At land's end

Cover via Amazon

In Aleut, one of the languages of the natives, the land's incredibly resourceful and ingenious original human inhabitants for nearly 10,000 years, its name means "The Great Land". A little larger in area than the combined size of California, Montana and Texas, the next 3 biggest states in the USA, that is hardly a misnomer. To the Western/European world, it was and still frequently referred to as the Last Frontier, an unmapped vastness that carried the age of explorers well into the 20th century calling out to the brave and the greedy, the curious and the desperate.

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Roads cover only about 15-20% of the available land and need substantial repair work after every brutal Arctic- sub Arctic winter, which in places to its north lasts 8 months. The rest is accessible only by extreme foot torture, waterways or air-taxi. Yes, air-taxi. Did I mention that these air taxis change their footgear to be able to land with skis or pontoon floats or wheels depending on the season and their 'bush pilots' are held in reverence for their everyday daredevilry in flying and landing in the most challenging circumstances? A New York City cab ride is most definitely the proverbial walk in the park in comparison. 

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The so-called 'modern' world stumbled upon it in the 18th century via fur seeking Russians who went on to claim it as a Russian colony. A number of towns, rivers and spots retain their Russian names and ways till date. Sold to the US in 1867 for $7.2 million, it seemed like a steep asking price, back in the day, for unforgiving unfriendly land but later it must be the Russians who were wringing their hands in disappointment when unprecedentedly massive deposits of crude oil were discovered in the mid 1950s near its Arctic Ocean coast. The oil boom was termed the second Gold Rush. 

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The first one was back in the late 1800s and early 1900s for real gold as men poured in by the thousands from easier climes to try and snap up the gold which tabloids proclaimed was lying on the ground waiting to be scooped up. But of course, the only thing lying were the tabloids themselves. Though a handful of men did find enough gold to make it big, it was mostly a tragi-comic human story of foolish hopes as they were dashed or modified by the inhospitable terrain. Two things it did do though. Provide material for one of my favourite novels, Jack London's "The call of the wild" and put the mysterious allure of this region of the world on the minds of men and boys of the type whose eyes go wide when they heard of wild and wonderful places. 

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The terrain? It is not just polar bears and frozen arctic ice fields as seems to be the commonly held pre-conceived notion. Polar bears and arctic ice fields there are in plenty further up north, but also lush green taiga forests, miles of multi coloured tundra flatlands, snow covered craggy mountain ranges, a million lakes, vast rivers, rushing glacial streams and icy white glacier filled crystal blue oceans. Wolves, massive grizzly and brown bears roam the land; giant silvery salmon and other fish swim through the streams; pods of whales swim fearlessly in the bays, moose and elf tramp about unrestricted - all in an environment that the influence of man has had very little effect on. It goes without saying that people who live and thrive in such a world are a different breed by themselves.

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Come wintertime, the real hardiness of these people is put to test as the awestruck tourists quickly make a run back to the safety of their favourable weather systems. Bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean and in the north-west by the icy Bering Sea, the 20-22 hours of daylight in the summer are replaced by a corresponding time period of darkness and frostbite friendly cold. Roads are cut off by snow and ice. Larders need to be stocked with food to last 7-8 months before it is safe and comfortable to travel again. Man's best friend, the ever reliable dog, now also serves as a beast of burden as the wolf-like but loyal packs of huskies drag loads and supplies to places when called upon. I am sure machines these days do a better job than a dozen eager-to-please canines but there's something irreplacable about the engine of a car if it wags its tail and leaps up in joy when it sees you. Sometimes efficiency can take a back seat.

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There is much more to be said in favour of a place where survival was once the height of sophistication but romanticism needs a cuff on the head once in a while. Modern technology and comforts have filtered in as the people there strive to be in sync with the rest of the world, rightly so, causing the olden days to be looked upon with a loony nostalgia. It wasn't pretty, the life of those early pioneers but what was definitely inspiring was the willingness to push the boundaries. To step out of their comfort zones, abandoning the company of the structured and organized teeming millions who were at least guaranteed survival and a shot at justice in court if not. Give it all up and come to a land where Nature undoubtedly had the upper hand. So many questions would be asked of them, some of them expected, the majority of them unexpected. To back themselves to be able to answer them with the innate intelligence that drives our success as a species.

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Adventure's home ground. Alaska.

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/05/at-lands-end.html ]

Initiation

Who were/are the Red Hot Chili Peppers? They were/are a Southern California based rap-rock alternative band. With their heavily tattooed members who seemed to have a tendency of vigorous jumping about in nothing but their capris as seen on their brilliant role-playing video-game based (then recent) music video "Californification". They were as far apart from me in every way possible.

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Who was I? I was a geeky teenager growing up in a small town in southern Gujarat, (on the West Coast of India, for the record) absorbed in a world of reading and terrace cricket. My only exposure upto this point to any kind of rock music were a couple of songs of Queen, Aerosmith's "Hole in my soul" video which I did like for many reasons, some non-musical and then watching the video of "Smells like teen spirit" on MTV Select. The last mentioned caused in me a distinct head-spinning sensation, not one of appreciation, but one of overpowering nausea. Who'd really want to listen to anything like that? If rock music was an acquired taste, I just wasn't there yet.

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Then came along "Roadtrippin' ", a simple and stark video corresponding to its song, as far removed from the preceding "Californification" one as I was from RHCP.

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[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11GYvfYjyV0]

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Haunted. That was how I felt. Haunted by the strange melody of the guitar, the wandering spirit vocals and the complete absence of any drums/percussion. The lyrics which did not make any sense and yet made a lot of sense at the same time. I saw potential. If a quartet of guys who had seemed so totally beyond redemption only a video ago as far as normal human behaviour was concerned, could sit around and make such beautiful music, maybe the choices that this genre of music offered were worth investigating. My geek meter was pinged by curiosity. I was drawn inside a world which I would have never thought of stepping into otherwise. It is a choice I am eternally grateful for having made.

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Watching them live on a Monday evening, the 7th of May, 2012 at the TD Garden in Boston was an appropriately monumental occasion for me. Anthony Kiedis was there with his magically deep voice sporting a Freddie Mercury-ish moustache, in a blazer at first before chucking it all off to end up in the trademark RHCP capri only look. 'The Flea' plugging away on the bass guitar, with an on-hands-only entry on stage and the insanely fit stage antics that earned him his nickname. 

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Both Kiedis and the Flea are 50 years old, super hyper-active on stage and a real example of how all rockstars don't have to look like dried Inca mummies (cue Steven Tyler, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards) despite having lived the rockstar life. Longtime drummer Chad Smith was beating away at his set. John Frusciante, their genius grade lead guitarist was missing, having quit the band last year, for the second time in his life, causing hopeful speculation that he would return after a few years' break like the last time. In Josh Klinghoffer, the band had an able replacement but John made his presence felt through the tunes that he had left behind.

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"Under the bridge" was played, 20 years on, their break-out song and still as mesmerizing. So were some other favourites like "Can't stop", "Give it away", "Dani California" and "Californification". "Snow", "The zephyr song", "Desecration smile", "Tell me baby" and some other spectacular tunes though couldn't find their way onto the stage playlist. Also as significant as the song is to me, "Roadtrippin' " is probably not concert material. Looking back, this particular song may have had an even bigger impact on my life, more than just inducing me to explore rock. It is hard to miss the connection between my primary passion of wandering, the locations, countries and names immaterial as long it requires being on the move and the words I first heard then...

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"Road trippin' with my two favorite allies 

Fully loaded we got snacks and supplies 

It's time to leave this town 

It's time to steal away 

Let's go get lost 

Anywhere in the U.S.A. 

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Let's go get lost 

Let's go get lost"

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/05/initiation.html ]

Living with differences

I can’t help feeling a little cynical as I pen this down. After all, the only people who would want to read an essay on “Living with differences” would be the ones who are already aware that there is no viable alternative to it. For those who are convinced that standardization-be it on the lines of religion, caste or class is the way out of the entire world’s ills wouldn’t bother making the effort. But in times when a moderate opinion on any issue is panned and reviled by both warring camps, this is an important exercise in self-motivation.

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It’s been over a year since I passed out of Regional Engineering College (REC), Kurukshetra (Now that’s a real place in Haryana, in case you thought it is something on the lines of Rama’s Bridge). It’s been grandly re-christened National Institute of Technology (NIT), Kurukshetra, but we alumni persist with the REC short form rather than the new fangled NIT. RECs represent a unique kind of Institutions where people so markedly different are put together in some kind of weird social experiment. Students from every state have just got to be there, unlike the IITs where only the ‘cream’ shows up (more often than not resulting in states with great competitive environments dominating the numbers). But in RECs, it was a case of state boards, Delhi boards, vernacular medium, English medium, competitive exam based selections and board marks based selections, all tossed together in a mixed salad of sorts. And to the great surprise of everyone involved, manage to function quite well in their own hopelessly complicated sort of way.

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As one would expect, stereotyping was everyone’s favourite pastime. Guys from the North are bruising and crude, the people from the East are pseudo-intellectual snobs, the fellows from Western India- oh, ready to sell their souls if there was any money involved, students from the South never looking beyond syllabus books and their ‘own’ kind and finally the North-east- drunk druggies! And this was just stereotype level 1, the data and pre-conditioning for which our upbringing in our respective domicile states had already groomed us to believe. The next level would crop up when passionate as the youth must be, battle lines would be drawn over a minor argument or scuffle. Regions would blend into temporary coalitions and you would discover that:

# UP-ites were all scheming politicians

# Biharis were vicious fighters ready to plunge into battle at the drop of a hat

# Telugus were basically spineless and wouldn’t ever take a stand

# Tamils were out on a mission to subjugate all other South Indian cultures

# Bengalis were so full of themselves that it was impossible to stand them for more than a minute

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and a million more such previously unstated accusations that were always hiding in a dark corner of the mind waiting for an oppurtune moment to spring out.

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All prejudices and pet hates now out in the open, a tangible bitterness in the air and one would be forgiven for thinking that national integration was a lost cause even after 60 years of Independence. Tense and difficult, moments like these were indeed but in retrospect they bring a smile to my face.

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I smile because there is a fact that drifters like me knew. Being a Bengali schooled in Gujarat, and thereby gaining admission through the Gujarat quota, my domicile state was just one identity. We call them State GTs (Get Togethers) and Gujarat GT was something like a degree which was affixed to my name as and when the situation required. I had the good fortune/misfortune of being termed too Bengali or not Bengali enough by different groups at different times. I knew that despite all the cribbing and finger pointing some things would remain unchanged.

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When mess food in its vile form was served on our plates, all hands would stretch to that extra large jar of spicy South Indian pickle carried by a benevolent soul. When the Telugu guy next room would be really sick, it would be his Haryanvi classmates who would rush him to the hospital. That the common room would be packed to the rafters with every eye on the TV screen whenever “The Matrix” was on or when Australia was on the verge of losing a cricket match, whether the opponent be India or not. That the precious matchbox doing the rounds to light cigarettes had no regional loyalties and neither did a freshly filled bottle of cold water from the cooler, the furious look on its owner’s face notwithstanding. Xeroxed notes on the night before the exam would have a geographical distribution worthy of a thesis and that the look of shock after a particularly tough exam hardly varied from face to face. The dissimilarities between us were far too many to note down, but it was the most unlikely similarities that invited bemused contemplation.

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But of course, not everything was hunky-dory in life at an REC. Some of my fellow students by way of being in the wrong place at the wrong time walked away from 4 years of engineering with regional stereotypes further re-inforced. Some of them gave up the fight to defy the labels of their region, finding it much more convenient to behave the way certain people expected them to, helped in no small measure by constant heckling and jeering. The 50% local strength of the Haryanvi students in our REC frequently saw ‘Us and them’ situations crop up with Haryana-non Haryana tensions simmering. This feeling of insecurity against the majority populace seemed to be a common feature in most RECs if reports from friends in other RECs are anything to go by. Any kind of majority always exerts an unseen and mostly unintentional pressure on the others, and in an atmosphere of distrust, it only requires the proverbial spark to burst into flames.

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This is where I realized the sincere need for just inane conversation. By virtue of my network of friends, I always knew that the rumours and whispers about the ‘rival’ group had minimum basis in truth. Some of the people I talked with hardly had anything in common with me, but just by interacting with them I knew they couldn’t be half as bad as the alarm raisers claimed them to be. Sadly for others who were completely out of touch with them, anything anyone ever said about them was as good as true.

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Having grown up in Gujarat, I wondered even more how much a little mindless banter could have made a difference. During the 2002 riots in Gujarat, a Muslim classmate and I laughed over the fact that identical stories about a Muslim girl/Hindu girl being abducted were doing the rounds simultaneously in the respective communities. But when put in context of the horrifying violence that rumours like these generated, it hardly seems funny any longer. The fact that virtual LOCs between the two communities in most cities still persist, its sadly evident that peace achieved in such conditions is just a makeshift arrangement.

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At the end of the day we are all flawed, emotional beings who have a set of prejudices and dislikes which have evolved out of our immediate environment. Some of these prejudices cannot be shaken off in a lifetime but we can surely do better at preventing them from hardening. Every time one makes a sweeping statement about a community or a caste or a class, its important to rein that in. Situations may yet force them out but keeping those words in for a few seconds more robs them of their sting and in many cases makes one realize the purposelessness of it all.

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It is only human nature that we turn to a group that is closest to our way of living whenever we feel the need for security and identity. But reaching out is so much more important even though mutual agreement may be a distant dream. Just by knowing a person with a set of values which we find odd, comes a revelation that we are similar in some ways however few they may be. This similarity is a surprise and lessens to a great extent all our apprehensions about something completely unknown. And of course the all important fact that for any correction of supposed ‘flaws’ in the other, the kind word of a friend is so much more effective than the hate filled invective of a stranger.

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It’s a strange world that we live in. The rich/privileged seem to hate the poor for not being able to fend for themselves and the poor/disadvantaged hate the rich for purposefully keeping all opportunities to themselves. The religious hate the ‘modern’ for being too flippant about their God, while the ‘modern’ hate the religious for being book-bound bigots. And so on and forth, rage a variety of differences. I am not idealistic enough to see the world join together in a celebration of our differences in the near future, indeed coming together has its fair share of acrimony. But just knowing our differences and accepting them, before pushing for any kind of compromise is the first and inevitable step in the long, arduous path towards a world which is a saner, more livable version of its present sorry self.

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Written by me but originally published on 30th January 2008 at 

http://citizensforpeace.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130&Itemid=55

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/04/living-with-differences.html]

70

[6th April 2012 - For my Dad's 70th birthday. Happy Birthday, Baba!]

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On the rooftop of an apartment building in a small town in southern Gujarat, two kids, a brother and a sister, both not 10 yet, looked up towards the sky expectantly. We knew, my sister and I, what we were looking for because we had already been shown many a times. A long drawn summer evening was coming to an end and the breeze from the nearby Narmada river was picking up now, chasing out the daytime heat from where it hid. And we waited.

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It is impossible to be objective about the influence of Dad on my life. I am up at 5 in the morning to write this. That's very much Baba. As a child, I had never seen him asleep at the time I woke up in the morning, no matter how early. I nearly started doing the dishes at 5:00 in the morning as I couldn't bear the sight of the stacks of dirty utensils piled up in the kitchen sink from last night's dinner. That's the neat and fastidious side of Baba showing up in me, sometimes to the extreme aggravation of Mom who would much rather have him focus on other things instead. In fact, the only time I have seen unshaven stubble on his face was when my Dadu passed away, a stark indication of how upset he was at the loss of his father. My obsession with cars, engineering, maps and travel? Baba. Baba. Baba. Baba.

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While my friends' fathers discussed competition, careers and finances with their sons, my Dad discussed world history, dogs and his childhood travels. It wasn't surprising that I was the only one in my friend circle who actually looked forward to my Dad coming back from work. While my friends would scurry away to keep out of their Dads' eyesight, my Dad would sit and watch Scooby Doo cartoons on TV alongside me, sometimes laughing harder than I did. A disciplinarian he never was, despite the omnipresent "Baba office thekey aashley Baba ke boley debo [Let Dad come home, I'll let him know]" threat regularly brandished by Mom when the situations were getting out of hand. We kids knew that it would take crossing a lot of lines to get Baba angry and in a way, we ensured that we never crossed those lines in the fear of encountering something totally alien like Angry Baba.

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All this unconventionality with regard to life and parenting had to be made up for with an extra effort to keep the boat from tipping over completely, a role perfectly essayed by a woman who has stood by this unconventional man for 40 years now. At various points in his life, Baba ignored the significance of things like landline telephones, colour TV, washing machines and vacuum cleaners. He has an inexplicable tendency, especially post retirement, to take hot noon-time walks to the bazaar and back as if this were a luxurious outing second to none. If it hadn't been for Mom the importance of NOT being ridiculously unconventional wouldn't have been drilled into us. Maa, while being a very unconventional woman herself, had and still has (most of the times, she is very vocal about that wish too) conventional expectations of how a husband should be. Baba being Baba refuses to conform. Needless to say, there are a lot of fireworks. All that we children, the three siblings can say that it worked out great for us despite the frequent bursts of emotional light & sound.

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There it was! Riding the wind, yet magically stationary, this bird which hovered high above us and we kids pointed excitedly. "Helicopter paakhi! Helicopter paakhi! [Helicopter bird! Helicopter bird!]" We were beside ourselves with joy as we ran around in crazy circles. Baba had first seen the bird on one of the evenings we spent on the roof and he had named it too. I don't know if anyone else in the town we were growing up in and the world we were growing up in even knew of this daily avian visitor of ours or cared for it. But my Dad did. He made us realize the beauty of little things tucked into the corners, often missed in the rush to keep up with everything everyone else was doing. To most people, life's purpose means the pursuit of happiness. The most important of all the lessons that Baba taught me, always relevant, not in so many words, but through his attitude to life, is that essentially happiness cannot be pursued. It is already here, all around us, for those who choose to see it.

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/04/influence.html ]

Ideally

Ideally, I wouldn't even be writing this. I would be living in a little hill-top house overlooking a tropical sea. Having already written about everything I wanted to give my opinion on, having travelled the world & having done my best to save it, having learnt (the current list) Spanish, Mandarin & playing the guitar, I would have rid myself of the restlessness that comes with having unrealized ideas and wishes jostling to come out, on paper, on screen, wherever. 

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My old motorcycle parked outside my door would be a worthy enough chariot whenever I felt the need for human company, taking me on an half hour ride to the nearest town, cutting through swooping roads and the sea breeze. Financially, if my writing past could pay the rent for my house and the running costs of my motorcycle, I would consider myself a success. Being as egocentric that most authors usually are, I would still want people to read and appreciate my work long after I have stopped writing but please readers, stay away from my isolated house. 

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Actually, I will head to work in an hour's time. Working on engineering assignments which on good days do inspire, on bad days cause despair and on most days are an interesting unpredictable mix. Don't get me wrong, I am not the "I am here for the money. If you want loyalty, get yourself a dog" kind of an office person. Quite the opposite. Nothing makes me happier than a busy day because everything in the world feels equally important. The design which I am supposed to be finishing ASAP, every article on Google News, all casual conversations at the water cooler, the temptation to take a post-lunch walk outside on a nice afternoon, the friend who calls me on my cellphone because he is having an low intensity workday - all so critical simultaneously and I have time enough for none. 

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The universe, I remind myself over and over again, is a cakewalk for the disciplined and organized. If only I could stop daydreaming and focus on getting my 'work' work done at the right time, my life would be so much more fulfilling. My G-Mail Inbox is filled with snippets of ideas I e-mail myself as reminders for future blog posts; my fingers and hands are possibly the most sworn at ones in the entire world as once again I fail to produce any publicly displayable tune out of my guitar and my list of must-go travel destinations continues to balloon without the addition of any check marks. Past Spanish and Mandarin efforts are very soon going to be reduced to 'Hola' and 'Ni hao' inside my fickle memory.

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Here's the deal. My version of the ideal life may seem like an uninspiring one to most people but hey, it's MY PERSONALIZED VERSION so shut up! As much as I want that life, the actual life with its twists and its turns, its risks and its burns is fertile ground for wild ideas and happy accidents to sprout up, unexpectedly and irreverently. Wise men have said, very correctly, that the grass is always greener on the other side. So I stand, on this bridge between the actual to the ideal. I look left, I look right, then I look left again. I know... I know that this is from where the view is best.

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/01/ideally.html ]

Nice

Nice wasn't in. Nice wasn't cool. Our heroes weren't nice. They were tough talking, over-muscled, ready-to-punch-at-a-drop-of-a-hat meanies; macho men who wouldn't sit around waiting for justice. We were just old enough to begin realizing that pro-wrestling wasn't 'real' wrestling but that didn't stop us from idolizing the way Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H or The Rock of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) behaved.

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The early teens were an age like that. Newly learnt swear words were like a nuclear weapon to be launched at the strategically right time during a quarrel or a fight thereby finishing your opponent into shocked submission and earning the respect of your peers. English swear words were precious but Hindi expletives were platinum. Good behaviour was good enough only for the less ambitious. If you needed to be noticed and be something significant in life, rude was the attitude. 

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This rebellion towards civility was apparent only outside the watchful gaze of parents and teachers though. We weren't quite man enough to be 'rebel' rebels yet and this was reflected in our quick transformation when the teacher left the classroom in between classes. A quick check at the door to ensure that the teacher was really gone and then it was WWF simulation time on the departed teacher's stage. The words, the antics, the moves - all on display, each trying to outdo the others in badness and foul-mouthery.

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Prayer assemblies were times where the jokes were to be played; pranks and eating of lunches during the class was the norm to be aspired to; neatly knotted ties and pressed clothes were passe, the looser and more careless look was to be the real show of character. Teenage years were full of uncertainties and questions but there was only one thing for sure - whatever your parents, teachers or any one in authority said was good for you, that was where cool came to die.

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It was in this climate of abrasiveness that one day my Mom came to me and said "I am going to the Juvenile Detention Home on Sunday to distribute some food and clothes. I would like you to go." My first reaction to that was a internal "What? Do I look like some sort of Mother Teresa to you?" which may have shown up in my expression of contempt because my Mom added "It's your Grandma's first death anniversary." Then came "You should come. This might change your life."

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I rolled my eyes up in disgust. Leave it to Mom to dig up a cliched filmy dialogue. I must say that I was rather fond of my grandmother though it didn't stop me from thoughtlessly teasing her almost uptil the day she passed away. I didn't cry when my grandmother passed away but I had always carried that guilt of not behaving maturely enough during her final illness. My grandma was another one of those filmy persons, actually scolding scheming evil characters as they appeared on TV soap operas and vocally cheering when like in all 'morally' scripted storylines, they got their due punishment. I thought that the kindly old lady deserved at least this much. I decided to go along.

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The Juvenile Boys' Detention Home was located in an old bungalow on the outskirts of the little town we lived in. The detainees here were handed over to the state authorities for minor offences like petty theft on trains, loitering and other things that kids raised on the street without the benefit of a permanent roof over their head found themselves embroiled in. A quick tour of their spartan and clean living quarters by the Home's caretakers later, we went out to the sizable backyard of the bungalow to meet the kids themselves who were winding up their distributed household chores.

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They came trooping in to where we sat on our chairs, in orderly lines and an air of general cheerfulness about them, even if not all of them were smiling. The oldest amongst them I noticed were as old as me and were the ones in charge. The younger they were, the more thrilled they seemed to see us and at the other end of the age spectrum, we were regarded with polite interest. We were shown artwork soaked in bright and cheerful colours, poetry recited to us and devotional numbers sung out in chorus. The old clothes that we had brought along were accepted with a glee that made us re-evaluate their worth and the food we had served, a change in diet from their regular fare, couldn't possibly have found more appreciation. 

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One of the boys was a particularly talented singer, only about 8 years old and with the Home for about 5 years now. They had found him travelling on the Awadh Express, a 3 year old then, singing and stealing simultaneously. He said he was from Lucknow, across on the other side of the country where the train originated from and despite the authorities' best efforts his parents could not be located and he himself was too young to know which part of Lucknow his house was in. The chirpiest of the lot, his words frequently broke into cackles of genuine laughter as my Mom and a few of her colleagues engaged their group in dialogue.

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Much more than the little happiness that our arrival and gifts had given to them, the perspective that they gifted me was invaluable. Not the usual "How very little of our time/money can make a huge difference to their lives" philosophy, which to me was sort of self-evident even before I had made this trip. But the fact that they were revelling in, relishing every moment of what we took for granted in our lives. Not the clothes and not the food, but the real comfort to be found in being treated with politeness.

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These were kids who had seen the hard life, the tough life where the next meal was a question mark. For them, the swearing we practised with casual ease in our plush school classrooms and the physical possibility of that happening with them were harsh everyday realities. While we shoved each other in mock fights and laughed afterwards, their encounters of a similar nature did not end in laughter. At school, we teased those who were religiously inclined but here being absorbed in a simple hymn took their minds away from the horrors that they had experienced and from which we had been so well shielded all our lives.

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Be nice. Be nice because not everyone in the world has the luxury to be.

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/01/nice.html ]

Snow

It was very hard to feel disappointed. It was hard to feel disappointed even though I was quite frankly bringing up the tail amongst the 10 competitors that had taken the stage last evening. In the basement of a building right on Harvard Square, I had had an opportunity to speak on the same stage where, frequently in the early 1960s, an up and coming musician named Bob Dylan played as a filler in between musical performances by Joan Baez to 'try' and make a name for himself.

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So this was Club Passim, formerly known as Club 47 annd Passim before adopting a name reflecting both, a performance arena with only 100 odd seats and its' place in history sealed by the fact that Dylan had laboured here in his struggling artist days. A story-telling competition was on, an event whose existence was recently introduced to me, as recently as this past New Year's Eve. The tellers were intense, the room was tuned in and the real life incidents they talked about sprang to animated life in those few lighted square feet around the performer. 

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I thought that since I was going to present a story very close to my heart, it would all be smooth sailing but in the true nature of all taken-for-granteds, I was up-ended. By my own abrupty concluded monologue when I realized I was running short of time and by the possessed competition that was to follow. Roundly and soundly beaten, I was still shamelessly happy to be at least in that same room. A public radio legend, Tony Kahn was the stand-in story-teller and guest of honour. He seemed to have set the tone and quality of stories for the night. The others flew in that stratosphere of higher speaking talent with him that night while I stood below and clapped.

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It was 10:30 by the time all the good-byes, congratulations and advice were wrapped up, and I stepped out of that underground treasury of personal experiences. Stepped out and for the second time that night, slipped, this time literally. While Club Passim had kept us engaged in the warm glow of significant incidents in some strangers' lives who would thereby cease to be strangers, Mother Nature was having a cold fit. So she gave her ol' skirt a rustle and down came the snowflakes fluttering onto the ground not to mention under my shoes.

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I narrowly managed to avoid horizontal disaster and from the lack of uproarious laughter behind me, judged with relief that my impromptu circus had missed the attention it deserved. I stepped with cautious deliberation now, making sure one foot was secure before sending the other one on an adventurous game of "Does friction exist or not?" I was taking it easy, as one should when one is out walking on a city road and the snow is coming down. Or for that matter rain.

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It's a city after all and shelter, should such an unlikely emergency need for it arise, is only a storefront away. When on your way home, there is nothing quite so relishing as a walk in the snow or rain. Snow hadn't been visiting these parts for quite some time, a real anomaly for cold cold Boston weather in early January. A lot of people would get around to grumbling about all the shovelling that awaited them the next morning but not right now.

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It was really light snowfall and the snow was already melting as it fell, most likely to washed away by rains that would follow. A trio of Asian students made the most of this moment though, squealing in excitement as they clicked pictures of themselves in white-cloaked Harvard Square. A group of tough-looking young men hung around a street-light, looking not-so-tough as they smiled involuntarily at the previously mentioned trio's shrieks. On the Red Line back to Quincy Adams where my car is parked, I saw the whole spectrum of human expressions play out on my co-passengers' faces as they look out of the glass windows.

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When the heavens open up to let down their payload of water, those bound by the restrictions of gravity do take a moment to look skyward. Satisfied or searching or somewhere in between one may be - but leave it to impartial Nature to give us, now and then, a one-size fits all.

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/01/snow.html ]