2009 – Page 3 – jaadu hai.

high school meme

Taken from Faiqa’s blog. But mine, while being self-indulgent, is very boring.

Did you date someone from your school senior year?
Never dated.
Did you marry someone from your high school?
No.
Did you car pool to school?
Yes.
What kind of car did you drive?
A white Chevrolet (what do you mean the ‘t’ is silent?) Corsica.
What kind of car do you have now?
A red Ford Taurus.
It’s Friday night… where were you (in high school)?
Studying.
It is Friday night… where are you (now)?
Studying.
What kind of job did you have in high school?
I didn’t have a job while in high school.
What kind of job do you do now?
I make the Internet work.
Were you a party animal?
I was labelled ‘anti-social’ in high school.
Were you considered a flirt?
I’m pretty sure I was not.
Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
No.
Were you a nerd?
I am pretty sure I was.
Did you get suspended or expelled?
No.
Can you sing the fight song?
No.
Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)?
I really didn’t have any favourite teachers, though there were a few that I admired (and many I did not admire).
Where did you sit during lunch?
Cafeteria, benches on the football field, computer lab (yeah, I’m pretty sure I was a nerd).
What was your school’s full name?
Agincourt Collegiate Institute.
When did you graduate?
What was your school mascot?
The Lancer.
If you could go back and do it again, would you?
If I could? But that is not yet a scientific possibility. I wouldn’t mind but I don’t see the point, I like life post 21.
Did you have fun at Prom?
I didn’t go.
Do you still talk to your prom date?
Refer to question #1.
Who was your best friend?
I didn’t have a best friend. I had many good friends.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Maker of awesome things.
Any regrets?
Yes, I should have taken drama in high school. I regret that.
Biggest fashion mistake?
I don’t have a sense of fashion.
Favourite fashion trend?
Jeans.
Are you going to your next reunion?
Maybe, but I don’t even know if those happen.
Who did you have a secret crush on?
Yes.
Did you go on spring break?
Ummm, I went to Saudi every summer, does that count?

confusion

“I don’t know”, I said in response to his question.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”, he asked.

What does he mean about what I mean? Did I not know the meaning of what I said? Was I not clear? What more clarity could I shed beyond the words that I just said? What does he think it means when someone says ‘I don’t know’? Maybe he is not listening, maybe it is him who is not following the conversation.

“What?”, I replied with the only word I could muster up.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”, he repeated himself, though this time a bit slower.

“I didn’t ask you to repeat yourself. I heard what you said. What do you mean when you ask me what I meant? Do you think I didn’t know the meaning of what I said? Was I not clear? What more clarity could I shed beyond the words that I just said? What do you think it means when someone says ‘I don’t know’? Maybe you are not listening, maybe it is you who is not following the conversation. Maybe you are afraid of not knowing. I am not. And thus, I do not know.”

the man, the glasses, and the oranges

What should I tell you about him? I could tell you how he’s aged, or maybe I could tell you about the time he broke two of his fingers? I could tell you about all the books he never read to the end, or (hah) I could tell you about the books that he did finish. In either case, there’s nothing I could tell you that you wouldn’t be able to see for yourself.

It’s 6AM and the alarm clock just started to ring. He’s a bit confused, unsure of whether this is the right time to get up. His first priority, however, is to stop the annoying sounds of the time telling machine. He reaches out with his hand, starts to feel his way to the clock and in doing so he knocks over his glasses. He looks in the clock’s direction now and all the numbers are blurry. Every morning starts off blurry. This morning is particularly dark.

He manages to find the button that silences the clock but is unable to find his glasses. It is too dark and blurry. Maybe they fell between some secret cracks? He just can’t seem to find them. He remembers that he has a spare pair in the washroom drawer. It is dark and it does not occur to him that he could switch the lights on. Instead he feels his way into the hall way and stumbles into the washroom.

He turns on the lights. This was not a conscious decision. Though the situation had warranted light, he did so purely out of instinct. It was simply a matter of fact: you enter the washroom and you turn on the lights. Everything in that moment turned brighter yet remained blurry. He catches his reflection in the washroom mirror and it causes him to pause. The blurry reflection took him to a moment some 30 years ago. For a split instant he saw a clear reflection of himself as he was some 30 years ago. He quickly recollects himself. He makes a frowning facial expression and shrugs off the moment. This is no time for musings of past. The world is blurry and that must be undone.

There are three drawers. Is it in the first? the second? or the third? I should open all of them, but not all at once. That would defeat the purpose. This is no time for thought. Thinking slows down the process. Just act. He finds the glasses in the second drawer without needing to open the third. As he puts the glasses on he forgets that he couldn’t find his other pair, as if this was his only one, as if he had never lost anything. He does remember that he needs to pick up groceries and other items. He proceeds to get dressed with a better grasp of the world than he had when he woke up.

He stands on the subway platform as the train approaches. Everyone on the platform takes a step forward in anticipation. He picks up his grocery bags from the floor and enters the train. This is his daily mode of transport, the subway lines are life lines that connect him to the city. The bags he’s carrying make his movement slow. The rushing crowd occupy all the seats, like it were a gold rush. He finds a place to stand as comfortably as he can.

He feels a tug on his jacket. A young boy (a teenager perhaps?), feeling a little sheepish, stands up and offers his seat. He looks the boy in the eyes with a smile that spells a blessing. He accepts the offer. He places one bag on his lap and the rest on the subway car floor.

In what almost seems like a ritual, he starts to take out items he’s purchased one by one and spend time with them. He takes out the apple juice carton and runs his hand across it, as if he were searching for a memory or hoping that one would be created. He replaces the juice carton and repeats the procedure with toothpaste.

He then reaches down and takes out a bag of oranges. He removes a single orange from the bag of oranges. He spins the orange on his palm and then grips it tight to stop the spin, still holding the bag of oranges in his other hand. The train comes to a screeching halt. His grip protects the singular orange, but the bag of oranges falls to the floor. One after another the oranges leave the bag and start to roll out in a line. Not a perfect line, but there’s enough of a pattern.

All the heads in the subway car follow the oranges the length of the distance.

holier than thou

I’ve been asked through out the years to blog my thoughts on marriage. I haven’t for a variety of reasons. A whiles back I decided I wasn’t going to blog about politics or religion or other things. Marriage falling into that other things category. I didn’t want to blog about these things because I felt I’d come off sounding “holier than thou”. I hate sounding holier than thou. If I really let out on the topic, the post would probably be full of fury and swearword-laden, but I’ll play nice. The “blog about it” rumblings have started again, and also Owl blogged about it. So I figured that I’d chime in too.

I am a 26 year old unmarried male (soon to be married, inshallah (did I just announce that on the blog even though I said I wouldn’t?)). Please don’t hold my male status against me, I was born this way. I have a problem with the system of marriage, or at least how it seems to function. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against marriage as an institution. I find the idea of growing old with someone very appealing and humbling. But there is a problem with the system and the process (or maybe with me). I might exaggerate my descriptions of said system, but you will let me know if I’m going overboard.

For me, this starts when I was somewhere in my early teens. I was in India, around a dining table where elder family members were discussing potential marriage candidates for my uncle. I was around in the periphery playing with one of my baby cousins but I was listening to the conversation. The comparison amongst potentials consisted of (among other things) things like their height and skin colour. All through out I kept wondering whether I should say something, these were my elders and if I spoke I would be directly going against things they were saying. Then at some point someone said something to the effect of: “I saw the girl’s feet and they seemed darker.”

What? WHAT??? Are you serious? This distinct pounding started in my head. It happens generally when I’m about to say something that I’m unsure I should say. But it never stops me, I end up saying it anyway.

“Kaise baatien karre aap log?” How can you say something like that?

All heads turned towards me. I tried to make my case about how their discussion was belittling and inappropriate. I said what if so and so uncle or auntie had darker skin colour, should that make them less marriageable? These are our brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts, how would we want to be treated? I did get the flurry of “you don’t understand because you’re a child” etc etc. But the conversation dragged on for a bit.

Someone then asked me this: if I were in a situation where I had to choose between two girls and they were both the same in every way except that one had dark skin and the other had white skin, who would I choose?

What? WHAT??? Are you serious? I said that the question was inappropriate and I refused to answer it. But I’m sure the point was lost on them. (In fairness to them, I’ve seen this attitude decrease as time has passed.)

I believe that we as people are greater than the sum of our parts. The marriage process, as it were, in the South Asian community dehumanizes people into their parts. I find this infuriating. I find the idea of comparing people like that absurd. We owe better to ourselves as human beings.

So when people say there’s a shortage of good people, I don’t doubt you, no. I’m a believer in Sturgeon’s law. But I question whether maybe he was okay except wasn’t tall enough for you. Or perhaps she was okay but didn’t have the culinary skills to feed your appetite. So don’t come around saying there’s a shortage of eligible men because they lack the necessary qualities of height (tallness) and hair on their heads, because we all now how ragingly important those are.

Which brings me to other absurdities. What’s with this cooking thing? “Well I don’t want to die of hunger!” some guys will say. Yeah? Then learn how to cook or eat out you ungrateful piece of no goodness. Or hire a cook. Seriously, if you want someone to clean after you and make your food, then hire a maid and a cook. Or yeah, go hungry for a few days, might do you good.

We are greater than the sum of our parts, the marriage process practically encourages us to split ourselves into our parts and remain that way. This has to stop. Maybe we think if we can match this against that then it will be a better match. You know, if the guy is 5’ 7” then the girl must be around 5’1 at least, and people with X degrees shouldn’t marry people with Y degrees, because we know that just won’t work out. I’m sorry, but when did you become a tarot card reader? Tell the future much? I’ll take a paragraph right out of Owl’s post:

But then, there’s one over everyone’s head. No one is promised matrimonial bliss. Marrying young is no guarantee for happiness. Neither is waiting. Going for the ‘arranged’ seems to work as often and not as the ‘love’ variety. Marrying in your culture is no foil to divorce, but then neither is marrying out. It doesn’t seem to matter also if you’ve married someone much older, younger or the same age. Nothing is a sure-fire bet for matrimonial success. That’s life.

Unless of course the purpose of the process is to get the pretty girls together with the rich guys. Is it?

There are more absurdities. Some of the language I hear around the process. “We’ll let her do this and that”. What? You’ll let her? What does that mean? You’ll let her? Does she not have a mind of her own? Did you lose the ability to converse and reach consensus? Do you own her will? Do you own her? You should be ashamed of yourself. Learn how to talk and discuss things instead of throwing around directions and being controlling. This language needs to die off.

Yes, this is a rant. This is a rant about the absurdities of the process. Things are absurd because we let them be absurd. We are complicit when we simply watch people do stupid things and do nothing and say nothing. At the very least you should say something. If not you (us), then who?

Sure, I get it. We can’t simply make the suggestions I’m making here (“language needs to die off”). Yes, things need to be handled with tact. But, please, say something.

[Oh I am not done yet, there will be more.]

life’s life that.

ambidextrosity

I am not ambidextrous. Apparently I am cross-dominant.

I used to be in the Boy Scouts of America while I was in Saudi and on a certain outing we were somewhat rock climbing. Well, we weren’t climbing, we were descending. I don’t recall exactly what the procedure was called. We were hooked up to some sort of harness, feet on the rocks, and we let go of the rope little by little to descend. There were two adults who were supervising the process. When it was my turn, one of them hooked me up. The other one, an Australian man, asked me “are you right-handed or left-handed?”. I said I wasn’t sure, and he said “I knew this one was going to be trouble”.

But I really didn’t know. I write with my left hand. It seems very natural to do so. One might assume that this makes me left-handed. It doesn’t quite. Were I to arm wrestle with someone, I would use my right hand. If I was playing cricket or baseball I would bat left. However, if was was pitching or bowling (equivalent of pitching in cricket) I’d use my right hand. Tennis and table-tennis, I use my right hand. I kick with my right (leg/foot).

It’s a mixture. I am not one or the other. My right ear is dominant, while for my eyes it is my left. What is odd to me is that this cross-dominance is described as an abnormality.

Most people develop unilateral cerebral dominance – that is their dominant eye, ear, hand and leg are on the same side of the body. Approximately 20% of the population has mixed dominance or other irregularities in the development of dominance. Those irregularities of dominance that are the most difficult to resolve without therapeutic help involve alternating reliance on one side or the other without conscious decision to do so. Such children will use first one hand when writing and then the other, for example. This causes instability in perception and performance. Immaturities and irregularities in lateralisation can cause perceptual, organisational and performance problems in all areas of life.

– Integrated Learning Therapy

Interesting.

on social networks

A few months ago I deleted most of my social networking accounts. Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, Flickr, Tumblr, FriendFeed etc.

I get Facebook and Flickr.

Facebook you use as a souped up phone book or contact list. You don’t always keep in touch with people in your phone “book” (hah, does anyone still use a physical book to store this information?), and Facebook friends are the same. You don’t have to keep in touch, but their information is available when you need it. Since mostly everyone is on Facebook it becomes extremely useful to organize events. I think that is Facebook’s most useful function, at least ever since they took down Scrabolous.

Flickr you use to upload your photos. It’s simple. I like.

I kinda get Tumblr and Twitter, but not really.

Tumblr is blogging. I suppose I don’t understand having a blog AND a tumble log. It should all be one thing. There’s no such thing as “it’s not a proper blog post”. Anything can be a blog post. So just post it on your blog. Normal blogging software should already do what Tumblr does and it’s a shame that it doesn’t.

Twitter? Haha. I don’t get it. What’s stopping you from posting a 140 character message right on your blog? Seriously?

Yes, I know. I’m missing out on the social aspect of these things, they develop their own culture. With the reposting that happens on Tumblr to the whole network creating aspect of Twitter. I understand, but I’m not compelled enough (yet).

What bothered me with Facebook was people taking that “What are you doing right now?” thing way to seriously. “I’m 10 minutes from the ice cream store.”, “I’m 5 minutes away from the ice cream store now!!! Can’t wait!!!1”, “I’m standing in front of the ice cream store!!!”, “I’m opening the door of the ice cream store.”, “I’m inside the ice cream store.”, “What flavour should I try this time?”.

Ummm, no. So I select “Show less things from this person”, or whatever that option was. But then there’d be someone else who does the same thing. Sure, I could just stop using Facebook, or not use it as much. But I’m flawed like that. If it’s there, I’ll probably use it. I have difficulty letting go of things, and once I’ve let go it takes me a while to get back.

So eventually, I decided to delete my accounts. I probably shouldn’t have deleted Flickr, but I was on a roll. If it’s really important that I know what you’re doing or what you’re up to, I’ll ask/email you or you’ll email me and just tell me.

It’s not as if I’ll stay away forever. I’ll probably be back on some of these services. Maybe Twitter. I might give Twitter a chance and try and figure it out.

I value honesty over modesty and that is why, among other reasons, I am awesome.

a penny for your thoughts?

This happened over 3 years ago. Erum was about 2.5 or 3 years old. She had been carrying this little round container that dispensed many feet of chewing gum. I started to tease her early in the day about how chewing gum “wasn’t good for you”. She clearly chose to ignore my advice and continued chewing.

Later in the day she walked into my room and we started talking. At some point I tried to steer the conversation back to how chewing gum wasn’t a good thing.

“Acha, aap yeh batao ke aap gum kyun khate? Nahin khana ji, achi cheez nahi hoti”, I said. Okay, so tell me why you chew gum? You really shouldn’t, it’s not good for you.

“Hmmm… aap gum khate?”, she fired back. Hmmm… do you chew gum?

“Ummm… nahin khate.”, I say to tease her (of course I chew gum). Ummm… I don’t.

“Agar aap gum taste nahin karenge to aap ko flavour kaisa pata chalinga? Hum ko flavour pasand.” If you don’t taste gum then how can you know the flavour? I like the flavour.

I sat there stunned for a few seconds. Did this two and a half year old just tell me about the taste and flavour of gum? Not only that, she lead me through to the point where she explained to me why she chews gum. She didn’t just say that she liked the flavour. She first asked me if I chewed gum. She completely blew me away. Wow.

Just that thought process, I find it absolutely fascinating. What was she thinking?

not in all the world is copper mint
to match the way in which you think

jon stewart, jim cramer and the buzz

There is much ado on the Internet about the recent spat between Jon Stewart (of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show) and Jim Cramer (of CNBC’s Mad Money).

The article that articulates my thoughts on the matter is written by Glenn Greenwald. Please do read it.

Faiqa posted about the incident and she wonders if Stewart is being too idealistic. I respectfully disagree. I think that our standards for realism are far too low. It should not be considered idealism to expect journalistic media outlets to investigate what they report. If we wanted regurgitation we would simply read the CEOs’ company “vision” web pages. It should not be considered idealism to want politicians to serve the public interest over corporate interest. This is a level of realism that we should come to expect and one that we should strive for.

Idealism would be a pony for your birthday and a free constant supply of chocolate ice cream.

The reason I’m writing this post, however, is to respond to Paul Hoffman’s post because he doesn’t have comments on his site.

Paul says (I am reproducing the entire post here because it’s not that long, the emphasis is mine):

What a letdown. One of the jobs of a host is to listen to what the guest says and respond, not to launch pre-scripted volleys. What Jim Cramer said, repeatedly, is that he tries to do what Jon thinks that a financial program should do.

That wasn’t good enough for Stewart, however; Jon indicates that Cramer is supposed to be responsible for the whole CNBC network. Does Stewart take responsibility for all the shows with misogynist comedy on Comedy Central? That seems unlikely.

The double-standard Stewart sets up is even worse than that, however. He repeatedly says that Cramer is responsible for covering a wider swath of news in Cramer’s admittedly-entertaining program because Cramer’s audience is just regular schmoes who don’t know any better. But there are a zillion people, particularly teenagers, who get all their TV news from the Daily Show. Stewart doesn’t seem to feel responsible for giving them a wider swath of news; you rarely see anything about difficult international topics on The Daily Show. Why should Cramer-the-entertainer be held to a different standard that Stewart-the-entertainer?

Actually, Jon was not indicating that Cramer is responsible for the whole CNBC network. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Jon starts off with:

Let me just explain to you very quickly one thing that is somewhat misinterpreted. This was not directed at you, per se. I just want you to know that.

Why should Cramer be held to a different standard than Stewart? I’ll say here what Stewart said to Tucker Carlson during his visit to Crossfire, “What is wrong with you?”. Jon Stewart’s show is on Comedy Central. When people want to watch The Daily Show they change the channel to a network that airs comedy shows. When people watch Cramer’s Mad Money, they tune into CNBC a news media network. Are you telling me that these two shows should be held to the same standards?

Stewart makes specific mention of this point, which he takes exception to, he points out that the promo for Cramer’s show says “In Cramer We Trust”. The tagline for the show is “Make Money with Money Manager Jim Cramer”. You must agree that the context to the shows are very different and the claims each show makes are very different. Stewart says:

Isn’t that, you know, look—we are both snake oil salesmen to a certain extent-
But we do label the show as snake oil here. Isn’t there a problem with selling snake oil and labelling it as vitamin tonic and saying that it cures impetigo… Isn’t that the difficulty here?

Paul, I think you need to watch the segment again. This time with more listening.

By the way, I think Cramer handled the show fairly well. There is no doubt that Stewart has a specific point of view and bias, but it is worth listening to.

Stewart raises a very important question. “What is your role?”, this is both in reference to Cramer and CNBC. What is the role of CNBC as a media network that is engaging in financial journalism. Is the excuse “Jee what can I tell you, the CEOs lied to us” an acceptable one? Who is supposed to put the ‘investigative’ in investigative journalism? What are the standards can we expect from organizations that claim to be journalistic? What standards should be hold them to?

What Stewart does imply, and I agree with him, is that the media has become a mouthpiece for politicians and corporations. Stewart says that they, the financial media, knew what was going on but continued to report the lies they were being fed. Please note that Cramer did not refute this.

What, then, is the role of “the news media” in a “democracy”? Are they fulfilling this role? What needs to be done to keep the news media honest? Shouldn’t the news media be keeping others honest?