Bullet Balasubrahmaniam sat up in his seat and exhaled deeply. he had this habit of exhaling deeply whenever a deep thought occurred to him. And the thought that occurred to him was indeed heavy. His maroon safari suit was drenched with sweat and the only reason you could not see this was because Bullet sat in the dark even though it was 8 PM and everyone else had gone home. His entire career flashed before him as he contemplated his next move.
Bullet had sailed through his life mostly on his intelligence, his complete and utter lack of initiative and his unwillingness to confront higher-ups on any issues material to his job. From 1982 onwards, when he joined the IAS, Bullet was known as a "loyal" servant in the academy for his unwavering support for the official line. He could be trusted and counted on to do the worst for the Government if that was needed.
"Do the needful," the high-ups would say. And it would be done.
"For your perusal," the notes would say. And the notes were perused.
And this is the thanks I get, he thought bitterly.
It all had started innocently enough. The prime minister had a strange and hurriedly concocted idea to standardize the scripts of all Indian languages. He got this idea on an official trip to Poland to study the effects of running a country with a twin. PM was seriously considering cloning himself so he could also be President.
Instead he came back with an idea for standardization of scripts. First, everyone secretly laughed at it. Then when it would not go away, they tried to buy it with feasibility studies and judicial commissions. That did not work either.
Then came the deadly weapon. Mandal was commissioned to write a report on minority languages and language reservations. It was deemed that 40% to 60% of all the letters in the alphabet needed to reserved for the exclusive use of minorities. This was a sure fire way to stop such nonsense.
But the prime minister would have none of that. He just added 40% more letters to the alphabet representing clicking sounds and Arabic-sounding gutturals and added them to the reservation quota. And Bullet was tapped on the shoulder to start the implementation. Bullet felt the tap quite sharply, but there was nothing he could do. It was that or the career-dead-end at Sreeramperumpadoor as the assistant special offer of the reconstruction office. He had to consider the schooling needs of his children.
So Bullet consented.
That is how my friends, the beginning of the end of the career of Bullet Balasubrahmaniam began.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Bat Out of Hell
I didn't get back from my last trip until very late last night. So, exhausted, I missed the alarm for this morning and got up at 5:40 AM. I had an international flight at 6:35 to catch with luggage to check.
The solution: skip the morning shave and shower routine and drive like a bat out of hell and hope I make it. Fortunately it is early morning and the traffic is light. So I make it to the airport at 6:05 AM.
Mind you, the flight leaves at 6:35. And they are already boarding when I got to the counter. Long story short, I made it to the flight. (Kids, don't try this at home. Your uncle Blogger practically lives at the airport so they cut him some slack.)
So the last thing I wanted, in this unshaven and unshowed state, was to be seen.
With my luck, the CEO of the company comes in and sits next to me.
There goes my elevator speech.
Fortunately my layover in Frankfurt is long enough for me to go to the lounge and take a shower and shave.
Now shaved and showered, I wait for my onward flight.
The solution: skip the morning shave and shower routine and drive like a bat out of hell and hope I make it. Fortunately it is early morning and the traffic is light. So I make it to the airport at 6:05 AM.
Mind you, the flight leaves at 6:35. And they are already boarding when I got to the counter. Long story short, I made it to the flight. (Kids, don't try this at home. Your uncle Blogger practically lives at the airport so they cut him some slack.)
So the last thing I wanted, in this unshaven and unshowed state, was to be seen.
With my luck, the CEO of the company comes in and sits next to me.
There goes my elevator speech.
Fortunately my layover in Frankfurt is long enough for me to go to the lounge and take a shower and shave.
Now shaved and showered, I wait for my onward flight.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Death becomes the postman
The house remained dark for most of the day. The matriarchs lounged in white clothes, some new and crisp and others yellowing past their prime, waiting for death to consume them. Of course, the long interlude between the present and the final state were consumed by unspoken stories and unshared gossip as always, shared meals and rare feasts and most importantly by the arduous wait for the time to pass.
The fact that time refused to pass was a source of great tension between them and the bearer of all time, the postman.
The postman came by only when there were letters. The fact that his visits were rare did not preclude the inhabitants from waiting for him and to calibrate their internal clocks by his arrival. He always passed by the house exactly at half past eleven on all working days when post was delivered. He passed without noise on all days in bicycle when he had no deliveries for them. On other days, he stopped his cycle and rang the bell twice. He was the one thing that made time move in the house.
He was a lanky dark fellow with severe smallpox scars on his face. He was polite without being given to frivolous conversation. The weight of being a central government servant and thus its representative to such gatherings hung upon him like a heavy shroud.
At the same time he was careful to linger around long enough on days when the inhabitants received a money-order from a far-living child for it was customary for them to thank him with a token appreciation from the proceedings that they were fortunate enough to inherit because of him. It never occurred to the matriarchs or the postman that he was just an agent in the middle and his presence in the discharge of this function was a routine and replaceable one.
Unlike the other visitors, the postman was the written record keeper bringing to them actual records of events and memories that could be held and read out without adding or subtracting to them with ambiguities. The matriarchs, not satisfied with this, sometimes read meanings into the pauses or cancelled out words. For fear of this, nobody ever dare to cancel a word out when they wrote letters.
On Sundays, when there was no postal deliveries, time stood still around the house. As time moved slowly outside the universe of the big house, the sun rose and set around them without bothering the upset the pretence of this timelessness. The matriarchs rose when they pleased and ambulated along without precision and languid aimlessness until mere exhaustion and ennui claimed their purpose bidding them to repose.
This arrangement worked well for them. They contemplated the endless death for six days and on the seventh, they stopped time altogether and rested.
Every now and then, they will let out a sigh and remember one amongst them who had already died and say, "lucky cow."
Then they went back into their dark corners and rested again. In the dark corners, they shared their space with apparitions of death and the postman. In their feverish dreams, the postman merged with death creating a three-dimentional form that cajoled them into living. They rejected such nonsense outright and preferred to wallow in their morbid fantasies.
(From the novel I am forever writing)
The fact that time refused to pass was a source of great tension between them and the bearer of all time, the postman.
The postman came by only when there were letters. The fact that his visits were rare did not preclude the inhabitants from waiting for him and to calibrate their internal clocks by his arrival. He always passed by the house exactly at half past eleven on all working days when post was delivered. He passed without noise on all days in bicycle when he had no deliveries for them. On other days, he stopped his cycle and rang the bell twice. He was the one thing that made time move in the house.
He was a lanky dark fellow with severe smallpox scars on his face. He was polite without being given to frivolous conversation. The weight of being a central government servant and thus its representative to such gatherings hung upon him like a heavy shroud.
At the same time he was careful to linger around long enough on days when the inhabitants received a money-order from a far-living child for it was customary for them to thank him with a token appreciation from the proceedings that they were fortunate enough to inherit because of him. It never occurred to the matriarchs or the postman that he was just an agent in the middle and his presence in the discharge of this function was a routine and replaceable one.
Unlike the other visitors, the postman was the written record keeper bringing to them actual records of events and memories that could be held and read out without adding or subtracting to them with ambiguities. The matriarchs, not satisfied with this, sometimes read meanings into the pauses or cancelled out words. For fear of this, nobody ever dare to cancel a word out when they wrote letters.
On Sundays, when there was no postal deliveries, time stood still around the house. As time moved slowly outside the universe of the big house, the sun rose and set around them without bothering the upset the pretence of this timelessness. The matriarchs rose when they pleased and ambulated along without precision and languid aimlessness until mere exhaustion and ennui claimed their purpose bidding them to repose.
This arrangement worked well for them. They contemplated the endless death for six days and on the seventh, they stopped time altogether and rested.
Every now and then, they will let out a sigh and remember one amongst them who had already died and say, "lucky cow."
Then they went back into their dark corners and rested again. In the dark corners, they shared their space with apparitions of death and the postman. In their feverish dreams, the postman merged with death creating a three-dimentional form that cajoled them into living. They rejected such nonsense outright and preferred to wallow in their morbid fantasies.
(From the novel I am forever writing)
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Problem Solver
Blogger:
Hello, good to see you. I have some new ideas about linguistic evolution. Have you noticed how complex it to communicate with each other in India once we leave the rarified environs of the cities? Of course, you have. First hurdle in reducing this complexity is the existence of all these bloody scripts for all the Indian languages. I wish we could standardize the scripts. In a country where over 50% of the population is functionally illeterate, script standardization is a great idea. Throw away all these 15 different scripts and pick Devnagari or Roman script for all Indian languages. Besides, most of the South Indian scripts are woefully inadequate to handle borrowed words. Look at the way Mallus go around saying nonsense like "I went to the soo to see a sebra" or "the kyoon of England is a kyuck witted lady." It is easier to standardize northern languages since they already use standard Devnagari or a variation of it. Elementally, we have more similarilities than differences among all South-Indian languages. Mostly, the grammatic rules are similar, tense deployment order is the same, 90% of words have descended from Prakrut and Proto-dravidian. So why not also get a single script to go with it?
You, the reader:
Bloggerji, good idea but try getting one billion people to agree on that.
Blogger:
But you don't need one billion to agree. Let's look at the math. First of all, exclude the 60% illeterates. It makes no difference to them. It is all Greek to them, no pun. So, that leaves 400 million out of that 43% already know Devnagari script.. and perhaps 20% or so know Roman. So if you take an imperfect union.. 53% of the 400 million already know the replacement script. The actual number is far higher because excpt for TN all literates in India study Devnagari. That leaves you with some 197 million. Now eliminate very old and very young from this. Very young have no voting rights and can be retrained. Very old have no stake in this matter. So, if you do a simple breakdown of the demographics and using a forward correction (Since percentage literacy improves as population gets younger), we eliminate another 100 million. So we really only have 97 million to content with.
You, the reader:
Ninety-Seven million is a very large number, my friend.
Blogger:
Not so fast. Decisions are made by elected representatives and not by people directly. Approximately, each MP represents about 2.3 million people, so you divide the 97 million with 2.2, and what do you get?
You, the reader (now exhaused):
Now he is asking questions!
Blogger:
You get about 44 MPs. So to change the scripts, we need a swing vote of 44 fucking MPs. Is that so difficult?
You, the reader:
You bet.
Blogger:
Then elect MPs who are more amenable to the change. Change requires political will. This is where my Nationalist Draconian Party of Planetary Love (NDPPL) comes in.
You, the reader (confused):
You have a political party now?
Blogger:
You bet. We run on a platform of many draconian things that are good for you. Our party flag will feature broccoli.
You, the reader:
And a bit of spinach thrown in for design value surely.
Blogger:
Are you with us?
You, the reader:
(silence)
Blogger:
Because either you are with us or against us. Together we can form the coalition of the willing.
You, the reader:
Ouch.
Blogger:
We will invade the hearts of people, we will be greeted as liberators from the tyranny of myriad scripts.
You, the reader:
The axis of terror or some such thing?
Blogger:
Of course. Represented by all the Sahitya Academy types. There will be a show trial...
You, the reader (sarcastically):
Yeah I see them supporting your cause.
Blogger:
I will proclaim "mission accomplished" from the top of a typewriter.
You, the reader (hopefully):
Good. So then we will finish it and go home, right?
Blogger:
No. Then the war will drag on as the complexity of traslating the million billion existing documents becomes a nighmare.
You, the reader:
*shudder*
Blogger:
If anyone disagrees, I will leak out the identity of their wives' secret life as government stenographers.
You, the reader:
There is no shame in that, so what if they are stenos, they have done our work proudly, holding head high and all that.
Blogger:
Eactly. So there will be an outrage. It will be a scandal. I will have someone with an appropriate nickname of some lightly motorized vehicle in my office standing ready to take the blame for it. May be Moped Mehtaor Rajdoot Singh... How about Autorikshaw Apte?
You, the reader:
Bullet ...
Blogger:
Voila! Bullet Balasubrahmanian. It has a ring to it. Belongs to IAS, 1982 cadre from Tamil Nadu.
You, the reader:
Bullet Bala pyaar se.
Blogger:
He wears thick glasses and has a serious credible face. See, nothing is impossible.
You, the reader:
And a healthy paunch.
Blogger:
Under that light brown safari suit. Matches the official white ambassador car. Now I wish I hadn't given up my Indian passport... Uski hi kamee hai varna. I would be climbing the ladder in my perfectly creased and starched ministerial white.
You, the reader(relieved):
Yup. No chance of being an MP now.
Blogger:
MP bane mera naukar... mujhe to seedhe Pradhan matri ban-na hai.
At which point, you run away and politely suggest that I ask my doctor for an increase in dosage of my psychiatric medication.
Hello, good to see you. I have some new ideas about linguistic evolution. Have you noticed how complex it to communicate with each other in India once we leave the rarified environs of the cities? Of course, you have. First hurdle in reducing this complexity is the existence of all these bloody scripts for all the Indian languages. I wish we could standardize the scripts. In a country where over 50% of the population is functionally illeterate, script standardization is a great idea. Throw away all these 15 different scripts and pick Devnagari or Roman script for all Indian languages. Besides, most of the South Indian scripts are woefully inadequate to handle borrowed words. Look at the way Mallus go around saying nonsense like "I went to the soo to see a sebra" or "the kyoon of England is a kyuck witted lady." It is easier to standardize northern languages since they already use standard Devnagari or a variation of it. Elementally, we have more similarilities than differences among all South-Indian languages. Mostly, the grammatic rules are similar, tense deployment order is the same, 90% of words have descended from Prakrut and Proto-dravidian. So why not also get a single script to go with it?
You, the reader:
Bloggerji, good idea but try getting one billion people to agree on that.
Blogger:
But you don't need one billion to agree. Let's look at the math. First of all, exclude the 60% illeterates. It makes no difference to them. It is all Greek to them, no pun. So, that leaves 400 million out of that 43% already know Devnagari script.. and perhaps 20% or so know Roman. So if you take an imperfect union.. 53% of the 400 million already know the replacement script. The actual number is far higher because excpt for TN all literates in India study Devnagari. That leaves you with some 197 million. Now eliminate very old and very young from this. Very young have no voting rights and can be retrained. Very old have no stake in this matter. So, if you do a simple breakdown of the demographics and using a forward correction (Since percentage literacy improves as population gets younger), we eliminate another 100 million. So we really only have 97 million to content with.
You, the reader:
Ninety-Seven million is a very large number, my friend.
Blogger:
Not so fast. Decisions are made by elected representatives and not by people directly. Approximately, each MP represents about 2.3 million people, so you divide the 97 million with 2.2, and what do you get?
You, the reader (now exhaused):
Now he is asking questions!
Blogger:
You get about 44 MPs. So to change the scripts, we need a swing vote of 44 fucking MPs. Is that so difficult?
You, the reader:
You bet.
Blogger:
Then elect MPs who are more amenable to the change. Change requires political will. This is where my Nationalist Draconian Party of Planetary Love (NDPPL) comes in.
You, the reader (confused):
You have a political party now?
Blogger:
You bet. We run on a platform of many draconian things that are good for you. Our party flag will feature broccoli.
You, the reader:
And a bit of spinach thrown in for design value surely.
Blogger:
Are you with us?
You, the reader:
(silence)
Blogger:
Because either you are with us or against us. Together we can form the coalition of the willing.
You, the reader:
Ouch.
Blogger:
We will invade the hearts of people, we will be greeted as liberators from the tyranny of myriad scripts.
You, the reader:
The axis of terror or some such thing?
Blogger:
Of course. Represented by all the Sahitya Academy types. There will be a show trial...
You, the reader (sarcastically):
Yeah I see them supporting your cause.
Blogger:
I will proclaim "mission accomplished" from the top of a typewriter.
You, the reader (hopefully):
Good. So then we will finish it and go home, right?
Blogger:
No. Then the war will drag on as the complexity of traslating the million billion existing documents becomes a nighmare.
You, the reader:
*shudder*
Blogger:
If anyone disagrees, I will leak out the identity of their wives' secret life as government stenographers.
You, the reader:
There is no shame in that, so what if they are stenos, they have done our work proudly, holding head high and all that.
Blogger:
Eactly. So there will be an outrage. It will be a scandal. I will have someone with an appropriate nickname of some lightly motorized vehicle in my office standing ready to take the blame for it. May be Moped Mehtaor Rajdoot Singh... How about Autorikshaw Apte?
You, the reader:
Bullet ...
Blogger:
Voila! Bullet Balasubrahmanian. It has a ring to it. Belongs to IAS, 1982 cadre from Tamil Nadu.
You, the reader:
Bullet Bala pyaar se.
Blogger:
He wears thick glasses and has a serious credible face. See, nothing is impossible.
You, the reader:
And a healthy paunch.
Blogger:
Under that light brown safari suit. Matches the official white ambassador car. Now I wish I hadn't given up my Indian passport... Uski hi kamee hai varna. I would be climbing the ladder in my perfectly creased and starched ministerial white.
You, the reader(relieved):
Yup. No chance of being an MP now.
Blogger:
MP bane mera naukar... mujhe to seedhe Pradhan matri ban-na hai.
At which point, you run away and politely suggest that I ask my doctor for an increase in dosage of my psychiatric medication.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Mulund Musical Fountain
In 1985, with much local fanfare, a musical fountain was inaugurated in a neighborhood park in Mulund East in Bombay.
Mulund in those days was the last outpost suburb in Bombay in the Central line. It was a sleepy little place that was busy yet not hip. Mulund East was cut-off from the West by the train track except for one precarious level crossing and one pipe lia narrow subterranean connector. Neither of these were reliable or convenient, so the eastern part of town evolved differently from the western part. I can't remember if there was a connector to the Eastern Expressway or not. There might have been, but it was not much used.
I have been to Mulund a few times in those days. My friend Sree lived there in the East and occasionally, on Saturdays, I would trudge up all the way from the city to Mulund to visit him. The musical fountain, it so happens, opened in his precise neighborhood.
He was quite excited about it. For some reason, this was a remarkable achievement for a neighborhood that was quite sleepy and solidly middle-class. They managed to cut through a million yards of bureaucratic red tape to actually construct a usable public park and plant a cheesy but large water fountain in the middle of it. In the evenings, as all the retirees and young children descended on the park, the fountain would come alive with music and primary color lighting. It elevated the neighborhood from solidly middle-class to solidly-middle-class with water fountain.
But I still remember the visit to the water fountain park. One Saturday, I visited Sree and he excitedly took me to the park and showed me around. At 5:00 the lights and funny music came on. People relaxed around it and older men took their constitutional walks around it. It was quite lively.
This memory has stuck with through all these years. If you ask me about the most important fountain in Bombay, I will still tell you about Flora Fountain. But for the neighborhood pride, this little local fountain still retains its top place in my heart. I have walked past many wonderful water fountains around the world. Some of them were very impressive with wonderful histories and remarkable architecture. But may be it is the fact that I connected with the locality and the story, this is the one fountain I like to remember.
Perhaps there is a lesson in this. It is not the most talented or the beautiful or the most impressive things or people that you care about the most, it is those who we connect with in a more natural level. I admire the magic of the former, but I love the latter more even though I know how the rabit got into the hat in the first place.
I don't know if this fountain and the park still exist in Mulund East. I have been to Mulund West a few times in the last few years, but the place is scarcely recognizable. The industrial compounds of yesteryear have been razed and replaced with a series of malls. The well-paying jobs in those factories were replaced with fickle mall employment. But people seem to be happy and the town looks more upmarket. I don't know anyone in Mulund anymore and there have been no reasons to go back to Mulund East.
Too many lessons. Too little time.
Mulund in those days was the last outpost suburb in Bombay in the Central line. It was a sleepy little place that was busy yet not hip. Mulund East was cut-off from the West by the train track except for one precarious level crossing and one pipe lia narrow subterranean connector. Neither of these were reliable or convenient, so the eastern part of town evolved differently from the western part. I can't remember if there was a connector to the Eastern Expressway or not. There might have been, but it was not much used.
I have been to Mulund a few times in those days. My friend Sree lived there in the East and occasionally, on Saturdays, I would trudge up all the way from the city to Mulund to visit him. The musical fountain, it so happens, opened in his precise neighborhood.
He was quite excited about it. For some reason, this was a remarkable achievement for a neighborhood that was quite sleepy and solidly middle-class. They managed to cut through a million yards of bureaucratic red tape to actually construct a usable public park and plant a cheesy but large water fountain in the middle of it. In the evenings, as all the retirees and young children descended on the park, the fountain would come alive with music and primary color lighting. It elevated the neighborhood from solidly middle-class to solidly-middle-class with water fountain.
But I still remember the visit to the water fountain park. One Saturday, I visited Sree and he excitedly took me to the park and showed me around. At 5:00 the lights and funny music came on. People relaxed around it and older men took their constitutional walks around it. It was quite lively.
This memory has stuck with through all these years. If you ask me about the most important fountain in Bombay, I will still tell you about Flora Fountain. But for the neighborhood pride, this little local fountain still retains its top place in my heart. I have walked past many wonderful water fountains around the world. Some of them were very impressive with wonderful histories and remarkable architecture. But may be it is the fact that I connected with the locality and the story, this is the one fountain I like to remember.
Perhaps there is a lesson in this. It is not the most talented or the beautiful or the most impressive things or people that you care about the most, it is those who we connect with in a more natural level. I admire the magic of the former, but I love the latter more even though I know how the rabit got into the hat in the first place.
I don't know if this fountain and the park still exist in Mulund East. I have been to Mulund West a few times in the last few years, but the place is scarcely recognizable. The industrial compounds of yesteryear have been razed and replaced with a series of malls. The well-paying jobs in those factories were replaced with fickle mall employment. But people seem to be happy and the town looks more upmarket. I don't know anyone in Mulund anymore and there have been no reasons to go back to Mulund East.
Too many lessons. Too little time.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Mañana.... Mañana
It is one of those days.
All through winter, we had no snow here all through winter and now it comes with no bloody apologies. Like it has been here all through winter, sneaking in through the backdoor so the weatherman wouldn't notice. All of Northern Europe is caught in a snowstorm as well. Looks like seasons have shifted. Spring is now winter and summer is spring. What do I care? it is all the same to me. Far-East is balmy, Northern US is still cold and Europe has funny weather.
Al Gore, are you listening?
But I am not here to talk about the weather. I finally have a reprieve from travel for 2 days or so. This is very good news. Hopefully, if the day is not entirely crazy, I will actually call people and ketchup! May be, by then, this strange stress that i am wearing like a tight-fitting vest will fall off and I will be in eternal bliss. Good things may happen.
I have not been that regular with the blog. Or with pretty much anything. That is what happens with all this running around the planet situation. I was recently in a country and the luggage did not arrive when i did. Finally a day after I landed back home, I was able to go to the airport and pick up my suitcase. Airlines are such dahlings, aren't they?
I was scheduled to be in Napa Valley end of this month drinking some wine and visiting my little nephew before heading off to Singapore. Instead I am in Rome and then off to Argentina. What the hell is wrong with this world?
Mañana.... mañana
All through winter, we had no snow here all through winter and now it comes with no bloody apologies. Like it has been here all through winter, sneaking in through the backdoor so the weatherman wouldn't notice. All of Northern Europe is caught in a snowstorm as well. Looks like seasons have shifted. Spring is now winter and summer is spring. What do I care? it is all the same to me. Far-East is balmy, Northern US is still cold and Europe has funny weather.
Al Gore, are you listening?
But I am not here to talk about the weather. I finally have a reprieve from travel for 2 days or so. This is very good news. Hopefully, if the day is not entirely crazy, I will actually call people and ketchup! May be, by then, this strange stress that i am wearing like a tight-fitting vest will fall off and I will be in eternal bliss. Good things may happen.
I have not been that regular with the blog. Or with pretty much anything. That is what happens with all this running around the planet situation. I was recently in a country and the luggage did not arrive when i did. Finally a day after I landed back home, I was able to go to the airport and pick up my suitcase. Airlines are such dahlings, aren't they?
I was scheduled to be in Napa Valley end of this month drinking some wine and visiting my little nephew before heading off to Singapore. Instead I am in Rome and then off to Argentina. What the hell is wrong with this world?
Mañana.... mañana
Europe's Uncle Tony
(Written on a plane to far east. I had nothing better to do.)
Everyone has an uncle Tony that they are not proud of, especially if you live in the East coast. You know him, he lives somewhere in Jersey, wears too much gold and laughs and talks a little too loud. His friends are unsavory types and some of them “go away” for no reason. Most of them have done time or will do so. They have this “either you are with us or you are against us” attitude.
You hate inviting uncle Tony to your parties. He says stupid things and burps loudly. Moreover, in polite company, his jokes are crude and racist. Nobody is supposed to talk about what he does for a living and in his world, things fall off trucks on the Turnpike all the time. He is quite an embarrassment to the family.
On the other hand, you are secretly glad he is around because he is your muscle. He “takes care” of things for you, after all Tony loves his family. Just a phone call and the pesky town inspector learns to look the other way about your illegal fence or the town hall expedites your permit. The neighbor who crossed paths with you one too many times meets with an unfortunate accident involving a baseball bat and a broken knee. All said, you know deep in your heart that you are better off with him around because he looks out for you, You just have to pretend he is just an annoyance and keep you away from your cultured friends and social gatherings. There are plenty of family barbecues in South Jersey where you will run into him anyway.
And secretly, you are glad he says those racist and sexist things you wish you bad the guts to say. He is the spokesperson for your naughty inner child.
So why all this rumination about uncle Tony?
Because I think America I Europe’s uncle Tony. Like uncle Tony, Uncle Sam keeps company with many unsavory figures in the third world who oppress their people and meet most of the characteristics of Tony’s friends. People who disagree with Uncle Sam also meet with unfortunate accidents (or get killed in carpet bombing).
I could go on. But you catch my drift. I knew you will, after all you are very smart (Yes, I am talking to you. Hey where are you going? Come back…)
But what irritates me is the self-righteous pompous attitude of Europe. As if, deep in their heart, they are not thankful for all the horrors of uncle Sam. Remember, these same critters who protest America so much are also member of NATO. They are so opposed to nuclear ambitions of other countries (and say non-nuclear) because America has pledged through NATO to defend them.
In other words, they are glad America is generally doing the dirty work for them. Getting them cheap oil, keeping the poor countries in line, keeping third world countries from UN security council permanent seats, discriminating against blanket populations in the name of “war on terror” and saying all those awful things that they wish I had the guts to say.
Further more, they consume American movies voraciously, listen to American music and when they get a chance sit up all night and play quarter slot machines in Vegas. McDonald's is doing brisk business in France and rest of Europe (everywhere except UK) but they have the American fast food culture.
It would be interesting to see how Europe keeps their act up without NATO and the US doing their dirty work for them. Bloody hypocrites.
Everyone has an uncle Tony that they are not proud of, especially if you live in the East coast. You know him, he lives somewhere in Jersey, wears too much gold and laughs and talks a little too loud. His friends are unsavory types and some of them “go away” for no reason. Most of them have done time or will do so. They have this “either you are with us or you are against us” attitude.
You hate inviting uncle Tony to your parties. He says stupid things and burps loudly. Moreover, in polite company, his jokes are crude and racist. Nobody is supposed to talk about what he does for a living and in his world, things fall off trucks on the Turnpike all the time. He is quite an embarrassment to the family.
On the other hand, you are secretly glad he is around because he is your muscle. He “takes care” of things for you, after all Tony loves his family. Just a phone call and the pesky town inspector learns to look the other way about your illegal fence or the town hall expedites your permit. The neighbor who crossed paths with you one too many times meets with an unfortunate accident involving a baseball bat and a broken knee. All said, you know deep in your heart that you are better off with him around because he looks out for you, You just have to pretend he is just an annoyance and keep you away from your cultured friends and social gatherings. There are plenty of family barbecues in South Jersey where you will run into him anyway.
And secretly, you are glad he says those racist and sexist things you wish you bad the guts to say. He is the spokesperson for your naughty inner child.
So why all this rumination about uncle Tony?
Because I think America I Europe’s uncle Tony. Like uncle Tony, Uncle Sam keeps company with many unsavory figures in the third world who oppress their people and meet most of the characteristics of Tony’s friends. People who disagree with Uncle Sam also meet with unfortunate accidents (or get killed in carpet bombing).
I could go on. But you catch my drift. I knew you will, after all you are very smart (Yes, I am talking to you. Hey where are you going? Come back…)
But what irritates me is the self-righteous pompous attitude of Europe. As if, deep in their heart, they are not thankful for all the horrors of uncle Sam. Remember, these same critters who protest America so much are also member of NATO. They are so opposed to nuclear ambitions of other countries (and say non-nuclear) because America has pledged through NATO to defend them.
In other words, they are glad America is generally doing the dirty work for them. Getting them cheap oil, keeping the poor countries in line, keeping third world countries from UN security council permanent seats, discriminating against blanket populations in the name of “war on terror” and saying all those awful things that they wish I had the guts to say.
Further more, they consume American movies voraciously, listen to American music and when they get a chance sit up all night and play quarter slot machines in Vegas. McDonald's is doing brisk business in France and rest of Europe (everywhere except UK) but they have the American fast food culture.
It would be interesting to see how Europe keeps their act up without NATO and the US doing their dirty work for them. Bloody hypocrites.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Gedanken von einem Flughafen
I write this from an airport somewhere. It has been weeks since my last post. I haven not had much to write. Nothing has changed. I am still nursing my annoying illness while continuing to travel. Sometimes in this process, I manage a little bit of rest, most times I dont. I hear the constant noise of coffee cups behind me and it annoys me. A banker is speaking rapidly with another man; a silly man is hiding his face behind a newspaper. I would much rather stay lost in thought.
There have been frantic visits to cities I have not visited in a while. There have been lost pieces of luggage; there have been silly fights, many frantic trips, transitions, and sometimes, there is hope that one could stay longer.
I shop listlessly for a suit when the luggage is lost so I can make it to my meeting. I am generally happy even though the lost luggage number directs me to an Indian call center where `Sam` is singularly unhelpful. He "authorizes" USD 50 for incidentals which does not even cover the cost of a tie. But I am generally in good spirits. I remember that I have been in this mall before. Many times. This time it is different.
Sometimes when you relocate an experience to another city, things appear very different. In spite of all my jokes, I acknowledge how polite people are here. They laugh a lot easier unlike in America or Europe. They are more friendly.
I get tired very easily these days. I end up taking more naps. I ought to see a doctor but I am in four different countries in the next four days. I know it is a silly excuse, but that is how things are. My body needs rest. I hope in May, if not April, I can take a week off and go some place where I can recuperate fully.
Then, perhaps, I can write again.
There have been frantic visits to cities I have not visited in a while. There have been lost pieces of luggage; there have been silly fights, many frantic trips, transitions, and sometimes, there is hope that one could stay longer.
I shop listlessly for a suit when the luggage is lost so I can make it to my meeting. I am generally happy even though the lost luggage number directs me to an Indian call center where `Sam` is singularly unhelpful. He "authorizes" USD 50 for incidentals which does not even cover the cost of a tie. But I am generally in good spirits. I remember that I have been in this mall before. Many times. This time it is different.
Sometimes when you relocate an experience to another city, things appear very different. In spite of all my jokes, I acknowledge how polite people are here. They laugh a lot easier unlike in America or Europe. They are more friendly.
I get tired very easily these days. I end up taking more naps. I ought to see a doctor but I am in four different countries in the next four days. I know it is a silly excuse, but that is how things are. My body needs rest. I hope in May, if not April, I can take a week off and go some place where I can recuperate fully.
Then, perhaps, I can write again.
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