where did it all go?

It is close to 1 AM. I am laying down on my stomach.. reading a paper while madhursangeet.com plays the sweet melody of "neend na mujhko aayein..".

I suddenly recall the cold nights that I used to spend on the terrace in our mysore home under the yellow light that dimly lit the terrace and pouring over my 10th (all the way to 2nd year Pre University) class notes. I remember the radio beginning my post dinner study at Chhayageet at 10 on vividh-bhaarati, to go to a national public radio kind of station that went on until 4 AM. I would wander among random morse-codes like things sometimes playing on short-wave. All kinds of news, classical music, western, chinese even turkish and russian music some times.. whatever the waves spilt on my shores were welcome in those lonely silent hours.

I would look at various neighbor's lights going on and off .. watch strangers' silhouettes going to bathrooms, getting a drink of water, smoking..and turning the lights off again. I remember some odd guy riding the bicycle on the street, I can hear the goorkha's eerie whistling and beating sticks at the stone-walk-in's of different front yards.. And mesmerizing tunes of Rafi... aasha bhonsle's sweet voice.. Hemant Kumar's melancholic calls.. and some times Karachi-radio's kawwalis.. I would immerse myself in their music.. digress.. but eventually, I would return to my notes looking yellow in the 60-watt bulb light in the dark night..
I miss the yellowish dark nights, I miss my terrace and my notes.. I miss me back then.
Where is all that gone?

I can drive between the two ends now!

Although it is delayed information, I am delighted to share with the reader, that I can drive the car now. I carry a TX driver's license with me.. and I am not afraid to use it. Here are the perks:

I can drive without going on unstable transient oscillations of the steering wheel at every lane-change, (they are quasi-stable nowadays).
I can drive without shooting over to the oncoming traffic at every right turn.
I can drive now without having my white-hot nerves burst out of my skin.
I can drive without needing a psychiatric evaluation at the end of every point-A-to-point-B.

I ride the motorbike to school everyday, and drive every weekend to Houston for my conjugal visits :-). As you may know.. I lead a double life in every way. In Austin, I am a semi-hippie motorcyclist, In Houston, I sit on the passenger seat checking my hair and makeup. In Austin, I wake up in the morning or early afternoons to gulp cereal and speed to school. In Houston, I make sure the previous night that the dosa-dough dish has a plate underneath it so that it does not spill over on the counter! In Austin, I don't eat or I eat ice-cold-the-only-veggie-option-left-from-last-year greek wraps. In Houston, I discover new exotic spices and recipes to please my husbands gastrointestinal tract. I am a jobless-lazy-superficially-intelligent grad student on weekdays. On weekends, I am a narcissistic-insecure-possessive-extremely-house-wife-y spouse of my caring husband. On the wheels of my cooper, I love both the ends of my spectrum!!