Stress tensors

I'm doing a PhD in Chemical Engineering. Why the fuck?
I think this is the most worried I've been in my entire life. More than that one time I got lost at the Vashi fair.
I dont really know all this Math and Fluid Dynamics. It's all happening on auto pilot.
Let us talk about Uzair Jaswal then and how I can float down on his voice and get five precious minutes in the world to myself.
Or about Ashok Banker's Ramayana series whose cheap mythological thrills remind of Mahabharat on TV and Champak on newspaper stands. I absolutely love it :)
Or about decorating walls and living spaces, which I now do endlessly. Isin't that table just perfect for this tiny room?
Who's up for a bit of life swapping? I want one where I can lounge about and discuss these things with giggly people. You can take my differential equations.
For a real post on books look here

Dilettante

That is what I am this summer. I even bought a really expensive mango, harking back to those summer vacations of yore where all my clothes had yellow spots and my face had a mandatory mango heat boil. This limbo between schools means that I have a summer off. School's out. I sometimes say those words to myself on icky hot days where my biggest concerns are which book to pick. I think those two words strung together is the nicest sentence in the language.

After two years of crushing worries in grad school, I spent the first half of this unexpected vacation worrying myself to death about wasted time and a lack of purpose. Maybe I should be working towards a summer project or travelling or well, something. But I'm temporarily sick of work. And the only way I can travel is if someone hires me as pack mule, since being between schools is also a euphemism for unemployment.

Relaxing is hard at this level. Everyone here is a highly motivated graduate student, wishing for more hours in the day to fill with work. Heck, I wasted a whole month just judging myself. If I'm not working shouldn't I focus on fun? Plan trips, invade theme parks, drive forever?

A massive finger to all of that. What I'm doing is various shades of presently enjoying nothing. Working out some transport phenomena problems because I want to, painting, overloading my Kindle so that it crashes and making khana everyday. It's a slow, dreamy life. With tea in the evening, a pool to lounge in and girlfriends who revere Bollywood pulp. I'm happy, anyone would be with this pool :) 


P:S
Sharan, my mother, on Skype this week, asked how you are doing and sends her regards. She is a rather random woman too :)

64 days of summer

Summer's here :) With it comes a weird blend of wanting to just die and gawking at all the butterflies. Watermelon slices are rampant. Shorts too and giant sunglasses. It's time to shed some excess baggage.
What I don't like about Summer here is that it's not immediately followed by a monsoon season. I won't go on and on about the rains. Endlessly romanticizing things has long been a personal weakness.

Saw a couple of movies this week that have both made me think for vastly different reasons:

1. Tiny Furniture
By Lena Dunham and starring as Aura
Is the seemingly pathetic story of a privileged New Yorker whose failure to find employment finds her moving back to her mother's home. Things are a little too real for her as she tries to find her talent and voice while navigating a couple of relationships that made me cringe. Dunham is shocking in how much of herself she puts out there. Physically and artistically. When every woman around me, on the TV, in the bus, while shopping is so perfectly pretty with flippy straight hair, it's unsettling see Aura looking far less than perfect in most frames. I dint really like the movie much. I think it doesn't make itself a very like-able experience, but it certainly measures the unemployment, unfulfillement and deprivation of a new generation.

2. Main Khiladi tu Anari
I love this movie :) That I was forced to watch in parts on Youtube, having no access to those giants of mega bad TV, Star and Sony. I've accepted the fact that being far away from India makes you appreciate all it's pulp fiction vastly more. It's something  only you understand, having being an Indian child in the 90's. This movie has all the early pre-waxed Akshay and Saif hilarity. Haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Why is Bollywood so dumbed down?

Kraken!

When in doubt, stick to the weather.Humid enough here to see some fish swimming mid air. And stiflingly hot. Apparently, flowers love this maddening dampness because they are positively thriving. I've been stalking JKR now that a new book is in the offing. I like her on so many levels and having personally moved past Harry Potter, I want to see what else she can write. I'm not outraged by how normal and placid this new book seems; these unhurried books have a lot going for them in terms of how much time they spend developing each character. Now that I've stopped worshiping at the alter of Harry, I can read views from the Dark Side without raging. Like this for instance:

What they(the Harry Potter books) lack is any feel for language, character and – crucially for a children’s book – the unexpected weirdness you find in, say, Alice in Wonderland. I’ve always thought that Lewis Carroll and JK Rowling were each other's polar opposites in children’s writing. The Alice books are riddling, disturbing, unexpected and memorable with a relish for language that means you can still recite whole passages from memory years after reading them. Rowling’s magic is logical and plodding (much like her prose: can anyone honestly say they can quote one line?) and the pleasure her stories give is similar to putting together a jigsaw that eventually forms a clear picture.

I almost agree with this. JKR's wonderfully complex world doesn't bog you down and her plotlines so awesomely intricate. But what's the nonsense about quoting lines? I'll quote one word "Always". And plodding? Her language is so alive and snarky. 

New object of affection: China Mieville, for starting his own frickin genre of fiction which I've been waiting all my life to read. I'm reading Kraken right now. The City& The City are next.

We're going to Disney for the weekend. Where I've been promised some severe sensory overload comas. I find myself not caring much for the fireworks or the animatronics and other such blah. I'm going solely for the Monster's Inc ride.

Bonk

Is a book by Mary Roach on the science behind sex. And how studying it has been awkward for researches over the decade. As someone whose life has been taken over by scientific pursuits lately, i can understand how research can become consuming and how these brave men and women might have felt.On the subject of Roach herself, I am a devoted fan for life.She is hilarious and methodical and I could read her for days on end.
One of those pleasant interludes in life has just occurred. Where work has let up a little bit leaving space in my frazzled brain for some ruminations on the rain, coffee and the right book. Sometimes, I want to pick everyone who matters to me and have them read what I am presently reading so that we can then discuss the book for hours. I am deeply starved here :|
It's summer here too. The butterflies are out in fluttery droves and girls are walking by in breezy dresses. The sun is bright and everything is distorted with too much colour.

Auditory traffic

Sometimes, I type and erase 20 lines before I can get to the one that I want. Work is getting to be a little too much. And having giving up coffee for Lent(no Lord, please, I cannot do this anymore) I have too many unsettling anxieties.
Work, love, happiness. Sigh, it's difficult to balance all of that.
I think a lot of this disconnect I experience here stems from lethargy. After a long day at work, I can mindlessly solve jigsaw puzzles but not have an actual conversation with the people I love, at home, at my other home, wherever.
This lack of communication is making me slightly batty. I have the soul of an old cat lady.
You other people out there, is your life as happy as it seems on the surface? Is it all shiny and bubbly and organised? Because mine has even lost the appearance of being so. I'm now beginning to think the entire human experience is putting up that cheery front and not letting the cracks show through. I'm a bad human now.

****

Presently obsessed with David Foster Wallace. Where was this man all my life? He is so hyper-intelligent that it is a mighty struggle to keep up and well, isn't that all I've ever asked for? It's a rush to have to go back and reread sentences after years of speed reading books to understand someone.

****

Dee Dee bear, thanks so much for that jigsaw. It's the most perfect thing in my life presently :) And I'm sorry I'm such a crappy friend.

****



Feeling much love and gratitude to the New Yorker. I was starved till you came along in your hallowed glossiness and winding sentences at Library West. On that note, I received the most breathtaking look of pure disgust from the old librarian when I tried to return some long overdue books. I was glad to know someone still cared about things written 20 years ago.

****


I had kind of a midlife crisis at twenty, which probably doesn’t augur well for my longevity
-David foster Wallace

Manic Pixie

It easier to fall in love with the idea of a person.

------
I'm struggling with advanced thermo, a thesis and a very disorganized life presently. I would like to rent some mental peace form someone of it's up for grabs. Figured I'll drown my sorrows in work. It's about time.

------
There are so many things to wish for:
1. A more selfless self.
2. Cheaper books
3. More songs to fall in love with. I heard Gotye's Somebody that I used to know and felt an inexplicable sadness.
4. Summer. I'm done with chilliness and hands so dry that they sting worse than dettol on fresh bike wounds.

Enough.

2012

This wayward hitchhiker wishes the (non-existent) readers of this blog a very happy new year :) May 2012 be an obscenely wealthy, ridiculously lucky and hopefully non fatal new year where you are blessed with many encounters involving tall, dark , sexy strangers.
There, I love you all :)
I'm riding high on a wave of coming-back-homeness. These are the glory days when one returns from the hinterlands of Florida and gets treated like visiting royalty. This is the life :)
Found a very vintage coffee shop here in Seawoods, with pouffy old lady sofas, giant book shelfs and empty birdcages. New Bombay is getting better. Met a bunch of people and resigned myself to missing them for a whole year more.
Have roamed the streets, dangled from the trains, been one with the heat and dust(that woman RPJ, knew what she was going on about?) ]
I am fat and happy.

Ho ho what?

Holidays. They are here :)
I come from one of the most atypical Catholic families that ever dipped it's brun-maska in hot chai.
We do the usual things around Christmas of course. Like sleeping at midnight mass, having too much rum cake and having more people over than our house can hold.
But then, one year my mum made dal-rice. For Christmas.
See, it's got it's ups and downs.

Christmas this year though, is way up there with the best of them. Too many gifts and more love than I can handle. All this from just one person.Thank you Derek :)
Cant. write. bleargh.

Hispidulously yours

Time to learn a new word children. No hair compares to the Suchi mane.

Today is the Much-ster's birthday. I always wondered when this blog would stop mentioning ages on birthday posts. That awkward time is now. This is that quietly age-censored post.

Happy Birthday Muchi :)
Devoted fans can pay homage in the comments section. Blithering idiots can mail her gifts. For instance, poverty has motivated me to send her the gift of Love this year.
Have a good one muchi. Take care of the hair.

Love,
Maggie

V for

Varanasi.I haven't been there and I'm reading a book about it by Geoff Dyer. I can't stop talking about whatever it is that I'm currently reading since it extends amoeba-esque pseudopodia enveloping my whole life. Dyer writes about Venice and Varanasi, places I've idealised forever and am dying to visit. His perspectives on Varanasi, Hinduism, India and Ginsberg are electrifying (this is it. The only word that fit). I feel like a voyeur into my own nation. Ever picked up a Lonely Planet to nowhere? I have and that's why I think Dyer is such a good travel writer.

***

In the school library, a lifetime ago, I'd read Philip's Pullman's pan-dimensional Dark Material's trilogy. In his chaotic, Dust-ridden universe, there were infinite worlds that existed with each other and there were people who could rip the fabric of their world and travel to any other. They lived happy fulfilling lives in these new worlds, they found themselves, loved, gained power and greatness. And yet, no matter how happy they were, the tug of their old worlds was great. They were simply,physically incapable of staying too long. Their hearts faltered and eventually they had to go back to where they came from or die in their new worlds. It was crushing to read about these people who yearned to stay and yearned to leave.

***

Over the last two weeks, I've watched a football game at The Swamp, seen Gods of Carnage at the Hippodrome, painted, been freaked out at Halloween horror nights and written the most important letter of my life to someone I love and worry about (the pen and paper kind. Where have they gone?)

Brain juice

Fourier, thank you.

And no other people.

Boyfriend,

This is my 10 minute coffee break. For a change I'm dedicating it to you instead of Sharan's tumblr. I need these 10 minutes in the day, when I know what I did today (had a painful meeting, stared glassily at the laser) and I know what I'll do in the next three hours (hunt for NLW clamps, think about what to tell Jim when he meets me tomorrow). But these 10 minutes (which we both know are actually 20) are now yours.

Yesterday was a fitting end to a year spent in this country where I've made my peace with large portions (stop it, stop sniggering) , hippie art, green lawns, red brick buildings and bad coffee. And also living away from everyone I love has been easier because I found another bunch of people who treat me like a child and laugh at most things I say. I find it hard to live away from home, mostly because what is home now anyway? What happens when I go back?

Thank you for bring an idli-vada-sambar plate into my life exactly a year after I'd last seen the sight of a yellow pumpkin blob drowned in sambar and coconut chutney. You are the singularly most unlikely person in the world that I should have dragged to Saravana Bhavan (now in Orlando, people :)) but I did and it was awesome. You stuck it out through 5 chutneys and a cheese masala dosa and I'm proud of you. Even your stoic rejection of the corriander one (this looks like green baby poop) was okay with me after you ate all of your dosa and seemed to like it. You sat through the screeches of Tollywood songs that now have incongruous bits of English rap with shrill women warbling in Tamil. You displayed keen interest in the mango Lassi (which you pronounced like Lassie, the dog). Its funny how the place you come from can sometime make you squirm when you see it through another point of view (Tamil pop, I hate/love you) It's hard to understand someone else's pulp fiction :)

Sea World was of course, awesome. Flashy, yes, but very awesome. I think that duck and her brood of future rock climbers was the best. After the fireworks and the colorful fountains. If I was a 6 year old, I would have hyperventilated and gone into a severe color-induced Disney coma.

Ah, coffee over.

Love,

Aggie

P:S: I've posted two pictures of you because you look so cute and they will get lost somewhere in my phone if I don't do this now.

Rest if the world, excuse this sort of unladylike gushing :)

St Louis :)

Apple Pie.

I used to have this theory that if I called a Travelog something innocuous and comforting like apple pie, I would have a harmless and gustatory sort of motivation to write it. This is obviously false since the last one was about Chennai, 3 years ago. Not only am I aging, but I'm also great at self delusion.

Any excuse to get out of Gainesville is a worthy cause. Throw a giant arch, a mad family, a ho-down, frozen custard, anteaters, museums and cats into the picture, and by God, there will be an Aggie there.

St Louis is the kind of place that I like by default. It's a big city with enough buildings that I had to crane my neck to look up to, bad traffic and good food in the middle of a tearing downpour of rain. What makes St Louis such a great place, personally, is the arch, which almost makes me miss skulking around Bombay. Picture a rainy day in Colaba, looking around and grounding yourself with the Gateway somewhere in your peripheral vision. The Arch is somewhat like that, a structure that let's you orient yourself in the middle of a big city.

Over the last four days, I've absorbed a whole new place. With Thai food, Ted Drewes, the St Louis Zoo, Body Worlds, Waterloo, and a gazillion other things :)

They do fireworks on a whole other dimension here. With barges shooting off lights in the sky framed by the arch, as thousands of people watched on. I think it's a hell of a way to celebrate freedom. Imagine having Jana Gana Mana and peda's on steroids.

Other bit's of this trip included the best party I've ever been to, with the formidable party planning skills behind it. Never has a ho down been this awesome, stray fireworks and the heat notwithstanding :) What struck me about Waterloo and the little towns around it was it's quaintness and scattered bits of history around churches, houses and tiny coffee shops. Any Starkey's reading this, I love you :)

There wasn't a free second to whip out a camera so no pictorial evidence exists. Another reason to go back, eh?