oh, the irony!

it seems to me that when life gives us moments, feelings, inspirations that most demand documentation, there is just not enough time to do it. because writing is different from feeling, and it pulls one away from that moment, that feeling, if even a short distance. and when one is out, one is out. time is lost, more live-able time - time that could bring one more such moments and inspiration.

how does one decide - to write or not to write, and when?!

graduation '08

graduation day is like a birthday, except you don't have as many graduations as birthdays, and you get to share yours with thousands of others around you. that - i think - makes it that much more special :). there's no day that brings the stanford campus more to life than graduation day - not the first day of the school year, and not when stanford's just beaten cal in the big game. this year's graduation day was no different (and i feel most fortunate to have experienced the thrill of being a graduate in the stanford football stadium all of two times :). last time i had not guessed i'd ever be back. this time i know i shall not be - well, at least not for another degree. that, in some sense, makes things a little more final this time...

oprah was the speaker, and generous enough to give each graduate two good books. (that is about 8,000 books in all!) she spoke of 3 things, as graduation speakers normally do - of feeling, failing, and finding happiness. inspiring and positive - as a graduation speech should be.

i felt fortunate to have been able to sneak into the stadium (with legitimate reason, of course). there is no crowd as festive as a crowd of graduates, and they were all right there. there are more pictures up on smugmug of course, but this one was my favorite -

so i guess one can get into the stadium even if one is not a graduate :).

anyway, graduation was fun, photo-taking was fun, getting hooded in the school of ed ceremony was fun, and celebrating with people i love was fun. although i'll have more to say, and more to sigh about, when my degree is actually done (at the end of this summer), i must say that i have learned a lot more in these 9 months than in any other 9 months of my life, thus far...

and stanford, i'm convinced, is really something else!

great expectations

did i have... of being able to really get to know the city of bangalore, to meet friends that i had missed for a while, to enjoy the spirit of being in india, to lose myself in my camera. well, that's not how it is. that's not how it is at all. i am imprisoned in the hostel of infosys, feeling my spirits droop little by little, as i find that i am far from achieving any of the things i had hoped to in this week.

do i sound like i'm complaining? no, no, not really. i almost fell sick but didn't. the food here rocks. the project's going well as one might expect, the weather is perfection itself...

and all is right with the world.
really, it is!

10!

it's ten years since we graduated. the summer of '98 brought with it so much change - graduation, moving on, to a different land, different unknowns... and yet there are things that are still the same. as i look back upon those last few days after the ib - senior dinner, graduation, the prom, seeing the world... i am filled with nothing but fondness. towards some of my most precious memories ever. if i go on at this point, i know i will do them no justice...

nevertheless, i shall add that it felt rather fitting to be traveling via frankfurt the other day. it put me in that special place - surrounded by all things german, love universal, and fragments of myself buried in this now-alien land.

someone somewhere knows just what it is i mean.

accustomed earth

india is beautiful. one whiff of the monsoon air and one is instantly transported to a land so far away and so close, all at the same time, if you know what i mean.

...

unaccustomed earth

i still remember receiving the interpreter of maladies for my 20th birthday. i had started reading the first short story on one of my bart rides to berkeley. soon enough found it depressing, and put it aside. i revisited the book last year, and liked it more. also read "the namesake", and that wasn't bad either. with this latest release however, i finally find myself accustomed to jhumpa lahiri's style of writing, and like it very much.

i like the way she builds her characters. i like that none of them are perfect, and in fact, that they are all very flawed. i like that there are no happy endings, but fleeting happiness that is enough. for so life is. although the lives of characters sometimes appear incomplete, the stories are not. they set themselves out to convey an idea, an experience, a thought or feeling, and do just that.

i have a whole slew of books waiting to be read, but the withdrawal symptoms from completing this one are holding me back.

all in due time.

nostalgia hit

...once again, as i saw the photograph of a friend i have not seen, nor heard from, in three years. what a feeling, what a blast from the past. my sense of equilibrium continues to be momentarily disturbed.

true that life is short. a span of 4 years spent knowing a person in fair proximity is still enough, wouldn't you say? if you're lucky, that's a good 20th of your life. if you live to 40, that's a tenth. a good tenth. then i think it will do. it will have to do.

as shakespeare mentioned in julius caesar... perhaps when we meet, we shall smile. if not, then the parting was well made. or as b would say - our world lines coincided and went their own way. my life was changed for the better, and i shall be ever grateful.

yes...

for the record - i absolutely detest the profession of dentistry.

absolutely.

"this is going to hurt just a little bit"

"One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair with my mouth wide open.
And that I will never have to do it again is a hope that I am against hope hopan
Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,
But the one that is both is dental."

for as long as i can remember, a constant prayer in my mind has been that no turn of events take me to the dentist's chair. the lines above struck a chord, even when i first read them in 8th grade. and ever since, i have prayed daily for healthy teeth (yes, i exaggerate for effect). not too long ago, i had a dream that my teeth were all beginning to shake in my mouth, and that if i opened my mouth - they would all fall out. they're all still inside - but one of them came close to being taken out today (and may still be close, though i hope not).

i can't figure out if there is any country in the world that has competent dentists, because no matter where i go and who i see, p dentist in q country will always be shooting down the work of m dentist in n country or else x dentist in y country. when i was in germany, people said german dentists were hungry for insurance money and were ready to fill every tooth they could get their hands on (and perhaps that is where i got most of my fillings). then at berkeley, i didn't have dental insurance, so i went to india for my treatment. occasional fillings were okay, but i was unfortunate enough to have my teeth attacked by a famous but completely horrific orthodontist in bombay (dr. ashok dhoble, should you chance to know anyone who might be considering being treated by him). he kept my teeth wired for a couple years, after which they promptly came back to their old position (or pretty close, at any rate). german dentists treat you when unnecessary, indian orthodontists rip you off. so far so good.

when my parents moved to delhi, we started frequenting dr. kohli's clinic. he is (ahem) the president's dentist. (i'm not sure if pratibha patil sees him, but former presidents do have their photos gracing the reception). i went to dr. vishal gupta, who redid a filling. came back to the u.s. and saw sudeep ghosh who thought the filling was done quite poorly. this dr. vishal gupta was apparently a gold medalist (i'm not sure where, but somewhere - and that should be worth something). so dr. ghosh redid the filling. thankfully, it still stands. then i came back to school and lost the privilege of the best dental health plan in the country. went to india again and decided to get a dental check-up done. turned out i needed a root canal. bravely, i withstood almost 3 hours of gaping open-mouthedly at my seemingly kind-hearted dentist and thought i was done. well, for the time being. 5 months later, the tooth is paining incessantly, with no clear treatment in light.

i wish dentures were like real teeth, and just automatically clean. i could do without dental treatment altogether then. na rahega baans, na bajegi bansuri style (i.e. nor will there exist bamboo - i think - and nor will there be a flute).

but seriously. i wish it really only hurt just a little bit :(.

what?!

i can't believe it. brainstorming india is finally over. there's more to say, but not now, not in this state of tiredness. tomorrow then. tomorrow is another day.

...

end-of-quarter madness!

i am amazed and surprised that every end-of-quarter is just the same. 18 units or 8, finals or no finals, papers or no papers, it is always the same. i'm embarrassed at the levels of stress i am still susceptible to. one wonders... after all these years at school?!

t vs. ed

It was a recent realization that in the American dictionary, "spoilt" and "learnt" do not exist. Isn't that bizarre?!

on spoilt surprises

a just graduated. well not just, because it's more than a month since she defended. m and i had decided (and convinced others) to get her a canon s5 is, since that was the camera she was set on getting, and now that she had so much time on her hands, she could dedicate it all to her new hobby.

well, the camera is so awesome - apparently - that it's on back order everywhere. but they don't really tell you that. i tried to get it from broadway photo at first, since they had a good price on it. even paid extra for shipping, after which they told me they'd ship it out in a few weeks since the camera was on back order. what a disappointment! and that too after the whole conversation was over and i had stated exactly what i wanted in the order!

so anyway, then i called 76th street (what's with all these camera stores named after new york streets?). there too, the same story. the third place i called promised to deliver it right away, but it's been more than a month now - no sign of camera! sooner or later i figured it would have gotten here, but now no more ...

for of course, in this time, a's been doing her own scouting. she decided this morning that she was going to go out and buy a camera today (at the cambridge mall). sigh. b wrote to m and me saying "what to do?" and m started calling me frantically (if you know m, you know it would take a lot for her to get frantic :). i was rudely awakened by incessant vibrations emanating from my phone, when i'd been so hopeful all this while that this could be a morning to wake up at 9am. further - since m and i are supposed to start gymming together this week, i thought she was calling to get me to go to the gym with her. i wanted to pick up the phone and tell her i was sleeping, but sleepiness got the better of me and i ignored a few calls. then guilt got the better of me and i called her back. it was a relief to find i didn't have to excuse myself from a gym expedition. the decision was made to destroy the surprise. it's what one gets for being impatient!

and now a must wait. endlessly. muahahahahahahaa. it's what one gets... for being impatient!

An Odissi Odyssey

Yesterday, I was at the Asian Arts Museum on my first formal photography assignment... mmm, yeah I guess you could call it that. A friend of a friend was performing, wanted some pictures, friend was not available, therefore they called me. And I'm so grateful that they did. Classical dancers are so very graceful, and make such delightful subjects.

I am glad to have "broken in", and am already ready for my next assignment. The post-process, however, of going through hundreds of pictures to find the ones worth anything, is terribly painful and entirely avoidable. Yet, there's no real way to do this without one's own effort, is there? Just as one must take the photos, one must do the editing - get rid of crap, keep the good stuff, make necessary edits, none where none are required, etc. etc. My mind was focused on this process for 24 hours. At the end of it though, I have to say, it was still worth it.

G'night!