Songs of the not-so innocent

Leaving Birmingham for good was harder than I expected. The city did not offer much apart from the University, visits to Walmart and the Indian food store. Life in the apartment with my roommates was not extraordinary. And yet, I had a hard time fighting back tears as I made my way to the airport. 2008 was a year of travel for me. I was in India in January, the U.S in February, Cambodia in May, India in October and the U.S in December. I've sat waiting for flights at a mind-numbing list of airports in that time; Bombay, Zurich, Hong Kong, Phnom Penh, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix, Houston, Cincinnati, Raleigh, New York and Birmingham. Simply reading back on what I've typed just now makes me tired thinking about all that flying and transit time. It's not glamorous in the least, let me assure you. Stating the obvious here, I like routine. It takes time and a lot of emotional investment to settle somewhere, make friends, get some sort of purpose and order to existe...

Applying and interviewing for a job is hard enough in this day and age of recession, cutbacks and pink slips. Having received an offer letter, I suppose I should have thanked my guardian angel, quietly accepted the terms and got a move on. Heaven knows the geezers made me sweat for an inordinately long time after saying the magical words "We'll let you know". But no. I chose to figuratively clear my throat at what I thought was an unethical stunt on their part. This latest exchange of pleasantries, by phone last Friday morning IST ended with "I'll let you know by email as soon as possible... by the end of the day, if I can". The long and short of it ? Copyright: Bill Watterson P.S: Substitute beanie with word consistent with the scheme of above post. Song for the moment: Simple man - Lynyrd Skynyrd

Graduation day has dawned & after 2 days of grey skies and relentless rain, today is bright and sunny with the diamond-clear skies seemingly kicking off the celebrations. In this atmosphere, there is a powerful urge to write something charged, something inspirational and soul-stirring. Not that this is a portent or anything... Today's early morning hustle and bustle brings back memories of childhood and visiting faraway places in South India for weddings and other celebrations. As children, we had very little say in which social occasion we were gracing. Then again, being children, we did not really care as being woken up early was equated with being considered an adult and the resultant puff of pride had us strutting around a little more dandily. I seem to recall my only concern was running around huge halls & labyrinths of rooms with my cousins, playing chaotic games. We had competition from the ladies of the house who would also be moving around, balancing trays of foo...

I went by the Graduate School today and to be told that I would be graduating this weekend. A smart decision on their part as I certainly had no plans of registering for another semester of somnambulism. Don't get me wrong; there were some classes I liked attending. On the whole though, the charm of academia has faded with a resounding finality. To ensure no f**kups regarding my exit, I had to endure a pretty torrid first week. All my doing of course. The price of procrastination, let's say. I know not of too many acquaintances who are not devotees of working frantically at the last minute. Right through college (and considering I've been in college, collecting degrees for about 7 years now, I speak from some serious experience) the tendency has been to dawdle everytime something substantial needed to be done. On cue, beer and the meaning of life and everything in between became a lot more fascinating than the work at hand. The end result, at least for me, was to view the s...

Readers, there are no doubt a number of incidents in your lives that provoke the sentiment – ‘One day, I’ll look back on this and chuckle’. If you have kept up with the tales told on this blog, you may have noticed a somewhat similar pattern in some of the posts herein. Yes, it is a praiseworthy & pleasant luxury to be able to laugh at yourself if you hark back to various potentially titanic-type incidents. Still, be it ever so narrow, a line is required somewhere; a marker separating the hilarious-in-hindsight from the why-me ones. So, considering how much I did not want to come back to the U.S, it is fitting that this trip will quite likely rule the latter charts for ages to come. At least, for my health and sanity, you lot should join me in praying that nothing else comes along to top it. Just reading this, you cannot understand how close the camel has come to having his back broken. Saturday morning, at 7.30 am, in a somnambulistic state, I made my way onto the Cat...