Guts and Glory

The biggest, most sensational news that had taken the world by a storm most recently was, not quiet so astonishingly, equally celebrated and denigrated across the globe by millions of people at large.

Everyone had an opinion. Some quarters lambasted it as one of the most cheerful stories to come out of the west since the Obama victory – notwithstanding the heartaches and agonies of close calls and near misses over the last nine years that reminded the west that perhaps happy endings are sometimes only relegated to the story books. The general populace had years of nail biting to contend with until the fateful day that many thought might never come.

Naturally the royal wedding was a big affair. The fairy tale union of King of England, twice removed, and a coal miner's daughter (allow me the poetic license) was celebrated across the world. The BBC counts over four billion watched it live in their living room; give or take another few millions who watched it from the sidelines. The event was televised live for all to see with minute by minute updates – polished in its glory. screams and all. Clearly a day not to be forgotten; better yet, remembered from time to for all its sweetness and saccharine.

Contrast that to another fateful day that was simultaneously as long anticipated as it was given up on. Six people watched this live from the situation room; give or take another dozen or so watching on the sidelines. This event in particular was fed through a secured line from a helmet cam for a secretive bunch – rough and unedited, spilled guts, screams and all. 40 minutes that will probably live in the minds all its witnesses; revisited again from time to time through unanswered questions regurgitated for all its deception and darkness.

Interestingly I read a report on the Osama assassination that revealed that the word “wedding” in despatches of the Al-Qaeda signified a “bombing.” Talk about the ultimate irony in historical trivia.

Not to belittle the rather hollow US victory over terrorism – but the US walked into that war thanks to the misplaced bravado of a rich, spoilt Texan wildcatter and his callous, one-time inebriated, born again son (with possibly the JC complex). Americans should be forewarned that walking out was never going to easy as “kicking their ass,” because the killing of a Bin Laden does not amount to any “ass” being really kicked.

Had Bin Laden been captured and tried in an independent court, things might have been a little different but even then no “ass” would have been really kicked. As much as Bin Laden was hated we should mark Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's words when he cautioned that “returning hate for hate multiples hate.”

Bin Laden might be dead, and while some in America might find peace and still others court re-election, sadly America is no safer for it.

Let’s start from the top

I was smarter when I was younger, not to say that I am not smart now or that I was ever smart then but it just seems so.

I think my intelligence (over-smartness, in some people’s estimations) came from a unique sense of perspective; something, I’m sure, my poor parents probably had a tough time reconciling with over the years. One of my first memories from school was “geography” and “mountains,” which was also the source of a life altering epiphany for me.

Now kids those days weren’t expected to know all about mountains or valleys, but what they were expected to know was what the ideas were. I had the basic information down pat, smart kid that I was; spelling, however, was a completely different matter, particularly BIG words like “M-O-U-N-T-A-I-N.” Eight letters not sequenced in the manner that my young fragile mind had committed to only just a few years ago.

I would think that most kids would diligently sit at the table and recite the sequence until they had it right and could spell the word on their own; but not me. It occurred to me fairly early in the exercise that in a test that would ask me what a ‘mountain’ is, there was no way to get around it without actually spelling the word in the question! You ask me what a ‘mountain’ is; at least I know how it is spelt.

While this might seem simple and straightforward, it set in me a sense of work ethic that ensured that I not waste time on avoidable details. Interestingly my brain, now not compelled to remember rewarded me by quickly absorbing the information!

This in a way probably explains how a lot of great inventions, such as the discovery of penicillin or flight, happened accidentally. Sometimes you miss the forest for the trees and all that kind of gakooky. So incredibly by asking my brain not to remember, what my brain was doing was by remembering what I asked it to do it was actually remembering what I had asked not to! An epiphany? Let’s just call it a Talatism.

Simply said we pay too much attention on the details and not so much on the facts. Like the time I got a ‘C’ in history or geography when I was in the fifth grade, my father was irritable until I pointed out that we’d laugh at the test sheet in five years. Naturally he was not much amused at the time, but I am pretty sure that at the end of those five years my grade was duly forgotten let alone matter.

Like they say, “don’t sweat the small stuff.” It’s nice to also know that given the right perspective (and time) “everything is small stuff.”

Moments that fade

There are moments that spring to mind,
Distant memories
Of a time once ago;
That call us to tears or laughter.
Or perhaps to reveal
A silent, stolen smile from a lost moment.
Resonance of a simple note that strummed
In our heart the perfect chord

There are moments that leap out,
In inopportune flights of fancy.
A smile from a complete stranger,
Triggering recollection a familiar scent,
Etched in time and in soul;
A meaning lost to all but the beholder.
Resonating a simple note that stroked
Once in our souls the perfect chord.

Come such ebbing moments,
If only for the fleeting recollection
Of the begotten gains of a lost summer.
From a moment that was built
Upon another moment
In an endless cycle of forever more.
Truly the times are but moments that fade;
A once resounding perfection chord
Fading; a simple note no more...

- 28 September 2010

Finality

Winter woes in morning shine,
The fog of a misty blanket;
Covers the landscape
Like an uninvited vise,
That reminds of death
Amidst the cold icy fingers of
Finality

Nature who is the mother;
Once the serenade of warmth
And reason
Has abandoned the maternal touch
For a grip more persistent,
So that we may all take heed the knell of
Finality

Tis the nature of the beast.
When the warm calling goes unnoticed
It transforms in the indifference;
To a tone that cannot be overlooked.
A mother’s wrath awakened;
In the chilling reality of
Finality.

The mother that once soothed and cared
Raises her tranquil veil,
To reveal the withered breast
And the battered heart that lies beneath.
The unsteady pulse of the heart beat
Tired and wavering to that last shaken throb of
Finality.

Is it too late mother?
Or has the last feather been cast off?
The camel in its might has relented
And Atlas grows old under his wretched load
Can there be hope for redemption?
Or has the gong been set for its last sob of
Finality?

Neither a cry nor a moan belated
Seems to soothe the pained mother;
Gone cold in a reluctant revenge of her neglect.
Alas, the mother that once coddled and cajoled
Is of the temperance of wit’s end and
Finality.

But a mother a mother be
And cannot look beyond the dreams
Of her children nor leave them
Whence they plead for a second chance.
But the battered spirit is weak
And tired limbs ache to let go to
Finality

Perhaps already too late
Is where we stand in the equation;
A silent protest is all we can offer
Since a weakened mother may not revive
In her spirit of yester-bygones, but
Only ready to greet the peaceful resignation of
Finality

The rhythmic pulse of regret,
Reconciliation and reluctant realization
To the frailty of our circumstance
We are not too late!
We are too late?
Perhaps only just not too late for
Finality.

- 13 February 2010

Wind chimes of reason

The silent breeze speaks but in a whisper
A soft waft of air that rings the chime
Teasing it to let out a tortured breath
Short, succinct like an escape of a forbidden moan

What does it all mean?
When meaning lies hidden in sounds
That betrays the passion of a whisper
In the absence of a whisperer…

The mind plays simple games
With an unsure conscience
A gentle reminder to a summer’s frolic
And an all too quick, stolen fondle

When the winds change direction
Or grow in gusty strength
It forsakes all modesty
To the greedy eye that lustily gazes

The mind begins to make slow sense
Of sounds that has been stringed with conditions,
Like a pampered pretender’s knot
Which belies false intentions and honest mistakes

When the silent breeze raises it voice
In the brute clanging of fornicating chimes
At these times sudden recollections give way
To bare naked realization of circumstance

Time is ripe for ritual surrender
For after-thought and retrospection
Cloudy hesitation giving way to clarity
When the pulsating air flushes out all confusion

As the breeze sighs its retreat
And the air stands to attention
It leaves behind an imagined echo
The released, final moan of the tired chimes

- 1 November 2009

The truth about democracy… Bangladesh style

As the dates 18 or 28 were in the air, it seems we may have settled with 29 (at least for the immediate meantime). I fear that another number may juggle itself into the circus that our political arena has become – only question is whether it will it be a 12 or 1?

One thing that looks so certain but doesn’t get said is that December or January, whichever way it plays out we need to find the right month (and date) when both parties can win. The point that these highly-intellectual advisers of the present interim (albeit, comfortably stretched) government and the appalled people in the Election Commission is missing is that in a reformed democracy – such as the kind we are hatching in Bangladesh, under the auspicious guidance of Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Begum Khaleda Zia – it is only a democracy when their respective party wins… which is what the ‘janagan’ wants in the first place.

Simple.

Now this situation would obviously baffle the average thinking person, who is clearly by that definition not part of the ‘janagan.’ So the time is right, again, for the average non-thinking person – the ‘janagan’ – to bring the party back in power.

It would seem that the very fact that we are looking at shenanigans (for want of a better term) that are slowing down the transition to the democratic process in the name of democracy is ludicrous to the nth degree! But that is only true for the average thinking person – but since the ‘janagan’ (which the average thinking person is not a part of) is ‘evolved’ and inline with reformed democratic principle, this delay is part of the evolution.

The simple heart of the matter is that should Party ‘A’ win the elections, it is not only a reflection of the resounding ‘people’s voice’ through the democratic process, but alas reason enough for Party ‘B’ to claim vote rigging and deem the results unacceptable as the ‘people’s voice’ has been stolen! This process is not discriminatory in any way (hence its ‘evolved’ incarnation) on which party actually wins, because the roles (as defined in by the reformed, evolved democracy rules being hatched, and only just being understood, in Bangladesh) are interchangeable. Simply put, should Party ‘B’ win instead, and bark the virtues of the democratic process that has anointed them crediting the roar of the people, it is now accepted (in fact, expected) that losing party can cry foul!

The difficult task at hand, for the perpetrators of the elections is finding a date when both parties can win and claim the prize. Again to the thinking person, it would be difficult to imagine such a possibility, which is why the country needs to go back in the hands of the non-thinking person for the sake of the ‘janagan.’

It is a moot point that it only is because it is the ‘people’ who are corrupt and underhanded, that our misunderstood leaders have entered into the muck and grime of corruption to sway the people back from the dark influences. Our misunderstood leaders have defaced their pure character for the love of the people. Only now is it evident that the very politicians that we have thrown in jail for corruption are the very politicians that are our true saviours – clearly they have proven their virtue and sincerity by the number of times that have performed the sacred Hajj (again for the blessing of the long suffering ‘janagan’ against the intellectual tyranny of the thinking person).

That we have been blessed by the gracious acquiesce of the apa of one party against a backdrop of defiance of the madam from the other is but democracy at work. Hartals, strikes, the ability to take up arms and sharp implements, burn cars and create havoc on the streets are only manifestations of an evolved democracy at play; the fragile democracy of opposition and mayhem, against the sinister plot for complacency and parliamentary debate. After all, our valued leaders have been elected to represent their god-ordained interests on the streets (that the ‘janagan’ wishes them to have) rather than debate in the interest of constituency and Constitution. Only a fool still clinging on to the misguided virtues of western-style democracy would think otherwise.

History has taught us that strikes and bandhs have pushed the British, and then the Pakistanis, out of the country… it has been these true and tested political tools that have subjected governments to topple and crippled their economies. Any one knows that a government that claims itself as pro-people and patriotic would rather step down than subject the economy to any more battering! A test by acid, indeed; one that subsequent governments have been put to test by the worthy opposition but have failed, to their shame.

The nation has had to suffer over the last two years, first the price of essentials were allowed to escalate beyond what economics would have us believe (because the government has allowed syndicates from BOTH parties to rule the markets and profit – when it was clear by the parties concerned that only ONE should have been allowed to); the country has passed in a state of emergency, and has proven difficult for a restless (jobless) people, accustomed to spontaneous mayhem on the street and blocked roads, to send their children to school and not have to worry about untoward incidents – to say nothing about no loss of the work week! (Thankfully, the all-supportive ‘janagan’ has risen to the occasion and created a bit of havoc once in awhile.)

But seriously…

The country has undergone several piecemeal changes – to debate the good or bad of those changes is irrelevant at this point, more so because after all the changes and reforms we are exactly where we were. I see no reason that the heads of the respective parties can still hold a nation to ransom owing to the ineptitude and cowardice of leader-followers who should know better.

Both leading parties have experienced politicians who probably have more political acumen and depth than the leader they wish to follow… yet for some inexplicable reason (hardly that really, since they are in it because they want to be ministers and feel that the legacy of the great departed leader runs far richer than their collective contributions to that legacy), they toe the line.

What is fascinating is that despite the allegations of corruption against these leaders, the time they have spent in jail on account of those allegations, has paradoxically, brought them back from political death. Suddenly we have them calling the shots again – with one only backing the present government and the elections because she thinks that she will win and the other protesting against an uneven playing field and calling to defer the elections simply because she thinks that she will lose.

To make matters worse we have them both trumpeting that the rules of the games – which allowed the morally and socially corrupt to contest the elections – remain unchanged in the name of democracy and fair play. What is more fascinating is also that now BOTH leaders are suggesting possibilities of vote rigging! (This may be of course to account for why they may lose the elections – after all it can’t possibly be their fault – and so that the people are prepared to see democracy at work and the streets are on fire immediately after the votes are in.)

In the end, whether it be 18, 28, 29, 12 or 1, however the numbers are juggled, sadly (as far as this thinking man is concerned) the ball is destined to fall but the circus is far from over.