Week-end Pixs

Wasy and me: He is tense because the sky is overcast!

Amidst all the lights, I steal a glance!

Can't stop lovin you!!!

The first time our eyes met
It is the same feelin I get
Only feels much stronger
I want to love you longer

Every word I say is true
I remember all your moves
I remember you!!!

Samy

Aloof!

Distance never separates two souls that really care, for our memories span the miles and in seconds we are there. Almost. But whenever I start feeling sad because I miss you I remind myself how lucky I am to have someone so special to miss.

There are many things in life that one wants to keep masked. I often have this stupid -- crying -- feeling at the most strangest of occurrences – many of which are simply outside of my control. I cry rarely, yet I do. Boyz don’t cry, I suddenly remember. Guys don’t want others to see them emotionally feeble.

Then we cry inside. At least I do. Can’t tell you why. There are times when one has to be really concise. One misses. The rain softens you even more. The beats skip fast. You pretend to be a toughie. It is a very different innervation. Like a mystical experience.

I am sorry, you’ve to be a little touched to feel it!

samy

Only if....

Only if I could fly
I would hover round thee
Only if dreams came true
I would never let you go
Only if flowers grew in snow
I would pick all of them for you
Only if time stood still
I would freeze in your thought
Only if week-days were off
I would just color portraits of you
Only if pebbles were diamonds
I would stack them up for you
Only if it rained forever
I would walk you for miles
Only if life was magical
I would surprise ye always
Only if God gave me another life
I would not stop loving you!

Samy

Here I come

Still good!

Human-interest stories always fascinate me. I love the power of emotions. The sanctity of sentiments. Truthfulness of soul. There is hardly any evidence of this mix in my native land – Kashmir. Though the place is beautiful and so are most its people, physically. However their spirits are often not too beautiful. I cannot take their artificial beliefs. The chicanery they harbor. Hang me for it but I have this brew of affection and aversion for them. Most of them – and that leaves out a small chunk – will talk to you cleanly, like the sharp edge of a knife. Cold and hot at once.

Nevertheless there are instances when one cannot help sketch a smile at the sparkling residues of humanity that still exist in the valley. I was happy to learn people are still good at heart and don’t necessarily view everything through the blinkered lens of religion. When people realize that the indifference to other cultures doesn’t always work. That’s when the spirit of goodness rises and suffuses over every thing small and stupid.

Some things do actually gladden hearts. Here…a news-item, re-produced from Greater Kashmir – Dated June 14, 2006 -- Kashmir’s best English newspaper. (Another matter it is far too mediocre in its style and presentation).

Sameer

There were no OB vans, none from the army of photojournalists and no security bandobast either. Although sombre, the scene was still heartening—it was Muslims mourning death of an aged Kashmiri Hindu woman.

They outnumbered the Hindus or Pandits at the funeral of Shamoin Gigoo, 81, wife of late Sham Lal, who breathed her last on Monday evening at her residence at Indra Nagar, Srinagar.The Muslims stood calm at the Karan Nagar cremation ground as Ramesh Kumar Gigoo, the eldest son of Mrs Gigoo lit the pyre.

Yesterday it was the family friends, majority of them Muslims, who stood by the Gigoos in their hour of grief, and arranged for the funeral. In turn, the bereaved family, took due care of religious obligation of the Muslim mourners of offering Namaz. The cremation on Tuesday was deferred from 12 pm to 2.30 pm. Later, amidst sighs and sobs Shamoinee was consigned to flames as per the Hindu tradition.

About 50,000 Pandit families migrated to Jammu and many parts of India when anti-India uprising broke out in the Valley in 1990. But the Gigoos, like 7,000 other Pandits comprising 1,600 families, still live in the Valley. The Muslim friends had counseled late Sham Lal and his wife to stay put. “They were reluctant to leave their homeland, they were very nice people,” many mourners said.

Link:
http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=14_6_2006&ItemID=15&cat=1

Smile!!!!

Smile an ever lasting smile
a smile can bring you near to me
don't ever let me find you gone
'cause that would bring a tear to me
this world has lost its glory
let's start a brand new story
now my love
you think that I don't even mean
a single word I say

Smile can be infectious. Some smiles can kill. A smiling face reveals that your mind is happy. I love smiling faces. Even smiling eyes. I know someone who smiles -- if only intermittently -- the most beautiful smile in the world. It ricochets off you if you stand in front. It propels skywards and falls on your earlobes if you stand besides someone. That is what a smile can do to you. Flatten you. Hurl you softly up and -- leave you -- gasping for more. A great smile symbolizes success to me.

I believe success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. I think I heard that before but it doesn't matter. The locution still holds. Some things don't seem to be affected by the progression and ravages of time. Certain smiles are like that! They make you love from the bottom of your heart even in a bad -- loveless -- world.

I am glad someone has more smiles to share. No memory of past can come to a sniffing distance when you have Samy around, as they say. I wish I could do more to keep the smile constant. Beaming. Glowing. I seem to have only these stupid words to offer. Lots of love too. It is my armor. My serenade.

As the Boyz-zone croons:

It’s only words
and words are all I have
to take your heart away

I reckon, there is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

Samy

Sleep, little eyes

Sleep, little eyes
That brim with childish tears amid thy play,
Be comforted! No grief of night can weigh
Against the joys that throng thy coming day.

Sleep, in the chill!
There is no place in Slumberland for tears:
Sleep that you have no more fears
And sorrows won't pass you for years.

A Mccre adaptation

Samy

I am a Tramp!

Life gallops on at a reckless pace
I know not where it will stop
The reins are not in my hands
My feet not in the stirrups
sam


If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were. Khalil Jibran, one of the greatest American thinkers averred many many years ago. Not only is Khalil my fav – I have read ten of his books -- his lines are etched in my mind like wrinkles upon a nomad of 100. I’ve no reason to feel unloved yet by some medieval, weird deep rhyme inside me I do. Only at times. I take solace from Jibran’s timeless words. Then there is another dusk.

I was woken today by soft chimes of the cell phone. Still half-asleep, I wished it were that ‘special’ someone saying good-morning, Samy. Long back I used to get such calls. Sweet interludes. Not anymore. It turned out to be some silly girl trying to sell me a credit card. I put my head down on the pillow, the ac-chill wheezing through the room. Do you require the silver tinted, gold-hued card? The poor girl went on. No, I said in a threatening tenor; I need someone to make me feel naughty. The chick hung up!

I tried to close my eyes in an effort to shut out the hurt. There are times when one wants to snort joyful volumes of that familiar scent. The tutting indulgence. The cold combination of garish stuff and bland, beautiful eyes. Innocent face on my bracing biceps. Looking outwards in the same direction without any purpose. Without reason. Trying to find some arcane excuse. Make some reason out of life’s complex turns.

I am a tramp, I am sure. Nobody gets my message!

Samy

Fanna: Annihilation!

I reckon the title says it all. I watched the much-anticipated flick Fanna during the weekend with friends. Despite a super star cast – Aamir and Kajol – and coming from the stables of Yash Raj – India’s original romantic production house, the film disappoints. It is a pedestrian, dull job by Kunal Kohli, the acclaimed director of Hum-tum fame.

The movie starts off well. The music is good. The cast is impressive. That is it! Titans like Kiron kher, Satish Shah and the funny Jaspal Bhatti have simply been wasted away. A blind girl is unanticipatedly operated upon for sight-correction. Suddenly she starts to see light. Like the 70's crap.

Our film-makers still think the audiences are a dumb-lot. Terribly short of creative tales, they weave ordinary stories with the same old formulae. Fanna, so high on hype is actually low on quality quotient. It does not make sensible cinema. It looks like one big roughhouse. The direction is slip-shod. The screenplay unoriginal. Trite.

The usual Kashmir angle. Terrorists, wanting to nuke India. The elusive trigger. Wild chases. Wasteful expenditure. The bad guys infiltrating the army. Female intelligence sleuths. That is Tabu, for you. Little spattering about history. Don’t we see the same banal theme repeated in C-grade hindi movies so often.

The movie scores at: screen chemistry between the lead stars, that old world feeling of an all girl’s band going to Delhi from Kashmir, great cinematography. And ofcourse Kashmir – ever beautiful! Poland too.

Albeit Kokes may give it a 6/10. Fanna gets a five on ten from Wasy and me!

Sameer
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Pic: Kashmir -- in Summer

Missing you

Cold vapor breath on air revealed
I'm Missing You

Have you ever felt like me? Strange and revelled in someone’s craving thought. In my mastery of the most exquisite eyes I have ever come across on the terrestrial ball -- called earth. Or someone's mastery over me. Or is it some kind of phantasmagoric magic? Misty. Mostest. Mine!

I'll be 26 in four months. Already swollen with life. I feel raw as exposed flesh. What generation must we be, unable to rein in our longings? The MTV gen, as academics prefer to designate those born between 1975-1985. I don't know what on earth has possessed me. I lie and wait for someone to amble across in my life. Slither the flocculent finger slowly upon my brow. My heart pounds in my ears. God, I miss the lone conqueror of five evils. I really do!

The mink feeling tugs at me in the strangest of places – for example in the middle of an interesting conversation or while I am driving – in level 5 – at 90 miles/hour. It shakes me to my innards. Makes me feel like a naughty child who greeds for his share of pie. Something vibrates in me with a living pulse. What that – something is – I can’t tell. Yet it oscillates. Like my dad’s traditional German wall clock that has been cheeping every hour ever since I’ve grown up.

Last night as I drove back home, globs of new rain streamed on my windscreen. In the middle of a cruel summer. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, ploughing it up like gunfire. A dark sky suggested some storm was building up nearby. In my heart a tempest raged. My hand released the steering and moved to the ubiquitous cell phone. Searching for the button. Clicking it and then letting it go!

I can’t be weak. I can’t seem to allow myself being too schmaltzy. Yet I miss. The rain continued to fall. I could go straight or I could take the next turn home. My heart beat at million thuds a minute. The pulse quickened. The grass outside the tinted glasses of my car looked wet-green and pleased. Trees bent.

I drove home. I am strong. I can go slow. Yet I miss like hell.

Samy

Of Longing!

Distant eyes across nigh desires
Unruffled as the tempest grows
Like a robin as you skirl aloud
beats shake upon magical notes
Waffling loyality of your words
fills this heart on quiet dawns
Faint sharpness of thy skin
swims in my loving gaze
Images I carry back home
to lie awake with on dull nights
Eyes from God's own stock
least expressive but most endearing

Samy

A very romantic rendezvous

I ask you to stand firm in your hope! Stand firm in your love! Amen!
Pope Benedict XVI in Krakow, Poland, Saturday May 27, 2006

I have always been a dreamy lad. Those white fluffy clouds in sleepless eyes. It makes me go bonkers at times and yet prods me to carry on amidst all the lovelessness. Impulsive and illusory. That has been my story thus far. I can’t seem to clearly remember when I mingled the delicate dash between infatuation and love in my mind. I’ve been flying too swift to notice that. Occasional gusts tossed me up in the sky but the flight didn’t end. It glided on. Till Saturday. I reckon, around the same time the celibate Ratzinger was visiting Poland and he said the words,” Stand firm in your love”. It stirred a magical cord in me. My bowels asked me to follow my heart. I was led to a dream.

My angel. Or was it a fairy. I have been thinking of this angel ever since I was a kid.

I dreamt a beautiful dream. I was transported to a surreal land. It was full of wonderful people with lovey-dovey eyes. I was suffused over by pure unadulterated love. Tomes of it. It made me realize that there is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved. I clearly rejoiced in the ceaseless love. Only a little laughter broke the spell sporadically.

It was hot. Heat of the plains. I could smell heat even in the brief, compendiary bits I slept. For the first time in my life, I loved the laconic spell of my sleep. God, how I love the feeling. How the countdown to our next reunion almost immediately triggered. Is it a bond? Is this what they call love? I donno. It was a dream, that is for sure. The beat that my heart misses every time the images flicker in my mind. Blue-blooded-elegance. The calm eyes. The emaciated feet. The purple glow in the brow.

Imagine raw sensuality. What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes as they say. The maxim haunted me since ages. It was right next to me in my dream. When Jhelum flowed into the Chinab river. When heat ceased to exist. When sweaty hugs felt better than a million perfumes. When I didn’t want the smells to go – perhaps for the first time in my life -- and did not use my expensive colognes in a long time. It was a cross between hope and love. Betwixt desire and longing. It felt like crying after a long time stunned. Drinking after a lifetime’s thirst.

There are times when you forget the bed. You also forget the pillow. You share the warmth. Despite the stingy harshness of the summer. You want to hide the relation in camouflage of the darkness. The shadows. There is a name hidden in the shadow of my soul, where I read it night and day. It is a feeling I will nestle in my little heart for long. A very special feeling. Like a bird who comes from cold hills and perches on top of my palm. And cooes most sweetly.

My alarm went off. The dream broke.
It is another day.

Sameer

To Reserve or not to Reserve

Everyone's entitled to be stupid, but you're abusing the priveledge.

India seems to be stuck in a reservation rut. There are fierce debates in TV talk-shows. I never knew Dalit writers can speak English so fluently. Endless deliberations continue in university canteens and drawing rooms alike. I had a fiery arguement with a schedule-caste friend, over coffee last Sunday. God, How I hate to use this terminology. Lower and upper. Scheduled and Unscheduled castes. It sucks. We stop being us and suddenly become you chaps and we!

Anti-reservations protestors have now spread all over the country. They tried everything -- hunger strike to candle-light vigil. Cops brutally caned peaceful students in many places. The government of India watches the spectacle. Suddenly a new form of activism has taken over. Reservations have ripped open a pandora's box. The muck, they say, has already spilled. Different groups are busy mopping it up. Arjun Singh, India's ageging education minister is on the verge of doing a VP singh. VP, India's ex Prime minister, let loose the mandal demon, implementing what was long-considered a political tinder-box. No wonder tempers are up. SMSes trickle in by the minute.

Reservations -- for those who came in late -- did not come from the blue. Indian constitution has a provision for bringing at par various groups, castes and tribes in this country who have been deprived equal opportunity for ages. Under the process a certain percentage of seats in places of higher education and government were kept warm -- and safe -- for India's underbelly. VP just accelerated the process. 27% seats to the lowly blokes. The ball was set rolling. Many thought that justice was finally served, piping hot. It will square off many scars, I mused.

Many benefitted. Good. The country is still in deep schisms. Castist, superstitious kinds. Stones on fingers, hypocitical, absolute-hatred for people other than their own. We can't marry them because they are lower-bred Hindus. 'Our caste is higher than yours' is entrenched in the pshyches of millions. Uneducated and educated alike. I guess a small % of modern public school-educated generation-X think otherwise. The lower-caste still cannot make it to good primary education, decent colleges and are looked down upon by the high-end society. So trying to bring about a uniformity through an affirmitive action -- like the reservation policy -- was perhaps sane.

Unfortunately, thats where the buck stops. A famous maxim goes like," You can't have everything. Where would you put it? I think that says it rather succintly. The government of India, led by a technocrat, former economics professor and a champion of globalization Dr Manmohan singh suddenly decided to up the reservation levels from 27% to 49%. Now an idiot can make it out. This is politics. Half the seats to the lower section. India is a country of 1 billion souls. Where are the so-called upper-classes supposed to go? Now it is no rocket science, upper class means, only a stupid tag. You can be poor and upper class. And most people are. What about them? They also need a pat.

Not under-estimating the capabilities of the low-caste folks who make it to our colleges and universities, can they really be at par with the best. Cynics argue that tribal and lower caste students are incapable of engaging issues at a sophisticated level like those who enter through merit. What does merit mean? People ask and whether the wisdom of the current system really works, an expert chips in.

It doesn't work. The government doles out the quota-cards. The cards are used and over-used. Human beings are selfish. In India where mere survival is a challenge, the reservation card is an easy route to success, even if it means scuttling the hopes, chances and dreams of bright meritorous students. Rather than shamelessly emloying the Quota trick for petty politiking, the governmant must try and address the issue of granting these guys access to good schooling. Make it mandatory, perhaps. That will bring them at par. Simply transporting a half-baked, ill-tutored guy to a prestigious institute like AIIMS or IIM and make him share the desk with a brilliant mind doesn't make an iota of sense.

Extending reservation is not the answer. There has to be a nation-wide census and instead of the schedule cates and tribes, we must endeavour to bring in the economically unpriveledged classes -- which includes SC/ST/Upper classes -- in the reservation net. Cancel the cards of the folks who are well to do and flaunt it unnecesarily. Limit the reservation to 30%.

Let merit arise. Let India continue be the world's talent hub. Let us emerge an even stronger, more resplendent democracy.

Hope some sanity prevails on the good old professor of Economics and his vizier with the curved stick.

sameer

The No-No limerick

Do we go out tonight
to catch a yummy bite
No place can you ever find
because you not in my mind
A soul who is outta sight

samy

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An imaginary limerick that came to my mind

The good-bye Limerick!

Good bye and see you
words kept so few
Rain in familiar airs
love inside endless layers
You gotta go, I always knew

Samy

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Limerick is a light, humorous poem of five verses in which the l st , 2 nd , and 5 th lines rhyme and the 3 rd and 4 th lines rhyme. {Rhyme scheme aabba}

Join me!

How do you describe a place that is at the cusp of beauty and battle. It exudes oodles of charm and yet occassional booms scare the daylights out of you. Fish still swim in its tranquil waters. It brags the purest of airs. Yet a storm is always ready to form. Luckily, I live in a more affluent part of the paradise. We have occassional parakeets as guests, chirping at the top of their voices on pleasant spring mornings. Butterflies in a myriad hues waltz in my small garden. The roses cling tightly to our three-storey home, where only two people live. A lot of sparrows, a few white rabbits and old pictures also live in my home.

I am away from Kashmir, both in distance and time. I miss the sound of rain on my pane, the snow flakes, the radiant sun-downs, the cricketing days with old pals. I work, read, write, reflect and play cross-words these days. When I was a kid, mom would ask me to do sums, read poems aloud, eat my breakfast with a chartreuse-top table-spoon -- often to my great annoyance -- before I could go out and make my own snow-man. How time flies? Mom. I see her in childhood-type dreams and she still asks me to eat and read aloud. Ofcourse I don't obey her now. I don't eat much and instead of reading aloud, I prefer writing poems. For a dream of another kind. I've an electronic juicer in my kitchenette to make my breakfast, which I hardly care to touch. The green-headed tablespoon is still locked away in a tiny corner -- in my bedroom -- in Kashmir.

It used to be so much fun to go to the city suburbs. See the villagers take their flock to graze. Driving past the stunning lakes. I guess evenings in the Dal lake still rock. No amount of mall-lights in our big cities or the plunging necklines in the parties we go to can compare to the balmy evening breeze. The morning sparkle stretching acoss the Pungam lake or the old-world lighting by Srinagar Boulevard. Barbeque in the canoe. Ducks gliding by. A tender sky watching you over.
What are you thinking about? Camp-fires, hi-altitude fishing, heaven! Join me for the Kashmir vacation, will you?

Samy

Waiting for you

I never thought it was worth it, you know waiting for love,
and then I felt your kiss, I could wait forever for you.

Samy

Unnoticed!!!

Like last night's rain
that fell on your lane
upon my stupid dreams
when the bed went cold

Like the humming bird
which calls its mate
on lonely nights
when black thunders roar

Like old mulberry tree
full of ripe juice
which moists some lips
but spoils my new shirt

Like a bee which is busy
kissing endless flowers
massing sweet piles of honey
in the jagged old comb

You too are pre-occupied
like the slanting rain and tree
Like the humming bird and bee
To even notice me

Samy

That is what war does to you!

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? Blaise Pascal, the great French mathematician and philosopher who invented the adding machine in the 1600's once remarked. To my mind, nothing can be more preposterous than starting a war and living in a war zone. Even your theory of probability can prove it, Mr Blaise.

Nearer home, Kashmir has been experiencing a low-intensity conflict for 17 long years now. Among the first fatalities of the war have been the cherished values of Kashmir. In local idiom they called it Kashmiryat. Ellaborated it means -- the secular fabric. When my hindu teachers would force me to eat red-red Rajma at their home. When mom's specially-made pickle was an essential part of our hindu neighbours' dinner. Suddenly it was all gone.

Almost instantly all social institutions which contribute -- brick by brick -- in the development of any decent civil society started collapsing. Morals, ethics and discipline vanished almost overnight. Hooliganism and vandaism of the first order started. Some people looted abandoned homes, weeding out what was left of the centuries old trust we reposed in one another. Many became rich overnight. Fake drugs, fake bills, fake fruits. Everything became so unreal. This was a state that was reeling under severe economic harships -- all development funds went to the security apparaturs -- and still people drove around in glitzy new cars. It befuddled me as a youngster.

Religion took centre-stage. That age old ploy. Exploit the ignorants. Use electronic beads and rosaries. God's chant turned digital. People continued to die. Get killed. Yet others continued to get rich. The likes of those who lived in servant quaters and some of the hoi polloi. No one knows how. Lots of mysteries hover the small paradise. No one ever knows who kills whom, for example.

I am not very surprised to learn about the latest sex-scandal emanating from the peripheries of the famous Dal-lake. A nexus of politicians-policemen-prominent people. Sex-clips from a war-zone. Amidst the blood and bombs. I am sure most of these guys would feign religion and claim to be nice. I've been cynical about the Kashmiri in general since the war began. That is because one wintry night in 1989, we lost our innocence.

There never was a good war or a bad peace. Benjamin Franklin American printer, journalist, publisher, author, philanthropist, abolitionist, public servant, scientist, librarian, diplomat, and inventor said. True, mate!

Sameer bhat

Silence!

Silences make the real conversations between friends.
Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.
`Margaret Lee Runbeck -- US author (1905-1956)

Have you ever felt compelled to say something to somone but you didn't say it? It happens to most of us. When we want to holler, but stop just short of doing so. When you go completely blank as you meet the one who makes butterflies' circle in your stomach. When you ring someone up only to utter everything you don't want to say. When you miss a person like hell and you meet up -- and get together for a long drive -- you suddenly are at a loss to mutter a word.

The captivating silences that creep in. The beguiling thoughts that come to your mind. Looking at each other from the corner of your eyes. Lump in the throat. I think saying nothing...sometimes says the most.

I often wonder -- Don't I wonder a lot!! -- how nature grows in silence. The trees, flowers, grass. The stars, the moon, the clouds and the sun, how they move in silence. Isn't it beautiful. We need silence to be able to touch souls. I used to feel strifled earlier when somone clammed up before me. I realised soon that silence is sometimes the answer.

In a world of loud sound bytes and defeaning noise, where every beautiful expression is drowned in cacophony, silence too is lost. In media and politics -- expression is paramount. In a cutting-edge technological world, one needs to present his point. As market forces get more powerful and advertisers more boisterous, speaking out becomes necessary. Asserting yourself. Saying it loud and clear and crisp and fluent.

I understand the premise but can we ever equate or contrast it with walking on a beach, pants folded, twilight in the evening sky, sea-gulls hovering by, a deep blue sea in your eyes, someone special walking besides you, touching your little finger, in heavenly silence.

You can't compare some things in life!

Samy

The heat is On!!!

It is early May 2006 and the mercury is merciless. It touched 112 degree Fahrenheit -- 44.5 degree Celsius -- on Friday. I think 118 and the psychological barrier of 120 -- 49 degree -- will be breached in the weeks ahead. Yet people continue to work. Amidst the grime and gunk. Feeble workers go about carrying brick-loads on their delicate heads in ridiculous temperatures. Their unwashed children not far away. Watching their poor parents build roads and overpasses for globalised Indians.

Life is harsh in this part of the world. Not that it doesn't get difficult -- or hot -- elsewhere. In parts of the US, it is hot -- Florida and Hawaii for instance. I think only Las Vegas and Phoenix touch 90 F in July but there is no cause to fret. Developed west has conquered nature long back. Snow or Swelter, rain or heat -- nature is stopped in its tracks. We rate miserably when it comes to giving our populace even basic amenities like power, water, heathcare and infrastructure, despite -- having a nuke -- and stupidly considering ourselves at par!

Nearer home, Gulf is very hot. The African continent is on the boil -- in perpetuity. However, the Arabs are super-rich and hardly a soul ventures out in the sun. The Africans are too well adapted -- because of their color and genetic make-up -- to the blistering sun. That leaves only the blokes in sub-continent to reel. I personally think anything above 100 F is difficult.

India gets sultry in summers. The hot winds singe you in the face. However, the humdrum never stops. Hopes never fade. People continue to work. Fight. Children go to the school. Lovers canoodle. Peasants water their fields. A million mutinies, functioning. Evolving all the time. The show must go on, as they say. There is no heat emergency-- even at 120 F. More than half the population does not have an AC comfort. No probs. Brought up the hard way, Indian's tackle the tacky temperate hands-on. Resilience, mates.

On a more individual note, I was born with an allergy for heat. Bred in the cool zephyrs of Kashmir -- India's honeymooning paradise -- I just cannot take heat. These days I have to make do with the artificial machine chill. Home, Car, Office. I am not in my element, the moment, I step out of it.

Sometimes in the middle of the night -- when there is a power-cut -- I close my eyes and think about Kashmir. Cool, quiet nights with seductive layers of darkness all around. Breeze in the hair. Only the sweet cooing of a small nightingale in the distance.

I keep thinking and thinking about it. Till light comes in the capital city of the fastest growing economy in the world!

Sameer

What is beauty?

Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
Kahlil Gibran -- Lebanese poet, artist and philosopher

It has been haunting me since many moons. I am conflicted in my mind. A little Confused. Something stirs in me like a reed in the wind. Tugs at me on lonely nights. Frightens me. I doodle about the most beautiful eyes I've seen. Taken by them. Something in me moves, shifts and settles down. Moves again. I begin to ask questions -- to my own soul. Answer myself. An emotional whirlpool draws me in and out!

Are we enchanted by beauty? Don't heads turn -- and hearts tip -- when something beautiful walks down the ramp or anything graceful meanders by. It is all natural. Within the obvious brackets of human perception. Whatever impinges my heart hides somewhere in this precarious zone. The thought. Can eyes deceive? Can nice faces cheat on you? What really is beauty?

I am no Confucius. I cannot truly comment on this. I am not even able to understand the only person I liked in a long while. I think 'what is striking and beautiful' is not always good, but 'what is good' is always beautiful, as Ninon would aver. Beauty may mesmerise us. Eyes may rake a small flood in the viens. Physical appearance may overwhelm. Still the heart must conquer and not the face. True beauty is what's found inside, what is in our hearts. Humility is beautiful. So is sincerity. So is truthfulness. Goodness of soul. Self-esteem too. In the end it is the love in your heart -- and belly -- that subdues everything else.

Eye-candy, beautiful, sizzling. Can these characteristics ever compare to compassion, care and the love in you. No. The reason is simple. Things transient and temporary cannot outlast the eternal.
Looks flee. Love remains.

Bernard Shaw was an influential thinker of his times and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. He wrote to his friend:

I hope you have lost your good looks, for while they last any fool can adore you, and the adoration of fools is bad for the soul. No, give me a ruined complexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins on a farmyard of Crow's feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me coming out strong.

I guess that sums it up!

Samy

When I am dead

An old composition. I understand people don't talk death in their 20's. Mind you I too have no premotion regarding mine. I often wonder if someone -- with flirtatious eyes -- will ever pass my resting place with a flower in hand. I'll love those impassioned moments.

One often wonders how short our life-spans are! We are born once. We die once. We truly love once. Anything else is only habit, settlement, companionship.

In reality we never die. We continue to live in memories. In old hopes. Alongside ancient thoughts. In hearts. In friends who care. In the laughter of children. Old walls. Like cute rodents scurrying across a roof.

I think some people may miss me when I am no more. If you miss me, I'll sure compliment it with a smile from the sky. I wrote this poem -- many aeons back-- but I mean it.

When I am dead, my dearest
dig no crosses for me
When the gusts go strong, my dearest
breathe no gasps for me
As my echoes wear off
say no praises for me
When I am visible no more
drop no tears for me
When the lights go out, my dearest
lit no candles for me
As my thoughts fade away
hold no hands for me
When the spring breaks again, my dearest
Watch me in the cowslips
by my grave
I'll be there for you

Samy

God, Put them to Sleep!

It doesn't get more disheartening than this. Thirty innocent people are slaughtered -- yet again -- in the forbidden mountains of Kashmir. Masked gunmen stormed a tiny hamlet and ask people out. Next moment a volley of bullets was showered on the petrified villages. In an instant thirty humans are cut to a swift, horrible death. In cold blood. Some people had to feign death to escape the marauders. They call it a freedom struggle. I think this is a violent struggle. Taken over by criminals and assassins. When you kill 6-year olds just because they have a different faith -- in this case Hindus -- you deserve to be called inhumans. Period.

I can't be an adjudicator sitting in plush ac-ed comfort -- in my space -- far from the action. It may well be intelligence sleuths.The government rarely knows about the serpentine games of these dreaded organizations. Whoever the culprits, I think we have long lost the right to be called civilised. That happened one wintry night about 17 years back. 1989. The first gun-shots in the beautiful, serene valleys of Kashmir were fired. The nightingales suddenly stopped chirpping. The tweedle was abruptly silenced. Overnight, the cherished Kashmiriyat went up in flames.

I was close to the grotesque events in Kashmir -- for some time -- and I could see first hand-- even at a tender age -- the futility of war. Tryst with a destiny that was not ours. A fortuity full of gore that was red. Red in runnels. Red skies. Red waters. Suddenly the famed band-pather (dances) gave away to abomination. For no rhyme. Bombs in markets full of people. Stray bullets hitting people in their homes. Sisters' running barefoot after their brothers' coffins. Old parents staring at their children's graves on their birthdays.

At times, I am glad that we left the bad tidings behind. Incidents such as yesterday's bring back the ugly reality of the senseless violence. Kashmir -- it seems -- has been completely stripped of its innocence. Or whatever remained of it!

Meantime an endless cycle of violence continues. It is both vicious and costly. It cost the bloodied paradise another 30 innocent souls last night. The killers are on prowl. Hope someone fixes the problem. I wish God puts the barbarians to sleep and they never walk to kill again.

Amen

Sameer

Life Line

Another poem from the lost repertoire. Now that I try to remember why I wrote this poem, I cannot. I -- however -- can recall that I was in a library and my mind was drifting away from books. I took a bit of paper and jotted the poem in a matter of minutes.

I've always been me. A regular guy. I may attempt to appear sensible in my musings. I reckon, I do that only under the creative license that writers think they can weild. Stupid me! As humans we are so fragile. Last night, I cried. For a very small thing. Like a kid insisting on his favourite candy. Not realising that we need to grow up in life and try and be content.

The rebel in us revolts. The kid insists. The candy allures. The heart weeps. The spirit consoles. Life carries on with its many vissicitudes. Ground beneath our feet supports us. Not many souls who walked upon her got what they wanted from life. I may not be an exception. Just one of the legion who wished for too much and got too little.

Some people are tough. I wish I too were! But then I may loose the power to dream, to reflect, to write, to smile, to cry, to love!

Here, I might drift again. The poem:

A cartful of desires
in a life full of mire
Across corners and crossroads
as my cart trundles on
I find no virtues
only evil in flow
Ragged airs in a rude world
indifferent souls with emotions curled
Lonely pangs hold me fast
Uneven tides tear my mast
Narrow creaks in the gabled door
tender worlds I seek to explore
I trod to end of the planet (on my cart)
met only dazzled doves
My love-darts still in my bag
can't shoot, won't throw it away
Everything is so rife
in a short, sweet life.

Poem orginally written in June, 2003

Sameer

School time

Hey guys, I found some of my old poems today. Not too old, really. I scribbled them in the fall of 2003, when I was just 22. Then I lost them. Being the messy kind, that I am. Writing on scraps and then throwing the pieces around. I luckily retrieved them today and here... I share with you the first!

Where fun hangs in air
and ideas take their root
Where hands learn to draw
and world starts to unfold
Where chalks roll the year long
and mind opens for a lifetime
Where bells toll a welcome break
and manners make a man
where teachers help you tread
and life takes a shape
Where friends share secrets
and hearts flutter aloud
Where words fly past
and legs run and slide
Where benches, boards and books
never fail to tire
Where ties, tunics and tricks
always are a must
Where first sweet crushes
turn you red in cheeks
School, school, school
nicest time of my life

Sameer

The Tiff!

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Mark Twain

There is a golden rule in fighting. Hit first and hit hard. One must never pick a fight but when someone tries to slog it out with you, then as a matter of amour propre one needs to be on top of it. I -- for instance -- am a pacifist. It is not the likes of me to start a fight or join issue with someone. Then there are exceptions!

The cab driver was suddenly abusive. He wanted to push ahead perhaps and finding himself lagging behind, started bad-mouthing.
Scene: Crossing. Cab, next to my car. Issue: Next to nothing, the chap was plain calumnious.

Assuming that a bespectacled 20-something guy who does not share Stallone's biceps may be harmless, he loudly uttered some invective. Then another. I got down, went over to his door. Pulled him out and knocked him over. All brashness of the dusty kind -- and the rustic machismo -- came flying out of him. A quick aplology followed. The burly guy added, will behave in future.

I think the punch left a blue spot in his eye and a perfumed sweetness. I usually spray Hugo-Boss on my wrists. I think some of it passed on.

May be, I never get to see him again. But justice of the swiftest kind was served piping hot. Matter finished.

Moral: ne pas oser le désordre avec moi. That is -- Don't dare mess with me -- for those who don't know french.

sameer

You are my thought!

You are the thought that comforts me
you are the breeze that wraps me
you are the belief that haunts me
you are the silence that hurts me
You are the sheath that cuddles me
You are the lap that holds me
you are the feeling that engulfs me
you are the wind that nourishes me
you are the idea that consoles me
you are the treasure that spoils me
you are the touch that amazes me
you are the flight that ducks me
you are the vibe that teases me
you are the shade that harbours me

You are the one I pester
You are the one I like

Samy

mad mad world

Ah...the sameness of things! The slumber of each night. Sweet hours of the morning sleep. Fast-paced life. The morning rush hour traffic. The hollering masses. People creaking open their land-cruiser doors to spit out mouthfuls of paan (Beetlenut). Rickshaw-wallas veering dangerously close to your automobile untill you go bonkers. The mad rush to nowhere. Girls with lanky boy-friends sneaking into shady parks. Trying to find true love. Preyed on by curious eye-balls. Guilt-ridden and yet satisfied.

There are curbs upon every nook. Corrupt corpulent cops. Only belly's, no morals! Difficult officials. In colleges and universities. Egoed politicos and professors. Haughty, hectoring. Unlike the west! But then they -- westerners -- are good for themselves alone. Outside their borders, they sell arms to everyone and his mother -- including us -- and our notorious neighbor. And we kill each other. We pillage. We flunk to negotiate. The stalemate continues.

Back home...the development curve dances and continues to rise. There are still pockmarked roads that trammel your movement. It gets so spiritless and stuffy. Not to forget the stupid advertisement blitzkrieg. Everywhere. The usual chatter on FM radio. Junk Music. Talking through their tired brains. Any piece of crap passes. As long as you speak. News-papers are no better. Journalism has long been trivialised. Less than 5% people read books. Intellectual development, who cares! The beauty of Shelley is lost. I can't help smirk.

Religion continues to dictate people. Govern lives. People cheat, loot, plunder in its name. Wars are fought. Bombs are thrown occassionally in temples and mosques. Yet people pray. This is called faith. It keeps people going. People want to discover God, forgetting that God is nothing but goodness in us. How good we are. How loving we are. How compassionate and humane we are. And how unselfish we are. No one cares for the homeless. The poor. The needy. The elderly. Yet people will take cocunuts and fruits to offer to gods. Do god's need the stuff ? I don't know. I might be hacked for blasphemy. Looking down upon mankind and looking upto God, makes no sense to me.

The sameness prevails. Albeit love makes us strong! Some special thoughts keep us fresh and happy in the mind. And jovail in the heart. Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees, Victor Hugo once said.

sameer

Dreamz....Thank you!

Thanks for coming in my dream
though you didn't stay too long
Thanks for breaking bread with me
though you didn't munch a lot
Thanks for exchanging love notes
though the ink was a shade dark
Thanks for gracing my tiny space
though I couldn't offer you much
Thanks for being part of my thoughts
though it is difficult to part with you
Thanks for dropping by anyways
Hope to see you again -- in my dreams!

Samy

Of Passion!

Passion can be a tricky feeling. It has to happen to you to be truly felt. If you are not touched by the boughs of passion, you may simply miss on the elation. It is welded somewhere betwixt the beautiful ripples of love and the often sinful indulgence. Where sin ceases to happen, as two souls transcend. Levitate!

I've to be balanced here... It is -- or was -- touches. Hugs. Drawn ever closer by desire. When waves of concupiscence wash us over. When cool winds suddenly blow hard. It is a million crumples on the little piece of cloth and squeaking of the bedstead. The incandescent flickering of eyelids and random wandering of hands.

Bare and Good. Heaven!

Passion
Certain delight
Actions between lovers
Entwined involved movements
Fervor

I've to stop. Some one might kill me.

Samy

Come join me!

Hold onto me close/to bliss-land we go/where nature nestles us/as we lie upon pine scents

samy

The Mystic trek

A perfect person does not disclose the secret of Friend
Bakhtiar Khaki

During the weekend I went on a spiritual-trek. I am not a religious guy but spiritualism fascinates me a great deal. Still I rarely go to shrines, neither do I visit any reverned places of worship. I believe in the goodness of spirit.

My friend's mom wanted to visit the tomb of a famous Sufi saint. Perched in the labyrinthine bylanes of Merauli in Delhi, the place oozes a marked difference from the imposing Qutub Minar nearby. Just beyond the fashionable Qutub Colonnade, where designers meet occassionally to talk artificially over endless sparkling glasses of champagne and beyond the faintest idea of many tourists to Qutub, lies the modest tomb of Khawaja Qutub Uddin Bakhtiar Khaki. I didn't know the place existed before Sunday.

We had a tough time looking for the place -- me, wasy and his mom. Our car led us to dead-ends. Luckily, we chanced across a guy -- Azhar -- who happened to live in the precincts of the shrine. The good samartian led us to the place and told me an interesting tale on our way. (My journalistic instincts to enquire). Back in the year 1200 AD, a lady accused the mystic of making her pregnant. She made the accusation -- egged on by the sufi's foes -- in Emperor Illtutmush's court. The godman was hauled to the King's courtyard. Stunned, he simply said, 'Let the unborn speak'. The embryo then muttered, this man is not my father.

I do not believe in myths. I think the tale is largely made up but Azhar said it with extreme faith. Miracles do happen -- I trust -- but my rationale doesn't absorb these allegories. Luckily, after a short while we made it to the outer-enterance of the shrine.

It is a mystic heaven. Lost in a million attirs (perfumes), the place sways to Qawalis ( devotional music) sung by impromptu singers -- who were the least melodious. One has to wade through a motley of shops -- cubby-hole types -- and across a succession of mendicants to the actual tomb, which is situated atop a small hill.

History amazes me. A 12th century mystic. Super-natural powers. Saintly. An author and a poet. Lover of Music. Humane. Spiritual. Chant-er of God's name. Traveller. Guide. Mentor. Protege'. One word: Exhilarating!

The joint turned out to be mysterial with no grandeur. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims pray at the shrine. Girls in jeans. Aunties in saris and Maulanas in beards. It is a mixed brew. There are graves littered all over the place. Amazingly, the hilltop is clean. Men read Quran on staircases. Qawali's belted from the nearby cubby-holes, mainly re-takes of popular hindi songs. People come -- pray, weep, reflect and leave. Some bow. I remained quiet, noticing the small crowd. Taking mental notes.

900 years later, one feels good inside to travel the same paths. Touching the same stones. Climbing the same hill. And perhaps experiencing the same highs!

sameer bhat
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Descending from Prophet Muhammad's grandson -- Imam Hussain -- Khaki was born in 1173 in Transoxania (modern-day Uzbekistan and southwest Kazakhstan).

Free Love

By all means they try to hold me secure who love me in this world.
But it is otherwise with thy love which is greater than theirs,
and thou keepest me free.

Lest I forget them they never venture to leave me alone.
But day passes by after day and thou art not seen.

If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart,
thy love for me still waits for my love.

Don't we feel the same, at times. Words are the constant yet unnoticed currents that carry our thoughts. Aeons back, Tagore said the timeless words on Free Love. Decades later, I can easily identify with the greatest philosopher India has ever known!

In our small life-spans we truly long for a special glimpse. Although the whole world may conspire to like you and even if you may bask in the glory, you still yearn for that free love.

You rekindle the flame in your mind when it is nowhere else in sight!

Socratic again. That's me.

I will be concise. I've lots to catch up with!

Samy

A thought

Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning.

Sameer

My legion

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born - Anais Nin

My best mates, and why I admire them

Wasy: Taurian: As sweet as they come

Because he stands by you in rain and thunder; Because he is an anchor we all must have!

Suhail: Virgo: Loyal to the core

Because he still remembers you despite his US accent; Because his is the first thought when you think home

Salus: Acquarius: Truthfully yours

Because he is honest to the core; Because his is a very rare tribe.

Tanu: Scorpio: Kindergarten buddy

Because he reminds you of your priviledged childhood; Because he will stay awake in a different country to say happy birthday at midnight.

Salah: Pisces: Concerned and Caring

Because he dreams the same dreams. Because he is a constant support

Sam

Let loose the rains

Let loose the rains
From Eden, Nirvana, Shangri-la
Wash away, wash away
Cleanse and purify

Let loose the rains.
Cleanse the marrow
Of hate and fear.
Wash away
The hunger in the wide-eyed child.
The tears of the mother with no job

Let loose the rains.
Cleanse the souls
Weary and bruised.
Wash away
The funeral wails from heaving chests.
The dust from hands digging in rubble,
Where is the child buried there?
No, no, when she is found.

Let loose the rains.
Wash away, wash away
Cleanse it all.
The grime in the streets.
My dirty hair.
The thickening air.
The eyes filled with despair.
The screams.
The pain.
The apathy.
The water.
The bricks.
The sirens.
My hands, my hands.
The blood soaked lands.
The torture commands.
The godforsaken sands.
The prisons, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.
The news.
The skies.
The lies.
The gutters.
The trees.
My heart.
My mind.
My memories.
The contingencies.

Let loose the rains
From Eden, Nirvana, Shangri-la
Wash away, wash away
Cleanse and purify.

A soulful windy rendition, I coudn't help adapt!

Sameer

Reaching out!!!

Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If he isn't there the first time you need him, chances are you won't be needing him again.


Samy

Horsing around

Lets horse around and run wild in the snows!

samy

A very Special Drink

There was something about the drink
it felt lemony as it sank
Billions of sparkles on my cheek
it was tingling as it rose

It was little but it was sharp
it felt bitter-sweet within
I don't always plim like this
but couldn't resist the yank

Samy

My fav economist!

There are a great variety of identities to which we simultaneously belong. I can be, at the same time, an Asian, an Indian citizen, a Bengali with Bangladeshi ancestry, an American or British resident, an economist, a dabbler in philosophy, an author, a Sanskritist, a strong believer in secularism and democracy, a man, a feminist, a heterosexual, a defender of gay and lesbian rights, with a non-religious lifestyle; from a Hindu background, a non-Brahmin, and a non-believer in after-life.

Dr Amartya Sen, speaking in New Delhi on Tuesday March 28, 2006.

Amartya Sen teaches Economics and Philosophy at the Harvard university. He bagged the Nobel Prize in Economics in 98 for his phenomenal work on human development theory, welfare economics, and the underlying mechanisms of poverty.

Ps- I am currently reading his latest book 'The Argumentative Indian'.

Wanna hold my hand here!

Mon ami...Je sais que je ne peut pas vous avoir mais je suis béni vous avoir aimé

Samy

Why we miss??

Why does one miss? What is that makes us miss someone? How do we miss some and not all? Frankly, the very thought befuddles me. The idea is confusing, I understand.

We miss even when we are physically surrounded. Not many can make out that these are the drab moments of absense that tickle us in our sub-conciousness. The hard pangs. When we miss like hell. Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.

All of us miss. The strong and the enfeebled. I guess we miss because we care. And because we love. It is such a exquisite human trait. I face it. That deep lump in my throat. Heart skipping doubly fast. The bizarre feeling of desperation. Of helplessness. Of trying to obliterate the distances. Efface what's between us. Can't. Strange worldly affairs. Norms. Decorum. These notions have been strifling human desires for ages.

There are times when I just want to break free. I trust Søren Kierkegaard, the maverick 19th century Danish existentialist when he says, 'It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.' Life throws these hard snowballs at me. I hope I have the courage to hold forth and duck and throw bigger balls back at her.

Last night, my eyes turned torpid reading a book. I remember, the last lines I read...If I never met you, I wouldn't like you. If I didn't like you, I wouldn't love you. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't miss you. But I did, I do, and I will.

I vegged out soon after. A lost smile swimming in my thoughts. Only I know its destination!

Samy

Knock-Knock

Everytime the door bell rang
It is you, my sloppy heart sang
And...
Everytime the phone beeped
It is you, my thoughts leaped

Samy

When do I think of you?

I think of you amidst a crowd and the chorus of city sounds
for that is my song, and you are the music
You are my first thought of each new day
and the last image I glimpse,
as my eyes are closed upon a feathered pillow.
In that secret place called sleep, it is you that I search for,
through shades of darkness and clouds of cotton.
And, when the final sleep does come
and if there is thought... it will be of you.

Sponging: Joe

Samy

To wear or not to wear

The Western world is caught up in a flux. In london, the law lords today overturned a previous court ruling that Muslim teenager Shabina's human rights were violated when she was banned from wearing a Jilbab -- a full gown -- at her school. The French have an open ban against wearing the Hijab. Belgium and Germany are considering doing the same. The Dutch recently introduced strident measures for probable immigrants, failing which they cannot live in The Netherlands.

The European motivation for the ban is draped in references to their secular tradition. Public schools -- they argue -- form a privileged closed universe which emphasizes the values of male-female equality and mutual respect. So no overt symbols of religosity, please! No head-scarves. No body-covering. Point taken, monsieurs.

I think there is something profoundly hypocritical in banning religious symbols in the name of secularism and gender equality -- while the French government continues to subsidize private education for the globally influential misogynist religion -- the Catholic Church -- at a higher rate per pupil than public schools. Wearing the hijab is "a sort of aggression" Jacques Chiraq, the lank French Prez says. An aggression by choice, I surmise.

The choice to don a scarf or wear a beard or put on a cross should be the sole liberty and right of an individual. I -- for instance -- won't like my girl friend to wear a scarf. However, if she wants to wear one, either out of religious reasons or as a matter of choice, I would not mind. I reckon modern states must have no business telling school-children how not to dress. If the Dutch do not feel intimidated by a topless girl walking out of a beach -- I would sure enjoy that -- do they really need to fret at a frail girl covering her hair. The mere comparisons are outrageous.

It is about cultures. Hijab is to many muslims what a turban is to a religious sikh. Take a hat away from a cowboy. Take a yarmukle off a jewish head. Take a kimono from a Jap. Baloney! Globalisation was supposed to blur these distinctions. So we see western tunics being worn in public schools in my homeland India and elsewhere. If wearing denims is okey and I believe it is, so must be the Hijab. We can't claim to be liberal while go about banning cultural symbols.

It is about race. The Europeans have practiced it. The Brits, the French especially. When the français needed their erstwhile subjects to lay train roads or dig tunnels for them back in the 1940's and 50's they got them to work like mules. The immigrants significantly contributed towards french nation building*. Only when their second generation grows up in Paris suburbs and starts attending schools, you go cold in your feet. It smacks of racism.

The Europeans practice an absurd, extreme form of secularism which has indeed come to rubbish everything that secularism stands for. We seem to be at such a point in history where we care too much about the rights of birds, beatles, trans-sexuals and squirrels. When governments enmasse abolish something that is central to the belief of so many people, the cherished human rights go up in flames. Like Jeanne d'Arc. That was 1431. This is 2006.

sameer bhat

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* As the major colonial power after Britain, France could call on a potential workforce from what is called the Maghreb (North-West Africa: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia), certain countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (Senegal), Indochina (South-East Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) and the DOM-TOM (Départements d'outre-mer and Térritoires d'outre-mer) like Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guyana (in the Caribbean) and Reunion Island (in the Indian Ocean).
The vast majority of these were from Algeria, the jewel in the crown of the French colonial empire. (Source: The University of Sunderland)

Former President Jimmy Carter builds a home in Africa.

Dreamz

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each others dreams, we can be together all the time.
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679)
English philosopher and anthropologist.

I dreamt a tiny dream
I stood in a bright vale
Someone crept by my side
I kept looking at the sky

I tugged at the figure
It was standing very quiet
I shouted at the wilderness
The eyes never turned to me

I threw water at the swan
The drops resembled a teardrop
When cobs and pens swing
my whooper swan shall fly

We ran with eyes shut
on a vast emerald field
Wind blew on my face
God! Let this dream go on

Samy -- after a dream!

I am unwell!

There are times when the self becomes too much with you. When you want to lie down and just laze around. When you flip through the TV remote and cruise endless channels. The sameness of TV. Tonelessness. Someone truly called it an idiot box. The incessant commercials. The reruns, the resays, the reshows. You want to read something. Water your grey cells. You don't. You feel sick in your tummy. A moth lifts from your heart, takes a full cricle and sits plumply back again. You think something. Impish, naughty meanderings. You long for solace. It doesn't come.

Many people will never understand you in life. You may be good. In your heart. In your thoughts. It happens often, whenever you want to hear someone, the voices go dim. Whenever you want to express yourself, the feelings don't come. Whenever you want to hug, the distances grow long like shadows towards evening. I guess, we must learn to striddle life as it comes. And it never comes easy!

You love and feel stupid. You don't love and feel empty. You yearn and feel wretched. You don't yearn and feel listless. You miss someone and go bonkers in your head. You don't miss and accuse being called heartless. Strange ways of a sloppy world!

I know I am being Socratic today. He was an ancient Athenian philosopher and teacher to Plato and Xenophon. I am a student of life.

Generally I am not like this.
Just one of those days.

Samy

Love is.....!

love is not a color
love is not a game
love is just a feeling
love is really lame

love will make u smile
love will make u cry
love will make u confused
love will make u ask why

love is really stupid
love makes me wana die
love will come to an end
love will then make u cry

samy

Love is a Force of Nature

I watched the much awaited flick Brokeback Mountain. It is an unusual movie. It talks about forbidden emotions. It rips open closeted taboos. It blurs that thin rubicon between what is acceptable and what should be unacceptable. The film dwells upon the little secrets that make life worthwhile. Secrets that often go to the grave as we die. Impossible love!

We often lead straight, normal, regular lives. Acceptable and loved. Maverick director Ang Lee touches upon a very sensitive topic -- at a time of extreme rightwingism -- and comes out with amazing results. The film is a powerhouse of emotions. Highly anticipated and told with stunning truthfulness. One word: Intense.

My guess is that the film won't do brisk business in India. It is not your usual hollywood fare. Huge heros. Black hawks. Dazzle. Imagery. Nothing of that sort. The film borders on the offbeat genre. It is European art-house in its overall feel. The silences speak. Audiences in India generally require a big dose of everything. Emotions, melodrama, action -- whatever! Brokeback has subdued, real emotions but nothing appears loud. It is all very very aesthetic. There is nothing for the pedestrian. I reckon, apart from our liberal intellectuals, queer activists and may be a limited brainy lot like it.

Set against the sweeping vistas of Wyoming and Texas, Brokeback Mountain is the story of two handsome young men Ennis del Mar -- quiet and lot of airs -- played by Heath Ledger and Jack Twist -- naughty and optimistic -- played by Jake Gyllenhaal.They meet on a shepherding job on the Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. The year is 1963. The world which Ennis and jack have been born into is at once changing rapidly and yet scarcely evolving. Both young men seem certain of their set places in the heartland - obtaining steady work, marrying and raising a family - and yet hunger for something beyond what they can articulate. When Aguirre dispatches them to work as shepherds up on the majestic Brokeback Mountain, they gravitate towards camaraderie and then a deeper intimacy. The film beautifully documents their complex and emotional relationship over the next twenty years.

Jack Twist: [looking over at Ennis in the firelight; he has laid back and is looking up at the stars, smiling] Anything interesting up there in heaven?
Ennis Del Mar: [for the first time in a long time, content] I was just sending up a prayer of thanks.
Jack Twist: For what?
Ennis Del Mar: [with a wink and a smile] For you forgettin' to bring that harmonica. I'm enjoyin' the peace and quiet.

I won't spoil the party for those who are yet to catch it.

It is indeed an epic American love story. Career defining performances. Marvellous cinematography. Romantic. 130 minutes of emotive trek. Ridden with obstacles. Alone, private moments. Far from the maddening crowds. Love can be impossible!

The original story ' Brokeback Mountain' has gotten the coverted Pulitzer Prize, the highest prize in literature in the US. At the 78th Academy Awards, the movie bagged the Best Director - Ang Lee, Best Adapted Screenplay (Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana) and Best Original Score - (Gustavo Santaolalla). They didn't give it the best film trophy. Love, as they say, isn't so easy!

Whats more ...the film's already grabbed 50 different awards, chiefly:

59th BAFTA Award
Directors Guild of America Award
European Film Award
63rd Golden Globe Award
Independent Spirit Award
Producer's Guild Award
62nd Venice International Film Festival: "Golden Lion" for Best Film
Writers Guild of America Award

sameer bhat

A date with the Left

Wednesday morning rush hour. My mate, Wassy was taking his usual trot to office when he spotted one of India's most sought after and powerful couples.

Prakash and Brinda Karat.

A quick word and the lovely couple graced Wassy's leather dairy with their famous autographs. They say outside of the establishment only the Karat family is taken seriously.

Prakash Karat is a leading intellectual and the chief of Indian commies. Smart, well-educated and fiery, Prakash is an almuni of the prestigeous University of Edinburgh where he was rusticated for anti-apartheid protests but taken back on good behaviour. Low-profile, articulate and widely respected for his sustained work for the under-priviledged.

Brinda Karat is the ultimate activitist. A rajya sabha member of parl, she is the first woman to be a member of the CPI(M) Politburo. Her father Sooraj Das was the head of the British engineering firm Stuarts and Llyods based in Calcutta. Brinda was educated at the elite Welham Girl's School in Dehradun and is a rank-holder from the illustrious Miranda House, Delhi. While working for Air-India in London, she campaigned against the mandatory wearing of skirts in the airlines. When she came back to India, Brinda worked for the people. Beautiful, savvy and a raspy voice!

(With thanks to Wassy for allowing me to reproduce the auto-graphs)
sam

Nature, I love thee!

Shall we gather at the river
Where bright angel feet have trod;
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God?

Samy

Deconstructing Dubya

They misunderestimated me — George Bush, Bentonville, Arkansas, 6 November 2000
One of Dubya's countless Bushisms

You may hate him or love him but you cannot afford to ignore George W. Bush. He is the world's most powerful man and singularly responsible for much of world's present mayhem.

Frankly, I don't like him. I have a bagful of reasons to despise Bush. He sounds arrogant and stupid. Many Indian diplomats I spoke to seemed mighty pleased with Bush's charm but that can only pass as the presidential hangover. Aren't we bowled over by almost every foreign dignitary who comes visiting. Remember Clinton.

First things first. This straight-talking cowboy misled the entire world into believing that Iraq possessed deadly weapons of mass destruction, when there were actually none. He soon turned into a war-monger -- thanks to his hawk-team -- and invaded two sovereign nations -- one after another -- in his first presidential term. Innumerable innocent people lost their lives in Bush's unjust wars. He continues to recklessly fiddle with the world order.

Bush thrives on controversy. He began with controversy. The Florida recount issue -- that brought him into power back in 2000 -- was invalid because it violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment in the US constitution -- as different counties used different methods for determining voter intent. Bush had infact lost Florida by at least several hundred verifiable, legal votes. In a 5-4 decision, the U. S. Supreme Court put an end to the recounting of presidential votes in Florida, handing over the presidency to George on a platter.

He continued with controversy. 9/11 gave him a pretext to go marauding. He used every dirty trick to do that. There were attempts to impeach him in the US for misleading the nation. His blokes in the White house got indicted on felony counts for lying. He junked the Kyoto protocol, rubbished the International Court of Justice and often considers UN irrelevant. Intellectuals of the free world have no love lost for him. Chomsky to Finkelstein. Arundhati Roy to Harold Pinter.

He is -- however -- the golden boy of the right-wing club. He has a conservative mind and thinks like any Ayatollah of Iran.

However, despite himself, there is something about this man that calls for attention, if not admiration. True, he might lack the aura of Bill Clinton or the intellectual breadth of Al-Gore, Bush is no simpleton. I am sure, his policies and legacy will have a profound impact on the modern world. Politics to Economics.

Reverberations that may be difficult to snuff out very soon!

The man may appear bluffing to the world or to his beloved US but again he is always true to himself. He sticks his neck out everytime there is a crisis and stands by what he says. No wonder he often means business. That is one reason he appeals to many.

I am happy Bush gave India the best gift -- the civilian nuclear pact -- we could have ever anticipated. The move is likely to raise tempers back home in the US but as they say -- the man, lives off controversy! Loves it.

Thank you, mate!

sameer bhat

They knew it!

They knew it was in the coming. The strife in Iraq. The killings. The reprisal attacks. The civil war. The ghastly face of terrorism. As Bush warms upto India -- its newest friend in a unilateral world -- reports that U.S. intelligence agencies repeatedly warned the White House, starting in 2003, 'that the insurgency in Iraq had deep local roots, was likely to worsen and could lead to civil war'.

Sponging: But the term 'civil war', chillingly familiar from Lebanon in the 1970s or Algeria in the 1990s, is too neat: Iraq is embroiled in a war of all against all, supercharged mayhem in which Shia militias fight each other; the Kurds have a fully-fledged army; al-Qaida and foreign fighters work with Ba'athists and armed criminals run rackets. The road ahead leads to warlordism and anarchy, as The Guardian puts it.

Wayne White, a veteran State Department intelligence analyst, wrote recently that when it became clear that the 2003 report would forecast grim prospects for tamping down the insurgency, a senior official exclaimed rhetorically, 'How can I take this upstairs -- to CIA Director George Tenet?'

Was the caveat deliberately ignored? Was it another blip?

There were lives at stake. Poor Iraqi's at each other's thoats now and ofcourse the US military who find themsleves deeply sucked in the Iraq ruckus. How could such a significant report be overlooked?

Meanwhile, Bush rejoices in India. Dick perfects his bad shots. Rummy is busy addressing anti-commie speeches in true Truman-era style. No one seems to notice the small news-report that -- had it been acted upon -- might have saved the world a little more innocent blood.

sameer bhat

Lakeside Sentinel

Alone I dream of you,
Alone I hope and pray,
to God who is oh so merciful and powerful
to let me find my way.

Bush Baby Go Home

Here, an interesting write-up by Arundhati Roy in The Guardian, London

(Thats my fav Newspaper and fav writer)

Arundhati Roy
Wednesday March 1, 2006
The Guardian

On his triumphalist tour of this part of the world, where he hopes to wave imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President Bush's itinerary is getting curiouser and curiouser. For his March 2 pit stop in New Delhi, the Indian government tried very hard to have him address our Parliament. A not inconsequential number of MPs threatened to heckle him, so Plan One was hastily shelved. Plan Two was that he address the masses from the ramparts of the magnificent Red Fort where the Indian prime minister traditionally delivers his Independence Day address. But the Red Fort, surrounded as it is by the predominantly Muslim population of Old Delhi, was considered a security nightmare. So now we're into Plan Three: President George Bush speaks from Purana Qila, the Old Fort.

Ironic, isn't it, that the only safe public space for a man who has recently been so enthusiastic about India's modernity should be a crumbling medieval fort?Since the Purana Qila also houses the Delhi zoo - George Bush's audience will be a few hundred caged animals and an approved list of caged human beings who in India go under the category of "eminent persons". They're mostly rich folk who live in our poor country like captive animals, incarcerated by their own wealth, locked and barred in their gilded cages, protecting themselves from the threat of the vulgar and unruly multitudes whom they have systematically dispossessed over the centuries.

So what's going to happen to George W Bush? Will the gorillas cheer him on? Will the gibbons curl their lips? Will the brow-antlered deer sneer? Will the chimps make rude noises? Will the owls hoot? Will the lions yawn and the giraffes bat their beautiful eyelashes? Will the crocs recognise a kindred soul? Will the quails give thanks that Bush isn't travelling with Dick Cheney, his hunting partner with the notoriously bad aim? Will the CEOs agree?

Oh, and on March 2 Bush will be taken to visit Gandhi's memorial in Rajghat. He's by no means the only war criminal who has been invited by the Indian government to lay flowers at Rajghat. (Only recently we had the Burmese dictator General Than Shwe, no shrinking violet himself.) But when George Bush places flowers on that famous slab of highly polished stone, millions of Indians will wince. It will be as though he has poured a pint of blood on the memory of Gandhi.
We really would prefer that he didn't.

It is not in our power stop Bush's visit. It is in our power to protest it, and we will. The government, the police and the corporate press will do everything they can to minimise the extent of our outrage. Nothing the Happy-news Papers say can change the fact that all over India, from the biggest cities to the smallest villages, in public places and private homes, George W Bush, incumbent president of the United States of America, world nightmare incarnate, is just not welcome.

(With Thanks, The Guardian)