A memorable wedding! Brought to you by Haribo.

One downside of living so far away is that you miss a lot of events that happen among family and friends - births, 'munji's, and of course weddings. I'm still upset at a previous employer because I couldn't get the vacation I needed to make it to Sudu & Jaitali's wedding. I ended up quitting that company 3 months later.

On the flip side, you value and cherish the time you DO get, and you try to pack years' worth of "being around" into a few days/weeks. Like the action-packed weekend in Bombay or the two weeks with Ajji in Feb 2018, when she narrated enough stories from her childhood to fill a book. Literally. [I'm getting the book reviewed by Anjali, who might have a few more stories to add about our grandmother].

While I've made my peace with missing other events, I hate to miss weddings. Especially 'fun' weddings. So when Amanda mentioned that she was considering Glacier National Park as a possible location, my first response was "Umm yeah, but isn't Yosemite closer?". But even as I RSVPed 'Yes' on the invite months in advance, I had a feeling of deja vu. "What if I plan everything, and work stuff comes up last minute?"

Luckily, history did not repeat itself and I got to Kalispell airport on that warm Friday evening. Met a couple Amanda's friends who gave me a lift to our cabin. It was one of the easiest conversations I'd had with strangers. And it was not a co-incidence.  Amanda had requested that, as far as possible, none of her friends bring our girlfriends/spouses/+1s. Anu was exempt, because Amanda had stayed with us, but we figured she had a point.

Friendship is a tricky thing, and it's definitely not transitive. For the non-STEM audience in the house, here's a quick refresher on the transitive property. If A is related to B, and B is related to C, transitivity implies A is related to C. This explains why a lot of friendships falter when one of its constituents gets into a relationship or gets married. It also explains why a lot of weddings can seem burdensome, because a sizeable chunk of the +1s at the wedding would rather be doing something else. Like that one wedding I attended in San Diego, where our table was silent except for the clink of silverware on plates and random comments by an elderly, drunk professor.

Not only did Amanda and Daniel's wedding avoid the common pitfall of being boring, it was also adventurous. The wedding party did a hike and a boat ride, and followed the wedding couple as they re-enacted how them met. Spoiler alert: It was in Bolivia and Daniel was drunk on Thanksgiving. The skit was enhanced by the impromptu comment of the bride's mom : "Don't listen to the drunk boy". But I'm glad Amanda did listen to that "drunk boy", and I got to attend a memorable wedding. With Haribo wedding rings.

Justice and the World Cup

2014:

"Peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice."

"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."

"There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts."

Madam Toastmaster, fellow members and guests,

As many of you know, we're in the middle of a celebration: a Quadrennial mega-event that connects billions of people around the world in a shared passion. I'm talking, of course, about the Football world cup.It is a wonderful event in which we cheer for our favorite teams, and become immersed in something bigger than ourselves. It enables us to subsume ourselves to a sense of global community. It makes us believe in fairness and sportsman-like behavior. It teaches us that no matter where we come from, if we play fair, the world will applaud us. Clearly, the Fifa world cup is such a grand event with noble intentions, we cannot fathom that it might be associated with any kind of injustice. Right?

Well, not quite. When Fifa awarded the world cup to Brazil, it came with certain preconditions about the quality of the stadiums. 

Therefore the Brazil government, not FIFA, had to spend over 15 billion dollars to build stadiums that were acceptable to FIFA. As you can imagine, there were a lot of people- "protestors"- who were very unhappy with this decision. They felt that the billions of dollars could be better used to build hospitals and schools that many Brazilians desperately need. What do you think is the right thing to do? What is justice in these circumstances? In order to answer this, we've to first explore the concepts of justice using the dialectic method.

The first concept I want to illustrate is the principle of utilitarianism. The basic premise is that if you have a choice between making one person happy and making five people happy, you generally pick the many. In this case you would pick the world cup, because it's making a billion viewers happy, so never mind the few million Brazilians who have limited access to schools and hospitals. But now, imagine the following situation - You're a doctor and you have 5 patients who need an organ each to survive. Then, a healthy person  walks into your office for a checkup. And he's lying there on your seat, taking a nap. As a doctor, would you kill the healthy person and take his five organs to save your 5 patients? If you're like most people, you will find something inherently wrong with this approach. That is because there is something beyond utilitarianism. And this is the second concept, which is principle of individual rights.This means that a person has certain inviolable rights and cannot be used as means to an end. Based on this principle, we've to respect the individual rights of the protestors to have true justice. 

Now, some people will use the same concept of individual rights to make the case for the world cup. For example, there are many construction companies and businesses and hotel chains who want to build the stadiums for the world cup. They too have paid taxes- maybe more taxes than the people who're protesting the world cup. Isn't it their right- their individual right - to have these stadiums, even if it means lesser schools or hospitals? That is definitely a valid question. Now who's side would you take ? Usually, if you're in the construction or hotel business, you'll want stadiums. If you want to schools and hospitals, you'll be on the side of the protestors. We're at a deadlock. 

A very clever philosopher, John Rawls, figured out a way to end this deadlock, and that is our third concept- Rawls theory of justice. To understand this, imagine that you need to pick your answer first, as to whether the stadium should be allowed or not. Only then will you be told whether you are in the construction business or whether you are part of a group that needs social services. For eg., if you answered that you want stadiums, it might be revealed that you are a patient in desperate need of healthcare. Would you still favor the stadiums? I believe this is a much deeper concept of justice, because you're making the decision without knowing which group you might be placed in. This veil of ignorance, this "blindness", is essential for justice.

My goal here, and yes the pun was intended, is not to antagonize you towards the world cup. It creates unity in so many other ways, and it is indeed a cause for celebration. There are much bigger things that we need to fight against, such as poverty, hunger, war and disease. However, we really need to have a deeper sense of justice to tackle - yes, I did it again- all of the above problems and make the world a better place. And that will be much more cause for celebration than a ball flying through a net.

Meditations on friendship

Feb 2018:

And sometimes, the mind is a stormy ocean,
and thoughts, rudderless ships.
Tossed around by tidal waves of human emotion.
We've all been there.

And sometimes, the mind is a still pond,
and thoughts, faithful reflections of the world above.
Unperturbed by the gentle breeze of human emotion.
We've all been here.

True is a friend who,
with her kind words, gentle touch and deep affection,
flies you here from there.

5 years in the US - A brief review

Found an old post from about 4 years ago, and put it up today. It got me thinking, reflecting on my 5 years here. I want to write so much, and yet, somehow I'm not ready for it. Maybe I need some inspiration and some time, to reflect!

A year in the US : A reflection

Its a bit premature, since I've a month to go. However,I'll be in India at that time and my reflections may be influenced by my experience there, and hence the haste.

The story begins when I landed at the airport at SFO, in the last week of August. It was a tiring flight and I was unwell, so there was more relief than enthusiasm. I usually feel a thrill of expectation whenever I land, irrespective of whether it is Madras or Madrid, Bombay or Beauvaix. Immigration and Airports are the same around the world, clean, crisp and refreshingly efficient*. And it was a pleasant surprise that SFO was among the few airports not indulging in racial profiling (I'm not particularly against that method- from a rational standpoint, it is more efficient than brute-force search, but less effective than heuristic search).

It was great to see my cousins in the crowd. I was surprised that the younger was taller than the older cuz, given the age gap. And realized that family is one of the greatest gifts I inherited. And that there is something about blood-ties, which trumps all but a handful of other relationships. And that years of absence were immaterial when it came to family.

Then the highways and a beautiful home. I loved it. And hated the distance from India. I was living in a dichotomy, torn between the heart and the brain. The brain had won when I left IN, and it lost when I landed. IT took me a while to get used to the space, the sky, the water, the silence, the small comforts. It gave me time to heal, not just the sore throat but the pangs of separation. Again, family played a major part in the healing process.

It was soon time to leave for LA, and by now I was enthusiastic and excited! It was an adventure driving down and I met a lot of people at the time. It was new and different and incredibly beautiful. I felt a rush of independence. And the cash I earned was an added bonus.

The first quarter was tough. Every day of the quarter, beyond the first 3 weeks, was a painful blur of heart-rending soul-destroying darkness, exacerbated by YOU-KNOW-WHAT, but somehow Los Angeles healed me and for that I'm eternally grateful to her. Her constancy in bright sunshine, in the gentleness of rains and the happiness reflected in her people all helped. Also, I was living healthy- walking a lot, breathing good air, living frugally (much more so than I would in IN) and eating healthier. And lets not forget salsa nights at Wockano and Zanzibar.

From New Years on, things improved :) I made progress at work and at friendships; also obtained an internship. Learnt, partied, and felt more cathartic about what I'd left behind. And throughout I became more independent. I was finally ready to embrace this country as my own**.

*Note (2015): It's amazing that I found the airports "efficient" back then. #RelativismGoggles
**Huh. 

A MUCH more perfect union : Tagore

Less than a year ago, Barack Obama, currently the most powerful man in the world, gave a speech titled "A more perfect union". An excerpt follows:

" 'We the people… in order to form a more perfect union..'

Two hundred and twenty-one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars, statesmen and patriots who had traveled across the ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence. The document they produced was eventually signed, but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution  — a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part — through protests and struggles, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience, and always at great risk — to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this presidential campaign: to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for president at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together — unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction: towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren."

And yet, there is still something missing. There is inspiration here, no doubt, motivating us to strive towards a better future, but there is also resounding silence as to what that better future entails for the people. Unless it is made clear that "better future" does not translate into more cars, bigger houses and extravagant lifestyles, but rather into prudence, humility, respect for others, and tolerance; that Change comes not just by electing the better candidate as most powerful man in the world, but it comes from within; and that a Union must be perfected, not just between the peoples of the world, but among all life, we will remain on the path to self-destruction, albeit a longer one.

In the light of the above statement, the all-encompassing nature of a poet who lived under the subjugation of foreign rule, reveals unnatural insight into the heart of a problem that is as old as man :
"According to the true Indian view, our consciousness of the world, merely as the sum total of things that exist, and as governed by laws, is imperfect. But it is perfect when our consciousness realizes all things as spiritually one with it, and therefore capable of giving us joy. For us the highest purpose of this world is not merely living in it, knowing it and making use of it, but realizing our own selves in it through expansion of sympathy; not alienating ourselves from it and dominating it, but comprehending and uniting it with ourselves in perfect union."

Unless we all realize this, our greatest hope can be but a temporary postponement of a common catastrophe.

Eine Kleine Geschichte

Meine Eltern und ich waren mit dem schnellen Zug nach Haridwar gefahren. Gestern hatten wir im Ahmedabad sein, die Hochzeit meiner ältesten Kusine, zu besuchen. Meine freude Eltern wollten eine kurze Reise zu machen , weil wir noch Sommer Ferien hatten.

Im nächsten Abteil war eine schöne Mädchen , wer zwei Jahre jünger als ich war. Sie hat länges Haar, und teife , schwarze Augen. Als sie mich angelächelt, war es Liebe auf den ersten Blick.

In einige Minuten hatten wir Freundschaft geschloßen. Ich fragte sie ihr Name , und sie antwortete mir schüchtern. Wir trafen uns an der Tür des Zugs, weil wir allein mit einander zu sein wollten. Dann hatten wir ein interessantes Gespräch über unsere Hobbys und Reisepläne. Nach dem Essen liefen wir den Zug entlang, und saßen beim Fenster. Wir starrten den blauen Himmel an, da es nichts mehr zu sagen war.

Ein paar Stunden später kam der Zug im Haridwar an. Endlich sagte sie, dass es Angenehm war, mich zu treffen. Sie wollten mir umarmen, aber es is nicht höffahig hier in Indien. Deshalb blinzeln sie mich an, als sie stieg ab.

"Aufwiedersehen" was alles, dass ich sagen könnte.

Autor:Shankar.M

Separate Ways

Do you remember your vows,
Of friendship eternal
And love undying?

Time uncloaks truth
to reveal a lie.

Do you surrender your words,
To unflattering oblivion,
By simply denying?

Time uncloaks truth
to reveal a lie.

Do you disguise your blows,
With a facade, non-committal?
If you'd only stopped lying.

TIme uncloaks a lifetime of togetherness
To reveal Separate Ways.

Waste