America America

America America

As I sojourn in India my true love - I am nostalgic for America the ideal which is no more. Here are my musings!

I remember going to watch a screening of the CLIO awards at the USIS 35 years ago. I could not believe that there actually were awards for films that sold products and how everyone and everything looked so healthy and wholesome in the featured ads! I spent many hours trolling books to fulfill my fascination of this ideal world. I watched ancient sitcoms that came on the one TV channel we had in India, lapped up their rock and roll and, of course, Hollywood! There was an affluent world out there which appeared perfect with its beautiful people, manicured lawns, massive cars. thick cut slices of bread, creamy milk in glass bottles and blood red tomatoes. They made perfect objects that would last forever and promised equality of opportunity for all. A generation of us lapped up all things American and yearned to set foot on her soil.

My first real encounter with all things American was in Singapore when my husband took his blushing bride to Shakey's Pizza. I was fascinated with the menu and the decor but could not bring myself to enjoy the pie with its foul smelling cheese toppings. To my uninitiated nose cheese smelt like milk gone bad. However, I ate it believing that if this was American food it had to be good! Then came the Macdonald's experience, where I first encountered super sizes in food. I could not fathom how anyone could down a barrel of those immensely sweet shakes? I don't know if I relished the French fries and Apple pie because of their taste or because I was officially a participant in the American cultural experience.

My first trip to the US in the late 80s was an "eye popping" experience. I realized that the super size at MacDonalds was not an anomaly. Everything here was simply and incomprehensibly larger than life. I soon realized that the massive cars, houses, roads, buildings and malls embodied the aspirations and vision of America daring to out perform the human mind's ability to dream and conjure up a reality of abundance, invincibility and opportunity. Anything was possible here. Even though I only visited from neighbouring Canada, I bought into that ideal as did immigrants to the country, developing its business houses and it's educational brain trusts culminating in its present culture of innovation.

However, America is a social experiment with a high price. An experiment built upon a racialised society with a history of institutionalised racism. An experiment with high ideals reliant on the capitalist ethic to achieve them. And for a while it seemed like the good times would last forever. Alas, capitalism had a few plans of its own. Simply put, a bottomless hunger for natural resources brought on by a culture of obsolescence where everyday calls for something new and different to enhance the human experience in pursuit of cash, creativity and choice. This meant preserving a lifestyle by interfering in the sovereignty of other nation states which had resources it needed or which felt threatened by its ideology, respectively. It soon developed a dark side. A stratified society meant frustration for those facing barriers to achieve its ideals, while the red carpet went to the Rockfeller home? Drugs, guns, gangs, and attacks by outsiders began to plague this beautiful nation of baseball and apple pie giving birth to many Americas, the good the bad and the ugly! It began falling victim to its own smokescreen of an aspirational lifestyle!

I love America and Americans. I love it's "can do" attitude, it's over the top abundance and everything that attracted me to it in the first place! I am therefore sad to see this wonderful nation a trillion dollars in debt as a result of its arms programs and support of wars that preserve its currency and oil interests. It's sad to see it become the laughing stock as an unsustainable society of excesses. Where there is no credible public transport and gas for SUVs is subsidized. Where food is cheap and obesity associated health problems are driving up per capita spending and lowering productivity. Where the radical right is gaining ground as the salvation to right the wrongs of the state. Where the divide between rich and poor is growing daily.

What America needs to do is to let go of its self delusion and see itself in all its complexity. It needs to take a good hard look and redefine itself as a nation capable of self reflection that names it's issues, defines them and addresses them in its characteristically innovative and systematic way. Go America!

Chennai experiences - Arumugam an everyday hero!

Arumugam's (not his real name) skin is the colour of burnished teak. In the sun it glistens a deep brown and there is a hint of red. He has a mop of grey hair. He carries his compact body with quiet strength in his security uniform. He has a ready gap toothed smile, high cheek bones and even features. All in all unremarkable, put pleasant up close and personal. He minds the doors at the entrance of Ward G. Downstairs are the operating theatres and ICU and upstairs the individual rooms - standard, premium and deluxe. My m in law is recovering here after knee surgery. This is a small hospital in the heart of Chennai, managed by Catholic nuns. It has a reputation for its cleanliness, orderless and good patient care. Several prominent Consultant Physicians have their patients registered here. Also, as private healthcare goes, it is more affordable than most.

Given its location and prominence, and the need to maintain it pristine, the hospital is very strict about visiting hours. It is Arumugam's job to watch the door and to ensure people have an attender or a diet pass. The attender is someone who stays at the hospital with the patient and the diet pass is used by those who deliver food for the patients from their homes. The hospital does have a diet kitchen, however patients are allowed to have food brought in from home.

Arumugam sits on a plastic chair from 1 in the afternoon to 10 pm rising for doctors and other hospital professionals. The heat along the corridor is oppressive . The fan over his head in perpetual motion, gives him limited relief. Orderlies and cleaning staff, ie people at or beneath his station stop by and exchange pleasantries with him. Some folks like my husband press some money into his hands. Not so bad a job except the pay is modest. He is luckier than most.

So what is extraordinary about this human being who sits all day long on a chair policing the entrance? Nothing really - except the effort he has to make everyday to provide for his family. Nothing other than the fact that he is beginning to represent the urban poor.

Call me inquisitive. I have to stop and enquire after people's lives. I choose an opportune moment when he greets me with renewed zeal as I enter the hospital with my sister one evening. Her dental clinic adjoins a medical lab and Arumugam has a part-time job there washing lab equipment containing human effluents and chemicals. A tough job where he could potentially be exposed to virulent infections, given standards in this country.

As he escorts us to my m in law's room up the elevator I have found out part of his life story to have the rest filled in by my sister. He finishes work every week night at 10 pm. He cannot afford public transport and rides his bike for an hour and a half to get to his home in a distant suburban slum, the only place he can afford a place. It's only then that he eats dinner. It is 1 by the time he hits the sack, exhausted. The next morning he is on the road by 9, in peak heat, travelling 2 hours through traffic to put in a couple of hours, at the lab, before start of shift at 1. He gets one day off on which he takes up random cleaning jobs at people's homes.

Arumugam has two grown children. His son thirty is an alcoholic and constantly lying drunk somewhere and his daughter married to a man with alcohol and money problems. He comes home to stories about daily calamities that involve creditors, brawls, police and medical emergencies given the precariousness of his children's lives. Even Polyanna would have struggled to remain optimistic. I would definitely have forgotten to smile, to be gracious and pleasant. But Arumugam is the epitome of dignity, equanimity and cheerfulness.

How do Arumugam and the millions like him whose life is an endless road of abject poverty and desperation, despite all their extraordinary efforts to keep their mind, body and pride intact, sustain day after day? What is it about their spirit that keeps them buoyed up with enthusiasm to face another day of extreme physical and emotional hardship. What is that threshold and how can each of us raise our tolerance to take on a little more everyday. Till I talked to Arumugam, I saw Chennai as a chaotic place characterized by disorder, assymmetry and dirt everywhere. I had this extraordinary urge to shake people up and awaken them to the squalor of their living conditions. That evening everything changed. I see each person here as a hero triumphing under extraordinary odds. I now see the need to accept, be curious, raise the bar for my softened body and to help where I can!

Just another day

It's early. Amma is talking to me as I do Pranayama. The door bell rings and there is a sharp tap on the door. Not the characteristic knocks or rings of the folk that stream in and out of Amma's house every morning. The maid could be heard washing dishes in the kitchen uncaring of the water situation and the need to conserve. Folks who collect the garbage everyday came in later. The milk had been delivered at 6:00. So who dared ring the bell at 6:45 am? This was still too early for anyone else, even for India where there are no strict protocols regarding intrusions from prying neighbours. Amma was at the door before I could find my feet from my seated cross legged pose. I saw the watchman's tanned and calloused hand on the locked grill door. In a gruff voice he muttered something that was barely audible. Amma received the news with matter of fact calm. Immediately our phone rang and she picked it up. My sister was on her routine early morning call which she made as she took her walk near her house a few km away. "The watchman just came and said, Padma's husband passed away last night" my mother said. Just like that. It was bright and sunny outside. The birds were chirping and the trees were lit with flowers in bright reds and yellows. The sky was smog free and a magnificent blue. Due to our location, five minutes from the beach, the ocean air hung heavy with a salty humidity. A street vendor passed by shouting out his wares. Below the balcony, on the street, I could hear bicycles and two-wheelers go by and people shuffle along to their daily routines. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Just another morning.

Amma got off the phone and elaborated that his wife Padma had been present yesterday at the flag hoisting, one of several dressed in the same lilac saree that they sport as a uniform to salute our nation on patriotic occasions. She had not let on that anything was amiss. Amma had seen Padma's husband, a handsome man with even features, walking just a few days ago. Padma and Amma have known each other for over 20 years as neighbours living in the same colony and were part of the Palmgrove Ladies Club whose members meet every month to break bread, share, go on trips, play bingo and raise money for charitable causes. A few of its members have passed and several of the survivors have lost their husbands in recent times. Exactly 10 years ago these women had come to our house on my father's passing. I remember now that it had also been a bright and sunny morning in December. Appa had been sick for 2 months. He had wanted his privacy so no one knew. In September he was on his regular walks and in December, following a diagnosis and rapid deterioration, he was gone. I am sure news of his death would have been unexpected. But that day for them, when our lives had turned upside down, must have seemed like just another morning.

Sit Still and Observe

I have been in the dark hole of a depressive state and then discovered a way of coming out to never go back. What did I do? More to the point is, what did I not do?

Some of you may not have even experienced it. Others may have gone through it following a life event - a failure or a death. Yet others may have had mood swings bringing on highs and lows. But the kind I am speaking of is that feeling of utter despondence, for no apparent reason. A feeling of being trapped in a dark space with no way out. That feeling which is accompanied by a churning in the pit of one's stomach, a dryness in the throat and a sense of a downward spiral into a deep abyss which swallows one whole. Nothing anyone says can change things. There is an utter loss of hope and a feeling of being trapped in one's mind with no escape.

So how then did I escape? Especially when my mind, the very instrument that must see itself for what it is - sick - was debilitated. How was I to use this mind, which was filtering through a distorted world view, to come out of this state? There in lay the rub.

The first step then was to actually, and not just intellectually, know that my mind was dragging me down. The next step was to know that I had the power in me to stop my mind from doing that. But how? How to stop those thoughts and feelings of despair?

In this state, it is natural for people to seek escape routes which numb the mind. They are pharmaceutical drugs or illicit ones, including alcohol. Other more legitimate methods are prayer, chanting or other similar repetitive rituals. I took no drugs, legal or illegal, but did try prayer, chanting and rituals. They helped - but to a point. I could escape for short periods to only have the boogeyman return in full force when I stopped.

Clearly, I needed a permanent solution. I could not stop the thoughts and mind. What recourse did I have then? Fortuitously I came upon J.Krishnamurthi (J.K,) whose pronouncement "the thought is not the thing described" resonated. Then came the epiphany - I could stop reacting to these thoughts based on my accumulated worldly knowledge and conditioning? But that was easier said than done. Not reacting to my thoughts and mind? In other words, allowing my thoughts to flow freely without having them impact me on a physical or emotional level? So rather than escape from, shut out, deny or drown in the experience I had to become a neutral observer of my mind and experiences?

I began to do just that. Initially it was awful. I recognized that I had actually not experienced the full force of my depressive state since I had never before remained alert and vigilant in every moment. Now that I was, the pain was unbearable. Negative thoughts incessantly rose to the top. I could not eat, sleep even breathe (sometimes). I was ready to give up. With J. K. as my guiding light I persisted.

Slowly and miraculously change began to happen. The mind began to quieten. The thoughts which brought on the depressive state did not come with such force. The physical sensations associated with those thoughts lost their vigour as I stopped reacting to them. Several months later, I was still heavy and serious. But not so sad any more. The more mindful I became, the more I began to realize the transience of all experiences. Soon I began to seize every moment and to rejoice in my experiences. I began to fully know that anytime I fell back into the abyss I would just have to ride the wave. There was no more a fear of the depressive thoughts or the sense of urgency to escape them. The dissociation between the thought and sensation began to happen. Now even if thoughts surfaced accompanied by painful sensations they passed quickly without a trace or memory and when they returned, they did so with much less rigour. There is no more lingering sadness and despair - there is just a recognition of the cycle of life, the dance of the universe and the ability to realize that no experience happy or sad is permanent - it just is.

What I did not do was intellectualize or analyze the problem. I did not look for causal connections. My approach was (and is) non linear. I realized that to allow the mind to find a solution would be tantamount to setting a mad elephant on a destructive path. I needed to quieten the beast to transcend its hold over my state of being.

For me, it has been 25 years and counting of living mindfully. So everyone out there - seek help for sure. Don't go it alone but ultimately know that the only permanent answer as Peter Coyote, a Zen Buddhist priest, has said in his reflection following the death of Robin Williams is to "Sit Still and Observe".

Ah! Incredible India!

For our annual trip to Chennai, we decided to take Jet Airways via Delhi. The husband convinced me that our 8 hour lay-over in Delhi would be spent in a lounge and therefore would not be unbearable. I immediately had visions of beds, comforters, hot showers and milk white towels. So we arrived in Delhi collected our bags, cleared customs and immigration and re-checked our bags for our domestic flight to Chennai, fortifying ourselves for the long haul before our flight. The walk through the airport to fulfill all these tasks enabled us to meet our daily fitness quota of steps ( just saying!). What we did not need to compound this trek was plush carpeting which created sufficient resistance for our 10 lb hand baggage to make it weigh all of 10 lbs as we dragged it over said carpet! Do we really need carpeting in a hot and dusty country which is not exactly known for stellar standards of hygiene? Only in Incredible India!

At the Jet Airways counter the staff member taking our bags pronounced that all lounges in the departure area were closed since no flights took off at night. But there were recliners! Not having eaten any of our meals on the plane, we were famished and somewhat deflated at the prospect of spending a long cold night in the empty departure lounge. Suku, thank God, discounted what this young man had said knowing that it is commonplace for people to speak authoritatively about something they know nothing about - in Incredible India! Also he was determined to locate the lounge and to open it if he had to.

So we sailed through security and found our bright and shiny lounge open and serving a dinner buffet. Not my fantasy lounge, but comfortable enough! We ate little since it was nearing midnight and we did not know how long the cooked dishes had been sitting on those warmers. All fresh salads were off limits given our paranoia over the water used to wash them, notwithstanding the locale. We then settled on our sofas. However sleep eluded what with the bright lights and the TVs all around that would not go off. When I finally dozed off for an hour, I was woken by the blare of loudspeakers in the airport relaying religious Sikh music of the Gurudwara Rahi singers - at any other hour of the day I would have been impressed. This would only happen in Incredible India!

At 4:30 am, famished, we made a beeline when they laid out the delightful breakfast spread. We filled our plates with idlis, 2 varieties of chutney and a bowl of piping hot sambar ( which tasted more like samburr), went back for paratha and a bowl of flavourful aloo baaji and yet again for finger sandwiches reminiscent of the colonial era. There was no room for fresh fruit, pancakes, eggs, toast, cereal or cookies. I downed a steaming hot latte over my titillated tongue just for that satisfying sooth of the hot liquid on the tingling tongue, brought on by the spicy food . Wait - was that a tiny critter on the plush carpet? Incredible India!

Ready and refreshed for the last leg of our journey to our Chennai destination, we started outside the lounge when the young girl making the announcements in her cheery voice at that early hour urged us to continue relaxing in the lounge till she announced the departure of our flight. Such customer service! We then walked through the massive airport with its atrium, shiny shops, restaurants conjuring up Indian street foods - pav baaji, chaat papri, a shop that peddled divinity, alongside another that sold wine and thought - only in Incredible India!

As we stepped off the airport in Chennai we noticed kitty corner, abutting it and without even a road separating the two, the familiar red and white stripes of a temple. Zoning? What's that? People rushed in and out with streaks of ash and vermilion on their foreheads, in bare feet, a beatific smile on their faces, uncaring of the heat, humidity, construction waste surrounding this recently opened airport. An attitude of curious smugness and self sufficiency, brought on by religiosity in the middle of chaos and squalor? That's the Incredible Indian!