It’s been a rather somber week. A phone call from my brother roused me as I was about to segue into my second REM sleep phase for that night. Dreamily aware of the ominous odd-hour phone call, I hesitated as I grudgingly answered the call. A close family friend had just passed away after an unsuccessful surgery to treat a cancerous stomach already in its terminal phase. To add to the pall creeping in, a cousin’s grandson also did not make it through what I gathered was a freak but fatal accident while playing with some friends. A five-year old life nipped in the bud.
Another short burst of activity on the phone. This time a text message. It read, “Thanks for your prayers. Mom passed away. Funeral TBD.” My colleague had left a voicemail saying that he had to leave on an emergency to be with his mom. I managed to catch him while in transit on his way home. He gave me no details but the tone of his voice spoke more than an elaborate run-down of the situation. His text message came in the day after this brief conversation on the phone. I was busy dispatching the news to our circle when I thought I’d find some distraction on the television—maybe a sappy reality show or a dose of celeb-gossip pulp on TMZ. Flicking randomly through the channels, I found myself stuck on a news channel flashing computer generated maps interspersed with hazy handy-cam images; some of the first images emerging from earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
Being far removed from the immediate scenes of loss, we might have been padded from the raw pathos of encountering the irretrievable presence of a loved one. We dust up memories to try and re-animate that blank spaces left behind. Remembrances only conjure up fleeting apparitions that merely dissipate like the trace of breath on a mirror. What audacity to ask of death, “where is thy sting?”
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
a time to cast away
Two-in-ones, VHS players, pagers, OHP-s…these are a few of my favorite things that, unlike raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, no longer figure on my must-have list. With the turn of a new decade and its ever expanding list of new gadgets and gizmos out in the market, one gets to look back and see the left behind-s as we chug along this train of progress. The Huffington Post put up an interesting photo-essay on “12 Things that Became Obsolete this Decade” with a plug for readers to vote on the list of obsoletes. I thought I’d chime in on a few.
Calling: Text messages, sexting (graphic picture messages), twitter, facebook, and the list goes on. Communication by way of electronically generated words seems to have replaced orally enunciated expressions, OMG! Text message numbers in the US doubled over in 2008. Texters have evolved. I remember some of the hrat lutuks in Bangalore who could even thumb in a complete and coherent message blind! And then the text lingo that I don’t think I will ever master: LOL, LMAO, LSHITIPAL (laughing so hard I think I peed a little)—I think a hearty mutual laugh would be better. Texting is definitely instant and convenient but I’ll stick to calls. Hearing the live voice of the person I want to communicate with just makes it a lot more human. So, call me:(800)768-HUNK!!
Dial-up: Yup this is definitely obsolete. I’m glad we transitioned quickly to DSL, broadband, wifi, and other more efficient accesses to the web. Those crackles and buzzes before you finally hooked up online only to have your patience tested once again as the “this page cannot be displayed” slowly evolved on your screen—uh, uh!
Encyclopedias: Students in classroom settings seem to have all the subject info down pat. One need only look closely to their laptop screens to see a wiki page feeding their pretensions of knowledgeablity! With the amount of information easily and freely available on the internet, the printed encyclopedias are definitely on their way out. Their only sustained currency would be libraries and old fogies such as I who still prefer to leaf through time worn pages of printed material. Moreover, because of the anyone-and-everyone-add-content set up on sites such as wiki, I'd rather take my chances with peer-reviewed editions.
CDs: I have never bought music online (amazon, itunes, etc) but have quite a music collection; thanks to a friend who has broadband and frequents the bittorrent website! Paaji ‘s Pyramid store in Palika Bazar was my regular go-to for recorded cassettes and videos. Since the webble burst, he’s also switched to selling cell phones and other more current gadgets and gizmos. I was told that music in Mizoram now premieres directly via music videos on local channels. The underlying idea seems to be copyrights and royalties, which I’m all for. My point though: running with a clunky cd-player in hand is so 2000 and late!!
Landline phones: Collateral damage of dial-up’s exit!!
Handwritten letters: these have definitely been replaced by emails, text messages, phones, skype, and other modes of communication. I do not recall the last time I wrote or received a handwritten letter but the excitement while eagerly waiting for the postman to bring one was worth it.
Film/film cameras: Load roll, shoot all 36 shots, print, scan, convert to jpeg, upload as profile pic...really? The digital camera made photography and all its applications so much easier and convenient. It also democratized what purists would call an art form so that every Thanga, Kungi, and Remi can now wax eloquent about aperture, composition, angle, and ISO.
The list could go on. One also notices that the common denominator in this list is technology and the rapid advances it makes/effects- instant, convenient, and efficient being their USP. I reread this post and realize that some of the categories/terms I use could themselves be outdated. So even as i hats off to y'all who bring out these innovations, please dumb them down a little so that tech-challenged folk such as I, can be more up-to-date than have to evolve only in time to be obsolete all over again.
Calling: Text messages, sexting (graphic picture messages), twitter, facebook, and the list goes on. Communication by way of electronically generated words seems to have replaced orally enunciated expressions, OMG! Text message numbers in the US doubled over in 2008. Texters have evolved. I remember some of the hrat lutuks in Bangalore who could even thumb in a complete and coherent message blind! And then the text lingo that I don’t think I will ever master: LOL, LMAO, LSHITIPAL (laughing so hard I think I peed a little)—I think a hearty mutual laugh would be better. Texting is definitely instant and convenient but I’ll stick to calls. Hearing the live voice of the person I want to communicate with just makes it a lot more human. So, call me:(800)768-HUNK!!
Dial-up: Yup this is definitely obsolete. I’m glad we transitioned quickly to DSL, broadband, wifi, and other more efficient accesses to the web. Those crackles and buzzes before you finally hooked up online only to have your patience tested once again as the “this page cannot be displayed” slowly evolved on your screen—uh, uh!
Encyclopedias: Students in classroom settings seem to have all the subject info down pat. One need only look closely to their laptop screens to see a wiki page feeding their pretensions of knowledgeablity! With the amount of information easily and freely available on the internet, the printed encyclopedias are definitely on their way out. Their only sustained currency would be libraries and old fogies such as I who still prefer to leaf through time worn pages of printed material. Moreover, because of the anyone-and-everyone-add-content set up on sites such as wiki, I'd rather take my chances with peer-reviewed editions.
CDs: I have never bought music online (amazon, itunes, etc) but have quite a music collection; thanks to a friend who has broadband and frequents the bittorrent website! Paaji ‘s Pyramid store in Palika Bazar was my regular go-to for recorded cassettes and videos. Since the webble burst, he’s also switched to selling cell phones and other more current gadgets and gizmos. I was told that music in Mizoram now premieres directly via music videos on local channels. The underlying idea seems to be copyrights and royalties, which I’m all for. My point though: running with a clunky cd-player in hand is so 2000 and late!!
Landline phones: Collateral damage of dial-up’s exit!!
Handwritten letters: these have definitely been replaced by emails, text messages, phones, skype, and other modes of communication. I do not recall the last time I wrote or received a handwritten letter but the excitement while eagerly waiting for the postman to bring one was worth it.
Film/film cameras: Load roll, shoot all 36 shots, print, scan, convert to jpeg, upload as profile pic...really? The digital camera made photography and all its applications so much easier and convenient. It also democratized what purists would call an art form so that every Thanga, Kungi, and Remi can now wax eloquent about aperture, composition, angle, and ISO.
The list could go on. One also notices that the common denominator in this list is technology and the rapid advances it makes/effects- instant, convenient, and efficient being their USP. I reread this post and realize that some of the categories/terms I use could themselves be outdated. So even as i hats off to y'all who bring out these innovations, please dumb them down a little so that tech-challenged folk such as I, can be more up-to-date than have to evolve only in time to be obsolete all over again.
Monday, December 28, 2009
2009 Wrap up
I have no fancy excuse(s) for my long hiatus from blogworld, only one word—laziness! No, this is not a confession out of self-entitlement to a fan base clamoring for my pathetically sporadic ramblings I would like to sell as blog updates. Rather, I noticed my writing side ebbs and flows with the frequency of my postings and I figured if I were to step up on one, the other would pick up too. So, with the confession booth in the back and to catch up, much has transpired since my musings on the “ring” with an equal amount of shoulda-woulda-coulda-s! Most notably, my friend and now-brother finally got hired. With the economic situation here in the doldrums a job, that too at a not-so-mundane place, is always welcome. At work, we were able to bring a three-year project to closure (whew!) and are on the verge with another one. Another personal and larger project needs to pick up steam and I need all the drive I can rally for this one. Oh, and the wife is finally on the shores of the US of A.
On the shifts of note, I can scarcely recall the last time I went to the cinemas. There was a time when new cinemas were a regular on my weekend to-do lists. Lately, I remember only District 9 (a must see) and Inglorious Basterds (one of the more watchable Tarantino fare) but that would be it. Are my cinematic tastes deadening or is it that cinematic productions are just no longer compelling? Avatar seems to be raking in the millions but then again there’s only so much CGI I can take for even a very human story as Avatar. Documentaries have been my regular go-to these days…and there are plenty online at google videos and youtube.
Christmas brought out the creative best in a local church I’ve followed over the years. This particular church puts out a Christmas tableau every year and I’ve followed it because the scenes they conjure up are a little off your regular nativity scenes. This year, the tableau featured a barbed-wired wall with graffiti in Spanish splashed all over, which I thought was reminiscent of the Berlin Wall. Sensing the anachronism, I took a closer look. It turned out to be a model of the border walls that dot the US-Mexico border with “No Room in the Inn” spray-painted on the top. The tableau was a poignant commentary on the “illegal-aliens” issue that continues to animate and polarize US politics. If one were to ponder over its implications, it unsettled many presumptions about the modern state, human communities, rights, histories, and so on. I would have added a picture of the tableau for its graphic-ness were it not for the mild squall that toppled the wall before I could photograph it! Winds of change? While these thoughts lingered, my wife and I got to spend Christmas with the few Mizo folks around the area. To add some of the seasonal flavors from home to the gathering, we had chhang ban and sa um bai! The singing and sharing would pale in fervor compared to that which we are used to back home but then again, even the casual setting around Christmas clutter and chatter was a reminder that we were at home while not quite there.
Would I have spent my last few months differently? Im not sure. I don’t know. All I know is that the sense of doubt will set me up for the new year even without the usual list of resolutions. Hope you have a good one.
On the shifts of note, I can scarcely recall the last time I went to the cinemas. There was a time when new cinemas were a regular on my weekend to-do lists. Lately, I remember only District 9 (a must see) and Inglorious Basterds (one of the more watchable Tarantino fare) but that would be it. Are my cinematic tastes deadening or is it that cinematic productions are just no longer compelling? Avatar seems to be raking in the millions but then again there’s only so much CGI I can take for even a very human story as Avatar. Documentaries have been my regular go-to these days…and there are plenty online at google videos and youtube.
Christmas brought out the creative best in a local church I’ve followed over the years. This particular church puts out a Christmas tableau every year and I’ve followed it because the scenes they conjure up are a little off your regular nativity scenes. This year, the tableau featured a barbed-wired wall with graffiti in Spanish splashed all over, which I thought was reminiscent of the Berlin Wall. Sensing the anachronism, I took a closer look. It turned out to be a model of the border walls that dot the US-Mexico border with “No Room in the Inn” spray-painted on the top. The tableau was a poignant commentary on the “illegal-aliens” issue that continues to animate and polarize US politics. If one were to ponder over its implications, it unsettled many presumptions about the modern state, human communities, rights, histories, and so on. I would have added a picture of the tableau for its graphic-ness were it not for the mild squall that toppled the wall before I could photograph it! Winds of change? While these thoughts lingered, my wife and I got to spend Christmas with the few Mizo folks around the area. To add some of the seasonal flavors from home to the gathering, we had chhang ban and sa um bai! The singing and sharing would pale in fervor compared to that which we are used to back home but then again, even the casual setting around Christmas clutter and chatter was a reminder that we were at home while not quite there.
Would I have spent my last few months differently? Im not sure. I don’t know. All I know is that the sense of doubt will set me up for the new year even without the usual list of resolutions. Hope you have a good one.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Fellowship of the Ring
Seeing me twiddle my fingers rather aimlessly at a gathering of Burmese American dentists, my host must have caught sight of what might have looked like the onset of an OCD induced twitch. Momentarily out of sight, he reappeared with a copy of Time magazine and a solicitous suggestion that reading might help calm down my frenzied digits. After all, neither could I make sense of the conversations around me nor did I recognize any of the faces. But then again, a lone head slouched over a magazine amidst a reception hall abuzz with activity would do little to alleviate the sense of standing out in a crowd.
One article in particular got my attention primarily because I felt connected to the issue it addressed. Lisa Selin Davis’s “All but the Ring” is a very balanced overview of the emerging trend on this shore of the Atlantic, where couples and partners are increasingly opting to cohabit without getting married. Reasons given for this option are informative: legal, personal, political (solidarity with gay/lesbian couples), financial, popular trend (à la Brangelina), and so on. These were informative—I thought so—because they were more telling of the layers of human configurations that underlie a contract such as marriage. The underlying argument seemed to be the notion of mutual commitment and how “committed unmarrieds” seemed a more practicable and integral option than what might be inferred as “married un-committeds.”
Structured performances of marriage are written into our cultural canons. We embellish them with gender, legal, and religious overtones and then over time come to accept them as self evident components of our culture. Despite their normative-ness, these are not hermetically sealed canons that have never been breached. I can think of the Ladakhi Skus-te-Khyong-ches where marriages, primarily among the poorer sections, involve “stealing” partners to avoid the extravagant expenses of marriage ceremonies; or the unplanned pregnancies among friends that forced either an alternate church wedding or single-parenthood. With the increasing visibility of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual) community the world over, the resilience of these cultural canons on marriage/cohabitation is going to be stretched to its seams.
Lisa Davis’s article gripped me primarily because it stretched my own unarticulated sense of what it means to commit myself to cohabit with another person. On breaking the news of my decision on how I would chose to perform this commitment, my advisor asked whether my decision was driven by a Victorian impulse. Despite his veiled reference to Foucault, I chose to get married in church with friends and family as witnesses. Wryly compliant with Beyonce’s crooning: “If you like it, then you should have put a ring on it,” Kimi and I exchanged rings. Strangely enough, I developed a rash on my finger and had to take off the ring within a week. Even as I struggle to come to terms with acquaintances who desire to cohabit in non-normative arrangements, I hope to remain committed and married, with my ring-less finger to speak for it.
One article in particular got my attention primarily because I felt connected to the issue it addressed. Lisa Selin Davis’s “All but the Ring” is a very balanced overview of the emerging trend on this shore of the Atlantic, where couples and partners are increasingly opting to cohabit without getting married. Reasons given for this option are informative: legal, personal, political (solidarity with gay/lesbian couples), financial, popular trend (à la Brangelina), and so on. These were informative—I thought so—because they were more telling of the layers of human configurations that underlie a contract such as marriage. The underlying argument seemed to be the notion of mutual commitment and how “committed unmarrieds” seemed a more practicable and integral option than what might be inferred as “married un-committeds.”
Structured performances of marriage are written into our cultural canons. We embellish them with gender, legal, and religious overtones and then over time come to accept them as self evident components of our culture. Despite their normative-ness, these are not hermetically sealed canons that have never been breached. I can think of the Ladakhi Skus-te-Khyong-ches where marriages, primarily among the poorer sections, involve “stealing” partners to avoid the extravagant expenses of marriage ceremonies; or the unplanned pregnancies among friends that forced either an alternate church wedding or single-parenthood. With the increasing visibility of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual) community the world over, the resilience of these cultural canons on marriage/cohabitation is going to be stretched to its seams.
Lisa Davis’s article gripped me primarily because it stretched my own unarticulated sense of what it means to commit myself to cohabit with another person. On breaking the news of my decision on how I would chose to perform this commitment, my advisor asked whether my decision was driven by a Victorian impulse. Despite his veiled reference to Foucault, I chose to get married in church with friends and family as witnesses. Wryly compliant with Beyonce’s crooning: “If you like it, then you should have put a ring on it,” Kimi and I exchanged rings. Strangely enough, I developed a rash on my finger and had to take off the ring within a week. Even as I struggle to come to terms with acquaintances who desire to cohabit in non-normative arrangements, I hope to remain committed and married, with my ring-less finger to speak for it.
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