Three Oddest Words

- Wislawa Szymborska

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.

Scream Bloody Murder (CNN presentation)

Scream Bloody Murder: Christiane Amanpour and members of the CNN

Shouts and murmurs

They revolted against me, fully aware that they were to get crushed and destroyed. The anarchists came with visions of reform -half conceived with reason and the other half conjured with irrational emotions. They hammered away at the high stone walls I had erected around myself, failing miserably, panting but not giving up. I heard them out in silence before crushing the uprising of these naive dreamers. Soon their mangled bodies lay at my feet, their placards burnt and blood stains erased by the raindrops. I watched the drenched spectators disperse. Scared, confused and troubled with incoherent thoughts. They will all forget it soon, but I will have the cries to torment me for long:

We're not gonna take it
No, we ain't gonna take it
We're not gonna take it anymore

We've got the right to choose and
There ain't no way we'll lose it
This is our life, this is our song
We'll fight the powers that be just
Don't pick our destiny 'cause
You don't know us, you don't belong

We're not gonna take it
No, we ain't gonna take it
We're not gonna take it anymore

Oh you're so condescending
Your gall is never ending
We don't want nothin', not a thing from you
Your life is trite and jaded
Boring and confiscated
If that's your best, your best won't do.

19 hours in flight

A search for randomness

At Heathrow Airport the police officers perform routine ‘random searches’ to prevent terrorist attacks. This ‘random’ search is basically a process where armed officers go around checking passports of non-whites. They looked at my documents too, and a smirk appeared on their lips when they found that I stay in the US. It was the same smirk many Londoners carry when they refer to USA or when their leading daily, ‘The Mirror’, comes out with an issue titled ‘How can 5 million people be so stupid?’ with a photo of Bush on the front cover. Obviously their sense of self-righteousness never allows them to remember that they were also equally stupid in electing Mr. Blair to office -the man who is often referred to as Bush’s pet dog by the US media. The verification process for my documents took some five minutes or so, and I realized that their so called ‘random’ search was based on a sort of a racial profiling in disguise. I do not mind even if these people were racist. Nor do I resent the fact that they wanted to see my passport; they actually helped me to kill five minutes of my six hour transit time, but what I do resent as a researcher is that they were using a sophisticated mathematical concept like ‘random’-ness so frivolously. I wanted to sit with them and teach them the probabilistic meaning of randomness but refrained from doing so as I feared an arrest.

The Qantas outside my window

As I sat at terminal 4, waiting for my next leg of a 10 hour flight to India, I watched the red and white Qantas Boeing Jumbo jet 747 standing outside the glass pane of the terminus. The jet stood proudly with ‘The spirit of Australia’ painted in black on the front part of the fuselage, just below the cockpit. The electronic display near the boarding gate informed that it was to fly from London to Australia via Singapore. Indeed this aircraft carried on its wings the onerous duty of keeping the island nation connected with the rest of the world. I sat watching it with admiration, exchanging silent glances with it. I had probably fallen in love with the plane. Yes, fallen in love with an inanimate object, and I will go on to say that it was perhaps the most purest form of love as it was most spontaneous and free from lust. I know that you are saying that I am weird, but I protest. I voluntarily distance myself from you all too humans. You, humans, try to define love in a very conservative way, and as a matter of fact you don’t even want to separate love from lust. And those who protest against it are branded by you all as weirdoes. It was perhaps those few hours of silent glances and a strange affection for that body of duralumin that made me a bit depressed when I heard the news that QF30 had suffered a minor accident on its way back from Melbourne to London. I hope that one day I will be able to get on board that flight and make a journey of a lifetime across the great oceans to the island continent.

Aubergine on British Airways

The British Airways is now serving pathetic aubergine curry and rice on its long distance flight to India!-what can be more fascinating than to have an allergic reaction and an itchy lip at thirty seven thousand feet above the sea level for some nine hours or so?!

I used to think that only food on domestic airlines sucked, but it turned out that food on British Airways flights between UK and India was even worse. To incease your exaspertation, you should contrast it with the food on the flight from US to UK, which is substantially better, and definitletymuch more edible. I guess that maybe the ‘first-world’ countries need to meet out different treatment when it comes to service on flights to ‘developing’ countries. Gate Gourmet, the official caterer for BA has angered me even in the past; the last time I cose BA in the fall of 2005, their workers went on an indefinite strike, forcing me to fly all the way from Calcutta to London on a breakfast of one samosa and a piece of sandwich. So my experience is that the food on British Airways is always substandard. They should start following the path laid out by their American counterparts where they literally serve peanuts on a 7 hour long flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

Landing in Calcutta

The first thing you get to notice that the international terminal still doesn’t have the jet bridges to let people enter the airport premise directly from the aircraft. And the next thing I noticed was that my fellow traveler emerging out of the executive class of the BA flight was none other than Biman Bose, CPM leader party Secretary of West Bengal -a true patriot and the leader of the poor against Western imperialist powers, who divides his time wisely between denouncing the bourgeoise class and indulging in a little bit of luxury and a few yearly visits to the enemy lands.

Philadelphia diary, 4th July

Fireworks above Museum of Art, Independence Day celebrations, 10:30pm:



Some people have can't afford to take a break!
This is what I found outside my house at 11pm when I returned from the Fireworks show:
(Two cars were involved in an accident on one of the busiest roads and then the drivers started fighting)



The two things together make Philadelphia a proper city!

The burden of democracy

I have often wondered if democracy has ever been a very successful concept. Well it is certainly a great concept, much better than a totalitarian regime for sure, but my question is more about whether democracy has been able to evolve beyond simply enfranchising the masses to something closer to a system where an elected Government is really a Government "of the people, by the people, for the people". In addition we must not forget that this Government is also expected to be reasonable so that democracy does not lead to the "tyranny of the majority".

Aristotle's view of democracy was based on freedom and justice, which is reflected in his views:
"...one factor of liberty is to govern and be governed in turn; for the popular principle of justice is to have equality according to number, not worth, and if this is the principle of justice prevailing, the multitude must of necessity be sovereign and the decision of the majority must be final and must constitute justice, for they say that each of the citizens ought to have an equal share; so that it results that in democracies the poor are more powerful than the rich, because there are more of them and whatever is decided by the majority is sovereign."

Today different forms of democratic frameworks exist in many countries of the world, at least most pretend to have one in place. But have we fulfilled either of the major objectives of democracy? Have we been able to prevent "tyranny of the majority" or make the poor "more powerful than the rich"?

First of all my opinion is that in a democratic framework, "tyranny of the majority" is inevitable. In a democracy every party has a manifesto or ideals and priorities, and people expected to vote based on these issues. The minority by definition are those who did not agree with the ideals of the elected party, and therefore it is inevitable that the aspirations of the minorities will not be met.

Secondly we have not seen much instance of the 'poor' enjoying more power than the 'rich', even Communists also couldn't bring that to happen.

Thirdly I think democracy is a futile exercise unless people are able to make their choices judiciously, but for which they need to be educated and be substantially informed about the realities and be able to think through the possible consequences before making their choice. An average person is simply not capable of doing that; it has been proved time and again by the wrong choices that people have made, and sometimes they even make choices that go against their self interest without realizing it. In other words I do not think that a utopian concept like democracy can ever be in the safe hands of ignoramuses (which unfortunately includes not only a huge illiterate population but also many so-called educated ones). The problem with democracy is that we assume that all human beings are equal -an idea that sounds good but is simply untrue in real life- I will not talk much about that here. Human beings are never born equal in terms of their background, never get equal opportunities, and are never equal in their tastes, qualities, talents and merits. Therefore I opine that Democracy is a good, but a flawed concept and it is surely not a panacea for all social problems. Majority doesn't mean right necessarily, if we were to decide everything by some democratic methods then probably we would still be believing that the sun revolves around the earth.

Some Favorites

This post is mostly for myself, a way to quickly listen to any of my favorites at any time instead of searching on Youtube. But you are also welcome to listen...

Mozart: Symphony no. 25 k. 183, Wiener Philharmoniker, Conductor: Karl Bohm
(Remember those old Titan Advertisements?! Listen at 1:40 mins)



Jacques Offenbach: "Orphée aux Enfers" (Can Can)



Khachaturian: Sabre dance, Berliner Philharmoniker, Conductor: Seiji Ozawa



Rossini: William Tell Overture, l'Orchestra della Scala, Conductor: Riccardo Muti



Rimsky-Korsakov: Procession of the Nobles



Rimsky Korsakov: Flight of the bumblebee, Berliner Philharmoniker, Conductor: Zubin Mehta



Carl Orff: Carmina Burana, O fortuna.
(Remember the Old Spice advertisement?)



Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik



Beethoven: Ninth Symphony, NBC Orchestra, Conductor: Toscanini



Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Suite



Igor Stravinsky: lullaby and Final Hymn, Firebird
(A rare video of Stravinsky conducting his own Firebird)



Antonin Dvorak: Carnival Overture, Boston Symphony, Conductor: Seiji Ozawa



J S Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No 2, Mvmt 3, Conductor: Claudio Abbado



John Philip Sousa: Stars and Stripes Forever, Boston Pops



Puccini: Nessun Dorma, Turandot, The three tenors: Domingo, Carreras, Pavarotti, Conductor: Zubin Mehta



Some of the best Piano pieces:
1)Mozart, Rondo Alla Turca KV 331 (Sylvia Cápova.)
2)Beethoven, Fur Elise (Marián Pivka).
3)Beethoven, Moonlight Sonata: Adagio Sostenuto.
4)Beethoven, Pathetique Sonata 3rd Movement.
5)Chopin, Waltz Op.64 No.1, Minute Waltz.
6)Chopin, Grand Valse Brillante, Op. 18.
7)Chopin, Polonaise in C Sharp Minor, Op. 26 (Ida Cernecka).
8)Chopin, Etude op.10 No.1, Allegro (Freddy Kempf).
9)Chopin, Etude op.10 No.3, Tristesse (Freddy Kempf).
10)Chopin, Etude Op. 10, No. 12 Revolutionary Etude (Sylvia Cápova).
11) Liszt, Liebestraume No. 3, Dreams of Love.
12) Liszt, Etude No.3 La Campanella.
13) Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.
14) Schumann, Kinderszenen Op.15 Träumerei.
15)Rachmaninov, Prelude in G minor op.23 (Vladimir Ashkenazy).

Flight of the bumble-bee

Composer: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Composition: Flight of the bumblebee

Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker

Conductor: Zubin Mehta

From Russia with Love

The Philadelphia Orchestra
Venue: Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
Wednesday, June 25 at 7:00 pm.

Conductor: Rossen Milanov

Compositions:

Musorgsky: A night on Bald Mountain

Rimsky-Korsakov: Caproccio espagnol

Tchaikovsky: Waltz from 'The sleeping beauty'

Rachmaninoff: Vocalise, Op.34, No.14

Prokofiev: "Montagues and Capulets" from Romeo and Juliet, Op.64

Shostakovich: Symphony No.5 in D minor, Op.47

Strvinsky: Suite form 'The Firebird'

Very impressive performance, it was completely enjoyable even for a person like me without any background in music. Although some patrons chose to sleep through the program, perhaps dragged in after a tiring day at office by their music loving wife, the majority in the hall was wide awake and applauded at the end of each piece enthusiastically. It was a place for snooty, high-class people and so I had to dress up and had to even wear a tie, polish my shoes and comb my hair. Tomorrow I am going back to listen to pieces of American composers like Bernstein and Souse. I hope that it will also be equally enjoyable.

Obituary: Sir Andrei Valet

STEVEN CATACOMB

FUNERALSHIRE, 31 Feb- Sir Andrei Valet (Pronunciation: \ˈva-lət, ˈva-(ˌ)lā, va-ˈlā\), CBE, eminent social activist and owner of StolenAuto Corp., has passed away in his sleep last night. He was 99 years, 364 days old. His physician, Dr. Sarcophagus, reported that over-excitement from anticipation of the congratulatory birthday card from the Queen, which he was supposed to receive the next day, led to a massive cardiac arrest. Sir Valet is survived by his wife, 7 children (3 legal, 2 disowned, 2 never-owned) and 25 grandchildren. He is credited with conceiving the idea of 'Valet Parking', a kind of parking service that is now widely offered by posh restaurants and hotels in North America, where a personnel from the establishment will park the customer's car, thereby saving the hassles of 'self-parking' to incompetent drivers.

Although Valet Parking is nowadays offered as a service, Sir Valet, then known as Andrei Azmakhov Valenolovich, had originally used this idea to fool rich customers into handing over the keys to him for parking, and thus allowing him to steal the expensive cars quite easily. This innovative approach in automobile theft caught attention of the international media in early 1930s when Sir Valet, then a mere auto-thief in a Moscow shanty, boldly used the pretext of 'Valet Parking' to steal Comrade Joseph Stalin's official red limo outside the 'People's and Worker's Restaurant' -a Moscow downtown restaurant which at that time was restricted to only high profile members of the Government. That night Stalin was accompanying famous Englishman, George Bernard Shaw, to dinner. Andrei fled Russia in fear of persecution and traveled to United Kingdom where he sought political asylum. The British tabloids lavishly praised him for his courage to stand up against a tyrant by daring to steal his car. However Bernard Shaw, who was supposed to be a witness to the incident, refused to testify before any Magistrate whether it was indeed Andrei Valet who had stolen the car that night, and instead claimed that Stalin would have never agreed to 'valet park' his favorite red car. Officials however had dismissed Mr. Shaw's statement since he was well-known for his sympathetic views towards Stalin's regime. Whatever the truth might have been, it is often suggested that later in his life Sir Valet had helped the British intelligence to plot similar attempts to steal Herr Hitler's car. Upon personal recommendation from Sir Winston Churchill, Andrei was awarded the Knighthood in 1954, although his critics alleged that Churchill was bestowing this honor on Andrei to prevent him from coveting Churchill's brand new car which he had purchased that year with his Nobel prize money.

Sir Andrei Valet became a successful auto-parts dealer in his own right and even started his own manufacturing company in 1948, the StolenAuto Corp. -a name that suggests Sir Valet's love for good humor. However his company's reputation has suffered greatly in the recent years following several legal battles over complaints of real stolen cars being repainted and resold with new registration numbers. In a note scribbled on tissue-paper that Mr. Thug, the Vice-President of StolenAuto Corp., has sent to our News Bureau, he described that "the Company employees will always remember Sir Valet as a formidable boss" and "although everyone is grief-stricken, tomorrow we will be having a grand party at the HQ as per the last wishes of Sir Valet, which he had mentioned only to the trustees and stockholders in private." Sir Valet leaves behind a legacy of a courageous man, a visionary, a philanthropist and a life-long activist for human rights. A funeral mass will be held in his memory tomorrow afternoon by Rev. Grave at the local Catholic Church, where Lord Banter, Earl of Shortford, will be reading a condolence message from the Queen.

Why CPM wins in West Bengal?

Over the last few months the Communist Party of India and its Leftist allies have had a really bad press over issues like Nandigram, Singur and their opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal. Particularly the Left Front Government led by CPI(M), the bracketed Marxist group, has been in the line of fire from the Indian media. Even the Left leaning Bengal elites were vociferous in their criticism. Whenever such troubling events unfold, any Bengali, in my opinion, should avoid any serious political discussion with non-Bengali colleagues, because then you will have to explain to them why Bengalis vote for CPI(M), which, without any shard of doubt, is an onerous task -you will have to walk a very thin line. For example, in the Nandigram incident, if you try to argue that Industrialization is important and the opposition may have played a role in fomenting violence, then the chances are high that you will be branded as a Communist. On the other hand if you criticize the Government unequivocally and convince your colleagues that you are not a Communist goon, then you will have to answer even a more difficult question -"Why Commies win in Bengal?".

This situation is even trickier because now if you support Mamata Banerjee, then you can either blast fellow Bengalis for electing Communists to office or use rigging in polls by CPM cadres as a possible explanation. But if you neither support Mamata nor the CPM and you want to probe deeper to really answer why CPM gets elected, then boy, you are in for some trouble!
Believe me.

I happen to be a registered voter of the South Calcutta constituency where Mamata Banerjee won in the last couple of elections. However I have never voted in any election as I had left Calcutta long before I even got my Voter's ID card. Strangely enough, even then at times I find myself being held responsible and answerable for the three decade long rule of CPM in Bengal. Therefore to settle the deal for once and all, I will now write down my take on this issue. Before doing so I need to state two things: (1) if I were to ever cast a vote, I will not support Mamata Banerjee unless she takes a few English lessons and develops some etiquettes (Yes, I do not want to be embarrassed by my CM, esp not after having seen President Bush and Laloo Yadav). (2) I am not a Communist -democracy and freedom of speech are very dear to me.

There is no doubt that the Communists have done immense harm to West Bengal- by not taking advantage of the Software boom in time, by slow-poisoning most Industries or at least by not doing enough to save them, and by running a corrupt Government. It was the growing frustration with Jyoti Basu's Government that led people to turn to Mamata Banerjee, whose clean image, fierce criticism of Govt policies and repeated antics appealed to many. Even the snobbish liberal Calcuttans, who had always felt that Bengal was in safe hands of CPM, were forced to put down their 'The Telegraph' to consider her seriously for the post of CM. Calcutta gave its verdict in 1998-99 elections when all the five constituencies of the city and two in its suburbs went to Mamata's Trinamool-BJP alliance. The newspapers proclaimed mockingly that CPM Government was ruling over a Bengal without the capital. The situation could have got worse if Jyoti Basu had continued to stay in power. His successor, Budhhadeb Bhattacharya was a man who brought hope, for he put behind the age-old Communist hostility to Industries and became what can be best described as a "Capitalist Communist". He has been a popular CM so far, and once again Calcutta came back as a CPM stronghold.

Having covered the basic history in a nutshell, now is the time to analyze why Bengalis favor CPM. This question has alluded many of my friends, and I am sure there are others too who ask the same question- "How can you guys vote for the same Government for 30 years?" my friends will gasp, and I will respond in a sarcastic tone, "Yeah, you guys are lucky, you get to elect new film stars in every election, especially those who can play Shiva and Parvathi well!" (if he is from the South) or "because Bengalis won't vote for BJP" (if he is from North).
Though these may sound facetious, they do contain many elements of truth. In rural Bengal CPM is probably popular because of the land-reform and redistribution initiatives etc, but I will restrict myself to analyzing the psyche of the people in the city of Calcutta since I can only comment on things that I have seen and experienced.

Calcuttans, by and large, do have a socialist leaning, a left-liberal inclination and an utter disdain for uneducated politicians (especially their next door illiterate goons in Bihar). Moreover they are quite secular in nature, and definitely scared of any remote possibility of a bloodbath -so Modi has no chance in Bengal however hard he may try to motivate Hindutva among Bengalis. The chances of the likes of Shiv Sena are even less because Bengalis care the least whether Valentine's Day cards and gifts are a Western custom or not. Surely our culture is not so weak that it will be ruined if we allow some other traditions to coexist. To add to the anger of Shiv Sena cadets, here is some news: Deepa Mehta's 'Fire' was screened in cinema halls in Calcutta and nobody rolled their eyes at it. In fact Calcutta went to become the first city to support a huge gay rally on the streets, effectively laughing in the face of the antiquated Indian Penal Code that describes same-sex relation as illegal. So BJP and Shiv Sena simply do not have the right cards to play in Bengal. Caste-based politics is also absent in Bengal (thankfully!) and so Mayawati and Karunanidhi also have the wrong cards. And Rajnikanth's on-screen antics can only turn away the voters in Calcutta. Above everything is the fact that Calcuttans are happy with what they have, and this remarkable complacency comes from a deep faith in their culture and heritage. This is indeed a difficult concept to get across. To the rest of India, Calcutta just stands as a forgotten former capital -still lost in a reverie of its former glory, indifferent to the changing world, but to Calcuttans it is an abode of peace, culture and tolerance, untouched by bourgeoisie lust, fundamentalist hatred and ignorant conservatism.

CPM wins simply because there is no viable alternative for Bengalis. Mamata is too frivolous and is even incapable of holding her party together. In short, she has lost her chance. Her frequent antics and state-wide strikes are only coming to bite her back. Congress is too weak as a party to take on CPM. And as for CPM, they have been playing the cards right- they maintain a secular and socialist nature, they keep the prices of essential commodities remarkably low, they have been trying to boost the State's economy and increase jobs, they play in tune with the liberal intelligentsia and they make sure that they have somewhat educated party leaders- that's all it takes to win over the Bengalis.

Friends of the Earth

It was only after Al Gore won both the Nobel Prize and an Academy Award for his horror film on Global Warming that the new fad of 'doing something for the environment' really caught onto people. 'Friends of the Earth' and other clubs specializing in environment related issues sprung up overnight across the University campus, making everyones life quite miserable by pestering for signatures and donations to save the environment. However I was quite skeptic about the whole thing in the beginning, as I had assumed that President Bush's plan of including the sun in the axis of evil -according to the ongoing rumors following a White House memo leak- will solve the matter. Or at least the scientists would surely be able to find a way to reduce sun's temperature. But when my physicist friends informed me that it wasn't a feasible solution, I became a bit concerned for the first time. And when I found my money plant shriveled and lying dead in its pot after the four days of scorching heat wave, I finally decided that it was time to take things in my own hand. I quickly grabbed my purse, drove down two blocks to the apartment that housed the 'Friends of the Earth' and paid to register myself as a member. I vowed to work with them till every single human being was terrorized with the fear that the earth was a toast.

I started to enjoy working with this new group, specially because now every evening I could drive for two blocks in my new car. Since most of the shops and the University were very close to my apartment, I never had to go out in my car, but now this two block drive everyday, which although took less than two minutes, was at least giving me an opportunity to drive around. It was all good until the price of gasoline hit $4 per gallon, and I had to sell off my car to break-even with the cost of refilling my lighter.

As an active member of this group, I really worked very hard, often accosting people and pestering them to sign a petition for a new environment friendly legislation or bullying school children to sign petitions under their parent's name. Although I was diligent in my work, I must admit that sometimes this work seemed boring, and standing under the shade of some tree with my petition book in hand, I wondered if it was better to take up some other summer jobs. I toyed with such immoral thoughts before being struck by a sense of duty on catching a glimpse of two slender legs in a miniskirt and speeding up to them in quick steps to start a chat, obviously starting out with global warming before quickly moving onto other more interesting topics.

My diligence earned me the admiration of my peers and before I knew it I was made the President of the club. Only later I realized that the post of the President became available after the last incumbent had found it wiser to take up a summer job than to spend time collecting signatures of people who didn't give a hoot about the environment. As the President I felt the need to restructure the organization and to declare a manifesto. Writing a manifesto proved to be no easy task. I toiled for days, in fact months, before I had finally penned down my thoughts. It was a whooping 800 pages of facts, figures and threats about the impending doom. My colleagues at the club were impressed immensely, and some of them even compared me to Gore himself.

One of the members whose father owned a press felt that this manifesto could be made into a book, and before I knew it the typesetters were at work. I wanted the fonts to be large so as to make it easy for people of every age to read, but when I realized that it would indirectly mean cutting down more trees, I reluctantly agreed to lower the font size. The book became an instant success in the market and climbed to the top of the bestsellers list. My guess would be that people found the cover, that showed a penguin with its wings on fire, more attractive than the contents. The success of this book threw me into the limelight. I was congratulated by the Mayor and was invited for many talk shows, for which I had to fly from East coast to West and back many times a month. Our club was also now a much bigger organization. We got monetary help from many companies, surprisingly from some automobile and oil companies as well, and we accepted their donations gratefully. Soon we left our old apartment and moved into a bigger club house that was made after clearing off a part of the Old City Park and its adjacent pond. 'Friends of the Earth' became a major voice against environmentally destructive Government policies. We protested against almost everything -plastic bags, Chinese toys, SUVs, deforestation and so on.

Just when we were at the height of our success, a major problem broke out among the members. It was about the 'Animal Rights'. A faction wanted to start campaigns under the banner of 'animal rights' and they wanted to make a difference by starting an attack on the poultry farms, slaughterhouses and non-vegetarians. This was a radical idea to begin with, and I vehemently objected, and so did a few of my loyal supporters. But the 'animal rights' group had started off aggressively brainwashing the superdelegates of our association and was gaining support among them. We debated for hours whether animals were a part of the environment or not, and discussed the possible adverse effects should we divert our attention from the major environmental problems to include problems of animals as well in our agenda. Clearly it wasn't a part of the 800 page manifesto I had written. We tried a vote among the members, but the results were inconclusive as most of the superdelegates voted on both sides. It was a real political deadlock that the association was facing since its inception. Things were getting out of hand just when I received an offer letter from ExxonMobil and found it better to accept it. Within days I was impeached and my loyal supporters left the association in rage, blaming the animal rights wing for the breakup. The animal rights wing took over the 'Friends of the Earth' and changed its name to 'Friends of Earth and Animals'. I kept myself busy at my new job and quite forgot about them, until I bumped into one of my old loyalists last night who informed me that the 'Friends of Earth and Animals' had ceased to exist after a scandalous incident involving a photograph taken by Paparazzi that showed the incumbent president and many members of the group devouring platefuls of Kung-Fu Chicken in a cheap Chinatown restaurant .

By This River

I heard this song of Brian Eno for the first time when I watched the Italian movie, 'The Son's Room'. The movie is a beautiful one, and I recommend it. This song, played towards the end of the movie, especially impressed me for it seems to strike a chord somewhere deep down in our heart, captivating us with its metaphysical appeal.

BY THIS RIVER

Here we are
Stuck by this river,
You and I
Underneath a sky that’s ever falling down, down, down
Ever falling down.

Through the day
As if on an ocean
Waiting here,
Always failing to remember why we came, came, came:
I wonder why we came.

You talk to me
as if from a distance
And I reply
With impressions chosen from another time, time, time,
From another time.

The Last Concert

Sir Walter raised the baton in his hand and paused for a moment before throwing his hands forward and immediately a dozen violins and violas came alive with the cheerful melody of the first movement of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

"About two months or so," the doctor had muttered hesitantly after much persuasion. Two months- that was all left for Sir Walter to live. Sir Walter was about seventy years old, and he had got everything that one could possibly ask from life, and moreover he knew well in his heart that he was nearing his mortal end. He hadn't worried about it much, for he had realized that he will continue to live through his music in the hearts of many classical music lovers. All he wanted was to die peacefully in his sleep, and even better if that was to happen on a moonlit night, when a soothing melody from afar had found its way into his bedroom through the open windows. He had given the world everything he had to offer as a musician, and had always felt that it would only be fair if he were to have a graceful end, like a candle flame that finally drowns itself in the molten wax. But that probably wasn't going to happen. When the Doctor numbered his days, for Sir Walter it came like a sudden mortality notice handed down to him from the heavens above. The fake reassurance from the Doctor, "We will try chemotherapy," only exacerbated his agony, since the medical treatment portended more suffering as opposed to his earnest wish for a quiet end.

"Only two months!!" was the reaction from Henry James, the Executive Director of the New England Philharmonic Orchestra, on hearing the news about Sir Walter's health from the Orchestra's concertmaster, Zbigniew Rubinsky. "We will need to start to get arranged for his last concert immediately," he announced. 'CD and Video recordings of Sir Walter's Last Concert' were surely going to sell a few million copies, and so he quickly set forth with the calculations. "Talk about it to Sir Walter, and ask him what he would like to conduct," he instructed Rubinsky. As Rubinsky was about to leave the room, Henry called out again, "Ask him if he would like the orchestra to play the requiem of Mozart, and then Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or maybe some Vivaldi". That collection would surely boost the sales he thought in his mind, and a smile appeared on his lips but it stopped spreading over his cheeks on being stung by his conscience. He felt a bit embarrassed and quickly went about doing his usual business.

"Who told it to the Press now?" Sir Walter had asked Rubinsky when he saw the report about his health along with the news of his last concert on the front page of the daily. The Recording Company and the Orchestra both had fed the inquisitive Press and critics about the 'Last' recording of Sir Walter's Symphony. They had culled up a guest list with luminaries from different fields, Dukes and Duchesses, Dames and Knights, Musicians, Artists and Politicians. It had got the publicity that the companies and the sponsors were looking for. Sir Walter had felt utter disgust for the blooming commerce surrounding this event and had even considered withdrawing from it, but deep down within him he knew that he had to perform for one more time, for he had convinced himself that the only graceful exit from this life could now be achieved through one last brilliant performance.

The arrangements for the symphony was overseen by Henry himself. It took less than a month to get the whole thing organized, and the musicians practiced relentlessly under Rubinsky's guidance. Though debilitated from chemotherapy, Sir Walter managed to come many times to conduct practice sessions. And when the night finally came, the opera hall had no seats left. The guests arrived immaculately dressed for the occasion, wearing a somber look on their face. Sir Walter came in through a different entrance and refused to meet the press or anybody else for that matter. He didn't want to be weakened by sympathetic looks. But he did make an exception for his long time friend and fellow conductor, Zubin. Zubin tried to put on a light mood, he had known Walter for a time long enough to know that Walter won't like to hear words of pity, but when they shook hands Sir Walter felt an unusual warmth in the handshake and a small pat on the arm, which was meant for encouragement -the kind of encouragement that one reserves for a dying man.

Sir Walter was standing on the conductor's podium with his eyes closed. The baton in his hand moved gracefully, curving out shapes in air with each beat. They were already in the second movement, the lyrical first theme was followed by a more rhythmic second one. This was the music that Sir Walter's mother played beautifully on her violin. He had grown up listening to music, in fact grown old with music. Well no, he wasn't old, he refused to be called so, for his music hadn't allowed him to become senile. His mind was still young, full of joy and awe for those notes. "This gentleman here is one of the most promising young conductors," was the way he was introduced to Igor Stravinsky at the Royal Festive Hall in 1965. But back then, he was indeed young, physically.

In the early '60s, at the St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, Sir Walter had his first immensely successful performance. That night the nave and the fan vaults of the baroque style cathedral all came alive once more with the melody of Mozart's music. As the tenors and the sopranos sang, the sleeping spires woke up and listened with open wise eyes of a dreaming philosopher. And on that night, Sir Walter had met the most beautiful woman, Angela. She wore flowing white robes and a glittering pearl necklace. She had a mesmerizing beauty in her hazel eyes and the brown locks of her hair. Sir Walter's eyes had followed her dainty little movements and finally somebody introduced him to her at the reception. They had won each other's heart in their first meeting itself. Angela was not only beautiful, but also quite talented; she was a violin virtuoso. She played Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik better than anyone in Sir Walter's symphony. On a cold winter night, her rendition of the song at her house in Vienna had left Walter spell-bound. That melody still lingers in Sir Walter's ears, and even when he stood at the podium directing his last symphony he could hear that melody coming to his ears from a distant land.

It was this melody that Sir Walter wanted to hear again for the last time. And so in spite of Henry requesting him to conduct Beethoven's Eroica, he chose Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik over it. To Henry, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik ("A night of Little Music") seemed to be too cheerful a composition to choose for the night, and he asked Walter, "Do you think it fits to the occasion?" Henry had asked, to which Sir Walter coldly replied, "And what is the 'occasion'? The last performance from a dying man needs to be less cheerful, is it?" Henry had remained silent in shame.

In the green meadows, a little boy would play the violin and his sister would sit beside him, listening to his music like an ardent fan. She too wanted to play the fiddle but she was no good at it. However she had loved her brother's music. That night as Sir Walter conducted on stage, the girl, now an old lady, sat in the audience beside her daughter, with tears in her eyes, as she listened to her brother conducting the symphony with the same delight and joy that she had felt as a child. She remained seated, still sobbing, while the entire auditorium stood up in ovation and the hall resounded with clapping from a thousand palms.

Conversation after a movie

I noticed his knitted brow, and could also discern the growing impatience and loath in his eyes, and I knew that he must be hating me for being so stoic. It was clear that he hadn't liked my reaction, and in all probability hadn't even expected me to differ from his opinion about the greatness of the movie. Usually I enjoy being hated, which, among other things, is an integral part of my quirky personality. I quickly remembered how a friend of mine in college had sung "You are looking into the eyes of the demon" while actually having the nerves to look straight in my eyes, which when I now come to think of, indeed seems to have been a pretty bold thing for him to do, for I must admit, though without remorse, that I had a rather notorious reputation as a stoic, unfriendly person. However I am not sure if that one line song, repeated with a rhythm, was created with me in mind, or whether it happened just like that. Somehow I had always felt that had I not been there, the song, though poor in its lyrics and melody, won't have had any meaning.

I had momentarily lost myself in the recollection of the incidents involving that song, and had quite forgotten that I was sitting at a coffee bar with another friend from college who was peering at me with disgust in his eyes, perhaps waiting for a clarification as to why I wasn't moved by the movie. Though I was enjoying the fury on his face that manifested itself mostly through his knitted brow, I decided, somewhat against my usual behavior, to actually give him an explanation as to why I wasn't impressed by the movie that had created such a sensation that the Government of India had gone to the extent of making it tax-free.

It's a movie about a dyslexic child called, Ishaan, whose parents don't appreciate his artistic talents and have difficulty in even recognizing his illness, let alone accepting it. However, in school, his Art teacher, Ram, played by a prominent Indian actor, recognized his talent and arranged for an art competition where Ishaan won the first prize and everyone soon got to recognize his talent. The storyline was novel, though simplistic, perhaps even naive at times, but the acting seemed to be flawless throughout. It was indeed an idealistic movie, and above all it has a noble message. My guess would be that people loved the movie because of it's underlying message. The Indian film critics, who are only used to writing rave reviews for stale melodramas that the aesthetically challenged Indian Film Industry churns out, were all loud and magnanimous in their praise.

"The point is...", I said, slurping down some more cappuccino, intentionally delaying my explanation to heighten his frustration and anger, and then continued, "... the point is that it indeed pains me to see that my fellow countrymen actually have to go to a movie to get this message into their heads...and worse of all, they come out of the theaters still with the idea that it was a good 'movie', and that it had a great 'message'."
He blinked, perhaps unable to decipher what I was trying to say.
I realized the need to explain a bit more, "Do you think that Ishaan is the only victim of the Indian psyche?"
Now I was stepping into even more dangerous waters, I had used the term "Indian psyche", that's derogatory to some patriots. Blind Nationalism can be dangerous, that's nothing new to say, Tagore had warned against it even before India became independent.

I could see that my friend hadn't taken my last sentence very well. Anger had returned to his eyes, and he was about to say something when I stopped him to complete my explanation, "I don't think that dyslexic children are the only ones who suffer and whose artistic talents don't get recognized by the society. It is the problem that every individual child faces in India. And that's because of the Indian psyche, where art comes only next to science, or more specifically Engineering and Medicine. We all want guarantees on financial security and prefer risk-free jobs, even if that comes at a cost of compromising with your true interests, and your happiness. As a matter of fact you may be expected to only believe that happiness lies in a white collar job, with a good pay and a family- a progeny, preferably a boy, to whom you should pass on the same beliefs, same fear, and stamp out any possibility of digression form the rest of the herd. Many of us, as parents, don't stop short of stamping out the last possibility for an alternative career, by citing the need for financial security, and That hinders the cognitive development of a child. The disease is in the Indian definition of a happy life; our society tends to define 'happiness' for all of us, which ironically should have meaning strictly in an individualistic context. "

I had said too much, and I am no one in a position to judge the masses, perhaps someone who has already attained some amount of security sounds hypocritical while commenting on the need to live in a higher, utopic world of perfect bliss that stands above all materialistic connotations of happiness. But my fear is that we are perhaps a very scared race; a race that is afraid of any kind of uncertainty; a race where only a few would dare to venture out of the accepted ways, and if anyone does dare to do that, then that person should struggle to swim against current and establish a reputation for himself. Else he would starve and suffer for flouting the social norm.
"..you know, the movie actually has one thing depicted very truthfully, but that was perhaps unintentional. Ishaan had to win a prize to get recognized for his talents. We need to win prizes to earn credibility, and to earn the right to be different while making choices."

My friend was silent for sometime, still trying to make sense of my last few sentences. I continued, "now about the movie, you see I don't like the way Indian movies try to sensationalize things...Ishaan didn't need to win the grand first prize, he didn't need to win any prize at all. That is the biggest problem- the movie seemed to reaffirm the notion that one's talent needs to get recognized through accolades. A dyslexic child need not be some sort of a maestro to earn his self respect. What even if he hadn't won, what should be done then? Should he be discarded as an unwanted element, a bane for the society? What kind of a society have we created for ourselves? The movie claimed as its motto that 'every child is special', and yes, I believe it, but I want others also to stress on the word 'every'. The movie seems to use the word 'every' as a means to stress on the inclusion of physically or mentally challenged children and it assumes that other 'normal' children have a happy life, and that's where they are wrong."

My friend was still unconvinced. He had been bowled over by the songs, I guess the silly song where the art teacher dresses up like a clown and appears before the class. I found myself wincing on remembering that ridiculous scene.

"Anyway, what's the point in discussing all this? All those parents who had come to see the movie with their children had hardly carried any message out of the theaters, they would have been thanking Almighty for sparing them the burden of a retarded kid while munching their mouthful of popcorn, and thereafter would be heading for the nearest restaurant to dine, and then recommend the movie to other relatives and office mates for its strong 'message'. And you and I would be fighting over here on the merits of the movie and its impact. Let's not ruin the day. Come on now, let's get going."
"I won't recommend any movie to you from now on. You just like to criticize Indian films," he said defiantly. I smiled. He had again got me wrong, but I shouldn't say that I was surprised even a bit, since it was surely not the first time that I had fallen out with him on the merits of a film- the last one, as far as i can recall, was RDB, a trash that masqueraded the screens as a 'value' movie aiming to titillate our national consciousness in the most misguided way one could ever come up with.

Return to Innocence

This is the very spot where a little boy of ten, on a break from school, would be sitting next to his mother in the late summer evenings, gazing at the Hoogly River and the boats that ferried people from one bank to the other. The boy would sometime sketch in his drawing book, while his mother would sit silently watching the trees, river and the birds as they appeared on the sheet in various shades of gray. After every hour a rumbling sound would come from the direction of the bridge, and it would grow louder by the seconds. The boy would jump up to his feet to look at the distant giant structure of steel and concrete that stood against the twilight sky with shining semi-circular arches. It resounded with the vibrations of the passing train which would linger on for some more time after the serpent had made its way across the river. And then the boy would eagerly wait for the candy peddler to arrive with his colorful assortment in glass jars. He would slowly cuddle up to his mother with a shy smile, and she would look into those sparkling innocent eyes, smile secretly, and with a seeming reluctance buy him a candy after adding a warning about tooth decay. They would sit on the bench, right next to the stairs that went down and disappeared under water. The stairs had always been an enigma to the boy. During high tide the river would slowly lap up the stairs, one by one, while at the time of ebb tide the river would seem to withdraw itself remorsefully, revealing more and more of that never-ending flight of stairs. Around seven, the local brewery’s daily discharge into the river would render an unpleasant smell to the moist breeze; it smelled like fermented jaggery, and so the boy and his mother would head for their home, a five minutes walk from the river bank.

That boy was me, some thirty years ago. After spending many years in a foreign country, today I have come back with the hope of reliving some of my childhood memories. But presently I find myself looking around desperately searching for something familiar, something that has survived the passage of time. The river seems to have shrunk, and the water is quite turbid. Our old house is gone; we had sold it off long ago when we shifted to the city of Calcutta, and now in its place stands some ugly high rise flats, with dingy ‘budget’ apartments especially designed for the middle class income group to afford. The quiet river bank that I had loved as a child seems to have lost its serenity; it is now the location for a bustling fish market. The old bridge with its semicircular arches has also been torn down and replaced with a suspension bridge to cater to the increased traffic. The boats have been replaced with streamers, and the staircases that had fascinated me as a child with its never-ending flight of stairs have now become a part of a ferry dock. Only the brewery is still there, and they seem to have increased their production as the air has the repulsive smell of fermented jaggery even during the day.

Sitting at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia in the late summer evenings, I had often lost myself in the scenes from childhood that I have been carrying with me, and nurtured the secret desire to come back to visit this place. My ten year old daughter would notice me brooding over something and nudge me to play with her or tell her stories. She is good at inventing games. I guess all children are. She would sometimes chase the birds and tire out herself and then retire to watch the US battleships anchored on the opposite bank of the Delaware River. And when a commuter train bound for Camden would appear on the Ben Franklin Bridge, filling the air with a heavy rumble, she would jump up to catch a glimpse of it. And at these moments, I feel a surge of affection for my little daughter and I tell her stories of the bridge, the river, the candy seller, the stairs and the little boy and his mother.

I now hear my daughter coming from behind and I turn around.

“Papa, look there is a train on the bridge.”

A shiny serpent is slithering across the bridge. I now think my trip to relive my childhood memories hasn’t gone waste; I have finally found the joy that I came looking for, I am seeing it in her eyes.

“And here was the bench where your Grandma and I used to sit….and over there you can see the stairs I told you about, it goes real deep into the water…..and in place of this new bridge that you see now used to be a bridge with semi-circular arches…..”