Posts on Sentimental Crap
April 27, 2006
A feeble attempt at abstract crap
It's time for something new in life...
An old memory to forget?
A new pink hat with bright yellow pom poms?
A new book from Waterstones?
Another new absurd idea for a thesis?
I think I'll do them all!
December 17, 2005
My occassional sentimental babble.
Every once in a while, you come across people who really believe in you; friends, faculty, family. What makes it overwhelming at times is that they tend to believe in you much more than you believe in yourself. They're the kind of people who reduce the volatility of our own business cycles... they make the depressions more bearable, and they're there to remind us that the booms are only temporary. They also set the (high) standard to which we calibrate our work.
You guys know who you are... and you're pretty damn awesome if I may say so. The good life as I know it wouldn't remotely be possible without you.
Ahh I'm drowning in sentimental crap... I think I need to go find the laundry girl and yell at her.
Posted by vinayak at 11:40 AM
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August 27, 2005
Fourteen years later
As you already know, I grew up in Saudi Arabia as a perfect American brat. Back in Saudi, I was a hyper cow. No seriously... I was a really, really hyper cow:
Scene from the weekly parties:
Vinayak, probably five or six years old, arrives. The party goes on code red Pepsi alert - if there's Pepsi anywhere around, they have exactly three minutes to hide it, or face an onslaught equivalent to nuclear decimation. However, there's a newcomer that just came in to Saudi. Vinayak makes a quick mental note and goes in to join the rest of the kids. After a while, he eases into the kitchen when the newcomer is around. He asks politely, "may I have some Pepsi please?" The newcomer is taken aback with such polite manners from a child as young as Vinayak. She is honoured to serve him a beverage as ignoble as Pepsi on the sheer merit of his manners. As she reaches up to the shelf to pull it out, some party regular observes this from the side, and screams out loud. He screams out 'NOOOOOOO' (all of this is in slow motion now), and calls everyone to lunge at the newcomer to stop her from giving Vinayak the Pepsi. Vinayak thinks, "drat... ruined again... idiots!"
As a kid, it was a couple of glasses of Pepsi until I became Nasa-grade rocket propellant material.
You'd imagine babysitting someone as hyper as me would be easy? The task often fell to this one girl... Maya. Maya was about six or seven years older than me, and I adored her for the perfect person she was. She got the best grades, was the object of every junior-high male's mind, and was just the perfect person to want to be when you grew up. Maya's mom was the school nurse, and regularly had to put up with me faking every illness in the book to skip class. Our families were close too, and often, my mom had to hand me over to her for safekeeping! I even learned how to bike on her old (really old) hand me down red girlie bicycle.
Would you believe she studied at the LSE this year, and I had no freaking clue? It was just by chance that Majid, who got to know me from this blog comes up and starts his usual bout of laughing. He says "dude, I can't believe it, but there’s ANOTHER person from Jubail here. And she knows you." So I was like "Huh? Who the hell could this be?" and he just says "Maya." With a little planning, Maya and I caught up for lunch a few days ago. It was SO much fun to meet her after all these years. She's still same in many ways - the smart thoughtful patient quiet person! She's doing a graduate law degree, and will be leaving in a few weeks. However, I'm glad we did manage to meet up, albeit one year late.
How cool is that? Only at the LSE... only at the LSE!
Hopefully I'll show you comparison photos from 1991 and 2005 :) I have to get Sandhya working on getting me the yearbook snaps. Let's see if it works out.
Posted by vinayak at 8:49 AM
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August 4, 2005
The nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.
We had a potluck at Butler's Wharf today. Kevin, Nikki, Monica, Seddik, Anupama, and Anushri joined us. I put together a humble tamarind rice, but that was easily outdone by Anushri's intergalactically awesome Dal, and Anupama's first class Ben and Jerry's contribution. Nikki did the Houmous refills with the grace of an Egyptian belly dancer! Kevin, whose arse is firmly buried inside his summer job actually had time to spare as well! In all, a wonderful evening...
But it gets better! Monica and I took the 188 bus from Tower Bridge Road back to Holborn station. On the way, we found a 168 behind us and switched busses - the 168 goes straight home for Monica, and goes to within a second bus home for me. As we approached the Blackfriar's/Aldwych turning, I didn't think of getting off and missed a bus stop that was closer to home than Holborn station.
So I went up to the driver and asked him, "are you taking this left turn?"
The driver says, "yes, but I can go straight. Where do you live?"
I say, "Holborn Circus" (which is orthogonal to his route!)
He says, "Oh I can go that way and drop you off."
I say, "". (That's right... i just didn't know what to say...)
And so, this most radical bodacious gnarly bus driver diverted his big red double decker full of people to drop me within a 2 minute walk of my house. I felt like a King... no... I felt like a Nobel Prize winning Economist. No wait... I felt like a King. It just felt frickin awesome. The best part - I have a witness... it really happened - ask Monica!
That's what makes London amazing. Thanks a lot Mr. 168 - this is something I'll NEVER forget!
Someone up there is making my dreams come true. I can't tell you the number of times I've dreamt of a big red bus dropping me off right in front of my house.
Move along... the show's over.
Posted by vinayak at 11:28 PM
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