is the foundation of the modern republic.
Vive la republique!
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Class
I have finally arrived in a class-less society.
Capitalist but classless.
I like the idea of waiting tables
and throwing out my own trash.
Inventing an algorithm
driving my own car through
the streets with no name.
The sense of oppression I felt in South Asia
is gone.
Boom.
Kaputt.
It's a place where people cook their own meals
and wash their own clothes.
How lovely.
Capitalist but classless.
I like the idea of waiting tables
and throwing out my own trash.
Inventing an algorithm
driving my own car through
the streets with no name.
The sense of oppression I felt in South Asia
is gone.
Boom.
Kaputt.
It's a place where people cook their own meals
and wash their own clothes.
How lovely.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Life is Beautiful
Weekend with Bolsheviks, Frida and Anne Frank.
And some black coffee.
Life is beautiful.
And some black coffee.
Life is beautiful.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Haiti: Part Deux
I am always amazed at the good old Guardian, the bastion of the British Left, which never ceases to open my eyes and shake me out of my bourgoise complacency.
Here is what I read this morning, though I knew the general gist of Haiti's colonial past and the Marisposas in neighboring Dominican Republic. I just had to reproduce these parts, they say it all. It's a familiar story..from Iraq to Vietnam. "Colonize" and then "aid".
Quote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plight
(From: Our role in Haiti's plight, by Peter Hallward)
Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti's capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it's no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.
Haiti is routinely described as the "poorest country in the western hemisphere". This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression.
It is this poverty and powerlessness that account for the full scale of the horror in Port-au-Prince today. Since the late 1970s, relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti's agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums. Although there are no reliable statistics, hundreds of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents now live in desperately sub-standard informal housing. The selection of the people living in such places and conditions is itself no more "natural" or accidental than the extent of the injuries they have suffered. Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses.
The international community has been effectively ruling Haiti since the 2004 coup. The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against any extension of the UN mission's mandate beyond its immediate military purpose. Proposals to divert some of this "investment" towards poverty reduction or agrarian development have been blocked, in keeping with the long-term patterns that continue to shape the distribution of international "aid".
The same storms that killed so many in Haiti in 2008, hit Cuba just as hard but killed only four people. Cuba has escaped the worst effects of neoliberal "reform", and its government retains a capacity to defend its people from disaster. If we are serious about helping Haiti through this latest crisis then we should take this comparative point on board. Along with sending emergency relief, we should ask what we can do to facilitate the self-empowerment of Haiti's people and public institutions. If we are serious about helping we need to stop trying to control Haiti's government, to pacify its citizens, and to exploit its economy. And then we need to start paying for at least some of the damage we've already done.
unqoute.
still figuring that one out..
Here is what I read this morning, though I knew the general gist of Haiti's colonial past and the Marisposas in neighboring Dominican Republic. I just had to reproduce these parts, they say it all. It's a familiar story..from Iraq to Vietnam. "Colonize" and then "aid".
Quote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/13/our-role-in-haitis-plight
(From: Our role in Haiti's plight, by Peter Hallward)
Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti's capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it's no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster to befall Haiti is best understood as another manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence.
Haiti is routinely described as the "poorest country in the western hemisphere". This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression.
It is this poverty and powerlessness that account for the full scale of the horror in Port-au-Prince today. Since the late 1970s, relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti's agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums. Although there are no reliable statistics, hundreds of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents now live in desperately sub-standard informal housing. The selection of the people living in such places and conditions is itself no more "natural" or accidental than the extent of the injuries they have suffered. Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses.
The international community has been effectively ruling Haiti since the 2004 coup. The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against any extension of the UN mission's mandate beyond its immediate military purpose. Proposals to divert some of this "investment" towards poverty reduction or agrarian development have been blocked, in keeping with the long-term patterns that continue to shape the distribution of international "aid".
The same storms that killed so many in Haiti in 2008, hit Cuba just as hard but killed only four people. Cuba has escaped the worst effects of neoliberal "reform", and its government retains a capacity to defend its people from disaster. If we are serious about helping Haiti through this latest crisis then we should take this comparative point on board. Along with sending emergency relief, we should ask what we can do to facilitate the self-empowerment of Haiti's people and public institutions. If we are serious about helping we need to stop trying to control Haiti's government, to pacify its citizens, and to exploit its economy. And then we need to start paying for at least some of the damage we've already done.
unqoute.
still figuring that one out..
Friday, January 8, 2010
My songs..
petrovski: "1. ...Nach Gro�wardein (Hermann Rosenzweig / Anton Groiss) - New Budapest Orpheum Society"
Monday, December 21, 2009
Moritz, Sebastian et al
SO, what is with me and these uber-cool European men?
Seems like I have a proclivity to find/fall for the Moritz and Sebastian Koch type. My prototype of L'homme Ideal et al.
Nor surprising, since I dated a couple of lookalikes way back as misty eyed grad student..the intelligence ridden eyes with the uber-hotness, but in a suave understated way. I do not fall for many of the usual icons of Bollywood.. the SRKS and all. Aamir Khan though was and is a favorite. but I love him like a a cutie pie, 'Bade Mamu' (and 'Sunju' of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar).
But Moritz, aah is a different thing. Those life infused days in Paris, sleeping at the Sorbonne and walking through the Montmatre landscape, lounging students around, and my ex-calling me and asking me sweet questions in his German infused English. I wish I hadnt gone down the desi route..back to the idiot I was dating in school. Stupid desi baggage, I am still trying to unload. My whole idea of relationships, has come back home..to the girl I used to be. To the Moritzes and Berndts and Jans. Thing with them is that they dont have the machismo, (at least most)the air of male bravado, which even the cutest Latin guys may carry. I'd like the breakfast making, slightly feminine male, who is male enough to acknowledge his female side, and sparkles with the incandescent intelligence of a New York Times editorial, smoothing from Revolution to baking a linzertorte when I am in the mood and walking by the Seine in a beret, hot coffee in his hands. Anyways, I have held the bliss of Moritz in my life..and so much happier for it. :)
A relationship like an avant-garde postcard, backpacking in the Himalayas or Andes, smooth as silk and risky as a high rise cliff, but you've never felt safer..
Friday, November 27, 2009
Revolution aka Bhagat Singh
He's always been my guy. :)
Featured in the much touted 'Rang de basanti', he influenced me years before.
My grandmom was a little girl in Lahore they day he was hanged. By the British rulers, at the tender age of 23. He gave himself up to the Brits, after exploding a sound bomb in the Lahore Assembly and shouting 'Inquilab zindabad'(Long live the revolution), which became the slogan for the anti-imperialist movement, which brought down the British empire.
A towering intellectual, poet and revolutionary, his prison writings, from Urdu and Perisan poetry to European revolutionary thought is eye-opening. His essay 'Why I am an atheist' shakes one up and makes one think..again.
--
'By Revolution we mean that the present order of things, which is based on manifest injustice must change. Producers or labourers, in spite of being the most necessary element of society, are robbed by their exploiters of their labour and deprived of their elementary rights. The peasant who grows corn for all, starves with his family; the weaver who supplies the world market with textile fabrics, has not enough to cover his own and his children's bodies; masons, smiths and carpenters who raise magnificent palaces, live like pariahs in the slums. The capitalists and exploiters, the parasites of society, squander millions on their whims.
- Bhagat Singh, Indian revolutionary, 1907-1931
Featured in the much touted 'Rang de basanti', he influenced me years before.
My grandmom was a little girl in Lahore they day he was hanged. By the British rulers, at the tender age of 23. He gave himself up to the Brits, after exploding a sound bomb in the Lahore Assembly and shouting 'Inquilab zindabad'(Long live the revolution), which became the slogan for the anti-imperialist movement, which brought down the British empire.
A towering intellectual, poet and revolutionary, his prison writings, from Urdu and Perisan poetry to European revolutionary thought is eye-opening. His essay 'Why I am an atheist' shakes one up and makes one think..again.
--
'By Revolution we mean that the present order of things, which is based on manifest injustice must change. Producers or labourers, in spite of being the most necessary element of society, are robbed by their exploiters of their labour and deprived of their elementary rights. The peasant who grows corn for all, starves with his family; the weaver who supplies the world market with textile fabrics, has not enough to cover his own and his children's bodies; masons, smiths and carpenters who raise magnificent palaces, live like pariahs in the slums. The capitalists and exploiters, the parasites of society, squander millions on their whims.
- Bhagat Singh, Indian revolutionary, 1907-1931
Thursday, November 12, 2009
To Sofia
Sofia Kovaleskaya, creator of the Kovalesky therom, was the first woman to earn her doctorate in mathemetics in all of Europe and Russia, despite not being allowed to attend classes..
- Dr. Ann Liebowitz, Women in Science
We've worked hard to get here
despite sweating blood every month.
- Dr. Ann Liebowitz, Women in Science
We've worked hard to get here
despite sweating blood every month.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Russians
Believe me when I say to you,
the Russians love their children too..
- Sting
How we loved Russia..
growing up.
Land of Marx and Das Kapital (well,not literally)
land of Boris Pasternak and the Bolsheviks, who brought down the Czar.
Beloved land of music and Mendeleev
molcules like their music.
Land of Tchaikovksy and his ballerinas, floating like swans on the frozen Neva.
Land of my first Love and Leningrad.
Land of Petrovski and Trotsky, mad with revolutionary rage.
Molotov cocktails in the their eyes, ballerinas in their hearts.
Death in their souls,
Dostoyevsky in their dining rooms
chopping sausages like their hearts.
Long frozen snow covered Urals, flying by Yuri Zhivago's train.
Pasha Antipov and his passion for the peasants..
those sturdy rock hard sons of the Mother
born in India and Pakistan and China and Peru and Colombia
and Argentina..
as Che.
I loved them all..
and now they are all mafias.
Drunk on gold and Bangkok booze
and call girls
roam the sanctum of the Kirov*
*The Kirov is the world famous legendary Ballet theatre, going back centuries.
the Russians love their children too..
- Sting
How we loved Russia..
growing up.
Land of Marx and Das Kapital (well,not literally)
land of Boris Pasternak and the Bolsheviks, who brought down the Czar.
Beloved land of music and Mendeleev
molcules like their music.
Land of Tchaikovksy and his ballerinas, floating like swans on the frozen Neva.
Land of my first Love and Leningrad.
Land of Petrovski and Trotsky, mad with revolutionary rage.
Molotov cocktails in the their eyes, ballerinas in their hearts.
Death in their souls,
Dostoyevsky in their dining rooms
chopping sausages like their hearts.
Long frozen snow covered Urals, flying by Yuri Zhivago's train.
Pasha Antipov and his passion for the peasants..
those sturdy rock hard sons of the Mother
born in India and Pakistan and China and Peru and Colombia
and Argentina..
as Che.
I loved them all..
and now they are all mafias.
Drunk on gold and Bangkok booze
and call girls
roam the sanctum of the Kirov*
*The Kirov is the world famous legendary Ballet theatre, going back centuries.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Mom and Dad and Dad: Homosexuality in the animal kingdom
Came across this amazing article, which reinforces what I have been saying all along.
That we are all 'ardh-narishwaras'..yin and yang.
This line is particularly telling:
"Homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" are terms defined by societal boundaries, invisible in the animal kingdom.
-----
http://www.livescience.com/animals/061116_homosexual_animals.html
Some argue that homosexual sex could have a bigger natural cause than just pure ecstasy: namely evolutionary benefits.
It could be used for alliance and protection among animals of the same sex. In situations when a species is mostly bisexual, homosexual relationships allow an animal to join a pack.
"In bonobos for instance, strict heterosexual individuals would not be able to make friends in the flock and thus never be able to breed," Bockman told LiveScience. "In some bird species that bond for life, homosexual pairs raise young.
Almost a quarter of black swan families are parented by homosexual couples. Male couples sometimes mate with a female just to have a baby. Once she lays the egg, they chase her away, hatch the egg, and raise a family on their own.
"Homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" are terms defined by societal boundaries, invisible in the animal kingdom.
contd.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Fabian Socialist nostalgia et al
I am feeling intellectually deprived.
Starved in a way..
Wish I could be back in the London of the '30s, hanging with the Fabian Socialists, Oscar Wilde et al. Shaw and Virginia Wollfe, sipping Martinis at bookstore cafes in the West End.
If I have to watch one more American mind-numbing carb-loaded TV show..I'll be ill.
Can sex and the city, love, music, babies ever be a substitute for intellectual stimulation?
Can men ever make up for poetry and the Love song of J Alfred Prufock?
Can a diamond replace the intellectual trip which comes from peeping into the heart of a molecule?
Starved in a way..
Wish I could be back in the London of the '30s, hanging with the Fabian Socialists, Oscar Wilde et al. Shaw and Virginia Wollfe, sipping Martinis at bookstore cafes in the West End.
If I have to watch one more American mind-numbing carb-loaded TV show..I'll be ill.
Can sex and the city, love, music, babies ever be a substitute for intellectual stimulation?
Can men ever make up for poetry and the Love song of J Alfred Prufock?
Can a diamond replace the intellectual trip which comes from peeping into the heart of a molecule?
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Flowers in my hair
Blooms
orchids
bird of paradise
bloom
in my hair
and heart..
Singing to me of the man
of the sun and sea
bringing his hands
with
his heart..
Sweet
like little birds
they run
up and down
my window
laughing at me
with his eyes..
orchids
bird of paradise
bloom
in my hair
and heart..
Singing to me of the man
of the sun and sea
bringing his hands
with
his heart..
Sweet
like little birds
they run
up and down
my window
laughing at me
with his eyes..
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Habillez moi (Dress me)
Its the buzz..
of waking up.
Like sipping coffee
even though I am off it
for the day.
I have another high.
Feeling lace
legs
feet..
trimmed
tasted
bare.
on the green
grass..
of waking up.
Like sipping coffee
even though I am off it
for the day.
I have another high.
Feeling lace
legs
feet..
trimmed
tasted
bare.
on the green
grass..
Today
Today is the time to wake up and be free.
Today is the time to go running and breathe in the fresh air, aspire for Jimmy Choos, fall in love, make it big.
Today is the day to go on the 'Skinny Bitch' diet, of Japanese noodles and organic earthquakes.
My body is reeling
from the impact..
Today is the time to go running and breathe in the fresh air, aspire for Jimmy Choos, fall in love, make it big.
Today is the day to go on the 'Skinny Bitch' diet, of Japanese noodles and organic earthquakes.
My body is reeling
from the impact..
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Beret Man
So, I have fallen in love..again. With the lost part of my self, I rediscovered on the streets of DC..
city of boulevards and cafes, revolutionaries and artists, untrapped in museums made of light.
I loved it all. The soul of America, as it was born..
Conceived in Baahston, born in DC and bred on the rough streets of NY.
The holy trinity of my love story.
Boston is like french Foie gras, delicate.. love struck, with a glass of wine, you find ubiqutously flowing down its streets..
New York is a barbequed steak- hot and spicy, grilled on the streets of BrooHklyn, with a De Niro accent. (Whot aah you ttohh-kin aahbout)
DC is a gentle delicate kebab..Renaissance artist, filled with the fresh spices of the French enlightenment..gentle and charming, beautiful beret man.
I dont know who I love more..
city of boulevards and cafes, revolutionaries and artists, untrapped in museums made of light.
I loved it all. The soul of America, as it was born..
Conceived in Baahston, born in DC and bred on the rough streets of NY.
The holy trinity of my love story.
Boston is like french Foie gras, delicate.. love struck, with a glass of wine, you find ubiqutously flowing down its streets..
New York is a barbequed steak- hot and spicy, grilled on the streets of BrooHklyn, with a De Niro accent. (Whot aah you ttohh-kin aahbout)
DC is a gentle delicate kebab..Renaissance artist, filled with the fresh spices of the French enlightenment..gentle and charming, beautiful beret man.
I dont know who I love more..
Monday, August 4, 2008
Macchu Pichhu man
It happens to me everytime I meet a hispanic man.
The fizz
the ride up to Machhu Pichhu
ripe with red
flowers.
Guantanamera
becomes my name
marisposa (butterfly) with the
tank top.
Marisol (Sea and sun)
and Marisombre (Sea and shadow)
I become both..
riding the
slow scorching
heat of
the desert.
The fizz
the ride up to Machhu Pichhu
I become an eagle feather
floating above
rocks
revolutions
coffee springsrevolutions
ripe with red
flowers.
Guantanamera
becomes my name
marisposa (butterfly) with the
tank top.
Marisol (Sea and sun)
and Marisombre (Sea and shadow)
I become both..
riding the
slow scorching
heat of
the desert.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Budapest, live in Istanbul
Jethro Tull's classic is baffling me.
Like the smog in cities of Eastern Europe.
Like cigarette smoke in Budapest..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUZMbfzrdWQ&feature=related
Like the smog in cities of Eastern Europe.
Like cigarette smoke in Budapest..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUZMbfzrdWQ&feature=related
Friday, March 7, 2008
The Samurai
"In the heart of a man
lives the soul of a warrior"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKn7lkpU1fE&feature=related
lives the soul of a warrior"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKn7lkpU1fE&feature=related
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
saawariya..the madness
What else is left to say?
A review.
http://saawariyafilm.com/
"Saawariya" is a timeless story of two young star-crossed lovers whose passions almost consume their will to the brink of self-destruction.
In this eternal tale of an ode to romance, stand two lonely souls whose childlike innocence and candour only obscures their inner turmoil, anger, anxiety and desperate wait for love.
An artist, a free spirit, an idealist and dreamer, Raj, is certain that he has found his ultimate dream when he arrives at a quaint picturesque town. A place surrounded by mountains, shrouded in mist and enveloped in beauty, mythical enough to be a painter’s vision or a poet’s memory.However, destiny paints a different picture for Raj…
One silent bright and starry night, he spots a mysterious girl draped in black, standing alone at a bridge.This chance encounter introduces him to Sakina, a shy and quiet, melancholic and enigmatic girl who continues to intrigue him.
Thus follows the beginning of a new friendship, where Raj with his most charming ways and an undying spirit tries to win Sakina’s heart.
Raj is unable to accept her haunting past and their friendship pulls him into a whirlwind of desire, madness and romance.Through Raj and Sakina’s journey together, we are reminded of the fragility of the human heart. In the couple’s anguish and test of faith, is revealed the power of unconditional love through a thousand layers of tumultuous emotions.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=stmKeMVN804&feature=related
A review.
http://saawariyafilm.com/
"Saawariya" is a timeless story of two young star-crossed lovers whose passions almost consume their will to the brink of self-destruction.
In this eternal tale of an ode to romance, stand two lonely souls whose childlike innocence and candour only obscures their inner turmoil, anger, anxiety and desperate wait for love.
An artist, a free spirit, an idealist and dreamer, Raj, is certain that he has found his ultimate dream when he arrives at a quaint picturesque town. A place surrounded by mountains, shrouded in mist and enveloped in beauty, mythical enough to be a painter’s vision or a poet’s memory.However, destiny paints a different picture for Raj…
One silent bright and starry night, he spots a mysterious girl draped in black, standing alone at a bridge.This chance encounter introduces him to Sakina, a shy and quiet, melancholic and enigmatic girl who continues to intrigue him.
Thus follows the beginning of a new friendship, where Raj with his most charming ways and an undying spirit tries to win Sakina’s heart.
Raj is unable to accept her haunting past and their friendship pulls him into a whirlwind of desire, madness and romance.Through Raj and Sakina’s journey together, we are reminded of the fragility of the human heart. In the couple’s anguish and test of faith, is revealed the power of unconditional love through a thousand layers of tumultuous emotions.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=stmKeMVN804&feature=related
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