Mysterious Ways

Addis Ababa 

Here in an airport lounge, stuck after missing a connecting flight, I ponder the wonder and grandeur of it all.  The hurt and the heartbreak, the love and the love lost.  Nothing challenges me deeper to my core than traveling. 

You really get to confront all your demons, in a strange land.

"Oh holy holy holy.  All land on this Earth, sacred, all men, my brothers."  

With this prayer I enter the great mother continent, again.  Africa, deep into your heart I go.    

India my love, my first true love, I've left you behind for now, though these past nine months have given me a sense that you are never far; always close to my heart, right from the start.  

The love India has given me, the strength to make it anywhere, knowing I have in her, home.  

Home is where the heart and hurt are.  

I left India again to the fireworks of a wonderful party, with my dearest friends, amidst such positive energy.  A strange sort of tradition of mine, parting with a party.  In the past it was with family, and now, it is with friends and loved ones.  How times change.  I party it up while next door my cousins sleep, and I leave without saying goodbye.   

I wonder if it hurts them as much as it does, me.  After all, I was the one descending into wonderland every couple of years on vacation, toting gifts to buy their love and affection, to assuage the inevitable jealousy and frustrations that defined their lives.

And now India is my motherland; spiritual home; my Israel.  And for them it's just a corrupt, backwards and cut throat jungle.  They lack perspective because they've never traveled.  They don't realize how special it is as a result, caught in routine and mundane habits.  Kind of how I felt about New York until I went to University, and then I understood.  Education, from books or experience, gives you that perspective to understand your life - what they lack - and what kills them slowly.  

My poor Indian family, and they have money!       

In India my creator, my soul, the divine energy, I felt it flow through my core, aware of the blessings and joy of following the path of love and spiritual rejuvenation.  This is my life, how I've decided to live it and what I work for.  India saved me, again.  Though it is never easy.  It always make me suffer and brings me to the edge of what looks and feels like the abyss.  I stare out into that unknown, unsure and apprehensivve, humbled and destroyed; my arrogance checked, my ego vanquished.  And each time I feel tested by Mother India.  Do I trust and believe and transmit the smiles and good feelings, or do I allow the negativity to engulf me?  And that is what India is about, about making the right choice, amidst the chaos, about believing in humanity and the struggle.

There is much that is wrong in India; where does one even begin?

But the vibrancy and the colors truly open up a man's heart to the possibility of what it means to be human.  

Behaviorists, believing in the sanctity of experience/environment as the defining influence on humans, need to come to India.  For if experience was paramount, nobody would ever smile in India,and the place would wipe away any humanity that has to suffer such indignities and cruelties.  But not only does humanity endure in India, it bursts forth in unexpected ways.  There is something that refuses to give in to circumstances, almost perverse in its tenacity.  That is India for me.  And for all her lovers.  She moves in mysterious ways. 

Journals - India, Africa

"They remain slaves because they can't see what is beautiful in this world."

"Any talented decadent can make unreality believable.  To make reality convincing is another matter, a matter for only the greatest masters."

New Delhi, India

December 30, 2008

I am here to prove all those fearful and cowardly people wrong.  Those who doubt, who feel that life happens to them, rather than make life, happen.  

We are here for one reason only:  To choose love and the righteous path in the face of everything and everyone that tells us to act otherwise.  As spiritual love warriors, we have to accept being burned, we need to revel in the risk and insecurity, because the safe way, is death.  

If we choose life, then be prepared for a wild ride, with courage.  Determination.  Perseverance.  Hard work.  Embrace the struggle, and all things will come.      

On a train to Jaipur

January 23, 2009

Travel, like the cinema, is a grand party in this country.  Everybody happy, joyously sharing what little they have, together.  Extraordinary manners for such uncivilized people.  

Traveling in India tempers my cruelty, makes me realize the wonder and magic of this place.  My frustrations and disappointments dissipate in movement.  

Ajmer, Rajastan

January 26, 2009

On the way to the most holiest of shrines, my woman, sitting next to me on the bicycle rickshaw, begins to weep.  The rickshawallah looks back at me, and I just shrugged my shoulders.  

It is a powerful place.

I got off and left her outside, indifferent to her, unable to care.  I was on a mission; to make it to the center of the shrine, give an offering and make a wish.  

Quite suddenly I was approached by a well dressed and handsome Muslim.  I was immediately impressed.  He was a kind of 5 star guide/fakir.  I told him I had a 100 rupees and a wish.  But he looked through me, told me not to worry.  

I waited on no lines and while masses of people packed themselves in, waiting, I was praying with the head priest.  And then afterwards, I was let into the center, thrown in.  This I had to do alone.  It was a bejeweled room, filled with chaos and madness.  Screaming and crying.  And all I could do was smile.  I'd never felt more at peace.  

Money, money, everybody wanted your money.  The inner priests, everybody wanted to bless you, I took what little more I had and gave it to whoever wanted to bless me.  

There was a child inside, being held, his nose began to bleed, and the blood went everywhere.  And it left my heart so tender.  And before I knew it I was thrust back out into the sun.  What a profound, beautiful place.  

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

February 7, 2009

I've come here, passing through, on work, to see a doctor friend of mine from ten years ago who I met in New York.  I met him when I was still on the medical school path and right before I was to go to Namibia, with a grant from UNICEF.  I was 22 and wanted to change the world.  And now I am older and, well, I still want to change the world.  Though I wouldn't put it quite in the same way.  Not change it, more, change myself, work to make myself strong and true, to fight the good fight.  It exists, but in oh so subtle forms I have realized over these years.   

My doctor friend went on a Fulbright 20 years ago and never looked back; adopting children, settling down, saving and bettering lives.  He was an automatic hero in my eyes back then; I was fascinated and in awe.  

But now I was indifferent and didn't want to spend too much time around the horrifically deformed and sick people in his midst.  I admired his courage, patience and honesty - he was a New York Jew who made no airs of sainthood.  But everything else about him left me cold and perplexed.  Everything about him was a mess.  If he wasn't a famous doctor, one would think he was a mental patient who lacked female companionship.  His house was a mess; his car filled with garbage; his nails uncut and dirty.  He was absent-minded as one could understand, but something just wasn't right.  His loneliness and having given up to do anything about it, distracted me from his nobility.  

But it went beyond aesthetic, there was something inhuman in the way he went about his work.  It was as if there was nothing else in the world he could do without completely falling apart.  All I could think about was how much love he needed.  And why it was that he was alone with all these kids in his house, and what was it that prevented him from opening up and sharing his beautiful life instead of being lonely through altruism.  

But he has found his niche, but somehow it felt like he was pouring water into the ocean.  The essence, left untouched.  That it was also more about him than anything else.  

I left, after only some hours with some patients, and didn't want my entire time to be in a clinic, warping my perspective of Ethiopia in the process.  Kind of like all those people who go to Calcutta to Mother Theresa's and leave without realizing the majesty of the Bengali Renaissance.  I knew there was more to this place than sick people and I went in search of it.  

I started wandering the city, an ugly city, a modern unplanned nightmare.  Dead, poor and stagnant, though full of people so beautiful, and a sense of some past greatness.  Christianity is also a profound undertaking in Ethiopia.  As well as coffee and food.  A refinement and confidence not felt in other parts of Africa I have been to.  

I ended up focusing in the hedonism; sex and cigarettes, great conversations and a whirlwind of movement so grand, that I will never forget.  

Passion versus Clockwork - Nadal versus Federer

My everyday existence is punctuated by the pleasures of a historic rivalry; passion versus clockwork; Nadal versus Federer.  Like all great things, there is more to it than meets the eye.  This is tennis as transcendence; a battle between two different ways of being.  

How does one succeed?  By controlling passions, or letting them take hold of you, drive you, to victory?  The iron dicipline, the unorthodox spontaneity, who are you, and how will you go about fighting the good fight?  One must decide, which side they are on.   

Nadal, so spring-like and ebullient, young and strong, energetic and fashionable.  He makes the heart soar.  Federer, the precision and perfection, the smooth workings of a master of his craft.  

The duality of the universe exposes itself upon a tennis court.

Clockwork fails.  Cannot compute or understand the energy.  Tears of frustration.  Clockwork must be unemotional to survive - and win.  Sometimes winning is not enough.  At times a loss opens us deeper into the unknown; inside ourselves.  

"There is no success like failure, and failures no success at all."  

Clockwork will make a comeback.  Passion will burnout.  The world will re-generate and we all watch in awe because we don't know who to root for, anymore.  

The Politics of Dignity

Of the many perplexing elements that make up India's political landscape, the abnormally high rates of voting amongst the poor, is most peculiar.  Everywhere else in the world the trend is reversed; the rich outvote the poor and have a greater stake in politics.  But not in India.  The poor mobilize, wait in long lines, undertaking significant costs to themselves, gaining very little in return.  

Government spending on social services in poor districts hasn't improved despite higher representations of lower-caste and historically marginalized groups in politics.  The system co-opts these low-caste elites who obsess over further reservations; engaging in unapologetic patronage politics, instead of policies that bring about meaningful social change.      

Why do the poor put up with it?  What makes them, election after election, vote, and still see no material improvement in their condition?  In a word:  Dignity.  In a country where for thousands of years, the lowest of the low, dare not cast even a shadow on their upper caste brethren, being a part of the political process - courted by all castes and classes - is empowering.  The psychological impact of seeing your caste represented within the higher echelons of power cannot be underestimated; explaining the enthusiasm India's poor have with politics.    

But how long will this all last before the poor desire tangible results?  It's doubtful if politics, in India, can ever be the means for social change.  It's been good for stability; better to have the poor vote and engage in politics, rather than riot.  Caste reservations are also a cost-effective strategy; it costs less than spending on education and health and is a significant reason why the poor are still poor, even though India is booming.   

  

Lower caste mobilization also takes place within the context of an upper class/elite exodus from politics, in stark contrast to India at its inception in 1947.  The founding fathers, Nehru, Gandhi, and a host of others, all came from elite backgrounds; hyper cultured and educated aristocrats.  They inspired a whole generation of middle classes.  The current elite. rather than mobilize, demand better governance, and take active roles in politics, choose instead, to buy their way out.  Gated communities are on the rise;  private school fees are exorbitant; private health care grows all at the expense of public goods.  Those are left to the poor and the poor vote for whomever gives them dignity.    

India turn the prevailing political science theory, that higher incomes leads to a demand for better governance, on its head.

After Mumbai, in November, there was a sense this might change.  There was talk of a party for professionals; the middle classes.  But this momentum has subsided; politics is still mostly a poor person's game.  But issues of governance and security, which effect rich and poor alike, makes many re-think this exclusionist tendency - especially in a democracy.  

In a country of 40% illiteracy, empowered ignorant masses, leads to mob rule.  And this is what India suffers from.  Parliament is a chappal throwing, paan spitting, buffoonery.  There are a handful of cultured and educated politicians.  Everyone else is in it for the money.  Even Maywati, the lower caste Queen, par excellance, has seen her personal fortune multiply 300 percent since being elected.         

All trends on the horizon point to further mobilization of the poor, ignorant, historically oppressed masses and the continued voluntary exclusion of the educated elite.  I can't think of anything more alarming.  An example that serves as a direct contrast is the United States, which always has had it's best and brightest engaged in politics.  Obama is a by-product of this trend, and if you go to any top American University, the idealist and politically ambitious always abound.  

Indians don't like being compared to America.  It's not fair they say.  India is poor, and has too many people and problems.  I agree that the comparison is not always fair.  

How about Egypt then?  There was no place more happening, liberal, enlightened in the Middle East after its independence.  In 1947 Egypt published over 3000 new books.  In 2007, 300.  (Painfully, a small country like Israel publishes 3000 now, explaining it's rise and it's Middle East neighbors demise).  And let's not even get into the high-quality films, and journalism, and women's groups and over-all air of liberty in Egypt at the time.  All lost, mostly during the Sadat years, when the liberal and secular middle classes disengaged from politics, leaving a vacuum filled by religious fundamentalism.  The reasons for middle class disengagement in India may be different, but modernity, in both case, led to apathy.  Egypt is a disaster now, and India may well be - if it doesn't take these political trends seriously.

New York Was So Much Older Then

By Kevin Baker

How the places Barack Obama has lived might have helped mold the man who will be the next president of the United States.

I CAME to New York, and to Columbia University, just a few years before Barack Obama arrived in 1981. Like him I was a poor boy, eager to get to the city and start my life as an adult.

It was a dirtier city then, more violent, more interesting — more accessible to poor, eager young people. We lived four and five to a railroad apartment, the bathtub in the kitchen in some places, the floors lined with clumpy chalk lines of boric acid that were our useless defense against the cockroaches.

We feasted on $4 platters of Indian food in restaurants on Sixth Street where you could bring your own wine. We went everywhere by subway, riding in gray, graffiti-covered cars where half the doors didn't open and a single, sluggish fan shoved the air about on summer nights. We took a cab sometimes, when there were five of us and we could get a Checker, one person riding on the jump seat, staring out at the long avenues of the city.

We lived dangerously, I suppose. Everyone's apartment was broken into. We were told that if we got out of the subway at East 116th Street to never, ever try to walk through Morningside Park back to Columbia. Women would go out to lunch and come back to the office to find their wallets somehow missing from the pocketbooks they had held tightly between their knees throughout the meal.

Late one night, leaving a party on the Lower East Side, we saw a hulking, derelict figure emerge from under a stairwell, ready to do mayhem. When he saw how many we were he frowned and retreated beneath the stairs without saying a word, waiting for the next victim.

It was a gray city, a weary one, an older one. There were, in those days, pornographic theaters in good neighborhoods; Bowery-style wino bars with sawdust on the floor on Upper Broadway; prostitutes along West End Avenue slipping into cars with New Jersey license plates. It was a city, too, that seemed to open up into an infinite series of magic boxes, of novelty shops and diners, delicatessens and corner bakeries, used record stores and bookstores.

Like Barack Obama we read everything we could get our hands on. It was a movie-mad town then, and we lined up for hours in the cold on the East Side to see the latest Fassbinder or Fellini, the new Woody Allen. We nailed long, flapping schedules of all the revival houses to our walls, from the Thalia and the New Yorker, Theater 80 St. Marks and the Bleecker Street Cinemas. I saw my first Broadway show, "Equus," for $3, and sat on stage.

We danced all night at Danceteria, and ate breakfast served by the transvestite waiters. I fell in love with an artist who lived at the Salvation Army's Evangeline residence for women, and we walked the slate-blue paving stones around Gramercy Park for hours, talking about art. Everything seemed like a revelation, right from the first day at Columbia, when my art humanities professor took us to St. John the Divine and explained what a Gothic cathedral was.

I'd like to think that New York taught Barack Obama how indomitable people can be, even in a city that has been written off, consigned to a dozen cinematic apocalypses. It was a poorer town then, a harder one, but still a place of vaulting ambition, of indelible beauty. We thought we could do anything. We felt such pride to be there.

Goodbye 2008

The year ends, and I am here, in India, in awe of the time passing and my life moving in so many different directions.  I usually try and write about something serious and avoid all reality TV fueled excesses about the details of my life and emotions.  But I am human, this blog is more than just an intellectually driven machine, pumping out film reviews and political analysis, it's got soul, dear reader and a heart of gold.  

The backdrop to everything right now is India.  This grand and tragic place, so thoroughly embedded in the collective imagination.  This new year will be even more India- focused.  

I've also gotten very good responses to the film reviews, more will follow.  

Just to spice things up, I will add a bit more from my personal journal, for which there were some requests.  

Keep reading, and thinking and acting.  Something tells me, that 2009, is the year, that small window of opportunity that comes only so often, to change the world, for the better.  It will be a year of great changes.    

Here is to a new year, together, in Gabo World.  2009 got a nice ring to it.  I can already feels its magic and transformative power.  I wish you call courage and strength and love.  Thank you for your support, it means a lot to me, more than you'll ever know.  

Gabo

A Dialogue on School

I wrote this to X in response to his dismay to his graduate level program in the UK.  I don't know if it will have the impact I want.  His other influences are too backward.  And India, northern India especially, is hard on anyone who wants to study.  It's short term versus long term thinking, the latter predominant mentality, is changing ever so slowly.    It is a very, very anti-intellectual society to the shock of any American, I am sure, who associates Indians with education.  The survival mentality breeds a hyper utilitarianism Bentham would envy.  It's sick.  "Be practical, be practical", I never want to here that word again, Practical, what does it mean?  To have no vision, be a follower and stagnate?  And if I bring this up, at once, in unison, all Indians say:  Because you are an American you can think this way.  Yes, I am, but there is a reason Americans rule the world and its imagination.  We are much more than our wealth and arms.  American didn't become rich and then choose to have wonderful, liberal, humanistic ideals, on the contrary,  it's BECAUSE of those ideals, that we rule and are powerful and will continue to be so despite all the doomsayers.        

I can understand why X feels the way he does.  All those who currently rule and change and transform india, did not spend their free time learning Latin and Ancient Greek, or reading philosophy or history.  They were technically oriented.  Where we come from, is different.  Our highest echelons of power are dominated by people who seriously study liberal arts.  Even our medical entrance exams, the MCAT, a third of it is just reading comprehension.  It is a very different approach, with very different incentives.  But for India to change, and to change fundamentally, it will need to embrace all fields of knowledge and intellectual curiosity. And forget personal gain, for a second.  For a person to have a meaningful and deep life, true education and knowledge, allows you to make sense of your failures.  It brings a narrative to your life and a way to view the world, that nothing else can provide.  Also, in a consumer society, it refines your consumption, curtails it, and makes you weary of what you are force fed.  That is why I am so adamant about studies and education, especially in a democracy.  Ignorant people anywhere are a tragedy, but empowered ignorant people; nothing is more dangerous.     

MY INITIAL LETTER

I have been thinking, very deeply, about your adverse feelings towards your Masters program at your university.  I agree, that many theories, and what is taught, is not always correct.  That "ground" realities are not taken into account, that very, very smart and capable people, mess things up.  That is all true.  But the main point of studying is not the content, necessarily.  There are of course imperfections in the process, but the point is - the process.  The evolving conversation of what is true, and how to apply it.  

There is a HUGE divide between those who make policy and those who suffer from them.  Most people with "ground" reality, who have deep insight into how things really are, rarely have access to circles of power, and if they do, often do not have the tools to communicate it.  You are getting that chance.  

University education, in America, at least, has evolved over the past 40 years to include more people, and give them the tools of argumentation, both in terms of assessment and making arguments.  

It is this process that you must master.  Without this imperfect process, there's anarchy and nothing else.    

Some very concrete goals you need to have for yourself:  You need to write what you feel is true and be able to get assessment from leading scholars in the field.  That feedback is priceless and that is not always based on the content but how you frame your arguments.  It's good writing plus good research, skills that are necessary in whatever you do.  For good writing is what leads to good thinking.  You also need to get to the point of being able to publish an article, write op-ed pieces, in a convincing way.  You also need to be familiar with the pre-dominant theories to understand the mind-set of the outsider, in dealing with them.  Just saying it's Western, or White, or because they are not Indian, is not enough.  You need to attack their ideas, not their identity.  

My good friend , who is Lebanese, suffered similar problems in the beginning.  He had just come from the 2006 war and sitting in a class about theories seemed so frivolous.  Its easy, when we have direct experience, or when we have suffered, to just say everything is about power and money and might.  If you believe that, why study at all?  Isn't knowledge power?    Aren't we in a knowledge economy?  Knowledge is the motor.  What you are mistaking, is the content for the process.  Theories, most of them are wrong, but the courage and work in putting one together, does move mountains.  India would be nowhere without nationalism, and those ideas, and Pakistan would probably not exist if Jinnah wasn't so deeply moved by john stuart mill's "On Liberty" which argues forcefully about the plight of minorities in a democracy.

Everything you do, every action, the ancestor of it, is an idea.  

So go back now, but be positive and focus on writing and expressing your truth to those white fuckers.  And they will be open to it, they always want to be proven wrong and are open to criticism.  You needn't see the game as rigged, as see all sources as bias, and everyone brain-washed.  And you can't just say it without giving specific examples, and dissecting arguments, and persuading someone.  Right now you are not persuasive at all.  You are acting like a thug.  The essence of your argumentation is:  I am indian, I know ground realities, I have my classified courses, I just know and you don't because you don't know india, are american, are white, are western brain-washed.  Thats just rubbish.  How does one respond to that?  The argument is over before it began.  You shut down all discussion.   

  

That's it, please don't take this the wrong way, and please don't laugh this off or make fun of my concern.  Your doing this impressed me beyond belief.  It made me see you as someone who is more than just money and business.  Someone who believes in a truth and wants to contribute to making the world better.  You can write my feelings off to me being "weird", but trust me, I am not weird.  I feel much, much more confident in introducing you to people, and collaborating with you, knowing you are going through the process we all went through.  I just want to see you make the most of it.  

My love to you,

Gabo 

MY SECOND RESPONSE TO THE RESPONSE OF THIS LETTER: basically the recipient just saw western education as brain-washing and narrow

I wrote back:

Dude, thanks for taking the time to respond to my concerns.  It is not easy to do, with someone you care about, and who is a great friend, but that is precisely why I wrote you.  A couple quick points to your points.  

1.  I agree that western educated people, The West, whatever you want to call it, is bias.  But it's the only system, that I know of, that has institutional mechanisms, to foster the accountability and transparency you talk of.  It has the possibility to correct itself, though not perfect, it is at least trying to check power.  All significant changes, 40 hour work week, end of slavery, environmental movements, have all been a result of popular struggle and these mechanisms within these countries.  There is at play, constantly, a dynamic interplay between people and their respective governments in the West.  This does not exist in other countries that have no checks on their power.    

I have seen far to many people say, including the Chinese, that the US does what it convenient to it, and then preaches to others, especially when it comes to human rights.  But the West did not change magically, they change because the people within these countries are powerful and influence their government to change.  The change is a result of massive struggle; the civil war in America, two World Wars in Europe, the French revolution, and on and on.  

Is there no difference between Russia, China, Iran, the gulf states with  Europe, US, Latin America, India?    

I agree, on an international scale, there will be little difference.  Because there is no world government, or police, much of international affairs boils down to Realism.  Power is more naked, but on internal levels, the civilization and the quality of life provided by the West is without precedent in human history.  That is why the WTO was created and the UN, to buffer the Realism that takes place when there is no authority.  In their own ways, it makes states accountable on a global scale.  I think you confuse the International effects of the West, and see that as an indictment of everything they are about.  But it's more a failing of the world system.  Don't extrapolate the realism demanded by the international sphere, into seeing all countries as the same, and it all being about power. 

2.  The next thing is your distrust of "rational" thinking based on data and studies.  Of course they can be flawed.  But the logical conclusion of your statement becomes anti-research, anti-science.  The best way is still to cite sources and then challenge those sources.  That takes effort, and investigation, but if we don't commit ourselves to this process, than we can never be sure of the truth.  How to you convince anyone then?  It will all boil down to he said, she said, I heard, and I saw, but that is just your subjective experience.  I am repeating myself, again, but it bears repeating because the scientific method is the BASIS of the Enlightenment and is what took us from Darkness to Light.  It separated the Church from the State and was what was used to challenge traditional hierarchies.  If you give up on this, then you are take a huge step back.    

3.  I think if you come out of this focusing on the skills and contacts you can get from this experience. it'll be worth it.  Focus on the writing, and focus on getting to know interesting people.  You will, with your alumni network, eventually, be able to recruit top talent to your organization, and get a sense of where they come, and what they study.  There is an aspect of bullshit to what you study in Graduate School, but its so much more than just the studies.  You understand a bit more the complexities of making decisions.  It is hard to rule the world.  So much of the "failings" that hurt you, are a result of the difficulty of running a fair and just world.  Free trade economics was to counteract the corrupt government monopolies that slowed down the 70s.  Ideologies and theories innovate and then they stagnate, and then new ideas are needed.  Free trade and liberalization has done loads for the world, but then it over-shot, and now new thinking is needed.  And that is what is being done.  It is easy to be critical, but much harder to innovate.    

Enjoy your remaining time at University and study your ass off.  You will have the rest of your life for work and screaming at your peons on your mobile, at all hours of the day.  And, please, sleep around and make some white girls happy with your brown love.

Will be in touch with everything else.  Be positive and don't let the white man get you down.    

Much Love,

Gabo

The Silence - Ingmar Bergman

Two sisters; one dying, the other sexually promiscuous - both haunted by the others presence.  Trapped in a hotel room, in a foreign country, on a holiday gone awry.  With such a simple premise, Bergman weaves together his characteristic obsessions; man alone in a godless world, death, longing, suffering.  Watching his films is like driving a car destined to crash.  You know it'll end badly, but you carry on, for the sake of the ride.  It's worth dying for.

It's not all bleak, just refreshingly serious.  There is not a frame that doesn't force you to meditate on the purpose of our lives.  As so much is said, in Silence.  The acting is magnificent, the scenes hypnotic, technically I can't remember watching something so flawless in a long time.  But Bergman is more than just a master of his craft.  He searches for a morality in such morally confused times.  How is one to act?  How does one live?  If nothing is sacred, is all permitted?  Each of his films, though different, all deal with is these fundamental dilemmas.  And always, there is someone who personifies the way forward.     

This time, it's in the form of a child, the illegitimate son of the sexually ravenous sister.  His longing for his mother and her indulgence of his innocence make for some remarkably tender moments.  The sister's clashing egos are assuaged by his presence, forcing them to pull away from their selfishness.  Both look to him in times of trouble, but he's just a boy, not yet a man; incapable of curing their insufferable alienation.

Language is also an interesting subtext.  Both sisters find comfort in being unable to communicate with the foreign men who enter their lives.  It allows them to soliloquize, this solitude in the presence of another, liberates a feeling, words so often enslave. 

It ends badly.  The car crashes.  But Bergman makes the wind fly in your hair and gives you those moments of exhilaration, only recklessness can give.  This is film, in its highest form, by one of its greatest masters.  It's worth dying for.                

Paris Vs. Havana (NY Times)

By Roger Cohen

Since visiting Cuba a few weeks ago, I've been thinking about the visual assault on our lives. Climb in a New York taxi these days and a TV comes on with its bombardment of news and ads. It's become passé to gaze out the window, watch the sunlight on a wall, a child's smile, the city breathing.

In Havana, I'd spend long hours contemplating a single street. Nothing — not a brand, an advertisement or a neon sign — distracted me from the city's sunlit surrender to time passing. At a colossal price, Fidel Castro's pursuit of socialism has forged a unique aesthetic, freed from agitation, caught in a haunting equilibrium of stillness and decay.

Such empty spaces, away from the assault of marketing, beyond every form of message (e-mail, text, twitter), erode in the modern world, to the point that silence provokes a why-am-I-not-in-demand anxiety. Technology induces ever more subtle forms of addiction, to products, but also to agitation itself. The global mall reproduces itself, its bright and air-conditioned sterility extinguishing every distinctive germ.

Paris, of course, has resisted homogenization. It's still Paris, with its strong Haussmannian arteries, its parks of satisfying geometry, its islands pointing their prows toward the solemn bridges, its gilt and gravel, its zinc-roofed maids' rooms arrayed atop the city as if deposited by some magician who stole in at night.

It's still a place where temptation exists only to be yielded to and where time stops to guard forever an image in the heart. All young lovers should have a row in the Tuileries in order to make up on the Pont Neuf.

Yet, for all its enduring seductiveness, Paris has ceased to be the city that I knew. The modern world has sucked out some essence, leaving a film-set perfection hollowed out behind the five-story facades. The past has been anaesthetized. It has been packaged. It now seems less a part of the city's fabric than it is a kitschy gimmick as easily reproduced as a Lautrec poster.

I know, in middle age the business of life is less about doing things for the first than for the last time. It is easy to feel a twinge of regret. Those briny oysters, the glistening mackerel on their bed of ice at the Rue Mouffetard, the drowsy emptied city in August, the unctuousness of a Beef Bourguignon: these things can be experienced for the first time only once.

So what I experience in Paris is less what is before me than the memory it provokes of the city in 1975. Memories, as Apollinaire noted, are like the sound of hunters' horns fading in the wind. Still, they linger. The town looks much the same, if prettified. What has changed has changed from within.

At dinner with people I'd known back then, I was grappling with this elusive feeling when my friend lit a match. It was a Russian match acquired in Belgrade and so did not conform to current European Union nanny-state standards. The flame jumped. The sulfur whiff was pungent. A real match!

Then it came to me: what Paris had lost to modernity was its pungency. Gone was the acrid Gitane-Gauloise pall of any self-respecting café. Gone was the garlic whiff of the early-morning Metro to the Place d'Italie. Gone were the mineral mid-morning Sauvignons Blancs downed bar-side by red-eyed men.

Gone were the horse butchers and the tripe restaurants in the 12th arrondissement. Gone (replaced by bad English) was the laconic snarl of Parisian greeting. Gone were the bad teeth, the yellowing moustaches, the hammering of artisans, the middle-aged prostitutes in doorways, the seat-less toilets on the stairs, and an entire group of people called the working class.

Gone, in short, was Paris in the glory of its squalor, in the time before anyone thought a Frenchman would accept a sandwich for lunch, or decreed that the great unwashed should inhabit the distant suburbs. The city has been sanitized.

But squalor connects. When you clean, when you favor hermetic sealing in the name of safety, you also disconnect people from one another. When on top of that you add layers of solipsistic technology, the isolation intensifies. In its preserved Gallic disguise, Paris is today no less a globalized city than New York.

Havana has also preserved its architecture — the wrought-iron balconies, the caryatids, the baroque flourishes — even if it is crumbling. What has been preserved with it, thanks to socialist economic disaster, is that very pungent texture Paris has lost to modernity.

The slugs of Havana Club rum in bars lit by fluorescent light, the dominos banged on street tables, the raucous conversations in high doorways, the whiff of puros, the beat through bad speakers of drums and maracas, the idle sensuality of Blackberry-free days: Cuba took me back decades to an era when time did not always demand to be put to use.

I thought I'd always have Paris. But Havana helped me see, by the flare of a Russian match, that mine is gone.

Bombay Blues

I was there, trapped in the Lawrence Hotel, near the gateway of India.  I somehow find myself in the midst of seismic geo-political events.  The World Trade Center and now this, but I made it back to Delhi, but completely, after many days, still in awe of what has happened and what this means for the world.    

If before Mumbai the War on Terror seemed a paranoid figment of the American imagination, think again.  All of us, no matter what we do, what political party we support, need to come to terms with the severity of what has occured.  The threat is real and the response - the direct response - has to be more than just appealing to the hearts and minds of terrorists.  There isn't enough time.  At this point, appeasement will not work.  Not Palestine, not Kashmir, nothing of that sort can derail what has been further set in motion with the events in Mumbai.

When joe six-pack, in America, is carving his thanksgiving turkey to the backdrop of live minute by minute news of the carnage, you know something is horribly amiss.  Something terrible has been unleashed on our collective conscious.  The level of coverage and global concern is perplexing and bizarre.  The monster that is 24 hour news is making perverse voyeurs of us all.

But on to practical concerns.  The geo-political chess game continues.      

Invading Pakistan, or engaging in a any direct State to State confrontations will be counter-productive and only serve to exacerbate the situation.  Its in our collective interests to have a strong Pakistani state which is capable of governing and dealing with internal elements of extremism.  Any weakening on this front, will lead to further chaos and uncertainty.  

Pakistan is fighting a war on two fronts; the northwestern frontier against the religious extremists and the eastern threat with India over Kashmir.  Pakistan needs to be re-assured that they need not worry about India, in order to focus all efforts on dealing with the religious extremists in the NW territories.  Its understandable that this is difficult and that there is anger at Pakistan for harboring terrorists.  But Pakistan itself is aware, having been victims of numerous and devastating attacks over the past year.  Working with them, makes more sense than working against them.  Pakistan has sent out signals indicating transparent cooperation, and India, along with the US, need to use this as an opportunity to gain concessions in terms of intelligence sharing and taking extreme steps to purge any terrorist elements in the ISI, Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency, which, if early reports are to believed, played a role in training the terrorists that perpetrated the Mumbai operations.    

Besides this, India needs to do a lot more to enhance its competency in terms of intelligence and preparedness.  Early evidence, that warnings of the attack were not heeded and the amateur response (terrorists blazing revolver toting policemen with AK 47s, along with the delay in reacting, or having any serious contingency plan), are unacceptable.  This will be a much needed wake-up call and also an opportunity for meaningful solidarity with the US and other Western nations.   

But I am pessimistic.  India's, so far, wonderful growth and transformation, has been despite the State.  The State remains incompetent and it's never more apparent than in moments such as these.  How will terrorism be prevented if basic simple service delivery(health, education, infrastructure), of which we know how to fix, cannot be accomplished?  Why doesn't someone just come out and say it:  the Indian state is pathetic.  The only thing good thing they have done in the past ten to fifteen years is step out of the way.  That can work for business, but in matters of State, more specifically, the integrity of a nation, it's impossible.  There needs to be something done to increase governmental capacity at all levels, and especially of matters pertaining security.  

It is promising that there is bi-partisan cooperation, but more is needed.  These events have done great damage, confidence is an element of economic growth, and confidence is shaken.  New York can recover quicker, because it's New York.  But Mumbai and India need to work harder to rebuild, both the infrastructure and the faith.  

Kashmir – India’s Albatross

The Indian government finds itself in an impossible situation in Kashmir.  The largest demonstrations in two decades in the valley have brought hundreds of thousands to the streets, calling for freedom.  This surprising turn of events is a stark contrast to the relative calm and optimism in the area following the much-lauded 2002 local elections, coinciding with President Musharraf's commitment to control jihadist elements across the border. The current situation only demonstrates New Delhi's flawed strategy to an untenable situation, inevitably bound to become more difficult given the dormant frustrations and tensions in the region.  

This past year was especially good for the valley, with record highs for tourism and economic activity.  There were no outward signs that a flare up of this magnitude was on the horizon, let alone enormous, unprecedented, mostly non-violent calls for independence that have caught the Indian security forces off guard.  Having been trained to fight an insurgency they now, quickly, are training for crowd control.    

The spark that set off the crisis was a transfer of 92 acres of land for a Hindu pilgrimage.  It is, of course, not the direct cause to the current conflict.  The roots are much deeper. About a half a million soldiers pursue a few thousand militants, making Kashmir the most militarized zone in the world.  Human rights violations have been rampant.  Nobody has figured out how to deal with insurgencies mixed with terrorism, and the Indian state often finds itself stuck between doing nothing and doing too much.  To make up for it, New Delhi - to their credit - focuses on appeasement through economic and political means.  

No state, per capita, has received as much economic aid as Kashmir has, but to no avail.  No state has experienced as much political autonomy either - in no small part due to a special constitutional provision dating back to Nehru.  Elections in the region are promising but prominent Kashmiri leaders focus not on improving governance but rather on independence and an emphasis on Islam as a guiding force.  Democracy has this illiberal underbelly, much like Hamas in Palestine and the Islamic parties of the northwestern frontier in Pakistan, which, though elected by the people, often work against the people's interest by promoting terrorism and repression.    

So force is not working, neither is money or democracy.  If Kashmiris had a right to self-determination they would very likely secede and/or join Pakistan.  There is little doubt about that.  But then again, so would other parts of India if given the choice.  Besides Kashmir, secessionist problems existed in Punjab and currently one can make the case that Assam and Nagaland would be motivated by any loss to Indian territory.  And these are just the overt cases.  Since independence, a dialectical balance has constantly been in play between the center and peripheries.  Concessions and compromises were always made; Hindi being a case in point, first being force taught to the South, to later being dropped after numerous protests.  All this has led to greater decentralization and the rise of regionalist parties and the creation of new states, allowing for India to stay integral and united amidst tremendous diversity. 

What has worked in other areas of India has not worked in Kashmir for a whole host of reasons none greater than the fact that Pakistan is right next door.  Since independence three official wars have been fought, not to mention numerous skirmishes, with the insurgency being directly aided by the ISI; Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency.  In fact, in the period 2002-2008, violence has gone down in no small part to Musharraf's commitment to control infiltration from jihadists.  With Musharraf gone and Pakistan slowly slipping into chaos, Kashmir will be as vulnerable as ever.  An independent Kashmir will bring Pakistan and its instability that much closer to India.  

With the recent unilateral actions by the U.S. in Pakistan's tribal areas, with a possible fall-out between the two governments likely, the situation is getting trickier.  India can be that missing piece that can add pressure from the LOC given Pakistan's current vulnerability.  Recent deployment of 6 of its most capable warplanes to Kashmir precisely sends this message.  

All this makes a Kashmiri state, or any redrawing of borders, extremely unviable.  An independent Kashmir, or worse a Kashmir as part of Pakistan is not a possibility as far as Indian strategic and security interests are concerned.  The implications for the region are too great.  The point is moot whether Kashmiris are freedom fighters or terrorists.  A supposed emerging super power will not be keen to show weakness and no secession or compromise will be made; already clear from Manmohan Singh's "no borders will be redrawn" statement.  Further agitation will only serve to challenge his authority and with time, if continues, will only provoke more violence and ruthlessness.    

That national elections are looming on the horizon doesn't help the situation.  The BJP has a history of riding the waves of religious controversy to power.  Further calls for freedom, or any threat of Kashmiri independence will make Kashmir be what Ayodha was in the 1995 elections: A rallying cry to unite Hindus against Muslims.  BJP's 2004 strategy emphasizing economic growth and "Shining India" failed.  They've wised up and know that people are motivated more by threats to security and more importantly threats to their identity.  Hindu agitation in Jammu, with their own protests and economic blockade of the valley, is evidence enough that the times ahead with only get worse.  

             

Sonal Shah - A case of political naivete

Let's be clear:  Sonal Shah is not a Hindu Fundamentalist.  She is, however, politically naive and was unable to grasp what any association with the VHP, BJP and RSS would mean for her and her commendable social work.  This is either because she is out of touch with ground realities in India, or felt she didn't need to make serious efforts to distance herself from what she may have perceived as just exaggerated leftist smear campaigns.  But while Leftists are more alarmist, ridiculous and unconvincing with their rhetoric (fascist, Hitler, etc), the underlying assertions, of her troubling affiliations and collaborations, are valid.  And with her recent appointment to Obama's transition team, the issue has inevitably come to the spotlight.   

The only comments, thus far, from the Shah family have been Anand Shah's recent statements condemning the Gujarat riots.  Who doesn't?  But what about condemning VHP and specifically CM Narendra Modi for his documented role in the massacres?  Why does he choose not to condemn the Sangh?  Most probably, because he feels Indicorps' work would be compromised as a result.  Most of their social projects are based in Gujarat.  They need to be on Modi's good side and, also, when your father does (or did) have leadership roles within these organizations, you want to respect your elders.  But sometimes a clear stand is necessary, and one must break away from those you love.  Obama did it with reverend Jeremiah Wright.  He was forgiven the moment he dissociated himself.  The same would have been true, and is still true, if both Anand and Sonal dissociate themselves from their parents and their own former collaborations and activities with the Sangh.    

But that would take guts, and would politicize an organization focused on "Service for the Soul".  But Sonal Shah's and Indicorps current stand is not neutral.  What is best at this moment, if she wants to salvage her reputation and that of her work, is to admit she made a mistake.  That she wasn't careful, that she believes firmly in the secular founding principles of the country and not an India dominated by those who wish to impose a Hindu state.  These very curt and brief statements would go a long way in allowing her to make the many meaningful contributions she is, and will continue to make, in her ascending and bright future.  

We need Sonal Shah.  I am saddened by those who want to bring her down, hurt her work, and are calling for her resignation.  Her work, commitment, vision and dedication to public service are laudable and all efforts should be made to work and dialogue with her, instead of destroying her.  Take it from someone who has had many, many brilliant dialogues with the woman (see old posts on this blog).  Her openness, ideas and life, are  exemplary.  I firmly stand behind her, wish her the best in her new role as advisor and ask now - for the practical concern of moving on from this controversy now and forever - that she make her apology and make clear her dissociation from the Sangh.  Saying you have no links, when your father has had a leadership role with the Sangh, when you were a former national coordinator yourself for the VHP-A, when Narendra Modi has been a guest in your house, when you have received an award from the man himself, all come off as unconvincing.  I realize her dilemma in this.  Sonal does not want to jeopardize her relationship with Gujarat, but she can't have it both ways.  A clear stance is necessary and I look forward to some official statement in the forthcoming days.  

America!

It's here in New Delhi, of all places, that for the first time in my adult life, I am proud to be an American.  So much has gone wrong in these past eight years and, though its hard to say, its probably why I write this from abroad, in a state of self imposed exile.  But now I feel different.  I want to go back to what feels like, my people.  Being of Indian descent and growing up in New York City has always left me feeling cold to America, the mainland as I like to call it, with its weird and strange ways.  The beer pong, the football, the strip malls and driving.  I was done with it.  I never wanted to see it again.  

I tried to come to terms with it, back in 2000, when I worked on a presidential campaign, public interest and grassroots campaigns that took me throughout 40 states.  Many long nights riding in my car, listening to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, eating beef jerky, drinking black coffee and chewing bubble gum, looking for America.  Through the purple mountain mesa tops in Utah, the star filled mountain nights in Colorado, the Ozarks, Oklahoma City, Birmingham, Louisville, I realized how beautiful being American can be.  But I still felt out of place.  Though people came from all over to join us and fight against the numerous injustices in our society, I still felt a distant sense of alienation.  As if I was on Mars.  

But today, in New Delhi, an elderly gentleman, got out his guitar during our victory party and sang "The times they are changin" and then "we shall over come" and I saw all those who had been there in the 50s and 60s, who lived through assassination after assassination, and riots and maddness, see the day they never dreamed was possible and in India!  Who knows what they were doing here, perhaps they were beatniks, or hippies, or in this day and age, software developers or social entrepreneurs.  But we were all together, in India, with everyone, singing and knowing a new day had arrived for the country we all loved at one time, in some way.  And now we're back, and it's a healthy and humble patriotism, one that acknowledges the tremendous responsibility and humility that comes with power.  For I agree with Obama, we are not great for our arms and wealth alone, it is our ideals, of democracy, and liberty and opportunity that truly make us shine and will make us shine on for years to come.  

We shall re-invent, we shall always change, we will always right our wrongs eventually, because we constantly surge towards a more perfect union.  There are miles to go before we sleep, but being awake has never felt better and never more sweeter.  I look forward to dealing with the likely perils of the future with courage and dignity.  Thank you Obama.  Thank you for taking the  tougher road instead of the easy, comfortable path of privilege and showing us what we can be in this great country of ours, America.  

I have decided from this day on, I will no longer be a hyphenated American.  In no disrespect to my motherland, or ancestry, but today I have become whole, I go from Indian-American to just American.  Not from the republic of New York, or New Yorker, today I embrace all of me through this great nation of ours, as imperfect and treacherous as it can be, I know it will consistently strive to perfect itself, if not in my lifetime, in the generations to come, we will get there, I know.  This is Gabo Arora, American, sending you his love from the motherland.        

Shoot The Piano Player - Truffaut

I have seen many Truffaut films, and always felt him to be less intellectually potent though more heart-felt in his film making than his contemporaries in the New Wave.  It was Godard that transcended the frontiers of the mind, body and soul through the power of his ideas.  But Truffaut acquiesced to emotions, more so than others.  Its as if he had less to prove and thus allowed for the camera to reveal his troubled childhood and prolonged adolescence through wayward images.  

Thats what 400 blows was about and every film after with Antoine Danoiel, his very on screen alter-ego.  But Shoot The Piano Player is something else entirely, again though, with an emotional feeling that is rare within the  hyper-logique and dialogue heavy tendencies of the French.  What turns out , on paper, to be a spoof on american gangster movies, in the end is more a reflection on love and losing your way in the world.

"I can't be in two places at once" is what the lead says to his brother, when asked why it is he is in a beat-up bar playing popular diddies for the masses when he is more deserving of the pomp and celebre his previous concerts received.  The expression and the dignity he leads his life is more important.  He may be down and out, but he plays the piano as the world moves around him meaninglessly, lost and searching he has found himself, with the piano, wherever he may be.  And that comes through.  In the end, after more tragedy, he is back at the piano, whenever things take a difficult turn, the piano, but eventually the piano is to him what the rock was for sisyphus :  a reminder of his own absurdity.   

The french are not as warm as the Italians, nor as cold as the Germans, but more innovative than both when it comes to culture.  But Truffuat does the unlikely, he is able to for fleeting moments, combine a warmth with his heady mindfulness.  

There is something to the kinetic energy of the film, a quickness, that doesn't give way to superficiality.  I don't know how he does it, but the film lingers, you are able to revel in the aesthetic while being moved by the content.  

Why?  After-all its just a film about love and love lost, and succeeding and failing in the world, but then again, isn't that what everything is really about?  But its how you play your tragedy and the humanity you allow in during the inevitable demise.  And your character, this film has that character.

The entire new wave started out as critics for Les Cahiers and what always astounds me is that they made films that are beyond criticism.  I can't imagine anyone saying anything bad about shoot the piano player.