The Fig Tree

Life-giving fig tree,
the destination of my dreams
for whom I have searched this desert far and wide
you remain just a dream.
You can't.
The desert is spreading.
This oasis is no more life-giving
Brown and dried up, it insults
the memories of shade and paradise.
the drops of water I waste on watering
disappear, there is no more water to give

You need the milk of a thousand camels
to revive you,
quilts made of silk and cotton to
shield you from the heat,
and the labors of farmers
whose care you have come to expect

I am a novice
wandering in the desert
with a water pitcher

My audience with the sufi master
is fast approaching
In his cave, he shall offer me silence
and the sweetness of a fig, water
scented with lemons
and a potion for pain

You shall go on growing
for your roots are strong
and the farmer with the camel's milk
is somewhere in the horizon

I am just a seeker of light
with a burnt-out torch,
lost in the obsideon-blackness of the night sky
The moon and the north star
have abandoned me
and the only sound I hear
is the corrupting protestation of my soul

At long last
the morning arrives with
an empty promise
and the reminder of the
impending death

I wander the last moments
with the memory of water,
the fig tree, and the milk
of a thousand camels.

Random Musings

Christmas eve in this city is like a funeral. There is no music, no major production of lights and sounds and nothing is open. Except for the mad rush of skiiers out of the airport and on to destinations snowy in the hinterhand, not a soul on the street. So naturally I was drawn to the new Starbucks with its popular Christmas songs and American look.

It is finally getting cold. I am not complaining. I like this weather. Even though, looking down from the air, you can see that the Jura is still bald in most places and without any snow. Global warming indeed. At one point, I saw the clouds getting trapped by the mountain range like a dam and a bit of the white puffy cloud was beginning to leak down the other side like a waterfall. That was just breathtaking. I have always had this urge to jump out of the window and run on the clouds as if it was some magical surface capable of holding my weight. Run on the valleys and crevices of the cloud carpet for as long as I like and they hold. In the mornings when the sun slowly rises over the clouds, the view is just breathtaking. If I ever need a reason to cry looking out of the window at 38 thousand feet, that is it.

On the second floor of Starbucks, I meet a caramel Machiato. Grande, perfectly made. Heaven. Christmas came at the right time on a blue couch with a perfect cup of coffee. I am so easy to please.

Earlier today, I saw a guy at the lounge at the airport that I recognized. One of the flight attendant recognized me from an earlier flight.

World is getting smaller.

There was a futile trip to my office to retrieve my car. Unfortunately that didn't work. There was an unnecessary yet pleasant trip to the airport.

And tomorrow I leave early in the morning for India.

Quick Lazy Post

First of all, Merry Christmas to all.

I spent a little time this morning sending christmas wishes to family and friends, especially the ones who never talk to unless it is this time of the year. Isn't it sad that one waits for December before catching up with most people?

This evening I travel to the other city and then a couple of days later to India.

Here is wishing you all a peaceful and memorable holiday season.

India-bound

I look forward to my trips to India with trepidation. I visit India fairly regularly, but always for a very short time. Unlike those who go to India once every two years with many suitcases, assorted gifts for relatives close and distant, grand plans to visit the houses of all those who mattered to them in the past and spend a few days “traveling” and tasting the “home-made” food, I go for four or five days with no gifts and no plans to visit anyone in particular. Sometimes there is a reason to go; often it is just a need to be in the country.

Even as I complain, I long to walk on those streets. I don’t have any specific plans. I have learned that making plans is the first step towards ruining a short break. Following through with the plans is the next step. So I go with a couple of change of clothes and see where it takes me.

But I feel the trepidation. First of all, I am concerned because I never know what to expect in India. Sometimes the whole experience is so breezy and comfortable that you have no idea why you were worried. Then without warning, things change. You get hassled by customs or emigration. Or your flight is late. Or there is a general strike or violence because someone desecrated a statue or threw a pig carcass into some sacred building. All the things that make India unpredictable and yet fascinating are also the things that in a real sense worry you.

I sit here amongst all these books about India. I feel like I have a tendency to find answers in books instead of the world around me. May be it is because the reality is so complex that you would much rather leave the thinking to someone else. I remember when “The Idea of India” came out, every dinner party conversation centered around it. There was not one person in my friend circle that had not read it. Same with India Unbound and Maximum City. These books look at modern India in a way many of us would understand. They are not complete chronicles of life in India (can any book ever completely chronicle any country?) but draw broad conclusions about those aspects that we care about personally.

Then I have other books that shed light to those parts of India to which I have no direct connection with, India with its rigid caste system and hierarchy, religious polarization, poverty and micro-economic factors in rural India. I once had a chance to drive from Allahabad to Kausambi to see the remains of the old city. (For those of you who don’t remember this was one of the greatest cities of ancient India, a city that witnessed sermons by Buddha.) Mayavati was the Chief Minister then and she had just made it the seat of a new districts aptly named after the city. There was a brand new road that connected the two places. The whole ride felt like a trip through some desert plain with a forty-five Km ride taking over four hours. There, I saw two curious things. A twelve-year-old boy called Gorey Lal jumped into my Qualis without any fear or worries when I stopped at the Mandi (local market) and asked him directions to the ruins and volunteered to take me there. I spoke to him as much as my stilted Hindi would communicate with his dehati. In the end, when he was about to be dropped off, he turned and said, “hamauko paisa chahiye”(I want money) in a demanding tone. I still remember that boy vividly because the whole exchange with him illustrated how life is lived in those parts still. Secondly, when I was walking through the ruins (the place evidently gets very few visitors) a crowd of villagers showed up and tried to sell Gupta-period seals, a small clay horse and elephants, coins and other material scavenged from the site.

Not much had changed.

But this time I don’t have time to visit villages. Even though that is where I’d rather be.

What to do? We are like this only!

Funny It Ain't!

Quite unpleasant I guess, this eternal quest for humor in the vile places of business, worship and governance. I ain’t talking about the stand-up comedians amongst you, who unbeknownst to themselves and to the misfortune of others have yet not discovered the Monday happy-hour open-mike at the local comedy club. You know the type folks, they stand behind the counter cracking a genuinely funny one as you push your much harried and hassled shopping cart through the cashier before she has a heart attack and keels over the scanning machine, dead as a 90s grunge band in an old-age home and suddenly you are laughing and you feel better. I am not talking about them. I am talking about the other type, the comedy-wannabes who instead of coming with an original or two, repeat what they heard at 2 AM on comedy central about the guy who walked into the bar. He doesn’t even have the decency to copy good material, say, from the 8 PM show; no, our hero waits for the loser-nobody from Alabama who comes on right between hair infomercial and the get-debt-free show at 3 and copies one or two premature comedic ejaculation samples with no bang or beginning. Then he sidles up to you at the blockbuster counter or worse, at work near the coffee machine to crack it when you least expect it.

And the joke hits you on the face like eight thousand volts. Like a Louisville slugger when you fail to show up at the budda-bing with payments to your local loan shark. Foggadaboutit man! Who don’t know what to do! Whatcha call it, motherfucker? Yeah I remember, pukey. So you try to swallow the vomit back in without making a face and force a smile. Good one, Harry, thought it up all by yourself? Now if you will excuse me, I gotta run and shove a fat finger through my eyes. Sheesh!

So here is my advice to the would-be comedians amongst you. Find your own fucking material. If not, steal it from quality books. Trying to pretend to be George Carlin ain’t gonna work because I got news for you chumpy, you ain’t him. There is something you gotta know about George. He might be a fucking alcoholic sitting out on LSD, but he knows how to fucking deliver a line. And when he does, it is funny. After Lenny Bruce, I can’t think of another one who genuinely turned angst and misery into such a moneymaking machine of humor. I last saw him in Las Vegas and had front row seats. But I am not stupid enough to try to pass off a Carlin as my own because try as I might, I don’t have the right DNA or the right face for that kinda thing.

Know your limitations Chumpy. Funny ain’t for you. Miserable may be. Sleazy, skanky, shifty, oily, sure. I can even think of disgusting. On a good day. Don’t know, I gotta ask the secretaries about that. I am sure they have a better take on this. And just because they are laughing doesn’t mean you are funny, they just know which way their bread is buttered.

Have you ever seen doctor’s offices? If you have ever been on a field-ride (this is when Pharma executive types who would ride around in the car with a sales rep once or twice a year to “know” what it is like in the “field” and to show solidarity with the schmuck that you throw into the trenches of bile and barracudas to sell your hard-on pill or baldness potion, but I digress) you know the drill. The poor sales guy schmuck, lets call him Joe shall we (or Jason, for they are all Joes and Jasons. And if they are a Minde, and yes, it is spelt that way, or Desiree then we have other problems, namely excess cleavage and thigh-age if you know what I mean.), walks in with a tray of Sandwich to the office of Dr. Tim (and this is the other little joke, all the office girls call him Dr. firstname) and is immediately ushered into the backroom. Dr. Tim is nowhere to be seen, but the assistants and nurses walk in for a free tuna-melt sandwich and a coke. If Jason is cute (and he better be, he gotta push all that hair-loss potion) and has a sense of humor, then they flirt and discreetly flash their collective cleavage at him while taking their free meal. Then Dr. Tim walks in, white coat and all, oily hair slicked back and with that yougottarespectme look, and cracks a funny one. Ho ho ho! It is always the same j-o-k-e. Get a new joke book Dr. Tim! And the girls laugh so loud you’d think you are inside a coliseum and the emperor is about to sanction the death of a poor unarmed foreigner. Anyway, Dr. Tim is satisfied and validated that he is gonna try the same joke another hundred times. Of course, he never realizes that the joke is stale and not-funny and would fall flat like a cement block on a car in the Big Dig if he were to try in on real people as opposed to his employees.

See what I mean?

This is why I don’t try funny. Except when making speeches. You have to open with a funny line when your topic is actuarial science or poly-rhythmic network algorithms (Dude, I have no idea what the fuck that is either. I just made it up) even though the nerd-patrol who’d show up to listen to such things have long given up such things as humor a long time ago, unless it is about spreadsheets with funny cells or about computers with funny circuitry or something. Made that one up too. Man I am on a roll! (Can you tell, I am morphing into the man I warned you about)?

So in a nutshell, keep your day jobs. Learn clichés. And oh yeah, when in Europe, write in that stilted English. Here is Amrika, we expect better Chumps. Put out or shut up.

Another Trip

Getting up at four in the morning for a day trip to another country is brutal. Airports are really busy places on Monday mornings. The sky is gray and brooding. I land in the busy airport early, in time for breakfast. My driver is waiting and he is not smiling today. We drive out silently and every two minutes emails start buzzing. It is raining but strangely, there is no traffic.

it is strange to look out into nothingness; you can really focus on thoughts. It is not that there is nothing, just that there is really nothing to look at. I am glad to arrive at my destination and to get absorbed in work. Outside, the manicured green lawn is wet. Unlike where I live, there is no view from the windows here. Outside, there are many shapeless buildings and workers are digging in preparation of another construction.

I think I will write a private blog today, a story to myself. Going through Frankfurt on way back, I send SMS messages to friends I have not spoken to in a while. I am the last one to enter the bus. So I think. Then a woman comes running; she was held up at security.

The private blog of another world. Another time. A time when Dheerendra Brahmachary was teaching yoga on Sunday mornings from a black and white TV. A time when Emergency was declared and everyone went about their business with fear in their hearts.

A private blog for apologies. For thank-you messages. For waving at old FAMILIAR faces.

I am tired and I fall asleep as soon as sit down. I wake up twenty minutes before landing. I read the Newsweek and there is an op-ed piece by Farid Zakaria on Musharaf.

Somewhere across the world, a little boy is wondering how the inside of a plane feels like. Would he know how to work the intricacies of the eat belt? What would it be like to sit and stare at the sights outside when the plane takes off?

Somewhere across the world, in another time, a little boy is waking up. He thinks he will grow up someday and travel the world. He opens the Atlas and finds countries with interesting names. He has a stamp collection. He has stamps bearing the queen's likeness in 7 colors. He drinks a cup of coffee and opens his books. He can hear breakfast being cooked in the kitchen. Somewhere far away, he can faintly hear morning noises from the TV. He cannot wait to grow up.

Random thoughts. I land in my airport and look for familiar things. The bar downstairs, the coffee shop and office buildings in the back. Familiar faces approaching me with smiles. It is cold outside. And for a change, I actually remember where I parked.

Running for a Cable on L'Escalade Weekend

I gave up two invitations tonight to stay home. I don't regret this. I have been so busy at work (and last week, I was organizing a conference at work, so spent the whole week except part of Friday at a hotel) and travel. This also has not been a good busy, the stress level is increasing and legal paranoia is at its peak. I am getting private emails from staff wondering about their future. Trying to keep all the work balls in the air, I have been neglecting everything else in the process. No time for friends, family, or conversations. And when I actually do have them, I don't feel like explaining how screwed up the situation will be till March. I miss life.

So tonight has been quiet. At home with a quickly heated TV dinner and absolute quietness. And during the day, it was entirely mundane pursuit of chores.

I spent the entire day in pursuit of one thing, an adapter cable for my iPOD to plug into my car. This is not as rare as it sounds. For the non-audiophiles amongst you who think that listening to music is a secondary reason to drive (primary being the need to get somewhere), move over, the world has no place for you. We, the stronger race that drive just to listen to music, shall soon take over the world and destroy you.

The cable is probably 10 cms long and it plugs below the iPOD and then into a socket right under the climate control button in the back. Given that I am not shopping for Polonium or shoulder-launch missile, I thought this would be a fairly mundane exercise. I first go to Manor, and I have a firm feeling that the man who pretended to help me had no idea how any of it worked. Had I known the story of the rest of the chase, I would have tried hard and looked under every box in every section until I found what I was looking for. But I didn't. And so the chase began.

From Manor, I drove to Emil Frey an on the way promptly found that it is closed. Of course, what was I thinking! It is Saturday, the only day when anyone is actually free to shop, so it must be closed. What is the fucking point anyway! By the time I found out, I was already half way over there and it is an adventure I would much rather soon forget. it involved stunts such as driving (incorrectly and at great cost to my driving future) on the bicycle path, on tram tracks facing down an oncoming tram and near-misses with idiots who think raods were built for walking.

So with that out of the way, I drove to Media Mart. This may not mean much to you if you are reading this from Atlanta, Mumbai or Cairo. But it is hell on earth if you happen to get there on a Saturday when the entire townfolk has to descend there apparently. And for every paying customer, there are 5 onlookers. And for every 20 cars, there is ONE parking spot. The parking premises look more like Phoenix Mills compound than a standard American mall. I park on a dirt patch that serves as spill-over parking. it reminds me more of a set for a Vietnam-era military movie than a parking lot. There is a man-made water feature next to it, which is not a fountain or lake if you are wondering. it is a giant puddle the size of moon left over by a water-main breaking (or so I postulate.. on both counts.)

From there, I trek to the store, my shoes getting heavier as the mud cakes onto the bottom. Inside, I see a circus scene where the sales associates have to pick and choose their prey based on the size of the project. A need for a cable doesn’t amount to much. So after trying very hard to attract the attention of one of the high and mighty associates, I decided to call it quits and went about searching for it myself. No luck there.

Well, so it was off to two more stores. A Dutch-Indian guy with a very pleasant demeanor smile at another store really tried to help. But they simply did not have it. But he helpfully suggests the Apple store in Plainpalais. So I drive like a mad man back into town with minutes to spare. However I had not realized that this was the L'Escalade(Fête de l'Escalade) weekend. So the traffic was horrendous. I reached the store after it was closed.

Entire day wasted.

This after a crazy week that was part of the crazy month.

I need a time management class. Pronto. And knowing me, I will double book that time too.

2006: A year to remember

Open the account books of another year
That lies here in front of me like a beached whale
Not yet dead, but dying, bloated, onlookers gathering
And wonder if life is really a beach!

(Those pesky cheeky bumper stickers!)
A few cheers, some memories worth remembering,
Opportunities lost, a few events fabricated
And a passbook full of monumental changes.

Another year of lies, semi-truths, prevarications
truths, omissions, fears, and hurts
A moment of pure honesty, a day of true introspection
momentous decisions, a move across oceans

a true goodbye, many fake farewells
a closing that was final, many that were not
many fights, many hugs, many smiles,
invitations, from old friends and new

aging! my face looking back from the mirror
looks unfamiliar with each passing day
a chipped tooth reminding me of the
need to take better care of my health

(if I could write a poem about 2006, what will it be?
Will it be about the central square and reading the Metro
or will it be about the lake and summer walks?
Or will it finally be about something that really matters?)

Fortunately, and I give thanks for this,
no one close to me died in 2006
No one was gravely ill, what a relief
(and for the one who died, may you rest in peace)

(Loss is part of life,
a million small losses still don't add
upto a big loss.
Was 2006 a good year?)

How life changes around you
when you least expect it.
But in the end, it is still a good year
I am just addicted to complaining.

Christmas Post

It is here. 'tis the time for joy and forgiveness. Do you have some to spare?

I like Christmas. I like the lights and the general upbeat mood. I would even confess to liking the songs that play on a loop in every mall across America. I look forward to driving to the mall, driving around for thirty minutes looking for parking, wading through the snow to get inside where it is too hot, dodging little children and grannies in tow, looking for a gift for someone to remind them that at least once a year you think of them.

I like the whole ritual of putting up the tree, decorating it, running the string of lights through it and admiring the handiwork for a month. I like getting cards and particularly those long and tiring newsletters from old friends with obligatory pictures of kids and dogs. It surely is the only holiday I celebrate even thought I am not a Christian, never have been one.

Even though technically Christmas is a Christian holiday, I think of it as a secular, hallmark holiday. A time to celebrate the end of the year with some deliberate reflection and a time to look forward to the next year and take stock. It is not always about gifts or the tree. It is really about the way you actually FEEL. May be because it snows, may be because it is at the end of the year, may be because hallmark knows how to market it, I just think it is EVERYONE's holiday.

This Christmas, I don't know where I will be. So much is up in the air. may be that is why I feel so nostalgic.

What are YOU doing for Christmas?

God Must Be Crying

Airports are places for regrets. Dreams are shattered and boundaries are drawn. Spaces are allocated and roles are prescribed. Clear plastic bags of liquids dangle from every hand. A laptop appears and disappears.

Airport bars are dark and generic. Without design. The waitresses look like men. Two men appear, why are they always in pairs? The bearded one looks like Kevin Smith and the other one has a clown face. Together they look like a performance team. It is as if they will break into a routine anytime. At the bar, old men sit drinking. They don't look like passengers, more like people on their way to nowhere drinking their way to oblivion.

Some trips begin well and end well. Others just begin. Mostly though, these trips don't end well. May be there is a Zen story to go with that one too. I think I know too many Budhist stories.

I don't see much. The lights have blocked out all the faces and memories. There is a last minute travel agent. There is a cheap deal to Istanbul, a poster for an expired trip to Sri Lanka.

By the elevator to the garage, a poster for a black-tie Christmas party hangs. In the underground garage, by a car, a trip to nowhere ends. Just as it begins. I must stop these trips forever. What is the point of a trip if you are farther behind than when you started?

It is raining hard outside. We used to say as kids that it rains when God is crying. Today God must be awfully sad, just like this faithless mortal.

I Never Learn

A few years ago, I was in Bangalore with a white colleague who was a few levels junior to me. Throughout the trip, people assumed she was the decision-maker because she was white. I would walk into a meeting and wait for the presentation to begin when one psycophantic man after another would parade themselves in front of us, looking at her for approval. It was always good fun.

Then on the last day, the company CEO threw a party for us in one of the city hotels. There were an assorted number of people who attended the party. I had a feeling that I was just a sideshow to my colleague's featured attraction. As the evening wound down, the wife of CEO went to my colleague and said, "My daughter is so disappointed that she could not come to the party to meet Patti Aunty" thereby exhibiting more levels of ignorance than I knew existed. Then realizing that I was standing right there, she added, "and YOU."

"Of course," I said smiling.

Until then, I was doing a good job of protecting Indians and Indian reverse-racism from Patti. But at the point, I couldn't take it anymore. So, on the way to our hotel, I explained to her in fairly good detail how things work in India.

The day before, I was sitting in a coffee shop when an American approached me.

"Are you a programmer," he asked.

"No," I said, not really understanding.

"Never mind," he continued, "if you want to move to America, I can recruit you. I am looking for programmers. But you have to get familiar with computers."

He was scamming suckers for money with promises to a move to the dreamland.

I told him I lived in Connecticut. He looked so uncomfortable and disappointed.

But only for a short minute. By the time I left, he was holding court with a bunch of young men in the same coffee shop. Patti "aunty" was doing some shopping.

-----------------------------------------------------------
I never learn.
Even when I ought to know better.
I am disappointed and esurient.
Enough said.

I had forgotten how to feel this way.
A bloody Mary brings back memories.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Whose life is it anyway?

It is 1:40 AM. On Sunday. Worked all day and took a group of work visitors out to a restaurant.

Got back quite late from another country on Friday. I ought to write. But too tired and distracted for anything meaningful.

Don't mean to be silent. When I am tired an distracted, I inadvertently say stupid things. Sorry if end up saying stupid things.

Here is to newnborn babies, for they don't know nothing but warmth.

Here is to earnest people. There is so much warmth they bring to an otherwise forsaken world.

Here is to silence. Here is to calculated madness.

My Own Poseidon Adventure, Greece

In Greek mythology, there was a major tussle between Athena and Poseidon over the control of Athens. As they postured, Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and off came a spring that gave life water to the city. This was not that impressive, considering he was the God of oceans. Athena did one better and gave the gift of the olive tree to Athens. The Goddess of wisdom (and strategy) won the contest and therefore came to preside over the city of Athens. (The Greek reverence for the olive tree was so grave that in 600 BC, Solon mandated death sentence to anyone found cutting down an olive tree. The tree which has no top roots was planted so widely in the place of forests that it contributed heavily to the utter devastation of ecosystem with topsoil erosion. But now I am digressing.)

Standing at the temples dedicated to Athena in Acropolis, I only had one thought. What if Poseidon had won? What if the life spring was more valued than the olive tree? I walked around the Acropolis temple complex in total awe of what it took to complete these amazing temples in such a short time. From where I stood, I could see the sloping lawn that served as the spot of the first Parliament of ancient Greece. I wandered aimlessly through the land that gave humanity so much. Down the hill, I paused at the spot where St. Paul preached the gospel to the new converts and where the first high court of ancient Greece had met.



Then a thought struck me; why not go searching for Poseidon?

Impulsive that I am, I wanted to take a route less traveled. The Poseidon temple in Cape Saunion, is about 70 Km away from Athens. I decided to get there by first going to the port city of Piraeus which was the lifeline to the city of Athens. Piraeus has all the charm of a cruise ship town. It is non-descript and busy with a port crammed with a thousand ships of various sizes and flags. I don't speak any Greek and it takes me an hour to read a sign in Greek (all those Physics classes actually helped) so it took me some time to finally understand that the distance between two places is not a straight line. It is often a chevron. I had to go back to Athens. The train station was a smaller model of Victoria Terminus in Bombay and outside I found Bangladeshi men selling trinkets. Across the station, Boston Cafe was serving hot coffee. This was no place for Poseidon, even with all those ships. I had to find my lesser God somewhere else.

Victoria station lies after Omonia. If you get off the line, you can walk to Stadiou Street to catch a public bus to Cape Sounion. No luxury buses for this trip. Pilgrimages are best made with hardship. At one point when I was wandering around lost, a Punjabi shopkeeper happily pointed me in the right direction.

The bus ambled through Athens traffic and went through small towns and suburbs. A peasant woman got in with a plastic bag full of inconsequentials. She was dressed in the traditional grab of a window and had a wonderful toothless smile. Small town squares appeared and disappeared. Once in a while, in the middle of ugly modern construction, a dilapidated Roman villa came into view. Sometimes, the wall of an old house had the distinct look of a Byzantine building.

There were numerous Orthodox churches that were well kept and old priests in cassocks busied themselves around them. Greek government pays the salaries of the Orthdox priests. To the victor go the spoils.

Every turn was a reminder of a battle fought or lost. Every church a memory of what was lost.

Poseidon lost his battles to all of them - To Athena, to Solon. To the Spartans, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Florentines, and the Turks. May be that is why I felt a kinship with him. For all his might guarding the seven seas, he was defeated by the sword and the gunpowder and the firebrand preachings of semitic gods. I thought of Constantin banning the teachings of Plato and Aristotle as they were found to be too corrupting to the Christian mind.

As the light faded and the road winded through interminable hill passes, I looked out the window and sought an idea to seek my redemption with. Perhaps a chant, a prayer, a song. But there was nothing. All I could hear was the silent bearings of aimless travel.

Then, just as dramatic as it sounds, the Aegean Sea appeared before me. Tideless and waveless, its silvery waters began to hug the ragged coastline as the bus continued on the coast. Far ahead in the distance, I could see the temple of Poseidon, majestic and somber, looking out for the sailors over the cliff.

My journey was over. The bus departed to its more ordinary destinations and I climbed silently to the pinnacle to seek my audience with God. Of course, his bronze statue is long gone (now in a museum in Athens) but His presence still remains. On the way back, in the pitch-black darkness of the night, I paused to look at the temple, lit and imposing, from the building below. Around me the Aegean Sea slept silently. I could see the glimmer of small fishing boats like fireflies in the distance. Nothing moved in the bushes and the trees were windless. Except for a stray dog rummaging through a trash can, everything was at peace.

May be Poseidon didn't lose after all. To preside over the tranquil waters of the Aegean Sea from these majestic cliffs is a much better fate than be the overlord of a chaotic and tormented city like Athens. From here, he enjoys the silence and peace with fortitude. Athena may have won the battle, but she certainly lost the war.



I am not sure what would have changed if Poseidon had won. That was the curious question that brought me to the foot of this structure. That question no longer mattered. All that mattered was the peace, tranquility and the silence of this dark spot.

This is the true church. Nature in its true majesty.

If I could, I would have prayed.

A Trip Remembered

He couldn't wait to get out of the plane, more because of the noise of children and their frazzled parents all through the flight had now becomes unbearable, having reached its crescendo as land was sighted by the excited parents. The only bored faces belonged to teenage children of expatriate parents who had decided that the whole experience would be better gotten over with so they could move on with their lives in the countries they were born. As he stepped off the plane, he felt the heat wave envelop him with no warning and the hot wind bristled under his nostrils and made him regret the whole decision for a second. Then the regret became fear as he looked up and saw an army of airport workers standing in no particular order gazing intently at the passengers. The airport was shining and new and had no patina of history nor the burden of forbearance. It stood in the middle of coconut estates and paddy fields as an oddity, an invitation to join a global party that was happening all around outside of its realm. He noticed that, even in its newness, it was designed to look as an old one.

The line to get out of emigration was long, primarily because many families with their children and hand luggage had decided to rush along to the front of the line to claim entry into their land as fast as possible. He stood in the line with no particular aim or attention and waited his turn with the officer. He found the emigration desk already disheveled, not explained by the relative newness of the airport. The officer wiped his lips with a dirty handkerchief and looked up him and then buried his face into the new passport without a word. He waited without a blink, trembling gently as he interpreted and reinterpreted the officer's silence. Then without a word, the officer waved him to the side and beckoned the next passenger. He felt a chill as he looked at the officer's desk and controlled the urge to snatch his passport, now in the custody of the officer, back.

"What is the matter?" he asked trying to conceal his urgency.

"You please wait," said the officer, without raising his head from the passport of the next passenger "we have to check something."

"But please tell me what the problem is," he pleaded now perspiring under the collar, "is there an issue?"

The officer looked up at him vacantly and did not return his nervous smile. He waited, embarrassed, in the middle of the arrival hall, as an untied captive of the officer, watching the rest of passengers amble past him, with their passports in hand.

It must have been forty minutes before a paunchy senior looking officer approached them. He too bent his head into the passport without greeting him, then preceded to whisper to the officer in the cubicle. He stood up erect, thinking, how do I prove to them that I am back in this country to seek myself, how do I convince them that I am a harmless prodigal son?

"Officer, please tell me what the problem is?" he spoke in the local language interrupting the secret conference between the superior and the subordinate.

That seemed to make a big difference to the mood of the situation. He was back. In his natural element in his country which was not his at all. The senior nodded at the junior and said, "Let him go, he is one of us."

The junior officer stamped his passport. Then he turned the page over to the senior who produced a shorter stamp from his pocket and stamped the top edge of his visa page. It read, "M. K. Murukesan, DSP, Airport."

And with that he was free to go.

The air outside was stuffier and the crowd seemed even more unruly. He didn't have anything particular to do just that minute; no one was there to greet him, to shed tears of joy. He was very sensitive to the immediacy of airport gatherings and their precarious intimacies. Like waves, multitudes reached out to passengers as they came out one by one weary and tired, and choreographed smiles broke out and tears were shed. He watched this spectacle from the sidelines until he was bored. He finally allowed a taxi driver to intervene in his thoughts and let him carry his bags to the car without having his arm-twisted.

This was home. But it felt strange after twenty years. He didn't recognize anything outside, reflected rapidly in the car mirror, illuminated by feebly burning streetlights. The car moved at a steady pace and he wondered what he was going to find in his trip. What was here for? The enthusiasm that he felt while buying his ticket had tricked down to a protesting whimper by the time he had gotten off the plane. Now the reality of his alienation from his memories and dreams began to choke him and he realized that the sweat on his brows had not just the heat, but also his fear to thank for. Nevertheless, he forced himself to smile, at the darkness, and he realized that unwittingly he was smiling at his own reflection in the window. Perhaps that is why he was there, he decided, to face his own reflection without masks and protection, to find himself in a place where he couldn't protect himself even if he tried. He was his own hunter and it was up to him to decide how this game would end.

His mind fell back into the past and the faint glow of memories and histories. He was not sure if the things that he sought in this trip were really memories or if they were subversive plots that his imagination created to sustain himself. A procession of characters went through his head, old bitter women trapped in the traditions and confines of his ancestral house, the servants and serfs, the Dalits and their stories, the myriad Gods and Goddesses that often came down directly in their midst and intervened, not always blissfully or benevolently. He tried to shake his head clear of the racing thoughts.

"Sir, I think we are here, your hotel," the driver announced. He looked up and saw a concrete building with no influences, no apologies or pretensions to be anything other than what it was. The travesty of that concrete building echoed its name well, he observed without any hint of irony.

It was three in the morning; he needed to sleep. Tomorrow, he decided, he will get his bearings and try to find the way to the promised land in his mind, even if the way is permanently lost to the memories. Until then, it was going to be a good night.

Off to Athens

I have been drowing in work lately. I try to spend more time with myself, away from all the other people. I try to read but I am running out of books. I haven't had time to go shopping for books. It is getting dark early and the winter is almost here. Tomorrow, perhaps in Athens, I will finally see some sun. Looks like Monday I am not going to Germany because of a change in meeting venue. All sorts of things up in the air.

Games, games, games. I haven't spoken to my friends in a while. I haven't really found some productive silence to write. I think about wastelands and winter landscapes. I wonder why Michael Richards turned out to be such a racist and deeply disappointed us all.

Somewhere far on the other side of the pond, a day is dawning. If I could, I would go driving from Thousand Oaks to Salinas. Stop by for lunch at San Luis Obispo.


Of Men and Mice

Today the Man was angry,
His troops deserted him in the battle
And walked away
I was the one who had
To lend him an ear,
And a free cup of espresso.

He had the sad visage that recounted tales
But I had the evidence of your innocence
Why did his winter rob your autumn
And his autumn your youth?

A penny fell from my hands
On to the ground and
Shattered against my expectations
Melted, congealed
And became a mirror.

I held it up against my face,
And saw The Man looking at me from the mirror.
He had sad eyes and a stubble
Like a disappointing spring
After a forgettable winter.
Like an oft-used shoe,
His face was lined and weathered.

I took the mirror away in shock
Almost like a reflex reaction,
And thought of your innocence
And the slight tear in your panty hose.

Sky is falling (Turin, Italy)

It was a perfect day; slightly chilly and sunny at the same time. The city seemed to have emptied itself. There was a park not far from where I had parked. A large park that led itself into the Piazza Castillo from where one could stroll to Via Roma. Beside a large statue installation, there was a path covered in fallen yellow leaves. You could lie there on the ground and be one with all the shades of yellow that blankets you. Then I looked up and saw the sky falling. A thousand yellow leaves of various shapes and sizes came falling down from all over the canopy over my head and if it was not for the need to appear to be sane, I would simply have dissolved in emotion right there.

The sky was falling!

The statues looked happy too. There was a woman who was walking two dogs, two policemen were engaged in a conversation at the edge of the road; a couple slowly walked by hand-in-hand up a small hill ahead. They disappeared from under a gate and dissolved into possibilities.

There was a path ahead and beyond that were the churches, piazzas and streetside cafes.

I had to take my leave from that place time forgot.

The sky kept falling behind me.

Last Post

*Poof*
He vanishes.
Good bye Madrid.

Wasteland

I will wear a clown mask for you
Paint over the tears
And walk on stilts
Like a dwarf’s revenge
And wait out these autumn leaves

Laugh at everything funny
Even when the hollow drums and vacant trumpets
Herald the call of a vacuous end
Where dreams go to die in winter’s wonderland

My feet turn clay and the waters of ebbing feelings
Wash away my balance
I keep my neck high laughing, my clown face
Still intact, there is a moment of perfect silence
And then the river flows again

I will wear a clown mask for you
Hide my pain morning noon and night
Sing you a lullaby, go begging for jokes
And die singing a song

When the first grass blades of spring rise,
Remember to leave a red rose
Where my memories lie waste
Under the cold blue sky

No tocar, esta buena es un Picasso

After the meeting and the conference call I found myself with an hour and half free. Madrid is not a great city to get an early dinner. Our dinner reservation was at 9 PM (which is about the earliest you can get into a decent restaurant) so my colleague and I decided to get to Reina Sophia and spend just a few minutes looking at Guernica again.

Guernica is a great mural that Picasso did right at the beginning of the Spanish civil war right after the artist fled to Paris. It is an angry work that defies all description and as it is for me, I can spend hours staring at a work like that. The scale is impressive and the lighting is amazing. It was 8 PM and there were not many people at Raina Sophia. Unlike del Prado, Raina Sophia is never crazy crowded anyway. We didn't have a lot of time, so we skipped the usual route and then I happen to chance upon a work I had never seen before. Diego Rivera's La Chimenea. It was wonderfully subtle and nothing like his mural work from Ciudad de Mexico.

On my way out, I chanced upon one of Dali's famous Hitler works and another humorous one both prominently featuring Gala. Another blue-themed work clearly showed the influence of Georges Braque and Juan Gris. And lastly, a work on Juan Gris so captivated me that I had to walk literally right into it, it had a jovial tone that reminded me of Seurat without pointillism. Anyway, it was time well spent.

The dinner was OK, I blurted out something I should not have and now have to spend a lot of time cleaning up the mess. It has been raining in Madrid all afternoon and the bacharan didn't do me any favors. But I think what did me in was the wine, a syrah varietal from Toledo. Interesting with a medicinal bouquet. I didn't catch its name properly. The restaurant was also interesting because it was owned by a Catholic priest who owned other restaurants. And the menu featured Guardia Civil guys from civil war time. Wonder what he thinks of Franco. The resaurant is on Filippe V. I couldn't believe I found the old churro place on the corner. It is still there. Just a few steps from Plaza Del Sol. If I have time, I ought to find El Corte Ingles behind it.

One last thing, Barajas still amazes me. It is the best airport I have ever seen next to Kuala Lampur. Otra mundo en conjunto.

Time to sleep. Have to be at the meeting at 8:30. Buenos noches. Mastarde.

Elephanta Caves, Bombay

Going to Elephanta caves on the weekend was always an adventure. Located in Gharapuri Island off the coast of Bombay, (a UNESCO world heritage site) they feature rock-cut sculptures of Hindu mythology. You can reach the caves by boat from Gateway of India.

The history printed on the travel brochures about the caves is incomplete if not outright wrong. Walking around the caves looking for clues that the travel writers missed (or chose to miss) is a sense of adventure. The caves feature history of violence, forced assimilation and religious intolerance just barely under the surface (literally, in this case), you just have to know where to look.

First of all, the caves pre-date the 600 AD date most historians ascribe to it; they are clearly of pre-Satavahana period. The caves were decidedly Buddhist in their first incarnation and if you walk around the caves and pay close attention, you can see various signs of over-sculpting by later Hindu attempted to change the appearance of the original caves. Typical Buddhist sculptural features (statue of Kubera etc.) are over-sculpted with Hindu faces and the Chaitya hall itself has been converted to a room for Shiva. Similar attemptes have been made at Ajanta and Ellora. The better evidence of its pre-history can be seen if you move past the tourist attractions of the major caves and into the minor less-adorned caves in the back. It must have been a terrible feat of hardwork to sculpt these marvelous reliefs onto the rock surface considering that this is basalt and not sandstone or some such softer material.

The later part of history is equally disturbing. The Portuguese used the sculptures for target-practice and you can still see severe damage from this activity.

A friend of mine (who is now a professor of Ancient Indian Culture, was working with a professor from Michigan on dating the caves and determining the evidence for over-sculpting. I had the good fortune of hanging out with her in the caves looking at the seepage and water destruction one summer. All this information was gleaned from those trips.

The best part of going to Elephanta was the boat journey itself. Board the boat from the Gateway and it is about 40 minutes to get across the narrow channel the seperates the island from the mainland. There were always the cheerful Indian tourists on weekends, with lots of food going across to picnic in the areas around the caves. Jovial Maharashtrian women with young children and grim-faced husbands spent the entire time shouting at their children in a mock-serious tone. There were a few like us, who were not easy to categorize. And then we have the phoren tourists, those apple-cheeked lobsters from Europe who carried their travel books and cameras in full display and were kind if aloof to the native children. I once remember seeing a woman of Indian descent traveling with her white male companion (husband?) who spent the entire time pressing his hands against her breasts and he seemed the least interested in this.

My favorite thing to do was to lean over and let my face be sprayed on by the jet. It was the days before I became conscious of the raw sewage that was dumped onto the sea and so it made for good fun. I never had any facial allergies from this.

Apparently the hidden places behind the caves are where the local youngsters go to drink and have sex. It was corroborated by a few participants themselves. The caves are technically a no-man's land. I don't know who polices it, and when.

During the late Satavahana period, when Buddhists were persecuted and Hinduism re-emerged as the dominant religion, most of the accessible caves were re-converted to Hindu places of worship. In fact, I am not even sure if all were even used as sites of worship. This is the background for Ajanta and Ellora and less famously Elephanta.
The real context of the caves don't become apparent until one visits other Buddhist caves in Maharashtra and see how they escaped molestation mostly because of their remote location. In Bombay, one can see wonderful Chaityas and viharas well preserved in Kanheri caves in Borivali national park. (I will write about discovering the back part of the cave complex on a hike from Thane to Borivali some other time.) Near Bombay, Lohgadh-Visapur complex is another worth noting. While this is very controversial, there is significant evidence that most of the forts attributed to Shivaji in Maharashtra were constructed during the Buddhist period and Shivaji merely maintained it. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to get to these places other than hikes. Get off the local train at mid night, camp in the local station and start hiking at 4 AM when the sky is pitch black and full of a million stars. You get to the top around 10 AM and the view is spectacular. That is what we used to do.

After a long day spent in the caves, one gets back to the city hot, sweaty and tired. How can you end the journey without a cold one at Cafe Mondegars (Mondy's)? Who is up for a hike?

Premonition

I wrote two poems yesterday afternoon about hurting the back. Then last night, I went out clubbing and really hurt my back. A very bad and off-day capped by an awful fall.

May be this time, I better write about getting a million bucks.

Two Poems For Liars and Acrobats

An Acrobat in Paris

Ignore all the comments and set up the net. Be cruel to self so it becomes easier to be cruel to others. Like scorpions or spiders in waiting. Never look at the pray in the eyes because you might be tempted to walk away. Humanity is deceptive. Lie copiously. Change the tone from earnest to insensitive. Sweet to poignant. From sensitive to indifferent. What are the odds of acrobats? A fall may hurt the back but the applause is well worth the effort.


Now That You are Done and Gone

Now I have fallen and broken my back
And you are getting better at throwing stones
You are trying out new ways to hurt,
I am running out of ways to duck

You find stones in Tangier or Paris,
Sharp angular ones, with edges seared to cut
And flex your muscles to throw better
Find a friend or four to help

I learn new steps, arch my back down
Step around circles, ask no questions
And feel the ground close to my head
So your stones would glide over me

You hide when I try to seek
Cover your steps with lies barely concealed
I hide that I am trying to seek
And pretend not to notice the lies

Now I have fallen and broken my back
And you have found a new bag of stones

Another City. This morning.

Just landed back in my town. Last minute flight changes. I was supposed to be on a 4:40 flight to Frankfurt. But a meeting ran till 3:00. So made a last minute change to fly to a different city with a different airline. Whole mess. The flight was at 6:55 and I got to the airport at 6:10 (kids, don't try this at home.)They had just about turned the lights off at the ticket counter. Of course then they couldn't find my ticket on their system (last minute change from another airline, remember?)... I normally don't carry a paper copy of anything. I am a "have passport, will travel" sort of guy. So after much pain and the involvement of a different agent, we found the numbers, they issued me a funny ticket (with "look for telex" hand-written on it) and the agent took me to the gate.

The one I flew is not that great an airline, except for the wine selection. And this time, even that was not that great. The Argentinean Malbec tasted more like port (or port with syrup) than anything I have tasted before (I think the polite way to describe it is "interesting").. I didn't get much sleep.

At the lounge, I found a copy of the Times of India. Picked it up to read. Big mistake. I never should read it, it makes me feel sad for India. It could be a totally different post. But what the hell? Do you remember when TOI used to be a real newspaper?

I don't get India's judicial and political value system. Never have and never will. There seems to be no real logic behind any of this. So I have trouble comprehending how problems are solved (or how attempts are made to solve them) or how crimes are prosecuted.

Reservation system is a prime example of this lunacy. I can't think of another country in the world where active discrimination of one group is "corrected" by active discrimination of another. There was an article about how the SC/ST high court employees wanted to be promoted in the "SC/ST" category. Call me crazy, but this idea of rewarding people is completely unproductive in any system.

Another article was even more funny. A 17 year old boy and a 16 year old girl fell in love in Calcutta and they had consensual sex. He has been arrested for refusing to marry her four months after the event. In other words, a crimeless contact has been criminalized because there is no social follow-through. All sexual contact has to come with an implicit assumption of marriage. Almost "you broke it, you buy it" rationale. Isn't this a terrible example of treating women as property? Yet, all of women's groups support it. What is worse, both are minors and below the legal age of marriage, so what is the point?

I am so fed up. Legislate personal morality to death, condone public, civic and political immorality at all levels. Go after the weak, protect the strong. Indian system legal is so fucked up, it cannot get laid in a whorehouse even with a fistful of money.

Anyway, time to go to work.

Are we going to do anything different?

It is high time. We (the collective American we, not just the Democrats) finally won.

Carl Rove lost. If you think George Bush is evil, well folks, this man is the brain behind it. He is pure, distilled essence of evil. And after 12 years, Republicans were not able to scare the people that democrats are not all pedophiles who hit their mothers, kick their dogs and sell the country down at the river to the terrorists for a dime. Bastards!

Sweet victory! Rick Satorum losing was particularly pleasing. And can't wait for the certification of the VA election. Gotta wipe that grin off the face of "Macaca" Allen. I can't believe that so many people in Virginia voted for Allen. Reminds me of the days of Jesse Helmes in North Carolina. Remember those days? Couldn't find a clansman with an assault rifle to admit that he would vote for Helmes, but come election day, it was Jesse show every year.

Regrets? Sad about Ford Jr.'s loss. And among republicans, Chaffee. Always liked him. I was in Providence a couple of days ago and on the way to Warwick, there was this big billboard of Chaffee by the chamber of commerce. He looked old and tired. I remember the formal picture of his youthful face greeting the ocean state visitors at the T. F. Green airport in Providence back in 1999. He is a good man. Biggest regret: Joe Lieberman, that apology for a democrat won as an Independent. Oh well. At least, we will have the senate.

I can't wait for the house enquiries.

Thanks Howard Dean. I was a Deaniac back in the last election, the only guy that made me want to volunteer before his career was destroyed by Fox. But anyway, I think Dean did a fantastic job as the chairman of DNC. Rohm Immanuel and Chuck Schumer as well.

Three cheers, Speaker Pelosi. You go girl:-)

November's Loss

grunts moans monosyllables
words that leak through the senses
an occational sigh
bleeding death of a thought long unthought
a feather hidden in the pages of a book
finally falls off and disintegrates
outside in the dreary lawn
blades of grass lie dormant under a film of snow
pregnant with hope for tomorrow
hard solid ground feels like rock
when my feet slip on the powder smoothness
I just wonder how hard the undertaker
has to dig to lay me in the ground

And When You Are

Oh yeah, I remember:-)

It is 4 AM and I am surfing the web. That means only one thing, either I am sad or I am stressed.

I was re-reading some old emails from a friend. I have saved thirty-three emails from her spanning six years. This is an old friend I have known for ages (since I was nineteen). The first email starts off by lamenting how she would like to marry and settle down. Then there are sporadic emails about seeing boys that she doesn't care for. News of an illness in the family. Changes in jobs. An almost-engagement. Then a real engagement. Announcement of the wedding. The big-if-rather-hurried shaadi itself. Pictures. The boy is in the States (Is it just me or does everyone outside the US calls it that?) and has to hurry back. Emails detailing the seperation between the couple. Arrival of the new bride in the US. Frustration of a magazine editor having to work at a department store. Thinner emails on domesticity, about being busy. Silence. Thinner-er emails indicating not all is well. Announcement of seperation. Arrival of mother from India. Divorce (reaffirmation that I was the only one who ever told her that marrying was just the worst way to get to the US. Second, being on a CIA transport plane from on overseas secret prison that may or may not exist). Relocation back to India. Life after divorce. Complete insanity at Indian workplace. Insane former mother-in-law.

Silence.

All of us have our tales. This one took 33 emails to tell. Thirty-three emails of a life, interrupted.

(Irish Proverb: Never marry for money. You can borrow it cheaper.)

Drafts of new proverbs in the making:

*Never marry for a green card, being on CIA watchlist will get you here faster.
*Never marry because your mother is controlling, she will still control you after you marry.
*Never marry to shut-up your parents, shutting up a spouse is a lot harder.
*Never marry for a good mother-in-law, she will always love her child more.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Postscript:

All your images of winter
I see against your sky.

I understand the wounds
That have not healed in you.

They exist
Because (..) love
Has yet to become real enough
To allow you to forgive
The dream.
[..]

A true saint
Is an earth in eternal spring.

[..]

Your wounds of love can only heal
When you can forgive
This dream.

- Hafiz (Shamsuddin Muhammed 1320-1389, Persian Poet)

Ora Pro Nobis

What is better, reading a good book or writing a bad one? With an affirmative nod to the latter, here is my ill-opening to a novel yet to be never-written. (Apologies to Bulwer Lytton. And I do acknowledge having read many entries to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest but swear that this work of wonderment is all mine. Not valid with any other offer. Must present fiction at time of purchase. Limit one story per person. This does not apply to prior purchases or future poems. Other Restrictions may apply. Void where prohibited. Taxes extra.)

"It was the stark and horny knight. He emerged from the castle and peered at the floating pupil in the moonlight, bobbing on the surface of the silvery pool. "Isn't it past your bedtime, boy?," he shouted motioning the child to get away from the water. The pupil ignored his stark master's ill-appearance and his command and went on with his nocturnal water sports. The knight paused, not knowing the exact next step, contemplated many and discarded them all and muttered with a ephemeral chuckle appearing on his countenance, "What is the point, after all, boys will be buoys."

This agnostic has only a single plea: Ora Pro Nobis

Sunday Morning

Written some time ago
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So here I am, sitting amidst a cold half-cup of coffee, unaddressed half-writen love poems, books choking me from all sides except up, and looking at the light filtering from the blinds for salvation.

Sunday moring. Time for nothing, for sermons and introspection, for God and his earthly assistants (praise the lord, pass the wallet), for omlettes and bacon,
(for an atheist such qualitative classifications mean little) and for catching up on the world.

A week away and a few time zones later, a muggy day unfolds in other parts.
I remember their future, sweat and choke and go blind in my timeless wandering.

Did I mention I met two school friends? I came back with two realizations, the ghosts of the past must be buried, things change and always look forward, for backward lie death traps, complexes and inadequacies. Good advice for all of us,
I think.

One Sunday long time ago, I sat queitly at John F. Kennedy's gravesite and watched the eternal flame in rain. Today, I just sit.

Ganji No Monogatari

0.
Trouble with classic Japanese literature is that it keeps changing context and names of the protagonists as their lives change. Like in most classic literature, Japanese classic literature is also preoccupied with the life in the court. Noble courtiers strut around the court making women fall in and out of love with them and through all this, they rise up through the challenges and grow in their stature.

Quite thrilling actually. For a book written about a period somewhere around the 10th century, The tale of Ganji is rivetting and interesting.

But this post is a preamble to a story I am going to tell. I don't know all the details of the story for the protagonist is only an aquaintance of mine, a distant aquaintance for that matter. But if the Japanese classic writers were to imagine Ganji as a modern woman, she would be it. And just like Ganji, I am going to give her various names as she struts in and out of power situations and plots. Where I have no way of knowing the explicit details, I have substituted with educated guesses. The story may be vague, but the gist of it is true.

I also have to obfuscate it enough because the other character in the story is a highly famous, divisive figure in Latin America. Some love him to death and others hate him. Let's leave it at that.

So here is to our modern female Ganji.

1.
Little Anna was born in Third-World country far from latin America. Before you guess, no. She was not born in India. She was born to upper middle class parents with good educaton and respectability. She grew up in the capital city surrounded by much material comfort and books. Her liberal parents filled her head with progressive ideas and the education in the civil war-torn country didn't do much to change her ideas of her life. And she fell madly in love with Ken. Throughout college, they explored each other and at the end of it, they decided to get married. Particularly when Ken got a scholarship to study in Canada.

By then Anna knew he didn't love Ken. But she loved Canada. So the marriage happened and off they went to Canada. As Ken struggled through studies and as they tried to sustain themselves with his meagre scholarship, Anna got increasingly bored with her life. That is when she decided to join a Ph. D program exploring the cool social science scene at the University.

She was a good student. More importantly, she was engaging, witty and intellegent. What she lacked in absolute beauty, she ade up in her charm. Before long, she caught the eye of a professor at the University.

2.
Arpit was a married man. He left India as a young man in the seventees fuelled by leftist ideology and a desire to profit from it. He met and married an intellegent fellow student Aparna as they traversed the academic world in Canada. Aparna was a serious student and was not fickle. They had children and they quietly settled into a domestic life after both of them got tenure. Arpit also understood how to convert his social conscience to money with a second business. He had become a respected professor.

That is how Sharon (Anna in her second iteration. Dear reader, Sharon now had wings and a large yellow plume on her head...) entered Arpit's life. Arpit was intellegent, witty and socially conscious. All the things Ken wasn't. Most importantly, Arpit had money. And he showed her things and slowly showed her how to make money with social conscience. They started a consulting practice together. Aparna didn't suspect a thing. After all, Sharon was Arpit's business partner. As their business flourished and later floundered, their affair grew stronger and they thew caution to the wind and made love in public places. In places where they were almost caught.

Between them, they also bilked many unsuspecting rganizations of much money by "teaching" them diversity. They wined and dined in style and lived te good life. Even though she was technically married, she probably made no attempt to humor it.

Then she got her PhD.

And she realized that Arpit's practical application was over. He sounded old and tired. He had given her all that he could. That is when she met James.

3.
James was intellegent and caring. He was also very powerful. He was divorced and lived in a fantastic partment in the most prominent part of town. As a key player in the local government, he put his social conscience to much practice. He was a man of action and that appealed to Debra. So ebra divorced Ken and moved in with James.

At first, life was wonderful. James could introduce her to powerful people and powerful peple in turn could get her things, useful things. She liked the opportunity to shine, to be the synosure of the parties. She ha access to the corridoors of power for the first time, and she could derive a lucrative consulting practice from that access.

But James was a one-trick pony. He was wedded to his work and Debra wanted more action. So when she met Rick at a party, she couldn't wait to run into his arms. But not before she caused a minor scandal that roced the government.
(The rest tomorrow)

Three possiblities, and you get none today

I was toying with three possible posts for the blog today. And then I got side tracked. So I am not going to write anything about any of these. But I will give you the synopses and then fill them in once I have some time.

1. A unique Lisbon Restaurant: On a quiet unmarked street, not too far from the Marquis of Pombal square, but away from the din is a small door. It is an intimate door with no adornments and there is only a small sign that tells you it is a restaurant and a bar. Inside, however is one of the most bizarre places I have ever visited. The restaurant (much more appropriately called a food bordello) is a sries of rooms each opening into another crammed with antique furniture from the Portugese colonial period so completely that you have trouble moving around. The chairs are uneven and unmatched. They have enormous head rests and grand red cushions. The light is dim and intimate, like that of a bordello and each room has thick tapestry-like red curtains. People eat in all these rooms and the waitresses balance their giant orders on their hands as they deftly maouver the furniture without tripping. But the main attraction is the menu. The menu is a large book, perhaps sixty pages long which have food and drinks listed along side erotic art. Ppictures of Chinese men with enormous penises doing the unmentionables with beautiful women casually adorn the pages of meat varieties. The pictures are explicit and old fashioned, with almost a lithographic innocence.

2. The girlfriend of a Latin American President told in the style of Ganji no monogatari: We shall examine in great detail the rise (no fall yet) of an acquaintance of mine from the obscurity of academia to the Presidential palace. But entirely in the style of classic Japanese novels. I almost wrote this and then lost it because I was not careful to save.

3. A visit to Coimbra: Home of Europe’s oldest university. Underground Roman markets. A converted church where you play chess with strangers while drinking beer. A million pastry shops. A Turkish gate. A thousand steps to go up and down to the top. Best Sardine-paste bread spread. Forget all the tourist traps. If you are a writer in search for a hide out for inspiration, this is it. More later.

Which one would you like to read? Meanwhile, I better go and look busy.

Dreaming of Malibu Sunsets

I am in no mood to write on my blog these days. Apathy mostly. I am moody, a little withdrawn perhaps. One might say I have an autumn mindset. Leaves have fallen and the sky is cloudy and dark. Why on earth should I be happy?

I think of many things I can write about. Happy, positive things! But when one negative thing just sits there bothering you, nothing else seems to matter. Know what I mean? (Now say that last line with the same earnestness of the stage manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.)

My whole travel schedule is up in the air because someone from work is coming to the US next week for two days and would like me to be here. What this means is my other Europe trip gets pushed back to the week after particularly because next Thursday and Friday are bank holidays in that country.

Enough complaining. After all is my “happy birthday to you” today.

Before all this began, when life was a perfectly comfortable sixty-nine degrees, I would get in my car and drive down Kanan Road to PCH to Coogie’s which is a little restaurant in Malibu. (Next time you sit down to watch Austin Powers part II where Mike Myers say how England Countryside looks nothing like Southern California, pause your DVD player. That is Kanan Road.) I would sit down with a newspaper and order a Santa Fe omlette. In a corner, sitting with two young boys would be Pamela Anderson, which her face partially covered in poodle hair. I would drink a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Or if it is the evening, I could amble into Barefoot bar (were mel Gibson recently got drunk) and get myself a Martini. And the sunset would be spectacular. Sunset is always spectacular if you are on PCH in the evenings.

Two days in a row, Kenny G trailed my car on PCH around that time. His car was black, mine silver. We raced up Kanan through the tunnels in the night. That was a pretty good time. Why can’t I have that day today?

I am cursed to put up with Kenny G in more ways than that. I have been trapped in close quarters with Kenny G that I needed to wash my face off his saliva that accompanied the awful muzac he produces. I once met an Indian in a Pow-Wow who claimed he was the one who taught Kenny G how to play his music. Damn Indians!

Still, I would be happy.

There are days when I could drive relatively fast to get to Redondo Beach in the evening after work. There is a beachside restaurant with live Flamenco performers. The boardwalk is wide and the beach is peaceful.

I miss it. I miss the stillness of palm trees in the evening when the wind dies down. Driving by the ocean, you pass a power plant and if you lie down on the beach, you can see the underbellies of planes are they take off from LAX into the sea.

It is so much better to see the underbellies of planes than being inside them. It is so much better to be a giver of random kindness than be a recipient of intended cruelty.

I am going to close my eyes and breathe in slow. I think I can smell oranges and lemons. California is a state of mind.

Smanie implacabili

It rained continuously all day. I drove around, trying not to get out of the car. Shopping and watching the town from inside my car. Listening to operatic music.

I am feeling so lost. I wonder how long would it be before everything normalizes. Endless beginnings and interruptions. False starts and hopes. A day dawns with promise and ends with catastrophe. Or is it the other way around?

Christa Ludwig sings with so much feeling. I can feel her voice rising and filling the room. I turn the lights off and sits back in my chair.

Perhaps it is the turn of the Albanians. Things always come to pass.

Come Scoglio.

Opera buffa its finest tradition. Alfredo Kraus in his finest. Juxtapose this to impossibilities and endless waits. Complicated plots. Implausable excuses. Transpose them to modern times.

Ah, lo veggio!

What am I to do? Mornings and evenings. There is nothing to any of this, just simply a dream. A smile. What do we want? Soldiers leave, Albanians arrive. Albanians depart, soldiers arrive. The plot is so complicated. I know where this story ends. I have read the libretto.

Donne mie, la fate a tanti

Why does it become so complicated? It does not have to be. It could be something simple, without lies and prevarications and schemes. But it will never be. That is how the world is. Just be. But it won't be. Scorpions and zen masters, it is all in their nature.

Non siate ritrosi

I am going to sit here into the night listening to the opera. I have a few books with me. Tomorrow I will seek surprises. And I will smile all over again.

So here I leave the blog a quiet night. Un aura amorosa.

Fall, what a beautiful fall!

Everything looks so beautiful. I normally would never have noticed these things, but my frequent absenses from the US has made me pay more attention to the mundane things this rmoning as I drove to my office.

First of all, I felt so good driving the car. I just enjoyed the way it drives. I like the way even the German cars are tuned for quietness for Americans. In Europe, cars are tuned for some engine noise that they seem to like.

I was listening to NPR and they played an original recording of Carl Sandberg reading one of his poems (Fog) this morning. Of course, the elections are two weeks away and I am more excited about this than ever since the 1992 elections. There is a good chance the Dems will get control of the house or the Senate or the both and that would be SO great. Finally I hope there will be some accountability! Patrick is all set to win the Gubarnatorial race in MA. Former Clinton official. I am happy to see the back of Handsome Romney! I feel terrible I won't be able to vote since I will be in Spain on election day.

The leaves have turned!! Sugar maple leaves are such vibrant scarlet red this fall. The whole foliage is an exploding orgasm of colors. I wish i could drive upto the Catskill mountains this weekend and just get lost in the colors.

I didn't even complain about the traffic this morning. There is a pleasant fall chill in the air, 42 degrees F (which is around 7 or 8 degrees C I think.) And I love it. And I slept well last night, so I don't look like a zombie.

Tonight I want to eat a regular American meal and watch some TV:-) How you miss silly things when you are away, even if it is every other week:-)

Random Musings Before the Flight

getting ready to go the airport. Beck to the other town. Must keep airlines in biznes by constantly feeding the pipeline.

Meanwhile, if you want to feel great about being great, learn these phrases by heart and use them in conversations. Randomly, without any sense of irony or wit!

So good to see you, mw-a mw-a.
Mahvelllous!
No hardfeelings.
You can't hurt me, I got there first.
I have not felt anything since 1926, but I look maahvellous, don't I?
Not tortured today. Like my Fendi?
That was so yesterday!
Ah! this martini's to die for but would it kill you to add another olive, for crying out loud!
This is nothing, my hairdresser Andre makes a killer mojito.
We need more jalapeños in this kicker, it ain't kickin' yet.
Have you really seen what he was wearing, I mean, howcanhe?
My psychotherapist is really big these days!
I get all my therapy from my feng shui consultant!
Don't forget your colonic irrigation, honey.
I know this fantastic guy on the 43rd street, just use the side door, he is so hip, there is no main door or signs.
Are those REAL? Don't tell me they are not!
Don't you just love my palstic surgeon?
Read anything?
Noooo time sweetheart, just glancing the back covers these days.
Lets do lunch dahling.
Call me, I will text you!
Let's party together sometime.
It was only a quick fuck, got dressed before I came.
I would fuck you if I weren't in love with you.
There isn't enough therapy in the world to fix that.
I definitely would shag you but you make a big deal out of it.
No, it was just sex.
Ease it out baby, ease it.
Pubes, did you say pubes?
What a lovely parchement!
Sex is so 90s, I just do kundalini yoga!
Would love to chat but gotta go.
Ciao ciao.
See you next in Rio!

Capiche?

By the way, because people are wondering, it is FICTION!

Now bee-have while I am gone. Don't touch anything. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Two Poems For The Fallen

October

The summer just turned gray and left
Leaving the door open to the chilly draft
We are still playing this game of chess
Of protracted moves and pauses, and countermoves

A waltz, stepping forward, then back, then a move left,
All across the dance floor until a shoe drops.
Salt in open wounds, the screaming man is now
Named a tortured soul and cast aside

What rough beast hosts this gathering of fools?
Upon whom does he pray? I have a door left half open
Yet I am shackled, to the floor of possibilities
Intrigued and disgusted, how deep is my self-hate?

Winter is around the corner licking it lips
Last vestiges of the fire are extinguished
Hope too dies a silent death, and truth be told,
None will be the wiser for it than I.

In this cold, where poetry dies an eventual death,
You, me, and the night are still swinging in the wind.

Battle For Words

What is the language of the poet?
Does he speak in metaphors?
His dialect of feelings is scripted in endless lacerations
Each drop of blood that trickles out is his exhalation
Like mango flowers sprouting on branches
At once fragrant and mortally fragile,
Each cut is a word unspoken, each pause its syntax.

What does the poet want? Is he aware of the
Power of words? Does he buy that the pen is
Mightier than the sword? Is the gun mightier than both?
If poet knows what he wants, how does he
Invent his language to suit the ministry of pen?
Who lends him words and phrases?

How does he sing his poems? Does he pause to weigh
Or sing his words carefree for it’s dust returning to dust?
Seek truth between small gaps in narrative,
And meaning in lapses in memory and subtext?
Is he forced to release his unspent feelings against his will
Or hold them for a gentler tomorrow?
Hold on to them like an oyster holding a grain
And hope for a pearl of wisdom when meaning relents?

What do you want from the poet? Fill your shadows with light;
Confusion with lucidity? Be silent against his will?
Paint over the evanescent shades of mood with mirth?
Is his mother tongue intrigue of intellect? Or raw emotion?

How does it end? Each night he loses his battle to confusion.
Memories envelop fallen words like blankets in the cold
Dead feelings arrive in a coffin every morning when the smoke clears
And he prepares the funeral for silence that falls between words and
Meaning. His song lies mute, his instrument silenced and
His windpipe, crushed from the electric embrace of emotions.

Indianapolis: Whose Farm Is It Anyway?

I wrote about a soulful city yesterday. So I thought I will follow it with a city that is not so soulful - Indianapolis. I spent five years of my life in Indianapolis, traversing its main and side streets and patronizing many of its restaurants. When I think of midsize American cities like Indiapolis, I am quite struck by the scale of development in the last one hundred years that made the country what it is: a wealthy new land that buys and builds its history. Indy (as it is affectionately called by the locals) also is a solidly republican city in a republican state, no matter which democrat gets elected. There were only two sides of the politics in Indy, conservative and fundamentalist. They were friendly simple folk who prayed, went to work very early, came home and prayed some more. I don’t know what sins they were accumulating in their private lives that required so much praying.

I find it difficult to write about Indianapolis because all my memories are antiseptic. There are no contrasts, no uneven patches, no hazy yet powerful knots of memory that drags you by your shoulders and make you confront your ghosts. I lived an even keel life that included a boring commute through back roads, frequent visits to the museum or the downtown and Broad Ripple restaurants, sterile shopping and drinking coffee at the Abbey. Abbey was a large coffee house in Castleton, which was entirely furnished out of pew furniture from an old church. The only interesting place I used to go to was Slippery Noodle, which was the oldest blues bar south of Chicago with a long and storied history including historic tours as a way house, a brothel and a hotel. It is a non-descript building on a non-descript street but the place rocked with great and new bands coming through. We fell in love with an electrifying Cajun blues band from Bloomington called Mojo Hand. The lead singer was fantastic; it is a pity they never made it big.

Considering that Indianapolis is about twice the size of a lot of happening towns, you will begin to understand how life was so simple there. There are very few restaurants, bars and outside venues. Indy is a sports-crazy town and basketball is the primary religion (and Larry Bird is the main patron saint.) But since I was never into American professional sports, I was not quite comfortable in the life around me as it revolved around minor league games and NBA. I don't necessarily think I was bored; there were things to do, but does an Elton John concert count as something to do? Once out of boredom, I remember driving (without any plans) one morning from Indianapolis all the way to Toronto, Canada in the Mid 90's. It snowed quite a bit and I was driving very fast and made it to Windsor in record time. But it was already dark and the rest of the journey was miserable with wind and hale.

Indy was also the only town I have ever lived in North America where the Indian association(s) actually built a secular civic building and not a temple. It was a non-descript building on the west side of town that hosted everything from obscure Punjabi festivals (Phoolkari, anyone? The ABCD woman who was married to a white colleague of mine who hosted the festival was so offended when I told her I had never heard of it before) to religious celebrations. The only bizarre thing I remember about the whole pecking order of things is when Janmashtami fell on Independence Day (I hope I got them right, or was it Republic day?) Independence day celebrations got the boot. Having said that, the city did have a fairly sizable Indian population that occasionally had high profile Indian concerts or exhibitions in prominent venues. The governor sometimes showed up and clapped religiously as some prominent-looking Indian community leader expounded on the virtue of the event.

How can I end this without golf, after all we are talking about the Mid-west here? I have played in many courses around town, but my favorite (for comedic value) was this little 9-hole course in Greenfield. It was reconverted from farmland and the owners didn't even made an attempt to make it look otherwise. The water hazard was a real stream running by the course that was the original irrigation channel. I developed a bee allergy there after being stung twice by two different bees on 2 consecutive visits. I don't think anyone ever played there except the foursome that I was part of, but it was good to go during a long lunch break and hit some balls even if the potential price was a horrible death from a bee stingJ

Outside Indy, there is a University called Ball State University (They don't try too hard. What were the rejected alternative names, I wonder.) Closer still, Kokomo is famous for the world's largest steer and tree stump. Need I say more? On the way to Muncie, just as you cross the Indianapolis city line, there is a creek called Nameless creek.

If it were Bombay, they would have first called it Hornby Creek. Then after Independence, they would have renamed it A. K. Jaiswal Creek. Then Shiv Sena would have called it something like Mahatma Shri Jytoiba Thunde Visarjan Creek (what is the Marathi word for Creek, anyone?) There might have at least three fights over the name, at least one of which would have included a protracted legal battle between the relatives of Messers Jaiswal and Thunde. Mid-day would have posted pictures of political leaders visiting the creek to support “local residents” in their fight for the right “historical” name.

What more can I say about a city that doesn't even bother to name a creek?

Bombay, a city retold

Garcia de Orta was a Jew with Portuguese blood and Spanish education. Forcibly converted to Christianity, he ended up in Bombay and built a nice handsome house with a garden in the front. Little did he know that his house was to be the center of one of the largest cities in the world. The old town hall itself was built at the site of this first pucca house in South Bombay. This piece of land which saw grazing, inquisitions, lynching, military parades, garbage dumping, idle loitering and the birth of the oldest stock exchange in Asia was the spot from where I started my Saturday morning walks. In my teens, I used to walk all the way from the Asiatic Library to Churchgate station. This is where the whole history of the city began. All the way from a private house in front of grazing lands for goats, it evolved to the town hall with a parade ground in front and later to the Asiatic Library with the Fort Common laid out in the front. It used to be called Elphinston Circle, named after a former Governor of Bombay. Now it is renamed to Horniman Circle to honor Benjamin Horniman, a newspaper editor who championed India's cause for freedom. (Any rumors that the Horniman circle is named after the horny men who loiter in its premises, of course is pure speculation and wishful thinking.)

The slave auctions in Bombay also happened at the same Parade Grounds. Slaves from Africa were brought down from the ships and auctioned off to wealthy people. These black slaves used to camp outside the city walls near what is Nariman Point today. After they were freed, they joined the native population and interbred. If you look at “East Indians” (Christian fishermen who originate from the Bombay islands as opposed to those who migrated from Goa) even today, you can see African features in some of them.

More recently, Horniman circle also served as the birthplace of Asia's first stock exchange. The trades were carried out under the banyan tree that still stands inside the Horniman circle . Of course BSE moved out from under the tree to multiple dwellings since then, eventually settling into its current posh location on Dalal street. History of love, domesticity, intrigue, conflict, terror, murder, slavery and subterfuge! How can you not love a place like that?

In November, when the heat becomes more bearable, sitting on the steps of Asiatic library with a book was actually very calming. There were always an assortment of humans idling on its steps; young couples who pretended to study by scattering books and journals about them, homeless men and women, retired people with serious and sad faces, people who can't decide whether to go inside the building or not all sat on its steps with equal sense of ownership. But I don't think I ever saw many tourists there; there are no major markers that announced to the world that this was the real focal point of historical Bombay.

If you walk from Horniman Circle towards Churchgate station and if you know where to look, you will see the first church in Bombay which still retains its structure, St. Thomas Church. The station gets its name from the church and even though, it is really far from the station, the Fort Gate demarcating the end of the city at what became Flora Fountain was called the Church Gate. The gate is gone and so is the fort, but the names lives on! Inside the church, you can actually see how the British lived if you care to step in quietly and spend some time reading everything on the walls and the floors. There is never anyone around. I found the church to be one of the last vestiges of calm in South Bombay where silence is much priced because it is in such short supply. On your way, you pass Akbarallys, which used to be an institution in Bombay.

Flora fountain is a handsome structure. Unfortunately, it is completely over shadowed by tasteless and random Indianization that involved renaming, installing a pointless memorial just so it can be renamed Hutatma Chowk, a name that has absolutely no bearing on the history of Bombay. The tilework on the floor of the square is appalling and reminiscent of a pay-for-use toilet. Before beautification, (Beautification: noun, To render a historic building ugly in Maharashtra by use of tasteless painting and tiling) it was a pretty area. Diagonally across from Flora Fountain is the High Court.

Once in a while, in the afternoons when the court was in session and I had free time from school, I used to go to the Court to listen to the arguments in criminal cases. I loved Justice Lentin's court. He was clever, erudite and funny and had a great insight into all things. Unfortunately, I can't say that about all the judges. Some had poor deportment and poorer language skills. If you could walk around freely in the building today, you will see some interesting architectural features and a somewhat confusing sculpture of justice, clearly inspired by Indian humor.

As an aside, the original court was in the Admiralty Building on Apollo street (now called Bombay Samachar Marg) and the building still stands.

Anyway, walking down from Flora Fountain to Churchgate station, one passes the Post and Telegraph building. This was the ONLY public place in all of Bombay from where one could make an ISD call. In the 80's, the lobby was packed at night with tourists cramming into its stuffy portals to call home at half-rate.

Cross the street, and on your right is one of the last two functioning wells in south Bombay. Every other well (including one outside the high court) have been shut. I once traveled from Colaba to Malad, mapping every well in the city with an Iranian Hydrologist for his thesis. Ask me about hunting for stonage implements in the TIFR campus and in Malad, both well-known Neolithic sites. The blogger has very strange interests, but we already know that.

On Saturday mornings, this place would be quiet and devoid of the hustle and bustle of weekdays. You can actually see the statues on the sides of the road. You cross into Churchgate station via the underground crossing and enter its dark and damp lobby. There used to be a newspaper vendor inside the station. This was the only place that sold The Telegraph and The Statesman. I used to buy both, just to make sure. This was when M. J. Akbar used to edit The Telegraph. The station canteen was a sorry affair with places just to stand and eat. But the hot food was good and hygienic since hot vadas literally sold like hot cakesJ

I guess all this is what makes me a Bombayite (and never a Mumbaikar, incidentally.) I know a lot of cities pretty well enough to navigate around them, and I can tell you where the best sushi is in most of them. But with Bombay, I knew the secrets, history, nooks and crannies, and I connected with it. In spite of the nitwits that rule the city trying their ignorant best to erase the history of this glorious city and replace it with a nonsensical fictional historiography of jumbled Maharashtrian names and monuments, a palimpsest of its real story still remains, if you know where to look. In your mind's eye, you can subtract the crowds and all the ugliness beautification has created and see it for what it was and will be, an amazing city of great diversity designed by the British, modified by the rich Parsis and Gujaratis and built with the toil of Indians. Some of the history is really hidden behind the names (Charni Road, Marine Lines, Esplanade, Colaba Causeway and Pydhonie are all names derived thus.) By the way, if you have some pull with the BEST, ask them show you their archives. I have had the great fortune of spending hours in the archives of BEST, Times of India and other places sifting through thousands of historic photographs.

Bombay didn't just happen. It is not just its food (Cannon and Sardar's for Pav Bhaji, Kayani's and Bastani's for Irani cafes for example) and ever changing and ever vibrant life that makes it a special place. It is also its history, the secrets and the stories.

We have a responsibility to tell them and retell them. Otherwise the fake historiography of jingoistic ignorants will erase it from the consciousness of its denizens forever.

So, does anyone know which railway platform was the location of the original Mumbadevi temple that (for no apparent reason) gave the city its new name?