The cold persists in its stuffy, congested form. Making it difficult for me to practice Raag Deshkar without getting out of breath. But there's still a couple of months to go before the concert. Perhaps my rendition will be acceptable and presentable by then.
The holidays have passed. Monday is knocking. I'll probably be the only one at work with everyone else on an extended vacation. There will be peace and quiet everywhere. So much peace, so much quiet spilling over from the peace and quiet at home. Why don't peace and quiet go to those who crave it? I have never wanted it and have always had too much of it. My vocal chords rust and my ear drums don't vibrate much. Or at least not with the kinds of sounds I want to absorb, the sounds of pleasant, meaningful, enlightening conversations and uplifting music.
I've spent the last four days in one room or another of the house and have gone out to see movies when I couldn't take the incessant TV watching and being indoors, hearing the wind rustle and rattle my home and the rain streak my windows as the sun failed to rise.
I wish I could have used the time to write something meaningful but I am still languishing in nothingness.
Some ideas, concerns or notions do take firm hold when one doesn't have too much else to think about, or when the things one needs to think about are rather depressing like l'argent and how all drudgery stems from the need to not just think about it but do something about it.
So the thought that grabbed a firm hold this time originated with a comment proffered so casually by a TV personality on a VH1 program which was counting down the top 100 songs of the 1990s. Somewhere, sitting comfortably, in the middle of the list was Cher's song: Do You Believe In Life After Love.
Clinton Kelly, from the show What Not To Wear was being interviewed about the song. He liked the song and he prefaced his opinion on it with the following comment referring to Cher's age at the time she recorded this song:
"How does a 52 year old woman make herself relevant?"
This comment was uttered so casually, in such a matter of fact manner, as if it were a given, in the perception of most people, that a fifty-two year old woman slides into irrelevance. She is not on anyone's radar screen, isn't expected to be in the limelight. She is unremembered, unnecessary, unseen and unheard.
There was a similar theme to this day almost from the moment I woke up. When I wake up in the morning I usually log in to my computer. The gossip that greeted me this morning was about actress Susan Sarandon who had just broken up with her partner of 23 years, Tim Robbins. The gossip columnists were speculating if Sarandon, probably in her fifties, was dating a 31 year old. I read this piece of gossip aloud to my husband and his comment was, "Wow! Isn't that unnatural? What does a woman her age stand to gain from a relationship like this?"
My husband loves to get a rise out of me in matters such as this. So I decided not to let myself be aggravated by him. But I wondered again about the light in which women of a certain age are perceived by the world, not just by other men but other women as well.
Later in the day I was chatting with a friend who teaches. She was telling me about her disappointment at not being invited to a function where a young and dynamic Indian leader was going to address students and teachers but had requested that the only teachers who were to be present were to be less than the age of thirty five; perceived irrelevance strikes again!
The thought is depressing. I want to rail against this perception but what good would the railing do? It is unfortunate that it exists and that those of us who feel the need to rail and rage against it need to fight it with all we've got, until the time that such an utterance becomes unheard of.
Meanwhile, two of the brilliantly enacted and directed movies I saw were Up in the Air, starring George Clooney and the musical Nine, starring Daniel Day Lewis and nine gorgeous women.
The two movies seemed to address, in some ways, the male irrelevance. Men examining the point in life in which they find themselves. In Nine Nicole Kidman's character - Claudia - who plays Maestro Guido Contini's (Daniel Day Lewis portraying a film director) muse. When Guido is talking to her about the women who shape the man through every stage in his life, fueling his ambition, helping him reach the highest of heights, she reacts by saying she would rather be the man.
I thought that was brilliant! Of course, let a man be our muse for a change!
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Nothing: Part 8
My cold has gone on for a very long time. Nyquil gives me a good night's rest and fools me into thinking that the rhino virus has been vanquished. But the symptoms return with a vengeance the next day and I can't possibly take Nyquil during the day.
I was exploring the over-the-counter cold medicine aisle at the pharmacy and noticed something interesting. Every cold medicine brand comes in night and day time strengths. The thing that bothers me the most about a cold is the runny nose and the sneezing. And yet none of the day time pills are designed to relieve runny nose or sneezing!
Day time - Multi-symptom relief:
Aches
Fever
Cough
Nasal Congestion
Night time - Multi-symptom relief:
Aches
Fever
Cough
**Sneezing**
**Runny Nose**
Sneezing and runny nose are the worst part of the cold and apparently there is nothing you can take in the day time (unless you plan to snooze at your desk) that keeps you from sneezing or sniffling.
So the sneezes and the sniffles keep coming. At least people give me a wide berth in buses and trains and I get the whole seat to myself. The new thing about sneezing in the crook of your elbow (instead of your palms, when you suddenly find yourself without tissues), to prevent a spewing of germs for all to inhale, has left me with several jackets and sweaters with sneezed in sleeves that need drycleaning or, better yet, burning...not sure drycleaning will help.
I suppose if self medication fails to deliver me from this cold, that has already lasted over seven days, I might have to drag myself to the doctor. But let's see. I'll give it another couple of days.
Misery, miserable misery!
I was exploring the over-the-counter cold medicine aisle at the pharmacy and noticed something interesting. Every cold medicine brand comes in night and day time strengths. The thing that bothers me the most about a cold is the runny nose and the sneezing. And yet none of the day time pills are designed to relieve runny nose or sneezing!
Day time - Multi-symptom relief:
Aches
Fever
Cough
Nasal Congestion
Night time - Multi-symptom relief:
Aches
Fever
Cough
**Sneezing**
**Runny Nose**
Sneezing and runny nose are the worst part of the cold and apparently there is nothing you can take in the day time (unless you plan to snooze at your desk) that keeps you from sneezing or sniffling.
So the sneezes and the sniffles keep coming. At least people give me a wide berth in buses and trains and I get the whole seat to myself. The new thing about sneezing in the crook of your elbow (instead of your palms, when you suddenly find yourself without tissues), to prevent a spewing of germs for all to inhale, has left me with several jackets and sweaters with sneezed in sleeves that need drycleaning or, better yet, burning...not sure drycleaning will help.
I suppose if self medication fails to deliver me from this cold, that has already lasted over seven days, I might have to drag myself to the doctor. But let's see. I'll give it another couple of days.
Misery, miserable misery!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Nothing: Part 7
Hmm...er...nope, nothing.
Well, not really. There was the big snowstorm, the big event over the weekend. At about 8" we were not as badly off as the poor folks to the south of us who got approximately 25" of the white stuff.
It's a good idea to not purchase movie tickets online, in advance, in December though. We had tickets to the blockbuster Avatar but couldn't make it to the IMAX theater. We have until March to use the tickets. In the meantime I have to watch Invictus, Up in the Air, It's Complicated , Did You Hear About the Morgans, Sherlock Holmes and Nine.
It might be hard to convince the hubby to accompany me to any of these. The story lines might not be too appealing to him and I hate when he does the sleeping, slumping, snoring when he's not fidgeting thing, when we are in a theater. It's a good thing I don't mind watching movies alone. Each one of these movies has people I like seeing on screen: Morgan Freeman, Hugh Grant, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep, Penelope Cruz, Robert Downey Jr, Steve Martin and more. It would have been nice to have a "bff" to drag to the movies. But I think I missed the train on that one.
Anoushka will be away visiting her grandparents so I intend to see every movie that isn't animated while she is gone; even if there's a lot to be said for animation these days. Watching some of the animated gems one can imagine actors being out of work (except for the sale of their voices)sometime in the not so distant future. We saw the animated Christmas Carol recently and were entranced and spellbound. It was so very well made
Movies appear to be on top of my mind, so it's worth remarking that every now and then while channel surfing through TNT, Starz or Encore on cable TV, one stumbles upon some gems that passed by unnoticed when they were released. One such movie was Mother Ghost, starring Mark Thompson, Kevin Pollak and Dana Delany. I channel surfed across it and couldn't pull away. It was the story of a middle-aged man, Keith (played by Mark Thompson - what a handsome man! How come I've never seen him anywhere else?) who lost his Mom and then felt as though he was being haunted by her. He ultimately needed a down on his luck psychiatrist, Dr Norris (played by Kevn Pollak), working as a radio shrink, to bring some resolution to his problems. Problems that he wasn't even willing to acknowledge he had. He called the shrink to tell him how lame his radio show was but then he was kept talking as the building suspense showed more and more people all over the state tuning in to listen to his problems; problems that resonated with everyone. His wife listened, his Dad listened, he was ultimately brought to tears as was this watcher.
Funny how some good movies disappear without making any noise.
So that's the story of nothingness for today. Now for the slippery, slushy trudge back home. I'll try to sharpen my violin playing with Paganini's Witches' Dance. I have really been slacking off since the recital. I also have to get ready for my Raag Deshkar performance coming up in March. I wish I was singing something more exciting, but one baby step at a time.
Well, not really. There was the big snowstorm, the big event over the weekend. At about 8" we were not as badly off as the poor folks to the south of us who got approximately 25" of the white stuff.
It's a good idea to not purchase movie tickets online, in advance, in December though. We had tickets to the blockbuster Avatar but couldn't make it to the IMAX theater. We have until March to use the tickets. In the meantime I have to watch Invictus, Up in the Air, It's Complicated , Did You Hear About the Morgans, Sherlock Holmes and Nine.
It might be hard to convince the hubby to accompany me to any of these. The story lines might not be too appealing to him and I hate when he does the sleeping, slumping, snoring when he's not fidgeting thing, when we are in a theater. It's a good thing I don't mind watching movies alone. Each one of these movies has people I like seeing on screen: Morgan Freeman, Hugh Grant, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep, Penelope Cruz, Robert Downey Jr, Steve Martin and more. It would have been nice to have a "bff" to drag to the movies. But I think I missed the train on that one.
Anoushka will be away visiting her grandparents so I intend to see every movie that isn't animated while she is gone; even if there's a lot to be said for animation these days. Watching some of the animated gems one can imagine actors being out of work (except for the sale of their voices)sometime in the not so distant future. We saw the animated Christmas Carol recently and were entranced and spellbound. It was so very well made
Movies appear to be on top of my mind, so it's worth remarking that every now and then while channel surfing through TNT, Starz or Encore on cable TV, one stumbles upon some gems that passed by unnoticed when they were released. One such movie was Mother Ghost, starring Mark Thompson, Kevin Pollak and Dana Delany. I channel surfed across it and couldn't pull away. It was the story of a middle-aged man, Keith (played by Mark Thompson - what a handsome man! How come I've never seen him anywhere else?) who lost his Mom and then felt as though he was being haunted by her. He ultimately needed a down on his luck psychiatrist, Dr Norris (played by Kevn Pollak), working as a radio shrink, to bring some resolution to his problems. Problems that he wasn't even willing to acknowledge he had. He called the shrink to tell him how lame his radio show was but then he was kept talking as the building suspense showed more and more people all over the state tuning in to listen to his problems; problems that resonated with everyone. His wife listened, his Dad listened, he was ultimately brought to tears as was this watcher.
Funny how some good movies disappear without making any noise.
So that's the story of nothingness for today. Now for the slippery, slushy trudge back home. I'll try to sharpen my violin playing with Paganini's Witches' Dance. I have really been slacking off since the recital. I also have to get ready for my Raag Deshkar performance coming up in March. I wish I was singing something more exciting, but one baby step at a time.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Nothing: Part 6
Sorry folks (I'm imagining "folks"), but I am still not ready to give you a post that is about something. I am just marking time, like they used to make us do in the school marching band. Never knew what purpose was served by the Barrow House, Rangers House, Gidney House and Khanna House squads marching in place, without moving...not that marching around the school field served any purpose either...
Anyway, so now I am marking time, dreaming about some day being able to write something that makes sense to me and to the world. Dreaming of a time when the "folks" will not be imagined, a mental fabrication, but a real crowd of avid readers. But time is short and that road is steep. I have a long way to go before I can come up with anything to offer to a future group of avid readers.
Someone, who used to be a friend, once said that one can't write if one lacks real life experiences. A puzzler, because one can't lead an inexperienced life! Is it possible to live one's life untouched by experience? Like an empty slate, like pure, driven snow?
I remember these words that seem trite, in retrospect, but were meaningful at the time that a favorite teacher (Ms Krishnamoorthy) wrote them in my yearbook:
"Dear Pragya,
Your future lies before you
Like a field of driven snow,
Be careful how you tread it,
For every mark will show."
I didn't think of the words as trite then. For all I know, she probably wrote that for all her students. I suppose it is a favorite quote for people addressing graduation ceremonies. What did I know, I was only 16. I liked the words, maybe more so because I liked the teacher.
So how is it possible to lead an inexperienced life when every mark does show?
But perhaps there's a certain skill I lack when it comes to separating the wheat from the chaff. One needs to pick and choose which moments to highlight when one is making an impassioned effort at the creation of a story, which moments to carefully disguise as pure fiction and which ones to dress up in the multi-hued garbs of the "message"; the lesson learnt or the existential philosophy acquired.
Ultimately one also needs to let go of concerns about how what one writes will change the perceptions of people who see one in a certain light. What will the world say? What will they think? I will probably be able to write something when I stop caring.
It isn't that hard to stop caring after all. Growing up and watching the years fold over themselves in your rearview mirror, you learn not to care about some things. For instance, I remember being ambitious once, about my career, my goals. I was a combination of severe self-doubt and some degree of confidence. It was strange but true.
Whenever I slid into despair about my inability to make something happen I would just have to talk to my ever-the-optimist Mom, who said "You can do it! Of course it's possible!" And I was always surprised about how right she always was about that. One needs someone to shine the torch on the part of you that has some degree of self assurance and confidence, letting the dark negativity shrivel up and die.
But back then, there were things I wanted, things I was willing to go after - an upwardly mobile career, a home, some measure of prosperity, an MBA degree from a highly ranked institution. Rather concrete elements on a checklist, checked off as acquired. I even fought for things like promotions and raises. So much so that I heard about a recruiter being told not to hire me because someone who wasn't a well-wisher told her that I had a tendency to be "belligerent". I can't imagine anyone I know well ever tagging me with that adjective, but I suppose something I did, conveyed such an image to this person who didn't wish me well.
But it has been so many years since I cared to that extent, where I could even project imagined belligerence or aggression.
The breaking point might even have been September 11, 2001. I had a hand on my belly, feeling the baby, that was to be Anoushka, kicking. She was still several weeks away. I was at my desk, engrossed in trying to come up with an intelligent MS Excel IF_THEN formula that would magically resolve my work problem of the moment and then someone said that the first plane had struck one of the towers. Someone in the office asked if it was an accident and I said, "Either that or it was bin Laden".
Within seconds all the little numbers in the little MS Excel boxes lost any meaning they had ever had. The concern about getting my eight months pregnant self back home safely and the immense sense of disaster and loss, at such a grand scale, concern for my co-worker whose husband was an NYC fire fighter, the images of people jumping off the windows, of soot covered people. It was something that touched me tangentially (from a distance of 50 Manhattan blocks) and deeper than anything ever had, all at the same time.
Some of the things I used to go after have acquired extreme meaninglessness since then. The point is reinforced everytime I am approaching the New York city line from New Jersey and there's a giant nothingness where the towers used to be. I was at a holiday party at the Windows to the World restaurant on top of the WTC, that restaurant, that tower no longer exist. Going after things acquired some pointlessness then.
But at the same time, a feeling of pointlessness results in stagnation and stagnation is not a good place to be. The stagnant plateau must always face a point where the crossroads are not obscured by conditions of limited visibility. Alice sees the fork in the road but the Cheshire Cat tells her it doesn't matter which road she takes if she doesn't know where she's going. I need to figure out where I am going and I need to do it before it's too late.
So a conversation with my Mom today showed that she still thinks I'll get there. She told me, "Don't worry, you'll get there". I wish I knew where "there" was.
Some of you do end up reading these rambling words on Facebook. if you have reacted favorably, with some kind words or even a thumbs up that says "Like", then I thank you.
You see, long ago, in the early days of Facebook, I ended up selecting a setting that enabled my blog posts to simultaneously appear as a note in Facebook. I guess my narcissism knew fewer bounds then than it does now. So now it probably ends up in your newsfeeds. I could hunt and peck my way through "Settings" and stop this from happening. But I am not going to. I just don't feel like it. So if these posts are in your feeds and you would rather not see them, then please click on the box that says "Hide". I swear I won't mind it if you "Hide" me. Your move will be transparent enough that it doesn't hurt my feelings.
Anyway, so now I am marking time, dreaming about some day being able to write something that makes sense to me and to the world. Dreaming of a time when the "folks" will not be imagined, a mental fabrication, but a real crowd of avid readers. But time is short and that road is steep. I have a long way to go before I can come up with anything to offer to a future group of avid readers.
Someone, who used to be a friend, once said that one can't write if one lacks real life experiences. A puzzler, because one can't lead an inexperienced life! Is it possible to live one's life untouched by experience? Like an empty slate, like pure, driven snow?
I remember these words that seem trite, in retrospect, but were meaningful at the time that a favorite teacher (Ms Krishnamoorthy) wrote them in my yearbook:
"Dear Pragya,
Your future lies before you
Like a field of driven snow,
Be careful how you tread it,
For every mark will show."
I didn't think of the words as trite then. For all I know, she probably wrote that for all her students. I suppose it is a favorite quote for people addressing graduation ceremonies. What did I know, I was only 16. I liked the words, maybe more so because I liked the teacher.
So how is it possible to lead an inexperienced life when every mark does show?
But perhaps there's a certain skill I lack when it comes to separating the wheat from the chaff. One needs to pick and choose which moments to highlight when one is making an impassioned effort at the creation of a story, which moments to carefully disguise as pure fiction and which ones to dress up in the multi-hued garbs of the "message"; the lesson learnt or the existential philosophy acquired.
Ultimately one also needs to let go of concerns about how what one writes will change the perceptions of people who see one in a certain light. What will the world say? What will they think? I will probably be able to write something when I stop caring.
It isn't that hard to stop caring after all. Growing up and watching the years fold over themselves in your rearview mirror, you learn not to care about some things. For instance, I remember being ambitious once, about my career, my goals. I was a combination of severe self-doubt and some degree of confidence. It was strange but true.
Whenever I slid into despair about my inability to make something happen I would just have to talk to my ever-the-optimist Mom, who said "You can do it! Of course it's possible!" And I was always surprised about how right she always was about that. One needs someone to shine the torch on the part of you that has some degree of self assurance and confidence, letting the dark negativity shrivel up and die.
But back then, there were things I wanted, things I was willing to go after - an upwardly mobile career, a home, some measure of prosperity, an MBA degree from a highly ranked institution. Rather concrete elements on a checklist, checked off as acquired. I even fought for things like promotions and raises. So much so that I heard about a recruiter being told not to hire me because someone who wasn't a well-wisher told her that I had a tendency to be "belligerent". I can't imagine anyone I know well ever tagging me with that adjective, but I suppose something I did, conveyed such an image to this person who didn't wish me well.
But it has been so many years since I cared to that extent, where I could even project imagined belligerence or aggression.
The breaking point might even have been September 11, 2001. I had a hand on my belly, feeling the baby, that was to be Anoushka, kicking. She was still several weeks away. I was at my desk, engrossed in trying to come up with an intelligent MS Excel IF_THEN formula that would magically resolve my work problem of the moment and then someone said that the first plane had struck one of the towers. Someone in the office asked if it was an accident and I said, "Either that or it was bin Laden".
Within seconds all the little numbers in the little MS Excel boxes lost any meaning they had ever had. The concern about getting my eight months pregnant self back home safely and the immense sense of disaster and loss, at such a grand scale, concern for my co-worker whose husband was an NYC fire fighter, the images of people jumping off the windows, of soot covered people. It was something that touched me tangentially (from a distance of 50 Manhattan blocks) and deeper than anything ever had, all at the same time.
Some of the things I used to go after have acquired extreme meaninglessness since then. The point is reinforced everytime I am approaching the New York city line from New Jersey and there's a giant nothingness where the towers used to be. I was at a holiday party at the Windows to the World restaurant on top of the WTC, that restaurant, that tower no longer exist. Going after things acquired some pointlessness then.
But at the same time, a feeling of pointlessness results in stagnation and stagnation is not a good place to be. The stagnant plateau must always face a point where the crossroads are not obscured by conditions of limited visibility. Alice sees the fork in the road but the Cheshire Cat tells her it doesn't matter which road she takes if she doesn't know where she's going. I need to figure out where I am going and I need to do it before it's too late.
So a conversation with my Mom today showed that she still thinks I'll get there. She told me, "Don't worry, you'll get there". I wish I knew where "there" was.
Some of you do end up reading these rambling words on Facebook. if you have reacted favorably, with some kind words or even a thumbs up that says "Like", then I thank you.
You see, long ago, in the early days of Facebook, I ended up selecting a setting that enabled my blog posts to simultaneously appear as a note in Facebook. I guess my narcissism knew fewer bounds then than it does now. So now it probably ends up in your newsfeeds. I could hunt and peck my way through "Settings" and stop this from happening. But I am not going to. I just don't feel like it. So if these posts are in your feeds and you would rather not see them, then please click on the box that says "Hide". I swear I won't mind it if you "Hide" me. Your move will be transparent enough that it doesn't hurt my feelings.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Nothing: Part 5
This is really a post about nothing because nothing happened to me today. At least nothing that I can talk about openly. I can only hint at a feeling of disorientation, at feeling disconcerted. There was a change that seems innocuous enough on the face of it but makes me wonder what deeper intentions, agendas and strategies are at play. Granted, sometimes we read things between the lines that were never really there.
In the end I am sure I feel exactly the same way I felt when I entered my second grade classroom one morning and found that all the classroom furniture was different. The chairs were different, the tables were different and the orientation of the entire room had changed. I remember that it made me uneasy for several days even though it wasn't something 'bad'. But hey, how many days of our lives do we actually single out and remember? I remember that one, it was significant enough to be on instant recall for thirty seven years even if it had no impact on how my life turned out.
I was feeling so out of it that even though my co-worker and friend had reminded me about the holiday pizza lunch at work today, I still forgot about it (within minutes of her telling me!) when I felt the first hunger pang.
I walked out in the cold to buy my lunch. Then I settled down and decided to have a calming conversation with my parents, dialled a number that I usually dial on autopilot, only to hear an unfamiliar voice tell me that he wasn't my Dad and that I had dialled incorrectly. I was baffled! I am certainly not functioning at 100% today.
The fact that it's a Wednesday makes it worse for me. Understand, I am being really, unreasonably neurotic when I say this. Wednesday night is the night when our garbage needs to be dragged to the curb. The garbage trucks arrive bright and early on Thursday morning.
Every Wednesday, especially in this cold, dark winter, as I am driving back home I cross my fingers and my toes and pray that the hubby would have done the needful. But this is rarely the case and even the suggestion that it get done by him when it needs to be done elicits teeth gritting refusal in favor of postponement of the task to the following week. Such postponement is quite unacceptable to me. So since I have arms, legs, I must travel...to the curb...with garbage bags. An eruption in shrillness being an alternative that doesn't become a lady like moi.
So I am in the same situation today. Of all the things that I could be thinking about, the one that's weighing on my mind the most is the presence of ten bags of garbage in the garage that need to be taken to the curb tonight. The weather forecast is chilly and windy and I think I've lost my gloves. So I am thinking about an efficient way to do this, with minimal back and forth from garage to curb, probably a 150 ft distance. I'd say it's the most unsavory task that I get stuck doing. On the bright side...Anoushka has offered some bag dragging and moral support through it all :)
We have to make some adjustments afterall, when the spouse is conserving all his energies for something, work-related, work prospecting or what...who knows, the details of it haven't really been shared. Ostensibly lots of slumber and tons of coffee are required. The only sense I have of his presence in the house lately is a pot of pasta, left on the stove for me to consume when I get home at 8 PM, and the resultant dishes in the sink.
At least I have no reason to hum the Santana tune:
When I come home, baby...
My house is dark and my pots are cold...
You're hangin' 'round, baby...
My house is sometimes dark but the pots are rarely cold ...
So after the garbage removal, the dishes would have to be next on the cards for me tonight. Moving away from non-stick cookware has its own special joys.
And there's the metallic taste of stress through it all...
The mountain ranges made out of the molehills in my brain might have to be given their own name soon!
In the end I am sure I feel exactly the same way I felt when I entered my second grade classroom one morning and found that all the classroom furniture was different. The chairs were different, the tables were different and the orientation of the entire room had changed. I remember that it made me uneasy for several days even though it wasn't something 'bad'. But hey, how many days of our lives do we actually single out and remember? I remember that one, it was significant enough to be on instant recall for thirty seven years even if it had no impact on how my life turned out.
I was feeling so out of it that even though my co-worker and friend had reminded me about the holiday pizza lunch at work today, I still forgot about it (within minutes of her telling me!) when I felt the first hunger pang.
I walked out in the cold to buy my lunch. Then I settled down and decided to have a calming conversation with my parents, dialled a number that I usually dial on autopilot, only to hear an unfamiliar voice tell me that he wasn't my Dad and that I had dialled incorrectly. I was baffled! I am certainly not functioning at 100% today.
The fact that it's a Wednesday makes it worse for me. Understand, I am being really, unreasonably neurotic when I say this. Wednesday night is the night when our garbage needs to be dragged to the curb. The garbage trucks arrive bright and early on Thursday morning.
Every Wednesday, especially in this cold, dark winter, as I am driving back home I cross my fingers and my toes and pray that the hubby would have done the needful. But this is rarely the case and even the suggestion that it get done by him when it needs to be done elicits teeth gritting refusal in favor of postponement of the task to the following week. Such postponement is quite unacceptable to me. So since I have arms, legs, I must travel...to the curb...with garbage bags. An eruption in shrillness being an alternative that doesn't become a lady like moi.
So I am in the same situation today. Of all the things that I could be thinking about, the one that's weighing on my mind the most is the presence of ten bags of garbage in the garage that need to be taken to the curb tonight. The weather forecast is chilly and windy and I think I've lost my gloves. So I am thinking about an efficient way to do this, with minimal back and forth from garage to curb, probably a 150 ft distance. I'd say it's the most unsavory task that I get stuck doing. On the bright side...Anoushka has offered some bag dragging and moral support through it all :)
We have to make some adjustments afterall, when the spouse is conserving all his energies for something, work-related, work prospecting or what...who knows, the details of it haven't really been shared. Ostensibly lots of slumber and tons of coffee are required. The only sense I have of his presence in the house lately is a pot of pasta, left on the stove for me to consume when I get home at 8 PM, and the resultant dishes in the sink.
At least I have no reason to hum the Santana tune:
When I come home, baby...
My house is dark and my pots are cold...
You're hangin' 'round, baby...
My house is sometimes dark but the pots are rarely cold ...
So after the garbage removal, the dishes would have to be next on the cards for me tonight. Moving away from non-stick cookware has its own special joys.
And there's the metallic taste of stress through it all...
The mountain ranges made out of the molehills in my brain might have to be given their own name soon!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Nothing: Part 4
I met a classmate from school today, after twenty five years. It was wonderful to reminisce about long forgotten people and things.
"There are places I remember..."
That Beatles classic is always a refrain, or background music for me because I do tend to meet a lot of people who have been a part of my life, in minor or major ways, and are back in my life again; albeit to a different degree, but there all the same. It seems I prefer to live my life, or rather, complete this journey with the same fellow passengers in central or peripheral vision.
The friend I met said something about being in the here and now, remaining focused on the present. There is much wisdom in that, I acknowledge that wholeheartedly, not grudgingly. It makes good sense to only worry about the present. But I adore the past just as I would a mantelpiece of memories on display or a collection of objets d'art. Each person I met left me with something, however fleeting or intangible and for that they earn a permanent place in my mental china cabinet, for me to admire at leisure.
It is my way of feeling grounded or tethered to something that was once real in a present existence that feels casual and marked with impermanence.
I marvel at the fact that I have now resided at my current home for eight years. That's the longest time I've ever spent in any one place. When I was a kid we changed homes often until my parents bought a home where they spent many years without me, I was old enough to move out by then.
My daughter has spent eight of her years in this home. The walls and windows, the nooks and crannies of this home will have a permanent place in her recollection. I am amazed when we visit the local stores and playgrounds and she always finds someone to greet, someone who knows her. The cashier at our supermarket recognizes her, and her Dad, and thinks of me as the person who is seldom seen. I am still a stranger, still just a visitor in my own reality. I have never been in a place long enough to know the histories of the local shops and businesses, of restaurants and pubs and greengrocers or butchers and I am never the one who knows how a certain place used to be before it changed into what it appears to be now. I am only always meeting people who say things like:
"I remember when this was a dirt road, now it's a major highway!"
"Oh remember the movie theater that used to be on Main Street?"
"Oh the block parties we used to have when we lived there!"
"That stream is all dried up now, we used to go inner-tubing there."
No such recollections for me, it always does end up being about the here and now. So the more hits or markers that get revisited as an adult the cheerier I feel.
Perhaps the present home will be the one I view on Google Earth, or something similar, thirty or forty years from now the way my Mom and Dad, sitting in their living room in Canada, view the ancestral village, their childhood home, the khets, the pokhar, the well, the neighbors, the neighboring village, their village schools...all viewed from satellite and pretty much preserved in time.
And the Beatles will continue to play in the background, of places I remember and people and things and friends...as the here and now ends up a cherished part of the past...
"There are places I remember..."
"There are places I remember..."
That Beatles classic is always a refrain, or background music for me because I do tend to meet a lot of people who have been a part of my life, in minor or major ways, and are back in my life again; albeit to a different degree, but there all the same. It seems I prefer to live my life, or rather, complete this journey with the same fellow passengers in central or peripheral vision.
The friend I met said something about being in the here and now, remaining focused on the present. There is much wisdom in that, I acknowledge that wholeheartedly, not grudgingly. It makes good sense to only worry about the present. But I adore the past just as I would a mantelpiece of memories on display or a collection of objets d'art. Each person I met left me with something, however fleeting or intangible and for that they earn a permanent place in my mental china cabinet, for me to admire at leisure.
It is my way of feeling grounded or tethered to something that was once real in a present existence that feels casual and marked with impermanence.
I marvel at the fact that I have now resided at my current home for eight years. That's the longest time I've ever spent in any one place. When I was a kid we changed homes often until my parents bought a home where they spent many years without me, I was old enough to move out by then.
My daughter has spent eight of her years in this home. The walls and windows, the nooks and crannies of this home will have a permanent place in her recollection. I am amazed when we visit the local stores and playgrounds and she always finds someone to greet, someone who knows her. The cashier at our supermarket recognizes her, and her Dad, and thinks of me as the person who is seldom seen. I am still a stranger, still just a visitor in my own reality. I have never been in a place long enough to know the histories of the local shops and businesses, of restaurants and pubs and greengrocers or butchers and I am never the one who knows how a certain place used to be before it changed into what it appears to be now. I am only always meeting people who say things like:
"I remember when this was a dirt road, now it's a major highway!"
"Oh remember the movie theater that used to be on Main Street?"
"Oh the block parties we used to have when we lived there!"
"That stream is all dried up now, we used to go inner-tubing there."
No such recollections for me, it always does end up being about the here and now. So the more hits or markers that get revisited as an adult the cheerier I feel.
Perhaps the present home will be the one I view on Google Earth, or something similar, thirty or forty years from now the way my Mom and Dad, sitting in their living room in Canada, view the ancestral village, their childhood home, the khets, the pokhar, the well, the neighbors, the neighboring village, their village schools...all viewed from satellite and pretty much preserved in time.
And the Beatles will continue to play in the background, of places I remember and people and things and friends...as the here and now ends up a cherished part of the past...
"There are places I remember..."
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Nothing: Part 3
A big nothing! I really have nothing to say today. The highlight of the day was a humongous socks sale on the 22nd floor of the Empire State Building. The crush of people making a mad dash for trouser socks, footless tights, tube socks, tights, sheers, over-the-knee socks, ankle socks and gift boxed socks was mind-boggling.
The family should be well stocked with socks for awhile.
Anything else...? Well, it was interesting that 200 languages met their sad demise dring the Noughties. The last known speaker of a native Australian language - Jawoyn - drew his last breath this year. As Ally asked, who did he speak to when he was alive?
Good question, perhaps we lost the greatest soliloquist that language ever had, along with the language.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
PS: Need the teacher's opinion on how well I am doing with the Themes from Paganini's Witches Dance. Have been coming across quite a few roadblocks, need pointers. Or maybe all I need is the right breathing techniques and a calm and focused demeanor.
The family should be well stocked with socks for awhile.
Anything else...? Well, it was interesting that 200 languages met their sad demise dring the Noughties. The last known speaker of a native Australian language - Jawoyn - drew his last breath this year. As Ally asked, who did he speak to when he was alive?
Good question, perhaps we lost the greatest soliloquist that language ever had, along with the language.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
PS: Need the teacher's opinion on how well I am doing with the Themes from Paganini's Witches Dance. Have been coming across quite a few roadblocks, need pointers. Or maybe all I need is the right breathing techniques and a calm and focused demeanor.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Nothing: Part 2
When I first came to the US, Thirtysomething was a popular television drama about baby boomers, the largest group of Americans, coming of age, coming into their own, getting married, having babies, buying homes, settling in to live their American dream.
They never once thought about moving back in with their frugal, post-Great Depression parents who had probably built themselves a solid financial future through financial restraint and cautiousness. These thirtysomethings had cushy corporate jobs and greed was still considered good.
Fast forward twenty years and we find this segment of aging boomers, who thought their nests were (or would soon be) empty and that they could manage well even on Wall Street and Madoff raped finances and busted 401ks, find themselves welcoming back their little birdies back to the nests, moving back to their old rooms, beaks open like little chickadees.
The generation Xers aren't the most secure people in the world these days. With unemployment at an all time high, worthless MBA degrees and hiring freezes they really have nowhere else to go. They are surrounded by monsters under the bed and need to sneak back in with mommy and daddy.
So when my little Generation Y person crept back into our bedroom last night she had me wondering if this was an eerie prelude to the future. Will the trend have reversed by the time she comes of age? Will she be fortunate enough to be on an extended uptick of the economic cycle?
They never once thought about moving back in with their frugal, post-Great Depression parents who had probably built themselves a solid financial future through financial restraint and cautiousness. These thirtysomethings had cushy corporate jobs and greed was still considered good.
Fast forward twenty years and we find this segment of aging boomers, who thought their nests were (or would soon be) empty and that they could manage well even on Wall Street and Madoff raped finances and busted 401ks, find themselves welcoming back their little birdies back to the nests, moving back to their old rooms, beaks open like little chickadees.
The generation Xers aren't the most secure people in the world these days. With unemployment at an all time high, worthless MBA degrees and hiring freezes they really have nowhere else to go. They are surrounded by monsters under the bed and need to sneak back in with mommy and daddy.
So when my little Generation Y person crept back into our bedroom last night she had me wondering if this was an eerie prelude to the future. Will the trend have reversed by the time she comes of age? Will she be fortunate enough to be on an extended uptick of the economic cycle?
Monday, December 7, 2009
I'll blog about nothing until I have something to blog about
I am tired of neglecting this space. It isn't as though my mind's a blank. I do have thoughts scurrying around in the darkness, much like the tiny mouse that inhabits my garage. It's rarely seen and yet there's a tiny hole in the garage wall with some insulation hanging out. My thoughts are making similar impressions somewhere on my person, I suppose. So we'll try using this blog as a mousetrap. Something might wander in.
So far the nothingness has taken the shape of waking up to the smell of the awesome Ethiopian Sidamo coffee. Just a hint of caramel and it was the best beverage to start the day. At least you can't say I am not waking up and smelling the coffee these days.
I had once read someone's blog that suggested that a combination of Sumatran and Ethiopian Sidamo coffee would yield a taste similar to the south Indian coffee I love so much. I don't think I ever got the proportions right, never found the right blend of the two. But, individually, both Sumatran and Sidamo coffees taste wonderful. I even searched for and found coffee with chickory. Tasting that was another exercise in awesomeness.
Coffee in hand, I crunched my way through the ice on my driveway. Thinking about how overdressed I would look in my heavy boots because as usual New York wouldn't even have a trace of snow. I swear, sometimes it seems like it only snows right above my home.
Reminds me of one of the stories in Jack Finney's I Love Galesburg in the Springtime. The story of which I am reminded was the one about a young couple having trouble agreeing on a design for the home they wanted to build until they stumbled upon an ancient blueprint of a home that was never really built. They fell in love with the design and had it built. They stayed very close to the details, used the material that would have been used for building homes at the time the blueprint was created and eventually saw the creation of a magnificent home.
The only problem was that once they moved in, they too went back in time. Their attitudes, their attire, their activities all changed to reflect the time of the conception of that house.
Even the weather patterns they experienced were from a time in the past such that sometimes it only appeared to be snowing or raining on their home while it was sunny everywhere else. Perhaps the homes in our little cul-de-sac are all trapped in an alternate weather zone. [Before some literal friend, plodding away in a logic swamp, jumps in to educate me on tri-state area weather patterns, let me say - no - I don't really think that]. I just feel this way sometimes.
It's getting really dark, really early these days. We are all rather nocturnal on weekends. It's a form of rebellion against the early rising we have to do on weekends. But waking up at noon is a bad idea these days because by the time one struggles with a late lunch, showers, accomplishes other minor chores, the day is done. There's no daylight at 4 PM and it's worse when it's raining or snowing.
Nothing new here. It could even be something I complain about annually. However, each year seems a little bit darker. If life was a piece of music, while writing it I would write in fine printed italics, underneath last few measures rit. for - ritardando - meaning gradually slower. Like music, why can't life get gradually slower? One rarely sees the instruction rapide as a piece of music is ending! And yet each year is further accelerated into nothingness.
The darkness must be affecting a lot of people these days. There are so many commercials on television, about the latest depression drugs, each commercial more creative than the previous one. One shows women sitting around with expressions as blank as can be. Their loved ones, drawing, sketching, playing, living around them while they mope around, unresponsive, unreactive and transparently invisible or invisibly transparent while a wind up doll slowly loses steam and droops. That's until she tries the new pill and is "wound up" again, letting out the occasional laugh and going to see a movie with friends.
There was another commercial spotted last night showing various people taking on the colors of their surroundings, like creatures adept at camouflage, merging with the supermarket aisles, their couches, subway station walls. Made me wonder what it was saying about the disease of depression, that depression makes you invisible, or makes you feel inanimate or invisible and inanimate? Perhaps poets are now incharge of writing the copy for depression ads.
They are certainly interesting to watch, until the kiddo spots one and asks, "Mommy what's depression?" You've got to admit that people appearing like they are camouflaged with their surroundings, with just a mopey, Eeyore-like head sticking out, would appear interesting to an inquisitive child.
So we make our dark winters bearable by laughing at these commercials. It's a good way to keep the dreaded D away. Especially since neither the wind-up doll people, nor the camouflage people have got it right yet. How it feels is never easy to describe, as some friends have indicated.
So far the nothingness has taken the shape of waking up to the smell of the awesome Ethiopian Sidamo coffee. Just a hint of caramel and it was the best beverage to start the day. At least you can't say I am not waking up and smelling the coffee these days.
I had once read someone's blog that suggested that a combination of Sumatran and Ethiopian Sidamo coffee would yield a taste similar to the south Indian coffee I love so much. I don't think I ever got the proportions right, never found the right blend of the two. But, individually, both Sumatran and Sidamo coffees taste wonderful. I even searched for and found coffee with chickory. Tasting that was another exercise in awesomeness.
Coffee in hand, I crunched my way through the ice on my driveway. Thinking about how overdressed I would look in my heavy boots because as usual New York wouldn't even have a trace of snow. I swear, sometimes it seems like it only snows right above my home.
Reminds me of one of the stories in Jack Finney's I Love Galesburg in the Springtime. The story of which I am reminded was the one about a young couple having trouble agreeing on a design for the home they wanted to build until they stumbled upon an ancient blueprint of a home that was never really built. They fell in love with the design and had it built. They stayed very close to the details, used the material that would have been used for building homes at the time the blueprint was created and eventually saw the creation of a magnificent home.
The only problem was that once they moved in, they too went back in time. Their attitudes, their attire, their activities all changed to reflect the time of the conception of that house.
Even the weather patterns they experienced were from a time in the past such that sometimes it only appeared to be snowing or raining on their home while it was sunny everywhere else. Perhaps the homes in our little cul-de-sac are all trapped in an alternate weather zone. [Before some literal friend, plodding away in a logic swamp, jumps in to educate me on tri-state area weather patterns, let me say - no - I don't really think that]. I just feel this way sometimes.
It's getting really dark, really early these days. We are all rather nocturnal on weekends. It's a form of rebellion against the early rising we have to do on weekends. But waking up at noon is a bad idea these days because by the time one struggles with a late lunch, showers, accomplishes other minor chores, the day is done. There's no daylight at 4 PM and it's worse when it's raining or snowing.
Nothing new here. It could even be something I complain about annually. However, each year seems a little bit darker. If life was a piece of music, while writing it I would write in fine printed italics, underneath last few measures rit. for - ritardando - meaning gradually slower. Like music, why can't life get gradually slower? One rarely sees the instruction rapide as a piece of music is ending! And yet each year is further accelerated into nothingness.
The darkness must be affecting a lot of people these days. There are so many commercials on television, about the latest depression drugs, each commercial more creative than the previous one. One shows women sitting around with expressions as blank as can be. Their loved ones, drawing, sketching, playing, living around them while they mope around, unresponsive, unreactive and transparently invisible or invisibly transparent while a wind up doll slowly loses steam and droops. That's until she tries the new pill and is "wound up" again, letting out the occasional laugh and going to see a movie with friends.
There was another commercial spotted last night showing various people taking on the colors of their surroundings, like creatures adept at camouflage, merging with the supermarket aisles, their couches, subway station walls. Made me wonder what it was saying about the disease of depression, that depression makes you invisible, or makes you feel inanimate or invisible and inanimate? Perhaps poets are now incharge of writing the copy for depression ads.
They are certainly interesting to watch, until the kiddo spots one and asks, "Mommy what's depression?" You've got to admit that people appearing like they are camouflaged with their surroundings, with just a mopey, Eeyore-like head sticking out, would appear interesting to an inquisitive child.
So we make our dark winters bearable by laughing at these commercials. It's a good way to keep the dreaded D away. Especially since neither the wind-up doll people, nor the camouflage people have got it right yet. How it feels is never easy to describe, as some friends have indicated.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Watching Chicago
Watching Chicago, the movie, last night was a riveting experience. The movie is beautifully made and enacted by Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, Queen Latifah and Richard Gere. I had seen Chicago, the play, on Broadway a few months ago. Thanks to a promotional offer from a massive cosmetics spending spree, we had excellent third row seats and I was quite entranced by the luminously attractive and talented actors on stage. The friend who accompanied me to the play had suggested I complement the experience by watching the movie.
So I watched it last night. I cleared my agenda of all the usual distractions, took a break from my regimented music practice and shirked all other duties and chores while I lay flat on my belly, inserted the DVD in my laptop and settled in for the viewing pleasure.
There can be no disagreement on how entertaining this musical is. The story, the music, the satirical humor and “all that jazz” comes together seamlessly with the casts’ effortless demonstration of how much of a three-ring circus life really is and how the only aura surrounding everything we do is one of meaninglessness and transient moments. When one peels away the finesse of the presentation itself, one gets to the brilliance and the sheer artistry with which the creators have illustrated life itself.
Take the six murderesses at Cook County Jail, for instance. They are unrepentant. They killed because they had to; their anger at their worse halves had crossed every threshold imaginable. There was the one who fired warning shots into the husband who refused to stop popping his gum, there was Velma Kelly (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones), who caught her husband cheating with her sister, then the one whose husband “fell” on her kitchen knife ten times while coming at her in a rage, repeatedly accusing her of cheating on him. In each instance they confessed to the crime as if it was the most natural outcome. As if they had endured enough and had reached their limits. The satire was brilliant in showing more and more women pointing the guns at worthless mates, the lawyer milking them on his way to riches, tap dancing his way to unprecedented success, the District Attorney more concerned with his gubernatorial future than anything else.
The story of Roxie Hart (played by Renee Zellweger) illuminates a whole other aspect, that of seeking recognition and adulation, of wanting to feel as though one’s place in the sun is clearly demarcated and spotlighted. It also made me think once again of what men really want and what women want, especially what they want with each other.
I feel most women, even the most noble and altruistic of women (since altruism and sex aren’t mutually exclusive), think of sex as currency. Something is always expected in return, be it children, companionship, resources, the assuaging of some feeling of emptiness somewhere or the big one, the L word: love – the lust-love tradeoff, there is always a minor or major expectation tied to the act. Men seem to not expect anything from it except that one instant of pleasure; nevertheless, a pleasure for which no price is too heavy to pay.
Roxie sought a ladder to fame and fortune out of her dalliance but her needs were beneath inconsequential to the furniture salesman. So he paid with his life. There was Amos, Roxie’s loving, trusting husband who called himself Mr. Cellophane – as invisible and inconsequential as Roxie, two of a kind in many ways, but one resigned and accepting of his circumstance and the other in ferment.
Then there’s Billy Flynn. On the surface, and even deeper than that, he comes across as the slimy lawyer who cares nothing about any of the women he defends. However, he is nothing but a cynical and shrewd observer who has seen life for what it is, he has a bird’s eye view of the topography of life and his personal path to fortune is dazzlingly illuminated. He can’t lose; he knows how to pull every string that can be pulled.
The song sequence where he is the master puppeteer, with his client - the ventriloquist’s dummy - and the legions of reporters his puppets, was simply amazing. There was one surprising moment of tenderness between Billie Flynn and Roxie Hart before her trial, when she says she is scared and Billy Flynn looks at her and tells her not to be because it is all nothing but a three ring circus. We’ve seen how much of a circus it is, throughout, but the director had the right idea in underscoring that moment.
The trial is over almost as soon as it started and Billie moves on to the defense of the pineapple heiress who walks in and shoots at her husband and all the women who fill his bed, yet another woman who shoots her significant other on the courthouse steps. Life goes on in Chicago where the paper boy starts his morning with a truckload of papers, half of which show the headline “Innocent” and the other half “Guilty”. He is ready to sell either one, as soon as the verdict is heard.
How many times have we witnessed some version of this 1927 satire played out in reality?
So I watched it last night. I cleared my agenda of all the usual distractions, took a break from my regimented music practice and shirked all other duties and chores while I lay flat on my belly, inserted the DVD in my laptop and settled in for the viewing pleasure.
There can be no disagreement on how entertaining this musical is. The story, the music, the satirical humor and “all that jazz” comes together seamlessly with the casts’ effortless demonstration of how much of a three-ring circus life really is and how the only aura surrounding everything we do is one of meaninglessness and transient moments. When one peels away the finesse of the presentation itself, one gets to the brilliance and the sheer artistry with which the creators have illustrated life itself.
Take the six murderesses at Cook County Jail, for instance. They are unrepentant. They killed because they had to; their anger at their worse halves had crossed every threshold imaginable. There was the one who fired warning shots into the husband who refused to stop popping his gum, there was Velma Kelly (played by Catherine Zeta-Jones), who caught her husband cheating with her sister, then the one whose husband “fell” on her kitchen knife ten times while coming at her in a rage, repeatedly accusing her of cheating on him. In each instance they confessed to the crime as if it was the most natural outcome. As if they had endured enough and had reached their limits. The satire was brilliant in showing more and more women pointing the guns at worthless mates, the lawyer milking them on his way to riches, tap dancing his way to unprecedented success, the District Attorney more concerned with his gubernatorial future than anything else.
The story of Roxie Hart (played by Renee Zellweger) illuminates a whole other aspect, that of seeking recognition and adulation, of wanting to feel as though one’s place in the sun is clearly demarcated and spotlighted. It also made me think once again of what men really want and what women want, especially what they want with each other.
I feel most women, even the most noble and altruistic of women (since altruism and sex aren’t mutually exclusive), think of sex as currency. Something is always expected in return, be it children, companionship, resources, the assuaging of some feeling of emptiness somewhere or the big one, the L word: love – the lust-love tradeoff, there is always a minor or major expectation tied to the act. Men seem to not expect anything from it except that one instant of pleasure; nevertheless, a pleasure for which no price is too heavy to pay.
Roxie sought a ladder to fame and fortune out of her dalliance but her needs were beneath inconsequential to the furniture salesman. So he paid with his life. There was Amos, Roxie’s loving, trusting husband who called himself Mr. Cellophane – as invisible and inconsequential as Roxie, two of a kind in many ways, but one resigned and accepting of his circumstance and the other in ferment.
Then there’s Billy Flynn. On the surface, and even deeper than that, he comes across as the slimy lawyer who cares nothing about any of the women he defends. However, he is nothing but a cynical and shrewd observer who has seen life for what it is, he has a bird’s eye view of the topography of life and his personal path to fortune is dazzlingly illuminated. He can’t lose; he knows how to pull every string that can be pulled.
The song sequence where he is the master puppeteer, with his client - the ventriloquist’s dummy - and the legions of reporters his puppets, was simply amazing. There was one surprising moment of tenderness between Billie Flynn and Roxie Hart before her trial, when she says she is scared and Billy Flynn looks at her and tells her not to be because it is all nothing but a three ring circus. We’ve seen how much of a circus it is, throughout, but the director had the right idea in underscoring that moment.
The trial is over almost as soon as it started and Billie moves on to the defense of the pineapple heiress who walks in and shoots at her husband and all the women who fill his bed, yet another woman who shoots her significant other on the courthouse steps. Life goes on in Chicago where the paper boy starts his morning with a truckload of papers, half of which show the headline “Innocent” and the other half “Guilty”. He is ready to sell either one, as soon as the verdict is heard.
How many times have we witnessed some version of this 1927 satire played out in reality?
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Earth Rise on Moon Beach
It was just a silly dream. Triggered perhaps by the news of LCROSS and its successful explosion of water out of the moon.
My slumbering mind imagined water and a beach on the moon. It made me see myself lounging around on a deck chair, watching the Earth rise in the distance in all its sapphire glory.
Who would forget such a dream?
I seldom remember my dreams. The last one I remember left me with a strange line:
"In my youth there were no razors in my eyes"
I don't remember the context, just the line and what a bizarre line it is.
Perhaps it signals distress at lost innocence and the accretion of several layers of jadedness.
The moon dream is perhaps along the same lines.
I've always loved the word pristine.
We know what it means but words have a certain sound, a certain quality that transcends their meaning. When I hear pristine I sense beauty and innocence that is as startling and breathtaking as it is transient and fleeting. The pristine condition isn't one that lasts.
My slumbering mind imagined water and a beach on the moon. It made me see myself lounging around on a deck chair, watching the Earth rise in the distance in all its sapphire glory.
Who would forget such a dream?
I seldom remember my dreams. The last one I remember left me with a strange line:
"In my youth there were no razors in my eyes"
I don't remember the context, just the line and what a bizarre line it is.
Perhaps it signals distress at lost innocence and the accretion of several layers of jadedness.
The moon dream is perhaps along the same lines.
I've always loved the word pristine.
We know what it means but words have a certain sound, a certain quality that transcends their meaning. When I hear pristine I sense beauty and innocence that is as startling and breathtaking as it is transient and fleeting. The pristine condition isn't one that lasts.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
I like the title - "What the Dog Saw"
I plan to pick up this collection of Malcolm Gladwell's essays in a day or two. The title is intriguing indeed and I've learnt that it originates from his essay on Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer, who is admirable in his abilities to understand, calm and train any dog he comes across. Malcolm Gladwell also wonders about what dogs see in Cesar Millan.
I loved that as a title of a book. But it also seems that people are full of wonder lately about the mental abilities of dogs.
I came across this article by Sarah Kershaw in today's New York Times about Jet, the Labradoodle who can detect seizures in its master.
There was a passage in this article that said:
Coming across this passage, liking the book title "What the Dog Saw", and to be enjoying a book called "The Ghost in Love" by Jonathan Caroll, where the fictional dog Pilot, can see cancer approaching as pink fog that is about to descend on someone, seem to be remarkable coincidences for me today.
Or maybe I am just more open to taking notes on dogs these days because my dear daughter insists on getting a dog before her ninth birthday. Beautiful doggie portraits in crayons, pencil and ink are flooding my field of vision these days.
Take a look folks:
Here we see basketball dog, dog in French clothing and rock star diva dog.
This dog is sad because love is supposed to come in twos and he is lonely.
I loved that as a title of a book. But it also seems that people are full of wonder lately about the mental abilities of dogs.
I came across this article by Sarah Kershaw in today's New York Times about Jet, the Labradoodle who can detect seizures in its master.
There was a passage in this article that said:
The matter of what exactly goes on in the mind of a dog is a tricky one, and until recently much of the research on canine intelligence has been met with large doses of skepticism. But over the last several years a growing body of evidence, culled from small scientific studies of dogs’ abilities to do things like detect cancer or seizures, solve complex problems (complex for a dog, anyway), and learn language suggests that they may know more than we thought they did.
Coming across this passage, liking the book title "What the Dog Saw", and to be enjoying a book called "The Ghost in Love" by Jonathan Caroll, where the fictional dog Pilot, can see cancer approaching as pink fog that is about to descend on someone, seem to be remarkable coincidences for me today.
Or maybe I am just more open to taking notes on dogs these days because my dear daughter insists on getting a dog before her ninth birthday. Beautiful doggie portraits in crayons, pencil and ink are flooding my field of vision these days.
Take a look folks:
Here we see basketball dog, dog in French clothing and rock star diva dog.
This dog is sad because love is supposed to come in twos and he is lonely.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Battlestar Galactica (BSG)
My blog must have a post dedicated to Battlestar Galactica.
I don't know too many people who have seen this show. I never watched it while it was still on TV. I had no idea it had the potential to make such an impression on me. My co-worker, Stacy, and I finally decided to download all four seasons and watch it on our iPod Touches. Maybe watching it in this fashion offers a different experience than watching an episode on TV every week, with commercial breaks, re-runs, season breaks etc. Ours was certainly a very pure, very distilled experience. Perhaps watching it the way we did makes for more reflective moments.
The intelligence in the scripting of this show, the deeper philosophical and theosophical constructs never ceased to amaze me. The crafting of Battlestar Galactica was pure genius any way one decided to look at it.
The opening musical theme of every episode was the first thing to grab my attention. The accent, of course, was heavily anglicized but soon enough I had no doubt in my mind that it was the Gayatri Mantra set to music:
AUM BHOOR BHUWAH SWAHA,
TAT SAVITUR VARENYAM
BHARGO DEVASAYA DHEEMAHI
DHIYO YO NAHA PRACHODAYAT
The use of this mantra, the one chant that I never leave home without, at the beginning of each episode signalled to me that the creator of the show, Ron Moore was a rather impressive theosophist. I couldn't resist pointing this out to my friends who were finding every Judeo-Christian construct addressed in the plotlines. They are there, no doubt, but the view is much broader, much more all-encompassing than would seem at first glance.
The essence of Hinduism (which of course originated Buddhism and one or two other religions) for me is the one God philosophy, the other ‘gods’ are merely aspects or manifestations or over-simplifications to help along the faithful. The one Hindu God embodies a holy trinity of creation, preservation and destruction. All those things are clearly represented over the entire BSG story line. The motifs of eternal recurrence, building, thesis/antithesis, total destruction and building again are worked into the script in a seamless fashion.
The most impressively written character was that of Gaius Baltar. Stacy called him despicable. It is easy to do that when he comes across as a mere character on screen, a dramatis persona. But what the creators have really done is make us face a mirror, if not as a person, then as a global society. The pursuit of self-interest, above all else, is encouraged in many societies and is actually downgraded to a hidden, not so obvious motive in countries/societies where such pursuit is deemed evil (think China, old USSR). What is trickle-down economics, the profit motive above all else, the current financial and economic crisis in which we all find ourselves? It is nothing but a huge Gaius Baltar, all rolled up in one character we find easy to despise.
The kinds of beneficial things that end up happening, as a result of his self-preservation – cancer treatment for President Laura, the detection and imprisonment of Cylon#5 (after a hint from Head 6), his handing over the number from drawn lots when desperate Caprica survivors were trying to board Helo and Boomer’s plane – when he could have kept the # for himself – all these actions are incidental and not intentional, usually (his praying for the sick child seemed somewhat genuine). But yes, there are helpful things he ends up doing, if only as beneficial side-effects, while he plots self preservation.
That is indeed how a society such as ours – driven by self-interest – preserved and protected by political conservatives – usually behaves. We are Gaius Baltar! (Ok maybe not all of us – it’s a huge generalization :) )
The treatment of technology – lots could be said here as well. What scares me, on the show, and in reality, is that the sky is the limit for what mankind can achieve. We can whittle away at every mystery there exists and keep knocking them out, things that are mysteries today, won’t be so in a decade and so on. That’s our human programming, whether one calls it intelligent design or evolution. The problem is that one thing that is not programmed into us is a collective memory of history, a healthy appreciation of the irrationality of war and an utter lack of foresight. We don’t have what it takes to analyze the long term consequences of our actions.
There was a report in the news yesterday about how Moscow researchers have figured out a way to blast snow clouds out of their airspace – by spraying them with some nitrous chemicals (don’t recall the science). So yes, we are capable of messing with our clouds. My initial response was, of course, “Yay, no more snow!” But the euphoria didn’t last long as I had this sudden knot of fear emerge – “no one is thinking of what this would do ten or twenty years down the line”.
We are programmed to shoot ourselves in the foot and to keep repeating it until a repetition in this cosmic statistical model becomes improbable.
I don't know too many people who have seen this show. I never watched it while it was still on TV. I had no idea it had the potential to make such an impression on me. My co-worker, Stacy, and I finally decided to download all four seasons and watch it on our iPod Touches. Maybe watching it in this fashion offers a different experience than watching an episode on TV every week, with commercial breaks, re-runs, season breaks etc. Ours was certainly a very pure, very distilled experience. Perhaps watching it the way we did makes for more reflective moments.
The intelligence in the scripting of this show, the deeper philosophical and theosophical constructs never ceased to amaze me. The crafting of Battlestar Galactica was pure genius any way one decided to look at it.
The opening musical theme of every episode was the first thing to grab my attention. The accent, of course, was heavily anglicized but soon enough I had no doubt in my mind that it was the Gayatri Mantra set to music:
AUM BHOOR BHUWAH SWAHA,
TAT SAVITUR VARENYAM
BHARGO DEVASAYA DHEEMAHI
DHIYO YO NAHA PRACHODAYAT
The use of this mantra, the one chant that I never leave home without, at the beginning of each episode signalled to me that the creator of the show, Ron Moore was a rather impressive theosophist. I couldn't resist pointing this out to my friends who were finding every Judeo-Christian construct addressed in the plotlines. They are there, no doubt, but the view is much broader, much more all-encompassing than would seem at first glance.
The essence of Hinduism (which of course originated Buddhism and one or two other religions) for me is the one God philosophy, the other ‘gods’ are merely aspects or manifestations or over-simplifications to help along the faithful. The one Hindu God embodies a holy trinity of creation, preservation and destruction. All those things are clearly represented over the entire BSG story line. The motifs of eternal recurrence, building, thesis/antithesis, total destruction and building again are worked into the script in a seamless fashion.
The most impressively written character was that of Gaius Baltar. Stacy called him despicable. It is easy to do that when he comes across as a mere character on screen, a dramatis persona. But what the creators have really done is make us face a mirror, if not as a person, then as a global society. The pursuit of self-interest, above all else, is encouraged in many societies and is actually downgraded to a hidden, not so obvious motive in countries/societies where such pursuit is deemed evil (think China, old USSR). What is trickle-down economics, the profit motive above all else, the current financial and economic crisis in which we all find ourselves? It is nothing but a huge Gaius Baltar, all rolled up in one character we find easy to despise.
The kinds of beneficial things that end up happening, as a result of his self-preservation – cancer treatment for President Laura, the detection and imprisonment of Cylon#5 (after a hint from Head 6), his handing over the number from drawn lots when desperate Caprica survivors were trying to board Helo and Boomer’s plane – when he could have kept the # for himself – all these actions are incidental and not intentional, usually (his praying for the sick child seemed somewhat genuine). But yes, there are helpful things he ends up doing, if only as beneficial side-effects, while he plots self preservation.
That is indeed how a society such as ours – driven by self-interest – preserved and protected by political conservatives – usually behaves. We are Gaius Baltar! (Ok maybe not all of us – it’s a huge generalization :) )
The treatment of technology – lots could be said here as well. What scares me, on the show, and in reality, is that the sky is the limit for what mankind can achieve. We can whittle away at every mystery there exists and keep knocking them out, things that are mysteries today, won’t be so in a decade and so on. That’s our human programming, whether one calls it intelligent design or evolution. The problem is that one thing that is not programmed into us is a collective memory of history, a healthy appreciation of the irrationality of war and an utter lack of foresight. We don’t have what it takes to analyze the long term consequences of our actions.
There was a report in the news yesterday about how Moscow researchers have figured out a way to blast snow clouds out of their airspace – by spraying them with some nitrous chemicals (don’t recall the science). So yes, we are capable of messing with our clouds. My initial response was, of course, “Yay, no more snow!” But the euphoria didn’t last long as I had this sudden knot of fear emerge – “no one is thinking of what this would do ten or twenty years down the line”.
We are programmed to shoot ourselves in the foot and to keep repeating it until a repetition in this cosmic statistical model becomes improbable.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Essence of Fall
Some fall days are beautiful. Especially the ones that are touched with grace, the ones where multiple hues shimmer in the morning light, raining on me like confetti as I make my way down winding roads. They fill me with the kind of fleeting happiness I haven't felt in days. As though someone laid a gentle hand on my forehead and brushed back bothersome tendrils of hair while smiling down at me.
Fleeting it was, in all its sweetness. My happiness was already tinged with nostalgia for the passing moment, even as the moment occurred. Just like this season we call fall- a glorious decay which looks ahead at months of bleakness.
I relished how I was feeling in that one passing moment and tried to live it to its fullest. And, as if it read my mind, the radio started playing Robert Plant's soft tones from when he wrote a fine tribute to his son Karac who died of stomach cancer at the age of five. This song probably sees Plant and JPJ at their best, with Plant's lyrics and Jones on synthesizer and bass making magic. Take a listen, it is the perfect musical accompaniment to the kind of morning I am trying so hard to relive here:
Fleeting it was, in all its sweetness. My happiness was already tinged with nostalgia for the passing moment, even as the moment occurred. Just like this season we call fall- a glorious decay which looks ahead at months of bleakness.
I relished how I was feeling in that one passing moment and tried to live it to its fullest. And, as if it read my mind, the radio started playing Robert Plant's soft tones from when he wrote a fine tribute to his son Karac who died of stomach cancer at the age of five. This song probably sees Plant and JPJ at their best, with Plant's lyrics and Jones on synthesizer and bass making magic. Take a listen, it is the perfect musical accompaniment to the kind of morning I am trying so hard to relive here:
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Do real violinists get calluses...
...on the fingertips of their left hand? Or is it a sign of how far one has to go before becoming someone who can carry a note or two on the violin?
I have doubled my hours of practice these days. I am determined to make those string crossings and multiple slurs effortless. I am determined to hear the notes gliding and sliding together and coming together well. But perhaps this determination is aiding and abetting bad technique. Maybe my fingers really don't need to press down so hard. There is some physics inherent in the mastery of this instrument that escapes me at the moment. I concentrate on the things that are obvious: right posture, bowing perpendicular to the strings, trying to apply the right pressure of bow to string, engaging those upper arm and shoulder muscles more than the forearm and wrist but something is still elusive.
Of course it has only been two years. I must admit I've come a long way in two years. Written music was as pretty as birds on wires to me until two years ago and I had no idea what the music director of the rock show, where I was a back-up singer in late 2006, was talking about when he talked about C sharps or B flats. So many musical concepts have come together in my head in the last two years and so many things are clearer, after starting from scratch and a good set of pipes. But like a guest speaker at a college function once reminded us, years ago - the more you learn, the more you realize how ignorant you are; every bit of light hints at the darkness that lies ahead.
I find that darkness overwhelming at times.
When one is overwhelmed so, it probably is time to look at everything with "soft eyes". I first heard that term on the second episode of the fourth season of the HBO drama "The Wire". It struck a chord and has stuck with me ever since. I often refer to it. I think the usage is brilliant. I am not even sure what the creators of the show, Ed Burns and David Mills, really meant by it; so much is always open to individual interpretation. But what it means to me is a cetain shift in one's perspective, giving a little, letting go of rigidity: literally, relaxing ones hard, squinting eyes until other details, previously hidden, masked in some way, start to emerge. In other words, just relaxing, letting go and making room for the things that your previous stance stopped you from getting.
In my violin playing and my life, I need "soft eyes". Nothing brings more fatigue and hopelessness these days than entrenched opinions and rigid stances. We have to give a little, the house needs to settle.
I have doubled my hours of practice these days. I am determined to make those string crossings and multiple slurs effortless. I am determined to hear the notes gliding and sliding together and coming together well. But perhaps this determination is aiding and abetting bad technique. Maybe my fingers really don't need to press down so hard. There is some physics inherent in the mastery of this instrument that escapes me at the moment. I concentrate on the things that are obvious: right posture, bowing perpendicular to the strings, trying to apply the right pressure of bow to string, engaging those upper arm and shoulder muscles more than the forearm and wrist but something is still elusive.
Of course it has only been two years. I must admit I've come a long way in two years. Written music was as pretty as birds on wires to me until two years ago and I had no idea what the music director of the rock show, where I was a back-up singer in late 2006, was talking about when he talked about C sharps or B flats. So many musical concepts have come together in my head in the last two years and so many things are clearer, after starting from scratch and a good set of pipes. But like a guest speaker at a college function once reminded us, years ago - the more you learn, the more you realize how ignorant you are; every bit of light hints at the darkness that lies ahead.
I find that darkness overwhelming at times.
When one is overwhelmed so, it probably is time to look at everything with "soft eyes". I first heard that term on the second episode of the fourth season of the HBO drama "The Wire". It struck a chord and has stuck with me ever since. I often refer to it. I think the usage is brilliant. I am not even sure what the creators of the show, Ed Burns and David Mills, really meant by it; so much is always open to individual interpretation. But what it means to me is a cetain shift in one's perspective, giving a little, letting go of rigidity: literally, relaxing ones hard, squinting eyes until other details, previously hidden, masked in some way, start to emerge. In other words, just relaxing, letting go and making room for the things that your previous stance stopped you from getting.
In my violin playing and my life, I need "soft eyes". Nothing brings more fatigue and hopelessness these days than entrenched opinions and rigid stances. We have to give a little, the house needs to settle.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Peace Prize or Albatross?
Alfred Nobel’s will states that the Peace prize must go to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.
Do I think President Obama has done the most or even his best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses? I certainly don’t think so. But I do know that 172 individuals and 33 organizations were nominated for the prize in 2009. We won’t know who they were until I am 92 years old, at which point I doubt I would even remember or care about the meaning of a Nobel Peace prize.
For now the Norwegian committee determined President Obama to be the candidate that trumped all the other nominees. I am not as aware of every world event as I should be, however I can’t think of any other world leader who has done the “best work” for fraternity between nations – Putin, Sarkozy, Manmohan Singh, Wen Jiabao, Kim Jong Il, Gordon Brown, Benjamin Netanyahu, Berlusconi? No, not a single world leader comes to mind.
People who are not in a “world leadership” position perhaps. I can think of several selfless individuals who are engaged in working tirelessly for making this planet a better place, a safer place, through their words, their actions their daily sacrifices. Do I think they deserve Nobel recognition? Absolutely.
But perhaps those Norwegians couldn’t define these unquestionably peaceful actions as actions that were furthering fraternity between nations. Or did a sufficient number of nominations fail to come in for many of these individuals? We won’t know until I am 92.
Then there’s the matter of abolition or reduction of standing armies. Again, I can’t think of any world leader whose efforts have resulted in the abolition or reduction of standing armies. President Obama did schedule troop withdrawal from Iraq and is on the cusp of making a decision about Afghanistan. Perhaps, if he had decided to send in more troops into Afghanistan (there’s certainly a case to be made for it) it would have knocked him out of consideration.
Has he done enough for the holding and promotion of peace congresses? Not nearly enough in his 9 month long presidency. His stance at the summits he has attended has been refreshingly different in its consensus building tone, its stress on rationality and the desire to find common ground. His rhetoric has signaled a welcome change in tone compared to his predecessor. But there would have been more evidence of this and perhaps some tangible and concrete results by the year 2012.
My vote went to him so I am hopeful of seeing these results. Have I seen them yet? No.
So should he have been given this prize? The determination of who gets this prize is not a democratic one. The world population, the “tweeters” don’t get a vote. It rests in the hands of a Norwegian committee and is bound by the words of Alfred Nobel’s will. People have a right to question the soundness of the committee’s judgment and express outraged opinions on every social networking forum there is. They can make jokes about it. RNC chairman, Michael Steele, can send me spam mail where he claims that the President received the award for “awesomeness” (I didn’t read anymore so don’t know what else it said), after all we are in this age of non-stop chatter, tweets and pointless expressions of rage at why our will wasn’t done. But that’s what it all is: pointless.
The President accepted the award as a humbling call to action and I have no doubt in my mind that he sees it as a somber rather than an ecstatic marker in his rather eventful life.
The committee has in the past had the good sense to reject the nominations of Stalin and Mussolini. I am sure they would have rejected Adolf Hitler if the person nominating him hadn’t withdrawn the nomination in early 1939.
They were also strangely and inexplicably reluctant to give the prize to Mahatma Gandhi who was nominated several times. He certainly deserved it on all counts. We won’t know who President Obama’s fellow nominees were until we’re too old or dead to care.
During World War I and II the committee decided not to award this prize, a decision one understands when one reads what Alfred Nobel’s will dictated. Perhaps they should have done the same in 2009. We don’t even have the slightest hint of peace on earth. At best, the desire for it is a well worn cliché mouthed by beauty show contestants or a fond wish expressed in Christmas carols. We have heinous acts of abuse, genocide, crimes against women, eternal blood soaked conflicts in the Middle East and strife and hell on earth everywhere we turn. The need for power drives and motivates more people than the need for peace.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there are pockets of selfless individuals in every country, working tirelessly for the holy grail of world peace. The best thing the outraged social and traditional media voices can do is find these people and nominate them for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010, 2011, 2012…
For now, I just feel a tremendous sense of sadness for Barack Obama. His young presidency is carrying a tremendous weight of expectations not just from the people of his own country but the world. I don’t think this is the expression of an American centric viewpoint. People have pinned their hopes and expectations on Barack Obama. So much so that they even expected the results of his swearing in to yield instantaneous results, almost as if he had a magic wand.
How does a cynical generation like ours end up believing in the existence of a magic wand? He doesn’t have a lightning bolt scar on his forehead! Let’s go back to being cynical, folks, and let him steer this ship to the best of his abilities.
I say “ship” because in many ways he reminds me Coleridge's ancient mariner who has an albatross around his neck. Just like the albatross’s initial welcome, the Nobel is welcome. It has the tremendous capacity to guide every action that this commander in chief initiates, every bill he signs and every word he speaks. It has the capacity to serve as a filter. Will it give him pause every time he is poised at the brink of US initiated military action in any part of the world? Will it color his judgment about global collaboration on environmental concerns? Will it urge him to make his leadership on these matters more meaningful? It most certainly will. Or at least, the people who elected him, just like the people who gave him this prize believe it will.
Should the Nobel Peace Prize committee hand out prizes because they are “hopeful” of peace? I cannot second guess their motives but I like being a hopeful rather than hopeless citizen of the world.
If the president fails to live up to these expectations, then that would be analogous to the ancient mariner’s shooting of the albatross and the dead one ending up around his neck. Can one man handle this weight? Will he pass the test of time?
Do I think President Obama has done the most or even his best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses? I certainly don’t think so. But I do know that 172 individuals and 33 organizations were nominated for the prize in 2009. We won’t know who they were until I am 92 years old, at which point I doubt I would even remember or care about the meaning of a Nobel Peace prize.
For now the Norwegian committee determined President Obama to be the candidate that trumped all the other nominees. I am not as aware of every world event as I should be, however I can’t think of any other world leader who has done the “best work” for fraternity between nations – Putin, Sarkozy, Manmohan Singh, Wen Jiabao, Kim Jong Il, Gordon Brown, Benjamin Netanyahu, Berlusconi? No, not a single world leader comes to mind.
People who are not in a “world leadership” position perhaps. I can think of several selfless individuals who are engaged in working tirelessly for making this planet a better place, a safer place, through their words, their actions their daily sacrifices. Do I think they deserve Nobel recognition? Absolutely.
But perhaps those Norwegians couldn’t define these unquestionably peaceful actions as actions that were furthering fraternity between nations. Or did a sufficient number of nominations fail to come in for many of these individuals? We won’t know until I am 92.
Then there’s the matter of abolition or reduction of standing armies. Again, I can’t think of any world leader whose efforts have resulted in the abolition or reduction of standing armies. President Obama did schedule troop withdrawal from Iraq and is on the cusp of making a decision about Afghanistan. Perhaps, if he had decided to send in more troops into Afghanistan (there’s certainly a case to be made for it) it would have knocked him out of consideration.
Has he done enough for the holding and promotion of peace congresses? Not nearly enough in his 9 month long presidency. His stance at the summits he has attended has been refreshingly different in its consensus building tone, its stress on rationality and the desire to find common ground. His rhetoric has signaled a welcome change in tone compared to his predecessor. But there would have been more evidence of this and perhaps some tangible and concrete results by the year 2012.
My vote went to him so I am hopeful of seeing these results. Have I seen them yet? No.
So should he have been given this prize? The determination of who gets this prize is not a democratic one. The world population, the “tweeters” don’t get a vote. It rests in the hands of a Norwegian committee and is bound by the words of Alfred Nobel’s will. People have a right to question the soundness of the committee’s judgment and express outraged opinions on every social networking forum there is. They can make jokes about it. RNC chairman, Michael Steele, can send me spam mail where he claims that the President received the award for “awesomeness” (I didn’t read anymore so don’t know what else it said), after all we are in this age of non-stop chatter, tweets and pointless expressions of rage at why our will wasn’t done. But that’s what it all is: pointless.
The President accepted the award as a humbling call to action and I have no doubt in my mind that he sees it as a somber rather than an ecstatic marker in his rather eventful life.
The committee has in the past had the good sense to reject the nominations of Stalin and Mussolini. I am sure they would have rejected Adolf Hitler if the person nominating him hadn’t withdrawn the nomination in early 1939.
They were also strangely and inexplicably reluctant to give the prize to Mahatma Gandhi who was nominated several times. He certainly deserved it on all counts. We won’t know who President Obama’s fellow nominees were until we’re too old or dead to care.
During World War I and II the committee decided not to award this prize, a decision one understands when one reads what Alfred Nobel’s will dictated. Perhaps they should have done the same in 2009. We don’t even have the slightest hint of peace on earth. At best, the desire for it is a well worn cliché mouthed by beauty show contestants or a fond wish expressed in Christmas carols. We have heinous acts of abuse, genocide, crimes against women, eternal blood soaked conflicts in the Middle East and strife and hell on earth everywhere we turn. The need for power drives and motivates more people than the need for peace.
There’s no doubt in my mind that there are pockets of selfless individuals in every country, working tirelessly for the holy grail of world peace. The best thing the outraged social and traditional media voices can do is find these people and nominate them for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010, 2011, 2012…
For now, I just feel a tremendous sense of sadness for Barack Obama. His young presidency is carrying a tremendous weight of expectations not just from the people of his own country but the world. I don’t think this is the expression of an American centric viewpoint. People have pinned their hopes and expectations on Barack Obama. So much so that they even expected the results of his swearing in to yield instantaneous results, almost as if he had a magic wand.
How does a cynical generation like ours end up believing in the existence of a magic wand? He doesn’t have a lightning bolt scar on his forehead! Let’s go back to being cynical, folks, and let him steer this ship to the best of his abilities.
I say “ship” because in many ways he reminds me Coleridge's ancient mariner who has an albatross around his neck. Just like the albatross’s initial welcome, the Nobel is welcome. It has the tremendous capacity to guide every action that this commander in chief initiates, every bill he signs and every word he speaks. It has the capacity to serve as a filter. Will it give him pause every time he is poised at the brink of US initiated military action in any part of the world? Will it color his judgment about global collaboration on environmental concerns? Will it urge him to make his leadership on these matters more meaningful? It most certainly will. Or at least, the people who elected him, just like the people who gave him this prize believe it will.
Should the Nobel Peace Prize committee hand out prizes because they are “hopeful” of peace? I cannot second guess their motives but I like being a hopeful rather than hopeless citizen of the world.
If the president fails to live up to these expectations, then that would be analogous to the ancient mariner’s shooting of the albatross and the dead one ending up around his neck. Can one man handle this weight? Will he pass the test of time?
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Black Mood
When there's nothing else to write about it is easy to mine oneself. Today was a rough day and I want it to pass into the irretrievable archives of the mind.
Sugar and sweetener wrappers in the drawer where we store packets of sugar and sweetener; the bottom of the drawer coated with crusted up sugar and sweetener, coffee stains on the carpet, dirty socks and wet towels strewn around the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, homework that doesn't get done until I raise hell about it after I get home, garbage that doesn't get taken out, cigarette smoke smells reaching up and out of the basement office, missing my bus by a minute because some people choose to leave a four car distance between themselves and the car in front of them, bank account that shows numerous casino transactions because someone is showing out of control behavior - these were all the ingredients that went into my vile soup of a day.
Forgot about mentioning the stellar customer service that consumers in this country receive from respected corporations. I was gleefully used by Sears in a "bounce the call between national and store level personnel" because they haven't a clue when they would be able to deliver and assemble a dresser I had purchased a week ago. In fact, they don't even have a record of my order in the system: "We apologize for the inconvenience, we are so sorry you have had such a rotten experience, but unfortunately we are not able to help you."
!!!
Wasted hours tally:
24 minutes waiting in the parking lot after missing the 7:15 bus by a minute
80 minutes wasted commuting to work
180 minutes wasted trying to get a non-idiotic answer out of Sears customer service
And this day isn't over.
What's to come you ask, well:
120 minutes or more will be wasted commuting back home
120 minutes cleaning up hubby and daughter's messes
60 minutes running after A to get her homework done
How I'll find myself within these wasted time segments is beyond comprehension.
Sugar and sweetener wrappers in the drawer where we store packets of sugar and sweetener; the bottom of the drawer coated with crusted up sugar and sweetener, coffee stains on the carpet, dirty socks and wet towels strewn around the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, homework that doesn't get done until I raise hell about it after I get home, garbage that doesn't get taken out, cigarette smoke smells reaching up and out of the basement office, missing my bus by a minute because some people choose to leave a four car distance between themselves and the car in front of them, bank account that shows numerous casino transactions because someone is showing out of control behavior - these were all the ingredients that went into my vile soup of a day.
Forgot about mentioning the stellar customer service that consumers in this country receive from respected corporations. I was gleefully used by Sears in a "bounce the call between national and store level personnel" because they haven't a clue when they would be able to deliver and assemble a dresser I had purchased a week ago. In fact, they don't even have a record of my order in the system: "We apologize for the inconvenience, we are so sorry you have had such a rotten experience, but unfortunately we are not able to help you."
!!!
Wasted hours tally:
24 minutes waiting in the parking lot after missing the 7:15 bus by a minute
80 minutes wasted commuting to work
180 minutes wasted trying to get a non-idiotic answer out of Sears customer service
And this day isn't over.
What's to come you ask, well:
120 minutes or more will be wasted commuting back home
120 minutes cleaning up hubby and daughter's messes
60 minutes running after A to get her homework done
How I'll find myself within these wasted time segments is beyond comprehension.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tired
I feel tired, and not physically. I suppose I am energetic enough to take on everything I need to do on any given day. I am just mentally exhausted because there is too much to think about. I used to be able to function without lists and now I can't; if I don't want stuff falling through the cracks. There's too much to remember, too many things demanding attention and competing for time. And to top it all there are the 4 hours that are lost everyday with nothing to show for them.
It's a strange place to be because there is nothing on the list that can go away! I have a list full of things which need equal attention and care, no hierarchy of priorities, no ranking, all sharing equal space on the front tier.
The only person getting lost in this maze is me...the extraordinary machine.
It's a strange place to be because there is nothing on the list that can go away! I have a list full of things which need equal attention and care, no hierarchy of priorities, no ranking, all sharing equal space on the front tier.
The only person getting lost in this maze is me...the extraordinary machine.
Monday, September 7, 2009
So where have I been?
...and has anyone missed me? Oh well, always curious about being missed, kind of like "Mr Cellophane" in Chicago.
I was around but was unable to write a single word. I didn't even miss writing, I was so completely taken over with the "nesting" impulse even though there was no reason to nest.
It's amazing to see the difference that freshly painted walls can make to the way a home feels. I love sitting and staring at the "bouquet rose" shades of the family room and the dining room, the "hint of mauve" in the living room and the kitchen, and the "amethyst dream" in my bedroom. I was lost in colors, in contrasts, in the shades the wall art, the covers, the curtains and the cushions that would complement the shades I had chosen for the walls and would reflect the unique personalities of the inhabitants within these walls.
I have spent so many years addicted to my computer, to rarely logging out, to chatting around the clock, that I've even felt cranky on vacations when the Internet connection has been less than perfect. But ever since my focus turned toward my house I didn't miss being online even a little bit. I didn't miss my virtual friends, my Facebook, my Twitter. I was as obsessed with adding whimsical little twists and touches to every corner of my home as I had been with my online activities.
I had a new addiction. I woke up with a crick in my neck and a throbbing headache one morning because I had been awake for most of the night, browsing various online shops for vanities, dressers and mirrors for my room, desperately trying to find something that matched. I remember dreaming up dresser and mirror combinations even when I closed my eyes for a couple of hours! I am dreaming of floor to ceiling bookshelf units and wall art; they cross the orange celluloid of my closed eyelids even when I am snoozing on my bus.
This obsessive interest in every project is probably an unhealthy trait. It was the same way when I was working on creating the S&C network homepage (despite all the help I had), when I set up our family tree in cyberspace and scanned over 500 pictures in, when I practice my music...every project that appeals to me borders on extreme obsession while the fever lasts.
And when it fades, the resulting ennui is almost as intense.
Well..."darling I don't know why I go to extremes, too high or too low, there ain't no in betweens..."
I was around but was unable to write a single word. I didn't even miss writing, I was so completely taken over with the "nesting" impulse even though there was no reason to nest.
It's amazing to see the difference that freshly painted walls can make to the way a home feels. I love sitting and staring at the "bouquet rose" shades of the family room and the dining room, the "hint of mauve" in the living room and the kitchen, and the "amethyst dream" in my bedroom. I was lost in colors, in contrasts, in the shades the wall art, the covers, the curtains and the cushions that would complement the shades I had chosen for the walls and would reflect the unique personalities of the inhabitants within these walls.
I have spent so many years addicted to my computer, to rarely logging out, to chatting around the clock, that I've even felt cranky on vacations when the Internet connection has been less than perfect. But ever since my focus turned toward my house I didn't miss being online even a little bit. I didn't miss my virtual friends, my Facebook, my Twitter. I was as obsessed with adding whimsical little twists and touches to every corner of my home as I had been with my online activities.
I had a new addiction. I woke up with a crick in my neck and a throbbing headache one morning because I had been awake for most of the night, browsing various online shops for vanities, dressers and mirrors for my room, desperately trying to find something that matched. I remember dreaming up dresser and mirror combinations even when I closed my eyes for a couple of hours! I am dreaming of floor to ceiling bookshelf units and wall art; they cross the orange celluloid of my closed eyelids even when I am snoozing on my bus.
This obsessive interest in every project is probably an unhealthy trait. It was the same way when I was working on creating the S&C network homepage (despite all the help I had), when I set up our family tree in cyberspace and scanned over 500 pictures in, when I practice my music...every project that appeals to me borders on extreme obsession while the fever lasts.
And when it fades, the resulting ennui is almost as intense.
Well..."darling I don't know why I go to extremes, too high or too low, there ain't no in betweens..."
I need to stop by here more...
Ever since I got bitten by the redecorating bug I forgot all about stopping by here. Somewhere in the back of my mind I kept thinking about my neglected blog and my inability to write anything. I want to write about old houses and the stories told by the walls.
I think about homes, homes that were full of life once. I have in mind an impressive home where an aunt with a very strong personality once dwelt, an aunt who was the center of the universe for her large family when she was alive, a home that was drained clean of vitality once she passed.
I don't pride myself on perception. I was oblivious to most subtleties as a child. And yet, that house, without my aunt was a stark, lifeless and bloodless shell of a place. Despite being inhabited with her widowed husband and her children. The difference was palpable. It could have been the messy rooms, the paint on the walls losing their luster, the overgrown garden, the worn out furniture...it certainly could have been all those things that never would have been neglected when she was alive...but it was something more that was lost, something intangible yet intense. It was just never the same.
I love this little corner of cyberspace where I can be myself. Even when I have nothing to say, like today, it is comforting to fill these blank spaces with words. I don't want it to be a neglected space. I don't want to leave this space behind like my aunt's spirit missing from her lively home.
I think about homes, homes that were full of life once. I have in mind an impressive home where an aunt with a very strong personality once dwelt, an aunt who was the center of the universe for her large family when she was alive, a home that was drained clean of vitality once she passed.
I don't pride myself on perception. I was oblivious to most subtleties as a child. And yet, that house, without my aunt was a stark, lifeless and bloodless shell of a place. Despite being inhabited with her widowed husband and her children. The difference was palpable. It could have been the messy rooms, the paint on the walls losing their luster, the overgrown garden, the worn out furniture...it certainly could have been all those things that never would have been neglected when she was alive...but it was something more that was lost, something intangible yet intense. It was just never the same.
I love this little corner of cyberspace where I can be myself. Even when I have nothing to say, like today, it is comforting to fill these blank spaces with words. I don't want it to be a neglected space. I don't want to leave this space behind like my aunt's spirit missing from her lively home.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Constrained in Kafka's Castle
While driving home last night we ended up tuning the Sirius to a station that was discussing the financial struggles of grandparents when they are suddenly faced with the prospect of raising their grandkids if their kids cannot for some reason, in the state of Ontario.
We didn't linger on the channel long enough to grasp all the details, the heavy traffic had rendered our attention spans short, but we lingered long enough to hear that the poor grandparents, retired, often with limited sources of income were getting no more than $220 per month from the state for the care of their grandkids.
The state was more than happy to have the kids out of the foster parenting system and with someone who cared. It was ostensibly a win-win situation all around and saved them tons of money that they would have otherwise paid to a foster parent for benefits, for schooling, for food, for the cost of any educational or recreational activities that the foster parents would have been encouraged to undertake on behalf of their foster kids.
The caring grandparents, probably living on social security benefits themselves, got none of this.
That just describes the essential unfairness of it all but it doesn't end there. The host of the radio show interviewed a minister responsible for these affairs and she stated, in a very officious French accent, that they encouraged grandparental care and of course wanted to help in every way they could...that if care providers felt they weren't being given the resources they needed, they only needed to write to her and she would do whatever she could within the constraints imposed by the budgeted resources for this...
The "budgeted" resources! Everyone is always constrained by the "budgeted" resources. Why aren't budgets ever formulated with a modicum of foresight and reasoning, some compassion, some interest in furthering our interests as members of a civilized society? Once governmental budgets are set does anyone go back and review, set new priorities, eliminate "clutter"? Does anyone ever clean house?
Of course the questions are rhetorical and of course no one does. Everyone, everywhere, be it corporations or governmental agencies, is just a misplaced cog in the wheel, working under nameless, faceless "constraints".
A caring grandparent was interviewed on the show and she said that she had written several letters to the minister, to the agencies, that letters were unanswered and if they did get answered they were non sequiturs at best. She also said that the ministry was unreachable by emails or phone calls.
I don't live in that state, I don't know any grandparents in this position, I only listened to this show for a few minutes but those few minutes were enough to make me feel a sense of outrage at this.
We didn't linger on the channel long enough to grasp all the details, the heavy traffic had rendered our attention spans short, but we lingered long enough to hear that the poor grandparents, retired, often with limited sources of income were getting no more than $220 per month from the state for the care of their grandkids.
The state was more than happy to have the kids out of the foster parenting system and with someone who cared. It was ostensibly a win-win situation all around and saved them tons of money that they would have otherwise paid to a foster parent for benefits, for schooling, for food, for the cost of any educational or recreational activities that the foster parents would have been encouraged to undertake on behalf of their foster kids.
The caring grandparents, probably living on social security benefits themselves, got none of this.
That just describes the essential unfairness of it all but it doesn't end there. The host of the radio show interviewed a minister responsible for these affairs and she stated, in a very officious French accent, that they encouraged grandparental care and of course wanted to help in every way they could...that if care providers felt they weren't being given the resources they needed, they only needed to write to her and she would do whatever she could within the constraints imposed by the budgeted resources for this...
The "budgeted" resources! Everyone is always constrained by the "budgeted" resources. Why aren't budgets ever formulated with a modicum of foresight and reasoning, some compassion, some interest in furthering our interests as members of a civilized society? Once governmental budgets are set does anyone go back and review, set new priorities, eliminate "clutter"? Does anyone ever clean house?
Of course the questions are rhetorical and of course no one does. Everyone, everywhere, be it corporations or governmental agencies, is just a misplaced cog in the wheel, working under nameless, faceless "constraints".
A caring grandparent was interviewed on the show and she said that she had written several letters to the minister, to the agencies, that letters were unanswered and if they did get answered they were non sequiturs at best. She also said that the ministry was unreachable by emails or phone calls.
I don't live in that state, I don't know any grandparents in this position, I only listened to this show for a few minutes but those few minutes were enough to make me feel a sense of outrage at this.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
In Love with American Highways
The vacation started at Palm Springs, with relaxation, the likes of which I hadn’t experienced for a very long time. We were lost in the timelessness of long days and short nights for a week that appeared to stretch into an eternity. No one wore a watch and we never knew what time it was. We could see the moon and the stars glittering through the palm fronds swaying in the desert winds and cooling our sun baked skins. Time appeared to have come to a standstill within this make believe world of lotus eating. We occasionally emerged to take in a street fair or two, watch street performers and buy fresh mangoes and cherries.
Sun and palm dappled screen doors of our room:
We met interesting people…an author, astrologer, gemologist, newspaper editor…all rolled into one person… smoking a medically prescribed intoxicant and reading palms. She called me an old soul because of the grid of crisscrossing lines that covered the space between the base of my thumb and my life line. She also called me “complex”.
Is that why I called her an interesting person in the first line of the last paragraph? Who doesn’t like being called a complex old soul? But I didn’t get much of an insight into what lies ahead for old souls except that the precious stone – tanzanite – could work wonders for aged souls. Especially the tanzanite purchased at a San Francisco store in Union Square, called Simayofs.
Our friendship didn’t last too long because the lady’s husband got offended when my husband didn’t agree with his assertion that Kid Rock could sing Aerosmith songs better than Aerosmith. The hubby was accused of being guilty of “contempt prior to investigation” by the renaissance lady’s hubby who stalked off in a huff, putting an end to the budding camaraderie of complex old souls.
Old we were, because we were the only couple there who were boasting eighteen years of marriage. Everyone else we met had been married for the third or fourth time, each attempt lasting no more than two or three years. Some people wanted to hear our “story” or our “secret” and others in this fifth or sixth decade of their lives who wanted to be like us when they “grew up”.
Oh well, anniversaries are the perfect time to feel blessed and special and to tell ourselves that we got something right. Did we…? Only the next eighteen will tell.
Next came the road trip phase of our vacation. We could have taken a day trip to San Diego, which was only two hours away…or we could have gone to Laguna Beach or Newport Beach, all within reasonable driving distances. But I suppose short drives are just not interesting enough for us. Sedona, AZ was mentioned in passing. We played with the idea and rejected it because it would have been a ten hour round trip to base camp at Palm Spring. We were feeling more mature and sane until we woke up the next day and as is the norm, said, “What the heck, let’s drive to Sedona! It’s only 5 hours away!” I had been there once before with a girlfriend and co-worker. It had been enjoyable enough but I had always wished I had done it with the hubby.
So we took off. We drove up the mountains, felt our ears pop several times as the car climbed up to elevations of 4-6000 ft. For most of the drive the land was dry, the landscape stark. Saguaro cacti reached up to make peace signs or wave us on. And then suddenly everything around us turned red. We were in Sedona, AZ. The mountains were glowing red in the twilight hours, the rock formations looked curiously sculpted or man-made, every mountain or plateau concealing an image of either a reclining Navajo or a horse wagon, or even Snoopy and Lucy lying back and gazing at the stars.
We signed up for an off-road adventure that took us up and down and all around the mountains, the forests that started off as saguaros, agave and prickly pears and gave way to junipers and conifers at higher altitudes. Every plant, said the tour guide, had healing properties, except for mistletoe. We finally got to see mistletoe up close. It was quite a harmless looking thing but we were told it was a deadly parasite that was leeching the life away from so many other plants. It was supposed to be poisonous, the kiss of death for so many plants in these parts. Why then did people kiss underneath the mistletoe? A forewarning perhaps? After eighteen years we are grateful we never found ourselves under ominous mistletoe all those years ago!
Sedona, AZ:
In the middle of the forest we saw a shack that cowboys inhabited in 1885 and where rattlesnakes burrowed under rotting floor boards now. The tour guide told us not to enter I I think he is trying to scare Anil from entering, Kokopelli style, in the pic below). But of course, the hubby had to step inside and take some pictures…despite sage advice from our palm-reading friend who told him to stop taking all kinds of physical risks, to never jump from cliffs of Jamaica again, or to jump fences or park benches, or try riding motorcycles or walking mopeds up Martha’s Vineyard hills. He emerged with some cool pictures. He also got up close and personal with this bull with the creepily glowing eyes.
During the tour we were also told that Route 89A that headed out of Sedona and into Flagstaff, AZ had been voted the most scenic road in the US by National Geographic magazine. This made Flagstaff irresistible to us. We like to collect highways, towns and cities and Flagstaff was going to be next. Here are some of the pictures we took while driving to Flagstaff, AZ, elevation 7000 ft.
At 6,000 ft, when we stopped at a scenic overlook, we found a Navajo art fair. We had to stop and look and buy. We bought some gifts for friends we were going to meet in San Francisco. I also bought myself a pair of malachite earrings; no tanzanite…not yet…this wasn’t Simayof. I hope malachite is good for me!
The next long road trip was from Palm Springs to Walnut Creek. We found ourselves at my FAPSian friend Mohit’s little guest cottage again. Everything felt so familiar, Priya and Mohit’s hospitality, the lavish surroundings, the super friendly labs – Sam and Frodo. We spent a wonderful two days there. This time they introduced us to the show Stargate Mission. We really got into it and hope to continue to watch all episodes of every season.
Anil and I also met Rajiv in San Francisco. He treated us to Darjeeling tea, almond cakes and two or three hours of engaging conversation. One doesn’t even notice the passing of time when conversation flows and sparkles with easy and comfortable segues from one topic to the next and no awkward silences.
And now here we are, the last night in Palm Springs. We’ll be in a plane all day tomorrow and will get home a little past midnight, with just a few short hours before it’s back to work again.
Looking exhausted and drained of color at the end of the vacation and signing off from Palm Springs:
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
Sun and palm dappled screen doors of our room:
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
We met interesting people…an author, astrologer, gemologist, newspaper editor…all rolled into one person… smoking a medically prescribed intoxicant and reading palms. She called me an old soul because of the grid of crisscrossing lines that covered the space between the base of my thumb and my life line. She also called me “complex”.
Is that why I called her an interesting person in the first line of the last paragraph? Who doesn’t like being called a complex old soul? But I didn’t get much of an insight into what lies ahead for old souls except that the precious stone – tanzanite – could work wonders for aged souls. Especially the tanzanite purchased at a San Francisco store in Union Square, called Simayofs.
Our friendship didn’t last too long because the lady’s husband got offended when my husband didn’t agree with his assertion that Kid Rock could sing Aerosmith songs better than Aerosmith. The hubby was accused of being guilty of “contempt prior to investigation” by the renaissance lady’s hubby who stalked off in a huff, putting an end to the budding camaraderie of complex old souls.
Old we were, because we were the only couple there who were boasting eighteen years of marriage. Everyone else we met had been married for the third or fourth time, each attempt lasting no more than two or three years. Some people wanted to hear our “story” or our “secret” and others in this fifth or sixth decade of their lives who wanted to be like us when they “grew up”.
Oh well, anniversaries are the perfect time to feel blessed and special and to tell ourselves that we got something right. Did we…? Only the next eighteen will tell.
Next came the road trip phase of our vacation. We could have taken a day trip to San Diego, which was only two hours away…or we could have gone to Laguna Beach or Newport Beach, all within reasonable driving distances. But I suppose short drives are just not interesting enough for us. Sedona, AZ was mentioned in passing. We played with the idea and rejected it because it would have been a ten hour round trip to base camp at Palm Spring. We were feeling more mature and sane until we woke up the next day and as is the norm, said, “What the heck, let’s drive to Sedona! It’s only 5 hours away!” I had been there once before with a girlfriend and co-worker. It had been enjoyable enough but I had always wished I had done it with the hubby.
So we took off. We drove up the mountains, felt our ears pop several times as the car climbed up to elevations of 4-6000 ft. For most of the drive the land was dry, the landscape stark. Saguaro cacti reached up to make peace signs or wave us on. And then suddenly everything around us turned red. We were in Sedona, AZ. The mountains were glowing red in the twilight hours, the rock formations looked curiously sculpted or man-made, every mountain or plateau concealing an image of either a reclining Navajo or a horse wagon, or even Snoopy and Lucy lying back and gazing at the stars.
We signed up for an off-road adventure that took us up and down and all around the mountains, the forests that started off as saguaros, agave and prickly pears and gave way to junipers and conifers at higher altitudes. Every plant, said the tour guide, had healing properties, except for mistletoe. We finally got to see mistletoe up close. It was quite a harmless looking thing but we were told it was a deadly parasite that was leeching the life away from so many other plants. It was supposed to be poisonous, the kiss of death for so many plants in these parts. Why then did people kiss underneath the mistletoe? A forewarning perhaps? After eighteen years we are grateful we never found ourselves under ominous mistletoe all those years ago!
Sedona, AZ:
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
In the middle of the forest we saw a shack that cowboys inhabited in 1885 and where rattlesnakes burrowed under rotting floor boards now. The tour guide told us not to enter I I think he is trying to scare Anil from entering, Kokopelli style, in the pic below). But of course, the hubby had to step inside and take some pictures…despite sage advice from our palm-reading friend who told him to stop taking all kinds of physical risks, to never jump from cliffs of Jamaica again, or to jump fences or park benches, or try riding motorcycles or walking mopeds up Martha’s Vineyard hills. He emerged with some cool pictures. He also got up close and personal with this bull with the creepily glowing eyes.
 |
| From July 2009 Vacation |
 |
| From July 2009 Vacation |
 |
| From July 2009 Vacation |
 |
| From July 2009 Vacation |
During the tour we were also told that Route 89A that headed out of Sedona and into Flagstaff, AZ had been voted the most scenic road in the US by National Geographic magazine. This made Flagstaff irresistible to us. We like to collect highways, towns and cities and Flagstaff was going to be next. Here are some of the pictures we took while driving to Flagstaff, AZ, elevation 7000 ft.
At 6,000 ft, when we stopped at a scenic overlook, we found a Navajo art fair. We had to stop and look and buy. We bought some gifts for friends we were going to meet in San Francisco. I also bought myself a pair of malachite earrings; no tanzanite…not yet…this wasn’t Simayof. I hope malachite is good for me!
 |
| From July 2009 Vacation |
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
The next long road trip was from Palm Springs to Walnut Creek. We found ourselves at my FAPSian friend Mohit’s little guest cottage again. Everything felt so familiar, Priya and Mohit’s hospitality, the lavish surroundings, the super friendly labs – Sam and Frodo. We spent a wonderful two days there. This time they introduced us to the show Stargate Mission. We really got into it and hope to continue to watch all episodes of every season.
Anil and I also met Rajiv in San Francisco. He treated us to Darjeeling tea, almond cakes and two or three hours of engaging conversation. One doesn’t even notice the passing of time when conversation flows and sparkles with easy and comfortable segues from one topic to the next and no awkward silences.
And now here we are, the last night in Palm Springs. We’ll be in a plane all day tomorrow and will get home a little past midnight, with just a few short hours before it’s back to work again.
Looking exhausted and drained of color at the end of the vacation and signing off from Palm Springs:
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| From July 2009 Vacation |
Monday, June 29, 2009
Dead Zone
I am lost in a dead zone. There are no thoughts, no points of view. I feel frozen in time and space, incapable of thought or motion. Something is still beeping on a machine, faint blips of hope, that the next minute would bring with it a burst of energy, action, inspiration. But that’s all it is; just a machine registering faint blips. I am staring at my computer screen, my fingers frozen over the keyboard, eyes focused on the television.
Martin Bashir’s interview of Michael Jackson is being telecast yet again. I am watching with immense sadness because Michael Jackson has always left me sad. Life somehow conspired to rearrange his circuitry to a point where he became unrecognizable to me as someone I could stereotype or judge or assign to a special box on a shelf in my mind. His talent was astonishing but everything else about his life and his untimely death leaves me despondent.
That’s just a passing thought. The news registers, however tangentially.
There’s also a creeping note of frustration at my inaction, my boredom, my inability to make every minute count. Michael Jackson was probably trying to fill a crater that was gouged into his soul at a very early age; he was trying to recreate an unlived childhood perhaps. What am I trying to do? I have led a charmed life, surrounded by loved ones…but something is missing…as though life is one gigantic jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece.
I try things with eagerness, hoping to complete the picture but nothing fits and I stand around, stunned and rooted, with flailing arms until even the flailing falls into a pattern and takes on mechanical precision. Precision gives way to chaos and confusion and confusion dovetails into precision with unfailing tenacity. I resent both ends of the spectrum and so I trap myself in the middle seeking comfort in stagnation.
If there is a prescription for this condition I want it. I want to be excited about what I do every day. I want my work to be meaningful even as the smug shrink within whispers, “Define meaningful”.
These thoughts are not worth compiling, not worth mentioning. This may be the reason why I haven’t written a word in over a month. This sort of stuff is worse than whining. It's pitiful. And I can’t stand whining…yet here I am.
The funny thing is that after typing these 465 words I am starting to feel better. The fog is clearing, I can see beyond my longish nose.
Martin Bashir’s interview of Michael Jackson is being telecast yet again. I am watching with immense sadness because Michael Jackson has always left me sad. Life somehow conspired to rearrange his circuitry to a point where he became unrecognizable to me as someone I could stereotype or judge or assign to a special box on a shelf in my mind. His talent was astonishing but everything else about his life and his untimely death leaves me despondent.
That’s just a passing thought. The news registers, however tangentially.
There’s also a creeping note of frustration at my inaction, my boredom, my inability to make every minute count. Michael Jackson was probably trying to fill a crater that was gouged into his soul at a very early age; he was trying to recreate an unlived childhood perhaps. What am I trying to do? I have led a charmed life, surrounded by loved ones…but something is missing…as though life is one gigantic jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece.
I try things with eagerness, hoping to complete the picture but nothing fits and I stand around, stunned and rooted, with flailing arms until even the flailing falls into a pattern and takes on mechanical precision. Precision gives way to chaos and confusion and confusion dovetails into precision with unfailing tenacity. I resent both ends of the spectrum and so I trap myself in the middle seeking comfort in stagnation.
If there is a prescription for this condition I want it. I want to be excited about what I do every day. I want my work to be meaningful even as the smug shrink within whispers, “Define meaningful”.
These thoughts are not worth compiling, not worth mentioning. This may be the reason why I haven’t written a word in over a month. This sort of stuff is worse than whining. It's pitiful. And I can’t stand whining…yet here I am.
The funny thing is that after typing these 465 words I am starting to feel better. The fog is clearing, I can see beyond my longish nose.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!
I have been sitting here thinking about my inability to express anything in words lately. It isn’t as if I’ve run out of things to think about. I still wonder, still contemplate. Sometimes astonish myself at a particular insight. But I can’t pin down the thought. It is gone before I can explore it.
Some themes remain the same. Nostalgia is always on the top shelf. If my brain was the cereal aisle of a supermarket then nostalgia would be the sugary, gut-busting stuff that is always within easy reach.
Some recollections delight, some leave me astonished. Some are just remembered with fondness. I often question my seven year old about whether or not she remembers things that happened three or four years ago when she was three or four and she usually doesn’t remember most things. The things that stand out for her are moments which required an emotional investment of sorts, for instance a loud disagreement between her parents where a phonebook or a cordless phone might have gone sailing across the room. I can’t say I have fond memories of a very pleasant Himalayan city in north eastern India – Shillong – because I recollect my parent’s minor cold war more clearly than any other scenic delights. Happier moments are similarly recalled and bring such joy when they are revisited, either in person or even vicariously.
When a friend in India told me she was headed for Mussoorie, India, I casually asked her to find a massive lion from my memories, carved onto a wall somewhere in Mussoorie. I told her that I remembered being cranky about something, all those years ago, at the age of 4 or 5, and my Dad hoisting me on to the lion and taking a picture. I don’t know if this is a famous lion or if every person who has visited Mussoorie has seen it. I didn’t expect my friend to “hunt” this lion down. But she returned from her trip and told me she had found my lion! I am inexplicably delighted at her find. Decades have gone by and this lion is still around and my friend found it and is about to write a short vignette entitled, “Pragya’s Lion”! It’s strange but I live for such moments. Good old nostalgia at work again.
It struck again when I looked at my red, toy binoculars. It used to be quite a favorite and I remember getting it when I was six years old. My Mom had saved it all these years and she gave it to my daughter who loves playing with it now.
This is how it looks:
And this is how the back of the box it came in appears:
Note my best cursive attempt from that time, a spelling I guessed at and my grade, 2nd grade, in Roman numerals. It’s like being an archeologist of my own life! And just to think that something I used to own is now yellowed with age. I used to think that yellowing and fading colors and sepia tones were reserved for folks a generation or two before me!
And so it goes! Nostalgic fondness for things half forgotten, half remembered. They keep making futile comebacks, messing with our minds, fostering a dependence of sorts. We cling to our memories as if they were the Raggedy Ann dolls or tattered “blankies” we preferred as kids.
In my case a few things happen when the idle mind is aswirl in nostalgia and the illusion of time. I think about how centrally true to my character I really am. A part of me is unchanged, has remained unchanged through the years, an ageless part of me, inquisitive, reaching, grasping for newness. All the other manifestations of change seem frivolous, like the wainscoting on walls or the curlicues on Queen Anne furniture. Sometimes one hears of a sculpting metaphor being used in describing our development as self actualized individuals, just like a beautiful figure is carved out of an undefined block of marble, a process of subtraction, of losing things we once cherished. Perhaps that is the course our lives appear to take. But what if addition is more the norm? Our essence preserved and indestructible, ensconced within a steadily growing and hardening carapace?
And just like I have a favorite Beatles tune for every occasion, the one that plays back automatically in these times is: There are places I remember/all my life/but some have changed…
The other question that haunts me often is the question my Dad asked me a few months ago, “Do you ever wonder what old people think about?”
I wonder why it is so difficult for me to answer this question.
I do wonder about the passage of time, about aging, constantly. I give to charities that serve the elderly. I worry about my own old age. I think of the uncles and aunts who passed away before I even understood death, I think of those whose lives began and ended during my lifetime and I ache for the depth of grief their parents have had to live with. But none of these thoughts or concerns are appropriate responses to the question about my wondering about the thoughts of older people.
The question makes me uncomfortable for many reasons. My parents are only twenty-six years older than me and twenty-six years are not that many years. I was in high school twenty six years ago, the memories are still fresh. I still own some clothes from that time, clothes that still fit!
Could it be then that I do wonder what old people think about, since I am gravely infected by the disease that has been called a certain “nostalgia for the future” (first came across the phrase in Paul Auster’s book – The Invention of Solitude); seeing one’s own skeleton facing one at every turn? Like looking at a distant mirror when one looks at one’s parents…
Do we think different thoughts at different ages? Or is there one line of inquiry that remains constant through all our ages? Do we look at the future with a mix of awe and trepidation, sometimes with a generous dollop of euphoric optimism or do we increasingly dwell on the glory days as we pass our twenties, thirties, forties…and beyond?
Why does the past fascinate us so? And why does this fascination always remind me of the stories of the pointed interest that elephants show in the bones of other dead elephants in an elephant graveyard?
What are elephants thinking about?
Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas
Some themes remain the same. Nostalgia is always on the top shelf. If my brain was the cereal aisle of a supermarket then nostalgia would be the sugary, gut-busting stuff that is always within easy reach.
Some recollections delight, some leave me astonished. Some are just remembered with fondness. I often question my seven year old about whether or not she remembers things that happened three or four years ago when she was three or four and she usually doesn’t remember most things. The things that stand out for her are moments which required an emotional investment of sorts, for instance a loud disagreement between her parents where a phonebook or a cordless phone might have gone sailing across the room. I can’t say I have fond memories of a very pleasant Himalayan city in north eastern India – Shillong – because I recollect my parent’s minor cold war more clearly than any other scenic delights. Happier moments are similarly recalled and bring such joy when they are revisited, either in person or even vicariously.
When a friend in India told me she was headed for Mussoorie, India, I casually asked her to find a massive lion from my memories, carved onto a wall somewhere in Mussoorie. I told her that I remembered being cranky about something, all those years ago, at the age of 4 or 5, and my Dad hoisting me on to the lion and taking a picture. I don’t know if this is a famous lion or if every person who has visited Mussoorie has seen it. I didn’t expect my friend to “hunt” this lion down. But she returned from her trip and told me she had found my lion! I am inexplicably delighted at her find. Decades have gone by and this lion is still around and my friend found it and is about to write a short vignette entitled, “Pragya’s Lion”! It’s strange but I live for such moments. Good old nostalgia at work again.
It struck again when I looked at my red, toy binoculars. It used to be quite a favorite and I remember getting it when I was six years old. My Mom had saved it all these years and she gave it to my daughter who loves playing with it now.
This is how it looks:
And this is how the back of the box it came in appears:
Note my best cursive attempt from that time, a spelling I guessed at and my grade, 2nd grade, in Roman numerals. It’s like being an archeologist of my own life! And just to think that something I used to own is now yellowed with age. I used to think that yellowing and fading colors and sepia tones were reserved for folks a generation or two before me!
And so it goes! Nostalgic fondness for things half forgotten, half remembered. They keep making futile comebacks, messing with our minds, fostering a dependence of sorts. We cling to our memories as if they were the Raggedy Ann dolls or tattered “blankies” we preferred as kids.
In my case a few things happen when the idle mind is aswirl in nostalgia and the illusion of time. I think about how centrally true to my character I really am. A part of me is unchanged, has remained unchanged through the years, an ageless part of me, inquisitive, reaching, grasping for newness. All the other manifestations of change seem frivolous, like the wainscoting on walls or the curlicues on Queen Anne furniture. Sometimes one hears of a sculpting metaphor being used in describing our development as self actualized individuals, just like a beautiful figure is carved out of an undefined block of marble, a process of subtraction, of losing things we once cherished. Perhaps that is the course our lives appear to take. But what if addition is more the norm? Our essence preserved and indestructible, ensconced within a steadily growing and hardening carapace?
And just like I have a favorite Beatles tune for every occasion, the one that plays back automatically in these times is: There are places I remember/all my life/but some have changed…
The other question that haunts me often is the question my Dad asked me a few months ago, “Do you ever wonder what old people think about?”
I wonder why it is so difficult for me to answer this question.
I do wonder about the passage of time, about aging, constantly. I give to charities that serve the elderly. I worry about my own old age. I think of the uncles and aunts who passed away before I even understood death, I think of those whose lives began and ended during my lifetime and I ache for the depth of grief their parents have had to live with. But none of these thoughts or concerns are appropriate responses to the question about my wondering about the thoughts of older people.
The question makes me uncomfortable for many reasons. My parents are only twenty-six years older than me and twenty-six years are not that many years. I was in high school twenty six years ago, the memories are still fresh. I still own some clothes from that time, clothes that still fit!
Could it be then that I do wonder what old people think about, since I am gravely infected by the disease that has been called a certain “nostalgia for the future” (first came across the phrase in Paul Auster’s book – The Invention of Solitude); seeing one’s own skeleton facing one at every turn? Like looking at a distant mirror when one looks at one’s parents…
Do we think different thoughts at different ages? Or is there one line of inquiry that remains constant through all our ages? Do we look at the future with a mix of awe and trepidation, sometimes with a generous dollop of euphoric optimism or do we increasingly dwell on the glory days as we pass our twenties, thirties, forties…and beyond?
Why does the past fascinate us so? And why does this fascination always remind me of the stories of the pointed interest that elephants show in the bones of other dead elephants in an elephant graveyard?
What are elephants thinking about?
Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
"No Wire Hangers...Everrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!"
I didn't want to do a thing this weekend. Some weekends should just be about lounging around and popping in sugar free bonbons. But it wasn't meant to be. When I glanced at the mirror in my bedroom for once my visage was of no interest to me; the appalling heaps of clothes piled up on the footboard, the headboard and the rocking chair in the corner grabbed my attention and left me speechless.
That was the end of my "do nothing" weekend. It was swiftly replaced by frenzied washing, drying, sorting and ironing activity. I was a woman with a mission and a woman with eight arms. That wasn't the worst of it though. The worst was yet to come. When I walked into my walk-in closet I tripped over unpacked luggage from our impromptu weekend trips, I stepped into old shopping bags and various unidentified sharp, blunt and tangled objects.
I tread gingerly and gradually made my way to the rod where I was about to hang some ironed clothes. But I wasn't able to create enough space there. I tried forcing the issue but only managed to dislodge every shirt that was resting unbuttoned on the hanger and every boat neck, wide V neck or unzipped dress that was hanging on for dear life on one or more of the ubiquitous "We 'Heart' our Customers" wire hangers from dry cleaners, who couldn't possible "heart" their customers as much as they said they did.
So now I had even more clothes on the floor! I was still trying to transfer ironed shirts from my aching arms to the closet's rod but the wire hangers refused to give and when they gave they tumbled down in a tangled mess of wire, all interconnected in a spidery, spindly and extremely annoying web of wire. That's when I lost it completely. Not much unlike:
Over the next four hours every single wire hanger came out of my closet and landed in a three feet high pile on the bedroom floor. Yes there were some minor nicks and scrapes but they couldn't diminish the general, wire-free aura of immense satisfaction I now wore! Even the looming problem of the disposal of twisted, tangled, barbed metal couldn't diminish the euphoria.
Perhaps the next weekend can be a "do-nothing" weekend. I'll stay away from the horrors of mirrors, who knows what will come into sharp focus next time.
That was the end of my "do nothing" weekend. It was swiftly replaced by frenzied washing, drying, sorting and ironing activity. I was a woman with a mission and a woman with eight arms. That wasn't the worst of it though. The worst was yet to come. When I walked into my walk-in closet I tripped over unpacked luggage from our impromptu weekend trips, I stepped into old shopping bags and various unidentified sharp, blunt and tangled objects.
I tread gingerly and gradually made my way to the rod where I was about to hang some ironed clothes. But I wasn't able to create enough space there. I tried forcing the issue but only managed to dislodge every shirt that was resting unbuttoned on the hanger and every boat neck, wide V neck or unzipped dress that was hanging on for dear life on one or more of the ubiquitous "We 'Heart' our Customers" wire hangers from dry cleaners, who couldn't possible "heart" their customers as much as they said they did.
So now I had even more clothes on the floor! I was still trying to transfer ironed shirts from my aching arms to the closet's rod but the wire hangers refused to give and when they gave they tumbled down in a tangled mess of wire, all interconnected in a spidery, spindly and extremely annoying web of wire. That's when I lost it completely. Not much unlike:
Over the next four hours every single wire hanger came out of my closet and landed in a three feet high pile on the bedroom floor. Yes there were some minor nicks and scrapes but they couldn't diminish the general, wire-free aura of immense satisfaction I now wore! Even the looming problem of the disposal of twisted, tangled, barbed metal couldn't diminish the euphoria.
Perhaps the next weekend can be a "do-nothing" weekend. I'll stay away from the horrors of mirrors, who knows what will come into sharp focus next time.