If you build it, they will come

I've been meaning to make a go of this new career I had planned for myself - or at least part of a new career (the other part was to spend time doing random things - things different than what I normally did for a living, some of which would make me money, and some non-profit work). The new career was in energy healing - and specifically Reiki. I thought I'd set up a studio in Hyderabad - if not a separate thing, at least have a room in my apartment that I could work out of...

But no apartment yet. And no real plans. And some random writing thing sort of working out, but haven't started on it yet - and no real income can be realized from it for a while. And realized that I really have to make a commitment to set up this studio thing. But not sure if I want to take the plunge yet - I thought I was - but am reconsidering. And people telling me that no one's going to come to me or pay me here for this sort of thing unless I establish a reputation first. Vicious cycle.

But still. I thought I could at least try something that didn't really need an investment. Craigslist!!!! - they actually already have a listing for Hyderabad - so why not - put in an ad for Reiki under the therapeutic services category. Aunt and cousin offered me the use of a shed they have in their compound - nicely enough appointed. It's really a cute little den/office masquerading as a shed. We moved a bench (more than 60 years old) from their sit-out into that room - to function as the treatment table. And I added my healing books and certificates to the other books on the bookshelf. And I watched a request come in for the Reiki. But when the person called me, he asked me what sort of massage it was. I was slightly disappointed, but I explained what it was to him and he said he'd see if he needed that sort of a treatment. Then one more. And this person seemed much more interested after my explanation - and he showed up. We talked for a bit. My first real paying client! Though I have had a few relatives pay me a dollar or two in the past, as a token - this was different. And he was from Princeton, NJ - what irony. Six thousand miles from there and my first customer used to practically be my neighbor all that distance away.

I treated him for a while and he went to sleep soon after we began. Then he suddenly started coughing and needed to get up to slip some Halls into his mouth - he aplogized - then he went "you're really good" and promptly went back to laying down again and I went back to working on him. We talked a while after we got done. He felt my hands to see if they were still hot as they had been during the treatment - not really. He told me about other people he knew who did this sort of thing - and about some other random stuff. Then he paid me - and tipped me as much as the session had cost. I have to admit it was weird - to charge for this sort of thing and then to be tipped; but I think it really should be charged for to be valued, and that if I want to spend large chunks of my time doing this, then I really need to accept money for it. I told him it wasn't necessary. But he insisted - so I told him I'd donate the tip. Gave it to aunt and asked her to give it to the charity of her choice. It's nice of family here to facilitate all this - they're all rooting for me, even though they thought this didn't have a chance. I'm sure that energy alone is plenty - and more, for me to make a start.

And then another email, and another. I'm not sure if it will go anywhere by itself. But I know now that if I get serious and commit myself, come they will.

Are you fit?

"Representative Assessee must sign the application if the applicant is minor/ deceased/ idiot/ lunatic/ mentally retarded"

That was in the instructions for how to fill in the application for a PAN (the equivalent of an SSN) in India. I read it with my mouth open. This instruction probably also applies to the people who drew up these instructions, or if that was very long ago, then to the people who haven't changed them yet.

Seeing the sights

Went to see the Chowmahalla palace in (downtown) Hyderabad recently - a set of 4 palaces in the same compound. This was the official residence of the Nizams (a dynasty of rulers whose founder worked for the Emperor Aurengzeb) of Hyderabad.

The taxi took us to the unimposing gates of the palace through the crowded area of Charminar (another famous landmark). Considering the area we had just driven through, with crowds thronging the streets, the strangest goods for sale, all sorts of pollution clouding the atmosphere and the roads, and various unpleasant smells assailing our nostrils, I didn't expect much. But once we entered the gates and paid the entrance fee for ourselves (and our cameras) I felt like I was Lucy and had just walked through the wardrobe. It was a different world. The gardens on the grounds and the various palaces and other buildings that form this complex are just gorgeous. No crowds, no garbage, just wonderful architecture, fabulous flowering trees and shrubs, a reflecting pool and quiet all around.

Some pictures from the trip:





It took up a lot of our time and energy walking around and wandering through the various palaces, leaving me little of both to take pictures of the even more interesting things outside on our way back. But some of the interesting things we saw:
-A little shop where they were making those sheets of ultra-fine silver foil that commonly go on top of Indian sweets. There were 2 or 3 men in there. One of them had a hammer in one hand and his other hand on what looked like a square leather bound book on the floor. He was pounding the hammer on that book very rhythmically, using the free hand to rotate the 'book' a little every time the hand with the hammer went up. He seemed to look everywhere else but down at that thing. I'm not sure that I would ever trust myself enough to do that, regardless of how many years I may spend pounding away with a hammer. He, however, had never made any mistakes, or at least no serious ones, it seemed. He even looked at me and smiled at me looking at him. Too bad I didn't ask if I could take his picture. But I guess there's been an end put to my eating any sweets covered with this stuff anymore. That leather bound book was pretty much that, cow hide (or buffalo hide, or something's hide) - I guess it makes sense to use that, but now my vegetarian brain will conjure up images of this little scene every time I bite into one of those things. I guess ignorance really is bliss, especially in these matters.
- A man with just 2 things for sale - again very deserving of a picture (but unfortunately there isn't one) - the hide of a sheep or goat laid out on the street to resemble the animal and the wolly hair from whatever it had been (probably a sheep) also laid out the same way. It was the day after Id, a Muslim festival during which people traditionally slaughter one of these animals in honor of Ibrahim's willingness to undertake the sacrifical slaughter of his son.
-A naked woman lying on the area that served as a divider for the street we were on. She was probably very poor and possibly mentally unstable. Such sights are not uncommon here. I didn't personally see this, but heard my aunt describing what she was seeing out of her window. It's sad that there are hundreds of thousands of people all around (ourselves included), just walking/driving/riding by and not doing anything to help. There are tons of organizations and many people trying to help, but it seems like the there's no end to the misery here. And for this particular one, I'm glad I don't have a picture.

Keeping the faith

It's kind of late

to start again

but then, what's the option?
Things look rosy in the rearview mirror
but in your heart of hearts you know
that they looked different when they were up ahead
and that it would be the same if you turned around
So you ride on
hoping the scenery changes
or that something inside does
as it did once before
so that what lies ahead
or behind
doesn't really matter anymore

On first name terms

So I took the train to Hyderabad after all and it was alright, though I think I’ll use the train only for shorter distances from now on. It would have been better if there had been fewer roaches crawling around. I’m sure this isn't the norm in the more expensive air conditioned compartments, but this wasn't one of the better super fast trains, just an express, so this sort of thing is probably to be expected. The young man sitting on the seat opposite me complained to the conductor about the roaches and received the response that this was a common problem in the air conditioned coaches. He was not too happy with the response – he said that the conductor could have said something that conveyed that he gave a damn, such as perhaps that he would let people in the yard (where trains are taken to get cleaned) or someone else know so they could better address the problem. He also said, ‘imagine if there are foreigners on this train, what will they think?’ I thought to myself, I could care less what anyone else thought, but I could tell him a bit of what I was thinking.

I exchanged email addresses with him. He was into computer graphics and animation – that’s what he did for a living. He only had a first name – no last name. I asked him how that worked, when he applied for official documents and such. He said that so far he had been able to get away with it and on the rare occasion when official type people insisted he needed to fill in his last name on a form, he split his only name into two. It seems he was named that way because his father did not want anyone to have an inkling about what caste they belonged to and so on and use that as the basis for discrimination (negative or otherwise). So to all those who deny that problems such as these exist in India (and of course they need to have their heads examined), it seems they are alive and kicking.

He also asked me where I lived, what I did and all the usual questions – and when I told him that I lived abroad (‘O’h so you are an NRI?’) and was thinking of living here for a while, he told me he would never leave India. He said that he had not even applied for a passport, even though his father had suggested he should on several occasions. He said he that he did not believe he could live as freely anywhere else as he could in India. Other than that elsewhere he would always be viewed as a foreigner, where else, he asked, could one freely throw garbage wherever one wanted or drive or ride a vehicle with a total disregard for any rules that existed, on any side of the road? I asked him if he thought that was a good thing – and he said it was total freedom – he hadn't thought about whether it was good or not. He then promptly proceeded to remove the plastic wrapper on the lid of the water bottle he had just bought and throw it on the floor. I asked him if he was just exercising his freedom and he retorted that well, it was not like there was anywhere else he could throw it, since the windows could not be opened in these compartments! I pointed to the dustbin in the little alcove outside of the doors (of course I’d ended up in a seat at the end of the compartment closest to the loo) and said what about there? It was ultimately probably going to end up just being dumped somewhere anyway, probably get thrown all together outside the train by the person who emptied it – since there is really no system to get rid of garbage yet in India, but at least the process would be slightly delayed. And it’s probably easier to address mounds of garbage than individual bits and pieces all over the place. He grinned sheepishly but from then on used it and complimented me on my powers of observation (to the people who think I don't have those - see?).

He was telling me that he owned a flat (aka ‘condominium’ in the US) in Hyderabad and had moved to another city for work and was now moving back. He lived with his sister, who was a couple of years younger than him. She, too, worked in Hyderabad, though they were from elsewhere. So she had been living there alone for the past few months while he had been away. I was quite impressed, considering that she was probably only 22 or 23. When I asked him how he commuted to work, he said he had a motor bike and when I asked about her, he said she used an auto (autorickshaw) to get around. When I asked him how come she did not own a scooter or a moped or something to get around, he said he would not allow it. He said it wasn't safe, he’d seen so many accidents. She was free to do whatever she wanted after she got married, but until then, he said, he wanted all her limbs intact. I thought that was very thoughtful of him.

I got to read only a couple of pages of the book I had carried to keep me company (Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry) thanks to this fellow. But I guess your horizons can be expanded any which way. I also left the book on the train. Probably the universe letting me know that there are better sources of entertainment here.

Backwards and Forward

Kokila (the maid) told me that she does not accept the gently used cotton saris my mother has offered her, not because she does not like them, but because she wears only synthetic saris. When I asked her why, since the cotton ones are so pretty, she said that it’s hard to pull the pallav (or the part of the sari that’s left hanging over the shoulder) of a cotton sari over her head and face when in the presence of her father-in-law, brother-in-law or other ‘elders’ in her home – since it is so thick. The Hindi phrase she used for this act translates to something like ‘removing her shame’ or ‘taking out her shame’. As usual, these things always amaze me, that people in this day and age live like it was a hundred years ago (or at least 50 years ago). When I asked her if she did not know that this was the year 2008 and why people still clung to customs such as this, she said that that is just the way things are and there is nothing one can do about it (though my mother assured me that her father-in-law was a really nice man and would probably never object if she did not ‘remove her shame’). I continued talking to her saying things that I hoped would emancipate her (though it is totally none of my business) while thinking that for myself, perhaps it would not really be a bad idea to go even further and acquire a burqa (one of those long garments, usually black, though people are lightening up on the color these days, that you wear to cover your body and your head – with only an opening for the face or slits for the eyes) to wear when using public transport. It would be so freeing! I could wear whatever I want to and ‘take my shame out’ along with myself without having to worry about being groped or stared at!

The Virtue of Selfishness (not sure why I'm writing this and who would want to read it)

I remember reading a book by this name when I was very young – maybe 11 or 12 – I was in this phase where I was reading everything written by Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, The Romantic Manifesto and We The Living among others, thanks to the influence of fans of hers at home. I overheard someone in the family once say that I was being spoiled by all these books and they were influencing me negatively. They certainly did influence me and for a very long time I kept comparing people I met to characters in those books – immediately falling in love with people who seemed like Howard Roark and John Galt and hating anyone who seemed in the remotest like Ellsworth Toohey, promoting mediocrity. I sometimes secretly wondered if some of my behaviors were I more like Toohey’s than Howard Roark’s or John Galt’s and even occasionally despised myself if I found they were. I totally agreed with Rand’s philosophy and everything she said – it all seemed to make sense to me. I wanted to be like her heroes and live up to the ideals they held. And I totally agreed that there was nothing but virtue in selfishness.

But when I’ve looked at the things I’ve done and how I’ve lived my life to date, though I’m sure observers consider me very selfish, never seeming to have the interests of those around me at heart, they probably don’t realize that I didn’t have my own interests at heart either – and so never really excelled at anything I did. I never sat and thought about what I wanted and so never conducted my life according to those needs – in any sphere – I just kept doing what I thought was expected of me – by anyone and everyone (usually just random ‘anyones’) but me – in the end giving life to that nagging little thought that perhaps I was more like Toohey after all and just by the nature of the way I behaved encouraged mediocrity in and all around me. I think some of that was taught to me by adults around me, who constantly kept trying to teach that one shouldn’t be selfish, one should consider everyone else etc. – those things may be fine as far as, say, adjusting the thermostat in the room or making sure those around you are physically comfortable etc. – but beyond that, if you start conducting yourself based on everyone else’s needs, then unless that’s really what you want to do, it serves no one.

But Toohey was never who I aspired to be and he’s certainly not my ideal. I think I am so fortunate to have this time to regroup and reflect on my life. My intention going forward is to be selfish – very truly selfish – and that has nothing to do with material things or money or anything like that – just making sure that every step I take and every thing I do serves my interest and where I think I want to go – hopefully, where I know I want to go and must go. If that selfishness leads me to do something that actually helps others, that’s just great, but to just do things thinking that that’s what others want or what’s expected of me or is the noble thing to do and then resent everyone around me will in the end be a disservice to everyone else.

The things that currently drive me nuts

The same old things, every time. They only seem to get worse. After a while, you get used to them again - I haven't gotten to that point yet on this trip:

- Not being able to walk outside without my heart in my mouth, bumping into hundreds of stray dogs within a couple of miles, sometimes vicious looking packs of them (not only does this city have to deal with its own strays, but apparently some genius somewhere decided that strays from other cities were to be dealt with by transporting them here and releasing them - there are hundreds of thousands of stray dogs - India soon will have not only the largest population in the world but already has the largest stray dog population in the world).

- Having to listen to some of those dogs fight amongst each other and bark all night long.

- The narrow, unnatural, 30-40 mile creek that runs by (well, not immediately by, but some 50 feet away) my parents house, beginning at one river and emptying into another, carrying tons of sewage and God knows what else and emanating all kinds of smells at times ).

- Various people throughout the city, including in this locality (middle class people with proper houses, sometimes cars and all kinds of other luxuries - but with pea-sized brains) burning their garbage in piles outside the gates of their houses (including plastics and God knows what other noxious fume producing substances) - they seem to think that this is the state-of-art-way to get rid of your garbage.

- Groups of people (usually men) milling around idly everywhere and staring all together whenever a female form passes by.

- All the people who you sometimes vent about these things to, who live in swanky localities, get driven around in air-conditioned cars and only see the insides and the outsides of the nicest places in India wondering why you're complaining and what you're talking about. They should all do substantial time here, with none of their accouterments.

- A feeling of total frustration and helplessness that nothing can ever be done to improve things here (not that I have ever seriously tried - always started something - if only in the smallest way - and never really stayed long enough to follow through) and sometimes disgust.

- Diwali season (which means fireworks everywhere - everyone buys fireworks). The pretty ones are nice to watch when they're set off, but when rockets tend to almost land on your head or eyes and blind you as you are walking on your terrace, you don't take kindly to either the season or to the idiots who are heedlessly firing these things that travel in a short arc and land, while still burning, on the ground or some one's terrace, head, face or other body part as they're standing or walking outside or the authorities for letting such things be manufactured and sold. Only slightly better than this sort are the 'bombs' - 'atom bombs', 'nuclear bombs' whatever - that go off and usually take your ear drums with them for a while. With a pounding head all I can think of at these times is that I'd like to, as in those Tom and Jerry or Road Runner cartoons, shove these bombs up the backsides of the people setting them off and see how they like it then.

- That there are so few columnists like Tavleen Singh of the Indian Express who actually tell it like it is - everyone else seems to be pulling the wool over their own eyes and just talk about how everything here is the best, the first, the greatest, the whatever - or just don't talk about any of this at all - or just talk about it as if it's all normal

One bright spot:
The ear-splitting noise from constant revelry in open air tents or the street where the not-so-fortunate people hold their weddings or the mullah's call to prayer at ungodly hours over the loudspeaker at nearby mosque no longer seem to be a problem - people seem to be obeying some new law of no noise over loudspeakers between 10 at night and six in the morning or something (or it could just be that I'm here out of season).

I hope I can help in some way, no matter how small and doing no matter what, towards mitigating at least one of these issues - already on it. If nothing else, at least then I can complain a little bit louder.

Bicycles everywhere!

Kokila, the maid who comes once a day to my parents' home to cut vegetables (that's right - her sole job is to cut vegetables for the next day morning's meal - strange job, but they employ her because she wanted the job and they want someone around so that if the regular maid who does the other housework doesn't show up or they need a temporary cook if my mother is indisposed, they'll have someone else to turn to) has a regular day job at a school. She's part of a crew that keeps the school clean. The school is about 3 kilometers away from where she lives and she walks back every afternoon. Today, she was telling me how tired she gets walking back every day - there are no buses that run at the time she and her colleagues leave and they really can't afford an autorickshaw or anything else - in spite of the fact that on her days off from the school, she works at a factory (where she gets paid for about 9 hours of work about Rs. 50 - RS. 50! - that's pure exploitation as far as I'm concerned, but it's the going rate per what she says - that's about $1.10 - now I know things can't be like in the developed countries and people can't get paid even a dollar an hour or anything like that, but come on, it should at least be Rs. 100 for the whole entire day).

So she's going to learn how to ride a bike (she's about 36 and has been widowed for many years now, with two teenagers to take care of) - something that for whatever reason she didn't get to do as a child - and then buy a bike so she can use it for transportation to her school.

Now, in all good conscience, it's going to be impossible for me to take the plane (http://notesfromalongjourney.blogspot.com/2008/11/planes-trains-or-automobiles.html), when I know that if I take the train, I can save enough money to buy her a brand new bicycle (at a cost 0f about Rs. 3000 at the most) and still have enough left over to take my next train journey somewhere. A conscience can be a pain sometimes - but this time, I guess I'll listen - since I really don't have to be anywhere in a hurry and if a few minutes of discomfort can really help make someone I know's life more bearable, then I guess I can put those in a different perspective. Now, ideally, of course, one would take the plane and buy the bicycle. But if I start doing too much of that, then before long, I'll probably be needing a bicycle myself! Now, if I start analyzing things like this every time I travel, everyone I know who needs a bicycle is going to end up with one!

Choose what shows up

(Getting closer to a new profession - writing inspirational greeting cards!)

It's probably been said before in many different ways
Where the words sit
Makes a difference
In how you view your days
If you can't have what you want then don't think that it's the end
Try wanting what you have and then begin again

What If?

(Greeting card, anyone?)

Every wrong turn ever taken
All the time the way was lost
Every detour, every short cut
Was actually on another path
To a destination
Much grander than
The one you thought you sought

On matters spiritual

For years, I have been irked by a certain Sathya Sai Baba devotee trying to get everyone and their brother (me included) to come to their bhajans and their 'seva' sessions and everything else that they do. Now, those things in and of themselves are not things that I cannot stand participating in or attending, but when they sit in the middle of something that seems so cultish and in the middle of devotees who are so pushy and do not take kindly to anyone who does not view their 'God' or 'Baba' or who or whatever they consider him to be, in the same way, I do not want to go anywhere near them.

And so, it is funny how incredibly annoyed we can become when other people try to shove their spiritual beliefs down our throats, yet act in the same way when we encounter our own epiphanies or have our own experiences. Not understanding how other people cannot believe in what we now believe, having experienced it for ourselves, 'it's real', we say. 'They weren't making it up'. 'It's all true - you have to try it, to experience what I did'. Until suddenly one day, someone points out that you sound like a zealot and they're not interested in trying what you did, or experiencing what you did, or even really in listening to your endless recounting of it.

So, thank you, wise person. On reflection, I understand what you mean, and furthermore, I now understand that one person's truth may be different from another's and that none of it is absolute and that if something is to come to someone, it will; it does not need me to bring it to them. Ok, well I always knew that, it's just that I couldn't help myself all this while. But now I have a lesson learned.

The wood apple

A strange fruit:

- looks like a tennis ball, except for the color.
- the shell is as hard as a coconut's - you need a hammer to break it open. You could probably use it as a weapon.
- Once you do, it has this seedy pulp inside, not very pleasant smelling, which you scoop out and add jaggery to (as much jaggery as there is fruit).
- You then eat this mixture - from a taste perspective, I'm not sure why, but apparently there are some health benefits (helps with constipation, dry eye etc.)

Pearl of wisdom: This fruit is not to be shared. Apparently, of the hundreds of seeds contained in each fruit, only one is sweet, so sharing the fruit means that all but one person will miss out on that little treasure (thanks to my grandmother by way of my mother).

Re-importing exports

Been doing some research on yoga schools in India.

The one in Baroda where I go to sometimes on trips to India just does not cut it. Besides with their Gujarati accents (Guarati = local language in state where I am), the teachers constantly say something that make me want to giggle all the time and I lose all concentration ('Practice everyday and you can 'batter' yourself'). Hyderabad, where I'm going, doesn't seem to have anything promising either.

So I thought I'd go hang out in Mysore or Coonoor or Rishikesh for a month or two - perfect at least a handful of poses, apply myself and then stay disciplined for the rest of my life - instead of going to a handful of classes every other year and never practicing at home. But man, are they expensive, not to mention the cost of renting a place, eating, and all that. Any thoughts of staying a year or two and getting a yoga certification (which I've always wanted to do) to then go teach when I go back are out the window. In fact, if anything, I think I'll go back to the US, get certified and come back and teach here - more lucrative!

Already - Regrets

H'mmm - I'm wondering if I'm being wise handing out this URL to random people, telling them to come take a look if they want to see what I've been up to. See - the idea was really to keep a sort of photo journal - of surroundings and happenings and all of that, because I know that some of my friends I've left behind in the US really are interested in what I'm doing. But I also want to write random stuff, for no reason - especially considering I'm not doing anything yet - except perhaps eating exotic things that I can put pictures up of. And at my most natural, I like to use off-color language once in a while. Now don't get me wrong - I don't swear left and right, only if the situation and emotion really calls for it and only in appropriate company (never in front of kids except once, by accident - and nothing more serious than the s word) in person. But I would hate to keep censoring myself in this space and use lackluster substitutes for one or two words (especially one) that have come to express certain (ok all) emotions so well. Now some of these people that I'm handing the address out to might be offended. They probably thought that at least by my age I'd have learned to not be improper. But WTF, this is one of the few advantages of having given up a corporate job, not having kids etc. - can't give everything up in this life! So, if I offend your sensibilities or you're under 18 - then goodbye!

Planes, trains or automobiles?

Baroda to Hyderabad, approximately 1200 kms. How to get from here to there? The bus (or a car) isn’t really an option – too far (and I don’t have one) and it would only be worse than the train.

So that whittles the choice down to the first two. Now, let me try to be scientific about this:

	Train	Plane	Value in monetary terms - traveling by train	Value in monetary terms - traveling by plane
Cost	1300 rupees (2nd a/c)	7200 rupees – special fare if I’m lucky	5900 rupees	-5900 rupees
Time	23 hours	About 61/2 hours including waits at airports	Since no one’s paying for my time at the moment - none	Since no one’s paying for my time at the moment - none
Company	As always, will probably end up with lousy company – or more likely just non-company. Paan chewing, lewd middle-aged men (though now that I’m in that same age category, I’d probably give a s**t);totally non-communicative, and probably nothing much to say even if they did, women, etc. I always have the lousiest luck with traveling companions – I pride myself on being friendly with everyone (that’s how I am when I am alone, people, for those of you who think you know me), but I always have the worst luck of the draw.	We don’t have to sit face-to-face and it’s too short a trip to care even if we did.	?	?
Proximity of seat to loo	Too close and you’ll have to plug your nostrils the whole trip and breathe through your mouth.	Hopefully better, though who can say?	-some	some
Risks and Dangers	Armed bandits could enter compartment, Godhra type incidents could occur, all kinds of things could happen - certainly plenty of time and opportunity	Could explode, fall out of sky, get hijacked etc.	Probably paltry compensation!	Family gets better compensation! – that’s just the way it is.
Special Effects	The sounds of the train on the tracks – tadak,tadak,tadak – soothing – and the only form of transportation that used to not give me travel sickness as a child	Views from the sky	?	?
Loo	Will have to hold it in for 23 hours. If I really had to, could probably stand it for a few seconds to pee and pretend like it never happened. But what if I ate something bad? As I keep telling people, I am ever so glad that the Indians (though we seem think we are the smartest, brightest, most brilliant people on planet earth and invented everything) had nothing to do with modern technological developments such as the aeroplane. And conveniently now, people will point out that it was the British who screwed us, took us for everything we had etc. and gave us the railway system and the toilets in them that open to the tracks. But get over all that, people, it’s been more than 60 years, do something about it. No one is responsible for the crap here but we ourselves (when I can get told that about my personal life, it should certainly be true for everything else).	Can hold it in for this short period of time.		Priceless!

I think we have a winner.

Resurrection

Too little too late has always been my life story - but let's see if we can't make this 'A little late but worth the wait' (cheesy but conveys what I mean it to). Even two years ago when I set the blog up (under a different name) with all good intentions of putting something up regularly, I was doing it about four years after I had meant to. Procrastinator that I am (I actually had that Charlie Brown poster that said 'I'll procrastinate tomorrow') - it took me another year and a half to actually sign in again and here another year later I'm back where I was when I started it, both geographically and otherwise, with nothing to do - by choice, but painful just the same - and so here I am again albeit under a new name. From griperwithapurpose to notesfromalongjourney - I'm evolving.
For anyone who cares to visit - I will be updating sporadically, prolifically at times and hardly at all at others, it will probably reflect how little or how much I have going on in my life at any given moment in inverse proportion.
And o'h - it's not about this current journey to India, or Brazil, or Argentina - or anywhere else - it's just random musings, rememberings and the rantings and ravings of a sometimes lunatic mind (I hope I'm not doing a Kaavya Vishwanathan there - one never knows - with so many people writing and so many people reading what others are writing - it is probably a given that one is going to come up with combinations of words that have been put together before) on the journey through this life.
And to start with, some pictures from a trip to Argentina and Brazil recently, memories of which are just beginning to fade- the highlights:


View from my hotel room in Rio









Copacabana - from SugarLoaf








Iguazu - Argentinian side - a rainbow!












Usha and Sudha drenched - not butterflies

On Forgiveness

To hold the power
To forgive
And not use it
Wouldn't that be worse than the original transgression?

Why am I here now?

Walking home from the bank:

- A cart selling '100% Vegetarian Chiness' food
- Many mounds of wet, juicy cow dung
- The grassy area of a petrol pump (to make it look aesthetically pleasing, I suppose, though given the surroundings, it looked sorely out of place) being mowed by two live lawn mowers (probably the ones that left the cow dung everywhere)
- 2 camels resting idly by the sidewalk, chewing something and looking half-menacingly at me

Thank You For the Music

I remember sending a video clip to cousin Usha a year or two ago, of a girl belting out this old Jennifer Holliday song to win America's got Talent and expressing envy that someone could actually sing like that and that too a 12 year old girl. Her response had been that, well, even if I couldn’t sing or play anything, at least I could appreciate music and there were many who could not do even that. This had not occurred to me up until that point; that there were people who actually could not appreciate music, of any kind. I had always been under the impression that it was just a matter of finding the music that appealed to one. But I guess just as art does not speak to some and books to others, I had to allow for the possibility that music, too, does not touch many hearts.

In light of this new revelation, that I actually had this ‘ability’ that I could be grateful for, I immediately sent out thanks - to Usha – for more than making me realize this fact, brother Ravi, a handful of other ‘musical’ influences and the universe for having let me grow up in London and listen to a lot of the kind of music I later grew to love in my formative years.

I remember little of music prior to my years in London as a child, apart from a few children’s songs from a few Hollywood movies such as ‘Mary Poppins’, ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’, ‘Chitti, Chitti Bang Bang’ and ‘The Sound of Music’ that we had been lucky enough to get taken to see. As for Carnatic or Hindi music, though I’m sure we must have been surrounded by both, since my uncle was an avid fan of all things Carnatic and my dad, per my mother, had probably been an usher in a Hindi movie theater in a prior life, somehow I had no memories of those.

Arriving in India close to the age of 11 after a little more than three years in London, my head was full of Gary Glitter, Paper Lace, Shirley Bassey, Rod Stewart, Suze Quatro, Queen, Abba, Slade and the like. But other than a handful of tapes consisting of songs recorded from the radio and about 5 LPs (Johnny Wakelin of ‘Black Superman’ fame, The Bay City Rollers, one called The Sexy Sax – sax tunes with a lurid cover, one with popular movie themes of the time – such as ‘Speak Softly Love’ and one which I can’t recall), I hadn’t thought of bringing all that back with me to India – or rather, things like that weren’t really anything that I could have asked for, since my parents weren’t exactly drowning in money and buying tapes or LPs or SPs of popular music for my brother and me was probably not the first thing they were looking to do. And that’s probably where all my love for English music would have ended. But luckily for me, my cousin Usha, who lived under the same roof, was big on English music and was always humming something or the other. We had an old tape-recorder at home (that played spools) and we had a big collection of Carpenters, Abba, Neil Diamond and Simon and Garfunkel hits. I’m not sure where they came from. They were probably taped from borrowed records or tapes. She was also a big fan of short wave radio - Radio Ceylon (which subsequently became Radio Sri Lanka), the Voice of America, the BBC and Radio Australia - specifically, shortwave radio relating to all things ‘phoren’ - this in spite of the fact that my uncle (and her dad) would try to dissuade us from listening to English music without first developing a taste for the Indian kind and specifically Carnatic music. Thanks to Radio Ceylon, my repertoire of English music grew to include artist such as Jim Reeves, Cliff Richard, Englebert HumperDink, Tom Jones, the Brotherhood of Man and all kinds of others that I would never have heard of otherwise. The Sri Lankans (or rather the Goans and Bombayites, people with names like Stevie, Ryan, Sandra, Cecelia, Marina, Pamela etc. who seemed to be the only ones making requests on Radio Sri Lanka) had a taste for only the most romantic of old serenades, or the catchiest of pop tunes. The BBC didn’t do much for my musical interests – I don’t remember listening to anything of musical interest on it, just boring ‘news’ type stuff and the Voice of America, as far as I could remember had nothing vaguely musical, nor ever played anything that in the remotest fashion could be interpreted as fun. Their agenda was probably not really to bring popular (or even unpopular) music to foreign households.

Radio Australia, however, was a different story. They always had several programs dedicated entirely to music. I remember for years, all through school and college, at least those years where my afternoons were free, devoting entire afternoons to listening to shows on Radio Australia. This was where I was introduced to Men Down Under, Billy Fields, Split Enz, Helen Reddy and other such groups and musicians. And this was where I had my 15 minutes (and more) of fame on the radio. A few years after moving from Secunderabad to Baroda (where the only English music that could be heard were popular tunes sung by folks like Michael Jackson or occasionally a piece by Kraftwerk) I had written in to the host of the afternoon show, Peter Cavanaugh (the name of the show however has made room for other things in my head) for a ½ hour dedication which he did regularly – playing ½ an hour of one band’s music and dedicating it to the person who’d requested it. And I’d given him a choice of several bands with my words ending the list being – ‘And if you don’t want to play any of the above – please play the Beatles’. I guess by the time my letter got to him – and he read it (I’m sure I didn’t use airmail), he had probably run through all of the groups on my list for the afternoon dedications he had done in the meantime and the Beatles were the only ones left on the list. Or perhaps he was a big fan and hadn’t heard them in a long time himself and so picked them as the group of the day. But that’s what he dedicated to me – a half an hour of Beatles music. A couple of weeks later, my brother received a letter from friend Desmond D’Souza in Sec’bad, the last few lines of which talked about having heard the dedication on Radio Australia to me and asking why I was still stuck in some ancient era and didn’t I know that the Beatles had long since ‘croaked’? I’m not sure what he meant since the Beatles were much more than just Lenon. When my brother showed me this, though slightly annoyed and upset at this fellow for insinuating I knew nothing about the music of the day and wanting to write him back immediately that the Beatles had been an afterthought at the end of a long list of hip music-of-the-day choices, I was thrilled that someone in a city so far away had actually tuned in to a radio station somewhere else so far away and heard a dedication to me!

A few friends in St. Anne’s where I went to school in Sec’bad who also liked to at least occasionally listen to English music, or at least had some lying around at home, contributed some to my musical cache as well and through them I was introduced to a handful of artists that though I’d heard of had never really listened to in the past. Folks such as Diana Ross and the Supremes and a whole host of other Motown artistes that they happened to have records of and people such as David Dundas (of ‘jeans on’ fame) that no one today probably remembers or come to think of knew of even then. But the first few lines of that song are something I keep humming to myself every now and then to this day when I wake up.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention music class in St. Ann’s. Silly though I felt at the ages of 12 and 13 sitting in ‘singing’ class with a song book in my hand along with about 60 or 70 other students and Sister something or the other at the piano and loudly singing ‘Sounds of Silence’, ‘O-bla-di-O-bla-da’ (sic!) and ‘Bombay meri hai’, those classes did something to imprint those songs in my memory and make me love that type of music even more.

And one last memorable artiste to enter my world in those Secunderabad years before moving to Baroda was Barbara Streisand. Going to see ‘For Pete’s Sake’ and ‘The Way We Were’ in Sangeet or Natraj or one of those movie theaters made our introduction and I’ve kept in touch to this day.

Moving to Baroda was not a happy occasion. For one thing I started going to a co-ed school. Though I had been in one in London - St. Anne’s, where I’d gone prior to London and after returning, had been an all girls school and I had gotten used to that in India. In contrast, the co-ed ‘company’ school run by the petrochemical company that my dad worked for was full of students who seemed to be from another planet. They all communicated in this entirely different language (Hindi) and very occasionally in the regional Gujarati, though of course they all knew English and this was a completely new experience for me. In St. Anne’s most folks pretended they didn’t know any local languages and that their native tongue was English. So in order to try to fit in I had to begin work on Indianizing my Hindi accent, which at the time still sounded like it was coming out of the mouth of an English person. Add to this the horror of what happened during ‘free’ periods - i.e. a period in which a teacher absconded leaving us with nothing to do - these strange students were in the habit of sitting around in a circle and playing this thing called ‘Antakshari’ – where someone sang the first few lines of a Bollywood song and the next player then had to sing a song beginning with the sound that the previous person had left their song off at. Forget about talking in this language, I now needed to be able to sing in it. So I started going home and diligently listening to the radio every day secretly while my dad listened to it. Up until that time, I had always moved to the furthest corner of the house when he played Vivid Bharti or some such station on the radio, simply because with all the static (this being on medium wave) and the quality of the radio, the sound was just unbearable as far as I was concerned (not to say anything about the music which seemed so foreign to my ears!). Thus came my real introduction to hindi music. I came to like the Kishore Kumar songs of the 70s and abhor Lata Mangeshkar and her awfully high voice. Asha Bhosale seemed much nicer. Mukesh I could never develop a taste for, though perhaps if I had been familiar with some of the movies from which his songs came I may have learned to appreciate him more. It was the same story with Mohammed Rafi. This is when I learned of Usha Uthup (nee Iyer), who sounded like a man, but was cool all the same. So in the end, had it not been for my school and the kids and the types of pastimes they liked to indulge in, I would have grown up in India with no appreciation for hindi film music and not knowing the words to a single popular song.

In Baroda, having my brother around for a few years through all of school and the first year of college meant that I got to listen to everything he got to listen to. So I learned all about rock (it wasn’t yet ‘classic’ at the time) - of folks like Jethro Tull (I think that was his favorite), CSNY, Uriah Heep (who I actually referred to as Urea Heap since that’s what they sounded like to me), Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd. And, probably much to his exasperation, I too started developing a fondness for much of this music and started hanging around whenever he played any of it. More college life brought more music to my ears – through friends like Gayatri and Varsha who brought tapes back from foreign lands. I even got my first taste of Western Classical Music thanks to Varsha – Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ something she had heard and liked and passed on. Gayatri’s husband (not then) Subhash and his friends from Calcutta, who liked to sit together and play guitar and sing, brought Jim Croce and Bob Dylan into my life. A cousin in town, Sudhakar, who studied where I did, also played guitar and sang and would discuss music with me for hours. So it happily turned out that I did learn something in those 4 years of college after all.

It was then on to the US of A and one of my roommates, Mohammed, was convinced that I was lying about where I had come from – since I could sing along to every song that played on the soft rock stations. I guess in those days there was no MTV or VH1 or anything that could be had in India so the only English music that most people were exposed to there were uber popular artists who one could not escape no matter where they were in the world (Michael Jackson constantly springs to mind – though the Jackson Five, of course, no one knew).

From then on, of course, there was no dearth of sources for the angrez music. And this is where I got my first real taste of country (though I tired of it quickly – just like they said – you got your car back, your house back, your wife back and your life back if you played a country tune backwards and it got old after a while), jazz (till then my whole entire experience of jazz had been Smokey Robinson) and later what was billed alternate rock. But surprisingly, this was where I also got my first taste of Carnatic music – thanks to buying the occasional CD to keep older visitors from India entertained. The only two folks I ever took a shine to (not that I was familiar with many) were Balamuralikrishna and Bombay Jayashree. Trips to India had friends, who thought I was now just like all the other desis in the US dying for a bit of Indian culture, plying me with CDs of Hindustani music too. So I now knew and came to appreciate the likes of Zakir Hussein, Allah Rakha and Shivkumar Sharma (who I otherwise had only seen and heard playing in the ‘Pan Parag’ ad).

And, thanks again to Ravi, here is where I first heard Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Well, I’d heard him before, I vaguely remember listening to something about him on ‘All Things Considered’ or some such on NPR when ‘Dead Man Walking’ came out – but it never really took - until I heard Ravi playing it over and over and over... Thanks to him too, Nusrat now has a place on my ipod, and is really useful to keep time when one is walking or otherwise exercising – his songs are all so very long. And thanks to Nusrat, I know about Rahat, who sings in these incredibly dulcet tones.

Reflecting on all of this, I suppose I am blessed (and I suppose my brother did have his uses after all). How many people really can appreciate all types of music? Even if I never learned to play anything (not counting the recorder – on which to this day I can eke out three blind mice, or the 6 months of the cello and six months of the violin I had in school – the only memory of those being how heavy they were in their cases to carry) or cannot coax my voice into producing something that can be shared, at least I can listen quietly and sing it all in my head.