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.