life

We neatly define our way out of positions. We are not pro-LTTE, nor pro-Government; we are moderates that believe in peace, justice and democracy. But the moderates have nowhere to go, and no means to make their ideals a reality. So does it matter anyway? What do all these carefully articulated theories with history relegated to the footnotes mean, when there is no way to make them true. Rather, throw your lot in with one devil or the other. This is the world we live in. There is no such thing as truth, or standing up for what you believe in. All it matters is how you die. With your people or across the lagoon from them. This is what all those principles mean ultimately. 

I will tell you a story, an imaginary story. A man lost his brother once to a war that they had not asked for, but had fought in. When the army recruited them; one brother said to another; be careful. fortunes wax and wane. Those who are strong now, may be weak later. This is the world we live in, and all your ideals of justice will have to bend or break against these truths. And the other brother said; here I stand, I can do no other. He died at a moment when the revolution he fought for, was losing. He never lived to see it rise again, as it did. And the other brother watched, and waited, and bled along with everyone else, secretly; and was forever torn between the battle that he should have fought for, and the life he chose. And he never forgave himself for it. Which brother lived better, and which brother died better? I don't know the answers to these questions. 

El Salvador

So I didn’t end up seeing much of El Salvador besides the airport, hotel, UN offices and 2 restaurants, one of which was a stone house built on top of a mountain looking down on San Salvador; Central America’s largest city. Everything was lit up at night and the whole city ran down the mountains like molten lava. Of course everyone in San Salvador thought I was Spanish and one guy told me it was because I look like a Mayan princess. Erm, I don’t really know what Mayan princesses look like but I know that they were sacrificed to the volcanoes so either way their lifespan was limited.

Oh yeah and the other weird-but-normal thing was when we were in front of the UN building buying a sandwich with a couple of colleagues, and an open pick up truck drove up, parked, and two guys wearing bullet proof vests jumped out of the back (from sitting on the rims) with submachine guns with the safeties off, according to my colleague, went into the store next door, came out five minutes later without looking anyone in the face, and roared off. El Salvador has the highest homicide rate in the world, a direct result of the large amount of small arms in the country due to the civil war that ended years ago. Ah, Sri Lanka- this is your fate.

I learnt a lot during the trip about housing the poor in Latin America; the challenges faced in post-conflict Latin American countries like El Salvador and Colombia and Nicaragua where oligarchs rule the regime and the poor are left to the mercy of guerrilla factions that inevitably end up devouring their young. I learnt too about the United Nations and the infighting that goes on with interagency turf wars, budget conflicts and staff egos clashing; national stakeholders (El Salvador just had a historic change in government and the whole Cabinet is going to be thrown out, but our housing deal was inked with them and now it looks like we will have to start at scratch; and what happens when donor-driven initiatives are enforced in a top down fashion onto the poor. Glory for all.

Adventureland

Every now and then, there is a movie that perfectly captures the mood of your moment. Not in a general, zeitgeist, kind of way, but the mood of the moment that your life is in. Adventureland is such a movie; a coming-of-age story of a young man who still believes in love (and not sex), and who still believes that life is an epic adventure waiting to be lived; the large ambitions, and not the small ones, not the minimalist outlook for him. And yet, at this point, he is still a creature of thought, and not one of action. The movie explores this hibernatory phrase, of the things that happen when dreams are broken, and patched back together again, oddly shaped, but somehow stronger than before. And of course, the culmination of the movie happens with the young hero wending his way to New York city, to solve the essential problem of himself. And to start again. 

memory

I remember standing in the middle of a waste field, four years ago. All around me were large hills, pocked with the green of tea bushes and the black of the Nuwara Eliya earth. In front of me were two community heads, two panchayat heads and their coteries, all male, all wearing sarongs that they had untied from their hips, in deference to the sole female present. I was tired, and exhausted after 10 hours of bone jarring driving and walking up and down these hills and dirt roads. Finally, we had found some land, that someone was willing to donate to build our school. The details of who, and why escape me now. All i remember that day was that the sun was setting, and the hills were casting shadows, and I was there, mediating between too panchayat heads for the land fell squarely between two districts, and both were squabbling over whose jurisdiction the school would fall under. Land title, money (from school fees), power. And me, parachuted in from so far away, yet never ever feeling anywhere else, as though I was absolutely finally at home. And then a phone call came, from as far away as New York I believe, and the connection crackled and jumped, but I heard a voice which to me then, was also home. And I spoke about where I was and what I was doing, a million miles away from the starched world of crisp Pink shirts and heels and banking, where my trainer was beginning to sink into a sea of mud, so waste the land was. And everything felt absolutely right at that moment.

tired

Where do we go from here? I attended a talk the other day about peace in Sri Lanka. One of the speakers was a Tamil activist who had lost her sister to the war (a documentary film was made about her called No More Tears Sister). She happens to be related.

The talk was full of passionate voices, from Sinhala Buddhists to rabid Tamil separatists. Many spoke movingly of people they had lost, and tears sprang to many's eyes. 900 bodies buried here and there. Hospitals where female patients were raped. War, more war, endless war. Even with a cessation of hostilities, there will just be more war.

For the first time however, I was tired. Normally I would have felt full of energy, passion, wanting to do something about it; talking, meeting people. Now, I was simply tired. Exhausted again, the way I was with Sri Lanka. Spent, unsure, uncertain again with nowhere to go. And again, and again that quote came back to me, from someone who was born in my family. and who died in this country and this war that will not stop.

"Some times tears flow uncontrollably and I cannot work anymore. I know I want to be strong, I want to call my historical strength as a woman. I want to remember and hold on to memories of women who conquered the inability and pain. [...] I cannot leave this small country, its belly constricted by hunger and mind blurred by pain. My head tells my emotions — hold on, hold on for one month maybe two — the routine will engulf you — the need of others — disturbs the silence of the tomb. One day some gun will silence me. And it will not be held by an outsider — but by a son — born in the womb of this very society — from a woman with whom my history is shared."

back then

back then, knowing myself beloved, exuberant in your presence, i was the flowering tree: daily transforming, girl-child to tree, careless of blossoms, daily unleafed, daily budding, lavish with words, immoderate in joy, a willing daphne, the bride of the king's son.
- transparent hummingbird.

Cry, Beloved Country

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."- Alan Patton

a night devoid of stars

As the official war in Sri Lanka between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) draws to an end; the question percolating now in Colombo and donor capitals is what next? Will the government use the considerable political capital it has gained through a successful war to embark upon a project of pluralistic nation-building? Or has the eradication of the LTTE as an immediate threat also eradicated the need for a political solution?

Without a political solution, many fear that the LTTE will find increased support both inside Sri Lanka and externally among the diaspora to mount an offensive further down the line. After all, that is the nature of a guerrilla war, to recede, regroup and resurge. Some say that the government's proposal to develop the North, provide jobs and kickstart the economy will reduce deprivation and erode support for the Tigers in their heartland. But the same program has been attempted in the East, and increased lawlessness and militarization prevail.

Unfortunately, a meaningful political solution with autonomy is unlikely given this government's nationalist allies. The prospects for successful post conflict reconstruction in Sri Lanka are grim. The lack of depth and breadth in horizontal ties between groups, the high political fragmentation, the absence of leadership in the Tamil community, the scrabbling over resources and power-sharing that is likely to ensue between all political parties, the uneasy shadow of Sri Lanka's large northern neighbor, the massive internationalization of the conflict with multiple donors and agendas, the muzzled press, the worrying ability of the Rajapakse regime to operate outside the law and the lack of true bottom-up representation likely point to a failed reconstruction process.

And sadly, amongst all of these competing narratives, it is those without a voice that suffer the most, the starving, the injured, the displaced, the forgotten. The mere absence of war, as has been oft-quoted, and in Sri Lanka, oft-proven, is not peace.

the arc of the moral universe

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square hole. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." — Apple Computer Inc.

And then they came for me

The war is nearly over. Jaffna has been completely captured, the highway has been taken control of, and now the Tigers are confined to one tiny pocket. This is the beginning of a long slow descent into hell. As Martin Luther King said, “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Last month, a leading editor of one of the few independent newspapers in Sri Lanka was assassinated. Assassinated and not murdered, because it was a political act, widely believed to be the long arm of the government, reaching out to punish those who had spoken against it. This editorial (excerpts of which are pasted below, link also below) is a poignant reminder of how journalism can change the world, of how truth is the only thing that can save us all, of how principles matter, even if, and especially if, lives are laid down for it. And I have to say, that in these days of cynicism, working from the vaunted halls of an international organization that is supposed to keep the peace, I am reminded that all it takes, is one human being, to make me believe that the right thing should be done.

The Sunday Leader
(http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm)

“No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honor to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader’s 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognizing the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.

But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.”

….
An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemoller

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists

and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

A.D.

Hearts will never be made practical until they are made unbreakable.
The Wizard of Oz

nov 4th

In retrospect, at least for the Democratic primary candidates, it seems inevitable that the political juggernaut of the Obama campaign, of the man, and the machine that brought him in unprecedented ways, to the attention of voters and those who had never voted before, would rise to the top. No candidate, including McCain, has run a better campaign. And no candidate was more unexpected, in every which way. For those who had planned Clinton’s campaign starting on the Wednesday after the election in 2004, - this was in every way, an eventuality that was totally unplanned for. And the weight of the expectations are massive, should Obama become President. (And survives in office.)

But more than that, I think that the past two years, which has led up to this moment, has shown even the most hardened cynic that politics matter, that government can make a difference, for better or for worse, that people can change, and are looking for hope, that the best in us can be brought out, rather than the worst in us. Whatever happens tonight, whether this is confirmed or not, the journey of the past two years, in this country, from small steel towns in Pennsylvania, to the carworkers in Detroit, to the mansions of Orange County, has given everyone pause, and a moment in which they have realized their commonality. And the mantra of hope amidst despair?

It reminds me of a quote from Camus: In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

proof

Proof

That I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not love enough.\

That I shall love
always,
offer thee
That love is life,
And life hath
immortality.

This, dost thou doubt,
sweet?
Then have I
Nothing to show
But Calvary.

-Emily Dickinson

From: Poems by Emily Dickinson Series One
Edited by two of her friends
Mabel Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson

today

Sometimes as I sit here, typing away at these offices in New York as an anonymous cubicle rat, looking for example, at the implications of the subprime crisis on microfinance markets, I can’t believe I used to have another life, as short as just 3 months ago, and then another life 2 years before that, and then another life 2 years before that. From the days of London where everything seemed touched in gold, with not a worry in the world, to Sri Lanka and feeling alive in a way that has never been matched, to school and the luxury of ivory towers to New York and a sense of transition, everything seems as though it has happened to someone else, and I feel as though I am suspended outside myself, waiting in chrysalis for the next, and hopefully final, transformation.

news

What a terrible news day. I am seriously considering adding chocolate as a major food group. First, the news from Sri Lanka is awful, and it seems as though there is finally going to be a conquering, with the Tamil Tigers about to be decisively wiped out. What will happen to Tamil civilians, Tamil IDPs is yet to be known. Only the vanquished remember history, someone said. Then news that the bailout was rejected and the Dow fell 5% in a day, in A DAY! If the bailout doesn’t succeed (and the problem does not seem to be the version of the bailout, but the principle of it, as many members of Congress seem ideologically opposed to it on both sides of the aisle), then the country, and the world is in for a serious, serious recession, approaching Depression-like proportions. And I don’t use the D word lightly. And what else? McCain seems to be up in the polls post-debate, and my personal life is also blowing up.

autun

It's been a busy few weeks in New York. The weather is changing too, with surprising rainstorms that bring the hint of autumn in the air. The city is waiting for the first nip in the air that signals fall, and certain trees in Central Park are already changing colour, heralding fall. Autumn is my favourite season of all, the kiss before dying (I am currently enamoured of that phrase).

Today I saw a trailer for Revolutionary Road, by Sam Mendes, with DiCaprio and Winslet, and it was set to my all-time favourite song, a spooky, ghostful rendition of Wild is The Wind by Nina Simone and it was the first time i've ever seen that song featured in any commercial movie, ad, tv serial whatever. I'm sad, because I thought it was all mine and now everyone is going to be downloading it off iTunes.

eat, pray, love

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. His purpose was to shake you up, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life.”

Eat, Pray, Love.

Again and Again

Again and Again

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall; again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Mr. and Mrs. Iyer

I watched Mr. and Mrs. Iyer last night, a Hindi-Tamil-Bengali movie directed by Aparna Sen, about a young Tamil Brahmin girl who falls in love with a young Muslim man during a bus ride through communal riots between Hindus and Muslims. Although it was slow at parts and the cinematography absolutely abysmal, it was absolutely moving, poignant and sad. Rahul Bose, where have you been all my life? This is the kind of movie I want to make, with actors that know how to act, and with a subject matter that deserves wide exposure, and that needs to be treated sensitively and analytically. More than the issue of religious intolerance, the poignancy arose from the forbidden affair between a married Tamil woman and a Muslim man, who shows her how beautiful life can be.

election

I vowed that I wouldn't blog about politics in Election 2008, as opposed to 2004, as faithful readers of my blog will no doubt remember (in fact I remember persuading one faithful reader to hold a sign in an election rally in Paris for Kerry-Edward). Because it's just futile and emotional and utterly useless.

But. The entry of Sarah Palin in the race is just so bloody infuriating, especially now that the Democrats have a real chance of losing. As Tom Friedman says in today's article: If John McCain can win after 8 years of Bush, and a terrible economy; then the Democrats deserve to lose. But I'm also tired of this logic: that somehow the election was Gore's to lose in 2000, Kerry's to lose in 2004 and Hillary's to lose in 2008. Guess what? THEY ALL FUCKING LOST. And what chance does a black man have against a redneck crowd?

I cannot imagine, but am terribly fearful, that it's real, that the Republicans are going to win for another 8 years. Another 8 years of the same kind of policies. (And for anyone who thinks that McCain is different from Bush, I have got an earful for you.). Jesus.


We're holding an Election Night party up here in Harlem. Time will tell if there're going to be tears of joy or sorrow, but there're definitely going to be tears.

random

I enrolled at the Digital Film Academy yesterday, for a sixteen week evening film making program, including some basic lessons in sound, lighting, cinematography and camera work, as well as working with some real actors (albeit struggling waiters). I have to conceptualize a ten minute work, so am looking for ideas, and if you have any, send them over! Am thinking about a five minute music video (set to Bollywood music of course), and a five minute public service announcement type of thing.... but we shall see.

Am also thinking of joining a writer's room, but it occurs to me, that I only have a finite amount of time in the next four months, and there is a limit to its elasticity. Other than that, have been traipsing about, discovering the new neighbourhood of Hell's Kitchen, (very nice), and of the Upper West Side. Very soon, I shall be reduced to blogging solely about my consumer experiences and nothing else.

Last night was a rousing night spent throwing popcorn at the television with my room mate, as we watched John McCain deliver his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Everytime we saw a black man or woman, or an Indian man or woman cheering, we'd say "Traitor!! Shut up and sit down!". But I have to say that Obama is soon going to have to face a decision over whether he is going to go into the gutter with them, or if he can win without it.

back

Back from London, where the rain and the wind blew into my hair, sent leaves scattering through the side streets of Notting Hill, and into the pews of empty churches. Flew into New York with a terrible cold chasing me, put myself promptly into bed, trying not to obsess about the events of the past week. And now there is no escape from the real world, from this future that awaits.

My new roommate is a journo, who's had a book out, and got into a furious discussion on Judith Miller (of Valerie Plame fame), who she termed as a "Thin Chick with a Serious Wardrobe" (room mate is also a Thin Chick, but without a Serious Wardrobe) and other discussions on what is age-appropriate dating. She's also dating a guy who's having an affair with someone in his office, and who's getting a divorce that's going to trial because his wife is having an affair with her Brazilian personal trainer. Welcome to New York.

festina lente

(hurry slowly)

Well, I have now moved to New York, and the city has swallowed me whole in the past four days, which were an uncharacteristic whirlwind of activity. How I long for the peaceful days of Cambridge, for red brick, spires and earnestness.

Freed

Today was marked by a lot of writing on Sri Lanka. It was exhausting. And I read How Reading Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton, a hilarious account of Proust's life, in a parody of a self-help version. I was laughing out loud, which I think to date, only Bill Bryson has made me do. (Then again, it doesn't take much to make me bark.)

Had a random lunch with a group of philosophy doctoral students, which of course, over lunch turned into an argument over free will and determinism, and the philosophy of action. It recalled the many discussions of political philosophy we used to have in the LSE corridors. My own view is one that more or less hews to St. Augustine's Christian platonic vision, although it does fudge the debate somewhat in that, individuals, who are fallen, do not possess true knowledge. Therefore, as far as they are concerned, they act with agency, freedom and direct their own life. Crucially, this gives them the capacity to choose between good and evil. God, on the other hand, is all-knowing, omniscient and has full knowledge of the entire life of every individual. He however, is not directive.

The philosophy of action though, which looks at what gives individuals the motive and intent to act, (or particularly, to act in causing harm to others.). This however is where I draw the line at philosophy.

play-ing

We watched the Importance of Being Earnest today by the Harvard Radcliffe Repertory Theatre, and I must admit, for an entirely student-run production, it was startlingly good, with a diverse cast, (except for some rather affected British accents; why is it that putting on an English accent represents the height of thespian power for American actors?!). It reminded me of the sheer hard work that goes into any production, of the technical aspects of lighting, story telling, directing etc. I have a friend who graduated from the Yale School of Drama who's premiering his play this weekend off-off-off Broadway (and it's called Finding Ways To Prove You're Not an al-Qaeda Terrorist When You're Brown), a one man brown act , which I think is going to be hilarious! After all, graduating from the school that bore such actors as Meryl Streep can hardly be a disadvantage. This young man also has the singular acquisition of the playrights to Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy, the story of a young, gay Sri Lankan Tamil boy growing up in a society that is fracturing. Oh, art and all its possibilities.

a true story

In 2006, the municipal president of Neza, a tough area of two million people on the eastern edge of Mexico City, decided that the members of his police force needed to become "better citizens." He decided that they should be given a reading list, on which could be found Don Quixote, Juan Rulfo's beautiful novella Pedro Paramo, Octavio Paz' essay on Mexican culture The Labyrinth of Solitude, Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude,and works by Carlos Fuentes, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Agatha Christie and Edgar Allen Poe.

Neza's Chief of Police, Jorge Amador, believes that reading fiction will enrich his officers in at least three ways. First, by allowing them to acquire a wider vocabulary. Next, by granting officers the opportunity to acquire experience by proxy. "A police officer must be worldy, and books enrich people's experience, indirectly." Finally, Amador claims, there is an ethical benefit. "Risking your life to save other people's lives and property requires deep convictions. Literature can enhance those deep convictions by allowing readers to discover lives lived with similar commitment. We hope that contact with literature will make our police officers more committed to the values they have pledged to defend.

"Words on The Street" by Angel Gurria-Quintana, in Financial Times, March 3, 2006, as quoted in How Fiction Works.

How Fiction Works

After a rough couple of days in which it was spectacularly apparent to me again that I have completely no clue what to do with my life, a small shining light was revealed in this fabric of night, and I received an email from the local bookstore, saying that the book that I had ordered had arrived.

I doubletimed it to the bookstore, handed in my order number and waited expectantly. The assistant came over to me, his eyes shining. Look at this, he said. it's so well done. The cover is straight out of the 20s, the font of the prose with its myriad footnoting is done in early nineteenth-century style, like Flaubert. I was holding a first edition, hardcover, in hot pink of How Fiction Works by James Wood, a Harvard professor of literature.

I'm halfway through, and I can't stop reading and at the same time I am pacing the reading, not too much at any one time, because I can't remember the last time I encountered such a dry, engaging, contemplative, passionate-about-good-literature, voice. And anyone who can reference Madame Bovary, Mr. Biswas and Robert Fisk at the same time has got my allegiance.

In reading it, I was also reminded of the fact that literary theory is often hijacked by dry academics who seek to impose rather developed discussions of philosophy, historicism and the old saws of culture and identity on a tract about human interaction. Wood's form of literary theory, is more basic, and truly exploratory, focusing on questions like What is a character? and acknowledging his own limitations on interpretativeness. While he is afflicted with a rather quaint adoration for Stendhal, James and Flaubert, and a well-appointed distaste for the postmodern (yay! another person who thinks Updike is a toolshed!), his observations are insightful, erudite and truly eye-opening.

It is an excellent, well-reviewed book (from The Economist no less, as well as the New York Times and I can't wait to continue reading it.

the dark knight.

So after having waited FOREVER to watch The Dark Knight, I have to say that it was a trifle incoherent, and though Bale was quite serviceable in the role, he spent most of the movie in that suit, with an obscured voice. It would take a magician to be able to overcome the stultifying effects of that suit. While the movie was chock-a-block with plot developments, action sequences, and a lot of expensive skulduggery, it lacked some grace, a melody, a duality really. I hate to say this because I am indifferent to Michael Keaton, but Tim Burton's Batman and especially Batman Returns with the unforgettable Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, had a crazy camp horror to it which this rather serious-minded, supposedly 'dark' version lacks. The one redeeming part though was the end, when Batman is being chased, forever on the run. Maggie Gyllenhaal however, lightened and smartened what was otherwise, a rather clunky movie. Sigh. And now one has to wait for the abomination of Terminator. Oh Christian Bale of the Art Film, wherefore art thou?

samantha power

OMG! Drama alert!

Samantha Power (Pulitzer award winning journalist and Harvard Kennedy School professor, and former foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama), got married to Cass Sunstein on July 4th who she met on Obama's campaign in January! (Yes, that's seven months of dating and subsequent marriage). Power is 39. Sunstein is 54. And the real goss; he used to be the partner of Martha Nussbaum!!!!

Okay, I gotta figure out what this (pretty unimposing) guy (- check out the Wikipedia mugshot) had that he seduced two of my all time favourite journalists and nonfiction writers. Man. I gotta get some of that.

wow

Wow. Saying goodbye to 2 best friends in 2 weeks, with a few tears at the airport for both of them really blows.

On other news, I have become a day trader!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHA. The plan is to invest my meagre savings in the next penny stock that's going to make 300% in six months, and then I might never have to work a job again (at least for 2 months. so do the math).

I am going to watch The Dark Knight tonight, so get prepared for the usual Bale-ful drooling.

a party

There is a party going down below me, on the grass lawn of a large Georgian mansion. The lawn is about half the size of a football field. It is midnight now, and I am peering into the party below, feeling quite like Sabrina, perched at the level of tree-tops, waiting for Bogart (originally Holden) to waltz out, impeccably attired in a white tuxedo blazer and bowtie, bearing champagne and a bon mot. It is that kind of party, with its patrons attired in backless evening dress, with a jazz quartet playing old Sinatra songs, with laughter spiralling up into my apartment, tinged with alcohol and unaccountably gay. Don't they know there is a war going on? We are, after all, in war time. I imagine these are what parties looked like in the late 20s, when the war was going on somewhere else, when it hadn't yet arrived on these shores. And Cambridge with the bluest of pedigrees harking back to the Revolution, reeking of old-money, and Gatsby-like parties filled with drunken intellectuals, the silliest drunks of them all. The last place where the war would ever come, but come it did, as the monument of the dead in the commons next to us attests. There will be newer monuments, soon enough.

Bone Dreams

I spent two years searching for this poem on the internet, and now finally, some English department, misguided student (by definition) has posted it up!

Bone Dreams

I

White bone found
on the grazing:
the rough, porous
language of touch

and its yellowing, ribbed
impression in the grass —
­a small ship-burial.
As dead as stone,
flint-find, nugget
of chalk,
I touch it again,
I wind it in

the sling of mind
to pitch it at England
and follow its drop
to strange fields.

II

Bone-house:
a skeleton
in the tongue's
old dungeons.

I push back
through dictions,
Elizabethan canopies,
Norman devices,

the erotic mayflowers
of Provence
and the ivied Latins
of churchmen

to the scop's
twang, the iron
flash of consonants
cleaving the line.

In the coffered
riches of grammar
and declensions
I found bān-hūs,

its fire, benches,
wattle and rafters,
where the soul
fluttered a while

in the roofspace.
There was a small crock
for the brain,
and a cauldron

of generation
swung ar the centre:
love-den, blood-holt,
dream-bower.

IV

Come back past
philology and kennings,
re-enter memory
where the bone's lair

is a love-nest
in the grass.
I hold my lady's head
like a crystal

and ossify myself
by gazing: I am screes
on her escarpments,
a chalk giant

carved upon her downs.
Soon my hands, on the sunken
fosse of her spine,
move towards the passes.

V

And we end up
cradling each other
between the lips
of an earthwork.


As I estimate
for pleasure
her knuckles' paving,
the turning stiles

of the elbows,
the vallum of her brow
and the long wicket
of collar-bone,

I have begun to pace
the Hadrian's Wall
of her shoulder,
dreaming of Maiden Castle.

VI

One morning in Devon
I found a dead mole
with the dew still beading it.
I had thought the mole

a big-boned coulter
but there it was,
small and cold
as the thick of a chisel.

I was told, ‘Blow,
blow back the fur on his head.
Those little points
were the eyes.

And feel the shoulders.’
touched small distant: Pennines,
a pelt of grass and grain
running south.

By Seamus Heaney

a sadhu in the river ganges

Oh yeah baby, let it fly

(from BBC News In Pictures)

cooking

Another successful cooking day! Made garlic-rosemary lamb with cucumber yogurt puree in whole wheat pita, and roasted nectarines to finish off. Next, I think I would like to master a complicated dish- not along the lines of molecular gastronomy, but something with a little more finesse...

Met a Sri Lankan friend who'd spent the year in Sri Lanka, and he talked about having to defend Eastern council elections (when he was against it on principle), on having to defend a rape case of an 11 year child by her uncle, who ended up with a miscarriage, on traffic violations with racist cops and how he was so incensed that he was determined to take it to court: the slow, and steady unravelling of any sanity and calmness.

there used to be a playground

Found myself quite unexpectedly at school again after being unable to get an internet connection or phone signal where I am currently living (in the boondocks known as Harvard Square), and it was quite disorientating to wander these empty corridors, after lunch with a good friend and reminisce about all the times we would be rushing around late for class, talking smack about professors and fellow class mates, furiously working on an (inevitably) last minute assignment, having to work in one of those mandatory group assignments (a favorite of the Kennedy School) and silently grinding a pencil into my thigh as a self-important gasbag drones on about Iran's nuclear policy (a nother favorite at the Kennedy School). Eating from the world's worst canteen known as Sodexho where food comes to die. Trying to print yet another draft of a paper on school printers that ran out of toner and the will to live sometime back in 1975. Reading the NY times coverage of our school and a professor who quite inexplicably was named the "Prince of Darkness" in said coverage. Bumping into the various hookups and breakups on campus fulled by politics and desire. Talking to Pulitzer-winning professors who inexplicably burst into tears when asked about their personal life (or lack thereof). Obamamania on every corner and corridor. Damn, I miss this place.

bale-fully yours,

Managed to haul my (rather large) ass to the gym today, thereby dispelling the contentedness I have been feeling for the last 2 weeks. Man, it still hurts.

I am starting on an intensive French and gym regime. Rented Indochine, an old Cesar winning movie with Catherine Deneuve. This had all better come back to me rather quickly OR ELSE. As for the gym I plan to spend at least 2 hours a day (HAHAHAHAHA) for 22 days (the time it takes to form a habit) this month. It's going to be brutal but I am inspired by Christian Bale who a) lost 63 pounds in 12 weeks by eating an apple and a can of tuna a day (don't worry that is (sadly) not going to be me) and b)got fit for American Psycho and Batman by working out 3 hours a day for 6 weeks. My goals are a bit more modest, but then again, I don't have the body of Bale, who let's face it, is a Greek God with a Welsh accent.

On other news, it is amazing how difficult writing is. Particularly, the architecture of a story with plot, meta themes, character development, denoument, finale. And how the language should not serve itself, but should be in service of the story. Some writers (y'all know who I am talking about), make it seem effortless, like magic. Ahhh. Another aspiration, filed away in Things To Do When I Return As a Grasshopper.

And how could I post today without writing about tennis? I remember when I first saw Nadal play against Federer. It was with my mum, and it was back in 2003, in a hotel room in Cambodia. The sum total of what she knows about tennis can be described as Every *Bleep* Thing Shouted By John McEnroe, but she was quite enamoured of Nadal. (She has a thing for Latinos- cf Desperado, which I think we watched 3 times because of Antonio Banderas.). In any case, what a match.

american psycho

"Do you think Soho is becoming too... commercial ?"
" Yes. I read that."
" Oh, who gives a rat's ass ?"
" Hey, that affects us."
"Well, what about the massacres in Sri Lanka, honey ? Doesn't that affect us too ? Do you know anything about Sri Lanka ? How, like, the Sikhs are killing tons of Israelis over there ?
"Come on, Bryce. There are a lot more important problems than Sri Lanka to worry about."
American Psycho

random

So... by all accounts... its' been a month since I last posted during which I have a) graduated , b) survived 2 weeks with the family at the Cape, c) moved house and packed up 2 years worth of stuff, and d) continued working.

I have July off so I shall be posting thoughts such as I wish I had tartes framboises and Why are there endless storms in Cambridge and How many movies can I watch per day (record of 5 so far.)

But quite seriously, I have been on a massive Christian Bale streak, he of the cheekbones-so-sharp-it-could-slice-sexual-tension fame. Watched Equilibrium yesterday, a Matrix-type movie in which Bale was quite extraordinary as a robot who learns what emotion is. I had seen him first in Empire of the Sun, a rather prosaic Spielberg tearjerker, in which Bale was so astonishing that they had to create an awards category for him (Best Juvenile something or other). And then of course had seen Laurel Canyon, and American Psycho, and of course the Batman movies. I like actors who do not impose their personality over the role, but rather are in total service to the role and do not try to be likable. Another fine performance seen recently was Casey Affleck in Gone Baby Gone.

Am also reading Dreams From My Father, a poignant, searching memoir written by Barack Obama which was started right after he graduated from Harvard Law and way before he acquired Bono-like fame. Next is A Writer's People by Naipaul, whose nonfiction writing I adore for its simplicity, elegance and insight. He is such an un-showy writer, unlike Rushdie.

Which brings me to my recent Rushdie sighting at the New York Public Library attended with JP. Suffice it to say, that the man was utterly repellent, and for, I might add, not very good reason either. The truly great are truly humble, and those who fall just short of greatness in their work, especially as writers, also lack that humility which allows openness to perspectives and the ability to continue plumbing the depths of the human heart.

It's a Beautiful Day (U2)

A new day, a new nominee, a new graduation, a new life. If this country can change, then by god, so can I.

food!

C and I made dinner yesterday, to wit, the following: watermelon, basil, mint, watercress and feta cheese salad, followed by cava beans, spinach and pasta salad, followed by roast nectarines with a vanilla bean sauce, with of course, copious amounts of zinfandel (and when that ran out), pinot grigio and shandies. The menu tonight, spinach and red onion salad with maple-dijon vinaigrette, roast salmon with fig and onion jam, and sour cream and cinnamon cake.

Gardening

On the return from Quebec City, we drove through the rolling hills of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire (where we stopped off at a true-blue diner), and back into Cambridge. Opened the post to see that my package of Jo Malone samples had arrived and now, having sprayed White Jasmine, Amber & Lavender, Orange Blossom, Nectarine and Honey, and French Lime Blossom on me, I am happily content, smelling like an English Garden, writing my very last paper.

Vive La Quebec

Am in Vieux Quebec City now. Who had a clue that this existed in North America, this old town, that looks like it was plucked out of fairy-tale Berlin, Prague and Paris, where everything is in French (as the proud Quebecois and their independence movement will attest to), and where above all, the food is in French. Although it has been busy with work, being holed up in cafes in Montreal and Quebec on cobblestoned streets with horse carriages passing by, with endless chocolat chaud, cafe au lait and croissants, with rain pattering off the grey stones, with the sun bursting out of clouds, ricocheting off an ancient chateau, and every arrowing spire in the city, with tiny art galleries and Catholic churches around every corner, with Nina Simone singing in every cafe, it feels like I have walked into an alternate universe, and the past and the future both seem very far away.

negating my ass

I am valiantly trying to write my hardest paper yet: a paper for which I receive no credit, which topic I have to conjure out of thin air, which will be read by one of the few people whose intellectual opinion I consider relevant, and which is daunting because it is about literature, which I have enjoyed as a reader, but never as a critical theorist (and thank god for that).

For example, consider the sentence below:
"What Hegel established is, then, that violence is a necessary moment in the history of the recognition of human freedom. This history initiates a contradictory outcome: it asserts freedom through the negation of freedom. However slavery, generates the conditions of its own emancipation so that the process moves toward the mutual cancellation of servitude and domination. It is a negation of the negation: The negation that instituted bondage is negated in its turn."

I have read this paragraph 3 times and I still don't understand it. ARRGHHGHGHGHGH.

2 more papers before the conferral of a degree- so close and yet so far.

An Application For Credit For PostColonial Literature

The course is a rigorous examination of political and social identity as seen through the prism of personal experience, and taught by the leading postcolonial theorist in the world. We examine the works of Frantz Fanon for example, a Algerian revolutionary who wrote the discourse on Algerian independence and use him to understand the role of violence in transitioning societies such as India, South Africa and Sri Lanka. We examine the results of Empire, as seen through the works of Conrad and Bronte and analyze how they create a dependent society which, when given freedom, fractures into internecine strife due to an inability to self-govern. We examine black history, through the works of Jean Rhys and Toni Morrison, and analyze what happens post-independence for oppressed communities, and the struggle to rebuild themselves, their society and their identity. These are broad topics and we examine how they interlock, create cleavages and result in how identity is formed, and how personal identity translates into a political consciousness.As to how they are relevant to an MPP degree, I find here at Harvard that many think of policy as a series of economic and theoretic prescriptions. Understanding how individuals and communities are shaped by policy is, I believe, integral to crafting humane and sustainable policies. Coming from Sri Lanka, a country to which I intend to return, and which has been shaped by war and by a colonial experience, I find it essential to take ONE course here at Harvard, which allows me to explore all these themes above and reflect on how they may shape a country.

Cry, beloved country

The City

You said: "I'll go to another city, go to another shore
find another city better than this one
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead

How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them
totally."
You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You'll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighbourhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things
elsewhere:
there's no ship for you, there's no road.
Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you've destroyed it everywhere in the world.

Constantine P. Cavafy, translated by Edmund Keeley & Phillip Sherrard

A Bus Named Desire

What a night! North Carolina called for Barack, and Indiana with only a sliver of a margin of victory for Hillary. It has been the most astonishing of campaigns, and of primaries to date. While at many moments I have been numbed by the sheer drudgery of it all, at many other moments too I have been excited and thrilled by the prospects of change in government, of youth turning out in droves, of contests between a black man and a white woman, and most possibly of all, of hope. I started the campaign a fervent Hillary supporter, but the dial has now swung to Obama, especially after his speech on race. If he could grow up in this country, run in politics, and still give a speech like that- then that's it. And Hillary with her ridiculous proposals on a gas tax holiday, and her attempts at populism amongst working-class white voters is just alienating now. I relished the prospect of a fight for the nomination, but now I join the clamouring for her to step down, for the party to rally around Obama, for the national mood to turn towards the general election. And to many friends who have literally taken the semester off school in all but name, campaigning in rural North Carolina, in Pittsburgh, in New Hampshire, running call shops out of their garages and mobilizing the campaign; a massive congratulations for the ardour, the commitment and the belief in public service.

xobni

So I have just downloaded this app called Xobni, for those of you who are Outlook users and have clunky interfaces, (read the NY Times article on it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/technology/05xobni.html?em&ex=1210305600&en=ec7ba19942188f37&ei=5087%0A)

It tells me that my number 1 ranked most frequently emailed person is my co-chair of the Conference. The total tally? 1739 emails sent over six months over 1244 different conversations.

And you ask me why I needed a Blackberry.

let a thousand flowers bloom

Took the afternoon off with C, and we hiked through Boston, including the never-before-ventured-into Jamaica Plain. C's plan was to go to the arboretum, (a place like a topiary, aviary but focused of course on trees), and set on sprawling acreage in JP, at the heart of beautiful parkland. So in no short order, the following specimens were noted and surreptiously smelt, ; rosehips that were not yet in bloom, wisteria, seven different specimens of lilacs, elms, sassafras (which apparently goes into root beer until they discovered it could give you cancer), some japanese cherry trees, willows, violets, grape hyacinths, and of course tulips which are everywhere in bloom. C, the budding horticulturist, could identify at sight all of the above, whereas I of course, vainly ran to the copper tags and feigned knowledge.

my girl

"We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience"- The English Patient

The reading by Michael Ondaatje under the quiet cavernous New York Public Library and the discussion that followed represented a four year break in the time that I had seen him. There was an astonishing passage, hallucinatory according to one reviewer, of a boy on a horse riding through an eclipse. Though I have only read the book Divisadero once, the reading of it was like opening a wound again, the scar the memory of it.

There are many flaws with Ondaatje's style of writing, which I am not oblivious to; the inability to pitch dialogue, the inadequacy of the political and moral vision, which is found in the best of Naipaul, the perfection of every character; that is to say, a lack of mundane, annoying characteristics (no one is a habitual nose-picker in his novels) which epicizes the characters. All of that is true. But there is an unbearable compassion in his writing, a true recognition of pain, loss and betrayal, a haunting that is there in every story, and is left like the memory of lingering smoke in every reader. For the sheer humanity and understanding in his novels, for his homage to the complexity of how the past links up with the future, and the present, there is no one quite like him. And all of that is leaving aside his much feted language; quiet sentences precede quiet sentences of clarity and beauty, until in the middle of a paragraph, at the end of a sentence, there is a sudden starburst of beauty that verges on pain; because the revelation on the page is so true, so unexpected, and now, having read it, changes life so imperceptibly.

And with all of that, I am plunging into Divisadero again.

the postcolonial wretched

"Each age has its peculiar opacities and its urgent missions. The parts we play in the design and direction of historical transformations are shadowed by the contingency of events and the quality of our characters. Sometimes we break the mold; at others, our will is broken. What enables us to aspire to the fraught and fervent desire for freedom is the belief that human beings are capable of imagining what Fanon once described as a "time [that] must no longer e that of the moment or the next harvest but rather of the rest of the world",
Homi Bhabha, in his introduction to the Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon

H and K

Having just watched Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, I can safely concur with the review of an institution as august as the New York Times in saying that this, pardon the oxymoron, is an intelligent stoner raunch comedy. Kal Penn as an actor has never appealed to me: even in comic roles he seems to be constantly overacting with his timing just that little bit off, and as for well serious acting, the Namesake: enough said. John Cho is the real gem in this comedy, and I much prefer this to the Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle.

I have been putting the P-R-O back into procrastinating and need to really plow through some serious work OR ELSE- all will be doom and gloom. In a way, and I am going to regret this the moment I say it, being at a desk 24/7 does mean that one tends to get things done; especially things that one is interested in.

ice cream

long conversations with father, and things are progressing slowly but surely.

I have discovered a new, favourite ice cream: goodbye strawberry cheesecake (Haagen-Dazs), hello caramelized pear and pecan. Needless to say the corporate drones at Haagen Dazs did not come up with this winner by themselves; it was the result of a nationwide competition on flavours, and its out on limited edition.

Now if someone, why not, can make rose and almond ice-cream, and other floral/nutty combinations, my heart is theirs.

poverty

Wading through fifty United Nations cases on successful business strategies to reach the poor, from cement factories in Indonesia to pharmaceuticals in Africa, and trying very hard to suppress the faint glimmer of hope that again, letting a thousand flowers bloom might be the only way to muddle along in the process to alleviate, and END poverty. What am I going to do when I can no longer do this stuff either?

irises

Bought deep-purple irises and white stargazer lilies, the scent dense and rich and flooding my tiny room. I do so love flowers, but only very certain kinds. No daisies and gerberas, baby's breath or hyacinths or any of those bright and pretty flowers. Lilies (always stargazer, never calla and never any other colour than the funereal white) above all, bright yellow daffodils, deep red-black roses, irises always and endless lavender, and dying tulips which I think are so much more extravagant than tulips in their prime, in their overblown state, pneumatic, like Dolly Parton now and not before.

Spent last night reading from an old compilation of the New Yorker, Slight Rebellion off Madison (Salinger) and Autobiography by Fitzgerald (F. Scott). Written way back in the sixtie, I still think that Salinger is the standard to which all coming-of-age novels aspire. And my favourite of all of his work (notwithstanding the unread Hapworth 16, 1924 to be dug up from the bowels of Widener before I leave), is definitely For Esme with Love and Squalor.

It is time to look unflinchingly into the future and march forward. First, the taxes.

growing

this is how I feel today: like a grumpy polar bear ready to rumble.

The funniest thing i heard in two days was courtesy of a certain editor of an indian daily who asked me in all seriousness, "Am I a dwarf or am I a child"? I am still pondering this question now. Is there anything left to grow into?

homie is my homie

am feeling thoroughly beaten up and nauseous. I can't quite pinpoint why, but the overload of work to do seems rather monstrous, and procrastination the only way to seriously deal with it.
Hopefully the yoga class today won't turn into some crazed trampolining class with projectile missiles and I can be at peace.

Thanks to JP, I now have tickets to see... drumroll please... MICHAEL ONDAATJE AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY!!!!! Thank you thank you.

What else? In class with the homie today, and it came quite unbidden to me, that Christabel Lamotte in Possession must be modelled off Dorothy Sayer's letters, in the use of the witch in the turret and the madwoman in the attic and the words that burn the paper they are written on. And both, highbrow literary detective fiction stories, are not grounded in any sort of reality about love and life; instead they are fantasies, cleverly disguised as stiff-upper-lip romances. I can't quite explain it more than that. I fell in love with these books, of Ash and Christabel, of Peter and Harriet. But the real writing lies with the Virgin in the Garden, and in the letters, and they are bitter, thwarted and full of pain.

Never mind. The weekend was full of alcohol-induced reality, and I am still feeling exhausted by it all. I wish I could go somewhere, to a house by the sea, with the wind on the sand, and great grey gloomy skies, and the call of an albatross, with just my books, endless tea, and gazing through hazy windowpanes.

letters to john cournos

I am waiting in the eaves of Houghton Library, Harvard’s rare manuscript collection, to uncover eleven original letters written by Dorothy Sayers to her Russian lover, John Cournos, with whom she had a brief, intense and bitter love affair in the early 20s, just after the first war. I passed through maximum security procedures before I was allowed to enter the hallowed halls where these letters, now about a hundred years old, are housed. There is one lone scholar here, working laboriously away. We are only allowed pencils and paper, and absolutely nothing else. I feel like a scholar, and the brief honor it entails. What it would mean to be cloistered away, working quietly as though in a dream, living between worlds, and between lives, bridging histories.

The papers arrive, carefully folded into sheaves of tissue. Among them are some original photographs. The Library tells us that the records of those who view its collections are kept for a hundred years. I would like to know who else has requested these, taken it out of the quivering tissue, viewed it wonderingly. Written by quill, on plain white lined paper, now faded except for the ink which has lasted, with the dates carefully cut out.

The first letter begins like this.

“Dear John,
I’ve heard you’re married. I hope you are very very happy, with someone you can really love. I went over the rocks. As you know, I was going there rapidly, but I preferred it shouldn’t be with you, but with somebody I didn’t really care twopence for. I couldn’t have stood a catastrophe with you. It was a worse catastrophe than I intended because I went and had a young son (thank god it wasn’t a daughter) and the man’s affection couldn’t stand that strain and he chucked me and went off with someone else!”

And then later

“.. Now why in the world should you want to meet me? Last time we met, you told me with brutal frankness that you had no use for my conversation. Do you think my misfortunes will have added new lustre to my wit? If I saw you, I should probably cry, and I’ve been crying for about three years now and am heartily weary of the exercise.

And then
“I wanted to have children quite normally and ordinarily. I wanted yours, and as you repeatedly refused, I chucked the whole business. I didn’t want the Beast’s, but having got it, I felt perfectly affectionate to the Beast and would have stuck to him faithfully if he hadn’t so to speak, turned around and stamped on me”.
“I’m sorry you found our last conversation dull. It was rather too desperately exciting for me- the last whack that chucked me over the cliff. ….
“ Final problem: Tea or no tea? It’s going to hurt like hell to see you, because Judah, with all thy faults I love thee still.
So you see the lover has to be companionable, only then again, if he was too nice one would fall in love with him and that would be vile. One can’t be ecstatic about something which involves telling lies to one’s charwoman.
“It’s odd that I get on so much better with you when you aren’t there. I suppose what I had for you was one of those sorts of object hero worships and that was why all the backstairs part of the business was so completely unthinkable.”

A Postscript
“I reopen this on returning from the film of “peter Pan’ to submit to you a very serious difficulty. Supposing one is ever able to give Anthony a home or a parent or two- will it become necessary to his peace of mind to see “Peter Pan”? Will he feel a pariah if he is the only child who has never seen “Peter Pan”? Because I absolutely refuse to take him. I am quite unable to sit through a Barrie play without grinding my teeth. There is a kind of leering unwholesomeness about the Barrie mentality which makes me heave. Has any child ever been heard of that does not like Peter Pan? But- is a child who does not like “Peter Pan” a monster? I should not like to be mother to a monster. Please give me your opinion on this agitating question. “

“You broke you own image in my heart you see. You stood to me for beauty and truth, and you demanded ugliness and barrenness and it seemed now that even in doing so, you were just being. You told me over and over again “I cannot marry anyone”, “I will not be responsible for anybody’s life”, and “I will not be responsible for bringing any lives into the world”, “I do not love you”. My dear, you stripped love down to the barest and most brutal physical contact- it is nothing- any man would do for that. I said to myself: “There is nothing I can give him beyond what the finest harlot in the street could provide. Our life would be one dirty shift after the other, with nothing in it but an agony of emptiness for both of us”.
“To be just, I never meant him to be more than what he wanted to be- an episode. If it had not been for the accident of Anthony, I couldn’t have blamed him for leaving me. He is not a good man, but he never deceived me. I understood from you that you, also, only wanted to be an episode and I didn’t want you to be that. I am sorry if I mistook the things you said, they didn’t seem capable of any other interpretation but as I have been so bitterly punished by God already, need you really dance on the body?”

“It frightens me to be so unhappy. I thought it would get better, but I think every day is worse than the last, and I’m always afraid that they’ll chuck me out of the office because I’m working so badly. And I haven’t even the last resort of doing away with myself because what would poor Anthony do then, poor thing?”

“But then, I still had some hope and some faith and desire for better things. But I swear that if you had offered me love, or even asked for love, you should have had everything. Not easily, because I did not want to commit so bitter a sin, but you never asked me to love you, never said a word to me of anything but bodily desire. ..If you remember, I offered to marry you by English law only, so that you could be free in your own country. “

“I am so terrified of emotion now, and it makes me feel so ill and work so badly that a quite business like beginning would be easiest for me.”

“Well, well, the prizes all go to the women who “play their cards well” but if they can only be won in that way, I would rather lose the game. “

reading

It was widely noted, upon the passing of Arthur C. Clarke that he was a renowned science fiction writer. The Times wrote adulatory articles amongst others, but not a single mention of the pedophilia was to be found in any respectable journal. I have many problems with Clarke as a man, but I also believe, unfortunately, that a distinction should be made between one's private life and one's public life.

Have been submerged in reading, watching, writing, and breathing in the silence. It has expanded my heart right now, like nothing else could. I live in many worlds now, in Old pre-war Britain, amongst the cobblestones of Merton and Magdalen, watching two lovers embrace,
Placetne magistra?
Placet.

And then into Trinidadian Port of Spain, watching a young boy married on the proof of a letter, at 13 to a young girl who lives with a large family, and his quest for his own identity, making signs, that say Trespassers Forbidden and watching his clumsy grabs at significance, watching what Naipaul has said, that in postcolonial societies, empire has denied humans the chance to make a real life, a significant life.

And then most favourite of all, into the early seventies, into northern California, into ranch country and seeing three people who grew up together split up after a single act of violence, watching one boy going into the gambling dens of the time, another fleeing into France to piece together another's life, and always the silence between the words.

All done listening to Tamil music from the 80s, sung by the irrepressible S.P. Balasubramaniam.

If I could preserve this moment, and more, this feeling, I really do believe that this is all I need. And that this may be all that I come to have, at least, that which is in my control.

We'll have the life we knew we would.

Spring!

The housemates are gone, the friend who came to stay is gone, and I spent the last three hours on hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor the old fashioned way after decades of band-aid swiffer use. Then the bathroom, every surface bleached and sanitized, the bathtub scrubbed with heavy-duty cleaner. Every dish in the overflowing sink washed, chucked into the dishwasher and put away; kitchen tops and stoves cleaned after two months of neglect. Then the living room, hoovering every last stray crumb, sweeping stubborn dust swirls from corners and arranging cushions. Corridors, swept, mopped and Pledge-ed. Then my room, the worst for the last. Two loads of laundry. Every book taken off the floor, recovered from under the bed, recovered from cracks between bed and wall, and bed and window, (27 in total), arranged in piles of what-to-return (read-horrendously overdue), what to (ambitiously) read, what I MUST read RIGHT NOW. After I could see the floor again, it was swept, mopped and sanitized. In a burst of overdrive, I even sanitized my chair (leave antibacterial disinfectant on leather for 3 minutes and then wipe off) and my computer screen with special cleaner. Threw away three months worth of paper and met my desk surface again. Took out the trash. Superglue-ed (which I had the foresight to buy at CVS today) a piece of my shoe that was falling off). Put the flowers in new water. Watered the long-suffering Edith (my cactus). And put my aroma therapy burner to work.

And now I am at my desk, a little bewildered at this springcleaning fit, which came and shook me like a rag, and has left me now spent, with of course, the task du jour, my dissertation to hand in a draft before the final, before the morning. Procrastination, your name is woman. To think that just last week, at precisely this time, I was at the picture above, at the Cape of Good Hope.

confusion

Epistemology and Ontology are the most basic levels at which theories can be compared, and I still, at this ripe old age, have no idea what it means. (I get teleology, ontology, and semantics all confused in my head). So I decided to write it down.

a) Epistemology: the branch of philosophy that investigates the possibility, origins, nature and extent of human knowledge.

b) Ontology: a branch of metaphysics that deals with what is being?

c) Teleology: The study of final causes, particularly in relation to design or purpose in nature

kim

When I am here, at the heart of this great college, listening to this lecture from a Parsi intellectual, about Kipling’s Kim, and he highlights a passage, that begins, “And the great fields of the Punjab rolled by”; it should smack of colonialism, written by a defender of Empire, a postulate of the white man’s burden, but here, shadowed as we are by snow, and denuded trees, with only the barest hint of Asia, carried by reminiscent travelers that wash up on our shores, it is a remnant of a future that might not yet come to pass. “I am Kim, I am Kim, I am Kim, and what is Kim?”

A Tale Of God's Will (Requiem for Katrina)

Dear Terence,

I wanted to say thank you again for taking the time out of your busy schedule, coming to Harvard and playing for a bunch of people who don’t know much about jazz, but who know a lot about work in homelessness, education, health, policy and government. We have been receiving emails all day from the proud few who stayed on to listen to your talk, about how that part of the Conference, was enough to make the whole day worthwhile. Did you know we had a team from Japan that flew in to hear you? That was the Japanese guy in the front row who asked you the first question: “How do you make jazz?”.

What you said when you talked to us was true. All you gotta do is to get one person. That’s all you have to do. Well you got more than one person buddy. You got some of the ‘right’ people, if I may say such a thing. There are requests already to know more about the Thelonius Monk Institute, from people who WORK at Harvard Business School and questions about collaboration with the institute, and even questions about Herbie Hancock!! I will pass them on in a more formal fashion, but I just wanted you to know first. (My favourite comment was from someone who said she cried during your performance, and another who said you brought a raw dose of humanity to the conference).

I can only apologize for what must have seemed like something rather unplanned, given that you’re used to high-profile events and, you came to a student run event which was just being held together at the seams. Well, even though it was student-run, it was 40% attended by professionals, and the rest were Harvard students, so at the risk of sounding arrogant, they’re people who’re going to find life a little easier, and will have a strong sense of service especially when they see people like you, playing their heart out, spreading the word about New Orleans, and talking and talking and never giving up, despite how tired or discouraged you may be. So you have made one more small step, in changing the world.

When I first saw you talk with Mitch in New Orleans way back in November, I thought to myself, this is a guy who’s got the Bill Clinton touch! He makes it seem like he’s only speaking to you, but in fact he’s speaking to a whole room. It made you suspect!! It was the first time that I formally heard of you, but then I went back and watched Spike Lee’s stuff, and there you were, at every moment, when the heart needed words that the mind could not express. And then I heard your music and I thought, whatever anyone can fake, there’s no way you can fake that.

I am from Sri Lanka. You may not have heard of it, but in Dec 2006, a tsunami came and washed away 60,000 people. And I was there right afterwards, and I stayed for 2 years, and I saw the things that I saw again this past November in New Orleans, and I was so surprised because I thought, this is the United States! There’s no way that this could happen in the United States? I thought it only happened in countries like mine, where the rich were so rich and everyone else was so poor, and when all their uninsured homes got flooded away, the government let five star hotels buy beachfront properties, instead of giving it to fishermen who’d lived there, right next to the sea, for generations. And no amount of money from abroad was enough to compensate for the failures of the government and the sense of abandonment.


But it happens everywhere. I’m still trying to record it down, to remember it as honestly as it happened. Which brings me to my last point. I have always wanted to be a writer. Whether I will have the courage to pursue the truth of that journey is another story. But listening to your music, which so exactly charted the journey of my heart and soul those two years, I was silent. Because you are a true artist, and I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been to compose something that you can only see with your eyes closed. I don’t have the words to really say what I want to express, but I found a truth in your music that I rarely find in art. And I can only imagine how exhausting and difficult it must be to relive that every time you perform. So finally, for the dedication and perseverance that you give to your art and your music, I commend you, as someone who dares to hope to follow in your footsteps. What you are able to do with your music, and the commitment to New Orleans that you have which is evident in what you speak, is true example to me, when I get discouraged about my own country, and about my lack of courage to follow my heart.

rajnikant

"Your needs are going to feed her needs until all there's left is a Wilson-shaped chalk outline on the floor"

I have been waiting to use that line on someone since I heard it a week ago and I busted it out today! Yay!

A discussion on Rajnikant yesterday got me thinking. Why was I, self-labelled thinking woman, professing (what was undoubtedly my father's projected) love for Rajnikant in front of a group of very attractive woman. Sometimes I feel like the unloved Southern cousin of dusky skin, and outgrown teeth and frizzy hair next to Northern women with olive skin, dark obsidian hair and a certain je ne sais quoi to them. And then just to make sure the balance is firmly tilted in my favour, I profess adoration for a certain gentleman who has most emphatically lost all his hair (and now has hair implants that lie in a hairsprayed comma over his forehead so he can dramatically flip it back- this gesture btw was during his heydays where every young man in bell bottoms grew out a comma of hair to do the same, including this author's father), is darker than night, was a bus-conductor (one step away from women's tampon dispenser) and is skinnier than a twig, subsisting on a diet entirely composed of alcohol and pattu (cow dung ash).

But! Appearances can be deceptive. For while the rest of the world may have hangups about his appearance, he certainly does not. In fact there's a whole Tamil song devoted to the way he walks (thangamahan from Baasha). There is a whole sub-industry devoted to replicating his khaki autorickshaw driver-policeman-bus conductor shirts. There's his smile, full of bad teeth, that somehow inspires wellbeing. There's above all, his confidence, his energy, his Lutheran stance of : Here I stand, I can do no other in his movies. Truth, justice and the American way! Here's to Rajnikant and many more really bad movies.

barf

Harvard-Wide Graduate Student Speed-Dating Event This event is open to the first 120 graduate students who register and make a payment. Registration opens on Sunday, Feb. 17th at 9 pm. Participants will have the opportunity to speed-date 20 individuals of the opposite sex and the opportunity to mingle with many more. This will be the first of similar events that the HGC would like to host for individuals seeking to meet other graduate students at our University. When: Friday, Feb. 22nd from 6 pm to 8 pm Where: NEWS Restaurant (South Station on Red Line); 150 Kneeland St Boston, MA 02111 RSVP: www.harvardspeeddating.comCost: 10 dollars via paypal Feel free to contact any of the four of us with any questions and/or suggestions. You may also subscribe to our listserv at http://calists.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/hgc_events

Study Questions

Printed at the back of Elimination Dance, a small book of a single poem by (who else) M. Ondaatje, which contains among other things, graphics of regions in Canada where Brian Mulroney has been burned in effigy or pissed on from a great height during a motorcade, are the following study questions. (In both English and French, as per Canada)

Study Questions
1. Does the author's fuck-you tone contribute to the theme of the poem as a whole?
2. Compare Elimination Dance with "The Rape of the Lock'-with special emphasis on the use of zeugma
3. Is the author's use of simple language a conscious attempt to mask his social agenda OR is he an unconscious victim of his own prejudices?
4. Diana Whitehouse-where are you? I knew you when I was 14 years old. I heard our name mentioned over the loudspeaker at Heathrow Airport in 1989. Please contact me c/o Brick Books, Box 38, Station B, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 4V3
5. Does the figure of the mountie in the poem function as a textual censor-sensor?
6. Is the central theme of choice an illustration of rational elitism or animistic determination?


Questionnaire d’étude

1. Est-ce que le ton ‘va-te-faire-foutre’ de l’auteur contribue au thème de ce poème?
2. Ecrivez une dissertation qui compare La Danse eliminatoire à la Boucle de Cheveux dérobée – soulignant l’usage du zeugme.
3. Croyez-vous que l’auteur se rend compte que son langage simple déguise ses perspectives socials où est-il une victim inconsciente de ses propres préjugés?
4. Diane Whitehouse- ou êtes-vous? Je vous connaissais quand j’avais 14 ans. J’ai entendu votre nom sur les haut-parleurs de l’aérogare Heathrow en 1989. Prière de me contacter a/s Brick Books, CP 38, Succursale B, London, Ontario, N6A 4V3, Canada
5. Le Personnage de la Gendarmerie royale dans le texte, agit-il en tant que censeur ou en tant que phénomène sensorial?
6. Croyez-vous que le thème du choix, sujet central du texte, fasse prevue d’un élitisme rationnel ou d’un déterminisme animiste?

Poothathamby's Treason

“The Governor in Jaffna had two Mudaliyars by the name of Don Manuel Anthirasy and Don Lewis Poothathamby. An untoward incident in their families has been the subject of a drama. Anthirasy being taken by the beauty of Poothathamby’s wife sent word to her to pay him a private visit. In reply the lady sent a broomstick and a pair of old slippers which made Anthirasy very indignant. He waited for an Opportunity to revenge this insult. He as Co-Mudaliyar, asked Poothathamby to sign a blank paper which he did in a weak moment. Then Anthirasy wrote out a letter on this blank paper offering help to the Portuguese. Anthirasy was in high favour with the Governor and brought about a trial by night (which was against the rule) and hail Poothathamby was sentenced to death. Before any appeal could be made against the hasty sentence to the authorities in Colombo, poor Poothathamby was put to death. The Governor and Anthirasy however were at length summoned to Colombo. Anthirasy who went by land was killed by an elephant and the Governor who went by sea threw himself overboard”.

Notes on Jaffna, American Ceylon Mission Press, Tellipalai, Ceylon 1923

to jp, with love

As students of policy, we are taught to design optimal policy based on robust statistical analysis, infused with some ideals of basic human rights, equality, perhaps even democracy and social justice now and then. But we are not taught, and few of us seek, to understand the visceral impact of such policies, whether it is of foreign intervention, denial of access to housing, food, water and sanitation, the tolerance of torture and so on and so forth. We are also limited by the affluence of our surroundings, and the paucity of our own imagination, to fully experience the radical life-altering effects, or the difference between life and death, that the policies we may influence come to have. As the feminist agenda voiced nearly half a century ago, and what we have forgotten, is that the personal is the political.

Ultimately this is what the postcolonial novel, with characters engaged in conflicting internal dialogues that are writ large at the level of the nation, does. It gives a voice to those whose voices are long gone. It takes a bottom up view, and not a top-down policy view, and addresses the very real question of morality, the idea that dare not speak its name in the hallowed corridors of policy. In the end it concludes that a true resolution of what is right and wrong cannot arise out of dogmas about imperialism, religion or ethno cultural hegemony, but must arise out of an unflinching examination of the human condition and the dictates of its time. When a novel has survived this interrogation, when its reflection of its historical moment has rung true throughout the ages, then it becomes a classic, worthy of our time and study, to understand more of the great expanding mysteries of the human condition. Without this primordial knowledge, the study of policy becomes a mere exercise in academic futility.

ash wednesday

Today was Ash Wednesday, and was interesting to see those who chose to brand themselves. (Tradition demands, and as usual it is always interesting to see how tradition is followed in former colonies more than in former empires, that Catholics attend mass in the morning, at which ash is marked onto their foreheads, which should remain for a day. So more than a few people, for a secular policy school, walked around with blackened foreheads today.)

The other anecdote which I truly find eccentric, and it is not many that qualify to that aspirational label, in my books is of a corporate finance professor at MIT, whose class a good friend attends. Said professor, by name of Asquith (whose famous theory shows that stocks that are heavily shorted tend to underperform in the long run), conducts lessons from a bed. Due to back problems, the Professor cannot stand or sit for more than 5 minutes at a time, and for the past ten years, has a bed wheeled into the auditorium, from which he lectures, prone, with his head propped up on one hand, and a dutiful assistant scurries about on the blackboard behind him. To intellect, academia, and the ability to do what you want!

Heart of Darkness

Watching the returns come in yesterday was strangely disappointing. I would have had a lot more to say about politics and presidential elections way back in the day, but right now, I think that plus ca change, plus c'est le meme. Roared through Heart of Darkness yesterday and through Chinua Achebe's critical essay on same, labelled: Images of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. There is a lot that could be said about this novel (indeed what hasn't?) and I am not going to add my tuppenceworth right now. But in class this morning, with a wonderful, energetic (sometimes self-congratulatory) postcolonial theorist, I discovered this: that at the Berlin Conference in 1885, when the Congo was divided up between France, Portugal and Belgium, hosted by Bismarck, the major part of Congo, was given to King Leopold, and not to the state of Belgium. It became his own private playground, outside of any supranational power, any civil administration and any constitution. It was raped, pillaged and was a centre of slave trading. Hence the great novel, Heart of Darkness.

I apologize in advance to the readers for the next few weeks will likely be talking about certain books and literature, for this is one chance in a lifetime, for me to recover what another lost youth could have looked like.

bowel movements

Descended into the depths of an ionic/doric column encased faux roman building, otherwise known as Widener Library, to discover an old interview in a now-defunct tattered African journal, with Michael Ondaatje. One hour later, I emerged victorious and slightly dazed, for the quality of the interview, the unguarded responses, was well worth the hour spent in the bowels of Harvard Yard.

I know that (all four) readers of this blog are vividly acquainted with my obsession with Ondaatje, but perhaps not all are acquainted as well with his oeuvres, and so here is a standalone passage, from Anil's Ghost, which might hint to others, of greater works behind.

He was staying at his aunt's house in Boralesgamuwa, and she and her friends were playing bridge on the long porch that surrounded the house. He came towards them carrying a lit candle, shielding the flame. He placed it on a side table a yard or so to the right of them. No one noticed this. He drifted back into the house. A few minutes later Gamini crawled on his belly with his air rifle through the grass, stalking his way from the bottom of the garden towards the house. He was wearing a small camouflage hat of leaves to disguise his presence even further. He could almost hear the four women bidding, having halfhearted conversations.

He estimated they were twenty yards away. He loaded the air rifle and positioned himself like a sniper, elbows down, legs at angles to give him balance and firmness, and fired. Nothing was hit. He reloaded and settled in to aim again. This time he hit the side table. One of the women looked up, cocking her head, but she could see nothing around her. What he wished to do was shoot out the flame of the candle with the pellet, but the next shot flew low, only a few inches above the red porch floor, and hit an ankle. At that instant, simultaneous with the gasp from Mrs. Coomaraswamy, his aunt looked up and saw him with the air rifle hugged against his cheek and shoulder, aiming right at them.

chronoschism

written about Anil's Ghost, by Michael Ondaatje,

This novel is characterized by those abrupt breaks in time, that Ursula Heisse calls , "chronoschisms", ruptures that postmodern novelists, unlike their modernist predecessors, refuse to assimilate to the "unifying time of the individual mind". That is, the politics of Sri Lanka, seem to reflect back postmodern notions of the collapse of grand narratives, the fragility and impermanence of identity, the failure of history to provide us with a coherent account of our origins, and the moral ambiguities of action and character in a world where cause and effect are endlessly complex. That nothing lasts, that granite monuments crumble, seems to drive him to value the briefest fragments of time, to respect the moment of absolute love or generosity, the flash of intuition, the graceful walk of a young woman who will not survive another day. The artist's ability to identify fragments of beauty and nobility, even in times of terror, matches the scientist's ability to identify "permanent truths, the same for Troy as for Colombo," in the mineral traces of a soil sample.

Margaret Scanlan

Whimper anew

The end of the week, to paraphrase Eliot, tapered off, not with a whimper, but with a bang, trekking out to Longwood to meet a f(r)iend from high school, (as C says, what assed-out high school did you go to anyway?! why are your high-school friends everywhere except Singapore!?) in the rain, sleet and snow and just about lost the will to live but managed to see a part of Boston that was urban and inner city, and with its own energy, optimism and problems. Missed the debate on Thursday night, but had a fascinating discussion about housing, mixed-income housing, and mixed-land use, because the problems in rebuilding is that public housing is merely a physical structure which is no doubt essential, but does not by itself solve the problems of education, health, poverty and racial inequality. Instead public housing must be thought of as a site, where other services should also be brought in by government to congregate, and must be cross-incentivized to do sol. Unfortunately it rarely does.

Then watched Juno at 3pm with friends because it was Friday and there was nothing else to do. (I also bumped into Robin Williams the night before at Red House, a charming restaurant with a crackling fireplace where copious amounts of wine was imbibed- he was battered, newly out of rehab, all hairy, but with an irrepressible twinkle in his bright eyes). I finished my case which took 9 hours of bleary-eyed work, far more than ever anticipated. And more importantly; WHO'S YOUR DADDY?!! Because I secured the redoubtable Terence Blanchard, a Grammy Award winning jazz musician to come and play at the conference, from his new Grammy-nominated trumpet album: Tales Of God's Will; A Requiem to Katrina. (http://www.terenceblanchard.com/).

Then Friday night was spent at a 5 hour dinner with M and C, getting drunker and drunker, sillier and sillier, talking about a certain very attractive lieutenant-colonel in the airforce (who does not vote, which sends C into tizzies everytime, sketches apples and trees, separately and is from a family of union members), classes, and our quadrangle of love. And we are getting ever closer to the end, at the end of the first week of class, and talk of graduation and the summer and families meeting families are in the air. In that spirit, here is a poem I have posted before...

God Abandons Antony,

When suddenly, at the midnight hour
an invisible troupe is heard passing
with exquisite music, with shouts
your fortune that fails you now, your works
that have failed, the plans of your life
that have all turned out to be illusions, do not
mourn in vain

As if long prepared, as if courageous,
bid her farewell, the Alexandria that is leaving
Above all, do not be fooled, do not tell
yourself,
it was a dream, that your ears deceived you;
do not stoop to such vain hopes.
As if long prepared, as if courageous,
as it becomes you who have been worthy of
such a city,
approach the window with firm step,
and with emotion, but not
with the entreaties and complaints of the
coward,
as a last enjoyment listen to the sounds,
the exquisite instruments of the mystical
troupe,
and bid her farewell, the Alexandria you are
losing.

Constantine. P. Cavafy, 1911