Malvika's Ramblings

Weather, Cooking and Waiters

Today is a wet and drippy day here in Chandigarh. Its been raining and there are puddles. Not so cold though.

A few days ago it was cold but sunny! In Toronto I have felt the sun on me but never the scorching presence of the sun, the way u feel if you stand too close to a bonfire. Unpredictable days..

I used to be nuts about a grey and silver color palette in clothes. Tweeds and plaids. Dark grey and black overcoats with elegant cuts. But on visiting Toronto I realized that these colors really belong to cold countries. You can actually wear black pants and a silver sequined top in Toronto and it would just add sparkle in the coldness, like a christmas ornament. In india, in the hot climate, it would be an eyesore.. like something too flashy..like a bonfire in heat.

So its less cold today. And I feel citrusy.

Hitting Home

Like I was landing somewhere but I am still in the air. I have been told I have my feet on the ground but I don’t feel like I do.

It suxx. I want to get out of this. I so want to be real. So want things to matter. I so want to feel like impact of things, to be affected, to react.

You have given me many phone numbers. Apparently, I cannot make international calls directly from home. I will figure out what is to be done to call u up. Meanwhile, if its possible and not too expensive, call me up at 91 172 4******.

91 is india code

172 is chandigarh code

4****** is home phone number.

It is cold in India. If I see a shadow moving from the ceiling to the floor, from the corner of my eye, it feels like reality falling - a chunk of it dropping, unable to be held up by the power of pure illusion. Such rubbish, such silly thoughts. Phew..

I am meeting people and trying to walk in crowded areas to get back into reality; But I don’t feel it if my shoulders rub with other people's. I don’t know what background noise of waiter-customer relationships, driver-pedestrian relationships is going on. People stare so much. I look back since I have forgotten what I generally did and what was the expected thing to do - avert gaze? look suitably irritated? react with feminine submission? draw lines? ask him what's the problem? look back with both of us peeping into each other through the eyes? But I don’t even want to see other people. I don’t want them to stare at me. If they do.. so.. Let me leave it here. My head is getting messed up. I cant even connect to the starer as his thoughts do not match mine at alllllll...intelligence doesn’t match, secret social objectives do not match, definitions do not match, we are not coming from the same place or going to the same place and when our paths intersect I, at least, do not know what to make of it. He doesn’t know I am so far out in my head. He thinks I know his code and will think and react similarly. But I don’t even know what this is. I am just trying to keep to the left of the road. Renzooooooooooo.. I am sure I will be fine soon. Returning to India is a culture shock. lol. And as I say this, I can hear the reaction I would elicit - 'So you have become all Canadian and shit, huh? Forgotten your country?' In Canada I went around with the feeling that I don’t even have to belong as I have a country back home, the strange customs and mindset of which I fit in. Now I am so individual and so single. And I am splitting. My mind and body are not all that together since you made the body such an extra. Tallness, shortness, fatness, stockiness, boniness - all became just descriptive words of a state. In my prolonged reverie, I lost sense of good and bad and just saw stuff in its essence. Phew.... waiting to snap out of this. Waiting. Waiting. Its not bad but..its not very real. And real is ok.. less noisy.

A little time in Toronto and I forgot everything, all social training, all perspectives, everything and i am left with just me who likes to cycle and curl up in warm spots.

Time difference -

1:30 AM Saturday in Toronto (early morning hours) is 12 noon on Saturday in India

I hope you are having a good time with your family, with Macarenita

te queiro

besos

.

LATAM Guy

New friend - Renzo

When he told me the name, I asked him " Rento"?
I was all for respecting the name, respecting another culture and etymology; although it did sound like Italian Rent.

But no, the name was RenZo.
He is a Canadian, originally from Peru. Spending time with him means watching fantastic movies, which one may never get hold of otherwise. Through sheer ingenuity he has created a surround sound space, the difference of which can be felt immediately.

He explains his culture, the influences etc..using a large world map and Peru tv from the internet. He explains sea-surfing by standing on his snowboard and manipulating it.

His place has these things lying around which are pure marvellouciousness; like a big upturned boat in the snowy garden and a foosball table behind his two well -used cycles.

And then he says to me -
Sorry for ths place, its small and messed up.

And i am like..DUHHHHHHH
I dont like assuring people, saying `No no no! Your place is fine`.
So, I dont respond
but I feel the duh.

And then I make tea which is dark and bitter and i am really surprised that he likes it, and suspicious that he is just drinking it out of politeness

We sit and watch a bone-chilling movie
My feet are up front, one over the other.
We both are lookin at the screen
and he says ``Hey, you hav beautiful feet!``
And i am like..
err..okkk
umm..thx.

His English is not the best. He wants to say that among women, I am tall and he says to me `You are too tall to be a woman.`` Great.

I explain the joke in the sentence to him but we are caught between a subtle joke and Renzo on the brink of apology, and him not getting the joke, and me just trying to shift the whole thing to `Don't you see how funny it is in concept' till we wisely change the topic. One of my dislikes, and I categorically say so, is explaining jokes to a person who is familiar with another language. It happened once earlier, with Cedric, a Frenchman.

Toronto, Rain, Snow

It rained here in Toronto and I was like - Where is the chai and the samosas?! I have still to get that excited about hot chocolate moments.

But when I wake up and it has snowed overnight its beautiful. All the leaves are bent with lumps of slushy snow on them. I could put a straw into Toronto and slurrp it all up!

I am here as an exchange student. So that makes it 4 months in Canada.
After college here, I have to do an internship for 4 months from Jan to April 08 and then I graduate.
Geez..man..getting to the end of the road in school or college always takes ages, especially the last bit of the run.

Everyone has been talking of how cold it gets in Canada, but trust me, India is a colder place.
It's snowing here in Toronto, the temperature is in minus degrees celsius but all the central heating makes it imperceptible.

It's in india that you get into your bed with socks and topi and razai and a glowing heater 5 ft away and still feel cold. Now thats winter!

Include freezing to death in autorickshaws, especially for the 6:00 a.m shatabdi!
And the sadistic school admin in Lucknow, which made us wear pretty schoolgirl tunics and socks in winter.

{{{{{{{{ How brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....... those mornings werrrrrr }}}}}}}}

Wrappings

This is too funny. Shifting from India to Canada and writing applications, emails and letters in a tone that suits each country.