aj arora's blog

Wondered what our delicious office cookies were filled with & saw the box. None of the Vietnamese kids found this funny...

Particularly amusing in a country where one can actually eat certain hearts :)

Taken at Skunkworks

My last day at Yahoo. So surreal...

Taken at Yahoo! San Francisco

finishin easter baskets!

I can't say what made me fall in love with Vietnam...

That a woman's voice can drug you?

That everything is so intense -

the colours,

the taste,

even the rain?

Nothing like the filthy rain in London.

They say whatever you're looking for

you will find here.

They say you come to Vietnam

and you understand a lot in a few minutes.

But the rest has got to be lived.

The smell,
that's the first thing that hits you -

promising everything
in exchange for your soul.

And the heat.

Your shirt is straight away a rag.

You can hardly remember your name,

or what you came to escape from.

But at night, there's a breeze.

The river is beautiful.

You could be forgiven for thinking
there was no war,

that the gunshots were fireworks,

that only pleasure matters.

A pipe of opium,

or the touch of a girl

who might tell you she loves you.

And then something happens,

as you knew it would,

nothing can ever be the same again.

— The Quiet American

 

A chill shoots through my spine when I hear Michael Caine utter those first lines. Every word is a literal reference to my own journeys here. I step off the plane, and everything is different. The millions of motorbikes are abuzz, yet all is quiet. So many emotions bursting that my mind is overwhelmed, my face solemn & unchanged—save for the eyes slightly wider and mouth slightly open, lest I forget to breathe. Finally, my soul is home.

Easter story

Those of you that have been unfortunate enough to see me with my shirt off have probably seen the wicked scars on my left shoulder. Although I sometimes tell people I got them in Vietnam to assess our nation's education system (it's pretty bad), the real story involves boiling water in a freak accident at a hotel room in Mississippi when I was a baby. There was a dust storm the night it happened, and our car ran out of gas on the way to the hospital. My dad ran out with an empty pot and flagged down a truck for fuel. We made it to the hospital just in time and I was in critical condition. My parents were hysterical and angry, and probably blamed themselves a lot. I guess it was around Easter because a bunch of random people gave us baskets full of goodies and toys. I can't imagine how much their support could have meant to my parents. Ever since then my family has made a bunch of Easter baskets every March and taken them to the pediatrics ward of our local hospitals. These days we're always spread out, so we usually hit multiple regions. But this was the first year I bought the supplies and made the baskets without a single family member. It was kind of fun picking out what chocolates and toys to get. I mostly approached it from a kid's perspective (I'd be pissed if I opened an egg with a pencil topper), but also found myself thinking like a parent (didn't wanna overload the sick kids with HFCS). Obviously had to hook 'em up with Reese's Peanut Butter and Cadbury Cream eggs (proof of Christ's resurrection) and some sweet unisex toys.

A few days before there was a good story on All Things Considered about some  (stupidly conducted) research about how spending money on others makes you happier than spending that money on things for yourself. In this case (as always) I spent it for both.