all by my lonesome on 21

I apologize, dear reader, for the consistently infrequent updates. I've been extremely busy since we last spoke: re-estabalishing decade old friendships, interning for CNN, exploring Lahore, arguing with cab drivers over inflationary pressures and social justice. I honestly haven't had time to breathe. However, it was recently my birthday and, while sitting alone in my Lahore hotel room at the stroke of midnight, I wrote myself the following passage, which, dear reader, I will share with you:

"I finished a book today that I started about three years ago. The summer I arrived in the United States, in Washington DC where my brother Asad lived, I picked up A House for Mr. Biswas from his collection of modernist literature and began reading. Hence, I embarked on a literary journey that ended today, in Lahore, on June 12, 2007, my 21st birthday, almost three years since I first laid eyes on the dull, colorless cover. I don’t read much while I’m in school, and, even during holidays, I have always found other literary distractions, impediments, that have kept me from Mr. Biswas. But from the second I started reading, way back in DC, I remember feeling something inevitable about the book, like our fates would be reluctantly but inextricably linked in the years to come. It has always been around, through the tumult and inebriated extravagances of college life, through late night academic cramming, it has managed to linger in the back of my room, my conscious. Now, being in a literary frame of mind, I can’t help but think that the completion of the novel somehow marks the end of a chapter in my own life. The book itself, now in three pieces, the spine dismembered and the cover barely legible, chronicles the life of an unremarkable man with an unremarkable existence. Like the author VS Naipaul, Mohan Biswas, the protagonist, is a Trinidadian of Indian decent who spends his whole life waiting for a chance to make his mark in the world, or at least, as the title suggests, live in his own house. Eventually in the final pages of the novel he purchases a house, but only after taking on considerable debt, and, therefore, never fully fulfilling his ambition. My thoughts are too unorganized and skeptical for this page, but I did want to capture this moment of uncertainty and sympathize with Mr. Biswas."

I'd written more but it starts getting personal (though I of course trust you, dear reader, it's just the wider public who I don't want to sumbit my thoughts to). But that's how I spent my 21st. Oh well, I guess being 21 isn't that big a deal outside the US. I was feeling unnecessarily contemplative that night though, and, in case you were wondering how big a loser I am, I went to bed right after. I did, however, go out the following night, to Cukoo's Cafe near Heera Mandi no less. If any of you, dear readers, are ever in this neck of the woods, I strongly suggest you drop in.

Still to come: completetion of travels in the North AND... lahore. stay tuned.