I sit
I wait
I wonder how it's got so late
Words blocked
Voice stopped
They wrap me up from bottom to top
Mummified
Next life ride
Balanced with feather of wrong and right
Transmigratory soul
Trying out a role
Travelling space in all its cold
Golden case
A museum place
The records of our human race
Riches piled steep
Buried deep
Preparing for the next life leap
Inkwells run dry, as
Masks accompany gasps
People picked up like litter
And deposited like trash,
In detention centers made for profits
Despairing and vast,
Not for the good of the public,
But out of blustery political
Bravado,
By chest-beating chimpanzees
Playing out their fantasies
Of a world dominance hierarchy:
Blacks at the bottom rung,
Browns one step up,
Undocumented or not-
White supremacy isn't as far-flung
As the silent majority thinks,
Operating deep in the unconscious,
A test for our moral conscience,
Analyzable by a shrink?
Who am I to say?
I'm none of the above-
Half white-half brown,
American and Indian,
Still, with fair skin
Soon to witness,
the unity of Chindians,
And Planet Earth citizens,
Because when one nation and its enterprises
Own the whole world wide,
And the world wide web,
Where we watch, along for the ride,
When it's obvious who does most the work
On the immigrant and outsourced side,
It's only a matter of time
Before this world order crumbles
Because it's just not right
Signed-
Simple, sincere, and humble
-sanam manas
I read through the comments
Of people on Instagram
Going back and forth about what happened
In history,
Never without an agenda,
Even if that agenda is simply
To set the record straight.
Though…
Truth can’t be carved out of eroded valleys,
Which time has already coursed through
Leaving behind only fractions of remains—
And not the other great expanses of events
That time sweeps away unflinchingly
Without making any marks.
The geniuses you’d never have heard of,
The crimes left unresolved,
The billions of everyday experiences,
The mundane, the profane, the sacred,
The goings on until expiration,
Lost, forgotten,
Impossible to name,
Impossible to describe,
Out of sight and outside time,
(For all intents and purposes).
Here, then, I honour all that has been wiped away,
Deleted,
Carelessly or carefully
Or by chance,
Knowing that history is not too far from a sham,
As best as we want to remember the glorious pasts,
We hardly have any connection to
What preceded our grandparents—
Not that our grandparents would speak of the killings
They committed, in wars and in peace
Or the “spoils of war” they “claimed.”
History is more a tool than a science,
More our artistic creation than
Accurate observation,
A way of showing more than knowing,
Revealing what interests you more than
What actually occurred.
Because when you think you know something
About everything that has ever happened
You’re probably wrong.
Walking up the stairs,
The same stairs I’ve hopped, skipped, and
Pondered over, most of the vacations of my life,
My mind flashed to the happy scenes of pre-marital bliss,
Those first co-vacations,
The occasions
When photographs could not hide my joy,
My happiness, my
Gratitude—
Now bereft of
That source,
Who must be scattered far and wide even if self-contained,
Deep and vast and across dimensions,
As people of that caliber do not simply
Vanish from this Earth,
Even if living subdued lives,
I know,
Her impact reverberates…
Now thinking of my late uncle,
Who barely would have made it to 28,
if not for a sudden eviction from our realm,
In the hands of my forevermore-scarred aunt,
Disappearing and appearing,
In the numbers of his death anniversary,
13/1,
The role number of my ex-wife when she was in school,
The number of test matches played by my favourite cricketer,
The hours and minutes spoken to my long-lost soul-friend,
When I first revealed my true self to another,
Who hit me with the shock of loss,
Forever numb,
Deaf and dumb,
When she chose to end her life…
Now sitting up in the bed,
That those dark stairs lead up to,
The room in which so much fun was had,
An idyllic childhood of monsoon summers
And dark moods pervading an otherwise
Beautiful life,
Filled with every privilege and experience one could ask for,
Debts impossible to pay back to parents,
For their long-suffering patience and
Buoyancy of loving labor,
On we three kids’ behalf,
None the least for me,
And as I continue to live,
Half-child, half-man,
Drawing spontaneously,
Letting these words flow out,
Thinking over and over and over,
Of bygone days,
Finding myself with the challenge of establishing
Myself
In this city,
Where we all suffer,
Though I suffer less still,
This City of Joy,
I embrace with open and patient arms,
Hoping for a prolonged hug with this unique civilisation,
Enough to keep me charged for another day,
Another year,
Another life,
Starting now.
Grateful this Thanksgiving week for the Athens community, a special place in my heart that feels hard to part with, when Athens has taught me so much thru schoolyards, classrooms, bar patios, and the most blessed days when I could write and draw on my father's collegiate blackboards anything in chalk, easily eraseable with a puff of chalk dust, and in my mother's office at Nelson and Hill play a version of civilisation and Castle of the Winds on a now oldfashioned computer, keyboard, and mouse.
St. Mary's Hospital to my parents' and sister's loving arms, Parna's nursery, Athens Montessori for three grand years of playing duck duck go, singing "He's Got the Whole World, In His Hands"... playing on the old firetruck, the ropeway in the back, hiding in the overturned truck tire, breaking pecans with my shoes and learning tool use. David C. Barrow to follow, where we'd sing, "I love to go to Barrow school, to Barrow school I gooo, Five days out of every week, to Barrow school I goo," when we weren't singing the song with all the school sponsors named at school assemblies, where we received so much love from our teachers and Principal Wright, the unique moment of the 90s when multiculturalism was a blessed reality, shifting into Clarke Middle School and the joys of learning creatively, most of all in Mrs. Nagao's class, where I met future friends once we were separated from our Elementary school bonds in a haphazard way, thrown into the deep end of 9/11 on the TV in Mrs. Causey's class in 7th grade, Earl Ayers the bandleader teaching an entire class to play every single instrument single handedly, we in percussion pushing each other aside to get on that big bass drum or the snare and the cymbals. Bloody knuckles and Mossing each other on the playground, Yo Mama jokes that on this day I can understand the pain that could be inflicted on a peer if the joke hit home. Into high school where we all self-segregated into cliques, racial divisions in the cafeteria, College Prep, Advanced College Prep, and AP classes to divide us further. The humiliation of my peers having fallen behind in their studies and eeking out an existence far from the dreams of mothers and fathers envisioning their children going to college one day. Kids having kids and growing into the responsible parents as if it were destiny, wisdom I never have known. Dropping out of school and going on my experiments thru the woods, jumping over hedges, stacking chairs and trying to learn how to land...thinking I could feel the air to the degree to catch the winds and take flight. All foolishness, as were my many experiments with sound, sungazing, altered states of consciousness, and awakenings that had to be put to somnolence if not to sleep.
Leaving town for college at a private school on half scholarship, losing the connection to the peers who raised me in Athens, coming back to complete a masters in public health and a masters in social work, by the skin of my teeth, every year returning to a stupor once the delusions had been properly sedated.
All this to say, working at Advantage must be my finest moments here in town, not to mention my marriage of which books could be written, where I felt I was giving back to the place that has given me so much, teaching me empathy and compassion in action, and recalibrating my playlist back to soul, Indian classical, and far from gangsta rap, some ill-informed rock, too, and their lures. Listening to the lyrics deeply and changing my mind to change my environment. Changing my environment to change my mind. And as I now depart to another world city, with the heavy feeling that I did not do enough for Athens, I embark on opportunity for redemption and reconciliation, non-violent communication, empathy and conflict resolution, courage and commitment, conviction and resilience, adventuring into the unknowns lurking in the shadows of the known, to complete my task I began 19 years ago, and maybe earlier- to make known the unknown, to know the demarcation of these in myself, to know in others for all good intents and purposes, and to get into the ground, plant the seeds to grow this tree, this tree of life that I hope to see one day as the fruition of public health, the indefinite lifespan, free of fear for all-too-preventable death. Because as the logicians said: "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Socrates must die". Is it so unreasonable in this world of senolytics to dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? As I said in the beginning, so I will say in the end...seek no fame, no glory in the game, go against the grain, try to stay sane, entertain the untamed unnamed lion's mane, be Adam's outstretched finger, be God's brain.
The Best Days of my Life:
"some lessons are learnt too late"This pie we share, ever expanding,
Could be more gracious, less demanding
More generous and kind
On our neighbour's porches
More responsible and just
Like Polaris Northest
'Cause the value of a chart
Is not in its appearance
It's how it leads our way
As we think about experience
And as we think about ourselves
And the gifts we want to open
Made by Santa's elves
Or by aMMa's eloping
What diyas we want to light
In the core of darkest night?
I have a party to attend
I've got to catch this flight
What a world we could create,
With the rightest interest rates
This pecan, walnut, apple pie
Above the ground beneath the sky
Where percentages and ratios
Don't define our solo souls
But each person is heard
And no one is sold
Sweet and salted, gooey goodness
Gushy, crunchy, nutty hoodless
Gullible enterers of a gully narrow
Gulliver's travels of the mind's marrow:
Imagination will take you places
When you stop playing games
Stop running rat races
Put out the flames
(Dedicated to Jesus and the baker's dozen disciples)
Enjoyed the Athens porchfest festival is dupehar aur sham. Caught the whimsical early wisps of the hair at the nape of my sky friend in the form of a pinkish blue sunsetting, not on the phone but in my arbitrary access memory.
Chose wisely today after starting a quibble with my source, that was put out before it could trickle down like the water droplets that together constitute Victoria and Niagara Falls.
Remembering now the time I excitedly and chillfully fell down the steep stairs of a once haunted home, dropping the green ceramic plate covered with Choo Choos chicken and rice all over the last steps down to the landing. The yellow sauce and rices I had to handsomely clean up but my life was spared by an Act of God, unlike our home's predecessor, who drunkenly lived out her last moments falling down the very same stairs.
Public health announcement: falling down kills more individuals every year than lightning, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. Most people who are not homeless die in their homes.
Say what you feel to your loved ones, for no moment is promised. If you know me, I love you, and I wait every mindful moment for the refrain that will bring us home. Om Shanti Om
