So

I just don't have the words. Or I do, I just don't know how to bring them here. There isn't a lot of sense-making going on these days - each day is its own day, for better and for worse. 2015 is going by fast and it has been nothing short of extraordinary in every which way. Perhaps I will find it in myself to write about it someday. Until then, here's another whimsical piece apropos nothing:

https://medium.com/@ShrewTea/a-round-up-of-daily-tragedies-505fa0835420#.3re1169vc

Medium

Now trying something new. I'm still here and kicking, it has just been a few full weeks (this is one of my personal favorites and I sent it for publishing twice but with little to no luck - everyone wanted me to change something and I did not want to change anything :))

https://medium.com/@ShrewTea/on-loss-and-language-20eedba7d178#.v4llqoa37

Diwali ki Badhiyaan

I'm back, back and back. I have Netflix in the background, caffeine in me and the laundry done. Take that jet lag (I don't think I get jet lag but it is a good substitute word for my regular tiredness for a week). It was an exciting trip and eventually it flew fast. I met friends and family. The wedding was so, so much fun. I danced my heart out and simply couldn't get enough. It was full of love, laughter, jokes, sunshine, music and booze. All great ingredients for any celebration. It also helps that I have lost my shyness and can enjoy the moment.

A Jigsaw Piece in the Wrong Puzzle

I'm home. I am not sure if I am home but you know what I mean. I am typing this on a scrunched up tablet keyboard. I chose to not get my laptop this time, a wise decision for my travel. It was one of the smoothest trips I have had, if only for my obsessive planning. Nasal spray, face mist, fleece booties, pouches for EVERYTHING.

Whirlwind

It has been a whirlwind of a week and then some. Work has picked up pace and is very interesting, especially with a lot of analysis and data cleaning and Excel and processes. Travel takes about two hours both ways and I actually am grateful for it, especially when I am returning home. It forces me to pause and relax so that by the time I am home, I am less wired. I think about what I want to do when I get home (usually the bed has a magnetic pull and I lay on it and watch Netflix but occasionally I'll pack a lunch or clean).

Lists

Updates in lists (I don't have the creativity for sentences this week):

• I now have a library membership. This means free access to e-versions of Cosmo and Elle and Marie Claire and they are so fucking annoying: 60 pages of ads and 20 pages of microscopic content. They have good books but I didn't find many on the shelves. The online hold system means the good stuff is on the hold shelves
• Since I have watched The Office thrice, now I have Friends playing in the background (I am trying to switch to the more educational radio, but it takes time)

Here's what is going on

This is my life in pictures these days. I am settling in, everything is unpacked if not correctly stocked and shelved. The neighborhood feels familiar, the dogs don't bark as much when I enter. I know my bus stop and even a few stops before. I have made it to all the giant superstores and hope to explore all the local grocery stores and thrift shops soon. Fall is almost here (you can tell by the amount of pumpkin spice latte advertisements).

I opened the door today only to see this. Now it won't lock properly. 

I poured some butter and Nutella on waffles and called it a day.

Wall decorations. I loved the golden earring above and recently lost one. 

The blue and pink triangles are relics from college.

Blingy earrings I still don't understand why I bought them.

But they look lovely on the wall.

Millionth Move (Is Hopefully The Charm)

I have moved yet again. I am asking the universe to let this be the last move for a while. Everything aches, mainly because I am so out of shape and climbing the stairs a couple of times with boxes has undone all my muscles.

Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy

Things I am grumpy about in no particular order and for no logical reason:

• How cold and blustery it was today. I came back with groceries (wine) and instantly had to bundle up in a blanket and close all windows. I now feel too cold and sort of feverish to drink said groceries.

Oh Comcast

This is my chat with a Comcast robot (look at the typed word smile, that actually made me a little sad). On my last chat, I even asked it if it was a real person. No response.

Marlitte: Hello! It is my pleasure to assist you today!

SHRUTI: My Issue: I recently disconnected my account and see a credit amount. I would like to know when I will get this and if it will be a check, I need to update the address at which it should be sent.

Marlitte: It sadden me to know that you requested to cancel your service.

Marlitte: However, let me assist you with this.

Marlitte: Let us work together for us to address and resolve your concern today.

Marlitte: By the way, how's your weekend so far? I bet you are having a good time. Tomorrow is a holiday! (smile) It's a long weekend, right?

Hello, hello

Hello again tiredness. I have been expecting you. Who wouldn't? I moved from a city to another one, from one home to another in the same city in one week. I am still not done moving. I have talked so much in the past few days, trying to explain my life in two minutes sound bytes to everyone I met. I now realize I didn't need to do that. Sometimes waiting for the questions is a good idea. In the middle of a work day, I am hit by a wave of exhaustion that almost has me sitting on the floor and weeping. Everything feels like jelly. Even a trip to the grocery store for dinner is impossible. Thank goodness for a box of peanuts.

Moving, moving

This is it. The first phase of Chicago life is over. I have a second phase and that is great. But summer is almost over. I can't believe that I am moving yet again. Not once but twice. Once in Chicago and once from Minneapolis. It is heartbreaking.

Worrywart

She worries about the little things, the big things and the in-between things. Like the extra drops of milk on the counter, space travel and other forms of life in the universe, and her wish occasionally to have never been. You may laugh, but she knows it is what keeps the earth on its axis.

Endless

I found an old piece of writing from a long time back:

It is raining endlessly here. I am told it is raining endlessly in Delhi as well. It is so lovely, so soothing that it makes me happy. Everything is moving, in action. This isn’t a city that is stopping for the rains. It is moving, buzzing, reveling in them. People sit, stroll by, even dance at Worli Seaface and Marine Drive. 

It is what it is

House hunting is truly the worst. I spent 7 hours on buses and trains after a day that started at 5 am and at 5 houses and came home and had a complete breakdown. Things are looking up since then. It didn't help that I've had a couple of crazy early days and somehow timely breakfast has not been part of any of these.

Things

Public art seen downtown

Suddenly there is lots going on and I don't have any words anymore. I have to pause here and update. As I was typing, my pizza delivery arrived. It has been A DAY and I needed a pizza and a chocolate shake. I walked out only to see crime scene tape on our building, police officers and cars. It was 'an active crime scene' - someone got shot and something happened. Everyone, including the pizza delivery guy and my flatmate, was so casual. I'm in no danger, its just a first. Being in Chicago is interesting and a far more realistic slice of life in urban America than Minneapolis. Earlier in the evening, from the bus stop I could see firemen and police arrive and check on a seemingly unconscious man and ultimately load him into an ambulance. At this point, I've seen gambling on the L-train, cigarettes being sold and a bunch of other stuff. I no longer see them as random things. They are visible manifestation of urban poverty, often racially concentrated. These are results of a structural and violent system.

Bits and pieces

The final lap of the fellowship got a lot busier, with work, applying for jobs (endless and exhausting). Today was our last workshop-based session and it felt bittersweet.

Snapshots

So far I have loved my time in Chicago. It has been exactly what I needed after graduate school. The adventures I am having are just the right size for my expectations right now. Some days they involve getting drenched on a boat tour; on others they are heels that I wear and practice as a child playing dress up would. Someday I will write about wearing heels and the pain and fun of it all. I have been a lifelong flat wearer. But every once in a while I will enjoy heels. Meanwhile, I soak the bustle of a big city.

Bad Plays

Yesterday I saw one of the worst plays I have seen in a while. It even won the Tony award in 2013. But I should have listened to the review that said that 2013 was not a good year for the Tony awards. I was visibly distraught and very, very tempted to throw my donuts at the stage. Also to ask for my money back.

Life in Books

I've been reading. Often. For fun. I am so glad to be back to reading and for adapting to the Kindle. I don't want to accumulate books that I can't carry with me. I've had enough of leaving bits and pieces behind. Plus Kindle versions of most books are also now more affordable, allowing me to read more. The Kindle app across platforms means I am not stuck to owning a Kindle. Here's my list of recommendations, which surprisingly has more non-fiction than fiction. Usually I go the other way.

Seeing Like A Feminist by Nivedita Menon

The title is a dead giveaway. What I enjoyed most about this book is that it is a concise, pithy read about feminism(s) in India, its various spokespeople as well as its schisms. I've often lamented about my lack of knowledge about feminism in India and its appropriation as an all-round bad word. So it was really refreshing to read this book. I am going to leave you with some of my favorite lines.

"By gendering, I mean the ways in which people are produced as proper men and women through rules and regulations of different sorts; some of which we internalize, some of which have to be violently enforced."

The Blues

One of my Chicago resolutions is to find and watch plays and shows and other kinds of performances. I've heard about the Blue Man Group show for several years and I saw billboards in Chicago. Tickets are kind of pricey but I was able to get an almost half-price ticket from Goldstar for a day show. Going for a day show is important and you'll see why in a segue later in this piece. So the show. The show is very entertaining. It starts with advice to text your bff, update your status, read wikis and more.

Nayyirah Waheed

Discovering Nayyirah Waheed's poetry and prose and soaking it all up (also hoping to get a copy of her book Salt soon)

Flotsam and Jetsam

It is the Independence day weekend here, usually a long weekend but not for some of us.

Checking out Chicgao

Views from the Ferris Wheel at the Navy Pier

It has been roughly three weeks since I moved, two since I move to the new house and one and a half since starting work. I have had neither the time nor the energy to explore much, preferring to use my evenings to=recharge and recover from all the moving. I've learned over the years that moving is draining, not just physically but emotionally as well. There is a toll to be paid, whether I acknowledge it or not. Usually I don't pay heed to the sadness. But this time I did. I acknowledged that it would take me some time to get used to Chicago because I was not ready to leave Minneapolis and I had to. I think that did me a world of good.

Toss It

Settling in means I've been trying new bus routes, taking walks around the neighborhood, even chilling with my new flatmates one evening. I had Grace and Frankie on in the background and I am so impressed with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin - those ladies are rocking the seventies. There was a baby-birthing scene so inaccurate, it drew a lot of scorn from me. She said and I quote "I think the baby is in my pants" and then there really was a baby in her pants and all of this happened in a few minutes, with her mostly standing. Seriously.

Games

A friend developed a game app: Game of Letters

Go check it out (Apple only currently, hopefully coming to Android soon!)

Weekends

I'm slowly settling in. Things I am getting used to include the buses with their automated stop announcements, the frequent trains, the bustle of downtown and the names of streets close to where I live. I am happy to spend my weekend unwinding, pretending this is permanent. As life would have it, I met an old friend in this new city this week and explored downtown Chicago (including trying this place called Eataly, which was quite interesting). MPR is playing in the background so I'm in two cities at once (I'm not done missing my potential summer in Minneapolis). Walks are my way of anchoring these days, when everything else is changing. It rained five minutes into my first walk, two streets from home. But today I walked around some more, marveling at the green paths and giant buildings.

Rainy days, summer days

Via Edwardmonkton.com

I've moved into YET another space. It is actually rather nice, has a window in the room with great natural light. The house has a back porch and more importantly a functional washer-dryer. Laundry is important for the soul. It is furnished and I have only had to buy minimal stuff such as linen and an incense-holder and lots and lots of chocolate-flavored cereal. The rain has been almost constant these last few days. The more I move, the faster I have learned to feel settled in. The frills fall away and I am slowly stripping to the bare essentials of what I need although there is a still long way to go in that process.

Summer life

I could tell you of the roomhunt that has taken me all over the city, sixteen hours in the trains, to a sketchy basement and a place where Internet didn't work, to neighborhoods where even sadness was shuttered. I could tell you about almost finding a place close to a beach but then it didn't work out. I could tell you about the delays in things, about the heat in a fanless room and the windy days. Summers in this country are strange for me - one day you sweat your flesh off, the next the cold wind whips you till you are indoors. If you sat for longer, I'd share with you the loss I feel at having left Minneapolis. It has just started to feel like home. I miss the softness of my bed, its wheel rolling predictably, of the calming creaks of my ceiling fan.  The incense that was mine, all mine. The comfort of the cool, bare wooden floors, sighing ever so lightly under my weight. Resting my cheek against the window, raindrops splashing lightly in the moonlight. Of the walks I took on familiar routes.

Packing zen

Travel is always an adventure. As is packing for it. Over the years, here are some of my feelings about packing for travel, compiled for your convenience in the form of a list:

• I will forget something. Even if it is a safety pin. Such is life. Let it go. As long as I have documents that identify me, it will be fine.
• Travel checklists are a pain to make the first time but can be super useful in subsequent trips.
• Wearing multiple layers of clothes to reduce baggage weight is NOT a good idea. It will mostly only overheat you and make movement hard.

Bittersweet

I am slight denial about moving, as if that would change anything. The weeks have flown by. Too soon, too fast. Same as ever. Life.

In those years by Adrienne Rich

In those years, people will say, we lost track

of the meaning of we, of you

we found ourselves

reduced to I

and the whole thing became

silly, ironic, terrible:

we were trying to live a personal life

and yes, that was the only life

we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged

into our personal weather

They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove

along the shore, through the rags of fog

where we stood, saying I

(I discovered the work of Adrienne Rich via Twitter and this is one of the poems I really enjoyed)

Schrödinger's cat

It is time to move, once again. Only temporarily though. I would both like to and not, a bit like Schroedinger's cat I imagine. To avoid the usually chaotic outburst that is my suitcase on arrival, I have been packing things in trash bags and labeling them. "Miscellaneous", "Socks", "Scarves" are some of the categories. There is an entire box full of supplements too. Adulting involves a healthy diet and then some. It involves moving alone, yet again, yet again. M has left town and it feels strange, surreal. I think this is the weekend where I am in denial about my trepidation about moving and sadness about people leaving, graduate school and other things ending. I've been really good at keeping it under control, putting out all the fires. But not this weekend. I have spent most of my time in bed this weekend.

Look no words!

This was the week in which I not only spent several hours on a still plane, I also was on a SuperShuttle, a flight, a train, a taxi, a bus, a MegaBus and an Uber cab in the span of 17 hours to get from Minneapolis to Chicago and back. Now that it is over, I'm still in a little bit of shock and I don't quite have a lot of words. So here's updates in pictures: 

This is my absolute favorite picture.
This toddler is having a tantrum in the White House.
Epic.

View from a bus stop in Chicago.
It was an overcast day.

Unbelonging

I think there is a moment in which you realize that you carry your unbelonging with yourself. It is a neat little suitcase that is invisible, and travels with you wherever you go. 

Tarmac Tales

We all have those flights. The ones where you clap when you take off and then when you land. One day after graduation and I am headed to New York for our capstone project presentation. It is exciting but I also really want to nap and figure out the rest of my life. It is a cold blustery day. I decide to take a bus and the train instead of a SuperShuttle to economize as an unemployed student. My suitcase almost gets blown away on the street, my hair is whipped into a tangled frenzy. 'Summer' in Minneapolis is here.

And just like that, the party is over

Most of my cohort

Today was our graduation ceremony. I have degrees from before but I have never participated in one of these shindigs with gowns and caps and more. Parts of me were warring: one part did not want to attend the ceremony, was grumpy at the expensive gown and the time involved and nervous about walking on stage and suchlike. But the other part wanted to go and experience this final touch on two years of my life. It felt like an apt, if surreal, ending to this part of my life. The one where I moved cities, countries and continents and started a new life and it was a risk that I had to take.

I did not know...

...how I would feel this close to graduation; or that the happiness would be bittersweet and the losses would start lining up slowly (as would opportunities). So many smiles for the camera, concealing

Support Networks of Women in Higher Ed: A Crucial Pit Stop in Busy and Challenging Paths

"Women in higher education are navigating complex paths in academic fields, paths that see a steady increase in participation by women but still have more men in leadership positions. Support networks play a crucial role in helping women advance. Tessens, White and Web explain in “Senior Women in Higher Education Institutions: Perceived Development Needs and Support” that allocating resources, setting up of networks and gatekeeping for leadership positions is considered a gendered activity in academia.

Through my informal conversations with women faculty, staff and graduate students at the University of Minnesota, I saw how women in higher education engage with and react to support networks. The focus of my conversations was four-pronged: why women participate in support networks, what they get out of it, what makes the groups work and what are some of the tensions and challenges faced."

Read the rest of the piece here (I am the author :) and thus the link love) : http://qap2.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/whe.20193/full

How wonderful

A poem for all the loss and finding and love and longing and the confusion that is growing older:

How wonderful to be understood,

to just sit here while some kind person

relieves you of the awful burden

of having to explain yourself, of having

to find other words to say what you meant,

or what you think you thought you meant,

and of the worse burden of finding no words,

of being struck dumb . . . because some bright person

has found just the right words for you—and you

have only to sit here and be grateful

for words so quiet so discerning they seem

not words but literate light, in which

your merely lucid blossoming grows lustrous.

How wonderful that is!

Floating

A week to graduation. The end is in sight.

Time for Tulips

Bloom outside school

April has been wonderful weather-wise. The sun has been out most days; on others, the rain has been delightful. This is a (welcome) contrast from last year, when it was still snowing (perhaps good for water levels, but definitely disappointing for the soul). But the sun is not much good if you can't be outdoors and there is only so much work that you can do outside. I've been trying to go for a walk everyday, to soak up the sun and take a break. It is almost the end of this (final) semester and I am excited about finishing! The sum of two years of coursework and assignments and groups and (artificial-seeming) deadlines and readings and etc etc feels like a lot. I am sad about some things coming to an end (including my student-life, which I know has given me a lot of opportunities and allowed me live in a sort of a bubble).

Baarish

(Things that may just be funny to me)

Blue Stockings

It has been a while since I saw any plays. Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis had a good thing going for a while, where they gave students discounted tickets but alas no more. They have something for under-30s but I haven't really checked it out although I should probably take advantage of offers like that while I can. I've seen some interesting plays for really cheap tickets and once even for free right in front of the stage for a phenomenal play whose name I don't remember now. I recently had the chance to watch Blue Stockings at Guthrie for a Gender and Policy class I am in. We decided to go a few weeks ago and at that time it had seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do. 

Love After Love

This poem found its way into my life twice this week and it was the kind of wonderful serendipity that makes you wish there was a less fancy/pretentious word for it. Simply put, it has been a rough two months...

Rains

Rainy days bring their own comfort. The downpour is almost cathartic; the calm after the thunderstorms settles down both dust and feelings. I open the window a crack, to inhale the smell of rain meeting earth. It has been constant wherever I've lived and traveled, soothing in its familiarity. I push all outdoor tasks to another day; being cozy inside is a rainy day must (unless of course, real life insists otherwise). All that matters is a steaming cup of tea and warm, comfort food. A chat window pops open, and I feel remembered for the moment. The calm is temporary but much wanted.

Shiny pink disco

I was watching Frasier and I remember seeing a Walkman pop up in one of the scenes. I remember my first Walkman, a black, slightly battered gadget. I am not even sure if the memory of it is real or stolen from someone else's remembrances. It starts a cascade of memories of cassettes, of waiting for movie scores and albums to release, of wondering if my parents would give me money to buy a cassette, of listening and re-listening and re-re-listening to the cassettes till the spools wore out. I remember making copies of tapes (mix tapes were a thing of my teenage years, only I made them for myself)

You Who Never Arrived by Rainer Maria Rilke

One of my favorite poems:

“You who never arrived

in my arms, Beloved, who were lost

from the start,

I don't even know what songs

would please you. I have given up trying

to recognize you in the surging wave of

the next moment. All the immense

images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,

cities, towers, and bridges, and un-

suspected turns in the path,

and those powerful lands that were once

pulsing with the life of the gods--

all rise within me to mean

you, who forever elude me.

On brownness and other things

Sometime in December, when I was back home, I remember drafting a piece, almost hastily, so as to not lose the words and sentences that had been floating in my head for a while. It has now been published.

Travel and other irritating things

(I was looking for a document and found a piece of irritated writing from a recent trip)

I have forgotten my charger; this is new, usually it is the adaptor that I forget. It happened during my trip to Ahmedabad in the winter and I spent a night in a hotel room, unable to use my laptop, and starting to grasp that I am partly fighting a losing battle. No matter what I remember, there is always that one more thing.I try and be so careful, I make lists and lists but everything fails when I switch bags. It is always a bad move and I am blaming Spirit (for some reason I keep calling it Sprint) airlines. I am en route to a new city, for an interview, and I am nervous. 

...

The Last Lap

This is it. It is the last lap of my Master's degree, of my time in graduate school (or so it seems at the moment). It is impossible to believe that in May I will graduate. the years have both ambled along and whooshed by. Some days, I remember in great detail. Others, they have sped by, leaving no memory but a blur of faces and voices and places over weeks and months and seasons. Hurtling towards graduation is my stock answer to every time someone asks how things are going. Hurtling is an appropriate word; it captures the speed and intensity of the feeling of this semester.

Sundays...

...have taken on a comforting, regular form. They start out relaxed but not lazy (at least not too lazy). I am aware of both the holiday and the inevitable Monday. I do the laundry, mop up the floors in my room, inhale the fragrance of cleaning sprays and oil essences. The radio murmurs in the background, a reliable companion. The laundry tumbles out warm and fluffy; I bury my head in it for a few minutes, comforting myself in the leftover warmth before it evaporates.

Modern Indian Woman?

Results of a quick Google search

I've often wonder about what the term 'modern Indian woman' means, especially as modern can still be said with a hint, if not an overtone of derision. I have often heard the statement 'you are too modern' being thrown around, with the intent to insult and hurt. Often I've heard the modern used as a 'trait', 'an attitude', which women need to phase out as they grow older (read: arrive at a marriageable age).

The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development

I am doing an independent study for a class and part of the 'research' (and I am using that term with a little bit of irony these days, and that's a post for another day) is understanding the history and evolution of development studies as a field. This of course necessitates an understanding, even if cursory, of the history of development. Ambiguous, contentious, contested, the list of adjectives is endless and is you can see fraught with doubt. Of course at this stage in my program I cannot claim complete ignorance of the history of development, but my understanding is fragmented, often starting arbitrarily post the second World War. I am not going to devote this post to rehash what has been said and written eloquently by many others, I will save that for my'research'. But I will strongly recommend 'The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development' by Maggie Black to you.

You must.

Notes on a conference

 I've been at a conference in DC this week (an entire week, I myself am not quite sure why). This is a trip that I had to cut short and I return home day after tomorrow and I am looking forward to that. It has been nice to get a change of scenery, parts of this semester have been the equivalent of walking through water and quicksand all together. It was also the first conference where I presented (alone) from some research (really basic) I am doing on understanding expectations of organizations that host students for fieldwork. I think the presenting bit is supposed to be a milestone of sorts (but am also aware that a lot of people present at this conference, it seems to be more inclusive than exclusive, which is nice for newbies like me). I was really nervous but different folks pointed out that depending on who is presenting sessions are sparsely attended (true for the one I was in) and people present preliminary results of their work (I did).

Home

I take solace in the fact that there is nothing new or unique in my search and longing for home(s). It is an old, some say eternal longing, and perhaps one of the few that unite instead of dividing us.

You are tired. And loved.

I am closer to thirty than I ever have been in my life (I have a birthday tomorrow. Today depending on which timezone you look at?). I've become neither big nor small on birthdays. It is what it is. Sometimes they are full of wonderful bits, at others they disappoint and leave a bitter aftertaste. Just like people? Just like people. Also, just like life. Another year gone by, I check for the losses and scars, I say a quick thanks for all that went well, for all the scrapes that didn't end too badly, for the love and kindness and warmth and hug and hope that refuses to die.

Chicago

This was the week of a whirlwind trip to Chicago, a city where I have never been and got to spend far too little time. I had gone for a group interview for something I have applied for and it was a good experience. I was anxious, because I haven't really done a formal group interview, and wasn't sure what to expect. I went in telling myself that I would learn from the experience, as nerve-wracking as it may seem. It was funny, everyone's name tags had color codes on them, reflecting the degree programs they were in (MBA, Education) but my International Development got none. Sadface.

Weekend things or the one with lots of elevator spiels

This was an interesting weekend. I am taking a class on Gender and Public Policy, and it is one of the most interesting classes I have taken in grad school. On Saturday, I had the chance to attend the Elect Her training, organized by the UMN Women's Center in collaboration with American Association for University Women. It seems to be primarily targeted at undergraduates, to encourage women-identified people to run for student government and hopefully in the long run for political office. There were icebreakers, student panels, quick elevator pitches and issue based discussions. They had a quite a lot of resources spread across tables.

February!

The semester is in full swing. Travels (unexpected mostly) are coming up. Somewhere between the flurry of classes and assignments, I make it to a class or two of Pilates, and enjoy the slow pain of my body uncurling from its long lapse into laziness. The weekends are a time of pause and books surround me.

This is a recent poem I found:

'My shortest days end,

My lengthening days begin.

What matters more or less sun in the sky,

When all is sun within?'

Christina G Rossetti

Views of Downtown Minneapolis in the distance
from across the bridge

Finding Balance

This is definitely the semester where I am trying to find balance. I try and remember that it is the experience, and not only the end. Also, what good would a grad school degree be if I couldn't enjoy at least parts of it. I'm trying a combination of factors, tweaking and adjusting. The first week is never very indicative of what the rest of the semester will be like. Assignments aren't due yet nor have group projects started. This week (and weekend) have gotten away from me as there are two student-group related tasks on a Friday night and Sunday afternoon. But both are things I am involved with out of will and I am glad to do them (they help provide services for the graduate student body). I do still want to find balance (or equilibrium as the economists would say :)). 

Steady As She Goes

Views from the bus stop

The first week of the semester usually always feels like a blur, a slightly anxious, rushed blur. I am not jet-lagged but not above using it as an excuse for my general lostness. Beginnings of the semester make me feel a bit fraud-like, my brain wails who let me in here, even though I know I am capable of functioning and occasionally flourishing. I have not been taking advantage of any happy hours and that has opened up vast tracts of time for activities such as cooking and reading. Copious amounts of both have happened. Roasted eggplant, pulao, curries are in the fridge while three Agatha Christie novels have been devoured in the last two days.

Spring 2015

Chicago airport, with
the sunlight streaming in.

I'm back and what a trip it was. My travels were pretty smooth. I even got a complimentary check-in for my carry-on suitcase, which at 15 kgs was going to be quite a challenge to leg around a trip with two stopovers and plenty of hours of layover. TSA does seem to have taken out my bottle of castor oil, and my hair is really upset, because it has been denied its rightful nourishment (much needed in the wake of recent streaking). I am suspended in disbelief, between two countries, in shock at the fact that my last semester of grad school starts tomorrow. It wouldn't be life if this week wasn't super intense and there are two major things about which I am super nervous. Fingers crossed, all will go well. For the moment, I am warm, I have food, and I am excited about what this semester will bring. I hope you are well too.

Pigeons at the Ahmedabad airport

My jazzy luggage (because there is a
sea of black suitcases out there)

Ahmedabad

View from Gandhi Ashram

My time in Ahmedabad has been far more intense and interesting than I imagined. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, especially considering I arrived at the start of an event that completely takes over the city with its sheer magnitude, in a week with important local and national holidays, and no meetings set up in advance. That being said, it has still been productive. Work-wise I have been able to learn new things, chat with some interesting people and get started on thinking in a particular direction.

Away

View from the hotel at night

By an interesting turn of fate, I am in Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar, for the Vibrant Gujarat event (and more). The professor I work for is a speaker her, and this led to me unexpectedly getting a pass to attend it, which seems to be quite the event. Really (I have done event planning in a former avatar and my heart quavered at the thought of all the coordination involved). Ahmedabad is a city where I lived as a child, where I have memories of a house outside the Army cantonment area, where I remember the rains that flooded the field behind our house, where I danced the garba with dandiya. I remember the house we lived in outside the cantt far more than the house to which we moved later. I remember taking my really young sister on a bike ride and crashing, the faint scars of which I still bear today.

Some of my favorite quotes

 “Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”

― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

"A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."  ~ Francis Bacon

***

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. ~ L.P. Hartley

***

All the missing

I remember so much from my childhood. I remember the childhood I did not have. I remember the childhood I did have. The one that was, for all its warts and flaws, a childhood. I can see that clearly, from the lens of adulthood, closer to thirty than ever. A new year starting is always a place of reflection and remembrance.

Look no words

This is what my walks in the park look like in the middle 
of the day (January 1 was unusually warm) 

Delhi beset by winter rains. Everything became more
beautiful and colder.

Feet guiding you to different lines
of metro at the Delhi Metro.