Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Little Black Beetle



Little Black Beetle
Author: priyamvada.dk@dexler.com
I saw him as I left the house –
Upside-down; quite undignified; flat on his back,
He was waving his various legs in the air and moving his antennae around.
Ignominious, he was aware of how ridiculous he looked.
I mused for a while.
How does Nature help these creatures to hoist themselves the right way up again?
Interesting – let me look at him awhile –
The sadist that I am.
Oh but that’s our cat meowing: she doth advance.
She’s an even greater sadist; keeps a pet cockroach in my work basket; takes him out; looks at hime; bats him about; and puts him back in.
She checks to see he doesn’t escape. The next day, she repeats these games.
Oh no, but not my little fat black beetle lying on the drive-way.
I pick up a fallen gulmohar twig and turn him the right way up.
He scuttles away, just in time to escape my cat.
My husband sits in the veranda, basking in the sunshine.
He has a broken ankle; three legs including that elbow stick,
Which he waves around like “House”.
Yet, for everything else, he acts helpless, like the beetle overturned, legs flailing helplessly.
I’ve turned him over several times; helped him with his elbow stick to get wherever he wants to.
Even God helps only those who help themselves – but not this three-legged man:
His water needs to come to him; so do his salads, his meds, his cat’s fish; his bathroom thingies arranged just so and just so in a  tray; his 4 or 5 towels; his napkins, his fruit (peeled, if you please), and his newspaper.
His shirts get ironed automatically; his neighbours wheel him into the huge ambulance for his ortho checkups.
And these get done, these get done, because people do not act like that cat or that genuinely helpless beetle!

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

FLOTSAM



                    FLOTSAM

The waves have just tossed me
Up onto this shore.
I get up and walk on
To see what’s in store.

I move on unconcerned,
This isn’t the end.
I’m sure there’s adventure
Just around that bend.

My ship has just sunk.
I’m blamed like Lord Jim.
My degrees are worthless,
My prospects are dim!

Are fetters of paper
And words of disdain
To define my character?
Did I toil in vain?

I look back again
At the path I have tread
The misty black mountains,
The valleys of dread.

I’ve run the whole gamut
Of blame and emotion.
Each person’s an island
In an infinite ocean.

“Loss of employment”,
That man does proclaim.
Loss of good references
Upholding my Name!!

Pieces of paper
Toss’d ‘bout by the wind
Can they offer insight
Into my soul and my mind?

Little boxes labeled
‘A’,’B’,’C’,or’D’.
‘C’ says Non-Satis.
That box describes ME???

But my soul is so fluid
It goes through the box.
There’s a beautiful garden
Beyond rusted locks.

Can one close all doors?
Can spirits be trapped?
The hand there is mortal
That delivers the slap.

He who thinks he is master
And the other the slave,
Waves sticks and waves carrots
To make him behave!

But carrots, sticks, paper
Like flotsam in sea
Are lost in the huge waves
Of Eternity!

They’ll check my past ‘history’
They’ll check all my mail.
Such threads do not bind me.
There’s no twist in the tale.

Not all the harsh words ,
No bureaucracy
Can measure the immortal
Spirit in ME!

All I know is I’m movin’
Something lures me on.
A light that’s within me
Like a brilliant new Dawn!

Friday, May 22, 2015

ABOUT OIL AND TROUBLED WATERS



In December 1979, there was an advertisement by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. for Trainee Journalists. The application was to be accompanied by a 1000–1500-word essay on a current subject. Iran was transitioning then from a monarchy to an Islamist dictatorship. I picked that as the topic for my essay, which is reproduced here. I got selected to be trained as a Sub-Editor, but my parents quashed the idea!

ABOUT OIL AND TROUBLED WATERS


Please to remember
The Fifth of November
Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot…

Who does not know about the plot hatched by the immortal Guy Fawkes? Only this time it happened on the Fourth – sans the gunpowder – but equally startling all the same. The “Guy” was, of course, the venerable Ayatollah Khomeini, who lent great support to the trapping of the diplomats in the US Embassy at Teheran. There were more than 60 people there. Five non-Americans had since been released, as also five white women and eight black men. The students who held the Embassy hung on to the 49 others, threatening to put them on trial as spies and to execute them if the Shah was not extradited.

The Shah was then in the most unenviable of circumstances in New York’s Cornell Medical Center, suffering from multiple medical complaints, including cancer. He handed over his mantle to Shapour Bakhtiar on December 30, 1978, and left for Mexico. That was only the beginning. Mr. Bakhtiar was ousted from power in February 1979, and the Mehdi Bazargan government took over the reins. Dr. Mehdi Bazargan was a slightly left-of-centre intellectual, who supported the Khomeini movement to topple the Shah. He did not, however, reckon with the bloodbath that followed – 650 men (an official count) had been tried in kangaroo courts and executed. He neither foresaw the Kurds’ agitation for autonomy nor the pro-Islamic fervour sweeping Iran. Khomeini was vested with “Supreme Powers”. He was given the authority to name the Armed Forces Chiefs; declare war; and veto candidates for the Presidency. Unofficial results showed that the draft constitution, which would make Iran a theocracy, garnered 99% approval. The all-powerful Ayatollahs would be empowered to commute sentences imposed by the courts. These developments would make any sane bystander shudder, but the raid on the Embassy takes the cake!

The action defies any logical analysis. There have been certain factions in Iran opposing these trends – the Azerbaijanis under Ayatollah Shariat-Madari, the Kurdish and Baluchi rebels, and the Sunni minorities of Iran. In fact, certain factions of the Army turned back to the middle-class conservatism for which Shapour Bakhtiar stood. These voices of protest were, of course, being silenced by Khomeini who hoped to cash in on the violent anti-Shah and anti-US feeling running high in Iran. The Security Council issued the order for the release of the hostages twice – Mr. Sergio Palacios De Vizzio of Bolivia, the Council President, and Dr. Kurt Waldheim, the UN Secretary-General, had both issued this order on behalf of all the members of the UN. The World Court lent its voice to the appeal, but the impasse continued. Mr. Bani-Sadr proved amenable to negotiation, suggesting that – if the Shah left the US territory; if the UN agreed to a trial of his crimes; and if the Shah’s wealth were remitted to Iran – the release of the hostages might be secured. He paid for his liberal attitude by having to step out of the Foreign Minister’s shoes, to make place for Mr. Sadegh Gotbzadeh. The impasse still continues – long after Christmas – despite The US economic freeze on Iranian assets worth $8 billion, the presence of a US fleet of 21 ships at 24 hours away from the Straits of Hormuz with 135 US carrier planes aboard, the threat of a US naval blockade, and the reality of an economic blockade by some allies of the NATO. The Shah left for Panama on December 15. In fact, even the Panama government has shown itself willing to consider extraditing the Shah, if Iran could bring an exact and convincing description of his regime within 60 days, provided, of course, that the hostages were first released. Even this has failed to soften the Iranian stand.

Anti-US feelings seem to have set aflame the oil-rich tract of Iran. Dr. Kurt Waldheim had hinted at the possibility of bringing the Shah to book. Perhaps the Iranians were not wrong in demanding that. They accused the Shah of massacring 100,000 people (the Shah admitted to about 2000, which is bad enough); of setting the Savak or Secret Police to use inhuman methods of torture; and of amassing huge amounts of wealth. The Shah estimates his wealth at $50–100 million; whereas, Mr. Bani-Sadr places it at $30 billion. Libya and Albania even lauded the attack on the Embassy. The US Embassy at Tripoli was attacked. Saudi Arabia passively supported Iran’s anti-US stance by refusing to make good the shortage of oil that America would experience as a result of the stoppage of Iranian oil. Economic pressures are mounting up in the West. Iran’s decision not to repay its international loans amounting to $15 billion has hit many Western banks. Chase-Manhattan of New York was the first to announce that Iran had defaulted on its $500-million loan. This loan was raised by a major international consortium of banks, which included the National Westminster of UK, the Swiss Bank Corporation, and the Toronto Dominion Bank.

It is clear that many multiplier effects are going to follow from Khomeini’s action. The trend of the economic multiplier has been outlined, but it is the political multiplier that is more threatening. The Soviet Union is maintaining an ominous silence, and there is worrisome awareness that a treaty of 1921 allows that “in case any third countries tend … to make Persian territory a base for military attacks against Russia … the Soviet Government shall have the right to sends its army into Persia, in order to take the necessary military steps in its own defence”.

In 1941, the Soviet Union was instrumental in getting the stable-boy-turned-Emperor Reza Shah deposed, and his son, the present Shah, installed on the throne. US interest in the oilfields soon grew, and the US was getting 40% on what was formerly an exclusively British monopoly. Hence, when Mossadegh – who was very Socialist in his views – came to power in 1953, the CIA, under Kermit Roosevelt, lost no time in toppling him and reinstalling the Shah, complete with the Savak. Perhaps this accounted for the anti-US wave in Iran.

Another disturbing circumstance is the fact that Afghanistan is turning out to be Moscow’s Vietnam, with the successive executions of Noor Mohamed Taraki and Hafizullah Amin, who were both Marxist and pro-Russian. The latest comer, Mr. Babrak Karmal, probably differs from his predecessors only as regards the affection for the Russians. This does not alter the fact that the nationalists are staging a huge pro-Islamic protest against the Russian presence there. The echoes of this nationalist uprising can be heard in Pakistan, where Zia is trying to hold off the Sword of Damocles under the shield of an “Islamic Bomb”.

It looks as if Macbeth’s witches have been creating a new concoction – anti-Americanism, pro-Islamism, the Shia–Sunni conflict at Mecca, Russians, Marxists, and the Islamic Bomb being the major ingredients. Instead of pouring oil on troubled waters, they are adding oil or fuel to the fire in the Middle East and chanting, “Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble”.


See Note at the bottom.

The Iran hostage crisis, also known in Iran as Conquest of the American Spy Den, was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. Sixty-six American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days (November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981), after a group of Iranian students, who were supporting the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. President Carter called the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy," adding that "the United States will not yield to blackmail."


The Shah left the United States in December 1979 and was ultimately granted asylum in Egypt, where he died from complications of cancer on July 27, 1980. In September of 1980, the military of Iraq invaded Iran, marking the beginning of the Iran–Iraq War. These events led the Iranian government to enter negotiations with the U.S., with Algeria acting as mediator. The hostages were formally released into United States custody the day after the signing of the Algiers Accords, just minutes after the new American president, Ronald Reagan, was sworn into office.
Considered a pivotal episode in the history of Iran–United States relations, in Iran, the crisis strengthened the prestige of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the political power of those who supported theocracy and opposed any normalisation of relations with the West. The crisis also marked the beginning of U.S.legal action resulting in economic sanctions against Iran, further weakening ties between Iran and the United States.