Let's Travel, Be Free.

one step forward, two steps backward

2009-10-26T23:10:00.001+07:00

There are two kinds – the oppressors and the oppressed. Sometimes the oppressed hit back, like when the Maoists decide to screw the Bengal government, or when they get the politicians to reserve seats for the lower castes in universities. The Forward Ones cry in protest. The Backward Ones know that a rule once made is hard to shake. Ask Ambedkar no?

The Forwards argue that we should focus on primary education, and uplift the masses instead of lowering the bar. Fair enough. In an ideal world, we could use primary education to liberate The Oppressed – oppressed since we began recording history. The oppression of The Forward Ones has just begun, and they’re weeping already.

In my Brahmin school called P.S. Senior in Mylapore, Madras, I recollect seeing 2 lower caste students in my 15 years holed up in that school. Now that I think of it, perhaps there were a few more, bunched up and banished from the rest. Then I looked up Wikipedia, which generously put my school as one of the top 5 schools in Madras, along with similar schools with purely elite or forward children.

Some 3 year old kid is taken to my school’s Principal, who then passes judgment on whether the kid is suitable for this school. It’s no coincidence that the Principals always pick one way. Essentially, The Forward Ones impose near 100% reservation right at the start, and then go on to celebrate their success and crib about reservations in higher education.

This kind of unwritten social reservation is infinitely more crushing than a 50% hurdle the Forward Ones face higher up… there is no number fixed, no explanations required… and nobody finds it odd. There is pride in sending kids to these schools. There is pride in oppression.

For the sake of the Principals who judge 3 year olds, and their kind, I hope hell exists, with 50% reservation for The Forwards.

rain

2009-09-02T23:49:00.006+07:00

another storm in pleiku. a swim in the lake. rain is cold, lake is warm. a few feet below cold current grips feet. rain bounces off lake's skin like baby bulbs flickering. infinite baby bulbs. lungs are tired, feet tickled by slush and grass. floating alone to the sound of thunder and rain.

Skin

2009-08-29T01:11:00.005+07:00

In a land of silky hair and smooth skin, where people were white thanks to the Chinese whose sperm and eggs spread like the dingo in a large island, lived a group of brown skinned natives in conflict with the outside world. That they survived the attack from the most voracious breeders in the world is credit to their will and discipline.

While the rest of the country thrives on vices, the natives are a peculiar, sober bunch. Contradict : The entire community wipes out 3 days on toddy when someone dies. Like celebrating the life more than mourning the death.

They live in houses not too different from before the Chinese sperm and eggs first arrived over a thousand years ago, unaffected by changes elsewhere is education, healthcare, farming methods… entering the village is like visiting a live museum.

The man invites us into his wooden house on stilts, spreads a mattress and we sit down. There is one room with a small partition for his eldest son and his young wife. He has a little farm full of coffee, grown and sold at whatever price the only middleman visiting the village offers. Lack of choice makes life simpler. Fewer things to decide. Fewer decisions to regret.

The rain came like an angry ghost. Water sprinkled on us from top, and he apologized. He also apologized for not having drinking water to serve at that time. His little children sat next to the burning wood as dinner was being cooked and played with corn in the fire.

One of the Chinese descendents in our group of three is encouraged to light up even though nobody in that house smoked. No ashtray is necessary since the wooden flooring has gaps providing a large tray for the ash.

The different skins live in close proximity, share the same society. The rest of the country finds no use for the dark-skinned. They’re primitive and uneducated, and treated like the American government would treat an aspiring egalitarian society in a cave rich with oil.

The white-skinned shower contempt and hatred is rarely not reciprocated. They fought and spilled blood and bullets some years back. Contradict: In my factory the white-skinned refuse to work with the dark-skinned, not vice versa. Elitist behaviour and caste struggles don’t die in the face of socialism. It’s in our sperm and eggs.

Back to our farmer, who goes to work on a farm pulling out weed for less than a dollar a day. He has seven kids to feed, clothe and raise. Death is not uncommon, so they learn quickly and well to deal with it. There is so much uncertainty in life that they truly live in the moment. The warmth was genuine, the happiness honest and overwhelming. Truly, happiness is poorly correlated to things outside our mind.

Before we left I wondered what he thought of us. My capitalist roots won’t have much interest in his town for they don’t have any resources that can be plundered and passed on so you can drink and piss out.

Maybe the outside world isn’t a happier place.

Fast Runner

2009-08-22T22:26:00.002+07:00

As kids, Fast Runner and Joker were inseparable. Joker envied Fast Runner for how fast he could run. In Joker’s eyes it gave Fast Runner unmatched power in this world. Like a caste system. How fast one could run was determined at birth, and stuck like caste.

During competitions in school, Joker would cheer madly for Fast Runner, even if the bigger boys often outran his friend. Fast Runner couldn’t charm the teachers or the girls. Running was his thing.

Joker, Fast Runner and their gang of kids would eagerly await the end of the day in school. The shoes slowed them down, so they were kept in a heap and played China Town - an exotic chasing game with rules nobody outside the kids knew. Till dusk they ran. Chasing and being chased. Like a video game, Chinatown had traps like railings and parapets, which were designed to favor the most athletic, who invariably sucked inside the classroom. Those 3 hours of sun after school was the only time they were elite and acknowledged suitably. So they waited, through the insults and reprimands from teachers through the day for the evening bell, like bird for air. Sports Day was even better than Birthday, because for the only time in the year, the fast runners earned the applause. Everybody got cheered on their birthdays.

As people's brains grew older and seemingly bigger, running was overpowered by exam scores. Fast Runner was no longer celebrated or envied like before. Joker, steadily average inside the classroom, scraped through. Fast Runner’s run stopped. They went to different schools, became older, and shed the innocence that once served as oil for their fry.

distrust, equality & gambling

2009-07-31T00:52:00.001+07:00

Distrust is tiring. The world is out to suck on your wallet. Turns out that Co Huong is a bitch, who thinks she is Robin Hood. I was happier when I didn’t know. I’m the evil colonial bitch that everyone’s out to fuck. The big fat target that a blind fuck can hit.

Equality is against everything biology stands for. The oppressed are waiting to have someone to oppress or die trying. However, here its much harder to tell someone’s occupation (or social class) from the way they look or speak or are spoken to. The workers in my factory refuse to accept an office job because they earn more lifting bags than they would punching into a computer.

Vietnam is like a chronic chain-smoking gambler with a drinking problem and an eagerness to breed. Everyone bets all the time. And they’re always betting on the same side – the price will go up. The only time they stop betting is when they don’t have resources to continue speculating. Its hard to eat out without someone trying to nag you into buying lottery tickets. There is a friend’s maid who bought 20 kilos of onions and kept it hidden because she thought the price will go up.

2009-06-21T22:56:00.000+07:00

Abstinence is easier when you don’t know what you’re abstaining from.

From The Hippie Uncle

2009-05-17T20:49:00.000+07:00

We are on the highway.

One more hour of bumpy jeep drive is to be covered.
The hot wind dries up the wet towel I have put on my face.

It is plain land with gentle undulation as far as the eyes could see. To break the monotony few trees, far from each other, dot the landscape. Its shade can barely protect a person from the scorching sun. Resilient trees. Not a soul in sight.

Somewhere in North Karnataka on a hot summer day. (40 C is cool)

We reach our destination, a cluster of thatched huts, big and small. Regional command centre for the social service organization.

Padmini is going to help them with their accounts and I escort her as this is her first trip. After the exchange of pleasantries with the top guy we are shown our respective huts.

Basics.
Below this level you will be in misery. There is a cot with a thin mattress to sleep on; a net saves you from the mosquitoes; between the sunny sky and you there is protection by coconut thatch; three feet high asbestos sheets act as a wall and prevents the occasional rain water from entering your abode; since you are a nobody there is no need for a door! Water trickles and drips down from the tap in the open-to-sky bathroom. I am comfortable.

Glasses of water just evaporate through the millions of pores on my skin in no time.
The stifling heat and the spicy dinner deprive me of sleep till the early hours of the next morning.

At this centre there is good amount of human traffic. A lot of activities go on at this place. Health, educational, cultural and economical aspects of the populace are taken care of.

Mid day.

There is a lull in the human activities after the lunch. A full stomach and a cloudless summer sky have sent most of the staff to siesta indoor. A couple of guys sitting under an open hut are browsing the news paper.

You could see him coming.
A dot on the horizon becoming larger and larger.

He enters the camp with his son perched on his shoulders. The boy about five years old is polio affected. The man talks with the health worker who was reading the news paper. From the body language and facial expressions of the staff you understand that he is asked to come back on some other day. Without a murmur he turns and heads back on the same path to trek back to his village. As he goes past, you catch a glimpse.

He may be in his early thirties. Browbeaten by fate. Poverty, extreme suffering, helplessness have made the face calm; no sign of sadness; no disappointment. Not even a flinch. Total acceptance and dignity .He just turns and walks off towards the horizon; clad in a worn-out shirt and a pale, knee length dhoti he carries the burden of his life back home. Searing sun, blistering tar road, parched earth and the heat wave dries up the moisture deep inside the nostrils. No head gear, no dark glasses, no sun cream, no water bottle; and he walks into the wavy cauldren.. ….barefoot.

***
the same Himalayan monk?

-KLK aka Sakshi

co huong

2009-05-16T14:55:00.003+07:00

Co Huong, my maid, talks to me more than anybody else these days. The first day I met her, when she came to the interview dressed in a suit, I understood one in 20 words she said. now im up to 3 in 10. the pride she takes in her work easily puts me to shame. I’m not that passionate about anything, least of all work. She cares more about cleanliness and the house than I do… so im asking her to go home and sleep but she insists on cleaning something.

When im sick she offers some leaves plucked from her garden, or a piece of wood, some white paste… so I’m nature boy now. She feeds me vegetables and leaves that I’ve never seen, some plucked from my garden, experiments generously with Indian cooking and keeps me well fed.

When I come home drunk she’ll scold me and put some salt in my coconut water, which she knows I dislike. But the next morning she’ll bring green tea and watermelon juice to wake me up and threaten to pour chillis (plucked from my garden) in the next meal. Sometimes she really pours chillis, like a wicked joke. She once said that nobody in her place drinks… when we had a little beer party at my place, her sister was the beer dealer who delivered, and co huong took a splash. She later said she drinks only on occasions and 3 pints.

Co huong tells me she was born in 1960 (though she once claimed to be 55), in Hanoi. When you go from Saigon to Hanoi, ‘r’ becomes ‘z’ and ‘y’ becomes ‘z’, so there is quite a buzz as you go north, and co huong is very proud of it. She likes the 4 distinct seasons in Hanoi, for which she holds it higher than Saigon. In 1971, when she was 11, her dad was killed in the war and he wasn’t found until November of 2008. co huong grew up working in the rice fields and moved to pleiku where she now has three kids my age. The kids speak a mix of Hanoi and Saigon Vietnamese, and they help translate to English things she buys in the book of accounts.

doan thanh

2009-04-26T00:20:00.003+07:00

thanh is the man of charm.. people do what he influences them to do.. he also buys all our coffee.. other middlemen adore him like a teenage crush.. thanh is like a postman who brings news from around the village.. phu linh nam bought 3 trucks of coffee at a high price.. ha son is nearly bankrupt.. this quality chick is pregnant.. like that. people like talking to him.. they say when an agent goes bankrupt she'll first sell everything and pay back thanh and then declare bankruptcy.

the other day we were discussing tribal lifestyle in vietnam, and like some tribes in meghalaya, the boy lives with the girl in her village. she is also the hunter gatherer while the husband sits at home taking care of home. infants are strapped behind the mums after a week as they return to active work.. when the kid is 3 days old, they give a cold bath in the river... some die, and they say if the baby dies it would've grown up to be a bad person so it's a good thing.. thanh said "...and they continue... no problem! but now some some the government... talking..."

2009-01-07T23:07:00.003+07:00

when i was a kid, i used to wonder how my parents went to work everyday. i couldn't understand how they didn't run out to play sports everyday. how did they accept summers without holidays?

i want to roam around, but who will roam with me? many years back i stood in front of my engineering class and asked the same question. i've been lucky, i hope i haven't run out.

chicken fucking pox

2008-11-23T19:36:00.000+07:00

Following last month’s flu, Vietnam gifted me with chicken pox this time. I’ve been in a little room in a little hospital in this little town called Buon Muot Thot for 8 days. The nurses are pretty and don’t speak English. I get good food delivered through a kind friend everyday. All day I eat, sleep, drink coconut water, watch movies, follow basketball, read some shit and sleep some more. It’s slightly worse than the hostel in Indore in that I’m sober all the time. The day seems endless.

When I tell them that I’ve had chicken pox as a little kid, they insist that I have a poor memory of some other disease. Thankfully the pox was mild, and I’m good now. But my friend refuses to believe that I can be good so soon. Since I have no home yet in my little town, I’m sitting here like an unwanted dirty (10 days unwashed) bag nobody wants to touch.

I remember the last time the chicken fucked me. I was pampered with attention and care. They ran neem leaves gently over my itching body, somebody fed me and there was someone to talk to all the time… thank you for everything! My friend tells me that I should forget that good life and I nod unwillingly. Now I have human interaction for 30 minutes a day, mostly involving Vietnamese that I don’t grasp. Being alone sucks sometimes, but it’s selfish to think of home when hungry and sick… I try not to.

singapore

2008-10-20T00:11:00.003+07:00

i'm in singapore for a few days. I see tall brightly lit and excessively cooled buildings, neat, organised greenery, more rules than you can remember, clockwork and boredom... its safe and free of asian faults, a cab driver tells me... but vietnam and india with all the faults looks more human, more lively. the indian part of this city is the most impolite, crowded and messy... i see a serpentine queue outside the western union money transfer shop... india must be thrilled about all the dollars being sent home. on the streets i see indian workers stacked on little pick-up truck-carts, sipping on the clean wind on their face, gazing at a cross between madras and the west. its a good example of the greater good over individual freedom. if i were an indian girl, i probably wouldn't be saying all this. safety is something men value less, even take for granted. vietnam is exceptional because it has both chaos and safety. most of mankind's indulgences are free and everywhere in vietnam... there is more sex and alcohol and everything else on the streets than the men could want. frustration and desperation are killed when the fruits are not forbidden. its a good case for a liberal society.

in singapore, i have a friend - like-minded, speaking the same language, with similar reference points... familiarity feels strange after a break.

I miss my little town – pleiku. I miss the look in their eyes when I speak in Vietnamese. I’m truly learning something for the first time since high school. Something to wake up to.

Joy

2008-09-27T22:07:00.008+07:00

This blog began a few years back with an intro to Joy. Joy the photographer now covers the party scene for his new-age newspaper. He roams around the streets of Madras, looking for any life at night which can be fit into captions like “DJ Sunny and two pretty faces”. I've always wondered if the pretty faces were happy or pissed to be called thus. He used to ride a ‘readied’ Yamaha RX100, with a quick throttle and no head lamp. Joy can write a book titled Priorities and make a lot of money. But he’s the closest any postgrad has come to illiteracy. Books are Joy’s preferred sleeping pills.

When Joy was a kid, he had a teacher come home to drill hindi through his resistant skull. Joy and his brothers had enough love to dig a trap-pit meant for baby elephants outside their home and wait for the teacher. Much to their disappointment, the teacher didn't turn up that day. Before we admire how fate saved the teacher, Joy heard news that the Hindi teacher, just before she left to drill Joy's head, slipped and fell in her bathroom and died.

Joy has been to Thailand once last year, for 4 days, after tricking the clicking community in madras into one of Joy's patented deals, where the other person gets screwed and feels thrilled about it. When gopal and gang planned a trip to Singapore and Cambodia, they put in a couple of days at Thailand. Joy would have none of it. He stubbornly refuses to believe that there exists anything left unseen in that country. He feels that he's seen every foot of Bangkok and Pataya. So he plans to visit me in Vietnam and sells it like it’s made of love.

In Saigon, he doesn't want to waste time... brushing aside night life as what he covers for the next morning's bread and butter. He wants to go to a conflict zone - or create one if none exists nearby - preferably ethnic in nature, where you can get one mongoloid and one of something else in the same frame. He also makes me feel bad, like it’s my mistake that he's coming here on the first three days of a working week. Like I made the week start on Monday. Besides his Pulitzer-driven interest in ethnic conflicts, he also wants to meet tribal people, see the countryside and study rural life in all of 3 days.

Joy eventually decided not to drop by! Presently he’s in Singapore (for the first and last time), admiring the internet speed at home, while the other boys are out for the night.

taxi

2008-09-25T21:16:00.003+07:00

i think, on an average, indians believe that if somebody is paid lesser than them, then their time becomes automatically less valuable. in singapore, chintu called a taxi early in the morning and like india, expected him to fall asleep and wait. perhaps he called him a little early (just to be safe, like in India), but the taxi driver kept calling every 2 minutes from below, and chintu was getting agitated, at his lack of respect and impatience. not once did it occur to chintu that maybe it's a professional transaction, like any other. it's eye-opening to see what it is like to be reminded every day that your time is worth lesser than mine.

while we're on taxis, sometimes i call one of the vietnamese taxi companies to send one home.

"can you give me your address?"

"188 Bee-Dee 7... B for Boy, D for Doctor"

"B for baby?"

selling game

2008-09-21T18:23:00.005+07:00

17 Sep 2008

tomorrow, i shall play a selling game. for a change, i won't be selling myself, but a thought. how i sell will affect the next two years.

there are so many arguments floating in front of my eyes. also floating are thin narrow-eyed women with lovely hair and black women from the movies.

It's a fucked up world

2008-08-22T15:54:00.003+07:00

The Olympics appears on a few poorly programmed Vietnamese channels. They're the kind who might play golf over the 100m finals.

I try to watch Usain Bolt's Beijing miracle online, but NBC thinks it's grossly unfair; they remove the videos off youtube, and when I check their site, the videos are only for American viewers.

I think we're sophisticated whores, selling everything to fuck-all NBC. I think everyone should get to see the Olympics free of cost.

NBC also schedules the miss universe evening gown contest at 8 in the morning here in Vietnam, so that fat american asses can be warmed in the wide couches, and get fatter on junk food while people elsewhere wake up at 530!

Next time someone in America complains about losing jobs to India, we should remind them.

I visited the War Museum in Saigon. It's difficult to imagine that America has any respect left in the world. They're so fucked up in the head that I think the world should fear them more than the terrorists or the bubonic plague.

Ticket To Ride

2008-08-14T19:19:00.002+07:00

Due to a dip in inspiration, my apologies for recycling the old... October 2007, Madras

I’ve been on these roads before. Done this route many times, but that was many years back. The lights are whizzing past like a blur. I feel that the other bikes are conspiring to fuck me. I slip in and out of the dream. I think of how there could be a God inside me who’s controlling everything. I’m the guy on his computer screen, being ordered around by nothing more than the handle of a joy-stick. The music from the twin violins is reaching a crescendo in my head (not in the song being played). I think of something and go into a dream. Since I’m not paying any attention to the road, my body and consequently the bike are put on auto-pilot mode. I simply follow the guys ahead and ride with an absence of awareness. Suddenly I get back to my senses and I look ahead at all the lights, which appear brighter, probably because I’d just woken up. I can’t recognise the roads. It’s been many years, remember? Did I tell you that I’m good with the bike? If I were any less, all the luck and God can’t save me now. Not that I’m brushing aside luck and God. I find myself begging to the God inside me to stop fucking around and show me the way. Then I remembered that beggars can’t be choosers and that I can’t ask God to do shit. Maybe I could request. If he likes having a little fun at my expense, I can’t do shit about it. Then I remembered how at all these times of vulnerability, when my soft tender flesh was waiting to get salted, somehow, something inside me has risen up to save me. How did I remember the route back otherwise?

Suddenly I remember the road where I am, and I tell myself that it’s been awfully long since I left Katan’s place and I’ve reached nowhere. All the dreaming made me feel like it’s been a couple of years on the bike. I thanked God for helping me recognise the road that I’m in. Then I think of God. I feel some dormant power which records all things important in my life – like this road, which is helping me survive right now. It resides inside me and takes control when I give up on everything, when I concede defeat, when I believe that things around me are out of my control, when things seemed to be conspiring in ways I can’t understand.

The Mount Road is long. I look all the bright lights and traffic from the flyover and think of the booming economy, all the wealth being created and cornered, and how happiness is poorly correlated to all of these. Ten years back, people would’ve been thrilled to know that things would turn out this way. To know that the lights would be so bright and so many. To know that tamilmatrimony.com would have a hoarding higher than the ones which said Raymonds and I don’t remember what else.

I remember all my limbs shaking at the Nandanam signal. You know how the involuntary shaking gets more uncontrollable as you tell yourself to stop. A shock runs up my spine and I shake my head violently. I think that everyone at the signal must be looking at me now. Every move I make is being watched and recorded. Then I look around to see people staring at nothing in particular, as if they were professional spies. I calm my nerves down and make an effort to kill the paranoia. That’s the mistake. You can’t kill paranoia. At best you can quietly slither your way out of it. The signal turns green and I look at the maddening traffic and listen to the ugly horns screaming behind me. I feel a need to escape the crowd and I’m off the blocks like a wannabe college fresher eager to show how to open the throttle in a straight road and on a stupid scooter. It doesn’t take much effort – you need your right wrist to work a little and some sense of balance. For me, the latter seemed like a bunch of marbles dipped in oil, slipping thru my fingers. It can’t be true, I tell myself. There are somethings that you take for granted. Like getting 3 + 4 = 7 correct, though I just checked that after I typed it. Sense of balance is one of them. No matter how fucked up my head is, some things don’t go away. However, holding on to that bike on the straight Mount Road with its bright lights, I can sense the doubts creep up like slush sliding between the toes.

I wonder why I’m racing with the other mad fuckers and I realise that I’m a little mad too. I’m nearing Spencers, and I have to take a left, and Alsa mall and it’s sandwiches are only a couple of kms away. My hands start shaking and I feel them being taken away from my control. Control is another thing I took for granted. My hands were obeying someone else. I knew that it was important for my survival, and that my hands would never let me down in such a moment of need. I plead with my head not to give up on me and black out. I promise it some rest as soon as I cross Taj Connemera. When I get there, like a greedy moron I try to fool my mind into thinking that the promise never happened. But whatever was driving me yesterday was smarter than my greedy fucked up head, and I had to stop. I remember thinking that if I black out, I have to call bro so that he can come and pick me up.

Back at the bridge near Connemera, I kill the engine and take my phone out and pretend to be occupied, so that no one gets suspicious. I read a message from Somesh asking me to get fuel for his zippo. I keep my phone inside and stare around without looking at anything in particular, blinking like the worst criminal ever born.

I want to leave before the cops got me. So I speed off and wait at the signal. Suddenly time seems to have passed by quickly and I’m almost there at Alsa mall. The last 100 metres are painfully long. The mall simply wouldn’t come any closer. It’s like one of those ancient screensavers on Windows, where the scenery on either side is moving past but the finish line stays fixed in the distance. I stop the bike and stumble onto my feet clumsily. I am so clumsy that I’m sure half the jobless fuckers sitting there know that I’m running short of stability. I walk to the sandwich guy and order whatever he suggests. I’d say 3 sandwiches, and his efforts at repeating the order would be “ok, 4 sandwiches… then?” Sometimes I think he’s wiser and better equipped to make these decisions and agree to whatever he repeats. On other occasions, I feel like retaining some self-respect, so I assert my original order.

The bread omelette guy gives me the bread omelette and stares at me suspiciously - so suspicious that I feel guilty at having done what I’d done, of which I have absolutely no idea.

I take the bike out clumsily. Oh, and I’d cut the music out earlier, when I stopped outside Connemera. I figured that my disobeying hands could be a result of the trippy music. It had taken me close to an hour and a dozen shaky kms to arrive at that thought. I wonder what to do with my helmet, and so I wear it. I feel like an idiot for wearing a helmet on an Activa. I feel self-conscious and uncool. I tell myself that it’s wrong to judge yourself on these things and that this is uncool. But at this moment, my need to look good and maintain an image takes over and I ride the long route back, to avoid the crowd sitting outside Alsa Mall.

I keep telling myself that I can go back and prove a point to myself. It would be cooler to conquer my image fears. In any case nobody can see the face inside the helmet. But my need to appear cool or run away otherwise is too strong. I feel ashamed and weak.

I ride awkwardly to Chetpet and Swami’s place. There is a bunch of unruly bikers, who could be fairly categorised as anti-social elements, who are in some sort of drag race or genuinely speeding for someone’s throat. I see a Yamaha whiz past me, making me feel like a smaller man on the Activa. I hear screams of ‘Oye!” and “Heeyyyyyyy” for the next 10 minutes. For some reason I feel like I’m being chased. I take the right at the Chetpet signal and things calm down. Soon after, I enter Swami’s apartments and ask many questions to the security guard who has no answers. Let me clarify that my questions weren’t smart or witty. The guard was just indifferent towards life. He didn’t tell me where I could park or where Swami stayed inside that building. Ok that’s the end of that ride.

New country, old story

2008-07-29T11:47:00.000+07:00

Today is one of those days when I feel like giving up, for want of pity.

Lick, soak in self-pity, but get out before you drown.

Post # 100

2008-07-23T00:45:00.003+07:00

Many years back we used to wear ‘coloured clothes’ (we never considered the blue in our shorts to be a real colour) to school on our birthdays. We’d distribute chocolates with pride. It was the big day in school for every kid. The one day where the kid got everyone’s attention (at least once) no matter how ugly, how uncool.

On others’ birthdays, the mission was to score more than the one chocolate every kid in the class was owed. I’d plead that I promised never to eat a chocolate without giving one to my loving brother, who I hated. It was as untrue as a lie can be.

Later it became cool to get mad drunk on birthdays, thanks to sex-booze-smoke-guru Hari The Slapper. Rumor (initiated by Hari) has it that he has been taking two days off to drink since the year he stopped sucking to drink. Two days of both years at Indore, around the time of Hari’s birthday, were wiped off our slates. There was not a care in the world while we were on C-top at IIM Indore.

I miss Indore like I thought I would. But there are too many places in this world. I’m getting used to being alone, and life now is good and different.

The Child, at 24, is still curious and cribbing often.

Vietnamese

2008-07-22T10:22:00.002+07:00

I think the people who first spoke Vietnamese didn’t want outsiders to learn. They came up with 6 tones, which they denote by putting various marks on top of vowels. It’s also a sing-song language. No singing = no Vietnamese.

English: Tư commits suicide slowly.

Vietnamese: Tư Tự Tử Từ Từ

English: The size of the warehouse is small; hence drying is difficult and miserable.

Vietnamese: Khổ nhà kho nhỏ vì thế độ khô khó và khổ

The language has many traps. Thieu means pepper, Dieu means cashew, and Thieu Dieu means disaster. Similarly, some word with a cap on the vowel could mean ‘God is great’, the same word with a question mark on the vowel could mean ‘you fucking bitch!’

Letter

2008-07-21T11:29:00.002+07:00

"...My Vietnamese is improving. I can speak a little. Your food (mostly) I cannot eat because I’m vegetarian (an chay). Initially it was because of religion, but even later, when I wasn’t religious anymore… I’m confused, so I don’t eat meat. I might start one of these days though.

I’m from a city called Madras in India. It’s a big city – a little smaller than Saigon maybe. We have the second longest beach in the world.

I lived in Madras for 22 years. Then I went to a city called Indore to study business. Life in the hostel in Indore is the best thing. I miss Indore and my friends in the hostel more than Madras.

Most of my friends from Madras are from a younger age, and I’ve changed a lot since, so it’s not the same anymore. They’re now scattered all over the world..."

The Touchable Boy

2008-07-04T18:26:00.003+07:00

Once there was a little boy from a village. He came to the city to work in a Juice Shop. Labour laws can’t apply to little boys working in juice shops. He lived with The Juice Shop Family, in their home. This was allowed because he was a touchable Brahmin. Fortunate boy, one might say. As the years rolled, we got used to having him around.

We played cricket with him, he joined us in festive meals and happy times… he even wore the sacred thread, which was like his swipe card to everything in my sizable Brahmin family.

Being a Brahmin didn’t solve all of the boy’s problems. The Boy had a Master, and the Master had Family and Friends, who, by association, became Masters in their own capacity. And there were Rules. The Rules were never broken, so nothing was ever said. The Boy volunteered to do any work he can before one of his Masters did. If there is a letter to be posted, if someone knocks on the door when everyone’s asleep, if the dishes demand work… The Boy will volunteer, out of instinct. He never needed to be told, never disagreed with anything. In every point of choice, he would naturally take the worst. The worst apple, the worst seat…

When I entered teenage, I’d steal five or ten rupees every now and then. The Boy would always give with a smile, like it amused him to give (in a round-about sense) my money back to me. The Boy stole some more for himself, and perhaps for others like me. The money, which was black to start with, got darker.

One day The Masters discovered the leak in their pockets. The Boy was beaten up and put in jail, where he confessed. Maybe my contribution to the leak was negligible, but The Boy never mentioned my name. In the Masters’ story, he was buried while still alive. Nobody speaks about him, like the episodes featuring the boy were lost in a fire. If they met him on the street in some impossible coincidence, they’d treat him like an irritating ghost from their past. An ungrateful dog, they might say in Tamil.

2008-07-04T16:26:00.001+07:00

Indian food is an addiction that I'm struggling to kick out.

2008-07-03T10:39:00.001+07:00

Yesterday, the maid who helps run our home got tired of cooking Indian food. Learning Vietnamese has helped me empathise.

The little note read:

“Sorry. I will’nt come tomorrow. I not working for you.”

Timber

2008-07-01T13:25:00.000+07:00

Let’s say you’re in an exam where every kid cheats. The examiner cares, but there aren’t enough examiners to stop the kids from cheating. The powers that use the exam scores are blind. The just don’t know. If you’re an honest kid, you get fucked. What do you do?

A Vietnamese might say “Timber – same same!”