Institution of religion

I was born a hindu, or so they sayAnother addition to the majority My caste gave me power, and my religion, authority. Saffron was the color of my heart. I was taught to pray with my hands folded And eyes shut. I had to chant mantras, which had the names of my uncles Narayana, narayana and Om namah Shivaya.

Temple is the house of god, my grandmother said, But, I couldn't see god anywhere. All I could see was a stone idol, dressed up like a doll. The image smiled at me, and I prayed fervently, "Where is god, is he hiding?, or, is he a 'she'? Does god have a gender?"

Pujas were performed to please the deity, Prasad was given after, chandan and kumkum, with appam, plaintain and flowers. sweet smelling sandalwood evoked a motion picture of images that trailed my eyes and arose a sense of imagination. red blood color the kumkum tortured me with pain and thoughts of suffering. both intermingled to give solace on my forehead.

As my eyes darted left and right, I saw old men seated on a stage talking about worldly matters. before me, there were women middle-aged, some old, others young. it doesn't matter what age, women at any can still gossip. and I thought only devout worshipers came to the temple. All the men and women were guests, at the temple of God. Come, let's have a cup of tea, chat and then go back to your illusioned world.

Ruthless traditions, robbing us of our individuality, binding us to society like poison to the body. religion is like an iron chain that rusts, chortles my throat, neither can I spit, nor swallow. Like a shot of morphine, that brings delirium, the disorder, that gives birth to violence.

Burn all these faiths, the cross, the star, and the idols what for is this faith, that hides you from the truth. God is not a religion, s/he is a be-ing, you and me, break away all ties, and raise your hands and say yet,

"Yes, I have a  religion, the religion of mankind."

aham brahmasmi

Ruminations on the road

road stretched far and wideacross the open spaces connecting different cultures like a bridge, dusty and tarred like the cover of a book unused taking people on journeys to unknown destinations. approach nearer, horizon moves further on an endless stream as the human mind with the occasional bumps, downs and heights.

life thrived on both the sides unconcerned about this path of gravel and sand highway maybe, much rather way to heaven or hell. men went on their trivial existence women regarded as the lamp of the house, patronized birth, marriage, and death. an urchin hurried home, on a cycle eager to reach before the outpourings of mother earth from up above. lovers on a bike couldn’t make it stranded, they were left to drench away all the lies and guilt that comes free with the package of love.

rain has stopped awhile the atmosphere is now calm, serene, quiet. sky looks like a palette of colours spread unevenly with an added tinge of mystery. clouds brim with the reactions of the creator to the doings of mankind yet afraid to pour its heart out like the fear of a child in confiding a secret, to a friend who might turn a traitor.

‘tis a sight wonderful, not to the five senses but to others unexplained, the pristine beauty of nature unraveled to the human eye in all its glorious nakedness volumes of paddy fields flanked by mountains, the color of sapphire, palm fronds with limbs raised upwards in a prayer begging for just what’s necessary, nothing more, flocks of crane in deep conversation with bulls, human figures with spine bent, scattered to remove the worthy from the many.

nature is pregnant with meanings it is not clear as the pure oyster in the seashell but beautifully cloaked like an invisible stranger who reveals identity only when needed. it even gives meaning to the absurdities of life, the masks people wear, their hollow empty hearts and terminal voids in their lives.

cars overtake cars in a mad race, speed thrills but kills. slacken speed to crawl like an earthworm to gaze upon beauteous forms erected on the ground beneath our feet. precious time is not to be wasted on mechanical life ‘tis a vicious circle, routine, habit, addiction leading man to a life fruitfully wasted. breathe, feel life at its best the intoxicating smell of mud, after the first shower of rain the wafts of beauty laughing loudly. listen for the ditties played by rivulets and bamboo trees, amorous chirpings of birds gliding in the sweet scented air. behold colours of emotion not found in any painting or colour box, the true essence of living expressed in its heights. surroundings echo the cries of freedom, spread out wings and fly high, low through the balloon clouds maybe even to the doors of heaven. abandon yourself at will, redeem thy sins get purified by a dip in the Ganges. world suddenly will seem magical, fresh, new reborn again quirking with innocence, love, hope.

millions arrive at destinations everyday crossing horizons across the road. not real destinations as they seem but masqueraded beauties fooling even the sagacious human brain, that believes what it sees and sees what it believes.

roads are for journeys, not for destinations. but destiny may take pity on you and provide you a glimpse of such a journey which elevates you to destinations otherwise unattainable.

On public transportation

I boarded the bus, not conscious of the milieu inside. I tapped the metro pass and found a place to stand at the far back corner. I tried reading ‘Love and Garbage’; it was too crowded to concentrate. I closed the book, held its soul in my hand for a while and put it back into my bag. Random thoughts flooded in, my concerns about apartment hunting, conferences, cats, money, bills, and home. Then it dawned, everybody around me would be thinking of comparable things. What is the probability that there is at least one other person in the bus who is thinking of the same thing as me right now, wondering what everyone else is thinking about! 

For many people, the fact that I commute in Los Angeles using public transportation is unfathomable. An American colleague of mine who has lived in LA for a good six years asked me quite innocently the other day, "how much are the bus tickets now, $2.50 or $3", without having any clue about it as she has never boarded a bus or a train in LA. Angelenos are very comfortable in their cars, oh, and the number of cars increase by the minute. Households have three to four cars on average (read: a car per head). But really, let's pause for a second and ask ourselves, what is the big humbug about "driving"?

I got a driving license in India when I was 18. I could draw an H without toppling over a single beam, and all this on the first attempt of trying to clear the driving test. I managed to drive in India without ever killing anybody or running over a cow. After having moved to America, 4 years ago, I just haven't felt the need to get a license. Why? Obvious reason, a car is extra expense. Very often you hear people equating car with convenience, not often with expense, right? Let me explain. 

A bus/train ride in LA costs me $1.50. Unlike India, public transportation here works on a flat rate basis. I can board the bus at the first stop and get off at the last stop, or get off at the very next stop all for the same price. On the contrary, getting a car is expensive, not to mention the hassle of "finding" a decent car. Gas is expensive, and most of all, insurance is expensive. Now that I've harped enough about expenses, let me talk about the pros of public transportation. 

Rewind back to the first paragraph. That was written in a bus two years ago, on the note app that iphone has. Now, can you do imagine doing something like that while driving? Disastrous, right? Public transportation allows you to let your mind wander. As a writer, I like this. I can afford to think up ideas, ruminate on thoughts, meditate. I don't have to worry about the traffic signal, whether someone is going to hit me while I'm trying to make a left turn, or, not look at my phone's note taking app simply because I need to concentrate on the road. 

Public transportation also lets you observe. You meet weird, strange, interesting people on the bus/train. I've had people come up and talk to me. You strike exciting conversations. You talk about culture, about issues, or something as trivial as the weather. It is a shared public space where everybody is equal. There are no watertight distinctions on a bus. You are who you are, and so is everyone else. Imagine, on the contrary, sitting in a car solitary, dreaming that you are the emperor of your own self created universe. Any more ego boost needed, people? There is no time to let your mind aloof (of course unless you are sitting in traffic on the US 101), nobody to observe, no shared experience. Just solitude. 

Today, while taking the bus back from work, I met a disabled guy. He was on crutches and he only had one leg. He was waiting for the bus with me at the bus stop. This above all, public transportation, lets you realize nothing is impossible. It bridges boundaries, connects people from all walks of life. I meet chefs, restaurant workers, servers, plumbers, accountants, professors, doctors, nurses, students, homeless people, all under one roof. We travel together for that brief moment, in complete anonymity, as one whole being. This experience liberates oneself, in a way driving to work in your own car cannot. I love public transportation, not just in LA, in any other foreign country that I travel to. You can feel the soul and pulse of the city in its public transportation, not in its millions of solitary drivers. 

plaza de cervantes

The sun rays flashed across her face as she sat waiting in Plaza de Cervantes. Her movements were not hurried. She looked around in bold confidence, taking in the beautiful Spanish summer. A couple of sparrows hovered above the dahlias and the pigeons looking for a twig or two to build a home, flew over.She wasn't carrying a phone, or pretending to listen to music. Her act was one of pure, meditative sitting. No irritation reflected on her facial muscles. No sense of immediacy. I was seated on a bench, next to the rose bushes. I glanced up at the sun kissed sky, bright blue streaked with some cumulus nimbus. Somewhere under the same sky, far away, he must be thinking of me. I peaked a quick glance at her. She was laughing aloud and next to her stood a man, a lover. Her facial muscles were cringed at her mouth and her crow's feet. Happiness has no language, it transcends human pettiness and differences. It unites color and race. In four days, I will be reunited with the man I love and laugh aloud, just the way she did. Happy.

Visa grumblings

My passport has hoarded ten visas in the last ten years. Most of these visa processing have been smooth, including two American visas, mind you. So naturally when I walked into the Spain embassy, around mid August, I expected the visa processing to be a cake walk. Boy, was I mistaken. Now remember, this is not my first Schenghen visa experience, not even my second. This was the fourth time I’m applying for a visa to a European Union (EU) country. Of course, by now I thought I knew all about applying to visas in the EU. Therefore applying for a visa to Spain was the least of my worries.

After my plans were fixed, tickets were bought and hotels were booked, I proceeded to book an online appointment for the visa. This was at the beginning of August. I go online to their visa appointment scheduler and the website said the next available date was August 22^nd. What?! Americans don’t even need a visa, so who are all these people who are frantically applying for visas to Spain? Spain’s unemployment rate is so high that I can’t even imagine anybody going there on a long term visa from the States. Reluctantly, I grab the first available appointment on 22^nd which was at 8.20 a.m. Earlier the better, right? They even made me pay $6 for scheduling my visa appointment.

The day before the appointment, I rechecked all the paperwork required for the visa processing. Passport..check, F1..check, 2 photos..check, Invitation letter..check, Hotels/Flight/Itinerary…check, Insurance..check. Great, I was feeling accomplished already ready to take on the Spaniards early morning next day.

On the day of the appointment, I woke up at 6, did my daily ablutions, got ready by 7 and left for the Embassy. Now unlike the Netherlands embassy which is in some godforsaken part of Los Angeles, the Spanish embassy was right in the middle of the city. I got there around 8, smiled at the security guard of the building, wrote my name on a piece of paper, and took the elevator 8 floors up to the Embassy. Now, in all the previous visa appointment dates, we were told to arrive 10 minutes early because there was a security guard to check our belongings. Anticipating this, I walked into the Embassy (10 minutes earlier than my appointment) to find 3 people sitting around (in no particular order) inside the embassy. The visa counter was open. The other two counters were closed. Wait, where was the security guard? Was there no token system? Where was I supposed to sit? Guessing there was no real order in figuring out where to sit, I find a nice, cozy chair and make myself comfortable.

A young couple was at the counter. They were going on a cruise in the Balkans and their first port of entry was Spain. They were talking to a woman at the counter. She, honestly, looked like Ms. Trunchbull from Enid Blyton’s Matilda or Kamal Hassan’s  “Chaachi no: 420” (choose the picture which is best suited to your imagination). She cross questioned the couple and of course, they didn’t think about bringing a copy of their itinerary for the visa interview. The young lady finally had to pull the itinerary up on her phone and Ms. Trunchbull looked a little convinced though she insisted having copies of the itinerary mailed to her. After some another 5 minutes of questions, Trunchbull finally asked for their visa fee, which is £ 79 (per person) and has to be in the form of cashier’s check. The young couple looked bewildered. They said they had paid the money online. Trunchbull looked like she was going to get up, catch them by their ears and throw them out of the embassy. Poor couple. Tch, tch, they had thought the £ 6 fee for setting up an appointment online is the visa fee. If only the EU was kind enough to charge all of us the $10 which the samaritan Japanese embassy charges for a visa. So now the young couple is being packed up and all to go and get a cashier’s cheque. Trunchbull looks at a sheet of paper and calls out my name, wrong pronunciation of course K

I trotter over, smile at her, and hand her my documents one by one. She is being extremely nice till it comes to my medical insurance letter. I see a frown on her forehead and a scowl, she looks up at me and says “You need to get another letter, this doesn’t say the amount of money you are insured for. We need atleast £ 30,000.” Great, now I need to call Aetna again, my medical insurance company provided through USC. Trunchbull gets up and gives me a paper stating what they want and highlights it with a marker. I tell them I’ll get the documents to them the very next day, pay up my fees and leave.

The next day Aetna faxes me another letter which states my coverage ($750,000). Ah, much more than what EU wants. So I’m all elated and all that. I ask a friend to scan it for me and I send it to the embassy. Now weekend comes and goes (I’m still feeling jubilant about my day at the Spanish embassy) and I get a mail from them on Monday saying they don’t open any documents through mail or fax, only snail mail. Ouch. I trot over to the post office, find an envelope, get some stamps, and mail the letter to the embassy.

Now, a week and a half goes by. I haven’t heard anything back from them. So, now I’m a little panicky. My departure date is approaching and I have a ton of work to get done, including my handout for the semantics conference. The last thing I needed to worry about was my passport at that point. So, I send them an email. Earlier they had replied to my mails, right? No reply. I sent another one, no reply again. I called the embassy, nobody picked up. Hmm, panic mode! Now, I have made up my mind to storm into the embassy and demand for my passport.

I walk in to the embassy the next day. Remember they don’t have security. I could just walk up, straight to the counter, and ask them for the passport. Sweet. They told me to wait. A guy was sitting next to me and this was his 5^th time at the embassy. Oh no! They needed some documents from him and only wanted to see originals, and so he had to come down with them each time they wanted an additional document. Talk about harassment. Finally, I was called back again to the counter. The woman was not Trunchbull this time. This lady was much younger and pleasant. But she was not the carrier of good news. She told me I still didn’t have the necessary documentations needed for them to process my visa. Omg! I asked her why they hadn’t made any attempts at contacting me to let me know. She said the person who was supposed to review my documents didn’t review them. Great, I could feel my blood starting to boil. I asked her what is it that they exactly want. They told me the insurance letter needs to clearly state that I don’t have any deductibles in case of an accident or emergency situation. She said the best way out is to purchase travel insurance and resubmit the letter to them.

A friend of mine had thankfully accompanied me to the embassy. After I came out, both of us frantically searched online for the best travel insurance option for the 12 day stay in Spain. We found a couple, and finally settled on one. We called them up, gave them the relevant information, and took the policy. They sent me a 21 page document stating the policy coverage. We took print outs and slipped them under the embassy door (oh remember, they work only 4 hours a day, so obviously they were closed by the time we figured out all this). Phew, now for some lunch. So my friend and I settle on getting some Indian lunch from a restaurant nearby. We drive there, park the car, order some Indian grub and then my phone rings. Normally, I don’t pick up unknown numbers. For some reason I had a feeling this was from the Spain embassy and I picked up the call. They had received my travel insurance but they regretfully announced that even those 21 pages don’t serve the purpose!! Okay, now I’m ready to shoot myself.  First they made me run around on the hottest day in Los Angeles, spend a couple of dollars getting print outs and insurances, and they still don’t want to process my visa when I had only a couple of days left to travel?

It was already too late to do anything now. Weekend was already here and I was at a cul de sac. This time I decided to take my time and research options available for travel insurance. I finally found one which looked like exactly what the Spanish wanted. By now I tell you, I’m disgusted to go to the country. I’m all like, no you can keep the money, just return the passport, I just want to stay back in the States kind of mood. Anyway, since I really had to go to Spain for work, I decided to give it one last shot. I took another travel policy, printed out a letter where they clearly state my deductible is zero and decide to head to the Spanish embassy at 8 a.m on Monday morning ( a day before I travel to Spain) and plead them to stamp my visa.

Another Monday morning arrived and I reached the embassy by 7.50 a.m. They open only at 8 a.m, so we weren’t allowed to go upstairs. Finally, the clock struck 8 and I dashed up the 8 floors to the embassy. I was first in line. The lady behind the counter was neither Trunchball, nor the lady I had spoken to on Friday. Great, so now I have to rant all over again about the urgency of the matter. The woman looked at the letter and gave me a thumbs up sign. Hallelujah! I tell you, the feeling I had was as if I found diamonds in a mine or something. I now begged her to stamp the visa, since I had to leave the next day. Unfortunately, I was teaching at 10 on Monday, so there was no way I could come back and pick up the passport. I had anticipated this situation and authorized a friend to pick it up for me. Thankfully, on Friday, the embassy had told me they want the authorized letter to be notarized and me and my friend had done all this on Friday itself. I tell the embassy the situation and they tell me not to worry and by afternoon, I miraculously receive my passport back!!! Yay! All it took for the Spanish embassy to stamp a visa afterall was a matter of 4 hours :D. So much for efficiency.

This was one big drama now that I think about it. In retrospect, it was totally worth it in the end. Spain is exquisitely beautiful and I’m glad I decided to go back for the third time to the embassy to hand in my documents. I would have regretted it if hadn’t come. More on this in future posts. Adios!

on discipline

“The hills are alive with the sound of music...”

The Hollywood Bowl, situated in the Hollywood hills of Los Angeles is truly iconic. Being the largest amphitheater in the United States with a seating capacity of 18,000, the Bowl has witnessed many stellar performances ever since its inception in 1922. The area around the Bowl hosts picnic spots where music enthusiasts can bring wine and food and dine and make merry. I love going to the Bowl for a variety of reasons but today I am going to focus on discipline.

In India we have a screwed up sense of discipline. It’s fashionable to be late. If you walk in to an appointment half an hour later, you are considered to be an important person. In America, you can’t afford to be late. It might cost you a job, security, and most of all, credibility.

I am always amazed at the discipline exhibited at the Bowl. The outdoor summer concerts begin at 8 p.m and you can fix your watch on the basis of this because rest assured they would begin exactly at 8. The people are seated in their designated seats. At the last classical concert I went to, there were two rows of seats empty before me. In India, people would scamper up from the seats behind and move forward. Here no one does that. People sat huddled together in their seats, without an inch of space to move or croon their neck but this did not cause them to move ahead.

Every concert begins with the US national anthem. You will witness 18,000 people rising on their feet with great patriotism looking ahead eagerly at the American flag. I remember, in India, we had to be told “please stand up for the national anthem” before you got at least 50% of the crowd to stand up. The rest 50% just didn’t care.

The Bowl concerts are great fun because they let you bring in drinks and food. Unlike in India, however, people hardly litter or cause disturbance to their neighbors while eating. People don’t talk; their phones are silenced or switched off. People in big groups are mindful of the neighbors. When the concert begins, there is silence that prevails.

The kids need a special mention. Here, I’ve seen 4-5 year olds attentively listening to Dudamel conduct Tchaikovsky, without complaining or being bored. The West inculcates in children an aptitude for art, music, and the real good things in life. My mother used to attend a lot of Carnatic music concerts while I was growing up. I remember the tantrums I threw to escape being pulled along for a concert!

All this suggests a great sense of discipline among the Bowl goers. People stand in queues, they are mindful of other people, they respect each other and they are all here for a collective cause- to listen to some great music. Discipline need not always be seen as conformity, obeying the rules. In the case of the Bowl, discipline can be seen as respect for the higher form of music, the music being the end all of everything, even greater than the musician itself. Respect the music because that’s what you are truly there for.