My Most Enjoyed in 2010 List

Most Enjoyed in 2010

Books:
Fooled by Randomness by Taleb
Most enjoyed classic: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Why An Economy Grows, and How it Crashes by Peter Schiff
Happiness Books – The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Delivering Happiness by Tony Hseieh

Videos: Richard Dawkins DVD set – Growing Up in the Universe
Himalaya by Michael Palin (BBC)

Movies: The Social Network, A Year of Saturdays, Bard Songs, Certified Copy

Web Video: Numerous Ted Talks especially from Ted Global 2010 in Oxford.

Travel – India: Central TamilNadu road trip (so much to see in "my" home state).
US West Coast trip: 35 days on the road, with our car serving almost as a makeshift RV. (We slept in motels.) It was a great way to rediscover much that America has to offer.
Specifically, the 10 days that we spent traveling in New Mexico (esp. white Sands NM).

Sporting Event – Watching Tendulkar score 200 in a One day match (on TV).

Escape: Managing to avoid the 2010-11 Midwest winter.

Place to Stay: Candlewood Suites in IL – Hassle-free living, so much so that it felt like home.

Gadget: The iPad, (hands down). It changed the way we approach travel (and much of) planning and was invaluable during the road trip.

Project: Working on The One Paragraph Project, choosing 'Conflicts Around the World' as a broad topic. Just a little research made me appreciate so much more of the world news.

Software: Paint.Net (free graphics software)

Blogs: GatesNotes & Marginal Revolution

Food:
Freshly made guacamole with warm torilla chips.
Papa John's pizzas, esp thin crust.
Gits Rava Idli's.
Bryer's Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Ice Cream.

Home Appliance: Rice cooker: We bought a small (3-cup) electric rice cooker and it ended up altering what we ate during our West Coast trip.

Personal: My mother's remarkable recovery after a major operation. Spending time with my parents and (re)connecting with them.

Movie: A Map for Saturday

My wife was already standing in the checkout line at the public library and I still hadn't picked up any movies. I ran over to the Travel section, where the DVD cover of A Map for Saturday caught my eye. The blurb said something about a guy who takes off for a year around the world. I grabbed that and a couple of other travel movies. (It is almost tempting to believe that books and movie choose me, just as much as I seek them out.)

So the next morning, after my wife left (she's taken up a short-term contract assignment) and I was alone in the hotel, I popped the movie into the DVD player.

Even before the initial montage ended, I was completely hooked. And in five minutes, I was feeling really guilty. I knew my wife would really enjoy the movie too, so I stopped it. (I watched a movie about the Silk Road instead.)

That same evening, after dinner, we both watched A Map for Saturday. The title is based on the idea that 'on a trip around the world, every day feels like Saturday.'

Brook is a 25 year old who decides to give up his job in NYC and a successful future as a TV producer to hit the road. And he takes his camera along. He stays in hostels from Sydney to Bangkok to Europe to Rio. And he is really good at interviewing people, making them open up. The result makes for a compelling and at times mesmerizing documentary.

When I mention this movie about taking a year off to others, their first reaction is "Oh, I could never do anything like that." Which is precisely why they should watch this movie. To expand our horizons, and to learn how others think.

The movie reminds us of the dreams that we all squelched in order to fit in. It tells us that we owe it to ourselves to give at least one honest shot at pursuing our dreams.

The finished product is great and professionally edited. But since I have the time these days, I also watched all the deleted scenes. And the interviews and the DVD extras. Those are a little more raw, but people are less guarded and therefore extremely candid, which makes them very insightful for us viewers.

Brook captures the loneliness of the long-time traveler wonderfully well. If you love travel, have dreamed of taking time off, want to know what the joys and sorrows and longings of slow travel are, go and get this movie. (It should be mandatory viewing for all backpacker-wannabes.)

Get it from your local library, or through Netflix, but be sure to view it.

Attachments

We just vacated our rented apartment after spending 45 days in Indore, MP, and I am heading out. I am keen to spend a few days with my parents in Chennai next, and to meet friends in Chicago following that. And yet, I experienced a surprising sense of sadness at leaving Indore.

I am going to miss the daily interaction with people here – the two ladies who run a tiffin service from their home kitchen (I bought one meal from them daily), the used-bookstore guy who waves at me in recognition from across the road, and Manak Seth, the grocer who always gives us an extra 5% off MRP. The friendly young man who fetches and packs the groceries at Manak Seth's shop asked me if I would ever come back to Indore again.

It is a little scary how quickly one gets attached to people, things and places.

Paul Theroux's "Lesson of my life" - Conde Nast

Here's an article by Paul Theroux looking back on his life journey. Definitely worth reading.

If I hadn’t stopped working, I wouldn’t be typing this in Moldova

Just wanted to use that sentence as the title of a post. Am writing this in Chisinau. Moldova is a country that isn’t very well-known. It is a bit out of the way, and if I still had a job in Chicago to go back to, I simply wouldn’t have the vacation days to go visiting places like these.

Of course, your retort could well be, but why would anyone want to visit Moldova at all? I don’t have an adequate response to that question, or at least one that would satisfy those who ask.