Gladly Beyond Any Distance

I recently had the opportunity to be part of a reflection process on the work we do as feminists, advocating for gender equality in development organisations. This was with an organisation called Gender at Work, an international knowledge network for gender equality; it’s a group I’ve been associated with since its founding in 2001, though I left them as Program Associate in 2007, when we moved to the Republic of Berkeley. It was such a joy being part of a space that incorporated the striving, thinking and doing of feminist praxis - with fabulous activists who embody that spirit - but it was also a joy (luckily) to reflect on where I am, both personally and professionally, these many years on. It must have something to do with - groan - the milestone of middle age/mid-evil-ness lurking round the corner. Still, at the end of the reflection, I wrote a haiku about change; I suppose it’s a birthday prezzie of sorts to myself.

Touched by the return,

I find my journey forward -

But some of me… stays.

…or in other words, sorry for the interruption, and apologies for the month without posts. I was having trouble with the blogging software, and the resident techie wizard was busy with end-of-term-itis. It’s been a long hard winter of discontent and mute despair, in any case, with too many words raining down on me, and too few to articulate.

From the Onion, 5 November 2008:

Although polls going into the final weeks of October showed Sen. Obama in the lead, it remained unclear whether the failing economy, dilapidated housing market, crumbling national infrastructure, health care crisis, energy crisis, and five-year-long disastrous war in Iraq had made the nation crappy enough to rise above 300 years of racial prejudice and make lasting change.

“Today the American people have made their voices heard, and they have said, ‘Things are finally as terrible as we’re willing to tolerate,” said Obama, addressing a crowd of unemployed, uninsured, and debt-ridden supporters. “To elect a black man, in this country, and at this time—these last eight years must have really broken you.”

Added Obama, “It’s a great day for our nation.”

Carrying a majority of the popular vote, Obama did especially well among women and young voters, who polls showed were particularly sensitive to the current climate of everything being fucked. Another contributing factor to Obama’s victory, political experts said, may have been the growing number of Americans who, faced with the complete collapse of their country, were at last able to abandon their preconceptions and cast their vote for a progressive African-American.

[...]

As we enter a new era of equality for all people, the election of Barack Obama will decidedly be a milestone in U.S. history, undeniable proof that Americans, when pushed to the very brink, are willing to look past outward appearances and judge a person by the quality of his character and strength of his record. So as long as that person is not a woman.

Tom Lehrer famously declared that political satire died the day Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But if it’s dead already, what happens when the Onion calls a spade… <horror>… a spade? Never before in the twenty year history of this immodest publication has such a moment been seen.

Potted biography of Political Satire: Henry Kissinger wins Nobel Peace Prize. Satire dies. Bush becomes President. Satire resurrected. America elects its first black President ever, just in time for its own particular annus horribilis (offstage whisper: and still not ready for a woman). Satire closely resembles reality. Satire collapses and is DOA. Dead on Assembly.

Rest in Pieces, Satire.

Other than the fact that Stephen Colbert called it that on his late night show last week - “what does Karl Marx put on his pasta? Communist Manipesto” - it was interesting that when I went dressed as the Spectre in Red for a Halloween party (accompanying Ashwin’s turning-gray-grad-student-reading-Marx), so few people should have recognised a take-off on the Communist Manifesto. The original first two lines read:

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

My version red:

A spectre is haunting America — the spectre of communism. All the powers of the Grand Old Party have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: McCain and Palin, Rove and Dole, Fox and Drudge.

Is it really that most people in this country are so wary of the S(ocialism) and C(ommunism) words that they don’t know what has to count as one of the most important historical documents ever (whatever your political persuasions or leanings)? In Berkeley, of all places? Ah well. Perhaps I should give unto myself a new title: Redistributor-of-Sauce. Move over, Colbert.

Hysterical. The Guardian reports that the Swansea council put up a road sign that was meant to be bilingual - English and Welsh - for ‘No entry for heavy goods vehicles’. Instead they ended up with ‘Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd.’ Doesn’t sound Welsh enough for you? It is. Welsh for: ‘I am out of the office at the moment’!

How did the HGVs get lost in translation?

Swansea council contacted its in-house translation service when designing the bilingual sign. The seeds of confusion were sown when officials received an automated email response in Welsh from an absent translator, saying: “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.”

Unaware of its real meaning, officials had it printed on the sign. The council took down the sign after Welsh speakers spotted the mistake.

More reason to go back to the days in which one used a phone to hear a human voice at the other end? Hmm… excuse me while I go pick up a robocall from McCain telling me all about Hussein.

From the Daily Kos (and elsewhere on the blogosphere), a brilliant poem by John Cleese on Sean Hannity, the Fox(ed) News anchor. (Btw, 86% of Fox News viewers reportedly thought McCain won the second US Presidential elections’ debate; everyone else thought Obama had).

Ode to Sean Hannity
by John Cleese

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

And my own humble response:

John Cleese
terrific tease
always at ease
such a wheeze.
more please?

A few years ago, I found that some of my emails were going to another Anasuya, one who had a similar email address, but on hotmail, while mine was on yahoo. We ended up corresponding over the mistaken emails, and interestingly enough, found enough in common to be in touch through all these years… We narrowly missed meeting each other in person at a conference in Bangkok, but that didn’t stop us. In fact, we’re even connected on Facebook, which, as you all know, is now the only competent measure for any kind of social relationship whatsoever. I mean, I’m seriously thinking of disowning my parents because neither of them has an FB account; what legitimacy can someone have who isn’t updating their online status every two hours?

However, that familial crisis aside, an interesting article in today’s New York Times on Googlegängers was what brought on this post. And if you tell me you’ve never done any vanity googling for your name and checked out whose extraordinary life (or lives) you’re competing against for page views, you’re integrity-challenged. I, for one, can tell you that the Facebook public listing of Anasuya Sengupta ain’t me; I’m the paranoid about privacy kind (yeah yeah, I can’t do anything about this blog now, can I? It has a peculiar life of its own and it terrifies me). Go ahead, my vain friends, tell me your googlegänger stories; I’m waiting with baited (sic) breath.

I’m sure to get ragged by TR about my comment in my post below, saying ‘dissent and debate welcome, hatred unacceptable’. But he certainly knows I’m following a rich and illustrious tradition.

Tom Lehrer, in his introduction to National Brotherhood Week:

I’m sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that.

So, in the continuing spirit of celebrating my feminist family - their shrieks of protest are but faintly heard - I wanted to come in, very late, on a matter of great joy for Ashwin. He was on the engineering team for ColdFusion 8, the Adobe server, which won the Jolt Awards 2008 (he assures me that these are the tech Oscars, only much more fun). Damon Cooper, Director of Engineering, has a blog post that lists everyone on the team - which Ashwin said was the best he had ever worked with. One of my fondest memories of the team is when we all went to watch Casino Royale together; it was quite a thrill to be sitting with a gang of Adobe while James Bond’s sidekick talked of photoshopping. sigh. These little pleasures of being a geek’s wife get to me.

And the funniest YouTube video yet is of Borat (aka Adam Lehman) extolling the virtues of ColdFusion. Ashwin and I marked the news of the Jolt Awards - sadly far away from the team - by laughing hysterically at the video. It’s a sobering thought, however, that I actually understood the techie references. These little pleasures of being a geek’s wife *really* get to me!

So Black Mamba tagged me the other day:

Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

I was determined to do this, not only because I like Black Mamba (and I do), but because I had to prove Tabula Rasa wrong; he said BM wouldn’t get a cheep out of me (this childish tit-a-tat has, in fact, gone on since we were about ten. I love it.).

Result: near failure. Not because of my lack of output - though it certainly could be a lot more consistent than it is now - but because I rarely seem to write about anything other than politics and the big bad world outside. Of course, there’s a lot of me in there - the personal is political and vice-versa - but not in ways that are necessarily familiar or familial. sigh. Looking back, I think it was because I was determined, when I started out, not to make this a blog of the kind that led the blog-o-boom: the vicarious exploration of other people’s private lives and lesions. Frankly, I found that sort of blogging both terrifying and self-indulgent. I also felt I had nothing to offer of value online, that could remotely interest a set of unknown readers. Ashwin persuaded me otherwise; a lot of his argument had to do with the description of the blogging community he comes from: the techies. Clearly there was a space for blogging about one’s interests, one’s passions, rather than about oneself.

I realise now that I have - somewhere along the way - gone to the other extreme of the pendulum and am dangling hopelessly from an oblique position of self-denial. I find that many of the blogsters I read, write about themselves and theirs with humour and insight. I kid you not: I *like* reading them! If I don’t see these blogs as self-indulgent, is there possibly space for me to sneak back in a bit of me and mine into this blog? Black Mamba, you didn’t think you’d lead to an orgy of reflexivity now, did ya??

With this long preamble, here’s my meagre offering for the tag.

Family: A bit of a stretch, but to my extended family in Raichur. Also a cheeky aside to my pun-tashtic family (not really a post at all, but wothehell, I love xkcd).

Friend: about a friend in Gujarat, and her struggles with fundamentalisms.

Yourself: a post about ‘being an action hero‘. Also my previous stab at being tagged.

Your love: music and poetry. Unsurprisingly, a post about Gangubai Hangal that conveys both my awe-struck admiration and her comments on caste. And a tribute to Kaifi Azmi.

Anything you like: a whimsical post on Durga Puja and JK Rowling. And a diatribe against the news in India today.

…and I tag those I haven’t tagged before: Anindita (in the spirit of disclosure and familial-ity, my gorgeous sis-in-law who normally tags _me_), Mangs, Lalit and (relatively new) blog buddies: Pranav and Suzanna (whose blog I promised some time ago I would explore, and this is a great way to begin!).