Introduction.

I’m 22 years old and still in school. Mind you, not like the occasional 20-year old recluse you encounter in high school. I’m in my second year of graduate school, working on a bullshit Master’s degree and all the while salvaging a second, hopefully more useful Master’s degree (this one in Public Health). I have no idea what I want to do, I live in a building where Allston criminals hide regularly after their latest stabbing spree, and the one time somebody broke in to my apartment he didn’t steal anything but watched me sleep till I woke up and chased him out. I’ve called 911 twice this year just because of where I live. Can’t say my life is uninteresting.

People in the US always seem shocked to hear that we have to pick a career choice by the time we’re 15 back home. After being here for 7 years, I’m starting to feel the same way. Mainly because the direction my career is taking is about as straight as that of a bayl escaping from a tabela. I wonder if that’s what this country needs. Concentrated fear, instilled by the lectures you grew up listening to because you hadn’t saved the world using quadratic equations by the time you were 12. I’m constantly worried about what the hell I want to do with my life, and as much as I love my friends, I want to give them a dhakka when they say “You’re just 22! You have time!”

Going home to India has become something I anticipate as well as dread, like when you take a bite of that cheese you’re craving but aren’t sure if it has gone bad yet. I hate the “how long before you become a doctor, eh?” – jeez, all I want is some home-cooked pav-bhaji, why do you have to ask me this every 10 minutes? At this point I have performed CPR on a child, helped treat bomb blast victims, written a bunch of stories, received my Emergency Med Tech license, extensively analyzed Persian literature, taken Public Health classes, and have day-dreamed about being a lion-tamer. My closest friends are musicians, medical/nursing students, journalists, film majors, writers, engineers. I came to this country so I’d have more career options, among other things like toilet paper instead of a lota, and vacuum cleaners instead of a jhaadu. Too much of a good thing.

In the future I will write about many things. Health, food, politics, women, men, Bollywood, India. But most importantly, nothing important at all.  

Yes, I wrote this while I was in lecture. Gotta pack up so I can race all the cars on the way home with my bicycle.