And just like that...she's gone

Summer of 2002. I remember that summer quite well. It was the summer I got into the shady world of IRC file sharing.

 It all started in the year 2000. I was frequenting internet cafes late at night trying to research universities in the US. while waiting for pages to load, I would chat on channels like #india. Typing to keep with the flow of text taught me useful keyboard skills.

Fast forward to Purdue. I'm sitting around feeling a little homesick and load up good old mIRC to chat.. and a few short chats later, I'm in the #telugu-movies channel. I made myself comfortable there and over the next few months, I exchanged files and made many friends. I also helped a lot of people troubleshoot their computers and networks (thus getting me interested in computers)

End of summer 2002, I decided to build my own computer. I built a massive mini-tower with a giant Antec case I got from newegg. I still remember having paid around 130$ for that case. Over the next 10 years, this faithful case was constantly upgraded with all kinds of cables, motherboards, DVD drives, hard drives, chips, etc. With 4 external fans and 1 CPU fan, it was quite a loud beast. And it was always on in my bedroom. So much so that the day I turned it off when I was moving, I could not sleep for lack of the white noise.
This case has spent more time in my bedroom than any other "her". And she was definitely a "her". With her moody nature and powerful all consuming allure, there was nothing else she could be.

Today, I got a new dell PC. It cost me a fraction of the price I paid for the old one. It runs so silent I can barely hear it. And it can do everything my old beast could do.

So, I stripped out the hard drives, turned her off and carried her out to the garage for eventual disposal.

And just like that, she's gone.

Nostalgia

Today, I got hit by a bout of nostalgia.
A bout of nostalgia mixed with home-sickness and a wonder at how small this world is. Let me tell you why.

Yesterday was pretty rare and special.
Being the cheapskate reader that I am, I had picked up a couple of 1$ books from the local half-price books (including some by Indian authors). I was flying down to California to meet my sis and so picked up the lightest book of the lot for the trip. A book called "The Marriage Bureau for Rich People" by Farahad Zama.

So, I start reading the book and slowly things start popping out at me. Familiar terms, places, experiences. Before long, I realized that the book was based in my home state. And it did not take me much longer to realize that it was actually based in my hometown. Ahh. That's when it hit me. That nostalgia thing. and home-sickness. And the wonder of this world being such a small place.

Farahad seems to have lived in the same Vizag that I did. He speaks of places I frequented and experiences I enjoyed.

The book itself was pretty good. A chick-flicky book, but not bad.

Well, so it's been 6 years since I blogged last. A lot has changed in my life. A lot of me has changed.
But when I read the book, I just had to write it down. and this seemed like the ideal place...

Maybe I'm back... maybe I'm not. We'll see :)