Back Again

I am back after a brief hiatus, and I hope that I will be able to do justice to this blog. I know that I have been guilty of ignoring this space for the last 6 months or so - all I can say is that I will try my best not to let this happen again.

The last 6 months have been a whirlwind of activity. In fact, it feels like the whole of 2009 has been pretty much so.

In March, my wife and I had our baby daughter Medha. Of course, with the delivery being in the US, much ado was made about every single thing - Lamaze, names, tags, baby seats and what not. With me wise-cracking about the baby's hearing abilities after birth (she never cried even when an alarm bell clanged right next to her, and my family is notoriously semi-deaf) and her then failing a "hearing test" at the hospital (she wanted to give us a brief scare, I guess!), and then the cops pulling me down while taking the baby home from hospital (after all those Grisham and Steve Martini potboilers, I finally got to see a US courtroom first-hand!), March was downright crazy.

In July, we relocated to Chennai, India. Between packing, throwing away stuff and airline restrictions, it feels as if we threw away enough stuff to furnish a new house. A lot of people asked me about adjustment problems - strangely enough, we did not many (except that I miss the weather!! Christ, its hot!). We are pretty much well settled now, with regular work schedule and all that (not much of a schedule, working all the time!). With the baby, its been difficult to catch up with many movies - have started going out to movies again just recently.

What I miss most are libraries and books - its been ages since I discovered a new author or a good book. I checked out a couple of online libraries at Chennai, however either their book collections are not impressive enough (as my wife quips, its pretty hard to have a book collection that satiates me), or they have delivery problems - not within city limits and all that. The nearest library is around 8 10kms away - at my reading speeds, I am still in two minds whether to join up or not.

We are now trying to buy a flat - staying in a rented apartment has its limitations. Negotiations with Arihant are almost through, and hopefully things will work out.

So thats most of my updates over the last few months. Now let's get onto business as usual.