On Life i.e Grief

Certain base qualities, never go away it seems. The very essence of it. It's foolhardy to wish away such a thing. Just like asking pooh to not smell offensive. On the same lines is grief and life. Both are intertwined. One in the other. One in the tight embrace of the other. I am sure am not the first to observe this. Not a startling conclusion to arrive at. Yet it gives some peace. Some respite from seeking solace, solution, from constant fight and flight mode. 

  It would have been better if there was an easy flight mode as in smart phones. And you are shut off from everything. You are empty. Totally. With no thoughts. Yes it's possible. But how useful it would be - jury is still out. Flip side being you start liking it more. To be in that mode. The ultimate curse of human beings. Their inability to find a middle way. Mind always loves the extreme. Either fully engaged with the world. Or fully disengaged. 

 The other day I came to know about a certain nude commune in Kerala. A group of people who have been living in the ashram, nude since their founder somewhere in 1800s. The founders thoughts were that clothes are an inhibition an, anomaly. Because we hide behind clothes, our carnal desires just get hidden. We suppress it. The commune members meditate 8 hours, sleep 8 hours and am not sure what they do with remaining 8 hours. Male female can chose their mates, and only for the purpose of mating. It doesn’t have to be in a closed room. It can be in front of everyone. Kind of orgy in the modern sense of the term. If any kids result from it — Like Plato’s commune, this commune too snatches away parenthood or rather ascribes parenthood to everyone. Resulting kids are of everyone in the commune. Much to my surprise the great EMS Namboodripad called it a “primitive communism”. Most desi intellectuals are always in the looks out for in the real life, what ever Marx said in his theory. However to be fair to desi marxists, Marx did point out to hunting-food-gethering societies as primitive communists, by which he meant a society which had no strong conception of private property and hence no question of class differentiation, which ultimately is base of his theory of thesis-antihesis-synthesis. An idea which I don’t want to go further now.  

 What took my attention was the statement by one of the inmates to the reporter when the reporter asked don’t you feel like you are in a jail, he replied from my perspective you guys are in a big prison, only you don’t realize yet :). Really that can turn any argument in your favor. So meditating folks can look condescendingly to others, and other householder folks can look derisively at folks living by closing their eyes half the time. Reminds me of my father laughing at me at my meditation and yoga antics. 

  The other day one of the Indian leaders in office said he loved reading all kinds of books except poetry and he could never develop a taste for it. I really want to meet him and discuss about it. I think often people consider poetry to be at a lowest level compared to prose. Whereas poetry with few lines convey so many complex things that can be filled in by many labored pages of prose writing. Take for example, all that written here can be summarized in Ghalibs words 

                                 Qaid e hayat band e gham asl main dono hi ek hain 

                                 Maut se pehle aadmi gham se najaat paaye kyun 

 To fit such complex ideas in a complex rule of verse form like ghazal (whose structural requirements is quite tall and almost mathematical) is itself a work of genius! 

 It says the same thing I started with — Imprisonment of life and being enslaved by grief, actually both are one and the same // Why should man desire freedom (from grief) before death? 

 That is only with death can man be really free. Rest all is just wishfull thinking. And once you factor that in, it brings in quite bit of peace, ironically though. It just relaxes you from the constant search for the sanjeevani elixir medicine to cure your grief. You won’t go on binge eating, binge relationship, binge work etc. 

 Oedipus: Call no man happy, until he is dead!

Man is a rational being.

Man is a rational being. 

This was hammered into my small brain so many times when studying basic tenets of capitalism. But today I feel it’s more or less a codeword for being selfish. It ultimately means — man is a selfish being. 

It’s not an accurate assessment. Like so many other formulaic statements about human nature, this too is a partial assessment. 

On the contrary I feel, Man being cooperative and social is quite obvious, albeit he may be selfish at times. Think about it — we are a product of 4 million years of evolution always competing for survival with species far more stronger and able bodied than us. There were so many beings — but we survived and adapted ourselves to varying environments. It simply couldn’t have been possible without selfless cooperation— despite the phenomenal brain power attributed to humans. 

So how could we cooperate so long? Evolution of language of course would have helped. But it needs more than a language to cooperate. For sure many animals survive and communicate, even today, without highly developed language. 

It was the feeling of fraternity— of being brothers. And how to kindle that feeling? By imagining that we are all one big family. That might have been the basis of tribes. But as human settlements spread out there would have arose different tribes. With growing population and competition for food, there would have ensued battle for survival among the tribes.

So definitely it would have forced us to think beyond tribes. As just being limited to tribes might have hit the law of marginal utility. 

Hence next logical thing would have been to enjoin the tribes. How? By invoking that we are all from same father — God. So irrespective of tribal differences we are brothers. 

However over the time, as is the wont, these religions would have splintered on details of the “one” fatherly God. 

It needed a bigger force to bring heterogeneous believers together. 

And that came with gradual changes. From Charter of Charlemagne to treaty of Utrecht, Treaty of Westphalia, Glorious English Revolution, French revolution and American Revolution— we slowly arrive at the concept of Citizenship and nationalism. That we no longer are responsible to one God  or one King —but we belong to our one nation-state. We are  Indians, English,American etc. 

And now we again are staring at a situation when this is not enough. There are bigger survival threats like Global Warming, Life threatening diseases, extinction of flora and fauna— all of which knows no borders of citizenship and nationality. Need of the time is to even overcome the new tribal barrier of — nation state.

In search of

In relentless search 

That all are

But what is it

That we search for?

Unstopping from morn to night

Seeking every phantom

To be real

Since eternity 

Frantically grabbing 

Every time but air

Meeting a veteran

Meeting people from different walks of life has been the hallmark of my stay in USA so far. Today I met a man named Edward. White. Young. With skinny haircut, like a military veteran. I could see his biceps and triceps menacingly trying to escape from the confines  his right short shirt. A very young courteous man. Usually I have observed Uber drivers here, do not load your luggages. But he volunteered to, as I had loads of them. Held door open for me. 

All set. Ha asked what I do. I told him.

While loading in my luggage I observed that the trunk was full with other bags. 

I asked “are you too travelling somewhere? Because I see lot of bags there”

“No actually, one of the trips I did  was to airport. And the guests bag was overloaded and his other bag burst open. He requested me to drop it to his mom’s place. And he tipped me additional 25$”

“Oh vow! That’s so kind of you Edward”. 

“Thank you. Actually it is also on my way home.”

“And where are you heading to from airport?” He asked. 

“Am heading to Nashville. I got a new job there” 

“Oh great! Many congratulations”

“Thank you Edward!”

“I can see your biceps bulging out. Do you work out a lot?”

“No just the basic stuffs. I don’t do gym stuffs. I do push-ups”

“How many do you do?”

“300-500!”

“My God! How do you manage to?”

“Well I do it multiple times throughout the day. Morning I do 150. Somewhere noon when I am bit free I do next batch and evening I do another set. I don’t look for a specific place. If I am driving and I find a vacant place, I park, and do push-ups on walkway. Just try to be fit” (he was far too humble. Could see him being coy!)

“That’s excellent. Great inspiration man”

“Oh thank you very much sir!”

I asked “Do you drive through out the day. Is it your main job?” Assuming many drive only part time. 

“Actually am marine corps veteran. I have a day job and work for federal agency. I am doing this because I have an additional expense of 7000$ coming up. My dog is ill and it needs surgery which will cost that much of money”

“You are a very kind man. But was your dog always like this? Or did it meet with an accident. How long did you own it?”

“No, we picked him some 11 months back from a rescue centre where they put all unwanted dogs. It had this problem since then. It just got aggravated. May be someone handled him rough, might have just thrown him during transportation or might have met with an accident”

“Hope you get enough money Edward, for this noble cause!”

“Thank you sir”

“So are you an American citizen sir?”

“No far from it. I am from India”

“Oh I hear many Indians face problem in getting work permit here”

“Yeah. Too many ppl wanting to emigrate, you see”

“Yeah. How is it with Pakistan? What is the issue?”

That came out of the blue. Wasn’t expecting this. 

“So do you have time and do you want to get into this!”

“Sure! Why not?”

So my tongue kept working all the way from 1890-1947! History Indian partition  in short. 

He sounded interested. 

“So what is the problem now?”

... kashmir ... blah blah ....

I changed the topic “So what is your day job like?”

“Like I said I work for federal agency after my retirement from marine corps. Go after criminals. Help federal agency. Not a direct police or fbi but one of their foot soldiers who keeps eye on problem cases like felony etc”

“Is it an uniformed service?”

“No”

“Do you have to get involved in hand to hand combat?”

“We are trained to”

“What is your opinion about backlash against police for violence against African Americans especially?”

“Oh yes it is sad. Situation is bad. Unfortunately many do end up like that”

To balance the situation I said “one of my friends gave me a different perspective. He says policemen work under stress and they get shot many times over and never make it to newspapers. “

“Yes that is also true.”

“But Edward I think you would agree if I say African Americans do get a raw deal. They get killed and their killer policemen never get punished.”

“Sadly that is also true. I do not disagree. They end up in jail for longer periods of incarceration unlike whites for a similar crime.”

“So when did you get into military service?”

“When I was like 16 year old”

“And how long was the course?”

“Two years. “

“And how was the experience?”

“Too much of hardwork. No academics. All physical training”

“How about officers? Do they also go through the same?”

“No they have different route. It’s bit more academic. How is it india?”

“Well the place I come from has a very reputed military training academy called national defence academy. It has both part academics and lot of physical training. But they all go onto become officers. Most start as lieutenant commander ”

I further probed “Did you ever get an opportunity to do on field work outside United States?”

“Oh yes! Been to many places. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Switzerland, Spain but more in Middle East”

“So how was it in Afghanistan? Of course a very naive question, still want to hear it from you”

“Oh it’s terrible that we are now negotiating with Taliban. It’s a big insult to veterans like me and many others who were fighting against them. We are like ‘what did we really gain?’  We don’t get anything. No strategic advantage, no diplomatic mileage. And we lost so many lives there”

“No I meant what was your experience on field”

“We didn’t even have proper barracks. We were living in makeshift shelters there”

“How was the food?”

“Food was ok. But middle eastern food was the best I ate so far. Afghan elderly men who were our interpreters vis-à-vis locals, had some very interesting stories to share. “

By the time I would have liked to know his interesting stories we reached airport. I requested if he would pose for a selfie, I would be happy. 

Politely declined, “ I don’t want to end up on social media. Wouldn’t be good for my career!”

Lost somewhere

From a distance 

I can hear him sighing 

Watery eyes

Tears dripping down his cheeks. 

An young lad that he is

Lost in a strange land 

Lost from himself 

Lost from his kith and kin. 

Paths lead to more paths

Labyrinth that it is

But no goal at sight

He makes a goal on the path he stood 

Toys of clay

That will wither to clay 

One day

Knows that, he too

Yet it’s good to be busy

He thinks

All around he sees people 

Busy in the game of existing 

Willingly he participates, too

Yet in the din of silence 

He can hear his lament 

Pathos of pain

That stirs his soul

Chaldeans

The other day I met a guy who was grilling steak on company’s grill. He looked every bit immigrant. Mostly west Asian. His name on the badge he wore appeared as Bach Khaalki something like that. He looked at me and smiled. 

It was all smoky and smelt grilled beef everywhere. It was shiny and sunny outside. He made a small talk about weather. I responded. Asked him if he thought it would rain. 

“Oh about Michigan nothing can be said for sure”

“Where are you from?” Out of curiosity I asked. 

“We are Chaldean”

I stumped. Chaldean? Never heard of it before. For a moment I thought might be some Native American ancient tribe either from USA or Canada. Such was my ignorance. 

After a moment on a pretext of call on phone, I moved aside and quickly googled to save myself from embarrassing situation. 

Google taught me they are the Christians in Iraq who spoke the language Jesus spoke — aramic. Last existing tribe of that ancient era who were the first Christians of the world. 

Armed with this information I went back to my new acquaintance. Ever smiling, as if he knew me from past life, I asked him straight “I am sorry I didn’t get you, when you said you are Chaldean. What is it? Where is this place”. 

He said exactly the same things google taught me, but in interesting way. He said they are Aramic speakers. I probed him further. 

“Do you still speak Aramic at home?”

“Of course yes” with a smile and pride. To prove his point he spoke in Aramic asking, how am I doing. It sounded more like Arabic to me. I told him so. 

Yes he said it sounds more like that. He informed me aramic like Arabic is Semitic language. 

He said they migrated some 40 years back when Saddam Hussein unleashed atrocities against Chaldean Christians. He and his tribe found second home in USA. He misses his home. 

To my astonishment he felt bad that Saddam was hanged. He said here (in USA) every Tom Dick Harry carries a gun and unleashes violence but rarely get death sentence. Mostly they end up in life sentence. And fierce independent ruler was hanged under a rigged up legal system. 

I pointed out the contradiction that they (his tribesmen) were persecuted ppl under Saddam. To which he countered that “ he was better I feel now compared to present regime. It wasn’t this bad!”  

It was getting long and interesting. I had other boring office meetings lined up. Bid him adieu and went in

Paneer!

Today while returning from Friday prayers, it was an old man, apparently, who came to pick me up (Uber cab). Bald hairs. Appeared White in complexion. Would have taken him to be local American. 

His name was Gagik. I waited for him at the other entrance. He was bit irritated it seems when I called him up. I guessed he must be at the other side of building and went and met him. 

Said hello. Exchanged pleasantries. 

Then he asks me “what nationality “ in accent not American. I guessed, he too must be immigrant. 

“Indian.”

“Are you a moozzlim?”

I was bit apprehensive. 

I said yes. 

“Do they have moozzlims in India ? Or how is it pronounced moozzlim or mazzlim?”

“It’s Muslim. We have quite a small percentage of Muslims in India. “

I asked how about you?

“I am an Armenian. Do you know Armenia ”

“Yes. Somewhere in Turkey?”

“Yes. Yes” smiling. 

I asked how long have you been here. 

“29 years !”

“Quite a long time.”

“Yes it is.”

Out of blue he asked do you eat meat ?

“Prefer veggies but can eat meat.”

“So you can eat meat! I love meat. Goat meat is my favourite. “

“So what cuisines do you have in Armenia ? Which is most popular dish?”

And wait ... you will be surprised. 

He said PANEER!

**had to google and feel bad that paneer is not native Indian thing. Sigh! It has its roots in Turkey/Armenia. And they too call it paneer**