Every nation and every man instantly surround themselves with a material apparatus which exactly corresponds to theirstate of thought.
Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of some man’s mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities language, ceremonies, newspapers. Observe… howtimber, brick lime and stone have flown into convenient shape, obedient to the master idea reigning in the minds of many persons….
It follows of course that the least change in the man will change his circumstances; the least enlargement of his ideas, the least mitigation of his feelings in respect to othermen. If, for example, he could be inspired with a tender kindness to the souls of other men…. every degree of ascendance of this feeling would cause the most striking changes of external things.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Today was the first session of the ‘From Harvard Square to Oval Office’ program at the Harvard Kennedy School. We had two speakers – Barbara Lee , the person who endowed this program and made it possible; Lori Ehrlich – an alumnus of this program who went on to run for office and is now a state representative. Inspirational, moving, from the heart … genuine. It is people like this who reawaken your faith in possibilities, your ability to transcend boundaries.. and to help those little sparks of hope and ambition the push to grow. Sometimes you just need someone to believe in you, sometimes you just need someone to reinforce your faith.
Ask not if you have the right skill set, if you are good enough.. ask if the world will be a better place for you having participated. The woods would indeed be silent if only the best birds sang. Run .. stand .. because you are.
The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t un-see it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.
- Arundhati Roy
Went to the India Independence Day Celebrations on Sunday. Went alone, without a camera – found 3 new great friends and got more than enough pics.
It was a pretty big gathering with a few thousand people. Dance performances from afternoon to sundown. Stalls of all things Indian from food to aid organizations and meditation classes. Quite a lively, festive atmosphere. And just a little more than a month ago I had attended 4th of July celebrations on the same ground (its called Esplanade by the way, right by the Charles river – pretty place)
It was organized by – http://www.iagb.org/
MIT put up a performance too – Harvard was missing .. and so were the rest of the schools in the Boston area.
It is an annual event organized by the Indian Association of Greater Boston. http://www.iagb.org/
Came across quite a few things there
1. A political party – http://www.loksatta.org/
2. Brahma Kumaris – They have free meditation classes and sessions – http://bkwsu.org/us/massachusetts/
3. aidindia.org ; http://www.saheliboston.org/
4. A website for updates on Indian events in this area – www.lokvani.com
“‘Lokvani’ translated literally means ‘Public Voice’. We aim to serve the Indian community in New England through this website.”
5. A bike ride to raise funds to liberate rickshaw pullers from their loan bondage -Oct 3, 2009 – Boston Fall Foliage Bike Ride for India. http://eh.rageframeworks.com:9001/AIFBostonBikeRide2009/homepage.htm;jsessionid=E26D6D3034DD5FF8E97A6E688800C2C96. Johnny Lever in Boston (Burlington) – Sept 11, free admission – http://www.johnnyleverliveinus.com/Massachusetts.html
enchanted I listen,
for you speak my language
mesmerized I stare
a traveller you seem
i fret about fading memories
you hold them captive
perhaps even embellish them
moments lived, sights beheld
a vision to be preserved, idealised
or a reality to be known, touched, seen
begets a desire to be stillness captured
a wish to become beauty itself
*http://www.flickr.com/photos/priyatam/show/ – simply perfect photography, one cant even use adjectives like stunning/amazing … beause theyre so subtle and gentle .. perhaps ‘breathtaking’ would describe them best. I don’t profess to have an artistic bent, but even I could see the beauty in these photographs. See them and be floored.
People ask if I experienced a culture shock.
Perhaps I did – that first time when as an 18 year old I landed at Moscow airport – gleaming floors, shining windows, perfectly painted faces and crisp dresses.
And me in my unfeminine T-shirt and jeans felt exactly that – unfeminine.
But then years later I came to America – should I have experienced a ‘culture shock’ here?
Aren’t stories of Brooklyn, Manhattan, New York as much a part of my upbringing as of those here.
Don’t Boston houses remind me of Nainital homes – English architecture, creaky wooden floors…
All the pictures in my head, the music, the movies – as many of them are American as are Indian.
And being here is a gift, to be able to put all those pictures and sounds in context. To finally be in the land that is connected to me not in terms of blood or heritage but by my indulgence in its cultural exports.
What is culture then if not this?
Am I then a foreigner?
Am I a stranger to this land?
A friend of mine who is from Bulgaria but now lives in Spain stated that it is not so important to decide where we belong ‘It doesn’t matter’, he said ‘for we are citizens of the world’.
Citizens of the world indeed… but then perhaps more so of some places than others.
..to Bulgaria perhaps I was indeed a foreigner. I had not spoken its language, known its stories, its politics, its people…
If I look back, I have straddled two worlds from the very beginning, a language is never just a language – it is a window to another culture – to another land. Even as I learnt the English alphabet, even before my memories began to take shape I was already in two cultures. Mentally, unknowingly so many us are already in two continents … a division of loyalties, language and attitudes that is never questioned.
So why do I have to choose now?
Why is there this question of choice now?
Of one over the other?
For this life that is already a patchwork of places…
There was a time when I bristled when I met Indians who had immigrated to the US professed that this is their home, I felt that they were somehow betraying their ‘culture’, their country. But I lacked their insight, the insight that came to me on a bus in Boston, as I read a novel on my commute. It began with the quote…
“Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.”
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
I hastily took out a pen and a diary from my backpack to jot down the thoughts that this quote had evoked. It made me question my as yet unarticulated feelings … Why wasn’t I eager to come to America, why did it take me so long to accept this place, I who generally embrace being in a different place? Perhaps it’s the negative connotation we as Indians have come to associate with ‘Americanization’ and ‘Westernization’ … the liberal values somehow appear to be a threat to our relatively conservative world. But then such liberal values exist in almost all other parts of the world – even in Africa. This is just another country, as good or bad as any other, it doesn’t deserve this questionable status of being aped, and derided in the same sentence. Another country, same people.
We assign so many irrational connotations to people and places, some so subconscious that we even forget to question them.
When I moved to Delhi from Nainital, I heard the term ‘Delhite’ and the single word was somehow supposed to convey a whole world of meaning describing a person who lived in Delhi. It would be said with this knowing ‘Ah.. a Delhite – u know how they are’ tone of voice. And I could never really understand such a generalization, for the people I met there through the years were all too different to be clubbed together in one supposedly loaded word.
When I moved from Texas to Boston, I met a fellow on the train, when I told him I’m moving north – he shook his head slowly from side to side and a ‘tsk’ escaped his lips. I asked him to explain his expression, and he said in a low voice ‘Not good, not a nice place’ I asked him why … he lowered his voice and said ‘Very racist … u know… I am from Chicago, it is bad there I agree, but Boston .. tsk its the worst’
I pressed him further ‘What exactly do u mean by racist’ … he shrugged as if to say ‘Isn’t it obvious’. Perhaps to him it was … not to me. There is nothing to be whispered about racism … we are all racists in one form or the other. Some of us wear our prejudices on our sleeves while others try to cover them up and the best of us try to rise above them. I know the best of people who harbour Anti- Muslim sentiments, the best of people in India who feel people from the state of Bihar are somehow inferior to the rest. We come from a country where servants don’t sit on chairs in houses and we have the temerity to complain about racism when we are (are we?) at the receiving end.
It really doesn’t have to do with countries. Life is lived on a much smaller scale than that. I don’t know if I love America but within 2 weeks I have come to love Boston. I lived in Houston for 6 months and I doubt I would have loved it even in 10. It took me 1 year to start appreciating Delhi and I do miss it at times. Do I miss Pleven? My home for 6 years… loyalty compels me to say ‘some things about it yes, the I wouldn’t have the opportunities I have today, or the person I am today had Bulgaria not happened’ .. but objectively not really … I don’t miss the city all that much, just the uniqueness which I know I won’t come across anywhere, quaint customs, the nuances of the language, the contrast between being so comfortable with people and so uncomfortable in speaking their language … unique experiences, insightful experiences… but not the place, I don’t miss it all that much. Then there is the Neverland of my childhood, Nainital .. ah Nainital it is remembered with the fondness attached to a first love, I doubt if anything will come close.
People are the same everywhere, some bad, mostly good and occasionally some turn out to be angels. If you think back to the last 6 months – how many really bad people have you met? How many normal/nice people? Most likely you will have met more normal/nice people than mean ones. For the most part life is mundane, people going about their work, school or daily chores, irrespective of whether it’s India or America. There is more to places than other people – it is us, we have to open our minds, we have to accept, we have to indulge and then only will we begin to love.
*Title and inspiration from the book ‘Unaccustomed Earth” – Jhumpa Lahiri
We the Peoples of the United Nations Determined
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
And for these Ends
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
Have Resolved to Combine our Efforts to Accomplish these Aims
Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.
Man once wrote this, and in just the writing of these great words, he has half redeemed himself. And all those Human Rights convnetions out there are testament to man’s innate Godliness. If ever one doubts mankinds ability to face its demons, one need only to look at these conventions and the wonder of it all would reaffirm mankinds faith in itself. The very fact that people from so many countries of the world could get to agree on certain basic principles that define our humanity, that in itself is amazing.
Read these words, read them again … and rejoice, for you are part of this era, an era where people can get together and create things bigger than themselves. If ever you feel mankind is doomed – be it global warming or the international drug trade, or financial crises, read these words and be reminded of all the great goodness that abounds. Reaffirm your faith in mankind.
Today was a good TED day – saw three ted talks and all were simply fabulous.
Tony Robbins verbalized something that I’ve always felt but could never define in words – He says :
“The defining factor (of success) is not resources its resourcefulness. If you have emotion – human emotion –this is the ultimate resource.”
Here are the links to the talks – 2 were by Barry Schwartz and one by Tony Robinns
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/tony_robbins_asks_why_we_do_what_we_do.html
I am a self-professed wiki fan. Wkipedia is amazing, I still can’t comrephend how something like this is functioning so well. Its like leaving a huge block of stone in the middle of the street hoping people passing by will chisel it into a beautiful sculpture. How can u put so much trust in humanity?
Wiki has these chapters all over the world – sadly there is no Wiki-India chapter. The importance of having a presence on wiki can’t be overemphasised. Information is power, and wiki is filtering the information for the consumption of the world. If you are not there, your perspectives will be smothered, or worse not be known at all. It is almost like a state-responsibility to ensure active wiki participation so that its influsence on the global knowledge databse isnt washed away.
With its great, rising literate population – citizens with a mind of their own – India is missing out on leaving its mark on and contributing to the global fund of knowledge by ignoring the wiki movement. Join in with the global community, contribute to the worlds knowledge base. Calling all Indians out there, contribute to wiki, check it out – its damn neat. You will be amazed at the simple complexity of wiki’s design once you try to edit or add information to wiki articles. Let not your collective knowledge be ignored, go-wiki!
