Seven Days in Concord: The Old North Bridge

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.

Among the clouds

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

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!

Welcome back World

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.

Of straws and twigs

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

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!

Urban Cowboys and Starbucks in NYC

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

Ya gotta get yerself some religion, y'hear?

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!

'Nuff Said

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!

I'm back

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.

Sounds of Silence

My new laptop doesn't hum. It makes no sound but the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard sound loud...almost echoing off the walls. And there is silence outside. Can there be an overload of silence? No people. No cars at this time. No dogs. If I slow down my breathing will the wind roar like a torrent? Silent stillness.

I leave for India in a couple of weeks and almost always before I do I think of silence. Because if there is something India is not it's silent. There are, of course, those silent spaces high up in the Himalayas, and the desolate stretches in the desert. But in place that I tend to live and visit there is almost constant noise.

And like someone stepping out from behind a sound-proofed cell at first I cringe. It seems to go from nothing to no holds barred noises. This starts at the airport. The decibel of sound in the arrivals area at the airport. The clicks, the cries, the taps, the talking, the laughter. India--with its sensory overload assaults you with this wall of noise that follows you home.

And then you stop and listen. And trace the origins of each sound and suddenly it's not so chaotic any more. There is a comforting rhythm to the day. The milkman rings the bell in the morning, followed by the woman who comes to clean, followed by the cook, then the gardner, then the chauffeur. And the house fills with the sounds of their labor and that of their gossip. If you stay still and listen you can find out everything about the cosmos that surrounds our house, from the scandals of the servants' quarters to the goings-on of the neighbors.

And then you can even enter the spaces within which silence rules. They exist but you have to find them by navigating through the tunnels of noise. They are restful and calm mirages that shatter into noise if you spend too much time there. There is silence in the early morning when tendrils bluish-grey smoke rises from the stove of the nearby tea shop. There is no sound as the nightwatchman stretches and twists before making his way to the string cot under the tree where he will sleep the day away. And as night falls, each time he strikes the ground with his staff, a simple percussion to warn no-gooders that this area is under his surveillance, there is silence in between each strike. Between each cry the koel makes, its voice rising to impossible heights, unbelievable in such a small bird, there is absolute silence.

The first days back in the U.S., or now to my quiet Swiss village are always hard. Sometimes the silence makes me wonder if I am the only living soul in a sea of the dead and I want to scream and scream and scream until I wake everyone up into sound. And then the silence grows on me and now as I listen I can make out the gentle swishing of the trees outside my window, the snuffle of a dog as it goes by for its walk, even the distant sound of cars as they drive slowly past the narrow road. My neighbor's door opens and closes. I hear the car start, purr softly as she leaves.

And I realize that silence and sound are hidden siamese twins. Each exists within the other though not always seen. You have to use your ears as magical instruments to coax out first one and then the other. You can never rule either but you can surf between the two at will. Just....listen.

Thanks for the Miseries

What makes you feel fulfilled and satisfied and thankful about what you have? Why...seeing someone who clearly does not have what you have, of course. Remember that old adage about being sad that you have no shoes until you saw someone who had no feet. Bullshit! What the hell is that? There's no empathy or sympathy for someone with no feet....just satisfaction that you have them. Why not run circles around the poor guy, crying Nyah nyah?

Someone else's misery is uplifting because it reminds you of what you have? I remember, the modern day angel and all round smokin' and kickass Ms. Jolie talking about how her travels to the sorriest places on earth made her grateful for what she has. You know what Angie...you visit any normal middle class home--with a mom fighting cellulite and a dad trying to be the best he can, and kids without nannies, barely hanging on to one home-- and you should be grateful for what you have. But visiting war-torn countries and seeing orphaned kids (not even you can adopt all of 'em in your Farrow-like zeal), and witnessing starvation and death shouldn't make you grateful about anything. It should make you pissed off and sad and depressed and homicidal. Not grateful. About anything.

And then I read this article linked on Sujatha's blog and, while it raised many excellent points about a family deciding to return to India after many years in the U.S., it also pissed me off. The author talks about how earlier she would tell her kid about not wasting food because there were starving children somewhere (how does eating when someone is starving help anyway?), but now (lucky her) she can actually show her child the starving children in person. Wow! Glad their starvation's helping her child-rearing skills. She also talks about teaching her child charity by waving back to the 5-year old poor girl at the school bus stop. Well, to be fair, she has taught her child to give old toys and clothes to the girl. What a great way to get rid of excess stuff when there's no Salvation Army to be found. But all she's taught her child is to be glad she is not hanging around a bus stop waving to a privileged girl and her mommy, while she is still too young to fully appreciate her own dead-end life.

Okay, maybe I'm being hard on this woman but I've heard this sentiment a lot and I find it most selfish, self-absorbed, and insensitive. Not all of us actually do something positive and active to help someone else. But please, can we not degrade someone's suffering further by using it to bolster our own self-esteem and by patting ourselves on our own back?

There is no romance in poverty, no satisfaction in suffering. Yes, we've seen poor people (and I'm talking grinding poverty here) smile because they're human and perhaps sometimes they forget the fragility of their existence, and they grab at their momentary joys as and when they can. They don't announce their emotions to the world so we can say inane things like, "the poor may have nothing but they still smile. They are happier than us." Fuck you!

When someone doesn't have enough money to eat properly, or money to tend to a sick child, or their roof leaks, or they have no roof...and there is nothing they can't do about it they are not enjoying their poverty. If they smile or laugh it's more a testament to their strength, their ability to live in the moment perhaps, and to the human hope that keeps us all going. It's not so that you can feel better about yourself.

And when they are mired in their misery, trapped in poverty, unable to break out of it, the last thing they'd want is to have some rich, phoren-returned memsahib (or sahib) use that as a way to teach their brat life lessons or teach them to appreciate what they have.

They're human beings, not teaching aides or life lessons. They're people with hopes and desires even if they are stillborn, and joys even if they come few and far between. Perhaps that's all they have. And you want to even take that away from them?

These are a few of the things I miss...At this time of the Year

1. Witches diving into the grass, ghosts hanging from treets, R.I.P headstones, pumpkins and jack o' lanterns.

2. Pumpkin and pecan pie.

3. Crisp falls days not soggy, cloudy ones.

4. The cashier at the drugstore with her light-up pumpkin ear rings and truly hideous ghost sweater.

5. Buying candy in bulk for trick or treaters and sampling them all beforehand.

Yes, I miss fall in America, in the North-East especially. I miss seeing Halloween and early Thanksgiving decorations.

I did see a little girl dressed up as a witch at the airport the other day....but that almost aggressive holiday spirit is missing. Of course, when I am in the U.S. I bemoan the commercialization....but now as I go for a walk and don't see a scarecrow or a fall wreath anywhere, I miss it. Yes I do.

Love and Desperation

I found this story incredibly sad. A man, whose wife was sick with neurological problems and uterine cancer, almost blind, bed-ridden and just 75 pounds pushed her off the balcony after kissing her.

He could no longer afford to pay for her medical costs, which were in the thousands of dollars per month.

How do we make these choices? What would I do in a similar situation? What would you do?

He did not run or try to concoct a story. He just waited and told police that "she did not jump."

Read more about it here: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/16/wife.killed.ap/index.html

Is this finally the case that will put the usurous US health insurance industry on trial?

There but for the grace of God go I...and you.

Broken Flowers

We saw Broken Flowers at the Coolidge Corner Theater last night. It was a large space and every seat was taken. The ticket line wound around the block.

The overall impression I have of the movie is, silence. There are scenes of Bill Murray sitting, on his couch, at the airport, in a plane, in his rental car. Don Johnston (Murray) gets an anonymous letter on pink paper, in a pink envelope. It's from an old flame telling him they had a son together and the 19 year old is out there looking for him. Don sets out on a journey, searching for clues, visiting the five women (one dead) he knew 20 years ago. He learns something about them...but a lot about himself at each place. Frances Conroy (who I adore from Six Feet Under; only 3 episodes left *sob*), Sharon Stone (quite competent) and Tilda Swinton (smallish role) are the three women who stand out for me.

Ultimately it is a story (even though nothing conclusive happens, so beware) about trying to connect in an increasingly alienating world. Of the fear of letting time fly past and ending up alone. Those are the stories (like Sideways, Lost in Translation, etc. etc.) that resonate with me. That feeling that we all have at some points in time, of feeling bereft of a culture, a real place, from people...from everything around us. This movie captures that so well but in a quiet, unassuming, slow way.

While at one level it was frustrating to have no ta-dah moments and no real conclusions, it was enjoyable in the way small quiet moments are.