some catch up

I'm waiting at the Department of Hydrology at IIT, for a Dr. Jha. The driver on the way here was nice, and very talkative once I fell out of the seat (short stop) and woke up. He talked of how everything is a gift from God. He said he'd tell me an English joke: the world is a stage, life is a drama, man is an actor, and god is the director. Somehow I knew not to laugh at this "joke." I'm nervous about this first interview, and now it looks like I've left the camera/digital recorder somewhere. Dammit. Now I'll have to write/remember everything manually. He's meeting with a director right now so I don't know how long he'll be. I'm using his pen, and would be somewhat embarrassed if he found out. After this, I'll return to Rishikesh, where Sarah is waiting. We went here and Haridwar last weekend, and much of my documentarian energies were into making videos of the days rather than writing about them. It was my favorite day so far. Rishikesh because there was good shopping, though I only bought a scarf in case it was needed to go into a temple. It was pouring rain like I've seen only a few times in my life. Then gusts began to life all the trash on the streets into breathtaking American Beauty-esque dances. Eventually it let up (it does seem suspiciously like an early monsoon season so far, though I was annoyed when someone else cavalierly blew off the Indian's opinions to the contrary). We walked around with our bumbling tour guide who managed to not get us to the Little Italy restaurant, but instead took us to the closer Little Buddha Café (where Sarah and I plan to meet later today). But after we'd ordered and before we ate, he cancelled the order because Little Italy wouldn't cancel our reservation . It's tedious to write about, but we were very annoyed and embarrassed by it at the time. Vijay later managed to lose us twice on the way to the bus, and even had to be corrected on the directions back to the bus once.