Thirty Years

I turned thirty today. I ought to be depressed – that is what thirty-year-olds are supposed to feel. But, I feel no different than I did on my twenty-nine-year-old yesterday. I expected to feel numb, but if anything I feel a sense of elation. All creation makes itself agreeable to me – the weather in Kansas City is dark, overcast, windy and wet. Some call it depressong, but it is the perfect mix of the elements in my opinion. I ushered my thirtieth year in by singing Happy Birthday to myself in unison with my sister who gave me a chocolate cake and several quaint gifts. Friends and family called and wished me, and I went to bed as happy and contented as I did the first night I came into the world.

As I reflect on my thirty years, I notice just the same mix of the beautiful and the beastly as everyone else. I have had my share of the laughter, adventure, disappointment and heartbreak that is due me. I have met and been influenced for better or for worse by the most interesting kinds of people. Sadly not one amongst them was a perfect saint, and thankfully none of them was an Iago. I am right now at a point in my life which I could scarcely have imagined ten years ago. And yet, I revel in my achievements and am satisfied and happy. And if the next thirty years of my life could leave me as contented as these past thirty have, then I shall count myself blessed.

"Here at my feet what wonders pass,
What endless, active life is here!
What blowing daisies, fragrant grass!
An air-stirr'd forest, fresh and clear." ~ Matthew Arnold

Stupid Indian Soaps

Each evening after the day’s labors, I used to get back home and indulge in my daily dose of crap reality shows where absolutely idiotic men and women get drunk and go about competing for money, the love of dubious B-grade celebrities and so on. I was thoroughly embarrassed by my guilty hour of mindless entertainment, but since coming to India and watching Indian TV for five days, I have developed a strange sense of pride in my enjoyment of American reality TV. Indian television, which I used to love for the quality of its televised serials, has lost all its erstwhile glory. Most shows on Indian TV these days appear to be soap operas or melodrama-filled game shows.

The soap operas are so insufferably stupid, that I feel sick. In addition to having absolutely no plot whatsoever, they are infuriatingly sexist and unashamedly promote ridiculously conventional ideals. Ironically most of the characters are women, but each one of them is either diabolically evil and malicious, or unbearably conventional and good. All of them wear several kilograms of bangles that sheath their hands from wrist to elbow in a sickeningly gaudy display. Every other part of their bodies that can possibly be, is adorned with other similarly outlandish jewelry. And the ‘good’ women are defined entirely in terms of the men in their lives – as daughters, wives, sisters and mothers – not a single independent personality amongst the lot of them. None of them have an occupation – none of the wives anyway. The sisters might be something completely gender-biased such as a fashion-designer or a school teacher. The men on the other hand are mostly businesspersons and keep out of the way of the women’s machinations – is it any wonder that many Indian men think that women are not to be trusted and are underhand and devious? Furthermore, all these ‘good’ women are painstakingly devout – every second sentence that they speak is either a prayer or an affirmation of faith. At least one segment of each half-hour episode is devoted to a melodramatic prayer with the woman beseeching her deity that her mentally challenged husband (a fact she did not know when she was tricked into marrying him, but now she believes that taking care of him and lovingly feeding him his food and so on is her supreme duty) be spared the pain of losing a cricket match to his brother who is married to the wicked and scheming sister-in-law. I bet Indian television would never dare to portray an atheist spinster scientist as a good woman, or a man subscribing to feminist principles as an ideal man. I am so angry I want to punch a hole through the television screen. At least in the idiotic reality television, women are afforded the choice to be able to make utter fools of themselves. I am told that these soap operas are highly celebrated television serials. To each his own, and those that watch them are welcome to them. As for me, I would much rather watch drunken degradation than have conventionality stuffed down my throat.

P.S. Disillusioned with television, I have turned to my ever faithful entertainers – books. When mummy and daddy are off at work, knowing nothing of this strange new city, I find that I have nothing else to do but read. I’m polishing them off at the wonderful rate of one book every couple of days. I’m done with two Agatha Christie-s (one of which – “Passenger to Frankfurt” – surprisingly reads less like Christie and more like John le Carre), have finally finished “The Thin Man” (which despite Sinclair Lewis’ assertion that it is a book you cannot possibly put down once begun, I have been inching through for almost a whole year now), and am almost done with the “Vicar of Wakefield” which I am finding enormously entertaining. I hope to be done with at least five more before I return to the US.

Dr. Me

This afternoon, I got all dressed up and dolled up, went to school, and shut myself up in a room with six professors for two hours. At the end of that time, I emerged alone and paced around in the hallway while the posse of profs debated about what I had said in there. Ten minutes later, my advisor popped out smiling a big smile. She then threw her arms around me in a warm hug and said:

"CONGRATULATIONS DR. ASHA STEPHEN"

Yes, after months of crazy preperation, I successfully defended my dissertation this afternoon. I can't stop grinning, want to pat little children on their heads, blow kisses to strangers in the street, and am generally in love with everything and everybody. Coming at the end of the most productive year of my life (getting my second masters, passing the Ph.D. qualifiers, proposing my dissertation, and applying and matching to an excellent internship), this is the pinnacle of my educational career. I've done it - I've got my Ph.D!!! (Actually, I technically won't until I finish my internship. But without today's victory, I would not get the degree).

I called my sister, my parents and a few friends. Then I had a quiet celebratory dinner with three of my closest friends in Ames. I shall never again have to spend sleepless nights at school, and can now enjoy my weekends without feeling guilty about not having completed research or assignments. I feel rejuvenated. Once again: Amat victoria curam!

The Auto-complete List

Ha Ha Ha!!! I feel so stupid and yet so gleeful saying this: I am now on the autocomplete function on google. This is hilarious. When I googled myself and saw my name on the auto-complete list, I was astonished. At first I thought that it must be because there are lots of people with my name. But it turns out that the majority of hits (those that do not have a comma between my first and last names) are indeed related to me. Presumably, this is either because there is a lot of information about me out on the internet, or there have been a lot of people looking me up - I am not sure which of these google uses as a auto-complete list criteria. And I am not convinced that either of these is a very good thing, but am nevertheless flattered.

What Has Happened To Me?

I don't know the answer to the above question. My life has suddenly become more banal than ever. I go from home to school and back home again in a sort of daze, and nothing seems important enough to report. Although that sounds very much like a bout of depression, I can safely say that I am actually quite happy. I have a dissertation defense date set for the 15th of May, and I am looking forward to the summer holiday. I am also beginning to wrap up things in Ames in anticipation of my big move in August. Things are looking cheery, hopeful and very busy. But nothing seems important enough to post on here. I do wish something exciting would happen to me!!!

However, having come to the terrible, but inevitable conclusion that nothing exciting or new is going to happen to me unless I make it happen, I make the following resolutions for the coming month (and hopefully will follow through on them):

ONE:
Will buy a nice variety of alcohol and mix myself a fancy cocktail every other night. (This one is inspired by an envious admiration of my friends A & A's choice collection of booze bottles).

TWO:
Will watch ABSOLUTELY NO cable television - especially crap reality shows (news shall be excepted); and go for an hour-long walk each night instead in order to enjoy the wonderful weather that Iowa is getting these days. This will also be time to muse and think up things I want to post on here.

THREE:
Will call one of my friends each night. Maybe the reason for the dried up imagination is the unwitting isolation I've let myself into during this busy month.

FOUR:
Will eat at one (or two) restaurant(s) each week which I have not been to during my stay in Ames. For Lent, I gave up eating out when I was not travelling. While this did vastly improve my home-cooking and bank balance, it did rather take a lot of fun out of the eating. Now, I intend to savor every single non-chain restaurant in Ames between now and August.

Let's hope that makes life more interesting and gives me more to write about. Stay tuned...

I've Been Busy - In Verse

I have been busy all month, and these lines from Anne Bronte's "The Student's Serenade" capture what the past few weeks have been like.

"I have slept upon my couch,
But my spirit did not rest,
For the labours of the day
Yet my weary soul opprest;
And, before my dreaming eyes
Still the learned volumes lay,
And I could not close their leaves,
And I could not turn away." ~ Anne Bronte (published as Acton Bell)

I'm writing an update that I'll post in a little bit...

The Fourth State

Today, Vermont has become the fourth U.S. state to legalize gay marriage — and the first to do so with a legislature's vote. This happy news comes at the heels of the April 3rd legalization of same-sex unions in Iowa, the state I live in. On Friday, the Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage by a unanimous decision. And today, Vermont did so by the legislature's vote. Of course, there is widespread uproar and unrest at these decisions. Already, opponents of the same-sex marriages are seeking constitutional amendments that will reverse these controversial laws.

I simply do not understand people who oppose same-sex marriage. I get that many people, for primarily religious reasons do not think that same-sex relations are right. And I am okay with religious institutions not accepting such unions. But why some people think that the non-religious state should discriminate against gay individuals (or indeed side with a religion on any issue) is beyond me! Homosexual individuals and their allies have yet to go a far way in their struggle. Congratulations to them on their second victory in the same week!