Footsteps to follow

Sometimes, it is nice to dig old incidents. This one crops up here because of Steinbeck's brief plot-synopsis within 'The Pearl' used as an archeologist’s tool. I remember how in a village scenario, tracking someone by merely looking down and following his foot-tracks is a simple skill.

Ten years back, fresh out of college, I used to get confused with the word 'footprint', for I had learnt that it means a foot-mark left on a surface. But, working my ass in a village called Patanka replacing traditional mud houses with houseowner’s organic designs, some two hundred odd of them, I used to have my more sophisticated friends talk and discuss, elitely, of a the same word 'footprint', but with a different meaning. More precisely, the word carbon was prefixed and the word became more than words. That time the grassroots concern was somewhere else, and now you can see it is a global concern now.

My concern stays smaller. It is of the skill, the skill which John published of back then in 1947; the skill of tracing/chasing someone wanted or unwanted by following the footprints left on the dusty ground. The melancholy plot-synopsis is of Kino chased during his run. Reminded me of how I was chased by the best chasers of Patanka , a community called Rabari, basically, grazers here who own a lot of sheep and flock, lowest in that village's social ladder of four to five categories. Vajabhai, chased me to be allotted his quota of cement, and complained I had been the toughest catch in his life. My job was to walk around and visit different houses that were being built, to inspect that they were being done proper. He complained that I would circle and walk too much. This made me happy then, and now makes me proud when I look back, for they were good times as we cracked them as jokes. When I discussed this with others in the village, the superior people of the village, they told me that these grazaers are best with this technique of foot following and are usually of help to the community when a theft had taken place. As soon as a theft alarm is raised, unknown footsteps are followed, wrong ones eliminated and a track path invented, in a particular direction, with probabilities worked out that in which village would the thief would have gone to. Villages here, then and now, are distributed by a distance of five to ten kilometers in an average. If pursued, it took a month or two to apprehend the thief.

Now, slowly most of these villages are access roaded with roads that are super highways, otherwise called expressways, motorways or freeways. It can be a useful observation to find how much of the footprint identification skill still remains. I am talking of the smaller issue.

Animals, Humans and Pets

The Red Pony by John Steinbeck

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Jody, Billy Buck, papa Carl, mama and uncle, and an another ailing uncle who stole away an ailing horse. The art of horse maintenance where promises are made and life goes on, the book shows a life and a people of those times, for there are details which cannot be escaped, and to some/one make fall in love with their pet again. I read the book in pauses because of my other work pressures, and many times I needed the company of my Banjo(a Labrador retriever) with me. The book and him, both felt better while I completed it slowly.

Some practice again

With a love for literature which I don’t know where it comes from and not much formal education in it, perhaps it is a good practice to use your other knowledge gathering techniques of other fields of specialization. Such as, copy a paragraph or two, and try to fit yourself inside a Great Man’s shoes using the process called copying. At least it helps improve one’s grammar, I can say; there are other observations too. Page 73 of Mark Twain’s, “A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court”, has a paragraph so relevant 150 years down the line. Copied below it goes -

We were off before sunrise, Sandy riding and I limping along behind. In half an hour we came upon a group of ragged poor creatures who had assembled to mend the thing which was regarded as a road. They were as humble as animals to me; and when I proposed to breakfast with them, they were so flattered, so overwhelmed by this extraordinary condescension of mine that at first they were not able to believe that I was in earnest. My lady put up her scornful lip and withdrew to one side; she said in their hearing that she would as soon think of eating with the other cattle—a remark which embarrassed these poor devils merely because it referred to them, and not because it insulted or offended them, for it didn’t. And yet they were not slaves, not chattels. By a sarcasm of law and phrase they were freemen. Seven-tenths of the free population of the country were of just their class and degree: small “independent” farmers, artisans etc.; which is to say, they were the nation, the actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, or worth saving, or really respectworthy; and to subtract them would have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility and gentry, idle, unproductive, aquainted mainly with the arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any rationally constructed world. And yet, by ingenious contrivance, this gilded minority, instead of being in the tail of the procession where it belonged, was marching head up and banners flying, at the other end of it; had elected itself to be a Nation, and these innumerable clams had permitted it so long that they had come at last to accept it as a truth; and not only that, but to believe it right and as it should be. The preists had told their fathers and themselves that this ironical state of things was ordained of God; and so, not reflecting upon how unlike God it would be to amuse himself with sarcasms, and especially such poor transparent ones as this, they had dropped the matter there and become respectfully quiet.

I find that buying the Bantam classic is worthier and sustainable than getting the stuff online, although it has its own benefits, available at
http://www.literature.org/authors/twain-mark/connecticut/chapter-13.html
I swear, throat twitched, bie-god, I have rewrit the above para myself, just for practice.

Madness?

When a man sits in a city faraway, as faraway as the other side of the planet, and worries about Woody Guthrie, sings a few songs of his he knows, and also feels he has to read some classic; goes to the nearest bookshop picks up A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT and hardly three pages done, he feels he has to write this.

He then connects this to a singer and how he visits his legend Woody in the asylum, much publicized since a few decades, now dying out, mentions it to his colleague, inquiring if he himself isn't mad?

The response is "thank god! At least you know!"

The man wonders, "Is it madness to acknowledge madness?"

Parallels Must Be Related

The above title is the title of a chapter in Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday (first published 1954), a continuation to the Cannery Row (1945); also pointed to as life then in the towns of ‘Monterey’ and ‘Cannery Row’ in California.

In Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, I make a parallel observation, hoping for another parallel, from this chapter 13 of this novel. I hope, the characters - ‘Doc’ and ‘Wide Ida’ are the same kinds we think of in our own perceptions. In verbatim, I re-write here:

As the dawn crept over the bay he decided to go for a very long walk, perhaps to follow the shoreline all the way around to Carmel. He arose, and since it was still dusky in the laboratory he turned on the lights to make his coffee.

Wide Ida, from the entrance of La Ida, saw his lights come on. She put an unlabeled pint bottle of brown liquor in a paper bag and crossed the street to Western Biological.

“Doc,” she said, “would you work this stuff over?”

“What is it?”

“They say it’s whisky. I just want to know if it’ll kill anybody. I got a pretty good buy. They make it up in Pine Canyon.”

“That’s against the law,” said Doc.

“Killing people is against the law too,” said Wide Ida.

Doc was torn between bootlegging and murder. He thought sadly that he was always involved in something like this-not good or bad but bad and less bad. He made a fairly quick analysis. “It’s not poison,” he said, “but it won’t build good healthy stomachs. There’s some fusel oil in it. But I guess it’s no worse than Old Tennis Shoes.”

Teach your doggie well

Banjo is more like a child to me, and I have consciously tried to keep him as a freedom dog (which he usually abuses) and instill values in him rather than train him hardcore. You know what I mean - he will fetch your watch, purse or TV remote if you ask him to; has obsession with retrieving tennis balls, or for that matter any ball of any other type too. He is not chained usually. Nine months old, I hope he doesn’t turns out a brat.



This song above in YouTube is one of my favorite pieces, which I feel is because of the band’s genuineness in making a good song out of what they know is important. I am purty glad, the Wikipedia link is also a good place to understand the basis of the song. Greatness uncomparable, the next YouTube thing is more of a slimy but true thing. Because I have made it, just a parody, means some lyrics have to change too - just for the sake of some light hearted fun.


Author’s caution: Any attempt to seriousize this latter video is a misinterpretation, and cannot be helped.

You, who are on the road
Must have a Dog
that you can bite.
so, please bark on yourself
Because the guests
are just a goodbye.

Teach, your doggie well
Their master’s hell
will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they will pick
The one in which they will bite.
Don't you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

And you Of tender years
Won’t know the fears
That your masters grew by
And so help them with your youth
They seek the truth
Before they can die

Teach your parents well
Their children’s hell
Will slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's
The one you’ll know by.

Don’t you ever ask them why
If they told you, you would cry
So just look at them and sigh
And know they love you.

Watching TV and Chillen in schools

In India, known as a plural society, as a family we would sit together and watch television. The digital packages now provide around twenty or twenty-five news channels in English or Hindi; discounting the regional lingo ones. The English and Hindi ones are the ones I would understand, along with most of the billion people in the subcontinent. A fifty-fifty ratio these, if I talk of the English one on the morning of the 10th of April 2010, Anderson 360 on CNN News fabulously (here) and concernedly reported on how suicides in schools because of the increased pressures to either perform or bullying is a concern. Anderson is concerned. And this side of globe while we get concerned too, the news after a point does not makes much sense; perhaps because we can contribute nothing. To get to see something nicer now we will flick the channels. Two flicks and we find the CNN-IBN, which is an Indian and a CNN collaborative. IBN is reporting of school children tortured and beaten on wrist-slashed by the school teacher, somewhere in a remote village of the country.

While both the TV channels rightly highlight this issue while spoiling our taste from the news we see and hear, we some in the family, look at each others faces, silently, with our eyes wondering what difference does it makes – India or America, we as adults probably just need to be easy on chillen, wherever we come from – Rural remote or Urban high class.

Putting women into prostitution

If you forget yesterday and tomorrow, and concentrate on today, a Sunday, and this time and outside the comfort zone the society passing by, becoming moderner, wants and needs, somewhere also comes an either uninformed or ignored issue, or more clearly, about a particular class of women, famously known as prostitutes. Whores in other words, conveniently left by the Indian mob to a backseat, not in terms of lack in shouting or talking about, but in sheer quality of what we think about them. In the Indian TV debates, even the best elite representatives fiercely fighting, I mean arguing, fiercely, with conservatives, religious of any religion, that Ms. Spears or Madonna maybe are bad examples our society is being exposed to.

While, whatever, India apes from the west, and at the same time gets scared of, on the TV is visible that art transfer takes a decade, exactly a decade, therefore, staying behind by ten years. Swinging comes to Bollywood in seventies when Hollywood had already left for experiential psychedelia. Notice now the popular Dance-India-Dance hip-hop boogie-woogying, exactly a decade behind.

Or, if TV is a bad example, go and walk the streets of Ville Parle or Juhu, particularly at ten in the night. Next to the Juhu thana (Hindi for police station) or the Big B Bollywood’s Bangla most turns and corners has girls, not older than twenty-five, rural girls, kidnapped or enticed or coaxed to a more comfy life. I doubt their skills in negotiating a deal, also to be occasionally harassed by sex deprived autowala brothers, because in recessionary times in Mumbai, customers are tough to come by, which means more waiting time.

Unless legalized to work, whether they have to (trafficked or by choice) or they would like to, perhaps we all know that it is most rudimentary to respect women across the country who leave their homes to earn for their own, mostly rural women as I said. Maybe as lowly as freedom to beg which this country offers as freedom package there could be similar understanding towards the issue of the right to work as sex-workers. Entertainment transfer across democracies may take a decade, but attitude transfer in next few decades is too good to be plausible. Let us stay who we are and please respect women whatever situation they are in.

Don’t forget this song (Lyrics)

About a Neighbour (Neighbor) -

Once one a beautiful post told me how a short story strives to become a word. Quite similarly, this issue manages to become a one liner.

Hey Banjo

Naming a dog is tough if you become thoughtful. Three months old, he looked like ‘Gromit’ (Wallace and Gromit fame) - didn’t bark much, just turned his head staring at you in question. For a Labrador pup he looked weak and thin, collapsing under his tiny weight when in pup-like excitement he ran and skidded about inside the house. The local friends and relatives, opined, getting older he was becoming a burden to the kennel. They fed necessary little and caged him; this got him malnourished and stiff. A good deal against a few thousand bucks it is good he has come to live with us. When I first named him ‘Gromit’, all desi neighbors and acquaintances tended to call him ‘Gaur-ment’, or ‘Grow-min’.

This irritating re-occurrent calling of this name and in between a cool Solo in the movie ‘The Dog Problem’, not deject but rather inspired me not to give him any name at all. But, the dog is supposed to grow big, so I thought he is supposed to have a name. What should I call him? Call him - ‘Jack’ the dog?

The dog owners, modern-time world travelers, Pete Seeger’s and Woody Guthrie’s fans too, applied our minds to the best of our abilities, gave up, and finally named him ‘Banjo’ – in resemblance or in tribute to the musical instrument.

Then, we figured out Banjo is a pronunciation free name – If you are frustrated call him Bancho, if you are wanting to feel sophisticated, call him Banyo, and if musical you can hum, Bannn-j j j-o. In affection you can also call him ‘Bunjo’.

Six months old now, ‘Banjo’ is literally double the size when he first came to the house. A cool natured pup - sensitive and careless, is now big enough for local standards. In next six months to come, he is estimated to grow double. When his owners leave him alone in the house, Banjo probably knows he has to keep guard, but he prefers to take sound naps. Sleeping, probably he loves his dreams which are full of innocent smells and games.

***

Men on the morning TV

Missed the baasi (baa-see) supply of hourly letterman I always get in the morning at seven here. Courtesy ‘Star World’, thanks, I love it even if it is not live; it is relevant. Well, it was late at eight, and my dog kind-of satisfied, after he took me out on our regular morning walk. It had lasted for nearly an hour, and also since we had started late today, we had to face this agony of missing the show.

My Tata sky has about twenty news channels roughly, and you can flick them in one order. Thanks to digital technology available now. First one is DD, then the hindi ones, followed by the english news channels. While the hindi channels had regular Sallu and Dhoni being interviewed, the English ones showed what the CNN and BBC showed - a Live Obama 'state of the union' speech! Now there was something sinister about it. I can say this because I am just a simple observer, not any political commentator, living in today's globalised world. People attending the speech in the hall, clapped after every sentence the American president had sort-of completed. Nothing made sense to me, except some vague stuff he talked on job market in America, trade and Afghanistan and Eye-rack.

Well, I write this blog just to remind myself that Obama is America's president, not mine. Bhaiya, you can keep your CHANGE, I need more to survive in today’s world.

East versus West – Some Lessons from the heart

Look at the ‘east versus west’ debate, where one accuses the other. One refers to the other as ‘the third world’ and in return gets a name called ‘industrialized’ in the today’s times of global warming concern. The intellectual topic - ‘east versus west’ starts turning trite as - to quote famous Paul Friedman – the globe turns flatter.

Look at these examples from the author’s case of his heart attack – one from the emergency medication facility available at that instant, and second from the long term recovery. Make notice from the contrast.

Angioplasty invented in California and/or Switzerland saved my life because I was cautious enough to land up at the emergency doors of a hospital in India. And, I am not sure I would have used the emergency facilities if, for example, I was living in the foreign lands of Europe. I am an easterner, and in comparison almos a same age but a westerner and a celebrity, Brittany Murphy, unfortunately, wasn’t as lucky as me.

Plavix is one of the important few medicines the doctor prescribes. Plavix in India is available in two types- One ‘imported’, and other ‘desi’ (Made In India). Just like shampoos and hair conditioners. The apparent difference is in the prices of the both. While a leaf of fourteen tablets cost around 1500 Rupees, the Indian version is cheaper by ten times. Now, the prescription is for the imported one for a few initial months, and later I could shift to the desi type. Though people (of east or of west) would sight that this difference in prices is because of manufacturing cost, plain patent costs, or some other reason, I would only adduce that my doctor is only concerned about the quality of my medicine since I can afford it, unlike some.

Some fun I had here comparing ‘east and west’!

---

Post.P.S. Merry X-mas

Slow down, read a book

One of the after effects of surviving a heart-stroke is that it slows one down. Doctors tell to do so - and no matter what, you don’t have a choice. And one of the results, positive, is that one would pick up books to read. Books which are slow, or books which are insightful, books which are shit, or books which heal, and so on so to let the time pass by.

‘Tortilla Flat’ by legendary Steinbeck became an unintentional efficacious companion. The period of recovery changed into gestation, for there were new things to learn. To me, more than the Arthurian connection or a beautiful community of Paisanos in the book, it was – to quote Thomas Fensch, the introducer to this edition (ed. year 1997)–

Above the bay, and in Caramel and elsewhere, the shacks and shanties of the paisanos are gone now too, bulldozed for tract houses, shopping centers, and roads. But through Steinbeck’s eyes, we see them still, talking and laughing under the golden warmth of the sun, in those idyllic days of the Great Depression, when friendship and wine meant more than money.

Thomas Fensch talks of the year 1935, when ‘Tortilla Flat’ was published. That is, in between the famous big wars of the west - evidently, bad economic and financial times.
And this fact apart, somewhere in chapter XIV in the book there is an important healing advice-

They did not awaken quickly, nor fling about nor shock their systems with any sudden movement. No, they arose from slumber as gently as a soap bubble floats out from its pipe. Down into the gulch they trudged, still only half awake. … Life took shape about them, the shape of yesterday, and of tomorrow.

Some entertainment

Saturday- a couple of young American cops on regular patrol fucked up a little, for they didn’t know who Bob Dylan was, and took Mr. Zimmerman to his hotel until he could prove himself as someone genuine. Sunday - it was Sarukh Khan’s turn. He could not fare better.

US government agency, USCIRF has announced India on its watch and monitor list because the latter fails to protect its religious minorities.

<USCIRF link 1 : Indian Flag – For enchanced knowledge, one can click further on the flag>
<USCIRF link 2 : Newpaper references on this issue>

Along with the editorial writers and journos in number of Indian newspapers, brown man will now borrow black man’s lines and sing in a bluesy tone– “before you accuse me ... take a look at your self”.

Perhaps, American government now needs to establish an another agency which it may call - USCENCECA (United States Commission for Entertainment Needs of its Cops and Elimination of Confusion if he is an Artist).

Rocking! Really?

Salman Khan and many in Bollywood, from somewhere have learnt this new word - 'Rocking!'. They blatantly use it to suggest something exciting coming onto their way. For Sallu, 'rocking' is to get onto the stage and thrust his hips in sync with other ten or twenty with him. While his feet thump the floor with electronica beats, he covers his left ear with his left palm and stretches his right hand horizontally to draw an imaginary arc. His funny face changing expressions from shock to awe, to itchiness to pleasure. Also, now Rakhi Sawant is hyped to dance as a cheer girl in the coming IPL cricket season. Phew! God bless America for you and me.

Quote of the day (1)

A paragraph In Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert I just couldn’t stop thinking and laughing about again and again. In verbatim –
“When you worked for Dominy you were always terrified of the page-eight syndrome. If you handed him a memorandum and page eight was missing, he’d call your supervisor and say, ‘Get that asshole off the job. Put him in a hole someplace.’