An addendum to the post below.

In early 2009 between Feb & May 2009, I spent some 3+ months in Baroda. I city which I have come to love very much in spite of its many limitations. Somehow there is still some small-town charm there, that appeals to me. I feel out of depth in the larger cities in India. The above mentioned 3+ months were among the most relaxing in my life.

It is not to say that the fact I wasn't basically doing anything with my life during this period was all charms. It did have its share of ennui-induced frustrations. But the fact remains I got to know a lot of new people, helped them in small but easily forgotten ways. These had no pecuniary remunerations, but gave me immense pleasure. And the ability to do things without thinking about the future is an indescribable stimulant.

Needless to say, looking back from among the stream of 'profitably employed people', rather than living by my own means and wits has made me nostalgic again. Suffice to say, there is a certain deadness when life goes on from one deadline to another. Yet, you are still alive to feel the tribulations after the deadline. So much for living life for the moment.

Some more pictures from those days of mental-vacation, so-to-speak.
Baroda/Bombay Feb-May 2009

Photographs and more ...

Just logging in after more than a couple of years into Blogger. I am just too lazy to become a dedicated blogger I guess ... :( ... thought I would post some of my photography album links, that is the only thing that I have been doing with some semblance of regularity ... though did get to indulge in my see more of nature and new places in the past year or so. It came in lieu of a messed up professional life though ... ;-) ... but then its the end that matters in such things rather than the means, and then the quantum of happiness gained is more than enough recompense ...

I am keeping most of my online viewable pictures in PicasaWeb, still haven't come to love Flickr as many well-wishers fond of my pictures have told me to ... there are too many pictures that I haven't sorted through ... so, here goes ...

Elk Creek Mushroom Hunting, ID, Sep 2009
Pullman - 1, WA, Aug 2009
Puducherry, June 2009
Puri/B'swar, Orissa, June 2009
Kumaun/Garhwal, Uttaranchal, April-May 2009
Saraswati Puja, Storrs, CT, Jan 2009
Garhwal, Uttaranchal, July 2008

I guess looking at the list above one would think that it is enough of traveling to new places to last me at least another 2-3 years, but then such is the nature of vagabonding that it is never enough. The "urge to be anywhere but here", as Steinbeck would have said, is a strange affliction of the professional bum.

In stabler moments of my life, when things are in a more even keel, I seem to think that for some people, listening to other people, and working in a system is not something that they do naturally. This is a natural handicap in a systematic human world, those of us suffer from this are never completely happy doing things from the external perspective. Let me rest it rest it at that for today.