klaxons and couth

No, seriously now, about those horns and their use. C'mon folks, do you really need to blow your horn, sound your klaxon, shatter the stillness of a quiet suburban evening, just to let your household subservient know that you are on your way, from three streets away, and that the gate had better be open, because if it isn't you are going to... BLAAAAT anyway? Couldn't you like text them or something? Or here's an idea, why not just get out of the car and open the damn gate yourself? Or, if that's like beneath you, or something, maybe you could get one of those electronic gate opener thingies. That way you can play with the buttons as you are driving up, quietly. I mean think of the fun you'll have trying to time the gate opening so that you don't even have to slow down as you swoop into your portico, applying your brakes at the last second, sounding that oh-so-soul-satisfying chirps, quiet, localized chirps, of a well executed 007 bit of driving. Tres chic. You'll be the talk of the neighborhood, attracting admiring glances from flora and possibly even a fauna or two.

And, as long as the subject has come up, and because I was reminded of it last night, again, by the gentleman who works some very long hours, returning late at night from his labors, one presumes, who carefully, and quite unnecessarily, blows his (again, presumption) horn at every intersecting corner, as he pac-man's his way through the blocks of our housing colony, uncaring that the concrete towers of said colony form canyon worthy echo and amplification chambers. Yes, I’m talking about you, and this will probably come as news to you, the horn is not a safety feature of your vehicle. It serves no function in your well intention-ed attempts to prevent a cross-road collision. Actually opening your eyes and paying attention to your surroundings - and see there, isn't that silence blissful? - makes you a far better, safer, and perhaps most importantly, thoughtful driver. Besides, you and I both know that if there was another vehicle coming around the blind corner, chances are that he is talking on his cell phone and wouldn't have heard your klaxon anyway.

So what do you say? Give us enjoying-the-oh-so-brief-silences-of Urban India codgers a break, can you please? The god of Peace and Quiet, (a small humble god who finds his/her/its existence lost in the cacophony of ... well, you know) will bless you. Not much of a blessing, I grant you. Perhaps no more than a gentle moment in your hectic life, but still...

should i stay or should i go - as the song will have it.

I’ve been wondering whether I will ever return to the US.

So far the ‘nays’ seem to have it. (Multiple personality disorder, you understand. Each one gets a vote.)

And that feels strange. I mean, I’m an American by choice. And up until very recently that was a choice for which I was, maybe still am, unapologetic. I chose to be an American because I admire and respect the Constitution on which the country is founded. I liked, like, the freedom of choice and independent thought, and to a degree action, that Constitution guarantees. I most particularly liked, like, the fact that those who govern were, (are?), held accountable for their actions. In fact, that was the reason why George Washington, the first, and this is telling, reluctant leader of the nation was adamant in not accepting the throne that was offered to him after his victory over the Royal Forces. Preferring instead, a time bound role for the business of being the Big Cheese.

But, all that seems to have changed.

Dubya, Hunter Dick, and their baronial coterie, using 9/11 as the excuse seem to have transformed what was once a place where humanity in all its diversity was celebrated and honored. God, and whatever one’s relationship with Him/Her/It, was deemed to be private business. The assumption seemed to be that He/She/It had important things to deal with; music of the spheres; orbital pathways of comets; housing and transportation for those ascending to their reward; writ petitions from the ones in purgatory or the Other Place; the occasional cleansing fire and flood; that sort of thing. The human condition, it seemed to have been decided, was best left to humans, the animals with the corpus callosum. He/She/It laid down some basic conditions, most of which could be boiled down to the injunction to be good to each other, in particular, and Life, in general. Anything beyond that, the hows, the whats, and the wherefores, the Founders believed was too fiddly for Him/Her/It to bother about. Good sense and governance, with an appropriate measure of checks and balances, became the hallmark of the new nation.

Then 9/11 happened. Pretty close to 4,000 innocents, from all over the world lost their lives because some horny old guy heard from Him. No question about the gender here.

As soon as it was safe to do so, Texas George showed up at ground zero and declared that he too had heard from Him. And misquoting the Old Testament declared that He had told him that not only was he to extract a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye, but that he was also cleared for collateral damage as long as he apologized for it.

The Department of Homeland Security was born and has since abrogated, by the reports I hear from the US, all those ideals that lead to my choosing to be a citizen of the United States of America. God, whose voice seems to be All-Terrible, (and male), seems to be taking a more direct part in the proceedings. Through spokespersons, mostly from the Republican Party, God seems to be deciding and directing the minutiae of the human condition, the moralities of Man. (The Democrats Party seem to be afraid to come right out and ask, "God who?") While He is directing the Republican agen... I beg your pardon, Agenda. The Spheres, it seems, are just going to have to manage on their own.

Which leaves me, an expatriate American in the land of his birth, India, wondering what to do.

I could, if I am willing to face the bureaucracy of it all, relinquish my adopted citizenship and reapply for my birth right, but...

But...

The thing is, while I see no major differences in the Constitutions of the United States of India (a much to be hoped for name) and the United States of America, I also see no differences in the holy hued Governance of the two. God, it seems, is in direct communication with too many of India’s BJP Rulers. Too much religious right righteousness passing itself of as governance  I hear the God whose voice is All-Terrible intonations and accents, thunder and lightning, in their pronouncements on the moralities of living in India. Freedom of Choice and Freedom of Thought seem to me to be under as much threat here as there. In fact, the whole acceptance of hinduism as a Religion annoys me. As a philosophy, hinduism is bitchin', and i wouldn't at all mind if India's governance was based on it. Based on Religion? That frightens me.
Sigh 

Some days i wake up.

Which now that i see it in words, is, quite often, a pleasant surprise. Although, some days, not so pleasant. 

I'm embroiled in a legal issue with a bank. So far the bank is winning, with a little help from the Indian system of jurisprudence.

Whatever the Courts of India are, they are not a forum for the People in which they can air their grievances and expect a speedy resolution from an impartial court. The Court's assumption seems to be that if an individual is present before it, and has a beef against an Institution, e.g. a bank, then it is obvious that the individual is unaware of the sanctity of the Institution, and needs to be educated.

The last time i was talked down to from such a large height was when i was on the carpet in the headmaster's office at the boarding school i attended. And just thinking about it in rational terms makes me realize how relative reason is.

I think i'd much rather ruminate on kindness that costs a lot.

See, i've been watching my very SoCal friend deal with his very rural Andhra housekeeper's 5 year old adorable daughter. That 'adorable' part is as reported by my other desi friends. I'm afraid i'm more Spock-like when it comes to that sort of thing. But back to my SoCal friend, let's call him Ian, for no particular reason.

Now, i should make clear that, uh, Ian - i just figured out why Ian. much easier to type. - Ian, is a good man with children of his own and grandchildren in the offing. More than that he is, i believe, a genuinely kind man just chock full of good intentions. He manifests those qualities in his relationship with young Veena. He has paid for school/day care. He has clothed her and paid for her medical expenses when they occur. He gives her free run of his house and is quite willing to be interrupted by her in pretty much anything that he might be doing. Hell, he carries her home after she has fallen asleep watching the shows that she wants to watch. He also indulges himself by watching the pleasure with which the child responds to his unexpected gifts of knick-knacks, toys, and outfit matching accessories. Not to mention exotic fruits and candies. For exotic read, expensive. He also has a hearing problem that deafens him to the high pitched whine with which children, especially Indian children, have learned to manipulate their laboring elders who sometimes respond in the traditional fashion of parents, especially rural Andhra parents. Namely threats of incredible violence enhanced by sound effects and emotive body language. 

Now, Ian, when he sees that, and in his cannot-speak-the-language-so-let-me-shout-in-english, ,SoCal way of doing things tries to explain to Nagu, the mother, the pedamma actually, that violence breeds fear and not respect. Which, of course, frightens Nagu, what with Ian being the ostensibly angry Fount of Fortune and a generous paycheck and all. Veena is of course witness to that fear and in her understandable childishness uses it.

I don't think Ian has considered what the affect of his visa dependent presence, and predictable departure, (among other things, Ian is not a young, fit man), is having on that family dynamic.

And no, i cannot tell him. Ian does not value my opinion.

She does get me thinking

http://disbursedmeditations.blogspot.com/2011/08/lessons-our-mps-could-teach-obama.html

If i could, this is what i'd say to En Kay.

Actually, dear heart, your Primer for Obama, has been elevated to a Doctorate level and is in use in US Governance, even as we speak. In point of fact, the local MPs could take a few lessons from US Politicians on how to disguise naked greed for power and pelf, as patriotic duty. Reagan and his administration, Hollywood veterans all were able to change the course of a fairly egalitarian system and steer it into the Rule by the Privileged that the US is in now. And it was done with great subtlety, misdirection, special effects, [oh, dubya, carrier deck, flight suit, alfred e. neumann make up, you remember.] and damn good scripting. All very 21st century Bourne Conspiracy. And efficiently carried out.

The local MPs, on the other hand, seem to be still shooting masala movies. They haven't noticed that their audience has become hipper. The Local MPs still figure that their dishum dishum cinematic style will get them through to the masses. And that's their weakness. India has become a lot hipper - across the board. Literacy is no longer sufficiently defined as the ability to read and write. The various visual media extant have allowed the uneducated to become much more sophisticated in their choosings. But that's in private. If political change is to come to India, i think that it will come only when the average overly courteous Citizen Sunil, doesn't think it bad manners to disagree with anyone [putative] higher than him. And, of course, is able to do so with no fear of retribution. Maybe if the Indian Civil Code can be used to sue errant politicians for breach of trust and broken contract.

Now, about the multiplicity of the voices clamoring for attention. I wish the US had a multiplicity of voices being represented. But the US is too impatient and crass for that. They [we] prefer to boil things down to simple yes or no answers so that they can get back to their obese pursuit of the American Way. Truth and Justice have fallen victim to this distillation of concepts into numbered commandments. [Quite against the Constitution(US) in fact.] India's multiplicity of voices and their representation might well be Her saving grace. Truth, after all, is that which most of us agree is the truth. India's leaders need to synthesize the voices in their ears. And, yes, that is not going to happen. To be able to synthesize They need to learn to listen. And nobody, but nobody, with the exception of perhaps Simi Garewhal, listens. Not even if we use loudspeakers. Perhaps it is because the training in satyagraha and fasts unto death have put body language in the ascendant.

just saying.

Disbursed Meditations: and their disbursed effects

Disbursed Meditations: Temple Treasure: Does God Owe Us Money?

Well, I'm not sure that He/She/It actually owes us any money, but it would be a Godly sort of thing to do if some was to come our way.

Money, after all, is the currency of Welfare.

I think i know what that last means. I mean, there is a will-o-wisp of a truth in that marshy thought and i should probably winkle it out.

See, there's this paragraph in NK's above linked blog which keeps niggling at me. In it, NK makes reference to her donations to her House of Worship and the sorts of use she is reasonably sure the HoW is putting that donation to. Health, education and sustenance figure in there.

The paragraph also contains the sorts of things she would consider a misuse of her donation. Laptops are mentioned.

Wait. What?

That's what happened inside my brain when i ran into that mention.

I'm still puzzling over it.

I mean, isn't that a bit like saying, look I'll pay for the school but not the slate? I mean let's face it laptops are the slate and chalk of the 21st century. With one of those in her hands, and an internet connection, possibly under the largess of the HoW, a needy child is freed from the tyranny of the classroom and underpaid, under appreciated teachers, no? I mean, learning is a process of visualizing the information, yes? Laptops with internet connectivity do the whole quantum thing in transferring information into eager minds.

Why would an otherwise caring thoughtful person like NK want to deprive, no that's too strong, not want to help, that's better, get a laptop into a child's hand?

Maybe she just tossed that in without considering the implications.

I'm going to hope so.

Which brings us back to the whole money being the currency etc. thing.

Nope. still pretty damn will-o-wisp-y. I should probably go and smoke something. Clears up the vision a treat, that does.

rational belief

I've been sitting here looking at those two words and wondering what on earth could have motivated me to write them. Other than the fact that oxymorons are fun

It has absolutely, wait, absolutism? Beginning to sound like belief to me. This is discomfiting. See, i have difficulty believing that i really don't believe in anything. He said, equivocating.

Anyway, as i was saying, what's up with India and her sentiments?

My goodness gracious me, but sentiments can get hurt here so easily. The merest hint of disapproval can have whole segments of society in hissy fits that quite often involve sharp heavy objects.

I don't get that.

Actually, that's not true. I think i do get it. As much as i get anything.

I think democracy and its implications of equality is to blame. That is to say, [my writing mentors would be so very pissed off at that. 'If", they'd say, "you need to explain a preceding sentence, maybe you should have crafted it better in the first place".] [what do they know?] [literary stylin', dude] But, i digress. [really?]

The thing is, most of India, as far as i can see, is not entirely sure how to go about proving that each is as good as the other. Especially since value has been defined, historically, feudal-ly, emotionally, by the ruling classes. I guess that's pretty much true for most societies, but in India there is the added weight of millenia's [is that a word?] [i guess it is, now] worth of method, mores, and morality. All of which have been established by the ruling classes who are not shy about using ''Cuz, I don't like it." as sufficient reason to impose their values on the peeps. I mean, making women living in hot sultry places to cover up their upper bodies just because the moral authority found the sight of breasts disturbing. What's up with that? [Actually, i have a pretty good idea what rose, but i wouldn't want to offend any sensibilities by going there.] [i should probably re-word that locator.]

Take this latest outbreak of hurt sentiments [putative] surrounding the Prakash Jha movie on reservation and quota in education. As i understand it the movie has been, ummm, not banned actually, more like shelved for the time being, because there are opinions expressed in the movie that might, mark the word, offend the sensibilities of - check this out, i stopped myself from naming the segment because, you know - a particular group of folks. This in a country that makes loud protestations of freedom of opinion and thought. Look, i'm as aware as the next lawyer that freedom of expression has its limits. i am not allowed to stand up in a crowded place and yell "FIRE" and cause disturbances. i get that. But, I am allowed, after the movie is done, to state, loudly [within legal limits], that the movie sucks if that is my opinion of that. Hell, i'm even allowed to hold public meetings to discuss the suckage of the movie, if that is what i choose to do. And as long as i do not try to impose that opinion on any one, that is, as long as the others are at the meeting of their own free will, and i do not incite physical action,i really don't much care if the perpetrator of the suckage is hurt by my remarks. Hell, i probably made them pointed for that very reason. I'm reasonably certain that the perpetrator's opinion of me and my opinions is not going to be laudatory. Doesn't bother me a bit. Any more than it bothers me what anyone else thinks of my choice in ties.

You know, in looking at the chronology of the hot air surrounding Jha's opus, i couldn't help noticing that the groups that are protesting its showing didn't start doing so, until an opportunistic legislator started getting offended.

Hunh, an offended politician. Not a rarity in India. And i think that's because India's politicians think that the words governance and rule mean the same thing. A habit they picked up from their royal, thin-skinned, mentors.

I think i'll go and offend my own sensibilities by reading the papers and their use of accurate english.

Editors, please, absconding requires that the absconder depart without notice and with a possession entrusted to him, ownership of which lies, incontestably, with another. See how long the concept is? That's why english came up with a specific word for it. A lorry driver absent from an accident in which he is involved is missing. For all you know he may have suffered a concussion and staggered off and is lying dead in a ditch somewhere, his hands and pockets free of anything entrusted to him. And please, don't get me started on 'shoot-out'. okay?

Peace, out.

temple offerings

So, it turns out that i find myself interested in the thoughts of a nandini krishnan whose disbursed meditations give me things to think about. Which, i should think, is as much of a compliment as any blogger could hope for.

Her last post raised some questions which i posed to her as a comment and which she promptly answered, although, her answers also raised a question which i didn't much feel like re-commenting on. The whole thing had to do with temple treasures and their disposition or value and Ms. K's ably argued contention that devotee offerings ought to be left as offerings to the deity and not converted into currencies that have a larger more social use.

Now, is suppose i should mention that i am of the mindset that thinks religious institutions ought to be taxed, so, while i can respect Ms. K's thinking, i cannot agree with it.

In her argument, ms. K states that when she makes an offering of jewels or adornments to her deity she prefers that adornment be used to enhance the representation of that deity. wait. what?

I mean, here's me thinking that deities and gods and the like are spiritual concepts that represent the 'higher' aspirations of human kind and are not much concerned with the more physical aspects of being human. I should think that under those circumstances, ms K could affect that same adornment of that deity with the thought of a necklace and eschew the physical reality of one. But then, that's just me and i'm bored with the subject.

I guess i just don't get it.

It just seems as though the offerings that folks make to the institutions of religion look an awful lot like bribes. A sort of "look what i brung ya. can we be BFFs?" tinge to the whole thing.

But, that's probably just me.

http://disbursedmeditations.blogspot.com/2011/08/temple-treasure-does-god-owe-us-money.html

in case anyone's interested