Learning to Exhale

Christmas Eve! I picked up some things I need for my salad tomorrow – beets, pea shoots, extra virgin olive oil, Tuscan bread. The stores today were busy but not crazy, impatient busy. Or maybe it felt that way to me because I was more focused in my purchases this time and was not dashing about madly. While I’m not an overly last-minute kind of person, I have felt that my gift-purchasing technique leaves much to be desired. I make a list and then add things to it as I'm browsing the stores. I always wonder if I have enough for such-and-such person and then I buy another thing or two. Not only is this technique guaranteed to raise your anxiety levels sky-high, it also means that you will end up with bags of gifts in your closet from years past that were not given to the intended recipient, as it seemed like overkill when the time came to wrap it all up (pun intended). Some of the toys that I had bought for my kids are now past their age-appropriateness and will have to be given away as birthday presents.

To combat this unfortunate tendency, I made a list this year. And, although it was very hard, I stuck to it. It meant that I had to force myself to leave cosmetics stores having bought exactly one perfume and without the added brush and hair accessories that I would have thrown into my basket in previous years. When it came to buying a gift for X, I bought the sweater that I had noted down and regretfully left behind the cute little leather wristlet that I spied in the corner and that I thought went so well with it. When I had the Sticky Mosaics wrapped up, (the one that M. loves and the one that is not out till April but that my local toy store owner had managed to order), I stopped with that. No little dolls or stuffed candy cane shaped toys. Sticking to this strategy means that, for the first time in years, I have time to relax and read a book on Christmas Eve. The presents are ready, the cookies for Santa are baked (done by K. and the kids), the outstation gifts have been sent. So, this year it’s just me and my book – and my computer. And I can actually go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. Merry Christmas!

The End of American Freedom?

Freedom to travel abroad without too much red tape, that is. Ever since the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, when a bunch of murderous thugs assaulted a bunch of innocent civilians for no reason at all, ever since the masterminds of that attack were traced back to Pakistan, ever since one of the star players turned out to be a man of American origin, looking of European descent, polygamous, a triple agent, drug runner, carrying an American passport, that unstated right of Americans to travel freely is under threat. Jihad Jane didn't help, either, the American case for unhindered international travel for American citizens. And, what was once whispered, is now being spoken loudly. The British for example are now questioning American security checks for incoming flights. And while most of this article focuses on the threat to the United States by American-born, or American-raised terrorists, it was this passage that caught my eye:

With their innate knowledge of the country's psyche and the ease with which they can travel the country without being detected, the U.S. passport-carrying terrorists have become a nightmare for counter-intelligence agents (emphases mine)

So, now we have global unease directed at that heretofore unlikely candidate - the American international traveller. Since the end of the nineteenth century, but definitely since the end of the Cold War, the American traveller has been a pampered, fussed-over specimen, roaming freely like the bison of the Great Plains, or like the deer or the antelope of said Plain. Whether outrageously wealthy or just comfortably middle class (poor Americans tend to staycation), the arrival of the American wanderer on foreign shores was greeted with cries of joy by peddlers of counterfeit and luxury brands alike. His or her presence drove up the local prices of taxicabs, household help wages, and brought about the global availability of ketchup. Visa rules were changed or bent for the convenience of this usually genial (although somewhat sartorially challenged) traveller and the non-reciprocity of entry rules for people wishing to enter the United States was seen as understandable (after all, everyone wants to go to the land of milk and honey, right?). American travellers swanned through entry points, checkpoints and sometimes, customs bureaus.

Now, though, international terrorism is changing all that. In the days before 9/11, the bad guys looked, well, brown and Middle Eastern (or Slavic), they couldn't possibly be American, right? And blond-haired, blue-eyed men and women must be on the side of the angels, right? These days, though, innocence no longer looks exclusively European and villainy no longer comes only in darker shades of skin tone. An American passport and a gleaming set of well-tended American teeth are not anymore an automatic guarantee of welcome all over the world. Already, India has put into place stringent new rules about the entry and exit of foreign nationals, global investment opportunities be damned. I mean, when it's a choice between the lives of your own citizens and the ease of entrance for some unknown American, which would you choose? Add to this a suspicion about the real motives of American citizens abroad (for example, are they really taking innocent tourist shots with their expensive cameras, or are they doing a recce of potential targets for terrorist strikes?), throw in a growing perception that the United States is flat broke, deep in debt and in general global decline and then I think, at least in the medium term future, distrust of the American traveller will be a scenario throughout the globe. American globetrotters, don't say you weren't warned: be ready to wait in line at immigration and customs, and prepare to be scrutinized much more closely

Things I Like About My Life

As fall seeps into our lives again, all crusty condensation and crunchy colors, I look back on my life over the last ten years here in southwestern Connecticut. Yes, it's been ten years for us here - a period of change and transformation. A big move from the midwest, pregnancy, motherhood, renovation, writing, reading, worrying about the economy...But overall, I would say that despite all the changes, life here is pleasant in more ways than one can count. "Here are a few of my favorite things":

First, there is the unquestionable prettiness of the place. Despite the McMansions, the overdevelopment, the terrifying roar of I-95 and the shock and awe of consumer prices, the land and its beauty still break through - in the sweep of a tree branch over the Merrit Parkway, all burnt red and orange in October, in the quietness of the little lanes that meander their way around neighborhoods, in the curve of a slope on Redding Road, in the whiteness of a church perched on a hillside, shining against a clear blue sky.

Second, I actually like the reserve of people here. Many revile the coldness and the stiffness of the Connecticut WASP. But a) it's actually far more diverse here than people think, at least in Fairfield County and b) I actually don't mind the famous northeastern reserve. In fact, I am relieved. When I lived in the lower midwest, way back, I felt at times that I would burst with vexation at people's fervent opinionatedness especially on matters that I consider intensely personal - religion. Not that in-your-face intolerance is totally unknown in the northeast but there's a reason why that blasted, hatemongering church is located "there" and not in Fairfield County.

Third, it's just close enough to the big city. I love, love, love city life. But I have accepted that we will be suburban parents and a suburban family. Still, it is so nice to able to pop into New York whenever I really get the urge to pep up my life, dress up a little, and eat something different and well-prepared (and well-presented). And even nicer to know that I can take the train in and out in relative safety and comfort and only have to worry about bringing home a bedbug or three on my person.

Fourth, my family is happy here. And in the final analysis, is there any other reason that matters?

Rebellion is a Lonely Road

I recently read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's new book, Nomad. I had already read her Infidel, a book that left me curiously untouched. And I was prepared for yet more agente provocateuse type of staccato gunfire at the Somali culture into which she was born and at the broader Islamic culture of which she was forced to be a part for many years. Written as an insight into how religious fundamentalism exacerbates familial and social dislocation, there is some needless taunting in this book too. What also struck me was Hirsi Ali's lack of knowledge about some things, and the employment of ignorance as a building block for her own narrative. For example, Hirsi Ali dismisses anticolonialsim. Colonialism in her view is a good thing because it brought western style feminism to the colonies (p. 132). Even though she confines this observation to the Muslim world, it still struck me as rather silly, given that so many of the ills of the present-day Muslim world stem from the colonial support to pliant conservative traditionalists and from the wholesale suppression of liberal voices as "disobedient dissidence." I mean, if all the left-liberal-secular people have been either killed or expelled, who else is left but the die hard orthodox? And in comparison to them, of course the colonial authorities would appear sane. And as I come from a country whose founding fathers and mothers were nothing if not wholeheartedly committed to social reform and the rights of women, that part of Hirsi Ali's argument just sank without any resonance.



Having got that out of the way, let me say that I found much in Nomad that was deeply moving and that resonated with me in many ways. For one thing, there is the sheer enormity of the distance that this woman has travelled. Ayaan Hirsi Ali does not belong to the group of women who began their lives in airconditioned rooms and ended their careers in the luxurious confines of well-funded think tanks. Her life was a hard one that most of us can only imagine - refugee camps, tents, household duties as a child, etc. Many of her observations might well have been my own. For example, when she described the Quran school in Mogadishu and how the lessons there were enforced through terrible corporal punishment (p. 186), my memory took me straight back to the little school I attended in rural Punjab in the 1970s, where the principal beat the boys (and, less often, the girls) quite terribly for all sorts of infractions, from not doing homework to not having a clean enough uniform. Although I never got beaten, I remember the silent terror such scenes induced in all of us.

I never lived in fear of my life (except for one long trip on a night train in Punjab during the 1980s) but I identify with her descriptions of the hardships of life in other countries. I keep quiet often during conversations with my friends here because it is impossible to explain to people who have grown up here what it means when one has to store water in buckets (because of severe water shortages) and how in my hostel (dorm) in JNU, I have seen grown women fighting over water, over who stole whose bucket of the precious fluid. There is simply no common experience that would enable my suburban friends to understand these things. But I have a feeling that Ayaan Hirsi Ali would recognize that scene and would smile and nod along with me. And when she writes about how poor, non-western immigrants to the west are often flummoxed about how to handle money, sex, and violence, I nod in agreement with her. The difference is, I think, in degrees. Most rural (and some urban) Indians would sympathize with the values she describes as prevailing among Muslim migrants to the west - control your women lest they become "wayward", beat them if they dissent, kill them if they break too audaciously with the prevailing culture. What keeps most of them in line (at least as immigrants) is a sixty-year tradition of at least lip service to the might of the law. That, and the fact that most of them understand that education is the key to getting ahead in the modern world. It is respect for the law that seems to be lacking among the people Hirsi Ali describes. But I wonder if it has less to do with the religion and more to do with the fact that most of the people she describes come from lands where there has been little law and order for decades. Of course, the pat answer would be that the lack of law and order is due to the religion. But then, I don't see how Hirsi Ali would categorize the lawlessness of that very non-Muslim country, Mexico.

Overall, despite my reservations about some of her analysis, I did sympathize with Ayaan Hirsi Ali's life story. My heart ached for her loneliness, trapped in a polygamous, dysfunctional family. Polygamy - how does that even work? Hirsi Ali's answer: it doesn't. Her anger is understandable, if not always justified, given that dysfunctional families are not something that Somalis or Muslims have a copyright on. And while her prescriptions sometimes seem strange (a Christian leadership against the "onslaught of Islam"?) and while she downplays emerging fascist trends in the west (the Koran burning pastors, the cabby-stabbing ideologues), I felt that I, too, could understand the enormous significance of her nomadic life. You've come a long way, baby.

Come September

It's September, time for things like apples and grapes, cooler temperatures and, above all, and thank God, time for school! Oh, I was sad when my little M. boarded the bus for the first time. But oh, how I danced a jig when I could sit down with my second cup of tea in delicious, uninterrupted - silence! Well, I danced a mental jig, of course, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to drink that tea.

My book contract has been signed, my manuscript is almost all ready, and now I have to face up to my blog dilemma. Once the book is out, my identity will no longer be hidden. So should I continue the semi-anonymity of this blog - this semi-private log which only a few friends and family know about? Or should I just put my name to it and direct more traffic here? I am tempted to go with the first option as I really enjoy writing without the burden of a known audience. And after all, I can always start a new blog for the book.

I have to say though that I have become the caricature of the writer-type. As the deadline approaches and I am writing frantically, I am always skulking around my home - in my faded t-shirt and yoga pants, running my fingers through my messy hair as I think through an idea, consuming hot tea by the gallon. And, generally, looking a sight. Ah well, what did they say about making sausages? It's the same way with writing. Readers should be very glad they don't see the author during the writing process. It ain't a pretty sight.

Closer and closer

We recently returned from a road trip that took us, among other places, to Michigan. The first thing that struck me was just how much shabbier the highways are in the midwest. The recession looms large there. En route to Michigan, we drove through the other struggling state of Ohio. Here too, there was seeming calmness, except that the big fat debris of tyre bits left by big eighteen-wheelers had not been picked up. Judging by the amount of debris on the roads in Michigan and Ohio, nobody had cleaned in several days or maybe weeks. Despite all the grumbling we engage in here, in southwestern Connecticut, our infrastructure is still intact, if seriously creaky. There was a normality too, the houses didn't seem any better or worse than ones I have seen here. But inside those houses, who knows what the people were going through?

And, inexorably, like a bad dream, like the proverbial freight train, the recession has come closer to home. An acquaintance here is moving out to a western state, unable to withstand anymore the double whammy of losing her job and expensive repairs to a storm-damaged house. Another friend in the midwest is on the verge of declaring personal bankruptcy. Thirty years of a successful business all lost to the tsunami of an economic crisis of historic proportions. Elsewhere, friends in the corporate world are complaining of enormous stresses at jobs that no longer seem either secure or particularly fulfilling. I also have friends who have had to take paycuts but are thankful to at least have a job at all. And some of these people I know are immigrants like me, so they feel the tenuousness of their position particularly keenly. Where do you go when your nearest support system is thousands of miles away?

It all makes me very nervous. I have never felt that money came to me very easily. The line of work I am in is not renowned for making millionaires of its practitioners. I have made my peace with this enforced frugality, in return for a measure of job satisfaction. But job satisfaction does not pay bills, especially not the kind of bills that we see here in Fairfield County, Connecticut. So, now I think it is time for me to reconsider my financial attitudes, to search for a way in which I can contribute better and more meaningfully to the household economy. Poor K., the main provider for us, might need from me a less head-in-the-clouds attitude. But then again, the question is how?....Where are the jobs? And, just as importantly, what are the jobs? And finally, do I really want to do anything other than write?....

...And of Language

B. stayed with me about two weeks. She was on her first visit from India to the US. I was about to write “maiden visit” and then realized how easily I had slipped back into Indian/British English which would be incomprehensible to readers here. During B.’s stay, I uttered words that I had not used in a long time, like “passed out” from college. And most of all, I became bi-lingual again. B. and I chatted in Hindi and English, sentences beginning in one language and ending in the other, and also slipped in words from our respective languages, Bengali (mine) and Tamil (hers).

Growing up, being bilingual was no extra-ordinary thing for us, middle-class children of socialist India. English was the language the British left behind, English was the language of the working world, of incomprehensible bureaucratese, English was the language of the music on our cassette and record players and was the words coming out of improbable-looking (to us) men and women in American movies.

But, our mother tongues were the languages of our sly humor, of our landscapes, of our identity. At home, my mother would break into Rabindrasangeet and would recite verses of Tagore’s poems, for reasons ranging from the weather to her moods. There were no words in English adequate to describe the beauty of the monsoon rain or the golden harvest of Baisakhi. Only Hindi or Bengali or Tamil or another Indian language could yield satisfactory images of our world – rain clouds as thick and dark as a woman’s long hair, an aanchal, “kelenkari” (social stigma). And then, of course, there were movie scenes that were utterly hilarious only if you were bilingual or had some idea of the interplay of English and Indian languages.

But equally importantly, bi-lingualism made us mentally flexible, cognitively agile. My linguistic nimbleness is fading now after years of monolingual English, but it comes back now and then. Such as when confronted by Indians of a certain age in shopping malls who hesitate and ask me in broken English for “the lift”. Unlike many monolingual others who gape at them, dumbfounded, I know that they are asking for “the elevator”. I require an approximation to comprehend, not absolutely exact words in a language. In another life, back in India, that’s exactly what I used to say: “Where’s the lift?” On the other hand, I still need more elaboration when one of my kids demands, on an almost daily basis, “Where’s the thing for that thing?”

Of Visitors...

Recently, an old friend from India came to visit. I was able to see my home of ten years, my country of residence for nineteen years, through new eyes and to revisit the time when I was a newcomer to the land. To her, America was a nice break from her usual routine. She felt cold in May, for it was much cooler here than in India where the parched land was sweltering, still waiting for the monsoon rains to break. We spent much of the time, chatting, chatting, chatting, making up for time not spent together in the last thirteen years.

Through B.'s appearance and actions, I recalled my slow adjustments in the early years. My friend looked good in her hand-sewn handloom cottons and her big bindi. Her dresses glowed in the luminous spring light at this time of year. But I had looked so out of place nineteen years ago, wearing clothes that looked odd in 1990s Chicago. A lot of handloom cotton whose colors and patterns didn’t look right in the grey fall and winter of the Midwest. A hairstyle that wasn’t quite right either. Like an exuberant peacock in a grim Arctic land. It’s something to do with the way the light falls on the colors in the autumn and winter. I quickly moved to dull plaids and knits, merging my body into the winter landscape.

B.’s little moves also reminded me of my earlier self. The conversion of rupees into dollars and the horrified realization that one had spent so many rupees! The rushing steps to the buses and trains in New York City, only to realize that there was no enormous rush of people all fighting to squeeze in (well, maybe during rush hour, but we went into the city at off-peak times). Her intake of breath and lit-up eyes at the glowing, beautiful buildings on Fifth Avenue, especially the Met, made me remember with affection my similar response to the grandeur and beauty of Chicago’s skyline and Lake Shore Drive. By the end of the trip, I saw B. relax gradually, like I had years earlier, and enjoy the abundance of resources that I now take for granted. What a wonderful visit for both of us!

The Flotilla

So many political posts in a row. I guess I'm a very political person. And yes, although I have not dedicated a long post to the current crisis about the aid flotilla sailing to Gaza, I do have strong opinions about it. I believe Israel is completely wrong to have attacked the flotilla with such overwhelming force. I do not believe that the Turkish volunteers were completely peaceful either as the video shows quite clearly.

I believe in the right of Israel to exist and I also believe that the Palestinians deserve their own, absolutely viable state. Which means no open-air prisons and Bantustans like Gaza. The more I think about it, the more I think that the first post-independence Indian leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru got it right. Opposing the partition of Palestine, they hoped for the establishment of a bi-national secular state. This was radical in its day and is still radical today. I doubt whether the votaries of either a Jewish state or a Palestinian state will go in for a wholly secular single state. In the end, though, this is the only lasting solution to the problem. It may be a pipe dream right now, but the alternative is either a Lebanon-like disaster (which is what happens when you try to create a multi-ethnic state based on religious hedging of bets rather than outright secularism) or else a continuous state of war. And Israel will only continue to win that war while her chief patron, the United States, remains strong. Unfortunately, the chief patron is going through a severe economic recession. There may not be much money left to protect clients in the near-term future. And I don't think China is going to step in anytime soon to fill the budget gap. Besides, as the state of Pakistan should make clear to Israel, one shouldn't base one's existence on one's indispensability as a client state.

There's Something About Nikki

Yes, an obligatory post about poor Nikki Haley. There's nothing Haley can do right, or so it seems. Born to Indian immigrant parents, the Sikh-turned-Methodist daughter of the state of South Carolina is now the target of a witchhunt by the good ol' boys of her state's political establishment. She is accused of having an affair with not one but two rather unsuitable men, if one can call them that. Haley is also slammed for being a "raghead", not fit to occupy the Governor's mansion.

I think there are two things going on here, both of them working against poor Ms. Haley. First, in American politics, one of the surefire ways to derail a political candidate's run for office is to insinuate, assert or establish salacious sexual scandal. Given the odd mix, particularly in the South, of extreme religiosity and sexual licentiousness, Haley was bound to be subject to the test of sexual purity, the Bible Belt's own version of the Agnipariksha, or a trial by ordeal. She must be made to suffer and endure, and if found guilty, banished, exiled, sent away. I don't know the truth about Haley's personal life and choices, but this is not about her lack of morals, it is about the morals of the society she wants to govern as an elected candidate. A society she wants to govern as a woman. Tough society you chose to live in, Nikki.

The second way to defeat a candidate even before the voters decide, is to cast him or her as alien. This is an especially tempting strategy for the good ol' (otherwise unelectable) boys for there is nothing that Nikki Haley can do about her lineage. She was born into a Sikh family, was raised a Sikh and only changed her religion because she fell in love with someone of a different faith. She cannot change her DNA or even the color of her (rather light) skin. Her current, ardent Methodism holds no merit for her South Carolina opponents, for no amount of religiosity can change the fact that she is, well, desi. And she is therefore quite susceptible to being called a "raghead" over and over again. Just ask Barack Hussein Obama.

If ever there was a moment when the politics of race and sex combined, this is one of the leading examples. The way forward, Nikki Haley, is to take a deep breath and keep moving forward, regardless of your private deeds and/or misdeeds. Or, to embrace your desi roots and sing like Guru Dutt in Pyaasa about how, even if you win this world, is this world really worth it? There's one particularly nice line about "this world of societies, the enemy of human beings...so what if you win this world?"

A Tale of Two Faisals

So, it turns out that Faisal Shahzad is just another spoilt brat from the developing world, with a massive sense of entitlement and and absolutely no self-awareness. "Why do you have to follow democracy?" asks Faisal, the well-funded son of a retired Pakistani airforce officer, in a long email to like-minded vipers. (Btw, someone needs to find out if the source of Faisal's father wealth is legit, or -as is common - just the well-known cornering of national resources by a corrupt power elite).

"Why do you have to follow democracy (Human-made laws) if you're already given Laws revealed from Allah, Quran and Sunnah?" asks the moron who went nightclubbing as an undergraduate at the University of Bridgetport, before he turned into the proverbial ungrateful viper. Why indeed, Faisal, why indeed? You answered that question very well, didn't you, you self-entitled jackass (can there be a hybrid viper-jackass)? In fact, if you have any more of such "divinely-revealed" laws for the world, well then, thank you very much, but no thanks. The world definitely does not need any more such laws as articulated by the babalog .



Half a world away, there is another Faisel. Dr. Shah Faisel, a resident of Indian Kashmir, lost his father to terrorism at a young age. An incident that might have broken him and his remaining family turned the young boy into something else. Instead of turning that rage into venom, and becoming a ticking timebomb against innocents, Dr. Faisel used the past seven years to turn himself into somebody worthy of celebration. He first studied to become a physician, then decided to take the extremely hard Indian Civil Services Exam, leaving home to study at the supportive Hamdard Study Circle in New Delhi. To give you an idea of just how hard it is to get through, in 2007 approximately 300,000 people took the exam, of which about 800 were finally selected. About the same numbers and proportions for this year too. And Dr. Shah Faisel was the topper, as in "stood first" in Indian English, the first Kashmiri to top the exam and to add to the pool of Indian Muslims within the ranks of India's policymakers.

Perhaps, it is because Dr. Shah Faisel was not one of the babalog, perhaps because his circumstances were so very different from his namesake buffoon in North America, perhaps because he had no one to give him regular cash infusions, perhaps because he didn't have an inflated sense of entitlement, that he was able to do something positive for himself, for the memory of his murdered father, and for his community. As he described the tragedy that struck him, "I had only two choices - to be bogged down, or to stand up and face the challenge." And unlike the cowardly Faisal of Bridgeport, the Faisel of Kashmir will be held up as a role model for other Indian Kashmiris to follow.

The Bridgeport Bomber

So what the ?*!!*** were you thinking, Mr. Faisal Shahzad? You studied in this country, found a job here, married a resident, your children are Americans, and you still want to harm this country?! Exactly what kind of schmuck are you? Exactly what kind of malevolent d***head would do that? I know, a d***head like you.

So, worldwide terrorism is now just a few towns over from us. And this of course means that the New England life as we know it is not quite the same anymore. What I love about this part of the country is the sheer pleasantness of it. There is my deep-rooted love for the Midwest and especially for Chicago, but southwestern Connecticut with its just-right distance from New York City, its sun-splashed beaches, Trader Joe’s and Stew Leonard’s – is just so darned pleasant! I can imagine hating it for its Stepford Wives-esque little towns, its complete lack of diversity, its high prices and its lack of sidewalks or bicycle paths. I’ve grumbled over all of these things with friends and to myself. But would I try and destroy the place over these flaws? Of course not! If you didn’t like America, dear Shahzad, if you didn’t like whitebread Connecticut (although that hardly applies to Bridgeport), you had the option to leave and go someplace closer to your comfort level.

And is this even the right way to vent your anger or your rage? How many Vietnamese lost their lives in an unjust war in the 1950s and 1960s? Do you see any of their descendants flying planes into skyscrapers or planting bombs among innocents out of a misguided, I would even say a self-entitled, sense of grievance? Two wrongs do not make a right, Mr. Shahzad, no matter how much you may try and stretch the argument that way.

And that brings me to another topic. What if you were the parent of someone like Shahzad? How hard must that be, to see your beloved child turn out to have not just murderous tendencies but a mass-murderer streak? What must that do to you, the parents of said thug? It’s possibly one’s worst nightmare come true.

Should parents bear any responsibility for their grown children’s waywardness? Perhaps not, but I do have one general piece of advice. All these people went nuts because someone from outside the family preached a warped message of hatred to them, in the name of religious instruction. And the parents and family members probably approved of their “good” son spending hours in a religious setting, mixing with other “good boys” and “pious men”. And then they are perplexed about the outcome. “But he was always so good!” is the refrain. Well, the lesson is that religious instructors aren’t always good people. I know, it seems contradictory, but just ask the Catholic Church. In other word, dear parents of international terrorists: don’t get lazy about your parental duties. It’s your job to teach your children the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. Religious instruction and moral instruction start at home. So, don’t outsource morality to your church, mosque, temple or synagogue. And perhaps everyone else can rest a little easier, then.

My 'India' Film - Inside the Mind of a Filmmaker

India is the flavor of the month. So I've got to make a film about it. And so now I, part of a new generation of Hollywood directors, am making my way to South Asia to make films “about India”. No, I don’t know any Indian filmmakers, have never watched Indian films, and really couldn’t name any Indian actors. But that doesn’t matter at all. You see, my film's really not going to be about India at all and most definitely not about Indians. They will just be somewhere in the background looking colorful and dancing Bollywood dances. Ultimately, my ‘India’ film will be a western film about western themes – you know, individualism and liberty and raw sex, and just coincidentally the setting will be in India. Because, you see India is the flavor of the month, and everyone just has to have made at least one film in India.

Update: Apologies are in order. I re-read the article to which I linked and now I'm sorry that I criticized the filmmaker. It seems to me that the reporter basically asked all sorts of leading questions about her interest in India, etc. and her responses were basically polite "yes, I'd like to do that" kind of replies. But like Danny Boyle, chances are the film will probably follow the format outlined above. And then, it will be the Slumdog Millionaire experience redux. Awards and hoopla in the west, and a deflating non-event in India. I can already see the director scratching her head and wondering, "Why the heck didn't Indians in India like my film?"

Easter

It's a perfect spring day here. Brilliant sunshine, mild temperatures, crocuses and daffodils out in full strength (not mine, thanks to the deer, another post about that). And it's Easter Sunday. We are going to have a nice Easter brunch, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and the works. And since we don't go to church, it's going to be a restful day for the most part, I hope.

As it's K.'s "holiday" (sort of), he has to organize the festivities. We went to an Easter egg hunt yesterday and the kids had a blast, running around picking up their candy, their faces alive with excitement and happiness. Then a quick dinner at Senor Salsa in Fairfield and the day concluded most satisfactorily.

I am more attached to my Indian/Hindu traditions than is K. to his own religious ones. So on Durga Puja and Diwali, I do include the religious aspects of my culture. But more and more, keeping our respective traditions alive involves food. So Thanksgiving and Christmas are about preparing huge meals together and eating them with each other and with friends (besides the gifts for Christmas). The turkey, the mashed potatoes, the sweet potatoes, the tian, the pasta salad, etc. Diwali is all vegetarian, saag paneer, alu-gobi, dal makhani, baingan sabzi, and other yummy Indian stuff.

And now Easter too is about eating. But I like this tradition. We celebrate these occasions as a time for us all to come together as a family, as a group of friends, and be happy in each other's company. A full table brings us all around it to joke and laugh and chat (and for me to have some prosecco). And if this is what my children can take away from the meaning of holidays, Christian, Hindu or whatever, then I will have considered my job well done. Recently, I stumbled across some ultra-religious blogs - Christian, Muslim, Hindu - and I am just saddened at the meaning given to faith in those writings - the "this is the only truth" meaning, the "everyone else is damned" message, the "I'm so superior" attitude. I keep telling my kids that ethics and moral values are not related to piety. I can teach my kids perfectly well the difference between right and wrong, without dragging them to temple or church or mosque. And I also warn them repeatedly to never marry a religious fanatic (you can never start too early with the warnings!). And the best way to reinforce positive values is around a dining table full of good food cooked lovingly by one's mother and father, and joined by good friends. This I truly believe.

The Mobs that Never Came

Thinking of the relative calm and order during the disorderly time last week, when the storm laid low the western sections of Fairfield County, I decided to probe more deeply into the causes of the relative discipline and stoicism on display in these parts. Since these parts are what I call home for the forseeable future, I would like to, er, compare and contrast, analyze, etc.

Hurricane Katrina laid waste to Louisiana and Mississippi. New Orleans is in ruins, and the total breakdown there meant that people were pretty much on their own, which meant that there was widescale looting and rampaging through stores by members of the general public. The January earthquake in Haiti was also followed by lawlessness, looting and rioting. Last month's earthquake in Chile also triggered some sporadic looting of shops in Concepcion and Santiago (although nowhere near what the media reporting would have us believe).

I'd like to think that we are a special people here in Fairfield County, the We Don't Behave Like That kind of people. And yes, all of us who were affected behaved exceptionally well. Those without power and hot water ate at diners and restaurants, built fires and went without showers. Those who had power took in whole families for three days at a time, with no complaint. We all took a break from life and just chilled (well, some perhaps a little too literally for comfort). But might not our good behavior here have also to do with the fact that a) the storm did not affect all of Connecticut, so reinforcements could come in quickly but just as importantly b) we simply never imagined that the powers-that-be would NOT respond to our plight. They had to respond, this is Fairfield County!

Perhaps, that is the difference between us here in Fairfield County and the others in New Orleans, Port-au-Prince and Santiago. We don't loot and riot because the government comes in quickly to aid us in times of trouble, and we expect it to do so. The folks in the other places have no such grand expectations from the authorities. They know quite well that during a catastrophe, they will be abandoned. Rioting, looting, mayhem are not just a result of a breakdown, they are symptoms of a basic lack of faith in government because during normal times, the institutions of authority bypass those in the ghettoes and the shanties. When the punitive powers of the state - the police, the national guard, etc. - recede during earthquakes and hurricanes, the general feeling is that it's every person for himself or herself. Nobody's coming with repair crews and hot food, or at least not soon. It's the jungle and the best-armed will rule, even if briefly. To sum it up even more clearly - it is finally about class and access to power. I would have said that it's about race too but in this country race and class (especially in Louisiana and Mississippi) are so intertwined, that it doesn't need to be said.

The Storm

The Storm of 2010. What else do they call it? The worst weather-related disaster here in fifty years? The worst in 25 years? Well, basically, the worst in a long time. And we lived through it! People throughout lower Fairfield County lost power for several days. Hotels were sold out for miles around. Some people went away to New York (where things could not have been much better, especially in Westchester County) or to New Jersey to stay with friends and family. Many people had to toss out the contents of their fridges and freezers, a kind of Mother Nature-enforced deep cleaning, I guess.

At the risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish in the face of so much physical destruction and so much disruption to people's lives, may I just say that Fairfield County denizens were amazing! There was no breakdown of law and order. Nobody looted shops and warehouses. Firefighters did what they had to do, electrical workers worked long hours, and it helped that even the most frustrated people who had no power for days did not have meltdowns, at least not in public. Community spirit showed itself in the quiet opening of doors to friends and neighbors. Larger meals were cooked, more showers were taken in many households, and life went on despite the stress and the strain of being homeless, so to speak. Restaurants and hotels did fabulous business, of course, and the libraries were the gathering ground of hundreds. On Monday, I couldn't even park in the library's lot because there were so many people there.

How did we fare? Well, we were very fortunate, because we only lost power for one hour on Monday. We did have friends staying with us, which was fine because we drank wine and tea and ate cookies and pie. And the children just loved the extended sleepover-cum-playdate. We do have a pine tree in the neighbor's yard that is leaning over into our property, but the power's still on and one of these days, CL&P will take care of the tree. I'm not complaining.

Religion and Bollywood

There has been some commentary recently about Bollywood's take on Islamic terrorism. It did in fact occur to me too, that of all the major film industries in the world, it has been Bollywood, in all its overblown, screechy melodrama, that has had the guts to take on the most vexing question of our times - Islamic terrorism and Islamic identity post 9-11. Films like A Wednesday dealt with the problem of domestic terrorism in India and one man's (Naseeruddin Shah) quest to end it in the manner he knew best. More recently, at least three films have tackled the status of Muslims in post-9/11 America: New York, Kurbaan, and My Name is Khan.



I have seen (and liked, although I cannot endorse its solution) A Wednesday. Fast-paced drama and action with a central theme that lifts it way above the usual cop thriller genre. The manner in which the harmless, middle-class Naseeruddin Shah transforms himself into a ruthless killer (without firing a shot himself) was just amazing. I confess to not having watched the others, mainly because I dread the treatment of a serious issue such as Muslim profiling in a mainstream Bollywood fashion. I suppose I will rent and watch these films at some point, but I feel that all these movies will suffer from the same weakness - a director's temptation to take full advantage of a location shoot to throw in all kinds of things irrelevant to the main theme. Eyewitness reports for My Name is Khan confirm that, along with the central character's religious identity, the film also throws in Asperger's Syndrome, Hurricane Katrina and racial problems in the south. Can one film possibly be so many things to so many people?


But overall, what is interesting is that Bollywood films are trying to present these issues for discussion, in a manner in which Hollywood and western film industries are unable to do, except via exasperating acts of provocation like the Dutch filmaker, Geert Wilder's Fitna.

In India, in general, there is a meaningful discussion of Muslim identity in the news. What I found refreshing about the program on NDTV was that the panel included a range of Muslim opinion, including Bollywood stars like Shahrukh Khan and Soha Ali Khan but also verging-on-Taliban-type Dr. Zakir Naik. Perhaps, this is because there are so many Indian Muslims that one has to take their views into account, not just marginalize them.

Perhaps, the most interesting part of the program was the audience participation. There was a young Muslim woman in hijab who stated that she would try to "counsel" any potential hijab-less friend about the "correct" way. Another woman got up and said that if any young girl in her neighborhood suddenly started wearing a hijab, she would be "worried" about her. That, in my opinion, is at the heart of the differences between orthodox Muslims and others. The orthodox don't just consider that they are following their own path to God and please could the rest of us just leave them alone to do it. They do actually consider the unveiled and the unorthodox as "bad" or "misguided". Meanwhile, the unveiled and unorthodox consider the taking on of restrictive clothing and visible markers of identity (such as beards) as "abnormal" and "worrisome." Personally, I would side with the liberals and the progressives on this matter. I would never restrict the right of a woman to veil herself or that of a man to grow a beard and to wear a skull cap (as has done Nicolas Sarkozy of France). But, I am not sure whether the orthodox of any faith would respect my right to wear what I want and practise my faith freely, if they were in a position to influence public policy. That is the real difference between us.

Of Writing and Criticism

I’ve noticed on some expat blogs I read (occasionally), a posting or two that deals with comments and criticism. The blog authors are often of the view that the blog is their personal journal, opinions, reflections. Several have said that the blog is the equivalent of a personal diary, the random jottings-down of whatever floated into the authors’ minds on random occasions. If they don’t like what they read, blog authors argue, the readers are free to move on, stuff it, etc. In other words, people should not be getting personal in their criticism and comments on blogs because blogs are the personal opinions of their authors.

I disagree with these blog authors’ assumptions. A blog is not a personal journal. I don’t remember ever letting other people read my personal journal (last maintained in my early twenties in a small black calendar-type book). A blog is a personal account in a public space and therefore is looking for an audience. In the very act of looking for someone to read your blog, you have already made yourself a target of your public’s opinion. To complain afterward that the blog is a personal journal is simply trying to have your cake and eat it, too. You can’t want others to read and then to respond with only praise. Like a spoilt movie star railing against the critics. After all, dear blog authors, if you’re so proud of the brutal honesty of your opinions, then why would you think that your readers don’t have equally brutally honest responses to your expressed opinions? Of course, every blog author has the right to delete or block obscenities, name-calling, spam, and other garbage. But readers’ responses to one’s observations are very valid, and should be welcomed. Even if you don’t agree with their opinion about your opinion.

And if you really do believe that your blog is a personal diary, then (dear expat ladies in particular) please don’t list it in public fora like www.expat-blog.com or http://expatwomen.com . And if you’re really interested in keeping your observations restricted to only positively friendly readers, do make your blog invitation-only, would you?

Hypocrisy

It is really ironic that western nations are bearing down on the Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai, demanding that he crack down on corruption, when western leaders are unable to do anything at all about the immense web of corruption that has almost brought the western financial system to its knees.

This is cognitive dissonance at its best. There is a great deal of public anger building about outrageous banker bonuses at previously bailed out companies, but there is precious little that any western government can do to sling a few sorry, pin-striped behinds into jail as a warning to other transgressors. In the meantime, increasing numbers of people are out of jobs, school budgets are being cut left, right and center, and within the next year, many people may have to choose between food and home heating as energy prices are expected to rise. Not to mention, those pesky tea partiers are likely to party even harder this summer.

Given this dismal state of affairs at home, all the lecturing and hectoring of the (no-doubt) corrupt Afghans fail to leave any observer impressed. It especially fails to impress the observer with a keen sense of observation and irony. You see, dear formerly great wielders of global authority, information is now available to anyone with an internet connection and a Web browser. The old game of "do as I say, not as I do" is less and less of an option when a) you're broke and b) you are unable to clean out your own pig sty first.

There is a way, however, to get the Afghan government to conform to one's (abstract, theoretical) moral standards of fiscal integrity - threaten to leave, taking all the troops with one. The military option is really the only real leverage that donor nations have. Just don't invoke "values", "integrity" and "efficiency" as leverage against Afghan official corruption - doing so will only result in resounding and mocking laughter all around. Better still, let's get this fiscal mess sorted out here first, then we will all be in a position to lecture again.

New Year, Old Age

Happy New Year! It's been a while since I posted, as there has been a lot of stuff going on. For one thing, I finished the first draft of my first novel in December. It's a work of historical fiction set in British India during the Second World War. If I find an editor, then I guess that will be the end of my days of semi-anonymous blogging (semi-anonymous because, as I've said before, those who know me know that I blog here). For another thing, K. is trying to start a new venture. I can't talk about it until it is all up and running, all I can tell you is that it has to do with green energy and home heating and cooling. If you're interested in knowing more, leave me your email address in the comments section and I will direct you to his blog. In any case, looks like my days of gentle anonymity are coming to an end. Oh well.

But, I did start thinking about the big picture when K. started darting around, setting up meetings, teleconferencing, etc. This rushing about brought back memories of the America of 18 years ago, all possibility and action; it was an echo of a former moment. But I notice that these days all K.'s meetings are with people who are at least in their late forties or fifties, their graying hair and creased faces in stark contrast to the revolutionary new product that K. is trying to introduce here in southern Connecticut. And as I looked at them, I wondered: where is the young blood, the twenty- and thirty-somethings, the Young Turks? Are they all in California or have they decamped to yet further reaches of the globe?

Over the last few years, I have often returned from the mad whirl that is life in India and have felt strangely....still. Life in southwestern Connecticut feels, oddly enough, slower than the frantic pace of life in Delhi, Kolkatta, Jaipur. I last visited Paris in 2003 and there too I felt that I was viewing an extremely beautiful, but rather middle-aged grande dame, whose feet ached after 8:00 PM. Turns out that not only were my impressions accurate but they are backed up by statistics. Not only is Connecticut graying and slowing down, but Paris, too, is becoming less tolerant of youthful bonhomie. Oh, mon dieu!

So what will happen to the energy and drive that so epitomized America in the previous century, the dynamism and optimism that restored western Europe to good health and prosperity (not that the British and the French are grateful for that - they hold their noses and accept American money and act as if they are doing the US a great favor by doing so, there's a lesson for wanna-be good Samaritans there)? Will it peter out and grind down to a halt?

I don't think so. The one good thing that the United States still has going for it is its still growing population. Unlike Europe and Japan, with their rather homogenous cultures, immigration has helped keep American population relatively stable and relatively diverse. Despite the cussed arrogance of some of its business leaders, the crass opportunism of some its politicians and the collective madness of some of its people, this is still a country of fundamentally decent people. I say this as an immigrant who is fully aware of the institutional racism and popular prejudices that exist in the land. This is not a pollyanna-ish judgement - I have no intention of casting myself in the role of Voltaire's Candide or playing a real-life female Forrest Gump. All I have to say is that the naivete that Europeans sneer at and parasite nations take advantage of, is not innocence so much as decency.

Of course, there are still hurdles to cross. This country has gorged itself on borrowed money and that addiction has to be overcome. I have several volumes to write on the chief fault that Americans possess en masse - a singular lack of thrift. But now, c'est fini, it's all kaput. There is no more cheap money to finance vacations, houses or cars. Wealth and prosperity has to come the old-fashioned way - by working, earning, saving, saving, saving. It will happen, I think. For when there is no other way out, people will do what needs to be done to recover from the disastrous financial policies of the last thirty-odd years. And as I watch my young children run and play and laugh, I still have hope for this country's future. And as I watch my dynamic husband set up his new venture, I see the flame of American entrepreneurship flicker into life once again....