The "others"...

Dear Friends,

It’s been a long time since I have talked to you. Most of you know that we moved to new place and getting used to the new life. Exploring new things…after leaving 7 years away from home, now new changes bring adventure. This move separated us from all our friends, friends who are now like family to us. This distance gave us feeling that now we have families at two places: at India and Miami. That’s a wonderful feeling,  right? Friends with whom we celebrated all our good times and with whom we crossed over our bad times, friends who were always with us no matter what we needed and when we asked for. In the future blogs I will share those moments with you.

Let’s continue from where I left last time..

End of Journey at LA:

Life was getting used to the other side of the door. We have started enjoying the new place. While talking to you I just remembered my all-time favorite simple and hilarious incident. This incidence happened on 2^nd or 3^rd day of our arrival to LA. We were standing on one side of the road to cross it and noted there was a button on the pole. We did not know that we have to press it to cross the road; we stood there for more than 15 mins. We do not have that kind of strange buttons back in India. Now we laugh on that silly moment. But, I still remember that moment, so, you can realize that all those small small things made you feel that you do not belong to that place. A humble request to all my friends, never laugh on someone who ask you silliest question, may be this is their first encounter to that situation. Do not let them feel that they do not belong at that place. This could be the worst feeling for someone who is already fighting his own battle. Being outsider to this world, I have developed a respect to someone’s ignorance.

Like any road trip, during our LA journey, we have also met different people, friends who has helped us to overcome our fear of being outsider, and others (who never qualified for any categories) who have made us packing our bags and to move back to our lives where we actually belongs.

Yes, life is always full of “Others”, who never thinks how their actions are affecting someone and who never understands how much someone can suffer because of them. “Others” who can never qualifies for any category. They were never our “friends”, nor even acted like that. I cannot put them in “enemy” category, because they did not do that much harm to qualify for that category. Who were they? Still a question for me,  even after 7 years. While thinking about them, rewinds the reel of my memories. Were they that strong or we were so week at that moment? Were they capable of hurting us or we allowed them to hurt us? I can tell you that at that time, while packing our bags and looking for return tickets, I have cursed them, hold them accountable for making our lives miserable.

 “ Wait a minute, what were we doing? Packing our bags, looking for tickets?? That means we were returning back to India? We cannot accept defeat that easily, we have not tried enough. We cannot run from our situations. Definitely we will find a job back at our home , no one will ask us any question. They are our family , they will not blame us for returning so quickly”. These were the thoughts in my mind while packing my bags.  Should I care for what they will think? Or the most important question should be “what I will think about myself in future?”

Let me tell you what I thought “We have not tried enough, we cannot lose so easily. I cannot live my life with this burden that I returned back because we were week. No way, being loser without trying hard is not the way I live my life. We will try, try even hard this time”. With these thoughts I unpacked my bags. We are not going back to India Sachin. We are staying here, let’s learn how to live here…

Leaving you all with this interesting note that we are still learning how to live here……

See you all soon at the next turn of my journey.. See you all at Miami stop..   

Begining of Journey at the other side of the door..

Dear Friends..

I hope you all are having wonderful time with your loved ones. Love is in air everywhere. I wish your love always support you through all good and bad times. I think relations always grow stronger through tough times, we can share good time with good friends but for tough times we need someone very close to our heart. Sachin and my relation grew stronger with each tough time. Every tough time brought us more closer, we saw a new aspect of each other in those tough times.

Life at the other side of the door: New life, new people..everything was new, completely different. It was a different world. The only person I knew at this side of door was Sachin. We restarted a new life in a world of unknown people with our love. Our plane landed on LA Airport and for me it was like a dream. We stayed in DaysInn for 1 month. Every morning, I used to go with Sachin to his bus stop and used to stand over there till sachin's bus disappear. That feeling was full of emptiness but passage of day brings the hope that Sachin is on his way back to me. Even after 6 yrs, 6pm is my favorite time. At 6 pm bus always brought my hope to me. Hope is like the dream that is always just one step ahead of the reality. Hope of having him with me. One day I was coming back from bus stop and I saw a lady in Indian dress crossing the road. You will be thinking what's a big deal in that. But at that moment I was like a child who just found his lost favorite toy. I ran behind her and called her. I asked her where she lives and asked her can I come to meet her. She was little shocked, very obvious at any side of the world you do not invite yourself to visit someone. When I think of that incident, I always laugh on my self, I was so naive at that time. 

But believe me that was one of the happiest moments for me, I still cherish that moment. I had the feeling that we are not alone in this side of world.

You will not believe I went to her home by my own invitation, she was surprised. Obvisously she was not expecting me. After staying 1 month in a hotel room, first time in 1 month I smelled fragrance of a home. I cried, literally I cried. She was amazed, what is a big deal in coming to someone's home. She could not understand why I am crying. Feeling of being in a home, for me that was a big deal. we became very good friends. I used to call her "didi (big sister)" and her kids used to call me "Massi"(Aunt). We shared a very good relation with that family. Very good time. Life at this side of the door was becoming little familiar to us.

Rest of the journey is on his way.. coming soon to meet with you..

Love you all.

Keep reading

Chhaya

  

Journey towards Dream land

Dear Friends,

Howz life treating you. Sorry for keeping you all frozen in the moment of that night for so long. Word frozen is so close to our heart,  at least after staying away from our home for 6yrs. Frozen emotions, frozen relations and frozen time. I still remember those days when I used to cry after having a glimpse of even an unknown Indian. I used to feel like I saw my family member. Now after 6yrs, I do not feel the same any more. That's why I said I am frozen now.

That Frozen Night: Let me take you back for a minute to my that frozen night in the month of June.  Night with full of frozen moments. We were speechless after reading his email, he gave us a glimpse of his mean personality. But we could not step back at that moment, we were already late to change our minds. Next week we had our flight to catch our dreams. Those dreams which has already started to fade. The only best thing was that we were together at that moment.
I have realized one thing through out journey of my life: that moments either good or bad, always stays with you for rest of your life. People says that time is a great healer, I agree but not completely. You can forget those moments for some time, but you can never forget the feelings attached with those moments. Feeling of getting frozen at that moment will be with me always. How can I forget that person who brought that moment in our lives. I may forgive him, but can I forget that person. No..Never...

Day of our flight: Sunrise of 6th June 2007 brought a mixture of emotions with it. Excitement, fear, happiness, separations...I am amazed how a human heart can feel so many emotions at the same time. That day was completely unique. I can still feel myself standing over there looking in the eyes of everyone. Eyes full of emotions, full of fear, excitement and tears. With all these emotions, we reached Delhi to catch our flight to LA. By this time I have not felt that I am really leaving my parents, my home and my family until, I encountered with another frozen moment of my life. Moment to say "Good Bye".  By closing my eyes even today I can imagine me standing at the one side of the door and my Mom on the other side. We both were crying like someone has removed our heart without anesthetizing us. Even after 6 yrs I could not cross that door. It seems my Mom is still standing at that side of door looking at me with tears in her eyes...and said her "Good Bye". Most difficult "Good Bye" of my life so far.

Uff..This post was really full of emotions. right??
But remember this is not only happening to me..I am representing all of us. We all have crossed that side of the door in our lives..
Keep reading. Talk to you soon.
Love you all..
Chhaya

Just before we left

Dear Friends..
Thank you so much for such a lovely response for my first blog. My very good friend asked me, when I became Chhaya (Shadow) from Chhavi, very interesting question. He made me think, actually I became Chhaya exactly at that moment when my Plane left India. I think we all are here Chhaya (shadows) of our original self, are n't we?? We are not what we used to be. I never felt myself in last 6 years.
Anyways: let's talk about just before we left...
I never thought that I will come to US, never even in my dreams. Sachin (my husband) finished his PhD after we got married in 2006. His senior and other friends were applying for Post Doctoral fellowship in US, so he did. He was only applying for Scientists of Indian Origin, with the feeling that these people were one day at our place. They must have started their journey like us and will understand our transition very well. Sachin applied at few places and finally got position at University of southern California (USC), LA in lab of a Indian Professor with really impressive research and good publications. The university was good and name of Los Angles itself makes you dream big. So, we were very happy. Everything was looking perfect, we started planning of moving here. We were very excited, full of dreams...
Got our visa without any problem, bought the tickets. But something was not right somewhere. Sachin's new boss was not replying to his emails. We got scared. Something was not right.I still remember that night when Sachin got the email from his new boss.
I can still feel that moment of  uncertainty. Even after 6 yrs,by closing my eyes I can still see ourselves standing frozen in the center of the room, our first encounter with fear, fear of our wrong decision.  

I leave you all today with this feeling and will get back to you soon.

Thanks for your love and motivation.
Keep posting your comments.

Love you all..
Chhaya..

Dear Friends,

My journey in United States may represents journey of other people who comes to this country of dreams with lots of dreams. To start with my journey, I came to this world from another world India  6 yrs back. Me and my husband left our own home with no one known in this world, no place to stay, no relatives. Completely new start of life. What we brought with us were our dreams. Dreams to achieve something big in life. Dreams to do something different in our lives. or may be just to run  from our current situations of lives.
I still think why we came? why we left our homes?
Just to give my background, I am a PhD in Biochemistry. I am not a IT person, so not earning a lot. Research like always is underpaid, whether its here or in India, so clearly we are not going to earn a lot. But, at that time we were not thinking about that, we were in a illusion. Illusion of a new world, a dreamland like Disney World. Where everyone is happy and everything is perfect.
I can still feel that moment, when my plane started form India. I felt like some part of mine just left there. I can never forgot that moment.

Talk to you again my friends..

Thanks for being part of my Journey.
Love you all

Chhaya