Home, sweet home!!

Finally my beautiful little internship has come to an end. An internship- which was more than just an internship to me. It was, to say the least, a much deserved vacation after the hectic last sem wherein i indulged myself in the totally irresponsible 'luxury' of Biohorizon, GRE and finally the most blood-suckng majors in my past 4 years.

Its amazing how the value of friendship is reflected at the time of departure. A simple bonding, which is taken for granted for such a long time, suddenly becomes taut when one is going away. I would be lying if i say that I ve never enjoyed the pain which follows; its this pain only which makes me conscious of the simple bond.

Anyways, about last week. Well, Wednesday evening was fun as i had dinner with the italians who were partying in the building. I happened to be in the kitchen at that time and so Francisco politely asked me to join them. the sight of the Pasta was irreristable. What I did not realise was that there was just pasta with salt and pepper-no sight of any sauce. Apparently, the head cook had got frustrated at boiling 6 kgs of Tortellini(believe me, there were 15 of us and even 2 servings couldn't fill us) and they decided to eat it as it was. I too politely offered my unopened pack of Navratan Korma, realising that i had got only a spoonful of a delicacy which i had kept for 2.5 months to be savoured in my privacy.

They followed it up with 5 brick of icecreams.Apparently, it was supposed to be a clean pasta-icecream-cofffee farewell party for an italian girl who was leaving. I didn't stay long enough for the coffee, but I remember helping myself to atleast 3 servings of that great- looking, mouth-watering, chocolate- dripping Ice cream.

I slept peacefully that night.

On friday Andrei had the final farewell chat with me. He liked the gifts i got for him. I wasn't tongue-tied or intimidated in his presence this time. I had prepared well for this meeting. It was short-only 30 minutes(quite unlike Andrei). But the end result was brilliant. I was offered a job- to come back here as a PhD. I think it does not matter if i actually even think of coming here, but what matters is that i won't be unemployed when i pass out-----

I also gave a little farewell to my lab on friday. I got 2 sumptuous looking cakes(an Apple Pie and an Almond-cherry cake) from the supermarket. The feeling that everybody was there because i was leaving was nice. Even if the feeling was artificially created. There were light jokes, little talk about my future, about my coming back here.......ooops, that just reminds me. There's still some cake in the Fridge!

I went on a dinner with Mahendra and his wife Tressa that evening. They took me to a posh italian restaurant. They have a 7 month old daughter Adya, and both speak fluent German. I saw little crudeness in their behaviour, little haughtiness that we are indians and they are germans and that both ought to be different. They have adapted themselves to this culture so very beautifully. I had a huge quatre fromage(sorry but i learnt it in french) and followed it with a glass of wine. The restaurant was so elegant that i don't remember going to such a place even in india. I slept like a baby.

Had Poori-Aloo yesterday. Deepti made it for all of us. Bilkul mummy ki tarah!!! I ate 14 puris( not that i was counting) and still had space for some more. Then we had some mango shake to satisfy the materialistic cravings of a malnourished soul.

India, here i come!!