Fidgety Foots

Somewhere between frenetic meeting+crisis days and waiting-til-3-so-I-can-leave days is the perfect work day. I’ve oscillated between both extremes in the past two weeks and come off strangely disgruntled.

Happy medium, where are you?

As I grow older I find myself simultaneously more rigid and flexible. My world has shrunk to a discrete and finite set of reactions/motivations and people are automatically slotted into a combination of these. There’s a lot of flexibility in this universe of well-labeled slots.

Welcome to my dungeon. Pick a hole, fit in anywhere.

I personally dont do it. But let me back up here a minute and explain why I feel it necessary to vent here. I take public transportation to work sometimes and it involves a train and bus ride. I typically find a seat on both. Today on the bus which was full and more crowded than usual, a dude with a young, perfectly healthy lady gets on the bus and finds that there is only standing room. The guy (I think he was trying to impress her) starts sighing about how on the east coast men are actually forced by the public to give up their seats for ladies while in the Bay area men continue to sit down. My immediate reaction was, “Boy, men (or the public) on the east coast must really think that women are too weak to stand for any period of time”.

There are numerous instances when I give up my seat for an old or invalid person or even people holding babies, whether they be men or women, but never for someone just because of their gender. I mean how insulting is it in this age, when we consider women to be equal to if not better in certain aspects than men, to think that a lady needs the help of a man to get through a train or bus ride? Chivalry is one thing, but I dont buy into this notion that a woman has the right to a seat anymore than a man does just because of her gender. We have women competing successfully against decades of barriers and glass ceilings, I dont think they need any favors from chauvinistic boors who seem to still believe in the concept of the “weaker sex”.

On the radio this morning, they aired a Clinton supporter vs Obama supporter face-off. Since the candidates agree on most issues, the debates have degenerated to name-calling and hair-pulling.

The Obamite said that he had more charisma than Clinton. The Clintonian responded “How is charisma going to help govern? How is charisma going to help foreign policy? In the debacle that we are in now, we’re a mess in foreign policy.”

It’ll do plenty. The American President is the face of the country. At this moment, people abroad imagine USA as a larder stocked from floor to ceiling with Bush-cans. It makes it particularly hard for me as an expat - while I’m in the US I’m constantly railing against the government, in India I’m defending the American people from the same criticism. Why? Because of this Bush-clone image of the American public (I don’t blame them - I would be mad if 300 million people mispronounced ‘nuclear’ and thought I hated them because they were free).

Serious damage control needed here. Charisma, anyone?

Back from a sun-drenched, sea-scented vacation. All the annoyances of work melted away (my friends bet me they’ll be back in a week ). Sore in body, relaxed in spirit. Can’t wait for camping season to begin.

Valentine’s day annoys me. For the past month media has bombarded me with songs, ads, analysis, opinions and survival tips on looooove. Sweethearts are feeling the pressure - bring home diamonds, chocolates or flowers or forever be doubted.

Sad. A complex, powerful and mystifying force has been reduced to a Hallmark holiday, an item on a shopping list. It’s Valentine’s day, so we must love. Gah! No, I say, I will boycott this day.

Then India, land of democracy and tolerance gently persuaded me to rethink. How? With articles like this one, and pictures like this one. Now I suddenly want to participate in the muaah muaaah. Break out the condoms, purse your lips and let’s honor St. Valentine.

Gah! Ok, ok, deep breaths…
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

Heard this song on the radio as I was driving home yesterday:

If you were falling, then I would catch you.
You need a light, I’d find a match.

Cuz I love the way you say good morning.
And you take me the way I am.

If you are chilly, here take my sweater.
Your head is aching, I’ll make it better.

Cuz I love the way you call me baby.
And you take me the way I am.

I’d buy you Rogaine when you start losing all your hair.
Sew on patches to all you tear.

Cuz I love you more than I could ever promise.
And you take me the way I am.
You take me the way I am.
You take me the way I am.

You take me the way I am, that’s why I love you. Translate: you see me as I see myself, therefore I love you.

Why do we fall in love? Do we love another, or love ourselves more around them? Are they the most beautiful thing we know or our most flattering mirror?

All our thoughts and actions are ultimately narcissistic. Why should love be an exception?

Sunil and I had the privilege of seeing passengers board the unreserved compartment on the Guwahati express in Kerala. They didn’t travel on top of the train, but the sight was amazing nonetheless.

The compartment was bursting at the seams, with people hanging on to the door jamb with a toe hold on the window (yes, very uncomfortable). Yet more people were getting in. A guy would throw in a suitcase over people’s heads into the compartment, then try to stick his nose/arm/leg into whatever hole he could see in the human wall. The wall would start punching and pushing to keep him out but he would ignore the blows and get in anyway. Once assimilated, he proceeded to punch the next person who was trying to get in.

We even saw a guy being pushed in head first over the heads of the passengers by his two enterprising friends. Amazingly everyone who threw a suitcase into the train actually got in.

We’d been to Udupi Palace for dosas a few days ago and they were playing ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ on the big screen there. A woman sitting at the next table was shocked….did they really film the scene on top of a train? Why would they do something so dangerous, why didn’t they use a green screen? Who voluntarily travels on a train’s roof?

Who voluntarily travels on a train’s roof? These people do. Guatemalan immigrants, trying to immigrate to the US via Mexico cross two borders illegally and end up being harassed and hounded by human traffickers, corrupt officials and the ‘legal’ immigrants. The current National Geographic has an amazing article on their journey.

A colleague and I were discussing today technologies that work and ones that don’t.

The ‘cool’ and eclectic ones reach very few people, titillate the masters of the field and remain enshrined in papers. They usually try to solve problems that humans can do easily and much better.

The true mass-movers are simple technologies applied to everyday problems.
Aggregating, crunching, storing and presenting large volumes of information,
connecting people across distances too large to shout,
tirelessly doing boring and repetitive tasks…variations of these are technologies that succeed.

Rarely is there a Google which has married cool technology to a product that’s used by millions.