Tucson Dreams - the skit in the making

My golden anniversary post. (for the uninitiated - this happens to be my fiftieth post :) and I took 11 months to achieve it) .

With all due credit to the creative talents of the crew involved, please do not reproduce this in part or in whole without the xplicit consent of any one of the crew. Else we will feel liable to charge a copyright violation fee of $500 in cash or cheque or via credit card! :) Having said this, we have taken two scenes from a NCSU skit which was put up on Google videos. (A phone scene and a Rita scene.)

I had initially thought of adding comments but the skit has been so well documented that it needs no prompting from me. :) However , there are a few back-stage and on-stage incidents which did not make it in the documentation stage. I have included them if only for reminiscence. The first of these was Rahul's accident on the morning of the skit, he broke his leg. We missed having him as he was one of the narrators, plus one of the actors in the skit. If I randomize my guess, I think it was half an hour before the start of the function that the India club treasurer , Ravi accepted to help us out. And the rest we improvised.

I don't know how much you might identify with......but this is how we live out our grad lives and almost all the scenes are based on real-life incidents.

Tucson Dreams
Shashi Kiran Chilappagari
April 14, 2006

Cast and Crew
Archana, Jaikumar, Karthik, Niranjan, Preetha, Rahul, Sapna, Sarika, Shalini, Shashi, Shivram, Sunil

Scene 0: Introduction
What happens: Narrator introducing the plot and setting
We proudly present to you, the smash hit Fraudway musical “Tucson Dreams”- the story of a man in search of his destiny. This is the story of a man’s triumph over his surroundings, this is the story of every Indian abroad, this can as well be your story. So sit back and try to enjoy. If you cannot, then God help you.

Warning: If you are listening to this, this warning is for you. All the characters are real and any resemblance is intentional. Our aim is to offend as many people as we can and we consider ourselves successful if we can offend at least one person. If you are not offended, please see us after the show. We might think of something special for you.
Now, on to the show.
The time setting of the show is eternal. It has happened before, it is happening now as we talk and it will happen for years to come. So, let us just say that it is May now and there are many people back in India who have got admits here at the U of A. We will look at some of them.

Owing to the diversity of the Indian students here at U of A, it is almost impossible to fit a student into a stereotype. However, recent studies have shown that a grad student at the U of A is from Chennai, has studied in SRM or SVCE with probability 1/2 and if you address him as Mr.Krishnan, you are almost certain to get the first or last name right. So let us swoop down to Chennai and catch a couple of students there.

Scene 1: Coffee Day

What happens: Two students meeting at coffee day discussing admits
Music: (Tamil song - to be decided...Kottu dheekottu from Narasimha)

Here in the confines of coffee day at Nugambaakam, Chennai we see Mr. Anantharaman krishnan from SVCE and Mr.Manigantan Seturaman from SRM discussing their future plans.
Ananth: So you also got admit in U of A. Any aid or fellowship
Mani: no, macha. I wrote to all the professors in the department and no one replied.
Ananth: so you have any special area of interest like signal processing or VLSI
Mani: nothing da, whichever area has funding
**Narrator: You have just caught a glimpse what goes on in a grad student’s mind before he enters the US. Apart from trivial things like coursework, funding, area of research, he or she has to think of more important things like how much sambhar masala would be enough for one year.
(Ananth and Mani get up and are walking off stage)
Ananth: So when are you planning to leave for Tuk-son
Mani: Next Sunday da. I am planning to go to San Jose (pronounced as such and what everyone learns after coming to USA - the actual pronounciation is San-Ose) and visit some relatives there.
Ananth: Oh, I am on the same flight. See you at the airport!
Of course, one of the biggest concerns of an incoming desi student is exactly who will pick them up at the airport. Not to worry, the incoming students are in the safe hands of (PLAY SHOCKING MUSIC) the India club.

Scene 2: India club
What happens: IC members deciding on pickups
The IC has a five year plan in action for picking up students and arranging temporary accommodation. The committee members meet to decide on the logistics and every minute detail is worked out. The process is completely fair and reasonable.
Jai: (keeps reading out guys’ names, and gives sheets one by one to Rahul) **Karthik, Ananth, Manikantan, Vivek, Rahul, Kishore, Shiva, Srinivasan**
Trin Trin (phone ring)
On Phone: Hello sir, My good name is Srinivasan and I am at the tucson airport. Is someone coming to the airport to pick me up.
Niranjan: abbe koi banda airport se call kar raha hai, kya kare?
Jai: kuch tho bolo yaar
Niranjan: Actually, we are busy planning the pickups. Why dont you take a shuttle and come.
Jai: Ramu shamu, hey check this out man....Pooja, soumya, archana, preetha, sarika, shalini, radha, sada,
what ranganathan....you take this man..(giving it to Rahul) Lets get going man...good job.
Everyone exits.

Scene 3: Airport pickup
What happens: IC members going for pickup
Narrator: Now, back to our heroes. who are leaving their motherland and travelling across oceans in pursuit of their dreams.
tee titi tii tiitit ttiti (music in narrator's voice)
(They reach one end of the stage)
Narrator: Welcome to Tucson Intl airport. Flight IC 814 from India arrives 10 hours late.
(Karthik and Shivram walk onstage, totally transformed into cool dudes) (Hip hop music playing)
(Rahul stands waiting. He’s yawning, looks bored. K and S are totally excited).
Andy: hello sir, I am andy
Mani: hello sir I am Mani. Do you know the funding situation.
Rahul: Welcome to Tucson. Take your bags and come. (Walks off)
***Think of funny music - two guys fighting for a girl/some hot babe song types****
(Girls come on stage)***Funky Music..think hard perhaps music which has claps in it*** Niranjan and JK are totally excited now, waiting for them. Greet them all excited, and fight with each other to carry their bags.

Jise dhoondthaa ho mein har kahi
jo kabhi mili mujhe hai nahi
mujhe jiske pyaar par ho yaki
woh ladki hai kahaa
tee tit tit tit tee tit ti
Niranjan: Let me take your bags
JK: No no, let me
(JK tries to lift bags, Niranjan pushes him off)
Niranjan: You can’t lift those bags da. Let me handle it.
JK: Ok then. Carry them to my car. (To the girls) You know, I’m fully funded.
(Walk off)

Scene 4: Fundaes session
What happens: IC members going for pickup
The senior at the U of A is the epitome of a fatherly figure helping the clueless junior in every aspect varying from tips on cooking to helping the junior in deciding what courses to take. Of course, all without expecting anything in return. The overwhelmed junior does not know how to thank the senior. He can hardly believe that so much good can exist in this world.

Senior: I think you should look for an apt and open a bank account. Come on let me help you with those things
Junior: I really dont know how to thank you, sir. I really appreciate it.
Senior: come on no problem man, our seniors helped us so we are helping you. One small thing; when you open an account and find an apt they will ask who referred you. Just tell my name.
The new student is understandably homesick. So he buys a calling card and calls India. 1-800-375-4100
Sapna: Please press 1 for english . Para espaneol numero dos
Narrator: Hearing this Andy breaks down. JK sees this and asks him why he is crying
Andy; Sir, I bought a calling card to call India. The aunty on the other side says, press 1 for english and press 2 for spanish. I want to talk to my mother in Tamil sir...boo hooo...

Classroom Scene
What happens: Classroom scene
Narrator: With the preliminaries out of the way, the student sets out to the university eager to make new acquinatnces, ready to experience new culture, and explore life on an American campus.
(Karthik walks around, looks very impressed by everything around him).
Narrator: It is midday now, and the student is now on the lookout for food. His initial enthusiasm has been scorched by the Tucson sun, and he enters the nearest building.
(Karthik looks around, approaches librarian -Sarika)

Karthik: Excuse me, can I have a cheeseburger and one Pepsi please?
Librarian (looking angry): I’m sorry sir, this is a LIBRARY.
Karthik: Oh sorry. (Softly) Can I have a cheeseburger and one Pepsi please?
(Librarian points towards the exit)
(Karthik looks sad and walks out)
Narrator: Since the new desi student automatically multiplies any number by 46.44, finding food on campus is a tough optimization problem, with too many constraints. Thus our hero continues to wander on campus searching for food (think of a sad song to play)
***Sapaatu yetu ledu paatina padu brotheru***
(Music suddenly changes to a very upbeat tempo, and another students runs by him excitedly)
Niranjan (excited, shouting): Come on come on, free pizza in the Agriculture and Life Sciences Department!
(both run very excitedly)
(Bunch of Indian students standing and eating pizza)
(Niranjan says hi to many people around him)
(Prof walks around)
Prof: Thank you for coming to my lecture on ’The role of scavengers in the Eco-balance’
Niranjan: Oh it was brilliant sir, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything
(Prof walks off)
Karthik (confused): So what is going on here? Are you in this department?
Niranjan: We are in all departments man. Take one more pizza.
Narrator: Now that our hero’s hunger has been satistfied, he can now go for his first class with full enthusiasm. The new student is always a little apprehensive about the classroom environment. Will he be able to fit in? Will he be able to understand the accents? Can he relate to the unfamiliar faces around him? It is with these questions that he enters the classroom expecting to see it full of Americans.
** Same Tamil music playing in the background***
*** Everyone talking in Tamil, greeting him ***

Socialising scene
Indians have a reputation for being bookworms. As all of you know, this is completely false. We are known for being party hounds and social animals. At any American party you can see a lot of Indians hiding in the corners. Guys are known to pick up girls with lot of ease and we shall direct your attention at one excellent example of a desi student in action
*** English music playing ***

Jai; Excuse me, what is your name
Sapna: Rita
Jai: Rita ji, ek haseena ke liye yeh naa cheez pesh kartaa hai yeh shayari
Mein tere pyar mein paagal hu rita
Mein tere pyar mein paagal hu rita
if and only if sintheta/costheta=tantheta *****************

India club scene
Narrator: At this point in the show, we would like to pause for a minute and dedicate a segment to the India Club, without whose support, this farce would not have been possible. What happens behind the closed doors of the India Club is a matter of much speculation, and not much is known about this very dynamic and creative organization. Please keep in mind that the following reenactment is just a wild guess at what goes on in the Fight Club. Oh sorry, the India Club.
(Fast music - Mortal Kombat, people acting like they’re fighting)
(Need to fix fight sequence, make it funny)
(Music suddenly changes to Shakalya baby (try to rerecord it))

Narrator: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the president of the India Club!
Kishore: Stop your discussions people, we need to decide on Spring Fling by this evening.
******************************************

This was where the mikes gave up on us. And there were shouts of stopping and changing the mike as the jokes could not be heard. With all the actors on stage, and in the middle of the confusion, Shashi shouted out "freeze" and all of us on stage froze in place. He followed that with "rewind" and all the actors immediately did the best of rewind actions to the previous scene. And all this was impromptu.

******************************************

Guys (winking at each other): Heena stall
(Music slowly buils up, Mehndi hai rachne wali)
Girls: No no, we need to do something exciting and new. It must be original and thrilling. It must be totally mindblowing
(Guys yawning)
Narrator: Five hours later
(Music is now louder)
Kishore: Hey ok, the mail has to go out in two minutes.
Everyone: Ok, henna stall! Yay!
(Song - Mehndi lage ke rakna, everyone dances off)

Haircut scene
Narrator: Many months have now passed, we shall now take another look at our heroes (think of how to show long hair). They have found a new sense of fashion, and have also saved hundreds of dollars. All by avoiding haircuts for the past year.
Only one thing can make a desi spend money on haircuts.
The job interview.

Career Services
(K & S, carrying a big sack full of resumes)
(Looking very enthu)
(Go to a stall, resume in hand)
Person at the stall: F1 student? Next please!
(Keep going to stalls, same respone, people at stalls point to other stalls)
(K & S look very dejected)
Naa koi umang hai
Naa koi tarang hai
mere zindagi hai kyaa
ek kati patang hai

Niranjan and JK walk in looking very cool.

Niranjan: Why so sad man?
Shivram: What thale, no one’s taking our resumes
JK: What man, you came to the career fair to get a job? (N and JK laugh hysterically)
Niranjan: Follow us
(They go to a stall, person giving long speech about Tucson Police Dept)
Person at stall: Welcome gentlemen. The tucson police department is looking for strong, dynamic and energetic young people. You get to be part of PD is ..... (think of a funny speech)
Niranjan (looks very interested): Oh, fantastic. I see. Oh. Aha.
Person: Is there anything you would like to ask me?
Niranjan: Where are the T-shirts?
(Everyone takes T-shirts and they go off looking happy)
(Niranjan stops and realises something, goes back to stall)
Person at stall: Same speech...Midway, realises Niranjan’s been there before
Person: Have I seen you before sir?
Niranjan: Ah yes, I’m actually L, but I picked up an M shirt.
(Person looks sad, Niranjan walks off looking happy)
Person: Hey atleast give back the other t-shirt man!

Final Scene
Narrator: And this is how it came to pass, that in the spring of 2006, a change was in progress. The old stalwarts found new jobs, and moved on. Where are they now?
(Funky music - Kannada for Ninja/JK?)
(They walk on stage, full attitude)
JK: Very few people are lucky enough to work on a product that they have used to such a great extent, especially to solve their assignments. JK now works at Google, where he searches for the meaning of life. Narrator: Niranjan is now a highly succesful programmer with Microsoft. Any new bugs in future Microsoft products are mostly because of him. Rahul is now a PhD student who has taken upon himself the onus of heading the India club ably assisted bythe young blood Andy and Mani.
In this ever changing world India club remains as one reassuring constant and these three guys will make sure that the Tucson Dreams still goes on.
(Play some music)

Epilogue
If you have not realized yet, the show is over. All auience are requested to stand and applaud and show their appreciation by generously contributing tomatos and onions. Please note that we do not accept any frozen vegetables. Do not throw the vegetables at random. Form a line and wait for your turn. If you have not got tomatos, there is a stall outside selling vegetables and we have some discount coupons here. Now to the cast;
Andy played by Karthik Shyam
Mani played by Shivram Mani
JK, Niranjan and Rahul as seniors
Archana, Preetha, Shalini, Sapna and Sarika as the girls
Sunil the publicity manager
Shashi as the narrator

Back to the grind

It began with a very informal get-together... and some random ideas put together. But none of us could even have imagined that it would be a runaway hit. :)
I am talking about the same skit - Tucson Dreamz.

The posters here are the publicity stunts we adopted owing to the brainwaves of the "director". The best part about the entire skit was we had as much fun making it as people had watching it. This is the first time in the past 8 months in Arizona, that Tucson really rocked for me.


Which is why it is always difficult to face the assignment after all the fun is over...and you wish somehow yesterday had never ended. :) I guess its the same way after every trip that I have taken, every competition, every stage performance, .......... coming back to life from the stage is very difficult. :)

Awesome.....

Some days just turn out to be amazing. Whether it is because of the people you meet by chance or by decision, whether it is in something you participate or otherwise. Today happened to be one such day .... as varied in the experience, as in the dinner-buffet that I was lucky to have.

First I dug up this snap of the conference at San Francisco. Just one look at it serves as a great source of inspiration because it never ceases to remind me that there are millions of others like me with the same aims, aspirations, striving , succeeding and failing ........ working towards common goals, and best of all........ having the same dreams.

Then coming back to today, a group of students had sat down to write up a script for an Indian cultural fest coming up called Tarana. The skit revolves around the life of a graduate guy who comes from India to UofA and how he gets accustomed to the ways here and goes on to graduate. It focusses on the comedies of everyday grad life of an Indian.
- How just before coming here we refer to Tucson (pronounced Two-sun) as Tucson(pronounced Tuk-son) to all our friends
- How once we are here we go for all free food events .... actually for all freebies.
If there is news of a career fair where free t-shirts are available or free stuff, or a pizza store is advertising free pizzas ...... you are bound to find Indian students there.
- How we always smile and acknowledge other Americans(whoever greets us) but glance away on seeing fellow indians whom we don't know.

Just before leaving for the US, I had read a forwarded mail on how to recognize an Indian who has recently returned from the United states. .......... it included a few of the following anecdotes:
- he drinks nothing but mineral water
- he is always converting from kms to miles and kgs to lbs
- he tries paying by credit card for all purchases
and after that my memory lets me down. The point however is ....it seemed just a few days ago that I was sitting in front of my monitor laughing at these jokes. It seems so scary that I might be turning into such a nightmare myself, so soon.

Today evening, Luann and Dennis took me to a native seeds dinner. It was a formal dinner where all teh dishes were prepared from natural seeds of the region....... but non-vegetarian food was also there. So name something and I will probably say that I had it. The variety was amazing. What was even more amazing was, we shared our table with a lady from teh Tucson city council. Her brother happens to be one of the top 10 american sarodists who has been tutored by Pandit Ali Akbar Khan. Whats more, she happens to know Zakir Hussain since when he was twenty. I don't know about you , I nearly fell off my chair when I was sitting there listening to her telling everybody about the sarod instrument and about Zakir Hussain. The last I have seen and been completely bowled over by Zakir Hussain was in Hyderabad, where I went to watch a concert with Shobana. His personality never ceases to amaze me.
Anyway, I will be able to catch Pandit Ravi Shankar's concert in Tucson. And there still remain a few artists whose concerts I am still trying to catch.

My post's ending note I wanted to be on relationships. Have you ever wondered that even within your friends you have so many different levels of comfort, of familiarity. Mithra has written a very beautiful piece on this thought. Well once I got thinking...there were so many different relationships that came to mind. But I just wondered in how many of them did people go beyond themselves to think about the other person involved. I have been lucky to have friends, who, though ISD distances away, have kept me going by the very thought that they care. I could never thank them enough ...... be it for the mails out of the blue asking if I was still single or fixed :). (Should I add some more smileys here for the person I am targetting!) The best part I am thankful about is that they have never imposed, claustrophobic as I am with relationships which demand too much of me , the people whom I have crossed in corridors, gone to mess with and roamed around the whole of campus have turned out to be the ones I am comfortable with the most. I am not sure if it is college which sows the seeds of eternal friendship, for me it sure has ....... and it is only when it comes to my "this group" ..that I fail to differentiate between levels of comfort and friendship.
Isn't there a mail which goes, smile because you don't know who is falling in love with your smile. And feel happy because someone somewhere is thinking of you, well here's to all my friends. Hope you have a great day because I am thinking about all of you.
(And the above few lines are copied to the best of my memory from a forwarded mail:) but they seemed apt in the context).

Life

I wonder what it is that puts you in the mood to write and what it is that doesn't. I always thought your hobby is something that helps you to be happy when you are not. But it seems more like when I am not happy I can't write. :)

In the long interim period that I did not blog, there have been a zillion things that happened, came went, washed away ....... and somehow I was so absent minded all the time that while most of the things are there somewhere in memory , they do not agree to come up in sequence. (Effect of pursuing master's ...- "in sequence", "in memory" :) )

Memorable among these were, I went to attend a conference to San Francisco. SFO was awesome, the conference was equally motivating ..... there is a place called Sausalito which from the glimpse that I got of it I felt, was a wee bit of paradise. Best thing about California, which does not change everytime I see it,...... is that its so green.

I also caught some movies, somehow everybody nowadays calls me a movie buff, well in defense all I can say is ....atleast they give me a source of enjoyment and relaxation. :) But the movies that I caught, were Goodnight and Goodluck, The bicycle thief, Grapes of Wrath , ..... Fun with Dick and Jane. The last movie was one which I went off to watch alone. It didnt seem like a very novel thing to do .... I don't mean the going to the movie part, I meant the going alone part.
But it was only after one of my friends commented "Are you freaking gone mad" that I started to think if I had !! :) Then I finally came to the conclusion that I hadn't. Well until you go and watch a movie alone, or have fun alone and realise you don't need to depend on others to make you happy , you probably would not realise what I mean. Its just that I am tired of dragging people along to enjoy things that I enjoy and they don't. Atleast this way, I am not burdening someone under gun-point and I am doing what I llike the most.
So for this very nonsensical post, I think its best I end it right here before I let more sarcasm and cynicism get it by the throat.

Being anonymous....

I suddenly got it into my head that I wanted to be anonymous, and that this blog was not achieving it. With this idea in mind, I created another blog...... being anonymous certainly gives you a sense of power. No, I don't mean the anonymity you use to hurl comments from behind a bush or criticise with the purpose of condemning, I mean the power of being anyone you want. Ofcourse you will point out ...why do you want to be someone else. Good question! I don't have an answer other than that, at some point in your life everyone I guess would have wanted to be in someone else's shoes.
Well the idea of anonymity was a great hit with me yesterday, and today morning when I thought I would resume what I had started.......I realised I had forgotten the name of the blog or the exact title rather, the username and the password and everything which I keyed in returned with "incorrect password". :)

This was written and saved as draft about a week back. So the madness of being anonymous and otherwise have long since been replaced by other things , better or worse and new. I visited Tombstone - a town right out of a western movie, Bisbee - a mining town complete with a copper mine tour. I went on a trip to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum ...... and got some great pictures. (It seems I am becoming quite the photographer.) I also wandered in on a Spanish Harlem Orchestra and kept wishing I had had taken a partner who was great at dancing salsa, bcoz thats what happened - the entire audience was up, the guy twirling the girl , throwing her away like a doll and pulling her back close again. :) Sounds romantic, yes ... but it also looked like a whole lot of fun.
What else did I do ...I went on an outing with Luann , drove along the border of USA and Mexico, attended two cases - yup legal cases and lunched at a place called Tubac, a quaint little artists town. I think I have nearly covered the whole of Arizona.
I also started on a new book, The KiteRunner, - it has bagged a few laurels including the San Francisco best book of the year.
I also messed up my mid term exams pretty badly, am almost on the verge of buying tickets back home. There have been quite a few nights when I have gone to sleep with a smile on my lips thinking of all that I would do once I am home. :)

Finally , I found a temple. Savitha drove us to a place in no man's land between Tucson and Phoenix . Its a Ganapathi temple ....the idols are housed in what looks from outside, just like a house. But once inside, the golden idols and the rituals .....quite made me lose myself. I have probably never belived more in the healing powers of prayer than now....and I guess I needed it. Lord Ganesha quite transported me back to a rockfort temple set on top of a hill , on the slopes of which I can recall numerous conversations in numerous moods .........:) from boyfriend troubles, to bad grades to going back home to is it worth it :). And I cannot help but smile.
I wonder sometimes which of my posts don't hold a trace of REC. I should probably get out of this living in the past mode. But as long as it still makes me smile, who cares!!

Missing...

I am not a cooking person. For as long as I can remember, I have always avoided going into the kitchen. All I knew was to sit and wait at the dinner table when I was hungry while Maa would toil away at the kitchen. That too, there were times when I was a regular go-to-sleep-when-the- clock-strikes-9, and only a whole lot of scolding would ever get me out of bed after I had drifted off. So it is not surprising, I was not equipped to survive on my own in Hyderabad.
Vishnupriya turned out quite my opposite. She had helped her mother out a lot in the kitchen and knew the nuances of when the masala should be added, how much the ladies finger should be fried, what is the measure of rice is to water, how many whistles before the cooker should be switched off. Our Hyderabad lunch and dinners were small thoroughfares (I hope that is the correct word.) We would have steaming rice, a curry dish like sambaar or dhal and a vegetable side-dish which would inevitably be one of beans,ladies fingers, potato fries , paneer, egg scrambled, and curd to end it off. I would ofcourse always add sugar to my curd which gave Vishnu no end of amusement I guess. :)

So , its not that I ever have enjoyed cooking. But somehow it has always been the perfect thing for me to unwind always. And at the end, sitting down to steaming bowls of food in front of me, cooked by me ....seemed the perfect way to end the working day. Sitting down meant literally sitting down on a chatai on the floor as we did not have chairs or tables in our Hyderabad home. I think I have mentioned this before, but we had a long hall , at one end was an open verandah overlooking Hitech city and the sunset and on the other the entrance door overlooked the hills and Fine Arts Gallery and the sunrise. Once you kept both the verandah and the door open, you would imagine there was a mini-gale blowing through our house.

Well why the sudden reminiscing.....when I cook now (and I do not cook very often) and I am alone like on a sultry afternoon like today, I end up revisiting so many memories and experiences and reliving them. And it never ceases to make me wonder that cooking still gives me the sense of achievement it did back in Hyd. :) As if I have mastered something and that is irrespective of whether salt became more or the sabji was too watery or that I usually cook everything the same way.

I finished Memoirs of a Geisha today. I had made up my mind to do it. An interesting read but then again there were many things I did not agree with. For quite some time, (actually till I reached the end of the book), I was under the impression it was a true story and a book read, thinking the incidents have really happened is very different from a book read knowing its a story.
But all in all, I know that every book, (like every experience) leaves a part of it with you after you are done with it. It does not matter how small that part is. You have assimilated, imagined, experienced ...and have grown since you first picked up the book. (Very very philosophical!) Well my whole point is, for some moments after I have replaced the book and walked out of its life....... the effect still lingers for sometime and it feels like being in a trance. There are so many what ifs ....what if this had not happened or some other turn had been taken , how would it have been different. There have been not many books that have made me laugh out loud or cry out loud for that matter. Sarat Chandra's stories have always succesfully brought me to tears whether at the happy ending or the sad. I remember tears rolling down on to the pillow when I read Parineeta in bengali for the first time for the sheer innocence of the story. The other book which I remember kept me reeling for long after was Gone with the Wind. I have never felt totally changed and mature after reading a book as I did after reading this one. It seemed like being a totally different person.
Ofcourse books are not always about crying. P.G.Wodehouse brought me laughter through reading. Who would have thought a pig called Empress, Lord Emsworth and his castle called Blandings would be the source of so much entertainment. Equally entertaining, and I still smile when I think of the book.......was Three men in a boat. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it. It had me in splits.

With books, and cooking...whats next!! :) Well for some days now, I have been wanting to go to a temple. And somehow, the Kali temple in Kolkata where I have had some of the most amazing coincidences if you will, the REC temple which gave company in all my solitude ............ somehow I have been missing it a lot , maybe I was just looking for somewhere to draw strength from or the reassurance that everything will be all right. (Like the fairytale endings of books.) The other thing I have been missing are my salwar suits. I have grown so bored of wearing jeans and tshirts all day , all week all month. I cannot remember ever saying I was bored of my salwar suits. The chiffon dupattas , and the colors and fabrics would be a sight for sore eyes if I could just get back to them once more. But for all that .................I guess a trip home is long pending and till then I just have to keep on missing these and much more.

Book stores and back to books .....

I had been forming this post in my mind thruout the day , adding and trying to remember bits and pieces now , then , here , there ....... with the effect that there were a myriad of topics I had included. But I fell asleep in the middle with the effect that I have to start off on a clean slate. Bcoz once I get up from sleeping, neither my mood is the same nor are the things in the same perspective (read over-exaggerated!!).
I have discovered a corner , and a book which manages to draw me back everyday. Considering that I was out in touch with books for nearly six months, its a big achievement for me. Thanks to Mithra that I first thought of getting my hands on the book "Memoirs of a Geisha". And so far it has not disappointed me. Best of all, I get to sit among books and read the book , with a crisp new cover ........ :)...the corner I have found to read in is in the University book store. I love it bcoz I can sit there in total anonymity, (just another nobody), I love the corner in the book-store (which I now regard as my corner)..... I ofcourse love the book.....its about a girl's struggle through life. There are many things to read and laugh about and many things to not agree with in the book. But its interesting and keeps you waiting.......... to know what happens next. Ok i guess I am going round and round in cycles.
Two movies down , Love actually - was not good at all. I think only Hugh Grant's name made me get it. It was about ten love stories reaching their climax in London. The other movie was Elizabethtown. That was also an ok movie for me - but Orlando Bloom was out of this world. :) He made the movie very enjoyable. But the movie had some very interesting pieces of thought - Kirsten Dunst on hearing Orlando talk about how he was a failure says :"Ok so you failed, you failed you failed you failed .....so what! ...... What is great is when you face upto it and still smile, so that people wonder why you are still smiling." I thought that was a beautiful thought.....bcoz it gives you a feeling of power that you alone are the master of your life.

One of my best investments so far was my Ipod. I am glad my brother asked for it , and I am even happier that I didn't send it :)(selfishly). All the way while coming back from Univ, then while trying to make a simple alu fry which backfired....with music and thoughts of the book i guess I was smiling throughout and after a long time ...I was enjoying my company :)...................I don't know where the feeling of euphoria came from ....maybe the realisation that I didn't need external factors to be happy was satisfying..........well atleast for sometime.

A hidden world......

Everybody has a set of goals and dreams they want to achieve. This may range from the amount of money they want to make to the place they want to settle in to a house for themselves with a convertible parked in front.............in short a wish-list of where they should be or what they should have done by such and such a time.
There is (and I want to believe this for everyone) a list of things which we have seen or heard and they appeal to us so much that we put them on a dream-list. They are the ones which begin with the words "I want to para-glide someday.......I wish I could own a horse someday". A crazy fantasy world of things which we wish we could believe would come true , but we have a line in that belief which leans more towards disbelief and so they stay just like that ........ as wishes. :) The former set was something we have to do and achieve and it is solely dependent on us. The second is what life decides to give us or bring across our way.

I guess I am not making much sense at all. :) So be it!! I have a wish-list too ...(I can just hear you say, ahh now you tell us, this was the point you were tryingto get at for so long :)....yes you are right!!) My wishlist includes sitting cross-legged on top of a mountain ........blue mountains covered with snow which infringe on a green valley. The valley slopes steeply in front of me and there are trees with overhanging boughs over where I sit. It would be great if the mountains were the Kanchenjunga , becoz there are no other mountains which have made me fall in love at first sight.
I also want to own a horse someday. Not own , ride, with the wind racing past us ......... galloping trotting , running and racing. A brown horse with a star on his head (this is probably due to the influence of Dreamer which I saw today evening.) But when I ride him, I want us both to fly and to watch the scenery go racing past us. I have often wondered especially in some of the last few days........ when a deer runs, it can have all four of its feet it the air at the same time. When a horse runs , how many legs are in the air ? (:) can I hear grumbling at the amount of rambling I do). But I am sure you will agree with me there is quite nothing as beautiful as watching the horse run free. Do you remember Gandolf's white horse come racing in LOTR! Something like that and something so beautiful.
Now let me see, what else do I want to do. I want to sail and surf as well. And to do it deftly so that I don't end up swallowing salt-water everytime a large wave comes by.

Why the sudden wishlists ! Well I happened to see the movie Dreamer . It stars Dakota Fanning and Kurt Russell and is a childrens' movie and if you are the kind who is reading and thinking ooohhhhh god!! not again , its probably not meant for you. It shows the world through the optimistic eyes of a child and how hope is so easy to come by and yet so hard. It plays two worlds side-by-side and the best part ends happily ....... :) but it leaves you wishing you could ride a horse to glory so that "the heavens might open up and grounds shake under your feet"..... and the sweet smell of victory , of battles won rise up to greet you.
Winning can become an addiction.

I have never talked to Bruno as if he could understand me ....(ok !! now this girl has gone crazy. :) ) But I have seen my mother do so and Bruno reciprocate with understanding, with anger, with confusion ......each of the emotions written as plainly on his face as they are on ours. The only time I have felt helpless in trying to make him understand (becoz all I would ever do was doggy talk to him) was when I would hug him and cry to him and he would become agitated seeing my tears. Maybe one day I will be able to make him understand and understand him without resorting to doggy talk.
And one day I shall own a horse and race him across green fields..........:)

I know I have a tendency to overly romanticize things and catch on to anything which gives me a break or flight from the reality of today and tomorrow and yesterday ...... but then the day I stop dreaming I don't think I will be young anymore. .......... or have a neverland I can fly to........ whenever I want.

From the lion's den.....

The title has no link whatsoever with the rest of the post unless I compare Microsoft with the lion. Well , after a sumptuous Italian dinner I was all ready to turn in but then sleep doesn't seem to be coming easy today. (So I probably have become nocturnal finally......)
I faced the famous Microsoft interview today. It was every bit as interesting for me as it was I am sure ..."boring and frustrating " for the interviewer. I managed a solution to the question asked but inspite of hints from him, could not hit upon an efficient solution. I probably deserve to be kicked for this, but it was the same question which was asked in yesterday's interview to others and I had been lazy enough (maybe scared ...whenever I am scared I have a tendency of burying my head in the sand like the ostrich) not to prepare it and go.
The question was simple, sorting a colored balls array so that all the like colors are grouped together. And ofcourse, it was fun for me because at every step the interviewer would make it one step tougher, by increasing the number of colors , or reducing the memory available. :) It was as dynamic as I have heard and read Microsoft interviews are and......I messed it up.
The experience was worth it but I wasn't worth the interview :).....and well it happened that Sudhir gave his job-treat today. Hence the great Italian food and my first Lasagna...(pronounced lasagnia).

Two days back, I made Reliance very happy by expunging(I am hoping expunge is the correct word in this context) my phone bill. I caught up with a lot of friends in India. One thing it did make me feel............ I am happy to be doing what I am doing ...pursuing my Master's. I am lucky to be doing it and I am proud that I have a great family who support me throughout. Kind of like one of the Oscar speeches eh!, .............and yes in a way it probably speaks of my selfishness in not giving up my interests.

What could be a better example than throwing tantrums at home to get a pet dog, ending up buying my golden retriever Bruno when I was in Class 9, spending only three years at home after that and literally dumping him on my mom after that and leaving for my Bachelor's, job and now Master's. When I see him on my web-cam and his golden brown coat which becomes a dark chocolate in winter - I know what I am missing and I know that I will never be able to bring this back - the time that I am not spending with him......at home. Bruno deserves a whole chapter to himself and I don't want this to be the one. Unless you have a pet in your house, you won't realize how easily they steal your heart. They have this way of becoming a part of your lives by unconditionally loving you. And that makes things harder.
Sometimes its really hard to weigh the balance, is it worth it , staying so far away and working towards a dream, not being able to spend time with the people you most want to........................
that is something I will always envy my friends in India for............... and somehow I wish I could put everything together. But that is never possible is it!
Home-sick suddenly ...yes , I guess Bruno was the cause. :)

Addicted

Yesterday I listened to the song "Etho Onuru" around a dozen times. So much so, I think my room-mate Shalini thought I was going crazy. I had a zillion things to do and somehow no interest in starting any of them .........so it was an episode of f.r.i.e.n.d.s . It was one of the early episodes where Rachel comes to know that Ross loves her and goes to the airport to receive him and tell him that she too loves him. But meanwhile Ross has found himself a friend from his conference in China ....the episode ends with Rachel waiting with a bouquet and smiling thoughts and the song by Madonna , having the words "I've always been in love with you [always with you]I guess you've always known it's true [you know it's true]You took my love for granted, why oh whyThe show is over, say good-byeSay good-bye [bye bye], say good-bye". Then it took quite a bit of googling to bring up the actual song which is called "Take a bow" by the way.

Coming to "googling", its amazing how life now depends on it. I am sure we will have the motto "For everything there is Google" soon (if not already). No, I am not advocating for Google.....:) just that some things among others have changed so.

Ok that totally eludes/punts on why Etho Onuru. The first thing that the song reminds me is of sitting in a packed REC auditorium, and one of the Music Troupe guys singing it so beautifully that I was sure I would never forget the song. Between then and now, has been a considerable gap and the song bridged it for a moment. It bridged and brought back so many things .............the potpourri of characters that made up REC, the love stories, the enemities.......
They say College days are the best days of your life. I could never agree more.
There have been so many times that we didn't need a reason to go crazy. The best part was whenever you went crazy, you could be sure people would be a sport and join in. So it was that playing hide and seek,ping pong, murderer after class , wearing the same colored dresses to college ........... playing a song rewinding and playing it again , sitting and talking about nothing through the night under a star lit sky, trying to decipher if one of us had actually fallen in love......... had become the norm.
There were so many surmises then and thinking about whether it was possible or not and from where I stand now, I can see how many of those surmises worked positively or negatively. Given the flat landscape of time today , I am sure there are many decisions that many people would have or would not have taken under star lit skies on hostel roof tops.
But for all that I miss those days so. I miss going crazy, I miss talking to Sheeba and Tulika and .... and for all that I think I should stop listening to songs which bring back the addiction and fun of going crazy.

Let it be....

There have been so many friends who have criticised my blog as a public diary and of it being too explicit in detailing my life. I have so many times thought I probably should stop writing.

Something that had broken my heart in between was one of my best friends telling me "how come you have more frequent updates on your blog than your mails......". That had been one of the second-last straws. I am so glad the last straw never came whether only for Shalini's comment of grrrriinnng at another reader's answer to my question on how to delete the blog.

Well so many people keep blogs about so many things.... I keep one about my life. And sometimes when I read back through them I find so many things to appreciate that I hadn't before. They show me how my perspective has changed between then and now.
So why not a private diary .... I have never found myself writing so well before in a diary ....yes probably my friend (whom I quoted before) .........was right and it is only becoz of all the attention I get here. Well atleast it brings out the best that I can write :).

So this blog out of the blue .....I did not start writing it out with a thought of justifying its existence, just that there are different things which different people like doing. So maybe I just love doing this. And thats quite a change from my first blog note where I had written how I had thought I would never join this community bcoz of the fact that it is so publicly accessible.

Having said all that , its only after I started writing that I got addicted. Sometimes they just manage to take the blues away .......especially when I return to read them. So let this be my corner and whoever wants to read about it is welcome to , and vice versa about those who don't like its existence. We are lucky enough not to have censorships slapped on to our blogs or thoughts as yet....its not what all countries enjoy.

Enough justifications, yesterday night was the movie To kill a mocking bird. I had read the book already so the newness was lost but the kids were darlings, the little girl Scott, and the little boy Jim just steal your heart away. Ofcourse Gregory Peck just fits into the shoes of Atticus Finch. A nice movie, nice complement of the book. I guess I am lucky to have got a chance to see all the award winners one after the other. Gaslight is lined up hopefully for tonight :).

I dreamt....

"Last night I dreamt I was back at Manderley.....". This is the beginning line of the book "Rebecca" which is the book I invariably mention as my favorite book. The words when I had first read them had not seemed as spine-chilling or insightful as they do now or today......

Last night I dreamt I was back at the Hollywood walk of fame. :) These dreams have been recurring for some nights now. Sometimes its being back at sea-world, sometimes back on the beach........ each time I am the only recognizable character in the dream. And they set me off wondering if my mind is actually seeking escape in these memories.
Why escape ! Well sem start, assignments which sometimes make more sense being read backwards than forwards, an entire "mini-relational" database to be implemented and its back to the grind ....................

But even then the weekend was enjoyable, with one birthday party and two movies back to back. Schindler's list and One flew over the cuckoo's nest. The former was rivetting for the way Spielberg had shot the film .....the way he had drawn the analogies. The picturization was way way exceptional.
One flew over the cuckoo's nest was frustrating, there were times when you simply want to get up and change the way things are going but are left feeling helpless, a mere spectator of the turn of events. I had been interested in reading the book but I am pretty sure now (after having seen the movie) that I will not survive the book. The movie in the simplest of words can be described as disturbing and a must-watch.

Clementine and tangerine..

The name of the post has nothing whatsoever to do with the post. I just came to know today that they call the small oranges clementines and the larger ones tangerines in America. Clementine was also Kate Winslet's name in Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind...... (its funny how these things just stick to memory while a "simple" thing like the Pumping Lemma doesn't).........apart from which the musical and magical sound of the word itself has made it "one of my favorite things".
We had a long weekend half of which was spent in tackling a head cold and treating myself to all possible remedies for a quick recovery. Thats the way Tucson is nowadays....... as if it has no control on its mind, the sun is brilliantly shining in the sky and wherever the rays can reach are warm ...even hot, but wherever the shadows have stolen their place there is the chilliest of winds......... so as you walk between the shadows and the sun , you spend your time alternating between whether to wear the jacket or to take it off.

Weather talk usually means someone is either opening a conversation , or being pleasant or has nothing else to say. I am wondering which I should leave it at. :)

December 31st: We checked out of the hotel Hollywood Inn at LA finally by noon. And then it was back to the highways and wide lanes and speeding cars ........ This time the mountains had almost crept up on us, so that the highway was a winding road and when it finally gave way....you felt you were over-looking the valley. The day was cloudy ........ so the ocean on the right as you drove didn't actually shimmer in the sun-rays ........ they just lay there...limitless , a dull grey and blue ...merging with the sky in the distance.
We wanted to drive by the ocean ...... coming from Arizona, the immensity of the oceans and "water water everywhere" suddenly overwhelms you :). It was thus that we chanced upon Oceanside, a small harbor. The harbor was closed and all the boats/ships were towed in line.....each one painted in blue or red stripes. There was a very cozy looking coffee shop by the sea and thats where we settled down for brunch. If not anything else, this seemed to be the right-out-of-the-story-book part. I remember I had french fries, buttered buns, and tea. There was another family with new year hats and whistles, and we overhead them saying "we started early". :) If anywhere, I can say,............... time could just stop there and you wouldn't know where it went....it was such a picture-perfect place !
San Diego routes gave us a tough time even with Google-Yahoo maps and we finally landed up pretty tired at home. We tried our luck in the evening to go searching for Sea-port village but we missed it. New-years's eve.......we ended up in downtown San Diego. For lack of enthu to spend the night partying in one of the new year bashes, we decided we would atleast eat our dinner at an Indian restaurant. Thats how we finally landed up in Star of India. Paneer Butter Masala, Naans, Navrathna Kormas....(and I am forgetting the dinner menu surprisingly :)) topped off with Kheer which tasted like a watery rice pudding.
Once back at the hotel, Vanita and I dropped off to sleep with plans of getting up before midnight. As new year approached we sat and made our new year resolutions one by one around the room - four of us who had not even known of each other's existence just six months back.
I didn't remember then ...but now there are so many new years which flash before my eyes......dancing around bonfires with all my batch-mates in hostel..... trying to keep the fire alive with newspapers, first we as the junior most batch, then one where we were the senior most........ another new-year at home watching the new year TV shows with my family............

and I am left wishing ....I wish I had realized the values of those moments then as well.

New Year..... was get up in a hurry, get dressed , check out of the hotel and on the road to sea- world. I remember my brother being amazed at the size of the parking space. We were too. You can see the Atlantis ride from the ticket lines itself. It was the ride which would supposedly get us drenched and was scary.
Once in, we had a map and it was pretty similiar to Universal Studios, run run run to catch all the shows. The first we made it to was the dolphins. We met them in a water tank on the way with me falling in love with one of them who simply insisted on posing for me. The otters were also having quite a time of their lives in another passing pool, banging the glasses with their play-pipes.
Then first the dolphins show and then the killer-whale show.......... :) I don't think there is a moment that you can close your mouth or not blink. They are so amazing to watch. The shows are entertaining in themselves but the way Shyamu (the killer whale), Duncan (wow! am I good at names) and the rest of the dolphin troupe bowled you over with being so life-like ..........top that with their sky jumps and somersaults in the air. What was best about it all........ they seemed to enjoy it as much as we were. And I am sure you could actually make out all of them were smiling and having the time of their lives....... if not only for the ounces of food that they got after every trick.
There was a sea-lion show as well where it was equally tough to make out the sea-lions from the actors. They did miss their cue here and there but you should just sit there and watch them waddling on land on their fins......and its bound to make you smile. I am smiling even as I remember them.
These were the first times that I was overflowing with pride for my camera. I am very bad at choosing electronic gadgets but that day I could have wished for no other camera.

There were rides as well, flight simulator show to explore the arctic, and walking through penguins and polar bears. And there was Atlantis. I'll specially remember this roller-coaster if not others. It is one of those "come-down from a great height straight into the water and then continue as a roller-coaster nearly tilting you out thing". It was also the ride where for the first time I just let go and trusted the ride not to let me fall. And there was no fear. I am sorry if this is stating the obvious ..........
I have always pulled people with me on scary rides before (I pulled my father behind me when I was in my eighth standard on the Appu Columbus in Delhi Appu Ghar, and he nearly died of a heart attack ).......and it has always been a joke in the family that no sooner than the ride starts that I start laughing a nervous laughter which is probably the reason behind my courage (it supposedly releases my fear)......Other escapades have been my mother and me on Tora-tora, a class-picnic to Nicco Park in Kolkata where half the class ended up vomitting after a ride on My fair Lady..... and probably the last one in India was the 360 degree turning thing that Anshuman, Deepu, Vishnu's brother and I landed up on. At the top of that ride, its only the chair-rests that are holding you in place and you keep wondering how much weight it has been tested to support and hope and pray that you fall well below it. Well at that point , hanging and looking at the world upside down there is nothing much you can do but leave it all in god's hands
that if this is the moment then so be it. :) Its more like you give up. I remember answering that "yes i was alright" in response to one of their questions bcoz it seemed I had gone extremely quiet. I won't make a long tale out of it........ yes it was scary and no, my nervous laughter I guess got too frightened to take care of my fear this time.

Maybe that was the fear factor that made me immune or maybe this time I just left myself and put all my trust on the seat holders of Atlantis and ...... I didn't feel scared. And it felt really good to have trusted and in having been repaid in that trust bcoz thats not what always happens in real life.
Too philosophical ........ well going on from there, we had lunch at a place which had these delicious rich chocolatey desserts all arranged in front and for the first time I did not indulge myself .

After we left Sea-world, we went on to Sea-port village. Another try and this time we got it. Its a very sweet little place by the sea in downtown San Diego. The first which struck us and we went on to ride was a straight out of the Noddy book style merry-go-round complete with its own music as long as it went around, and horses which went up and down on their poles. :) There were all these shops .....like little cottages with warm inviting lights especially as it had started to rain. Vanita and I finally succumbed to Ben and Jerry's ice-creams. I had chocolate fudge brownie which is a dark chocolate ice-cream with soft brownies in-between and which was heaven to me while it lasted.

We spent the night at a friend's place, next morning a short trip to the Black beach among winds ready to wash you off your feet. But the shoreline was very pretty with the waves washing over it. Then on to the mall which is designed very prettily and is an outdoor mall. And we decided we will start our ride back to Tucson.

The journey back had sand-dunes, and lunch-tea at a place way in the desert. (much like our dhaba but not-quite with the same warmth). I slept for most part of the journey. We finally trouped back home at 8-9 in the night. Exhausted from a vacation break but I am sure all of us were satisfied and happy......... the happiness that enjoyment without any tension brings ....or which comes from a trip to a new place, seeing new faces, just a change ........

"More than words"

There are ever so few times when someone comes by and touches your heart in such a way that you are left feeling your life is meaningless compared to the love they are able to give.
International friends association from day one was what brought me close to Luann. Thanks to her, I have not only got a friend but come to know more about Tucson in such a short time. This time too I landed at their lunch for students and signed up for a one night dinner invitation with a family. I had little idea of what was in store. The other two students were May from Iraq(Baghdad) and Dechuan from China. Sitting there in the cozy living room, listening to stories from around the world ....comparing habits and listening to the amazing range of languages that May and Imra(my host) knew...... I was spellbound. Sometimes small incidents make you feel so small. Imra's goodbye hug, the painstakingly cooked dinner, the constant attention to whether each of us were feeling at home , pulling each of us into the conversation ........ small things yes! Small things which left me feeling smaller, that all that governed my life was whether I would land up with some internship somewhere, how was I going to complete the assignment. How small could I get .......... but the way that Luann and Imra and Leonard have touched my lives..... and helped me to learn about life beyond just degrees and competition for higher pay packages ............. is not something I will ever be able to repay them for. I don't know if anyone of them will ever read this, but Thank you to all of you , thank you for touching my life.


December 30, 2006. The earliest that we could set off from our hotel for Universal Studios was 9:30. Once we entered it, we were in something like Neverland......a fairy tale, with all brilliantly colored houses right out of the fairytale books. One building was covered in icicles, one had michael jordan propped against it, one had king kong towering above us......... and the cinema theatre had Hulk glaring out ......... the first thing we did was purchase tickets for the 9:30 night show of Chronicles of Narnia. I had been simply dying to watch the film ever since I had heard all the rave reviews.
Then on a red carpet, a turnstile to show the tickets, and we were in Universal Studios. (What I had been talking about so far was what leads to it). A map listed all the shows and rides and the timings. And thats it .....the rest of the day all we could think of was what we have covered and what we haven't and believe me when I say you really need to plan it out to get everything covered. The problem is not the number of things you have to cover but the amount of time that is spent waiting in front of each show and ride in the unending queues.

And all the while that we were there, I could not belive that I had actually landed there. How many times would I have read and heard about it. How many times would I have envied all my friends who would talk about their visits to Disneyland and here , and show off their gifts from these places from cousins living abroad. And believe it or not, I was standing there too :). I still cannot believe it even while writing. Guess I am too much of a country girl looking in awe at a world I had always read about...... through rainbow colored glasses.

The first show was a trip through a haunted house kind of thing called The Van Helsing fortress after the movie. I would rather not spoil the fun here , but PQP team in Hyderebad and Shobana, Shalini, Lakshmi and Vishnu will know what I mean when I say this is where the haunted house at Imax got its ideas from.:)
The next show was of Terminator, a 3-D show which we had to watch through those 3-D glasses. The effects as part of the ongoing story on screen ......... had me gaping like a codfish. We were all in applause after the show got over especially as the ending swept us off our feet. Following this was a show based on Shrek , that was a 4D experience. :) and I will keep you guessing about what could be 4D.

In between this somewhere we packed in the Waterworld show, which when I was narrating all the stories at home, my brother rattled off as if he knew more about it than me. This one too was a different experience, more so bcoz you get splashed with water in the spectator seats :).

In between trying to manage time for munching snacks, and buying lunch at Panda Express to get a discount only to find the discount coupon was not valid, I got my favorite snap of the entire trip. :) I got a snap patting Matt Damon's prop on the back .......:)))) But the snap has come out great and believe me, you would not realize he is not for real.

After all this we took a three level trip through elevators down to the next level where all the rides where. The Mummy ride , Jurassic Park ...normal roller-coaster rides but the extra punch that each packed left you smiling from ear to ear. The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were jumping out at you from ceilings , sideways, and spraying you with water from head to foot. They were just that much bigger and that much more real than similiar rides back home.

Close to the park closing time and among the last people trooping out, we rushed to our waiting show. Chronicles of Narnia just extended the fairytale world for a few more hours. But I felt it dragged at times and had a lot in common with the battle scenes in LOTR.

But with such a fairytale ending to an equally fairytale day...what more could I wish for.

Road trip,and back to Tucson

Ok, this post has been pending for a long time. I got to enjoy a holiday. :) I had not thought (rather was not in the mood to) step out of Tucson and it just turned out that even after some last minute hesitations (becoz of things beyond my control) which nearly made me drop the idea of a road trip......I finally joined the group.
So where do I start ! From the bus stop a few blocks away, to the downtown Greyhound bus station. The greyhound would be the USA equivalent of the APSRTC or KSRTC buses which took me from Hyderabad to Bangalore and back. A two hour trip to Phoenix........and believe me after the small town I felt like I had jumped some decades into the future. High rise buildings, unending swerving bridges and fly-overs .......... forget that, the sheer scale of the buildings, the airport, the parking spots, the traffic........ after my laid back life in Tucson, it was quite a few gulps to get accustomed. We made our way to ASU (arizona state university) and the apartments near that.
Our group was a team of 5, and where we were going, what we were going to do...all were last minute decisions except that Priya and Abhishek had already booked the tickets to Universal Studios and the hotel in Los Angeles, and the rental car. We got a red Dodge as our car and it was a good car .....more so becoz the color could be identfied from far. :)
I was the shutter bug from the minute we got started, which was December 29th morning. Sunrises and brilliant skies, trees on the roadway, everything and anything which seemed to make a good subject ......... and as for the number of snaps ...keep guessing ......... well all together, there were three cameras and the number crossed 400.
What was amazing about the journey was the diversity in the scenery, the desert changing to greens to amazing lawns of a green I cannot describe. Beautiful houses lining the streets and pn the hills which rose up from the highway..........USA seemed to have been blessed with the most amazing diverse geography that I have ever seen ........... at each moment that some thought cropped up in my head, I felt like clinging on to it but I did not get the time to jot it down ..... so they just became like ships passing in the night (if thats the correct saying.....I apologize for writing the way I am and I am sure its going to be a bit difficult to follow........I am trying to capture the then moment in the now and that is always a difficult task.)
Once the city started it was actually very like any of the metros in India. The roads were narrower with lesser lanes and much more traffic and more honking and it was really difficult driving.......... any mistake and you were being glared at. There were traffice queues quite reminding all of us of back home. Our hotel was the Hollywood Inn in Hollywood itself. We also caught sight of the Hollywood sign on the mountain while we were searching for our hotel.
We probably owe a great deal to Google and Yahoo by the way. Those were the only maps we carried thruout and at every hotel stop, we would be browsing for directions from hotel to beach, from universal studios to beverly hills. ..............
That evening we made it to Santa Monica beach just in time to catch the sunset. The sunset was beautiful but it was windy and cold. But then there is something so soothing about the waves just moving in towards you, lapping at your feet and retreating that you can stand and watch for hours. There were seagulls which were flying around in groups and I got a lovely snap.

I missed out that we visited Beverly Hills before this and no...we were not lucky enough to see any of the stars out jogging or walking their dogs but the houses were beautiful. All we could gape and dream about was how expensive it would be to own a house there.

Later from the beach we made our way to the UCLA campus. It abruptly starts ........ and you cannot make out where the city ended and the university started. But somehow I liked it. We spent a lazy night chatting at Starbucks. (me with Mocha with whipped cream). After that, me with the least stamina wanted to drop out of a plan to go visiting the Hollywood walk of fame but I ended up going anyways. The Hollywood walk of fame is a long pavement of engraved stars, each bearing the name of a famous actor, actress, singer, director etc. I got a snap with Vanita and Keanu Reeves(his name was on the star). :) The best thing were the christmas lights ... it looked like a Durga puja festival back home ......only a little different. :)

We came across the Chinese theatre where "Rumor has it" was being screened. We wanted to see the inside of the theatre...its supposed to be the best there so we decided on watching the movie as well. The inside of the theatre was beautiful with gold designs on red wall hangings and a beautifully engraved ceiling. I cannot speak much in praise of the movie though.

Tired and sleepy as we made our way out, we got to watch a street performance. A group of 6 or 7 guys showing off their acrobatic dancing skills. They were good and in the cold night, it was great standing there just watching them.

We finally trooped back to the hotel to settle in cozy blankets for the night. Tomorrow Universal Studios was waiting and we wanted to get there early to beat the queue.

:) ......to be continued...................................

Yesterday's Sunshine.......

When he came running up the slope ................ the mountain had seemed greener till a few moments before, the clouds a little nearer and the far away mountain slopes not so far away. But the world changed when he burst out shouting ....he had made it. He had just got news that the University had accepted him. There was hardly any time now. He would have to be there within a week or lesser if possible. I had never felt the ground slipping away from beneath my feet so fast. I turned away ...I think I did a good job of hiding some persistent drops of water in my eye .......and I am sure he did not guess. But I have later asked myself many a time........wouldn't it have been better to have let one stubborn tear drop escape and fall just so that he would have seen it ........ and realized and stopped and never turned to go away again. From that moment we hardly got time together. He never guessed or tried to realize the unspoken words......and I ......waited. I have no idea for what or why. It had just seemed so complete........him, with me , suddenly. It could hardly have been six month that he had intruded into my life, my mountains......... a new neighbor, eager to make friends, to get to know the people around. Before, the peaks sloping away in the distance .......had always seemed so remote yet so familiar. Somehow everything changed after he came. I had known myself to be independent and to know all...... after all this was where I had grown up. How could someone show me more about what I had explored and trekked so thoroughly. And yet he made me learn more about those same mountains that I had known more than him ....sometime. We ...would stand hand in hand at the edge of the slope............ drawing deep breaths from the steep incline in front of us and the vast greens behind. Those warm hands clasped in one another's...................... those clouds which bore witness. It seemed as if that was life. ...... this was life. There couldn't have been anything more complete....... than the understanding we shared. The dependency that had grown, the support we craved for from each other........ taking for granted that the other would understand..... it was not that we didnt fight. We would not speak to each other for days and then suddenly one of us would come running to show the other a new butterfly ...... and all the brawls would be forgotten. We saw the world through the colored eyes of a child and never knew when time overtook us....... and never realized that we would have to move on. And the same slopes that had been our playmate stood mutely watching as we said goodbye. A hurried goodbye kiss, a train waiting somewhere ........ it didnt wait for him to understand..... or did he. I always wondered whether he heard me say what I didnt say, I so wished he would. So wished he would stop and turn. I needed him so ...did he not need me too. I had always dreamt how when I fell in love everything would be perfect. My hero always at my side and always at my bidding. And I had realized that love was nothing like that. Love demanded as much as it gave........ but I had walked the world in his shoes and I wanted to share his life just as I had made him a part of mine. I stood alone on that slope that evening ....... it had been a long time since the mountain had seen me alone. And I wondered if it had been jealous ....and I smiled to myself and I felt the mountain echo my smile. And I turned to make my way back home as the lights started coming out ....dotting the cottages on the mountain side. inspiration : eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, a song playing on my ipod which must be "i never saw blue like that ", and alone at home ........

Yoga... and me

Its not that I have not tried yoga before. I remember the yoga classes I had dragged Monika into for a month and though we had enjoyed a trip to Coimbatore at the end of it, I know Monika will not ever bless me for that experience. What with all the asanas and the hypnotizing feel good talk ........... :)

I am just back from a yoga class. Luann and Sudhir and me ...... I loved it. I was quite the one out of shape....I didn't need the mirror in front to tell me that. Mine were the legs that wobbled when you had to raise them to the ceiling and hold them there. I wonder if I even managed to touch the ground without bending my knees once. It was Hatha yoga and they had music in the background. It was not the chanting music but felt something more akin to japanese ...... whatever it was .... it was soothing. The exercises were concentrated on breathing but involved a few of the asanas as well.
Towards the end of the class we were told to lie down facing up and to rest with long breaths. It was then that the instructor kept telling us to inhale love and acceptance and breathe out negativity, judgements, criticism, to feel the support and safety of the ground, to forget the day ahead or the morning behind us. He told us to think of three people in turn, one whom we loved, one who had just crossed our paths and one whom we found difficult and challenging and to direct our energies in wishing each of them well, assuring them of our good intentions.

I was so surprised at his words,...................was this what everybody wants in life. "Exhale criticism, negativity, judgements, inhale love and acceptance"........Was this the same question that plagued everyone. How did he know ...that I had been warping myself with these negative thoughts all day long. Or does everybody go through the same up and down as me everyday ?

That is a different matter altogether, that I have started to think of myself as a neurotic , nervous-disorder patient nowadays ........maybe thats why his words seemed soothing and to use the technical term in vogue "personalized " :).

I think a yoga class should be the next thing on my agenda. Maybe thats the only thing that will save me from insanity. :)

Reprimanding myself.

There are some things which I hate doing (like feeling sorry for myself) ....and those are usually the things I am ending up doing most of the time nowadays. It was of my own volition that I decided I am not going anywhere these holidays ....and then suddenly I had to fall sick which always takes a terrible beating on the emotional aspect of things. And thats it! Thats all I needed to feel sorry about ....about being left alone with no friends, nowhere to go and having only to work from 8-4 and then being too tired to explore anything else. The only thing I feel like doing all day is sleeping.

And if it had not been for me feeling unhappy and pitying myself at this moment then there are so many ...but so many things to do and laugh at. The most interesting would probably be the third point perspective. Standing aloof and looking at the world around you, whizzing by. I have led a comparatively sheltered life.............. no heart-breaks or heart-losses so far. And I have listened to both other girls and guys telling me about how they were let down. And somehow each side ended up saying that probably that is a characteristic trait of the other group. I wish I could tell them that it is the person and never the group that it is at fault. And speaking about fault, maybe even that I cannot be too hasty at judging.

I actually also screwed up one grade of mine.....and I think that is the cause that I am still deeply wallowing in self-misery/pity. Getting up and looking forward has somehow never been my cup of tea.

After a long time , yesterday I had to sleep with the lights switched on throughout the night becoz I was scared. Or was that also another emotional backlog !!!!

Usually at times like this only something drastic gives a sense of satisfaction. I was thinking of deleting my blog :) well thats only as far drastic as I can think. Unfortunately I cannot figure out how to do that and I need some pointers. Anybody out there ?????

Nature-ally

There is something which refuses to let me be tied to practical reality at all times. When I walk home from the University, I can't help imagine that the mountain in the distance forms the outline of a girl's face lying down , the pout of her lips and cheeks, her closed eyes ....... and here face turned to the heavens. I can't help but imagine that the house I just crossed with all its shuttered windows and practically with no movement to be seen anywhere might be the prison of the mad woman in the attic from the story ......(will fill in later when I remember).

A fickle brain, or devil's workshop or simply escapist .....well all of it has its charms. At the end of the day the house will just be a shuttered house and the mountain will just be another mountain. It was just that those moments of the girl staring at the sky and the mad woman following my movements from behind her shuttered prison just made them so real for a few moments ...... more real than they were never before.

I learnt today , yesterday........... its easy to mess up. Easiest when you put your whole heart to it bcoz you want it to go right. And there are those days, when you are least concerned about what happens bcoz it doesn't matter to you so much and ....that day everything goes right and you come out with flying colors. Is it bcoz you did not attach importance to it ......... that you just let yourself go that the latter(which mattered not at all) turned out better than the first(which mattered the world to you) or what !!!
Not in the mood to write anymore today.

Too abstract a post

Everybody has a past and we really don't give much time to think about it in our fast-paced lives. Its probably as some of you might argue, what people do when they have nothing else to do and failing memories. But sometimes there are these connections ..... and you are transported back in a second - and there you are...... standing in your school auditorium reliving a particularly embarassing moment or remembering and smiling to yourself at how you caught your parents acting Santa Claus.
If I sit and look back .....(not that I should be doing it, considering that I am in the middle of trying to get a filesystem working .....but both the monitor and I have taken to staring at each other for long intervals now and I thought I would take a break) the past that meets my eyes is one that kept getting better with time. And anything and everything that I could think of or want or wish for, I have had ......... maybe not at the time that I had wanted it but definitely when I had the maturity to accept it for what its true worth was and not just at face value.
With time, I have gained more acceptance not just because of myself but inspite of myself and those are things (things here do not even remotely come close to the word material) that I truly treasure because I know I am too lucky too have them. But further back in time, there are so many things that even if I were faced with today, I would try to evade , avoid .......... they were not unpleasant in themselves but I had lacked the courage to face them as I often have now as well.
But once I left my school days and went on to college, circumstances were such that I could not turn back and even if I have cried to go back to college after the long holidays at home ........... final year made up for all that in one swipe. You realise what you truly had when the time comes to part from it. College brought that realization to me more than once.
I sometimes wonder how important is acceptance, or rather if I may rephrase the question, how important is it to me...... and I know I give being accepted a lot more importance than I should.
I wonder if its the same with others as well......... and then I wonder (well you know how one trail of thought leads to another to another.....) why do I have this tendency to belong to a group and not just stand up alone ...... aside and independent. :) Maybe I was not built that way.
Everybody lives life on their terms, standing up for some principles that they believe in and believe to be right .......... and in the midst of it , in the midst of all this mumbo jumbo philosphy they are still trying to breathe and live and laugh ............... and in the midst of all of that , somewhere is where I should start learning to ..... too.

Laughing to myself.....

I had been thinking about starting this post off in a very philosophical tone (:)) just to show that I am on my way to becoming a philosophical guru) tone..... but as always, the blog itself takes a different turn when I start to write.
Thanksgiving was last week ...... and I don't know what kept me from writing about it for so long except that I had this project submission which finally got over yesterday night. Last week of semester, too hectic...lots ofprojects submissions and the finals. Among occassional spats, brawls and quarrels (I do sound like a cat here, don't I ?) thanksgiving day turned out too good to be true. Shalini and I tried our hand at baking a chocolate cake which turned out quite good.
Luann picked us all up by 11 and we were off to Sabino Canyon - her home. Her home was a cozy little house ....for me it seemed the coziest place to stay in. It had a backyard where she had planted bougainvilleas ......and it looked out to the Santa Rita mountains in the south. With portico chairs under an open sky,with the moutains far away....... I couldn't even dream of spending an afternoon otherwise. It seemed exactly like a cottage we would go to spend our holidays and where Maa would say ..... this is where you can just sit and write or read all day.

Sabino canyon is one of THE tourist spots here. It is interspersed with trails for hiking and I saw more people hiking and walking there than I have in my four months in Tucson. To say its beautiful is an understatement ........ if you look closely at the green mountains (green becoz of the saguaro or cactus) you will see the trails that wind around them and you would even be able to make out athletic people who had overtaken you on those distant mountain tracks. But what would probably be breath-taking ......would be when after climbing a little incline you looked back on a winding road and saw the green, yellow and autumn colored (....could find no better word to describe the color.......) trees standing tall over the road.
That was how Darjeeling was and that is what I love about the mountains. They seem so impersonal , holding back a mountain of secrets in themselves as if their lips are sealed.........and at the same time modestly displaying their expanse , and beauty. Some of the names which Luann pointed out and which sort of stuck with me were thimble peak, rattlesnake trail, esperrero trail, bluff trail......... I am sure I would have got lost pretty soon on the Rattlesnake trail....it was just a worn out path with rocks all around and quite a bit of climbing up and down and moving around the mountain side. I had been out of exercise for quite sometime (not that I ever exercise......my only exercise would be walking triangles in campus between department, work and home)...so you can guess that I was panting by the end of it. :)

The hike was energising but we were all ravenous by the end of it.... and the thought of the turkey seemed too inviting ..........(roasting in the oven in Luann's kitchen). During dinner, even though the turkey and cranberry sauce topped the list ...but they were joined by mashed potatoes, salads, turkey gravy, noodles in chicken broth , tofurkey (vegetarian turkey made from soy beans I think), a pumpkin pie, cheese cake with sweet potatoes and our chocolate cake. (It was quite a spread quite like a famous five dinner just before they start out on one their adventures).
Need I mention, we were too full to move after dinner....so we sat around the fireplace chatting, and exchanging thoughts ........ its been a long time since I have actually sat down and discussed something as if I were among friends. It was good to get the feeling back. My first thanksgiving ended on a brilliant note that day ...all thanks to Luann.
The week as all weeks go ....was just another waiting for the weekend to come. Though I managed to watch Kate and Leopold in between. :) Sweet movie and does bring a smile to yor lips.

Today I chance happened to come across this blog by Samit Basu becoz of Shalini. If I remember having read correctly, he gave up a management career to start writing. That ofcourse started me off on one of my day-dreams......... about why am I doing this ! Sitting here and studying when I could stay with my family and write. .....not that I write great :) but its something I like and which I can do with the least amount of stress or hardwork. .......... Well then I realised , maybe an authoress' life wouldn't be that easy too. (I am always looking for an easy life .......!!! :)) So why not just go ahead and do everything.....learn, study , watchmovies, write, read, hike.....I'll keep adding to that list :).
Today there were a lot of things which brought a smile to my lips. ........ right now what came to my mind was this comment by my physics tutor in class XII ........ you should be good at whatever you are, if you are a student be the best student you can be ..........(and he would end it off with) if you are a thief be the best thief .... :)
Well to leave you on that note.......bon voyage.

Aztecs , Indians and Ice-cream

Tucson has suddenly become cold..... its freezing when you stand in the shadows and warm , rather hot while walking under the sun. Luann, Shalini and I settled down on the lawn of the Arizona State museum where there was a mexican mask exhibition in the museum along with Indian (red-indian) jewellery displayed. Mainly ornate silver, german silver , brass and copper necklaces, bracelets, and belt buckles. Some of the necklaces had bear claws. There were even two pictures of the Red Indian, one in his office as a member of the US senate and one in his traditional costume with the feather head-dress and painted face. It sort of time-ported you to a different century.

Outside on the lawn, there were 4 girls and an old-man whom we later came to know was 63 years of age. Two of the girls were in the white flowing dresses with the head-bands...... like red-indian girls in pictures. The other two had elaborate head dresses on, with long feathers which swayed in the wind, and white and black dresses, and anklets which were actually made from seeds. The old man had long flowing gray hair tied back with a band. One of the girls had a rattle while the old man and the other girl held these hand-drums covered with cloth with short batons. The three of them formed a circle around a small platform which was arranged with two strands of the corn plant and some smoking incense and a conch. Then the drum beats started and simultaneously the three of them started their dance. They moved in and moved out, swayed and turned , constantly moving their legs, crossing them , bending and squatting and jumping back. The beats of the drums increased in tempo and then fell silent in waves. ......If you have heard the "dhols" of durga puja in Kolkata, you would know how your heart pounds to the echo of the drum beats, then you woul dprobably understand what I am talking about. I remember one time when as a girl I had been to this pandal as we call it, the place which houses the deity. I was right in front where the dhakis where.....the drummers. Then they slowly started playing their drums and moving around in a circle. The drum beats kept increasing till they were a deafening roar and the dhakis were dancing in a mad frenzy in the grip of their own beats..........pardon me for using a science term here, but it was probably the resonance of the drum beats with my heartbeat which made it pound so as if the sound was echoing through me.

At the end of the dance the old man talked about himself, an Indian, an aztec ...long washed out of history books. Did I not tell you that it was like being tele-ported to a different time. The last I think I had heard of Aztecs, was as one of the zones in the Crystal maze. But then the way the dancers were offerring their prayers to the sun, I did get a hint..... And also maybe bcoz as far as my limited history knowledge goes, I know of only the Incas and the Aztecs as those who worshipped the sun. The first dance as the old man later explained, was to ask dance to let them dance, which was amusing to hear.
Nevertheless, after that the three of us headed to Penguins where we tried out Peach Pumpkin, German Chocolate , and Chocolate Obsession flavors of ice-creams. Sitting under the warm Tucsan sun and eating our ice-creams while they melted ............ :) what could be better.

But thats not all what I have been doing on this long weekend due to Veteran's day. I got to watch three movies in two days. It started with Casablanca, and me falling head over heels over Ingrid Bergman and the story ....though I wish all old movies didn't turn out with such sad endings. It was a movie I had heard lots about......... and finally got a chance to watch. Then my department arranged for Charlie and the Chocolate factory movie (based on a book by Roald Dahl by the same name) to be screened using the projector in our classroom. This was part of the regular Thursday movie nights in our department. Only that, I haven't had a chance to attend many. This was a childrens' movie. There were a lot of songs and dances which I felt had direct Bollywood choreography influence. The movie did drag at times. Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka did not disappoint but he had a face masked with paint which hid a lot of his charm. The youngest boy from "Finding Neverland" starred as Charlie in the movie.

Later in the night, taking things a step further, Shalini and I watched Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in "You've got mail" for what must have been the fourth time for me. But I still did not remember all the scenes and many of the scenes brought different reflections this time round. Maybe I am getting old........they say that a book like Pride and Prejudice and other masterpieces should be read once every year or two .....bcoz each time it will bring a different meaning ..........bcoz of the change in your maturity and mentality and age. :) But the relationship that is shown in the movie has alwas been one of my favorites bcoz it so unknowingly touches your heart. "..but the dream of someone is still there......."- Meg Ryan. It just sets you off on one of the dreamy moods of the holiday season. Not that I do not dream on a weekday ......;)

Well ....a good weekend gone by and another week to look forward to. Semester is fast speeding by ........ it sometimes seems like I just arrived and yesterday was the 7th of August when I landed .........and sometimes it just seems like ages since I have seen home.

A spoonful of sugar....

Well the title of this post comes from the movie "Mary Poppins", starring Julie Andrews. It however does not have anything to do with the fact that I just finished watching "Sound Of Music" also starring Julie Andrews. But believe me, whenever you feel like losing yourself, and forgetting the world for sometime.......a movie is so much the spoonful of sugar you need to make the medicine go down.
Our professors here tell us to read a research paper more than once so that on the first reading, the idea becomes clear. The second and subsequent readings help you to analyse and criticize what has been done and proposed. I think , and don't kill me for the analogy ....that a movie works in quite the same way. I am not talking about every third movie ......but the masterpieces which are worth it and which you do watch a million times. Each time there is a little more detail that you pay attention to and which you would have glossed over the first time. It maybe the slight twitch of the eyebrow, or the pun at the end of a conversation or just the way that a card was flicked.......... its just what had added to give you the feel the first time that you saw it.....and which you are noticing only now.
Well ...by the amount I have been going on about movies, I should probably write my thesis on it rather than any computer science topic.
I sometimes feel I am so not meant for Computers. I should have taken Literature and studied about Jane Austen......... What all mistakes people end up making!! And all because computers seemed so glamorous when I had to take the decision about my career. I know I had refused to consider any other option because this seemed so much the "in" thing.
I should maybe take up something like creative writing as my minor now. That would be interesting ...I have even heard about courses in writing fiction and short stories.
What I would write before.... were mainly, rather only, stories - love or murder (because the only twist my love stories would have was getting one of the pair killed at the end :) ) ......... where the girl or heroine usually had long hair with curls bouncing on her shoulders. :) Yes sounds exactly like a sunsilk shampoo ad.
Anyway, right now when I write .......there are no heroes and heroines to compose stories on. And its more the story of my life, as and when it happens. Sometimes when I go back and read it ..........I can't say turn back the pages, hitting the back button of the browser would be a more appropriate term, I feel my life or anybody's life for that matter is so of a story. I think all of them would be great to write about.
And guess what!! I could become a celebrity overnight by writing them. Ahh! If only dreams had wings ...........:)) Well goodnight for today.....I guess three blogs in three days more than makes up for any blog writing inactivity in the last two months.

(I should maybe put up a warning in the description of this blog, "Do not venture to read unless you want to be gobbled up by abstract dreams and figments of imagination. I felt like using the word altruism in the last sentence.......I think the word means truth or practise. It has a very nice melody to it, but I just couldn't make a suitable place for the word in the sentence. Anyway it still finds a place.....if only in the next sentence. ")

To end with :
Climb every mountain, cross every stream,
Follow each rainbow till you find your dream.
- Reverend Mother
&&

To laugh like a brook that trips and falls over stones on its way,
To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray.
- Maria
&&

I have confidence in confidence I have.
- Maria

&&

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand.
- Nuns at the abbey

&&

Have you ever walked the footsteps of a stranger,
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew.
- Colours of the wind , Pocahontas.

The Truman Show

I find so much similiarity between the way my blog is and the Truman show. This blog is just turning out to be a narration of events and things happening to me and in my life, from my view-point. I guess it is sometimes interesting to read about a character's life, especially when you find things similiar in your life. Knowing how the character behaved in a similiar situation gives you the strength that if they could, then so can you. Drawing on that strength, it seems easier to go on. You have a light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to.
I took a day off today and yesterday night...(that makes a one and a half day off actually).
Yesterday night was to watch "A Roman Holiday". This is what ...I guess the fifth time I am watching this movie and I cannot say I am bored of it yet. But then yes, I do have an inclination for sentimental and mushy movies.... The movie was a nice spoonful of sugar. And right now, I think i'll settle down with "English August".
The conscious decision to stay away from studies and project is taking a toll too. At intervals of 5-10 mins I end up feeling I am wasting my time and that there will be this whole backlog of homework and studies to deal with.
Whoa!! Take it easy ...two deep breaths ...and I am trying to enjoy a holiday here. :)

Two roads.....

There are two roads in front of me now....I can choose to stay and continue for my Masters, and I can choose to give up and go home. I still can't figure out whether I am the one giving up so easy ........why so ...when I can see people take up the load with smiles. Is it a question of attitude....... well that was always something I had to work on.
There has been a point in my life where I have done this turning back stint already. I left my school in class 5 because I got admission in one of the best schools in the city. After a month I came back to my old school because I could not adjust. I am asking myself whether I should let history repeat. Why is it that I am letting this "not-coping" bit go so to my head, I am not sure.
Maybe if I had a same frequency gang of friends, I probably wouldn't have had time to think about all this. And yes, loneliness leads to depression leads to frustration to .... vicious cycle as it is, once you are caught in it, it is difficult to break through.
The only thing I keep telling myself, is that things are bound to get better. I am bound to make friends and find the right kind of company to enjoy with, sooner or later. The only thing is , whether I will be able to hold on for so long.
I miss speaking to Shobana, Shalini, Vishnu and discussing the latest music, and movies. Going out together or just hanging around beside the lake. I so curse myself sometimes for having done what I did. How could I have left Hyderabad . Then I had told myself that I choose to do so. Now even if I want to, I will not be able to choose to go back to Hyderabad . What I can choose to do is leave studying for master's and the only thing holding me back is whether I will be able to justify this decision to myself in a year's time.

Trick or treating.....

Life has been trick or treating me for quite sometime now. :) The term trick or treat is a halloween effect ....... after having read so much about it in books, I was actually able to see and experience it. To start off, Luann gave me a halloween bag of goodies. On the day itself you could see people dressed up in long witches hats.....dressed up as pirates with swords....I even saw a hobbit and goblins ......... and to top it all off I was able to glimpse Mars through this 21 inch telescope at our university observatory. I also saw the phoenix mars lander which is a surface surveillance gadget soon to take off for mars.
The best thing about halloween was the realisation that I am actually walking through and living in what were pages being turned in a book.

Apart from that, its been a long time since my last update, and that entire time was filled with ......welll i can't say back breaking labour, but yes, quite enough of it to keep me on my toes. For someone who would moan and groan before going to office every Monday and have fun throughout the weekend, living a life of only party and party harder ....... the last few weeks were work and work harder. There was too much of load....a diwali day project submission, mid term exams, reading reports and homeworks. There were so many times I just felt like putting my hands up, and leaving for India. Infact I was feeling like that just a few hours ago....or should I say a few minutes .....:)
(That is one of the reasons I am writing infact....maybe writing will put some sense back into my head). The projects were not or rather are not happening and finding out what was wrong seemed incomprehensible. Things haven't quite turned out right as yet but they are enough to worry about in the background so why spend the entire parah on them......(come to think of which, I already have done so.)

But guess what , having said all that, I don't think I would have been happier doing anything else than what I am doing now. Though it is making me cry ....its the only kind of work that makes me happy.(Ok, now if you can remember what we call this in english ....fast ....oxymoron!!). And even though I am really bad at dealing with the stress right now, I am sure I will get around it sometime.
What could be better than learning and discussing the ideas people have had over the years about those very things that we take as technology-for-granted each day. What better than to learn the origins of what turned into our text-books ............. but I only wish, I had 48 hours in a day. 24 seems by far too less.

Tucson is becoming more cold, and more beatiful. Daylight ends by 6:00. Sunsets are beautiful. And if you have ever seen pictures of red and orange and mauve sunsets , with clouds in shapes of funnels and striations....all that I can say is I get to see them live :).