I visited San Francisco for 2 days in the last week of January 2000. It was a visit for a specific purpose. However, in the short period, what I felt I am sharing here.

The Innocent "I"

Meeting my nephew, Dev, was to meet "The Smiling Buddha" and the Innocent "I".  This, little over three year old, kid likes to smile all the time. Energetic, enthusiastic, curious and yet very innocent, is Dev. His two Hindi words, "Mamaji" (maternal uncle) 


and "Hanji" (yes please) really made me laugh every time he uttered those words. From his childish conversation I realized what the innocent "I" means. Dev, probably is aware of his real "I" more than I have understood in almost 49 years. When he is angry, he says not "I am angry", he says, "Dev is angry".  When he is hungry, he simply says "Mama, Dev wants Duddoo Bottle". Playing hide and seek with his dad or with me, he would simply say, "Dev is Hiding, find Dev". I wonder when I will learn that my real "I" is not what I think it to be. The first child of my sister he is just adorable and it was on his emphasis that we went to see on a cloudy day:

"The Bridge"

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is a treat to the eye and an engineering marvel.  Built under the expertise of Joseph Baermann Strauss, this 1.7 mile long bridge with a suspension of 4200 foot main span (the distance between the two towers) span was made possible by not only the strength of the anchorage and towers, but also by the cables. Each cable is made up of 27,572 wires and 61 strands. Truly the cables reveal the ancient maxim, "Unity is Strength". These almost 37" in diameter cables with a total length of 7,650 feet for each cable., consumed 40,000 miles of wire in each cable.

On our way home, we then went atop the hill to have an overview of the sprawling city of San Francisco. The contrast to the sprawling city of San Francisco is the suburbia, where my sister lives and can be noticed from the picture of her house.

All in all it was a great visit, albeit a short one. Yet reunion with my sister after two years was a great feeling. And more than that was discovering the innocent "I".