Stuck in a Moment

Yesterday afternoon there I was, stuck in a moment. It was pouring beyond the glass doors of the University and as I watched people around me preparing to get soaked before they pushed through the barrier of protection, the sound of the train suddenly replaced the zoom of cars in the student parking lot.

I was leaving Mumbai. It was the last day of my summer break and my plane for the United States was departing that evening. And so, typical of my nature, I had about twenty bags in all shapes and sizes strewn about me on the floor of the tiny green room I had begun to call home. I am a perpetual bag woman and in this instance, my suitcases had already been shipped off, filled to the 50 pound limit with kurtis and salwaars. The monsoon rain was coming down in droves beyond my bedroom window and I knew a taxi to North Mumbai, where my uncle resided, would take at least two hours in the traffic. And all I wanted to do was pretend like I wasn’t really leaving.

I cursed my bags. I loved the rain. If I had to leave the city I had come to love as my own, then at least let me walk through its cluttered streets one last time. Every Mumbaiker has a plan of action for when the rain begins to pound down like thundering drums. The paani puri wala snaps up his plastic tarp to protect the special water made with a recipe known only to the rest of the paani puri walas in Mumbai. After moving to shield his income generating business, he pulls out an old umbrella and stands there patiently, taking a smoke or watching the droplets form puddles around his kiosk. Like the paani puri wala, there’s the corn wala, the chai wala, the phav bhaji wala, the newspaper wala, the fruit wala, the sabji wala, and so on. Each of these business men have a quick plan to cover up their living, pull up their trousers, and patiently wait under the shelter of an umbrella.

The traffic during the rain is horrendous. It is quicker to walk. Rickshaws that were dozing along the gulleys suddenly appear like a shiny army of black bugs, armed with blue tarpaulins to shield the “madums” in their saris and salwar kameez. And yet it is almost impossible to catch one of these rickshaws while you’re getting drenched to the core. They come out of nowhere and they are filled in a matter of seconds. With a city of roughly twenty million inhabitants, I suppose this makes sense. The thing about the Mumbai rains that you love and hate at once is the suddenness with which it comes. It teaches you to forget about muddy jeans and frizzy hair and just be...let it all go

ode to my dear friend

i wanna close my eyes and click my chappals and transport myself onto his balcony...he's sitting on the rail and I'm standing in the corner gazing into that scene below that I have a million pictures of...let's take a walk together, what do you say? I'll even let you hold my hand in yours:)...let's take a walk along the bandstand and maybe we'll stop along the rocks and share a smoke, lookin out into the sea...and then for some reason, he'll remember an anecdote from the past and then retell it, anticipating my laughter, which may or may not come...I sit quietly for a few minutes and analyze what he has said...do I understand his "joke":)? and then, if I don't understand it, I make fun of him instead...that way, I still have something to laugh about! haha:)...i miss my best friend in this world...someone who saw somethin special in me...don't know why but I'll let him be fooled a little longer...haven't been able to stop dreamin images of Mumbai...because of him, I had three of the most reflective and amazing months of my 27 years...so you still feel like takin a walk with me? Can we stop for paaaaani puri:)? Please:)? Did ya know that it's Guju creation:)? haha....my dear friend that somehow stole my heart when my mind was driftin in another land...I awoke from another daydream and there he was, standing there smiling at me in the pink fog...he picked me up on that awful bike of his and we went for a ride to Haji Ali and Lonavla...and the tighter I held onto him in the cold, pouring rain, the wider that space in my heart opened up to someone new..."you come from far away with pictures in your eyes"...can you pick me up and twirl me in your arms? let's close our eyes and drift off into the pink fog...

Lady with Jasmine...incomplete story

Down a narrow, winding side street in an unknown section of Mumbai is the jasmine lady. Every morning she seems to emerge from the droplets of mist in the early dawn with her fresh garlands of milky white jasmine. The fragrance travels like a magical spell through the clusters of sari clad aunties, tirelessly bartering in the midday heat with vegetable and fruits vendors.

This street has become quite renowned for the sweet tempered old lady, settled like a lotus on a soft, white sheet. No one is sure where she lives or where she has come from, but she has been there for so many generations that her presence has been permanently etched into the painting of this famous street. A deep ocean blue sari flows forth like the ripples of a river, its velvet soft texture as soft as rose petals. Her eyes are like lucid pools of crystal water and her smile makes you feel like you’ve awoken from a hundred years of mystical dreams. She is known throughout simply as Sarawaswati.

Where do all her milky white garlands disappear to at the end of the day? For it seems that the layers of necklaces only increase in number, even as they’re sold one by one. When the rest of the city as fallen asleep under the spell of darkness, Sarawaswati calls upon the Devs and Devis. Festooned in her garlands, they flutter through the night, squeezing sweet drops of it fragrant juice on the children of the streets.

ONE WORLD

Tired of playing rewind on the legal case before me, hoping that I would finally focus this time around, I gave up this round and let my mind have its way. It’s a strange entity-the mind that is. It always wants to live the lives of two separate people-the relentless tug of war between “focus” and “wanderer”. Eventually, it seems that “wanderer” always takes the lead.

But today, in particular, “focus” was fighting a duel already lost. How could the detached legal memo that would someday lead me to the promise land of “meaningful career”, possibly compete with the background cacophony of Bandra or painted images of Chechnya?

“For a party to fulfill the elements of bystander recovery for the negligent infliction of emotional distress he must 1) be a close relative of the victim, 2) be present at the scene of the accident and be aware that the victim is being injured, and 3) as a result of experiencing the accident, suffer serious emotional injury that is accompanied by physical symptomatology.”

Whoa, right? I know, you’re probably thinking, “Where did that come from?”

Well, that’s what my mind has been battling with all day! After reading that statement in my legal memo for the umpteenth time, “focus” was given permission to take a guilt free nap.

Last night, I stepped outside of myself once again and watched as I engaged in a conversation about that week’s most surreal NY Times article. This time it was about the condition of Malawi prisons and decrepit legal system. There were graphic photographs of hundreds of black men jammed like snails into tiny cells that had the capacity for less than a fourth of them. Until mid morning break, they slept on their sides, permanently glued in that spoon like position, silently praying that that night, they would not be the victims of sex starved men. Some of them lived like this, without knowing why, for more than a decade. One meal of porridge a day and drinking water from the toilet if they were lucky.

I watched as I described these horrific images to the man next to me, as we sat amongst young “intellectuals” in a shishi restaurant located in one of those quaint, yuppie neighborhoods in the upscale part of town.

Why do people…why do we spend Friday evenings discussing such horrendous realities as we sip our bottled H2O or pinot grigio? Why do these images, presented in story like mode, fascinate and intrigue us?

Sometimes, it hits us that these “images”, brought to our doorsteps, IBMs, and Blackberries, are, in fact, not imaginary. Nor are they merely evocative photographs from the National Geographic’s 100 Best Photos.

They are real. The people, captured through the imaginative eyes of the artist, are real. They are depictions of real people.

Real black men born into the same world as mine, packed like spooning snails in dark cement rooms in a place called “Malawi” that if you wanted to, would be able to locate on world map maybe just XXX miles from us.

As I write these thoughts, an email from Chechnya evoke more images. In the middle of the night, bombs are heard exploding outside the windows of a friend’s apartment.

A telephone call to India, with the wonderful new Reliance minutes, allows me to hear noisy scooters mingling incongruously with bartering vendors outside another friend’s apartment in Bandra, somewhere in the heart of Mumbai.

And here I sit, in the southern United States, fixated on this idea of one world. Because for some reason, I’m becoming more and more convinced that it’s all a sham. “Unity” “Solidarity” “One World”-all of these ideas have established the façade of a single unit that is divided by inequality and disparity.

And then people like you and me intellectualize and ruminate for hours about how these conditions can possibly exist in the same world as our own. We soothe our heightened senses through philanthropy and “human rights” initiatives. Internationally authoritative bodies are created to break down the complexities. And NGOs flow like the uncontrollable tears of guilt ridden conscience throughout the campos, ghettos, slums, ghams, (etc) of this “world”.

Out of complete fixation, I began having one of those ridiculously “deep, I’m high on weed” sort of moments and I had the urge to research the etymology of this word “world”. But since I didn’t have online access at the moment, I ventured to think about this on my own.

Isn’t the word “world” only supposed to encompass one entity? But if it’s a single entity (or unit), like my body or your automobile, shouldn’t all the individual components of this world work in harmony to create a smoothly functioning system? Sure, my body or your automobile may break down once in a while…the imbalance of nutrients or insufficiency of transmission fluid sometimes results in temporary lapses in harmony. But there is never a complete systematic breakdown unless the body is attacked by an incurable disease or the automobile is so ill maintained that one day it coughs its last breath and slowly sputters to death.

But the entity called “world”, despite endless battles with horrific imbalances and insufficiencies, just hasn’t seemed to experience this complete systematic breakdown yet. On the contrary, while some parts are dying a slow death, other areas are thriving, fully functioning components that have the energy to discuss for hours, over intoxicating beverages like rich, dark Kenyan coffee and full bodied, Italian wine, about the slow death of our fellow “organs” and “engine parts”.

Wow…I guess in this particular entity called “world”, some components are pretty insignificant while others run supreme. What a strange entity, don’t you think?

a work in progress...

I know there is a philosopher that believed everyone has a place, an identity that they are meant to fulfill…some people happen to stumble upon the main road early on while others spend many of their formative years meandering up tedious mountains only to discover another detour half way up. Maybe it was Plato but at this moment I can’t remember.

Well, since I’m definitely the latter but how I so wish at times that I were the former, many nights have been spent wondering when I will stop taking these detours. It can be a pretty inadequate and lonely feeling…but lately, I’m beginning to accept that perhaps this penchant towards the side roads and detours is, in a way, my main road.

…I’ve been brainstorming on an idea for an advertisement I came across in the NY Times by Nicholas Kristof…one of those amazing humanitarians/writers that I look up to…he is asking a masochist to accompany him on a reporting trip in Africa…it’s the opportunity of a lifetime…So I must apply…it would be absolutely unjust if I didn’t…all I need is 700 words…

And that’s where I come to a standstill…why should he choose me? When I read this advertisement, I had a familiar sensation run through my veins…I’ve only felt this one other time…one fortuitous afternoon, when I was fifteen, I decided to attend a high school Spanish club meeting. That day there was a girl with a video that probably changed me for the rest of my life. It was a video about a program called Amigos de las Americas…I was transfixed…I don’t know why…the humbleness of the one-room adobe, thatched roof homes, the humility in the mother’s charcoal eyes, the sun baked children running through the dirt yard in their tattered hand-me-down Save the Children clothes…though the colors were faded and tired, a certain, peaceful glow illuminated the scene…I just knew that I had to volunteer…it felt so right…and that’s a lot coming from me because I’m a perpetually confused person… and reading this advertisement, it was that sensation all over again….

…but now I’m trying to answer the “why?” Why do I want this more than my J.D.? (Well that doesn’t say a lot but you know what I mean.) I don’t know what to tell him except the truth except the truth sounds so trite…I doubt everything that comes onto the screen…it’s all been written before when experiencing some mood or emotion, in some shape or form…

…I want to tell him about 1995, a cold, starry night in Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato, Mexico when my partner and I were standing mid-calf deep in a cool, grainy mixture of horse manure, dirt, and sand…it was 10:00 at night, only half-way through the construction of the fifth lorena estufa (wood/coal burning adobe stove with a chimney) that week and we were delirious! So I grabbed one of the tin chimneys and started doing some weird dance in the middle of the all the horse shit (for those of you who have seen my “dancing queen” video, you’ll know what I’m talking about)…and first the goats (really), Oscar, the kids, and then my partner followed suit…we laughed so hard…I thought my empty stomach, from amoebas and diarrhea, would cave inwards in exhaustion…

…I want to tell Mr. Kristof about this pure amazing rush when I feel inextricably linked to the human race…those moments when we are not strangers that measure each other’s worth because we are insecure…those moments when we are united by compassion and not the ticking clock of places to be, people to see, and impressions to be made… 1998, las montanas rurales de Lempira, Honduras, dark, overcast sky pouring down in sheets around a very scared nineteen year old girl…I was supposed to be a supervisor and I didn’t even know where the hell I was. The hitchhiking truck to brought me to this middle of nowhere lonesome tree could no longer be heard. I was supposed to survey a village, los Tablones, but far into the distance, all that could be seen was more of the narrow, harrowing mountain pass…not a single adobe home, yellow squawking chicken, or humble compesino. For a moment, I gazed at the sky only to be greeted by torrential rain…it wasn’t the kind of fear that slowly creeps up your spine with a scary movie…it was a completely pervasive trepidation that permeates your cells and the air you breathe with dark, lonesome solitude. It was the kind of fear that will only let you curl up in a ball and pray (after you’ve finished crying and realized that your tears were only adding to the obstacle)…you know the times when you were concentrating so deeply on your prayers that you lost track of the minutes? I don’t know if it was only one minute or ten minutes later…but I heard something…a friendly chicken squawking in the background…I quickly staggered to my feet and turned around…high above there was a single thatch roofed hut…I could see the warm smoke swirling around the tin chimney…I half ran, half stumbled up the hill…ten minutes later, this poor Honduran grandmother was offering me warm corn tortillas out of the modest stack on a cracked plastic plate…someone to whom I was a complete, mud-drenched, teary eyed stranger…but all I had to say was estoy perdida…puedes ayudarme?

…the less they had, the more they improvised…the less there was left to measure, the more worthy I felt. I’m just another Gujarati-American twenty-six year old girl…but I want to work in solidarity in order to make sense of this world spinning around me…I wonder what Nick Kristof is looking for in his companion? I spent my Friday afternoon deconstructing a UN Commission on Human Rights Report that documented the situation of detainees at Guantanamo Bay…there was no tangible purpose and I even wondered why I wasn’t studying when finals are five weeks away…but understanding how the hell it is possible for the United States to get away with subjecting prisoners not of war to inhumane, stomach churning conditions when it is a party to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant Against Torture took precedence over writing an appellate brief on Miranda rights…

…like you, my emotional reactions to the monstrosities visualized are searing…torture inflicted through hot tongs shoved up a twelve year old vagina…from an idealist point of view, what action can be taken to stop words from forming such horrid depictions? The cancer of oppression is no less widespread today than it was during the Roman Empire or Spanish conquest or British colonization or (the list goes on and on…). Human beings were forced into slavery a thousand years ago just as they are being forced into it today. The difference today is that our senses are awoken by this gut wrenching abuse and oppression through the media, the Internet, photographic art exhibits, literature, and you can continue adding to this list. Through each of these mediums, we are reminded of how similar we really are to each other…

…think about Sajana Singh, a young Muslim woman with a tenth grade education that believes in the children in her Mumbai slum community…take away her squalid environment and abusive husband and instead, imagine her as a young Muslim woman attending the tenth grade at your neighborhood high school. She has ambitions just like you and me…the only difference is that education was so easily available to us…but despite her limitations, she is changing lives…

…think about Geeta, a prostitute in the red light district of Calcutta…take away her garish make-up and skimpy clothing and instead, imagine her standing in your closet, selecting today’s outfit from amongst your countless designer clothes and standing in your bathroom, looking at her beautiful face in your mirror, deciding whether or not she wants to wear make-up that day…she wants to be respected and admired, feel attractive and intelligent just like you and me…the only difference is that she was kidnapped while walking to school one day, and then drugged and forced into prostitution…there is no walk-in closet or brightly lit bathroom mirror to examine her blemishes when no one is watching…instead, she is surrounded by the smell of cheap, forced sex and filthy men that force themselves on her before she could even dream of being held by someone that loves and respects her…

…think about Mayur…when I met him five years ago, he was only a ten year old boy who walked me through his “neighborhood”…he hopped over ponds of sewage and turned around to make sure my sandals stayed clean…he led me to his home, a one room tin box filled with a weary, creaking cot, not a single book except the one give to him by Pratham, and a lot of love. He held his mother’s hand and without a hint of doubt in his eyes, he explained to me why he desired an education. His dream was to become a doctor in order to give his mother injections when she became old and sick…

…why do I want to meet people like this and tell their stories? I realize there is no selfless reason…on the contrary, I am a selfish individual like everyone else. Because their stories amaze and inspire me and because the details of their struggles imbue my mind with vivid imagery, I can’t wait to share with you what I have learned…