STOP!! Don't let Life pass you by...

It is amazing how much life has changed since the Aug of '02 when I landed in Champaign as a dreamy eyed, awestruck madrasi grad student! That journey was heart-wrenching in so many ways! First time ever that I was flying in an airplane (wanted it to be like that!!), first time ever that I was not going to see my parents for more than a month a time, first time ever that I was not going to be able to eat Dosa/Idly when I needed to and the first time ever that I couldn't stop my bike near a roadside chaiwallah at 2am and have the best tea ever in the world in his time-worn and aft-stained, semi-clean glass of joy!

It was a journey into the unknown albeit one that I had always dreamt of! So, would dreaming about something very intensely count as experience enough?? Coz' if it would, then life should be a breeze for me,
- Romance... a walk in a tree lined park during fall morphing into an orange-yellow canvas of falling leaves and unfathomable beauty!!!
- Research... a meticulously construed Rolex watch, ticking away to perfection for the rest of its desired life!! Each gear intermeshing precisely with its complement, the machinery ever so-smooth...the execution like clockwork!!
- Career... a plot so masterfully conceived that it would put the collective brilliance of Gulzar, Javed Akthar, Spielberg and George Lucas to shame!! The denouement of the plot like a fast-paced Dan Brown novel, a thrill-a-minute joy ride into the azure zeniths of success!!
- Family... a recipe straight out of a Johar/Chopra movie, littered with cute nieces/bratty nephews, funny uncles and frivolous aunts, revered grandmas and intimidating Grandpas, parents as supportive as the Rock of Gibraltar...wife an exotic cocktail of Dominique Francon and Sonali Bendre, kids like a million rays of sunshine brightening every facet of life they pervade!!

But it is funny how life has this uncanny ability of perennially surmounting even the most fertile of fantasies, throwing up the most unexpected of surprises when you least expect it! That is exactly how life in Chambana has been for me! If my dreams were as close as I could imagine to perfection...then Life these three years has been more than just that! It has left me longing for more like a wide-eyed kid at a candy store...completely usurping my feelings of loss and pain! The inexplicable pain of separation from our loved ones back home, which can creep on us more unexpectedly than a masked serial killer would in a ‘teenage slasher flick’! The insurmountable feeling of loss for all things Indian and mine when I grew up!

Life has been a journey too wonderful to even stop and enjoy! Stop and enjoy is what I exactly did today when I was walking on Green street! I could remember my first impressions of the US as a complete FOB desi! The sights, smells and sounds...almost like a baby getting to feel this earth for the first time! It is kinda sad that I have gotten so used to this place now, so much so that beautiful foliage of fall barely registers in my pre-occupied mind! The whiff of that very "blonde-girl" perfume barely reaches my nostril and forces me to turn and salute the girl for passing on that iota of joy!! The beauty of this historic campus with its brick-lined edifices, towering spires and teeming hordes of students barely do I appreciate!!

Alas! What a sad thing getting used to can be sometimes!! A travesty almost, to be impervious to the sheer magnitude of life that is gushing thru every facet of our surroundings! It is perhaps during such moments of clarity that I appreciate how fortunate I am to be living the life I am!! And it is during these transient, surreal moments such as these that I appreciate the joy of life!

So, STOP and smell the beauty of life that surrounds you! Don’t let it pass you by…lest you not revisit them!!