So it has happened. my tryst with Longs drugs has come to an end. I bade farewell the day I finished 5 years with the company. no, my loyalty was not with the company but with my profession and my patients.
I was overwhelmed by the number of people who came in just to say goodbye to me, bearing lots of love and goodwill. the whole day all I did was hug people who might as well be complete strangers, other than the fact that i know everything about their medical history! It was a very gratifying day. I got a lot of email addresses and I have promised people that I will keep in touch. I hope I can keep my promise.
Through all these years, I always wondered whether I "do too much" for my patients, do I get too involved in their lives? My husband has told me on numerous occasions that I do more than I have to for my job. Hmm....that sounds familiar. I remember my aai saying something similar to my baba all along while I was growing up! If you know me, you know that my father has always been and will always be my role model. As I grow older and smarter(!?) I have come to realize that I am more and more like him and I am so proud of that fact. He has instilled the value of helping others in me so deeply that it has become a part of my personality. So anytime, somebody comes up to me to tell me that they appreciate me and my work, I mentally salute him, for it is his life and teaching that has made who I am today. Thank you, baba for everything that I can put in words and for all the other things that I cannot.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Where is home?
This was my last weekend at work and I was terribly sad. I do not handle goodbyes well. I get attached to everything around me fairly quickly and begin to consider it my own. Given this proclivity towards genuine attachment, it came as no surprise to me that once the excitement of going back to India subsided a little, I started feeling a tremendous void. i am already thinking of a world without all of my things, my familiar and comfortable life, here in thousand oaks. a life that i had painstakingly constructed for myself with my hubby and had coloured it the way we always wanted!
When I sat down to write this entry I thought of writing about things that I will miss about the US in India, the things that i love here. but then I realised i cannot compare the life here with the one there for one very simple reason. I do not know anything about the life there. I have been away from india for going on 10 years now. I am very different from the person who landed in a cream salwar kameez at NYC's JFK airport. And the country that I said goodbye to has gone the fastest and most noticeable change in these last 10 years. My exposure to the tremendously varied experiences in this country especially in California have shaped me and given me a maturity that did not exist 10 years ago. So when i tell people that we are going back home, i think to myself, "is that really true? do i really know what home is?" When we visited India for the few short weeks of vacation every couple of years,i could not wait to get back "home", whether it was freezing Pittsburgh, blowing Simi Valley or foggy Newbury Park. So now i am thinking i am going back home to India, a place that i think i know very well but do i? What i have decided is to consider this as a move to a new place, like all the others we have had so far, a new country, a new set of people and hence a new set of challenges. Keeping an open mind, free of preconceived notions and expectations will make my transition a lot easier than otherwise.
As for where my home is..........well, as some one rightly said....
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS! or in another, very familiar language, close to my heart...
Jahaan pe sawera ho, basera wahin hain!
Jahann pe basera ho, sawera wahin hain!
When I sat down to write this entry I thought of writing about things that I will miss about the US in India, the things that i love here. but then I realised i cannot compare the life here with the one there for one very simple reason. I do not know anything about the life there. I have been away from india for going on 10 years now. I am very different from the person who landed in a cream salwar kameez at NYC's JFK airport. And the country that I said goodbye to has gone the fastest and most noticeable change in these last 10 years. My exposure to the tremendously varied experiences in this country especially in California have shaped me and given me a maturity that did not exist 10 years ago. So when i tell people that we are going back home, i think to myself, "is that really true? do i really know what home is?" When we visited India for the few short weeks of vacation every couple of years,i could not wait to get back "home", whether it was freezing Pittsburgh, blowing Simi Valley or foggy Newbury Park. So now i am thinking i am going back home to India, a place that i think i know very well but do i? What i have decided is to consider this as a move to a new place, like all the others we have had so far, a new country, a new set of people and hence a new set of challenges. Keeping an open mind, free of preconceived notions and expectations will make my transition a lot easier than otherwise.
As for where my home is..........well, as some one rightly said....
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS! or in another, very familiar language, close to my heart...
Jahaan pe sawera ho, basera wahin hain!
Jahann pe basera ho, sawera wahin hain!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
So, a new year all over again....sounds cliched, but its true, a time to look back at what has happened and a time to decide you are not going to repeat the same things again! All those resolutions that you were just thinking about for the last few months seem to line up in anticipation of fulfillment. But alas!!! just as promises are meant to be broken, so too will these resolutions be relegated to the interior folds of memory only to be summoned in exactly another year.....when another countdown in a drunken haze reminds you of another beautiful year gone by!!
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