Friday, August 31, 2007

1 am Faff

By the time the entering the house ritual is done most of the faff has gone. Ask me about it some other time. I do love driving at night in this city, its beautiful and I rarely ever have to get out of fifth.

The problem with signs is, how do you know it IS a sign and isn't wishful thinking? What if fairytales ARE true, what if you DO just know, and what if you are never sure of the what ifs?

All I can do is gather every scrap of zen I can lay my hands on, rummage though the pockets of the thrice-washed pants, in the hope that there's something extra there - every penny helps, right? Then mix it up in a mojito, knock it down and pray it conjures up every last atom of faith left in my body and my life, every story of fate and destiny, good and bad, every iota of hope and positive thinking, close my eyes and just hold on. After all, the thing with destiny is that it always works out happy and fulfilling in the end, right?

And you know, this time it might just work. At least in terms of trauma and drama free life.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Testing

Am trying to overcome vagaries of internet, so this is test post to see if I can do this whole email your post in thing. Of course this means I have a good excuse for fluff. [Like I need one. :D]

Yesterday was truly a signal day in the life of MinCat.

First, she had dinner with her paediatrician. This is not in itself too strange, only there was a moment when she was sitting on the couch and said paediatrician said what would you like to drink, I have some nice single malts, that the surreality of it all struck her.

Second, on this trip MinCat knows NO women. It was strange indeed to be in Wannabe-English-Pub, surrounded by boys instead of girls. Most bizarre. [Those of ye who have seen MinCat through all her previous avatars will know why. Those of you who haven't don't bother, it's not that interesting.]

Third, in the auto on the way to Karaoke night, the phone rings, and it is Old Friend [gah, i should make a list of all the pseudonyms] who was supposed to give her a ride home but had to cancel, calling to say that he would make time and swing by WEP, so that she would be assured of a ride. When she told him she did have a backup and would be fine, he said to her, well if you need a ride, call me, I'll come and get you, leaving MinCat both gasping in shock and melting in awww-ness.

And fourth, on arriving at mall that houses WEP, to meet BikerBoy and some of his friends, MinCat was overwhelmed by the greeting she received. You see, she was on the phone with BikerBoy, informing him of her arrival, as she climbed the steps to the atrium, and he broke off midsentence, not even waiting to hang up, and came bounding across the atrium, and leapt over a parapet to give her a giant hug. She was left speechless and sniffly with sentiment.

Three and four are events of note because it has never happened that boys have made such gestures to MinCat in all the twenty-five long years of her life. They might possibly be the sweetest spontaneous gestures any boy has EVER made to her. After all this she sang Alanis Morissette at the Karaoke and went to sleep with the biggest fuzzy grin on her face.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Illegal Immigration

**Disclaimer**
This post talks about what has come across to me as the general ideological/political stance of the entities involved. I am well aware that there exist other stances with huge followings, and many individuals who fight these very stances I discuss.

Living in New York, and having travelled through Spain, the country that is essentially the border-town between Africa and Europe, illegal immigration is an inescapable subject of conversation, writing, and news coverage. I try and not involve myself as a rule, because after all we cats like to walk by ourselves, but sometimes it's hard to avoid. I like to think that I come from a family and a social background characterised by its tolerance, of other people, their ideas, their opinions, their idiosyncrasies or whatever. So, when I find a very good friend, whom I love and respect, making casual and callous remarks about gypsies, it makes me cringe. But I also feel it is that person's right to comment about a community in that country, with the experience of that life. After all, I make Sardar jokes [well I don't anymore, but I used to] and I'm sure that often I say things that make outsiders cringe. I like to think that I refrain from making a lasting judgement of a person I have recently met, and that I'm open to changing my mind about them all the time I might know them. And I do my best not to engage in argument with people who voice opinions very firmly, especially if I have just met them, and they are not peers.

Now, in the course of the travels in Spain I had a lot of arguments about a lot of things, not the least garish tank tops with images of Indian gods on them, and George Harrison and co's appropriation of hare rama and the like. While staying with people in a small town in Spain, I found it very very difficult to behave. The family is extremely religious, which many Spaniards are, but I hadn't encountered any before, since my friend's family isn't very devout. This meant that they were also fairly traditional, or conservative if you prefer, especially since they live in this little town on the coast. In the course of my conversations with the wife, I was stunned into silence many times over by the kind of views she expressed. You see, in India, people who are educated, especially in medicine and the sciences [she's a nurse] pride themselves on being rational about certain things like religion or birth control. So the problem I face in Christian countries is that educated people express views that are, to me, exceedingly backward and ignorant. In the midst of the statements about homosexuality and birth control, the lady made a face and muttered about "los moros".

The moors in Spain are a problematic subject, because after all, it was the expulsion of the Moors that gave birth to the idea of the Spanish nation, with Ferdinand and Isabel la Catolica's wars. But having lived there for over 700 years, many of them were, for all practical purposes, and if we go by today's evaluation of the non-immigrant population of the USA, natives by that time. But, having been built up as the bad guys*, anyone African or Muslim becomes tainted. The vast numbers of Algerians who migrate up and down from France, the Moroccans who have settled in Spain, any number of Pakistani and Central Asian people who have moved there to hold menial jobs - all are faintly vilified for being there. "It starts with one and then everyone comes and then *hushed tones of horror* they live SIX PEOPLE IN ONE HOUSE!"

The term "los moros" now refers to muslims or Africans, and god help you if you are both. Both the gentleman and his wife were resentful of the illegal-immigrant presence in their country, indicating that they would be willing to tolerate a few, but not people in such numbers, because they were taking their jobs. This argument I saw as ridiculous, since not one of the Pakistanis I met was in either of their professions! But the question that occurred to me, and I didn't ask, was: And what about the hordes of illegal immigrants Europeans in India and Africa and America in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries? [And well beyond]

Just because it wasn't articulated in that manner doesn't mean it wasn't illegal immigration. After all, it was the uninvited entry into the territory of another nation, usually in possession of resources that you didn't have, to better your life and that of the people of your kingdom, and motivated by extreme circumstances, whether the desperate need for a market, resources or land. The significant differences are that they decimated populations, totally exploited the native people of the land, stole all their resources, and convinced of their own superiority, subjugated everyone they could and killed everyone they couldn't [well ok, that's an exaggeration, but not by a lot] and most of all, they sold other human beings into slavery. Now today's immigrant, legal or otherwise, is convinced of his/her own inferiority, and does his/her best to better the interests of the country s/he has emigrated to, and in the process to improve the life of immediate family.

The point I'm making is that I see this point-blank refusal to be open to a two-way exchange that is equal in content, manner and extent, for both sides. Equality for the West [as we so love to call it here, I'm going to use it till I can come up with a better term than First World] is only allowed on their terms, and equality means that they are kind enough to permit everyone else to feel equal, but don't ever forget by whose grace you are at this point, because I'll take it away any time I want, whether with a War on Terror, or economic sanctions, or a cloak-and-dagger execution. Its great to have hordes of Indians working to keep your customer service bill down, but only as long as it doesn't make you worry about your own job-security. Agreed the Asian work ethic is voluntary slave ethic in comparison to that of the West, but the West loves slave-ethics, they did invent the industry.

The bottom line is that it takes tremendous courage to up and relocate to a country with a foreign language and a strange and often antagonistic religion; it must rise from extreme circumstances in your homeland; and it demands extreme hardship to even GET there. I'm not talking, in this post, about people like me, who have something to come back to, or even people form the middle-class, who put every damn thing they've got and fight tooth and nail to get to that IT job in the US; I'm talking of the poor people, whose lives are unbearable, often as a result of actions by the developed world or their own government, of the droves of Pakistani immigrants in Europe, of the Salvadorians and Haitians and all the other people who stumble their way into the USA. It took as much courage if not more, to do it in 1492, and we valourise that courage. So why do we vilify it today?

It is also true that mass immigration plays havoc with cultural hierarchies; when your Gujarati family manages to successfully run a motel chain in Arkansas, it really destroys the pretty picture of camels and exotic sari-clad women that Folklore has allotted them, and demands both agency and relevance to the modern world for these rural people. Islam's response to the West's denial of agency has been terrorism, though I am suspicious of so convenient an explanation.

It still remains that we, of the "Third World", are doing EXACTLY what they did 500 years ago, in that Arabic, Egyptian and Vedic knowledge, and colonial resources, both natural and human, brought today's "First World" where they are today, just as learning their languages and equipping ourselves with the skills needed to occupy the interstices and gaps in their society brings us where we are today. [Education is a whole other post.]

*to the extent that the patron saint of Spain Santiago is called Santiago Matamoros [St James the Moor-Killer] and almost always depicted as a shining white man on a shining white horse that is rearing up to strike dead one of several Moors lying on the ground, as its master kills more with his shining sword.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Love Love Love

No personal stuff mi culo respetable. Not like anyone reads anyway. Besides as I slowly recover I shall write.

Lying in bed exhausted and unable to sleep I thought of all the peoples I loves. Here is your ode.

She Who Sees Clearly: I have to love you, no? And I can't help but love you. But most of all, I love you cos you are just so fucking awesome, and I'm so very happy that the past year brought us here. I miss talking to you everyday, most dreffly! But soon it shall recommence.

My Pixie Girl: Now you is special for very er unusual reasons, no? And right now I love you because really truly underneath it all we're around forever.

Pisshead Kutti: I am too afraid of spiders! But I love you for saying otherwise. And I love you for the Ps. And blackbird. And good LORD Gtalk! And always being cold. And the sanjiifying. Wait, I don't love the sanjifying itself though, so don't get your hopes up.

O Poogalicious one: Once again, I have to no? But my princess what a delight it is to report speech to ye, she said, grinning. Always fly by my house.

The Acrostic One: For the monkey ballet, for the nose-poking, for the dumb charades and the thought process. I LOVES YOU!

Beloved Hag: Don't hate me for the nick, you christened yourself. And how can I not love someone like you? I hope I can be one-fifth as cool when I grow up.

Mi Chiquirritín: Cómo no quererte? Ya sabes cuanto y porque.

Loquita: A ver a ver... ¿como se puede describir está connexión que tenemos? No sé pero seguro que en otra vida había una chica española y otra india y ahora han cambiado de sítio. ¿No?

The Bride: I was driving through AWHO today and my god I almost pulled over to pick you up. Hug. Even thought you don't like them. Love ya for evernever.

And there are more. But the love that welled up for now is satiated.