Rive Gauche!/The Left Bank

Aah!
to be at the Left bank of Paris..tres tres bien!
The soul of all leftists cries out to be here..

La Rive Gauche (The Left Bank) is the left bank of the Seine River in Paris. Here the river flows roughly westwards, cutting the city into two halves: the Right Bank, to the north; and the Left Bank, to the south.
The Left Bank is one of the city's most romantic districts. This is the Paris of another era; the Paris of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and dozens of other members of the great artistic community at Montparnasse.

Residency vs. entrepreneur

So what choice do you make?
residency vs. blue bay
create value vs. save lives
how do you measure your worth
the number of companies you make
or the number of patients you heal..
stay safe and work hard
create lots of work
lots of money
lots of worthwile products
doctors vaccines drugs
and make one life
safe?
Nights out at the hospital
or all-nighters at the Biotech Bay office..
making a new company from scratch
or delivering a new life
from one?
The case rests..
I want to do medicine
passsionate intense nights out at the ER
full of joints and knees
beautiful molecules like Taj Mahals
intricately married to neurons
exquisite DNA lining up inside
oxygen saturations
which save lives..
or should I make the vaccine which
will do that?
sitting by the Blue Bay
lined up
by the Embarcadero
saturartion of cutting edge
technolgy
high?
What takes me higher?
IS the question?
You cannot measure life capital in stocks
it doesnt lead to jobs
or the high of making a Siemens from scratch
but it brings you man
pulled out of the mud
each company is an immediate
lease of life..

On the road..again

So I'm on the road..
again..
nothing but the breeze
and the wild west
the sound of motorcyle diaries
in the background.
flying through the frontier
running through the trees..
I'm travelling light..
with nothing but the voice of Che..
and your heart..

motorcycle boundaries

I feel the boundaries dissolve
like jumping into the sea..
like taking a leap off the top of the baoli
in rang de basanti
I float above the clouds
beneath the sky
free
from the shackles of self
hood
and false I's
delusion gone..
as I walk to the road
with you
and my hand
in yours..
are you ready
to take the plunge?
---

Blog after Nihari and bean sprouts

Gar firdaus bar ru e zameen ast..
If there is a Paradise on earth, it is this.. it is this..

Well, this is what I think of everytime I smell nihari on my palate.. the flavour of five continents and 16 different spices.
The ribbons of Persia and the bylanes of Purani Dilli.
The smell of Isfahan married to that of my house.
Papa's awadhi intricacies about slicing the adrak too thin, so its 'maheeen' enough for the Adab and tehzeeb of civilised behaviour.
Bringing the plates, warmed up before a Chinese meal, otherwise the Maitre'd's had it.
For nihari, it all about the flavour. Khush- bu.
A farsi word, as intricate as their faces. regal as their eyes. Deep as their hearts.
Dipped with the blood and heart of Love's etiquette.
The fragrance of itrs blended with the flakes of khus khus,
green as the robe worn by the parizaad.
Mix with a little green ginger, grated thin as ice and remove the top off the deghchee before you smell it.
Mystic and melting in your mouth, before you know it, you have melted, like the fragrant oil, which floats on top of the meat, which has lost its soul in the embrace of the poppy seeds, blended fine with the javitri and jaiphal and all the saffron of the world.
I remember eating it in scorching white heat of a Delhi afternoon, in the middle of a lane, packed with scooters and rickshaws, honking cars and old cows..
a recipe as old as the secret passages under the Red fort and as mystical as the Sufis which fill its air.
Ba Khuda..!

My name is Ghazal

My Dad decided to name me 'Ghazal', after his love for Urdu poetry and adab.
One day his friend, my dear 'Chachu' came over, and he was like:
'Wallah! Kahin bacchi ko Gajal ya Gajak na banade log'.
(I hope people don't turn our little one into 'Gajal or 'Gajak').
Bas, that was it.
The 'Ghazal' died and the 'L' was born.
But it never left me.. anyways.

Refined sugar

Why did she always like people who were into 'Che' and song, left and liberal
and yet land up marrying the ones Ammi/Abbu picked from the home village?

She sat mincing her coffee cup and eating the raw brown sugar which stuck to her finger tips, as she browsed the morning, slurping down the coffee.

When does she begin to understand the raw brown sugar from the cane variety?
When does the actual industrial revolution begin and the old one end?
When does one become a Renaissance and realise it was all from the Moors of Spain anyways?
When does one stop becoming a colony?
and turn into the developing world..
When does India become Pakistan - and the ex-jewel in the crown, while her queen/(Noor) lies in England's smoggy old towns.
When do the taken become the takers?
Why does the World bank give out loans to the world's ex-richest country?(Bangladesh)..
Why do I write this blog in English and not Farsi..?

Gar Firdaus, ba ru e zameen ast..