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How the West was Lost (Short Version)

By on February 8, 2012 in American Memories, Books, Sackett

I grew up on a diet of  Wild West novels and a dominant American narrative that celebrated the victory of the white man against the native American Indian. It was always about how the West was “won.” The turning point in my thinking occurred in 1996 when I was lucky enough to attend a lecture [...]

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The sandwiched generation. The best generation!

By on June 6, 2011 in American Memories, R2I (Voices)

[Editor's Note: The author of this post, Rajat Mukherjee, lives in Silicon Valley and works for Google. This post originally appeared on his Silicon Thoughts blog and is reproduced here with his permission. Rajat is a classic lay-down-rooter, a term I defined in this post.] Last week, we were at the Bellarmine Speech and Debate [...]

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As I shuttled between Bangalore and San Francisco in 2010

By on February 5, 2011 in American Memories, Troubling

I saved this tweet from Nitin Pai (chief honcho and writer at The Indian National Interest) sometime in the first half of 2010. The operative phrase is “ought to”. The sad reality is that for most people (and I include myself in this category), the dominant emotions are sadness, guilt and frustration. Where’s the fury [...]

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When something’s not easy to do, you are doing it wrong

By on October 19, 2009 in American Memories, Philosophy

It was early days for me at the University of Houston campus in the Fall of 1992. One of my initial starry-eyed memories was that of purchasing my first Coke can from a vending machine on my way back to the Cambridge Oaks apartment. This was my first-ever encounter with a Coke can (for that [...]

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Memories of an American Life – First Two Years in Houston

By on December 30, 2008 in American Memories

This is Part 2 of a 3-part series on my life in America spanning Houston, Chicago and SF Bay Area. Part 1 was Memories of an American Life – 4 years in Chicago. I arrived in Houston, Texas on August 16, 1992 with one friend (my friend & classmate from BIT Ranchi – Namita Raghavan). [...]

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Memories of an American Life – 4 years in Chicago

By on November 11, 2008 in American Memories

I originally wanted to start a post called “Ten little things I miss about America” and then realized it should more on the lines of ‘memories that I treasure’ (true true!) rather than a life that I miss and crave (at least not yet!). Sixteen years of American life were spent in 3 cities (Houston, [...]

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