The Big Picture

The Nazca Lines are fascinating. I remember wintry evenings in Itanagar when I and my brother would huddle around Dad and listen about the stories of the ancient lines and Daniken's theories around them with wide-eyed amazement. Sleep in those days of my childhood were not so elusive as they have become today, but I still remember the tangling sensation that would electrify our imagination which, Dad, the master story teller that he was, could infuse into his children at such early age.

In my sleep deprived state in NYC the last few days, my mind for some reason seemed to wander back to those stories of Nazca lines and the familiar feeling of tangling re-surfaced and I found myself Googling a bit. I find it absurdly wonderful that generations of ancients were willing to labour to create these gigantic geoglyps on a stony desert that they would in all probability never see with their own eyes. Ever! Unless of-course the incredible stories that Daniken told were true, which is kind of hard to believe or alternatively the ancients could actually fly! (BTW, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy prescribes that the trick to flying is to try to fall down to the ground from an elevated place - and miss!!! Manhattan seems to be just the place to experiment this theory, and if that works I could just wing my way back home:)

As the ancients faded away into the mist of time the story of these glyphs and their symbolism was forgotten for over a thousand and five hundred years. Countless feet must have trodden over these wonders without the faintest of ideas of what lay under their own feet.

It was not until 1920s when commercial airlines began flying across the Peruvian desert that humans rediscovered the Nazca lines and wondered anew. And the rest is history. I feel that the possibilities that astound us emerge not just through the microscope or surgical scalpel, but often also through a change in the perspective we wish to view our personal reality from.

The possibilities are endless, but dare we look at them...

New York is a funny place. Last Sunday, after a hard day wrestling with the goons of UML, I decided to stroll down the Lexington Avenue looking for some place where I could get some Machh Jhol to eat. It came as such a wonderful surprise when I discovered that a few block down from where I am staying, police had cordoned off the whole area and the entire avenue had turned into an open air fair. There were eating places, cloth stores, trinkets shops all snuggly against each other right on the road. I had a delightful time just walking through the whole place. And today, when while out on lunch I found that Rockefeller Center was playing host to a outdoors farmers market so much like markets in India. Well, New York, being here has been fun, but tommorow I go back home.

I feel like shouting ... Home..E.T Home... Mañana Man!!!

Optimism

"Sir, we're surrounded!"
"Excellent. We can attack in any direction!"

--An Army Officer

This PJ which I just stole from someone else's blog pretty much sums up the optimistic frame of reference that my mind is operating at, just about now.

New York is really a fascinating place, and having landed on the 4th of July I got to see the fantastic fireworks display that they put up on the East River. Typically the other 4th July fireworks that I had seen earlier had just been crackers exploding into spheres of light, but this time the spectacle was really worth the time I spent waiting. From 9.30 in the evening till 10.30 the entire sky lit up into a riot of colours, shapes and sounds. This coupled with the excited crowd that had gather along the river bank did make this a night to remember.

Gawking at the lights in Times Square, taking ferry rides near Statue of Liberty and having food in tucked away Bangladeshi curry shops as well as upclass wall street hang-outs have been mainly what I have been doing most evenings last week. It has been really fun so far.

I don't think I shall be able to go to Maryland this time, the onset of my flu has seen to that, so I guess I shall head home this weekend as planned.

That didn't sound like my typical blog entry, did it? Well, guess what? My brain has gone on a vacation without leaving a forwarding address and my fingers just cooked up what best they could :)