Musings of a White Haired Teenager

The line is crossed. When the words cut through the veneer of superficial decency. The very structure of everyday life rests on assumptions that are paper thin and can be peeled away in simple acts that become tantamount to violence on the soul. It is not just an unkind word spoken in jest, but it is the sheer violence of intolerance and the soul breaking scourge of jealousy and suspicion. I am hurt and thus I write. The last few days has handed me certain experiences, not personal to me, but for people I care about that it opens up the need to question a kind of violence that is endemic. Happens all the time – in more ways than we may notice. I see it in my bondhus. Those who suffer, those who have to retreat to a new place, sometimes even create a “new me.” The reasons are many, and often recede to the background of hurt, but the reality changes and those who care would notice. Not noticing is as much a violence as the act of creating the hurt. Then, one tends to then look for the re...

On this Sunday morning. There is a chill in the air. The autumn sun filters through the leaves that are battling to hold on to the chlorophyll as each leaf dies in a glory of color and it falls off. Eventually each leaf, on its own, no longer sustained by the community of the tree, meets its own personal death. Death is personal, isn’t it? In the end all the relationships, all that you thought you did, comes down to the ground to be swept away and be burnt in a heap of leaves. As I see the leaves fall it reminds me that we too will fall, some sooner than others, and when the fall comes will there be regrets, at the moment when the fall comes, will there be a moment of satisfaction that claims, “hey that was a good innings, had fun.” What is a good innings? As I sit on this wrought iron picnic table and watch the leaves come down, I wonder. What have I done for me lately? Many may have this question, but we do not want to confront it. Because we are caught up in the way we are perceived...

When I Look in the Mirror. I see the white hair. Even though a dear bondhu said, “why do you worry about age.” And I look off the mirror I see a teenager. People ask me about the people I hang with. Why am I with young people more than with old people. And the younger look and see the white hair. Sometimes only. But the energy of the combination is electric. Instead of dwelling on cliched questions such as, “what is age?” I am increasingly finding it important to ask the question – “what memories do I need to make?” That gives me a timeline. A new timeline offered by COVID. Each of us were handled the new timetable and those who were creative were able to use the opportunities. I was at a presentation today, they asked me to speak on something and I spoke on entirely something else. The white hair saved the humiliation, but the teenager had a lot of fun. That is the irony of age. When I was actually a teenager I dreamt of driving around the city in a luxury car or being able to go to C...

Here comes the Rain Again. As I sat on the rooftop lounge with a bondhu working out the details of a professional organization we are trying to create I ended up telling my life story. Looking back. Today. 20 years ago. The phone call. I wrote about in a previous entry here. Today we put some garlands, lit some incense, my wife told me to light an oil lamp. There was none at home. And now the wind howls as the storm steadily moves in over the water and getting ready to do landfall. When he had died the storm was in the mind, as the passing of a parent always leaves a debris of grief behind. Two decades. Some who have experienced the loss in recent years have a lot to learn. The debris is huge and time stamped, they appear at most unexpected moments. This loss is not measured by time but by glimpses that flitter through the mind unseen to all but apparent to me. Standing in the line to get my picture taken for the driver’s license I was reminded that many years ago at a similar driver’s...

September 10 to 16, 2021: Remembering the Old Days. In some horrific ways. It was a cool autumn morning at the Air Force Base. I had the rental car and I remember I was wearing a dress shirt, khakis, a tie, and a sports coat. There was bad news from home. There was internal bleeding, the surgery had gone OK, but there were complications. Always unanticipated. Otherwise, they would not been complications. The jet lag still hung on me as a cloak as I sat there – a small version of a War Room – the walls adorned with pictures of famous people from the Air Force. The coffee was still warm, I was waiting for the meeting to start. I was there to present the findings of the study. Everyone was interested to know. This is why I had returned. The ride to the airport from Salt Lake was dismal. I had seen him being wheeled away, clean shaven, a smile on his face, he had said, “tumi choley jao – kaaj roeche tomar, aar orao ekla roeche (you should go back, you have a lot of work, and they are also ...

September 5 to 9, 2021: The End in a Dual World. It is impossible now to figure out where I am. The time zones across the World coalesce into my hole, or on the metal chairs and tables outside the brick building, or on the WhatsApp screen of my computer. This is a recurrent theme – the cybernetic World – person and machine collapsed into a point of simulcasting every moment. It is always available. Students like it. Miss class because was doing homework for the next class. We all remember those frenetic moments. In class. In the seat. Masked. But distanced. The current time passes by away from the classroom.  Embedded in a virtual World. But time does not matter. It can be turned back. I can return to the missed moment. Time travel is a paradox, but time shifting is real. Up at 1 am because someone is time shifted, deep in sleep at 2 pm for the same reason. The connected world that I have seen since those crazy days in Delhi, when the work started at 11 pm and I would be responding...

September 1 to 4, 2021: And Death Will Come. Always uninvited. Sometimes inevitable. Sometimes inexplicable. But it leaves a trail. Sometimes a trail of blood. Always a trail of memories. The calls and messages started when I was taking my students on a trek through the Hindu Kush, the phones all beeped at the same time in the classroom on that just a regular Wednesday noon as I discussed the fascinating history of the Indian Sub-Continent. No one checked messages. Then a call from my wife. Or was it a WhatsApp message? My pre-programmed annoying “WhatsApp Message” beeped as we discussed the intricacies of a sociological take on religion. I looked at my phone. Not something teachers do in the classroom, but the messages were coming too fast, from all directions, from so many. Lockdown. A different kind. In the sleepy little wannabe town, I call one of my homes. In what civilized country does a 16-year-old carry a gun into a school? We know the answer. The exceptionalism allows anything...