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<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/_q-vdlJ8PXvUPXLtaGy5sw"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/askang/SQavwqjbBXI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/QuKIbtE_ang/s800/diwaliraat.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">Wishing a very Happy Diwali to you and your family.</td></tr></table>

I am back from a trip to Toronto, Canada after attending Spinning Wheel Film Festival. I was there on the invitation of Mr T. Sher Singh of SWFF International.

I first got aquatinted with Mr T Sher Singh, when I submitted one of my post-debate articles to SikhChic.com.

I’ll post more on the details of my journey later. However, I have put up a web album of the pictures I took while traveling to Toronto.

A post-debate article, on my take on the experience of being the only turban wearing Sikh at the first US presidential debate, has been published at Sikhchic.com. If the front page link is not working anymore, here is the permanent link.

The US presidential debate was the best thing that happened to the University of Mississippi in quite a while. OleMiss is still recovering from the best hangover a university can ever have. My friend James Church has posted student account of the debate here. (By the way, we also beat Gators this weekend. Woohoo!)

I was in and around the media tent and “spin alley” for most of the debate. Instead of writing a long and boring narration, here is a picture blog of the debate that my flickr feed has posted. I did not have enough time to tag each picture; if you follow American politics, you’ll see some big names in there. Feels like a match puzzle? Lets write a program to solve it!:)

Senator John McCain’s announcement on suspending his debate is drawing looks of shock in Oxford.

This small town in northern Mississippi seems to be all painted red, white and blue in the wake of Friday’s Presidential debate. Within an hour of the Senator John McCain’s announcement, a petition website is up.

The The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has released a statement a while ago that it is moving forward with its plan for the first presidential debate at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss. this Friday, September 26.

Photo Credits: Jessica Miller

The University did a press release of the event, which is already on youtube.

The university also posted the audio podcast of the whole event here.

Last month I travelled to San Jose, California to see my younger brother. California is beautiful. Went around the Silicon Valley campuses, enjoyed the California beaches,

drove around San Francisco,

saw the famous Golden Gate Bridge,

went for a game of beach-ball at Half Moon bay,

and went on 17 Mile Drive.

And yes! I forgot to tell you, I was there for just a day and a half:).

I’m watching Sikhnet Film Festival. A great attempt by Sikhnet.com to share the video submissions for the annual festival at the same time. Sikhnet is using a web service mogulus.com which provides free broadcast.

At this point of time, there are 146 viewers watching the “35″- A documentary on the importance of learning Punjabi script by Sikhs. A very professionally made video by 19 years old Raj Singh. I’m impressed.

I invite more people to join Satluj, where we - a group of Punjabi Techies are constantly working on enabling softwares in Punjabi and Localization of Linux.

Kevin Kelly discusses how web will be in next 5000 days. A little scary, though!

When i was 7 years old, because of militancy in Punjab, my father sent me and my three siblings to a boarding school in Himachal. In was fascinated by music education, and used to hang around the music facility where elder kids were taught music. The second month of arrival to the school, I was picked up by the music teacher for teaching music. I remember being the youngest kid learning classical Indian music and sikh religious music.

In next three years that followed, I travelled all across India on music scholarships - places where my parents or my friends had not been to, performed at many stages, competed in various vocal music competitions with our music group. By the time I was in 5th, I had two “dhaadi” albums recorded. And I used to excel in my studies.

And then destiny took a turn. For some circumstances, I had to leave the school in my 5th grade and come back to my village in Punjab. My parents admitted me to the best catholic school in my district. For them excelling in a creative environment was the same everywhere.

And then I got another chance in my 6th grade. Along with four other kids from the old boarding school, we were offered scholarship from Guru Nanak Sikh School in London. It was a newly opened school, on the patterns very similar to my old boarding school. However, we were denied Visa by UK embassy for some unknown reasons.

I was miserable. The environment in the catholic school was dead compared to where I came from. There were no more music lessons. For three years in my school, I was an invisible kid. I flunked few classes. I started finding solace in reading. In those three years I read everything I could get my hand on - fiction, classics, poetry, Greek mythology, religions, philosophy. I read Punjabi culture a lot, in search of who I was, to find what my identity was. I would sometimes write poetry, but seldom would show it to anyone.

Things started changing by the time I started my 9th grade. With support of my parents, I struggled back. My hungry artistic soul always found solace in creating things - And then I found computers and rest is another story.

I have no complains how my life turned out to be! Well it has not yet as I want it to be and I’m on my way. But I assume its pretty good. Things could had been much worse and I thank Almighty for leading me to who I’m. However some days I wonder, had I continued the path I was passionate about, how would things had been. Never know.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both …. …And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back…..