Annihilating Souls...

I have been struggling with my shortcomings and one of them being the inability to regularly update my profile, update my resume and most of all write something new on my newly formed blog. Nevertheless, it is time I wrote about something, started getting into the habit of posting things that I might otherwise brush off as insignificant reveries.

I was talking about my hitherto mysterious poetry writing ability in my first post and how reading them after almost a decade brought back memories. Buoyed by the encouragement of some well-meaning friends, I thought I'd post the very first poem I ever wrote. Reading it brought a smile to my lips.


Annihilating souls

Where the sun is warm light is bright,
Where nature is calm, spring a sight.
My eyes are aching for that land oh! Lord,
My heart is searching for those hands oh! God;
Who will turn our desolate into a haven of beauty.
The earth, which we have festered with metal and concrete,
Where the beast of unlimited technology is hegemonic,
Where nonpareil science and destruction are harmonic,
Where “self” is the king, and “needs” are his queens,
Where revolution only gives birth to dilapidation.
And where greenery is but only a condition.
In that world oh! God! Transform these ferriferous beings.
Plant the seed of knowledge for their well being.
Incarnate yourself again oh! Lord! The Earth needs you!
Composed on: -01-09-1995


I recently saw the movie Avatar in theaters and it warmed my 'tree-hugger' heart - I guess some things never change. I may crave a Lexus (although I have a suspicion that when it comes to actually buying one, I may just buckle down and buy a small car) and I may sometimes let the air conditioning run a bit higher than usual because I start hyperventilating in heat, but I am also the maverick who used to take her own cloth bags to Walmart every week and have both the bagger and cashier roll their eyes. I recycled my brown bags till they started fraying and tearing apart, then I would use them as stuffing and packing material. I'd recycle plastic bags till they had no more use. I even recycle my old Planters peanuts boxes to store my spices and teas in them - yes I do! Reading this poem in a time when we are all reading about the Copenhagen climate change conference was opportune.

Having lived both in India and the USA, I have formed my own perceptions about being green and environment friendly. I remember buying chana jor garam and other roaster snacks from the street peddlers who served them in recycled newspaper bags. Most groceries were sold in shops packed in such recycled paper bags. Glass bottles were recycled, as were old scooter/car or bicycle tires serving as swings or modified bicycle seats. I remember my parents never threw out a plastic bag, but rather used it as a trash bag. Whether it was a consideration for money or the environment, I remember getting a tongue lashing if I did not switch off the ceiling fan and the tube lights in the room once I left it. showers are a luxury that even now I don't indulge in when I am home in India at my parents' house. A bucket of water, and the heater is switched on for just long enough to heat the water and then switched back off. The toilet flush tanks are specially equipped to flush in two different modes - the less water and the more water mode depending on the need. We learnt this neat little trick to stick a 2-ltr coke bottle filled with water inside the corner of the flushing tank and this way the tank used 2 ltrs less every time you flushed - without any compromise on the cleanliness.

I don't remember reading about any other country that used bio-gas fuel, or specially made solar cookers. I remember when I read about it in my science lab, and a few weeks later dad invested in one. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Saving on the fuel costs was the bonus. We'd use it all year around except during the harshest of winters.

I could go on and on about how eco-friendly my Indian upbringing was. Admittedly, I am sure this country does cause a lot more pollution than some other countries, we also have the biggest number of human being breathing, pooping and peeing around in the world. With a population density exceeding a thousand persons per square kilometer, I am sure we Indians survive quite blissfully in the worst conditions. Despite all that, I think the modern world has a lot it can learn from it's so called 'less developed' counterparts.

I love the US, it is my home now. Nevertheless, the wasteful nature of the people in general there hurt my heart. The spirit of the developed world towards the environment in the recent years is laudable, but their supposedly sincere efforts are laughable at best. Most of the US is poorly serviced by public transport and thus there are cars honking around everywhere guzzling more gas than any other place. It is amusing to see that in a country with cars carrying just the driver, a car with two people is categorized as a 'high occupancy vehicle"! I recently asked my class to name some renewable sources of energy, I was shocked to find that no one in my class knew that term!

We perceive that saving the environment should be a government effort, the govt should provide us means to save the planet. We don't stop and think what each one of us can do as an individual.

Sloth Vs bhelpuri-wallahs

Well, as I had feared, so it happened. I opened a blog, posted an entry, engaged in some self-indulgence and reverie and then never even visited my website! Nevertheless, I am trying to work on it, and post something else. Of course for now, only the most pressing of thoughts or issues spur me into action or rather writing in this case.

I am visiting family in India these days, and walking on the streets of Chandigarh brings back nostalgia sometimes. As an aside, walking is all I can do in Chandigarh these days, driving on the streets of India is a scary endeavour for me. Coming back to the topic at hand, it has been a wonderful few days being back in India, albeit bitter-sweet at times. I had forgotten some of the issues I felt so strongly about, and one of them was the public officials' erroneous attentions to management. One of the shopping areas in the city is filled with local peddlers making fresh bhelpuri for you - the best I have had in Chandigarh. Nevertheless, they are constantly hassled by the government officials because they are apparently illegally operating on the sidewalks! every five minutes the hoards of these bhelpuri-wallahs have to pick their little makeshift tables filled to overflowing with savoury chutneys, bhel, fresh coriander, limes and an assortment of Indian snacks, run down the sidewalk looking for safe havens, and in the process loosing customers. Oftentimes, they have to throw the materials somewhere so that they are not found with it, in turn causing them to suffer huge losses.

Their plight and the local government's attitude confuses me. I have seen the streets of my city, and those of countless others in India, littered with beggars who are free to roam and harass the public without any fear from the officials. They roam about scot free. Compare them to the bhelpuri-wallahs who are making an honest living through hard-work by selling their goods instead of lounging around in filth to instil false sympathy in the passer-bys and beg for money that will be squandered on alcohol and ice-creams. Believe me on that - I have seen child beggars come and beg for money for food and then run to the ice-cream parlours and eat Baskin-Robbins! I have also seen many beggars abuse and literally turn violent when my parents offered to room and board them and pay them if instead of begging they would work as maids or nannies!

We may be a nation that is tolerant of begging, but begging as a means of supporting the lazy and corrupt is by no means something we should be tolerant of. If I have interpreted it correctly, begging or bhiksha was used as a way of providing for the ascetics, hermits and the scientists of the ancient world. Bhiksha was a way for the Hindu society to support these philosophers, thinkers, scientists and researchers. I look back at it as a form of Research and Development funding that the society arranged for - the society took care of the material needs of these scholars, and they contributed to the society by increasing the knowledge base. What are the modern day beggars contributing to India? Aren't these street-side peddlers a much better recourse than beggars? Are we encouraging sloth and laziness in our country by encouraging beggars and discouraging honest vocation?

A journey begins...

My first attempt at penning down my thoughts happened some decades ago, when I was still young enough to be affected by the thought of putting things down on paper as a way of immortalizing myself - ah the wisdom of adolescence! That attempt did not last for long. If I recall correctly, my desire to put some permanence to my experiences by penning them down died soon after my second journal entry. I realised that after the first day of writing an extraordinarily long journal entry with vivid details, on subsequent days I was too tired or bored to write anything more insightful than, " Went to school and came back home again." As such, you can only imagine my hesitation to start doing that all over again despite the rapid (and sometimes rabid) fascination that people seemed to have developed for blogging. Almost everyone I knew, be it a friend, a distant colleague or my own baby brother was indulging in extravagant display of personal reverie (as i perceived it) on the world wide web.

I can admit quit candidly that I have resisted the urge to showcase my poor judgement about life and writing in general on the blogs, for many many years. The reasons ranging from the need for privacy, to the earlier failed attempts at being able to consistently write something down everyday or on frequent basis - the most basic idea behind blogs, or any other kind of journal entry, as I understand.

What changed? Why am I then doing the very thing I have abhored and avoided for years? a sudden face-to-face encounter with memories from the same adolescent years a few evenings ago. since then, three days to be precise, I have been ambivalent about blogging and thinking far too much about a subject that I admittedly did not care much for. I came across a book full of my poems - poems that I had composed when I was 15 or 18 or even 23 - poems that my mother d once threatened to send to some publisher as "anonymous" if I didn't pick the courage to send them myself. I was shocked, amused and frankly quite literally blown away by my own ability to compose poetry. For years now, being in a PhD program, I have struggled with my own lack of confidence as a writer. I realised now that it isn't a lack of ability or a talent (of which I do not boast at all - rather I cannot boast) but a fear of being incompetent. I believed, infact I am afraid I still might, that I had used up all my finesse, talent and writing ability all those years ago and now I am just a dried up academic. A few hours ago I finally decided to put that theory to test,. This blog is thus an experiment, for myself, to see if I really have no writing, other than articles for journals and assignments for students, left in me. I solemnly hope I am wrong, and I am going to try and prove to myself that I am, but as all experiments go, I am also open to the idea of realising my theory is fatally true after all!

So here goes nothing...!