Travelogues and Travails

I've been around a little. Enough to find that go anywhere in our beautiful country, you always will have something to complain. The heat, the dust, the beggars, the traffic, the crowd, the stench, the hygiene, or lack of it... and thousand other things.

Should anyone try to hold such observations back? I guess not. Each to his own liking, and I like my journals to be smelling beautiful. Let's see...

Born in Bihar, brought up in Gujarat, graduated from Tamil Nadu, and one of the million software engineers in Bangalore... and having three good friends, from Maharashtra - Vaishali Pathak, Bengal - Smita Chakravorty and Karnataka - Shankar Jayaraman. That's given me some coverage. I remember, when I was a kid, we used go picnic'ing to the Maithon Dam near Dhanbad on the Barakar river. Or at least we went there once :-). That habit of exponentially increasing the frequency of good things spurred on by Mr. Nostos. Like "Aah, how we used to sing and dance in the rain on the water tank on our terrace!" or "You used to bring me such lovely flowers!" ...

Anyways, so all I remember of those (or the) picnic was that I felt I have to go places. This is one great place, so unlike the boxy Sindri. There'd certainly be nicer places in Bihar, or thinking bigger India. Mind you, I was a toddler then. So Venice, Vegas or Toronto didn't occur naturally to me. And that dad once killed a goat on the way back with our black sturdy Ambassador! The Big Ambassador! The 'Shaan Car'! The animal would've boasted in goatee heaven, most goats go there, atoning all sins by giving their lives for the nutritional betterment of the society, 'you lowly creatures, slain by rusted knives! Look at me, I was done for by India's pride!"

It was a dream alright to go places. But I find I have never once gone out of urban India, forget about going out of India. Have been to the metros, but never the mofussil towns like Pankaj Mishra, who is a fellow Bihari, and whose book Butter Chicken, I have a sweet and sour opinion about. But next month is going to be my first journey to the haven of s/w engineers. So I thought let me start a blog, and use it in stead of my old diary, which is now so full of emotions, I can sometimes hear it cry. And I started a blog... Ribbid.