Dysfunctional American System

While the arguments put forth by Jeffrey Simpson and Margaret Wente in the Globe and Mail (July 30, 2011) are beyond dispute, I am surprised that no commentator ever points out the basic reason for dysfunction in the US political system. Because one-third of the House and the Senate members are due for election every two years, one-third of the lawmakers are always fighting either the Primary race or the election itself. These candidates are in no shape to support unpopular decisions no matter how important these are to the country. That is why there are never any meaningful cuts in expenditures and no increase in taxes. Add absence of party discipline to the mix, you have the recipe for the disaster the country is facing now and has little chance of avoiding.

In any event, the economies in the West are suffering, not from shortage of any thing, but from over indulgence. The economic system demands growth every month at every level. This is simply not sustainable on a planet with seven billion humans demanding more and more of resources and emitting more and more pollution. I suggest that the limit has been reached in the West and expecting continuous increase in consumption by overfed, overdressed, overentertained citizens is living in the sixties. What is needed, and soon, is a new economic model, one based on shrinking population and reducing or stable consumption. In this system, stores will stress best quality, not the lowest price; job satisfaction is valued much more than fat salary checks and bonuses; individual craft is appreciated rather than the efficiency of manufacturing on a vast scale and simple living is prized, not ostentatious palaces and cars. One can only hope that the planet does not have to die and be reborn for such utopean changes and these can occur without the armageddon promised in the scriptures. I am afraid the current trends do not lend credence to such hopes.

Eva’s Aria and Quintet from Die Meistersinger

Wagner wrote 13 operas which are parodied even by the legions of their admirers for almost everyone dying just before the final curtain comes down. But the death of heroes and villains wasn’t enough, in the last scene of seventeen hour drama “The Ring Cycle”, the whole world is flooded and the Heaven burnt down albeit to be born again. He did write one comedy if only to show that his genius was well-rounded. No one dies in Die Maestersinger von Nurnberg, although Beckmesser probably wished that he had at the end. The lovers unite against all odds, old shoemaker poet is celebrated by the populace and he in turn exhorts every one to work for the glory of Art because, after all is said and done, it is Art that brings lasting glory to a nation.

Eva and Count Walther fall in love within a few minutes of the First Act. But to win Eva Walther must conquer his opposition, particularly the town clerk Beckmesser in a song contest. So he must first learn to write poetry and then how to sing it. Hans Sachs, the shoemaker poet much respected in Nuremberg, is fond of Eva who is the daughter of his friend and neighbour, Pogner. Sachs promises to help Walther and assigns his apprentice David the job of teaching him. David himself is in love with Eva’s maid Magdalene but he can only marry her after he qualifies as a craftsman. After the turmoil of second act, there is certain despondency in the third act till towards the middle of this very long act, longer than most operas, Walther completes his poem to Sachs’ satisfaction and every one can feel hopeful. This is when Wagner presents his most wonderful music in the form of a short aria by Eva in praise of the song crafted by Walther “As blissfully as the sun of my happiness laughs, a morning full of joy blessedly awakens for me; dream of highest joys, heavenly morning glow;……” And then others join her in ones and twos “A melody tender and noble ought to succeed propitiously ……..” for a heavenly quintet with musical accompaniment unmatched in classical music.

Somerset Maugham named Die Maestersinger as the greatest of all operas and the quintet the pinnacle of musical achievement. Music is a matter of personal taste and mood; and it follows that others have their own favourites. There are days when I would rather listen to one of the duets from Die Walkure, Siegfried and Aida, Isolde’s Liebestod, last few minutes from Gotterdammerung, last verse of Das Lied von der Erde, Beethoven’s last quartet, Goldberg variations, the list is long. But if I were allowed to take just one short piece of music with me to heaven or hell wherever I am destined to go, it will be the Quintet from Die Maestersinger if only because it is a celebration of impossible becoming possible by disciplined hard work under able guidance.



Canadian Corn:

A Canadian edition of Ann Patchett’s novel “State of Wonder” is in the works. It will be called “Province of Wonder”.

A Sweet Repartee

It had rained all night and the morning was cold and wet even at the height of summer in mid July. But the sun came out at noon and dried the grass and trees. On this bright and pleasant afternoon, a happily married rather middle-aged couple was dressing for a lawn party in the Indian community. Ravi had put on tight white trousers and a brown shirt down to his knees, both of handspun cotton which was very fashionable among immigrants from his part of India, while Monica was wrapping a light blue silk sari with gold border around her tall, trim figure. Monica had all the jewellery lined up on the dressing table and, for once, it was Ravi who didn’t know what to wear to complete his attire. He had to shield his bald head from the sun but Monica wouldn’t let him use any of his fashionable hats, baseball cap or the Tilley sun hat, “you would look like a buffoon’, she said. Only recourse was the cap his sister had sent from India a few years ago for the occasions such as this when he wore an Indian outfit. However, it was much too tight to stay on and there was no reason to think it would fit after resting for a few years on the top shelf of the wardrobe. But Monica was firm and Ravi tried it. Lo and behold it fitted, a little loose if anything. “Did you do something to stretch it or my head has shrunk over last few years?” he asked Monica half in jest.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if it is your head - with that growing vacuum in there,” Monica replied with a smile.
“You are saying I am losing my brain,” Ravi protested.
“Yes, but only because I know it wouldn’t hurt your feelings,” Monica tried to soothe her husband.
“Now I have lost my heart as well as the head. Where will it all end?” Ravi was really down in the mouth.
“Oh dear! How you misunderstand. I did not say you have lost your brain or did not have a heart, only implied that they may be the wrong place,” Monica made another effort to calm Ravi.
“Perhaps in my big feet. Or in the knees. That is why I have trouble in running to catch the bus,” Ravi was sarcastic.
“More likely around the ever expanding waistline. You could accommodate an Einstein’s brain and Mother Teresa’s heart there,” Monica didn’t give up easily.
“OK I take the hint. This waistline has to shrink so the brain and heart can move back to their proper places. No beer, no pies for dessert, no fatty foods, no Indian dinners after tonight,” Ravi got carried away as usual.
“Hooray for you. I will join you and do the same,” Monica was supportive.
“Even if you don’t need to. That is indeed a sacrifice. And all for the love of a short, fat, bald, brownie! I always thought I married an angel. In truth I married a twogel, two angels in one” Ravi acknowledged and gave Monica a tight hug and a long kiss.

A short goodbye

Monica was going away on a cruise with her book club. The group of twenty academics planned an annual two-week cruise to fancy places; Baltic coast, Central America, Eastern Europe, Mediterranean islands, you name it. They hardly had time to relish the glorious scenery surrounding them although they did enjoy four very square meals served in elegant dining rooms and returned a little rounder, let me not be rude and say less skinny, than when they boarded the ship. The time they didn’t spend in the dining room was spent in the library of the ship. The club chose a topic for each cruise, this time it was Nineteenth century English literature. Before each cruise the members read the books from a long list containing sometimes ten, other times twenty titles. Each day on the ship they chose one and discussed its fine points till everyone was exhausted. It had often been suggested that they record the discussions for future generations but the general feeling was that this would put a damper on free expression of opinions, particularly by members of the shy sex.

This year the cruise was going to Alaska. Ravi went to Vancouver to see Monica off and to make sure that all her cases including the box of novels by Dickens, Carroll and Thackeray, criticisms by Ruskin and poems of Hopkins among others were properly loaded. After checking in a modest hotel on Saturday afternoon and playing tourist in the evening, they got to bed late but Monica was not at all sleepy. Who knows whether it was the anxiety before a long trip or the coffee that she had after dinner not having been the decaf she had asked for. After tossing and turning for a while she sat up straight and asked, “Where is my camera? I am sure I left in the restaurant.”

Ravi got up to look for it. It was not on the table, not in the suitcase lying open on the floor and not in the pocket of clothes they wore that evening. Just when he opened the phone book to find the phone number of the Greek restaurant where they had excellent Moussaka, Meat Balls and salad followed by heavenly baklava and the treacherous coffee, he noticed something peeping out of her shoes lying next to the case. There it was, the digital camera she had bought for Ravi a few months ago.

Ravi fell back in the bed, adjusted his pillow, pulled up the covers and closed his eyes. But closing the eyes is easy; going to sleep is another matter when you had stuffed yourself with spicy food. Not only that, Ravi was responsible for the important job of making coffee before waking Monica up with a steaming cup. Although he didn’t need to be awake till nearly eight, the weight on his shoulders was heavy and it did not slide off even though he was lying down. He opened his eyes every few minutes, looked at the clock on the side table and closed them again. He noticed the snoring on his left but it did not bother him, he was used to it. At long last it was 04:07 on the clock. He got up, went to the bath room and fell back in bed really tired. Now there were two people snoring a little out of synch and totally oblivious of the modern music they were creating.

Ravi woke up in shock. The clock showed 8:49 and there was no sound on his left. He was relieved to see Monica stretched out with a blissful smile, dreaming perhaps of the great arguments she would present to her gathering. He got out of bed quietly, poured water in the Coffee Mate and brushed his teeth while it was gurgling. At 9:01 he presented a steaming cup to half awake Monica.

They finalized the packing, she for the ship and he for the trip home. After a leisurely breakfast of poached eggs, yellow not green, and ham with toast saturated with butter and the cold coffee restaurants serve with breakfast, they loaded their stuff in the car and headed for the port. Most of Monica’s group was already there chatting gaily in a cluster. Someone asked Ravi why he wasn’t joining them. “English is my second language; I learnt it late in life. Cricket is my thing. Somehow literature never caught my fancy. I do think that my presence on the ship would have distracted Monica. That is why I offered to stay behind and look after the dogs and Monica kindly agreed.”

The reply seemed to satisfy them and the conversation moved to more interesting topics like weather forecast for next two weeks. Soon the ship hooted three times and passengers moved towards the loading planks. Ravi watched Monica chatting with Kate, the cofounder of the club as she boarded the ship. On the deck she turned towards him and waved. Ravi blew the kiss, in fact two kisses, and walked back to the parking lot. In a few minutes he was on the highway. With a Sousa march on his lips Ravi set the cruise control just when the ship had made its way out of the harbour.


Breaking the Law

It was past our usual time for dinner and the tummies were protesting. We were still about half an hour away from home and an hour away from dinner, assuming it would take Monica a while to throw something on the pan and then on the plates. No wonder I took my eyes off the speedometer. Soon I was wishing I hadn’t. A tall slim figure in a police uniform moved to the middle of my lane and flagged me to stop. When I opened the window, he bent down and spoke humbly but in a tone assumed by men in control, “Sir, you were exceeding the speed limit by forty kilometers an hour.”
“That fast! I am sorry officer. I am not generally so heavy footed.”
“Yes, that foot will cost you a lot,” he replied flipping open the notepad and then added while taking the cap off the pen, “One hundred and seventy nine dollars to be exact.”
“Plus GST, I suspect,” I said.
“Thank your lucky stars there is no GST on traffic fines. Can I see your driver’s license and car registration please?” He stretched his open hand towards me.
“There goes my wife’s birthday celebration. Now she will have to cook for her own fortieth dinner,” I said to the car whistling by behind him.
“I suggest you barbecue a steak for her and serve it with peas and baked potatoes and a fine red wine. She will appreciate that more than a restaurant.” He was sure good at out of this world suggestions.
“No she won’t. Last time I cooked she said never again and she has stuck to it. That was twenty years ago,” I was almost down to a whimper.
“I don’t believe it. Not in twenty first century,” the doubting officer looked straight in my pleading eye.
“Ask her. She is right here on the passenger seat,” I countered.
“Is he right madam?” The officer asked looking through me.
Monica vigorously nodded to confirm last part of the story. She looked sad as any one would who had the visions of cooking spaghetti and meatballs on her birthday while her husband watched old hockey reruns on the Sports Channel. The officer folded the pad and put it back in his pocket. His officious tone now assumed a gentle quality, “I will let you off this time with a warning sir. Be careful please. There are some more of us down the road who may not be as considerate.

I thanked the officer for his kindness, promised to drink to his health at our celebration and drove off, slowly at first and then just above the speed limit. We did see two other police cars but they were busy with crazies who, for some strange reason, can’t stay within the law.

This was not the first time I had tried this trick. It is amazing how often it works. Impressions to the contrary, not all law enforcement officers have hearts of stone.

What is Behind Mumbai Massacres?

We live in a time when hardly a day goes by without some terrorist mayhem somewhere. Still, the news of three simultaneous bomb explosions in busy markets of Mumbai which killed at least 21 people and injured hundreds more was deeply disturbing. It is not the number of casualties that is worrisome, more than that number die and are hurt in traffic accidents every day in that city, it is the inhuman nature and apparent futility of the acts. Why would any group of sane persons spend time planning and then commission their colleagues to give their lives in executing operations that kill and maim a large number of innocent civilians of all social and religious backgrounds including their own? What do they hope to achieve by inflicting such damage?

Three massacres in 2008 in the same city were worse. They killed hundreds of people including foreign tourists, damaged a major hotel and a Jewish centre and lasted three days. But they did not frighten the government of India into conceding Kashmir to Pakistan. If the idea was to cause communal disturbances in India, it failed too. They did not incite Hindus into revenge killings of Muslims although some extremist Hindus must have had hard time resisting the temptation. There was no report of any Hindu boss dismissing his Muslim employees nor did any Hindu change his faith out of fear of being murdered. Therefore, assuming that the planners have some ability to reason, it is fair to think that the terror was not inflicted to frighten India or to cause communal rift there. It seems to me that the only idea behind this carnage was to bring recently resumed peace talks between the two countries to a halt. If the talks succeed, and that is a big if, and the peace between the two countries were to hold, it could lead to a shift of massive expenditures from military complex to industrial development, more trade between the two countries and possibly a reduction in gaping difference in the level of economies of India and Pakistan. In such environment it could occur to the leadership of Pakistan that they would be better off in a federation with secular India, after all more Muslims live in India than in Pakistan and generally in less poverty and have better education and medical services. This could, with some luck, lead to eventual reunification of the two countries. It is not difficult to imagine that there are agencies in Pakistan whose existence is entirely dependant on the friction between the two countries; the army, intelligence services and misguided organizations like Lashkar–e-Taiba who covertly work with defense services. I suggest that it is not the ordinary religious fundamentalists who support the perpetrators of this carnage, leave alone organize them, but the leaders of these groups who use religion as a shield. After all there are many Islamic teaching institutions in India which cover a broad spectrum of fanaticism about religion but who also promote patriotism towards India in their followers. Some of these achieve great success and positions of leadership in all fields of endeavour. For example, India’s leading woman tennis player is a Muslim and India has had two Presidents of that faith. It is possible, albeit remotely, that foreign countries who have interest in promoting conflict between the two neighbours have supported the terrorist groups.

Given the politics in that country, it was an act of courage for the government of Pakistan to promptly condemn these acts. It should go further and find the guilty parties rather than shielding them as they did in 2008. However, howsoever much we may hope, there is no reason to believe that the political leadership is strong enough to take on the army. Therein lies the tragedy of Pakistan, past, present and the near future.

The Royal Visit

If you were to believe the hype in our media, Canadians have been mesmerized by the visit of newly married Will and Kate. The pictures of the handsome couple are everywhere often flanked by our beloved Prime Minister and his devoted wife whom all Canadians adore. I look at the two couples and wonder whether our tax money is being spent like water to celebrate the British monarchy or to promote our glorious leader even though the election is four years away.

If raising the profile of monarchy among Canadians of non-British heritage were the goal, I would have thought that the Governor-General would be playing the role of the host of the future monarch of little he surveys and even less he would be able to assert. What else is the G-G there for than for such ceremonial duties? The only time I heard the Governor-General mentioned in public was when he delivered the speech from the throne, a speech written by the Prime Minister and it seemed from the delivery not even read by the G-G before he delivered it to the parliament. If that is the only function expected of this august position, what is wrong with the Prime Minister assuming the throne for the afternoon and reading it himself? Why not abolish the office altogether and reduce the deficit which seems to haunt this government so much rather than cut essential services or further raise admission fees to the National Parks.

While talking about abolishing a high office which the modern practices have made superfluous, why not do away with the Senate too. Why have a hundred highly paid failed politicians and cronies of the Prime Minister, their staff, the travel expenses, Senate chamber and other paraphernalia just to rubber stamp every bill passed by his government? Let’s move with the times and get rid off both these expensive hangovers from the twentieth century and balance the budget before we go the way of the great trading partner and only world super power to the south where schools are closed every few weeks because there is no money to pay the teachers for the whole month and nation’s government is teetering on the edge because no one has the power to make necessary decisions.

Why stop at the senate when all that the honourable members of the Parliament do is to scream at each other to make an impression on the TV which no one watches and after all that fuss decide what the Prime Minister, hallowed be his name in every home as it is in the ‘House’, has instructed his members to do. We may just as well eliminate the House of Commons as well along with the G-G and the Senate. Just think how much money Canada will save if we did not have all these diversions - not only in what it costs directly but what the government has to spend to make sure that the leader gets the exposure he does not deserve on hugely expensive events like G20 meetings and yes, the visit of a young couple floating in vast inherited wealth and who do not really know what to do with their time other than waving to the adoring crowds in their fancy uniforms and designer dresses.

An Evening with Art Lovers

It was raining hard and quite cool for June, Yet, the evening was memorable at so many levels. A former chairman of the board of Calgary Opera invited us and another couple for dinner at their palatial home. One half of the other guest couple was a former senior executive of a large bank and a colleague of the hostess on the opera board. What I was doing in this distinguished gathering is not such a mystery; my wife is a well-known physician, a supporter of arts and a wonderful company. Obviously my presence was not a large enough negative in this instance as it often is.

The cocktails and hors de oeuvres were excellent and dinner was superb. But they could not match the brilliance of conversation. Our normal dinner companions talk of nothing but the families, as indeed we do with them. However, the families were not mentioned on this occasion even in passing. It was all about the exotic places in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, books about the travel and Arts, lamentation on how television and movies have descended to the nadir to cater to the lowest common denominator; and finally about the hardship opera companies were facing all over North America. Not being an artist and only superficially interested in Arts and Literature I found this far above my comprehension but I have learnt that silence and occasional nod can keep me from being noticed, it can even create a favourable impression. Good conversation is the art of listening to others without interruption, whether it makes sense or not and making your contribution when appropriate. With five people around the table carrying their share of this burden so admirably my presence was really of no account. Perhaps they did not have any expectations being well aware of my ignorance in the matters of culture, not to say social inaptitude in elevated circles.

During a discussion on the impact of HDTV transmission of performances from Metropolitan Opera in New York a suggestion was made that this may be the final nail in the coffin of opera companies in smaller centres. Why would any one pay a hundred dollars for a relatively mediocre performance of one of the ten operas presented by these companies routinely when they could choose from a wide variety on offer with top artists and world’s best orchestra on the screen as wide as the opera stage for ten dollars? Looking not so far into the future, how long will these transmissions be patronized and when will the death knell of major operas ring are questions related to a larger question: Is the all consuming passion with social media and absorption with personal lives of media celebrities rather than with their real artistic achievements coupled with absolute neglect of classical music in school systems an harbinger of the death of music and opera as art forms when the current generation passes the torch to the next one? Coward that I am, I did not raise this issue although it crossed my mind. It may also be my tact, although I am not known for having any sense of it, more so the realization that devoted supporters of Arts are not ready to face the eventuality of such a tragedy yet, which, if I may be so bold, or foolish depending on your opinion of me, makes this all the more likely.