It was summer in the Doldrums of Nodd, or maybe it was summer in some other period. Mephistopheles wasn't sure.

So much had happened since he last sat and collected his thoughts, and he wasn't sure where to begin. And he didn't want to begin. But Kain interjected, "This story must have some context, or otherwise they won't understand."

Annoyed, Mephisto responded, "Ok fine. Now leave me." With that, Kain quirked an odd smile on his face and vanished. Mephistopheles clutched his head and recalled where he was.

Oh yes. Mephistopheles had found Kain, the former owner of the Soul, and after an epic saga to be told another time, Mephisto slew his former master and wrested full control of the Soul from him. But Kain's ghost remained, and interrupted every now and again. "Much better," blurted Kain, as he popped in and out again.

As with all of his grand adventures, when it was all over, Mephistopheles found him alone in Nodd, sorting out the chaos that his life had become. But the world did not care to cater to his madness, and happily moved on without him. On this day, in fact, an old comrade was leaving Nodd, and he was preparing to say goodbye. She and Mephistopheles had both been Reapers some time before, but it was there that their similarities ended. She was Human, he was Drow. She ...

"You should name her. Naming grants someone significance," nagged Kain.

"You like to name every tree along the path. Besides, I can't think of a good name right now," retorted Mephisto.

"Names are just bookmarks in the story, to make it more simple and the Truth within more clear," said Kain.

Mephistopheles sighed. It was almost always useless to argue with the Former. He clutched his sword for a moment, but refrained from beheading Kain. It would not accomplish anything, anyway. It was best to just accomodate him quickly and be done with it. "Fine. What would you name him?", asked Mephisto.

"I can't come up with names, ever since you killed me. Just think of the first name that comes to your mind. If you really want to tell this story, then you'll think of a name," said Kain, with some finality.

Mephisto closed his eyes and breathed deeply for some time. And then he found the lost thread. So though he himself was a Master of the Sword and Spear, and was thoroughly involved in the cataclysmic war against the Demons, Bridla (Kain smiled and faded out) would have nothing of it. It was not that she had no aptitude for swording or warfare, she just seemed to believe that their cause was better served by creating beauty in the world. Mephisto could not begrudge Bridla that. The path one person chose to follow was as good as any.

In truth, he was somewhat annoyed with Bridla. Though it had been almost two years since they had been Reapers, she kept contacting him, often at the most inopportune times. Though he would have some great battle to prepare for, he felt some undefined obligation to accompany her one whatever useless project she had decided upon next. But now she was leaving Nodd, her heart broken, and Mephisto felt the need to sing for her.

He had not sung in three years, not since the Time of Woe. Singing had reminded him of ... the One That Left ("Don't worry, we do refer to her in our head, because to otherwise would be unhealthy," clarified Kain), and he had wanted to forget. His life was very different than it was, but why did it take Bridla leaving to uncork his voice?

Bridla did annoy him, but she was a true and loyal comrade. In some sense, she was like a younger sister to him, and that had given him more satisfaction than he had admitted before. So, because she leaving, it was best to let her remember him in song.

It had been so long since he sang, he wasn't sure if he knew any of ther words. What if she didn't care for his song, or worse, didn't understand it? (Kain gave Mephisto a quizzical look. "Are you sure that's not me talking? It sure sounds like something I would say ...," asked Kain. Mephisto gritted his teeth and asked "Does it matter?")

He reminded himself, that it was the effort, not the quality that mattered in such things. Besides, Bridla's art was making things beautiful, so surely, she could find meaning in this.

And Mephistopheles sang.

I flew to Atlanta this past weekend with my cousin Ramya. My other cousin Sandhya lives there, and I wanted to see her place and all that, and I also wanted to give Ramya a birthday gift (of sorts), so I brought her along. It was a fun weekend. I'm not much big into seeing sights and all of that, so we just bummed around, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've been trying to slowly spread the Apple gospel by converting my relatives to Macintosh computers. I had already procured a Macbook Pro for Ramya using my educational discount, and through a bit more convoluted process I procured and brought Sandhya a 20-inch iMac. So the three of us sat in Sandhya's room, puttering away on our pretty computers.

But we did more than that. We of course went out to various restaurants and cafes, but we also went dancing at a salsa club. Thanks to chugging a Sam Adams a bit quickly, and two tequila shots in quick succession, Belligerent Shankar came out. For those not in the know, Belligerent Shankar is one of my many evil alternate personalities. But unlike the others, I have never met him. He only comes out when I consume so much alcohol that I black out and don't remember. Including this time, there are about four confirmed appearances of him. From what others tell me, he is almost diametrically opposite from me: He is loud, stupid, clumsy (ok I'm clumsy too), violent, and curse-happy, and he doesn't really care about much. I think he embodies that about myself that I try to repress. Since I have been more open of late, he has mellowed somewhat. But I still don't like him coming out, cause with him comes consequences. He usually yaks in prodigious quantities, and it is just immature to expect the people around me to take care of and deal with that. Also, the next morning I usually have a wicked hangover.

But back on point. I had a really good time in Atlanta this last weekend. I have a couple more trips lined up, so lets see how those go!

Woop woop

Hoo boy ... how on earth did I get here?

• June 21st: Flew from Chennai, India to London, UK. I was trashed before the flight
• June 22nd: Flew from London, UK to Vilnius, Lithuania. I got fairly drunk the day before the flight.
• June 23rd: Took a bus from Vilnius, Lithuania to Riga, Latvia. Yeah I was blitzed a couple hours before the bus ride
• Later June 23rd: Took a bus from Riga, Latvia to Vaive, Latvia. Perry and I wandered around the farmers market
• June 24th: The Ligo midsummer festival. In short: shitfaced before, during, and after.
• June 25th: Hitched a ride back with Jone ("Yo-neh") to Riga, Latvia. You can drink in cars in Latvia, so guess what?
• Later June 25th: Went to an after party at the Backpacker's Hostel and later at Zane's place. This was me at my most drunkenest. Surprisingly, "Belligerent" Shankar didn't come out. Or maybe that was after.
• June 26th: I wake up at 7pm. Shortly before that Perry has an errand to run, so I'm sort of alone (Zane and Alex were sleeping).
• Later June 26th: I decide I'm going to be independent and procure my own bus ticket back to Vilnius. I leave the house and quickly become lost. First I gave up on finding the station, then I gave up on finding my way back to Zane's, then I gave up on finding the Backpacker's Hostel, and managed to arrive at the Argonaut Hostel. They generously let me in.
• June 27th: I finally gather up the nerve to find out how to call Perry. He promptly arrives, and takes me to bus station, and helps me get a ticket to Vilnius. Perry is such a sweetie.
• Later June 27th: The bus is two hours late, and so I missed my flight. I try to book another flight, but Bank of America doesn't fr**kin trust AirBaltic so I was sunk. I ended up booking a flight for tomorrow back to the UK.

So now I'm in the Unique Stay Hotel just chilling. Even though Jone lives in Vilnius, I decided to be independent and not bother her. Have I learned nothing? Well maybe I have:

1. "Vacation" Shankar is a drunkard (hey that kind of rhymes). Fortunately, "Poor Hungry Doctoral Student" Shankar is too cheap to drink that much. Also, pretty much everyone outside of America drinks an assload, so by comparison, he isn't so bad.
2. Shankar is not independent, and kind of a dumbass. But we love him anyway.
3. I really had a mind-blowing time travelling all over the world. But when I get back to the states, I'm going to sleep. A lot.

1. United Kingdom
   • Flight from Chicago to London: $647.50
   • Food and (mostly) drink in the UK: $200
   • Train from London to Nottingham: $19.97
   • Missing the train to Nottingham: $65.84
   • Car Ride from Nottingham to Crewe: free [thanks Srinivas Uncle]
   • Train from Crewe to London: $26.00
2. India
   • Flight from London to Chennai (and back): GBP398.00 (British pounds)
   • Food and (mostly) drink around Chennai: $100
   • Sexy black kurta pajama with golden shawl: Rs2000 (Indian rupees)
   • Weekend trip to Temple Bay Resort: free [thanks many people]
   • Slick golden kurta pajama: free [thanks mom]
   • Train ride to and from Bangalore: free [thanks dad]
3. United Kingdom #2
   • Train from Heathrow to Romford: GBP13.00 (British pounds
4. Lithuania
   • Flight from London to Vilnius, Lithuania: LVL119.20 (Latvian lats)
5. Latvia
   • Bus ride from Vilnius, Lithuania to Riga: LTL90.00 (Lithuanian litas)
   • Food and (mostly) drink during Ligo (Midsummer Festival): LVL10.00 (Latvian lats)
   • Bus ride from Riga to Vaive: LVL3.00 (Latvian lats)
   • Car ride from Vaive to Riga: free [thanks Jone]
   • Nights stay at the Argonaut Hostel: LVL9.00
6. Lithuania #2
   • Bus ride from Riga to Vilnius: LTL45.00 (Lithuanian litas)
   • Collect Call from Vilnius Airport to Bank of America: LTL50.00 (Lithuanian litas)
   • Centrum Viesbutis Hotel in Vilnius, Lithuania: $72.61
   • International Phone Calls from Centrum Hotel: $39.51
   • Taxi from Centrum Hotel to Vilnius Airport: $14.82
7. London #3
   • Missing my return flight to London from Lithuania: $400.00
   • Train from London Gatwick to Romford: GBP15.00 (British pounds)
   • Missing my return flight to Chicago: $380.00

Losing your mind in Europe, finding it, and after a long discussion with yourself, deciding to lost your mind again: Priceless There are some things money can't buy, but for everything else there's ... oh wait, I don't do product endorsement

I don't have much power, and there is no one that can save me.

Cheese. Sappy Sentiment. That's what has been missing from my peoples' weddings. I'm amazed that I experienced this is in the most "arranged" of arranged marriages.

My cousin Vas is 32, and there were many in my family who believed that he would never get married. But over a year ago, some relatives found a girl through the grapevine that they believe Vas would be interested in, and so they started communicating over the internet, and bing-bang-BOOM! They were engaged. The full details of their courtship are quite charming from what I hear.

I've long held the opinion that my people's weddings are not at all designed for enjoyment. Essentially it is just an opportunity for relatives to come and make a mental checklist of all the various rituals (called "krama"), and then complain if some krama was not followed. Even the reception is sedate. The bride and groom sit on a throne on stage while different families come up for photographs and to give gifts. There is music loud enough so no one can talk, but no one dances. So the guest sit, get their picture take with the couple, eat, and leave. Sesha knew this, and so wisely chose not to have a reception for his wedding.

Vasanth's mother, my Nirmala-auntie decided that she didn't like this status quo either, so there were many changes. The Chatra, where the wedding and reception were held, was an air-conditioned hall. That made the wedding much more palatable for us foreigners. The rituals were essentially the same as for Sesha's wedding. I wore a golden-brown kurta that my mother gave me for my birthday.

They held a reception, but unlike any "namakulu" one I've seen. There was the photo-session on the throne, and the food, but there was also a magician performing tricks, and afterwards a DJ and dancing. Of late, I've grown fond of dancing, so even though I was sober, I pranced around and shook my booty. Many of my relatives, even the stodgy ones, got on the dance floor and jumped around. At the end of the night, the DJ played this sappy 80's ballad, and Vas and Preetha danced together in the center of the dance floor. I was almost moved to tears.

But best of all, throughout the ceremony and the reception, there a grin stretched ear to ear on my cousin Vas's face. I've never seen him so happy in my life, and I'm so glad that I got to witness this joyous event of his. Especially because it was in an air-conditioned hall :-).

This was supposed to be the more progressive wedding of the two, at least from my perspective. It was a love marriage rather than an arranged marriage, and Tharashri isn't from "our community" and isn't a Brahmin. But you wouldn't know this from the ceremony.

My cousin Seshanand met Tharashri in the reception hall of the Golkonda Hotel in Hyderabad. They were both working at a call center for General Electric. After being together for only one month, Sesha immigrated to the U.S., where he has been for the past five years. What ensued after was, in my opinion, one of the most long and distant long-distance relationships I have ever seen. But they have made it work.

As I said, Thara isn't "namakulu" (from our community). She is Malayalee (from the state of Kerala) and is from a caste that permits eating meat. But you wouldn't know it to look at her. She speaks all of the major South Indian languages (Telugu, Tamil, Kanada, and Malayalee), and she is well aware of "our traditions." So, in short, she fits in with our family like an old glove. But still some of my relatives complained.

The wedding took place in Chennai. Our peoples' weddings are much bland than ones in the north. The main theme is one of "exchange", that is, the role of support that was provided by the younger sister will now be provided by the wife. They first act out a skit where the groom proclaims that he has found no one in this world and so he will go Kashi and become an ascetic. He starts off with a cane and umbrella in hand. At the last moment, the uncle of the bride rushes in and stops him, telling that they have a nice girl for the groom (the uncle's niece of course), and then the wedding proceeds. The groom, along with his younger sister, arrives at the hall in some grand vehicle, like a chariot, car, or even an elephant. However, unlike Guju-style weddings, there is no dancing during this march. Just sedate walking. The two families meet, and relations from both sides exchange garlands.

After some other sundry rituals, the uncle brings the bride in, with a guard over her face, and the bride and groom stand on opposing sides of large curtain. As the curtain drops and their eyes meet, presumably for the first time, they exchange garlands, and have rice thrown on their heads. Some more miscellaneous rituals take place. They walk around the fire three times. The bride ritually washes the groom's feet. They apply turmeric to each others' faces. The priest instructs the bride on her duties as a wife ("The wife should be like a master chef in the kitchen, and like a prostitute in the bedroom"). At some point, the bride is given her "thali", which is a necklace with black beads and gold that she is supposed to wear ever after to signify her marriage. I'm probably getting the order messed up, but that is the general idea.

Many of the functions for this ceremony were held at this Matta where only Brahmins are permitted to enter. So the bride was not allowed to attend one of the functions for her own wedding! To enforce the policy, all men are required to remove their shirts to reveal the thread they are supposed to wear as Brahmins. I have had a thread ceremony performed for me, but I don't wear a thread because I don't like it being used as a symbol of exclusion. So when it came time for me to take off my shirt, my relatives quickly handed me a shawl to hide the fact that I had no thread. I would have been fine with being asked to leave, but they didn't want me to make a scene.

I conjecture that a lot of the ritual is designed to make you uncomfortable. There is a fire throughout the ceremony, so everyone has a nice dose of smoke inhalation. The Chatra (where the actual wedding took place) had no air conditioning so I was baking in that black kurta-pajama. Finally, for lunch in the Matta, we had to eat off of banana leaves on the ground, killing my back.

Despite all of that, it was my cousin Sesha that was getting married, so I had a blast being there. In due course, Sesha will put all the pictures up on his journal.

It's my 26th birthday today. For the past month as this day approaches, only one thought resonates in my head: My brother was married just before he turned 26. Now I know that men don't have biological clocks, and we are essentially capable of siring offspring until our last breath. Maybe its a psychological clock that working on me. Sesha's marriage finished up three days ago, and it was a lot of fun. I was a best man of sorts, though our tradition has no such thing, so that basically meant I went around taking pictures, and doing other various odd jobs. I guess after being best man in two of the last three weddings I've been to, old habits die hard. My mother also observed this, saying "So you're always the best man, never the bridegroom right?"

The festivities for my cousin Vas's wedding will be starting up tomorrow, but for today there is just the anniversary of my birth, so happy birthday me!

It's a chilly eighty-four degrees in Chennai at 7:30 this morning, and I'm sitting in a black north indian kurta-pajama with one of them cool shawl thingies around my neck. Okay maybe I better back up a bit.

I flew to the UK for a week to visit my friend Perry. We roamed around london for three days and had a great time. Then I spent a day in Nottingham with Janakan's sister Gayathiri (Gaia for short), and got trashed drinking at every other bar of a fourteen-bar bar crawl of the dorm bars (yes, in the UK, the dorms have bars in them). Oh yeah, and it was pirate-themed. Then my uncle picked me up and took me to Cheshire, where I saw a bunch of family I haven't seen in ten years. I got pretty trashed there too.

So I spent the last week in Madras, kicking it with my ginormous extended family. It's been pretty fun, apart from the jetlag, upset stomach, mosquito bites, and most of all, questions about when I'm going to get married (it started with the driver from the airport, and by now has easily passed a hundred count). But this kurta I'm wearing rocks. Oh yeah, it's for my cousin Sesha's wedding. It's a traditional south indian wedding, which means that it will be a long boring affair (not sesha's fault) where everybody represents in a smoke filled hall, and no one has any fun (that would be against tradition). I remember the past three weddings I've been too (one catholic, and two gujurathi), and though there was much ritual in all three, a lot of emphasis was placed on people having a good time. Nope, not here though,its basically just a big checklist for all of the elder relatives to criticize if some tradition that they never bothered to mention wasn't included. I might sound bitter, but that's just cause I'm in a rush. Internet wasn't working in my uncle's flat until this morning. Later!

That's a good question. For the answer you must first ask: Where's Perry?

This past semester, my tenth at the University of Illinois, I was caught in a cyclone. Granted, it was a cyclone of my own making. You see I have five more courses to finish the academic requirements of my degrees, and I decided to get four of them done this last semester. I rationalized by noting that three courses were undergrad courses, one was my advisors course (which meant it was thinly veiled research), one course I had taken most of the previous semester, and in three of the courses, I had a partner that I could lean on. It did not turn out as I had planned. Two of the undergrad courses had only grad students in them, and so were taught as grad courses. I found myself just going from problem set to exam to problem set, never fully catching up. My research goals went from keeping my advisor happy, to not pissing off my advisor, to not infuriating him (and even at that I failed). I told myself if it got too much I could just drop a course and get back on top. But it was always just near the threshold.

Finally, its all over and I can clear my head. I have been avoiding India since the last time I went in 2002. You see, when I went last time, I had nothing but my girlfriend at the time on my mind, and then I cam back to America and she broke up with me. We got back together, but it really was the beginning of the end of our relationship, because she realized that she couldn't wait for me to finish grad school. But when she first broke up with me, it came as a complete shock to my system, and irrationally, I blamed India. It doesn't make much sense, but it is like blaming the third party instead of your unfaithful spouse, just a defense mechanism to prevent yourself from realizing that somewhere you cared about hurt you. So anyway, though there has been opportunity to visit India again, I have been leary. This time, two cousins who I am pretty close to are have weddings. The stakes are too high. I can't avoid it. So I will go to India and deal with what I have been avoiding.

But before I go, there is first another little errand I must attend to ...

Continuing my seven-part saga of my Spring Break ...

We left Boulder three hours late because of the gasoline fiasco. I drove the first shift, getting us out of a mild snowstorm, and then switched to the backseat and slept off. I picked the worst time, because we were just driving through the Rockie mountains, and from what my friends tell me, it was the most beautiful and scenic part of our trip.

I did wake up by the time we got to Utah. It wasn't as scenic (or so I hear), but it was quite nice with plateaus and valleys and things. We also dotted through Arizona for about forty minutes. I must say, I have driven to Vegas enough times in my life from Los Angeles, and it is dead boring, just flat desert. Coming from the east is much more amazing.

By the time we got to Vegas it was about 6pm, and by the time we got settled in our room at the Sahara Hotel and Casino, it was almost 10pm. I was really anxious to go and gamble, but I felt some obligation to show my friends the Strip. So we got dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe and then we walked around the Strip. By the time we got back to the hotel it 4am. I finally got away to go gamble, but for reasons I'd prefer not to disclose, I was extremely frustrated. I won't say I played stupidly, but I definitely more loose with my money. I'm lucky I only had a hundred bucks in my pocket, as well as aversion to paying the ATM tax, because I could have lost a lost more.

We left the hotel at 10am later that day, thus ending the shortest trip to Vegas I've ever had. ::sigh::

We picked up Rahul from O'Hare and then proceeded on our grand adventure. Now granted, we were travelling in the middle of the night, but I must say that both Iowa and Nebraska are not very scenic. I didn't think it was possible, but Nebraska is actually *more* flat than Illinois. We set up a decent policy of switching drivers every four hours. That way, there was one person driving, another keeping them awake (in theory), and two in the back sleeping. I think that made the distance much more tolerable, even in my compact Cavalier.

Trouble arose when we were a little bit into Nebraska. We started to smell a strong odor of gasoline. We first thought that maybe I had spilled some gas on my feet at some gas station in Iowa, but this was far too strong. Finally, we stopped for breakfast halfway through Nebraska and discovered it: In my effort to be prepared, I had filled a plastic canister with a gallon of gas. First of all, its a horrible idea in the first place. Gasoline is highly volatile and might cause an explosion if we were rear ended. It turns out that the canister has an escape valve to allow the gas to flow smoothly when pouring it. The escape valve wasn't on properly, and so it spilled all over Rahul's luggage, and the fumes spread over all of our clothes.

When we finally got to Boulder, we checked into the hotel (which fortunately had free internet access), and tried to deal with the situation. The web had told us that putting the gasoline-fume-infested clothes into a dryer could also cause an explosion, so we washed our clothes and hung them up to dry all around the room. We also tried adding various cleaning products to Rahul's gas-soaked clothes, but they didn't really help.

So we left the hotel at two in the morning, and went back to Denver to "The World's Largest Laundromat." While it was quite large, I don't think it was the biggest I'd ever seen. We were able to get the scent out of most of the clothes, and so could proceed onward with some confidence.

In all of the gasoline hoopla, we really didn't get to see much of Boulder. We did drive into downtown for a little bit. It wasn't all that cold, but because of the elevation, it was snowing.

[Note: Most of the icons I choose for these entries are makeshift at best, but for the following few entries, it really fits]

In the middle of thoroughly grueling semester, Spring Break as finally arrived! I am going on a road trip to California with old Harvest mates Robby and Rahul, well as Robby's girlfriend Zastya. Robby and Zastya are German, and Rahul and I are Indian, so we have quite a good mix of people. It should be a lot of fun.

For the first part of our journey, we are heading to Chicago to get some Chicago-style pizza and pick up Rahul from the O'hare. I'm so stoked!

(*) The "Blitzkrieg" was a German war tactic that essentially involved conquering a region by quickly rolling over it with tanks. Since [A] some of us are German, [B] my Chevy Cavalier is a "tank" among compact cars, and [C] we are going to roll over much of America, I thought it was quite relevant.