Choices

As we watch the most recent fracas in our most ‘august’ Parliament, watching our ‘distinguished’ legislators battle out the issues that matter to India’s present and future, one is baffled as to how we could have been so remiss in our duties. The country needs structural economic reforms like a fat man needing to go on a diet. The problem is that quite like the fat man, our nation and our people are resistant to making the deep and necessarily painful sacrifices so that our future can be more secure. But then, looking at our peers abroad who perhaps need to make just as painful and urgent decisions to safeguard their fates but who would rather demonize and fight amongst themselves to decide who must sacrifice the most, perhaps we are not alone in our absurdity.

 

 

What are the choices before us? And do we have it in us, as a nation, to recognize the problems that bedevil us and to solve them as a nation? It is convenient to blame our political class for the morass we are in at present, but quagmires aren’t created overnight. Our polity, our attitude to our governing classes, which in turn influences their attitudes towards us, has been to demand the most while giving up the least. “I am a farmer and I produce the grain that you eat and the cotton that you wear. So you must bear the cost of giving me free electric and water supply and exempt me from taxation.” Or “I am a small business owner. Rather than providing me incentives and the facilities to grow my business, I want you to protect me from bigger competitors by erecting barriers to entry and mollycoddling me.” Where is the intellectual debate, the discourse that drives great nations to frenzies of progress? Have we, the nation that bore the great Buddha, the man who advised humanity to give up, for the sake of salvation, the notion of the personal ego, become a nation of egotistic maniacs? Did a nation that, when burdened by the shackles of colonialism, was selfless become selfish the moment the flag of independence was raised? Or were we always this way – concerned solely with our personal ambition and welfare, the rest of the world be damned?

We often and repeatedly repeat for the sake of our foreign peers the cliché that despite the diversity of ethnicity, language, culture, and creed, India has survived as a unified nation for over 65 years now. I say it’s a cliché but really it’s a fallacy. Vast swathes in the heart of our territory are in a state of quasi-civil war between our armed forces and Maoist insurgents. Our North-eastern brethren are dissatisfied with our lack of attention and our cow-belt-centric polity, and have expressed their dissatisfaction with violence on and off ever since they became a part of our Union. Kashmir remains a carbuncle on our arse, one that will neither heal on its own nor let us sit down and relish our general health otherwise. These pressures have always existed, but that we should have let them both fester and become so noxious is our failing as a people. We may say that we elect our leaders to make the difficult decisions for us – alas, when they do make them (once in a blue moon), we are prone to booting them out to Hades. We may say that how does my life in Mumbai/Delhi/Bangalore/Chennai/Kolkata/etc. Impact the Naxalite struggle, but the fact of the matter is that until we recognize that we as a collective have a problem, we have no way of trying to figure out a solution to it as a collective.

We Indians (and while I say that, I recognize that perhaps every country’s natives, but I am concerned solely with India, so that’s that) are prone to taking umbrage to any non-native making disparaging or even critical remarks about our economy, our political system, our social structure, our urban malaise, our infrastructure deficit, etc. We resent them for saying that we aren’t as good as them, for pulling rank on us. To some extent, we have yet to recover from our colonial hangover; we still feel that the world owes us preferential treatment of some kind to recompense for all the horrors and tortures it inflicted on us while we were being colonised. And yet, we clamour for a seat at the high table as an equal, as a nation that will be the superpower of the future. These two attitudes are fundamentally contradictory and the sooner we realize that basic fact, the better it will be for all of us. Sure, we have the right to be offended by criticism, but when it’s constructive criticism, we have no right to be an ostrich with its head in the sand.

We were a great nation; were, because we have a long way to regaining that stature again. We have to comprehend that fundamental change will come not from the barrel of a gun or the throngs of the mob, but from the citadel of the mind. We, the people of this nation, have to work together to identify the problems, understand how best we can solve them, and then get down to solving them. For some of this, we may need to be inside the system, but for some of it, we can very well work alongside the system. The solution to solving corruption or inefficiency in our public lives isn’t to dismantle or uproot the existing system or to create a Russian-doll structure with overlapping bureaucracies and hierarchies regulating the activities of one another. We must understand the fundamental motivations behind such malaises, understand the incentives that will propel people to do the right thing and disincentives which will discourage the wrong sort of behaviours and apply a mixture of both. We cannot expect our government to be an omnipotent enforcer of public morality when we as a society are content to tolerate immorality so long as it benefits us.

We were a nation of reformers, visionaries, educators, and pioneers, who understood that solving problems means sometimes getting into the muck ourselves rather than always petitioning the government to solve them for us. Sure, the government and the opposition parties/coalitions are clueless about what they should be doing and what they should be focusing on – but what are we, the people, for then? The act of voting, of delegating them to the legislatures to be our representatives, is in no way a carte blanche pass for us to abdicate our nation-building responsibilities. If they are clueless, shake them out of their complacency and remind them of what they are supposed to be representing – the will of the people – and not some twisted Machiavellian fantasy of power and influence.

 

 

Political parties vie for our attention in their pretence, in their clamour, to be called our ‘servants’. They call each other enemies of our welfare, while at the same time pursuing the very same policies which they decry. And that we do not call them out on their obvious hypocrisy, that we continue to fall prey to their bait, is surely as much our own failure as much as their perfidy. They will not do what we need them to do, and then conveniently excuse their inaction or even their misguided policies by pointing the finger to our wants and our resistance to change. Like Juvenal would say, “The people who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions, everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.” If they think of us as simpletons who are content with their theatrics, remind them that they have got another thing coming.

 

 

We are a nation that has embraced the notion of capitalism but cannot shake off its adherence to socialism. There is nothing wrong with that. The problem lies when the belief in both ideologies starts interfering with our ability to move along the path of progress. For example, can we have FDI in retail while protecting our small business owners and our farmers from being exploited? Yes, we can, if we are willing to put in the time and effort to create a coherent policy which addresses all concerns, safeguards all stakeholders, and still offers a roadmap to innovation and enterprise. Are we capable of such genius? Any nation that can boast of the IITs, of having created one of the finest planned cities of our age (Chandigarh), a nation that is now creating a digital repository of its populace to streamline welfare and ID provisos, is capable of such and even greater genius. For sure, we have a myriad set of concerns, and while we may want to address all of them in the end, we also have to prioritize, i.e. choose. The twist lies in whether we are willing to do it, and whether we are willing to be content with simplistic notions or whether we will be patient enough to thrash out a robust framework? This in the end is the most basic (at the risk of being simplistic) choice before us. The fork has always been in there in the road – dare we make a decision and choose one path for good?

Happy Independence Day, USA!

So you are 236 years old today. A hoary age for any nation; eventful - and you have had your share of events.

Barely a century into your existence and your denizens fought to define the nature and structure of your government, to decide whether the principles espoused by your founding fathers "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" was merely scrawling on a piece of parchment or was it something that was imbued into your very soul, your DNA. You emerged scarred but victorious from that struggle, morally and spiritually rejuvenated. The blemish of slavery was wiped from your forehead and you were pure once again.

But the scar was a wound and it festered, for the differences that exist in the hearts of men can scarcely be obviated by the smoke and the blood of war and destruction. So your promise, your oath to humanity, that all men are created equal, was mortgaged for political gain, to be reclaimed only a century later at great cost and at great human suffering in the meantime. You destroyed and made homeless millions of native Americans, the true sons of the soil, because it was your 'Manifest Destiny' to expand from coast to coast, to claim the land, the rivers, the forests for your own sake, and for none other. You claimed to be a Christian nation, driven by Christian morals, beliefs and principles, and yet it was the meek that you reveled in suppressing and crushing beneath the wheels of your 'progress'.

But you aren't alone in these sins and so you cannot be alone in your penitence. For at least you acknowledged your errors and made amends for it, and for that you are a superior nation. You fought two great wars in the defense of freedom and liberty, albeit entering conflict only when your own people were threatened or harmed, but if selfishness should be a crime, then humanity is guilty of it as a whole. If you were guarded against entering a conflict you didn't see as your own, once you made a cause your own, you embraced every tenet, every facet of it to its entirety and were its greatest champion in the face of all odds.

You were among the pioneers in the race to reach for the stars, and in that goal, we saw ourselves as one people on one earth. This little blue sphere was wracked by your struggle with your foes to protect what you saw as the ideal of freedom and we often stood on the brink of destruction, wondering whether the freedom you were fighting for was worth the effort. It was, and we thank you for your perseverance.

You have lived the words of James Russell Lowell in his Stanzas on Freedom

"Is true Freedom but to break

Fetters for our own dear sake,

And, with leathern hearts, forget

That we owe mankind a debt?

No! true freedom is to share

All the chains our brothers wear,

And, with heart and hand, to be

Earnest to make others free!"

You are a nation of contradictions - a nation founded on the idea of liberty and freedom, and yet one that distrusted its own citizens based on what was the color of their skin or the accent of their tongue or their origins or their beliefs. In that you show your humanity, that while you were created to be a perfect State, you evolve and improve on your faults, just as humanity does in its constant struggles.

You face a greater challenge now. Your foes in earlier days were visible, ones who could be destroyed by sheer force, but your most difficult struggles have been against those demons who infest the minds and souls of men, for there force is ineffective. Like slavery, segregation, fascism, and absolutism, ideas and beliefs cannot be uprooted by drones or guns. It is the hearts and minds of men that you must win if you must emerge victorious in this struggle against terror, anarchy, and the enemies of humanity. There only the brilliance of your ideals and the dint of your will can cause a lasting impact.

As Lady Liberty stands proud on Ellis Island, her torch a beacon promising the warmth of freedom to all those who struggle under oppression, as your star-spangled banner reminds the world of the permanence of the star-filled heavens, so do you, by your actions and your ideals, remind the world of Einstein's words, "Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual that can labor in freedom." Stay true and firm on this path.

Happy Independence Day, America!

An Ode to Friendship - II

Aristotle says that friendship is one soul dwelling in two bodies. One wonders then if one has more than one friend, does it mean one is constantly inhabited by a number of discrete and different souls, each dear to us? It is an endearing thought that one is bound to one’s friend(s) by a bond far greater than that of time, for whilst time moves on, the soul is immortal (and my apologies to any skeptics out there).

To my mind, when one befriends someone, one unconsciously gives that person a piece of oneself, a small token of one’s being, a part of one’s soul, and in turn receives, equally unconsciously, a similar token of love and amity. One doesn’t keep such tokens locked away in some armoire in one’s room, or in some bank locker; these tokens simply melt away into our being, becoming one with our soul. When we give away a part of ourselves, our soul experiences a momentary fracture, but on receiving someone’s love, the void is made complete, as if it never existed in the first place. Each soul, each heart is so made up of not just one soul, or of different souls, but of a love shared between multiple souls.

You may opine then how does one differentiate between a mere friend and a lover? To that, I respond, can one really love someone without befriending him/her before? You retort, what about love at first sight? Coming from a culture of multiple rebirths, I imagine souls remember a kindred soul across the ages, and once you befriend a soul, you befriend it for eternity. Coming back to how one differentiates between someone who is merely a friend among other friends, and someone who is primus inter pares, it would seem your heart seeks out this soul more fervently than it seeks the others, drawing closer and closer to its presence however and whenever it can. After all, not all friends are created equal, are they?

Have you ever experienced a gut-wrenching anxiety, a pain in your chest, uneasiness, when you quarrel with a friend? It is little to wonder that one feels such torment; after all, aren’t parts of your soul quarrelling with each other, a sort of civil war, and who would deny that a civil war is anything but painful? When you separate and try to move on, you wrench your soul and cause it to fissure, taking apart that which you no longer hold dear, and receiving in turn that of yours which is no longer held dear. Unlike when you create a friendship, when you give a part of yourself voluntarily, detaching a part of yourself in rage is an act of destruction, a moment that grievously wounds your heart and soul. Such wounds take time and patience to heal, and the healing is rarely if ever painless.

Friends are those who care for us, and who we care for, unbidden and even when we and they would rather no one cared for us. And considering we are one soul, do we wonder why?

An Ode to Friendship

What is friendship? Is it a binding obligation that prolonged companionship confers on one, an obligation to care for, to look out for each other, or is it something that you feel within your heart every waking moment? Does one have to feel duty-bound to respond to the call of a 'friend', or do we leave that to the vagaries of emotion and feelings? Does the string by which friends become one soul inhabiting two bodies, to quote Aristotle, come about by design, by desire, or by the sheer will of the Fates? And if the sundering of the soul from the body after death is described as a torment, then if friends should quarrel, does that sundering, albeit temporary, also cause for similar terror and anguish?

We are told that people everywhere ought to be the same, or that they ought to think alike, and have similar frailties, weaknesses, biases, prejudices, beliefs, desires and aspirations? While a voracious appetite for books may compensate for a life spent in a single country and surroundings, it cannot compensate for the reality that you cannot hope to understand a people merely by the descriptions in tomes. While it is equally true that you could live your entire life with your own people, and yet not hope to grasp everything and every facet of who they really are, it is perhaps a hundredfold, maybe a thousand-fold, more difficult to understand a people different from your own. For it is difficult to understand what offends, what pleases, what amazes, what is held dear and cherished, until you can understand how their heart beats.

And yet when one comes to a foreign land, it is not unheard of for one to find friends who seem like they have always been by one's side, though happiness and grief. There is no hesitation, no derision, no jaundiced vision; just a simple connection between the heart. What drives or inspires such a connection? How can someone who barely knows you, and who you barely know, become so indispensable to your daily routine, without talking to whom a day seems incomplete and bare? Truly, what Pascal says of love is equally true, perhaps many times over, of friendship, that the heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of.

It is so easy to say that friendship is a social compact, a convenience; one hears of concepts such as 'friends with benefits', and it bewilders me. To suggest that friendship in itself does not benefit the soul, that it, by itself, does not enrich one's existence, that there have been 'benefits' that hitherto have been absent in friendships, is to cheapen what has been held so dear and true of the relationship for ages. And yet maybe it is convenient for me, in my ivory tower, to look down upon this change, this 'progress' in what can be encompassed in the word 'friendship'. It is a confusing change, but one thing I hold true; friendship will endure as the sole relationship whose value in our lives will never diminish, for without a friend, are we not incomplete, a body without a soul, like a lonely leaf on the bough waiting for the winter to come and free it from its torment?

Musings

Why does one fall in love? A stupid question, you say? Do you quote Pascal and tell me that the heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of? Maybe it is so. But that is why it is so vexing. To one's mind, the very fact that love and its cause is so inexplicable makes it ever more so desirable and yet so terrifying. Its touch exhilarates the soul, filling the body with sensations that cannot be described adequately in all the words in the world, and yet in that brief moment, the heart experiences fear, a terror of loss, of deprivation, of denial. François, duc de La Rochefoucauld says of true love that it is like ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have ever seen it. The ivy of suspicion oft creeps onto the edifice of one's affections, and one sees shadows when only light previously appeared. Like Othello to Desdemona, what was once precious as the sun and the moon, as pure as the waters of a bubbling mountain spring, starts to bear semblances of foulness.

And yet I do injustice to love and lovers when I make it seem so simple to describe love, because love in its essence is indescribable. Could the good Duke not have known that just as there are many colors in the palette of nature, there are many kinds of love, true and pure, where distrust, trepidation, or rejection are but pale phantoms in the distance, and where in the moment and for eternity there is only joy and happiness? Where the smallest distance is too great, and yet the greatest distance is not big enough to keep two souls apart? Where being in each other's arms is just as comforting and romantic as a cruise along the Seine? Yes, there are dark moments in each relationship, and love and lovers are no exception to it. But where there is rain, there is also sunshine, and the purity of a relationship, of the intensity of the feelings encompassed within, is tested most sorely by such squabbles. It is better to quarrel and get all the anger out, and then becalmed by love, than to let it fester, like a monster beneath still waters.

So, why does one fall in love? Who knows, and yet I think the thrill of the whole experience, of it being so unknown, makes it even more exciting, no?

The Specter

The darkness fell over him

Like a shroud over a cadaver

His unseeing eyes seeing all

And his silent lips telling countless tales

As he sat there quiet and forlorn

Lost and feeble

His arms trembling on his walking stick

As the cold chilled his arthritic bones

She lay there

Just beyond the great sycamore

Separated from him by death

When nothing could in life

He cursed the tears in his eyes

Those cold pearls of sleet

He cursed the snow that covered her now

For he knew she would hate it so

As the darkness grew

He knew it was time

Time to go, time to depart

He placed the lilies on her headstone again

And slipped into his coffin a few feet away… …

The Autumn Leaves…

I walk along the path

Amidst the red and yellow autumn leaves

Through the mass of gingko and oak

The colors delight my soul

And I remember you…

Some find autumn to be sad

To be reminiscent

Of a decaying before the end

But to my heart they bring hope

Hope that we shall meet again in the spring…

It is raining outside

And everything's so cold and weary

The wind pierces through to the very core

But my heart is warm and content

Because your memories live within…

Can love die or fade away?

Can what lies in my heart diminish

Because you are so far away?

Just as the spring will bring fresh shoots and the sun

So also someday we shall love again…

Back to school....

Come tomorrow and what will be the toughest two years of my life start off. Tough not insomuch that the stress and the pressure is something I am not used to, but because how I perform in these two years might very well determine the course of my entire life. But that’s for tomorrow.

The Ropes course was AWESOME!!!!! For someone who’s never done anything remotely adventurous so far, I found it to be absolutely enjoyable and a greatly intoxicating experience. Zipping across Lake Matoaka suspended from a harness and trusting a steel wire to bear one’s weight as the waters came closer to one’s derriere and then being jerked upwards towards the shore was perhaps the most exhilarating and invigorating thing I have ever done so far. And then there were the High and Low elements in the Course; the Low ones were informative vis-à-vis how we work in teams. But the High elements, especially the swing over the pits, the bell-ringer jump, and the two-wire walkway were simply mind-blowing (although I did not do the bell-ringer myself, but it seemed so damn fine).

If there was one thing that made the experience even more enjoyable, it has been the presence of a stellar team. Isaiah, Katie and Snowy have been the most supportive and encouraging lot I have had the pleasure of working with so far and I have been fortunate to have worked with generally supportive people so far, so this is a big thing. At every element, I was eager to go ahead, but my inbuilt reticence held me back, but their prodding and motivation ensured I had a wonderful time.

The debriefing after the Course was equally informative; we were asked when we felt particularly effective and ineffective in a personal and team capacity during the duration of the Course, as also what we noticed about each other’s capabilities and qualities. What came out of the discussion was a frank understanding of each other, of strengths and weaknesses, of places where we need to improve and places where we need to build on our laurels. But essentially so far, and I hope this luck lasts for the entire 2 years and even beyond, the team seems to have gelled well together.

Thereafter at the Logos design for the individual teams at the Amphitheatre it was enjoyable to see individual teams come up with interesting and somewhat meaningful logos and connotations for the same, and trying to explain the connection with the team. Somehow we, as a team, decided we wanted something that represented unity and strength in numbers, and after much deliberation, struck on five joined links; individually we may have some weaknesses, but together we build on each other’s strengths. To my mind, this is a good omen, that such a thought is so prominent in our team’s ethos, and augurs a very pleasant working environment.

The end-of-orientation party on Saturday would have ended up as another quiet and ‘well-mannered’ affair, had it not been for the ‘raucous’ Indians and our tendency to just let ourselves go loose when it comes to dance and ‘bhangra’. And considering we have 34 Indians in this year’s batch, and had 20 in last year’s, that’s a huge number on the floor, and that’s not even counting the locals and other International students who just couldn’t resist joining in. That really shows how rhythm and enjoyment has nothing to do with cultural boundaries; if you can dance, you can dance on any music.

The orientation is now over, the preliminaries complete and now it's time to go in for the final kill. It will be a long, arduous and stressful affair; there will be moments of happiness, success, and sometimes grief, despair and disappointment. But then the pleasure of the journey lies not in the destination but in the journey itself. So here's to books, studies, case studies, lectures, presentations, team meetings and discussions, internships, projects and other activities (time, energy and life permitting)!

MBA musings

The last one week has been a most fruitful and engrossing one, despite it being so hectic and fast-paced. Finally I get to sit in class or at least in ‘my’ college; it feels so lovely to be able to say that after three years of work.

We have been having orientation sessions from the Center for International Students here at the College of William & Mary, and it was outstanding to meet and interact with people from so many different nationalities and cultures, and, to my great embarrassment, to understand how limited my outlook towards life has been so far. I guess how and what one thinks about a career is all dependent on many factors: one’s upbringing, one’s family background, the careers being pursued in the near and distant family, and in general the basic temperament and awareness level of the individual concerned.

Meeting the faculty and my coach has been a wonderful experience; I don’t believe they will always be so nice and laughing, but the overall atmosphere is of a subdued informality infused with a sense of friendliness and reassurance that people understand what you are going through and are here to help you out, provided you are ready to help yourself first.

Meeting my classmates in the MBA program has again been a huge eye-opener, perhaps more than the eye-opener at the International Student orientation, because there are some people here, of the few who I have managed to meet in this time and I really need to pick up my pace in that matter, who are really outstanding; I mean, their profiles are absolutely mind-boggling and superb. It makes me feel so very sheepish with my basic Computer Engineering degree and a 3 year stint in an Indian IT company (sure Capgemini is a French concern, but frankly let’s stick to the facts here). It is going to be a challenge working with them, competing with them, and if luck favors the brave, to even better them; but perhaps more than the challenge, it’s going to be a hugely pleasurable exercise just getting to know them and to maybe rub off some of their skills and hopefully pass on some of one’s ‘own’, howsoever small they may be. The statistics are also pretty impressive; we have total class strength of 121, of which 40% are international students from 12 different countries and 40% are female students. That’s a pretty high number, but it would make life much more interesting, don’t you think?

As part of the Business School orientation, we had a session today wherein they took us down to the York River State Park to do some Community Service Activity. The Park is a beautiful site spread over nearly 2500 acres of forest, marshland and river acreage. What we were expected to do was help the Park authorities with certain tasks like cutting down wild vegetation in the riverside areas, cutting down some trees that have overgrown or are a hazard to general safety, clearing the biking trails of huge stones and large pieces of gravel, cleaning the kayaks and canoes that the Park rents out, and just keeping the Park furniture in the right places. It may not seem like much, but in the hot Virginia summer when temperatures are ranging around 32-33 C, nothing can be more tortuous, and especially more so if one has to trudge through bristles, thorny bushes, shrubs filled with bugs that bite and scratch, and maybe even slush and muck. But it was a fun affair irrespective of all that, because we did it all as a team, and I guess that was what was the intention, because eventually we are all going to engrossed in our programs, but if we can gel together as a group now, it would help us do a lot better job at coping with the stress and tension.
Typically for me, I got the somewhat easier job of helping to return the Park furniture to the original positions, a job that required a group of 4 to pick up picnic benches, put it into a I-don’t-know-what’s-it-called vehicle, sit in the vehicle and ride for say 2-3 minutes and then lift it back from the aforementioned vehicle and just place it in the designated place. So I got lucky, I guess :) .
All in all, it’s been a whole lot of fun this whole week; I don’t think it will always be like this, but it’s nice while it lasts. I am really looking forward to the Ropes course on Friday, which is supposed to be something like an Athletic Adventure Course, and everyone who knows me on an intimate level can attest to the fact that if there was an chap not attuned to athletics or sports of any kind, it is me.
Will post on Friday after the Ropes to let you know how it was.

Here I am

Come tomorrow, and I will have completed one week here at Williamsburg. It seems so surreal, to have finally embarked on a journey one was awaiting for so long, and to find that while the journey, in a travel sense, ended with one landing on the shores of one’s destination, it has but begin in the real sense. Each day brings forth new surprises, new challenges and new realizations such as we aren’t as incompetent (or competent) as we once believed ourselves to be, or that while we may have prided ourselves on our ‘terrific’ sense of humor, in truth it really stinks, not quite the “l’air de l’humour” as much as “l’air de folie”.

Williamsburg is the most beautiful little city I have ever been to. Cities like London, Paris or Berlin exhibit their magnificence through their sheer sizes and the weight of history, but Williamsburg has history and yet a most comforting warmth. Life here isn’t quite as hurried or tense as in the big cities, maybe because it’s essentially supposed to be a relic of an age when relaxation wasn’t something people did away from home. The word ‘relic’ is most misleading, because it isn’t as if Williamsburg isn’t endowed with present-day comforts; it’s just that it prides itself on the relaxed and calm life that it offers its denizens. I don’t know whether this is the norm everywhere, but the people here seem very kind and generous insomuch that despite there not being a stop sign, they will stop their vehicles to allow pedestrians to cross the roads, or in that once in a while they will just give you a nice smile when seated opposite you in the bus.

The College of William & Mary, my home for the next two years, pervades in everything at Williamsburg. No matter where you go in Williamsburg, your status as a student just won’t leave you and that’s very much to your benefit. Just roaming around the campus would take you a good two-three hours, and that would be time well-spent, because I don’t reckon I have seen a greener campus, with the possible exception of the IIT-Mumbai campus, or a more architecturally pleasing one, again with the exception of Oxford and Cambridge. While Oxford and Cambridge have an aura, a magnificence that comes from being hoary half-millennial giants, Williamsburg’s relative ‘youth’ (the college is currently in its 316^th year since incorporation) means that its structures aren’t quite as forbidding and yet have a solidity of age and time.

The new Miller Hall, where my MBA program is now housed, is simply breath-taking. Standing in the Courtyard and looking around at the structure, one feels a strange thrill rush through one’s body. The building isn’t just pleasing to the eye; it’s sophisticated within. As the Dean would say, it’s a building built to match William & Mary’s age and style but with an eye on the needs of the future. I, for one, was really impressed with the level of detail and care that has been taken to ensure that the building is geared to meet every conceivable requirement of the students and the faculty that it will house. It will be great fun to work there; 2 years may just fly past, but memories such as these would always last a lifetime.

I started out this journey with a question “Quo vadis?”, or “Where are you going?”; now I can say “I am here”.

• Williamsburg

Tick tock, goes the clock....

Just 10 days to go before I leave and the finality of my departure is finally beginning to dawn on me. There was a sense of excitement and eagerness that accompanied the shopping; an anxiety that one should be adequately prepared and should have everything that could conceivably be needed when one reaches one’s destination.

But now that the shopping’s over and it’s time to start filling in the bags, a strange sense of despondency is setting in. It isn’t as if this is the first time I am going away from the family, although the last time that I did, it was just for a fortnight, and with a certain date of return in mind. Maybe the uncertainty of when I would get to return (surely after the two years of the program, or maximum after three years) is getting to me; maybe it’s me doubting my ability to stay alone for two years, having never done anything of this magnitude before in all my 24 years.

Somehow looking at the shopping and thinking that, excluding a few minor additions here and there, this are going to be all my worldly possessions for the next two years is slightly unnerving. That I won't be able to argue or fight with my brother the way I do now would be comforting for my parents, but somewhere deep down all that squabbling was part of our affection for each other, and I am surely going to miss that. I will miss my breakfast time chats with my parents over myriad topics while we would read the newspapers, my tea getting cold and their scolding me for never drinking tea as it should be drunk, hot. Whatever it is, it’s weighing me down.

Somehow it feels so unreal that after 10 days, I will have to do everything on my own; perhaps more than anything, it’s the cooking which is terrifying me, considering I have NEVER cooked a decent meal in my life, save maybe omelets, scrambled eggs, and the occasional half-fry. Maggi doesn’t count as cooking, and well, tea and coffee is something you just know, so it also doesn’t count. But mother’s tips and recipes and the good old Internet should hopefully see me through. La mamma is packing in so many condiments, prepared masalas, ready to cook dishes and utensils that someone might think I am going to cook for an entire regiment at Williamsburg; but in frankness, it would be nice to once in a while cook a nice Indian meal to remember the pleasures of home and the taste of mummy’s cooking. You can't get it all, but a simulacrum is better than nothing at all.

In all this, let it not be said that I am not looking forward to going; au contraire, I am most eager for the opportunity; to quote the parents, this should teach me responsibility. There will be many who are in the same condition as me; we will all stumble a little, but we will all be there to help each other overcome the teething troubles smoothly. So here’s to life at Williamsburg and to the next two years at the College of William & Mary.

You're nothing but a pack of cards....

Iran's attempt at change may have fizzled out, or at least it may seem like it has. But I, for one, am hopeful and somehow feel certain that we haven't seen the end of this just yet. Call it a retreat if you may, but even the greatest military strategists will confirm that sometimes it is better to tone down one's assaults and to recoup for a day when the enemy will be least prepared than to continue to barge into the bayonets.

Somewhere this entire episode has revealed to the Iranian people that the system, the establishment which was set up to rule in their name has subverted its purpose to rule, over them and to dictate how they, the people, may lead their lives. The Ayatollah may have thought the clergy a better bet than the nomenklatura of the Pahlavis to run the nascent Republic; the chances of ideological differences and strife breaking apart the Republic would have been remote. But even he would not have foreseen these troubled times when even the clergy is divided on whether or not to support the Establishment.

The incumbent Supreme Leader, a man foisted on the Iranians not by the dint of his own eligibility but by back-door politics, quite like a Pope in medieval or even recent history, seems a kindhearted and noble soul, but his pronouncements on the protests have shown him to be delusional and perhaps distant from those whom he is ordained to lead. He and his acolytes have turned Iranian against Iranian and for one brief moment raised the specter of the Iranian Revolution; just this time, the enemy isn't the Shah, it's the clergy and their baseej.

Lewis Carroll may not have been a prophet but his Alice in Wonderland somehow finds resonance in this sad and unpleasant episode in Iran's history. The cavalier attitude of the entrenched establishment towards the protests of their own people, their blatant and unapologetic attempt at denying the people their right to choose who should rule them, and their repudiation of all and any tenets of basic human courtesies makes this a very difficult game indeed.

Alice said of the Queen, “They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is that there's anyone left alive.” To every call suggesting that the people have the right to think, the clergy retorts that the right is just as much right as pigs have to fly, to quote the Duchess. But in the end, the Iranian people, like Alice, though small and subdued now, will grow to her true size and will triumph over those who deny them their rights and privileges just as Alice triumphed over the Queen's and the Duchess' armies, and then will retort in their baritone voice, like she did, “Who cares for you? You're nothing but a pack of cards.”

Till the sun rises

What is it about love that drives us to it like moths to the lamp? Perhaps the metaphor is a bit too negative, too harsh on the beauty that is love, but apt nonetheless for there are always two sides to every coin. Why is it that we can't just be friends, not be bound by crazy emotions and sentiments, or by expectations and assumptions? Why must we insist that there be something more than a deep and resounding sense of friendship, of a sense of lifelong companionship, for arelationship to truly mean something to us?

Love isn't all it's made out to be; it's so much more. Love is a strange emotion. When one thinks of it, a conflicting multitude of thoughts arise. Love is pitiful and marvelous, empowering and parasitic. It is hideous; it is beautiful. It is weak and strong at the same time. Love has started wars, ended wars, caused the depression and death of millions, as well as caused uncountable others to be thrown to the heights of ecstasy. So is love truly such a pure, lovely thing? I think it is a mixture of both. Just as nothing is purely good or evil, so is love. When you are in love, it's like every morning is the sunniest and the brightest in the history of mankind. The flowers never smelt so sweet, the birds never sang so beautifully, and the breeze never blew so pleasantly on your cheeks. The rains never came down in such melodious drizzles and the heat, well it never really mattered, did it?

But when you find the doors of love closed onto your face, even Hades would be a more pleasant place than life. Persephone has to spend just six months with Hades in his dominion and yet when she meets Demeter in the spring, her soul has paled and diminished; imagine then living such a life day in and day out, not knowing when deliverance would come from this pain. You want to yell out, to scream, to cry, but the tears will not flow, the sounds will not burst forth. It is the punishment the Fates entailed for your heart, a punishment for its impudence in presuming that it may seek love where it had no right to do so, for its audacity to dream of a life of its own creation free from the dictates of the Fates. Your heart may burst with the deluge of emotions that it contains, but it must not ever let loose the flood waters.

In such turbulent times, the memories of the past prick and pain, and yet they soothe and calm. They mock the Fates and their punishments, the pain and the suffering, and serve to remind us of our courage and our belief in our self, that we too are worthy of some one's love and affection, that friendship need not always be the final frontier, that someday someone will feel the same love that we feel for them. They implore us to stay true to our heart, to not fail it when it needs us the most, to caress each memory of a love bygone like it were another life within us. They foretell that one day this night will get over, and the sun will rise again. Till such day, they offer us only their comforting support as lights in the darkness.

A new revolution?

Iran stands on the cusp of a revolution. It may seem presumptuous to state so; after all, can a few thousands or millions on the street really shake a 30 year old regime? I say 'shake' because the stated aims of the protesters is not to uproot the 'Islamic' part of the Islamic Republic of Iran; it is to emphasize the 'Republic' part. And that would be an important step forward.

Ever since the Revolution of 1979, the conservative factions of the Iranian people have systematically silenced the more reformist and liberal voices in their society. A nation that was once at the vanguard of globalization (the Persian Empire, the Safavids) now turned its back on the world and chose to stay secluded within the walls. They have denied their people the right to choose their leaders, those who will rule the nation in their name; true, they have elections, but the candidates aren't always those who want to serve; they are those who want to serve and are 'permitted' to serve. Permitted by whom, pray? For in a democracy, in a Republic, that was founded on the rage of the people against a tyrannical king, who save the people can permit someone to serve them? To presume otherwise is to subvert the will of the people.

True, Iran isn't just another Republic; it is a theocratic republic, guided by its clergy, the 'incorruptibles'. Whether they truly aren't susceptible to human emotions and prejudices is a matter of debate, but even they cannot be entirely trusted not to take care of their own power source at the expense of those whom they are to 'serve'. It's a classic case of a conflict of interest: to loosen up would endear them to the masses, but may mean a reduction in their authority; to tighten down may earn them the undying hatred of the people, but will ensure that they enjoy absolute power for their lifetimes (or till they can muster the brute-force to silence their critics).

Critics of Mousavi's protests state that he, being just as much a creature of the Revolution as Ahmadinejad, cannot be trusted with genuine reform. Mousavi's intentions are best known to him, but the courage and the determination that he has shown to challenge the establishment, to suggest that there's something rotting in the system, is admirable and worthy of being emulated. Gorbachev too was a dyed-in-the-wool Communist, but his perestroika and glasnost were genuine attempts to reform the Soviet state before it imploded on its own people; that they failed were both his and his people's misfortune. Mousavi promises more, because the people back him, and yet the perils of failure are even more.

What is more important is that for the first time the reformists have gained a slightly upper hand over the conservatives. Khatami received a mandate but couldn't get past the clergy's machinations; his failures meant that Ahmadinejad seemed a better bet the last time around. This time, it's time for change, and the Iranian people must raise their voices, for their lives, for Iran.

P.S. I find this song to be particularly poignant and pertinent to the situation. Especially the lives "We're not going to live in silence; we're not going to live in fear. This time we know we all can stand together. We have the power to be powerful, believing we can make it better."

Talking about the news

I haven't written much in fifteen days and there have been so many things to write and talk about, so here's my take on a few of them.

Iran:

Where do we go from here, is a question most Iranians and their neighbours and perhaps everyone else in the world is asking themselves now.

Just 30 years ago, similarly furious denunciations of the system that is, a desire to change the course of government caused a Revolution, a revolution that changed the very manner in which people would now view the Middle East and Iran. Relations between Iran and the world haven't quite been as normal as before.

Ahmadinejad is widely seen as a rabble rouser and a hard line leader, a hawk when it comes to Israel and the US, and somehow in the changed geopolitics with Obama's ascent and the coalition pulls and pushes in Israel, Ahmadinejad's stubbornness and belligerent tone does more harm than good to both Iran and the world. His confidence perhaps arises from the abundant resources of oil and natural gas at the disposal of the Iranian state and the currently high prices of these resources, but sadly he has failed to use satisfactorily the previous windfall, giving no reason to believe that he will do a better job now.

What will Mousavi's followers unleash on Iran and the world this time around is anyone's guess, but if Iran is showing any signs of moving away from an autocratic clergy-controlled 'democracy' to a truly representative one, those changes would be a welcome one.

• Why Obama isn't showing more outrage about the Iranian elections

India:

The 'racial' attacks issue pertaining to Indian students in Australia and Canada seems to have lost its lustre, at least in the eyes of the media. I guess we all suffer from a very short attention span, needing very fast changes of topics to keep ourselves interested in life, a sort of short-term memory loss à la Ghajini. That these attacks themselves have not ceased is a given, because these attacks are not the first on international students and frankly they will not be the last, no matter how hard we may wish to believe to the contrary. In a comment to my last blog on this issue, a reader said that sometimes simple vandalism and hooliganism hides beneath the cloak of racism; it's diversionary tactics at its best.

What we need to do is to protect ourselves, within the ambit of the law of the land. To be truthful, most people find it easy to single out international students because such students are literally neon-lit signboards saying 'I am different', an open invitation to be harassed. While retaining one's cultural and ethnic idiosyncrasies is one's personal choice and right, when in Rome, at least try to do as the Romans do; don't be like the barbarian at the gates, or at least don't give that impression. In the end, God helps those who help themselves, but an eye for an eye will make the whole world go blind.

The United Kingdom:

Gordon Brown must love roller coaster rides. From the dizzying height of being acclaimed the saviour of the free world economy to being denounced as a useless, good-for-nothing, self-centered, obnoxious and uninspiring git must have been quite a journey, and that too when it happens within just six months. But then in politics, a week's a long time. Mr. Brown's colleagues are either being implicated in the expenses scandal and are being forced to resign (a bloody good thing too, and something I want to see replicated in India; 90% of our fat cats would be out on the street then) or are leaving the sinking ship themselves, with no implied allusions to the rodent class.

In the end, Mr. Brown's woes are emanating from the fact that he is an unelected leader, thrust upon the people. So far, our Manmohanji was also sharing the ignominy, but with the recent election results, he's our leader, by our choice, not Madam's alone. Somehow the people of the UK haven't quite gotten over the magic of Blair and the fact that Brown is to some extent responsible for not having done enough to control the wildly spiralling economy when Chancellor of the Exchequer makes him no one's Darling (poor Alistair, being forced to clean up Gordie's mess).

Well that's all for now.