1. Dear Reader,
I have discovered that I communicate better if I assume someone is listening to my thoughts, because otherwise I will simply be consumed by the darkness of my own thoughts. No, my thoughts aren’t really dark, but the overlapping shadows can sometimes be overwhelming. Please stay and listen, will you, please? Thank you.
‘If there is a world where you can envision mental health care that makes sense to you and fits you, what would that world look like?’
I believe everyone needs a counsellor. While some of us are privileged to find them amongst our mothers and teachers, it would be a systemic failure to rely merely on that privilege.
-From Saswata to the world
2. Dear Reader,
I love humans. I never understood the need for pets, because I am a non-vegetarian, and I usually fulfilled all my emotional requirements from all the love I received from people. However, the pandemic makes it hard for me to remind myself, that love is still love, and that I too deserve it. Because, for the last few months the only mask-free faces I got to see in real life were those of beautifully trained, eager and happy dogs in my neighbourhood, and of course, my amazing roommate.
Well, that is not completely true. There is a group of people I get to see mask-free everyday, and sometimes up, close and personal: the white policemen of the United States of America.
‘Who are the people who would be a part of that world?’
We would be looking at people who with all convictions does their jobs with honesty.
-From Saswata to the world
3. Dear Reader,
It was the end of my lease in my graduate housing in Irvine, California. While it was a very predictable date, it happened to be 21 days past the murder of George Floyd. I needed to find a new home. I managed to find a sublet from July 1st in New Haven, Connecticut. The difficulty was to find a way to drag myself across a distance of over 3100 miles, with all my stuff, at the end of June, 2020. So my friend, Sriki, and I had a great plan. Sriki was homeless for a bit, and was crashing at his friend’s place, and had also managed to get a job in the middle of Pennsylvania. Our brilliant plan was to drive his car, a Honda Civic, after stuffing all our belongings into it. There was a tiny problem, we had too much stuff.
On the last day of our stay in Irvine, we went to a rental car place at 8 AM, rented a brand new Toyota Corolla and stuffed everything, cleaned the apartment, said bye to the minimal friends and families we could, and started driving across the United States of America. All we knew was, for that night, we were sleeping in a hotel in Cedar City, Utah after a drive of about 450 miles (600 kms). Some Indian behaviours never left Sriki and me. We had planned to start driving at 12:00 (“noon, latest!!” we had told each other).
We started driving at 2 PM.
‘What are the kinds of resource that would be a part of that world?’
While the world loves to measure resources in terms of dollars, I would like to see if the world can accommodate emotional currency in the same footing as financial bills.
– From saswata to the world
4. Dear Reader,
I have had the awesome privilege of driving into the deserts in the western parts of the United States. If you don’t know what it is like, picture this: A long road, two lanes, and you can see the road for about 20 miles. There are desert plants on your sides, like Joshua trees and bramble bushes. Sometimes, you see horses in ranges, but mostly rocky outcrops, dry, and deserted. Everything has a sepia tinge, for real, and your car may overheat. However, to reach the desert of California and Nevada, I had to cross the mountain ranges surrounding the eastern parts of Los Angeles. On that path was our first stop, Barstow. Barstow is a typical traveller’s town, the birthplace of Del Taco, and where I-40 intersects the mother road, US Route 66. Remember the Disney movie, Cars? That movie was about preserving the US Route 66. This was our first pit stop, and as a homage to all the stops we have made there on our drives to Vegas and Grand Canyon, Sriki and I took our first Pikachu pictures there.
‘What would access look like in that world?’
Access, in my honest opinion, would look like a place where I can explain my own mistakes and biases without the fear of being stigmatized.
– From saswata to the world
5. Dear Sriki,
Do you remember our simultaneous growing anxiety as we were driving up the hills? We had never driven a loaded car up a mountain, it was actually quite hard to control at 100 km/hr. And do you remember the sigh of relief as we both got to use the bathroom at Denny’s without having to buy any food? We disinfected each other with our spray bottles of isopropanol vehemently after the first gas filling or bathroom use. And we both decided to make a stop before and after Las Vegas. God, you and I hate Vegas with a passion by now! I have lost $80 so far in my life to Vegas, and my temper quite a bit. And, I will not forget the glaring fake-gilded Trump Tower reflecting the 6 PM sunlight as you and I drove out of the muck of Vegas’s infamous traffic ASAP. Little did we know that roads in Utah would be a challenge on it’s own.
‘What are some of the features from that world that is already a part of our world?’
I presume you would find glimpses of an answer to the prior questions in my essay.
– From saswata to the world
6. Dear Almighty,
At 9:45-ish PM, June 25th, 2020, I was pulled over by a tail-gating police car in Utah, the United States of America. The high beam from the police car was adequately distracting, and I accidentally let my left wheels touch the white dashed lines of the freeway. The bright red-white-and-blue lights flashed. I pulled over. I knew I had too much melanin in my skin to be cavalier about the situation, and I put on my mask. I had my hands on the steering wheel and looked straight ahead. The cop came, flashed his light on my face, and asked me to pull down the window. This was the following conversation.
Cop: “Hi, How are you doing?”
Me: “Not Bad, Sir, Thank you for asking.”
Cop: “May I see some identification and registration for the car?”
Me: “Sure!” (Hand him the necessary paperwork).
Cop: “Is this your car?”
Me: “No Sir, this is a rental car.”
Cop: “Where are you coming from?”
Me: “Irvine, California”
Cop: “Where are you going?”
Me: “New Haven, Connecticut”
Cop: “Woof! That’s a long drive! Why are you going there?”
Me: “Because I have work there.”
Cop: “What kind of work?”
By this time, I knew how to take control of the situation. I noticed he had been eyeing the opened can of soda next to me. I knew a little bit of name-dropping would go a long way. You know how much I hate doing it. Forgive me if you can.
Me: “Actually, I am a chemist. I just got my PhD and am currently working for Yale University as a postdoc.”
Cop: <Silence for 3 seconds, and then in a nicer voice> “Well, congratulations. I pulled you over because I thought you were losing control, so may be a case of a drunken driver. Clearly, that is not the case.”
Me: “Yes Sir, I understand, it’s just that I was so tired from driving all day.”
Cop: “Well, have a good road trip and drive safely, there are several drunk people driving tonight.”
Me: “Thank you Sir, and thank you for your service, good night.”
I sat there for a minute, let the cop car go past me, took a deep breath and called Sriki. I told Sriki what happened, Sriki freaked out a bit. He was 20 minutes away from the hotel, I was lagging by the duration of the aforementioned conversation. And I knew I had to get it together. I knew I was required to drive for 50 more miles in darkness in unknown rocky roads at 100 km/hr to be able to sleep that night. So I did the most sensible thing: I let myself cry. I let tears roll down my eyes as I kept hitting the gas pedal. I knew the biochemical effects of crying. And I needed that to survive the rest of the drive.
‘Are there some steps that you’re taking to ensure that our world is similar or becomes similar to this?’
As a scientist, I am trying to take as many important steps in the last few months. I have not actively tried to do anything different.
– From saswata to the world
Dear Reader,
Perhaps the best way to look at that incident, is to recongise that most animals, including humans die, because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Harambe died, because a child fell in his cage. We cannot forget that Qasim Soleimani did not die alone. His driver lost his life too, something that the Trump administration takes no responsibility for. Most prey animals die by being eaten by a predator. Most predators die from starvation, malnutrition and consequent incidental infections. Perhaps, the dignity in letting a person, or an animal, die in peace is one of the defining features of humanity. Maybe, let us end with the thought, that, “We, the people” are marvellously failing at delivering that dignity to ourselves. Isn’t it time we became kinder to ourselves and took care of ourselves and each other?
Love,
Saswata
Saswata Roy (he/him/his) was born in Calcutta, studied in an ICSE-ISC school, snatched nearly INR 5 lakhs from the GOI (MHRD-> KVPY -> IISER-K-> Chemistry) to ‘study science’, ran away to Southern California, paid taxes to the Trump ‘administration’, and further ran (drove) away from California before it caught fire like never before (literal, and not figurative). Currently a postdoc at Yale University, he is often spotted crocheting, singing, or simply, staring at a blank piece of paper, hoping for “inspiration” for mathematical equations outside the Sterling library on a red chair at ‘Cross-Campus’. Although he has promised his employers that he will write the next cutting-edge code for mixed classical-quantum molecular dynamics in the next 24 hours, those exact 24 hours hasn’t exactly “seen the light of the day” for the last 2 months. He, like many others, often seeks counselling and mental health advise from professionals, and is currently unable to find any in times of need, despite his best efforts. He is currently an author (among several other co-authors) of eight(?) international peer-reviewed journal publications, and to the best of his knowledge, is ‘working on’ two more. Of his many chronic faults, one is him breaking into spontaneous singing in the middle of a conversation, and the other, using his hands to explain mathematical complexity. Glutton at heart, he hopes for the ‘thoughts and prayers’ of his well-wishers to grant him the courage to fight against his own self-indulgent Covid-induced body fat. He prides himself for being able to replicate his grandmother’s Malpua, and often makes fish curries for his colleagues and friends. He is sad that AIB is no longer a “thing.”
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