This post is about living things

First, me.

I've been in India for about three weeks, and I've been alone in India for about a week. I'll be coming back to Toronto in about three more weeks. When I first got here I was a little homesick and unnerved - perfectly natural. When I was alone at first, I was lonesome - utterly predictable. Now I feel great - seeing and experiencing and thinking and reading (actually, par for the course for me I guess).
Of course, now that this trip is half over, I feel urgency and melancholy mixed in with all my thoughts of friends and home. Taking the final metro ride to the airport will feel like the last day of camp, except with noone there to share the feeling of change and community.

The last day of camp - homesickness turned on its head. All of a sudden the camp routine feels secure and simple and Toronto is full of new and unknown things. All of a sudden the gusty winds of August foretell/betoken/portend/indicate/predict autumn and the Sunday night before school starts again.
Back at camp, while chartered buses fit into their elephant parking spaces, the desire to go home becomes the desire to stay at home. The staff, who were mature and lordly and all-knowing and old, ages like 23 being beyond any reference point, suddenly were young again - it even crept into our minds that they too were going back to another year of the grind, but this thought slinked away just as it crept in.

The synonyms with slashes are copped from a Monty Python sketch, and the writing in general is first-draft Stephen King. But I've just got to write and write - I deleted my last post and maybe I'll delete this one (knowing I won't) or maybe I'll leave it up unedited to let all the me-ness shine on. I've just got to write and write - I read and take in so much and I don't have anyone to talk to, not really. Bringing me to more living things, other people.

Sometimes I get angry at rickshaw drivers offering rides, especially ones at train stations, all in a row and they all ask, but * especially * at ones who give the classic lie - all the hotels are booked, let me take you to one I know that has nice rooms, cheap, available. So I use Natali's simple method with all of them, just a big smile and a 'no thank you my friend' and it never changes. Maybe you raise your hand, but just keep on with the 'no thank you's - Zach of RATM whispered to me that 'anger is a gift' and I still believe he is right but anger is not something I need. Besides rickshaw drivers there are touts, which I think is a great and self-explanatory word, and there are travel agencies. They can make me angry, but part of the strength I've wanted for so long is in not getting angry. And another under-appreciated nugget: very simple to know such things and say such things, very difficult to do such things.

Okay, back to me. I still think 'American Psycho' by BEE is the best first-person novel, which is too bad since the first person is not a good person. Its so hard to write well in the first person, I think because of chains of associations (and the elegant mental diagrams that we visualize when thinking about things like chains of associations). For example, in the above paragraph I thought of Simpsons - Smithers pressing a pistol into Tom Jones's back, creasing his jacket immaculate, saying 'big smile - everybody's happy) and I think of Professor C, the quote I think of most often from the talk I think of most often, 'War on Terror' delivered in January of this year, its actually the final sentence and now the run-on character of * this * sentence tells me something else about first person narration, anyway the quote as I remember it is "the constructive ways have to begin with a look in the mirror, never an easy task, always a necessary one."

Before I write what I planned to write, I also wanna tell you about the big debate shaping up. On the one side is the Buddhist idea of elimination of the ego and the New Age idea of 'just be yourself'. Ont he other side are Ayn Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness, just the title, since I've only read a couple of pages, but I like what I've read, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which utilises roles and self-suggestion, for instance the suave swagger in every guy's step when he walks out of Casino Royale into the Bombay midnight thinking he is you-know-who. Call it an identity christmas.

ANYway


living things, and not me, but other people. I look plenty of men in the idea, and they look right back (flash to the call-response the-other-day-I-met-a-bear camp song) and then I smile and they smile. So many men are genuinely nice and eager to help. You can start a conversation with any man and its not weird. I ask if they are married, if yes do they have children, I ask if they are Musselman (Muslim) if yes I say salaam aleikum, which always yields a very positive response. They ask me what is my country, and after that I usually end up doing a mock shivering movement and tell them it's cold...so nothing exciting there.

In Palitana I met some guys, had a cigarette...laughed about me being white and them being black, black as night, me employing the Arabic word 'layl' for night to great effect...then we tooled around in their rickshaw blasting dance music, shades of Roxbury...then we went to their 'residence' and I met one guy's wife and sisters in law father in law and sisters and one brother who scrolled through his ringtones and we danced to some of the ringtones.

In Delhi Natali and I were walking to the Metro to go to the India Social Forum and some guys yelled for me to join them playing volleyball. At first I didn't notice and then I didn't want to spend the time but Natali cajoled me and I'm glad she did because that was serious fun.

In Mumbai (Bombay) two nights ago I was waiting to see The Departed (which was trucking good) and so I did a very easy thing, bought two packages of glucose biscuits for Rs 4 each, a whopping total of 22 cents maybe, and I handed 'em out to some begging kids...more crawled out of the proverbial woodwork (actually a dark lifeless urban slumland not unlike the tee dot) and I was able to give them a couple of biscuits each and pass water around. I really hope that the taller girls who either hold infants or drag along younger ones, those taller girls are the ones I really think about, and I hope they are strong, I hope they don't become prostitutes, and I hope they don't become prositutes and become infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus? ¿Is that what it's called?


So I haven't interacted with people much, but there's a glimpse I guess...me, other people, living things.

Animals!

I've seen rats, cats, many many dogs, goats, roosters, chickens, cranes, beautiful green birds, cows, buffaloes, and warthogs. All of these but the green birds within city limits I might add. The green birds were perched atop the spires of the Jain temples on the hill with all the temples...something I've wanted to write about for a while now.

A long post that's not about much, hardly about living things, gives good insight into my head and my writing style if I choose not to edit, and ends with my travels

Left Delhi, overnight train to Ahmadabad. Bus to Palitana. Bus to Diu. Overnight bus back to Ahmadabad. Train to Mumbai. All-day and overnight train to Kochi in Kerala where I am now, just about to check in to my hotel, shave shower and scrub my sweaty clothes. Changing my flight to December 12.

I haven't shown nearly enough love for this neighborhood, Majnu ka Tila

Tight little alleys, vendors selling fruits, handbags, jewelry. Guys wanting to shine your shoes and clean your ears (too creepy times a lot) Beggars that are apparently brought here in vehicles to work the Westerners. Westerners preparing to make the trek north to Dharam Sala and the Dalai Lama.

So in these tight alleys there are playing children, praying elders, some disfigured people, monks in their saffron robes with their mobile phones and bottles of Coke. There are young people and misbranded brands and DVDs. There are restaurants that all serve Tibetan food: lassis, soups, chicken manchurian, domos, that swirly bread whose name escapes me, and beef which is a rarity in India. There is a lot of travelling and instant messaging going on - its a Tibetan diaspora, after all. They should take a cue from you know who (rhymes with cue and who) and learn how to harness the media and Western public opinion to make some headway. And there are more t-shirts than just 'Free Tibet' - I've seen independence, get out of Tibet, one day Tibet will be free, the next incarnation of the Lama has been imprisoned along with his family by the Chinese authorities, the gold silver and bonze in the Olympic medals will have been illegally mined in Tibet...The Olympics are definitely a chance to to pressure China, if that is even possible. To drastically oversimplify, U.S. interests are too concerned with China's WTO membership to criticize the annexation.

Look at me, talking all smart. I wanted to (wax lyrical) describe the narrow alleys and the signs hiding signs covering signs that rise up above the carts and markets and give the whole place such a comfortable feel.

Too comfortable - time to get the truck out of here.

Speaking of signs, spelling mistakes aren't funny anymore, too many new thoughts on communication, too much gratitude for all the English spoken. Besides the Hair Saloon, here is one sign that is worth (transcribing) showing you guys:

IF YOUR LOSE IS PURSE, MOBILE AND ANY THING WE ARE DON'T RESPONSIPAL SO PLESE CHECK HERE THERE

I wonder what the world press is saying about the WSF in India? I had a great time and made some contacts...give it a go! (ogle)

Interesting people and keywords in the United States


Nancy Pelosi minimum wage abortion

Eliot Spitzer corruption finance speculation trading

Robert Gates has been nominated to replace Rumsfeld. I am a wet blanket to the effect that for every ounce of pleasure one takes in his resignation, one should make an effort to think about the effects of war on real people who deserve happiness as much as Rumsfeld - destroyed homes, dead family members, injuries that will never receive proper treatment, lack of access to cultural objects and basic goods, and not just the thousands of dead American soldiers, but the tens of thousands of injured American soldiers. What is life like for the veterans of the 1991 invasion of Iraq? I don't know, but rates of drug abuse, domestic violence, suicide, and birth defects are significantly higher than the general popuation. Many people I have spoken too feel a surge of vindictiveness as well as hope, kind of a 'take that!' feeling. Use that feeling to learn more and keep caring for a while!

Robert Gates has a long history in Iraq and played a role in the Iran/Contra scandal, unless that is he came to work as Deputy Director of the CIA with earmuffs and a sleeping mask and a clothespin over his nose every day. Here is what was said about him in 1991, fifteen years ago.

"Gates' selective lapses in recall about the affair by a man with a photographic memory raises serious doubts."

If you don't make it to the end, fifteen years ago it was recommended that

"The cold war is over and it's time for some of the old warriors to rest."

So, despite Pelosi's speech and Rumsfeld's resignation, I think there is much more discussion needed on Iraq, just what should be done, and in whose interests.


Mr. HARKIN: Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Robert Gates to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. President, at the outset of the confirmation hearings, I had serious reservations about the nominee. The confirmation hearings only raised more questions and greater doubts. Questions and doubts about Mr. Gates' past activities, managerial style, judgment, lapses in memory and analytical abilities. Questions and doubts about his role in the Iran-Contra Affair and in providing military intelligence to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war; and questions and doubts about whether he will be able to remove the ideological blinders reflected in his writings and speeches or whether Mr. Gates is so rooted in the past, that he will not be able to lead the Agency into the post-cold war era. Because of these concerns, I have concluded that Mr. Gates is not the right person for the important job of overseeing our intelligence operations in this New World.

Mr. President, Robert Gates is a career Soviet analyst and former Deputy Director of the CIA who was wrong about what CIA analyst Harold Ford described as `the central analytic target of the past few years: the probable fortunes of the USSR and the Soviet European bloc.' And I believe that the committee report points out one possible reason why the CIA failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to testimony, Mr. Gates was busy pursuing hypotheses and making unsubstantiated arguments attempting to show Soviet expansion in the Third World, instead of looking for or paying attention to facts that pointed in the opposite direction. Why? Why, as Mentor Moynihan has pointed out, was the CIA able to tell Presidents everything about the Soviet Union except the fact that it was falling apart?

Mr. Gates was also wrong about the Soviet threat to Iran in 1985. The 1985 Special National Intelligence Estimate on Iran stressed possible Soviet inroads into Iran. Gates admits that the analysis was an anomaly. It was a clear departure from previous analyses and almost immediately proven wrong by subsequent events. Gates was involved in preparing that analysis. According to Hal Ford, whose testimony the nominee never refuted, Gates leaned heavily on the Iran Estimate, in effect, `insisting on his own views and discouraging dissent.' What was the result? The 1985 estimate was skewed and contributed to the biggest foreign policy debacle of the Reagan administration, the sale of arms to Iran.


Mr. President, Graham Fuller, the CIA's National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, suggested that the 1985 SNIE estimate was based on intuition in the absence of hard evidence. I agree there is nothing wrong with preparing worse case scenarios or using `intuition' as opposed to hard evidence in the preparation of analysis, provided it is made clear to policymakers that the finished analysis is based on intuition and not hard evidence. It is the job of the CIA to sort out fact from fiction, not convert one into the other.

Mr. President, I also have doubts and questions about Mr. Gates' role in the secret intelligence sharing operation with Iraq. Robert Gates served as assistant to the Director of the CIA in 1981 and as Deputy Director for Intelligence for 1982 to 1986. In that capacity he helped develop options in dealing with the Iran-Iraq war, which eventually involved into a secret intelligence liaison relationship with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Gates was in charge of the directorate that prepared the intelligence information that was passed on to Iraq. He testified that he was also an active participant in the operation during 1986. The secret intelligence sharing operation with Iraq was not only a highly questionable and possibly illegal operation, but also may have jeopardized American lives and our national interests. The photo reconnaissance, highly sensitive electronic eavesdropping and narrative texts provided to Saddam, may not only have helped him in Iraq's war against Iran but also in the recent gulf war. Saddam Hussein may have discovered the value of underground land lines as opposed to radio communications after he was give our intelligence information. That made it more difficult for the allied coalition to get quick and accurate intelligence during the gulf war. Further, after the Persian Gulf war, our intelligence community was surprised at the extent of Iraq's nuclear program. One reason Saddam may have hidden his nuclear program so effectively from detection was because of his knowledge of our satellite photos. What also concerns me about that operation is that we spend millions of dollars keeping secrets from the Soviets and then we give it to Saddam who sells them to the Soviets. In short, the coddling of Saddam was a mistake of the first order.

Mr. President, I've stated a very simple case for rejecting the nomination of Robert Gates to be Director of the CIA. The fact that he was wrong on major issues which in some instances led to foreign policy debacles. I haven't addressed concerns about the allegations of his politicization of intelligence analysis, his apparently poor managerial style or still unanswered questions about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Regarding the Iran-Contra affair, I should mention that I was quite disturbed to hear testimony that portrayed Robert Gates as someone concerned about Agency's role and not sufficiently concerned about pursuing possible illegal Government activities. In his opening statement before the Intelligence Committee, Mr. Gates said that he should have taken more seriously `the possibility of impropriety or possible wrongdoing in the Government and pursued this possibility more aggressively.' I agree.
I should also mention, Mr. President, that aside from Mr. Gates' poor judgment in not pursuing the possibility of Government wrongdoing more aggressively, I still find it incredible that the Deputy Director of CIA was not aware of that major covert operation. How could such a high ranking official not know about the CIA's efforts to support the Contras? Did he purposely avoid trying to find out what was happening? The testimony seemed to indicate he did. Gates' selective lapses in recall about the affair by a man with a photographic memory raises serious doubts.


The U.S. Congress and the American people depend on accurate and reliable intelligence information. Our expenditures on defense and other areas are often decided on the basis of that information. We cannot afford to waste billion of dollars in the future. After reviewing the record, I do not believe that the Central Intelligence Agency under the directorship of Robert Gates will provide the clear intelligence assessments necessary for Congress to make decisions to deal with the future threats confronting our nation.

Mr. President, I do not believe that Robert Gates is the right person to lead the CIA at this time. The cold war is over and it's time for some of the old warriors to rest. Now we must take a fresh new look at the world, think new thoughts and reassess the future role of the intelligence community. I urge my colleagues to vote against Robert Gates.

Let me tell you what happened, only backwards


I made a hand motion of typing and said I would

A man I never met said "tell people about this"

I thanked the head sister of the Saint Teresa Missionaries of Charity Home for Dying and Destitute in Majnu ka Tila

A very happy Asian adolescent came inside to have the dressing on his stump changed

I sat and spoke to a 22-year old from Darjeeling - his baptismal name is Williams. He wants to make it home to spend Christmas with his mother. He told me he was attacked and beaten up. He seems untouched except for two holes in his shin.

I sat and made exaggerated wincing, breathing, and fist clenching actions while Williams' dressing was changed and a bloody rag fully inserted into the larger hole in his shin. He made painful faces but also smiled and told that he had been here two weeks, and te first three days he "cried too much" when the dressing was changed - how about points for bedside manner?

He smiled at me and I made a motion indicating scissors and tapped my head to show how incompetent I was with the scissors

I tried one last final ultimate time to use the damn scissors to cut off a patients' dressing

I watched as the younger orderly deftly used the same pair of dull scissors to remove a bandage

I thought that since I couldn't seem to actually cut any bandages, I should make fun of myself and amuse the eight bedridden men, very diverse in age and ethnicity; I could make eye contact, smile, and appreciate their wincing as iodine was poured on their open wounds

I tried every fudging pair of scissors looking for a sharp pair

I failed one more time to cut off a bandage

I started to feel stupid that my literate, articulate, law school-bound self couldn't operate a pair of scissors - I guess I always choose paper (be-dum-dum-chi on the drum kit, mimic swinging a golf club and click your tongue at the right moment)

I couldn't quite seem to make any leeway with the scissors

I was handed a pair of gloves and given no instructions or attention as Uday, who wore a respirator, and a younger orderly (who I was told was mentally ill but handled himself well) wheeled in a cart containing colanders, scissors, gauze wraps, and bottles of disinfectant

I walked around to the places I hadn't been yesterday, the ktichen and the corridor to the women's side

Meeting various residents, I shook hands and said hello or brought my palms together and said namasthe ('the' sounding as aspirated 'te' - aren't you just dying for a long lecture about phonetics?)

THE DAY BEFORE

I took back the pen and the pad

Everyone gathered around to see how caricatures of famous political figures were rapidly magically appearing on this paper

I brought out pen and paper

Geoff and I spoke with the sane, English speaking residents, both tuberculosis sufferers, one of whom told us he once worked for the BBC drawing political cartoons

I asked if they ever had a ball they kicked around, or paper and pens to make drawings

We were shown into the men's ward while Natali was taken to the women's

Geoff came by our room to ask if we wanted to go visit the nearest branch of Saint Teresa's orgnization

We met Geoff at the hotel restaurant and back at the room Natali cut his hair with scissors, and trimmed the back of his neck with a razor



Very cool, no? This mostly took place in a courtyard full of mentally ill men, rocking back andforth or mumbling, like an Indian version of Cuckoo's Nest with a nun for Nurse Ratchett

What was Natali's experience like, you ask? The women all wanted to come right up to her, to smile at her, to touch her, to show her their painted fingernails

Joff Munro is a Haligonian who wants to be a doctor, graduated, wrote the MCATs but was rejected but wil keep trying

DOB SEZ:

I've gotten positive feedback on ths weblog which makes me glow, frankly. Thank you for listening and don't worry, pictures and maybe even a spellcheck / overhaul coming eventually!

Stay tuned for our experiences at the India Social Forum, where my name on a registration sheet is sure to blacklist me in some future Orwellian nightmare! If that Israel comment didn't already...damn you JINSA!

And finally, the A-HA! album that Take On Me is on is called Hunting High and Low - I always wondered if any of the other songs were any good

Hans

Actually, his name is pronounced hans-yo-den

and does he look like a Hans?

Well, he has about one millimetre of shaved silver hair

and his silver handlebar, well... picture the monopoly guy, now picture him riding a motorcycle, now picture a pair of pronghorns like a texas oil magnate has

that's the 'stache Hans is packing

he has been to Delhi many times, and to Africa, and he is going to Dharamsala where the Dalai Lama is spending time now

I wish him the best of luck meeting him.

This is Hans' project: January to May 1945, Berlin. The conduct of German soldiers and officers. The choices they had: fight, flee, or take a pill (suinide cyacide)
Specifically, his father. his father had his leg blown off and was flown out to a military hospital. what was his father doing? was he brave?
Germany feels collective guilt, mea culpa, Hans says. The winners write the history books and the archival records are strongly taboo. It is a personal project to find out how his father acted and how he lost his leg in Berlin at the end of the European war. Perhaps he will publish his findings, perhaps not.

Did you read below about stock words? An example is apologist. Someone who tries to justify stuff. Hans is not an apologist. He would not do the inhuman things that took place. But there were reasons, and we can try and understand those reasons. That book Paris 1919 got popular. Fascism, ultra nationalism, phrenology, eugenics...plus they were doing this collectively, as a country, for their country.

Hans tells me all this and we have a conversation about Nuremburg and international law and human rights and American hypocrisy. If you are guessing (a common Indian construction, present tense plus gerund. Yes that is what a gerund is if you ever wondered, the -ing form of a verb) anyway, If you are guessing that I brought Professor C into the conversation, you know me pretty well. Hans wants to talk further, about my life and future.


I am ethnically Jewish but not observant nor do I believe in God. I don't support Israel much these days although it is a wonderful place. I've been called a selfhatingjew but that's not really accurate - I fudging love myself to death.

I am Jewish and my grandparents were born here in the '20s. My godmother, my parent's best friends, my godmother's mother, who my grandmother has lunch with, is a survivor.

And here is Hans, on his way to see the Dalai Lama, trying to find out about HIS FATHER THE NAZI. His father joined the party in 1932. He was a member of the SchutzStaffel.

Here is Hans, and here am I, in India, and he is telling me about his father the SS officer.
I cried a bit upstairs after I left him. (I mistyped 'after I felt him' which also makes sense)

...But a good cry, y'know? Because peace is real too, reconciliation and (i wanna say forgiveness, but i wasn't wronged and he didn't do anything wrong)

because Hans and I have no beef. (and not just because cows are sacred in India, yuk yuk)
the choices are long standing blood feud or really wanting peace and making it

One enters the Tibetan refugee neighborhood from gates along a busy thoroughfare. on the side of this road, where there aren't gates, there are squatters, some with cheap goods on display, some with thin unhappy dogs. The neighborhood is a grid of narrow laneways lined with stalls carrying fabrics, trinkets, phone services and internet, fruits. One moves further into the neighborhood from the min street and comes to the river. The shore is planted up, there are colourfully garbed women on their haunches tending to these fields. Back here some kids ran after me reaching for my pockets, the best I could do was play some impromptu reverse tag. I am * it *, which is all the things we all know it is - whitey mcpinkskin, carrying hordes of virtual wealth in my concealed moneybelt. Back here, a long uninterrupted view of a river, fields, one pedestrian bridge and one vehicle bridge, men pissing and one shitting, squatting on his haunches, enough other turds to make this commonplace, cows, more mangy dogs (sorry, I don't know whether they have mange, but we are so used to using these stock words - more on this soon). Next to the Tibetan neighborhood is a Buddhist temple, which this morning broadcast chanting which was playing in all the loudspeakers.

Now for more impressions from a long walk that spanned about a 4km diameter circle in northern Delhi.

Piles of bricks everywhere. Cows everywhere. On major streets. At least one of the white and black mottled variety. Traffic is dominated by bicycles, cycle-rickshaws usually carrying women, auto-rickshaws, buses, and down the list comes passenger cars.

No grid pattern in the streets whatsoever. Many intersections are shaped like a wishbone.
Back from the street, high walls often strung with barbed wire. Behind these walls? Sometimes run-down temples, full of squatters. Sometimes de-luxe apartments, or medical clinics or law offices. Greenspace everywhere, actually. I walked through large sections of park. There were monkeys, sometimes a dozen at once.

Saw some Delhi university campus buildings, actually some guys shooed me away from these, saw some schools and children's homes. Again, you've got a busy road, traffic moving on the left a la Britain, not-quite-sidewalks, walls with barbed wire, then a toss-up of run-down old building, under-construction new building, or complete building, at least one looking very modern.

Getting back to stock words, my brain keeps flashing * dilapidated * and * poverty-stricken * and * abject poverty *. Nothing else in the world is abject but poverty as far as I've ever seen.
There is so much more to describe, I'm sure the contents of all those piles of garbage would tell me quite a bit. And they are piles, becuase people (mostly but not always women) use whisk brooms to sweep dust, fallen leaves, and garbage into piles, and sprinkle water on the ground as well.