Sunday, September 23, 2007
Long and short of goodbyes!
So after almost a few months of knowing that my time in the US was limited, weeks of good byes with friends and family -- people i have had the best times in the states for the past 7 years with -- i finally bid adieu to the states (for the time being atleast) and am now in Oxford, UK. I shall be updating my experiences @ oxford for the next year or so now on the Oxford diaries (follow link on the left of this page for Oxford Diaries)...
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Home? and SJS
I look out from atop (10th floor of the SAL hospital). I see the city on a rainy day. Just after the rain has cooled off the sweltering heat of Ahmedabad.
Suddenly a sense of belonging overwhelms. No, not the hospital, but being back in Ahmedabad, India – my native city. Rainwashed untidy imperfect buildings and bunglows. Chaotic traffic and string of cars parked by the side of the street with the chocolate colored wet mud serving as a contrasting base to the spectacle. A couple of rustic temples and a cow shed in the middle. Listening to an equally rustic Punjabi folk song on my ipod. Somehow it just seems to soothe the soul. I feel in a state which my inner being seems to remember from time so before, it almost seems a different life. A state my mind seems to be trying to remember and analyze but my heart wont let it. It seems to scream out to the brain: -- I feel just right, let me be!!
I know I will be out of this spell in matter of hours. Which is fine. It felt good to feel this way and it will be right to shake right out of it…and let life resume!!
Now to get to the real matter I wanted to write about. I am here on a very sudden trip I decided on a couple of days back. I am in Ahmedabad for a week attending to a family emergency. Someone close was suffering from a condition called Steven Johnson Syndrome (SJS): a disorder triggered primarily as a reaction to a drug. Though very rare and relatively modern and without a reliable cure, it is a disorder that all should be aware and cognizant off because it can be brought upon by the simplest of drugs like even aspirins and penicillin family of drugs. So just a word of caution to our pill popping allopathic friendly club (of which I am a patron) : beware and aware the next time you pop a pill as to what you are putting in your mouth ! Having said that allergies really are just a medical accidents. One you really cannot plan for. But just like accidents, you sure can take precautions to prevent them!!
Peace out. Later!!
Suddenly a sense of belonging overwhelms. No, not the hospital, but being back in Ahmedabad, India – my native city. Rainwashed untidy imperfect buildings and bunglows. Chaotic traffic and string of cars parked by the side of the street with the chocolate colored wet mud serving as a contrasting base to the spectacle. A couple of rustic temples and a cow shed in the middle. Listening to an equally rustic Punjabi folk song on my ipod. Somehow it just seems to soothe the soul. I feel in a state which my inner being seems to remember from time so before, it almost seems a different life. A state my mind seems to be trying to remember and analyze but my heart wont let it. It seems to scream out to the brain: -- I feel just right, let me be!!
I know I will be out of this spell in matter of hours. Which is fine. It felt good to feel this way and it will be right to shake right out of it…and let life resume!!
Now to get to the real matter I wanted to write about. I am here on a very sudden trip I decided on a couple of days back. I am in Ahmedabad for a week attending to a family emergency. Someone close was suffering from a condition called Steven Johnson Syndrome (SJS): a disorder triggered primarily as a reaction to a drug. Though very rare and relatively modern and without a reliable cure, it is a disorder that all should be aware and cognizant off because it can be brought upon by the simplest of drugs like even aspirins and penicillin family of drugs. So just a word of caution to our pill popping allopathic friendly club (of which I am a patron) : beware and aware the next time you pop a pill as to what you are putting in your mouth ! Having said that allergies really are just a medical accidents. One you really cannot plan for. But just like accidents, you sure can take precautions to prevent them!!
Peace out. Later!!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
A Full life?
The most burning question in my life for the past couple of years has been : What do I want out of life? It's one question that I seem to have struggled with OR enjoyed the challenge of OR been most often frustrated about OR been given a zillion different opinions and perspectives from people whose input I value OR lastly a question I have tried to make peace with.
Never though, have I gotten an entirely satisfactory and more importantly consistent answer. Though often recently I feel that one thing consistent about the answers is that they all seem to be grounded in my craving for seeking diversity -- of people, place and profession! The more I peel back the onion on this thought, the more I feel comfortable living with the process of contiually refining my answer to this question. I have what i feel is a trillion ft view of my answer to the question:
-What do I want out of life?
: I want to live a 'full' life!
One in which I have lived in places, met and mingled with variety of people with diverse backgrounds and have had a multiple professional tangents to my working life. I would want to have had a few careers before I am done - an engineer, entrepreneur, an artist, media person, a social activist, a philanthropist ... I would want to have had a few educational degrees in diverse fields and places - a masters, a mba, a phd ... I would want to have had lived in all the 5 continents for a reasonable amount of time before i m in the sunset of my life ... I would want to have loved and been loved by people whose lifes I would not have imagined I could touch ... finaicially I would want to have lived poor, getting there, obscenely loaded ...
.. n I would want to have done each of the above for a reasonable time enough to have lived it! That is a very doable list the way I look at it. Some could be done concurrently, others in certain planned 4-5 year slots in life. No - I am not saying life by a schedule. Infact I am suggesting the exact opposite. I am saying nothing I do can not be part of the plan. It would all fit in and make sense. Coz with the ultimate goal of living a 'full' life, everything flies as long as one enjoys it fully!!
I am just too full of myself ... aint I ?
Never though, have I gotten an entirely satisfactory and more importantly consistent answer. Though often recently I feel that one thing consistent about the answers is that they all seem to be grounded in my craving for seeking diversity -- of people, place and profession! The more I peel back the onion on this thought, the more I feel comfortable living with the process of contiually refining my answer to this question. I have what i feel is a trillion ft view of my answer to the question:
-What do I want out of life?
: I want to live a 'full' life!
One in which I have lived in places, met and mingled with variety of people with diverse backgrounds and have had a multiple professional tangents to my working life. I would want to have had a few careers before I am done - an engineer, entrepreneur, an artist, media person, a social activist, a philanthropist ... I would want to have had a few educational degrees in diverse fields and places - a masters, a mba, a phd ... I would want to have had lived in all the 5 continents for a reasonable amount of time before i m in the sunset of my life ... I would want to have loved and been loved by people whose lifes I would not have imagined I could touch ... finaicially I would want to have lived poor, getting there, obscenely loaded ...
.. n I would want to have done each of the above for a reasonable time enough to have lived it! That is a very doable list the way I look at it. Some could be done concurrently, others in certain planned 4-5 year slots in life. No - I am not saying life by a schedule. Infact I am suggesting the exact opposite. I am saying nothing I do can not be part of the plan. It would all fit in and make sense. Coz with the ultimate goal of living a 'full' life, everything flies as long as one enjoys it fully!!
I am just too full of myself ... aint I ?
Monday, July 16, 2007
The Oxford Diaries
Hey! Long time...i know!! Lets hope this time around I have a more consistent run of things with writing. I have created a seperate log under my profile, called 'My Oxford Diaries' (corny huh?!!? thats what I thought too :-)). There is a link to it under my links section. I shall try to log my experiences as I am literally weeks away from embarking on this whole new journey, saying good bye to life as I knew it for the past 7 years in the US. Reason I kept it a seperate blog is that I plan to put up a lot of details, pics and week by week account of my semesters at Ox and I figured its best logged seperately. So long...!
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