Last Post

*Poof*
He vanishes.
Good bye Madrid.

Wasteland

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

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

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

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

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

No tocar, esta buena es un Picasso

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elephanta Caves, Bombay

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Premonition

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

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

Two Poems For Liars and Acrobats

An Acrobat in Paris

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


Now That You are Done and Gone

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

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

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

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

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

Another City. This morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anyway, time to go to work.

Are we going to do anything different?

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

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

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

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

I can't wait for the house enquiries.

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

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

November's Loss

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

And When You Are

Oh yeah, I remember:-)

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

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

Silence.

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

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

Drafts of new proverbs in the making:

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

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

All your images of winter
I see against your sky.

I understand the wounds
That have not healed in you.

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

A true saint
Is an earth in eternal spring.

[..]

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

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

Ora Pro Nobis

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

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

This agnostic has only a single plea: Ora Pro Nobis

Sunday Morning

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

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

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

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

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

Ganji No Monogatari

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

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

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

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

So here is to our modern female Ganji.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then she got her PhD.

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

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

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

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

Three possiblities, and you get none today

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

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

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

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

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

Dreaming of Malibu Sunsets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still, I would be happy.

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

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

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

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

Smanie implacabili

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

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

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

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

Come Scoglio.

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

Ah, lo veggio!

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

Donne mie, la fate a tanti

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

Non siate ritrosi

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

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

Fall, what a beautiful fall!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Random Musings Before the Flight

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

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

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

Capiche?

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

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

Two Poems For The Fallen

October

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

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

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

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

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

Battle For Words

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

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

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

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

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

Indianapolis: Whose Farm Is It Anyway?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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