Another Day in Prien

Turned into bed late last night after the session was over. This morning after breakfast we had another short session, to integrate some of what had happened yesterday after which Kiko and Maria left for home. Maria is a musician and plays in the same band as Thomas. They will be going to Spain in a few days to play in a concert. Kiko is a photographer and a really nice person. Have tried to sell him the idea of coming to Xanadu.

A long talk with Ariela after Kiko and Maria left, about all that has happened since I arrived here with my broken foot. We are discovering what it means, to love, to accept one another, to care about each other. And it feels good to also be getting to know Thomas better. After lunch Ariela and Thomas went out to do some chores including booking a hotel room for my parents who are arriving in Prien tomorrow evening. Meanwhile tomorrow morning I have an appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon in Munich and we will know how the foot is shaping up.

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Blogging problems

I had actually written a couple of paras more than what showed in the last blog and I really dont know what haappened - they seem to have vanished into space.

Well there were some insights and some realisations, some feelings. Maybe I will write again tomorrow. Today Ariela and I are busy in a therapy session with a couple.

I hear sounds of something being fried in the kitchen. That is probably our lunch.

A New Twist

Well, life has its little surprises and this one happened on Friday night when after dinner with Sabine and her team at the pharmacy - I fell and fractured a couple of bones in my foot, just below the toes. Hmmmph. The bad thing about this is that I am now housebound for a while, that too far away from home. Sabine took me straight to the hospital where the docs had a look and put my leg in plaster (just below the knee - it's a cute blue coloured plaster!) and said I ought not to put weight on it. Things moved fast after that. I felt it was impractical for me to stay in Frankfurt because Sabine is up to her neck in work and looking after her own aged mother and so on. She is also away most of the day and being alone in a flat on the third floor without a lift, when you're not mobile is no joke.

I was getting ready to fly back home when Ariela intervened and insisted that I stay with her, that she was used to looking after invalids, that they had anyway been through a traumatic experience two years ago with Lulu (Thomas and Ariela's daughter) so that the house was well equipped for people like me and so on. She made it sound like the best deal I would ever get in life, so here I am and it is true. I couldn't have been better off than I am here, with Ariela and her family.

Although I have been given a pair of crutches I am not keen on trying them out. The left leg is too weak to withstand my entire weight and I dont want another accident. So Ariela has organised a super wheel chair with whose aid I am able to get around the house quite well. Dont know how long it will really be before I'm up and about but it might take a few weeks.

How do I feel? I guess it is very mixed. The feeling most obvious is gratitude and nothing but gratitude. To have learnt something about the nature of love and support. Gratitude to Ariela and Thomas who have made me feel so much a part of their family in the worst circumstances.

Listen guys I wrote a lot more but somehow it got wiped out so I am going to write again tomorrow - today there is little time!

Back in Frankfurt

On my last day in Berlin, Marlis and I walked down to the Ku'Damm which I discovered is not all that far away - the famous street with all the fashionable boutiques and restaurants. Marlis took me to this shop called "Lush" which she said I absolutely must visit. It is a truly intriguing experience - a shop which sells bio products like soaps, shampoos, massage oils etc. It is colourful and the air is filled with really delicious smells. The soaps have the texture and colour of huge blocks of ice cream, pink, green, yellow. Some are in the shape of blocks, others look like scoops of ice cream. Soaps from banana and pineapple and lemon (the real thing, not just artificial essence). I tried on a ginger perfume which Marlis wrinkled her nose at and which I didn't particularly like either. Unfortunately Sabine's computer here is about a thousand years old with no USB port so I can't download the pics. Too bad.

Well, now I am back in Frankfurt after a little over a year. Everything is the same only Sabine is in the midst of shifting so the flat is in a bit of a mess. (Not much more than usual - ha ha - but just a shade). Also because it was her birthday about a week back, there are all sorts of presents lying around, vases filled with flowers, bags, boxes of chocolates and sweets on every table top, birthday cards, in addition to newspapers, bills, and odd notes with telephone numbers scribbled on them.

Sabine's daughter Eva has broken up with her boyfriend Pegi and now lives on her own and seems quite happy. She and Pegi still meet occasionally for lunch or dinner. Julia is expecting a baby in the next two weeks or so, so Sabine is all set to become a grandma.

Being in Frankfurt is like coming home, maybe because I have been visiting Sabine for over 10 years and I am so familiar with this environment. We are meeting for lunch this afternoon so in a while I shall make my way to her pharmacy which is about a twenty minute walk away.

Berlin Workshop

There are about sixteen of us piled together in one large room, on mattresses and sleeping bags with two showers and one toilet between the whole lot of us. The house itself, with a nice wild looking little garden on the side, is on the outskirts of Berlin in a suburb called Frohnau. I dont know what it means to you to share a toilet and bath with fifteen others but to someone used to having her own bath and toilet and spending as much time communing with nature as she wants to, it is sheer torture. To always be on the alert for the next person who wants to use the loo or to brush his teeth or whatever. Not my idea of fun but well, it was all for a good cause.

The Berlin group was meeting for a weekend session so it was all in the name of bonding and community spirit (which seemed to be the main theme) and all these minor discomforts could be overlooked.

It's a pretty big group in Berlin, I think Marlis said there were over 50 people from Samuel's group, although about fifteen or so tend to turn up for the evening sessions which are held every Wednesday at 7.30. The scene is similar to the one in Bombay, with music and being still together and looking at areas of common interest. Except there is no official leader. And it was good to experience what it was like. Quite chaotic I must say and I realised then why it is necessary to have a person to at least convene a group like this because otherwise you spend literally hours discussing topics like how to go about meals, or whether to listen or not listen to music. On Wednesday evening for example, we spent at least an hour or more, trying to decide who would bring what to eat, and the rest of the time we spoke about why we needed to spend an hour talking about who would bring what to eat.

Well then another way to look at it is it is all part our learning process, even the chaos. There were a few people I knew, such as Barbara who had come to the Goa workshop in 2004, and Rosa who was there even earlier, and Ursula who had been there in Madikeri.

The most embarassing thing that happened was that at midnight on Saturday/Sunday, when everyone had already turned in and was fast asleep the alarm on my watch started to beep. At first I didn't even realise where it came from until I turned on my side and the beeping got louder. I managed just about to switch it off but to my horror it started to beep again at one o'clock at night and I had this vision of the watch beeping every hour and me staying awake to catch it before it went off. Obviously something had gone wrong with the alarm function and I would have been happy to throw the damn watch out of the window. I fiddled around for a while and luckily managed to de-activate the alarm after which the clock itself went wonky and it kept showing quarter past nine no matter how hard I tried to set the time.

So today I bought myself a new watch and am still busy admiring it and looking at the date and time every five minutes.

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More on Berlin

The Brandenburg Gate

The last time I was in Berlin with my friend Bibsi, around 1990 or a bit before that, the infamous wall had just been knocked down and small bits of it were being sold on Berlin's most famous street, Kürfurstendamm Str. (popularly known as the Ku'Damm) by canny entreprenuers - odd shaped pieces of stone and concrete rigged up with bits of barbed wire to lend it an appropriately sombre look. There was a lot of excitement in the air then, people either complaining about the unification and fearing the worst or bubbling with enthusiasm about starting a new life. The difference between east and west was very obvious at the time. West Berlin, like the rest of west Germany looked spanking clean, and wealthy while the east looked drab and grotty, with broken down sidewalks and grass growing between the huge cracks. Also noticeable was the absence of advertisements - of the huge hoardings otherwise looming over buildings and street corners and the traffic lights.

Today the difference is more difficult to spot. When Marlis drove me around day before yesterday I was amazed at how much has been achieved in such a short time. We started out with a look at the western part of the city with its sweeping avenues lined with chic stores and hotels. And I noticed how the eastern part of Berlin has caught up with the west in the short span of a decade or a little more than that. Today you find huge department stores selling all kinds of luxuries, sweeping apartment blocks, fancy restaurants and cafes. The works. Buildings like the Brandenburg Gate and other monuments, which earlier gave the city an oppressive air with their blackened facades have now been restored and almost sparkle with health.

All the sights were pointed out to me - Brandenburg Gate which marks the border between east and west Berlin, which was the site for all the celebrations when the wall came down; the Berlin Cathedral; the lively square at Alexander Platz, the operas and theatres, various museums, huge parks including the "Tiergarten" - an extensive park in Berlin where Marlis said the Love Parade was held. The Love Parade started off in 1989 as a political demonstration in favour of peace and international understanding in Berlin through music. Earlier it used to be held on the Ku'Damm but after 1996 was moved to the Tiergarten Park which provides lots of open space for the crowds which attend it.

It has been an easy stay here with Marlis and Michael. Every morning at about 8:30, before going to work, Michael serves me coffee in bed, a huge bowl of it topped with frothy milk. It's the first time as far as I can remember, that I've been served coffee in bed. Marlis then goes jogging and I settle down to do my yoga exercises, after which she and I retire to the kitchen for a veeery leisurely breakfast, either of Muesli and cream or bread, cheese, salami and orange juice and of course laced with choice gossip and discussion about the work we do with Samuel.

Today has been one of those rather warm sunny days so we decided to have breakfast in a nearby garden cafe. I chose a Spanish omlette which was stuffed with all kinds of vegetables and even had some chilli and Marlis went for scrambled eggs. For some reason they serve 3 eggs per portion instead of the usual 2. Had a leisurely stroll back home and now she is gone for her sewing lesson and I am relaxing here at the computer.



Love Parade 2001

Berlin

Berlin's Tagel airport is surprisingly small and homely. It takes about three minutes to walk from the aircraft to immigration and then to the baggage section from where the taxi stand is round the corner. The baggage took some time to arrive so we hung around and watched the other passengers and a couple of kids tottering around and trying to clamber on to the carousel, but their protective parents were around to prevent accidents.

We took a cab home to where Michael and Marlis live. It's a beautiful old building with large windows overlooking a tree lined avenue and the beige and white facade of a building right in front. The apartment is very homely and at the same time elegant, with parquet floors and creamy pastel pink walls in the dining room and off white walls in the drawing room.

We talked late into the night over a simple meal of bread, cheese, sausage, olives and red wine about all that had happened at the workshop. An email group is now in the making where we have been invited to write letters to each other sharing our views on our own and each other's personal development as well as where we stand together in the world. Had a really comfortable night on the sofa cum bed in the living room and this morning Marlis and I chatted till just now, when she is getting ready to leave for her English language lessons and I am working on the computer.

Greetings from Lüsslingen

Hello from the land of Samuel! Here I am at the moment with Jörg and Sabine, in Switzerland, around the corner from the farmhouse where the workshops take place. Today is our last day and it has been a very thought provoking journey with 70 others. The main theme has been to form a kind of global network for the kind of work we are doing. I spoke about Xanadu and our group in India generally and that we were looking forward to participation from others in the "Masters Group".

In a few minutes I'm going for breakfast after which we set off for the session which begins early today. So bye for now. More from Berlin where I'm headed this evening, with Marlis and Michael.

Of Children and Grandmothers

Feli (Felix) - Ariela's son is at his frenzied, active best at the moment. Dashing from room to room waving a silver coloured cardboard sword, driving around in his silver coloured auto, being a knight, a racing car driver, and aeroplane in one. And meanwhile some guests are having tea in the kitchen with Ariela and Thomas. The guy is an actor who features in TV films and serials and his wife apparently used to know Thomas in the old days.

They walked in about half an hour back and we introduced ourselves. "Uma" sounds like "Oma" which in German means grandmother. The actor's wife looked very puzzled when I mentioned my name and asked if I was Thomas's mother. Ha ha ha ha ha. If I didn't have a sense of humour I would have tripped her up when she was going down the stairs. Thomas is only one year younger than me and anyway he looks clearly European and I am normally not taken for anything other than Indian. When I clarified the mistake she laughed and said she had been a bit bewildered and had not known what to make of me when I said I was the "grandmother." Looks like I am stuck with this label in this life.

About the Workshop

25th August happened to be my birthday and at the end of the day I was able to tell Ariela and the rest of the group quite sincerely that it was one of the best I ever celebrated. It was the day of our workshop session. It went off really well and there was a lot of closeness between us, much warmth, which came out of the free space we managed to create between us for dialogue - about feelings and fixed patterns and how to be more in contact with each other.

The theme which Ariela had chosen was "Finding one's place" on earth. In a way similar to Samuel's theme of coming home. Looking at it we found that it also has a lot to do with living in the moment, because to find one's place doesn't mean snuggling into a little box or pigeon hole and remaining there for life. It also means doing the thing that is right for you, every moment.

I think that among the people who changed or benefitted the most, was a woman from Munich called Rumirah. At some point one of the other participants (Petra) asked her what her name meant. It turned out that it didn't mean anything and that it was a concocted name which just made her feel good. The name which her parents had given her was apparently "Ruth" which she hated, because it reminded her of her "peasant" origins which she wanted to deny. Well in the course of the evening it turned out that the name "Rumirah" was a shade too fanciful and that Rumirah herself had realised the need to live more simply, to be more accepting, to refrain from always wanting to be in the limelight - which she tended to do and which purpose the concocted name served, in a way. Towards the end of the workshop Rumirah decided to experiment with going back to her old name Ruth (which all of us frankly preferred to the new name) and so we started to call her that straight away.

Well generally things are fine in Prien. Yesterday Ariela and I dropped off Lulu (Ariela' s daughter) at the farm where she is going to be spending a week and then stopped off at a Greek restaurant for an early dinner. We were joined by Andrea and Petra who lived close by and who had also attended the workshop. (I guess some of you remember those two - they had come to Goa a couple of years back).

That's it for today. Hope to provide more news in a day or two.

Safe Landing!

When we landed in Paris I realised how tired I was. Tired, not so much from the journey which was quite uneventful but more from the tension and uncertainty of not knowing what one is allowed and not allowed to take on board, and imagining the worst - about the hours to be spent standing in a queue while the security goes through every last bit of your personal effects and asks probing questions and makes you hang around for hours and hours. Nothing like that happened. My mother and I were whizzed through security. We didn't even have to remove our shoes like the others. We obviously came across as the very honest and simple people we are. Har har har.

On board the flight to my surprise they not only served wine but I didnt have to pay for it. (Delta normally slaps on a 5 dollar charge on each small bottle of wine or beer). By and large the atmosphere seemed friendlier than usual and fellow passenges actually smiled at us. We would mostly flash what I call a "sympathy smile" at each other. Being in the same boat, battling this cruel world kind of expression. Though there were the usual suspicious looking types lurking around and I'm sorry to say they were mostly bearded. I dont want to sound prejudiced but the bearded types also looked rather shifty eyed. One of them was just before me in the line for the loo, and he took soooo long, I could almost visualise him sitting there mixing some deadly cocktail together which would catapult us straight to heaven. When he came out I discovered to my great surprise that he had left the lavatory spotless. Even the wash basin was dry and clean. My initial feeling of pleasant surprise gave way to the near certainty that that bearish looking fellow with a fifteen day growth had been up to some unmentionable activities considering he didn't seem to have even used the toilet!! Well, anyway when the plane came to a smooth halt at CDG airport (Charles de Gaulle) I had to dispense with my paranoid fears and concede the unlikely. That I had unfairly judged the uncouth looking fellow before me in the toilet queue. He had been more civilised than most.

Paris was great. Being with Shasha and Suhail, and sometimes wandering around the neighbourhood, which is not like the posh, central part of the city but very homely, with lots of bars and restaurants, Turkish, Lebanese, Vietnamese, along the streets. We stuck to the neighbourhood this time, since all of us generally felt we had done enough sight seeing for a lifetime and we just wanted to relax. Which we managed to do quite effectively. Besides chatting from morning to night.

This morning we parted ways. My parents flew to the US and I took the plane to Munich from where Ariela's husband Thomas picked me up. I have discovered that the cheap flights here are very good. The staff is very helpful, the flight was great. They even served us tea/coffee/biscuits/soft drinks, which I had not expected considering how little I had paid for the ticket. And it is actually getting to be cheaper to fly than to travel by train, which is crazy.

So now I am in Prien getting ready for a workshop which Ariela and I will conduct later this week. The weather is cold and wet for August. Most often this is a hot month with lots of sushine but in the past few days we have seen more clouds than sun. Will get back again soon.

Onward Bound!

Every time I prepare to go off on a longish jaunt I have these tender visions of keeping the last few hours before departure, the last few moments before venturing out into the big bad world, to reminisce about my life and the people in it, and saying goodbye to friends and getting sentimental and making the kind of future plans one is never sure of working out. And then invariably, those last days and hours are spent, not in serenely contemplating the journey ahead or what has gone before, but simply in turning the house upside down, looking for something or other which I desperately need to take with me. Eg an air pillow for the long flight; a light weight shopping bag for groceries; knick knacks I bought for some kids the previous year which I suddenly remember that I should take along at least this time. And then “Where did I keep that damned travelling hairbrush?! What about batteries for my alarm clock? Why has it conked out now? Those batteries are hardly a year old!”

Then there’s stuff to be collected, which I ought to have done ages back but forgot due to the pressures of everyday life, eg. a table lamp which stopped working three weeks after I’d bought it. Of course, now with all the last minute chaos caused by the latest terrorist plot to kill the world, I have been largely occupied with questions like, how will I be able to clean my hands on the aircraft without soap? Will they allow me to carry a pen drive or is that also considered a potential ingredient in the manufacture of explosives? How about ordinary ball point pens? Heck, those terrorists are anyway so smart, some day they will figure out how to make bombs out of spit and other body fluids, so that for each passenger the airlines will have to employ a guard and you’ve just got to hope that the guard is not himself/herself on the payroll of the terrorist faction.

So I leave you for a while with these cheerful thoughts, to join Suhail and Shasha in Paris for a couple of days, who have promised to greet us with the usual assortment of wine and cheese and good things of life. (I feel guilty even thinking about it now, in view of the “serious predicament” the world is in.) Hope to keep this blog and Basicindia going during the journey but in case of long gaps, you will know that I didn’t have access to the net.

The Day of The Mosquito

Our lives are being taken over. First the bomb blasts, then raging floods in the state and as if that weren’t enough we are now being invaded by squadrons of mosquitoes! From zero or close to zero count in the last months, the mosquito count in our flat as shot up to several hundreds. They are everywhere, shoving their evil little faces into your skin and sucking your blood like the parasites they are. And whining while they’re about it. Hell. You can’ even sit peacefully in the bathroom any more and commune with nature – unless you consider mosquitoes also a part of nature. (Though not quite the part you would choose to communicate with, I’m sure).

If biting was the only thing that mossies did, well I would accept it with grace. But on top of biting you and leaving you scratching yourself in the most undignified manner they pass on deadly diseases like encephalitis and malaria, which more than a couple of friends have been recently struck with. The latest victim has been my friend Mandira’s sister, Rotna whose new pet Beagle puppy I believe is looking after her and nursing her back to good cheer if not good health.

I don’t know of any truly effective means to keep these damn pests away. Smoke, mosquito repellent – we’ve tried it all but their effectiveness is limited. Maybe someone has a special mosquito mantra that will help to drive away those little whiners? If so please share your gyan.

The joys of mud:
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How To Create A Sensation

Unhappy Psychiatrist (or psychologist?) gesticulating her indignation at the Art Gallery


“Tits, Clits and Elephant Dicks” was the title of this art show presented recently at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Bombay, by artists Vaishali Narkar and Sanjeev Khandekar. I have to say that the subject didn’t interest me enough to actually make the effort to go and take a look but I did read some reviews of it – both good and bad. Even the reviews were not nearly half as interesting, though, as the reaction to the show by a local psychiatrist in her late forties, who goes by the name of Pushp Vhijula. In the photograph I saw of her, she was angrily waving her arms while presumably talking to the press. In one newspaper report she was introduced as a psychiatrist but in the next one, in the same newspaper, she was said to be a psychologist. To Indians it is all the same I suppose. Psychologist, psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist. All of them are considered “psychos”.

This woman at any rate, was so incensed by what she saw that she actually lodged a complaint against the show at the Colaba police station. The police instantly swooped down on the gallery and ordered the artists to COVER THE PAINTINGS. In spite of their protests and other artists protesting I gather they had to follow orders and maybe it got them even more publicity than they would normally have got because in a newspaper photograph I saw a visitor, a woman that too, lifting the veil of a painting to peer at its unholy contents.

Meanwhile dear old Pushp V. frothing at the mouth, revealed in an interview how, back in school they were rapped on the knuckles for even using slang. She was too shocked and embarrassed by the paintings at Jehangir to even mention the name of the show.

I dread to think of what kind of psychiatrist or psychologist Ms. V must make. Or to think what she must be doing to her clients. Does she forbid them from using any words during the sessions, which are even vaguely related to this unmentionable act which is mostly at the source of life?

I always had a suspicion that a good number of professionals in the field of mental health were themselves basket cases. This incident at the Jehangir Gallery kind of proves it. Unless of course - god forbid - the artists actually employed the woman as some kind of publicity agent to organise the kind of press coverage for them which they ended up getting!!!

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Shopping Spree

Once every few weeks or couple of months the gals and I go shopping. The gals are mainly Saru and Parvati (Paru) who look after the house and Asha who is our Wonder Cook. This time Saru, Asha and I went off to Dadar at Asha’s suggestion. One of the busiest shopping centres in town. These days, I was told, the crowd has eased off, the pavement hawkers have been shunted off elsewhere so that one can actually walk on the pavements. But it is still pretty crowded and the wealth of shops standing cheek by jowl are apt to stun you so you don’t quite know what to buy or what to even look at.

There are shops selling children’s clothes, towels, underwear, ladies garments, gents’ suits, plastic ware, fruit and vegetable sellers and all kinds of stuff. I was looking for some lightweight and handy presents to take with me on my trip to Europe and Asha was looking for a baba suit for her grandson which she finally found after two hours of traipsing around. I zeroed in on a bagful of very colourful scarves which I felt very tempted to keep myself. In fact I often end up keeping presents I have bought for other people - which intrigues Asha no end. When she helps me to clean out my cupboard for example, she will turn a brown paper bag upside down and out pop a whole lot of little brass figurines or carved wooden pocket mirrors or handbags and she says “But I thought you bought these to give away when you went to Germany last year!” So I look at her foolishly and say that I am planning to take them this year and she catches me out with, “But then why did you shop for those scarves this year if you had all this stuff left over?!”

Saru was very amused at the way Asha made me trudge around the place, manoeuvre broken down pavements and hop over ditches and muddy spots. At the end of it all when we were ready to go home the gals went and bought some samosas for tea and decided that for once I deserved to go home and put my feet up and enjoy my evening tea.

July 30th

Goodies for the deceasedSunday 30th was the anniversary of my grandmother Nalinima's death. Actually we had quite forgotten but Tukaram and Parvati reminded us about it and said they would like to observe it with a puja. We just needed to be there for the ritual lunch. On this day, the dead person's favourite foods are prepared and put on a thali which is then laid out in the garden as an offering for the crows.

There is a small ritual where each of us is expected to show respect to the departed one by sprinkling a little of the red kumkum and some other powders, uncooked rice and water onto the plate before it is kept out. So we did all that and settled down to eat. The lunch was delicious - Nalinima's favourite dishes. There was a dal, some plain dosas with kofta curry, "patrado" which is made out of the leaf of the banana plant, sweet kheer. Quite a spread.



Saru, Parvati and Tukaram

Back again!

Oh it feels goooood to be able to connect once again with the world - to be able to say what one wants to, to be able to access one's own and other people's blogs. It's like being able to breathe again. Hallo Hallo Hallo!

I am now set up in the study in my grandmother's flat. Earlier this used to be a bedroom but now it has become the computer and TV room. Parvati and Saru who work here are fascinated by what I do and spend hours standing behind me, watching me key in data or fool around with the mouse. It is really testing my patience but I decided to keep quiet and to be good about it. At some point I presume they will tire of gaping at me open mouthed and retire to their own stuff.

The room overlooks the main road and is raaather noisy. Cars and taxis honking furiously as they speed down the road. I am much more in touch with "the spirit of Mumbai" here than I was back home, where we were sheltered from the outside road, cocooned as we were by the sea.

Weird stuff

The blogs are still down but this morning I read about a site, in the Indian Express, which helps you to access blogs which are blocked. This is http://www.pkblogs.com/

I tried it just now and was able to access the laidbackrebel blog (hosted by blogspot) but not basicindia as yet. I’m still reeling from what the government has done to us. The way it has arbitrarily snatched away the basic right to express oneself. It’s a little bit like making sure that the pen with which you write doesn’t contain any ink or that the paper on which you’re writing fails to show up words. I guess our leaders must feel they are mature enough to decide what is good for us and what should or should not be spoken about, even as they shout each other down, plot each other's downfall, throw chappals, tomatoes and rotten eggs at each other in the assembly.

Such weird things have been happening in the past couple of weeks. First the downpour which paralysed transport in certain parts of the city, then the bomb blasts which paralysed our nerves, now our blog sites being blacked out and made inaccessible. According to Mandira who is staying at the “other apartment” at the moment (my grandmother’s which I am doing up) all this has to do with my placing the beds wrong. I have rearranged the beds in a north south direction which M claims is disastrous in every way – disastrous for my body, for my soul and probably for the country as well.

Actually it is the government that should be calling in the Feng Shui experts to place cupboards and tables and filing cabinets and tea pots in the right place so that the country can get back on track.

Modern madness

Enough has been said about the bomb blasts last Tuesday so I don’t want to add to the platitudes with which we have already been flooded. About the “spirit” of Mumbai and how “we will win the war against terrorism” among other things. What is now apparent at least to me is a sort of delayed reaction to the violence. A spirit of despondence. A pall of gloom along with a desperate attempt not to acknowledge it. A denial of any sense of tragedy. This is what is really behind the so-called spirit of the city, isn’t it? True, in the moment of need hundreds responded with gallantry and genuine kindness as they have so often done in the past. Vendours close to the site of the blasts, handed out free cups of tea to the people who had come to search for missing friends and relatives, chemists doled out medicines free of cost, incurring a loss of thousands of rupees. My friend Suresh who lives in Bhayander together with his friends, redirected passengers looking for a way around the mounds of debris on the platforms.

Crises always summons up a fighting spirit but as soon as the moment of crisis itself has passed, the aggression returns, our lives are once again jammed with frenzied comings and goings behind which you sense a fierce resistance to any sort of looking inward, a search for a new lifestyle. Fear of facing the isolation and sense of alienation of which terror and violence is an outcome.

The city is too full of noise. Our heads are filled with noise. Most people here can’t be still for a single minute. The air is filled with tension, a neurotic effort to evade reality. In view of the situation the theme of our last workshop seems to have been just the right one. Strangely we had fixed it weeks before the blasts occurred. Conflict. For more, go on to the basicindia site:

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India - Global Superpower?

“Unfortunately the harsh reality is that if India succeeds in establishing a just and fair society, it can definitely kiss all its dreams of becoming a global economic superpower goodbye.”

The statement above does not reflect my own thinking. I am not making it up either. I actually read it in the Times a few days ago in the Letters to the Editor section.

This was the response of one Diana Pinto, to an article by Swaminathan Aiyar Anklesaria, a commentator on the economic scene in India. In his article, Swaminathan Aiyar put forward the view that unless India first did something to iron out the economic inequalities and establish a higher standard of living all round, we would not get ahead as a nation.

So as you can see, it is possible to look at the whole business of equality and exploitation from quite another perspective as Ms. Pinto (whoever she is) shows us. If we want to become a global superpower we have to overlook the fact that three quarters of India’s population is still scrabbling for two square meals a day, that millions of people are grossly underfed if not actually starving, that millions more are suffering from diseases caused by malnutrition and so on.

Among the views that this reader puts forward is that all super economies are based on the exploitation of the majority and that suffering is good for the soul and encourages people to strive harder. Hmmm. That’s food for thought, no? If we want to be a superpower – and Ms Pinto seems to be all for it – we will have to just overlook thousands of farmers who have committed suicide on account of their failed crops, overlook the gross injustice we see all round us, forget about fair wages and just about everything else that distinguishes a civilised nation from the barbarians.

Even as I’ve been writing this a super idea has infiltrated my brain. If we are talking of destroying individuals and human values to become a global superpower, which is what many businessmen and politicians apparently want – something that will make them feel PROUD to be Indian - maybe we should get someone to help us with a job which our own politicians have started on and so far carried quite successfully – though what they lack it sometimes appears, is brute strength, stamina and the final bit of stupidity needed for the job. Which is why I am thinking maybe they should call on Dubbya some time at the White House and ask him for a helping hand. Having accomplished so much in the department of destruction and injustice in the attempt to retain America's superpower status, he wont mind sharing some useful tips.

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