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.