This post is an apology to everyone with whom I've not been in touch.

I am busy because I have now enrolled myself for courses at the U of H. That, at least, is that the people here like calling themselves. It is kind of amusing because this place does seem like a U of Hindustan of sorts because the majority of people here are Indian.

Indians are a very strange people and it is strange that I should be saying this considering there are few people who don't find me strange. Also, I am Indian too and so ideally I should be an aoplogist for others like me. But there is no option but to feel apologetic for your race when during a speech a hand blocks your vision and a voice says, "Hi. Myself Mechanical."

Then there are times when you completely loose yourself in a time pocket of sorts because you suddenly realise that the only people in the elevator are Indians. Your embarrassment begins to set in when the decibel levels in the elevator rise because they are talking. The US of A is a really quiet country, so quiet, that they possibly replaced water by paper because otherwise everyone on the other side of the door would know what stage of the procedure you reached. You begin to turn red in the face when your fellow country men crowd around you seeking the comfort of a familiar skin colour. You get really embarrassd when someone presses the emergency call button in the elevator by leaning on it, and when the operator says "hello?" all that she gets is a muffled giggle.

No wonder Asok is the loser he is. But then again, he is one of us.

It is indeed disturbuing because I am yet to figure out what people here think. People here are multifaced and the quality is not consired a disqualification. The more you can hide you feelings the better. So is it that everyone we talk to on the phone says, "Thank you for calling us, glad to be of help to you............fucking Indian!"? Possibly. Possibly not. I'd never know.

So what is embarrassing me about Indians here? I don't really know. Possibly it is that they don't try to fit in into a culture different from their own. Somewhat like the Bengali people at St. Stephens. Or maybe it is the fact that their idea of fitting into a culture is speaking like the people in whose land they are living. Maybe it is because they either just disparage India or glorify India where it is not even required. Maybe it is all of the above.

Probably it is none of the above.

Maybe it is that I am unsure of myself because I still don't know what kind of an impression I leave where ever I go. Probably, I am yet to get immune to it in this culture. In this place where there is this apparent disinterest in people about your activities, in this place where Big Brother is watching, in this place where things function in a fashion that is so vastly different from things in India, I still need to find that equilibrium between being a personal and a social entity.

It is probably because of this lack of equilibrium that Indians, whose ways I am familiar with and not always approving of, usually end up embarrassing me.

And this is where the need for the apology promised at the beginning of this litany becomes apparent. Friends are central to anyone finding one's equilibrium with society and it is precisely this that I want to thank you all for. I was on firm footing in India because I knew how interpersonal relations worked there. And I need to apologise for ignoring what I know in order to pay more attention to what I seek to learn.