शुक्र है शुक्रवार है, यूँ लगता है, त्यौहार है

छींकने तक की फुर्सत किसे, कहाँ आजकल,
पल पल फोन, इ-मेल, है भगदड़ आजकल,
चाहे कोई कितना भी कमाए धन,
चाहे कितना भी सराहा जाये तेरा प्रयत्न,
सब पाया-गवाया यहीं जाएगा,
धुआं-रख होने का तेरा भी दिन आएगा,
या तेरे अपने जिनसे प्रीत, जिनपर मान तुझे,
ऐसी दौड़-भाग में जायेंगे कब पहचान तुझे,
कब उनको तो दुलार दे पायेगा,
कब उनका संसार बन पायेगा?

सफलता क्या है, किस चीज़ का है मान तुझे?
आ चल, संग-संग बैठें-सोचें ये गुत्थी सुलझे |
सोने, खाने, जीने के लिए काफी है छोटा घर,
कुछ अनाज, फल, कुछ उपास, ऊन, एक प्रियवर,
पिता को यश, माँ को शायद शांति-सुख का सामान चाहिए,
पुरुष को पुरुषार्थ, पितृ-पुत्र धर्मं, निभाने का प्रावधान चाहिए,
नारी को भी संतुलन कर्म का, और मातृत्व का वरदान चाहिए,
हर प्रीति, हर सुखानुभूति के लिए दोस्त संतुलित इंसान चाहिए,
संचय में सर्वदा कोई तुझसे आगे रहेगा,
सोचेगा इतना और, इतना और, तो भागे रहेगा,

इस होड़ में, नयेपन के कोड़ में, बहता चलेगा,
तो इसे ही बेहतर, जीवनदर्शन कहता चलेगा,
संशय नहीं अभी, जवानी है, जिंदगानी है सामने तेरे,
शायद थिरकन पाओं में, हृदय में हैं सिर्फ स्वपन सुहाने तेरे,
फ़िक्र किसकी नहीं, कोई हिचकी नहीं, आज है बस तेरा निलय,
अभी अकेला है, हर रस, रंग, रति को तूने चखा, चाहा है,
तेरे पास कुछ कर गुजरने, कुछ बन जाने का निश्चय बेतहाशा है,
फ़िक्र किसकी नहीं, कोई हिचकी नहीं, आज है बस तेरा निलय,
पर कब तब रहेगा वसंत, क्या कुछ भी है अनंत?
जान, होड़ में होश कैसा? नियति क्या नहीं वो अंध?

Random, eclectic thoughts and links: September-November, 2009

Latest offering: The Cortland Review features my poem, with audio: (My father retired on 31 October, and the poem is a tribute to him; ) http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/45/sharma.html

"India put all her emphasis on the harmony that exists between the individual ad the universal." // "Man must realize the wholeness of his existence, his place in the infinite... Deprived of the background of the whole, his poverty loses its one great quality, which is simplicity, and it becomes squalid and shamefaced.... His wealth is no longer magnanimous; it grows merely extravagant." Tagore in Sadhana

My Sunday morning thoughts (Nov 6): Damn this politics, religion, East, West, ignorance :) Life is beautiful when कवि (the poet) wakes up and remembers that the essential thing is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZMpv8LMEcI

(मैंने तुझे माँगा तुझे पाया है / आगे हमें, जो भी मिले, या न मिले, गिला नहीं... I prayed for y...ou, received you/ You prayed for me, received you / Whatever future brings us, or does not bring, No discontent) (As an aside, Deewar is one of the finest movies of 70s, Salim-Javed weave memorable dialogues into excellent performances by Amitabh and Co, directed by Yash Chopra)

Myths are myths, why seek a historical, archaelogical or scientific proof, to say that fiction, even religious fiction is factual? I always read things about Ramayana, where people question why we have no archaeological evidence for it. Campbell's Occidental Mythology tells me Bible myths are no different from Eastern ...myths. Here is an interesting article discussing how the archaeological evidence defies some of the most important beliefs of Israelites about their history: http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/02/07/solomon/index.html

I went to dinner with Andrew Parker, an evolutionary biologist from Oxford, who has written a book titled: "The Genesis Enigma: Why the Bible is Scientifically Accurate" (see http://tinyurl.com/n8a5qy fro example)... (Needless to add that I had a very intriguing conversation with him; intriguing as it ventures into a possibility that even creationists cannot reconcile with. See here: http://creation.com/genesis-enigma)

To complete cycle of myths:

Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/faith_and_spirituality/watch/v17348445sRzEyGZM (A Hero with a thousand faces)

This excellent video from 1932 contains rare footage about Bombay (now renamed Mumbai) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob8n_Aaog58

'insaano ki izzat jab na jhoote sikko mein toli jaayegi / wo subah kabhi to aayegi' - Sahir (When the reputation of men won't be weighed in terms of fake coins / that dawn might arrive someday) The power of this line, the song is lost in translation. It is said that the movie, Phir Subah Hogi, is based on Crime and Pu...nishment, and our lyricist-poet, Sahir urged the director to find a music director who had read Dostoevsky & the book. Hence Khayyam got the coveted movie. Later Khayyam was to make as famous songs as Kabhie Kabhie mere dil mein (another Sahir song, his most popular song, but maybe not his best lyric) . The socialist in Sahir, in Phir Subah Hogi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCiFrjyplUQ

If we were to judge epics by impact they have had on human existence, Illiad fades in comparison to both Mahabharata and Ramayana. In rewriting Tulsidas, he created a work that helped us to reunderstand humanity (as one third of it lived in India then)... Here is a famous verse, in Lata's voice, with a tepid translation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOti-9hgrw

Friday evening & beer

Beer was invented by a God! :) Soma must have been great... & we know wine is divine... we know Punjab & Scotland was riased on whiskey, and many praise rum.. Russians love vodka, Japanese Sake, Indians Tharra .. but beer, ah, is universal, is full of bubbles, evanescent like human life, intoxicating like whatever is b...est and worst in humanity.. Read Bachchan, read Omar Khayyam or drink a good, old glass of beer!

The most unexpected (and detailed) feature of the MIT newsletter... Sex @ MIT http://tech.mit.edu/V129/N49/sexatmit_editorletter.html (Viewer discretion advised; adult content)

Thoughts of a Saturday morning, (14 Nov)

Rain, बारिश, हजारों ख्वाइशें ऐसी, A Thousand desires such as these, Farida Khanum singing: (सारी दुनिया के रंज-ओ-गम दे कर/ मुस्कुराने की बात करते हो; After giving the sorrows and pain of the whole world/ you talk of smiling; हमको अपनी खबर नहीं यारो/ तुम ज़माने की बात करते हो; We have no news of our own self/ you talk of the world), और मैं, एक अधूरी कविता, and me, an unfinished poem...

'ek nahin do do matra / nar se bhaari hai naari' -- Maithalisharan Gupt in 'Dwapar' ('Not one, but two vowels / Woman has more substance than Man')

A pretty good open letter about faculty hiring in IITs: http://business.rediff.com/special/2009/oct/08/an-iitians-open-letter-to-the-prime-minister.htm
(Loved the quote: If you pay peanuts, you can get only monkeys')

'The curator smiled at the mixture of old-world piety and modern progress that is the note of India today'. Kim (1901), by Rudyard Kipling (Did he mean progress can be identified with lack of piety in the new world?)

Finished reading or close to finishing: Black Swan (Taleb), Diaries of a Young Poet (Rilke), Guerrillas (Naipaul), A Tree Within (Octavio Paz), Representative Men (Emerson), Kim (Kipling), Occidental Mythology (Campbell), Illiad (Homer, trans. by Fawles),  Tao Te Ching by Lao Tze, Dwapar (Maithalisharan Gupt), Meri Priya Kahaniyan (Yashpal), Germinal by Zola, & King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan (A. Chopra).

Lost in Translation: Hothon par Sachai rehti hai (Jis desh mein Ganga behti hai)

By the very nature of our cultural and spiritual heritage, without realizing it, we tend to treat rivers, especially Ganga, as mothers and goddesses, and similarly we treat Earth as a goddess, who suffers on our behalf. In English literature, we find few characters who live their life honestly and simply, say we would see these in old British novels (Lorna Doone or Far from the Madding Crowd), but typically every human is a sinner (by very nature of Western myths and culture, you have to be). On the other hand, Indian sensibility allows for existence of sinless hearts... this goes hand in hand with the corrupt society that exists all around the simple souls.

RK Narayan wrote about such heroes, who look quite Victorian and simple in their motives and lifestyle, and unless we let go of our expectation of seeing a tainted personality, so stereotypical of the twentieth century fiction of the West, we cannot appreciate this quality of human nature, captured quite nicely in Narayan's Swami and his friends, and Waiting for the Mahatma. In other words, it is quite hard for a novelist writing in English to present characters like Rama or Hanuman, though Krishna and Arjuna quite fill the bill. But it is important to not lose sight of good-old Indian simplicity and honesty.

Now we return to the song, that was sung by Mukesh, penned by Shailendra and the music is by Shankar Jaikishen. The movie has some heart wrenching songs, and memorable scenes. Padmini, the famed dancer, plays the female lead, and Pran essays the role of a villain. The movie won Filmfare for Best Movie and Best Actor, and even though the song was nominated in two categories, it lost out in the end. 

In the linked video (see send of the post), three minutes of fantastic percussion saves the hero (Raj Kapoor).

Then the hero sings:

Where truth abides on lips, where hearts are guileless,
We are the citizens of that country where Ganga flows....

We value our guests over our lives,
we don't greed for more, we sustain on less,
where from centuries, the mother earth suffers quietly for her children....
We are the citizens of that country where Ganga flows....
 
Some people who know more, know less about humanity,
This is the East, the Eastern folks know worth of each life,
Live together and love each other, it is the only thing that stays... 
We are the citizens of that country where Ganga flows....

What we were yesterday, what we are today, isn't the only thing we are proud of,
We have to progress on this path, we are also cognizant of that.
Who has ever stemmed this flow, can it ever stay bound...
We are the citizens of that country where Ganga flows.... 

Where truth abides on lips, where hearts are guileless,
We are the citizens of that country where Ganga flows....

Whatever anyone offered, we learned, we even assimilated strangers,
We were never blinded by selfishness, we did not worship the worldly needs,
Now not only we, but the whole world, says to the whole world...
We are the citizens of that country where Ganga flows....

Where truth abides on lips, where hearts are guileless,
We are the citizens of that country where Ganga flows....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6anHIvlBRs&NR=1

Joy, killjoy of thesis, antithesis: Waterless urinals and water crisis

New 'waterless' urinals installed in some of the restrooms in MIT and Harvard proclaim that by installing these approximately 40,000 gallons of fresh water will be saved every year. If we say that India needs to install around 25 million urinals to prevent people from watering the roadside grass and trees, then by not installing those 25 million urinals, we are saving a trillion gallons of water every year.

If we account for the amount of irrigation water and organic manure that is provided by this roadside act of  'free giving', as well as account for cost of having old urinals constructed and buying new ones at a formidable price, as well as the cost of maintaining the buildings, and so on, we must have saved over 100 billion dollars in last two decades (10% of Indian GDP in 2008). This is the money that we have saved from going down the drain, if you wish.

If you knew Marcel Duschamp's work, and if you knew that such saving requires one to have the fountain of knowledge, you will know that by not having the 'fountain', we have shown a genius, that goes beyond the realm of conceptual art. I am often reminded of his art, as we were born on the same day, separated by space, time and thought process; while he calls that physical object a fountain, I am pleased to refer to its absence as 'fountain of life'.

I think everything in this world happens first as a farce, then as a tragedy. I can explain my arguments, but I think it is better to give the reader a whiff of the idea, and if they wish, they can read books and wikipedia to understand that I happily and angrily argue from the both sides. The rage for progress has brought us to this page, but by the time you will turn it, you will yearn for the absence of it. Or maybe not.

The per capita water consumption in United States (and many European nations) is at least twenty times higher than per capita water consumption in India. Water used for bathing is minimal if you get a bucket (15 -20 liters) on your turn, as opposed to a shower or bath-tub. Our ancestors preferred a dip in the holy rivers and holy lakes, and let me remind you, all Indian lakes, rivers, streams, rainfall, all water-bodies are sacrosanct. Since no man steps into a river twice, through a dip in the river at the dawn, our ancestors were led into a habit of cleanliness as well as a realization of evanescence of human existence. Returning to question of water consumption (the holy dip was necessary to cleanse my mind of extraneous thoughts), Indians consume less water, and if they stop aping the West, they would consume less water in coming centuries as well, and run a lower risk of undergoing the imminent water crisis. We know that water will be next oil, and even though finding water on the moon is a step in the right direction for India, formidable transportation costs will limit its availability only to politicians. Meanwhile, the common man, general public must learn to not forget their ways, and teach their kids the importance of holy rivers as well as the concept of "gagar mein sagar" (ocean in an earthen pot).

Ghada (घड़ा) (earthen pot) was one of the greatest discoveries ever made by human beings. To shape a container for water using a wooden wheel, a chakra, out of mother earth, requires a metaphorical, spiritual act that is both of scientific and engineering value to humanity. By replacing ghada with refrigerator, we have become more dependent on electricity than ever, and we eat more stale food than our ancestors were ever able to. The unhealthy way, the way of fridge, involves drinking water with ice, and by making extra effort to drink water at those inhuman temperatures, we are merely making power producing companies richer, cough syrup producing companies (that serve alcohol and sedatives to non-drinkers) richer. By not buying refrigerators, 50% of India, implying at least 100 million households, have saved another 100 billion dollars, if not more. Plus they have been drinking cool water, cooled by evaporative cooling, and they have been drinking water, conditioned by the mother earth herself.

Many, many years ago, before the time of Arundhati Roy and Medha Patekar, before engineers and scientists learned that dams cause irreversible damage to local flora, fauna and folklore, apart from displacing people like their cattle and other calamities, when the first dams were constructed in India, the farmers in Punjab refused to drink and use water from canals. Their argument was that the government is trying to dupe them by providing them "powerless water", as its shakti (शक्ति) (power) was extracted by government in form of electricity already. It took a lot of convincing: world bank grants, field trips by the scientists of green revolution era, multimillion dollar corporate sponsorship, NGO work, government subsidy, brainwashing and wallpaper campaigns to convince these farmers that canal water was 'good' and God-sent, high yield seeds that require more water for irrigation were good, that changing their water tables and water habits was "good". In past ten years, two million of those farmers have committed suicide, due to a water crisis that is affecting at least two hundred million farmers in India. The reason is that the 'rain gods' were not consulted before corporations that supply single-crop yielding seeds, were brought into the system, and 'low water use, low fertilizer' local varieties were discarded for providing the greatest profit to greatest number of people. Some people are still profiting, but our seedless, waterless farmers, must be wondering, why did everyone laugh at their grandparents who believed that by supplying them this canal water, the government is giving them 'powerless' water.

Random Thoughts: Will Manmohan get an Economic Nobel?

It is about time our Sardarji got it. The Sardarji who is credited as father of optical fibers managed to dodge the Nobel by a whisker. I often look at that name on the wall of the Subway stop of Kendall Square/ MIT, and marvel at our inability to remember and recognize his name. But Manmohan Singh is  a name that strikes a familiar chord in the West. Had there been no Manmohan Singh, we, Indians, could have been eating chai-pakoda, filter coffee-samosa, thumbs up and chaat in place of MacDonald's Burgers, Pizzas and KFC nuggets. The man who leads the greatest democratic nation in the world, (greatest emphasizes the fact that India has more voters than the living and dead voters of the United States in the twenty-first century), the man who leads the most destitute crowd of voters into a capitalist, globalized economy, the man who has helped India become a keyboard thumping nation of 'code-monkeys' and 'phone-donkeys', making late-night forays into their stylized cubicle prisons from where they answer phone-calls with assumed Western accent / name, that man, his team, his party deserves some Western pat on the back. But maybe Sardarji will not get it for precisely these reasons and others that we will see in rest of my post.

Manmohan will not get it as he is overqualified as a politician. He is too gentle with words, too urbane and he lacks the element of drama so essential for getting credit for things. He does not offer to change the world, he has already done that to 1/5th of the world (or been largely responsible for guiding it through). He does not have a monstrous Prime Minister who has ruled his country before him, he is neither fighting any wars nor spending great amount of public money on financing big banks that hand out million dollar bonuses. Manmohan does not have the charisma to carry a Nobel Prize into the front-page controversy anywhere except in Pakistan and in China. Both these countries are  significant to the stability of the world, and who would want to enrage them by offering the prize to an Indian.

In fact, we Indians would be enraged if he got a Nobel, after Gandhiji did not get one, after no writer after Tagore managed to get one, Bose (aka Bose-Einstein theory) got none, Bose (aka JC Bose) did not get one. We are happy this way; this Nobel is quite inconsistent with Eastern values, where we don't value individualism and temporary success as much as we value good karma, i.e. good action, and success which arises in form of good effects seen by coming rebirths and generations. Nobel prize in economics has been awarded in past to people who guided world economy into great recession of this decade: showing it is a transient award, given for predictions rather than results. It is given for things that look mathematically consistent (though all real life conditions are ignored), for things that help the richest country now remain the richest country with people carrying greatest amount of personal debt, which finances luxuries that requires largest per capita consumption of energy, causing oil companies to become rich by waging monopolistic campaigns in oil-field-carrying nations, causing first rate energy crisis which will follow. It is given to policies that create Banana republics, not to policies that provide cheap health care and education to masses. Exceptions are always there, and of course, if it were not the free flow of ideas that spawned this post, I would have believed and said the opposite to everything I said here so far. I am a socialist who loves capitalism, and a capitalist who wants profits to be well-distributed among the workers. I don't verify facts and figures while writing such conundrums, and sometimes awards are given in similar vein, so maybe my approach to saying things here is  not totally vague.

Maybe the Chinese Premier must be given the Nobel, for allowing Marxism to be reinterpreted in such a way that China has now more billioniares than any other country, that is if we forget to count the billionaires in United States. To redefine communism in this way took less than two centuries after the issuance of Communist Manifesto. I am sure Karl Marx is re-reading his theories and trying to understand what went wrong, that his brainchild Marxism is now interpreted in this way. Also the Maoists in India, who want a China-like communism in India, must be quite confused by the turn of events in China itself. Perhaps by shifting 70% wealth into the hands of 1% people (according to some unverifiable propaganda estimates), by reinventing the meaning and purpose of communist party, and keeping 1/5th of world population under control while they did it, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Premier have made an unprecedented economic breakthrough that deserves a nod of approval from the Nobel committee. Maybe Arvind Adiga or his character from White Tiger, are already rooting for the Chinese Premier. China already produces every toothbrush, shoenail, nut, bucket, dinner plate, door handle, undergarment, comb, hairbrush, (maybe even flags of other nations), TV remote, table-lamp switch and imitation weapon (read Charlie Wilson's War for details) used by people in rest of the world. Such progress deserves a prize, more than our progress indicated by our Sardarji's facts and figures.

Who knows though, maybe Manmohan will get it anyhow. He might get it as the committee has never given a prize to a person of his community and its about time that the economic prowess of Punjabis was awarded. He might get it as they begin to comprehend that the growth rate on Indian GDP and inflation has defied most of the World Bank estimates in the past two decades. It will be a good idea to award him the prize and claim that International Monetary Fund, and the intellectual and economists are supportive of former professors even after their leaving practices and posts for  offices of political intrigues and power-plays. It is no small matter however that when Chanakya, the famed economist of Mauryan empire from twenty-three centuries ago, was the prime minister, the Indian contribution to GDP of the world was a decent 33%. We are only off by the second digit in that figure, and 3% is not bad by any means. We had 1/3rd of world' population back then, and through middle ages, the GDP was decently high, provoking so many attacks on the nation. To safeguard ourselves from colonists, Mongols, Greeks, Huns, Islamic tyrants from beyond the Hindukush, to safeguard ourselves from a repetition of those bloody wars, we, as a nation, decided to stop being so rich.  But Manmohan wants to make India look rich, and he needs encouragement. He definitely needs encouragement. We could have been spending money on getting rid of insurgents everywhere, on borders, in bordering states, in Maoist-infested states. We could have been spending money on providing possible places for professors and researchers to make their grand discoveries in India. We have avoided all these temptations, ensured that we export our talent, and we keep our farmers dependent on foreign seeds, so that our commitment to world economics is not questioned.

For this level of incongruity in practice and values, in poorman's pocket and rich man's mansion, in supposed technological advances that create only code-monkeys & phone-donkeys, for this level of dedication to profits of world's multinationals, for this level of focus on removing hunger by letting the hungry die, for removing insurgents by giving them the lands they ask for, for liberating India from licence-raj, where politicians made direct fortunes, and taking it into an era of economic liberalization where politicians still make money, and unknown forces get the profits, for all this chaos and trying to make sense of it, I recommend Manmohan for the Nobel prize of economics, and if that is  not possible, for peace. The nomination process for 2010 will open up soon: start casting your votes, folks!

Jab ishq tumhein ho jaayega (Not that Ghazal, but something else)

In the following composition, the rules of Ghazal are followed to the extent that I have the right rhyme scheme, there is repetition, as well as  word before the repeated phrase rhymes. I have my own name in the last couplet, and each couplet is complete in itself. The introductory couplet is done right as well. Yet, the following is not a Ghazal, for it is not the cry of dying deer to its beloved. It is a farce (unless you believe that tragedy is itself an avatar of farce). I will like to be surprised one day by Jagjit Singh singing some of these lines in the concert. (joote lekar mujhko maarne aaoge/ jab mujhsa jagjit ho jaayega).

बोलोगे नहीं तुतलाओगे, जब इश्क तुम्हें हो जाएगा |
हर रोज़ दाड़ी बनाओगे, जब इश्क तुम्हें हो जाएगा |

देओद्रन्त लगाना सीख लोगे, सुबह शाम नहाना सीख लोगे,
धोबी पर पैसे गवाओगे, जब इश्क तुम्हें हो जाएगा |

फ़िल्मी डाइलोग दोहराओगे, मंदिरों के चक्कर लगाओगे,
गरबा-भंगरा नाच पाओगे, जब इश्क तुम्हें हो जाएगा |

कांटएक्ट लेन्सेस खरीदोगे, बाल काले करालोगे,
 दीवारों-दर से टकराओगे, जब इश्क तुम्हें हो जायेगा |

एसटीडी और इन्टरनेट कैफे वाले, चाटवाले, रिक्शेवाले,
हर वाले से बहुत बतियाओगे,  जब इश्क तुम्हें हो जाएगा  |

त्याग दोगे बीड़ी-पान-क्रिकेट, कंघी को रखोगे निकट,
जूते पालिश करवाओगे, जब इश्क तुम्हें हो जाएगा |

दुनिया भर के फासले, भेद, भ्रम, विवेक, विवेचना और करम,
सब समझकर भूल जाओगे, जब इश्क तुम्हें हो जाएगा |

New Graduate Students Cometh (Revised; repost)

It is Fall season. The leaves have begun to color. The wind is cooler and more cheerful and days extend late into the evening. The stupor of summer is beginning to awake into realization of what has not been accomplished, and needs to be done. Well-established routines of procrastination have been tried over and over again, convincing us of the chakra, of the wheel of life. We, the tenured graduate students, the keepers of the flame, the intellectuals who have piles, high and deep, of work before the abbreviation PhD becomes ours, we defy common sense and indulge in new graduate students.

The motives are as varied as our research areas. The singles need to mingle. Suitable graduate students of opposite sex have arrived. Pick them when they are young. Catch them, fresh off the plane. Provide them roti, kapda aur makaan, i.e. food, clothes and house. Start from the basic needs. Americanize them in a way that you deem is most appropriate. Hand them keys to your house, passwords to your machine. Cook tasty food for them. Shave each day, and even iron your clothes (for newbies haven't yet realized how important unshaved face and haggard look is for an able graduate student).

Get them groceries, show them movies. Take them to Walmart, displaying it with a pride that honeymooning husband feels when he asks his wife to open her eye, and she gushes at the vista of rising Alps, bathed in setting sun. Give them stolen hours from the daily routine, which your advisor thinks is being used for writing the research article that was due last month. Throw a party or two. Appear social, popular, funny, artsy, intelligent, great cook, glib talker, shy, young, well-read, adventerous: as the case may be. Plan each day better than any experiment done in your lab. Even clean up your kitchen, and with much emotion, even your room. In your room, discover the vestiges of such enterprise of last year, and smile at yourself, thinking what mistakes you made when you were young. Belief, you know by now, and faith in your own ability must stay in spite of all the evidence that seems contrary to that claim.

Besides the singles of opposite sex, there are married and committed ones too. They must be attended to. Once they are amused by your deeds, they will recount these to the beauties they will know, room with or attend classes with. A personalized recommendation obviously can get you a favorable prejudice even from the ones full of pride. This is a period of showing off sense and sensibility. Praise their hubbies, help them in buying Indian groceries, second-hand furniture and show to them how committed you are to the cause of the new graduatestudentkind.

Besides these, there are the Pappus, who are related to the aunt of your mother's grandmothers' sister's granddaughter's sister-in-law. If they were of same sex, this could have been used as a reason to tie you together (for the relation is far fetched enough) or claim that the person is your relation or sibling (and incest is unacceptable). If one of these arrives, your whole planning is crumbled like the biscuits that Pappus carried for you in their luggage from India. You tend to become more productive at work. Suitable instructions are released to friends, who must watch their words for whatever happens in graduate school stays in graduate school. You need the Pappu to become pregnant with his own guilt, before he can see that your mistakes run amok in large numbers.

There are juniors you can command around. You suddenly know all the answers as you talk to the senior who has joined so late as he was working for some time. You drive home the message as to 'who's the boss'. Whos your daddy now? You say that and share the joke with another batchmate in another university, who grins and has his stories own to tell. These people have arrived from your undergraduate school, where rumor has it, that you spent the best years of your life. Where (it doesn't matter how nerdy you seem to be now, how high your GPA was which got you here in the first place, and I damn value educational achievements) where, you had lots of pun, parties, booze. Summer of 69, Red red Wine and Those were the best days of my life!

There are also those unfortunate ones, the Laawaris ones! Some are meek and humble, and bumble like Raj Kapoor from Shree 420. Amusing, respectful. They are nice chaps. You take them under your wing. They give you homage throughout their life. They help you cook, clean, find names of the newbies you need to be introduced and find their own Nargis in them. You remind them of "Pyar hua hai, ikraar hua hai" song, tell them to be curious but careful and of course, the song is mentioned for they had used it in a condom commercial. You find out all the commercials are changed by now, and this guy was too young to remember any of the commercials you saw in your time.

There are certain Amitabh Bachchan's in the new group. The angry young men. They think they know what they need to know for they were educated in Hollywood and have tickets to Las Vegas shipped by confident Papas in India. They look at your apartment and either smirk thinking how shoddy your living conditions are, or just mention it to their high class girlfriends they left in India. These anti-establishment ones need to be educated. They need to be broken, bruised, beaten! Ramgopal's Satya must be watched all over again. Some break into so many emotional bits, that their mothers arrive in haste. Some break into your life and you laugh about how wrong your initial impressions were. Some move in with Americans and after loosing their first blood, return to the  desi fold in a year or so. Like a good shepherd you allow them to come back, and for their pride, they will be made scrapegoats in due time, or reared for their wool. You are an elephant in this jungle of studenthood, and an elephant never forgets. You really are trying to be Mast, but the Advisor reins you with deadlines.

There are homesick ones. As if they have travelled to US by sea, they look pale, wan, nauseated, tearjerkers. They have no interest in your food, for their Mamma used to feed them with her own hands. What depravity, they think, when you announce this is the biggest feast of year, serving them homemade Rice, Daal, Curry and Mix Vegetables, cooked by four different households pulled together on excuse of Ganesh Chaturthi. The house that cooked Rice also got beer, which the homesick one cannot touch. Like Mahatma Gandhi, before leaving home, he promised to keep away from White Wine and White Women. So you explain to him that everyone there has had made similar promises, and this means the playing ground is still quite big. You chuckle as you explain, No white women, na...No worry... the tanned ones are alright, and of course there are Brown ones, Black ones and the Yellow ones.

You are positively high when you explain Beer is not Wine, and Vodka is essential for survival in this cold cold country. The homesick one recalls from his Bollywood education that excessive drink is harbinger of a woman who beds you that very night and without fail, produces a child nine months later. The idea of woman urges him on, the thought of a child holds him back. He is too naive to know that the specimens of opposite sex have already chosen the arms of old students, Amitabh Bachchans and promises made in India. He doesn't know even the tanned ones have taste, Yellow ones are lost due their foreign tongue and Black Beauty is never happy when she is tied down.

There are philanthropic interests. There are communist interests. There are social reasons, for the animal in you needs to know more people. You do it, becuase when you came no one did it for you, or someone actually helped you. You do it because it relieves your stress when you notice these new recruits who have been pushed to the front with half as much training and half as much expertise as you had. You do it to get new ideas, stories, readers for your blog. You envy their enthusiasm, their optimism, and scold your cynical self, the hardened soul, you wish to come alive again. This is a particular problem when you tell a new person of opposite sex that this is not possible, that will never work out or time will show them that you are right: they think you don't have faith in them, shout at you. Then there is a dangerous possibility that they will start hanging with their age group kids. The worst fears always come true, but thankfully you are the only one with a running car and your time in graduate school in years shames their stay in US in weeks.

I see new graduate students everywhere. Maybe I have a sixth sense. The happy faces amused by all they see, their springy steps (Aajkal Paon Zameen Par Nahin Padtay mere: These days my feet never touch the ground), curious and friendly. The frowning faces, who see danger everywhere (Ye haadson ka shahar kai, yahan mod mod pe hota hai koi na koi haadsa: this is a city of disasters, at every mod, waits a disaster). The new pairs who have just dicovered freedom from India's prying eyes, and are perhaps more happy in doing what they never perceived possible, "dating, flirting, eating out, watching movie at guys house, and then spending the night there, on a couch", more happy in actions that perhaps with their partners, discovering the beauty in Classic Romantic Movies (Chotay chotay shaharon mein ..... nahin nahin nahin... Bade bade deshon mein choti choti baatein hoti rehti hai: Small things keep happenning in big countries) and even find the romance of walking at late hours outside (Yeh kahan aa gaye hum, yuhin saath-saath chalte: O where have we arrived, thus walking together) and loose their way in the streets.

The New Graduate Student Cometh! You realize you actually know things that you can talk about to them and see a certain admiration, that your advisor will not display, even in your wildest dreams. You realize that similarly, in real life, when you go and get an actual job, you will be able to say things and people will listen to you for various reasons. You will figure that you have yourself gotten to that age, where five-year old sons of your friends call you uncle or auntie. How long ago was it that you laughed at the idea "Auntie mat bolo naa" (Oh please, don't call me aunty). You get an opportunity to flaunt your skills, your experience and breadth and depth of your knowledge. In between the bouts of famed procrastination, you seem to have accomplished many worthwhile deeds. Like a paper in a journal, that got your name into BBC, New York Times and Times of India: Sunday edition. There is a kind of nostalgic, somewhat elegiac romance in the air. You feel life is not all that bad, and yet decide that you will be out of here before the new students come in next year.

The Fall leaves are a music below your feet, the monsoon season of new students is over, the fields of your friendships are full of a promising crop. In the end you win some, you loose some. You move on. The only thing that hold you back now is the new student who will be here for long, and you will need to stay more than a year for companionship. You tell yourself, learning from seniors who have trodden this path before, that life's decision must not be based on any other individual, and your steps move faster and faster towards your lab. You suddenly realize months have passed without any progress in research, and you start afresh with new enthusiasm. Like always, you start with a break, you check email, blog entries and end up forwarding this piece to everyone you know.

We are all so similar. Except that one new graduate student, who I am aching to be introduced. (I let out a big sigh, and decide I'll much rather concentrate. Pick up old notes, and start typing a new research paper. How I wish writing papers was as easy as writing and reading long blogs!)

(Aug 2006)