Don't Quit

1990. At home after school. It had been a tiring day. Not physically, but emotionally. Maybe physically too - given the mind-body connection. Not so much school as home.

What a surprise it was to discover her letter in the pile of mail on the table! She probably sensed what was going on at home, from my behavior at school. Even if she didn't fully know what was going on, she had taken the trouble to sit down and write me a letter! I love her so much for that and I cherish that gesture of friendship deeply.

I don't remember if she'd caught on to the actual situation, but she'd ended her letter with a poem - 'Don't Quit' by Leo Piggot (1931). Here it is. I thought I'd share it with you - don't know when or why or if you might need to read its inspiring and comforting message. One doesn't need a crucible to turn to this poem...

Don't Quit

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit--

Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As every one of us sometimes learns;

And many a fellow turns about

When he might have won, had he stuck it out.

Don't give up though the pace seems slow--

You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than

It seems to a faint and faltering man;

Often the struggler has given up

When he might have captured the victor's cup;

And he learned too late when the night came down,

How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out--

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems afar;

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit;

It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

These words, copied down in her firm, pragmatic, determined, left-leaning handwriting brought a smile to my face and new resolve in my heart.

The little, meaningful things friends do for one another! God bless her.

Actually, God has blessed her :), this friend of mine, and rightfully so. Today, this girl with a steel will, loads of charisma, an attractive personality, and great breadths of creativity is a very well known personality in India. Good for her!

Who was Leo Piggott and what happened to him? Well, apart from the fact that he lived in the early 20th century and wrote several inspiring poems....I really don't know, I'm sorry to say. I would have liked to know more of him, but google was unsuccessful this time I'm afraid...or perhaps the Piggotts are very private indeed.

Enjoy The Silence

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
  But I have promises to keep,
  And miles to go before I sleep,
  And miles to go before I sleep."

Reflect.

Re-tune.

Connect with the spiritual dimension of the universe.

Meditate.

Enjoy the silence.

Go within.

Withdraw to find your true center. Like an artist, who must retreat for days, and then emerges to create a masterpiece.

A single word, process, thought – a mantra. A long drive. A retreat to one’s room. A walk. Communion with nature. Quiet time.

You alone can illuminate your lantern, from within.

Your light can, and will, penetrate the darkness and brighten the road ahead. Be receptive, be alive. You will see things you never had been able to see before.

Connecting with oneself and with the universe does not mean hiding away from the world. It means wandering, searching, analyzing, making connections. Are you ready to do that?

Be true to yourself, so that you may be true to those around you.

The pieces will fall into place.

It will be the best thing that happens to you, and to everyone else.

The Sound of a Good Thing Going

Yesterday morning, while cramming for my finance paper upstairs and envying those who were frolicking about in the sunshine with nary a worldly care, I heard a sweet sound.

It was the sound of music in a North American spring. The sound that heralds the shedding of winter coats. The sound of freedom, of letting the breeze run through your hair, of the wide open road...It was the drumroll of a Harley-Davidson!

Ah, the sound of a bike motor that beats with one's heart! I think all Indian guys will totally get what I mean. Motorbikes are often the vehicle of choice in India for college students and office-going youngsters. Many a time, even after marriage, many Indians continue to stick with their bikes for many reasons - financial, lifestage, location (if working away from home). In the 1990's, it was common to see entire families on a bike or a scooter - father, mother, son, daughter - somehow seated with economy and security.

The BIGGEST reason of all for the connection, however, is perhaps emotional. Indian guys are connected to their bikes in a way that is hard to describe - well, maybe in the same way that they are connected to their wives/ girlfriends. During Pongal (a Tamizh harvest festival), the vehicles and other assets of a Hindu family are decorated and venerated for their good performance and reliability. In the same way that wives are considered the Lakshmi (Goddess of Wealth) of their homes. And not just the Hindu guys - Muslims/Christians/Sikhs/all other sects and denominations behave the same way - after all, we are Indians over and above everything else ;).

Almost all Indian ads for bikes have a ladka (guy), ladki (girl), their helmets (who can forget these??), and the open road :). This plays a HUGE role in setting expectations for dates and romance in India. Imagine my amusement in 2000, when shortly after our marriage, my First Mate tells me, "You know, I reeeaallly want to take you out for a movie on my brother's bike." Hahahahahaha! I told him I was only used to taking my friends out on my bike. But yeah, I would love to ride pillion with my arms around him!

Here is a song that captures this kind of bike ride very well, from 'Rockstar' (2011), starring Ranbir Kapoor and Nargis Fakhri: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoFGgEiROa8

There were so many - Hero Honda, Kinetic Honda (this was a scooter - I used to ride a silvery dark blue one to college), Yamaha RX-something (100 or 135 or whatever), Royal Enfield, TVS (a lot of my friends rode their 'Scooty' to college), Suzuki....as far as I can remember. I'm sure there must be many more today. Or maybe there are many more cars. I hear that Indian roads are choked with cars. Well.

I loved those times - of zipping off after college with a friend on the back seat, to Elliot's Beach, to the USIS or the British Council library, to Suswad sweets, to Eden restaurant in Besant Nagar, to Rasi/Kumaran's (if we needed salwar-kameez material), for a movie in Satyam theatre, to Fountain Plaza/Odyssey/Landmark to browse the music shelves, to my friend's homes in Mylapore/T.Nagar/Kodambakkam/Purusawalkam, riding back home to Anna Nagar...when I write this, the memories are so vivid...I wish that I could turn back the clock. And then I catch my children playing on the computer or scribbling in their coloring books at the desk behind me and I know that this is my life now, that they are my life, and my life is here, in the United States.

My dad's first bike was a Bullet. I wonder what my children will ride...the iconic Harley-Davidsons perhaps. My dad often waxed lyrical about his bike. Who knows what my children will say about theirs? They sure wouldn't be blogging - maybe speaking into the air at some hi-tech screen 15 years in the future that maps their location, age, weight, height, companions, and generally everything else that enables an individual to glorify themselves and live out their private lives in public, as is the trend nowadays. Sure says a lot about our self-esteem, emotional security, etc, etc,...oh well, let's not get into that now.

Hey, any of you remember the Hero Honda jingle by Leslie Lewis? "You got a good thing going, Hero Honda!" I would sing this to my First Mate whenever he did something exceptional - the romantic date, for instance lol!

Hero Honda:

Kinetic Honda :):

My First Mate's dream bike - the Honda Gold Wing in the US. My First Mate describes it as a "sofa on wheels":

One day, when our kids are away at college, my First Mate and I will go off on a long bike ride. We will join the Harley-Davidson club. Who knows? We might be 'Iron Butts' some day!

April, Come She Will

Kind eyes that twinkle come to mind when I hear this Simon & Garfunkel number.

When I was a student of English Literature, between 1993-1999, I used to spend much of my time researching (we called it "reference work") at the USIS (United States Information Service) library at the corner of Cathedral Road and Mount Road in Madras.

I spent many a happy afternoon there, thumbing through critical essays on Saul Bellow, Jack Kerouac, Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman...and when my fingers hurt from taking notes, I would walk down to the first floor of the library and thumb through old copies of National Geographic...running my hands over their glossy pages where intensely colored snapshots of American national parks sprang to life. Verdant. Serene. Zen-like with their watchful giant ferns and sombre redwoods. The streams stood frozen crystal...and yet one could hear them tinkle.

I imagined what it might be like to actually hike through the mountains (this is before I read about serial killers and safety issues about women hiking alone or in pairs). At that time, my vision of the great forest as a natural cathedral in praise of the creator remained untainted by fear.

How exactly do Simon & Garfunkel fit into this? Their music would often play in my mind while looking at these photographs...

Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYD-DIggB2k

April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;
May, she will stay,
Resting in my arms again.

June, she'll change her tune,
In restless walks she'll prowl the night;
July, she will fly
And give no warning to her flight.

August, die she must, (Why, Simon & Garfunkel, why?!?!?)
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold;
September I'll remember
A love once new has now grown old.

Dude, Not Helping!

Remember your growing-up, impressionable years, when your parents might have resorted to periodic burlesque, jest, tomfoolery, antics, whatever? Your ears burned and your eyes ran along the floor for an escape from the visual embarrassment. You might have wanted to dive into the DeLorean and come back to the future at a safer time.

Well, we realize we might be entering this next phase in our life as parents - viz., to fool around and to be considered embarrassments by our kids. Ah, for those times during their toddlerhood when one could generally make an ass of oneself and still be considered excellent entertainment!

Dancing about to 80s disco has come under fire in our home. Forget about the dancing - my older son simply shrugged off the songs themselves! I stood there with my mouth open, feeling like a relic...or something on the way to becoming one...my heart wounded as though I'd written those numbers myself.

He told me he likes quieter songs (this means no Def Leppard, Damn Yankees, Bon Jovi, Third Eye Blind, Incubus, Matchbox Twenty, Vertical Horizon, etc, etc,  either). Pink Floyd was received with a - "Hmm...yeaaaah...I guess it's ok!" - as he flipped channels nonchalantly. He is ok with Linkin Park as long as its the song from 'Transformers' ('New Divide'). Is this really my kid??

Apparently, he likes classical music (my eyebrows are raised while writing this), Simon & Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra...He digs Indian (Hindi film) lullabies from the 1950's. He loves "Lab pe aati hai dua..." (The Doon School song, which roughly means "This Prayer Comes to My Lips..."). He absolutely ADORES Cliff Richard. His favorites are 'Evergreen Tree' and 'Bachelor Boy'. Not saying that this is not great music...I'm quite democratic when it comes to listening choices...just that its a surprise and I have been learning about my son, slowly. It's a joy really, to discover little things about this person who is growing up.

Anyways, I felt very much like Michael Bolton in The Lonely Island's 'Jack Sparrow' - yup, those guys from SNL who are caught off guard by Bolton's passionate singing ("Dude!!!", "No!!!", "Not better!", "Ok, THAT was weird but now we're back in the club...") Their incredulous expressions were LOL! Here is the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI6CfKcMhjY

The Reason Why

Last week, I was asked why I had chosen to name my blog by its current, long-winded, difficult-to-remember (in other words, forgettable!) title. Well, to be honest, it was not my first choice.

I began looking for blognames starting with 'The Weekly Rant' - which I believe, would have done very well indeed. Unfortunately, this was taken as were several others such as 'Diary of a Mad Woman', 'Writer By Accident', 'The Literary Cook', and so on and so forth.

Upon discovering that my creative juices could run only this far in conjuring up blog names, I lay prostrate on our sofa feeling sorry for myself. The 'Create' channel was telecasting some show about wines and the line by Omar Khayyam came to mind.

It was a sunny day and although there was snow all around, that didn't stop me from daydreaming about my First Mate, myself, and our children in a lush Mediterranean garden filled with olive and orange trees...the bright blue sea in the distance...dark green waxy leaves throwing pleasant patterns on the ground...the sun shining on our hair...a Greek amphitheatre atop the hill....

Voila! Blog name. A moment of inspiration born out of desperation.

Chin Up, Samantha!

Samantha Brick’s premise is that most women generally feel threatened by those among them who carry themselves well, who are better looking or better dressed, or who exude that ‘x’ factor edge that ups the competition.

Yes, I know this is old hat, but I couldn’t let it go by without saying my bit, given the brickbats that were lobbed at her.

According to Ms. Brick, women turn cold towards, gossip about, or pick on those whom they can’t ‘get’ – categorize, classify, whatever. Easy targets for such ‘retaliation’ would be those among them who receive more male attention, who seem a step ahead academically or professionally, and most importantly, those who don’t conform with the ‘rules’ of their ‘group’.

I agree. Women are total bitches towards those who don’t flock with their silly ‘gangs’. It’s ironic that given the treatment our gender has received for eons, women still behave like crabs in a bucket.

Women employ a more subtle means of bullying, coolly ignoring or ostracizing their target, thus hitting them where it hurts most – emotionally and socially. If their targets have children, it’s worse because the kids are cut off as well. In a ‘shame’ culture, their targets cannot recover as they are branded for life by the gossip, and cannot claim dignity through financial or political success due to the norms of the societies they live in. Hmm, why do they call us the fairer sex again?

Coming back to Ms. Brick…she writes an active blog for the online version of ‘The Daily Mail’. For those few of you who don’t know, she is a Brit in her 40’s, living in Europe, and happily married. No kids as far as I can tell, but seemingly lots of love, freedom, individuality. A free spirit with a charmed life, one would say.

Up until she wrote this piece entitled “There Are Downsides to Looking This Pretty: Why Women Hate Me for Being Beautiful”. You can read her article here:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2124246/Samantha-Brick-downsides-looking-pretty-Why-women-hate-beautiful.html  It received more than 5000 comments (mostly vitriol) in one day alone, tearing her apart, and leaving her in tears and low spirits.

Her message? That women can be unkind to those whom they feel intimidated by, even if the person in question exhibits or harbors NO questionable intentions towards them or their husbands/boyfriends/whatever. Ms. Brick, the scornful comments you received only prove your point! 

A small illustration of this observation: I met a female friend at a dinner a while ago, who began speaking about the pressure to ‘look good’ in her office. She mentioned the perfect figures of some of her female colleagues, and went on to say, “You know we must exercise to maintain our figures, but when one looks at the competition, one feels so...intimidated!” While I piped up with, "Motivated!" Not saying that I don't get green-eyed myself, but you get the point I trust.

And how about the Italian movie ‘Malena’, starring the impeccable, gorgeous Monica Bellucci - a beautiful woman minding her own business who is targeted by her jealous and insecure frenemies, berated, and shamed. They pick upon her when she is most vulnerable and they really let her have it. Quite disturbing because the actual assault is not filmed but the audience hears the thuds of their fists upon her, and her tortured, horrific screams. It jarred that they were ready to judge her, despite their earlier reluctance to lend a helping hand when she fell upon hard times. Malena suffers rape not only by lascivious men in her community, but worse, by the women who should have stood by her.

Ms. Brick has not written anything offensive about anyone in particular. She only makes a general observation. She is neither promoting unacceptable behavior, nor is she tooting her horn. Yes, you read those last few words correctly – Ms. Brick acknowledges the fact that she is no beauty queen.

I haven’t met her personally, but I expect she exudes some original charm, warmth, spontaneity, or humor and hence, attracts a lot of interest. I have met several women like her who say exactly what she does. They were not showing off. They were simply exasperated. Having been on both sides of the beauty coin, and being treated differently at both times, I see their point.

Ms. Brick’s article is frank – a tad smug perhaps – but so what? She is entitled to her own opinion. And honestly, which woman among us isn’t vain? None of us are perfect, and a compliment about one’s looks puts a spring in our steps for a long time.

I don’t know whether this article is a part of some strategy to:

1.       Gain readership for The Mail, or

2.       Snatch her share of fame and fortune

Ms. Brick anticipated the negative reaction in her article. Maybe her title was deliberate; maybe her tears were part of some script, like Van Doren’s hesitation and timing in ‘Quiz Show’.

Whatever her goals might have been, let’s just say Ms. Brick recovered fast. She has succeeded in turning the spotlight on herself, AND has been successful in generating much revenue through the many subsequent related articles, interviews, and TV opportunities this one article has spawned. Good for her. Wonder what her detractors are doing now.

Congratulations, Samantha! If you are still feeling blue, I expect you know by now what to do. Go out for a jog, continue to celebrate feeling young, do a jig to the music that cheers you up the most…or write some more. Be unafraid.

Here’s a tune from Genesis - ‘Invisible Touch’ - never fails to pull me out of the doldrums: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF2NAnbj58A

Another article today: http://thelook.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/16/11229862-secret-behind-too-beautiful-writers-confidence-dads-love?lite