Intruder!!!

It was at around 12:00 at night on a summer evening and the power was out for the past 20 minutes or so. I was up on the fourth floor terrace of my house with my I-Pod blaring music into my ears. The night breeze was a welcome relief from the stuffiness of the three floors below and I was doing my rounds on the terrace long before the power cut happened. It was my special thing, this wandering the roof in the moonlight, my way of shaking a feeble fist at what was another meaninglessly tough day spent at the office. My uncle suddenly showed up on my roof-top domain and tells me, "Kutush, there's someone in the house! Didibhai (My cousin sister) thinks she saw someone flit into the second floor"

It took a couple of seconds for the words to register. This was central Calcutta with endless rows of old, old houses: some occupied, some not; punctured by vein like streets. The roofs are therefore all an easy leap from one to the next, not very unlike the roofs of Agrabah ruled by Alladin in his shadier days. Stories of thefts in the neighbourhood I had heard aplenty about why the roof doors around here need to be doubly padlocked but it somehow never seemed to hit home. Now it did and with it the dread of living one of those stories out.

The situation was all the more disturbing because in this case, I was the "man of the house". The only other persons in the house were my uncle (almost 70), my aunt, my sister and my 6 year old nephew. I had found that fact pretty amusing until that moment. Heart in my mouth couldn't have found a more literal expression than that night. But a man has got to do what a man has got to do so down the stairs I went ever so slowly.

The power was still cut off. The flashlight in my cell phone was to date used only to pour light into my sleeping sister's eyes to disturb her but now it was my shield against the unknown. I inched my way across the house looking under every bed and in every cupboard and verandah, every milisecond expecting a shadowy figure to ambush me. The wait for the expected attack was tremendously nerve-straining and that night put paid to any misconceptions that I might have had about me being brave.

As it turned out eventually; there was nobody in my house that night and I had never appreciated it's ample size before I went out on this Hardy Boys investigation. The morning after, we found out that it was probably the elongated shadow of my 6 year old nephew who was scouting around for a glass of water at an ungodly hour (by his standards) that gave my sleepy sister in another bedroom the jitters. But my house didn't ever feel so safe after that and now when I roam the roof, I always keep a watchful eye out on the darkness of the neighbouring roofs. The calming effect of a walk in the moonlight is now permanently replaced by a buzz in the head of being constantly on vigil. Thrill is a poor substitute for peace of mind but it does have its own merits. I felt my heart thump like never before that night but walking the edge with your survival on the line is a great way to appreciate what you really have.

Election day

Today is bound to be a very important day. The President of what is by far the most influential country on earth is going to be decided. I personally can't think of an obvious choice. Both the candidates are good and that's just about it. From what I've watched of their speeches and debates, none of them seem to have that killer quality that nails his opponent down for good. 

The US economy is in a very bad way now and whoever comes into power will be the only reason for it retaining its pre-eminence in world affairs like it has since WW2 or for it sliding down the ladder to make way for successors like China and the semi-autocratic Russia. Don't ask me who I am rooting for because thankfully my country is not part of this mess. International politics is a field so gray that it is impossible to take any one side and be on the right side. There are internal issues in India that need to be taken care of first and also that India's unique identity is defined by it's non-participation in the dirtiness of the super-power game. 

A Black man stands a strong chance of becoming the President of the USA in what would be a remarkable achievement. The whole world watches the drama unfold and bites its fingernails in suspense over what the future holds for the USA and the world. If history is an series of unscripted plays then we are defintely heading for the climax of a very important story one way or the other.

Alcatraz through the fog

It wasn't a good day for the cruise. That was not very evident from the sunny pier no. 43 and a 1/2 of San Francisco. So I booked myself the ticket and joined a bunch of Asian tourists on the boat. We started out nicely enough with a grand view of the 'Frisco skyline as we moved away from the pier. Then the fog came in. The Pacific was feeling pretty unhappy that clear morning and decided to steam up a little. So the boat plunged into what was a wall of cold air and lots of zero visibility fog. Most people saw common sense and went back into the boat's cabin to help themselves to the food inside. Naturally I was not among them.

My stubbornness as usual did not yield any results either. I stood braving the cold and we passed under the massive Golden Gate Bridge almost not seeing it. Only the ugly sound of the boat's horn told us that the Bridge was near and when we went under it, we could just barely see the outlines. The narrator explained the origin of the name because for all I could see the bridge was almost orange in colour. The Golden Gate was actually the name of the split in the coastline through which ships came into San Francisco Bay and was especially in use during the Californian Gold Rush. Hence the name of the opening of the Bay and the bridge that spans across it.

Then we moved across to the forbidding Angel Island and the even more infamous Alcatraz. Innocent Chinese immigrants were incarcerated for years without reason on Angel Island after their arrival on the Californian coast and Alcatraz was renowned as the toughest jail for the meanest criminals on earth. They say that every night the prisoners on Alcatraz were given a shower with warm water. This was to amplify the shock caused by the already cold water of the Pacific in case any of the prisoners were ingenious enough to beat the tough security and decided to try their luck in the shark infested waters. The jail has been closed down and served as a tourist attraction since the late 1960s, but the way it looked through the fog that day sent a shiver own my spine. It'd take a lot of effort to get me anywhere near that creepy place. That was the high point of the fog marred trip for me. The fog was instrumental in making Alcatraz look as grim and hostile a place as legend warrants it to be!

Diwali again!!!

It's been a rather quick year. On Diwali last year, I was hunched up in the cyber cafe on my street in Calcutta and a year later I am in a studio apartment in the USA 12500 kilometres away. It's really quiet and dark outside. No lights outside houses or the boom of crackers in this part of the world unless it's Christmas or the 4th of July. Circumstances couldn't have been more different and the only thing in common is that I am trying to muster something up for my blog.

Yeah, I miss home on days like this! A day which is very important as a symbol of hope and a new beginning for us, but just another lonely night for every other country. It's not that I celebrated Diwali with full gusto every year. In fact, haven't done so for a number of years. But here in a land so far away, it's difficult to relate to even the memories. It feels like that it is stories of someone else's past that I am watching on a giant movie screen. That is not too bad a experience though. The stories run like Christmas movies which despite all the travails in between end on a note of incredible cheerfulness.

What's the story, morning glory?

It's a Monday morning, not the most pleasant of times and I really should be thinking of the week of work that lies ahead. But it's fall and the trees are in the brightest of hues. The final flourish of colour before they turn into bare skeletons for the winter. The few evergreen trees around look so ordinary in front of these self-destructive ones for not being adventurous enough to count on spring to come along next here. 

There is a light fog that hangs around early on this cloudy morning. Very soon, the sun will emerge in its full strength chasing away the vestiges of its fleeting beauty. The first lot of office goers are already out on the parking lot cleaning the frost of their cars. None of them look too happy and I can't really think of anyone who could be happy to get back to work on Monday morning! But that's the way it has to be and there is no need to be grim in the acceptance of this fact. Do what you got to do but to expect a smile to light up your face all the while is a bit of an overkill. But office has its moments of insane fun when a few people get together in an unscheduled chat session maybe on sports or the weather or snide criticism of the "higher ups". 

Mornings like these carry a sense of melancholy with them, the final proof that the weekend is finally over. When I will ask anyone in office today about how he/she is doing and the standard answer would be "You know! Monday, Monday..." but not always in a serious manner. It's like always expecting the worst and then when you find that it is not as bad as it could've been, breathing a sign of relief and maybe even feel happy about it.

Ladakh

The world's highest mountains enclose a moonscape of desolate, barren lands with steely blue lakes making their appearances here and there. The winds rush along on their biggest playgrounds. Once past the Himalayas and into the desolate plains of Ladakh, they come into their own. The human being is truly at the mercy of Nature, an insignificant pebble at the mercy of the ocean. The summer months bring the rarest of mountain flowers into bloom and trails of humans who venture out from the comfy confines of the plains further south to get a taste of the wild side of life.

I haven't been there yet, but keep driving my Jeep through the vastness of the dry plains of Ladakh in my mind. The prayer flags flutter on the stone tombs that pepper the landscape of rocks, monasteries and mountains. Yet it's a place that defies my imagination because of its sheer scale and the rare pictures that I see of it don't seem to help my thoughts much. I need to be there in person to take in the entire magnitude of the place and it's cold, merciless beauty.

Boring, boring planning...

Most people I have met in the USA are quite gregarious and enthused with a purpose to their lives. Their permanent state of cheerfulness is a boost to sagging confidence sometimes while it does across as a nauseating ploy to avoid facing the realities of life at other times. Here in the heartland of capitalism, they've got one thing totally wrong.

The folks sincerely believe that planning and hard work are more than enough to get you where you want to be and that there are no other factors in play. No wonder then that the people who do not end up where they had aimed for are the most frustated and depressed people on earth. Coming from a country which is the seat of Eastern philosophy, I find it incomprehensible why these people refuse to believe in fate. Belief in fate is such an important part of our way of thinking and I think it helps us a great deal in coping with the misfortunes doled out to us (and there are many). I am not advocating that one should junk the hard work, flush the planning and flow with the tides of fortune but to deny the existence of such a tide is such an immature way of thinking. "Fortune favours the brave" all right but then the aphorism itself acknowledges the existence of something called fortune, and that it "favours" the brave, not is "ALWAYS" on the side of the brave.

Work your heart out and dream till your eyes hurt, but to say that everything fell into place because you had planned it that way makes such a drag out of what otherwise would be such an exciting life. If your entire life is planned to perfection and the only adjustments you make is to bring your life back on track with this grand plan of yours whenever it deviates from the same makes for a horribly robotic existence. The elements of unpredictability on a normal day are the real high points. How those events either pep you up or punch you in the face is the whole fun behind treating your own life like an unread novel. Who'd want to read a story whose entire content you already know?

Not me. Getting off the beach and running into the waves is more my idea of existence. The waves may splash your back with their refreshing coolness or throw you down on the beach with salt in your mouth. And that's why you run back to catch the next big one that you see forming at the edges of the sea. What in the world in going to happen to you when you challenge the next wave, you never know!