Guess what, I still have the Obama-2008 bumber sticker stuck on my old American car.
We all thought you were going to use your enormously powerful position to drive this country and virtually the entire world back to the direction of the ordinary working people and families, promote economic equality, hold the corporate criminals accountable and bring them to justice. We thought your leadership would stop global warfare and bloodshed, and bring some peace to mankind especially after the horrors of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft.
I am very sorry and dejected to tell you that you have not fulfilled our hopes, dreams and aspirations. You have let us down.
Yet, at the same time, I challenged the Romney-Ryan ticket with maximum force. I posed some questions to your Republican opponents — questions I thought media should have asked them but never did. Please visit the questions here if you are interested to know.
Of course, at that time very few people thought you could lose; and I wrote the article even before that scandalous and racist ”47 percent” Romney speech Mother Jones magazine broke: speech at a $50,000 per plate fundraising dinner Romney had in Florida ($50,000 is the average annual income for an American family; in many Third World countries, it’s the annual income for an entire city, perhaps). When that exposé came out, hardly anybody thought you could ever lose; in fact, even diehard Republicans thought Romney threw the elections straight in your lap; the Florida speech was so devastatingly damaging for him and the Republican Party. But who knows, maybe, that episode had made you overconfident, and you took the first presidential debate casually with no preparation whatsoever; your election prospects since then took a nose dive. Boy, how quickly things turn!
You took that debate with your now-familiar demeanor: you took your audience — your supporters and sympathizers and onlookers across the country — for granted. That non-performance in the debate was really symptomatic of your four years of non-performance. That abject failure to rise up and overpower your fierce, well-oiled opponents and their media with measured documents and reasons was symptomatic of your four years of abject failure to rise up and do the right thing at the most critical moment.
You’re going to be paying a hefty price for that non-performance. And you’re going to drag us all down with you, by your non-performance and lackluster presidency. Your elite circle of advisors — dubious and ill-reputed political insiders who are really part of the now-infamous 1 percent, exposed because of Occupy Wall Street’s resistance and challenge — have ill-advised you. You believed in them, and took us for granted. Your drones killed many innocent people overseas; your political actions killed hopes and dreams of many here in the U.S.
I can never vote for racists and bigots.
President Obama, let me be clear. I would be very sad and disheartened if you get a shock defeat in this election. I would get a chill in my bones if someone like Romney whose racism and hypocrisy is now exposed becomes the president of America. I know he’s going to start another devastating war in Iran: the war industries and Karl Rove are working hard for his victory. I would be frozen to death if a social and economic extremist like Ryan with his Tea Party Glenn Beck doctrine becomes the vice president of this country. I know he is going to kill off the last remnant of the New Deal, including Medicare and Social Security as well as collective bargaining and such precious rights of the working people of America. His party will probably overturn Roe v Wade too, destroying women’s precious reproductive rights. Corporate America, NRA and Koch Brothers as well as organized bigoted groups are working hard for his victory.
Even though I have serious, major issues with your presidency and every single day, I feel cheated by the promises you and your administration didn’t keep, just because I NEVER want a racist and a bigot become the world’s top leaders, I would want you to win.
The only problem is that deep inside, I feel you are not going to win. And you can blame nobody other than yourself for this looming, historic defeat. Your likely loss would be the final letdown of the billions of people — particularly the young generation here in America and peace and democracy soldiers all across the world — who believed so much in your message of hope. They believed in YOU!
You let them all down. How terrible this letdown has been!
Foreword: Stay away from Monsanto and its BGH-tainted milk…and other products. They are as bad as Agent Orange.
____________________
Part I.
-One-
Have you ever seen someone you loved dying of cancer? I have. I have a feeling some of you may have too.
Those who have seen it intimately would quickly understand what I’m talking about: the horror and pain of the disease and how this disease from hell can hurt and destroy not just the person suffering from it, but the entire circle of family and close friends. But for the person who’s going through the pain and horror and trauma, it’s indescribable.
There’s a saying in our Bengali society: “Bhagaban, shatruro jeno emon na hoy.” It means, Oh God, may even my enemies not have this.
I am writing this article not as a doctor or a scientist. I am not a medical doctor. Although I have a doctorate degree in biology from a reputable U.S. university, and some of my post-doctoral research has been in molecular biology and infectious diseases, I do not have any special expertise to write about cancer from a biologist’s point of view. Plus, I have changed my career, and moved out of science into humanities, journalism and social sciences.
I am also sincerely apologizing to them who have sick patients at home: a child or an adult, whose cancer could not have been prevented because of various reasons. Some people are more prone and genetically predisposed to cancer. I am in no way contradicting their beliefs or lifestyle choices, or raising any hopes for them. I salute them for their courageous battle.
What I am writing here is purely a layman’s story. I’m describing some facts here, and I’m going to write down some simple tips I think I can share with you about cancer based on my real-life experience.
But before I write down the tips, let me quickly describe what kind of experience I have had with cancer. I must say it’s not something one should brag about. I wish I never had this kind of experience; I hope none of you ever have it too.
My mother died of cancer when she was only forty-two. She had ovarian and uterine cancer that spread too quickly – like wildfire. We did not have the means back in those Calcutta days to have regular medical check-ups, and my mother perhaps also hid some of the symptoms and pain to save my father and us from worries, stress and doctor’s visits. Maybe, she thought it was not serious, and that the pain would slowly go away. Eventually, when doctors saw her and did surgery on her, it was already Stage IV. Metastasis had occurred (i.e., the cancer had spread throughout her body), and even after removal of her ovaries and uterus, she did not survive for more than a month or perhaps six weeks. The cancer came back, caused her unbearable pain, changed her physically too, and doctors basically gave her maximum-strength sleep medications to save her from agonizing with the pain.
My mother died when my sister was only thirteen years old. I was twenty-one turning twenty-two. I could never get over with her painful death even after so many years. For my sister, she lost her at a critical age, and it caused her lifelong social and emotional problems. My father suffered greatly too even though on the surface, he wouldn’t show it.
One week after my mother died, my uncle — eldest brother of my father — died of oral cancer. His suffering was more prolonged. He actually got it a year before my mother did, and his cancer took time to develop. Doctors initially misdiagnosed it, and the disease spread. Finally, it went out of control, and my uncle who was a flute player, lost one side of his face; there was a gaping hole on his cheek. He couldn’t speak, and was in excruciating pain. Toward the end of the disease, about a couple of months or so before he died, he was in so much physical and emotional pain that he went to commit suicide.
Then, my grandmother — my mother’s mother — died of throat cancer when I had already left India for USA. She suffered greatly too for months. I heard she couldn’t eat or drink in the final months before she passed away.
(I have also known cancer deaths of a few other people I loved and admired a great deal: another uncle — my father’s youngest brother who had special affection for me; a colleague from my first work place at a rural Bengal college where both of us were professors; and a senior friend in Albany who became like an elder brother in this land of alienation where we have no relatives at all: friends have become like relatives here. I had a mentor who taught me political organizing during the dark days of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency rule also got throat cancer; twenty years later I saw him dying in Calcutta of this horrific disease. I have seen these deaths from a distance; yet, they were also difficult to bear.)
As I said, even though there’s nothing to brag about how many cancer deaths I’ve seen in my life — closely — and how they have forever changed my attitude toward life, I must say that I have also developed some knowledge and insight about cancer and how to perhaps ward off cancer as much as possible — if possible at all. And I want to share some of that insight and knowledge with you.
Sharing my personal knowledge — from a first-hand point of view — would be my small way to contribute to the worldwide battle against the deadly disease.
Again, thousand salutes to them who are fighting back courageously against cancer — all over the world.
___________
-Two-
Since my childhood in India, I always heard that very soon, there would be a cure for cancer. I heard that somewhere in the United States of America, some famous scientists had built an entire research township where they were pushing hard 24/7 to come up with cancer cures. In a poor Indian family like the one where I grew up, that rumor was reassurance. That was more than enough to believe that cure for cancer was not far off.
Boy, how mighty fools we were! Nobody told us that Western scientists — U.S. scientists in particular — have not been able to come up with a SINGLE cure for ANY diseases in the past fifty or sixty years. Nobody discovered or marketed a panacea like Penicillin or small-pox vaccine for a VERY long time, even though drug industries with help from media and governments have always created and sustained an illusion and false hope — whether it’s about cancer, AIDS or Alzheimer’s.At the same time, these powerful, now-global institutions have actively rejected thousands of years of scientific knowledge and lifestyle choices from the Old World: India, Africa, Japan or China.
Therefore, the real, believable rumor for me now has been that the mighty, well-financed, powerful medical research industry WOULD NOT want to come up with any more cures for deadly diseases — for obvious sale and profit reasons. Cures would cut long-term profit.
Genetics, Molecular Biology: Use Pro-actively.
I’d save that political discussion for later.
But, because the fact remains that “modern” Western science has not been able to produce any cure for cancer, and more people are dying of cancer worldwide than ever before, and signs and predictions are that cancer deaths will rise rapidly in the coming decades, I believe it’s about time we approached the disease from a totally different point of view — going completely against the dictates of a rat-race-variety Western lifestyle and the powerful medical science industry.
We shall go the pro-active way as opposed to the re-active way. That means, we shall change our lifestyle so that cancer cannot penetrate us and take us over. We shall live the way civilizations lived peacefully and prospered before the re-active, profit-driven variety of Western medical industry and multinational drug czars and insurance giants took our lives over, once and for all.
__________________
-Three-
So, here’s my simple, three-point pro-active lifestyle-change tips, based on what I have seen in my own life.
(1) The first and foremost lifestyle change is: REDUCE STRESS AND ANXIETY. (Catch phrase to remember: SLOW IS GOOD).
(2) The second-most important lifestyle change is: EAT AND DRINK RIGHT. (Catch phrase to remember: LESS IS MORE). Here in the U.S., they say: “Eat one size smaller.” Plus, avoid junk food — like McDonald’s, KFC or Pizza Hut. Avoid drinking milk that has artificial hormones in it: such as Monsanto’s BGH.
(3) And the third advice, however generic, is: DO NOT DO ANYTHING YOU’RE GOING TO REGRET LATER. (Catch phrase to remember: LOVE YOUR LIFE).
(3a) — An emphasis of #3 above: LOVE YOUR LIFE. (Catch phrase to remember: YOUR LIFE).
Let me explain these three easy tips — one at a time. Stay with me for the next few minutes. Okay? Please?
But obviously, its easier said that done: reduce stress and anxiety. You’d say: yeah, right! How would you do it? In this West-inflicted, East-copied rat race where even the naive, half-asleep country farmer is being forced to overnight sell his farmland to a giant automotive, media or I.T. industry, where Monsanto is forcing Indian farmers to commit suicide by numbers unheard-of in human history, GE has polluted an entire river in USA, and where urban middle-class man with a private-sector job or small business is finding less and less time to spend with his loving wife and children (and in the Old World, aging parents) because he’s spending more time at work, on the road and away from home (and can’t even find free time on the weekend) — where is the time to rewind, to get rid of all the anxieties and stress?
The new world order controlled and run by power at the top of the food pyramid is demanding more of your time — more of your life. They order, “Work harder, meet our production goals, or we’ll make your life miserable!” Problem is, it’s already miserable. Problem is, we’re already working harder — FOR THEM. We shall never be able to meet their production goals.
It’s not easy to discuss it all in one article. Plus, I do not have all the answers. I am writing this piece to tell you what social, economic and emotional situations the people I saw up close dying of cancer went through, so that the prevention (note that I’m not using the word remedy, because of its reactive nature) is possible and can be worked out. Regardless of what excuses or real, serious predicaments you have, won’t you try to live differently before it is too late?
Don’t you want to spend some precious time with the people you love the most, before this life ends?
I’m sure you have thought about changing your lifestyle many times over. WELL, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, DO IT NOW!
(I promise to write more on it. Please come back. Let me know your thoughts.)
I am never going to vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. But my vote would not matter. Romney and Ryan are going to win in November, 2012.
Let me tell you why.
But before I do that, let me tell you this. I am terribly worried that a Romney administration, with help from someone like Paul Ryan, is going to destroy the last remnant of the New Deal economic system — an FDR-established, time-tested fiscal policy that saved and prospered the working people and middle-class families of America for decades.
I am scared to think about the future of America and its new generation of working people and families that’s going to suffer the most. Irony is that, many of these young men and women this time wouldn’t even come out to vote. I am frozen to imagine how their lives will shatter into pieces. I am frozen to imagine how the top 1 percent in America will now be even more powerful and richer — at the expense of the poor and middle class. Occupy Wall Street’s worst nightmare will come true! Sadly. Scarily!
The new Romney-Ryan (and Rove) administration also will, in all likelihood, begin a new war in a matter of months. Another ancient civilization will be erased from the face of the earth. Millions of innocent lives and dreams will be destroyed in that new, massive bloodshed.
Because I understand the looming destruction and doom and cannot ever accept it, I shall not vote for Romney and Ryan. But my vote won’t matter. With help from U.S. corporations, think tanks and media, as well as Karl Rove and Koch Brothers, they will win the elections this November.
War, Profit and Propaganda…All in the Name of Democracy.
Let me tell you why.
I shall be brief. After all, with all these big-name political pundits and their big-name media spouting foam-in-the-mouth, who’s going to listen to what a no-name neophyte says on his little, obscure blog?
I quote this from CNN today.
“Congressman Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are a match made in millionaires’ heaven, but they’ll be a nightmare for seniors who’ve earned their Medicare benefits,” said New York Rep. Steve Israel, chairman of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, “For the last 18 months, we’ve said Republicans will have to defend the indefensible — their vote to end Medicare. Now with Congressman Ryan on the ticket, House Republicans face the one thing they hoped to avoid — a national debate on their budget that puts millionaires first and Medicare and the middle class last.”
I think that quote says it all. Let’s see what it really says — section by section.
Section 1. “Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are a match made in millionaires’ heaven.” Okay, great point, Mr. Israel. We all know Republicans’ crocodile tears for the working people and middle class, especially at election times, are phony. But do you know what’s phony about your quote? Democratic Party has done exactly the same thing over the past two presidencies — of Clinton and Obama. You have not done a thing to bring the economy back to the direction of the poor and middle class, who voted you in with so much hope and expectation. You have worked with the rich bankers and financial institutions, and have not held them accountable for their destruction and looting of the American economy.
If the Republicans are hypocrites, at least we always knew they were. But Mr. Israel, you can’t project a different, clean image for your party and your administration. As far as I am — a registered Democrat voter — concerned, I feel cheated.
Clinton Destroyed Welfare. Even Reagan Couldn’t Do It.
Secton 1: post script. Bill Clinton destroyed the welfare system in a way even Ronald Reagan or George Bush Senior couldn’t do. See, we’ve heard a lot of talk from the Dems about Republicans’ destruction of Medicare and Social Security. I’m sure some of it is true. But again, they don’t make any pretension about it. They tell us that Medicare and Social Security are wasteful expenses and they want to get rid of them. They tell us that they want to privatize Social Security (which will really be the end of the last remnant of New Deal economics), and I am sure Romney and Ryan will keep their promises. They will also destroy America’s once-prized public education system, once and for all.
But think about it. Clinton destroyed American welfare that was so critical for so many poor people especially poor women and single mothers. You Democrats named it welfare reform. Corporate media was handy again to spin on it and middle class people who didn’t know much about the devastating impact of this “reform” bought your spin. Clinton won in 1996, with help from Southern moderates and Northern conservatives.
At the same time, Clinton put Greenspan, Larry Summers and Robert Rubin in power, who with help from Phil Gramm, et al. in Congress, overturned the landmark Glass-Stegall Act and deregulated financial derivatives. Basically, the Clinton administration privatized the U.S. economy and promoted deregulation — going against the New Deal principles of the Democratic Party.
Section 2. “Now with Congressman Ryan on the ticket, House Republicans face the one thing they hoped to avoid — a national debate on their budget that puts millionaires first and Medicare and the middle class last.” Great again, Mr. Israel. But what if someone like me challenges you and the Obama Democrats how you have performed over the past four years when you bailed out the richest corporations (and let off the hook Goldman Sachs, etc.), took in some of the biggest Wall Street crooks on your administration, and did not do anything significant to drive the economy back in the direction of the working people and families.
What answer would you have for them: like, “Well, I know we have not done anything significantly different from Clinton or Bush W., but see we are really significantly different? Just trust us?”
Well, Mr. Israel, I am definitely not going to vote for Mitt Romey and Paul Ryan, because I just know them all too well. But guess what, a LOT of ordinary Americans, who are sick and tired of your party’s and administration’s false promises for Change We Can Believe In, will vote for them.
I work with American labor and immigrants — all poor and middle class. I know for the fact that a large number of these people will vote Republican this time. Not because they don’t like Barack Obama. They do. Barack Obama is a likeable guy: he is smart, he is extremely articulate, and he is I believe much more caring than some of his predecessors.
But his personal qualities and his administrative records simply do not match.
Rats! They are Republocrats!
So, to keep it brief, here’s some of the reasons Romney and Ryan will win.
Bullet Point 1. The Republicans and Democrats are now really flip sides of the same, old coin (or you can use the other cliché and call them same-old wine in a new bottle). People now call them Republocrats, and how much ever you’d dislike to hear it, they have truly become just that.
Bullet Point 2. The Koch Brothers, ALEC, NRA, right wing think tanks such Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Center for Immigration Studies, Eagle Forum, and the billionaire Super PAC’s are now going to work extra hard to pump in an historic amount of campaign money to the Romney-Ryan ticket. With U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Citizen United verdict, nobody can prevent them from doing that, and they don’t even have to disclose their identity.
Bullet Point 3.We have seen a small version of that enormous campaign cash in the Wisconsin Scott Walker recall election. It’s going to be deja vu, thousand times multiplied.
2012 Super-PAC Contributions
Bullet Point 4. Labor and youth will vote in a drastically smaller number because they have lost their enthusiasm for Obama. If anything, a large number of working people — especially non-union people — will vote Republican this time. Even a significantly higher number of union members will vote Romney-Ryan. Congressional elections this November will also be a Republican landslide. Hate me for saying this, and I hope to be proven wrong.
Bullet Point 5. Contrary to the above, Tea Party will come out in full force and with help from white supremacists who absolutely want to see Obama eliminated, will work Romney-Ryan with the same enthusiasm we had for Obama in 2008. They do not believe in government, they hate Obama, and they’ve found their best spokesperson now in Ryan (and Joe Biden is…well, I don’t know what he really is). Government programs, whatever is left for the poor and needy, are going to be history. In fact, chances are, the U.S. government as an institution is going to be history too! And that would be the ultimate victory for Ayn Rand and Frederich Von Hayek and their disciples such as Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin.
Bullet Point 6. The war lobby, especially the Middle East war lobby and their known spokespersons in the media, will make sure Romney wins. Romney’s announcement today on the V.P. pick in front a Norfolk war ship is not a missed point, especially for these powers and their big friends in big media. Romney presidency will start a new Middle East war very soon. In spite of Obama’s so-called terrorist kill list (one that President Carter denounced recently), there has not been a new full-scale war in four years; in fact, people are coming out on the streets of Egypt, Yemen and those places, and are throwing off U.S.-supported dictators. The Middle East war lobby and their media are deeply disturbed.
I shall come back and write more. I hope you come back and send your comments and criticism too.
Sincerely (and Scared’ly) Writing,
Partha
Brooklyn, New York
Arab Spring. We need a nonviolent American revolution, now!
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.
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.
-2-
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.
-3-
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.
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
###
Critical thinking and complicated reasoning: that makes us us.
So, my most recent post on the IMF terrorist plot in India and about my family in serious and real threat of being killed was a “huge success.”
Literally, thousands of people from all over the world — for the first time ever — graced it by their precious presence. I want to say a special “thank you” to all wherever you are.
Success? That is, if I want to call such a depressing note about economic terror a success. Given my blog is purely, absolutely not for profit, and I don’t even know how to circulate it the best possible way — other than sharing it on my Facebook and Twitter — it was absolutely mind-boggling that I had readers practically from all over the world: from Norway to Nigeria to New Zealand, from Argentina to Australia to Austria to Athens, and from Dhaka to Dakar to Dar-Es-Salam to Estonia, España, El Salvador.
And then, a remarkably high number of readers read my IMF blog from America, India and Italy. Yes, Italy! Maybe, my grim warning shook up some conscientious, Renaissance Italians who are scared about the IMF takeover of their wonderful, ahead-of-the-curve country. (Even Berlusconi couldn’t dumb them down.)
That was incredible. That was majorly reassuring.
So, I thought, maybe this is about time I took a little departure and detour from my personal, emotional literary-spiritual journey, and wrote about my new insight and teaching experience as a labor educator — teaching my seasoned union worker students — and put out some hard facts that I learned over the years. I thought, given this is a very important election year here in the U.S. — an election that in all likelihood will change the lives and fates of some 300 million American workers and their families, and by default change the fate of the entire world and its six billion inhabitants of which at least five billion are poor people — I thought, maybe, I should make a serious attempt to put out some knowledge that mainstream media would never put out for the ordinary people, and then maybe, I make a real-life connection between those simple facts of life and a simple life’s facts.
I thought, that connection between the facts of life and life’s facts would be simple for us to easily understand. And then, hopefully, we shall see the connection between our lives — lives of us the ordinary, working people — all across the world.
Maybe, I thought, it could even give rise to a new, global solidarity. Not by being depressed together, but by being empowered together with gaining and analyzing this new or less-discussed knowledge — in a simple way.
Of Graphs and Gaps and the New Global Maps? Yes, that’s the idea. Let’s talk about some simple graphs. Then we’ll talk about some simple-to-understand gaps. Finally, we shall make a serious effort to appreciate the newly evolving global maps: political, social, geographical and of course, economic maps. Yes, maps are sure evolving fast — in front of our eyes.
Do the numbers and figures and charts and graphs and percentages and statistics and colors and lines have anything to do with me and you and my family and your family?
Like, do they make any sense in our day-to-day lives?
Let’s talk about two graphs I recently came across. Both are from the 2010 book The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Pickett. The British social scientists did a long-term, comprehensive global study on poverty, inequality and social problems. The two graphs below are worth discussing here.
Graph 1.
The Higher the Inequality the Bigger the Social Problems. Simple.
The graph shows that among the so-called developed countries such as USA, U.K., Australia, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden and Japan, USA has the highest income inequality (i.e., rich-poor divide), and that inequality is directly correlated to a maximum amount of social problems. Mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction, obesity, infant mortality, murders, imprisonment — these are some of the social problems the two researchers used.
Trust…mental illness…obesity…and math…and social mobility…together? These are interrelated? We normally don’t think about them to have any connection, right? Like, if you talk to somebody on the street and tell them that these are all tied together, chances are, they’ll call you either stupid or crazy…or…in U.S., a communist perhaps. Or, they’ll at least smirk and let you go.
But believe me, they are wrong and you are right. These are totally connected to each other. And they are connected by way of directly related — scientifically and statistically — with ONE single factor: income inequality.
Contrary to what most people believe, thanks to global corporate media’s lies and half-truths, USA tops the list followed by Portugal and U.K. These are countries where the rich-poor divide is the maximum. On the other end of the graph we have countries such as Japan, Norway, Sweden and Belgium followed by countries such as the Netherlands, Spain, France and Germany where the inequality and correlated social problems are somewhat low although they are higher than in Japan or Sweden.
What does it all mean? If the situation is so dismal here in the U.S. (by the way, a study report release only this week showed even in the U.S., New York has the highest income inequality), then why (1) we do not hear about it either in American media or their clone media in India or Bangladesh; and (2) why do we follow the U.S. as the leading economic model when the truth is that the country is ravaged and riddled with extremely high social and health problems?
Plus, on the education front, American students lag far behind in math, language, geography and science than all other developed nations. Here’s a new report on that.
Why wouldn’t we find that report or any discussions thereof — in the glossy magazines that my father and I used to read at a rich relative’s house back in Calcutta when I was little (I remember Span and Life), or the glitzy, laugh-all, mindless American shows that my nephews and nieces and teenage children of my friends watch on their home TV, now, in June 2012?
What does the story say about the real truth of American-brand capitalism? At least, back in my childhood in the sixties, American capitalism was doing okay, thanks to the legacy of FDR and his New Deal economic policies that put enough food on the worker’s table and also gave them enough money to buy a decent house, afford good health and low-cost education.
Do the rabid admirers of Wall Street’s bankrupt economics in India and countries such as India know what the real story is — the sky-high divide and the abysmal, horrible social problems? Do people know that poor Americans must drive a car and pay the high cost of gasoline and insurance, not because it’s a luxury, but because otherwise, they can’t get to work because there is no public transportation here in America? Do they know that McDonald’s or KFC is directly related to poverty, obesity and illiteracy? Do Indian urban parents know that the country has now the second-highest number of young, obese people?
When do we cut through the propaganda clutters?
By the way, Wilkinson and Pickett did not compare apples and oranges: all the countries in the above graph are capitalism countries. Of course, here in the U.S., public perception is that any economy that even remotely talks about equality and minimal rich-poor divide must be a communist country, or at least, as “socialist” as Sweden, Belgium, France or Germany (yes, France now has a socialist government; but it’s definitely not Cuba). Mis-education and brainwashing have reached a new low. But that’s another story we’ll tell later.
Dark, Dank and Desperate. But Very Profitable!
Also by the way, did you know that U.S. has at least one million poor blacks and other minorities in jail — a large majority of them without trial because they could not afford it? And that is a direct consequence of the extreme disparity and poverty in the American society — one that created maximum hopelessness, drug use and crimes. Nowhere in the civilized world so many young people are rotting in jails with little hope for rehabilitation.
Did you know the prison industry is a privatized, corporate industry in the U.S., with its stocks sold HOT!! on the stock market? It’s all about profit and maximizing profit — by keeping as many people in jail as possible, as long as possible.
Don’t believe me? Check it out (click on the link).
[Please, for those who want to understand the silent, global terror in the name of economic reform and development, watch this short, 2-minute simple cartoon video.
]
_____________
India’s one billion people are now going through a massive and catastrophic terrorist attack. On the surface, this attack is bloodless. On the surface, this attack is not even violent. This new terror is silent.
This is a well-organized, pre-planned economic terror attack. And it is going to kill countless people.
You can consider this article as an urgent terror alert: a red alert. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have, and willing to be a part of any debate mainstream media is bypassing. My hope is that you would not overlook this grave scenario unfolding right now.
The newest economic terror unleashed in India and on the Indian people — one billion of them — brings with it terrifying weapons of mass destruction. The new weapons are massive devaluation of the Indian rupee, historic price hike, and forcing harsh, neoliberal economic “reforms.” India now has the world’s steepest and fastest price rises for essential commodities — such as cooking oil and gas, rice, wheat, vegetables and pulses. I’m not even talking about the huge price rise in health care, education, housing and transportation.
Corporate India, Wall Street, IMF and their mouthpiece big media tout these new, harsh, horrific reforms as “necessary for growth.” They have their friends in the Indian government. In fact, India’s queen mother Sonia Gandhi, prime minister Manmohan Singh, and longtime finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who now assumed the position of India’s ceremonial president are all involved in and aware of this neoliberal economic terror, unleashed full-scale by IMF, World Bank and their corporate forces. These forces have now re-colonized India.
Update (September 22): It’s extremely disturbing that India’s media has completely bypassed this extremely important discussion. The only discussion that they were forced to take on was because of West Bengal’s firebrand leader Mamata Banerjee, who pulled out her support for the Manmohan Singh government on the issue of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): where the government gave away carte blanche rights to Wal-Mart, Mansanto, GE, Coca Cola and such sinister corporations to invade India’s huge retail market, replacing and destroying local economies. Even in this discussion, media’s wrath has been against Mamata Banerjee, and NO substantive discussion of the role of IMF has ever been done.
I have lots at stake in India. My father, sisters, cousins, in-laws, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, teachers and students and a large number of friends live there. All my childhood neighbors live there. All of those people who helped me to survive, grow up and prosper live there. My twenty five years of living memory lives there.
This new massive and catastrophic terrorist attack could kill them all. And a direct consequence would be: here in the U.S. where I live now with my little nuclear family could be killed too.
This is a real scenario. This is very real. This is very scary.
I blame the current Indian government. They have failed again to prevent a huge terror attack — just the same way they failed to prevent the 2008 bloody Mumbai terrorism. And many others that happened before and after.
I also blame the International Monetary Fund. I believe IMF with World Bank is responsible behind this new terror.
Stop IMF Terrorism, Now!
How does IMF unleash the economic catastrophe? Here’s a quote from Malaysia’s former prime minister Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohamad, who showed us a way to break away from IMF.
The Mahathir Mohamad quote can be easily applied to India. In the 80′s, Rajiv Gandhi became (or was put in as) the prime minister of India after his mother Indira Gandhi was assassinated — allegedly by a CIA plot. Rajiv Gandhi who had no prior experience in politics, naively and ironically, opened up the floodgates of India’s socialist (and “stagnant”) economy to foreign corporations, and India has ushered in the new era of “reform.” The present prime minister Manmohan Singh was one of the chief architects of that so-called liberalization. This new reform has pulled India out of a so-called stagnation that the country’s elite did not like, made them extremely rich, and created the largest-ever inequality and rich-poor divide in India’s history. India’s corruption and black market have stooped down to an historic abyss.
Through this two-decade-long “reform,” India has succumbed to Western multinationals and directives of IMF and World Bank. India now has one of the highest price rises especially for oil and gas; its currency has devalued from 11 Indian rupees per U.S. dollar to 55 Indian rupees — in just twenty years. Unexplained by media. Accepted by the status quo. There is a cultural shift.
This is the same policy IMF imposed on countries such as Argentina. What is happening in India right now is a stark reminder of what happened in Argentina just a decade or two ago.
In the 1990s Argentina was the poster child for globalization. They followed the IMF and World Bank program. Soon after, their economy and infrastructure were destroyed. Western media did not care. India media did not tell that story either. Now, Greece is going through the same IMF horror. Ireland, Spain and Italy have begun suffering greatly, thanks to the global economic terror and anti-poor austerity measures in the European Union. (Gosh! Why don’t they ever ask the super-rich to do some austerity too?)
The first step was capital market liberalization. Its liberalized markets freed capital to flow in and out across borders. But once Argentina’s economy began to wobble, money simply flowed out.
In India, money now leaves the country like crazy. Or, in a more India-like fashion, it simply goes underground: either into Swiss Banks or the country’s biggest-in-human-history black market. Nobody in the government ever discloses the amount of black (unaccounted-for and/or untaxed) money: there is no legal mandate to do that. Corporate media, strangely, never get to the bottom of it. The infamous Bollywood movie industry or India’s rising-star cricket industry with game-gambling — two biggest profit makers — are known to be run by smuggled or mafia money. Then you have India’s largest-in-the-world gold industry: particularly in crisis, black money changes to gold.
Grotesque Gold in India. And the Greed is Growing. India Govt also gave a tax break to gold merchants.
The second step in the IMF-World Bank regimen in Argentina was privatization. Both at the urging of lenders and out of financial necessity, Argentina throughout the nineties sold off the state’s oil, gas, water, and electric companies and the state banks.
Since the fall of the Soviet Empire, India has rapidly succumbed to the hands of globalization pushers; particularly its banking industry has been taken over by foreign banks. Nationalized banks such as State Bank of India have practically dwindled on the verge of collapse; Citibank, HSBC and such others have taken over the entire country’s middle class and their savings. Investing U.S.-style into the globalized stock market — particularly its financial sector with an aspiration to be quickly rich — has backfired on the middle class.
In 1994, at the World Bank’s urging, Argentina partially privatized its social security system, diverting much of it into private accounts. The US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) calculated the revenue loss from this decision alone to be almost equal to the nation’s budget deficit during the period.
For that matter, India never had a social security system. But its nationalized insurance industry has collapsed too at the hands of Metlife, New York Life, now-fallen-from-grace AIG, etc. This is a direct result of never-well-disclosed IMF’s Structural Adjustment Program. I wrote about it in my Outlook India oped a couple of years ago. Click on the link here if you’re interested to read it.
The third prong of the push was “market-based pricing.” In Argentina, the main target of this initiative has been labor, that most inflexible of commodities.
“A major advance was made to eliminate outdated labor contracts,” states the CEPR report, noting approvingly that “labor costs” (i.e., wages) had fallen due to “labor market flexibility induced by the de facto liberalization of the market via increased informality.” Translation: workers who lost unionized jobs were forced into ad hoc arrangements, with far less protection. Here, the report asks the government to decentralize collective bargaining, a move that would reduce union power.
Child labor at Delhi Commonwealth Games. Nobody minds. The game must go on!
A very similar development in the labor sector has happened in India. Labor unions have seen harsh repression, governments and corporations have taken away their precious collective bargaining, and the once-mighty leftist or other pro-worker trade unions have practically died. Indian construction and manufacturing industries have used child labor that international human rights organizations have reported to be the worst-case scenario in the world. Women workers are often the victims of sexual violence and grossly underpaid, even by Indian standards. Worse, work, workers and poverty are now looked-down-upon — just the new trickle-down American way.
Step four of the IMF program was free trade. The loan terms of the two institutions had required Argentina to accept “an open trade policy.” As recession set in, Argentina’s exporters — whose products were effectively priced, via the peg, in US dollars — were forced into a spectacularly unequal competition against Brazilian goods priced in that nation’s devalued currency. Argentina grows a special kind of long-grain rice favored by Brazilians, and yet even as Brazil faced a hunger crisis tons of rice went unsold.
Dying Farmers and Families
India has seen more or less the same. “Free trade” has seen a one-way free trading where multinational corporations such as Monsanto have devastated Indian farmers: they have forced, with collusion from their operatives in the Indian government, permanent seed replacement with their own genetically modified seeds. Indian farmers, forced to take vast loans to keep their farms and produce, have become destitute and the country has recently seen the largest-in-human-history suicides of farmers. Indian farmers have also been forced to sell their traditional trademark products like Basmati rice to multinational corporations. In fact, the age-old name Basmati has been owned by a Texas rice company!
Before 1980, when the World Bank and IMF set out to rearrange the economies of developing nations, nearly all of them adhered to Keynesian or pro-worker, bubble-up, demand-side economy. Following the “import-substitution model”, they built locally owned industry through government investment, behind a protective wall of tariffs and capital controls. In those supposed economic dark ages, spanning roughly from 1960 to 1980, per-capita income grew by 73 percent in Latin America and by 34 percent in Africa.
India also saw an equitable economic system and price control for the essential commodities kept the poor and lower middle class happy and content.
My father didn’t earn much from his factory, but we had no debts.
I came from a poor or lower middle class family in Calcutta and I know for the fact that in spite of the low income of my father who worked in a factory was enough for us. Now, in 2012, with this new economic terror unleashed by IMF and World Bank and their operatives in the Indian government (such as the finance minister who is also, as I said before, the country’s official head of IMF), my poor cousins simply cannot survive with the money they make.
Health care costs are now so high that one of my cousins cannot send her mother to a good-quality private hospital; the poor woman is dying practically untreated at home (update: just this past weekend, she died). A friend whose son was a bright student in school could not go to an expensive private college; his dreams are shattered. Public sector health care and education, along with employment — once strong pillars of India’s somewhat egalitarian economic structure — have been purposefully destroyed. Public transportation is going to see the same fate in the coming days — again, the U.S. neoliberal way.
Sky-high rents and other essential living costs are driving the middle class into major debt; they’re driving the lower middle class into poverty, and the poor into destitution and death. One of my childhood friends in Calcutta killed himself because his parents were both ill and he was overwhelmed with debt because of their medical expenses. He and I played alley cricket and football together.
The newest round of oil price hike and sharp devaluation — under directives from IMF — will bring even more desperation for those people I left back there. A brother in-law recently died when he was only forty; he could not take anymore his lifelong unemployment, hopelessness and embarrassment. The sister he married nearly died too. IMF’s official India director who is also India’s national finance minister (nobody knows!) might want to face these families — on camera. (I want to be present there as the interview moderator.)
All of the above have had direct impact on my home here in the U.S. A failed globalized economy is running amuck worldwide. My family and I keep paying for its impossible price.
I want to live happy here in the U.S. But I can’t.
This new terrorism is ruining my people’s lives. And my life.
I came up with a plan and figured that T = mc2 perhaps could be one simplistic way to summarize my life – life of an ordinary, no-name, no-pedigree, mediocre, half-poor, half-educated, brown person who spent the first quarter of his life in India and the second quarter in America. I thought I could use my basic arithmetic and algebra skills (practically no math learned past high school) and come to a final tally of my life’s income and expenses, and profits and losses.
So, I thought, this could be the simple formula to summarize my life:
T = mc2
Where T is total time of life, m is total involved money (used, gained or lost), and c2 (or c x c) is the product of two major costs I had to incur over all these years — both in India and America.
Therefore, to put it in words, it is:
Time of life = Money involved x Cost1 x Cost2 .
[That's Equation One]
Now, the question is, how do you break down the equation and show it part by part?
Here’s an attempt to do it.
First, let’s talk about the costs. In today’s market-maniac world, that’s perhaps essential: to know the costs to live.
Okay. Let’s see.
Cost1 or C1 is a product of all these factors, and I’m putting them together as they should be.
C1 = Earning Education x Earning Experience x Building a new life in an old land and in a new land x Winning Relationship x Building Family x Making Friends x Winning Praises and Rewards x Accomplishments x Achievements x Finding Coworkers x Keeping Supporters x Sustaining Sympathizers x Creativity x Activism x Critical thinking x Organizing x Making people think differently
[That's Equation Two]
In short, C1 is the total product of all the good things that you earn, gain, develop, nurture and refine — because you want to do it.
In short, C1 is the total product of positive things I built in life — things that made me nice, happy and smile.
My Dr. Jekyll
Cost2 or C2 on the other hand is the total product of almost the opposite things you find in C1. Here they are.
C2 = Spending experience* x Spending education* x Loss of lives that directly impacted me x Loss of hopes x Sacrifices I was forced to make because of leaving behind my family, friends and society x Loss of friends x Lost and betrayed relationships x Insults x Injuries x Loss of stability x Stress x Anxiety x Fear x Physical and Emotional Abuse x cheating by establishments
[That's Equation Three]
In short, C2 is the total product of negative things impacted my life — things that made me ugly, crabby and sad. The Mr. Hyde in me — that I often talk about.
(But look at the elements with an asterisk * — i.e., spending experience and education — these are not necessarily negative. We might say these are “necessary evils.” You must spend some to gain some.)
I hate him. But he is so real!
Now, for the math buffs out there, you might immediately find a fallacy in Equation Two and Three. The fallacy is, things that I built (or won) and things that I lost (or destroyed) are really inversely proportional to each other. In other words, spending experience (from C2) is really inversely proportional to earning experience (from C1 ).
Like, spending experience = 1/earning experience.
Another example would be, losing friends or family members is inversely proportional to making friends and building family. A third example would be rewards and praises: are they just the opposite of insults and abuses?
Like, rewards and praises = 1/insults and abuses.
So, in other words, people might say, it’s total fallacy, because C1 essentially crosses C2 out, and therefore, we end up with a cliché or conundrum, which is T = m. Time of life = Money in life.
You might say, what new did you teach us? We always knew that “Time IS Money!”
You made a good point. But unfortunately, you are wrong.
[You, at this point perhaps a little irked]: Show me I am wrong. I’ve been very patient so far.
Yes, that you have, indeed. Thank you.
Well, wait a minute then. Let me explain.
See, you need to find the end result of those multiplication products. I’ll give you an example. In my life…in anybody’s life…spending education cannot be exactly inversely proportional to earning education; do we use all the education we gain, ever? Of course, we might say, we never really “spend” education — that is one treasure in life that we can never run out of how much ever we use it. But that’s too much philosophy. My philosophy here in these formulas is much simpler: this is a philosophy you can touch, taste and smell. It’s real. There is nothing abstract about it.
Similarly, you see, earned rewards, praises, promotions and compliments are not exactly the same amount you lose by being insulted, injured, or physically and mentally abused. Again, you need to see the end result of the product: do you have more insults and abuses than rewards and compliments? Or, do you have more on the plus side of the equation? You find out. You are the ultimate judge.
I won’t take too much of your time. You’ve been very patient.
Therefore, at the end of the day, it all boils down to this.
T or total time of my life = Total Money involved in my life X Total product of Cost1 elements X Total product of Cost2 elements.
I think it is a very fair, balanced, realistic and simple formula to summarize my life. I really do.
I would ask you to test this formula in your life’s situation. See if it works for you too. If it does, then it’s a universal formula – irrespective of man’s economic or social class, caste, race, nationality, religion, lifestyle choice or color.
I have every reason to believe my formula would prove to be universal.
I’ll let you decide on the other, possible mathematical and scientific aspects of the formula.
Remember, T sits on the left hand side of the equation. Time of life is the most important determinant here. All the other aspects of life – including the so-called all-important money in today’s world – sit on the right hand side (the variable side).
T is the absolute truth here. Whatever way you come up with your own measurement of T for your own life, it’s going to be an absolute truth – for you.
Everything else is there to help calculate our total time of life.
That’s the ultimate message here. From me.
I hope I came across nice, simple and clear with that message.
Thanks for brainstorming with me. It’s been fun.
Thank you, Sir Albert. You’ve been quite an inspiration. You brought out a mini-Einstein in me. That’s incredible, given where I was and where I am now!
Wow! So gratified!
___________________
Post Script. — I also doubled checked on the qualitative applicability of the equation by trying its various possible forms. Like, if Time = Money X Costs, then Costs = Time/Money. Also, Money = Time/Costs. Think about it: all the various possible forms actually work quite well.
___________________
Sincerely Writing,
Partha
Brooklyn, New York
People have had other concepts of time-money relationship. I think my formula is unique and much easier to understand.
Today I’m writing to celebrate my birthday. But today is not my birthday. It’s tomorrow.
I’m writing today because tomorrow I won’t have any free time. Birthdays here in the U.S. do not wait for a free day (or a day when you can make yourself free), and just like some other days I love to celebrate — such as Durga Puja or Tagore Jubilee — they often fall on a busy day in the middle of the week, and I cannot celebrate them the way I want to.
That’s not what I call a free country. (But that’s a different story.)
I also want to celebrate those days I love to celebrate with a lot of people and family and friends, and that don’t ever happen either.
(But that’s a different story too.)
I really love to celebrate my birthday. I’ve always loved to do it. I’ve done it in our small, limited-means way both in Calcutta, Kolkata — where I spent the first half of my life when Ma cooked some of the best Indian-Bengali dishes you could ever get anywhere in the world (ask any of my old friends); and then here in the U.S. — where I spent the second half and where my wife cooked some of the best Indian and Bengali dishes you can ever get anywhere in the world. Believe me: I’m not making it up.
So, great food is not a priority no more on my wish list. I’ve been blessed with great food — homemade and heartfelt — all my life. I seek something else. My mind asks for something more. It’s a spiritual yearning.
Perhaps, my very special birthday wish this year is: would you be mine? (Now, I know that’s cheesy
This is a very special note at this very special time. I want to smile. I want to chime.
Would you remember today to smile and chime? Mr. Bright? Ms. Bright? (That’s also perhaps again not so cheesy, right?
I need to see a lot of smile. I need to hear a lot of laughs. I want to hear a lot of songs. Happiness has been in seriously short supply. Seriously. Recently, it’s reached a critically low level.
Yeah, that’s it!
My family and friends — especially those who I know deeply care for me — often tell me these days that I have changed slowly but surely from a sprity, forthrighty, frothy, fizzy, frolicky, fun person always with a big smile and grin and loud laugh and sense of humor to a rather sad, glum and grumpy old man. Now, that’s major bad news. I want to change it.
This is a major tipping point.
So, on this very special day (like, starting from tomorrow), I want to remember the good things that happened to my life and be happy thinking about how lucky I am that those good things indeed, actually happened to me — things that do not happen to most people I know (and I know a heck of a lot of people — like, thousands, literally). I’ve sort of decided to come to a resolution that I shall, in my mind, focus on those positives and ignore, delete and de-focus the negatives.
Now, I know it’s easier said than done.
I also know it sounds like one of those Deepak Chopra books — comics that people actually buy and read and make-believe they are happy now. But Deepak Chopra or not, I know I ain’t got no more choice. Or, it’s gonna be fast and painful death for me. I don’t want to die fast and painful. More importantly, I don’t want to die and be remembered a sad and glum and grumpy man. Oh, no no no, man! Because, I am not a sad and glum and grumpy man. I never was. I never will be.
I’ve actually thought about it long and hard: what is it that pulls me down and makes me sad and angry?
I could perhaps post a long laundry list of those things in layman’s terms — events, experiences and feelings all of which happen to be true and raw and depressing and dirty — that could pull any human being with a heart and brain down. Like, deaths of loved ones — and way too many of them too untimely. Like, leaving India practically for good — out of compulsion. Like, being born too poor and seeing too much poverty and starvation too up close. Like, going through a hell of a lot of physical and mental injury and insult. Like, extreme verbal and physical abuse…like, sexual abuse. Like, hiding them all…way too many of them…and pretending they didn’t happen.
Then, there is more. Like, being forced to go through a social, educational, economic and political system that absolutely, totally, unquestionably cheated you. Like, not being able to use your delightful, lovable, warm personality and sprite, blotting-paper-like desire to learn and respect for your teachers, God-given talents, knowledge, experience, analysis and proven leadership to put to use to change the society and system in a significant way…and at the same time helplessly witnessing one of the darkest and dumbest and most exploitative and violent chapters in human history unfolding in your own life…one event at a time…like a bad, obnoxious movie…acted, directed, produced and promoted by some of the most corrupt and inefficient-yet-arrogant crooks in human history. Compared to them, yes, Caligula or Nero or Kissinger or Cheney is like child’s play.
I’ve come to a major resolution. I can never be president of the United States. Heck, I know I can never even be the chief minister of West Bengal. Only people with tons of money, a Bush-like one-of-a-kind predecessor, a major-media-sponsored genocide or a despondent-hopeless-pathetic regime and equally hopeless electorate could make you a president of the U.S. or a chief minister of West Bengal. I’ve therefore given up on those secretest desires.
That’s sarcasm, as you can see.
My parents-in-law became destitute refugees, overnight. Thanks, Gandhi.
But truly and cross-my-heartly, I’ve resigned to believe a few other not-so-idiosyncratic thoughts. Like, the two Golden Bengals will never be reunited and Bengalis will forever be blasted and looked-down-upon by the West and East alike as a failed race (and nobody will read the history book and know either the Pala Dynasty, Sri Chaitanya’s Bhakti movement, Raja Ram Mohan Ray, Derozio, Vidyasagar, Lalan, Swami Vivekananda, Sister Nivedita, Tagore…and of course, on the flip side of history, the British barbarism). Nobody would ever know how prosperous Bengal was where after the Battle of Plassey, Lord Clive and his women looted so much gold and jewelry that they went absolutely wild berserk. (Read about Clive’s atrocities here.)
I’ve resigned to believe that at the London Olympics of summer, 2012, there will be no demand from the millions of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants-turned-British citizens for an official apology and reparation for the British Raj’s two centuries of occupation, brutality, mass-killing and mass-looting. I’ve resigned to believe that in India, the same illiterate and feudal-chauvinists who were responsible for a bloody partition, riots, refugees and famines will keep in power for many years to come. I have resigned to believe that very few people even in the so-called enlightened West would ever care to know exactly how many hundreds of thousands of Bengali women were raped and killed by the Kissinger-backed Pakistani army in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
I have resigned to believe that people who I thought would care would not care. I have a number of examples of that disillusionment. Obama has been the latest example on that list.
My Alma-Mater Speaks Loudly.
I have resigned to believe that Tagore’s Nobel Prize, stolen from his own Vishva Bharati University’s national museum, would never be found. I know the British monarchy would never return Koh-I-Noor and numerous other treasures they looted from India. I now know the British government would never tell us how Subhas Bose — whom Gandhi sabotaged — perished in exile. (Am I digressing too much?)
Okay then. I’ve come to realize that nobody in the elite academia in the “free-thinking” West — especially those in the seat of power — would ever care to learn or promote philosophers and intellectuals outside of what Harvard, Columbia or University of Chicago asks of them to freely think. They would not want to know Tagore. They would not know Bengal Renaissance. They would refuse to know or teach anything majorly un-Euro-American.
I know for the fact that none of the above would ever read my blog.
So, as you can see, I have my reasons to slowly but surely transform from sprity, fun, frolicky to sad and glum and grumpy. But at this rather critical juncture of my life, I refuse to be a victim of their doing and die and be remembered a sad, glum and grumpy, bitter man. I shall not give in to their grand plan: destroy the thinking mind, dumb-down the non-thinking others, keep the trouble makers on the edge, and kill all the smiles.
No, I won’t die their prescribed death.
I want to celebrate this birthday. I want to celebrate it with a smile. I shall live on the many positives that happened to me.
I hope you do too.
Smile with me.
Let’s celebrate life. Let’s celebrate it together.
That is my very special birthday wish today…and tomorrow.
Sincerely Writing,
Partha
Brooklyn, New York
Another Reason to Celebrate: Teaching American Labor Rights!
By the way, I am not a Marxist. I just used the Scholars and Rogues cartoon because it’s nice. I mean, telling. I mean, it’s pretty close to what I’ve been trying to tell you here.
By the way, Scholars and Rogues? Who in the world did come up with such an insulting name? I mean, come on, man, couldn’t you find something respectful?
Anyway, I have something to say here. Would you care to listen?
See, this democracy thingy, like, the business of voting and all — aint workin’ for me. And I’m gettin’ f… tired of it. Honest to God, I swear it.
Is it working for you? It is? Well, I am glad. Good for you. It aint, for me.
I mean, the business of voting and the electing. The big parties and their big partying — Democrats, Republicans here in the U.S. Or, like, Congress and BJP and the hundreds of crooks and liars over there in India. Or, Liberals and Conservatives in the good-ole Kueen’s Kountry. Their confettis and their carnivals. their festoons and frolics. And their fat fame too.
Their sweet smiles and sweet talks — especially a few times every four or five years depending on how frequently you vote and flex your democratic muscle. You vote for them: you get awed, inspired and even teary-eyed at their firm handshakes and fancy suits and fine speeches. Their bow ties and BMWs. The massive money raising and jaw-droppin’ spending. The big email barrage from their big, undisclosed garage. The phony euphemism of one candidate and the trashy trash of the other make you non-utterly un-confused. The third candidate is always absent.
Neighborhood kid Joe the Schmo runs against neighborhood kid Jane the Jolly — By Golly — people who their own people tell us grew up in your neighborhood even though you never saw them, and those who dress up and look and talk and act and not act and play and go hidin’ exactly the same way, but just not your way, or for that matter, your neighborhood’s way.
Family Film Flashes Flesh for “Fun.”
Then, the non-issue made a big issue, and the real issue made a non-issue. The exclusion, half-exclusion, distortion, frontpaging of no-news and backpaging of frontpage news. A crazy head of state in India bans newspapers she don’t like. Baseball, golf and cricket become larger than life — at least, larger than your TV screen. Foul-addict footballers and phony-filmsy film stars…get covered for what you and I want to keep covered, like, in shyness and in shame. We do one thing and teach our children to follow it. They do something radically different — like, flash their thighs in front of millions of people and their children across the world, and get prime time praise too. Nobody calls them radical. You and I protest their obscenity and rip off the paper on the subway. You and I are called people to suspect. We get watched.
Now, just this week, U.S. Supreme Court said the watch-men and watch-women can hold you for any goddamn reason and strip search you. Wow, baby, that’s real privacy. It tickles me, man! Like, prying your private parts. This land of privacy keeps surprising me all the time!
It all sounds like cliché, right? Well, that’s a part of the game too. You say the same-old, stupid things over and over again. Like, things I’m saying here now. It becomes cliché. You put it in a non-commercial blog. Very few read it. You walk an extra mile and make it a YouTube. Nobody watches. Even your own family members and close friends laugh at you. Or, worse, they say, “It’s nice.” That’s sad.
Meanwhile, the international bank criminals and international war criminals walk free (the Supreme Court could pry their privacy open too, but they didn’t). The little criminals and the totally innocent get life in privately-owned prison without parole. Or, they get shot and killed by gun-toting police and self-appointed, crazy neighborhood watch guys.
The 24/7 war game goes on. They find WMD in Iraq; at least, New York Times and Judith Miller find them. Then, they find nu nukes in a nu Goddamn country. The propaganda…I mean expert opinions…work. The 24/7 fear game comes back live on TV. The visible, lethal tanks and guns and the invisible, lethal gun lobby take over. They bring back the orange and semi-orange and red terror alerts. You don’t want to open your mouth. I try. My family members and close friends forbid me. They say, didn’t you hear on TV the urgent, state-of-the-estate…I mean, state-of-the-state press conference? Our elected president and popular prime minister asked the nation to show patriotism, patience and sacrifice. They say, we must sacrifice at this urgent hour. They say, it’s not normal time. We must be more patriotic and patient now than ever before.
Then, sandwiched between two such abnormal, patriotic, orange-alert, more-sacrificing, patient times, there is a small window of normal, peace time. I keep sacrificing. I keep patience’ing. I lost my old house because I lost my job and then I lost my health care and could not pay the medical bills and could not pay the mortgage bills. We now live in a small apartment in East Brooklyn. Patiently.
My twenty-year-old son dropped out of college because I could not pay his college bills. My thirty-year-old, married daughter returns home to live with us with her two children because her husband lost his job and he said they shipped his factory out to China for good and that there’s no way he could work at McDonald’s, flipping burgers. Three months later, he starts working at McDonald’s. They still live with us.
I however get just a tiny-winy impatient that the visible, killing inflation and price gouging and the invisible, killing lobbyists, pushers and price gougers do not share our sacrifice — whether it’s abnormal war time or patient peace time. Oil companies, food companies, seed companies, milk companies, drug companies, tree-turned-toilet-paper companies, computer chip and hightech companies, the bank and money companies, and companies who play companies like a Las Vegas casino do not sacrifice either. They get themselves hefty bonuses. I heard they also bought big houses and went to Bali for one of their recent vacations. Or, was it Bermuda they went?
These Occupy kids are so violent I can’t believe it!
My son got a little impatient too — dumb kid. He went to protest on Wall Street. He came back home two days later with his face swollen, one broken tooth and right arm in a sling. My wife is treating him now. She is his home-based doctor.
The patient guy who’s resting in the hammock and complaining about the Goddamn Marxists seems he’s having a swell time, and peace time. For the others who’re working for him as a tree…well…I forgot to ask them their feelings. Maybe, you can do that. Please. Would you?
I mean, this democracy thingy was supposed to be something simple — something you and I could see with our own simple eyes in our own simple life…before death. Right? I always thought democracy and voting and electing our leaders would lead us out of this misery and mess…before death. I always believed democratically elected leaders would find jobs, provide health care and education, and lead us into a world free of violence, prison camps, drugs and gun killings.
Now, where are the people we elected the last time? Do you see them way up there — like, how do they do their democracy? You do? Well, I am glad. Good for you. I don’t. Maybe, I should see an eye doctor.
As soon as I get my eye insurance, I’ll see a good opthalmokocist…or, whatever that is. Optrimician.
By the way, this blog is not about sarcasm. This is about circus.
