Change

I've quite long hair now. I plan to let it grow.

All my life, except the last few months, and except a few other months when I was around eleven, I've kept the same style for my hair. That is, keeping it oiled, and well combed, with a straight line in the left side... Extremely boring and I knew it. However, I was always afraid to experiment. If the line moved a bit to the centre, when I get out of my room I would be thinking - am I looking weird? Is everyone looking at me because my hair looks weird?

All that's gone now. I have a line in the centre of the head now, the hair is pretty much messy, and I dont really care most of the time. I am happy about it. Another inhibition out of the window.

There are parallel stories about several other things, but let them remain personal.

But another thing I feel like writing is: I have probably more friends here now than in India. This might sound stupid, I've been living here for only one year, yet it is true. In terms of female friends, the ratio compared to the ones in India is several times higher. In India, I've a handful of friends who have seen me grow for the last 7 years or more, but them is them, and no one more. Rest are mere acquaintances.

Here I cook together with some friend, sometimes eat with a few more, sometimes we eat out, we go to cafes and talk, we go to French bars (which is a coffee table bar with alcohol, not like the Indian bars) and drink and talk, we go to pubs and dance bars. I have friends of different types: those who can take the roles ranging from the extremely intelligent and intellectual to the ones who are incredibly funny. Who can bring a smile and calmness to my face by their mere looks.

I am also realizing that I love people and I love talking, about the intellectual to the insanely stupid, from cheesy flirting to the ridiculously obscene - depending on the mood and company (at least when I am not hungry :D). A stark contrast with my life in Bangalore and before, where I was afraid of meeting new people.

I've had several interesting experiences. Just take last week: I went out with my labmates - 4 girls - French, Romanian, Chinese and Argentinian - to the "Beaujolais" - some kind of wine binge drinking festival. We met their friends there: a Spanish girl - a medical student - who looks like Penelope Cruz (and I told this to her), her friends from Chile and Cuba - the former a surgery student and the other a musician. I consider it fascinating to hear the Chilean correcting me on Allende - saying it is pronounced "Ayyende" - and how he went on talking about medical cultures in Chile, Cuba, France and United States, and how he went with his friend to Cuba when he was 15. After a bit of drinking, we went out to a dance club... and later went back home with Argentinians, Italians and Czech.

The next day, I went out for dinner to a Lebanese restaurant: with 4 Syrians, an Indian (Bengali) and a Romanian and an absolutely charming Palestinian girl. It was a pleasant conversation and after eating chiche tauk, hummus, khubz, harissa (Tunisian) etc, we gorged on a bag of Syrian sweets.

Sitting in my room, I can hear the attractive guitar and beats of some song being played in some other room. Its a calm and sunny day, I can look out of the window, the sky is as blue as it can get, only to be made more beautiful by the intermittent soft clouds.

Life has been offering me a lot these days... I've shed plenty of my inhibitions. I enjoy the gym once in a while, I realized that I can run faster and longer than several others, I can cook better than a lot of them...