sunday

i had a vanilla sky moment this morning walking back to quincy. the streets were completely empty and i didn't encounter a single person. the sky looked surreally blue and cloudless, much like it did for leonardo dicaprio as howard hughes in the aviator - by the way, martin scorcese won his first academy award tonight for directing "the departed". he deserved one, maybe not for this movie, but he's made much better movies (raging bull, goodfellas, the aviator) so whatever.
after my early morning stroll i went to eliot to watch peerless chelsea play arsenal in the carling cup final. it was an amazing time - didier drogba inspires me like few other people on the planet. when i watch him play, i feel the struggle.



god bless him.

rising sun

the window in my dorm room faces east. on some days boston has one of the reddest sunrises i've ever seen. they are some of the most surreal five-minute spans.

the wonder years

"we never really talked about it afterward. but i think about the events of that day again and again and somehow i know winnie does too. whenever some blowhard starts talking about the anonymity of the suburbs, or the mindlessness of the TV generation. because we know that inside each one of those identical boxes, with its dodge parked out front, and its white bread on the table, and its TV set glowing blue in the falling dusk, there were people with stories. there were families bound together in the pain and the struggle of love. there were moments that made us cry with laughter. and there were moments, like that one, of sorrow and wonder."
- the wonder years. what a great show.

my morning

oh man. my field trip was awesome. we drove out to the sri lakshmi temple in ashland, mass. the temple itself is very impressive. inside were several shrines to different gods. each shrine was recessed and kind of self-enclosed. i watched a ritual puja (i think a kind of service) for the god venkateswara. the statue was a gorgeous black stone four-armed statue with a yellow cloth around his waist and a gold chain draped around his neck. "venkateswara (as i read from the guide) is believed to be one of the many forms of incarnations of vishnu, who is in charge of preserving the universe... the left hand is in the katyavilambitha mudra. this gesture signifies that the ocean of samsara is only knee deep and can easily be crossed over with faith in god."

so i stood around and watched a fat shirtless priest and his apprentice perform rituals for the statue. the priest would pour cup after cup of milk onto the statue, giving it a gorgeous ghostly appearance, before washing it off with water. this was repeated with cup after cup of cream, and then a thick paste which he spread over venkateswara's chest, and then honey, and then a white dust/grain which made the statue look amazing, and then a dusty orange paste. at first i thought "boy this is out there" but for some reason it felt kind of right.

i also met a professor from BU medical school who chatted with me about sanskrit and atman, paramatman, and mahatma. he was surprised to find that i'm already a pro at that stuff. later on when i was watching a puja for ganesa, i found myself in line for devotion and a priest dabbed a little white paste onto my forehead. the temple also has a cafeteria (for some reason most temples do) that serves great lemon rice and yogurt rice.

naptime.

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here are some photos of the outside of the temple - they don't allow you to take photos inside.

passage

how do lives unfold? sometimes i feel like it is nothing more than person sitting on a big conveyor belt sliding from room to room. one room for new york, one room for boston, hammering away here and there, fiery blazes that temper you like a carframe.

this very moment i'm reading a book by my professor and mathilda's godmother diana eck:

darsan: seeing the divine image in india

having held onto the concept of traveling around india seeing cool stuff after graduation, this class swam up to me like "hey XXXX. take me, i'm right for you." so i did and it is. another thing that strikes me about this book (in addition to its world-expanding analysis of siva representation) is the awesome design of the book. check it out:



booyah. it looks amazing sitting here on my desk. i love it. i love diana, who i chatted with at lowell house tea this afternoon.

more thoughts later.