Oh! The places you’ll go!

Having dinner at the DC Chinatown. A Chinatown like no other – with broad, well lit-streets; with the imposing columns of the national portrait gallery right in the middle of it. The only thing giving away the place’s identity is the Chinese subscript on the McDonalds neon sign. I sit there nibbling down fine Turkish food and drink and enjoying the company of a new-found friend.

Sitting at a bar along 18th street in Adams Morgan, in welcoming company. I dreamily drink in the lightness of a Saturday summer evening. With shiny people milling by… a happy buzz in the air.

I am here, it is me, sitting here – taking in these sights and sounds – living this life.

Nine months back in the HSPH countway library I had looked out of the window and looked in awe at Harvard Medical School’s grand building. And one month into my studies at Harvard, it finally sunk in that I was really there. Nainital, Delhi, Bulgaria, Italy, Vatican, London, Houston, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC – one by one cities and streets cease being words on a map –  they take on life and become real and gradually turn into memories. New people are met, friendships are forged, the kindness of strangers is found in the unlikliest of places – life is lived and the journey goes on.

I hope this sense of wonder follows me everywhere, that I don’t take for granted that which is given to me. I never aimed/hoped/planned or dreamed for any of this. Interviewers ask you ‘where do you see yourself 5-10 years down the lane’ … they say ‘if you don’t know where you are going any road will get you there’. But I think life is an ‘evolutionary’ process, you never know where you are going even if you profess too. Your experiences and your choices shape the direction it will take. And if you are truly following your heart – then there are no choices to be made – you just do what you must. And you don’t know where you are headed, you don’t know how and when the pieces will fit together – you just follow with child-like faith and pray that it will all make sense one day.

We sit at dinner and we talk of health systems, poverty, global governance – we are indeed so priviliged (despite not being able to afford DC rents on an interns salary :p ) – to be clinking glasses, to be enjoying great company and intellectually satisfying conversations – and most of all to be able to feel that we are contributing. I remember a dear professor once mentioning how she felt so uncomfortable that so much money would go into her stay at expensive hotels in developing countries and for her to travel there. There is definitely a place for that conciousness, but there is also a place for throwing back your hair, for clinking glasses and for enjoying yourself. A place for sacrifice and a place for indulgence but above all a permanent place for a touch of gratitude and a sprinkle of wonder.

http://www.teamhope.com/seuss.htm

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