The Clearing

Enjoyed reading this poem, enjoyed its simplicity. Am somewhat familiar with Borges' fiction but this post is a result of my first attempt at getting better acquainted with his poetry. The motivation came from this blogger review.

Labels: Recommendations

Saw the men's ncaa basketball final last night and was terribly disappointed. Firstly, Florida won in a blowout---I was inevitably rooting for the underdog, UCLA, and boy did they prove their pre-game status right. A reason for rooting against Florida was the way they demolished George Mason, the team I was truly rooting for, in the semi-finals. Florida definitely deserved to win, they were the better team, and outplayed UCLA which didn't show up at all till, for a brief while, late in the second half. Secondly, with the officiating which I thought was below par for a final, my Greek-basketball-viewing-companion (I'm sure I'll remember his name once I see it in writing) and I must have counted atleast 4 traveling violations, amongst other missed calls, that were not called on Florida.

Thirdly, with Joakim Noah who was responsible for most of those traveling violations. Also because he is over-rated and a bully. He certainly has a lot energy and bustle which in no small way helped the Gators win, but his ball handling is quite clumsy at best, hence the walks. The funny thing is that, considering my interest in tennis, I would have suspected that the odds were that I would be supporting Noah, since he is the son of the Yannick Noah, the first black player to win the French Open (Poor logic, I realize, but you need some reason, however inane, to select, or not slect, a team to support when all seem the same---there's a related phenomena in Physics called spontaneous symmetry breaking). Initially, I was. I was intrigued by the big fellow in the earlier games but have now decided to dismiss him off as an over-hyped arrogant ass. On the other hand, was excited to read in an interview of his to the nytimes the other day that he didn't like Crash, the `motion picture of the year', either, and here I was thinking that Jeeves and I were the only ones who did not.

Labels: Sports

Foodwise, being in the US has been a little tough, the fact that I'm a vegetarian doesn't help either. Somehow it's hard to get used to thinking of cold sandwiches as meals---to be satisfied mentally I've got to have warm food. The cookies and indigenous chocolates, that one finds here, are cloyingly sweet, what with cane sugar having comprehensively replaced sugar everywhere, which, come to think of it, is a funny comment for an Indian to make considering how sweet some of our own mithais can be. Though what I miss most about being away from des is the mustard sauce which was (still is, I'm sure) served by most reputable pizzerias there. It was such a delicious way of adding zest to pizzas. The mustard in this country tastes so different, and I'm afraid even after being here for so long I haven't been able to get used to its flavor. Why-oh-why does the mustard here taste so different, and yucky, from the mustard back home? So far my quest to find a more Indian tasting mustard has been in vain. I'm really hoping someone can help me out with this one.

Labels: Reflections on life