Friday, July 13, 2012

Dreamland and Sad Faces


Tomorrow is the payday. Every payday I see people so excited, the gloominess of their faces turns white, whiter than their skin, they walk around happy, collect money and order a big delivery from a expensive restaurant nearby. Just for a day or two they dance and sing from their heart, and it reminds me of a newborn goat lamb which jumps sideways in excitement, with its  long ears so thrilled in the air. Alas! it is short lived, next Monday the same co-workers will be asking me 'gas money'. I can't help to feel bad, it is innate in me. Seriously, does compassion has any limit and irresponsibility has any boundaries? What kind of society, government, culture and family standards we boast by living here in America. I put myself in one side of the scale, and them Native (not Indians)Americans in other. I am always in survival mode. In all my actions, my behaviors, my conversations, I present my honestly, and expect more often than not, unconsciously  or in vain sometime, that  something better will happen, I have done my best with my available tools, my knowledge;  with my labor, I have tried to reap the fruit produced. Their mode is survival mode too, but of  different kind. They don't know any better. They have not seen both banks of the river. Has anyone ever noticed why vending machine technology would be extraneous in Nepal, India and any such countries? Here, people have a dollar in pocket, they immediately run to a vending machine and buy a candy. If a quarter is saved, they go ask their coworker if they have another  so they can  get a mountain dew from it.

Because in Rome, we do as the Romans do, and I am afraid that I am so becoming like them. I call my routine  '5-2' these days. Five days work, 2 days off, wait for Friday, feel like dying on Monday, count till payday only to spend all of it on hundred of ridiculous bills, fighting in court, paying for water than I didn't drink, giving in my hard earned money for criminals in constipated jails to have them conjugal visits,  fighting frauds with credit card companies, scared of daylight robbery, absolutely dumb fold,  numb and  unconscious that years and years have passed by with no progress, but with more bald spots and more gray hairs.

Every off days I have tons of things to do, including, what I mentioned, unnecessary arguments with credit cards, car dealers, banks, insurance companies, replying to emails of cell phones and laptops demanding best friends and cousins in Nepal, playing FIFA on a slow internet,  reevaluating the greates books, reading Bible and such to find the unfindables;  and worst of all talking with stupid nurses when at work covering for someone else.  Ahh life! what have I become?

When I came to USA, I had energy. I had dreams, although it was so forced on my mind by parents and the society. My thoughts and aspirations, aim of life was just to BECOME better than few privileged cousins, or in somewhat self respected quote, I can say- to avoid them  and to stop them to consider me as a competitor, I was/am/will be never interested. Coming to America was an escape from thugs, stupid competitions,  Maoist terrorist, Nepal's bribery-full, uncontrolled political system, hopeless and incurable poverty . I sure expected US to be a land of opportunity, a hope for the dreamers. 

To flashback and remember and to be bluntly honest to myself, I have to admit: in 2005 in Waverly, Iowa Walmart, we went to buy phone cards to call home to tell them that we have arrived at the land of hope, in pursuit of happiness and freedom. I was so excited, for a new journey had begun; and I was like a new- born goat lamb jumping around sideways with its ears thrilled up in the air. But my heart got a freezing wave of cold air when I looked at the faces of customers crowded in the Walmart super center. It was my first and I can insist now, a true impression of American- fat, unwelcoming, hating, if not hating on face, skeptical about foreigners, sad in the face, tired as if they have ploughed  acres of farms all day, briefly smiling on eye contact but so fake as crocodile tears, even the brightest of lights in hundred suns in Times Square could not lighten up the gloominess, laziness, tiredness so expressed  in their conversation,  their melancholic sighs in the counter, their boredom of fake smiles, their indifferences towards naked women on the cover pages of  of  the sex magazines, their unplayfulness towards the demand of candies and dolls of their own children, and their dead-like body language; I question for a while if I was in a Zombie land, or was I dreaming from a tiring long flight? Their sorry faces nowhere directly or indirectly indicated any signs of happiness, peace, freedom, love, compassion, humility, respectively, curiosity in stranger,  love for life or quest about it,  but sung a dark heartbreaking song like a sorrowful owl howling at distant, in a wintery night. 

Never did I know, that one day I will be like them, dead in the spirit, tired in the body, unconscious of time, unaware of the real goal of life, lost in unknown and unattainable dreams of happiness and peace. I was shocked that day to find my much anticipated 'America' that sad and tired, and unaware of the rest of the world. Now I console myself these days that I have to seriously revisit my decision to stay and be firm about whether or not to extend my survival mode here, for God help those who help themselves. I am more than equal to the challenges but my life is not just about being better than some of my prodigal, privileged, yet mediocre cousins . I hope I am not wasting all my youth here in vain.

Irving Texas
July 12th 2012

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