This Diwali Night, A Bengali Short Story

Mother Kali the Demon Slayer

Last year, on this Diwali night, I wrote a reminiscence from my beautiful days in Calcutta — with the memories of my childhood friends, firecrackers, clay lamps and all. It was a little on the sentimental side, however real and raw the emotion was. I guess, I was missing Diwali and our worship of Mother Kali the Demon Slayer — quite a bit.

Diwali (or Deepavali, in original Sanskrit) and Kali Puja are inseparable; they fall on the same day. In case you’re not familiar with it, Diwali or Festival of Lights is the cultural celebration of the harvest season. Kali Puja, or worshiping Goddess Kali of course is the religious celebration.

You can read that blog here. Just click on this link.

This year, I’m posting a short story I translated from the original Bengali. The author Sharat Chandra Chatterjee was a preeminent writer who left a mark in the world of Bengali literature with his passionate, humanitarian writing, especially his novels and short stories championing the often-forgotten place of women in the Indian society. He was also famous for his writing against feudalism and other vile forms of social and religious orthodoxy.

I hope you’ll like the story here, a story he wrote with a young audience in mind, and find out more about this great writer. Google Sharat Chandra Chatterjee, the Bengali novelist. Animal rights activists might read it too.

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

_______________________

Lalu

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay (Chatterjee)

(1876-1938)

Sharat Chandra Chatterjee, the humanist Bengali writer

His nickname was Lalu. He must’ve had a formal name, but I couldn’t remember it now. You’d perhaps know that in Hindi, the word Lal meant the dear, the beloved. I couldn’t tell you who gave him the name; however, it was indeed the best-matching name for his character. Everybody loved him.

After graduating from high school, we entered college; Lalu said he’d get into business instead. He borrowed ten rupees from his mother and started a small contractor agency. We said to him, “Lalu, but you got ten rupees only.” Lalu said, “How much more do you need? This is more than enough.”

Everyone liked him; he found jobs quickly. On our way to college, we often saw Lalu with the sun umbrella on his head fixing street potholes employing a few laborers. He’d poke fun at us, “Run on now, scoot – don’t miss the attendance check.”

Even earlier, when we were in middle school, Lalu used to be the repairman for us all. In his school bag, he’d always carry a mortar and a pestle, an open razor, a broken knife, a little hand drill, a horseshoe, and such items. Nobody knew how he managed to collect it all, but with those trivial articles, there was practically nothing that he couldn’t do. He’d fix our broken umbrellas, put back the handheld slate board together, and even sew up our uniforms right away during a game. He’d never say no to any requests; he’d actually do a fine job. Once on some festivity, he bought some colored paper and natural foam, and worked nice-looking toys out of it; he even sold them at the banks of the Ganges and later bought us all peanut snacks with the money he made.

Gradually, we all grew up. Lalu became the best wrestler on the pit. His strength was extraordinary, and his courage was incredible. He never knew what fear was. He’d be ready for anybody’s call; he’d be present at anybody’s needs. Yet, he had a deadly flaw: he couldn’t resist himself from scaring someone. He’d do it equally to the young and old. We could never figure out where in the world did he find so many tricks to panic people. Could I tell you one such story?

In our neighborhood, Manohar Chatujje worshipped Goddess Kali in his house. One year, at the very late night hours, he must sacrifice an animal to the goddess. However, the slaughter man didn’t show up at the auspicious time. People rushed to get him out of his bed, but came back with bad news: the man was completely bedridden with a terrible stomachache. The news froze the worshippers; without an experienced slaughter man, there would be no sacrifice, and the entire process would be turned upside down, causing the gravest sin.

Someone in the assembled crowd said, “Why, Lalu can slaughter the goat; he’d done it many times before.” So, people ran again to get him.

However, Lalu woke up and said, “No.”

“What do you mean no? It’d be a terrible disaster if there’s no sacrifice.”

Lalu said, “Let it be. I done it when I was young, but won’t do it no more.”

People who came to get him started crying, “Lalu, there’s very little time left before the auspicious hour is over. Then the curse of the Goddess will kill us all.”

Finally, Lalu’s father came to the rescue. He ordered him to do it. He said, “These elderly men came to you because they had no other choice. You must do it.” Lalu yielded: he couldn’t say no to his father.

Manohar Chatujje was relieved to see Lalu. But there was no more time left. In a great hurry, the priest did the necessary ritual on the animal – he put the red vermillion and red marigold garland on it. The animal was fastened on the slaughter pin, hundreds of people in the puja compound cried out, “Holy Mother, Holy Mother,” and the enormous noise drowned out the hapless creature’s final scream. The semicircular, glittering scythe in Lalu’s hand went up and whacked down, and then blood sprang out of the severed neck of the poor animal, drenching the black soil red.

We reject this horror in the name of Hinduism!

Lalu remained closed-eyed for a while. Slowly, the huge noise of drums, bells and conch shells died down. But then, it went back up again. The other goat that stood shivering in fear was brought in, smeared with vermillion and flower garland, tied on the slaughter pin, the devotees started screaming again with their “Holy Mother” chants, and the goat desperately, miserably appealed for its life to be spared. Again, Lalu’s blood-soaked scythe went up fast in the sky, and came down on the animal’s neck even faster. The severed body of the goat writhed and quivered for a few last moments, as if in complain against this terrible injustice, and lay still; the blood poured out of its neck soaked the already-stained soil of the puja ground.

The drummers insanely beat away their drums; devotees crowded up the puja courtyard, danced, and made a huge commotion. Manohar Chatujje sat on his special quilt, silently chanting his prayers.

Suddenly, Lalu made a terrifying howl. All the noise came to a screeching halt, and everyone froze in astonishment: what’s going on? They found Lalu in a trance, with his incredibly wide-open eyes rotating. Lalu screamed out, “Where’s the other goat?”

Someone from the Chatujje family replied in fear, “But we got no more goats. We always have only two goats to slaughter.”

Lalu swung his bloodstained scythe way up in the wind and roared, “No more goats? No more goats? Hell, that’s no good. I’m here to kill – bring me more goats, or I’ll kill all of you one by one. Holy Mother, Glory to Goddess Kali.” Then he made a big jump over and across the slaughter pin, with his scythe swinging around.

What happened next was indescribable. Everybody ran to the main door to escape together, lest Lalu had caught them up. It was a huge chaos. People started pushing, shoving and jostling in terror: some fell on each other, some tried to crawl on their hands underneath others’ legs, and some others got suffocated by the pressure of strangers’ arms and torsos around their necks. It all happened for a few minutes only; after that, it was all emptied – not a single soul was to be seen in the entire house.

Lalu roared again, “Where’s Manohar Chatujje? Where’s the priest?”

The priest was a scrawny man; he left early and hid behind the idol. Manohar Chatujje’s family guru was chanting from the Chandi the holy Sanskrit scripture; he quickly got up and went behind a big pillar on the courtyard. However, Manohar himself couldn’t run away with his big, bulky body. Lalu went straight up to him, held him by his hand and said, “Come on, put your neck out on the slaughter pin.”

With one hand, he held him like a death trap; his other hand wildly waved the scythe. Chatujje was out of control in fear. He wept and begged for his life, “Lalu, my son, look, I’m not a goat, I’m a man. I happen to be like your big uncle. Your father is like my younger brother.”

“I don’t care. I must sacrifice more to the Goddess. I’ll sacrifice you; Mother asked me to do it. Come on.”

Chatujje now cried out loud, “No my son, Mother could never ask for it, never. She’s the Mother of the Universe.”

Lalu said, “Mother of the Universe! You mean that? Will you ever sacrifice animals? Will you ever call me up for slaughters? Tell me now, or else.”

Chatujje cried out, “No more, my son, never. I promise here in front of the Mother – from today, animal sacrifice will stop in my house.”

“You swear?”

“Yes my son, I swear. No more slaughter, never. Please let me go now son. I must go the bathroom.”

Lalu let him off and said, “Alright, I let you go. But what happened to the priest? Where’s that guru? Where’s he?” He then gave a howl again and jumped forward to the idol. Suddenly, two men, one from behind the goddess and one from behind the pillars simultaneously shrieked out, which created a strange, bizarre sound. It was so bizarre and hilarious that Lalu couldn’t restrain himself anymore. “Ha, ha, ha,” he broke out in loud laughter, dropped the hatched on the ground with a bang, and darted away.

Everybody now realized that he was pretending all along; his must-kill trance and everything was pure fake. Lalu was fooling around all this time. Everybody whomever had left came back in five minutes. The ritual of worship was still not fully done, it was greatly hampered already, and it made Chatujje terribly upset. In the midst of the pandemonium, he yelled, “I’ll show that rascal what I can do. Tomorrow I’m gonna make his dad whip that scoundrel a hundred times, I swear to God.”

But it didn’t really happen. The next morning, very early before dawn, Lalu ran away from home, not to return in the next week or so. When he did return, he slipped into Manohar Chatujje’s house after dark, touched his feet and apologized, to save himself from the wrath of his father.

However, because of the pledge Chatujje had made in front of Goddess Kali, from that day on, animal sacrifice was forever abolished in his home.

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No violence in the name of religion!

Death Of A Bengali Poet

“Mon bhalo nei, mon bhalo nei, mon bhalo nei

Keu ta bojhe na, sokoli gopon, mukhe chhaya nei

Chokh khola, tobu chokh buje achhe, keu ta dekhe ni

Protidin kaate, din kete jaay, ashay ashay ashay ashay ashay ashay…”

Feelin’ blue, feelin’ blue, feelin’ blue

No one knows, all hidden, eyes too

Eyes open, yet closed, no one saw

Days fly, nights fly, hopin’ over hopin’ over hopin’ over hopin’ …

________________________________________________________

Now, this poet made me blue many times. He always had this habit of making his readers blue. He did that again, one last time this morning, when I got the news of his death. I wept one last time, for him.

I hope this is the last time I did it, for him. I hope this is the last time he did it, to me. We are too old for such corny stuff, right? Weeping and all? I know he wouldn’t like it. I wouldn’t like it either. It’s time to grow up. So, this is just once, only once.

“I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no, I won’t shed a tear.”

Our ever-young Bengali poet Sunil Ganguly — more formally Sunil Gangopadhyay if we used his Sanskrit name — is no more. But because I’m writing this blog sitting in New York, ten thousand miles away from Calcutta, Bengal, India where he so suddenly passed away, and I’m writing this blog primarily for an English-speaking audience across the world, I prefer to use his Anglicized last name Ganguly. Sunil Ganguly. Like the way the Western “user-friendly” world forced me to use my Anglicized last name Banerjee, abandoning my Sanskrit last name Bandyopadhyay. In this life in exile (however hard I try to be a part of a global world, pretending this exile really doesn’t matter to me that much and that I’ve really become a universal citizen), there are times when you feel how enormously these musicians and artists and poets and authors and filmmakers and humanists matter to you.

Their departures stun you, shake you to the core. Because they have always been such an important, inseparable part of your own existence. No matter if you’ve ever met them or talked to them. No matter how much physical distance you’ve had with them, with no possibility to meet them or talk to them at all. They have always been with you — as a friend, as a brother, as a sister, as a mentor, as a family member. As if you could always talk to them, had there been an opportunity, about their most recent novel, music CD, or maybe, the rise and fall of the American empire…or even, the place in Calcutta where they have the best Indian Chinese, biryani and spicy fish…and in Sunil’s case, a healthy dose of a mighty-hard drink. (And I thought those drinks could do no harm to his ever-young heart!)

These are people that have always been a part of your identity.

Sunil Ganguly, whom I actually met once and talked twice here in New York at the power-poet-couple Jyotirmoy-Meenakshi Duttas’ place, was one such personality. The persona Sunil Ganguly and the poet Sunil Ganguly have always been a part of my cultural consciousness. From that point of view, he was as close to me as Rabindranath Tagore, Nazrul Islam, Satyajit Ray, Bibhutibhushan Banerjee, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Maxim Gorky, Victor Hugo, Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Bob Dylan, Beatles, Bob Marley, Mahashweta Devi, Ritwik Ghatak or Mrinal Sen.

Sunil Ganguly was the big brother who taught me how to fall in love, make love and hurt in love. He taught me how to imagine a woman’s love. He taught me how to write love letters. He taught me how to grow up — loving and hurting, and then loving again. He taught me how to hope…and imagine hope.

This is a milieu of a consciousness that made me the “me” that I am today. This half century-old me. If they were not with me all along, I would not have had this identity, this brain, this belonging to this human, thinking, moving, seeing life.

When they leave my familiar world, one after the other, they also take away a part of “me” forever with them. Their departure is truly like severing with a limb or an organ. It’s excruciatingly painful — physically and emotionally, and it’s extremely difficult to deal with it their post-departure. Especially if you do not go through a major therapy… and rehabilitation. And sitting here ten thousand miles away, there is hardly any rehabilitation. The society of familiar people with familiar, shared emotions, knowledge and values that you need for the rehabilitation is simply absent. Here I write about poet Sunil Ganguly, Tagore, Satyajit Ray, et al., and you know you’re not making your readers cry. You bereave — all by yourself.

Therefore, the tragedy and the pain and trauma associated with that tragedy remains with you forever. It literally debilitates you. You’re now dealing with a lost limb or organ, with nothing to make up for it. Worse, you know this is not the first time it happened to you, and neither would it be the last time.

Tagore died way before my birth. My mother died a painful death when I was a young man in my early twenties causing major, lifelong bereavement. But at least I was back there, in the midst of a supportive society. Satyajit Ray’s death in 1992 and Suchitra Mitra the Tagore singer’s death in January of 2011 touched me, impacted me this way. The news of Sunil Ganguly’s death this morning was a similar jolt…perhaps a bigger jolt because first, he was so forever young…as if he was born in 1974 and not in 1934. Most importantly, deep inside, I never thought Sunil Ganguly could actually die. I never thought he would be old one day, and die.

But he did. This is the first time when he kind of let me down. Well, at least he didn’t lay sick in some nursing home bed with tubes coming out of his nose and arms and legs to keep him alive. No, he would refuse to wear those tubes and artificial ways to sustain “life.” He would refuse to be a part of such artificiality.

Sunil, or Apu?

A Bengali, Indian poet just died in Calcutta — ten thousand miles away from New York where I live. I know in the next day or two, millions of Bengalis from both the West and East sides of the artificial border would pour down on the streets of Bengal to pay their last respect to the ever-young poet. I won’t be there. I was not there when they paid their last respect to Satyajit Ray or Suchitra Mitra. Or, Tagore in 1941. No, I won’t be a part of that million-man march accompanying the poet and his mortal remains to the Hindu crematorium.

But I can only imagine. Sunil Ganguly was one of the major imagination teachers I’ve had. I can imagine.

I’ll show to the world that even though he kind of let me down, I did not let him.

I can still imagine, even in this dreaded exile. I can still hope.

I can still imagine that even in this dreadful, horrific time with the wars and violence and bombing and beating and droning and waterboarding, a beautiful, rain-soaked sun is slowly rising in the Eastern sky.

It don’t matter if you’re in exile or not.

_________________________________________

Jodi nirbasan dao

Ami osthe anguri chhoabo

Ami bishpan kore more jabo

If you send me in exile

I’ll touch my ring to my lips

I’ll take poison and die

Bisanno aloy ei Bangladesh

Nodir shiyore jhuke pora megh

Prantare diganta nirnimesh

E amari sare tin haat bhumi

This Bangladesh in a pale dim light

Clouds hover on river banks

Borderless horizon of bountiful fields

This is indeed my three and a half yards of space

Jodi nirbasan dao

Ami osthe anguri chhoabo

Ami bishpan kore more jabo

If you send me in exile

I’ll touch my ring to my lips

I’ll take poison and die

Dhankhete chap chap rakto

Eikhane jhorechhilo manusher ghaam

Ekhono snaner aage keu keu kore thake nodike pronam

Ekhono nodir buke mochar kholay ghore luthera, pherari

Shohore, bondore eto agni-brishti

Brishtite chikkon tobu ek-ekti aparup bhor

Blood splatters on green paddy fields

Men shed their sweats right here

Even today some bow heads to the river

Before they take a dip, bath

Pirates speed their float boats down the river

Towns and ports with relentless rain of fire

Yet, rain shower emerges one or two indescribable, beautiful dawns

________________________________________________________

Sincerely (and Sadly) Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

###

To Indira Gandhi

By Sunil Gangopadhyay (1934-2012)

Dear Indira, please don’t visit the Gujarat flood
Sitting by your airplane window

It’s a dangerous game
Angry waters raged and uprooted train tracks
Bridges collapsed, scattered kids near the belly of
dead animals
An old man’s eyeglasses float down the waves
Man found desperate friendship with treetops
These are fragments of the sight – a type of truth
Partial, yet too intense
These partials truths indeed become primary
During these terrible times

Indira, dear girl, you must not forget
Even if you cried out of your cloud castle
It would never resonate with the collective tragedies
down there
Your chapped lips
For how long they did not get streaks of a kiss
Dark, deep fatigue visible under your eyes
Faces bear marks of a dejected loverBut you chose this path yourself
With no more ways to return no more
Indira dearest, please do not fly by North Bengal skies
Or those of Assam,
sitting by your airplane window

It is a dangerous game
Yet I warn you one more time –
You look down and find miles of barrenness
You see rules of nature and ruthless rulelessness
And their great devastation

You see huge currents of new flood waters
As if the cloudy sky lay upon the land, upside down
Interspersed by houses like small islands
Lush green heads of trunkless trees

Seeing the sight of those floods
Some day, Indira, these words might slip off your tongue:
“Oh, how beautiful it is!”

 

###

Still Dreaming…in Bangla.

Hate Me Twice, But Obnoxious Akin Is A Non-Issue.

Don’t fall for their new illusions.

I am posting some select segments of a Facebook conversation I had today with some friends. I am also editing the discussion minimally — only for a better read — without ever changing any contents or points of view.

Here’s the Todd Akin controversy with his outrageous comments on rape. Basically, he said during his senate election campaign in Missouri that “legitimate” rapes cannot make the victim women pregnant; thus, according to him, abortion is not necessary (and the question is moot) for the victims of rape and incest. He is a far-right, conservative, anti-abortion (“pro-life”) Republican. Don’t ask me why so many American politicians are so dumb, let alone illiterate, arrogant, ignorant, offensive and uncaring.

You can read some news on the above here. Click on this line.

________

Now, I posted as my status update: “Obnoxious [edited from "stupid"] Todd Akin and his primitive, outrageous  rape comments actually helped Obama for now. Thanks, “liberal” media. But, hate me for saying this: it is a non-issue, and for most voters with no jobs or money, it don’t matter.”

Immediately I got some serious disagreement — some from longtime friends.

PH wrote: “Wow, you’re going to have to elaborate on how its a non-issue when someone running for public office on a major party ticket in the US in 2012 makes offensive and ignorant comments about rape, and uses it as a basis for curtailing women’s reproductive rights. All this in the context of everything else going on with regard to the issue of reproductive rights (cuts to Planned Parenthood for example, which, for many low-income women and girls is the only source of information and access to reproductive health). How is it a non-issue Partha? Or maybe I misunderstand you.”

Quite legitimate concern about my concern. And she is someone for whom I have always had a lot of respect, for her pioneering work with immigrants and minorities. I could not take her criticism lightly.

I replied: “PH: Clarification: it’s a non-issue not because it’s not critically important for the society and especially [for] women, and of course it has long-term consequences. It’s a non-issue for this election which is (should be) primarily about the economy and how corporate America has stolen both the economy and democracy from us — with help from Republicans and Democrats alike. Liberal media will do more of such diversion in the coming months, and at the end of the day, both parties would love to fight it out (as in a bullfight with a red piece of cloth and sword dangling) on those other issues such as guns, God, gays, and such (with no denigration of these values whatsoever). Media love this diversion, because it also sucks people into these two parties, with practically no room to talk about a third alternative.”

Another Facebook friend HB whom I recently came to know and immediately understood her major talent, wrote:

“It is very much an issue because who we elect (at any level of the government) impacts funding and public policy and the way the social contract in this country is drafted. We must be attuned to every elected official’s attitude towards women and minorities as combined we are the MAJORITY! Our issues are the country’s issues and our well-being is the country’s well-being. Now, being familliar with your politics Partha, I know you agree with this basic sentiment. So please explain why this is a non-issue to you? Is it because it is a smoke signal to not talk about the war and the economy in this election season? If so, I agree. However, it is important to address Akin’s comments because he has a say so in our country’s politics as an elected official.”

Absolutely. I have no disagreement with her either. I just wanted to clarify my controversial position a little more. I responded:

“[HB]: But if there is no money at all because the Federal Reserve, banks and Wall Street stole all the money with help from the two big parties, where is any funding going to come from? I knew it would be a sensitive topic to discuss, and I have no regrets that I brought it up so bluntly. Point I’m making here is, what’s the root cause of all the liberal-conservative debate (if there was one)? Answer is: it’s the economy. That is the discussion the two parties, media and Wall Street do not like us to discuss. Hence, the frenzy.”

In this major meleé, who’s mighty merry? (Note: I did not draw this cartoon and do not endorse the full connotation, if any.)

Then, in my usual, narcissistic way, I went on [for which you must hate me: in fact, I hate myself a lot for this inability to restrain myself and my ego, as if it is the end of the world and that I must win over any argument -- and I call Akin stupid?]:

“Emotions will not get us far. A level-headed discussion on economics and the current political system’s exploitation of the economy will. If there is one, we’ll see how bankrupt this two-party system is, and how it has stolen the democracy from us the ordinary people. If there’s one, we’ll see the absolute need to create a third choice. Corporate America and its political establishments do not want us to get into that discussion. Hence, the frenzy.”

I wrote:

“Who we elect matters, of course. But then what? Are they going to change the economic structure, or are they going to make cosmetic changes to perpetuate the status quo? Don’t go any further: just look at Clinton and Obama. We had SO much expectation from them! Has anything changed at all? Has democracy returned to We the People? We need systemic change, and not cosmetic change. Economics is at the heart of it all.”

That is the introductory conversation I thought I could extract from Facebook because of it’s urgency and relevance, and post here on my blog — for the many other readers who don’t keep track of my Facebook activities [believe me: you are better off not doing it].

I hope you think about it and let me know your thoughts. Criticize me as much as you like. But think before you do.

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

###

Post Script. — I also wrote this one last comment to sum it up: “Finally, I did not include a cursory note such as “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody’s feelings…” etc. because I thought that would be superfluous, especially for people who have known me for years.”

Zero in on this conversation. Period!

Why I Am Boycotting London Olympics

India and Ireland: examples of British barbarism.

Update: Prof. Noam Chomsky just wrote about my London Olympics boycott blog: “All too accurate. You could have quoted Adam Smith instead of Marx, on the “savage injustice of the Europeans,” particularly the British in India who changed “dearth into famine” among other monstrous crimes. [...] Bernard Porter in the TLS [Times Literary Supplement, U.K.] a few months ago … pointed out that the early British imperial conquerors could stand alongside the grand genocidists of the 20th century. And to the British we can add comparable or worse contemporary examples.”

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The “fun” Games have begun and Indians are watching with major glee and awe (with their unbroken world record of one Olympic medal at the rate of every one billion people)! Here in USA where I live, people are watching with supreme patriotism and pride American media’s supremacist, Orwellian propaganda. But I am not. I am boycotting London Olympics of 2012.

To voice my strong protest against the British tyranny, violent occupation, colonization, artificial famines, pauperization and bloody partitioning of India (and countless “other” deaths by prison, torture, hanging and shooting)– which caused me, my family, my ancestors and my people lifelong misery, hopelessness and trauma, I am boycotting the global, athletic theater of corporate media and billionaire establishments — now known as the Olympics.

I am boycotting the Summer Olympics of London, 2012. Read my reasons below. Thank you.

(For those who might say: “Big deal!” Or, “So what?” Or, “Who cares?” You might read it too. Thank you.)

If you know me, this IS a big deal. For the first time in my sports-loving life that included religiously following decades of Olympic athletes and their superhuman feats — starting from Bob Beamon, Larisa Latynina, Mark Spitz, Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci, Carl Lewis, Teófilo Stevenson, Dick Fosbury, Usain Bolt and Abebe Bikila (even including our lone Indian gold medalists the field hockey team) — I shall not be watching the games or the opening ceremonies on TV, reading news on the progress of the games and medal tally, or getting sucked into the massively profiteering corporations’ 24/7 commercial blitz, continued under the guise of a not-for-profit, global sports movement.

(And I could never afford to watch the games sitting in a stadium, ever in my life.)

Today’s Olympic games are anything but not-for-profit, and they are anything but a movement. Michael Jordan and his so-called Dream Team, with help from global corporations and their media, have destroyed once and for all the pristine athletic camaraderie.

I offer my profound apologies to Bob, Larisa, Mark, Olga, Nadia, and everybody else. Sorry, I had to outgrow it, my lifelong idols.

A noted observer named Helen Jefferson Lenskyj  said this.

“Olympism is more about profiteering, exploitation, and cynicism than sport.” Read more about what the Olympic games are really all about. Click on this link here.

She is absolutely right! But for now, I want to concentrate on the London and British part of it.

My childhood hero: Bob Beamon and his 29ft-plus historic long jump.

Because this is perhaps going to be the last Olympic assembly in London before my death, my boycotting is even more significant. I invite you to join this cause. I have no other power to protest on behalf of myself and the generations of suffering of people I mentioned above. This is my personal political poster.

I say, “Down with British barbarism!” I say, “Down with Downing Street!”

I demand an official apology for the two-hundred-year-long, violent British occupation of the Indian subcontinent and the bloody 1947 partition, and I demand reparation from the British government (just the same way South Africa demanded apartheid apology and reparation)– to the ordinary people of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma. No, this is not an academic debate. For me, this is real! I shall keep demanding until my death — Olympics or not!

There is a good chance that some conscientious and thinking people from many countries will read what I have to say, and share it with their family, friends and colleagues. Given the healthy size of blog readership I somehow managed to create over the past few months, I am optimistic that some ripple-effect actions will take place. I pin my hopes on that synergy of activism.

The Irish blog from where I took the the “British Mafia” photo above, however sharp in its language, actually finds reassurance for me that I am not the only one protesting the London Olympics. This is what the blog says:

Lifelong Prisoners of British Greed, Exploitation, Violence and Lies.

“The British Government are political hypocrites and war criminals waffling on about human rights overseas, while being found guilty of torture and human rights abuses in British Occupied Ireland and interning political prisoners of conscience, even in their own Olympic city of London 2012, which all non-infiltrated human rights activists worldwide, are calling to boycott !”

Given where you are from, if you are from a country that once went through the horrific, bloody British occupation, rights and justice abuse and economic destruction, you can replace Ireland in the above paragraph with your country, and get the same, sharp message! I am doing just that for India and Bangladesh and Pakistan.

It’s about time we sent that message of protest across the globe. “Down with Downing Street!” (Just the same way we recently said, “Down with Wall Street!”)

Karl Marx wrote about the British occupation of India many years ago. I am not a Marxist in my beliefs; but you don’t have to be a Marxist per se to admire and appreciate what Marx wrote to expose the tyranny of corporate capitalism and global aggression of powers such as the British Empire. In the twenty-first century, U.S. corporate powers have taken over the mantle the British powers left behind; the modus operandi and results have, however, remained the same. I wrote about it elsewhere in this blog.

Marx said: “There cannot, however, remain any doubt but that the misery inflicted by the British on Hindostan [i.e., Hindu land of India] is of an essentially different and infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindostan had to suffer before. I do not allude to European despotism, planted upon Asiatic despotism, by the British East India Company, forming a more monstrous combination than any of the divine monsters…

British hanged a rebel Bengali boy named Khudiram Bose. That was just the beginning!

All the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines, strangely complex, rapid, and destructive as the successive action in Hindostan may appear, did not go deeper than its surface. England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindoo, and separates Hindostan, ruled by Britain, from all its ancient traditions, and from the whole of its past history.”

[Quoted from http://sabhlokcity.com%5D

But because I am not a Marxist, and these days, quoting Marx has become out of fashion, I want to write about my own life and lives of my predecessors (and our next generation) from a non-Marxist, “non-political” point of view. I want to talk about the British looting of India — and in particular, looting the economy of the once-golden land of Bengal — where I came from. I want to talk about how my family members — both from my own side and my wife’s side — became destitute overnight because of the trickle-down, arbitrary and bloody partitioning of Bengal and Punjab. I want to talk about a colonial education system that never taught us how to think critically, and actively discouraged us from questioning the conventional wisdom or sociopolitical hierarchy.

Nobody in Golden Bengal ever knew starvation before the British came and created famine.

I want to talk about the British government’s and East India Company’s destruction of Indian farmers and forcible, rapacious plantation of indigo, accompanied by barbaric torture of the farmers and their families. I want to talk about British government’s solitary confinement in the horrific Andaman Cellular Jail and hanging of thousands of Indian young men and women who fought back against the occupation. I want to talk about British police’s brutality against Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu or Marathi revolutionaries of 1920′s and ’30s as well as North Indian peasants who revolted in 1857. I want talk about British government’s blanket press censorship and absolute suppression of freedom of speech to quell rebellion.

I want to talk about the British colonial rulers’ creation of artificial, man-made famines numerous times in numerous places of India between 1757 and 1947, including the two grotesque Bengal famines of 1769 and 1943 — one immediately after they occupied India and the other just before they left. You can find a chart of some other catastrophic famines the British aggressors caused during their two centuries of occupation of a very prosperous land where nobody had ever imagined death of starvation!

You can read about how Churchill caused the 1943 Bengal famine. Click on this link here. Amartya Sen, Nobel economist from Bengal, wrote about it too. Satyajit Ray made a major movie on this subject.

This is how they decimated our precious wildlife.

I could write about the British rulers’ destruction of forests, farm land and environment in India. I could talk about their massive, forced conversion. I could talk about their total derision and belittling of an ancient civilization. I could write about their sinister divide and conquer policies creating permanent rift between Hindus and Muslims.

I could go on and on. But I shall stop now. I am tired and I am tired of impressing on, not surprisingly, my fellow Indians and Bengalis about the importance of such a boycott. History is now another out-of-fashion subject; nobody wants to spoil the fun Olympic games because of some old, difficult history. Especially, I do not have much hope from a strange variety of greedy, selfish-individualistic, MTV and MacDonald’s-following younger generation. Maybe you can help me to spread the word. If you can, reach my blog to Warren Anderson, ex-CEO of Union Carbide of Bhopal, who now lives dandy in the Long Island Hamptons, and whose former company renamed Dow Chemicals is now a major sponsor of London, 2012.

I pin my hopes on people around the world who share my story — those who share India’s history of a barbaric colonization, partition, forced destitution and death. I pin my hopes on people around the world who understand how the violent West has occupied, subjugated and raped civilizations and human minds everywhere — in the name of their masters — the British or Dutch queens or more recently, MTV, Monsanto or IMF.

I am paying the price of such violation of humanity and forced occupation all my life. I have no other way to symbolize my lifelong anger. I am a non-violent man. I am, therefore, boycotting the London Olympics, 2012 to vent my protests. I did the same when India hosted the now-infamous Commonwealth Games a couple of years ago. The rulers looted, exploited and lied then; and they’re doing it now. I am voicing my strong opposition against those rulers and their violation of human rights.

Would you join me in this cause and protest against the British government and monarchy? Demand an apology and reparation!

Thank you for your global solidarity and support. Please share your protests with others you know. Believe me, there are millions of people out there — all over the world — who would want to join this cause. Let’s reach out to them.

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

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President Obama: Gun Kills. Gun Kills Everywhere. Wake Up!

Connecticut Mother grieves. Gun and violence took away her child.

December 14, 2012. — Another scary, sad and traumatic day with a new gun rampage in Newtown, Connecticut, USA. At least 18 children were killed by gunman in an elementary school. I wrote on my Facebook page: This is not a civilized country. And God does not save the innocent.
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August 6, 2012. — Another scary, sad and traumatic day with a new gun rampage in Wisconsin, USA. This time, a number of innocent Sikhs fell victims to this hate. I pray for the victims’ families and express outrage.
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“The NRA is an organization that is adamant about no controls on weapons, in spite of the fact that we have federal laws that say you cannot sell guns to minors, to people with psychiatric problems or drug problems, or convicted felons. And yet they pressure Congress and the White House, and they’ve been doing it for decades, to not fund enforcement of those laws.”

– Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York. Quoted from The Hill, July 23, 2012.

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I hope you forgive me for being so undiplomatic today. But first, I want to say a prayer for the victims and their families and loved ones in Colorado.

Also, I remember Trayvon Martin. A few weeks ago, I wrote: “Trayvon Martin Would Still Be Alive If Zimmerman Had No Gun. Simple.” I hope you read it too.

Now, after today’s gun horror in Aurora, where a mass killer killed and hurt a large number of innocent people, President Obama said that the tragedy serves as a reminder that “life is very fragile.”

“Our time here is limited and it is precious.  And what matters at the end of the day is not the small things, it’s not the trivial things, which so often consume us and our daily lives.  Ultimately, it’s how we choose to treat one another and how we love one another,” he said.

I am very happy to know that President Obama still did not lose his poise and eloquence even after this gruesome mass killing that shook the entire world. Really, he should not because he is the president of USA; a president must keep his poise and emotional balance even under extreme circumstances.

I congratulate him for his calm.

However, I am not a U.S. president and I have no power to change the way things happen here in America or anywhere else in the world. I cannot change the way Obama sends drones to drop bombs in Afghanistan and Pakistan — bombings that have killed hundreds of innocent men, women and children. I have no power to change Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy in Iran, Egypt or Syria and new war drumbeats in the Middle East — just the same way I could not do anything to change the policies of Bush and Cheney that started this millennium’s first genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan. I could not do anything to stop New York Times and other powerful media from publishing bogus reports on Saddam Hussain’s so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction — reports that helped validate the genocide and eventual rat-trapping and killing of the tyrant despot. Similar fate happened to Osama Bin Laden, and I had to no power to know what exactly happened to him during that military raid in Abbottabad.

Of course, I am not comparing terrorists in other countries with mass killers here in America. I have no power to make such a comparison either. These are apples and oranges that could not be compared.

I am a powerless man with no money, no media, no military and no mass support. I am a powerless man who can only imagine what went on with those fear-stricken people in that Colorado movie theater today. I can imagine their scared-to-death, white faces before their death. I can only imagine what those poor victims thought just before the mass killer who armed himself with guns and explosives and ammunition mowed them down — one after the other.

I can imagine placing myself in that crowd of horrified, screaming victims of gun violence. I can imagine placing my family and my children there too. I can imagine the hit and the hurt and splattering blood when a bunch of ultra-modern, powerful, lethal bullets pierced through my heart and blanketed my world with one final darkness. In the final moments, I can imagine I was praying to God that my wife and children be left safe. I was only wanting that they be left alone.

In those final moments before my deaths, I imagine I was praying to God that this be the last gun barbarism, ever.

President Obama, contrary to some of his predecessors, always says something that somehow resonates and stays back with you. In fact, he said this today (and so, yes, a very powerful man that he is, his thoughts were not much different from those of me, a very powerless man):

Upon learning the Colorado gun violence news, the president said he thought of his own two daughters.

“My daughters go to the movies. What if Malia and Sasha had been at the theater, as so many of our kids do every day? Michelle and I will be fortunate enough to hug our girls a little tighter tonight, and I’m sure you will do the same with your children,” he said. “But for those parents who may not be so lucky, we have to embrace them and let them know we will be there for them as a nation.”

[Mr. President, I would include some little facts here -- facts of lives of very powerful people and their families -- like the presence of secret service and combing operations and VIP security and bomb-sniffing dogs and all other such paraphernalia, but I won't. Because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. I want to believe you're being honest about your wife and daughters.]

Congratulations again, President Obama. That’s exactly the type of words that won the hearts of millions of poor and powerless people like me four years ago, around this time. I am not sure what’s going to happen this November; however, if somebody asked me to vote for your calm, poise and eloquence today, you got my vote, Mr. President, one more time.

But I would positively vote for you if you thought about not just Sasha, Malia and Michelle and my children here in America, but the millions of children who’re losing their parents and siblings and uncles and aunts and nephews and nieces every single day — because of bullets shooting out of mighty guns and tanks and bombs dropping out of the wide-open holes of those drones.

I would definitely vote for you today if you stopped that violence once and for all. Those children are hurting too. They’re hurting and bleeding and crying and writhing in pain. I can  imagine that as well.

With your very sharp mind, critical thinking and eloquence — totally unlike your predecessors — couldn’t you imagine that, Mr. President?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not ever going to take away the grim, dark reality in Colorado today. I am praying for the victims and their families and loved ones. I am shaking in fear. I am not being able to sleep tonight: just the same way I could not sleep when Columbine, Northern Illinois, Virginia Tech happened. I could not sleep when Trayvon Martin was killed this February. I am bleeding deep inside. I am imagining over and over, again and again, myself and my family and children in the middle of that barrage of bullets in that movie theater today.

But President Obama, you have not done anything to stop this gun barbarism here in America, either! In fact, you refused to do anything about it.

With your indifference, gun lobbies and gun markets and NRA’s have flourished even more in these four years. All of these powerful people and organizations are now likely working for your defeat this November. So, wake up!

With your indifference and support from your own administration and political allies for gun lobbies, gun violence has spiraled out of control. So, wake up, would you?

Gun has no place in a civilized society. In no other place in the world — First World or Third World — free guns have taken so many innocent lives.

No other country in the world — First World or Third World — media and movies and video games have glorified violence, killing and guns and bombs. Don’t you get it: this violent mindset is a direct result of that glorification! Would you please wake up?

President Obama, think about your powerful children and family, and think about our powerless children and families. And think about those millions of hapless children and families all over the world.

Stop this violence now! Stop this barbarism!

That’s all I wanted to pass on tonight. I hope you take it seriously.

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

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Death Is A Very Special Experience

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Have you seen death closely? I have. In fact, I’ve seen death up close too many times.

I have written about death on this blog. I’ve written about my mother’s death in India, when I lived there. I’ve written about my dear uncle Buddha’s death, a few years later, when I was still there. Then, I wrote about my childhood friend Subrato’s death in Calcutta; at that time, after already being in the U.S. for fifteen years, I switched my career from science to humanities, and was studying journalism at Columbia University here in New York.

I wrote about other deaths too — both on this blog and elsewhere. Death is not a new experience for me.

I’ve written about Lord Yama, the God of Death. I’ve talked about him: how he visited us like an unwanted guest — like a distant village uncle who would show his face every now and then, inviting himself to a family that does not want to see him at all. Then, he’d invite himself over and over again, knowing his vulnerable, fearful host family that didn’t know how to say no in his face. He would come, he would stay, and then he would leave whenever he liked.

When you see death so many times, and when you see so many untimely deaths, you stop thinking of death as a rare or special experience; you don’t care about the spirituality aspect of it. Seeing Lord Yama frequently is neither pleasant nor religious. In fact, you pray to your other gods to remove this horrific curse. It’s too traumatic. In fact, after seeing a number of untimely deaths, even the pain doesn’t affect you too much. At that point, you don’t hurt anymore. You desensitize.

Then, there are deaths that still come as a rare and special experience. It brings your soft feelings back. It brings your human senses back. The experience is sad, but wonderful. It touches your soul.

In an immigrant’s life — and I’ve written about how we new immigrants live on two, opposite sides of the world exactly at the same time — many precious experiences bypass and elude you. Leaving your familiar, home country behind, you don’t get to see your nephews or nieces growing up. You don’t get to see them going to middle school and high school, and then to college. You don’t get to see them getting married.

You don’t experience any of the little joys and sorrows of the people that you left behind. You don’t participate in the social and cultural events that were once so near and dear to you. You don’t go to those temples or join in those exciting political rallies anymore. You don’t get to chat with your school buddies anymore; you miss their reunions every single year. You don’t get to eat the Hilsa fish at family gatherings in the monsoon months or play chess, carrom or badminton at fun picnics in early January. You don’t get to see the cricket or football games you once craved to see.

You don’t get to sing with them the songs you so much loved to sing.

And you don’t get to be present at the death bed of someone who loved you so much.

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My wife lost both her parents when we were here in America. She could not be with them when they wanted to see her one last time. She was making the last-minute preparation to fly to Calcutta to see her father; just the night before her departure, news came that he’d passed away. She left the next day, only to be held up by British Airways in London for three days for some strange reasons; they did not or could not make any alternate arrangement for her to reach Calcutta right away. She did not get a chance to see him or perform his last rites at the funeral. It left a permanent scar on her.

The same thing happened when her mother died four years later: she could not arrive on time to see her alive. She passed away quite suddenly. But at least at this time, we made arrangements with those relatives to preserve her body; my wife was able to touch her mother one last time and was able to be a part of the rites at the funeral by the Holy Ganges.

It’s painful and traumatic, but nothing unique for new immigrants like us. At least, unlike many other immigrants who could never return to their home countries because of problems with money or documents, we could fly back and spend a little, precious time with the family. I have seen too many times an immigrant from Bangladesh, Punjab or Pakistan weeping inconsolably with their friends trying to calm them down: they just got news that a parent or a brother or sister died and they could not afford to go back at all. The feeling of helplessness tore them apart.

I know that’s been our fate all along since we decided to migrate out of India. I know I’m going to go through exactly the same experience my wife went through, when time comes to say goodbye to my father. He is now eighty-eight years old, and is not doing well at all. Last week, I got news from my sister that he fell on the floor, hurt his feet badly, and also had a deep cut on his forehead.

I know his time is coming to an end. I know when it’s all over, it’s very likely I won’t be able to be on his side.

Gutubaba loved children.

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When our rabbit died this Sunday at 10 P.M., we were all by his side. This little creature — we called him Gutke or the little brat (rough translation from Bengali) was with us since the tragedies of September Eleventh; he was a rescued bunny. We called him by many other names, such as Gutubaba, Gersh, etc. etc. My sister during her visit from India called him Gutu Kumar. I even gave him a proper name in case we ever decided to send him to a rabbit reform school: the name was Lal Mohan (borrowing the immortal character from Satyajit Ray’s detective stories), even though the little brat never managed to go to school. Ah well, if one decides to remain a lifelong illiterate, what can you do?

The Irish-American lady here in Brooklyn who gave him to us said he was then about a year old back then; therefore, going by her, Gutubaba was about twelve years old when he died; calculating that into human age, he was a very, very old man — of 120.

Now, because most people don’t keep a rabbit for a pet, even here in New York City where almost every other American man and woman have a dog or cat (I once had a bird in Calcutta), they don’t realize how beautiful, happy and loving these rabbits can be. I don’t know about the emotions and intelligence of the typical snow-white rabbits with ruby-red eyes that we used to see back in Calcutta (the ones that never lived long), our Gutubaba was exceptional. Before him, we had another, kind-of pedigree bunny named Chicory, but she only lived for eight years; we loved her too, but never quite formed the bonding we developed with this little street rascal.

When he was young, we had to put up a makeshift wooden door at the bottom of our staircase; still, at every possible and impossible opportunity, he would sneak in and hop up the stairs to go up to the second or even the third floor of our house, and would not ever want to come down. We always had to lure him out of the places he’d hide — mostly from under the bed — by using his favorite cereal, crackers, raisins or grapes. He would always be outside of his cage except for the few times he went back for food or water; and believe it or not, he was almost potty-trained. Well, sort of.

Gutubaba loved children. All our friends — American, Bengali, Indian and all whoever came to our place with their kids — would be amazed to see how friendly he was; in his younger years, he would jump over from the floor onto the couch and sit there for hours, with children and adults alike. He would watch TV with us (sometimes facing away from the TV if it’s a movie that we saw many times before), and listen to Tagore songs with much respect and attention.

The End Came Fast.

Then he got old and slowed down — quite rapidly. He could not move around; we removed the makeshift wooden door from the bottom of the stairwell because he could never go back up. He got arthritis on both front legs, and then he got cataract on his eyes. He gradually stopped eating. Still, he would respond whenever there was smell of freshly made tea because he knew there would be cracker pieces for him, or occasionally, a piece of raisin. The children in our home were extremely attached to him and his love; this brat would lick his favorite children and not stop.

On Sunday, July 15, Gutke breathed his last. We were all present by his side. He started taking very fast breaths, and then he slowed down. He went back to his favorite cage and stayed there one last time. We carefully took him out and lay him on our living room carpet. We rubbed our fingers slowly and softly on his head and his salt-and-pepper fur, and called out his name over and over again. He took a few last sips of water — as if water from the Holy Ganges.

He opened his mouth and took in a few last gasps of air. Then, he stopped breathing.

Gutubaba left us — in peace.

My wife wept inconsolably. She said she had not seen death so up close in her life.

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

Sharing Life’s Notes: How To Think In 101 Ways

Organize and Refine Thinking

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I’m now writing a brief, made-easy guide on the subject of thinking.

Yes, you’ve heard it right. But, don’t think too much about it…just yet. Please read what I have to say, and then think.

And no, it’s definitely not a condescending sermon. Rather, it’s a collective process of understanding, sharing and co-stimulation.

I could have titled this post: “You think you know how to think? Think so? Well, think again!” But that would’ve been too long for a  title, and given people’s very short attention span these days, chances are, I would’ve lost a number of my precious readers. So, I used a simpler title. At least I thought I did. You think about it, and let me know. This is really about life’s multifaceted experiences.

So, the title is, “Sharing Life’s Notes: How To Think In 101 Ways.”

A much simpler game of Ludo. But the idea of organized thinking to get a positive result is still there.

See, I already thought a few times over on this topic and how to use the best possible, attractive title so that readers who are now visiting my blog from all possible and impossible, incredible, wonderful corners of the world (believe me!) would actually take their precious time to read it. Not only that: I also cleverly imposed some task on you — to think along with me! But because you’re clever too, you’re not going to fall for my subtle imposition. I know you won’t. I only hope that you do it because you want to do it.

On a lighter note, just think: so much of my thinking went into writing the above, carefully crafted comment! It’s hard, man! Thinking is not easy.

One thinks the other can’t think. But who’s thinking?

(Like, Diane Chambers said about Sam Malone in Cheers, “He can’t think anymore today. He has already thought twice!”)

But more seriously, unlike Sam Malone who couldn’t think more than twice a day — if we gave the Harvard dropout Diane Chambers the benefit of the doubt (yet, if you knew Ms. Chambers, you ought to take her statements with a crazy grain of salt) — we the ordinary people think, have to think, or would like to think more than twice. In fact, we think quite often and frequently — just like the elite, rich, powerful and famous do.

Now, here is the problem. Sometimes, we even think without knowing we’re thinking. Sometimes, nothing concrete comes out of the thinking process. Sometimes, we get even more confused thinking! Because, in many cases, we are not thinking in an organized and planned way. That is where we could perhaps use some help: how to organize and refine our thinking.

Satyajit Ray used the chess metaphor splendidly.

I shall use the game of chess to explain my thoughts to you — in this brief time and space of a blog. Stay with me: you might find the next 1,200 or so words useful. At least, you could tell me that after thinking about what I said, you thought it was not useful. Like, you might say, my (i.e., yours truly’s) thinking was useless. Or, you might say, you had already thought what I thought: there’s nothing new. Either way, some organized and refined thinking would be involved, and, that would be good.

Now, without further ado, on with some chess.

In this movie (see poster here) called “Shatranj Ke Khiladi” (The Chess Players, 1977), a story written by the great Hindi-Urdu writer Munshi Prem Chand, Satyajit Ray the genius film director used a number of layers of themes, sub-themes, imagery, symbolism and metaphors to tell the story. I won’t bother you with the intricate details of the movie here: you can click on the link I provided above and look it up. Very briefly, the story talks about social problems and political problems using the backdrop of a slow and laid-back, pre-British feudal, Muslim-ruled India; it also talks about personal issues and national issues. The various layers in the story intertwine and blend. And the master filmmaker takes high artistic liberty to create one of his best creations; a political story easily turns into a personal story, and vice versa. The game of chess and two chess-addict patriarchs becomes the unifying thread throughout the length of the movie.

You watch the movie, and then you come back and watch it again…and again. Why? Because the movie makes you think. It makes you think more. And it makes you think harder. You need to take the time — a lot of time — to peel away the layers of the story line, one layer at a time.

You think about the people in it. You think about the places in it. You think about the politics in it. You think about the society in it. You think about the issues and problems in it. You think about the short-term problems. You think about the mid-term problems. And then you think about the long-term problems.

One End-result of One Action Plan.

And then you think about all the consequences of these people’s deeds, actions, mis-actions and inactions. You put yourself in the movie — as if you are a character in it too — and you try to find perhaps alternative solutions to the problems the movie poses — both on the personal and collective and social fronts. Would you do things differently? Could you do things differently? Do you feel any urge to do anything at all?

At the end of the day, that’s really the essence of the thinking process: to get into some action. Then, in order to get into and on with an action, you need an action plan.

If you think in an organized way, and make plans while thinking, your action is bound to be effective and meaningful — to produce positive results. That’s the beauty of organized and refined thinking process.

It’s like eventually trapping or checkmating your opponent’s king in that little game of chess.

(I shall write more. Please come back. Thanks for your…thinking.)

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

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Critical thinking and complicated reasoning: that makes us us.

Of Boson, Bengal, God and His No-Name Particles

Bose with His Esraj (FYI: Bose was from India and so was Esraj)

Note: Professor Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak, another world-renowned intellectual originally from Calcutta and Bengal, read this blog and wrote me a message of support.

She wrote:

“He [Prof. S. N. Bose] came quite a few times to our house. He was our Satyen [uncle] because he was friends with Montu [uncle] (Dilip Kumar Roy, Mother’s 1st cousin). If I remember right (these are very old memories), he sat on the floor of the living room and sang with us. A very simple man, absolutely unassuming.”
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I am writing about the Boson half of the now-famous Higgs-Boson — the God Particle.

I’m writing about kind of the half-life of the half-word: like, how it evaporates — in this case, quite rapidly, as if it never existed.

No, it’s not a scientific article; I do not have the necessary qualifications to write about physics, particle physics, mathematics or statistics.

I’m writing about Professor S. N. Bose — an unassuming physicist-mathematician from Bengal — who first conceptualized the Bosons, with help from Albert Einstein. I’m writing about my frustration about Western media’s near-zero coverage of Prof. Bose, even when they’re going gaga about Higgs, Boson and the so-called discovery of God Particle.

I’m writing about a historic, predictable pattern of Western media and establishment’s way of reporting, underreporting and no-reporting of news: how they selectively report and include their preferred facts and names behind the facts, and at the same time, exclude or downplay their non-preferred facts and names behind the facts.

Western media — especially British and American media — have always done it. I shall cite some examples out of a long list we have. I could talk about how New York Times repeatedly mentioned Rabindranath Tagore as Babindranath Tagore (Read Dutta and Robinson: Rabindranath Tagore the Myriad-Minded Man). But I shall concentrate for now on the media exclusion of Prof. S. N. Bose from Calcutta and Dhaka — from West Bengal, now India and East Bengal, now Bangladesh. (By the way, these are the two halves the British cut open and severely bled when they left India after two hundred years of occupation, brutality and pauperization — that’s a story I told a number of times already — on this blog and many other places.)

It is unbelievable that in this 24/7 hyped-up coverage of Higgs-Boson, the so-called global media do not find any serious obligation to tell their global audience what in the world this strange name Boson came from, even when they’re telling big stories about Professor Higgs and what kind of a major genius the British scientist is. (I have no dispute about Prof. Higgs’ genius.)

Bose was from Calcutta and Dhaka (now you know what media says about those God-damn places, right?)

Briefly, it’s like this. Someone hears or reads a news item about Higgs-Boson — also known as the God Particle. A reader or viewer, or two, have this question in their mind, and they ask their Media God (actually, nobody asks: media decides what to say and what not to say, or how much to say it):

“Dear Media God, can you please tell us what or who Higgs-Boson is?”

The Media God replies: (actually, I borrowed the description below from Wikipedia):

“The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is a proposed elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics. The Higgs boson is named after Peter Higgs who, along with others, proposed the mechanism that predicted such a particle in 1964. The existence of the Higgs boson and the associated Higgs field explain why the other massive elementary particles in the standard model have their mass. [...] The Higgs field interaction is the simplest mechanism which explains why some elementary particles have mass. The Higgs boson—the smallest possible excitation of the Higgs field—has been the target of a long search in particle physics. One of the primary design goals of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland—one of the most complicated scientific instruments ever built— was to test the existence of the Higgs boson and measure its properties.

Because of its role in a fundamental property of elementary particles, the Higgs boson has been referred to as the “God particle” in popular culture, although virtually all scientists regard this as a hyperbole. According to the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a boson, a type of particle that allows multiple identical particles to exist in the same place in the same quantum state. Furthermore, the model posits that the particle has no intrinsic spin, no electric charge, and no colour charge. It is also very unstable, decaying almost immediately after its creation.

On 4 July 2012, the CMS and the ATLAS experimental collaborations at the Large Hadron Collider announced that they observed a new particle that is consistent with the Higgs boson, noting that further data and analysis were needed before the particle could be positively identified.”

Great!

At this point, most of the readers and viewers would be satisfied and resign to the dinner table. Just a handful of obstinate and stubborn people would not be satisfied, and ask:

“But Dear Media God, what then is Boson? Where did the name come from? I like that name — Boson. Could you please tell us, Oh Dear Media God, what the hell Boson is?”

But Media God would now be silent.

I just heard that Tagore, Satyajit Ray and Amartya Sen were also from Bengal. Like, are you kidding me?

See, even in the detailed Wikipedia description, there is no mention of the fact that this no-name Esraj-playing scientist from some God-damn corner of God-damn India and God-damn Bangladesh actually conceptualized the Boson particle way back when — in 1924 or something — through a series of pers. comm.’s (personal communications) with Western scientific and political establishment’s poster child Einstein (no disrespect for the great genius here, believe me!). But science? Physics? Quantum physics? Statistics? In Calcutta? Dhaka? Like, when did they learn how to read and write, let alone do science?

See, nobody except for a handful of obstinate and stubborn people would even suspect that Boson had a lot to do with Bose — this guy from a dilapidated corner of British-partitioned, blood-soaked Bengal — if you only go by the Wikipedia or as of today, major Western media: print, TV, radio or the Internet.

God, His God Particle and all such major discoveries and prizes — such as the Nobel Prize — would be owned, re-owned and renewedly re-owned by God’s preferred men, women and children. Western establishments and media — along with their clone Indian establishments and media — will make sure it happens that way.

So, because they’re not going to do it, let’s see if we can educate and enlighten ourselves on our way. Here’s what I learned over the past few days since the Higgs-Boson news broke big time. Not that I understood it all. But like Sheriff Andy Taylor’s deputy Bernie Fife said to him, I knew “It’s big…like…real big!”

In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs boson is a hypothetical elementary particle that “belongs to a class of particles known as bosons, characterized by an integer value of their spin quantum number.” The term “boson” is related to the forgotten Indian contribution to the discovery. It owes its name to Satyendra Nath Bose, an Indian physicist from Kolkata, whose pioneering work in the field in the early 1920s changed the way particle physics had been approached. (Quoted from: http://www.ibtimes.com – read the full article here on this link.)

Just couldn’t resist showing these two men together.

The above article writes more about his fortuitous connection with Einstein:

“Born in 1894, Bose specialized in mathematical physics. He became a lecturer at the University of Calcutta in 1916 and joined the Dhaka University as Professor of Physics in 1921. While teaching the theory of radiation and ultraviolet catastrophe at the University of Dhaka, Bose attempted to show his students that the predicted results did not match the existing derivations of Planck’s radiation law. He made a simple mistake, which accidentally gave rise to a third prediction that produced accurate results! He derived Planck’s blackbody radiation law without the use of classical electrodynamics as Planck himself had done. He later developed a logically satisfactory derivation based entirely on Einstein’s photon concept and sent his paper on quantum statistics to a British journal, which refused to publish it, calling it erroneous.

Rejection of his paper might have frustrated Bose but he sent it it to Albert Einstein himself, with a request to arrange its publication in ‘Zeitschrift für Physik’.”

[...]

Einstein immediately grasped the immense significance of Bose’s paper, translated it into German and published it in the August 1924 issue of Zeitschrift für Physik under the title, “Plancksgesetz Lichtquantenhypothese” (the English title was “Planck’s Law and Light Quantum Hypothesis”). He also added the following comment to Bose’s article:

“Bose’s derivative of Planck’s formula appears to me to be an important step forward. The method used here gives also the quantum theory of an ideal gas, as I shall show elsewhere.”

Einstein later applied Bose’s method to give the theory of the ideal quantum gas, and predicted the phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation that became a basis of quantum mechanics.

As Amit Chaudhuri explains in The Guardian, “Einstein saw that it had profound implications for physics; that it had opened the way for this subatomic particle, which he named, after his Indian collaborator, ‘boson‘.”

Bose’s discovery, along with its subsequent development by the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, provided the basis of categorizing the fundamental particles into two groups – “bosons” after Bose and “fermions” after Fermi.” (End of article excerpt).

Great too!

Prof. Bose lived in this house in Calcutta. We used to see him on our way to school.

See, the entire set of facts was published in an Indian publication and written by an Indian author named Kukil Bora (and he quotes another Indian author who wrote in the Guardian, a “lefty” paper). I can’t thank him enough. But what do you think: at this important time when the entire, civilized and developed Western world and its media publish so many stories on Higgs-Boson, shouldn’t they also have reported on the Boson half of Higgs-Boson?

Like I said before, it’s a historic, predictable pattern of Western establishment’s coverage of facts — according to their preference. Very soon, after some initial “disrespectful” reporting, their clone Indian media and establishment would also sweep the Bose and Boson half of the Higgs-Boson particle, by God’s Grace, under the eternally oblivious rug.

Acharya J. C. Bose, legendary scientist and author (and a close friend of Tagore) with students such as S. N. Bose and Meghnad Saha

Just like another Indian scientist Sir J. C. Bose’s name was erased from global memory, first by British media and then by Indians (read article here — click on this link), Prof. S. N. Bose’s name would also be erased from global memory, first by the Euro-American media and then by their clone Indian corporate media.

Neither S. N. Bose nor J. C. Bose was awarded the Nobel Prize (in fact, there’s strong evidence that J. C. Bose was denied by the then-European rulers of India of his invention of the radio — in favor of Marconi — see the article I linked in the above paragraph). And, then, a whole host of Bengali and Indian writers and scientists were bypassed by the Nobel and other international awards committees for we often say and we all know, prejudice, bias and political reasons. Like, Gandhi was never awarded a Nobel Peace Prize (but Kissinger was)! That tradition is on.

There will be some no-name reporting in some no-name publications; but God’s no-name particles rising from this no-name, God-damn, pauperized corner of the globe would soon be erased from human memory by the global media and their puppet masters.

Boson’s connection with Bose, Bose’s connection with Bengal and India, and all these no-name God’s particles from those God-damn, uncivilized corners of the world will remain just like that — no-name — by God’s Grace.

Or, at least, by the grace of God’s more civilized children from the Western half of the world.

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

I remember seeing them when I was a pre-teen. They lived right next to our Scottish Church School in North Calcutta.

Andy Griffith: A Sheriff Without A Gun

The Happy Family

-One-

I normally do not get emotional about a movie icon.

But this Fourth of July, I can’t keep emotions totally out of my system. Because I’m writing about an icon who I thought was somebody I could remember for the rest of my life. This is someone who makes me happy every time I think about him and watch his shows. He gives me reasons to believe in sanity, moderation, common-sense life and human compassion. He gives me reasons to love and keep faith in love.

I am writing about Andy Griffith. I’m trying make a connection between him, Middle America and yes, the Fourth of July.

Of course, it’s not just about Andy Griffith as a person; rather, it’s about a way of life he iconized through mass media. This is a value system he established even deeper in American soil. That is critically important to remember today because today’s America and American media do not talk about the way of life Andy Griffith, his shows and his friends, colleagues and co-actors talked about. This America and this media today have made a 180 degree turn from the philosophies that his prime time shows in the sixties popularized: philosophies that took deep roots in Mid-America and its moderate, loving and caring, smiling, ordinary, working men, women and children.

They were the philosophies of non-violence, social togetherness, inclusion, equality, modern outlooks and a greed-free lifestyle. Those were the American values that made America an exemplary nation throughout the world. Those were the values that brought millions of immigrants like me to this country — with high hopes and optimism.

Andy Griffith, a small-town Southern sheriff named Andy Taylor, never carried a gun. But he carried those eternal American values we terribly miss now.

Those are the American values we want to remember on this Fourth of July.

-Two-

Of course, he is not the only one who preached and practiced and popularized sanity, society and peace on media and entertainment. Around the same time — in the sixties — icons such as Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Paul Robeson or the Beatles were more or less doing the same in the Western world. It was a tumultuous time. The glorious civil rights movement on one hand and a few years later, the valiant mass resistance against the Vietnam war shook America to the core. Countless artists, poets, singers, filmmakers, actors and actresses joined in on the peace movement globally and the civil rights movement within America. Brutally violent rulers across the world and brutally repressive rulers across the U.S. were struggling to put down the civil disobedience tempest. American young generation was waking up to fresh air of new realities. They were embracing the concepts of peace, justice and equality. The Berlin Wall of color, race and religion was crumbling.

Fishing for Family, Fun and Friendship

Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Paul Robeson or the Beatles’ styles were, however, different from Andy Griffith’s. The simple sheriff in the Southern small-town of Mayberry did not join in on a civil rights protest march or gave a speech about the futility of war. He wasn’t even remotely interested about politics, although he had to run for elections every few years to keep his paid position as the sheriff. He also took sides on local mayoral candidates, and once opposed his own Aunt Bee who stood for mayor, causing serious domestic strife. But he was largely a non-political man: his job was to run the small town of Mayberry as smoothly as possible, with help from his laughably inefficient deputy and a group of awkward country simpletons (or even a town alcoholic he was rehabilitating).

Doing this, however, a widower with a small boy Opie, he wouldn’t have no lack of time to engage in several affairs (one affair at a time) with local belles, go fishing regularly with the son, organize and sing in the church choir, or occasionally visit for dinner Mount Pilot, the nearest big town seven miles away. Sheriff Andy Taylor refuses to leave his birthplace Mayberry even when an old-time, high-school sweetheart attempts to lure him away to Chicago. No he wouldn’t leave: he loves his relaxed lifestyle and rural lads and lasses.

-Three-

That is his real America. Here, a group of Italian farmer immigrants with no English-speaking skills gets a hostile bunch of “mainstream” Americans — to the point of being driven away. An innocent man for absolutely no valid reason is suddenly ostracized by the entire town because the people with their superstition think he is jinx. The old barber Floyd spreads rumors about anything and it catches on like wildfire. Local ruffians engaged in illegal trading threat the weakling deputy. Sinister outsiders stash drug money in the barber shop. A bank is going to get robbed by armed robbers faking a film shooting. A dangerously violent criminal jailbreaks and hides in Mayberry, stealing the deputy’s gun.

The “Innocent” Barber!

And in all instances, it falls on the shoulders of Sheriff Taylor to interfere, mitigate and resolve the issue. And he does it with the use of his head — a head of a genius strategist and game maker — with absolutely no intention to use his gun. I take it back: he never had a gun (not even at his North Carolina home). He always thought problems could be handled nonviolently if he’d acted with determination and had the support and confidence of the society. And he did enjoy the support and confidence of the society.

In fact, he had had a society and they all cared for one another.

Sadly, that sane and moderate America is taken away from us. Extreme inequality, war, violence, hate, bigotry and economic exploitation have pervaded this land once again.

-Four-

Sheriff Andy Taylor would never spare opportunities to sit down with his motherless child for his homework, sort out the small boy’s small but significant problems growing up, go fishing with him whistling away, talk to his school teacher Helen Crump who would later be his girlfriend, and attend church meetings and evening dinners religiously with Aunt Bee and son Opie, with frequent presence of childhood friend Deputy Bernie Fife who as a concerned family friend would also attempt to educate the boy, however inadequately. Andy would not miss an opportunity to play his guitar sitting out on the front porch, with Bee, Opie, Ms. Crump, Fife and sometimes Fife’s girlfriend Thelma Lou joining in. The country music would be slow and soothing, with soft and subtle strumming of the nylon guitar. The full moon would look down upon these simple, honest creatures; its soft and subtle silvery light would flood the Mid-American little town Mayberry — as if it had brought the divine blessings from the Almighty who is sending down his message of togetherness, love, compassion and peace.

Opie, Ron Howard, is now a big-time filmmaker; he is, I guess, my generation. A celebrity in his own right now, does he remember those soft, love-laced days from the sixties? I do. I wish I had an opportunity to go fishing with Sheriff Taylor. Only once…that’s all.

I wanted to play a small part in Andy Griffith’s message of love, social togetherness and nonviolence. I wanted to be a small part in the Grand-Ole American message of hope, togetherness and nonviolence.

Mr. Sheriff, I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss the Middle American values you lived and died for.

This Fourth of July, I swear to God, Middle America is going to miss you too.

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

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Pa, Can We Go Fishin’ Tomorrow Again?

And Then…God Created…Indian Men!

Oh Yeah…They Can Do That!

Related article. — Free Idiots: An Indian Amir’s New Stooges. Please read it here. Click on this link.

________________________________________

On the 13th day, God created Indian men.

Or, He did it on a day around that time, when He was exhausted and did not really want to do anything. He should’ve taken some rest at that time after all the major work He did before that. But He thought, well, I am God, ain’t I? I can handle it: I can do some more creationism.

And so He did not take the rest He should have taken. And then He created something only He knows why. Honestly, and I’m truly sorry to say it, with due apologies to Him, it was not His best creation at all.

He created Indian men.

We shall explain.

See, Indian men — Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist or Christian — are lifelong kids. When they are very small and very young, they get too much attention and pampered to an extreme. In an Indian family — rural or urban, low caste or high, middle class or poor, a little boy is always treated like a little prince — a Raj Kumar; the same family would treat a little girl very differently (even though she might be called a little princess — a Raj Kumari). Boys get the best food, best dresses, best toys, and best lullabies. Girls get the leftover food, leftover dresses, leftover toys, and no lullabies.

(And in many cases, a girl child would not even see her mother — live; chances are, society would force the mother to abort her. India has perhaps the highest number of such abortions; but we’re not going to talk about that violence here.)

Then, Indian boys — if their families can afford it — get “education.” For those families who can afford it, boys always get to go to better schools and get new school uniforms and new books — if their families can afford it. Girls — even if their families can afford it — may not be sent to the best possible schools even when the girl is smart and able to pass the entry exam. They will not get the best books; they will not get the newest uniforms.

Now, at this point, there would be some readers vehemently opposing my narration. If they are women, they would say, no it did not happen to me; my father sent me to the best possible school all along, and I also got the newest uniforms and new books. If these protesting readers are men, they would say, look, the situation has improved a lot; your tale is totally outdated. They would say, look, I had a sister, and my father found the best schools, best uniforms and best books for both us — with no discrimination.

Well, I’m happy for you. I’m only talking about my personal experience — with people I have seen in my life. I guess, I’m talking about a particular class or variety of Indians (note: by Indians, I also mean Pakistanis and Bangladeshis). And by the way, oh dear protesting reader, look, you’re drawing my attention to your father who did it for you and your sister. I guess, you mom did not play a significant role in the decision-making process, did she?

Bangladesh. This Girl is Lucky…She Escaped with a Tease!
(btw, I saw taunts hurled by American men…here in Brooklyn. And by Bangladeshi men…around the same spot!)

Anyway…on with our story. Then, the boy grows up (or so they say) and becomes a teenager. Remember, in India, there is practically no sex education: even now, talking about sexual development and sexual relationship either at home or in school is practically a taboo. Co-ed schools are still relatively rare, and even the few and far between co-ed schools do not have a modern and transparent and age-appropriate sex education curriculum. The society is largely feudal. Gandhi’s feudalism did not help to bring up a modern nation at all.

In this pervasive climate, the sex-education-less growing man knows he is strong and his hormones are acting up. He realizes he can start flirting young women and perhaps, with some indulging friends, taunt and tease neighborhood girls passing by (see picture: we shall save some real-life, graphic descriptions for later). If the girl is  self-righteous and has some guts to not accept the taunts and teases passively (and speaks up!), the boy and his male-hormone friends know it’s about time to teach the insolent, audacious girl some lesson she can remember. Just like my teenager friend Subh did in North Calcutta, there would be some verbal and physical boundary crossing — shaming her and traumatizing her in public.

Of course, if the girl comes from a rich or powerful family and/or has a number of muscular brothers or uncles, it’s going to be a completely different story: the girl can walk freely anywhere, with her head up. Nobody would touch her; in fact, the same boys would now retreat back home with their tails tucked between their hind legs, and have wet dreams, dreaming about her over and over again.

Pardon my explicit word choice here. Again, this is my life’s experience, and that too, from twenty or thirty years ago. I have left India ever since; I wish the situation had changed (and I know, apart from some cosmetic changes, it has not — much).

[Update 1: The Delhi gang rape case, December 2012. -- A young woman was gang raped and violently beaten to near death on a moving bus. Perhaps for the first time in modern Indian history, the entire country exploded against rampant, all-pervasive violence on women. Now, as of December 29 India time, she has died. You can read more on the latest development here.]

[Update 2: Very recently, there were two gruesome "honor killings" in West Bengal where a father and a brother hacked two young women to death in broad daylight because in both instances, the girls married their boyfriends without consent of the families. The so-called honor killing NEVER happened in the state of West Bengal before.]

Honor in Killing? Ask Orwell.

Anyway, enough digression. On with our story.

Then, the Indian boy becomes a man (or so they say), and marries. He now owns a real woman to toy with. He can do anything he wants with her, with active indulgence from his parents (here, the mother in-law also becomes a big part of the oppressive patriarchy, for reasons social scientists could explain). The eternal boy child, now a husband, may love his new bride, or he may not love her depending upon the day, time, whim, mood, status of the bride’s family, or his own parental instructions, likes or dislikes. He may ridicule her, throw acid-like sarcasm at her. The Indian man has special expertise in ridiculing the Indian woman; or for that matter, anyone who he considers inferior (a teenage son quickly learns and follows his father: now he starts throwing sarcasm at mom — I have real-life examples if you need them).

The man may make her woman cook and clean (depending on his economic status and affordability), or he may put her in charge of the cook and clean maids (with his secret, sporadic examination of their bodies if the maids are young), forcing the wife to stay at home to perform her “traditional, social, religious” Indian duties.

Such duties often forces even a brilliant woman to sacrifice her brilliant student- or professional career; I personally know scores of Indian women who after marriage had to give up their singing career, medical practice, teaching job or employment as an entrepreneur. The husband — the Indian man God created on the 13th or some day — with help from his family or himself, would not allow it.

They say it’s too un-Indian for a married woman to work outside. Well…maybe…if I’m liberal…I’d let you do some part-time job…close to home…and you’d be ready to quit and move with me if I have to move. My career comes first: that’s what he says.

(Gist: It doesn’t make a difference if the family supports liberal or conservative politics. But the husband or in-laws would bend the rules — and bend them a lot — if the men in the family are jobless or incapable of making money.)

Life is Very Stressful for Them…Until Dinner is Ready! (Note: I do not know these two men: I’m only generalizing)

Then, the Indian boy child, now a full-grown man (or so they say), becomes a father and does his sacred fatherly duties by touching the cheeks or hands of the sleeping child. He even smiles at the child or may I dare to say, sometimes sings! Then, he leaves for work or to meet friends or relatives. Or, he resigns back into the living room, where he draws his favorite chair and cushion, and watches his favorite Bollywood movie, cricket, soccer, cooking, wrestling, fashion or talk show. Bollywood is traditionally ultra-patriarchal; fake wrestling is…ah well…we all know.

(Why does he watch the cooking show? Ask him: I have no idea.)

These days, he would even bring a friend or two (male friends, that is), close the living room door, drink beer, whiskey or smoke a cigarette or two, and have a serious, stressful debate on terrorism, politics or the collapse of American capitalism. (Or, they would watch the cooking show together.)

Then, a servant (or his mother) comes in and informs that dinner is ready. They flock at the dinner table and devour the meal, without any curiosity whatsoever as to how it was made.

If the wife is allowed to work outside, she would also finish her “womanly duties” at home returning from work (or even before going to work, waking up very early in the morning) — while the man would hardly lift a finger and help the wife do household chores. Or, in 2012, a well-to-do he might phone-order in Domino’s Pizza or KFC’s spicy chicken: he would not waste time in the kitchen at all. He would not waste time to do the dishes either; either the women would do it, or the dishes would be left unwashed til the next morning for the part-time cleaning maid to show up and do it. If the maid fails to show up the next morning, the women would do it, with the man watching the TV or reading the newspaper in the living room, cursing the maid for her “frequent” absences and the “flowing-like-water” money spent on her.

In fact, today, well-to-do visitors come from India and stay over at our place in New York: we observe them closely. We observe that the female visitor would almost always volunteer to help with the cooking and cleaning during their stay (they know we have no domestic help here in the U.S.), while the male visitor would almost always stay back in the living room watching TV or get engaged in various intelligent debates — on all possible and impossible subjects including Bollywood, cricket, soccer, terrorism, politics, capitalism and stock market.

I could keep going for ever, and express a lifetime of irk and annoyance on God’s one of the weirdest creationism — Indian men — but friends and well-wishers tell me not to lose my head. They ask me to keep my calm and poise. So, I shall stop now and keep my calm and poise. I just want to tell a story — in fact, a fact — we saw here in the U.S. In a way, it summarizes my tale.

[Update: A Facebook friend from Arizona just wrote to me that she had exactly the same type of experience in her own Indian life; I can't thank her enough for her invaluable candor and support.]

Superstar, Billionaire Cricketers. Now, That’s Indian Men Alright!

An Indian man who is now an immigrant-turned-U.S. citizen is a brilliant graduate from Indian Institute of Technology — one of the best-known schools India can brag about (PBS did a show on IIT a few years ago). He is a “success story” for an Indian immigrant. He started working for an American engineering company somewhere in the South, and slowly moved up the corporate ladder (think about him as a Bobby Jindal in the field of engineering). Now he makes millions, has a number of nice houses, fancy cars, and a big sail boat. He travels worldwide. His kids went to Ivy League schools and are now employed with renowned companies.

It is his wife who told us this story — in a “funny” way. She said (I’m only paraphrasing):

“I had a C-Section when I gave birth to my first child. I came back home a few days later with the baby. I had severe pain: they still hadn’t cut my stitches. Suddenly, on the first weekend after I returned from the hospital, my husband announced that he’d invited a number of friends over for dinner to celebrate the birth of our child. I was mad like hell. I said: ‘Are you kidding me? I can’t even move I have so much pain, and you already invited your friends for dinner? Like, who’s going to cook and clean — you? Have you ever stepped inside the kitchen, do you know what it looks like?’ So, my husband said, ‘Honey, don’t worry, these are our close friends, I only invited a few people maybe six or seven of them. You don’t need to do much. Just make some fried rice or biryani and make some chicken curry, that’s all. I’ll get the beer.’ So, what could I do? He’d already invited them and I had no choice. I had to cook and clean that weekend with my stitches on.”

See, this man is not abusive or anything. He is actually a very nice man: soft-spoken, educated and highly placed. He is not one of those wife-beaters, dowry-bride-burners or acid throwers. Although he’d once told me he was not too worried about his daughter’s education because she was going to get married anyways, but he indeed sent her to a good school here in the U.S. He is a jovial, warm, helpful guy. He doesn’t drink much. He doesn’t gamble or do drugs. He is faithful to his wife.

We must forgive him for inviting his friends over for dinner when his wife just delivered a C-Section baby and had her stitches on. Right? Like, those things happen in real life: an Indian man’s real life.

Right?

Any comments?

Sincerely Writing,

Partha

Brooklyn, New York

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Any Comments?