My nightmare

I dream a lot. I dream daily. Thankfully I do not remember all of them. But some of them are very vivid. You know the type of dream that when couple of days later remind of some event that you think really took place.

It seems it is OK to dream but my mom before my marriage and my wife thereafter do not seem to enjoy listening to me recounting them. So it is your turn to listen.

My dreams come in several varieties. Surprisingly even after 2 decades of being out of college; yes I am old fart; the most common theme seems to be around exams. Sometimes I find that I am at an exam and cannot remember anything that I have studied. Other times I realize that I have not prepared for the exam. Invariably this is always the final semester which would prevent me from graduating!! A variation on this theme is the missed exam. Usually I forget that I have an exam and do not go to college and find out later that I have missed it or I go to college several hours late on the day of the exam. Once or twice I have gone to an exam having studied another subject; I am kidding, that one was real. No really I actually did it and I am told that it is not that uncommon either.

Another genre of dream is about clothing or the lack there of. In all of these I usual find myself in various public places not suitably dressed. Occasionally I am not dressed at all. The strange thing in all these is not the fact that I am embarrassed and want to put on some clothes but that everyone else in my dream is serenely unaware of my natural state!! I must remember to ask our friend Dr. Ram who is a shrink what this dream means.

Then there are the dreams where something bad happens to people especially near and dear and I do not want to talk about them as they make me sad. I have enough pain from reality not to relive the painfulness of these dreams. I am thankful that these dreams are few and far apart.

Lastly I have a large number of dream where I miss a train, flight, or the bus and I have be somewhere urgently. Well I recently had one such dream that took the cake.

In this one I was standing in line at the airport and guess who do I see. Rudy Giuliani was ahead of me and flashing his badge and was being allowed to jump the line. I am digressing this dream is not about Rudy. At that moment I realize that I do not have my tickets!! That did not bother me as much as the fact that I found myself walking empty handed which means I left my computer in office in Velachary, Chennai. The worst of all I did not have my luggage.

One would be forgiven if they thought I had some valuables in them such as gifts for J and the kids D & M. Not really. I recently discovered that I could buy inexpensive but quality books India. These are books I read as a kid such as Amar Chitra Katha, Enid Blyton, Perry Mason, Agatha Christie, etc. Lufthansa allows 2 check-in bags weighing about 100 pounds along with 15 pounds in carry on luggage. So I usually carry an empty suitcase since all my clothes fill just one bag with the hope that I could fill the other bag full of books for my return trip. The thought that I had wasted an India trip without coming back with books was sickening. I guess only a bookworm would appreciate my anxiety about the missed luggage.

Shaivism and Vaishnavism - Two Exclusive Clubs

More than a decade ago, I heard in graduate school a joke -

Q) What are the three degrees of egoism?
A) I, Iyer, Iyengar

This probably does not make any sense to a Non-Indian and even amongst Indians it is understood best by South Indians. Iyers and Iyengars are two sects of Brahmins predominantly from Southern India. The joke (if it is not clear) is about their snootiness

and therein lies the irony; first some back ground ...

Sometime in 11th century Ramanuja initiated a philosophy what ended up resulting in the sect Sri Vaishnavas or Iyengars. Ramanuja disagreed with the prevailing orthodoxy, which was the Advaita school of thought (that in its time was revolutionary) and Iyers follow Shankara's school of thought.

This post started with a joke, promised an irony. Now you are merely left with boredom. So to tide over the boredom let me recount a story, sorry I mean two stories, one attributed to Shankara and the other to Ramanuja.

While on a walk, some disciples of Shankara were supposed to have shooed a person of lower caste to which this person asked them how that was possible since the same entity (Brahman) that pervaded him also pervaded Shankara. Shankara acknowledged the validity of this argument and is supposed to have apologized.

In the case of Ramanuja, his teacher taught him a powerful mantra, but adjured him to keep it a secret. Those who repeated this mantra were supposed to attain Salvation. Ramanuja immediately called all people, irrespective of caste and creed, to assemble before the temple. He then stood on top of the tower above the front gate of the temple, and shouted out the sacred Mantra to all of them at the top of his voice. His teacher was furious to which Ramanuja said that he would rather see millions attain salvation if that meant torture in hell for himself.

Then the irony as I see it is this;

Both stories clearly demonstrate that at least in the minds of these two men All men were equal. Both these sects were universal in their philosophy. To the best of my knowledge there is no mention of caste. How then do Iyers and Iyengars form two of the most exclusive clubs?

As you sow, so shall you reap

Little over a decade and a half ago, a suicide bomber assassinated Rajiv Gandhi. I vividly remember one Sinhalese student at that time telling me in an acidulated voice about how they have this saying in Sri Lanka that can be summarized as follows - if you feed a snake it is apt to bite you in the end. She was referring to Rajiv Gandhi's support for LTTE and its subsequent withdrawal finally culmunating in his assassination by an LTTE suicide bomber. I was shocked at that time. How could someone be so uncharitable? It is a convention that if one is unable to praise the dead one should at least avoid censure.

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated a few days ago in Pakistan and my first reaction was how sad. A little later the reaction set in. I now realize that the reaction from the Sinhalese student made sense in a perverse way. This is not to justify my uncharitable thought. It is my thought right now.

Almost all Pakistani political leaders typically follow a policy that can be summed by a saying - To run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. In a way Benazir Bhutto's assassination is a logical denouement; the proverbial chicken coming home to roost. For over two decade Pakistan has been been involved in a proxy war using religion as a strategic tool. It has had the tacit approval of all political leader regardless of their public utterances.

Well the creation has now fully come of age. The snake that used to dance to the piper's tune so well initially has realized that it no longer needs to obey the master. It now dances to a tune of its own.

May be some good could come from this. India lost two Prime Ministers to assassination; Mother and Son. Both of them were done in by creations of their own making. This I think lead to certain healthy introspection in India. Last week's event could lead to a maturing of body politic in Pakistan.

Can I sing Jana Gana Mana?

A few months ago, to be precise on August 14th, we were having dinner at our friends place. She had also included several other couple we have known for almost a decade now. All of us at the dinner were of Indian origin, settled in this country for over 15 years. All of us had chosen to take US citizenship voluntarily. You must be thinking "If there is a point, please make it now"

Since August 15th, the following day, is the independence day for India, some of the people in this group wanted to sing the Indian National Anthem. I asked the question that having voluntarily chosen American citizenship, if it was appropriate and pretty soon the conversation got pretty heated.

From this point on this post is nothing but me simply bloviating at the WWW. So stop reading if you so choose.

So let me pontificate.

To sing a national anthem of another country; let us face it; India is another country for some of us; is similar to swearing allegiance to another country. No one in US actually twisted our arms to become citizens here. We voluntarily chose this responsibility. In fact we wanted to be US citizens for the multitude of benefits that it gives is starting with no hassle travel all over the world. Moreover in the US thankfully for the white dude, we are just this brown skinned guy who speaks with a funny accent, worships strange gods, eats spicy food etc. We are not thankfully segmented by caste, language, region, and all the many ways we choose to divide ourselves. Don't kid yourself we do not; just check the matrimonial section of any newspaper. This is not to imply that there are not many advantages in remaining Indians. The fact is that all of us made some analysis and chose one over the other. Case closed.

Now obviously certain members of this crowd still felt guilty about their choice.

Some of them tried to gloss over it with the quip "It is just a song". If that were so, why sing it on only August 14th or 15th. Why not sing it in the loo or during showers. These individuals felt emotional and a strong sense of nostalgia when that song was played. Obviously symbols like the flag and national anthem mean something of belonging to a group.

Nuf said.

How I went on a hike and ended up eating a great Breakfast instead

Last weekend I was in Bangalore to visit my wife's family. I landed at the house at 5:30 and we leisurely talked about this and that. Usually my b-i-l and I make some plans or other to go see some nearby places. So after talking about various places of interest we settled on a day hike to a place called Shiva Ganga near Tumkur.

We had starting problem. To eat or not, to shower or not, to drive or not etc. Finally we hauled our butts at about 8:30 and left Jayanagar without having had a decent breakfast. Within 10 minutes it was apparent that we should have left much earlier. The traffic was stop and go and near Yashwantpur it pretty much stopped moving. After about 45 minutes of this intermittent driving I could sense my b-i-l getting a little frustrated and I suggested that we just turn around and go back and maybe plan on an early morning hike the next day. By this time our stomachs started making themselves heard rather loudly. As luck would have it we saw some signs by the side of the road that lifted our spirits. Turn left for Golden Palm Resort. It turned out to be a really posh hotel cum restaurant cum resort cum spa. Yup, just a nice place to have a much needed breakfast.

We parked our car and went through a lobby with vaulted ceiling. Beyond that were nicely laid paths with grass, shrubbery, flowers, and trees on either side. In front was a large swimming pool with a restaurant further away. I must tell you that the dosa was really good and so was the coffee. After eating a mere 6 masala dosas and 4 vadas and 2 coffees the world was at peace. I could hear birds chirping again. After idling over our 2nd coffee we paid our bill and drove away. At this point I made a supreme discovery. After the rather sumptuous meal I had lost my appetite for the hike. Moreover since I had landed just the day before from the US the jet lag kicked in making me very sleepy. So to cut it short we went back home!!

A small digression; while we were walking back besides the pool my b-i-l told me how he had stayed earlier at this resort and had met the person who was the manager of the pool. This man was a white man who looked vaguely familiar. My b-i-l could not resist mentioning the fact to pool manager and guessed if he was an ex-cricket player. The white man laughed and said "Jai Bajrang Bali" in anglicized accents.

Did you guess who he is?

He plays one of the bad guys in Mr. India, you know the one trying to steal India's heritage.

Tchuss

Puddle hopping in Velachery, Chennai

Today is December 3rd and it has rained in Chennai early in the morning. By most standard it would be an average sized downpour, something that when it happens in the US we do not take notice. But in Velachery, Chennai the streets are waterlogged. Not that anyone is making any fuss about, it is not a catastrophe. People just walk around the puddles. When they are unable to navigate around the puddles, the shrug the shoulders, remove their sandals, and wade in!! They are used to the corporation doing nothing and have no future expectations either.

Anyway, I set out to get something from the store near Vijay Nagar Bus stand and was navigating my way around the various puddles and really enjoying it. If you have not done it before try it; it is a lot of fun. Then I was in front of a mega puddle which means that the entire street, end to end, was covered in water. Unfortunately I was wearing shoes and wading in water was not an option. It looked like I was stumped and was on the point of walking back when I saw an ingenious solution. I saw this guy walking along the wall of a house holding on the metal grill set on top of boundary wall literally hanging on to it!!

I too tried it. It worked. As I was hanging from the grill, a car went through the puddle and my heart was in my mouth as the waves (yes they were small waves) washed over my shoes. Luckily I navigated without any disaster.

The next one was interesting. So far all the puddles were in the middle and the high ground was on the side of the road. This puddle was all on the side I was walking on and to get around it I had to go to the middle of the road and just then this huge van horn blaring came behind me. I was surprised by the agility I displayed. No one else seemed surprised; the speed with which I got around this puddle is normal for people here but it was a bit scary.

On the whole I loved it all. Puddle hopping, puddle skirting, hanging to the grill and evading a puddle.

How easily we lapse into our old self. For example I now nod my head side to side as Indians generally do. You know what I am talking about. The ambivalent, neither a NO, nor a YES, shake of the head!! It took me decade and half to cure myself of the side to side waggle of my head. A mere year and of half of association with India and Indians was enough to undo it!!

Odds and Ends from Chennai September 2007

Couple of months ago I did something that pleased my parents a lot. I joined them on a visit to see their guru (teacher). On the way I spent my time looking at other vehicles, the drivers, various billboards, and just about anything I could read. Here are some that sounded interesting

"We two, Ours One" - This slogan does not sound nice in English. Anyone who has heard of family planning (euphemism for population control) knows it sounded better in Hindi "Hum Dhow Hamaare Dhow". The important thing to note is; parents are now being asked to have one kid!! Growing up in India, the ideal family size was four; two parents plus two children.

Trucks that ply on the road have many interesting messages and slogan on the rear; such as "Conserve water" and the one we saw earlier "We two, Ours One" to name a few. But I am missing a very important one that is almost an order; "Sound Horn". Folks that have driven a vehicle in the US know that honking is akin to giving someone the middle finger!! Fist fights have broken out over this and here we have people asking for the horn!! Some of them even have a polite touch "Please Sound Horn" as if that made it palatable!!

There was a sign for a some training institute named "Pengvin". I wonder if their course material had one on spelling.

Driving through Chennai one sees some unusual sights; there was a priest dressed in his traditional dhoti, bare chested, but driving a motor cycle!! Another one was the sight of a conservative Brahmin lady dressed in a 9-yards sari and driving scooter. I never missed a camera more in my life.