Chapter 2: Plant response to elevated CO2 - DRUM - University of ...

with each other at restaurants. As if everything – even buying a ticket from the
machine at the train station had to be learned. As if I’m starting all over again.
I look at the sun shining brightly on the trees along the bus route and I
think about the brilliant deep red sunsets that I have seen here. Does the sun
make up its mind to set differently in diverse places of the world? In Calcutta, it’s
a gradual sunset in gradients of colors; the sky takes a deeper hue of orange, then
red and finally pinkish gold. Here the sunsets are characterized by deep red
streaks across the sky and free of a skyline, like the one in Calcutta, here the sky
is just so astonishingly, beautifully blue!
In the warm rays of the late morning slant into the dark teak wood office as Varun
and me sit across from Dr. Sharma. “Do write to us and stay in touch,” he says in (what
I feel is) the end. “Don’t forget to write to your family. Your family and friends are the
anchor in foreign lands” I nod, though it makes me feel as if I’m sailing for strange lands
in an 18 th century ship instead of going to DC by an airplane. I have barely spoken to him
about my post‐graduation plan and he begins to talk about the moral implications of
emigrating. When Varun looks at me sideways I know this isn’t going to be a send‐off
speech but more of a sound‐off speech.
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