I thought driving on a highway would be the test ultimate. I now know I was not totally right. So far, I am finding it harder to drive in the suburban alleys than highways.

To elaborate- you see suburban roads and alleys are full of surprises and hazards like- kids on cycles, cars running in different speeds, roundabouts (there are at least a 100 roundabouts in the suburb I live in! Not exaggerating a bit!) and the web-work of housing plan typical to Melbournian suburbs… that is very little help, too.

For a person like me who has a habit of… err… turning the steering wheel very (and I mean… VERY) abruptly…. the alleys are a whole new level of roller coaster driving! I rock…. so not!

Wheeeee…. now…. stocktaking:

- The car so far does not have any collateral damage from my driving
- I have not sent anyone to hospital… yet
- Kids on cycles still roam around and I am not the ‘new terror of the block’… yet
- I drove on the highway yesterday… other than missing JUST ONE red signal- I did alright (teehee!)

And oh…. I am still just as terrified (but possibly just a tad bit better than before); but maybe…. just maybe… in one of these days (not too soon) I will be able to drive without constantly panicking about gruesome stuffs like accidents, blood and hospital smell.

One can hope

I woke up at 4:30 this morning.

Seriously, who wakes up at 4:30? Other than my colleague Pammy, that is? But Pammy, at least, has a reason! She drives half of Victoria to get to work at 7:30 after all! What was wrong with me, though?

Nothing was!

Well, to be honest, something was… but still, 4:30 AM!

I have my driving lessons this evening….. This is such a wrong day for this to have happened! Am I not enough stressed (read ‘terrified’) already about the driving thing without these craps happening to me?

Argh!

I have always admired the courage to break away from something crappy and starting anew, from scratch. As simple as it sounds- it does take a lot to tear away from something you have grown used to, something you have known as an important part of your life- and build a new one, with your own two hands, your heart and your brain.

In my own small way, I have done it with my own life- giant leaps and baby steps towards the sun; it’s still not over- I’m still walking, running and crawling towards the sun. I wish someday I’ll reach it, too. I have some wonderful friends who did it, too. For some of them it took more than it took me, because I also had a wonderful companion beside me- the crazy man who has been tolerating my whims for a long time now. As independent as I am as a person, in this journey of life- I was never truly alone. This post, though, is not about me.

This post is about my friend ‘Bea’ (that’s my name for her for this blog); who took the first epic step towards freeing herself from the old skin and grow a new one. That first step, my friends, is always the hardest and I’d say that the worst is now over. Now it’s time to pick up the dagger and dig through, to work her way through until the sun breaks- taking breaks for drinks occasionally or a few laughs- because it does not have to be all work and boring, all it matters now is not losing the sight of the sun.

There’s no looking back now. I think it’s wonderful.

I realize I remembered it all when I saw her email today; a face from the childhood has somehow found me. I replied back and then came her reply… back and forth and back….

Things kept coming back like flashes of lightning, things I did not think I remembered… light blue school uniforms, two tight plaits, white socks, laughter, the angry Dhaka sun, bully kids, school buses full of kids singing chirping and shouting, noisy traffic, paan chewing bus drivers, feriwalas…. and amidst that all that busy-ness somewhere…. the face.

A face that remembers me from 19 years back; a face who was a good friend that saved me from bullies a number of times; and then one day- all of a sudden- she stopped being a friend- just like that, I never knew why. I don’t know how she found me again, but it was important for her to do so… and apologise to me for something she did when she was… what… 10 years old?

I had almost forgotten her, I do remember she was mostly a good friend; but the fact that she cared enough to find me to make peace after all these years- meant something to me.

As Crazy said when I told him, it does sound like an episode from ‘My Name is Earl’… it feels weird; but good too.

It’s been four years now…. almost four years that I relocated to this new country, new culture and started afresh. Sometimes I look back and remember how it had been before this- sometimes fondly, sometimes introspectively… sometimes because nostalgia is the kind of romanticism I am often a victim of…. it’s a part of who I am and what I am: namely, a weirdo; a weirdo you say you love nonetheless? Yea?

Anyway, I did that again today… I looked back. I realize my life has changed a lot in the last four years. I have had many things I did for the FIRST time in these four years- took public transport, cooked and learnt to cook, studied and worked at the same time, did housework, budgeted for my expenses, paid utility bills and earned my own living. I was no longer the snobbish and spoilt pampered girl who had only a vague idea how everyone else lives around the world… I was not exactly basking in luxury in this new life, but I was more ‘in control’.

Back home, I had never driven a car myself. There is a silly chauffeur culture in the social class that I used to belong to; hardly anyone ever drives in that social group. Everyone has a chauffeur. I know those of you who has never been there will find it hard to believe- but it’s true. I’m not proud of it, but yet I held a rather irrational fear of driving, of traffic- of being on my own in the jungle of roads and highways… I’m terrified of dying in a car accident, blood all over me and my bruised face unrecognizable . I can be quite horrific and vivid in my head, I know.

That being said- I have finally signed up for driving lessons and had my first one today. In my list of firsts, I have some more things that I can add today- for the first time today-I sat at the driver’s seat, held a steering wheel, pushed an accelerator, pushed a break- for the first time today, I have driven a car. I was terrified; but I have decided to learn, to take more control, to have a car of my own.

I’m quite smug and weirdly excited about this whole thing. I’m such a loser!

Seems like I am the human thermometer in the office- with workmates oftentimes trying to figure out if it’s hot or cold with the kind of jacket I’m wearing , or if I’m wearing any at all, the length of the sleeve, the texture of what I’m wearing, even the colour.

Of course- they exaggerate, but they must notice something, as they most definitely do comment.

I wore my white cotton summer top today, short sleeved and a colourful butterfly embroidered in the front, no jacket and three quarter jeans. Seeing me walk in- they decided it must be warm today.

I played around, too. Dude, its casual Friday and it was a pleasant 26 degrees this morning. Who needs to see the mercury rising to feel that?

That makes me think- I must put a lot of thought in my attire without even realizing it! I must be a girl

I remember as a child I used to get very excited at the prospect of ‘having ice cream’, much like most kids you’ll know. The consistent house favourite flavour was ‘chocolate’- and in that crazy Dhaka heat, that used to be a very refreshing thing. It was my cousin Sash and me and a big bowl of ice cream in hot Dhaka afternoons- it was always Sash and me- we were like peas in a pod… always together… always up to something. We thought that’s how our lives will remain forever. The practical aspects of ‘growing up’ were a blissfully alien concept to us back then.

Days went by since those summer days, we gained some years to our merit and, along the way somewhere, I lost most of my love for ice creams… especially the chocolate flavour. These days, it is a flavour I like the LEAST- and that’s putting it mildly- I skip ice cream altogether if it’s chocolate flavour. The flavours I like now are fruity- like mango, strawberry; or creamy- like vanilla, butter scotch.

Sash still likes her chocolate ice cream (or at least she did when we last met); we have both grown up and it’s been many years we have not met and much when we have not spoken… Many things have happened in these years, not all good. But… regardless of everything else- of two of us growing up to be two very different persons, of the ocean parts us, of many more things that I cannot say here- on this warm and sunny Melbourne day, I wish I could turn back time and be that little girl in pink spaghetti-strings cotton frock and white two-string sandals, sitting on the stairs of the lawn of our massive family house in Old Dhaka with the only friend I had ever known having cold chocolate ice cream from the tub while chatting and giggling away.

Life was so so simple then, that when I think about how it was those twenty or so years back, it almost seems like a part of someone else’s life now.

I have too many people around me complaining about the weather these days. Other than those that I ignore because they’d complain about the weather anyway- be it hot or cold or neither- I guess they are entitled to, too. Not many would enjoy a 30+ degrees heat, I can understand that.

I have to say, I still like it, and I guess that means I’m still insane. I have all my half sleeved shirts out from the almost forgotten corners of my wardrobe that I hardly ever get a chance of wearing any other time of the year! And let me tell you- those shirts are pretty with puffed half sleeves and very summer-y. I like pretty things. They make me happy !

Melbourne weather is much different than Dhaka. Back at Dhaka- you have ‘defined’ seasons- the summer months do not get below 10 degrees any time of the day any day- and those sorts of things. Here though, you can never tell; like this morning it was rather cold… and I know the evening will be warm again. I guess the part of the proof of my ‘blending in’ in Melbourne ways is in the way I started to ‘enjoy’ the proverbial ‘seven seasons in a day’ of Melbourne weather.

To be honest, I quite like it. After all… most people are bored by monotony

We had friends over to ours today- lunch, dinner and movie…

The menu? It was what we call ‘Paya Soup’ in our part of the world- it was something we used to have may be once a year- a cholesterol filled soup made with leg bones and cooked on stove with lots of herbs and spices for 12+ hours. Because it is so bad for you- it is also delicious- as you know that’s how things work in this world… It is one of those things you nag to mommy about, after all mommies get blackmailed easily. Well…. usually.

swinging my feet…, originally uploaded by Princess Cy.

This friend lost her mommy some years back and hasn’t had that soup since then. She asked me to call her when I make it next. I did. In fact, it was cooked because she asked- I don’t cook it that often otherwise. It meant some that she had asked.

So yea- we ended up having a good time- lazy chats about alien landings and conspiracy theories, the 33 degrees heat outside, the air conditioner, the cone ice creams, a fluffy cat roaming around- it was lazy good; and now that everyone has gone back to their homes- I’m slowly calling it a day… a day I made myself happy by opening up to the world just a little bit.

G’day to you, too!

The first year we came to Australia- I bought for candies for the kids who may knock my door for trick or treating. No one came and we thought ‘May be Halloween is not as big in Aussieland’.

It really wasn’t. I always thought it should, though. It is such a cute festival… carved pumpkins, dressed up little devils, candies… its crazy cute; yes it is! I got candies the following years, too. Still no kid knocked my door, and Crazy and I ate them later. None of us are big candy fans- but oh well…

It’s Halloween Time!, originally uploaded by LostMyHeadache.

This year- I did not buy candies and had friends over for dinner on the Halloween night; and three (yes, THREE!) kids dressed as ‘Joker’, ‘Devil’ and some other Spooky character from those books that I did not recognise- came over.

Told ya, dude…. Murphy loves me! Believe it, will you?

Anyway- after a two-minute frantic search in my IKEA goodie basket on the kitchen counter- I found a bar of Twist, a bar of Turkish Delight (which was like my staple food during the flu) and a Kinder Surprise. It was a happy thing that I found them! I’d have thrown a fit if I did not! Sometimes, for a non-chocolate person like me, being an impulse buyer of chocolates does come handy, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile I think the evolving Aussie culture is picking up Halloween. I’m happy for that … and Mr. Murphy, here is something for you:

‘Ha! Howzzat?! I beat ya!’