A wonderful Thanksgiving party

First Thanksgiving
For international students like me Thanksgiving is a new tradition. There are lots of festivals in India where we go to our relatives place and meet with our extended family. But none of the festivals is specifically for showing gratitude. It's great that in US they have a grand holiday specifically for this. What more is required in life than feeling grateful and happy? Best part is it always happens on Thursday so the families can get together for 4 days.

In West Lafayette, there is a tradition where the local people invite the Purdue students during Thanksgiving and share their joy with us. I and 3 other Purdue students Pulkit Shukla (Indian from my Masters program), Ogechukwu Ezenwa (Nigeria), Kamilah Razak (Malaysia) got invites from a Physician Shannon Oates and her husband Larry Oates. Their 3 daughters Maggie, Caroline, Becky and son Sam and their extended family, friends, and neighbors had graced their house.

Gingerbread house
As per American Christmas tradition, we decorated gingerbread houses. We had lots of fun doing it. For us it was a new experience to stick candies, icing, wafer, pretzels, etc and make nice houses. There were artistic houses built by Caroline Oates (colosseum), Kamilah Razak, and Shannon Oates herself. It was heartwarming to see all family members involved in this activity irrespective of age and making fun of each other in the process and enjoying themselves -especially Caroline with her sarcasm and witty comments made us all enjoy ourselves.

After building our gingerbread houses, they put all the gingerbread houses on display on the road and they voted for each other's houses. They left it on the road so that the neighbors can also vote. I was glad to know that last year also they did the same and a newspaper reporter covered it!

Grand dinner
We had a grand dinner with turkey, beef, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and turnips, sweet potatoes, peas, asparagus, gravy, buttered rolls, wine, etc. Add to this 4 types of Pie - Pumpkin pie, strawberry streusel pie, Pecan and chocolate chips pie, Apple pie - suffice to say we ate to the extent that we have never done before. Shannon was a great host and there was lot of efforts from lot of people including grandma, and Kamilah in cooking all these - hats off!

Musical program
We had a musical program where each of us sang, played musical instruments and had great time. Grandpa Jack read a poem. Shannon's daughters Maggie, Becky and her boyfriend sang songs and played guitar. Kamilah played Saxophone beautifully. It was nice to see everyone entertaining each other with grandma, uncle Jim and cousins Ryan, Helen singing songs too. Ogechukwu Ezenwa recited her story. I sang a tamil song - I am thankful nobody knew how bad it was LOL. We took a group photo at the end. It was a memorable first Thanksgiving indeed.

There was one moment worth mentioning. During the musical program Shannon asked her daughter Maggie to sing “Rivers and roads”(The head and the heart) song. The entire family sang the song and after they finished singing, Maggie and Caroline told us they sang this song when Maggie had to leave home for her college and how they cried and cried at that time. The song has the verses “And my family lives in a different state” and it says that we have to cross rivers and roads to reach you. I am sure when Maggie came for Thanksgiving after she joined college it must have really felt like home for her.

Feeling grateful
What I really liked was this is a great occasion for all family members to get together and talk at length during the lunch and at other activities. We hardly touched our phones. We felt like one of their family members as Caroline, Grandpa Jack, Shannon, Larry and others made us feel at home throughout. I am grateful to all of them. They have inspired me to celebrate like this next year onwards by inviting friends and family at my house for Thanksgiving.

The big picture

I have an elective in my Masters in Business Analytics course for which the concerned Professor has Parkinson's disease. The situation is similar to the movie 'A beautiful mind'. He is the most brilliant Professor technically but his voice is not easily comprehensible. Also, the nature of the course is going to be way too mathematical as per the feedback I had obtained from seniors and other Professors. There was a limit on the class size as 30. Curiously, 30 students registered for the course. I was one among them as I love Mathematics and also love to take challenges head-on.

(Edit: I just noticed that the Professor has won an Gold Medal in the Special Olympics for Golf. Wow!)

By the time the first class started only 19 students were there in the class. The rest of the 11 students dropped out after getting to know the feedback from the seniors later on. The Professor had formed 4 teams out of the 19 students and told all the work in the course including the final take-home exam will be team-based.

During the second class, there were only 9 students. I interacted with the 10 students who dropped out. They told that they weren't expecting so much of a mathematical course.

The Professor now made 2 teams instead of 4. He told in class "Generally, this is my class strength". I thought to myself he is consoling himself by saying that.

Something worse happened after that. It came to my notice that 5 more students dropped out after the second class because they couldn't understand his voice. We are left with a mere 4 students for the forthcoming third class. I am one among the brave souls left.

The professor, while coming out of the second class, asked us, "Are you able to understand?" We all nodded faintly and then he told, "You all should do fine". When he told that, I could sense the pain and sorrow in his voice and face.

I felt bad for him. Apart from his voice, it was also a pitiful sight to see the awkward movements when the Professor is trying to write on the whiteboard. Moreover, he has to sit during the lecture rather than stand because of his disease. In fact, he mentioned he has to take up Rock Steady Boxing classes to help coordinate his movements. Clearly, it was not a joke to be in his position.

I was thinking to myself what would I have done if I were in his position. The answer was not easy. In my old age, if I get Parkinson's I won't be able to do anything about it. I would've just tried to endure what I cannot change. Maybe, just pray to God for strength and accept whatever comes.

Will the Professor's heart sink when he sees just 4 students left? What will he do about the team-based assignments? I thought I will pray to God to give this professor the strength to handle the situation.

In a strange way, this put things into perspective for me. I was thinking that all the troubles that I faced in my life so far. All those troubles seemed like zilch compared to what this Professor was facing at this point in time.

Sometimes looking at others problems we get to know that what we are facing is nothing compared to what many people in this world are facing every day. We are just making mountains out of molehills. We need to distance ourselves from the trials and tribulations that we're facing and look at the big picture. It gave me courage that if someone can handle such huge troubles day in day out and carry on unflinchingly, we can face our problems much better too.

Should strong men cry?

Luka Chuppi

Even before the movie ‘Rang De Basanti’ had released I had listened to ‘Luka Chuppi’ song a million times – touching music, Lataji and ARR’s mesmerising singing, the heart-rending lyrics – it was a totally other worldly experience for me. Watch the live recording if you haven’t – you are likely to get goosebumps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b70zbqpuDno

When the movie released, 5 of my friends – all guys - went to theatre to watch it. When this song came up, all of us were quite literally fighting tears. Well, who can’t – when you see a son going on to serve the Airforce and then returns in a box with the national flag flapped over it? If I had to choose one of the most emotional scenes in entire Indian cinema, I would pick that song. I later happened to watch Sehwag fighting tears too while listening to the song rendition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0sZ2vHUhFo

I didn’t think much about it then. But later it struck me: why were we all holding tears rather than cry freely? World over, different cultures say “real men shouldn’t cry”. But is that right?

Federer’s “God! it’s killing me”

I am a huge Federer fan. My roommates used to support Nadal just to irritate me. When Federer lost Australian Open in 2009 and cried out saying “God! It’s killing me”, even Nadal was moved. Nadal, inspite of winning the championship, had to go to the extent of saying “I feel sorry for Federer. I am sure you will achieve many more laurels”. My roommates made so much fun of Federer calling him a ‘cry baby’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCjw0Unm8OY

(image credit: CNN)

Federer was too overwhelmed to withhold tears at the end of Aussie open this year too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A72M2mZ2wHA

The radio commentator in AO Radio was telling “Well, who can’t be overwhelmed? We were crying too!” Same thing was echoed by other former and current Tennis players like Chris Evert and Eugenie Bouchard.

Is it a sign of weakness for Federer to cry when he wins or loses? I don’t think so.

Father George’s experience

When I was doing my Under Graduation, Professor Father George was the closest to all students compared to all other Professors. He narrated an incident that happened after Tsunami struck Tamil Nadu in 2004.

He went to a village that has almost been washed away – most people were dead and survivors had lost most of their possessions. He met with a survivor whose entire family was dead – his grandparents, parents, uncle’s family, his spouse and kids – all were dead. He was crying to Father George “Why only I had to survive? Why didn’t God kill me too?”

Father George was fighting tears as he was telling this to us “I had gone there precisely to comfort such people. But when that guy told his story, I found it hard not to cry and I was searching for an answer to give him.” As he was telling this, the 10 male students including me were desperately fighting tears. Later, I was left wondering why the 10 of us were fighting tears when we heard this story. Anyone having a bit of empathy and kindness left in him would cry in such a moment right?

(For those of you thinking what happened afterward in Father George’s story: Finally, Father George summoned up the courage and told him “God has left you alive because he has a higher purpose for you. Take heart. Show your kindness to other souls in distress.”  I later came to know this phenomenon experienced by the survivor is known as Survivor’s guilt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_guilt )

Should real men cry?

Science says crying is a natural way of stress relief. It signals to yourself and others that you have something that needs to be attended to. The more you bottle up, more stress builds up and it will ultimately harm you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/11884611/Why-men-need-to-learn-how-to-cry.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/minority-report/201601/real-men-cry

Men who face depression and anxiety find it difficult to come out of it because they feel they will be considered vulnerable if they seek support. This is really wrong. When you need support, seek that. There is nothing wrong about it.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a male or a female – seeking support and crying are signs of strength – not weakness. There is absolutely nothing shameful about it. Ditch the foolish ideal “men don’t cry” – it is doing more harm than good to put up a “brave” face. Be bold and break such stereotypes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td1PbsV6B80