Aaj tebhaga chand er raat......tai sabdhane ghumiyo

Now this time around another software and hardware giant is coming out with an internal newsletter from and for the marketing division in one of their South-East Asian sectors. And our hero sitting in his copywriters desk has to visualize the neo-imperial effort. And thus his neo-intellectual socialism takes a back seat. Farmers are being slaughtered and their land taken away by once upon a time neo-communists, in his homeland. His city is in shambles.

"Millions of brothers in woe and Millions of sisters crying.
Millions of mothers in distress and Millions of fathers dying....." or something like that. And he is compelled to think about how this MNC has established its ground in Vietnam. Vietnam O' holy Vietnam. Vietnam and Cambodia.....And Burma and Singapore and Sudan......And Africa.......Is he really compelled to think like that? Is he thinking like that? Is.....

'Tebhaga chand utbe aaj raate"

.....Tonight is the night of the one-third moon.......And somewhere a fire shall find someone to burn......The curse of the undead will strike you down.....You in Palm Avenue......You in Salt Lake.....You in Bhowanipur......And you in Siuri........And in Gopalpur Panthanibash.......Or at Claridges.......or.....Maybe, this once, only once in Lenin Sarani........


"Tumi jouban ke merecho.....Etodiner tomar somostho sokti diye jouban ke merecho......Sei mora joubaner saap ebar tomake lagbe......"

The story of 25%

And it's that time of the year when you swear hard at life.....The biggest party of the year is calling upon you....that also home ground....and you are forced to turn a deaf year to the lures of indulgence....Friends are getting married....Friends' bothers are getting married.....Brothers are coming home for far away lands.....With new born members of the family....And I just sit in my fuzzy cubicle....with half-formulated dreams....Desperate to go home....And seeing my plans being massacred by 25%....Now naturally, you who is reading this, would probably wonder what 25% am I taking about....But that not the point of this discussion....The point is I am sad....And I have only one apple on my desk when I want to eat many of them....And the qawali at the Dargah at Hazrat Nizzamuddin Aulia starts in another 1 hour....I want to be there.....I can't......because of twenty five stupid percent..... I need a house to stay in.....I need new shoes.......I need a new job.....I need a car.....Thankfully life.....That I have one.....And I will gladly keep it.

Thus Capital

It’s always foggy these days. Have I mentioned Delhi that you forgot to mention winter was coming?

So many wrongs you commit each day. And you still dress up gorgeously and walk the streets in your high leather boots and leather jacket and your pink bustier.

Your neon lights brighter that glitter at Chandni Chowk.

As Navratris are followed by Diwali. Diwali followed by the mood of Christmas. Christmas followed by New Year’s.

The cheap liquor, the broken verses of confession…

Where are you, repenting?

Did you not bother to think again before whoring yourself out to your new friends

In their Mercs and their Audis?

Did you not wince upon finding yourself in bed with Big Mac and KFC and ever wonder what happened?

The warm evenings at Karol Bag blanketed with the fragrance of incense sticks,

The aura of Paranthas at Chandni Chowk and the Kebabs at Jama Masjid…

Where is the solemn walk of broken hearts near North Campus, and makeover. And lonely dinner at Majnu ka Tila?

Where are the old souls…on your sidewalks ?

Burn boy, burn

The bird proudly willing to burn,
So that he may live again,
Chooses the flames of fires
That burn the aged Phoenix
The nature stands still
Till a new young bird starts again,
and begins the legend of the Phoenix.

- Claudian (Roman author)

Legend has it that one day many many moons ago; the Sun looked down and saw a large bird with bright red and dazzling gold feathers. The Sun God blessed him, "Glorious Phoenix, you shall be my bird and live forever!"

Since then it has been the destiny of the legendary bird. It lives and a time comes when it loses all the energy to live anymore. It is then that this creature sets to self immolating itself. But the blessings of the Sun God don’t wane away. The Phoenix’s ashes accumulate energy for new life, as the bird rises from the ashes rejuvenated with natural energy.

Energy is an omnipresent entity which travels through space, time and medium. Lost energy is just a transfer of the same. Similarly gained energy too, is just the same.

A man, who runs out of steam, has just transferred all his energy to another subject. And there are ways to reimburse that energy, accumulating it from other forms which hold them in their dungeons. And even today many many moons after, the transfer keeps taking place.

They say partying hard is a practice for de-stressing. Some psychologists say that the after-burn of a party plays catalytic in releasing the stressful negative energy.

Negative energy is powerful and extremely destructive. This affirms that its release can be at times catastrophic. When such powerful energy is released it leaves the previous owner weak with fatigue. It accumulates into a raging powerful force, uncontrollable and destructive, hitting any obstacle on its way like a steam engine, on full go. But the functional result of this is that the previous owner is freed from the stressful energy that was raging inside him.

To release this sort of pent up energy a person needs to reach that saturation point where he can commit into the act of splitting with it. Sometimes it needs a catalyst to take you to that high energy point where the pressure cooker finally starts to whistle. Without that all that energy keeps boiling inside you for a long long time just below the saturation level, where it is capable of releasing itself.

About a catalyst which opens you up to releasing old and repulsive energy to make way for new vibrancy and ardor for more spunk.

POLISHING THE GENITALS OF THE INTERNATIONAL POLICE

It was a morning at the hillside

It was Kafka in Hand, coffee on the table

It was junk in the bedroom

It was all perfect.

The graves were still and the grass wet with dew.

Woe to formalism I was allowed to smoke two joints of marijuana as I woke up,

I was allowed to drink ten bottles of beer and throw up at 10 in the morning.

I was allowed to kick off my shoes and run through fields of wheat

Nobody to stop me as I trampled on standing crop.

The men who grew them were busy committing suicide.

In our democracy it's raining.

It's raining in Kerala, Kerala and Assam, Assam, Assam and Gujarat and in Karnataka.

Where are thou O banana moon?

I dream of a sheep-skin clad shaman illuminating a room full of mirrors, it reminds me of the Holocaust.

Restless minds are screaming at ringing cell phones.

I read about Allen Ginsberg, and I read about mutual funds

I read about belts of marijuana and about shopping malls.

My ex-girlfriend calls up to tell me that death seems so alluring.

Reading about tranquil minds wanting to return to the womb, experiencing anti-Semitism.

Will you ever make noise democracy?

Will you ever stop selling yourself to nuclear hegemony?

Will you tell the white man not to kill the likes of you anymore?

Will you tell Uncle Sam that justice is not what he dictates?

Will you speak about Mutiny with pride ever?

When will you get drunk democracy?

When will you do drunken crazy things?

When will the Time Magazine recognize you democracy?

When will you hear millions of mothers crying in your villages at vermilion dawn?

When will the lights come back in Vidharva, In Vidharva, Vidharva, Vidhrva and in Andhra Pradesh, And In Bengal….

Will you ever get stoned and stone the barbwires in Singur?

Will you ever be happy with you life democracy?

Will you be Pagan once more.

"Helluva night. Could have rewritten the Kamasutra," says Jonathan- the Hero of my novel.

Angry fucking hooligans took over my terrace last night. I tried screaming at them. They screamed back even louder. My landlord came up and told me they were here for a good cause and I should offer my services to them as it was towards the end of humanity. As he went down, these people started hurling abuses, directed towards me. And I stood there, feeling abased, my little tenement privacy completely violated.

Did you yearn to kick your daughter's dumb butt? Did you ache to wring your wife's treacherous neck?

Fuck you O The Land Of Opportunities, with your fucking white-arsed opportunists.
And Fuck you neo-political groupies, panting for the penumbra of limelight.
Fuck you with you loose pussy lips and your sacks of deception.

Your breath reeks of the white man's cock. Your arse slimy with his semen. And you crave to be the political opinion leader of my country.

Fuck....Fuck.....Fuck....Fuck.....Fuck......

Make Tom Mooney your Idol....Worship the dark Lord of love......of Truth........servitude to the brothers........

Some Story...man

No one ever wanted to talk about this. No one ever wanted to dare know the sacrifice that so few made for so many. Its been about 24 years now since it happened, and I think at last, its time to talk about it.

There is no more Soviet Union today. But at the time the Iranians took the hostages, the US and the Soviet Union could have become easily embroiled in a world war if the US did to Iran what Iran deserved to have done to it.

Until that point, the US Navy had been a fair weather Navy. We never had deployed US warships in that region during the extremly hot summer months. The Iranians were well aware of this, but they didn't figure that one lone US warship would have the nerve to face down the entire Iranian military all by itself.

We did our part, but in my view deciding not to invade Iran was a blunder on Washington's part. Of course, I can see the concern they most likely had about a reaction from the former Soviet Union, but I would have taken that risk if I were President, and I'm sure they were positive that Ronald Reagan would not hesitate to invade when he took over for Jimmy Carter. In fact, just a few hours after Reagan was sworn in on January 20th 1981 all of the hostages were released after being held captive for 444 days.

Unlike Reagan, I would have still launched an invasion of Iran even with the hostages being freed. It would have been unpopular, but it would have been the right thing to do and we wouldn't have to worry about those maniacs getting nuclear weapons today.

When the Iranians first took the hostages, I had no idea what the media may have been reporting on TV. I was over there, sitting right off the coast of Iran through the whole thing. I doubt if the TV news talked about it, but five of my fellow shipmates became certified as insane during that time. Before I joined the Navy, I had worked on Wall Street, so most likely I had already been insane proof. In fact Jerry Seinfeld had been pouring me beer eight classes at a time at the local Brew'N Burger. So, how much more insane could things be anyway?

The pressure was enormous, and those poor souls just couldn't handle it. The main culprit was sleep deprivation. After going months and months with so little sleep some people just snaped. Sleep deprivation coupled with a blazing heat that we never before experienced was a hardship that I hope no one ever has to endure.

As fate would have it, we just happened to have the most advanced weapon of the time. In case it still may be classified, lets just say we could have easily sent the Ayatollah, a not so friendly gretting. The chance of war with Iran was especialy hard for me to conceive.

It didn't hate the Iranians, in fact I liked them. I ran across many Iranians that were being trained by the US Navy when the Shaw was still in power. The ones that I knew were very friendly and they cherised American values. They were mild manered and very friendly. It disturbed me to think what happened to their country. Its just my opinion of course, but I think the Iranians that I knew will someday take their country back from the tryants that hate.

I don't really think that anyone really ever knew the real story of what went on behind the scenes when the hostages were taken. But I think that now America deserves to hear the true story from someone that was there at the time.

It was plain and simple. When the Iranians took the Americans hostage, there was no ready made plan for such a contingency. Virtually all our planning revolved around how to win a war with the former Soviet Union.

I can even recall the CNO coming aboard my US Navy ship back in the 70's and stating that it would take about 28 minutes to destroy the entire Soviet Navy if war were to occur.

Knowing that both countries had nuclear missles, talk like that scared the hell out of me. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there would not be any world left to win if both countries launched all their missles.

With our entire focus on the former Soviet Union at the time, little military pip squeak countries like Iran were not even considered as far as being any kind of a threat to our national security. So, when the Iranians first took the hostages, we had no ready plan to react.

At the time the hostages were taken, our deployment was just about over. Everyone was exhausted and looking forward to going home. We had recently gone through three very bad typhons.

Even the last few Ports we were in were not exactly fun Ports. We had been to Deigo Garcia where the only two females on the entire island were the English Governor's wife and their pet duck.

Before that we had pulled into Somalia against the advice of the CIA warning us how dangerous it was there. Because it was an Islamic country, no drinking was allowed and they were having a war with their neighbor at the time.

But they had kicked the Russians out because the Russians, who had been giving weapons to both countries in the past sided with Somalia's neighbor in the dispute.

I suppose we may have been interested in taking over the Russian Navy base there. Obviously other people also had reasons to be there. I didn't know it at the time, but at one point in Somalia, I and my shipmates were on a bus that was parked accross the street from where Bin Laden and his wife were standing with their Camels.

Like I say, none of us knew who he was then, but the cold chill in his eyes and his wifes eyes sent chills up my spine even in the 130 degree heat.

The bus was there waiting several minutes for clearance to go to the Russian base, but I noted that neither Bin Laden nor his wife even so much as blinked the entire time. It were as if they were stone.

We didn't know what to expect in Somalia. The Russians had been there for a long time. We even went so far as to tell everyone that we would blow the ships horn for everyone to come back if anything went wrong.

The heat was unreal there. It was 130 degrees in the shade. The natives warned us not to swim in the water. They said that 19 of them had recently been devoured by sharks. But the water was our only escape from the heat.

The guys from the Midwest were really getting done in by the heat. Because there is no natural salt in any fruits or vegetables grown in the Midwest, they have almost no resistance to intense heat. After we left that fun Port than Mother Nature played havoc with us.

Numerous under water earth quakes had been occuring resulting in pop up islands that were not on our charts. This caused some very complicated navigational problems. To make matters worse, we were in waters that we weren't accustomed to being in.

Two countries had been jointly developing missle technology that they were testing in a remote part of the ocean. We did things to make our ship look like a fishing trawler so they didn't know we were there. The irony was that a fishing trawler would never be fishing in a spot like that anyway.

I'm sure both countries knew who we were, but we always had to make everything a game. We even had to sink all our trash deep down just in case they tried to identify who we were by the sort of trash we threw overboard.

We were really all sick and tired of playing 007, but just when we thought we were going home, we had to rush out to the Persian Gulf. The Iranians had taken the hostages and we were the only game in town.

We were completly cut off from our supply lines. Soon after, we completly ran out of cigarattes. My shipmates were breaking into the life boats to retrive stale cigarattes that were placed there about three years before.

When we ran out of chemicals to run the evaporators to de-salinate the salt water into fresh, we had to take showers on the flight deck whenever we found a rain squal. Then, the toilet paper went along with the candy and chips.

The entire crew was under a tremendous strain. Shipmates were starting to do strange things that they wouldn't do under normal circumstances. The Captain became quite upset when he noticed one of my shipmates sun bathing stark naked outside his State Room.

People were tired and they started making mistakes. I wrote constant comedy scripts and long love letters to my favorite sweetheart to keep my mind occupied. Just as I was finishing page 68 of a love letter, I was the only one to notice that a shipmate had fallen overboard. Everyone else had fallen sound asleep.

As my shipmate was falling overboard I was just ending my love letter with the words I've always ended it with everything you do seduces me.

At the time, I got quite a kick out of writing long love letters. I had realized that the post office in that country had been making copies of everything I wrote and passing it all around the country.

I was subtle of course, but I was making comical statements and little hints about how much better that counrty would be without its dictator. Soon after my 100th letter, there was a revolution that deposed the dictator and restored democracy. Of course I can't take credit for the revolution, but I enjoy thinking that I may have given the revolution a little push with my love letters. Anyway, it kept me sane for all those months, but then again, I may have already been crazy to begin with.

Anway we got my ship mate back thanks to that long love letter. I was the only one awake that day because I was determined to finish writing that letter. That day I saved a shipmate and soon after my vigilance perhaps may have even saved planet earth.

When a Russian sub came to close we almost fired. If we had fired that may have set off a series of events that could have destroyed planet earth.

Before joining the Navy I had a job where everything had to be exactly percise. So when everyone else yelled that the Russian sub was over the line, I knew they were wrong.

Yes, the Russian sub was for sure playing chicken and cutting it very close, but I was sure that they were still within the allowed bounds.

At last the Russian sub turned away. But if I had listened to calls to fire, then I fear, there would be no more planet earth today. No one was happier to see the Cold War end than I. When you experience first hand just what sort of devastation can occur by an error in judgement, it makes you realize that no one should have weapons like this any where. Its just too dangerous.

Soon after the earth was saved we ran completly out of fuel, and while anchored, I experienced first hand how the oil industry is destroying the echo system.

There was a major oil spill. It was so sad to see the very proud Albertros landing on the ship and asking for our help. Under normal circumstances an Albertros will never land on a ship and never make human contact. But humans caused the problem and only humans could remedy the problem as well.

It was heart breaking to see the proud birds all covered in oil. Oh, how I cursed our SUV's when I saw that sight of the poor oil soaked birds for weeks on end.

We did the best we could and cleaned off as many birds as we could, but they kept coming and coming. My only regret is that I didn't have a Cam Corder to document what happened.

We were stuck out there for five months until an entire Armada came to relief us. We were there alone for so long, but then the sea was black with US Warships.

The CNO came aboard and stated that we now had four times the fire power of the entire Pacific Fleet during the last World War sitting of the coast of Iran.

For sure, we weren't playing with these people, but our job was over and we just wanted to go home. We had payed a heavy price for safeguarding the hostages. Five shipmates had gone insane over that five months.

We had been at sea for so long that we got strange orders from Washington. They told us to all wear street clothes on board for three days just to get acclimated to a normal life again.

Then for the first time in history Jimmy Carter ordered that Heneiken beer be airlifted to us by helicopter so we could drink it on board. Unlike other Navies such as Canada and Australia, the US had never before allowed drinking on board.

So, this was a very unusual gesture for a US President to make. At last we hit a Port. We were the first War Ship ever to pull into a Club Med.

When I first walked on to the island I had to sit down for a minute to adjust my sea legs. I was so used to the rocking of the ship, I felt as if the island should be rocking.

While I sat there adjusting my sea legs back into land legs a beautiful woman walked over to my table and presented me with a vintage bottle of wine on behalf of her country.

I figured she most likely thought I was an Admiral or something, but she was very beautiful, so I played along. After we finished the bottle of vintage, wine she asked if I would join her in a Mid Night swim on the beach.

I told her I didn't bring a bathing suite.

She smiled, looking at me as if I were an exquisite chocolate and said. "Neither did I."

She then took my hand in hers and said. The Moon is beautiful tonight.

I said. "If I'm dreaming all this please don't wake me. Its been a while since I've been in heaven.

She asked. "Will you be my Angel tonight?"

I said. why not?"

Then she said."You will be in heaven tonight."

We had quite a party in her island hut. We both fell sound asleep after a while. When we woke we realized that we had slept right through a tropical storm. When we walked out of the hut we found that every hut around ours was totaly devestated. How our hut was spared is a mystery I have never figured out.

We made it home despite Jean Dixon making a prediction that we would never make it back. We defied all odds and accomplished something that may have given the world a second or even a third chance.

Had we not have been there, the hostages may have perished and we just might of decided to make Iran dissapear as a consequence. But the worst for all parties was avoided. Since that day my views on many things have changed. In fact I'm now turned on like mad if I'm going with a babe that's really into politics and deep thinking in general. Because now, I always ask why. But how much longer can we keep pushing our luck? I wonder.