For tam bram eyes only

This post is merely my presentation of an article in The Times of India, 25^th Aug 2001 by a Ms. Vandana Parthasarthy.

It is dedicated to blue-blooded tam-brahms everywhere!

"You graduated in literature, right?" asked my young cousin. "No, in economics." I hastily clarified. "Economics honours," I added for good measure. The question coming from anyone else would have been innocuous, but from my cousin who was a third year engineering student, it was almost offending. As a card carrying member of the tamilian brahmin community, or tam brams, as the endearment goes, i knew that in his world—and that included his parents, relatives, colony friends, project group, dorm mates—someone who graduated in literature obviously did so because he or she had a learning disability. the poor thing was a freak who couldn't get admission into an engineering college or even a pitiful, but definitely more acceptable, science course. Or worse, such a specimen was a wasted wanton whose desire to do b.a. was an irresponsible, rebellious act, almost akin to joining a neo-nazi like cult group and living on the edge of civilised society.

In any such conversation with a bonafide tam bram, I find myself fervently hoping, that despite falling under the horrifying category of b.a economics, with its connotations of statistics and analysis of numbers and trends, would redeem me a little in their maths-science obsessed eyes.

For a middle class tam bram family (and that means the whole lot of them for all tam brams qualify as middle class if you take outlook and behaviour as parameters), mathematics and science are not merely subjects in the school curriculum. they are a religion. and the dharma of every tam bram student is to master them and pave his way to the heavenly portal of an IIT, or at least to the ordinary portal of a local engineering college, which the family will eventually reconcile to, in the absence of the 'real thing'.

The first time i seriously understood this was when I was in primary school and on one sunny day was gleefully reading out my final exam results to grandpa who was sitting on the porch and frowning in attention. "English: 90 percent, Hindi: 85 percent, social studies: 87 percent..." i prattled on. "How much in maths?" interrupted grandpa. "Maths: 97 percent," I said grinning widely. "What happened to the remaining marks?" was his unexpected reaction. After which he asked me to fetch the question paper, spent the next two hours going through each problem and figured out where i could have lost the precious three marks. "Nothing less than a centum in maths next time." he said finally.

'Centum' is a word unique to the tam bram world, that a child grows up listening to. It is a figure that even if sometimes elusive, is never lost sight of throughout the academic career. centum, maths, science, brilliant tutorials, engineering, iit, b.tech, computer science, usa, financial aid, I-20, student visa, MS, San Jose, California, Oracle, Microsoft, Intel. These words and names are like carefully arranged furniture in the mental landscape of a tam bram boy—and increasingly girl— below the age of 25. Care is taken not to clutter it with anything related to useless stuff like literature, history or art. Show me a tam bram boy who wants to be a fashion designer, vj, historian or air force pilot and I'll show you something wrong in his blood line. For all such are heathen, a blemish on the fair face of the community. Till about 15 years ago, the only heathens were girls who did not sing.

Formidable maamis from the neighborhood would drop in for a casual afternoon gossip session with grandmom and on espying any hapless young girls in the vicinity, would pounce on them with the dreaded entreaty, "oru paatu paadein." (sing a song). A simple three word sentence, you would think, but in maamiland it is a deceptively camouflaged barometer of the girl's cultural grooming and readiness for tam bram society (read marriage market) and her mother's efforts in making her a fine tamilian lady. a tam bram girl's singing talents always have to be on standby, as they could be called upon by anyone no matter what the time of day, nature of the occasion or profile of the audience, by simply uttering the three powerful words, "oru paatu paadein," and woe betide the girl who in shameful ignorance, takes the words at face value, like I once did in the naivete of extreme youth. When the words were uttered by a visiting neighbour, I readily accepted and joyously broke into a popular Hindi film ditty. I had finished the second paragraph when i stopped to check audience response. My mother had a strained, embarrassed smile on her face, grandmom was scowling hard, an aunt hurriedly excused herself and went inside and the venerable neighbour looked so disturbed, I thought she was on the verge of a heart attack. "Well...That was nice, but don't you sing any varnams or keerthanais?" she finally asked, after an awkward silence.

My mother hurriedly explained how in the culturally bereft north we were unable to locate a carnatic music teacher nearby...but hopefully by this summer she would manage to do something about it. that's when I realised that the only music that was expected to pour out of your mellifluous throat where classical carnatic songs. If you didn't know any, you simply shut up and ducked out of sight of visiting maamis. And if like me, you are a non-engineer-non-carnatic-trained loser of a tam bram, you should be drowning yourself in a drum full of idli batter for having wasted this lifetime. And all the best for the next one.

No Smoking? Nose poking!

Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg want India and China to quit smoking. No kidding...forget the all-consuming war in Iraq, the deficit America is suffering from, the money they owe to most countries, the erosion of international goodwill for America, the increasingly elusive universal health care etc.; two of the USA's most influential men feel that the levels of smoking and other tobacco consumption in India and China are appalling.

"A world without tobacco is a world in which people live longer, and have happier lives," Bloomberg, the mayor of New York has said. First of all, this man is the mayor of the city in which I currently reside, and I must say, it is not perfect. So his desperate desire to purge the third world of tobacco says that there is more to this than meets the eye. This extremely rich pair of businessmen is setting its sights on the two fastest developing countries in the world today.

There is one point they make which catches the eye. They say that as more and more Americans are quitting smoking, the tobacco companies are looking towards developing countries as potential markets. When people rail against tobacco companies, they describe them as evil money-making machines which target the innocent people, and avoid printing warning labels in countries where they are not mandatory. This point is often said, and to an extent it is valid.

One small problem: of the two countries being targeted for cleansing, India has statutory warnings on all cigarette packs and in China, the cigarette companies are nationalized. So the govt. controls everything for them. In truth, the image of the tobacco company as the rapacious money guzzling, "spare no health" pure evil cannot be used as a motivator for the current approach that these two philanthropists are taking.

Let us assume for a second that altruism is the only motivation for this undertaking. They are planning to put down $500 million. Aren't there better ways to spend this money? You can use it to improve conditions in the USA. Why must you interfere with other countries?

Smoking is a poisonous habit which will lead to poor health. That is my opinion. I have to admit though, that smoking is a personal choice. Longevity need not be the key to everyone's life. Some people in the world are willing to make the trade-off and lose a few years of their life in exchange for that cigarette. Even if we don't understand it, can we not respect it? And don't give me the nonsense about how second-hand smoke kills. We are living in a polluted world filled with huge hummers pouring carbon monoxide into the atmosphere, while we are driving to Burger Kings, KFCs and other harbingers of cardiac arrest, drinking till we puke, having bottles of coke with 26grams of sugar in them, but god forbid if someone around us lit up a cigarette! Also, let's not forget that these days, smokers are shunned away and pushed into corners at all places. Anyone who chooses to smoke has to consent to being treated like a second-class citizen.

Second-hand smoke is very rare these days because smoking is prohibited in almost all public places. The very idea that smoking and drug consumption are the bane of our society shows how myopic we are as a people. There is ethnic cleansing happening in so many countries where people are killing their own neighbors for being the wrong religion. People are fighting over the regions in India right now, and we have people clamoring for reservations in academic fields.

During this entire hullabaloo, the last thing we need to be blowing money on is curbing smoking. It is bad enough that Anbumani Ramadoss (read attention seeking Dramadoss) keeps taunting some or the other actor for smoking on screen. Now he is going to get international sanction and support. The USA declared a 'war on drugs' which has turned out to be a complete flop. There is no reason for it to work here.

In India, the govt. taxes the tobacco companies, and this makes cigarettes and cigars expensive. That is the best thing. Make it expensive to smoke in the country. The people who are still interested in it will have to shell out more, and with the proper segregated areas for smoking, they can have a good time without hurting other people. Must we make everything complicated? Isn't this one of those things which can be regulated easily and does not need any policing?

Just a small thought

Sometimes I have the nastiest habit of reading too much into things. On one of my "extremely frustrated" days, I went to Manhattan armed with my Nikon Coolpix S550 and decided to just walk around and look around. The thing is, I walk for hours at a stretch. Then I stop at some quiet coffee shop and have a grande whilst writing something, and then off I go again. If I see something worth photographing, I snap. You might expect the same old-same old photos of Times Square, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and the like. But that is a very small part of NYC. Manhattan has so much more to offer that, I feel I will never discover its depths even in many years.

So there I was, walking through Central Park, looking for things to capture, when I saw this amazing view. You can see it in the two amateur photos above. It is a view of a building outside the park, seen from the Park. I was trying to capture this tree stump along with the building in some warped "Nature meets man" way. As you can see in the first pic, the stump is clear, the building is not. I concluded that this was because there was too much light falling on the camera, and placed my hand as a sunshade over the camera. The next pic shows the building clearly but the tree stump takes a beating.

A normal, intelligent person would reach the conclusion that I am truly an amateur and that a professional would have found a way to get both.

I just got another idea. It looked to me like the building was encroaching upon the tree's right to our attention. Only when we starve the building of attention, do we see the tree properly. The way I see it, we have a choice. We can choose whether to blind ourselves by not allowing the light to hit us, just to further the buildings' interest, or we can wake up, embrace the truth, and save nature before we lose it altogether.

The principle at work

The primary argument of any person supporting creationism is that the entire world could not have evolved by chance, or that the principle governing the functioning of living beings cannot be randomness or chance. They have a point. What they ignore is that there is a pattern which determines what has happened and what will happen. The principle is not chance, but is randomness. It is not the randomness that people associate with chance, but that which is associated with probability.

Perhaps a more scientific way of reading this is stability. We all agree that energy is ubiquitous. No one challenges the abundance of energy. Einstein shed light on this matter by saying that the sum of matter and energy in the universe is constant, and all we have is inter-conversion. Consider the case of water in a vessel which is connected to another vessel. The shapes of the two vessels are different, and hence the volumes they can contain are different. Yet, when a liquid is poured into the vessels, it flows between the two vessels such that the height of liquid in one vessel is the same as the other connected vessel. This is not magic, or any miracle, but the property of a liquid governed by pressure due to liquid column as well as gravity, and ultimately the law of conservation of energy.

When you look at the final state of this liquid, the word that comes to mind is stability. It is towards this stability that all forms of matter and energy move. Plants, animals and of course humans cannot escape this fundamental truth. Our evolutionary progress is a spiraling one, which is an ultimate search for stability. Evolutionary biologists use various concepts like natural selection to explain this, but are unable to completely explain the principle behind natural selection. They are on the right track, but cannot give a necessary and sufficient basis for natural selection. Any evolutionary change in a species, or any activity performed by any animal, or any plant is simply not probed enough to deal with why this happens.

Creationists argue that while science can answer the how questions about life, you need a theologian to answer the why questions. To this, the great Richard Dawkins says that why questions are not always legitimate. I do agree, except on this issue. Here, the why question can be answered easily and profoundly by understanding the physical and chemical basis of most phenomena. Consider the second law of thermodynamics: Any spontaneous reaction favors an increase in entropy. This statement is represented to the layperson as "You cannot heat a substance with another substance colder than the first substance." Sounds like a redundant statement, but it is necessary. It implies that there is an inherent need in nature to even things out. Even in case of living beings. There is a tendency to attain an ultimate equilibrium which governs the behavior and changes in most living beings. One question would be, if that is the case, then why don't we reach the equilibrium that we have been threatening to reach for so many years?

I mentioned "spiraling" initially. Now is the time to elaborate. When one event happens and triggers off other adaptive events, there is a spiraling effect as those adaptive events become causes for other events. And so on. Hence, there is no completion of the full circle of cause and effect but an outward spiral which seems to go on increasing. There is a mathematical proof that I will not go into here, which says that the degree of randomness in the universe is forever increasing. Not to be bothered, this does not mean that our universe is haphazard, but in fact, it supports or rather is a bulwark for the theory that this entire firmament is based on natural selection, evening out and processes in search of the ultimate stability.

My new hero Richard Dawkins said that scientists who say they are religious are religious in a more nebulous way than zealots. They do not believe in an old man in the sky or any junk of that sort, nor do they believe in heaven or hell. They are far too smart and too well equipped with the power of critical thinking to subscribe to such naiveté. They believe that no matter how much they find out about life, the universe and the eternal connection, there will always be an unknown. It is to this unknown that they owe their grudging respect and their obeisance. It is this unknown that they consider supernatural, hitherto unconquered, but never unconquerable.

I know I am ending this abruptly and I apologize. There needs to be more, and I will write more as it comes to me.

Dissimilar grief

Tears were rolling down her eyes. He clasped her hands with one hand, and used the other to wipe her swollen cheeks. Even when she was so patently distraught, he could not help noticing the glistening tears on her perfect eyelashes. No matter what her mood, the eyelashes always seemed happy. The eyes always twinkled. It was inexplicable.

He was lost in her poetic beauty while she continued talking. As his eyes rolled towards her lips, he noticed that they were moving.

He regrouped his thoughts and refocused on the conversation. It was too much for her, she said. She was trying her best to reconcile her guilt for not loving him. She had forced herself to think that she could play this game forever, but now, she could see the truth clearly.

He knew all this. She had explained it all over the phone. He wondered why women needed to reiterate their feelings ad nauseam. It was probably guilt, he thought. Why else would she repeat something exactly as she had said it before?

He could not be blamed, he thought, for being mesmerized by her physical allure. The relationship had lasted a year, and he would miss her physical vitality the most. Maybe men are superficial, but it was the sheer physicality of her affection that had held him on in this monogamous, emotionally unavailable relationship.

The tears seemed to have stopped; she had just made a cynical joke, and laughed mirthlessly at it, while he missed the whole point, or at least the humor of it. Well, at least she was not crying anymore.

He was looking over head at a group of single girls who were good-looking. There was one among them who was definitely eye-candy. He wished for this to be over soon, so that he could resume his single life.

She spotted his roving eye, and scolded him for losing focus during the break-up. She accused him of trivializing the yearlong commitment by window-shopping so obviously.

He, of course, disagreed and desisted. What was the point of putting something on life-support, just to kill it with ceremony? If it was over, it was over. Why couldn't they move on, and not make such a big deal?

She turned beetroot red at this rebuttal. She fished through her purse and threw on the table $30 for her share of the meal. He knew, as did she, that $30 covered the entire tab and a generous tip. Still, after a year of him paying, this was a refreshing change. He did not protest.

She got up and walked out. He did not even watch her leave. He walked over to the table with the single girls. It was going to be an amazing night.

The next morning, he entered his home, with a contented smile on his lips. He switched on the music system and un-wedged his t-shirt from under the chair.

It came loose, along with a red scarf. He lifted it and was mesmerized by the smell. It was hers alright. He sat down and began to sob.

The birds, the bees & evolution

The bees are disappearing. Einstein had plainly said, "If the bee were to disappear, mankind would have only four years of existence." Colony collapse: that's what it's being called.

Entomophily is pollination by insects. Personally, I would give bee-pollination a separate status, maybe Apiphily?

Anyway, bees seem to be chief pollinators for many of the plants in today's existence. These bees, once gone, will leave behind a hash of unpollinated flowers, giving a few 'bee-free' but numbered years to live.

Bees do not fly near cell-phones. The electromagnetic radiation (radio frequency) interferes with their navigation system. We, of course, are not motivated to quit the cell phone despite its implications in various brain tumors. So, convincing people to quit the phone over bees is going to be tough.

There isn't enough research, or there isn't enough publicizing of said research in this field. With people obsessing over flag-lapel pins and pastors, it is hard to convince them of imminent dangers. The victory of gossip over learning and intelligent debate is ubiquitous. There is something about gossip that makes it flow faster from mouth to ear.

It is a translation of the age-old 'work v. play' concept, except people have (notwithstanding their predilection for fun) reacted responsibly when the dangers of their ignorance were explained to them. So, what distinguishes the iPod generation from older ones? Is it the isolation we crave that makes us callous? Are we so hyper-entitled to personal space & private lives that we abhor social thought?

I have always believed in personal goal-setting and motivated meticulousness in pursuit of said goals. Even I shudder to think of the situations which demand that we shed, or at least, suspend dogged selfishness for global or societal benefit.

We cannot waste time debating evolution v. creationism, when we are faced with a threat (albeit distant) of extinction. Extinction is a part of natural selection. Species have, since time immemorial, ceased to exist at some point due to their inability to adapt to various conditions, thus paving the way for newer, improved versions.

We however, are uniquely equipped in this evolutionary chain. We have amazing capacities of observation, which coupled with our ability to reason, gives us the necessary tools to be the difference between extinction and perpetuation.

If we wake up in time, take preventive measures, and thus stave off possible extinction, we would have, in the truest sense (albeit micro-chronic) evolved. If we see a mortal danger as the likely result of our actions, and we suspend those actions, is it not evolution?

If we ignore these warnings, we will move faster and faster towards extinction, and be the victims, (instead of survivors) of natural selection.

It has probably never happened before, that a species on the brink of being endangered was afforded by nature itself, a chance of beating it. (Temporarily)

As I think further, there have been many plants and animals which have survived & existed for a much longer span than we; while I am not comparing their mental faculties to ours, it would not be implausible that, they too (on a much smaller scale) perceived extinction as a likely outcome of their features/behaviors and shed them.

Giving in

I opened the door and went in

With a guilt inexplicable within

To get something I knew I wanted

By giving in to temptations undaunted

 

The old lady saw me and smiled

She knew what I had come for

She knew how much I resisted coming

And yet she knew I would come

 

There was finality in her glance

As if she knew I had no chance

Of limiting myself, of tethering myself

Or even regulating pleasuring myself

 

She made an expression of disapproval

Almost as if she hoped I would

Not walk down this path again

She considered me with disdain

 

I told her what I was looking for

She motioned me to a corner unseen before

I went obediently and stood aside

To let hedonism and control collide

With a clear winner, as always

Favoring pleasure over malaise

 

I took what I wanted, the heathen pleasure

A satisfaction I felt beyond measure

During my vulgar enjoyment of my fill

I saw no one, remembered nothing, and felt nevermore

 

When I was done I considered myself

With utter rebuke, and some pity

For self-control and discipline

Were disappearing from my repertoire

 

I exited the place with anger

Chiding myself for bringing

The inevitable misfortune one must expect

After a meal at Burger King

Things we do that prove we are stupid

1. We read horoscopes early in the morning newspaper, and proceed on our days trying to match the horoscope with our choices, and then read them again at night, and then marvel at the accuracy of said horoscope.
   
2. We check our email to see stupid forwards that we hate anyway but forward them anyway.
   
3. We speak loudly to people having hearing-aids.
   
4. We speak extra loudly to blind people.
   
5. When we are walking on the road, and we get a call on our cell phone, we stop and talk.
   
6. When we answer our phone, and we hear no one at the other end, the tone of our "hello" varies from short and normal to long and high pitched, as if the right frequency would squeeze an answer from the other person.
   
7. We have personal laptops, iPods and cell phones and complain that people are no longer friendly and approachable.
   
8. We watch trendsetting TV shows to learn what to do, and then watch trend spotting shows to see if everyone is doing what we do.
   
9. We claim that our privacy is invaded, when we have no problems writing our every thought on blogs.

The other month

Thunderstorms, Dunkin Donuts, and noisy people lead to only one thing - Thought escapism: the method by which we imagine new mundane things just to escape the mundaneness of everyday life.

On one of these expeditions, I was geekily thinking about weeks and months. What if every month had exactly four weeks? Just like February in a non-leap year? I mean, the extra days would pile up. We have four 30-day months, seven 31-day months, which means 8+21=29 days extra. Now, that's a whole month. (Yes, there is one extra day, but bear with me) Surely, this must have been the first thought of the Gregorians. Then they probably noticed that we would have 13 months in a year – which is of course, unacceptable! So, they decided to distribute the extra days in a patternless manner.

Most of us have noticed that in a non-leap year, February and March have identical calendars – simply because 28 is divisible by 7. Can you imagine how boring it would be for every month to look the same? No changing of the calendar. In fact, we wouldn't even need one.

The coffee cup is cooling down, and I turn my attention to it. The thunderstorm (Mumbaikars read as drizzle) has subsided, and I need to pack up and leave!

Feminizing justice

Is it just me, or is the world going upside down? The National Commission for Women (NCW) has asked that maintenance be given to a woman who is deserted by her live-in partner. They are asking for an amendment to the Section 125 of our Criminal Procedure Code, which defines 'wife'. They want the definition to include women in long-term live-in relationships. Hence, upon termination of such relationship by the man, they want him to pay alimony to his partner. This seems to be a perverse form of feminizing the laws of the country which is somehow in vogue today.

The very beauty of concubinage is in the liberal nature of it. It is seemingly taking over the youth of many developed countries who choose to exchange physical and emotional satisfaction without the ties of marriage. The lack of rules in such a system provides a flexibility which is attracting more and more people to it.

There is no need to cast moral aspersions on such a relationship, for some of the happiest relationships exist namelessly. Also, there are many valid arguments supporting the thesis that human beings are not naturally suited for monogamy, at least not all of us. Those that subscribe to such notions can enjoy the benefits of cohabitation without complications today, and they need not fear moral debasement from their peers.

But this may be pushing it a little. When a person enters into a marriage, it is pretty clear that they are in a serious relationship, and in absence of a pre-nuptial agreement, a division of the marital assets upon separation seems fair. People may approach a live-in relationship with varying levels of commitment. In such an event, forcing the issue on men to provide financial restitution to their partners should they choose to exit, seems like a flaw in the system. There is of course, no mention on any consideration to men if their liberated partner should choose to leave them. The NCW couldn't care less if the men suffered. Consider this, live in relationships are more common among the young, educated and liberated. Women of this sect are rarely abused, nor are they financially dependent on the men. If they must deserve our applause for being independent, (which they do) shouldn't they be asked to shoulder responsibility?

There is another demand of the NCW which is scaring me. They ask that adultery of the wife not be considered in divorce settlements. Now this gives some pause. A lot of states in the USA are 'no-fault', which means they don't care if any partner has been adulterous. The divorce settlement is statutory. This is pretty practical and forward. If only the NCW had asked for a complete 'no-fault' divorce law. That would be a progressive move. They ask for this to be applied to women alone, claiming that many women are wrongly accused of adultery and thus defamed. While there is some sense in that, when will this group ever consider the potential for abuse in such laws?

The man can be accused of adultery and punitive measures can be taken, but women should be exempt. I don't understand where this world is going. If someone makes a statement in public, "Women are smarter than men and they can do everything that men can, and better", he or she would get (and has got) an applause. When the President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers said that "innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers", he was boycotted and drew a lot of flak. Women walked out on him while he spoke, in a country which claims to be a beacon of free speech. I do not readily subscribe to that man's views, but I would hear him out.

I do not mention this to digress, but to point out that any success of a woman is applauded and failures are blamed on the 'glass ceiling', which I'm sure exists in some cases, though not all.

If this feminization of laws and rules, and even norms in our society is not checked, I predict a complete wave of female domination identical to the male domination that we consider neanderthal and chauvinistic. To those who feel such a wave is warranted, all I can do is remind you of the dialogue in the movie Disclosure, "a woman in power can be every bit as abusive as a man."

Now I know that I'm going to be branded a chauvinist for disagreeing with an extremely feminist point of view. I do welcome rebuttals from my small set of readers. Please debate the merits and not the emotions.

Introspection

I walked through the road

And not over it as you might think

The dust rose as it always does

And yet my eyes did not blink

All I could see was distance

And more and more of it ahead

For life is supposed to have twists and turns

In every road I fear to tread

The sides of the roads are a mystery

The sights and landmarks are so blurry

Will an image ever crystallize?

It never will, I do realize

I am born to be a wanderer

A person without a plan or care

Someone who sees no happiness

Nor does he expect it anywhere

Imagine what it must feel to feel so

When life holds no more of its pristine glow

When all that remains is curiosity

Of what the next day will bring about

Shallow ways to inject some levity

In a miasma of futility

That makes one feel he saw it all

That happiness is overrated after all

I always wake up with malaise

It'll capture me till the end of my days

Mistake not this to be suicidal

For there is no better example

Of a desire to live

To live, more than to exist

To cry and laugh and to persist

With the emotional ties that we live for

Yet, emotion is what I feel no more

The emptiness of pragmatism screams

Through its cold silence; it beckons

Me to scream too, yet

This is something I cannot do

For we are born with some wiring

That makes us to someone's bidding

Are our decisions truly our own

Or are they influenced by

Our circumstances, ties and bindings

Thus making us fatally prone

To crutches of feelings, and opinions

Of those other than our own

Humor seems to be my only crutch

It needs no emotion, no intimacy

I use it to draw a circle, which

Screams, "Keep away from me"

 

I need an obsession

I need an obsession

Something to drown myself into

To take away mundane worries

And get rid of small change

I need to exercise the

Amount of passion I have

On reserve

Nervous energy builds up

And releases itself in ways

Not very productive

I need a diversion

Something to surround myself with

To escape the easy outs offered

By food and alcohol

I need to cherish something

To wake up for a cause

To feel crazy about an entity

To take some pause

In this daily rat race

And this hunt for achievement

For the purpose of

Achievement alone

Why do we love to

Express ourselves so much

When it can be looked upon as

Subjecting unsuspecting ones to

Creative and emotional outbursts

It never ceases to make me angry

The amount of time I can waste

Obsessing over the need for

An obsession to my taste

Deny me my special search

Force me to conform

To regular laws and rules

And maybe I can find peace

There is probably no peace

Meant for some people

Languishing in wonder and doubt

Is probably their fate

Let not me be one of those

Let me find a pursuit worthy

Of my time, energy and life’s standards

For when my eyes finally close

I would like to be sorry

To miss whatever I have been doing.

It should feel like an end

To a life spent in fulfillment

Of a goal personally set

Of a target mentally formed

And though not achieved

I would like to have gone farther

Than I could imagine going on

The path to that achievement

Point of view

"And then what happened?” he asked. He had an exasperating habit of eating during these sessions. The sandwiches he ate were always the same. Peanut butter and strawberry jelly: hardly a diet of a mature person.
"Well, I went up to her and introduced myself. I got the feeling she liked what she saw and I was hoping things would go forward." Sam was amazed at his own honesty. This was a straight answer that he could not even admit to himself before this. Maybe there was something to this therapy thing. Therapists eased the atmosphere so much that talking about things became easier. They could then ask seemingly ordinary questions and cause these internal repressed feelings to diffuse to the surface.
Sam continued, “There was something about her that made me notice her from the outset. It wasn’t her long flowing black cocktail dress, nor was it her sensual walk. It wasn’t her amazingly picturesque face either. She had a face fit for a sculpture. But what made me take notice was her poise, her measured steps, every movement of hers was in complete control. It was feminine but not in the scatterbrain way, which attracts most guys. It was a confident feminine charm that I could not stop looking at. I just had to talk to her.”
“Yes. Well, you said all that. What happened next?”
Sam groaned. Of all the psychologists who are famous for making people express their feelings ad nauseam, he was the only one to get a guy who was a real page-turner. He wanted to get to the destination, and not appreciate the drive there. “She looked at me. It was a calculating look, and I immediately got the feeling that I should never have got up. She then looked at the magazine she was reading, took another casual sip of her martini and looked at me again. You won’t believe this but she stared at me for a whole minute. I felt stripped naked of all my guile. I was placed in front of her, plain and simple; and she knew why I was there. She smiled. I had no idea what that meant either. There was an irony in her look, condescension with some amusement. I was so out of my league with her.”
“Look, as your therapist, let me tell you one thing. I need you to be as colloquial and narrative in your account. Do not try to be the shrink here. Stop with the medical jargon. Put it out there. It is the only way I can get a measure of what happened.”
Sam had an impulse to get up and leave. He almost did so. But something in his knees refused to straighten, and he sat there. There was no indication of time passing. There was one clock, and it was over and behind his head. It was just for the psychologist to note the billable hours, he thought with some cynicism. Ok, let’s try what he says. Let me tone it down a bit, he thought.
“She smiled and said her name was Ashley. Nothing more, just Ashley. Sometimes girls don’t give out their last name, I guess I understand. She then motioned to the empty stool next to her. I sat there and ordered a Bud-lite. I asked her if I could buy her a drink. She nodded and asked the bartender for another Long Island iced tea.”
“That is a stiff drink. I bet you thought you could get her drunk and...” he left the sentence open for the sake of propriety.
“Ordinarily, that would have been my strategy. In this case, I knew that there was no way this woman would relinquish control of the situation. I did not even bother to think carnally. To tell you the truth, I was more intrigued than anything else. I wanted to study her, to know the source of that fortitude.” Sam smiled. Again, he acknowledged his clear agenda to the psychologist, who was now brushing bread crumbs off his suit. It was an Armani. Why he would want bread crumbs to spill on it was anybody’s guess. Sam guessed he had so many; this was not a big deal. Private practice brought a kind of affluence with it that Sam knew only too well. Again, this psychiatrist was getting out some very insightful responses from Sam while doing something really mundane with his own person. It was a gift, or a great education.
Sam continued, “I could see her eyes now, cold grey eyes. Normally, I would never be attracted to someone with unemotional eyes like hers, but the package was so appealing, that the cold eyes seemed like an asset here more than anything else. We started making small talk. She told me something about a divorce and a settlement, but all I could concentrate on was her smooth skin. It was flawless, pearlescent...divine. She then said something about Project Innocence.”
“Wait a second,” the therapist said, with his penchant for interrupting the smooth flow of thought, “Project Innocence, you mean that organization which clears inmates on death row using DNA testing? What the hell was her involvement with it?”
“What kind of therapist are you? Shouldn’t you be gently pushing me to express my feelings, instead of conducting some interview?” Sam was beyond irritation.
“I am sorry; it seemed oddly out of place in the situation I was imagining as you were narrating to me. Tell me, did you ask her to elaborate on the Project Innocence?”
“No. I found out just now what it meant. I was not really listening as intently as you think I might have. I admit that the physicality of her beauty precluded me from focusing on the content of her speech. She had finished her second drink by then. I ordered a refill for her. I was still sipping my beer, embarrassingly slow in my alcohol consumption. She asked me what I did for a living. I told her I was the chief oncologist at Mass General. She did not bat an eyelid. I was shocked. That was supposed to be my ace-in-the-hole. This line works with most women. She was remarkably unfazed. So much so that I thought she had not heard me. I was about to repeat it when she said, ‘Were you always interested in cancer or was it the case of losing a close relative at a young age which motivated you?’ “
The therapist looked at the clock and said, “Our time is almost up. Tell you what, I will extend this for another hour, so that it won’t interrupt your train of thought, and we can cancel your Thursday meeting. Is that okay?”
“Yeah sure”, said Sam. He suspected that Dr. Marks was slightly titillated by this account and wanted to hear it in its entirety. Anyway, it would be better to talk now than to repeat this some other time. “I told her that my interest in cancer was motivated by my years of volunteering for the cancer facility near my high school. ‘So, while guys your age were dreaming about hot girls, you actually devoted some of your adolescent time to cancer patients? That is commendable’, she said. I felt strangely vindicated. I mean, I have saved people in terminal cancer cases, with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, but her words somehow summed it up. All those weekends when I could have passed out having beer and dope, I was languishing with my radio-ligands and old patients missing arms and legs. I became a doctor at age 23 and an oncologist at age 25. It was a record, but I always felt like I sacrificed too much...”
“Hey, you are digressing...” Dr. Marks said, “Get back to the scene, and tell me more of what you did.”
Sam was distracted by the constant interruptions and manipulation of the conversation. Well, it was pretty clear who was flying this plane, so he imagined the situation in his mind’s eye, and continued narrating, “She walked over to the jukebox, and selected ‘Strangers in the Night’ by Frank Sinatra. She did not bother asking me to dance; she was moving with the song on her own. I knew she was getting tipsy and I went to her myself...I mean come on...what better chance would I get? I clasped her left hand with my right and slid my left hand around her smooth hips. She was even more beautiful to hold than behold. Her perfume wafted over to me. It was tantalizing. She never spoke a word; we just danced, slowly. Occasionally, she smiled, more to herself than me. I am pretty sure I did not mean anymore to her than just some company. Anyway, I mustered up all my courage and asked her if she would accompany me to my hotel room. It turned out she stayed in the same hotel. She collected her purse from the bar and we went up to my room.”
Dr. Marks’ interest was piqued. “You say you just met this woman; and she was willing to accompany you to your hotel room? From your account of what happened so far, I would never have guessed that you made such a favorable impression! Tell me, what did you think will happen?”
“Come on doctor, we both know exactly what I had in mind. She obviously had the same in mind. It was a connection that neither one could understand, certainly I was more in the dark than she. As we entered the room, she fixed us a nightcap, and we kissed. It was amazing. For a woman whom I just met and then brought up to my room, it did not feel tawdry at all. Things took their normal course and I remember drifting off to sleep.”
“Now wait a second. Don’t you think you have glossed over an important part of this story?”
“Hey doc, I am willing to discuss my feelings as much as you want, but you are not getting any lurid details from me. Anyway, when I woke up, I had a bad hangover. I fumbled around the bed in the dark, but I could not feel her. Either she had gone to the bathroom, or to her own room. I was up anyway, so I went to the bathroom. I opened the door...and that’s when I saw her.”
Dr. Marks was confused, “I thought she had left?”
“I thought so too, but there she was, lying on the floor, motionless. I tried to shake her awake. I even did CPR and chest compressions. She seemed to have a very faint pulse.”
“Sam! Don’t tell me you could not revive her!”
“No doctor, the thing is I could not get her help without attracting attention. Come on, you know how that would look. I am a respected oncologist; I have a wife and two kids. There was no way I could let myself be caught this way. I had to leave.”
“Wait a second; did you just leave the hotel? I mean, is she lying in that bathroom even now?”
Sam’s cheeks flushed. He knew there was no danger in telling the therapist the truth. “I had no choice Dr. Marks. I had to leave. I switched off all lights and packed quietly. I checked out in ten minutes. She did not wake up all that time. I had no choice.”
“Sam, as your psychologist, I am telling you. Anything you tell me is strictly confidential. I will never reveal the details of any discussion we have. You know that. So tell me, is she still there. Do you think she is dead?”
“First of all, Dr. Marks, you are not permitted to reveal if I told you that I killed someone. But if I tell you that a girl was dying and that I ran away from the scene, that is an ongoing crime and you are free to report it. Anyway, I don’t know what happened to her. My professional opinion is that she is dead, and will soon be discovered by the authorities. This happened two nights ago. This thing will get out for sure.”
Dr. Marks considered this for a second. He then said, after some thinking, “I would never reveal, no matter what. If you say she is dead, I believe you. Did she give you her last name, or just Ashley?”
“No last name, all she said was Ashley.” Sam now wondered why a woman willing to sleep with him would not give her last name. It was too convoluted to make sense. Anyway, he was out of it, at least temporarily. The bar was dark and it was likely no one saw them go up together. Also, he could always argue that she probably came into the room after he checked out. So, he was safe.
Dr. Marks stood up. “As intrigued as I am with this event; we really need to conclude our discussion. I have another patient scheduled in five minutes. Don’t worry; your secret is safe with me.”
Sam walked to the door, and said, “I did not do it, you know that right...I mean if she is dead, which I think she is, I did not do it.”
“Yes Sam, I do know it. Goodbye.”
The door closed.
Ten minutes later, Ms. Peters walked in, her blond hair gleaming. “I am so sorry I’m late. Things have been crazy with me for a week or so.”
“That’s ok, Ms. Peters, tell me, how are things with you?” Dr. Marks could not help staring at her.
“Things have been wild. This weekend was upside down. Anyway, please call me Ashley.”

Dilemma

It was a Sunday afternoon...evening actually except these temperate days are so long in summer, no wonder these people delude themselves by extending afternoon so much that it obscenely encroaches upon evening, which evening then forays into nighttime. Anyway, I was standing at this bus stop in DC waiting for a bus to NY. There were no labels indicating this was the actual bus stop. In true geeky fashion, I had a printout of the e-ticket with google map directions on how to get to a bus stop. It was a cheap bus and the stops were not clearly marked.

I was not sure and needed to confirm with someone else whether this was the actual bus stop. I needed to ask someone. Let’s consider this for a second. George Carlin famously opined, “Imagine the person with average intelligence. Now remember that half the people are dumber than him.” Ok, so it is not a verbatim account, but you get the picture. With my luck being the way it is and with Murphy being my companion from toddlerhood to youth, the odds were against me getting to ask confirmation from a bright person. Here I did not pause to think as to where it puts me on the intelligence Gaussian scale to have to ask someone for confirmation of a bus stop.

The guy I spotted was Indian looking. Now, the first thought is relief. Hey, this guy can probably relate to a fellow desi’s confusion in the West. Hey at least I am not like those FOBs who ask for directions after scanning the geography for a brown guy! Or wait, am I?

Ok, so this dude is Indian-looking. He might have been born here, which creates a major problem. How do I ask him the question? Do I ask in Hindi? What if he is a south Indian? Most European languages work with these guys, but Hindi they have not warmed up to yet! English would be the right choice, come on...he is here, stealing American jobs; he must know the damn language!

More importantly, how do I ask? Do I ask in my regular style or in a hammed up American accent safely stored in the arsenal of any Indian in the USA? The hammed accent might work, unless of course he is a newly entered desi. In that case, he would see through it easily, and I would have handed him a great story for the daaru parties! Stupid ass! I’d rather wait for the bus and hope it comes here.

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? Ah it is the east, and there is a hot girl in a halter top standing alone! Yup, I am asking her. I would ask her the time or the day of the week or whatever came to mind. And here I have a legitimate question. And here, without a doubt, the hammed up American accent is the best! If I was European, I would have had a sexy exotic accent, but Indians are uniquely disadvantaged in this department.

I move confidently ahead till I am really close, poised with my accented question well rehearsed, and the original desi asks her the same question! She replies that she too is waiting for the bus to the big apple and it would arrive here. I was too close to pretend I did not hear it and ask for an encore. The desi screwed my mojo. And they wonder why Indians hate each other! Did I mention he is a stupid ass? And now the bus arrives. And I know there is going to be some obese guy with beef breath spilling onto my seat while that desi will get the pretty girl next to him. Did I mention he is a stupid ass?

I left the perfect city

I am a Mumbaikar. Through and through. So heat and humidity, pollution and noise..bring it on. Crowds are most welcome. I guess with India progressing at such a demonic rate, crowds, noise and other forms of pollution are a given in most cities. There is something about Mumbai, though. Be it the roadside food vendors, or the oft complained about but most adored train service, this city is so embedded in our DNA that it has an effect, or rather a controlling interest in our daily lives.

No matter where we are.

New York City is an amazing place, and to a Mumbaikar, life in NYC is finding a mistress who looks like your wife, but is more attractive for the sheer thrill of a new catch. Having said that, all it does is seem like a shadow of the city of dreams. They call NYC the city that never sleeps, but I call Bombay the city that breathes. It breathes and has a heartbeat and a pulse, which is resonant with every instinct we possess. It is more than a dwelling, or even a place of fun. It is a feeling, which is so organic to our being that, it has a vitality that even NYC pales in comparison to.

The mornings in Bombay were philosophical. It was truly a city where people came with little, and it absorbed them, lovingly and without condition. The morning symbolized, no wait, it inspired, no no wait some more, it engendered hope. I have been through a lot in my life, ok not a lot but it always seemed like a lot when it happened to me. The Mumbai morning, however, bleached me with the sunrays, scolding me for my negative thoughts, showing me the less fortunate but more determined: The paper boy who grew up parallel to me, who distributed papers and fresh flowers to pay for his admission in a municipality like school, the maidservant whose children starved literally, but she never came to work with anything but a smile, were my teachers in the meaning of determination. They have raised the bar so high and set such an example for me: an example I am doing a lousy job living up to.

Anything can happen in this city. This was the city torn asunder by four strategically placed bombs in trains of the western railway, and the same city which was humbled by a deluge we like to know as 26/7. This was the same city declared by Reader's Digest as the "rudest city in the world." And you know what, we are guilty as charged.

To hell with politeness, we have no time in Mumbai. The 7:30am bus, if missed meant that I would miss my 8:11am train, which made me cranky for my 9:30am class, because I have just taken a crowded train exchanging little beads with of perspiration with total strangers. If someone met me on the warpath at such a time, they would be predisposed to thinking we are the rude inhabitants of a city.

I love Bombay, unconditionally and truly, right from Gateway of India to Thane Creek (read large gutter), right from Marine Drive to the rat infested Dadar station, right from yakking obese ladies forming the video of the video-coach that we fought to get into to the fat sweaty paper reader with enough oil in his hair to solve the world's energy problems.

I miss Bombay, more than anything else, and I am going there soon. I hope it accepts me, with grudging love and some anger quite akin to the wife who forgives her adulterous but penitent husband.