The Illusion of Wealth

So what happens when the economy takes a downturn? On the downward curve, apparently, the economy reveals a lot about people, their attitudes to money and their lifestyles. Recently, both the New York Times and the Washington Post have run stories, featuring people and how they got into debt and how they cope [again, you may need to create free accounts to read the articles I refer to]. Overall, the stories highlight the differences between two opposing schools of thought: one side believes that the current crisis of personal insolvency resulted because of predatory lending practices by banks and financial institutions, who were greedy to make big bucks of endless fees and interest payments. The opposing camp holds that stories of personal debt reveal a lack of personal ethics. In other words, that you get into debt because you are morally lacking in essential qualities such as self-control, responsibility and so on.

The July 20 edition of the New York Times featured an article about Diane McLeod in suburban Philadelphia and her descent into unmanageable, all-consuming debt. The story is a familiar one - a woman's struggle to keep her head above water as she struggles through divorce, medical woes and job losses, while lack of fiscal self-discipline makes a bad situation worse. The reporter, Gretchen Morgenson, has quite a detailed outline of how exactly various predatory lending practices came together to pull McLeod into a quagmire of debt that ultimately ended with debt collectors hounding her and her house being foreclosed. Not to mention that her relationship with her son is in tatters as he washed his hands off the whole mess, moving in with his girlfriend (the article mentions this only in passing, but the dissolution of family bonds is quite awful, in my opinion).

The discussion in the comments section is also worth reading for the opposite view (I set the NYT comments from newest to oldest so the lower numbers are the newest comments): that debt symbolizes a lack of fundamental values such as responsibility. Many readers felt that while it is true that banks and lenders were unethical, they were only doing what businesses do: try to sell their product. Many felt that McLeod's situation is primarily of her own making. Some ask whether someone who was in such a financially precarious situation deserved to shop QVC (the shopping channel, for my Indian readers) or indulge in expensive bad habits such as smoking. One reader pointed out that:

Yes, lenders made stupid loans and offered terms that were usurious, but people can say no. Its now become the entitlement that everyone has cable tv, cell phones, video games, flat panel televisions, etc.

Here and there, some commenters (like No. 48) pointed out that what really broke McLeod was not the purchase of handbags and knickknacks (although they helped to raise the total bill), but huge medical bills from surgery and hospitalization. In other words, the rising costs of everything didn't help her situation at all. But in general, there was little sympathy for Diane McLeod and her plight. As No. 105 put it:

Are we supposed to think that these banks are giving out loans just to feel good about themselves? Of course they're going to try and maximize profits. It is the sole responsibility of those such as Ms. McLeod to make the informed decision of whether or not to take out a loan in the first place.

Here is my take on the issue:

1. Yes, Diane McLeod needs financial self-discipline. Of that, there is no doubt. Perhaps she should take some tips from Big Mama, or get counselling from local religious organizations, although stories like those also get annoying with their thriftier-than-thou attitudes.


2. But there is also no doubt that the system is geared towards the creation of debt for the profit of corporations. Let me illustrate this with a personal anecdote, for what it is worth. Some years ago, someone I knew who worked in the credit card industry told me that in order to maintain my credit profile, I should leave a small amount due on my cards from time to time. Not always, just from time to time. If I paid off my credit card every month, that signalled the credit card company that I was struggling financially and therefore was a bad credit risk (I don't know if this is true, just what I heard). Having just emerged from years of grinding poverty as a student, I did not think much of this plan. It just didn't make much economic sense to me. Now, that I am reading more on the topic I realize that for credit card companies, that made perfect business sense because the nature of their business had changed over the years. By the late 1990s, they were no longer in the business of making money by collecting on loans, but rather they made money through fees, penalties, and by selling off the loans to second, third, multiple parties. The loan itself had become the money-generator. This inverted pyramid - the debtor the point of the upside down pyramid - was bound to collapse as soon as the debtor could no longer pay his or her dues. I guess that time has come - when the debtor is unable to meet his or her obligations.
3. Turmoil is sure to follow. But how extensive will the upheaval be and how long will it last? I don't know. More thoughts later.

More About Wall Street and Main Street

Did I say that James Kunstler's outlook is pessimistic? I hope you get elegant understatement. I meant to say that he is positively apocalyptic in his outlook. So to balance out those doomsday pronouncements, I also read more measured analyses. For example, there is Robert Salomon, professor of business at the Stern School of Business at New York University. His blog posts also parse the details of the dreadful news that seems to pour out every day from Wall Street, Washington, D.C., London and Los Angeles. Like Kunstler, Salomon is downbeat but the academic calm helps to put things into perspective and doesn't send me rushing around the house in a panic-stricken tizzy, wondering if I should stock up water and firewood.

In fact, sifting through financial commentary on the internet has been amazing self-education. I have found some real gems of postings and articles in unlikely places that have helped me, a non-specialist, to understand both the bigger picture and the details of the current downturn. E.g., from the rather apocalyptic sounding website, dollarcollapse, I linked to this really well-written article in Harper's magazine that helped me understand some of what is going on. According to Eric Janszen, the American economy has shifted from a boom-bust cycle, a traditional business cycle model, to a bubble model. It is quite fascinating but I wonder, could it be true? Could the American economy have been transformed into a giant Ponzi scheme where the loser is the last sucker left holding the (now empty) bag? I need to discuss this with more economics-educated friends.

In the meantime, as I run errands in the various little downtowns of the various little towns in Fairfield County (OK, just two or three neighboring towns), I see nothing really amiss. People are still shopping, ordering salads for their lunches, eating ice cream. There are no mobs breaking down the banks or breaking into stores. In fact, calmness prevails everywhere. I hope the adjustment - and of that I am sure, a major adjustment is coming - will be like this. Calm, gradual transition to a newer, less costly system. The alternative is too awful to think about.

Doom, Gloom, and Then Some

I found the financial analysis blogs that I'm reading in the usual way - following someone's comment from another blog, browsing the internet, who knows where. But I'm discovering something new everyday as I follow the economic news. The only problem with deeper analysis for me is that I am completely math-challenged. As part of a generation of Indians who were given the choice of "Arts (Humanities)", "Science" or "Commerce", I was boxed in after Class X (tenth grade for my American readers) into the most math-deficient club of them all - "Arts". So, dear readers, I am unable to verify the accuracy or even the authenticity of any graphs, linear equations or statistics that the following websites/blogs display (but I beseech you to explain any errors if you find them, I would really, really appreciate it). And, washing my hands even further off any responsibility, these blogs should not be considered investment advice, OK? And remember K.'s warning that some of these blogs should be taken with a pinch of salt. They are, after all, opinion.

The most straightforwardly pessimistic analysis of recent financial and economic trends is by James Kunstler. I cannot type the name of his blog here for fear that my mother might be reading my blog, but you can go over to Kunstler's blog and see for yourself what he has to say. In today's post, he has a particularly bleak assessment of the American economy. Whatever happens, he says, whatever action the United States government takes or does not take, this country is going down, down, down.

Is it? I don't know. But he lays out his position for pessimism very clearly. What is Kunstler's solution? It is a return to traditional American values of hard work, thrift and enterprise. These values, he says, have been corrupted by thirty years of financial corruption as banks threw easy credit at undeserving borrowers who in turn led lives of extravagant indulgence that neither their grandparents and parents had never known. Here is what Kunstler writes:

"Painful as it is, Americans had better get a new "Dream" and fast. It better be a dream basedon the way the universe actually works, which is to say an operating procedure run on earnest effort and truthfulness rather than merely trying to get something for nothing andwishing on stars."

Meltdown

So I am in the front row seat watching the financial meltdown going on in the United States. I know that times are tough in other parts of the world too, but Fairfield County, CT is so full of people who work in finance either locally or in New York City that it's hard to ignore the fact that the economic ship is being buffetted by the biggest storm in half a century.

There are plenty of anecdotes of people stressed because of poorly-performing business but superficially, things are normal,despite the rising prices of food and gas. Kids are going to summer camp or to visit relatives, mothers are carpooling and then running errands, the mailman still looks pretty cheerful as he drops of the mail. The shops downtown seem to be full of browsing customers, and the businesses seem to be gearing up for the season of summer sales. All my neighbors seem to have their jobs (for which I am very glad). So who knows? Is the unease then only mine? Perhaps I have been reading too many blogs of the doom and gloom kind? Only time will tell which way things will go in Fairfield County.

To expand more on the doom and gloom bit: I am enjoying discovering new blogs everyday that deal with this matter. [Note: I said that I am "enjoying discovering" not "enjoying" other people's misery.] All these years, my knowledge of finance was limited to simple math: x amount of income, keep expenditure less than income, difference goes into savings. I let K. handle investments that called for anything more complicated than this simple formula. But now thanks to the prophets of doom everywhere in the blogosphere, I find that Wall Street, retail banks and mortgage companies have done some extremely complicated investing all of which is set to implode unless someone richer bails them out. Problem is, no one has $10 trillion just lying around, not even all the American taxpayers put together.

I'll link to some of these blogs in my next post. I should add that K., who is more financially savvy than I am, says that some of these bloggers should be taken with a pinch of salt, but it would be good to at least know the range of arguments out there as this economic crisis unfolds.

More thoughts on Racism in India

I have been thinking more about the racism that many of us Indians demonstrate to those who look different than us such as Africans, Chinese, etc. The most vivid display of bigotry is from those who consider themselves "mainstream" Indians towards those who are considered "outsider" Indians. I am talking of the often shocking treatment that people from the North-east of India - from the Seven Sisters states (Mizoram, Arunachal, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura, Manipur and Assam) - have to endure at the hands of Indians elsewhere.

This problem always existed but thanks to the internet, these badly-treated Indians have been making their voices heard loud and clear. The news, people, is not pretty or palatable. Read for example, the blog post by Kima who writes from Mumbai, and think about how much prejudice these people face from landlords, taxi drivers, and even the police. Men from the northeast are viewed as drug addicts and drunkards, women from these states are viewed as morally loose just because they dress in western clothes and like to party into the night and don't fit the stereotypical "good girl" mould of Indian society. I feel ashamed that fellow Indians have to endure such humiliation.

[Update: Kima blogs out of Mumbai, not Bangalore as I had mistakenly assumed. But his posts about racism towards Northeastern Indians are still wrenching to read, especially because he writes about it in a matter-of-fact way with no self-pity. Read for example, his post specifically about the treatment of Indians from the Northeast.]

In his June 21 op-ed piece for The Telegraph from Kolkatta, the historian Ramachandra Guha - a Bangalore resident - provides a historical context for the stepmotherly treatment that Indian politicians and the Indian people have dealt to their fellow nationals. And yes, I insist, we have to remember that these are our own people who are being shabbily treated. Not that one should treat foreigners with less consideration, but it's saying something when even fellow nationals are so badly mauled by the prevailing culture. Small wonder that there are so many seccessionist problems in the northeast region of India. Who would want to put up with such shabby treatment?

Of Janissaries and Patriotism

In my wanderings through the world of expat bloggers from India, I came across some really unusual ones. These were blogs by State Department officials of Indian descent, i.e. children of immigrant Indian parents who now work as Foreign Service Officers. The State Department had posted them to India, either because of a request or because it was useful to have "ethnic"-looking people on the ground, whatever.

I don't want to link to these blogs because I disagree with many of the assumptions of the writers (and you know what I've said about being a critic who hides behind anonymity). But their entries did get me thinking about bigger questions about loyalty and patriotism. At first, these blogs made me wonder about the sentiments of these second-generation Indian Americans. Do they feel like the Janissaries of the old Ottoman Empire did? You know, the non-Turkish men who were taken as boys to Istanbul, the Imperial capital, reared in the ways of the Imperial elite, then sent off to rule in the name of the Sultan. Sometimes the Janissaries were sent back to the European provinces of their origin. Here, they often proved to be even more fanatically loyal to the idea of the Turkish Sultanate than the average Turk, often more cruel towards and contemptuous of their ethnic people than were the Turks.

Of course, the analogy is not totally accurate between the seventeenth-century devsirme (basically, Ottoman-sanctioned kidnapping) and the Indian-American foreign service experience of the present. After all, nobody forced the parents of these young people to emigrate to the United States (just as nobody held a gun to my head either all those years back when I went to get my student visa). But the sentiment of wanting to belong to their new culture must have been just as intense for these State Department officials as it was for the Janissaries of past centuries who were non-Turks growing up among hostile Turks, their only protector the Sultan himself. In the '70s and '80s, when these Indian-Americans were kids growing up in the 'burbs, when other kids were teasing them for their unfamiliar, unpronounceable names, the status of outsider must have been really hard to bear, (which explains why so many reject their parents' food, friends and families, and why some even change religion). Perhaps this then is the ultimate act of assimilation, serving your host country through government service.

But wait a minute! Before I condemn these people as subordinate imperialists ( or more accurately - "running dogs of imperialism" - ah, that phrase brings back memories of JNU), I remember I had a similar conversation eight years ago in Kolkatta. Participants were a senior family member, a friend from Europe who then lived in London, and two of us, younger family members. At some point during the evening, the conversation turned to living abroad and then to loyalty and citizenship. The younger family member, a non-resident Indian and the European friend were arguing that it was impossible for either one of them to renounce affection and loyalty to their native countries. The older family member, an old-fashioned army wife, was equally adamant that the day one changed one's citizenship, one's loyalties too must change.

"But you can't just switch loyalty on and off like that," the three of us younger people said.

"You can't be the citizen of a country and be working for the interests of another," said the retired army wife. "If you change your citizenship," she told us NRI family members, "you should be loyal to the United States and work for its interests only."

"Even if it goes to war with India?" we expostulated.

"You can't hold the passport of one country and have your loyalty to another country," the army wife repeated. To her, that was that.

"Impossible!" said U., the European friend. "I would hate it if Britain bombed my country. I would never be able to feel that Britain was in the right."

"Well, when you change your citizenship, your loyalties have to change," said the older family member, the army wife. "That's what citizenship means."

And, in a sense, she is right. Loyalty is not only a function of subjects wanting to blend into their ruler's system in order to gain acceptance. There is also a loyalty that comes with the acceptance of citizenship, loyalty that may or may not be expressed through national service either in the military or in the foreign service.

I may have some of the clearheaded virtues that come with an army upbringing. But, alas, I lack that simple commitment to patriotism, to the logic of citizenship and service that comes naturally to army officers and their wives, or to foreign service officers.

Sexism and Racism: An International Tour

[Note: You may need to create accounts for some of the news websites I've linked to on this post. They are all free accounts, as far as I can tell.]

The whole issue of cheerleaders in the Indian Premier League cricket tournament has brought up both the hypocrisy and the racism widespread in Indian society as well as some amazingly breathless reporting - from clueless western observers - about the entry of "American-style freedom". On the one hand, there is the complete objectification of the skimpily-dressed foreign women. This just reinforces the stereotype of the "immoral, easy" western women who will drop any amount of clothing for money. On the other hand, it provides the occasion for the self-righteous culture police to come out in strength, denouncing the corruption of Indian culture.


I say ban cheerleading in cricket not because it is corrupting of Indian culture (Hindi films have that covered) , not just because it is irrelevant to the sport (it is a ghastly sexist sideshow - go join a women's cricket team, ladies, instead of trying to be "me, too" participants on the side). Ban the damn thing because it also spreads an alarmingly distorted image of western women who are subject to extreme sexual harassment, being both visibly different-looking and often - at least in the Indian case - associated with the dubious lifestyles and shoddy parenting skills of those on the hippie trail. Cheerleading only adds to the woes of the vast majority of ordinary western women trying to visit India or live in the country as expats. I realize that by following this line of thinking I am falling into some dubious analytical company here, that anyone will tell you that in India it does not matter what you wear, that you can be covered from head to toe and still get groped and whistled at. But these cheerleaders are overwhelmingly foreign, either American or Eastern European. Hence they will be associated with cheerleading and its degrading objectification of women.

But the other seamy side to Indian national character that this whole cheerleading saga has uncovered is the horrendously racist one - it's not bad enough being sexist, no sir, we are racist too. See, we think western women are sleazy sluts, but if they are going to come here kicking up their legs in their bikini tops and short shorts, then we don't want...er, the dark ones...you know...

So hoping to find some comfort, I turned to closer pastures. But nah, no comfort here, just more misogyny, sexism and racism. As the national election cycle wends it way down to November, the traveling circus of sexism-cum-racism continues to trail its disgusting path across the United States. Hillary Clinton is subjected to the most degrading language I have seen recently in political discourse (one thing to note - that even with India's poor track record against women, no sane Indian man would be caught dead telling any leading woman politician to "stop running for office and go make me a sandwich.").

And when it comes to Obama, some of the most deep-rooted scary racism comes to the surface. You know, the kind of stuff that you thought ended along with public lynchings in the 1950s. But no, the good old days still live on in sunny suburbs and peaceful farming towns. It's scary to think that in little towns across America, there are people who have no problems telling Obama campaigners that their candidate should be strung up from the nearest tree. They are probably pious church-goers too.

There have always been anecdotal evidence of this lurking racism and misogyny. But given the long-drawn nature of the Clinton vs. Obama primary duel, it was inevitable that both would rise to the surface, showing us that the battles that we thought ended with the 1960s are not over, not just yet. Perhaps they will always be around so we will always have to be vigilant.

Growing Unease

You know that things are looking seriously bad when American observers start advising Americans to hoard food. This is the
country of the footlong sandwich
and the one-pound hamburger with fries and pickles on the side, the land of limitless options and limitless spending, the land of milk and honey where milk used to cost less than $2 per gallon and people rarely spent more than 8 per cent of their monthly income on food. So hoarding for any short term crisis seems so...oh dear, so Third World! But if rice and wheat prices keep moving the way they do, then perhaps that's what people here will have to start doing, loading up the pantry, that is. The era of food complacency is over.

I feel really bad because I know the drill of the economy of shortages - use less of everything, buy things only when you need to, reuse everything as far as possible. But to most people here, those routines are so alien that they will have a hard time adjusting, or maybe the much vaunted American adaptibility will rear its head again. Who knows?

More about the Expat Experience

The most interesting expat blogs come out of the experiences of those who are trying to push themselves out of their comfort zone, even if just a little bit. That is why I like the blogs of those women and men who are trying to get beyond just living in other places because that's where the job is. One of the other expat women in India whose blog I enjoy is Scribbly Katia who combines her daily life in India as mom and wife with that of a writer and an observer of cultures crossing and clashing. Recently, she has an interesting post about children and color perception and socialized biases towards whiteness.

I will probably find other great expat blogs as I browse the internet (already an occupation that takes up at least a couple of hours of my day). These days I am also following the worldwide food crisis that the mass media only started to pick up on towards the middle of last year. The trends are ominous as more and more acreage is given over to growing corn for ethanol, which shrinks the amount of wheat and rice available for the world's population. Droughts and crop failures have added to the crisis. Read about it here, here and here (To read the articles from the New York Times, you may need to create an account). The crisis in the world's financial markets is also driving speculative capital into farmland, making agricultural property prices rise rapidly.

Prices are rising rapidly in the United States too. And this will have an especially hard impact on a people who are used to spending only 15 percent of their income on food. In poorer parts of the world, where people spend anything from 60-80 per cent of their income on food, things will get significantly worse in the short term.

More Blogs from India

Continuing where I left off last time (why do I never get to do two consecutive days of blogging? Ask a certain three year old), another expat blog I visit fairly regularly is that of Esben Agersnap's. A young Danish intern (don't know how much longer he has to go), Esben blogs out of Delhi. He takes the most fabulous pictures of his travels in India and in Europe and often makes me wish that I were in my early twenties again, with all the spirit of adventure of that age.

There is another quite unusual bunch of older American (I think) women living near Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh. Joy blogs about their life among the Tibetan population of that region and her adventures in the Himalayas and - oh, knitting. Since I recently took to knitting, I find her posts on this subject quite interesting as well as informative.

Favorite Expat Blogs (Contd.)

Well, after tackling bouts of flu, ear infections and sinus infections (mine and the children's), I am back again after a long break. To pick up the thread of my favorite expat blogs from India, here are another few that I enjoy reading daily. They are in no particular order or ranking, just a sampling of my daily reading that keeps me connected to other perspectives. Sadly, there are few blogs from my hometown, Kolkatta, so I won't put those here. Anyway, here goes.

Cynthia Haller is a twenty-something Swiss woman married to a north Indian man and they both make their home in Bangalore, Karnataka, in south India. I found Cynthia via ivillage, a website to which one of my friends directed me saying that it was "fun, light reading." Anyway, that's where I first encountered Cynthia who is very active in the online message boards section. She writes of her life in Bangalore, the trials and tribulations of being a white woman in the city, her personal sorrows of being accepted/rejected by neighbors and in-laws, being ripped off by price-gouging autorickshaw drivers, missing cheeses (poor thing, if I were Swiss relocated to India, cheese would be the biggest hole in my life - sorry, hee-hee, couldn't resist that!). Cynthia's observations are always insightful and I find her judgement accurate and persuasive. Perhaps it is because she is "one of us" now that her criticisms and her praise are both accepted and acceptable because one gets the sense that both her negative and her positive impressions come out of a sense of love for India and its peculiarities. Besides, she is living what most people would consider a "normal" Indian life as opposed to an inflated expatriate lifestyle (not that there's anything wrong with that except that all those expatriate observations come out of living in a bubble and are not generalizable). Anyway, Cynthia's observations of life in Bangalore strike me as authentic. And I loved reading her post about Diwali (scroll down to the November 2007 posts) with her in-law's in Lucknow. My mother is not so ritual-oriented so of course as a reaction, I have to love every form of ritual I see. And that was just priceless. Thanks, Cynthia.

Expat Bloggers

Ever since my friend A. moved her family from New York to Mumbai, I have discovered the world of expat bloggers. There's a large number of resident non-Indians blogging about the good, the bad, the ugly about their new lives in a new country. By and large, the women bloggers from India fall into two categories: expat wives following their husbands on the international job trail and expat workers following the global economy (this includes returning Indians).

Of the two, I infinitely prefer the latter as their insights and their experiences are more layered and complex. The former seem to be mainly bored housewives sitting around and griping about their host country. There is one in particular who is truly racist and bigoted (given my resolution to not critique anonymously I cannot, alas, name her or which city she blogs from so you'll just have to take my word for it). Being a bigoted religious fundamentalist, she places Hindu religious beliefs in quotes, and makes fun of her rather simple host population which seems to consist of her dozen-odd domestic staff - perhaps mockery as a social skill is de rigueur in expat social circles? Pick someone your own social size, lady, and that might be more of a real insight for your readers. And oh, if those are the kind of values your religion teaches you, it's no surprise that you're not finding many converts.

But there are many whose expat life has been a long journey of discovery. India is a hard country in which to live alone, as all social life is constructed around family or long-time friendships. Even the limited night life of the big metros involves going out with friends; people are not really looking to meet a stranger. Unless one marries into an Indian family or forms a close friendship with an Indian, it is usually very hard to break into society. So, given these formidable barriers to social encounters with Indians, those expat bloggers from India deserve a cheers who have tried to overcome the obstacle of their foreign-ness, the minor and major hardships of daily life, and have retained a generous spirit open to adventure despite the mauling they receive from roadside Romeos and the footdragging they encounter at post offices. Some are visitors, some are married to Indians.

Here is the first of my favorites:
Pretty Blue Salwar is a twenty-something theater grad student who spent a semester in India, teaching theater and directing Shakespeare in Telugu. Like many westerners in India, she was laid low by viruses and bacteria, ripped off by touts, mauled by slimy hotel managers, etc. She now blogs about her life back in the States. Here's to a great career, Blue, you truly deserve it.

More later.

The Reluctant Pollyanna

The hard thing about being anonymous is that I can't leave critical comments on other people's blogs. If it's just an observation or if it's something positive then yes, anonymity is just fine and that's what I do. But when it's a critical opinion to offer, then I feel that you have to at least give yourself a handle or better yet, just log in as yourself. In the past, I used to post criticism anonymously or under my initials but have come around to the belief that criticism needs an identity otherwise there is no dialogue, it's just seeking shelter in anonymity.

On the other hand, I am reluctant to shed my anonymity, although any of my friends or acquaintances reading this blog can quite easily figure out who I am. I don't know why I want to retain this anonymity. It's restrictive, given my parameters - no potshots at family, friends or random acquaintances. Leaving out work means that I can only comment on very narrowly personal interests. So going public is attractive, but I still hesitate.

K. also has a blog, a very erudite blog on our attempts to get off oil in our personal lives and our successes and failures in this experiment. His entries read like a mini-science journal full of stats and charts and pictures and links to various very serious scientific websites. My observations on the other hand are not about my interests, but about random things that happen to catch my attention or that put me in a pensive mood. In other words, this is a hopelessly self-indulgent bourgeois blog that has no educational value at all, except as a way of keeping a historical record of my thoughts so that perhaps my grandchildren can read it. In many ways, this blog has shown me just how mundane my life outside work really is. Work keeps my brain alive, post-work is all humdrum routine.

So is my anonymity a sign of shame, that I am so appalled that I cannot own up to the possession of this bland as vanilla life? That's not quite true either. Who could not be charmed by Fairfield County, Connecticut, close enough to the hustle of New York City but far away enough? Stuffy and yet liberal enough for me right now even though I long for better Mexican restaurants. In many ways, my life outside work is so full of sudden delights - the swirling fall of golden maple leaves in gusty October winds, the vision of my nonagenarian neighbor taking her careful walk and reminding me of the stability inherent in our neighborhood (so different from the transient population of our Chicago street), the pushing of strollers by playground-bound mothers, the chuckling of my children as they push their toys around the backyard - that I can only dimly wish for another kind of lifestyle.

Whatever my motives - unexamined too closely by myself - I have decided that for now, I would rather preserve my place in the shadows of blogdom and not in the limelight - I repeat, for now. The practical implications for this blog is that for better or for worse, I can only provide links to blogs that I like, not excoriate directly the ones that I despise - and although there are many among the latter, they shall remain only alluded to, not engaged with in public.

Never Forget!

As an army brat, I have a soft spot for anything to do with the armed forces. And this week that soft spot was reactivated as I drove to a store in Fairfield. At one of the intersections, traffic was stopped briefly by a bunch of police escort riders. At first, I thought it was a VIP traveller or something, but then two big eighteen-wheelers lumbered through the intersection with the words "Wreaths Across America" plastered on their sides. Turns out, that this is a voluntary initiative to decorate the graves at Arlington National Cemetery for the holidays. I applaud such gestures, while I also recommend practical help for veterans and their families like Fisher House that provides practical help for wounded veterans and their families - a military version of the Ronald McDonald Houses. If you live in the United States and are looking for good causes to support this holiday season, these three would surely qualify.

Season of Discontent

Today there was light snow that fell across the region. I love the sight of days like this one when there is a powder white coating on the roads and the holiday season seems a little more festive. Stopping at the stores to browse for possible gifts, though, I caught sight of my reflection and noticed that although I was - am - relatively happy, I had a frown on my face and looked stressed. What struck me was how many of the shoppers at the stores looked stressed, their mouths thin lines of discontent, their foreheads creased with dissatisfaction. I suppose this too is seasonal. Gift-buying is stressful.

At one of the stores where they had a going-out-of-business sale, the storeowner and a customer were animatedly discussing the state of the world and how they could not wait till 2008 to see the last of the current administration. "I want gas prices to go down again!" the woman cried. Her customer nodded. "About time we got out of Iraq." I hated to tell both of them that neither the demise of the Bush administration nor a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is about to resolve the enduring problem of gas prices or that of oil in general. Yes, the current mismanagement exacerbated the crisis, but it was waiting to happen anyway. Time to fund - seriously fund - research into electric cars and other forms of transportation not dependent on faraway resources. Hmmm...on the other hand, on days like this, I don't want to be riding a bicycle either. Someone help.

Relaxing for Turkey Day

It's been almost a month since I last posted. The delay is mainly due to laziness on my part. Several things happened. Durga Pujo at Stamford, the elections, Diwali at two friends' houses, and going to see Om Shanti Om at Bridgeport. All of the afore-mentioned were hectic or fun or both and now it's time to get ready to eat like a pig (or maybe eat a pig, I don't know what my friends are cooking this year). The setting outside is really pretty here in Fairfield County, Connecticut. The late fall has left the trees deep yellow and red and even against the gray skies and the blustery winds, the colors are breathtaking.

I enjoy cooking, I really, really enjoy cooking. I spend hours cooking special meals for my family and friends and I feel happy, not oppressed, when I am in the kitchen (Oppression is the cleaning-up after the eating is over). Thanksgiving Day being K.'s favorite holiday (and my favorite adopted one), the last Thursday of November usually finds the whole family in a frenzy in the kitchen. We love having our friends and family over for Thanksgiving, but we are laidback about the preparations, usually starting things only the night before. With only one oven, that means that the morning is packed tight since all the pies and the accompaniments have to be done before the bird goes in. In between chopping, stirring, beating, whisking and blending like maniacs, there is always the house to be dusted down and made presentable for guests.

The kids spend the whole morning in a tizzy of excitement, usually over-indulged with sugary snacks in lieu of a real breakfast (I mean who has time to cook eggs and stuff when there is so much to be done). They get underfoot in a charming way, the little one wrapping herself around my leg and having to be hauled from one part of the kitchen to the other in this manner. K. is better at finding them things to do - beating the eggs for the pies, stirring the cranberry sauce (under supervision of course). I tend to be a go-it-alone chef because I have control issues. Invariably, there is too much food of one kind and not of another, so K. has to rush out to get stuff like parsley or thyme so that the bird has some flavor. Then the guests arrive and the food is on the table and before we know it, we are eating, eating, eating....and then the daze.

So this year, it will be a little different because we are going to our friends A. and C.'s place for Thanksgiving. As they are more organized about entertaining than we are, I am sure the feast will be amazing and we can relax, drink wine and chat. I find the idea novel and...welcome. This Thursday, will be the first Thanksgiving Day in years that I will not be rising at the crack of dawn to get the holiday dinner ready on time. Ahhh...now if only my little M. could get the idea of sleeping in till 9:00.

Wildlife Hazards

Here, in Fairfield County, Connecticut, deer are the major threat to flourishing gardens and to highway safety. This year, K. lovingly planted blueberry bushes, raspberry bushes, Jerusalem artichokes, etc. Alas, we harvested only a pitiful bunch of each for our visiting pests chomped everything down to the stems. At least, they didn't threaten our lives, except indirectly through any ticks which may cause Lyme disease. However, we get our yard treated regulary for deer ticks so hopefully we are safe.

The bigger issue for me is that deer can cause often fatal accidents. I see them grazing on the sides of the Merrit Parkway and sometimes even by the sides of the far busier I-95. I have seen many deer carcasses on the Merrit, probably the victims of encounters with cars or pick-up trucks. I certainly hope the drivers escaped the encounter with no injuries. In the tussle between humans and deer I come down on the side of humans when it comes to highway safety.

At least, our deer are not - yet- attacking people directly, as are the monkeys in India. Here is the tragic result of one such monkey assault on a Delhi man, the deputy mayor of the city. In both cases, the solutions are the subject of much agonizing. Cull the offending animals, restrict human expansion into their domain, a little of both? The jury is still out on this issue.

Happy 60th, India!

Well, the land of my birth is sixty years old, enfin! Only twenty years younger than her (there, I gave my age away, not that it was much of a secret), I have seen her through socialist self-restraint and hyper-capitalist excess. K. tells me that things were pretty restrained here in the U.S. too till the eighties when the culture of consumption gripped every sphere of life, from clothes, to cars to houses to education. According to K., my one-person resource on things American, the culture of malls, etc., was pretty alien to him till his late teens. Now of course, that is all there is here. Except small, boutique-y bouts of defiance, like the farmers' markets held in different small towns in Fairfield County.

To me, not being much of a shopper (except for used books, but that's a different story), the biggest difference between my Indian childhood and my American middle age is my use of the bicycle. Growing up in small army cantonments (or bases as they say here), my bike was my chief mode of transportation - to school, to dance lessons, to friend's houses. Grown men and women biked to work, the milkman balanced a precarious load of cans full of milk on his rear wheel, soldiers and officers rode bikes to the parade ground and to the lines, stiffening their arms and straightening up whenever a flag car approached them. Here in Fairfield County, as I bike around the neighborhood behind S., keeping an eye on his wobbly forward movements, I realize that my bike is now my chief mode of recreation. And that's the way it will stay, unless K.'s prophecy of impending energy crisis comes true in the near future. In which case, I guess I will be hauling loads of groceries back on my bike like this unknown.

Anyway, happy 60th India, here's to many more! As for you, Hero Cycle of my childhood, I have more ambivalent feelings towards you. Not sure that your gears were up to scratch, given the tumble I took on the second day of my ownership of a brand new bike.

Health Culture vs. Youth Culture

One of the nice things about living in this part of the country is that most people who live here are not obese. That doesn't mean that they are all skinny, but in general most men and women here are fairly health-conscious and make a conscious effort to stay fit and eat healthy. At the gym, I see women and men in their sixties and seventies ambling along on the treadmills, rowing determinedly, strolling outdoors or riding their bikes, their grey hairs damp with the honest exertion of body and limb. In the Pilates classes, there is a good mixture of the senior brigade with the more youthful lot. And this is a good thing, folks. I remind myself of this whenever I head out to visit family and friends in the Midwest, where I see many people groaning literally as they drag their bulk hither and thither.

The flip side of this is that the fitness obsession sometimes dovetails into the national obsession with youthful looks. It's pretty disgusting to overhear locker-room conversations where women stand around discussing casually the recent liposuction procedure of a common friend or talk about which doctor does a better job than the other.

What's my take on it? I am less critical of some procedures than others. It's mostly to do with the level of pain (physical coward that I am), although I generally disapprove of cosmetic surgery. Restylane injections and Botox: well, if you already wax your legs and your eyebrows, is the pain really any different? But tummy tucks and liposuction? No way. That much pain for something that doesn't involve saving your life or having a baby? Not worth it, ladies. You only need such radical intervention for your looks if you have had a serious accident and/or suffered some serious disfiguration. Otherwise, we women are more than the sum of our physical looks or at least that's how we should raise our daughters to think about themselves. So in this instance, I will take the mu-mu clad midwestern woman over the svelte Fairfield-ite. At least the former is not trying desperately to turn the clock back to some vanished fresh-faced youthful time in her past.

This is also a cultural thing, I think. Nobody I know in India has had her appearance altered surgically, atlhough sadly, the culture of artificial youthfulness is catching on in India too . What is not so good though is that a lot of older women in my family also lead very sedentary lives, except for the exertion of housework. Personally, the happiest blend I find are among some of the older Indian women I see who now try to fit in some physical exercise into their routine. And instead of surgery, they pamper themselves with facials and massages and manicures and pedicures. Among the middle class , I loved, and still love, the sight of older Indian women, well-coiffed, skin glowing with good care and a judicious use of make-up, their cotton saris starched and worn elegantly in summer, their silk saris immaculate in winters, their single well-chosen gold chain, their gold bangles...you get the idea. As for the others, who could have a problem with this? Beauty defying the oppressive weight of poverty. Now if any of these women appeared with their face pulled hideously tight by surgery, I would scream and run in the opposite direction.

Reading List of Shame

OK, so instead of working on well, work, I procrastinate. Some women go shopping, others go to the spa, yet others call their friends to gossip. Moi, I go - reading. So here is my reading list of shame: the books I read to escape the world of reading for work. Last week was Innocent Blood by P.D. James. You see, this makes the shamefulness of my reading list even worse. Most of the time, I don't escape into abstract masterpieces of literature. I procrastinate by immersing myself in thrillers, mysteries, chick-lit, sometimes a good novel to balance things out. OK, back to procrastination now. Next on the list is An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, again by P.D. James.