Uncommon Valour

I hate the common cold. It is debilitating in an insidious, undignified way.

It does not allow you the grandeur that a sporting injury offers. For instance when I fractured my back last year, I could tell a great story. "It's a football injury", I explained to my friends, "I was going for a bicycle kick and mistimed my jump." Whereupon I could tell that they thought my stupidity was hilarious, but my bravery was admirable. (I'm fully recovered, by the way, and back to playing football; or I would be if it were not for a stubbed toe.)

If I came down with malaria or chicken pox people would talk about me with sympathy and concern. They would inquire after my well-being and send me commiserative emails. Some brave souls might even drop by and leave presents of chocolates. These would cheer me up even though I would not be allowed to eat them until after I had recovered.

But I have a cold. And if I try to tell people that I have a cold, they don't want to hear about it. It's a cold after all, and oh-so-common. It's not life-threatening. It's not pneumonia or even the flu. It's just a messy, snuffly, inconvenience.

No it's not! It's a disease!
It causes fever and malaise! I cannot breathe! I cannot sleep!
I should by rights be taking sick leave but through an act of sheer courage I have dragged myself to the office!

Not that anyone cares. Why, just this morning one of my colleagues looked at my morose face with concern and asked me if I was unwell. "Yes," I sniffed in reply, "I hab a gold". She looked at me blankly for a second, deciphered what I had said, and then turned away without a further word. Ah the injustice! I expected her to sympathise with me in a low, concerned tone. I thought she would tell me in her best maternal manner that I should go straight home and tuck myself into bed with a steaming mug of soup. Not a bit of it.

So instead of taking her unoffered advice to rest, I slaved through the day. I desultorily sipped hot water. I ate a sandwich for lunch and wondered what it tasted like. I ran through 2 packets of paper towels and frightened a young financial analyst by loudly clearing my nose in the bathroom (something about the acoustics creates quite a frightful echo).

Thank goodness for antibiotics. I am gleefully nuking the rhinoviruses (rhinovirii?) that have attempted to seize control of my nasal passages. I shall thwart their attempted coup and put them down ruthlessly. The ringleaders will be dealt with mercilessly and even their misguided followers will find no quarter. In this fight to the death the first victim will be mercy. Woe betide the uppity bug who thinks it can take me on.

For in the end I shall prevail, open-nosed, unwatery-eyed, and clear-voiced.

Amen.

Not Yet In Utopia

Last Friday J.K. Rowling announced that Professor Dumbledore was gay. The media pounced on the news in delight. You could almost hear the breathy whispers of excitement at the offices of the Associated Press as they released the news to the world. In quivering voices they told us that the announcement in Carnegie Hall was greeted first with gasps and then with applause. The message was clear - a major fictional character is now gay, and this proves that that homosexuals are now fully integrated into society's mainstream.

Yeah, right.

Let's start with Ms. Rowling's outing of old Dumbledore. Isn't it worth remarking that she waited for him to be safely dead before leading him out of the closet? Dead men tell no tales and sell no books. So whether Dumbledore is straight, gay, or a tree-worshipping bisexual druid makes no difference to Ms. Rowling's royalty stream. Certainly not enough of a difference to be noticed by a woman who is already the wealthiest in Britain. So she need not hesitate to make a whimsical announcement that will amuse a bunch of adolescents and steal headlines in the entertainment section of the weekend newspapers. Yes, I am being cynical about the whole thing. That does not mean I am wrong.

But frankly, it does not matter. In fact, J.K. Rowling deserves credit for keeping Dumbledore interesting even as a corpse, and for doing that without taking any financial risks.

What I find rather daft is the reportage in the media. Do they really belileve that an open declaration of the sexual preferences of a dead supporting character in a fairy tale has anything to do with discrimination in real life? I bet there aren't too many gay men or women who see it that way.

Where is the openly gay head of state, or even the openly gay cabinet member in any country in the world? Where is the openly gay captain of industry? Heck, other than Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova there has not even been an openly gay sporting icon. As far as I can tell it is only in the advertising, fashion and entertainment industries that gays don't have to fear discrimination. Fully integrated into society's mainstream? Don't make me laugh!

Larry Craig is an American senator. He was recently arrested for "disorderly conduct" while allegedly making a pass at an undercover police officer in a toilet. Mr. Craig has been "accused" of being gay since the 1960s, and still feels compelled to declare emphatically "I am not gay". The question is: why should it matter? Why should "I think Larry is gay" be an accusation that, if true, would render him unfit for public office? We still live in a world where the suspicion of being homosexual can destroy a man's career. So if the dead Dumbledore's open homosexuality is sufficient sign of the new revolution then I am a jewel-encrusted parakeet.

One day the media will talk about individuals as individuals, not as type-cast members of a constituency. One day they will be able to report on a U.S. presidential election without ever feeling the need to mention that Senator Obama is bla- (I beg your pardon) African American, or that Senator Clinton is female. One day they will tell us about the ways in which French President Sarkozy's principles were moulded by his mother, instead of telling us that his mother came from a Jewish background.

in the meantime I'll keep reading Harry Potter as a work of fiction rather than as wishful social allegory.

Group Hug!

Wooohaaaa! Living On A Jet Plane got it's first award ever. I could not be more chuffed.

Thanks, Rayshma! It's incredibly satisfying when another writer, whom you enjoy reading, turns around and gives you a pat on the back :-)

Once I got over my initial burst of satisfaction at the award, I got curious about it. I remembered reading a recent post from Y in which she was a bit tentative about being called a schmoozer. And then I came across one from the MadMomma after she got the same award, and which ended with her deciding to delete her blogroll.

With a little help from Google I traced the origin of the Power-of-Schmooze award to Miguel. He's an artist/cartoonist/blogger who lives in New York state. He created the award to recognize bloggers who got noticed, built a reputation, and made new friends.

So Rayshma, by giving me this award, by telling me that some of the words I wrote have made you think, you've paid me an incredible compliment. If that's what schmoozing is about, den gimme some more o' dat hot soup, mama.

So now I'm going to unhesitatingly grab my award with both hands. And after holding on to it briefly I'll pass it on to a couple of people whose writing always brightens up my day.

First up, here's one for you, Unpredictable. I love the way you write straight from the heart.

And take a bow, Punkster. You're a writer of rare intensity, honesty and courage. A lesser person could not have confronted the blog-trolls with your aplomb.

Cheers to the both of you, and keep doing what you do so well!

Slight Return

Much like a poltergeist, I'm baaack!

It's been two and a half weeks since my last post, but somehow it feels like it's been much longer than that. In case you're wondering (yes I know, no one actually asked), I spent most of that time in India. It was a good trip. In fact it was a great trip.

I got to go out into villages in India for the first time in over ten years. It was quite amazing how they have changed. And how they have not. There are cellphones all around now, and more of the buildings are made of brick and plaster. But then the sun starts to drift down to the horizon. The cowherds stroll back home with their animals after a day's grazing. You stand still while the evening breeze drifts past you, redolent with dried cowdung. It's a warm, dusty evening in early October. The young men in the village know that they live in a new world. But as far as the cows can tell, this is how it's always been. I think they are both right.

I also finally got to wipe out the stigma of having lived in Delhi for twenty years without seeing the Taj Mahal. I can't help but state the obvious: it is gorgeous. What really amazed me was that no matter what angle you look at it from, it still looks absolutely symmetrical. When I got up close, I was quite surprised to see how unadorned the Taj was. But I guess that when the structure itself is so perfect, it would be utterly pointless to embellish it any further. When the structure is so perfect, any adornment would only be an imperfection.

If the Taj was the highlight, the lowlight was definitely the sight of men dancing with each other in nightclubs in Delhi and Bombay. And when I say dancing, I really mean grinding. I admit that when I still lived in India I would have not considered it odd to see guys getting up-close and personal on the dance floor. But I'm not used to the sight anymore and now it curls my toes when I see a Balwinder and a Sanjeet getting it on under the strobe lights. I am deeply thankful that when I was growing up I was way too awkward to even consider dancing in public, otherwise I would have been one of them. Excuse me while I throw up into a flowerpot.