Northern Lights

Back in the 1980s, Misha (which translates to bear in Russian) was the most popular children’s magazine in India published in English. Within its glossy pages, you were treated to folk tales, science fiction, riddles, photographs, pen pal sections, puzzles and illustrations. As an added bonus, it smelled awfully good. Unfortunately the collapse of the USSR spelled death for many Soviet publishing houses (Raduga, Mir and others) and Misha soon became extinct. For years I searched for magazine back issues in second hand stalls all over Bombay finding a tattered copy every once in a while. Even expert book sellers who run bazaars such as the ones in the Fountain area hadn’t heard of the magazine. In the beginning of 2003, I found a man on the footpath selling old novels and as I have a nose that is particularly sensitive to valuable and out-of-print literature, I spotted or rather, sniffed a stack of Mishas containing nearly every issue that had been published. At that time I had 120 rupees with me, (roughly the equivalent of 2.5 dollars). I offered the man 100 rupees and he happily gave me the stack without making me resort to haggling. Even If I’d had a 100 dollars, I’d still have given it all to him. The seller had no idea how rare the magazines he was selling were. They were moreover in excellent condition with barely a few creases here and there. No dog eared pages, no silver-fish damage or greasy stains. Now that I am in Springfield, I’ve entrusted the magazines with someone who will provide a good home for them till my life becomes less nomadic. I really have no idea how much the magazines are worth and don’t plan on ever selling them. How could I sell something knowing that it is priceless.

Palace Walk (1917-1919)

We are introduced to Al Sayyid Ahmad Abd Al Jawad, a conservative patriarch and his family-Amina, the subservient wife who doesn’t dare lift her eyes to her husband despite his debaucheries and iron rule that keeps her in house arrest. Fahmy, the law student whose nationalistic fervor makes him stand up against the British and who, when the novel is about to reach its conclusion, breathes his last. Kamal, a courageous young boy with the spunk to make friends with the enemy and who is devoted to his sisters. Yasin, Al Sayyid Ahmad’s first son, whose mother he divorced. Aisha and Khadija, sisters with temperaments and looks that are very different and in contrast to one another. Khadija with her mediocre looks, acerbic tongue and petulant ways. Aisha, with her god-given beauty, impeccable manners and mellow nature. Umm Hanafi, the servant of the Al Jawad household who has been with the family long enough to become an inseparable part of it.

Al Sayyid Ahmad is a devout Muslim whose hypocrisy permits him to set different rules for the women of his household and for the courtesans who add to his bacchanalian revelries characterized by music, wine and promiscuity. During the day, he manages a grocery shop that permits him to flirt every now and then. Seldom does a harsh word or an inappropriate phrase pass his lips when he is with anyone who is not a family member. In him we see something of a split personality: A reticent and short tempered disciplinarian who in his house, will not brook nonsensical or unnecessary talk and outside, a witty and loyal friend whose eloquence with language and passion for life endear everyone who comes into contact with him. Although a thick wall prevents his family from taking part in this lighter side of his personality, they nevertheless greatly revere and love him and just as love of god doesn’t make them less god fearing, love for Al Sayyid Ahmad doesn’t make him less fearful in their eyes.

When Al Sayyid Ahmad leaves on a business trip to Port Said for a day, Amina is torn between her desire to visit the mosque of Al-Husayn, a descendant of prophet Muhammad, and her obedience towards her husband. On the insistence of her children, she eventually succumbs to her desire and decides to visit the shrine with her son, Kamal. On their return from the mosque, a car knocks her over and she is brought back to the house, unconscious. With one arm in a cast, she is afraid that Al Sayyid Ahmad will find out about her secret excursion to the mosque but her children persuade her to cover up the incident with a small lie that she broke her arm in the midst of a household activity. Unable to bear the lie, whose magnitude is magnified to gargantuan proportions by her conscience, she confesses to Al Sayyid Ahmad, telling him everything that happened. At first, Al Sayyid Ahmad doesn’t respond. He at once seems forgiving and large hearted but once Amina recovers, he sends her away, much to the children’s’ grief, to her mother’s house.

Meanwhile, Aisha receives a proposal for marriage and this intensifies Khadija’s jealousy and fears that she will remain a spinster forever. The occasion however, gives Al Sayyid Ahmad a chance to forgive his wife’s grave misconduct and invite her back, though not in so many words and Amina, whose love and respect for her husband only increase due to this sudden act of benevolence, is only very happy to be restored to her children at Palace Walk. Soon, Khadija receives a similar offer from the brother of the man who proposed to Aisha and the two sisters become destined to live under the same roof for the rest of their (which is however not the case owing to a tragedy at the end of Palace of Desire, the second book in the trilogy) lives.

Yasin, who resembles his father the most in having inherited his looks and his interests, suffers from an unquenched lust. Seeing him suffer, his father marries him off to Zaynab, the daughter of a friend. For a while, Yasin savors marital bliss but when his nightly wanderings and spirit of celebration upset his wife, making her pour out her frustrations to him, he is soon disillusioned and confides this to Fahmy, his half-brother. What seems unfair to Yasin is the discrepancy in the treatment accorded to him by his wife, Zaynab and that accorded to his father by Amina, his step-mother.

After Aisha’s marriage, not unintoxicated, he makes a move on Umm Hanafi on the terrace and owing to the latter’s screams, is discovered by Al Sayyid Ahmad before he can fulfill his mission much to his terror and shame. This serves as a catalyst to precipitate the collapse of the already weak molecular structure of his matrimony and soon, Yasin finds himself divorced. Amidst this, Zaynab bears his child in her womb.

Fahmy meanwhile, is crushed by his desire for Maryam, the neighbor’s daughter, with whom he carries on a secret affair consisting of glances and expressions as meaningful and promising to him as intermittent light signals are to a firefly in search of a mate.When the terrace is out of bounds to either of them, Kamal plays the role of a messenger in that he passes on Fahmy’s requests to Maryam and takes back Maryam’s innuendos to the anxious Fahmy. Al Sayyid Ahmad however refuses peremptorily when Fahmy asks for his permission to request her hand in marriage, an action which the former would regret for the rest of his days.

Despite his father’s protests, Fahmy continues to take an active role in protesting against the tyranny of the British rule. Here is the suggestion that Al Sayyid Ahmad is a metaphor to the British occupation of Egypt and Fahmy, just as he couldn’t assert his freedom in his house, couldn’t assert it in his country either and the loss of Maryam is an apt harbinger of the loss of his life.

The experience of most of my fellow students who have traveled via Greyhound, the largest inter-city bus transportation service in the United States, has been harrowing to say the least. Their complaints are not so much owing to the ineluctable delays that easily turn a 15 hour trip into one of 20 or more hours but to the poor quality of passengers who frequent the Greyhound: Alcoholics, Black and Hispanic gang members, pick pockets, ex-cons, Prostitutes etc., As a result, the Greyhound is often considered to be the last resort and treated as an extreme measure.

In my own opinion, the Greyhound is not only the most economical means of transport but also the most enriching in terms of the exposure it affords to the diversity of people from all backgrounds, places and strata of society-illegal immigrants,

war veterans, ecclesiastics, illiterates, pregnant mothers, spastics and those with all states of minds: the exuberant drug  addict, the morose step-son, the aviophobic entrepreneur or the discombobulated schizophrenic. True, the GH cannot be recommended for professionals who are rushing to meet deadlines or a potentate who bears sensitive information that could cripple the world if it is lost, but for the not necessarily inveterate traveler who is willing to put up with minor discomforts like seats that don’t stretch back, belching co-passengers fattened on American fast food, or frustrated conductors, and a few major risks like digesting a bullet or facing the wrath of a neo-Nazi whose sensitivities are hurt by your pedigree or rather, the perceived lack of it, the GH could turn out to be the most lucrative option.

My state of penury, on account of having decided to renounce a scholarship in order to flee from the industrial city of Beaumont to a relatively unknown place in the mid-west called Springfield, which apparently may or may not have anything to do with The Simpsons, compelled me to purchase a ticket on the Greyhound. Since I availed of the early purchase offer, the ticket price amounted to just 60 dollars (If I’d taken a flight, it would’ve set me back by at least $ 150). The downside was that I’d have to change buses four times: In Houston, Dallas, a destination in Oklahoma whose name I cannot remember and finally, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ten days before my scheduled departure, I sprained my foot at someone’s birthday party and if not for the help of an African nun who was a nursing student and a Syrian Christian from Kerala, I’d have succumbed to the pain which was alleviated to some degree due to the Ibuprofen tablets I was generously offered by the former and the moral and physical support I got from the latter who did everything from laundering my clothes to accompanying me till the bus station at 12:00 am. The incident that unfortunately presented itself while we waited for the bus to arrive all but made me reconsider my plan and cancel my trip: An SUV pulled itself into the parking lot of the station and a distraught man, who was made to exit the vehicle by his lover for some unknown reason, possibly a lover’s tiff, jumped onto the bonnet and although I was mortified, my voyeuristic impulses made me take a keen interest in the current happenings of that godforsaken night as there were repeated exchanges of profanity: “Fuck you bitch, you can’t fucking drive away from me, I’ll fucking kill you!” and she in turn, “get the Fuck off my car, and take your ugly ring with you” and he kept saying “stop the car, do it you whore” and they flipped each other simultaneously and in turns. As the girl tried to pull away from the parking lot, her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend lay supine on the bonnet, his middle finger raised to her face. He lay there, finger still frozen in the humid Texan air, till two policemen with batons made him take off and the only thing we heard was,

“get back here you!” and the sound of running feet. Thus, my initiation into Greyhound was complete. The bus arrived at around 12:45 am and through my window, I could see the delinquent lover being led away in handcuffs. The rest of the two hour ride to Houston was uneventful and I kept exchanging grins with my Latin American neighbor in the dark. Contrary to what I expected, the atmosphere in the bus remained tranquil. I was more concerned about my passport and other documents and the laptop which was inside my suitcase in the hold below than my swollen foot. In Houston, I was given preferential treatment on account of my condition and offered the first seat on the bus reserved for people with disabilities. I didn’t have to worry about my luggage since it’d be taken care of by the officials.

The best thing about the Greyhounds after the price is the lavatory which is located in the rear of the bus. The atmosphere is also noise-free due to the absence of TVs and before departing, the driver introduces himself and makes announcements much like an air plane pilot.

Good evening passengers, thank you choosing Greyhound. The journey to so and so will approximately last these many hours. It is my duty to remind you that smoking is prohibited on the bus at all times and for the well being of your fellow passengers, it is requested that you don’t remove your footwear. For your convenience, the lavatories are located in the rear of the bus and if you have questions, please feel free to approach me.

At Dallas however, my special privileges seemed to have been revoked as I had to wait in a long queue in order to board the bus, taking care to exert only the slightest weight on my swollen foot. To my relief, I spotted an Indian in the neighboring queue. After a quick introduction, I learnt that he was a doctor who was on his way to Michigan to pursue his residency. Seeing my stork-like posture, he enquired if I’d been taking something for my foot and then recommended that I double my current dosage of Ibuprofen which was then, my best and only friend.

For once I was inside the bus, passengers were jostling for a seat and when I approached the conductor with a plea to be given the reserved seat, he quickly pointed out to me the absurdity of my request since my foot was injured and not disabled. Hence I had to brave my injured but not disabled foot through the hordes of passengers till I arrived at the only vacant seat in the bus into which I dropped in relief. My neighbor was an obese Mexican whose flesh encroached into half my space and a simple request to make him readjust his voluminous self resulted in a peremptory “no”. By morning, the bus was speeding through Oklahoma and the landscape had changed from industrial to rural. The air outside had taken on a reddish hue and it suffered my imagination to picture the lives of the inhabitants inside these houses that offered little resistance to the dreary solitude exuded by the soul-less tree-less region littered with cemeteries and lack luster pebbles which made it seem like a breeding ground for vampires. If ever I had to live there, my soul would eternally toss in its grave. Meanwhile, the Mexican had all but dislodged me from my seat and I realized that even if his expanding flesh didn’t push me onto the floor, the force of his snoring certainly would. Seeing my tragicomic plight, a black lady in the other aisle kindly pointed out to me an empty seat in the rear. Once I shifted place, I closed my eyes and dreamt that we were passing through a sand colored tornado when the driver announces that a delay of 16 hours is to be expected but we owe our lives to the fat Mexican whose weight anchored the bus, preventing it from being sucked into the vortex of the twister.

At Tulsa, my lost luggage hurt me more than my injured foot. I was given re-assurance that it was only being transported in another bus which had most likely been delayed. Since it was Christmas time, the bus stop was crowded with passengers traveling to different places to spend the holiday with their loved ones. Already, the air was colder than it was in Beaumont and I dreaded to think how miserable the weather would be in Missouri. The last leg of my long journey however passed without incident. I was sharing my seat with an elderly lady who was traveling to New York through Missouri to meet her daughter. Around us were other elderly couples, some children and a teenage girl who was curious about my place of origin. When I told her I was from India, she regarded me with an air of delightful curiosity at meeting someone from somewhere that was beyond the reach of any Greyhound. Perhaps it was the Xmas spirit or maybe these were just nice people, but they accepted me into their fold as if I were their co-passenger for something which might be longer in duration than an ephemeral 6 hour bus journey. When the Greyhound finally pulled into Springfield, it was about 9 PM-the 16 hour journey had stretched to 21 hours. Strangely enough, I wasn’t very fatigued and I’d even forgotten about my injured foot. My suitcase arrived the following noon, as intact as it had been in Beaumont.

It wasn’t until a year later that another opportunity came to travel on the Greyhound when my cousin invited me to visit her in Wisconsin. Before boarding the bus for the first leg of the journey which was till St.Louis, I took the “alcohol prohibited aboard the bus” regulation as seriously as the ones prohibiting fire arms and drugs and trashed a nearly full bottle of Bacardi Rum. As usual, a motley crowd was gathered at every bus stop. The people who really stood out were a haggard looking lady who stomped about in her high heels with frustration etched on her features and whose dressing and make up suggested her profession and an Amish family whose members wore a most peculiar and orthodox garb and spoke a weird tongue that I later learnt was a dialect of German called Pennsylvania Dutch.

Although I didn’t exchange more than a few words with them which were confined to bus schedules, it didn’t take much perspicacity to understand the gentle temperament of these fine people who constituted a unique subculture that rigorously adhered to the principals of Anabaptist Christianity such as being simple in dressing, avoiding modern conveniences such as cars and electricity and eschewing any form of violence. No doubt they were anachronisms upholding the traditions of their ancestors in a society that aims to assimilate all cultures into it.

In Chicago, I met some Nepalese who were heading to Washington to do illegal work. One of them had just returned after finishing a cigarette and exclaimed that some black men had tried to sell Marijuana to him. He generously offered his cell phone so that I could tell my cousin that the bus was delayed and while parting, we exchanged numbers just so that we might be of use to each other in future. After boarding the bus, there seemed to be no vacant seats left on it and since traffic regulations prevent passengers to travel standing, I thought I’d have to take the next bus which might not be arriving for hours. Fortunately, I located a seat in the last row or rather; two seats were being occupied by one woman who initially protested that there was no space but relinquished when I insisted that I had no choice but to squeeze into that seat. I shortly learnt that she had been traveling for three days in a stretch since she couldn’t afford paying holiday prices for flight tickets to Canada, which was where her final destination was. I wondered how anyone could travel on buses for three days without losing one’s sanity and commended her on her will power.

On my return journey, I eavesdropped on some interesting conversation while I waited for the bus to arrive. The first involved a man who was engaged in an intense dialogue with someone about rock music and how it was no longer alive. Unfortunately, the details of that conversation escape my poor memory but I still don’t know what withheld me from jumping into it since I was at one time, a great aficionado of rock. Subsequently, the man departed and another dialogue resumed between a boy whose arm was in a sling and an attractive young lady who was being told how the other had recently been arrested for driving under intoxication. These people who had been strangers just a moment ago were now opening up to each other as the girl shared with him the story of how she had borne twins at the age of sixteen through her relationship with her boy friend three years back. “They are really beautiful baby girls and I will never say they are mistakes or anything although their dad is a real creep”, she confessed. What I realized then was that I was suddenly making contact with the other, un-ersatz side of the American coin: The America of the people whose voices are the weakest. The America of the vulnerable. Of the ones who, in all likelihood, would never realize the American dream despite being born Americans. Of the natives who are more ostracized than the foreigners.

As the two struck up a friendship and were engrossed in each others’ life and love stories, I found myself seated next to an elderly gentleman with oriental features who looked as old and fragile as a letter. What wasn’t so obvious however was the stoical nature concealed by his wizened exterior which had kept him alive for so long notwithstanding the terrible events that had transpired in his past. He began by telling me that he was an exile from Burma (now Myanmar), working as a chemistry professor at the University of Arkansas. He was forced to quit his job in Rangoon since he was a partisan of the NLD (National League for Democracy), whose leader was the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Aung Sang Suu Kyi.

Having read the latter’s autobiography, “Freedom from fear and other writings” several years ago, I had a vague idea about the political struggle in Burma against military dictatorship. Through his own contributions to the movement against tyranny, the professor knew Aung San Suu Kyi personally. As the night aged, the professor revealed staggering details about his life in slow installments. He hadn’t seen his family in ten years. All attempts to transport his loved ones to the United States had failed. Through letters from Burma, he learnt that one of his sons was refused admission into every university there. The other son fled the country and after a few years of hardship caused by poverty and ill health, perished. The possibility of returning to Burma was entirely ruled out for the professor since he’d be jailed and tortured upon his return for illegally exiting his country and for taking part in subversive activities abroad. Hence, I wondered what he lived for. In his place, I would most certainly have admitted myself into an asylum. Even if what was left of his family eventually did join him in the states, that would neither save him from impending death nor fill the void created by years of painful solitude. Moreover, majorities of the Burmese who come to American shores are refugees like him and they are scattered everywhere. Once or twice in a year, these children of strife meet in an annual convention to discuss issues that pertain to Burma and to find solace in each others’ company. I asked the professor if he still remembered his son. He replied, “What is the use, he is afterall dead”. The following noon when the bus reached St.Louis, I saw the professor for the last time, standing in another queue. I went up to him and got his email address so that I could correspond with him but that never really happened.

On the return journey, I sat beside a Russian from Siberia named Volga who had great difficulty communicating In English. She frequently had to pull out her dictionary to look up words she didn’t understand. I admired her courage for traveling all alone to an address on a slip of paper of an employer she had never met. Coincidentally, I had a Matryoshka doll

I bought in a Russian store in Wisconsin and when I showed it to her, she squealed in delight. Then, I suddenly remembered the adage of a picture being worth a thousand words, removed my laptop, and accessed the Encarta photo library which was saved on my hard disk. Till we reached Springfield, I showed her photographs of her part of the world, then of mine and then of the American landscape.

I volunteered to show her around Springfield (though I had no idea how since I didn’t have a car back then) and introduce her to the student community where she could find someone from Russia but seeing her diffidence, I didn’t persuade her any further.

To conclude, it’s been almost two years since I last traveled on the Greyhound. Although I find myself in better financial circumstances, I wouldn’t hesitate using the service again; rather, the Greyhound would be a better choice for me than driving alone on the inter-state highways. For anyone interested in obtaining a glimpse of the social fabric of America, its many faces and voices, a Greyhound journey  might just prove invaluable.

Although stringent laws against racism seek to prevent attacks that are overly racist in nature, they do little to extirpate the scourge of ignorance which is largely responsible for the xenophobia prevalent in the mid-west. As an international, I have on several occasions experienced that “out of place” feeling that if a sociologist researching on racism were to ask me to recommend someplace to put her theories to test, it would be difficult for me to suggest a more suitable laboratory than Springfield, the third largest city in the state of Missouri, where I’m a student.

Demographically speaking, 91.69% of the inhabitants of Springfield are white, 3.28 % are African American and the rest comprise other races such as Asian, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific Islander. Compare this with larger and more cosmopolitan cities such as Chicago (36.39% white, 31.32% Black, 26.02 % Hispanic, rest-other races), St.Louis (51.2% Black, 43.85 % White, 1.98% Asian) and Houston (49.27 % White, 25.31 % Black, 5.31 % Asian American) to get an idea of why the adjective “white dominated” is frequently used to describe the racial make up of this city. The reason for the miniscule percentage of African-Americans lies in history: In 1906, three young African-Americans were falsely accused of molesting a European-American woman and lynched and burnt alive on the town square by 6000 mobsters who carried away dismembered parts of the victims’ bodies as souvenirs. The incident put to rout most of the remaining Black populace and the demographic balance was permanently upset.

Even in this age of technological advancement and globalization, currents of racism are still palpable in many places in Springfield: Restaurants, malls, university, industry and even on the road where youngsters brake their cars to shout their insults, safe in the knowledge that a colored pedestrian is as innocuous (but nevertheless repulsive) as a snake that has been milked. In the mall, it’s much less pronounced but the quick tightening of the lips (plus the nostrils?) and a slight lifting of the chin are small but piercing gestures that convey an unsaid thought: “What is a riff-raff like you doing in a place for civilized people like us?” It’s even worse in the food court where the usual courtesy one is so accustomed to in America is replaced by rude, to-the-point monosyllabic replies. Agreed, conciseness is a great asset if you are a writer or if you are a patient with a few hours of life left in you. As a cashier, you have an excuse if you are bombarded with customers but one would expect a warmer welcome when one is the sole customer, maybe not a hug, but maybe not the Yeses and Nos. Maybe a “fuck you” would’ve been more forthright.

My experiences with racism in the classroom setting have been few and scattered incidents. Graduate students are usually a lot more aware and mature than undergraduates (it’s that awareness and maturity which has made them a part of the elite breed of graduate students). The one undergraduate marketing class which I was forced to take left a terrible after-taste in my mouth. I was only one of the two foreigners in the entire class; the other being a South Korean. All my efforts to participate in class were greeted with sniggers and giggles. They probably found my Indian accent to be as odd as Indians find the American accent to be polished. I had only communicated twice during the entire semester: once, to ask the Korean a doubt, and the second time, when an American was kind enough to offer me good advice on the possible course of action I could take when I had appeared for a test without knowing it was scheduled.

I often feel a similar kind of alienation even in some graduate classes where team members are hesitant to address you directly; if you ask a question, they discuss it amongst themselves as if you are absent. Racism from professors has been negligible. The only professor from whom I got racist vibes was a management professor from Little Rock, Arkansas who often expressed his strong views against out-sourcing and made little attempt to encourage the colored people in his class to share their opinions. Mind you, I say colored instead of international since he was always and unmistakably warmer to white skinned people from Europe.

Most of my exposure to racism came from different work places. Initially, I worked part-time in the dish room of Sodexho catering services where the work culture was diverse comprising students from countries in Africa such as Burkina Faso, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya to students from Europe-Italy, Serbia, Russia and Asia-India, Thailand, Japan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and one student from Pakistan. The allocation of jobs largely depended on their place of origin. The Europeans were usually assigned jobs in the serving or cooking areas, which are cleaner if not less strenuous, than working in the dish room. The Africans and Indians were often confined to the dish room (the Thai people enjoyed a rare favoritism). I would expect that seniority would be an important criterion in allocations and re-allocations but I found myself working in the dish room, with dirty water, lack of air conditioning and continuous physical labor for 6 months while many new comers from these other European or select Asian countries directly started working in the serving area. The highlight of my tenure there took place when the manager called me a “beggar” or something to that effect when I asked for my pay check and when I complained to another manager, the former called me in order to resolve the situation. She tried to appease me by transferring me to the serving area which she did and I was re-allocated after a week to the beverage section (which is a lot cleaner but much more strenuous than working in the dish room- imagine lifting five gallons of milk every 15 minutes). It is important to mention here that the cooks, who were blacks, treated me with equal hostility and spite. The only difference being they were outright rude while the managers were more subtle.

If racism in Sodexho was extant, it was nothing compared to the air of snobbery and intolerance that prevailed at Green Wood Laboratory School-an expensive private school for rich students. The principal of the school wore her anti-foreigner feelings on her sleeve. She would greet some child in front of me good morning without the slightest acknowledgement of my presence. A teacher from the first grade, whom I worked with during the lunch break, once asked me if I would be comfortable reading a first grade picture book to the children. The principal’s secretary once reprimanded me for coming in a minute late! The parents of the children were as racist and the kids picked up their parents’ racist values. The hatred in some faces made them seem like miniature nazis.

My most recent experience with racism came from my supervisor, a former soldier in the US army. My relationship with my supervisor was highly informal and our conversations were light-hearted, until George W. Bush came into the picture. When I expressed my low opinions about Bush, my supervisor reacted like a rattle snake which has been disturbed from its sleep. He shook his finger at me and asked me to stop talking shit. Soon, our debate on WMDs had become aggressive and both of us decided to back off. Things returned to normal the following day. I had resolved never to discuss politics with him again. A fortnight or so later, my supervisor accused me for “sitting on my ass” five minutes before the scheduled break time. He spoke a lot of unnecessary things like he could make me cry and that I was melting his country and it was after all, Bush’s country. Initially, my shock was so great that I meekly apologized for any shoddy work that I might have done. But when the shock turned to anger, I decided to quit. I told him that his accusations were absurd because the five minutes shouldn’t have mattered given the hours others spend “sitting on their asses” most of the time anyway, including my own supervisor. Also, if a country were melted so easily, the world would be a wax factory. Besides, I pay my taxes and have helped underprivileged Americans so he had no authority to accuse me like that. It seemed strange to me, I told him, that he should think my work shoddy when my co-worker thought I was one of the most hardworking employees he had seen. The incident took away most of the cheer that formerly characterized our crew and I spent my last days there, avoiding my supervisor and his attempts to restore the former balance as best as I could.

Before I conclude, I hope I haven’t impressed upon the reader that America is a dismal and cheerless place. This clearly isn’t the case as is illustrated by the success stories of the millions of immigrants who’ve come to these shores to fulfill their ambitions or realize “The American Dream”, whatever that is and it would require another essay to include all the white Americans who have gone out of their way to help me in difficulty. Racism also takes different directions. Indians for instance describe the “African-Americans” as kallas and fear inviting them to their homes. There is a great deal of inter-rivalry and prejudice in the Indian community itself and segregation is more the rule than the exception. Groups almost always exist and prejudice flows freely without any checks or balances. Competition is intense and cut-throat. The Indians and the Indians born in America (who are often derogatorily referred to as ABCDs-American Born Confused Desis) are also intolerant towards one another’s cultural differences. And often, help comes from the most random sources, regardless of their race. Even in Springfield, that at first seems to be apathetic and frozen, it is possible for anyone to find a niche, to find good people, whites and non-whites alike.

This out of print novel by P.H.Newby, was the first book to win the prestigious booker prize. After a brief search on Google, I found a few sites that were selling it for around $250. Much as I wanted to read it, I couldn’t find it in my paltry stipend to provide for such steeply priced antiquarian literature. I therefore decided to search my university library for it, having found in the past, impressive volumes I could never find in conventional book stores.  When I did find a copy in the library, I felt numbed seeing the status show that it was available and regretted not having searched for the book in the library sooner. It didn’t surprise me to discover that I was the first to have borrowed the book since it arrived at the university library on the year of its publication-1969.

The reason I wanted to read this book was because I wanted to explore its archetypical stlye that might have set the tone for its successors; whether or not it actually did is debatable. Newby’s novel is set in Port Said, which was a part of the formerly known United Arab Republic, a joint state constituting the republics of Egypt and Syrria. The protagonist is an Englishman (who claims to be Irish) named Townrow who is visiting the widow of Elie Khoury, a friend. The widow herself is an English woman in her sixties whose property is in danger of being confiscated by the Egyptian authorities. It is important to note that the story takes place during Naseer’s reign since the novel heavily relies on the politics surrounding the Canalization. My ignorance of the politics of the region certainly made it very difficult for me to maintain my interest level. Even as the narrative progressed, I hadn’t formed an adequate impression of the principal characters: Townrow Mrs.Khoury, Abravanel and Leah and except for a few incidents, most of the details have escaped my memory. I think this is partly because the author’s dry style of prose didn’t do much to bridge the gaps created by my own ignorance of the history of Port Said. That is not to say that the writing is deficient in the wit that normally characterizes most Booker winners. Consider this exchange between Leah and Townrow:

“Another thing, what did I say to offend you?” 

 ”When?”

“In the car. You got out and walked off”

“You called me English. No Irishman likes that”

“Are you Irish?”

He frowned. He wished he could be sure.

 Finally, I’m not sure if “Something to Answer For” is worthy of the prize (I’ve read far better and far worse) but it is certainly worth a read, if not for anything else, just to be able to obtain a glimpse into the mood of the time and to try to find interest in the characters’ tensions. I also feel it would be worthwhile to trace why this book couldn’t find enough readership to stay in print since it might provide a clue into the workings of time on literary interest and popularity.  

Xango, a drink made from mangosteen juice is the latest elixir to hit the market. I met a representative from the company at the Battlefield mall a few months ago to be interviewed for a job and found the experience to be utterly distasteful and unsalubrious. I was a little skeptical from the outset, given the MTV image they chose to slip into at the career fair but desperate for a job, I eventually decided to take the bait and make a trip to the mall (the HR person was insistent enough to offer to wait for me if I needed to catch a bus). When I met the Xango people outside the Starbucks cafe, I could see that interviews were already in session and someone welcomed me to have a seat, immediately apologizing for the lack of office space. Just when I was begining to ask myself if I’d done the right thing by taking time out to drive to the mall, the man asked me a few questions about what I was doing, did I like my university, etc and I attempted to reply as professionally as I could and he in turn, maintained a dignified charade of interest in what I had done. He spent the next 20 minutes over a brochure explaining in depth the ingredients of the drink and how mangosteen actively fights luekemia, heart disease and a host of other life threatening diseases (AIDS not being one of them) and suddenly the irony of the situation hit me like a revelation: Here was a man, disgustingly obese, with fat thickly dropping from his face, trying to promote what he claims to be a health drink. 

To add to my frustration, this epitome of health and wellness spent the next half an hour trying to convince me how I could earn millions selling Xango and use my cultural knowledge to penetrate the Indian market and make a killing. I tried to make him understand, without showing any sign of exasperation, why a drink that costs $40 would be difficult to sell to the average Indian, who can procure fresh fruit juice for less than a dollar from any of the multitudes of kiosks scattered around. By then it became clear to me that he was offering me a commisioned sales position. So this is what it had come to, after three years spent on core business areas doing number crunching, writing lengthy articles and papers and struggling to maintain a good GPA.

Sometime during the meeting, the fatman expressed his sympathies for me since he percieved that it was a bad time for someone to be in the United States with the liberals threatening to come into power. So I asked him how he felt about the war against terrorism and he reasoned, with an air of solemnity and wisdom, that war was great for people because it created jobs. Needless to say, such convoluted logic appals me to no end. War certainly creates jobs no doubt but the rationale behind such justifications suffers from lack of common sense. For the minimal good war brings to a narrow group, it proves infinitely more pernicious to the economy and society. Justifying that war is good because it creates jobs is tantamount to stating that murder is benevolent because it keeps the population under control.

By the time the meeting ended, I felt so undernourished and dumbed down that when he asked me if I’d be interested in buying a bottle of Xango for a price that was lesser than what it retails for, I couldn’t muster the strength to prevent myself from breaking into a smile or prevent him from seeing the last trace of sanity leave my face.

Outdoors-
Inclement weather.
Snow encrusts snow, it pours down
Like white gold,
While the night grows old.

Indoors-
Controlled environment.
Hot air emanates from the heater
Luxuriously warm,
While homesickness comes in swarms.