Its been a while. So time for something new.

A friend turned me on to an article in the NY Times detailing the post-Iraq life of Shaheen Khan, a Pakistani woman who is now paralyzed after a few months as a laundry worker in the Green Zone in Baghdad. KBR, formerly known as Kellogg, Brown, and Root, and recently delinked from Halliburton’s family, is supplying non-Iraqi contract labor to create another kind of army, one that is without the privilege of combat training, ultra protective gear, tanks, and guns. Perhaps the only shield besides the vest and other government issue nominal gear that Shaheen has is the color of her skin, easily blending in with Iraqis. But in the Green Zone, I’m not sure it makes a difference.

Shaheen is living in a nursing home, and her insurance provider, AIG, is not willing to provide her enough to cover moving out of the nursing home and being cared for at home. This has strained her marriage. This has made life in Houston so different than anything she could have ever imagined. She was asked, “What are you looking forward to?” and she responds with a blankness with the words “nothing” flitting off her lips. When reading, I stopped for a moment to think about those being contracted out to Iraq, and realized its as if the American dream can be found in the Green Zone, that everything that is used to lure immigrants to the United States – the clean homes, suburbs, grocery stores with aisles of fresh food, the calm parks and sunny shores – are maintained by war and oppression abroad. Working for KBR is a chance to see first hand what it takes to maintain the America everyone knows and loves.

And I looked it up – how many jobs does it take to show people what America is all about? As of this post, there are exactly 1019 jobs available in Iraq through KBR. Electricians, IT folks, laundry workers, truck drivers. Salaries are not listed. But everyone knows that you can get a pretty penny. I know because someone close to me works for KBR.

This got me thinking about the level of influence that we have, and what we are influenced by.

I’ve realized that one’s life is filled to the brim with influence, and if one isn’t careful, it can be swayed by corporations like KBR, AIG, Halliburton, and any others. By Starbucks. By Microsoft. By any product we buy that holds a brand. Of course, many of us don’t have much choice; Shaheen was in loads of debt when she signed up to clean the underpants of the US Army. And it wasn’t her fault that both KBR and AIG screwed her over, and vicariously the US Government for generating and stoking the fire that is Iraq. But the corporations that saturate the landscape of the American and Global economy have sway over our daily lives to an extent that we likely won’t be able to realize until years from now. Unfortunately for Shaheen the influence the corporations had on her lives were horribly negative and violent, emptying her of the hope that led her to cross an ocean once again in pursuit of an economic dream.

For me, I have always had a distrust of corporations, beginning from the first time my father was laid off by a company, forcing our family to uproot to a different state, a different set of strangers to try and befriend. The distrust multiplied each time the pink slip would arrive. It got to the point where I would remain distant from those around me so I could easily pack my bags and jet off when the lay off would come.

Although not as violent, but perhaps as disturbing is the recent iPhone phenomenon, when I saw the man who slept and shat outside the Manhattan Apple Store for a week, and whose exuberance at shelling out obscene amounts of money was matched by another kind of obscenity, with him yelling “This is amazing! I can’t believe it!” when interviewed by the media mob. People were dressing their kids up as iPhones. The media fed at the trough provided by Apple, forgetting that bombs are dropping in Baghdad, Gaza, Kabul. That HIV is eating South African families alive. That the courts are chiseling away desegregated schools.

I am trying hard not to forget that which is important.

Desi, Economics, Immigration, Palestine, Race, Resistance | 1 Comment »

Midnight and after, flying on the pavement that cuts through the field of wheat abutting Sugarland’s very own prison, the air unflinching in its heaviness. It renders itself inscrutable, this air. And my thoughts stop as I take it in, my probing ceases the moment the thickness invades my car, pushing me to get home soon so I can get back to normal.

And the thickness comes in slow. Probably because I have been away so long.

This used to be a swamp. All of it. Back at college, you could run your finger up and down a strip of stone on the architecture school to imitate the frog songs that used to pepper this place. A crude honor. They say Houston was built on top of a swamp, not in place of it. In my neighborhood there are alligator warning signs and no alligators. I did see a mutilated animal carcass on one of my walks near where the alligators supposedly reside. Maggots and flies was all that I saw of the alligators.

The air continues as I open the window in my room. The smell is the best now, when I am not concerned about getting anywhere, but more about staying somewhere.

Songs I miss come up in conversations with people, memories I have forgotten because they are associated with place, with the placement of my feet in relation to the placement of my mother’s feet. Where I sit on the sofa and where my sister sits. Where I type and where my dad’s glasses are propped on his nose. The timing of the air in relation to every other piece of me. These are the structures that help me remember.

They help me remember what they were feeling and how I was feeling, what went on in our minds, hearts at those times when we were together.

This is what I miss, this memory that I am remembering. When these structures are no longer there, when they change, I am afraid these memories will be gone forever. These triggers make me think twice about a lot of things, about change, about the immense ramifications of where and what I am living now in LA, and about the kind of air I have chosen to breathe, and wade through.

Suburbia, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

There are those times when an exegesis on some current event, local or abroad, has substantial appeal. When exploring multiple takes on a story in India, in Palestine, in South Central provide ample fodder for a unique take on some feature of the human condition. When understanding that the machinery of global political economics works not only far far away but also next door, when there are people here experiencing the same exact things as people there. The people here are just like the people there.

There are those times when a story you heard from a friend made you laugh in ways that would elicit suspicion from some people in some circles. When the story is intricate, detailed, funny, and lovely. Yet simple. Not elegant in the slightest because everything is messy. Just like a human condition fraught with loops and tangles and ridiculousness. That my friend’s people are just like my people. The people there are just like the people in my heart and on my mind.

And then there are those times when you just want to make your own stories. When you want to take everything and turn the people here into people there, and vice versa. When you want to turn the connections that you feel in the deepest parts of you into a legible mess for others to take a look at. When the spaghetti loops between the dendrites and axons light up, flashing off ways in which my people, imagined and otherwise, begin moving and talking, embodying my hopes, fears, lives, laughs, and wanting to burst out of the tiny spaces in my head. And onto paper canvas, onto emails, and into blog posts.

Writing | No Comments »

Dear Friends – Please come out to this conference on April 13th and 14th, 2007 at UCLA School of Law. It will be an opportunity to discuss some of the most critical issues of our time, to discuss Critical Race Theory and where its been and where its going, and to engage with practitioners, organizers, students, and others invested in contributing to and building a racial justice movement.

Attendance is FREE and spots are filling up quick so please follow this link to register and to check out the agenda: http://www.law.ucla.edu/home/apps/crs/.

Law-ing, Politic, Race, Resistance | No Comments »

so long there is now
when here you were there away
now rain drops itself

Writing | 1 Comment »

Eating oatmeal with blueberries and maple sugar at midnight so I can go to sleep with a warm and full stomach.

Mentally cataloging the contours and innards of “law school life” with an intent to understand why people, including myself, act so strange with each other, with others, while in this high pressure environment.

Organizing radical conferences with some wonderful, passionate people.

Playing capoeira and making new friends in the process. And new injuries. Ouch.

Listening recklessly to MIA, David Byrne, Bjork, Talib Kweli, and various oldie-but-goodie Bollywood and UK hits.

Waking up just in time to make it out of my door just in time to make it to class not in time at all.

Experimenting with sweaters and jackets because its cold!

Spending a weekend each with my extended family and my lovely parents, most respectively.

Receiving surprise, perfect gifts.

Remembering to get some vinegar to put in the pickle my mom made for me.

Reading one of my narrative pieces at a student art exhibit.

Attending class less, enjoying life more.

Stats | 1 Comment »

They come through TV, books, radio, internet, iPods, certain manifesting circumstances, and other various sundries. I wonder what there is about this place that makes it so different than that place. And I wonder why the lives we traverse are not so immediately forgiven that when someone picks up and goes, they are gone not forever. They are merely responding to the gravity pull of the metropole.

I wonder how we deal with these ripping situations. Where people are ripped out of their lives and into others lives in such a way that it creates a sense of isolation so extreme and perhaps evokes an individualism that cannot be paralleled and likely will never be because as long as metropoles exist, there will be migrants. The kinds of draws we hold, the kinds of concerns we have play under the shadow of these big gravities.

I think there is much more to this than we think and I think there is a lot more to things than that which we would hope it to be. I think living life in the metropole is part of an economic, cultural, social, mental, psychological, and a somewhat sticky and mildly disgusting assimilation. The way it makes us want to leave, physically, from our families, from where we’re from, to something entirely different. The ways our economies bring migrants to LA, Houston, NYC, Chicago, to the cities in between.

The Global North is stockpiling itself with those from the Global South.

But is it in case something happens? Or has it already happened? The wars of political economy that wage miles, years, moments south of where I sit and write so often spell out the thoughts of migrants, that where they were is no longer where they want to be. I make presumptions and assumptions, no doubt, but I feel there’s something here.

The metropole brought someone to the immigrant detention center. He was explaining to me how he came over, what he did to come over to this city of angels. How he paid a coyote twice to come over, how he had worked as a mechanic and then started his own business at his home. He didn’t do anything wrong, got married, had two children, and was then picked up by immigration officials. His glasses were broken, and he had a barber pole colored string that let him keep his glasses functional. I didn’t ask him why he came over, but I guessed, why would anyone wade over miles of mountains and rivers, duck from headlights, keep eyes peeled and ears perked for hours and hours?

So what do people do? How do we deal with the ripping? We just do, as in so many situations. Negotiations happen constantly at braincell, telephone, email, and holding hand speeds. I was struck with the immensity and intensity of the story I heard. He is being held because he wasn’t proper in the eyes of the metropole, he is somehow an odd piece that the metropole’s racist and xenophobic apparatus feels compelled to keep for inspection and then push out, with strings of family still tied to him as he is jettisoned just south. I was in awe of his story and his experiences, he’d been through much more than my life ever probably will – and yet, I’ve been perused, processed, and deemed just fine in the cracked lens of the metropole. I can stay here; he cannot.

The gravity of it all both silences, and angers.

Economics, Immigration, Politic, Race | No Comments »

I really like this video and song by the Avalanches, an Australian band. Their album of the same name, Since I Left You, is one of those albums that I listen to for weeks on end, forget about and fall in love with again. They have one of the most unique sounds I’ve heard in a long time. And the video has some great dance moves – always a plus. Here’s the YouTube link to the video.

Music | No Comments »

I come back from a night out and decide to make some tea and catch up on the news. In the late hour I’m prone to click non-newsy links and so I do and am confronted with the following:

“Pillow Fight in San Francisco!”

Um, OK. I look at the pictures and it was exactly as I feared – hundreds of people bringing pillows out to a public place in SF to do something usually reserved for the privacy of bedrooms across the world. On first brush, I’m mildly disgusted – not only is it a big waste of pillow-related resources but its seems to bespeak of a massive deprivation of intimacy that moves people to spend their evening hitting other people with fluff.

Not to say that its not fun. I’ve participated in many a pillow fight and they are, indeed, quite fun and satisfying.

On second brush, I see that most of the folks in the picture are white. That what reigns in this situation might be an expression of white privilege – the flippant way of creating a hugely public event out of something private signifies the peculiarity of white privilege. It reminds me of cuddle parties, where people pay to cuddle with each other in private spaces, but its become such a phenomena, that it speaks of putting things public.

And to boot, this event happens on Valentine’s Day. Is it a singles event? I wonder whether one could find their soulmate after smacking their face with white goose down. Does love strike on first fluff smack?

Uncategorized | No Comments »

I realize that most of the time when I write on my blog, its about experiences I’ve had and the few peculiarities that make those experiences worth writing about. I read something, usually in English, and comment on it. Something happens to me, or I do something, and I record the result in my head until it feels worthy enough to spill out into this strange medium.

I write in English. I read in English. I mostly think in English. I have dreams in English. But when I listen to something in Hindi (my first language), when I read or write something in Hindi, or when a thought only makes sense in Hindi, I feel a little something different. Like when I speak to my parents or friends in Hindi, theres a piece of beautiful I’m tapping into.

As if my indigenous tongue’s platonic qualities are tied to deep meaning, connection, livelihood, memory. Hindi’s an old language, no doubt, but I’m not talking about rendering it exotic. I’m talking about what it means to me, that the language is tied to family, of times growing up and on the phone – a world with which I am intimately familiar. And which is made apparent to me almost every time I open my mouth and sound out an English with a slight southern twang.

One time, when I was in India and I was about 15, I was riding on the waves of a perky mind that picked up Hindi in a snap. I was speaking in Hindi, cracking jokes in Hindi, thinking in Hindi. Upon coming back to the states, I started reminiscing of times traveling long distances in dusty Marutis with drivers with working-class roots and cousins who loved to sing. And when I did, the conversations I remembered fondly were transformed into English; those long conversations had mutated upon stepping off the jet. It was the strangest thing, and it was the first time I realized how easy I could switch between languages, how this balancing, juggling act would remain with me the rest of my life.

I sometimes regret not studying more of Hindi. Nowadays, I listen to as much Hindi/Urdu as I can, I try to read Hindi when I remember. But to be honest, I don’t speak it as much as I’d like, and the more I continue this way, the more it’ll keep reminding me of a distant, uncurrent past.

Language, Politic | No Comments »