The balance of emotion

When hearts break, do they break even?

And the story goes on

The last day at Lilian Knowles, in a symbolic sense the last day at LSE. A certain kind of life or rather a lifestyle that I had known for the past year comes to its sweet end.
I was at uni earlier in the day, picked up the FT for 25p as usual. Induction benches were beginning to pop up at St. Clements. A group of Indian students were hanging around outside the Tuns, excited. Would they realise the opportunities for intellectual growth, accepting and understanding diversity (of people and views), and for creating long lasting friendships? I hope they do.
After helping Adu and Shreya move out of the hall, this last night at Knowles left me with Tiny at the wrestler's place. We had a feast, and one of the men at the counter threw in some extra food for us for free. Kind! I kidded myself sitting there like an out-of-business mafia boss with my loyal henchman and friend Tiny. We stayed for a little longer than usual.
Tomorrow, a few of us return to unknown waters, and the story goes on.

I am the storm

It was me on that road
But you couldn't see me
Too many lights on, but nowhere near here

It was me on that road
Still you couldn't see me
And then flashlights and explosions

Roads are getting nearer
We cover distance but not together
I am the storm and I am the wonder
And the flashlights, nightmares
And sudden explosions

I don't know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish

It's about you and the sun
A morning run
The story of my maker
What I have and what I ache for

I've got a golden ear
I cut and I spear
And what else is there
Roads are getting nearer
We cover distance still not together

If I am the storm if I am the wonder
Will I have flashlights, nightmares
And sudden explosions

I don't know what more to ask for
I was given just one wish
.
.
.
There's no room where I can go and
You've got secrets too

Birthdays

The 28th was ushered in effortlessly and with no artificial displays of pomp, thanks to a few close friends. The evening before began with a walk by the Thames and then a dance, courtesy the Thames festival. Food was had by the Tower Bridge and a band playing some good music served as dessert. A pleasant walk to Brick Lane and we found ourselves in a bar which had the ambience of a student house party. The bar counter and the dj's turntable seemed to have been stuck into the basement in a hasty fashion. A few drinks and we stepped out onto the street where the bar's ambience spilt over. And as the clock struck 12, I found myself on the couch of a sheesha bar with company I love and who let me be the freak I am. I couldn't have asked for anything more.
I am 28, unemployed and the road ahead looks very good.

Enchained melody

The beast strains at the irons wrapped around its legs, its been at it for a while. Blood stains metal as it bites into flesh, but the beast seems unaware of the pain. It never rests, the times it lays still serve a mere purpose of physical recuperation, its spirit is tireless.As it bares its fangs and gnarls, its agitation could be easily mistaken as harmful intent. But I think it has more to do with captivity and less with malice.The chains are strong and won't break, wrought iron forged and welded to serve a purpose, a leash for beast or man, whoever has to be reined in. Does the beast realise this? I move closer to the beast, I stand merely an inch away from the farthest the chains would permit its fangs to reach. There is undying rage in its eyes, it glows. It stares back with all its fierceness, every muscle straining, every claw drawn out. I look deeper.....

The beast......I recognise him.

Wimbledon 2008

The game epic.....and Nadal is king!

Epilogue – Euro 2008

My first trip across Europe was fulfilling to say the very least, and these days when I find myself back in my country in perfect bliss amongst family and old friends, my restless mind chooses to enquire the reasons why I had a great time travelling across Europe. It doesn’t take me too long to figure it out. Wherever I went, I experienced the sights and sounds of places not through the senses of a detached tourist, but rather through the understanding of an insider. Friends, in Paris, in Athens made sure I felt at home and that made all the difference. Their exuberance when describing their countries, their cultures, their cuisines….helped one understand and appreciate what one saw a whole lot better.
My dear friends, I could travel around the world and see the most marvellous sights, but without you they would just remain pictures on a digital camera.
You turn them into memories.

The day we conquered Paros

The 6th of June 2008, a description of this day in my life deserves a separate post. Most days we wake up and go through the motions of life without wondering what the day would bring, without wondering about the new experiences that would befall us. Some days are great and some days not so. And on rare occasions you get a perfect day, the 6th of June was one such day.

We didn’t have a plan, the plan was not to have one. And yet the day involved experiences that could have been planned, but the joy lay in the day’s events unfolding itself without a guiding action, each moment as good as the previous. I won’t delve into details, but the day involved a car and five individuals, each one willing to travel down the unknown road armed with nothing but a good spirit, great camaraderie and an infectious enthusiasm to explore. We drove all around the island…. there were beaches, there were coves, there was a traditional Greek church, there was a small bar on top of a cliff, there was a sunset at the port, there was a Sicilian house…..and there was us.

“I feel like a child”, said one. It couldn’t be truer. The trouble with adulthood is responsibility, courses of action demanded by our environment, and the worries that ride with it. If for a short time span we are able to disconnect and enjoy life for what it is we become children….and childhood is sweet.

Greece

Jun 2, the four of us at the Milan airport, where 4, Pappu and I found ourselves cursing Guanxi for the umpteenth time for missing out on the Greek leg of this trip. Number 4 began his obsession with Sparta the minute he heard the air hostess greet us in Greek, the next one week we would be travelling with an Indian mistaking himself for a Spartan from the era of Leonidas, a case of dual identity one could say.

We landed in Alexander’s country fairly late in the afternoon… the weather and the people showed a lot of promise. In some time we met up with our friend Xara at Kifisia who took us to the first authentic Greek restaurant I’d ever been to. It didn’t take us long to decide to have a souvlaki and upon running a quick cost-benefit analysis in our heads, it took us even lesser time to figure that the souvlaki would figure predominantly in our diets for the next 7 days. We met Aliki later in the day , who took us to a pleasant café where we had our first taste of Raki. No. 4 did get a little carried away and played holi with it, toppling it all over Aliki’s bag. We did beat him up later. That the Greeks are a very hospitable people became evident that very night itself, when Aliki’s mum laid out beds in the living room for us to crash. In the wee hours of the next morning, with a charming smile Mrs. Velliou made us some Greek coffee and we were off to Paros. The next 5 days would be a journey through tranquillity.

All we did at Paros can be summed in the following steps
• Wake up late
• Have a light breakfast
• Head to a beach, each day a different one
• Swim
• Return in the evening and take a shower
• Head into town for some great food
• Hit the clubs
• Hit the sack just before sunrise

When I look at these bullet points I know it does no justice to Paros or to the time we spent there. But that is the truth, we did nothing more and nothing less. And maybe there lies the beauty of the time we spent at Paros and the state of mind all of us were in, it is next to impossible to describe in words.

Milan

The flight to Milan was uneventful, compared to the one to Paris where we stood for a while in a queue to board the flight, only to be told by the flight attendant checking our tickets that the flight we were about to board was headed to Amsterdam and not Paris. Our landing at Milan was not completely uneventful though. We arrived quite late and it being a Saturday night, it was only expected that our chances of getting the right direction to our hotel would be fairly diminished. Hence, the drunkards that very gladly did give us directions, had us hopping onto a bus which took us to a very shady part of town. The minute we stepped of the bus, we knew we were in unsafe territory. There were crooks and pimps hanging by the corner, waiting for the unsuspecting tourist to land their way. The four of us looked like a prize catch for them. I could see it in their eyes. However before any of them could move in for the kill, we hailed the first taxi we saw, threw in our luggage and made our way to Lorenteggio. A bottle of Champagne was popped around 3 in the morning in our hotel, celebrating our safe arrival. Champagne done and with nothing better left to do, the three of us ganged up on Number 4 and gave him a beating he’d probably left long behind in his childhood.
We walked around Milan the next day, the highlight in tourist attractions being the Duomo di Milano, the second largest Gothic cathedral in the world. However the better part of the day was spent lazily at a road side café, where we enjoyed our beers and watched happy women shopping and their not-so-happy men tagging along. A long while later Number 4 began crying for ice-cream, so we bought him his ice-cream (a few blows that he didn’t bargain for came for free) and headed back to Lorenteggio. Milan was short and sweet.

Paris

The previous day had been spent cycling around Cambridge and punting along the River Cam. Through all the study group discussions that had occurred over the past 2 months a subject which arose constantly between brainstorming sessions and between the 4 of us (No. 4, Pappu, Guanxi and me) was the Euro trip. The time was finally here, Cambridge was the trailer.
We landed in Charles de Gaulle late at night. Number 4 wasted no time in flipping things, this time he inserted his tube ticket in the wrong slot and the machine displayed no inclination to return it. 2 hours and a few rides on the tube later, we found ourselves in the beautiful flat of Agnes overlooking a busy junction at Voltaire. We had our first view of the Eiffel tower in the distance from her balcony, its revolving beacon indicating a presence that was not completely lifeless……..we would see it burst into life the next night. Considering it was late in the night, and not wishing to trouble Terry and Agnes, we had resigned ourselves to having a quiet night and begin taking in the sights of Paris from the next morning. But to our pleasant surprise, our wonderful hosts and friends (as they would prove to be in the next 2 days) took us to the streets of Paris within the hour which saw us visiting more than a few bars, including my first visit to a gay bar, albeit an almost empty one. The 2 week Euro party kicked off that night!
The next day, 30 May 2008, started at 5 am for me. I got into bed then. More than a few hours later, we set off to see Paris in all her grandeur, the sun supporting our endeavour. The Notre Dame, the river Seine and the Eiffel tower greeted us in the warm sunlight and the running stream of information provided by Agnes helped us understand the history of the city better. The day progressed, we picked Agnes’ son Sousou from school and proceeded to the centrepompidou. At a nice restaurant at the topmost floor, I had my first taste of foie gras and I must say I did enjoy it. After a round of free hugs with some random strangers we moved to the Louvre and then to the gardens around the Champs-Elysées. We had run out of daylight by then, but the most spectacular sight of Paris still awaited us. Soon we were on a cab headed towards the Eiffel tower. As we were driving, I could see the tower rising in the distance well lit, however all of a sudden an array of flashing lights started sparkling like diamonds all over the structure. The Eiffel tower, she glittered!
The next day, we woke up late, had a nice brunch at a pleasant café and before we realised we were bidding adieu to our friends Agnes and Terry. By late noon we were on a bus headed to Beauvais, to catch our next flight to Milan.

The student

After a span of 6 years I found myself returning to an examination hall. The experience was not daunting however. The only trouble was since I had never spent 2-3 hours writing with a pen and paper during this span, after every paper I left the exam halls feeling like my right hand had a workout. 4 exams later, life shows no sign of ceasing its hectic pace. The past day was spent at Cambridge punting on the River Cam and later attending a conference of the honeybee network. Continental Europe opens her doors to us today, the next 13 days will take us across France, Italy and Greece. While the embassies of France and Greece did put us through some bureaucratic annoyances, with the help of some of our Greek friends we were able to manage a Schengen just in time.
So now its off to Europa!

Ready, Steady, Go!

Paul Oakenfold plays in room 270, have been hooked on to this song today. "Today" comes to an end now, while the greater majority of London has already slipped into tomorrow. Howells innovation at 1800, dumbcharades by the Thames at 0200. Nomads waltz through the streets hoping to slow down time.............but the wheel keeps rolling.

You

You wake up every day in a cold city,
a city too busy to notice your loneliness,
a city too busy to hear your story
You seek the warmth,
but even the change of seasons isn't warm enough
.
.
.
And I scan a million faces every day on these busy streets,
Isn't it time to come home?

Evil eye

This is hilarious!


Baby Gives The Evil Eye - Watch more free videos

The abuse of black sexuality

Last night's debate was about the stereotyped image of the black woman that continues to beam through TV screens, hollywood movies and, with the advent of streaming media, youtube. The argument at hand had to do with the real lack of opportunity that female black artists face, forcing them to stick to the brand of music (and it's portayal) as dictated by corporate America. What seemed to me to be an open and shut case, was not evidently so.

Hip-hop culture, as we know it today, didn't start off with skimpily clad black women swinging to songs laced with profanity specifically targetted at the women themselves. Hip-hop had it's origins as a social movement, a form of cultural expression used by the black community to give vent to their fears, their frustrations, their political opinions ...an expression of the emotions a community of people. But in it's current popular form, this history is buried. As Dr. Jared
puts it in an article expressing his views...
"Given the societal need and function of mass media and popular culture, all that is popular is fraudulent. Popularity is in almost every case an intentionally constructed fabrication of what it claims to represent. Too few who comment on the lamentable condition of today’s popular hip-hop seem to grasp this, the political nature of the nation’s media system, nor the political function that system serves. Hip-hop is often taken out of the existing context of political struggle, repression, or the primacy of a domestic/neo-colonialism in the service of which mass media play a (the?) leading role."
Further reading - Selling the Political Soul of Hip Hop

The accepted profanity in hip-hop/rap music has an interesting story behind it. When music labels began promoting hip-hop music, they discovered that the largest section of consumers for this style of music was in the age-group of 11-13. The abusive language, that is mostly disrepectful of the opposite sex, that was infused in to the music was a clever ploy to connect with an audience coming to terms with sexuality through the means of agression. More reading can be done here.

In an excellent piece of gonzo journalism, Matt Taibbi lambasts the establishment for the continual hypocrisy of the music industry. Written about the time that the Don Imus affair erupted (Imus referred to black members of a female basket ball team as nappy headed hos'), Matt says that there is no difference between Imus and Snoop Dogg, both make ethnic slurs against the black community, only that one gets punished for announcing it out aloud and the other gets rewarded. Even worse, Snoop doesn't realise that the joke is on him. ( Read here)
Further Reading - A ‘Ho’ By Any Other Color: The History and Economics of Black Female Sexual Exploitation

The issue facing black artists, both male and female, is about choice. The way that the popular commercial music industry sees black artists and how they can most effectively be used to feed the profit engine, almost always implies that the artists have to work under the dictates of the powerful music labels. Choices in this industry are existent only if they have the blessings of the power houses. Artists choosing to walk a different path, walk along a path of obscurity. As Dr. Edward, when speaking for the black community, says,
"It is a painful reality that the lack of real opportunities can sometimes tempt us to be co-facilitators in our own cultural demise, as we engage in endeavors that aid in the buttressing and reinforcement of pernicious and racist stereotypes."

Holi, London 2008!

The previous night, I had a sudden urge to step out of the hall and what set out to be just a quick visit to an ice-cream parlour had me returning back to my room the next morning at 8. Denied of sleep I fell into bed, waking up 8 hours later pondering over whether I should have breakfast, lunch or dinner. As I was slowly beginning to face the day, albeit quite late, there was a knock on my door. Unsuspectingly I opened the door to bring myself face to face with three menacing looking people with war paint smeared all across their faces having wicked grins. Not only did I jump out of my skin, I jumped back to the farthest corner of my room witha yell almost ready to go down on my knees to beg God's forgiveness for ever having doubted in him. But then my ears picked up two words that brought a sense of relief, 'Happy holiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!'. These weren't minions from hell, these were good friends of mine armed with nothing but colours and cheer.
So Tanvi, Ashmi and Aparna had started the holi procession from Holborn and then to Northumberland which was quite tame until they reached Rosebery. At Rosebery they set off an uncontrollable chain reaction of holi frenzy which prety soon saw the hall come alive on a winter evening. Folks oblivious to the armed colour warriors standing outside their doors, opened them to be swathed in colours of red, green, yellow. orange............Once baptised, they joined the crowd to assault and enrol more warriors. Soon the walls of Rosebery couldn't contain the burgeoning numbers of holi revellers, and the spillout on to the streets happened and the holi war was taken to Holborn and Grosvenor. Onlookers, passers-by and passengers on the buses looked on with shock, awe and amusement. This cold London evening, with the grey houses and the lifeless trees, we were a riot of colours on the street, painting the city where we went not with colours alone but with songs and laughter and cheer. And it was just not the janata celebrating alone, we pulled in our friends from Germany, Britain, France, America.....some happy to have just a tilak on their foreheads and others zealous enough to be washed by the colours. This was the best Holi I've played in a long long time.
To everyone back in India, and all our friends around the world, Happy Holi!

Doing the dishes

I hate washing vessels, cos' just when you think you're done there's something left behind!

Old Theatre, 1830

The man's arm reaches out over her frail shoulders and pulls her closer towards him. In a moment of warmth that sweeps over her, she cuddles in closer and whispers into his ear. Her long fingers draw patterns on his face, all the while staring into his eyes, the man she so dearly loves. He reciprocates by planting a gentle kiss on her face.
Imbeciles! How does nature produce such retards!!!! Now before you get me wrong, I wouldn't be complaining if the couple carried out their expressions of love in a park, in the tube or over the dining table. But they were engaging in their expressions of love(for over more than an hour), while Joseph Stiglitz , the renowned economist, was delivering a public speech on stage. And unluckily for me the knuckleheaded couple happened to be in my immediate line of sight.

As for the talk, it marked the launch of a book by Stiglitz, The $3 Trillion war in Iraq. In trying to make sense of the figure he said, among many other observations, 1/6th of the amount was all that was needed to secure the social security system in the USA for the next 40-50 years or $200 billion was a rough amount to make the entire human population literate. He continued to talk about the privatization of the war and how contractors were paid 10 times the salary of a soldier to accomplish similar tasks($400,000 vis-a-vis $40,000). Prof. Mary Kaldor(LSE) went on to make a comment on how the troop upsurge in Iraq had reduced the violence, which is where I was forced to intervene. I made a point on how the upsurge was only one of the factors which contributed to the reduction in violence. The other factors include:

• Moqtada's Mahdi army laying down it's arms while Moqtada heads to the seminary to become an ayatollah.
• Strategies employed to use Sunni tribal militias against Al-Qaeda
• And more disturbingly that the ethno-sectarian cleansing in Baghdad and Central Iraq is more or less complete.

Viewed in this light, the upsurge by itself could not contribute to the reduction in violence in Iraq. And more dangerously, the Bush administration is already selling this very viewpoint to the American public.

Now you tell me, when I was engaging in some intellectual questioning of the comment that Prof. Mary made and then you have this couple coochicooing right in front of you oblivious to the world. Wouldn't that drive you mad? Imbeciles!

The Indian

A word of advice to those intent on reading the words that follow. If you don’t have a sense of humour then jump off your window. If you live on the ground floor go to the nearest main road and jump in front of a bus (I would have said car, but buses ensure a higher mortality on the roads). My advice is genuine, as without a sense of humour you won’t get too far in life anyway.
Also if you take these words at face value then the faculty of your mind that is supposed to sieve the exaggeration out of these words (and grasp its truth) is not developed enough. If Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock ever start a school, enrol immediately.
The last thing that I would like to mention, I know how much everyone at LSE loves being political, be it nation-politics, gender-politics, political_for_the_heck_of_it –politics. My Indian brothers and sisters, if you wish to get political please head back home, the country could do better with you. Dear women, when describing the subject in question I have only referred to it as “he/him”. It is only because the situations in which I describe the subject are better picturised when viewed as a male. You are far too sophisticated to be caught in such situations. So do not mistake me for being a misogynist, I love you too dearly to even harbour such a thought.

Now that I have cleared the air, let’s proceed with my categorisation of the Indian at LSE or rather (more broadly) the Indian living in the west.

The Organic Indian
He is from the motherland, he carries with him bits of the diversity of 1.1 billion people…..sorry, 1.2 billion (we produced another 100 million over the new year). He is most probably on his first trip outside the motherland. He is conventional and carries certain archaic views without questioning them, for one reason alone….that they are archaic. Pasta, Shiraz and Bolognese are things he would never try as he imagines them to be kinds of grass fed to cows in the west (he is absolutely sure of his knowledge and never ventures to cross-check). He is unaffected by the politics involved in sensitive issues such as white superiority and racism and if ever is a victim of one of these, usually brushes it off his back with relative ease and moves on with his life, which is mostly revolved around his dal (curry), chawal (rice) and Bollywood. He is the one you will notice blowing his nose loudly in a bus, talking loudly to his mama (uncle) in Hindi and staring at the couple making out in the corner of the bus. If at all someone farts in the bus, and you see him looking very serious (trying to give the public the impression that he is thinking of a solution to the Kashmir crisis) then have no doubts, it is him. It is an obvious give-away, he would only think about Kashmir when he farts.

The Anti-Indian
This Indian has most probably run away from India in search of heaven, he probably used all his savings or probably stole his fathers’ to buy his ticket. He would have been told as a child that London and New York were other names for heaven. Even worse, realisation doesn’t dawn immediately upon his arrival. He is polytheistic; God for him is Ram, Krishna and the immigration officer. He wakes up in the night with nightmares of Indian family events where distant relatives rival each other in giving advice. He believes that in a foreign country he needs to make foreign friends. And you will classify as a foreign friend not based on your nationality but rather on your skin colour. So you could be a descendant of an exotic tribe from the Amazonian rainforests but if your skin colour matches his, you wouldn’t classify as a candidate for a foreign friend. If you were blonde, blue eyes, perfect. You fit the bill. On the bus he’d be the one seated next to a pretty white lady giving a passionate talk on India and everything that he ran away from. His exposition would most definitely be in an accent that is anything but Indian, it would be a unique mix of the American drawl of words and the British tune at the end of a sentence. If you see him trying to jump out of the bus through the emergency exit, he’s probably seen the Organic Indian.

The Confused-Indian
This Indian is mostly second or third generation Indian, born away from the motherland. His memory of India is the heat, all his un-cool relatives, the lack of air-conditioning in his parents’ ancestral house, the dust, the mosquitoes who always seemed to like the taste of his blood over the others. He probably had a very troubled vacation whenever it was spent in India. But more importantly, his confusion is in not being able to marry his social background with his cultural background. His bling would be the symbol Om and his Sub would have more peppers than his British mates. So he grows up in a foreign country learning foreign social customs but at the same time carries upon his frail shoulders the burden of his culture, which at times is at odds with each other. Thereby in regular life his approach to his Indianness is like an ostrich. If he sees the Organic Indian or the Anti Indian he would immediately bury his head in the ground. He would be very comfortable in the company of fellow ostriches, the head burying practice is perfected as a group behaviour. On the bus he’d be watching the Organic Indian sneeze with a frown, worried that the anti-sneeze police would arrest him on grounds of suspicion.

The Born-Again Indian
This Indian is also second or third generation, similar in that sense to the confused Indian. But his approach to his Indianness is further up in the evolutionary ladder. He takes conscious pride in his Indian roots and more often than not ends up reading a lot more about specific aspects or customs in Indian culture. In an argument with the organic Indian he could put the organic Indian off , just by being more knowledgeable about certain Indian subjects. He was probably bitten by Indian mosquitoes too during his vacations, but wouldn’t kill the mosquito like the rest of the Indians would. He would let the mosquito continue to suck his blood because he wouldn’t want to miss out on any learning which involves cultural roots even if the teacher is a mosquito. On the bus he would be reading India: A wounded civilization by V.S.Naipaul, and at times he would catch himself thinking that he is just like Naipaul. The Organic Indian would be looking at the book with detached interest as he digs his nose, the born-again Indian would catch him in the act and look on with amusement.

The Cosmo Indian
He is the sociologist’s dread, he doesn’t fit conventional categorisation. He is a mix of all and at times none of the above. He could be the most boring one on the bus, or the most lively one. If he farted on the bus, he’d ape the organic Indian but think of the Palestine conflict instead. When he’s around the Organic Indians he’s screaming Bharat Mata Ki Jay (Victory to India), when he’s with the Confused Indians at a pub he’s rooting for Beckham. At times he’s caught in between them, and mostly screams gibberish, like Arsenal Ki Jay. He’s Gyanendra Gajamurthi to the Anti-Indian and just Gudge to the born-again Indian. He thinks he’s the coolest as he believes he’s keeping every group happy, but gets his rump kicked once in awhile as his rope runs short. He’s the Anti-Indian when running behind a white girl, he’s the Organic Indian when he’s drunk in Edinburgh, he’s the confused Indian when his Indian girlfriend dumps him and he’s the born-again Indian at ISKCON chanting Hare Rama Hare Krishna.

That describes the Indian community quite broadly, with a good dose of the usual bickerings and quibbles that are characteristic of families generally. The interactions between these groups are not ideal, but on that occasional day when the sun comes up in the British sky and Paris Hilton doesn’t release a sex-tape, if you are lucky enough you could see a moment when life forces them to build bridges to understand each other better.

Regular Day

1300 - Masa Tayama lunch time concert with Aliki
1400 - Lunch at Brunch Bowl with Aliki and Utham
1500 - Techno-legal lecture with ADMIS geeks
1730 - KCLSU bar with ADMIS geeks and beer lovers
1900 - UN society film screening with general LSE crowd
2130 - Bus 341 with regular public
2230 - Movie Forest with Rosebery bhai log
0200 - Blogging with Ajax
0300 - Crashing into bed