Last weekend, we navigated the steamy, hot maze of Siam and headed to Lido. This is a real cheap, grungy theater opposite Siam Center in Sukhumvit, Bangkok. The movie for a simple 100 Baht was “Once” with the astounding pair GLEN HANSARD and MARKETA IRGLOVA. The movie was “simplicity” as he put it but I was trying to eke out more words. None came. It is a touching ambling story of a Irish street rocker who meets up with an Czech immigrant musician, classically trained. The movie is truly a musical (and I thought this is what Bollywood always is) but the camera captures the twists and turns of a life of angst, dollops of fear and loss and in the end he goes away and he stays with her his. No lingering sadness but the music stays on for a long, long time in your mind particularly juxtaposed against the Dublin cityscape. For me, it brought sharp memories of a similar geography of Brooklyn, NYC and Baltimore where I spent my own years of angst on a healthy diet of Indie rock, Ron Sexsmith, k.d. lang, with Nick Cave thrown in for good measure. Now a decade later, a movie like this refracted differently within me now that I am in a steadier life stage and in an Asian mileau: it came across being a tad more alien, a little more self-conscious and perhaps suffered from the usual “darkness for darkness sake” garb that most of such films don to appeal to their target consumer, the thirty-twenty something urban single white person. Thais would probably find a movie like this quite quirky – like “Why are they so sad?” , “Don’t they have a nice family to go home to ?”and “Why are immigrants a part of mainstream Dublin?” (we keep ours in refugee camps) and “Why is this music so important?” (our music is mainly for caller tunes or forgettable soaps) and “Why can’t he just get a job?” and “Why is Dad not controlling his life?” and “Why is she not at home with the baby?” but then maybe I am biased….). But, this is carping. The music has stayed on and plays for a long, long time. Hear it at: http://www.myspace.com/theswellseason
Once- The movie
March 13, 2008 at 9:51 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Bangkok, Film, GLEN HANSARD, MARKETA IRGLOVA, music, Once, Thailand
A Poem – Agha Shahid Ali
February 7, 2008 at 11:56 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Agha Shahid Ali, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ghazal, Kashmir, poetry
Memory
(Translation of Ghazal by Faiz Ahmed Faiz)Desolation’s desert. I’m here with shadows
of your voice, your lips as mirage, now trembling. Grass and dust of distance have let this desert bloom with your roses.Near me breathes the air that’s your kiss. It smoulders,
slowly-slowly, musk of itself. And farther,
drop by drop, beyond the horizon, shines the
dew of your lit face.Memory’s placed its hand so on Time’s face, touched it
so caressingly that although it’s still our
parting’s morning, it’s as if night’s come, bringing
you to my bare arms.
Retinograph – Guitarist in Ladprao
February 4, 2008 at 11:00 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: Life, Observation, Photography, Thailand
Description of this Retinograph:
- A plain petrol station in Ladprao
- Background of a massive apartment building
- 9 AM, full sunshine hitting the petrol stattion
- Focus on: a Petrol Station worker on a break, playing guitar, sitting on a bench, one foot tapping, eyes gazing upwards. Music muted by traffic but here and there, twangs heard and enjoyed.
- Foreground: A farang , sweating, carrying Nike Golf equipment, (from a round of golf?)
Id-Entity
February 3, 2008 at 8:10 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Community, Identity, Maratha, Personal
Having reached a certain age, having surmounted certain obstacles, having seen life go by and people go by, I am now wondering finally who I am – by defining who I am not. Is this a valid approach? May be not. But with the accumulation of noise, garbage, information overload, drifting across geographies, it is not easy to sink anchor particularly if you don’t. And I don’t. Or wont. Not sure which. My ancestral DNA is irrefutable and will not go away: I am a Maratha, grew up all over India, with most of my childhood in Asia’s most backward and poverty-stricken state of Bihar (you have visit it even now to believe the deprivation), born in a middle class family of educated, cultured folks (most of them) , a military family with its own inherited stories, sorrows and silliness. I am a Hindu by birth and by childhood enforcement but went to a strictly Catholic school and seriously believed Jesus would save me. He did not. I meandered through college in Bombay, swam to USA for a good decade or more, lived more like a nomadic hipster with strong views on being global, whatever that meant. This phrase “global nomad” has interwoven itself into my psyche for a long time. A global nomad is not necessarily one who travels globally but is able to open to ideas and constructs from everywhere and is willing to forego a few of his ancestral DNA pieces in return for a new fragment. Thus, he evolves. I think he does. So, I believe I am a global nomad. I am as moved by Cesaria Evora’s morna as I am by some Bollywood. I am as willing to understand that sorrow and loss CAN be understood down to its bare , horrific bones when stripped of the veneer of community and religion. I am as willing to listen to a terrorist, whom one meets often in daily life – the kind who verbally abuse, hit back with violence through articles, emails, speech as I am by a monk lying still. Yet, none of these compelling’s or choices of living describe who I am am. Ancestral DNA is wonderfully helpful to help give you a pret-porter identity that allows you to navigate life through people and communities. But, that means surrendering your soul to a certain extent. So often, I find defining the What I am Nots – Non-Vegetarian, Non-Normal, Non-some-people, non-Hindu…It is often isolating. There are no converts. There are no shaded trees along this way of defining your identity. But, in some ways, these years, it is the only way I know. I may be wrong. And that, in itself, is also a rudder for me in later years, I hope.
Mountain or a Molehill?
January 3, 2008 at 10:06 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Chiang Mai, Mountains, Thailand, Travel
Chiang Mai is a mountain town about 12 hours drive due north of Bangkok. It is a town not much different than a hill town in many countries. I am spending New Year’s here. There are n mountains here or even hills. I was tad disappointed to know that as we drove in. After all, for me, mountains start off at 5000 feet at their lowest and then ascend vertically and one may then camp at 10000 feet. The adventurous of us have gone further up. V traveled up to 16ooo near Everest Base amp and me Dad did upto 15000 feet well onto his 70’s. This is the majesty of the Himalayas. Once you see the “big” one in anything, it is hard to accept a small one of anything. Coffee. nce you have that mind blowing Vietnamese decoction or the Seattle brown sludge. Can you ever have an American Joe? Ha No. Same for Chiang Mai. But, the town, I find, is lovely and charming. Like a cool New England college town. Understated enough with its own pull. will explore and write more
The Politics of War, or how to enter History books
January 3, 2008 at 9:50 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: South Asia, Politics, India, War, Genocide, Asia, Combodia
We have all heard about the Jewish angst and destruction during WW II. We have heard about the Armenian Genocide or the lack of it as the Turks would have it. we have all heard about the Iraq wars. We never hear about the millions more who dies in the largest migrations, killings and displacement of people in History – the Partition of the Indian sub continent. We never hear about the millions killed and “disappeared” in erstwhile Khmer Rouge, we never hear about the Sudans until too late. The Politics of war is the politics of forgetting and tolerance of intolerance. We fail every day as humans. Why?
Rumination on Buddhism
December 30, 2007 at 2:55 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Buddhism, History, India, Religion, South Asia, Theology, Vedas
Having now traveled in many of the Asian countries which have Buddhism either a state religion or as a dominant religious persuasion, the differences between the daily practices and quality of adherence is as different as light or day. I am sure there are many treatises on how and why they evolved so differently but what amazes me is that there are few questions about how they all may have deviated from the Original Buddha’s sermons. When Buddha passed away in 6th Century B.C, the first Buddhist council was held and oral history points to hectic debates on how and why the teachings should be preserved. There was a schism, with the more orthodox ones actually wanting to incorporate the very rituals and laws and dogmas and orthodoxy that The Buddha preached against. The others were more keen on the Eight Fold Path, a means to live life with beauty and peace outside of the wretched dogmatic Vedic way of life (later called Hinduism). By the 3rd Century B.C, may more kings had adopted Buddhism lending it credibility as well as much needed royal support. The King Ashoka was the well-known one and during his regime, another remarkable event occurred: The Buddhist Council which now decided that Buddhism must be a proselytizing religion for it to gain more adherents. This strategy was later actioned by royally supported missionaries traveling to Sri Lanka, South East Asia, China – all this while the Vedic religious traditions (later termed collectively as “Hinduism”) were firmly entrenched on the South Asian subcontinent! Each of the overseas geographies adapted the Buddhism to include the existing cults. For example , in Thailand, the equally fast spreading Tantric cult affected Buddhism. These cults were based on fertility, in part, and this element was beautifully incorporated into a Tantric form of Buddhism i.e Vajrasena and Lo and Behold! a female Goddess, Tara, was now beginning to get worshipped. Did Buddha ever envisage such a development?! So , what is a PURE religion and how do adherents change a religion and how do mores and social customs get incorporated? I find the religious histories of my subcontinent immensely fascinating. The religion I was born into i.e Hinduism has its roots in 1500 B.C with the Vedas being composed as an oral tradition, yet it is the only one that is NOT self-revelatory i.e no God or Saint or Holy Person established a path unlike Buddhism or Islam or Christianity. Yet the shrewd alacrity with which the priesthood allowed Hindusim to be morphed through the centuries is amazing – from phallic symbols to monotheism swinging back to Gods for every major event in life and natural occurrence to animism and later to a foreign concept – private devotion to The God – a very Islamic influence.
I am still reading on….(Francis Watson is an excellent writer on these histories) and will crystallize my thoughts on this facinating past, which is so much a part of who I am and where I came from.
The Death of a Benazir
December 28, 2007 at 2:41 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan, Politics, Religion, South Asia, Terrorism, Women
Benazir, or The Unique, Bhutto has been killed. The media (read Western media ) has managed to admirably contact every Middle Eastern Expert, every think tank, every video archive, all foot soldier journalists, every ex-terrorist, every opposition leader, every special advisor and has raised several gigantic video masterpieces celebrating this brave woman. Words like “courageous” “for the people” “hated and loved” stumble out easily.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/12/27/world/20071227BHUTTOLIFE_index.html
As a South Asian, my loss is not over life being lost, but a sense of loss over choices that Pakistan had managed to generate for a stable democracy. This has been a long time coming and despite Madam’s rather murky past and murky family background and a out and out shady hubby, I did admire her for jumping in and playing her role. And she was a woman in a sub-continent with big moustaches and bigger male egos. Otherwise, she would have a continued a life of luxury, rummy and yachting in sunny Dubai as do most regional corrupt despots. She chose not to. Now I sit and watch Mushie decide next steps. It will be fun to now watch the democracy rear its ugly-beautiful head in one of the most crucial geographies the same time it does in one of the most influential democracies, i.e US of A.
The Globalization of Festivals – specifically the tyranny of Christmas
December 26, 2007 at 3:54 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: Christmas, Holidays, Religion, Thailand
It is Christmas. I am working. I am pissed that I am working. I am more pissed that everyone is working. I am even more pissed that the entire Christmas week and New Year period are working days in Thailand. Or, maybe, I should not be so pissed. Looking at the basics, Christmas is the day the Christians say the Lord Jesus Christ was born. I know this as near 100% fact because I attended a conservative, ridiculous catholic school, the Mount Carmel School in India. Now, India is a “secular democracy”, which gives it permissions to have holidays for the birth years and deaths (imagine!) of all omnipotent Gods and Goddesses of Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism and for Islam , Ramadan and Id are celebrated and revered. Thailand , being a Buddhist nation, celebrates only the Buddha’s birth (not sure about his death – I mean, could he die?) and not to forget every birthday of every major royal figure. Jesus is a hobby for all shopping malls. The final ridiculosity , then, is that Thailand has all working Christmas and New Year weeks but the malls are dressed with top of the line Santas and Christmas trees to lure the shoppers and the suffering expatriates. Would, perhaps, the Vatican have even considered this?? This is the wonderful contradiction in the Thai and indeed, many Asian societies. Now, I am pissed because I am pissed about Christmas. I should actually ask: “Christmas, er, what is that?”.
A lifetime of being brought up a Hindu in a mixed neighborhood and strict schooling in a Catholic school has wrought irreparable damage to my mind. So, I am pissed and will stay pissed.
A Poem – C.P. Cavafy
December 16, 2007 at 9:42 pm (Uncategorized)
ITHAKA
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind- as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
