Saturday, February 27, 2021

Back after almost a decade...

Hello dear reader...

It has been almost a decade since I wrote something in this space. As the cliche goes, life is now different (much so) since I wrote last (Jul 3, 2011 apparently - :O)

It has been a wild ride - and I am sure we are all much better for it - if you even remember the existence of this blog. :P

The last time I wrote here... 

India had just won the ICC World Cup. 

I was still struggling through my Masters' degree (I was just in my 2nd semester at that point, so pl. bear with me). 

I was still unemployed - it is funny, now that I think about it - the coincidence of my stopping to write with my starting to be gainfully employed (either part-time or full-time). It is almost as if my job(s) replaced my writing... Geez!

America was still presided over by Mr. Obama, so, for better or for worse, it was different.

I still had a non-smart phone (a bright red flip LG at that) and used to be edgy saying "I am not a big fan of touch-screens) *facepalm* - of course this quickly changed when I was able to buy my first Android (Samsung Galaxy Nexus - untainted by Samsung's bloatware yet)...

And in the meantime, the past 10 years have brought great things into my life, and I am sure all in all of yours too...

COVID-19 has to take the cake for the most influential thing in the past decade - hopefully, the vaccines will tame this beast soon!

He-who-must-not-be-named (or more aptly, Umbridge) being the president for one full term and seeing the horrid news cycles spewing out the craziness.

A stable career and work that I enjoy doing (of course there are ups and downs, but, for the most part it is great fun)

The experiences that are unique to being a first-generation immigrant in the US - especially practically starting from the scratch in a brand new place - One thing I plan to write more about

Getting married - best thing that I chose to do

Getting into photography - just enjoying a hobby the most I can - another thing I would like to write more about

Reading (and more importantly, re-reading) a lot - this is one other thing I plan to write about - sort of book reviews, I guess, especially about things I have learned and understood better from it.

So, here's the lowdown - I just read something excellent about a gentleman's journey through his life from Hyderabad to the USA (spanning some 30 years so far) and this has sparked me to get back onto this pursuit of mine - link in comments.

Not going to make lofty promises of posts everyday, but may be once every few weeks about the things that have shaped me (esp. in the past decade) when I have been mute on this platform..

So, yeah - thanks for coming back to Musings with Munaf! Hope you read along and contribute when/where you can!