Writing Life

Seven Days in Concord: The Old North Bridge

2011-09-15T15:29:00.005+02:00

So...I never said it would be seven consecutive days would it? It has been a lovely summer thus far. The weather has been wonderful and on days it was too hot I realized that one of the things I *love* about being back in the US is air conditioning. Yes, sometimes it's too cold and it's not that great for the environment but man, sometimes it's also just that little bit of heaven to step in from a 100 degree plus day right into the coolness of refrigerated air. So sue me...I'm human.

On day two of your virtual journey to Concord we will tour the old north bridge. For all you Americans and history buffs out there...this is where the revolution began. Combine your love of American history with the love of poetry and you come to Ralph Waldo Emerson's lovely poem to commemorate this event in 1837 in his poem "Concord Hymn." I am not much of an Emerson fan but these lines surely resonate to the anti-colonialist in all of us:

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world."

I consider our current times some of the darkest days of American history when the GOP is trying to drag us backwards with their no-evolution, leave sick people to die, let's invade the world stances, the economy is in a slump it's not been in over 50 years and there is close to 10% unemployment. Then I remember the shift made by the people whose descendants still live in the Lexington-Concord area. They went from being British subjects to rebels, rebels with a cause. The revolution was not led by people who wanted to go back, they took up arms, these embattled farmers so they could go forward, to become citizens instead of subjects. And citizens are engaged, they have a voice but they also want to know the truth. I hope, for my adopted country, that we become engaged. Even if we are philosophically conservative we can be intelligent. We can believe in God (if we do, I don't) and still believe in evolution. It's not an either/or scenario. Yes, this is what I thought as I ran my hands across the warm wood of the bridge that day and looked across at Daniel Chester's French's statue of the Minuteman with Emerson's quote engraved on the pedestal on which it stood. By the way you might know French from another statue he made: the Lincoln Memorial statue. Ring a bell? But I digress.

I wonder what the real Minutemen, those brave men who faced down the British empire would think of the pretenders in their name? They were willing to die to liberate their country. They didn't hunt poor, desperate Mexicans on their borders. They were the underdogs, they didn't create the underdogs.

Even as I walked past the peaceful bridge and looked across at the picturesque boat house and the intrepid people canoeing and boating down the Assabet river I was filled with a sense of strange belonging. America and India are not that far apart when we think of our shared colonial past. And our anti-colonial past. We too fought...albeit without guns...to liberate ourselves from the British. We shared a dream. And to various degrees both countries have veered from their onward paths. But paths loop back don't they? I hope both my countries will loop back to the place where we can go forward again.

You have been warned: places with histories like the old north bridge make me sentimental and optimistic in the most sickening ways...as chick-flicks do to others.

Seven Days in Concord: Orchard House

2011-04-11T01:57:00.009+02:00

My mother gave me 'Little Women.' I must have been 10. And I was hooked. I went on to read all the others. But that first book, that first glimpse of Marmee and Jo and Beth and Amy and Meg and, even the genial Mr. March remained my favorite. And I imagined how it must have looked, that New England house where the fictional lives of the March family was lived out. In later years I discovered how Little Women was essentially a fictionalized memoir of the Alcott family of Concord, MA.

And, here I was, living just two miles away from my childhood fascination. So, yesterday, on a blue-skied Saturday I went off to Orchard House.

I took the guided tour led by one those quintessential Boston ladies, with a precise upper-crust accent (no pahking of cahs here). And I saw it all: the front parlor where Meg married John (that would be the real-life Anna who married John Pratt) under the loving gaze of her family and friends, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The man who married them was her uncle, an ardent abolitionist.

I stood in Bronson Alcott's study, decorated with a bust of Mr. Alcott at around age 79. This was sculpted by Daniel Foster French. As a very young man, French actually took lessons in sculpture from the artist in the family, May (Amy, in the novels). You know French? He not only created the Minuteman statue that stands in Lexington but also that little statue known as the Lincoln Memorial in DC.

In May's bedroom (as in her studio and other rooms of the home) were drawings and paintings, sometimes painted directly on the wall. The Alcotts were rather enlightened folk for their times, encouraging their daughters in all their endeavours. If May wanted to paint on the walls, that was what was right for her. There was a striking portrait of a young, black girl in the bedroom. And there was photograph of her baby, the little Louisa May or Lulu. Six months after her birth her young mother died and her father (he was Swiss. How small is this world?) sent her to live with the woman for whom she was named. She lived with her aunt until the latter's death at age 55, at which time she returned to Europe.

And then, there is Louisa May's bedroom. Her portrait hangs on the wall, an pictures of owls (she loved them so her sister painted them for her) on the wall. Underneath her portrait is her desk, built for her by her father at a time when desks for women were definitely frowned upon.

All throughout I became aware of how exceptional this family was. Bronson Alcott (Papa March), himself self-educated and from humble roots was an ardent supporter of not just womens' education but had revolutionary ideas about childrens' education. At The Temple School, which he founded in Boston, he created a curriculum that emphasized music, art and physical exercise for girls and boys. The school failed for two reasons: one, because he accepted a black child as student and two, because he had the Bible as a textbook. Parents and clergy were concerned about the audacity to let children analyze and discover the Bible for themselves as a book, and not necessarily the word of God. It was only later in life that his efforts were recognized when he was appointed the Concord Superintendent of Schools.

Louisa May Alcott embroidered her work a bit. The Little Women waited for Papa to come home from the Civil War. In reality, the person who went to war was a 30-year old Louisa (the ages of the March girls were made younger as well). She was a nurse and eventually contracted typhoid. She was given medications which were essentially... mercury. She suffered terribly, with aches and pains, depression and other ailments.

Louisa May was a literary success and eventually became the bread-winner of her family. She also never married and struggled with her publisher and her fans in their desire to get Jo and Laurie married. She refused to get Jo married at all, and eventually gave in, creating Dr. Baer, the older, slightly portly, German who was very like her father.

Alcotts (the Pratts) still live in Concord. And their descendants live in Germany and perhaps Switzerland too. And life comes full-circle. Whereas I was giddy with delight about Byron and Shelley in Switzerland, here I stand at Orchard House and wonder if, while I lived in Geneva, I might have brushed against an Alcott somewhere.

Outside, I looked at the 12-acres of apple orchard that gave the house its name. I touched the wood of the strangely Gothic-looking Concord School of Philosophy (another endeavour of Papa Alcott who was a transcendalist, along with his friends, Emerson and Thoreau). Up the hill was the location where a tenant farmer's shack had once stood. When the Alcotts bought Orchard House, they put the shack on logs, rolled it down the hill and joined it to the main house. The joints are still visible inside the house.

The wind ruffled the trees and I closed my eyes, breathing in a perfect New England day. Then I walked to the front door and pretended I was there, in the 1860's, coming to Orchard House to visit my friend Jo. I pretended to use the lion's-head door knocker. I took a picture and a horn sounded on the road behind. And the past remained the closed door it always is.

Among the clouds

2011-03-26T00:26:00.006+01:00

So...I'm on my way to California. Nope, I don't mean I am leaving soon or that I am sitting at the airport, or on my way to the airport. I mean I am actually on the way...in progress, sitting in seat 11D, smushed in next to two fellow-travelers, sipping a Diet Coke.

This morning as my plane lined up (number 2 for take-off) at Logan International Airport and lumbered onto the runway, the Atlantic Ocean glistened deeply blue. And I took a few minutes to ponder this modern miracle. In a few hours I would be across a continent, touching down towards another ocean as the evening shadows descended upon that beautiful city by the bay.

I am not an adrenaline junkie (really Jawahara? Do tell us more after this shocking announcement) but there are few things as exhilirating to me as taking off in giant plane. The short stop. And then the sudden rush of power and speed and that almost effortless lift off. You can tell me about aerodynamics and air flow or whatever but there is a little bit of magic in flight.

Ever since Dedalus's ill-fated adventure captured our imagination humans have been obsessed with flying in the skies. Perhaps even before that. And why not? Despite the hum of the engines, when else can we fly above the clouds?

And now this. Sitting (uncomfortably) at 32,000 feet I tap into a wifi signal, update my facebook status and my blog. Or is this sad? That I cannot unplug even for a few hours? I'm not sure. This is the first time for me. If I make it a habit it would make me worry. But for right now I am reveling in the newness of it. In front of me is a familiar screen. Next to me is....nothing. The sun is shining pink-golden light onto the dappled clouds below us and I feel a world away from civil wars, earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear meltdowns. It feels like a respite.

So I look out at the clouds below, watch a distant plane fly beside us and take in this new plugged reality. So, friends of my blog...hello from the clouds. Of course, with all this magic...there is something still missing. Yep...my computer is running out of juice and there seems to be no magical way to recharge it...at least no in cattle class.

Crossing a Street in Spring

2011-03-17T17:58:00.008+01:00

If you and I are Facebook friends you've seen my album of Boston in Spring pics. The last I lived in the Boston area I hated it. I mean *HATED* it. I looked for things to hate...and there are plenty (potholes that can swallow cars, rude people, the grayness, the crumbling infrastructure, the very fact that it was not California and never would be...wait, that last one was more about me, wasn't it?)

Like I said I tried to find things to hate and then felt justified in falling deeper and deeper in hatred with Boston. This time I decided to make it a do over. (Did I mention that I had do-overs in....wait for it...California???!!!! already). And now California is my Shangri-la, my city on the hill...where I hope to live forever and ever in Jawahara heaven! Oh well, on to Operation Boston Love.

So Tuesday dawned bright and blue and wonderful and off I went to meet a new friend. She lives in town, on Beacon Hill no less, two blocks from Boston Common. We had a great meal at a lovely Italian place called Fig. Right across from us were quaint, cost the earth little shops on Charles Street, a specialty food store (DeLuca's I think), and lovely little bistros and ice cream shops.

Then we walked back to her place....for some freshly brewed Nespresso. I had the Ristretto. It was lovely. Ok, yes, you don't share my passion for the Nespresso...but we bonded something fierce. She's European, she loves Nespresso and has the coolest penthouse pad. And did I mention the Nespresso?

I walked back to my cart that was parked under Boston Common. I walked through the Public Gardens. And I was struck by how just...well beautiful it was. The grass was not really green yet but it was getting there. Even though my backyard still has snow out in the 'burbs, the gardens were devoid of any white stuff. People were walking dogs (one woman had 6), the bronze ducks (inspired by Make Way for the Ducklings) were decked out in the finest, gaudiest Mardi Gras beads, couples lazed on park benches, and everything gleamed in the way they in the first nice days of Spring.

And I felt alive. And happy.

There was Washington's statue, the general and horse frozen mid-stride. There was other statues. The lagoon was drained of water and a few geese and ducks had gathered near a mud-hole in the center of it, cackling loudly. The world was coming alive, climbing out of our long winter.

I crossed the street and entered Boston Common. This is where Bostonians of old grazed their cattle and sometimes got together for bit of family fun and togethernesss...to watch public executions. You know...fun times! Now it's peaceful, verdant....full of joggers and walkers and tiny fashionistas with their tiny dogs dressed in pink winter-wear: both dog and owners. The tall buildings around us gleamed in the strong sunlight, the dome of the State House glistened. Then I heard a jingling bell, yes, the tourist trams were running. No duck tours yet but it's still early.

It was wonderful and I tried not to believe that there was rain forecast for Wednesday. How could that be? Just look at this bright, beautiful day. How could there be rain tomorrow.

I paid my parking ticket. $22! Yes, 20 fucking 2 dollars!!! I guess there will be rain tomorrow. And there was. Tons, buckets of rain! Arrrghhh!

Dirty Secrets: Snow and Caffeine

2011-03-09T20:03:00.005+01:00

So...the snow is melting and the skies are blue and inexplicably I am a little bit sad. This terrible winter we had was almost like a living thing...an adversary. And for so long it won and kept on winning. Now it's in retreat and there is something sad about a routed enemy. Oh well! I will get over it I'm sure..and apart from my two and a half readers I am not letting in anyone else into this dirty little secret. I am waiting for all the snow to be gone and then I will embark on the great Concord Literary Tour. I plan to do one day (or two) going to Walden Pond, the Alcott House and other locations literary in my new home. So...stay tuned.

As those who move from Europe, especially somewhat chi-chi Switzerland know we love our Nespresso machines. So I have one and I love it. I make my renverses, take in the aroma, close my eyes and for a moment am transported back to Geneva. While I was in Geneva, when I was homesick I'd spend time at Starbucks. It was almost like being in a little enclave of the US..and there was free Wifi. Great to hang out, write, meet up with others, etc. But here's my secret....I *hate* Starbucks coffee. To me it tastes burnt, like the beans were over-roasted. Oh well! Waah! Now, that I am back in the US I went to Starbucks a few times because....yes it reminded me of being in Geneva. I am weird, I know...but do you think Starbucks is a wormhole, a conduit between countries and worlds.

However, I usually drink fizzy water there or sometimes a light coffee frapp. But now, back in the North-East, especially in the great state of Massachusetts, I have succumbed to our own special coffee addiction. Yes, Dunkin Donuts folks. Down and dirty, coffee (and they put in the milk and sugar for you if you're not a black drinker). I still have my Nespresso but every couple of days I have to stop by and pick up a "medium hot, milk and sugar." And I *love* it.

There you have it: Geneva and Bawston living side by side within me. These are my dirty secrets.....or at least some of them.

Welcome back World

2011-03-03T03:25:00.002+01:00

Or is it the blogging world and my two-and-a-half readers who welcome me back? Regardless. I hope to blog about once a week. Sometimes when so much is happening I go into survival and shut-down mode. There was leaving Geneva and my friends, the packing, the moving, our things that arrived in three installments, a vacation in India in the middle of it all, a wonderful birthday. And the worst winter I have ever experienced and I've been in some bad winter situations...but this New England winter was history making and one for the record books. But I survived it all! And I am still here. So...yay!

And trying to settle into life in Concord. You know I still haven't been to the Alcott House or to Walden Pond. I guess I was hibernating for the winter. But as the snow piles grow ever shorter and the day becomes just a little bit longer... I am starting to come out of my hiatus.

Here's to 2011, to my new life, to all whom I love...and just to life in general. More later.

...and the Zombie Chicken goes to...

2010-10-14T17:15:00.004+02:00

me! Well, technically it went to me in April 2009 but heck it's my first and to date only award so I am giving myself permission to be utterly thrilled. Thank you Midlife Jobhunter for this wonderful award. I think it's the coolest one out there.

The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all...

So I pass on this award to these bloggers whose work I always enjoy:

Swiss Family Hendricks
Appalachian Roots
Beth Loves Bollywood
The Mighty Mom...even though she is not blogging any more and I wish she would
Blogpourri

Since this was serious overkill after not blogging for months, that's all folks.

Of straws and twigs

2010-10-14T16:29:00.002+02:00

I think I haven't blogged much lately: (a)I got lazy and was able to condense my thoughts into Facebook soundbytes and (b)I like blogs that are accompanied by photographs and I haven't transferred any to my computer lately because of sheer laziness...okay so both points are really the same, but like, yeah, whatever!

But I have aspirations to be a writer and isn't the purpose of being one to be able to communicate without illustrations and pretty pictures. For heaven's sake, I want to be a 'big-people's' writer as I used to refer to books without pictures when I was a kid. And if there is one thing big-people's writers don't need it's pictures. Yes, I am of the time when graphic novels were known by another name...comic books! Zing! And, if you're a graphic novel afficianado....yes, yes I know they're artistic visions or whatever. They're still comic books to me.

So today I lost my clothes drier and some other stuff. Well, not lost, but strangers came to my house, paid me a pittance and took away my things. Yes, I know I advertized for them to do so but it feels wrong.

This move feels a bit of a bereavement or a divorce or something. The washer sits forlornly disconnected from its water and electricity supply, wires dangling amputated, missing its constant companion. Soon the washer too will go to someone else's house and wash their clothes. Ewww!

Okay, it's not like I'm a freak (ok I am but not *that* kind of freak) attached to inanimate, electronic devices that beep and flash lights. It's that these things are my straws and twigs. You know the kind that birds gather to build their nests. As they say in Hindi, tinka, tinka lekar ghar banaya, and now it is being scattered. You've seen those birds search for the exact right length of twig, how they test the springiness or rigidity of a twig, discarding most, selecting a few, padding it with softness to make a home. And so did I. And so did we all, in our own ways, with our own likes and dislikes and styles.

Sure, most important are the living beings in my house and soon we will have another house and this one will become just a memory, but it is elemental, this hurt of seeing my bits of straw and twigs blowing away. It's not easy, this dismantling of a home. No one said it was easy but I don't remember it being quite this hard either.

....so this was my first moving post and I did it without any pictures.

Meanwhile...back in Puplinge

2010-10-13T18:42:00.005+02:00

Forgive me O Blogosphere (otherwise known as my five readers), it has been more than four months since my last post. And a lot has happened. A lot.

Well, okay one major thing has happened. Remember those saat samundar paar (across the seven seas) stories from your childhood? Those epic journeys that carried dashing heroes and intrepid heroines far from home towards adventure and love and whatever else!

I've had two of those journeys across the seven seas: Number 1 as really a young'un to the shores...errr..the blue grasses of Kentucky from the Ganga kinarey of Allahabad.

Number two, more than 20 years later from the snootiness of Boston to the chocolate box prettiness and genuinely wealthy environs of Switzerland. And we settled in the little village of Puplinge which had once been part of Savoy territory and joined the Confederation Helvetique (CH - the real name of Switzerland dont'cha know) and is now barely a hop and skip away (if you can do that for one km) from neighboring France, the little town of Ambilly.

Life in this border village of ours has been one of serenity, beauty, friendship. We have vineyards and fields and on clear days impressive views of the Alps and of Mont Blanc. I had friends I met for coffee and wine in the evening and cards at night. We met them at one of our two local restaurants across the road from each other, a 2-5 minute walk from anywhere in the village. We could walk back inebriated after delicious and fun dinners from their homes and they could do the same from ours.

You know how this is going to end, don't you? All the old cliches come to mind: all good things must come to an end, etc. etc. The younger me might have railed against letting go of this idyllic life. The older (though not always wiser) me knows that life is ephemeral and happiness is a dew drop. I enjoyed my Swiss contentment but now it is time to move on.

To a place I never cared for when I lived there: Boston. But I plan to go back with a better attitude, to find the things, the people, the aura that makes Boston unique and loveable and to live in that. If and when we move on from there so be it. Until then I will enjoy New England's fall colors, tuck into lobster feasts and love its accents.

Perhaps I am sanguine because I am moving to that most literary of Massachussett towns: Concord. Yes, home to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott among others. Find your three-name authors in Concord. Come November, there will be another three-name (aspiring one) calling Concord home. Moi!

Watch this space for updates...and a recording of my Concord life when I get there. C'est la vie!

What's Your Verdict?

2010-06-08T20:16:00.005+02:00

In December 2009 I had written about the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy that remains till date the worst industrial accident in history. And I was surprised by the number of people who did not remember it at all.

So, things changed. Union Carbide received a face-lift over the years and became Dow Chemicals. Oh yeah, Warren Anderson continues to live the good life in the Hamptons after skipping out on bail from India during the 1980's. Hypocrisy and self-interest and politicking are still very much alive. And U.S. double standards. They're alive and well too. I'm sorry...did I say things have changed? I meant nothing has changed.

Except of course for the verdict? Yes, didn't you hear? All eight Indians accused in the case have been sentenced to two years in prison (yes you read that right too). But this is a lower court verdict so let's not put people in cells right now. Now the case goes onto higher courts.

Twenty-five, almost 26 years later we have this verdict with the main accused still absconding. While through the years people have died agonizing deaths, babies have been born with severe birth defects and none of the poor affected people have received much in terms of true compensation, adequate medical let alone vindication.

But President Obama hopes the verdict brings "closure" to the families. Really, President Obama? What happened to the honest, open, erudite *real* human being I voted for? When did he become a clone? To be honest I kind of expected that...the nature of the presidency and all...but still it hurts.

What else did the U.S. do to commemorate this event?

1. It ruled out the reopening of any new enquiries against Union Carbide (now Dow).

2. It continued to ignore extradition requests for Warren Anderson and refused to even discuss it.

What else?

3. Oh yes, it expressed its hope that this verdict (long enough coming) wouldn't inhibit the political and economic ties between India and the U.S. and that it wouldn't impact the passage of the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.

You know what's sadder? India too will walk away from the 25,000 dead who died that night and the hundreds of thousands (yes you read that right) of others who have died because of the leak in the almost twenty six years it took to reach this verdict.

Because ultimately what matters is trade and gaining a place among nations of note. In the meantime the Gulf of Mexico continues being over-run with oil. Who will be the losers? The people of the area, the unfortunate living creatures who call the waters and the coast home, and the environment.

Who will escape unscathed? BP and the U.S. Admininstration. But you can bet that if the U.S. tries to charge some BP head honcho he ain't going to be living it up in the Hamptons. Like I said....hypocrisy and double standards are still alive. As is the proven notion that some lives are more precious than others.

These are the things I know to be true. What do you think?

I am not a Bollywood Blogger But...II

2010-02-28T18:44:00.008+01:00

But...yes...despite it I like the fact that Bollywood has been appropriated, embraced even by the Hindi film industry. It's not unwieldy, it glides off the tongue and there's something cheekily subversive about it...taking on a pejorative term invented by former colonial masters and exported to the rest of the world. And, for some reason it has created more hindi cinema lovers because it has made the movies more accessible. So...Bollywood it is, though still with reservations. Sorry...old habits die hard, especially when you're growing old.

Now I'll put my pet peeve aside and do my promised film post. This post was inspired by memsaab's love of Laxmi Chhaya and by Indiequill's posting of one of my favorite songs from Mera Gaon Mera Desh...and one I insisted on singing at the top of my voice when I was little. How annoying was I? Very!

In the 1970's my father was posted to all these small towns in U.P. They were small enough not to have automatic exchanges. So....you'd pick up the phone and ask the operator to dial Mr. or Mrs. So and So's number. One of these was Farrukhabad. It's where a lot of my sentient memories begin and, apparently with good reason. At that time...and perhaps even now it was a district (something like a county with the town itself as a sort of headquarters with villages surrounding it) known for among other things dacoities. Yes, that's banditry. In my imagination dacoits thundered into villages on beautiful horses. The truth was a bit more prosaic. The richer ones used jeeps, and others simply walked in. However, when I think of dacoits I still think horses. It's all those movies. My parents were right. They did rot my brain.

I've been trying to find this reference for ages (someone?) but there was some 1970's daku movie where the said bad-guy was about to be hanged for his crimes. His last request? To be hanged facing Farrukhabad. The crowds in the theater in Farrukhabad would erupt with cheers, forcing the projectionist to re-play the scene over and over again. It was the biggest hit in that district even if it flopped at other places in India.

Did I mention that Farrukhabad had just two or three movie theaters and that during summer vacations that was our major entertainment? Of course we had to wait weeks for the movies to change or re-watch the same ones over and over again. One of the theaters had a major bed-bug infestation, one had seats with protruding springs. One was brand spanking new and another was just being built while we were there.

This was the town in which I saw Sholay (Embers)--that iconic Indian movie--and other daku movies. And Sholay and every other daku movie became entwined in my mind with that time and that place and my kiddie self. We lived on the top of a small hill, with a tributary of the Ganga flowing just under the abrupt cliff on the other side. Down the hill from us lived the Superintendent of Police (SP)and at the bottom lived the Chief Medical Officer (CMO). My dad was the District Magistrate (DM) and our hill therefore, was guarded around the clock by U.P Police's finest. If you wandered around at night or if you visited our place after dark, a voice would ring out in the dark: "Savdhan (Caution)" and "Halt! Who goes there?"

The response had to be "Friend." Of course I realized quickly that everyone knew this *code* and I was always terrifed that local dacoits would storm the place by shouting out "Friend" I was even more scared when I learned that the bandits would sometimes dress up as cops during their raids. Somehow the same cops who lived in barracks with their families on the property and were very indulgent with me as the DM sahib's daughter, playing games with me, telling me stories; transformed into something sinister at night. I remember (after reading some Enid Blyton secret kiddie club book) telling my father that we should rotate the secret code every night to throw off the dakus. To a child, even a DM's residence surrounded by cops 24 X 7 was not safe and I had nightmares about home invasions. Yes, I was just a slightly over-wrought, imaginative child. But perhaps it was natural that living in such a place would send my imagination into over-drive.

The years we lived Farrukhabad, now play like a looped folk-tale in my head. There were a few active dacoits in the area and the local paper (two-pages long) reported all the incidents in lurid detail. One dacoit was called Shivdan Kacchi (the last name denoted his caste--a boatman I think). In retrospect all these bandits had some sad tale of caste warfare and lack of opportunity. Remember, this is just before Phoolan Devi started wreaking her own wave of terror in the Chambal valley.

How does all this relate to Bollywood? Well, Shivdan Kacchi was killed in a police encounter, when he came to visit his long-time lover who betrayed him to the police. Tragic! Among his possessions was a little song book. Witnesses (including his lover) talked about how he watched every daku movie, emulating their style, and that before killing his usually trussed up victims he would sing to them. His favorite song? Maar diya jaye, ke chhor diya jaye (Should you be killed, or should I let you go?) from Mera Gaon Mera Desh (My Village, My Land). Art imitating life imitating art. It makes my head spin. While others see the amazing Laxmi Chhaya (and yes indiequill, Dharam must have adored Asha and her questionable headgear to not go for her) I see this frustrated singer, driven to become a heartless killer. How cinematic is that?

Once we toured the local prison--one of the biggest in U.P. and saw how the prisoners lived. There was an imposing man dressed in impeccable white, a huge red tilak on his forehead. Other prisoners would routinely come by and touch his feet every morning. He came to present my father with a list of issues being faced by them (too many pebbles in the dal, not enough spices for their liking etc.). Before presenting the arzi, on behalf of the prisoners he put a huge garland of flowers around my father's neck and folded his hands in the most dramatic namaskar I have ever seen. He was an anomaly for a bandit because he was a high-caste Brahmin but that might also have been why the others revered him so much and why he had carved out a niche for himself.

He smiled at me and asked permission to give me a flower, a marigold I think. I was totally entranced with him. He looked like something out of a movie. I later (years later) learned that he was some sort of priest for the local bandits in his area. Before heading out on raids they touched his feet for luck. Also, he had once thrown six babies and little children into a fire to teach a lesson to a village that had the temerity to protest their repeated raids. Then he presided over the slaughter of others in the family and the village.

To me, therefore, because of where I lived during, the 1970's are quintessentially about dacoit movies. Yes, there were the cravats and the dancing and cabaret-Helen and totally amazing villainish lairs, and huge collars and hideous brocade wallpaper, and Prem Chopra. But to me, nothing says the '70's more than rough n' rocky daku hideouts, Amitabh and Dharmendra and Amjad Khan and folk-dancing-Helen and the incandescent Laxmi Chhaya. And, oh yes, Vinod Khanna in Mera Gaon, Mera Desh! I was really little when I watched that movie but I remember being terrified of him and totally freaked out that my teenage sister (10 years older than me) had a crush on him. Then I saw the movie later...and oh my...Vinod Khanna...Phew! See...I am lost for words. Yummmyyy!! Doesn't he totally leap off the screen in Maar diya ke chhor diya jaye? He was my first crush I think.

After that, even though for a girl from Allahabad it was heresy not to have Amitabh as her first love, there was always a place in my heart for Vinod. His sons cannot hold a candle to him. Sorry, it had to be said. I only fell more in love with him in Qurbani which came out around the time I was about to hit my teens.

I hadn't thought about Farrukhabad or daku movies for a long time, until I read indiequill's blog and then wandered through all the Bollywood Bloggers posts about the 1970's, especially memsaab. Thanks beth for this great idea! Sorry for crashing the party and then, for writing a rather un-Bollywood post, but I was held captive to the Farrukhabad muse...and it sang to me. Maybe it's poor Shivdan Kachchi's spirit.

The 1970's were not only about crazy-amazing paisa vasool or even daku movies, it has become for me a decade of re-discovery. And isn't most re-discovery ultimately about discovering another part of yourself? Or perhaps that's just my narcissism. Whatever!

I'm not a Bollywood Blogger But... I

2010-02-28T10:11:00.005+01:00

I pre-date Bollywood. In fact I detest the word. First, my pet peeves:

1. While to most people outside India, all Indian movies are Bollywood, the word refers *only* to the Mumbai-based Hindi film industry. This leaves out the rich (though dying in some cases) regional cinema, as well as artsy, small films that don't have blaring songs, a million costume changes and OTT melodrama. And now the monster that is Bollywood is gobbling up these little and little-known movies created by India's other film industries. A shame!

2.The word itself was coined by some smart-mouth BBC guy in a totally pejorative way, making fun of the Hindi film industry. It was, as we know, a combo of Bombay + Hollywood. So, shouldn't it now be Mollywood to reflect the name change? The Shiv Sena needs to get on this ASAP.

3. To die-hard fans (and even not so die-hard ones) this makes the largest film industry in the world (at one point it made 900 odd movies a year!) a poor reflection, an even poorer cousin and a totally destitute hanger-on of Hollywood. Whereas, of course, the hindi film indstury developed almost simultaneously with its Western counterpart and is almost as old. Plus, even as Hollywood has almost decimated film industries in other countries, hindi film fans have held strong and so has the industry. The movies are so different from Hollywood, that its world-wide fans (not just Indians and diaspora but in the middle-east, other parts of Asia, etc.) remain loyal and growing, making it *still* the largest, though not the richest film industry in the world.

4. A few months ago, during the episode of the pink sari and the holy cows, one of the people who later went on to bemoan her lost freedom of speech aka being able to get away with stereotyped racism complimented me. So, why am I bitching? All will be made clear now. I was wearing a turquoise skirt.
"You look so pretty in that color."
"Thanks," I mumble always uncomfortable with compliments and perhaps sensing what was to come.
"You know you remind me of this Bollywood movie I saw."
"Really?" I cringe.
"Yes...oh what was it? Yes...Bride and Prejudice."

I politely made my escape after thanking her again. Yes, I'm a coward but I try to be a polite one. Bride and fucking Prejudice is *not* a Bollywood movie. Correction, it's not an Indian/Hindi movie. It's made by a British woman of Indian origin. . Perhaps it's a diaporic tale or a story about immigrants. While we are on this topic, Gandhi, Bend it Like Beckham, or Slumdog Millionaire are not Bollywood movies either though I have sometimes seen them classifed as such. They are British movies, made by British film-makers that happen to have Indian stories and/or actors. This doesn't mean these movies are not great. Despite its problems Gandhi is one of my favorite movies and so is Bend it, but they are *not* Indian movies.

Calling any of these movies Bollywood is like saying Captain Corelli's Mandolin was an Italian film or The Da Vinci Code was a French-Vatican City-Scotland production. Perhaps all those movies supposedly in NYC but filmed in Vancouver are Canadian? Putting in a few shimmery costumes in a movie alongwith pretty ladies and dashes of tragic things like poverty and the proper behavior of girls in immigrant families do not an Indian movie make.

Indian movies (Hindi or not) have their own sensibility, their way of being and more than that they are Indian because they are made in India by other Indians for Indians inside the country and the diaspora. This doesn't make them better or worse...for we know they regularly still churn out dreck. It's just what they are and what they are not.

And even as a diasporic Indian who has not lived in India for a couple of decades there are evenings during which only an Indian movie will do, some emotions that are only plumbed when Amitabh speaks and Vinod twirls his moustache and SRK trembles his voice. It's part of me, in my blood and even as I despise certain aspects of Bollywoodism I cannot escape it.

So...I am not a Bollywood writer but in the spirit of Bollywood Blogging about the best movies of the 1970's, put into my motion by a wonderful blogger called bethlovesbollywood.blogspot.com...I will write I'm Not a Bollywood Blogger But...II tomorrow. And yes, it will be about the 1970's.

Could it beee Satannn?

2010-02-15T19:12:00.001+01:00

Whether you got the old SNL reference or not...my newest blog post is on The Banned Books blog.

Read it! :-)

The Day after January 30

2010-01-31T11:22:00.003+01:00

For the generations who grew up thinking of Gandhi--the man India reveres still as its father, and as a Mahatama--as Ben Kingsley, or as the apparation from the Munnabhai movie, something real gets lost.

Gandhi was above all, a man of simplicity. And I don't mean simple as in uncomplicated, but simple as in rapier-sharp, getting to the heart of the matter, to the center of an issue, with unerring accuracy simple.

What would you do if you were told that the foreign power who ruled you would now levy tax on the salt you eat? Would you start walking 400 km towards the sea to make your own salt? Would you do so despite the threat of violence, despite not really knowing that others would follow? Would you care? Perhaps that was his true power? He started walking and others followed...thousands of them in a simultaneous protest against the British. And millions more across India engaged in acts of what Gandhi *never* called passive resistance....but active Satyagrah.

For Gandhi, non-violence was never *passive*...it was active in a way that took on the truncheons and batons rained against human skulls by a massive war machine. Was it not active? That taking of a single step...after step...after step...walking towards a waiting force whose only objective was to injure you...kill you even. It was active, not to run away but to advance, knowing that your satyagrah (satya=truth + agraha=holding firmly to) involved no retalation, for even by injuring the one injuring you, by resisting the injury you might lost your moral ascendancy.

And what else did a once-rich country systematically looted of its riches have left? Its people could not rule it, they did not own it, and sovereigns in another land, far away, reduced it to merely the jewel in *their* crown. It was Gandhian simplicity then that captured the imagination and the hearts of Indians...and not just the rich, elite, Oxford-educated Indians of the Congress Party but the poor destitute ones, the real power of a humbled country.

It was one such simple yet controvorsial decision that might have cost Gandhi his life. Heart-sick over the bloody partition that gave India and Pakistan their freedom, but tore apart a nation, he resolved to, and announced something we still argue about. He picked up his trust wooden staff, walked away and said he would go to Pakistan, barely a year after independence to mend fences. Non-violence and principles were paramount for him, humbling himself...humbling India even in the quest for these principles was fine by him. This decision of his was viewed askance even by the Congress Party but he was not beholden to it, for he never held any office. He was not a politician, and even in independent India he remained a maverick, a thorn in the side to the establishment, even to those who loved him and called him their mahatama. But no one viewed this affront to India more severely than certain members of the RSS.

There were five attempts on his life, and it was the fifth by Nathuram Godse that took it. That was January 30, 1948. One gun-shot in the chest is what finally killed the satyagrahi.

It happened as---as always without security--Gandhi met his assassin on his way to his public prayer meeting. He was shot, and for some, Godse became the true patriot, the true Indian, willing to risk it all for a principle. It was ironic, this battle of principles. It still remains so.

Gandhi became an icon, for India, and of the world. An icon even for Albert Einstein who said of him, "“Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this walked the earth in flesh and blood.”

It was later that same day in late January, that a shaken Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made the speech that every schoolchild of my generation memorized. For truly, for a young and nascent India carved out through violence and suffering the light must have seemed to have gone out of our lives. How would we survive this?

Whether you agree with all of his thoughts and ideals, of all his decisions, no one can ignore that Gandhi lived his own life by those same exacting ideals. And as we enter into the second decade of the twenty-first century, when simplicity is a quaint construct, perhaps we should remember the essence of Gandhian simplicity.

It involves not fasting and protest and eating only fuits and vegetables or weaving your own cloth. Perhaps in our new world simplicity means using the shortest and simplest route to your dreams. If Gandhi could dream of an independent India and inspire others to do it, perhaps we can take the shortest, most direct routess to our own dreams. Perhaps! Perhaps we can all be Gandhian in that sense!

So on this day, the day after the 62nd anniversary of the death of a visionary, we can at least dream our dreams and think about how we can achieve them. And perhaps we can set apart a minute from our busy day and truly ponder what Gandhi meant for India...and for the world.

It's January 26th Again...

2010-01-26T08:50:00.004+01:00

There is a lot made of Indian Independence day which is on 15th August--and is also incidentally my wedding anniversary, but that's another post. But India goes all out and I mean all out on January 26. There is a grand parade in the capital, major celebrations throughout for the 26th is surely something to celebrate. It was on January 26, 1950, three years after India gained its independence in 1947, that India truly became a nation. It was on this date that India formally adopted its own constitution and became a true republic, embraced its standing in the world as a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular Democratic Republic.

It was no longer a country in a limbo after the departure of the British, but a nation with its own constitution. Yes, it's a flawed one, and at 450 articles the longest in the world, but it is something all Indians, within the country or outside of it, should be proud. The constitution committee was headed by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a member of the scheduled caste of India, yes, the people now called dalit and those in the West who go by the catchy moniker of untouchable. It was a huge step forward and an inspirational one.

And no matter that I still wonder at some of the foibles of the Indian constitution--the fact that we have one, and the fact that the world's largest democracy had managed to function as such (apart from a couple of emergency years under Mrs. G) in a volatile region (flanked by Pakistan and Bangladesh, with Sri Lanka at its southern tip) is remarkable.

Despite what other problems we have in India we are still a people who are governned by the people and that is no small thing in a nation as large, as diverse, and as populated as India. We the People....could there have been sweeter words at the end of our struggle against colonialism?

"We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, Social, Economic, and Political;
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship
EQUALITY of status and opportunity; and to promote among them all;
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;

IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do hereby ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION”

And so, yet again, I am proud and humbled to share my own birthday with the true birth of India's nationhood.

I've still never made it to the Republic Day parade in New Delhi but I just might one of these days. Jai Hind!

When So-Called Art Imitates Parody

2010-01-23T20:54:00.005+01:00

Compare the homeless to yourself and your life. What do they have--apart from their freedom, sleeping under the stars, not doing much of anything, a life-long enforced reduced calorie diet plan--that you don't?

A sense of style that's what. Think of the wonderful accessories you'll never have...well not unless you decide to rid yourself of all the things that bog you down, of course--your home, family, car, money, heating in winter, clothes that coordinate. Think instead of the amazing sense of style of a trash bag as a garment, the bohemian deliciousness of living in a cardboard box, the casual chic of a shopping cart to hold all your aluminum cans and the occasional feral cat or raccoon. Aaaah....I smell...fashion. Ummm no....that's just the really bad body odor and the feral animal...or both. Never mind!

If you thought Derelicte was only a dreamed up bit of funny in the movie Zoolander, think again. Never let it be said that high-end designers are out of touch with reality. Perhaps they're making size 00 and size 0 dresses because that's the only size the homeless tend to be underneath the bulk of the oh-so practical yet chic layers of newspaper, shredded sweaters, and large, shapeless jackets. They're hiding their fierce bodies. Work it ladies n'gents!

For there is a designer who is paying true homage to homelessness...by creating a collection based on...you guessed it homeless people. I find myself humbled and inspired by Dame Vivienne Westwood's new autumn-winter collection at Milan. This is the press release from Milan Fashion Week: "Perhaps the oddest of heroes to emerge this season, Vivienne Westwood found inspiration in the roving vagrant whose daily get-up is a battle gear for the harsh weather conditions...Quilted bombers and snug hoodies also well well in keeping the vagrant warm."

That is, of course, if the vagrant can afford thousands of Euros for one of her jackets.

What is scarier still is if you compare this statement to the one issued by the evil Mugatu (who recruits male models for political assassinations) in Zoolander: "Let me show you Derelicte. It is a fashion, a way of life inspired by the homeless, the vagrants, the crack whores that make this wonderful city so unique."

If there is one thing the homeless love more than hot coffee, an occasional meal, shelter, and some warm clothes in winter it's being an inspiration to pampered, rich folk. It's humbling for them I'm sure. Aaah...the homeless!

Of homelessness itself, Westwood had this to say: "The nearest I have come to it is
going home and finding I don't have my door key...I mean, what a disaster that is, dying to get in your house and you can't."

What a disaster indeed. What if you had to pee or need a lie-down on your 10,000 thread-count sheets? I can't bear to think of it. The horror, the tragedy. And they say charity and empathy are dead. Vivienne Westwood you bring a tear...yes at least one tear to my eye.

Here is a quote from the Times Online story on the show: "Some carried bedrolls. Another emerged from his cardboard box with a sleeping bag, slung it around his neck and quickly walked away.

Several hundred fashion experts burst into rapturous applause as the cameras flashed. Dame Vivienne Westwood was presenting a menswear show at Museo della Permanente, Milan, last night in which the models were supposed to look like rough-sleepers. Read the whole story here.

And when you do, ponder how unlucky you are...to be sitting in a warm room, in front of a computer, perhaps with a lovely cup of fragrant tea or a steaming mug of coffee, with your family around you. Life sucks if you aren't sleeping in a cold alley...mainly because your jammies aren't stylish unlike the vagrant's mis-matched, layered fashions. It's just not fair, is it? Thank you Muga....ummm...Vivienne Westwood.

Now I must go practice my blue steel look...and perhaps even the magnum! Keep your fingers crossed for me. Maybe I'll go out and observe a few homeless people tonight. It's cold though...they're probably huddled under newspapers in an alley somewhere. Damn!

I tried to find the actual Derelicte fashion show clip but here's another one from Zoolander. Note Mugatu's trash bag cravat...and the Derelicte sign on the runway. Enjoy!

Happy 2010

2010-01-08T17:00:00.000+01:00

A quick note to say Happy 2010 all...no matter how you say it. Is it Twenty ten? Or Two thousand and 10? Or just 10? Whatever you call it, may it be happy for you.

Oh yes, there's a blog announcement here.

Urban Cowboys and Starbucks in NYC

2009-12-24T23:33:00.006+01:00

As I sat on the 1 train, heading downtown, three urban cowboys got into the car. Red and white sharply pressed shirts, string ties, tight, shiny jeans, and cowboy boots with spurs. One guitarist, one keyboardist, one lead singer. They sang Feliz Navidad. I gave them a couple of dollars but they moved on before I could snap a picture. They were rather good for traveling musicians.

Now, I am sitting somewhere which could be anywhere in this corporate world of ours. Starbucks on 72nd street and Broadway, and I have free wifi. It's bitterly cold but the streets are full of people. I think, for these next few days, they will give generously to the beggars who sit still on the frozen ground, watching the ankles of the world go by. Is it guilt or a desire to share the season? It doesn't matter to the recipients. They are just glad I think. They have warm rooms for the homeless and the rootless at various places in the city. It's hard to be without a place to call home, especially in this frantic city.

My coffee tastes the same as it does everywhere else. It's warming...and the caffeine buzz is almost instant.

To all my readers (yes, all 10 of you :-)...on this Chritmas Eve of 2009, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and as our corporate overlord Starbucks commands, Hope...and Joy! You better do it!

Death Came By One Night

2009-12-03T20:47:00.007+01:00

Twenty-five years ago today, December 3, 1984, death came to Bhopal as it slept. The nearby Union Carbide (now Dow Chemicals) plant leaked methyl isocyanate (MIC) and other toxins in the air, exposing half a million people to deadly gases. About 4000 people died instantly. A few days later it was estimated that double that number died. In the years after the tragedy, babies were born with an inordinate number of birth defects, and survivors suffered a host of exposure-related illnesses. It is now estimated that 20,000 have died since the accident of gas-related reasons. An additional 100,000 to 200,000 battle the ill-effects of the leak even now.

I remember, as a young teenager, waking up to the news of the gas leak. And in the days that followed, I had nightmares about the dead. One photograph in particular has stuck in my mind even after all these years, and I believe it might be one that most people still think of when they think of Bhopal. A hand, palm down is caught in the process of burying a child. All you can see are the staring dead eyes, the mouth slightly open. And that the greyness of the ground and the skin of the child are virtually the same.

Twenty-five years have passed and those who lived through the gas leak and those who lost someone are still without any recompense. Not a recompense as much as money to help with their considerable medical expenses. It's sad really when we have frivolous lawsuits in the U.S. (hot McDonald's coffee anyone?) and when the Erin Brokovich's of the world have movies made about them.

There are no movies about Bhopal perhaps because there are no heroes. Perhaps because the only true heroes are the ones who survived that night when death crept in slowly and soundlessly. They went on, and despite poverty and the lack of wherewithal to fight against a powerful nexus of corporate greed and government laxity...they live on. But we don't venerate quiet power do we? We want our heroes to smash down barriers to live an arc of cinematic grandeur. And no one in Bhopal did that.

Twenty-five years later this is what we know:

1. Even now there are some 390 tons of toxic chemicals abandoned at the Union Carbide site, slowly leaching into the ground, continuing to poison those who live in the area.

2. There are currently civil and criminal cases pending at the District Court of Bhopal and at the US District Court of Manhattan. There is even a warrant out for the CEO of Union Carbide at the time, Warren Anderson. Yet no one, that's right no one has been arrested, let alone prosecuted for neglilence leading to essentually,
mass murder. Warren Anderson has never been extradided to face charges and lives in luxury in Bridgehampton, NY.

3. This was not merely an accident. it was pure negligence. Union Carbide used hazardous chemicals like MIC despite the availability of less dangerous ones. The chemicals weres stored in large tanks instead of in steel drums. There was corrosion in the pipelines and there was multiple failure of several systems due to poor maintenance and regulations. In fact, safety systems were shut down to save money. There had also been previous warnings and accidents. In fact in 1981 American experts had warned of the possibility of a disaster in the MIC tank, and local authorities had warned Union Carbide on several occasions from 1979 onwards.

Did Union Carbide ignore these warnings due to pure hubris or because it was situated among the poor of Bhopal and their lives truly had no value?

4. There was some compensation paid. Widows of the tragedy received Rs 150 (later raised to Rs 750) a month. Yes, that's about USD 3-15. About Rs. 200 was given to everyone who was born before the tragedy. That's about USD 10. A one-time payment of Rs 1,500 (about USD 38) was paid to all families with a monthly income of less than Rs 5000 (USD 100). Other payments are of equally ludicrous amounts.

The final payment by Union Carbide (for over 20,000 deaths and about 200,000+) affected was $470 million. That sounds like a huge amount until you compare it to the $333 million paid out to the plaintiffs of Hinckley, CA for the contamination of their ground water by Pacific Gas and Electric (Erin Brokovich)....and this was an issue that affected 40...yes 40 homes!

As if the sum decided upon by the Government of India and Union Carbide was not bad enough, the local and state government corruption in the state of Madhya Pradesh, has done its bit to victimize those who had already lost so much on that cold December night 25 years ago. This has taken the form of lost paperwork, paying out more money to richer people with connections, not acknowledging that birth defects or deformities were directly caused by the gas leak, delayed payments, etc.

Did I mention there were and are no heroes in Bhopal? There are some unsung ones, those without panache or sex appeal. There are NGOs in Bhopal working for the victims and for the cause of justice but not much is happening. And isn't true heroism striving even when the results are unknown?

But it is up to us to not forget, to remember the horrors of that night, to continue to support NGOs and others working for the victims of Bhopal. I know I can't ever forget because those dead eyes will haunt me no matter where I am. Those eyes and the question I see in their sightless gaze.

Guitwilight

2009-11-23T15:04:00.003+01:00

Ok, so I am not part of the screaming women screaming for Twilight and Robert Pattinson. And *gasp* I haven't read the Twilight saga. But it's impossible to steer clear of the frenzy, and a couple of nights ago I even watched the first movie when it showed up on a Sky movie channel. If I was a teenager I'd swoon too. Young Robert is rather yummy but alarmingly pale.

But let's face it, vampires are not new. I used to love Dracula movies, and of, course there's something incredibly sensual and even sexual about being loved by the undead I suppose. And yes, I even read and watched Interview with a Vampire though I was squidged out by then 8-year old Kirsten Dunst locking lips with a grown-up Brad Pitt.

Vampires are old hat, whether they be pale teenagers with James Dean hair or a cloaked Count yearning for his Mina. So...what can you do to put a twist on an old favorite? Fear not, I have found the answer where all answers are to be found...the Internet of course.

This is to my pals (you know who you are) who are Twilight addicts. You know you're the best, so enjoy this new take on an age-old fave.

Guinew Moon from Electric Spoofaloo on Take180.com

Of Winds and Poets and Me

2009-10-26T11:26:00.007+01:00

I have a confession. I wasn't always in love with Lord Byron. There was a time, brief though it was, when another poet ruled my heart and still comes a close second to Byron. Initially, there was something repulsive about Byron, what with his debauchery, his lusty affairs...the incest. All the things that would later make him fascinating were a bit much for a child. Okay, maybe I was still fascinating but in an icky way. I needed to be a little older (13? 14?) to swoon for Byron's dark moodiness.

But my first dead poetic crush was someone close to Byron, their lives intertwined. Yes, Shelley. I know, I know. He was a bit icky (open marriage anyone?) too but he did have that delicious renegade quality, the romance of the exile, the tangled life...and all by the time he was 26 when he drowned. Most tragic!

A few weeks ago the Bise was whipping around Geneva, pushing me from the back as I walked, tangling my hair into a bird's nest around me. And it started me thinking of all things wind-related.

How the wind becomes part of our literary selves? How we ascribe certain attributes to the winds we experience.

In my childhood in India, there was the loo (no...not a toilet). The loo is a hot, dry wind that blows during the height of summer in the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Rather than doubling my efforts, here is how I describe the loo in my novel The Burden of Foreknowledge (2007).

"When the loo blows, it brings with it the heat of the desert and its gritty sand, driving people indoors for refuge. I go out to feed our cows and it slithers up my nostrils until I choke. I gasp for breath trying to suck in the thin, super-heated air. It is as if a fiery serpent is trying to make its home inside me.

Just as I think I cannot bear it any more, I stumble back inside. The wind haunts us for days, whistling and whining like an angry, vengeful ghost. If I venture outside I wind a wet cloth around my head...."

But it was also the loo that made watermelons and melons ripen to perfect sweetness, as the dryness sucked out the excess water and concentrated the sugars. It makes Indian mangoes into the almost mythical fruit that they are.

In Switzerland, I encoutered the Bise, French for "a light kiss." Let me tell you, there is nothing light about it. It should be French for a "kick in the ass." It is fierce, is generally dry and attacks us from northern climes. The only upside is that it is accompanies blue, clear skies. It creates beautiful days but, as the loo can kill a human being through almost instant dehydration (within hours, even minutes), the Bise acts on the nervous system. How I don't know. It sounds pleasant but I need to research it some more.

Victor Hugo wrote a poem, Le Bise about it.
"Le bise le bruit d'un geant qui soupire;
La fenetre palpite et la port respire;
Le vent d'hiver glapit sous les tuile des toits;
Le feu fait a mon atre une pale dorure;

Le trou de ma serrure
Me souffle sur les doigts."

(Bad translation but here goes:
The Bise is a brutish giant who sighs
The window flutters and the harbor breathes
The winter wind yelps under the roof tiles
The fire has been guilding my atre (??) blade.

Through the hole of the lock
I feel the wind's breath on my fingers)

That's me 'enjoying' a windy evening by the lake. Freezing! Note the hair whipping around, the scrunched eyes, and the frantic waves on our usually calm lake.

We are also lucky(?) in Switzerland to sometimes be treated to the Mistral, arguably the wind with the most beautiful name. Isn't it a lovely name for a girl? The Mistral too is strong, cold and usually dry and passes through the Rhone valleys. It can cause Mediterranean storms. In the Provencal Christmas crib there is usually always a shepherd who holds his hat, his cloak billowing around him because of the Mistral. Sadly, but appropriately, a French missile has been named Mistral.

Interesting isn't it, that we are rarely moved by gentle breezes. Winds are elemental. They create weather systems and born because of them. They have well-worn paths and we can trace the seasons through the winds that are part of our lives.

And, why was it, when I lived in the land of the hot loo, when we looked forward to winter for relief from summer, that the one poem I loved was about a wind. Yes, for it was his lovely Ode to the West Wing that made me fall in love with Shelley. It's a little bit dark, even macabre, it's fanciful, it talks about the power of the wind, its twin roles as destroyer and preserver, and touches on the circle of seasons and that of life. It leaves the reader with hope. Here it is:

Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1803-1882)

I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: 0 thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave,until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

II

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

What to do? We're like this only

2009-10-17T13:47:00.002+02:00

There are stereotypes and then there are stereotypes. And, if they're intelligently or funnily done....I like 'em. :-)

Here we are. Find out about Indians in 90 seconds. Enjoy!

Guilt Money

2009-10-07T12:49:00.004+02:00

In front of the WTO building.

He was waiting on the median, waiting for the cars to stop.

The Porsches, the Mercedes', a Bentley, a Rolls, and others.

Leaning heavily on his cane, his eyes fixed downwards he limped from car to car.

Some windows never came down, others waved him away.

A quick hand emerged from some, dropped a coin or two in his cupped palm.

Guilt money is what I gave him.
A few francs into his hand.

Merci, he said..

His eyes skittered away from mine.

And I saw the barely formed peach fuzz on his chin, by his side-burns.

I've seen beggars all my life and, yes, sometimes they all tend to blend in.

But sometimes, one of them unwittingly reaches out and breaks through the curtain that separates us in this land of plenty, of more than plenty.

Does the money go on drink? Drugs? To a crime boss?

Or does it buy something to eat? A brief respite from the hardness of the tarmac underfoot? Some softness in a life where other options have been discarded?

We can never know this.

Do guilt money givers deserve to know this?

Do I need to know what my guilt money buys for the temporarily visible?

In the side-view mirror I watch his body twist and sway as he makes his slow way down the line of cars behind me.

And I think again of the smooth peach-fuzz. He was somebody's baby once, not so long ago?

Held. Loved. Fed.

What happened?

Mumps in the Time of Dussehra

2009-09-28T18:31:00.006+02:00

As Rama fitted an arrow to his bow and sent it winging across to the giant effigy of Ravana setting it aflame, I felt a tide of heat spreading between my skin and my flesh. I sidled over to my mother and rested my forehead against her arm. A lot must have happened after that but that's all I remember of the Dussehra when I was nine. My super-heated skin was only the first symptom. I woke up the next morning with a jawline that would've made a bull-frog jealous.

The mumps lasted for about ten days and was forever linked in my mind with Dussehra. This ten-day holiday builds to a crescendo. Rama, the son of Dashratha, was the crown prince of Ayodhya was sentened to exile for 14 years because of the machinations of Kaikeyi, the king's third wife. She wanted her own son Bharata to rule. Following Rama into exile was his brother Lakshmana and his wife Sita, the daughter of the earth goddess. Bharata disappointed his mother by refusing to rule in stead of his brother, that most perfect of men, and in fact an avatar of Lord Vishnu, the Preserver. He dealt with the affairs of state but the pride of place, the actual ruler of Ayodhya was Rama himself, represented by his humble slippers that his brother kept on the throne.

The Ramayana, an ancient epic was written by the sage Valmiki and follows the various events in Rama's life. During the exile Sita was kidnapped by Ravana, the king of Lanka, setting in motion a war that was staggering in its magnitude. Helped by the monkey-god Hanuman and his army, Rama's troops built a bridge of rocks to cross over to the golden isle of Lanka.

Typified as the ultimate victory of good over evil, Rama decimated Ravana, his brothers and his army.

And now, on the final and tenth day, Ravana (ten-headed and awe-inspiring) is set ablaze, along with this two brothers. The nights preceding Dussehra are celebrations in themselves.

I remember the floats that would wind their way around the city. Bedecked with thousands of lights, would be Hanuman, tearing open his heart to show the image within...Rama and Sita. There's Sita stepping across the Lakshman rekha...the line drawn by Lakshman when he left to search for his missing brother in the forest. And Ravana, dressed as a sage, mocking and angry with Sita's refusal to step over the magical line, until she did and was captured. Each float a diorama of some famous scene from the Ramayana.

In smaller cities and in separate localities in larger ones, was the Ram Leela. I remember, going to see the Ram Leela in a village. I forget which village, how old I was or even when this was. But I remember watching the beautiful Sita's five o'clock shadow, her voice intermittently masculine...and yet my disbelief was suspended, for she was Sita. Sita the long-suffering, faithful wife, who was later cast aside because of aspersions cast on her character by a washerman.

And, years later, when her husband repented and arrived at her ashram refuge to take her back, she handed him his twin sons Luv and Kush, and praying for her mother to take her to her bosom. Whereupon the earth opened up and gathered her daughter to her, leaving Rama, the ideal man, confused by this silent subversion.

But that would be later.

A few weeks after Dussehra will be Diwali. The Indian festival of lights, when a triumphant Rama returned to his kingdom. And each and every home celebrated the return of their King Rama, their queen Sita, and their Prince Lakshman by lighting lamps. Now people use little fairy lights or even candles to light their homes for Diwali.

But even that is later.

Today is Dussehra, when long ago, my body succumbed to germs, but for an instant, I could believe that a scrawny, balding man actually shot an arrow to bring down a demon. And as Ravana and his brothers burned, the sparks lit up the skies, and even as my head hurt and my fever rose, I could not get away from the magic that is Dussehra.

In other parts of India, during this same time is celebrated Durga Puja, where the goddess Durga (the consort of Shiva, and source of shakti, or power) triumphed over another demon.

The message, of course is that this is the time of year when we cleanse ourselves of all evil, thought and deed, celebrate what is good. We celebrate our campaign towards ridding ourselves of evil. And at least for an instant, we are pure. Before the coming year takes its toll, we have conquered evil, even if the victory will not last.

Happy Dusshra! Shubho Bijoya!

My newest blog post....

2009-09-25T18:27:00.001+02:00

....is on my newly revived banned books group blog. Check it out.

Picking Flowers in Geneva

2009-09-24T19:22:00.008+02:00

Just a couple of miles from my house is a field of flowers. I drive past at least a few times a week. What does that sign say?

Perhaps I need to take a closer look? Ah yes, it says, one franc per flower. Note the handy little box (attached to the pole) into which I'll need to leave the cash.

I think I'll get some. Where to begin?

There, we have them. Hmmm...time to do the math and count the blooms. Aaah! Nothing like fresh flowers.

That most beautiful moon

2009-09-22T17:03:00.004+02:00

I don't celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr any more. But I did once, when I still lived in Allahabad, with my family. And in recent times the images of those times in my childhood come back to me. And even beyond my loss of faith lies the pull of Eid. But I rarely think of the day itself though I do remember my red satin gharara trimmed with gold gota that I begged for when I was 6. And I had bright red sandals with a tiny gold bell on each foot, all topped off by a red ribbon in my very scant and straggly hair. But I felt beautiful and that's all that counted. I'm glad no photographs survive.

But most of my memories of Eid are of time before the day. And they are all of evenings.

Alvida, which means farewell, is the last Friday before Eid. That's when Eid shopping hits a frenzy. Satins and silks to make new clothes, gold and silver trimmings, all the ingredients for cooking sumptuous feasts, glistening glass bangles and gold or silver jewelry. The traditional markets stay open late on Alvida. There is a sense of restrained anticipation, a sense of relief that Ramzan will soon be over.

I still call it Ramzan as we did through the years, not this new Arabicized Ramadhan nonsense for me. When I was a child Ramzan used to be in summer. The month of fasting moves by about every 10 days every year. Yes, I am old.

After Alvida there was always a sense of restlesness. Fasting during summer with its oven-like heat and long days was torture. I only fasted for a few days every Ramzan, usually over the weekend. I would start out with excitement , but by the time aftar approached, I could feel my tongue, thick in my mouth, and my throat swollen with thirst. I was never very pious so the final minute or so my eyes would devour whatever spread lay in front of me until I could taste the sweet luciousness of the date, the spiciness of the pakoras and ahhhh...the blessed liquid coolness of ice water. We were not so lavish in our spreads in our home, for the real purpose of Ramzan was reflection and self-denial and a sort of spiritual growth, not the obsession with food that most people have that is almost anorexic in its focus. After all, Ramzan was the month during which the Quran was revealed, and it was to be a time of self-examination, austerity, and prayer. Eid was the culmination of this month that was to be quiet and reflective. Eid was a celebration of life, of the revelation of the Quran, that Muslims believe is the ultimate miracle of their faith.

I might not have looked forward to Eid much but there was one thing I did anticipate. Chand Raat, the night of the moon. After Alvida our eyes would turn to the night skies every night. We hoped there were no clouds and we scanned the heavends for the new moon. For after the new moon that had ushered in Ramzan and its alternate orgies of fasting and feasting, the moon had waxed, then waned, until it faded away completely. And Eid could only be the day after the new moon, full of its promise arose in a thin sliver in the sky. The Islamic calendar is lunar, and the reason Eid is not every on the same day across the world is because of the vagaries of the lunar cycle. And the fact, that the most pious demand visual verification of the new moon by the naked eye even if new-fangled meteorological devices proclaim categorically that the new moon had risen. Of course, there were always allegations that the merchants looking for one more night of frenzied shopping would sometimes pay off the local priests so that Eid could be delayed by one night even if the moon was spottted or confirmed. Hence the denial of the evidence new-fangled electronics.

"Chand dikh gaya," someone would shout out as twilight fell, and we'd assemble on our terraces, in our courtyards or anywhere just outside and probe the darkness.

"There it is, to the left of that tree," that voice would say, and we would all look to to the left of the tree. And then all would spot it. Someone would give thanks to Allah, others would pray. There was always this moment of silence, of waiting, as the night darkened and that oh-so shimmering sliver partial hoop hung suspended in the sky, beyond the sillhouette of a swaying tree. It was magic.

When I was a child it was wonderful this sense of anticipation for a moon that most months grew, died and was reborn with no ceremony. As I grew older Eid became synonymous with a flood of well-wishers which meant lots of cooking, lots of greeting and serving people. Eid became smiling drudgery, from about 10 in the morning when my father returned from the mosque (Eid and Bakr-Eid were the only times my father said his prayers, especially in the mosque) and the first visitors arrived with him, to sometimes 11 at night, when the final stragglers left.

I've never liked sewai, no matter how it was prepared (my mother made two kinds at least) so the food-related excitement soon died away for me.

But alvida and chand raat remain magical and mystical for me. The excitement of alvida, the silence after we spotted that most beautiful moon, these memories remain with me.

A new moon is replete with images isn't it? It is an opportunity to wipe the slate clean, to put away what is old and don the new. It is life. New life, unburdened by the old. It is excitement, that echo of our slender hopes, the shining of our desires. And it is sad, for we know the moon is born, will grow, mature, and die again, leaving us with amavas, another dark and moonless night. But even then we know it is resilient, our beautiful moon, for the next day it will be bravely there again. Slender and shimmering, fragile and shining with all our hopes and desires.

And that is what Eid still means to me. For beyond religion and its controvorsies lies the new moon. That oh, so beautiful moon.

Onam and Eid

2009-09-19T19:51:00.005+02:00

Today is Eid in the U.S. Since it is based on the lunar calendar it might be on different days around the world. So Eid Mubarak to all, around the world.

Eid makes me think of holidays and their significance. Eid is a festival of thanks after a month of reflection, prayer and fasting. There is something beautiful about that. And even though it is a lovely sentiment and one I grew up with, there is one holiday story that is complex and multi-layered and tugs on my emotions. Most of us know about Eid (perhaps I'll write more in my next posting) but few know about Onam.

This year, the Kerala celebration of Onam fell on September 2nd, when I had no Internet access. Onam is not a holiday I grew up with, nor one I've ever really celebrated. But for anyone who loves stories and anyone who lives to write or read, Onam tells a tale unlike any other.

Over 1000 years old, it is a celebration that has survived from Dravidian times, before Aryans arrived in India changing it forever. In fact, you can read into it the realities of the Aryan subjugation of Dravidian India.

Mahabali (the mighty and strong one) ruled over a prosperous and bountiful Kerala. More than that, he was a king most loved by his people for he was fair and kind and loved his people in return. He did all he could to ensure that none went hungry in his realm and worked tirelessly for them. Mahabali (or Mahveli) as he is still called in Kerala was also a powerful warrior and a devout believer, two facts that would change his destiny and that of his people. He waged campaigns, asked for boons from the fearsome Lord Shiva, and soon conquered all three worlds: this world, the world of the gods and the nether world. He was truly powerful and none dared antagonize him.

Of course their defeat had greatly enraged the gods and they waited anxiously for a chance, any chance to take back what was theirs and to teach this upstart king a lesson.

The opportunity arose when Mahabali held a mighty yagna a grand prayer and celebration during which he fed and gave alms to Brahmins and the poor. The celebration went on for days, but as the yagna neared its end there arrived a little Brahmin. His name was Vaman and he was irate when he was informed that there was no food or alms left for him.

He trembled with anger, and Mahabali, with his hands folded, begged his forgiveness. No one wanted the curse of a Brahmin and besides Vaman was his guest and no one who came to his yagna could return empty-handed. The king promised to give Vaman whatever he asked for.

"The land I can conquer with three steps," said Vaman.

Mahabali agreed.

Suddenly the little Brahmin grew large, so large that he blocked out the sky. Vaman took one step. And what a step it was, a giant step that covered the earth. He took another step and took over heaven, the realm of the gods. As he lifted one foot for his third step he asked Mahabali to give him space on which to set his foot down. Understanding that Vaman was not all he seemed, Mahabali kneeled and bowed his head. Vaman put his foot squarely on the king's head and pushed him down into the netherworld.

Vaman then disclosed his identity as Vishnu, the Great Preserver. Overcome by the sight of the god, Mahabali wept at his good fortune. He asked for just one boon. It was granted.

"I want to come back for one day each year," he said, "to see how my people are doing. To see if they are happy."

That day has been celebrated for at least a thousand years as Onam. But to me this is more than a story of conquest and defeat. It is also a love story.

For, on Onam, all of Mahabali's people dress up, cook good food, participate in the great snake boat races of Kerala, and make rangolis of flowers at their doorstep to welcome their lost king. They are sad inside, however, because of what befell him, sad that he did not remain with them. They pretend to be happy so that Mahabali can see they are well and can return to the netherworld without a heavy heart. Poor and old alike do all that they can to make Onam a celebration without rival. They put on a show to fool Mahabali so he will not be sad.

If you really analyze it you can see the gods as Aryans (fairer-skinned, from the north) and Mahabali (a southern king, dark-skinned and supposedly savage) as Dravidian. But there is something subversively beautiful about this story that has survived the ages. For the gods do not emerge as the heroes. It is Mahabali, the dedicated and caring ruler, the passionate warrior and true believer who lost the three worlds but never what really mattered: love. And he did it all with dignity and class. And this Onam like all others since I learned about the story from the family into which I married, I take one moment to think of Mahabali and his people.

And in my mind, I see Mahabali smile through his tears as he returns to his exile. And I see his people weep through their smiles as he turns his back. For they know they are bereft forever. And my cynical self smiles...and tears up as well.

So Happy (Very) Belated Onam. And also Eid Mubarak. May the new moon of Eid usher in a time of peace.

And may we all grow towards love and selflessness this year. I am going to try my best.

Still Life on the Street

2009-08-14T10:55:00.007+02:00

Okay, so it was technically not a still life. It was more of a mural really but let's not get caught up in the details. As you might (or might not have) noticed I took a blogging vacation, or a vacation from blogging, and now I'm back, sort of, kind of. Still in a funk but I think I'm emerging. And so there I was on Rue du Rhone, near Confederation and there he sat as the world went around him and by him. Unperturbed and focused, still within the hubbub.

The artist, sitting on the sidewalk, transforming it. On a hot day when the asphalt was burning to the touch, shimmering in the sun, he sat in a verdant meadow full of wildflowers and placid cows and weird woodland creatures. Spectators stood on the sides of the taped off sidewalk-canvas. A tram went by, then two. Shoppers passed him by, shoppers from everywhere. Loose-jawed American accents mingled with languages others didn't understand. Arabic, Tamil, Hindi, French, Italian, and German simmered together under the sun.

And the artist never looked up, even when someone dropped coins, plink by plink, into his metal bowl. Not even when the soft rustle of paper bills joined the coins. He painstakingly painted a white flower, then added some more blades of grass, added a spray of pink flowers to a tree.

The world goes on as it does. The one who creates...does.

Puppy Love

2009-07-27T17:06:00.002+02:00

It was one of those times I wish I had the presence of mind to take pictures. This is what happened.

It was a few days before the start of Fete de Geneve. We were walking by the lake, somewhere near the weirdly named Baby Plage and the boat rental place. We see this guy hurrying past some swans, swinging his little dog (a Jack Russell terrier type) up past the snapping beaks. Then he cradled the dog on his chest, the leash hanging free.

He ran to the end of a little dock, taking off his shoes and clutching them in his other hand. We saw a little motorboat approaching. He got ready. The dog's tail was wagging so much it was a blur.

The boat stopped. The guy jumped on to the front of the boat (okay, I don't know my boat turns, but it's the part that looks like a car's hood). The fiberglass was slippery. He skidded. And...plop....the little dog dropped into the water. We started towards the dock.

In the next second the guy dove in, fully clothed, with the backpack on his back, dropping his shoes.

In the meantime the dog managed to get close enough to the boat for the couple in the boat to haul him abroad. Shaking himself vigorously the dog jumped towards the back of the boat where his owner (or was he the guy's owner? Who knows?) was trying to get on the boat. He kept barking and whining until the guy flopped on board, then licked his face a million times.

I think the guy never found his shoes, his clothes were soaked and his backpack was dripping wet. But nothing mattered to either of them. The couple in the boat were laughing loudly as they finally sped away.

Feel free to say Awwwwwwwww! If that was not love I don't know what it is.

Connections and Jet Trails

2009-07-20T19:04:00.004+02:00

A few days ago I got a facebook email from someone I hadn't seen in over 20 years. A friend. An old friend...from school, perhaps starting from 8th or 9th grade. I remember her still...slender, two long braids (yes, hair could not be left loose in most Indian schools), her uniform dark blue skirt just grazing her knees, white shirt buttoned up all the way, black shoes, white....really white socks.

I emailed her back. A couple of days later I heard back from her. She was in Paris on her way to London for a vacation. I could have met up with her while she was still in France but it was already too late.

How fluid our lives have become, the lives of our generation? We move across borders as if boundaries don't exist. Vacations outside the country were a rarity when I was growing up. No longer. Living in India or the U.S. or Europe doesn't matter. We leave our homes traveling across, soaking up other countries, other cultures, then return to where we live.

Can we really call them homes any more? These places in which we live and cook and eat and love, and then leave.

Do you ever look up into the sky and see jet trails? They reminded me of giant fingernails scoring their way across the sky. Love marks. And now I wonder if perhaps, instead, they are the ephemeral traces of our lives that try to intersect but then slowly evaporate beneath the heat of our frantic and frenetic lives.

I wonder about these things sometimes.

India...you're fabulous!

2009-07-02T14:54:00.003+02:00

...and now your throw pillows will like totally coordinate with the drapes. And oh, that darling set of candles. Amaaazing! And oh yeah, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code? Soooo yesterday.

Ok, ok, that was me giving a shout out (can you believe I used "shout out") to India. And yes, throwing in some rather obvious stereotypes just for the heck of it.

Because, in a landmark ruling the Delhi High Court, has struck at of the most archaic and discriminatory laws. Homosexuality in India is no longer a crime. A major step forward.

I'm sure some conservative, religious group is going to appeal this, but it does show we're headed in the right direction. I will read more about it but I'm hoping the Supreme Court and the Legislature put this into law.

To translate or not to translate?

2009-06-23T11:08:00.008+02:00

Last week our little critique group had its final meeting of the season. There was champagne, tons of amazing food, and lots of good writing and critiquing. I was debuting the first draft of my new, as-yet-untitled novel. As always I use a lot of Hindi words. In this case I was using more Allahabad/U.P. rural Hindi. Not quite bhojpuri, not the chaste hindi of the cities, it adds a distinctive flavor to those who populate my novel. As always I did not provide translations nor footnotes.

Weirdly, I don't mind reading translations or footnotes, if they are well-done and not too obtrusive. But I do mind including them in my own writing. And no, it's not laziness, but good guess.

Writing, for me is an immersion. I immerse myself in what I write. And I hope eventual readers do that too. A translation or a footnote is an aside. It breake through the fourth wall, the wall that lets a reader be an observer within a work and puts him/her outside looking in. And besides a piece of writing should be strong enough to make the meaning clear, without making it clear. I hope to clarify meanings for my next drafts. But no translations for me, oh no!

Why am I writing this post? Because there was a suggestion that I provide footnotes. A valid suggestion, a good one even. But I responded negatively...arrogantly, perhaps? It's interesting that this post comes just after the one on Colonizing English because they're so related.

Then I came across this very interesting literary paper by O.P. Dwivedi on Rushdie's seminal work, Midnight's Children. It's a great read but some of the most interesting statements are these:

Of Salman Rushdie he says, 'As a linguistic experimentalist, Rushdie attempts to destroy the natural rhythms of the English language’ and to dislocate ‘the English and let other things into it.’

'Its (the novel's) popularity rests on two things: the innovative use of English as a
language, and the fantastic representation of history. While Rushdie resorts to the use of ‘magic realism’ to oppose the Euro-centrism of master discourses, the innovativeness of Rushdie’s English is prompted by a desire to capture the spirit of Indian culture with all its multiplicity and diversity.'

To me there has been no better and more skilled colonizer of English than Rushdie. And this paper elucidates what I've felt for so long. I knew there was something inauthentic, dare I say even pandering to provide the exact meanings of words in fiction.

For one thing there are no exact meanings in any language. Forget concepts, even physical objects can really be translated. All we have are approximations. If I translate a charpai, as a string cot, is that what it really is? Does it convey the meaning, that char means four, and pai refers to the legs. And that charpoy is an English version of an Indian word? And when a western reader thinks of a string cot, does s/he think of the intricate woven patterns made of jute rope. Does s/he know that these are not mass-produced but are still traditionally made and that each weaver's patters are distinctively different? Do they know that every once in a while, a man would make the rounds of the neighborhood to tighten the weave, repair or re-string the charpais? And that as a little girl I loved sitting and watching gnarled, dark hands effortlessly singing through air, stringing the jute threads, creating a beautiful, tight weave out of what was essentially some pieces of wood and bamoo?

Does it make them think of warm summer nights made just a bit cooler because of the air circulating all around the charpai. Do they know that in Allahabad at least, there is also something known as a khatola, which is a smaller, lower-to-the-ground saggier version of the charpai?

Hindi and Urdu are very high context languages. A word means something mainly because of the high context. So qayamat is not just armageddon, the end of the world. It's something else. Depending on its use, it can be a descriptor of a woman's beauty, of the seductiveness of her eyes, because her loveliness is so absolute it can hasten qayamat. This is just one reason Urdu poetry or really any Asian language is impossible to really translate in any real sense.

English, and most western languages (French is not however) are low context. Things are most always what they mean. In English you have today and tomorrow. In Hindi we have kal. It could mean either. It's the context that gives it meaning.

There is a reason that English is popular. It is low context, giving it larger shared meaning. It's clear, it's precise (for the most part), and we can all understand it. It's complex but with low context, making it a perfect language for uniting the world.

But back to my point of providing translations. If by my writing I can inform the reader that a charpai is some kind of bed to sit or lie on that's enough. They don't need to know the contexts. However, it's an easter egg of sort for those who will get the context. Novels are subjective anyway. We all process them based on our emotional development, our life experiences. That's what makes them special. That, despite our differences and those of the writer, we can find something shared that resonates through the words. Good novels convey universal emotional truths that can transcend cultures. The details of some words are immaterial, if the writer can get to the heart of the truth. Which is why we can enjoy Naipaul and Kawabatta and Mahfouz and Sylvia Plath. They lay it bare and show us something about ourselves, our inside selves.

I agree with the Dwivedi paper, which states: "Rushdie rather thinks that the text of the novel should be self-explanatory and absorbing in itself. In truth, Raja Rao’s English remains Sanskritised, whereas Rushdie’s English is an example of the hybrid discourses of a cosmopolitan writer.

This short excerpt is from Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche's short story "Imitation," from the collection "The Thing Around Your Neck."

I've been reading some African works since I've returned from S. Africa.
"Madame!" Amaechi screams. "Chim o! Why did you cut your hair? What happened?

"Does something have to happen before I cut my hair? Clean up the hair."

I know that Chim o is some kind of exclamation of horror. I don't need to know exactly what it is because I know that Nkem has cut her hair because she has learned her husband has moved his new, young mistress into their house in Lagos, while she lives a lonely, isolated life in the U.S. And it is fraught with the knowledget that not too long ago she too had affairs with married men to survive.

This is just what I think and feel. What about you?

Colonizing English

2009-06-14T18:35:00.006+02:00

Perhaps amidst the talk of elections in Iran, the horrific Air France plane crash, and yes the awful, awful news that Miley broke up with Justin (who the heck are these people?) *gasp*, you might be forgiven for not commemorating a truly momentuous occasion. Especially for those of us who love words, more specifically English words.

I spent last week talking with someone about the whole concept of language, and mother-tongues. As someone who grew up totally bilingual, i.e., I thought, wrote, spoke, and understood each language without translating one into the other. So when I wrote Hindi I thought in it. When I wrote English I thought in that.
We spoke both languages at home and sometimes both at once with friends, leading to the once-maligned and now affectionately tolerated Hinglish. This was not a foreign concept for us, this state of duality.

It was only when I moved to points West that people asked questions like: when did you learn to speak/read/write/English? You've only been here for six months, how did you pick up English so fast? Do have problems writing in English because you have to translate everything from Hindi? Why don't you write in Hindi? After the second year the queries ceased being interesting and cute and just became annoying. Sorry, but that's what it is.

Arrrrghhhh!

For English speakers and writers from India (and I suppose other non-Caucasian countries), the English we speak, write, and think in is uniquely ours. Yes, English was the language of our colonization but at some point along the way, we colonized English. We made it uniquely ours. English is our language as any other of the dozens of languages in India.

We use English words and syntax and grammar but we use the language in a way that is unique to us. A Rushdie or a Vikram Seth uses the language in a way that great writers from non-Indian backgrounds do not and cannot. And vice versa. Perhaps the same applies to writers from Zimbabwe or Pakistan or Kenya or wherever else.

Over the years, English became an Indian language, as much as it is an Australian language, and an American language or an Egyptian one. Yes, Hindi is my mother tongue but English is the language of my writing. It is the language I express myself best in. I was a crap Hindi writer or an Urdu one, though there is writing in both languages that can make me weep with emotion. Unfortunately, my own writing in Hindi (I can't read or write Urdu) is at best mediocre.

And yet the English I write is studded with images mined from Hindi and Urdu. That's what it is. English, as a language flexes to accomodate us all. The purists and language chauvinists among us might decry the spread of English. Some might say it is like a plague that threatens to destroy other languages to leach them of their uniquenss.

But it is the inclusiveness of English that makes it so special. Each country in which it is spoken (and even in those it is not) has contributed to it. Each language has enriched it and English was not too proud to accomodate, not so constricted as to not stretch. Some words were so incorporated their foreign origins were lost, others used with the knowledge that they are foreign words, say guru or karma.

There are Indian words, some totally incorporated: jodhpurs for riding, veranda, pyjama, bungalow, bandanna, chit, chutney, cummerband, jungle, shampoo, etc. There are French words: boutique, bouquet, agent, a la mode, etc. Almost every language in the world has added to the English lexicon, and in doing so we have made it our own. English is the language of the world. Even if it is mangled, spoken badly, or damaged it is becoming (if it is not already) the language of global communication. Mainly because it did not shrink within itself and reject anything impure.

It is estimated (if I'm off by a bit please don't threaten to kill me) that there are about 300,000 words. Spanish word estimates range from 200,000 to about a half million (Spanish also grows by incorporating mostly English words).

And English has just crowned its damp squib of a one millionth word. So I am thrilled and overcome that English--our English--has one million words. But really, language powers-that-be, Web 2.0? That's what you came up with?

For heaven's sake it's not even a word. It's an already existing word and a number, all tied together around a schmucky concept.

Yes, I am being chauvinistic. Damn it, it sucks getting old. These darned kids and their new fangled English words. But it does make sense at a certain level even to me. For this new growth of English is via the language we all speak even if it is without our knowledge, the language of computers. So Web 2.0 it is. I wish it was something more exciting, but there it is.

Here's a toast to the millionth word. Hope the one million and first is a bit more exciting.

Hold Half an Ounce in Your Hand

2009-06-04T17:09:00.008+02:00

What is the best way to rule? The British did it in India and every colonial power has used some variation of this effective ruling strategy. Every child's history book in India has the answer, and it routinely showed up in quizzes. Divide and Rule. A simple idea really. Divide up the populace into at least two groups. You don't care who's who, you just know you're superior to both of them.

Then give one group just a little bit more than the other. Simple! The group getting the fewer more benefits is not just grateful to you, they become loyal to you. They don't want to lose those few benefits, the little scraps. And here's the bonus, this group will work perhaps even harder than you to keep the status quo. Because if the equilibrium falters they might lose whatever little advantage they have. And deeper than that, they start to believe, to truly believe, that they are inferior, less than human, less than you. And since we all need some self-esteem...they also have one group that they can feel better than. Brilliant, isn't it?

The Belgians did it effectively with Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. Imagine the horror if a family had a Tutsi wife and a Hutu husband or vice versa. And yes, during the killings in Rwanda, there are documented cases of husbands and/or wives killing the Hutu partner. Sometimes the difference was only as superficial as a skin that was a few shades lighter or darker. These were not seperate races mind you. Frightening! In India it was the Muslims and the Hindus, of course. And then, there was the added complexity of Anglo-Indians and the various types of Indian Christians.

However, nowhere was superiority/inferiority so firmly coded into law in recent times as it was in apartheid South Africa. But there were those pesky anti-apartheid activists to deal with. You could put them all in prison, on Robben Island, but they couldn't all be in isolation. A better plan might be to divide them. How?
That part was easy. South African society was already divided. There were at least three distinct groups: Blacks, Indians and/or Asiactics, and coloureds (I hate using this term but it is used in S. Africa for people of mixed white-black heritage and does not yet have the same connotations as it does in North America). The division between black and colored was so arbitrary (again shades of skin color) that sometimes families were placed in different categories. And yes, this being South Africa, this category was solidified as part of your identity, especially since all non-Whites had to carry their ID card with them. Not doing so was an offence punishable by considerable jail time.

In prison, the division happened at the most basic levels. Black prisoners only got prison-issue short pants, while Indians and coloureds got long pants. Dignity and self-worth measured by half a yard of cloth. And then there was the food. Not enough food to keep a gnat alive either way. But look at this menu card for blacks (Bantus) versus Coloured/Asiatics (which included Indians, of course).

Sometimes this is what it comes down to then. Whether you got 6 oz of mealie meal or 12. Whether you get 6 oz of meat or 5. One oz, that's the privilege you get. Whether you get 2 oz of sugar or 1.5. That is your worth, half an ounce here, one ounce there. Hold an ounce of something in your hand. You can barely tell it's there. Almost like true differences between human beings. Not really there.

Then those pesky coloured and asiatics had to do something unthinkable. They shared their half ounces, they gave away their 1 oz of jam or syrup with their Bantu friends. And in the process they strengthened their ties and their movement.

Perhaps some of those who lived those dark days at Robben Island never lived to see the light of freedom. But, the death of apartheid surely began there somewhere, in those inhuman cells that bore the wounds of deprivation and torture. It surely began when one human being gave another human being a few drops of syrup. And in so giving, he sweetened by just a little bit, the bitterness that was apartheid, the policy that was divide and rule, and the human toll it extracted from all of us. For none of us can truly be unaffected.

Dazzle n' Pride at Blaauwbosch: Part III

2009-05-26T13:32:00.009+02:00

We're just sleepin' here. Nothing to look at folks. Now move along.

Obviously you don't get it. We've only slept 18 hours today and we need at least three more hours. Later we'll be hunting some yummy baby giraffe. That'll show 'em. So move along now.

Dazzle n' Pride at Blaauwbosch: Part II

2009-05-26T13:09:00.007+02:00

Here's a question. What do a group of giraffe see when they're staring out over the plains?

Hey guys, I wanna look too? What are you looking at? Aaah, I see them now.

Jeeze, thanks giraffe for alerting these idiots to come poking their nose into our business. I'm leaving!

Dazzle n' Pride at Blaauwbosch: Part I

2009-05-25T16:02:00.015+02:00

We stayed at the Blaauwbosch (that's blue bush to all you non-Afrikaans speakers) Game Reserve. It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

You prepare yourself really fast for a safari, when these signs appear on the roads.

Home, home on the range where the deer and the antelope play... As do the zebras. The stripes move this way and that...hence the name a dazzle of zebras. What is a poor predator to do?

This baby is just three weeks old, but he's already curious about the strange metal monster full of people who ooh and aah over him. Off he goes, looking for mama. Watch those cutely uncoordinated legs. If you look carefully you can even see the dangling thread of his not yet fully detached umbilical cord. And yes, that's my voice on the video.

I'm lonely...such a lonely little wildebeest.

I See Wonderful Things

2009-05-15T14:33:00.006+02:00

Last week I went to the Bodmer Museum. It's not a very well-known museum, nor is it very large. You can go through the whole place, at a fairly leisurely rate, in about two hours. But, oh, what a place. Not many people visit this little Geneva gem.

This was my second visit, and this time too I felt like Howard Carter peering into that small opening in Egypt. I too feel like saying simply, almost childishly, "I see wonderful things." For I know that I will forever think of that marvellous mansion with its magnificient view of Lac Leman, only to be transported into the wonderful things housed within it.

But these are not treasures made up of gold and jewels. These are the treasures of mankind, of humanity, of that which is the best of us, whether it be science, art, literature or the leaps of imagination that typify human progress. Bodmer (it helps to be born a multi-millionaire if you too decide to do this) had a dream, to collect together the creativity and wealth born out of the human mind, the collective human consciousness. So he did. He collected amazing things. And after his death, his foundation (the Fondation Bodmer) continues to keep his dream alive, to keep his quest an ongoing one.

This is just a glimpse of what you can see if you visit this museum: Two scrolls of the Egyptian Books of the Dead, a Gutenberg Bible (one of only fourteen or so in the world), the Book of Judas from the Dead Sea Scrolls, hand-written music sheets by Wagner and Mozart, hand-written manuscripts by James Joyce and Wordsworth, a giant scroll (many feet long) from the court of Queen Elizabeth I itemizing the New Years gifts received by her court. There are innumberable first editions (Balzac, Wordsworth, Joseph Heller, Joyce, Proust, Dante, etc. etc.). There are hand-written notebooks and books (with margin notes) by Isaac Newton and Einstein.

I saw some people taking pictures but I am not sure they were allowed. Still, my resolve was tested, when I came across one particular first edition. So they have the Books of the Dead, or the Kalpa Sutra, or a Botticelli painting of Dante. They pale in comparision to my George....aaah, yes Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. So I broke all my museum going rules. But, hey unlike others I used no flash, and damn it, the picture's not that great. Here it is.

Next time you're in Geneva, you must visit this wonderful little museum. You might not sigh over Byron but I promise you will leave at once humbled and hopeful about the future of humanity.

Guilty Pleasures in the Afternoon: A Tag

2009-05-04T16:19:00.008+02:00

There's swine flu grunting at our doors, heat-wave deaths in India, the Taliban making waves in Pakistan, ice-shelves the size of Jamaica breaking off ...and who knows what other apocalyptic horrors in store for us. Can anyone blame me then for my oh-so-guilty pleasures?

1. Trashy magazines (thanks C and C's mom for my latest stash): OMG, did Angie throw Brad out? Are Jen and Angie finally going to come face-to-face? It's just too exciting for words. The trashier the mag, the better. Heaven!

2. A renverse in the afternoon: Thanks Mighty Mom for the milk-forther. I think of you each time I overdose on caffeine. Hey, I might walk around the house like a dancing jitter-bug but it tastes so *damn* good. Like my own little coffee-shop. Mmmmmm!

3. Cadbury's chocolates: This is a real guilty one in Switzerland. Oh non madame, you might exclaim. No Cadbury's can be consumed here. It is not chocolate at all, now is it? We have such good quality chocolate here. How can you? But Cadbury's is tied up with my childhood. That shiny, purple paper, the two glasses of milk in every bar (look ma, it's health food) and that undefinable taste that screams "chocolate" to me. So I can savor the best boutique, small-batch, handmade stuff....but sometimes a girl's gotta have her Cadbury's.

4. Cheddar cheese: Another heresy in Switzerland, the land of oh-so-heavenly fromage. I love all our wonderful Swiss cheese, but sometimes a sandwich asks...no begs... for some cheddar. And I can't believe I actually found some at our local French grocery store. It also rocks on home-made chilli (I made a huge batch and froze some a few days ago), and in the absense of queso blanco, cheddar can actually be good on Mexican food. Really, Swiss people, stop putting gruyere (much as I love it) on burritos. Now *that* is also heresy. So, we're quits, right?

And....ta...da...

5. Byron in Love: Unfortunately, not with me. But after all my Byron-stalking as my couch to 5K pal kindly called it...I walked into Payot...and this was the first book that I saw. I had to have it. What else can I say? It's Byron at his darkest and dreamiest. He's in love. Okay, with many, many people. And one of them was his half-sister. But the paths of love...they are so twisted, no?

...I tag anyone else who wants to take this on...but those mentioned in this post are gently nudged to take this on. You know who you are.

I also tag appalachianroots, which I believe might be her first tag.

Anyone who does take on this challenge, please do a guilty pleasures post on your blog, and then come back on here and let me know.

Have fun!

We're Men, We're Men in Robes...

2009-04-29T15:00:00.006+02:00

We roam around Swat in high hopes.
We're men, we're men in robes.
We flog the women, sever hands of the men, that's right.
Beware if your beard's too short, and Allah forbid if your clothes are too tight.
We may look all look like off to our beds,
But watch what you say or we'll cut off your heads.
We're men, we're men in robes.
Too bad for you if you love your evening bourbon.
You will surely repent and wear a black turban,
and join us so we can together be...
Men, men in robes.

(apologies to Mel Brooks and the lyrics to "We're men, we're men in tights" from Robin Hood: Men in Tights)

Have you heard of the latest band of uhhh...not-so-merry men? You know, the ones who marched up to the Pakistani capital, indulged in some nuclear saber-rattling, then went back to their caves? They, of the fabulous floggings, the glorious keepers of the faith? Those who denounce Pakistan and its government as impure and Islamically false...and damn any *agreements* they might have signed?

Yep! The Taliban in a major push to capture hearts and minds all over Pakistan are doing the whole robbing from the rich, giving to the poor schtick. Not to mention, they are dispensing justice, even if it takes unsavoury forms, to the common people of that country.

This is undoubtedly an easy snake-oil to sell since the government of Pakistan does seem to losing control over larger and larger parts of the country. It's scary. I feel for normal, every-day Pakistanis but they need to stand up against this take-over. As a person of Indian origin, I fear for what might happen if the Pakistani government does fall. We are used to a state of armed tension with Pakistan. But not a fully Talibanized Pakistan. That is scary!

At least when the Taliban were just in Afghanistan they unleashed their horrors on just their own people. But I think they've tasted true, trans-national power now. They know the eyes of the world are on them, that they cannot hide away. More than thay. They refuse to. They are proud to be students of Islam and the keepers of its promise. I believe they are eager and ready to take on the evil, unIslamic world of kafirs and to them, India is at this point, the major heathen sitting on their doorstep. And with both countries being nuclear now, that is a terrifying prospect.

The fact that the Pakistani government (or successive governments really) has failed its people so badly that they would trade them for the Taliban is horrifying to me.

This is CNN finds that "In radio broadcasts and sermons, Taliban militants have been promoting themselves as Islamic Robin Hoods, defending Pakistan's rural poor from a ruling elite that they describe as corrupt and oppressive."

Here's another report about the Talibani Robin Hoods in The Times.

I think perhaps the Taliban themselves and indeed some others in Pakistan do see them as romantic Robin Hood-like figures. They are the outsiders, the little guys taking on large, imperialistic forces. They talk of honor, of bringing true justice, of taking out corruption, of rooting out injustice, of imbuing peopel with pride. And they are partly right, of course. But they don't talk of the other horrors waiting in their Trojan Horse, ready to be unleashed: oppression, atrocities, the curtailment of personal freedoms, and unrelenting violence.

I hope the people find a different way, a better way. If not, I fear we are all on our way to a hellish future.

Making a Deal With the Devil Part Two

2009-04-06T23:25:00.003+02:00

Not too long ago I wrote this post about the Taliban's deal with the Pakistani government.

And, yes *SURPRISE* despite the Taliban's assurances to the contrary, they are doing what they do best. Yes, as we all know and should know, the biggest threat to any country or people is its women. I say, if we just whip and flog a few wayward women prosperity shall be ours, Inshallah.

So, I for one, totally support the flogging of the hapless 17-year old girl, flung face-down (with her hijab around her face), with a few men, including her brother holding her down. And, may Allah give strength to the tireless arms of the poor, Talib brother who flogged her repeatedly, while she cried aloud in agony.

Okay, I can't keep this up. I saw the video. I will not post a link to it because it made me sick to my stomach and made me cry. It is circulating on the Web. Yes, people, the holy Shariah law is indeed making life even more wonderful for the women of Swat.

What deal-makers and others don't get about organizations like the Taliban is this. They *don't* truly recognize the existence of political entities and states. They don't think that any rule of law apart from Shariah and the Quran is valid. So, yes, if it is expedient they will make a deal with you to placate you, to regroup, and then they will continue doing what they feel they are divinvely ordained to do. And it is okay--in fact, it's commendable--if you lie and cheat your way into creating a perfect, Utopian, Islamic society.

Oh yeah, remember the Taliban's assurance to the Pakistani government that girls schools would be re-opened? Do you mean *gasp* that they did not follow through with this? Here's an article about more than 100 girls schools being blown up. A radio station was also destroyed. Here's another article.
I mean really, who was naive enough to think that this would not happen? It was only a question of when and how it would happen.

Well, technically, they didn't close the schools did they? The problem...well...simply...disappeared. Ingenious!

Think this doesn't touch you? Think about this: the Taliban and people who endorse, support, apologize for them...are on an upswing. Read this article, which uncovers the fact that emeralds from Swat are being used by the Taliban to grow stronger.

Already, the resurgent Taliban are returning in another incarnation to the place of their birth, Afghanistan. Remember, the U.S. bombed Afghanistan and committed troops, and installed Hamid Karzai, basically a puppet-leader for the beleagured country. Well, the worm has turned. And, of course, to safeguard a country in crisis, he did what any responsible leader should do. Yep...make rape within marriage legal (you mean it wasn't already).

Of course, about a month later he is trying to scrap the law, because of Western pressure. Prime Minister Brown of Britain said his soldeirs would not die to defend a country where this was legal.

Now, everyhing is murky and there are no clear heroes and villains. There are tremendous complexities at work that I cannot even begin to comprehend or explain. More than that, the genie is out of the bottle...again. The law might be scrapped on the books, but do you think it will stop being applied? I'm sure there isn't a great and functional legal system in place there anyway. It's not like women were lining up to accuse their husbands (or anyone else for that matter) of rape. But at least if there was a law, there was a slim chance that some woman might or at least gain some internal power by knowing she could if she wanted to. Having the law scrapped due to external pressure is merely a token gesture. Will things on the ground really change?

Once a sovereign country accedes any amount of its power...nay, makes a deal with anti-national insurgents and willingly hands over a territory...the damage is already done. Why would that group fear a government that rolls over so easily? In fact, a government and a people who, at the very least sympathize with and/or support those goals? Anything less is semantics.

If my manifesto derives from God and any work I do for him is divine and unequivocally correct, there is no room for debate or negotiation, is there? I might make expedient deals, but once I am strong, I have no incentive to hold up my end of the bargain. This is what has happened in Pakistan, and perhaps also in Afghanistan.

The battle is already lost. Will we also lose the war?

Spring Fever, Spring Cleaning, Spring Madness

2009-03-30T13:28:00.006+02:00

Was it subconscious, that sudden desire to turn my blog green, change the header and shake it all about? I didn't plan to do it. I just looked at my blog and decided I need to change it...just a bit.

I am not as brave as my friend and writer Bina Shah (her new novel just came out in Italy! Bravo!) who deletes or lets go of old blogs to start new ones more often than I would dare.

Myself, I like that sense of continuity, of history, of seeing the evolution from the first post to whichever one this is. But I don't like stagnation, hence the new green blog.

I realized that the night I did this was also the night we jumped time here in Switzerland (a few weeks behind the U.S.). Is this somehow hard-wired into us, this spring frenzy of newness.

It's not just all bunnies and flowers and the new brightness of the light after all. Is it something more elemental that made me wander around my basement and toss out so much tossable stuff that had just lingered for months? Old suitcases with ground-down, wobbly wheels. Bags whose zippers stick or just plain don't work. A *well-made* (yeah right) Swiss fan that fell apart in three, cheap, white plastic pieces, and an aluminium fan head. An old Ikea stool that had seen better days...oh, like three years ago. A patio swing which had lost one essential piece in the move over from Boston (yes, two years ago, people).Odds and ends. Bits and pieces. Trash.

The day before that I raided my closet and packed up clothes I had not worn in years. Those one-day-I-will-fit-into-this clothes are gone. Most Swiss towns and even villages have a convenient old clothes and shoes drop-off point, and yesterday they received from me: one 110L garbage bag full of clothes, one 60L bag of shoes, one smaller E. Leclerc bag of clothes. They're all still good and wearable and I hope someone can enjoy them.

Was it also a coincidence that today, a Monday, just a couple of hours ago, the first day after all this cleaning out...I started the first chapter of my new novel? I wrote two pages. Wow!

I find this stage exhilirating and terrifying. Starting something new, and that too at the start of Spring, the prospect of new adventures in writing, new explorations, discovering what thoughts and feelings I have within myself, and watching them arrive fully-formed on to paper (okay, on a computer screen, but why quibble, paper is tres romantique, non?).

And frightening because I never know if I am going to complete this novel that I am so pumped up about now. Fear because, like most writers, I often arrive at that meandering quagmire where I realize I have written myself into a swamp of crap, and can't find a way out. Then I just want to hit Delete and get rid of the trash I've written. Fear because what if it isn't any good. What if I am not any good? Do I delude myself with this writing thing. Aaahhh, such self-indulgent writerly angst.
Boo hoo!

Spring is not just renewal and re-birth is it? Like any creation, there is inherent violence in the way a little bud bursts into flower, there is explosiveness in newness, in spring storms, in the way new growth fights its way back after a winter of hibernation. That is what makes it new perhaps.

And so, here it is, farewell to the dark days of winter. And welcome, Spring. Don't come in like a lamb. Roar! For it is in those instants of heightened senses that truth emerges and only then that my writing rings clear.

Blah! Blah! Blah! See what Spring does to me? It's Spring Madness! Muaah haaa haaa!

A brand, green day

2009-03-29T01:27:00.000+01:00

...Yep....it's all green all the time until I change it again.

Serenity Schmerenity...it's a Colbert Threatdown Nation

2009-03-27T09:46:00.005+01:00

We rejoiced when the Colbert nation helped name Stephen Jr. (the only steagle born in the San Francisco zoo). We cheered when intrepid supporters of our little steagle (okay, there were like 10 of them) held us signs at the border with Canada to help guide Stephen Jr. back to the U.S.

Bears might be high on Colbert's biggest threat list (except when he went ga-ga over cute baby polar bears) but who didn't wipe away a tear when Stephen announced he was a proud papa of a steagle and lit up a cigar?

Other things Colbert? There is the bridge in Hungary, Ben and Jerry's delicious Stephen Colbert's Americone, the Virgin America plane Air Colbert. Stealing Stephen Jrs. thunder is the copycat (bird?) falcon Esteban Colbert in San Jose. A spider: Aptostichus stephencolbert named by East Carolina University prof. Jason Bond, and a pair of elephant seals at UC Santa Cruz.

Sadly the Stephen Colbert election bid in 2008 did not come to pass despite his brilliant attempt to hedge his bets--he filed as both a republican and a democrat.

Then NASA decided to let John Q. Public participate in a write-in vote for naming a new module on the space station (the urine purifying room but still, that's rad, right?). The suggested names were gag-inducing like Serenity, Unity, and Harmony. NASA, however, had come up against the awesome power of the Nation.

The Colbert Nation that is. We are the ones who know that there is no 't' at the end of Report and snicker at those who put it there. The ones who know we are patriotic just because we agree with Stephen on *everything*. And the ones who don't cringe when our hero panders to his one and only papa Bear, Bill O'Reilly.

The Nation's mandate: to name the module Colbert, of course. Colbert clobbered Serenity by 40,000 votes. There were over 250,000 votes cast in total.

Still NASA is not committing to the name. They're stuck on their new-age, crystal gazing names. Horror of horrors, they might placate the Nation by naming a toilet after Stephen. No! You asked for our input NASA, don't wimp out now. Name the frickin' purification module Colbert. Come on, do it. be hip.

Here is Stephen campaigning for his name. Watch it NASA and come on over into the Nation.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Space Module: Colbert - Vote Now

comedycentral.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place OR Finding Byron in Cologny Part II

2009-03-14T17:14:00.014+01:00

She walks in Beauty

by: George Gordon (Lord) Byron (1788-1824)

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

"She Walks in Beauty" is my favorite Byron poem. Okay, it's my favorite poem. Almost unconsciously I memorized the first verse. And I dare anyone to find as exact, beautiful and luminous a phrase such as this:

"And all that's best of light and dark
Meet in her aspect and her eyes..."

Ah, for that I can even forgive the fact that the love of his life (as much as he could love I suppose) was his own half-sister August Leigh, with whom he had a daughter, Allegra.

On a bright day late last week I answered Byron's call and found myself driving to Chemin de Ruth in Cologny. Here is the approach to number 9, the Villa Diodati.

Even Byron was not immune to Geneva's beauty, or perhaps he drew upon it for inspiration. Here are some snowcaps seen from the little meadow by the villa, where I am sure he walked and conjured up some of his most beautiful verses.

I love this informative board that tells us about Byron and the villa. Byron was indeed a "28 years old poet."

Did Byron's fingers graze the name of the villa carved by the gate? Perhaps...but my self-portrait skills leave much to be desired since I cut off the name. Oh well!

Here is a shot of the villa complex. How much time did Byron spend looking out from the windows facing the lake, writing and entertaining people like Shelley (another crush of mine), Mary Shelley and feminisit Mary Wollencraft? After all, it was on a dark and rainy summer evening that Byron challenged his guests to come up with a scary a story as possible. And Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was conceived, to be completed a mere one year later.

The owners of the villa have kindly allowed for this marker to be placed on the side of the house.

But alas they were not kind enough to open up the villa for Byron lovers and gawkers to pass through. The gates I am sad to report are tightly closed against the hoi- polloi such as me and you.

But Byron is no one's property and he cannot be closed off and captured. He belongs to the world of literature and imagination. He belongs to those of us who worship words, those of us who long to peel back the layers of emotions, of relationships, of the world entire to unveil the violently beating alive heart that is at the core of it all.

And like millions of others I do "...vainly love thee still."

Thus much and more; and yet thou lov’st me not,
And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will.
Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot
To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.

Blogging the novel

2009-03-13T00:06:00.002+01:00

Here's sort of an update. An agent from the big-time agency reading my new novel says she loves it and would like to work with it. No champagne bottles are being uncorked just yet...because first there will be a reader's report. I am not sure what that is but it seems like having someone else (perhaps someone from the outside) read the manuscript and see if the agent's assessment makes sense and identify problems.

Well, we'll wait and see. I am cautiously excited and happy but am taking a wait and see attitude. Once (and if) there is a contract, I will celebrate. Until then I wait.

Why wert thou so dear? OR Looking for Byron in Cologny Part I

2009-03-12T10:15:00.010+01:00

Now I love me some John or Clive or yes, that *yawn* no-brainer crush George.

But there will always be a part for me that will forever be in love with that other George. George Gordon that is. That's Lord Byron to you. All that brooding angst, that lust for life (among other things), those oh-so interesting friends who died too young, that renegade rebellious spirit, those forbidden passions, and yes, even that club foot. All of that and talent too, how could anyone resist? I was a goner even as a ten year old when I read my first Byron poem, and then when I read about him. Ohhhh Byron *sighs deeply*

When We Two Parted

by Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever the years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder, thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk, chill on my brow,
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me...
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well..
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

So I journeyed to Chillon and walked around the lake and tried to see this city he loved through his eyes. But how could I live in Geneva and not visit the house at which he stayed? It took me a while to find it but find it I did.

For Mary Shelley fans, this is where Frankenstein was born. Like all good, ghoulish tales, the monster of Dr. Frankenstein came to life on a dark and stormy summer night when Byron challenged his friends to a contest. The rest is literary history. But much as I love the Shelley's, let's go back to Byron.

The Villa Diodati--where he stayed when visiting--is in Cologny, an exclusive, if-you-need-to-ask-the-price-you-so- can't-afford-to-live-here part of Geneva. It is on Chemin de Ruth 9 in Cologny, and yesterday I just could not resist Byron's call.

And I will blog about it in the next post. How's that for a cliff-hanger, huh?

London

2009-02-27T20:39:00.003+01:00

It was a beautiful, non-rainy, blue-skied day in London today. And my feet hurt. And I can't wait for tomorrow so I can punish my feet some more and reward my eyes and my mind. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Making a deal with the devil

2009-02-20T10:24:00.003+01:00

"The agreement between Pakistan's government and the growing Taliban forces in the country's northwest region cemented a truce between the two sides and gave the insurgents dominance in the Swat region by installing a strict regimen of Islamic law amenable to the militants' authority. The pact was spearheaded by a hard-line cleric sent to the region to negotiate with the Taliban and persuade them to give up their arms."

Read the rest of this story here.

When it was first announced a few days ago, this story about the Pakistani government making a deal with the Taliban struck a chill inside me.

So scary and full of potential for unfolding disaster that I can barely blog about it. The schoolgirls in Swat whose schools were shut down and the women who are now entering a dark phase of life under the Taliban will pay for this decision taken in Islamabad. Two sides: one a resurgent and powerful Taliban that never really went away, the other an embattled government losing control of swathes of its country. And in between the millions who are trapped between these two powers. A government that cannot even hold on to its territory but hands it over to a renegade power should be ashamed of itself. Is this why the Pakistani people elected these folks?

This deal was supposedly struck for peace. Was it? Or was it to shove the lives of millions into darkness so the rest of us don't have to look at them any more? Like putting bandaid on a gangrenous limb. Ultimately this will poison the rest of the country and perhaps the world.

And once the Taliban again becomes the de-facto rulers of a place, will they be content? Will they not want to grow their influence, the cleanse the remaining parts of Pakistan? What will they do its female intellectuals and writers and poets, to its schoolgirls and its college students? Since all is Allah's domain and they are the self-appointed arbiters of religion and conduct, will they recognize geographical borders? How will this impact India in the long run?

India and Pakistan have a blow hot-blow cold relationship anyway but for a while we were at least talking. Our leaders at least made a charade of meeting, of keeping to the stated objective of peace. But the Taliban? If America is the great Satan to them, what is India? India, with its Hindu majority, its secular constitution, and its large Muslim minority....what special demonic significance does India have in their eyes?

I feel like the world has moved on from this news, shrugging it off as a South Asian oddity. But I fear this was a defining momment in history. Who would have thought that a hijacking Indian Airlines plane in Qandahar would have ultimately led to 9/11 and then on to the wars in Afghanistan and the under-false-pretences occupation of Iraq. But it did.

And, this no mere hijacked plane. This is much bigger and I fear for the world. I fear for myself. And I wonder where we are headed. I hope I am wrong. I fear I might not be.

They Call It Poverty Porn

2009-02-12T10:43:00.005+01:00

Slumdog Millionaire is sweeping awards and audiences. And yet, in India, specifically Mumbai, where it is set, there are rumblings of discontent. Okay, more than rumblings. Many are calling it poverty porn, graphic images of disturbing poverty opened up as entertainment for a predominantly Western gaze. Others are protesting the use of the word "dog," a huge insult for Indians. One of the biggest protests was in Dharavi, Asia's largest slum where the screenwriter lived for six months. Do they feel a sense of betrayal by someone they welcomed into their midst? Despite the fim-makers' intentions do they feel insulted by being called 'dogs?' Judge for yourself.

Here's a caveat: I have not watched the movie.

I can't bring myself to watch it. It's not because I am unaware of poverty in India. It exists, of course it does. It does so in horrifying, mind-numbing ways. And while I think some of the criticism is a bit over the top, I do understand it. India as presented to Western eyes is always a source of some discomfort to me. It's not that situations or events are necessarily fabricated...much of it is factual. It is the discomfort of an alien gaze, dissecting us from a rather lordly distance. And more than that, that these are the only images of India on film that make it into the consciousness of most Western film-goers.

We watched the Raj films in the 1980's, where dashing British officers rescued lily-white maidens from India's ubiquitous heat and dust. Is India hot and dusty? Yes! But it is also cold and snowy and mild and temperate. It is also the land of eternal snows and coastal waterways. In the Raj films India and its life under the British fell away beneath the weight of English nostalgia for the jewel in its crown.

Then, for a while we were ignored by film-makers, except for an occasional Merchant-Ivory film. But that was not wholly foreign, for Ismail Merchant was a Bombay boy. Then there were the splutters of 'Fire,' or 'Salaam Bombay.' The latter was also set in Bombay's slums and was made by Meera Nair and was a truly intimate look at life in a slum.

Here's another caveat: I have read Vikas Swarup's Q & A, upon which Slumdog Millionaire is based.

So I know the story and I don't remember as much violence and distress as I hear about in the movie (the opening torture scene, the acid blinding, etc.). Perhaps they were there but they melded into the book so much that I don't remember them three years later. I remember, while reading the book thinking that it was written almost as a screenplay. It's not a well-written book, but the concept is interesting and it was executed well. And there are definite changes from the story.

Even the central character's name has been changed. Ram Mohammad Thomas. An evocative Indianness, reminiscent of Amar, Akbar, Anthony. Those three names, markers of three religions, are stories within themselves in the book. Ram, therefore, typifies all of India and none of it. He symbolizes its three major religions and because he has all three names, none of them. He is in effect, India.

Slumdog's Jamal, on the other hand, becomes an easily graspable entity, a slumdog with a Muslim name.

I watched Danny Boyle on The Daily Show. He called it a love story, that Jamal wanted to sit in the gameshow chair long enough to be sure Latika saw him and so that they could find each other again. No matter how much he calls it a love story, the predominant images that most viewers seem to carry away are the images of violence and poverty. Those seem to be its predominant images from what I've heard about it.

And perhaps that is what its Indian detractors are responding to. Perhaps that is why, depsite all the great press (and the fact that despite all this I am sure it's a great movie) that I cannot make myself watch it. Perhaps when it is out on video I might watch it. But I can't right now amid all its hype.

Is it over-sensitivity, or is it a country cringing to watch itself yet again through alien eyes and feel its complexities being stripped away? Yes, there are movies about the Paris riots for instance, but there are also dozens of movies on its beauty and its romance.

Is it the discomfort of being measured against just one truth by a movie-watching world that will move on to the next big thing soon, and all it will remember about India are its slums and its human miserty and not much else?

I am not sure but I am thinking. And wondering.

A Moment of Silence on a Day of Remembrance

2009-01-30T23:26:00.004+01:00

Albert Einstein said this about Gandhi: "Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth."

It was 61 years ago today, on January 30, 1948, barely 5 months after the independence for which he so bravely fought that an assassin's bullet struck Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the man we in India, called Mahatama (great soul).

As Gandhi walked towards the prayer meeting from Birla House where he was staying, he was running late. A man came forward to touch his feet. Gandhi reached out to touch him. The man fired and one of India's best-loved sons died of the bullets fired by Nathuram Godse.

As a schoolchild in the 70's and 80's I knew Gandhi like others did because of his portraits that hung everywhere, because of his statues, and because of his face on the ruppee notes and coins.

No, I don't think he was a saint. He was a man, and a flawed one. Some might say a deeply flawed one. But he was also a man with compassion and a direct, simple vision that pierced the might of the British Raj.

He knew that if the British denied us Indian salt that he only had to march to the salt flats of Kutch and a nation would be electrified and millions would follow. He knew that the man reviled in Britain as the 'half-naked fakir,' and his followers could not prevail upon the might of the Crown except by not fighting.

And so, he and his followers, took on the might of the empire by employing ahimsa. I remember well, my teachers in school impressing upon us the difference between passive resistance and non-violent but active resistance which is the essence of Gandhian satyagrah (truth struggle). There was no passivity in our independence struggle. It was active, it was engaged...but it did not employ weapons or violence.

Perhaps India would have been indepedent without Gandhi. The empire, of course, was fading already. But without him, we would not have had a transcendant leader who refused any office, and turned away from power. Flawed as he was, Gandhi was India's moral compass.

He was truly secular when it counted. He truly believed in non-violence. After all, when his satyagrah was at its height and some impassioned followers burned alive policemen in Chowri Chowra, he called off the movement. Despite the loss of momentum, despite the opposition from even his colleagues.

And he proved that it is not just worth getting something at the cost of one's principles. That freedom delayed is better than true freedom compromised. And that true freedom comes when you achieve results without losing yourself, your ideals, and your valued concepts.

So, on this 30th of January, let us remember Gandhi, for who he was, one of the greatest leaders India ever had. We were lucky to have him, the world was lucky to have him. For it is only in people, flawed people in whom we can see shards of ourselves, that true greatness resides. For saints and great souls lose their humanity. And Gandhi never did.

Beam me up...Serge!

2009-01-28T11:33:00.004+01:00

Trekkie 1: Do you feel weird Pierre?

Trekkie 2: Like someone is looking at us? Maybe taking pictures with those quaint little 21st century cameras?

Both laugh heartily.

Together: These poor, primitive shoppers.

Trekkie 1 (presses his communicator): The perimeter is secure captain. All shopping at H&M and Etam continuing as needed.

Trekkie 2: Now it's time for coffee and croissant...Damnit Jean, I may be a starship officer but I am still a Frenchman, non?

Trekkie 1: Absolutement.

*There is no reason for these poor security guards in the French mall (Moillesulaz, Annemasse area) to be dressed like low-rent ship personnel from the Starship Enterprise (the original).

Happy...

2009-01-26T13:16:00.007+01:00

...Republic Day India

...Australia Day Down Under

...Chinese New Year All

.....And....yes, there's more...

...Happy *Cough, Cough, Achooo to* Me!

Unfairness of life

2009-01-23T00:29:00.003+01:00

Why is it that what is usually a 48 hour cold for some people settles in my lungs and rages as bronchitis. I swear I feel like my lungs are bruised and raw. I rarely get sinus headaches or sniffly noses. No...what I get at least a few times a year is the feeling that I am being strangled from the inside by a very, very strong midget (errr....little person).

It started back in 1999 when I had 9 bouts of bronchitis and one of pnuemonia....spaced out at the end of every month. Now I just need to walk by someone smoking or catch the common cold and I start hacking like a cat with a giant hairball....except my broncial pathways are totally frozen so all I get is pain and a lack of oxygen.

Of course the only silver lining is that I can then complain and feel sorry for myself. Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!! But it's getting old, really old.

Hope I feel better by next week.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.--President Barack H. Obama, from his inaugural address.

2009-01-21T09:23:00.006+01:00

It's President Obama, y'all. Finally! There's a new man in the white house and he's already started with Guantanamo. Yes, in one of his first official acts President Obama (I can say President Obama over and over again...President Obama, President Obama....) has halted the trials of Guantanamo detainees for 120 days. He had vowed to close down the place, but that is a more complex and time-consuming task. So we'll wait and watch...and hope.

As I looked at the sea of people who came to the mall in Washington to watch and hear an exceptional man take office I wondered how Obama felt with this huge burden of expectations upon him. Did he feel like he was drowning with the millions of eyes upon him, a billion expectations of him? I know he will disappoint many, perhaps even me, with some of his actions. It is not possible to live up to these great expectations. But I hope that President Obama gives it his best shot, that he goes after our issues with the same level-headedness and intelligence with which he ran his campaign. He might not do everything he needs to do, everything he should do, but I hope he restores some ethics, some responsibility, some class to the office he holds. And that he helps to make the US and the world better.

We are watching President Obama, and our best wishes and our support are with you as were our votes. Please make us proud.

It's Not All Godly Golf Courses in Kentucky

2009-01-19T09:55:00.008+01:00

I think a lot of people, especially those from the east coast tend to dismiss all southern states as backward and ignorant, not to mention racist. Are they? Well....yes, but, after having lived on the east coast (and the mid-west and the west coast as well) I would say that the east coast is as well. It's all just much better hidden and more camouflaged and more difficult to spot. Whereas in a place like Kentucky it's well...a little bit more accessible and unsophisticated. Of course, Kentucky would benefit from a more Mass. like government, but social change is nothing new to the state.

After all, Kentucky's wonderful Berea College, tucked where the Cumberland mountains meet Kentucky's bluegrass plains, has been integrated...truly integrated since the 1850's. Before that, it was anti-slavery. Not just the college but also the church. Now that is godly and bibilical in the best sense. Not just that, all students who attend the college attend it for free. Yes, if you get into Berea College, you don't pay. You have to work in the college to pay your way. So students make those wonderfully simple but creative Berea handicrafts and they work in the shops, the kitchens, the dining rooms on campus. The college favors anyone who is the first in their family to reach college.

Berea College was founded in 1850 by abolitionist, Reverend John Fee. He was helped by the American Missionary Association and anti-slavery politician Cassius Clay.

Now, I very rarely write good things about religion, but in this case I will. Or rather for good people who saw good--true good--in religion and made things happen in unfriendly and dangerous times. Berea's school and church were dedicated to the Christian principles against prejudice and racism. Fee and others were dedicated to building an inter-racial college and church based on Christian brotherhood. After armed pro-slavery opposition forced Berea workers out of the state, they slipped back in at the start of the Civil War, including Fee himself.

At the end of the war, Fee invited black freedmen to live in Berea, and started building this little interracial town. By 1870, an estimated 200 black families settled in and around Berea. The interracial church on the Berea ridge not only had black members but many also served as deacons and in committees. Contrast this to what was happening not only in the South, but also in all other parts of the US at this time.

Similarly, not only were there black students at Berea College but so were members of faculty. Again, remember this is the 1870's and 1880's when this was unthinkable in most parts of the country. Black alumni taught Latin, math and pedagogy.

By 1874, Berea had 74 white landowners and 40 black landowners. Imagine this! This is before integration anywhere else, before anti-discrimination laws. They were able to be landowners because Fee bought large holdings of land so he could sell it to newcomers, especially black residents who might be unable to buy land otherwise.

So, there is something wonderfully appealing about Berea. Every time I go to Lexington, I make the 40-minute drive up there. I walk around the pretty campus, drink a lovely and frothy capuccino at the Berea Coffee and Tea Company, and buy some wonderful handicrafts or jewelry. I sit and watch its multi-racial and multi-cultural student body bustle about and think about the inspiring history of this little town tucked away from the world, which became a haven and a stepping stone for so many, at a time when the world was especially bleak for them.

And it reminds me that sometimes you just need a little courage and an abiding belief in the equality of all to make a huge difference. And that sometimes, jaded and anti-religion as I am...even I can appreciate brave people who delved into it to find true inspiration, at a time when others were using it to justify slavery and oppression and separatism.

As much as bibilical golf courses make me shake my head in disbelief, Berea is one reason I can never dismiss Kentucky (or any other place I suppose) as just a hick, ignorant backwater. For, if you look below the surface and beyond the obvious horizon, you can see much that there is much that is hidden and wonderful. And I hope in 2009, I can do this for other places and people as well. Look beyond the obvious I mean.

Rejection Dejection

2009-01-13T15:36:00.003+01:00

Why do rejections come in twos? Don't know, but they did...again. Two more rejections of my full manuscript. No concret reason, just "it's not for us," kind of reason. Oh well! After I dust off my bruised ego and dashed hopes and pat them on the head, it's time to send off two more.

Ya gotta get yerself some religion, y'hear?

2009-01-08T18:27:00.011+01:00

I can't believe it's 2009 already. I am back from Kentucky: land of the blue grass, beautiful horses and fast women (or is the other way around? Hmmm). And, yes, it is also the huge, shiny buckle of the bible belt. I had forgotten how very huge and shiny it is until I spent 18 days there after a very long time.

Lexington is the home of the mega churches. So there is the giant Baptist church (with services in Korean as well) with its swimming pool and skating rink, across from the huge Lutheran church, which sits diagonally across from the Church of the Christian Scientists. I saw a church that was in an old barn and a tabernacle inside an old Long John Silver's restaurant.

But Lexingtonians refuse to just worship inside their gargantuan churches. Why should you, when you have all the great outdoors? The highways are alive with billboards of fetuses begging to be born, of God Himself requesting (ordering?) your presence in church, the ubiquitious fish on the back of cars, enough to form many, many schools. But I never saw a car quite like this before.

I just got the back view. The side windows proclaimed that "His blood washes white as snow." No quips about anemia please.

I love Lexington. I really do. It's beautiful and gracious, and after Allahabad, it is my one home-town in the world. I lived there for more than seven years after all. So even these loud displays of religious fervor are somehow enchanting. Of course, I didn't used to be so enchanted when the local Jehovah's Witnesses would pay me weekly visits to save my (then so rare in the South)brown soul. It's like Watchtower had printed a picture of me with a Wanted for Christ caption. It must be time and distance that has given me this new affectionate perspective.

The one thing I wanted to do while I was there was to play some putt-putt golf...or rather, to play me some putt-putt golf while chugging some sodie-pop :-). And if mini-golf is your game, how better to play it than to get some religion into it as well? I was totally bummed out that I couldn't putt through Noah's ark, Mount Sinai, Golgotha, or Jesus' empty tomb (He Is Not Here for He is Risen) or turn the rivers into blood (apparently just soaked red cloth or carpeting or something). If you've always had a hankerin' for some puttin', golf your way through the 54 holes of this course. Divided into the two testaments (18 holes each) and 18 based on bibilical miracles, mini-golf enthusiasts love this place. The seven days of creation have a section---with the seventh hole being the easiest since God rested that day. Cool, huh?

Yes, dear readers, I was rained out. Maybe it was the Almighty smiting me for my heathen, atheist ways. But there are always pictures and always a next time for the Bibilical-themed mini-golf course in Lexington. Watch out Lord here I come! Hallelujah!

Merry ChrisHannuKwanza :-)

2008-12-18T08:04:00.002+01:00

Happy Holidays blog readers. I am headed off to the US, and if I don't post on here for the remainder of 2008, I just wanted to wish everyong a Very Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate. Maybe it's Festivus?

See you in 2009. Be happy. Be safe.

A Very Kentucky Christmas

2008-12-14T13:30:00.002+01:00

I don't have the dedication and staying power of my wee blether pal, who is doing an advent calendar of Christmas songs. So don't expect to see any more of these. I will be in Kentucky for Christmas after a very, very long time. Which made me think of Christmases past in Lexington. Which, in turn, made me think of the one song that all DJs on the local radio stations seemed to play on a loop. So, here it is, in the spirit of the season and in recognition of the unfortunate victims of reckless reindeer homicides everywhere, a blast from my past. A very Kentucky Christmas, y'all. Enjoy!

Rejection Dejection

2008-12-12T10:46:00.005+01:00

So, probably a couple of hours after the last post, I got a rejection of a full from one agency. Before I could crawl away and properly lick my wounds, one of the agents who had requested a partial three days ago, requested a full.

Aaah, the universe is in balance again. She is the ying to the other agent's yang. Meanwhile I feel like I'm standing on a log in the middle of a freezing lake, trying not to fall over. Because...you see I can't swim. Really.

Update: Rejection Dejection

2008-12-10T18:19:00.003+01:00

In the couple of hours since I last blogged my querying journey, one agent emailed me for a partial and another for a full. Both are big names for what that's worth...so I am excited and even hopeful. Until, of course, the rejections start rolling in and I crawl away to lick my wounds.

Rejection Dejection

2008-12-10T13:56:00.008+01:00

To avoid the fate of the author in this cartoon I've decided that for every rejection of a query, partial or complete manuscript I received I will send out at least one new query. Yes, my complete manuscript was rejected from two major agents but then, hey, this was the first time that these two agents had asked for the complete manuscript. I had gotten prompt HELL NOs from them for Burden.

I guess I feel more like the third runner up in a pageant and not the girl who never even made the first cut. Still hurts, but at least you can console yourself with, 'hey, at least I made it thus far,' and not feel like so much of a loser. Humpphhh

This strategy is keeping me going. *And* I've had three more requests for complete manuscripts, two just from the query, without even reading a partial (which is good and bad: i.e., did I just write a good query for a crap book? Yikes!). Here's the tally now:

Total queries: 27
No responses after 8 weeks: 6
Rejection on query: 5
Request for partials/rejections: 4/1
Request for complete/rejections: 4/1
New queries sent: 8

Onward ho!

What's in a Name?

2008-12-06T11:03:00.002+01:00

Since I am on the giant hamster-wheel of querying and rejections right now, I am prepared and ready for the "nays" to roll in. Even though each fresh "no" is like a spike through the heart. But I wasn't prepared for this one. Like every other time I queried the big-hitting, large agency on the west coast. This time their "no" arrived promptly.

Except, it wasn't for my new being-shopped-around novel, An Incomplete Universe. Nope the header and the generic, form email said it was a rejection for The Burden of Foreknowledge. Obviously I had mentioned my previous novel in the email but they had claimed to read the submission with "careful consideration." Maybe it was just a typo, maybe not, but despite my disappointment this one gave me a chuckle, like they exhumed my poor Burden from its grave.

Here, for your amusement, is the letter, with the agency's name stripped out:

Dear Jawahara,

We were pleased to receive your submission and have now had a chance to consider
it closely. We appreciate your patience in allowing us to completely evaluate
your material, giving it the ample attention it deserves.

While your work is interesting and well-written, after careful consideration, we
feel that your project is not right for us. However, as you know, these
decisions are largely subjective, and another agent or editor may have a
completely different opinion.

Thank you for inviting us to consider your work. We wish you well in placing
your manuscript.

Sincerely,
The Big-Name West Coast Literary Agency

Hey, don't look at us

2008-12-04T11:16:00.007+01:00

There is buzz from Pakistani media and the blogosphere that the Mumbai terror attacks were (a) either Indian Muslims or (b) Hindu terrorists masquerading as Pakistani terrorists. WTF?

You know I can understand this, really understand this. I know how it must feel for sane, peace-loving people in Pakistan to acknowledge that someone from their side of the border might have had something to do with this horror. Just as I can understand the anti-Pakistan and even anti-Muslim statements calls in the middle of the unfolding horror in Mumbai. I can understand it, I can empathize with all these sentiments. That does not mean I support any of it.

Pakistanis need to realize that these are the same people who blew up their Marriott, who might have had a hand in numerous suicide attacks and Benazir Bhutto's assasination. I don't believe the Pakistani government has any control over the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani secret service) or the LET (Lashkar-e-Taiba, Islamic terrorist group). And that is a problem. A huge problem. A well-funded, secret organization that helped the creation of Al Qaeda, and helps train Islamic militants, operating in an extra-governmental manner, outside the control of an elected government is a terrifying thought.

I remember listening to a BBC interview of Benazir Bhutto before she headed back to Pakistan, in which she was asked about the ISI and LET. She casually said that when she had been PM she had been happy that the ISI were focused on India and that the LET did not yet exist but implied that the ISI operated as a sort of rogue agency. She talked about her distrust of the ISI now. I remember thinking while I listened to her speak, well, if you nurture an extra-governmental organization which spreads terror eventually those chickens will come home to roost. Whether it was the ISI itself or one of the radical orgzanizations it helps, someone certainly was responsible for her assassination. Here's an article (for some reason I can't link to it, so you'll have to cut and paste in your browser: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3100052.ece

While there might have been some Indian Muslim involvement (the terrorist who had checked into the Taj had many visitors) the captured gunman has told police about the boat that sailed from Karachi, and about the names of the others who died and some whom I believe are still at large. Now the Mumbai Police is no friend of Indian Muslims. If they had any information that Indian citizens were heavily involved it would have been public knowledge and there would be a backlash already taking place. If the Hindu right-wing parties had *any* information about Indian Muslim involvement they would be all over it.

The fact is that ISI and ISI-backed groups have operated in India earlier, whether in Kashmir or elsewhere. And they operate in Pakistan as well. In that sense we have a common enemy. Some consider the ISI a shadow government and it has close links with Al Qaeda and other terror groups.Watch this video that talks about Bhutto's assasination which also points out that there seems to be no difference between an ISI training camp and an Al Qaeda training camp. Chilling!

The Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for these attacks. No one knows much about this group. However, the email that claimed responsibility came from Russia. Upon closer analysis of the IP address and of the email itself it was found that the actual email was written in Pakistan and opened on a computer in that country. The Deccan, of course, is the plateau towards the south of India, also where Hyderabad is located. Is the name a deliberate attempt to squarely try and place the outfit as originating from the Deccan plateau. By whom? Someone who wrote the email in Pakistan and sent it out from Russia? Who could it be?

As far as Hindu fundamentalist involvement is concerned, this attack has all the hallmarks of Islamic militancy. A captured Hindu fundamentalist would also gladly point fingers at Indian Muslims, instead of Pakistan, or better yet Indian Muslims working with Pakistanis, their favorite boogeyman, the Pak-loving Indian Muslim.

The fact that we have Hindu militancy, and the Gujarat (and other) riots happened, doesn't also mean that Islamic terrorists do not operate in India. Just because we now also have home-grown Islamic militants does not mean thatwe do not also have terrorists from a country with which we've had a divisive and very bloody history.

Peace-loving Pakistanis and Indians do have a common enemy and if we really want peace and reduced terror, there needs to be cooperation between us. Getting mired in unlikely conspiracy theories can get us nowhere. The only other alternative is another war, and I don't think any of us want that.

Glimpses from Mumbai

2008-12-01T12:27:00.007+01:00

In the high-tension drama surrounding the Taj, the Oberoi, and the Trident hotels, as well as Nariman House, we seem to have forgotten the other victims of the Mumbai attacks. The hotels and Nariman House were where the well-to died, they form the memories of the upper classes. Of course, there were brave service-people who also became victims, but these five-star hotels and Nariman House are places where people like *us* hung out. So was Cafe Leopold.

Mumbai's defiance and sadness was expressed by a young man at the Gateway of India Vigil. He held a sign that proclaimed:

Mr. Terrorist: I am alive. What more can you do?

Mr. Politician: I am alive despite you.

I am a Mumbaikar

Yes, he is a Mumbaikar and a survivor, but the crowds at Gateway are mainly the English-speaking elite. There are other Mumbaikars too, who rarely make an appearance on the national stage. Is it because they speak Marathi and Mumbai? Is it because with the sudden and violent deaths of entire families, their communities come together to bear the costs of multiple funerals, because they are too poor to have a voice? Their trauma too is equally horrifying, their ultimate predicaments perhaps worse. Let's see some of their stories.

A grieving mother (left) who lost two of her children, outside St. Georges Hospital

Remember, the first 56 people died at CST--the huge railway terminal once called (Victoria Terminus) VT. This is also the throbbing heart of Mumbai, through which its masses pass, its lower-class and poorer citizens. Then there was the car bomb at the gas station. And the standoff at Cama Hospital, the attack at Ville Parle and at the Bunder.

Ten sites were terrorized simultaneously in Mumbai, and we have all been fixated on four of them. Here are some glimpses from the other side, some victims, some survivors, some heroes:

The Aftermath of Terror at CST, Mumbai

1) Announcers at CST: The men in the booth who make announcements for the bustling station, saw the blood and heard the shots. They made emergency announcements so others could leave by alterante exits avoiding the site of the carnage. They made announcements for the trains coming in, so that thousands upon thousands of arriving passengers did not emerge onto the platforms. Remember this, most of Mumbai's 5 million commuters pass through CST. At once point, one of the gunmen looked up towards the glassed-in booth. The announcements continued. The terrorists fired up at the men. The announcers barricaded the door and two of them positioned themselves beside the door, armed with stools to knock out the terrorists if they came in. The announcements continued.

2) A 22-year old Taj employee was ordered by one of the terrorists to set fire to table-cloths. He refused. He was shot three times. He was to have left for the UK in a few days to work at a hotel there. Earlier he had saved other lives and even went back to retrieve some important files a foreign businessman had left behind when he had escaped. According to survivors, there were many such amazing young people, working at the three hotels. People, who instead of running away, made sure their guests were evacuated. Many, if not most of them died.

Among the dead at the Taj was the wife, and the 5 and 14-year old children of the General Manager. The man himself helpd with rescue and evacuation and worked with law-enforcement.

3) There were the nameless working poor who crowded blood-banks to donate, while the rich stayed away. Here is a wonderful article by hairstylist Sapna Bhavnani: http://www.mid-day.com/specials/2008/nov/301108-News-Sapna-Bhavnani-Mumbai-Terror-attacks-Colaba-Taj-Mahal-Hotel-Trident-Hotel.htm

She talks about the people clamoring to give blood, including an old man leaning on a cane and a four-foot tall man arguing with a nurse because he was turned away for being too small to donate.)

4)There was the grief-numbed man who spoke in Hindi of how six members of his family were gunned down at CST. He was the only one speaking in Hindi among the sea of English-speakers at a forum at St. Xavier's College, the home of the South Mumbai elite. There was a quiet desperation and dignity in the way he spoke as he asked what would happen to his family. Among the dead were two young children. Unable to afford multimple funerals, his equally poor neighbors and friends stepped in to help. His beard and cap and his name identify him as Muslim yet that was not something he talked about. It was unimportant. What was important was his broken heart. And I felt for him, being paraded as the one token poor man and Muslim rolled into one, unable to fully understand the conversations raging around him, as he sat on the ground, his eyes fixed downward because as he said, "meri awaz to nikal nahi rahi hai," (My voice can barely emerge from within). I tried to find the video but it's not up yet.

5)The people of Mumbai--no matter their class, their religion, or their status--have no choice but to keep on living. They have to go back to work, to school, be on the streets and get on with the business of living. They are survivors, victims, and heroes all rolled into one. They are angry and I can't blame them. Keep up the good fight Mumbaikars and never give in.

Jai Hind!

What have they done?

2008-11-29T15:53:00.003+01:00

The Taj, Mumbai lobby, before the attacks

...and after

Amchi Mumbai

2008-11-27T21:39:00.008+01:00

Mumbai--or Bombay as we'd known it for years--was the city I made fun of. It was the city that rikshaw drivers and domestic servants ran away to, to become film stars. It was full of brash, opininated, self-important people, of models and actresses and suited financial types. The home of people who would say things like "Bombay is the best city in India," or "Bombay is India's NYC and LA rolled into one,' or " Bombay pays most the country's taxes and we get no benefits while states like Bihar and UP and Delhi reap the benefits."

Yes, Bombay was to me self-important, self-obsessed, and yet it always was India's city of dreams. For indeed, small town girls and boys could come here and become stars, where the lingo of the tea-boys was hip, and though gritty and urban, it became transformed at night when the glittering queen's necklace lit up.

Perhaps it was a reaction to Bombayites'--now known as Mumbaikars--dislike for my state's and Bihar's refugees who streamed into the city straining its resources to their breaking point. And yet the city stretched to accomodate them. Perhaps there was some admiration, maybe even envy woven into my psyche. Perhaps that pounding pulse of Bombay, that brash uncaring attitude, that touch of rudeness and the self-obsession was something I wished for myself and for my hometown and my state.

The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, across the street from the Arabian Sea was the hotel of aspirations. It was where we dreamed of going. No matter the new and amazing other hotels in Delhi or even Mumbai, I still remember my first time, at 12 when I had dinner at the Shamiana restaurant. Sure, I pretended to be blase, but still so many years later I remember that first time. The Taj was history and glamor and wheeling dealing and exotic, all at once. It was a gracious, grand hotel and despite my teenage refusal to find anything redeeming about Bombay and its sprawl, I found my evening at the Taj enchanting.

Today as I watch the splatters of blood, the look of shock on faces, the fires at the grand old Taj and the Oberoi and Trident hotels I remember my past dislike for Mumbai.

And I see Mumbai for what it is. India's economic engine, its repositor of dreams, the place that makes us believe all is possible. Despite its problems I see beneath its brashness is impatience, beneath its jostling, bustling heart, a desire to see things happen, to *make* them happen.

It is to this chaotic, teeming city of dreams that Islamic terrorists with rucksacks laid seige. They ran through the streets, shooting people, exploded bombs at Victoria (now Chhatrapati Shivaji)Terminus. They holed up in its finest hotels, targeted foreign visitors and the predominantly Jewish Nariman House. A city that sacrificed three of its top cops, and nine other policemen to the attacks, where over a 100 have died, while hundreds more have been injured. The terrorists may or may not be Pakistani but they certainly had some support from across the border. According to NDTV's coverage intercepted calls seem to suggest this. In fact, the terrorists were supposed to say they were from Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, not Hyderabad in Pakistan. The full truth will come out some day I hope. Regardless, it is impossible to carry out these widespread attacks without local complicity and that saddens me and makes me very. very angry.

AND I AM SICK OF IT.

No matter how bad this is, and not much can be worse, Mumbai is the one city that can withstand this. Even after the simultaneous train station bombings in 2006, people went back to work the next day. Yes, Mumbai is a tough city. Its people are tough and they are resilient.

Today, I can say, with no reservations and no pity, but with admiration and support: I love Mumbai. Today, I too am a Mumbaikar. And today with all Indians, even those of us who live elsewhere, I too can declare: Amchi Mumbai, My Mumbai. Terror will not overwhelm us.

Amchi Mumbai, Our Mumbai, we are with you.

Mumbai Under Seige

2008-11-27T08:23:00.004+01:00

Here is the link to the developing CNN story.

I am numb. And pissed off. At the same time? Is that possible. Screw the Deccan Mujahideen. Who are these people? Who are these people to storm a city by boat, hole up in luxury hotels and kill commuters at train stations. The story is still unfolding. All I can think of are the people in Mumbai who have yet again been targeted by these fucking terrorists, the terror that people must be feeling.

It's still chaos there, the death toll is rising, so is the list of the injured. I watched NDTV last night and watched the blood, the walking dead, the wounded and felt so much that I can't even write in anything more than these staccato sentences.

Damn these fuckers

Fly, fly, fly

2008-11-23T23:42:00.002+01:00

It's strange, this writing business. First of all, the two words together: writing, creative, wonderful, strange, making something out of nothing, embroidering words on to thoughts and feelings. And business, practical, pragmatic, dare I say stodgy even?

When I am writitng, around the time I come to the 50% mark I am convinced I am producing trite, banal, prose, wrapped around a weak, skeletal core of pretentious plot and undifferentiated characters. Still I guard it jealously. It might be horrid but it's mine. My creation. I am the god of this universe, baby! And it might be the ugliest baby ever but it's mine. Mine! Damnit!

Then I hibernate. I put it away, determined to put it in the recycle bin. But maybe I'll read it again. I do, in weeks or months.

Then I thnk, Meh, maybe it's not totally irredeemable. So I polish, refine, step back and go, okay, maybe I'll show it around town. So I slap on a tasseled bonnet, wipe its face clean of extra prepositions, sprinkle in some commas and take it for a ride in a writer's group. My insides clench, my gut twists. Hey, that wasn't so bad. People responded to it.

So I work some more, change something here, edit, add, take away. Like Michelangelo cutting away the excess marble to uncover David who was always there, so do I. Except, I ain't no Michelangelo, and nothing I've ever created could even hope to be in the same universe. But I sorta, kinda get the feeling.

Somewhere along the line, I lose that jealousy. It goes from being my creation to taking fledgling steps towards becoming a product. This is when I venture further afield. Truly I can go for months, even years, writing and never sending in anything to be published. And yes, the reward is in the process itself. The turn of a phrase, the way the words flow, the people come to life, the truths excavated. Ah the bliss! But one day something inexplicable happens and the elusive hunt for the agent begins. Like a coin falling into a slot.

Rejections come in, but sprinkled in between are requests for partials, and then, requests for the complete manuscript. I feel close. I want my baby to soar, beyond my hold, beyond even my critique group. I want to set it free. Is this when ego steps in?

Writing is an exercise in self-deprivation while feeding the soul. There is no ego, there is only judging and mis-judging, the hours that fly by unnoticed, the sense of satisfaction when a sentence flows out smoothly, when words mold around thought like putty.

But somewhere along the line a story becomes a product, something that can be sold. That must be where it connects to my ego, when it begins to leech out the pleasure of it, while promising dreams in return. Dreams like lottery tickets. And I, hunched over, matching numbers, wanting it bad.

Damnit! I *want*--so bad I can taste it--it, my story, to go places. Okay, I don't want some humungous advance but a star agent and a decent contract from a respectable published would be appreciated. I've been published since I was 13. I've put in my time, written crap assignments, produced on deadline, waited. Oh god, how I've waited. I am owed this. Why should others have it and not me? Why? Then I ask myself: Who owes this to me? The world of publishing? The world at large? Who?

No one. That's who.

No one owes me a book deal. And that's the scariest part. There is no blame here. No accounting for personal taste, no recrimination to fate or talent or the judgment of others or the alignment of the stars. I want to isolate the exact point at which my creation became a monster for my ego. I can't. I don't want to.

For egoes are fragile, egoes can be hurt, hurt badly. Is this why this excerpt of a letter from an un-named star agent hurts?

"Thank you very much for sending me your novel, AN INCOMPLETE UNIVERSE and your great patience while waiting for me to get back to you. I thought you did a terrific job of capturing the rhythms of life in that city. You also created an extraordinary cast of characters, spanning a variety of class, religious and ethnic backgrounds, and bringing to life people and situations that haven’t been explored very much in English language fiction. There is so much to admire here. It is therefore, with considerable regret that I must pass on the opportunity to represent you."

It goes on, sensitive, complimentary but ultimately rejecting me. Some would term it a wonderful rejection letter. But it's still a rejection.

So, here's my tally:

Agents queried: 20
Queries disappeared into black hole: 11
Requests for partials: 4
Rejections of partials: 2
Requests for complete manuscript: 3
Rejection of complete manuscript: 1

After the rest of the partial/complete manuscript rejections come in, I will query 20more. Then perhaps some more. I'm not sure. Already that madness is starting to fade. This quest feels empty somehow, unfulfilling. I will continue to edit and refine An Incomplete Universe. It needs it.

And sometime next month, I will start plotting my next book. I am happiest writing. That's the fun part, the soul part, the part that invades my sleep, that brings the flash of phrase, the look of a character as the sun glints over the distant snow as I drive. The part that connects me to the universe in some elemental way.

This product part sucks. It really does. But I am compelled to do it. We are all elements of our own dichotomous natures after all.

Banned books group

2008-11-16T17:01:00.000+01:00

So...whoever is interested in the banned books group, can visit that blog at its own new, super-duper blog.

I circulated flyers at the Geneva Writers Group meeting on Saturday and quite a few got picked up. At any rate we'll have at least 3-4 strong members. Anything more would be a bonus.

15 November 2008

2008-11-15T18:59:00.006+01:00

Today was my father's birthday. I try to remember his 80th, when all of his children gathered together after so many years, all five of us in the same place. He was happy. So were we.

Today there was no one to call.

Still looking for a few good readers

2008-11-09T14:44:00.002+01:00

What do Little Red Riding Hood and Harry Potter have in common with The Satanic Verses and The Jewel of Medina?

They have all been banned or have been controversial writings at some point in time by some large group or country. I am looking for 6-8 people to join me in creating a new book group. This will be The Banned Books Group, which will take on one banned or controversial book each. Members will take turns to nominate a book at each meeting. We will meet periodically to discuss these interesting and important books. Sometimes, the actual authors of the books might even join us via phone or in person. This should be a lively and fun group. Drop me a line and let’s read together. Email: jsaidullah@gmail.com

We already have a few members, but we're looking for some more. I also created a separate blog for this group. Still very new, check it out here.

Get in touch if you want to join...and if you are in Geneva :-)

Shades of Color

2008-11-07T09:51:00.004+01:00

So I know I wrote this posting a few days ago. but seriously that is not President-Elect Obama's only persona.

He is many things and being black is just one of those things. He is biracial. His mother was white, and his mother's family is largely responsible for the person he turned out te be. Personally I find this hypodescentism (the practice of ascribing the race of the socially subordinate parent to a mixed-race child) a little off-putting,and somewhat racist. The concept of hypodescent began, in the U.S., in slave-owning Virginia where people like Thomas Jefferson and his father sired children by their slaves. Ascribing these childrens' race to only their mothers' race was expedient for them. Not to mention that these offspring would never be children to their fathers, only merchandise. Makes me shudder.

The concept of hypodescent was used in the creation of the "one drop" rule, i.e. if someone had one drop of black blood they were black. Then, the 1924 "Preservation of Racial Integrity," law, defined a white person as someone who had no trace of any other blood but Caucasian. It was used as a device to keep people in their place so to speak. And that place was at the back of the bus in every single way.

Barack Obama unlike most African-Americans did not grow up with the historical yoke of slavery dogging him. He undoubtedly must have faced racism but his Kenyan immigrant father, because of his newness in the country, left him largely unscathed from the historical burden of slavery. He is also white, not just black. And we need to recognize this instead of falling back on the old hypodescent doctrine.

The reason Obama bought so many people together is that he rarely, if ever, directly talked about his race. The color of his skin is self-evident but that is not why I (and millions of others) voted for him. He made the color of his skin irrelevant. And that made him a transcendant candidate. That's what made him win. And what's what made us believe that we had won, that all of us had won. That America had won.

I voted for him because he is an exceptional man not because he is a person of color. I voted for him because he made me believe in hope again, after a very long time. I voted for him because he made me feel euphoric in thes dark and depressing times. I voted for him because he was a candidate who seemed superbly qualified and highly intelligent and was someone with a pragmatic vision. Barack Obama would be an exceptional man no matter the color of his skin. I am not discounting the face that he is a person of color, but to only take into account devalues everything else he is and is not.

He has something that many of us can identify with. Yes, he is black but he is also white. And surely his white family, and then also his extended multi-cultural family must also rejoice at his historic win. How can we leave them out of this by only celebrating one part of him? He is unlike any other President already, without even taking office, but that is not just because of the color of his skin. He is a sum of multiplicities, a multi-racial, educated, person who did not let skin color impede his progress in any way. If he had run as just the first viable African-American candidate it would have been a divisive campaign. He ran as our candidate, the candidate for all Americans. And that's what brought people together, black, white and every shade in between. So now that he has won, we can all take pride in the fact that we voted for someone I believe will be an exceptional president, but not because he is black.

He is the son of an immigrant and those of us who are naturalized Americans see ourselves either in him, his father or his children. He is the son of a woman from Kansas and some others can see ourselves in her, and in her family who became his family and brought him up.

We see reflections of ourselves in his diverse family. His beloved grandmother who just died was white, but other parts of his family are not. His favorite half-sister, Maya Soetero is half Asian, and he spent his childhood with her in Indonesia. Other members of his family still live in Africa.

He is not from some old-blood east coast or southern family. His family spans the world. The reason that people all over the world had an emotional reaction to his win is not because they saw an African-American black man win. It is because in his story, they see themselves. And those parts of him cannot be denied because they are more than about just him being black.

He could be from anywhere. He has lived in Indonesia as a child. He grew up in Hawaii. He lived in Boston as a student, and Chicago as a community organizer and senator. He is a Christian who knows what it was like to be Muslim. Even after his transformative 2004 convention speech on the way back from Boston (we lived there then) he was pulled aside by airport security because of the color of his skin and his middle name. He knows what it is like.

He is, therefore, uniquely American, not the usual faux-Texan or blue-blooded Boston Brahmin. He is from America. That's what he really is. The new face of a dynamic America (and perhaps the world), where each of us can look at him and see a part of ourselves. But if we limit this one tiny fraction and take it to represent the whole man, we devalue him and perhaps our country and ourelves. For are we all not a combination of complexities?

Barack Obama is the sum of his parts, just as all of us are. He, and we, are more, way more than than the colors of our skins, our last names, and our ethnicities. And we need to recognize that fact. We need to put away hypodescent, once and for all.

Burden gets a new review

2008-11-05T23:55:00.002+01:00

Sudeep Sen of Poetry Magazine in the UK recently posted a great review of my first novel, The Burden of Foreknowledge. I love it.

"The Burden of Foreknowledge by Jawahara Saidullah is a good example of how successfully period stories can be made to come alive to contemporary audiences. She does this with her keen sense of narrative, one that is at the same time descriptive and full of sidebar details, as well as brimming with drama and silence. The novel could have easily lapsed into mere nostalgia and history writing, but Saidullah successfully avoids that pitfall by using a writing style that is contemporary and believable and convincing."

Yes, We Did

2008-11-05T10:06:00.005+01:00

Barack Obama stepped into history, walking into a position that traces itself to George Washington, a slave-owner. I stayed up until almost 7 AM (well I did nap from 3 until 5) and watched history being made. I wish I had been in Grant Park in Chicago. I watched the crowds cheer Obama, cheer our country and pour out their hopes and their happiness. And I watched the Senate and the House turn bluer than before. America elected a new President and proved that despite our problems we are a nation that grows and develops and where indeed, if you have the goods, you can do anything. And I feel humbled and proud to be its citizen.

America elected its first African-American/bi-racial President with a number of votes greater than ever cast in an election. And in the process begged the question, what Bradley effect? I saw the apathy of past elections being wiped away with the record number of first time voters, young voters, long lines, and the number of votes cast. A historic election not just because we elected someone whose name is not Bill or George or something safely Anglo-Saxon.

Let me savor this. President Barack Obama. President Barack Obama.

President Obama you hold our hopes and our aspirations. You make us beleive in something bigger than ourselves.In electing you we proved something to ourselves, and about ourselves as a nation, and we proved to the world that despite its flaws and its problems, the U.S.A. is a great country indeed. You are my President and I am putting aside my natural cynicism to sound like a giddy teenager. You made me believe and I want to keep on believing. Yes, we can. Yes, we did. But there is still work to be done. And we will do it.

Don't Vote....I'm Serious, don't vote

2008-11-04T10:30:00.001+01:00

...don't vote unless you care about your future.

A crazy idea?

2008-11-02T23:07:00.005+01:00

It was Banned Books Week, from September 27-October 4, 2008.

So I had this idea...which I suppose like all ideas at 11 PM...in the cold light of day will sound totally crazy. I want to create a book group...but a banned or controvorsial book group. So I wanted to write it out and put it out there. This would include any books that have been banned or have been controvorsial at some point at some place. Strangely this is not such a small group. It includes the Harry Potter books (banned for witchcraft), The Satanic Verses, the new Jewel of Medina, etc.

I am so into freedom of speech that I'm surprised I didn't think of this before.

Here's the banned books site at UPenn. The books range from Little Red Riding Hood to Ulysses.

Here is the banned books page from the ALA.

Here is the banned books page in wikipedia.

I think this would be a really interesting book group. So, I am going to work on it and put it out there. See how many others are interested. I'm thinking like 8 members or so. Will post it on glocals, I think.

What do you think?

Where's Big Bird When You Need Him?

2008-11-02T14:28:00.003+01:00

I actually laughed out loud when I saw a picture of the speeding muppet in Germany. Since British cars are right-hand drive and German cars are, well...not, the speed cameras in the Fatherland are set to catch speeding drivers (yes, there are some speed limits in the land of the autobahn)sitting on the left-hand side seat.

Except, if you take a British car over to Germany and speed past the cameras, how will they catch you if you're a muppet? That's right, an intelligent Brit is racing around Germany, with a life-size muppet sitting in the left-hand seat. It's brilliant. Can't they just mail the ticket to Sesame Street?

Read more about this here.

The Hangmen of Kentucky

2008-10-31T17:31:00.003+01:00

I lived in Lexington, Ky, for seven years. And yes, I loved it. It's beautiful and the people are polite and well-spoken and I for one find something softly seductive in the uniquely upper-class Kentucky accent.

But there was also the friend and her fiance who saw a glow in the woods outside Lexington and saw a cross burning in a clearing. And that's where someone said they liked Obama and it was a shame that he was black.

In all the years I lived there, no one was racist towards me, but I do know of an affluent African-American businessman (in town for work) who decided to go for a drive and stopped at a little country store to buy a soda. The owner pointed a shotgun at him and told he didn't know where he came from, "but boy if you wanna leave in one piece you betta turn around now."

I consider Lexington to be my U.S. hometown because it is where I arrived, young and fresh-faced from India. It was my portal to the U.S., the America I grew to love despite its problems. And the University of Kentucky (UK), especially my department (Communications) always seemed like a bastion of liberal tolerance.For the most part. Because of course, I had undergrad African-American students who were harrassed on campus late at night and inter-racial couples who were threatened.

And now this, where two young UK students (actually one of them from the community college) were arrested for hanging an effigy of Obama in retaliation for the California woman who in tremendous bad taste had Halloween decorations that involved Palin in a noose and McCain bursting into flames.

But this is the south. Hanging the effigy of a black man from a tree brings to the surface all the hatreds and prejudices not so deeply buried. It confirms the image of the racist South to the rest of the country. And there are other incidents across the country. A lynched Obama effigy at a small Christian college in Oregon, another with a noose and a knife in Redondo Beach, California.

This news on the heels of the Obama assasination plot which was foiled earlier makes you wonder. Forget about voting for a black candidate (who is half white anyway), there are people who actually want him dead because of the color of his skin. It's scary.

We're four days away from a new president (and I hope it is Obama) but with deep-seated hatreds like these among college students of all people, makes me pause. Whoever wins, with racist imagery like this, it's clear that racism still exists and when push comes to shove, we drag out the age-old symbols, especially in places not too long ago where strange fruit did indeed swing on the trees where they now hang effigies. When will it end? Will it ever end? Here are the lyrics to Strange Fruit, one of my most favorite (and heart-wrenching) poems.
And no one sang it better than Billy Holiday though Nina Simone came close.

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
(Abel Meerspol, writing as Lewis Allan in 1937, upon seeing a photograph of two black men who were lynched in 1930)

Ah Juliet, Juliet.....or our dog day weekend adventure

2008-10-27T09:36:00.006+01:00

It's Saturday night and we're dressed up and on our way out to meet friends for dinner. Then there it is, a little black streak in the darkness. We're used to seeing people's cats wander around here. Nope. It's a little dog.

There seems to be no owner around. We stop the car. The little dog bounds its way to me as I get out and sits down as she reaches. I pick her up and she nestles into my arms, her heart thumping like mad. She is the cutest little thing and so very sweet and friendly. She has a cute collar but no tags.

Some guy in a security car stops. We ask him what we should do. The police station in Chene Bourg he tells us. We get there. It's dark and closed. Yes, the police station is closed. Hmmmm....anytime I think I am getting used to life here, this happens, THE POLICE STATION IS CLOSED. No matter how many times I say it I am still astonished.

I go and stay home alone with this new dog and ours, Naina, who is like five times this dog's size. However, this sweet little bundle appropriates me and bares her teeth and growls if my baby approaches. Naina just looks reproachful and sad.

We find out about the 24 hour vet clinic. I go there, somewhere in the Cornavin area. I realize that the only people at the after-hours, weekend clinics are those with very sick animals indeed. One of them is Buster, a beagle with a white muzzle. He is gasping for breath covered by a green blanket, his owner sitting cross-legged next to him on the floor. Buster is 13 and clearly in distress. I think she's brought him to be put down. Another fluffy white dog seems to be having major breathing issues.

The white dog throws up. Buster stirs, sniffs the floor and climbs into his owners lap. He puts his head on the crook of her elbow. She calls him a good dog and says what all dog owners say, "who's the good dog? who's the good boy." I think he wags his tail. Then he dies. His owner bursts into tears saying, "it's okay. I didn't want him to suffer." The owner of the white fluffy dog starts crying. So do I. In public. My little nameless dog gets really agitated even though Buster died very quietly. He just stopped breathing. I pet the little nameless dog.

After some time the receptionist scans her for a chip. She has none. She looks like a loved dog who likes people. Please people if you really love your animals, chip them, put tags on them. It saves a lot of heartache.

She comes home with us adn continues to terrorize Naina. She monopolizes us and tries to push Naina out of the way. But she adjusts to our schedule perfectly. She sleeps when we sleep, goes out to do her business wiht Naina (squatting and peeing on the exact same spot as Naina does), asks for her share of treats and eats out of Naina's bowl, though we set up a makeshift one for her.

I take pictures and make posters and put them all around the area. No one calls. I decide that I am going to make more posters and take them to all the vets in the area and see if anyone recognizes her. I hope she did not wander over from Ville le Grand or Ambilly. I don't want to make this an international search.

Then, this morning there are several missed calls from one number on my phone. And someone calls. She speaks not one word of English. My French is...well...I speak a couple of words. I knock at the doors of all my neighbors, call my one friend in the village. Nada. I make a hash of telling her I will call her in five minutes.

I go to the French English translation site and make up a list of random questions. Describe the dog's collar, size, etc. I ask her where she is. I tell her I will meet her at the main gate of the nearby hospital, a couple of km away from where we found the dog.

I drive up there. There's a little boy on a bicycle. I stop the car. He comes over and asks me if I have the dog. Yes, I tell him. The dog barks and leaps into his arms before I can open the door fully. She licks his face. 'Allo Juliet, he says. Juliet? I ask him. Yes, he says. It makes sense. She is pretty and cute and young and kind of a brat.

His father drives up in a battered station wagon. I try to talk to them. He touches his heart and thanks me profusely I beleive. I understand him when he asks if I have a dog. He says something which I am sure is, that's why you stopped for ours. He says bon jour to Naina who is in the back (she started crying when I left wiht the Juliet, not because she was sad to see her go but because I was taking this interloper in the car and not her. Her crying doesn't bother me but it does bother the neighbors. So I ended up taking her as well.).

Juliet, that ungrateful little thing barely spared me a glance when I called out Au Revoir Juliet. She was too busy licking dad's face in the front seat of the car. She looked like she was with the people she loved.

Naina and I came back home. I actually miss the little thing. If no one had claimed her we might have kept her. Naina is happy she's gone. If she could do a happy dance she would.

Epilogue: I knew I had forgotten something. Thanks so much for my pal Cwho lives in my village, for making phone calls to the after-hours vet number multiple times and hooking me up with them. Couldn't have done it with you, C. You rock!

Oh my God...he's black!!!!

2008-10-25T15:51:00.006+02:00

Guys, there's a big white elephant dancing around our living rooms and inside all our TV studios, and apparently even among those being polled. We're refusing to see it, to talk about, or address the issue but it's real and it exists. And finally the elephant sits down inside the voting booth and then we can't ignore it any longer.

I want all those smug Dems to shut up with the "we've won," and "it's in the bag," comments. It's not. As much as my heart goes a pittar patter when I see Obama and hear him speak, and though I am happy to see his leads in the poll, it all means diddly squat.

Will Americans...okay...non-Black Americans, when they stand inside that booth, will they be able to pull the lever for an African-American president? Or will the Bradley effect take over?

What is the Bradley effect you ask? It is that white elephant I was talking about. It is sometimes also known as the Wilder effect. In 1982 Tom Bradley (yes, the LAX international terminal is named after him) ran for governor. He too was ahead in the polls...by a lot. But he lost. The theory of the Bradley effect is that, when polled, many people don't like saying they won't vote for someone because of the color of his skin. And when they're finally in that booth, said white elephant sits right on top of them, stopping them from voting for a black candidate.

Okay, enough with that elephant already...but seriously, these days until the election are crucial. We might still see McCain as Pres and Palin (shoot me now, actually she could, couldn't she?) Palin. It doesn't matter how far ahead my Baamer(that's what I call him, we're tight like that) is in the polls, the Bradley effect might be alive and well.

Now, we're not in 1982, and I hope we're more evolved than that. But those people living the flyover zones...well, do trouble my head. Some of them believe that Obama is a terrorist (not helped by Fox's oh so frequent slips of the tongue calling him Osama...ooops...teee heee), that "they've" already attacked us and we can't have one of "them" becoming President. And my favorite (and yes this is an actual quote), "He's great. If he just wasn't black." *sigh* There is no justice in the world, huh?

So, let's not get too smug. Hope for the best but let's not get too cocky. Go Obama

In the meantime, entertain yourself with my favorite Obama biography of all time.

A Jewel of a Controvorsy

2008-10-23T16:25:00.007+02:00

*sigh* *double sigh*

What is it? What is it that makes it okay to criticize people but god forbid if you happen to criticize a book or a faith? Good lord, much as I love writing, please criticize away, have at it, but leave me the fuck alone. My writing is inanimate. It feels no pain but I do. I can re-write, savagely edit, but there's only one of me. No more drafts. Just one of me. I can be hurt.

Perhaps there is nothing, no one book, no god, that I feel strongly enough about to defend with my life. Nothing that I feel so strongly about that I would kill or threaten to kill someone because of it. Maybe that's why I find the whole fracas about The Jewel of Medina, to be tiresome and as thrilling as a bad case of hives. I mean, seriously, get over it.

For those who have better things to do with their time, here's the condensed version. Sherry Jones wrote a book, called The Jewel of Medina, based on the prophet Mohammad's wife, Aisha. Aisha was betrothed to the prophet at six and married to him at nine (or eleven or thirteen, but young, really, really young regardless), and was known as his favorite wife. Random House signed Jones to a $100,000 two-book deal and all was well with the world. Then...surprise!....as sure as winter follows fall, came the death threats. Duhhh!

Random House, that bastion of free speech and errr...commercialism...dropped the jewel like a nuclear potato. Andrew Franklin, who was editor at Penguin when The Satanic Verses was published decried Random House as cowards. Rushdie, of course, supported Jones and wrote about the perils of censorship. *Yawn*

In September 2008, British publisher Gibson Square took on the challenge of publishing the book. So far they are standing firm on this despite the publisher, Martin Rynja's house being firebombed. Yes, the threats escalated and the guy's house went up in flames.

Not so condensed after all, but there you have it.

Let me say this: I am tired of firebombs and death threats and murders in the name of religion. Debate religion, indulge in some good old-fashioned name calling but leave people's bodies and homes alone. Simply put, if you don't want to read a book, don't read it. Tell others not to read it. Why is it not okay to criticize your religion or fictionalize aspects of it? We live in a multi-textured world and some of us don't want sacronsanctness around us. We choose not read your stuff. You don't have to read ours.

But though I am a die-hard Rushdie fan and liked The Satanic Verses, I find myself waffling at Jones' shall-we-say soft-porn and rather *ahem* loose interpretation of facts. I mean there's fictionalizing and then there's "I floated in his arms to my apartment. He kicked open the door and carried me inside, then placed me on my feet again." This just makes me want to curl up with a cup of tea and the latest offering from Harlequin.The Sheikh's Virgin Bride anyone?

What I don't get is the shock that people...writers, publishers, editors...express every time they write or produce something about Islam and some pious Muslim decides he'd like to kill them for it. Really, in this day and age, if you write anything about the prophet without a million PBUHs littering the page and if you bring up even a slightly risque subject matter (even if it is done well), prepare yourself for the onslaught. And don't be coyly shocked when it arrives. Still, you have the right to offend people, yes, even people who find phrases like "I spread a smile thick as hummous across my lips, deeply offensive. Offend me. Offend iconoclastic Muslims. Just don't be shocked when you do.

And that's the point isn't it?

Jones has the right to write any lurid details she wants and a publisher should be able to publish it without having to make that now so tedious decision: your book or your life? They have the right to write and publish. You have the right not to read it and convince others not to. Simple!

So now, let's address you, Mr. or Ms. your-writing-offends-me-so-I-will-kill-you-in-the-name-of-Allah-firebomber:

By all means, castigate the author, read the book and tear it to shreds in reviews, boycott it, use it as a means to educate people. Don't try to prove you're not a narrow-minded, predictable dick-head by being a narrow-minded, predictable, dick-head. Stop with the threats, the fire-bombs, the fiery rhetoric. We get it. The rest of us--sane Muslims and non-Muslims--should not write about anything that vaguely touches anything remotely controvorsial in Islam. Guess what? People think and they read and they write. And part of that process is touching upon taboo subjects and writing about them. So, that's not gonna change. No matter how many Molotov cocktails you shake up.

Perhaps, since you evidently read (if not the books themselves, but at least the synopses put together by some literate brethren) you should channel your fiery thoughts and impulses towards writing reviews of these evil, evil, shaitan books. Go on! Really! You can. It might even get published.

Shock us by NOT firebombing anyone. Shock us by using normal, non-violent channels of dissent. Shock us by not threatening to kill or actually killing someone to show your displeasure. Shock us with your intellect, the power of your pen, the thunder of your prose.

At least then the rest of us can break away from this predictabile cycles of writing and threats every few years. And perhaps, the Ms. Jones of the world won't be laughing all the way to the bank. Get 'em where it really hurts. In the bank. Ignore these books so people like me won't buy it regardless of the author's less than stellar writing. Use your brain not your bomb.

Believe, truly believe, that Allah is all-powerful and is well able to look after His/Her image and doesn't need a pipsqueak human to defend Him/Her. I mean really, who do you think you are? Isn't that rather blasphemous...that you, a puny human can defend God?

I feel a fatwah coming on. Gotta run!

Predestination

2008-10-21T16:44:00.005+02:00

The question is this: are we what we're supposed to be? I mean, here I am, trying to write a lighthearted romp by the side of a river and it turned into one of my earliest stories published on the web, A Sound Quest, a dark tale of child molestation. It remains one of my favorite short stories (by me) ever. (the site seems to be down today. will update if anyone is interested in reading this)

I know I can do writing exercises and whatever and break myself of this habit. I can consciously guide myself towards writing other stuff. And the thing is I think in person I am not this dour, too-serious woman (reference my last post). In fact some would say I even have occasional bursts of genuine humor. No, really!

When I was a kid I was obsessed for a while with Readers Digest Condensed books. You know, several issues of RD in one bound volume. Whatever! While I've forgotten most of the Dramas in Real Life, Humors in Uniform, and other lovely banal pieces, I do remember this one short fiction piece. I don't remember the title, but the main thrust of the story sticks with me, decades later.

So, there's this young man and woman who eye each other across a crowded compartment of the London tube. The guy eyes the girl, the girl flutters back at him, that kind of thing. The compartment is so very crowded that they can't even get to stand next to each other, just look at each other. Thrilling! Then one day the guy whips out a sketch pad and a pencil, and with a look of concentration starts very obviously sketching the girl. He does this for days, no doubt piquing the girl's curiosity.

Finally, after weeks, he passes her a note and they meet for a date. She wants to see her sketch. He hems and haws, laughs nervously. She gets even more insistent. He shows her the drawing. It's Henry VIII! Is this how I appear to you, she asks, deflated? (Okay, I was a 9-year old Indian kid at the time so I had no idea who the heck Henry VIII was. Now I envision him clutching a giant turkey leg as he stares out of the paper, but I digress).

No, you're lovely, beautiful, he assures her. The thing is that no matter what he drew or how much he tried not to, everything he ever sketched turned out looking like Henry VIII. And that is how I feel. If I let thing go naturally (except when I blog) everything I write turns out to be dark, depressing stuff.

That's okay I guess...but sometimes I'd like to, you know, draw George III or even Lord Mountbatten.

On a totally tacked on now for something completely differen tnote......do you have to be Indian to find this video of a white guy parodying a Bollywood song hysterically funny. I love his expressions, the lip synchs, the hip gyrations...and that old song staple, when he momentarily loses sight of his lady-love and is distressed. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chart

2008-10-20T18:01:00.005+02:00

When I first joined grad school (I was like 10, yes I was, such a precocious genius), I attended a few seminars with someone who later became a friend, and then not (but that's another story, for another blog). And she told me in somewhat shocked tones, "gosh, well, I am a bit surprised. I thought you were rather frivolous when I fist met you."

Hmmmm....now I did like girly clothes and bright lipstick and cool, chunky jewelry. But frivolous? Really? I processed that in my 20-something brain and filed it away, not sure how to respond except with a rather idiotic grin and a quick subject change.

Then, earlier this year I spent three weeks at the Chateau de Lavigny, we had a public reading mid-way through the session. There were five of us and we had a great time that evening, discovering each other's work in a more public setting and supporting each other. It was awesome. One of the writers while making a toast at dinner that evening said a lot of complimentary things and then added, looking at me, "And you...I never realized you were do deep."

There have been at least 12 years between these two comments but they stick in my mind as book-ends. And no, I was not insulted or unhappy, just bemused. I mean I can't really police how people perceive me or perceive my writing for that matter. And perhaps, because I write of such darkness, it's not so bad if I am perceived as being sort of surfacey (is that word?).

It gets more complicated when I come against that other perception of me, as being either remote and somewhat snobbish or quiet and shy, even retiring. I know that I am a very situational person, so I probably come across as different to different people.

And how do I feel at being perceived as shallow or frivolous? I don't know. I guess I'd rather be that than an in your face deep person who makes people run for cover. I find juvenile humor funny (including the scatalogical), I still like bright lipstick and chunky jewelry though I am older than I was in grad school.

Perhaps it validates my desire to be a woman of mystery. Perhaps I am like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates...you never know what you're gonna get...well, unless you can read and just refer to the chocolate chart on the box. Do I want a chocolate chart for myself?

I guess I really don't mind any of these perceptions. Once someone gets to know me, the chart gets more muddled I am sure, but these initial perceptions do remain. You know what? I may not be a girl any more but I do love girly things, I adore pink and cute puppies. But I also wear a lot of black, can laugh helplesly at fart jokes, and look with more than my share of cynicism at most things and yes, write of the dark nature of things. In fact, I start light-hearted stories and they take a left turn somewhere, and it again becomes a tale of sadness or molestation or rape or death or murder or something uplifting like the messy end of relationships. Cheery no? Perhaps my different parts balance me...like one perfect nut encased within caramel, enrobed in rich chocolate.

Damn! Now I gotta go find some chocky for myself. How frivolously girly is that? Ta ta!

'Nuff Said

2008-10-16T01:18:00.003+02:00

I'm in California (c'mon sigh with me...aaaah, California). Anyway, here I am. I'm leaving to go back home tomorrow. 14,000 square acres are burning outside LA, I have bronchitis (yes, again), my rental car broke down, and I drove a giant pickup truck from Salinas back to Redwood City. So yes, 'nuff said. I want to be home. Maybe I'll blog about my trip, maybe I won't. Excuse me while I cough my lungs out. Bllaaaah!

Of numbers and rambles and memories

2008-09-24T14:26:00.004+02:00

There are two sets of numbers in my mind. 2937 and 2560977. They're both conduits to the same place. An old, aging house in small-town India. When I think of the word 'phone' an image similar to this black, dial-up version comes to mind. None of the fancy-schamncy trimline, light plastic concoctions with touchpads and speed dials. This was a phone with heft that made me reflect that what made me hear voices from thousands of miles away was a testimony to the ingenuity of humankind. That it was a miracle.

2937 was changed to 2560977 a few years ago. I try to remember when but I can't. So it remains; a few years ago. This is how we lose links in the chains of our memories. Approximations that blur out vibrancy so that the past exists in a colorwashed muted palette.

2937 was my phone number while I was growing up. Four digits. Nothing more. Simple. This was before the digital exchange in my small town. I used to be shocked at the long numbers of people in Delhi and Bombay, and even more so by the exotic numbers of Canadian and American relatives. And when I lived in smaller towns, sometimes you picked up the phone and asked the operator to connection you to some one or two or three digit phone number and I recall being proud of our four digits. No need for an operator. We were more advanced. So we were, in a no-mans land between a metropolis and a very small-town. We were a city, a small city. 2937 is a number I'll remember forever.

Life and living is like a fist-full of dry, powdery dust. One puff from a breath and it's gone, scattering in all directions, being absorbed into the environment, until it can no longer be distinguished.

But numbers are precise. I can think of 2937 and think of home. Home at 29 Kanpur Road. Always home, no matter where I go, and where I live. And what of this new number, this imposter under which 2937 still dwells? I forget it sometimes. I needed to look it up even when I called every weekend. But 2937 remains with me. But it no longer exists.

I have no other number to call so I dial the imposter. Impulses rush forward from my phone under all those thousands of miles of cables and wires and fiber-optics. Technology that shrinks the world, brings us closer together.

The strident ring of an Indian phone, none of those refined buzzing or muffled rings. This is a ring that demands attention, that compels a person to come running from the back verandah, to abandon guests in the drawing room, to come running from where a mighty tree once stood and now there is nothing.

It rings. And rings. No one picks up. There is no click, no hello. It rings. It will never be picked up. 2937 or 2560977, it doesn't matter. There's no one there. The house is there but not the home. The line disconnects and a voice tells me to check the number and dial again. There will never be anyone home again.

Two cities, four phones, and a thief

2008-09-23T10:45:00.005+02:00

Now anyone who knows me knows I am no fan of Boston. Okay, maybe as a tourist but our three years there we complained. A lot. And we love Geneva. Okay, maybe not as much as our beloved California (that's a story for another post). But something happened yesterday that positively made me yearn for Boston. Weird, huh?

First the backstory: In Boston a certain someone in our family lost his phone. Twice. Once in the not so great neighborhood of Hyde Park and once near the Brookline Theater, more upscale area but still in Boston, a large city, with a sporadically rough reputation and a not unimpressive crime rate. Each time the person who found the phone scrolled through, found the number marked Home, called us and told us they had our phone. Then they stayed with the phone until we went over and picked it up.

Then there is Geneva. When we first moved here, my niece had her phone swiped. A nice new Razr. It disappeared from some kebab restaurant. That's all we know. No one called. No one let us know.

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend at the Brasserie Lipp. Nice place, right? I went to the restroom. My phone rang and I just took it out of my bag to stop it ringing and yes, I admit it, I put it on the little sanitary receptacle box in the stall. Came out, washed my hands (yes, I actually did :-), walked out the door. There were other women waiting to use the two stalls. All upscale Geneva types with VL bags, Hermes scarves and hoity toity expressions.

I walked out the door and within five feet of it, fumbled for my phone, remembered where I had last seen in, ran back to the bathroom stall. No. Ah, okay, someone must have turned it in. Talked to the staff. Left my home phone number and name in case someone turned it in. No one had turned it in. I came home and called back an hour or two later. Ample time for someone to have turned it in. Nope.

So this is what I learned. Apparently, for certain people in our fair city, it doesn't matter if you're drenched in expensive designer clothes, at heart some people are just thieves. And this is for that one thief in particular. Shame on you!

Really, if I walked in found a phone what would I do? Turn it in. There is no question. Which person walks in and goes, cool, Lipp is now rewarding its customers by giving us all Samsung flip phones in the restrooms? Shame. On. You.

Now beneath my cynical exterior does dwell an optimist of sorts. I can't believe someone would steal. Period! So I am going to call the restaurant again and see if someone turned it in but I fear that is just my naivete talking.

One more thing, thief (who I know will never read this blog), the phone you switched off as soon as you swiped it (and perhaps even saw me frantically return to the restaurant and search for my phone. what were you eating, btw?)...well, once you switch it off and then switch it back on, you need a PIN. That's right. You get three chances to get it right before the phone locks up. Have fun!

Loser!

So anyone who needs to contact me or has been trying to call. Please call me at home or email. I don't have a cell phone for the moment.

Publish At Your Peril (Part Deux)

2008-09-21T13:45:00.003+02:00

You know the build-up. The inevitable rounds of emails, snail mail submissions, the thick packets, keeping the postal service going with the sheer volume of mail you send? TO AGENTS? I know people who've sent our 100's of queries. They keep at it, month after month, sometimes year after year. If persistence were a prerequisite of success there names would be household ones.

So, eventually, when after the 30th query I got THE PHONECALL I wrote about in part 1, you can't blame me. The way this whole process is set up to make you believe that landing an agent should lead to that oh-so blissful feeling of acceptance, the Sally Field like exuberance (you like me, you really like me)is like some kind of prize. The pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The happy ending.

Nope. The truth is that this landing an agent is the beginning. That's where you really begin on your publication journey. There's writing and there's the publishing. Writing ends at your last successful draft, publishing begins when you find an agent. So take a deep breath, revel in the knowledge that an experienced publishing professional likes your work, breathe in that sweet scent of validation...and then get over yourself. Nothing has really happened. Yet.

The other thing no one tells you...or they tell you and you think to yourself, that's not me, won't happen to me...that you might have bypassed the slush pile but a publishing contract is not a given. More often than not even agented manuscripts never make it into publication. And more often than not, that manuscript is yours.

The way the whole thing is set up once you get that call, especially if you've been trying forever, you want to collapse into a thankful heap at your agent's feet. But the agent is not doing you a favor. In fact, they are your agent, your employee, when you sell they make money. Keep that central fact in mind.

I didn't remember that. I felt diffident asking my agent to send me updates. I didn't want to bother her. What if I irritate her and she drops me? Horrors! What will I do then? I should have trusted my instincts. She needs me as much as I need her. I didn't have to live in her pocket but I could have been more assertive on my own behalf.

Remember this. Your agent has dozens of manuscripts s/he's sending out to publishers at any given time. You only have one. Yours. You have to be your own advocate. Ask to see the list of publishers submissions go to. Ask for a periodic update on yays and nays. Ask to see the actual refusals. Yes, there are agents who have been known to not submit but to tell the writer about all the publishers who have rejected the manuscript when the publisher never even saw your book. It's true.

Now agents do belong to the very reputable AAR but there really is *no* governing body overseeing how they operate. Yes, the web has made it easier for people to disseminate information about scam agents, bad agents, and yes, even good ones. But that's just folks like you and me. There is no regulation. And perhaps there shouldn't be.

I find agenting itself a rather artificial barrier between reader and book creators but that ship has sailed. Putting a quasi-governmental body in place would make it even worse.

But that does mean that we as writers wanting to be published need to change our mind-set. *We* are the reason publishers, agents, and editors stay in business. We make them money. Sometimes I find that agents and publishers forget that. Or at least they try to downplay this to us writers who must come across as deer caught in the headlights.

In an ideal world they would be the ones querying us...please let us publish you...please. But we live in this world and we owe it to ourselves and to our fellow-writers to be conscientious about our role in this continuum that begins with us and ends when someone plonks down money to read what we wrote. Everyone else in between including agents are just links in a chain.

So this is what we should do to remain in control of the process and not let others drive us. We might or might not get published in book form. We might not become AUTHORS. But, we will (I know I will) always be WRITERS. To me that is the most important part. I write. I am a writer. I am an author when someone pays me money to print my words and put them out there. Being an author, to me, is a commercial thing. Being a writer is sublime and spiritual and real. However, I don't believe anyone can teach you to be writer. So this list is really about being an author.

1. Never lose sight of the reason(s) for which you write. Examine them thoroughly and don't delude yourself.

2. If your number one reason is not because you love to write (or some derivation of that sentiment) but that you want to be published then focus on that. Work on being the best damn author there is even if you are not the best writer in the world.

3. Get yourself published. My first short story was published in a national magazine when I was 13. I've tried to have at least 1-2 publications every year. That's not much and I am the lazy queen of procrastination. You can get even more publications. Query the hell out of every publication you can, submit to whichever journal takes submissions, get your name out there.

4. Remember, it's very rare that a book publisher will sign you on if you've never had anything published anywhere. So work on this. They want to know you have chops and range, and that you are persistent, and that you continue writing.Agents and publishers really do look at these things. Your query is not just your book, it's also you. How saleable are you? Are you at all known? Do you bring readers with you? Why else do you think Nicole Ritchie got a novel published? Trust me, she ain't no Jhumpa Lahiri. And Pamela Anderson? Yes, she too wrote a novel and got it published 'Nuff said.

You don't need silicone devotees but if you were published somewhere you have a better chance of getting a book contract.

5.If you are lucky enough to get an agent (a good one) don't harrass them but do set up an agreed-upon interval (every two weeks, once a month, etc.) where they either send you an update email or you talk on the phone. Be polite but let them know unequivocally that you will be a tireless advocate for yourself. If the agent is not right for you, get out of the contract. You will know when/if the time is right....or wrong. Don't be afraid of taking this step. Be true to yourself and to your work.

6. Be ready to make changes that your agent and/or editor asks you to make. Now if the change is so drastic that it changes your work you need to decide whether you are an author or a writer. Which persona would make those changes?

7. Create your own marketing plan. Remember this. Your new book gets about 3 months in the bookstore and 3 months of promotion. After that it departs to make room for newcomers. Unless, of course, the sales are so brisk that the 2-3 copies per store fly off the shelf. In which case the stores put a replenishment cycle in place. So...apart from what the publisher does (for you and for the *new* Dan Brown/Stephen King/Salman Rushdie...where do you think they will focus?) figure out what you will do. This can include a book launch party with some media, interviews and stories in local, regional or national media. Postcards and posters, radio interviews. More importantly, mine your contacts to see how you can get into said media.

8. A website or a blog is invaluable. What you're looking for is a following. Create yourself as an online entity, people who will *always* buy your new book.

So, here are my 8 points to becoming an author and navigating your way through the publishing minefield.

Add your own. Please share your take with me...and with my 1.5 readers ;-)

On rainy days you can see nothing...

2008-09-13T13:57:00.005+02:00

...but on clear days you can see forever. On the last clear day we had I took these pictures. It reminds me that beyond the veil of mists and clouds lies breathtaking beauty. And it gets me through these loooong rainy days. So enjoy!

I can't believe the Mont Blanc is so close to my house

Grapes on the vine. When will they flow as wine?

Hellooo 80,000

2008-09-10T16:32:00.002+02:00

Just in case someone (other than me) is keeping track. The novel is now at exactly 77,318 words. Remember when it was 60,000 in its first draft? It's now almost at draft 3 and I think we will easily cross 80,000 words. Yay! And the extra words are helping to round it out, smooth out rough edges, build up the characters more fully. I am stoked.

Phew! We dodged that one....

2008-09-10T12:55:00.003+02:00

So the large hadron collider was switched on....and nothing happened.

Okay, those who were at CERN ...just a few miles away from where I write this post....this morning watched blips on a computer screen and got all excited, but we are all still here, it wasn't the end of the world, and right now we're not all getting stretched out inside a black hole. So...yippeeee....and now we're on the lookout for some other cataclysmic catastrophe that might (or might not) wipe us out.

Publish At Your Peril: Part 1

2008-09-09T09:20:00.005+02:00

Inspired by the mighty mom's excellent and very useful post on the whole finding-an-agent ordeal....errrr...process.

Agents are the guardians of the gateway of book publishing. There are no two ways about it. If you don't want to be self-published and are not a vanity press kind of person, you have to find an agent to get a respectable deal. And finding an agent is generally composed of three or four steps, depending on the agent:

1. Research the agent(s) for you in Publisher's Marketplace or online.
2. Submit an initial query letter: this is really just a one-page an intro, a short summary (one paragraph, I know the pain, I do, and a bio). More and more agents now take emailed queries but the older agencies with star clients still prefer snail mail.
3. Depending on the agent (see how crucial research is?), some of them want the first 30 or 50 pages or three chapters along with the initial query. Some don't.
3. If the agent wants to read more s/he will write back asking for the first 30 or 50 pages or 3 or 5 chapters.
4. If they like your work still, they'll ask for the entire manuscript.

And then the agent comes back with a yea or nay. Most of the time it's a nay.

To get an idea of how this really works. Most good agents usually take 1-3% of all authors who submit to them (and they get queried by thousands). You think the hard part is over right? You have an agent. S/he submits your book to HarperCollins or FSG and the good times start rolling. Wrong! Just because you have an agent doesn't mean you have a publisher. Discovering that acceptance rate is an elusive quest but even if it is as high as 50% (I am sure it's not) that's 50% of 1%. Phew!

Okay, now on to my story.

Like every second person in the world (okay, I totally pulled that number out of my ass but it really does seem so) who seems to be writing a book I too completed mine. The Burden of Foreknowledge. In 2005. I workshopped it to within an inch of its life. My group seemed to like it. Heck, I'd even been published before. From academic journals when I was in graduate school, to newspapers, magazines, even pieces in anthologies. For four years I'd written a weekly column and was read by about a million people. If I was an agent I'd want me. Yeah sure!

Off went my queries. Responses flooded my mailbox. Little cards. That said thanks but no thanks. SASEs that came back way too thick (meaning that my submission was safely nestled inside and had just made the trip from one envelope to another), submissions came back with the paper clip indentation unmoved. I came back to earth.

I think I sent off about 30 queries. Three agents requested the full manuscript. One came back with a very gracious no thanks, and listed the good and the bad about the manuscript. A lovely letter but still a no. Then came THE CALL.

Hi, Jawahara, this is so-and-so. We love your novel and would like to represent you.

I was draining pasta in my lovely kitchen in Thousand Oaks, CA. I almost dropped the boiling water on myself.

OMG. OMG. OMG.

A respectable agent in the business for a couple of decades. Many sales under her belt. Helloooo publishing contract!

Nope. The agent sent out queries. She sent me updates. Harper said no, so did FSG and Penguin. The acquisitions editor at St. Martins *loved* the book but when she presented it to marketing they said they had enough female Indian authors. Damn! And I hadn't written about mangoes or pickles or arranged marriage or being rescued by an all-American cutie.

Years went by. One day on a whim I decided to query publishers in India who still take usolicited manuscripts. HarperCollins India, Penguin, and Roli Books.

Harper and Roli asked for the complete manuscript. My mail to Penguin disappeared into some deep, dark hole for nothing was acknowledged. My agent continued to submit. We continued to gather the negative responses.

And then, after months of waiting, Roli finally got back to me. I sent along the contract to my agent. I got a respectable royalty rate, which I'll never see because I doubt I'll earn out my advance. Yes...I had an advance, but once my agent took her cut I got about 500 bucks. And I remember being shocked when an author at the LA Times Festival of Books a few years ago said that his first novel had earned him an advance of $3000.

Okay, at one level that is satisfying because *someone* is paying for your work (that's 10 years of thinking about the book, three months of three hours a day writing, three months of editing/workshopping, and almost a year of waiting. what's that like .0000001 cents a word?) and in ruppees $500 is quite a decent amount of money.

I gave Roli the rights to India only, while retaining world-wide, including U.S. rights. Yes, you can do that if you want. My agent continued to send out queries long after the book was finally launched and published.

Then I realized that as an editor myself who had done a stint as an agent for a year I could have negotiated the deal myself. My agent was (and is) very professional and wonderful so this is not to diss her. But since the novel was not selling in the U.S., there was really no need for an agent.

In the meantime I started communicating with B.J. Robbins an L.A.-based agent who was the third agent who'd wanted to see my manuscript. She was sort of interested but since is very professional would only want to see my next work if and when I was no longer in this other relationship. Okay, this is sounding more and more like a steamy love triangle and it is in some way.

So, even though I was mired in the quicksand of my second novel that seemed to be going nowhere...I severed contact with my agent who was gracious and charming and wonderful. I continued to write, without being attached to an agent.

And this is where I am today. In the next instalment I will talk about the rather self-evident lessons learned, what to do and not to do, how I should have researched my agent(s) better, etc.

Btw, here are some invaluable links. I have only bought one Publishers Marketplace in my life in the year 2000 I think. These days I find information about agents online. I tend to prefer the slightly more subversive sites but the official ones are great too. Here are some of my faves:

Preditors and editors: I love this site. It gives info on scams, assessments of agents and other useful info.

Gerard Jones list: No longer being updated, this list of agents (including emails and rejections) was put together by an author going through the agent finding process himself. Funny at times.

Association of authors representatives: Searchable and useful.

Publishers Marketplace: Also searchable, easy to read and well put together.

An agenting we go...

2008-09-08T23:32:00.002+02:00

Not that anything amazing has happened, but for some reason this time I am feeling more confident about querying agents. Now watch the universe guffaw and proceed to give me a thorough ass-kicking. But until that happens I am going to revel in my fragile, new-found, transitory sense of confidence. Tomorrow the little voices will come back. You know the ones that say...you can't write, stop writing now and do the world a favor, good lord could you be more puerile? you call that writing? I wish your dog had eaten the manuscript.

Some might say that this paranoid neurosis is part of being a writer. I am one of those people. :-)

So, today I decided to start my query process. Not in a formal manner but just going through to see which agents take e-submissions, just doing a little refreshing and re-acquainting with the agenting world. Will start the snail mail process soon, perhaps Wednesday. Need to stock up on toner and paper before I do that though. I *love* email submissions and queries. Can I say that again? I *love* email submissions and queries.

So here are the stats for today:

E-mail queries sent: 4
Replied received (yes, already, can you believe it?): 1
Request for first 30 pages: 1 (Yessss)

And it's not some fly-by-night scammy person wanting me to pay 5 bucks a page to do some crappy analysis. A *good* agency.

Now it's time to send out more, and then sit back and wait for the nays to come floating back in. Until then, it's...well not exactly party time....but at least a kinda good, kinda confident, totally mmmm feeling.

Cheers all!

Of dreams and stories

2008-09-05T12:29:00.003+02:00

I think when someone dies it's like the end of a story. Not a book, a story in the oral tradition. Someone else might tell you something wiht the same plot, but the words will differ, the time will vary, the beat will be off. Because some stories are only told once. Can only be told once.

This is not a comforting thought. Because it just underlines the transient nature of life and the definiteness of death. There is nothing else. The moment he closed his eyes and seconds before I let go off his hand to watch it drop on to the white hospital sheet like a...well...a dead thing, it was all over. These are times I wish I had faith...that I could say and believe things like "he is somewhere close by." I don't feel he is. I feel he is gone. Which he is. Forever. And that's that.

Most days I feel like a whiner when I obsess about my father's death. It's been a little over four months, he was 81, other people lose their parents, for god's sake. STOP MOPING! I can't. Well, there are times I forget. But always at bedtime. Ah, at bed time, that's when I relive that last dash to the hospital, the feel of his hand in mine, the fixed eyes, the doctors working on him (unenthusiastically), the scared look in the eyes of the patient in the next bed in the CICU.

One night when I was still in Allahabad I did dream of him. But that was the first and only time my father has appeared in my dreams since he died. I want to write this down because it is fading. For some reason, each time I think of it some detail gets erased. And while he may no longer be around and I may not sense his presenceI can at least hold on to this last memory...perhaps our last interaction in some weird sense?

We are at home. But it's not our home. It's another house, further down the road. But in this dream it's our home. My father is wearing a pristine, white kurta-pyjama, the edges of the sleeve just crisp enough for me to rub before falling asleep (that's how I used to sleep as a child. As an adult the edge of any unhemmed sheet of cloth will do). He looks distracted. Across from him sit a group of his friends. They are talking among themselves, loudly. They are laughing. But he doesn't join in. I enter from one of the back rooms and hold his shoulders in my hands. I shake him gently. And I ask him why he's so quiet. I make some wisecrack to jolt him out of his unusual quietness. He smiles up at me. Then he starts laughing
and he can't stop. It's a deep belly laugh of real mirth. He walks up...not limping because of his bad knees in later years...and goes towards another door.

Where are you going I ask. Why are you leaving?

I have to leave now, he says. I hear his laughter after he steps through the door.

The symbolism is not lost on me. And I know this was my own subconscious trying to help me along. But, in my mind I try to replay his strong walk, his deep laugh...and maybe one night these are the images that will come to me before I fall off to sleep.
Perhaps!

*Thanks Navroze Dhondy for this great photograph*

Open letter to God

2008-09-01T17:12:00.002+02:00

Hey rabid right-wingers...maybe, despite what you say God really doesn't love you that much. In fact, SHE just might love all them Adams and Steves and mud-people who happily shelter under the large tent of liberalism. Next time you pray for a storm to hit the DNC...you better watch out!
I can say it no better than Michael Moore, so here is his open letter to God. Lol and sad at the same time:

Dear God,

The other night, James Dobson's ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be canceled.

I see that You have answered Dr. Dobson's prayers -- except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don't blame You, I know You're angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an "Act of God" -- when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.

Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized -- and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush's FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.

But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, "There you go again!"

So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.

So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.

But now it appears that You haven't been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America's "wholesale slaughter of unborn children." His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans in 2005.

So this is my plea to you: Don't do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven't sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time -- they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don't know what, Bush's head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government's response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W's to help save the Gulf Coast.

So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It's done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I'll leave that to the followers of Dr. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.

Your faithful servant and former seminarian,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. To all of God's fellow children who are reading this, the city of New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina. Please click here for a list of things you can do to help our brothers and sisters on the Gulf Coast. And, if you do live along the Gulf Coast, please take all necessary safety precautions immediately.

Ms. Palin is no Ms. Clinton

2008-08-31T17:59:00.006+02:00

A few days ago, around the time Joe Biden was selected as the VP candidate, I said to my husband, I think McCain's going to pick a woman as his. I scoured my memory to try and remember if any women had been part of the Rep race. Nada! And then, snap! Here comes McCain with Sarah Palin. Who? Is she related to Michael Palin? Is she as funny as he is?

Nope!No such luck. Instead, she is anti-abortion rights, anti-gay, and, of course, she owns a gun and goes hunting in Alaska. Her international experience...I kid you not...(in the words of a FOX commentator whose name I forget, without irony or attempt at humor)...she is right next door to Russia. That's her interntional experience. Well, I don't know about you I'm gonna vote for her.

Yessirreee! She has a vagina and I too have lady parts (see how bashful I am, such a lady). Obviously this pick is to go after the dems who are so miffed to see Obama as the nominee that they'd rather vote for McCain. Sure...uh..uh..makes total sense.

All I can say is that if Hillary supporters would rather support this woman whose college nickmake was barracudda, over Obama...well, they deserve her. If they fall for the blatant pandering, and the Rep feeling that women (only because Hillary had many female supporters) will vote for just any woman regardless of her stance...they totally deserve Sarah Palin.

I would never vote for someone just because they're a woman or a minority, because frankly I think it's rather disrespectful to think that that's all I can see. I wouldn't vote for a white man because he is white or male nor would I vote for a woman just because she is a woman.

I like Obama, not because he is black. I don't like him more than I do Hillary because she is a woman. I like him because he is the candidate he is. In any other field I would have been a Hillary-lover. But Obama won because he has 'it.' Something rare and ephemeral...something that makes me want to rise to the challenges he sets. He comes across as a visionary. He represents what America wants to be. And Hillary didn't.

Hers was a historic campaign. A woman, a breath away from the presidency is heady stuff. But so is Obama's. And can I say something? Having been a woman and a person of color in the U.S., I can definitely see which identity is harder. There is no question about it. Even though I am not black and don't have the legacy of slavery...being a person of color is much, much harder than it is to be a woman. So, yes, Obama's campaign to me, is much more historic.

But even that is of no importance if the candidate himself/herself is not someone who has a vision and can show you a practical path towards that vision. Though I have little faith that middle America will elect Barack Hussein (gasp! what? he must be a terrorist. i've heard he plans to take the oath of office on a Quran! damn!, he's black, etc. etc.).....if he does become President I will be ecstatic. Because more than anything else, he makes me believe...in myself. And that I believe is his greatest strength.

In any other field Hillary would have rightly dominated. To me this was not a man/woman thing. It was a candidate against candidate thing. And if you believe that Laura Palin, as she herself said, will indeed carry on Hillary Clinton's legacy (really? I didn't know Hillary was a gun-toting, anti-abortion, anti-gay, hunter and all around conservative ass) then...yes...you do deserve Sarah Palin as Veep...and perhaps even as President.

It will be a historic victory...but will you be able to live with it?

Ain't love a wonderful thing?

2008-08-31T00:00:00.004+02:00

You know that slight feeling of breathlesness (the kind that doesn't make you reach for your inhaler), that feeling of floating on air, the stars that appear brighter, the views that appear more expansive? It must be love.

So...I know that conventions are well-orchestrated media events intended to rev up the base. Well, I am the base...and boy am I revved. Yes, I am in love...again...after a long time....with Barack Obama. I don't care about the emotionally manipulative messages, the grand montages, the roaring crowds in Denver...I've been had. By Obama.

The last time I felt this way was for Clinton....Bill...not Hillary.

So, join me as I swoon when I look at Barack. Eventually my cynical side will triumph and will show me what a gullible fool I am...but until then I will savor that moment of foolishness, I will nurture the flutter I feel inside. 'Cause I am a Obamaniac baby and I don't care who knows it!!!!

I'm back

2008-08-27T13:19:00.002+02:00

Came back yesterday. Couldn't sleep on the flight from Boston to Amsterdam. And then, in Amsterdam, we sat in the plane for a long time, on the ground because of technical problems. Then we had to de-plane and re-board. Exhausted, still running my mystery fever (16 days and counting) which seemed to have burned up all my motivation and energy. I need to make a doctor's appointment and just can't find the energy within myself. Feeling sorry for myself doesn't help...but boy it sure does feel good.

I come back with mixed feelings. Back home, to my space, to my crazy dog, to the wonderful scenery. But also really homesick for the U.S., especially since it's election time and all the Obama excitement :-(. Can't have it all....which is so not fair.