Back from the blackhole

Almost on the verge of making my prophecy (other priorities taking precedence over blogging) come true – thank God I am at least keeping up with the one post per month goal. Actually it is more of a minimum that I have set for myself. I didn’t disappear in thin air; things as usual have been busy. Although a lot has happened since I last wrote, last week was quite interesting. We left for a one week trip to visit some schools in the Northeast. As hectic and intense as it was, I feel like I have visited the extremes of the spectrum - while our first destination was a top business school, famous for producing innovators such as Anil Ambani, Warren Buffett and Ivanka Trump, our trip ended with the yearly conference for Ekal Vidyalaya, an organization dedicated to providing education to kids in remote villages of India. The former can take a person from a decent house to a mansion, while the later one has successfully pulled some folks from the comforts of their homes, to experience the brutality of living in primitive huts. Not to drift away to some serious stuff, but what a paradigm shift! It was refreshing to be a part of both, even though for a short duration, they both carry the potential to make an everlasting imprint.
So some highlights from the trip:
1) New Hampshire is off my list of ‘places-to-live’ because Hanover didn’t have a single Starbucks, on the same note, NJ is on the top since every single exit of I-95 had a Starbucks !! Wohooo!
2) While, driving through New Hampshire at night, I saw the most amazing sight of my life. No exaggeration, but the dark blue sky was scattered with a million stars. Nothing that I have known was ever so beautiful ,not the cascading Alps, not the pristine scenes of Switzerland, not the surreal mountains in Ladakh. This scene was priceless. No, that still doesn’t rule out #1. I stopped by on the side of the road to take a quick peek, and that quick peek resulted in an invitation to a cop who was on the single lane road with us. He gave a just-checking-if-everything-is-ok visit and left. This was not the only encounter with the police.
3) While driving back from New Hampshire, I got pulled over. It is just amazing how you have the premonition that it is going to be you today. Almost like first love, I knew this was it! I knew I was in trouble when I passed the cop's car. The cop came to me and asked me if I knew why she stopped me. I said ‘because I was speeding’ and she said yes, can I get your DL pls. She must have seen the tired look on my face, something that read, I am already so doomed, what worse can anyone do to me. Go on, fine a jobless....because when she came back, she came back with a warning and not a ticket…YIPEE! That was enough to put me in the right spirit again!
4) Had a ‘Bengali Burrito’ from a street hawker on Yale’s campus. Thank you Bengalis for this fusion, it was super delicious! khoob bhaalo khoob bhaalo! Keep it up.
5) Few unexpected hours with some friends during the trip was icing on the cake.

Let me get back to life now so I can come back and rattle on about it later :)
Ciao!