the first show was interesting…
we had myriad sound issues, which was disheartening because by my tally, we made only one discernable mistake in our two hours on stage.
and thanks to the oddities of our schedule, we celebrated our first show by taking four days off.  half the band went home to chicago, while danya, steve [...]

and with twenty minutes to go before I leave our hotel to head to the venue for soundcheck and all our pre-show rituals (failure, food, and more failure), I feel compelled to share with you our initial tour experiences.
first off, for those of you who do not know, we have done tours in the past [...]

we got to pune in the early evening and i got to see my cousin natesh, my aunt and uncle for the first time in 20 years.

as soon as i arrived, my cousin and i were off to a party.  we got lost on the way and ended up spending much of the time we [...]

we left the next morning for guntur - where my father’s eldest sister lives.  there also lives the only first cousin of mine whom i have not met.
i met him.
it was fun.  i toured the town first in his car and then on his scooter.  i ate more food than i have probably eaten in [...]

period one: chaos theory
after reaching hyderabad, we reconnected with family members again and i got to restock on books.
i had finished what i brought (or what i cared to finish anyways) and needed new materials.  i got a book on chaos theory and devoured it in one day.
that night, i had no dreams.
i awoke mulling [...]

we reached jaipur and demanded to go straight for the airport - where plumes of smoke from the still raging fire were visable from the airport runway.
like kolkata, we would rather sit in the airport for several hours than deal with the people we were forced to interact with.
we paid the muppet the balance he [...]

we decided to head back to jodhpur to see the fort we missed out on and it was worth it…

because it was early afternoon and we had only driven three hours thus far, we thought we could finish our trip early and head back to jaipur.  that way, we could bump up our flight two [...]

after leaving the hotel in the morning, we thought we would try to see the jodhpur fort.
in the parking lot, the muppet skidded over some rocks, sending one into a dog.
the dog yelped.
we decided to pass on the fort and instead make way for jaisalmer, so that we didn’t rush yet another drive.  we hoped [...]

we thought we would make way for jodhpur after leaving pushkar.
the muppet wanted to take us to see a mosque.  we were game.  we’ll visit any holy site.  if there is a God, then any place where God is worshipped is alright with most hindus.
the mosque was called darga sharif.  again, the muppet joined us.
there [...]

we left late for jodhpur.  the muppet spent so much time complaining in the lobby that he forgot to get some sleep.  he arrived two hours later than he should have.
again, we would have to rush to see things.
we made stops in ajmer and pushkar - holy sites for hindus as well.  the only brahma [...]