India & French elections, Marriage, Law, Culture, Monsanto and Technology
5/20/12
Dear Purnima,
Some ugly news out of India and the role the Times of India played in falsely given a positive spin to the woes of cotton farmers who had chosen to plant Monsanto GM cotton.
I think Monsanto and the other GM seed producers will prove to be the scourge of the planet. As one poster puts it, “If the world doesn’t destroy Monsanto, Monsanto will destroy the world !”
Bay area here I come. I’m going to make a quick trip to the States in two weeks to see my two sons. The youngest, the one who is the Navy pilot.
Roger
Dear Roger,
Back to India French elections, who is Hollande and how come no one seems to have heard of him outside France? How did he swing the vote and wrestle it out of your much-in- the-news, red carpet, bling bling Prez? Would love to hear all about him not from the “feeder stations/media” , but from you someone who has been so intrinsically entwined with France and can translate it along with all the cultural nuances into English.
Talking about the media, they seem to be on a suicide mission to extinguish themselves. Their credibility has already been seriously eroded and most of the youth are veering away from the conventional media outlets looking for bloodspots, tweets from the ground, and sources online to get a true snapshot of the current news. These conventional media outlets are already being looked upon as secondary sources to fill in the gaps or as an alternate opinion.
The tragedy of the Indian farmers who are so tied to their land and all the vagaries that afflict it, like drought, inadequate monsoon rains, pestilence, crop failure and inadequate irrigation leaving them at the mercy of those that lend the funds/technology to tide them through the difficult times. However, in the instance of money lenders or lending organizations, India has learnt from a long and tumultuous history going back to the Bengal famine of 1770 and The British East India Company’s policies in Bengal which resulted in the death of ten million people due to the farmers being compelled to plant the cash rich crop indigo to suit the companies trading requirements instead of the staple of rice.
India, recognizing the oppressive role of these moneylenders through its history has made some provisions to supervise and supplement the same services at subsidized rates, however, the issue of Monsanto and technology is a brand new one and it appears that like The Bengal Famine, this lesson will have to be learnt in blood. The whole idea of the fast developing field of genetic technology, gene splicing, cloning, drug resistant crops, cows that are cloned for their copious milk production and man made meat which is fast becoming a norm the food industry, is an idea that is not comprehended by the leaders and judiciary of even the most powerful and wealthy nations of the world where there “Gargantuan Monstro-santos” lie. Yes, Monstrosantos, in the plural representing these ginormous corporations that are on the cutting edge of technology and are running off the with cake and pastry because no one is around, aware or able to put in the stops guide them encourage the commerce but institute the safeguards.Thus they remain unrecognized and little understood by the people of the nations of source, and thus are given a free reign to go forth and colonize the world where the Europeans left off and since the technology is developing faster that most are capable of understanding even one from my position (one that is interested and attempts to remain upto speed on current tech developments) I can safely say that the way laws of nations are currently designed, they remain inadequate even incompetent to address the impending issues of today and tomorrow. This is a topic I will leave suspended until a time where we can have a leisurely long lunch interlaced with an animated discussion on Law, Technology and Monstrosantos.
Moving from Europe to North America and your elections…did I hear correctly that Obama has come out in public supporting gay marriage? This is incredible…incredibly brave! I must admit that for the first time in over a decade I am sitting up straight and listening. The conservative core of the US who seems to be wielding the reigns are being thrown a challenge and gladiator Obama has finally put himself into the stadium. This has changed me from a cautiously supportive neutral party to a front row cheerleader. Obama with this statement has stepped out of the mould and in my opinion supported the core idea of freedom…The Freedom to Love upon which the nation is founded.
Love – Union Square San Francisco
Let me now take a step back and put this all into a legal perspective, what i mean by The Freedom to Love is the freedom to love between two “capable” consenting adults. Please understand this is a tier below “competent” which would imply average IQ, mental and motor abilities. If two persons who are capable of expressing and reciprocating wish to be conjoined and intimate taking on the world as a unit, whether by working, loving, paying taxes, or bedridden in their nursing homes with their few years and their last few grey cells or even handicapped in any other form. How can any government, structure or social organization deny two people the right to this very human trait of love and intimacy especially where they are crying out to be accepted within the fold of society willing to contribute towards it as a unit (joint taxes) merging into it and expressing themselves as an integral component of it. In the eyes of a secular sovereign state, that has the duty to be fair and just towards its citizens how would it assess the sincerity of a marriage performed and sanctioned by religious authorities as a true marriage to be incorporated in to the register of the state where the marriage might be purely premised on monetary considerations between two persons incapable of even physical intimacy and far removed from love ( as we have seen in numerous celebrity unions) , and deny one between two sincere capable consenting adults that wish to live, love and work together to be an integral piece of our social fabric. The primary factor motivating marriages of the past, ie children, has been already nullified by Technology. The world of today does not require a union of two opposite sexes in order to produce children, in fact it doesn’t even require copulation making immaculate conception a reality. In agriculture things have gone way beyond even the human spectrum opening life to the cloning/self replicating process. What then forms the basis of a marriage, in my opinion it is love, respect, and the sincere commitment to be there for each other until “death do us part”. This ironically is from one who has just been through an acrimonious divorce but in all sincerity held on where most would have long dropped off…the last twelve long years!
Before I say au revoir, I would like to insert yet another idea, albeit a bizarre one into your mind and anxiously await the response: Roger, do you suppose the Earth is trying to tell us something as we cross the six billion persons barrier? Is it possible perhaps that we are all more interconnected with the earth, soil and stars than we realize? Do you suppose the Earth, soil and stars are telling us we have reached full capacity and the Earth together with all it’s resources is incapable of supporting the rapidly accelerating human explosion. Do you suppose that in order to balance this human explosion there are some subliminal changes taking place at our core/genetic levels firing messages to manage this explosive growth. Are we seeing more pairing between same sexes as evolutions answer to restore this balance. If so, do we have the social and legal tools to deal with it, to deal with this possible evolutionary change and the technology that is nullifying it?
I return you from the land of sic-fi to your lovely home in France and look forward to hearing from you very very soon.
Love and hugs to all. Do pass my kisses onto all the cute seals of Newport (bring the shiniest back for me)!
A Happy Seal – Photo By George JacobPurnima at The New England AquariumThe New England Aquarium
Purnima and The Northern Seal
The New England Aquarium, Boston
US Navy Seals:
Purnima
Dear Purnima,
I have a million, trillion things to write and no time to do it. I leave in the morning for Frankfurt/Boston and all those good looking Navy Seals in Newport, and I still haven’t finished packing yet. I’m been rushing like mad to get a few terribly necessary things done before it gets too late, but I have to get up around five to make it to the airport before the morning traffic jams start.
You really did hit it on the head with your comments about our tried and trusted MSM. After the so-called “Newspaper of record”, the NY Times, sold the American people such a load of crap about the necessity for going to war with Iraq, I think a lot people have begun to seriously question the true nature of corporate and sponsor controlled big media outlets. One gets very suspicious about what one reads any more, and with the exception of a few trusted and tried names among journalists and freelance reporters, and some very well informed bloggers, it’s a scary jungle out there.
I’ll give you my take on the French elections when I get a few minutes to write from Newport. I’m overjoyed that Sarkozy has been put out to pasture (He is relaxing and “recharging his batteries” right now in a spacious and luxurious palace somewhere in Morocco, undoubtedly the guest of one of his richissisme buddies. Hollande took the train to a high-level meeting in Bruxelles today. When Sarkozy went to such meetings, he always took two very expensive planes, one for himself, I guess, and one for his entourage and reporters (he even had a bathtub installed in Sarko 1, which caused all kinds of technical problems, not to mention needless expense).
And your intriguing thought about Nature perhaps taking matters into her own hands by favoring same-sex marriages (Yes, Obama really did, quite courageously, come out in favor of gay marriage last week) in order to deal with the population explosion. I remember back in the 1970’s reading Paul Erlich’s fascinating book “The Population Bomb” and thinking then that it wouldn’t be too far down the line before our poor planet had totally exhausted all its possibilities for supporting an increasingly large, and wasteful, mass of humanity. I doubt very much whether I will be around to witness much that the future has in store for us, but I fear for our children and grand-children. It’s not going to be a pretty picture, I’m afraid. There was a report on the BBC this morning about the ever-increasing and alarming rate at which water supplies are dwindling in many parts of the world. All we need now is water wars on top of wars for oil and energy supplies.
I’ll think of you on my trip, especially when I’m in CA. More very soon from the good old US of A (that sounds so very corny !)
Giant hugs,
Roger
PURNIMA VISWANATHAN
Disclaimer 😛
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
Conception of The Buddha, Allegiance, Identity, Evangeline in Real and Cyberworld
On Sat, May 12, 2012 ,
Roger Stevenson wrote:
Dear Purnima,
How are you ? Any silver linings peeking over the horizon ? I’ve been trying to find a time when we could chat via Skype, but it’s hard to arrange to be alone at home for very long. I’ll keep working on it.
I assume you followed the French elections. Sarkozy, to my great pleasure, has been ejected in what turned out to be a much closer elections than the polls had predicted. I like Hollande as a person and because he is very down-to-earth and projects a air of humble confidence in himself and in his political ideals. He certainly faces a tough challenge in trying to deal with the crisis in the Euro zone. It will be interesting how he and Merkel get along. It should be far different from the Merkozy clique that made most of the important decisions in Europe during the past five years. I must say, however, and to his credit, that Sarkozy has been quite dignified in defeat, but then he has, of course, his post-presidential image to embellish as much as possible. Tuesday is the day selected for the transfer of power and the announcement of Hollande’s choice for prime minister.
Some ugly news out of India and the role the Times of India played in falsely given a positive spin to the woes of cotton farmers who had chosen to plant Monsanto GM cotton.
I think Monsanto and the other GM seed producers will prove to be the scourge of the planet. As one poster puts it, “If the world doesn’t destroy Monsanto, Monsanto will destroy the world !”
Bay area here I come. I’m going to make a quick trip to the States in two weeks to see my two sons. The youngest, the one who is the Navy pilot, is now stationed in Newport, Rhode Island, so a quick flight from Frankfort to Boston, then Boston to San Francisco to see son number 1 for three days and then SFO to Frankfort and home again. It’s a very quick trip, but I couldn’t justify spending any more time than that away, since we have so much to do to spruce up the house so it will sell, pack and get ready for what we hope is a mid to end summer move to Chiang Mai. You MUST come and see us !
Anything new on the judicial front ? Are your children still in school in Bangalore
Lots of love,
Roger
Dear Roger,
Getting mail from you has to be the highlight of my week, thank you! Well, let me first alert you to a calamitous situation, I have just discovered that my hotmail account has been compromised and an entire folder titled where I had stored all our correspondence, has vanished along with god knows what else. The saving grace of course is that you have a copy of all our communication which I may request of you at a later date, just for me to keep a catalogue of my travels to browse through and remember our journey when all my hair turns grey.
So you are off to San Francisco in two weeks to meet the boys, how fabulous! Somehow, it fills my heart and I get a sense of vicarious pleasure knowing that you will be back home to hug and spend some time with your sons. I was just in Bangalore over this last weekend to spend Mothers Day with D. It has been a long and difficult ride for me to be separated from my children over this last year, and I have grabbed every opportunity to fly across India, from Delhi to Bangalore to see my son, just so that he knows that I’m around and regardless of the hand dealt by fate, I care very deeply. It has been nothing short of a nightmare dealing with the various ailments that have afflicted the children from extreme ear infections, to multiple bouts of diarrhea, food poisoning and bronchitis. I think with the close of a year in India, these Swiss raised Californians have adjusted to the India microorganisms (fingers and toes crossed) and are finally settling in to their new environs. However, from a moms perspective, my heart convulses when I see my son reduced to skin and bones and charred in the scorching southern sun. But D being a chip off the old block, finds humor in every situation and has written a song to the tune of “Mamma Mia” titled “Diarrhea”, which he has sang aloud into my iphone early last year before his complete reduction to skin and bones (pic omitted) and as a proud mamma, I have pasted Dhruvum’s baby pics below and the awesome Diarrhea Song:
The Diarrhea Song – by my son Dhruvum
Purnima and Dhruvum- Mother and Son-A Chip off the Old Block
Roger, as you can see from the images pasted below of D first as a baby, Baby Buddha dressed in white, then as young prince Siddhartha in his “achkan” or Indian coat all dressed up for Diwali, the Indian festival of lights. The next image is of golden D in California playing all the sports under the California sunshine: soccer, baseball, tennis and of ski. Then is the slightly naughty video clip of D singing his Diarrhea song above and another small clip of me introducing D’s creative talent. Finally, and the most heart wrenching is a photo of Dhruvum in India of a couple of weeks ago, reduced to bones (replaced with the Gandhara fasting Buddha head). The most recent update however is that he seems on the road to recovery having battled and compromised with the Indian flora and fauna (bugs).
D pics – Baby Buddha-the White Elephant, Prince Siddhartha in his achkan (traditional Indian coat):
See below Gandhara Fasting Buddha head from The Asian Art Museum San Francisco:
There is a long tale which I wish to share attached to the above photo of “little Buddha”. It all started as a dream…the Dream of Queen Maya which is beautifully captured in the below pasted frieze at my favorite museum, the Metropolitan Museum of At in New York. Here Queen Maya is depicted lying down surrounded by her ladies in waiting, as lord Buddha in the form of a white elephant appears in her dream and enters her womb from the side. She then gives birth to Siddhartha who later becomes lord Buddha. D was born in Singapore, and as i proudly carried this cubby kid around town (how we Asians love our chubby kids!), the Singaporeans used to stop and admire him, often asking if his father was Northern Chinese as a number of the Northern Chinese have settled in Singapore. I used to laugh as the vision of his big burly (hairy) dad came into view, this being (modified from beast) was from nowhere near China but it brought to light the vivid intermingling of races of Central Asia that have left their lingering trace on our gene pool. These lands have been crisscrossed by the hooves of both Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan and there is no way of escaping the Mongol/ Hun heritage of our ancestors.Where do these borders lie, how do you demarcate the Mongol from the Hun in each of us? And even if you do so for this time, how does this apply for ever after, the imprint of our gene pool? Which of course brings us back to our original quest of identity and allegiance which follows.
For me the journey was similar, Dhruvum was conceived in a dream (mine was a Japanese dream as I was dreaming of the sizzling hot about to be Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi), D was raised as a prince, and now like that haunting buddha image …reduced to bones in India- Diarrhea! Do see the Metropolitan Museum Gandhara Frieze below:
Queen Maya’s Dream -Conception of the Buddha- Asian Art Museum San FranciscoLife Of The Buddha- Asian Art Museum San Francisco
Roger, before I embark upon the unending tale of Identity and Allegiance, a space where I am struggling in the dark and need a lot of help, let’s chat about some fun stuff. So tell me what are your plans in San Francisco, where are you going to eat, what are you going to visit, what exhibitions are on? I had heard that the Maharaja Exhibit at The Asian Art museum was brilliant, not sure if its still on. And do tell me in detail about your trip to Newport, i would love to see lots and lots of photographs of you and your son (are his eyes as blue?) in that picturesque place. We visited Newport a number of times from New York and even had family wedding there where I have photos/memories of being draped in a glittering pink chiffon saree blending into the Newport sunset.
And talking about the US Navy, you mentioned your son has joined them in Newport, I have just the gift for them but first they have to promise to rescue their shipwrecked children off the southern coast of India from D-I-A-R-R-H-E-A.
Roger, before Evangeline (Me in this version) left her home in Northern California and set off for the high seas with her household gods, there was much that had to be left behind for which she has to return.
Do see Longfellow’s poem Evangeline where she leaves with a ship laden with her household gods(I do keep returning to this theme, I’m not sure why…)
In MY version of Evangeline, One thing was certain, though she left on a ship laden with her household gods, she left behind much- a part of her culture, her soul, her matrix, in the form of a Gandhara, an Indo- Greek sculpture from Central Asia which blends the attributes of both the Western and Asian civilizations to produce this magnificent form of art. This sculpture, this bust, is the head of Poseidon, the Greek God of the Sea, with his intense expression, powerful face and tightly knotted curls framing his head who stared at us from his resting place in our dining room window. This 2,000 year old sculpture left behind by us on California soil would in my opinion be the most apt symbol for the US Navy as it expands and embraces within its fold the cultures of the East and the West.
Back to the Allegiance and Identity, and to the above discussion of drawing borders and boundaries. This we know as far as defining races, is close to an impossibility. However, as we seen people have come together inspired by an idea, and a shared set of values based on which they have decided to pitch their tents and cohabit. Now, in this technological world, where there is no physical need for people to relocate, pitch their tents alongside one with whom they share their core ideas and values, how would allegiance and identity be defined in this space? How would an amorphous group of persons connected virtually decide to form a credible nation? What virtual and physical/real laws would they submit themselves to and how would they agree to be governed. Finally, how would they reconcile this online allegiance and identity with the real one. Would the online passports and cash be interchangeable between realms: the real and the virtual. Roger, i know this might at this point appear to be sci-fi but believe it or not this is closer to our immediate future than anything the political pundits are discussing. Are we synced?
As for my tale of woe, I have found myself awake after three long years of this bitter separation/divorce only to realize that everything in my life is a mess. My home in California appears to be badly neglected and needs urgent attention, my finances are non existent, and most importantly, my status a permanent resident of the US is ambiguous. Apparently I have to return to the US every year to retain this residence, and I seem to have been in a deep snooze. Ironically, I have to make my way to the US embassy tomorrow and persuade the staff hat I have not abandoned my intent to return, retain my PR status. I have been told it might be very difficult and not be accepted but this is where my mind gets baffled…how is it possible for someone who has spent the last 19 years , most of her adult life in the US or associated with the US as a US expatriate, has filed joint taxes continuous over this term, has her primary and only residence in California, has children who are US citizens but most of all has spent the last 13 years educating her children about the idea that inspired her to make the journey, the Idea of America/India. Somewhere along the line, things did change for me as well. I may not have willfully embraced a piece of paper, but Roger, don’t you think that subliminally somewhere along the line I merged into it and cannot be cleaved from it. Does allegiance and identity rest merely on filing the right forms, or passing a nationality test, what happens to floating souls who are constantly questioning (I suspect we are soulmates here) but preserve the idea more fiercely than most in the core of their souls?
I will now face a nameless faceless being across a glass panel tomorrow at the US embassy who will assess the documents or the lack thereof and make the judgement as to whether I belong or not based on a piece of paper.
Can’t wait to visit you in Chaing Mai, lots of love to all!
hugs
Purnima
PURNIMA VISWANATHAN
Blog Disclaimer 😛
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
I wish to share a chapter from My Letters to Suchi (letter #69), titled the Ballad of The South to remember the long forgotten tale of an old family from the South-Pondicherry/Madras on the 101st birthday of my granduncle Tiger Thyagarajan. Tiger was our family’s anchor to the South (India), the eldest son of an old musical family. He was fired with the same passion that flowed through my family that had sacrificed much resisting British colonial rule in India. Upon the outbreak of WWII, he followed on his footsteps, but this time aligning with the British by joining the RAF to crush the forces of bigotry and oppression. His typhoon fighter jet plane was shot down on a field in Normandy the day Paris was liberated.
See below Tiger Thyagarajan on the engine cowl:
My Letters To Suchi #69 – The Ballad of The South
From: Purnima
Date: Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 1:21 AM
Subject: The Ballad of the South and To Forget or Not to Forget
To: Sucharita Shanker
Dear Suchi,
Before I wrap up for this abominable year 2016, I find myself limping to my desk to complete this leaf from my diary: The Ballad of the South – To Forget or Not to Forget.
If you want to skip the legalese covering The Right To Be Forgotten just scroll down to the spicy Ballad of the South sure to excite if you are a military history buff.
The issue on everyones lips in the legal world appears to be around the issue of The Right to be Forgotten. As you may be aware, the Europeans culturally have very stringent privacy standards, an issue they almost define with their identity. The Americans on the other hand ascribe the same stringent standards to the Freedom of Expression, thereby resulting in something that can only be construed as The Clash of Civilizations in its truest sense. This has manifested itself in the now (in)famous Google case in France where the French court has ruled effectively that a persons data is their own, and if it is inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant or excessive a person can request for links to that search be removed by Google. Re-iterating a person’s Right to be Forgotten.
However, Google’s position which has been supported by a number of US civil rights organisations including the EFF (article below) believes that CNIL, the French regulatory authority position is excessive as it demands that not only should the search results be removed from the European sites like Google.fr and Google.uk and Google.com (which after a struggle Google has recently complied with) but all sites worldwide. However, Google has appealed CNIL’s position to the highest French court challenging its order to remove all the links across the whole wide world. This according to Google would set a dangerous precedent as other not so democratic countries may want unsavoury information about their acts of repression also removed. This would also infringe US laws resulting in stifling speech in the US.
This is such a fascinatingly complex issue, I’m going to try and reduce it to its bare bones with clips and illustrations trying to identify the issues and balance the argument.
First of all, can you imagine a universe with eternal memory…well that’s where the internet is taking us (I honestly see no escape). Imagine NOT being unable to forget the pain of a parents demise, the pain of a lost child, the pain of childbirth, honestly if each memory lay vivid in our imagination all day everyday, it would be a trauma to live, to awake to a new dawn, to try again, to cross the finish line, to cradle a bundle of joy. And yet, some memories serve a wonderful purpose for we remember to turn off the stove, we remember to wedge the baby with cushions as we prepare its feed, and we remember to look left and right before crossing the street (literally and metaphorically), and we remember to stub out our cigarettes before we dispose of them least we have all of our golden hillsides and Berkeley in flames again.
However there is a medical condition called Hyperthymesia where a person cannot forget, has full memory of all the events that have dotted his/her past. See the brilliant NPR article below and the associated nightmare of not being able to forget. Also see below the Telegraph article about the Channel 4 documentary on the same issue. These are real issues and the Europeans are justifiably passionate about them. Viewing it from an American perspective, we have to recognise the dilemma presented and the cultural basis from which it stems. Remember we creatures on the Galapagos have now forged our own unique culture.
NPR: When Memories Never Fade The Past Can Poison the Present
Google is appealing to France’s highest court so that it is not compelled to censor search results worldwide. “We comply with the laws of the countries in which we operate. But if French law applies globally, how long will it be until other countries – perhaps less open and democratic – start demanding that their laws regulating information likewise have global reach?”
Reflecting on the Right to be Forgotten – Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel
Fletcher outlining his position as defending the right of each country to balance the freedom of expression and privacy it chooses, not what is imposed upon it, ie, what another country chooses for it. Delisted links on all European versions of google search like Google.fr, google.uk and in March 2016 also removed links from Google.com so that persons from countries requesting delisting could NOT access the requested blocked links. CNIL request based on the EU Right to be forgotten is that it be blocked from everywhere, ie, every country on the globe.
Finally, but most significantly, The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation, see article below) has come out in support of Google position stating that it has an issue with France’s unilateral declaration of universal jurisdiction, ie, that France cannot unilaterally decree what a global citizen, not resident in France (or the EU) can view or not view. They cannot dictate the terms of the world’s viewership and access as it is out of their jurisdiction. Specifically by highlighting US law and the US position on the Freedom of Expression:
– US publishers have a right to publish truthful information (acquired legally) pertaining to a matter of public interest even if it conflicts with privacy interests
– US publishers have the right to publish information contained in public court documents
– Accurate republication of statements made during official proceedings
– US law protects internet intermediaries (like Google) based on content provided by 3rd parties
– The Right to receive information, advertise and be advertised to (would all be compromised by CNIL’s regulations)
In my (first generation immigrant) opinion, there needs to be a balance between right to privacy and freedom of expression as without privacy there can be no freedoms. The court protected publication of a sexual assault victim’s info (Daily Mail Rule as mentioned in the EFF article above) and publication of documents of persons who have been rehabilitated and merged back into society, in my opinion upsets this fine balance as society aims not just to punish but protect, rehabilitate and reincorporate persons into society giving them a second chance, and this goal of society would be stripped if records of misdeeds are always front and centre looming for eternity. No one would be motivated to reform, rehabilitate as they would be no exit from jail time in jail or out in society. We also have to recognise that publication in the online sphere is not mere publication of a document like ink on paper, but like the printing press which served to propagate news across a broad spectrum but still contained it within a certain geographic region, publication in the online sphere is nothing like the printing press or publications that man has known before, for it publishes information exponentially, as there are no boundaries or barriers to the propagation of this information. I would still like to adhere to the basic tenet: To Err is Human, To Forgive Divine. And would hope that laws made by humans for humans would take that into consideration.
My opinion falls more in line with the following comment by Julia Powels (Univ of Cambridge researcher on Law and Technology) taken from her article below: There is a public sphere of memory and truth, and there is a private one. This is fundamental to higher, egalitarian values. Without the freedom to be private, we have precious little freedom at all.
Jimmy Wales is wrong: we do have a personal right to be forgotten
Julia Powles (a law and technology researcher at University of Cambridge)
However, all said and done about privacy, I too don’t believe it is or should be in the jurisdiction of one nation or group to determine the mode, form or fashion of information generated and accessed by all of humanity. Perhaps this dilemma about the Right to be Forgotten, EU customs V US customs, will provide us with the opportunity to define the issue. Very simplistically:
– Who decides, which one makes the call about what is correct and acceptable, the procedure to follow – ie – The Code of the Net
– Can any one country dictate this code based on the customs and code in their territorial space and expect it to be applied universally across this new realm – the Net
– All this boils down to the core issue of what is the Code of the Net, which laws apply and how do the customs culture and laws the nations of the world translate into this cybersphere
– There is a need for consensus in both the territorial and cyberworld. The laws of the territorial world we have already seen cannot be blindly imposed upon the cyberworld and expected to be seamlessly applied. The denizens of the cyberworld might not fall into the neat categories of the territorial nations they physically inhabit or are aligned with, they may each have their own identity and allegiance online. They may be grouped based on a distinct philosophy, they may have acquired value/ status in the cyber realm not based age and education but interaction and presence, contribution to the expansion of the cyberworld thus generating value in this space as opposed to the real world. We already have a host of undefined tax issues relating to the same.
– However these are humans inhabiting this world so they are bound to fall into philosophically and ideologically distinct groups which will represent the Nations of the Net. Eventually any laws passed by the nations of the real world would also require to have consensus amongst the Nations of the Net which at this point appear to be ruled by Pirates as they attempt to escape the real world and take shelter in this alternate space. Only upon getting the consensus of the Pirate Lords can the codes that originate in the real world have any hope of being applied in the cyber world.
See clip below of my fav movie of all times The Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates of the Caribbean At World’s End –
This is a classic tale of the establishment /oppressive powers of the British Colonists, Spanish Empire and The East India Company versus the anti establishment fighting for their right to exist and express represented by the Pirates.
In the following clip from the above movie the Pirate lords convene in Shipwreck Cove to elect a pirate leader who would unleash Calypso. Feng, the Singapore pirate lord appoints Elizabeth Swann as his sucessor as Pirate Lord before dying. Thus Elizabeth’s presence at the Brethren Court ( and I am of course Elizabeth Swann in an alternate world being appointed by Feng GIC, the Pirate Lords of Singapore and the Straits of Malacca). Upon identifying themselves and confirming their attendance with their pieces of eight, the Pirate Lords are compelled to vote for a Pirate King upon whose command Calypso would be released. Each pirate of course votes for himself, but here Jack Sparrow votes for Elizabeth Swann and she gets elected as the Pirate King.
The Pirates of the Caribbean – Pieces of Eight
The Code is the Law:
Now Suchi moving from this tale about the French, British, Americans and our beloved Pirates onto another charming tale about a family from Madras, The French (good guys in my story for a change), The British Colonists (the baddies), the shadow of America with its song of Freedom and liberty and a Pirate ship. A leaf from my diary –
The Ballad of the South.
The story opens in Madras on February 22nd, 1914, the night my paternal grandmother Kowshiki was born. It was a night etched in Madras history as a sneaky pirate ship, a German light cruiser called the SMS Emden slowly snuck up into the Madras harbour and bombarded it until all the Burmah Shell petroleum reserves had blown up and the harbour was in flames. This theatre of this audacious pirate ship that dodged all in its path unfolded in the first couple of weeks of World War I. The aim of this attack being to blow up the British colonial assets, ie, the petroleum stocked in the harbour by Burmah Shell Company. The SMS Emden was also known as The Swan of the East and was harboured at the port city of Tsingtao (my fav beer) and commanded by the very smart officer Karl Von Muller who managed to unleash a trail of chaos upon the South China seas sabotaging and destroying the Allied ships and resources that came in its path, and yet managing to travel undetected in the high seas. The captain cleverly camouflaged his ship by adding an additional dummy smokestack in order to resemble a British ship, and once near it would hoist its colours like a pirate would and embark on a full fledged attack. Through these tactics and its deft evasion skills it gained great fame/ notoriety and its journey, its story and the story of its crew is memorialised in much of history, film and literature. The story of the Emden is very relevant to us because my great grandfather, S. Duraiswami Iyer, who was a prominent lawyer in the Madras High Court and revolutionary fighting for India’s independence from British rule, seized this opportunity, the blowing up of the British Colonial assets by a pirate ship that had snuck into the harbour on the night of the birth of his first child and named her Emden. So my grandmother was called Kowshiki Emden. As you can see from the image below my grandmother Kowshiki was truly The Swan of the East. This was a name she wore for many years until she was teased to tears (for Emden was known in Tamil to connote someone sly and treacherous like the ship)and forced her father to change it Kowshiki in the birth records.
Image of my grandmother Kowshiki – Swan of the East:
See below the fabulous clips about the voyage of the SMS Emden and the plague in Madras:
Palm Grove (see below), S Duraiswami Iyer my great grandfather’s home, where my father and his siblings were born was given up by my great grandfather along with all his assets to the Aurobindo Ashram and to the cause for which he had sacrificed his blood, sweat, tears and family: India’s Freedom from British Colonial rule. My grandmother used to recount that this was a home where great artists, writers, poets, philosophers and freedom fighters were housed and taken care of. The evenings used to resound with dramatic orations from Subramania Bharati and music from the veena that wafted from the balconies while my grandmother Kowshiki sat on the lap of Ramana Maharishi as he recounted to her the meaning of life. This is the story of the Tamil people and one that seems to have slipped from their collective memories as the great revolutionaries from the southern states are all but forgotten within barely a mention in any of our history books. Where are these stories from the south of valour and passion, intrigue and revolution to uphold freedom and liberty which would excite the imaginations of children even today, stories of S Duraiswami in Surat in 1907 or his clandestine helping of the revolutionaries by finding novel means of getting messages across to Subramania Bharati who was sheltered (by the French) in Pondicherry, or even S Duraiswami being sent as an envoy of Aurobindo to meet with Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress (the Crips mission) and dissuade them from partitioning the country. I don’t remember reading about these southern revolutionaries, fired and inspired by their tactics and stories to free their Motherland, in my history books in Delhi or Madras or even Calcutta. Suchi, “Vande Mataram” was the cry echoed across India, regardless of the language of the people, this cry formed the core of S Duraiswami Iyer, as he embraced it as his life’s motto. For Madras to forget or not to forget is now irrelevant as this memory is to be rebuilt in the New World:
Ironically, but very aptly even though my great grandfather was funding and working covertly with the revolutionaries to overthrow British Colonial rule in India, thus celebrating the German light cruiser SMS Eden’s assault on British assets, ie, the oil tanks of the Burmah Shell company that were located in the Madras harbour and naming his first child, my grandmother Kowshiki, Emden, S Duraiswami’s son, and my grandmothers brother Thyagarajan “Tiger” who was studying in England upon the breaking out of WWII joined the RAF and went on to blow up the assets of Nazi Germany. His purpose was completely inspired and in line with his father, S Duraiswami Iyer, for Tiger in his capacity, wished to do his best to help remove the tyranny and injustice of the Nazis like his father had striven to dedicate his life to get rid of the tyranny and injustice imposed upon the people of India by the British Colonial forces. Tall handsome Tiger, my grandmother’s favourite sibling and the one she remembered and missed most with all her heart until the day she passed, and one who was the rightful inheritor of my great grandfathers legacy, sharing his passion for justice, and our base in the South, and was shot down over Normandy ton the 25th August 1944, the day Paris was liberated. His remains were collected and buried in a church in Normandy, the memory being narrated by a child who saw the plane crash into the fields (see below). There was also a memorial service by the French, British and Indian nationals recognising his valour and contribution. Thus ends the story and the links to the south of my family, this long forgotten family of Madras.
A wonderful article and a fitting tribute to Pilot Officer Sayanapuram Duraiswamy Thyagarajan (Tiger) written by David McMahon
*Typhoon aircraft documentary- photo of Tiger sitting on the engine cowl:
Out of Duraiswami’s large family of five children, only Kowshiki (my grandmother) survived and married Viswanathan. I’d like to think that my grandfather Venkat Viswanathan ICS, who was so much a part of the British Raj, (the very people my revolutionary Great grandfather was fighting), was the reason why the story of Duraiswami Iyer continues to this day as I carry forward not only S Duraiswami Iyer’s blood but his fire to the New World!
Hope you enjoyed the ballad from The House of Tiruvottiyur Tyagier, tell me can you hear the music?
Big hugs
Purnima
PS: See in pic below all the characters of the Grand Theatre of the South.
(Top row L-R): Mithran Iyer (@Sorbonne) Duraiswami’s son, (?),(?), V.Viswanathan(Palghat- my grandfather), S.Duraiswami Iyer (The Madras lawyer/revolutionary – my great grandfather) holding my aunt Kadambari, Tiger Thyagarajan (RAF) my granduncle Duraiswami’s son, shot over Normandy and buried there.
(Seated L-R) ?, My great-grandmother from Palghat with my father Vijay Viswanathan on her lap, (?), Kowshiki “Emden” Viswanathan (my paternal grandmother), Anu Iyer (grand aunt) daughter of Duraiswami Iyer with my uncle PK Viswanathan resting his arm on her lap, (?)
Dear Suchi,
After prompting you to review all our correspondence to check if it can be published unedited, I found myself doing the same expecting the regular errors of auto correct, missing words, grammatical and punctuation related errors and omissions which can result from uncontrived spontaneous writing and require no editing in my opinion. However, I stumbled upon this inexcusable error, the omission of a negative, the word “not” which renders the entire analysis bankrupt. So, I am compelled in this specific instance to make the correction, insert the missing word “not”, and resend the letter. See below:
Reflecting on the Right to be Forgotten – Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel
Fletcher outlining his position as defending the right of each country to balance the freedom of expression and privacy it chooses, not what is imposed upon it, ie, what another country chooses for it. Delisted links on all european versions of google search like Google.fr, google.uk and in March 2016 also removed links from Google.com so that persons from countries requesting delisting could NOT access the requested blocked links.
And since I have ventured to edit and resend this letter, I have taken the liberty of adding an additional hyperlink relating to my grandmother brother Thyagarajan “Tiger”, the RAF pilot shot over Normandy on the day Paris was liberated. This link is absolutely essential as it has his details and his photos capturing the charismatic persona that my grandmother never stopped talking about. She was well into her 80’s when they announced that they had founds her brothers remains on a field in Normandy. It was a lifetimes wait for her and I am so glad she left knowing that he was found, embraced by the community, carried into a church and buried in their grounds with a plaque that stated “Here lies a Hindu airman”. See link below:
I also noticed that you’ve written Peter Fleischer in one place and Fletcher in another. We sometimes see with our brains and not with our eyes and many an omission or typo slips through the cracks.
Purnima Delhi <purnimainnewdelhi@gmail.com>
Feb 17
to Sucharita
Oh that darn autocorrect! But this is a mild error compared to others I have encountered including having my phone hacked (by my kids) and words replaced, where every time I typed baby or darling it would autocorrect to an obscenity. But this I still would not touch as it could be recognized as an autocorrect error. I would like to keep the natural flow as much as possible.
I’m off to Delhi for a day tomorrow for my cousin 50th. She is my fathers elder brothers daughter, the one who grew up in Bombay. And if my family story couldn’t get more complex, her father, Priya Kumar Viswanathan, my grandmother Kowshiki “Emden’s” eldest son, joined the Burmah Shell Oil Company right out of college, yes the assets of the one that the SMS Emden bombed in Madras harbor the night that my grandmother was born. For Burmah Shell was British Petroleum. He retired relinquishing the chairmanship to join the Dutch (Phillips). So there we have it, circles within circles. All a part of our great boxwalla story!
Circles within Circles: Dear Suchi, my uncle Priya Viswanathan, my dad’s elder brother, my grandmother Kowshiki’s (Emden’s) son, was the quintessential Company Man. He joined Burmah Shell straight out of college and spend most of his career at the helm of this grand ship. Burmah Shell, a joint venture with Shell was the Indian successor to The Burmah Oil Corporation, the largest oil company of the British Empire. The Meg that was the Burmah Oil Corporation we know today as BP or British Petroleum. So, in my family story, The Ballad of The South, the son of Emden (my grandmother Kowshiki) and the grandson of S.Duraiswami Iyer, the fierce nationalist from the south who named his daughter Emden because she was born the night that the German light cruiser The SMS Emden slunk into Madras harbor and blew up the tankers of British Petroleum assets lining Madras Harbor, went on to to lead this very same company, relic of the British Empire in India, as a highly regarded Company Man. Circles within circles!
And to wrap up, since we on the subject of pirate ships I have to share a clip, a mini theater I created, inspired by a visit to The Maritime Museum of San Diego where I found my long lost wheels or should i say fins. Upon standing on the hull of the USS Dolphin, the deepest diving (mechanical submarine) in the world, I found it reverberating, being breathed back into life (despite having it’s engine removed) upon meeting its long lost captain lol! I quickly made my way to its command center, engine room, grabbed its suspended periscope and recreated an episode from this very blog, The Ballad of the South. Of course, in that instance, the SMS Emden was a light cruiser, a ship above water, in my instance it was a Submarine. I peered out of its periscope pretending we had slunk into Madras harbor undetected in the inky darkness of the night and had spotted the tanks of British Petroleum lining Madras harbor, The next command was to unleash the torpedoes, and fire of course recreating a slice of world military history and the story of my family from the South.
With the tale of the USS Dolphin, I bring our stories of the Old World into the New World, for upon assuming command, I have 20,000 leagues and a world of adventures that I have committed to cover, this is for all my girls out there all over the world, dream on, follow on.
May 13, 2024
Dear Suchi, After assuming various personas for the above pasted video clips, like captain Karl Muller of the SMS Emden, I assumed command of the USS Dolphin (please note this is a headless Dolphin for its brain /engine lives outside its body) and have pledged to traverse 20,000 leagues across oceans and cultures, battling giant squids and other archaic weapon wielding life forms in order to serve as an example and empower my girls with the belief that when the hurdles appear insurmountable, it’s not the time to cry or die, but to embrace the steely hub of the USS Dolphin and plough through the troubles with single minded devotion, till they get to the other side.
Family Portraits Viswanathan, Mysore, Mahishasura, The Federalist Papers, Amish, Blockchain
4/23/12
Dear Roger,
I have attached yet another one of my family photos, and since you are asking for the smoking hot ones, here it is pasted below! Yes, this one is of my grandfather V.Viswanathan with his hunting buddies 1940’s-1950’s(from a time where big game hunting was a part of life in India). I bet you can guess my relative…yes, as you probably guessed my grandfather is the man in the foreground with the Bavarian hat and the gun. But this story is first going to take us to sunny California, Stanford, a gathering of people from Kerala, my grandfathers state before we fly across the globe to Mysore State ( now Karnataka with Bangalore as its major city) which is probably the setting of this photo.
Yes, it was in California where I heard my grandfather name so fondly remembered by a group of people who had left their palm fringed paradise, Kerala, many decades ago to journey to California and were now collected here at the footsteps of Stanford. Hearing this name from their past, Viswanathan, one entwined with their memories of a time and place left behind, which they held so dear to themselves, eyes brimming with many stories to share, stories of having conversations, of being inspired by a boy from their village who like the diminutive Vamana of mythological fame journeyed to the North and challenged the kings and the gods and stood proud and unwavering in his ideals and values. It was India in the 1930’s, the hey days of The Raj, when one of the British officers employing their usual form of divide and rule attempting to cut down the up and coming Indian officers of the ICS, quizzed my grandfather about what a young man from Palghat Kerala, a thousand miles away from home, was doing so far away from home in the north, here in the capital city of Delhi. My grandfather Viswanathan unperturbed, with his trademark grin and quick wit pointed out the obvious loud and clear in full company, words that echoed for decades in the Raj social circles, “Sir, If you can travel 6,000 miles from London to Delhi, this is a mere hop”. He never minced words, he was clear, unequivocal and upright, a bedazzling gem of Balliol in India, and so he retained his head while many others rolled and his stories went on to become legends. Stories of having received awards for science and technology by my grandfather on that palm fringed paradise. These were stories from their youth still vibrant in their memories of four decades past. While they reminisced, they glanced at me curiously wondering what flavors this young coconut had brought to these shores.
A Hunting Trip from The Time of The Raj:
The Mythical Gaur and the Three Shikaris- Viswanathan, The Maharaja of Mysore and another (Maharaja):
The Gaur and The Shikaris – Viswanathan, Maharaja of Mysore, and Another (Maharaja?)
Now Roger, I shall take your hand and fly all the way across to Mysore, Karnataka, the setting of the above photo and the home state of my grandfathers hunting buddy (the Maharaja Mysore). In the photograph, the three men are standing around their prize a giant Buffalo, a Gaur. The slaying of this beast is no ordinary feat, it has its own cultural and mythological dimensions. The festival Dussehra which is celebrated all over India centers around the slaying of the ten headed demon Ravana. However, in Mysore, Dussehra which is their grandest festival, is celebrated with much pomp and show celebrates the victory of the Goddess Chamundeshwari slaying the Buffalo headed demon Mahishasura. the classic victory of good over evil, thus the significant of the above attached photo.
Mahishasura was the demon son of the union between the King of the demons and a princess cursed to be buffalo, thus Mahishasura was able to switch between human and demonic forms and used all his powers to intimidate the gods and drive them out of heaven. Since Mahishasura was invincible to man, so the gods created a beautiful female form with all the powers of the gods, Durga, who destroyed the demon army and slew Mahishasura, a story which form the core of Hindu mythology and is melodiously evoked in song and dance (see below).
Pasted below is a statue of the buffalo demon Mahishasura whose story is a part of the State of Mysore, now the town of Mysore. Mysore in Kannada (the local language) means the place where the buffalo demon Mahishasura comes from. The statue is located in Chamundi Hills, it is here that Durga or Chamundeshwari is said to have slayed the demon and remained. There is beautiful 1000 year old temple dedicated to the goddess who is passionately worshipped. In fact, the grandest festival of Mysore is the ten day Dussehra which celebrates the victory of good over evil, the slaying of Mahishasura by Durga/ Chamundeshwari.
Roger, I also have a bunch of photos to share of Mysore, the palatial palace ,the elephant gate, the statue of Mahishasura and me. Do check out the photos below:
My photo set Mysore- Palace in Wonderland
Mysore PalaceMysore PalaceMysore Palace- Maharaja seated on the Elephant at The Dasara ProcessionTusker at The Mysore PalaceInside The Mysore PalaceMysore Palace ArchesThe Maharaja-Mysore PalaceMysore PalaceMysore PalaceMysore PalaceThe Game Room, Mysore PalaceMysore Palace
Roger, pasted below is the melodious shloka about Durga/Chamundeshwari/ AigiriNandini, all different names for the same goddess who slayed the demon Mahishasura.
Aigiri Nandini – Song In praise of the goddess that slays Mahishasura (Rock version): https://youtu.be/EbcdDXEPukk
Aigiri Nandini: It so beautifully hails the goddess…Be victorious, be victorious, oh destroyer of demon Mahishasura. The one with beautiful braids, daughter of the mountain Himalaya.
A magnificent rendition of the Aigiri Nandini in the traditional southern dance form Bharatanatyam. The dancer fully embodies the poise, power and persona of Goddess Durga or Chamundeshwari, the fierce manifestation of the female form in the Hindu pantheon, known as the slayer of the buffalo headed demon Mahishasura. In this performance, the dancer skillfully moulds her expression from the fierce slayer of the demon, to the beautiful woman with lovely braids, to the proud daughter of the mountain Himalaya and then to the feminine and appealing consort of lord Shiva, thereby embodying all the features of womanhood in one dance: the The proud, the fierce, the beautiful and the feminine, seamlessly without an inherent conflict. Thus representing the female energy and female force in all its hues. In this shloka or verse, sung in praise of Goddess Durga, in the last couplet she is hailed in all her forms and cheered on in her eternal dance of victory over the demon Mahishasura: “Be victorious, be victorious, oh destroyer of demon Mahishasura. The one with beautiful braids, daughter of the mountain Himalaya”.
Do you see me here as the dancer with the kohl rimmed eyes?
The Union of India- A Slice of History:
After meeting with people from that other time, I decided to explore a bit more about my grandfather, who as I had mentioned earlier was such an integral part of the Indian administrative machinery, an ICS officer and a part of the Raj. I discovered that he was Nehru’s blue eyed boy, and he was part of the core team under Sardar Patel and Menon to incorporate the Princely States into the Union of India after Independence from the British Raj. While surfing I found him referenced in the book After Nehru Who, by Welles Hangen (1963) as the right hand man to Lal Bahadur Shastri who became the second Prime Minister of India.
Where Welles Hangen writing about India in those tumultuous times states “I shall never forget the elation I felt when i was ushered into Viswanathan’s office, in one corner of the enormous south block office building in New Delhi. There is nothing unusual about the room itself. In fact it is smaller than what an official of comparable rank would occupy in other ministries. But in Viswanathan’s office I had the feeling that I was at the nerve center of the Indian state”. I sensed somehow that room was in reality my grandfather who was not of imposing height, perhaps a little shorter than average but the pulsating nerve center of every society.
Incorporation into the Union through negotiations with the princely states, ratification of the constitution, was a giant public relations and strong arm tactic played out in India where my grandfather Viswanathan played a pivotal role through his personal relationships and the respect he commanded among the various maharajas and princely states of India. This memory brought me all the way through space and time to the United State of America, The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison!
The American Story – The Federalist Papers
Somehow stumbling through time, I came upon Alexander Hamilton and then The Federalist papers.I discovered that The Federalist papers were a series of articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to help explain the core tenets of the proposed constitution to ensure its ratification especially in New York. These series of articles came to be known as the Federalist are probably the greatest public relations campaign of all time. I must admit, the mental process, the debates, the analysis, the concern for fairness above all, that went behind the formulation and ratification of the US constitution fascinates me till this day as these issues are as real and valid for us at the other end of the globe today. I say this as I skim the very surface as I have much to explore. However, I couldn’t resist sharing a few pieces that jumped at me from The Federalist papers, wish I could discuss them at length with you (And sections most pertinent to India Today):
In Federalist No. 1, Hamilton listed six topics to be covered in the subsequent articles:
I propose, in a series of papers, to discuss the following interesting particulars: —
“The utility of the UNION to your political prosperity”
“The insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that Union”
“The necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed to the attainment of this object”
“The conformity of the proposed constitution to the true principles of republican government”
“Its analogy to your own state constitution”
“The additional security which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of government, to liberty and to prosperity”
In Federalist No. 39, Madison helps define the true nature of “Federalism” as applied to the US constitution
The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn, it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national.
In Federalist No. 51, Madison distills arguments for checks and balances
First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.
Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority — that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable.
(All very fascinating till I came upon John Jay’s Federalist 3 would love to know what you think looking at it from the universe of today:
The number of wars which have happened or will happen in the world will always be found to be in proportion to the number and weight of the causes, whether REAL or PRETENDED, which PROVOKE or INVITE them. If this remark be just, it becomes useful to inquire whether so many JUST causes of war are likely to be given by UNITED AMERICA as by DISUNITED America; for if it should turn out that United America will probably give the fewest, then it will follow that in this respect the Union tends most to preserve the people in a state of peace with other nations.)
The Federal Structure – Minority Communities
Dear Roger, I am now going to end this saga with my take on Federalism and invite you to another journey into my surrealistic universe, do I still have your eyeballs? your mind? I need you now with me a hundred percent. Well here it continues:
The existence of distinct communities within the US ( eg. Mormons, Amish) permitted to exist as islands within the mainland with their own distinct personal laws, system of education, choice of infrastructure, which would have ordinarily been under the purview of the Centre highlights a very interesting aspect of the US federal system: recognition of distinct cultural units that are assimilated into the whole, participate as an integral part of the whole/nation while being permitted to retaining their cultural distinctiveness even if it means permitting them their own personal laws and infrastructure.This reflects the broadest and most liberal interpretation of a federal democratic system where there is integration of these distinct communities within the federal structure while at the same time permitting them the freedom to retain that aspect which makes them distinctive and without which they would no longer remain a distinct cultural unit. Thus permitting the presence of nuggets within “the melting pot” thereby further enhancing its flavor.
Even if this were to be viewed in evolutionary terms, we have seen vestiges of our evolutionary past that lie appendages to our bodies and other aberrations that only exist to serve their own purpose or none at all for this time and space. However, the body understanding that it is in a particular phase of an evolutionary process, incorporates and permits these aberrations as a part of the whole for there may be a time when the body is so afflicted with disease that the presence of such an aberration/vestige which it has carried in it’s knapsack for millennia might be the clue, the key the tonic that ensures it’s survival (perhaps its not junk (dna) after all).
It was eighteen years ago while on a canoeing trip down the Delaware, touring the lush green Pennsylvania countryside that we spotted some curiously dressed folks in period costumes with bonnets and black cloaks traveling in horse drawn carriages. Yes, we had stumbled upon the Amish. This unique sect that had broken away from their Swiss Alsatian roots and settled in Pennsylvania maintained a lifestyle and the culture of the place and time they left behind 300 years ago. The piece that intrigued and amused me the most was their aversion to any form of technology. They would not even use electricity or mechanized equipment in the early 1990’s in America, that blew me away! This was a time of great excitement as far as computers and technology was concerned and I could not rationalize this rigid code imposed by the Amish community on it’s members and comprehend how it would benefits it’s group or the larger state of which they were an integral piece. However, almost two decades have passed since that journey and as we have crossed the crest of this computer and technological development fervor charging in it’s direction blindly and with breakneck acceleration, the alarming implications of the same are being periodically flagged in my brain.
Cyberlaws – The “Immaculate” Blockchain
Yes, today in the year 2012, we are almost all virtually connected, soon even the remotest localities will have computer access. Our lives are becoming less physical and more virtual as we are spending more waking hours on a computer phone immersed in tools of technology. Yes, all this has been connected via electricity, cable, wifi and more so in the imminent future even extending to the remotest realms. How assuming we soon are so enmeshed with this technology, a reality today foreseen by most pundits, then how fire walled, safeguarded, protected are we from an online/ virtual virulent onslaught? Would this craze to connect make us oblivious to the hazards we as humanity have opened ourselves to? Could a single program sent through the airwaves contaminate us and our children for eternity? Could we be land locking ourselves with no escape, no way of affirming the virtual from the real when all our books have been scanned and all our ideas have been stored and all our history has been archived giving the key to modify to the virtual pundits(All Hail the immaculate, immutable, eternal Blockchain!).
Would our fall back, our verification process and all our laws of Evidence be similarly susceptible to the virus with the key? When all traditional knowledge all paper trails all physical evidence has been eliminated ( as is happening here and now) and our reliance is ever increasingly retrieval from some data storage, could not our past and therefore our future be tweaked. Who would remember what is being regurgitated and who would challenge the “stored word” which would acquire the same status as the written word of our times? I being the first victim, as I have almost completely relinquished paper and can no longer rationalize storing anything physically when the online/virtual storage and retrieval options are exponentially superior.
What then happens to this world, to our world of today? Yes, viewed in the prism of eighteen years ago this was sci-fi, but here we are and this is our reality. Suddenly that journey to Amish country starts making sense, suddenly the ideas of the framers of the constitution and its unique federal structure starts making sense. Also the persons who subsequently supported and upheld these ideas as a gem to be preserved has started making sense. For within these ideas lies escape routes for humanity who might in their passion and fervor following their rational brains compromise the whole. So when all our lives, histories and online docs referred to for evidence are contaminated, perhaps there might exist within this gargantuan beast, islands that remain free from the bondages of technology, free from contamination, an untouched pristine world from where we may be able to retrieve records of what it is to be human.
I leave you with a lot to mull over. Hope to hear back soon.
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
The Doors, Carnatic Music and Tamil Culture, Liechtenstein
8/27/12
Dear Roger,
I’m back!
Not sure from where, and not sure if I can take you there, but I’m back.
I’m going to leave you with some music to describe my journey, Jim Morrison and Break on Through…I sense I did. And returned…from The Other Side.
Have you ever felt like a particle suspended in space, deep dark space, completely and absolutely alone. A space that is continuous and endless without coordinates, outside our matrix of reality of time and space. Imagine a sense of senselessness, of being without form or sensation, suspended, in isolation, alone, stark in your singularity. Unsure of where you are and where you have been, with only a cache of memories to affirm your existence which themselves lie scattered over the horizon in timeless animation. Imagine an ocean without coordinates, no north star, no guiding light, tossed in a tempest without a beginning and with no end.
Jim Morrison -The Doors (Screenshot from the above link)
Love to all,
Purnima
4/8/12
Dear Roger,
As you journey across the globe, I share your adventure by journeying through time. Yes, I’ve been amusing myself traveling with some fascinating men and women through time and here are some snippets I could not resist to share before I embarked upon my next adventure.
My local library here in New Delhi is a relic of our British colonial Raj days and has an incredible assortment of well worn books most of which seem to belong to the last century catering to the families of the British officers and the brown sahibs, all a fascinating remnants of an old machinery of which I am a spoke.
See below screenshots of The Library at The Delhi Gymkhana Club from this tediously long documentary:https://youtu.be/smCL9GS3ZjU
Delhi Gymkhana Club The DGCThe DGCThe Library Delhi Gymkhana
Apart from the materials in the texts themselves, and the dynamic authors that have journeyed to the realms of my hearts desire, I find the statements made by these authors like a newly unearthed fossil bathed in the light of our times unraveling it’s irony/ peculiarities. I found myself drawn towards a charming little book, Switzerland for beginners by George Mikes, published in
1962 and had to grab it. I loved the authors style and persona and chuckled as i found a bit of myself in this dramatic character who it seems had inadvertently found himself in Switzerland comme moi, and it seems spent considerable time getting a keen understanding of the Swiss. However, what I wish to share are some fascinating snippets frozen in time (1950’s, 1960), where the author says, “An outbreak of revolution in Switzerland is about as likely as an outbreak of democracy in Russia or a heat wave in Greenland”. In describing Liechtenstein, the fascinating and curious country that lies between Switzerland and Austria, and can easily be missed if you miss the exit along it’s 14 mile length, the author relates how the police force consist of twelve men and a single murder is the highlight of the years criminal activity. That the prison is in the cellar of the Government House and is more often empty that not, and prisoners have to wait their turn to be admitted as it has a capacity of two persons and the cherry on the topping, prisoners are always sent home for Christmas.
The author then relates a story (which had me in peals of laughter)which gives us a complete picture of this fascinating place in the 1950’s: The Deputy Prime Minister was apparently working late, when he discovered that he was locked in his office in the Government House, after much noise and banging a sleepy disgruntled man emerged from the cellar with a bunch of keys and let the Deputy Prime Minister out. After which he summarily returned to the cellar and locked himself in. Upon being quizzed about his identity he revealed that he was the resident prisoner in the cellar of the Government house. I wonder how Liechtenstein works today??
Love and hugs and many more stories in the pipeline.
Interesting musing about prisons and Liechtenstein. I’m not sure what it is like there today, but I think it is probably vastly different than it was in the 50’s and 60’s. I think I drove through the tiny country at one point in time, but didn’t stay long enough to absorb any meaningful culture. I’m glad there are still actual physical libraries in Delhi where you can get your delicate hands on all those historical tidbits. In the book I mentioned to you, “Super Sad True Love Story”, all the real libraries have been shut down and people don’t read anymore. They just scan things with their electronic digital devices and glean the superficial, meaningless (unless it has to do with purchasing or credit) ideas. Real books are smelly and very outdated, and only strange, unadaptable people still bother with actually turning pages and reading every word on them.
I read this morning in Le Monde about a “girlcott” in one of Delhi’s suburbs to protest the lack of security for women. It is apparently very dangerous for a woman to be out alone, and even taxis aren’t safe for them.
It’s been a whirlwind past week in Japan with everything from a traditional Japanese tea ceremony in Kobe, to a return to Kyoto and its marvelous temples (and the cherry blossoms were absolutely marvelous last week end. The petals are starting to fall now and in a few days they will all be gone. I’ll send a picture once we get home). We leave for Tokyo tomorrow morning for more mingling and admiring of the sophistication and refinement of the Japanese culture. We were in Kanazawa yesterday, which is really a delightful smallish city north of Kyoto. It has a Ninja castle, an old Geisha section with some marvelous shops, and we had a drink in a charming little shop full of exquisite vases and other frightfully expensive items. One small set of cups and a small Sake pitcher cost over a million yen.
Yes, a seemingly endless barrage. I find the only way to write to you is in continuous snippets, jotted during my ( ever decreasing) few moments of lucidity.
I am in Bangalore once again and having dropped my son off at his boarding school (more like prison camp), I find myself suddenly alone, so very alone. Instead of regrets and fury, I have decided to share with you some music that I used to hear wafting out of my grandmothers room ( an accomplished Veena player and a passionate fan of MS Subbulakshmi). Music in praise of lord Krishna depicting all the forms of love, but most touchingly the love between a mother and her child (baby Krishna). This I find is a space untouched by popular media and we continue to stay obsessed by passionate love man and woman (++). to draw you into my space and make you feel sense my soul, I have to return to my culture in this instance the core of Tamil culture so beautifully played out in Carnatic music by MS Subbulakshmi.
As i see MS Subbulakshmi in the above youtube clip immersed in her music singing a Meera devotional hymn that Krishna is her her only true love and none other, I see visions of my grandmother enraptures by this music swaying her head, with her fingers either moving up and down the Veena or embraced against her svelte frame and repeating her devotion to Krishna, to the cult of
motherhood, to the love for a child for baby Krishna or Bal Gopal. I watched this clip again last night and got deep peace, some consolation, as everything about MS Subbulakshmi seemed to remind me of my grandmother, as though she were here commiserating with me…all except for the nose rings ( my grandmother had to abandon her nose rings as they did not match her riding breeches, Oh the women of The Raj!).
On the topic of culture and the love between a mother and child, my heart would be a mesh of the cultures of the east and the west with many years spent in excitement over Christmas but most of all the Christmas carols which penetrated somewhere deep into my fabric.
Check out my fav Christmas carol videos below where I sing aloud inviting the angels to come see the new born baby boy:
Much to say about Federalism, Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist Papers but my lunch is uneaten, my coffee cold, and I have a baby boy to see before I catch my flight.
Hugs and kisses,
Purnima
PURNIMA VISWANATHAN
Disclaimer 😛
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
I Express Therefore I Am – Cave Art – Universal Human Rights
Cave Art – Art makes Man
11/11/11
Dear Roger,
Thanks to you my mind is being stormed by the idea of what exactly it is that makes us human. Is this immortal quest through time a need to identify and express the self? Are we as mankind really saying “I create therefore I exist”? Thereby with each expression etching ourselves into the fabric of reality?
Thus wouldn’t Art, as the embodiment of human expression along with the quest for the Self not form the core, the basis of what we consider human, humanity? And should not these form the basis of Universal Human Rights?
The hauntingly vivid images of spray painted hand impressions from Neolithic (cave) art found across the world flash across my mind. Images of spray painted hands from Australian aborigines, to images on rocks sprayed in Africa and the Americas seem to connote something…a message, a signature, perhaps an affirmation. An affirmation of an individual and his/ her existence on this earth and in that time. An affirmation of reality, of existence, of being, of oneself. Perhaps of The Self. Could this be a part of the eternal journey/ search an expression, extension of mans spiritual quest to identify the Self?
I Express Therefore I Am
And isn’t it this that makes us human?
Is it not this “idea”, this burst of creativity/spontaneous creation which emanates from nowhere.
Isn’t it this very aspect that distinguishes us from the rest of nature, which makes each one of us distinct, an individual, human?
Isn’t it this idea, this extension of humanity that constitutes art
Isn’t it this spontaneous expression, this apparently autonomous self generating aspect of humanity expressed in it’s varied forms one that structures, builds and populates the universe?
Isn’t it the art that makes the man?
Now Roger, as you and I lay down the foundation stone for Universal Human Rights, should we not break it down to its bare bones and identify what it is that we call human, what makes us man?
Hugs,
Purnima
See below the first human examples of self expression-Cave Art
Some examples from My Story- see below my Ice Age Preteen in Chamonix, discovering, exploring and creating Art (handprints in Ice):
A Long time ago, in a life before she was an American Preteen, Tara was a chamois scampering around Chamonix. She returns to leave her mark in snow.
I would like to take you on a short journey to explore a topic we had once discussed on “nations” and “nationalities” and their relevance in the cyber-techno world of tomorrow.
Imagine we are transported into the animated world of the movie Wall-e of our previous email,
And, Wall-e the adorable clean up robot stumbles across a diary, a journal written by a girl(in a pony tail), 700 hundred years ago, as he cleans up the debris which had chocked all life forms and making the earth uninhabitable. And, in this diary he finds a mention of people and worlds, lives and nations and their journey through time and history. He reads about England and France, about Germany and Japan and of course about India. He is immediately alerted, all sensors highlight “India”. Wow, he thinks, thats the word, the name, the destination that the galactic ship The Enterprise consisting of a now invertebrate frappe burping gelatinous crew with a central CPU for a brain which were once humans, is destined for. Those are the co-ordinates, that is the word, the place, the space which nobody understands where The Enterprise is supposed to land, India/the new world. And ironically, nothing else of the Colossus, the empires and nations of the “ancient world” of the preceding millennia are remembered either, all we have of England, France, Germany and Japan are references in the diary of a girl with a ponytail.
The ideas of nations, nationalities, allegiances, territories, were notions long gone as the world morphed, melded and extended into the cyber realm. There were no longer battles over territorial boundaries, and certainly not physical battles, but battles over ideas and ideologies which carved the space and concentrated the groups with each concentration overlapping another.
But man being man, battled for the supremacy of his ideas and ideologies in this cyber realm and (as Wall-e has shown us) slipped further into the cyber realm as man neglected and destroyed the physical realm finding that he could recreate blue skies and green fields and the entire biosphere.
Roger, unfortunately this story has no happy ending whether we look at it in the real or the cyber realm, perhaps it is reflective of the nature of man or is it my current state of mind, which is it? Do we have any escape from ourselves?
How do we will ourselves to save the earth even as we aspire escape from it to recreate a “perfect copy”in the cyberworld?
Hugs
Purnima
Purnima Viswanathan
Disclaimer : P
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
Shantaram Bangalore Birthdays, Seizure, Prise, Qabza and the 4th
Bangalore: An image in the mirror!
Dear Purnima,
Been thinking about you lately and wondering how your transition is going. It really seems strange AND sad when I go to Geneva now and realize that you are no longer there. I had a two-hour break today between meetings, and it would have been so delightful to meet you for coffee or lunch !
But I am feeling more and more engrossed in India through the wonderful book Shantaram. I think I mentioned it to you in an earlier email. He presents such amazing insights into the Indian soul and culture, and with such a remarkable style, and I love the way he imitates the native Indians’ use of English. I just finished the chapter where he describes his six-month stay in a small village far from Bombay where he goes with his friend/street guide and protecting angel, and he talks at some length about the gesture the Indians have of wiggling their heads at each other as a sign of peace and friendship and understanding. Is that true of all social classes in India ?
His description of the ordered chaos while boarding the train that took them to the village was priceless. He described how the passengers literally pushed and shoved and fought with one another to try and get one of the available seats, and how his friend was pummeled with blows by people trying to dislodge him from the seat he was saving for himself and the author. And yet, once the train started moving, the entire mood changed and everyone settled down in an amical and cheerful acceptance of where they were situated for the journey and there was genuine give and take and helpfulness between the passengers. It’s fascinating stuff.
Love,
Roger
8/14/11
Dear Purnima,
Let me guess. You’ve been kidnapped by the Standing Baba in Mumbai and forced to spend your days preparing their Charas ??
Or, you have landed a great job that is so time consuming that you don’t even have time to connect to the internet ??
Hope you are well and doing well.
Hugs,
Roger
Dear Roger,
It’s fabulous to hear from you! My AOL account has completely shut down with no possibility of access so I have not been able to read or respond to any emails you might have been sending. I suspect it’s time for another identity, another email, what do you think? And on the subject of identities, how did you guess I’ve been mulling over the issue of identity and state action…a window to my mind? Or yet another conspiracy theory?
And yes, as you very aptly put the cyber mists have formed a digital vortex through time and space linking the two silicon valleys of the world, and I believe it’s with the Golden Gate as the portal. I just remember driving my black Jeep Cherokee across the Golden Gate Bridge, being enveloped in the mists and finding myself in Bangalore. I’m still blinking…how did I land here?
As for the silent pulsating gargantuan structure next door, I keep wondering what The Oracle will unveil in the morning. Have you ever visited Delphi in Greece, it’s absolutely fascinating.
It was here that Pythia the Oracle intoxicated by the fumes emanating from the ground would spin into a trace and her garbled emissions were translated by the priests to address everything from personal issues of the common people to decisions of war by the Greek city states often moulding history in it’s path. At this difficult juncture in my life, I would appreciate a few words of guidance and look over my shoulder to see if Pythia is watching. In the interim, I’ve taken some tough decisions, taken up an apartment in Bangalore. My two day stay in Bangalore is now indefinite. So, all my plans of getting my job and my life back is shelved for the moment, I can’t think beyond today, an unnerving ambiguous stage in a much to long a journey.
However, looking at the brighter side of life, I have two friends, and one of them may be more than a reason for me to stay. Yes, while you have been reading Shantaram, I think I’ve met him! He is charming warm and caring, from my college, my universe, my world, and he claims to have journeyed to the edges of the universe and wishes to hold my hand and take me there, to share his story, to journey with him. I can’t wait to hear, I can’t wait to translate!
Lots of love,
Purnima
On Sunday, September 11, 2011, Roger Stevenson wrote:
Dear Purnima,
I have the distinct impression that those very cyber mists have formed a
digital vortex through time and space that links the two silicon valleys of
the world. And, the very title Oracle has some awesome connotations. Did
you approach them about working on some of your fascinating theories
concerning the internet and the issues of identity ?
How much longer in Bangalore ?
Giant hugs,
Roger
Date: Tue, Oct 11, 2011
Dear Roger,
As always, your mail comes like a burst of sunshine in my gloomiest hours, it’s great to hear from you! And yes, my computer, my beloved mac has resurrected, ironically on the day that Elvis died. Yes, Steve Jobs is The King and I struggle to think of the universe without him. If only we could somehow capture, seize, hold that spirit, that incredible creative energy, the essence that could not have vanished with the physical form and continue the magic.
I have landed back in Bean Town, or Bengaluru as Bangalore is now called taking its name from an old tale about a Hoysala king Veera Ballala who came to these hunting grounds and got separated from his hunting party. Tired and hungry he reached the hut of a poor woman who was warm and hospitable to the stranger and offered him the only thing in her home, boiled beans (hence the name Boiled Bean Town or Benda-kaalu-Ooru).
The other story attributes the name Bengaluru to Kempe Gowda as the one who conceived, planned and built Bangalore in the 16th century.
All I know is that I have consumed a copious amount of idlis, the steamed rice puffy pancakes (don’t know how else to describe this staple south Indian dish), but I’m not getting into the naming game (iddly-ville…?) or else I might find them tossed at me and not served for breakfast tomorrow.
Now back to “The Story”, how my fingers have been itching in captivity as my mac appeared to breathe its last, there is so much to tell! I left you last with a persona, a reason for me to remain behind. Well, not only did I remain for a month, I’ve returned back to Bangalore.
When i first landed in Bangalore I was Captain Jack the pirate having emerged from captivity from the dungeons of Chillon on the banks of Lake Geneva, after being bound in chains, smeared with dirt and draped in tatters for many long years. Upon landing, I was blinded by the brilliant light of the Indian sun and was struggling to find my bearings when I found myself standing on the windswept Deccan Plateau. A Plateau built over 65 million years ago by a frenzy of volcanic activity, a frenzy which appeared to still be bubbling in its deep dark murky depts. It was here on these desolate windswept plains that I encountered another being, someone in the distance, perhaps a pirate like me.
As he “coiled” his way towards me the vision became clearer, the paths seemed to merge, a sense of comfort, a familiarity emerged…perhaps in this end of the earth I’d found a friend, a soulmate a fellow traveller I thought. The energy and excitement of this meeting was palpable, I appeared to have him as “rattled” as I was and thus began a dance, a dance between two strangers who find each other at the edge of the earth. Do check out my friend whom I have named Rattlesnake Jake below (and uncannily enough I discovered after sharing with him the character I selected that he was called Jake by his friends):
The dance was passionate, brimming with danger and desire, each watching out that they return with all pieces intact yet giving into the swells and twists of each others being. All this coming to a grand culmination at the “Bar Scene” where I was Rango “the lizard that could (make a complete ass of himself)”. I decided to perform for the audience, no not with water and neither with cactus juice, but with the infamous “Martini” which left me both shaken and stirred! Do check out my upside down glass of martini in this snapshot taken in Provence:
Martini
Of course, the “Bar Scene” unravelled at the swankiest place in town, of course I was the outsider who had walked in with a swagger, of course I was told I was “A long way from home” to which of course I retorted as i took a deep swig, “I come from the West, the Far West…California”! Do check me out as Rango in the Bar Scene below:
Rango Bar Scene
Then there was NIGHT, no not light…Night or complete Black Out!
The dance continued across Bean-town with its familiar superstructures, malls, Bay Area multinationals, multiplexes and the workforce that had a sprinkling of the international lining Bangalore’s famous pubs and restaurants. The keyboards appeared to click away as we danced and the monitors peering out of the dark windows appeared to wink. This cybercity was awake and humming having transformed itself into a borough of the Bay Area for the night, for a brief glimpse I was back home.
However, after all those martinis I morphed. I became every creatures heartfelt desire, an irresistible, unquenchable, intoxicant, a lean green three breasted Martian. Do check me out in the movie Paul below:
Paul (the movie) and the Green Three Breasted Alien
video:
As Jake the Rattlesnake coiled himself around the three breasted Martian, seizing his prey the skies opened up and thundered a message “you were destined to meet, to be joined together in common passion, drop the green babe!”.
Jake having finally seized his prize in his vice like grip was reluctant to let go but the idea of joining together in a common passion seemed to excite him more than this midnight meal however exotic. It was then that I decided no more green costumes for this lifetime and pondered over the word that would have been the end of me: Seizure.
We think of seizure in general as taking hold of, to possess something, to capture something or someone, to grasp, either lawfully or against someone’s will. In Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu) the word seizure has other nuances:
قبضه qabẓa for A. قبضة qabẓat, fr. qabẓ, q.v.P قبضه qabẓa (for A. قبضة qabẓat, fr. qabẓ, q.v.), s.m. Grasp, gripe (of the hand), clutch; power; possession; occupancy; holding, tenure, tenancy, tenement;—a handle, hilt
H پکڙ पकड़ pakaṛ (v.n. of pakaṛnā), s.f. The act of seizing; seizure, capture, apprehension; catch, hold, holding, grip, grasp; handle; gain, profit, haul; objection, criticism, laying hold of a defect, &c.;
And finally I explore French to fully understand this word and I find I am a bit lost as I have only come up with “prise” (from prendre which I am familiar with) which means to grip, hold, capture or the word “sasie” which I found in the dictionary defined as seizure, confiscation of goods. How far off the mark am I, can you please help me to find the appropriate word in French?
The word seizure then led me down the path I was already traveling to discover more about the south of India, its history, art and architecture. I had just read about Siege of Seringapatnam and the third Anglo-Mysore War where the well-equipped British forces under the command of the Governor General Cornwallis with the aid of the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maratha state outwits Tipu Sultan, the sultan of Mysore State by disarming all his troops and driving him into his forces into island fortress of Seringapatnam which was the capital of his state of Mysore. Eventually the British breech the walls and seize the town which compels the monarch Tipu Sultan to agree to the flagrantly unfavorable terms and hand over his sons as guarantee of his abiding by the terms of the agreement.
The story of brave and patriotic Tipu Sultan who dared to battle the British and was one of the rare monarch who managed a couple of victories against them aided by the French has been recreated in popular culture through books, comics for children, theatre cinema and television, the most famous and controversial being the television series The Sword of Tipu Sultan (the colorful tv series gives a sense of how he is perceived in popular culture). I have pasted below some pics of old prints of this historic battle. Do check it out below:
The teak Palace had a miniature of the famous Tipu’s Tiger organ, the original being kept at the V&A(Victoria and Albert museum, one of my favorites) in London. This magnificent organ in the shape of a tiger mauling an Englishman was an extension of his arch rivalry against the British colonial influence that had swept through the subcontinent moulded and supported by the French as was this Tiger organ. Tipu who was known as the Tiger of Mysore, used the tiger motif on all his objects and ornaments including his banners and weapons. Do check out this fabulous page from the V&A which gives an overview of the Tiger organ and has a must see video clip at the bottom:
To round up the story on Seizure, I will have to inflict you with my musings on the 4th Amendment, Search and Seizure and it’s application to the cyber-world. While I was in the throes of an amorous embrace by Rattlesnake Jake, intoxicated by all the heady excitement my mind wandered over to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (please tell me this is not totally psycho) and an article I had read about the arbitrary seizure of domain names by the government and its impact on the first and fourth amendments to the constitution. As the tongue came flickering out to lick my cheek (see above clip Rattlesnake Jake), I screamed out at the injustice of this draconian system and decided it needed some of my brain juice. Of course, explaining to my buddy Jake why I had shrieked is another story. Roger, I would really appreciate it if you could read the pasted article below and my thoughts and musing on this case and tell me what you think. Am I totally off the mark or do I have something of substance there? Do check article pasted below:
Domain name intermediaries should not be held responsible for the content of websites that utilize their domains
“.cat” Domain a Casualty in Catalonian Independence Crackdown | Electronic Frontier Foundation
And my musings on the case below (please give it a shot, i promise its not all fluff) :
Search and seizure, Speech, and the Internet
Amici Curiae brief of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in support of petitioner-appellant (puerto 80 projects)
Puerto 80 Projects v The United States of America, Department of Homeland security
Are there different Rules for physical searches and seizures as opposed to searches and seizures performed online/ in the virtual sphere
In the physical realm we have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our homes and such searches and seizures would necessitate the production of a search warrant, do we have the same expectation of privacy online: in our domain/ web site/ IP address ? There is a long historical background to claiming our home is our castle does it transfer to our online residence? would the activities being carried out in the home parallel the expectation of privacy in the activities carried out on your website? Is this based on public access, the fact that one is a physical space and the other is virtual or is it some other criteria? If not then the authorities would have no need to demonstrate probable cause before crashing into the party, your website, searching and seizing it! However, would these 4 th amendment rules apply so seamlessly, how could they, what is being seized? A website, domain name, ip address is being seized… And how can these be seized in the sense as it is understood conventionally. What are the ramifications of this seizure? The realization must hit that the impact goes way beyond the briefcase and the seizure of the car, here there is a network of lives and vested interests that come together and interplay on these sites, impact a community.
So have we reached a realm beyond arrest warrants and probable cause are we in a space that is not physical and nor is it illusionary? one whose existence has real ramifications on the real world but appears to exist somewhere in between eluding the two. In such a realm would the arbitrary imposition of the laws of the real world upon this space be rational and just? I say a hearing, an online consensus yes, arbitrary imposition of the laws of the real world, no! The laws of the virtual realm have to emerge from that realm backed by a consensus of the netizens who would support it’s enforcement, every other system would fail, appear unjust or be plain ridiculous awaiting the judge to identify another shape in the clouds to attribute to this animal.
The first issue to determine is the nature of this space, whether it is physical ( uh huh…no,) and thus covered by the search and seizure laws of the fourth or whether is it a purely creative expression, Speech, to be covered by all the issues and safeguards that fall under the first amendment (dunno). Does it really warrant those forms of extreme protection I wonder? Or is it an amorphous evolving something in between neither a physical form nor pure expression but one that needs to be identified before every judge on every panel ascribes it a form (this cloud looks like a dinosaur) and passes judgement.
The speech based protections which in my opinion form the core of any civilized society are dear and sacrosanct and must NOT be blurred. This virtual animal on the other hand is to be defined and the creative Speech based aspect is to be secured, the vested interest of the multitude that go into this beast are to be taken into consideration and then whatever form of appropriate Search based laws can be applied should be “tested”. I repeat tested, as the ramifications of searching that handbag, the equivalent of someone’s iPhone today can result in the violation of the entire communities data. A simple search to might result in catastrophic consequences: The doctor could have a list of all the teenage pregnancies and abortion lists in the area, there could be lists of “friends who smoke”, a group people with a transmittable disease, a categorization of ethnicity and weapons, all of which would grotesquely violate privacy that goes beyond the individual and sometimes community and could (should)never satisfy any larger government purpose.
The information disseminated into “the system” would target these groups forever, they would be categorized labelled (each and every one of us would fit into some label). The reality of this tech centric world of today being that every iPhone, handheld device has layers and layers of data that could and would compromise. How then in this overlapping interconnected realm where everyone is exposed in their polka dotted briefs do we allow ANY form of search and seizure…Yes, the cop suspected the man parked in lot was doping (perhaps he was an attorney, perhaps he was the head of the hospital, or perhaps it was their kid) and the data is seized from their devices along with the dope. The results can be catastrophic much beyond the intent of the legislature and the judiciary. This goes beyond the physical realm of catching that coke head and making him do time, it compromises everyone in his stream/ network. The realization that we have moved beyond the physical realm and that many are carrying others data, and form a part of a connectivity/ network has to be incorporated while enforcing the laws we know and recognize in the physical realm to the virtual one.
In the above-mentioned brief, in order to clarify for the audience these oft repeated and for most the ambiguous terms of domain names, IP addresses and websites, using a real world parallel the author very creatively, compared the website to the Empire State Building, the IP address as it’s actual physical address on 5 th avenue, And the domain name as the name that building on that address is known as by the public, which is the Empire State Building. Now if the domain name, ie ” the Empire State Building” were seized because of some illegal activities on some floor, it would be akin to putting a board up in front of the Empire State building and saying it’s out of service or boarded up. However horrific this may sound, the ramifications would be even more dire if this domain was The Bank of America, Lehman brothers or UBS which due to some irregularity on one of it’s levels was being seized/ boarded up, being told to the general public that it was now “out of operation”. There would be a run on the bank both in the real and virtual world and the result would be unsalvageable! Therefore, search and seizure when applied to this virtual plane has to be done astutely if at all, understanding the interconnectivity and interdependence of all the elements that go on to make this universe.
Roger, did I totally bore you? Was I sounding garbled? I hope you didn’t skim through the whole thing and read at least the last paragraph. I would love to hear your thoughts.
I will end with the promise of the story of Jake or the new age Shantaram, one with whom I appear to have shared a formative journey, similar lives, families, background and even the same Cambridge Mission college on whose lawns we soaked in the sunshine.
Good night and sweet dreams. I hope to hear from you soon.
Purnima
Dear Purnima,
What a delight to get a long missive from you. A wonderful investigation of seizure (saisie), although I don’t know if that is the word I would choose to describe your union with Jake. It’s almost too negative in one sense in that the object/person seized has no control over what is transpiring, but I need to mull over that as well as your long treatise on cyberworld privacy.
Thanks for the Martini picture. I had at first hoped that it was a picture of you raising your glass, but it did remind me of southern France. I don’t usually drink that (or those in the sense of dry), but I did have a Tequila Sunrise last night from the bar on the 12th floor of our hotel overlooking the bay in Hakodate, and I, of course, sent a warm and tender thought your way. We’re off to Sapporo this morning and the final chapter in our current Japan adventure.
Hugs,
Roger
Dear Roger
My tumultuous ride has not ended. My two day stop in Bangalore has transformed into a two week marathon with Tara falling sick, homesick and being completely unsettled. It’s been very difficult for me as well, the cutting of the umbilical cord.
So, I’ve decided to be Bangalore based, explore the city, it’s sights and sounds and add another chapter, a Bay Area to Bangalore chapter to my diary, at least for the next month until the dust settles or I get my dream job.
In the interim I’ve been exploring the city with its glitzy malls, skyscrapers, and being dazzled by the development, all seemingly enveloped by a distinctive pulse of youthful energy. This garden city that I had been told much about appears to be in a stage of metamorphosis, with all its pieces spinning in the air. Of course there is heady development as Bangalore has reinvented itself but in its midst, there appears to be absolute chaos. The traffic, the roads the base infrastructure to support this grand idea seems to be suspended perhaps in someones mind waiting to take a breath from this dizzying growth.
This growth of course is a result of the fire emanating from technology worldwide as Bangalore forms the technological triangle with Singapore in the east and the Bay Area to the West, both of which have been home to me.
So, my adventures continue as I explore Bangalore via “scootie” (tuk tuk), taxi and on foot, often inadvertently finding myself at the other side of the road, dropped off at the wrong place where I have to skillfully negotiate my way over the suspended sidewalks (most of which are floating pieces stacked upon each other and to add to the excitement are punctured with holes just about the size to trap a lady’s heel -talk about rules against women in heels…equal protection my brain screams !), intermittently separated by deep dark ditches between the floating sidewalk pieces (which I believe suck you straight to the river), finally there is debris and as i discovered cables of live wire strewn just in case you have managed to dodge the other hazards and make it thus far. Well, I did and that too with a kid in tow (who carried me) who being the upbeat kid that she is recognized this surreal experience as having slipped into a Super Mario game of dodging obstacles and successfully making it through the hazards. Yes Roger, it’s a real life Super Mario game and i have not even mentioned the piece of walking across the road…you have to come and join me here sometime.
Hugs and love,
Purnima
Dear Purnima,
Glad to hear that you are enjoying Bangalore and from the vantage of an old colonial club. Sounds charming !
We are leaving tomorrow for four days in the land of the Little Mermaid and Hans Christian Andersen, but I doubt the blond Nordic creatures can hold a candle to your beauty punctuated by those deep, fascinating and enchanting eyes. Wish I were there too ! ! !
More when we return.
And, if I were a partaker, I cannot think of a more delightful preparer of charras.
Gros bisous and fond thoughts,
Roger
Dear Roger
Writing to you from a breezy veranda in Bangalore, a charming old club, a relic from our colonial past that I have been fortunate to enjoy as a grandchild of the Raj.
You have been in my thoughts over these last few weeks as I have ventured into very exciting territory, one that straddles the globe as I venture from France/French, to Persia/ Persian – Urdu and finally arrive in Delhi with its Sanskritized Devanagari script.
Yes, I have been delving deep into my culture, reading Persian poetry, Urdu poets, ghazals, love stories in English, French ( with a struggle) Urdu/Hindi in both the Roman and Devanagari script. It’s been awesome, find the connections being able to see the bridges… As i guessed, French and Persian sense, sensitivities and sensibilities,(looking for the Urdu word “ahsaas”?) are one! wish you were here!!
Hope I get a quiet afternoon to write to you in detail. At this point all I can think of is dropping the kids off in boarding school and hope they settle in, then everything next.
Hugs
Purnima
Btw: I would not hire me to pack your charas… Talk about biz going up in smoke.
Purnima Viswanathan
Roger Stevenson
Mon, Oct 31, 2011,
Dear Purnima,
Are you still in Bangalore rubbing shoulders with the IT elite ? Has your new-found former friend completely swept you off your feet and into his life ?
I saw the pictures you put up on Facebook (by the way, you are about the only reason I ever venture onto that so-called social media site), and you aren’t there very often. I listened to an interview on NPR yesterday of an American social butterfly who is a self-proclaimed social media Ann Landers and has written a book about Facebook and its joys and pitfalls. He said that when Facebook first appeared on the web, everyone said, “Wow, this is really unique”, but eventually Facebook turned out to be just like life itself. You not only have the pleasure of being connected with your friends and those you really like and admire, but you also have to confront all the long-lost cousins and old school mates that you have absolutely no interest in pursuing a relationship with, even on Facebook. The big question of the interview was how do you tell someone on Facebook that you no longer want to be their Facebook friend and still remain friends with them ? ) This is really heavy stuff.
There is an Indian film playing in Geneva at the Festival de tous écrans. It is called
Have you seen it ? Know anything about it ? It sounds interesting. I think we’ll go see it next Monday.
Halloween was really big in Japan (check out the pictures below) Is it celebrated in India at all ? I still have such wonderful (and frightful) images of India floating through my mind from Shantaram.
And speaking of books, I finally have all three volumes of Murakami’s latest novel IQ84 That should keep me busy for a few weeks. I need another long plane ride so I have nothing else to do but read.
Take care of yourself. I still think of you every time I drive into Geneva !
Giant hugs,
Roger
PURNIMA VISWANATHAN
Disclaimer : P
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
Alice In Tourette, The Wax Palace, Bali Hi, Cote d’Azure/Provence, Red Rackhams Treasure,The Supreme Court of The Cyberworld
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011, Roger Stevenson wrote:
Dear Purnima,
Have you landed safely on the other end of the rabbit’s hole ? I hope your tumble through space was eventful and exciting.
Thinking about you !
Roger
7/21/11
Dear Roger,
It’s great to hear from you, and yes, I have landed on the other side of the rabbit hole or the other side of the long dark tunnel leading from the Wax Palace to the outside world. Do you remember my relating the story of the Wax Palace from the Indian epic poem Mahabharata (akin to the Iliad), where the five Pandavas were housed in a magnificent palace by their cousins the Kauravas who were contenders for the Throne of Hastinapur?
The Wax Palace
This perfect palace was made up of entirely combustible materials (thus the name), as their cousins the Kauravas, who were their rivals and contenders to the throne of Hastinapur set up this trap. The Kauravas warmly invited their cousins the Pandavas to reside in this sumptuous palace, after ensuring their cousins the were comfortable enough, the Kauravas planned on finishing them off by setting the palace on fire. I remember many verses in the Mahabharata describing the beauty of this grand home, and its construction. As you may remember, our home on Boulevard des Tranchees, in Geneva, was wrapped in construction for the most of our time there and when the construction facade was removed, it was time to go/escape. See below our home Blvd des Tranchees in Geneva:
I have pasted below some clips from youtube relating to this story of the Wax Palace and how many things in this perfect palace aroused the suspicion of the Pandavas (like I was forever suspicious about the “kitchen for show” where it seemed like no one had ever cooked a meal, just not practical) which made them pre-empt the plot , set fire to the palace and escape through the tunnel dug under the palace to safety. Check it out below:
Indian Epic Tale – Mahabharata- The Wax Palace
However, Roger, I will return, this I am convinced of, as I feel there is much left undone, unexplored, unwritten…
In my dreams I see Tavernier standing in his stockinged feet flashing his treasured gems in his sparkling eyes, as he holds open the door to the living room inviting me in. He moves deftly as he removes my coat and whispers in his soft voice ” you have barely entered the building, do come in, there are many voices waiting to greet you, have you met Voltaire?”
Bali Hi
But it’s both surf and turf for me, so apart from the scintillating minds, I yearn for the mountains, for adventure, for snow and ski. The magnetic Matterhorn, standing in all its isolated glory beckons me with the haunting melody of South Pacific, Bali Hi.
Do check out Bali Hi on youtube (both the original and teenage version):
Bali Hi – Here am I your special Island, where the sky meets the sea, Come to me, come to me…
So, I will have to return, I will have to return to my special Island where the sky meets the sea. I will return to the Matterhorn as he beckons me through the mists and across the seas.
Cote d’Azure/Provence
Before I end this last leaf, I must share with you my adventures with the kids in Provence, Cote D’azure. We stayed in Tourettes sur loup an area between Vence and Grasse. Another dream filled with sun, sea, azure blue skies, charming medieval villages, quaint streets, vibrant art, museums, fab food and The Black Shark(The adventures of Purnima in the Black Shark follow).
Do check me out below in touring in Tourettes sur Loup, Gazing at the fab art in St Paul de Vence, enjoying the museums in Nice, Eating out in the medieval square in Biot, submerging my Black Shark in Antibes (Marineland) and Cruising in Cannes.
Purnima in Nice (with my pre-teens) see below two installations, one appears to be titled San Francisco-Nice-India:
Red Rackhams Treasure:
Red Rackham’s Treasure as we discovered after all our dives and explorations was the experience of spending a summer in Cote d’Azure.
However, this page cannot be turned without sharing with you the story of embarking on an adventure in the belly of The Black Shark. As I was preparing for this adventure, doing everything by myself for the first time, the place, the hotels, the car, the sightseeing, the restaurants, I found a reasonable car rental online, one similar to our VW golf and confirmed the booking. Upon arriving in Nice (after detouring back via Zurich-my bookings!) I found that they did not have my VW Golf but instead offered to upgrade us to a sports BMW. Wow, I thought, life looks goood. Now, backtracking a bit, I have been driving from the age of 14, and a car is almost a natural extension of me. However, all my cars have been large, powerful machines bulldozing those that dared swerve into their path. They have all started with a deep growl as I have felt them first pulsate then thunder under my fingers as I’ve turned they key. A sense of supreme control, power over a magnificently powerful machine. Well here I was in a strange land with two sulky brats and a sleek swish machine shinning black and glossy in the sunshine with it’s fin perky and erect behind it…ready to go. I got in and of course fumbled for the keys, I pushed the plastic square I was given into what I thought was the keyhole (all the while being observed by my pre-teens) and struggled to turn it. After the third attempt, still stationed in the parking lot, I requested the parking attendant to assist. He pressed a button that said “start”(how bizarre I thought but did not question him further so that the sneaky pre-teens did not get a whiff of their antiquated mom). Once the car had started all I needed to do was follow the gps, my maps and make my way to the Bed and Breakfast over the hills. Simple. Oh no, not so simple! After I found myself taking a third round of the roundabout being completely confused by the GPS, I decided to stop and peer at the maps. After confirming the directions to myself and an exasperated audience in the backseat, I tried to re-start the car by pressing the “start button” of course. Well, life is not so simple and the start would not start even after half and hour of trying. I then called the tow service for assistance but was unable to give them our street name.I did think of sprinting back to the parking lot because even after an hour of leaving it we were not too far from the departure point having circled the roundabout a couple of times. Then a kindly soul in a large machine (like the ones I was used to) came by jumped into my car and with a large smirk pressed the start button (with the brake!) the Black Shark opened its jaws and it yawned. “Hurray” yelled the back row, “hurray he found the start button, Mom you have to press S-T-A-R-T, the start button!”. I growled under my breath and zipped into the now inky darkness of the depths of Cote d’Azure as the kids yelled “merci beaucoup monsieur, merci beaucoup!” And thus started our adventures in Provence.
The Supreme Court of The Cyberworld:
Before I say goodnight, I am posting the piece I mentioned during our last lunch that I wrote while lazing by the pool in our place in Tourette-sur-loop as I scanned through issues relating to free speech, in the Real World and in the virtual world. Issues relating to public space, dissent, public arena in the virtual world for pamphleteering. As I scanned through Lessig’s Code I realized the limitations on these gatherings in the cyberworld/ chat room limits which spurred me to frenzied activity as I realized that the Anti-Code needed to be drafted. The framework, the basis which would be acceptable in the cyberworld as the laws of the Real World could not be so arbitrarily imposed. The norms would need to be generated from within this space, by the netizens of this space, by the contributors and creators of this space thus bestowing upon them the rights regardless of race color, sex, creed or even age (do remember the Net is in the hands of a 15 year old with a backpack). The only rules that will be accepted are the ones that come about through a “consensus among the Pirates”(sound familiar?), as the Pirates rule these waves! I would love your feedback, here are my ramblings:
*the predominant issue as I see it: verification of authentic dissenters v
programmes /viruses /spam.
The pivotal question to be discerned/ identified in the cyber world (especially when there are free speech issues and pamphleteering on the Net, you want to persuade/be persuaded by a human not by an auto generated barrage tailored to tempt you/spam)is whether we are interacting with a real persona or a programme that is smart enough to mimic one, for its only then that we can include that entity into the list of valid voices/ dissenters on the Net.
In fact, as I see it, the Supreme Court of the Cyberworld will be predominantly engaged in identifying “human error”, which once identified would then provide the “Entity” with requisite status and all the rights expected of a Netizen.
So effectively, the Supreme Court of the Cyberworld would turn the idea of the Supreme Court of the real world on it’s head ( upside down), as it would seek to identify human error, the one core element that makes us human, which once identified would give the Entity all the rights of a Netizen.
In a world of perfect beings, programs that mimic the ideal persona, inclusive of personality with wit and vanity encased in the choice of the structure/ form of your phantasies, memory, computational skills, speed, reflexes incorporating the ideas and decisions made by personas through time and being able to in a flicker scan the wealth of human data and respond with “The appropriate response”, the patently correct and time-tested reaction topping it all off with superhuman restraint and self sacrifice.
Do we really want to be governed by such perfect programs, do we wish to be
subjected to their standards and be measured against them, do we choose perfect design/response or do we choose humanity with all it’s errors and flaws?
Do we not wish to refer to this corpus of human knowledge take what we need but be in a position to improve/ challenge it when it does not reflect our time and space?
Do we not wish to forget our path through the woods and reinvent/rediscover an alternate path?
Do we not wish to remain human with all our desires and all our errors and
construct a world that fits Man (mankind)?
The first step in that direction would be in identifying Man from the endless barrage of identities impersonating all the traits of man claiming a voice for their ethereal selves. Thus the Supreme Court of the Cyberworld would have the pivotal and difficult task of doing precisely the opposite of what it’s expected to do in the real world ( prosecute the errors), identify the entities that express human error and liberate them.
With these final words I must say goodnight and hope to hear from you soon, very soon, perhaps by daylight?
Goodnight and Thank you once again for a lovely evening and dinner. Love to the family.
Purnima
Dear Purnima,
Although you have escaped your scaffold enshrouded castle and are now thousands of miles away, in some ways it seems that nothing has really changed, and getting a long, marvelously crafted email from you with a myriad of tantalizing thoughts and questions really (continues to ) makes my day. It’s as though cyberspace allows a kind of warp that brings the thoughts of distant persons ever closer. There are no physical barriers or borders to get in the way of communication.
Your description of your start button experience in the shinny black BMW (I must admit that I have never driven a “beamer”) was hilarious. It reminds me of the time in Hawaii when we had rented a car for a few days on the big island of Hawaii, and when we stopped to fill up with gas, I couldn’t get the gear shift (it was an automatic transmission !) to move out of the PARK position. I tried everything and nothing worked. In exasperation, I finally called the car rental company and told them of my problem, and they told me that I had to put my foot on the brake before the transmission could be shifted out of PARK. Needless to say, I was both relieved and slightly embarrassed. I, too, have driven since I was 14 (I used to sneak out in the night and drive my mother’s car), and nearly all the cars I ever drove were manual transmissions. But, bravo for having dealt with the situation.
It’s interesting that you chose Bali Hi as your mantra for returning to the Swiss Alps. I love that song, and that South Pacific version of the song in the first YouTube clip you attached brought back memories of seeing that film and being haunted by the idea of some enchanting island that beckons with its mysterious aura. There aren’t many musicals that I really like, but I did enjoy South Pacific and that short, stout beetle-chewing islander singing Bali Hi to the young American pilot is one of the things I loved most about the film. Let’s hope the song does indeed bring you back to the Matterhorn. Do I sense a bit of nostalgia for Switzerland and the Swiss Alps in all of this ??? I think the only other musical film that I really liked was Damn Yankees – a modern version of the Faustian myth.
We’ve been looking at all the pictures the family took during their travels. V loads them onto a USB memory stick (une clé USB), and we can see them on our wide-screen TV. I thought their pictures from Mumbai were really great. And then I just recently began reading the novel Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, and his description of the slums in “Bombay” is so vivid and explicit AND fascinating (Two different people have recently recommended the book to my as one of the best books they have every read). After dealing with the chaos, the poverty, the beggars, the noise, the confusion, the contrasts between old and new, rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, he finally writes:
“Above all else, Bombay was free — exhilaratingly free. I saw that liberated, unconstrained spirit wherever I looked, and I found myself responding to it with the whole of my heart. Even the flare of shame I’d felt when I first saw the slums and the street beggars dissolved in the understanding that they were free, those men and women. No-one drove the beggars from the streets. No-one banished the slum-dwellers. Painful as their lives were, they were free to live them in the same gardens and avenues as the rich and powerful. They were free. The city was free. I loved it.”
If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.
Speaking of books, A has received advance copies of the first two tomes of the latest Murakami trilogy, IQ84. The English translation won’t be out until October, but she is thrilled to be able to read it in French and said that it grips you from the very first pages. Maybe I’ll have finished Shantaram by October. It’s over 900 pages long.
The usually pleasant summer in our area has been uncharacteristically cold and rainy for the past week. I actually lit a fire in the fireplace one evening last week just to take the chill off the house a bit.
Thanks for sending along your piece about the supreme court of cyberspace. I’ll have to mull it over a bit before responding.
And thanks to you for the delightful coffee/lunch at the museum. It was a bitter-sweet final chat before you were whisked off to your beloved India.
Lots of hugs,
Roger
PURNIMA VISWANATHAN
Disclaimer : P
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
Tell me Roger, do you really believe having an abortion is a choice
for women…”hmm what should i do today a manicure a pedicure or swing
by the local planned parenthood and have an abortion?”
Absolutely not!!! There is no question of choice but a compulsion, a
desperate act based on the physical fact of being born female. There
is no Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice debate as a woman is not left that
choice.
What do you feel?
Hugs
Purnima
Jack and Jill (Captain Jack and Gilles)
Dear Roger,
My introduction to French cinema at this late stage has been a thunderbolt out of the blue, jolting me out of my current sleepy/un petit peu bored state into this new and fantastic realm of relatable humour. I’m a fan.
I have just forwarded you the video clips (which I made) commenting on the movies recommended : Le Diner Pour Le Cons, Le Nom des Gens, Le Rue de Plaisir (to be watched) and my favorite Rien a Declarer which is a “must see”, chk it out below:
Would love your feedback and recommendations!
Much more in the pipeline…
Purnima
6/13/11
GENEVA BLOCKBUSTER
Dear Roger,
No response from you regarding my nascent attempts at movie making. Yes, it looks like I’m morphing into your “Woody” and would greatly appreciate your feedback on the forwarded impromptu clips taken with my iPhone.
Well, much to tell as the story of Jack and Jill(Gilles) continues. Yes, I know how this one will end, but isn’t it all in the journey? I wish you were there when I first asked him his named (after he spent six months flirting /winking at me from behind the video library counter)…”It’s Jill”. “What”, I responded, and he repeated Jill. I finally pinned him down and invited him to engage in dumb charades…”So what does it sound like/ Rhyme with?”, and then I got it. He was saying Gilles, Gilles, Gilles which sounds like Jill, Jill, Jill. That’s because the French “G” sounds like “J” and the “J” sounds like “G”! I then leaned forward and introduced myself “You can call me Jack, Captain Jack”.
Contrary to the opinion of the misogynistic Mr. Naipaul, most female writers are not full of fluff. And most importantly, as the editor of the IHT correctly highlighted “the confusion/ contradiction” in his succinct piece on Naipaul’s attitude towards female writers mirroring my view that as you delve into a story, you are essentially delving into fantasy, an alternate reality, where your environment, time and space are altered, neither do you exist (as a male) and neither does the writer(as a female), but merely the story where you might find yourself playing (empathizing) with the male role or the female one which does not change your gender and neither does it modify the gender of the author. I think it’s time for him to retire… what do you think?
Do check me out with Jill(Gilles) the guy behind the counter at our local Blockbuster (Video Club) making a strong case for “Real Life”, otherwise how would one ever meet Jill!
See below my first attempt at movie making (a movie credited to my tech savvy pre-teens who taught me iMovie and helped to merge sound and video):
I then realized that this above clip (however thrilled I was with it) was insufficient to fully reflect my state of mind/expression, it did not say the words of my favorite Hindi love song/ ghazal:
So, I have pasted below an old Bollywood favorite Hindustani ghazal with Nutan playing the lead female role. Growing up I was often told I had a striking resemblance to this actress Nutan, do you see me this Indian actress of yesteryear from Bollywood of the 1950’s and 1960’s?
Do check me out below in an old b/w Bollywood movie from 1963- Nigahein Milane Ko Ji Chahata Hai:
The lyrics voice my clip pasted above:
My soul (Ji) desires the exchange/ meeting (Milana) of glances (Nigah)
A ghazal is a song, a piece of poetry from my part of the universe spread by the Sufi mystic poets (a long mail pending on the Sufi mystics…Sherazade has a few more nights). The Persian poets like Rumi, Iqbal and Galib, their words and ideas have filtered down into the vernacular languages creating a magical mesh of verse, sound and music which forms an integral part of our culture.
A Ghazal is best described by Wikipedia as:
The ghazal (Arabic/Bengali/Pashto/Persian/Urdu: غزل; Turkish: gazel) is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter. A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain.
Roger, I would like to share words of the above pasted ghazal with my definitions supported by the definitions(from the University of Chicago Library of South Asian Languages) pasted below:
It is a secret (Raz) matter
Unsure if I should speak of it in the open court (Mehfil) or not
My soul (Ji) desires the exchange/ meeting (Milana) of glances (Nigah)
My soul desire the relinquishment/ permitting to be taken (Lutna) of heart and life
The allegation/aspersion(Tohmat) that the world calls love (Ishq)
My soul desires to accept that allegation
See meanings below:
P نگاه nigāh [Zend ni+kaśa, rt. kaś; S. निकाश, rt. काश् with ni], s.f. Look, glance, sight, view, regard;
milānā, v.n. To pair (as birds), milānā (-se), To unite in feeling
عشق ʻishq inf. n. of عشق ‘to love passionately’
راز rāz [Pehl. rāj; Zend razaṅh, rt. raz; S. रहस्, rt. रह्], s.m. A secret, mystery
A محفل maḥfil (n. of place fr. حفل ‘to collect, come together,’ &c.), s.f. A place of assembling or congregating;
P تہمت tǒhmat (for A. تہمة), s.f. Evil opinion; suspicion (of guilt); allegation; false accusation,
Anxiously waiting as time closes in…
do write
Love
Purnima
6/13/11
Dear Purnima,
What a funny take on Jill/Gilles, and now I understand your earlier references to Jill. Just so you’re not tumbling too far down the hill, but if you land in a cool little “arts et essai” cinema showing French classics…
I’m thrilled that you have (finally) discovered French cinema, but I’m a little worried about your choice of favorites. Danny Boon and his admittedly really funny films are terribly popular with the French (and Belgian) public, but he doesn’t quite carry the intellectual baggage that made French films the envy of Hollywood for many years. Try some Alain Resnais, Goddard (Breathless – A bout de souffle), Chabrol (Le boucher), Agnès Varda (Sans toit, ni loi), Truffaut, even Beineix (Diva is a great film). Another film you might enjoy is Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain.
Speaking of films. the new Woody Allan, Minuit a Paris, is excellent and the new Iranian film, Une Séparation, playing at the Rialto, is superbe – the consequences of a divorce in an Iranian family (you could relate to the theme !)
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to savour your film making talents. As usual, none of the links to Flickr worked for me. I always get the message that I don’t have authority to access the pages. Can you show it to me tomorrow over lunch on your iphone/ipad ?
Yes, indeed, Naipaul should definitely withdraw from the public scene. I don’t know why old farts like him who have achieved a certain measure of public acclaim because of a Nobel Prize have to spout off about topics they really know nothing about like the superiority of masculine writers. Putting down the likes of Jane Austin is like Gerard Depardieu, an icon of French films for some 30 years, saying that the actress Juliette Binoche is a looser and has no talent. In my opinion, Binoche is one of THE great French actresses currently on screen, and Depardieu should be retired. If you ever get a chance to catch Binoche together with the mesmerizing (he has fantastic eyes) Daniel Day Lewis in the film adaptation of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, don’t you dare pass it up. It is a beautiful, haunting film. I could picture you playing the role of the other female character in the film, Sabine ! And then there is always the exquisite The English Patient
And, my dear, you are far more beautiful and enchanting than the Nigahein in the clip you attached.
Where shall we meet for lunch tomorrow ? 1:00 is fine.
And can you come for dinner here on Weds. the 29th ?
Love and hugs,
Roger,
P.S. I’m already feeling teary eyed at the thought of your leaving Geneva !
6/14/11
Dear Roger,
Thank you for this wonderful long list of French movies to watch, I just wish I had this list earlier before my 1001 nights were coming to a close (truly, it’s almost been 1001 nights in Geneva!).
Well, this is a list I plan to take with me where ever I land, and hope I am still linked with you through cyberspace. it would be fun to watch some films together.
I’m looking forward to our lunch tomorrow at 1pm, shall we meet at my place and then walk downtown?
love and hugs,
See you tomorrow.
Purnima
PURNIMA VISWANATHAN
Disclaimer : P
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
Jack and Gilles -Law and technology Vanishing Saraswati
On May 24, 2011, Roger wrote:
Dear Purnima,
It’s me again with a link to a great article about DSK. I am thrilled that someone has finally made the link between what happened at the Sofitel hotel and what the IMF and other financial organizations have done in their assault on the poor nations of the world.
It was utterly delightful to see you Weds. and have such a great chat over delicious food. You were in great form and I could tell from the sparkle in your eyes that you are optimistic, upbeat and, as my friend from Texas used to say, “bright-eyed and bush- tailed” about your future. It’s just sad to think that that was probably our last lunch in Geneva !
Here’s a link to an interesting piece on Weiner and his pro-Israel, anti-bike lane stance. I love Juan Cole’s blog, Informed Comment (By the way, he has recently written several lengthy entries about the Bush II administration asking the CIA to dig up dirt on him because he was such a vocal critic of the invasion of Iraq). The comments by readers after the article are also very telling about the guy as a shill for the Israeli lobby in the US.
We saw the film adaptation of Murakami’s novel Norwegian Wood last night. It’s in Japanese with French subtitles and is a beautiful and quite faithful adaptation of the novel. The music and sweeping photography are mesmerizing, and Annick was overjoyed to be able to understand a great deal of the Japanese in the film. It’s a very melancholic film with a somewhat upbeat ending, and what I find totally refreshing with both the film and the novel is the very natural and matter-of-fact way that it (they) deal(s) with human sexuality. To my great surprise, many of the French critics have stated that the film is full of crude and raw sex, which, coming from the otherwise tolerant French who never shun the opportunity to indulge in a bit of eroticism, almost shocked me. There is nothing at all raw or crude, or even graphic, in the film, and in spite of some steamy sex scenes, there is not one bared breast. There is, however, some very frank discussion of both male and female sexuality. God forbid if the French are becoming more prudish !
Hope you’re staying dry on this wet and dim Sunday.
Love,
Roger
Dear Roger,
It was wonderful as always to see you, I enjoyed our long leisurely lunch and chat, Thank you!
It’s uncanny how I feel I have been continuously communicating with you, sharing all my ideas and thoughts on the ones you have posed and the numerous topics we have touched upon, but somewhere I feel those communications have been lost to ether as I fear i have missed penning down those lines and sending them across the sea. Perhaps, one day you’ll catch my brainwaves, and i will get my shabashi (reward/praise).
However, my time has been put to optimal use as I have ventured down the pathway of communication. I have been playing with photos, film clips and music, and have just recently sent off samples to share with you, see pasted below Geneva Blockbuster – Anjaana Anjaani.
I have roped in my charming (and very obliging) neighborhood video library guy, who seems to have lots of free time to chat with me in French and at the same time practice his English. He has offered to assist me with all my clumsy attempts at film making. The fact that he is very cute adds the necessary incentive for me to gather all my hi-tech gear (essentially my iphone) and trek across the road to engage my new found French friend, chat/flirt and make movies. I must admit it keeps me very entertained and excited as I not only translate his French into English and my English into French for him but all of the above into Hindustani for my video clips where I have set our movements to a popular Hindustani song Anjaana Anjaani. The clip Geneva Blockbuster: Anjaana Anjaani, kind of tells our story… where two people, an unknown or “Anjaana” (male) and an unknown or “Anjaani”(female), two travelers/soulmates “hum-safar” in a dark night “andheeri raat” meet(milana), literally an Asian version of “Strangers in the Night”. Can’t wait for you to check it out.
See Geneva Blockbuster – Anjana Anjani below: Once Upon A Time when we used to visit Blockbuster to chat up the cute video library guy…
I’m not sure if you can access this, but do check out The Prince of Persia (my video Library guy) as he jumps off the shelf right into my arms. Then there are photographs of my daily haunt, The Tea Room in Champel which keeps those featured Devilish Delights (more about them later), and of course the video clips that just don’t load.
See below The Black Swan with The Prince of Persia: Remember the days of Blockbuster when there was a real person to chat with behind the counter?
Back to your email and more elevating issues (the Boehner and the Weiner), I must admit I am completely out of the loop when it concerns issues that surround Israel/Palestine, I always skip through those articles as je ne comprends pas rien. Roger, i feel that there are so many great minds continuously mulling over and debating this issue that there could not possibly be any room for an additional comment/unexplored idea. However, in the defense of my state of deliberate ignorance, I do believe that there are some problems created (by man), that are created NOT to be resolved but merely to ensure that the maximum energy and the greatest number of minds are absorbed chasing their tails (one way to keep them busy with the equivalent of Fermat’s this time unsolvable theorem while the Paris burns). So Roger, I don’t venture anywhere near this blackhole of infinite diameter as I believe that once sucked in, there is no way out. And NO you can’t even tempt me with a Weiner!!
As the time for leaving approaches, the boxes are piling up and I am struggling the tick all “things to do” off my list. The first being- Divorce the b@#$%^&! The date has been set for the 28th of June, 8 long days. I have much to do and getting back to work is priority #1, so i spent a couple of hours last week completing the requisite continuing education classes required by the California Bar, to get some things out of the way while I still had the time. However, in my hyper stimulated state of mind (dwelling on Jill/Gilles), these classes took another form as I found myself flicking the computer screen trying to knock the speakers off their comfy chairs seated across the screen out there in California. These were technology related seminars, and once I got my concentration back(and realized I could not knock the SEC rep off), I discovered how technology, mobile phones with cameras, tablets/iPads had become an integral part of an attorneys existence during this prolonged stint in wonderland.
There were comments abut how indispensable the camera phone was to take instant shots of of whatever needed to be collected and stored, photos, designs, documents with designs etc. The tablet seemed to replace the laptop in the courtroom and conference room as being an unobtrusive extension of a person as opposed to the laptop which builds walls(raised screen) and makes noise (punching of keys). And especially, when it came to issues of “Discovery” the knowledge of storing documents, retrieving information, knowing what and how to store the information at hand for easy production seemed to have moved light years. It now appears that if an attorney involved in basic litigation does not have the knowledge of this basic technology, he will be handicapped as he will not know what he can store, how he can store it, what he can demand the other party to produce and the various forms in which the material can be produced. This will then have an impact on the core competency of an attorney as he/she will be unable to produce or discover materials that he/she is unaware of, especially how materials have been stored and how they can be produced searched and scanned in a form that is not a waste of time and money for the client and the court.
Roger, in these long years of being out of the “formal” workforce, I have found that the world has truly turned on its head as far as digitalization and media is concerned. The computer, mobile/camera, gadget/tablet, seem to be omnipresent clicking, recording, editing and broadcasting continuously and in order to represent, advise, assist in any professional capacity in this universe, you have to be tech/media savvy. You core competency as an attorney, doctor, financier could be called to question if your advice has not incorporated the latest and most popular method of managing the matter. For this reason, I absolutely believe that a media center must form the core of any legal or medical library for apart from the attorneys who have to keep in sync with their client’s universe, the medical universe is getting more technical, more remote and more visual from what I read and see. i can’t imagine the normal two dimensional medical libraries lasting out beyond this decade, we will all be diving into our notebooks/tablets to get a look, feel, touch smell of the real situation and only then will be be able to credibly attach any of those letters to our names. I certainly have a long way to go, and these trysts with tech may not be in the right direction, but at least I’m holding on to the edge of the bandwagon!
See below Tearoom in Champel: Sin
The photos pasted above of the plateful of sin remind me of another overwhelming issue of this world of today, not the issue of saving information which has occupied our minds for all these generations, but one of deleting information, of erasing it, wiping it out. And as discussed in my last mail, this is where the Weiner got stuck. He certainly broadcasted, but upon discovering his error, he was unable to retrace his steps and simply erase the self photo he apparently sent 77,000 fans instead of the single one. Not only did that tear through cybersphere at breakneck speed, but once the Weiner was out of the bag (or brief) there was no way of putting it back. We are all faced with this glaring reality with it’s violent consequences, and it’s surprising how little we know and understand it. The reality that storage costs almost nothing and that it is much cheaper to store than to erase is a notion that even I can’t get into my head as i continue with the painstaking collation of information in various forms (especially print) so that a copy remains. We have few tools and fewer ideas on how to put the cat back into the bag, how to erase and delete. There have been suggestion of a digital signature, metadata that follows your script, photos etc, but in my opinion the replication, references and ownership of materials will not be easy to resolve however sophisticated the tools. Then there remain issues between nations, a clash of ideas and ideologies, the US viewpoints on the storage and destruction of data versus the more conservative European views on privacy and deletion. Roger, personally, I would like to write with a magic pen that holds magic ink which vanishes whenever and wherever I wish. I could merely trigger a command and that plateful of sin would disappear forever (tragically swallowing all the delicious dreams with it).
However, with this onslaught of scandalous headlines whether it be the story of Rep Weiner and his “sexting”, or the more sinister story of Strauss-Khan and the maid or even the tale of our beloved governor and his tango/tangle with the help, made me think of relationships and what it means in the hyper digitized universe of today where Weiner could not retract quick enough as the flick of the finger determined his fate terminally- he “resigned” to gallows, where now it’s irrelevant whether Strauss Khan will ever get his day in court as he has been tried and convicted by the media and is serving his term as per the dictates of the digital diaspora, and dear old Schwarzenegger was sex-posed and shunted out due to his matrimonial meanderings. The information, the misinformation, the speculation together with the gore and the embellishments are out there, and are now out there forever like a shadow attached to the individuals identity unshakable unerasable eternal. Such is the reality of this realm. As I dwelt on the issue of relationships (and I had a long long time to dwell considering I HAD NONE), I engaged my prince of Persia into a dialogue and video clip (any excuse to get us together on film) and discussed the same.
In the below pasted clip, I have attempted to explore relationships: Attorney-Client relationships where there are a set of rules prescribed by law on the manner in which this very private relationship be conducted, and again the Doctor-Patient relationship which also has it’s own prescribed set of rules, these rules rest on the basic premise that the doctor and the attorney are privy to information about you that would put you at an unfair advantage. It is essentially an issue of balancing of power so that the patient/client is not unduly compromised. Then there are relationship which do not have rules per se but require you to formulate the rules as you perceive them. For example, the rules that govern the front desk staff at a hotel and a client versus the rules that govern the bartender and the client in the same hotel and finally the rules that would govern the valet/cleaning lady and the client of the hotel. Even though they are all employees of the same hotel, would the implicit rules be different? I guess we would have to use the common sense “balance of power” and “undue influence” rule to ensure that the other party is not being victimized by the situation that he or she finds herself in. Then I moved onto the older woman younger man and the influences and power-play in that scenario where I was reminded in a heavily accented voice that despite my being the older woman the power lay with him…(hmm I paused to drink that in before I continued on my schpeel/spiel). I ended with engaging him to fly with me and imagine that the Blockbuster video club was not a real place but that we were actually somewhere in cyberspace, and this was a video club online, he and I were avatars, personas collection of texts and messages, icons that represented a male and a female designed in our form who were interacting with each other. I then asked him to assume we were intimate, lovers on this virtual plane with an intense graphic relationship, perhaps even marriage. Now I asked him to assume that the person behind his avatar/persona was a man in some remote location and then I asked him to assume that the real person behind me was also a large beer bellied man burping beer, very different from the avatar he had envisioned.
I then asked him the pivotal question: Is our intimate relationship/marriage in the virtual world a homosexual relationship? He flipped out! Yes, he absolutely flipped out after indulging me and walking down this rose scented garden path, there was no problem with comprehension, homosexual translated directly into French! He then bend closer across the counter and assured me that OUR relationship was NOT homosexual, and he repeated this quite emphatically. I returned home to mull over this information. Was this a case of (as the counter punch article aptly put it) a Weiner wanking in front of the mirror, or did these excursions into the cyber-realm, where there is absolutely no chance of exchange of bodily fluids, translate into something tangible in the real world. If these adventures are anything more than a foray into fantasy, having “real” implications for its participants, then our avatars however feminine mine might be and however masculine his, our intimacy, would translate into a homosexual relationship if the persons behind our personas were two men. What if they were two men unaware of the identity of the other (as it would normally play out in the cyberworld), then would this relationship gain sanctity of union in a cyber-society, sanctity of union requisite for marriage in a conservative society? Are we not merely playing with illusions, wanking off in front of the mirror??
So, contrary to your stand (and regardless of his), I say Free the Weiner!
Check me out below in Privy Relationships-Purnima with the Prince of Persia
in The Geneva Blockbuster: 2 minute clip pasted below
And, no more hot dogs for me for lunch tomorrow, I’m weinered out!!!
VANISHING SARASWATI
Dear Roger,
The tale of V and his visa brings me back to a very personal conflict, of identity, allegiance and citizenship, what to embrace and what to relinquish, recognizing that time itself makes these decisions for you as you travel and mold and evolve. I am constantly questioned as to why I insist on holding onto the passport of a place I left far behind, one that requires me to stand in endlessly long lines and obtain visas at every port while my kids with their US citizenship sail through. I have also often questioned myself as to why I choose this difficult route, why I don’t give up the card of my origin and take on the one where I have spent most of my adult life. This I rationalize to myself as a last holdout, a connection with a culture, my roots, my being, but now I find, two decades later, even these arguments to myself seem weak and remote.
However, on the converse side, as I look at the place where I have spent all these years and lean towards fully embracing it (and making the questions disappear along with the endless queues) I re-look at the US from afar, at all your “issues” and obsessions (particularly concerning the issues in the middle east) and find that I am unable to relate, to connect, to embrace. And isn’t it (the American story) all about assimilation, melding into the melting pot, taking on both your dreams, ideas AND “issues”, or is it? Then how do you deal with this new wave of immigrants, “who are like me, who walk like me, who think like me”? Ones for whom your “issues” are much too remote both ethnically and culturally, who can talk about them in an educated manner but are unable to feel the passion… burn in your fire. Unsure of how I fit in, and what role we play in the future of America, I hesitate but from the brink, recognizing the facade of these two identities living in one and clinging to the memories of another.
Of course this brings me back to my roots, to India, and to the story of Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom and learning, one of the three powerful female deities and a personification of feminine power. A story with its references ringing across Asia with the Vedic, Hindu, and Buddhist incarnations that enrich our culture. In my current form as a mother and a teacher, one that my children look upon for knowledge and guidance, I fully embrace this form. In reading up about this dazzling goddess, I also discovered an interesting fact, that this guardian of the Vedas, knowledge and speech (“Vak”, sound being the most sacred and in our culture being the path to the ultimate reality) has a terrible power, she speaks nothing but the truth but moreover, everything she speaks becomes the truth (hmm… do I sense a parallel with my magical pen and alternate realities or have I stretched this one too far?)! Saraswati, a mighty river enriching the soil and supporting the Vedic culture as it flowed across a vast land (now postulated as being an offshoot of the mighty Indus) as mentioned in the Vedas was personified as a female deity in the hymns, one that would through knowledge, culture and creativity enrich the minds of those that bowed to it. A four armed deity dressed in white, riding on a white swan, seated on a white lotus, holding the Veena (referred to earlier) a musical string instrument in two hands playing the music of love and life and the vedas (sacred book) and rosary for meditation in the other two hands. A goddess much loved and revered across Asia. However, even though Saraswati, the river, is mentioned extensively in the Vedas, we have no trace of it in South Asia today. There are many myths and legends about its disappearance, the stories melodically retold how this very revered river vanished, was driven underground by personas of very culture which it raised and nurtured.
The most popular story of the disappearance of Saraswati involved a ferocious feud between the two great sages Vashistha and Vishwamitra. In order to seek revenge in their ongoing feud, sage Vishwamitra commanded Saraswati to carry sage Vashistha to him as he was making his offerings to the river. Saraswati swept Vashistha off but refused to deliver him to sage Vishwamitra and saved him by depositing him out of troubles way. Vishwamitra was so furious with Saraswati that he cursed that she would flow in blood in the land of the demons. Horrified by this injustice, the gods assembled and purified the river granting her immortality. However, lands once cultivated by this rich river never saw her again. She remained a persona of myth and conjecture, embodied in the hymns of the Rig Veda and in the imaginations of those that recited and received them. I sense that time has come for me as well, to disappear, vanish, go underground, relinquish the identity I clutched onto so dearly all these years and perhaps somewhere in some realm I will flow again…
Goodnight!
Purnima
PURNIMA VISWANATHAN
Disclaimer : P
All persons, places, events are fictitious; all imputed relationships purely aspirational. There were no men harmed during the penning of the Feminist Manifesto
Purnima
Whodunnit: Blogger/Writer/CyberSmurf 
