how to be good?

In Twilight Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko's third book of the Night Watch Trilogy, Gesar, Head of the Moscow Night Watch tells Anton Gorodetsky - disillusioned field operative - why he chose the Light over the Dark:

'Preserve the part of you that is still human. Avoid falling into ecstatic raptures and trying to impose the Light on people when they don't want it. Avoid relapsing into contemptous cynicism, imagining that you are pure and perfect.

That's the hardest thing of all - never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent'

Maybe, just maybe, the BJP and Al Qaeda and the greedy TV evangelists should have a look at this allegoric work of fantasy

beautiful beautiful words... wish they were mine

'But as much as I want his mingling with his own age group, I fear that if he becomes too involved elsewhere, he won't be ever-available for my own needs.

what would one do if one did not have a Toph, sitting in his room, ready at a moment's notice, always willing to run errands, to be pushed against a wall and have his kidney punched...

...To not have Toph would be to not have a life'

Dave Eggers in 'a heartbreaking work of staggering genius' talking about his little brother, Chris'Toph'er

Like he says, to not have Toph would be to not have a life

- my own 'Toph' works for Microsoft, by the way

paring cheese

All research is like swiss cheese
the ability to see the holes is directly proportional to the researcher's insight-
-till it comes to a point where you do not see the cheese at all!

wings of steel

uproar in the meadows
sparks fly
a rosebush is 'de'flowered
as the hordes move in
beautiful death...
surrounds me
glints of cold steel
razor edges tipped with
blood - mine
I crumple to
the green grass
bleeding
as the steel winged
butterflies
flit around
murderously...

inspired by the smashing pumpkins song bullet with butterfly wings

snippets

dusk descends
shadows spread like inkblots
under my coffee table

long journey home
my car curls up in the drive
- a tired puppy

washing up after a party
little smileys of lipstick
on the coffee mugs

My friend the movie star

I was the fat, shy, brown one (still am) and he was the lean, smart, fair one - but he never made fun of me.

His house had a very long front yard and a brick wall painted white with a red border. He had a TV and a top-loading VCR and an ATARI which made me very envious. We would watch Jamie and the Magic Torch and Johnny Sokko and his Giant Robot and then play games on his ATARI. I remember one game in particular - pixellated cowboys on either side of the TV screen shooting at each other (this was no X-box 360, but we loved it to bits). He ALWAYS beat me at this because he had a slick technique for killing my cowboy with ricochet bullets.

His little sister used to peek her head round the door and smile her pixie smile when I was around. Perhaps she had not seen someone so short and fat before.

Once when we were 5 or 6, we decided to walk home (about 2 km, I think) after school - two boys in navy blue shorts and wrinkled white shirts weighed down by their school bags walking in the dusty summer afternoon swinging their water bottles blissfully unaware of the green buses roaring past them. I got a ticking off from my mother for doing it and then I heard her talking to his mom about what their boys had done (which meant that he got into trouble too!)

After we left school, I saw him once in my teenage. He had shot up to more than 6 feet, had a booming voice and looked like a movie star while I was still the old roly poly. I envied him even more then.

Last week, I rang Anoop on his mobile after a gap of about 15 years. We talked about our lives and our families. We talked about the good old school days. He sounded like his dad - at least, what I think his dad sounded like all those years ago. He sounded mature and decent and sincere. He sounded excited to hear from me. More than anything else, he sounded just like the friend I used to walk home with - swinging water bottles in the summer afternoon.

a chrome fruit and some geography lessons

Rejath and I were the Laurel and Hardy of our group. He had his curly hair and his skin and bones and I - well, I had my generous share of - body fat, I guess. We were both into trivia and once in 4th Std, we qualified for a district level quiz on the 'science of sound'. I remember endless coaching sessions with the teachers describing the workings of SONAR, echo etc (which was exciting in itself, as it meant that we were exempted from some of the more mundane lessons) till a couple of days before the quiz when we got wind of the fact that the whole thing was a light-hearted affair where kids are expected to guess various sounds (for instance, that of a musical instrument or an animal). What a let down, I thought - all that effort for nothing. Anyway we went to the recording studio - the AIR office near Calicut beach - with one of the 'sisters' (the nuns who were teachers in our catholic school). When we got there, there were kids from other schools in the studio already. The adults had left us in the studio and gone elsewhere. Rejath and I were trying our best to be the good boys - the others were running around the room and queuing up excitedly in front of the air-conditioner (a rarity in those days) as it blew cold air into their impish faces and ruffled their hair. The quiz itself, I do not remember much about, but I do remember that my face was burning, which it does whenever I feel shy. We stood around this gleaming big chrome fruit of a microphone dangling at eye level and the quizmaster asked us to shout out our names into the microphone on his cue. When my turn came, hardly any sound escaped me and he had to coax me repeatedly to speak up. The only thing I recollect is that one of the questions was clearly the sound of a string instrument - so I shouted out 'tabla' feeling very smug till the others burst out laughing. In the end, inspite of my bungling, I think we won first place, thanks mainly to Rejath's level-headedness at the age of 9. Afterwards, the 'sister' bought us chaya and pazhampori from the AIR canteen. I could not resist, even though my mother had trained me to say no to 'outside' food (fearing lack of hygeine) - so I chomped into the cold semisolid pazhampori, enjoying every bit of my guilty pleasure. When we got back to the school, there was no one about, it being a saturday. We were herded into the convent where we had lunch in the peculiar deep bowl-like plates which I found strangely amusing. Afterwards both of us had a slice of tea cake.
The other clear memory of Rejath is from 7th Std. I think Ms Vijaya's class. He used to bring his big leatherbound world atlas to learn geography - most of us had thin limp 20-rupee atlases while he had this 'Reader's Digest Special Edition' which used to annoy me a lot, because whenever the teacher described a place on the map, he would pipe up: 'Miss, Miss, it is all very clear in MY atlas'
Grrrrrrr... we were all soon tired of his very clear atlas - I started daydreaming about taking his atlas (which he would not allow anyone else to touch) and beating his brains out with it - Aaaah - the resonating crack in the sleepy mid-afternoon followed by loud cheers from all my classmates as they lifted me onto their shoulders for saving us all from Rejath's inimitable squeak. Sadly, it was not to be, which is why he has now managed to find his way to Minneapolis - I am sure it was all very clear in his atlas!

dream a little dream...

 

Itching for more

I heard on Radio 4 the other day that the average duration of marital bliss these days is three years - after which the relationship apparently starts to fade in all aspects as the partners drift apart in body and soul - the three-year-itch, as it is known

It will be four years of married life for me in a few months, so maybe this is a good time to air out my feelings-cupboard

Rather than clothe my thoughts in grammar and syntax, I think it is best to let the bottom shelf of my brain take over, hippocampus and all

so here goes:

I love her, for she is my little golden girl
she understands me completely - including my annoying lack of understanding
she accommodates me, my imperfections, my selfishness, my jealousy, my aggression, my fears, my insecurities - she bathes them all in her love
songs remind me of her smile, I love the way her eyelashes tickle my cheek, I love the way her hands disappear in my paws, I love the way she trusts me, I love the way she is there for me, I love the way she kisses me with her eyes from across the room
I love her strength of character, I love her drive and her confidence, I love her in pigtails, I love her smile when we dance, I love the way she looks good so effortlessly, I love the way she walks into little perfume clouds, I love being her clumsy beast
I love her directness, the way she tells me I have bad breath and gets me to brush my teeth, I love her with long hair and short hair and oh, did I mention, I love her in pigtails
she sees the little boy in me when I am ill, she holds me like a baby when I am sad, I feel safe with her and I love her for that

and so...

I give you my life - with all it's ups and downs
I give you my soul - a spaghetti ball of love and hurt and anger and sloth and lust and laughter
I give you my unsolicited opinion, my concern and my worries, my moodswings and my misgivings
I give you my right hand and my grimace to open all your pickle jars
I give you a hundred and seventy nine centimetres for all your hard-to-reach issues
I give you my skills with the cordless drill, the vacuum cleaner and the retractable tape measure
I give you my body fat and my halitosis

I give you - only you, for now and forever, my animal shivers

and I promise you - I will scratch your itch away every year

I guess the link below says it more beautifully, so I'll stop now
(the video looks best maximised)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjDojEOiMcE

a friend-shaped hole

It is an interesting time when your close friend gets married. There is all the excitement and the tongue-in-cheek banter and the preparations. Underneath it all, there is also a slight feeling of unease - a burst of 'what-if' bubbles pop up in my mind:

what if she is reserved
what if she already has HER circle of friends
what if she is jealously possessive (er... a bit like I am)
what if she does not like OUR circle of friends
what if she misunderstands our (my) enthusiasm
what if she does not love him like we (I) do
what if she rearranges his life around her to the point of unpleasantness
what if she makes him disappear from our (my) life

underneath all the surface cheer, there is this never ending series of tiny worry bubbles fizzling away

and then, in a matter of minutes, they are swept away for ever

a smile, a half hug, a few words, his happy face

that's all it takes - for me to know that she fits in-

-to his life... our life... my life

welcome to our world - we need you

to complete us

to fill a friend-shaped hole

perfectly, gracefully, beautifully

look after him for me, won't you

Oh, is it time for my rant again?

I think it is very easy to be bitter and twisted when things do not go your way in a foreign country, when you feel that there is no one who understands your POV, but it does not explain or justify what was done by the doctors (some of them Indian) in Glasgow and London.

However, in the case of Dr Haneef, I think he has just been caught in the crossfire, with circumstantial evidence and understandable hysteria fuelling the official Australian response. The two acts that he is accused of - providing a SIM card to a relative/friend and taking a one way ticket back home - are not necessarily criminal actions.

The ‘SIM card hand over’ is almost tradition when you have friends or juniors from your medical school who are struggling to get a foothold in the NHS. Whether in the present instance he did this with an intention to help a terrorist cause is difficult to know or prove.

In the past, I have gone home taking whatever flight was available when my mother needed fairly urgent surgery - that was a one way ticket, which was obviously more expensive by comparison, but then it was a desperate time.

Does that then make me a terrorist suspect, along with the fact that I have a lot of Muslim friends, some of whom happen to be very orthodox?

A lot of people I know from medical school have stayed in my house in Liverpool (oooh!) over the years. Many of them were Muslims, some have moved on to other countries (including Australia) and some of them still have their personal belongings somewhere in my garage.

I also know that some of my Muslim friends who are all NHS doctors have exclusively Muslim family 'days out' and barbecues.

Does all this add up to enough evidence to incriminate me and round up all my friends?

I can fully understand the concerns about the threat to the way of life in this country. There are things I like about the 'British way' and things I do not fully agree with. I am sure that will be the case anywhere you go in the world. Everyone who is British has a right to feel insecure about losing what people are used to in this country (not just cultural, religious or ethnic habits - but the feeling of security and stability in one's country, the feeling of being safe when you are in bed at night, the trust you have in your neighbour and the man sitting opposite to you on the tube) and I can at least partly understand the response (which may seem over the top to an outsider) from the authorities.

However, if the current state continues, i.e., all immigrants hug their point of view and all British eye the former with suspicion, things will never get any better.

The gut response to news of a terror attack in Britain varies from person to person according to who they are. From anecdotal evidence based on personal experience, this may be:

‘All these bloody immigrants’ – xenophobic British (white or otherwise)
‘All these Muslim immigrants’ – xenophobic British (white or otherwise) who think a step further
'I am more British that White British and hate all immigrants, see' – insecure xenophobic Asian British
‘All these Muslim idiots are ruining our chances’ – non-Muslim immigrants
‘Oh no, not again!’ – moderate Muslims (British/immigrants)
‘Serves them bloody right, now they will know how we suffer’ – fanatical Muslims (British/immigrants – including the vast majority of fanatics who have never personally ‘suffered’ from any British atrocities!)

We see what we want to see and draw conclusions that we are comfortable with. The danger in all this is that of polarisation and isolation. Somehow we have to think beyond the gut response and try to see the other person’s way of thinking (not necessarily agree with them, but think of an alternative version – of events, of perceptions, of the news)

I can only speak for myself, but maybe I can hazard an extrapolation. People from the Indian subcontinent have a lot of emotional baggage and are touchy about a range of issues including our colonial history, our accent, our culture and our ‘way of life’ (I include myself in this sweeping generalisation). Most of us are very competitive and tuned to detect minor xenophobic or racist disturbances in the air around us. The response may vary in details but usually it boils down to self preservation. Hence the hurling of abuse at people who disagree, the ganging up on ‘troublemakers’, the tendency to distance yourself from a group you maybe mistaken for (I am guilty of pointedly buying bacon sandwiches on the tube, for instance).

I cannot tell the British how they should react to what is happening in their country, but maybe I can ask (without being patronising) fellow competent, sensitive, intelligent Indians to think rationally. By all means disagree vehemently and be opinionated. But the reflex response of finding someone else to blame may need to be curbed.

Otherwise in the foreseeable future, Britain will be a clump of insular communities with a tendency to withdraw into themselves, championing their own agenda (‘we have rights too’ vs ‘the boats go both ways, mate’) and blaming the other for not being inclusive. Surely that is not going to be in anyone’s best interests.

Stop rant

Off my pet giraffe

Back to being pipette monkey

My firstborn

When he was born, I was not around, but I remember it was in the middle of the night. I remember looking down at him, in the hospital cradle and thinking 'hmm...interesting'.

His mother was taking a bath, having entrusted me with the responsibility of looking after him, sleeping peacefully in the middle of the double bed. Five minutes later, he was awake and crawling to the edge of the bed. By the time I rushed to him, he had slipped over the edge and was hanging in the blue nylon mosquito net tucked under the mattress. All I could do was support him, like a little fish caught in a net, till his mother came back. He blinked at me the whole time.

It was tedious at times, reading aloud to him. He wanted books with pictures and he would lie in the crook of my arm as I read. Sometimes he would turn the pages, helpfully. If it was in English, I had to translate in my head and 'read' aloud in Malayalam. I am glad those days are over.

He wanted to learn how to cycle - I really didn't have the time or the patience. He still does not know how to (although he may disagree).

He had two little plastic bunny rabbits, an inch and a half in height, with little mustard seed eyeballs that moved when you shook them. They had little ridged cylinders of smelly eraser inside. It was my job to think up escapades and adventures, featuring the two little mischevious bunny rabbits. They are still there, in his room, 20 years later. The pink one is missing an eye, the yellow one has lost an ear and the erasers are long gone.

I cannot remember how well he did at school. I seemed so busy with my own life. I do remember his admission to REC Suratkal. I went along and got him settled into his new campus life.

My life was picking up speed and I had places to go. We kept in touch, but he was growing up fast. There were still the odd precious glimpses of the little boy I used to make spaceships out of seat cushions for, the little boy who had a favourite T shrit when he was two - the one with vertical blue and white stripes down the front with a smattering of little brown teddy bears, the little boy I had to visit in school and open his flask full of chocolate milk for (because he was too tiny to do it himself) - I love and treasure these memories.

He is now taller than me, lean as a lamp post and has a deep, manly, slightly dopey voice. Lately I have started annoying him.

Officially he is my younger brother, with a gap of five years between us. Why then, does it feel like he is my son, I wonder. At the age of twenty five, he is starting his first job tommorrow. I feel proud, I feel scared, I feel happy and strangely enough a bit sad as well.

I want him to do well, I want him to be very happy, I want him to fall in love with his work and his life boldly and unconditionally. I want him to be polite and decent to everyone irrespective of rank.

Oh, and I want him to remember always that he has the best parents in the world and a very proud older brother.