What the Hell ?

Disclaimer: Excuse my bad language! This post is not meant to point fingers at anyone or any community..just a bit of frustration being vented out!


Why am I so mad? Well you would be too if you spent like the whole day doing stupid things....The day started off well with no major hassles..As soon as the bloody old clock in my office struck 12 the day went from a glorious sunny day on a beach to a hot day in the busy lanes of a city...

The first call was from Dell. Apparently, the new laptop that I had purchased online last week (for my parents in India) was not going to reach me by the requested date and would end up missing its long flight to India with my friend, who had graciously agreed to transport it for me. The delay in question was caused by the transaction not being cleared by my credit card company. This caused a fit of anger and I was all red... because as expected, the credit card company had emailed me last week to verify the large charge on my account and I had clearly told them to honor the charge from Dell. My charge had not hit the credit limit and there was no good reason for them to put it on hold, and yet they did!! What a bunch of idiots! Anyways, after an hour of back and forth calls to Dell and the credit card guys the issue was settled. However, the Dell guy did not promise me that the laptop would be expedited for my sake.

Done with that one, I thought lemme do some work after biting on my Subway sandwich...Hmm..Now come the real trauma...I have a driver's test scheduled for tomorrow and I need to find a person to accompany me for the test..This person needs to have a license and also needs to be 25 years of age....The search for such a person went on from exactly 1:20 to 4:30 in the day and was an exciting game of phone tag, email tag, some diplomacy and some candidness...U know I really hate when people make lame excuses...I would much rather have people say straight out that they are unable to help..This saves time and energy invested in talking crap....So amongst the huge Indian community at Stanford hardly a few ventured to try to help me..Why would that be? Have I been bad or evil to anyone ? Nope I wouldn't think so..But yet some sort of feeling prevailed on me that made me think why are people so selfish at times...Now I am not saying that everyone is selfish! Most people have time constraints and some have their own larger problems to solve.....

So what is it? Is it that back in India where life is much slower people have ample time to indulge in the details of others' lives and to help out as and when requested..Think the panwale bhaiya on each nukkad pan shop..They help each and every person who asks for directions which is again a must given that roads in India were not planned well to start with....Driven by sentiments, I was apalled that if someone who has been in this country, USA for 2 years and knows so many people (how many are good friends is whole another story) can run into such a problem what about someone who has just landed and is new in the place...I guess everyone feels a bit dejected when seniors from India don't help newcomers from India especially in a university ecosystem...I remember I felt that a bit with my roommate when I came here and I am pretty sure I must have acted in that strange keeping to myself kinda attitude, not knowing and talking to neighbors kinda attitude when my new roommate came from India....

Over time I always considered myself to be a helpful person, doing things for people I don't know came naturally to me, whether it was helping a blind person cross the street or finding out details about a new student's I-20 letter stuck in graduate admissions, etc...Now I don't have a rosy picture of myself..Giving oneself the easy way out would be easier but yet looking at the inner workings of the mind and the heart makes more sense....Who are we ? Were we helping
individuals earlier or did we always mind our own business, never mind if a small girl was being raped in front of us in a local train in Mumbai....These are questions we should ponder about...

Finally, so what happenned with my problem...Well I found someone outside Stanford to help me out tomorrow...Will I pass or fail...come back tomorrow for the update....