Caeser Must be Buried

"I come to bury Caesar not to praise him" is the most infamous obituary in history. The unkindest acts of revenge are the ones that we heap on our dead. The impotent rage of a lifetime that now remains unfulfilled, bursts forth in a myriad ways, for its the only opportunity left to revile the person whom you will have no further opportunity to hate.




While people in different parts of the world have different structures dedicated to the dead, the Hindu world of the dead is remarkably devoid of any signs of physical commemoration. The best commemoration that a dead Hindu can hope for is the ritual feeding of the crows whom his soul is said to take temporary abode in. The body is duly burnt at the first available occasion, because a corpse to a Hindu is a great source of pollution. The ashes are scattered and the charred fragments of bone are thrown into flowing rivers. The result is remarkable- absolute hygiene and no memory. Perhaps its also the reason why the grossly overpopulated universe of Hindu myth has no parallels to a zombie or a vampire. With the physical basis of existence so utterly destroyed there could be no fear, no memory, no institutionalization of sorrow or ritualized recollection. The only thing one is obliged to do is to feed the dead once a year- not to honor them, but because not doing so would be catastrophic to the surviving family. It's for your own good that you feed them not because they are worth being remembered.



My father was the kind of man that everyone loved, the blue-eyed boy of the family who was always on the verge of something great. The one about whom there was this unmistakable air of expectation, the kind that always hung about- because he never cared enough to fulfill the expectations and finish off with it. I never once remember him from the collage of my childhood memories burdened with anything more serious than laughter. He could be the life of any party and could solicit the charm of anyone he set his sight on. His sense of entitlement was something that could put Alexander the Great to shame. He could be stunningly magnanimous to strangers and mystifyingly elusive once they'd lent him some money. He lived effortlessly, because most of the effort that sustained him fell to other people's lot.




It's been 8 years since I left my father's body to burn on the pyre. I returned the next morning to find his ashes cold after a night of rain. I ran my fingers through pasty ashes for bones, tied them up into a neat bundle and packed them in the ceremonial pot to throw them in one of the numerous Sacred Rivers of India. The hope was that he would find some way to salvation, at least in the calm muddy waters, at whose shores numerous men, women and children, bathed and chanted hoping for great virtue. The day we threw his ashes and bones into Godavari, I had to travel on a small thermocol dingy haplessly struggling under my weight, adding an element of mortal danger to the entire exercise. I hadn't cried in the days following his death, people thought I was bottling everything up. I desperately wanted to get the ritual done and get back to pretending a cataclysmic sorrow. I just didn't feel any great emotion stirring deep within as I was told I would. Somehow, I was pretty embarrassed at this utter lack of emotion that had overcome me. For years, I had hoped secretly that this man would one day miraculously disappear from our lives, and I was being told that I would need to rue that it had finally happened. I was scared that it was all just a set up and that he was playin a cruel joke on us, that he would come back the next day laughing at my naivete.



The only lasting memory that I can associate with my father is him banging furiously on my door asking my mother to cook or clean or wash. The only lasting sensation is one of a visceral pain at the prospect of sitting next to him smelling the alcohol on his breath. Evenings didn't come with the hope of a family dinner but with the terror that any moment now there would be boys running towards our home to excitedly tell us that my father had collapsed in some lane after drinking too much. In a particularly telling moment of desperation , he had sold off all the old newspapers and scrap he could find, to muster enough money for his fix. Ironically enough he sold my horoscope with all the rest.



The man has now been gone for 8 years. He made a huge impression on me, I have dutifully fed the crows and a bunch of greasy Brahmins every year, on the day he died. I still haven't come around to crying for him but his inheritance sits easy on me now. The future might be a dream but the past is set in stone. When Brutus came to bury Caesar, he came there to exactly do that. To bury Caesar was his burden, to praise him was not.

Desi Kid Wins THE Spelling Bee................AGAIN!

OOPS! WE did it again...... and again......yeah, another desi kid spelt his way to the rarified mnemonic paradise, that most middle class Indians esteem more than Shangri-La. The one supreme achievement, that signifies the acceptance by mainstream America of the all kinds of wierd tribes that flood its airports every year----the victory at some kind of National Bee...

OUR ticket to nerdly Nirvana is the National Spelling Bee. For ages the humble brown skinned wierdo has been the taxi driver or the overworked motel owner in the American mythology. He was chracterised by the strange "britishness" of his English groaning under the weight of many regional accents. He worked himself to bones and often would scare people in some hospital playing the doctor on Halloween.But No More -will he have to stand the slights of rednecks in school playgrounds, take the bullets in his convenience store holdups.The New Age saviour of the Indian is the here.....He/She is tiny....... is awkwardly gawky...........is as tall as the trophy he/she holds.....wears glasses.......AND KNOWS THE DICTIONARY INSIDE AND OUT. The Mastering of the English Lexicon by the Indian will be next only to the triumphs of Deepak Chopra in Indian-American folklore. Year after year, children have slogged in the mines , memorising words on the sly in the playground, reciting menmonic formulae to the gods, watching jealously while older kids walked away with spelling bee trophies.....and then the liberation comes.........That entry into the hallowed halls of nerddom....That cathartic realisation of the American Dream and a star is born. He/She knows that appoggiattura is not a fatal illness of the brain, isn't afraid of telling the bullies that there is no such word as dickhead in the dictionary and has been photographed for the high school newspaper with the proud Principal in the background.
Many Indian parents have waited all their lifetimes with baited breath expecting their little bundle of joy to liberate them from the dour existence of suburban America and catapult them to their fifteen minutes of fame. There is a vicarious joy in watching Indian mothers turning into the winged greek goddess of victory, much to the jealous fulminations of all the other indian mothers around. She has been the one person who waked her kids up at unearthly hours to memorise word lists. She has made ancient potions (on her grandmother's authority) to sharpen the memory of her to-be superstar. She has lied to the teacher that her child cannot take after school dance classes because her child has paediatric osteoporosis. Now the day comes when it has all come to fruition. She can hold her head high in the comity of suburban mothers. She can bake cookies for her kids that she'd promised them after the competition. She is now the mother of an All-American Hero.
Off course, All-American icons aren't easy to classify. In the demonology of the American Mind there are immigrants of three types:-
A) those that run across the border, steal jobs, speak wierd languages and vote for the democrats
B)those that work hard in family businesses, study hard at universities and are planning to take over America in the future
C)and finally the Terrorists.
Thanks to our skin colour(not color for me), we've been in all the categories of the list. The silver lining has always been that we knew, all our great brahminical traditions of memorising effortlessly, without comprehension, would someday pay off. And when it has paid off- we have managed to own the different kinds of Bees that Americans are so enamored of. The mindless prattling of information saturated kids for some reason touches deep chords of envy and admiration everywhere. That has proved to be One Strand of Hope that will lead us to the promised land of an All-American Life. LONG LIVE THE DICTIONARY!!! LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!!!!

The Waltz of The Flamingoes

"Now the female will start flapping her wings and circle around the male," he said pointing to the television in the corner of the fast food joint, which incidentally seem to always run either sports channels or "nature channels". I do not know what morbid fascination he had for birds, which he surely did not have for me. He had been talking about them for the previous forty-five minutes.



He was entirely delicious, the kind of guy one finds once in a neon moon, especially when one is alone at home. Initially during the conversation I told him how lonely it feels not to have anyone else at home, what with everyone busy visiting some relative or the other. I assumed he got the point. HE seemed intelligent, at least, smart enough to understand the suggestion. BUT NO! all he could talk abt was the mating dance of the flamingoes, he called it a waltz. I tried getting his attention and knew a few "discreet moves"-I tried throwing the spoon off the table and bending over to pick it, he didn't seem to notice. Damn those movies...none of those moves work in real life. He remarked how graceful the flamingo's legs were. I asked him if he liked long legged guys. He looked nonplussed and proceeded to explain how the anatomy of the human leg differs from its avian counterpart. I tried licking my fingers after i finished my sandwich, he told me that was unhygienic.

I had tried every trick in the book, and if there was chemistry it would show by now, otherwise the reaction was way off-balance. I passed the next half hour listening discovering a new dimension to the phrase "bird-brained". Having dated scores of men, I had a redoubtable reputation in the gay social circle in my home town. There were urban legends of me being able to bed the most recalcitrant of men with a wiggle of my finger. And here I was, unable to work sex into a conversation with an obviously gay man. I had a lot at stake that night. I had my reputation riding on this Hard hearted male (I was wishing for it to be the other way round).


He was paying for the meal so I decided to appear graciously interested. If I couldn't get sex, I might as well indulge myself with the menu and make up for lost carnal pleasures. I polished off quite an impressive array of dishes whose names sounded vaguely like they were children of a French father and an Arab mother living in Timbuktu. He seemed unperturbed , he had this stoic expression on his face which didn't let you know if he was hiding something or if he really was an idiot. He paid for the dinner and asked me if he could give me a ride home. I might as well save a penny or two, I thought. What happened later was just a blur-when one is fast losing interest in the other person, it's hard to keep track of all that he wants you to hear. Usually, I am told that my eyes have a glazed look and I have a disturbingly smiling demeanor when I am not particularly listening to people. He took it as a sign of my interest in the long beaked finches of Galapagos he was telling me about. Finally after suffering one excruciating hour of Hyderabad's traffic, we reached home.
I suddenly felt an uneasy pain inside me.... there was my gloriously lonely home waiting for him and here he was, unceremoniously dumping me. Just as i was stepping out of the car he hurriedly mumbled something. I thought he was sayin somethin abt some damn bird- I just smiled and nodded. "So where do I park my car?" he asked me. Why would I worry about his lack of a parking space. He asked me the same question again...I asked him if he didn't have a garage at home.
"It'll take me a good part of the next three hours to park my car at my home and come back here" he said. He had been mumbling about wanting to come up "for a cup of coffee". My heart leapt out...there was more uneasy pain in the chest....well, butterflies in the stomach..... its alright, its just the anxiety of sleeping with this fabulous guy, I thought. I took a moment to compose myself and with an awkward smile lead him to our garage. The butterflies in the stomach still wouldn't go away.
The scene shifted to my living room. I made him coffee, (the next day i was to find out that he hadn't even sniffed it). We talked about lots of things.....mainly birds. I asked him if he wanted to take a look at my room.



We went into my room, he tenderly ran his fingers up my back. Now my heart was beating faster than it ever had. Suddenly, I felt this inexorable urge, the light in my eyes seemed to dim....... My legs sprang with an urgency i had hardly ever felt........I RAN...........................................
............. I RAN and moments later, i was crouching over the toilet throwing up like I was a pregnant frog. All the butterflies in my stomach decided to fly away that very moment.
All the exotic ingredients of the evening's meal, made an appearance in the show, all at once.
After eviscerating to my heart's content, I fell back. I felt him holding my head and rubbing my back. He cleaned me up and helped me to my bed.


"You should have gone easy with the sea-food" he said.

I smiled.



After quite some time I asked him why he'd acted so aloof and uninterested all evening? The Waltz of The Flamingoes, every species has its own version of the mating ritual, this is the mating ritual of the human homosexual. Someone acts aloof, someone else makes a fool of himself.


P.S. We were together for the next two years. Flamingoes don't mate for life, I guess.

NEW and IMPROVED- A Neutral Accent For Mr.Madrasi

Alright, so I am stuck with a familiar problem - how do I begin my rant?


A good idea would be to tell you how the Oxford English Dictionary defines what I want to rant against. But prejudice is far too familiar a concept to beggar the indignity of an introduction. So, let me begin by asking you who the person was that coaxed his prejudice into your face? If you are an Indian, a SOUTH Indian at that, was he someone that hid his ignorance behind a gaudy tie, the kind that seem so plentiful these days. Perhaps, HE also had an irritating over-confidence -- an air of smugness -- that seems to be the hallmark of everyone with a two-bit, third grade management degree from a back alley in DELHI. Somehow, HE behaves, as if HE were in fact the Archangel bearing the copyright of the one true gospel of GOD.




HE met me on a train, a bottle of mineral water in tow and some movie rag to keep his intellect occupied. Of course, on and off HIS cell phone would ring, of course he would lapse into ultra-loud conversations, of course in ENGLISH, of course peppered with four lettered words, and of course utterly endearing! As the norm for an Indian train journey goes, conversation transpires out of the nothingness, like a ghost out of the mists. You do not even have the time to anticipate its presence before you are inextricably trapped. Simple wordless bovine adjacency of the kind that the rest of the world treasures in the name of privacy is an anathema.

An elderly gentleman in the group of passengers, graciously offered tea to all his fellow travelers. HE refused, with all the practiced grace of a perennially smiling plastic doll. I, on the other hand committed a cardinal sin, I said "Ihad juSSSt noWW oNLy, uncle" all my south Indian upbringing pouring itself out, saturating my accent. For a brief moment I threw a glance at HIM, all-smiling. Yet, his smile was different, this time it was the triumphal smile of a wily python that is anticipating a wonderful lunch of a poor rabbit that had strayed right into its curls.
"You seem to be a local guy here," he asked me
"AF Corse, yes"
"Whaddyado"
"saari, i didn't understand"
"What do u do?" in ultra slow motion
"oh,i yam doo-ying my Ph.D under a joint Indo-GERRman pRRoject," I said with a fair measure of pride, trying to outdo his contempt.
"You didn't get through to a management school?"
"No, No, i waant to do this...In fact it is a good technical koschen that I am working on.."
"Waat do u do?"

"I work as an HR manager with I***l"
"What kind of career opportunities do you anticipate once you've done your....thing" HE

"I think I will join some AAR yand dee firm"

"Well, actually I run an institute as well, we are involved in Accent training, Accent neutralization, .........and we also place people with BPO's" HE
"You do realize that if you opt for a shift in your profession, the BPO industry will be a great alternative"

"Yesss"

" Give me a call, sometime, once you are back in hydRaBaD, attend a few sessions with us, I'm pretty sure you'll know the difference for yourself,"

"in waat?"

"In your Accent! once you are in the job market you will realize how hard it is for someone with a pronounced mother tongue influence on his language, to get ahead of the pack. I've seen loads of you guys face really bad situations. You know more than half of the South Indians that I interview, are actually, way underqualified . They SUFFER because of their accents." HE finally put a stopper in that verbal diarrhea.

"waat qualifikayshans aare reqoired faar the BPO jaab"

"A good command over the English language, competitive communication skills, great personality..."

"Oh, u mean like you,"

"Er...I think I am slightly over that phase of my career"

"So, you also got your accent neutralized..?"
"Well, I never had a problem in that area you see, we come from a cosmopolitan background in DELHI, accents are hardly a problem"

"So waat is a neutral accent"

"something that doesn't show traces of your mother tongue on your pronunciation, has clean vocabulary and great command on how to enunciate words... in the right way, internationally acceptable"

"means i should speak like Americans?"

"Lets not get ahead of ourselves.... no one is born perfect you see..... though many times my American clients have complimented me on how i managed to fool them"

"but i yam very proud of my mother tongue, i yam happy that it has the power to show up even when i yam speaking other languages"

"Well, it won't take you too far, though, will it?"

"No, its taking me to one of the world best cancer research institute....faar me that is enuff no?"
____________________________________________________________________

Well, let me do , what I thought would be a good idea to begin my rant with. Let me define a neutral accent.
(Keeping with the anti-Establishment tone i decided to use Wikipedia as my reference and not the Oxford English dictionary---very self-conscious, I know.....but hey its a rant. Also, i consider Wikipedia the modern day bastion of freedom; a slightly inaccurate, though wholly democratic, academic authority.)
Wikipedia defines neutral as the state of being entirely unbiased, free of any kind of typification or characterization, and not tending to any known position

Accent on the other hand is the sum total of all that typifies and characterizes an object or a process, provides it with peculiarity. Wikipedia defines an accent as a manner of pronunciation of a language by a certain group of people.

To my mind the phrase neutral accent is an oxymoron. Anything that is an accent by its very definition cannot be neutral. Indeed, when a falsehood is repeated long enough it starts to sound true....so does a neutral accent.
Only a group of culturally spineless people would speak a language in a way that is in complete dissonance with their learned phonologies. I am the lucky few who haven't had their accents neutralized....hallelujah for that. And everyone else that is in this great sheep trot to the neutralization center, good for them. I hope though, that because of the wierdo that Mr.Madrassi is, he will keep up his accent, even if as a charade for public entertainment.