"The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it!"
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
And that is exactly why I indulge in the luxury of raving and ranting on this little corner of cyberspace.
I wish to reach out to you, talk to you about my favourite subjects and the topics that are close to my heart. And I wish to hear from you about your views and perspectives.
That gives me some satisfaction...in a fast deteriorating world.
I was born in the City of Joy, educated in the Oxford of the East (also lovingly called Queen of the Deccan), I have travelled almost all over India and Nepal, and I now live in The Tree City, United States.
I am a Microbiologist who went to Business school on a whim - and may be to prove a point (that Biologists can do mind-crunching Maths just as well as anybody?).
I slaved it out in the corporate world for a few years, as a Business Analyst, before I chucked it all to live my life the way I want. (of course, with the cushion of some intelligently planned investments!) ;-)
I now write - this blog, my first book, short stories and articles for magazines. I take up manuscript editing assignments too.
I am:
An Ambivert
A Dog person (no, I am not a dog from waist up or waist down...what I mean is, I love dogs)
A Humanist
A Classicist (now you have to look that one up yourself....this blog ain't a dictionary)
Fifty percent Loner (thought I covered that in Ambivert)
Apolitical
In love with Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Darcy (the literary characters, not the movie heroes...Duh!). These two gentlemen are the prototypes of the ideal man, in my eyes at least. (not that anybody cares)
My nickname in high school was Lady Rosalind Vivien. When our class teacher got to know about it he refashioned the Vivien into V.V.N (Very Very Notorious)
Morbidly obsessed with - History, Cultural Studies, Languages, Literature, Social Sciences, Anthropology, Fine Arts, Mythology and those bits of Astronomy and Space science that I can grasp
Into the healthy, funny kind of sarcasm (unless of course, I have been driven up the wall. Then...well, you don't want to find that out!)
An only child, without siblings - but with the greatest friends and cousins ever to make up for that.
An avid traveller
An avid swimmer
Married to a scientist...a Chemist to be precise (see the Sherlock Holmes angle?)
Greedy about South East Asian and Italian cuisine.
Also the Nepali/Tibetan piece of paradise - Momo! (my first date with the husband was at an Asian restaurant where he challenged me to a Momo hogging competition...I lost with 17 Momos...he won with 25. I married him.)
A drama queen...when I am not being a loner.
I speak English (preferably the British variation), Hindi, Bengali (my mother tongue), broken, dim-wit type French and the commonly heard variation of Urdu.
I dream and think in English.
I often channel my inner Jane Austen.
I am also mostly found in a state of confusion about the world and myself.
Yours Truly
That is quite enough about me, now please read the blog! It has articles on a wide range of topics, that you always wanted to read about but never really found the time to sit down and collect all the research to distill into one article.
Poetry, History, Feminism, Mythology, Humour, Politics (one article only, promise!)...and many more to come.
And since I do not endorse anything or anybody on this blog, I pretty much blurt out my honest, unabashed perspective.
It is really good, I swear!
Love,
Pallavi
P.S If you are still interested in the mundane details..well, they are
Full Name: Pallavi Dasgupta-Tripathi
Birthday: July 14
Hometown: Calcutta (now Kolkata), West Bengal, India
Sun Sign: Cancer
Favourite colour: White, Blue, Green, Lilac
Living in: USA
Aspire to: get my books published one day, through a literary agent - only when I am done being a sloth.
ENOUGH! OVER TO THE BLOG POSTS NOW!
Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHello Pallavi
ReplyDeleteI reached your blog while searching for some details on the decline of Noor Jahan.
Of course it was very informative and at the same time unusual, history in verses instead of the prose form, which we are used to.
Subsequently, reached your profile.
It's very interesting, very well written and classically and swankly humoured.
Coming back to your write-up on Noorajahan, it reminds me of a wonderful book, "The Secret history of Mongols".
There is striking similarity between your work and this book.
Both are authentic, no nonsense chronicles of historical events and both have heart touching, meaning carrying verses in them.
The book was probably written in the 13th century in Mongolian language but in the 20th century, it was translated in almost 20 languages.
A version is available on the net. Tey reading.
Keep up the good work !!
Thanks, Arvind! I wasn't aware of that book, though I had to read a lot of books on Mughal History to write that blog. At that time I was doing a special series on the blog on four remarkable women...two from Hindu mythology (Sita and Draupadi) and two from Mughal history (Noor Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal).
DeleteI wasn't aware there is a book on history which combines both prose and poetry! Will surely try to get a copy of it and read.
Thanks for your kind words! Glad you liked the article...that entire poem was composed in one sitting...a few years ago, when I was in Pune. :)