I am

What am I passionate about? How do I want my ideal day to be? Why are these such hard questions for me? Is it because I am so dreadfully scared of searching or looking for what I am passionate about. Can we really find something that we are passionate about? Or, is it just my own vanity?

It seems to me that I can’t find it is because my passion is so personal, so treasured, and so protected that I do not want to bring to the surface lest it loses its validity and veracity. It’s so personal that I am extremely touchy about it. It’s so huge that if you analyze with your peanut sized brain - I won't stand it. Don’t’ ever say that it's stupid. Just hold onto it for now - as I brainstorm my ownself.

So this is what has happened. I have in a way forgotten what it is. It is somewhat like protecting or keeping away your precious possession – that mark-sheet, or that first love letter that you kept in such a safe place that no one can find it only to realize over time that you yourself have forgotten about where you kept it. With my passion - since the time I have forgotten, I don’t really know what I am living for. It seems I have been riding my horse called life in the direction the horse wants to go. And when it is going I don’t even know where the hell it is headed. I don’t want to stop, just ride along and smell the roses. Where it goes does not matter. I know it will dissolve into the universal cosmic dream.

Do I construe that I have nowhere to go? Or, am I too scared to sound preposterous or too ashamed to proclaim that my life has come down to food, ---, and silence. And any semblance to fulfilment of the possibility arounds these three axes is all that's there for me, all that I care about. That’s where my passion lies, that’s where my carnal desires lie, and that’s where my day begins and day ends. And to get to there, I am willing to put up with the fight. The daily chores - waking up, going to work, making a good name, pleasing others, and earning money. The rest is just a bouquet of derivatives, corollaries, and means to the end. What a sham human life is? What big actors we all are? We are something during the day – running to drive our existence a meaning and at night – like right now, all I care is a pathway to silence and that pathway comes through that heavenly gateway – the doors to which can only be unlocked by her divine grace. Right now, that’s where my passions are reeling and aching my forlorn body.

Read This

This is interesting! Read today's Tom Friedman's op-ed column http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/opinion/28friedman.html?hp

"It is the fact that energy, broadly defined, has become the most important geostrategic and geoeconomic challenge of our time — much as the Soviet Union was during the cold war...

Chernobyl – “Nuclear Power -Did I say - No Thanks?”

I did a ten minute scan in the web to see what the press covered on Chernobyl’s 20th anniversary. Even though it is not yet April 26 in US, I did not find too much being covered by the American media. In stark contrast, there has been a series of articles written about the “health-holocaust” in the European media. Different interest groups in Europe are using this occasion to refresh old wounds and to recreate this as that watershed event in east eurpoean history that led to the demise of the Soviet Union. Well, that is looking at this more from a political aspect. In words of Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievitch this was an example of “negative globalization” since the disaster broke all political boundaries of space, as well as time – since the health impacts still exist. Furthermore, they revisit how closed USSR was, how journalists were lied to, and how Gorbachev did not make a statement until nine days after the incident.

I am not so much interested in this aspect – not that I don’t care about nor do I want to belittle this event by oversimplifying the occurrence. But what I am more interested in is about the future of nuclear power and how to forward this debate in this country which seems to be getting closer to a dogmatic feud rather than a rational argument.

In my professional life, I have come across various opinions regarding the future of nuclear power. Ever since Bush came up with this renewed interest, the ardent believers of nuclear power have never been more optimistic than they have in the last 25 years. But then we have the critics. And by critics, I am limiting to the more rational bunch – not for example Greenpeace.

So what are the benefits of nuclear power that really stand as advantages? First, the marginal cost of producing nuclear power is cheaper than any other forms of electric power, such as from coal, or gas. So much so, in the good old days, when nuclear power was just rising above the horizon people said that it will be too cheap to meter. I don’t think it is totally true anymore but it is close. Second, it is clean. There are no environmental emissions. With Kyoto, CO2, and environmental groups pounding on greenhouse gases, this is a good thing. Third, it has got strategic importance in terms of national security because it reduces dependence on foreign oil. Now, on the side of disadvantages - first, the capital costs for building new plants are high. Second, there is always a potential for nuclear accidents that can have very serious consequences. Third, the waste disposal of nuclear spent fuel is up in the air and is a serious problem.

Given these issues, should nuclear power be promoted? The jury is still out on this issue. And the primary reason for that is people have not accounted for the right costs of various components that are critical in making a decision. For example the Price Anderson Act - which limits the liability of nuclear power companies in case a major nuclear disaster take place. Simply put, the risk is borne by common people like you and me. If we add a monetary component we are in a way paying for the insurance against a nuclear disaster. Now look from a different perspective – Bush’s energy policy is going to pump in tax payer’s dollars into the research program for next generation reactors and subsidize building new power plants through various Department of Energy initiatives. So you and I, the common taxpayer are paying both ways. Who gets to keep the profits – the power companies. Now the way power is priced, part of the capital costs are passed on to the consumer anyway and we pay that through our monthly bill. So how many ways you are paying for? Get the picture? To expect this modus operandi from a Republican government is something I can’t understand. While I do understand that the regulatory process for licensing a nuclear equipment is so expensive that the initiating costs are prohibitive, but how much of that burden a common taxpayer take? That's the question to ask.

The next big issue is about waste disposal. Once the nuclear fuel is used up, what remains is the spent fuel which is radioactive. Typically, for the last 20-30 years, power plants have been storing these in casks in their sites. Now, they are temporary storage sites and getting full pretty fast. As a permanent storage facility, Yucca Mountain in Nevada was selected. Now here’s the deal. The site has to be designed such that the radiation levels in and around that area should be acceptable for the next 10,000 years extended to 1 million years. This is a totally ridiculous timeframe. Who were we 10,000 years back – cavemen? The argument has lost rationality and has become more of Nevada not wanting this mess in their backyard. And as long as Harry Reid and others are there – boy, this will be tough to get passed this argument. The other option is to reprocess/recycle the waste. This is what France does. Not that it is very cost effective, but you know, they are French. The good thing is that they don’t have a waste disposal problem. One other option – is to dump the waste on some foreign land as long as they are being paid and willing to take this garbage from us. This will anger people like Noam Chomsky, and I am not sure whether that is a moral, or not but we all know how this country works. Moreover, there are security issues and who knows someone can make a dirty bomb.

Finally, the third big issue is safety which to my mind is the least disconcerting of all. There has not been a single accident even close to that of Chernobyl in US. The closest was Three Mile Island in 1979. Since then the industry has taken such drastic measures in safety that nuclear power plant is definitely one of safest places to work. Just imagine – not a single death in the plant ever due to any nuclear related accident. I don’t know which industry has a track record like that. But that does not mean, that errors or lack of oversight will be pardoned. Few years back there was close call in Davis-Besse nuclear plant, in which I got personally involved in. But overall, safety aspect has been pretty well covered by the industry.

I wish the debate goes on as I firmly believe that rational argument and debate is the basis of a free society and good decisions come out of dissent and argument. That’s something that we are proud of in this country, a far cry from the closed doors of Soviet Union that has to live through the nightmares of Chernobyl.

Is being light wrong?

Everything in life has to have a reason, is significant, and is worth examining. In other words, living for momentary beauty or pleasure is crass and bad. This view of life is so innate in me that there could be any other possibility simply doesn’t seem right. But after spending few years with someone, who was so unavoidably close, I am forced at least to ask myself this question. At the end, however, I find myself back to where I was, just a little stressed out, and just a little exhausted. Bruised but not broken. So is being light good or bad?

I am an ardent believer that life does not run in a one-dimensional absolute pathway. That’s the simple reason we have so many explanations for life, time, love, and other hard questions. So when I landed up reading this novel authored by Milan Kundera – “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” I sort of get a detailed perspective of weightiness and lightness.

Purely from my own personal context, I have been accused of – “why do you take everything so seriously”. Why do you think so much? Just to qualify seriousness a bit more, it is not that I don’t enjoy or have fun. But there is an undercurrent of an intense reason or dedication for every thing that I do. Even things that I do spontaneously, I need to go back and find a reason why I did so. Even my feelings typically have to have a rational basis. And the biggest irony is - at times the reason I give is – “It’s okay to be unreasonable.” Like calling up my dear friend at middle of the night and asking her out for a coffee. But until I do not have a basis – I just go nuts! This has its own share of consequences. There is a constant battle of heart and mind that I need to fight. My emotions at times lack clarity. I appear confused and indecisive. Yet that’s precisely what makes me, defines who I am, and expresses me. This is my weirdness. I think as human beings all of us are weird in our own ways. The sooner we embrace that part of ours the better off we are, overall.

As Kundera has described through a marriage of two polarities – the guy is light and the girl is weighty, and how such a relationship becomes a big torture. The guy is a philanderer, the girl is a dedicated soul – a lover of Beethoven, and has a purpose and belief in her existence. Hmm! Tell me about the compatibility part. Although the beauty of the novel was how the characters develop – the guy from being light gets diffused gradually by the weight from his wife and makes mends in his ways to be with her finally. The marriage will never be happy, it will always be a struggle, but they carry on. In real life, I guess, divorce is an easier option. I am thankful that I read this book, to get a historical and philosophical perspective that lightness is not necessarily bad, as I have always made that out to be. It is just another way of being just as weightiness is. And just as absolutes will never carry the day – being perpetually weighty or perpetually light is not going to be good either. But that’s an ongoing training and development as far as living my life is concerned.

Now this I write in a conceptual way. But I know that being weighty and significant is so ingrained in me that – that ain’t gonna change! Maybe, change incrementally over a long period of time. Growing and relishing my diet - Ayn Rand for lunch and Karl Marx for dinner - in my formative years, and beyond, I cannot expect to be light in any way. But it is interesting how the Greek philosopher Paremenides considered weight as negative many years back. And for now, I can simply marvel and rejoice – how many shades and how many different ways of living life exists in this beautiful world.

One of my favorites

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T.S. Eliot

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?

And how should I begin? . . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.


And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

My own Charlie!

My stay here in SF has been extended by four more days which gave me an unexpected luxury of a lazy saturday. And when I saw the day was simply - a la sunny California - something that I rarely saw for the last two weeks, I chose to take a walk. With the intention of killing two birds with the same stone, I thought of eating lunch outside. Little did I realize that the walk would be so long as I hopped from one block to the next, hoping that the door of the next restaurant will be open. I was in no mood of spoiling this rare time-off and started wondering how to make the best out of this potentially great situation which has started to turn miserable. In short, this seems to be the story of my life. So obviously, the question to ponder was - who would represent me or to whom or whose ideas can I relate to the most.

As I have always looked at myself as a bundle of contradictions - even in the most trivial matters, the biggest of all - of course is in the area of trusting an outcome. In this matter, when it comes to trusting people - I seem to be overly trusting to the extent that my close friends call me naive, immature, and impuslive. On the other end, the fact that I fundamentally trust people provides me this inherant strength that trust will lead me to success.

I don't know which is true. In my relationships with people, while I have been really blessed with very understanding, caring, and loving peers; in the area of my most intimate relationship, time and again I have come across abondonement, despair, and melancholy. And everytime, I take a knee-jerk vow - I got to be more careful next time. Why hurt myself? But will this ever work for me? I don't think so. I don't believe I can change much in this area. I am cooked.

And I know, for sure that I am taking this ride again. Future only knows whether I will get hurt. But to not take this ride would be a greater pain.

For the last ten years, I have resorted to Satre to explain the intricacies of several questions. And I watched almost all Woody Allen movies. The fact that it is very difficult to be a human being and the only way to fight against it is to live an active life looms over me. It has helped me to appreciate the power that resides in a human being to create his own life. Out of nothing. That finally we all die and life itself means nothing. Simply put - shit will always happen, but it is in my choice what interpretation I give. And whatever happens to me, I get to choose who I am being. Also, that I am the cause in the matter. In other words, responsible for my own outcome. So, if a relationship did not turn out the way I thought it would - I have got something to do with it. Who I am today is a function of my past actions and no one but I am responsible for this outcome. For example, I did not study liberal arts but engineering not because my parents did not give me a choice but because I did not have the guts to speak up for myself. For every action, or inaction; for every communication, or lack of; there are consequences to face. And when I chose to act, I inherently choose the consequence that comes with it. That has explained a lot of stuff for me. It has given me the chance of forgiving my ownself and opened the vista for a fresh new start.

While I can relate to Satre to a large extent, and he can explain my despair, agony, and distress very well, he cannot explain my optimism. That life is to live with the hope of rejoicing. So who can fill up this gap. None other than my dear Charlie Brown.

Charlie Brown lives in possibility. That beoynd abondonement and despair there is hope. It's not the trusted-friend-turned-backbiter-failure that kills me but it is that I can take ownership of that. Charlie Brown also explains why I can so easily give up "once bitten twice shy" approach to love, life, and everything in between. For fifty years, he has made a fool of himself in the baseball game. Why does he still go to pitch yet again? Why keep getting bashed by Lucy time and again? Because what happened in past does not necessarily will happen in the future. And this is the crux of life.

Charlie Brown gives me a liberating expereince. He inspires me to live by my own inner voice and rise up every time I fall. He makes life beautiful for me when others cannot.

Thank you for being my own Charlie.

A leaf flew from the past

I spent the large part of today's evening searching for G.V. Desani's "All About H. Hatterr" in all over the online stores. No luck! So just as my frustration was steaming up, my mind was flying from the bookstores of Nai Sarak to College Street with this rivetting conviction - "Had I been there, someone would have defintely got me a copy." And thinking about College Street, memories from years bygone rose up magically like the dead Lazarius. Random voices of the colloqialisms of Calcutta, hyperbolic chants of archaic Shakespere from my English class, and the voice of our dear Babus in the fish market all tied together in disctinctive cacophony.

And then as my fleeting mind punctuated, I got to see how things have changed. A part of my life with my surroundings and expereinces are not around me anymore. That's when I really know that I am growing old - when I realize that I have taken the train of life and left them behind in the station I grew up with.

Such an expereince that I got left behind is "Quizzing". The year was 1985, when cool Siddharth Basu visited our living rooms with Quiz Time and made quizzing a sexy pastime for my generation. By the time I was in middle school, my life was about reading weird facts and crazy theories. The urge to spit out the right answer in those 10 odd seconds took me to those dusty racks of my school library where hardly a sane soul would go. It introduced me to the history facts and figure, forced me read the daily newspapers, and expanded my eagerness to learn indiscriminately.

Time rolled by, and so did my passion grew. Calcutta was the place to be. Taking the tram to DI (Dalhousie Institute) and getting down at the "Quiz Stop"as it was colloqialised, Calcutta-style, just to register in yet another "open quiz". And there was our daddy - Neil O' Brien. In his typical manner he would say - "Back in the days of the Raj...." And then you know he is in his element. Other regulars were Francis Groser, Jug Suraiya, and Ramen "Ramu" Sen. My favorite was the Sportworld quiz. The prizes were hardly ever enticing. Who ever cared! Excitement was everything.

Where is that world now? Between "Weakest Link" and "Who wants to be a millionaire" I search for the spell that used to cast on me in those days gone by. Rather hopelessly! Quizzing as I knew, as I enjoyed, and as I had so dearly loved is a thing of my past. It's that mystical leaf that I have preserved in one of pages of my favorite book. I am complete with it. With that gone are those sleep-overs in friends' houses, the secret disapperance from the boring class -sit in the corner - roting those facts - getting caught by the Fr. George, and still be pardoned. And then when another quiz day came - that would the be-all and end-all of my existence. That's all history. Yet what remains is what once-a-favorite pastime has made out me. As Hercule Poirot would say - It's for "Those tiny little grey cells ... Mon Ami." And it also gave me the gift of reading and taught me the joy of winning.

Email is out of control!

"The towing company is here. There is blue Chevy in the wrong parking space and that will be towed immediately." Here is an email that was lying in my inbox. Though addressed to many - the fact that I bring this up, is obviously because that Chevy happens to be mine. I don't argue about the fact that I parked in the wrong parking space. I did not have time to find my assigned space - so as an ardent believer of "asking-forginess-better-than-asking-permission" philosophy I did what I did. But sending a towing notice via email! What sort of common sense is that? People have surely gone out of control with email. Come on - pick up the phone and speak. Why did you ask for three phone numbers - work phone, home phone, cell phone- in every damn form that I filled out.

Lately, this has been a common problem everywhere. At work, you ask someone about some information you were expecting. And there goes the reply - "I sent you an email yesterday." Da! Do you expect me to check my email 24/7. Don't I have OTHER stuff to do when I will be away from my email. Of course, many of us are living in Blackberry age. But come on - you don't expect me to become an addict, albeit the recent coinage of the term "crackberry" for those you have got hooked on to this gadget like crack addicts. I guess we are headed to replace 911 with email! "There is a fire in the basement." And hit the send button. I really hope this never happens. But you never know.

So be it! I don't read my email every second. Did my car get towed? Hope not! I chose to voice this before I go down and check the garage. And well - I won't be mad. After all it's all in a day's plan. Things like these add color to an otherwise drab day.

Oh Rain!

Another two weeks in the Bay area. And this time I chose to stay put mostly indoors, except for my walks to work. This time I have a studio apartment and the view through my window is absolutely gorgeous. The hazy gleam of the distant twilights from the skyline makes through - somehow - through the continuous drizzle.

Oh Rain!

I was born on a rainy day. That's what my parents tell me. So that's the obvious explanation they give when all my special occassions get washed away. That's why every birthday, less than half of my friends would show up. That's why it rained on my first date and had to cancel that lovely motorcycle ride - never to happen again. That's why it rained the day I got married and the day I broke up. The list goes on an on...

But this time, rain - I can just marvel at you. I dont hate you anymore, nor do I have any grudge against you. I am learning to be with you. Is it with you? Or, is it with my own self ?