A Brazilian Friendship

It is a strange relationship.
Is it a friendship? Is it compassion? Or just plain kind genuine courtesy and help?
It all begins on the day of joining the vessel. An Indian joining a Brazilian vessel. A non-Portuguese speaking Indian joining a non-English speaking Brazilian vessel.
All except one.
A pretty and inquisitive girl who seemed enthralled at the idea of having a chance to interact with an Indian. A blessing in disguise, she speaks good English as well!
This is how began ‘The Brazilian Friendship’.
For she was the only one I could speak to, she would be my translator when it came to communication with the Captain, when I would stare blankly at peoples faces, she would initiate a conversation in English just to keep me involved. Chipping in with information as to who was saying what, translating my chats for the others and vice-versa, I think trying to know as much as her wisdom allowed. For a while I felt as if she was the only friend I had around here; Solving my problems, registering my phone connection, and most of the times simply giving a patient ear to most of what I had to say!
This is where the interactions get complicated. Usually friendships grow in both ways… Both persons have a desire to interact with each other, share ideas, thoughts and activities… In the true meaning of the word, I wonder if we can call our relationship as a friendship! And yet she is the person closest to me on board the ship.
On introspection I feel like a parasite. For I have an imminent need of her companionship for matters as small as translating an SMS to getting word across to a co-worker trying to figure out just what is happening around me! Of course she is kind hearted and good natured enough to never complain. In fact she is gracious enough to acknowledge that if I would not talk to her, then there would be no one I could talk to! Sounds pathetic I know, But that’s the point of writing blogs and diaries… right? At times when you cannot speak your mind, you write it down! ‘Get it out of the system’ as some people call it.
I usually prefer to keep relationships in a balance. If someone does me a favour, I strive to return the same and keep a status quo at most times. It makes me feel more comfortable and free of gratitude in interactions, perhaps makes me friendlier (If I could ever be friendly!!!) [and if friendlier is ever even a word!]. The fact that I practically have no clue as to how to reciprocate to her in words and deeds makes me feel like a dim wit moron. And I am sure that it would be showing at least in part what I feel (Read: I appear to be a moron when interacting with her).
I guess this is the whole point of writing this post! ‘It’s a different culture from where you come from’ this I have heard people say! So in the culture of the place where I am, how do I respond to appear friendly, and less of a slow moving parasitic moron? Suggestions and opinions are welcome.

Before you say it; here is a footnote: I react in a way I believe to be proper, and a manner which is natural for me. However the air of discomfort at times troubles me enough to pen in my thoughts and get an outsiders opinion of it.

A Virgin in Brazil

You are a nine and twenty and yet a virgin! My boss expressed his genuine shock and surprise when he learnt this fact about me.
For many a days his remark kept me thinking... and led me to this post. What is the big deal about virginity? Is it something so cherished that a man can spend one third of his life without experiencing the joys of copulation? More than a decade of arousal awaiting the one who will bear his children?
Don't we learn in Biology that procreation is the essence of survival? For a species, for a race, for a person? As the old man said, to ensure the continuation of the family name is the pride of every father.
So, when I admit that at 29 I am still a virgin, am I not admitting my failure to fulfil that basic need and instinct of humanity? Of all the living organisms, so to say. That I spent all these years getting a better education, a better job and a better life become pointless when seen that these are the things that would essentially attract the best of the females of the species towards me. And yet, I find myself without them. Or her.
Is it an inhibition? Is it a moral obligation? Or just a mental barrier? What is it that prevents people from taking the privileges and liberties of free sex when available? I find it partial to associate it with religion. You will find the concept of meeting your life partner in a 'pure' and untouched state exists in all parts of the world... So what is it that makes some people to choose to withhold that cherished moment?
I think it is the belief that sexual union is the closest bond between two persons and when done with the right intention results in the creation of a new life. A belief that a man and woman must strive and live together, a happy family and raise a child with love and care. That the man should fend for his family and the woman be loving and caring to take away his worries.
The very fact that in the modern world these very roles have changed, The woman no longer looks after the house and the man no longer bears the entire burden of the bread. That the child is seen as an instrument that will weigh down the plans of the couple, That the woman need not be chaste and should have the liberty to choose her mate, with the experience of a few mistakes on the way. The same be for the man, to be close and intimate with many a woman before he chooses the one he wishes to live with... explains a lot that we see in the world today. To find the unit of a family crumbling, the broken homes and abandoned children. The abused and abusive teenager and the frustrated and disheartened elder.
Were we a happier species at the time when there was no electricity? When you had no option but to spend time with your family? Was that the reason why the clans and dynasties had such a strong sense of bonding and belonging amongst themselves?
It makes me wonder... And yet, those smiling faces, those big and hazel brown eyes, the attractive bodies keep tempting me. I don't know what is that single most compelling reason why I still refrain to give way.
I dont know yet, why, I still remain, A Virgin in Brazil.

Midnight @ McDonalds

Signing off from Batam, I had an overnight stay in Singapore. Then fly back home next morning. Allowing for the usual delays, I arrived at the hotel at 11 pm and checking out at 8 am.
After the boat ride, I was hoping for a snack bar at the jetty, but we had to hurry out. As a result, I arrived at the hotel with a rumbling stomach! The food courts were scraping out their last meals as I walked down the streets looking for some makkan!
I was hoping that a bucket of chicken from KFC would fill me up nicely for the night and most of the next morning flight... But I was too late and too far for that!
And thus I started my small journey from Sim Lim towers to Bugis village. The only food joint to remain open all night, McDonalds. Considering it was three quarters past eleven; all the hungry stomachs around the area gravitated towards it!
With the outside tables full, and the inner ones mostly occupied by students with books or laptops... and one with a backpacking couple from Austrailia... I made my way looking for an empty table, to find one next to an old lady with a warm wrinkled smile. As I approached the table, she helped by moving aside the coffee sugar packets, and was just at the last sip of her cup. With no one to talk to, she just bowed her heaad and closed her eyes. I asked her if she was olrite; to which she smiled, and said she comes here everyday, has a cup of coffee, and then her son picks her up to go home. She is old enough to have been young and beautiful when the British were in S'pore... and yet she is there all alone at midnight having a coffee at McDonalds! I asked her if her children will be worried, offered to call her son to take her back home, but she just smiled. Remarkably self sufficient, I saw her carrying special napkins to clean her spectacles; a mini bottle of water, tablets for sore throat and drops for her eyes... All this in a tiny little handbag! We got talking, she told me how life was during the war, the separation from Malaysia... Then her husband left her for another woman, and how she coped with 3 little kids. About her daughter in law, who doesn't like her to be around poking her nose... and she likes the time out, maintaining a delicate peace within the family... Her worries that her son is already getting old and working the odd shifts at work...
I am flattered when she shows her surprise at my age... Telling me that I still look like a young boy! She wants to know if I have children, Oh! Why I didn't get married yet? Maybe I should learn Mandarin and get a sweet Chinese wife, she says! I tell her I want someone who can cook me Indian foods, and she just laughs... Her Husband left her because she made aweful Nasi Goreng! She lost her voice, was it the emotion, or the sudden burst of laughter? I offered to buy her one more cup of coffee, but she refused... She asked me about the now filling in people, who just slept at the tables! The manager there shrugged his shoulders, saying it was space that they could do without for the night... Besides, some people looked like they wouldn't have another place to go!
I had almost finished my meal and chips... It was almost 1 am; and yet she was peacefully sitting and looking around. I asked about the time her son would pick her up... and she said it was still a long time more! I was tired from the long day, and another day traveling lay ahead... I asked her name, and she was silent for a long while... She said the children called her Ma always... and it was so long that someone had spoken her name, that she couldnt remember! It was always Ma... Ma... that the people around her used to say!

Life @ 4.0

Yes, its the latest version available only in selected stores!
Minimum system requirement is that you have to be 40.
Exclusively for the generation that took the head start in life.

Now let me explain how this software works.
It controls your life, when you hit the age of 40.

Now, Let us go back in time by 20 years. You, my prospective customer, were 20 at that time.

Your parents coughed up all their savings to get you into a degree programme, so that you could do better in life. But that was not enough. So you took out a student loan, and persued your studies. Perhaps you were inclined to do a post graduation. Finances were a consideration. You applied for a scholarship. The loan repayment plan came in and you dropped the idea in favor of a well paying job, with good prospects. You took it. It helped pay back the study loan. It was the basis of your home loan. As rents were begining to hit the roof, you figured it would be a wise investemnt. Then the Gulf war broke out. There was a Global crisis, insecurity. Your mortgage rates went up. Your savings disappeared. You were just happy you had a job!
Then you got married, and after the children, the cost of living and the loan installments you hardly had a penny left in your pocket!
Then someone told you of the fantastic investment opportunity, where you were assured high returns in a very short period of time. You couldnt resist, you needed some security for your old age. You skipped the upgrade on your car, the family vacation and put in the money. Within a year ur money was lost, things didnt happen as they had planned! Sorry.

Now your children are finishing high school. You have just barely finished paying the mortgage on your house. The next thing you worry about is your children's University fees. You dont want them to start their life taking up a student loan, and end up the way you did. Knowing how hard it is, and the sacrifices it requires!

And hence my software 'Life @ 4.0' is designed to remind you to cut down your expenses. Everytime you book a vacation, a league game ticket, or a table at a restaurant; Life @ 4.0 pops out and reminds you of the following:

Your earnings for the month from Salary.
Your earnings from 'other income' sources.
Your deductions for tax.
Your deductions for House maintainence.
Your deductions for Car loan, Insurance, and other bank liablities.
Your expenses incurred so far on other luxuries (Includes Dinners, Shopping, ect.)

Your balance left after all deductions.
No. of days before the next salary hits your account.
Amount of money you can afford to spend per day.

If the amount you are planning to spend is less than the amount you can afford to spend; then the systems gives you a green OK signal. Else a blinking red will flash asking you to abort the transaction immediately.


Do feel free to contact me for a free demo. The first 40 users will get a 40 day free trial offer.

The view from an Island at Sea...

I have recently subscribed to a very thought provoking blog...
The writer has strong views supporting Baba Ramdev's fast... and is elated by the crude justice dealt by a victim to her rapist! The writer is a free artist, devoting herself to a good cause. I love her for the effort and research she puts in, before penning her thoughts!
It was perhaps her article on the demands of Baba Ramdev that got me thinking. Since there was so much I had to ask you, I decided to put it on my own blog rather than a reply to yours. (And being opportunistic; hoping for more traffic for my blog!)
Yes, perhaps thats one thing we share in common. We are blunt and straight forward.
Do you, and perhaps Baba Ramdev, realize that we are living in a quickly shrinking world? Where it sometimes takes less time to travel from Bombay (yes, I still refuse the Mumbai because I like to keep things convenient, not necessarily correct) to Dubai than it would take from Mohd. Ali Road to Dahisar?
You wish to convert our education systems back to Bharatiya languages... One of the most sophisticated Bharatiya languages, Sanskrit, is almost dead amongst the common man. Dont we have State run Govt. Schools that give basic education in the vernacular languages? Dont we have Universities that teach in the 'Bharatiya' languages of Hindi, Tamil, Malyalam... and so on? Why dont we leave it a truely secular country, where you can choose the medium of study, and also the curriculum you study! A state board, or a central, or the IB for those who dream of it! Attend the colleges under Vikram University, Ujjain to study graduation in Hindi.
What you project as 'Swadeshi' looks like a step in the reverse direction! What you project in words, doesn't sound practical at work.
Do you forget that in the late 90's when the world economy was beginning to get global, it was the very fact that there were millions of Indian youth, well qualified and with good communication skills in English who held the edge, and thus Indians were preferred over their equally intelligent and talented neighbors?
I am an engineer working for a foreign company, with non-Indian colleagues. In the past I have worked with Indian companies, Foreign companies with Indian workforce, and with companies situated on both sides of India. Lets face it, We might have taught them how to count, and how to use the Zero. But they have in the last few decades, made the most of our zero's, and climbed the ladder up at a faster pace.
Today, if you want to develop India, you must have the common sense to embrace the technology, learn and understand, innovate and improve, then implement them in India. Not to shun them, and kick start what is 'ancient wisdom'.
The ancient world was just as big as half a continent. You could live and die without travelling as much as what would be today another state! Since you interacted within a limited people, the local languages florished, and all streams of science and art developed in these. However, today, if I am buying a state of the art Japanese machinery, it wouldnt be possible for me to use, as the instructions are in Japanese! No Sir! They have instructions in English and Spanish. For the product to be globally salable.
Yes, we can, and we must have a rural tertiary education system, to enrich the hidden genius. But we also need the Indian who is well versed with international practices... A yogi looks within his body and soul to find the answers he needs... But he must also be friendly and accepting of his external enviornment.

You want to bring the black money back to India. I am no great economist, but my understanding of 'Black Money' is illegal, unaccounted for wealth. So how did you calculate how much of the wealth is unaccounted for? If it was that simple, then wouldnt the Taxman have done so himself? If i didnt have black money, I couldnt have bought a house! Without it, a father couldnt have secured admission to his sons Engineering! I can give you a reference of the UK labour market. It was once suggested that the UK govt. doesnt put an exit stamp on the Visa simply so that they don't need to account for the illegal immigrants working below minimum wages in the country. These Illegal immigrants ensure sustainability and profitability of the various labour intensive industries, and thus actually help the economy! The same can be applied to Black Money. The fact that it exists, helps in the smooth running of various industries, thus boosting the economy. Excess of it is ofcourse bad. But to hold an indefianet fast to clamp down on it is stupendous I feel.

Sir, if you are indeed a humanitarian, look at todays world. Look at the middle east. Innocent people are being abused, killed and in some cases, entire civilizations are being uprooted. Is that not a greater cause for stayagrah? Why dont the mighty powers of the world step in to restore peace, safeguard human interests? Doesnt the world know how it all began in Palestine? The 7 day war of Egypt? Going further back, The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The crusades? the 100 year war? The colonialization of the world?
Human self is in love with Power. I do not use the word hungry, coz hunger can be satisfied. But you can never have enough of love.
For some, power is in love for people. For some in the sword and guns. In general,it is their capacity to command people, to influence their thoughts and actions. In todays world, the one thing that can achieve this in a most effective way is Money.
Swords and Guns could change the course of a country in the ancient days. Today it can be done by wealth. When the British left India, they left us to be colonized by Indians who were in love with power. Even today, most political effort goes into keeping themselves in power! Welfare and development are secondary.
To change this, we need another Mahatma. With economics as his base. Perhaps a man like the great J.R.D. Tata. Someone whose motive is to earn wealth with the betterment of the people, and not to amass wealth by snatching it away from the people.
This post is getting too long. I shall write again, soon, about my friend in Yemen, and on how being in the wrong place at the wrong time can change ones life... forever!

The People; We are.

Yes; We classify people based on where they come from. Ohh He is a Bihari, or that Bengali fellow, he will never work after tea! The same goes for Malyalis and Tamils and Gujaratis!
Even If you leave the country, the regional discrimination will not leave you! Then you start to think, he is a Bangladeshi; that fellow is just like all Turks!
So; why is it that we have a typical mindset about the various groups of people? What does it take to build a people? Don't we all say and believe that each and every one of us is unique? Then how can we be grouped and stereotyped into one mold?
Then what builds an image of a people? Who is a typical specimen of an average person? Why; we all have certain exceptional qualities. Then how can you be average? Borrowing from the Japanese Yin and Yang; we are all good just as we are all bad.
Would it not then become the responsibility of the speaker to make a fair evaluation of a community before he describes them in generality?
Would you take a remark from someone in good taste, if it were to be typecasting you in one of the 'typical' categories? it would be just like stripping you off all your talents and beauties; and placing you there with a profile with nothing exceptional!
Now; this comes from a typical Indian; who having worked and lived with most of the nationalities and cultural groups of the world feels that people all over the world are the same; all looking for genuine love, satisfaction in their jobs and a comfortable living. Yet each one I have met is unique, as he is so different from his fellow countrymen, sometimes in looks, sometimes in thought and sometimes in style! I find that the Micro has enlarged to the Macro; and the Macro has shrunk to the Micro... You could enlarge your society of 300 houses to half the world; and find remarkable similarities; or you could look into just one family and find striking dissimilarities!
So once again I ask my readers; We, the People; What is it that defines us?

Me and You (Ek Choti si Love Story)

I was once walking down an old deserted road. It was winter and the frost was an inch thick on the rocky terrain. It was a long journey along life's lonely road.
I was still in my youth, The fresh leather boots bit into the ice and gave me a good foothold. Ofcourse, I sometimes became reckless and sauntered away straying from the path. But then I saw Me and You; both walking at a short distance from each other. Both mindful to be near enough, and yet not intersect the others path. However, I was still too young to pay attention to Me and You, and continued wandering along the open fields and meadows... for it was spring now... and the flowers were in full bloom. What a pretty sight it was to behold! The green meadows with bright yellow and red flowers! The old man's tree fully laden with fruits! Further ahead I could see Me and You, both a bit closer now... You looking ever so pretty in the yellow polka dress and Me handsome and smart in conversation with You. Perhaps it was a silly joke, I saw You laugh, the free laughter of youth! It was the dimple on your rosy cheeks, or was it the pearl white shine of your beautiful teeth I do not remember! But I was fascinated by You. My careless walk became more mindful, I forgot to smell the flowers and taste the fruits!I was so engrossed with You!
Me and You seemed happy together. Holding hands, now You were so happy with Me. From afar it looked like a perfect couple, one that could travel along the long road of life through all weathers! Me and You, Together. Forever.
I was still looking at You, lost in my thoughts of You. So much so that I couldn't comprehend the big picture where even to the plain observing eye one could see Me and You happy forever!
I don't clearly recollect what happened next... Everything happened so quick! I moved towards You, I fumbled, I erred. I offended You. You left Me. I withdrew. I could see Me standing alone, calling out to You. You had tears in your eyes as You went away. You cried, but You never came back to Me.
From afar I could see Me broken hearted. There was nothing I could do about it. You had left Me! I felt the urge to run away from the wretched scene, which a moment ago was the most pleasant and romantic. When Me and You were together. Without You even the bloom of spring looks like a snow clad plateau. Everything is buried under. On the surface you see a level sheet of ice. The face that will never betray what lies within, but will just reflect what is shown upon itself.
It has been a long time since. I have been walking over the snow. My manner is no longer carefree and my gait is measured. I've been walking along this road a long while... and I miss the sight of Me and You walking happily along the very same roads! I wonder if ever I should come across You again... What would You look like now! Would You and Me be just as happy as before? Will the seasons change? When? Where will I be then!
I still wonder! In the moonlit nights and the warm winter afternoons! I wonder; I hope; and I Wish!
I pray that I see Me and You happy once again!


A few lines for You:

My thoughts this autum are lonely and sad....
A chill wind from the mountain blows in the garden
The sky is gray, a snowflake falls, the last chrysanthemum
Withers beside the deserted summer house.
I walk along the path in which weeds have grown.
My heart is bitter and tears blur my eyes.
I greive for the days when we lingered together
In this same garden, along these paths between flowers.
In the spring we sang of love and laughed with youth
But now we r parted by many leagues and years,
And i weep that never again shall i see your face....