Ruchira's Ramblings

I watched the starlings perch on a swaying stalk of long grass as the wind gushed about and thought, perhaps little birds need their share of adventure too. And when flying is one’s natural state of being, perhaps even the sky seems to be nothing more than an overworked old map. For don’t we all come from infinite source, seeking infinite experiences in finite things? And so the clock ticks, and the earth rolls, and another year comes to an end. Things I’ve done for the first time in 2018: Presented papers at two academic conferences. And it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought that would be, although, let’s be honest, it’s a little disconcerting to be talking to a room full of people while pretending you know exactly what you’re talking about. I think I did okay. Participated in a poetry-reading. I didn’t read it as well as I had hoped to (see point above regarding a room full of people staring at you), but considering I hadn’t thought of myself as a poet for some yea...

This time last year, I was used to logging into Twitter only to check the tweets of a handful of celebrities that I was following at that time, and to occasionally tweet about my bouts of fever or exam anxieties to no one in particular. My blog was in coma, I spent most of my Facebook time playing Zynga games (Yoville, Farmville, CafeWorld, Petville, Fishville- you name them, I’ve played them all, with the probable exception of Mafia) and in short my social (networking) life was near about non-existent. Then there were last minute revisions, then the exams, then post-exam trips to the shopping mall and to the movie theatre- and I disappeared from the Internet. When I returned in the 2nd half of the year, I went back to playing games. It would have probably gone on like this if I did not receive that message out of nowhere from the 100 Stories for Haiti Facebook group, asking for submissions for yet another charity anthology, this time for the victims of the Pakistan flood. Before thi...