In the contingency of bekaari, I'm feeling poetic...so here goes.
A million stars skip across the water,
Glazing it with a silver hue.
Every night, I dip myself in this silver
And awake, to find me soaked in gold.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Back to the past
Finally! An impending and long-pending trip to Egypt materializes out of the sand. Plans, re-plans and re-re-plans later, we booked tickets. And that’s just about it. Now it remains to be seen whether we’ll actually make it. So often, our plans have come crashing down…much like the nose of Giza's sphinx.
Sigh! So many plans to travel and so little time. Between work and work and then some more work, there’s not much that can be done. But, hold it…I do have a list. And it's long.
I'll roll of just a few to keep you off a doze-a-thon. Some of my must-see’s and must-go’s include all the historical sites in India, Machu Picchu and the ruins of Petra, besides the valley of the kings. Being a complete sucker for history, I so often see myself brushing away piled on years to get a glimpse of the past. Watching the people of the Indus Valley lead their organized, urban lives thousands of years before urbanization. Or stumbling upon Tutankhamen’s tomb and dying of his curse, clutching a scepter, crying wildly. Oh well… :)
I envied Agatha Chistie’s life as the wife of archeologist Max Mallowan (of course, the lousy lout cheated on her…but that’s another story). Imagine what adventures her already fertile mind would have spun, while coming face-to-face with remains of the past.
The impact is best summed up by Christie herself while watching the city of Ur come alive –
“The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint through the sand, was romantic”
I couldn’t agree more.
Romance aside, there’s something of the past that’s searching and magnetic. It’s like this shadowy creature waiting to engulf you and take you away…into a world frozen in time. Waiting, watching…seeing if you ready.
And God knows I am :)
Sigh! So many plans to travel and so little time. Between work and work and then some more work, there’s not much that can be done. But, hold it…I do have a list. And it's long.
I'll roll of just a few to keep you off a doze-a-thon. Some of my must-see’s and must-go’s include all the historical sites in India, Machu Picchu and the ruins of Petra, besides the valley of the kings. Being a complete sucker for history, I so often see myself brushing away piled on years to get a glimpse of the past. Watching the people of the Indus Valley lead their organized, urban lives thousands of years before urbanization. Or stumbling upon Tutankhamen’s tomb and dying of his curse, clutching a scepter, crying wildly. Oh well… :)
I envied Agatha Chistie’s life as the wife of archeologist Max Mallowan (of course, the lousy lout cheated on her…but that’s another story). Imagine what adventures her already fertile mind would have spun, while coming face-to-face with remains of the past.
The impact is best summed up by Christie herself while watching the city of Ur come alive –
“The lure of the past came up to grab me. To see a dagger slowly appearing, with its gold glint through the sand, was romantic”
I couldn’t agree more.
Romance aside, there’s something of the past that’s searching and magnetic. It’s like this shadowy creature waiting to engulf you and take you away…into a world frozen in time. Waiting, watching…seeing if you ready.
And God knows I am :)
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
An ode to a Mockingbird
I'm reading 'To kill a Mockingbird' all over again...because years have let the little bits trickle out of my memory. I read it when I was 12 and felt closer to Scout than Jem, despite the latter being my age. Scout’s eyes always remain adult-cataract free, transparent, seeing and perceiving as is…and not what should be. Believing in good, its all-encompassing quality and its ultimate triumph, however long the wait.
On another tangent, it also gets me thinking each time…we, as Indians were victims of racial prejudice for years, but are we above it ourselves? I have so often heard the term ‘kaala’ (or ‘kariya’ down south) for an African, or even a dark-skinned Indian. I have a very dear friend who tells me that in her childhood, some parents didn’t allow their children to play with her because she was dark-skinned. The logic being that touching a dark-skinned person would make you one too!! (if you are lucky, you buggers…). We place ourselves a notch higher when we label somebody an ‘untouchable’, and although the bias seems to not exist on the surface, it still has its noxious seeds waiting to sprout somewhere. Trust me on that one.
Even a show of tolerance or brotherhood can’t hide a festering hideout of bias and intolerance…towards anyone who’s not as pretty, as smart, as successful. For me, racial bias is not just towards a particular nation’s people. It extends towards particular labeled ‘races’ as well – what we term the ‘losers’, the ‘poor’, the ‘disabled’….all those we wouldn’t associate with or touch with a barge pole.
How come we never have patience for anything less perfect, when we aren’t perfect ourselves?
What does it mean to be human really? Is it just to constantly hanker towards perfection or embrace everybody’s else’s so-called imperfections and admit to our own? What if we had a society full of self-confessed imperfect, flawed people, telling all and sundry their fears, doubts, hopes?
I have a sneaking feeling that the day we voice out our shortcomings and gather them to our bosom, we would be free of all prejudices. We would then refrain from derogatory terms and look instead at the richness in a person. At chocolate, coffee coated skins, at a struggle inside a pupa, at survivals despite the condition.
Maybe…just maybe...then, there would be no more ‘race’…except for the human one.
On another tangent, it also gets me thinking each time…we, as Indians were victims of racial prejudice for years, but are we above it ourselves? I have so often heard the term ‘kaala’ (or ‘kariya’ down south) for an African, or even a dark-skinned Indian. I have a very dear friend who tells me that in her childhood, some parents didn’t allow their children to play with her because she was dark-skinned. The logic being that touching a dark-skinned person would make you one too!! (if you are lucky, you buggers…). We place ourselves a notch higher when we label somebody an ‘untouchable’, and although the bias seems to not exist on the surface, it still has its noxious seeds waiting to sprout somewhere. Trust me on that one.
Even a show of tolerance or brotherhood can’t hide a festering hideout of bias and intolerance…towards anyone who’s not as pretty, as smart, as successful. For me, racial bias is not just towards a particular nation’s people. It extends towards particular labeled ‘races’ as well – what we term the ‘losers’, the ‘poor’, the ‘disabled’….all those we wouldn’t associate with or touch with a barge pole.
How come we never have patience for anything less perfect, when we aren’t perfect ourselves?
What does it mean to be human really? Is it just to constantly hanker towards perfection or embrace everybody’s else’s so-called imperfections and admit to our own? What if we had a society full of self-confessed imperfect, flawed people, telling all and sundry their fears, doubts, hopes?
I have a sneaking feeling that the day we voice out our shortcomings and gather them to our bosom, we would be free of all prejudices. We would then refrain from derogatory terms and look instead at the richness in a person. At chocolate, coffee coated skins, at a struggle inside a pupa, at survivals despite the condition.
Maybe…just maybe...then, there would be no more ‘race’…except for the human one.
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