Death of a Friend

I knew you so well
At least I thought I did
Hours spent laughing, crying, sharing stories
But I suppose they didn't sink in deep enough
Washed away in the flowing waves of time.

We parted ways with such assurances
Such a flurry of calls
Messages, shares and likes
The same old voice, through a wire.

Each of us facing our own storms
And the consuming nothingness of daily routine
And faces more immediate
Swept away with the now.

You remember suddenly
A random memory - a faint smile caresses your lips
Your hand reaches out
Waiting and then you leave a message
Wait.

A call that weekend - it's been so long
Yes, great to hear back - wassup
Platitudes and promises
Emptier than the ghost in your head.

Time yawns
And we're flung further away
Promises lay naked
The hand no longer reaches out
And we fall into the graves we've dug between us.

The Hunt

Half the year has gone by without a post - so this one is long overdue. It happens to be a poem I'd written way back in 2007 (I suppose as a delayed reaction to watching Bambi as a kid). Here goes:

Muscles taut, it hears the shout

There are humans 'round about

The sun draws patterns through the trees

As danger wafts in winter breeze

Raucous calls and hungry bay

And yet the doe its ground does stay

Blending with the dappled light

The frightened fawn keeps out of sight

Hound and horse now plain to see

Reddened eyes and yellowed teeth

Now there is no place to hide

Doe and fawn will soon have died

In one last move, the mother sprints

As cold black metal in sunlight glints

She leads them far from huddled child

Thundering hooves not far behind

Racing through the slush and grass

But rifle's drawn, they're coming fast

From high above he pulls the trigger

A silent shriek, a fallen figure

Atop their horses they now rejoice

"It's just a deer", comes modest voice

The vacant stare of dying doe

Stains with blood the virgin snow

Man is great for man is wise

Yet with his soul does compromise

Man is great for he is kind

Yet greedy hand and twisted mind

Man or beast, I can't decide

Let Conscience be my worthy guide.

***

Hindi Sayings-I

 

My attempts at deliberately misunderstanding popular Hindi phrases through cartoons.

If you'd like to see your favorite metaphor mangled, leave suggestions in the comments.

 



Ulta chor kotwal ko daate.

Searching for Santa

It's that time of the year again - holiday cheer and what not, at least in the Christian sphere of the world. Of course, apart from crazy shoppers and Amazon lightning deals, let's not forget that it is essentially a celebration of Christ - and thus implicitly God and religion (which is probably why "Merry Christmas" is now being replaced by the politically correct, but idiotically sanitized "Happy Holidays"). I'm all for Christmas - it brings people together, there's an air of celebration and charity and of course, holidays! But when it comes to believing in God, I'm not so enthusiastic.

I don't know whether I should call myself an atheist. I'm more of an agnostic, I suppose - I just don't know. Unlike the religious, who are so certain about the existence of God, all I can say is "I'm not so sure". A lot of this sitting on the fence business is purely selfish. I become very "God aware" in situations like "Oh God, please let me make this deadline", or "Damn this airplane is moving like a drunk 1980's disco star - please God don't let me die". I get that - it's reassuring. There's a big boss who'll take care of me. Thunderstorm, yawn. Engine on fire, pshaw! I don't need to worry, 'cuz God's looking after me.

But selfish motives aside, there have been accounts of people who have had intense spiritual experiences. A part of me argues that neuroscience will probably explain this in a few years, if it hasn't already, as some state of the human mind. And another part of me argues that it would be extremely arrogant of me to deny the existence of something that I perhaps do not have the capacity to fathom. Science is very humble in this sense - it does not close its eyes to new evidence, or the possibility that what it knows could be revised or discarded completely. And this puts it at a very distinct disadvantage to religion - which is based on the tenet of "Do not question - you must have faith." The burden of proof always falls on the non-believer, even though that is patently unfair. If tomorrow I come and tell you, "Hey, I just saw a 5-legged DragonCat in Walmart today", you'd either ignore me as a lunatic, or you'd say "What is that? You're making this up. Do you have any pictures?". It would be unreasonable, by any stretch of imagination, to say "I have faith. I KNOW it exists. You prove that it doesn't exist". No matter how hard you try (which of course you wouldn't, since this is the point you'd start ignoring me as aforementioned  lunatic), you cannot possibly prove its non-existence because there may always be that one place you didn't look.  An individual who makes such unsubstantiated claims would quite probably be dismissed as a lunatic, but when billions do - it is religion, and God forbid (haha, see what I did there) you question it. Unquestioning faith has the luxury of being just that, impervious to questions. Why is there pain and suffering? If God created Man, why did He make such a faulty product punishable by eternal damnation? The answer is simply "We do not know His ways".

My point is that I understand spirituality - I believe it is possible for us to reach a state of mind that is beyond the mundane. What I don't understand, is religion. I have no issues with people who are religious. In fact, I'm a bit jealous of them - it must be great to have complete faith in an all-powerful, all-knowing friend who has your back. Ugh, who would want to face this world on their own?! The problem starts when religion stops becoming a personal, private affair - and suddenly becomes a tool for political agenda, for society to pass judgment on what is wrong and what is right, and worst of all, for a group to hate others who believe in a different religion.

I think most religions are simply codes of conduct, a moral and social compass to lead the unthinking masses (how ironic that Jesus was a shepherd). If you read the ten commandments, they seem to be a rather desperate attempt to civilize a nascent society. It seems strange to me that an omniscient, all-powerful being would do the whole burning bush drama and force Moses to hike up a mountain just to tell him "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's". If I were Moses, I would have said - "I know that! Any guy who has a shred of decency knows that." And there are so many things left out. For example, "Don't rape your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox or donkey." Yet we miraculously know not to do those things. There's also the sticky commandment of "You shall have no other Gods before me". Ouch. That's a pretty insecure God, right there. If you're the sole all-powerful God, why would you even bring up the topic of other Gods? And then who's to say who's right? Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all acknowledge the ten commandments. Awkward. Hinduism has thousands of gods. So did the ancient Greeks. In fact if you believe in a monotheistic religion, then you are essentially saying - I don't believe in these thousands of Gods. Looks pretty atheistic to me!

I remember debating with an evangelist at UT Austin. He was making the standard arguments - I'll lay out a couple of them. A common one is without God, and the notion of heaven and hell, society would be in anarchy and that we have a moral compass instilled in us by God. Why have a police force, then? Or even a constitution or laws? Good and bad are not always in black and white - there are multiple shades of gray. For the longest time, slavery and segregation was considered completely acceptable. The caste system was the norm in ancient India. The practice of sati, in which a widow is forced to jump into her husband's funeral pyre, was also once a social norm. Where was the moral compass then? Technical glitch? Momentary lapse?  Nope! It's simply that we, as a society, evolve. Our moral standards evolve. I would much rather support the guy who is against rape because he is disgusted by it as a decent human being, rather than because he is afraid God will punish him if he doesn't control his urges.

Another argument that is commonly made is that there is such complexity and incredible beauty in the world, there must be a Creator who made it. A scarily large percentage of the American population believes in Creationism over evolution - not hard to fathom when you see the antics of public institutions of learning like the Kansas Education Board. And yet, the argument behind Intelligent Design is so flawed. Let's take 2 cases - it is up to you to judge which one is more reasonable. The first is that a man just got out of bed and suddenly designed the Canon EOS 5D Mark III from scratch. The second is that cameras started as something crude and basic like a pinhole camera. Over years, the design was modified and improved. Unpopular models went out of production. And after years of small improvements - we have something like the Canon EOS series. Heck, if you're a software developer, you know that object oriented programming was designed so that you could write abstract base classes and then through inheritance you could make meaningful additions for increasingly complex scenarios. In fact, the whole idea that you must believe in God because it is too hard to believe in any other scenario that explains the existence of something as complex as the human eye is paradoxical. If God created the human eye, then He is definitely more complex than it. Must I believe in a super-God who created God then?

Faith is not a bad thing. It gives people immense strength and hope in situations where there is none. It drives people to better themselves and to lead good lives. But let's face it - we may never know if there's a God or not. We may never know if there's a heaven or hell. You are free to believe in the existence of any of these - but there doesn't seem to be any hard evidence refuting or verifying those claims. So just live life for the present. Don't spend your life worrying about burning in eternal fires or being denied entry at the pearly gates. Live it as good human being. Accept the fact that you are responsible for yourself, and that humanity and nature are divine in themselves. In the beautiful words of Blake:

"God Appears and God is light

To those poor souls who dwell in night 

But does a human form display

To those who dwell in realms of day"

Order, Order!

I have always been fascinated with the law and there are few things I like more than seeing a good debate, hearing an articulate argument, and the concept that words enshrined in our legal systems have the power to stand for justice and bring down the mightiest, greediest conglomerates. It is no surprise then, that some of my favorite movies have a legal bend to them. So, in no particular order, here are my favorite law movies:

1. A Few Good Men

Starring Tom Cruise (before he went crazy), Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore - this is a brilliant movie in which an arrogant, green lawyer - Daniel (Tom) leads a team of 3 in the defence of 2 soldiers accused of killing a fellow Marine in Guantanamo Bay. The challenge facing them is not only the fact that there is virtually no evidence exonerating the two men (who have admitted to hazing the victim), but the fact that they are up against Col. Jessup (Jack Nicholson) who heads the base at Guantanamo and is immensely powerful. They realize that the only reason Daniel was given the case was because he had a reputation for plea bargaining and it was assumed that the case would never be tried in court. As the team tries to uncover the facts hidden beneath the shadowy, rigid layers of the U.S. military, Daniel and his team have to take decisions which, if foiled, could not only cause the 2 defendants to be held guilty of murder but also cause the lawyers to be court-martialed themselves. The last few scenes of the movie are probably its finest - when Daniel stakes everything in order to get a confession. It is also these last few moments which gave rise to one of the most famous movie quotes of all time:
Jessup: You want answers?
Daniel: I want the truth!
Jessup: You can't handle the truth!

2. Primal Fear

One of my all-time favorites! And before writing about it, I have to get this out of my system: "You are watching Primal fear, with Richard Gere, here, on Star Movies" - that is the line they would use before cutting to advertisements - and it rhymed like a BOSS! Anyway, I digress. This movie is as much a psychological thriller as it is a legal movie. I won't give away too many details - because if you haven't watched it yet - I would highly recommend that you drop everything and watch it now! The movie is an adaptation of William Diehl's novel and it is about a young man named Aaron (Ed Norton) who is accused of brutally murdering a priest. Aaron is an altar boy and your heart goes out to this soft-spoken, stammering guy - who seems too sensitive to be able to do the heinous acts that he has been accused of. Yet the evidence against him is enormous - and it is the job of high-profile lawyer - Martin Vail (Gere) to get the court to acquit him of murder. As his sessions with Aaron progress, disturbing facts emerge about the Catholic Archbishop and Aaron reveals a much darker side of his psyche. All the actors perform brilliantly - and watching the conflicting personalities of Aaron Stampler will leave you on the edge of your seat.

3. Philadelphia

This 1993 movie was path-breaking for its time - dealing with the issues of homosexuality, AIDS and discrimination. Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) is a hard-working senior lawyer at one of the largest law firms in Philadelphia. He is gay, but not open about it. His career seems to be shining and he's assigned what is possibly the firm's most important case. However things start to unravel when Andrew discovers he is HIV+ and one of the senior partners at the firm notices a lesion on his face. Andrew stays away from the office and finishes the paperwork on time, but the paperwork mysteriously disappears on the day that it needs to be filed, before the statute of limitations runs out. It surfaces at the last minute, but Andrew is fired for incompetency. Andrew believes the whole thing was a ploy to terminate him because the firm became aware of his sexual orientation and also because of the stigma associated with HIV. After a string of unsuccessful attempts to hire a lawyer to represent him in a discrimination suit against his firm, Andrew goes to Joe Miller (Denzel Washington). Joe is very homophobic and refuses. There is a very poignant scene here where Andrew mentions to Joe that he is HIV+ and suddenly Joe is very aware of all the things that Andrew is touching. After being refused for the nth time, Andrew walks out on the pavement and for a second, he looks completely broken - alone and shattered. It is one the most moving scenes in any film I have seen. However, as the movie goes on, Joe does agree to represent Andrew. The rest of the movie is an emotional upheaval - for Andrew as well as Joe. Andrew is suddenly a pariah in society, with only his family and partner for support. He has to deal with the guilt of possibly having exposed his partner to the virus while dealing with homophobia every waking minute of the trial; all the while succumbing to the disease that is slowly killing him. Joe has to come to terms with his own homophobia - and while he still doesn't feel comfortable with the idea of homosexuality, his repulsion gives way to understanding as he sees that Andrew and his partner Miguel (Antonio Banderas) seem to share the same feelings he does for his wife. This movie does not have a fairy-tale ending - but it does have one of the most powerful endings in cinema. The last few scenes are simply shots from home videos when Andrew was a child, a child playing on the beach, unaware of the painful issues he will come to face as an adult - and it seems to convey the innocence, joy and equality that we all are born with. Also notable is the soundtrack by Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young - "Streets of Philadelphia" and "Philadelphia" are both apt and meaningful additions to the scenes.

4. The Paradise Lost trilogy

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills is a documentary that spawned 2 follow-up documentaries. It documents the trial of three young men accused of the murder of three boys on the outskirts of West Memphis, Arkansas. I really like investigative documentaries, and this is one gem of a legal documentary. It shows how the heinous nature of the crime whips up this small, rural town into a bloodlust for revenge. In the cross-hairs are 3 boys who do not fit the societal profile of normal - they wear black, listen to hard rock and metal, and one of them has books on Wicca and paganism. What would otherwise be dismissed as teenage eccentricities, suddenly gets contorted as damning evidence against these three. It also showcases how an ignorant and inefficient police department, under public pressure to find the killer, extracts confessions under duress and forces guilt on the trio who came to be known across America as the "West Memphis Three". The documentary also profiles some of the other people in the town and raises questions about the evidence being used in the court, and more importantly, the evidence being ignored in order to convict the West Memphis Three. The other 2 documentaries follow-up on what turned out to be an 18-year hell for the three men. Convicted as teenagers in 1994, they were only released last year, in 2011 after reaching a deal with the prosecutors. For those who are interested in legal trivia, they were released after entering Alford pleas - one of the oddities in the American legal system. It is a guilty plea that asserts innocence ("I'm guilty because I know the jury will convict me, but I'm actually innocent"). The scary thing, of course, is that the real killer(s) are still out there and the justice system doesn't care because the West Memphis Three entered guilty pleas.

5. Mississippi Burning

This 1998 drama is a largely fictionalized account of a true tragedy. It begins dramatically with the real-life abduction and murder of three civil rights activists in Mississippi. What follows is the fictional account of the FBI investigation of this case. The two FBI agents - Anderson (Gene Hackman) and Ward (Willem Dafoe) are up against an insular town in which the Ku Klux Klan is hand in glove with the Sheriff's office. Anderson and Ward are very different in their personalities and working styles and they don't get along very well. Ward has a more textbook-style of dealing with the case, while Anderson has a more subtle approach, understanding the nuances of racial relations in the south. As the film progresses, the two learn to work with each other as they realize they have to battle the racially biased system, fighting against the very people who are expected to uphold justice in this rural village in Mississippi.

6. Erin Brockovich

The last one in the list is a feel-good movie, about how a struggling single mother of 3 is able to bring down a large greedy corporation. It is also largely a true story - which makes it all the more remarkable! Erin Brockovich (Julia Roberts) is an unemployed, single mom when she gets into a car accident. She sues the man involved in the crash but loses the case, and guilts her lawyer into employing her as a clerk. While not exactly hero material so far, the actual story begins when she reviews the case file of a resident in the town of Hinkley. What catches her eye is the fact that the family has suffered from numerous ailments and surprisingly, their medical expenses have been covered by the Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation. She starts digging around, and finds dangerous levels of hexavalent chromium in the water supply of this small town. She also uncovers a cluster of families who are suffering from many different ailments. The company, of course, denies any wrongdoing - and the residents are actually pro-PG&E because they do not connect their ailments with the company's chemical discharge and see the company as a medical benefactor helping out their society. A David against this mighty Goliath, Erin must find evidence which proves the company was aware of the existence of hexavalent chromium in the water system and of the dangerous consequences it could have on the residents. She begins a door-to-door campaign, leading to one of America's largest class action suits.


Well, there you have it - 6 of my favorite "law movies". If you haven't seen any of them, I would definitely recommend that you watch it. If you have seen some and loved/ hated them, leave your comments below!

Chai stories

Let me preface this by saying that chai is not the tea you get from dipping a teabag into hot water, nor is it one of the delicate brews from the Far East and it's definitely not the insipid sugar water that Starbucks and its ilk sell under the name of "Chai Latte" (or even worse, the utterly redundant "Chai Tea"). When I say chai, I mean the strong, boiled to its near death, smashed cardamom and crushed ginger potion they sell from rickety streetside shops in almost every corner of India. Yes, it rises out of turmoil, but diamonds were not coddled out of coal.

I suppose this post was long overdue. Initially I'd thought of writing about chai itself - liquid gold, as my friend puts it; but I tend to get carried away by my feelings for tea (see preface above) and if I know the people who are likely to read this post, praising tea would be like preaching to the choir. Instead, I'm going to go down memory lane and recount some of my cherished "tea moments".

As they say "Chai tea begins at home" (the use of said redundant phrase is allowed for constructing horrible puns). One of my favorite and long-lasting chai traditions was the evening cuppa at home back in Mumbai. This would usually be around 6:30 or 7pm when the sky starts turning that deep shade of purple, our bai has come in for her evening round and is cheerily chatting with Ma while the brew is bubbling on the stove. There's typically Friends or Seinfeld playing on TV as I settle on the couch with a bowl of home-made "jhaal-mudi" (look it up) and a nice hot cup of tea. Had one of these sessions recently, here in Houston, and it simply brought a smile to my face.

Back in undergrad, home away from home was college - bless those days at D.J. Sanghvi! And a large portion of our free time there was spent ordering chai (with the inevitable samosa pav in tow) at the canteen or "chai shots" from ZB outside. Later on, we discovered the small chai shop run by the "Bengali babe" just opposite the college entrance and soon that became a favorite....boiling hot tea served up in stacked glasses (since the actual glass was too hot for anyone but Yogesh to hold). I also believe it was one of the few establishments that met Yogesh's standard for what he defined as "hot" tea (serve him tepid tea and the look of scathing disappointment is only matched by Master Shifu when he finds that Po has been chosen as the Dragon Warrior in Kung Fu Panda).

You dare serve me tepid tea!

Perhaps one of many enduring memories is the chai break we would snatch between our HOD's lecture and the Distributed Computing lecture by Prof. Duttagupta. What started out as a necessary break soon grew into more of a cult following. And chai has served us well many other times, whether it was for sustenance while we waited those long hopeless hours for our recommendation letters outside the HOD's cabin, or as a prop replacing Jack's weak alcohol in our adaptation of Lost's iconic scene, moments before the plane crash. Then there were those fervent discussions on how coffee shops were monopolizing the casual beverage market and how we'd open up our own chai shops (mine would be in Gangtok) and revolutionize the industry. And any idea would be discussed with great passion - even the hilariously insane but awesomely alliterative "tupperware tea tapri tapori" plan - an ambitious scheme similar to Mumbai's tiffin system but geared towards tea (with taporis as collection agents, in case you were wondering).

Another connection with tea is Fakhruddin. His house was basically a second home - and the one constant there was the super-strong tea that would be served come hail or snow. We both share a common passion for tea (and also pigeon-hating) and it was great how there was always a steaming cuppa while we profoundly discussed inanities. Now I've had tea at a lot of friends' places but I felt this deserved special mention simply because a) Aforementioned second home b) Tea so strong, they make Ambuja cement out of it c) He made it himself, most of the time.

In search of tea, as dawn breaks in Manali

Continuing with undergrad memories - 2 trips come to mind: Manali and Amboli. Let's start with Manali. This was the final "Industrial Visit" (supposedly educational) for our entire batch before we were thrown out into the big bad real world. In the biting cold of a north Indian winter we reached our small hotel on the banks of a babbling river,snuggled cozily amongst soaring snow-clad mountains.

The misty road to the tea stall

Early the next morning we woke up half-frozen, jogging in place just to stay warm. Padded up in several layers, we ventured out just as the town was rubbing its eyes and the sun was lazily trying to peek out from behind the mountains. As mists hung dreamily above the river and with our own breath misting in the crisp morning air, we made our way to a ramshackle stall that had just opened its shutters. Almost everyone in our group was asleep and the 4 or 5 of us watched the sun rise gloriously and bathe the streets in light as we stood next to a crackling flame - its green, orange and red flames licking a scarred aluminium kettle; and then sipping amazing hot chai, the fiery liquid warming our very insides.
On the same trip, I remember we had gone river-rafting. We were the last group to enter the icy-cold waters of the river and after being thoroughly sprayed and splashed, by the time we reached the riverbank at the end of our run, the sun was dipping,

Our saviors!

as was our core body temperature. Of course, one can always bank on the Indian entrepreneurial spirit - and so, there it was -  the dependable tea stall, situated exactly where the rafts came ashore. Half-shivering, we had two rounds of chai, served by the sweetest Himachali couple. They even taught us a bit of the local language, and I cannot imagine a more perfect way to end a day.

The second honorable mention in the "Chai while on a trip" category goes to Amboli. A bunch of us would regularly go trekking in the Western Ghats that rise up along Maharashtra's western coast. This was our last trip - engineering done and each one of us parting ways soon. In all our treks, we had always been unfortunate in that we had never had a monsoon trek. Even when we went to Bhandardara in late-June (the monsoon usually hits Maharashtra in the first week of June), we were received by parched and dusty hills. This time, we were making our way to Amboli - one of the wettest places on earth, and we were determined to get the full blast of the monsoon. To cut a long story short - the rain gods were initially reluctant, but then when we least expected it - the heavens ripped apart and as we walked through sleepy villages the rains came down in Biblical proportions. Soaked to the bone, we stopped at a roadside dhaba (a few chairs protected by the signature blue tarpaulin) and ordered up some steaming tea and pakodas. Heaven in a nutshell!

The BBQ area where many a cup was enjoyed

In August, 2010 I arrived at Austin to start my Masters at the University of Texas. As luck would have it, my roommate Nikhil and the girls in 221 - Shalini and Shilpi were big fans of tea too! Now if you've ever been a grad student - you know those long dreary assignments, the countless hours spent racking your brains over a single problem, afternoons melting into evenings and evenings into night as you try and implement the latest challenge your professor has thrown at you....well, you get the picture. I do not think I could have survived those 2 years without our chai breaks. Typical scenario: It's 4am and Nikhil and I are both busy and tired to the bone. Suddenly Nikhil looks up and says, "Chai?". A phone call to 221 later, we all crowd around the small kitchen - dicing ginger, crushing cardamom, keeping an eye on the pot which was notorious for boiling over the second you looked away....it was all good! Tea was definitely a thread that bound us all together in grad school...as corny as that may sound. We spent many warm lazy evenings at the barbecue area, chatting, laughing and sipping our cares away.

Well, that's about as far down memory lane as I'll go since this post is dangerously starting to resemble something more like a rambling. There's tons of other memories - Munnar, Darjeeling, Matheran...the list could go on. There have been a lot of great memories associated with this beverage, and I can only hope there will be even more to come!

Stay amazed...

As Yoda would say, "Short post, this shall be"

It had been a long day at the University - classes, discussion sessions and office hours. The sun had set many hours ago and I was walking down the quiet road back home. The path took me across one of the big frat houses that lie on the periphery of the campus. It looked deserted - the lights were off and the gates seemed to be locked. There was a sudden rattling, and I noticed an old lady calling out frantically from behind the gates. My first thought was that she had somehow got herself locked inside - but as I approached her, I noticed she was pointing at something.

"Look! Look! Isn't that marvelous!", she cried. I turned to see where she was pointing, and in the deep blue of the late evening sky, the crescent moon glowed next to two dazzling stars (well, planets technically - learn more). It really was very beautiful. I turned back and nodded and then awkwardly walked ahead. Just like that, the day became a little bit brighter.