I will be in Delhi next week Monday and Tuesday (8th & 9th of March.) If anyone wants to meet up, it would be excellent. Please email me atanudey at gmail. (This is a sticky post and will be unstuck in a few days.)

Many people know that I live in Pune. I want to assure everyone that I am fine. Thanks for your concern. I used to live about a mile from German Bakery and would often get cakes and cookies from there. A few years ago I moved out of Kalyani Nagar (which is adjacent to Koregaon Park where the German Bakery is).

Happy Fourth of July!
On this day in 1776 the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress which announced that the 13 American colonies were no longer part of the British Empire. That was the culmination of the American Revolution.

Just a quick personal note. I will be in Mumbai today and tomorrow I will leave for the US. I will be on the east coast for a few days and then on to SF bay area. Bye for now.

I am not really anti-social and neither am I a misanthrope. I love humanity in the abstract but I admit that I find most not worth the bother, and consider a significant number pretty intolerable. Upon reflection, I concluded that the behavior that most bothers me is herding. Herding is alright for sheep and their ilk but when humans do it, it is pitiable.

Just got to know that Iqbal Bano passed away on 21st April in Lahore, Pakistan. She was born and brought up in Delhi.
Listening to her sing Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry is deeply moving. Among many well loved songs by her, my favorite is “dasht-e-tanhaai mein”:

Some things make me see red. Not in any particular order, here’s the list. It is not exhaustive, merely a random set that I can unfortunately recall right now.

Ok, this is a personal post of the type what I had for breakfast yesterday. So if you aren’t interested in my personal life, consider yourself warned and don’t read any further.

Go. Profit from exile. To see, listen, walk, pause beside wisemen; question savages and madmen; and listen to stories. It is always pleasant and, sometimes, improves you.
I have neglected the blog for most of the last few weeks because I have been busy. I have listened, walked, and paused beside the wise. Though I did not question savages and madmen, I did have an experience which I can only term as transformational. I had glimpses of instant satori. Putting that in words is obviously impossible. So I will not even …

Go. Profit from exile. To see, listen, walk, pause beside wisemen; question savages and madmen; and listen to stories. It is always pleasant and, sometimes, improves you.
– Jean C. Carriere in his play based on the Indian epic The Mahabharata.

I am leaving on a jet plane. This time to the east coast of the US. I will be there for a couple of weeks starting April 26th. Places I am going to be: NY, NJ, Delaware, Boston, and Chicago.

Go read Rajesh’s mini-autobiography “On Turning 40,” which he did last year on August 15th (but posted it only today because he was on break from blogging.) Please to note that the “Atanu Dey” he mentions in there is indeed yours truly
I will take this opportunity to publicly recognize that it is an honor working with him. The other day when I was bitching and moaning about how I was dissatisfied with what I was accomplishing, a friend asked me why I don’t just get back to California …

Click on image to see web album.

I got tagged by Raj In the past, getting tagged usually pins me against the wall and I end up not playing along. But it being a lazy Sunday, here goes nothing: eight random things about me.

As the song goes, I was born under a wanderin’ star. Lately my wandering has been confined to attending ICT for development shindigs around the country. But it gets mighty tiring. So I thought that it is about time to go see the world at large and renew my credentials as a truly homeless person. I suppose I am a gypsy at heart, a gypsy from a strange and distant land traveling on eternity road in search of … well, one can never be sure, can one?
This time …