My life and times

Not so diverse, not too inclusive

2009-04-02T13:35:00.004-04:00

This photograph is of the heads of 20 most powerful nations. Then there are the chiefs of global and regional organisations like the IMF, World Bank, EU,WTO,NEPAD, ASEAN etc. That pretty much includes everyone who matter in coordinating multi lateral initiatives in economic, political, diplomatic and human development issues.

I found that the group represents most races but only two women (the German Chancellor Merkel and the Argentinian President Kirchner) with a majority of white males. Yes we are changing , we are including, we are listening but may not be fast enough to change the fact that 500 of the richest people in the world earn more than 416 million of the poorest!

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Photograph courtesy: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP (URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/30012133/displaymode/1176/rstry/30004815/)

Wealth distribution fact source: UN Calculation quoted by Nicholas D. Kristof on NY Times (At Stake Are More Than Banks)

Thy hues and mine

2009-03-30T11:53:00.005-04:00

It is said that in times of scarcity, the underlying woes swell and pour out. It gets ugly.

I am a black-brown eyed immigrant and am thoroughly anti racism or reverse-racism. I love to 'Imagine....'
...only if...

This article by Maureen Dowd of NYT couldn't have had rung a better bell this morning...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29dowd.html

It is yet, not that late

2009-03-13T09:51:00.002-04:00

Shattered windscreen, rubble, red earth, some uniformed men with automatic guns, abandoned toys and a Christmas stocking in the backyard…. This is the world we encounter on the media, in haloed halls of international diplomacy and in our backyards. This is the world where a gunman kills a kind hearted pastor, another gunman draws up a hit list and marking the death day on the planner, a teenaged girl blows up her life in the name of a cause killing a dozen others, where small children are killed by their parents or are lost forever. This is also the world where West Bank is razed, Africa has only hazy numbers for its batches and batches of genocide victims and Afghanistan keeps pushing back further into the Dark Ages. We cannot forget transactions of another kind---of not having food on the table, of business empires built and lost, of millionaire robbers from Manhattan and of rich countries unable to provide its citizens with health care in spite of the amazing progress in science and technology.

Amidst this blinding dust storm that we have raised by our well-worn heels, where is any space or time for the reptiles, crabs, groupers, frogs—lowly creatures that they are or the giant panda, the black rhino and the wild cat, good in the Wild, who will vanish from this earth forever. If these animals could ever speak, they would probably have a round table to tell us that when species become extinct, the entire ecology around them slowly dies and no amount of ‘bail-out money’ can save an earth with ecological breakdown. Or maybe they will join their paws, wings and fins to pray for the Life that we are not able to. I am no expert—my high school biology taught me this much. And it is probably a no-brainer to understand that our worlds are so gravely interdependent—high finance, international boundaries, the internet and even a community member avenging his old disappointment.

How long will we know and hear everything, yet turn deaf and blind?

It is interesting to watch how hierarchy flourishes in our world. From the hawk high above to the burrowing worm underground, from the colonial white-skinned peoples to brown peoples to the black-skinned ones, from the urban, sophisticated to the rural tribals. Power is blinding and it makes us corrupt, losing sight of the ground where we take our next step. And Greed is unending. These are nothing new. For centuries, we have struggled with our own follies but today it has come to a point where we would not know how our end came.

Pretending over ages has taken away our ability to be humane, that which apparently makes us superior than the rest of the living world.
For once, can we open the doors of our hearts and minds and look at the neighbour and truly love her? Can we create spaces where we can listen and learn and not get into bitter fights over petty ‘my idea is superior to yours’? Can we remind ourselves that for all we do and speak ---when we come and go from this life, we are nothing but our sensient, spiritual selves?

A small start is all it takes.

I might not be able to change the country or the continent. The world is anyway too big. But can I do something in my community which comforts another member well enough to stop him from killing his kith and kin, from destroying the life forces that share the natural resources with us?

Terry Tempest Williams raises the call softly, deeply as only she can in ‘Finding Beauty in a Broken World’. Mosaic is what she calls it---from the classical art of Ravenna, Italy, to the dying Prairie dogs of American prairie lands and genocide ravaged Rwanda---everywhere she listens and feels with her whole being. She quotes Katherine E.Standefer a line which rung through my head for days after I read it.

“Once upon a time, we knew the world from birth. Now we have to learn it again,
piece by piece understanding from the name out.”

Mosaic is made of broken pieces. Yet the skill in bringing these pieces together creates awesome beauty. Williams says

“Finding beauty in a broken world becomes more than the art of assemblage. It is
the work of daring contemplation that inspires action.”

Can we accept that we are broken? Vulnerability is power without the rush and it can lead us to re-build our families, communities, countries and religion.

Shattered windscreen, rubble, red earth, some uniformed men with automatic guns, abandoned toys and a Christmas stocking in the backyard…. This is the world we encounter and this is the world we can rebuild.

Only if we care.

Music in the 'flat' world

2009-03-04T13:16:00.003-05:00

On a wintry Saturday evening, we walked into a huge store of one of the largest American book retailers. This was Bethesda, a lively suburb of Washington DC and the crowd…a motley mix of age, gender, ethnicity and apparent interest areas.
Alongwith the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee and the ‘warm book feel’ (which always makes me feel at home), wafted a Qawwali from a recent Hindi movie. My companions took time to follow the music amidst the din and were surprised no less. We are used to listening to Western music in the East but pretty less, the other way. This was a store in the heart of the American seat of power catering mainly to an English speaking clientele and it was no different in its sights and sounds from a neo-urban Asian one.
They say music has no barriers. There, in the cold, rainy evening, the Sufi-s and their eternal message of Peace and Love broke all barriers. The world has been truly ‘flattened’.

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Note:

If you haven't already, please read 'The World is Flat' and 'Hot, Flat and Crowded' by Thomas Friedman

Here's more on 'Qawwali'

'Hope' dazzled at the Oscars and India, too

2009-02-23T13:00:00.004-05:00

I remember reading Nostradamus’ prophecies in school and he apparently wrote that a powerful ruler of the world will rise from South Asia in the new millenium. I do not know if it is ‘a’ leader but definitely our India is on its way again to becoming the educated, rich and generous nation it was in the Ancient and Middle Ages.

Dazzlers
Last night, it was a night for India and Indians at the annual Academy of Motion Pictures’ Oscar Awards. ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ won eight of its nine nominations.
No, I did not convert that easily. I have fiercely debated over the last few months over whether India should really give in to the stereotyped portrayal of its poverty and then allow the West to go ga-ga over it. We have had enough of those. Slumdog might still be good cinema (I liked the cinematography only and hated, among other things, the song-and-dance at the end) but we need to encourage cinema to put up the new India as have literature, documentaries, fashion and the economy at large. It is another thing that I am biased in my love for Bombay in all its hope, muck, poverty and injustice and for that reason alone I can watch this movie a million times.
In spite of my criticism of the reflection of the developed world’s outlook on India, when the Swarovski crystals of the Kodak Theatre sparkled to the beats of ‘Jai ho’ and Rehman collaborated with John Legend*, while the Indian dancers filled the stage, I felt so proud to be an Indian. I am convinced that Rehman has created much better music otherwise and he is a very talented musician with more to come but for Hollywood this is their first taste of him and they were awed.

Not to forget…
Two of my favourite women in the business of cinema shone too…the eternal Sophia Loren, as alluring as ever and the unforgettable Meryl Streep with her record of fifteen Academy nominations. I was just short of going all nuts on them. Also, it was fascinating to find the attractive and talented Penelope Cruz win her first Oscar (also a first for a Spanish actress). The other show stealer was the Australian actor, Hugh Jackman--pleasantly surprised at his great voice, very fresh in his approach while Anne Hathaway joined in his presentation.

Reflective hopefuls
I am a great lover of thoughts and the words which carry them all over. This evening left some reflective moments with me. They were mostly from the cast and crew of the film ‘Milk’. The great Robert De Niro --while presenting the Best Actor winner Sean Penn-- said

"Tonight it is important to be an actor. But in life it is important to be a good
human being.”
Sean Penn in his acceptance speech said

"I think it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage
to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their
grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way,… We've got to have equal rights
for everyone.”

Dustin Lance Black who won the Oscar for the Original Screenplay of ‘Milk’ was a first time nominee and got personal during his acceptance speech and he said

"........if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think
he'd want me to say to all the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have
been told that they are less than by their churches, by the government or by
their families that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures who have value. And
that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you."

Like all words from the heart, these speeches will live on. I believe that it is wonderful for talented, influential people to speak their hearts and minds and get us thinking.

I went to bed knowing that till we live, we will dream and as long as we dream, we will make and go to the movies. Hope never dies and it was, perhaps, not a coincidence that the big underdog of the Oscar night, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ believed in destiny.
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*after Peter Gabriel boycotted on the shortened version of his beautiful song ‘Here on Earth’ (also a nominee for the Best Original Song) from 'Wall-E'

Photo Courtesy: Kevin Winter/Getty Images from E!online

America's 'Heroes'

2009-02-20T15:02:00.006-05:00

Over a recent weekend dinner, the talk moved to our dependence on the GPS driving directions. Our friend BJY joked that “there is Obama, Christ and the TomTom and in that order”. We did have a good laugh over this great insight but I did not know then, that he was largely speaking on behalf of the American people. B’s comment made me think deeper into this and I chanced upon the Harris Interactive Poll which was released on Feb19,2009.
Yes, President Obama has defeated Jesus Christ to gain the number one position in the hearts of a cross section of American adults who participated in the online survey.

To restate B, there is Obama, Christ and Martin Luther King Jr.

To quote the survey:

What Makes a Hero?
The public gives multiple reasons to explain their choice
of heroes. Those mentioned most often include:
“Doing what’s right regardless of personal consequences” (89%);
“Not giving up until the goal is accomplished” (83%)
“Doing more than what other people expect of them” (82%)
“Overcoming adversity” (81%), and
“Staying level-headed in a crisis” (81%).

The poll reveals that Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, George W. Bush (remember his approval after 9/11?), McCain have fallen sharply as heroes in the eyes of Americans. However that is not surprising. They say public memory is short—short enough to allow Mark Antony to turn the Romans against Brutus and the conspirators in no time to make road for Octavius Caesar.
I hope that we will be here to see where the historic and charismatic President, Barack Obama, stays in the hearts and minds of our children in the years to come.

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[Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia: The four heroes of Journey to the West]

Outrageous!

2009-02-18T19:16:00.009-05:00

A 200 pound pet chimpanzee in Stamford, CT, was shot down by the police yesterday after he tried to kill the owner’s friend and attacked a police vehicle. The injured woman went through a seven hour long surgery and the doctors say that she is recovering but far from being fine. In my view, this is definitely not a context to build a parody on…
But it seems that The New York Post (the largest selling newspaper in NY) clearly thinks otherwise. In the name of criticizing Washington politics, the cartoon is racist and offensive. Such thoughts just do not have the right to be published in this age and time. It is the greatest irony of our time that the white races ruled over the world in the past few centuries and even in the face of the new reality seem to claim their utopian superiority. Shameful racists they are and nothing else!

This is not only an unacceptable critcism of the first President of colour in the United States but a negative comment on all people of colour. This country takes pride in being a home for all races and in providing all of them with Equal Opportunity but that is always not true…this cartoon does speak something about this society…
It is interesting that the Attorney General Eric Holder said, today, at an entirely unrelated Justice Department commemoration on Black History that

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in
things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too
many ways, a nation of cowards. Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.
It is an issue that we have never been at ease with, and given our nation's history, this is in some way, understandable. And yet, if we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.”

When will we all dream together as the 'United' States?

Related reading:
NY Post chimp cartoon draws race controversy
Commentary: NY Post cartoon is racist and careless
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Photo courtesy: Associated Press [click here for rest of the article]

Updates:

NY Post on Feb 19, 2009,apologised and did not apologise---all at the same time! (Read here)

And News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch who owns the Post formally apologised today (24th February, 2009) here

Octuplets+6 --- An irresponsible mother in denial

2009-02-12T09:54:00.006-05:00

We have had enough of Nadya Suleman and her antics in the media.

I am very angry at how irresponsible a mother can get. Not only is she a college-going single mother of six children already (on food stamps and medical assistance), she went ahead with fertility treatment to create more babies who are still struggling at the neo-natal intensive care unit of the hospital after two weeks of their birth. That makes her a single mother of fourteen children who might be very unhealthy emotionally and have permanent issues like autism. And who will pay for their food, transportation, day care, education and housing? There are chances that the child protective services might step in a few years to take care of the children’s mental and physiological health.

Nadya Suleman confidently claimed to NBC’s Ann Curry that she “will love her children unconditionally” and that there is unfair discrimination against single parents. She also had the guts to mention that she wanted to have a big family because she wanted to feel loved and have more connections and familial bonds having been brought up as a lone child of her parents. Hey lady! What about a complete family where children are not only provided for their basic needs but also with emotional security?

Madame Suleman after all her tall claims seems to be following on the footsteps of TLC's well publicized families; the Gosselins (Jon and Kate plus Eight) and the Duggers (17 and Counting). This single mother with student loans has gone ahead and done expensive plastic surgery to look like Angelina Jolie and asked for a couple of millions of dollars for her story and a television deal. Since the TV deal did not work out, today there is news that she has created a website where she is asking for donations.

Of course all of us are in this. Some baby product companies have started gifting products to the new born babies, the publishing agents are vying for a suitable book offer and reality television show producers are thinking of new shows. The media is at it.

I thought parenting is about taking responsibilities, it is about creating a new
life and planting the seeds of a great heart and mind. Parenting is definitely
not about treating depression and self serving goals of parents. This mother
seems to be in denial. I will not be surprised if she actually planned this
drama. There are chances that the child protective services might step in a few
years to take care of the children’s mental and physiological health.

The New York Times reported that “The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the association of fertility doctors, even adopted guidelines in 2008 encouraging the transfer of only one embryo for women under 35, and no more than two, except in extraordinary circumstances. The guidelines allow more for older women, up to a maximum of five. But unlike some other countries, the United States has no laws to enforce those guidelines.”

But what happened to ethics and principles? Will the fertility doctors look beyond money and will common people like you and me become more responsible and prevent our communities from such irresponsible occurrences?

Related reading:
Yowza! Cost of raising 14 kids: At least $1.5M

'Everything I do revolves around my children'

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Photo courtesy: NBC's Dateline

Are the American people really up to this theatre?

2009-02-11T15:34:00.003-05:00

It is beautiful weather on the East Coast. In Washington DC, it feels like summer.

I just got over with watching the Chief Executives of eight banking institutions who received TARP money testify before the House Financial Services Committee under the Chairmanship of Rep. Barney Frank. Citigroup's Pandit, Lewis of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs Group Inc's Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase & Co's James Dimon, John Mack of Morgan Stanley, Robert Kelly of Bank of New York Mellon Corp, Ronald Logue of State Street Corp and John Stumpf of Wells Fargo & Co. sat in a line and got questioned by the Representatives. All of them looked contrite, were good sport when asked repeatedly about their salaries and tried their level best to look and sound credible.

The funny thing is that individuals who are more directly involved with the highly criticized practices or beneficiary of those practices are predecessor CEOs; they are not available for this hearing. Some like Chuck Prince of Citigroup are gone while some institutions like Merrill Lynch do not exist any longer.

The TARP recipients have been repeatedly accused of not injecting enough funds into the economy. But what was this testimonial about if we are not really getting the solution.
The primary temptation seems to be to use the populist bludgeon as much as one can. We are angry— our community has lost millions of jobs and health insurance coverage, many of us cannot keep our children in school, our neighbours are getting foreclosed, queues for available jobs have been unprecedented and food stamps are the main staple in many households. It is not a surprise that these powerful executives who make double-digit millions are the most hated people in this country as news of their huge pay checks and luxurious lifestyles did rounds among the common tax-payers.
But they, who sat in the House today, are survivors. We cannot really blame Dimon for being the most profitable on this row; we cannot blame John Mack for helping Morgan Stanley remain standing and accept mistakes on behalf of the entire industry before the committee. Some Representatives even suggested criminal charges against the executives---it is the whole system which worked hand in glove, sold credit to people who could have never bought it and where were the regulators looking?

Private organizations using public money are definitely answerable to their new public shareholders if the executives are responsible for bad risk management and for creating this mess we are in, their credit rating agency colleagues are not too far behind. Even after the cat was let out of the bag and major institutions started failing in 2008, what was this House doing? It seems to be too much too late.
Moreover, the quality of some questions was really so poor that I doubt if the bankers really started explaining their reasons behind not lending out much from the bail-out money, how many of the questioning Representatives would have understood the capitalization concerns.
Lecturing errant organizations and standing up for constituents is all very good but when we get chief executives of these huge organizations in a row and question them, do we really get what we are looking for? I ask again. Are the American people really looking for this theatre on the floor of the House?

How about improving the Stimulus Bill rather than increasing public debt to about eight hundred billion doillars and land up getting so little out of it. Who and what stimulates spending?

Limiting executive compensation is not 'The Answer'

2009-02-05T16:12:00.004-05:00

These days, it is absurd to see so many beleaguered yet splurging companies and their top officials being pulled under scrutiny in the public press. John Thain of Merril Lynch, Sandy Weill formerly of Citigroup, the employee bashes by Wells Fargo and AIG, the jet for Citi…the list is unending. On the other hand there are populists like Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri who denounced huge Wall Street bonuses on the floor of the Senate saying

“These people are idiots. You can’t use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses…..What planet are these people on?”

The administration went out of its way to propose tax payer money to salvage falling financial institution yet not give the public shareholder full ownership authority. I understand that is bi-partisan politics. Probably the President wanted to keep his friends from across the aisle happy by pretending that we are allowing the market to act on its own while helping it do well. But this line could not be followed for long and yesterday the President proposed limiting executive compensation for companies which have received Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money. The program also puts cap on stock options and severance packages. It is a two-tiered program: one for basket cases like BoA, AIG etc and the other for those companies the limits will apply but the shareholders can waive off in a nonbinding advisory note. This is politico-economics and high rhetoric. But we miss the bigger point.

Can government order and regulation really limit private company executive pay?

My answer is an intuitive no.

For one, the program does not speak clearly on how it intends to actually execute this limit which might create additional confusion as well as loopholes for private company boards to follow the guidelines.
Private companies especially those which have been prudent and are not tethering in these bad times will not like accepting such state orders. Some Wall Street executives have already expressed their displeasure and their wish to return public money as soon as they can.
Also, the more there are artificial, inorganic rules to abide by there is more temptation for flouting of those rules [we have seen this is dictatorship regimes and highly protected markets]

Rethinking the compensation philosophy and subsequent re-design may be the only solution to this issue.
Pay is a function of Output and Behaviour. In service-oriented industries, pay is determined mostly in terms of behaviour and in this age of performance based pay, ‘wanted’ behaviour is the one that is rewarded. In the financial world of high risk-high return, the exorbitant compensation and bonuses became a practice across the world because the talent pool became really small (almost a coterie) and the executives were egged on by their organizations to look increasingly at short term gains. Keynes’ ‘long run’ was taken to an entirely different level. Everyone involved had vested interest in keeping it this way.

Alternatives:Rethinking Compensation

An alternative can be to include longer than annual term compensation. This will not only remove the pressure from employees to undertake higher risks; it will also reduce post bonus-season attrition.
Employees can also be paid for greater honesty and disclosure.
Risk management has stayed on in most financial institution as a ‘support function’ or a regulatory requirement. Risk managing behaviour should be included in executive pay.
Companies can lay out permissible actions with checks and balances as much as possible and punishing behaviour that is ‘too risky’ or do not go by the rule book can act as a good disincentive.

These reforms will have to be developed by private companies and then overseen by the government.Sole Government led reform will not be functional as compensation programs are complex and industry and/or organization specific. It might also lead organizations to follow those guidelines as a rule and not in spirit. As Ben W, Heineman Jr said in BusinessWeek,

“Finding the appropriate balance between government autonomy and corporate responsibility on executive compensation is an extraordinarily challenging and complex task. The best course for the next three or four months is for corporations to follow the UBS and Morgan Stanley examples and rethink, redesign, and put out for public scrutiny and debate reformed systems of executive compensation in anticipation of, or as part of, the 2009 proxy season.”

The private companies have to take responsibility and work on the concerns of public shareholders. Rethinking executive compensation will boost their bottom-lines in the long run.
Our hope is founded on the new administration’s ability to gather its good counsel and guide the private organizations without creating unnecessary public control.

Related reading
Can Obama's Executive-Pay Limits Tame Wall Street?
Obama to Limit Executive Pay at Companies Getting Aid
McCaskill on corporate executives' pay: 'These people are idiots'

The President's Mea Culpa

2009-02-04T15:11:00.004-05:00

As soon as I had watched President Obama’s interview* last night on MSNBC (one of my favourite television channels) I did a Google search on him. There were 1,970,000 results from the national and international press for Mr. President’s

“I screwed up!”

Now, yesterday, the 3rd of February, was an especially bad day at work for the new Head of State.
Two of his nominees to important positions resigned on failure to pay due taxes.
Senator Tom Daschle was named as secretary of HHS (The Health and Human Services). The Senator told NBC and MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that an editorial by The NY Times’ Maureen Dowd made him realize that it was a mistake and he decided to step down.
Senator Daschle has been the President’s political mentor in some ways and this resignation means that the White House will have great difficulty (apparently there was no Plan B) in finding a replacement with that depth of experience and the ability to convince the Capitol Hill of the Administration’s proposed health reforms. There are huge initial investments in streamlining the health services and with the current unemployment rates and planned lay-offs, health coverage and benefits is a primary concern of millions of Americans.
The second casualty was Nancy Killefer, a management consultant with McKinsey & Co and a former Treasury official who was nominated as the country’s chief performance officer at the White House. Now, someone who cannot take the responsibility to be an ethical tax payer cannot really be entrusted with cutting costs and raising productivity of the Federal Government.

Last evening, Mr President gave a couple of interviews and was quick to admit that he did screw up. Possibly that was the only way that a President promising ‘change’ and then overwhelmingly voted into office could salvage his credibility. The admission of mistakes is news in this country where for the past eight years the previous President refused to admit his mistakes. No wonder I had those many Google search results! Also, an Administration which has gone to the Legislature asking for a trillion dollars of tax payers’ money and has left no opportunity to discipline those who receive bail-out money cannot possibly have double standards in its own living room.
However, as Maureen Dowd points out, it is not enough for the President’s Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to say that the boss felt

“like that disappointed parent that doesn’t embarrass you in the mall, but you feel like you’ve let somebody down.”

To me, it sounds like saying we are good and sober; we hate this but don’t expect us to get into fist fights! But fights are exactly what are required—there cannot be double standards for the regulator and the regulated.

I still see Hope for Americans. Even as millions lose their jobs and health care coverage, huge organizations just disappear overnight and unashamed Wall Street/Detroit executives splurge on bailout money, there is hope in this land. I say that because here the President (the first ever of colour who got into office with one of the highest approval ratings) can quickly admit mistakes and get on to the clean-up task. Here public opinion and editorial columns can still shake influential politicians and corporate executives to make amends for their past mistakes.It is a cliché that public memory is short. But I am not sure if this is the right time for this government to try the tax-paying voters. People are distressed and one mistake, too many, can ruin the chances of the ‘dream come true’ President with the millions who have faith in him.

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* with NBC’s Brian Williams

[Photo of the President courtesy msnbc.com news service]

Closure of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre

2009-01-23T14:48:00.005-05:00

[The success of this policy decision requires proper execution]

The new administration and especially Secretary of State Clinton have time and again mentioned that diplomacy, development and defence will be the three pillars of America’s new foreign policy. Going with this theme, The President signed three executive orders ordering the closing of the military detention centre in Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) and to stop infamous interrogation techniques apparently used by the previous administration.
Critics have pointed out that it looks like a trade-off between upholding American constitutional values and keeping America safe from further terrorist attacks, what with the thousands of US troops serving across the world and especially in two wars right now?
I do not agree with this point of view of the critics.
These new orders sound very good for USA which claims to be the land of civil liberties. President Obama’s nominees for the Attorney General’s office and chief of national intelligence do not support torture methods and have mentioned to their Senate confirmation committees that methods like water boarding (which have been used at Guantanamo by the previous admin) definitely entail torture. This new policy enables intelligence officials to use the detainees as real resources. There are also vast consequences beyond the individual who is being tortured—it messes up the way the world perceives USA.
The pressure of value-based campaign promises and good political diplomacy have pushed the President to sign these orders as his first priority. However there are real questions to be pondered upon.
Though there is a year’s time for the officials to execute the closing order, the primary question seems to be what is to be done with these detainees post the closing. Gitmo has a lot of detainees who are kept captive without trial simply because it is difficult to charge them under legal technicalities and yet they have conspired against America and are too dangerous to be released. I say that because the American government possibly cannot just send these people back to their home countries where they may be tortured or post rehabilitation, they may just vanish into the countries where it is easier for them to restart the terrorist campaigns. There are already reports that some released prisoners have started re-organising Al-Qaeda’s movements in the Middle East and in some sleeper cells in East Europe.
If these prisoners are brought to mainland military detention centres, it might be too dangerous to just release them into the community so the government will have to spend millions on building separate living facilities and medical centres for them. That might not be viable.
The new administration really needs to take their rhetoric on the three pronged strategy into good execution to prevent this decision from slipping into something that has grave consequences for the nation and its people.

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[the photo courtesy Sify News]

Barack-ish Branding--happy and sad thoughts

2009-01-23T13:43:00.003-05:00

The public frenzy over Obama-s is here to stay. This week while during the Inauguration, the Chief Justice forgot the oath (the government quickly went on a re-do behind closed doors in the Oval office) and droves of attendees remained stuck in DC underground tunnels, the customized J.Crew dresses for the Obama girls made thousands hit on the retailer’s site and bring it down. Some others got hugely disappointed that they couldn’t trace Mrs O’s gloves. Now that is good news for retailers and clothes boutiques that are having a tough time with moving their inventory. I am sure some kind of sales was made riding on this craze.
I also like the fact that the Obama-s did not splurge a fortune on designer made wardrobes for their young girls. For one, it would have been inappropriate in the current economic situation and for the sake of the hope and trust that common people have put on them. Then, it speaks of prudent parenting.
I understand that the times are grim and we needed this fanfare, this engagement with the celebrations but what is this madness about things which really don’t matter that much? Customized designs from J Crew are well beyond the reach of many American children but there are a lot of rip-offs that have already appeared. Are we sending out a message to our children that idolizing celebrities or those in public life is the only ticket to feeling good? Are we just misplacing the source of our ‘not feeling so good’ issues with flimsy lifestyle choices?
Public frenzy is always a safe bet to duck beneath.

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[Photo courtesy Jim Young/Reuters]

Barack-ish Branding

2009-01-20T14:56:00.001-05:00

We’ve always used celebrities to vouch for goods and services. In India, cricketers and film stars steal the show but in this country called USA, it seems the President-elect is a good enough candidate for consumer goods campaigns. In these recessionary times, if you can’t hire a model? No shakes. The President-elect might just do a bit of overtime and earn the Treasury some meaty dollars…am sure it will be good help with all the bail-out packages that it has to dole out. For the marketers, they cannot ask for a model better than (arguably) the most powerful man in this world.
To begin with, his books published ten years ago make very good reading and renewed business for their publishers. A President who wrote and sold good long before he was known even in the Democrat ranks is one to think about. As a writer, Obama comes across as genuine, optimistic; brave yet a sensitive and sensible fighter. That is a lot of good guidance for many young and not-so-young Americans who are confused and needs to know a way out.
The media and the people are excited to look forward to a new commander-in-chief in these hard times. So they are carefully hearing his disappointment at having to give up on his ‘Blackberry’. They have noticed his Nike running shoes on his way out of a gym in Chicago. They have figured out the model of his Ray-ban sunglasses and there is news that he likes Fran’s chocolates and that his car is apparently crossing hundred thousand dollars on EBay. Oh and if you stop by for a drink with the President-elect, he might just offer you a Black Forest Berry drink from Honest Tea who are already rewarding Obama’s loyalty by naming this drink, ‘Barack Forest Berry’! (They are also sampling it around DC as an inauguration gift.)
Apart from Honest Tea, none of the other corporates have made any statements about what a gratis celebrity endorser is doing to their business in these tough times. But my guess is that a lean, ‘green’, e-savvy President-elect is promising change in more ways than one for the public at large. For those who are frustrated with the political system or claim to be ‘apolitical’, here is a loud, fresh message that the leader means business and cares for those whom he governs. And for those, who have supported him all the way, they know that it is here that they belong.
That is some potent role-modeling and the goods and services endorsed by Obama are surely doing well on the store shelves as retailers struggle with inventory.

Her drills -VII

2008-08-19T08:34:00.001-04:00

She has been looking for muses and what not….
Then she suddenly remembered the veiled green, too green, almost bluish green Ghat-tops on her way to Poona. Yes, she prefers calling Bombay, Poona and Madras so and she loves wandering---reason that discipline in professional writing will never work for her.
Yes, the Ghats were beautiful she has clicked them forever in her mind’s eye. She pored over to catch every crevice in the scary, bald rock faces around the tunnels. She shouldn’t miss a thing. What a pity she can’t share it with you-- those misty, gossamer-like clouds encircling the road, the speed breakers, the truck ahead, the hutments in the valley and everything that could be seen. She reached out to gather the moisture but the air-conditioned bus had locked the windows.
Green, too green, so many hues of green.
Wet, too wet, trickles, puddles, zig-zag patterns on the glass.

The Constant Gardener

2008-08-12T02:15:00.002-04:00

Directed by
Fernando Meirelles
Produced by
Simon Channing-Williams
Written by
Jeffrey Caine (screenplay)John le Carré (novel)
Starring
Ralph FiennesRachel WeiszHubert KoundéDanny HustonBill NighyJohn Sibi-OkumuPackson NgugiArchie Panjabi
Music by
Alberto Iglesias
Cinematography
César Charlone
Editing by
Claire Simpson
Distributed by
Focus Features
Release date(s)
August 31, 2005
Running time
129 min

I think all good things are made better by the place, the time and the companion. My lovely friend T (we don’t use school essay-ish best friend, round here) has been goading me to watch The Constant Gardener and then it finally happened this rainy, gloomy Sunday afternoon. Her companionship made a lot of meaning to my viewing the movie as I did.
The movie can be seen in varied ways—as a social commentary, as a thriller (we were not too happy with this branding in the blurb on the DVD), as a love story and as a tale of humanity.

The cinematographer brings alive the diplomatic enclaves and the slums of Nairobi or the refugee camps of North Kenya with equal élan.
Rachel Weisz is fluid and warm in the deep and almost depressing role of Tessa Quayle, an activist (married to a British diplomat) who decides to take the diplomatic way to deal with the villainous pharma companies and the interest groups attached to them. She is dead in the beginning of the movie but continues to be a strong force throughout in flash backs. That is the other thing about the movie that really appealed to me---the moving back and forth in time and the way it has been handled with grace. Ralph Fiennes (as Justin Quayle) is subtle and powerful. His is a humane character and he portrays it beautifully—whether offering to buy coffee for the sole woman (soon to be his wife) opposing his diplomatic speech, as a not quite disbelieving husband, as a husband receiving the news of his wife’s death or as a diplomat resolving to give it all up and go in search of his wife’s unfinished trail.
The music with cello, clarinet and a whole host of percussion instruments is haunting to say the least. It speaks of the ‘dispensable people’ who are forced to participate in human trials of drugs with fatal effects or denied medical help all together. The music of the hearty and hardy Africans fails to reach the conniving coterie of the western world.

The film has been criticized as ‘too soft’ on the drug makers or as defending the African policy makers who are equally corrupt and cannot take care of their people. Some have also pointed out that Director Meirelles could not adapt the strong drama of John le Carre’s writing. But to me, the film stands out as a layered and deep narrative.
For example, when Justin has just received Tessa’s death, the camera remains on his face and a while later he tells his colleague “Thanks Sam. It couldn’t have been easy.”
After Justin decides to take up this trail he is threatened to go back home to Britain, Justin says, “I can't go home. Tessa was my home.” This belief is amply portrayed when he whispers “Tessa” a moment before he is killed by contract killers at Lake Turkana in a similar fashion as his wife.
Lorbeer, the social worker whom Tessa had convinced to testify against the drug makers leaves me completely shaken through a couple of his dialogues-- “Big pharmaceuticals are right up there with the arms dealers.” And “I only give the food to the women, Mr. Black. Women make the homes; men just make wars... and hooch. Adam was God's first draft - He got it right with Eve. Tell that to your readers, Mr. Black.” I cannot possibly forgive Lorbeer to let out Tessa’s location to her killers but his acceptance of the big fraud that the African Aid programs really are makes him somewhat acceptable.

The dance of Love is potent through the movie, whether through understanding a secretive spouse, for the new born baby of a dying mother or for humanity at large. It makes me feel so helpless to know that there isn’t any opportunity to protect and rescue even one or two people, the millions are, anyway, beyond.
I am hoping to watch the movie again and again to discover facets I couldn’t have had captured during the first go. I can say with conviction that it is depressing, moving yet thrilling but surely not a thriller.

They

2008-08-07T07:41:00.002-04:00

“Do not travel on the Independence Day. Do not go to crowded places.” goes a concerned voice on the other end of the phone.
“But then everybody is, I have been meaning to make this trip for such a long time.” wail I
“That is exactly the thing they are looking for.” says another.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But don’t they wake up, brush and sit down with their morning cup? Do they wonder if it is going to rain this morning? What about the price of wheat and vegetables? Don’t they think of all those caught unaware whom they will blow up by their buttons? Can they hear the wails and the ambulance whistles?

I would like to believe that they are like you and me, caught in this Web of Life. They celebrate coming of age, they get wet, they wait in the queue, they fall in love and they make babies. They weep when the bomb goes of. Their fingers shake to write the threat mail. They falter for a moment before they blow themselves up.
They have a different lens. Probably like the dozen wrong lenses my ophthalmologist tries out before he gets the right one. These people, call them bombers, fanatics, terrorists, whatever you may, they cannot find the right lens.
Can you imagine how frustrating it is not to find light on a pitch, dark night?
I wonder who gave them the darkness and who will break through it.

The Creator has been weighing Fear and Love, ever since.

Persepolis

2008-08-06T08:18:00.002-04:00

On a moist work evening, on my way home I decided to drop by at the mall next door without any great purpose. I walked to the multiplex area and while I was wondering how would ‘The Vagina Monologues’ feel in Hindi (our emotions have language?) I hit upon the wonderful poster for ‘Persepolis’ almost hiding apologetically behind its blatantly colourful cousins which spoke of movies I’d turn in my grave to watch.
“I must do this” I said and soon I went in (my stomach sorted with a quick sub and a quicker coffee) expecting a ‘private viewing’ of the movie on a weekday late evening show. The theatre didn’t have a single soul (although a dozen odd co-viewers did walk in after a while) and what began is a great show of Life.
For those not in the know, Persepolis is co-directed by Marjane Satrapi based on her autobiographical graphic novel by the same name. It has been nominated for and awarded a number of prizes in the best film festivals and one ought to watch it to believe what am talking about.
Without getting into the details, which one can always read on the Net, Persepolis is the story of an Iranian girl’s coming of age which could have been anywhere in the world but what really makes her life stand apart is the effect that her country’s socio-political changes had on her. The fall of the Shah of Iran, the rise of the fundamentalists, the subsequent social oppression, her family’s communist beliefs and then the ‘meaningless’ war between Iraq and Iran---all contribute to the girl’s becoming the person that she did.
The film is presented in powerful black and white animation but the expressions and emotions are so strong that I doubt if human actors could have portrayed them.
For me, it is a story of universal experiences and fears, of love, betrayal and eternal bonds. At the end, I came to fall in love with Marji (Marjane) and her grandmother.
There are numerous questions that Marjane Satrapi and her tale raised in me.
I have been brought up in a free land and in an overtly libertarian family so I have always taken my freedom and views for being granted but this narrative gravely reminded me of all the women who get violated emotionally and physically, every moment, be it in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime or behind the closed doors of our apparently open societies. Like Marji asks in the movie, I wonder, why is it that women have to bear the cross of decency all the time? What about indecent men? What happens to an outspoken, free thinking, non-conformist woman in a land ruled by male fanatics?
The story also touches on the price that a person has to pay for his/her beliefs. The principles of Justice, Liberty and Equality have been disregarded time and again through the ages by the powerful and those on the path of justice have paid through their lives. “I-n-t-e-g-r-i-t-y” --as grandma asks Marji to have--do we have a place for that in our lives? Or does absolute power first seduce us and then intoxicate us to become sub-human? Selfish interests of a few can severely affect millions. At the end of the long drawn war between Iraq and Iran, both sides were at a loss to figure out why they started fighting in the first place. They realized that the same Western vendors sold fire to both of them.
The other question which haunted me is whether we remain sensitive and unbiased to the circumstances of people in other cultures? I am moved by Marji’s hurt and anger when she finds that foreigners misrepresent her country and its customs and stereotype her negatively. For her friends’ world outside Iran, freedom is so easy and life, so superficial. Her last straw is a cheating lover and she has nothing to fall back upon but to return home which leads her to clinical depression. She almost lost her identity till life came a full circle (when she left her country for one last time) and she could firmly tell the Parisian taxi driver that she came from Iran. The price she gives for her decision to leave her country forever is the death of her grandmother.

The silver lining of this poignant film and life story is the relationship between Marji and her grandmother. The grandmother is a wonderful friend and a sensitive guide to the girl and exhibits great dignity and strength of character, yet her grandmotherly love overflows to touch the viewers. One of my favourite lines from the grandmother is “Fear lulls our minds to sleep.” Somebody who has sacrificed loved ones, hidden pamphlets, has run in the wild hiding from the oppressive forces can alone stay put and still remain fearless and ever alert.
When Marji calls on her grandmother shaken at the failure of her marriage and breaks down, grandma with a straight face says that she was shocked because she thought that somebody has died and of course for her “The first marriage is practice for the next one”. I couldn’t, but, chuckle at this one.
She also opines “In this life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it's their own stupidity that makes them act that way. That will keep you from responding to their meanness. There's nothing worse in this world than bitterness and revenge. Hold your head up and stay true to yourself.” --A great lesson in forgiveness. The fresh Caspian breeze seemed to brush past me when grandma and Marji went on their last holiday together.
I have always noticed that the ending of a narrative left a lasting impression about the whole creation. Persepolis will always stay with me for its ending if not for anything else. The movie ended with the lilting voice of young Marji asking her grandmother how she smelled so nice all the time. While the grandma shared her secret, few of her jasmines fell on us. I smelled good too.

On my God of Chutzpah

2008-07-10T03:39:00.002-04:00

Somebody I knew on e-mail, last year, apologized this morning. We had met for a purpose and in my mind we went away on our own paths for a purpose. At that time, I did spend some energy and emotion on why it happened the way it did but for sometime now it wasn’t on my mind. I just accepted knowing that it is beyond my understanding. The apology this morning set me thinking on my beliefs about forgiveness and hurt. The foremost thing that came up is my relationship with God.
I grew up as a free child. I am a Hindu by birth and have been exposed to a lot of socio-religious practices since the time I can remember. But most of it happened to ‘other people’. I participated as an invitee and had my share of fun, grief and new learning. I developed an aversion to temples and the oppressive practices in my adolescence and do not remember visiting any place of worship other than a church (very rarely). I disliked the fervour, the rush, the mindless rituals and the filth associated with most temples. I never went back to any of them except when guiding somebody geographically! I had no connection with the rituals done because it is normative.
My parents were free birds too and they introduced me to the Wisdom and the Spirit of our age- old scriptures, the Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita. My father has always believed that amassing material wealth leads to fear of losing, grief, attachment and hence boxing of our spirits. He owned less and never cried for anything that went away from his small material kitty. As a family we struggled to keep up with his detachment and the clamping attachment that our society wanted of us.
My own relationship to God developed in my non-vocal conversations with Him-Her (my feminist ego would like to believe God as a harmonious union of both the masculine and the feminine in Nature—just the way we are born). I heard God in my parents’ beliefs, felt God at Rohtang Pass in the blinding glacial snow, I saw God amidst the thousands of yellow-maroon clad Lamas at Dharamsala and in the gurgling of children rushing out at the end of a school day, I knew God when my sister went away and I can sense God, in each one of us, every time I join a T-group.
God is the Higher Universe for me, the mechanism which runs things smoothly and creates experiences exactly the way it is meant to be. I have always understood God as the one who pushes me ahead to take difficult decisions and question the well known. Hence, my God is the God of indomitable Chutzpah.
I have time and again felt the Creator’s presence in writings, in rain washed sunsets, in dreams which looked absolutely unachievable and in my belief that what am doing is for a higher cause known to me.
My God of Chutzpah doesn’t give things easily---I have to earn it for myself. So hundred chanting doesn’t work but beliefs do, patience and hard work does and determination flowers into the Unbelievable.
Today, I thank my God every moment for making me go through the deepest, darkest hell but bringing me out so victorious, that I can stand atop the tallest mountain and scream…”Love is All there is”.
I love you my God of Chutzpah and all that you make me create for myself.

[p.s. I love your latest manifestation in my life, to bits, and in a way, this is for you and for him.]

This Tale, once more

2008-07-04T01:39:00.002-04:00

I have seen fairy tales turn grimy and old, I have seen them break into a million pieces, I have known them to slowly simmer and then burn out while those who wrote them, waited and watched with lazy minds and flimsy hearts.
I run through all those tales like a dark tunnel whizzes by, on a speeding train at mid day. As daylight fills in again, I assure myself that this tale will grow and bloom, as prettily as I would want it to be.
Half asleep, I hear from the co-author.
Our story needs to be shared with the world because it is a story of two souls that were separate, and yet are now part of the same living, breathing entity called life.
………there is a reason why so many things around you and me are clapping to our souls' unison. …..for yes, it will be a rebirth, a reawakening, a revival, replenishment and most of all, a discovery.

When the baby slowly falls asleep and the mother’s story goes softer and farther away, what comes up is a bright moving world where fairy tales never end.

A Tale

2008-07-03T05:46:00.002-04:00

The clock on my computer doesn’t make any noise, it shifts without a sigh. I often check my watch and my phone. I check the time on the last email. I notice that we do not have a wall clock at work, how strange! Never knew it in the last couple of years. I casually ask the time to my work neighbour—my mother has always added excess is not a harm.. ‘adhikantu na doshaaya’.
All this amidst the work day, all this amidst an overcast sky which envelopes the glass walls of my office. All this because I want to wake up someone thousands of miles away where the day will break as mine closes in.
Another check on the watch so that I do not get lost in writing and posting this; I don’t want to miss listening to a sleepy drawl which will stay with me for the rest of the evening and the night. I smile thinking of a smile on a heart far, far away.

Fairy tales are often made without fairies!

Dhanno and Rain

2008-06-23T06:54:00.005-04:00

It was a couple of summers back. I rode on my horse down the winding roads of south Goa. One could hear the roaring sea, only if one was calm enough to pay attention. The road went like a merry-go-round time, and again, around hillocks, palm trees, creepers, liquor shops, churches, village football clubs and then suddenly, there were unending flat fields which tried very hard to keep the grey road on track, as if to take care of its foot-loose ways. Goa is like that, just when you drink enough to topple over, it sets you up for one more!
And my beautiful beige horse, roaring and running, was Dhanno. Dhanno came all the way from Pune -- crossing the parched Ghats, keeping up with the sea along the Konkan coast and finally ducking her nose for some afternoon siesta on the Cavelossim beach. Dhanno ran with us for a fortnight, keeping us company, playing to the beats of Knopfler’s guitar, staying stable on hot nights with the moon, the sea, the sand and beer. Till one night Dhanno took us to the dark, ominous clouds, breaking with thunder and trembling with the high winds, on to the sands of the Colva Beach. The monsoons crashed on the Konkan coast, the thunder tore up the blue-black night and we watched in amazement the fury of sand-blast and water on Dhanno’s glass walls. The rampage went on for hours but at day break everything was fresh and green, seemingly ignorant of the destruction that lay around. The first birds called out, wept for their dead babies and then flew with the wind. So did the crabs in the sand and the beetles beneath the palms. Dhanno stood still, showing us the unending rejuvenation of life—of destruction and rebirth.
Dhanno is a stocky village lady; weathered by the elements, wrinkled by the sun and the sea-salt. She toils hard in the summer fields, prays to the rain-gods, comforts her needy man and in the little time that she gets for herself just before the day vanishes into darkness, sings her Paean Song to Life.

This summer I met Rain, hoping to find Dhanno in the driveway, I was still waiting. But news soon came that Dhanno has been replaced by youth and vibrancy. The Goa roads are static in their character, so is the Goa smell but this was a new ride for us. Rain is young, energetic, urbane and chic. She is just what you may want; poised, pretty yet ever sensitive to what you may need from her. On the winding Goan roads, Rain came in her elements, dashing through the clouds, flying with the night birds, challenging the steamy sun. Her glinting eyes severed the gloomy darkness ahead, her glistening coat flashed in the moonlight and Rain flagged the slow breeze which rose in the middle of the night. Rain comforted our nostalgic selves—calmly listening to our angst, our grief, our joy and our love stories. She was at peace with Dhanno’s non-descript ways whenever we pulled her in from our ‘old times’—graceful and inviting. The unruly Goan roads werejust that, the palm fronds were truly mysterious, the sea never stopped whispering and with the wafting smells of chicken cafreal, prawn balchao and pork sorpotel, Rain played on.
Rain came with the clouds; she went with the sea…

R, Dhanno and Rain’s lover-boy, makes it a point to turn on his iPod, for every ride, to play Rain’s song:
“From the day that I met you, girl
I knew that your love would be
Everything that I ever wanted in my life
From the moment you spoke my name
I knew everything had changed
Because of you I felt my life would be complete
Oh baby, I need you
For the rest of my life, girl
I need you
To make everything right, girl
I love you
And I'll never deny thatI need you”

For D

2008-04-08T00:45:00.000-04:00

Time has stood still. The sky is a brigher blue, the sun isn’t scorching any longer, it doesn’t matter that the driver is grumpy or that I have been nudged out of the queue twice over.
The red bougainvillea, outside my window, nod in unison with the sea breeze.
Time has stood still…..for all four watches of mine are not working.

The Begums' Harems

2008-03-12T03:46:00.001-04:00

I have often heard my men friends speak about their fantasies and equally fantastic wish-lists. And owning a ‘harem’ features quite high on that list. Well, by now, courtesy all those studies that tell us every bit about an ideal life (only for the next ‘study’ to negate them later) we know that men are polygamists by nature. What about women, we ask? We’d surely love to be a Draupadi given that she lived her life equally on the principles of polygamy and polyandry!
An inspiring friend of mine wrote to me this morning about her under performing harem. Yesterday was her wedding anniversary and apart from the various demands on energy and time made by her work, she went home late to find one of her harem-girls missing. So she had to cook and then delegate the heating and smaller bits to what she calls a ‘free service’
“Working women need wives” and maybe “many wives in case one becomes too demanding and pretty boring” rattled my friend.
In case you are wondering what am talking about, then let me clarify that my friend and her gang of girls believe in delegating (free service) and outsourcing (paid service) in a bid to move up the value chain of work-delivery that they create themselves.
The outsourcing agencies are not dependable. There are training and customization costs involved and retention is always a big issue. For at the end of the day, it is a sellers’ market and the sellers are quick to retort “Itne paise mein itnaich milega”……Also these agencies have been manipulated by many employers in our excess labour economy and am told that they have formed unions worse than what we saw in our Bengal of yore. Soon there will be contracts, law suits and charter of rights.
My life is precariously balanced on one such outsourced agency (I still haven’t dared a harem or a free delegate) and I have almost no choice in defining the deliverables and the associated conditions of the contract.
The other day a man-friend, who had to wake up early in the morning to attend to his wife’s harem commented that this is all about working out the risk. And I was quick to respond, “Do you mean you hedge it?” for increasing the size of the harem no longer implies minimizing the risk or increasing the pleasure run.
I am, however, quite concerned about the free delegated service providers---men who bravely took upon what they were clueless about. I am still waiting for legislation on reverse domestic violence when men come on air debating whether there is enough protection for the free services that they provide and whether they also ought to celebrate an ‘International Mens’ Day’

Till then, all of you Begums of this world make no bones about creating your own harem of bai-s with attitude and husbands/ boyfriends with fear.

Irony

2008-03-04T05:50:00.001-05:00

We go around in circles
As if children playing rings.

And then we keep going at it
Like a firefly drawn to death.

The world would have been a simpler place
If we sought what we got
And got what we wanted………

While waiting II

2008-02-29T05:03:00.000-05:00

While am waiting, Life is Here and Now.
“Come, Shop” say the mall bill boards.
“Come, Pay” say the ad-inserts all over the news paper.
“Come, Dance” say the iPod’s tune
“Come, Gorge” say the patisserie window

“Come, Play” say your eyes
“Come, Hither” I dare you

Mr Kundera, is life really elsewhere?

Waiting

2008-02-27T22:48:00.000-05:00

I am waiting
For the signal to turn green
For the man ahead of me in the queue to get going
For the train to arrive
For the papaya to ripen
For the week to pass
For the weekend to arrive
For the weekend not to end
For my fridge to get empty
For the bills
For a call
For some surprise

I am still waiting

Her drills VI---not quite so..

2008-02-20T23:42:00.001-05:00

She is done with her supper by early evening. The sun has hardly set and has left a crimson, violet hue over the sky. The traffic outside is on full blare. On television, cricketers get auctioned for millions while journalists claim that they are in the wrong profession.
She is back after God knows what…….was it a gigantic surf, was it a mirage, was it a magic spell? She may never be able to decipher.
Her laptop is broken, her phone breathing its last, her bank balance has already died and the debt figures have grown nicely plump. Some say she is thinner, some that she’s lost her bubble and some find it ‘good’ to have her back. But she knows that she isn’t quite back to her drills and as she looks around munching the last of the devilled eggs mom left her, life is non-commital.

Pretty Park Street

2008-01-30T12:58:00.000-05:00

I grew up in a Calcutta of silent transition yet one of great confusion and hurt at being left behind. My town just couldn’t catch up while the rest of the country got ready to create the jamboree we see around today. In the Calcutta of early nineties we were sleepyheads yet very happy with our little pleasures and an unique identity---a wintry stroll down the Maidan (the huge stretch of greenery in the center of the city) through the fairs especially the Book Fair, the Christmas cheer and Nahoum’s cakes at the New Market (more than a century old), the crumbling Coffee House and the great seat of learning, reading and publishing at College Street, the seats of performing arts spread across town, the street food, the cuisine specialists patronized through generations and the Colonial past all defined, in part, who we were and what we became.
However it was telling that Bengal was past Renaissance, was broken up by the Partition and then a war, was maligned by anti establishment revolution, was being ruled by an ideology alien to the urban elite and not quite trusted by the masses. We didn’t experience the golden age of Bengali literature, music, theatre, the ideological struggle and ‘living for a cause’ that our parents stood up for and so venerated.
We also didn’t experience the heady nights of music, pleasure and creativity (maybe debauchery too) on Park Street of the sixties (night life was almost non existent in the rest of the country then) where Pam Craine and the Sami sisters (one of them, Ms Usha Utthup, still reigns) crooned, Mocambo, Trinca’s, Sky Room, Blue Fox,Moulin Rouge, Waldorf, Peter Cat lit up and Flury’s provided a sumptuous breakfast at the close of a never ending night. On the contrary our Park Street was ailed by age, disgrace and stood ghostly, uncared for and a silent reminder of the diamond nights gone by.

As a child, Park Street was that fairyland for me, where we made a rare trip after an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime shopping spree at New Market. One didn’t know how to get there, one was just taken on a treat and got to watch in amazement at the colonial pillars, speeding cars, stylish shoppers at huge stores, flashing street signs and wish that the ice cream at India Hobby Centre would never get over. I refused to learn the route from home as much as my father tried for I believed one just gets delivered there as a gift especially when it was lit up for the year-end festivities and one had to sing the carols in tandem with the choir at St Thomas’ Church to woo Santa Claus to one’s home in sleepy and faraway south Calcutta.
Somewhere during the busy high school days, Park Street vanished from my map except for a couple of trips to the lovely ‘Someplace Else’ to hear live bands play rock and jazz. At the end of school, one humid summer morning, I was transported (just like those childhood days) to huge green fields and a bright yellow mansion, which spread in a near 360-degree splash. My college that was and it forever changed my relationship with Park Street.
It was as if SXC (as we lovingly called St Xavier’s College) rose up doused in the treasures of the land it stood on but grew up to be a crown gem in its own right. In moments of extreme nostalgia, I really wish that I get back those long walks through the lanes and by-lanes around Park Street, those rare occasions of affording a tea and sandwich at Flury’s and watching the world go by through their huge glass windows and what about those evenings when night fell with the slowing down of the cackle of birds and quick rising of vehicle noises as if a synchronized orchestra while we sat at the famous green benches of our college lawns or the stone steps of the auditorium. Yes, at times nursing a broken heart or dreaming of a future we had no clue about. My first formal date was a memorable dinner at ‘Bar-B-Q’ with its mouthwatering Indian-Chinese cuisine and my first alcoholic drink was at ‘Someplace Else’! Life was never more alluring and rose-tinted.
Park Street has remained a witness of materialistic resolutions of being able to walk in at any of those restaurants (unaffordable as a student), of being able to buy all the books at Free School Street (a lane off Park Street) without running out of cash, of being a stylish shopper at a huge jewellery store (Sataram Das & Co) or to get an expert hairdresser on call from A.N.John. Park Street has also seen soon to be broken promises of never to fall in love again, of never to drink, of never to splurge, of focusing to make it ‘big’, of never giving up one’s own self at the altar of another.

Few years later, as luck would have it, I went to work in Calcutta for a short stint and the office was, of course on Park Street! I was amazed to find the flourishing Oxford bookstore with tea bars and a delight of a children’s section, the old favourite Someplace Else as warm and inviting as ever with a flashy lounge cousin across the corridor, the continental breakfast at the freshly done up Flury’s (the service being as tardy as ever), reinstated restaurants and renovated old buildings, new coffee shops and international eatery chains, my college being declared an autonomous institute and growing younger ever since, the Park Street Cemetery renovated and to my utter disbelief, Park Street being renamed Mother Teresa Sarani. Thank god! Nobody calls it so and nobody ever will but it couldn’t have been a greater irony to name such a hedonist city center after a saintly lady.
Today, as I buy my ice cream from the now shabby India Hobby Centre and walk towards the rejuvenated Oly(mpia) Pub for a Chicken a la Kiev washed down by a pint, I know that Park Street is Sin, Park Street is Love, Park Street is Wild, and Park Street is Alluring.
Park Street is also my quiet solitude of building castles in the air, my fairyland. And it will always make headlines and heads turn.
Park Street is my Eternal Girlhood.

A woman's journey

2007-12-20T23:44:00.000-05:00

This post started as a letter I wrote to my girl friends who giggle with me, cry with me, hug me, love me and at times, silently hold me so that I regain my strength and courage. They also chide me yet hide me from the claws of the nasty world.

This is a personal journey that am sharing here and hence blogging on it was never my first choice but one of my dare-devil friends came back saying

“This must be shared with the world………I know what you’re saying is intensely personal but that is what it is about….a heartfelt, deeply moving message that has been experienced by one woman and can touch other souls because all of them are, in some form, experiencing it themselves.”
And that is making me share it with all of you. As my friend puts it, it is personal and putting it up on the World Wide Web might be comparable to baring it all. But I hope and trust that my good intent and faith will touch a lot of hearts and will live to affect some of them.
This is also a voice for all those muffled ones who couldn’t speak up in shame, fear, oppression and guilt.

Dear beautiful women, my dear friends,

Yo girlies!

Thought of sharing this with you for I believe that our common, yet, diverse identity as women is as challenging today as ever and we grow everyday in it.
I am going through my unique journey as a woman, as a growing soul and thought that this sharing might help me reflect and find deeper meanings. I invite you to tell me what you feel, how you understand the life around.

I have been detected with an abdominal cyst and I might have to give up a part of my feminine being. I am going in for a surgery. The primary question that comes to me: Is Nature trying to take away from me, the ability to create and reproduce that is so much a part of being a woman? My body is a repository of creativity so what have I denied to my feminity to be given this message? And what exactly is the message?
I often dream of a scary woman who usually scolds and frightens me and I wake up in cold sweat. Is that woman, actually me?---too harsh with the little girl within?

There are very dark, looming fears without a light at the end. There are fears of being rejected sexually, fears of physical scarring and fears of never being able to accept what I will become as a result of this truth in my body. And I have been struggling every moment with questions that echo, reflect and get thrown around within me.
But then, there is peace as well. Peace in knowing that I can be loved in spite of what has gone from me, in spite of the emptiness, in spite of the scar on my stomach. There is also a great promise in the fact that I will be gifted with a unique experience and once I have lived it, I might as well be gifted with lovely feelings, new possibilities and valuable thoughts.
Like Coelho I hope that the Universe will conspire in my favour to make me more creative through new channels once it has taken away one, from me. I also hope that the scared, little girl within me is comforted, loved and encouraged.

I was reading The Good Body by Eve Ensler and the following extract gave me a lot of faith in my life and whatever is going on with me.

"I am stepping off the capitalist treadmill. I am going to take a deep breath and find a way to survive not being flat or perfect. I am inviting you to join me, to stop trying to be anything, anyone other than who you are. I was moved by women in Africa who lived close to the earth and didn’t understand what it meant to not love their body. I was lifted by older women in India who celebrated their roundness. I was inspired by Marion Woodman, a great Jungian analyst, who gave me confidence to trust what I know. She has said that “instead of transcending ourselves, we must move into ourselves.” Tell the image makers and magazine sellers and the plastic surgeons that you are not afraid. That what you fear the most is the death of imagination and originality and metaphor and passion. Then be bold and LOVE YOUR BODY. STOP FIXING IT. It was never broken."

I will be with you in my thoughts and wishes.
Enjoy yourselves and have a meaningful New Year
Love and regards,

The Vanishing Act!

2007-12-20T00:17:00.000-05:00

In the wee hours of the morning, in between sleep and wakefulness, possibilities seem endless which, however, promptly vanish along with the night-mist as soon as the sun breaks through.

This regular experience seems to tell me that indeed the confines of my mind and heart are unfathomable but it also tells me that when we clothe our dreams with the judgment, limiting beliefs and acquired values of our worlds, the confines become really claustrophobic.

Where would I be without you?

2007-12-18T07:12:00.000-05:00

There is usually an antidote for most of our common pains and troubles. Honey and tulsi parrots my mother through winter, turmeric on Vasant Panchami, 14 varieties of leaves on Bhoot Chaturdashi (Diwali), sweets of new rice and jaggery on Makar Sankranti and so on. Some of these have medicinal value and others celebrate the season and our daily lives, claims my mother, a thorough theorist.

My rare ailments are strange and take scary forms. I probably can have nothing in moderation. So when I fell sick and got dragged on for some months till I was adjudged as an ideal case for the surgeon’s scalpel, it was only a matter of time before I got sliced up. The popular school of medicine gravely nodded its head refusing to acknowledge the psychosomatic effects of such physiological conditions. The alternative school chipped in saying “somebody who has hidden emotional hurt for a long time might get into this ailment”…….who me? Hiding was never part of my lexicon. I have never been able to hide anything from my parents and my friends-- be it a marble pocketed during a small game or the box of letters from my first lover. I am open. I tell you when am sad and you know when am happy and I also tell you when am feeling the innumerable shades of emotions which many of my readers call inexplicable---so be it! To my defense, my favourite line continues to be “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts…”

But I haven’t logged in to write anything about cultural beliefs or the disagreeing schools of thought in medicine. It is about an antidote to most of my pains.
Who else but a fluttering, dainty piece smelling uniquely as it only can, and holding within its folds innumerable promises, as yet unexplored and untouched.
Of course, am talking of books!
Through the years, I have found a sense of serenity and hope amidst written words. At times, they make me restless for I have grown from a well read child to a poorly read adult and there is only a certain point till you can rush behind those millions of words belted out, every moment. But in that restlessness also, there is a hope that books will never go away. Paris and Milan runways may showcase change in styles, the baby pigeons at my window may fly away, friendships may change shores, the digital world may be just too alluring but books will never go out of fashion. It is so reassuring to hold them in my hands, cover my bed with them till there is no place for me and topple the pile on my reading desk. Italo Calvino says it so well in “Everything can change but not the language that we carry within us, like a world more exclusive and final than one’s mother’s womb”

I have, invariably, found a comforting book on rainy, lonely nights, on sunny, hyperactive afternoons by the sea, amidst illness, death, failure and love.
There is a unique relationship that I have developed with not only the book per se but my copy of it. ‘The Little Prince’ I have, has a paragraph from the giver saying all about our lost and found friendship when we were least expecting it, my 'The Charles Dickens Omnibus’ carries the handwriting of one of my favourite teachers and came as a prize in school, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ of mine reminds of a rainy afternoon when on a sickness break from school I struggled to comprehend what we stand for and how do we define our identity. The 'Little Women' also came as a prize and still bears crinkled pages dampened by my tears when Beth died, when Jo turned down Laurie or when Jo exclaimed that the March family may never be together again!

There are so many such memories that are appended to my books and surprisingly the oldest books are the most precious. I still love to turn the pages of the fairy tales, the Russian and the Chinese books which were my first few English ones apart from the Enid Blytons belonging to my mother.
Like smells, colours, songs, books ,too, seem to hold memories for me carefully protected in nice little boxes, opened from time to time take in their beauty.
On a recent unconscious stroll to the book section in a mall, my uniquely talented companion, burdened by huge hard covers, commented,

“Isn’t it so comforting to be amidst books?”

You bet, my friend.

My grounding is in here, in here, in here……..

Life's calling out

2007-12-10T01:41:00.001-05:00

When one goes down a dark pit and fresh air and bright sunlight seem all but lost, one has to bear and fight it till the bottom. For after that, the only way is up.
The trip to the bottom, while it lasts, is really very bad--challenging and draining—and seems never ending. But at the pit bottom, there is a strange lull and detachment, nothing seems to bother one any longer and of course life starts calling out, rather one can once more start to hear life calling out….

I have learnt the real value of love, companionship, promises and most significantly of the gift of things taken for granted like being able to walk on my own, to use my limbs perfectly, to work, to cough without feeling writhing pain, to exercise, to have a healthy skin, to eat whatever I want, to feel safe, to use my mind clearly. Without all this, life is non-existent.

It is like going through a tumultuous, trembling sieve.
Chaffs, please leave me alone!

Homecoming

2007-12-05T07:02:00.000-05:00

I will leave when you sleep
Quietly, on tip-toes

I will slowly fold the morning light
Wrap the pale sun around me
Push the chill with a coat brush

I will stop for a while to catch a last glimpse
Of sights I have always seen
Or one made uniquely for me

And when am gone
I will wish that you wake up
To see the crease on the armchair seat

I will look down from the porthole
Poring over the matchbox city
To find you in the lap of the beautiful sea

I will leave when you sleep
Quietly, on tip-toes

Another day in another life

2007-11-28T06:55:00.000-05:00

It hardly happens that a typical day fails to remain typical and becomes all that one might have thought of it. Probably we never think of our regular days, not until something makes it unique by declaration or quirk.
This day was also a particularly ordinary one till I let the flow take over. After all, it’s not every week beginning that you get to walk out of your shiny office building, mid-day, promise hours with soul-friend, get gifted with awesome books and catch lunch while some demi-gods of creativity roll on, in the next table.
Right, the day started as normal, as usual, as non-descript as can be but had enough dollops of hours of chatter which we never seem to get enough of, had a good dusting of old albums, memories, of smooth as silk tiramisu, a classic movie, a lovely chat by the dark sea on a low tide and a great dinner.
Where would I be if life is as predictable as clockwork?

Ode to Haruki Murakami

2007-11-22T06:08:00.000-05:00

Strange names, lost cats
Wind up birds, vinyl hats
Loneliness with spaghetti
Oh! what jazz? Artistry of Murakami

-----------------------------------------------------------------
[Thank you RD, for taking me to this wondrous world!]

My Home is razed tonight

2007-11-21T23:24:00.000-05:00

My home is being razed for Nothing, truly Nothing. Where once stood the promise of green paddy fields, galloping fish in the ponds round every turn of the road, the lure of red earth, the smell of wet mangroves and respect for the mother and the daughter, today we have blood seeping by the side of the fields. One day we thought, dreamt and did light years ahead, we loved and accepted divergent ideologies with open arms, we stood up, peacefully, for equity and justice but today, we merely know the language of gunfire, of army flag marches, of curfew and the wails of the loner who has lost everything but herself.

We have been walking backwards for way too long; we have made enough mockery of the Public Distribution System, of the ideas behind unionized labour force, of enterprise, of new learning and especially of the poor who have voted, time and again, for three decades, for the same ideology hoping against hope that The Red Promise for the proletariat will deliver.

It is my moment of utter shame and sadness. I have left home in search of bread, I have stopped singing the songs of the boatmen from my beautiful waterways, and I have stopped talking in my honey-dew mother language. I have done all of that with a sleeping faith that, one day, my home will spread the soft, wintry sun in the backyard for my homecoming and sing the songs of a good harvest!
It is truly my moment of utter shame as I watch the violent protests, unplanned public wrath and planned insurgencies with great pain.

Oh my God of Chutzpah, do give my people the sanity to reclaim life, respect for labour, faith in peace and the hope to awake!

Stray wisdom 9

2007-11-20T04:41:00.000-05:00

I
Nazar naa laage…

When souls come together like peas in a pod
Nature wishes that they explode

II
A continuum

When I watched the day pass into night and the night into day
It gave me a sense of life, passing by

Time

2007-11-20T04:29:00.000-05:00

Time lies all over me

Regal
Like a tapestry on a royal wall

Comforting
Like a shawl over goose bumps

Retreating
Like the afternoon rays of a wintry sun

Time lies all over me

Yet it shares not

Home

2007-11-14T01:48:00.000-05:00

I was asked questions through the day. Too many questions, shorn of any embellishment, knocking at ‘who I am’….In case you still care for the answers…
And, will you take me Home?They won't...

How old are you?

It’s been ages that somebody asked me my age.......am as old as the old banyan tree in the temple courtyard and as young as the one which was a bud an hour ago and is now a fully bloomed flower with swirling bees around.

Where do you come from?

From here

How much do you earn?

I do not know…I lose track of my money, my bank account, my credit card spend. I know I have just about enough to think, read, live, love and provide.

Where do you want to go from here?

Home. Will you take me there?

"I’m sittin’ in the railway station
Got a ticket for my destination
On a tour of one night stands
My suitcase and guitar in hand
And every stop is neatly planned
For a poet and a one man band

Homeward bound
I wish I wasHomeward bound
Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me

Everyday’s an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines
And each town looks the same to me
The movies and the factoriesAnd every stranger’s face I see
Reminds me that I long to be

Homeward bound
I wish I wasHomeward bound
Home, where my thoughts escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me

Tonight I’ll sing my songs again
I’ll play the game and pretend
But all my words come back to me
In shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony
I need someone to comfort me
Homeward boundI wish I was

Homeward bound
Home, where my thought’s escaping
Home, where my music’s playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me"

Stray wisdom 8

2007-11-12T07:17:00.000-05:00

I
Some men do ‘what-not’ for girls
All men do whatever

II

When I’m high
My third eye opens up
Am non-pliable

III

An eye for an eye is reactionary
A head for a head would have changed the world!!

IV
I love it when am drunk
For by then, the real world has already sunk

V
Some women 'feel' up men
All women wish they could crack the code!

Fire play

2007-11-10T00:56:00.000-05:00

He loved her

He loved the way she moved, she talked
The way her saree fell
Her legs, breasts
Her rounded arms, her not so thin waist
He loved her Wonderland

Till he came deep within
And in a fleeting moment turned his face
Blinded by what he found

For he had come here to play
With his pretty doll of clay!

----------------------------------------------
[For all the love stories that simmered, died, rose and fell again....May they survive in some other life and time]

What's in a name?

2007-11-10T00:54:00.000-05:00

This morning has woken up
My neighbours had their loud prayers
The milkman has mistakenly rung my dorrbell like any other day
The pigeons haven't stopped ever since

My clock's ticking and I can hear the factory dong

Everything's just the same
Except your and my name....

Light

2007-11-10T00:46:00.000-05:00

Diwali, November 9, 2007
Bombay

A person is known by the books he reads
By his 'Lucky' worn out jeans
By his new car
His ol' wife

A person is known by the men she dangled
By the birth-mark on her inner thigh
By her bra size
Her acerbic mouth

A person is not known
By the well lit earth on a moonless night
By her face against the frosted window
By his child within, trying very hard not to cry

A person
is not seen when the sparklers go up
is not heard when the crackers burst
is not loved when her soul breaks down

Tonight my room will be known
by its darkness
by its steely silence
by it being uninhabited!

Jab We Met, We Got Crushed!

2007-11-07T07:07:00.000-05:00

Two women, one with the husband in tow and the other all bleary eyed, both caught in terrible traffic and confused by untimely thunder squalls decided to watch ‘Jab We Met’ on a weeknight. The theatre was packed to capacity-- there were people of all sizes, shapes and langues overtaking the Dolby stereo speakers on their phones while they chomped on samosas and popcorns.
Both the women could smell Awadhi Biryani from nowhere as typical of gourmets from Calcutta.
This isn’t a movie review, just in case you still, think it is. Two-- apparently ‘sensible heads on their shoulders’--women walked into the theatre with two ‘open’ minds and loads of word-of-mouth recommendation hoping to find a bimbo and a ‘himbo’ enact an impossible love story while the PR agencies of the film producers bombard mere mortals with the news of their real world romantic misadventure. The combination of autumnal rains, samosas, whiffs of biryani from a faraway land and an extempore getaway on a regimented night did set the scene alright.
But then, who knew that the ‘himbo’ with his perfectly chiseled face, the right D&G suits and accessories (suitably advertised on his cuffs), the wow designer glasses and the ‘oh-you-make-me-weak-in-the-knees’ expressions would make the night, one to remember? The two women watched, agape and rapt with attention while their schoolgirl souls emerged like colourful butterflies and fluttered all over the theatre wondering what if one of the burqa clad viewers or the janitor turned out to be the ‘himbo’ in disguise?
At the end of the magic shadow show, the only sane person seemed to be the hubby who ran out of the theatre (muttering to himself about things getting mediocre) before others could block his four wheeled Japanese mean machine. He quickly deposited one mad woman at her gate and sped off with his pretty wife floating in the world of heart beats, killer looks and romantic pink.
Last heard, the two women were still hoping to bump into the charming dream prince at the local café or the mall. One of them remembered his star neighbours as if to build connections between Pictionary words. The other contemplated how bad the bimbo and the ‘himbo’ might feel two decades from now, when they watch this ‘magical’ co-performance once more.
In his attempts to keep his wife’s sanity, the husband quickly responded that what gets reported in the media isn’t always true and that a canned charming dude might just be a can of worms in real life. Of course the wife wasn’t listening and the wife’s friend was amazing herself at her regained ability to ‘fall’ for celluloid princes.
Hail to thee The Dream Merchant and long live the ‘philtre’ that was spread in the theatre that night!

Boy, give me that look once more……

What a day!

2007-11-06T08:54:00.000-05:00

Oh what a day this was!
Of old names popping up one after the other, of a string of calls from people I always knew and remember and at times lose track of, of stories new and old, of sharing, hearing, knowing, losing, receiving, loving and living.
There are such days almost like the mud tracks on the forest floors which meet and branch out and meet again without a rhyme or reason.
These are also days of stopping by at an unknown village station (which sees only one train a day) on your very significant journey when your equally significant train doesn’t get a green signal.
Huff! I’d now rest a while beneath the lit up foyer of my office building. The foyer is right in the middle and sees so many people passing by through the day, some strangers, some bound together by the glittering employer names on the foyer walls.
A day of anonymity and yet coming back to life on the other side……..

The Writing Meme

2007-10-31T09:57:00.000-04:00

So Shefaly has tagged me to a meme on Writing. She is such a pleasure, so informative, inspiring, vivacious yet terse and her introduction to me was so humbling that after much procrastination I decided that I must write something on things I know nothing about.
I, of course, know nothing of grammar and have been recently told that I think, speak and write emails in extremely contorted ways. That leaves me without a choice. I can just speak of what makes me write.

Good writing comes easily from the heart, from deeply held beliefs and inner faith. We have all been storytellers by birth, probably the reason we mimicked birds, insects and gurgling streams to make music and made noises and words to tell our stories to each other.

Good writing also comes from a wish to be inclusive. Inclusion may come from sensitivity for the reader, openness to listen or mere sharing. Inclusion grows from reading. I am incomplete without you---seems to be at the base.

Good writing is like the perfect recipe for ‘dum-pukht’ (There I go again. I can’t live without thinking of gastronomies!). Too much or too little of spicing or heat spoils any good intention. I think wit is a primary spice in the recipe for writing.

Writing is also about honesty, genuinity (yes, the OED lists that word) and standing up for what the writer thinks is just.

Writing is about subtlety. Tagore had defined short stories with “shesh hoye hoilo na shesh” which loosely translated means something that never ends. A lot of times my word processor just stops because I see the ending is bleak and blunt. The glinting sharpness is the most difficult thing for me and that is what I seek.
“You ought to say what you do not
And say not what you do”……is what I say!

Writing, for me, is also saying what I feel like in the security of my room. It isn’t easy to stand up to an audience, look into their eyes, speak and dodge slippers and rotten eggs! I am lighter and brighter when am writing than when am speaking to my audience.

Writing like anything else is also about practice and habit. Sharpening the saw goes a long way in producing better work.

If you think this is getting too airy then I have some very ‘wordy’ opinion too.

I hate usage of profanity for the sake of an impact.
I hate the new age text message words— I wish I could ban all the ‘u’, ‘gud’, ’luv’, ‘wen’, ’wat’ and what-nots from the world. They distress me, hassle me and make me stop any conversation right then.
I wish most people learnt that we may ‘lose’ the key if we get too drunk but the knot can get loose even in a state of sobriety!
Also, we don’t reply or revert ‘back’ we just ‘re-vert’ if you may!
‘e.g.,’ is exempli gratia—for example and is always followed by a comma. I have thrown documents and trashed emails, at times, which have graciously mentioned ‘for e.g.’

That list is endless and now that you know that am not a kind receiver of messages,I’d rather stick to my comfort zone and stop saying things I know nothing about!

But there is an additional mandate, that of tagging which I have usually never done but let me give it a try....I'd tag the following bloggers onto this Writing Meme

Little Indian because he is no "Big Chief" and, especially, because he warns us that he is not a writer in any form, has never been and will never be. His crusades are alluring.

Niladri because of his child-like enthusiasm, sharpness,knowledge and passion.

Ideasmithy because I can't contain her in words and I truly believe that soon she will bring a revolution in literature, new -age beliefs and styles of expression.

Dreamcatcher because very few write straight from the heart like she does. Wow!

Non-sense

2007-10-30T02:58:00.000-04:00

As she pulled over the sheet
In the dark room by herself
She could sense a cold mouth tasting of tobacco round her warm one—almost like a soothing balm on her scorched skin--a little watery, a little icy . A tangy ray ran through her forehead, eyes, ears and neck as her tongue gave in. Somewhere her innards tweaked and her fingers moved,shakily, over smooth, buttery lands. and then in a moment she was startled by a screech.
She opened her eyes to see dawn breaking on her window. An old, shrouded dawn, too tired to wake up, being nudged and pushed by a huge black raven.

She gulped a little water.
Was it true?

Once more V

2007-10-30T02:57:00.000-04:00

A drowsy sky promised to create a today exactly like yesterday!

Pages of my Life

2007-10-30T00:24:00.000-04:00

Pages of my life—archived and new!

It is like an old family album and the stories behind every pose, every smirk and every true grin.
It is also like opening a new book, smelling of crispy paper.

This had to happen. But why did I let it be?

Maybe because Hope is never archived.

How does it feel

2007-10-29T09:05:00.000-04:00

....when I get crumpled?
Like yesterday's newspaper

...when I am ignored?
Like the torn ragdoll in the dusty attic

....when I am kicked?
Like a tiny pebble soon to become sand

...when I am not heard?
Like the beggar round the corner

Learn-Unlearn

2007-10-26T08:35:00.001-04:00

Things I could never unlearn

Words and more words
Talking
Swimming
Eating dried fish (If you ask me my last wish if I were to die right now, apart from seeing my parents I would want to have my mother’s dried Bombay duck concoction)
Love
Ogling at watches and passing a judgment on them
Wanting to eat whatever I shouldn’t
Keeping a huge personal space around me—for most of the world my ‘Don’t Disturb’ board is always up

Things I could never learn

Numbers
Cycling
Love
Hiding my feelings
Keeping track of money
Forgetting
Falling in love with beta-males (as Ideasmithy calls them)

Things I’d love to learn

Playing the piano
Spanish
Baking
Salsa
Calligraphy

A Witch

2007-10-25T23:30:00.000-04:00

25th October, 2007
Bombay

It is my turn to be cold
Not to pick up your warm hug

It is my turn to be quiet
Not to melt in your twinkle

It is my turn to walk on
Not to keep your hand in mine

It is my turn to be vain
Not to look back

It is my turn to be a winner
To beat you at your game

Call the voodoo priest
Utter every holy chant
Get the stake ready

A witch must burn tonight!

Fake Destiny

2007-10-25T23:29:00.000-04:00

25th October 2007
Bombay

Stray lines
All straight
Some make boxes
Some diamond trails

A few words
Half spelled
A lot calculated
Into tables broken

The Venus weak
The Jupiter strong
The Moon flourishing
The Mars deadpan

A glittering sky
Through my grandpa’s telescope
Wonder and fear
My destiny controlled?

On Writing

2007-10-24T23:16:00.000-04:00

Writing is pain
Writing is a dark, scary Nor’wester
Writing is the blazing Sun

Writing is also my sole companion
Writing is a silent wall.
Writing is my maiden solo show

My writing—a survivor!

Mathematics

2007-10-16T02:42:00.000-04:00

All souls are One
Yet, the sum never added up!

The Calcutta Journal II

2007-10-16T02:29:00.000-04:00

At Midnight

5th October 2007

"Remember that you have nothing to prove to anyone!"
Said she

You are right
The proofs are sheets of handmade paper
Being dried in the scorching sun

I have one to give you,
One for him
Another for her over there
And I have the last one for myself

My reflection by my father
Acrylic on paper
Sold at a price,
am told

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

Starstruck

6th October 2007

at Starstruck
You and I
sat face to face

Remember my walk towards the centrestage?
I, dizzy with the Liquer of Life
losing track of the Spotlight?

And when the curtains rose
The lights fell somewhere else
Maybe the real Monalisa
Which Shakespeare will write the comedy of my errors?
Which Tagore, my swan song?

Thank God, for it was but a rehearsal...

You and I
Once more at Starstruck

Some plays are meant to be rehearsed
Forever...
The audience never arrives

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

The dead albatross?

7th October 2007

Everytime I fall
My words stand tall

Terrible words
Loud words
Some loving words
A few mad words

Everytime I cry
My words hug me dry

Beautiful words
Unknown words
Some everyday words
A few lost words

Everytime I fly
My words, however, never try!

Limited words
Scurrying words
some useful words
A few nasty words

Even if I try
My words never seem to die

The Calcutta Journal

2007-09-26T03:07:00.000-04:00

Am home after a long, long time and on a break too and this city and my old home are making me spew mindless journal entries, here's some of them...

I
17th September 2007

Jealousy

I move with utmost caution
As if the next step might stop my motion

You may find it
On my face or in my unsure eyes
In the twiddling of an unruly lock of my hair
Or in the unseen rush in my head

You may know it
on the screens of the room sized machines
All un-deciphered, staring back at me
Or in the concerned voices of friends faraway on electronic miles

You can see it
On my parents tired foreheads
Or in my wardrobe of track pants and sports bras
And the backrest of pilled pillows

All for the nebulous guest in my body
Tossing, turning,moving---
A free spirit
Does as it pleases
Takes shape as it wishes

Jealousy of the caged host

---------------------------------------------------------------------
II

18th September 2007

Curiosity

It is a static dilemma
Of pushing back waves
Kaleidoscopic waves of your concern
For another story

Am not up for another story!
Am not here to collude
To talk through the smokescreen

I slowly cut a musk melon
Scrape off its skin and
Put a juicy piece in my mouth
A curtain of setting sun
Makes the sliced up fruit
More orange
More fluid
And less of a story!

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III
18th September, 2007

Sheet

A smokecreen
Of clay ovens rising above hutments
Beside the rauilway track

A sheet.
Covering the bed,
Smelling of last evening’s lovemaking
The same sheet…
Which will soon stink of treachery!

A white sheet.
Of cracked up walls
Damp pateches have long become portraits of faces staring st them

A sheet.
Covering a forlorn form
Carried on an open rickshaw
Through a busy crossing those who stop for a moment
Imagine a bruised, dead body beneath!

A sprightly blue sheet
Wrap my beautiful baby
In a noisy nursery of many more

A sheet
Of broken rubble
Enrobe a time piece of the moment
When the building collapsed

A sheet
Of glittering gold
The priceless City of Joy
My home
Through the descending porthole

A sheet
Of black chiffon
Cover your pretty face
O daughter of the desert

A sheet
Of life numbered
Well balanced. Of happiness and decay.
Credited and debited

A sheet
Worked up
In a honeycomb of boxes
On my laptop screen

The iron curtain on our backyard.
Break it
Burn it
Kill it.
We want to share our stories
On a wintry afternoon
Beneath the hand-stitched Sheet of Time.

------------------------------------------------------------------
IV
19th September

Gift of Women

A sudden glimmer
A thousand shades of another thousand colours
Reflecting the half delivered sunlight
Through layers of lace curtains
I stare at five blazing diamonds
On my middle finger
Amidst the white, fluffy skin
Of my rounded palm

Five women. Five moments.
In ever woman I see
A glittering Mother
In her Silence,
Centuries of Life Experienced

Ella Fitzgerald’s voice on the radio accompany me
The lady-compere touch a familiar chord
Anees Jung’s women come alive from the pages that I hold
Eve Ensler and S’s voice mingle to rejoice on our womanhood
Imtiaz Dharker’s stories and sketches are of women you and I know
Five glamorous stones
Shioning. Reflecting.Sharing
Mother’s gift of Light, Living and Loving

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V
19th September

Agomoni--The Daughter’s Homecoming

Another morning
Of fried fish in mustard oil
Tapped to a distinct beat
By my mother’s special spice
Of my father playing the music of the boatmen
From his childhood of swaying paddy fields and watery lands

Another afternoon
Of the hawker screaming his ware
As I unfurl a patterned sheet from my childhood
And a sepia page flies out from an old notebook
Of the walls-- discoloured by soot, heat and time--
A silent witness of my getting ready to leave home
And of another homecoming. Anew

Another evening
Of conchshells saluting the end of a fulfilling day
Of incense sticks carrying yesterday’s memories
Of pressure cookers hissing to the tune of an evening meal.

Another night
Of the sliced up moon
Of familiar houses growing, vanishing, re-growing around my old window
Of gradually lulling into sleep

For another morning of joy
The autumnal homecoming of the Daughter
The sensuous, ferocious, non-compromising Daughter of Grit!

[Agomoni--Durga, the daughter, is invited with music and celebration. a genre of folk music called Agomoni]

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VI
22nd September

Arandhan

After a good night’s sleep
There are shiny, gurgling waterfalls
The last rains of the season
Seem to glue one house to another

Haphazard, erratic houses.
Breathing down each other’s neck
Competing with each other
They are our homes
Yours and mine
Your home will gobble up mine
On a chance

But there is a gap
In the waterfall from the sky
Tattered by my window
It is like any other day of grey
Except that the stove hasn’t been lit
There is no rice at home

Amidst my mother’s nightly black hair
I found a white speck of a rice grain

Beneath the waterfall
That rice will glue your house to mine
And your home will wait forever
To gobble up mine

[Arandhan--No cooking. The oven is worshipped at the end of monsoons by eating food from the previous night, also a worship for the snake goddess often known to take shelter in the warm oven in rural Bengal]
-------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
22nd September

My Own

My room ends after two steps
Beyond
I can touch my neighbour’s simmering rice pot

My home ends after four steps
Beyond
There is a shared staircase

The building is over with ten steps
Beyond
That the ‘pada’ gully
A four feet wide serpent which spells the common identity
For all those who seek it

Am a distant visitr here
In this land of shared one-ness
Am still searching for my ‘pada’
One step at a time…
Where do you think I lost it?

[Pada: the colloquial Bengalee term for locality(mohulla)]

-----------------------------------------------------------------
VII
25th September

After Rains

The dark veil
Removed

An untouched face
Revealed

The damp evil
Killed

A bright day
Reborn

The rickshaw hors
The clanking kitchen pots
The chattering birds
The loud voices
The silvery fish
Exploded

Till we meet again.....

2007-09-14T00:40:00.000-04:00

People scraped through the crowd, the mirth, the sweat, the rush to be with me and my state. People who make this city the 'city of dreams' for me......I don't have names for them in my heart. They are those with whom I have 'unfinished business' from the past and with whom am amassing enough to carry on 'business' for a while to come. Just like I don't have names for them, I don't have a balance sheet with them and all I can say is that I'll be back to be with you when you need me the most or don't need me at all............here's some music for Lady T and Lord D,Lady Red, Duke of Funds and Ducchess of Hope. wordsmiths like me don't have anything more tangible...

Have you heard the Walls talking to you?
Walls as heavy as a vessel bore
Walls as light as papers of a family album
buttered and soiled with centuries of fingers...

Have you ever seen Gratitude belittled to non existence?
where gratefulness chokes itself and words never come to rescue
for they are already crumbled in their needlessness

Have you woken up to know that you have created more Meaning
than the morning sun could ever do?
and have risen above it to give it all without waiting for taking back?

When you open your door this morning
Outside, lurking in half-light you'll find a soul you may call your own
Take her in, offer some morning tea
and let her be
She has loads of work
Centuries of soul-language to be translated into words.

Thanksgiving was never more futile....
------------------------------------------------------------
[Hey Readers, I don't know when I'll be back but hope to be back soon, till then, so long....]

I know her

2007-09-12T08:35:00.000-04:00

It is some strange recurrence
That I meet her so often
In every village bus stop
In the harvest fair
In a boardroom
In a labour room
In the market square
In bed with my man

Her eyes carry tales
Hips the burden of being her
Her body is shrouded in a veil,
or a well designed jacket
Anklets or Italian leather adorn her feet

It is a strange recurrence
That I know her soul
Her unspoken words,
Her writhing pain,
Her undying dream
How many times more will she kill her seed within her?

That stone grinder of exotic spices churned by her arms
That glass ceiling shattered by her fist
That sleeping baby nursed by her milk
That strong man held by her shoulder.
How many times more till she unfolds her rainbow?

Driven!

2007-09-11T06:54:00.000-04:00

11th September, 2007
Bombay
[My pedestrian angst in this polluted city]

They all rush out
Like mad bees from a broken hive

They all soar, a little, up
Like fire-flies in a dark night

They all drone on
Like a generator buzz?

They all smoke up
Like a raging forest craze

They never stop
Unlike anything else

They are but motor slaves
Driven by us!

Picture perfect...not quite, not yet

2007-09-11T04:20:00.000-04:00

“I am not perfect as you have now found..oops!” said she when I went looking for some answer.

Well, yes, nobody is perfect is what I say. Perfection is always work-in-progress. If there were a place, time and point in space called perfect, then the whole concept of vying for that perfection would no longer be required. Negative feedback loops in homeostasis would dominate and push the system more towards equilibrium and keep it there. And the consequences of that? An uneducated being like me can’t conceive that logically.

I remember quotes from Jonathan Livingstone Seagull:
The gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel go nowhere, slowly. Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection go anywhere, instantly.

You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.

And what is worth our pursuit of perfection? That is decided by where our soul’s higher calling wants to take it.
For me, there is God in trusting (people, processes and the innate need for organisms to grow) and Heavens in getting there (trusting truly and honestly).

Happy Birthday, R!

2007-09-11T01:48:00.000-04:00

[For you, once more]

10th September, 2007
Bombay

Through the day and few days around
I remembered
But not much that I had to

She grew up when I wasn’t looking
Like one flower among many which you discover in the passing
Only once it is in full bloom.

At times I thought of pushing
Pushing mountains, seas, rushes
To pull her out of the debris of un-empathy.

At times I pulled
From afar
Far is safer than being near?

And the walk went on
Not waiting for me or her

She went when I wasn’t looking
Churning, crushing, cracking
The myth of being, the unknowing.

How could she?
They asked
And I turned away my face unable to watch the ferocious fire engulfing her

A lesson learnt--
Of remembering…..

Memoirs Now, so Alive Then

2007-09-10T03:18:00.001-04:00

5th September, 2007
Karjat

I

Still quietness
Deafening crickets
My breath rises
With the fall of rains

II

A damp bed
Fungi on the curtains
A beautiful roommate
A new friend

III

Rain and Shine
Swaying leaves play fiddle to both
Time stands still

IV

A droning bee
A whistling train
A ruffling wind
A long sigh

V

Stillness of the night
Deuter on the iPod
I think of a number gone dry

VI

My pilgrimage trail
Come, look for me here
In the
Now
Which will soon be
Then

VII

I found it when I wasn’t looking
Peace they call it
I say ‘Another Life’

VIII

The moist weighs down
On the blue-green Ghats
Washing off me
Your flotsam

IX

I write for yOu, You and yoU too
But
I dream for me, me and me True

A week, a journey, a pilgrimage

2007-09-10T03:13:00.000-04:00

8th September
Karjat

A million hues
Of words, raindrops, faces new

Uncertain steps
A hot spring or just a cave nape

Every one of them, those rushes
Voices, events, tears, spaces

An island hazed
A Mandate glazed

Every now and then---
Touched by loving rain

A path laid here
My heart threadbare

Come away with me
Or just BE

For even if you dart back,
The Magic will touch your track.

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[For V and the rest of the community, for the beautiful gift of love and ‘The Terrorist at My Table’]

My Pilgrimage

2007-08-31T03:52:00.000-04:00

Next week, am going back to my pilgrimage with people, for Community building. On my path to understanding myself, knowing others and in staying with the process, help myself and others grow. For many of you reading this, probably it can’t get any more nebulous than this. But then I must share this crossroad with the Space I have created here, My Another Life, My Butterfly Being…….
I have been mired by my struggle to eek out a living and have been slow on writing, expressing and sharing for the past fortnight or so. And then suddenly this beautiful journey is so close by. It is almost like here I was burdened by loads, challenged by gusts and prevented by dark nights and then suddenly the sky cleared up, the path looked alluring and am excited no end.

The place am going back to, is quite significant for my journey in being who I am for it is here that I arrived on a spring afternoon in 2003 for my first brush with Hope, Creation and Community and as cliched as it may sound, life changed for me, forever. I have taken my own time and often slowed down, out of volition or forced by circumstances, to walk this path with all of you and so many others who have left an everlasting mark on me.

It is as if, I am on a long train journey where co-travellers have boarded and disembarked at stations in between, there are some who have been for a while, some others who had disembarked earlier but have rejoined afresh like a surprise gift.
I am looking forward to the community we are going to co-create with expectation and great excitement. I am sure I will form new bonds, renew old ones and love every bit of it and get charged up like every other time.

I take with me my undying faith in love, energy and hope.

I am almost like the bright, yellow sun outside which is breaking its way through the dark latecomers on the monsoon winds. Yes, that's how I am right now!

Toys rule boys

2007-08-30T08:11:00.000-04:00

[Click on the strip for a larger image]

The story goes like this. Lord and Lady decided to do groceries on a weekend. The Lady being the avid reader that she is, stopped by at her bookstore for some quick browsing. And all hell broke loose....of course the gleaming, red Ferrari on the children's section looked down enticingly at the Lord while the Lady was looking away. The Lord gave some furtive glances till he could not resist and got drawn into the arms of the lithe beauty.

The Lady seeing no other option had to give in too.

But then the best friend of the Lord was there too and the poor child was driven to tears! Wish he had someone buying the gleaming beauty for him too. Oh my child, what a life!

So the Lady appeased 'the children', bought them some candy, made way for other shoppers and zoooooooooom they went on all fours on the slippery floor of the mall.

The Lady was speechless by then and called yours truly, the numero-uno evil woman, to share the amazing spectacle of the Lord duo at play.

So I, evil woman, am left to creating toon-stories...

Judgment 2

2007-08-27T03:16:00.000-04:00

[Judging some more]
She did all that she could, to drive him away.

But he came back like a wave which never fails to rise once fallen,
Like the Rock of Gibraltar, he stood there, patiently.

She saw her dreams crack through the middle.
Painful…
Getting a heavy dose of reality;
Knowing that life’s not her beloved blueberry cheesecake.

Newsmakers and More...

2007-08-24T07:16:00.000-04:00

I am wiser on making news this Friday evening...please click on the image and Be a Newsmaker!

Fair play!

2007-08-23T08:00:00.000-04:00

The petite, new bride is really troubled since this morning. Just a while back she checked the bright sun and laid out the spices, the experimentative jackfruit pickle and turned the cotton pillows to a new side. While she was lost in anticipation of the evening and the hiss of the cooker couldn’t slice her late morning dream, the sky opened up and the wind whipped up the drying, red chillies-- lithe and gorgeous and rattled the stocky pickle bottle too.
The petite, new bride is really rattled since this morning. For just when she picked away, all that she had put forth, from the spluttering, silvery water splash, the sun was benevolent all over again.
And you say we don’t play enough, any longer.

It is also one of those mornings which raise the anticipation in one of fluffy white fields, a blue water washed sky, dew drops from the night before and the first fresh palm fruit drink which would ferment by mid-day. All in all a happy time, a time for home coming…

Stray wisdom 7

2007-08-21T08:00:00.001-04:00

The buzzing bee doesn’t wait back to hear its drone

Stray wisdom 6

2007-08-21T07:58:00.000-04:00

At times, I should let go of my wagging tongue

Stray wisdom 5

2007-08-21T07:57:00.000-04:00

My inner-self is a freshly limed wall
Waiting for some paint!

Waiting to resign

2007-08-20T07:31:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time there were just dreams and doings
Victory and failure;
Zenith and nadir,
See-saws and slips
Happiness and despair.

Today, there is Acceptance.
And an unfathomable piece more than simplistic outcomes.
There are differing motives.
Incomprehensible facts,
Complicated states,
Unknown pitfalls.

Despite the sudden up swell,
Resignation has still not arrived.

I honour you..."Nomoshkar, Tashi deley"!

2007-08-20T00:09:00.000-04:00

As de-cultured as I have become, I still can’t stop touching the feet of elders when I meet them for the first time or after some gap. My friends often express surprise when I greet their parents that way but if you ask me, that’s just so much a part of us. We just haven’t been taught otherwise. After Bijoya Dashami (Dussehra) and Poila Baishakh (New Year’s Day as per the Bongabdo, solar calendar followed in Eastern India), I remember visiting elders and touching their feet, hugging friends and writing dozens of letters to elders far away. Elders have vanished, so have those snail mails and visits of reverence greeted by sweets and savouries.
At times these days, a short ‘Namaste’ by putting the two hands together replaces the older, more reverent version simply because the older one is almost going out of custom and stands out like a sore thumb. I have also found elders almost embarrassed when greeted in the customary ways!

Have we dwarfed ourselves in our lack of regard for others?

Here’s a beautiful writing I found which might take you back to where you come from….

An example of Regard for Others
Near the river the man and his wife spread quilts on the grass and prepared a meagre picnic lunch, asking me to join them. I shared the food I had in my pack. After the meal, I thanked the family and rose to leave.
'Wait,' said the father. 'My son wishes to teach you a phrase in Tibetan.' He motioned to one of the boys, who was about five years old. The little one stepped forward and looked me straight in the eyes. He said happily, 'Tashi deley.'
I nodded, understanding, repeating the phrase. He smiled from ear to ear. 'In Kham, in eastern Tibet,' said the boy's father to me, 'we greet all people this way. For several years now, it is again allowed.' I felt my chest tighten, remembering my experiences with the elder who, fifteen years before, had lost his entire family for saying such a greeting, a prayer, aloud. The man brought his palms together in front of his chest and his wife and children repeated the gesture. 'It means,' he said, ' I honour the greatness in you. I honour the place in your heart where lives your courage, honour, love, hope and dreams. I honour the place in you where, if you are at that place in you and I am at that place in me, there is only one of us. Tashi deley.
'Wordlessly, I brought my palms together in front of my heart and looked into the eyes of this family, people who, only an hour before, had been total strangers to me. 'Tashi deley.' I said.
'Now, teach my children a word in English, please.' asked the father in Tibetan. I thought for a moment and said, 'In America, when we greet each other we say "Hello". I remembered a professor once telling me it was Thomas Eddison who had popularised the use of the word.
'Hello!' shouted the children, beaming. 'Hello! Hello!' I grinned at them. And then something happened that I will never forget. One of the youngest boys came up to me and tugged on my sleeve. 'In America,' he asked expectantly, 'when people say 'Hello,' do they honour the greatness in each other?'
His question struck a chord in me. At once, I felt tears brimming up in my eyes as I looked into his earnest, bright face.
'No,' I said, and then I added, 'but I wish they did.'
Think about it. When you greet other people at work, in your travels and at home, what – exactly – do you feel?
Do you look everyone in the eye? Without a word, do you honour the greatness in them, even if they are strangers? Or has greeting other human beings become, more often than not, a rote formality, something shallow and distant, going through the motions? It took a journey to Tibet to make me realise that, by and large, it had for me. It was then and there that I made a promise to myself that I would do all I could not to let it happen again.

Executive EQ Robert Cooper and Ayman Sawaf
Applied EI Issue 3, April 2005

Ardhanarishvara---decimating the battle of genders

2007-08-17T02:17:00.001-04:00

The battle of genders seems to be very alluring and tempting. Probably because we love to hate that what we love the most. Intensity of emotions mirrors itself. We also love sensation.

But then, aren’t we fighting our own selves?

I am neither a religious believer nor do I reject those who believe. I approach Hindu mythology as an observation on human psyche and motive and their expressions thereof.

The Hindu God, Shiva, has never stopped attracting me. He is probably all that we symbolize as male—scruffy, forgetful, fiercely independent, macho and challenging. He is also the one who drinks the poison (the evil), preserves the balance of creation, warmly protects and stands up for the respect of those that he loves.

The Philosophy

For generations, Hinduism has worshipped Shiva as the Ardhanarishvara—female on left and male on right which stands for the duality within. Shiva is a symbol of change, death, rejection of old habits and accepting the aberrant. The Hindu belief of multiple births believe that the soul takes up a new life form and its attending joys and miseries to find what it couldn’t accomplish, couldn’t learn, couldn’t take, couldn’t give in the old. Our souls are, therefore, accepting of the duality that is always there.

The Sociology

Beyond philosophy and the myths, what is it that determines your gender? Is it just your anatomy or is it the way you are brought up, the social beliefs, the conditioning since childhood? Who determines behaviour, customs, success/failure for genders?
What makes it so difficult for a man to take up dancing as a career? What makes it so easy for a woman to stay-at-home rearing progeny?

My Observation

I believe that Ardhanarishvara is the loving, accepting being within us which can be ferocious yet kind, vile yet respectable, selfish yet giving, destroying yet creating. Since both exist in each one of us, there isn’t any difference intrinsically in who we are and who we strive to be at the psychic level.

This concept represents a balancing of such opposites as God and Goddess, Priest and Priestess, King and Queen, Man and Woman, Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon, Theory and Practice, Wisdom and Method, Pleasure and Pain, Intellect and Instinct, Reason and Emotion, Linga and Yoni.

Ardhanarishvara, it seems, shows us just what can be done when we embrace the opposite in ourselves. At the end, the battle of genders is just a distracting child’s play and not a learning for the Soul.

Once more IV

2007-08-17T01:15:00.000-04:00

It’s that time of the year once more:
Rain-clouds have been gearing up for the last dance of the season, trying very hard to push back their white, fluffier cousins.
Clay-smiths are half done with their shapes and dreams.

It’s that time of the year once more and my being invokes The Goddess-soul,
The Female Trinity.

Gentlemen are not yet, dead!

2007-08-16T00:11:00.000-04:00

I grew up hoping for a ‘Gentleman’ to arrive, nattily dressed (yes, dandy’s the word), with an immaculate diction and my favourite daisies in hand. Oh yes, with a beautiful running cursive hand which would say an exotic message in a small card ducked amidst the flowers.
A lot of evil and good have passed by since then and I know for sure that dreaming leads to good fiction and just that.
I remain a spinner of yarn and this time my spin will tell you that gentlemen are not dead. Yet! But they are fast becoming endangered.

In my adult, realistic worldview, gentlemen are the quiet, uninteresting ones hidden behind the woodwork, a book or a deep conversation in the corner sofa.
Gentlemanly conversations cannot be caught on the go---they are based on the long run, are cooked well and you need to really attend and comprehend them to contribute.
Gentlemen live for a cause; that maybe the family dog, cricket, golf, Tchaikovsky or simply Marxism or the flatness of the world.
Gentlemen are usually not great lookers. Chances are that you will mostly miss them for the flashier ones, and unfortunately most women give them a go for the far worse.
Also gentlemen underplay many of their skills and gifts including their intellect and brawn.
Many Gentlemen are shorter, fatter, thinner, balder than our popular Chameleon Boys. So their beyond median physical selves make them vie for super achievement-- richer, braver, truer and in all probability better in bed.
Gentlemen are usually strangely stubborn and married to their ideals and beliefs which made them gentle in the first place but then women love evil boys so this stubbornness doesn’t melt any butter.
Gentlemen always stand up for truth, dignity, the family and the institution of marriage. However like all men, they insist on having arrived at the conclusion, for the date and at the door first!
Gentlemen profess respectability, for self and others. So largely their women partners are seen as independent and doing their own thing. But, then, who said that it is her and not the bridge/book club mate who’s the real partner. And maybe some evening scotch or rum too.
Gentlemen have great wisdom on women, wine, world trade and international geo-politics. Their views convoluted and their advice simple.
Gentlemen often win hearts (of the family) and envy (of friends’ wives) by making amazing Sunday breakfast.

Most of my friends are married to ‘Gentlemen’ which brings me to believe that they make great husbands and are fast disappearing off the shelves. Catch ‘em before they all go!

Lady Cleo

2007-08-14T05:44:00.000-04:00

The ‘queen’ reclined there; surveying a freshly showered dark night shining like a knight’s gauntlet that lay beneath her.

Some faces, familiar hukka smell, chocolate fondue, her stretched, bare legs appeared in a dream.

In the half-light of lanterns there was no harm in being all that she wasn’t.
Daybreak was still a while away.

The Blue Umbrella

2007-08-12T23:39:00.001-04:00

On a weekend when all of India rose once more for its love for superheroes, in films and otherwise, I decided to put up with the huge queue at the multiplex ticket counters to watch what nobody else was and that, what I call the deadly combination of Ruskin Bond (one of my favourite writers), Vishal Bhardwaj (one of the finest Indian film makers today) and Pankaj Kapoor (Hail to thee, the heroic actor!). [My sinister self actually gave the Bollywood superhero’s big release a pass saying what the crowd is pushing for is nothing but groupthink]
And yes, I was amply rewarded by The Blue Umbrella based on the novella by the same name by Bond. I had read the novella earlier and if you haven’t, I’d suggest that you may--- a story of simplicity, jealousy, ambition, dreams, loss, loneliness and standing up for values in a small hamlet in Himachal Pradesh.
I am not going to do a review of the film here. I’d rather that you watch it. Although the story is a children’s delight, post interval the movie gets dark and foreboding for young viewers.
As a film it is superb; casting, photography, cinematography, music, screenplay and editing all are above par. Pankaj Kapoor is anyway brilliant but I was thrilled to see the potential in child actor Shreya Sharma who plays ‘Biniya’ the owner of the fantastic (and probably a good luck charm) ‘blue umbrella’. Vishal Bhardwaj has once again proved his ability to adapt literature for wonderful cinema—a rarity, the reason a movie is never as good as the book it is based on, save a few exceptions.
The Blue Umbrella was very enjoyable and touching for me---and played on such a huge gallery of emotions that it took me a while to segregate the individual brilliance of different aspects in the film. Wonderful in the true sense of the term!

I want to marry a Chameleon Boy!

2007-08-10T00:56:00.000-04:00

At the supermarket check-out counter, I was attracted to the cover splash on a famous Indian women’s’ magazine. It asked “Will you marry a toy-boy?” It interviewed enough and more of those pretty ones, in polka dotted dresses, all over the cocktail circuit and the tabloids. In no uncertain terms, the ‘as airy as a soufflé’ women (and that applies to most of their brain mechanics also) declare that toy-boys are hot, flirtatious and are enough arm-candy but they don’t make good, committed husbands…wow , that was some revelation! What else do they see in their co-professionals whom they adopt and give up with equal drama, newsprint and pomp? But then, am anything but as sweet as a soufflé so I’ll leave it at that.

Toy-boys do take note:
Famous and wannabe pretty women don’t like toy-boys!

Ideasmith’s post on ‘Bad Boys’ has gone down in the annals of history as one woman’s voice standing for the collective as a ‘Survival Guide’ in a world infested with sweeping ‘Bad Boys.’ You can always refer to her for beyond.
But I have a problem here. I have never dated so-called ‘Bad Boys’ and would be too insecure even for a coffee with a ‘Toy-boy’ but with my life eternally looking like a Seismic Love wave (yes, there is something called Love Wave there apart from P Waves and S waves, if you don’t believe me, go check it out for yourself) I better do some talking on The Chameleon Boys!

The Chameleon Boys are just perfect. They can adapt to any surroundings, will chide you for being courteous and respect you for who you are.
They make you go wiggly with their goodness, unspoken charm and mind you, in case you want reference from professional and personal sources, you will get a triple star rating! So you will fall before you realize how deep the scar is or how loud the thud is or that you might even have to go for a CT Scan later!
They are usually soft-spoken, you can beat them anytime with talking, they will listen like there’s no tomorrow and come up with the most intelligent responses at the apt moment, making you feel like “Oh-so-sweet, whoever said men don’t listen is a nasty blob.” And make you see through their shortcomings.
They of course, have material success written all over with Kundera, Steinbeck, Mozart, Louis Armstrong and Begum Akhtar all thrown in. Often with a gift of photography, brush-strokes and guitar added with the gift of the gab.
They unravel themselves and their gifts with ease and panache, gradually. And with every unraveling, the thrill just goes pop in your head and other unmentionable places. Orgasmic, no doubt!
They are the kings of what I call (and invariably fall for) --- ‘the seduction of the mind’!
They are also the perfect guests for mom’s tea session. And before you know, the mom’s out trousseau and banquet shopping. Surprise, surprise even the otherwise cold and distant dad catches bits of conversation and expresses secret admiration for the Chameleon Boy to mom!
They have the right measure of everything and will be the beloved colour till, till it’s time to take a call. And then they vanish into the foliage around, and they are never to be found or even if they are, they’ll be a stinky pale yellow or a sloth against slippery moss.

So I have fallen time and again for Chameleon Boys and have never been able to see their other colours beneath the tinted hue of ‘exactly-what-I-was-looking-for’ in my Prince Charming!

A litmus test for Chameleon Boys is probably trying them with cross-roads and decisions right after the great, great first date! Catch ‘em before they tune the violin and the piano, just right, and take you on with the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ and read out Chaucer with equal ease!!!
That’s of course if you have a chronic Chameleonitis like me.

After Rains

2007-08-08T23:51:00.001-04:00

The sun’s back
A freshly bathed baby in a fluffy, blue towel!

The Rose Garden-5

2007-08-07T05:17:00.000-04:00

“Honey, am home!”
She went straight to the loo mirror, ran her fingers through the freshly re-bonded hair, highlighted with blonde streaks. For a moment she drifted into the first anniversary, then the second, finally lost count……
She took out the carefully hidden gift and ran to the Study

The doctor declared he was gone by 3 pm!

Dream Away--3

2007-08-07T04:41:00.000-04:00

She who breathes smoke and fire also waits for someone who is quiet,
She who runs with the deer also slows down to keep pace in heels,
She, who creates, also breaks it up with just a single stroke!
She who turns around and wields her sword without armour;
Also wishes to rest beneath his shade.

Season for Strangers

2007-08-07T04:33:00.000-04:00

On an interview, stern
yet with seepages,
Murakami’s the bridge!

Good girls, Bad girls

2007-08-06T08:37:00.000-04:00

On a Sunday afternoon, Lady Red and I walked into the safest cocoon of our favourite bookshop where everywhere you look, there are books and just books. Books of all colours, shapes, sizes, fonts which beckon, lure, whisper and wink at you from every nook and corner. We intuitively understood that we will take solitary strolls through the unending racks and aisles and do our own discoveries and maybe, then share our booties, oh what fun!
Maybe it’s slightly more than coincidental that we bumped into each other in front of the ‘Feminism’ rack and gradually started scaling it till we just took off our shoes and sat down on the floor, looking up at our altar of being, our backs to the world passing by. “Don’t disturb we are talking ‘reading’!” said the board on our back.
Virginia Woolf, Nancy Friday, Azar Nafisi, Mukhtar Mai, Eve Ensler, Himani Banerji, Tarabai Shinde, Toni Morrison looked indulgingly at us, Lady Red and I, and am sure they enjoyed every bit of the conversation we had.
This is the first episode on the thoughts I carried away from our chat by the ‘Feminism’ rack.

Female Sexuality—shhh, good girls don’t speak out

Yes, whether we own up to it or not, sexual fantasies of women are deep, strong and at times very disturbing and perverse.
“Has it got to do with suppression in childhood?” asked Lady Red, a parallel thinker and writer on feminism, gender bias, social roles, norms and much more.
Yes at times. Mostly girls are never allowed as much experimentation as men are, irrespective of the culture, socio-economic background and generation. Just that a girl growing up in the middle of Manhattan and in Taliban’s Afghanistan have different manifestations of this repression. Games, day-today living, sense of security, the unconscious gender roles all hit us since the time we start experiencing the world. A few who choose to break free within bounds are named by themselves and others as ‘tom-boy-s’. There you go, boys are to become men at the end of the day-- what business do women have in that world?

Don’t you remember the great Simone de Beauvoir who said, “One is not born a woman, one becomes one.” ?
And more often than not, it is a woman (a motherly figure) who is making that new woman through repression. The same woman who encourages free expression by the men in her life would as much bind her daughter and herself down.

How many women accept their vagina-s as they ought to, shorn of embarassment, guilt and fear?It's time we celebrated it as much as the penis is a mark of pride and power for a man (remember all those locker room comparisons that good girls look down upon)?

So women grow up with repressed sexuality which does not get expressed even in their most intimate moments or with the most loving partner for we are all, on the trip of modesty.

Fantasies, says Nancy Friday, are not always about frustrated wishes, they are also about removing, symbolically, the obstacles that prevent us from sexual pleasure. In spite of all the trashy and not-so-trashy reams of women’s magazines (read more by men than women, yes!) which take polls on who makes the first move and who demands sex and satisfaction and lingerie (symbols of arousal?) brands hitting it big on the malls and ramps, we women, have just not arrived at Town Pleasure.

Modesty and judgment: Woman to woman

“Women are the greatest enemies of women” maintains my mother, a revolutionary in her generation who did all out of choice and fulfilled every role of a woman and more with élan. She chose her career, her husband, her time to bear a child, her way to bring her up and had a perfect work-life balance with none to empathize or appreciate.

Do women seek to understand other women?
I am shocked no more when I hear a stay-at-home woman friend of mine earnestly points out “Why should a woman have a career when her husband earns enough?” Right, a point there! We haven’t been able to get it straight that women have moved beyond ‘nurturers’ and men beyond ‘providers’, that men are, also whole lot, stereotyped as the oppressors and women the weak, oppressed. On the other hand, of course there is a pleasure in playing those roles there; Nature has made it to be so.
Then there are other women who maintain that pre-marital virginity makes them holier than all who are not. To each her own, who can judge here?

There are layers here. Layers of complicated sexual jealousy and power-play. How else would you explain Electra complex and the base mating games which we play sub-consciously?

It seems as if we are complacent and indulgent that a man is ahead of us, plays his own role and games. It is only when another woman drops in that we use the man as a pawn and start our woman to woman dance, stealthily, behind the curtains, backstage.

I often feel that in our entire anti-men tirade, they are, at times, receivers of unjust fury and bitterness which cannot find the right target. Whoever said that there is a woman behind every successful man couldn’t have been more correct.
May I extend that logic and say that behind every unsuccessful woman there are one or one too many women?

What will she write today?

2007-08-03T02:23:00.000-04:00

Will she write of loneliness, disease, decay?
Or the pounding rain?

Will she write of love, received and forsaken?
Or of trust broken?

Will she write of her butterfly soul and green fields?
Or of loss foretold?

Will she write of her search, of losing way?
Or of the roots that hold her down?

Will she write at all today?
Or have the courage to slash the umbilical cord
and not look back at the oozing, fresh blood?

Lonely 4

2007-08-03T02:19:00.000-04:00

Specks of red, blue, green light
Shadows of moving palm fronds
The sky a reddish-grey haze-- like a shoddy, old blanket!

Glittering drops of water down the glass, some scale a zig-zag path like a scared snake, some others rest a while deciding where to go.

Someone lies there, counting every drop and then,
loses count.

Dream Away--2

2007-08-02T05:41:00.001-04:00

A home with a chequered red napkin in the kitchen, a dark wood bookcase, some lilting music in the air, a warm Sunday lunch, a warmer homecoming on a Monday evening.

A home in moments and an inaudible flutter of an eye.

She, so wanted to dream them and she did.
Just that they never came true.

-----------------------------------------------------
[The other side of Bibs' Dream Away]

Trust Walk

2007-08-02T00:04:00.001-04:00

Will you walk a mile with me on the gravel path, on the murky city sands?
Will you talk a while with me by the grey sky and the rolling sea?
Will you stop-by when I wake up in the still night, a moment before dawn?

Hey Stranger,

Will you bring your true song to me?

Some days...

2007-08-01T05:30:00.000-04:00

Some days are like juicy, baby tomatoes on a cooled down sizzling plate—deceptive!
While some are like tiramisu—sensual and sinister!

Still some others are like the awesome chef’s recommendation which was overlooked earlier, came in late and stole the show or
Like when the ice cream man gives one an extra dollop---just like that, unexpected!

Mine, today, is a surprise and am hoping that someone liked (didn’t like) me, just like that….

An ordinary girl! 3

2007-07-31T08:50:00.000-04:00

When the stone isn’t turning,
Trying on and on doesn’t help!

An ordinary girl! 2

2007-07-31T08:49:00.000-04:00

When am weary and the daylight, too,
I should rest awhile.

Stray wisdom 4

2007-07-31T08:47:00.000-04:00

When I leave my heart,
My Muse leaves me too!

An ordinary girl!

2007-07-31T08:28:00.000-04:00

Dreams, hair clips, nose stud, candy floss
An ordinary girl!

In the Pink of Health!

2007-07-30T01:19:00.000-04:00

On a Saturday evening, she slipped into comfortable tracks and a T shirt, her middle body twisting, turning, tossing in pain as she quickly stocked her fridge with the weekend groceries and surveyed whether it looked healthy enough.
Healthy, right, that’s what we are talking about here. You must have heard of ‘in the pink of health’, so what happens when somebody struggles with colourless, odourless health?

She quickly noted down some points for the cook and finished off the closing sentences with the visiting childhood buddy (who a little while earlier couldn’t understand her colour and now was heavy with all that he has soaked in).
In the medical centre, she got numbered ‘11’ after she enquired on the visiting doctors. Taking a cue from experienced visitors, she managed a seat on the cold, black stone bench. Outside it had been raining incessantly and the smell of muck, wet clothes, sweat, moisture and disinfectant created a heavy air which could hardly be taken in. She breathed slowly as she watched disease, decay, and a strange gloom written on everyone’s face. There was a lot of activity and a lot of people but it seemed to her like one of those bad dreams, she often wakes up to in the middle of the night; the characters all strangers, and the activities all unknown. Everything seemed to be a blur.

The hands of the watch moved really slowly, she could count every second as it passed. She made a couple of short calls and concentrated on the big black clock on the opposite wall. Every now and then a lady in faded green coat would scream a name and a heap of fear would move on. Or so it seemed to her. Often a limping patient would be helped in or out and a couple f wheel chairs wheezed by.

She had a good dinner to look forward to in the middle of nowhere, like a wonderful view of the valley when the cliff ends just like that.

After a couple of hours, it was her turn. As she slowly opened the door, the previous patient was still dressing up and checking her weight. The doctor (recognizable because she wore the white coat) screamed her name.
“Tell me missus…err…miss, what brings you to me?”
And after a couple of sentences from her, she screeched, “Why did you wait for so long? I need to do a pregnancy test.”

In the mirror in the hospital loo, she shuddered to see her face. Pale, eyes wide apart, the face covered with dark patches and pock marks like slits made with a blunt knife. Oh, in the pink of dis-coloured health.

The doctor nodded, “Hurry up. I have an important case waiting for me. A new mother!” as she scribbled notes and threw questions but didn’t wait for the answers!

She looked at the coloured model of the womb on the table. Living, vivid and almost throbbing audibly—the nests of creation. Twisting, turning in her middle body like minute bearings in a hand-made watch. Yes, they are alive in her body.

Some colourless health and a pregnancy test for a non-mother!

A Tale of 'Two Laptops'

2007-07-26T01:19:00.000-04:00

I started reading on MIT professor and famed tech-expert Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project after reading co-blogger Niladri’s post on it.
I finally hit on ‘A Tale of Two Laptops’ as BusinessWeek traveled to middle school in Mexico to find that Intel has already arrived with its Taiwanese partner ECS manufactured $320 Classmate PC and has trained teachers and loaded the students’ machines with educational software.

Negroponte’s OLPC

“It's an education project, not a laptop project.” says Nicholas Negroponte on the OLPC website.
Negroponte is a famed scion of a wealthy family best known for his stints as a Tech VC, on the Motorola Board and for setting up the MIT Media Labs. He has been talking about his OLPC Project since 2003 and drummed up support from Google, EBay, AMD and his personal contacts with political and business leaders across the world to build a $100 laptop, Xo, for children in the developing countries. His foundation is philanthropic (as against Intel’s ulterior business motive behind developmental initiatives) and looks like it is an anti-Intel and anti-Microsoft software venture, banking on Linux based operating systems and open source communities to build the Xo. Xo, they claim, is more a concept than a product.
Negroponte has often openly criticized Intel’s attempts to sabotage his plans and is gung-ho about his ability to make the drawing board a reality even though the program hasn’t taken off in manufacturing, as yet.

Intel’s Classmate PC

Intel is out to overcome its sluggish PC chip business and what better way than to tap in to the markets (the ‘next billion’ as tech companies parrot all the time) which are still not connected to the internet? And the best way to start is with the children who form the bulk of developing nations’ population and will form tomorrow’s workforce as populations in developed worlds age, retire early and see a decline in birth rate.
Intel took 18 months to get the project Classmate PC running and is already looking at cutting down the cost to about $ 200 with its new Taiwanese manufacturing partner Asustek.

The Flat World makes a whole lot of business sense

The most interesting twist in this story is that this month (July 2007) Intel has become a member of the OLPC project and they are looking at ways to collaborate in spite of their oft spelled difference in motive, practices and belief.
Through this ‘friendship’ Intel can rub off some of its ill-will (after all prices on Wall Street are a lot determined by image and reputation today) and bank on the technology invention of the MIT professors and also have access to academics, business and governments with Negroponte.
Whereas for the latter, it would mean cheaper manufacturing (Intel has clouts to buy at- cost from its Asian parts manufacturers), huge distribution network and teacher training support.

Still beyond….

For some detractors of these projects for providing computing through laptops to children in developing nations, the mobile phone is becoming the next smallest computer and chips are used more for mobile technology today. Also companies like California based NComputing Inc, believe that the solution to spreading low cost computing is building a well thought out eco system---cheap clients without a CPU, connected to a central processing server!

Questions I ask

For most developing nations in Asia, Latin America and the poorer ones in Africa, the priority for primary and middle school students are the basics like nutrition, hygiene, access to teachers and learning aids and then, guidance for participating in the booming urban centred employment markets. In India I’d be happy if children in our villages can complete their basic twelve years of education which is still unachievable for most Indian rural families.

Negroponte’s OLPC claims to provide children around the world, new ways to explore, experiment and express themselves. After all the great thoughts, deeds, words, claims, where’s the outcome?

Intel, however, is already looking at manufacturing a loaded version of the Classmate with faster processing and better storage for launching in developed markets.
Who said we are talking about breaking the computing divide between our ‘worlds’, among other things?

UFO 2

2007-07-24T04:31:00.000-04:00

Since the beginning of time, I have been this way.
A jeans bottom, wrinkled shirt, a satchel, disheveled short hair.

I try every now and then to look dignified in a pin-striped suit, leather shoes or a pretty scarf.

When I do pick up a dangler and a weaved dupatta, they call me a UFO, then.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A sequel to UFO, my Being!

They lost him--VI

2007-07-24T04:15:00.000-04:00

He checked once more-- the final draft—before handing it over. The lady at the counter wore a blank look like the other side of an important piece of paper which exists just so.

“My father….you see, this is my father” he stammered.

The lady nodded and stamped ‘24’!

In the ‘Missing’ column,
A Father -numbered!

Time, Perhaps? VII

2007-07-24T03:56:00.000-04:00

She’d been cleaning and washing for days. The winter sun would often envelope her back like a warm pashmina as she sat there mending quilts.

Then one day, she skipped breakfast and bade a teary farewell to parents.

Soon she pulled out the pre-selected saree and brought the stool near the fan before she ran out of