Waiting.

Making a list to survive an apocalypse:

1. Water purifying tablet
2. Water skin
3. Knife(s)
4. Wheelbarrow or a reasonable fascimile
5. Matches, lighter, candles
6. Mechanical flashlight
7. First aid kit
8. Sturdy shoes
9. Carabiners, rope
10. Notebook and pen
11. One Trustworthy person


I bought a safari hat and some cholera killing, water purifying tablets from an Army Surplus store yesterday. Feeling very outdoorsy, like I can take on anything. Armed with malaria medication and tubes of DEET, the trip to the rainforest is somehing I cannot wait for!

Oh, and also this thing called the FIFA world cup, no big deal.

One thing I've come to realize, if I ever have to give into a life of domesticity, I want to steal the life of Rose and her alter-ego Vicki.

Thank you Pat Brady :)

Vagaries

In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine. - Milan Kundera

Even if you don't plan to read the entire book, at least read the first page of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Then, ping me. To put such a universal concept into such powerful prose makes for arresting reading.

I'm off to Milan soon. Off to traipse through the canals of Venice and sit at cafes and imbibe copious quantities of limoncello. To spend hours on the train gossiping with Khushboo, to shop and to get more stamps in my passport. To forget about life for a while.

All this anticipation, for all of three days! A huge chunk of my day goes in living out my vacation before it even begins. I can already smell the post vacation blues.

As the fiscal year closes, here is some obligatory complaining about tax forms and all it's associated fanfare. Moan, whine, moan. Why do we have to grow up so fast. Time runs merrily along assuming that we can keep up, while people like me, hardly athletic, stumble and clutch at our asthmatic inhalers of youth, hoping to catch up.

Happy new year 2013

The new year began with a semi thrilling flight scare. Midway to Chicago, at about thirty thousand feet in the air, the pilot announces that some mechanical warnings were popping up on the dashboard that he couldn't fathom and that we will have to land at the closest airport. For the next fifteen minutes, I tried not to think about why I didn't pay attention to the safety briefing, why I was reading my book when the flight attendant was announcing the different ways to inflate the life vest. After some mild heart palpitations, I decided to continue reading as it was the one way I could keep from constructing horrifying scenarios involving balls of fire in the sky.

When I finally reached home after an overnight delay and mediocre sandwiches for breakfast, I went around my building so that I can check on my precious car, whose fate I was afraid for since roommate put the thoughts of car thefts in my head before I left for my trip.

No car thieves or vandals had happened by. Just a bunch of migratory birds who had decided to land on my car for what seemed to be a communal poop ritual.

Though the trip didn't end very well, it was in fact quite pleasant. Met some old friends, watched Les Miserables and bemoaned my inability to sing that well, and tried out archery. Went with sore arms to roam about freezing New York, and delighted in the maddening crowds at Times Square again.

Food dreams

I'm hungry again. So hungry that I'm weighing christmas menu choices. I have come up with these options to guarantee a food baby:

Ideally, I would have a breakfast of chilaquiles with fresh tomatillo salsa, crispy taco chips and a dab of sour cream. Lunch would be a relatively laid back affair with some form of pasta rounded out by a bowl of heavenly brownie-icecream. Around evening-ish, when it's starting to darken outside, some hot chai and pakoras would sit well. And dinner would be a 4 course monster of a meal with gobi manchurian, cutlets, tomato soup, dal makhni and bhindi masala with some garlic naan.

Alternatively, it could begin with some hot idli-vada-pongal for breakfast with some filter coffee followed by a lunch of potstickers, scallion pancakes and fried rice. Evening could entail a fancy cupcake or two and dinner could be lentil soup, a steaming falafel dish with fragrant rice and baklava.

Other options to throw into the mix are some cheesecake, a pack of kurkure with aforementioned chai and mulagurasam.

P.S. Screw the baklava. It always sounds way more appetizing than it tastes and is waaay too sticky.

Bucket list item #7

I want to go to Hawaii. To sit idly by the beach sipping fruity drinks, yes, but also to make popcorn in lava. For those of you who eat meat, there's even a recipe for lava roasted chicken on the web. All you do is scoop some lava on top of your chicken wrapped in leaves, and wait for it to cook. Don't count on using your shovel ever again though. Me, I figured I'd just stick to popcorn.

The tourist paradigm

A checklist. And then some more. Running to the nearest working printer to get two copies of the measly tickets. The inevitability of the last minute packing, be it a backpack or a suitcase.

The taking of public(or almost public) transport to the airport, bus or train station. The long hours where you are in between both destination and source. A kind of Limbo. That very limbo, that disconnection, that almost ephemeral feeling which is priceless. Just like the mastercard advert, with wrinkled old ladies riding elephants and watching the sunset with their equally hoary spouses.

It feels strangely like boredom, but not quite. There is something special about it, that doesn't push one over the edge and into a dull stupor. A strange elation. The unfulfilled anticipation of new encounters with fascinating people. Never fails. As reliable as the German trains. Just the journey validates the excursion.

But touristing is a whole other world altogether. What can only be described as lust. A happiness so complete when the map is deciphered, the tiny kitschy cafe is found, the cliched photos taken. Right from the constant checking to see if the camera was left behind, whether the wallet was safe, to the annoying of passers by to take pictures of me, you, us.

The cramming of a million activities in the almost niggardly number of vacation days. The debate of which places to skip in the itenrary that exists only in my head. The irritation when you get too tired from all the adventuring, the hunger and refusal to compromise on food. Crashing and burning on the hotel bed at the end of the day. The wanting to extend it all by just one more, just one more day.

And when it's all done, turning the key in the lock, and feeling, like a stranger in your own home.

Lists :)

Cannot believe first post of the year comes in March.

After many weeks of nail biting and frantic, paranoid mail checking, I got the following admits and rejects :

TAMU reject :|

ASU admit :)
CMU + PennState on the same day :)

The same frickking day. The day we were returning from Bombay after the most brilliant trip ever. The day I went to Kuber's house and discovered why he is such a cute person. The day i dozed off on a bombay local train. alone :| The day of Marine Drive and mint ice-cream sandwiches. Of a funky but ugly spray painted train. The day of Kyani's.

Goa was, though unexpected, brilliant.

Time for another list. Read and burn.

1. Arambol beach.
2. Chocolate pancakes. Banana Pancakes.
3. Trek down Chapora fort.
4. A new friend.
5. Rock pools with mudskippers.
6. Black sand :)
7. Breezers on Baga.
8. Sleep deprivation :)

Post Goa depression is a real phenomenon. We need a cure.