergraduates can wear a ring that is parted only to those that are students in MIT, depending upon the year of the course. The initialism IHTFP is engraved on the ring along with a beaver to mark the experience attached to each year. so for the 

First Year - IHTFP stands for - I Hate The Fucking Place

Second Year - I Have Truly Found Paradise

Third Year - Institute Had The Finest Professors 

Fourth Year - Its Hard To Fondle Penguins.

Isnt that funny ;)

I was surprised too! i had always imagined MIT students to be all sincere, devoid of fun & sense of humor but here you are! :)) 

While i was returning back to Red Line to catch my next train to Harvard, a boy - Indian and very simple and studious looking said hello. i smiled and said Hi but continued walking. Finally after walking in parallel for more than 5 minutes, he asked me if i were a student on MIT campus. I said no and asked generally if he was and he said yes. I was bowled! i so wanted to talk to someone who was the actual student. His name was Sandeep and he narrated how it was to be an MIT student. Ofcourse the affiliation is the best thing you can do to yourself afterall MIT is world's number 1 technological institute but it does come with very very hectic schedule! He is doing his PhD in Applied Mechanics. May be i put foot in my mouth as usual but i gasped and told him how i had KT in mechanics during my F.E. and he laughed! he said it wasnt that difficult - Mechanics and i was ready to bow! Thats what you call modesty! He has been staying on the campus for last 3 years and is planning to continue his career in research. He walked me to one of the Indian restaurant nearby - flocked by everyone since its Thanksgiving Day and all the rest of the shops were closed down already! Over the lunch he told me how he thought i was a Bengali. Now thats first. I do get labelled as South Indian quite very often but Bengali is different and first! While he offered to pay for lunch, i denied vehemently saying he was still a student while i earned, albeit a lowly IT engineer. He smiled and said he got a good grant $8K every month! and i was gaping open mouthed. I was like, please pay. He did. We bid goodbye after he walked me to Red Line. Its true that intelligence should always be accompanied by modesty. Its a lethal combination! 

The next destination was waiting for me.. 

I will continue this badbad tomorrow, cause my legs are killing me. I must have walked atleast 20 miles today. The only break was the lunch i had and well 4 Chai Tea Lattes. There is starbucks all over the MIT and its 20 F outside!!!!! 

Agenda for tomorrow:

- The famous Duck Tour

- The Freedom Trail

- Prudential Tower

- Museums 

- Boston Bay Tour 

See ya tomorrow!!

Badbad from Boston - Day 1

There are a few things every person vouches that they cant/wont do. For me it was 'being alone'. Those who know me also know how much i love to talk. I have always been a people's person. If this sounds a little dramatic then lets say that i had/have dependency on a lot of people around me to feel good. I had always maintained in the past that i could have never stayed alone but now i do for past couple of months and though i miss Devina - my ex-roomie, i havent found staying alone as traumatic as i always imagined it to be in the past. It has its pros and cons like everything else. I had fantasized about living a carefree bachelor life while i was back in Bombay and that is now checked off my list of Things To Do.

So after staying alone, the next obvious To Do was to travel alone. So here i am, in the City Of Commerce, City Of Colleges, city thats very very similar to my hometown Bombay - Boston! you would ask why Boston!

- I had heard a lot about this city from a friend and had planned to visit it someday. The day is now here :)

- It houses my broken dream - MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - back in Bombay, i had tried my bit to see if i could join. I couldnt. 

- Harvard - Need i say more!

- This is one of the fewest US cities where you can get around without having to have a car at your disposal. They have amazing Metros available known as 'T' and if you are a little on splurging side, you have Cabs...all you have to do is hail! A weekly pass that works for buses as well as for Metro cost you 15 bucks! not bad by the Boston standards!! its an expensive city. 

I did plan early and booked all the tickets well in advance but i am still clueless about where to go and how to go. So tomorrow morning, over the free breakfast at my Hotel's restaurant, i need to browse through stuff and  plan what i should have planned before the touchdown :( 

So far the trip has been fun! *touchwood* 

- My first flight from Dallas Fort worth International Airport was dot on time! My shuttle arrived just in time. i did not have a window seat on my boarding pass and that got me down! i love window seats on the planes :(( but as soon as i boarded, the girl occupying the window seat asked me if i could trade my isle seat with her, she had a connecting flight from Chicago and her connection time was just 11 minutes!!! i gladly did and wished her best of luck. O'Hare International Airport is world's busiest and getting from concourse A to B by their skylinks itself takes more than 10 minutes. 

- Next to me was the cutest American guy i have ever met. He had green eyes and was reading 'The Classical World'. A guy who loves to read - thats my perfect man! We did exchange smiles over my Coke and his wine but didnt talk *sigh*.

- My connection time was only 30 minutes to catch the next flight to The Logan International Airport, Boston and i was stuck in the plane for more than 10 minutes. While i was generously wishing the other '11 minutes' girl best of luck, i hadnt seen me needing that as well. but guess what! my next flight was an hour delayed for 'Air Traffic Control' reasons so i had enough time to run to the Duty Free shops to buy a 'Chicago' fridge magnet (yes i am crazy for them! i buy atleast 5-6 at every new place i visit) and get my Chai Tea Latte and have it calmly while reading on my Nook! I got good time observing people around me. I love airports!!! i enjoy the hustle bustle. For me an airport can never be boring, doesnt matter how delayed my flight is. There is so much you can observe....! 

- One of the confirmations fell through and i got the window seat yet again! talk about being too much lucky on one day! and yet again i had an American as my fellow passenger. and while he was a married man (i have turned American in this one aspect - when i like a guy, my eyes automatically scan his ring finger ;)), he was extremely handsome! if i were the on duty air hostess, i would have upgraded him to first class, all for his looks! (may be thats why i am not!) 

- First thing that hit me hard in Boston was the COLD! its 1 degree Celsius outside and will drop further during the early hours of morning! i was well packed from head to toe. My hotel shuttle arrived just in time to get me to my Hotel. 

- My room looks fabulous! i did pay a little more to have a good 4 star hotel, close to airport etc etc cause i couldnt stay alone at a shoddy place and this hotel is worth every penny!! The lobby and the room, every tiny place is warmly lit, its not flashy. its cozy.. and they have a real fireplace and candles burning near the reception, yielding it a festive glow... loved it!!! 

All in all a good, hasslefree day! I am in new time zone and my body is still adjusted to my CST time. so i still have time to do some reading, watching TV etc. yieppe!!! 

I know that my family and my well wishing friends are worried for me and may have thought this decision of touring alone as 'insane' but none of them have said that. Each one of them have encouraged me and i cant thank them enough for it. Sometimes all you need is courage & excitement and my friends made sure that i had both in plenty :)

Agenda for tomorrow:

- Get up on time (preferably before noon)
- Feast on the complimentary hotel breakfast ;)
- buy Boston Metro Pass 

- The Freedom Trail

- Harvard Square

- Lots of walking

- Fridge Magnet shopping

- Local cuisine tasting

- Lots of photography

- Meeting Tanushree for Dinner (hopefully in Downtown) - my foe turned friend ex colleague (we were 'cutthroat bitches' of our QA training batch in Patni for all the men folk ;))  

 Catch ya tomorrow! for now, my comfy inn's comfy bed is beckoning me! 

Cheers & Happy Thanksgiving!!!

- Himali

Life lessons - Learn till you live!

Yesterday a colleague of mine asked me a funny question! I was about to leave when i realised i needed access to one of our new Oracle instances so i gathered all my stuff and went to him to get it. He must be at least 60 years old and tries to teach me a word here and there in Spanish - the second most used language in USA and sometimes French. A week ago, we decided that for every task he does for me, he needs Mordida - its a Spanish word for 'Bribe'. I told him promptly that i am not getting paid in 5 digits every month to afford that. I would rather log a ticket and wait for him to pick it up - as the process calls it. He laughed and said it would be an answer to his question. One Task - One Question. I shrugged my head and said fair enough as long as the questions were not personal & indecent. So yesterday was the first task after this unwritten treaty between us and i had almost forgotten about it as a joke till he drummed his fingers on desk and asked me


"Whats the best part of being alive?"


While he launched my application to grant me the access, he kept an eye on me. Now Now! This can be a very easy or a very difficult question. Depends upon how you take it. In that short duration of time while i shifted my weight from this leg to that, a lot of things flashed in front of my eyes.


Just few weeks back i had been to Six Flags - a thrill park with amazing rides. The best part of being alive i thought was to be able to do something that would push you off the edge. To be able to feel the fear and excitement mixing up in a concoction that fuels your brain & pumps the extra adrenaline in blood that your heart needs. To be able to hear the heart pounding in your ears, To be able to overcome your phobias and your inhibitions and just scream your lungs out and laugh hysterically when its over.


OR


It could be as simple as being able to sit in your apartment quietly and read your favorite book. As the lines after lines pass from under your eyes, your brain works its magic and you interpret their meaning. you transport yourself in a whole new world. It could be J.K.Rowling's magical Potter's world or the sterilized and cold Operation Rooms of Robin Cook's. The visualization can be so dramatic & engrossing - its something only a voracious reader can understand.


OR


It could be the ability to feel emotions. Yours and others too. It could be love, affection, belongingness, anger, frustration, awkwardness, happiness, sadness, a longing, a feeling that you dont fit or sometimes when you hit it off with a stranger. It could be the touch as you lift a newborn in your arms. It could be tears and a gnawing feeling of missing someone in your life. It could be laughter - unbound and cascading. It could be hurt and pain. There is a whole spectrum out there for you and its up to you to decide where you want to lie on it. Its your ability to forgive or forget or your decision not to do so! It could be your inability to enjoy the most that others do or a different perspective than the ordinary.


OR


Could it be dreaming? It may sound ridiculous but i spend a definite amount of time per day daydreaming. I feel it keeps me alive and longing for more from my life. I imagine myself in a lot of situations that i am not currently and chances are more that i would never be and then i try to gauge how i would react to it. Sometimes that discovery is disconcerting. I never knew i could feel that way. Sometimes its very predictive. Yeah! i always knew i would feel it that way. Its in the moments like this that i realise and accept how less i know about my own self and how much of my mind and nature still remain unexplored. I imagine myself Pregnant and all the stuff i would want to do for my baby. I imagine myself as the woman i just saw in Starbucks, happily serving coffee and looking far more happier than my boss who must be earning a lot of money than she does. I imagined myself parent less and that scares me. At the end of the day they are the only people who accept me with all my negativity, stubbornness, mood swings and failures in life. Others taunt, tease and make fun of me. Sometimes i am hurt but i dont show it. Sometimes i just let it go. Sometimes i imagine myself in a position to be able to control other's lives and how i could help them or my one mistake could bring their world crashing down. The possibilities are infinite & so is the fun behind the imagination.


Of course i couldn't say all this to him. I stood there thinking. I knew i had to keep my word and say something. He wrote down my password and offered it to me but not before i answer. so i said -


The best part of being alive is to be able to learn something every single day! the learning never stops and it doesn't have to be a rocket science. It could be a simple cooking trick or a complex planning algorithm. It could be as simple as a new word in a foreign language or a life lesson that would guide and help you all your life. It could be a self discovery or something that makes you look at a person in a whole new different light.


God has a way of teaching. He may not flash you the cards or circle up things and make them easy for you to understand. Sometimes they are right there, in front of you - all that is needed is for you to wait and think about it. He doesn't believe in theory, He puts you in the field and gives you all the necessary tools required to learn and then its up to you how to use them to your advantage or forget that you even have them.


for example, it could be a word or an expression that hurt your sentiments. You still learn not to use the same word and expression for anybody else unless the provocation is beyond your tolerance.
It could be how someone criticises you and you learn a thing or two from it. Even if you feel that it wasn't so constructive after all, you can still learn how to put it in a way that would not discourage a person.
It could be how some people laugh at you. You can still learn how to laugh WITH others than at them.
It could be how you learn to lower your guard for a set of people while some make you feel unwelcome & unimportant. You still learn how not to be affected by how world sees you.


These lessons go a long way into making you the person that you are or a person that you will be. When life is unfair to you, you have two choices. You can get your frustration out on others to make them feel just as miserable OR you can save them from making the same mistakes that you did.


The key is to not merely survive but to live life with all its Dos and Donts and fine printed instructions that you never read and learn on every step of the way.