Archives

in india

I’m finally settled in India, and have my first set of photos up on Flickr. There are quite a few shopping photos, as a colorful, brightly lit sari shop makes for a good test stage for iPhone photography. My cousin Rohit’s impending doo—er—wedding will make another good stage.

My family has arrived at my grandmother’s house in Kothrud (suburban Pune) in stages: I flew into Mumbai just after midnight Tuesday, waited SIX HOURS for my sister arriving from Cairo, and together with her taxi’d here. My parents got here early this morning, and various relatives on my cousin Rohit’s mom’s side have arrived for the upcoming festivities.

I’m a lot less overwhelmed by the influx of distant family than I was for Rohit’s brother’s wedding 7 1/2 years ago, and I think having gotten to know everyone the year I lived here definitely helped. Having an iPhone with a reliable data plan to retreat to helps, as well.

a refreshed evening telegram

I promised I’m not dead, and indeed, I’m not. It’s been eight months since I last posted (not counting my ‘not dead’ post five months ago). In that time, I tried to accomplish a number of things on the site, including integrating my Google Reader account (so I could actually start contributing articles from my iPhone’s RSS reader—Byline!), making photo posts easier, and editing the typography. I didn’t get everything I wanted out of this site refresh, but $35, three WordPress themes, hours of plugin-coding, and eight months later, I’m starting up the blog again.

Here, you’ll find a few new features:
1) the blog has been divided into “Notable Issues”—including politics, economics, and other societal snark—and “Humanities”—including pretty much everything else. This is part of a wider effort in the Telegram. I recognize that a good portion of my readership couldn’t care less how much I hate income inequality as a measure of poverty, or how international leaders haven’t really changed how much they hate the US. But at the same time, I have some awesome things to show these readers. Hopefully, this division will make things easier for everyone.
2) You’ll (hopefully) see some blog posts via Flickr as I take and upload photos in India.
3) I’ve switched the lifestream to a new codebase that looks nicer, but takes up more space.
4) There is a new Google Reader shared list below the lifestream. Here, you’ll find the items that used to be included in my regular del.icio.us posts.

And all of this done just hours before I leave for India. Hope you enjoy following my trip around India this year, and hope I actually manage to post something while I’m there.