I’ve never heard the story behind this photograph, although I know it was taken Aditya’s first year of college, and I’m willing to guess that the crossdressing costume was somehow part of the International Student Association’s annual Bazaar. Oh, how his past comes back to haunt him***
Aditya’s a year older than me, so depending on when this picture was taken I was either finishing up my last semester of high school (I graduated a semester early) or already working in Germany as an Au-Pair. Before leaving for Germany I went through the college application rigmarole, and ended up choosing the same small midwestern liberal arts college that Aditya was crossdressing studying at. Yes, you guessed it – we met in college.
Well, sort of.Initially, I was suppose to start school in the fall, like the other freshman. But I was having such a blast in Germany that I wanted to stay as long as possible. So I begged and pleaded with the college’s financial aid and admissions department, and convinced them to let me start a semester late by promising to finish up my degree on time anyways, which would mean that they would only need to give me money for three and a half years rather than four. As the Germans say, “hauptsache, die Kohle stimmit!” (Literally, “the main thing is that the coal is right” – Germans have difficultly distinguishing fossil fuels from money at times.)
That following summer, when I took breaks from my daily activity of running after crazy blond Teutonic children on cobbled, picturesque streets – ah Germany, how I miss you – I would occasionally go onto my university’s forum for incoming students. The forums were a place where the freshman class could “meet” online before arriving on campus, and have questions answered by both university admissions people and upperclassmen. Aditya was on campus that summer, as his family didn’t have enough money for a flight back to India, so he took his turn answering questions from anxious eighteen-year-olds on the forums. And that is where we first “met”.
See, as an international student, Aditya was especially focused on answering the questions of the incoming students from abroad. At one point he made a thread about fluency requirements in English – and how the International Center would help bring struggling students up to speed. Before leaving for Germany I had tutored ESL students at the college & high school level as a volunteer, and I was working with a high school English class in Germany, so I jumped right into that thread and volunteered my help to any internationals who might need still need some help by the time I finally arrived in the US the following January. Aditya responded with some details, and boom, we were in a conversation!
A few days later the family I was working for went on vacation to the Rhineland and invited me along, and I forgot all about some Indian dude in the Midwest. And then classes started and the forum withered away.
We didn’t exchange words online again until the winter holiday break, when I was back in the States preparing to finally go to college. Aditya was trapped in the dreary little town of our university, with another international student as a temporary roommate for the holidays. And this roommate, who will remain unnamed, would apparently not shut up from morning until night unless Aditya could plead “conversation” with someone else online. And that is how I ended up being used as a human shield by my now-husband – we chatted on AIM so that he wouldn’t have to talk to his annoying roommate. So romantic!
Finally, January came around, and I was off to college, all fired up to experience this “snowy Midwest” I had always heard about. I still chatted with Aditya on occasion on AIM, but our paths didn’t cross in person. About two weeks into classes, though, Aditya mentioned that he was about to head over to my dorm to play ping-pong with a Bulgarian freshman, Ivan, who lived the floor beneath me – apparently our dorm had the best ping-pong tables on the campus (trust the international students to know this!). He said he’d stop by to say hi in person, and I believe I replied with “cool,” and continued to surf the net in my scruffy pjs. About ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Aditya was there with his ping-pong paddle in hand. We said hi, my roommate and him talked about a jello-eating contest they had both participated in the previous fall – ah Midwest, how I miss you-, and then Aditya said that he had to go play ping-pong (actually, he had to go be humiliated by Ivan – Ivan had mad skills at ping-pong & soccer). We had talked in person for maybe two, three minutes, then off he trotted. And that was that.
It’s a tale for the ages, really.
Oh, and here’s the full size picture of Aditya in all his kimono glory:
***I’m speaking of Aditya’s relatively recent past – as in two days ago – when, after arriving in California for a business trip, he made a special phone call to me just to inform me that it was 72 degrees there, and bright and sunny. Bastard. Americans call this “payback”.
14. January 2009 at 9:32 am
Very funny! What’s the point of a blog if you can’t take the occasional dig at your other half, eh? Have a brilliant 2009.
14. January 2009 at 11:52 am
LOVE IT!!!!!!!!
14. January 2009 at 1:55 pm
Cute story!
14. January 2009 at 2:01 pm
Love the story! Thanks for sharing – especially the photo! My husband would kill me I think
14. January 2009 at 4:37 pm
Ahhh, that’s a nice story.
14. January 2009 at 5:45 pm
someone may yet be killed.
14. January 2009 at 7:37 pm
Very cute story, GG! Ricky liked it as well.
BTW, we’re in SoCal, and yes, it’s been about 80 degrees here the past few days. All I can say is that after having experienced a Midwestern winter last year (I was teaching for a year at the University of Minnesota), I’m very glad to be back in the land of sunshine and palm trees and balmy weather in the winter!
14. January 2009 at 8:57 pm
Fun story!
And Aditya does a fair job of pulling off the kimono.
15. January 2009 at 11:41 pm
I love the “How We Met” stories! Thanks for sharing.
20. January 2009 at 5:57 pm
Aditya does pull off a Kimono , well
20. January 2009 at 11:14 pm
Full story of Kimono – it was at our annual “International Festival” and very persuasive [and pretty] Japanese ladies were involved in the dressing up
21. January 2009 at 10:41 pm
I really enjoyed the kimono cross-dressing event.. speaking of stuff like that.. I have noticed that a LOT of men from Europe carry “man bags” as they call them. I finally just asked one day and was told it is pretty common for European men to carry some sort of “purse” as frequently as women due for pretty much the same reasons.. but they call them “man bags” LOL.. not sure totally on this all since I simply asked..
22. January 2009 at 7:10 am
I shall now make sure my girlfriend NEVER finds any of my old pictures. Thankfully, most of them are in India, before the age of ubiquitous digital cameras and flickr/facebook. Heh!
23. January 2009 at 3:39 pm
What an adorable story!
BTW, I'm baaack! Looking forward to catching up.
23. January 2009 at 10:10 pm
Love your blog and your inter-cultural perspective and plan to visit regularly.
Clearly Aditya and you are friends first and that is a terrific base for any relationship.
28. January 2009 at 4:14 pm
In my experience, the prevalence of man purses in Europe depends on what country you live in, but they certainly do exist. There was even a Seinfeld show on it once…
28. January 2009 at 4:16 pm
Thanks for visiting RBK! I like your blog quite a bit too.
I'm not sure if I'd say we were “friends first” – we started dating pretty early on after the meeting I described above – but I have no doubt that we could have been friends if one of us had been in a relationship when we had met.
31. January 2009 at 4:31 pm
Aditya, you don't need to explain why you were wearing the Kimono. Really, we're all friends here.
13. October 2010 at 5:51 pm
Where in the Midwest did you go to college? Asking as I’m from Minneapolis, very much in the ‘heart’ of the Midwest.
18. October 2010 at 3:42 pm
We both went to a little liberal arts college in Indiana… nothing but cornfields (and a SuperWalmart) for miles around…