The state of the union: A nation of two halves

Welcome to a new State of the Union. Where one half of the nation rejoices and the other wallows in disbelief. 

Once past the phase of the numb horror of defeat, the latter split into two distinct camps. One camp joined the protesters, carrying "Not my President" banners, signing petitions to overturn what they viewed as an insufferable result. The other camp, cornered into optimism, proceeded to rationalize that the American system was strong enough to resist the more extreme of Trump's plans. After all, their idol, Hillary herself, conceded that the country owed the new President an 'open mind'.

And now, as the media and sundry intellectuals embark on an election autopsy, out tumble the convenient nuggets of wisdom that hindsight bestows.

"We underestimated the number of stupid people in this country" (Yes, the stupid inner-city voters who are so out of touch with the Ivy League-educated 'real' world).

"The voter ID requirement hurt the turnout of (Democrat-supporting) minority voters" (Seriously? Care to try explaining to someone in, say 'third-world' India why asking for an ID is racist and should be discouraged)

"He didn't really win, the electoral college system is imperfect. She did win the popular vote!" (This takes the cake. Go on, question the very foundations of the celebrated American democracy. The bastion of civilised governance and preceptor to the world at large, since 1776).

Instead of falling into the trap of lazy rationalizations of this variety, one cannot help but wonder why the intellectual American, does not put her (or his) razor-sharp mind to understanding why a large section of the population found eight years of Obama's policies wanting. Why they were unhappy enough that they were willing to settle for a man who has been hauled over the coals by the media over charges ranging from not filing tax returns to unsavoury 'locker-room' talk.

None of this, from my vantage point thousands of miles away seems to get to the very roots of this tumultous transfer of power. The pivotal issue in this election does not appear to have been political pedigree or gifted oratory or familiarity with foreign policy. Or playing to baser instincts (though that may have been a tactic). This election appears to have been all about a significant section of the country turning resentful precisely of being thought witless, moronic and incapable of 'seeing the obvious'.

Can it really be true that 'that half' of the country is the ill-educated, boorish, bigoted lot that is out of sync with what is pronounced 'good' by the elites? We're not talking about a third-world country- this is a nation that led the world into democracy with its example, which has a centuries-old tradition of liberal values. If the people in such an enlightened nation are tired of status quo, it's not caprice or whim. They are saying something about the state of the nation. And unless mainstream politicians with valuable experience to offer understand the causes and try to address them, wildcard results like these should not surprise.

All over what used to be called the developed or First World, there is a movement towards reclaiming ethno-nationalism and strengthening the voice of the people through participative, in addition to, representative democracy. At the same time, there is a movement against multilateral agencies and experts, who are viewed as self-serving and conflicted. All of which has stirred up a desire for change and sense of disaffection with the establishment, however heedless or misguided it may seem in some cases.

The politics of  disaffection cannot be played by pushing more of the same policies down angry throats, but by working to solve the real issues. By not stooping to name-calling, and branding them a 'basket of deplorables', but by genuine concern over why they turned 'deplorable' in the first place.

It is important to be concerned about climate change, energy-efficiency and policy continuity and intergenerational stewardship- all of which the Hillary camp has predicted would be wrecked to pieces by Trump.

But it also helps to focus a little more on the here-and-now. Like understand why blue-collar workers feel they have been made significantly worse off by globalisation. Find out how the much-touted benefits of free trade can be reaped by everyone, and not a select few. How prestigious colleges can be made accessible to all Americans instead of an ever-narrowing circle. Don't dismiss worries about changing social fabric as xenophobia. Or of disappearing jobs as anti-globalisation. Or worse, label a large group of people as deplorable simply because they don't subscribe to your point of view.

When diverse groups of people come together, constitute themselves into a democracy and decide to subordinate their individual sovereignty to a government, they do so with a presumption of faith - in one another and their elected representatives. The unity in such a setup is only as strong as this faith. When people speak in a democracy, they mean something. Don't wish away the epidemic of rage and disaffection by mocking its symptoms.

As the country rides out this presidency, there is much to be done apart from petitioning and protesting.

Democracy doesn't work by shutting out opposing voices, and doling out insulting labels to those who think differently. It works by getting together to hear all the voices, even when they go against your worldview. Withdraw from the echo chamber of one-sided media coverage, and from the people who share your biases. Engage with those who voted against your side, find out how the other half lives and what they worry about. Maybe next time, you (and your candidate) won't find their views alien, and may learn to work with and for them, and not have to watch in despair as they fling themselves into the arms of an 'undesirable'.

For now, he may not be the leader you need, but perhaps, is he the one you deserve?

The Gift of the Forests

On these wodded hills, the narrow trails
Snake a path through the forests dense.
Which shedding the cloak of glinting mists,
Beckon me: into ceaseless silence.
















A silence so still, it can be heard.
The rustling, humming, chattering,
Scuttling, buzzing, chirping silence:
The sprightly stillness of  life itself.

What stillness is this: that soothes the mind
but sharpens the senses, that does soak
Me in its sounds and scents and sights:
The green-brown fragrance of mountain oak.

I listen to better hear myself breathe-
Not mere air, but the scent of the trees.
I see not mere trees, but living woods
That soar skywards in willowy ease.

"Follow the hooves of the horses
That have trodden this path."
Like a modern Gretel, I keep the course
In search of a Dolphin's nose.

Peek-a-boo: hills now hidden from sight-
Shrouded by films of mist. Yet on I press
Through carpets of crunchy leaves.
For a lofty prize awaits at the peak.


Gasping, I arrive-

And find myself changed.
Now become a giant,
I tower over the pines.
As a cloud skirts my ear.

Brobdingnagian, no less.

The sylvan spirits in their leafy glens-
Indulgent, smile:
At my flights of fancy.
As at an ant that exults
On scaling a rock.

Lagoon reflections

The veil of night faintly lifts-
Dawn breaks gently, unstirring.
Eyelids leaden, shadows drift,
I hear...
Bird- and cricket-chirps mingling
In this liminal of night and day.



Shaking slumber, water splashed
I wander out into a misty path.
As clouds drizzle in languid spurts,
I smell...
Scent, delicious of rain-soaked earth.
In this liminal of rain and shine.




Dew-draped grass draw my steps,
And emerald lagoon, my course.
Clocks tick on, somewhere perhaps.
I see...
A distant paddling of oars
In this liminal of stillness and slow time.



All together, through rain-filmed tar,
We speed on to a time-worn fort.
Armed with memories and laughter, 
We climb...
For sweeping views of an ancient port
In this liminal of land and sea.




All too soon, we bid adieu.
Yet -
Crashing waves, rain-drenched rocks
Moist soil, shimmering red.
Shell-soaked sand and cheery walks.
In our inward eyes -stay etched.

A world of their own

We all grow up, to a greater or lesser extent, in a world of their making. In some cases, they are an occasional presence, casting a charm on long summer vacations. In others, they are doting caregivers, witty story-tellers and the backdrop for one’s childhood. 

Regardless of the degree of proximity, grandparents define us in so many intangible ways. They are our link to understanding the past, the context of our present selves, the glue that binds us to our extended families.

Parents perhaps, are our closer friends - whom we love, confide in, fight with and exasperate in equal measure. Grandparents, on the other hand, are ever our indulgent allies. Parents contend with the ‘generation gap’ in our rebellious teens. Grandparents appear more accepting of the fact that our world and we, are very different from theirs and them, and are at peace with the idea. Parents grow with us through the arc of our adulthood, the guiders gradually turning  into the guided. Grandparents, paradoxically, seem changeless, ever present as a reminder of our younger, lighter selves; a window to a world of our childish innocence.

What would childhood days have been without them as companions or providers of sanctuary? And few things remind us so starkly of the closure of this chapter of our lives as the  passing of the era of grandparents. 

The end of an epoch, one may say. An epoch, however, that lives on in the shared memories of two generations, drawing us closer together.  

Bookrack memories**

She hefted four Forsyths in one hand, rearranging an untidy assortment of Austen, Maugham and Dickens with the other. Her face arranged itself into a frown, bent from the weight of deciding whether to place Brian Weiss in her Self-help rack or in the Spirituality one. Or maybe it was because she was balancing an abridged Time Machine between her chin and neck. That was when something caught her eye. 

She pushed aside a rather formidable War and Peace to uncover a small pile of slim books. An exclamation escaped her lips, and simultaneously, the Time Machine, from the precarious grasp of her chin.

Bite-sized books in a series called Great Scientists: those were the cause of her happy surprise. Yellowing, but in excellent reading condition, still arranged in her favoured alphabetical order. Albert Einstein. Alfred Nobel. Archimedes. And so on. She pulled out Marie Curie from somewhere in the middle of the lot, idly flipping the pages of child-friendly, large print, as childhood daydreams replayed themselves, unbidden, in her mind. A jumble of conical flasks and beakers and test tubes, one of them hissing with the nascent fumes of an element just discovered. Presiding over it all, a girl in an immaculate lab coat. Herself, of course- not Madame Curie.

Smiling indulgently, she reached far into the recesses of the next rack, and felt a large volume.  The peeling hard-bound cover declared proudly in fading text on a green background- "Complete works of Shakespeare". An inscription in the inner flap revealed a relative's name, and the year, 1968. Memories tripped over one another in their race to the top of her mind- seeing this tome in an old bookshelf in a faraway attic at a grandfather's rural homestead. Slow summer afternoons with chattering cousins making up games, and watching with excitement as tender coconuts were gathered from the palms in the garden by a local expert. Mangoes from the backyard cooled inside a bucket dunked in the well. 

The pages were still intact. She put them carefully aside and continued to wind her way through the shelves, browsing through books of all kinds: Small and concise. Unwieldy and hard to place. In need of mending, but fondly familiar. Large and inscrutable. 

And she struck gold. Again and again.

Out toppled an afternoon hidden away in a corner of a cousin's room. The spoils from a bargain-hunting rampage at a used-books store. An elocution contest in primary school. Playing truant in a Maths class. A fascination with a historical figure. A friend who shared her love for a certain author's murder mysteries. Lectures drowned out by noise from the Electrical Laboratory. Visits to a much-loved bookshop. Birthdays celebrated. Train journeys.

To be opened, relived and carefully rearranged. All the memories. And the books, of course.

When the last of them was filed away, she stepped back, to look at it all in one glance.
Bookrack, perhaps. Pensieve, undoubtedly.

** with due apologies to George Orwell

A paean to the New year

The turn of a date, a month and a year-

What feeble reason for all this cheer!

A day is a day is a day, they claim;

Just as mundane by any other name.

All this ado over the coming of a year-

Parties, resolves and

Peddlers' gimmicks, soulless veneer!

But, nouveau Scrooge, for what it's worth

This first day is but a symbol of rebirth -

Of friendships, of warmth and ill will erased

Of reflection, of inner cobwebs effaced.

The life of a day is that you imbue.

Then, imagine a day when

The zest of all humans accrue!

Dates, inanimate, can scarce life-change .

We englitter of our own, the sweep of an age

by the pixie dust of our Hope and Spunk.

Dreams take flight, old doubts shrunk.

For they who plan to travel afar

Have now and again

To start from tabula rasa.