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Woah! Since when do we get laptops for labs? I stared in awe, and perhaps even drooled a bit, as our physics teacher began to pass out brand new and of course, the fully PERFECT Macbooks to everyone. Sanitize your hands, she was saying, you don’t want to get oil stains on these things. They’re worth a thousand dollars each… The instructions went on but by this point, everyone had already tuned out. After all, the point is- we get a new toy.. Twenty thousand dollars worth of equipments for each department? No wonder school taxes keep going up. And that too, just to save ourselves the two-second walk to the computer lab. Brilliant. Now we can do the calculations for the lab right here in the classroom (and then spend another few thousands on exercise machines.. right in the classroom). Superfluous, much? Of course, of course I’d love to peacefully protest and boycott this infringement of basic financial practicality. But.. seeing that everyone else was already playing around with the webcam and photobooth, just one question- should I make myself fisheyed, pop-arted or bulged? I love you, Steve Jobs (almost as much as Larry Page and Sergey Brin..almost)! Read the rest of this entry »
“Anju! Come!” Sharmi clutched my hand tightly as we walked together with our eyes closed. It was Vishu. Vaithili miss, Sharmi’s mom had prepared a kani* for us.
“I’m not even Hindu!” I whispered in her ear, afraid that I’d be making some sort of grave mistake by seeing statues of Vishnu and Krishna in the morning. After all, aren’t these rituals all holy?
“So..?”
Obviously she didn’t get my point. Sharmi. My best friend. And this, my first memorable Vishu in first grade in the BestPlaceInTheWorld, my version of Kansas, of Eden, of Utopia.
Here, that day, I learned that you don’t have to be Hindu to celebrate Vishu. To wake up seeing a kani* or to get a kaineettam**. To make a symbolic journey from darkness into light. Here, I learned to believe in myself and my goals. Here, I learned to trust people and truly celebrate their differences. Here, I learned unity, truth and righteousness. Here, I strived to be the epitome of perfection. And most of all, here, I was me and I was comfortable. I celebrated, cried, laughed, dreamed, leaped.. and perhaps, even fell but always with a hope of getting back up. Perhaps it was the age but leave me to convince myself that it was all the place. Read the rest of this entry »
Congratulations to A.R. Rahman and Resul Pookkutty! Quite well-deserved Oscars for both of them. As for Rahman, he really deserved an Oscar for his first film, Roja, and so, this is quite late. And neither Jai ho nor any of the songs from Slumdog Millionaire can be considered his best work compared to his other 135 soundtracks. But then again, as they say, it doesn’t matter where the runs come from; better late that never for him. And for Pookutty, what a true honor for a Malayalee, for a child among eight from rural Kerala to grab an Academy Award! An inspiration to many, I’m sure.
The only thing that I wasn’t so pleased about was the movie itself. I went to see it after my friends raved about how amazing it was. Spectacular. I saw. Came out. And thought, okay. It was good, of course well worth it’s eight Oscars, but not quite spectacular. A three-hour Bollywood movie squished into 120 minutes. I felt like something was lacking. But more than that, what annoyed me was that every possible stereotype about India and about Mumbai were incorporated. The director took great liberties in distorting reality with perhaps a bit of imagination. If America was a truly cosmopolitan nation, fully understanding of the global world, I wouldn’t worry because I know they will see it as one part of India. But as of now, America isn’t that. And so, movies like these only strengthen stereotypes. Only poverty. Only slums. Only illiteracy. Only unsanitary conditions. Only India. It was a good movie but I only wish it showed a bit of the other side too.
Congrats ARR, Congrats Pookutty! And most of all, congrats Mumbai! Hope these sons of yours at least relieved a bit of pain from 26/11. They truly showed that talent has no boundaries and nature knows no borders. What a proud moment!
Note: Btw, loved how Rahman added “Ella Pugallum Iraivanukke” in his speech. So talented yet so humble!
The Rise of Fascism in Modern India
“There’s something pitiable about a people that constantly bemoans its leaders. If they’ve let us down, it’s only because we’ve allowed them to. It could be argued that civil society has failed its leaders as much as leaders have failed civil society. We have to accept that there is a dangerous, systemic flaw in our parliamentary democracy that politicians will exploit. ” – Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Injustice.
Today, Indian politics often seems to be just another topic to joke about at the dinner table. Something for the Eastern world to laugh at and the Western world to stare at, utterly confused. If an outsider is looking for anything else to be confused about in India (other than of course the religious hypocrisy and the various vernaculars), he can find it in politics. For me, as an outsider-insider Indian looking at my own nation from half way across the world.. you can only imagine my confusion. Read the rest of this entry »
Here I am today at one of America’s top forty universities. No, I haven’t gotten here yet. Just an unofficial visit by a privileged daughter of one of its faculty. I am here in this beautiful library, which will take me my entire lifetime to completely explore. Spanning over four floors and a billion shelves, there are more books here than I ever thought existed in this world. Classics and contemporary alike. Not to mention a world-class café, various lounges, media room with surround system and hundreds of computers. The concrete walls are jeweled with contemporary art while the floors have dazzling abstract carpets. Yes, I am in love. But then again, perhaps I’m in awe only because I don’t know much about libraries. Or for that matter, universities. Perhaps my fascination is more in the sheer extravagance than in the idea. So be it. Read the rest of this entry »
Kallan Columbus
Purathu mazha pathiyechaarukayaannu. Rim jim, rimjim rimjim, Rim jim: aa paattu veendum mannassil paadan thudangi. Ee Idea Star Singerinte oru karyam! Annu Sarathu ee pattu padiye pinne ella mazhayillum athinte thaalam, ella mazhathullikalilum athe shabdam. Njan ivideyulla irupathiyettu divasangalil irupathiyaarillum ee mazhayaayirunnu. Deshyamaayirunnu ennikku. Entha njan varumbol mathram ingane? Ente kootukaarude vacations enthu rasama.. Ootyum, Kodaikanalum, Kanya Kumariyum, Veega Landum! Ennikko? Ee veedum, ethinodu chernulla ente appachante classroomum. Ee mazhaye njan shapichurinnu. Pakshe innu, ee irupathiyettam divasathil, ee mazha nilkaruthe enna ente prarthana. Eviduthe mazha enthu rasama! Aviduthe poleyulla oru urakamthungi mazhayalla ithu, pakaram oru paadu urjjamulla, noorayiram kadhakal parayunna, oru kalakarante nirangalekal nallavanam bhoomikku niram kodukunna ee mazha.. ha epozhum inganeyaayunenkil!
So here we are. At another Independence Day. Today we mark 61 years of Independence. Sixty-one.. that’s a pretty long time compared to a human life and a very short time compared to the world. So where are we today? An “emerging” tiger. An “upcoming” power. “About to” lead the world.
The optimists in the world (including me of course) can be comforted by looking at the plight of other countries 61 years after independence. America, for instance, was busy making more territorial acquisitions and stealing the homes of a whole group of people in the name of Manifest Destiny. There was internal turmoil over slavery and the society was confused with the emergence of new social classes. And these optimists can say, quite rightly of course, that the circumstances in India today are very different from the ones here. All they had here was a big piece of land and a handful of people, ready to create a new life. Today, we have a small(er) piece of land and 1.12 billion people, who are more concerned with survival than revolution. So it’s only natural that we need more time to stabilize. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been a while since I wrote.. lots of things happened, or rather a lot of thoughts and very few “things.” Again old perceptions were corrected and new ones formulated.. It’s funny because throughout the school year, I longed for a day of rest yet here I have hours and days to myself, and I hate it. When my hands are still, my brain takes on.. Memories.. lots of memories. Thoughts. Stories. Beginnings of a novel I’ll probably never write. More opinions on people and the way they are. Useless thoughts..
On a lighter note, I went to a dance party. I remember a wedding we went to in my first year in The RedWhiteAndBlue Empire. My parents were horrified by the dance floor custom. They shuddered as the DJ played bhangra songs and the teenagers danced. ‘What culture is this?’ they asked, ‘How can they act like this in public?’ And I watched silently, half agreeing-no, fully agreeing with my parents thoughts. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve always thought that I belong to the society there, in India; the cultured and of course intelligent, open-minded Indian community. And so, it’s okay for me to not be part of the one here. I am a true Malayalee; Kerala samskaram ulla true-blue Keralite. I can read and write Malayalam. I like songs by Chitra, A.R. Rahman, Hariharan, Vineeth Srinivasan and the list goes on. I’m stilll not a big fan of the rock singers my friends talk about or the songs that play on the radio. That’s okay, I thought. I am a pakka Indian. But last summer proved me wrong. I realized painfully that my likes, my joys, my grievances and my dislikes were different from the ones of my cousins and the rest of that society. I didn’t feel like I belonged. Scratch that. I really did not belong. Read the rest of this entry »
Firstly, let me say that I love my church. I am not one of those “I don’t know if there’s a God and I don’t care anyway” brand of new-age teens. As a matter of fact, I think I might be more religious than my parents. So back to my church.. The Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church is founded on traditions and perhaps that’s why I like it so much; the rituals and the symbolic meaning behind every little action is mesmerizing. And I don’t even mind our extra long masses (2-3 hours is pretty long compared to our Catholic and Protestant counterparts).
It’s the apparent gender bias that I hate the most. Read the rest of this entry »
Happy Republic Day, my motherland! 59th year of Hope, Independence and Equality…!
I’ve always wanted to watch the national parade but have never gotten to do so.. I just spent the day doing regular unpatriotic things.. ehh.
I want to go into politics. But how would that work? If I go to India, they’d say ‘what does she know? She grew up in America..’ and if I try here, they’d say ’she’s a foreigner, not even a citizen of this country.’ So where then? Arundhati Roy mentioned in some speech that she was speaking not as an Indian citizen but as a citizen of the world. But still, global politics seem less appealing than striving to make my country better.
I wish India the best in this new year of independence. Let us continue to move towards a new kind of freedom. Good luck, India!
Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
-Rabindranath Tagore
I pretty much know close to nothing about cricket. I hate sports and am an extremely unathletic person. But I do know that the best of India’s patriotism shines during the cricket season. No matter how rich or how poor you are, you root for India.. It’s pretty amazing that 1.136 billion people’s happiness depends on these 16 young men… Congratulations guys.
There was this old man who used to come and give me narranga muttayi when I was little. He used to tell me stories too . I have faint memories of sitting on his lap and listening to him talk to my grandfather about various worldly matters. He was a teacher but was long retired by the time I met him. There were kids afraid of old people in my first grade class. Perhaps it was because I was partly brought up by my grandparents and their friends, that I never felt my classmates’ fear. Today, though, I saw this man again and I was scared. I sat through both Disturbia and The Ring without flinching for a second, yet… I jumped when I heard his voice. He was yelling for food though his wife told us that he just ate. When asked, he bellowed that it wasn’t enough. He ate again in front of us and five minutes later, the poor man was screaming again- names of people who were long dead, solutions to problems sparked long ago, more food. His voice still echoes in my ears. Alzheimer’s, they called it… makes me wonder whether there is a God. If there was, He surely would not have let this happen.
In India right now.. and it’s burning hot. The first two days it was raining like hell and I was like please stop raining. Now, it’s sooo sunny and exceptionally hot that I’m just like ‘please rain’. It’s crazy. I’m beginning to adjust here. After all, a person needs to adapt to a place, a place won’t adapt for a person. I’ll write a detailed entry later (I’ve been keeping a journal as I promised some of you).
Today, I saw this man in front of a glittering jewelry store. The poshness of the store ended at its glass door. He was a thattan, a person who fixes gold and can make all sorts of things with it. He asked for 25 rupees from us though he fixed like 8 things. I expected him to ask for a 100. We went in the afternoon yet we were his first customers. How many more might he a get a day? One? Maybe two? For an example’s sake, let’s leave it at three. 3 times 25 is 75. 75 rupees; that’s less than $2 a day. Yet some of us complain about getting minimum wage ($6.50 an hour?).
Then there’s the guy who served us at a restaurant. It was a good place, nice food and gaudy decorations. Yet the guy who served me was my age, if not younger. I’ve friends who are waiters but they work for their pocket money, a few hours after school or perhaps to pay themselves through college. Not as a substitute for education but rather as supplements. But here… it was during the school hours, yet he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in a four-walled “safe” classroom, learning to become greater than Galileo, Franklin or Epictetus. rather he was there, a pebble among pearls; a pauper among the bourgeoisie. Marxism in the ‘God of Small Things’ makes so much sense now. What happened to the child labor laws? The ones that Surya advertised a million times on it’s evening news. What stops someone from getting a fake birth certificate? Or bribing police officers to hamper the execution of laws?
I’ve written a lot. Didn’t mean to. I was supposed to write about something else but I guess that needs to wait for later. It’s night and it’s time for me to drift into my world of dreams. So good night.
I’m going to India. I should be jumping up and down right now, and I was till now… it’s too close now. I’m scared. What if I change in the one month I get to spend in my homeland? What if I never want to go back? None of them here, none of those ABCDs, like India. They hate going to their own homes. It’s not that they are stupid kids, they’re smart and nice overall. Yet… there must be a reason, right? I don’t want to find that reason. I’m scared of becoming like them. I’m different. I know I am….right?
I haven’t gone in seven years. I wonder if I find things different now. Humans, in general, are comfort creatures and I’m no exception. I hate change.
I remember being asked about my ideal vacation spot, the place I want to go the most. Then, I said India confidently, without the slightest pause for thought. I was met with questions of ‘why’. I was quite speechless…
Why do I want to go to India? Because it’s my homeland..? Yet what ties do I have with it when I spent more of my life here? Is it blood? Because Indian blood runs through my veins, is it not made up of plasma, platelets or red and white blood cells like my French friend? Same. So then what? Indian Literature? Art? Dance? Music? Can’t I still enjoy those from here, from afar? I don’t have any friends there… any I had were only sandbox mates of my five-year old self; nothing more, nothing less. My boarding school friends are too far and perhaps too grown up. Then there is family. I don’t know my cousins. They’re pure strangers to me, only their names sound slightly familiar. My grandparents… I grew up with them and I love them. I do want to see them. They’re the one single answer I can find to “why?”
Anyway the chikunguniya fever is spreading in my homestate of Kerala. I catch things really really easily. Please pray that I won’t get chikunguniya and that I return safe and sound.
(My grandmother said that the internet connection at their house is really bad so I might not be posting till I get back, which is late July-Early August.)
Today I finally got a chance to hear Arundhati Roy’s speech called “Instant Mix: Imperial Democracy (Buy One Get One Free).” It was amazing. For those of you who are not familiar with Arundhati Roy, she is a writer who won the Booker prize for her novel, “The God Of Small Things.” She has since then written numerous articles that advocated peace and equality. This speech was given in NYC about 4 years ago but surprisingly, it still holds true today. I can’t believe nothing has changed yet. When will the change come? The empire just grows and the others continue to be crushed little by little..
The speech was as hilarious as it was serious… as thought-provoking as it was funny. Roy’s narration was simple and her voice was subtle yet her message was strong. Every sentence said by her was absolutely true.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6TCV8swmrE
Speech Text: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0518-01.htm
Arundhati Roy is amazing. Listen to her speech or read her words, they won’t leave your heart. We are great people. Let’s change. Now.
Feeling: =[
Listening: Moonlight (Falling Up)
Doing: Reading random things.
Okay, I can’t believe that Sanjaya Malakar is still on the show. I completely agree with people on that one. He is a good singer but compared to the others, he isn’t such a good candidate for American Idol. And okay, I’m good with that. He’s doing a good job. At least he made it so far out of the thousand something auditioners.
But today, someone in my class was talking about yesterday’s results. She was telling her friends that Sanjaya was still in the game because <quote>”all the damn Iranians voted for a fellow Iranian”<end quote>. First of all, he is part Indian, not Iranian. Today I just browsing through Yahoo! Answers and happened to see this question in which the person said that her teacher asked, in class, why all the Indians voted for Sanjaya. I happened to do a google search for Sanjaya and saw an article saying that all the Indians in the call centers are voting for Sanjaya. There’s so much Sanjaya-hate sites (which is quite normal) that bashes Indians. He’s only half-Indian, his father was born in India. His mother is Italian. He was born and brought up in America. So then why wasn’t it ‘Italian’ instead of ‘Indian’ in all these examples?
A few days ago, another girl was talking about how Indians can’t sing and Sanjaya is a perfect example of that; and that the American Idol needs to be an American. So now, may I ask, who is American? Does being American mean being White? or Black? If there’s two whites and two blacks in a class, it is considered diverse. A White hand shaking a Black hand- that’s the so-called equality in this country? Sanjaya is just as “American” as the girl in my class. She was born here and so was Malakhar.
He should be judged on his singing abilities and his performance, not his skin color. I am Indian, I didn’t vote for Sanjaya! I voted for Melinda Doolittle because I thought she was a good singer. Perhaps this is why I hate this country, because of it’s idiotic hypocricy.
–edit–
Just read another blog about how the workers in Indian call centers are voting for him. First of all, there’s something called a time difference in this world. American Idol is broadcasted at a different time there, it’s actually shown the next day. Secondly, the workers there got the job because they work hard and as far as I know, they have better things to do than watch American Idol. Besides, all their calls are operated by computers. So then, let me ask again, why hasn’t anyone said Italians are voting for him? Is it because his skin is brown?
Jack, I never said I was American but even if I did, I have even more of a right to say that I hate this country.
Ignorance won’t make the truth go away. An American’s goal should not be to paint over bad parts of the country and create a “picture-perfect” land rather it should be to do his/her part to fix wrong things and then, only then, say that is country is perfect.
On January 26, 1950, our nation became a true republic and the Constitution of India was put into effect. Now in 2007, the world’s outlook on our country seems to be going deeper down the drain. The other day, I told my Half-German Half-Italian friend that I wanted to go back to India. In reply, she gave me a disgusted look and asked “Why? Are you crazy??” Is this what it has come to? We, as Indians, need to first believe in our own government, then foreigners will believe in it too. Instead of trying to correct other people’s opinions about us, we should correct our own opinions about India. We, both those living in the motherland and the NRIs, need to nurture the patriotic heart within us, spring It forward and let go. Maybe this year, maybe on this Republic Day, we can. We must and we will.
I came across this video recently:
This is the anthem of the India Poised movement.
Happy Republic Day!
What they said..