Tow-Path

Towpath. Not toepath. Apparently it's a thing. First, I thought that this particular path near Carnegie lake in Princeton was called by people `the toepath'. "Did you go on the toepath yet?" Well of course I did, it runs next to my home. 

Then I got to know that the `toepath' is a universally accepted name for any path on which people can walk on their TOES. "There is a nice toepath next to the Charles in Boston, right?". Me: "Oh, yeah, yeah."

But in fact, the toepath has got nothing to do with toes. It's actually a towpath, as wiki just taught me. It's like the moment you realize that it's not "wet your appetite", but "whet your appetite". Moment of clarity which ends up making less sense than it did before. 

The towpath near my home is especially pretty and conducive to running. I wish I was amazing at this running thing, because this one runs all the way down to Delaware. So I could run a marathon on this, if I was good enough to do so. 

An uncle. Oops. A nice old middle aged person (I wish the Americans would adopt the usage of the word uncle, it's so convenient; my Canadian co-postdoc approves) is seen taking a photograph in the picture. This person (that just sounds so impersonal), rather, this uncle showed me a bird, and I realized that it's the same bird that visits my office tree every other day. It's called a `downy woodpecker'. Now I know the name of the bird that I've been searching on the internet all this while. Unfortunately, he could not explain why the squirrels on my office tree like to tear up the bark and chew on it. He suspected the bark had some nutrition. I told him that I'd read on the internet that pregnant squirrels do it to de-stress. He didn't buy that so I continued my run. 

Some ducks. 

It is important to reach home early enough, especially if you've been watching too much of American Horror Story recently.

 Other good things about New Jersey: Indian food and indian grocery stores. All the full fat yoghurt I can bring home. All the ghee. I mean, it's insane. In Newark, you can even get fresh Paan; how much I've wanted to eat fresh paan here after a meal. 

The paan chewing reminds me. My co-postdoc who is Canadian seems to have only Indian friends and he introduced me to some of them here in Princeton. They were all south indians and we somehow got around to talking about the development in various states, which is a conversation anyone from UP of all places would like to avoid. So my friend Panji's wife then turns around and tells me, "you know, UP may suck in general, but you guys have culture, man. And what's up with the politeness? So much `aap'". That just made my day so much. Yes, we are shitty and poor but we are a polite people. I got this from a Pakistani couple as well when Saloni and I were in Hawaii. They were from the sourthern part of Pakistan, abutting Rajasthan, so they spoke Hindi in the Rajasthani/Gujarati way, like Saloni, using `tu' for you, which a lot of us in UP consider an indecent/uncultured way of speaking. Heck, even my grandfather never once addressed me with `tu', not even `tum', always `aap'. After Saloni told the couple that my parents are from UP, she said, "ah, that's why you speak with such an Urdu accent", which is basically another way of saying, "ah, that's why you speak so politely". 

Another good thing about New Jersey, I have some family: 

This cute guy better start showing that he's also got Indian blood at some point.