More on my trip to Chennai, my friend and I decided to patronize the waiting room at the Chennai central railway station. Quite a unique experience. We got there at about 5 AM and the place was already full and humming. Not surprising as entry to the waiting room wasn't restricted to ticket-holders as it was supposed to be. In any case, we finished brushing our teeth and got ready to have a bath. The bathrooms are attached to the waiting room and seemed to be one of 2 places in the entire station (which gets probably tens of thousands of visitors each day) where you can have a bath.
As I got into the line and waited for my turn, I got a sneak preview of the bucket (no luxuries such as a shower or anything other than a tap here). It was an old trash-can, one of those foot-pedal operated things which had sometime in its unfortunate life lost its cover. A bad start wouldn't you say, but it gets worse. The bathroom had two more things going for it - no water mug.. fill up the ex-trashcan and pour all the water on your head - a bath in its most elemental and best of all no lock/latch on the door. That's when I lost my nerve.
I quickly decided that I couldn't handle bumming it any more and decided to look for a cheap hotel somewhere close by where I could hire a room for a few hours to take a bath, change and get going. Its kind of strange how you cant handle slumming it any more. I could do these things when I was doing my MSc in Baroda. Hell, this bathroom reminded me of the common bathrooms we had there. But all these years later (5), I couldn't get myself to go back there...
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Getting a US visa
Its strange how getting a visa to the USA has become this torturous and traumatic process filled with uncertainity. People worry about it for weeks before going for the visa interview and one is constantly worrying about what to do and more importantly what not to do. People take with them their entire life histories, proof of all the money and land they own to prove that they have adequate reason to return to India.
That said, this was my second visit to the consulate and both sets of visa interviews have been very pleasant. This time, the consular official asked me what I worked on, when I told him I worked on chronic stress, he said "does interviewing 120 people for a visa everyday qualify as chronic stress". In that instant, I felt immense sympathy for him and the rest of the 'firangs', it cannot be an easy job talking to a hundred people everyday and trying to figure out who have legitimate reasons for going and who don't.
In a country like India going abroad, especially the west is often considered to be a status symbol. I've heard of people commanding higher dowries as they are US-returns :( or Non-Resident Indians (NRIs). The last time I was in the US for a course, my parents had gone to their hometown in north-Karnataka and someone there congratulated them on my rise to fame in going to the US. I bet I could have gotten a really large dowry (thankfully I am happily married and dont believe in the practise of dowry - more about that some other time).
Its kind of strange as its not like living abroad gives you something special as a human being apart from maybe a greater exposure to the rest of humankind. Strangely enough, most of the NRIs I know are as orthodox and conservative in their views as they were before they left, in many cases more so. I think being far from home makes them hold on to their culture even harder.
That said, this was my second visit to the consulate and both sets of visa interviews have been very pleasant. This time, the consular official asked me what I worked on, when I told him I worked on chronic stress, he said "does interviewing 120 people for a visa everyday qualify as chronic stress". In that instant, I felt immense sympathy for him and the rest of the 'firangs', it cannot be an easy job talking to a hundred people everyday and trying to figure out who have legitimate reasons for going and who don't.
In a country like India going abroad, especially the west is often considered to be a status symbol. I've heard of people commanding higher dowries as they are US-returns :( or Non-Resident Indians (NRIs). The last time I was in the US for a course, my parents had gone to their hometown in north-Karnataka and someone there congratulated them on my rise to fame in going to the US. I bet I could have gotten a really large dowry (thankfully I am happily married and dont believe in the practise of dowry - more about that some other time).
Its kind of strange as its not like living abroad gives you something special as a human being apart from maybe a greater exposure to the rest of humankind. Strangely enough, most of the NRIs I know are as orthodox and conservative in their views as they were before they left, in many cases more so. I think being far from home makes them hold on to their culture even harder.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
I guess one good way of restarting this blog is to put something mundane like my life into it for now, so that at least some of my friends take a look.
So here goes, my wonderful Phd still putters on... I am in the middle of what I'm hoping are the last set of experiments I need to do, but one never knows as I have learnt painfully in the past. I'm trying to write my thesis in the middle of trying to write papers in the middle of trying to get experiments finished. Will keep you posted on that.
So here goes, my wonderful Phd still putters on... I am in the middle of what I'm hoping are the last set of experiments I need to do, but one never knows as I have learnt painfully in the past. I'm trying to write my thesis in the middle of trying to write papers in the middle of trying to get experiments finished. Will keep you posted on that.
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