RAYS OF SUNSHINE.

One of my best friends, Naureen, came to visit Boston from Miami over Valentine’s weekend. Every time I host someone, I realize the reasons why I moved back east, why these cold and dreary places still feel cozy enough for me to commit my life to. Also, I realize why I need to keep on keepin’ on even though life is an uphill climb in negative degree cold with the wind slamming in your face all day long. A great galentine’s weekend is comprised of: long late-night catchup sessions coupled with the restful sleep that only comes after giggling and feeling fully understood aimless drives where the conversation totally causes you to lose track of where your destination is, reminding you life is the journey--in the doing, not the endpoint.  NOMTASTIC indian dinner & a movie (“How to Be Single”)  impromptu Sunday brunch with new & serendipitous friends  LA Burdick hot cocoa, smooth, rich, and satisfying right before heading to the airport  I haven’t ...

In 2016, I am trying to be less like Dickens, more like Hemingway.  Let's see how long it lasts!  2015 in 12 WORDS:  JANUARY: encumbered  FEBRUARY: unsteady MARCH: CHOKEHOLD APRIL: shufflin' MAY: resolute JUNE: reflectioneering JULY: hope  AUGUST: tenacity  SEPTEMBER: LIT OCTOBER: AMAT (she loves)  NOVEMBER: B U R N E D.  DECEMBER: figure-8 LAST YEAR  , the theme of my resolutions was "dreams-into-plans" & I am happy to report that I lived up to them. This upcoming year, is all about EXECUTION because that is what separates the wheat from the chaff in entrepreneurship and in life. It's all well & good to say things, it's what you do that matters. Actions always speak louder. That's why it's taken me until the last week of January to write my resolutions out on this blog: I've been too busy LIVING! & I don't feel the need to apologize like I have in times passed. A lot went down ...

To be or not to be? To create or to destroy? To understand or to dismiss? These are the questions that I think of when I think of artistic freedom and cultural competency. The events worldwide this past week say much about how sophisticated world politics has become as well as the snowball effect of technology and media on human behavior. I am talking about the Parisian killings at "Charlie Hebdo" last Wednesday, January 7th, and the struggle between freedom of expression and maintaining human decency. Here is Vox Media's in-depth coverage of the whole situation on a timeline:  http://www.vox.com/2015/1/7/7507849/charlie-hebdo-attack-terrorists-paris-shooting  From @BBCNews When we were kids, we were taught simple life lessons like "Say what you mean, and mean what you say because the people who mind don't matter, and the people who matter don't mind," and "If you have nothing nice to say, it's best to say nothing at all." This ...

AMRITA SAIGAL  On my fifth birthday, we had only been in the United States for barely 2 and half months. Our big party for me was an undertaking, inviting all the Indian families in the apartment complex and friends of my father’s from work. There were only a few kids, and they were all a few years older than me, and palling around with my brother while I struggled to blow out my reigniting candles for the wishes, not for the act of wishing, not realizing my deepest desires were just about to come true. After my party, my parents packed me and my brother up in the car. We headed to the “nice” suburban part of town, where the apartment complexes turned into two-story colonials, and every tree hummed with the energy of summer birdsongs. We turned into the parking lot of one Ranjani Saigal, a classical Indian dance (Bharatanatyam) teacher recommended by one of the family’s new Amreekan friends. And though it started out as dance, the four within their Saigal clan have taught...

JFK's old sailboat that he'd take out on Hyannis weekends. x3 Finally, I am at a point in my personal independence that I could decide to take my morning for myself and spend it at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. Anyone who has known me knows my longstanding  obsession  with JFK, this library, and his Bostonian background. But this was the first time I had been back there since I was twelve years old! And reading "Elusive Hero" with my  legend ary coke. (October 2014)  Spending good time reflecting on my life and the man who was so bold he looked illness&death in his life as part of his christian struggle. A man so amazing he followed his family's history yet reimagined their life. A true leader. Someone who was the everyman and christ incarnate for this country. My fave president. #jfk (September 2013)  Just seeing his sailboat and this site, right next to UMass Boston, relaxed me so much. Reading Chris Matthews' "Elu...

When I hastily bought my SAJA ticket and booked my flight on a lunch break at work, I had no idea what I had signed up for. I am actively avoiding being desperate in my jobhunt and trying to play to my strengths and how others view my strengths (since I'm such a harsh self-critic !). Seeing what skills people routinely endorse you for on LinkedIn is a good indicator of where you fall professionally and how your network views you. For me, the top 10 relevant skills are blogging, social media, event-planning, leadership development, PR, education, research, and advocacy. While professionally I have pursued and am pursuing the sweet spot of connecting this variegated skill sets, I have never pitched my sailboat of writing out my safe harbor, but I have been yearing for a venture into the moors of freelancing and professional journalism. So, on a bleary Saturday at dawn, I took the leap, giddy and nervous. I took the bus, questioning if this was technically gate-crashing since I ...

You know that first-day-clean-slate-feeling every new school year as a kid? That feeling that no matter what is going to happen, you will have your friends, you will have lunch to look forward to, and new teachers and new adventures to be had during recess. The familiar routine, revived and renewed. I feel that when I see this empty page on my screen. Waiting for my thoughts. Waiting for my meandering views on whatever comes my way. I can't really explain the calm that envelopes me as I first dip my fingers in, checking the temperature of the water before diving deep. Deep into the terrifying abyss that sometimes is my mind. It feels so good to want to write again. These past few months, I had been feeling the absence of sense. That apathy is more crippling than anything. Instead of every sensory feeling translated into swarths of words, like birds that yearn for release, they beat against me like a rock-- I was unwavering, unrelenting. Paralyzed. Suddenly, I felt passive rath...

In so many ways, I have reached an impasse in my life. It is an easy thing to be frank or honest with your friends, even easier to tear up a family member because they can take what you have dealt them all these years in fits and identity crises, but it is an entirely different challenge to be true, just, fair, open, trusting, and HONEST with your own self. When Aesop and the Bible and Hammurabi said those things about the Golden Rule, and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", they did not factor into account that oftentimes we treat others with much more kindness and generosity than we ever treat ourselves. I know that in every hard and stressful situation, I put my blinders on not unlike the horses in Montreal. I can only go charging full speed ahead, eating from my trough and occasionally taking a break to take inventory of my hardware and my bodily functions. It becomes hard to not only see the light and smell the roses, but I am so consumed by the apparen...

so it's september 11th. a day that now is recognized in history books. a date that is older than all elementary school children. a date filled with dread for those capable of remembering, and a date forever filled with guarded urgency, felt alongside utter patriotism and gratitude for humanity. i remember reflecting on 9/11, as it is now called, and thinking that no other date in human history is filled with so many different projected emotions. for south asians, it is the day where we took the place of our japanese brethren and had finally experienced that rite of passage that is true blue collar hatred and racism. the problematic nature of classist society--the lack of education-- causing our families to be targeted in any and every capacity. temples and gatherings were secretly or openly watched. students couldn't engage in cultural discussions for fear of being thought of as extremists. and to this day, a gathering of brown students is often seen as having a radi...

Some of my updates on life, thoughts about the election, and all the neverending connections I keep making that exhaust, exhilarate, and motivate me:        So, I haven't blogged since 9/11, not because of a shortage of topics to blog about, but more because I was ill-equipped to deal with my life, and was thrust into multiple situations and confrontations and leadership scenarios that I had hardly anticipated. Within the months of September and October, I reframed and redefined my priorities in life as well as for this year, and my current involvement reflects those shifts.  Here's a quick list of the things I have done in September & October:  recruited 8 new dancers for USC Drishti practiced every week until near the end of October for different performances  performed at APASA Nightmarket done henna design work for 7 people worked faithfully for a social venture that I am really excited to be a part of networked with eve...

I say this yearly now, but my heart can't take it. Every year people honor the victims and heroes of NYC, and while I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment, it ignores an aching sore in the American hear-- what about Balbir Singh Sodhi, an elderly Sikh-American racially targeted the next days after 9/11? What about the thousands of hate crimes and racially charged incidents all over the United States, United Kingdom, and the world over? What about the communalism and divisiveness that has only grown more pointed since 9/11? Last year was the 10th anniversary. One decade. The mayor Antonio Villaraigosa came to USC to make a speech. There were initiatives made, promises whispered, the resounding response seemed like it had a reasonable chance for success. One year later, and we have already grown complacent. We have barely integrated our new charges into those established initiatives. We have barely brought up this national tragedy, relegating it to a generic Facebook post ...

So, first there was Aurora. A small mountain town in the middle of Colorado. 12 people dead. The killer apprehended and under trial. A Phd student in Neuroscience who secured a National Institutes of Health grant-- a very prestigious opportunity. A lonely man, distraught about being alone in an isolating environment, heralded by the media as a " poor boy who lost his way". There is much more to this story than simply a boy who lost his way back to sanity and reality. The truth of the matter is that we track all Arab-Americans and South Asians in this country due to a xenophobic fear, but we cease to regulate those who seem harmless: i.e. white males. Our inability to seek them out as a threat, married with their penchant for feeling privilege and ownership over public spaces causes an epidemic of sad white male trigger-happy enemies. In Aurora, his personal become most political. The theatrics of his modes operandi only further isolated this incident. People began t...

When trying to figure out what to write about next, I thought about the current state of the world. I thought about how one can feel so happy yet so unhappy all at the same time. I thought about the neverending flux of time, and how in any moment, a person can be dying while another is being born. One person going through utter agony while the other shines in triumph. I thought about how my family could enjoy a meal and a road trip to Maine, while the 24 hour news cycle was bringing the nation live coverage of the unfolding massacre in Wisconsin. This dichotomy along with the continual broadcast of the 30th Olympic Games in London made me think about how little I appreciated this meme and how much this above graphic says about humanity.  Though these exact words do not exist in English, these experiences are universal. That bond the world over is seen day in and day out in the Olympics. Not only is the majority of the world competing in some form, but in that friendly compe...