Qatar

 I arrived in Mumbai from Qatar last night, and not a day too soon. As Middle-Eastern petrostate absolute monarchies go, Qatar is possibly is benign. It is not a stifling religious fundamentalist state like Saudi Arabia, neither does it have a sordid history of trying to engineer regime-change through aerial bombing (that I know of) like the UAE and (also Saudi Arabia.  It has also given the world A-Jazeera, and punches far above its weight in global diplomatic circles. One has to only compare its profile to Kuwait, which is of similar size and wealth, to appreciate how well its done.That doesn't make it a nice place to visit or live. I did not educate myself about the history of Qatar because the place did not inspire me to do so. I am not saying young countries are destined to be cultural wastelands. But, young countries which are also dicatorships are. When all or most forms of cultural expression need sanction from the authorities who have pots of money to give to artists they approve of, you end up with an arts scene like Qatar's--showy but so sanitized that the only pleasure that it can give you is aesthetic. As this post shows, I am not a culutral critic, and I am sure many people have said what I am saying in far more insightful and eloquent ways. If shopping malls and over-the-top entertainment options like indoor ski slopes are not your thing, chances are you won't enjoy Qatar.

Airport blog Boston Dec 2024

This is going to be a short one because the last one was just a week ago, and I also don’t have much time before my flight boards.  I did have some low-key drama getting to the airport. Getting ubers in my college town of Amherst can be tricky, so I was monitoring waiting times to order an Uber to the coach stop. As luck would have it, the waiting time went from 5 minutes a few minutes before I ordered my Uber to nearly 20 minutes when I did. I waited for a few minutes but no Uber driver would accept my ride. Luckily, a bus was leaving at around that time so I cancelled my Uber and I shuffled towards my Uber with my luggage. However, just as I was reaching the bus stop, I realised that I had forgotten my wallet at home. So I had to dump my luggage (luckily, Amherst is safe and small so no one would think an abandoned suitcase is a bomb) and run home. I got back just in time to see the bus pull away. I had resigned myself to getting an Uber all the way to the airport, which is a 2-hour drive when I decided to check the app again. In another twist of fate, an Uber driver accepted my ride, and I reached the stop well before time as my coach was late. Then, on the coach, my stove anxiety kicked in. When I leave the house for a trip I often start feeling anxious about whether I turned the stove off. Actually, this time it started with anxiety about whether I had turned off. I realise its completely irrational as I remember hearing the lick of the thermostat as I was putting my shoes on and pulling the plug out of the socket. But, then I remember hearing another click and also remember thinking “Why is it still clicking if its off?”. And doing nothing about it. Then, I also started to wonder whether I had turned the stove off. I have enough experience of anxiety to know that feeding it, fuels it. I also knew that the anxiety would die down automatically in a few days, even if I got short stabs of it during my long trip. On a previous short trip when I lived in England, I had a similar stove-anxiety attack, but that time I could do nothing about it because I lived alone. This time, all I had to do was mail or call the building management, so I did that, even though I realised that I couldn’t do this every time. So, I will have to make provisions to alleviate my stove anxiety like setting a phone reminder or leaving post-it notes to check the stove before I leave. I have enough of experience of anxiety to know that it has to be managed, not fought all the time.

This has turned into a blog about anxiety, because I don’t have much to say. I am looking forward to my time in Qatar and India, and I have already written about my trepidation about the year ahead.

Airport Blog Greenville December 2024

 I am waiting for my flight back after visiting two of my closest friends in South Carolina over the Thanksgiving break. I had seen both of them on my US visit two years ago after a gap of five years and seven years. However, as life stuff got in the way, I could only see one of them for half an hour next to a fountain in the town center. It was a great trip, and it was nice to see both of them thriving after challenging periods in their lives. In the case of one of them, I only learned of their recent challenges on this trip.  There are friends you don't talk to in ages, but you pick up where you left off when you see them without any awkwardness. However, I talk to these two at least once every few months. Like with my Mumbai trip earlier this year, my heart is full. With this trip, I have visited all the people closest to me who live in the US within four months of moving here, which is an achievement. Now, i have to prepare for the mountain of work waiting for me before my next trip exactly a week from now.

Airport Blog Hartford November 2024

 I am waiting for my flights to see South Carolina to see two of my closest friends over an early and extended thanksgiving break. I took a series of buses to save money, but as this is the US and you don't choose which bus to take, I am here way before time. On the way, my bus passed through Hartford, the capital of Connecticut state. Since moving here, I have realised that many American cities don't feel like cities in the US because they don't have walkable downtowns. They have skyscrapers, which would suggest a high population density, but you don't see that in the streets. Apparently, all those skyscrapers house huge parking lots so that people can drive to and from them. Hartford was another such large soulless mid-sized city, which made me grateful to live in a college town, which has a fair number of pedestrians as well as cyclists for its size. And, of course, the only people who take buses in the US are poor people and students. I was possibly the only person above 20 on two of my bus rides. I had last visited South Carolina two years ago when I visited the same two friends. At that time, I was excited to be in the Deep South, but I was a bit disappointed. We didn't really spend time in a city, apart from touristy Charleston, and American suburbs feel depressingly similar. This time around, I will be spending time in a city, and I also have a frame of reference to compare it with. I live in a college town in the bluest state in the country, and I am curious about what America is like outside this bubble. 

Insufferable Liberals

 I wrote eysterday about how I am feeling better after the election. Maybe there is a bit of scahdenfruede to it--let liberals feel some of the misery and despair that we have been feeling for the past 13 months. And, liberals are making to so easy to feel biter against them., pretending that everything was hunky-dory before Nov. 5, just as Zionists pretend everything was hunky-dory in Israel-Palestine before Oct 7 last year. On an alumni group, people were commiserating with each other about Trump's victory, trotting out bromides about keeping hope and faith. I was mildly annoyed, but I blew my top when someone cited a post-election speech by Biden as inspiration. And, then there was  talk at uni today by a black scholar turned celebrity pundit. He is clearly a smart guy and a great orator, and he was going to talk about the inimitable James Baldwin. His talk was bearable, because most of it was quotes of James Baldwin, and he even broke down in one place. I don't mean to be derisive. I will never understand what life is like for Black people in America. But, someone of his stature and platform should offer more than platitudes. No one expects a regular on cable news channels to call for a socialist revolution, but surely he could have played it less safe than he does on TV. The subsequent "Q&A" session was mdoerated bya  careerist dean who had shorn all the questions of any political content, and turned them into vapid non-questions. And, in response poured at a sea of cliches from the eminent Eddie Glaude--"you contain multitudes", "Allow people to ofer you colours, but never give up your brushes, you paint the canvas of your life". It sounded like a low-effort Ted Talk. After his speech, I joined in the standing ovation, ut after the Q&A I was one of the only able-bodied people who remain fimrly seated. My white colleague who I later learnt also disliked the talk joined in the standing ovation, and if I were white. I would probably have jioned too. The optics of a white man showing ambivalence towards a black luminary are not great. Then again, if I had been black I might not have joined in the first standing ovation either. Before I decided to remain seated, I thought of my Mom, who is one of the most courageous people I know in my peronsal life. I remember we were in the audience at my elder sister's sports meet at school. I must have been around nine or 10. As the millionaire founder of our school walked by to take his seat  in the VIP area, all the parents in the audience stood out of respect. My mom and her friend remain seated. My staunchly communist Mom told me "I have no respect for him". 

Trump Storms Back

 So, the unthinkable but expected has happened, and Donal Trump will be US president again. To be honest, I don't think I would have felt much better if Kamala Harris had won, because she has been such a terrible candidate. With every passing week, she tacked further to the right until she started resembling a never-Trump Republican. For the past few weeks, I had felt my body becoming increasingly tense. News from Palestine and Lebanon had been affecting me more than usual, and I would get sudden bouts of lethargy. For a while, I thought it was the dry air from the heater. But, I think it was the wait to know whether we would be ruled by a genocidal fascist or a genocide liberal-except-on Palestine. Which is curious because Harris would have been terrible in thinkable ways, while Trump will be terrible in unthinkable ways. I am not a woman, a Republican state resident, or poor or black so I won't feel theshort end of the stick in a Trump presidency. But, on Palestine, it is hard to think about how Trump could be worse than Biden/harris. I don't want to turn this intop a piece of political commentary becaue there are far smarter and better informed people doing that. Who knows what a Trump presidency will bring? But, this is at least an end of the road for one brand of genocidalists. 

Clocks Go Back 2024

 When the clocks went forward earlier this year, I was in the UK and anxious about my job prospects, as well as the continnuing war in Gaza. A few days after writing the post, I received news that I had been accepted to the post-doc position in the US, so a lot has happened in the past few months. The move to the US, the new job, dealing with unending US paperwork, the stress and excitement of setting up my own apartment for the first time in my life. Staring to feel excited about economics again, before events in the Middle East took a turn for the worse (which no one thought was possible). All in all, big changes on the personal front as well as on the world front as well as the perpetual struggle to find purpose in one's own work while the world bruns. And by changes on the personal front, I also mean changes to how I view the world and my place in it, and my willingness to play a part, however small, in building a world I want to live in. Most of us in the Palestine solidarity movement have been irrevocably changed over the past year or so. I am not the person I was a year ago, and never will be, which, I think, on the whole, is for the better.

Looking forward, in two days, we have US elections. We will find out if we are to be ruled by a genocidal fascistis corporate shill or a genocidal neocon corporate shill. It has been difficult to focus for the past week or so, and who knows what the near and not-so-near future holds. But, as Adrienne says, some traditions are not meant to be broken, so I did her cozy winter yoga practice, which I always do on the day the clocks go back. And, of course, this post is also part of that tradition. Following these traditions gives a feeling of morring in a rapdily changing world. Whatever happens, everyday life will have to go on even as great events intrude on it. The mundane and the momentous will have to co-exist.