Angel on a rainy night

 Dear Reader,

Today I am going to share the story that inspired me to start writing and to share stories. I wanted this to be my first story. For some reason I kept dragging it until I wrote my first post of this blog. I guess, I wanted to get started and write something quick instead of procrastinating for another bunch of years. It's been about fourteen years since then. The memory keeps popping in every now n then, I make a note of  doing justice to the story, but I keep getting distracted.  It feels strange to me  how long the story stayed with me.

Any way, here it goes. 

I think it was the year of 2008. I was new in Chennai with my first job, figuring out my ways in the big metro city and its rough-n-tough life, particularly the metro bus system. I would travel to work from Ponni Amman Koil, an area in the city outskirts, to Guindy, the central industrial area via Sholinganallur. I would mostly ride a bus number 575. It was a long, hectic and often jerky ride. The bus would arrive at my bus stop at unpredictable times. But for a long period that was my best option. In the crowded and overloaded bus with all the yelling, push-n-shove, shouts for tickets and coin exchange, I would often notice a conductor. He would be managing the whole thing beautifully, with a super quiet and calm attitude, something I can now call "zen-like". I would wonder, "Being a bus conductor is such a hard job! How does he manage it so well?" 

At night, I would return home on 575 as well. Gradually, responsibilities at work kept increasing, and I started leaving work at later and later hours. On one of these nights, the bus did not stop at Ponni Amman Koil on my way back. I had to shout at the driver in order to alert them. Even though the driver stopped the bus to let me out, they warned me that this bus is an express bus and hence is not supposed to stop at a small bus stop like Ponni Amman Koil, and that I should get down at Shollinganallur and take a shared auto-rickshaw (auto rickshaws for multiple passengers). My attempts to argue about the fact that I used to get down at Ponni Amman Koil all the time until then, did not work at all. Any way, after that night, I begrudgingly rode on a shared auto rickshaw between Sholinganallur and Ponni Amman Koil on most nights.

Soon it was winter in Chennai, and time for late monsoon rains. It was annoying how a city that had a few tiny rivers which were converted into sewage channels, would get flooded with just one shower of rain. The rapid road constructions would leave no room for rain water to escape due to lack of planning for drainage. Water would  remain logged for long time once it started raining. One night when it was pouring cats and dogs, I got into 575.  I was worried about having to get down at Shollinganallur and ride in the uncomfortable shared auto-rickshaws. When the bus reached at Sholinganallur though, the conductor quietly instructed me to wait until the next stop, that is, Ponni Amman Koil. When the bus approached Ponni Amman Koil, he blew a soft whistle indicating the driver to stop the bus. I got down after thanking the conductor. This was the same zen-like man, by the way. He did not have to do it. None of the other conductors did it. But he saved me from lot of trouble and fear that night. It seemed as if he was an angel sent to watch over me that night.

Even though I continued riding on that bus for many more months after that, I never got to see him again. Now, I don't remember many details of his features any more. But I remember a silhouette of him, an essence of cool air surrounding him instilling a sense of calmness. Even though I did not finish writing this story for a long time, the memory did not fade away completely. Some day, some where, some how, some thing would happen and it would trigger this memory and I would thank the conductor and hope that the Universe will send my gratitude towards him.

One night, I was scrolling through Instagram and came across this post from the Instagram handle @wordporm:

Some stranger somewhere 

still remembers you because 

you were kind to them

 when no one else was.

 

It reminded me of him, the conductor. Since then, the thought stubbornly stayed with me, so much so that one night I got out of bed even after a long tiring journey and stayed up to jot it all down and my first draft was ready. But procrastination hit again, and it took me another two years to get back to it and share it.

Even though fourteen years late, I am happy and grateful that the story stayed with me until now, and that it trusted in my heart to give it a shape and share it out there one day. I hope Universe is conveying my thanks to him and giving him back in many-folds what he has given to me.

Thank you, my angel in the rainy night!

 

Nostalgia of the mother land

After a busy work week and gloomy days of Seattle winter, Sun finally peeked out of the clouds on a Saturday afternoon. I was people-starved and experiencing cabin fever. This was my chance to get out of my slumber and get going. I got dressed up, picked my sketching bag and left my apartment. My Uber was quick to arrive and I hopped onto it, full of excitement to finally leave my apartment after a whole week. The driver was a friendly man  and in a minute we started chit-chatting and I soon learned that he was in his fifties, and of Kenyan descent. 

Soon we hit Mercer Street. The traffic was kinda big, somewhat unusual for a Saturday afternoon. I wondered if there was a game going on that night in Seattle. He casually replied, "No, just people moving around, because they have a car." And that's how the whole conversation started about his dissatisfaction with American lifestyle in general. He did not approve of how people are always busy, overwork during weekdays and are busy doing high intensity activities in the weekend, only to return to the busy life the next day. Because of overworking, they tend to age quicker and look older than their age, he observed. Cultural norms such as kids leaving to be on their own at teenage, old people being left at old age care, people paying for themselves when having family dinners at restaurants, bothered him. He went on to tell fond memories of him and his family, how he and his brothers regularly meetup for dinner and have a great time bonding and sharing, how everybody is eager to pay and treat others, how parents nurture kids till they are self-sustaining, and kids care for parents in their old age. He had smile on his face and excitement in his voice while talking about this.

After a week of starving in-person conversation, I just devoured in all he had to say. I did have some opinions that were against his, but after a few unconvincing attempts, I decided to stop and learn his perspective. Once my journey ended, I wished him a good time with his family and a nice weekend, and walked into the park that was a magnificent panorama of lush green hills, glowing downtown and glorious evening. Everything was so dramatic and colors were changing so quickly! After walking around the park for a bit, I found a dry corner, and got into painting the panoramic view in front of me. It was already night by the time I was done. I headed back and requested for another Uber. This time the driver had an interesting and unfamiliar name.

Turns out, I was not the only one. The driver was curious about my name too. After exchanging meanings of our names, I learned that the driver's doctor had given him this name after his birth. He was born in Albania and moved with his parents to USA later. He has close relatives in Albania, and he goes back and forth often. He wanted to know if I have good friends here and if I like it here. As the conversations got rolling, I asked him, "What do you miss about Albania?" And he promptly said, "Food. The meat here is not as rich in taste as there. So the dishes are not as delicious. Everything is prepackaged and preprocessed, that it loses its freshness." I agreed. I find the vegetables in USA to be much bigger in size and diluted in taste. He said his dad has his own garden and the produce from it tastes so good; much better than the supermarket food. I asked him if he likes to do gardening and then we got diverted into his life in Seattle and Seattle in general. When he dropped me off near my apartment, I showed my painting to him and he was happy to see it. After getting off the car on a happy note, I came back home with a sense of "I had a good day today!".

Now that I sat down to write after a long gap, I thought to myself, both these conversations had a nostalgia about one's motherland. We leave our homeland to another place to seek for something that is missing at home. But a faint scent of longing remains. There is always something that brings up nostalgia, that instantly transports to our homeland in our head, a childlike wish that the things we loved about our homeland were with us.

 What is your nostalgia about your motherland?