When people are hurt in a romantic relationship, the only thing that can bring healing is absolute, unconditional love, shared without any inhibitions or holding back. If they cannot share or exchange that absolute, unconditional love, they should not attempt to communicate at all.
When people are hurt in a romantic relationship, every bit of communication (outside of absolute, unconditional love), only leads to more hurting. They may attempt to be friendly or to clarify something or to answer a question or to merely greet or bid farewell; they may even talk to show empathy or sympathy, to share or express hurt; they may even have the noble intention of helping each other heal. In all such attempts at communication, there will only be more hurt, more confusion, more anger.
So, if you are hurt, and if you cannot share unconditional love and love only, simply let go and just get the hell away. Don't even wait to say a proper goodbye. There's no such thing as a proper goodbye in such cases, anyway.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Friday, December 01, 2006
Morning Thoughts - Dec 1st, 2006
1. My arms were stuck out from under the blanket when I woke up this morning and they were freezing. Even within the shelter of my home, it gets so cold. As I got under the hot shower, I wondered about the homeless people and street sleepers. The winters must be so tough on them. How miserable they must feel every night! I am the kind of person who can sleep almost anywhere, and cold is about the only thing that can keep me from my sleep. So, I have extra sympathy for those poor people with no homes.
2. This morning, I flipped the monthly calendar over to the new month, the last month of the year. I am amazed at how quickly time seems to fly. It feels like only last month that I hung up this 2006 calendar at work. There is another calendar at home which I have not even hung up yet. I always thought that I would come around to hanging it soon, but kept postponing. And now, the year is almost over!
2. This morning, I flipped the monthly calendar over to the new month, the last month of the year. I am amazed at how quickly time seems to fly. It feels like only last month that I hung up this 2006 calendar at work. There is another calendar at home which I have not even hung up yet. I always thought that I would come around to hanging it soon, but kept postponing. And now, the year is almost over!
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Hurting in Love
To be in love, in a relationship, is to expose oneself to the risks of deep hurting. We pretty much give the other person the power to hurt us badly.
The sad truth is that there is nobody in the world perfect enough to never hurt us. That kind of person simply does not exist. We can only hope for someone who will hurt us the least and whose love will make up for all the hurtful times.
The only thing we can do is try not to hurt those who love us. And on the occasions when we are hurt, try not to retaliate or do something that will escalate the hurt and cause more damage. Of course, we also have the option of breaking the love, the relationship and leaving for good.
It's a sucky deal for sure!
The sad truth is that there is nobody in the world perfect enough to never hurt us. That kind of person simply does not exist. We can only hope for someone who will hurt us the least and whose love will make up for all the hurtful times.
The only thing we can do is try not to hurt those who love us. And on the occasions when we are hurt, try not to retaliate or do something that will escalate the hurt and cause more damage. Of course, we also have the option of breaking the love, the relationship and leaving for good.
It's a sucky deal for sure!
Monday, November 06, 2006
Hacking Democracy on Google Video
Last night I watched a remarkable documentary on Google Video, called Hacking Democracy. The documentary was telecast on HBO on Nov 2nd 2006, and here's the HBO Synopsis. You can play the documentary in the Google Video Player embedded above, or you can watch it here.
The United States of America is perhaps the country which sees the highest usage of newer computer technologies - software & hardware - at all levels, be it personal, private, public or government. It is not surprising that America would resort to new technology in its election process to record and tally thousands of millions of votes.
What is truly surprising, almost unbelievable, is the rotten system America uses to run its elections. A mix of hardware and software systems which suck big time, and an inefficient and corrupted bureaucracy which does not strictly follow due processes and regulations, have truly hijacked the 'greatest democracy in the world'. This kind of rot in any other aspect of American life, especially if it involved money, would have resulted in quick and highly publicized prosecutions. The responsible people would have been held accountable, heads would have rolled and asses would have been hauled off to prisons for very long stays. Most importantly, the system would have been reformed to put sufficient checks and balances in place to prevent the recurrence of such incidents. This is the America we have read about, come to know and respect. The America which is exposed by this documentary is a country where the most important and sacred democratic process, namely the election, has been corrupted quite blatantly and absurdly.
It all starts simply enough : a 'grandmother' (the documentary mentions this more than once) and writer named Bev Harris from Seattle, sets out to find out why her county acquired electronic touch screen voting machines and if they are reliable enough. When she is not satisfied by the answers she gets from the officials, she tries to find out more. From there, through the course of the documentary, she manages to uncover a rot which spreads across the country, from coast to coast. But the remarkable thing is that, the story remains consistently simple through the entire 80 minutes of the documentary. There is no evil mastermind bad guy at work, there is no clever and complex conspiracy which is hard to detect, there is no ingenius and daring moves by the good guys to catch and expose the bad guys. There is not even the terrorism and violence that goes with election corruption and hijacking in some countries.
It is all so absurdly simple and silly : Bev Harris is not some lady James Bond or a hot-shot investigative journalist. She is just a regular lady from next door, who is running around the country, with a camera following her, asking questions and accepting help from whoever offers to help. All she has to do is search the Net to find the "secret" software code behind the voting systems, the code which is not even shared with the government, and is discovered to have a lot of security holes in it; all she has to do is dig through the garbage of election officials to discover how they are not following the processes and the regulations as they are supposed to; all she has to do is let loose a couple of techies on the new voting systems which were bought by the government for millions of dollars, and within a few minutes they show honkin' huge holes in the systems. Some of these systems do not even have password protection to the databases which store the count of votes. They show the most basic bugs and simplest hacks by which election results could be completely manipulated and changed. All this is done right in front of our eyes, on film. And this is the silly system which is used to elect local politicians to national ones, including the US President himself. This is the system which influences the fate of an entire nation, nay, nations, and changes the course of history itself!
It is amazing! I have spent the entire 10 years of my career taking care of software systems for American companies, systems which process people's monies, which do hundreds of thousands of financial transactions involving thousands of millions of dollars. I have seen how these systems account for every single cent of the thousands of millions of dollars they process. The transactions can be anything from simple arithmetic to complex billing and accounting, but not a single cent is lost. The only money that is usually lost in these systems is the money not paid by customers who go bankrupt or cannot be traced. Even this money is not technically lost. It is well-accounted for upto the last cent, collection actions are initiated and it is written-off only when it is deemed to be unrecoverable. These software systems are built by relatively modest teams, in the IT departments of American companies, and the vendors from whom they source their software systems and services. Countless such systems are used by banks and businesses across the country, quietly and efficiently processing mind-boggling amounts daily. I find it to be truly amazing that the world's greatest democracy is not able to get sufficiently robust and reliable systems to do the simple yet most important task of recording and tallying its votes.
The last two presidential elections in the US were controversial because of this very reason. There are many people who believe that George W Bush never truly won either election. Despite the questions and controversies hanging over the election of the president himself, not much has been done to improve the voting situation. As this documentary shows clearly, the system continues to be rotten. Is it because of corruption or the lack of political will? Or the fact that the general public is not very savvy about the whole issue? It is very important that every American watche this documentary and take action to ensure that his/her vote is recorded and counted right, and does not get thrown in the garbage or lost in the holes of half-baked computer systems.
Related link: Blackboxvoting.org, the non-profit organization started by Bev Harris.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Bengalooru! Bengalooru! Bengalooru!
Today, November 1st, is the Golden Jubilee of the formation of Karnataka state. This occasion is marked by the move to universally spell and pronounce the name of Karnataka's capital city Bangalore, as Bengalooru.
This has sparked a lot of comments and debates across the world and the cyberworld. On this occasion, I am presenting below some of the popular myths and realities surrounding this issue.
Myth: Bangalore to Bengalooru is a name change similar to Madras to Chennai or Bombay to Mumbai.
Reality: It is not really a name change like Bombay to Mumbai and Madras to Chennai. It is more of a spelling change to reflect the correct pronunciation. It is just an adoption of a more Indian, less anglicized pronunciation of the name, and the corresponding spelling.
Myth: This is a new idea which came from politicians and ministers, who are just out to gain political mileage.
Reality: The city has always been known as Bengalooru in all Kannada publications and in everyday talks among Kannadigas. The idea of universally using the pronounciation and spelling Bengalooru, starting from the golden jubilee anniversary of Karnataka state's formation, came from the well-known literary personality, Jnanapeetha award-winner, Dr U R Ananthamurthy. The idea became popular among the general Kannadiga public, and then was taken up by the government and politicians.
Myth: There is popular sentiment among most people against the "name change".
Reality: Among the grass-roots, "person on the street" Kannadigas in Bangalore and rest of the Karnataka state, this idea is very popular. Even among non-Kannadigas who were born and brought up in Bangalore, this idea is popular. Most of the people who oppose, especially the most vocal ones, are usually immigrant non-Kannadigas, who have little or nothing invested emotionally and culturally in Bangalore.
Myth: The "name change" costs a lot of money. Money which can be used to improve the infrastructure of Bangalore.
Reality: Any costs involved are one time only. The costs can be further minimized by continuing to use existing stationery until they are exhausted and using the new spelling only on new stationery. The money needed for this change is much less, compared to the costs of maintaining/improving the infrastructure of a city. For people who claim otherwise, here is a comparison: cost of stationery used in your house vs the cost of building, maintaining the infrastructure of your house. Understand the difference?
Myth: Bangalore is an international-sounding word. Bengalooru sounds "local", and so it is not good. So, 'changing over' will be awkward and difficult.
Reality: This is another illogical argument which sounds at first like it is logical. Bangalore is not an international word by itself. The city became internationally popular, mostly in just the past two decades - there is not a long history and attachment internationally to that name. For the true foreigners, especially people who just get to know the place, Bangalore is as strange and foreign-sounding as Bengalooru. It is relatively easy to change the pronunciation and spelling, especially because Bengalooru is pretty close to Bangalore. Even the international airport code BLR, need not be changed. When the world has adapted relatively easily to Mumbai, changing over to Bengalooru is no big deal.
Myth: Bangalore is a global brand. Changing the name now will adversely affect the brand.
Reality: This is another statement which seems to make sense, but really doesn't carry a lot of weight. Name changes happen as frequently in commercial branding as in other areas of life, and in business, they happen more ruthlessly. For me, AT&T is a name with history, known all over the world, for a very long time. I had never heard of Cingular. I am sure this is true of many more people. Yet, when Cingular took over AT&T's mobile phone business, the name change was immediately all-pervasive and very effective. Did that name change adversely affect the brand and the business? There are no signs which indicate that. For people who are already familiar with Bangalore, it will be business as usual in the future Bengalooru. They will continue to get the same advantage and benefits from the city, which made them go there for business in the first place. And for people who don't know the city yet, and who are future business prospects, it makes no difference at all. Future business deals will not be made or broken based on whether the city is called Bangalore or Bengalooru. Anyone who suggests otherwise is an idiot.
Myth: This is a big change, a big deal, a big issue. And it is all for nothing. It won't improve the infrastructure or conditions of the city.
Reality: NO! This is not a big change, as I have mentioned enough times already. Nor is it a big deal or a big issue. The expenses are relatively low and one time. Any awkwardness and inconvenience is also merely passing. Taking the longer perspective of time, after this small change, future generations will know the city as Bengalooru for decades and centuries to come. The past few decades of mispronunciation, starting from the British times, will just seem to be a passing phase compared to the longer history of the city. I think for the benefit of having my city's name pronounced properly for decades and centuries to come, by people around the world, it is all worth it. Imagine that you correct some foreigner when s/he mispronounces your name. Suppose s/he quips back, "Pronouncing your name correctly does not change the way you look or make you richer". Will that make any sense?
Myth: Blah! Blah! Blah!
Reality: Bengalooru! Bengalooru! Bengalooru!
Related post: Bangalore Vs Bengaluru
This has sparked a lot of comments and debates across the world and the cyberworld. On this occasion, I am presenting below some of the popular myths and realities surrounding this issue.
Myth: Bangalore to Bengalooru is a name change similar to Madras to Chennai or Bombay to Mumbai.
Reality: It is not really a name change like Bombay to Mumbai and Madras to Chennai. It is more of a spelling change to reflect the correct pronunciation. It is just an adoption of a more Indian, less anglicized pronunciation of the name, and the corresponding spelling.
Myth: This is a new idea which came from politicians and ministers, who are just out to gain political mileage.
Reality: The city has always been known as Bengalooru in all Kannada publications and in everyday talks among Kannadigas. The idea of universally using the pronounciation and spelling Bengalooru, starting from the golden jubilee anniversary of Karnataka state's formation, came from the well-known literary personality, Jnanapeetha award-winner, Dr U R Ananthamurthy. The idea became popular among the general Kannadiga public, and then was taken up by the government and politicians.
Myth: There is popular sentiment among most people against the "name change".
Reality: Among the grass-roots, "person on the street" Kannadigas in Bangalore and rest of the Karnataka state, this idea is very popular. Even among non-Kannadigas who were born and brought up in Bangalore, this idea is popular. Most of the people who oppose, especially the most vocal ones, are usually immigrant non-Kannadigas, who have little or nothing invested emotionally and culturally in Bangalore.
Myth: The "name change" costs a lot of money. Money which can be used to improve the infrastructure of Bangalore.
Reality: Any costs involved are one time only. The costs can be further minimized by continuing to use existing stationery until they are exhausted and using the new spelling only on new stationery. The money needed for this change is much less, compared to the costs of maintaining/improving the infrastructure of a city. For people who claim otherwise, here is a comparison: cost of stationery used in your house vs the cost of building, maintaining the infrastructure of your house. Understand the difference?
Myth: Bangalore is an international-sounding word. Bengalooru sounds "local", and so it is not good. So, 'changing over' will be awkward and difficult.
Reality: This is another illogical argument which sounds at first like it is logical. Bangalore is not an international word by itself. The city became internationally popular, mostly in just the past two decades - there is not a long history and attachment internationally to that name. For the true foreigners, especially people who just get to know the place, Bangalore is as strange and foreign-sounding as Bengalooru. It is relatively easy to change the pronunciation and spelling, especially because Bengalooru is pretty close to Bangalore. Even the international airport code BLR, need not be changed. When the world has adapted relatively easily to Mumbai, changing over to Bengalooru is no big deal.
Myth: Bangalore is a global brand. Changing the name now will adversely affect the brand.
Reality: This is another statement which seems to make sense, but really doesn't carry a lot of weight. Name changes happen as frequently in commercial branding as in other areas of life, and in business, they happen more ruthlessly. For me, AT&T is a name with history, known all over the world, for a very long time. I had never heard of Cingular. I am sure this is true of many more people. Yet, when Cingular took over AT&T's mobile phone business, the name change was immediately all-pervasive and very effective. Did that name change adversely affect the brand and the business? There are no signs which indicate that. For people who are already familiar with Bangalore, it will be business as usual in the future Bengalooru. They will continue to get the same advantage and benefits from the city, which made them go there for business in the first place. And for people who don't know the city yet, and who are future business prospects, it makes no difference at all. Future business deals will not be made or broken based on whether the city is called Bangalore or Bengalooru. Anyone who suggests otherwise is an idiot.
Myth: This is a big change, a big deal, a big issue. And it is all for nothing. It won't improve the infrastructure or conditions of the city.
Reality: NO! This is not a big change, as I have mentioned enough times already. Nor is it a big deal or a big issue. The expenses are relatively low and one time. Any awkwardness and inconvenience is also merely passing. Taking the longer perspective of time, after this small change, future generations will know the city as Bengalooru for decades and centuries to come. The past few decades of mispronunciation, starting from the British times, will just seem to be a passing phase compared to the longer history of the city. I think for the benefit of having my city's name pronounced properly for decades and centuries to come, by people around the world, it is all worth it. Imagine that you correct some foreigner when s/he mispronounces your name. Suppose s/he quips back, "Pronouncing your name correctly does not change the way you look or make you richer". Will that make any sense?
Myth: Blah! Blah! Blah!
Reality: Bengalooru! Bengalooru! Bengalooru!
Related post: Bangalore Vs Bengaluru
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
A Case for Writing Right
Disclaimer 1 : I make no claims to being an expert in the English language, nor do I claim that my writing is perfect and free of errors. There are many rules of grammar and punctuation that I am not aware of. I am still learning.
Disclaimer 2 : Genuine typos and deliberately used acronyms (E.g.: LOL for 'laugh out loud') as well as short forms (E.g.: sms lingo) are out of scope for everything that is written below.
I suspect that people have always had difficulties with written English, with its non-phonetic spellings and probably the most complex punctuation rules among all languages. This difficulty has never been as obvious as it is today, in the era of Internet fora.
Online fora such as message boards and blogs enable anybody to type and publish stuff, which are almost instantly read by more eyes than was ever possible in human history. These writings need not go through any form of quality control such as editing and proof-reading. The result is that a person visiting a typical online forum can be exposed to more atrocious - qualitatively and quantitatively - spelling and grammar in a single day, than s/he might have come across in a whole month or even a year, in the pre-Internet days. Assuming, of course, that the person is an average reader, and not a magazine editor or an English teacher.
Most online fora have at least one spelling/grammar-nazi - you know, the person (mostly men, rarely women) who points out and corrects spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Reactions to such corrections range from mild irritation to outright hostility. The reactions are also normally accompanied by excuses.
Two of the most popular excuses are:
(i) "I was quite aware of my error when I was making it. I only made the error because this is an online forum. I would never make such errors in an official report or formal paper."
(ii) "Nobody cares about such things these days. It is not really important to be grammatically accurate and use correct spelling, especially not in my profession/office." This particular excuse, unfortunately, is most popular among techies. Most techies who give this excuse are at the non-management level.
These excuses are not just unacceptable, they are invalid.
Before I go further, it is worth repeating my earlier disclaimer: Genuine typos and deliberately used acronyms (E.g.: LOL for laugh out loud) as well as short forms (E.g.: sms lingo) are out of scope for everything that is written here.
"I was aware of the mistake. I did it only because this an online forum."
Sometimes this is an outright lie, and it is very obvious that the person who made the mistake was not aware of it at all, or else s/he would not have let it pass. Confusions in the usage of "there", "their" and "they're" as well as misuse of apostrophes come to mind. Other times, the person making this excuse is simply deceiving herself/himself. Think of formal writing as attending a formal event and informal writing as attending an informal event. For formal events, you may be formally dressed and for informal events you are informally dressed. However, if you are classy and decent, to neither event would you wear soiled or smelly clothes, nor clothes which are torn and expose your private body parts. In the same way, classy and educated people will not, all of a sudden, lose their sense of spelling and grammar just because they are writing in an informal forum. They would certainly not allow their own mistakes to pass uncorrected, if they were aware of them. Of course, there are always exceptions - one might deliberately use a certain style of writing, replete with errors, for a specific purpose. This is no different from someone who might dress outrageously for an event, in order to make a specific statement or create a certain impression. But those are exceptions.
"Nobody cares. Correct spelling/grammar is not important for my job."
This is a dangerous attitude/belief to have. It is akin to believing that how you dress to your workplace is not really important. Your office may not have a strict dress code, you may be allowed to dress casually daily, and nobody might question you if you were to dress badly. However, if you believe that people are not getting certain impressions about you and not forming opinions about you based on how you dress, you are absolutely wrong. It may or may not be fair to draw conclusions about people based on their dress, but it happens. Consciously or subconsciously, it happens. A similar thing happens with how we speak and write as well - it leaves impressions, causes people to judge us. In fact, how we write might leave a more lasting and widespread impression, because there is a paper or electronic trail. Also because emails might be forwarded far and wide, and online postings are seen and read by many people. If the analogy of dress does not convince you, think of speech. Imagine a person who speaks any language badly, with incorrect grammar, may be in a country bumpkin fashion. And then, imagine a person who speaks the same language cleanly and correctly. All other things being equal, who will leave a more favorable impression? Whom would you consider to be more capable, reliable? With whom would you prefer to trust your business and your money? The one with a better manner of speech, right? Believe me, the same thing happens when you write badly. Bad writing gives the impression of you being less educated and incapable.
There is a subtle trap here for people like Indians, for whom English is not the first language and is most often learnt only in schools and colleges. In most places in India, the very fact that a person speaks and writes English, might make him appear educated, a cut above an uneducated person. This would happen regardless of whether the person's English is grammatically correct or not. This might lull a person into a false sense of confidence that simply being able to write in English, however badly, is sufficient. The person might not realize that in a country like America and in online fora, his/her bad grammar and spelling might make him appear to be uneducated. Non-native English speakers must be careful about this.
Let's face it: the only person who can get away with bad dress, bad speech or bad writing is someone who is already extremely successful, powerful and/or beautiful. And even such people become the subject of ridicule and jokes, if their language skills are bad (Shrubbish.com). Unfortunately, the majority of us are not in that state of extreme exaltation. For us, it is important to dress, speak and write cleanly. We don't need to go to extremes or be experts. We don't need to dress like movie stars or write like professional writers. Just being able to write in simple sentences, free of spelling and grammatical errors should suffice. It is not easy to do that in a confusing language like English. But it is not too difficult either. Most often, it is merely a matter of reading more, learning better and being more aware while writing.
The most important reason for writing right is not just to create a favorable impression of ourselves to the reader, although that is important. The most important reason is simply to communicate right. Bad language and errors dilute and distract from the message which is sought to be communicated. Moreover, anything worth doing is worth doing well. An apt word used right in a well-constructed and error-free sentence is a thing of beauty worth striving for.
Related: Punctuation is Dying
Disclaimer 2 : Genuine typos and deliberately used acronyms (E.g.: LOL for 'laugh out loud') as well as short forms (E.g.: sms lingo) are out of scope for everything that is written below.
I suspect that people have always had difficulties with written English, with its non-phonetic spellings and probably the most complex punctuation rules among all languages. This difficulty has never been as obvious as it is today, in the era of Internet fora.
Online fora such as message boards and blogs enable anybody to type and publish stuff, which are almost instantly read by more eyes than was ever possible in human history. These writings need not go through any form of quality control such as editing and proof-reading. The result is that a person visiting a typical online forum can be exposed to more atrocious - qualitatively and quantitatively - spelling and grammar in a single day, than s/he might have come across in a whole month or even a year, in the pre-Internet days. Assuming, of course, that the person is an average reader, and not a magazine editor or an English teacher.
Most online fora have at least one spelling/grammar-nazi - you know, the person (mostly men, rarely women) who points out and corrects spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Reactions to such corrections range from mild irritation to outright hostility. The reactions are also normally accompanied by excuses.
Two of the most popular excuses are:
(i) "I was quite aware of my error when I was making it. I only made the error because this is an online forum. I would never make such errors in an official report or formal paper."
(ii) "Nobody cares about such things these days. It is not really important to be grammatically accurate and use correct spelling, especially not in my profession/office." This particular excuse, unfortunately, is most popular among techies. Most techies who give this excuse are at the non-management level.
These excuses are not just unacceptable, they are invalid.
Before I go further, it is worth repeating my earlier disclaimer: Genuine typos and deliberately used acronyms (E.g.: LOL for laugh out loud) as well as short forms (E.g.: sms lingo) are out of scope for everything that is written here.
"I was aware of the mistake. I did it only because this an online forum."
Sometimes this is an outright lie, and it is very obvious that the person who made the mistake was not aware of it at all, or else s/he would not have let it pass. Confusions in the usage of "there", "their" and "they're" as well as misuse of apostrophes come to mind. Other times, the person making this excuse is simply deceiving herself/himself. Think of formal writing as attending a formal event and informal writing as attending an informal event. For formal events, you may be formally dressed and for informal events you are informally dressed. However, if you are classy and decent, to neither event would you wear soiled or smelly clothes, nor clothes which are torn and expose your private body parts. In the same way, classy and educated people will not, all of a sudden, lose their sense of spelling and grammar just because they are writing in an informal forum. They would certainly not allow their own mistakes to pass uncorrected, if they were aware of them. Of course, there are always exceptions - one might deliberately use a certain style of writing, replete with errors, for a specific purpose. This is no different from someone who might dress outrageously for an event, in order to make a specific statement or create a certain impression. But those are exceptions.
"Nobody cares. Correct spelling/grammar is not important for my job."
This is a dangerous attitude/belief to have. It is akin to believing that how you dress to your workplace is not really important. Your office may not have a strict dress code, you may be allowed to dress casually daily, and nobody might question you if you were to dress badly. However, if you believe that people are not getting certain impressions about you and not forming opinions about you based on how you dress, you are absolutely wrong. It may or may not be fair to draw conclusions about people based on their dress, but it happens. Consciously or subconsciously, it happens. A similar thing happens with how we speak and write as well - it leaves impressions, causes people to judge us. In fact, how we write might leave a more lasting and widespread impression, because there is a paper or electronic trail. Also because emails might be forwarded far and wide, and online postings are seen and read by many people. If the analogy of dress does not convince you, think of speech. Imagine a person who speaks any language badly, with incorrect grammar, may be in a country bumpkin fashion. And then, imagine a person who speaks the same language cleanly and correctly. All other things being equal, who will leave a more favorable impression? Whom would you consider to be more capable, reliable? With whom would you prefer to trust your business and your money? The one with a better manner of speech, right? Believe me, the same thing happens when you write badly. Bad writing gives the impression of you being less educated and incapable.
There is a subtle trap here for people like Indians, for whom English is not the first language and is most often learnt only in schools and colleges. In most places in India, the very fact that a person speaks and writes English, might make him appear educated, a cut above an uneducated person. This would happen regardless of whether the person's English is grammatically correct or not. This might lull a person into a false sense of confidence that simply being able to write in English, however badly, is sufficient. The person might not realize that in a country like America and in online fora, his/her bad grammar and spelling might make him appear to be uneducated. Non-native English speakers must be careful about this.
Let's face it: the only person who can get away with bad dress, bad speech or bad writing is someone who is already extremely successful, powerful and/or beautiful. And even such people become the subject of ridicule and jokes, if their language skills are bad (Shrubbish.com). Unfortunately, the majority of us are not in that state of extreme exaltation. For us, it is important to dress, speak and write cleanly. We don't need to go to extremes or be experts. We don't need to dress like movie stars or write like professional writers. Just being able to write in simple sentences, free of spelling and grammatical errors should suffice. It is not easy to do that in a confusing language like English. But it is not too difficult either. Most often, it is merely a matter of reading more, learning better and being more aware while writing.
The most important reason for writing right is not just to create a favorable impression of ourselves to the reader, although that is important. The most important reason is simply to communicate right. Bad language and errors dilute and distract from the message which is sought to be communicated. Moreover, anything worth doing is worth doing well. An apt word used right in a well-constructed and error-free sentence is a thing of beauty worth striving for.
Related: Punctuation is Dying
Monday, September 18, 2006
Wounds of Love
Wounds of love are like a sexually transmitted disease (STD). They hurt our heart and soul deeply. Our hurting selves pass on the pain to the next person who has the misfortune to love us. Often, we pass it on with a carelessness and recklessness, that is similar to a diseased person passing on the STD virus. Like the virus, the hurt spreads from lover to lover, to their lovers and partners, and even to the kids who are born of such unions, in an ever widening circle which spans coast to coast, continent to continent, generation to generation.
It is tragic! So often, the victims to whom we pass on the hurt come to us simply because they love us and trust us. We embrace them with both arms, taking them close to our diseased heart, drawing sustenance from their pure love, and in return giving them a gift of pain, wounding their pure hearts and sending them on... Much like how we were wounded a long time ago, by people who were victims themselves.
Escaping from this cycle of getting hurt and passing on the hurt, is as tough as getting out of the cycle of birth and death, as elusive as Nirvana itself! I am not asking to escape. Right now, I will settle for simply not hurting anybody, anybody at all.
It is tragic! So often, the victims to whom we pass on the hurt come to us simply because they love us and trust us. We embrace them with both arms, taking them close to our diseased heart, drawing sustenance from their pure love, and in return giving them a gift of pain, wounding their pure hearts and sending them on... Much like how we were wounded a long time ago, by people who were victims themselves.
Escaping from this cycle of getting hurt and passing on the hurt, is as tough as getting out of the cycle of birth and death, as elusive as Nirvana itself! I am not asking to escape. Right now, I will settle for simply not hurting anybody, anybody at all.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Londonstani - Book Review
Just finished reading Londonstani by Gautam Malkani. It is a novel, giving fascinating glimpses into the NRI (non-resident Indian) community in London, UK. Although it is a novel, I hope to god the author is not too off the mark in his portrayal of the NRI community because we, the general readers, can't help thinking of novels such as these as the real windows into a community of people.I am more familiar with the NRI community in the US, particularly the young immigrants (not so affectionaly called FOBs, fresh off the boat), being one myself. So, I found it really interesting to read about the Indian community in the UK, the young kids and adult Indians who were born there, and their immigrant parents. The similarities and differences between the Indians in India, the UK and the US was indeed fascinating. I will not try to list here the similarities and differences I noticed, because that is not the point of this blog post. Moreover, your own list might vary significantly from mine. Nevertheless, I always like to read about contemporary Indians, wherever they are.
The main protagonist of Londonstani is Jas, who narrates the story in first person, using what is supposed to be London's desi slang, as his preferred language. The story is of Jas and his three friends, who are all somewhere close to 20 years of age. None of them are doing well in their studies, and just seem to be drifting along in life. They have a small cell-phone operation, which is not exactly legal. However, their small caper leads them into something unexpectedly big-time, before ending in a somewhat lame climax. En route, we get to witness immigrant life in London: the attitudes of the younger generation versus their parents, the relationship dynamics within families, the dynamics between the youth, influenced by their religion and gender, assimilation issues, identity and young manhood issues, etc. The story includes all the typical elements of an Indian movie: youthful mischief, budding romance, marriage, death, funeral, family fights, actual physical fights between guys and even a suave, intelligent villain who is as bad and manipulative as any movie villain. Despite all that, it is not really a typical Indian movie story.
I felt that the novel was a little slow in clearly establishing the identities and personalities of three of the four main characters. Hardjit, the Punjabi body-builder and wrestler, is the only character who gets assertively delineated early on. Even the main protagonist, Jas himself, takes some to come out of the fuzzy vision. May be that was deliberate and is in line with the personalities of the characters.
The writing is funny and witty, especially in its observation of the many unique characteristics and quirks of Indians, their attitudes, beliefs, their lives. However, there were many occasions when I was reading the book and I thought, "This is supposed to be funny, I should really be laughing hard at this, but why am I not?" I still don't know why I was not laughing hard, although I did chuckle and smile quite frequently. The description and explanations in the desi-ghetto slang, that too from a youthful perspective, was supposed to be half the fun. But may be it was this very slang which prevented me from fully empathizing with the narration and laughing hard, or may be it was something else. May be other readers might have indeed laughed harder. Nevertheless, I did get the feeling sometimes that the author was trying too hard to be funny or to make a point or to describe something.
In at least two chapters, the author uses a mixed-timeline narrative style. In the dance club chapter, the narration skips back and forth over events which take place on two consecutives evenings. Towards the end of that chapter, the back and forth switch between the two evenings is more rapid, until at the very end, they actually seem to blend together. (SPOILER WARNING: Rest of this paragraph!) In the funeral chapter, you think you are reading about events that took place at one point of time, but when you reach the end of the chapter, the author displays a sleight of hand, and you realize that you are actually reading about events which happened at least a couple of weeks later.
This unexpected sleight of hand by the author is again evident at the very end of the story, a surprising twist in almost the penultimate page. The climax is kind of lame, but the twist which follows, tilts the whole story a bit. I finished reading the novel late last night and the twist has still not fully sunk into my mind this afternoon. In many good novels which have a final twist in the tale, that last surprise causes the main piece or many pieces of the puzzle to fall in place, explains many things, and neatly ties up the story for us. The final twist in Londonstani is probably supposed to do that, but it has quite not done that for me. I don't know why that twist was necessary.
Despite the ending, Londonstani was an entertaining novel to read.
Did Apple patent MY 'Buddy' idea?
About 11 months ago, I had described a futuristic multi-functional device called a Buddy, on this very blog.
And today, I hear that Apple files a Multi-functional hand-held device patent application!
I am not arrogant enough to presume that Apple read my blog and then filed this patent. These days, it is not a big deal for anyone to dream up a multi-functional device. Convergence is the name of the game in consumer gadgets and technologies, and countless people all over the world are dreaming about it.
This takes us back to the patents debate, which is becoming increasingly loud and passionate in tech circles, especially among proponents of the open-source philosophy. When gadget-freaks all over the world are fantasizing about multi-functional devices, does Apple's patent of a generic idea of a multi-functional device make sense?
I confess that I have not perused Apple's actual patent filing. I have only gone through the above link which summarizes the patent. And I see nothing, nothing at all that is a specific patent-worthy idea. It sounds like Apple took a dream which millions across the world are having, and patented it as its own.
Granted that for millions of people across the world, it is just a pipe-dream. They don't have Apple's capabilities and resources to actually made such a device a reality. But is it fair to patent a dream, an idea which really belongs to thousands?
The most absurd thing about this patent? Fig 18 on the above page lists the multiple functionality of this newly patented device: PDA, cell, music, video, game, gps, remote, camera, handtop, other. Excuse me, but don't existing single devices already have most of the same functionality built into them? Can Apple simply take an existing device, add a couple more functionality to it and patent it as it's own? Can I take Apple's device, add an antenna-cum-fork-cum-toothbrush to it, and patent it as a brand new idea of my own?
What does this patent mean? Does this mean that none of the other thousands of dreamers will be allowed to build such a device because it will infringe on Apple's patent? If I had patented by Buddy idea, could I have prevented Apple from building such a device or sued them or licensed my idea out to them for millions of dollars?
I wish the US Patent & Trademark Office office were more diligent and used a little more common sense when rewarding patents. This is almost as absurd as patenting basmati rice.
And today, I hear that Apple files a Multi-functional hand-held device patent application!
I am not arrogant enough to presume that Apple read my blog and then filed this patent. These days, it is not a big deal for anyone to dream up a multi-functional device. Convergence is the name of the game in consumer gadgets and technologies, and countless people all over the world are dreaming about it.
This takes us back to the patents debate, which is becoming increasingly loud and passionate in tech circles, especially among proponents of the open-source philosophy. When gadget-freaks all over the world are fantasizing about multi-functional devices, does Apple's patent of a generic idea of a multi-functional device make sense?
I confess that I have not perused Apple's actual patent filing. I have only gone through the above link which summarizes the patent. And I see nothing, nothing at all that is a specific patent-worthy idea. It sounds like Apple took a dream which millions across the world are having, and patented it as its own.
Granted that for millions of people across the world, it is just a pipe-dream. They don't have Apple's capabilities and resources to actually made such a device a reality. But is it fair to patent a dream, an idea which really belongs to thousands?
The most absurd thing about this patent? Fig 18 on the above page lists the multiple functionality of this newly patented device: PDA, cell, music, video, game, gps, remote, camera, handtop, other. Excuse me, but don't existing single devices already have most of the same functionality built into them? Can Apple simply take an existing device, add a couple more functionality to it and patent it as it's own? Can I take Apple's device, add an antenna-cum-fork-cum-toothbrush to it, and patent it as a brand new idea of my own?
What does this patent mean? Does this mean that none of the other thousands of dreamers will be allowed to build such a device because it will infringe on Apple's patent? If I had patented by Buddy idea, could I have prevented Apple from building such a device or sued them or licensed my idea out to them for millions of dollars?
I wish the US Patent & Trademark Office office were more diligent and used a little more common sense when rewarding patents. This is almost as absurd as patenting basmati rice.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
What we like in women...
Following are the characters which make a woman (or even men) attractive:
1. Healthy.
2. Happy.
3. Active, spirited, enthusiastic (in other words, yes, feisty).
4. Usually organized and collected (as opposed to being scattered).
5. Talk straight, true and simple (as opposed to convoluted, fake and complex).
6. Passionate about something nice (arts, music, cuisine, sex, environment, sports, literature).
7. Articulate and erudite.
8. Classy (includes having good taste, not talking too much or too loud, not getting into cheap stuff - including cheap articles, cheap people, cheap discussions, being understated).
Stuff like beauty and intelligence come MUCH later, down the line... although, it takes a certain degree of intelligence to satisfy criteria 1 through 8.
1. Healthy.
2. Happy.
3. Active, spirited, enthusiastic (in other words, yes, feisty).
4. Usually organized and collected (as opposed to being scattered).
5. Talk straight, true and simple (as opposed to convoluted, fake and complex).
6. Passionate about something nice (arts, music, cuisine, sex, environment, sports, literature).
7. Articulate and erudite.
8. Classy (includes having good taste, not talking too much or too loud, not getting into cheap stuff - including cheap articles, cheap people, cheap discussions, being understated).
Stuff like beauty and intelligence come MUCH later, down the line... although, it takes a certain degree of intelligence to satisfy criteria 1 through 8.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Vegetarian Logic
No. of Pizza Lunch meeting attendees: 11
No. of Indians (assume non-pepperoni eaters): 4
No. of others: 6 White Americans + 1 Oriental Type
No. of people who did not eat anything: 1 Indian + 2 White Americans = 3
No. of people who did eat: 8
No. of confirmed non-vegetarians: At least 4 (including 2 Indians), probably more.
No. of confirmed vegetarians: At least 1 (Myself)
No. of pizzas ordered: 2 Pepperoni, 1 Chicken, 1 Veg
No. of pizzas left at the end of the meeting: 1 pepperoni, 80% of chicken
No. of tummies with a hollow space where there should have been food: At least 1.
No. of conclusions: 3
1. Ratio of vegetarian to non-vegetarian food consumed is ALWAYS GREATER than the ratio of vegetarians to non-vegetarians. (Unless your non-vegetarian guests are all cats and your vegetarian guests are all horses!)
2. Vegetarians eat vegetarian food only. Non-vegetarians eat both vegetarian AND non-vegetarian food.
3. At least 50% of a non-vegetarian's lunch or dinner is made of vegetarian items. This number could be even higher if all your non-vegetarian guests are Indians.
No. of lessons: 1
When ordering food for a group, order enough non-vegetarian food for the non-vegetarians. Then, order enough vegetarian food for 100% of the vegetarians PLUS at least 50% of the non-vegetarians.
Background (with prediction!):
Vegetarians get the stepmotherly treatment again!
No. of Indians (assume non-pepperoni eaters): 4
No. of others: 6 White Americans + 1 Oriental Type
No. of people who did not eat anything: 1 Indian + 2 White Americans = 3
No. of people who did eat: 8
No. of confirmed non-vegetarians: At least 4 (including 2 Indians), probably more.
No. of confirmed vegetarians: At least 1 (Myself)
No. of pizzas ordered: 2 Pepperoni, 1 Chicken, 1 Veg
No. of pizzas left at the end of the meeting: 1 pepperoni, 80% of chicken
No. of tummies with a hollow space where there should have been food: At least 1.
No. of conclusions: 3
1. Ratio of vegetarian to non-vegetarian food consumed is ALWAYS GREATER than the ratio of vegetarians to non-vegetarians. (Unless your non-vegetarian guests are all cats and your vegetarian guests are all horses!)
2. Vegetarians eat vegetarian food only. Non-vegetarians eat both vegetarian AND non-vegetarian food.
3. At least 50% of a non-vegetarian's lunch or dinner is made of vegetarian items. This number could be even higher if all your non-vegetarian guests are Indians.
No. of lessons: 1
When ordering food for a group, order enough non-vegetarian food for the non-vegetarians. Then, order enough vegetarian food for 100% of the vegetarians PLUS at least 50% of the non-vegetarians.
Background (with prediction!):
Vegetarians get the stepmotherly treatment again!
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Ashland Sundance Festival - Aug 9th-14th, 2003
I was going through some of my old emails today and came across this amazing report I had made in late August 2003, when I used to live in Portland, Oregon. It is a report on the Native American Sundance Festival which takes place every year in Ashland, Oregon. I was not a blogger during those days. So, here's the report, being blogged after three years!
Following is a report of the Sundance festival I was fortunate to attend from Aug 9th through Aug 14th, 2003. I hope I have not made any mistakes in action or description. If I have, it's my own ignorance to be blamed. What follows is to a large extent, objective and factual. The subjective feelings and impressions are hard to describe in words. Some experiences are not to be described; they are to be experienced and assimilated into our Spirit.
Sundance Introduction - Special Invitation:
In the Hindu religion, we have big ceremonies called yaagas and yagnyas. A yagnya may be loosely translated as a ritualistic sacrifice. The central practice in these ceremonies is the offering of gifts to the gods through the sacred fire. There are also other special rituals like japa (chant), puja (ritualistic worship of the deity), etc. as part of a yagnya.
The Sundance festival is the Native American equivalent of an important yagnya. In this festival, the sacrifice is not of any external material gifts. It is of human energy, devotion, prayer, pain and some flesh, skin and blood. The Sundance festival takes place every summer, at locations across North America, celebrated by various Native groups. It started as a festival of the Lakota tribe. The Lakota believed that the most important material posession of the humans is the human body, and the Sundance festival is a ceremonial offering of the body to God, to Spirit.
Recently, I had a rare opportunity to participate in a Sundance festival near Ashland, in Oregon. I was invited to the festival by Linda, whom I met through mutual friends. Linda is the wife of a Native American elder. She emailed me one day telling me that every year she gets a vision of one person to invite to the Sundance festival at Ashland, and this year the vision was to invite me. Linda had met me only twice, when she sent me the mail. Linda and her husband Rod have a very important role in organizing and conducting the Ashland Sundance. I felt honored to be invited, and immediately agreed to participate as a supporter of the Sundancers. I had vaguely heard of the Sundance Festival before and was very curious.
Sundance Campgrounds - Alternate culture:
I had to drive about 5 hours South to Ashland, and then drive up 10 miles of a not-so-good, narrow, rocky, dusty winding mountain road to reach the Sundance campground. These last 10 bad miles of the road took nearly 45 minutes to drive! The campground was located in the woods, high up in one of the mountains near Ashland. Stepping into the Sundance campgrounds, up in the mountains, was like stepping into another culture. The campgrounds were uneven, with many kinds of mountainous trees all around (pines, cedars, firs). It was a beautiful calm location. Tents of different shapes and sizes, were scattered all over the place. The people at the camp looked like how I have come to expect groups with alternate beliefs and practices to look in the US. Among men, many with long hair and beards of all shapes and sizes. Women often having long, loose hair too. Many people with colorful and flowing and loose clothes, while others wore the normal casual wear. Camp rules said all men should wear full pants. Women were not supposed to wear pants. Both men and women were forbidden from wearing shorts or shirts/blouses with no sleeves. There were people of all ages. I even saw a cat, 3 dogs, few puppies. One of the dogs was a huge beast named Gus, the kind used to pull snow sledges in Alaska. He was very gentle and friendly. Unfortunately, he was so huge that he was not permitted to stay in the camp. He was tied at a security post about two miles downhill from the camp. Native American culture gives a lot of importance to respect - respect to elders, to youngsters, to each other, to all animals and plants and surrounding environment, the Earth, the Sun, Moon, stars, to everything. And this sense of respect and warm friendliness was very prevalent in the camp. The men frequently addressed each other as "brother". It was indeed like being in an alternate culture.
Sundance Campgrounds - Camp life:
Imagine this: You are curled up in a deep sleep, in your sleeping bag, inside a tent, up in the mountains. You are woken up between 6 and 6:30 by sounds of melodious Native prayer songs, with drums. You stumble out of your tent and find a group of people who are going round the camp singing these songs to wake up everyone. The air is cool. All around you there are signs of the camp and the natural environment waking up. You walk sleepily towards the portable toilets (portapotties), being greeted by smiling people. You come out and stumble towards your camp kitchen area, greeting more smiling people. The kitchen area is full with breads, bagels, granola, cereals, fruits, assorted fruit juices, milk, soy milk, rice milk, coffee, butter, jam, peanut butter, even oat meal and muffins on a couple of days. This is how every morning began in the camp.
The whole campground had different small camps. Each camp was comprised of a set of people sleeping in tents. I shared a tent with Jack, another mutual friend of Rod and Linda. Jack's wife was one of the Sundancers. Our tent was part of Linda and Rod's camp, which was located right in the middle of the campgrounds. It was one of the larger camps with around 20 people. We jokingly called it Grand Central Station. Most people who passed by stopped to talk to people in our camp, share food, etc. Our camp was very nicely arranged. There was a central kitchen area with tables, cupboard, big propane stove, assorted coolers, water tanks, and garbage bag. There was a sheltered seating place with campchairs. There were our tents scattered around. There were 3-4 portable toilets rented by people in our camp. Most of us in the camp were from Portland area. There was one family from California, and a couple of young people from Eugene in Oregon and Maryland on the East Coast. The celebri!
ties of our camp were a family from Ecuador. Linda, Rod and their friends had visited Ecuador several months earlier and they had become friendly with a shaman family there. (Shamans are native priests or medicine wo/men). The Mammallacta (pronounced maama-yaacta) shaman family consisted of a son in his late 20's or early 30's and his parents (Kasimiro and Margarita). Everybody in the campground knew about them and wanted to meet them and talk to them. Conversation was not easy because the older Mammallactas only knew their native language Quechua. Their son also knew Spanish and some rudimentary English. I sat in one discussion where the older Mammallactas addressed everyone in Quechua, their son translated it to Spanish and somebody else translated the Spanish to English. Whew! It was slow and tedious. But they were a charming family, liked by everyone. We had worked out a system in which different people signed up to make breakfast and/or dinner for everyone in our camp (over 20 people) on different days. The bonding of shared food was fun. Often we ended up doing lunch also that way. Our camp fed not only our camp members, but also the extended community of guests and the women in the Moonlodge (an area where menstruating women spent their time, set apart and away from the main camp). There was no supply of running water or stream or lake close to the camp. There was a water buffalo (4 big water tanks) sitting on a trailer. That, along with the water all of us had taken with us, seemed to be enough for the whole camp of 200 or more people.
There was always a tin pot with hot coals at camp gates and at entrances to ritual areas. These pots were used to make smoke of sage or cedar to smudge, before entering the camp or the ritual areas. Smudging or letting the smoke brush across our face and body is a cleansing ritual. All cars and people coming into camp were smudged. There was also a community sweatlodge for everyone in general, and two more sweatlodges for the Sundancers and others who directly participated in the ceremonies. A Sweatlodge is a low, dark hut with a small shallow pit in the middle. Hot stones are placed in the pit, the door of the hut is closed making it totally dark inside, people sit around the red hot stones, water is poured over them to create steam. It gets very very hot inside the hut and everyone sings and prays and HOT sweat pours out of every pore in the body. It's a purification ceremony for body, mind and spirit. Everyone who came into camp had to purify themselves at the Sweatlodge before participating in any ceremony. The "Sweats" at the Sundance were not the full 4 rounds of a normal Sweatlodge ceremony. It was just one ritualistic round, which everyone referred to as a "brush-off". Every morning and evening, there were rounds of brush-offs for men and women. In the absence of shower and bath, some of us went almost daily to the Sweatlodge to cleanse ourselves. It was a great experience. The actual complete Sweatlodge Ceremony is an AWESOME experience that everyone has to go through at least once in life.
There were also some common camp duties - standing guard at the gates, keeping the fire alive 24 hours a day near the sweatlodges, keeping the smudge pots alive with hot charcoal 24 hours. I did security work from midnight to 7 AM on one of the nights, at the front post, about 2 miles downhill from the camp, where Gus the giant dog was tied. A guy who manned the same post the next day saw a bear!
One of the characteristics of the camp was the humor all round. Most of the people took every opportunity to joke, make fun, be a smart ass, tickle each other. They did it in all places and at all times, even during solemn rituals and ceremonies. The Sundance festival by nature is an intense ceremony. The humor was needed and was very welcome for everyone.
The obvious warmth and respect of people for each other, the humor and the sense of being there together for an intense and sacred common purpose brought the 200+ people in the camp together in a special bond. Throughout my stay in the camp, from the time I set foot to the time I got out, this special bond was felt at all times. It was a very special sacred thing not experienced in any other camp I have been in.
Sundance Festival - The Ceremony:
The Sundance festival takes place over almost 10 days. The first 5 days are purification days when the Sundancers and other direct participants go through various purification and preparatory activities. As a supporter, I did not have to go through the purification days. I went to the Sundance camp on the evening of the last of the purification day. The next day was Tree Day when a group of people drove down the mountain to the woods below, to cut and bring a big cottonwood tree. It was about 20 feet tall, driven up the mountain and carried on shoulders of dozens of men to the dance area. It was the Sacred Tree of Life. The Tree was held up on wooden supports while everyone tied prayer ties all over the tree. Prayer ties are small pieces of colored cloth tied around some tobacco with a prayer. (Native Americans consider tobacco to be an important and sacred offering.) Then, people tied up ropes to the upper part of the Tree. And then, the Tree was planted in the middle of th!
e dance ground. The Sundancers went on to make more preparations for their dance, while the rest of us hung around camp and waited for the next day.
The next four days were dance days. During these four days, people who have committed to dance, undergo fasting with no food or drink. Someone told me that they drink a tiny bit of sacred water just before going to sleep every evening. They dance in the open dance area, around the Tree, for four rounds daily. The dance area is a large circle marked by stones and prayer ties around the Tree. It's a sacred area into which everyone is not allowed. The dancers dancer within the circle, while the supporters stand around the circle and sing and drum and dance along with the dancers. The supporters hold the energy for the dancers. The supporters encourage the dancers. There are breaks of 1-2 hours between rounds, when the dancers rest in shade, and the supporters go off to eat, drink, rest. All the men dancers wear red sarongs or dhotis and no shirts. All the women wear colorful dresses, some of which were quite grand and beautiful. The dancers hold a bird wing (usually eagle feathers) in the right hand and a long smoking pipe in the left. All the men dancers wear eagle feathers on their heads, above their ears on each side. The dance starts in the morning with all the dancers standing in rows, within the circle, facing East. For this round in the morning, they allow small babies, kids and their parents from among the supporters to go inside the circle and stand in a row. The kids are brought in to enthuse the dancers. Behind this row of kids, we have the rows of male dancers and behind them, rows of women dancers. They look like sacred soldiers standing in a parade. Their clothes and birds' wings and pipes in their hands and feathers on their heads make an awesome impression.
Early the first day, about 12 men got pierced on their chest. They are pierced with two bone or wooden pieces on each side on their chest, and they tie themselves to the Tree with ropes, through their piercing. These dancers stay with the tree throughout the days of the dance, even during breaks. They leave the tree only at night, by untying themselves. The piercing is part of the ritual of pain. During the rest of the day and the remaining days of dancing, other people too get pierced and tied to the Tree, but they breakoff at the end of the day. They don't just untie themselves from the tree; they snap the ties by jerking their bodies. The original 12 dancers untie themselves at the end of the first 3 days, but on the 4th day, they too jerk away and break-off.
People also go through other forms of pain. They pierce themselves in the back and drag a line of 6 or so buffalo skulls tied together, around the dance circle. It is a painful experience, painful even to watch. It is an intense ritual. I was told that dragging the buffalo skulls was a prayer for the younger people and children. It is common for the heavy buffalo skulls to break-off the ropes tied to the dancer's pierced back when he is walking around the circle. However, I saw some people for whom the skulls did not snap the ropes even after two rounds around the circle. If the skulls have not detached on their own at the end of the rounds, children are made to sit on the skulls and the dancer attempts to drag them. Invariably, the weight of the children causes the ropes to break away.
There were also 3-4 people who tried to hang from the tree by the piercings on their chest or backs. As soon as the weight of the person dragged the rope, the rope would break away. However, I saw one person who was hanging from his back for whom the rope did not breakaway. Even when he tried to swing and wriggle around, it did not break. Finally, he had to hold the rope and climb himself up a little bit and let go abruptly to snap the ties to his piercings.
The most intense of all was a guy who had knee surgeries about 2 weeks before. He was not a 4-day sundancer, but he was one of the priests in the rituals. He decided to get pierced and drag the buffalo skulls. He had a very tough time dragging them with his painful knees, but he completed 2 rounds dragging them. Quite a few people were moved to tears watching his suffering.
There were also some women who pierced their upper arms and tied feathers to them. One woman got 16 piercings, 8 on each arm. She was standing when they started to pierce her. Half-way through she collapsed.
In cultures across the world, offering things of value is a form of prayer. What the Sundancers were doing by fasting for 4 days and getting pierced was to make a very personal offering of physical energy and pain and blood as prayer. It is not a very easy thing to do. We, the supporters, who were well-fed and well-rested, cannot even imagine the pains of the Sundancers, unless we have danced before ourselves. But it did touch us, it did move us to see them go through their difficult periods. For me, the most difficult things to watch were not the piercings or the dragging of buffalo skulls with piercings or hanging from the tree through the piercings. These WERE difficult to watch, but there was also a certain adrenaline induced excitement and immunity when watching these more obvious forms of pain. What touched me most was to watch dancers when they struggled to simply stand there and move, because they were too tired with hunger and thirst. It was a more permanent pain of fatigue, and all I could do was send out support from my heart to them, silently encouraging them to hang-on, to hold-on, to stay.
Supporters have a chance to offer their own pain and blood and flesh. One of the priests facilitates this in a small enclosed space outside the dance circle. He uses a pin and a surgical blade to take away match-head sized pieces of skin from the upper arms of people who want to make the offering. The skin that is so cut away is tied up in a prayer tie and offered to God, to Spirit. I offered 3 pieces of my skin. My pain was not more than getting an injection. But this symbolic personal pain was amazingly helpful in feeling a connection to the suffering dancers, to empathize with their pain, at least to a tiny extent.
Towards the end of some rounds of dancing, the people conducting the ceremonies selected a few (2-6) female Sundancers and an equal number of supporters. And then, the Sundancers ceremoniously offered the Sacred Pipes with which they were dancing, to the supporters. The supporters took the pipe to their family and friends, smoked it in a circle and returned it ceremoniously to the sundancers. Once I was chosen to receive the Chanupa (the Sacred Pipe). And a few other times, I was also invited to smoke in other people's circles. It is a special thing in Native ceremony to be offered a Pipe and I felt honored.
One of the last rounds of the dance was the healing round. In this round, all of us supporters were allowed to enter the dance circle, to touch the tree and to come out. All the Sundancers stood in rows on either side of us as we walked from the west side of the dance circle, touched and prayed at the tree and walked out from the south side of the circle. The dancers standing on either side of us waved their wings at us, touching and patting us in gestures of blessing, to heal us. That physical contact with the dancers was a touching experience - no pun intended. It must have been very trying for the dancers to just stand their in the sun, close to the end of their 4-day ordeal, while a couple of hundred people walked past them. It must have taken a lot of effort to hold up their wings and fan us and touch us and bless us. They did it cheerfully and with obvious love, love towards strangers, friends and families alike.
Sundance - The Aftermath:
At the end of the dancing rounds on the 4th day, the 12 original dancers who were tied to the tree through the 4 days of the Sundance, snapped off amidst loud cheering. After a few more formalities, it was all over. The dancing circle was broken, the "eagles had flown". There was a huge rush of families and friends going upto their Sundancers. And everyone took water and juice and energy drinks and fruits. It was a touching moment. I was walking around offering everyone blueberries from a box. Most of the Sundancers grabbed handfuls of the berries and thanked me as if I was doing a big service. One of them thanked me with more affection and introduced me to his wife, as the person who had helped him put his prayer ties on the Tree on Tree day. I had helped plant the Tree 4 day earlier and just before planting it, I had helped several people tie their prayer ties around the Tree. Little did I know then that those people were all Sundancers and that I was helping them in an important ritual in their ceremony.
The dance ended sometime in later afternoon of the 4th day. And then in the early evening, there was something called the give-away. Sundancing is a 4 year commitment. People who decide to dance, have to do so for 4 continuous summers. After their 4 year commitment is over, they give away gifts to people at the Sundance. It is a fun tradition. Some of the people had brought whole truckful of gifts of used and new items. I got some nice and useful gifts.
And then, there is the Feast. The fourth day of the dance is known as the Feast day. Everyone in the camp brings a dish to the common potluck. There was a big lineup of over 50 dishes of various kinds, with almost 300 people sharing it. It was a huge, warm and touching party to end the festival.
Following is a report of the Sundance festival I was fortunate to attend from Aug 9th through Aug 14th, 2003. I hope I have not made any mistakes in action or description. If I have, it's my own ignorance to be blamed. What follows is to a large extent, objective and factual. The subjective feelings and impressions are hard to describe in words. Some experiences are not to be described; they are to be experienced and assimilated into our Spirit.
Sundance Introduction - Special Invitation:
In the Hindu religion, we have big ceremonies called yaagas and yagnyas. A yagnya may be loosely translated as a ritualistic sacrifice. The central practice in these ceremonies is the offering of gifts to the gods through the sacred fire. There are also other special rituals like japa (chant), puja (ritualistic worship of the deity), etc. as part of a yagnya.
The Sundance festival is the Native American equivalent of an important yagnya. In this festival, the sacrifice is not of any external material gifts. It is of human energy, devotion, prayer, pain and some flesh, skin and blood. The Sundance festival takes place every summer, at locations across North America, celebrated by various Native groups. It started as a festival of the Lakota tribe. The Lakota believed that the most important material posession of the humans is the human body, and the Sundance festival is a ceremonial offering of the body to God, to Spirit.
Recently, I had a rare opportunity to participate in a Sundance festival near Ashland, in Oregon. I was invited to the festival by Linda, whom I met through mutual friends. Linda is the wife of a Native American elder. She emailed me one day telling me that every year she gets a vision of one person to invite to the Sundance festival at Ashland, and this year the vision was to invite me. Linda had met me only twice, when she sent me the mail. Linda and her husband Rod have a very important role in organizing and conducting the Ashland Sundance. I felt honored to be invited, and immediately agreed to participate as a supporter of the Sundancers. I had vaguely heard of the Sundance Festival before and was very curious.
Sundance Campgrounds - Alternate culture:
I had to drive about 5 hours South to Ashland, and then drive up 10 miles of a not-so-good, narrow, rocky, dusty winding mountain road to reach the Sundance campground. These last 10 bad miles of the road took nearly 45 minutes to drive! The campground was located in the woods, high up in one of the mountains near Ashland. Stepping into the Sundance campgrounds, up in the mountains, was like stepping into another culture. The campgrounds were uneven, with many kinds of mountainous trees all around (pines, cedars, firs). It was a beautiful calm location. Tents of different shapes and sizes, were scattered all over the place. The people at the camp looked like how I have come to expect groups with alternate beliefs and practices to look in the US. Among men, many with long hair and beards of all shapes and sizes. Women often having long, loose hair too. Many people with colorful and flowing and loose clothes, while others wore the normal casual wear. Camp rules said all men should wear full pants. Women were not supposed to wear pants. Both men and women were forbidden from wearing shorts or shirts/blouses with no sleeves. There were people of all ages. I even saw a cat, 3 dogs, few puppies. One of the dogs was a huge beast named Gus, the kind used to pull snow sledges in Alaska. He was very gentle and friendly. Unfortunately, he was so huge that he was not permitted to stay in the camp. He was tied at a security post about two miles downhill from the camp. Native American culture gives a lot of importance to respect - respect to elders, to youngsters, to each other, to all animals and plants and surrounding environment, the Earth, the Sun, Moon, stars, to everything. And this sense of respect and warm friendliness was very prevalent in the camp. The men frequently addressed each other as "brother". It was indeed like being in an alternate culture.
Sundance Campgrounds - Camp life:
Imagine this: You are curled up in a deep sleep, in your sleeping bag, inside a tent, up in the mountains. You are woken up between 6 and 6:30 by sounds of melodious Native prayer songs, with drums. You stumble out of your tent and find a group of people who are going round the camp singing these songs to wake up everyone. The air is cool. All around you there are signs of the camp and the natural environment waking up. You walk sleepily towards the portable toilets (portapotties), being greeted by smiling people. You come out and stumble towards your camp kitchen area, greeting more smiling people. The kitchen area is full with breads, bagels, granola, cereals, fruits, assorted fruit juices, milk, soy milk, rice milk, coffee, butter, jam, peanut butter, even oat meal and muffins on a couple of days. This is how every morning began in the camp.
The whole campground had different small camps. Each camp was comprised of a set of people sleeping in tents. I shared a tent with Jack, another mutual friend of Rod and Linda. Jack's wife was one of the Sundancers. Our tent was part of Linda and Rod's camp, which was located right in the middle of the campgrounds. It was one of the larger camps with around 20 people. We jokingly called it Grand Central Station. Most people who passed by stopped to talk to people in our camp, share food, etc. Our camp was very nicely arranged. There was a central kitchen area with tables, cupboard, big propane stove, assorted coolers, water tanks, and garbage bag. There was a sheltered seating place with campchairs. There were our tents scattered around. There were 3-4 portable toilets rented by people in our camp. Most of us in the camp were from Portland area. There was one family from California, and a couple of young people from Eugene in Oregon and Maryland on the East Coast. The celebri!
ties of our camp were a family from Ecuador. Linda, Rod and their friends had visited Ecuador several months earlier and they had become friendly with a shaman family there. (Shamans are native priests or medicine wo/men). The Mammallacta (pronounced maama-yaacta) shaman family consisted of a son in his late 20's or early 30's and his parents (Kasimiro and Margarita). Everybody in the campground knew about them and wanted to meet them and talk to them. Conversation was not easy because the older Mammallactas only knew their native language Quechua. Their son also knew Spanish and some rudimentary English. I sat in one discussion where the older Mammallactas addressed everyone in Quechua, their son translated it to Spanish and somebody else translated the Spanish to English. Whew! It was slow and tedious. But they were a charming family, liked by everyone. We had worked out a system in which different people signed up to make breakfast and/or dinner for everyone in our camp (over 20 people) on different days. The bonding of shared food was fun. Often we ended up doing lunch also that way. Our camp fed not only our camp members, but also the extended community of guests and the women in the Moonlodge (an area where menstruating women spent their time, set apart and away from the main camp). There was no supply of running water or stream or lake close to the camp. There was a water buffalo (4 big water tanks) sitting on a trailer. That, along with the water all of us had taken with us, seemed to be enough for the whole camp of 200 or more people.
There was always a tin pot with hot coals at camp gates and at entrances to ritual areas. These pots were used to make smoke of sage or cedar to smudge, before entering the camp or the ritual areas. Smudging or letting the smoke brush across our face and body is a cleansing ritual. All cars and people coming into camp were smudged. There was also a community sweatlodge for everyone in general, and two more sweatlodges for the Sundancers and others who directly participated in the ceremonies. A Sweatlodge is a low, dark hut with a small shallow pit in the middle. Hot stones are placed in the pit, the door of the hut is closed making it totally dark inside, people sit around the red hot stones, water is poured over them to create steam. It gets very very hot inside the hut and everyone sings and prays and HOT sweat pours out of every pore in the body. It's a purification ceremony for body, mind and spirit. Everyone who came into camp had to purify themselves at the Sweatlodge before participating in any ceremony. The "Sweats" at the Sundance were not the full 4 rounds of a normal Sweatlodge ceremony. It was just one ritualistic round, which everyone referred to as a "brush-off". Every morning and evening, there were rounds of brush-offs for men and women. In the absence of shower and bath, some of us went almost daily to the Sweatlodge to cleanse ourselves. It was a great experience. The actual complete Sweatlodge Ceremony is an AWESOME experience that everyone has to go through at least once in life.
There were also some common camp duties - standing guard at the gates, keeping the fire alive 24 hours a day near the sweatlodges, keeping the smudge pots alive with hot charcoal 24 hours. I did security work from midnight to 7 AM on one of the nights, at the front post, about 2 miles downhill from the camp, where Gus the giant dog was tied. A guy who manned the same post the next day saw a bear!
One of the characteristics of the camp was the humor all round. Most of the people took every opportunity to joke, make fun, be a smart ass, tickle each other. They did it in all places and at all times, even during solemn rituals and ceremonies. The Sundance festival by nature is an intense ceremony. The humor was needed and was very welcome for everyone.
The obvious warmth and respect of people for each other, the humor and the sense of being there together for an intense and sacred common purpose brought the 200+ people in the camp together in a special bond. Throughout my stay in the camp, from the time I set foot to the time I got out, this special bond was felt at all times. It was a very special sacred thing not experienced in any other camp I have been in.
Sundance Festival - The Ceremony:
The Sundance festival takes place over almost 10 days. The first 5 days are purification days when the Sundancers and other direct participants go through various purification and preparatory activities. As a supporter, I did not have to go through the purification days. I went to the Sundance camp on the evening of the last of the purification day. The next day was Tree Day when a group of people drove down the mountain to the woods below, to cut and bring a big cottonwood tree. It was about 20 feet tall, driven up the mountain and carried on shoulders of dozens of men to the dance area. It was the Sacred Tree of Life. The Tree was held up on wooden supports while everyone tied prayer ties all over the tree. Prayer ties are small pieces of colored cloth tied around some tobacco with a prayer. (Native Americans consider tobacco to be an important and sacred offering.) Then, people tied up ropes to the upper part of the Tree. And then, the Tree was planted in the middle of th!
e dance ground. The Sundancers went on to make more preparations for their dance, while the rest of us hung around camp and waited for the next day.
The next four days were dance days. During these four days, people who have committed to dance, undergo fasting with no food or drink. Someone told me that they drink a tiny bit of sacred water just before going to sleep every evening. They dance in the open dance area, around the Tree, for four rounds daily. The dance area is a large circle marked by stones and prayer ties around the Tree. It's a sacred area into which everyone is not allowed. The dancers dancer within the circle, while the supporters stand around the circle and sing and drum and dance along with the dancers. The supporters hold the energy for the dancers. The supporters encourage the dancers. There are breaks of 1-2 hours between rounds, when the dancers rest in shade, and the supporters go off to eat, drink, rest. All the men dancers wear red sarongs or dhotis and no shirts. All the women wear colorful dresses, some of which were quite grand and beautiful. The dancers hold a bird wing (usually eagle feathers) in the right hand and a long smoking pipe in the left. All the men dancers wear eagle feathers on their heads, above their ears on each side. The dance starts in the morning with all the dancers standing in rows, within the circle, facing East. For this round in the morning, they allow small babies, kids and their parents from among the supporters to go inside the circle and stand in a row. The kids are brought in to enthuse the dancers. Behind this row of kids, we have the rows of male dancers and behind them, rows of women dancers. They look like sacred soldiers standing in a parade. Their clothes and birds' wings and pipes in their hands and feathers on their heads make an awesome impression.
Early the first day, about 12 men got pierced on their chest. They are pierced with two bone or wooden pieces on each side on their chest, and they tie themselves to the Tree with ropes, through their piercing. These dancers stay with the tree throughout the days of the dance, even during breaks. They leave the tree only at night, by untying themselves. The piercing is part of the ritual of pain. During the rest of the day and the remaining days of dancing, other people too get pierced and tied to the Tree, but they breakoff at the end of the day. They don't just untie themselves from the tree; they snap the ties by jerking their bodies. The original 12 dancers untie themselves at the end of the first 3 days, but on the 4th day, they too jerk away and break-off.
People also go through other forms of pain. They pierce themselves in the back and drag a line of 6 or so buffalo skulls tied together, around the dance circle. It is a painful experience, painful even to watch. It is an intense ritual. I was told that dragging the buffalo skulls was a prayer for the younger people and children. It is common for the heavy buffalo skulls to break-off the ropes tied to the dancer's pierced back when he is walking around the circle. However, I saw some people for whom the skulls did not snap the ropes even after two rounds around the circle. If the skulls have not detached on their own at the end of the rounds, children are made to sit on the skulls and the dancer attempts to drag them. Invariably, the weight of the children causes the ropes to break away.
There were also 3-4 people who tried to hang from the tree by the piercings on their chest or backs. As soon as the weight of the person dragged the rope, the rope would break away. However, I saw one person who was hanging from his back for whom the rope did not breakaway. Even when he tried to swing and wriggle around, it did not break. Finally, he had to hold the rope and climb himself up a little bit and let go abruptly to snap the ties to his piercings.
The most intense of all was a guy who had knee surgeries about 2 weeks before. He was not a 4-day sundancer, but he was one of the priests in the rituals. He decided to get pierced and drag the buffalo skulls. He had a very tough time dragging them with his painful knees, but he completed 2 rounds dragging them. Quite a few people were moved to tears watching his suffering.
There were also some women who pierced their upper arms and tied feathers to them. One woman got 16 piercings, 8 on each arm. She was standing when they started to pierce her. Half-way through she collapsed.
In cultures across the world, offering things of value is a form of prayer. What the Sundancers were doing by fasting for 4 days and getting pierced was to make a very personal offering of physical energy and pain and blood as prayer. It is not a very easy thing to do. We, the supporters, who were well-fed and well-rested, cannot even imagine the pains of the Sundancers, unless we have danced before ourselves. But it did touch us, it did move us to see them go through their difficult periods. For me, the most difficult things to watch were not the piercings or the dragging of buffalo skulls with piercings or hanging from the tree through the piercings. These WERE difficult to watch, but there was also a certain adrenaline induced excitement and immunity when watching these more obvious forms of pain. What touched me most was to watch dancers when they struggled to simply stand there and move, because they were too tired with hunger and thirst. It was a more permanent pain of fatigue, and all I could do was send out support from my heart to them, silently encouraging them to hang-on, to hold-on, to stay.
Supporters have a chance to offer their own pain and blood and flesh. One of the priests facilitates this in a small enclosed space outside the dance circle. He uses a pin and a surgical blade to take away match-head sized pieces of skin from the upper arms of people who want to make the offering. The skin that is so cut away is tied up in a prayer tie and offered to God, to Spirit. I offered 3 pieces of my skin. My pain was not more than getting an injection. But this symbolic personal pain was amazingly helpful in feeling a connection to the suffering dancers, to empathize with their pain, at least to a tiny extent.
Towards the end of some rounds of dancing, the people conducting the ceremonies selected a few (2-6) female Sundancers and an equal number of supporters. And then, the Sundancers ceremoniously offered the Sacred Pipes with which they were dancing, to the supporters. The supporters took the pipe to their family and friends, smoked it in a circle and returned it ceremoniously to the sundancers. Once I was chosen to receive the Chanupa (the Sacred Pipe). And a few other times, I was also invited to smoke in other people's circles. It is a special thing in Native ceremony to be offered a Pipe and I felt honored.
One of the last rounds of the dance was the healing round. In this round, all of us supporters were allowed to enter the dance circle, to touch the tree and to come out. All the Sundancers stood in rows on either side of us as we walked from the west side of the dance circle, touched and prayed at the tree and walked out from the south side of the circle. The dancers standing on either side of us waved their wings at us, touching and patting us in gestures of blessing, to heal us. That physical contact with the dancers was a touching experience - no pun intended. It must have been very trying for the dancers to just stand their in the sun, close to the end of their 4-day ordeal, while a couple of hundred people walked past them. It must have taken a lot of effort to hold up their wings and fan us and touch us and bless us. They did it cheerfully and with obvious love, love towards strangers, friends and families alike.
Sundance - The Aftermath:
At the end of the dancing rounds on the 4th day, the 12 original dancers who were tied to the tree through the 4 days of the Sundance, snapped off amidst loud cheering. After a few more formalities, it was all over. The dancing circle was broken, the "eagles had flown". There was a huge rush of families and friends going upto their Sundancers. And everyone took water and juice and energy drinks and fruits. It was a touching moment. I was walking around offering everyone blueberries from a box. Most of the Sundancers grabbed handfuls of the berries and thanked me as if I was doing a big service. One of them thanked me with more affection and introduced me to his wife, as the person who had helped him put his prayer ties on the Tree on Tree day. I had helped plant the Tree 4 day earlier and just before planting it, I had helped several people tie their prayer ties around the Tree. Little did I know then that those people were all Sundancers and that I was helping them in an important ritual in their ceremony.
The dance ended sometime in later afternoon of the 4th day. And then in the early evening, there was something called the give-away. Sundancing is a 4 year commitment. People who decide to dance, have to do so for 4 continuous summers. After their 4 year commitment is over, they give away gifts to people at the Sundance. It is a fun tradition. Some of the people had brought whole truckful of gifts of used and new items. I got some nice and useful gifts.
And then, there is the Feast. The fourth day of the dance is known as the Feast day. Everyone in the camp brings a dish to the common potluck. There was a big lineup of over 50 dishes of various kinds, with almost 300 people sharing it. It was a huge, warm and touching party to end the festival.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
The Red Carpet - Book Review
Read Lavanya Sankaran's The Red Carpet - Bangalore Stories recently. It is a collection of short stories, all of them set in Bangalore.It is only incidental that the stories take place in Bangalore. They might as well have taken place in any big city of South India, or for that matter, even the North. Most of the stories, except for the title story The Red Carpet itself, are about Tamil Brahmin (Tambram) Iyer families. As such the stories are more about contemporary Tambrams, than about anything to do with Bangalore.
The occasional appearance of Kannada words and phrases in the stories seemed contrived, where as, the Tamil words seemed to blend in nicely. In fact, one of the Kannada phrases was not even grammatically correct. If you belong to an upper middleclass non-Kannadiga family in Bangalore, it is quite possible for you to grow up in Bangalore without really becoming fluent in the local Kannada language.** I suspect the author Lavanya Sankaran might be one of those.
The stories themselves are very well written. They effortlessly pull the reader into the lives of the characters. I found myself empathizing with the hopes and dreams and pains and fears of the characters even before reading through the first page of each story. For me, the most touching story was "Mysore Coffee", about Sita, a working girl who is haunted by childhood memories of her father's suicide. She is brilliant at her work, but not very savvy in communicating with colleagues. As such, others end up taking credit for all her hard work. Although I could empathize with the character Sita, I could never understand how (Spoiler Warning - don't read the rest of this paragraph if you don't want to know what happens at the end of the story) someone would rather think of destroying all their hardwork and even contemplate suicide, than speak up in the office. Strange!
Another great thing about this book was, to read about characters who are so similar to my own self. The state of contemporary Indian literature (and TV, movies) is that, we hardly ever get to read (or watch) about characters who are similar to us - average, young, educated, working people, around the age of 30 (give or take a few years), straddling Indian family traditions and values, the influence of Western cultures and ethics, combined with the unavoidable exposure to the global economy, whether we are living in India or the US or elsewhere. It was a refreshing change to be able to read about such characters in this book. I guess that is a big part of the reason why I could so easily empathize with all the characters.
I found the stories to be sincerely written - nothing pretentious or artificial about them. There was certainly nothing in the stories which seemed to be packaged as exotic Indian fare for the foreign audience. These are the times when many writers and movie-makers are using the Indian themes to target foreign and/or NRI audiences. We should commend Lavanya Sankaran for not succumbing to that trap.
A highly recommended book.
**Yes, it is quite possible to grow up in Bangalore and not really learn Kannada. At home, you'd speak your own mother tongue; at school and work, you'd speak English (and a little Hindi, and even your own mother tongue if ran into others who knew it); with the other essential services people like shopkeepers, etc. you can speak English, Hindi, your own mother tongue (especially if it happens to be Tamil or Telugu) and a smattering of broken Kannada; most of your Kannadiga friends will also be nice enough to talk to you in English, Hindi or your own mother tongue (if they know it), before they attempt to talk to you in Kannada.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Vegetarian Lunch in America 20: Eggplant Tofu Curry & Rice
(Click for bigger pic)Today's vegetarian lunch: A really yummy Eggplant Tofu curry and white rice, with hot sauce, sweet sauce and soy sauce, from the Asian Fusion restaurant at Park Central complex in Central Phoenix. Asian Fusion is a new Asian fast food restaurant, owned by an Indian. They serve the typical Chinese dishes with a Pad Thai thrown in. I am not a big fan of Chinese food, but I like the Chinese eggplant dish and the fried rice, when made right.
Today's Eggplant Tofu curry tasted really good and the portion was huge. I could not finish it for lunch. The above picture was taken of left-overs I had for dinner. The rice portion was small though, at least for us Indians, since we eat a lot of rice. They were kind enough to offer a second helping of rice for me to take home with my left-over curry, at no extra charge. However, I still think they could make reduce their lunch special costs and make the portions a little smaller.
Cost: $7.51 (includes $0.52 tax), about 330.44 Indian Rupees.
Vegetarian alert: None for today!
Background: Vegetarian Lunch in America.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Vegetarian Lunch in America 19: Nachos
(Click for bigger pic)Today's vegetarian lunch: Nachos from the Plaza View Cafe, the cafeteria in my office building.
Nachos is a Mexican dish. It is more of an appetizer, but you can also have it as a meal. In America, you can have almost anything as a meal! Nachos is nothing but tortilla chips topped with refried beans, shredded meats, salsa, chopped jalapenos, olives, onions, shredded cheese, guacamole and sour cream. I ordered my nachos without refried beans and shredded meat. I had it with my favorite Cholula hot sauce.
Cost: $4.97 (includes tax and office discount), about 218.68 Indian Rupees.
Vegetarian alert: In some Mexican restaurants, the tortilla chips may be fried in beef lard. So, gotta be careful about that. The refried beans might have chicken broth in it. The beans in my cafeteria did, and so I did not add them to my nachos. Nachos traditionally contains refried beans and shredded meat. So, you have specify what you don't want, when ordering it. Also, the usual warning about animal rennet in cheese applies.
Background: Vegetarian Lunch in America.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Vegetarian Lunch in America 18: Chile Cheese Quesadilla, Mexican Cole Slaw & Thai Watermelon Salad
(Click for bigger pic)Today's vegetarian lunch: The Plaza View Cafe, lunch special today consisted of Chile Cheese Quesadilla and Mexican Cole Slaw.
Quesadilla is a Mexican dish, which consists of a torilla folded in half, stuffed with cheese and grilled. That is a plain cheese quesadilla. Along with cheese, the quesadilla can also be stuffed with grilled meats or vegetables. For my lunch dish today, it was stuffed with grilled big chillies. I don't know what kind of dressing was used in the Mexican Cole Slaw, but it did not have the sweetish creamy mayonnaise taste of regular Cole Slaw. Apart from the lunch special of quesadilla and cole slaw, I saw some Thai Watermelon salad available in the cafeteria, and I had to have it. Watermelon is one of my favorite fruits. This salad was made with watermelon chunks, basil leaves, little bit of crushed peanut and sunflower seeds, and some kind of Thai dressing. The small cup in the picture with a red sauce is my favorite Cholula hot sauce.
Cost: $5.71 (includes tax and office discount), about 251.24 Indian Rupees.
Vegetarian alert: The quesadilla had cheese in it. So, the usual warning about animal rennet in cheese applies. The Cole Slaw dressing might have had eggs in it.
Background: Vegetarian Lunch in America.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Vegetarian Lunch in America 17: Fettucine Noodles & Caesar Salad
(Click for bigger pic)Today's vegetarian lunch: My Plaza View Cafe lunch special today consisted of Fettucini Noodles Topped with a creamy Sage sauce, served with a Parmesan crusted tomato-half, Caesar Salad, and a dinner roll.
Cost: $4.97 (includes tax and office discount), about 218.68 Indian Rupees.
Vegetarian alert: Although my lunch dish itself had no meat or eggs, the Fettucine noodle pasta might have been manufactured with egg. I think the Caesar salad dressing might have egg in it. Also, the usual warning about animal rennet in cheese applies.
Background: Vegetarian Lunch in America.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Vegetarian Lunch in America 16: Cheese Ravioli & Caesar Salad
(Click for bigger pic)Today's vegetarian lunch: Stuffed-cheese ravioli with pesto sauce on top, Caesar salad and a piece of garlic bread on the side, from the Plaza View Cafe, the cafeteria in my office building. The piece of bread is half-covered with the Caesar salad, and so not clearly visible in the picture above. I added an orange to my meal.
The ravioli is a type of pasta. For my lunch special today, the ravioli was filled with cheese and baked. Then a pesto sauce was poured over it. It was a little too rich for me today, although at just under 5 bucks, it was still cheap money-wise!
Cost: $4.97 (includes tax and office discount), about 218.68 Indian Rupees.
Vegetarian alert: Although my lunch dish itself had no meat or eggs, the ravioli pasta might have been manufactured with egg. I think the Caesar salad dressing might have egg in it. Also, the usual warning about animal rennet in cheese applies.
Background: Vegetarian Lunch in America.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Vegetarian Lunch in America 15: Veg Wrap & Veg Salad
(Click for bigger pic)Today's vegetarian lunch: A vegetable wrap, with a side of vegetable salad and my favorite Cholula hot sauce, from the Plaza View Cafe, the cafeteria in my office building. I also added an orange to my lunch.
Our cafeteria makes some really good sandwiches and wraps. The veg wrap is made with grilled vegetables such as zucchini, eggplant, cucumber, plus fresh tomatoes, onions, spinach and avocado, on a spread of hummus and a slice of pepperjack cheese, wrapped in a large tortilla and grilled for 30-60 seconds. It is excellent and filling. I the veg wrap for lunch about once a week, with different side salads - vegetable salad, pasta salad, potato salad, fruit salad. Sometimes I just have it with potato chips.
Cost: $4.62 (includes tax and office discount), about 203.28 Indian Rupees.
Vegetarian alert: My veg wrap had pepperjack cheese. So, the usual warning about animal rennet in cheese applies.
Background: Vegetarian Lunch in America.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Vegetarian Lunch in America 14: Yakisoba Noodle bowl from Blue Fin
(Click for bigger pic)Today's vegetarian lunch: Yakisoba noodles and vegetables bowl from the Blue Fin Japanese restaurant in Downtown Phoenix. This place is always crowded and I thought they might have some good food. But I did not like the noodles at all. The quantity was also so less. And when I asked them for some hot sauce on the side, they said it was $0.35 additional for the tiny cup of the size pictured above!
Cost of the meal deal: $5.07 (includes tax), about 223.08 Indian Rupees.
Vegetarian alert: None for the food. However, my food was most probably prepared in the pan which is also used to prepare meat dishes, as would happen in any restaurant which serves meat.
Background: Vegetarian Lunch in America.
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