Vonage Phone Service and My Dad

Vonage is a phone service that goes via the Internet and thus keeps costs low. They also offer the additional service of transcribing or translating voice messages into emails. At most times, they do a fine job but somehow get terribly confused where other languages especially Hindi or Urdu are concerned. Added to this is also the hard time they have in understanding my Dad’s messages. My father leaves these long winding messages, which even I can’t understand; he mumbles and fumbles, forgets half way what he’s been saying and leaves sentences hanging half way somewhere. Vonage is incapable of picking up dropped stuff.

Meanwhile, my Mum is on the other extreme end of the spectrum; she refuses to leave any messages but insists on calling every two seconds! I know my Mum called because I see red lights blinking furiously on my answering machine, however when I replay, there are yawning silences interspersed with sighing, bits of coughing and some oofs and ooffo and chhh sounds (all very familiar Indian sounds of displeasure). Vonage cannot translate these silences, nobody can. 

Vonage Phone Service struggles with trying to decipher what my father says. I don’t blame them; my mother, my husband, my children, my sister and just about everyone I know have a similar refrain of complaint, ‘What is he saying?’ So, yesterday, my birthday came around, my parents forgot (for which they will pay dearly with some extra cash) and my Dad tried to make up by leaving oodles of blessings and loads of good wishes. In the process, he left total mayhem in the phone service and its struggle to translate his speech. Below is what Vonage thought my Dad said. From what I gathered and heard, this is not what my Dad said.

"Father Dan there-dad-vodka-and-orange (?) just wanted to see you. Hey happy birthday. May God bless you. When you go down and then lot of prosperity. Right you-go (?) up it's like a little about that (?) I'll be done (?) I'm calling you at home. I love you, may not be able to get you in your ticket as it is. God bless you again-once (?) bye bye."     (Brought to you by Vonage)

Domestic Terrorism in America

If something is your home, it is your duty to defend it from dangerous elements. That being said, America has not been responsible with its immigration policies. A little worse than this is that it has not emphasized assimilation of immigrants into its land. But the worst is that it has abandoned the 'glue' that keeps people together. By harping on diversity, America has become a land of different groups of people insistent on their own language, culture and ways. Its citizenship pledge clearly exacts a promise from its to-be-citizens to give up all support and allegiance to foreign governments and people inimical to America.

Mark Stein explained it very aptly by saying that some first generation Americans have grown up without a sense of connectedness and allegiance to the land they live in. As a result, they tend to find their identity in something more solid and defining however evil that might be. Unfortunately, most youth in America unlike some unfortunate youth around the world, don't have much to worry about. Ease of life has tended to veer them toward something more exacting, more exciting, more lethal like Islamic Jihadism. This has been evident in the Boston Terrorism, Fort Hood Terrorism, and the most recent arrest of a young American headed off to Turkey with Al-Qaeda links, with the intent of committing violence in the name of Islam.

These homegrown terrorists seem well adjusted but also harbor malicious feelings toward a land and its people. They and their families had no compunctions in receiving various benefits and opportunities in this land but when it came to defending its values and freedoms and what America stood for, they found themselves pledging their allegiance to people and causes completely inimical to America!

Homegrown terrorists are now intent on destroying themselves and other innocent men, women and children for some strange ideology. They are willing to destroy something they never built nor created. Images of people dying or being killed in distant lands of their fathers and forefathers have become their rallying cry for destruction of America! A religion they never grew up with but became fascinated with its twisted ideology has come to dominate their life. Did these people consider leaving America and living in the distant lands they were willing to kill innocents for?

How much blame can be placed on the current American education system in schools and colleges - a lot because most schools and colleges are rife with anti-American, hate America, America the villain, blame America - kinds of teachings. A majority of the teaching staff weighs heavily in favor of socialist ideas and makes no bones about declaring them to the students. Coloring their teaching with political leanings of any kind, is not the job of teachers and professors. At most, they can give their students both sides of a problem or situation and insist the students decipher it themselves.

Incidentally socialism and communism have wrecked havoc wherever they have been! Schools and colleges here are not about teaching pride in your nation and helping students understand why America does what is does but more about condemning America. It is not uncommon to hear that America is the worst place to live in. Meanwhile millions of immigrants continue to stream into America which remains top destination for all immigrants.

It is disconcerting to think of all immigrants who made America their home when they saw a country with new opportunities and a good life. The stifling governments systems they left behind are unfortunately being glorified in the American schools and colleges their children attend. The current tilt of American education indeed makes a mockery of America's way of life and what it stands for.

I should have been a Drill Instructor

If not a mother, I would have liked to be a Drill Instructor. I experience calamity every time my college kid comes home. Clothes adorn every chair and sofa in the house, bags are placed in the middle of the room, protein jars opened up and little mounds of protein powder are visible everywhere. We sent them with things in pristine shape, they come back with not even one thing in order. Between my son and his friend, just in a span of few months, they successfully managed to bust their TV, microwave, and the refrigerator; the phone is busted too along with the ipod. I know when the kids enter or exit the house by thuds of doors and trails of clothes. Shirts have been tried and dropped, their labels torn and flung on bed, jeans have been worn and relinquished, socks turned into furry balls and sent flying from one end of the house to the other. Music is loud and I am warned about the rap song Mouli Mouli; it's about drugs! 

As far as the other Marine-to-be kid is concerned, I'll wait for him to go and come back from the Boot Camp. I've heard good stories about it and I'm hoping to hear some yes ma'ams and seeing some real life miracles occurring in my home.

Getting ready for Marines Boot Camp with help from Staff Sergeant Toby

At the Boot Camp, Drill Instructors encapsulate a mother's revenge on kids who chose not to pay attention to a mother's plea for years and years. Forget what you learned in school about indoor and outdoor voices. Drill Instructors only have outdoor voices, which fall between growls or rumbles. It's best to yell 'Yes Sir' every second and intersperse it with some 'No Sir' at appropriate intervals. Drill Instructors can melt Metal, Metal heads and Head bangers in one shot. Nobody knows what the Drill Instructors say, but everybody understands them, comprehends them and fully digests the pearls flying from a Drill Instructor's mouth. If you look at them, they'll give you hell, if you avoid looking at them, well you might as well give them your ears voluntarily; they're going to be chewing it anyway. I think every house could do with a Drill Instructor.

Travels Through India

Even God doesn't know how India runs; surely the country must run on autopilot because there is no sane explanation for the phenomenon. Indian Government hasn't been able to do it, foreigners haven't been able to calm it down, and travelers have gone native; then what could be the mystery for it being the way it is? It's perhaps sheer obduracy or Maya. The matter has been deftly taken out of human hands and handed over to the gods of which there are plenty; not quite as much as its population which hovers somewhere beyond a Billion. This is my land, which let me grow free; I cannot but be grateful for letting me grow in this chaos and no other one. I shudder to think what if it were Pakistan or any of the Middle East countries or even America where I would've surely collapsed under the overabundance of freedom. I truly belong to the home of destiny.

Just because I left it, doesn't mean rest of the world is not in a hurry to get there. There is no dearth of enthusiasm even though its bureaucracy tries all kinds of tricks to prevent people from getting a quick passage; fees hiked without warning, duration of stay or whether one can stay at all, made thoroughly confusing, and topping it all the impossibility of clarifying anything with the Indian Consulate. This is truly a body of miserable beings, which presents the most unsavory picture of India to the wide-eyed and innocent. Damn you is the attitude when it reluctantly hands over visas to enthusiastic but weary hopefuls. From the moment you apply for a visa to the time you come back from the bombardment on the senses, you must allow yourself pure joy because you have crossed the first hurdle.

Still, India remains one of the top destinations for seekers. This is a land of sheer contrasts with no grey matter in between. From palaces you descend into slums and that leads to Hollywood, which has a fascination for all things exotic. Roads spill with people, trains have to struggle with humans to find their own tracks, buses are bent over with the weight of humanity; there are rickshaws, cycles, cars, scooters, with people riding in them and as many riding while hanging onto them. Nobody cares; your are just one in a billion. Horns blare, bhajans sung late into nights, mullahs yell their prayers before the rooster crows, church bells ring ferociously; and so the noise goes on to the accompaniment of Bollywood music. Jo hua, achha hua, jo hoga achha hoga. Welcome to the land of Fakirs and Yogis!

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/13012746-travels-through-india

Little Shop in a Banyan Tree

There it was, a tiny little shop carved high inside a Banyan tree. It is said that the Buddha achieved Nirvana under a Banyan tree and here I was at a similar tree with a little shop inside it. The little shop couldn't have been bigger than two feet by four feet and perhaps five feet in height. It was always neatly stacked with all kinds of knick knacks like cigarettes, Bidis (local cigarettes rolled in leaves), soaps, oils, incense, Paan (Betel Leaves), candy and my favorite tea rusks. It's hard to say whether I enjoyed those rusks because they were laden with motley of smells and aromas or whether I was just fascinated with the little shop in the tree. Nonetheless, inside the little shop sat a man or a woman; as a child I could never distinguish the correct placement of this person at the table of genders. He looked like a man but spoke like a woman; he was bulky like a man but walked like a woman. I was extremely mesmerized with his Betel chewing habit because when he/she spat the red juice into a spittoon kept a little distance away, it all landed perfectly inside. Those superb landings eventually became the highlight of my day as well. Along with this, I also loved to watch his/her droopy dark kohl laden eyes and listen to the soft cadences of his/her voice recite Urdu poetry.

To get to the Man/Woman, I had to climb the walls or the roots of the Banyan Tree and stand there precariously perched. The Banyan roots tired of being underground had consequently protested and become one with the branches above. If I could have even managed to crawl inside the little shop, I would have but it was impossible for a second person to be there; so I just hung on to its precipice. From there, I looked longingly at all the goodies and wanted all of them, reminding myself each time of the reason of why I was there at the Banyan Shop. With such concentration on the goodies, I could have easily scored a victory with achieving Nirvana right there inside the Banyan shop. That is, if I didn't slip off the branches of the tree. All I needed every morning were rusks with my tea, which were essentially my breakfast. The rusks were eaten after being dipped in tea much like cookies in milk.

The Banyan tree-shop was in a bustling market place which reverberated with all kinds of sounds and shrieks. This was a time when children ran around free of stranger danger; when they could buy cigarettes for adults including loose ones in counts of ones and twos; when they could forget about going back home and no one would worry; when transgender rights were unknown and when men could stand around holding each other without being called gay. This was a carefree world where horses, goats, pigeons, kites, pot-heads, drunkards, horns, cows, cyclists, carts, cars and all known humanity mingled together and became a gooey mass in old Delhi, which incidentally was also the seat of the great Mughal Empire in India from the 16^th to 19^th century. The ineffable British ultimately forced the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar to give up his throne and retire in a distant fort in Burma. The Emperor died there from sheer loneliness and longing. On a good note however, the old Emperor had the last sigh because all his sighing did lead to a plethora of writings and poetry for posterity.

http://voices.yahoo.com/a-little-shop-banyan-tree-11693590.html

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