Why come to Mansfield

For the lack of a lot of interesting things to do here in Mansfield, I have had a lot of time on my hands to pay a little more attention to my blog. But being the lazy ass that I am, I have been less than productive with that time. Being in Mansfield does that to me. What is Mansfield like they ask, because I haven't ever talked about Mansfield on my blog before.

Mansfield is a small town that used to be very prosperous and industrial once upon a time. Or so I have been told. If you want actual statistics and history, head over to wikipedia. Naniji has been telling me a lot about Mansfield and its history. With personal accounts of what it was like back when they moved here. But due to the recession, businesses and factories are shutting down. Most notable being the GM plant that's shutting down.

Apart from the factories, there are also a few farms. Being here in the summer is amazing. The house is located right next to a sprawling field. The corn grows so tall that it is almost like a wall to the road; which itself is not flat or level at all, but instead goes up and down the uneven terrain. It is great fun to bike on these roads. 

The house and surroundings are always very quiet and serene. The sky at night is filled with more stars than I've seen at a place in a long time. Even a small place like Seoni (M.P. India) has so much light pollution today. Mansfield is perfect for star gazing, taking star trail pictures, and looking at meteor showers. I tried taking star trail photos the last time I was in Mansfield, but my camera wasn't quite up to it.

I did bring my camera and lenses as well as the tripod with me. But I dare not venture out in the cold unless I absolutely have to. Besides the overcast sky doesn't make it look very pretty most of the time. But with the flash and the wireless trigger, I have been using the basement as my studio. Yes, naniji's house has a basement with a bar on one side. The deck from the living room has a barbecue/grill and sitting on the deck, we can look at the winding road recede into the distance and the farms on both sides of it.

We are located pretty much at the outskirts of Mansfield. We have to drive into town for all the shopping and recreation. And there are only  a few things to do for recreation. Especially during the winter. The only time I went outside the past week was to go black friday shopping. (Not counting the uncle and auntie's dinner parties.)

There seem to be a lot of Indian families in the vicinity. And they get together often to celebrate almost anything. Thanksgiving we went to a house which was buzzing with doctor uncles, Aunties and their sons and daughters who were all older than I. Uncles talked about everything from current US politics to pre independence India and the freedom struggle. Aunties swarmed around naniji and for a good length of time talked about her visit to the white house. Mamaji, Mausiji and other 'children' gathered together among themselves while I watched tv downstairs with the only other kid younger than me: Aditya, he's 12.

Being a small place, people in Mansfield are very nice. I have found better behaved people at restaurants and other public service jobs here than I did in Savannah. Southern hospitality sounds like a bunch of bull. Food here beats that of most joints in Savannah. I have come so close to some people I am sure they treat me no different from their own family.

Being here also constantly reminds me of my own family. Naniji of mom and nanaji of dad. Anju mausiji and jay mamaji; the way they tease each other reminds me of Divya and me. I feel the need to reconnect with old friends and distant family. I feel like a kid again…

The hardest part is saying goodbye

This post has pieces paragraphs moments from different periods in time. It is not supposed to be linear. Think of it as a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Siddhant is headed back to Mumbai. Even asked me if I wanted him to bring me something back from India.

"Can't think of anything"

Soumitra is also flying back to Bangalore for the break. His arrangements were pretty last minute and his itinerary is very fucked up! Flying from Savannah to New York, 6 hours between the next flight. He has to catch the next flight from NewArk New Jersey. After he lands in Delhi, he has to wait another six hours for his flight to Bangalore. As much as I mock him for this, I would kill to be on the same journey as him.

I'm flying to Columbus Ohio today and then going to Mansfield. Where I will spend the rest of my winter break. With naniji, nanaji, Mamaji and Mausiji—among family. I should be looking forward to the good food, leisure and other comforts of being in a home versus a dorm. But my mind is preoccupied with something.

I called up Naniji first thing in the morning today to let her know the timing of my flight and ask her what I should pack. I wanted to make sure I was only taking what was necessary. I was also intending to be able to bring back as many of my books as possible.

Somewhere in the conversation I must have dropped that my friends are going back to India.

Soumitra is also flying to Bangalore.

Naniji sounded sympathetic when she said "Since all your friends are going So you must be feeling like going too, right?"

Should I lie and pretend to still be as detached and emotionless as I was a month ago; or should I suck it up and admit that saying "NO!" to mom was a mistake?

*Inhale* "Yeah, a little bit." *exhale*

"Don't worry, you can go in the summer. Mausi is coming for thanksgiving. And you'll have fun here."

She always knows the right thing to say.

His arrangements were pretty last minute

"Yeah I know. I'm not too worried. Neil is also going to be there. I will have things to do."

I have only felt this way when I was last flying from India to Canada. I couldn't even eat any of the awesome sushi at Sushi-Go at Heathrow terminal. I let Soumitra and Shekinah go find something to eat for themselves while I sit down on a random bench. They can't make up their minds so they come back and sit down with me. We hang out, crack some jokes. I'm not going to see these guys for about another month. I feel the longer I am with them at the airport the harder saying goodbye will be. So I tell them "I better start going through the security."

But Shekinah won't let me. She wants me to "Say something profound before you leave." I can never come up with anything when put on the spot like this. But I did come up with something. Now, the more i think about it, the less sense it makes. I was thinking about how I can call someone up once these guys left. And I was thinking that I can't tell anyone I was thinking that. 

Sitting at the airport all alone, waiting for my flight to take off, I am trying to put these feelings into words. But I fail. So I pop my sketchbook out and start sketching the image of a figure—myself a few minutes ago in time—the past me, sitting alone in a row of seats, looking at the ceiling… at nothing in particular, just at the general nothingness… the plain white color and the abstract geometric pattern that the architecture makes when looked at from this angle. Before I knew it, I was deeply engrossed in my storyboard. Drawing the face as a simple geometric form with no features except tears streaming down from what are supposed to be eyes.

I would kill to be on the same journey as him.

The weariness and hunger put me to sleep in the flight. I woke up in time for the refreshments. And not long after, the flight landed in Columbus. Getting off the plane was surprisingly quick as I wasn't trapped in the back of the plane. Naniji had gotten my earlier messages and was almost at the airport. Getting my checked bag at the carousel took forever. But as soon as I stepped outside, and felt the not-as-cold-as-i-expected wind in my face and saw Naniji, all was well in the world again. I forgot about all my butterflies and was craving for some food, finally! And Naniji was—as all good nanijis are—ready; with delicious food for me right there in the back seat of the car.

And stupid Soumitra will be flying all that way for something I'm getting right here. The feeling of finally being home.

Anup nightmare

This was the dream I had on my last night in Canada.. or my FIRST night in USA after that. I tend to forget the exact date. However, it featured my notorious cousin, Anup. You could say he's right up there in the top 5 of the list of my worst enemies! But I simply don't like him.

In this particularly traumatic dream, I see that my 75-205mm tele-zoom lens has been destroyed. The glass completely shattered and left lying around. Like someone left it there on purpose for me to see it. I find out that it's none other than Anup.

I am extremely pissed! In a fit of rage, (that's very unlike me) I am screaming at the top of my lungs, swearing my head off at him, not caring that I'm in our house, around family. I walk angrily towards him and grab him....

Even I was afraid to see what I would do next....

Luckily, I woke up. Albeit cold but sweaty; traumatized..
and the first thing I had to do, was check my tele-zoom lens and make sure it was intact.

Yashrg's series of unfortunate events

Yesterday was one of that days, that make you go, "really? Come on! What are the odds of that happening! And all that happening in one day!" So, I'm not making up a story, and yes, all this really happened to me in the last 24 hours!

I talk to tina on the phone, she's sick. Now I'm going to have to do that shopping alone. Disregard that statement I just made. Moving on... I go upstairs to shower, and I open the door of the dressing room and hit the maid cleaning behind it. I had watched 'The Secret' just two days ago, and I'm still in the spirit, so I take everything in a stride so far. I sit down to draw from the Encyclopedia of bodybuilding. I do a few really bad sketches before I get hungry.

Hmm.. I wonder why I'm writing all the things in the present tense... anyone have any views about this kind of writing, I'd love to hear it.

while I'm waiting for the lunch to be prepared, I turn on the tv in the kitchen. I didn't know that is on. I love this show. And they're gonna be talking about making electricity from fruits like lemons etc. and battery powered truck which is about to break a speed record. I keenly tune in. But before that, comes on a part about how they test condoms for imperfections. I keep watching, but after a while, taiji has had enough. "Change the channel" she tells me. I'm not a 8 year old! But I do it anyways.

I reach the class, there's only Sunny and sir there. I sit down, fart. My stomach's kinda upset today. I don't feel like sticking around in this desolate place, there's no electricity even! I call up suju to go see her. She was sleeping. I press the doorbell and wait for an eternity before I realize there's no electricity here either and I need to knock the door. I give her the ointment. Fart. We discuss plan to go out and do night painting later. "I'd better not stick around here for long or I'll really stink up the place." I said. I had other plans for now.

I call up Tina asking her if its ok if I come visit. At her hostel, the security guard asks me to 'sign in'. I'm kinda surprised. I start walking towards the stairs when the bitch starts yelling. I calmly tell her "you don't have to be rude." Remember 'the secret?' She continues yelling. I repeat myself, I think she didn't get it. she goes "kya bola?" Translation: "What'd you say?" I turn to tina, "what is 'rude' in marathi?" Its getting funnier by the second. I can't wipe that smile off my face. Why did they ask me to 'sign in' and write my name and contact number etc when I wasn't even allowed to go IN. LOL. Tina's doing fine. I say we'll try and go do that thing some other time.

I get hopelessly lost in trying to get to ABC from kothrud. I give up and get to bibewadi. Load shedding here too. I sit with Asadul while he's showing me his stuff.
He goes, "Something really stinks!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, that's me, I feel constipated." Embarrassing!
I start feeling really weak and I'm trembling. I think I overdid it with the exercise this morning. Maybe I just need some food. I text Pranav to get me something to eat. Plug in my laptop as soon as the power is back and start trying to scan some sketches. The power cord is loose so the scanner wouldn't turn on. Pranav fidgets with it and voila!

Suju calls me up and I leave without my laptop fully charged. I pick her up and we still haven't decided where to go. We ride around and end up at parwati. Find a spot and sit down to paint. Taiji calls to ask where I am. I lie. Few minutes into the painting, the cops come to shoo everyone off. Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! This totally blows! What did we do wrong? Suju says "lets go before we get into trouble." What law did we break? what did we do wrong? After a nice ride back to her place in the cold wind, she says she doesn't feel like going home. lets ride around some more. I'm too cold. I just wanted to ride back home and tuck myself in a warm bed.

But that wasn't meant to be. I averted an accident because of an aunty who jumped the red signal. At the flat, Pranav's brother is here. We decide to go see a movie at city pride satara road. Unfortunately, or fortunately... nothing nice was on. Now we're going to watch superbad at the flat. Everyone wastes a lot of time monkeying around. Wait, I was the one monkeying around. Hehe.. You gotta see the video to know. We start watching the movie at about 1 am. Midway, everyone wants to sleep but I continue. I have watched this movie around 20 times now. I just need an excuse to watch that movie. And I finish watching it in a low volume in complete darkness and go to bed knowing that tomorrow's another day.

Visiting seoni part 1

Its really been long since I updated this blog. And I have an excuse. I was visiting my relatives in seoni. Its a small place in Madhya pradesh about 130Km away from Nagpur. I hadn't even bought my ticket to nagpur up until one hour before the bus was supposed to depart. If I hadn't gotten that last seat, the whole plan would have been screwed. But, I arrived in Nagpur just fine, the next day and called up harsh to come pick me up. We were in nagpur that evening, and left for Seoni at around 10 pm. The bus ride was awful. By the time we reached seoni, about 3 hours later, I was really tired. But we were determined we were going to go play sports early next morning with mamaji.

Mamaji plays Lawn tennis these days. He's also awesome at badminton and table tennis. Suraj wanted to play Lawn tennis, so we left him with mamaji. Harsh and me went to the officer's club to play some table tennis and badminton. I drove the car for that short distance, and was pretty comfortable with it. What can I say, I'm a natural! Harsh is really good at table tennis too, but he was a little rusty. Thus I could beat him a few times. It was really a lot of fun. Then Mamaji and Suraj arrived, and then it was badminton time. By the end, I was really hungry and couldn't get home fast enough. One awesome breakfast later, we were upstairs watching how I met your mother.

We had plans for the evening as well. Harsh and Suraj took short naps in the daytime. For lunch, I cooked okra. We decided to go for boating at dalsagar. Its a small lake, with a small island in the center. And get ready for this, The trees on that island are inhabited by large number of bats! Harsh told me the tale of 'the time everything on the island went white!' And I had it figured it had to be because of bird droppings. haha. I took photos of bats in flight as they flew right above us, and skimmed the water. I will be uploading those on flickr soon. Also, with the help of my tripod, I got some pictures of the lake after sundown that everyone REALLY liked.

Then, we went to Center point for dinner. No wait, that was after the really boring and annoying and useless round of clothes shopping at koutons. Every time I visit my nanaji, naniji in seoni, they buy us new clothes. It was really exciting for us when we were kids. But now, I really wasn't into it. I felt I didn't really need any new clothes, and was never going to find anything that fits. And when I say no, it means NO. Mamaji tried hard to persuade me into 'looking for clothes' but I didn't. I guess mom ended up buying something for dad.

Center point hotel was a little disappointing that night. The food had too much chilli in it. And I having lost my tolerance for heat, couldn't eat much. I did try to take some pictures of star trails, but the stars didn't look as bright, probably because the gardens were very well lit. Anyways, we came back, and I had a craving for 'barf ka gola' but unlike always, tonight, there was nobody around our house. Back home, suraj was determined to finish season one of how I met your mother tonight. So he watched on, as I fell asleep.