The Grandest “I told you so” in the World

I think it was four and half years ago on an empty subway ride home that I realized that not everything my parents said was wrong. Wonders of wonders! Ever since then, every now and then I hear something and think to myself…wow…they were right. This is often followed by: “Man! I should’ve listened to them”. Why do I get the feeling that this is just the beginning?

Turn Turn Turn Turn

I slept almost twelve hours last night and I reckon I could go for another seven or eight…it’s unbelievably good to be home. No trip to foreign McDonald’s this time, just one to the alternate reality known to me as our quasi season performances. But I am home today, flaking out on obligations because they just aren’t so important to me anymore. So what have I done so far? Nothing except for eat lunch. But I’m going to go start now.

I have many things on my to do list. Too many to write down for a change. I think there’s a chance I’m beginning to see my post-it wall as a massive waste, except for the fact that it reminds me what I was doing almost every week since July. I think it’ll be a while before I decide what to do with it.

How’s that for a useless post?

Who?

I’ve hesitated in writing this down, mainly because it makes me sound like the kind of person I hate the most: the buzz word using, cultural cliche toting, blowhard that talks about “identity” and “the in-between (aka interstitial spaces)”. It’s not that I think identity issues don’t exist it’s just that it all sounds so inconsequential to me in the context of a classroom. The problem is is that I’ve left the classroom and I find myself thinking about it. Do you sense the embarrassing confession coming? Well the confession itself isn’t embarrassing as much the process getting there is.

Every time I go to India, I start off thinking about how at home I feel there. How much I miss the smell and sound of the country. How I don’t feel the same way about any other country I’ve ever lived in. And it’s true, I feel a sense of nationalism and pride that I don’t feel towards any other country I’ve lived in and it hurts to have to leave after only 2 weeks. At some point in the same trip I will invariably think about the many ways in which I don’t fit into the Indian picture–in terms of mentality, language or experience. Somehow I would think that this would be solved by spending more time there.

This time around I realized something. I am not Indian. I haven’t been Indian since I was four. All I have to prove that I’m Indian are memories of my birth place, my brown face and an amazing variety of saris. It doesn’t feel nice to be excluded from something that you feel a part of on a fundamental level but at some point you have to call a spade a spade. My passport tells me I’m Canadian but I don’t think I’ll ever see India through the eyes of a normal tourist. So while I cringe about my ”identity issues” *shudder* I’ll just be a part of the amorphous national identity of Canada.

PS: Did I tell you how much I hate that I’m talking about this?

Eine Klein Wiener Schnitzel vom Schwein

It’s almost five in the morning and try as I might I can’t pretend that it’s not three in the afternoon in my brain, so I thought I’d regale you with stories of my trip. Both ways I stopped in Frankfurt at six in the morning. The good thing about this was that if I got out of the plane and cleared security as quickly as possible it wasn’t too difficult to find a clean bathroom and a relatively isolated place to sit. The bad thing about this was that I was starved. On the way there, thanks to an insufficient amount of Euros I settled for a truly horrendous bagel. A nothing on it sesame bagel. Blech. On the way back to Toronto, I had a few Euros to blow, so I decided I would get myself something edible. I don’t think I need to tell you how everything was a kajillion dollars. But it was. So in the interest of saving myself a bit of money I settled for this quaint little establishment:

Pretty nice huh? I think the left corner of this picture gives away the name of this fine eatery.

Yes it’s everyone’s favourite multinational corporation–a culturally sensitive McDonald’s, modified for European sensibilities. There was something so funny about sitting in a McDonald’s in Frankfurt that lacked the flourescent lighting and cheap furniture of a fast food joint. In fact, dare I say it, the decor was really nice. You actually felt like sitting their for longer than it took to scarf down the grease ball you just ordered. That brings us to the food.

Mickey D’s in all their pc glory have regional menus that include such favourites as the McAloo Tikki Burger in India and the McLobster on the Canadian East Coast. So when I got the chance to try the German menu I thought, why not order the McSchnitzel. Doesn’t that sound both fun and appetizing? Of course at the time I didn’t know what it was made out of seeing as how I only took a bite of it before I chucked the whole thing, I really don’t want to know what I took a bite of (so please google monsters, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know).

 It tasted like a deep fried gym mat.

Now I’m a Believer

Here in North America on any given day on most suburban streets you can see three types of wildlife: birds (which include pigeons, sparrows and robins if you’re lucky), garbage seeking animals (skunks and raccoons) and domesticated animals being walked. On occasion you’ll find an errant rabbit, but that’s just about as wild as you’ll get. Quiet, uncolourful and frankly quite uninteresting. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of why I find these uninteresting and I’m certainly not entertaining the “grass is greener” observations. This is particularism at its finest…monkeys are undeniably cooler than squirrels.

Well…my indignation over relativism has made me give my subject away before I was ready. But anyway, in the last few weeks I got to see some really interesting wildlife none of which I could take pictures of because I’m about as stealthy as an elephant in high heels and my camera doesn’t have the best zoom. To add insult to injury nobody else seemed to care about the animals around us…which makes me wonder HOW CAN YOU IGNORE MONKEYS?!

This made me set out on a mission to get a picture or two of the monkeys. I got them. Monkey mama:

And baby monkey:

I was very careful. I didn’t use a flash, but mama still got mad at me. She lunged! I thought at first that she was curious. But that was most definitely an angry face I saw so I started running. I happened to pass a guy who scared the monkey away for me. He seemed to think it was hilarious.

I’ve learnt my lesson. Never will I monkey with monkeys again.

Auld Lang Syne

I never knew the words to the song but I think it’s such an epic thing to sing as you welcome the new year in. I don’t like to think that the new year is special…it’s just an easily identifiable benchmark of what you’ve done over the year. Last year I made a few promises to myself on a very insignificant day. I’m sad to say that I haven’t learnt how to skate backwards, although I do know how to play 2 songs on the guitar and with that I’ve reached perfection…I have no need for resolutions. (HAH!) I think I’ll come up with them on an equally insignificant day. 

I think I’ll go sing auld lang syne at family now.