This summer, my parents invited Jennifer and me (for a two year wedding anniversary gift!) on an eleven-day Scandinavian cruise. You read that right. The itinerary included stops in Norway, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, as well as two days in St. Petersburg, Russia. There was so much beauty to imbibe, from the vastness … Continue reading The Humility of God (Part One)
Views From New Windows
There it is. The world's first (documented) photograph. It is a heliograph, taken in 1826 by French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce which required him "exposing a bitumen-coated plate in a camera obscura for several hours [an estimated eight] on his windowsill" [National Geographic]. It's a shoddy image by today's stands, but one can only imagine the almost … Continue reading Views From New Windows
My Story
I've attended three weddings this summer and had the privilege of singing at two of them. Weddings are lovely occasions; I love all the pomp and circumstance, not to mention the quite palpable sense of sacredness they evoke. Frequently during these ceremonies, I feel so very moved.Several summers ago, I woke up on the morning … Continue reading My Story
Carousels of Life and Death
Several years ago - five to be precise - I initiated the process of applying for an MSW, a master's in the field of social work. I applied to three different programs (respectively in New York, Oxford, and Jerusalem) and as any application process tends to do, I couldn't help but think about why I wanted … Continue reading Carousels of Life and Death
Best of 2012
Though I'm just as much a sucker as the next guy when it comes to end-of-the-year lists (see below), I would like to engage in a few moments of reflection as a means of taking stock of the past year. After all, Socrates said that "The unexamined life is not worth living" and seeing as … Continue reading Best of 2012
Getting Parental Advice from Big Shot Rappers
I'm ashamed to admit that when I was younger, I used to say that I liked virtually all kinds of music except rap, claiming that it could hardly be called "music." I thought I was so clever in pointing out that "r," "a", and "p" were the last three letters in a popular excremental word … Continue reading Getting Parental Advice from Big Shot Rappers
The Year My Grandfather Got Cancer
I've never been to a funeral. Attending one seems to me a kind of rite of passage, whereby a person pushes off from a harbor of sorts and into deeper waters. This is perhaps because I associate funerals with adulthood, adulthood being the porter which brings death closer. It's not that death hasn't touched people … Continue reading The Year My Grandfather Got Cancer
India
For most of my life, the fact that I am from India was little more than an embarrassment. I grew up in settings replete with the influences of western culture (with friends who were mostly white) and as such, my associations with being Indian arose mainly from the typical stereotypes having to do with a … Continue reading India
iRacist: An App for Any Racist Occasion
After one particularly grueling game of football (3-3 being the end result), I walked to the train with a few teammates. We must have looked a rather motley bunch, what with one Somalian, a Nigerian, a Nepali, a Yemeni, and myself. We got onto the train and there were a few empty seats. The Yemeni … Continue reading iRacist: An App for Any Racist Occasion
Level Playing Fields
As our bus rattled up the hill (not pictured above), a Pakistani guy around my age was telling me how, once as a devout Muslim, he had a dream where Jesus appeared to him. So profound was the experience that he left everything to become a follower of this apparition, thereby incurring the contempt and … Continue reading Level Playing Fields
Writing Is Prayer 