give your kids the gear they need!

all my friends at the rather exclusive international school of geneva had their pocket monies indirectly funded by the vast network of resident united nations agencies or miscellaneous parental diplomatic and tax-free perquisites. mine had a variable component based on how many domestic chores were completed.

some of my classmates, progeny of the privileged elite of assorted third-world banana republics and tin pot monarchies, had unlimited expense accounts. children of secretive bankers, arms dealers and corporate honchos made up the rest of my junior school classes. tinker, tailor, solider, spy, there were all there and this was the place to be.

of course, we don’t pay for the sins of our fathers and mothers, and most of these kids seemed affable and decent enough. “don’t try and compete with your classmates, we cannot afford it” my parents warned me; “you are much richer in other ways”, they added, attempting to mitigate the already evolving inferiority complex of a 10 year old.

living in geneva in the the early 1970s on a father’s income who was, literally speaking, a man of the cloth, was a non-competitive proposition. if only my father was a real tailor instead of dealing in the vestments of faith!

at any age, switzerland is not a cool place to be poor. poverty of course being largely relative to the obscene wealth of the entitled. we were not badly off. we avoided the culinary narrowness of most rice-eating indians abroad and experimented; lived in an apartment with an unimpeded and majestic view of mont blanc on one side and the jet d’eau on the other. we even managed shoe-string budgeted holidays to greece, italy and yugoslavia.

by the age of 12, i’d seen michelangelo’s david, badly bruised myself in the minoan excavations of crete and gotten my first alcoholic high on crème de menthe within the secretive walls of the vatican. i’d even spent a summer alone in america. the ultimate boy fantasy. not a bad repertoire to have. i appeared to be happy, understanding this to be the “rich in other ways” condition of life, as my parents called it.

but parents always unintentionally contrive to come up short, usually in areas of critical importance. so, while we were fed with food for the soul and mind, we were clad in bargain basement steals and other best-buys, not to mention the odd hand-me-down. i suppose it was no accident that we spent a christmas in london, timed to make full use of the post festive season sales. it was not about style, my mother warned us, it’s about keeping warm and dry.

encouraged to blend in with the local, skiing classes were sanctioned. but, instead of state of the art geze snap-on bindings, rossignol fiberglass skis and nordica boots, it was generic spring clasp bindings, wooden skis and lace-up leather ski footwear for me. my humiliation on the weekend school ski trip was almost complete.

the icing on my sartorial cake, was the £ 20 duffle coat: a survivor of antiquity and the great war, 3/4 in length, hooded with a neck strap locked into place with a single button, two over sized pockets with flaps (great to stuff cheap chinese mittens), and all this held together with four wooden mini horn-like fasteners attached to simulated leather loops. it was the ultimate sack cloth. in an emerging age of high tech fiber and goose down, i looked like a camel trying to trek across the alps as my classmates whizzed airily down the pistes, scarcely able to conceal their derision.

i’m surprised i wasn’t scarred for life. as happy children tumbled out of the bus at the end of the excursion to be greeted by waiting chauffeurs and herded into warm, leather upholstered vehicles, my parents waited, bus schedule in hand. i was last out, embarrassed and close to tears. i’d peed in my pants, blame ascribed to the polyester and other synthetic fibers which failed to retain body heat. like they say, it’s all about the gear.

so, today, i make no excuses for my wardrobe. it’s a decent collection of top drawer designer labels. it gives me the sartorial confidence i so lacked in my adolescence. the RM williams boots substitute the embarrassment of knee-high latex wellingtons: “they will keep your feet dry”, mother said, never wondering why they didn’t ever show signs of wear (i hid them on my way out, slipping into a pair of more chic adidas sneakers instead).

i hear duffle coats have made a comeback and wellington boots are now called funky wellies, both on the cusp of high fashion. in new york, a duffle coat can set you back several hundred dollars. even clint eastwood, icon of masculinity, has been sighted in one.

my father once told me in the late 1970s, “if i’d kept my suits from the 40s, i’d be on the cutting edge of style”. perhaps if i knew then what i know now, i would have had a less sartorially traumatized childhood, a child ahead of his time.

i cannot disagree more with those that say that spending on childrens clothes is a waste of money. give them the gear they need, i say!

snapshots of my imagination

in between life, a whole lot of different things happen. some good, some less good, some fun, some more fictitious than others; all along a journey of volition, compunction or coercion.

but many of life’s most intriguing punctuations are those momentary encounters; fleeting exchanges or magical occasions which our imagination will not even invent. they happen, and when they are past we cannot be certain of their veracity.

it was warm, closer to sweltering, well past the noon hour and the sun was at its highest summer ferocity. the locals had done what locals do: retired for a regenerative siesta. dogs searched out sparse patches of shelter as the insane roamed the streets.

i was alone in the celestial gardens and fountains and trees and shade of a city as old as caesar, and i was as far from home as i was faint with thirst.

at that moment, a little boy and his sister appeared with a glass of ice cold water; they had been watching me. they were as beautiful as the water was pure.

they laughed with me, and disappeared. but not before they left with me with a smile to remember forever. it was not an apparition, my thirst had evaporated.

photograph: a boy & his sister. parque maria luisa, sevilla, spain, july, 1984.

give us this day our daily bread... or roti

india is many things to many people. countless wisdom mongers and scholars have helped paint the indian canvass in myriad hues to varying degrees of usefulness: the mystical; the magical; the geological; the anthropological; the incomprehensible; the theatrical and tantric; the scatological; and the apparent primordial seduction and profundity of it all. and so on, and so forth.

but, if there’s anything that really connects the dots, it has be the subcontinentals’ entrepreneurial free spirit fused with an insatiable appetite. indians love their food almost as much as their unrepressed urge to express an opinion. indians also love to turn a trick for a quick buck. nothing wrong with this at all; food and commerce, the twin pillars of modern civilization.

india is a lot of people. over a billion plus of them. and generally speaking, most of them are doing something or going somewhere, purposefully or otherwise, most of the time. an indian’s average day is punctuated by rote, ritual and routine. they are veritable creatures of instinctive habit, productively or otherwise.

but contrary to popular belief, indians are also a disciplined lot, focused and determined. they are clear about wanting to get some place and are constantly on the move. unfortunately, their karmic induced life-journeys have many pot holes, temptations, and real or imagined distractions. the seductive lure of a roadside chai and a love of food begs an opportunity to halt and engage in idle chat while gratifying the rumbling stomach and quenching an endless thirst.

at the lowest rungs of the gastronomical chain are the smallest units of culinary service providers. men on bicycles with flimsy plastic cup-lets offering syrupy sweet tea, flavored with a hint of cardamom from a stainless steel dispenser strapped to the rear of his vehicle. or, a vendor frying savories in a vat of boiling oil on a street corner under a tree. this is micro entrepreneurship at it’s smallest; human productivity and service at its best.

a sickle, a few straws and a mobile push cart is all the equipment needed by an ingenious vendor of tender coconuts. the product is as refreshing as it is safe as it is therapeutic. from all manner of rudimentary mobile sustenance, subsequent rungs of food chain offerings take on a look of greater permanence: small stalls one stage below the culinary evolutionary stepping stone to what we now call a restaurant.

these are the way stations of an indian life, indispensable to an endless cycle of life and rebirth and frustratingly disruptive to an organized mind with defined goals and objectives.

the only paradox i see in this equation is the marriage of unfettered risk with the reinforcement of the familiar: indians are most willing to take a punt on making a buck; yet, are notoriously unadventurous eaters.

photographs: the ubiquitous fixed & mobile food stalls and non-alcoholic cool bars which predominate the landscape of any indian city's thoroughfares. TTK road, chennai, the erstwhile madras, india, august 13th, 2009.

jobs people do ~ the cremation ash & bone collector man

from ashes to ashes and dust to dust, cremations are common and everyday experiences in india. since the country does have a population in excess of a billion and bit, the supply of people transitioning into the spiritual and post temporal world is regular and the numbers many. the business of death is as lucrative as it is recession proof. there’s a whole commerce of funeral merchandise, beginning with the choice of an appropriate urn. would uncle cast a spell if we chose an inappropriate receptacle? there are brass urns, cremation urns, funeral urns, pet urns, adult urns and memorial urns. even in death, the right choices need to be made.

most crematoria in india are not electric or mechanized.

all rather exotic and far away from the funeral homes of new jersey and the gothic cathedrals of paris, and for those whose goodbyes to the deceased are the rare visit to a cemetery where a tear is shed and a rose deposited. at least we don’t have a bone picking ceremony.

photographs: a man waiting with his implements for a pyre to burn through and cool so he can collect the ashes and return them to near and dear and the genuinely bereaved. goa, india, march, 2009.

jobs people do ~ the coconut tree cutter man

the coconut tree, or cocus nucifer, is a common sight across southern india. rather uninteresting to those in search of tropical floral beauty, it is one of the most dynamic of tress. the oil is used extensively for cooking; hair oil and shampoos are regularly applied if one prefers the greasy sultry lush, if not majestic look; the water of the tender variety offers refreshing respite from the high noon heat of a sweltering pre-monsoon day and hygienic hermetically sealed drink for the traveler on foot, by road or by train; its drink is empowered with an array of supposed medicinal properties, not the least, an excellent sun downer with vodka on the beaches of goa; it’s dried leaves woven together for thatching huts; the coir pith is made into rope, briquettes and is apparently a perfect organic manure for indoor plants.

all rather exotic and far away from the suburbs of new jersey, the manicured gardens of paris, the concrete pavement of tokyo and for those whose household shopping entails a bi-weekly trip to tescos.

photographs: from my bedroom balcony; a man perched 60 odd feet above the ground with nothing but a sickle and a prayer, no safety rope or helmet as he hacks down a back yard cocus nucifer. not pictured: several by-standers and associates proffering advice, direction and all mater of chatter. bangalore, india, june 30th, 2009.

the right choice

i’ve already had my say on slumdog millionaire, and mumbai. but that was before they won, everything. on oscar night, or oscar morning in india, eight statues is a bloody sweep!

slumdog millionaire is a story that echos the vortex of constant madness that is a place called mumbai. it is both a city of love and a city of hate, caught in the endless and very real aspirations of millions.

before the film, it was a city on everyone’s lips, horrified by events now slowly fading into the digital archives of TV news channels. real life lost, live on TV. events of random death in the midst of opulent hotel ballrooms, where millionaires are welcomed by a red carpet of entitlement; a city of ordinary people who never made it home, and are now forgotten by all expect those who loved them. that was after the terror, and before the film.

after the film, it was a city on every indian lip, and with an opinion to match. a city of extravagant hope where all comers are entertained; a city of celluloid ambition where the passport to promise is an unlikely walk on a red carpet in far way los angles. a dream where the city of angles meets the city of hope.

indians are a vicarious lot and will appropriate what is not rightfully theirs, even if tenuously indian by association. we love a winner, and generously welcome all pretenders. so, like all things indo-british, this film renewed the symbiotic and convoluted relationship of two histories intertwined.

while the british celebrated their sovereignty as independent film makers over the suzerainty of hollywood; millions in india, in different ways, celebrated some of their own, genuine talent known and talent latent.

but for mumbai, the final word goes to a r rahman, an indian, who won for best original score and song. in acceptance of his oscar he said, “all my life i had a choice between hate and love. i chose love, and i am here."

photogtaphs: the oscars, live on prime time breakfast TV, bangalore, india, february 23rd, 2009

fuzzy logic

i once did an undergraduate course in symbolic logic*, an example of which went something like this:

all men are sinners
jesus christ was a man
jesus christ was a sinner

by emerging consensus, the focus on addressing terror has now shifted away from afghanistan:

pakistan is the root of all evil
great britain created pakistan
great britain is the mother of all evil
obama should now attack great britain

and so, by extension:

i must be genius
i don't have a job
all geniuses are unemployed
the unemployed have no income
einstein was a genius
people without an income are hungry
the hungry often steal
most geniuses are thieves
thieves are criminals
einstein was an unemployed, hungry, thief...

and so on, and so forth, but i'll stop here.

*post scriptum: in anticipation of failure, i dropped the course

the ocean

my heart surges like the wrath of a wave
cascading a veil over unyielding truth.
my body resists like a forlorn cliff
fragmented by fissures and drowned in eternity.
my skin bubbles like the surface of the waters
parrying an indignant rain and wind and sun.
my heart beckons like the eye of a storm
seduced by promises of abiding tranquility.
my soul echos like the rhythm of the seas
patterned by the wisdom of time.

i am consumed by the tempest,
now frail of understanding and limp in reposte.
i ebb like a wave exhausted by travel,
a final tear dissolving in sand.
i return to creation awaiting my renascence,
a sentinel in the silence of the oceans.

photograph: hole in the wall, the transeki, south africa, december 2007

home of the brave and land of the free

“a nation of cowards”...? wo-ah eric, that’s pretty steep!

in a past age, a speech of this order would have been proscribed, banned, deemed un-american (read: damn communist), or perhaps, just ignored. as you might expect, it came from a black man. but not just any ole’ black man, it came from the attorney general of the united states, the nation’s chief law enforcement honcho.

arguably, america has been bequeathed a legacy of race and bigotry like no other people. parenthetically, as michelle obama observed, her new house was build by slaves. indeed, race, like blood, runs deep in the veins of america.

acculturation, assimilation, desegregation, affirmative action, are all among the many tags that come to mind as america has struggled to reconcile the ideal that “all men were created equal” with a judeo-christian heritage where god wasn’t color blind.

it has taken brave men and women in this young nation to address and try to break the chains of the racial divide, and america can be proud of its resilience and ability to move forward. america carries the heavy burden of race and hate better than most. however flawed.

unlike britain, or any other european colonial nation, the united states cannot stand accused of hypocrisy. it has done more than most to rectify an unjust legal framework and open its paramount institutions as vehicles for racial change.

the united states armed forces is a case in point. it would be impossible to imagine a general colin powell (incidentally, knight commander of the order of the bath and the son of a british subject) being able to go so far in the british army, much less a high representative statesman of her majesty’s government.

eric holder has not (re)ignited the racial debate. he is honest rather than angry; optimistic over incriminatory; brutal as opposed to inflammatory, all while trying to connect the dots of history.

neither his own position, nor the election of president obama can be seen as an end in this journey for true racial equality. if anything, it opens a new chapter of discourse, challenge and change.

in all of this, there has been one glaring omission: the forgotten history of those who were there first, the native american. wither their history and culture and races?

and finally, it’s not my call to agree or otherwise with eric holder. but when i think of cowardice today, i don’t need to look much further that a group bandits, thugs and scoundrels that call themselves the guardians of india’s constitution.

patrimony

legacy may be nothing more than an editable entry in wikipedia; a charitable obituary in the times of london; the eulogy of a teary-eyed and sniffing larry king, a-live; a midnight eve’s whisper in them old and bloodied cotton fields back home; man's obsessive belief in his own procreative prowess; or, is it just a random round of AK47 gunfire, echoing the cold of a kabul night, lost forever?

photograph: bhagavan gomateshwara bahubali (the world's tallest monolithic statue, 988 AD), shravanabelagola, karnataka state, india, january 2009

the city of my birth

the south indian city of bangalore was once a place of gardens and temperate climes. a city of civility and clean air. it exuded the graciousness of obsolete anglo-indian affectation; proffered the pleasant architecture of perceived grandeur; left one unthreatened by bridge playing retirees; and was mostly benign on the seven senses.

but that was then.

hey, hey yeddyurappa*, i wrote you a song
'bout a funny ol' town that's a-comin' along.
seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired an' it's torn,
it looks like it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born.**

*yeddyurappa is the chief minister of the state of which bangalore is the capital city
** apologies to bob dylan & a song to woody

innocence saved

the ubiquitous digital camera records our images of holiday escapades for posterity. or, till our hard disks crash. in the meanwhile, i, the unsuspecting guest, am obliged to absorb these pixelated souvenirs when visiting friends, relatives or acquaintances.

i love traveling and photography but am careful to temper my enthusiasm to share, lest i too become the object of scorn and derision.

cambodia is slowly emerging from the shadows as an exhilarating destination to explore. it is a country rich in history, but ravaged by the residual scars of conflict and struggling to emerge from dislocation and poverty. tourists are coming and their hard dollars provide a desperately needed injection of liquidity.

but, there is a more sinister injection of fluids. cambodia is a destination of choice and a haven for pedophiles. crimes against the weakest and the most defenseless are never relative. but, sexual and physical atrocities against children are the most repugnant of all crimes. if there is any way we can contribute to eradicating this abomination, we have no choice but to act.

from his book, sacred vows, the cambodian poet u sam oeur writes:

may the boddhi tree be free to grow.
may the sugar palm be free from blame.
may the supernatural devils be banished from cambodia.
may peace be restored
to the people of this land.

photographs: cambodia, august 2005

quo vadis

the human journey is often depicted as epic. for most of us, it’s a practical quest to overcome the mundane tasks that ensure we can just get on with it.

we are schooled to seek directional assistance, both spiritual and temporal; signposts of life that speak with authority and which we do not question.

the threat of terrible punishment and eternal damnation defers our creative inclination to wander and speculate. religious texts and traffic signs are the most obvious everyday examples.

one of my favorite scenes from lawrence of arabia is the incredulous look on sherif ali’s face (omar sharif) as lawrence (peter o’toole) points across the vast expanse of the worst place that god created, the nefud desert, and says, aqaba is over there, it is only a matter of going...

> lacking courage, it’s a mantra i repeat whenever i see the woman of my imagination.

> at peril of life and limb, it’s a mantra i repeat every time i cross a street in india.

> at the risk of divorce, it’s a mantra i repeat every time i am required to socialize, involuntarily.

life is simple: it is only a matter of going...

photograph: ankor vat, siem reap, cambodia, august 2005

the cost of reality

picasso once said, everything you can imagine is real.

possibly. but still, these are challenging times. parking will set you back $18 and entry to the MOMA, assuming you’re an adult who needs a fix to indulge your imagination, another $20.

reading my blog is still free.

photographs: MOMA, NYC, summer 2008

of slumdog millionaires; and millionaire slumdogs

so then, what is the correct answer?

mumbai is a city of dreams. it’s where great wealth infuses with frightening poverty. it’s where the contradictions of modern india are locked in an epic battle, painted on a canvass of 230 odd square miles, peopled by 19 million souls. there are winners, and there are losers.

mumbai is a city of glitz. it’s where some of the world’s richest flaunt their wealth in an endless game of oneupmanship, sweltering between flashbulbs of the paparazzi, the extreme humidity (when not being chauffeured in an air conditioned bentley), and the constant challenge of keeping up in a look-at-me, look-at-me world.

mumbai is a city of commerce. the great corporate houses of india sit on some of the most expensive real estate known to humankind. there are the johnny-come-latelys whose wealth can write off the debt of zimbabwe; and there are the old, established businesses whose philanthropy dates back a century before the idea of corporate responsibility was invented.

mumbai is a city of hard workers. it’s strong ethic often rewards those who can sacrifice the lure of immediate gratification for the security of their progeny. it is a city which can reward and empower. it’s a place where the sex workers in one of the largest and most desolate red light districts of the world run their own bank in an attempt to break the bondage of pimps and money lenders.

mumbai is the city of bollywood. the film factory of the world where mediocrity largely rules over talent. where actors own cricket teams to live out their own dreams and delusions of grandeur. where the same actors endorse any product, if the money is right. and, when voices need to be heard, are (mostly) conspicuous and complicit by their silence. bollywood is also pissed-off that it wasn’t listed in the credits of a film, set in its very own backyard.

mumbai is a city that never ceases to amaze me. it is a city of self-belief and resilience, of tolerance and dignity, of fairy tail endings and tragedy; and yes, it is a city of great virtue in midst of greed, vice, violence and bigotry. it is a city of interdependence and mutual exclusivity. it is a city whose continued health lives on the very cancer that erodes it.

at the end of the day, mumbai is a city about its people. mumbai is india’s melting pot. and of course, everybody wants to become a millionaire!

and slumdog millionaire (the film) has got everybody hopping and hoping. hopping about an unjust portrayal of india. hopping in embarrassment about a space-age nation moving at bullock-cart pace. hopping at the stench of open drains behind glass paned skyscrapers. hoping that ‘india’ will sweep the oscars. hoping to join a party and become player in a hollywood story.

the film was my time and money well spent. it was engaging, as a work of mainstream provocation and creative expression should be. as an ‘aware indian’, it wasn’t particularly insightful. as someone who thinks he can laugh at indian idiosyncrasies, it was fun. but, in and amongst the portrayal of the soft underbelly of an emerging nation, we see the fundamentals of inequality which will destroy a vision of india, if not spoken of in honesty.

it’s likely that the social polarization of india will continue apace, hand in hand with economic growth. gandhi was as much about the myth of peaceful change and transition as he was an accurate narrator of india's fundamental weaknesses. the film, by the way, has a great narrative structure.

india is not fundamentally a non-violent society, and (i presume) the marginalized do not see themselves as the ‘children of god’ consigned to fate.

india is guilty of trying to find practical solutions in ignorance and semantics. there are two prime suspects: politicians of dubious legal standing and pedigree; and of course bollywood, culpable in the great post-independence hoax of creating an ethos of false aspiration.

if india is to take it's place (apparently, rightfully earned) on the high-table of world movers and shakers, it needs to grow up and shed it's inferiority complex by confronting its own disheartening realities.

india is neither an idea nor a metaphor for the poetry of hope. in its complexities we are confronted with some very simple truths:

india is an exceptionally beautiful and rich country in which there is great ugliness and horrid poverty; as diverse as it is parochial.

india is an ancient civilization of high culture in an advanced state of denial.

audacious is an adjective which we use when thinking outside the expected. audacity, be it either that of hope or change, propelled a man to go where he wasn’t welcome or indeed expected: be it the white house in washington DC; or a mansion on harbour road, mumbai.

oh, and by the way, the correct answer is, “D”: it is written.