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.

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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
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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.