The holiday Holi was a couple of weeks ago but this weekend at University of California, Berkeley the Indian Student Association put on a festival for Holi. Many people have heard of these festivals of color where people by colored powder and in a giant mosh pit of people everyone throws color at each other. A giant throng of people gathers and takes part in this festival each year; this is my second year taking part and it really is an amazing thing to experience. ...
The night spent in the goatskin tent felt like an eternity, even though we actually slept for about 3 hours total due to our late night jam session. The ground was hard, the air cold and thin, but even through this, it was still a great feeling to wake up and feel surrounded by new-found friends. It really was after that night that I think we all stopped being people on a trip and became friends. ...
The month of April is poetry month and to celebrate I am taking up the mantle of a challenge to write a poem every single day of this month. Be it short or long, I will try to put something poetic up everyday. I am going to try out short poems which I have never really done before, so bare with me as I try something new.
This day marked the end of the first leg of our journey in Israel. We woke up early, bags packed, and lined up on the curb like children waiting to board the school bus for their first day of class. We ate our last breakfast at Nof Ginosaur and watched the waves lap on the beach, our last sight of the Sea of Galilee. It was a sad and exciting moment to leave behind the place we had called home for the last three days in order to branch out and find a new home in Israel. We had one stop on the way before out final destination for the day could be reached; we had eight new members to pick up and join our merry crew. ...
In the early morning aftermath of our New Year’s Eve Party, everyone slowly emerged, none too happily at that. All of us with little sleep and bleary eyes. It was a hard time to be waking up at 6:30am when you didn’t go to bed until around 2am that morning. Regardless, we struggled out of bed and greeted the first day of the New Year with half-tempered smiles and curious minds for the day ahead. ...
On the eve of a new year, I began my newest adventure in the land of Israel. Sleepless night turned into tired morning as the sun wiggled its way under my door. Being jet lagged is never fun, but when you open your door and feel the Israeli sun on your face for the first time, many things are forgotten. I opened the door to a clear crisp sun on a slightly hazy day that seemed to have been sung in by birdsong. ...
Whenever I return home from a trip there is always a barrage of questions awaiting me from everyone I know. I love to return to family and friends that are inquisitive and curious about my experiences, but I always feel a sense of disappointment in my ability to answer their questions. How can I put into words so quickly the things that I saw? How can I explain the ways in which I have been changed by the things that I saw? How can I convey the beauty and complexity that fills the world that we live in and how grateful I am for even a short glimpse into these complexities? This is what I am faced with upon my return from any trip, but I feel these things especially now after my return from Israel. ...
Some where in the back of my mind I have always known I lived in an exceptional place, it just wasn’t often that I cared to appreciate it. I used to make up stories about adventures in far away lands and imagine myself in a thousand places, anywhere but home. The exciting and the extraordinary was always beyond that next mountain or underneath the crashing waves of the sea, but never did I look at the mountains or the ocean right in front of me. ...
My family spent a lot of time this holiday season thinking about memories of holidays past. What made things memorable, what things did we hold on to so many years later, was it happiness? Was it disappointment? And if so, why? I have been thinking a lot about this lately and one thing my mother said to me that she remembered from Christmas in her childhood very fondly was when she made things for her entire family. How the act of sitting down and applying oneself entirely to doing something that you just want to do because it would make your family happy. I think that is a good reason to look back on Christmas or whatever holiday is being celebrated during this cold winter season where family keeps us warm and happy; to celebrate not because we feel obligated and tied to disappointment or the gratification of materialistic desires, but the celebration of loving for the sake of loving. Because they are family, because they are not perfect, and because they are our blood, our flesh, and from them we find meaning. ...
I spent a lot of time this semester sitting in a library, neck craned, eyes strained, and brain drained. Even though these places are beautiful in their own majestic academic ways, with towering columns that have held up the burdening weight of university, I can’t help but feel closed in by four walls. There is so much outside those tall grandiose windows that let light drift gently in to illuminate the library walls. ...