Uzi

A beautiful boy, he dances and laughs and makes your heart do a jig. Lovable Usman.

The Indian Serenade

I ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me—who knows how?
To thy chamber window, Sweet!

Les mots de Shelley, Mon poète préféré

Back to Square one

Mates, I am back and I am being a lil philosophical today. Bear me like this, for a while!

I was in a windswept land. It was cold but serene. They say it rained fire in the countryside and there are occassional booms, that takes the wit out of you but lucikly I saw none. I was too engrossed with myself to notice all that. I met some loving people. I have already known them. They are the reason, I continue to live and love.

I was also jilted -- poem expresses it -- by someone, I hadn't expected to. I took it. I can't say no to what life proffers. The courageous amongst us are those who fall down and get up. To start it over again. I still retain the beauty I feel beneath my skin. I still like the dreams, I lived through!

I am back to work. Day 1 was easy. Day two... the squeeze starts. I'll cope. I know Sam.

Till next time

sameer bhat

I am off

Friendz... I am off to paradise for a week. I want to be myself. No work. No gizmos. No laptops. No breaking-news. No counting finances. No number-crunching. Just myself...imperial, plain and honest. And who wants to be disturbed in a paradise!


I am off to a Vacation!!!

Diwali

In the land of scoreful faiths, celebrating the greatest festival!

Some joys spill love loads
on a love lorn world
Touch us in ways unknown
to rekindle our soul

When lights, glows & wicks
Lap the lands,over
Moments which one wished
stay on for ever

Endless stars and sparkles,
dazzle in the night sky
Big bangs rent the skies
to a myriad eager claps

When a hug undoes hatred
when blooms wipe off bombs
When sweets mix with smiles
and joys meld with love

It is Diwali time folks,
when God loves our shimmer

sameer bhat

Moon shines over San Francisco
Pic Sam

Birds with Broken Wings

'Birds with Broken Wings'. Last night, over a tall glass of lemonade, a friend used that term. Innocuously. It struck a chord.

I've often tried to find reason with many things. Like a friend, I met recently and have started to like. I believe that people enter our lives for a reason. You may only understand the reason after they have left or you may never understand. Friends are Godsent. I believe mine are. They have all played a role in opening a part of me up. Of forming me into the person I am at this moment. With their quirks and wild ideas. I love them all!

I have also come to realize that we all have a few lose bolts upstairs. If we did not...we would not be human. And although the term was intended for women; we all are Birds with Broken Wings.

sameer bhat

When I Sleep

When darkness awakens, my body settles gently into bed.
The day races rapidly in my thoughts as I close my eyes.
Slowly, I am lulled into a peaceful sleep.

I hear vibrant music - so full of passion.
I feel the warmth of the sun’s rays that grace my presence.
I see kind, adoring eyes gazing back into mine.

The air is full happiness - so much laughter.
Soft caresses are exchanged.
At this moment, life could not be any more wonderful.

A thin line of love and friendship gets crossed,
and two single souls find a home to share eternity.

Birds begin to proudly serenade the morning dawn.
Lonesome roads slowly progress into distinguished passageways.

Light peeps through my mind and I awaken to a new day.
I am ready to endure what the day brings for me,
because I know that I am a twerp
but I know extraordinary love when I sleep.

Hey mate, fancy a cruise!
Pic Sam

An autumn dinner

During the weekend, I was hoping to go hopping. I didn't expect a sudden encounter. I was looking shabby and grungy. And then a special friend called up. We need to meet, I was told. I couldn't say no. I am glad I didn't say so!

We went to a restaurant built upon aesthetic compages. The food didn't matter much but the environment and the company was lovely. I could have hung on for ages. The crooners and the music they made was simply sensational. Most of the songs they sang were my favourite. For a while my pallet forgot to function. It was astonishing to hear them sing in many different hues. It was a shame that the two hours of dinner ended as quickly as a cat can blink her eye. This was one of the most enjoyable times I had after such a long time!

I must add that it is so important to find good friends, friends good at heart. And my newest friend has been so very comforting. We seem to have clicked so well and I hope I go on like this. There is none of the artificialities of the parties I go to, none of the gloss of the gals I date, and none of the affectations of my journalistic rigor. This is different. It has none of that fakeness. I could feel the warmth, one can warm by and those stealing glances.

Blue-brown images of the evening flickered in my mind as I lay on my bed reading 'Clash of Fundamentalisms'that evening. The book, though an interesting take on global politics, was getting a little drab.

There is a certain magical feeling about this camaraderie, I cannot quite fathom. Don't want to!

sameer bhat

Srinagar -- my home -- through my lens, the last time I was home!
Pic Sam

Free-fall

Here, Try this link
www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm

Try it. If he's stuck somewhere, pull him down through mouse. But don't pain him because he pains an entire mankind! Play with the mouse though. It's really good fun!

sameer bhat

A loving Lad

He loved them all
and spoke his heart
Then cried in pain
and left a mark

In classes and corners
upon hopes and dreams
He loved them all
and left a trace

Across angry seas
and tough nights
He thought of them
and dropped a tear

In rainy moments
on moonless nights
He recalled the kiss
and said a prayer

He is the sweetest of them all
and the nicest of the lot
He is my friend
and I call him Jits

Suhail -- my best buddy -- puffing it away in NYC
Pic Sam

Salah and Isra in London [Nikab ki ade mein]
Pic Sam

Jits, hiding his famous eyes in Brighton, Uk

Pinter's Prattle

The Special Relationship

The bombs go off
The legs go off
The heads go off

The arms go off
The feet go off
The light goes out

The heads go off
The legs go off
The lust is up

The dead are dirt
The lights go out
The dead are dust

A man bows down before another man
And sucks his lust

Harold Pinter
Against the US invasion of Iraq
Pinter got the Nobel prize for literature, 2005

Beyond pain

Imagine sleeping out in the open in temperatures touching freezing. Creepy. In the rugged mountains and ruined alleys of Pakistan and Kashmir, an estimated 2.5 million homeless, have been sleeping in the chill for over a week now. With little aid and no roof over their head, these crestfallen people are facing the worst nightmare of their lives. They have lost their children, their extended families, all their belongings are gone. Now they are completely at nature's mercy. As one victim puts it, "It is beyond pain". I can only agree!

"There were up to two million people left homeless by the tsunami, which was spread out over many countries. But just in Pakistan, the government estimates that there are 2.5 million people who are displaced and many more need assistance," notes Mercy Corps' Global Communication Officer Cassandra Nelson. Many journalists, relief workers and aid agencies vouch that the intensity of the Quake and widespread deadh and pain will change them for ever. Already people are calling it one of the worst-ever Quakes ever.

UNICEF said nearly half of those affected by last weekend's quake are under 18 and that the international relief effort must focus on keeping children alive in the weeks ahead. "With wintry conditions arriving in the higher elevations, children are facing a potentially deadly combination of cold, malnutrition, and disease," UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said in a statement.

As I post, there are reports that it is raining in Muzzafarabad, the worst-hit area in the Quake. It couldn't have been worse for these blokes. Friedrich Nietzsche once marked," The miserable have no other medicine but hope."

These folks have our prayers and that Hope!

sameer bhat

Does India care for Kashmiris

India calls Kashmir its integral territory. Talk Kashmir in any nook of India and you will have people drawn in. The government apparently sends subsidized goods to the Himalayan Kingdom and swears by its Kashmir connection. Ordinary people in India will have you believe that Kashmiris are as Indian as any Gujarati or South Indian. I am afraid that may not be the case. Saturday's Quake in Kashmir tells a different tale. As someone rightly put it," When mistrust comes in, love goes out."

None except the federal government came forward to help the hapless Kashmiris in the biggest catastrophe of their lives. I'm sure even the government was driven by political compulsions, because a civil society is a reflection of its government. When the people are apathetic and flunk to be touched by a disaster of such magnitude in their own country, I guess the government can't be blamed much. The Quake in Kashmir was as powerful as the Bhuj Quake in Gujarat some years back. Yet none of that urgency is in sight, anywhere.

There are no mass donation camps. No Banners. No school drives. No relief caravans en route. No newspaper and TV sensitization. No Bollywood -- Indian film Industry -- rallies to rally people. Ziltch corporate contibution. Isn't this place the paradise where the entire Indian upper class en mass honeymooned. The land of greens and golf-courses. Why did we abandon the tall pines around which countless songs of Hindi films were shot? This was Nehru's favourite abode. Where Indian leaders of every fibre used to ponder for endless hours. Isn't this place the bone of contention between India and Pakistan, which both claim as their own. I thought India fought wars for this swathe of land.

Why are the Indians so cut-off from People they consider their own? Why this gross indifference? Contrast the Quake with Gujarat. Cynics would say that Gujarat Quake killed more people and recent Tsunami affected more lives. Yet we forget that the people severely hit in Kashmir are only the poor. They inhabit one of the world's most difficult terrians. This compounds the misery, many-fold. And a human life is as precious in the shores of south India as the snow-capped peaks of Kashmir.

The average Kashmiri has been alienated from India since partition. While the Army's stupendous role in the Quake-hit areas has melted many hearts, what baffles Kashmiris today is the total lack of identification by the ordinary Indian. They are begining to believe that inspite of all the lip-service and the our people poppycock, there is no love lost between Kashmir and India. Once again, at the hight of a terrible human tragedy, Kashmiris feel alone. Forsaken.

Till the violent faultlines in Kashmir crack again!

India, Kashmir beckons.

sameer bhat

Pinter bags the Literature Nobel

Harrold Pinter, Playwright, author and poet has been awarded the Nobel prize for Literature for 2005. Pinter is an avowed critic of the Iraq war and famously called President Bush a mass murderer and Blair a deluded idiot.

Pinter's works include The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker. He is credited as someone who restored the art form of theatre. In its citation, the Academy said Pinter was "generally seen as the foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century," and declared him to be an author who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms.

The son of immigrant Jewish parents, Pinter was born in Hackney, London on October 10, 1930. In 2002, Pinter was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus and underwent a course of chemotherapy, which he described as a "personal nightmare". "I've been through the valley of the shadow of death," Harrold said afterwards.

sameer bhat

Adduce of the Day

Faith in a higher being is as old as humanity itself.

Today's Adduce

A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
~ Ernest Hemingway

In Kashmir, a villager mourns the loss of his ten-year-old grandson as others try to retrieve the body

Pic With Thanks Time mag

The panic persists

It has been almost five days since the land called God's paradise convulsed. Hopes and dreams still lay interred in the cataclysmic turn of events. Rescue and relief work is going on at frenzied spree. The scale of devastation in Kashmir and Pakistan has been super-colossal. Nothing that this region had known of in ages. The stories of human misery are slowly becoming evident from across the line that divides the two Kashmirs. A quirk of fate seperated this himalayan state close to sixty years ago. A nation was split at its belly. It took a devastating earthquake on the Saturday morning to uncork some of those past demons.

Mutual distrust and acrimony in both countries -- India and Pakisntan -- have thus far meant that no planes from Indian Air force have flown over Pakistan airspace in years. Such has been the nature of our relations. The quake changed it all. India airlifted on Tuesday the first consignment of 25 tonnes of relief material to quake-hit Pakistan in what is considered to be the first humanitarian assistance from New Delhi to Islamabad. Pakistan is still wary of allowing Indian relief teams to cross over to the Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir, to attend to the villagers, who are more easily accessible from the Indian part of Kashmir. The ghosts are too strong to be forgone so easily. Politics goes in parallel to the pain.

At a more plebian level, people continue to suffer. Our relative, the lady teacher in Muzzafarabad, who went missing the other day, as she left to teach has been found dead. Her fountain-pen tightly clutched in her hand. One of the 40,000 estimated people dead. This capital of Pakistan Kashmir of 0.2 million is no more a city of the living. It is almost a graveyard now. Bodies can be seen everywhere, on roads, streets and under the debris of devastated buildings. In Balakote, Pakistan two school-schildren were pulled out alive after four days.


Extra-ordinary tales of individual courage and determination swells the heart with pride and forces a tear out. Ordinary folks with bare hands and extraordinary courage doing the impossible. The UK and other countries have been helping in the race against time and life. US cargo helicopters are flying extra sorties and rushing medical aid and food to the needy in the far-flung areas of Tribal Pakistan. Ironically the Americans are hated in these badlands. In Indian Kashmir, Indian Army and civilains, who have a hate-hate relationship, are helping each other. Indian Air force choppers have been air dropping food packets and shroud cloth in the high reaches of Kashmir. For once, no one is an enemy. I still believe that all of us are humans in the first place.

My heart sobs. I pray for Socale.

sameer bhat

From the Time

"The catastrophe prompted scenes of dread and supplication unusual even for strife-torn Kashmir. Families wandered the streets, refusing to return to their homes. Children and women wailed in the open. Schools, whose examination halls had been filled with students taking their high school diplomas, were deserted, answer sheets scattered on the floor. When the tremors hit, people rushed screaming into the street. When they found open ground, families began offering special naful prayers, while others knelt on the roadside and began reciting the Quran. Loudspeakers in the mosques urged the faithful to seek forgiveness. "I thought doomsday had fallen," said Abdur Rashid Hajjam, as he came out of prayers at a Sufi shrine. "Pray for our brethren who died today and thank Allah for we are safe," said the imam at Illahi Bagh mosque on the outskirts of Srinagar, which lies in Indian-ruled Kashmir. "Whatever the scientists say, our Prophet said that when this earth is replete with sin, this would happen." As evening fell, the thanksgiving prayer, Nimaz-e-shukrana, echoed from every mosque in Kashmir. "
Yousuf Jameel reporting in Time mag.

Death in the Dell

Aftermath of the devastating earthquake that hit Kashmir on Oct 8,2005

The ground beneath their feet shook. An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 on the Richter scale hit Kashmir -- my home -- and Pakistan. It took little under a minute to undo what was carefully assembled over endless years of hard work. Homes came crumbling down, trees shook, turnpikes were ripped open as if sliced by a some piked object. The epicentre was in Kashmir, that is the Pakistan-administered part of it and the shock waves sent people scurrying for cover in places as far as New Delhi.

Quakes shake consciences. It shook the whole of valley and Pakistan to its innards. Hundreds of thousands died. They say more than 15,000 may have perished in Muzzafarabad alone. One of our relatives -- living in Muzzafarabad -- told my family over telephone that his teacher wife was missing. He fears the worst. She is among the countless unaccounted for. Nature's fury is cadaverous, merciless. It leaves children and the sick trampled in its tracks. Thats exactly what happened in Kashmir. School children are still buried in the rubble of their classrooms and dormitories,the state administration is dazed, too paralysed to act.

I talked to my family many times over on Phone. I called up my friends in Kashmir also. They are all in a state of shock. Traumatised and scared. I think it is natural after a major accident for people to behave like that. I'm stressed out -- away from home -- watching the horror unfold on my TV. Sheer imagery of people, blood still dripping, being carried away, of women wailing, of the sick shivering in the cold. It looks a slice of the Armageddon but this pain is too real to be passed over.

I was informed that my bedroom -- back home -- has developed cracks. All books fell off my book racks and piled up on floor. "Only a copy of the Holy Q'uran remained on the shelf," my little sister added. I could only gasp. I don't believe in such stuff but in times of great adversity, only the unpalatable becomes palatable. Like a guy who was pulled out out the ruins of a multi-storied apartment building in Islamabad, yesterday, three days after the quake.

Grisly stories of mother's spitting in their kids mouth to keep them moist and people staying out in the open night skies fills me with melancholy. They say it was raining and people huddled together to keep each other warm. The best of human beings comes out in the worst of times, as they say. Tremors and after-shocks continue to scare people, as I post.

The United Nations warned today that more than 2.5 million people needed shelter.

My heart goes out to the countless dead and injured.
I hope the anguish and pain is soon over.
I pray, people pick up the pieces shortly.
I yearn the flowers bloom again.
God bless them all, us all.

sameer bhat

Life is like that!!!!
Cartoon: courtesy a creative pal

Turkey has a tortuous road ahead. In its quest to join the EU, Turkey has to slaughter many of its demons. The country is already taken the highway to Europe. There are pits and bumps and sharks out there. Lets hope the Turks wade through in what would be a truly momentous event. A multi-religious Europe. Not a cristian-club, as Edovan calls it.

Turkey's Progress card
State of reforms

Completed

· Abolition of the death penalty

· Language rights for Kurds

· Greater civilian control over the military

· Release of political prisoners

· Start of economic reforms after customs union with EU in 1995. Both sides removed barriers to trade in industrial goods, while Turkey adopted EU's external tariffs for trade with non-EU countries

· Softened stance on Cyprus by backing UN-plan to unite island, though this was rejected by Greek half of island in 2004

· Adopted competition laws in 1996

Still to do

· Recognise Cyprus and open up Turkish ports and airports to Cypriot shipping and aircraft

· Loosen the military's grip on the government

· Speed up judicial reforms

· Prove that human rights are on a par with those in the EU

· Write 80,000 pages of the acquis communautaire - the EU's rule book - into Turkish law

· Scale down subsidies to industry

· Comply with EU laws in areas such as food hygiene and the environment

· Cut the budget deficit and inflation

· Open up services, such as telecoms and energy, to the EU

· Centre for European Reform


sameer bhat

Turkey is welcome

Turkey's 40-year dream of joining the EU took a momentous step forward last night when both EU and Turkey finally agreed to open membership talks after a marathon round of negotiations.

What Next:

· Turkey faces up to 15 years of talks which will involve 35 "chapters", covering everything from free movement of goods to judicial reform. The European Commission runs the process but each chapter can only be closed with the approval of all 25 members
· Commission conducts a screening process to assess which chapters to open first."It will pry into every aspect of Turkish life," said one diplomat
· Each EU country must approve the "screening report", giving opponents a chance to use the veto or kick up a fuss
· Turkey can prompt a possible showdown and might ask for opt-outs
· Over the next year, Turkey will have to open up its ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus and move towards recognising the Greek-backed government. Failure will be exploited

If talks succeed Turkey has three more hurdles:

· The commission must carry out an "absorption capacity" test, which means it will have to decide whether or not the EU can fit Turkey in

· France and Austria will hold referendums on whether to admit Turkey

· The EU must update the Nice treaty, the basis for enlargement, which may be difficult considering the rejection of the EU constitution.

Long, winding road, but many in Turkey will say worth the wait.

sameer bhat

United Colors Of Bee-tle!
Pic Sam

Day and Night

This beautiful photograph was taken by the crew on board shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated during reentry in 2003, during its last mission, on a cloudless day.
The picture is of Europe and Africa when the sun is setting. Half of the picture is in night. The bright dots you see are the cities' lights. The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert . Note that the lights are already on in Holland , Paris , and Barcelona, and that's it's still daylight in Dublin , London , Lisbon , and Madrid .

The sun is still shining on the Strait of Gibraltar.The Mediterranean Sea is already in darkness. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the Azores Islands; below them to the right are the Madeira Islands ;a bit below are the Canary Islands; and further South, close to the farthest western point of Africa , are the Cape Verde Islands.

Note that the Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both during day time and night time. To the left, on top, is Greenland , totally frozen.

Ah, the beautiful earth

sameer bhat

La citation du jour

Forget the futility of existence
Believe in the inevitability of sucess
Understand achievement and struggle
Kill boredom. Buck the trend.
Create your own cult.
Let a thousand weeds bloom
Change icons before they change you.
Learn to swim in life, with it!

sameer bhat

Kashmir: How it all started

Kashmir has had a bloody history. Independent for generations, the last king of independent Kashmir, Hari singh, acceeded to the union of India in 1947. Here is the letter, that the late Maharaja wrote in a hurry to Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India. This letter was going to change the course of history in Kashmir, Pakistan and India.

Letter from Maharaja Hari Singh to Lord Mountbatten on Pak invasion of J&K in 1947

My dear Lord Mountbatten,

I have to inform Your Excellency that a grave emergency has arisen in my State and request the immediate assistance of your Government. As Your Excellency is aware,the State of Jammu and Kashmir has not acceded to either the Dominion of India or Pakistan. Geographically my State is contiguous with both of them. Besides, my State has a common boundary with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and with China. In their external relations the Dominion of India and Pakistan cannot ignore this fact. I wanted to take time to decide to which Dominion I should accede or whether it is not in the best interests of both the Dominions and of my State to stand independent, of course with friendly and cordial relations with both. I accordingly approached the Dominions of India and Pakistan to enter into standstill agreement with my State. The Pakistan Government accepted this arrangement. The Dominion of India desired further discussion with representatives of my Government. I could not arrange this in view of the developments indicated below. ln fact the Pakistan Goernment under the standstill agreement is operating the post and telegraph system inside the State. Though we have got a standstill agreement with the Pakistan Government, the Govemment permitted a steady and increasing strangulation of supplies like food, salt and petrol to my State.

Afridis, soldiers in plain clothes, and desperadoes with modern weapons have been allowed to infiltrate into the State, at first in the Poonch area, then from Sialkot and finally in a mass in the area adjoining-Hazara district on the Ramkote side. The result has been that the limited number of troops at the disposal of the State had to be dispersed and thus had to face the enemy at several points simultaneously, so that it has become difficult to stop the wanton destruction of life and property and the looting of the Mahura power house, which supplies electric current to the whole of Srinagar and which has been burnt. The number of women who have been kidnapped and raped makes my heart bleed. The wild forces thus let loose on the State are marching on with the aim of capturing Srinagar, the summer capital of my government, as a first step to overrunning the whole State. The mass infiltration of tribesman drawn from distant areas of the North-West Frontier Province, coming regularly in motortrucks, using the Manwehra-Mazaffarabad road and fully armed with up-to-date weapons, cannot possibly be done without the knowledge of the Provincial Govemment of the North-West Frontier Province and the Government of Pakistan. Inspite of repeated appeals made by my Government no attempt has been made to check these raiders or to stop them from coming into my State. In fact, both radio and the Press of Pakistan have reported these occurences. The Pakistan radio even put out the story that a provisional government has been set up in Kashmir. The people of my State, both Muslims and non-Muslims, generally have taken no part at all.

With the conditbns obtaining at present in my State and the great emergency of the situation as it exists, I have no option but to ask for help from the Indian Dominion. Naturally they cannot send the help asked for by me without my State acceding to the Dominion of India. I have accordingly decided to do so, and I attach the instrument of accession for acceptance by your Government. The other alternative is to leave my state and people to free booters. On this basis no civilised government can exist or be maintained.

This alternative I will never allow to happen so long as I am the ruler of the State and I have life to defend my country. I may also inform your Excellency's Government that it is my intention at once to set up an interim government and to ask Sheikh Abdullah to carry the responsibilities in this emergency with my Prime Minister.

If my State is to be saved, immediate assistance must be available at Srinagar. Mr. V.P. Menon is fully aware of the gravity of the situation and will explain it to you, if further explanation is needed.

In haste and with kindest regards,

Yours sincerely,

Hari Singh
October 26, 1947


Response from Lord Mountbatten

My dear Maharaja Sahib,

Your Highness' letter dated 26 October 1947 has been delivered to me by Mr. V.P. Menon. In the circumstances mentioned by Your Highness, my Government have decided to accept the accession of Kashmir State to the Dominion of India. In consistence with their policy that in the case of any State where the issue of accession has been the subject of dispute, the question of accession should be decided in accordance with the wishes of the people of the State, it is my Government's wish that, as soon as law and order have been restored in Kashmir and its soil cleared of the invader, the question of the State's accession should be settled by a reference to the people.
Meanwhile, in response to Your Highness' appeal for military aid, action has been taken today to send troops of the Indian Army to Kashmir, to help your own forces to defend your territory and to protect the lives, property, and honour of your people. My Government and I note with satisfaction that Your Highness has decided to invite Sheikh Abdullah to form an interim Government to work with your Prime Minister.

Louis Mountbatten

October 27, 1947

A Kashmiri lass carries crop home from her field
Pic Sam

Ah...me!

A woe crosses my heart
and limps to my eye
as words hurt and fall
and blue birds bid bye
Why it betides me
lovey-dovey ol' soul
in a land very hard
I find difficult to ward

My most recent composition -- Just that I was feeling a little melancholic!
sameer bhat

God...It was close!
Caricature Sam

Near miss

Have you ever heard about close-shaves. No no. I don't mean those smooth shaves that we make each morning -- and every second morning -- in my case. Lather and foam! I escaped a falling tree this morning. It was both interesting and scary.

I was walking in the rain, around noon. I love these moments. When the showers are full and I am alone. I keep humming to myself and listening to the rain. Infact it has been raining since previous night. There was lightening and thunder in the night. I was woken up by a particularly menancing, loud thunder at two in the night.

I must have been a few yards past the fated tree. A loud crashing sound made me turn -- by impulse -- 180 degree. The huge tree was crumbling. Aged and loftly, it was perhaps weakened overnight by strong gusts of wind. The rain dealt a final blow and off it came, just missing me by -- less than 6 seconds.

I usually trust my impulses. I reckon, I would have run had the tree decided to obey gravity, the very moment I was underneath it. Split-second decisions. Rushing against time. All of us do that in times of adversity. It comes naturally. But...who knows? May be I might have come under it. Injured, Dead!

I thank God, anyways. One of those moments, He likes me.

sameer bhat

Thank God for those pearls. Love 'em!
Pic Sam

It's raining again

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

a langston hughes adaption
sameer bhat

Go forth under the open sky, and listen To Nature's teachings.

Pic Sam

Quote of the Day

Climate-change denial has gone through four stages. First the fossil-fuel lobbyists told us that global warming was a myth. Then they agreed that it was happening, but insisted that it was a good thing: we could grow wine in the Pennines and take Mediterranean holidays in Skegness. Then they admitted that the bad effects outweighed the good ones, but claimed that climate change would cost more to tackle than to tolerate. Now they have reached stage four. They concede that climate change would be cheaper to address than to neglect, but maintain that it's now too late. This is their most persuasive argument

George Monbiot
September 20, 2005
The Guardian

Ruins of the parliament in Patara, considered the world's first elected government. Its semicircle of seats became a model for the Capitol in US.
Pic With thanks, NY Times

Birthday Boy

Sep 18: My birthday.

There are times when I think I am a lucky chap. This is one of those days. I just turned 20-something. Right from mid-night, when the clock struck 00 hours and propelled me into my nth year of being, I started getting calls and texts from my friends all over the world. Hold on!!!I am not a celeb but as luck would have it, I have friends living across a wide geographical stretch.

Calls from Kashmir...Suhail was the first to give me a ring. Bleary-eyed the poor boy remained awake till 12 to wish. Can you ask for more? Selcuk, my Turkish pal sent a heart-felt note shortly after mid-night. I was humbled. Around that time, Kokes and Waseem and Navvy burst into a carol -- wishing me! Tanseer sent a text at one in the night. Moron! He had again gotten the Indian timings wrong. I love him for his capers! (Flight timings wrong, names wrong...the list is wrong, sorry, long!)

Gals...how can I leave them out. Or how ever can they forget me. Usuals, Manprit, all so charming and nice. Rang up from the serene shores of south India. Leera sent a belated text. Naughty as ever.

Hadi called up from NYC, Tanseer complimented with a call from Baku. Sweet texts kept trickling in. Selcuk with his flowing locks, who else! Doctor Uncle -- Tan's pops -- wrote a birthday text. I suddenly felt double-blessed.

I cut my cake at the french corner dubbed Patessiers'. Folks clapped. Kokes was too good -- loved his gifts.

God, I never want the world to love me. I just want my loved ones to stick by me. That is exactly what took place.

Bliss.

sameer bhat

Tiny globs of rain: Through my lens
Pic Sam

Rain dance

The past few days have been utterly pleasant. It has rained and rained. Glinting silvery stripes of rain. The downpour has brought the mercury crashing down on her knees. What injustice to someone who has been so haughty all summer. Lady mercury -- also globally known by her cognomen HEAT -- made us sweat and fume. Not that we didn't fight back. I bought an ac-plant to keep her off but she was persistent with her swelter. Till yesterday!!!

As always nature came to the rescue. Where Bush flunks, nature prevails. So heavens opened up and it poured. I love rains. I am a compete romantic. I live for rain and snow and breeze and that delicate sunshine. Not Heat!!! There is so much of beauty in nature's elements. I love to walk in rain. Drench myself. Soak in the godly shower. And I walked in the rain yesterday. My slippers got wet, my hair-gel was washed off and my back was moist. I didn't care two hoots. I felt good and fresh.

The rain was incessant. It came in small and big torrents. On the rich and the not-so-rich, in the president's lush gardens and the tarapaulin roofs of slum-dwellers, on bird-less nests and concrete enclosures. In ponds, across roads, on the lamp-posts. For those magical rain moments, all city seemed to dance in the drizzle.

Happy worms swam in brown slush. From a distance bushlarks and parakeets cooed.

It is a interlude, one wishes goes on forever.

sameer bhat
sameershaban20@yahoo.com

Price of Freedom

It is difficult to reflect on this picture. This is Kashmir, Circa 2005. A lone mother sobs softly at her son's grave in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. Her son, like thousands others, perished in the bloody strife that has plagued this beautiful glade on earth since the late 80's. I guess, it is difficult for parents to outlive their children.

What joy it is when a baby is born! Mothers' go through the pangs of motherhood, the kicks, the pain, the anguish and the pleasure to beget a life. She breeds the kid, brings him up. Educates him at her lap. Watches him crawl, babble and jostle for his drink.

Sees him go to school, imbibe words, croon rhymes. Blushes to see him grow his first face-hairs; does a quiet prayer when his tender voice turns hoarse. The sheer emotion that flickers to see him go camping. His band. His room. His books. The joy of being a parent. The bonds. The anxities, those parental dreams for him!

And suddenly a bomb! Gun shots! Dreams shattered!
Blood in runnels. Her son's!
Who got him. Gunmen, Army!
His grave. Mom sobs! Tears. The agony.

God, I can't stand this!

Sameer

I was in a heaven. This long-shot will tell you why I hate to tear myself from the place!!!
Pic Sam

Rouge apples dot my trees in our apple orchard.
Pic Sam

How I love rains!!!
Pic Sam

Pee Mr Prez

Prez Bush writes a note to his Sec of State Condy during the UNSC meeting in NY: I think I may need a Bathroom break? Is this possible? Go Mr. Prez. Pee!
Pic Reuters

Happy! Am I ?

Mujhe dekho khwahish e jaan e jaan 
main wohi hoon anwar e neem jaan
tumhein itna hosh tha jab kahaan 
na chalao is tarah tum zubaan
karo mera shukriya meherbaan 
tumhein baat karna sikha diya

— Ye Jo Halka Halka Suroor — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Can we ever be fully content? The question often hovers about my senses but disappears right before I attempt to answer it. I am not particularly happy or unhappy but something in me vacillates and stirs me to hold fast onto mirth. I don't easily give into melancholy. I think deep inside I must possess a cheerfully thumping heart. My pals will vouch that I have a funny bone. I must concede that I have a couple of them.

Positivity helps. It makes us think clear and neat. There are lots of pits and pockmarks and punctures on the high road to bliss but the car -- as they say -- must trundle on. Life's beautiful. Why not color it into a giant canvass? Touch the gentler shades. Trim the non-linear parts.

When we tend to become mirthless and dispirited, don't we rob ourselves of much beautiful moments in life? Soon...we forget to frolic and laugh. We capitulate to gloom. I reckon, falling into endless layers of sorrow helps only the woebegones and makes humans very sour. That is some silly baggage all of us must readily shed.

Life is but a race. There are times when I find millions of things stacked up against me. As if God is playing dice with a ham-handed soul. The answer definitely is not lying low. It is only rising up -- and above -- after every steep and not-so-steep fall. This is the basic human essence all great philosophers -- from the dialectical Socrates to Sartre -- attempt to say.

I can be emotional but not gloomy. I am sentimental but markedly happy!
Opposites work, very often.

Sam

My fav doc-friend Mujib, in Philadelphia, PA
Pic Sam

The Interview with God

Take a break. Click on my fav link and gently touch the view presentation button.
Don't tell me it did not make a difference to you.

Sam's highly recommended:
http://linux20230.dn.net/cgi-bin/pop/card.pl?8.29.064210.05

sameer bhat

Gulmarg, some miles drive from my home -- And onto the Paradise we will go!
Pic Sam

The skies of my city, red and angry, perhaps this time!
Pic Sam

People ferrying in the Dal lake, Srinagar, Kashmir on Saturday!
Pic Sam

A lone Pigeon -- like me -- wets its tender feet in Shalimar garden, Srinagar, Kashmir.
Pic Sam

River Jhelum, Srinagar, Kashmir, at Sun-down
Pic Sam

Kokey in an earlier picture { Don't be foxed into believing that he is thinking here, he never does that}

Pic Sam

Kokes

He is a small bundle of joy. One of my youngest students -- I'm not a teacher, but I love to tutor kids close to me; perhaps my youngest friend and a true heart-on-your-sleeve guy. Taukir features in the select list of chaps, I truly admire. He is at once stylish and frighteningly lazy. He is smart and instantaneous. I love to call him Kokes, thought I think Jug-head also fits him just right!

Kokes laughs in small interludes, almost incessantly. Although he rarely comes up with very many funny quotes himself but he sure has a funny bone. He laughs and giggles at every loud sylabble you utter. That keeps his cheek bones in action, all the time. 24 X 7. I am sure, if I prattle anything in the middle of a difficult situation, kokes is sure to compliment it with a smile.

However, the most enduring element is his sincerity. I reckon, the world around us is painfully short of such sincere, honest blokes and that is where my young pal scores.

Truthful and amiable would be the best two-words to describe Kokes.

sameer bhat

The mystic connection!

A lad came galloping on a mare
on a June day, so warm and fair
With a triangle on his pastel neck
made by a mix of three-some fleck
Like evening breeze from a thousand jasmines
more tiddley than a thousand wines
Constantinople is a lucky old city
Someone likes its white little kitty
Fish of Bosphorus jump in joy
at the spryness of this boy
Can chirping birds of Turkey ever fathom?
that Selcuk means more than a Kingdom

Sameer

Sweet looks

I haven't scribbled much on my webpage -- weblog, as some may like it -- for a couple of days. It was perhaps a little mix of my own inertness and work pressure that kept me from posting. In the meantime, there has been some refreshing change around my work place. A few new faces appeared in my office -- aspiring hacks -- and were quickly selected to take over the flame of journalism, forward. Fresh, out-of-college faces! Two guys and two gals. The lads are nice and gals beautiful; this particular bunch has spilled some refershing newness in an otherwise slack office. As good luck would have it, three of them are in the same hall level as I am, so I constantly get to see them smile at me, as I step in and out of my corner. Juniority necessitates some degree of reverence towards -- one-year senior-- chaps, as they say. I never believed in the maxim, until last week. Now I revel in the sudden respect.

My pick is a gal, who reminds me of Sharmila Tagore's daughter. Sizzlingly beautiful. She is in the new group. I don't know her name yet and I am not particularly dazzled by her. I love beautiful gals and intellegent humans and that is I surmise, only natural. Their laughter and verve has made the stale hall a vibrant bower and even the air conditioning plant is cooler. The whole summer, I thought the split-ac would not cool our cabins. The group puffs away like country-side chimneys, appealing and billowing away. They giggle like class-10 kids but the crisp uproar can only pass off as a welcome break. Covering energy -- petroleum and gas and what not -- and writing features as a business writer requires such ducky interludes.

My pals tell me that I have a dream innings at my present job. I have a great -- and somewhat easy -- regimen. I like my work. I know my contacts, I churn stories at will. I like my Boss. I have an amiable relation with him. We discuss gals. Not at a great length, though. I like to keep my space. We did talk about new babe on the block. Boss thinks she is good, I told him she rocks. Great bloke. I enjoy my talks with Vij, my fav in office. My days are good. I work, talk, read and jot. That is a lot in ten-hours. I keep myself occupied. Yeah, I chat in between also.

I am not in love with the trio or is it four-some. I just like the energy the young exude and yeah I like the subtle admirable pace of the new dove. I can't be hanged for that, I am sure!

Sameer Bhat

Mind joining me for a stroll in the countryside
Pic Sam

Hadi, Tariq with pals relishing barbeque, Manhattan NY

Hadi, blue shirt, tries his hand at Basketball, Manhattan NY, Recent Pic

French Revolution

Date line French Revolution:
1789

May 5: The Estates General opens at Versailles
June 17: The Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly
June 20: The Tennis Court Oath
July 14: Fall of the Bastille
Late July: The Great Fear spreads in the countryside
August 4: The nobles surrender their feudal rights in a meeting of the National Constituent Assembly
August 27: Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
October 5-6: Parisian women march to Versailles and force Louis XVI and his family to return to Paris

1790

July 12: Civil Constitution of the Clergy adopted
July 14: The king accepts a new constitution

1791
June 20-24: Louis XVI and his family attempt to flee France and are stopped at Varennes
August 27: The Declaration of Pillnitz
October 1: The Legislative Assembly meets

1792
April 20: France declares war on Austria
August 10: The Tuileries palace is stormed, and Louis XVI takes refuge with the Legislative Assembly
September 2-7: The September Massacres
September 20: France wins the battle of Valmy
September 21: The monarchy is abolished

1793
January 21: Louis XVI is executed
February 1: France declares war on Great Britain
March: Counterrevolution breaks out in the Vendee
April: The Committee of Public Safety is formed
June 22: The Constitution of 1793 is adopted. It is not put into effect.
August 23: Levee en masse proclaimed
September 17: Maximum prices set on food and other commodities
October 16: Queen Marie Antoinette is executed
November 10: The Cult of Reason is proclaimed. The revolutionary calendar is adopted

1794
March 24: Execution of the Hebertist leaders of the sans-culottes
April 6: Execution of Danton
May 7: Cult of the Supreme Being proclaimed
June 8: Robespierre leads the celebration of the Festival of the Supreme Being.
June 10: The Law Of 22 Prairial is adopted
July 27: The Ninth of Thermidor and the fall of Robespierre
July 28: Robespierre is executed

1795
August 22: The Constitution of the Year Ill is adopted, establishing the Directory

Watch this space for my write-up on French Revolution!!!

Hadi relaxing on a jutty. A fav of his!
Pic Sam

Suhail and Salah, bespectacled bros!
Pic Sam

The identity vacuum

A splendid comment by Jonathan Freedland on 'The identity vacuum' that lingers London Post-Bombing. A reaslistic assertion that cuts into the morass of terror and loyailty.

Britain should follow the US approach to citizenship, which emphasises not only diversity but the ties that bind

Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday August 3, 2005
The Guardian

This has been the summer of fear, the season in which our worst nightmares have come true. Take those devoted to bringing racial harmony to this country. Every argument they spent years beating back has suddenly gained new life.

It was long a racist trope that Muslims, even those born here, could not be trusted, that they represented a potentially lethal fifth column. On July 7 that viewpoint was handed lurid "proof": four British-born Muslims ready to kill as many British civilians as they could.

The racists had long argued that immigrants were a menace. As if to vindicate every scaremongering anti-refugee headline of the last 10 years, along came the suspected cell behind the July 21 strikes. It included at least two men who, as children, had fled Africa and found safe haven in Britain. British tabloids had once had to make up "Asylum seekers ate my donkey"; now they write "The asylum seekers who want us dead" - and this time it seems to be true.

This setback for the cause of racial harmony is not abstract. Just listen to the phone-ins, as people admit they are scanning carriages and buses looking for dark, Muslim faces. Suspicion and racial tension that many Britons hoped they had banished 25 years ago are back.

It means those dry, often tedious debates about Britishness suddenly have a new urgency. For how is it possible that Britons could seek the deaths of their fellow citizens? Maybe it's a strange question to ask. After all, it's surely baffling that anyone would want to kill civilians anywhere, of whatever nationality. But because we still imagine a tacit solidarity, an unseen web binding those who live on the same streets and ride the same buses, it shocks all the more to contemplate a man delighting in the death of his neighbours. The July 21 case is even harder to fathom. If Britain had saved your life as a child, would not a pang of obligation hold you back from killing that country's civilians, no matter how great your rage?

The problem was visible on Monday's Newsnight when two members of a fringe Islamist group declared those behind July 7 "praiseworthy" - and did so with British accents. Did they have any loyalty to Britain? Of course not, they answered; only to their fellow Muslims. They may be on the fringe but not, apparently, alone. A YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph last month found that a clear majority of British Muslims felt loyal to Britain - but 18%, nearly one in five, did not.

This is not, despite Home Office minister Hazel Blears's Muslim-dialogue roadshow yesterday, a question chiefly for Muslims. This is a question for British society as a whole. For July stands as proof that our model of integration, the way we absorb difference, has somehow failed.

Not completely: some of Britain's ethnic minorities testify to an integration which may still be bumpy but which is gradually working out. Not exclusively: the Madrid bombers were Moroccans who had lived among Spaniards for years, yet were ready to murder them. Nevertheless, it can't be avoided: something has gone wrong.

The best explanation might be the one provided by Aatish Taseer, who recently interviewed a series of second-generation Pakistanis in the north of England for Prospect magazine. He found people who took little pride in their Pakistani background, but who struggled to make any connection with their Britishness. When they grew up, "Britons themselves were having a hard time believing in Britishness", he writes. "If you denigrate your own culture you face the risk of newer arrivals looking for one elsewhere." In this case, says Taseer, an Islamic identity, a sense of kinship not with Britain or Pakistan but with the global brotherhood of Muslims, the Ummah.

Is he right? The experience of one country suggests he might be. The United States has not - yet - had a brush with home-grown Islamist terrorism; 9/11 was the work of Egyptian and Saudi outsiders. Why might that be? Islamist radicals certainly find it harder to enter the US. It's also true that American Muslims tend not to live in the segregated urban enclaves that exist in Britain. It might even be relevant that, in contrast with Britain and France, the US has no former colonial populations - no equivalent of French Algerians or British Pakistanis.

But surely the chief reason is the way America approaches newcomers. It does not allow a vacuum where national identity should be, but fills the void with Americanness. Loyalty is instilled constantly - not only at one-off ceremonies - whether it be saluting the flag at school or singing the national anthem at a ballgame.
"What, you don't do all that in Britain?" asks Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations when I put the contrast to him yesterday. His members have "a definite sense of being American", he told me, and clear loyalty. Yes, they feel "concern" over events in Iraq or the Middle East, but not "anger or rage" - and it's voiced by lobbying a congressman or writing a letter to the editor. Of course, there is an identification with Muslims around the world, but that sits alongside loyalty to America. Which exerts the greater hold? "It's like asking me who I love more, my mother or my father?" The answer is, he loves them both.

It seems there are two ways to fill the identity vacuum. The French model of citizenship, which asks people to shed their differences to become French. Or the American, which allows people to keep their differences - and become American. Hooper points out that while the French government banned the wearing of Muslim headscarves in school, the US justice department recently backed an Oklahoma girl's fight for the right to wear one in class.

Britons' instincts would probably lean towards the American approach. Britain, like the US, is built on difference. Our crypto-federal structure, welding Scots, English and Welsh, allows for that; successive waves of immigrants have added to the mix.

But here's the difference. America works because it emphasises not only diversity but the ties that bind, too. It encourages a hyphenated identity - think Italian-American - but insists on both sides of the hyphen. In Britain, liberals especially have striven so hard to accept that people are Scottish or Jewish or Asian, they may have forgotten that they are also British. For bothness to work, you have to have both.

In other words, we let the Britishness part of the equation lapse. We were frightened of it, fearing that it reeked of compulsion or white-only exclusivity. But Britishness, like Americanness, need not be like that. It should, by its nature, be open to all. And yet it does entail some common glue: rule of law and tolerance, for a start.
This, then, is the challenge. To forge a Britishness which welcomes difference - but which is not so loose, so nebulous, that it leaves a hole where national identity should be.

We need that sense of kinship if we are to see each other as members of a shared society - not representatives of a faceless enemy.

Salah, natty and academic!
Pic Sam

Hadi, in a recent picture. Casual and free-spirited as ever!
Pic Sam