I have been following her and her friend for a whole minute. She has no idea still…

The two Delta flights took off almost at the same time. DL421 was pulling out of its gate in Accra airport and slightly delayed DL2017 was already screaming down Runway 8R-26L in Atlanta airport. Two Roy family members were headed towards the same destination – JFK New York. Except Natasha had no idea.

I had been waiting for this day for five long months. I had been waiting for her to come back from Ghana safely. For a person who has only stereotypical knowledge of Africa, it was a hard thing to get used to when she declared that she would spend a semester in Ghana, Africa. However, there was a part that knew that she had to do what she needed to do and experience the real world out there all by herself.

The distance and lack of knowledge brought in a sense of helplessness too. This is not like New York that if she fell ill, we could jump on to a plane and be beside her. Just to get a visa to West African countries is a five week process that starts with yellow fever vaccination.

Still, we had thought that either Sharmila or I will visit her once during the semester. Well, unfortunately, days after Natasha left, we lost our father in law. Sharmila had to make two trips to India. And that put paid to any chance of going to visit Natasha.

There were no direct phone calls for five months. Internet was very spotty for her. Those frequently-interrupted voip calls were our only way of hearing her voice. The text messaging was the life line.

Thru the pictures she had sent us, we got to know a lot about Ghana. Their people, their food, their lifestyle, their value system and so much more. But the best part of everything – and the one I feel very proud about – is that Natasha, outside of her studies devoted a lot of her hours helping out orphans and developmentally challenged kids in Accra. In fact, she got herself associated with a school there and spent 2-3 days every week. Getting to see the pictures of the kids around her was incredibly satisfying.

Courses and subject knowledge can be taught over time. Compassion and empathy are difficult to teach.

So, here I am – sitting at a hotel bar next to the JFK airport. A few hours of sleep later, I will have to show up at the airport at 5 AM and see what her face looks like when she sees me!!

If everything goes smoothly and she can stay awake, I have a lot of questions for her about Ghana. On second thoughts, I think I will ask her to sleep in the plane after a 12-hour overnight flight already. I just want to sit next to her for some time after all these months.

… or in other words, free wine for me.

I came straight from the airport and arrived earlier than her. It was funny hearing all the visitors talk about her and her paintings as I milled around incognito.

At one point I walked up to a couple staring at one of her works and asked “You like this painting?”. The old couple immediately touched the painting protectively and said “We have already bought this”. Like I was going to snatch it away from under their nose or something…

I just said “Oh” and shimmied on…

It does not get much better than this…

Over six hours of out in the mountains on the motorbike with two awesome friends or doing math with Nikita for over four hours. The good news is that it was a virtual tie! The bad news? I have done nothing else today!!
But can I show you how to graph complex trigonometric functions or what? 🙂

Instead of waking up with the sunrise, he chooses to cover his eyes with his paws and continue sleeping.

After 10 days of frustratingly scrambling thru the refrigerator searching for stuff, I finally gave in today and organized the whole dang thing by categories. While not exactly following a Dewey decimal system, the post-its at least spell out the categories. In the process, I managed to come up with an empty shelf too. I was so pleased with myself that I called Nikita to show off my organization powers.

“Do you like how I have organized everything?”
“You know what she will say, right?”
“What?”
“I CAN’T FIND ANYTHING, ANYWHERE”
Somewhat deflated, I asked “You do not know that.”
“I should know, dad”
“How?”
“Because that is what I do to her when she tries to organize my bedroom”.

Oh! Boy!!

I did not even take a picture of the “before” situation to undo everything!!

Every year, the local Bengali community asks me to write something for their annual publication. Usually, I pick something from my blog and then send it to them. This year, they asked me to put together a few blogs and write out a longer piece.

Which I did. With a lot of effort. After finishing it, I waited a day and then did a read over. Corrected a lot of mistakes that I had and changed a few of the constructs.

Then I had a brainwave. Since we have a budding journalist in our house, I sent it to Natasha and asked her if she could edit it for me.

I think she paid me back for all her workbook corrections I did when she was younger! Not only did she make a lot of edits, she put a 10-bullet point note in the beginning – on common mistakes I make that I should avoid. The last one was 5 sentences long in bold and beautiful font!!! And now I know what a “em dash” is!!

That said, she did give it a very polished look. After looking at what she has done to my initial script, I am tempted – a wee bit – to actually write a book about my life journey – provided Natasha agrees to edit it.

I can visualize the title page already…

“History of my Future. First Draft.”
Written by: Rajib Roy
(Liberally) Edited by: Natasha Roy

🙂

Learnt the difference between a professional and an amateur today!