Joi de vivre

What’s between love and life today? Longing, yearning, and excitement as the day for her return draws near.

Also, feeling playful –

What do I like about my life? My work, my friends, my books, my taste for good food, my kind-hearted parents, my bed, my shower, my education, my past, my travel experiences, my feelings, my thoughts, driving in interstate; that Einstein, Feynman, Almodovar, Bergman, Fellini, Piccasso, Spielberg, Monet, Kadinsky, Tagore, Ayn Rand, and many others came before me to this planet, that I am likable, …

What’s that, that makes me like my life now? That I am finding someone really special, Old town, DC, living in America, BART, Borders, B&N, Starbucks, my apartment, my home theater, Netflix, internet, cell-phone, car stereo, New York Times, 24 hours hot water, blogging, Chinese carry out, Whole foods next door, working with the who’s-who in America, …

It’s about the simple things that's running me – big time, and keeping me happy. And my life runs with simple things when I am enriched with some simple words - especially words of appreciation. Simple words give me life, energy, and vigor; they take away the swirl that I tend to create at times out of trauma, complaints, gossip, and exchanging notes whose problem is bigger - his or mine.

A simple “I love you” or “I do” puts me on steroids. When I say “I can” I feel I can get an elephant to dance. “You are hired” gives me the dream job. “I care” touches my soul. "I dream" can bring in a mass internal movement. “Thank you” can make breaking my back over a mountain worthwhile. "Sorry" has the power to make me forgive and forget any hurt that someone has caused. There is no dearth of these words … no scarcity - as long they are authentic, just like there is no scarcity for avenues to have fun, play, and joy in life.

Lofty philosophical thoughts can only provide insofar as I can unleash the power, joy, and the life of these small words. Else, logic and philosophy serves only for intellectual pretension; food for empty chatter giving us nothing in the end. And nothingness is a place closer to death; far away from life.

I love life, I love imagination, I love seeing the world with the joyous and playful eyes of a child.

Revisionist History

In the June 5^th issue of The New Yorker Adam Gopnik writes about current trend in revisionist history within the context of David Andress, new book on French revolution “The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France”. Talking about recent revisionist works, he says,

“Revisionism in history knows no boundaries. Just in the past few years, we have been told that that comet may have glanced right off the dinosaurs, prodding a few toward flight and feathers; that the German blitzkrieg barely meandered across Europe; and that Genghis Khan was actually a sharing and caring and ecumenical leader, Bill Moyers with a mustache and colorful folk costume.”

During the bicentennial celebration of French revolution in 1989, which also marked the fall of the Berlin wall, several divergent views of the revolution were heard. And with the slicing and dicing, still in vogue, the words of former Chinese premier Zhou En Lai seem prophetic – that it is too soon to give an opinion on the French revolution.

While it is beyond argument that the revolution unleashed complex thoughts; it marked an emergence of rational consciousness, rise of individualism; divided left vs. right, etc. – what interests me is how historians can follow a thread or a personality, create a perspective, and then expand it to explain the entire event and how popular opinion changes with them – time to time. Take for example, general opinion on Marx and Hegel.

The revolution had undeniable influence on both of them. Popular belief is Marxian economics is synonymous with socialism – meaning state owned enterprise, lack of individual rights, centralized planning, anti-capitalism, and anti-liberty. Marx drew his ideas from the French revolution and that fed to the Bolsheviks. As the Soviets grew in stature, so did the glory of Marxism - influencing few generations across the globe. Tremendous progress in science and technology was thought to be Marx's gift until "the wall" came down, and all of a sudden atheist Marx was contemplated to be burning in hell.

When Soviets were exloring the cosmos, the rest of world was drawn into Keynesian economics which encouraged big government involvement as the answer to the woes of great depression. Free-market proponents like F.A Hayek were ignored. In fact, it seems, he even avoided debating Keynes. Milton Friedman was not well-received for a long time. Then after the Soviet collapse, and demise of Marxism, one after the other, Nobel prizes for 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1993 went to Univ. of Chicago in celebration of monetarist economics.

With this onslaught on Marx, the former Marxist social economists could not be quiet for long. They said – wait a minute – let’s examine what Marx really said. And as it turns out that Marx himself was not Marxist. It seems he actually indicated that capitalism will grow into a world order; globalize commerce by trade and exchange. Much to the chagrin of those who think he was anti-globalist, he predicted globalization. He wrote that the need for a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe and by rapid improvement of all instruments of productions and communications draws all men even the barbarian nations into civilization. While the fall of Berlin wall brought Fukuyama to write End of History, devoted Marxians argued that the end is yet to come when the true freedom will be realized through interdependence. There are many countries in the world that have not reached the point - India and China are showing dynamic capitalism and Africa is stilll under feudal and mafia lords .

Marx may be passe' in western world, but his ideals will live on. Sixteen years later, Fukuyama, on the other hand, revised or had to keep explaining what he really meant. This continued through his recent book – “America at the cross-roads”. After all, he was influenced by Kojève who proclaimed himself as “Marxist on the right” – a rather uncommon breed!

Fukuyama also did one more thing – he glorified Hegel. But Fukuyama's Hegel and Hegel’s Hegel were not exactly the same. Hegel, shaped by "globalization" of his Germany by French revolution, gave an idea, a world-view where superstitions disappear; cultures grow more homogeneous; life becomes increasingly rational. As progress happened, he viewed mankind to become more aware of history and use it to his own advantage to reach the end when self-consciousness will become common and universal property of mankind. This made Hegel materialistic, individualistic, and any left leaning person would think twice before coming close to his thoughts for a long time. But not anymore – on rethinking he is found to have stated that individual cannot realize consciousness unless he internalizes within collective setup of a community or civil society, exisitng under the aegis of the state. In sum, he is neither a small government proponent nor a laissez-faire economist.

Even though, we are currently living in a world where unmindful obstinacy and inflexibility, as shown by many of our current leaders, are construed as strengths; and changing minds even in wake of life-altering events as “flip-flopping”, revisionist history is important since big events in history will have diverse opinions. But as Gopnik says whether revisions or rethinkers turn something flat into something three-dimensional or just hangs it on the wall upside down is the real question.

As he says, history is not to give us time, distance, and a sense of proportion. Whether you say “Once upon a time…” or “In 1789…” it was a long time back for us anyway – what difference does it make? Or, half a million people died, how it matters anymore. History goes beyond Hegel's view of following the life and stories of a few, those who are in lead roles, like a Bollywood movie. History is not about treating people as numbers. Great historians as he says, give us -

“ … a renewed sense of sorrow and anger and pity for history’s victims—for some luckless middle-aged Frenchman standing in the cold gray, shivering as he watches the members of his family being tied up and having their heads cut off. Read Gibbon on the destruction of the Alexandria library by the Christians, or E. P. Thompson on the Luddites—not to mention Robert Conquest on the Gulag—and suddenly old murders matter again; the glory of the work of these historians is that the right of the dead to have their pain and suffering taken seriously is being honored. It is not for history to supply us with a sense of history. Life always supplies us with a sense of history. It is for history to supply us with a sense of life.”

Cab ride to Ghana

I love taking the taxi-cab in DC. Invariably, I’ll meet a driver who will be from Russia, Ukraine, Sudam, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, or any of their neighbors. Last time, my ride from home to Dulles was a treat in real sense. Little did I know that the person who was taking me to the airport would turn out to be a chief of his clan back in home country – Ghana. He explained that he was living in US for more than 25 years. His children grew up in US and from what it sounded – they were similar in tastes and attitude to most of second-generation migrants. Now that they have grown up, he spends six months each year in Ghana.

To me there is no better way to learn about history and culture than through a conversation – through stories and experiences – ideally from the common folk. Reading books, monographs, and records come a distant second. Stories give a flow, a process. For with the water, the river also needs to be clealry visible. Facts, dates, figures, or anything that translates life into series of disjointed snapshots makes it too dry, boring, and disconnected. I love to see myself in that story – move with tides of emotion, pain, joy, and dreams. This trip gave everything that I could ask possibly ask for.

So, I started asking him about cocoa, and he mentioned how big his farm was, how much he has to manage and look after not only for his own farm but for other members of his clan. He has to listen to all the grievances from people and address their problems and concerns. And problems range from crops not getting enough care to someone is having difficulty finding a boy for his daughter. It was interesting to find out that the marriages were still mostly traditional arranged marriages. But he was a bit concerned that young generation don’t wait for their parents to determine whether he or she has come of age to get married. It seems in earlier days; it was unthinkable for someone to do so. I asked him if people ran away to marry, to which, he almost screamed, “No, that’s a big offense.” Why? Because it is important to do a background check to make sure that both parties do not belong to the same sub-clan.

He belonged to the Ashanti clan. I heard about the Ashantis before, the biggest clan who put up a brave resistance back in nineteenth century to the British before they succumbed after four wars and Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh was arrested. After Ghana won independence, 1957, the first African country to obtain independence, like the colonial history of many other African nations, there was a series of coups, when finally John Kufor took over. He is in his second term.

He said the people were extremely pleased with Kufor. He sang high praises for him. He said he was Oxford educated but came from a farming background and has his focus right. He took over a country with a poor economy. In cocoa, Ghana was once world’s leading producer and had slipped to fourth place, but Kufor brought Ghana back to first place. And he did this with very sound credit policy. He did not give hard cash as loans but machinery, seeds, and other necessary stuff in kind – which made sense and avoided the chance of farmers blowing the money away on other things.

From hard politics, I asked him about food and how he had fun. Boy! Did his eyes lit up! Palm-wine it was. He was glowing and his voice was up by few decibels, all excited, and for a moment I wondered - he better doesn’t lose his concentration off the road. He said, “I have two palm trees that no one can touch.” Palm wine is an excellent, slightly sweet dessert Wine containing only about 4% of a natural fermented alcohol. The sap is collected by tapping the African palm tree. This is achieved by making an incision between the kernels and a gourd is tied around to collect the sap which is collected a day or two later. Along with goat meat smoked under a bamboo mesh, and with people playing on the bamboo flutes, and dancing – well that’s the making of his party. It was clear for most people in this part of Africa, palm wine was their favorite poison drink. Every country has its own – that runs the lifeblood and to mess with it will be rocking the very foundation of their existence – Russians and vodka, Germans and beer, French and wine, Scots and Scotch, and Japanese and Sake.

Notwithstanding his praise for current president, he still holds his allegiance to the Ashante king Otumfoi Osei, who seems to be running a parallel ceremonial government.

The airport terminal was drawing near. And as I expressed my desire to visit Ghana sometime – he said he had plans to visit India two months from now. And then plans to go back to Ghana for good. As a typical African, his allegiance was where his ancestors were. He said, “My great-grand father asked me to be a chief one day.” It seemed his spirit beckons him every day back to the sounds of flutes and smell of cocoa.

While I stepped out of the cab, paying my fare, and as he helped me with my bags one more time, I wondered what would it be like when I visit Ghana. I may come across a village where I would find a familiar face, dressed in traditional colorful robe of a chief, surrounded by other folks, sipping Palm-wine in his own royalty. Will I be able to fathom that he once drove a taxi-cab in Washington for 25 years? For now, I wished him well and goodbye, and thanked him for bringing Africa closer to me.