"We'll Always Have Paris"

My legs moved with a sense of weightlessness; the heart confused whether it should rest with achievement or throb in excitement. My eyes looked deliriously at the unremarkable skylight roof of the train station, my head spinning between where I should go and where I was. For I was, finally, in Paris!

I will try not to adulate endlessly on the charms of Paris. But there is something about this city that has made me believe in the force of love at first sight. Is it the history? It was the center of imperial glory that mesmerized all of Europe throughout the late Middle Ages and the Napoleonic Era. Is it the architecture? The stonework on its churches, the sculptures on its landmarks and the melee of Corinthian Orders upon which rest some of its most spellbinding superstructures hit you with captivating aura. Is it the bewitching scent of fresh pastries and madeleines rolling out from hot ovens in enchanting little cafes tucked in every cobble-stoned street? I just can't take this anymore...

Train to Pakistan 1947 - 2007

Its been nearly 60 years since the horrific Partition, and we continue to live under its shadow - and burn in it.

One year ago, on February 18 2007, almost at the famous Midnight's Stroke to add insult to injury, 67 passengers on the Samjhauta Express were burned alive as fire broke out on two carriages rumbling on their way from Delhi to Lahore. Whether a terrorist attack or sabotage, people died not just because of the fire, but because India and Pakisan maximized the damage because they are so damn insecure about each other. No culprit has as yet been identified, let alone captured or brought to justice.

The world has moved on, we hear quite often. But India and Pakistan seem to have been trapped in a perpetual time warp. Many of the passengers could have been saved had the carriages on fire not been locked from outside and with wrought iron rods barricading the windows!

The rationale for the padlocks and window bars, you ask? We Indians and Pakistanis are so ridiculously paranoid about each other, we 'd rather that an accident trap passengers and take innocent lives than risk the danger of a loner trying to embark on or disembark from the train enroute. Forget the fact that the Samjhauta Express and its passengers go through unending scrutiny as they cross the international border.

The Samjhauta and Thar Express trains that run at erratic schedules between India and Pakistan are the sole means of transport between the two countries for the poor. For us previliged people, acquiring a visa is perhaps the only debilitating obstacle should we have the nerve to take a peep of what's across the border. Once we have a visa (whose application, of course, we have dutifully backed up with a brimming bank account and perhaps a high-up source or two), the elusive mysteries of India and Pakistan are a 45-minute airline flight away.

But for those who have to bleed to cough out a few thousand rupees for the battle with fate in getting a visa and bracing up for a struggle to get across Sir Cyril Radcliffe's Line, the trains are the only option. But we consider all that to be a bit too convenient for these poor people, so we lock them like cattle or corn in the bogeys and send them off in the stifling heat. After being harassed enough at immigration, the wretched beings are thrown about at the border crossing into another train (ahan, yes, we cannot trust train wheels that have touched the unholy soil of the other side to be free from threats to our national security). Finally, the ragbags are disgorged at Delhi or Lahore, from where they persist onto their final destinations.

Inhuman is an understatement to describe the process these passengers have to endure to travel to family who were lost to the other side through no fault of their own. The fight between India and Pakistan has always been more about prestige and self-respect than survival. Yet these two countries ensure that their paranoia of each other shower enough humiliation, and perhaps even fireballs, upon their poorest and most powerless people, and make life even more miserable for those who have nothing but misery to speak of.

After more than 60 long years, even saying "shame on us" sounds shameful.

For what...?

Pakistan, continuing a 17-year-old tradition, marked 'Kashmir Solidarity Day' today, 5 February. A few thoughts...

- What exactly did Pakistanis do, except lounge around at home, for the purposes meant behind this day?

- What are the purposes, explicit and implicit, official or otherwise, meant for this occassion anyway?

- Is there an alternative, perhaps more productive, more impacting and more introspective, that could help both us and the Kashmiris? I am thinking of not shutting down the entire country and not wasting billions of rupees worth of business, but instead running an awareness programme which, without fomenting hatred against India, explores how human rights and freedom of expression could be made better within Pakistan. I am sure that greater attachment to human dignity at home would automatically enkindle the Indians to do the same.

- Do the Kashmiris really care? They would care if it brings them any tangible good. Without that, its as good as someone watching bad news on TV and then changing the channel. In any case, for now there seems to be a growing realization along both sides of the LoC that the status quo shall inevitably attain permanency in the future, for better or worse.

- Even if they do care about us marking the Indian oppression visited upon them, would the Kashmiris really want to join Pakistan eventually? With the frequent suicide bombings in the name of religion across the country, the reality that Afghanistan's most lawless provinces are far more in physical unison with our territory than Kashmir ever could be, and the permanent political deadlock that we have reached on the questions of democracy and dictatorship, I dont think so.

- Do the Indians care? OK, I wasn't trying to be funny.

- Does the world care? I think Kashmir registered for a grand total of a few minutes on the international crisis radar back in 2002 when India and Pakistan were threatening to wipe each other out. Since then, the issue attracts probably as much attention as that Japanese whaling controversy. Seriously, did anyone see a whimper in any of the newspapers abroad? Even the Arabs seem to have grown tired.

So if nobody cares, and we waste so much of our precious resources for it, while we have so many other pressing matters to address, why, in the name of all that is reasonable, are we still sticking with this 5th of February drama?

World Capital

Is there any way to describe New York City? I should perhaps make it clear that I never was nor probably ever will be a big fan of this rotten, rat-infested fruit of a place. The aimless rush of life, the ear-busting noise and that rancid stench of urine and garbage trails along the sidewalks simply make it an unacceptable place for anyone half-civilized. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, in all my years of living here, I have yet to come across another person who shares my feelings for this city - my frank opinions are oftentimes met with stares, some of them a bit disparaging; if I am lucky, I can hope to get away with confounded looks or forced smiles as a response to such lunacy.

But over the past several months, I have come to discover something that may not necessarily help in my appreciating this city, but may help me in appreciating the fact that I am living here. It is quite certain that I do not intend to live in New York for all my life (or at least I have not as yet reached that point of enthrallment that afflicts so many of my 'New Yorker' friends and co-workers). But I cannot discount the fact that it was New York that thrusted the so-called 'real world' upon me with such thumping force and yet with such steely encouragement, I was swimming in its tempests even before I could shout out an SOS. And today, because of New York, I am probably capable of surving in any urban jungle that life throws at me.

New York is packed, true. New York is dirty, unbearably true. New York is rude, mostly true. New York is sinful, definitely true. But as my father recently uttered out of the blue after a trip to lower Manhattan, if there ever was an Eighth Wonder of the world, this City is it. With more restaurants than you could ever hope to dine in over a lifetime, with every inch occupied for a purpose than any miniaturist could ever imagine, with more nationalities fluttering about its boroughs than its own Midtown-based United Nations Headquarters could ever boast of, and with as much life streaming below its jam-packed surface as above it, this City is a true marvel.

It is an amazing engineering and organizational feat how this City is run. From the nightly garbage collection along its countless narrow streets and alleys to the logistics of funneling in and out millions of workers into a tiny island connected only by a handful of bridges and tunnels, a mere imagining of the administrative burdens this City has to bear can be bewildering. Yet, the City functions, day in and day out, with minor train delays, random traffic jams and an occassional accident. No amount of heat or rain, which sometimes last for days, overloads the City into a complete shutdown, something quite normally expected for a place functioning at such a high speed and with such precious resources, and it takes a full-fledged Nor'easter dumping 20 inches of snow to sufficiently freeze its spirit. A challenger to this Stunner is not within sight.

And even after the mammoth tragedy that this City has suffered, it has emerged more enigmatic, tolerant and universal than anywhere else in the rest of the world. It is as if the unexpected, the inspiring and the wonderful are all inherent in the soul of this City that grow stronger just when you think otherwise.

I may never fall in love with this City. I may want to move away at my next opportunity. I may never succeed in soaking my spirit in this City's colors. But I cannot ignore, let alone deny, the power, business, glamor and glory that is New York. And forever, it shall stay with me, this fact that at one point in my life I was among those who have been fortunate enough to call The Big Apple home.

The First Step

I have finally ventured into the world of blogging, without a clue if it is something I have a knack for.

I liked the idea surrounding a blog - personal thoughts on politics, religion, philosophy, strategy, life, family, food and travel for the world to read, consider and/or ridicule. I have heard that oftentimes the act of blogging leads one to become more open, more articulate and more confident over his/her thoughts, but sometimes also an exercise in futility to exhibit one's inner self to the outside world, only to end up with further commotions with those inadvertent or misinterpreted utterances. Frankly, I feel that the latter is more of a possibility for a person like me, hence the tepid excitement for this whole blogging enterprise. While there isn't a lava of feelings trapped inside me that this blog is going to help leak out, a lot of me does simply go unsaid, at least to those outside my immediate family and close circle of friends. And while this blog most certainly will not be bursting with my deepest headlines on a daily basis, it 'd be my aim to let out a few thoughts that may help in hinting at why I was staring at that empty can of coke in the subway car all the way to work this morning... just kidding, I promise not to be that boring.

But the more important question is not how much I let out, but what and whether I should let out. This blogging system is apparently advertised as a daily journal, but a daily journal cant just be a click away. And some of my true feelings on certain issues may carry some negative baggage, none of it deliberate. So I have decided to start easy - stay clear of the most controversial thoughts, but not shying away from what I truly believe in when I do happen to step on a political landmine. I am quite argumentative anyway, so most of the times it may be difficult for the reader (and even for my myself) to judge where exactly I stand.

I wish myself good luck.