breakfast with the FT

Breakfast with the FT: John Wood
By Shawn Donnan
Published: February 23 2007 15:16 Last updated: February 23 2007 15:16
The concerned volunteer handling John Wood's Hong Kong public relations says that my suggestion of breakfast at the newly refurbished Mandarin Oriental might seem distasteful to the head of a charity.
So on a Saturday morning – at an hour too early to be called brunch – I walk into the cloud of stale beer and cigarette fug that is the main bar of the Foreign Correspondents' Club in central Hong Kong. A few nights earlier, a proud member described this place as a club for "drunks, cheapskates and losers". Is this a more appropriate venue to meet a man who likes to think of himself as the Andrew Carnegie of the developing world?
I settle on a banquette in the glass-enclosed "no smoking" bunker and order a coffee. When a smiling Wood strolls in, he looks unperturbed by our surroundings.
Wood, a former Microsoft executive turned social entrepreneur, has plenty of reasons to be cheerful. This is a good time for a global tour in support of a book called Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. New hedge-fund fortunes are being made; Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are deploying billions to address the world's ills; and celebrities - from Brad and Angelina and Bono downwards – are working away at good causes. Philanthropy is hot.
Wood's work has acquired an earnest fashionability of late, but it wasn't always that way. He left his Beijing-based Microsoft job in 1998 to found a charity called Room to Read, conceived as a way to get used books to the developing world.
The move prompted raised eyebrows among his colleagues, while his luxury-hotel-loving girlfriend soon became his ex-girlfriend. "I can still remember the days when I would check my e-mail and hit the refresh button four times and be like 'Damn it! My mail's not working. No one's e-mailing me.' There was just nothing going on," he says.
\nWood now gets 300 e-mails a day from strangers eager to get involved in Room to Read. The charity has expanded and builds schools and libraries, gives scholarships for girls' education, and publishes local-language children's books in countries such as Cambodia, India and Nepal. Not satisfied with styling himself as the Carnegie of the developing world, Wood says he also wants to be its Dr Seuss.\n\nHe works longer hours and travels more than he did when he was at Microsoft. He also applies plenty of what he refers to in his book as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's "get shit done" ethos to a charity world "immune from market pressures".\n\n"I think the charity world has been kind of given a free pass - 'Oh, they're trying hard' [or] 'oh they mean well.' But they're not well-run," he says. "In business there is always a market mechanism. If you [the FT] lose readers you guys go out of business. If Microsoft annoys people they are going to switch to Apple. And in the charity world that doesn't really necessarily happen."\n\nOver breakfast of scrambled eggs and pancakes, the word emerging most frequently from Wood's mouth seems to be "scaleable". There is plenty of talk of "metrics" and "return on investment", of branding and "market gaps". He wants Room to Read to be "the single trusted global brand for education in the developing world". And he plans to do that by creating an organisation melding "the compassion of Mother Teresa" with "the focus and tenacity of a blue-chip company like a GE or a Cisco".\n\nWood is obsessed with putting to work the business practices he learnt at Microsoft. He requires all Room to Read staff to include the latest quarterly measures of progress in their e-mail signature files, largely because "at Microsoft, Ballmer used to always say 'what gets measured gets done'".\n\nHe has an entrepreneur's obsession with costs, and relies on the kindness of powerful donors and old-fashioned penny-pinching to keep expenditure down. He travels around the world on frequent-flier miles amassed by "a senior figure at Goldman Sachs". To arrange fundraising events he draws on volunteer chapters in San Francisco (where the charity is based), and other cities such as London, New York and Hong Kong. As a policy, he refuses to recruit expensive expatriates to run local field offices.\n",1]
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Wood now gets 300 e-mails a day from strangers eager to get involved in Room to Read. The charity has expanded and builds schools and libraries, gives scholarships for girls' education, and publishes local-language children's books in countries such as Cambodia, India and Nepal. Not satisfied with styling himself as the Carnegie of the developing world, Wood says he also wants to be its Dr Seuss.
He works longer hours and travels more than he did when he was at Microsoft. He also applies plenty of what he refers to in his book as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's "get shit done" ethos to a charity world "immune from market pressures".
"I think the charity world has been kind of given a free pass - 'Oh, they're trying hard' [or] 'oh they mean well.' But they're not well-run," he says. "In business there is always a market mechanism. If you [the FT] lose readers you guys go out of business. If Microsoft annoys people they are going to switch to Apple. And in the charity world that doesn't really necessarily happen."
Over breakfast of scrambled eggs and pancakes, the word emerging most frequently from Wood's mouth seems to be "scaleable". There is plenty of talk of "metrics" and "return on investment", of branding and "market gaps". He wants Room to Read to be "the single trusted global brand for education in the developing world". And he plans to do that by creating an organisation melding "the compassion of Mother Teresa" with "the focus and tenacity of a blue-chip company like a GE or a Cisco".
Wood is obsessed with putting to work the business practices he learnt at Microsoft. He requires all Room to Read staff to include the latest quarterly measures of progress in their e-mail signature files, largely because "at Microsoft, Ballmer used to always say 'what gets measured gets done'".
He has an entrepreneur's obsession with costs, and relies on the kindness of powerful donors and old-fashioned penny-pinching to keep expenditure down. He travels around the world on frequent-flier miles amassed by "a senior figure at Goldman Sachs". To arrange fundraising events he draws on volunteer chapters in San Francisco (where the charity is based), and other cities such as London, New York and Hong Kong. As a policy, he refuses to recruit expensive expatriates to run local field offices.
\nWood has a marketer's knack for laying out his achievements in a way that appeals to the global-oriented business class he and Room to Read target in their fundraising. The charity's pace of growth, Wood boasts, is faster than Starbucks'. In the sixth year after its initial public offering of shares, Wood says, Starbucks opened 500 new outlets, while Room to Read in its sixth year opened more than 1,000 school libraries.\n\n"I don't meant to be flippant about the Carnegie analogy," he adds later, "but we've now done more libraries in the developing world than Carnegie did in the US."\nAndrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born magnate turned philanthropist, built 2,500 libraries around the US. By the end of 2006, Room to Read had opened 3,300 libraries, and expects to have 5,000 by the end of this year. That number is expected to grow by a further 40 per cent, to 7,000 by the end of 2008. In coming years Room to Read expects to open an average of "30 libraries a week across the developing world".\n\nWood turned to philanthropy after a 1998 trekking holiday in Nepal. He visited a remote school with just a few books and, without much forethought, promised to return with reading materials for the children. An e-mail he sent to friends yielded hundreds of used books and when, months later, he returned to the school with his father and a donkey train loaded with books he was so moved by the reaction that he decided to change careers. This has since grown into his ambition to "democratise philanthropy".\n\n"What do you mean by that?" I ask, between bites of undercooked pancake.\n"I mean basically saying to the world [that] you don't have to be Gates or Buffett, [and] you don't have to be as good-looking as Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt to go help Africa. What we are trying to say is, it does not cost much to go make this change. It's $250 to underwrite a girl's scholarship. It's $2,000 in total to do a library. It's somewhere in the $10,000-15,000 range to endow a school. And I think if we really want to reach our long-term goal - which is to reach at least 10 million kids [by 2020] - we can't really necessarily depend on the fact that someone rich, someone really super-rich or really super-famous will do it for us."\n",1]
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Wood has a marketer's knack for laying out his achievements in a way that appeals to the global-oriented business class he and Room to Read target in their fundraising. The charity's pace of growth, Wood boasts, is faster than Starbucks'. In the sixth year after its initial public offering of shares, Wood says, Starbucks opened 500 new outlets, while Room to Read in its sixth year opened more than 1,000 school libraries.
"I don't meant to be flippant about the Carnegie analogy," he adds later, "but we've now done more libraries in the developing world than Carnegie did in the US."
Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born magnate turned philanthropist, built 2,500 libraries around the US. By the end of 2006, Room to Read had opened 3,300 libraries, and expects to have 5,000 by the end of this year. That number is expected to grow by a further 40 per cent, to 7,000 by the end of 2008. In coming years Room to Read expects to open an average of "30 libraries a week across the developing world".
Wood turned to philanthropy after a 1998 trekking holiday in Nepal. He visited a remote school with just a few books and, without much forethought, promised to return with reading materials for the children. An e-mail he sent to friends yielded hundreds of used books and when, months later, he returned to the school with his father and a donkey train loaded with books he was so moved by the reaction that he decided to change careers. This has since grown into his ambition to "democratise philanthropy".
"What do you mean by that?" I ask, between bites of undercooked pancake.
"I mean basically saying to the world [that] you don't have to be Gates or Buffett, [and] you don't have to be as good-looking as Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt to go help Africa. What we are trying to say is, it does not cost much to go make this change. It's $250 to underwrite a girl's scholarship. It's $2,000 in total to do a library. It's somewhere in the $10,000-15,000 range to endow a school. And I think if we really want to reach our long-term goal - which is to reach at least 10 million kids [by 2020] - we can't really necessarily depend on the fact that someone rich, someone really super-rich or really super-famous will do it for us."
\nA flaky charity world isn't the only target for Wood's criticism. He is unimpressed, too, by some corporate social-responsibility programmes. He has had "very deep, very thoughtful" conversations with some companies, but is scathing of others that use CSR as little more than an addendum to their marketing budget. "I've definitely seen the companies that take out half-page ads in the FT, The Economist or Time, bragging about what good corporate citizens they are. And I'm like, 'Huh, that's interesting, I've never actually seen anything that you've done in the developing world and I've filled five passports with travel.'"\n\nWood argues that, by under-investing in the developing world, many first-world companies are guilty of short-sightedness. Greater corporate investment in education in impoverished countries would not be an entirely selfless act, he says. Better education would yield more affluent societies and, eventually, faster global economic growth and bigger corporate profits.\n\nHe also argues that, as the Bush administration's actions in Iraq and elsewhere are making the US progressively more unpopular in the world, businesses and charities like his are being forced into "freelance diplomacy" or "freelance foreign relations".\n\nBut his biggest concern is over what he calls the "Gates conundrum". With their moves into philanthropy, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have set a new standard for the world's super-rich, and Wood predicts that billions more will be thrown at non-governmental organisations in the coming decades.\n\nYet the charity world, he says, has a poor record of being able to absorb donations and grow quickly. "If you look across Africa there's just such a dearth of scaleable models for social change. I think in the next couple of decades that's one of the main challenges for the philanthropic world - can you teach these NGOs to build capacity and to scale?" Many groups erect one or two orphanages at a time, but in Africa "the HIV/Aids problem is such that you basically need a scaleable model for orphanages. You literally need someone to be the Starbucks of orphanages."\n",1]
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A flaky charity world isn't the only target for Wood's criticism. He is unimpressed, too, by some corporate social-responsibility programmes. He has had "very deep, very thoughtful" conversations with some companies, but is scathing of others that use CSR as little more than an addendum to their marketing budget. "I've definitely seen the companies that take out half-page ads in the FT, The Economist or Time, bragging about what good corporate citizens they are. And I'm like, 'Huh, that's interesting, I've never actually seen anything that you've done in the developing world and I've filled five passports with travel.'"
Wood argues that, by under-investing in the developing world, many first-world companies are guilty of short-sightedness. Greater corporate investment in education in impoverished countries would not be an entirely selfless act, he says. Better education would yield more affluent societies and, eventually, faster global economic growth and bigger corporate profits.
He also argues that, as the Bush administration's actions in Iraq and elsewhere are making the US progressively more unpopular in the world, businesses and charities like his are being forced into "freelance diplomacy" or "freelance foreign relations".
But his biggest concern is over what he calls the "Gates conundrum". With their moves into philanthropy, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have set a new standard for the world's super-rich, and Wood predicts that billions more will be thrown at non-governmental organisations in the coming decades.
Yet the charity world, he says, has a poor record of being able to absorb donations and grow quickly. "If you look across Africa there's just such a dearth of scaleable models for social change. I think in the next couple of decades that's one of the main challenges for the philanthropic world - can you teach these NGOs to build capacity and to scale?" Many groups erect one or two orphanages at a time, but in Africa "the HIV/Aids problem is such that you basically need a scaleable model for orphanages. You literally need someone to be the Starbucks of orphanages."
\nIf the current giants of the philanthropic world succeed in preventing vast numbers of infant deaths in the developing world, they will also create a potentially overwhelming long-term challenge for already struggling governments and NGOs. "If those kids get to be the age of five, let's say, then how are they going to thrive?" Wood asks. "To thrive they need access to clean water and they need access to education... We've got five years to get ahead of Gates and Buffett on this issue and to me the clock is ticking."\n\nAs our allotted time is also about to run out, the conversation turns to lighter things, meandering around Wood's lack of executive stock options (he says he now gets "karmic options"); his Microsoft shares ("still my single largest holding") and the philanthropic habits of the new hedge-fund titans ("right now they are still in the wealth-creation mode [but] at some point, hopefully they will get to the wealth-deployment mode").\n\nAnd then Wood is off, heading back to his hotel - I decide not to ask if it is the Mandarin - for a work-out before a book signing. A few days later he is off to Cambodia and then on to London for the UK launch of his book. I, meanwhile, wander back out into the bar to secure a receipt I will eventually lose, leaving me unable to claim our breakfast on FT expenses - a little bit of unintentional philanthropy.\n\nShawn Donnan is the FT's Asia companies editor.\n............................................................................\nThe Foreign Correspondents' Club, Hong Kong\n\n1 x filter coffee\n\n1 x latte\n\n1 x double espresso\n\n2 x San Pellegrino\n\n1 x scrambled eggs with bacon\n\n1 x hotcakes with strawberries\n\nTotal: HK$160\n\n",1]
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If the current giants of the philanthropic world succeed in preventing vast numbers of infant deaths in the developing world, they will also create a potentially overwhelming long-term challenge for already struggling governments and NGOs. "If those kids get to be the age of five, let's say, then how are they going to thrive?" Wood asks. "To thrive they need access to clean water and they need access to education... We've got five years to get ahead of Gates and Buffett on this issue and to me the clock is ticking."
As our allotted time is also about to run out, the conversation turns to lighter things, meandering around Wood's lack of executive stock options (he says he now gets "karmic options"); his Microsoft shares ("still my single largest holding") and the philanthropic habits of the new hedge-fund titans ("right now they are still in the wealth-creation mode [but] at some point, hopefully they will get to the wealth-deployment mode").
And then Wood is off, heading back to his hotel - I decide not to ask if it is the Mandarin - for a work-out before a book signing. A few days later he is off to Cambodia and then on to London for the UK launch of his book. I, meanwhile, wander back out into the bar to secure a receipt I will eventually lose, leaving me unable to claim our breakfast on FT expenses - a little bit of unintentional philanthropy.
Shawn Donnan is the FT's Asia companies editor.
............................................................................
The Foreign Correspondents' Club, Hong Kong
1 x filter coffee
1 x latte
1 x double espresso
2 x San Pellegrino
1 x scrambled eggs with bacon
1 x hotcakes with strawberries
Total: HK$160

leadership guff

If I have to go to one more of these leadership sessions I am going to gag and bind myself and throw myself off the waterfront. Yesterday's was particularly excruciating. Full disclosure: whilst many courses like "Leadership on the Line", "Negotiation: Dealing with Emotions", "Moral Leadership" are oversubscribed, I myself have stayed far away as possible from them. Public Group therapy is, simply not my fashion. Yesterday I couldn't avoid a sesh, which was titled The importance of storytelling in leadership. I was made to fly like a bird (more like a turkey) around the room. Then one participant burst into tears while recalling a moment from her childhood in the group session and I had this insane tendency to burst into horrified laughter. She just started sobbing and it wasn't a particularly poignant moment from her childhood (okay maybe I'm just insensitive) and I was just like: Are you kidding me? I always prided myself on being emotionally balanced unlike my parents, but I realized last night that I was nowhere close to these guys. It was very disturbing! Yikes!

cheese!

My sister sent me a pack of gourmet cheeses from Europe apparently, blue cheese, stiltons, goudas, sharp maple-aged cheddar, chevre, manchega and more. We fell upon the package like hungry jackals my room mate and I. the occasion warranted the opening of a good syrah, and together with scavenged almonds, organic honey and sliced ripe pears, we had ourselves a feast and completed our accounting homework with much hand-wringing and discussion of boys (unrelated perhaps to the revenue recognition concept but tangentially related to the matching concept) and got drunk and it was the lovely end to a long weekend spent doing absolutely nothing (except sighing at the situations that transpire), My room mate's nickname for me is buffoon and today I was a rampaging buffoon, which sounds exactly like something my sister would say so we toasted her and merrily ate, drank and lived to tell the tale.

hairdressing

I was in my usual hairdresser's the other day. In between lopping off an unimaginable amount of hair, and slathering all sorts of ointments on it, I also get relationship advice and spiritual advice. One point she mentioned stayed home, and that was this. " All women need to leave the men they found better off than they found him, as a service to the next women". It should apply to men too.

divisadero

May 29 2007: Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje hits bookstores.

London

I'm going to London, I'm going to London, I'm going to London, I AM GOING TO LONDON! Yippeekayeah!!!! Just bought my ticket! I'm going to London for spring break!!!!!!YAYYYYY!!!!!



(I can't believe that I. Am. Going. To. London).

a moment

I wrote some time ago that someone had said that the biggest heroes to me were the unsung aid relief workers, working away from family and home, trying to build bridges, provide aid, be there for community after community. Doctors, logisticians, people who just know that the need is too large, and try to plug the gap any which way they can, without ideology or partisanship. I have the utmost of respect for that. Public service is a calling. Not everybody can sacrifice their own self-interest to do it, but blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall inherit the earth.

people who change people

Just back from New York and it would be too much to say how amazing the whole trip was in every particular details but it was a field trip with the fellows and we saw so many organizations fighting to change the world that it was truly amazing. In quick succession, we met with Acumen Fund which funds start-up capital to entrepreneurs in the developing world, with an emphasis on a double bottom line (i.e. mandating the entrepreneurs to for example pay 10 times the minimum wage to their factory workers), the Nonprofit Finance Fund that acts as an investment bank to nonprofits and has developed unique financial products (e.g. a conversion of a depreciation) product that improves liquidity on the balance sheet, KIPP academy, the highest performing middle school in NY located in the South Bronx, all students of colour, high poverty areas. The school has a unique pedagogical method that is yielding results in test scores and all that. Then the Harlem Children's Zone, headed by a charismatic black leader that has really cleaned up Harlem. Then dinner with documentary film producers that are submitting their pieces for the Academy Awards and changing the world in their own way and with other wonderful people (e.g. this guy from morgan stanley who's created a microfinance fund! morgan stanley! and it's headed up people from Europe that I KNOW!). Then the next day to see WITNESS, a human rights film advocacy group that was headed by Gillian Caldwell who worked undercover to expose Russian sex trafficking groups and now trains local NGOs to film human rights abuse. Then to see Chancellor Joel Klein (Head of the New York Board of Education) who was in the Economist the other day for his controversial education reform package who said that in life, like in politics, "you gotta give a little, take a little and let your poor heart break a little".

apples

Do you know what -10 Celsius feels like? It's when you're perpetually cold, no matter how much you wear. It's when you see frozen vomit on railings and white, still, rivers of ice. It's when the air always has a startling clarity. It's when you slip and slide everywhere because the ground is a sheet of ice. It's when you can't spend more than 10 minutes outside without losing feeling in various parts of your body. It's when even after coming inside, it takes an hour to warm up. But its best to be inside and be warm (unlike London where the plumbing never worked- I've never felt cold indoors here EVER) and drinking apple cider which is my new discovery!

military

oooh had another (completely unaffordable) facial yesterday here which was so-so at best. Then went to the gym and sat in the steam room for a while (and felt so healthy) that I had to compensate by eating a quesadilla and then went for various meetings. This conference is taking over my LIFE! Making progress on the business plans, off to New York tomorrow which should be lurvely if I can survive the four hour bus ride? maybe I can catch up on phone calls and emails then. Have already started skipping classes (especially accounting for which I am deadset against going). Had a conversation with a totally annoying Singaporean student from another program (in a class). We had to come up with policy strategies for a Peruvian privatization of telecommunications and she said that we had to co-opt the military first so that if social unrest was provoked- then the military could keep them in line!!! I WAS LIKE!! HELLO! In most democratic countries, military intervention in social tension situations only ends up provoking the situation and the military is NEVER to be used as an internal peacekeeping force (at the beck and call of any political party in power- it is supposed to be independent of party politics!). JEEZUS. Was so bloody annoyed.

day 1

So today I woke up early despite a hangover from the night before, went to the gym, went grocery shopping, cooked a meal (grilled asparagus spears and broccoli, carrots glazed with dill and mango chicken curry with brown bread and tahini), watched 5 episodes of Grey's Anatomy Season 2, read EVERYTHING for my classes tomorrow (except for one case, only because I don't have it and I would freak myself out if I did everything), cleaned my room, did my laundry (oops just forgot it was in the dryer!), and SWEPT my room, talked to friends from back in London and in Spore, and organized conference (bane of my existence), declined invitation to watch Superbowl with beer and friends, and did my homework and its only 10:30 pm, and now I don't know what to do with myself.

dayz

Gosh. What a week. And its only mid-week and I'm exhausted already. The hits just keep on coming. Its also getting a bit warmer (from - 12 deg Celsius to -2 degrees- you gotta take the wins when you can). We fixed up our living room finally yesterday (living with two boys can dampen the living-squalor-reforming-zeal somewhat) but now we have beautiful bright red slipcovers for our no-doubt feline-disease-ridden sofas and a warm striped red and orange carpet and a television (good heavens). Met with A yesterday and our plan's horizon has been lengthened by a year which has left me with mixed feelings. Still so many people to catch up with. Best line of the day said to A who was trying to get me drunk: "Alcohol is not the answer!". "No, but its a pleasant vacation". Feeling unaccountably sad and can't understand why everyone is exclaiming at my 'glow'. Yet, its also good to be back, to tackle new challenges, to understand the world better, to feel like it is both worth saving and possible to be saved. If only I could keep up the optimism. What's always the strangest thing is that this can go on, while that goes on. But nobody ever said life had to make sense.

news

the big news: Radovan is PREGNANT! (and engaged, although not necessarily in that order)

Only fly Northwest if you absolutely have to, i.e. on pain of death. Especially when you have a 12 hour flight from Tokyo to Detroit with NO personal screen for in-flight entertainment. How about that eh?! Anyway spent most of the time sleeping like a hound dog, with jaw open and no-doubt drool on my left shoulder.

Am reading Identity and Violence by Amartya Sen which so far talks about the plurality of identities that we all possess, but that violence is normally bred on mono-definitions of identity. He quotes Matthew Arnold in “Dover Beach”, saying that

And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Back at school where it seems like the past six weeks were six minutes. Am debating between taking a class on US foreign policy or Development Politics and am already exhausted. Plus I was banned from registration because I still haven't gotten my third and final Hepatitis B immunization. Sigh.

sydney sun

Am in sun-kissed Sydney right now. I bet that if you did a survey of sun rays per cubic foot per year of all OECD countries Sydney would win. (That’s a lifestyle choice ladies and gentlemen). I’m visiting my very professional kick-ass sister who lives in some apartment throwback to 1930s Spain with terracotta tiles, wrought iron and whitewashed walls glistening in the sun, sleeping for 14 hours (I know! But the marathon of papers- I was doing them on the plane, during the 9 hour stopover in Perth at my aunt’s house, then on the plane again, and then in the morning when I arrived at Sydney. In total I wrote 55 pages in like 4.5 days. Jeezus. I am never waiting until the goddamn last moment again. In addition, PEOPLE! YOU LET ME DOWN! I asked if someone could verify my time calculations and they were WRONG! I had to hand in a paper on midnight on jan 15, except I thought it was Jan 16 and then when I handed it in on Jan 16, I realized my mistake and howled and groveled at my teacher’s feet and was generally prostrate because I cannot afford to be penalized but then he emailed me back today and said it was okay and not a problem and so the sun shone again) eating holiday-amounts, bought Shalimar the Clown from Mr. Martin Smith’s Bookstore in Bondi which had quite an excellent collection unexpectedly, and am about to read it, working on a business plan for the Fletcher competition due on the 22nd and so was conference-calling this morning with A and N and then just generally feeling rather shattered and excited at the same time). I’ve realized I can’t be on holiday without doing something. I always get impatient. ANYWAY. Oooh the holiday is going to end in 9 days and it can’t, it really can’t because when I get back I’m going to have loads of work to do and I just can’t. I really can’t. Everybody better clear their schedules when I get back to Singapore coz you won’t be seeing me for some time peeps.
Also, did you know that this is my second visit to the country of my nationality in 14 years? Something’s gotta give. I am seriously thinking about taking up Sri Lankan citizenship people, if I can get over the ideological objections. I was born Sri Lankan, and very likely, I’ll die Sri Lankan too.

research

Google Scholar is a shockingly useful research tool and throws up all manner of tangential, obscure interesting issues and I spend half my time following these links, in the true manner of a researcher, a Victorian explorer whose journey is the destination, who emerges out of the brush quite incidentally with skulls and totem poles and complete amnesia about his final (research) destination), and while quite fascinating, I feel then somehow compelled to include it in my paper, strange surmisings about old villages, even though it has little to no relevance to my actual paper. cf. this: written in 1908 about Sri Lanka.

As on the summit of Adam’s Peak, where all religions meet without rancour, so at Madhu in the Wanni do men and women of many creeds find some common denominator which reduces their divergent faiths to hopes possessed by all: and in the wilderness of this old border land of many wars, they find a place of truce

intro.

Imagining a just peace in Sri Lanka requires one to think outside of traditional approaches that remain in their silos e.g. those of health, education, advocacy, military, and peace activism. I argue that for too long we have relied on the dominant political actors, the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) and the Government of Sri Lanka (GosL) to determine the future of the island. While their participation is necessary in any outcome, I argue that a new vision must look at ways of mobilizing other stakeholders and promoting grassroots led change that will pressure these actors to act in the best interests of their people. But increasing population activism appropriately (without a descent into further demagoguery and populism) requires meaningful changes in their structural conditions as well as the articulation of a clear vision of a shared future. No one can escape the importance of income, health and wealth and the positive moral consequences of economic growth. Combining such a targeted, bipartisan economic program with conflict transformation initiatives and the beginnings of a truth and reconciliation process, with or without war on the ground, is the most realistic way forward

the last minute.

I. Will. Never. Wait. Until. The. Last. Moment. Again.

Ever.

Am twitching at the computer like a corpse, typing out 20 pages of drivel on a paper that is due tomorrow, but I am flying tomorrow you see, and besides, I have ANOTHER paper due tomorrow as well, and oh, none of it is looking very well. Sigh.

time diffs

The World Time Clock has been quite useful in discovering the difference between time zones. Paper 1 is due at 3pm Boston time on the 16 Jan. This means it is due at 7am on 17th Jan (Sydney time) or 4am 17th Jan (Singapore time). At both these times I will be in the air. Paper 2 is due at 23:59 on Tuesday 16th Jan/Wed 17th Jan and that means it is due at 12:59pm 17th Jan in Singapore and 3:59pm Jan 17th in Sydney.

Can someone please tell me if I screwed that up? Every last minute counts. Its so boring to have papers due while being on holiday

a christmas letter

"Dear friends. We are getting older but are in fairly good shape and moving forward insofar as we can tell. We still drink strong coffee and read the paper and drive the same old cars. We plan to go to Norway next summer. We think that this war is an unmitigated disaster that will wind up costing a trillion dollars and we worry for our country. Our child enjoys her new school and is making friends. She was a horsie in the church Christmas pageant and hunkered down beside the manger and seemed to be singing when she was supposed to. We go on working and hope to be adequate to the challenges of the coming year but are by no means confident. It's winter. God is around here somewhere but does not appear to be guiding our government at the moment. Nonetheless we persist. We see kindness all around us and bravery and we are cheered by the good humor of young people. The crabapple tree over the driveway is bare, but we have a memory of pink blossoms and expect them to return. God bless you all."
Garrison Keillor- A Prairie Home Companion

Journalistic Independence

How important is it? Should the journalist record the facts (even while acknowledging that merely choosing which facts to report involves editorial discretion and therefore introduces some sort of bias) or should the journalist report in a bent in accordance with her paper's owners (as the editor will typically slash a journalist's piece in such a fashion if he too follows such a code). Or should she follow her own sets of morals and outrage and implant her lens on a story told to millions, shaping millions' point of view? The risks of that are of course high. Like Robert Fisk, who said that "It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.” and that "Tanks come in two forms: the dangerous, deadly kind and the "liberating" kind"; one faces discrimination by readers and by other members of the Establishment. For example Dumeetha Luthra of the BBC who reports in Sri Lanka about Sri Lanka (and who is Indian and not Sri Lankan) has been accused of reporting bias in favour of the Tamils and now rumours abound that the young lady is seeing someone Tamil in Colombo. She has received so much flak from the country that the BBC has posted her elsewhere. Truth?
"There is no such thing as truth here, there are only opinions", Anil's Ghost

pain!

Wah. My face still ting-ling one ok! Wa leow! Went for facial today: the woman dig dig, I pain, crying somemore. Cannot tahan! Next time, going to one with no extraction hor. Wah! Die Already!

another's but our's

charcoal musings II

As I look out of the window, the Lady of Lourdes (requirement for a saint- something magical must be done to be canonized. O Catholic Shenanigans) disappears to be replaced by something else, a muggy haze cut through by brilliant burning sun-rays, steam rising from badly-potholed asphalt melting in the heat, autorickshaws swerving heroically in the face of honking lorry drivers, ubiquitous white vans (synonymous with dread), ancient Ambassadors with windows permanently stuck down and civil servants stuck inside wilting valiantly in the gridlocked heat anxious to punch in their time cards, Galle Road merchants parked on stools observing, chador-ed Muslim women moving in packs giggling and laughing gutturally, schoolgirls clad in white, plaits swinging with unconsciously sensual walks, (a pack of boys not far behind self-conscious), Colombo women clad in suits and short skirts with incongrous Japanese hair as is the fashion now, beleaguered traffic policemen waiting to go off on lunch breaks, fruit and fish stalls spilling out onto the main Galle thoroughfare, cows meandering chewing at garbage, wheelbarrows piled high with glistening rambutan and mangosteen, 5 rupees each, billboards of Rajapakse (President) and Muralitharan (cricketing star) threatening to crumble down from cheap scaffolding and always the scent of the Pacific wafting over Colombo, doing strange things to its insides, rotting old houses from damp, turning all the rules upside down.

I remember too, driving along the same road the day after Rajapakse won the election. Every store was shuttered down and the streets were empty and an ill wind blew. There could not have been more than 3 cars on the main road. Checkpoints abounded, manned by grim-faced soldiers, boys of not more than 19 or 20 who used to flirt with us but now noted impassively the birthplace on my passport. Jaffna, Sri Lanka. The road deserted, the schools shut down in fear of communal riots predicted to descend in the aftermath of the election of a hardline son of the south. The eerie silence was punctuated by a car backfiring and we paused, silently, heart beating violently, for was this the start of the bombings?

"You and then the Americans converted us. With your missionary rules. And Indian soldiers wasted their lives as heroes so that they could be pukkah. You had wars like cricket. How did you fool us into this?" Kip, in the English Patient.

charcoal musings

Is it rather fatuous to write on the importance of com(passion)? in my time here both amongst friends and strangers, I have witnessed now so many instances of intolerance and irritation, an unconscious sense of class-based arrogance towards others, that it is disturbing to realize that perhaps as we age, and revert towards a conservative isolationist stance as we were no doubt taught to by the generation above us, that we perpetuate the same structures that we once wanted to demolish. Everyone lives in boxes here but it's sad to see the lack of politeness, manners or just plain nice-ness that I thought people once had. Maybe it's frustration at their own lives or perhaps not, but still.

Onto happier things. What would Manmohan Singh do? Those of you who understand the growth diagnostics of that vast sprawling planet called Amazing India, please email for my paper is due in two days.

The Aristotelian 'golden mean' values moderation essentially versus either extremes. Clearly moderation and I must become better acquainted especially in this new year, for at either end lies only eventual despair.

A Random News Day

The news seems to have thrown up some interesting facts today and I thought I might share it all with you, in my never-ceasing (surely better than neverending- can we put that in a poem somewhere?) procrastination on two papers regarding Indian economic strategy for the next five years and conflict in Sri Lanka.

a) Zubin Mehta a Bombay born conductor became a conductor in Vienna at the age of 22. He is married to a B list movie actress by the name of Nancy Kovack.

b) Prospect magazine is a London-based 'salon' magazine mainly written by centre left writers and pundits. I have a friend who writes for it, but so does Pico Iyer and I have come to the conclusion that any magazine that allows Pico Iyer to write for it, must remain the bastion of a mediocrity. I loathe Pico Iyer.

c) I want to see Shortbus. But I don't think I can, quite.

d) The jury is still out on Nancy Pelosi.

ref

Am in the Lee Kong Chian reference library looking out at Our Lady of Lourdes church, a lovely old, biliously repainted Catholic Church. I am here because I am trying to write business school essays. Why I don't specifically know as yet. One of the essays is totally paralysing. I've already spent two hours staring at the question which revolves around what are the ethical challenges you see in your life ahead. The crappy thing about a new year is that it always involves reflections on the year past and not all of them are pleasant. Anyhoo.

step

Step

The ceremonial funeral structure for a monk
made up of thambali palms, white cloth
is only a vessel, disintegrates

completely as his life.

The ending disappears,replacing itself
with something abstract
as air, a view.

All we'll remember in the last hours
is an afternoon – a lazy lunch
then sleeping together.

Then the disarray of grief.

On the morning of a full moon
in a forest monastery
thirty women in white
meditate on the precepts of the day
until darkness.

They walk those abstract paths
their complete heart
their burning thought focused
on this step, then this step.

In the red brick dusk
of the Sacred Quadrangle,
among holy seven-storey ambitions
where the four Buddhas
of Polonnaruwa
face out to each horizon,
is a lotus pavilion.

Taller than a man
nine lotus stalks of stone
stand solitary in the grass,
pillars that once supported
the floor of another level.

(The sensuous stalk
the sacred flower)

How physical yearning
became permanent.
How desire became devotional
so it held up your house,
your lover's house, the house of your god.

And though it is no longer there,
the pillars once let you step
to a higher room
where there was worship, lighter air.

Michael Ondaatje in Handwriting

sandboarding

If enough of us dream, if a bare thousand of us dream, we can change the world. We can dream it anew! A world in which no cat suffers from the malice of humans. In which no cats are killed by human caprice. A world that we rule.
The visionary cat, in SANDMAN #18: "A Dream of a Thousand Cats"

There is another version of the tale. That is the tale the women tell each other, in their private language that the men-children are not taught, and that the old men are too wise to learn. And in that version of the tale perhaps things happened differently. But then, that is a women's tale, and it is never told to men.
From SANDMAN #9: "Tales in the Sand"

The paths fork and divide. With each step you take through Destiny's garden, you make a choice; and every choice determines future paths. However, at the end of a lifetime of walking you might look back, and see only one path stretching out behind you; or look ahead, and see only darkness.
SANDMAN #21: "Season of Mists", episode 0

We were never lovers, and we never will be, now. I do not regret that, however. I regret the conversations we never had, the time we did not spend together. I regret that I never told him that he made me happy, when I was in his company. The world was the better for his being in it. These things alone do I now regret: things left unsaid. And he is gone, and I am old.
Lady Bast, in SANDMAN #72, part three of "The Wake"

Holiday of the Melon

What a week politically! First the death of Anton Balasingham, which will have far-reaching changes in the political leadership and strategy of the LTTE and now Niyazov, the head of state of Turkmenistan, a brutal dictator by all accounts but a most unexpected death and a very uncertain future ahead for that country

in?

Crossing various seas soon, the atlantic in a few hours and then the pacific. In today's world, if we are to be explorers, we must traverse the frontiers of thought geography, those boundaries where convention stands on one side, and the unproved on the other. And in crossing those frontiers, we become necessarily changed. I know all this and I can't help but go forward, trusting. Are you in or not?

exams

12 more hours exactly until my last exam and straight to the bar thence. Begone ye ghosts! I was in the library for 12 hours today. It's been 4 and a half years since an event like that has happened. Like Haley's comet, it'll probably be as long until next!

barack

Did you know that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein? Jesus Christ. I wonder why we haven't heard that wonderful morsel of news in the mainstream liberal media (god love 'em) yet? You gotta laud the guy just for making it through politics and thinking of running, with a name like that.

Talking to a law professor, whose student Obama was and who genuinely thinks that he's brilliant off-the-charts. There's a lot of desire in the Harvard establishment to see a mixed-race kid from the wrong side of the tracks, with an A-rab middle name, anointed.

Live life as an epic adventure

The last lesson of a Professor whom I have adored and for good reason too. I can’t explain all the emotions that arose, but he delivered a stunning lecture today and was rewarded with a standing ovation at the end of it. The class is a development economics class, but it ended with the best leadership class I have ever been in all semester- he said cut the crap about what you think you want to do. If you’re white and want to work in a developing country, don’t look at them as locals and you as American, don’t act out of guilt in having had a good life and wanting to give something back. If you're local, they're going to look at you different, 'cause you speak English and are foreign and wealthy and they think you want a job in the World Bank or Wall Street after that. Forget it. Cut that crap. Do what you have to do well. Be a Hero, Not a Victim. Experience is what you do with what happens to you, not what happens to you. Don't say you couldn't pass that policy because of x, y, z. Make a mark. Leave a Legacy and Live life as an epic adventure. And take yourself seriously because no one else is going to if you don’t. And even if you fail, at least you’ll have had fun. Coming at the moment it did, as I had been reevaluating what to do going forward regarding a certain project in Sri Lanka, it was a call to arms and many responded as such. Dammit, I hate to say it, but I think I’m starting to fall in love with this place.

Go Big or Go Home

Years later, when I have finally become all that I want to be, and a successful film maker and author, I will look back and give interviews. Here are some choice quotes and things that I plan to let the world know about my life:

Dedication upon accepting the Nobel Prize for literature : As George Orwell said "The aim of great art is to be imaginative in its craftsmanship and politically committed at its heart". I dedicate this prize to the thousands of aid workers, toiling away in remote lands, away from those that are dear to them, materially unrewarded, at risk of life and limb, in the service of humanity. To you, to the lamplighters of Florence Nightingale, I am humbled and proud.

"I chose to start expressing with film, because I didn't have the discipline to start with writing. Writing is far more unforgiving of mistakes and unsuccessful experimentation, perhaps because of the long tradition behind it, and because all you have is a series of words. One more, or one less, and the whole thing falls apart. Film on the other hand, there are so many rescue mechanisms within it (sound, lighting, characterization, acting, tone), that its easy to start with because hardly anyone ever gets it all right. Writing on the other hand, is the higher art, and having been somewhat trained in the tradition of literature, as Byatt says, I approach the task of entering the canon with far more fear. "


(I say: GO BIG OR GO HOME)

whimper

This week is the last week of classes. To two particularly brilliant, engaged, charismatic professors, I salute you. And now, the ramp up for finals and then a flight out of these frozen climes to the tropics almost immediately afterwards. More discussion involving the limits of violence as well as the growth constraint facing China ("The answer is" the urban-rural gap). Two more massive papers to write through the break, applications, and a large project that will probably take over my life should I think about it. But until then a quote from T.S. Eliot will suffice :"This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper".

Another interesting fact I learned today: that it was the First Council of Nicaea, convened by Constantinople in AD 325 that led to the formation of a universal standard Christian doctrine.

dinner out

Talking about civil disobedience was quite emotional. Was the first time in weeks that I had done any reading for Ethics and only because it was Martin Luther King assigned. He said that we must confront the community, and if it does not want to negotiate then we must take to a program of direct action, by which he meant a nonviolent protest of civil disobedience (of breaking the law) and yet subsequently submitting to the law willingly and its penalties. And that that in reality would be expressing the highest respect for the law. But what does a group do if the community that it wants to confront simply does not want to negotiate and if a nonviolent Gandhian movement does not succeed? I want to believe what Gandhi said, which I do believe sometimes, that in the end, the way of love and truth will triumph every disaster but what if I , or others can't wait that long? And a state has violence, a monopoly on violence which it can legitimately (in the sense, electorally justified) use, and what of groups that do not? and what of those that say that war is an extension of politics by other means as Bismarck did? and yet I would not want to go so far as saying violence should be used by those who cannot achieve their ends by other means.

also had dinner yesterday with an ancient civil rights professor of law who's taking a lot of heat in the national press for his support of the use of torture in qualified situations and who really loved the sound of his own voice as well as dinner with Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha who sadly had nothing interesting to say.

reconciliation

I had a class yesterday on the justification and limits of civil disobedience and after that I was talking to someone last night about truth and reconciliation and it made me pause and reflect about the nature of conflict. X said that in south africa for example, he had lived through apartheid and seen the violence and abuse perpetrated by a system against its own people. If you had asked him 12 or 15 years ago whether he was proud to be a South African, he would have said no, but today he is. Yet, he won't sing the whole anthem (which has three different verses from Afrikaans, Xhosa and another dialect I believe) and believes that the truth and reconciliation commission has a lot to answer for, for it let a lot of white perpetrators off with amnesty yet did not include any modicum of financial reparations. He said he was denied his identity for so long that he would never surrender it again. War may be political but first and foremost it is always a human experience; it tears the heart out of memory and experience, leaving one with scars that run deep, perhaps never to be healed. He said that all the young, we, can expect from the old generation is tolerance and that they would come together but never forget the scars of the past. And it made me sad to think that there were some things that we would always be imprisoned by and that the past could never be wholly cleansed.

sexual dynamics

so. Just to continue procrastinating on the everest of work I have to do, the million social engagements I have to rsvp on, the massive sleep debt to be worked on, and the dehydration of copious amounts of alcohol, I have decided to write about the sexual dynamics at school here.

We have what is called a midcareer program. Luminaries include about 8 world presidents. This is the program for people who have a minimum of seven years experience. Then we have the basic masters in public policy and the masters in public administration (for people who already possess a masters). Then we have the masters in public administration in international development (commonly known as How To Be A World Bank Economist).

The midcareers are for the most part married. If not, there's something else up with them. The incoming MPPs are the source of talent for most of the school, as the median age is around 26. Midcareers typically prey on MPP1s.

The school's acronym is also known as Kiss Sex Goodbye.

Lastly, its that time of the semester where everyone is starting to come apart at the seams and look for some stress relief and finding it in the most unexpected places. It's all rather funny actually.

abizaid

So just spent 3 hours procrastinating by watching more episodes of the West Wing, trawling Friendster, trying to Skype people who're never there, MOPE-ing, and just generally feeling sorry for myself.

John Abizaid, Commander of US CENTCOM, and in charge of the Iraqi operation, and an ex-personal hero of mine (he has fallen from grace since then) and also Arab American, spoke at school on Friday, days after his controversial Congressional testimony- where he was unclear on whether or not the U.S. should increase or decrease troop levels in Iraq. The level of conflict in Iraq right now is the highest it has been. Rumours in the policy community is that the U.S. will start decreasing troop levels as early as in six months. The future looks grim for Iraq. The decreased troop levels will mean increased sectarian violence. I don't pretend to know much about the situation, but what Colin Powell said a long time ago holds true: "If you break it, you own it".

Abizaid, a Westpoint and Harvard grad, also said interestingly enough that he is optimistic about the future. It should have sounded silly, and would have from anyone else, but not from this man. That's not to say I believe it, but it's good to believe that there are still a few good men.

casino royale

I love reading the New York Times review of movies, particularly by A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis, a younger critic who's giving him a run for his money. I especially love how the paper insists on calling actors by their surnames with suffixes e.g. Pierce Brosnan becomes Mr. Brosnan.

But here are some choice quotes about Casino Royale (from the NY Times Review) that I think are written in the spirit of the whole 007 adventure itself and is profound in and of themselves. Movie critics of the world- you now define the zeitgeist.

"Every generation gets the Bond it deserves if not necessarily desires, and with his creased face and uneasy smile, Mr. Craig fits these grim times well"

"Mr. Craig’s Bond looks as if he has renewed his license to kill. "

"You see Mr. Craig sweating (and very nice sweat it is too); you sense the filmmakers doing the same. "

"They have also surrounded Mr. Craig with estimable supporting players, including the French actress Eva Green, whose talent is actually larger than her breasts. "

“Casino Royale” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). The sex is demure, the violence less so.

It is rather dull to have to go back to reviewing null hypothesis testing for a stats exam, after such a smashing review as that.

analysis

and now the analysis begins, ad nauseum, ad infinitum, ad mortem.
at moments like these, it is best to realize that Van Wilder had it right: "Life. don't take it too seriously. You'll never get out alive".

(it helps, if only for a moment).

brothers in arms

Am listening to the classic Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits most famously featured in the Season 2 finale of the West Wing, the single greatest television episode of all time. It sent chills down my spine when I first watched it and every time since. It transcends the medium of television. Reportedly Martin Sheen started crying at the end of the table read for that script. Now I'm watching the West Wing Season 7 and its not as good, but yet, still retains every now and then that flicker of brilliance which reminds you that it raised the bar which nothing else has quite managed to touch the same way.

vox populi vox dei

The Democrats have won both Houses, after concession by George Allen from Virginia finally. For the first time in 12 years, they are finally in power. The fun thing about being in policy school is that there was a massive spontaneous party with drinking into the wee hours, obsessive watching of the election results on laptops, incessant politics discussion, nailbiting waiting for Allen to concede and finally, the shock resignation of Rumsfeld led to standing ovations (we have plasmas in common areas) from both faculty and students. It seems like a new dawn, and let's hope it's not a false one. It was our professor, an active politico that managed Webb's campaign in Virginia and when he came into class, he got a standing, prolonged ovation.

Politics matter. It's the only thing we've got to really change things.

rumi

Because someone quoted Rumi at me today and I really must stop falling in love with so many random people because I haven't got very much left.

We are three, by Rumi

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want,
buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

bs-ers

"At the end she chooses life, and in choosing life she chooses imperfection and compromise. And that's something she's never before allowed herself" - Emma Thompson in the Sunday Times magazine about her new movie Stranger than Fiction.

I forgot to tell you this story. John was in town last Monday and I had to wear a skirt to go to the Harvard Club which is this incredibly posh members-only place and then shuttle to the business school which I thought was a really tough crowd to work but in the end, an entire section ended up donating a school which was brilliant and really changed my perception about their motivations.

cold

I distintly blinked when at 4:30pm I saw a very large moon hung in the pitch-dark sky. added to the bitter cold of 2 degrees in what is just early november and I am not feeling very kindly disposed to things at the moment. I feel like escaping really perhaps to London or something ridiculous like that over the coming weekend and throwing financial caution to the winds, but it would be TOO extravagant and quite possibly I would be too sad so it is best to hang on for dear life here and plow through the next six weeks after which I shall be home. I did not expect to want to leave so quickly, but I think the pace is getting to me. I have no time to call parents or friends and it has been over three months since I spoke to my blood sister. This cannot continue.

iller

In Starbucks, (horrors) because I couldn't get a seat at the indie coffeeshop round the corner (and also because I had niggling doubts about its hygiene due to presence of extremely grungy, long-haired, unwashed waiters which no doubt contributed to its street cred but left me slightly wary!). Plotting India and Chinese inequality indicators, while trying very desperately not to think of someone who is only a few states away. Perhaps that is too much information. Feeling slightly blue, and listening to Roy Orbison is not really helping matters. But there promises to be a game night tonight with a bunch of close friends (which at the moment sounds far more appealing than getting dressed up and bopping the night away). I've also come down with an awful cold which does not make things better.

man proposes and god disposes

on a plan to save Sri Lanka and things that you never thought you would say in your adult life.

Me: Have you thought about the very real possibility that you might be killed?

Him: I have. But I'm willing to take the chance and take precautions. After all if they want to kill me, it's a sign that I must be doing something right. Besides you'll be there to carry on the work and others like you.

Me: Don't try and be a hero.

Him: This killing and dying it can't go on. It can't.

And for a brief moment, it felt like I had discovered the reason why i was here and it was strange and terrifying and compelling all at once.

rhapsody

There's something about Bohemian Rhapsody isn't there? I keep listening to it and its crazy operatic blend of pop, rock, classic, yearning angst, despair and manic energy and I can't get over it. It's timeless. No wonder it was voted the Nation's favourite song or something in Britain.

Absolutely plastered last night at a Diwali show. Bumped into an old RJC person outside and was in shock. Then tried to get a cab whilst drunk at 3am and it was awful. But we braved the biting winds, got home and collapsed and woke up and I vowed never to drink again.

Rhapsody on a Winter Night by T.S. Eliot

TWELVE o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street lamp sputtered,
The street lamp muttered,
The street lamp said, "Regard that woman
Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin."

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street lamp said,
"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter."
So the hand of a child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child's eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.

The lamp hummed:
"Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smoothes the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and old Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain."
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars."

The lamp said,
"Four o'clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life."

The last twist of the knife.

kennedy peace talks

I'm angry and I'm tired. I'm angry because clearly even thousands of miles away on a whole different planet you can still have fruitless discussions about Sri Lanka with educated intelligentsia and because the nature of conflict, development, human rights are still so misunderstood by those with the best of intentioned. Brings to mind something that a dear friend said recently: It's the white liberals that I hate the most. I can deal with white conservatives, because I know where they're coming from, but when the white liberals talk the talk and turn around and stab you in the back; that betrayal hurts the most.

I guess that's what I feel here. I feel so vilified by everyone. Abroad, outside, amongst Tamil friends and family, I'm always the one pushing for a moderate point of view, pushing always for the inclusion of alternative political voices into defining Tamil aspirations. Here, of all places, the debate is so limited that I end up inevitably foghorning for the LTTE because otherwise Tamil people would have no voice. Elegant variations of idealism are never realistic.

We are having peace talks every Tuesday as I am on a group project with another Sri Lankan and the title of our project is "solve the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka". He has the patience of an elephant and a frustratingly dialectical-materialist view of time, and I have all the urgency and narrow blinkeredness of a hummingbird and we are getting nowhere fast, which has sadly mirrored the history of peace talks in Sri Lanka.

Oh and I thought I would be able to escape it by coming here, but instead, it is more of the same and since I sought it out, I can't complain and yet, I do.

more

More attacks, for the first time at a tourist spot in Galle. The war is being brought down to the South, ostensibly to start a strategy of provoking communal violence in order to increase sympathy-funding, particularly by the diaspora. The NYT has a not-bad leader (compared to the tripe published by most) found here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/18/opinion/edlanka.php

Separately there is finally, finally, a new Prize (funded by the sponsors of the Booker) for Asian writers writing in the vernacular. A long overdue prize to recognize the rich literary traditions of East Asia and the subcontinent and I look forward to the gems it will throw up (as inevitably prize-winners will get translated into English)

lanka afar

More death and destruction today with another bombing. I knew that the temporary overtures to peace were mainly just to build up/rest and change the power structure. The peace talks have supposedly been happening since March. Geneva was a total failure, surpassed only by the sheer irrelevance of nearly every member on the government team. Fasten your seatbelts, we're in for a long, bumpy ride. It's hard to get a sense from afar, given the total lack of transparent, bipartisan media reporting but the reports from the ground give some sort of sense.

Had a class on Sri Lanka today and leadership. Professor posited that it was the existence of corrupt/rent-seeking politicians in power that destroyed a developing country and only good leadership could turn the boat around. I agree with the latter, but not necessarily with the former, if that makes sense.

libraries

I hardly ever come to the main library, preferring to stay in policy school campus. But I ventured over to Widener today. It is quite extraordinary, a faux-Victorian building complete with Doric columns (on the infamous Doric columns of the age, read the Fountainhead which expresses the proper contempt for the practice of lifting wholesale Doric columns from Roman times and transplanting them to a new America) and has the most comfortable chairs and tables. In fact I would venture to say that it is exactly like in the movies. One niggling question remains; the notorious practice of each graduating student to have had sex in Widener at least once seems difficult to me, given the expansive, wide open structure of the building. It almost makes me nostalgic for the old LSE library, in the dungeons of Chancery Lane where it was rumoured that people entered (especially to the periodical sections) and were never seen again. One friend of mine went inside, fully five or six floors down in a damp section, and promptly burst into tears when at 9pm, she couldn't find her way out.

chichester psalms

A dear friend was singing in the difficult-to-get-into university choir at an old church last night, for a gala night of leonard bernstein (composer, conducter and university alumni). The leaves have started to turn and walking through cambridge is to walk through a crescendo of autumnal colours, red, oranges, deep rust, amidst falling leaves. There is talk of apple-picking next weekend and cherry blossoms in washington in the spring. Perhaps a weekend up in Maine too where the wind comes rolling in off the coasts. The choral piece was the Chichester Psalms by the eclectic Leonard Bernstein. His family were in presence at what I think last night was his sixteenth death anniversary. I had never heard it before and in the cavernous halls of the church, as the draughts whispered through the pews; it was perfect and wintry and everything I had never thought I had already imagined.

diner

The world continues to turn, imperfectly, fitfully. More strange dreams. I dreamt that my dog turned into a human being, but then it left, too.
I was told that I should attend conflict resolution workshops to learn the skill of compromise and negotiation since I clearly don't have any of those skills. The subject? A group project on "How to Solve the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka". Well yes then. Watched Diner, a strangely satisfying movie about exactly nothing.

The thing I like about this place is the type of conversation I can have. Yesterday it went from indifference curves and compensating variation to the use of market facilities in managing emergency responses to experiential education within a traditional curriculum (and how a student, an ex-teacher got his children to translate hip-hop into normal English) to leadership and the MBTI and Dead Poet's Society to more on Rawls and all in a day.

sch

Slammed again as usual, overloaded. I wake up, eyes reddened, stagger zombie-like to school, during class I do work for other classes and get through the crazy email load, and then stagger onto more classes. The work accumulates, as do the people which is good. the south asian diaspora here is quite hilarious. there is one nepali guy, one bangladeshi, one sri lankan (me), two Indians and about fifty million Pakistanis. Apparently the composition and political bent of business school and policy students reflects the presidential administration in power at any given time.

I did want to blog about something interesting, but I have completely forgotten what it is. Dinner at a friend's house, and it was nice, lovely, perfect to drink wine and talk about Rawls and this is why I had come to graduate school

on history

"We need history, but not the way a spoiled loafer in the garden of knowledge needs it" Nietzsche

"To understand nationalism as an historical reality, it is essential to step outside the history that nationalism gives itself"- Sudipta Kaviraj

mfa

Well the week has finally found down, an interminably long one that had a first major assignment due. Total classes missed: 5 this week as well (and I was trying to be good too!) but a friend was in town, and so ended up inevitably going out and drinking a lot (which was a lot of fun) and trying to regression-analyze growth variables and write about utilitarianism and Bayesian probability. Sometimes being in school is good and sometimes , well, it plain sucks. I'm always exhausted, running hard to stay in the same spot, not researching or doing the things I wanted to do by coming here and in general just being perpetually rushed. But anyway.

Friend and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston which has quite a few good pieces and is not just a token museum in a small city as I imagined it would be. It also happened to be the first Friday of the month, and so Bombay Sapphire was sponsoring a social gathering in the Old Master's wing, and so under Renaissance pictures of bleeding Christs, we drank gin martinis.

another week

So another week draws to a close and a new one begins. It's October 1st today. Did you know that? I don't know what happened to the time. This weekend also marks the first weekend that I am fully set up. It took far longer than it expected. I'm behind by oh, about a thousand pages or so, but somehow, listening to Chet Baker right now, it all seems rather far away. Falling ill really did give me the opportunity to stop for a bit. I'm not sad or anything, but everything seems so impossible at the moment. Just how, everything is going to work out in the future, seems quite impossible and a true state of happiness seems so distant. I wonder how we all get there, sometime.

ill

Lately, I have been discovering that as I consume more alcohol I am starting to do sillier things than I would do normally, last night being a chief example. I'm trying not to cross a line, but these lines are drawn in the sand sometimes anyway. I'm also really ill at the moment and this has got to stop and so i am not going to any parties tonight which will mean that I will be at home on a saturday night and as my room mate said, that does not make me the reject of the K school.

tired...

Had the longest lunch and lobster rolls with a North Carolinan/Australian women just jabbering on about the impossibility of the work load, everything we've overextended ourselves with, men, Sri Lanka and the identity, what in the world are we going to do with ourselves when we grow up, fear of failure, ethics classes and their abysmal structure, Hausmann the Dream, and all other sorts of things. I overslept today and missed yet another class (total so far in two weeks; five- I think I hold the record or something).

Had a fellowship meeting last night where an ex Harvard MBA alum came to talk on the importance of the role of the COO in nonprofit groups and the traditional tensions between the visionary founder and the COO/implementer. It was kind of interesting, but very US-centric as these things are. And then a couple of friends and I decided that it was the night for brandy, so we holed up in Casablanca and drank Glenfiddich, Glenmorangie and some VSOP Armagnac. And then I sauntered home and had a house pow-wow on men and how many physicians it takes per 100,000 people to not make a difference anymore in life expectancy and Denzel Washington, who as y'all know, is so FINE.

I am exhausted.

work

So. I went out for dinner last night and tonight with someone I shouldn't have gone out to dinner with, but oh well, disaster here I come. You and I, are ships that collide in the night. Up till 4am last night writing a paper on bioethics, specifically the ethics regarding stem-cell research and embryonic transactions (covering cloning as well as IVF treatment). Then up till 2am tonight graphing regressions and fitted lines on life expectancy and mortality rates and all that biz. Met an Uzbek who hates Karimov (what's new). And another Singaporean guy who was simply lovely. And now I'm tired and pondering my life. Had an interesting class today on leadership and the delivery of political goods essential to the functioning life of a newly transitioned democratic country (assuming no conflict)- comprising economic opportunity, political opportunity, the arteries of commerce, empowerment of civil society, rule of law, and 3 others, which I can't remember. And then the Defense Minister from India was in town and some questions on the violence in Sri Lanka and India's role in mediation was asked and he said: " We respect the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka and want the LTTE to give up violence and come to the table. We have learned from our bitter experiences in the 80s.". Spent the weekend U-hauling furniture from different parts of Boston off craigslist- finally it is all complete and the house is a home. Had an interview on Friday, which I bombed too, on corporate social responsibility and corporations as development agents; opportunities and development needs. He assumed I was familiar with the literature, well, sadly, I wanted to tell him, I have spent the last 2 years in Sri Lanka or thereabouts and it is not quite on the radar there.

I am very upset that i have not read a book in over 3 weeks.

hmmm

Another day has vanished quickly. Of note was that today someone played a joke and told me that Morgan Freeman was attending the Kennedy School on the MC MPA program. And then I turned around and I saw him!!! Only later on did I realize that it was a joke and in fact it was his unconscious twin and stuff. This guy must really enjoy a lot of glory by association or something.

I have an interview on Friday. It's for a part-time nonprofit consulting job. I haven't had an interview for like a million (read four) years! This is crazy. And someone hounded me today to organize a social enterprise conference which I succumbed to because he was so persistent. SERIOUSLY. I am so behind with work, with novels, with friends, and what the hell am I doing signing up left right and center, and whoring my email address? What I really miss at the moment is just random boring stuff from Sri Lanka. I fantasized in the cold today walking to school, of turning a corner and seeing a coconut stand or a cow or a trishaw driver.

I need to get a grip.

ethics

I had Ethics yesterday. The professor is a crone, who was around dictating the Bible to Johann Gutenberg. The topic was basically the limits of free speech under the American constitution. She's a professor of philosophy by the way.

"So what happens if I say: go fuck yourself? Oh wait, that doesn't mean anything anymore right? What if I say "Go SUCK yourself" Or tell you that you're a motherfuckin' ass-licker? What if I go around sticking my middle finger up at everyone (and she proceeded to do exactly that).

I could only watch, while a line from Bogart kept reverberating in my head.

"You've got class, kid. With a capital K".

God bless America.

classes

It's like barely the second week of full-on classes and I'm already overwhelmed. I've had no time to email any friends properly or call anyone. The emergency calls keep on coming though: a new baby being born, a cousin asking about the death of his father, a sister stuck in Nepal. That's about it on the personal side.

Having never lived with a dishwasher, I keep loading my clothes in the laundry with DISHWASHER detergent. I only found out today that it was not meant to be so. I keep meeting the random-est people ever. I have no time for the friends that I HAVE made. There's endless reading (like 300 pages EVERY day) and the homework tide has started to turn. It's not difficult (yet) but just time-consuming. I am still sleeping on a mattress on the floor (a vast improvement from the actual floor itself) because I haven't had time to fix the bed. Or a bookcase. Two UPS boxes are over the Atlantic somewhere. My room looks like a nuclear bomb went off on it. So what did I do? Instead of addressing any or all of the above problems, I ended up having a random lunch with some guys today, then going shopping and blowing 300 dollars on clothes, then watching 3 episodes of Grey's Anatomy, then chatting with room-mates about boys, then thinking about business school applications, then just stoning for an even longer time. Thusly, 10 hours passes by. and I have to wake up at 7am tomorrow.

I've already started skipping classes and definitely am nowhere yet on the homework pile but the good thing is that I actually don't care about grades here. Anyway, this is a short dispatch from the front. talk soon,

the cod

I'm in Cape Cod at this absolutely swish place, I haven't had such luxury in a VERY long time. It's a scholar's retreat and really started off with a bang. So many people here have done such amazing things, but it seems like this gang is really special and really humble. You can already see a marked difference between the public service crowd and the business school crowd. The business school crowd is sharper, ruthless, and focused. The public service crowd is happy, warm and all over the place.

We had to do two case studies this afternoon, talking about the ethics of leadership. I had to re-read Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail and it was really rather moving. I quote below...

"I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other Southern States. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have eheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governot Barnett dripeed with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of compacency to the bright hills of creative protest?".... Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection".

Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Stilt Fishermen

Stilt Fishermen by me.

Seer fish affixed in a constellation
Mouths agape, hung trembling as
Rubies grew in Indra's net. Eyes of coconut milk
What did they see?

Blood glinted in the blueness of dawn
Uneven jakwood stick as the axis of stars
Splinters smoothed by the
Burnish of sun-blackened skin
Perched eagle-like, still above
While the waters roiled

The eye gazed unseeing
Then a swift jerk, a twist
And milk flooded more eyes
And jewels crashed and bled
Indra surveyed the world
What did he see?

As the vision faded
And the rubies grew
In the silence of a Galle dawn.

"Hinduism and Buddhism give life to the idea of Indra's Net. In the heaven of Indra, a vast net or web of silken strands spans across space infinitely in every direction. Every intersection of gossamer thread hosts a shining luminous pearl or multifaceted jewel. The surface of every jewel completely reflects every other, and the net as a whole. Likewise, each reflected jewel in itself reflects every other, that reflects every other, that reflects every other, without end, as mirrors to infinity." By Wikipedia

more

So the week, the first week, the marathon is nearly over. I have a retreat to go to in Cape Cod where the weekend will be spent meeting many more new people on the fellowship and having a good yarn, but I had an excellent dinner with a friend and her fiance this week which really did make me feel better about the whole thing and we talked about the problems of indigenous communities in Australia and the wonderful, charismatic Nolan Pearson. and then i shared with them "The Theory of a Good Novel" (my five pronged analysis) which they were charmingly impressed with and we had endless wine and exactly more of the discussions which made me realize why I was at policy school and nowhere else.

And then I skipped some classes to really do nothing ostensibly which is rather bad. It's only the first week but, somehow I just wanted to get out. I haven't left Cambridge this week which is especially bad. Today however I bumped into the most random person, an ex-Morgan Stanleyite which really made me feel that this world is far too small. I also met two other Singaporeans both of whom seem really rather lovely. So, this makes it almost two and a half weeks that I have been at school already and I definitely feel like I have yet to settle down. But I will get there.

And that was it really.

life

An anecdote from a course entitled "Running for Office" or something like that. The instructor is a veteran campaign manager and he was talking about the sleaziness of politics and stuff. For example during a live radio address by a gubernatorial candidate, he planted a question and the guy got up and asked "So, X, do you agree with President Jose Cuervo's assessment that his country Mexico needs to liberalize its trade policies?" and she said Yes! And then this guy said, I don't know what Jose Cuervo would say, but it's a brand of tequila, and she got slammed on being ignorant about foreign policy.

Ricardo Hausmann on the developing world : The rich get richer and the poor get children". "There are three paradigms of thought on development"
a. God is in control (and all problems of the developing world are moral failures and failures of discipline. Listen to the angels/preachers (IMF, World Bank and Washington Consensus) and all will be well (except when it's not).
b. There is evil in the world (e.g. corporations )
c. God is dead (or otherwise busy) and we don't have all the answers but we keep on trying to find a framework or theory to fit the facts and don't try to fit the facts to our theory.

Most economists, regarding development, follow the Theory of Original Sin (which according to him goes thus: Somebody ate an apple and now women have pain when they give birth). (This view also caused outrage).

and then I met someone from Sri Lanka and instantly hit it off and had a very emotional discussion about Sri Lanka with both of us tearing I think, at least i was and it was all rather strange and wonderful for that was exactly what I had imagined graduate school to be, to have someone to discuss the issues with.

school

Well. *heaving massive sigh*.

It's been two weeks since I washed up at the shores of policy school. I've spent the last two weeks obsessively shaking hands, trying valiantly to commit names to memory and generally being awed, bewildered and nostalgic. I've made some friends which is always nice, connected up with others, tried to set up house (which has been a major endeavour), tried and failed at doing anything else.

Classes started yesterday, I mean shopping started yesterday and full-on classes start tomorrow. I've looked in on courses with ex-presidential advisers and communications directors, internationally renowned trade economists, and met with students with vast experience, from civil advocacy in Iraq, to managing indigenous affairs in Australia, to Sudanese civil war arbitrators, to campaign advisers, full-on conservative Mormons, Ausralian local mayors and the whole gamut in between. What has been pleasantly surprising is that the vast majority of students are humble, engaging, kind and committed to public service and poverty.

It's all been a planet and a universe away from Sri Lanka. And I haven't had any time nor any calling cards to call friends and family often yet. The time difference is unforgiving too. I am more and more interested in writing. The early wake-ups have been a major shock to the system as has been the cold. Apparently last year on Oct 1st was when the winter coats were all busted out. I have fantastic, kind, non-anal housemates. The parties have been mild so far, but I reckon it's only a matter of time. There are many people here with as confused identities as me too which is always reassuring. And I'm going to definitely apply to business school too.

I will check in again but the wave is about to crest (and no doubt crash).

square

So my sister finally arrived and today we ventured into Harvard Square. It was strange. People here talk too much and really have not very much to say. First we spent some time in the local Social Security Office trying vainly to get a Social Service Number without which I can't get a credit card or a million other useful things. We failed, albeit temporarily. Then into Harvard Square where I successfully opened a Bank of America bank account. Then to T-Mobile where I successfully got a phone. Both these will be activated tomorrow. Then to the International Office to register my 'alien' presence. Then to Finale, a dessert place apparently opened by a Harvard MBA student. Then we carried our sorry asses back home and fell gasping onto bed when Cyann (the dumbest cat on the planet) decided to jump up onto my ass and circle around a few times and flop down contentedly. And now I'm watching Grey's Anatomy. All in all a useless but somewhat accomplished day. also food sizes here are huge. Also I am missing Sri Lanka.