Énouement

Firstly, I will never get used to calling professors by their first name. I dead ass wrote an email to my professor addressing her as ma'am and she got offended? Um? I don't think they understand the basis of being 'offended'. Like if you tell me that we aren't going to debrief about how a member from the extended friend group 'forgot' to say hi to me up freshman hill for the five hundredth time now, then I'd be offended. Calling me ma'am? Unless I'm going through a mid life crisis at 20 years old, then no please.

Moving more on the lines of cultural shocks, what is up with the Indian dance teams naming their dance steps with random Hindi words? I was a part of a dance team for some days (2 days) and they were teaching us a dance step which was named DHAMAL. For context, Dhamal is a bollywood movie's name. The second step was named Double Dhamal. Again, Double Dhamal is also a bollywood movie's name. You can't go around naming dance steps Kabhi khushi kabhi Gam and expect me to Crank that on it. I have been getting cultural shocks about my own culture in America and giving my parents one too.

I visited a Mandir (Hindu Temple) for Diwali and my parents were quite literally too stunned to speak. I haven't visited a temple in India since eight years and suddenly when I am eight thousand miles away I have a spiritual awakening to fix all my Sins (I have surpassed my balance). Well, I hadn't prayed in 30 days and I can't afford my weak connection with God to affect my Math Midterm Grades. ( Calculus Gods please help)

Coming to the point. Enoument - the bittersweet feeling of arriving in the future and seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.

It is not like I had a 100 percent efficient routine back home, at the end of the day we are all machines. Hence, my output was also 70-80 percent efficient but I had a sense of self. After reaching college, everything was so haywire and unsettled, I had completely lost the definition of self. One friday evening ,and I specifically remember, I sat in my dorm around 5pm and made myself a hot cappuccino( literally hot milk and coffee powder) and ate my little biscuits while reading my book as I would have, if I was back at home around that time. I felt so at home for the first time in SO long and realized that it is not the things from home that give you comfort but doing something in a particular manner as you would back at that particular place, which does. The only difference was that here, I have my window which overlooks Brittain Rec Gardens and back in Lucknow it would have

been the community park. I can make my peace here I realized, obviously. (only until my chaimberlain coffee supply gets over) there is no way I'm drinking granule-ish coffee and pondering over a 2 by 2 feet window.