Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

23 May 2002, 18:11 p.m.

Got two graduation gifts today, which were, as all of…

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2002 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

Got two graduation gifts today, which were, as all of them will be, unexpected. I can't believe I'm graduating, and therefore can't quite believe that I should get gifts for anything.

Jeana gave me Two Tales of Crow And Sparrow: A Freudian Folkloristic Essay on Caste and Untouchability, by Alan Dundes. I'm about two-fifths through it. Jeana said that all the Indians she's given it to have hated it, but I find nothing to hate as of yet.

Shweta-beta gave me a graphic novel: Fallout: J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb. Once upon a time I evinced interest in this book, and now I have it!

By the way, the Acknowledgements list in Chutney Popcorn included a thank-you to Urvashi Vaid. I'm pretty sure they're referring to the gay rights activist. I remember seeing her once on a morning talk show and thinking, "A female Indian-American activist for gay rights! Wow!" Rock on, Urvashi.