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July 1, 2021, Commentary from after dinner

July 1, 2021, Commentary from after dinner: Frantic. Things change quickly. Even as the day begins normally, things can change. Today, on this stalled-monsoon day, some people truly showed that they knew what they were doing. These are people just going about doing their work and pitching in to do more. It started with a bondhu needing some support with a family member at a hospital. There was a need for COVID-19 tests, perhaps blood and eventually a room in the hospital. In most cases some of these tasks can get to be yet another source of stress for the family. Today, the volunteers kicked in and it was really impressive to see how quickly they were able to make the connections and were in a position to offer the support if that was needed. But it was not just them, one can see the willingness to support as needed amongst so many people. Devdas pitched in and was ready to step in. Then the needs shifted and a whole other community pitched in. As they have so many times, over and over

June 30, 2021 Commentary from my familiar hole

June 30, 2021 Commentary from my familiar hole: The nomad is always awake. “Phone ta pashei aache.” Time becomes increasingly a commodity to be rationed, and used judicially. You gain some and you lose some. In the end it all adds up. One could be driving at 1:30 am in the local time in one place when the body wants to be in another time. But there is a value to this. If I have learned something from the pandemic is that time has the potential of becoming global. I have taught at 1:30 am, I have been in a meeting at 9:00 in the morning when the rest of the people in the meeting are getting ready to eat a meal before going to bed. The challenge of this possible post-COVID-19 scenario could be quite real. This was going on before the pandemic but on the fringes of mainstream life. I remember many times I was “patched” in on a meeting on the phone and there were curiosities how it is possible to meet from anywhere, in such meetings we rarely remembered what time it was for the others. We

June 29, 2021 Commentary at 600 miles per hour

June 29, 2021 Commentary at 600 miles per hour: Sitting at airports make you contemplate. Think a bit. And realize that there have been many times I have been taken aback by the way the World around me has operated. These are not significant things, and mostly just mundane events that make you consider why they happen. Memory is fickle. Looking at the airport, with people falling off the seams, one realizes that dark memories are abhorred and quicker forgotten the better. Those days of horror. Those days of an extreme uneasiness, depending on the affliction. Those moments, those days, those weeks are blocked out. Because survival depends on those moments being deposited in some recess of the mind where it may be locked away forever. But what else will we forget about the months that, at least in Southern California, appears to be memories? Will we forget the people who were at your side when you may have been ill? Will you forget the frantic work you did to offer support for those in n

June 28, 2021 Commentary with my son

June 28, 2021 Commentary with my son: They call it “La La Land” for a reason. There is good amount of dreaming but there is also a good dose of reality. COVID-19 provided the reality check to an industry that has relied on people getting together in a packed space to consume entertainment. The Sunset Strip. The Comedy Store. Whiskey a’ go go. People have to gather at a place to be able to provide the patronage for this profession. And even though aquariums are open not all the venues are open in LA. COVID-19 might have disappeared from the LA Story, there are still pockets burning with the energy of frustration. But I spent the day with a few people who were able to take that energy and convert it to creative energy and strive to improve upon what was planned just before the pandemic. I had the opportunity to see the work of an artist whose hands can sculpt things from clay, and listen to the music that is made right there right then. Within that creative energy, it is easy to put COVI

June 27, 2021 Commentary from a place far away: From where I was born

June 27, 2021 Commentary from a place far away: From where I was born. The greetings and well wishes started early. When life is stretched over time zones and loved ones and well-wishers remember the calendar date it might not be exactly the calendar date that is true for you, where you are. But that is the nature of the new life, especially crystalized by COVID-19. The connections have been strengthened on Zoom. Traditions and memories were made over the last 52 weeks. My cousins, who all came to the zoom room with their kind words and their wishes would not have been collectively there to do the wishes had we not reconnected when the boredom of lockdowns drew us to the screen. We discovered connections, the ability to have a beverage “together” – time and place appropriate. On the screen. And that happened today. But even before that, the early wishes came from people who cared, a WA message – indeed the first wish – much anticipated and much welcomed. A phone call from across the Wo

June 26, 2021 Commentary from a hotel room

June 26, 2021 Commentary from a hotel room: If you were anywhere in the LA area today you would have to believe we are over all our troubles. Pacific Highway was bumper to bumper. I-405 was taking about 45 minutes from Inglewood to Westwood. A restaurant in Malibu reprimanded me for not making a reservation and promised a table in two to three hours. And it is just a regular Saturday morning. No masks. The entire memory wiped away and an unknown new World is being welcome through the blaring rap on Santa Monica beach welcoming the Birders, the Boarders and the cyclists and the gentle refreshing aroma of ganja, legal in LA, whiffs through the air. California is comfortably numb. Sitting on the sand, by myself, surrounded by thousands frolicking on the beach. 600,000 deaths wiped from memory. Summer is back. As I got numbed by the experience of watching life going by me I realized that I am a pessimist in this context. I am trying to find a reason to be anxious. The zoom gathering in the

June 25, 2021 Commentary from the sofa

June 25, 2021 Commentary from the sofa: Perseverance. Patience. Hope. If the unprecedented COVID-19 experience has taught some of us something then it is awareness that things change radically with little warning. For the color festival of 2020 (Dol) I was with a close bondhu and others. That day, we had no idea how are lives will change. The next day, at Bangkok airport, I took a picture in which there was a Buddhist monk wearing a mask. I found that curious. In about two weeks everything changed. Without warning. Everything shut down. And soon all over the World. Salt Lake went into an unprecedented lock down along with the rest of the country. LA shut down its entertainment industry. Artists who were ready to launch their groundbreaking ideas simply had to apply the brakes. Today, carefully, the brake is being pulled back. But that period between the shutdown and the slow opening was an opportunity for those who could weather the storm of lost revenue. And there were the ones who ha