I Embraced A New Idea

          Like a typical girl with a smartphone, I am a camera freak. The first and the only thing that matters to me while buying a new phone is that it should have an awesome camera and a sizable memory to store all my pictures. I take pictures of everything I come across. I do it to cherish the memory of that incident, as a souvenir, to frame them, to Instagram or to send it to my parents and in-laws. To put in Bharath's words, I look for an excuse to click pictures, which is cent percent true. Not only clicking, I have the habit of seeing them whenever I find time. In fact, I make time to see them. To encourage my habit, my husband not only got me a DSLR, but never minds when I click pictures. He also makes sure I get a lot of pictures just because I like taking pictures.

          I rejoice seeing the old pictures because it gives account of how much I enjoyed that particular moment. I have heard people saying that every moment is not meant to be captured in pixels. There are moments that are to be enjoyed only by feeling them. I never quite agreed with that argument. Again, it is ones perspective. I am a kind of person that doesn’t embrace any idea without having a chance of experiencing it myself. But I have to narrate a couple of incidents that made me agree with the fact that some moments are meant to be enjoyed than pixelated.

          I was exposed to change in culture, environment, life style and pretty much everything you can name when I moved to United States, with only 20 hours of transition time that I spent changing flights and travelling. Before even I could imagine what I have to face, I was placed at the core of change. Bharath helped me to understand a lot of new systems around me. But I was the one who had to learn everything about new school. I was the only Indian in my entire department, both undergraduate and graduate school included. It is easy to adjust in a new place if you have a partner who knows how you feel and help you learn and ease the awkwardness. I did not have that privilege in my school. I had to ask each and everything form a rude advisor who was assigned to me. As days passed I got used to it and found an alternate way, which is not the issue here. After having gone through all these I had promised myself that I will do anything in my power to help a new comer to adjust without facing the difficulties I had to face.

          After one year of my masters, I finally met an Indian in my class. I can't say how relieved and happy I was because of that. As I promised myself, I taught her everything she has to know, both about school and to live in United States. I saw in her, the old me. It made me wonder how much I had changed in a year. I voluntarily made a lot of changes myself, but there are quite a few that happened without my knowledge. You know what they say, change is inevitable. 

          When I was new to United States, I thought people carry hot water flask in this cold weather. But people drank cold water out of water fountain even when the temperature outside was -35⁰C. I had a very hard time drinking cold water out of water fountain. First of all, I was not familiar with water fountain and also I was not used to drinking cold water. Half of the water that entered my mouth used to fall out before I could gulp. And the amount of water that I could hold in my mouth was cold and it hurt my teeth. But after a year now, I am so used to cold water that I can't drink warm water at all. I found the new girl facing the same difficulty. So I say "don’t worry you will get used to it" because I know she will get used to it just like me.

          Also it took me a while to get used to walk from studio apartment to school. Although it was just 15 minutes, I my jaws used to get frozen. It took me a year to get used to cold. Now when I walk out with her, I see her struggling the same way even when this year's lowest temperature is -13⁰C. I try to make her feel better that this winter is better than the last one. So I say "don’t worry you will get used to it" because I know she will get used to it just like me.

          Being with her, I remembered how I was a year ago and how I am now. I can recall everything without seeing the pictures these incidents made me realize that you don’t have to have pictures to remember each and every moments. Some moments are really meant to be felt and remembered. They should have a place in our minds and not on your computer hard disk. Having said all these, I will not stop taking pictures because it is something that defines me. It is an idea that doesn't change my life *winks*.

It is snowing outside as I am composing this piece, so the camera enthusiast in me clicked a few pictures. Here I am sharing them. Well a few of them. I tried my best to capture the snowflakes falling, let me know if you can see them.