Wisdomous

On America’s Independence Day, among other decorations, streets are lined with their national flags. I find the American flag very beautiful (and not just because it has red!) but my friends here have admitted that learning to draw it as a child was an uphill task. Let us thank the powers that be for the Tricolor, shall we? Putting together saffron, white and green with a blue circle was one of the easiest things ever, remember?

My roommate is in the land of the Tricolor now. And every now and then, I either miss her or get homesick, particularly because Manasi will be meeting my family before I get a chance to do so myself. In her absence though, she is letting me use her phone, which is making meeting up with friends here incredibly easy. Hallelujah and lots of love to Manasi for her incredible generosity!

Yesterday, I got my first taste of America’s Independence Day and it was memorable. I attended a multi-course, delicious barbecue. (Seriously, where will I get such luscious beef when I return to Delhi?) I went for a fireworks display, which was incredible, but then I dig fireworks anywhere and everywhere. (I remember there was an extensive fireworks display in St. Stephen’s on the night of our graduation because we were the batch of 2000 AD, you know, the millennium batch. And while friends around me clutched handkerchiefs and hugs and I-will-miss-you tears, my life was perfect thanks to the fireworks. But I must hasten to add, lest anyone thinks of me as brave, that I did those things too, although after the fireworks.) Oh, and the American national anthem is really tough to sing. The people I was with started singing it in a fit of patriotism, and that made me nostalgic for Jana Gana Mana. I started humming it and then couldn’t get it out of my system because it kept going round and round in my head. Soon, I was asked to sing “whatever it is that you are humming”. Flush with “I am missing Delhi again” I sang both the national anthem and the national song. That felt appropriately ridiculous given the occasion but incredibly good nevertheless.

I had a house guest for the last two days. My friend, Mike, who got his MFA in Creative Writing this year had left Moscow in May to return to his hometown in North Idaho. He was down in this area for a boating trip at one of the many wild and curvaceous rivers that run through our picture perfect state and stayed at my house. So among several sessions of non-stop laughter and yelling at each other, we managed to avoid cerebral topics completely.

And finally, the reason why this post is titled so. I have heard two very profound sentences in the recent past and they have stuck themselves to my head. Let me share them with you:
“I know there are 10,000 Jewish men in New York City because I have dated every single one of them.”
-- A friend’s aunt
“A day without ice-cream is a day without sunshine.”
--Overheard at yesterday’s barbecue