Magical Bhutan

I was staring out of my window at the endless morass of white and grey clouds when the pilot’s voice crackled on the microphone. “Ladies and Gentleman, in a short time we will be landing at Paro. Please fasten your seatbelts and put your seats upright. And if during the descent you see mountains closer [...]

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Nostalgia

Went to meet Anshul today. It was nice to talk of old times.
He informed me that there is a True-Lies website. The articles on 29 and the monthly PJ awards are by me. And oh, the first year at ISI! The first term in particular! Has there ever been a time like that? It was [...]

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Strictly alphabetical funniness

Men view themselves as permanently on some sort of sexual ladder with all women as either above them or below them. If the woman is ‘below’(i.e. willing to sleep with him, very keen on him) then in a Groucho Marx kind of way he does not want to be a member of her club.
- Bridget [...]

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Hike to Mount Baldy

Massive Mount San Antonio- or Old Baldy if you prefer- is the grand climax of the 50-mile backbone of the San Gabriels. No other peak in the range rises to challenge its 10,064′ elevation. From its summit you look over a good part of Souther California- an expanse of mountain, desert and coastal lowland. On [...]

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A phoenix cry

Isn’t it reasonable that the expression of the most intense emotions, the most powerful feelings should lead to good art? No, dear reader, it usually leads to bad writing. A hotchpotch, a conglom of crap. You wish it would move her, but it doesn’t, and how can it, when it doesn’t even move you when [...]

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Nothing gold can stay

On a stream of consciousness from my last post…one of Robert Frost’s best poems
Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

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Harry Potter

Has the world ever seen a phenomenon like Harry Potter? There are a million theories -spanning the whole gamut from writing skills to ingenious marketing- about what makes the series so mindbogglingly popular. Personally, I stand for the simplistic view that they are just outstanding books. Massive popularity quite often signals mediocrity- not in the [...]

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Random Tidbits

1. Once upon a time, I thought tidbits was spelt tit-bits. P corrected me.
2. I am hearing ‘Bheegey hont tere’ right now. There is something so intensely romantic about this song…and it affects me in a way I cannot adequately describe. It has the chill factor for me, and the line – Kabhie mere saath [...]

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Mozart

It is summer, and there’s not much to do. In other words, there is plenty of opportunity to feel sad.
I suppose it is a season of dementors. They glide into you and take control, and sometimes they do their job so well that you think you’ll never be happy again. But eventually they let you [...]

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Protected: Excerpts from the vagina monologues

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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Pasadena diary – February 1, 2005

It’s been a while.
To get over the essentials…
The winter’s over, it’s a new term, new courses. Nothing much happening otherwise. The same old stuff – homework , chat , angst, movies, cricket. An occasional trip to someplace else. Joshua tree, Long beach, Channel Islands.
There are some nice pics at my homepage
Watched an old western today. [...]

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Lang-Bang!

So how is it listening to Serge LANG?
For starters, awesome! On second thoughts, phew!
Well, Lang is a guy who actually jumps around while lecturing and every five minutes or so, comes up to a member of the audience and asks the poor creature questions!
So Jennifer was sitting there along with the rest of us, when [...]

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The hike at Zion National Park

Yeah, yeah…we live by the desert, but when the Caltech Y is here, can fall colours be far way?
So we went on a hike to Zion National Park, Utah.
We leave Caltech around 2 pm, Friday. There are forty of us. Some veterans of several Y-hikes, others new, all excited! Zion is 400 miles away, in [...]

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Pasadena diary-23/9/04

With orientation almost over, it’s tempting to post on nostalgic lines. I wonder why it doesn’t ring true? Perhaps the fact that the (earlier) international orientation was so much more fun made the transition smoother.
It is not like IMOTC, whose last day nostalgia was strong enough to make a good story.
But then, there’s the hike [...]

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SnP

“I miss you“
“I miss you too”
“You do?”
“I miss you. Of course I do! …What do u think?”
That was one of the less meaningful things I have said, but you started a train of thought that night … after a long time. Hence this post.
It is also tempting to be loving and affectionate without really being [...]

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