You Know You're Addicted When...

A few weeks back I was reading a newspaper…or maybe it was a magazine…and came across, as one does so often these days, a reference to a young blogger who apparently was gaining a lot of readership for the things he was writing about and the interesting way in which he was writing about them. An Indian blogger based in the US.

Finding a fresh, new blog with its own unique mix of topics that the blogger’s chosen to write about, is, I now find, very similar to discovering an author that you’ve never read before. Except that a blog unlike most good books generally go on and on without end, and if you’re lucky will be updated, multiple times, on a daily basis. I made a note of the website address and later that evening I typed in the blog’s address and with a short pause designed to heighten the anticipation, hit enter.

The browser page rolled itself up, held its breath for a couple of seconds and then unfurled a new look…The virginal white expanse of the google page replaced by a page with two broad blue borders and a white center with words running across it in neat black type. I don’t quite remember all that I read and saw on the page, but I do distinctly remember liking the writing style, finding the choice of subjects eclectic and the overall aesthetics restful on the eye. Some of the posts were accompanied by photographs…and were all so clear, they looked like someone had taken a scrubbing brush to them…so clear that the edges seemed to have a faint glow around them.

One particular photo-post caught my attention. The title said simply, “My Brother”. It showed a curly haired guy sitting intently at a desk, in front of a computer. He wore specs and was smiling…something on the screen was evidently funny. It was a pleasant smile. The brother. There was another guy standing to his right, leaning in towards the screen, one hand on the edge of the desk, the other on the chair that the first guy was sitting on. Also smiling. While the post didn’t say so it seemed clear that the guy standing was the blogger himself. His features are vague in my mind.

Even weeks later the picture is fresh in my mind, though I’ve forgotten virtually everything else that I saw and read on that site. For two reasons, primarily. One, There seemed to be an easy camaraderie between the two brothers. It had a rather cosy feel to it. You wanted to get to know these guys…you kind of knew they’d make good friends. The second reason was the caption. It said: 48. Kill at 48. I saw the caption before I saw the picture because I had started reading the blog from the earlier posts and was scrolling up the site versus down. The caption sent a chill down my spine…and the lack of congruity with the picture itself was puzzling. Even more than that, it was disturbing. Suddenly I became aware that night had fallen outside…that I was now sitting in the dark leavened only by the glow from the laptop screen. I looked at the picture for a long time…trying to figure out whether the caption was a joke or a declaration of malicious intent…trying to get my rising dread to settle back down.

That’s when I woke up…with a start...and an aspirated "phew!". I’d been holding my breath in my sleep out of sheer tension. I was back in the log-cabin-like living room of the Jikoji Zen Temple and Retreat Center, at the bottom of a valley in the Santa Cruz mountains…having fallen asleep helped in equal measures by enervating heat, a surprisingly sumptuous lunch of marinated and baked tofu squares sprinkled with crunchy sunflower seeds.

I was on a two day silent retreat – having committed to not speaking during that period in addition to not reading, writing, watching TV, listening to music, surfing the web or doing anything that might distract me from my conversation with myself. Sleeping, however, was acceptable and I’d managed to do a lot of it that first day. And apparently the withdrawal symptoms from not having web-surfed for a full 24 hours had, unbeknownst to me, so ravaged my subconscious in that short time, that my superego had given into my id and manufactured a fantasy blog for me to read in a place where no Ethernet port had gone before.

Dusk was falling outside – just as it had in my dream and that told me that I had missed the mid-afternoon meditation session, on top of the mid-morning one – both due to the soporific nature of my internal conversations. It looked like I was already late for the final session of the day – a walking meditation that was supposed to take the group up a dirt-path to the top of a nearby ridge to watch the sun set. I scrambled up from the couch; wondering what I could do to redeem myself – my fellow retreat-ers couldn’t scold me without breaking their vow of silence but they were still allowed to glare. Seeing the sun was still hanging around on the horizon – I decided to try and catch up with the rest of the group- of course to truly redeem myself, I’d have to meditate my way up (versus just run up) to the ridge-top and hope the sun hadn’t set by then. The philosophical riddle (wikipedia’s description, not mine) – If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound – seemed particularly apt in this situation. Perhaps if I was quiet enough no one would notice that I hadn’t already been there when they arrived – and that would make me not-late.

So, I started up the hill at a determined trot, meditating furiously all the while.

A Quote for the Ages

"Its like a pterodactyl out of a gay Jurassic Park"

- Tim Gunn, host of Project Runway on Episode 2, Season 5, on a pink dress, that wasn't fully shown, but which I'm guessing has a rather 'innovative' silhouette.

The poor designer is probably now wishing he'd taken that trip to the remote Costa Rican island that housed Crichton's creations and taken his chances with Velociraptors devouring him; instead of coming on Project Runway. Or maybe that Gunn had. :)

Apparently this is Gunn's last season...He's going to be sorely missed.

Plus Ca Change...

Lately I've been finding inspiration for a lot of my posts in art - well music and literature anyway. The only youtube video that I ever added to my favourites list is this cover version of the Beatles' Across the Universe by Rufus Wainwright. RW is apparently a fairly well known singer though I'd never heard of him until a blog pointed me to this video. I liked this even more than the original Beatles' version - I know - Sacrilege!! :)

As you can guess I love the haunting quality of the song and of the video - fits right into a certain mood of mine :) - but also love it for the laidback way in which the song has been sung - almost lazily accompanied with a big dollop of sensuality. I can just feel my muscles all begin to loosen up, the knots begin to dissolve, stress beging to seep away. The little girl in the video is also just adorable.,,no she's actually mesmerisingly pretty. I had a feeling of deja vu as I watched her...and then a quick google search told me why...she's Dakota Fanning who played Tom Cruise's daughter in the War of the Worlds in which aliens invade the earth and massacre tons of people in sight. (Some Iraqis probably think that's contemporary history, not a film - And just so we're clear, I'm referring to the initiators of the war here not the soldiers who're just doing their duty). On a different note, I also just realized that there's a certain symmetry in using Dakota Fanning in a video called Across the Universe, given one of her most prominent roles has been in an alien movie.

I wonder if this video somehow or in some way is inspired by the 1956 French movie by Albert Lamorisse’s “The Red Balloon,” about a young boy and the talismanic sphere that follows him through the gray streets of Paris like a dog, a lover, a ghost". That movie partly also inspired a 2007 film called "Flight of the Red Balloon"

Anyway, as I played the song on an impulse today, after months, I was a little surprised by a new reaction I had to the refrain,

"Nothing's going to change my world
Nothing's going to change my world
Nothing's going to change my world
Nothing's going to change my world"

It felt like the lyrics were referring to how I felt about the vote on the Warrantless Wiretapping bill passed today by the Democratic party-controlled Senate...A deep disappointment in the political process in general. The fact that this happened when the Democrats controlled both the houses of Congress seems to say we'd be foolish to expect any big changes even if they win the Presidency in November; a fact emphasized by the Barack "Change-you-can-believe-in" Obama's oh-so-conventional capitulation in voting in favour of the bill. In a delicious irony Hillary Clinton sided with the liberals (like me) who opposed her in the primary, and voted against the bill that destroys most protections against electronic spying by the government on residents and citizens of the US.

I worry that even if the Republicans lose, it will be their slogan and not Obama's that will win out in the end. They briefly talked about bringing "Change you Deserve" to the country before it was discovered that an anti-depressant has the same tag-line (In my view, this makes it totally inappropriate for the Republicans to use the slogan - though not because of copyright issues. If the medication in question was a "downer" rather than mood "upper" the slogan-theft would make perfect sense)!

My fear is that the Wiretapping bill is a signal that given the passive resistance that this country has put up to 8 years of a corrupt, violent and inequitous government, perhaps we don't deserve much of a change at all, and that is what we might get come November and beyond.

Stop-And-Smell-the-Flowers Thought for the Week

Have you noticed how green grass in a park, shimmers on a sunny day when a light breeze is blowing? It looks beautiful. Almost makes you want to put up electric-powered outdoor-fans all over the place just to be able to see that effect . Kind of like these guys have done. :)

Voicing the Vanquished's Version of History

What do you know about President Eisenhower? I didn't really know much except that history recognizes him as one of USA’s greatest Presidents. A quick look at wikipedia informs one that:

"Eisenhower was a five-star general of the US Army who served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe...1944-45....As President, he oversaw the cease-fire of the Korean War, kept up the pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War made nuclear weapons a higher defense priority, launched the Space Race, enlarged the Social Security program, and began the Interstate Highway System."

Sounds like quite an accomplished guy, huh? I had never read anything very critical about Eisenhower until I read The Poisonwood Bible by Barabara Kingsolver. The book is truly, in my average-joe-reader opinion, a master-piece of literature, of story-telling, of creating multiple (6 in number) full-blooded, sharply etched, distinct protagonists and of using writing to establish a record of history from the point of view of the vanquished instead of the victor, of using writing to deliver a moral rebuke, a sharp awakening slap, to the powerful and empowered who, blinded by a sense of their own moral superiority, act to oppress thousands in the garb of salvaging their lives and souls.

Written in the late 90s and set in the 60s during the struggle for Congo's independence; the Poisonwood Bible has 6 protagonists - 1 woman and mother, 4 pre-teen to teenaged daughters and The Congo, the heart of the Dark Continent. The five female characters are ruled by the family patriarch, a born-again evangelical priest who, convinced of his sacred mission to save the heathen Congolese tribes by converting them Christianity, moves his entire unwilling family from Bethlehem, Georgia to a small village in the darkest depths of the African equatorial forest.

Most of the book is dedicated to the hapless family's tribulations but Kingsolver seamlessly weaves in the emerging turmoil in the Congo. The Congo was Belgium’s only colony and bore the full brunt of its colonial master’s attentions. The atrocities on the native Congolese were legend, and are well documented by history – they included chopping off rubber plantation workers’ hands if they worked too slowly on a particular day. The independence struggle was led by Patrice Lumumba, a postal worker, who was Congo's equivalent of Nehru. Like Nehru, Lumumba was also a Socialist, an anti-colonialist and showed signs of being non-aligned in the cold war. However in Lumumba’s case all of those turned out to be fatal mistakes. As Kingsolver puts it in the book…

“In 1975…a group of senators called The Church Committee… found notes from secret meetings of the National Security Council and President Eisenhower. In their locked room, these men had put their heads together and proclaimed Patrice Lumumba a danger to the safety of the world. The same Patrice Lumumba, mind you, who washed his face each morning from a dented tin bowl, relieved himself in a carefully chosen bush and went out to seek the faces of his nation. Imagine if he could have heard those words – a danger to the safety of the world! – from a roomful of white men who held in their manicured hands the disposition of armies and atomic bombs, the power to extinguish every life on earth…And President Eisenhower was right then sending orders to take over the Congo…he’d made up his mind about things. He’d given Lumumba a chance he felt. The Congo had been independent for fifty-one days.”

After 51 days in power, Lumumba was overthrown by the army led by Mobutu Sese-Seko who was backed by the CIA and Belgium. Lumumba was first imprisoned and then beaten to death. There were many other parts to the plot including a Belgian-incited rebellion in Katanga, the most mineral rich province, but they seem to have been side-shows staged to create the chaos that would justify or at least enable a coup to happen. Once Mobutu was in power, the Katanga rebellion seemed to die down. Mobutu then effectively went on to rule Zaire for 37 years, brutalized its citizens and plundered its treasury. His departure was followed by years of civil war that has still not completely ended and in which thousands of women have been raped.

Its difficult to describe how angry and sad I felt at reading what had been done to the Congo in the guise of saving it from Communism. The Poisonwood Bible reminded me again of the argument I made in Blasted Into Agnosticism? that extremists succeed too often in sowing misery and chaos - for decades - for at least me to confidently continue to believe in God. It also reminded me that history is often just an account written from the victor's perspective. And sometimes it might make sense to put in that extra effort as Kingsolver did to dig up and voice the vanquished's account too. For it might hold valuable information about true culpability (The Eisenhower name will just not have the vaguely positive resonance for me that it did till recently). Vanquished's accounts can also hold valuable lessons - for example - that the current administration's policy of "You're with us or against us" is not something that was invented 8 years back but has a much older and hallowed tradition.

We might have given George Bush too much credit...even on perhaps the best articulated doctrine of his Presidency. For once that discovery makes me sad.

Picture Worth a Thousand Strides?

A few months back I ran a marathon on a lot of Ibuprofen and...determination. Several runners carried cameras on themselves during the run, strapped to their upper arm and ended up with several memorable pictures. I only have this one picture to remember the whole experience by. Its a list of all the registered marathon participants that one had to go and check one's name against. Even though I'd been training for the marathon over a six month period by the time I got in front of this list in Florence, this was what made it feel real. That I was really going to try and run a marathon. I felt a thrill run down my spine when I spotted my name on this page - and had to capture it - using my phone camera for the purpose. I've blocked out my name to keep the anonymity on this blog that I just know you've all come to like and prize so much, dear readers (Ok its really me who prizes it ;) . But thats my name behind that white rectangle. In plain black print. Its kinda cool, huh?

Melancholia Lapping At My Feet

It started as Monday morning blues that began on Sunday afternoons…not long after I woke up, late, often after two consecutive weekend nights of merriment. Ironically, on the day of the Sabbath I would take my deeply irreligious self into a short hibernation…hiding behind the Sunday newspapers, complemented with steaming hot coffee and maybe a piece of cake or a sandwich at a Starbucks or in the early days, at a Barista. I’d ignore calls from friends and from Global Telelink’s irrepressible telemarketers. I’d check emails with an unblinking red Stop sign on my chat client. I’d lie on the grass by the Marina tennis courts, eyes shaded from the sun but also from the glances of over-friendly passersby or picnickers who might try to strike up a conversation, book open but unread by my side. Sometimes I’d sit in the outdoor section of the diner in Ghirardelli Square, my chair turned towards the broad sea-view and away from other patrons, actually reading a book. Only smiling politely at the waitress refilling the coffee, but otherwise keeping to myself. Other times I’d stay at home and watch TV and surf the net until there was nothing to see and nothing to read…and then I’d read some more and watch some more. After five weeks’ worth of a sane person’s talking squeezed into a regular work week and a couple of nights of catching up with friends, Sunday was My day. It was the day that I let the melancholia in.

I only put a word to the mood a couple of years back. Until then it was…as I mentioned…it was just an early onset of Monday morning blues. But even when work was good or not stressful, I’d still find myself slipping into the warm, cozy, misty, floaty sense where I was shut off from the world in a daydreamland of my own. Its difficult to describe the feeling. Its not a happy feeling, nor a sad one. Its not an intense feeling of any kind. Vaguely soothing is the best way to describe it, I guess. I’ve never really looked up the meaning of the word melancholia – always just worked with a vague sense of what it meant and the emo-picture it conveyed to me. But once I verbalized it as what I was feeling – it just felt completely right. And so now that’s my word.

Often the mood comes unbidden if I’m alone but I can summon it too by listening to the right songs (I have a playlist called Melancholia on my iPod). Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here will do it every time. So will George Michael’s Older, Corey Crowder’s Here’s Looking at You Kid, or Michael Buble’s Home. I can just as easily chase it away by putting on my Club playlist or calling a friend or just putting on a Will & Grace rerun.

For a short period back there, I wasn’t feeling melancholic any more. My life was full of activity every day of the week. At work and outside. On Sundays the closest that I could come to it, was feeling mellow. A nice feeling but not the same. The first few weeks I actually found it refreshing that I’d somehow found a way to charge my batteries without a periodic bout of semi-isolation. That was also the period that some of you may have noticed, dear readers, that I wasn’t posting very often. But then as more weeks passed and there was still no sign of the bloody mood (or of a post), I found, to my surprise, that I was missing it. Missing melancholia…It sounded silly even to myself. I mean its not like I liked being melancholic did I?

The truth is, I actually like my bouts of melancholia – its when I usually end up writing…and I like writing quite a lot now. Once I’m done watching TV, browsing sites, lazing in the sun, driving aimlessly and there’s nothing more to do…that’s when I find I can clear my mind and let the words spill into the void, words that I’ve been watching form themselves into fragments of sentences in the back of my mind…for days, sometimes weeks and months. My friend Cheery Cynic during his short Bay Area interlude would sometimes ask me, if I told him I’d been out on a drive through the Presidio or at a movie alone, whether “I was depressed again?”. “I wasn’t” I would tell him “I’m melancholic. There’s a difference.” There is. Ask the Irish.

I think its my way of resting up – recharging my batteries so I can go out and feel ecstatic and crushed and sad and smiley and social all over again. Perhaps it has to do with my Piscean nature – per Linda Goodman, we’re condemned to be constantly torn in two directions (hence the symbol of two fish facing in opposite directions), one part, full of life and vitality wanting to jump headlong into the surf of life, the other seeking comfort and escape from the rigors of it, even if for a short period.

Whatever the explanation, I have come to realize two things. One – I like my regular melancholia time-outs. Two – this is not something that everyone can understand easily without also worrying if you’re perhaps a nascent manic depressive. But one of the great things about growing older is that you get to understanding yourself better, your likes and dislikes, and you generally start being kinder to yourself. So; just as a waist-watching foodie will over time allow herself that extra helping of pineapple upside-down cake, so will I let myself regularly have dreamy lie-ins on a phantasmic beach, letting soothing waves of melancholy break gently around me.

Cheesy Romantic Refuge

PLAYING ON MY IPOD



OK I know I'm probably going to be ragged no end for admitting to this...but, I love listening to this song when I'm feeling tired - physically or mentally...Though its no masterpiece, the simple school-yardish innocence of its lyrics and mellow mood, never fail to have a revivifying effect. There's something really romantic about a pretty girl with a guitar sweetly and openly serenading you. It would've helped if Kareena had shown some ability to simulate even holding a guitar properly. But maybe thats asking for too much.

Irony of the Week...maybe Month!

My friend going to a social event organized by a group called "Actively Out" and giving his pseudonym to people during introductions! To his great credit though, he saw the irony and the humour in the situation ;)

I think Alanis Morissette might have made something of this a few years back.

Choosing Beauty

This one’s for you P.

Are you one of those wonderfully grounded people? You know – the kind who know exactly what is possible and practical and what is not, and don’t have a lot of patience for the latter? Who tend to take every major decision based on a careful analysis of multiple criteria chosen with a view to maximizing comfort? Who might often have an air of levity about them but almost never one of levitation? Well, if you are, I want to put on my philosopher cap and talk to you about bringing beauty into your life.

Now don’t get defensive…Gentle those hackles down. I’m not saying that you don’t recognize beauty or that you don't understand that it has many forms – from the stunning genius (and hot, muscled men) of the Sistine Chapel to a blazing orange-red-pink-purple hued sunset off the waters of Key West to the oratory of an inspirational leader, to the love of a nurturing, perhaps unhandsome, life-partner. I'm ready to accept that you recognize beauty, understand it and appreciate and enjoy it, that you value it and make place for it in your life.

I just think the amount of beauty in one’s life is a direct result of choices we make. And that too many people, specially if they have always had both feet solidly planted on earth, pick beauty too seldom. That when there is a choice to be made between beauty and comfort and/or security, many of us pick comfort and security. Even though we would like to pick the beautiful option. And we do it because we don’t realize the full extent of what we might be giving up.

Lets take how people choose homes as a way to illustrate what I mean. For example, one may choose to live in a window-less studio in downtown instead of an apartment with a view because it is 15 minutes further away from the freeway. Some people may pick a character-less apartment-box closer to office versus a pretty suburb with picket fences and manicured lawns (if that’s your thing) since it would add 40 minutes to the daily commute. Some may even decide not to rent an old Victorian house that totally charms them because it comes without a dish-washer and involves walking up four flights of stairs. Well of course, you say, all those decisions make sense on the face of it. Its just a question of what you value more…

It is. But I think in making these decisions one may not be doing all the right calculations. Have you thought that perhaps, being 15 minutes further from the freeway could put you 15 minutes closer to a daily walk on the beach, giving you a lifetime of splendid sunsets instead of just a couple of vacations’ worth of it. That it might increase the prospects of being woken up by itinerant parrots perched on your window-sill. It could mean the difference between needing a shrink and having a natural stress valve built into your home. Living in a pretty tree-lined green-grassed suburb might mean having your children grow up with a greater appreciation for the environment and a desire to protect and preserve it. Hell – it might make the difference between them making a movie about global warming…or claiming that it’s a hoax. And who knows what epiphanies might strike you while washing dishes at the sink – as a result of the confluence of the happy state induced by just being present in that charming Victorian and the soothing calm that repetitive simple manual labour brings. I mean, there’s gotta be a reason for why artists over the ages flocked to cities like Paris and Rome instead of say…Baltimore.

I feel that beauty inspires and works in ways that we may not fathom fully – and perhaps we should take a chance on it. More often that not.

A Second Coming

Yes I’m back, dear reader, after a too-long hiatus. The reasons for which I might divulge in a future post once I fully figure them out myself, and if at that point they seem even remotely interesting (to me ☺)

I can tell you right now, that the reason was not that I haven’t found anything interesting to write about in the last two months. In fact, I’ve had fragments of six or seven posts swirling around in my head in a very distracting manner over the last few weeks. I’m going to try and get some of them down before the next melancholectomy (I wouldn't trouble myself looking that up in a dictionary).

I want to ask for your indulgence though. I feel out of practice. So do factor that in as you read the next few posts, specially if the words in the sentences stumble over each other instead of flowing together; and if the thoughts seem patched together like parts of a badly knitted sweater with horrendous numbers of dropped stitches. Like an out-of-practice marathoner it will probably take a few practice runs before I find your favor again with a polished post.

I also think I should stop now - before you (and I) overdose on mixed metaphors.

Just wanted to let you know I'm back.

The Young Museum

ADVENTURES IN FOG CITY - SOMEPLACE COOL



One of Forrest Gump's enduring lines for me, was how his Mom described life to him as being like a box of chocolates - "you never really know what you gonna get". That line apparently has now been immortalized on wikipedia here. Anyway, thats how I feel about San Francisco - After three years of living in what is really quite a small city, I regularly get surprised by discovering something new, someplace cool, some gem hidden, someone true.

Last Friday evening, I wandered into this short free, live concert by a 1980s band I'd never heard of before, called Sid Luscious and The Pants at the city's famed De Young Museum. Nestling in the Golden Gate Park, the Museum building itself is a work of art with a wonderful outdoor sculpture garden - I like the De Young because I think they try hard to make art accessible to relative philistines like me and (perhaps) you. I especially love its sculpture garden which I've visited multiple times while venturing inside just once. Mostly as a result of the Museum's efforts, on any given weekend day or night, you'll find it run over by people of all age groups and interests that gives it a cool buzz and a youthful vibe.

Anyway, the band was playing in the museum's large interior court thats dominated by a huge, memorable, piece of artwork named Strontium - an electron microscope image of the crystal lattice of Strontium Titanate. Not everyone likes it, but I felt it was the perfect backdrop for the band which was, gratifyingly, pretty good. C and I caught only the last 20 minutes of the band ...but the novelty of the experience - of seeing a raucous (in a good way) band merrily rip the usual near-reverent near-silence of a museum - seemed to me, a harbinger of a fun-filled weekend.

Out-of-the-Bottle Thinking?

As if the loss of market share and pre-eminent status to Toyota wasn't enough humiliation for Detroit's Big Three. Here's further proof that the world's largest car-makers - who've enjoyed iconic status in pop-culture and in industry for decades - are in danger of forever being relegated to the scrapheap of un-coolness.

The car on the left is the Loremo (Hat-tip to Caderageous) - a "green"vehicle in race-car disguise. Apparently it can get 145 miles (and multiple exclamation marks!!!) per gallon. And its going to be available not 20 or 10 or 5 years from now. Its hitting the markets next year. And it costs only about $22,000 - not that much more than a fully loaded Honda Civic and several thousand dollars cheaper than what my Prius cost me. Click here to learn more about the car.

The Detroit Three can't even complain of being left behind by disruptive new technology - the Loremo is NOT a hybrid (though a hybrid version may be in development). Its NOT a hydrogen car. It runs on diesel - you know that high-tech new-fangled fuel thats powered trucks and tractors for eons. The efficiency comes from "engine efficiency, low weight, and minimal drag to boost the fuel-efficiency". Wow - who would've thought that those things could ever work.

The power of the Loremo is really in the breaking of the mental barrier around fuel-efficiency, the barrier which said that 45mpg was about as good as it gets. The Loremo could be the Roger Bannister of the automotive industry. Now that one car has gotten more than 100mpg - I wouldn't be surprised if every automaker worth their salt comes up with several more super-high efficiency models like this.

Of course, the other potential loser in this case in the long run is the oil industry. While this isn't disruptive technology, its impact could definitely be disruptive. Whats going to happen to all those billions of dollars being spent by the oil industry on exploration and millions of tons of new refining capacity? You'd be surprised how quickly car populations can get replaced in cost-conscious countries - which includes nearly every nation from the US to India and China. The days of ExxonMobil's $40bn in profits might soon be over - a quintupling of fuel-efficiency would definitely slow or reduce oil demand and prices.

Of course - its much too early to celebrate the end of oil (or the arrival of a powerful tool in the fight against global warming) - the Loremo may yet mysteriously develop design flaws or have safety concerns raised about it, or it may be bought out by competitors who may or may not deem it to be a viable project to pursue. But heck - its Friday evening - always a good time to pick up that beer-stein and cheer on an idea that has taken way too much time to arrive.

And one that seems to be the outcome of some great out-of-the-bottle thinking :)

The Joy of Lying to Small Kids

Browsing in a book-store in Florence a couple of months back I came across a laugh-out loud book of cartoons named "Great Lies to Tell Small Kids" by one Andy Riley (also author of The Bunny Suicides as the blurb helpfully told me). The book has one lie per page accompanied by a funny illustration - its laugh riot!

As someone who thoroughly enjoys making up elaborate, unbelievable fabrications in response to irritating questions from kids and sending them happily on their way, I felt I'd found a kindred spirit. I also admired the ingenuity of the author for having found a way to make money out of an activity that I'd always just seen as a lazy hobby. I immediately bought the book for my precocious seven (or is it six) year old niece who was wandering through the bookshop with me, and we had a great time going through it.

Partly in tribute to Andy's genius and partly to further the cause of confusing annoying kids, here's a few more lies I came up with that I think might be good to put out there. Feel free to use any and all of them on any unsuspecting brats that cross your path, dear reader. Also - of course - feel free to contribute.

1. Moths are actually very old butterflies who are too proud to use hair dye
2. The Romans were great environmentalists who fed people to lions to keep them from eating deer (Bambi!) instead
   
3. Babies come when two people send a jointly signed letter to Santa asking for a boy or a girl. Meanwhile Mom starts eating a lot of food and becoming really fat so she can produce milk for the baby when the stork finally brings it over.
   
4. There is no such thing as the moon - its just the sun at very low power, recharging itself until its time to go to school again.
   
5. Sea water is salty, because the United Nations decided to mix all the salt in the sea since there was no other place to put it
6. You never hear that Red Riding Hood lived happily ever after because the wood-cutter who killed the wolf was really an axe-murderer...
7. Have you heard? Santa won't be coming this year because his elves formed a union, went on strike and no toys have been made. You might as well have stolen that last biscuit from the jar!
8. Microwaves make things hot by piping heat in from the Sahara Desert
9. Lightning never strikes the same place twice because Indra/Zeus has really bad aim
10. Giraffes have two or more bumps on their heads depending on how many coconuts have fallen on them while trying to eat the coconut tree's leaves
    

The Surprising Similarities Between Vampires and Bisexuals

TONGUE FIRMLY EMBEDDED IN CHEEK

A few weeks back I found myself in an animated discussion on a now-forgotten subject with a couple of my friends who’re avowed bisexuals. I saw avowed because really, I only have their word that they’re bisexual for proof. All the time I’ve spent with them each has tended to show a marked preference for persons of their own gender. Sure they claim to have slept with members of the opposite sex but have little evidence to show to back up their claims. And no P, being married to someone for 5 years does not automatically mean that you had carnal relations with them – in fact, the case is often the contrary. And there are thousands of nuns, wedded to The One True Saviour, out there who will tell you I’m right.

For some reason that conversation took a turn into how I never see my bisexual friends, specially M, in daylight. Its almost always at night, sometimes on cloudy days or indoors. At that point M did come up with an instance where I’d met him under the glaring sun. But by then, the train of that particular thought had already left the station in the direction of the common ground uniting vampires and bisexuals.

Having given it not a lot of thought, I’m convinced that there are undeniable similarities between bisexuals and vampires. For example, both demographic groups are equally happy partaking of their pleasure with men or women. And then there’s that common tendency to involuntarily co-opt the rest of humanity into their respective groups. Vampires, as we know, have a rather lamentable ability to sign you up to lifetime membership of their club with just a caress of their canines. Bi-sexuals, try to do the same thing using, The Kinsey Scale and fallacious reasoning as weapons of choice, to considerably less success, I should add.

“Sit yourself down Mr/Ms. of professedly mono-sexual persuasion”, your bisexual friend/acquaintance will tell you if they sense you’re in a moment of faltering logic, “And let me tell you why you’re not straight/gay at all.”

This is when the Kinsey work will be brandished, “The Great Kinsey spake thus:

‘Males (ed: insert MCP alert here) do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.’ ”

Followed by the astute use of fallacy:

“And so it must be that everyone’s bisexual. How bisexual they are depends on where they fall on the Kinsey Scale that runs from 0 to 6 with 3 being actively (as opposed to avowedly) bisexual.”

To me it’s a bit like saying there are no primary colours, no red, blue or green, only the colour white. I actually believe in the Kinsey scale and in the existence of a continuum of sexual orientations, but to me the fact that there’s a scale means that it has ends and the Kinsey scale is book-ended by Straights (0) and Gays (6). However, try telling that to an avowed bisexual, and you might very well find yourself staring at bared – hopefully blunt – canines.

Finally, and this is a curious similarity: The existence of both demographic groups is doubted by large sections of the population. There are many, many gay, straight and bisexual people who believe that there’s no such thing as a vampire – that they don’t exist. And similarly there are tons of people (straight or gay, though likely not bisexual) who are more likely to believe in the existence of a unicorn-capable-of-healing-wounds-in-a-twinkle-with-pixie-dust than in the existence of an actual bisexual person. Within every bisexual person, they will say, is a confused gay man/woman. I should point out that as a convert to the Kinsey scale I’m not one of the bisexual-sceptics. I am, though, a vampire sceptic. Which is good, otherwise the fact - that I believe in the existence of both groups - would be a fourth (and surely damning!) point of similarity!

So what does this all mean? What of it? After all, similarity does not imply sameness. It does not. And so for me, this analysis has little utility. But if one is not a vampire-sceptic and not a vampire-wannabe, then the curious commonality between bisexuals and vampires would suggest that checking if one's bisexual friends sleep on (in?) box beds or not, might be a very good idea.

Blasted into Agnosticism? By Believers.

Here's a headline for you - The Daughter of the East has fallen victim to the regions' time honoured tradition of filicide. Benazir Bhutto assassinated by bullets and bombs at a fateful Rawalpindi rally pictured to the left...with the word Shahid chillingly emblazoned below her in a fitting final shot...rendering captions superfluous.

I'm surprised by how sad I feel. I never thought much of Benazir after her two failed prime ministerships. She made a mess out of two precious opportunities that her countrymen gave her - discredited democracy for several years along with her inept alter ego, Nawaz Sharif - and made it easy for the military establishment to take over her country each time. So much so that its taken 7 years of an incompetent, though largely benevolent, dictatorship to bring democracy back in fashion in Pakistan.

But Benazir first came to power around the time that I first started following politics and so she's been part of the political world as I've known it, forever. She was like a slightly crazy aunt that I'd gotten used to having around, periodically noisy but largely irrelevant. Her 15 minutes up, she seemed destined to live out her years in affluence in London...seemingly delusional about her achievements and importance and seemingly paranoid about how just about everyone was out to get her.

Well today, I guess this can be said - She was important and They were out to get her. And though she was an imperfect leader. Though she was smug and self-important. Though she was corrupt. She was also Pakistan's only real liberal, moderate, secular voice of any importance. She was also, I think, courageous. Of all the condolences that poured out on the news, I think Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi was the one that really put that into perspective for me. He said, she was "a woman who chose to fight her battle until the end with a single weapon - the one of dialogue and political debate." And whatever else she was, that is true of Benazir and I think given the way things are in Pakistan today, using only dialog and debate is immensely courageous. I think she came back despite the danger, to get one last chance to redeem herself and with her courage and in her martyrdom, I think she succeeded.

The sad thing is that her attackers have probably succeeded not just in her murder but also in their wider objective of driving Pakistan in a more Islamist direction. An assassination is such a horrible thing. All the possibilities and hopes eliminated just like that in a flash - I hate assassinations. Among other things, I think they're responsible for the rise of rampant right-wing Republicanism in the US (JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King) and of the end of the Israel-Palestine peace process (Rabin)...and the sad thing is its always the extremists who assassinate the moderates because by definition moderates won't do such things. Those unable to win the debate with ideas and inspiration have often succeeded in winning the debate with assassinations. And in causing so much more misery for thousands, even millions of people for years and even decades, before another leader comes along to show the way out.

Through the course of the day, I found my thoughts veering in directions agnostic. I should say first, that I've always believed in God(s). Always. Even as I turned completely, vehemently away from religion, I continued to believe in God and to pray to Him/Her/Them. But today as I thought about assassinations and their intolerable effectiveness, I wondered. Would God, if he exists, really choose to test us by allowing these things to happen? Would he, like a bad soap opera script-writer who builds up a beautiful romance and then kills off one of the audience-beloved pair, manipulate our emotions just to keep us interested in him? And even if he allowed assassinations to happen, wouldn't he make sure that the vision of the fallen leader was miraculously realized? Wouldn't that be the best way to teach a lesson to those b***ards out there - Instead of deepening the misery of the largely-innocent?

Going by history, I have little hope that Benazir's killing will not lead to more turmoil in Pakistan and a move away from a modern liberal path...leading either to years of violence or years of suppression under a tyrannical military or theological regime.

I pray it won't happen. But I'm increasingly not very confident that there's some non-denominational being or beings out there listening.

Rainbows in the Moonlight

POSTCARDS FROM ITALY

UMBRELLAS THAT LIGHT UP THE NIGHT

Of all the words that I wouldn't have expected to find in the title of a rip-roaring pop-hit (or the topic of a blog-post), 'umbrella' would be pretty high up in the list. And when I first heard Rihanna's Umbrella I was mightily unimpressed. I found it slow and difficult to dance to...I found the ella-ella-ellaing in the song juvenile and irritating...and I didn't really know much about the singer (Rihanna) or her previous work.

And then, on an aimless melancholia-fueled drive through a fogged-up Presidio one cold September night, I heard the song play out on Energy (my favourite FM station here). There's something wonderfully isolating and peaceful about the Presidio at night. For those who don't know, the Presidio is a densely cypress-populated oasis of greenery that occupies a generous patch of ground between San Francsico and the Golden Gate. It was once an army base with pretty military style bungalows that now rent out for as much as $30k per month. With many more trees than houses, its a great neighbourhood to drive through when one is looking to get away from the bustle of the city without crossing water.

I bring up the Presidio because, I think it was its quiet, deepened by the fog that allowed me to focus on Rihanna's tone rather than the lyrics...I heard the way she belted out the lines - starting with a slight dip right at the beginning before letting her voice rise through the rest of the line and then leaving it hanging at the top of a crest without letting it actually fall...as if she were letting the words float away from her. Somehow the way the lines were sung, made the rather simplistic lyrics and the promise embedded in them ("You have my heart...And we'll never be worlds apart) feel more sincere, more real. Hooked, I downloaded the song and listened to it more attentively - discovering that what had irritated earlier turned out to be disarming with repetition - awkward lyrics, genius-like sing-along chorus, the warm-welcome -on-a-rainy-night of the last lines "Its Pouring Rain, You can always come into me".

A convert to the song's fanbase since then, I've spent many a happy night chorusing "ella, ella, ella" along with friends in clubs, at house parties and on the streets after last call. In fact its a great yard-stick to judge new-found friends by - if someone can sing-along to Umbrella in public, I'm almost certain I've found a kindred spirit. At least on one occasion the song might have served as a kind of mating call ;) . I now think that the "ella-ing" in the song was a stroke of pop-genius...that assured the song a kind of cult status - so much so that even stodgy old Time magazine rated it in the Top 10 songs of the year (Hmm...Actually thats almost a negative in some ways).

I also think that it was because Rihanna opened my senses to the secret possibilities of the 'umble umbrella that on my second day in Rome - a cold, blustery, miserable wet one - I was able to keep my spirits up...despite the dreary weather and an aching knee injury. That day, I'd planned to see both the Vatican and the Roman ruins around the Colosseum. This being Italy, both the subway and the cabs were on strike...so walking was the only way to see the sights. Hobbled by my knee and distracted by bad weather, good cappuccino, souvenir hunting opportunities and running-group friends with less ambitious sight-seeing plans, I made very little progress.

By six I'd written the day off and decided to check out the Trevi Fountain and then call it a night. It was at the Fountain where I first noticed the quiet riot of colours that the streets had become as the persistent rain forced people to open up their umbrellas. There were hordes of tourists and locals at the Fountain and most carried umbrellas. Almost to the last one, the umbrellas had been dyed in bright solid single colours - that stood out in the rapidly darkening streets. This wasn't like Mumbai or London or even San Francisco - where the rain brings out a funereal procession of black umbrellas. Rome's streets looked like someone had shredded a rainbow and sent its pieces chaotically winding their way through them. Orange, taxicab yellow, red, mauve, blue, lemon green, olive green etc etc - an umbrella of a different colour swirled into sight every other second and then streaked away - running after that over-loaded public bus that was probably the only way its owner had of getting home that night. There were some patterned, multi-coloured umbrellas but too few to distract from the luminous tableau created by the single-toned ones. Such a simple way to brighten up a bad weather day. Its a wonder other cities haven't thought of it!

All jazzed up by the unexpected Technicolour high, I snapped a lot of blurred umbrella pictures with my phone and went back to the hotel - happy to have seen a Roman sight that I hadn't planned on or read about in the guide books.

How One Euro Can Win You Over

POSTCARDS FROM ITALY - STILL IN ROMA TERMINI (Well I was stuck there for 3 hours)

Here’s another piece of advice to potential travelers to Italy from outside the Eurozone. You want to change some money into Euros as fast as you can. Here's why.

After following rest-room signs half-way across the station, up an elevator, through the main section of a crowded restaurant and around a corner I finally found myself in front of…a ladies’ rest-room sign. There were a couple of other confused men standing there. On a hunch I lugged my bags around another corner and lo…there it was…the men’s rest-room sign. Before I could dash in, however, I was stopped by a lady sitting outside. Apparently you had to cough up 70 euro cents to use the rest-room. And not having changed my money yet I was only able to cough up green-backs. She wasn’t very impressed. I didn't blame her. After all a dollar is about five cents less than 70 Euro cents today...and thats without counting the commission that a currency exchange company would charge her.

But, I really had to go. I mean really. It was a bad situation. Let me give you an analogy to help you understand how bad it was. It was like crawling miles across the Sahara to an oasis, dragging three pieces of luggage, throat parched with thirst, oilskin bottles all having run out of water three days before. And when you finally got to the oasis, you found that the pool had been drained of all its water, that had then been packaged into prettily labeled plastic bottles being retailed by the local Bedouin tribe for 70 Euro cents. And thats when you realized that you only had deeply depreciated dollars in your pocket. It was exactly like that…except with the liquid flows reversed. You get the picture, don't you?

Back to the problem of the gated rest-room. I repeated my question about whether a dollar note would do, in the hope that asking again might magically change the answer. But the woman had already started talking to the next customer. It looked like I’d have to trudge back down with my luggage to find an ATM. At that moment I felt a visceral hatred towards my bags. I wanted someone to rid me of them. Just take them away…Oh and maybe give me 70 Euro cents? I just didn't think I could successfully hunt down an ATM and get back without an embarrassing mishap.

It was at that point that I came to another in my series of idle in-transit generalizations about Italy…specifically about Italian commuters. It goes thus: Italian commuters are a generous angelic group of people, blessed by the grace of the almighty (if there be one).

My epiphany happened because I heard the guy, who'd been behind me in the queue, say “Here’s another Euro for this gentleman.” This Farishta (or "angel" for the non-South Asian readers, if there be any) had obviously seen the dismay on my face and perhaps having sensed my pent-up "stress", decided to do his good deed for the day. The lady at the door let me in with a rather sour expression - no doubt annoyed at having played even a small part in delivering customer-delight. I had this resistible urge to go down to the Illy cafe stall and apply for a waiter's position, just so I would have a chance, some day, to do nasty things to her cappuccino before serving it to her.

However I had more pressing issues to deal with. Five minutes later – yeah I told you it was like being without water for three days except just the reverse – I walked out lighter in body and spirit and wearing rose-tinted glasses vis-a-vis Roman commuters, that stayed on for the rest of the hiatus at Roma Termini. Those rose-tinted lens made everyone at the station look great...except the lady outside the rest-room.

But you kind of guessed that already didn't you?

Minor Adventures in Roma Termini

POSTCARDS FROM ITALY

Recently, over Arabic mint tea (love it) and miniature feta cheese pies, I got into a debate over whether it makes sense for me to send postcards while I’m in Italy. I mean really. Who writes post-cards anymore? I never wrote or sent post-cards or other forms of snail mail even when it wasn’t considered slow. So to me its really is an almost alien thing to do. But its important for certain people that I care about. And so, here goes, a virtual post-card all the way from Italy…If I can get myself to sit down again, I might write some more…and might post a couple more.

A large part of my first day in Italy was spent in Rome’s main railway station – Roma Termini. Not exactly a tourist hot-spot. But a good place to observe a slice of daily Italian life and make sweeping generalizations (always a great way of passing in-transit hours, by the way).

I liked what I saw of Italy in Roma Termini. It seems like a fun, quixotic place...can be exasperating if you're in a hurry to get anything done...but if you have all the time in the world then you'll probably be happy to get swept up in its first world chaos.

I was able to pick up a few rules of engagement quite quickly. For example, no customer service query can be resolved without the person actively engaging at least three of his/her colleagues in voluble conversation first. Unless of course, the answer is a no. In which case it is delivered without hesitation or explanation…leaving very little room for negotiation or question. As in,

Passenger: “Can I leave by an earlier train so I can stop lugging three pieces of luggage across the length and breadth of the station, causing multiple near-accidents, sending my shoulders on their way to untimely dislocations and spending my money on intestine corroding coffee; given that the trains seem to leave every 15 minutes and are half-empty anyway?”

Ticketing attendant: “No.”

Passenger: “Oh OK. By the way could you tell me how much a new ticket to Florence would cost.”

Ticketing Attendant: “For sure. Let me just interrupt my bella colleagues over there who’re serving other customers, and confer with them to make sure I don’t give you the wrong price. And while I’m at it I’ll also find out for you how you could go about making mortadella cheese at home, just in case you’re interested.”

The conversation didn’t quite go like that – but it very well could have. Like I said, Italy can be great fun – if you’re on vacation. Which brings me to Rule Number One –

Go to Italy - if going on vacation. And if you go on a business trip, Don't!. Or at least, pack an extra set of worry beads.

Reading Escalators

I have a theory. One that I’ve validated by my time-tested method of making sweeping generalizations based on anecdotal data and unscientific sample sizes. That method was last used with great effectiveness with my theory on tattoos and marrying men.

I think that you can tell the pace of life in a city or country from the speed of their escalators. The most reliable predictors are escalators in the public transport network – the ones in airports and railway stations. In department stores and corporate buildings, escalator speeds can be influenced by the organization’s dynamism and therefore create noise in the sample set. I take special note of the escalator speeds every time I go to a new city. Come to think of it, it might even be verging on a scientific sample size by now. Because thanks to my itinerant work I’ve been able to build up quite a large set of data points.

In New York the escalators move at speeds that would get you speeding tickets in Billings, Montana (Full disclosure – I’ve never been to Montana so I could be wrong about this). In Paris, they move at a leisurely pace meant to ensure lovers - or even plain strangers who’ve just bumped into each other - get at least a few minutes of passionate kissing in, before its time to walk again. In London, if they work, it’s a brisk professional pace much as it is in Bombay, though both are slower than NYC’s. Escalators are zippy in Taipei and in Tokyo and slow down in balmy Barcelona.

In Rome, where I got my latest proof-point, it was clear from the escalators at the airport, that this is a country that likes its siesta. Jet-lagged and exhausted by your 24 hour multiple-stop trip? Exhausted by a late night spent partying? Hell, just clamber aboard an escalator in Rome and get a power nap while it oozes – umm rolls - towards its destination. I'm pretty sure the cartoon on the left was thought up by a manic depressive denizen of Rome.

OK, I exaggerate. Escalators in Rome will get you to where you need to go in a shorter time than walking. Just about. But hey, whats the hurry – Take time to smell the flowers. Or, if you’re on an escalator in the airport, to read the billboards slowly sliding by. Who knows they might actually tell you something useful.

No such luck in Rome though. The billboards spaces were all blank.

So I read a book instead.

PS: It’s the latest piece of non-fiction by Tom Brokaw – called Boom! – about the sixties. Its Pretty Darn Good.