I was pinged by one of my former roommates from my Fargo days. I had lost touch with her nearly a decade ago. Last weekend I got this linkedIn message from her out of nowhere. Since I last saw her, she had gotten married to her boyfriend, had two kids and moved to California.
Fargo on a typical cloudy day in winter
I wasn’t the best of roommates as I barely spent time with her, but I did spend 4-5 months sharing a cramped efficiency apartment during Fall of 1997. She too was a grad student and had come to Fargo almost two yrs after me. I hooked up with her just when I needed to desperately share my rent to save some cash. I was grateful that she put up with my messy ways, and cooperated mostly. I remember she once requested me to not play Jagjeet Singh ghazals which she found utterly depressing. As fall progressed into winter, the days got shorter, gloomier with bone-chilling cold – I could certainly appreciate why she did not want music about hopelessness and despair which is so true of most Jagjeet Singh Ghazals. I have not listened to his ghazals for along time now.
A flood of memories came back about my days with her as a roommate. We were students back then and didn’t have a car and all my close friends had graduated by then. So if groceries got over and we did not manage to get a ride, we had to survive on whatever we could pick up from Mini Mart, the local convenience store at the corner of University and 12th Ave(for the lucky few who lived in Fargo and vaguely remember this area), to avoid a long walk in bitter -10 Fahrenheit to grocery stores. Convenience store grocery really meant that we survived on lots of bread and scrambled eggs. I love eggs normally, but I was thoroughly sick of them at the time. Our living arrangements weren’t too glamorous either – sleeping in a tiny room would normally be impossible, but thanks to a queen size wallbed… we managed to sleep two people in an efficiency room somehow. Kitchen was of size just enough to fit one person. Looking back now, it all seems like a distant dream – now I feel like it was not that bad (of course, we hated the cold weather with all our guts and I will not trade that place for anything!). Those few months fall of 2007 was altogether a different experience, unlike my first two years, which I would say were the better times of my stay in Fargo. But it is the mix of good and bad that makes life more interesting.
It’s funny but people who have been roommates with you, especially those that you haven’t been in touch with, will often remember you for what you were back then. And this roommate was no different. I think I was quite scattered back then – I mean I was somewhat going through an emotional roller coaster, and she was a witness to all the drama. I certainly don’t think it was the best introduction to US for her… 
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Still, that was a altogether a different experience. We were scrappy and managed to survive despite everything else. I think that when funds are limited and there are no liabilities – none of this matters – you simply adjust. As years pass by, you keep accumulating stuff and getting accustomed to a higher standard of living and build up higher expectations from life – it’s harder to just live by the basics. In 2005, a decade after I first stepped into Fargo, my grad school experiences in California were starkly different. Back then I would have been happy just getting a job and getting money to pay bills/survive, but now it was about the right job. Or, back then I would have had any roommate to just save on rent, but now I’d rather not have one. Or 30 continuous days of – 20 F temps with no sunshine for a week was something I had to adjust to (it was all still novel), but now I think I can pass on that kind of weather. And I think I have the luxury to do so – I think it’s a luxury to make statements like “I can’t live there.. or I can’t do so and so job.. or I don want blah blah”, and I certainly appreciate that.
