Inside the Brazen Head

What If 2

2010-07-04T00:35:00.003+02:00

Back in 2007, I wrote a post caled What If about a prediction from an astrologer about my death at Fourty-Two in an air crash.

I am Fourty-Two.

And still flying every other week.

It will be interesting to see if the astrologer was right.

It is a tricky situation. I wouldn't know. But you might.

Remembering Eyyafyatlayokudl

2010-07-04T00:08:00.004+02:00

When Eyyafyatlayokudl erupted I was on the way to Budapest, Hungary. I wasn't particularly following the news of the eruption because it didn't matter that much to me. It was a rainy morning in Budapest and the lovely city looked less than occupied. Of all the things, the news of the volcano disrupting air traffic completely escaped me.

But the next day afternoon, when I had reached Bratislava in Slovakia it hit me. There were no planes in the air and no trains where you could get a seat. If you had to be stranded in some place Europe, Bratislava is not the best place. But in a pinch like this, for an escape route, it is a better place than say Vienna or Prague. Because fewer people get stranded in Bratislava.

I ran from the train station to the bus station and back. Bratislava bus station is a communist-era concrete monstrosity that at once is an eye-sore and a deeply unhelpful burocratic prison. Having run from counter to counter, the best answer I could get was that the earliest I could get out of Bratislava was by bus was TWO days from the day.

TWO days!

I went back to the hotel and tried to do something over the web. Slovakian bus lines do not accept international credit cards. I was about to pull the stunt John Cleese did when it occured to me that the best bet in these situations is to revisit the site of escape and stay put until the end of the scene. Either the hero lives or dies...

And I was the hero of my own life. So off I went back to the bus station armed with a ticket for a bus that would leave two days hence.

At 5:00 PM, right before the bus was about to leave, with some additional pursuation in the form of some extra Euros, a seat magically appeared. It was a bus coming from Kraków, Poland. I sat next to a woman infected with a chronic cough. Thus began a twenty-two hour journey by bus through Eastern Europe and Austria.

Unwashed, unslept and unshaven I finally rolled back into town just happy to be back. The only memory of the trip was a rest stop in the middle of nowhere in Austria where the waiters and waitresses in touristy-traditional garb poured hot soup on the bowls concentration camp-style.

Thanks Eyyafyatlayokudl.

Remembering Old Songs

2010-07-03T23:56:00.002+02:00

Isn't it interesting how those us who grew up in India carry the strains of Hindi film music in our veins even when we actively not pursue it? There is something absolutely mesmerizing about the way the songs from the 70s and 60s act as the background music to our memories.

I happened to be surfing Youtube and without any forethought started listening to old songs. Raina Beet Jaye in Raag Bhairavi. If anything really makes me sad, this is it. But not sad in a despondent way, but more in a creative I-will-give-all-to-it sort of way. I really wish I could somehow time-travel and rediscover that part of India at that time.

But nothing remains the same. In front of me an old faded photograph of verdant fields outside a North Indian fort that was taken in 1992. That space is now covered up by ugly concrete buildings.

And the background music to those concrete buildings is something I don't quite recognize.

But it is worth remembering. We don't die when we get old, we die when we forget.

Dust

2010-06-29T02:19:00.004+02:00

I think of dust, sitting here at midnight. Memories of dust settling everywhere. On freshly washed utensils kept to dry, on the coffee table, on the floor; dst when you wipe off your face at the end of the day.

I wonder if that is still the case. I am sure. Just because you run away doesn't mean, it all goes away. I wonder if there is a way to trace all of that on a tracing paper of memories; petromax weddings in Dehradun, barefoot chldren, Sunday night movies on DD where the sound rose and fell like waves from hundreds of open windows. But all I hear is the circular descriptions of Bollywood weddings and the stories of secret romances by scions of powerful families.

Perhaps I miss all this because it is time for another transition. Another chance at running away. Another city. This land has been a temptress. I miss her charms.

Ankhon Ki Gustakhiyan

2009-09-29T01:43:00.002+02:00

I sat in the restaurant surrounded by all these people and tried to have witty conversations. The restaurant was in the middle of the river Rhone.. a newly refurbished place. All day. Before that I reached out to some unlikeliest people. Then on the way home, I stopped the car and walked in the middle of the night through the silvery dirt path shining in the moonlight.

Because tonight was the night. Soon this place will be but a memory.

So many chances. So many missed opportunities. So many lost moments.

I moved here years ago to follow that memory.

And the memory has gone away. Rolling off like pebbles under the current.

Why?

2009-09-08T01:55:00.004+02:00

I like running into famous people in crowded elevators and not recognize them. I like easy-to-reach eateries. I like to walk around outside the stadium where they are playing for the ashes. I like the way shoes sound on cobblestone streets.

Mostly I like being anonymous in crowds.

Mexico City: Next week

2007-09-30T02:43:00.000+02:00

Next week I am in Mexico city.

The distance from Mexico city to Guatemala is 600 miles. From Mexico city to Los Angeles in 1150 miles.

I thought which would make sense.

And then I went and bought my ticket to Los Angeles.

In Redondo beach, there is a restaurant that serves tapas over flamenco performances.

And there is a sunset.

Dinner At A Batternberg Castle

2007-09-30T02:28:00.000+02:00

Battenberg family is important to anglophiles. It was Prince Luis of the family that relinquished the German titles to become the first Mountbatten (Berg is mountain in German).

Two days ago, I had the rare occation to have a meal in one of their castles. Castle is perhaps a bit too fanciful a word, but it was nevertheless impressive, dating from the 15th century. We were a group of thirty and we walked from room to room eating bite-sized chunks of food and tasting a different wine in each room.

It was actually enjoyable for once. I just realized through the day that I was having fun. Which is something.

It was cold and rainy outside. Inside the fires were burning. I stood by a window where Queen Vicctoria signed her name by scartching the letters into the wood with her diamond ring. Outside, darkness was complete.

At 12:30 I got back to my hotel and realized that I had to iron my shirt before sleeping. So by the time I was done, it was 2:00. At 6:30 the car waiting to take me to the airport. I was the only passenger in the company plane that morning.

Landing back here, on the way to my office, I imagined what would it be to become the idle rich.

Then I realized I was late for a meeting.

Gruyère Again

2007-09-30T02:21:00.000+02:00

I park my car at the exact same spot as before. Except this time, it is light out and the air is only just nippy. I did not lose my way and found it in the most intelligent way; using my GPS. I climbed over the winding path to the top. There on the cobble streets, tourists were still marveling the souvenir shops and the fondue restaurants. I stopped by the restaurant with beautiful panoramic views below and then went to the fort.

Like last time, the fort was closed.

I tried to remember a poem. Or a quote.

There was nothing. I wanted to remember. There were no memories. I wanted to stand still and admire the fort in its lit-glory. But the lights were off.

On the way back, I just looked out into the darkening vista and commiserated with the cows.

What is next for me?

2007-09-15T14:55:00.000+02:00

I sometimes wonder when this life in the fast lane will come to an end. What is next? One day i will wake up and know when I have had enough of Europe and the travel and the stress and competition. And then what will I do?

I dream about being an olive farmer in California. Butthat may be more of a dream. I am not sure if that is what is in the cards next. Knowing my life, I have never had anything that i was actually looking for, even though life has indeed taken me to places where the end results were not terrible. Things could improve, and I have a few major regrets in my life, but in general, at least from a career point, I ought not complain.

So I think the more likely scenario is that i will end up in Downer's Grove, Orange County or Redwood City, some non-exotic and flavorless suburb back in America working in a job that perhaps would have less international travel but with a reasonable profile.I will probably keep better hours and travel less.

It is about giving up.

In one of the stories of Jorge Borges titled "The man on the treshold" he attempts to recall a story in second person from North India in Buenos Aires. He says, "what sort of exactness can the names Aritsar and Udh be expected to convey to Buenos Aires?"

Exactly.

What sort of exactness can these realities convey to you? what sort of geographic exactness comes through in my stories as they are spread through my own consciousness as think as butter spread over bread? Would it ever make sense to you why I am the way I am and why it is so difficult to change.

You couldn't possibly know.

As Sartre said, our life is only a long waiting; first waiting for the realization of our ends and especially waiting for ourselves.

I am still waiting for the first. But there is an olive garden somewhere in santa Ynes valley that is waiting for me.

Lights and sounds

2007-09-12T02:37:00.000+02:00

Am I destined to follow the light around the planet?
I know the futility of this writing.
I know minds are made up and dreams are crushed
and movies are made and shown
Dirges are played
A house is bought and lost
an afternoon in a cafe
A dinner in a restaurant
An early morning
A breeze that comes like a whisper.

Am I destined to follow the sound
through the echoes?

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Ps: I made a lot of calls today to California. Throughout the day I thought what it would be to look into the Canyon and the hills beyond it all over again. I have seen little conejos running around the place at night. an ocational cayote when I walk springs out and stares. I miss it. Today, more than ever.

Objects In The Mirror

2007-09-12T02:22:00.000+02:00

I have an early morning flight to Rome tomorrow. Here I am sitting up sleepless and tired. I had a very very late dinner with Stefan at a restaurant where the woman apologized for running out of bread.

It is important to record these details of the daily grind because such days you forget. When you are seventy and you sit on the porch and wonder what you did with your youth, you need to remember the meal at the restaurant with no bread.

That is where your youth went. Also in the morning commute, in the irrascible crevices of memory and silly precipices of mere existence.

I have been dreaming weird dreams lately.My father's aunt has a house in a small town. When it was being buing built, I used to climb on top and look down from the terrace. I haven't seen that house in 22 years. Last night I dreamt that I eviced some Geneva partygoers from that terrace.

That is where my youth went. In nightmares and anxieties. In flight schedules and airports.

But I still want to live.

Lost

2007-09-09T12:34:00.001+02:00

In the darkness everyone looks the same.

The streets of l'Hivernage are dark except for

the light from passing cars

But I am not alone, there are many people around me

yet I barely see them.

A man comes straight to me and I tense and make a fist

but he passes without a glance.

My feet hurt.

Dead words

2007-09-09T04:14:00.000+02:00

Today I wander. There is always a fixed route when I wander. so is it even wandering if one follows the same path?

The lake is where I usually start. Well everything must start at the lake anyway, it is a rule around here. The lake is noisy today with a fair. I pay very little attention to the people around me. Lasy year this time I was dancing in one of these makeshift dancefloors by the lake; this time i don't feel like going in. Instead I walk away and towards the hotel. I stop in front of the non-descript building where a missing woman's poster still lingers. Her body was discovered buried in her own backyard months ago. But the poster still hangs. On the door a polite warning reminds the reader that the building is under video surveillance.

The side windows of the bar display newer paintings; nudes of African women done by a female swiss artist. They are tasteful and competent but not captivating. On the other end of the street, I sit on a street bench under a tree. I count to ten.

On the courtyard in front of the Kabab place, silence lingers. There is no sign of life. A fallen yet forgotten rain has left a little wetness on the ground. I stand there lost and look at the door of Edelweiss. This is a central point for meetings and running-ins. The Turkish restaurant that no one ever went to is now Bollywood cafe. They seemed to be having better luck than the Turks.

The video parlour is open. I cannot see inside. If I walk past it through the narrow roads, I will get to my old apartment. There on the balcony, if I leaned back with a lit cigarette I would see the lake.

Black and purple. That is now imagine this world. Sometimes, after you walk long enough on a path, you forget to notice. may be because you know those things are there, even when you don't look. I know where the youth hostel is, where the best breakfast is even though my seat is invariably always damn near the toilet, I know how the monuments look even when I don't see it.

Wandering along, I forgot why I was wandering in the first place.

Because summer is almost over. And the words are still dead within me.

An unusual evening

2007-09-09T04:06:00.001+02:00

Whenever I come to this city and drive around the neighborhood, I imagine myself living here. In one of these brownstones. I let my imagination wander.

There was a death in the family next door , so the house came on the rental market. Lucky. Perhaps.

May be that is not the story. But it is my imagination. If I want to imagine a townhome as fictional as this, it is indeed my prerogative.

The little townhome stood on a side street protected by one-way signs and no-turn signs right-off a main throughfare. Like all those places, it was non-descript. There was nothing that told that house or that street apart from any other.

There was an Ethiopian eatery within walking distance. Perhaps a laundromat. A twenty-four hour convinience store, a florist, a store selling hardware things and electrical components, a chinese grocery; a neighborhood. In the dark ethnic restaurant people sat around talking to each other as if it is a living room and service is just casual to the itinerant hungry person.

The house itself stood slightly raised from the ground. Perhaps the first floor is locked up or occupied by the landlady. On the second floor, there was a regular bedroom and a living room crowded with computer wires. The bathrom was small and the tub was covered on three sides by curtains. From the bathroom, one could see a small patch of green in the backyard. Beyond that, other houses.

On the roof, a secret opened up. A small table and two chairs. A private smoking den. A sliver of the sky. A three dimensional place to mourn, lament and laugh.

Houses come in different colors and shapes. They come with room to share and room to spare. This was a purpose. A calling.

If I needed a place to hide from my sorrows and find myself, perhaps it is here.

The fortune cookie said:' to you values in life are more important than wealth' -- True but sad. There is a whole life to live on this side of the fortune cookie literature.

The sliver in the sky just got smaller and died. I woke up.

Never a good idea to dream while one is driving.

Near Sudan Border, Lake Nasser, Egypt

2007-09-09T03:57:00.001+02:00

One night in July, when the air was pure and the sky was bright like a million diamonds, I woke up without being able to sleep and came out of the cottage that was my home for that night. There was heavy military presence in this tiny hamlet and everything was watched. But within these walls I felt safe.

I was in Egypt, near the Sudanese border. Here what was Nile was now Lake Nasser. Here the landscape looks lunar, except for the emerald green waters. The Nubians are friendly. Earlier that day I had walked to the village square looking for something and in the scorching hear surveyed the complete absence of activity around me. The only traffic I ever saw was military vehicles.

I end up in unusual places.

I walked past the huts and onto the path that abuts Lake Nasser, the largest man-make water-body in the world. I was careful not to accidentally step on any vipers. Standing there alone was an eerie feeling. But I stood there smelling the desert night, not thinking or feeling. Not wondering.

Then I heard a powerful attack being executed in the lake below me. The lake is full of crocodiles and the extent of violence in the water could only have meant one thing.

Water gives life.

What it giveth, it taketh away.

Near Fatima-Setti, Atlas Mountains

2007-09-09T03:47:00.000+02:00

It is already september and the air is thick with anticipated winter. Life moves in thick, halted pauses here, no sudden thrusts or wayward movements. I am climbing to waterfall number 5 through barren arid paths and rocky outcrops, like a lizard. My guide, Kemal, who probably is twelve is much more agile. On our path, we pass a wailing woman attended by others after she tore open the sole of her left foot. But other than that, it has been peaceful.

I reach a panaromic point and look around. All around me is waves of undulating mountains. I can hear the waterfalls below me and from somewhere far, comes a faint wave of an Arabic song. down at the village, at the foot of the mountains, I imagine the Berbers are still moving about in their donkeys as I saw them earlier in the day.

Suddenly I remember I haven't written anything in a long time. Not just blogs, but anything. When i don't write, I don't know what to do with all my feelings. sorrow. Melancholy. Joy.

But here I remember that all I need to do is to open my eyes and listen. Words will come flying down from their coops they abandoned me to. And they come like that, I write.

Thank you Cascade Number 5.

Arigato Tokyo

2007-06-11T03:26:00.002+02:00

Last night, driving through the rain-drenched streets of Tokyo, I wondered if this was the beginning of the end. Lives spiralling out of control have a way of creating forewarnings. I am tired and listless. This is the fourth city I have been in five days. Two days ago, I sat in a hotel room in a London suburb and watched traffic on the highway on a foggy and slightly chilly yet-not-summer night, the ame thought had occured to me. It was still daylight at 10 PM.

But it is hot and muggy here and the nights are short.

Tokyo looks brooding and overcast. May be it is reflecting how I feel. I don't feel like writing much these days. Words have deserted me. There are happy days though. Sitting on a bright green meadow and I looked up at a spindley tower on a sunny day earlier this week and had smiled happily. It was chilly but sunny. There were jugglers practicing their craft and students reading under the suns. Why can't I have more days like that?

Rain is following me these days. In every country. Perhaps I am a messenger for climate change, tracking it from country to country.

In a few days, I will be in the US, and rain is forecast there as well.

The Gods must be crying. For me.

Bullets Over Janpath 3

2007-06-11T03:26:00.001+02:00

They were in MD1’s home office. His wife, wife 1 as is customary, came out to be introduced and then disappeared into the large colonial era house with sure footedness and from where nothing else was heard henceforth. But through that silent vacuum, plates carrying vegetarian dishes emerged, carried by servants with sizeable moustaches and expressionless faces.

The seriousness of their conversation was justifiably counter-mirrored by a blank and assiduous blue sky that sat uncharacteristically outside up in the ether refusing to budge. Bullet saw the sky reflected on the thick glasses of MD1 and noticed how his lips quivered when he spoke. Every now and then a spray of spittle landed on his cheeks like the backwash of a great spray and Bullet accommodated this too with great cheer.

His proposal was quite simple, split RCC and RTC completely and make them entities that had nothing to do with each other. One will mind its business with tenders and such (and no prize for guessing which) and the other will be happy with maintenance of the roads. There is plenty to go around, he assured. After all, haven’t you heard about the bridge in Unnau that cost the taxpayers many a lakh in maintenance until the minister concerned (and he used the words minister concerned as if it was a proper phrase and not an anomaly of officialese) visited and realized there never was a bridge?

Bullet nodded. He had no heard about this specific bridge. But many such bridges existed throughout the southern block and through the entire Rajdom of Hindustan. One would argue that many an IAS-wedding was paid for by the non-existent bridge of various shape or form that sometimes took the form of an uninvited tender and at other times as a defense purchase.

MD1 let out a silent fart, the sort that lingers pungently like smoke from a paper factory on a humid day spreading malevolence and discontent. Bullet choked in his own tears and gulped down some whiskey. Another glass was quickly emptied. Dal dripped from his hands onto his safari suite and made stain marks in the shape of Orissa.

For all that juicy dal, he promised to be considerate to the wishes of MD1. As he ambled to the car, and rocked in its wavy motion, he slept a baby sleep and dreamt of Shaddo’s pear-shaped breasts. Then in the dark, he cried in his sleep.

MD2 was a little different. He met Bullet in his large office populated with books and a square table. It was an odd shaped room, Bullet noticed without irony, as if it was a large hollowed out geometric block of an isosceles triangle. MD2 sat upright away from his desk under a picture of Mahatma Gandhi and all dead prime ministers and stretched his long legs out as he spoke. He had a casual regal manner. His long hands moved in the air when he made a point as if he was preaching in a church of over attentive laity. Bullet slinked back into the couch as if he was a schoolboy. MD2 was much more senior to him and a retiree of the IAS. His moustache, a mere remnant of a former self (as ascertained from a picture on the wall where MD2’s moustache was presenting a garland to a former prime minister), was white in most part. This stood in stark contrast to his dyed jet black hair with its characteristic plastic sheen that comes from all the overuse of ammonia in the hair product.

The room smelled of a mix of gardenias and cigarettes. Every once in a while, a plump secretary with giant calves waddled in and handed him a file or a piece of paper. MD2 casually glanced at them and set them apart as he continued talking.

He made no demands. He didn’t ask what MD1 had said. He just said if you listen closely you can hear frogs at night even when it does not rain.

Then he chuckled over a cooling cup of tea.

That night Bullet had ejaculatory dreams about Coco. And Shaddo. In his dreams he interchanged the pear-shaped breasts of Shaddo with sizeable mammaries of coco and felt the tenderness of both. He imagined himself to be a schoolboy arrested in the sentimentality of motherly love as he was cuckolded by two pairs of tender breasts.

The next morning he awoke without shame or sentimentality. As he stood there in his undershirt contemplating the serious nature of the arresting beauty and sizeable asses of the poor dispossessed people without shame, he told Parashuram Singh, who stood there watching the master dress, how he was so interested in the tender nature of the local women.

Parashuram Singh sycophantically rolled his head and agreed a half hearted yes, the sort that was personally profitable to him like a salesman telling the customer how something looked so perfect on their pot-bellied porpoise-like torso. He pretended to be surprised that such talk will come from bade sahibs even though he was a master of this parlor game where many a bade sahib has prostrated himself after the sin and quite a favor was extracted for his continued pretence of respect.

The days in the office were humid and pointless. There was a loud ceiling fan that kept him company through the afternoon as all sense deserted him and he saw pictures of tenders and roads jump at him through imaginary convex possibilities of nothingness where none really existed. An imaginary bridge over Unnau stretched to oblivion in the afternoon orgy of sweat and non-comprehensible parade of bad English.

Favor me with a smile, he muttered under his breadth as Shaddo passed him by wafting in a malodorous cloud of domestic chores. She walked past hurriedly giggling under her duppatta. Emboldened, he walked to the open kitchen door and stood there with his arms on the top of the door and stared her intently.

He felt the hair on his forearms standing up. The scandal, he thought.

Shaddo kept on stirring the pot that ddn’t need to be stirred. In more ways than one. Bullet watched this and felt himself springing to life. His earthly need, hithertofore taken care of by the nocturnal self abuse protested. He stood there motionless and watched the pot-stirring princess of poverty. Then he advanced towards her in sure-footedness and grabbed her from behind in a fast sweeping motion, roughly and almost with intent to cause pain. She jumped even though she was expecting this. A spoonful of gravy splashed out from the pot around the kitchen table and a passerby cockroach that was minding his own business was hurt. The universe has a strange way of enforcing order.

There was violence of hunger in their love making. Right there on the uncleaned kitchen floor, smelling of masalas. Unclean and uncivilized, like animals, grunting and moaning, his black skin and gold-framed glasses over her light brown caramel skin body. Together they writhed in hunger and unspent passion of loneliness and winter nights. If it was a movie, there would have been fireworks and anxious mood-building music. But this wasn’t. So they made love to dogs yelping in the evening heat for a background noise.

They were not naked either. They looked obscene in their hitched up and scooted down compromising attire as they consummated and exploded in delight. Even without a convenient condom.

Shaddo, Bullet cried, what of us now?

Don’t worry, she said smiling, I never get pregnant.

He didn’t ask why.

Later in the evening, he joined Parashuram Singh on the veranda drinking cheap Indian-made foreign liquor and sat looking at the moon. Long after Shaddo had cleaned up and left, long after the smell of her cooking had faded from his unwashed chest, long after his desire for Shaddo’s bare bottom was replaced by a mournful pointless depression characteristic of IAS officers put out to pasture with no sights to move up or out of punishment. Like two men, unbound by official titles and convention, they sat silently in the darkness looking at the moon and taking their turns at smoking a cigarette. Parashuram Singh thought of his wife in the village and his children he hadn’t seen in months and thought why didn’t feel the need to see them. Bullet looked at the moon and thought why the sea of tranquility was not looking very tranquil.

- Do you where Washington DC is? He suddenly asked.
- Sahib is in love, Parashuram Singh said matter-of-factly

He wasn’t. Not anymore. Sure he felt those pangs for Coco on nights like these. But those were not from love. Those were from loss. Do you know the difference? Sure, they feel the same sometimes, but on winter nights, one hurts like exposed varicose veins, the other just longs to be stroked.

- Parashuram, let me tell you about Washington DC, he began.

For once Parashuram Singh actually listened. In the darkness he forgot to flash his sycophantic yellow smile and forgot to preach the preach-tried and true.

He sat there and imagined a place like Washington DC. Bhasingdon Deesee. A faraway magical place. Where girls with magical breasts and even more magical pudendas took men home and made love to them until they were lost.

A place like those stories about Krishna. And Mahabharata.

Fourty-five Minutes

2007-05-29T20:15:00.000+02:00

There were fourty-minutes in that day
everything else grayed out
like a chimney blackened with soot
except where the flame shoots through

From beind the ledge
a snow leapard leaps
into the air
majestically
her eyes transfixed on something
bright and focused

Fourty-five minutes
of thrill
to watch
to be

Fourty-five minutes
to think together
dream a dream in color
sleep lightly, without fears
forget worries and dance
cook a meal
eat a meal, albeit very fast
watch a snow leopard leap
a tiger to defend its cub
a baby to be born
a room to be painted
a new wall to be broken and
light to enter
to worship
to get a foot massage
to go for a walk
or a run
in the rain
with cars honking
without a jacket

Fourty-five minutes
to wait for someone
for a phone call
to see a painting
to watch a flock of seagulls to land
to cuddle together behind a rock
to huddle together under a tree
to solve a riddle
to make a riddle
or to jump of the saddle and lead

If you had just fourty-five minutes
and you had to choose
will you watch a snow leopard leap?
Will you be a snow leopard leaping?

Miffed

2007-05-29T09:13:00.000+02:00

I am miffed after missing the morning flight. Entirely my fault and without excuses. This is what happens when one gets by with so little sleep. Coffee is not a substitute for sleep no matter what they say.

Reminds me of the day i went swimming with the dophins in bahamas. Actually, come to think of it, it was not dolphins. They were sharks. And swimming is a euphamism for flailing about shamelessly trying to get out harm's way. and today is nothing like it. So, strike all of that.

So I am not in Rome, where I am supposed to be.

I am here.

And here is not where I want to be.

Paris, Bombay

2007-05-29T01:41:00.000+02:00

Sitting outside, on a chair facing the Champs-Élysées
I get called "a bloody Paki" by a young kid
no more than twenty, on his way to unemployment
walking with his friends, as I smile.

(He had a shy smile, even as he tried to look mean
inviting a fight, while covering his own shame
I feel no rage, no urge to fight
just a mild disappointment at his confused geography)

It is a loaded word, this Paki
that conjured up a lot of emotions,
frustrations and memories
but the slight of the obelisque transforms it all

My parents' flat in Bombay, where I have spent
more time than any other address in all these years
had windows overlooking silhoutted mountains
and far away views of slow-moving trains

(It is a pity how I think so little of it these days
even though I remember those books I read on my bed
facing the ceiling, legs up in the air, balanced
against the wall, thinking of distant lands)

where in the morning the bai brought in the day's milk
and my mother, still half-asleep woke up
and started the noises of the household waking up:
milk cookers, rustling of the morning papers,
other evanescent noises of the morning,
yielding themselves furiously to purpose,
then by ten, abate their fury, I imagined,
to a daylong stupor breached only by servants

In the evening my father, an irascible man, drank
gin in the company of himself while I read
locked up in my room, listening quietly to
far away sounds of clicking metal of trains

(how strange all this is, sitting in a cafe outside Gare Montparnasse
thinking of Bombay where I read Somerset Maugham
writing about Montparnasse, truth and fiction, present and fact
all co-migled like a Bollywood movie set in Paris)

It is raining, outside the Louvre and the small starbucks
near the Nations where I nearly choke on a pastry,
before hurrying off to Pere Lachaise
to sit by Oscar Wilde and wither in the storm
Literally steps from Wilde, lie the Tatas
those doyens of Indian industry, right here in Paris
whose interest lie thousands of miles to the East
where my memories lie, bedraggled and suffocated

There are no simple ways to remember, except to just
let it all fall in place, one memory after the other
until nothing is left except a deck of cards of yesterdays
that precariously wait for a breeze from today

There are tears and rain and failures and betrayals,
Like the friendly shop keeper in Sakinaka who made paan
To the bus ticket inspectors in white uniforms
who tried to molest me when he mistook my general enthusiasm
for something else, I wonder if the boy who called
me a paki was ever molested, I wonder if you ever woke
up listening to the rumble of trains, if you ever understand
why the rains make me cry the way it does, especially
when it pours as if Gods themselves are crying

Sweet dreams, even if those are not meant to assuage
but the night is still young, even for this weather
Those boys have disappeared, and Bombay vanishes,
all the remains is an airport coffee and an uneaten steak.

Bullets Over Janpath 2

2007-05-12T03:48:00.000+02:00

Bullet looked like a prune when he came off the train in the morning. The train stopped briefly before the platform at Muzafarbad giving the passengers false hopes, but giving enough time for the ticket-less urchins to jump off the trains and scoot away to safe horizons. Bullet hesitantly alighted at the station from his air-conditioned sleeper couch and looked hesitantly across the horizon for some one from the office to fetch him. There wasn’t anyone on the platform. At least anyone that looked as if he could be from the office. Old men in moth-colored pajamas skulked away to the door and women, with their heads covered appropriately as the religions dictated ambled about behind their husbands or other men practicing suffucnt husbandry skills and disappeared as well. There was a station master bloke who stood around waving the flag, part out of boredom and part out of practice, in his oddly fashioned uniform; he had traded his white trousers for a loose fitting white pajama to fit with the locals.

Dejected, Bullet headed for the door and almost bumped into the ever worried Parashuram Singh who had come with the express purpose of affording him a warm welcome befitting is circumstances but was late much to his own chagrin. Having observed that Bullet is unlikely to yell at him, he assumed a more relaxed posture and guided the overlord from the city on to the sufficiently fitted Ambassador car with red lights and other accouterments.

Slinking back into the cold comfort of its back seat with parashuram Singh, part orderly part confidante, two parts slime sitting beside him, Bullet had one thought, this too shall pass.

The well aerated yet genuinely impoverished surroundings where he was deposited without much apologies told Bullet that in spite of all the ceremony, he was generally looking at a time resembling of hell that he has read of, and the hell was going to be delivered to him in hand basket which was going to be carried by none other than Parashuram Singh, part orderly and so on. He sat on his rock hard bed and contemplated his armpits, which were of the texture of lime meringue pie and the color of crushed raspberries. His felt that his slinky puppet between his legs hurt as well, from sitting and lying in very tight underwear all night. There was nothing good that could come of anything except a hot shower. But in Muzafrbad, such luxuries as hot showers often came only attached with two or more pair of servant hands that did the necessary chores in a manually satisfying way.

The pair of hands in question belonged to Shaddo, the village bell-esque middle-aged woman, too young to be old and too old to be innocent. If that is confusing, just contemplate her breasts, quite oddly pear shaped and lovely peeking out as an outline from the flimsy duppatta and the worrylines on the forehead that he only saw when she occasionally lifted her head in his direction.

He viewed this with satisfaction. After all, there was something he could look forward to. Shaddo came in the morning, (he was later told) cleaned the house, did odd bits around the house and made his bath. And if he was so inclined, I mean not the type that shivered at the thought of a Muslim making his meals, Parashuram said, she could also make him his meals. If he was, on the other hand, caste-minded and so on, there could be a Brahmin maharaj whose services could be availed even though he was not sure what sort of availability he had.

Shaddo will so, Bullet immediately retorted, with the sort of over enthusiasm he was immediately ashamed of. Unlike with Coco, he was in his element, and Shaddo’s kajol-filled eyes and her expansive yet flat stomach made his slinky puppet raise its head a little bit.

Saab, Parashuram Singh warned in the sort of way slippery eels tend to warm urban cowboys in these parts, just so you know, her father is a butcher. Not the kinda girl you want any trouble with. If you are interested, we can arrange for others. He then flashed a yellowing smile.

Bullet stretched himself on the bed and thought of the vast vanishing skyscape of Washington DC. Then standing up, he carefully opened up the suitcase and changed into a lungi, freeing the tightened external organs in the process. Then settling back onto his rock hard bed, he smiled an officious half smile and said, arre Parashuram ji, what are you saying? I am a respectable Brahmin man. I am perfectly happy without such things.

Then having dismissed the slime with a nod and a half smile, Bullet got ready for the ablution.

Shaddo was quite a helper to Bullet. She cleaned and cooked, cooked and cleaned. And then every now and then glanced at Bullet as he sat about doing his business.

And he found the attention wandering as he read through papers on RDC and RCC.
RDC and RCC on the other hand held no such charms. As the ministerji correctly predicted, he found himself in the middle of the eyebrows of ferocious caste-warriors who sized him up and tried to kill him with sticky-sugary kindness and oily-shoily chicanery. Over mouthful of dal, which chewed with rice with an open mouth, hence dripping down back into the plates causing much revulsion to Bullet, the MD of RCC, lets call him MD 1 shall we, in order not to give so much importance that his caste equation with the Ministry already has given him, straightened up and muttered many a convincing arguments in his favor. Bullet tried to scoop out dal with his roti and solidified his hand with some thickly-sauced curried vegetables and then swallowed the whole concoction in silence. Between them sat a bottle of Indian-made foreign liquor that kept company for the whole spectacle as it has for ages.

Bullets Over Janpath 1

2007-05-11T16:41:00.000+02:00

Bullet Balasubrmaniam was quite furious when he heard the news.

He was being transferred again.

But he could not react. The news came to him in secret; a little bird in HR whispered it to him. He waited for the meeting with the Minister for the official surprise. It was not such a big surprise to him what with his falling out with the Minister-in-charge. But where could they now transfer him which was worse than his current dead-end post/

It had been quite a few days since he came back from a trip to America lovelorn and sick, to the desk job that neither provided him with satisfaction nor showed any reason for hope for a better tomorrow. He could not tell him that his official trip to America had been a complete disaster so he did the next best thing; he made up stories on how truly busy he was and how they loved him there so much that he could not even tar himself away to visit new York.

“’ The president leaned to me and said, “Bullet, we need more people like you in the development agencies. If I tried to get you a posting, will you come?’ What can I say, hey? I said, I am so flattered, but will have to consider the needs of the family before I can commit,” Bullet told them.

They nodded in agreement, while inside they felt the stomach convulsions of envy. They contemplated their status as workers who are not sought-after in the West and therefore had no chance of making it out of the dark damp halls of files. So they did the next best thing they could do.

“Of course, Bullet saar. Family has to come first. Besides, look at our India. What a fantastic opportunity these days! These Americans are so envious of us, I, for one, will not go to America. Too much pride, you see. Besides, the missus is very happy in this set up. She can’t manage without at least three servants.”

Thus having inserted the existence of three servants (two of who are shared with other eight households and the third is permanently absent because of a salary dispute meant very little to him) thus raising the status, e made a mental note to start looking for assignments in the west.

“So true. Look at Paliwal’s brother-in-law’s chacha’s son," he said, "The same Paaliwal, Under secretary of Commerce, next in line for Chief Secretary. we are very close you see. Totally getting invited to the parties and all. Well, anyway, Paliwal’s nephew went to New York on a development assignment. I am hearing the man is struggling to survive. These agencies don’t pay well, yaar. I can’t risk it anyway. I keep getting offers from London to teach at the Economy school there. But you know, the minister can’t live for a day with me. But you could do
with a change, old chap.”

Every now and then, the memory of the lost love would come up like a burp from the deep inside of Bullet to escape into the world. His wife, Parvathi Ammal was just thrilled to have the husband back now that he was an internationally traveling-sort of officer.

But bullet knew better. He knew it was going to be another dead-end job until he found a ministry staffed with someone from his own caste. That is how things worked.

He was not sure how to react when he stepped into the Minister's office.

" So Bulletji," the minister began smiling a fake smile, "how are you these days? Hope the work is interesting." He flashed his betel-juice stained teeth and paused.

Bullet noticed with some discomfort that the thick gold chain around the minister’s dark and wrinkled neck meandered like a snake as the veins moved when he spoke. The minister farted rather noisily as he spoke without bothering to apologize.

"I am quite enjoying Minister saab. Quite thoroughly enjoying only. This ministry is fantastic, what with you leadership style and all. When I was in America, I was remarking to the President of the Agency for International Aid rehabilitation how your style is also American. "

The minister nodded and smiled in perfect self-satisfaction. People notice these things; he thought to himself, I try to be American in these matters. Then he picked a toothpick and started cleaning the gaps between his teeth while talking more indistinctly.

" I know Bulletji. I try as hard as I can. But I am not really American that way, too brash those fellows are. I am a bigger fan of how the Aussies are. When I was in Australia, I was so impressed with their quick decision-making. We Indians need some change only. Too much traditional vaditional, we are. Nahin?

"I totally agree. When I was in America… "

Minister cut him off with a slight wave of hand. This America thing was getting on his nerves. I need to get invited to visit America, somehow, he made a mental note to himself.

" So anyway, Bulletji, I was a new assignment for you, you know how things are." he tentatively began while wiping the back collar with a hand kerchief. Then on second thoughts, he left the kerchief right there and continued, "only you can do what we need you to do. You have the right amount of tact and vision. "

"Whatever you want me to do, Minister saab," a sinking feeling came over Bullet. it had to be really bad for him to begin with suc pep talk.

"I know that Bulletji, isiliye tho I am coming to you. We have had our past differences, but I am very impressed with your intellegence and hard work. We have a little problem with the Road Development Corporation. The new MD we have appointed is a cousin of the deputy prime minister. The chap wants more power. Too many PWD contracts you see. He wants to merge the RDC with Road Contracts Commission."

"Why sir?"

"Because RCC hold the tender power," Duh! The minister said dismissively.

"Ah. Minister saab, but what would you like me to do? I don’t know a thing about roads. "

"That is OK. You see Bullet, we need someone to take a short assignment and smooth things over. The guy running RCC is of the same caste as the finance minister and we can’t just move him out. We want you to go and find a nice happy way to get this done. What you say?"

Bullet exhaled deeply. The sun was setting. I will live to fight another day, he muttered to himself.

"Of course I will be thrilled to," he forced a smile.

"That's it then," the minister folded his hands and rang the bell for his PA.

Tokyo: Visiting the Meiji shrine

2007-05-11T10:35:00.001+02:00

The shrine was a kilometer walk from the nearest road. I walked on the gravel path from the station to the main shrine in silence. The gravel path was wide and was framed by large ceremonial gates at some intervals. Around the path lush tropical woods stood guard to protect me from the urban assault just a few steps away.

The Shinto shrine itself was a simple impressive structure. It was a wooden courtyard which housed the main building. One could perhaps imagine that it resembled a rural Kerala temple. The courtyard had granite steps around it and upon it sat older men and women contemplating religion.

There were young women in simple kimonos tied together with cotton obis selling candles. They looked happy.

I am a loner. I have come to a temple as an atheist to pray. I have come to seek absolution from my sins and to pray for all that I love. There was a wide tree on the courtyard with a rich mintgreen capony of leaves. Upon it hung wooden plaques from believers asking for favors and thanking for favors granted. I too wrote a plaque and hung it.

I am happiest in these moments, when I am free from the burden of having to listen to my own voice. I have nothing to say and no words to craft. And no one to impress. I am neither rich nor poor, neither young or old, neither from the right nor left. I am just the truly insignificant me standing in front of the symbol of the universe contemplating what truly matters.

I like this stillness.

But like everything else, this cannot last.

I walked outside onto the crowded street and got into the middle of the shopping district. I was surrounded by throngs of young girls and women in really short skirts, tattoes and hair styles. Young men in crazy inventive hair styles and crazy attire followed them. Clothes and cell phones were on display at each shop window. I barely had to walk as I was carried by the crowds from one place to another.

Modernity.

Here I am alone, a gaijin with no identity.

With all the stress of the last few days and the most testing of work situations, I realize that what sustained me through that was the visit to the simple shrine.

We all need a little centering once in a while.

A little less selfishness.

And a need to pray more for the people we love.

Nippon Tekki

2007-05-08T18:22:00.000+02:00

1.
It is easier to live a lie if more people believed in them.
2.
A sheep chooses boredom. a wolf faces loneliess. Which one would you rather be? make your choice wisely.

-----------------------
Four-hour dinner in a real hole-in-the-wall place in Enobu with co-workers. The last botle of sake came in an earthern pot.

Somewhere Over Mangolia

2007-05-07T11:05:00.001+02:00

I am somewhere overall the vast expanse of Mongolia on my way to the Far East. The cabin is dark and comfortable. I tried sleeping but I feel restless. I do most of my thinking these days like this, reclining on an airline seat captive and restless, with compulsive focus. It is disconcerting and unsettling. Thoughts, unbeknownst to me, rise up from the undredged bottom of the mind and appear as if in a dream.

One afternoon, when my father was resting, I sat at the edge of his bed and asked him how his marriage had been, overall. He smiled and recited a poem by a lesser-known Malayalam poet called A. N. Kakkad. I don’t know anything about the poet but this poem I will remember forever. When Kakkad was dying of cancer he wrote:

Are there no memories? None at all?
Wearing and taking off bangles with patina* of so many colors
And greeting each other with so many faces
Being hurt and hurting each other,
How much bitterness did we drink up
Through these unknown paths of thirty years
Just to taste a few sugar cubes of peace?
Are there no memories, none at all?
There must be memories?
Otherwise how did we know that spring is here?

(Brahman women of Kerala wear brass bangles)

My father was dying of cancer and he knew it. Just like Kakkad, he had taken a real stock of his own life and he had decided to face his death stoically head-on. Whenever I think of him, I think of that afternoon Tuesdays-with-Maury moment we shared.

My father had been a poet and I am left with six notebooks of his poems. Other than pictures, the only things I have of him are two of his shirts and those notebooks. The life of a man reduced to a few props!

We had a difficult relationship. Like the poem above, we too drank a lot of bitterness just to taste a few sugar cubes of peace. He changed as he was approaching his end and redeemed himself. But the poem he was quoting characterized our relationship as well.

I never thought much of his poems and sometimes told him so when I was growing up. We used to have long furious debates about modern poetry at night when I was fifteen. We never managed to agree on anything. On poetry, on art, on politics but we debated everything. I don’t think he ever knew how to handle his son once he was no longer five. It must have been frustrating to have a son like me.

He once wrote a poem about coming home from work and watching his four-year old son dismantling a brand-new umbrella in the middle of the living room. He stood there watching this with great dismay as the son continued to take things apart quite unaware of the presence of his father. He was so angry and yelled, what are you doing? His son turned to him smiling and with great excitement said, “look dad, I am making a rocket to take you and I to the moon.” And all his anger melted away to a great broad smile.
I saw this poem recently when I was going through his notebooks. I wish I could take a trip with him to the moon. Or a trip to the center of the town. It doesn’t really matter where anymore. And I wish I could tell him it is a poem that moved me to tears and that he was not always wrong. I miss him so much.

Two days before he died, I phoned him. His kidneys were failing and I knew he didn’t have too much time. His speech was blurred and thinking unclear. At the end of the conversation, I said, “I love you, dad.”

He said, “Thank you very much.”

It turned out that those were the last words we spoke.

I love you dad. And thank you very much.

Barcelona: Travellers with real souls

2007-05-05T22:50:00.000+02:00

1.
I burned as the day approached. I perspired under my calm exterior and well-ironed shirts. I was nervous. I wrote pointless letters and left them on kitchen table without posting.

There were no windows from where I was sitting. This was not entirely true. In front of me, a glass panel opened up to a cement wall abutting the road. I was thirsty and there were glasses of water in front. I didn't eat our food nor did I touch my drink. Later, I drank coffee with relish and observed people around me.

Then I wondered. Lately, I have been a curious witness to the wasting away of my own life.

2.
Maria Molina is a long way away from here, the old man said. Maria Molina is simply a state of mind, I countered. As Pessoa once wrote, to travel, you simply have to exist. So, I could be in Maria Molina walking through the office buildings searching of a tapas bar looking for a cool, endless drink of cerveza.

Here, where I sit, I can see the highway and construction projects. The earth is brown and freshly exposed. I am on the one side of a conference table. The woman who is speaking has large manly hands. I watch a train go by far away behind the highway traffic.

I searched for fellow travellers in that train past all what the eye could see.

Across the building, the port was calm.

3.
I woke up with a beautiful dream this morning. It was the sort of a dream that comes to you as if it was a giant cinema screen. For a long minute, I was in the dream and I forgot it was not real.

Then I woke up. Then I wondered if others in my dream dreamt the same thing.

4.
Tomorrow at eight, a whole wide desert will open up. I wonder if there are any stars visible from where the mountains look own at the valley.

converZation

2007-05-05T01:40:00.000+02:00

don't apologiZe
mind is an unbending unyielding mirror
even against own judgement
it does not change but simply reflects feelings
like sky is reflected on still water

tongueZ lie
eyeZ refuse to see
earZ ignore warnings
but the mind just stands witness

so if you don't or can't
or can't or won't
there is no why can't or why won't
it is just is so

there will be licking of the wounds
and shedding of tears
but in the end
like a calm ocean surface
the storm will be hid within

without butterflies and lilies
there can't be a garden
don't cry over this barren patch
in the desert dates may yet grow
and a mirage will flourish

don't apologize
the mirage reflected in the mind
is just an expression of soul
reflecting its need

Mera Bharat Mahan - Bar Talk

2007-05-02T00:05:00.000+02:00

Recently, I was in a bar celebrating the birthday of a friend. The bar was full of all sorts of people from all sorts of countries.

An Indian-looking couple walk in. They are young, in their early twenties. They are known to the birthday boy, it seems.

I acknowledge them, no more affectionately than I do everyone else.

- Uncleji, the guy says.

- who do you mean?, I ask.

- You, he says. She laughs.

- Nice, I say. And walk off.

A bit later, they are in no mood to let go.

- Where are you from? Aren't you Indian?

-Yes

- You don't seem to want to talk to us.

- Well, you are not my sister's son. So last time I checked, I am not your uncle. You were rude to call me that.

- In India everyone calls everyone uncle.

- We are not in India, are we? And no, no one calls me uncle in India. besides are you from India?

- he is really from Sri Lanka, the girl pipes in. She does not have an Indian accent - Where are you from? What are you? A Punjabi? A Bengali?

- Indian

- But where in India are you from?

- (I am from South India- But you don't look like a South Indian. Are you sure you are from South India? -No, I am from South Pole. - Why are you upset, this is what Indians do, when they meet each other, I have never had anyone upset at me for this. - May be I am not that sort of an Indian... - Why do you say that?)

- Sheesh, let it go. Where are you from?

- Delhi. But I have never lived there.

- Well then you are not from Delhi. You look like an Indian, but you are not. It takes a little more than watching ten Bollywood movies and eating some Indian food to be Indian. Sorry.

And I walk away.

My only regret. I was actually calm and not more condescending and icy. By the way, I deleted a bunch of other inconsequential barbs from them that is irrelevant. It was as if they saw some Indian stereotype sitcom and wanted to slot me in. The more I wouldn't play the game, the more they got frustrated.

I can't stand these second and third generation Indian-wannabe idiots. Get a life already.

MERA BHARAT MAHAN (My India is great)

2007-04-30T08:53:00.000+02:00

I am Indian.

I am a hyphenated American too.

I love the country of my birth deeply. But as one grows older and has closer association with more than one country, questions about love, acceptance and cultural affiliation become more complex. What is it to love one's own country? What does it mean to be Indian?

More specifically, what does it mean to be Indian for me? Does it mean that I can't be Indian and American, both at the same time? Is there a conflict of interest?

I was about to write how different authors have addressed this topic lately. Then I deleted it. This is about what it means to be Indian for me.

I love India and Indians. I love the fact that since independence, the country has remained a democracy. I love the fact that we debate incessantly all the issues and in spite of the clear Hindu majority, Hindu right wing nationalism is not a dominant force. I love the size and complexity and the racial diversity of its population. I admire its long history that goes back to such a long time. I am amazed by India's resilience to fight against interminable odds. For me Indianness is something deep and real, almost like a religion, but it is also personal. In as much as Vande Mataram moves me to tears, you will not find me waving the Indian flag in public.

I am an Indian.

Does it mean that I don't and cannot have issues with India? Hardly. I hate the fact that India has debilitating poverty and no sense of public cleanliness. As Indians, I hate that we are OK with that. Our solutions, political and economic, are designed rather to put paint over a structural problem.

Does that make me less Indian?

But there is something I do that irritate some people. I refuse to discuss India with non-Indians. I don't like to do this because I don't want to trivialize Indian issues to soundbites. I don't want to validate their general feelings towards the country, be is positive or otherwise. I am not a cultural ambassador to India.

And no, I don't know Dr. Murthy, your dentist. Or Ravi, the cab driver who took you to your hotel. And no, I am not going to tell you what I think of outsourcing. Or Bollywood movies. And yes, if I want to feel like I am "different" from "other Indians", then it is my right to do so. and for your information, we are a billion strong and regardless of what Mr. Patel told you, we are all unique and different.

And no, we don't all treat "low-caste Indians" badly.

Some of us care about Indian development seriously. Some of us feel terrible about the inequity of the situation in India, whether it is caste related or purely economical.

And, yes, it is dirty. So don't go there if you can't deal with it. Good you had a lot of fun with elephants in Jaipur. And we all agree, Aishwarya Rai is beautiful.

So leave me alone.

Blast From The Past

2007-04-28T22:21:00.000+02:00

Just found out that someone from my past just resigned from Department of Justice under Bush over a scandal.

It is very small world. I didn't even know he was on the post. He was a pompous man even then. He was pompous enough to build a magnificent tomb for himself in the city cemetery on an elevation.

It made me think of that city. And of calmer times. He bid his time for greater glory during the Clinton years.

And it all ended today.

Ode To Last Fall

2007-04-28T00:53:00.000+02:00

I cry a poem for the last fall
when
a bottle of date jam was opened
a can of toothepaste was gifted
a lump of weed was thrown out by mistake
a midnight was lost in the reflection of the moon

almost

when
a sigh was lost in the veins
a memory was washed out with soap
a journey was interrupted
a poem was written and corrected

crying a poem over a poem
written and forgotten

almost

standing by the road that went nowhere
without a head, thinking thoughts
playing cards with a deck incomplete
writing the editorial on inconsequentials

the fall came and departed

almost

Street Fight

2007-04-28T00:41:00.000+02:00

1.
I watch them intently, fascinated. The short one has stains of spittle on his collar as he spews about obscenities. The taller one scoffs at him blaring yellowing teeth. Then the first punch lands and the heavy gold chain jiggles and moves back as his head falls back almost in slow motion. The taller one takes a step in anticipation of the counter punch. The shorter one stands straight, his eye suddenly swollen but his gelled hair still nicel in place. He is unsteady in his footwork but has not lost his swagger. He smirks and lunges forward with his fist outstretched. Te taller one moves back, grabs his fist and spins him to the ground.

I stand there motionless having made no attempt to stop them.

2.
I walk by the Foyer after I park.The door remains closed. I am illegally parked with two of the side wheels of the car on the side walk. People are gathering on the sidewalk at the La Terrazze to get a drink. On a bench a lonely young African boy sits drinking alone. Ahead of him is the sunset. But the lights have not become bright at Cologny to be seen yet.

Mountain View

2007-04-26T18:27:00.000+02:00

(No, not the town in South Bay....)

It is a beautiful room under the rolling hills of a mountain chain. The room opens up to a vast rolling meadow and there is nothing between the veranda and the mountains. There is a man-made lake for water skiing and a beautiful golf couse that snakes around the hotel. The restaurant is just delectable, offering perfect nouvelle cousine. The wine list is extensive and the bar is open.

It is a beautiful day, neither too hot nor cold. The sky is blue and far away you can see sporadic traffic.

The bed is comfortable and bathroom is really nice. I am not that easily impressed with hotel rooms. But this is really good.

Yet, as I sit here staring at nothingness, i wonder why is it that they put me in places like this then fill the day with such a tight agenda that I don't have a moment to myself to enjoy the place.

I wish I had the time to pick up the phone and call people.

May be it is better to be in urban hotels to do this sort of stuff. At least you don't miss anything.

oh well.

Love Bites Bullet: Discovering Coco Part 2

2007-04-23T14:39:00.001+02:00

She didn’t know what drove her to take him to her apartment after a long evening of abortive and unskilled flirting. This was unlike her and she felt that she had no choice in the matter. She didn’t know anything about him except his name, which sounded very funny for the way he looked. He had no idea what was happening either. He lingered in the club transfixed in her movements and let the magic in her control his movements. So when she finally asked him to walk her to her place, he could not even think of saying no.

Sometimes love just happens. It happens without reason or purpose. It happens despite all the best efforts. It happens even when it should not. He entered her car in silence. She apologized for the mess in the car and for the half-eaten banana on the passenger seat. They drove in silence with neither saying a word. The streetlights that had just become brighter in the evening mediated in the matter silently. A wave of intensity rose and fell between them and rippled out into the world. As she parked her car in front of her house, he leaned over and kissed her for the first time; on the lips but without tongue. She did not kiss him back. She felt his kiss and stayed stiff without reacting.

Her apartment was rather tiny, almost like a cell. It was painted in light green color. She lived alone in the basement of a rooming house owned by an immigrant Iraqi couple who after retiring made most of their income from their properties. She got a good deal when she showed up one evening desperate for a place and with no intention to spend a lot of money. They showed her the room and as an incentive offered to furnish it with a bed and mattress. She furnished the rest with IKEA furniture and bright colored curtains. There was a lava lamp in the corner that provided nighttime theatre to the otherwise drab ambience.

On the bed, with the lights turned off except for the psychedelic dots of flicker for the lava lamp and the radio playing softly, they touched each other for the first time, seriously and with determination, her forearm pressing against his crotch; his hand – shaking and unsteady- roaming freely across the faint moist curvature of her thigh without the watchful eyes of the bouncer. Like two lost souls in love for the first time, drinking thirstily from an endless cup they moved unashamedly into the final frontier and discovered each other. They were not skilled at it either, she having lost her confidence in a feeling that brought on a loss of control and he nervous and lost in the moment. He lost and found his hardness and she missed and regained her rhythm. They made love like two school children fooling around behind the schoolyard for the first time.

When they were done, all their nervousness had gone, wiped clear by the tender words and soft touch. Only a gentle feeling of well being remained.
Then he felt the urge. His stomach started to turn. First he thought it was his body feeling sick for the sin he had just committed. Then, despite the fighting of the mind over matter, the matter grew strong and he ran to the toilet with the urgency he had never felt before. When he came out of the toilet, after a long while, he no longer was in love. He kept going in and out most of the night and after the fourth time when the tenderness was replaced by certain revulsion, Coco also fell out of love.

They were then a curious pair; ex-lovers bound to each other by a hidden connection of the man in need of a toilet and woman who was the owner of the toilet. The fact that they had just made love made it difficult for her to throw him out right away. She covered herself and hoped he would leave soon.

At some point in the night, weak and muttering, Bullet suggested that she call a cab for him. Without protesting, she did.

The next day, Bullet was admitted to the hospital with a terrible case of amoebic dysentery. It was quite ironic, as everyone from the Embassy remarked when they came to visit him at the hospital, that a man from India would catch a tropical disease in America.

Finally when he was well enough to leave America for India, with his dream of visiting New York unfulfilled, he sat on his chair and contemplated the emptiness of life; his failing career, his unloved wife, his pointless trip to America and his one true love that lasted for only an afternoon.

Then he wrote Coco a letter.

My dearest Coco, it read, I don’t know why I write this. There is no point in writing a letter of love to a former lover whom I have only known but for a fleeting moment. But what I felt in that moment was true love. My illness and departure from your place tore my heart not because it ended so soon, but because it happened once. I can never be the same person again, having experienced it once. I am in turmoil. I shall return to India and remember you. It is pointless to expect that we will ever meet again or that if we met, we would ever feel for each other the way we did that evening. But for that evening, I thank you. For the illness and the subsequent silliness and all the inconvenience it caused, I apologize. Yours, Bullet.

Then in the taxi to the airport, sitting in the backseat, Bullet carefully tore the letter into a thousand pieces and let them all fly away into the night sky of Washington DC.

On her way to work, Coco saw a small piece of white paper fly though the air and land on her windshield. It stuck there confidently like it was fixed there with glue. When she parked the car, she pulled out the paper and read it. It was an advertisement for a mattress. It simply said, “Comfort. For one night or forever.”

Then she began to cry.

Love Bites Bullet: Discovering Coco Part 1

2007-04-23T14:39:00.000+02:00

Bullet Balasubrahmaniam heaved a sigh of relief as the plane touched down at Washington DC. They cannot take this away from me now, he said to himself. This was Bullet’s first foreign trip, a junket that he managed by deftly manipulating his connections in the UN and his influence with the ministry. He always wanted to visit the US, particularly on Indian government dime. “Keen to go to the States,” as he put it. The momentous occasion was a conference on Population Control hosted by a UN agency in Washington DC.

These have been lean months for Bullet with him falling out of favor with the Minister and getting moved to a backwater function as the Undersecretary of Population Management. Most of the day, he sat in his backroom office playing with paperweights of various shapes and colors until the idea to set up a foreign junket popped into his head. There was no stopping him from accomplishing his true mission, population problems of India be damned.

After much maneuverings around the red-ribbon weighted halls of officialdom and one or two close calls that almost smelled like responsible governance, Bullet finally made it to the plane bound for London and then on to Washington DC. He barely paid any attention to the topic of the conference, spending much more of his time making lists of things he wanted to see. Is it possible to visit New York City from Washington DC over the weekend, he asked his fellow travelers? Is the white house open to visitors? Can I get away with wearing a safari suit at this time of the year? He kept the last question however to himself. Bullet was going to see America the way she deserved to be seen.

The meeting was typical of such pointless conferences he had seen organized in Vigyan Bhavan before. Self-important suits with dark glasses sat behind massive nameplates announcing their eminence and mouthed unintelligible nothings that went on for hours without accomplishing much. There was a dinner, where old cliques renewed their circular closeness while new members circles the periphery looking for an opening to get in. Bullet was neither in nor out. He walked from on circle to another spotting an occasional Stephenite who weaseled a plum posting outside and thus managed to get his hand shaken by a few. He felt hot under his new synthetic suit and the tightly knotted tie. He was already bored.

He regretted his decision to come to America. This was not what he had signed up for when he ran from pillar to post trying to get his trip approved. There was nothing there for an inquisitive creature like him. Nothing at all.

So, on the second day of the meeting when he decided to skip the afternoon session and walk around town, he did so without guilt. He had seen an establishment curiously titled “The Frog pond” on the way to his hotel the night before. He was not sure what exactly went on in there but it seemed to him that the business involved naked women and sex. It was a windowless place with bright blue neon lights outside and a blinking lime green neon silhouette of a naked woman sitting inside a martini glass. There were cars parked outside and a rather unhappy looking woman and a bored yet tough bouncer kept the door tidy and organized.

As he came upon the club, on a whim, Bullet decided to go in. It was four in the afternoon and it lacked the intimidating external ambience of the night before. Inside, it was quite dark and creepy with the hall curving and hiding spaces. The wall was either or black or very dark red but without enough lighting in the room he could tell. In the middle of the room, there was an elliptical stage with pole in the front and chairs were arranged around the stage. There were a couple of bored customers sitting quietly on the chairs and the club staff paid very little attention to them.

He had been told plenty of times by those experienced in these matters that sitting near the stage involved loss of single dollar bills at an alarmingly rapid rate. Being a prudent Indian that he was, he picked himself an unobtrusive corner chair with an unobstructed view and sat down with his conference bag on his lap. Bullet ordered a coke and made himself comfortable as much as anyone could be in those circumstances.

Then he looked at the girl who was dancing naked on the stage and fell in love.

Coco!

Coco was quite a striking looking woman. She had the chocolate skin of a Jamaican and features of a Moroccan Goddess. She was tall and slender with appreciable breasts and thick kissable lips. Her shoulder length blackish brown hair fell about her lazily as she danced. She laughed easily when she was not working. When she was not working, she was Bettina, a quite comely young woman in a confident understated way; quite a determined young woman who was shouldering the responsibility of a large family back home in the islands and a low appetite for game-playing.

But work was entirely a different matter. At work at the Frog Pond, all the understatement disappeared into Coco the African goddess. She strutted her stuff vivaciously in larger-than-life movements. Her well-timed gyrations and artificially throaty laugh were designed for effect. She knew that the slow ripples of her breasts and the flash of her clean-shaven public area as she bent over them were irresistible to her customers. Frog Pond was right next to the UN agency offices in Washington DC. Most of her customers were middle-aged contractors and young interns circling the beltway in search of some diversion from the boredom of their lives. It was her job to make them feel better about their lives and do it better than the other girls at club. She took this very seriously and was rewarded handsomely for it.

In one phrase, pure sex!

But that is so far from love. And Bullet was no fool, especially to fall in love in a strip club. He didn’t ever remember falling in love. Ever! He barely tolerated his wife and sex mostly was a matter of routine business that was transacted without urgency or ceremony in the darkness of the bedroom. That did not mean there was no fondness in him for his wife; there was certain warmth with which he considered her jasmine-scented hair oil and the way she trembled when touched in unfamiliar parts.

Butterflies in his stomach!

He was not accustomed to feeling this way.

He must have blushed. He moved forward and pulled a chair closer to the stage to look at the dancer. It didn’t register to him that she was naked and her body was there on display for anyone with a buck to spare. He stared at her eyes and melted.

Coco saw another opportunity for tips as she saw Bullet pulling the chair closer to the stage. She has seen this a million times before, men moving closer to get a closer look of her body in semi-arousal and open lust. She has seen their letchy smiles and the self-important offerings of money. But he was different. He looked at her eyes and there was a naive freshness of a schoolboy in his battle-hardened face.

Coco liked the Indian man almost instantly then against all rules and practice. She was in this business to make money and not to care for the men who came day in aroused by the attraction to naked flesh. None of it, even the theatrics of performance, mattered to her much anymore; it was like driving or brushing teeth. On autopilot, she let her body do those things without feeling. But for reasons unknown to her conscious self, he aroused a primordial sympathy in her. She glanced at him and saw that he still wore a nametag of some conference over his ill-fitting polyester jacket. He was dark and short and had the demeanor of someone very uncomfortable with sex and all matters pertaining to sex.

She went through the gyrating motions for her other customers until her song was over and when done, parted company with them gracefully gathering up the loose dollar bills from the stage. Next dancer came on stage and the emcee tried to rev up interest by shouting out all the great things she was capable of.

Coco descended the stage and went straight to Bullet.

-- Want a dance, honey? She asked smiling sweetly. Almost condescendingly.

There was no other way she could approach him. In this world of transactions and trade-offs, every shy approach was an offering for touch, a promise of more touch, selling dreams packaged as desire.

He nodded like a child and followed her to a corner. She started with all the normal moves of writhing and moaning and then inexplicably something happened inside her. She felt a mother-like sympathy for this diminutive man much older than her. Her touch became tender and her sounds more muted, genuine and sincere. Her nipples became harder and her thighs moist.

There in the fake-coital position, an unlikely pair, an Indian administrative officer and an uneducated stripper fell in love while sharing an intimacy that was predestined and commercial.

Letters

2007-04-23T02:28:00.000+02:00

I haven’t written you in a long while
What is new with me but a thousand trips to hell
Pregnant with expectations
On abandoned ships with broken sails

A young son is lying dead; the mother is frantically
Searching. There are customary negotiations and
Percentage commissions, a deal is made and lost
The bus departs on a long evening trip

The woman is waiting for you with mustard
Collected from a house that has not known death
Truth has become dreams and dreams, journeys
Yet the dead still sleep the endless sleep

All this needs retelling, in an endless letter
That I try writing since I have known you
I sit with the pen you gave me and the paper
I stole from the mortician’s journal
Are the words still here? Or unseen by me,
Do they wait across the abyss of time?

This dark moonless night
You have come looking for me
Now I repent, I haven’t written to you
About my dreams and endless stories

The symphony of motion is slowing to an end,
And I am longing to see my friends
Even if I don’t post them, to whom else am I
Going to address these letters of life?

Leaving Argentina : Lessons Learned

2007-04-15T12:32:00.000+02:00

Do you remember those old days when getting outof India (or getting in, for that matter) involved a series of choreographed steps that looked like complete cacaphony and chaos from outside but had a sort of rhythm once you knew the game?

Things have become a lot simpler that you can hope to accomplish this without aquiring a new vocabulary and a new set of best friends and losing all the pocket change. Thank the universal one-eyes lightness for that.

Getting out of Buenos Aires last week reminded me of that as I left last week.

First of all, plan on getting to the airport at least a year before the departure time to leave ample time to complete the "formalities."

First of all, the damn short ride from the center of the city to the International airport (Ministro Pistarini International Airport) in Ezeiza ought to take twenty minutes but it takes one hour. But I am not worried, because I have two and half hours to catch the flight, so why should I be worried?

I should be worried. I should be very worried.

I reach the airport and as I enter the departure hall, it resembles a cross between the emergency waiting room of a large hospital (without any chairs and bleeding people) and a Sunday market. people are running helter-skelter and everyone is looking worried. I am quite unfazed at this as I walk to the counter because I see that my counter is free. I have a "been there, done that" look on my face.

Not so fast, punk.

There is a woman stationed between me and the counter and she stands behind a lecturn and has stamps and papers with her. This is never good news, especially in the developing world. So I smile and try to be VERY VERY polite. Meanwhile, I glance and see that the line for economy is snaking its way to Colombia.

She begins with innocent questions like, "who packed your luggage?"
I answer very politely. Then the questions get harder and harder. I am kicking myself for not paying attention in my general knowledge questions in high school. Later she wants to know the birth dates of my great grand parents and a brief history of the manufacturer of my suit case.

Finally, she smiles, flips through my passport and hands me a piece of paper duly stamped and notorized for what purpose I do not know. I am relieved.

I get to the counter. Nobody pays any attention to the notorized piece of the paper as the counter-lady processes my ticket and gives me my boarding card. Then she says, "hurry, you don't have much time."

This is truly prophetic and ominous. I look at my watch and think, hmm, I have plenty of time so why would she say this?

Then I realize I have another line to stand on. This is an egalitarian line with everyone heading everywhere has to stand on regardless of destination or class of service. This is to pay $18 exit tax. This line also snakes its way to Columbia. So I get to the back of the line and wait my turn. Another eternity passes by until i get to the end of the line and I pay. She gives me another receipt. Nobody checks the first notorized paper. Now with all these papers, I head to the cambio to get some dollars back for the pesos. There are two counters and two people. But one of them has decided to just stand around and not necessarily help people for some reason. So there goes another 30 minutes.

Then the first line of emmigration. The counter number comes on except at a place where the person in the front of the line cannot quite see. So everyone behind them have to shout, look look, you go to counter number 14 and so on. As soon as they reach the front of the line however, they forget this whole thing and begin to assume the clueless look.

I get though that hurdle OK. Except noone checks for any of my growing lit of official papers. They just want to see the passport, not even the boarding card.

Then there is a customs line and a security line, which seems more for comical reasons than for any real purposes. Shoes and lapt-tops stay on and in... and every one gets a once-over pat-down. From the look of it, Osama could walk that line with a ton of explosives and will pass the line.

Oh, yeah, the path from this point to the gate passes through what looks like the ladies section of Robinsons May or some other mid-style department store. Store-ladies wait for attract the attention of wouldbe customers and you are running through isles of merchantise towards your flight.

At this point I have consumed all my buffer and I am worried. I need to go to the bathroom but I realize I have no time.

There is another security inspection within five feet of the plane. This is a tougher one, I assume specifically designed for US bound passengers.

I get patted down, my dirty clothes get one too.. I am happy to be finally on the OTHER side.

No more queues.

I walk into the plane and I have one minute to spare.

As I sit down and sip some champagne 9which I hate, but I secide I deserve to celebrate the triuph of persistence over beaurocracy) I realize that people are still walking in.

So the departure time is a mere suggestion.

At some point in the night, we must have departed because when I woke up I was no longer in Argentina.

And here I thought Indian procedures were the worst!

Electric Embrace : A dream

2007-04-15T11:51:00.001+02:00

Give me an electric embrace and energize me or kill me
All I feel is the static electricity from memories of the past weeks

I am flying with a single wing over an ashen sky
Evicted from my domicile, my letters float in the ether
Without feathers, my wings don’t touch the air as I glide
And when I touch down, I hit the sand and meet a frog

The frog sits in the boiling water and laughs at me
As the temperature rises and his feet turn to meat
I laugh back for I know he will die before I do
Then I look down and see the quick sand beneath my feet

The guests of this summer city do not leave
I try planting signs at the seething lake and under the sky
They laugh back at me, pointing at the rose buds
Inviting them to stay back and relax by the shore

Am I the only one with the vision to see that the lake water
Has turned toxic from all the blood of innocents?
Why can’t you hear the muffled screams of their helplessness
Rising in bubbles from the bottom of the lake bed?

The frog closes his eyes and goes back to meditating
From under his webbed feet a banyan tree rises
I tie a noose on the tree and my neck to escape the quicksand
Now the frog, the tree and I are dissolving in your electric embrace

Globbish Poem

2007-04-14T09:58:00.000+02:00

A new form of stripped-down English is emerging around the world that is suppossed to be effective but not rich. This is the global English that is used by five hundred million speakers around the world who use it as a medium of communication around the world only in the context of business and rudimentary social communication.

Herald Tribune postulates that this will get even simpler and evolve into a different language from the preent-day English. English that is used in the US and the UK will become mere dialects of this global form of English. So, here is an attempt to write a poem in Globbish as I would write it in 2040. The poem is real, the sentiments are real and apparently the language is also real.

left faint smell perfume
unwashed shirt
Left bottom
old suitcase

nipple attached bottle vodka
Feeds child life blood
I kiss what left river
After sold soft drink bottlers?

old memory ranting unconsciously
emergency ward hospital
Lets bury dreams hope
They die asphyxiation

Collapse heap
Rise hope
Wait opening
Expect heartbreak

Shadow boxing
this dark alley
All myslf
Against world

Now let me be.
Don’t
--Obey me, listen to me
--Imitate me, pity me
--Shadow-box me

Self Pity Is A Bitch

2007-04-13T13:00:00.000+02:00

I was so lost last night. So lost that I wanted to escape my life and run far away and be someone else. I was tired and hungry but I wanted no food or rest. I took a tram to some part of town i didn't know. I got off the tram and started walking. It was night and my heart was heavy with thought. The river was ahead of me and I walked away from the tram lines and found a place on the sidewalk by the river. There was a bench. I sat down and stared at the city lights and the stars over them. There was nothing to do, nowhere I wanted to be.

The phone barely had any signal. I was distraught. I wanted to talk to no one. I didn't want to be polite or happy. I didn't care how any one else felt. There is some pleasure in guiltless wallowing in pain.

I walked many miles, until my feet hurt and my legs were numb. I didn't sleep all night, staying up and staring blankly at the computer. Don't you love days like that?

Kitsch-Americana

2007-04-12T17:01:00.000+02:00

Kitsch Pronunciation: 'kich Function: noun Etymology: German1 : something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality2 : a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition - kitsch adjective - kitschy /'ki-chE/ adjective

Sanjaya Malakar

I am not a fan of American Idol and I have never watched the show. yet this has reached me tells you how far-reaching this thing is. I am sure you have heard of this as well.

Synopsis: He is a singer on American Idol. He is a young man/teenager who is half-Indian-American half-Italian-American from Hawaii. He is by all accounts a very weak singer with funny hair-dos. He has outlasted other more talented contests with support from Howard Stern and a website called votefortheworst.com.

Comment: Nobody ever mentions he is half Italian-American. His half Indian status is big in India as they foolishly try to prop up the guy. And it is a big deal in the US where they attribute his "success" to call-center stealth to all sorts of other things.

White Guy Sings Bollywood

Synopsis: He lip-syncs, he dances, he makes Shammi Kapoor-esque expressions and his heroine is a finger puppet. This is hilarious.

Comment: If parody is the best form of recognition, then Hindi cinema has come a long way. It has become a genre in itself, much like opera or ballet is. You judge it within its constraints and standards and not by the general standards with which you judge "cinema" or Hollywood. The singing-dancing-weeping-crying-fighting-loving all-purpose hero swooning over the appropriately affected heroine is something Indian movie watchers have long loved. I don't think it is because they are stupid or unsophisticated that they like the predictability of these overly-affected executions of oversimplified story lines. They like it because it is a genre they are familiar with much like every third Italian sweeper in Rome humming Verdi while going about his job. Take it for what it is and don't get too touchy. It is OK to laugh at ourselves and our quirky nostalgia once in a while.

Byculla to Breach Candy

2007-04-11T14:03:00.000+02:00

There are many places to walk in Bombay, but a walk from Byculla Train Station to Breach Candy Hospital is perhaps one with the most contrasts.

It is not an easy of a pleasant walk but if you could suspend judgement and seek what you seek behind the facades and the obvious, you will be surprised by what you will find. Byculla used to be one of the most fashionable suburbs of Bombay. Bombay is really a European city if you look past its modern squalor. When you cross over from the station on the fly-over (walk slowly and avoid the deadly traffic), you will see old buildings that still retain the charm of the old grandeur. After Hornby Vellard was completed in the late 1700s, creating what is known as Breach Candy today (or Bulabhai Desai Road if you prefer), Byculla came to be a fashionable suburb. Mazgaon already had faded as the central point for the ultra-rich and malabar Hill was not yet the in-thing. Later, after a great epidemic, the rich fled further west and built the mansions in Malabar Hill leaving Byculla in its current state.

David Sassoon used to live here. You may not know this, but Vidal Sassoon is a descendant of this David. A great Iraqi Jew, David came to Bombay when he was young and made a fortune and he remained a great benefactor to his adopted city to the end.

Under the flyover there is the small but important Christ Church Lane with its distinct buildings. Most of the residents still know each other and there is a sense of small town camaraderie here. If you walk down the lane, watch out for the most recognized funeral directors across the street - Pinto. I think they might still be the only body embalmers in all of Bombay. This is a long and rambling walk, past much ugly scenery. So you have to look carefully to find architectural gems hidden behind make-shift structures, tin hutments and sidewalk encroachments. The church and the hospital buildings both date back to the heyday of the British empire right before the causeway was constructed. This road, as you walk past much muck with go through the brothels of Madanpura. In Madanpura you will see a lot of interesting buildings way past their prime constructed to house laborers and most of them lived in the rental houses. These houses are still landlord-owned even though only nominally. Aside from prostitution, under the think facade of normalcy, Madanpura also hosts drug sellers and addicts as well as Muslim gangsters. Kamathipura is not that far from here. Be sure not to step on the people sleeping on the streets if it is night. This place comes alive during Ramzan nights with all sorts of exotic food stalls. It is second only to Muhammed Ali Road in its Ramzan night stalls.

Continue past the rotary, you go past Bombay Central station and on to Tardeo. Bombay Central station is a great handsome building built to host the Bombay Baroda and Central India (BB&CI) Railway when it was opened in the 1860s. I don't know when the building was constructed, but from its look I would like to postulate a much later date, perhaps early 1900s. The bridge over the railway tracks is also an interesting basalt and iron structure that will take you down to the middle of Tardeo. Tardeo I assume is named after a shiva temple even though I don't remember ever seeing the temple. There is the police station up ahead and Sardar's, the famous pav bhaji place is right after the bus stop. Across the road is a BEST bus depot that has been there 1950s. A small lane of buildings with great wood construction lies behind the BEST depot called Wadia street. At this point all the interesting buildings begin to taper off. There are two more I think, the rest are concrete monstrosities until you reach Heera Panna and the giant bill boards.

Mahalaxmi temple is barely visible from the road anymore, as you walk to Pedder road. Now you are walking on the first stretch of the famous Horny Vellard. mahalaxmi temple was constructed after a statue was recovered during the construction of the vellard. Most of the interesting mansions on this road were demolished in the 50s and 60s and ugly apartment buildings were constructed in their place. As you go up Warden road, the only old building that still stands is the palace of Gaikwads of Baroda which is now the officers' residence for BARC. Breach candy hospital is right after. Breach Candy is named after the great "breach" which was the gap that let water into the inner central Bombay during high tide. The water reached till Pydhonie (Pydhonie is a corruption of the term Pav-donie.. feet wash). If you have the right connections, you may be able to still enjoy the hospitality of the old Parsi mansions that lie hidden from the road by the ocean. But their days are sadly numbered. Unfortunately, there are no mansions open to the general public.

Our journey ends here. Remember to take a cab back.

A Scene

2007-04-11T00:11:00.001+02:00

Between two halves of sleeping comes a thought... Looking down from the airplane, I saw two ramose trees perfectly placed in the middle of a cropped square field. The wind must have been gentle if ineed there was wind, touching the spindley edges of the branches. The trunks were grey. There was a wintery solitude about them as they stood flickering between existence and non-existence as clouds danced between us. The green grass was ploughed around them creating a small oval of roughness. A small road went around the field and entered into a brick-making factory. Then the whole scene disappeared.

These are the moments when I remember Richard Bach and Illusions.

Sleep, perchance to dream.

What if?

2007-04-10T00:29:00.000+02:00

Contrary to the normal custom, he did not wait for permission before walking in. He walked in after gently parting the curtains and without much ceremony, sat down across from my father. He was dark and short with his unparted curly hair shining with a generous application of oil. The wetness of his forehead was either excess oil rolling down or perspiration. Either way, it was shining in the government-regulation light in the room. it would indeed be so, to begin a story like this rather affectionately since I was not there. I don't even know if this is how it all happened, but sitting here thirty years later, I might as well imagine it so because it gives comfort to my memory and makes it come alive a little better. He began, then clearing his throat, staring at my father's bewildered face - not in the sort of way a rude man stares - but in a gentler way of the sages, sir, you are perhaps wondering who I am. I am not here for alms or with some scam to separate you from your money, and above all, I seek no favors from your office. I am just a passing astrologer with some predictions for your family that I thought I will pass on to you. I am not looking for any money, not in the least bit, but perhaps a cup of tea would be nice. As he spoke, his eyebrows moved up and down, the way two fish meeting each other accidentally in a fish tank. Two cups of tea were promptly ordered, just as they always are in government offices. A bell was perhaps rung, a man in khaki pants perhaps peered in, my father raised two fingers to make a sign of V and the khaki-pants then departed most obsequiously behind the curtain. Perhaps a cigarette was lit and my father, as he always did in his office, stared unsmilingly at thick files tied together with red ribbons while the visitor sat silently under the whirring fan waiting for his turn to begin. Such visitors were rare to his office to be sure, and when they did arrive, it was often with more notice and ceremony appropriate for favor-seeking. As soon as the tea appeared and the curtains closed behind them, the visitor cleared his throat to continue his conversation. You have a son and daughter, he said, without waiting for confirmation and the son is the oldest. My father agreed while thinking who in the world has told him this. Then the visitor dropped a ton of past-hints that no one else could have known to achieve some hard-earned credibility. Thus having captured his attention, he said abruptly quite like the way things happen in the horror movies when you least expect it, you know something, I want you to be warned of something. Your son and daughter will both die together when he is forty-two in a plane crash. That night, my father came home, and told his son, that is me of course - who was a rather bookish eight then - you see son, there was a man in my office and he claimed to be an astrologer. Then foolishly - because you ought not say such things to eight year-olds - but he did anyway; he was that sort of a fellow, he said that you will die in a plane crash at forty-two. Not a problem, I agreed vigorously, I just don't have to fly that year. This posed no problems to either of us at that moment, because in my household, flying was a very rare occasion, and those days in India, you flew only when you absolutely had to and it was a rare event. So keeping his son from flying for a year was not a problematic solution to the tricky problem for my father.

So here I sit in the lounge again - and I have taken a flight pretty much every other day this week or every day of the week - often more than one each day, and I think this is what I have to look forward to. A fiery death at the age of forty-two. I am not a believer of fate, astrology or God. So it is quite evident to me that the prediction from this random astrologer to father's office, the memory of which has stayed with me forever since, is nothing but pure rubbish and that I am going to live past forty-two and see my fifties with its accompanying midlife crisis and baldness. But then again, one in a while, the thought occasionally props up in my head:

What if he was right?

Silly Poem

2007-04-08T22:51:00.000+02:00

a dream of Summer madness dies
under the weight of an untimely spring,
last of this impertinent winter,
a snowflake has gone meditating

Under the clouds stands a crane
waiting for rain drops
the wanton greens of spring
masturbate at the sight of sun

In this fine divide between seasons
I wait with my watch set to autumn

Cliff Notes on Travel

2007-04-08T01:25:00.000+02:00

After logging more than twelve thousand miles of flying this week, I am exhausted. I lie awake in bed, but I cannot sleep. Too much to process and too much to digest.

Canada was cold, Argentina was warm, and it is snowing in the US. In Ricoleta, I had walked through the lanes of the national cemetery speaking on hushed tones into the phone. Each mausoleum was built like a house right next to another and everyoneone was interned overground and there they rest under the giant shadows of the city. City of the dead. There, without rents and changes of address they rest, generals, musicians, scientists, dictators and Eva Peron. I didn't feel the need for the sort of sad introspection one feels when one is normally walking through such places. I felt vacant.

Outside, I sat alone under a giant banyan tree. Its branches covered the whole park. There was an orthodox Jewish couple sharing a park bench. Next to me sat an old woman who had the looks of a retired lounge singer. It was hot and sunny. Even though summer was technically coming to an end, it felt like the middle of summer.

Later I walked on Avenia El Salvador looking for paintings. There was a jeans store that looked like a church and a shirt design shop which only has clothes in "Small" size. The waitress in the Asian fusion restaurant was pretty and could have passed off as a Bengali. Her ear was pierced at a wrong spot, almost too close the face. The soup was so hot it made me finish two bottles of water.

Later in another country, the emmigration officer questioned me about why I was hopping around so much. There was snow in the ground and I was cold. Airport was full of bearded Pakistani types in Southwest Frontier costume.

Altogether it is a happy week.

Buddha At The Traffic Light

2007-04-02T05:18:00.000+02:00

"There are only three sins - causing pain, causing fear, and causing anguish. The rest is window dressing." - Roger Caras

Crossing the streets in Ricoleta
I ran into Buddha this evening
As vehicles raced through the slit
Between the amber and waiting
I saw him wavering nervously between
Non-violence and indecision

I tried following him
But was cut off by a white limousine
You were driving it with cruel words
And I was falling under your tires
I was dream-walking
And you were dream-speaking

There were no trapdoors as I fell
Just open pits of the dream sequence
(Watching the acrobats perform
On the mean streets of Bario Norte
I wonder if they understand
The true meaning of life

I have given up the ghost
Of the search for true meaning
The meaning is forever lost on me
Even on simple quests
Otherwise I will know to step
Aside from open pits and racing cars)

That is what I think
As I fall through them in Palermo
On my way down I was gifted
A train of thought
Without an engine or a signalman
But with repeating memories of guilt

I boarded the train and waited
For a ride out of the pit of despair
The guard was wearing words in layers
Over the under-garments of meaning
This twilight is the beginning and end
At once of meaning and silence

In La Boca when I ran into Buddha again
He was smiling at my bandaged face
While stuffing his mouth with peanuts
This time I ignored him safely
And followed cruel words and tear ducts
To your painted bedroom window

Buenos Aires, Argentina: First Impressions

2007-04-01T17:08:00.000+02:00

I just got here from Washington DC this morning. It was rainy and muggy and I saw the city slowly waking up. Buenos Aires has a European feel. It almost felt like the child of a marriage between Madrid and Kualalampur. It is humid and tropical and summer is barely over.

I walked to Boca Bario which is the colorful quarter where the poor emigrants once lived. From the look of it, the poor continue to live here. The neighborhood is colorful and made of corrugated sheet metal. There were live tango performers on the street and Brazilian acrobats. The famous Boca Juniors football club (Maradona's home team) is named after them.

I was also driven around to the more posh neighborhoods as well. The usual museums and craft fares and antique dealerships followed. The city is clean and impressive. The old port district has been completely transformed into a great chic restaurant and shopping area.

The rain went away in the afternoon. Now I am exhausted. More on Argentina later.

Bullet Bites The Bullet - Part Uno

2007-03-30T11:38:00.000+02:00

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.

Bat Out of Hell

2007-03-29T10:05:00.000+02:00

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.

Death becomes the postman

2007-03-26T19:27:00.000+02:00

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)

Problem Solver

2007-03-25T05:12:00.000+02:00

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.

Mulund Musical Fountain

2007-03-24T23:54:00.000+01:00

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.

Mañana.... Mañana

2007-03-22T09:20:00.000+01:00

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

Europe's Uncle Tony

2007-03-22T00:05:00.000+01:00

(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.

Gedanken von einem Flughafen

2007-03-12T08:17:00.000+01:00

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.

Pit of Despair

2007-02-27T07:35:00.000+01:00

Going through terrible highs and lows. Sometimes the high is so high, there is no time to write. And at other times, the low is o abysmal, that words become so sticky and morose. These are the days when I would rather not speak to anyone, rather not communicate at all.

In this death ward of this great silence, I float listlessly. I hear screams and tears flowing my way from far away, for the sins of a lifetime, mostly unatoned. I feel the fever of loss in my veins, sometimes for a moment, mostly for a lifetime. Memories grow and wither and I have nothing but a silent benediction for the dead, for the lost and for the overwhelmed memories in me.

I know these are the mornings when I see nothing but gray. Is there a poem in all this? I am sure there is, but a better person must write it.

Somewhere there is a buffalo stomping his feet, someone is weeping silently, a bundle of sorrows is unhurled in a room far away. It has been three years since he died. He was led silently to his slaughter by the disease that raged through his body, yet he held his head high and went with dignity.

I wish I could apologize everyday. There was so much I wanted to say, so much I wanted to do. But in the end, all that was left was a dream and a short phone call. Three years pass ever so quickly. My life keeps getting complicated. You are not there to teach me to be a man when I am challenged with the burdens and decisions.

I miss you dad. I really do. On a day like today when there is nothing more I need than to make a phone call and reach out to you.

Nail Bites - Nonsense poems

2007-02-18T00:59:00.000+01:00

It didn't start as a thought on poetry
Something stuck in my throat

It was just a silly memory
A discomfort in the evening
An overdose of migraine medication
A really dry throat from a word misspoken
A silent scream when slipping in the toilet
A line from a movie seen long ago

Not that I started to think about poetry
But now I am pacing restlessly

***

The soup had brown swirls
like the pictures of the solar system
From the new text books

The salad came in four different
square plates, red, white, yellow and green
Like a flag of a nation yet unborn

A boat went from one chair to the onother
with notes, mail and parcels
and little morsels of rationed feelings

By the time desert came
the ocean had caught fire
and the sky started bleeding

so all that was left for the boatman to do
was to play the riverdance songs
on a harmonica

***
type furiously
always the letter i
hit the spacebar
follow the sunshine westward
over the ocean
float by the snow-capped mountains
spacebar spacebar spacebar
capslock
through airport doors
waiting taxis
enter
apartments
unpacked boxes
new bills
old letters
spacebar
carriage-return
go to work
feeling light
over the cubicle
like a floating cottonball
hit the backspace
then enter
then ctrol-c and control-v
and keep going at
it
until
all that
is
left
in
the
whole
room
is
just
you
and
i
floating
like
the
cotton
ball

Sick

2007-02-15T17:55:00.000+01:00

So, I have been deathly ill. OK, deathly is a little bit of an exaggeration. So, since today I have been able to stand up and walk and breathe through my nostrils, I thought I will post something if this is the last thing I do.

Happy Valentine's day everyone. Unless ofcourse, you think Valentine's day corrupts your culture.

OK, gotta go lie down. Ciao.

Post-modern

2007-02-10T01:32:00.000+01:00

1. Brand Management
I postponed my suicide
For a day
Considering
The ratings
And negotiations
For a better sponsor.

2. Anna Nicole
How much
Valium and Methodone
Do you need
To qualify
As a celebrity death?

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

Untitled

Laughter is our language
Poetry our lifeblood
We come alive in the evening

I came this way by accident,

like a bird retiring
And found my branch for the night

You came a decade later
To the next branch
With water and warmth

Some nights when I rose up
In nightmares of past sins
You sang me a lullaby

So say good-bye with a poem
Before the night is over
While we are still laughing

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

Turning Tricks

Outside the academy
The language that has many
Wonderfully empty words like

-- Humanity
-- Kindness
-- Righeousness

Is calling the passerby
Enticing them with ideas

I watch the torn underwear of the language
Peeking from under its pretty skirt
Today she is quite flowery
But like a cheap whore
Standing around Paquis
For a quick fix

I kept walking because

I had no poems to spare

Nevertheless

2007-02-09T02:52:00.000+01:00

By mid-morning I was in the middle of a moderate panic attack. Perhaps the stress of everything that was beginning to catch up. I probably could have run away somewhere dark curled up under a bed. But I had meetings and had to act brave. I walked straight through a glass door and broke my nose and walked for an hour with my nose covered in ice to stop the bleeding.

The gift from that encounter? A massive headache.

***

Just because I don't say it doesn't mean I am not. After lunch, I sat in my car and watched the cold gray sky. I will learn to drive around the curves without making my passengers sick.

Take a deep breath. The day is yet not over.

***

I walked past the store twice. Each time, I would backtrack and return to the same spot. I was walking aimlessly around town for the last hour. I had enough quarters inserted into the parking meter to cover two hours. I don’t know what I was looking for. Perhaps a dark suit, as if I was going to a funeral. But I was not going to a funeral and I didn’t need a suit. There was a swimwear shop right next to Men’s Warehouse, and the ad displayed at the window, in larger font size and with a color picture read, “What a girl wants, To have the best swimwear.”

It showed a blond woman on the right side frozen in mid step with a wide smile on her face. There were beads of water around her spilling into the rest of the page and onto the letters without smudging them. Plastic beads of water danced around the page without falling off. She didn’t particularly look happy to have what she ostensibly wanted, the best swimsuit. May be the swimsuit she was wearing was not the best, I reasoned, and that is why she is coming out the water looking for what she really wants. The shopgirl came to the window and looked at me with a halfsmile.

The day was too cold and gray. I kept walking down the street away from the nicer part to the dodgier areas, past the nice-looking shops and restaurants until the place decidedly took a downturn. Pawnshops, adult book stores and seedy furniture stores took the place of boutiques and Thai restaurants. I looked out of place but I didn’t care. I looked out of place because I was dressed in a suit and I had no winter coat. I took a side street and walked in front of small single floor houses with iron grills on the windows. There was an eerie violence in the air, which I am sure, was all in my head.

I am going to a funeral, I said to myself, and continued walking. On the street corner, there was a tear graffiti painted on a wall. Under it, there was a photo of a young man left on the sidewalk by a grieving family member with assorted candles and dried flowers. This part of the city loses people regularly to senseless death; gang violence, police violence or getting shot by being trapped between a shooter and an intended victim. There was no method to this madness, people simply dropped dead at nineteen or twenty and their friends added another tattoo on their bodies as a living memorial to the fallen friends. The shooter probably added a tattoo too, as a memory of his act. The police went home and calculated their retirement income. The mothers grieved and left pictures on the sidewalk where their sons fell. Los Angeles Times covered these stories in the city sections sometimes where the stories were sandwiched between the ubiquitous anti-emigration and urban proliferation stories.

At the end of the road, there was a hedge that covered a boarded-up house and its unsightly overgrown yard. The road ended on a T-junction, and I decided to turn right. A woman came out of her door into the front porch and looked at me. She was in her fifties and wore a dark shapeless matronly dress. There was a picture of Jesus on the wall of the porch and an empty place where another picture had been. The empty spot was darker with a strange stain that looked like the forehead of a man. It felt like a house that was comfortable with loss.

I felt that this was the funeral that I was searching. The funeral of time and gray winters. I stood there for a minute not knowing what to do.

Then I turned around and started walking back to my car.

Cranky Post

2007-02-07T18:35:00.000+01:00

I am very cranky today. Personal life, work life, emails, and an unwanted (and ill-prepared for) work dinner/schmoozing session tonight.

I wish I was driving to the little chinese restaurant somewhere in the back of beyond of Versoix and having that carafe of terrible house red and eating some god-knows-what meat.

I am really stressed. I hope things go my way. Is that too much to ask for? Sorry for sounding like an idiot. I promise my mood will improve considerably by Friday and I will have a happy post by then.

In which he has a moment

2007-02-07T00:25:00.000+01:00

He listens to Cesaria Evora as he drives around aimlessly. She fills the car with her unmistakable vocals. She makes him feel sad and guilty. She sings in her unmistakable warm and woody voice the virtues of Cape Verde Islands and how content her people are.

He feels sick. Then he remembers he hasn't had anything to eat the whole day. It is two in the afternoon.

The night falls all around him, and he is driving back from the old university place. On his way back, he stops after the bridge where the road turns into a single lane. He knows where to stop to smell country flowers. He knows this place. It is dark and chilly and the moon shows itself enough to light the shrubbery in eerie silver gray. He breathes in the smell of wild gardenias easily and comfortably with the air of someone who belongs. This is home. He drives on slowly.

***

He looks down from the airplane on his way back and sees Long Island Sound stretching like a narrow wall that separates the wild Atlantic Ocean from the prudish coast. He could make out little things in Block Island, and see the shore delving deep into the sound. Over him are purposeful narrow white clouds. And below him, a few puffy clouds float aimlessly without blocking the view. He thinks of his parents' hometown where he spent summer vacations as a child. The same blue sky. The same puffy clouds. The same world.

Death by blogging

2007-02-05T16:40:00.000+01:00

I got this as junk mail today. Read Each Phrase Carefully and Think About It a second or two.

1. Love someone not because of who they are, but because of who you are when you are with them.

2. No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is, won't make you cry.

3. Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

4. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.

5. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them.

6. Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.

7. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

8. Don't waste your time on a man/woman, who isn't willing to waste their time on you.

9. Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.

10. There's always going to be people that hurt you so what you have to do is keep on trusting and just be more careful about who you trust next time around.

11. Make yourself a better person and know who you are before you try and know someone else and expect them to know you.

Drop Dead Inaccuracies

2007-02-05T16:31:00.000+01:00

“This is not my job,” cried the under secretary to the additional joint commissioner of the water-waste water authority, Balasubrahmaniam, “This properly belongs to the Department of Body Disposal.”

“Technically this true,” additional commissioner for Departmental Persuasion, agreed. He agreed that this ought to be a job for no one. But he had a job to do. He had a circular from the Ministry of Political Affairs. He did not want to fail in his job and be transferred as the Officer-on-Special Duty to the Mine Controller of Bamfak, Arunachal Pradesh. So he cleared this throat and began again, “ You See Mr. Balasubrahmaniam, it is like this. You don’t have to do this job, this much both of us agree. You job is authorizing the conversion of water to waste water. In fact, for the sake of both our grand children, I hope no one has to do this job.”

Then he paused and observed with some satisfaction the positive response his mention of grandchildren evoked in the other man. Then he continued, “You see, but we have a small problem. See, the man properly in charge, Mr. Priyadarshan Singh is in suspension. He is being put under an enquiry by the Ministry of Prolonged and Pointless Enquiries for the failure to comply with circular 12.1345.98.”

Then both shared a knowing laugh at the poor old sod’s misfortune. They both knew it was bad news not to comply with the dreaded 12.1345.98. His case is under further consideration. By the time they are done, the old chap will be ready to retire.”

“But technically, as you very well know as a good Hindu chap yourself, blood is a very impure thing. And technically it also falls under your department. In fact the clarification letter number RR123IdiOT to the original law said this. Look”

He extended a photocopied page of a yellowing letter and Mr. Balasubrahmaniam went pale. His powder blue safari suit reflected the pale face with great aplomb. He knew his case was hopeless. He took a crumbled handkerchief from the pocket and wiped his forehead with great care. The visitor looked at this and said nothing. He used the time to comb his comb over for greater coverage.

“So this is what the ministry would like you to do. We will deliver bodies of political assassinations to your department at 3 AM. You will take charge of them and neatly place them on the train tracks near Sealdah. After the Utter-Paschim express passes by, we will notify the Autopsy Prevention Board and their people will take of the rest.”

“But 2 AM? I am an old man.” Cried Mr. Dasgupta.

“We know Mr. Balasubrahmaniam. We know. The minister sends his personal condolences. You see, we wanted an old hand like you, a battle tested warrior,” having surveyed the effective pause again, the visitor continued, “ Next week a very important person is thinking of meeting an accidental death on the tracks. We didn’t want the pesky reporters creating trouble. We know you will do the needful. I am leaving your this top secret memo for your perusal.”

Mr. Balasubrahmaniam instantly realized the gravity. After all, democracy is such a tricky business.

The visitor loudly slurped his tea and then slowly left.

Mr. Balasubrahmaniam read the memo very carefully. First to understand the text and then to see if there are any technical reasons, which would allow him to get out of the mess.

No.006x/VGL/1017mf
Government of Hindistan
Central Political Activity Vigilance Commission
*****
Merthod Bhawan, Block-Y,
GPM Complex, INSA,
New Delhi-110025
Dated the 22nd November, 2006
Circular no.400/13/06

Sub: Improving political transparency by leveraging rail technology: Increasing
transparency through effective use of rail tracks in discharge of political dead bodies, enforcement and other functions of body disposal using Govt. and semi-government organizations.

Dear Sir,

The Commission has been receiving a large number of complaints about
inordinate delays and arbitrariness in the processing and issue of licenses,
permissions, recognitions, various types of clearances, no objection certificates,
by various Govt. organizations when it comes to the speedy disposal of rail accident victims of political nature. Commission notes with great displeasure that the said persons who commit suicide by jumping in front of trains right after expressing unpopular political opinions do not choose the same spot to commit these heinous acts of cowardice. Majority of these complaints pertain to delays
and non-adherence to the process already laid out.

Taking this into account the commission orders that all the rail suicide victims be brought to the same spot in a pre-dead condition and be placed on the tracks with their necks on the right side of the track for speedy assistance. This would enable all the government and semi-government agencies to coordinate their activities.

In keeping with the respectful manner this republic serves its people, it is also important to prevent autopsies and other unnecessary police procedures on this process to enable the families to move on with their lives. The Minister of Grief will be required to announce Rs. 5 Lakhs (Five Lakhs only) compensation towards the families.

Instructions at para above shall take effect from 1st January 2007. All Heads of
Organizations/Deptts. are advised to get personally involved in the implementation of these important measures. They should arrange close monitoring of the progress in order to ensure that this done in a user-friendly manner before the expiry of the abovementioned deadlines.
They should later ensure that the information is updated regularly to all the appropriate persons.

This issues with the approval of the Commission.

(Bhayanak Singh)
Addl. Secretary

To,
1. The Secretaries of all Ministries/Departments of Govt. of Hindistan.
2. The Chief Secretaries to all Union Territories.
3. The Comptroller & Auditor General of Hindistan.
4. The Chairman, Union Public Service Commission.
5. The Chief Executive of Water Waste Water Authority
6. Joint Controller to the Autopsy Prevention Board

Mr. Balasubrahmaniam sat there silently and wept. He did not want to get up at 2 AM every day for this job. Then he suddenly saw something that lit up his whole face. Commissioner for Departmental Persuasion and Department of Body Disposal were not copied on the circular. This was clearly against the rules and highly irregular.

So he sat down and began writing a long memo to the concerned organizations.

Laptop! Never leave home without it.

2007-02-01T20:29:00.000+01:00

Forgot the laptop in the car, so no posts until I flew back today.

Had an interesting dinner at a castle last night at the hunting palace of a former royal family in the middle of nowhere. The trek upto it was alone worth it.

I am really tired, no sleep.

I have an ethical question, comments welcome.

So a man pledges love to a woman and she does not respond either way. Next week in a freak accident, he becomes a paraplegic with no chance of recovery while she is away. She visits him and over time spends a lot of time with him. His friends assume they are seeing each other romantically. They get close but she is very confused about the relationship. But there has to be something that makes her visit him everyday.

Can one see this as a situation of love triumphing against all? Or does one need to see this as situation where the woman is trapped in a hopeless situation and the man being selfish for holding onto something in his otherwise dreadful situation?

I wonder.

I like you just because ...

2007-01-30T09:20:00.000+01:00

1. I like you

It was mid 80s I think; It was 11:30 PM, perhaps 12:00 in Dehradun that night. I was in an old house that belonged to an old Anglo-Indian lady who had gone away to Australia and the house was at our disposal. The fireplace was lit and blankets were laid out. I wandered into the old library and found a silly poem by Sandol Stoddard Warburg called "I like you" that I have always remembered with great fondness. It is a long poem and I found a link to it by doing a google search. Read it here in its entirety.

I like you
And I know why
I like you because
You are a good person
To like
I like you because
When I tell you something special
You know it's special
And you remember it
A long long time
You say
Remember when you told me
Something special
And both of us remember
When I think something is important
You think it's important too
When I say something funny
You laugh
I think I'm funny and
You think I'm funny too
[..]

I thought of this this morning as I woke up. Somethings just stay with you.

2. It was a dark and stomy night

It was 11:30 or 12 at night again, this time in the countryhouse of a friend in Chico, California in the 90s. I sat sitting in the guest bedroom speaking with him when he clued me in on Bulwer-Lytton contest. As you may recall, Bulwer-Lytton wrote the worst opening lines for a work of fiction ever when he started his novel Paul Clifford with "It was a dark and stomy night." Every year, this is celebrated with a contest to submit the worst opening line and winners are selected based on originality and cleverness. Read all about it here.

3. Mahabharata

Unfortunately, most Hindus do not read the Mahabharata. Their knowledge of the book comes primarily from comic books or TV serials. Even if you have read it, it is probably the abridged version stripped off all the fun and nuance. Most importantly, stripped off the endless additions and subtractions of the later periods. I highly recomment the University of Chicago editions with commentaries by J. A. B. van Buitenen and after his death, by James L. Fitzgerald. The best traslation of the work that I have seen so far, particularly because of excellent commentaries. You can order them here.

The Sow That Eats Her Farrow

2007-01-29T11:59:00.000+01:00

1. The title of this post is a quote from James Joyce about Irish Nationalism. America has to look at itself a little bit more and ask some tough questions.

2. I think Sarah Silverman is quite attractive. She has the brains and the looks that make her quite ahem.. whatstheword... sexy. Jesus is magic is witty and at the same time gross. I wish she would spend less time talking about eating things off of her boyfriend's penis.

3. The thing I love the most about air travel, even after all these years, this the way the clouds look when looking down from the top. I love all those hills and valleys and often fantasize about running out of the plane and on the cloud top. It would have been convenient if I was made of cotton candy.

4. The oldest recording of music I have on my iPOD is a 1906 recording of Raag Bahar by Ud. Abdul Karim Khan that I got from the All India Radio archives.

5. So a certain state in the US has made it mandatory for all hospital patients to state their race so they can be "provided culturally appropriate care." I find this insulting and offensive. If I had the time and inclination, I would write to my representative. The only culturally appropriate care I expect and deserve is the best care the hospital can provide for all its patients. Is that so wrong?

6. Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins. - Kafka

7. Prediction for 2008: Obama is going to self destruct with an affair or some other scandal. I can almost smell it. Hillary is pompous and self important; she will not get any grassroots dem support. But she will get nominated and Guilliani will eat the lunch out of her hand. It is bloody frustrating.

8. Are you thinking what I am thinking?

9. Current issue of Time magazine quotes a porn star, Stormy Daniels, on how high-resolution DVD format will accentuate physical imperfections. Does this elevate Stormy Daniels to a legitimate spokesperson of porn (and elevate porn to a legitimate business) or trivialize Time to what it has actually become, a terrible rag that reflects nothing but the absolute middle in all opinions? Then again, porn is a $57 billion industry worldwide ($12 in the US.) So, it stands to reason that everyone who owns a computer participates in the consumption of the industry in some way or the other.

10. I just wanted ten things for this. But I only feel like writing nine things. So this is just a bogus point just so it seems like a nice round set of well-considered observations. Shame on me!

Movies as manufactured pasts

2007-01-28T03:28:00.000+01:00

In the lackadaisical summer afternoons of my early youth, during vacations, I was often stuck in places which were not fully towns yet not fully villages. They were backwaters of towns where the markets and sleepy town-stores thrusted themselves in the middle of fields and lost in the serendipity of provincial comfort. These places played a role in shaping who I am, my thinking and how I look at the world. The city, when I yielded myself back to its cavernous folds after the vacation, carried me up into them without ceremony and I was lost in its procession of movement. The summers on the other hand were not quite idyllic and yet not cacophonous; they provided me an outlet and time to synthesize the movements and events around me to create a reflected opinion of the world around me.

In the middle of these semi-rural places was always a temple that stood as the anchor point of their respective existence. These temples were the storehouse of shared and collective experiences of the whole place, that kept a record of the ethnography, migration, social history and political watermark of the population. Their festivals were the milestones by which events were marked and remembered. Temples were not about the religion at all, they were congregational places where people gathered to share gossip and ask after each other while circumambulating around the sanctum sanctorum. A sad death of a cow was noted with a nod, a birth was celebrated with an open smile and the secret story of an affair was shared with meaningful half-smiles.

This provincial memory is perhaps why I am a fan of Hrishikesh Mukherji and Basu Chatterji movies. Growing up in Bombay, I was not attracted to Hindi film as a medium. I avoided them as much as possible primarily because I did not "get" the sensibility of Indian movies. I discovered them with a passion when I came to America and slowly learned to go past the obvious and appreciate Indian movies as a genre, much like opera or nautanki and not compare them with movies from other places. Hrishikesh Mukherji opened the door to a hidden India that I appreciated from memory.

I find the heroes of those movies quite satisfying. They are members of the eternal class that is perennially becoming middle-class. They are at the verge of things happening to them; they are educated and decent and have jobs with full potential to become something very respectable. Most of them are not manly-men full of machismo and righteous anger, but they are accountants and officers with a flair for manipulating the truth and an appreciation for a good time not peppered with violence. They fall in love with women who have lazy hairstyles and casual habits in wearing their clothes, but are satisfied and happy. They are not horrible or mean, nor are they slutty or bitter. These women, while they work and are independent, are the perfect matches for the earnest yet lacking-in-confidence heroes.

And most of them, the leading ladies and leading men, do not have their mothers. If they indeed have mothers, they are conveniently not present in the movies. One gets the impression that the cheery disposition of the characters is partially due to the absence of the mother figure. Fathers are mostly absent too; if present they are benevolent absent-minded fools who are happy to float through life preaching values that they seldom hold that dear.

Of course, none of this would work in the absence of Utpal Dutt (and rarely Ashok Kumar). As far as I am concerned, Utpal Dutt remained the reason why these movies worked. To be happy in this world meant that one had to be in the company of Dutt, either as a potential son-in-law or as an acquaintance. He was a teacher, a boss or a police inspector who brings order to your life, not that the life these movies described were by any means orderless.

I also like the fact that they movies lack conspicuous villains. They don’t have dacoits waiting to rape fair maidens or urban dons smuggling gold biscuits through Versova beach. Most of the time, the only villain is the circumstance. Misunderstandings and misplaced expectations conspire to deprive our hero of his rightful access to the woman of his dreams. Yet, he does not resort to force; he uses wit and persistence (and a dash of chicanery) to win her from a more dashing and confident opponent or a stubborn and traditional father. You know that they are going to live happily ever after just as soon as they tie the knot.

Sisters also play a great part in these movies. They may be boring and annoying but they love their families and dot on their brothers. They are very proud of their brothers’ achievements and are quite selfless in the way they go about keeping the whole universe in order. In that regard, they act as the counterpoint to Utpal Dutt. The horrible fate of being raped and murdered (and murder right after the rape in a natural consequence in all the movies to preserve the modesty of these women) that befalls the sisters of Amitabh Bachchan and other more manly heroes escapes them. Their world lacks evil impulses of murderers and rapists. Their world is often populated by a greedy goldsmith or a drunken watchman, but such annoyances can be easily dealt with. In the 70s and 80s India of small towns were actually more like this than the world of Amitabh Bachchan anyway.

The fact that very little happens other than the micro-story in the micro-society gives these movies a certain familiar intimacy. It is like being part of a family story or attending the wedding of a relative. You know them almost. Even when the story is set in a big city like Bombay, the stories have a small town feel because the camera focuses on the few actors who make their small world, just as it dos in yours and mine. There is something to be said about doing well what you do best.

One day I hope to own the whole collection of these movies for my library. Not because I regard them as good cinema but because these movies are like chicken soup for the soul. In the real world where we face alienation and judgment and where the rush to make something out of our lives is so prominent, it is good to have something to turn to that comforts us even if it is the fake world of old movies. These movies take you back to a world that does not exist and perhaps never existed, but represent the best that existed at that part of the world at that point in time.

And for this short journey, past becomes our true companion. The past walks with us, carrying the memories, reminding us who we truly are even if we are not that and never were. The past itself may be manufactured, a phantom, yet it is a past that we need, like an imaginary friend. A friend that above all the real friends, would not abandon us when the going gets tough.

So here is to the movies for our collective manufactured pasts.

Na Jaane Kyun, Hota Hai Yeh Zindagi Ke Saath
Achaanak Yeh Mann, Kisike Jaane Ke Baad
Kare Phir Uski Yaad Chhoti Chhoti Si Baat

Jo Anjaan Pal, Dhal Gaye Kal, Aaj Woh
Rang Badal Badal, Mann Ko Machal Machal
Rahen Hai Chal, Na Jaane Kyun Woh Anjaan Pal
Saje Bhi Na Mere, Naino Mein
Toote Re Hai Re Sapno Ke Mahal

Wohi Hai Dagar, Wohi Hai Safar
Hai Nahin Saath Mere Magar Ab Mera Humsafar
Idhar Udhar Dhoonde Nazar Wohi Hai Dagar
Kahan Gayi Shaamein, Madhbhari
Woh Mere, Mere Woh Din Gaye Kidhar

From when I was 14

2007-01-23T14:56:00.000+01:00

As I went to my basement to look for something, I found these two notebooks from when I was 14. And there was a lot of funny poetry in them. I read them and scaresely recognized the boy who wrote them. Here is a sample from one of the poems:

(They bombard me with questions
and answer themselves
while I look baffled)

The sibilating silence outside the classroom
reflects the mood inside
No one speaks, anxiety dwells
on every unfriendly face

The painted face of the afternoon gets pale
Evening gently takes over
with her red lips and eye shadows
As we stare at each other still sitting

How does silence sibilate? I wonder.

There was also a very long and heartfelt dedication. One day when I have nothing to write, I shall reproduce it for fun.

Is it OK to make fun of the 14 year old, even if he was me?

First Snow of the Season

2007-01-23T00:38:00.000+01:00

The first snow of the year came too late. It is already late January. But there is something very happy about the first snow. A dusting fell in the morning and the evening brought a proper snowfall. All sins are forgiven under a blanket of white powder. It is disappointing like so many other things. Sometimes you are upset that things that could have been so much more didn't turn out that way. Things that may have had a way to bloom actually wither and all you can do is bear witness. Nothing more.

As Ginsberg wrote, yesterday I saw God. He was a lonely old man with a white beard. Except, this time, he was not in the country sitting in a cheap cottage. He was sitting outside the train station begging for small change. It was cold and he needed warmth.

I am dreaming of books showering on me. heavy thick folios falling on my head. Knowledge kills. Heavy knowledge kills instantly. Especially when bound in hard cover.

If only you could read everything I choose not to write today.

For the most depressing day of the year according to some sources, it turned out pretty good.

Calcutta, 1986

2007-01-21T22:49:00.000+01:00

Where are you Sleeping away from all the pain?
thousands of miles away
those memories seem
like hollow apparitions of past selves
jaywalking over a railway track
near a mud pond where wives of fisherfolk wash their
dirty clothes ogling at the boatmen
urchins playing in the rain in grainy black and White of film-noir
paint-peeling green windows
flapping in the rainy wind
under the towering silhouettes of concrete

over a converted garage where toothless old ladies
sit staring at the night in the dark with nothing to do
you bare your face from stares of sleeping souls
tears in your eyes
lips quivering
fighting the heat
under the taxing noise of fans
away from an unused grand piano
that no one will ever play or give away
near which secrets were told

the mental patient
once broke down and cried
the middle-aged mother lost her life
right under those wndows where
I left a part of my soul
walked away into the cozy darkness
without knowing that it would be the
last of the sight
last of sound
last of life

Bettiah, Bihar, Part 2

2007-01-18T15:54:00.000+01:00

Under the influence of Gandhi, who was profoundly wrong in many things, modern India has embarked on a path that is not only disastrous but also non-sustainable. Gandhi was not an economist nor was Nehru, his intellectual counter-point in the thinking about making of the modern state. P. C. Mahalanobis, whom Nehru hired with great fanfare to be the chief economic strategist of the modern India was a traditional socialist who was under the spell of the Soviet-style central planning. Together this created a perverted set of beliefs that landed us in this current mess.This Gandhi-Nehru concept of state-building was opposed by Sardar Patel who was quickly and effectively marginalized by Nehru.

The resulting system, that lasted for 30 years (and still persists in many ways and forms) has certain unique characteristics.

The strong and great belief in the importance of villages and the propensity to channel funds to rural development

Creating cottage industry sectors and restricting the growth of sectors

Central planning with very little input from the local and cultural realities

Uneven trade union and labor laws

Strong belief in heavy industries and core sectors

Nationalization and strong state character of industrialization

Agricultural policies like land reform and subsidized power and water

Highly restricted credit policies (India's credit rating agencies like ICRA are relatively new and the states were encouraged to be fiscally irresponsible through the planning process)

Strong dislike for private sector investment and private capital

A planning commission that did not hold bad governance accountable

Bloated government interference through the license raj

Controls and tariffs

Passing of the laws with no enforcement (and even worse, uneven and patchy enforcement)

Wasted effort and underfunding of urban infrastructure

In a nutshell, this created a system where urban areas were allowed to decay and their resources were unevenly and inefficiently distributed to the rural areas for so-called development without any regard for sustainability. (For an interesting discussion on this topic just an example, please look at the budget figures break-up of the ministry of aviation for the top 20 airports in the country for the last 10 years. And compare the expense figures to the capital expenditure and you will find some interesting things.)

Is there a different path forward?

The rate of Indian urbanization is very low. At this time, I think the urban population is less than 30%. This is a huge contrast to all the other countries that dream of becoming world powers. Is it possible to grow to a strong industrial country through rural development? Lets look at an average Indian village:

Land ownership is uneven

Caste and religion considerations make social mobility difficult and impossible

Resources are very inefficiently allocated among villages

Industrialization requires heavy capital and infrastructure investment. It is not possible todevelop even 20% of the villages to that degree because of lack of sustainability

The only possible alternative is strong and large scale urbanization. If a place like West Champaran can be organized into a fairly large urban area, then all the resources of the district can be pooled into that single space for equitable development. Urban movements have always contributed towards changing the social order and destroying feudal (or caste) considerations. Because of sugar and wild cane in this area, as an example, industrialization can be concentrated. Bihar's development deficit in PPP is now a staggering Rs. 18000 (approx). With an average per capita infrastructure investment of Rs. 500 it is impossible to devote any meaningful share to any village. However, it is indeed possible to improve the infrastructure of Bettiah and even provide for affordable housing the the people who would move from the villages. There are other persistent issues, such as water and power deficit that require significant investment. But I would argue that with a state wide infrastructure of Rs. 21000 crores in the 10th plan, it is possible to develop first-class infrastructure for both, it there is agreement that one region will be developed first. In other words, concentrate the infrastructure development where the highest payout is first.

In addition, with concentrated schools and non-agricultural labor creation (factories of produce) educational levels can go up significantly since factories can be (and have been) used as places for social development as well, such as literacy campaigns. With this and women's empowerment, basic mortality and birth rate statistics can be reduced and monitored better.
The urbanization also helps in two other things. It helps increase land efficiency by cultivating more land with fewer people and increase non-cultivated land without reducing output. This has been done successfully in Maharashtra and Punjab.

Once urbanization program starts, it is extremely important to destroy the villages and redistribute resources. This also eliminate the feudal structures and prevent relapse. Power theft and power line loss can be minimised through concentration. Eliminate cottage industry status in these newly urbanizing areas and suspend the trade unionizing to allow for basic growth to take place. It is also extremely important to break up the daroga system and hire professional policemen from all castes. patrolling becomes easier since the population is concentrated in a small area. Out of the rural population of 2.7 million, the target should be to redistribute 1.2 million to the newly urbanized zone in the first three years. And to complete the process of redistributing another 1.5 million over the next seven years.
This will create a large city. But it will be a large city that can be self sustaining and is able to afford the development cost. And as the education levels increase and total local investment increases, the city can organically grow.

Am I dreaming?

Perhaps yes. But it has been done in other countries. And in dire ways, this scale of urbanization has been successfully tested in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra without intervention. The biggest difference has been good governance.

So before I shake my head, blame bad government and walk away, at least one thing is doable.
Change the mind set of rural development and embrace urbanization as the real vehicle for growth. India is not going to grow through the spinning wheel and the village, but through massive local industrialization and urban growth. It is already evident if you look at the number of Biharis fleeing bad governance and moving to the mega cities. Lets face facts and do something about it before it is too late.

Adios.

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For a decent discussion on Caste situation in Bihar, please see Roy, Ramashray, Caste and political recruitment in Bihar, from Caste in Indian Politics, pp 215-244, Kothari, Rajni., Ed., Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2004. More general discussion on Communinalism can be found in Pandey, G, The construction of commununalism in Colonial North India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1990.
For a decent discussion on the development of Bihar under the British, please refer to Yang, Anand A., Bazar India - markets, Society, and the colonial state of Bihar, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1998.
A different model of development model can be found in Parayil, Govindan, Ed., Kerala, the development experience (reflections on sustainability and replicability), Zed Books, London, 2000. I find the papers by Shrum and Ramanathaiyer; Veron and Kurien particularly fascinating.

Example of a Flawed Strategy: Rural Development
Bringing pumps to people: A five-point strategy for poverty reduction by bring water pumps to villages

The research summarized here analyzes factors that have influenced the success and failure of groundwater development schemes in India. Based on these studies, five
points are recommended for policy action:
_ Discontinue government minor irrigation programs and focus on private tube wells as the primary mode for bringing groundwater irrigation to poor communities.
_ Improve electricity supply for agriculture by reintroducing metered charging, decentralized retailing of electricity, and prepaid electricity cards.
_ Promote the modification of pump sets to improve the energy efficiency of groundwater pumping, reduce pollution and lower the sale price of water to poor users.
_ Introduce small diesel pumps and manual irrigation technologies for vegetable growers and marginal farmers.
_ Remove pump subsidies and open the market to the import of smaller micro-diesel pumps, such as the Chinese equipment used in Pakistan and Bangladesh. If this is not
practical, a useful alternative is to redesign pump-subsidy schemes along the lines of the Uttar Pradesh Free Boring Scheme.
(Taken from IWMI-TATA Policy Paper, this is for a place where water resource overuse is over 32% How this is sustainable is beyond me.)

Bettiah, Bihar: A case for Urbanization Part 1

2007-01-17T18:34:00.000+01:00

West Champaran district in the northern part of Bihar is one of the worst places in the world to be in. Champaran’s only claim to fame was as the site of the Gandhian satyagraha named in its likeness in 1917. After the independence, when India embarked on five year plans and slow infrastructure development, places like West Champaran were forgotten. There are no navigable roads or electricity in most places. Where attempts at electrification were made (Bihar Government claims that two hydro electric projects were completed – Valmiki Nagar and Triveni Canal and 5 are in the pipeline), the power cut made it easier for local mafia to steal power cables and sell them there by robbing the local population of any benefits. But it does not matter anyway since most of the population cannot afford electricity. The actual consumption of electricity is well below national averageof 334.3 units at or below 54.9 units. The average peasant in Champaran makes well below the Bihari average of average of Rs. 2193 (compared to the Indian average of Rs. 8399.) Rural poverty is crushingly over 50%. Unfortunately, none of these statistics are reliable even though the truth lies decidedly in the grimmer side of the scale. By any index of human quality, this blighted district is at the bottom of the scale. If Bihar was a country on its own, it would have been a failed state.

Bettiah, the district capital is one of the worst in Bihar, which is saying something. The district is firmly under the control of half a dozen feudal landlords (Vermas of Shikarpur, Krishna Prasad and Om Prakash of Bhaisahi, Rajas of Ramnagar, Rai and Sharma of Vilaspur, Shahi of Dumaria and Singhs of Baragaon) each illegally possessing thousands of acres. Everyone of these families have members in the legislative assemblies or other elected bodies. The non-landed peasantry is uneducated and illiterate (60% of the population). Among females, only 26% are functionally literate. Both these are substantially lower than even the average for Bihar. Most residents are subsistence farmers where there is semi-arable land even though most are landless laborers under the slavish control of the landed families. They are oppressed and beaten and denied any and all the benefits of the land reform put in place by the Government in the 70s. In addition to this caste distrimination is rampant with at least a dozen cases are registered a year even though perhaps hundreds go unregistered.As is the case in the rest of Bihar, there is no law or order in Bettiah or nearby areas.

The politicians are hand in glove with the land owners and they use the mafia and the police to serve their needs. Peasants are beaten, imprisoned, raped and ravaged for asking for their rights or even for daring to vote.

So, why did I make this really long introduction?

We make a big deal out of the prosperous growth urban India has experienced in the last 15 years. The country had an average rate of growth of 2.2 (the so-called Hindu rate of growth) until 1995 from which point India grew at an average of 4.7% and if you take the last 3 or 4 years, the average rate of growth is perhaps 8 or 9 percent.This rate of growth has made a very prosperous urban middle-class and unemployment in the educated sector in the urban areas have become very low. This aspect of the urban India is celebrated by the whole world and Indians are justifiably proud of this. Yet, anyone who has visited India in recent years, it is impossible to ignore the squalor and filth of her cities. We immediately blame the Biharis and UP villagers for this mess and wish they would go back to their states. But where will they go? And what will they do there? What sort of governance can they expect in these places? And how do you create a sustainable development in these places so that they are not forced to move to Delhi or Bombay?

When it comes to places like Bettiah, while we may disagree on specifics, I don't think we will argue that the situation on the ground is any better than the description above unless your name begins with Laloo and ends with Yadav.

But that is how the agreement ends.

When it comes to discussing what can be done about this situation, the crackpot theories come out and in the end, we finish our tea and walk away blaming politics and shrugging that nothing can be done.Do we need to be that pessimistic? Is there a recipe that might work to solve the problems of West Champaran?

Is there a hope for that India?

He Visits When It Rains

2007-01-17T05:22:00.000+01:00

Introduction

I wrote this in 1990 and found it on the web recently when going through the archives of Usenet. I had lost it while changing so many computers in all these years, so i was happy to see it again. I copied it back to the hard disk and decided to change nothing. Well, that is not entirely true, I changed the name of the character. It is sort of a pointless story with no clear anchorpoint. Perhaps I would have written it differently today. Some of the actual escriptions of events and places are true and it is how they happened. The rest of it, emotions and the connections I make (and it is a stretch I admit) are just fiction. It is just interesting rereading it after 17 years, just to remember how things were. So here it is, in its original form, a pointless story. As far as literary fiction goes, I would file this under Don't-quit-your-day-job category.

He Visits When It Rains

Sitting here waiting for my meeting, I am drawn to the ever-increasing feeling of desperation. This depressive episode started only a few days ago when the seasonal rains began. I have been battling these moods for years since I was fifteen. I still remember that warm-afternoon journey by boat to Elephanta caves with oldman Nanchibhai that I think of as the turning point of my happy life. I was sitting by the window close enough to touch the spray of seawater as the boat moved. On the opposite seat, sat a white tourist with a stern face that revealed no interest in any activity around him. His Indian lover kept trying to slyly arouse him by pressing his hands on her middle-aged breasts without much success. Her skin had the complexion of dried wood as it disappeared into her shirtsleeves.

I was barely out of my teens then. Even so, somehow I felt a great pity for her. She did try to look cheerful inspite of the lost-expression and the dark alienating clouds around her eyes. Their son, a tall child with a lot of determination, practiced jumping from the cracked wooden seat to the floor relentlessly. He was totally lost in the quest for perfection and was oblivious to the battle between disinterest and desire around him.

It was the first time that I realized I was depressed. The sight of the gray ocean around me, the gentle rocking motion and the silent disinterest of the passengers all brought home the lucidity of that feeling. Forever, I remember that moment with that family sitting across from me as the page-mark in the book of my life when depression first struck me. I could feel the chill in the air as it began to rain without warning. I detested the rain for the first time, as it played little beats on the tin-roof and poked the ocean surface with thousands of water needles. Nanchibhai must have been surprised as I wiped tears off my face while pretending to be wiping the raindrops away. But he said nothing.

Years later, sitting by the window last night, listening to the sound of rain drops splattering to the ground, I became conscious of that sadness in me that lasted all those years. It was as if the rains carried it for me and washed me clean with pain every time they visited the city. The indigo lines drawn across the skyline underlined the feeling of complete helplessness I felt at that time. The raindrops had collected under the window as small puddles on the concrete, where pearly bubbles formed and broke as each new drop fell and mixed into it.

This was my mood as I had my first meeting with Pink Floyd. His real name was Floyd Almeida but everyone just called him Pink Floyd, a name that he seemed to take to with some enthusiasm. He walked-in armed with a happy smile, determined to break the spell of sadness around me, or so it seemed.

"Puck", he called with a loud voice clear of uncertainties as he walked in. We had spoken over the phone and we knew of each other well from common contacts. I gave him a faint smile. Without looking for a particular reaction, he continued," I am Floyd, your field-partner". His smile had rings of rain to it. The joviality of his bearing stood out in rivalry with the helpless pain that rain had brought and the memory of the dark-skinned Indian woman on the boat with her white lover. He injected some soothing comfort of warmth to beak up the self-flagellating reverie I was in.

And that is how the friendship grew between us. Even in the fleeting moments
we sometimes passed each other through the damp corridor where algae drew green
patterns, he never failed to challenge my sadness with his smile.

As partners in the field experiments we started to travel together. Often we would visit small mining towns and abandoned coal mineshafts together. Most of these towns had very little life left in them an evenings brought nothing but boredom. We developed the habit of walking around under the blue vast skies and the desolate landscapes looking for interesting features and abandoned buildings.

We were in a small town that had been an army base for the soldiers. In the evening, tired of the hard work in the heat and the dust and the low-pitched humming of mosquitoes in the summer heat, we decided to take our usual aimless stroll. The walk took us to an abandoned church and a graveyard around it. The light had already faded and the white clapboard exterior of the church stood like a ghost against the dark Midwestern summer sky affixed with a million stars that came out of nowhere. Without even glancing at each other, we walked inside pushing the rusted gates open.

"Janet Nicholson", the inscription on the first marker read, "Born July 12, 1793 , Died September 4, 1812". All the inscriptions that we read by the faint torch light indicated that the gravesite was indeed full of those who departed young. We walked in complete silence through the unkempt space careful enough not to trip and fall. There was nothing we could say to each other. Sometimes silence has all the words you need. It took me a while to realize that the water drops that wet my eye lashes were indeed warm unseasonable prairie rain. The summer rain smelled like moths and sounded like a funeral songs of crickets. Water drops fell on Janet's grave with precision washing away accumulated dirt and grime, not wasting its sorrow. The rest of the night passed in a dream of crickets, moths and young women resting in coffins.

That was the last trip we took together. On our return journey he entertained me with a collection of lewd songs sang to the rhythm of his fingers tapping his fat thighs even as we drove through the night. Though we promised each other to travel together again in the near future, it was never to be.

Shortly, Floyd left school to pursue a career totally unrelated to his degree and I gradually lost touch with him. At that time, entangled in a relationship that brought golden fireflies in my dreams and yellow sunflowers in fantasies, I had little time or inclination to seek out old friends and remember old faces.

Then a year later, the monsoons came like a downpour of memories. I was all-alone again after the sunflowers suddenly withered and the fireflies lost their fire. I wandered in memories trying to seek refuge in the past and in revisited old friendships that appeared like shadows in the mist. It was time to graduate from undergraduate school. Nostalgia forced me to spend all my time with old friends, killing moments over tea or beer that was light enough to be tears or water.

Then one of those afternoons Floyd walked in unannounced and cheered us all
with his characteristic witty disposition. There was a girl with him who smelled like wild flowers as she sat next to me, smiling politely at every one of his jokes and not caring that he did not think it necessary to introduce her. She was dark and had wide eyes, and reminded me of the Indian woman on the boat.

Floyd asked me to accompany him to the gate as he took his leave. He was returning to his office in Nebraska and the chances were bleak that we would meet again, at least for a long time. I felt sad and so did he. We walked on the narrow pavement where yesterday's rain had left light patches of wetness. The purple flowers on the fence smelled like the young girl we were walking with, as the damp winds carried it all around us. There were students passing us by with backpacks and books. They looked like movie extras, just looking busy, walking around to add meaning to a street scene. Fat,happy, lean, moody, shabby, trendy, cruel, benign, their presence looked designed, as if an invisible director had yelled “action” out of our earshot. Floyd hurried as thunder announced rain. The girl smiled a silent farewell filled with the pain of an unknown past and wild flowers, as they hurried away into the beginnings of the rain.

That night, it rained all the time. The green prairies looked tired and bedraggled. There were puddles but no music of frogs. The giant cross, planted in front of the Baptist church, looked washed and solemn as I passed it on my way home. The street
lamps had tears on them.

In the student-common lounge, I stopped to shake water from my clothes which were sticking to my skin, cold and uncomfortable. In the dark corner I saw an Indian lady sitting on a suitcase, next to her white companion. It appeared that she had just arrived on the scene. She was in her early thirties and had a beehive for hair. Her companion was wiry with alabaster skin, as he sat in the shadows with a nonchalant expression. She kept pushing her hair away from her sad plump face with an air of annoyance.

I started as a feeling of déjà vu returned to me. I expected the rains to visit with the needles of pain any time soon. I wanted to weep. I hastened to my room as the man put his arms around his companion and laughed at a private joke.

When the darkness came like a silent intruder, I lost myself to yesterdays and to unrepentant guilt. In the midst of an uncomfortable sleep, I realized that I was no longer unhappy when Floyd came visiting me in a dream full of wet streets and unrelenting rain.

Chess Players

2007-01-16T15:25:00.000+01:00

I did this last night after I came back from a chess game.

He was shy and reserved. And completely clueless. There was something endearing about him that defied expectations; may be it was his utter lack of self-awareness and decorum, or may be it was his endearing naïveté and ignorance. He has been living in this city for two years and does not know his way around. He complains that he doesn't understand anything because everything is in German even though the language is French. He slurps through his food and unconsciously picks his teeth and burps while sitting in the restaurant.

He is from a smalltown in South India and this is his first assignment outside India. He discusses his salary in public with complete strangers and is genuinely excited at the prospect of winning at a chess game.

I drink a cup of coffee and watch the players. I watch him intently because he is fascinating in an odd way. He is very young, in his mid-twenties even though he looks a lot older. His syntax and sentance construction are peculiar. I see him making his chess moves while letting his tongue dangle out.

Is it Ok to feel slightly angry that in spite of his two years here he has made no attempts to observe the local customs and adapt? Is it OK to feel a tinge of irritation at his complete lack of self-awareness?

In the end, I let the chess player dissolve into the darkness while driving away to the vast nothingness of the country roads.

May be I will meet him again.

Coppet

2007-01-15T14:24:00.000+01:00

When I walked off from the Starbucks, I knew I could not go home. So I drove away from myself.

I parked my car right at the edge of Lac Léman at a random parking lot in Coppet for no reason. Then I turned up the sax version of "I love Paris" and drank the café latte from the starbucks. The sun came down slowly and disappeared on the other side of the lake behind the mountains.

One side of the lake where the last remains of the light lingered, the surface of the water glowed like gold foil paper. Subtle yet quite rewarding. The other side, deprived of light, first glistened silver and then slowly dulled to lead gray. The snow on the mountains were reflecting purple and red.

At the pier, a short man stood on tip-toes and kissed his tall companion. A couple wandered off with two young daughters. The town fell silent behind me. The world stopped. Night slowly invaded my space.

The scene was like a perfect picture postcard.

On the way back, I turned off the radio and went through sleeping villages.

Bizarre Weekend to End a Bizarre Week

2007-01-14T10:46:00.000+01:00

This was possibly the strangest week ever. Not because it was so weird that it has to be written about with shock or celebrated because it was so special. None of that. It was like being a camera grip in a Tinto Brass movie set or in less pedestrian terms being a waiter in Sex and the city.

I had a very stressful week. I worked from 7 AM till 8 PM on most of the days. By the time the weekend came about, I really needed to decompress.

I could have chosen easier, normal ways to do that. Perhaps I did. But these days, I feel like my life is like a waterfall.

Friday night, I went to the birthday party of someone I know; an actress. It was in a bar in a very historic part of the city. Midway through the celebrations, the actress took her boyfriend to the bathroom and blew him and they returned to regale us with the details. One of the gay people in the crowd, without ceremony or prior notice, french-kissed the actress which didn't go over well with her boyfriend. Then the party proceeded to her place where she kicked us out rather unceremoniously in ten minutes so they can finish having sex. So the party, in dwindling numbers, proceeded to the house of a gay couple (and the actress, having finished her urgent need was going to join the rest of us there, but predictably she did not. I believe the jealous boyfriend might have been a factor.) Another actress, whom I had seen nude in a play I had seen recently, was at the party. She was 6'2", really thin and was flat as a stale coke. We opened bacon-flavored chips and made cocktails. I got home at 4:00 tired and not decompressed. And we mostly discussed designer coffee tables. As far as parties go, this night was quite difficult to categorize.

In the morning, after I worke up, I met a friend for brunch and ate omlettes with ham. There was a painting of a crushed sprite-can lying abandoned on the street on the wall. A man sat listening to our conversation while pretending to be engrossed in the newspaper. I dropped her at a shopping mall and went to meet another friend. Together, we drove to Gex in France at 2:30 PM to do some shopping. There were giant wood carvings of giraffes in the store and the man who was helping us had a slight lisp. Back in Europe, I went to get an eye exam and blew 800 bucks on a new pair of glasses I didn't need. Soon after, I was completely taken over by remorse. But it was already too late to do something about it. So instead I had a burger. Then I went to meet a friend at 7 PM for coffee and the friend from brunch joined us. Over a frappuchino, I observed the evening as it turned crimson. Worse, I watched myself giving Samosa techniques to an African in great amusement since I am never known to be even competent in any forms of cooking, particularly Indian cooking. I got home around 9:30 PM and caught up on phone calls.

After much thought, I joined some people at a lounge at 11:30 PM. They decided to go to a club and I decided to meet another set of friends in a different club at around 12:30. There was too much alcohol and I was bored. I quietly walked out without goodbyes at 3 AM and joined a few others at a third club. Where after drinking a lot of apple juice, I fell asleep on the couch as people danced all around me. At 4:30 AM I decided to go home.

I am still waiting for decompression. Any suggestions?

Discomfiture

2007-01-11T07:17:00.000+01:00

Modern gladiator:
Over my head, the open pit of despair awaits
Outside, in the cruel world, I assume many roles
In here, against my own naked flesh
I stand helpless against the truth

There is no way out, except through the sword
Perhaps a death, mine or that of my unborn adversary
Will you open the door, please the crowds?
I don’t know the depth of their adversity
And before I come to know it well
Solitude has taken over my dreams

Liquid lucidity evades my path as I climb up the stairs
Bed bugs, old canvass portraits, pictures of beggars from the third world,
A Thai hat, dirt in corners where the brooms don’t reach
There is a pattern to this random collection
The space grows around me like a suffocating cloud

Outside where I wear my many hats
[face him unwaveringly, aim your weapon]
A mulberry bush is blooming
[his eyes are not cruel, surprisingly, just sad]
Under a tepid sky
[is that my son? Yet unborn]
Black and deep purple
[slash knock kick]
the berries turn my hands to deep blood red
[a slight gash appears, a spot of blood?]

I am so lonely even in the middle of this intimacy
[open the paper boxes, find the medicines]
So lonely even as I smile and pour myself
[nothing can save him now]
A glass of water from the faucet
[why did I fight? Why did he give up without?]
A slab of chocolate disappears
[Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.]
And reappears as stomach pain
[Is that the sound of church bells that I hear?]

I turn my car around and park it under the shade
[Before I turn around I don’t look back]
I need flowers, a casket, a movie ticket,
[Behind me, the city melts and flows]
A couple of books, one red and one a leather-bound journal
[And becomes flat like a wafer]
To tell the tale, Prices of discomfiture
[Why are my legs still standing?]

I float away in a puffy cloud over the urban landscape
Like a picture post card
Over the bridge away from the crimson sunsets of the bay
I begin to inflate
Until I cannot breathe
Until I become everything that is around me
Until all that left in me is a shrewd pain of solitude

How do you deceive your own naked flesh?
Conversations jar like expletives in the ear
They are speaking an unknown language
I have no stories, no celebrations, no encores
Or celebratory poems

I forgot to pack my soul
It stands outside, banished from all discussion
All it has for company is the last dregs of the laughter from inside

As darkness falls
I contemplate a long jump from the bridge
So I can be flat like the city
To find some space in this city of two dimensions
Finally.

Discomfiture.

A Midsummer's Morality Tale

2007-01-10T15:35:00.000+01:00

(With tongue firmly in cheek)

“Dara Singh was nothing compared to Sundar Narayanan,” She said earnestly. We were sitting together by the water drinking cognac watching the sunset. There was nothing else to do until her husband came to pick her up. And she told me a story that was so rivetting I forgot to drink my cognac and the sun forgot to set. This is her story.

Power oozed from every pore of Sundar Narayanan’s body. Sundar Narayanan was the head of a conglomerate of loosely based ideas, a first among equals one might say, in a consortium of three. The other two members of the consortium were Sathya Narayanan and Shiva Narayanan.

The trio Narayanan were not brothers, nor were they of some godly triumvirate. They were simple Bangalore folk who were equally in love with our protagonist, an idealist youngster whose preoccupation with dusty cars and astrology left her with very little time to notice that the Narayanan triumvirate collectively let out a sigh every time she walked past them. The fact that they were old and married never acted as a deterrent in their heads every time they gazed desirously as the protagonist as she smiled at them.

But Sundar Narayanan was the strongest of them. He was not particularly strong physically. Well, he was quite weak really. His habit of surreptitiously tasting the sweat as it fell to his lips from the brows via the bridge of the nose made him appear a little lizard-like. But that having said, his ideas made him powerful. He was an idea man and as idea men go, he was good and motivating. And helpful. Once, when our protagonist was lost on the streets of the city on her way to a thread-ceremony of Sathya Narayana’s child, it was Sundar Narayanan who came in his dhoti to rescue her. And that is when she noticed him for the first time. I mean, noticed if you catch my drift.

And she ewadily fell in love with him, head over heels. Not just with him, but with all his assorted qualities. His power-filled pores, his animal magnetism, his squinting eyes. Life was good. The fact that he was already in love with her made the whole story a lot easier.

It was just a matter of chance. For all we care, she could have been lost on the way to Shiva Narayanan’s child’s mundan ceremony and Sathya Narayanan might have rescued her. Who she might have fallen for in that scenario is entirely unknown to me, dear reader. And I don’t like making things up. I just state things as they are.

Of course, the other Narayanans were not amused. I would venture to say, they were pissed off. Forgetting the freshly shaven heads of their newly be-threaded children and the lily-white flowers in their back gardens, they yearned for her.

Then they came to a simple conclusion.

Sathya Narayanan must go. He must be made to disappear. Pay for his sins.

There was only a small problem. Well, apart from all the usual problems associated with planning a murder, there was a small additional problem. All the big problems associated with murder-planning were not that critical to them, been so jealously in love.

Sundar was their idea-man. Shiva Narayanan was a wizard in finances and Sathya Narayanan could talk a good talk. But without Sundar Narayanan they were dead in the water.

That and they had no previous experience in committing murder.

It is only when you sit down to plan a murder that you realize all the complexities involved in it. First, there has to be pretty easy way to do it, which does not involve serious capital investment costs. Then there is the matter of the disposal of the body. Do they kill and leave the body as a reminder to everyone else as a warning or cut him up and distribute his remains all over town in garbage bags?

You might think this is trivial. Try murdering someone and you will see how quickly these complexities add up. If you are indeed planning to murder, and not doing it because there are no suitable people you feel like killing, you might want to consider offering your services in the Mercenary Hunter magazine. But I digress.

So after much consideration spread over many meetings filled with endless cups of coffee and cigarettes, they decided to reduce the scope of the exercise to assault and intimidation.

Of course they could not do it. For starters, they were equally as old as their blissfully-unaware intended victim. Next, the victim sort of knew them since they all worked in the same office. Well, they were partners.

So they decided to hire Dara Singh!

Dara Singh was no relative of the famous wrestler who was his namesake. He was a hapless part-time chowkidar in our protagonist’s house who spent most of his days sleeping balanced on a stool placed right outside the gate. Given his amazing hunger for pedhas and ladoos, our potential assaulter was quite heavy and portentous.

That and he had an intimidating moustache. One of those moustaches that could contain the remains of many breakfasts from previous weeks and you would barely notice it except for the flies that made it their home.

And he was known to Narayanans primarily because they had taken to walking by the protagonist’s house for no apparent reason. And in uncharacteristic modesty, they had taken to stopping and exchanging a few words with Dara Singh while surreptitiously surveying the top floor bedroom of the protagonist for any sign of activity.

There was never any. The protagonist roamed the streets of the city in her dusty car with dreams in her eyes and Sundar Narayanan on her mind.

Over tea and pedhas, Sathya and Shiva very gingerly introduced Dara Singh to the plot. He was to approach Sundar Narayanan menacingly one evening at the parking lot, push him around and slap him. And as he turned to walk around, he was to look at Sundar Narayanan with great contempt as his lay on the ground with dirty and torn collar, and say, “stay away from her. Next time you won’t be so lucky.”

Dara Singh was not keen on this. But the five thousand rupees that was promised would buy him a lot of sweets. And tea. Even a trip to UP where he was from.

So he agreed.

Money changed hands and a date was fixed for the intimidation.

On the appointed day, Dara Singh approached Sundar Narayanan and just as he was supposed to do the deed, a car pulled up in front of him distracting him. If you are planning an assault, focus is key. Well, focus and the element of surprise. With those two lost, Dara Singh decided to cut his losses and wait for a better day.

Next day, the other Narayanans were very surprised to see Sundar in the office. With no visible sings of assault. That afternoon they were livid when they saw the protagonist drinking sweet Bangalore tea in Sundar Narayanan’s office. They melodious laughter sent shock waves through their collective systems.

Hurried conferences were set up and the message of urgency was reinforced with Dara Singh.

The next day Dara Singh waited in the parking lot for Sundar. He had offered to drive the protagonist to her house as her car was being washed.

Dara Singh stepped out of the shadows and froze when he saw Bibi-jiwith her assault victim. She smiled earnestly at him, Arre! Dara Singh, what are you doing here? Is everything OK?

Dara Singh froze. He had nothing to say. Without pausing she turned around and said to Sundar, this is my watchman.

Sundar suddenly remembered that he had seen Dara Singh before at the same parking lot. Dara withdrew to himself in embarrassment and confusion. Suddenly, he became acutely aware of the power that oozed out of every pore in Sundar Narayanan’s body. He was overcome with remorse. Sundar Narayanan licked his swat off one last time as he led the protagonist into his Mitsubishi Lancer. Then with a thousand questions in his head still unanswered, drove off the parking lot.

“Dara Singh was nothing compared to Sundar Narayanan,” She repeated earnestly after recalling this tale. Many winters had passed and she had come to learn all about the story after she left their company and moved to Harare.

Dara was broken hearted and sad. He decided to wait for the other Narayanans to arrive to their cars. When they did, half-hour later, with heady expectations, they were met with Dara and his assaulting kicks. As they fell to the ground, dazed and confused, he looked back in contempt and said, “Leave him alone. Or next time I won’t be so nice.”

Next morning, the train to UP carried a man with five thousand rupees running away from Bangalore.

Epilogue

The Protagonist currently lives in Harare as the head of the UN Mission for African Diseases. She is married to A. P. Anantha Murthy whom she met on a matrimonial site and he is decidedly not a computer professional. She is no longer in touch with Sundar Narayanan.

Sundar Narayanan continues to create great ideas in Bangalore. His company imovemoutains.com is now the number one provider of statistical software in the Japanese market. He is still pining for the protagonist who left him broken-hearted by marrying a rather boring chap (in Sundar’s opinion) called Murthy or some such name.

Sathya Narayanan was not happy with the peripheral role in this story. So he went into film production to make a name for himself and is pursued by Dawood Ibrahim for unpaid debts.

Shiva Narayanan broke his hip in a fall and came back to win the bicycle marathon. He got a contract as a spokesperson for a bicycle brand based in Thailand.

Dara Singh’s whereabouts are unknown. Last, he was seen heading towards Khandahar on a stolen Royal Enfield motorcycle with a rider with a black beard and black turban called Muqsuda Ali Omar.

Six Winter Moments

2007-01-08T07:55:00.000+01:00

1. Winter Bloom
The loud underbelly of a plane
touches my face
as a blossom blooms next to me

---------------------------------------------------------
2. Gruyères
Yearning for meaning in the winter's passing
comes alive like a thousand candles
when the sadness of the chateau is reflected in the light

----------------------------------------------------------
3. Morning Prayer
One by one, all doors are shut
as the fish looks out the window
and remembers the summer lagoon

------------------------------------------------------------
4. An Evening Unspent Working

How will the hawk afford the price of tears
for the satisfaction of the meal
when the pray sacrifices itself?

--------------------------------------------------------------
5. Rewrites
in the planes of wilderness the old man fades
as the child duty-bound
is raking coals of unrepentant summers past

---------------------------------------------------------------
6. Bulle
an island in the middle of the river
reflects the winter stillness
just for the only moment I saw it

The Memory of a Funeral, Retold

2007-01-07T08:10:00.000+01:00

There was a large green meadow in the back of the house traversed by a stream. The meadow was separated from the house by a thicket of ivy that had overgrown around mango and jackfruit trees making it look like a little jungle. Where the woods ended, the land tapered down to the meadow and at this triangular edge stood a solitary jackfruit tree. On the other side of the tree was a pond, long in disuse, depressed in appearance as it was covered in African moss.

There she rested, serenely under the jackfruit tree. There was nothing much left of her except remains of ashes and perhaps small fragments of bones that were not visible in the heap of gray dust and half-burnt pieces of wood. It was a glorious afternoon; the golden light of the September sun was transected and laid out in beautiful patterns on the ground by the canopy of leaves overhead.

He stood there and closed his eyes. The long jeorney had not made his tired. He tried to remember her last time when he saw her. Ten years ago at his sister's wedding, she was already shrunk and dessicated. Beyond that, he had no memories.

A cousin he had not seen before walked down the path and went in front of him right to the funeral pit. She stood there sobbing. it was her turn to say good bye. She knew the dead person well. She had a real relationship with her grandmother unlike him. She had things to say in her good bye.

Far away, in front of the house, the din was unbearable. Workers were erecting a tent for the funeral rites to be held the next day. People were supervising them. Caterers went in and out of the kitchen with large vessels filled with things. A gaggle of birds overhead cried out of afternoon boredom.

He remembered this house. In another time, he would walk up the path and he would see her pacing in front of the house. She never sat still. There was always something to do. She lived alone and for all the monotomy that comes with that, she never sought anyone out, or reached out to anything. She was not religious or observant. She was not affectionate either. She just existed for the hurried busywork that she had imposed upon herself.

She was a slender woman, and small. Tiny was more like it. She wore old-fashioned glasses and always had a book half-read with house-bills as bookmarks.

Now she was gone and house suddenly found itself with busywork it had to do.

He walked back to the front of the house and asked a worker to go up the coconut tree and cut down a few tender coconuts. He took one of the coconuts, freshly slashed with an opening to the bamboo bushes and listened for the whistling. It whistled an old favorite song of the family.

Feel So Bad

2007-01-06T22:49:00.001+01:00

Lyrics of the great song from the comments section:

Feel so bad
like a ball game on a rainy day
I tell you I feel so bad
like a ball game on a rainy day
Yes I got my rain check
Shake my head and walk away

Sometimes I want to stay here
Then again I want to leave
Go away somewhere
My whole world is troubled and grey

Just trying to tell you people
Tell you all how I feel
Tell you I feel so bad
My baby's done me a dirty deal

Tell you, I feel so bad
Feel like a ballgame on a rainy day
Since I lost my baby
Yes, I got my train fare
Pack my grip and ride away

Looing for Pink Flemingos in Bombay

2007-01-06T07:58:00.001+01:00

If you are a new arrival to Bombay, you perhaps have never visited this place.

If you live in Chembur, an old driver might have driven you through the Port Trust road to Bombay VT to save you some time. You may have stared out of the windows of your car but may have noticed nothing.

But this place is special. If there is any place in Bombay, which remains in the 70s, it is the harbor area. Nothing has really changed in this place. No coffee shops, no tattooed and pierced young people, no swanky high-rise apartment buildings, and definitely no sizzle. The place looks exactly as Indira Gandhi left it, which is to say in a dilapidated and neglected way as she left much of Bombay that India inherited from the British. There are old warehouses and dust-covered Bombay port-trust road. There are the same slums and the worker's quarters. Millions of gunny sacks sit waiting for their trucks in each of the warehouses. If you can read through the dust and neglect, you can actually read the history of the city as it was in the 80s, in these buildings.

The harbour line of the Central Railway commuter line runs parallel to the warehouses and storage for petroleum products. The names of these stations remind you of what the city was in the 1800s. The streets are not crowded except for trucks.

I am here at Sewri looking for the mudflats. I have come in the afternoon and therefore precisely at the wrong time. You have to come early in the morning, but that is not how things worked out.So here I am being led by young relatives as we drive back and forth as we try to locate the turn-off point to Sewri Jetty.

Finally we find it, the little road that goes to the edge of the water. Here in the afternoon, there are hardly any people. A few boys mill about playing on a rusting barge that has been beached. A few workers sit on the skeleton of a boat. The mangroves rise all around me from the mud-flats.

I am here looking for flamingos. I ask a street boy about them. Flamingos, his eyes light up as he smiles and he points to the mangroves. There are millions of birds here, wintering in these mudflats, except this is the wrong tie, and they are all hidden. I see a solitary bird, a majestic pink flamingo standing still under a bush. Gulls, terns and the ubiquitous crows occasionally rise from the mangroves and fly back into them.

I know they are there, hidden from view, resting away from the heat of the afternoon, just like the rest of the city. These are the winter visitors to the city. Fortunately for the rest, this is relatively an obscure place and nobody has thought of capitalizing on this on the tourism brochure.

I stand there disappointed that I missed the ministry of the birds. Across from the channel I can see Trombay or New Bombay, I can't tell which because the haze is thick. I am really glad to be here. Even if I couldn't see the birds. It is great to travel back in time to the 70s and the 80s and find places in Bombay that have withstood the test of time. This looks like (and is) the Bombay of my childhood.

Unfortunately it is changing. The government is planning a coastal harbor freeway through these parts that will endanger the migratory paths of these birds and the coastal mangroves. But right now, everything looks just fine.

On the way back, I see the IMAX theatre in Wadala and remember how close we are to losing this war. India may not be shining for everyone yet, but it is surely getting a lot of trappings.

Pauses in Seven Feelings

2007-01-05T16:54:00.000+01:00

1. Traffic Light
He smiled a toothless smile as I stopped at the traffic light
Yellow face with marbled skin
His companion
No more than six
Dirt-faced with matted dry hair
Hid behind him and
Covered his face in the folds of his dhoti

It was a wretched afternoon
For anyone to be walking in these parts
Bathing in fumes, soot and automobile exhaust
Selling books they themselves cannot read
Carrying weights

Beasts of burden

Across the street a giant billboard beamed a Beaming-Smile at us,
Exclusive apartments it read,
Your dream come true
And offered the promises of supple young flesh
In the form of a scantily-clad model

There was nothing I needed to do

I had money in my pocket,
Quite a bit of it, and coins
Next to me, in a bag, sat new clothes and a
Magazine extolling the virtues of the commodity exchange

2. A Lunch Undigested
On the second floor, the waiter obsequiously waits on us
I can smell sweat under that thick uniform in the heat
I hear a lot of words but I am not really listening
I am still thinking of the walk from the book store

You have a new car, a gala for New Year's at your farmhouse in Pune
(so I will notice that you have a farmhouse, so I notice)
Coversation continues, I nod, smile
A lot of memories redefined and restated, your stories do not add up
There are frustrations and additions
Mostly calculations
I feel like I am stuck inside an impossible math sum

Miss, miss, May I take a recess?
I hear a young boy call out as he pretends to want to
Use the bathroom to run away
From the moment

3. Boredom Drum
I sit on a park bench listening to his drone
He wants to have an affair
And run away from life
It is too boring

He wants tall tales too
Wants to be in airports
He is tired of living vicariously

I sit and stare
And without notice hang up

4. Sea Within
Polemics fall from the sky like rain
Dry rain, without moisture
Not black or white, or even blue

Your voice has desperation and warmth
And your cushions slide when I sit on them
But I like the copra-lampshades
They are as much a statement about you
As the ocean themed bathroom

5. Puddles in the Pond
“you are so vain, you probably think this song is about you, don’t you, don’t you?”

I am suspended between ether and earth
Hanging on tight
And the boat leaves without me
And I am left in the shore
With the lights fade away with every blowing of the whistle

Across the pond,
Without knowing
Sleeps
The
Question mark.

6. Pay the Piper
Every time I walk into this Starbucks
they dump a bucket of grief
on my lap
I know it will never be
But I go anyway
Because a glass of sugar-free
Machiato is always a sure-substitute
For hope

A cleaver falls
Across at the McDonald's
I gurgle in the pool of blood
That springs forth
As I become lunch

Poor choice of words
Very poor choice of moment
Poor choice of people
And then with the vision
Fading away from me
I sit there clutching to
Nothing, not even a newspaper

Somewhere in the brain
Addled with cheap-tunes from an iPOD
I hear a song
Celebrating the new year
Then I realize that the pool of wax under my feet
Is my own flesh melting

7. Car Talk
It was evening when we met, friends
After a gap, you had your tales and I had mine
All I want to talk about is the encounter with
The bookseller and the weight of his books

There is a carafe of wine in front of us
Outside the rain falls silently; I don’t hear car horns
The freckled light of sullen evenings does not
Make an impression on me

I have an astrology T-shirt for you in the car
I carry memories of terrible partings and half-written poems
A manufactured statement comes to my throat and dies
We agree that BB King is better than Ray Charles
When it comes to singing Feel So Bad
As we get lost in the dim-witted darkness of
Abandoned roads

It is good to be back

Nostalgia for Usenet fights

2007-01-05T02:15:00.000+01:00

When I was young and was slavishly slogging it out in the graduate school lab, I had a lot of time in my hand between experiments. I would sit there in the half-darkened lab huddled over a PC and try to reach out to the world. That is how I got hooked to the Usenet.

Do you remember Usenet?

What I found very profitable was to post silly articles on various topics on many newsgroups and then fight over the content with others who also, like me, were huddled over their computers in their labs.

In those days, if you were on the Internet, you were most likely a student or a scientist.

If I was too lazy to write, then I would pick on someone else's writing. Then somehow or the other, dog them into a fight. A pseudo-academic fight. Inevitably, along with clever points and counter-points, inevitable name-calling would ensue. We took pride in the clever ways we could drip condescension on each other and insult each other. Can you cite your sources was a good way to shut most people up.

Of course, in those days if you were on soc.culture.indian you would not have missed me along with Vijay Fafat, Balaji Kannan, Prem! ... We baited the Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists and other narrow-minded dweebs with witty assaults and condescending retorts.

Those days are far behind me. I am no longer twenty-two looking for a silly fight over who has more references to cite.

Something reminded me today of those days.

Mother of All Culture Wars

2007-01-04T05:03:00.000+01:00

The woman trembled as I sat next to her. I thought it must have been pure hell for her having to sit next to a man for that long. I had changed the seats with a woman who wanted to sit with her husband and ended up sitting next to a hijab-clad young lady.

She was young, thin and pretty, as I saw when she finally lifted her veil sometime during the flight. She was from Manchester she told me. Well, she leaned to me mid-flight and asked if I knew the layout of the airport. That is how our conversation started. She spoke in a Highlands accent even though she carried a red passport with Arab lettering. I didn’t want to stare at it to figure out the country.

You see this often, the sight of Muslim women in developed countries voluntarily accepting the sartorial shackles of their religion. I think it is like child’s play. They could take it off anytime and join the mainstream. Or they could keep it on and assert their identity. To me, this is tricky. By volunteering to do this, they are asserting their right to their own culture and religious freedom. At the same time, they are minimizing the struggle for freedom for the millions of women in many Islamic countries where they have no right to choose. Whether they like it or not, they are prisoners of their culture and sartorial constraints.

During the flight, our hands and feet touched in that crammed space in spite of me trying very hard to avoid any contact. She seemed to be comfortable in the company of men and in airplanes. We avoided all conversations about anything that may sound controversial and stuck to the topics of airports, general dust allergies and shopping. I am not even sure if there is an accepted list of conversations between the civilizations. Everyone is afraid of offending the other.

I am no stranger to Muslims. But every Muslim I know, from every country, is what can only be called secularized. They are people for whom their religion is secondary to their life even when the follow their religion. Why is this important? Islam, from my limited reading of it, is one religion that is not compatible with secularism in that, it places itself above all other considerations. I think evangelical Christianity is like that. May be even fundamentalist Hinduism. Except, I am not aware of any evangelical Christian country in the world or a fundamentalist Hindu country. This is why, with the exception of Turkey, every Islamic country is defined by the central role of religion in the government even if it is not out and out theocratic.

People who do not understand the difference between a secular country populated by and informed by the values of a particular religion from a theocratic government implementing a religious framework have no business defining secularism to the rest of us. Nobody except the worst kind of fanatic would include Turkey, India or the United States as theocratic countries even though all three are strongly religious in their populace. I am not trying to pick a fight, just stating what is commonly accepted fact among the member countries of the UN.

What does all this have anything to do with this encounter? Sometimes you remember how different people are and can be from each other though these encounters. I know a lot of people from very many different countries, but they are culturally more similar than different; their differences act like icing on the cake, a small layer that makes them unique or interesting.

But when you meet a person fundamentally different, it forces you to sit up and take notice. I know I probably sound like a Midwestern hick. But I am fascinated with the current fight between the Christian world (lets not mince words, all the terminology they use to cover that is hogwash. Muslims are not buying it) and the Muslim world because it affects us all. And we all have a stake in its outcome.

And this fight is old. And every turn of this fight has produced ugly consequences and hidden benefits to all of us. To sit out this fight as if it is somebody else’s problem is foolish.

But to take sides, one has to know which side is right and whose victory would be good for the world you live in, your personal selfish world. That is where the trouble is with this fight.

The Marxist historians who looked at the Sepoy mutiny of 1857 ignored two important things that characterized the movement. In their hurry to rename is the First War of Independence, all the evidence that pointed to the contrary were brushed aside. First of all, the Sepoy mutiny was led by Wahabists who proclaimed that they were mujahideen leading a jihad against the Nasranis (Christians.) Document after document proclaims this fact. When the mutineers entered Delhi they not only slaughtered all the British they came across but they also did not spare any Indian who had converted. They, however, spared the life of all the British who had converted to Islam. Secondly, Indian independence was not really the reason behind the mutiny. In fact their faith in Islamic brotherhood was so strong, they believed that a Persian army will come to save them from the British.

The impetus for the mutiny, while precipitated by the pig-fat on the Enfield cartridge, was the change in attitudes of the British under the influence of Evangelical ministers. The minister in Delhi implied, even stated, to the Sepoys that they will be converted to Christianity, by force if necessary.

This was not the first war for independence. It was a religious struggle between Christians and Muslims. And they both behaved in alarmingly similar ways to how they behave now. The erstwhile Islamic powers in their complacency (remember Bahadur Shah Zafar and his ill-fated acceptance of the Emperorship of the Sepoys?) behaving without a cogent strategy and the new imperial powers in their absolute arrogance (the British disarmed and stripped the Mughal princes naked before shooting them in the head) deceiving their way to absolute power.

(If you are thinking of Saddam Hussain’s fate, the comparison is not accidental.)

Sounds familiar?

And yet, this is a terrible intellectual dilemma. To support the mutiny would have been to support a Wahabi-form of government in India (which is by no means acceptable) and to oppose it would mean to condone the atrocities committed by the British and their duplicity.

As they say, history repeats itself.
All of these thoughts were triggered by the presence of the Burkha-clad woman at the next seat. But then, what is a better symbol of this clash?

Whose side are you on?

Fake New Year Resolutions

2007-01-03T05:41:00.000+01:00

Just made them up. I have no plans to keep them. Since I made them up, I have added a few for others, like the US government.Why not?

Personal Resolutions

1. I will work-out every day. I can't do anything about how my mind feels, but there is something I can do about the body.

2. Get a hold of myself. Complain and travel less. Find peace. And when travelling, find the road less taken and stop to really see things. Don't rush through life like it is one long plane trip.

3. Accept the things I cannot change, even if I wish I could change them. Life is not fair. I am often wrong. You are often right. I cannot argue about everything.

4. Love unconditionally.

5. Work hard at things I can change and need to change.

6. Shop less. Retail therapy is not a good substitute for 1 and 2 above.

7. Read more books. Go out less. Spend more time with myself. Listen to more music.

8. Stay optimistic. don't let hope go.

9. Genuinely feel happy for you. You deserve all the happiness in the world. Feel happy for everyone in my life even if their happiness affects my self-interest. See 4. Everyone has a right to pursue their own happiness.

10. Try not to be selfish.

Resolutions for America

1. We will not humiliate the Middle-East in 2007. We have done enough to create enemies for a thousand years. It is time to stop.

2. We will work to get universal health care for our children and find a way to make college affordable. We will spend less on wars and more on education.

3. We will not execute former heads of state, even if they were bad dictators on holy days and in the most humiliating ways. There is an exeption to this rule: We will do whatever we want if we have the balls to execute our own current heads of state for war crimes on Christmas eve.

4. We will try to hold ourselves to the standard we expect the rest of the world to hold up to. We will grudgingly admit that others deserve a modicum of respect as well.

5. We will let other people be. Allow them to live out their lives as we do ours.

6. We will also let our own people taste what we say is all around America: freedom. I remember it from a long time ago, I think we have moved it since to Guantanamo. We will bring it back.

7. We will not go to bed with deplorable dictators and call them allies against war on terror. And while we are at it, we will no longer call it War On Terror. We will call it what it is: War of Terror.

8. We will stop calling a spade a club and hope people will not notice. They do.

9. We will let gay people marry. It is none of our business who marries who as long as everyone plays by the rules. There are bigger fish to fry.

10. We will be honest about OUR true intentions. It is OK, they already know. Admitting it feels good.

Resolutions for India

1. We will learn English before we join the profession of journalism. "Corporates" is not a word. We will stop referring to the business world as "India Inc." We will edit our newspapers better and stop publishing pictures of has-been paunchy socialites in tight clothes and feel good about the country. We will stop nominating Shah Rukh Khan as the person of the year.

2. We will stop pretending that the poverty and dirt around us do not exist. We will acknowledge the "other" 80%. Even if they are inconvenient to us for the stories we want to tell others.

3. It is OK to be honest. Even if it is hard. They already know. For starters, we will tell the world who the "real" prime minister is.

4. For once, we will stop talking about Pakistan peace process. There is no process, there is no peace. See 3. We don't love our neighbor. So stop sending fruit baskets across the border.

5. We will get serious about population control. It is fun to talk about Tata busying steel companies in the UK and the birth of new airlines. But we will get serious. We are not going anywhere without going back to the basics. Population control, drinking water, access to basic education and rural employment. Whatever happened to these?

6. We will try to improve governance. We will whip the skins of the backsides of the politicians who are criminals. We will stop electing gangsters. We will send Lallu back to the back of beyond where we will make him clean toilets.

7. We will stop moralizing on sex. And on "western" values. Let it be. Let people figure out what is best for them. While at it, we will simplify our arcane laws on all moral issues.

8. We will acknowledge that reservation is a fucked up system to address the social ills.

9. We will hold all religions to the same standards. better yet, we will become more secular and ignore them altogether. We will arrest criminals regardless of why they did the things they did.

10. We will stop trying to be a mini-USA. We don't yet need American approval to sneeze.

Bandra Fort: January 1

2007-01-03T04:37:00.000+01:00

This year began without resolutions. Except for the Shivsena boys from the slums below blaring a mix of incongruent music into the wee hours of the morning, there were no sings on anything different. The house was dark and the sea outside the window was silvery and still, like aluminum foil paper.

I walked out quietly lest I should wake up the sleeping. Having been sick and slept through the night, I was wide awake. Outside St. Andrew's church, brightly clad women were assembling and buying flowers for what I assumed was the Marathi service. I had been inside the church two days ago, to visit the pauper's graves in the back. There were fresh burials with flowers covering them. They used to rest peacefully with the sea breeze blowing on them even just a few years ago. Now, they have been walled in by ash-crypts and what is called "regularized" slums.

Bandstand has a proper walking path now by the sea. It begins across from Salman Khan's house and extend all the way to Father Agnel compound. Things are clean and except for an occasional health-conscious Bandra housewife or a businessman is severely tight shorts, the park is empty.

The haunted mansion in front of Rekha's building is still around, even though not for much long. Its windows are blasted off and the plaster has peeled off. The coconut trees the cover the compound are just about the only things that look alive. This is perhaps the most expensive piece of free real estate in India, I am sure some builder is salivating at the thought of another twenty-story building comping up in this location. Except for Shah Rukh Khan's house, hidden from public view by a compound wall, none of these old Parsi mansions will survive. They will fall to decay and greed. Shah Rukh maintains his house well. I see a night-watchman standing on the roof of his house. Behind his house, a new building is coming up.

During high tide, when water levels rise quickly, you see dozens of lovers in various levels of undress jump up from behind these rocky outcrops running for cover. This is lover's point. Along with the sexual revolution, the moral policing has also intensified. Now even couples sitting side by side in romantic solitude are not spared of their scorn let alone the ones who are not engaged in "obscene positions" as the signpost warns. But this is the morning, there are no couples, just me. And the cool breeze. And the muted waves of the sea.

In the 80s, this place used to look very different. it was more run down and there were no real walkways. Today, a Barista stands where there was once a low-market grocery store. Right next to the Barista, there is a Cafe Coffee Day. This is where they come, the young rich, in the evenings, to talk to each other and be seen in the early evening after they have had their little stroll.

I walk into the ruins of the Bandra fort. For those of you, who have grown up watching badly made 80s action thrillers, this is where the villain used to bring hero's mother in an attempt to get valuables from him. From behind each rock, a goon would rise menacingly and of course the hero would single-handedly thrash up the whole gang and rescue his mother. The ruins have been cleaned. They look much better maintained than ever before.

This is the site of Castilla Aguada, the fort the Portuguese built. I sit right at the edge and watch sandpipers play in the spray. Across from me, the silhouette of the Bandra-Worli sealink bridge stands in fog like an apparition of urbanization. From the top, I look at the new amphitheatre that has been built. There are coconut trees and signs warning the presence of snakes. Below me, a busload of devotees of some guru gathers by a park bench as one of them begins to speak to the crowd.

Bombay without crowds, without car horns. Bombay without the amoral frenzy. All those who partied last night have gone back to their dens and are fat asleep, their new year resolutions already forgotten.

I am so lost in this place. if there was one moment in my brief India trip that made me feel like I was back in India this was it. This and of course the trip to Sewree. I will write about it next.

On the way back, I stop at Barista. A young man in a Skoda honks his horn at the waitstaff impatiently, he is too self-important and lazy to get out of his car. I drink a machiato and nibbles at a veg. sandwich.

I am coughing and using a box of tissues to blow my nose incessantly. The dust is getting the better of me.

But I am not complaining. 2007 has just begun. I hope I can find peace and contentment, even without resolutions.

Even if that means lowering expectations. Isn't aging all about re-defining expectations?

The Fig Tree

2006-12-26T01:56:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-24T22:23:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-23T16:48:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-18T12:17:00.000+01:00

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!

2006-12-16T10:09:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-11T21:31:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-09T23:41:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-08T08:11:00.000+01:00

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

2006-12-07T15:34:00.000+01:00

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?