Love

I find it hard to believe that I am only in my 44th post. I keep telling myself to write more and in my mind's world I am writing more. But of course as you all know reality sucks. Reality is sometimes nice when it comes to roommates and close friends.

I'll leave you with this thought. How is it with so much love in this world, people find it in their heart to hate?

Silent black sky

    The night was cold. The snow was light and dreamy. A lone star shone on the sleeping city.  I wished I were a wanderer, with my habit in the wilderness, traveling with the lone star guiding me.

   I wished I were lying awake underneath that dark canopy with loneliness as my only companion. Sometimes I think that surely, the thought of a warm house on a cold night is better than being in one.

   Wishes are sometimes dangerous.  Especially when you wish for them. The night was calling me, but so was my calling. Somebody had to die...

Project

One of the most vivid dreams I ever had was one where I was chasing a tiger with a stick and a whistle.. Somehow my current project feels like a similar exercise..

FUNDING

Writing this at 6:24 am (no I did not wake up early), I have two observations or rather facts :

1. I am yet to finish my reading assignment. (which is a kick ass one: papers on math models developed for preventing bio terrorism and emergency reaction.)

2. I have to report to my library job at 10 am.

This only makes me think how much more work I can put in as a grad student if I had funding. Just a thought my dear University.

Work

This is the second in a series of posts that I plan to write labelled "Dynamics of Grad Life". My first post was titled Desperation.

The weird thing about studying at the Library is that I find it literally packed the entire week from 8:00 pm to 1:30 am. Suddenly at 2:00 am there is nobody. Similarly I found that Friday nights have the same effect. The place was almost empty.

I am posting this on a Sunday night and I could not find a seat in here. Easily. Strange.... Or is it?

Desperation

Ever had that tingling nervelessness. Yes I meant nerveless and not nervous.. That weird restlessness when you feel so pent up, so wasted that you can't do anything but you want to do something. And not just anything.. Something reckless.. Something consequential.. Something.. Something...

The nostrils flared, the breath was ragged, the eyes were bloodshot.. But suddenly they cleared. The eyes, oh! the eyes.. The eyes cleared so fast that it almost seemed that the blood was retreating in fear. The pupils constricted until they were a mere dot.. But what a fearsome dot..

Now, I was going to do something... My lungs expanded and what followed was a blood curling scream.. The scream of righteous anger.. I had had enough and this was the day.. I had promised myself I would do something someday and this was that day...

I went to sleep..!!! Blissful sleep..!!

The key words in U of M are Sleep Deprivation. Grad life for you...!!!

USA Journey Part 2- To Buy or Not To Buy!

Talk about disjointed and irritating.. What a piece of work!!! Well that is how life is. I can't help it. Just forgive me and keep reading. So Dubai at night!! What a wonderful sight!! So the minute I come out of the plane I am ushered into nothingness. There is absolutely nobody. I walked for sometime and finally found an information desk. Denis (from IBM) was still with me as he was catching the same connecting flight. The guy on the info desk told us since we had our boarding passes we could go straight to the gate. We just needed to go up a flight of stairs, take a left and keep going straight. Sounded simple. Straightforward enough.

So we made our way.. Only to realize keep going straight  meant just that. We kept going straight. We were now met with almost a constant stream of people. The first thing that strikes you at the Dubai International Airport is its vastness. It is aptly named (Dubai Air city the Pilot announced). The second thing you notice is the sheer opulence. The number of shops which scream duty free at you is enormous. Flashing signs and huge piles of goods mark the place.

Denis had by now identified a forex counter and took leave saying he had some extra money to spend. The question for me now was the point of this post. To buy or not to buy!! Of course being the conservative son of my father that I am you know what I did. I realized what an evil place this world is though.. So much temptation.....!!! The other fascinating thing that I observed at the airport was the women.

All bedecked in full length bhurkas with either veils or hijabs, one noticed that they had the latest in women's make up on them. The curled eyelashes were there, the mascara was there, the lip gloss was in place (I actually saw a lady with orange lip gloss), the rouge was there, the entire ensemble. I have no opinions on this but it was fascinating...

The rest of my journey was pretty ordinary, my flight to Washington was delayed by an hour and a half. I missed the take off as sleep finally had its say. I made regular visits to the snack bar for bad coffee and a cold sandwich and finally had a special breakfast of pooris and masala (since I was vegetarian), missed having it twice. My name was printed twice so I actually was offered two meals which I denied. (I learnt the first rule of the grad student only after I reached the US). The pooris were delicious but only resulted in heightening my already raging hunger and too my utter disbelief the song played on the in flight radio was "Hungry like the wolf" by Duran Duran. 

I barely made my flight to Rayleigh, my immigration taking me less than a minute. The advantage of my flight being late was that there were only two people in my immigration line. The flight to Rayleigh was a really short one and I was reminded of Maddy's dialogue in Minnale.

The plane raced down the tarmac and the strains of Psychokiller screamed at my ears as we touched down... I wonder if it meant anything.

My brother came and picked me up from the airport....

USA The Journey Part 1

So, a lot of people have been wanting to know how I came to the US and what I am doing here. To the more mundane and dumb of you my answer will be I flew. But that of course is only for those who fit that bill. My presence here seems to generate a lot of questions. Brilliant questions like "So have you become an American now?", ordinary ones like "So, how do you like it there/here?" and out of the world ones like "Is America like how you expected it (to be)?"

I am going to quench the thirst for knowledge for all you guys by telling you a story. Let me begin at the middle as that is what concerns you. Now, before I begin I have to confess that my journey was most uneventful and reading is strictly at reader's discretion. The story (for you) starts on one a/August afternoon. August the 5th to be precise. In Bangalore (Bengaluru to those who insist). Any student traveling to the US will know all about what a harrowing experience it is. Not the journey, but the leaving India part that is. I had the usual troubles of trying to convince everyone not to come to the airport, that I'll pack myself (my stuff that is, but the other option would have proved better), that I'll not talk to strangers etc.. etc.. A young student traveler is one of those great events which unites every acquaintance of the said student. You can listen to the same message, warnings, advice from everybody around you.

I actually began to feel if I was taking the right step in leaving them behind. But I did. A lot of my friends came to the airport and my advice to all the would be travelers is, ask your friends to come. More the merrier. It gives no option to your relatives but to relax.  The tension seems to ease. I flied emirates and my route was through Dubai and Dulles to Raleigh. My first piece of good fortune happened when my baggage was checked in in spite of one of my bags a good kilo overweight. I guess they expect Indian students to come loaded..

An international student to the states from India needs to pass immigration twice, once in India and once in your port of entry. I hardly stopped at either one, in India because the questions were simple enough, in Dulles, well we'll get to that. The emirates leg of the journey was the best because of a lot of reasons.
1. They had great service, 2. They had a good selection of movies (watched Greenzone), 3. I made a good friend in Dennis from IBM, 4. It was just short enough and 5. The view of Dubai from the flight was breathtaking to say the least.

For the first time in my life I fell in love at first sight. She had that kind of effect on me, did Dubai. She looked brilliant bedecked with lights and sky scrapers, with the Al Burj dominating the skyline. One picture of the city just peeking over the wing, will stay with me for life....

Coimbatore

I am writing this in what are my last moments (hopefully not final) in a city that has made me what I am today. I hope my mom is ok with it.. In the space of this and my last serious post, (not counting the limericks) a lot of things have happened: I have been accepted by a University in the USA, I went on my first ever road trip in a Volkswagen Polo within days of it hitting the road. The view of Kerala (one more advantage of being in Coimbatore) from the back/front seat in a Polo was awesome. I have had my visa application accepted which officially made me a non-immigrant student visitor of a country on which I have a very low opinion of. Yet as the hypocrite I am, I am leaving my hick home town to meet my stars...

Coimbatore has been a haven and a happening place for me with very few faces which feature strongly. I would want to expand this post but I am posting this any way as this could be my last post from Coimbatore or should I say IP.

And they say I am not emotional....

Limmerick to the muse

His name is Sharanyan Ravi,

He can probably speak with the Na'vi,

And along with Klingon,

He can say match on,

To any GEEK, this Sharanyan Ravi.

Alternately,

His name is Sharanyan Ravi,

He can probably speak with the Na'vi,

He worked with e-bay,

So I can proudly say,

My roommate is real tech savvy.

As a thank you for introducing me to Edward Lear.

Life's like that

Dear reader,

I forgot who I am writing for. Sorry will never happen again.

Cheers,
Amshuman.

Trisha, Uncle, a Coucal and a Shark

You never realise that a really boring and snail paced week does have a lot of random and really interesting things happening. But never is an adjective not to be used in this context as that would defeat the whole purpose of this post. By now you must have guessed what the contents of the post are..

The first thing for interesting things to happen to you even in your most sedate and boring days is to have a very good sense of humour; self-depreciating if possible. I believe that I have that requisite. Facebook is fast becoming an irritation (especially when you find out that its CEO is the world's youngest billionaire); but it did provide some comic relief the week past. The suggestions tab is a constant nuisance in Facebook but for once there was truly an awesome suggestion. It said, "Trisha Krishnan- become a friend" Unsuspectingly I was overjoyed (thinking for a moment that maybe I had a common friend) and was lured into pressing the "add as friend" button when Facebook quite hilariously turned villian and said "This person already has too many friends".
What was I thinking? It was a typical bollywood movie romance destined to fail.....

 Moving on.. (yeah already.. :D) you, definitely if you are male, maybe if you are female, must have played cricket when you were young (well younger). If so, you would have definitely come across this situation. The ball comes towards you and its a perfectly juicy one and for once you think you can really thump it. And thump it you do, but as usual lady luck smiles on you and the ball ends up in the last place you want it to be. Not the keeper's or the fielder's hands, you can live with that. Not even the stumps, you can digest that. But in the nearby house. Especially the one with the fiery pati. There always seems to be a fiery pati wherever you play galli cricket. So keeping that terror in mind, when the knock came I wasn't angry or irritated. The boys said the ball fell in the terrace, so up I went to fetch it for them. And I found the ball after some effort and threw it to the waiting hands only to hear the fatal words.... "Thank you Uncle"....


The other thing that happened this week was that I finally managed to cap eyes and shutter on an elusive guest. This particular guest was not just elusive but also extremely intriguing, what with its red eyes (no, not because of the camera), blue wings, brown tail and an extremely melodious chirping I was hard pressed not to try and go after it every time it flew away. But thankfully this time I had the sense to capture it on camera. Google of course helped me identify it as the Greater Coucal.

And finally yesterday I was able to achieve my life's dream of hanging myself without losing my life. I am an ardent Vijay fan as you probably know, but even I was not able to do much more than stop my friend from taking the mickey out of me. I am of course talking about Sura the Shark. Well I have high hopes for him still and he has said that this is his last masala flick. And his fans have been extremely patient and are now actually asking him to become a better actor. (See this letter). I have a few stories for him too and only wish I could contact him somehow. If anybody can help me this is my siren, please do.

Power Cut

I just survived a power shut down of humongasaurian proportions.. (If you do not know what Humongasaur is then go here.) and I've come up with a list of things you could do to survive a similar occurence. Also this might help people ranging from any part of Tamil Nadu other than Chennai as they have scheduled power cuts. Chennai of course maintains the oxymoron of being cool while hot.  So here goes..

10 things to do when power cuts and the summer gangs up on you..

1) Fluids. Make sure you are drinking a lot of water. Anticipate power cuts and make sure you have plenty of liquids in cold storage. Ginger and Lemon with honey is an awesome coolant. This might be the perfect time for you to try the new non-carbonated drinks on offer like nimbuz, lmn and tion. I recommend tiON.. especially the apple and orange flavours..

2) Sleep. This is the time to catch up for lost time and get some serious shut eye.. Try to change your body clock by sleeping an hour late at night.. (I would suggest getting up an hour early.. but that would be sacrilegious and hypocritical)

3) Movies. Now this is a great idea especially if you are like me and don't care much about what film you are going to see. Going to the theatre is preferred (and by theatre I don't mean the western interpretation but the local one) If you are in CBE I would suggest going to either KG Big Cinemas or VR Complex as all others supposedly put off their A/Cs and in some cases don't even put them on. An alternative would be to download some great movies and keep your laptop charged and ready.

4) Exercise. I know it sounds crazy but if you learn to revel in the heat you won't feel it as much. And all the extra sweating is not going to make you smell worse. If in the process you build some muscle and lose some flab, good for you.

5) Swear words. You can go about learning some new swear words so that you can be articulate and expressive when you want to criticise the power cut ministry.

6) Read. Those who already have a figure to die for, you can look at the more sedate pathway of reading. It sure is the next best thing to sleeping. If you haven't run out of excuses so far to read the book you've always meant to read the power cut will surely get rid of that.

7) Bath. Those of you who are just getting out of college, especially the hostel, there is this new invention, which came into being a few thousand years ago called bathing. 3 hours perfect for a long bath.

8) Cook. For all those planning to go abroad as a good for nothing else grad student, power cuts are perfect opportunities to learn new recipes and some experimenting.

9) Discover. Try visiting some new places, make new friends and find old ones. While making new friends, make sure that they live in an area with power cut scheduled at a different time than yours. This, remember, is the most important thing about summer friendships.

10) Ornithology. Lastly and as usual not leastly bird watching is a definite must during these times. The heat brings out all the pretty birds out of their nests making it a pleasure to the eye. The terrace is an obvious choice as a vantage point and remember binoculars are a strict no-no as they drive away birds in India.

So, that's my list. You can get inspired and write your own list. I've tastefully added some links which are interesting and/or instructive. Please go through them and increase your reading pleasure...

Comic Attempt

Lucky Girl

Most childhood experiences are remembered with a fond degree of vagueness, or not at all. But not mine. I was never allowed to forget this one incident. So here I am, remembering that one incident, in graphic detail, through the one medium available to me: my thoughts.

I was named a different name, but I call myself lucky as that is the only name I hear around me anyway. On why I am called lucky, is what the incident is all about. I was but a toddler then. Not an age where memories are established. So now that I try to remember I can't understand why I left my mother. Well this is no good. Let me start at the right place: the beginning.

The year was 1994. Supposedly the year was a hot one in Michigan, where I was born. This was also the year when my dad got promoted to supervisor in the Ford showroom. I think that was the trigger. My dad is a very low key person. He prefers to walk when he can, even though he was a car salesman for most of his life and a good one at that. He preferred small private dinners to parties even on special occasions. And most importantly he hated outdoor parties. Which is the one thing that surprises me. Not that he hates outdoor parties, but that he has hated them since ever, even before the incident.

The promotion, even though it was a big thing back then, was not expected to lead to a party. But nobody had taken my uncle into account. My fun loving, crazy, extrovert Uncle. He was not my dad's real brother. He was adopted. "That explains the craziness", mom used to say. So there was my father who was quietly acknowledging the congratulations all around and there was my Uncle saying the same thing again and again, "Partyyyy!!". "More like shouting", mom says.  And a party it was. No ordinary party. It was planned to be "one helluva party," in the words of my uncle. And where was it? Right next to the M-1. In the greatest open space restaurant of the area, "Marijuana".  The place still exists. In a small town like ours, the great spaces never die out.

Everybody, who was anybody to us was there. Including some who weren't. The star attraction of course was my uncle. Dad just laid back and let it roll. Mom was the busy self conscious host. And where was I? I was supposed to be with her.

One thing that I do remember about being a toddler is the enormity of the world back then. But on that day, no distance seemed great and I was soon amongst the crowd. A crowd is again a safe place for a toddler, until of course the cursed word "Dance". Now there was no longer a crowd. I was the parcel in the "Passing the parcel" game and soon there was no one to pass to.

Now the next thing I know, I was on the end of a great big sand lot and then there was no sand lot. In the revised edition of the incident (It gets revised each time the degree of luckiness changes), by this time the whole party was looking for me, which I doubt. I think I can safely say that my grandparents and dad were part of the search party. My uncle by now was supposedly being given the dressing down of his life time.

I suddenly saw that the floor was no longer smoothy rough but just rough. I was no longer next to the M-1, I was on the M-1. Things became highly interesting as I heard wooshing sounds ahead. The search got hotter and finally desperate. Of course no prizes for guessing who found me. By the time he came I was in the middle of the tarmac and the wooshing sound had been accompanied by a frighteningly loud honking. A long shadow was upon me. And suddenly I felt arms covering me and pushing me. Then a sickening crunch.

All my life I have been called lucky. I would have been better off called another name. Heard of a guilt trip? Well my life has been one long guilt trip. In the movies I see now, the same scene acts out differently. The hero always gets up smiling. But not my uncle. Lucky me....

But my story doesn't end here. My scars have become painful now. The very air I breathe heavy and sapping. The year is 2010. A whole decade has passed and more. I am on my bike going home. I am at a level crossing. Unmanned. The light is red. There I see him. The little boy would be about 2. He is sitting bang in the middle of the track. I can hear the train now. I vault the barrier. The train is too fast. I am about to jump when the thought stops me," Am I doing the right thing?" There is no boy any more. I am the boy. Do I risk my life and save his life. Or do I save his life by not risking mine?? The torture is unbearable....


I decide to save him.

[Untitled]:Meme II

Forget Tagging a fellow blogger. That kinda takes away the limelight from you. So instead I am going to publish the blogger's post here and thereby take credit. The blogger in question here is my best friend Anirudh. Now, Anirudh read my post on the Meme: Abstract poetry and was inspired to write one of his own. And this just happens to be incredibly better than mine and therefore I am posting it here..

Why

Are there questions

For which the answers

Despite their relevance

Begin with “I Think”

Why

Are there thoughts

Built with prayers

Though rarely answered  

Fill people with hope

Why

Does every action

Right or wrong it may be

Makes us ponder

“Was it really worth it?”

Why

Does the easy way

Cease to exist

When the question is asked, it should be,

“The hard way or the hard way?”

Why

Do people say “no offence”

When all I want to do is not smile but

Punch them in the face and say

“None taken”

Why

Do we have to ask why

How and when

Craving every detail

Desperate for knowledge

Only leading to more questions like

WHY?

Now if you still do want to visit his stupid blog (I don't know why in the world you'd want to though..) you can go here.

Some Photos - Why I use the manual mode in my camera

[Meme]: Untitled

Right my brother has thrust the responsibility of continuing a meme on me (play on words? and did you know myself in French is moi meme??) Of course, he also says that I know the words I know (To be clear: I know the meanings). He does not know that I have mastered the difficult art of saying of course and smiling knowingly whenever something you have no idea of comes up. But I am enamoured by words and this may have led to my knowing a lot of word origins and therefore their meaning. In fact I am thinking about starting A word a day post. But knowing me it would probably be A word a month... Anyway back to the meme, (by the way I dint know the meaning of meme before I saw this)  The meme is Abstract Poetry. Now we all know what a great poet I am, if you have doubts they will be quenched here, here and here.

Now I know you are tired of link jumping, but here's one more. This one is a collection of poems by children and it is truly abstract as the theme is "abstract nouns."

Anyway here goes nothing,

Here goes nothing,
I was born in a still night,
The darkness loomed over me,
But of course I couldn't guess then,
That the darkness was only on me.

Here goes nothing,
I married out of grief,
Yes out of grief and into happiness,
For love was the theme,
In a marriage made in heaven,
But mine was in earth and Love not its only one.

Here goes nothing,
Writing is a pleasure,
For it transmits emotion and they lose ownership,
In a manner a writer is an ascetic and a communist too,
You may ask why, To those who do, I quote,
"To those who understand you don't have to explain, and to those who don't it is no use explaining"

Here goes nothing,
I have a son whom I can call son,
Only I don't for fear,
He won't call me father or maybe,
Just maybe because he will,
Now he is 6 and twenty but he was born on a still night too,
But the darkness was there, on me not on him,
So when they named him, I refused to name him after me.....

Here goes nothing,
As I lie upon my deathbed,
I feel the darkness lift atlast,
For now I know that the purpose,
Was to live and then die, And then,
to live again, So as I travel in my party,
The party for the dead, The drums beat loud,
And I cant hear the people say,
HERE GOES NOTHING...

Well I hope you enjoyed that one. Just to clarify, I have merged together the usual themes of any poem, Life, Death, Love, Hope, Fear and Relationships. Of course I left out nature, because my brother has that one covered. This poem is inspired by the movie of the year Tamizh Padam. I am also adding the link which was part of the meme's beginning, Agila's So far away.

Well since a meme is meant to be propogated, I am tagging my enormously talented junior, Uttara and my senior's brother who is an incredible writer, Sharanyan.

P.S: Abstract poem means this.  Very interesting person who has contemporary mentions in metal.

P.P.S: The quote is from "aaru lernthu aruvathu varai (From 6 to 60)" An awesome movie. It has Rajini Kanth in a god awesome role. One particular song possesses great lyrics. I won't say which one though..

A play

Right! I am going to tentatively head this play as "The great Indian dream"

I am publishing the play in its entirety as I had envisioned it. This is a rough draft and maybe changed innumerable times.

ACT 1/SCENE 1

[ An American grad school student driving towards a Harvard building. There is a huge gate. Sees somebody standing outside and calls for him]

American: Yo guard guy! Open the gate.

Indian seeming man at gate: (shows no response)

A: You bloody Indian. Open the gate.

I: Excuse me! Who are you calling a bloody Indian? Yes I am an Indian but that does not give you the right to insult me.

A: Of course it does.

I: Do you know why Indians come to the USA?

A: To get insulted? (Is very amused at his own wit)

I: No. Some of us were oppressing our peers for about 200 years. Now all of us are being oppressed by a group of people who claim to have been oppressed. So to escape this endless cycle of oppression, we go abroad and get an education, a job and a citizenship. Now one day Ill become your congressman and you'll say "Anything can happen in America". Then one day there will be an Indian American president and he'll say, "Anything can happen in America". Now this might happen ........

ACT 2/ Scene 1

The White House.

American 1: May I speak to Mr. James Sutherland (JS), the Undersecretary, World Affairs?

(Gets connected)

American 2: Speaking.

A1: The President has asked for a report on the world situation. A flight is waiting at the JFK for your disposal.

JS: Alright , I'll leave right away.

JS: (to himself) What world situation? America rules the world. Orders, orders...

ACT 2/SCENE 2

(At the airport)

JS: Let me check out the hangar. Ah! there's my flight, PARIS Airlines, the supposedly best fliers in the world.

(Goes inside the plane and meets the steward)

Steward: Good Morning. And what can I do for you sir?

JS: I am the Undersecretary, World Affairs, James Sutherland. I would like to look around.

St: Sure sir.

JS: (Looks at his questionnaire and thinks he'll start his report from the plane) Your name?

St: Happy sir!

JS: Happy? You do know English right? I asked your name. (SLOWLY)

St: Happy sir.

JS: Happy?

St: Yes sir. I was Sukhwinder Singh, which became Sukhi when I came here. Of course Sukhi is Happy in India, So I am now Happy.

JS: Ok. [looking at his questionnaire]. So this airline is based out of Paris?

H: No sir. France.

JS: But Paris is in France.

H: I don't know about that sir.

JS: But the airlines is named Paris Airlines.

H: It is actually Parsi Airlines. There was a spelling mistake, some American guy couldn't spell Parsi. Anyway the name stuck.

JS: Ooooook. Lets meet the captain.

H: A minute sir.

(JS has already reached the cockpit)

H: No no. Please wait.

JS: (enters the cockpit) So what is your name and how long have you been captain here?

Captain: How dare you come in here? Get out this instant.

JS: There must be some mistake..

Captain: What mistake? Teri Maaki..

JS: Did you just call me monkey? Are you abusing me racially??

C: No I said Maaki. That is probably the worst insult in Hindi and involved your mother and your entire ancestry.

JS: Oh. That's alright then. I am the U.S. World Affarirs, and your passenger James Sutherland.

JS: What's your original name?

C: Tata is my last name. My first name is Bahadur and my friends call me Courage.

JS: So how long have you been Captain?

C: 4 years and in these years we have literally flown to the top. Nice pun right?? Works all the time.

(Voice: Indians can't resist wordplay)

JS: Hmmm.. (looking around with a forced smile) What's that? Is that an incense stick? And a bead garland. And a bloody compass with a big red dot on it!! Where the hell are the instruments??

C: What instruments? In God we trust.

JS: How do people fly you? How are you even allowed to pilot this plane?

C: But sir! We are the best in the business...

ACT 3/SCENE 1

(Somewhere in Germany)

JS: Guten Tag Herr. Meinkamf

M: What?

JS: I said good day.

M: Oh. You are Mr. Sutherland, yes? Good Afternoon. Please call me David.

JS: Ah! Your English is impeccable.

M: You sound surprised. Oh! I forgot. You are American. Anyways, a drink? I am going to tune into the radio.

JS: No, thanks.

M: (tuning in)..

Radio: Good Afternoon and welcome to the Deutcheweller Radio and now the day's cooking tip: How to make your Chicken tikka spicier. This will be followed by the day's news...

M: Oh! We'll have to wait for the news.

JS: (surprised) DWR in English??

M: But of course. I thought you guys are well informed. It is the state language for God's sake.

JS: State language??

M: Yeah. Chancellor Angela headed the committee that changed the state language. English is the most widely spoken language you know.

JS: Angela...... Merkel??

M: Angela Kaur. Previously Parwinder Kaur, supposedly Pari means angel.

JS: Isn't Chinese the most spoken language?

M: Excuse me?

JS: Chinese.. from China..

M: Oh, you mean the Indo-China Block. The sex ratio was so skewed in China that they had to merge with India to survive.

JS: I think I'll have a drink. A whisky maybe.

M: And English of course took firm flight after the establishment of the British Raj in London.

JS: Make that whisky strong...

Act 4/Scene 1

[Back in the US, a pub]

JS: (to himself) They are everywhere. Russia, China, even Australia...

[The TV is running..]

TV voice1: And now for the post match review show of the superbowl.

TV voice2: Welcome to Sunny's Superbowl show. What a game! What..a...game!! Two seconds on the clock and Paul Peters scores a touch down for the Giants. The Giants win 21-18. He ran the entire length of the field and in the process set a new record....

JS: Atlast a truly American hero!! The world is not ending...

TV Voice2: Let us meet Paul's parents. How proud they must be of this incredible, beautiful moment of time. Here they are, Mark and Jothi Arokyaraj all the way from Americapuram in India. So how do you feel Mark.....

JS: This can't be happening....

TVvoice2: (After some time) So thats all folks, until next week this is Ravindranath "Sunny" Tagore signing off...

JS: I get it. Ravi means Sun.

JS: (to the bar tender) Excuse me. Can I have a coffee? Black? And a newspaper.

BT: Sure bob. Coffee's on the boil. Here's the paper.

JS: (Flipping through) Enough news.. (Looks over at the entertainment section) Headlines: "Tom Hanks" new movie releasing worldwide today.

JS: Wow! Now Tom Hanks, he is a star! (Turns to the bar tender) So what's this about a new Tom Hanks movie?

BT: Tom Hanks. So that's what they are calling him now?

JS: Calling who? (Turning back to the paper) Shiva "Tom Hanks" Kapoor has been nominated for an oscar in his role as Congressman Jindal in the movie of the same name. Now with his path breaking role as a racially abused Indian in his new movie "Attack of the Kangaroos" he has supposedly achieved new heights in acting, directing, music, singing, cinematography and even choreography....

JS: I need a walk.

(Walks through the Harvard park and sees a student busy at work. Looks over her shoulder and sees a thesis paper titled "Population Exportation")

JS: Shouldn't that be explosion?

St: No.

JS: Exploitation then?

St: Please stop wasting my time.

JS: Ok. So where is the exportation from? Who is being exported? No! Don't answer that! I can guess...

JS: (turning to the audience) By now you can guess...

Audience: India!

JS: No! America you fools...

ACT 4/SCENE 2

The White House

JS: I need to meet the President immediately.

(The oval office)

JS: Sir! Its code red. code red. We have a situation at hand. They are everywhere.

President: (With his chair turned) Who?

JS: The Indians. What do we do? Nuke 'em? Just give the order.

President: (Slowly turning) Forgotten something James? Is this a joke? You know you did vote me in as the first Indian American President of the U.S.A....

ACT5/SCENE1

[In the Harvard Library]

Doctor: He is in shock. No problem. Might have future repercussions though. Will have to give him a full check up.

JS: (slowly opening eyes) Where am I?

Female voice: You are in the Harvard library. I take it you are James Sutherland from the Yale Debating Society. You of course have come here to extend an invitation for a debate.

JS: I think so...

FV: Well, I am Parvati, I am the president of the Harvard Debating Society. The doctor was just telling me that you are suffering from manic shock and you might have repercussions. Doctor?

Doctor: Ah! yes. Of course dealing with manic shock is not very easy in America. We don't face the truth much often. But I do have a colleague, a specialist in India.......

[Curtains followed by Curtain call]

(It is of course clear that JS is the American and the President, the Indian from Act1)