Occu-pie: because not everyone has gotten a piece

The bleeding-heart, starry-eyed liberal that i am, i was absolutely thrilled to hear about a leaderless, grassroot movement sweeping across the globe, one that questioned apparently shady deals between governments and financial institutions, and one that encouraged ordinary citizens to be aware of the financial policies, be it of the government or the financial institutions where they had entrusted their savings in.

I’ve had a problem with how elections are being funded in the US, specially after the recent supreme court ruling that allows corporations to fund campaigns for or against a candidate, under the idea that corporations have the same rights as individuals.  My gripe with this idea is the fact that a very few individuals control these corporations, and just as few individuals control majority of the money.  These individuals then contribute heavily to campaigns, and elections seem to be won or lost depending on how much money a particular candidate spends spreading his/her messages.  So, in short, any representative needs money, that these few individuals or corporations have, to effectively win an election, i.e. to get a job or their jobs.  Ofcourse, this money comes with, if not condition, heavy expectation, that the representative will work in favor of the causes of these entities.  To me, this is the definition of bribery.  In a perfect democratic society, the voting public would be well aware of all the issues, and no amount of propaganda would be able to sway their votes against their own best interest.  but we dont live in that world, far from it.

i have always thought that any election should be publicly funded.  Each candidate gets X amount of dollars from a common pool, and they can best utilize that amount any way they see fit.  If the people with resources are so worried about democracy faltering, let them donate to this common pool.  In short, i think the people with a lot of money get more than their fair share of one vote.  My first reason to be all for the occupy movement, even though i dont think that this is one of their official demands, i know they share the same sentiment.

The other idea that gives me goose bumps is the idea of a leaderless movement.  “Democracy does not need leaders, the idea of a leader portrays a shepherd leading the rest of us general masses mentality, we are not sheep, we are capable of deducing the best path to follow.  We, thus, need a mere representative, who will do as he/she is told by the majority of the masses.”  Ive touted this idea to anyone willing to listen over the past few years.  So, way-to-go-occupy.

But here is where my enthusiasm about the movement, falters, if not ends.  Theres no doubt that the movement has gained quite a momentum by now, its spread throughout the world and gained popularity.  Scores of people unsatisfied about the direction things are headed in have come out and peacefully protested, demanding that things be changed.  Which is great, but changed to what ?  Lets say a million people gathered outside of wall street and demanded  that they change their ways.  What would we tell them to do ?  They havent amassed a lot of power that they can easily relequinsh.  They dont even have vaults full of gold that we can go in and loot.  Their wealth is tied into complex financial products, that some of us might even happen to own as 401k or CD or home/car loans.

Then there is the misconception that the banks actually took tax payers money and ran off with it, when in reality, all the bailout money has been paid back and with interest.

So, is this movement just a lynch mob against the have-a-lots?  The movement now encompass many different countries, where the problems are vastly different.   With vastly different problems, comes vastly different solutions.  Is the Occupy movement adept at letting regional activists prioritize demands, while still ensuring that the demands are legitimate ?   Which brings me to the bigger question,  does the movement have concrete demands they can fight towards, and one that they can mobilize their supporters towards.  Because, sooner or later people are going to get tired of camping out in the park, and winter is fast approaching in new york.

I support the spirit of this movement, but without concrete goals and a roadmap on how to achieve it, doubt much is going to get achieved.

world cup craze, octopus daze, and more ….

Havent written in a long time, not because i was too busy with the going-ons of life, but ironically enough, because i wasn’t.  However, that is a story for another day.

I wanted to write about a phenomenon that grips about a fifth of the world population every four years, and lets go just as easily.  I have never followed any sporting event very intently, although i do like to watch the NBA games on occasion, never have i followed any team during the regular season and kept up with who needs to win what games in order to move to the next round.  An admission is in order here; the primary reason for the new-found interest was because the bleeding-heart liberal in me was tickled by the idea of an african country hosting the magnanimous event.  Song along the lines of unity and inspiration by a certain hip-thrusting diva, another with a verse that said “fuck you rest of the world for sucking on africa for generations” on the opening ceremony version, and commercials of a very delighted mandela holding the cup, kept me interested in the event, be it for the wrong reasons.

It took a few games and understanding of how the groups and points work, to realize the excitement this whole craze could deliver.  And by the final rounds of the group games, i was hooked.  Frantically adding up points and looking at various possible outcomes, id try to predict who would move forward to the playoffs, and who was going to play whom in the next round and so on and so forth.  You see, what makes football so good a sport to watch, is its unpredictability.  In an NBA final, on a best of 7 games, the better team usually wins.  Not true in the case of the world cup.  I watched the favored teams like Brazil, Germany, England, Italy, to name a few, drop like flies, while underdogs like the US and Uruguay moved forward way past what was expected of them.

But, what was probably more exciting to me, more than the actual game of 22 men trying to put a leather ball within a post, was the name associated with these group of 11 men.  Each day, some country, familiar in one way or another, would win, and images of its citizens’ jubilation would flash across my tv screen for a few seconds, uber-excited crowd ready to party on all night.  The best part of it all is that there is absolutely nothing at stake in these highly charged competitions.  The losing team does go home, but the players will still get paid just as handsomely in their professional games, and the lives of the citizens and supporters will go on just as it had before the whole thing started.  So, there is nothing to lose, yet a win is such a thrilling experience, it rejoices so many souls, letting them forget about their day-to-day worries for just a few moments, in fact, it could be the ideal opiate.  In the end, this world cup results ended up looking like one of the world war, most of the world started out competing against someone or other, but in the end, couple of big european players remained, and the rest of the world picked a side and aligned themselves with a superpower.

An absurd twist was thrown in the midst of all this drama.  An octopus in an aquarium in germany was rumored to have correctly predicted the result of all of Germany’s games.  It went on to predict correctly that Germany would win against Argentina, an impressive prediction by any gambling standard, and then again went on to predict, amidst a lot of hype, that germans would lose to the dutch.  Correct predictions were made for the third place game, and the final as well.  Now, knowing nothing about the field of psychology, i wonder what the experts in the field would make of this turn of events.  Did these teams win and lose according to the octopus because it was meant to be, or did the result come out that way because the octopus, with all his given authority by now, had said so?  I couldnt help but look back at the story of macbeth.  The witches told him he would be king, so he goes on to murder the king and chase away his sons.  If Freud were alive, would he not give his pinky-toe to do a controlled experiment with the octopus, perhaps, one could lie about the prediction and see what would happen.  Or maybe both the teams could be told they would lose.

In all these limelights, excitements and awe-inspiring moments, one entity shines above it all.  The host South Africa, a very young nation by any standard, successfully set the stage, at which the world watched without batting an eyelash for a month.  Even with all its problems of unemployment, its class and economic divides along the racial lines, and its extremism on the rise, held the event with screaming vuvuzelas that yelled out: look at us, not with pity, but with admiration, reach out, not to someone needing a helping hand, but to an equal to shake it with.  Mandela’s rainbow nation never really kept up with the pace of his dreams, but maybe, the dream is not to be written off, not just yet. After all is said and done, this is just a game, its easy to organize something merely for leisure, where everyone comes together for celebration, many times harder to face the real problems of this nation where struggle for the resources is still going on between the ones who have historically held it, and the ones who have never really had chance of a fair fight for it.  But then again, the same problems persist in the rest of the world as well.  Which is only logical, because, after all, as a certain hip gyrating artist put it best, “We are all Africa”.

Got Inspiration ?

In this entry, I embark to write on a subject matter that has amazed, confused, and astonished me, while the answer has remained elusive as ever.  At the risk of sounding cliche, i will try to word the subject matter in question.  What is it that inspires a small percentage of us humans to make choices that seem practically illogical in a society so driven towards personal success, and in turn, effecting the lives of otherwise unrelated individuals?  Here, I don’t even mean the larger-than-life individuals that have dotted history in what seems like unbelievable achievements.  When we think of people like Gandhi, or Mother Teresa, we somehow get this notion that there is something in them that far exceeds our understanding or capability.  However, there are plenty of people among us that have, or have made an attempt at changing a few people’s lives for the better, people that were otherwise unrelated to them.  Its this move, to try to do so, against all intuition, while the majority seem to spend all of their effort in trying to better their lives, and some, like myself, even fail to find the drive to put their own together, that baffles me.

I am not writing this because I recently met someone of that nature, and neither am I going to mention that i found that drive in me to attempt it.  Far from it all, the idea came back to me from the most unreliable sources, it was from a movie inspired by true events, as i lazed about on my couch.  I did do my homework to make sure that the essence of that story was true.  I wanted to list a few of these cases that I have either heard of, read about, and some even personally seen.  And as we look at their stories, one thing that strikes out is this idea that they seem to be perfectly ordinary people.  Without the intense conviction of Gandhi, the passion of Mother Teresa, nor even the gift of gab to inspire people across all boundaries in the face of the greatest financial (and thus eventually, social) debacle since the second world war, their achievements seems like one we could have completed ourselves.  You will find my choices constrained, and am sure you can think of a lot more names that match the criteria, and that’s precisely the point.  There are many among us, from all walks of life, some who’ve made a conscious choice, others that have been  thrust in the midst and realize an opportunity to make a difference, all with something in common, that the rest of us seem to lack.

Here are a few of those I had in mind (beginning with the one that inspired the movie i was watching a few days back)

Erin Gruwell:

When she started out as an English teacher in a racially divided high school in urban LA in the 90s, she had a class full of students with first hand exposure to gang violence, ones who could at any time be a statistics in the casualty.  Furthermore, they had been labeled unteachable, and were below average students.  Erin not only showed them to see beyond each others’ skin color, but also inspired them to finish high school (in most cases, a first in their family), and stuck with them all the way through college, taking up a teaching position in the same college.  A few of them now work along with her to promote a better educational system for those who face various social challenges.  It is said that she used Anne Frank’s diary to inspire them and by the end of the year, the students raised funds and invited Miep Gies to fly in and speak at their school.

It is one thing to ideally say one should not judge by race, but to actually go into a racially charged classroom full of rowdy teenagers, and make them believe it, is an achievement worthy of all the praise she has been getting.

Mahabir Pun:

Mr. Pun mustve faced  his fair share of ridicule and shaking heads when he swam upstream by going back not only to Kathmandu, but to his village in remote Nangi, after his masters in the US in ’97.  He began teaching at a local school and dreamt of bringing computers to his school.  Years of perseverance, and he has setup computer clusters in several villages and connected them together with a wireless intranet, villages that didn’t have phone services or highway access.  The villagers now have their own craigslist, and the category “cattle” has the most entries.  The network is connected to an ISP from a city several hours’ walk, providing access to internet.  Planned use of the network include e-teaching in several schools, and e-medicine for diagnosis, as these villages severely lack trained professionals in these fields.

Not much more need be said about his accomplishments.

John Wood:

At 35, John was a director of business development in Microsoft.  On a treking trip to rural Nepal, he befriends a teacher who invites him to visit his school.  John finds out that there are 20 books for 450 students.  He starts emailing friends to donate used books, and it has now grown into ….. “Room to Read, an award winning non-profit that over the past eight years has established over 5,630 libraries, donated and published 4.3 million books, built 442 schools, and funded over 6,922 long-term scholarships for girls – impacting the lives of over 1.9 million students worldwide.”  He has quit Microsoft since.

Rumor has it that the teacher John met was Mahabir Pun, but i was unable to confirm this.

Rosa Parks:

She needs no introduction, all she had to do was stand up, or rather, sit down, for what she believed to be right.  After refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, she was taken to jail.  This event sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, leading to the national civil rights movement.

Guru Ama Eleanor Elkins:

I met Ms. Elkins last year at her home in a lovely little town in Connecticut, where she lives in a house surrounded by large trees.  The backyard had more trees and shrubs, and little bird houses all over, with birds chirping away on the quaint New England evening.  At first glance, this elderly woman could pass for any number of retirees living in the area, born in the US and raised in Scotland, so she had a slight accent when she spoke English, but almost none when she spoke Nepali.  She had spent the better part of her life, over twenty five years, in a remote village in Nepal teaching in a missionary school, where she would teach her students not only of the curriculum, but also of the world outside, completely alien to her students. On the first of each month, when school fees were due, she would order students who couldn’t afford to pay it, to show up early,  and hand them the money.  They would return back to school on time and hand back the fees to school.  When students were done with school and had no means of getting to Kathmandu for higher education, she would give them whatever money she could afford and send them off.  My father was one of such students.

Her reasons, although slightly bizarre to me, is the most easily explainable.  It was religious, a power she considers to be higher  than the rest, told her to go about it.

Whatever the reasons, the ends are the same.  These individuals denounce conventional ways of going about life, and end up helping others, as the rest of us scurry about in our little lives, if we’re lucky, with a helping hand, from these same people, when we’re in need of one.

….

haha, so much for the vow to break my silence.  I, however, am going home tomorrow … …. yayyyy.

Have absolutely no plans this time but to pig out and sleep, and sleep some more …..

To blog or not to blog ….

.. has never been a question at all. Blogging has had certain advantages for me. I get to state my thoughts in a somewhat organized fashion, nobody has to pretend they are listening, and if i were to say out loud the thoughts out loud, it would get dismissed as gibberish, attempted intellectual crap, or just nonsense. By writing, interestingly, and amazingly enough, some people do read, and enjoy the same. I have also come up with a theory that writing increases whatever shred of logical reasoning and thinking capability i have. After a long break from writing, i find myself getting slower at organizing thoughts, forming arguments and the words that i know exist do not seem to want to escape my tongue. And writing ofcourse encourages reading which in turn makes you want to write about it.

So why not write? you might ask. Sheer laziness. Its a vicious circle, you see, the more you dont write, the harder it is to gather thoughts to do so. And besides, it is just so much easier to laze in the couch watching tv, without a strand of thought in your head. Between my last post and today, i have thought of writing several times, some ideas, like the american political situation, specially with the democratic primary, nepali political revolution, and how democracy sprung into action, or this little bar with interesting characters in an old mill town that i frequent, have come to mind, and ended right there …… with each passing abandonment of ideas, to make up for that one, it would be imperative that i find something more interesting to write about. Another vicious circle …. With all these maze of circles, I was in no time inside a “chakrabheu”, one that took little fighting to get into, but had no clue how to get out of ….

so here is a wild attempt, a hail-mary, at solving the problem, write about not being able to write. I guess we will find out if the solution is a viable one (honestly, will attempt to write more)

[It dont matter if] you’re right or left(y)?

“Left handed, eh !!” ….. a young sales clerk uttered what seemed like a surprised and amused expression as i signed the credit card receipt at a Bengali store.  This is not an isolated occurrence, and the tone of the expression varies as much as the person saying it.

It would not only be an over-exaggeration but whinning of enigmatic proportion if I were to go ahead and state that growing up left handed had been difficult, it has, however, been an interesting experience, one that i am sure i share with all left handed people to some degree.

My very first memories of me being “not quite Right” is of vague recollections of various relatives talking about my “condition”.  Discussions would ensue about whether or not it was a good idea to try to get me to use my right hand more.  Apparently no drastic measures were taken.  That is, until one morning, as we were having our morning meal, my mother looked at me with eyes full of love mixed with a bit of sorrow, and foremost, unconditional sympathy.  With complete understanding for my “condition” that might or might not have been beyond my control, she pleaded me to try to change one tiny part.  She wanted me to eat with my right hand, for reasons obvious to everyone around, for one could tell that everyone was thinking the same thing the moment they saw me eating with my left hand.  Ofcourse, it wouldn’t be easy, I was to have her full support, and that would be the only task I would need to perform with my right hand.

Thus, with utter difficulty and one awkard handful of food after another, I began the process that would eventually result in my purification.  It felt impossible at first, but like everything else in life, I eventually came to terms with using my right hand.  Thus, good riddance with the disgusting habit, and all was good from there onwards. 

Just …. not quite.   They do say good ideas come to you in the toilet, and likewise, in the same spot i had an epiphany, as I picked up the twak and reached for my behind, the horror of horrors, I realized that it was with my right hand i was reaching to do the cleaning part with, as my left hand was comfortably, and cleanly, holding the jug of water.  Now that I saw what was happening, it made perfect sense, if right handers instinctively used their left hand for cleaning the particular area, it would seem only logical that left handers used their right !  I felt betrayed, pushed to such a humiliating status, I had officially over-taken the father and son who had tried to carry the donkey to please everyone, and by trying to please my parents, had ended up being the boy who ate his own poop. 

I stared from one hand to the other, and as I had no other choice, began, yet again, the pain-staking task of learning to use the limb that didnt come natural to me.  It was harder than learning to eat with the “right” hand.  For, without the watchful eyes of my mother (fortunately), I would, at times, forget to use the “wrong” hand. 

As dramatic and as exotic as I would want to make my left-handed-ness to be, the extent of my “misery” due to that fact pretty much ends right there.  Other than being jabbed at by somewhat academically enthusiastic classmates because my left elbow was hindering their right ones as we both tried to write on top of the small elongated desks, and hearing vague curses for having to sit next to a lefty, everything else has been smooth sailing.  Oh yeah, the nickname, Lefty, i didnt mind having that, couldve been worse.  And it seems like right handers can only have one primary left-hander at any point in their lives.  To my class, I was that one, there was one other left hander in our class, but since she joined later than I did, i held the title.  Every once in a while I run into people with left-handed people close to their hearts, fondly or otherwise, and soon as I start using my opposite limb, something along the lines “oh, youre left handed, hmm,  so is my … ” follows.  What amazes me isn’t the attempt at the very vague connection, it is the fact that people are so quick to take notice of the fact, when I’m observing a person, what arm one is using is about the last thing i tend to notice.  The expression on the above mentioned sentence depends on the type of relationship they have, and at times, I can all but hope that the left hander wasn’t her jackass of an ex boyfriend .

The degree to which someone is left handed varies, maybe due to social reasons, or perhaps biological.  Some are almost ambidextrous. Most, like myself, have come to terms with living in a right handed world with very minor, almost cosmetic, adjustments.  We are the ones who rarely go around the classroom looking for that left handed seat, but will sit on it if one is handy.  And rarely, there are the avid left handers.  I had the interesting experience of knowing such a person at my work.  He was left handed almost to a revolutionary degree, his mouse would be on the left side of the keyboard and the mouse buttons would be switched around.  Every-time he would pick up a pair of scissors, or a screw driver or any other tool of which i had no idea could be left or right handed, he would get on a tirade about the hardships of having to live in a world that was primarily right handed.  He would go so far as to term me a traitor for giving up to the other side, for not complaining enough, or for not having the buttons of my mouse switched around.  I could almost imagine him taking up arms, fiery speech, revolting against the suppressive majority, fighting for the ease of use of his tools, a right he has been deprived of in a ruthless right world, that considers the use of our wrong hand, well, wrong !! 

To-Do list

Let me start out by saying that I have always found these kinds of lists rather cheesy, and have always held the opinion that I was lucky to be getting all I have, thus having a wish-list of utterly privileged things and experiences would be snobbish of me. 

  However, having spent a couple years now with a job and no school, with enough time to moan and bitch about non-existent grievances, I am slowly becoming this pot-bellied person in an imaginary mid-life crisis I had so despised.  

Thus, after endless cycles of sitting in a cubicle during the day and watching of exotic places and experiences on tv in the evenings, i have decided to give in to yet another symptom of becoming the despised me (right after coming to terms with my slightly protruded belly) and come up with this list.  It is in no particular order and is ofcourse subject to change.

Things I’d like to do 

• Backpack through Europe.
• Go hand-gliding.
• Get close enough to a dolphin to look it in the eye (preferably a wild one).
• See the grand canyon.
• Try a hallucinatory drug.
• Make passionate love to a woman of latin origin, after a fine french dinner, and after she gives me a private lesson on merengue.
• Ride the bus that goes from Kathmandu to Lhasa.
• Hike up to the Annapurna base camp.
• Try to document as much family history as possible, where we come from, where we have been.
• Get something published somewhere where people will actually read.
• Have a golden retriever for a pet.
•  Fall in love, unconditionally, absolutely, blindly ….. the kind they portray in books and movies …

And i’ll stop before this gets any more ridiculous (if thats at all possible)

Another song

While my own creativity takes a back seat, lets look at another song i have found quite interesting. I heard this song not too long ago (thanks to pandora.com, by the way, I have come to adore the “intelligence” of this free internet radio, and have found the manual task of finding and uploading songs on an ipod more and more cumbersome.)

This song is called “ringing of revolution”, byPhil Ochs. It tells a story that begins in a big palace on top of a hill that houses the last of the ruling class, the last of bourgeoisie, as the city below burns. I am not exoticing the idea, neither am i endorsing it, it just seems more and more inevitable looking at the situation at home these days. And, we, much as we despise the ruling class, are more than likely to be the “soft middle class” who will scurry behind the “merchants of velvet” with our tail underneath our legs. I might even chant some lines from the veda and use my “bharmannai” (one i am so eager to denounce) for a ticket to the “building of gold”. Moreover, has Kathmandu already been that palace, that last refuge, as the rest of Nepal has burnt ?

Ah, its 6 in the morning, i’m half asleep, and am headed camping today, so what i wrote above might not have made any sense.

(Does anyone know of a youtube like site for audio ? It would’ve been nice to put a link of the song here, so people could hear it as they read it, since it doesnt have a video, couldn’t find it in youtube.)

Ringing of Revolution

In a building of gold, with riches untold,
lived the families on which the country was founded.
And the merchants of style, with their red velvet smiles,
were there, for they also were hounded.
And the soft middle class crowded in to the last,
for the building was fully surrounded.
And the noise outside was the ringing of revolution.

Sadly they stared and sank in their chairs
and searched for a comforting notion.
And the rich silver walls looked ready to fall
As they shook in doubtful devotion.
The ice cubes would clink as they freshened their drinks,
wet their minds in bitter emotion.
And they talked about the ringing of revolution.

We were hardly aware of the hardships they beared,
for our time was taken with treasure.
Oh, life was a game, and work was a shame,
And pain was prevented by pleasure.
The world, cold and grey, was so far away
In the distance only money could measure.
But their thoughts were broken by the ringing of revolution.

The clouds filled the room in darkening doom
as the crooked smoke rings were rising.
How long will it take, how can we escape
Someone asks, but no one’s advising.
And the quivering floor responds to the roar,
In a shake no longer surprising.
As closer and closer comes the ringing of revolution.

Softly they moan, please leave us alone
As back and forth they are pacing.
And they cover their ears and try not to hear
With pillows of silk they’re embracing.
And the crackling crowd is laughing out loud,
peeking in at the target they’re chasing.
Now trembling inside the ringing of revolution.
With compromise sway we give in half way

When we saw that rebellion was growing.
Now everything’s lost as they kneel by the cross
Where the blood of christ is still flowing.
To late for their sorrow they’ve reached their tomorrow
and reaped the seed they were sowing.
Now harvested by the ringing of revolution.

In tattered tuxedos they faced the new heroes
and crawled about in confusion.
And they sheepishly grinned for their memoroes were dim
of the decades of dark execution.
Hollow hands were raised; they stood there amazed
in the shattering of their illusions.
As the windows were smashed by the ringing of revolution.

Down on our knees we’re begging you please,
We’re sorry for the way you were driven.
There’s no need to taunt just take what you want,
and we’ll make amends, if we’re living.
But away from the grounds the flames told the town
that only the dead are forgiven.
As they crumbled inside the ringing of revolution.

~Phil Ochs

Let’s sing along

I started listening to Dylan late during my high school years. I’d heard blowing in the wind, and that was easily understandable, as in one could easily make out the words from listening to the song, and fairly agreeable. I started listening to more and it just stuck throughout the years. I’ve never put much effort into music, have always just listened to whatever came by my way. My CD collection boasts a few Dylans, an Eminem, and perhaps one of a Beatles collection. My Ipod, that’s been sitting in my car out of charge, has few songs of about the same category.

But, enough about my non-existent music collection and my laziness. I can by no means claim to be a student of poetry, nor can I claim to know of ones other than the Dylan I have listened to over the years. Yet I do appreciate the power of words and just wanted to list a few that I knew, they all happen to be Dylan’s for the sole reason that, i, being an illiterate to the world of poetry know of none other …

The first one is titled “Like a Rolling Stone“, and this one is probably the most popular on the list. This one is also the most easily relatable and it topped some list of songs that effected people’s life. It talks of the challenges we face as we grow up and start to venture out into the real world on our own.

How does it feel to be a nobody, no parents to tend to all your needs, to have to make your own bed …

“ How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?“

It specially taunts the ones born even close to a silver spoon.

“ You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it“

.. and the spoiled ones …

“You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did tricks for you“

… and the ones living on the high horse, a horse that perhaps someone else owned ?

“Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you“

With all these different scenarios in a society where one has to sooner or later leave parents’ nest and venture out on our own, no wonder this tops the list of songs that most influenced people.

——————————

The next one is called “A hard rain’s a-gonna fall” and was written right after the Cuban missile crisis when Dylan, along with the rest of America, was scared shitless of having their brains radiated. In this song, he is talking to a young son, to the next generation, and is telling him about a world destroyed. Some of the lines hold terrifyingly true today.

“ I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.“

With or without the nuclear threat, he also talks about the world that is primarily unjust.

“Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’“

And every time I hear or read the next line, i cant help think of Devkota …

“Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter“

… and all other people who serve an important purpose in society yet go unnoticed ….

“Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley“

In the midst of all these negativity, all these pessimism, Dylan throws in an unusual line, a line full of hope, and innocence, and imagination, and faith ….

“ I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow“

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This one is titled “Tombstone Blues” and it has a lot of references that are well beyond my grasp. Yet this song arguably contains my favorite line …

“The sun’s not yellow it’s chicken“

Now, I dont believe this line is supposed to mean anything, and Dylan is probably laughing at people who try to find hidden meaning in it, yet it is an interesting play on words. If anyone was to describe the color of the sun, it would probably have to come somewhere close to yellow. Furthermore, both the words ‘yellow’ and ‘chicken’ have one common meaning, they can both be used to mean cowardice, being a chicken is being scared, and so is being yellow (bellied) ….. interesting, eh ….

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The next one is “Maggie’s farm” and i think it portrays the mistrust in all branches of government that we all must feel once in a while.

“ I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more.
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more.
Well, he puts his cigar
Out in your face just for kicks.
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks.
The National Guard stands around his door.“

… the untouchable executive branch perhaps …

“ No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more.
Well, he hands you a nickel,
He hands you a dime,
He asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time,
Then he fines you every time you slam the door.
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more.“

…. legislative, maybe …

“ No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more.
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law.“

… the intellectual judiciary …. could be …

This song also contains a phrase i quite agree with.

“I try my best
To be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.“

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Now, getting out of the intellectual bull crap, lets look at a simple love song, this is called “Lay, Lady, Lay“, and the lines are pretty self explanatory :

“ His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean
And you’re the best thing that he’s ever seen“

…. “I long to see you in the morning light
I long to reach for you in the night
Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead“

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If you guys have made it this far, i think i owe you an apology for sounding like that boring english teacher you had in high school or even college, the one you couldnt help fall asleep to …. only a lot less informed … a lot lot less so ….

The Legend of Kulee

Its a stormy night, huddle around my rocking chair, kids, for tonght I shall tell you a story, of what it is about, I will leave it to you to deduce once you have heard it.

The story is about a man named Kulee (pronounced ku-lay), for what his last name is (or even his actual name), I am unaware of. Yet before I tell you more of the person, it is important that I reveal to you how I got to know the person. It wasn’t through a chance encounter under a pipal tree where we swapped stories of our adventures. It wasn’t even in a formal meeting through a mutual acquaintance, and it certainly wasn’t an episode in one of the bhatti pasals, where we talked throughout the night of friends and lovers, of falling in love, and falling in deeper. I never did get to exchange a word with him, and have only laid eyes on him once.

Yet, I have been familiar with his name for as long as I remember. It would come in the form of a scold every time I, or any of my male cousins proved to be a nuisance to the elders. Anyone who had grown up in my ancestral village, which included almost everyone, would not let go of an opportunity to yell at us, and the curse usually involved Kulee. For the longest time, we didnt think much of the word, until one day, out of the blue, when i was a Kulee for not displaying proper table manners, I popped the question. “But uncle, what precisely is a kulee ?” Ofcourse, like a lot of my “inappropriate” questions, this one went unanswered as well. My curiosity was maintained until one day i had the presence of mind to ask one of my cousins who had grown up in the village what it meant. “Kulee is a name of a person”. I couldn’t understand, why was I being yelled at with another person’s name. “Kulee had 12 wives”. I imagined Kulee to be some feudal lord terrorizing the villagers, specially attractive women, not for a moment hesitating to snatch any he fancied. Kulee turned out to be an untouchable, and apparently he couldn’t hold on to any of his brides for too long. It didnt make much sense, and i ended the conversation with a request to point me to him next time i was in the village. That winter vacation i was there, and we had a religious ceremony held at our house, my cousin ran upstairs to tell me that Kulee was downstairs. I ran to the veranda and stared down at the tens of people gathered in our yard. And there I saw Kulee, there was no need for anyone to point me to him, for i knew who he was and at that point everything fell into place.

There stood a man in his late sixties. He was standing in a corner, making sure not to touch anyone or even anything in the “auspicious” occasion. But his posture was not the uncomfortable insecure one as I had seen in many people, as they were yelled at if they got too close to a priest, guests or just the utensils used in the puja. He was sure of his stance and it seemed he knew what he was doing, his posture was almost of a subtle defiance. He had the most mischievous looking of smiles i had ever seen, and as he looked up, i saw the shiniest pair of eyes i had ever seen, as old as he was, he still was a handsome man. His eyes twinkled, that paired along with his smile reminded me of Dennis the Menace about to pull a trick on his neighbor. At that moment i realized Kulee was all he was made out to be, and much much more.

Over half a century ago, the heart throb of the girls in that village in remote gorkha wasnt some boy band member, it wasn’t even a land owner’s kind-hearted son stealing young girls’ hearts as he rode past the common water tap on his horse. It wasnt even a commoner hopelessly in love with one girl he couldnt be with. On the contrary, it was a dirt poor untouchable with shiny eyes and a killer smile.

The fact that he never had more than one wife (i dont believe he was ceremoniously or legally married to all of them, for if a couple eloped, at that time, it was as good as being married) proves him not to be a womanizer. I believe he was a worshiper instead. As Devkota wrote a rebellious poem in Kathmandu about the same time urging people to forget about temples and worship fellow human beings instead, to try to listen to their pain, and to lend a helping hand whenever one could, illiterate Kulee, oblivious to the intellectual’s work, was already implementing the ideas into practice. “So what if you dont let me in your temple with a stone inside !” I can imagine a young defiant Kulee thinking, “I have privileged access to women and their divine soul in the center.” Kulee was leading a one man resistance, against patriarchy and social classes all on his own. A soul always suppressed and often neglected, Kulee must’ve made it a point to try to understand the very interesting gender.

I can almost see the process starting, a woman slaving by the river over dirty laundry, or a Nepali version of the Highland Lass cutting grass in the evening to feed the cattle before dark, Kulee, squatting by her side, a grin in his face as he told a joke, the woman laughing along. He would stand up to help her every often, while doing so, making a point to accidentally brush against her. She would snap at him for touching her, and tell him to keep his distance, yet she couldn’t deny the fact that the rush of electricity that went through her at that brief moment was the most exhilarating thing she had felt in the longest time. The situation would turn somber at times, as she described her problems, a drunk husband, a younger wife, an evil mother-in-law, or even pestering parents trying to marry off their daughter to a person five villages away she had never met. The moments must turn romantic as well, with Kulee singing one of the folk songs that would reverberate throughout the hills, or they might even go for a dohori, or a duet.

No one could be sure how long this would go on for, and eventually she would bundle her clothes in a saree, tuck whatever little money she had in her blouse, and in that dark starry night, she would hold the hand of a person she wasnt supposed to touch, and cross the hill to the village where people like her went only if one was in need of a tailor or a cobbler.

In his hut, I can imagine the love making, more passionate and tender than anything she had ever felt. For the experienced ones, it couldn’t be any further away from the daily ritual she had to perform with her husband every night. For the virgins, the physical pain forgotten, stacked away in the very bottom of her heart now overflowing with passion and pleasure.

Yet, reality would take over, and the army of relatives would soon descent upon the tiny hut, some furious, others tearful, everyone on the brink of a breakdown, the family name now shattered to ashes, would never recover. At times being dragged, and always crying, they would always end up going back. After all, she would be told, it would be in Kulee’s best interest if she went back. Things would never be the same though, she would have an air of challenge from now on and would get a portion of the respect she rightly deserved. Kulee would come to find his home empty, he would smile a knowing smile and start a fire to get supper ready.

Kulee passed away a few years ago, so, if there is anything after this world, maybe i could sit down with him and drink his own home brewed beer and perhaps listen to his amazing tales. I would love to hear about the girl who had a cute giggle, or the woman who was sang beautifully. Or he would tell me about the narrow escapes through the mountain pass as men with sticks chased across the river, their dilemma increasing as they got closer to him, much as they wanted to get a hand on him, they weren’t supposed to actually touch him, his untouchability becoming his best defense. And after all that, maybe he would be so kind as to tell me how he lived, and loved.

~To Kulee, my kind of hero