Mother's music, radio milk.

Being up into the wee hours of the night is awesome.

No two ways about it. Don't care how you got here, who you fought, who you killed, what pills you took that are lethal if you fall asleep post-ingestion. Fact remains, staying up, without wasting the beauty of all this dark on an assignment or project is... Lovely. Awesome, even. A word which is subtly falling out of favour, if you think about it. Script writers have panned it too frequently, and one senses its demise into the Word Graveyard. A grim place, the WG, containing hoary old timers such as "bodacious", an adjective which went out of fashion in '94, and -strangely- has nothing to do with Queen Boadicea. If it did, it would've probably survived. But I digress.

So yes, late-night/pre-dawn is still a magike time. Tis the only time when both dreams and nostalgia co-exist and correlate in perfect rhythm. And the music! Criminy! 1:19am, at least in this country, is the only time you find yourself capable of opening up the oldest version of Winamp you have stored on your 'puter, and putting together a list that you haven't listened to in a decade and a half.

Admit it-- if you were born in the early 80's, your go-to music still remains late 70's through to the mid-90's, with perhaps a few anachronistic numbers thrown in. This latter bit, of course, is a gesture: you tossing your head, exclaiming "Faugh! I am not yours completely, Good Sir" in the general direction of the powerful yet gentle golem called Memory who sits at your side, in the rocking chair that survives now only in your head.

N.B-- No clue why my present self uses Tudor English while communicating with my past self.

Growing up on FM daytime radio in Muscat, circa '95, all I heard was Foreigner. Roxette. The Stones. Eagles, and after the Eagles, Don Henley. Sting. Springsteen. And then, there was dad's collection he would put on in the evening, just before bed time. Him and I sitting on the couch, me falling asleep, him nursing a night-cap.

Some Glen Miller. Some Billie Holiday. Stairway to Heaven, on Zeppelin 4. Dark Side of the Moon. Roger Whittaker, live in concert. An Andrew Lloyd Webber collection, some Bruce Hornsby; José Feliciano covering 'Light my Fire'. Dionne Warwick, that 1985 production that had her only billboard hit 'That's what friends are for', though dad and I preferred 'whispers in the dark'. Tracy Chapman- Mountains o' things. Joni Mitchell, the 'chalkman in the rain' album.

When we moved to India, and I started staying up later with my own music, the tracks changed. And then came the Great Fall: torn, then badly healed ligaments kept me at home for about 5 months, during which time all I had was my Winamp, my angst, and a valiant pair of Bose speakers.

My mother was raised Catholic. What that means is, she spent those 5 months tuned into my music and my err, pain. Every song I played conveyed a message to her. I suppose playing 'Englishman in New York' on repeat would give away the fact it had become a personal anthem to anyone, but what was interesting was it didn't just stop with just the obvious. When I listened to Travis, she listened to Travis. And Pearl Jam. And Eurythmics. And System of a Down, fighting the need to mutter a prayer on my behalf all the while.

Mum never stopped listening from then on, in fact. Dad would only sit in if it was music he recognized. Can't blame him; after a time, you only want things that are comfortable to surround your senses with.

Hence long lost play lists, on outmoded software, at 1:44am.

My favourite times though, was when mum was left in the company of the music system alone, while I busied myself inside with the computer and dad was out. She would sneak a CD or tape on-- Harry Belafonte, Simon & Garfunkel or Clayderman, even. Mum loves piano music. And when the electricity failed, which was often, she would put a chair out in the balcony, and hum softly. My brother and I would sneak glances at her during these times, listening whether the sound came in digital surround or acapella-- don't think we understood what we were seeing then, just sensed its importance.

See, comfort music, like comfort food, is the music you grew up with. Which is why nothing makes me smile like Peter, Paul & Mary's 'Puff the Magic Dragon'. This is when names and lyrics suddenly turn up like names to faces in old photographs you had begun to believe didn't belong to the same life you lead now. And suddenly, you're right there. Right there. Scrawling down lyrics in the back of note books, forward-winding the tape to just the right spot so that when you flipped it and pressed play, the right song would come on. A-Ha's 'hunting high and low', Boys II Men's cover of 'Yesterday'. It didn't feel like pop music back then. 'I wanna know what love is' had this gosphel-soul sound in its chorus, and when that Norwegian-looking lead singer belted out those impossibly high notes in 'Take on me' you believed in love that linked souls across lifetimes and space-time continuums. Rocking out to 'You give love (a bad name)' with a fat yellow sharpie for a mic was fuckin' real, you put your heart and soul into it, grooving to that great bass line Jhnn-chh-jhn-chh-Jhnn-Jjhnn-jhnnn after the opening chorus. And when the Scorpions came on?

...

Man, I had my first spiritual revelations to 'Send me an Angel'. 'Winds of Change' reminds me till this day that the most awesome --aw fuck it, bodacious even-- thing to ever happen to me at age 9 was being told that my uncle was one of the artists chosen to paint on what was left of the Berlin Wall. And just like that-- it doesn't matter anymore, what words were exchanged, what silences were left to hang in the air like hungry gulls, whose heartbreak, which loss, who doesn't matter anymore and how redemption will ever be found.

These are the moments that never fit into Twitter, nor a status msg. This is where you come back, to find a years younger version of you, writing their name inside E. Nesbit books, playing at pirates after school (Tej, this thought is for you), getting their best friend to cut and style their hair, holding "dance parties" in their room by creating a disco using a much-maligned desk-lamp, pieces of coloured glaze paper, numerous casettes and a busted up portable tape deck, swearing that life could only get more awesome.

Doesn't matter if it's true now, or not. Because an hour or so later at 2:48am, 'You can't always get what you want' has just got to the funky keys and chorus big finish, and you realize that it is in these memories, kept coal-fire-live by sound bytes, that the best part of you still survives.

I call that a bargain, the best I ever had.

Huzzah for hairy legs!

For, if we are to believe Daniel W. Drezner, long skirts are back in fashion again. As are angry old men, chubby models, church going and piggy banks.

Peruse the man's writing at Foreign Policy magazine, here.

# 345 on your 'Things to Do': Learn Game Theory from an M.I.T professor during your lunch break.

You will need about an hour, a dependable internet connection, and more than just passing curiosity.

The lectures made available courtesy Academic Earth are not your average Google or Youtube posts. They go far beyond the informative yet easy comprehensible TED videos as well: do not access Academic Earth if you are looking to be entertained alone. Visit the website if you are one of those folk who have always wanted the lesson, just not the visa fees and application package.

Academic Earth is a depository of lecture videos on the classics: Astronomy, Engineering, Economics, History, Philosophy, Psychology and Religion are just some of the covered subjects. Slate Magazine has a great article on this remarkable endeavor, here.

My one gripe is the limited list of participating universities: One hopes this project opens up to valuable lectures from other universities, Ivy or otherwise, though I don't want to imagine the sort of snafus the selection committee would run into while selecting one professor's discourse over another. Not quite sure how "international" the scope of this project is either-- the tag line does state "thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars", but there is very little of the rest of the world involved, at least at this stage. We shall call it room for development, then.

Personally, I believe this is one of the best things that could happen vis-à-vis Web 2.0 and associated bleargh, because it's an attempt to chip away at the exclusivity aura that surrounds the act of enrolling in classes where such subjects are discussed, at such depth. This means you and I don't have to sell two organs and our first born to get inputs on String Theory, or the contributing factors to the Middle East Crisis. This also means, learning at one's own pace. Does this change how education has worked till now? Perhaps, but only if such projects become more popular.

Of course, there's that old donkey to the pond adage. The creation of Academic Earth does not necessarily mean that knowledge levels of any particular demographic can be affected significantly, yet.

But heck, for late night web trawlers with a hunger for what is as yet unlearned and brain-space fueled by caffeine & a distaste for the daily news?
...
Aye. Exactly.
Ping me later, I'll be browsing the Social Entrepreneurship section.

Bhangra on daytime t.v.

Gotta love the 81st Oscars.

Finally, despite the usual camera tactics (Brangelia angles as Anniston was on stage, et al) it was a terrific show with lovely segues and a celebration of the Musical's return. Viva Jackman! Lovely seeing Jerry Lewis on stage, and Penelope Cruz's acceptance speech was the essence of honesty and beautiful humility. Nuts to what the papers say, I liked the Best Actress award transition.

What was and is horrifying, however inevitable, were the reactions of daytime American talk show hosts and anchors. Granted, Boyle's project swept 8 out of 10 awards it was nominated for, but ad hoc Bollywood boogieing sessions? In studio, roping in every crew member and intern, arming them with gold swathes of cloth and ordering them to jig side to side energetically on pain of death? Seriously?

Sigh.

Considering daytime shows tend to hire longships-full of midget "research people" to drag up the most popular memes of the day and/or previous night, one could have wished that the fact bollywood dance sequences have been a part of Hollywood for a while now could have been recognized. It aint new, bub. Remember Bollywood/Hollywood? The Guru? The Love Guru? The ending credits scene from 40 year old virgin? Namesake? Bride and--*shivers*-- Prejudice?

When Reliance's expansion into movie production in the U.S. was first announced, articles were scarce. This piece from the WSJ however, did a good job discussing Indian-U.S movie collaborations.

What is amusing is the huge row in certain circles over the title of Boyle's movie. Granted, movies are often the basis for the creation of most stereotypes the world over, BUT-- the movie is Slumdog Millionaire. Not Attleboro's Gandhi. And Boyle has previously directed Trainspotting & The Beach, not Ben Hur, or Schindler's List. Give the entire crew a break: it's a movie made to entertain. But if only to battle all possible stereotypes the movie might give rise to, read and pass on this: huzzah for the NYTimes!

N.B-- Ahem. Hadn't realized this nomenclature had become established. Though in my defense, had never heard the term "Asian Indian" before. Hm. Shall stick to checking off "Other" on all them enrollment forms.

Oh aye--

Jai Ho, bitches.

The Day of Origin post

24 years doesn't feel like much time, though it should. I guess the persnickety old fool was right, youth *is* wasted on the young, to a certain extent, though in all honesty I doubt I could've spent all these years any better than I did.

The concern remains of course, for the years ahead.

I maintain that I've been blessed in terms of visions, as well as wisdom out of the mouths of friends and occasionally the radio: everything, including spam from astrology.com [Yes, I signed up for a free offer. Yes, I know you did as well] has pointed to making life choices-- remembering what's important, remembering what I set out to do, and realizing now is the time for all those plans and dreams to come together.

Overall feeling of the day? Gratitude.

My ideal birthday soiree [once the book comes out and there are funds generated for such] would be a big band swing orchestra, a ballroom, champagne and good whiskey, and everyone dressed up like it's the 1920s. Everything will be beautiful and bright. Old friends and enemies would laugh at and with each other. Our grandparents would all be alive and present, as would our children. Someone would sing "At Last", and I think I know who. We'd pick flowers from all the center-pieces and cluster-bomb each other. And at 12, we all lose our footwear and run down to sands and the sea [of course this would be a tropical place, you kiddin' me?] and laugh around fires, under stars, passing around bottles and stories.
It will be perfect.

For tonight, I'll be happy with some Cao Ila, and Sinatra singing the songs he does best. Soft lighting, watching through the window as the town here struggles with and then sleeps, exhausted and deep, under the blanketing snow.

A final thought: midst visions of the goddess and the best advice I have ever received in my life, the past few days also gave me words that have finally laid to rest every lingering doubt I've had about my mish-mashed, ad hoc, msafiri/sub-altern/post-colonial/post-its/post-modern/post-box identity. Hail Jarmusch, you and your kind.

Of Non Obvious Messages

The last SMS I sent was over a year ago. My current phone plan doesn't allow such luxuries, and there is no "topping off", no Airtel in this vast land of two-year contractual woes.

Why SMS anyway, when Google came through the way it did with its revolutionary "chat within your mailbox" applet. Couldn't be happier, for here finally was the Reaper of all Reapers, the dynamic traffic-light themed list that made us choose who we wished to ping often, who we would ping only on birthdays, and who were just plain un-pingable.

Despite its apparent simplicity however, the genius of gChat's design is its pliability. The variations of simple emoticons, available in collections ranging from the minimalist to the baroque. The Red Dot Status that is merely a front for a comfortable long conversation with a certain someone, or an effective barrier against queries regarding work, weather and the spelling of the word "itinerary" by a random contact who remembered mid-email that you graduated with a B.A in English and voila, are seemingly online. The disclaimer that you are busy, and they may be interrupting never really stands in said random contact's way. Hence, the Invisibility Option! Add voice and video to this potent, easy-to-use, no separate log-in required mixture and you have the reason why MSN and Yahoo weep themselves to bed every night nowadays.

Not that I don't miss sending an SMS, or two. A strange life it is when you feel nostalgic about events that took place no more than four years ago: the old reliable nokias, the furtive charging in computer labs and backstage during rehearsals, the daily struggle for available balance and then finally when the last recharge finally proved insufficient, the use of missed calls to convey messages.

Ah, missed calls! That wonderful meme of Indian youth culture! One ring meant, "call me back". Two rings meant, "the prof just walked into class, get here quick!" And good luck if you were industrious enough to be in loue at the same time as having restricted balance options. The missed call signal manual suddenly expanded exponentially to not only include new messages-- three rings means I have access to a landline and will be calling you from a strange number, but it's me alright, so pick up!-- but also messages from his or her friends as well.

It's less hectic now, though. And what with the Tower of Babelish sort of communication the world has going for it these days vis a vis acronyms, smileys, glocalized slang, song lyrics, youtube links and other googleable treasures, a whole new sort of system has been developing under our very fingertips, guerrilla-style.

I call it Non Obvious Messaging (NOM).

It's not a particularly new concept. A dear friend introduced me to it around 1998-'99, when she unveiled via yahoo messenger the possibilities that existed when one described actions between two asterisks.

*wanders lazily over to the kitchen for a coffee refill*

...

*returns, balancing a steaming mug and two shortbread cookies*

Feeling nibblish? Figured.

*Grin*

The world caught on soon though, and suddenly plain LOLing wasn't enough. Today Facebook is putting its finishing touches on the immense citadel right at the tippy-top of that Tower of Babelish communication, while the multitudes scream, clap, defenestrate, throw a sheep at and poke one another.

Ah, the poke.

According to Facebook, "a poke is a way to interact with your friends on Facebook. When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings."

Your own meanings.

I'll bet my last pair of clean underwear that there's published literature on the existing positive correlation between the creation of secret, somewhat exclusive systems of communication and the development of new civilizations (Dr. Pinker, are you listening?).
This is why certain folk are moving away slowly from the packaged, parceled versions of messaging each other, and are discretely beginning to take existing systems of communication and turn them into NOMs, NOMs that are most times so subtle and disguised that only the sender and receiver understand them.

There are those who communicate solely via their status messages. Those who record appropriate (and otherwise) lines from songs as NOMs to each other using Gtalk's voicemail function. Those who use a VPN to access each others' desktops, to be able to doodle on the same open Paint file. Those who have devised special hugs, touches, sounds and smiles to convey thoughts, ideas and feelings that are as yet-- praise be to everything that is alive, free, unplugged and unmarketed-- unknown to pop culture overlords.

To those who receive and relay NOMs-- salutations. You have in your fingertips the only thing still innocent, and strangely, wholly honest, that is left in this world.

Lessons for Bombay from an Art Museum in LA

Granted, the variables that affect the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and those that affect a local government are pretty disparate: the museum doesn't have to deal with armed attacks (yet) or bad drainage.

Fact remains however, that an administration is an administration is a five syllabic word. And Roberta Smith's article, which outlines a method for rescuing the MOCA from bankruptcy, also contains important lessons for organizers, public servants and ticked off citizens everywhere.

Smith writes:

But first there needs to be a truce. Both the siege and the bunker mentality must be suspended. People have to set aside their rage at one another and at outside critics. They should stop fretting about their reputations or grudges. Egos have to be left at the door.

This article places emphasis on the importance of communication across and in spite of the badly-drawn societal lines that exist in any organization, gathering or locality. In a time where every new day brings about four emails containing news of yet another group gathering in the name of solidarity post the attacks in Bombay, this sort of communication is what the city needs first.

Of a proposed corollary to the Infinite Monkey Theorem

Being a child of the 90's, I have often felt thwarted in terms of pop culture memes relating to pipe fixtures. All I had to work with for the longest time was this guy, or his wussy brother.

It took almost a decade and one of the most historic U.S. Presidential elections till date to deliver the Second Coming, and what a delivery it has been.

Not only did good ol' Joe provide significant fodder for spin doctors across America, but he is also an economic stimulus all by himself. Joe Lara, of Ventura County in Southern California is in business like never before, and it's all Wurzelbacher's doing: apparently, media coverage not only affects a campaign, it also bolsters small businesses.

In the words of the average joe, who wudda thunk it?

The erstwhile campaign hot-topic has done more than just help out Mr. Lara: in a most effective way, he has also gotten under Mr. Egan's skin.

Timothy Egan went after the unlicensed, tax-evading pipe cleaner [quick, is the term "faux-plumber" ready to join its brethren on Urban Dictionary yet?] in today's NYTimes with an energy that makes me hope that the object of his um, affection was wearing a hard hat when he read the article. Or had it read to him, as the case may be.
Egan writes:

If Joe really wants to write, he should keep his day job and spend his evenings reading Rick Reilly’s sports columns, Peggy Noonan’s speeches, or Jess Walter’s fiction. He should open Dostoevsky or Norman Maclean — for osmosis, if nothing else. He should study Frank McCourt on teaching or Annie Dillard on writing.

The idea that someone who stumbled into a sound bite can be published, and charge $24.95 for said words, makes so many real writers think the world is unfair.

And all you liberal, plumber-loving socialists out there-- I hear ya. You're absolutely right: give the man a break! Samuel Wurzelbacher was a lucky pipe fitter, who just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right camera running. Egan wouldn't be complaining if Sammy had hit the lottery big and then decided to self-publish, now would he?

Would he?



Hm.

In order to control for that variable then, I now humbly proffer [the most fatuous phrase of all fatuous phrases]a corollary to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, viz.

Given enough time, a publisher funding memoirs and manuscripts at random will almost surely promote a text based on an event of shallow public interest that will enrage serious writers. Or writers who take themselves seriously.

Of Tuckman's Stages, the Mulberry Bush and the Fierce Urgency of Now

It's early 2005. A warm day in January found a bunch of us sitting at a round table, nervously fingering our I.D cards as we fielded several angry looks from across the room that all asked the same question: "what are you kids doing in here?"

The pungent smell of human sweat--dried by several air conditioners on at full blast-- mixed with the burnt aroma of mass-produced milky coffee, the fuel of all administrative offices in South India. A few of us wanted to throw up. At least one desperately needed a cigarette. But no one in that room would leave their place for the world. We had all somehow edged our way into an open meeting with the district collector of Nagapattinam, and only another tsunami could have gotten us out of there.

In hindsight, there was no other way for that meeting to have ended. Apart from us kids, everybody at that table represented some NGO or organization that either wanted to provide fishermen with funds to repair their boats and nets, develop "tsunami-resistant" housing (no, I kid you not), provide for the mental health of the survivors of the Big Wave or deal with the sudden orphan/adoption crisis that was steadily growing in certain villages along the coastline at that time.

Competing interests meant that everyone was determined to have a say and rally support, while our little gang waited, keen and eager for the moment when we could chip in with a brief report of what we had seen-- the villages we had visited that hadn't even seen one government aid truck, that had no water, that had mini riots every time some NGO came by and dropped off sackfuls of rice.

At that meeting, representatives of the state administration told everyone that no rehabilitation would start till the government rewrote the zoning laws and fishing laws. We left the room two hours later. We never attempted to contact a government representative on the same issue again.

Cue January 2006: with a different group of students this time, a week or so before our one week visit to the Big Easy, I spent the day listening to Nagin and his aides discuss how plans for rehabilitating the 9th ward were being put on hold while "administrative and structural decisions" were made. Understandably, there were many citizens who were a bit, shall we say, a tad ticked off by their suggestions.

Cue the present day.

Mum always said, somethings never change.

Google "group dynamics" and one of the first links that show takes you to a Wiki article on a guy named Bruce Tuckman and his four stage model on group dynamics called-- no surprise-- Tuckman's Stages for a group:

Tuckman's model states that the ideal group decision-making process should occur in four stages:

* Forming (pretending to get on or get along with others);
* Storming (letting down the politeness barrier and trying to get down to the issues even if tempers flare up );
* Norming (getting used to each other and developing trust and productivity);
* Performing (working in a group to a common goal on a highly efficient and cooperative basis.

(N.B- Edgar Schein has some terrific insight into the stages in group development and organizational behaviour. Worth the trip to Amazon. Or Landmark, as the case may be.)

There have been numerous calls for collective action and individual responsibility since the attacks on the 26th of this month in Mumbai. There has been indignation at the role the media played in complicating the rescue operation carried out by the Army and NSG. There has been anger at local government representatives. There is a civil disobedience movement proposed, based on refusing to pay taxes. There have been nebulous calls to war against Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Penguins, Globalization, All Pink Things and other random entities by equally random citizens.

More importantly, there have been questions asked, SMSed, murmured, blogged, status-msged, forwarded and twittered that are growing into something approaching critical mass in terms of citizen participation in the administration of their own country.

Finally.

Of course, it could all just die down. It has before, mainly because us Indians have been so caught up in celebrating our diversity for the past 50 odd years, that getting to the Norming stage of Tuckman's list is near impossible. Our genial need for disagreement, and our devotion to exercises involving the proverbial Mulberry Bush ensure that the only certainty regarding group meetings/collaborations is the amount of kaapi that will be inhaled.

But what about the immediate need to come together? To stand together and stand by the claim that we will not stand for any more... any more...
what, exactly?

Ask the average Indian about the Mumbai attacks, and the only widely held view will be how awful the attacks were. Why they were awful, what were the contributing factors to the event-- fugghedaboudit. Best to stick with the unity in diversity tag.



Smile and wave, boys, smile and wave.

Kaizad, an organizer of the Rise Up Mumbai, Rise up India! FB group wrote in post the rally in Mumbai on the 3rd:

...Yesterday, It felt as if almost the whole of Mumbai was the Gateway of India. It was a heartening show of solidarity and togetherness, and it seemed like finally, Bombay has had enough, and is not going to tolerate the political sham that runs our beloved city.
But as I passed the entire area, still deciding whether to fight the crowds and go in, or to just go home, I saw the number of people who had actually come to voice discontent or/and show solidarity, were far outnumbered by the people who came to apparently have a good time. It seemed to be a case of : If everyone's going, I'm going to go. I was appalled to see people fighting with each other to be in camera frames, and though the patriotic fervor was invigorating to say the least, it's a pity that people didn't understand the basic concept of HOW to display solidarity. I guess towards the end, it turned into a media circus, where all the major media companies got enough videos and pictures to fill their editions and bulletins for the next 20 days... I sincerely believed that the rally on the 3rd could have been the symbol of change we were hoping for, and though some of you might disagree with my views on this, I felt it wasn't. So many people together, united should have been the ideal platform for the message of progress and change to be spread. Yet all i saw was chaos, yelling, pushing and over pumped patriotism that will die out in a few hours.

Kaizad went on to say that he hopes the rally planned for the 21st will be a platform for promoting civic participation and the fierce urgent need for an overhaul of how government is run. I wish him and the group he administers only the best.

I share his, and others' concern over how this will all take place.

A few points for consideration, thus:

1. The media has always been a circus, a tricked out, parti-coloured dung beetle that survives based on the number of people who tune in. Signing petitions might get specific reporters or anchors off the air, but it won't change an ethos.
One might attempt switching off the t.v. though, or switching to good old DD. Pull a 'Cable Guy' on 'em. Replay that fantastic ending, and get your news from print media instead, via tree pulp or 54kbps.

2. The government in a democracy is of the people, by the people and for the people. Which means, you get what you pay for. There are suggestions to revamp the election system, to hold out for better candidates, to support independent candidates, to spread awareness about the need for responsible leaders. All good. All things that need to be started at the seed level: while the IAS goes to work revamping policy, school systems, colleges and universities need to teach and discuss these basics of a civil society. There needs to be more to an every day Indian's perception of government than just corruption, politics and the power of money & force. That only comes, ONLY comes, through traditional modes of education.

3. Civil Disobedience is marvelous. But like any Movement, Civil Disobedience only works when you have a figure-head up in front, being the peoples' god, saint, leader, truth-giver. Someone they can sacrifice for. Our society in India hasn't evolved to the point where a large number can act out of free will and revolt or otherwise on their own. Doesn't happen. Group think rules. And since we don't have another Gandhi, Malcolm, Bose, King or Obama, I can only hope that people can respond in large numbers responsibly, to this and other calls for public outcry. The tax bit is going to be the trip-up, mostly because majority of us don't understand how the tax system works. Those who do understand it well, are probably already benefiting from it to such an extent that going against it is in their disfavor.

4. The underestimated importance of outreach, organization and education. It's easy to throw your hands up in the air and talk about the impossibilities of developing more stringent security measures at the citizen level. And yet, all it comes down to is better utilizing that innate ability us Indians have to help each other out.

We've all seen it: kitchens set up in the wake of natural disasters, strangers visiting victims in hospitals, people pulling each other into buses to keep them from being late to school or work, stories of heroism during the recent attacks-- a thousand stories of good-will, all quietly done despite and in spite of the media, politicians and administrators. Why not make use of that same will to help?

Organize streets, apartment complexes, neighborhoods so that evacuation points are set up, safety procedures are posted on walls so people know what to do if such an event arises again. Teach folk how to take care of their own. Simple steps, which don't need a defense budget. Working together doesn't need a budget. It does mean patience, organization, and avoiding the assumption that others are either too young, too entrenched in certain ideals or too stupid to work with. Intellectual Exclusivity sucks bigger balls than the usual social bigotry we consistently condemn, and yet is far less chastised.

5. Calls for a fight against terrorism is not the same as a call for communal rioting. Terrorism is a delicate dog fight fought in circles that us mortal bloggers, community folk and random soap box orators will never enter, let alone move in. What we can do as citizens is to alter perceptions of terrorism: by not elevating it into a cause, by not assuming everyone from a country or religion supports or is associated with terrorism, by teaching and learning, impartially, about how terrorism is affecting the world at large, and India specifically.

6. The most important thing the last week has taught us is the vast amount of un-knowing, on the part of the public, the media, the local government. We are no longer safe in living off the fat of our land. The time of India being stereotyped as the home of nerdy computer engineers, snake charmers,cow patty makers and 7/11 grocery store owners is over. Like it or not, the country is now associated with wealth, international partnerships, nuclear power and economic development. We even have baseball players.

Gird your loins, maami. This land will never be the same again, and if we are all to survive democratically, should never be the same, as well.

The anti flag waving piece: this isn't v 2.0 of 9/11

If you haven't read Ingrid Srinath's take on the Mumbai attacks yet, you should.

This post originated as a comment on Ingrid's original piece. I'm not sure if I can fully convey how fiercely glad I am that she worded her reflection just the way she did.
Nailed it on the head, Ingrid has.

What resonated with me most is that what she has done is successfully point out the real, grit-ground that exists between bill-board versions of black and white heroes and villains, with the cavalry riding in just on cue. The piece tells us that it is on the citizens of a city, any city, to come together if security and a way of life is to be preserved.

She is absolutely right: no emergency law can come into effect, only because there are too many loop holes, far too many variables to control; stricter laws would fail every glorious mission just as any crack down would.

That is not to say that security at the state and national level cannot be reviewed seriously. India needs no Military Industrial Complex, but at the very least, no one should be able to approach a city's port without being reviewed by coast guards. Well-trained, well-armed coast guards. A lot more than just metal detectors are required in this brave new world of ours, if we intend to preserve life and limb of everyone: not just the powerful, the majority, the rich or the foreign.

What I would like to see is a grass-root, decentralized guerrilla movement of our own-- Not one that equips youth, the lonely and the estranged with hatred, propaganda, fanaticism, weapon skills and fake passports, but one that equips that same youth, the blissfully ignorant and brooding, the passionate and the complacent, the middle-aged, student and everywoman with an awareness of what it takes to preserve one's home and city-- the community skills and ideas that make individuals realize that they are the first care-taker and good neighbor, not the police, and that there is no entitlement to safety & well being based solely on social or income levels, anymore.

Not just idealism. Practical facts of life as well, such as-- don't crowd around an attack site. Don't hang around because it's exciting. Don't participate in rabble-rousing. Just the basics, really.

It's worked for Linux, for Google, for Obama, Live Earth and Second Life: we know that people can and do come together, online and in person, without the burden of hierarchy, more positively and effectively than ever before. Why not have our own training cells, our own workshops, our own classroom visits? Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction, we're told.
It's about time we stood up and counted ourselves as part of the response to glocal terrrorism.

It's about time that we-- Indians, Tourists, Mumbaikars, Policy Makers, Writers, Film Stars, Dhoodh Wallas, NGO workers all-- stop, really, STOP with writing off Bombay in packaged, star-dusted, jalebi-like versions of the truth. Today's NYTimes carried an article by Mr. Suketu Mehta, a tribute that subsided into romanticized notions of Mumbai as some sort of colourful, cheerfully sinful Camelot, hated for its Camelotness by the evil baddies, who Mr. Mehta paints as multi-lingual ogres and fanatical knights. Views like this can only complicate the situation. Yes, Mr. Mehta--- keep the spirits of the city up by all means, sing and dance and spend money in Bombay-- Celebrate life, its spicy excess! But in the name of everything that is awake, adopt some of the ideas, at least, that Ingrid suggests in her piece: participate and learn. vote and organize, don't just blame. party hard, but thrash out ideas, work at divesting your children and families of stereotypical thinking even harder.

A guide on being thankful in the 21st century

A while back I decided to stop blogging because somehow, the endless outpouring of self-justified edification and quirky observations created a bitter taste: existential word verif. combinations jeered the very notion that anything other than self-pleasure was going on.

The past couple of years, months, days and hours have been working hard at changing that decision.

Desperate times, desperate measures and such.

Ergo, while the U.S. spends the next 12 or more hours giving into a celebration of tradition and excess, dipping into nostalgia as a salute to the times of unchecked spending now gone by, with a clenched-jaw energy intent on creating les bon temps in the midst of a great winter of malcontent, I now proffer a guide to giving thanks. This is for those of us who will continue the day un-turkeyed, albeit glazed over, hyper-caffeinated and searching every news source for the latest developments re: the attacks last night.

A Guide to Being Thankful in the 21st Century [OR] PJ's List of 8 Mental Health Tips


1. Ignore CNN, Fox and related "sister" networks. For real news, find the blogs and RSS feeds of bloggers of Mumbai and from Mumbai, and give praise to your individual gods for their energy, intelligence and intensity.

2. Avoid chaos theories proposed on aforementioned networks. For actual facts on how international affairs/foreign policy works, visit foreign policy magazine online, or the Brookings Institute. Celebrate the fact that non-partisan, collaborative discussion is still supported the world over.

3. Pursue and enjoy self-preservation. Citizen reporting is one thing, but in a situation where there are guns and bombs going off in several locations, with the ATS, Army and police trying to control chaos and shut down the baddies, you standing there sending MMS/SMS updates and capturing the scene with your camera-phone is only making things worse. Being a by-stander is only allowed at parades, not killing zones.

4. If you're part of a country that consists of multiple communities, religions, languages, income levels, political leanings, religious holidays and calendars, hold hands and dance! Who you are and where you are makes it that much more difficult for politicians and business people to sell you gung-ho, black and white [or red, white and blue, or saffron-hued/Indian green] patriotism. Rejoice that there are no easy answers, no one bad guy, no one bad country.

5. Respect your luck. If you made it in the nick of time, or avoided an ill-fated train, road, or restaurant, silently salute karma. No more, no less.

6. Give praise for the inherent power in the mute and on/off buttons on your remote and radio. It is your one mode of control over the mass hysteria fanned by media channels in order to boost their TRP ratings.

7. Light candles for your cities, both attacked and as yet, non- targeted. If said cities are in a country as described in no. 6 on this list, it is only by a strange, whimsical grace that nothing worse has happened... yet.

8. Send love to folk like Google, who have made it possible to check on loved ones in cities under fire. All named and accounted for, over IMs, offliners, emails, blogs and twitter. Technology also meant following the attacks from the moment they happened, and not having to wait on second-hand news.


__________________________________________________________________

N.B-- a) what I find curious and disturbing is how in the past few years, horrible events have coincided with calendar holidays. Christmas for me will always carry memories of the 2004 Tsunami, even tho it did happen on boxing day. Today, there is talk of feasts against the background of repeated footage of a city I haven't visited since I was a child, but which is home to a large number of people I love, respect and cherish. Somethings get harder to stomach as I get older. Wonder who else feels the same.

b) It's time for Bombay to implement the kind of security measures other major metropolitan cities in the world have. It will change things forever-- but haven't the events of last night already done that? It means more check-posts, more CCtvs, more cameras, stricter i.d. requirements and those "see something, say something" signs. Metal detectors and sniffer dogs aren't enough, any more. It's not just about national politics and separatist movements, any more. Wake up. Stand up. Don't let them sell you packaged hatreds and suspicions. Protect your own.

Confessions of an Amnesiac

The whole world wide, every day,
fly Hugin and Munin;
I worry lest Hugin should fall in flight,
yet more I fear for Munin.
-Translated from Grímnismál, of the Poetic Edda



I must put out fresh crumbs
for his weathered black beak,
though I know his beady eye
will seek out mine,
haggling over the price
like the old gods do.
Crow has his niche;
Who gives memory but for Odin's bird
Who keeps every story you've heard?

But what would you say, my heart,
after years of quiet trust,
the filled frames and old letters
that tell better than Italian opera
how hard it will be deciding
who jumps first at Last Call,
what would you say if I told you
I've forgotten the word you spoke
that pulled me in closer:

That first smoke,
the last shut door.
You ask him then,
as I stare to keep
my offering true,
if we are meant to remember
words spoken, how things end and begin,
or whether like scent after rain
and the lake's winter shroud
these mem'ries will end once, and then again.

Lillith (An extract)

No ancestors to pray to, asking where this temper came from. What did he use, First man thought, scratching the tough skin of his thigh, what mud did he use to make her?
He sat crouching, berry in mouth, slow juiced, watching two dragon-flies touched tight flying together exuberant and mad with lust. Dragon flies. A moment ago, squirrels against a throbbing tree trunk. Bees. Ant-eaters. Zebras.
He gazed, frowning around the unfurling opening blossoming green around him. It had been six months and everything was still singing as if the eighth day had just dawned.
It made him sick.
And she wouldn’t help him forget.
Mouth over his chest, her hand wrapped around a throbbing part of him he still hadn't found a word for, he had gasped and tried to push her down, and join the frenzied life around him. Dragon flies. Squirrels. Bees. Ant-eaters. Zebras.
What mud was she made of? He knew where he had come from. They had told him of water-on-dust, carefully brought to shape. He knew where he came from: he had walked by there often. Fine mud from the river bank, good for seeding... staring at it, watching a tiny mustard stem thrust towards the sun, feeling his own skin surge. But he didn’t know where she was brought from.
He had found Lillith huddled with the wolves. He was impatient, annoyed. He had been promised a companion, and she hadn’t arrived. He went looking in the place they told him she had last been seen. They all lay together in the cave’s mouth, waiting. Her eyes glinted with theirs, watching him approach.
She stayed silent a lot. Watching everything with a grave expression. The dripping of first honey. The squeals of the first cub born to the lioness that littered under the rain tree. The first dead moth. The first blood stains on her leg that the mosquito left for her in remembrance of his little prick. Watching him silent as he groaned and spewed his
dragon flies. Squirrels. Bees. Ant-eaters. Zebras.
She watched him as life and newness left imprints on him like deer traces in grass. She watched him as he touched and tasted everything: the angry fire ants, the river that bubbled and grew with each rising sun, its banks growing wider apart.
She watched him, staying silent. Yet she would bare her teeth, scowl and warn him away if he came where she didn't want him.
A frustrated animal, he paced the entire length of the garden everyday, carrying a stick. Sometimes he would bring her a flower, a smooth pebble. Sometimes a nest. Once, a butterfly still trapped in a chrysalis. Which she had pried open, watching it spread its legs and flutter to life. At these moments she smiled, and he watched her: muddy feet, her thin tight breasts. He would think that maybe if he did this more often, she would smile more, and not bite.
The first attempts at negotiation began in Eden.
But such times were rare, even he accepted that. At night she would return to the cave, and they would sleep at the mouth of the cave to watch the stars-- it wasn't cold enough to seek further warmth.
Then, the leaves and birds began changing. Some flew-- where did they go? What coast did they know about?-- fruits stopped ripening, and the ground grew icy and cold. At night, he would seek her side, sometimes, in his frenzy at having cold toes and knees he would grab her close. She would allow this, until he began taking advantage of the darkness and then she would scowl, kick and bite to keep him away. Sometimes he was tired, and ashamed at his inability to be dragonfly, zebra, or lion, would turn to face the cave wall. Other nights he would try to overcome her. He wondered what clay she was made from. Perhaps it wasn’t mud. Perhaps she was made from hard like granite rock, when the hands that molded wished for a greater challenge. Their yells, her screams of rage rent the night sky. Crow shifted his head under his wing, nodding to himself. The man was an idiot. The woman had a brain. He would speak with her tomorrow.

Crow and Worm
The morning sun filled the sky, waking Crow and Worm. Each stretched his body out towards the rays to dry the dew of the night, which had collected over them like a thin blanket. Lillith passed by, Lillith in her long hair. Crow shifted on his branch, his face already old, carrying the scars of his great adventure. His eyes followed her. The worm, being the great mouth that he was, had already begun singing to himself. Crow shook out his wings, and flew after her.

For Shiva.

Shiva...

got back from travelling to be met by the news. Ketaki had told mum, mum didn’t want to tell me over the phone. She said, "your classmate, Shivani". It didn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. You're still alive to me, you posted in my scrap book a week ago, you're interning in Cali, and about 8 months ago we just started talking again, since school. Orkut isn't helping, dude. Everyone is there, every other minute a friend or relative of yours is typing their disbelief, their sorrow, their love for you, but somehow the fact you won't reply to them or me is making this a whole lot harder.

When you first messaged me on Orkut, I had to check your page a few times just to make sure it really was you. Not because you have changed much: still the same powerful academic drive, still the same competitive spirit. Your profile said you were studying at CMU; that made perfect sense—you were always the good student. And back then, I was always the clown. You used to hate my guts back then, and it was no surprise. We were as different as could be: you were good in math. I could only count uptil 20, and that’s if I had no shoes on. You were serious in class and took notes, I would distract krithika and write notes to the others in the back benches. You got the grades. I got the laughs. And you couldn’t understand why I existed and I was amused whenever you got mad because of something I said or did. We made fun of each other, and calmly existed in relative peace through school.

Except for the day we heard anjana ratinam had passed away. We were all in shock, dude. I saw you cry and suddenly you were as vulnerable as I felt, and there were no pranks at that moment, or any need to get the best grade. I didn’t think I would be mourning you today, Shiva. Three paragraphs on and I still haven’t made sense of this.

You hated me calling you Shiva. Heh. Back then I gave nicknames to people with absolutely no grace. You didn’t mind Ms. N calling you froggy though, because you would always be the first one jumping up from her chair to give an answer.

And then, a few years later, you message me on Orkut. Full of fun, ready to refer to all those times in school, ready to laugh at them and forgive me and become friends. And somehow I knew you weren’t connecting just for the sake of it.

30/11/06. "hmm friends are easy to forget sometimes.wat about hard core enemies ? ..need i ask "remeber me?"

Heh. Dang. You were all grown up, but still as ballsy as ever. We stayed in touch, not everyday but enough for both of us to know that we had out-grown our classroom wars, and would probably get along just fine now.

The last message you sent me was on 12th july. And I had quit smoking till I heard the news today that you wouldn’t be scrapping me anymore.

This is not me wallowing, dude. Your close friends, your family and loved ones, I can’t measure my grief against theirs. But when mum told me, it was like 8th standard all over again. Death makes even less sense now, especially for a person as alive as you, as filled with energy as you.

This is a note of memory, because I always did, and always will remember you, my old nemesis and friend. And a note of thanks, because you had the grace to come looking for me, and retie an old knot that most people would’ve ignored, saying that that was school anyway and we were all children then.

We were. And still are, in a way. They say only the good die young. I will miss you, and your smiling face on my page. Rest in Peace, Shiva. You weren’t just the better student. You were also the better human being, and all our lives are going to be emptier because you aren’t with us anymore, my dearest enemy. You will be remembered for your humor, your fierce loyalty to those you loved, your hard-working nature and for all else that made you the one and only Shivani K.

May God bless you and your family. And may he give me a damn good reason why you had to go so soon.

In memoriam-- of innocence, loneliness and loss.

I could turn this into a creative writing piece, and write a psychological thriller about a young man and the choices he made. I could even pull a Capote, and turn this piece into my magnum opus, a fixture on some best-seller list because it so chillingly captured real events that occurred in my own lifetime.

Over the past two days, in fact.

There are two problems with doing this. The first? Bad taste.

The second is a problem that all English/Creative Writing students face, which is being assaulted by the need to write or express a thought, an assault worse than an itch in the middle of your back, because it doesn't go away, and leaves you with no peace to think about form, and narrative style. I’m sorry, Truman. I failed you. There’s no best seller here, no carefully crafted piece of new reportage. I'm just a student who's realized she can't complete her thesis unless she puts this itch down in words.

The past two days have been filled with events and changes. A country’s in upheaval. 33 families have lost their reason to leave their porch light on. A university is left feeling ravaged. A media circus is in full swing, and someone just yelled “send in the clowns”. Facebook is suddenly very popular. Several students all around the U.S.A realized they had always disliked Koreans. An entire Asian country felt it needed to tell America that the shootings were not part of some terrorist conspiracy. A section of this country is waiting to see what Oprah will say about this. A section of this country is waiting to see what God will say about this. A certain political lobby group is trying to find the best and most genial way of keeping the hunting season open, as the pope from his ivory tower decried the propogation of violence in this, the land of the free.

And early this morning, a newspaper published an article saying that the VA killings are “widely seen as reflecting a violent society”

The massacre at Virginia Tech was very violent, so violent that it has made me numb in ways that 9/11 never did. Maybe it was because Ground Zero was a direct result of socio-politic-economic strife. Maybe because the victims at V. Tech were chosen randomly. Maybe because many of them would’ve graduated around the same time I will. Maybe because they were taken when they were at their most beautiful, on the threshold of adult life. Maybe because I can still visit their profiles on various social networks online, like Orkut and Facebook, and can see how their life was stopped so suddenly, how they had no foreknowledge, no time to make phone calls or close email accounts. Maybe because television networks are scrambling for any video clips or interviews that can and will boost the number of hits on their web pages. Maybe because of the Indians who were also killed, who were in this country with the sole purpose of academic pursuit, whose families are left grieving back home in my country, trying to make sense of a senseless tragedy.

Mostly though, it's because I could just as easily have been a student at V Tech as I am one at Roger Williams. Maybe because anyone of those victims could’ve been me, if it hadn’t been for the simple fact of place and time, and chance.

But here’s what’s got me awake in the middle of the night, stirring coffee. These 33 human beings weren’t near any war front. They weren’t even part of some huge capitalist venture that would’ve made them symbolic targets.

They were just kids. And they were shot for reasons far more subtle than Fox or CNN will ever discover.

Sure, America today has a violent society. Which country doesn’t? Every country, I repeat, every country has its own share of available firearms. The only factor that varies is whether a person can procure a gun legally, or illegally. Every country has a mob. Every country has natural disasters, street violence, drug abuse, and exploitive news networks. Every country’s film industry has movies that show people getting shot, cars being blown up, women being chased.

War happens all over. Sh*t happens, all over. People get shot, mugged, killed, raped, murdered, run over, knifed and drowned all the time. What makes the actions of Cho Seung-Hui different is motive. Or the lack thereof.

You could say the kid was crazy. You could say he was psychotic, had always been that way, that his writing holds signs of a mind on the edge of some act of violence, and you would be right.

You would also be right if you said he was lonely. Alone, even. Which is to say, without friends. Without a social group to help him cope with a world that has most of us thinking that we wouldn't get by if it wasn't for our drugs, caffeine and otherwise.

No. I’m not justifying his actions. The shootings resulted in the worst kind of deaths— random loss of young life, individuals who were filled with the potential of making this world a better place. I am horrified by what happened. I cannot continue work on my thesis, because of what happened.

Cho was a time bomb waiting to explode. An anomaly, an uncomfortable presence on campus, in the dorm, and in his classes. He wrote weird. He looked weird. He sounded weird. Essentially, he was the freak that everyone was polite to, and most everyone avoided. In early interviews, most students at V Tech had no clue who Cho was.

V Tech is a much larger campus than Roger Williams University. RWU is what you would call a close community, classes that are kept as small and tight knit as is possible to ensure all kids get maximum attention from their professors. My classes, be they creative writing, political science or English, are usually not much bigger than 15, once or twice having gone up to about thirty.

Yet, on may 19^th, I will graduate as quietly and anonymously as Cho would’ve, if he hadn’t gone over the edge, if he perhaps, had remembered to take his medication. And that's what's bothering me.

Sure, I got friends. I'm even on Facebook. But I survive on campus relatively on my own. Just me and my iPod, on my way to class, just like you do often, because sometimes the crowd gets too much. Sometimes the fact you don’t belong to a group, because you aren’t a specific type leaves you in a very solitary place.

Cho had problems. But he probably wouldn’t have shot anyone—maybe—if he had had more people to talk to.

That’s not to say that every loner on every campus is a threat to the rest of the learning community.

That means that the sickness in American society is not because of its violence-- the world in general, as Hobbes declared, tends to be a violent, anarchic mess-- but because of the isolated lives people in this country, whether residents or immigrants, end up living. You only speak to your group. You only live within your group. Which is perfectly understandable, because as humans we are programmed to be social animals. But the problem with groups is, there will always be the fringe. The outsiders.

The people who are the only one of their kind in certain space, either based on their mental make up or their physical appearance.

Wait, maybe I could write a story.

This story could be about a young kid who moves to the U.S when he was 8, who was always a bit of a loner because his folks worked hard all the time, and were first generation immigrants, which meant they didn’t speak American well, and that his dad didn’t have a favorite hockey team. The kid was the only Asian around, and no girl wanted to date him because he wasn’t blond.

No wait— scratch that, too easy.

The kid was Asian and lived in a neighborhood filled with primarily Asian families, but the desperation of the need to find your own kind in this country, to stay together because the outside world is scary, was too much for him. Maybe he was tired of being told to jump into stereotypes: to take Kung Fu classes, to use chop sticks, to love computer programming. So maybe, just maybe, he drew further away into himself. He heard Pearl Jam’s Jeremy and thought, yeah that kid in that song, that kid was finally free, finally happy after what he did.

No wait, Jesus, that's too predictable.

How about this—maybe he grew up, and had posters of Martin Luther King Jr. on his wall, and listened to Nirvana; he was also vegetarian. And maybe the first time he tried to talk about Martin Luther King or Cobain, somebody laughed at him. Or stared at him. Or said hey, we didn’t know your people knew about the Civil Rights Movement.

Maybe this kid spoke broken English, because his parents did as well. Or maybe, he spoke flawlessly, and read Shakespeare and Baraka, but one day a girl with earnest eyes told him that she would never believe he was Chinese/Indian/Korean/Nepali/Pakistani/Martian because he spoke such good English.

And maybe he got angry. And maybe he got lonely. And maybe, one grey early spring day, he went into a gun store with money and thought he found his path.

Life isn't Oprah, though I wish it was, and I am not looking for a group hug. But maybe if Cho had had more people to talk to, he wouldn’t have ended things the way he did. One of his professors, when interviewed, said that he had always scared her a little. That there was something not quite right about him.

There’s something not quite right with all of us.

Blessed are those with cliques and similar hair color: they will always have company to watch 'Lost' with. Blessed are those into sports, for they can always throw, punch or run their anger a way.

Blessed are the drugged, for whether on weed or Adderall, their quiet desperation brings them together. Blessed are the smokers, the tokers, the Goths, the preps, the blonds, the actors, the poets, the brunettes, the nerds, the sk8ers, the pea-coat wearers with their eternal promise of coffee cup poetry, the mists of the joy that comes from being part of an elite intelligentsia fogging up their spectacles.

Blessed are those that love Tolkien, for they shall inherit Middle Earth. Blessed are those that see the point of this paragraph, for they, hopefully, are asking questions. Questions like, what about those with no group identifiers? What about those who because of situation or self are left alone in the fishbowl of college life?

Cho Seung-Hui obviously needed help. He didn’t just need communication, he also needed professional care. In an interview with CNN, his former room mates came across as young men who reacted to their silent room mate in much the same way we all would've: they were courteous, they tried to involve him in group activities and when they realized he and the group weren't comfortable with that dynamic, they tried to leave him in peace. They also grew uncomfortable when they encountered examples of his neurotic behavior, and tried to intervene to the best of their ability.

In a way, they did more than the average American student would've. What more can be done with a troubled class mate?

In a separate interview with CNN, Criminology professor Jack Levin talks about the effects of social isolation:

Now, of course, there are millions of people in that situation. They don't kill anybody. But it seems to me that, when you put that together, the social isolation, with the fact that I believe he suffered some catastrophic losses -- I'm not sure whether it was the loss of a girlfriend, the loss of money, the loss of his position on the campus, or maybe all of those things.

But suffering this kind of loss as a precipitant probably pushed him over the edge. You're talking about an extremely depressed person.

Here is an extract of the interview with Levin. The full transcript is available here.

ZAHN: ... Let's come back to the issue of his writing... If you were to have seen this, his work from a playwriting class where he wrote, "I want to kill him, Jane"... would that have alarmed you?

LEVIN: Well, I'm sure it would have alarmed me. However, I have to put this in perspective, after having studied these mass killers for more than 25 years. And I can tell you that they usually do not issue a threat beforehand... And, you know, keep in mind that we could be talking about novelist Stephen King, who also fantasized about violence, and wrote prolifically about it... But the question is, then, what do you do with that information? You know, in high schools and middle schools around the country, under zero-tolerance policies, if a youngster wrote about violence in an essay, could be expelled.

Now, in most cases, these youngsters who wrote about violence did so because they could never actually express it with the -- through the barrel of a gun. Usually, this is a way of dealing with violence , in a safe, pretty innocuous way.

So, you know, I have to tell you something, Paula. I -- of course, I wish I could tell people that these warning signs could protect us in the future... The truth about this is... We should be caring about people who are troubled long before they become troublesome. We should reach out to people... not to punish them, but to give them our concern, our caring.

“We should reach out to people”

Professor, I couldn’t agree with you more. Whether it's letting a person know they are not the only one, or becoming aware of a troubled individual, and reacting pro actively to him or her, talking can only help on campuses in America, and around the world.

In the CNN interview with Cho’s former room mates, it came up that he would listen to a certain song by Collective Soul on repeat, and this was it:

Give me a word
Give me a sign
Show me where to look
Tell what will I find ( will I find )
Lay me on the ground
Fly me in the sky
Show me where to look
Tell me what will I find ( will I find )

Oh, heaven let your light shine down (x4)

Love is in the water
Love is in the air
Show me where to go
Tell me will love be there ( love be there )
Teach me how to speak
Teach me how to share
Teach me where to go
Tell me will love be there ( love be there )

Oh, heaven let your light shine down (x4)

I’m going to let it shine (x2)
Heavens little light gonna shine on me
Yea yea heavens little light gonna shine on me
Its gonna shine, shine on me
Its gonna shine, come on in shine

There's a lot of hurt right now. Lots of rage. Lots of lives that should still be living right now. But why the VA massacre will always be different from any other previous act of violence on campuses is that it was carried out by a young man who leaped off the edge, who never had any sort of hand around to help pull him back.

That thesis is still going to be hard to work on today. I can only add my bit to the prayers being murmured and cried over by parents, best friends, lovers and teachers.

Dear god, please be there.

Take care of the group that came to you on April 16th. Soothe them,

and keep them safe up there till they are reunited with their families.

Show us our own path to love, and light.

Keep us from harming and hating each other,

Keep us from being alone. Keep the Hokie flame burning bright.

Amen. Whoever's up there, please, Amen.

After a Hiatus

[FYI that line came from the subject header of an email I received from a one time lover. I remember staring at the word 'hiatus' and thinking what a beautiful name it was for a flower, delicate and white-edged, soft and coloured with tinges of blue, purple. I remember thinking that like an orchid it would grow on dead plant life, wrapping itself around a rotting branch. Hiatus. Noun. I picked a hiatus from the riverside, he took her a bouquet of hiatus, et al]

Crunch time.

Forget all that has happened since I last blogged.

Oh and believe me, a lot has.

Crunch time.

I walk around grinding my teeth and counting anxiety attacks these days because I have no answer to the one question that will not go away.

Two years in America. They were meant to be an extended holiday, a decoration on the resume, a free ride.

It has been that. And without asking my permission, it has turned into something more.

I like this mud. I like the cold hardness of this new england ground. I like fall, the fact that every tree looks like its part of a great sacrificial fire to announce the death of the season. I like being alone here, having no face that looks like mine. I like the rocks, ice water, shellfish, sturdy boots that make up the everyday. I like the lack of a mob.
And now I can't leave.

And attempting to stay on beyond the stated finish line is driving me insane.

Truly, I am losing it. I dont sleep right. I dont eat right. I find it harder quitting smoking for good.

What do I do, O fair, brave and lone reader?
What do I, dilettante of the first order [yes it was spell checked]
deserve in the way of extended stays, and second chances?
How do I convince these americans that I am worthy of their grad school?
Am I worthy?
What will happen if I don't make it?


This fear is the most potent drug I have ever used. Or abused. It makes me see visions of natural disasters [last night I dreamt of a dam bursting] and feel the kind of sadness that belongs to old bag ladies singing to themselves in the NY greyhound station.

I weep like I've lost my mind. I listen to every song, choked up and tissue-filled. It's pathetic.

I have ignored laundry, physicals, haircuts, friends, blogging.

I want serenity. I want the ability to feel no fear.
I want out.
And there is no out. India is not an option, not now.
A happy-go-lucky, creative writing major with no actual work experience who's only training has been in being a wasafiri [google it]and writing critical annotations has no place in the good ol' home on the range.

I need a miracle. An act of god. Or faith.
Maybe a prayer.
Or maybe, a word from you. Whoever and whatever you are.

Any ideas?

You're finally alive again, Syd.

Shine.



Yesterday at the bar,
a plastic blonde on tv said
you were 6 feet under and breathing dead.
All those chemicals in the soil, finally-
would the lads strum your song at the funeral,
or just sit there in black, jack?

But the blonde carried on;
said you were a founding member, but left
after some "drug trouble".
Others were surprised you lived so long, till
Tom the bartender said you had been dead
a long time already.

You grew old, syd, and plucked potatoes
from the seeds in your mind. Tea at 4 'o' clock?
Did you paint in the shed outside,
next to the garden hose and rake?
(Is your pick at the bottom of the fishbowl
and will you still guide my lost n' lonely soul?)

You died as Mr. Roger Keith Barrett. I stared
at your picture, as you glared at the camera
you were too tired to chase away. Death's happening all over,
like it always has. But somewhere for me, Syd, you're finally free.
The druids at stonehenge wait with your Fender, and once again
you will write music, not just poetry.

Of Songs on the Radio, and other things I have been learning

The fact is, the radio is a god. A god, or a toked up caterpillar sitting on a hoard of mushies. Only for one reason, ladies, gents and other assorted reptilia.

The reason of course, being that the radio always knows how to time songs. You have noticed this yes?

You're in your car driving alone, cursing yourself for the lack of cigarettes and a girlfriend, and some retard jockey mumbles a line and then this song starts, and its Brian May with Too Much Love Can Kill you.

You pick up your ex's skanky best friend at the club, and Alice Cooper starts singing Poison.

Your best friend's girl dies of cancer, and he's on the phone with you, crying like the day his dad flushed his still-live turtle down the toilet, you are groping for words, parked on the side of the 101, and Black starts playing, and you cry as Vedder howls.

You're in bed with a man you love, and the day suddenly gets colder when you start talking about the fact you haven't been talking, and Nickleback starts in with Someday.

Yeah, there's a radio god. He lives in your stereo. He has a bitch sense of humor, and he's into being the dom in this aural relationship.

Ok that's one thing I've learnt. The other is that relationships do more than russian roulette ever could to increase your pain threshold. Physical only, mind you. I'll leave the more lavender whinings to the women and men who do it better than me-- Call Dr. Phil, yo, I hear he's on tour right now. But seriously...

Pain. Sensations, more like it. For instance remember the time when you were 6 and ran into your first highly polished glass door?

You fell to the floor. Behind your closed eyes, the map of texas flashed psychedelically. But with the uncontrolled lachrymal secretions also came that rush of endomorphins, and you lay there, and suddenly-- smiled. That kind of feeling, the increase in the threshold for accepting that feeling, can come only with glass doors and excitable teeth. I hold a fondness for both, so sue me. And how great thou art, Radio God: I type this and Def Leppard starts up with Love Bites.

I think I need another smoke.

Ok that's more a realization than something I learnt new, so having cheated and rambled, let me carry on further... am sure there's a point to this somewhere.

Ah! Yes-- I've learnt that Tenacious D are truly righteous, and are the chosen ones to rock the kali yug into the next shining white trip that has been written of. Google 'Tenacious D- Tribute- Video' and watch what comes up.

I've also learnt that its the timing of the cigarette after the meal that determines whether you need to take a dump or not. Truly righteous. Screw thy prune juice, Mrs. Jones, nothing works for that feeling of moksha better than a well-timed smoke. The perfect moment is usually 7mins 45 secs post chowing.

And then-- summer holidays in America are very different from summer holidays in India. Maybe it's the amount of time you get, or maybe coz it's the only time of living sun that this country ever really gets, so all the reeling-dealing-mad-burnt-rubber-wheeling that can be done only gets done at this time. 3 months of mirages and myriad frutifulness. People do their own thing come summertime in Yankville. Everyone finds a groove,gets a tattoo, throws up on a beach, names a tree after their grandpa, finishes an internship, et al.

Me? I just live. I watch. And learn. And time smokes after meals.

I've learnt that I'm afraid of fire escapes.

I've learnt that my favourite line for today is from a Tom Waits song: " I smoke my friends down to the filters"
What I like about Tom Waits is that he's quaint like an 18th century absinthe house, and just as addictive. I could OD on Tom Waits.

I've learnt that I don't give a camel's snort for national holidays and reruns of famous sitcoms. I do however, have a thing for paid programming slots.

A wonder of American TV. For half an hour, smiling blondes and well educated black folk sell you cd collections and exercise videos. Spent the past 3 nights rocking out to Time Life's Soul and Disco collections: 158 of the greatest hits of the 50's and 70's, for only $9.95, money back ga...

yeah well. I aint seen you come up with an anti AIDS serum yet, so don't you DARE judge me.

I've learnt that sleep deprivation makes you more miserable than warm jello and loneliness together ever can.

I've learnt that writers must write or die.

I've learnt that the one person you really love, and this despite 2 weeks of close nose to nose and armpit types contact, is the one person you can never write a poem about.

Never ever. Ever never.

I've learnt that bell peppers taste good with swiss cheese and rye.

I've learnt how to cook the perfect pot of rice.

I've learnt all the lyrics to Black.

I've learnt that one shouldn't blog after ages of self-imposed silence, because one tends to ramble. I've learnt that one shouldn't say one.
Coz it's presumptuous.

That's just me though. And what do I know? I don't have a favouritest sandwich, and I listen to The Darkness.

Oh yeah... one final thing. The only way to deal with the bitchy Radio God?
Cut the volume, holmes. He gets the message.

Night be kind. Go on now. Git.

Holy Mother F-

Right. Hadn't realized it's been this long since I've posted.

Hm.

I guess life does have a way of.... yeah, yeah all that shyte.

Great day for making a comeback, then. Eventhough the catholic church declared that it was 2002, not 2006 that was the actual year of the supposed horned meanie. Eventhough they made use of a calender date as a marketing strategy for that ridiculous re-intro of Damien into pop culture (around the east coast, this marketing strategy involved large black billboards with "06.06.06" on it)

Eventhough nothing really terrible happened today, to my knowledge, other than the usual bouquet of murders, suicides, shoe sales and whale killings.

Though, wait-- I did miss a bus. The dogs have been howling outside all day. Ah, and two lamp-posts went on when I walked under 'em (a tad positive, the latter. No? But I digress)

But in toto, I'm happy.

Will elucidate on the latter in the posts to come.

Happy Armageddon, everyone.

In Memoriam

Old man Sam Prabhakar died on the 19th.
Dad only told me today.
What is it about old men dying?

Women going is different: you tell yourself, at some point the provider of food and napkins, and sweets and stories must go. Some other woman-- an aunt, a teacher, a friend-- will take her place. But old men are different: they die like winter afternoons, slow and cold, and the memory of them lingers like the way you find it hard to throw out that favourite pair of worn out walking shoes.

He lived one of the fullest lives around. If this was 356 AD, then men would have stood around clashing swords on shields, seeing his body float away on the burning longship.

I will miss him. He was a grand old gent, very old boy's club, with all the class and none of the frills. He's a member of my church... my parents' church. He never went though, was a member for his wife and kids. In the midst of sheep and goats and ragged coconut choir carpeting, in the midst of old marble walls filled with scottish names and middle class ideas of well, 'class', coming to this church left behind by bagpipe blowers, Sam Prabhakar was soda sprayed into a clean glass, ice cubes in good whiskey, and stories on a misty hill-side.
We never drank together, because I was Jimmy's little girl. So I got cola and soda, never coke, see-- But cola and soda, mixed.

The house was hung all over with trophies from his travels, kids and grandchildren in ever nook and on every couch, an old piano... first editions, a dog that died and an ancient mother living in another room, silent, white haired completely.

The first time I met him, he showed us around the house. We walked into his study, where he had a glass jar filled with semi precious beads and stones. He asked me to put my hand in and take a fistful, coloured pieces of opal, quartz and bloodstone that he would buy by the bagfuls.

He had his cajones till the last day. The reason I was always respected him was because he never let people hold his elbow, and murmur condescending questions about his digestion in his hairy ear. You couldn't bring this guy packets of Earl Grey wrapped in ivory ribbon.

I'll have a drink on you, uncle. And the only reason I'm sad is, when we spoke on the phone in December, and you asked why I hadn't come over to visit you, your voice had held that tired tone of a guy who's seen the finish line. You knew it, but you never mentioned it then.

Class.
Cajones.

I regret not coming over in December. I regret not hearing more of your stories from you. I regret not knowing if you ever did find the best dosa ever made, in madras. I regret that I'll be unable to show you my graduation photos.

Like apupa, you left too soon. God send there's good scotch in heaven.