pre-travel Euphoria

can life be better than this ?

I'm 10 hours away from boarding my flight to India and have been gripped by pre-travel Euphoria...I've finished my 1st year PhD viva and found that I've been transferred to the 2nd year...and at the moment, I don't think I could be feeling any happier...on the one hand, India beckons...the happy expectation of all the people I'm going to see, the places I'm going to visit, the food I'm going to eat...the anticipation of the million nice things that could happen on my trip...the absence of any niggling fear or guilt...just pure unadulterated excitement and happiness...and on the other hand, the knowledge that I have a good life to come back to in the UK...and interesting work and great friends...and opportunities to realise my potential and make a difference...

thank you God.

My reason for this blog being

hi...I'm sitting in my office...its 30 minutes past midnight...been preparing for my 1st year PhD viva...3rd consecutive day I'm sitting in the office past midnight...don't know if thats good or bad...at the moment, whats keeping me going though, is the prospect of going to India on the 29th ! which is the reason for this blog being...

it's going to be my shortest trip to India yet...only 11 days...but in many ways, it promises to be the most significant...and it is to record this trip as it happens that I've created this blog...the last time I went to India was when I was 24...I'm still 24...I reach India on Jan 30th, when I'll be 25...but it feels like suchhhh a long time back...

for one, when I last left India, I still felt like a 'boy', now I feel more like a 'man' than ever...the last three months especially, I've felt my personality sort of flesh itself out completely...what was a semi-shaped personality before, with semi-opinions based on which I made semi-decisions, I now feel fully shaped...and have a fuller knowledge of myself...

but thats not all...whenever I've gone to India previously, its always felt like 'going back'...it doesn't feel like that now...it feels like I'm 'going home and coming back'....India is still undeniably home...but England doesn't feel like a temporary stopover anymore...it feels like my home away from home...

India for me, is about friends and family...and this trip will be the last time I get to see my friend who I had this huge crush on in school, before she gets married...I'll also see another good friend of mine from church, getting married...and I'll see the kid of a friend of mine who got married last year...I feel like I've been swimming underwater and have just resurfaced...and look up to see all these girls walking down a gang-plank and taking the plunge into the unknown waters of marriage...

but most of all, I'm going back home...I'm going back to India...inimitable India...with its chaos and dirt...and jam-packed buses and railway stations that for some reason, always create excitement...am going back to the easy atmosphere and the scorching sun and to meals that actually fill the stomach...am going back to Coimbatore...and to RS Puram, where all the pretty girls are...and where the collection of 'show-rooms' once seemed impressive, before I came to the UK....am going back to Madras, to the cutthroat auto-drivers with pictures of Jesus in their vehicles...and to T Nagar and to Besant Nagar and to Adyar...and to tender-coconut water on the road-side...and to people just like me...am going back to Appa and Amma and Inna ...and Ammamma and Thatha and Sudhakar Uncle and Nalini Aunty...

am sure its going to be interesting...and I've created this blog to allow me to reflect on each day and write about it and thereby live it more fully...I promise to try and make it interesting...and would love to hear any comments you might have :)

Thanks,
Nitin