About Me

Three years ago, I made the moving gods proud. I whittled down ten years worth of belongings to 5 boxes for a move that, I later came to realize, fundamentally changed the course of my life. The boxes were FedEx’ed from San Francisco to NYC just in time for the first day in B-school at Columbia. I didn’t know it then, but the move was a pivotal point in my life and a best damn decision at that. Life-changing events ensued and a lot of growing up. A lot of growing pains, too. I couldn’t have picked a better place to temper those pains though. Oh my, how quickly 36 months whiz by when you’re having a rockin’ good time with amazing life-long friends.
Fast forward 3 years and it happened something like this. While jogging one morning in March, somewhere between Columbus Circle and 96th entrance to the Park, it all converged: quit, move, travel. In the 30 days that followed, I quit my wonderful job, moved out of NYC and planned out my travel around the world.
It didn’t take long to come up with my first destination. Russia, why of course. After witnessing the 16th Int’l Chopin Piano Competition in Poland last year, it was only natural to trek to Russia to partake in the competitive spirit of the Tchaikowsky’s Competition. Unlike the monographic nature of Chopin’s competition, piano works of Chopin only, the Tchaikowsky competition comprises of four instruments: piano, violin, cello and voice. After letting my mind wander free about the chosen instruments, I became fascinated with strings.

Hmmm, strings.

Specifically, you take a string and depending on how it’s applied, different experiences are created. Musically speaking, you can bow a string, as in violin, pluck, as in guitar, and hammer, as in piano, and different musical experiences are created. The concept of taking something fundamental and creating markedly different experiences depending on how it’s applied fascinated me. Wicked cool, in fact. And this is how Bow, Pluck and Hammer came to being.

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With the around-the-world ticket in hand with no particular itinerary, I tanned my way down the beautiful Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, immersed myself in Tchaikovsky’s achievement in Russia, salsa danced and kite-surfed my way around Spain, learned how to play santur, the only other hammer string instrument, in Turkey from a renown artist, discovered the power of smile in Thailand. Most importantly, I met dozens of life-long friends whose loving hearts and gentle spirits have forever changed my life. It really is a beautiful world.

Why the blog?

The easiest and the most thought-less answer would be because everyone’s doing it. Victim of herding mentality. With a nudge for a little more thoughtful answer, my guilty conscience would kick in and I would say, as an American culturally trained to think we must work, work, work, writing this blog is my way of justifying taking few months off to completely check out to travel. Writing does take some work and discipline, you know. If push came to a shove for a complete, honest answer, I would succumb to the following. If it were to come in a form of margarita, it would be:

2 parts tequila: There has always been a lot going on in my head with seemingly random thoughts, feelings, sensations, questions, answers and I want to take time and put them down in a coherent form to see what they’re all about. And yes, this can only be accomplished with no work while traveling in foreign places.
1 part triple sec: I’m secretly hoping that once these streams of thoughts are written down, I will find answer to world hunger.
1 part lime juice:  I’m crazy curious and itching to hear what others have to say about these. Has anyone thought the same thoughts?
Ice cubes: My guilty conscience. I’m still feeling the need to pass time with work’ish tasks. Maybe margaritas taste better without ice.
Salt on the rim: For the cool effect and to own my very own URL