Borders without borders!

This time, it is not a sunny day that provoked me to blog. Pretty much all days are sunny now as the beautiful Spring has set its coming! It is the cafe' at Borders that makes me write this blog and share few thoughts that have been running through my mind. Now, let me set the background of the story- Borders is a retail book outlet. And I know each and every one of you would be wondering what am I doing in a book store. Well, for those who did not wonder, I myself keep wondering what am I doing here. As the saying goes, " An idle mind is a devil's workshop", my mind was starting to prove that too. And for a change my idle mind opted reading books-and yes not management but novels, fiction, thriller and the list of genre has not been finalised yet! Not quite voracious yet! Kichu has to travel to York, a village town 2.5 hours south-west of NJ, in the state of Pennsylvania where his company has a warehouse. And, I do not fore go any chance to travel ! Since the hotels here provide check in only after 3pm, and since the earliest that they can provide is 1pm, and again since I cannot be sitting in Kichu's office, I had only one option- Borders. Thank God I had finally decided to start reading.

Borders provides free Wi-Fi internet access. Now you get it! And that is why I am here busily blogging to let you know that, well, I do not know what I want to let you know! May be I just wanted to share what I felt of being here. I walked around the entire store looking for books. I found lots of John Grisham books on the shelf. Quickly grabbed " The Rainmaker" and walked around again to find out where I could sit and connect my laptop to the wall charger. On the corner of the store, I found a Seattle Best Cafeteria. At the corner of the cafeteria, I found a single table, next to the plug point! How excellent can it be. I ran towards the seat before someone else took it away! Connected my laptop, switched it on, did some Farmville and chatting and now Blogging!

Sometimes I wonder how much things have changed in my life. I was rather I am a person who prefers to be with friends or someone to whom I can always talk to. I hate being alone. I hate the loneliness that made my mind wander and bring in stupid thoughts. I hated being too far away from my family and loved ones. I had always wanted to keep myself busy, in my career, with my friends, pretty much in everything except reading. Now I sit here, in this cafe' , like an isolated soul, surrounded by all sorts of people. To the exact opposite corner to where I am sitting now, I can see someone busy with his laptop, may be he is typing his blog too. I can see a woman sitting alone and browsing through a magazine, opposite to her table, sits another guy browsing a magazine, may be the same one! 3 other tables are filled by single people busy reading books. # other tables have couples, each of them discussing their own personal matters. One of them busy planning their next date, one of them busy with their family problems and to be frank, I cannot hear what the other couple are talking! The entire cafeteria is filled with the mixing and brewing noises beautifully combined with the chit chat of people and the melody orchestra being played vaguely. Well, I feel like I am in a movie.!!

What am I doing here? Sitting and listening to everybody's conversation? Well, I will finish that and blogging in a while. After that? I have absolutely no clue on how I would be killing my time till 3 pm which is just 3 hours and 20 minutes away! May be I would plug in my earphones onto my ears and listen to some beautiful regional songs and start " The Rainmaker". Or may be I would chat to my friends, if anybody comes online.

I never knew that this country would bring such a drastic change in my life. No friends to talk to, rather no person to talk to, nothing to do on my own! And of all things, I started reading, something I had hated even when in school. But now reading really helps me restrain myself to the book and the world it creates for the reader. 6 books-2 weeks and now onto the 7th! Great statistics huh! Well, now I have one more thing to do, start counting my days to April 1st! Ah yes, I am making it to India, baby! :) An entire month of seeing my families and spending time with loved ones! What else would one like me need to escape this solitude of being stranded here! 21 days to go and here I come , to meet each and everyone of you! :)

San Diego, California

Another sunny morning makes me feel bright and active again! And my lazy brain feels like expressing itself really well today. Well, you guessed it right, that is why this post comes to you after a short short while of more than a week! When I was just brooding over on what shall i write about today, I came across this one small incident that had happened few months back , ah yes to me ! :)

After our Disney world trip, Kichu told me that he would have to go to San Diego in California where his company has a warehouse. Well, I did not have any reason to say that I would not be joining him. We had reserved our tickets well in advance, even before our Florida trip, though chronologically, Florida trip came first! As usual, like before any other trip, I did my research on the place, location, things to do when we were there and so on! That was when I realised that San Diego was on the border on USA and Mexico! What else did I want now? I started concentrating on how I could reach Tijuana ( pronounced as Ti-h-ua-na), the border city in Mexico. I realised later that since I had my visa formalities, I would not be able to step into Mexico. All I could do was, just peep and struggle to see the other side of the fence that separated the two countries! That was more than enough for me. Pretty much excited to see San Diego, we started off in the evening from here. We landed in San Diego at local time 1030pm. After collecting our baggage, we waited for the rental car shuttle to pick us up. Since it was in December, it was really cold in NJ, because of which I had worn 5 layers of dress. But I started sweating in SD. The temperature there was perfect for winter. People stared at us as they were all stuffed in jackets and we did not have even one! Little did they know that we have come all the way from North where it is really really cold! :)

After having Dominos pizza at 12 am, and sleeping off at 2 am, we woke up on the Saturday morning to have breakfast. After his office, Kichu came to the room, picked me up and we left to La Jolla ( La- Ho-yya) Drive, the most scenic and expensive neighbourhood in the city. Getting drenched in rain while on the sea shore had always been my nature perfect dream. That long time dream did come true there at La Jolla. After enjoying the calm and beautiful Pacific Ocean in rain, we drove across the streets to really just enjoy the beautiful sea. Day 2 -Sunday- full day at Sea World watching the Sea Lions, Killer Whales and Dolphins.

Day 3- Monday- I was pretty much in the room except for lunch and dinner. This time for dinner I said I would drive to the Indian restaurant we had found on the google maps. New place, new car, new roads, new rules, and mountains. Well, you got it! I was scared to drive. My ego did not let me admit that I was scared though. I started the Suzuki Forenza and drove down the streets which barely had some light or sometimes no light. I was getting all the more scared as it was a mountain and had ups and downs and curves at every half mile without any lights. I tried putting the high beams, as there were no other cars on the road. I started panicking a lot. Kichu gave me all the confidence. Do you know what he said? " The roads would not suddenly stop as Dead End without any sign. So just keep going". Well, he was right. But that was not what my mind was thinking. All I could see was just black roads that were right in front of me. I could not see the direction of the road even in high beam! What a car :( I cursed everything on the way. Suddenly at a point, all I could was a black thing like a wall in front of me, one side mountains, one side valley! I panicked and slammed the brakes real hard to just stop there. Kichu started smiling and asked me what happened. I said I cannot see anything except a black wall in front of me. He asked me to just drive forward and see what it was. May be you guessed it right this time also, it was just a steep up on the road. But it did not seem like that when I checked for it! My heart did not stop beating hard and fast. It was beating real fast and I was panting all the way through though Kichu was laughing! I got real angry at him, but kept everything in control and decided to burst when back in room! :) After a couple of minutes of my stupid tensed brake slam, a car came on the roads behind our car. I felt real happy to see a fellow driver behind me, some one to accompany me atleast.

We drove together for about 15 minutes. Roads were real small with just the exact width for two cars to travel at the same time, speed limit being 35 mph. Normally, in such deserted roads people here travel at 45-50 mph as there would not be any cops. And if there was a slow driver in front of such a driver, he would tail gate him to the core that he would get fed up and then speed up himself. I was driving at 30 mph as I could not still see the roads properly. I did not have to speed myself up as the fellow driver behind me was not tail gating me at all. He maintained the distance beautifully through out the route that we were together. I started calming down my fear and temper by appreciating my fellow driver to Kichu. He did not respond much to what I said, he just kept smiling throughout. After the long haul of 15-20 mins, a junction with a signal came up. ALAS- I wanted to scream Eureka to have seen street lights finally! I also made sure that the fellow driver had the gap to over take me! Surprisingly at the signal, I was driving straight and he was turning to the right! I eagerly waited for him to pull his car forward so that I could see the driver and smile at him for giving me company. Since Kichu was sitting on the non driver seat, I could barely see him. But I leaned forward and tried my best to get a glance of him. Finally, I saw him smiled at him, and he smiled back at me. I leaned back and that was when my brain slowly started deciphering the letters that my eyes had read on his car that read ' SAN DIEGO POLICE'. It did not strike me first, but in a few seconds my brain realised that I was calling a cop my fellow driver and then hey no wait, I was being followed by a COP! oh my Lord. Before I could get a second glance of his wonderful smile, he drove away. I looked at Kichu. As usual, he smiled and said " I knew this before, I did not want you to panic again. He started following us after the brake slam you did. May be he just wanted to make sure everything was fine. Or may be he wanted to ticket somebody and he found only you driving on this lonely deserted road and hence he followed you!" I had my mouth wide open and the signal turned green. Kichu said "hello madam Drive!! 'I started driving again and I told Kichu " Little did he know that Lekshmi was driving! She always drives below speed limit! He does not know that na!!" Well, that was a vain attempt to console myself or may be praise myself. Actually I do not know why I said that. I did not know what to say either. I did not know if it was a matter of pride to make a cop follow me and take care of me or was it just pure coincidence that he followed me as there was no body else there. Kichu concluded his smile and silence by saying this " All these years, no cop has followed me. You made a California motta cop follow you for no reason. Take it as a pride that he followed you to make sure you were alright!". Since I always take his words for the expert thought, I, till now have assumed what he said was right.

We reached the restaurant and I was still pondering in the cop thoughts! Kichu said he would drive way back. And you know what happened? This time the Maps showed us another route that had lots of street lights and straight roads on the way! Why does this crap happen only when I drive? I have never hated google maps so much! Kichu ended up smiling more rather laughing more , each time he thought about this! He always gets the better route while driving.

I could not forget the Cop's face for the next few days. On the last day, hours before our flight back to NJ, we drove to Las Americas Premium Outlet mall, which was on the border to Mexico. I got to see the fence that separated the two neighbours and the thickly populated mountain in Tijuana. After clicking as many pictures as my brain and hands wanted me to , we returned to the airport and boarded our flight. Even then. rather even now, that cop's face haunts me every time I drive. Be it for any good reason, or be it unknowingly, I passed the cop's test without any preparation and escaped his tickets! So ultimately I guess it is a matter of pride right?