PhD Life: The Long Road - A Survivors Tale

Ever since I dreamt of making it to the U.S in 2005 just because everyone else in my family was, it has been a journey through memory lane both pleasant and battered. Back in 2006, during my undergrad days, a cloud of uncertainty used to hang over my head.....always asking myself.....will I make it or not? The anxiety fueling the desire to be on top of my game and which has been my mantra ever since. The seemingly endless wait for the I-20, the sigh of relief on receiving one, as well as preparing for the dreaded VISA interview and after crossing all those hurdles the weird feeling about what lies ahead were the highlights of the intermediate phase between my undergrad and grad life. It all started with my flight to Chicago...staring at the confused faces all around the airport....clueless of what lies beyond the security check-in....the uneventful flight to Frankfurt....the nightmarish 7hour stopover at Frankfurt... where a 500ml bottle of water costs 8 Euros (with 8 friends waiting to quench their thirst, just a trickle for each one's satisfaction)...and finally landing at Chicago, clearing the immigration check and being welcomed by my seniors to be taken home. On my way home to the senior's residence I can still remember being awed by the Chicago skyline.... the lane system of driving....as well as the innumerable makes of cars on the road...and of course the roads themselves. This marked the beginning of a completely new phase where new acquaintances and friends played a major role in molding me into who I am now. The seniors who hosted me, painted me a vivid picture on how to go about things once school starts. There were races for booking apartments....and of course the Amazing "Assistantship" Race....the cut-throat competition winning over friendship. Whenever somebody got an assistantship there was gossip all around.....much like the feudal middle ages in Europe...nobody was at peace...after all it was about "MONEY" to pay off the exorbitant tuition fee. Treason abounded and reared up its ugly head in various ways in what I would term as the "DARK AGES" at UIC. Then Renaissance happened and in the end almost everyone got an assistantship with the exception of a few.....me switching over to a Ph.D program in Environmental Engineering....then business was as usual with the semester on the way... sleepless nights finishing up assignments.....and 12 or more hours of lab work....and the responsibility of paying my own bills.... cooking my own food.....laundry...and the most challenging task.....adjusting with roomies from different backgrounds. In the beginning all this seemed like a huge boulder chained to my leg....but time has its own way of dealing with things....EROSION happened and the boulder was whittled down to nothing but plain old sand...and being as stubborn as they come, I was able to pull through all that sand that had accumulated without much effort. This period following the RENAISSANCE culminated in one of the best moments of grad life...marked by  innumerable outings to the cinema, hours of hanging out in restaurants cracking P.Js, the long cross-country drives...many many adventures...each one unique and an experience of a lifetime...and to top it all off were the innumerable hours spent in the company of my professor...a good human being with an unforgivable knack for wasting my time....well who doesn't have flaws...making my "ears bleed" listening to his stale jokes (according to him they were funny) which remain the same to date (after 4 years) and gloating his  splintered knowledge of Indian culture that he seemingly had the best idea about....according to his "sources" which  were "confidential" and remain questionable to date. The thrill I derived was from the part I would best call "enlightenment" when my prof would pick up that seemingly incorrigible discussion...only to be shot down by the rebel in me....more often than not. The sadistic pleasure derived from that, just provided the much needed stimulus and respite from a day marked by hard labor, bleeding ears, sagging shoulders and neck pain from nodding your head so much to the professors rants that I thought I was destined to be a "thalai-atti bommai" (a doll which has a spring neck such that it has nods undamped at the slightest vibration). That apart, graduate school was a blur and its hard to imagine that 4 years passed by faster than a blink of an eye....room-mates came and went by like moths fluttering around a streetlight during the monsoons...many of them less than desirable with less than an ounce of courtesy to a fellow room mate and were dealt with diplomatically. The dreaded Preliminary defense came by and went.....and I became a doctoral candidate...but as was the norm ..it was not without its fair share of problems with one of the committee members boycotting the presentation. At that point I actually realized that I had been sandwiched in a COLD WAR ZONE termed the "preliminary defense". At the defense table, "hungry" professors appeared to be clawing from their seats ready to grab a chunk of flesh out of me and devour me to the bone, but as luck or fate would have it their chains were a wee bit short...I managed to evade those dreaded claws and make it out unscathed. A tumultuous year followed with plenty of politics  and bureaucracy...well there was one thing common to India and the place I landed- Chicago....POLITICS ...but some armadillo skin helped me evade a few jabs thrown at me....eventually the most anticipated day arrived...4 hours at the altar and it was nothing shorts of a miracle that I survived the onslaught of the committee members. Drama abounded at the altar...instantly reminded of one of the scenes from the movie "12 ANGRY MEN".....the only difference was there was one really angry man here...who stormed out of the room....surprisingly to me relief. FINALLY, I was DOCTORATE IN PHILOSOPHY. I managed a sheepish smile when my professor congratulated me....and at that point my mind was blank...not light, just blank....like a zombie I solemnly treaded back to my apartment, slumped onto my bed in a daze and entered torpor. As I tossed and turned....memories flashed back but I was still left gasping.....trying to find stable ground. It was a familiar feeling.

When I woke up next day, there was again the same feeling of anxiety before I began grad school....how does it feel to be caught in the next tide: The Recession hit and I had barely recovered from all the flailing that I was literally thrown out there....from the relatively safe confines of graduate school and the laboratory into the job market...another name for a butcher's paradise. True to its name, it was a market....I saw myself walking around the market with a signboard hanging on my neck...."FOR SALE".....well what happened next is a tale for another day.......4 years had passed and the vicious cycle had entered its next set of revolutions.