Manayunk

I have been living by myself for the past month in Manayunk and it has been every bit as awesome as I hoped for it to be. Unlike most friends, I have been a fan of living by myself. The fact that people wouldn’t want a place to live all by themselves kind of surprised me at first. I thought most people would enjoy the privacy and appreciate the freedom to literally live on their own terms. But turns out most people chose company over privacy.
Manayunk is a beautiful young neighborhood in Philadelphia. With its semi-detached houses with slanted rooftops, and several different high rising church towers in the skyline, it makes for an amazing picturesque view. This time of the year, when the leaves are goldening and the sky is blue, is a very flattering time for this part of Philly. The best part is that my bedroom window leads up to this slightly slanted roof top from where I can catch a leisurely glimpse of the scenery around me . What makes not having any human beings (I do have two cats) share my apartment so cool is that I can go out there anytime of the day, drink anything in any quantity while I am out there and come back and do anything anywhere in my house. Play any music at any hour, watch any crap, cook whenever I am hungry, eat as little or as much as I want to, take a shower for howsoever long I want to, and read cheesy crap on my bed from morning till night non-stop like a nerd if I feel like. I like freedom, obviously.

Introspection

Boy, Am I opinionated!

Is there something I don’t have an opinion about? I hope so. OK then what is it? Ummm……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ! Fail.

Ok so looks like I have an opinion about everything, at least of things I know of. What are the repercussions? It may cause me to be judgmental for I may form opinions about people based on my opinions about the things they do or think. Do I? She does not know where Sudan is….. He smokes…He got a new car that’s not a hybrid…She does not know when the elections are… He plays video games….. She does not exercise……. Wow am I a jerk. Ahhhhhh There I go again!

My name is Sunbeam, and I am an opinionoholic. :(

A drop or a half in the ocean

Once upon a time in my memory when my understanding of things was limited within my discretion of deeming how cool that thing was, I learnt that when I turn 18 I would be able to vote for the candidate of my choice in the upcoming elections and I thought “Cool!” I clearly remembered a few of my classmates sharing this viewpoint. Today when most of my friends are 20 or older, I know not one who is registered to vote and my guess is, and I would be glad to be wrong, not many of them are and that includes me.

At 18, almost all of us had made some decisions. Some took up smoking cos they decided that dying from Cancer when they are 60 isn’t a huge price to pay. Some got married because they decided Love only happens once and is (age) blind. Some said what the hey, age is only a number and laws are for morons and in that wake of the dawn of the pseudo-freedom from parental controls on that “Welcome Freshmen” basement party, decided that they are old enough to drink as much as they wanted. Cool.

Some were already thinking about what their country truly needs; whatever it is how long would it take for that thing to happen. Who is going to make it happen? Oh please God, why do only idiots get into politics?

Some were thinking who should lead their country next. Some were listening to campaign speeches. Everyone had an opinion about who should win.

Some thought, oh well this whole political system is messed up and corrupted and decided they wouldn’t vote. Some decided nothing is ever going to change, so what the heck! Others thought they will register to vote in time for the next elections. The rest didn’t think.

Some thought, what difference does one vote make?

Some answered the question. I decided to register to vote cos I decided that what my country needs is smarter and more educated voters, I definitely fulfill the educated part which is why I would be able to act for my country at least half a voter at a time at least once each term. Cool!

Strange, Stranger or Neither?

Some time ago I took this American guy to an Indian restaurant for the first time. No, this post isn’t about the food. After we left the place he told me that one of the male employees at the restaurant had been staring at me inappropriately till he caught his eyes in the act. “Oh well!” I thought. “Indian men don’t know how to behave in public”, I said. No sooner had I said those words my years as a teenage girl in India flashed in front of my practiced eyes. No, this isn’t about the incorrigible Indian men either. In fact, it’s about one particularly incorrigible Indian man.

 

In about three months I’ll turn twenty-one. That’s how old the stick-figure said he was about five minutes after he suddenly sneaked up beside me on his bike (Or did he say twenty-three?) I was on mine too, at the same time, on the same trail I went biking on everyday. This was eight years ago when I was barely twelve.

 

It has always been difficult to shock me. I did not flinch or gasp when he appeared unexpectedly. I recognized the face, he lived somewhere near where I took my dance lessons. He said his name was Rohit. Regardless, he was since known as Ashwini.

 

(Why Rohit became Ashwini is another story which will be more relevant if I ever decide to analyze my best friend’s amazing sense of humor and one of a kind personality on my blog.)

 

Ashwini was everywhere. Near home, at school, at the bus-stop, the candy shop and all those places a twelve-year old would go to. He was becoming almost as inseparable as my best friends, who were becoming increasingly bothered by his inescapable presence. I wondered what would they have been like if they really knew what was happening.

 

Ashwini was good at sneaking but sometimes he just wouldn’t bother. He knew where I lived, where my friends lived and he knew when I would be alone on the street. He would just walk up to me and then talk a little bit. Once he tried talking to me in Hindi, which wasn’t his language but was mine. I still remember his words and I sometimes still amusedly wonder if he really knew what he was saying. “Aaj aapne kya sabzi khaya?”

 

He once came to me and said that he was suffering from jaundice and was prescribed bed-rest but ignored his doctor to come see me. Another time he asked, “Don’t you know I love you?”

 

Self-introspection always retains some bias. But let’s try and analyze what was going on in my mind all those years ago while I was being smothered with all this maniac attention from this stranger, this stalker. I know one thing I wasn’t pleased. Sometimes the displeasure edged frustration, but looking back I find it so strange that I really wasn’t that bothered.  I was embarrassed in a way, who wouldn’t be – the guy chose to wear bell-bottomed pants … and those were the nineties. I even shied away from telling my friends and parents how vigorously I was being stalked. But I wasn’t scared from this guy. Didn’t I notice he was a foot taller than me? And did I mention he was at least 9 years older than me. Did he not know that I was only twelve?

 

Although he never sexually abused me, some people whom I’ve spoken to about this say he was a pedophile.

 

Was Ashwini a pedophile? Or is there a possibility that he just did not realize that I was only a little girl? Was he truly in love with a child about a decade younger? Or was he just fooling around with me?

 

Regardless, I chose to give him the ‘indifferent’ treatment for the three years he continually followed me around the whole town. Sometimes I would yell at him and ask him to leave me alone. But generally I gave him the ‘I don’t know you stranger (although I have seen you a million times), so don’t talk to me’ look. I sometimes wonder, by not taking a tough stance against him, did I make big mistake? Ashwini is still out there somewhere, but is he victimizing some one else as I type? I was lucky in the fact that he never affected my blunt and naive (read dumb) soul too much, but would all twelve-year old girls be as cold (read dumb) and insensitive as I was?

 

I pray to God Ashwini did better. And that I, was just a phase.

Introducing the Authoress

So is there anything better than talking about oneself?? wink

 

On second thoughts, that happened to form in the past 30 or so seconds I spent contemplating the rest of this post, is there anything more challenging? So how may times am I going to stroke that Backspace key to may be avoid or just sufficiently mask any self-flattery or unawareness or even untruthfulness while trying to not come across as a paperback with that irritatingly tight spine …when really, on third thoughts, and after many strokes of that backspace key, may be I am just erasing my hesitations.

 

So yeah, I like to think. :)

 

I spent my early years in the quiet eastern state of Tripura in East India and grew up in a small town near the coastline of the Bay of Bengal. My final two years in India were spent in the capital city, New Delhi. Since 2005, I have been in the US. Here I learned, truly for the first time, because here I finally chose who I want to be.

 

I am a satisfied young girl with truckloads of memories to fill innumerable pages of a personal diary that does not exist. I have miles, may be tens of thousands of miles to go but in about the quarter that I have walked through I have felt the breeze of life so full in my face, sometimes fragrant and light, other times cold and hard. I have laughed like a clown and cried like a baby, fallen in love and had my heart broken, lost faith and found it again. And I can’t wait for more.

 

But before everything, I am really your average 20 yr old college girl with that usual fetish for gorgeous shoes and a mission to save the world from evil!

 

Five things I Love About Me –

My self-control – surprises me.

My faithful immune-system – has never cheated on me…yet.

My spiritual clarity – what’s right and what’s wrong may be your dilemma, not mine.

My long, black and thick eyelashes, oh did I mention they are long :P

My imagination.

 

Five things I hate about myself

My BMI- always too close to 20.

My clumsiness – u have to be with me to find out.

My knees, there I said it.

My temper.

The natural color of my skin.

 

So that’s an introduction about me. To find out the rest, keep checking my blog J

 

~PEACE for all