The Golden Gate's 'Beauty Mark'

This Friday, I went cycling with my cousin who'd come down from LA - we started off near Fisherman's Wharf and rode all the way along the Marina, over the Golden Gate, and down to Sausolito - its an 8 mile trip with a couple of uphills and a lot of downhill (once you get over the hump of the GG Bridge)...stopped at a Starbucks in Sausolito before taking the ferry back to the Ferry Building (quite appropriately :)

We chose perhaps the worst day possible to do the trip - it was cold and raining - and we got drenched three times over the course of the day - but it was also very empowering - now that I've done it in lousy freezing weather - I can do it anytime.

While I've only biked over the Bridge once before, I've driven across it many many times - but even now, crossing the bridge feels like a bit of a special event. The Golden Gate's attraction is a little difficult to understand if you haven't seen it - and perhaps even if you have (if you're a philistine :) . it requires a certain ability to buy into mythmaking in addition to just a basic appreciation of beauty. At one point its claim to fame was being the longest single-span bridge in the world - but there are newer claimants to that throne. So today you could see it as just an old red coloured bridge...But I think its so much more - I love it for its simple elegance, easy symmetry. For its incongruous red colour that stands out against the blue water and the greenery on either side but that also seems to make it look like a natural (rather than man-made) part of the scenery. I think the view of the Bay without the Golden Gate would feel rather like a well-formed sentence without a full-stop...it would feel incomplete.

Its probably one of the few instances where humans took a beautiful natural setting, imposed structures that they needed for their convenience and in doing so actually (unwittingly?) enhanced the panorama. Thats quite an achievement really and a pretty rare one. Go ahead and google images of the ugly structures on SF's other distraction, Alcatraz, to see what I mean....or heck, just take a look out of your own bedroom window!

Because it was raining, there wasn't much of a view from the bridge which is really why you would want to do this trip in the first place...and that's perhaps why I noticed for the first time Golden Gate's 'beauty mark'. It is its equivalent of Enrique Iglesias' now-departed mole...or of the mascara dot that doting newly-minted Indian parents - believing their kids to be perfect - sometimes put on the baby's face to ward off the Evil Eye.

Its just two small blink-and-you'll-miss-it sign-boards but the concise text is powerful, disturbing and poignant. The signs show a picture of a telephone to use in case of emergencies...not the kind that Alistair Maclean manufactured in GoodBye California - the US President is kidnapped by a gang and held hostage on the Golden Gate - but a much more individual, personal crisis. The Bridge is the site of multiple (unfortunately successful) suicides every year - and the hotline is to give people a last chance to be literally talked back from the edge.

I cycled on...the signs left me feeling vaguely disturbed...I find suicide and its associated despair and deep sadness difficult to understand and a little scary. But I was also glad that the city was trying to extend help to those lonely, despairing persons who stand on the bridge contemplating and seeking mortal rather than spiritual salvation. According to Wikipedia, "beauty marks were particularly highly-regarded during the Renaissance and it became commonplace to create false beauty marks" if you weren't born with them. SF has done something similar with the Crisis Counselling signs - except that these signs despite not being congenital, in their motivation, are true beauty marks.

I think I'm falling in love...

...with the IPhone. I really thought I could resist it but after checking out the demos on their web-site I don't think I'll be able to stay away when it comes calling :( See for yourself - its looks brilliant - http://www.apple.com/iphone/phone/

Of course, I can see several practical problems with the phone. All that finger scrolling is going to mess up the screen pretty quickly.

And I hope they're building scratch resistant screens for the nailcutter-ly-challenged denizens of the fashion world.

Urban Pools of Meltwater

"While there have always been meltwater pools. There are many more of them covering a far larger area of ice....This meltwater is now believed to keep sinking all the way down to the bottom, cutting deep crevasses and vertical tunnels called 'moulins'. When the water reaches the bottom of the ice, it lubricates the surface of the bedrock and destabilizes the ice mass raising fears that the ice mass will slide more quickly towards the ocean"

- Al Gore in the Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore was talking about innocuous looking pools of melted ice (meltwater) that have been spreading across the surface of Greenland. The adjoining picture is NOT Niagara Falls; its meltwater flowing into a deep moulin. How deep is the moulin? Well, the tiny black dots at the top of the picture are actually people.

While ice-sheets already formed on the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans are also breaking away and melting, this does not raise sea levels. Meltwater on the Greenland's landmass is significant because it may help huge chunks of land-based ice to slide into the sea which WOULD raise the sea levels.

I believe that metaphorical meltwater pools have also formed in urban Indian society...that has an equally large potential to change the climate in India - in this case, the social one. Unlike global warming, this climate change is likely bring positive change to most people's lives (even if they don't think so themselves :)

The meltwater pools can be found in places like Buzz in Delhi where young couples dance, smoke, drink and kiss in abandon every weekend night...or for example in Mocha in Bombay - where packs of barely-teened girls and boys spend horrendous number of hours and huge amounts of deep-pocket money on melted-Lindt hot chocolate and green-apple flavored hookahs.

The signs of climate change are everywhere. Here's a few examples:
a) Rising divorce rates (specially amongst the under-35 age-group) - Ask yourself how many divorced friends your parents had and how many divorced wonderful friends you do
b) Falling rates of pre-marital virginity. The perceived virginity rate in the eyes of parents is probably still at its 1960s level - I know many many couples who've lived-in in India but almost no parents who knew about it :)
c) The laissez faire attitude...fancy way of saying live-and-let-live...of most of my friends and relatives to my coming out. "But even then, why do you have to move to the U.S." I was asked a couple of times. Or the increasing number of gay nights in Delhi - at last count it had doubled to 2! - each, I believe, well-attended.
d) The increasing number of kissing scenes in Hindi films - even Ash did it...yes Amitabh, she did it and even if its cut from the theatre runs of Dhoom2 its probably already on Youtube for eternity. I do think though, that Ash kissing-in-movies is like Microsoft bundling IE with Windows - its a free gift that people didn't expect and thats designed to put wannabes like Mallika Sherawat (or poor Netscape) out of business

Sceptics will argue that there was always a tiny Page-3-population that lived like they were in Malibu rather than Mumbai - I think the difference is that:
a) The people swimming in the thawed meltwater pools today, are overwhelmingly middle class - not the upper-class people Shobha De famously wrote about
b) They don't regard themselves as social revolutionaries unlike the 1960's (1970's in India)
Flower-Power generation - the increasingly blase attitude towards sex, divorce, marriage etc is truly subversive - one that is likely to infect contemporaries in smaller towns, as well as younger siblings, kids and nephews/nieces who are now growing up. Quiet creeping revolution is more difficult to put down than bus-window-shattering protests

I, of course, selfishly applaud the omens of a new social climate - it may allow me to have a dating scene based in Delhi/Bombay before I'm 80 and can't dance anymore.

But there are others who should be worried. Human action has led to the drying up of the Aral Sea (Yeah really - the whole sea literally evaporated into thin air) and left shipping fleets stuck in the sand (see adjoining picture).

Indian conservative political parties - the ones that tend to riot on Valentine's Day - may find themselves similarly left stranded by the wayside along with their Ice Age ideas - if they don't change with the

The One About Rhymes That Won't Stop Running Through My Head

I've been in a bit of a strange mood the last couple of days - difficult to describe - I guess melancholy comes closest...a lot of change seems to be ahead in the next few months and maybe thats what is driving it. I usually find articulation of my moods through song lyrics that then I end up listening to on my IPod or humming incessantly - here's a few that have been preying on my mind the last couple of days:

From George Michael's Older - he's one my favorite artists - wish he'd clean up his act

"Strange
Baby
Don't you think I'm looking older
But something good has happened to me
Change
is a stranger
Who never seems to show"

From Linkin Park's In the End - my brother gifted me an mp3 CD with this song that I've come to love

"I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter"

The lyrics refer to a failed relationship but in my mind can refer to anything that you take too seriously at the expense of all other things. I definitely want to get far but hopefully will never be at the point where the deep sense of regret in these lyrics applies to me :)

Thankfully I also have in my IPod's arsenal a set of songs that help me climb out of my melancholy moods - lyrics that I've found always help are from Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying:

I went sky diving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds
On a bull named FuManChu.
And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
And gave forgiveness I'd been denying
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dying

Makes you think about how you're living your life huh? :)

Why Scaring The Pigeons is a Good Thing

Sometime back I wrote about how I thought the alliteratively titled Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was one of my favorite new shows on TV. Disappointingly, the show didn't quite live up to its promise - and being unashamedly fickle about my TV viewing I have a new favorite - Showtime's rather innocently titled "Dexter".

Dexter is probably the darkest show on TV - certainly the darkest show I've seen on the small screen...Its about a sociopath who works as a forensic specialist in Miami's police department
and who channels his urge to kill into murdering other sociopaths. For those who think he sounds like any other superhero in Marvel comics, you've gotta see the show to understand how horrifying and fascinating Dexter the character and Dexter the show is.

I love the show and not just because its so dark but also because it raises a serious, but completely overlooked, animal rights issue. As a kid, Dexter, hones his skill as a budding psychopath, by murdering small animals (like dogs). There is a serious disconnect about how we care for kids and equally cuddly, equally innocent small animals that bring us into their circle of trust. We warn little kids to stay away from strange adults but encourage pets as well as semi-wild fauna like pigeons, squirrels etc to trust strange humans - kids and adults alike. And so, across the world, there are probably hundreds of quasi-domesticated small animals being massacred by mini-Dexters everyday...and nothing is being done about it

Take the example of pigeons...Almost any self-respecting historical monument in the world has several score pigeons floating around - strutting, fluttering, clustering around delighted tourists who throw down pieces of sourdough or baklava or corn depending on which country they're in and how cheap they are. These pigeons are so used to being around people and strangers that they'll trot up to just about anyone...they're perfect sitting ducks (sic) for any cute sociopathic Dexter/Dmitri/Dhritrashtra that scampers along. The show doesn't talk about Dexter visiting Trafalgar Square as a child like the kid in the picture, but you can be sure that if he had, there wouldn't have been quite so much cooing going on there, as there is today

The fact is, its not safe for these pigeons to trust humans. Given the centuries of indoctrination that these birds have gone through, there's a dire need for a comprehensive Pavlovian education program to get them to not trust humans again. And any animal rights activist worth their iodized salt should be doing his/her bit. It can be as simple as volunteering to spend a couple of hours every weekend to jump out at these silly birds from behind bushes while screaming bloody murder (IMPORTANT NOTE: but not actually committing it) to scare the guano out of them. Over time though, I think, more innovative methods might be more effective - ummm - like scattering electrostatically charged pop-corn that shocks any bird that pecks at it.

I spent one summer afternoon in May doing the jumping-out-the-bushes thing to scare some particularly blase pigeons on the lawns in front of Ghirardelli Square. I can vouch for the effectiveness of the method - it cleared the lawns of both pigeons...and people (including my fickle friend :( over a 100m radius within the first 30 minutes. I must admit, the lack of understanding with which my work amongst pigeons was greeted was rather discouraging. However...like Steve Irwin with crocodiles...I shall continue harassing them for their own good

Its going to be a Happy New Year

Sometime on the morning of the 31st, I got this phone call from one of my bestest favouritest friends in India - completely sloshed - and very happy - she called to tell me I was one of her favourite people too...It was a great way to start the day.

She also told me that she was taking responsibility of ending my singleton status - but given the 'high spirits' she was in at the time, I'm not going to hold her to it. :)

And then I brought in the New Year with old friends and some new - we had a surprisingly good time at Chevy's downing margaritas (we ended up closing down the place) - and then watching the fireworks from the wharf. And for once I had witnesses to the fact that there ARE fireworks that look like smileys. Yesterday there were several of them. Here's a picture to prove it.

And if the new year is anything like the last day of last year - Its going to be a very good year.
Here's wishing for many smileys next year for everyone - ones that light up faces not just the sky.

Bringing SPC-BAC(k)...into existence

For all the instant gratification junkies, SPC-BAC(k) stands for the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Bay Area Citizens. The (k) is to provide pronunciation guidance and avoid confusion - the pronunciation is SPC Back not SPC Bass (which is probably an existing special interest group within the SPCA). Here's why we should be talking about bringing SPC-BAC(k) into existence:

Over the past few months I've come across multiple instances of a dismaying snobbish attitude displayed by people who live within SF city limits towards their less fortunate friends who live in the wider Bay Area. This kind of snobbery exists in other cities - Between people in Manhattan towards Brooklyn dwellers, or between South Bombay and Malad, or between South Delhi and NOIDA. I do think the problem in SF has become more severe than in other places

For those who aren't too sure about the seriousness of the issue let me cite a few examples of actual conversations that I've been privy too.. And if you're an SF snob (SFS) PLEASE do resist treating this list as a "5-6 New Ways Of Putting Down Your Bay Area Friends" post.

1. BAC heading back home from city to SFS: "It was nice seeing you. Take care and have fun" --- SFS replying to BAC: "I would say the same to you, except that you're heading back to San Jose"
2. SFS team manager to new BAC team-mate: "Sorry I missed your call. I don't have your number in my address book and tend not to pick up calls with South Bay area codes" --- BAC team-mate (revealing SFSs don't have a lock on snobbery): "Hey I live in the Peninsula - not South Bay"
3. SFS picking up a call from BAC friend: "Hey how was the weekend? Which mall did you go to?"
4. SFS-on-a-rare-visit-to-East-Bay to BAC friend: " Nice neighbourhood...I guess you don't have trouble finding parking here do you?"
5. SFS hosting out-of-state friend who first spent time with North-Bay-friend: "So did he show you all the sights - like the school he went to...umm...and the local Starbucks?"
6. One well-meaning-but-not-too-bright-SFS to group of friends: "I'm so glad I wasn't born with 'suburb' gene, just the gay one"

I know most of you are cringing at these comments, just like I did. At a time when the country and really, the world is looking for a way to heal divisions, such attitudes only create more. And while there may be a case for questioning the judgment of the wide number of people who choose (yes, some people do actually choose) to live outside the city - there is NO case for not extending the same respect to them and their choices that one would, to say, people who choose to live outside Haight-Ashbury and still paint their house's facade purple and yellow.

I'm proud to say I have many Bay Area friends and they're just as good as anyone else...if someone does start SPC-BAC(k) I'd be happy to volunteer my services...that is, as long as I can do it from their SF office.

Big Love or Where On Earth Are Those Star Trek Travel Pods

No this is not a blog about my thoughts on polyamory or on the HBO show with the same name dealing with polygamy. I do have some thoughts on the subject (like - if you can actually manage multiple relationships at the same time and still retain your sanity - well good for you). But there's more than one kind of polygamy/polyamory. In my case, I'm in love with two places at the same time even though I'm geographically monogamous right now.

I'm in love with India and with San Francisco. I never thought I'd live outside India - definitely wanted to travel outside but never wanted to live there. - To that end I turned down a couple of opportunities to work and live abroad.

After two years in the Bay Area - I still miss India a ton - the chaos, the energy and liveliness hidden within that chaos, the colors, the Hindi songs playing out of tuneless radios in every shop, the corrupt politicians (well I don't miss them too much cos they're right here in the US too :(, the carefree (read insane) driving, being able to see Hindi movies the same day they're released...my family and friends...and not missing significant chunks of their lives. It's a somewhat romanticized view, I admit. I found many of those things irritating most of my life - but in my defence, I had that romanticized view even when I was living, sweating and swearing at power cuts in India. As an overall package India always felt right for me.

Until I moved to San Francisco. I moved to SF for some good reasons - like the many fabulous clubs that you can go to anytime you want :) - and the fact that they had a mayor who thought nothing of marrying men and women to other men and women - while in India they were still debating the (il)legality of being gay.

It took me less than two weeks to fall in love with San Francisco - its spirit, its values, its loony left politics, the fact that 'coming out' doesn't cause a pause in the conversation, the wonderful weather - (Hey, I actually LIKE always having to carry a jacket), the blue blue sky framing the rust red of the Golden Gate, the all-pervasive entrepreneurial spirit...San Francisco feels like home (too).

The only thing keeping me locationally monogamous right now is that Star Trek-style travel pods haven't been invented. Makes you wonder why that hasn't happened yet - if we could land a man on the moon way back in the 60s, then surely we should've been able to figure out travel pods by now.
For the record, I'm not a loony conspiracy theorist; I believe we did land on the moon - if it had really been staged on a Hollyowood set like some people think, Neil Armstrong would have looked like Tom Cruise, he'd probably have made love to a glamorous woman in space, and the picture would have been less grainy. The dialogue though would've probably been just as corny... umm inspirational... as "A small step for man, A giant leap for mankind."

However if I WERE the moon-landing-doubting-kind, I'd wonder if the Pods have actually been invented but kept hidden under pressure from those concerned (read the Family Values crowd) about not letting Big Love have its chance in the world in any shape or form. You say, well that's silly, where would they hide these travel pods anyway? --- Anyone heard of Area 51?

Unhealthy Democratization of Birthday Celebrations

Not too far back into the past, I had this conversation with a friend in the South Bay, at a mall (where else) - about whether everyone should have the right to celebrate their birthdays. Here's my thoughts on this issue.

The current democratic system of birthday celebration - where anyone who wishes to have their friends take them out for dinner gets their way - is I believe, fundamentally broken. And we all now know, how flawed democracy leads to chaos, violence and destruction...and why Staying The Course is not a good idea (well - most of us know it). So it may make sense to move to a system where celebrating birthdays is a right and a privilege restricted on the basis of how much personality the date actually has. I call it the Birthdays For All (But Only If You Really Deserve It) system. We'd probably just use the short version of the name "Birthdays For All". Experiments by the current administration have shown this works well in driving acceptance of what you're trying to do - as evidenced by the aptly named Clean Air (Ha Ha What a Quaint Concept) and No Child Left Behind(As Long As Your Parents Live in Malibu) Acts.

Let me illustrate how BFA might work. It woud be based on judging whether a date has (any) personality. Its easily done - as I show below with two examples:

For example, March 16 has oodles of personality -
1) The numbers add up to 7 universally acknowledged as a lucky number (the conspiracy theorist in me believes that this was probably a campaign thought up by casinos to get people to bet on it more often instead of diversifying their risk),
2) Its in Spring - the most beautiful time of the year with blooming flowers and fluttering butterflies to add to the festive spirit. (And before the penguins protest, let me say I know this doesn't hold for you guys, but hey I believe in localization of ideas - Nov 16 is the equivalent date for you)
3) It marks the end of a period of evil - the Ides of March that's been known throughout history for having been a time of treachery. Celebrating anything on Mar 16 is the same as celebrating the dawn of a new era of hope, goodness and holy-bookish everlasting joy

Now take another randomly selected date - Nov 22:
1) The numbers add up to 4 - which signifies nothing other than a pretty poor score on a test (and yeah before you bring up the 4.0 GPA system, do consider for a moment, that that system was probably invented by a really bad student...probably of Communism - the logic behind the GPA system SO reeks of "if you can't score a 10 get everyone to score a 4.0"
2) Its a cold dreary time of the year - marks the end of all hope - of summer - for the next several eons - grey skies, cold rain - November Rain was probably composed on nov 22!
3) I can't think of any other facet of this date's dull personality - and that in itself makes the argument abot how utterly lacking in character this date is.

I think any objective, impartial observer would agree that the first date is much more deserving of celebration than the second one...And there are several good reasons for implementing a system that identifies which dates should have birthdays celebrated and which should not - ranging from - its just good aesthetics (the most important one in my blog), to - there are no free lunches umm dinner in this case - if you cant make a good case for the personality of your dob - you shouldn't get a free dinner on that date.

None of this, of course, has anything to do with the marker - of my 1/3rd life crisis - being close at hand. I like birthdays - but as Orkut's options on pets put it - I just like them at the zoo.

A Sonnet to Sabbaticals Past

I've been battling the blues for the last few weeks - actually ever since I went back to work in the beginning of November. I can't figure out why - I mean, it can't be the fact that I'm back to working 60-70 hour weeks again, because everyone knows thats really a ton of fun, right? Right. :)

So I'm guessing its probably because I didn't have that much fun during the sabbatical - maybe sabbaticals are over-rated (Though looking at my severely depleted savings account - that caused a minor panic about my ability to pay my credit card bills at the end of Nov - I'd say they deserve to be highly 'rated')

The credit card panic was a first for me. There were other firsts during the sabbatical - and here they are penned down in a Shakespearean sonnet (as opposed to a Petrarchan or Spenserian one - amazing how a quick google search can make you sound so much more intellectual than you are).

Let the lines serve as a warning to those contemplating a sabbatical themselves - beware - in the end - you can sum up all the fun in 14 lines (or less!)

My Favorite Firsts

Cycling (13 miles!) over the Golden Gate to Sausolito
Greeting cute - and not so cute - guys at SF's coolest STD testing center with a smile
Applying - and being turned down - for a waiter's job at more than one trendy bistro
Ushering-for-a-day at the Orpheum theatre to see the Putnam County Spelling Bee: free but not exactly in style :)

Driving a convertible - over the ocean to Key West
Taking advantage of the local hospitality - read decadence
to go natural-born swimming - no jest
Notching up another nationality - the French!

I saw Mariah Carey in Oakland - marvelled at her vocal calisthenics
Hiked - 8 miles! - in Yosemite...and then lazed all next day reading the NY Times :)
Volunteered as a city guide to touring hostelites - and no, not for tricks!
Took meditation classes, apprendi Espagnol, blogged about my favorite rhymes

In the end, I ask myself, was it all worth it - if I'm back to feeling blue
Well - says my philosopher-voice - the blues will go away, the memories will stay with you

Tattoos And The Marrying Man

I think I've found a test that single-women-looking-to-get-hitched can use to find out whether a guy they're interested in is going to be able to commit to a long-term relationship. I'd include single gay men in the group that the test would be useful to - if there were any that were looking for commitment. You know I'm kidding, right. Thats only a stereotype - that only the vast majority of gay men fit :)

Anyway, the test is easy - Check to see if he has any tattoos or if he is willing to get one. I've come to believe that tattoos are a great marker for someone who's willing to commit. There are several similarities - between a man with a tattoo and man willing to marry - that I can and will now proceed to point out:

1. Both types of men need to be at least slightly masochistic :)
2. Both need to be willing to live with the same adornment for the rest of their lives (I'm only objectifying women as a man's adornment in interest of rhetoric...otherwise I have a lot of respect for them...really!)
3. Actually I can't think of a third one but one of the things you learn as a consultant is to always have three points when you start out - even if you end up with more or less that that by the end of the explanation.

One of the ways to test this theory would be to look at the British male population. From sailors to bankers to David Beckham, tons of British men from all walks of life seem to have some kinda tattoo somewhere. I'd say, based on the time I spent in London and idle extrapolation, roughly half of the British male population is tattooed. Also, I heard somewhere that Britain has something like a 50% divorce rate. Coincidence?! I think not! I think if someone took the trouble to study this, they'd find its mostly the un-tattooed men that are driving the broken-marriage rate in the UK.

I myself am sporting a black blazing sun tattoo on my left arm these days. It has a dough0nut shaped hole in the center where the core should be. The hole is centered on my small-pox vaccination scar (or maybe its the polio vaccination scar)...a remnant of times when it was considered acceptable to save lives even if it left permanent scars. Thankfully we're moving beyond that kind of thinking in today's Nip/Tuck age :) The tattoo reminds me of a song from SoundGarden called Black Hole Sun which I really like...its their only song that I know, actually.

I got the tattoo in Key West the same night that I cuddled the critter (see previous post) or befriended the boa or petted the python (alliteration is addictive!). Before you conclude that I'm now ready for a long-term monogamous relationship - I should mention that its only a temporary painless henna tattoo. Its already started fading and should be gone in a week or so. Converts to my theory by now, you sigh: if he can't commit to a tattoo - how can he commit to a relationship. In my defense, I like to believe that when I meet the right tattoo...umm, boyfriend...I will commit to it...him...whatever!