The Story of Rodger and Peter

“Peter is nowhere to be seen today” she said leaning against the window. Her eyes twitched. The hot July afternoon sun barged in through the window and stood between us. Dust particles danced in concentric circles to the tunes of a typical afternoon.

I had my black, rugged hoodie on, which never left my body no matter what the outside temperature was. She asked if I wasn’t feeling hot in that and I said no.

Until a few weeks ago, before coming here, she never asked if I was feeling hot. She only asked how cold it was, and how cold it is going to get in winter. The possibility of a hot American summer was unfathomable to her. She never quiet believed me when I said it does get hot here in July.

It’s not her fault, though.

People, in general, and Indians in specific, have some unfounded and (often times)rigid perspectives of the life outside India. It’s like a disease. Highly contagious and detrimental to mental health.

Main cause of the disease is the family member or the friend who brags about their acquaintance living abroad(whom they visited a short while ago for a short time). Exposure to movies and American television is also one of the big causes.
Symptoms include having unrealistic and (sometimes) bizarre notions about foreign lifestyle. Patient starts deluding about the grand life outside India.

‘Sweat never runs down the skin of a person standing on American soil. Ever.’
‘Bodies are always covered with good, stylish hoodies. Hands are always covered with gloves. Streets with snow. Air with luxury. Dreams with success.
‘Better life. Better world. Kid is now “settled”’

Its only when the plane lands on the foreign land and you start seeing things from your own eyes that one of two things happen. Either you get cured, lose all the delusions and accept the life as is. Or you get more ill, falling further into the spiral of depression and hopelessness trying to match your reality which does not match with your expectations. Not even close.

I was not cured because I never got ill in the first place. I was vaccinated early enough. On Time. Every Time. Prevention is better than cure.

I had no such high expectations. What I had was a very strict agenda. Get a job. The sooner, the better.
And so far I have accomplished it successfully, though not completely. I wanted a job in a big city and live in the downtown area.

Where I live now is quite the contrary. I live in a very small town in Indiana very close to being in the middle of nowhere. I get up.
Sometimes grudgingly. Sometimes enthusiastically to go to job.
But Always come back excitedly for lunch in the afternoon and banter with my wife about things in general and nothing in particular.

“Who is Peter?”
“Peter is that doggy who lives in that apartment”
“What?”
I swiveled my chair to face the window and looked in the direction in which her finger was pointing. There was no dog outside.
“Is it a real dog?”
“Yeah”
“and the doggy who lives there…” she changed the direction in which her finger was pointing
“…his name is Rodger”
“How do you know their names?” I asked.
“I just made them up”

Wow!
I had to give it to her for her imagination skills. In a few weeks she’d been here, she recognized two dogs, found out where they lived and then came up with proper, unique, rhyming dog names for them.
And I was the storyteller in the family?
The so-called writer. Poet. Who spends his time complaining about how he doesn’t get time to write.

When I first moved here in this small town in Indiana, I was not sure if I would adjust here. It was completely opposite to what I had imagined. One of the things which I ardently desired (and still do) is to live on the top floor of a tall building and this was nowhere close to that. And yet I have survived. Living here for some time has changed my perception, not of the abroad life, but of the life in India. It has taught me contentment like no other way.

When I used to travel by bus in India from one big city to another, I used to look at the small towns and villages by the highway and feel an unfounded sympathy towards people living in those areas. I pitied them for living so far from the outside world and so distant from the population. Sitting in the bus moving at a high speed and observing these towns for a brief 3-4 seconds, I just assumed that people living there were not happy with their lives.

I now imagine anyone who goes past my town cruising on the highway would feel the same way about me, and they couldn’t be more wrong.

If only they look closer, they would find me in my black hoodie sitting under the shade of the hot July afternoon sun, having lunch with my wife and bantering about the stories of Rodgers and Peters.

And the next time I travel to India from Indiana, I shall look closer too.

Distant Dreams in Indiana