Meera’s woe (Concluding part)

The sunlight blazed into the room as Meera could not help waking up. After an entire week of lazing around and committing all possible abacharams her grandma would have frowned upon, her mom noticed that Meera seemed to be on the phone quite often, and not too cheerful. Even her visit to her engineering college seemed to get her down. She always had an inkling that her daughter was in a relationship, which was confirmed the previous night when Meera told her everything. In all probability, he could not have been smart, together person. At least, not a lot. She never seemed comfortable talking about him. But, then again, Meera was not the kind to go to anyone for advice, even her parents, and any advice given unsolicited would be met with a polite but firm indifference. Maybe Meera would finally start opening up to her and they could be closer than they were.

Meera got up from the bed, and went straight to her laptop. Of course, there was no Wi-Fi at home, so she had hooked up an Ethernet cable. The net was still too slow though. Orkut opened while she brushed her teeth. She was not particularly the web-social networking type per se, but lately she found herself checking her scraps with an uncanny sense of longing. Ah ha! There was a scrap from him. It was another general stab at humor, but she could sense that he was trying. It was fun to see guys manufacture friendships out of thin air. So…he was longing to be home huh. "Big deal, who asked you to wait till December, you should have come now na!" She blushed slightly as the next page loaded ever so slowly, and saw her latest scrap on his profile.

The Times of India website on the other firefox tab was full of sensationalist crap, but had an easy-to-read layout. She started reading the editorial while her email toolbar beeped. A return scrap from him. Good god! Does this guy sleep next to his laptop? It must be 2:30am in Maryland right now!

Another day, another fight. This time, he was accusing her of falling for someone else. Preposterous! Well, not quite, maybe there was some truth there, but surely it wasn't the cause of the souring of the relationship. The converse, however, could have been true.

King's circle was as busy as she knew it; crossing the roads depending on the signal was as dangerous as before. There was always one spoilt brat who drove rashly. Seven eleven softy was creamier than ever (was that even possible) and the familiar Xerox wallah remembered her after almost a year! Yet, nothing was getting her mood up. She was not the self-pity kind, just someone who went into a self-protective cocoon when bad times hit, to achieve mental clarity more so than anything else. Taking the train home was as annoying and sweaty as usual.

Days passed slowly but their accumulation was going to hit her like a truck.

The truth about relationships (as she knew it) was that they all started out hot and heavy, then settled into slow progress and then reached a plateau. The next course from an evolutionary perspective was decline, and it took constant effort from both parties to help maintain that plateau. She had read this kinda stuff, and her ever-cynical psyche had come up with the idea of choosing stability over spontaneity. Settling into a relationship with a good friend with no obvious flaws seemed like the most pragmatic idea. She had spent many a time scoffing at friends who actually did the whole dating ritual. Why would someone willfully expose themelves to heartbreak? People in general are a mix of strong and weak moments. Idealizing a person was nothing but a shortcut to the inevitable disappointment when you find out that they weren't everything you expected them to be.

Now however, she wanted to believe in the existence of a real, fulfilling relationship. She could, of course, be wrong this time. Surely, being practical was the sanest course of life to take.

"Vaa maa, polaam…check-inukkku time aayiduchhu!"

Two and a half months, gone in a flash. Baltimore was beckoning. New semester, same old friends, new house, new roommates, plus one guy who seemed seriously interesting and minus an annoying and emotionally depleting relationship. She walked inside the airport after the cursory hugs (including a teary one from her brother) thanking god for the increased security measures which did not allow anyone except the passenger to enter. Who wants a protracted goodbye! She felt a qualified optimism, and knew things would be fine.

Even if nothing worked out, it was still a pretty good life she had.

(PS: If this ending seems abrupt, forgive me. – Liberal)

Moving

(Opening Caveat: This post is not related to Meera's woe. I am working on the concluding part right now. I will post that soon.)

I hate moving. I can completely relate to people stuck in dead-end apartments simply because they aren't able to summon up the energy and the drive to move into another place.

Here I was in the Nolita area of downtown Manhattan helping my cousin move from an apartment which was close to an amazing billiards bar, three fantastic coffee places and oodles of enticing pubs, not to mention three subway stations which pretty much gave access to all parts of Manhattan. He was moving to a place in Chinatown which has only Chinese restaurants all around, no subway stations at a stone's throw, and let's just say that the old place had refined his taste so much that the mud served in the name of coffee in the nearby restaurants was no longer passable.

So why was he moving? Was it to save on rent? Not really. He was gonna pay the same amount. The reason was that his old room was the size of a matchbox, and the new one was the size of a bigger matchbox. He could now have that printer he was so eager to have!

So, ten bags in all. One of them weighed around 50Kg. It had to be carried down six flights of stairs. (Believe it or not, this ultra-modern, capital of the world had some really old buildings with no elevators!) The last time I swore this much was when Zaheer Khan had got bitch-slapped by Matthew Hayden in the final of the 2003 World Cup. We had begun the day by discussing how both of us have turned into fat pigs, and need to hit the gym hard. We both swore to start an exercise schedule as the waitress was clearing out the plates which had the remnants of our tiramisu. Hypocrisy is fun!

Finally all the luggage was brought down to the waiting area, and I was guarding the bags while my cousin was getting a cab, a task which in NYC is only slightly easier than a BCom graduate performing a craniotomy.

I was getting dirty looks from the beautiful girls who had to jump over the bags to get to the stairs. Now, I am no good-looker, so while I would never expect a second look from these fine ladies, the last thing I needed was to be in their bad books. What if these hot women periodically met during their Amazingly Hot Women club meetings and blacklisted me as a potential date to the category called "Not even if he was made of money." Why would someone with no apparent cerebral deformities move from a place with such amazing talent to Chinatown, which, don't get me wrong, simply lacked the diversity of quality that was in ridiculous abundance here defying all notions of probability.

The cabbie kept asking annoying questions about where the new address was. You may consider me an ass for thinking this, but a cabbie needs only two skills, driving and direction. So, if you cannot find an address that is less than a mile away from the starting address, you are not exactly worthy of the tip that you so self-righteously demand while you are watching us unload our uber-heavy bags.

"Hey Maggie, can you please come down and open the door, we are here with the bags." My cousin was already on the phone to his new roomie. She came out of her fire-escape (which doubles as a balcony) and threw the keys down. Neither cuz nor I went for the catch. Why try, drop and then cut a sorry figure as the other berates you for your poor fielding skills?

This apartment was on the third floor (thankfully!) and we got the luggage up there quick thanks to our freshly built biceps from bringing the luggage down at the other place.


We opened the beer we had hauled all the way here, and drank it even though it was warm.

Meera’s woe: Part 2

May 2008

"Thank you for flying Emirates Airlines. Please wait for exit instructions from the cabin crew." The voice sounded young, though Meera knew better. Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport was here at last. She was going to meet her family after nine months. She could picture their excited faces in her head. Why she was not excited, she could not tell. She longed to see her little brother. Her sister would be cool when she sees her, but she was always a guarded person, who could be stoic even when seething underneath. You just had to get used to it.

Meera stretched her legs and yawned. She wasn't that tall, but planes were really skimping on the leg room these days. At least the ticket was cheap, she thought. She was looking forward to two and a half months of relaxation, not to mention home-cooked food. She was an average cook at best, but her tastes were absolutely high class. Romba naaku neelam maa onaku was an oft-heard refrain in her house. She filled out the customs form as the swarthy guy in the seat next to hers got her bag from the overhead compartment. "I hope this does not mean he is gonna walk all the way to the exit with me", she thought. He wasn't ugly, but she wasn't interested. The one thing that always escaped her was that guys never understood the 'thanks, but no thanks' face she put on. Maybe they would rather delude themselves into thinking that there was a fraction of a chance than face the truth.

She had always wanted to do a masters and a PhD. There was never any question in her mind. Her usually broad-minded parents had turned surprisingly conservative when she mentioned it during her TE. They were all excited that their daughter was becoming an engineer, and that a good mapillai was the next step. After all, why would she need to study so much when she had to be a housewife! Meera wanted to throw something sharp and heavy at her uncle when he said that, especially when his son was leaving for the USA to do an MBA in that very year. She winced at the memory of that conversation and said a silent prayer that that uncle should not be at the airport.

Baggage claim was the usual one-hour wait. "If I fly enough times, at least once, my bags should arrive first on the conveyor belt", she thought. Even she knew that the bags that came first simply belonged to no one, and that her bags were carefully identified by the handlers and put towards the end of the line. Well, her optimism was clearly induced by her own cynicism. She could see the exit now. She could smell the clammy Mumbai air, with the ridiculous amounts of pollution and sheer noise and odor, which were absent from her life the past year. Damn! It was good to be home.

She had always been an emotionless girl, on the surface that is. Anyone who knew her would describe her as stoic and calm no matter what the situation. A precious few people in the world knew how emotional she actually could be. She was sad to admit to herself that her pseudo-boyfriend was not on that list. She would have to meet him too now…did she think 'have to'? She was gonna break up with him sooner or later. She lied to herself that it was because she wanted space and he was not giving it to her, but the truth was that she never really had any romantic passion for him. He had been the safe choice, and she now realized she probably wanted more. "I better wear something old when I meet him to end it, he is gonna sob all over my clothes anyway." She chided herself for being so callous. Maybe that was the truth. Maybe she did not care about him, because she simply did not care. Her optimism kept fuelling the thoughts that maybe that guy exists, the one who was an intellectual challenge to her, and yet one that could get her juices flowing. Maybe settling for what was available was stupid. Her research work was fulfilling enough. There was no need for a boyfriend, unless he was the one.

A small voice inside her still resented her for not feeling anything even though she was meeting her parents after a long time. She was near the exit now. She could see the crowd, all waiting for someone or the other. She started scanning the crowd for them. Ah! Was that her brother, no…false alarm. Suddenly someone grabbed her by the wrist.

"Appa…amma…."

And the tears just started flowing.

(To be continued)

Meera’s woe: Part 1

September 2003

Meera sighed at the sight of the building. It was more dilapidated than she had imagined the ruined palaces of the Ottoman Empire to have been. She had to strain to hear the rickshaw driver. This surprised her, for she had never known a man to speak with such a soft voice. She paid him Rs. 100 and expected him to make any excuse possible to avoid giving her the change of Rs. 7.50, but he surprised her again. Ooty was warmer than she had expected in September. She walked in and asked the soporific guard to direct her to the matron's office. A groggy thumb point later, she found herself face to face with one of the saddest people she had seen (not counting her little brother at the sight of her leaving).

"Welcome. You have been assigned room 22. It is on the second floor."

"Thanks for letting me know, I would have been hunting for 22 on all other floors if it had not been for you."

"No problem dear."

Uh oh, she thought. When people don't get sarcasm as simple as that, you can't expect much sharpness from them.

Trying to outrun the rats was a lost cause. They just knew their way around the hostel better. Meera just had to see the bathroom. She knew what to expect, but her optimism always put her in embarrassing positions, like betting on India to win even when they needed ten runs per over with three wickets in hand. Her instinct did not disappoint. The bathroom was ugly, and the smell quickly reminded her of the time when she had passed by an opened men's room at her old school.

Doing Bachelors in Engineering was her decision from the start, but she had not bargained for the archaic rule that all first year students were mandated to stay in the government hostel. It was basically a lockdown. You are actually paying money and being force-fed something. Is this what communism feels like, she thought. She dragged her dejected self to room 22, and sure enough it was on the second floor!

"Hi, I am Jyoti; this is Kusum, and you must be…"

"Meera…nice to meet you. So, you must be BE too right?"

"Oh! You are BE, no yaar, this hostel has freshers of many streams. I am doing my Bachelors in Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Kusum here is doing arts."

How the hell are these girls so cheerful in this hell-hole? "By the way, how is the food here? Do they serve non-south Indian food anytime?"

"Yes, Thursdays and Sundays we get to have some Punjabi dishes, if the mess aunty is in a good mood? Why? Surely you are South-Indian…"

"Yeah, does not mean I need to live on sambar and rasam for the entire year right? Also, I was brought up in Mumbai." Well, it was Runwal Nagar, Thane, but these people need not know that.

"Oh Mumbai, I have many relatives there…"

"Really lemme guess, Matunga right? I can practically smell the coffee beans and chicory!"

"FYI, it is Thane, but you need not be that rude. In any case, I am Malayali, not Tamil."

"Oh! I did not mean to offend you" (Well, I did actually but, I am sure you will believe me if I say I did not.)

Nine weeks later.

"Meera, Dr. Bala is asking for you. You need to see him at the end of class today."

"Sure, who is he?"

"You have been here two months and you don't recognize the principal's name?"

"I wasn't aware of that being on the syllabus!"

"Yeah whatever, just go see him. That's all I care about."

"Cheer up Kusum, I'm sure it is about the hostel."

Outside the class, up the stairs, thirty paces to the right and through a door bearing Dr. A. S. Bala in gold letters.

"Ah, Meera Iyer. Have a seat. I take it our conditions in the university hostel are below your expectations?"

Silence.

"Don't you know that all freshers have to spend their entire first year in the Uni hostel? I cannot allow you to change hostels at a whim."

"I don't get it Dr. Bala. I changed hostels two weeks ago. Your sphere of influence is shrinking fast."

(Come on…don't be a smartass. You don't want the principal after you in the first year itself.)

"Yes, you need to move back in the hostel or face the consequences."

"Please do whatever you wish sir, I have made my decision."

"Very well, you may go."

She spun on her right heel and left the room. The private hostel was a small bike-ride away. No more rats for roommates and food dabbas delivered by hand every afternoon and evening. Things were good so far…

Something always bothered her. It was like a grain of sand in her eye, or a stone in her shoe, annoyingly uruthufying her, reminding her of its presence. She knew that these four years were just a limbo. Her future happiness and contentment was elsewhere. Little did she know how close she would get to it before losing it.

(To be continued…)

Pharma: Debating the ethics

For the uninitiated, a clinical trial is pretty much a study of a new drug or formulation in humans. Before this, the drug/medication has been tested in animals which progressively go up the evolutionary scale to make sure that our principle has some modicum of proof. These trials usually have three phases which when complete and analyzed lead to a decision as to whether this medication does what it purports to do and is safe for use in the intended dose.

These trials are usually conducted in large hospitals where the subjects are lined up and then administered the drug in some form. In the initial stages, the drug is tested on healthy subjects, and when it is proven not to cause any adverse effects that completely preclude its use, the drug is tested on actual patients.

Placebo effect is the effect of the patient's knowledge that he is getting treated, on the improvement of the patient's condition. This might seem negligible, but some diseases have huge psychological components, which might be assuaged by the knowledge that a person is being treated. Hence, each trial will also have a bunch of people getting no drug at all, but just a placebo, which means that if this person shows signs of getting cured, we cannot completely rely on the medication curing the patient. In other words, such a placebo effect will reduce the veracity of the hypothesis that the drug actually cures the ailment it is supposed to.

There are many ethical issues with clinical trials. The one I wanted to focus on is the fact that there are large numbers of patients who are getting nothing but the placebo. These people might be dying from a hitherto untreatable disease, and might be pinning all their hopes on this experimental clinical trial. Even though their presence in this trial is futile to them, they are invaluable as they provide the baseline on which the positive results of the drug can be measured.

I saw a TV show about doctors in a hospital where a doctor conducting a clinical trial actually moved a patient from a placebo to the real drug because he knew her. Let's not even bother with the doctor's intention behind this act; it is enough if we focus on the fact that the integrity of a clinical trial was thwarted. The idea that this could actually happen in real life gives me the shudders.

Now I am not usually given to episodes of technical ramblings to an audience that is mostly not part of the pharmaceutical field.

The fact is that clinical trials, like other experiments, are to be taken objectively, without passion or prejudice. These placebos help enforce those rules. If we care about the few hundreds or thousands who might be hard done by in this trial, we are risking a potential patient pool of millions. When one swallows a pill of a drug that can save a life, or cure a small affliction, one must take comfort in the hours and hours of hard work and sacrifice that it takes to make it safe enough so that you can just pop it in.

It is true that pharmaceutical companies are colluding with each other within the competition so that they reap huge profits, but one must realize that these are the outcomes of successful products. So, the interests of the companies and the people are aligned in some warped way. To stop the druggernaut from burning a hole through the common man's wallet, we have regulatory agencies which are there to oversee the situation.

While I would not go so far as to say that the pharmaceutical field is noble, I do hope that this small piece has mounted at least a small defense to the ever-piling accusations.

(PS: This post has a certain synecdoche effect in that the ethical quandary of a clinical trial is then extrapolated to the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. I hope my readers were not bored with this technical post, and I hope I have made it simple enough for the layperson to grasp.)

Ode to a muffin

There are desserts and there are other desserts. Some are nice, but most are heavy. To me, a dessert should be heavy. I must regret having learned to eat after eating the dessert. There is no other way to enjoy it. Here, I am talking about a muffin.

I don't know why I love it so much. Probably because of the wonderful exterior, probably because of the moist goodness locked inside that only the truly worthy can access, or probably because of the fulfillment it provided me without me realizing it ever. Now we all know that they are fattening, and probably sinful, but a muffin along with a chocolate cheesecake can be pure heaven.

I love food like I love women…well…a woman! She would kill me if I use the plural in a cavalier fashion!

Here's to my muffin…there can never be another…maybe there can, but I don't want another one ever. All I need is time to acquire it, and to enjoy it, but there seems less of either.

(To my dear readers: I apologize for the truly indulgent post. It has no purpose of entertaining, nor of informing. It does not seek to encourage, entice or to ensnare in witty dialogue. It is merely a whim of mine, but I need it all the same.)

Manhattan delights

A dear friend of mine once described a concept called 'patel shots'. When I asked him to elaborate, he said that they were postcard-type photos taken by tourists near all the garden variety tourist spots around a popular city. This guy loved all the nuances of NYC that I could show him, but make no mistake, he could give the patels a run for their money (which is bucketloads, by the way!) in the quest for the unparalleled patel shots! (No offense meant to actual patels!)

The other part of Manhattan, that only residents can show you, are the quaint coffee shops, the small but amazing brick oven pizza joints run by the temperamental Italian owners whose moodiness is not only tolerated, but appreciated, all due to their culinary genius.

What I am gonna give a preview of right now, is a part of the Lower East Side of Manhattan...a little further off NYU campus. For a long time, the lower east side has been associated with the student and worker crowd, which brings with it fashionable pubs, bars, cafes and well slightly proletariat experience altogether. It was not out of character for the rents to be lower here than say the upper west side (endorsed by the sitcom Seinfeld, as it is based entirely in that area).

Now, however, the paradigm shift has come where the quaint coffee shops are quaint not because they cannot afford to expand, but because the yuppie mindset is tired of the chain stores and eateries and now covets the European bistro/cafe experience. Coffee now costs $4.50 at some places, and people are happy to shell out the duddu.

I am in the process of discovering places which serve great food. Now there is one place I ate just today morning. It is a small breakfast place, where there are long lines on weekday mornings just to get a table for two. If you are in a group of four or more, the reservation card handed to you may as well say "Are you kidding me!" The breakfast was awesome, I had a salmon based entree, with some fresh squeezed orange juice and my cousin had something similar. We wound up the meal with coffee, and the check came with the number $50 on it, which I duly passed on to my cousin, whose face had the calm of a person who had eaten there before, compared to my jaw which was somewhere between the table and the floor! The amazing thing is, with unemployment increasing at the rate of knots, the lines outside places like these (and there are many, mind you) have not been affected at all. You gotta love NYC. There are other reasons too.

One other aspect of Manhattan is the women. (This characteristic applies to the whole of Manhattan, and not just the lower east side.) Most of them are businesslike, which basically means they don't care/mind if you look at them for a time more than what can be described as innocent and less than that done by the average sex offender. You get all races and types, and they all are pretty alluring. Now, I am speaking hypothetically of course, as I am not at all what you might call lecherous. (Wink!). This is, of course, no slight on women in other locations.


Rents are going up as people are now wanting to live here. I, of course, am enjoying the delights of this region as I visit a cousin of mine every weekend, and mooch off him while he picks up the tab, with me realizing all the while that pretty soon, I would have to do this for someone else. Duniya gol hai!

This is the first post of mine where I have rambled on without much direction or purpose, and I really feel indulgent today. You might scoff at my desperation to have my blog read that I did not forewarn the readers of this randomly ambulatory post.

Love montage

"Must we wait for our light to turn green completely? Why can't you just cross when there are no cars around?"

"That's just the way I do it. You can go ahead, just wait for me on the other side."

Many street crossings passed. Neither one changed…well, one was forced to…

"Stop, don't do that. Can't you wait till we reach the other side to kiss me?"

"What's the fun in that?"

On a park bench, when other organs have been well examined…

"Your nails are so dirty; do you actually eat food with such dirty nails?"

"To tell you the truth, this is the first time I have noticed them. I guess it explains my strong immunity na?"

There are good times and there are bad. There are some people with whom even the bad times far outclass the best of times with others.

"Your eyes…they are…"

"Very beautiful, like the ocean, mysterious, sexy….any other clichés you would like to unleash?"

"Arre bolne to de…your eyes…they are…"

"Tell me, now I'm really interested.."

"Really pretty, like the sea, inscrutable, sensual"

"Disguised clichés…what have I done to deserve this honor?"

Waiting at a train platform in the initial days is always easy…often the expectation and anxiety anesthetizes the annoyance of the other one's tardiness. A few trains later…

"Hi, sorry I'm late! My bus was [something something]"

"You know I left four trains for you…"

"Oh! I am truly sorry."

"I would have left more."

"Wow, so sweet…(what an idiot!)"

No couple has ever been intimate until they have eaten together. On one such day…

"Why do you eat so much non-veg?"

"Why don't you ever try it?"

All of these reach a fork in the road. Some take the beaten path. This one took the other…

"We are doing the right thing? What about how we feel?"

"We feel what we feel, all I know is that I can't commit right now…"

"The more I think about this, the more I feel the pain. The more I feel the pain, the more I realize that those who don't have the strength to commit should not go down this road at all."

"That little aside is aimed at me, but strangely applies to both of us. Have a nice life."

"You too…"

Five years later.

He always waits for the green light before crossing the road. His nails are squeaky clean. He eats non-veg just to hear her reprimands in his head. They sweep over him like the blend of a cool breeze and a tidal wave. No one could take away that magical time, ephemeral though it was. That's how life is to be taken, in bite-sized pieces.

Code green

Bill Maher (of Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO) asked an important question to his panel recently. He asked that how is the current Obama plan to buy toxic assets (also called the 'cash for trash' strategy) better than Bush's? He is doing the same thing that Bush was doing, and somehow he is being given a clean chit no matter what.

Right now we are bailing out companies, some of whom do not deserve it. Obama has imposed severe restrictions on the auto companies, including asking a CEO to step down, and forcing them to form mergers. Why not have them file bankruptcy? There is enough bailing out right now: the banks might be too big to fail, as them falling down would dehydrate the market of finance, and businesses would choke, resulting in loss of commodities and jobs nationwide.

The auto-makers do not enjoy such a strong niche in the market according to me. They have been exploiting the low price of oil by building gas-guzzlers in the past, and they collapsed as a combination of two problems: the sudden increase in gas prices which forced buyers to turn to more economical Japanese and German cars. This resulted in a stagnation of sales which ran them into losses. Also companies like GM could not afford to pay health insurance premium for their workers. At one point, they were spending more on health insurance for their employees than they were spending on raw material for their cars! The employer-paid for health insurance system has many drawbacks, one of them being the increase in illegal employees simply because the employers can pay them less than minimum wage, ignore exploitation rules and deny them healthcare. But I digress. The auto makers have been exploiting their connections with the Republicans, not to mention the collusion between the Democrats and the auto worker unions. This is vote-bank politics. It is red, white and blue, instead of saffron, white, green and blue. Hence, we may not notice it as much.

The thing is, by bailing out US carmakers, you are favoring them over their Japanese, German, Italian and other counterparts. This goes against fair competition where the govt. is favoring one of the candidates with a safety net. Such a protection might result in the rapid dumping of shares of other auto companies which might increase the magnitude of the recession.

Some might regard my suggestion ludicrous, but one of the possible solutions is to encourage small businesses and increase job creation. Other projects like building more roads and subways are always a classic. As I have mentioned before, I have a huge problem with the govt. printing notes without any security against them. It is fine right now, but when the economy starts to recover, there will be so many dollars floating in the market that the value of the dollar will fall. A better way to get more cash is the equivalent of the Indian National Savings Certificate (NSC). The govt. could introduce an NSC plan and say that, should people invest, they could double their money in five years. They could give tax breaks on the amount invested, and impose penalties on early withdrawal of funds. This will pull in extra cash for the government to play with, but will not generate fake dollar bills. This will also encourage Americans to save some part of their paychecks. One must remember that the amount of assets is always limited, and this ruled applies to cash as well.

Another idea that might be more popular with my readers (but not a populist one) is to increase the number of H1 visas. Able, talented, educated and industrious people are waiting to get here and do well. They can improve productivity and create competition, which will force existing workers to do much better. No one should be in any sort of comfort zone at this juncture. When we spread the risk over the entire nation, it seems like less of a load on a fraction of that population which carries it now.

Usually the working class always takes care of the older retired generation, and thus all retirement bonuses could be justified. Now, however, the baby boom generation has retired, and America has a large number of people who are dependent on the working population to take care of them. Benefits like 401k and provident fund equivalents are fine, as they are a part of your salary anyway, but other benefits (and there are many) need to be trimmed. Recently, the Metropolitan Transport Authority (the people who run the subways and buses in NYC) announced a fare hike. This is fine; this would be our contribution to an organization that transports us through large distances for just $2, but is now struggling. But, do you know that an MTA employee can retire at 55 and start reaping retirement benefits as opposed to the regular 65 yr retirement age. So basically, taxpayers have to employ a new guy, pay him, and pay this retiree for an extra ten years than they would have to. The MTA is asking the general public to invest in it, to get some rolling cash. How would anyone want to invest in this when they find out that their hard-earned money is being given to early retirees and that there is no way to expect returns on any money that goes there?

Also, the govt. needs to explain to the people that now that the s**t has hit the fan, they need to cut down on the entitlements and grow up for once, or face a depression that would rival the 1930s. Again, this long post is my two cents. Better opinions are more than welcome.

Hang on, Darfur...no spare change

Nick Kristof is a very passionate man. His Op-Eds for the gray lady are from the heart and head in a nice combination. He writes a lot about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This man has now imposed further sanctions on aid given to the hurt in Darfur. Kristof argues that this is genocide by another method.

I salute the man's passion, but I am compelled to ask, is this the best time for America to be philanthropic. Nothing comes for free, and helping Darfurites is costing dollars. Dollars you don't have. Dollars you are planning to print without having assets to account for them. (Any government which prints currency is required to show assets whose current value amounts to that total amount printed. Sans this, the notes are barely worth the cotton they are printed on.)
The one thing about the US helping in Darfur is that it does not have strategic US interests (which Bill Maher says means 'white people and oil'). So there seems to be true altruism in that.

In the 90's, you walked the walk, so you could talk the talk. Now, the US needs to pull itself up by its own bootstraps, and it cannot afford to drop a quarter in the homeless guy's cup on the way to starbucks. Also, it cannot afford starbucks.

People are having an entitlement complex like the 'rayees baap ki bigdi aulad' which fouls up everything and then expects papa dearest to bail it out. The people here want the government to help them out everywhere, but do not want to cut down on their leisure and luxury expenditures. Why do I see such lines outside movie halls, broadway theaters, malls, jewellery shops etc when everyone claims to be financially crippled right now? (I know you might be wondering what I'm doing at all the aforementioned places, but let's leave that for the moment!)

Sad though it may sound, the US cannot afford feudalistic pleasures like throwing a coin to the serf. So Darfur will have to wait for the Dow Jones to rise. I hate myself a little for suggesting this.

Catch-22?

We are at a strange crossroads now. It is no secret, nor is it up for debate that the US economy impacts that of almost every country except the ones which are protectionist and completely government controlled. Even a country like China, whose iron curtain policies partially insulate them from the volatility of the western economies, is impacted in that there is no more purchasing power for the commodities that they flood the market with.

Reaganomics or Supply-side economics says that an economy is built from up and then downwards. It says that we must make it as encouraging as possible for entrepreneurs to create business, for they are the true producers and providers, and they provide scores of employment to the 'salaried class'. Thus the wealth trickles down to the lowest on the chain, and everyone prospers. This policy earned it the name 'trickle down economics.' It favors great incentives to entrepreneurs and the economic elites with the reasoning that they pay the bulk of the taxes and create jobs and wealth. The incentives range from tax breaks to people as well as corporations, and intellectual property rights etc in order to encourage them to produce more. It sounds great...in theory.

In practice, one must take a lesson from the second law of thermodynamics which says that spontaneous reactions favor an increase in entropy. In layman's terms, it means that left to their own desires, systems (& people) will move to the state of higher disorder. They will act in instincts that are first self-preserving, and then self-proliferating and eventually in the direction of self-prosperity.

The housing and loans crisis is just an example of regulations being relaxed to the extent that every individual and corporation simply does whatever is good for itself. It goes against the Nash equilibrium, which states that in a state of competition, no one person can increase his payoff by changing his strategy from that of the others when the others stick to their strategy. In other words, as Russel Crowe says, (in A Beautiful Mind) each person must do what is best for himself and the team. Complete selfishness untempered by government oversight leads to chaos.

Obamanomics, on the other hand, says that an economy is to be built from the ground up. He says that while entrepreneurs create jobs and supply products, the interests of the buyers and of the salaried class need to be preserved.

Doing that is good for the people who in serious trouble now. However, while one must support Obama in his attempts, we must also realize that punishing the people who produce and pay most of the tax revenue is not the biggest incentive for them to continue producing. It is a time when the more fortunate have to help the less fortunate, but one must be careful to do this without stifling small and large entrepreneurs.

I am inviting all members of the blogosphere, some economic experts, and others laymen like myself to discuss this topic openly and provide their suggestions for upliftment.

Sartorial maladies

Let me begin with a confession. I have horrible fashion sense. Now I know many guys out there are afflicted by this malady, but I'm beyond help. I once wore a red colored six pocket pant for over a year (not continuously though!) that would put Govinda's fashion designer to shame.

I have always relied on my mother's & sister's help (did I say help? I meant total dominion) in this department. Cut to the scene of me shopping with my aforementioned fashion advisors. Mom says, "Take these pants and try them out." I proceed to the trial room with the heavy heart of a man approaching the gallows for a crime he knows he committed.

I hate trying on clothes. I go into that tiny room which is built to house only those with bodies so perfect that they don't need to try out clothes as their carefully crafted bodies are the classic demographic that these clothes brands shoot for. As I take my caricatured self into these rooms, I spend most of the time looking at myself in the mirror and not really the clothes I am trying out. I check out my teeth, smile nicely once, give the evil grin twice and frown thrice. Finally I come out with the pants only to see my sister armed with a couple more, giving me a critical look (which suggests unadulterated disapproval) that says, "The only thing worse than those clothes on your body is your body itself!"

Mom beckons, and I sheepishly go to her; she asks me embarrassing questions about the fitting of the pants at various places. I always nod in assent, whether true or false, simply because I'd rather face lifelong discomfort than the ordeal of ramp-walking for my mom and sis.

They both argue over the fashionableness of the clothes, sis always suggesting that mom's taste is too 80's. This argument ends in one of them admitting that I don't have what it takes to pull off a crisp look. Salesmen stare.

I get more clothes to try out; some t-shirts this time. Now, I know what you're thinking, 'How can anybody mess up t-shirt fittings?' Well, that's because you haven't met the master of awkward clothes fits.

All this while, dad is looking for a parking space on Gokhale road.

The thing about memories is that that the average ones keep flitting on and off, the good ones rarely remain clear except the feeling, and really good ones stay fresh (for easy recall when the train journey is long and there are twenty people sharing standing space on my toes); but the really embarrassing ones stick. My attention to detail has always been poor, but these examples of sartorial ignominy are picture-perfectly etched on the inside of my skull.

I have moved on, live in NYC now, and I shop for myself (if and only if I cannot drag protesting female friends with me). I make my share of mistakes.

Someday, I will have a wife, and this chain of events will resume, more embarrassing than the old ones, mainly because Murphy has chosen to be a companion for life.

Corona with a twist of lime

"So we were just having coffee…"

"Wait a second, you said you were in the lab all afternoon and evening yesterday, so this coffee…?"

"I knew you would not miss that; it was over breakfast!"

"Alright dude! I knew you would eventually reach the finish line!"

"Wo to theek hai, but you won't believe what she said…"

"You mean when you told her that the only reason you were going out with her was because you wanted to get closer to her hot friend?"

"Are you nuts, there is no way I'm gonna tell her that! She actually looked me in the eye and said those three words"

"Uh oh! And you are not serious at all? I mean your scheming date with her was two months ago; I assumed that you had feelings for her now…"

"Well, not really…I mean she is not bad, but I don't feel anything special for her…by the way, I contacted that hotter friend of hers, and we did go out; she moved to Toledo that's all"

"So you broke that off, then it is fine na…just forget her, and keep it going with this chick!"

"Dude, you remember that Epidemiological conference I went to last weekend?"

"Yeah sure, the one with…oh…you mean….Toledo?"

"Yeah, it was a great weekend!"

"Okay, so now what? Which one?"

"Right now, I don't know; all I know is that I'm feeling guilty because this chick says she loves me…and I don't feel it for her"

"Are you sure she really loves you?"

"Come on yaar, only guys say that line without meaning it"

"Well…I just think you have no reason to feel guilty"

"Yeah? Why?"

"Remember that weekend last month when your 'I love you' girl went to meet her parents in Vermont?"

"Yeah sure, she even called me from there"

"Her parents are dead, and it cannot be a coincidence that the college soccer team went to Vermont that same weekend; and that her ex was on that team…honestly I can't believe you did not connect the dots soon enough"

"Oh, then I need not feel guilty I guess…"

"Only of sheer naivete, chal let's order our beers now"

PDAmn it!

The day a country becomes truly literate is when it understands the term "None of your business". The Delhi high court has stayed an FIR against a married couple caught in a compromising position saying, "How can an expression of love by a married couple by stealing a kiss in public be construed as obscenity?" I must be drunk or wasted or something else…for I seem to want to hold on to the slowly fading position that even though there are many stupid people in this world ruining it further with their influence and decisions, high court judges would still be predisposed to intellectual liberal forward thinking and critical analysis.

We have to take one of two stands here: either people demonstrating their affection publicly is right or it is wrong. How is it anybody's business whether the 'offending' couple is married or engaged or whatever? It simply should not matter. Having said that, I agree with the court's decision that public display of affection is okay, but they did for the wrong and the most moronic reason. I cannot believe these give such amazing license to married people, but a guy and his girlfriend (dare I say a guy and his boyfriend!) kissing in public is a major no-no.

Let's grow up, and face the facts.

The only thing that matters here is whether we regard PDA as obscene or not. The fact that the offending parties are married or in love or not is incidental and not worth our time anyway. This ruling needs amendment.

Until then, guys and girls, if you wanna get naughty, keep a mangalsutra in your pocket for exculpatory reasons while we celebrate the mind-numbing stupidity that is this ruling!

PS: This is completely unrelated but buddy (a fellow blogger and great friend) celebrates one year of blogging. Here's wishing him many more years of happy blogging! You made me laugh, cringe, cry…and what not. I may not (make that "will not") always agree with you, but you never cease to make me think, and I appreciate you most for that.

Inward microscope

As I was scanning old email in my inbox (I know…it sounds like I don't have much to do, but it is a nice pastime), I noticed an email I wrote to some student in SUNY Buffalo asking him about my chances of getting into his school (with funding). Doe-eyed and optimistic, I had written an email in my finest English (as much as possible while trying to appear colloquial) wherein I had told him about my GRE score and acads, and declared proudly my dream of helping rid the world of disease with my formulation skills. I had even attached my CV. (which basically was a list of my mediocre academic achievements, along with some embellished extra-curricular stats.)

Oh man…how he must have laughed. As a graduate student of some years, he might have identified the rosy pictures I had of research in the US. I was such a fool back then. I actually believed that I was going to be the answer that pharmaceutical sciences and drug delivery technology was looking for. Time, and more time beats the optimism out of you. It certainly brings you down to earth. I realize, as a graduate student of a year and a half, that I won't be the crowning glory that I was so sure I was, but actually a small part in a large organization that needs me, but that I need it more. There is no shame in being a part of something that is so much larger than you that you might seem insignificant in comparison; but one must not forget that one is not insignificant to such an organization.

There is so much that I want to dip my beak in, and the growing finiteness of my time, energy and abilities is beckoning me close every day, only I have been putting it off for some time now. It is definitely time to recognize it and address it. There have to be a lot of efforts put here, and it will consume me. The end result will not always be pretty, but there will be the satisfaction of having worked hard. There will be the triumph of having committed to a project and seeing it to the finish. And when the inevitable situation comes where I realize that a particular task is too tough for me, I wouldn't shy away from asking someone for help, for I would then be secure in my achievements.

A funny thing happened as I was typing this out. Microsoft word 2007 crashed (damn you Bill Gates), but then restarted. You know what, it had completely recovered my write-up. So I forgive you Bill Gates…there is something to be learned in this experience that any realization, even if it comes late, is not too late…

Unbridled blasphemy

As I was gumming down a bowl of soup that some diet-friendly misanthropic nihilist might have invented, I glanced around the cafeteria to see if there were any of my friends or pretty girls nearby (Both groups are surprisingly not mutually exclusive!) There was this Latin-American female who monopolized my attention for a whole minute, after which she started walking, leaving me with her image still implanted in my head (persistence of vision is a blessing!); and after that I noticed a banner which read, "Maybe God is the answer?" That was the message verbatim.

Now, most of my regular readers know my cynicism about religion and might consider it hypocrisy that I joined a catholic university, but let's move past that for now. Please note that this is not a slight on Christianity but on religion in general. In fact, my kind of atheism is strangely ecumenical as it unites all religions while calling them crazy. What hurts me deeply is the marketing of religion that is done today. Many a graduate student can testify to being accosted by a missionary with the dangling carrot of free tuition in exchange for accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior. "God wants you to give till it hurts" is one of the many lines smoothly delivered by buff evangelists as they continue to mercilessly fleece poor innocent people.

Another cheap shot especially practiced by religion is that it attacks people when they are the weakest. Terminally ill patients are often known to have complete conversions during their last hours. While the religiously fanatical lobby notches this in their victory column, it can also be explained as a form of mental anesthesia that people crave when their fear, desperation or pain gets too much to handle.

The Hindu, Muslim and other religions are not far behind in their hypocrisies and their endorsement (and sometimes instigation) of atrocities. They too captivate people when they are most mentally feeble.

Richard Dawkins, the geneticist & acclaimed atheist, says that religion is the best product to sell because neither its virtues nor its promises are vulnerable to scientific testing. This is a product whose qualities you cannot experience until you die. The funniest part is that the people who tell you what happens after death lack serious resume points in the experience category themselves. If, in a scientific discussion, someone throws conjecture after conjecture at you without a shred of data to back them up, you would show that person the door. Yet, we grant religion a free pass and complete immunity from all logical accusations.

Sam Harris says that most people who follow one religion are atheists with respect to others. They believe in no god but their own god. Atheists, Harris says, simply go one god further. Bill Maher notes the pejorative connotation of the word atheist in modern times, and prefers the word rationalist. A rationalist is simply a person who does not conform to an ideology in principle but questions everything and is a natural skeptic. You need to convince such people, and not preach to them or command them.

I have met many people who argue that as I cannot disprove the existence of god, there has to be a god. To this, the great philosopher Bertrand Russell proposed a theory that there is a small teapot orbiting the sun and that its orbit lies between that of Mars & Earth such that it is too tiny to be seen by the most powerful telescope. As we cannot disprove the existence of said teapot, it must exist, and we are free to worship it. This kind of juvenile logic would be rejected by most children if said in the context of the teapot, and rightly so, for it is impossible to prove a negative, and hence the burden of proof should be shouldered by the people who claim the existence of any object.

The least these religious people could admit is that they don't know. I would still respect that. It is their unwavering certainty in the face of many a contradictory proof that baffles me the most.

A friend of mine once gave me a patronizing smile during one such argument and said, "We must not critique these stories & fables in religious texts, but merely take the good out of them." Is that not a critique in itself? Does it not take critical thinking to separate the grain from the chaff? And who is to decide which is which? Are we free to choose?

I consider it an offense to be told to suspend my critical thinking for any reason whatsoever. Richard Dawkins opines that we can lead perfectly moral and decent lives without being taught so by religious scripture. Having considered that, let us weigh the damage wrought by religion against the little (not unique) good it does. It pains me to visit ground zero in NYC. That horror would not have happened if there was no religion. If there was no promise of an afterlife, no one could have convinced young men to throw their lives away and take many others with them. There would have been no Holocaust. Closer to home, we Indians have seen enough brutalities committed in communal riots to know what I'm talking about.

If you woke up one day and saw that Princess Diana was speaking to you, you would suspect that you were hallucinating. Substitute that with the voice of god (which, by the way, you have no way of identifying) and you might just be called a prophet or a messiah.

I am very cynical & venomous on this subject simply because of the time, money, energy and other resources I see being wasted on this selfish mental anesthetic. Let's face it. We humans fear the unknown. Death is the ultimate unknown. So no matter how incredible the explanations offered to us are, we swallow them down just like I swallowed that soup-we have a void to fill, and when we are really desperate, anything goes.

Waltz with Bashir

It was colder than a witch's t$t that day. All day, it had been pretty cold. Full body cover and head gear were a must, and the biting cold winds made you swear off every ungodly thing you might have done in this sorry little life. Somehow I reached Lincoln Plaza cinemas on 62nd and Broadway by 7:30pm.
My cousin was due to meet me there with a buddy of his. I called him up only to learn that he is in a cafe somewhere. Ah! Enjoyin the warmth when I am counting body parts that I was losing to frostbite. Anyway, he came soon enough, and told me that the friend would join us and that we should go inside. We bought the tickets and went into the movie theater hallowed with heat.
The movie was 'Waltz with Bashir'. It was...wait for it...an animated documentary. That is a rare genre, but enough exploited to make some kinda statement alongwith saving money.
This movie was about the recollections of a man who fought for Israel in the dark and gloomy depths of Lebanon in the 1982 Israel-Lebanon conflict. He finds, in the beginning that he cannot remember anything significant about the conflict situations. So the whole movie is his search of people who were with him (with better memories) and their recollections of how it went down...so to speak. Bashir was the name of the president elect of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, who was assassinated around that time. The Lebanese Christian Militia, also called the Phalangists, were sympathetic to the Israeli agenda, and 150 Phalangist forces routed the Sabra & Shatilla camps, hence the name "Sabra & Shatilla massacre."
The movie was disturbing, and thought-provoking. While I would support Israel in most situations, it being a democracy in a middle east riddled with theocrats is an important thing to me. The movie is amazingly poignant today in the event of the invasion of Gaza, and dare I extrapolate to the Sri Lankan annihilation of LTTE?
All in all, it was enjoyable, but tiring, because staring at subtitles for an hour and a half when you are already tired is not easy. I would recommend the movie to my serious connoisseurs, but I would prescribe some light reading of the 1982 conflict.
Later, off to some desi restaurant on Amsterdam ave. with that friend of my cousin's who caught up with us after the movie. We ate something called Gajar ka halwa there, although the color and taste failed to ring any bell. A couple of beers later, another freezing walk to the subway station, and home sweet home...