Three Easy Pieces

A Street Crossing

17th Avenue South runs from prairie farms in the east to rolling foothills in the west across the city of Calgary. Except for a small detour round the Stampede Park it is as straight as any arrow shot by Robin Hood. It goes through industrial parks, residential colonies of immigrants from developing countries, some more now upscale industrial park and office buildings to enter the fringe of downtown where it has fashionable boutiques, restaurants and services for the rich and famous living in Mount Royal to the south. West of this elite span of a few blocks there are fast food restaurants and one of the busiest crossings in the city with 14th street West. It is at this crossing that I noticed the strangest combination of stores. On the northwest corner there is a massive used books store which is doing a brisk business even when buying books seems to have gone out of fashion. Across 14th street in the north there is a drug store. A large music store in the southeast corner has all kinds of paraphernalia for youth bands attractively displayed in the window. But it is the building in the southwest corner with a unique combination of three stores that drew my attention the other day on my way to an opera rehearsal.

The building is old and dilapidated, waiting to be bought by a developer, torn down and replaced by an office or a condo tower. It currently houses an elegant and popular Indian restaurant at the back. On the front, you enter a chocolaterie through a revolving corner door. It is bright and very well furnished with elegantly attired servers and has sparkling windows and an attractive signage. Next to it is a rather unpretentious and dimly lit store with a fading sign “Smoke Shop”. It is where you go to buy rolling tobacco, pipe filters and hookah supplies. It is the third shop which makes the combination amusing and the crossing unique. The sign, again faded and hard to read, says “Health Food Store and Vitamins”. The entrance and windows could do with a cleaning job and the door is uninviting. All the same, it has what you need to recoup your strength after chocolates and smoke have depleted your body so you can return the next day to repeat the cycle of a quick visit to one of the nearby hamburger joints, enjoying a variety of mouth watering chocolates, satisfying draws of the pipe and health and chewing spirit reviving nuts and vitamins. If after all this pampering you still feel a little down hearted, cross the street to the used book store and pick up a work of your favourite author for a couple of dollars. Still down in the mouth! Cross the street once more and enter the drug store; the pharmacist there may have just the pill for you. Not happy yet? My dear friend you are in the wrong area of the city unless you want to start a band to compose and sing mournful songs with a group of teenagers.

Wretchedness Shared

“If we didn’t have our history you would be the ideal person for me to marry,” David said to Susan in one of his rare tender moments. However, tenderness does not always beget tenderness and Susan merely smiled in response, not the beautiful sparkling smile she was famous for, but a forced smile that wouldn’t fool even a doting husband. What went through her mind was just the opposite, “If I weren’t married to you already, whatever the history, I wouldn’t get within a hundred miles of you.”

This is typical of the frequent exchanges between long married couples. They married decades ago with their own dreams and expectations, rarely in harmony. They do not have the same level of tolerance for each other’s foibles and certainly not for the other’s temper tantrums and snappy answers while under physical and mental stress. They look at their past in different light and would like to spend any remaining good years of their life doing different things. This is a modern day problem; in the days gone by it was rare for both to survive till their old age. It is a strange quirk of human nature that we remember only the good things about the departed souls and only the bad deeds of those living with us. Our parents and grandparents could spend their old age lamenting the passing of their partners of whom they had nothing but the fondest memories. The long lasting couples of today only remember the grievances caused by the other; pleasant events are the things of the past and long forgotten. They have to live with each other and their bitter memories; reminding the other of their misdeeds relieves the pain but only momentarily.

The sages have said in many different ways that only purpose in life is to make the people around you feel better than they would without you. You can not do this if you store in your memory bank the past sins committed against you which crowd out the pleasant events. You must feel good enough in yourself to make others feel better in your presence and this will only happen if you forgive others the harm they did to you regardless of their intentions and remember only the kindnesses bestowed on you. It is contrary to normal human tendency and therefore very hard to do. If happiness came by without much effort there would not be so much misery in the world. But it is not impossible. There are fortunate couples who achieve this state of nirvana. Unfortunately, the survivor of these couples finds the solitary life empty and does not live long alone.

Why Women Need Men

As a man who fathered three very accomplished women, I see no real reason why, in this age of free sex and birth control, a woman would wish to have an albatross round her neck as most men, including myself, tend to be. There have to be some deep-seated needs. Two – one physical and one emotional – come to mind.

First the physical need: the old saw - you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them - is how most women see men. They are demanding, they think they bring the bacon and they can tell their woman how to cook it even when they can’t cook and worse still when the wife earns more. They watch every cent spent by women and throw away dollars themselves. Yet, women need them to lift and move heavy items, paint the ceiling, dig out the roots, you get the idea. Even for a woman with the smarts to earn and manage family money and look after most essentials, there are jobs that need muscle and it is more convenient to have it around than to hire one who arrives at inconvenient times and costs a bundle. Help in disciplining the kids is a bonus.

Second the emotional need: Many women are masochists; they need an in-house agent to make them feel inadequate, even outright incompetent by his constant niggling and who makes them downright miserable. The other side of the coin is the sadist women, rather rare among my acquaintances, who need some one around to make him feel absolutely in the pits by reminding him of his real and imagined shortcomings and past misdeeds, by correcting his errors pointedly and giving snappy answers to innocent queries. This applies equally to men and relationship works wonderfully when the partners compliment, no pun intended, each other.

If you study the Creation you will note that Adam lived by himself for a long time before Eve arrived on the scene. She realized straight away that she had to make herself indispensable to Adam who was perhaps used to his solitude and may even have loved it. It is a great compliment to Eve that she worked hard and succeeded against heavy odds. Since then women of every generation have struggled to be appreciated by men to a varying degree. On the other hand, Adam never had to make efforts to be wanted by Eve. Indeed, it was her work and skills that kept them together. Times have not really changed. It is the mothers whose efforts keep the men from straying and hold the families together today as they have from the day Eve was created from Adam’s rib.

A Date to Forget

It was the eleventh anniversary of Shalini’s death and I was feeling forlorn. We had wonderful fifteen years together before Cancer took her away. Our daughter was now a postgraduate student and living with her boyfriend thousands of kilometers from home. Mine was a sad lonely life and it was depressing to be in a room full of men and women chattering away gaily. I was starting to be sorry for having accepted the invitation to this party to celebrate the birthday of my old friend Howard’s young wife.

I was straining the solitary neuron circling my brain for a good excuse to leave when a head with shiny blonde hair popped in the view. The face was bleached white with a small nose, almond shaped pale blue eyes with thick mascara, thin lips with a thick layer of dark lipstick and a protruding chin. It made an altogether pleasant impression to the eye. I was pleased to see the tall owner of the head moving towards me with a glass of champagne in her right hand. The name tag on the lapel of her smart dark grey business suit said Debbie – just that and no surname- in big bold capital letters. We exchanged pleasantries and after some small talk got in a heated discussion about modern classical music. Debbie admired John Cage and Phillip Glass while I stated that they stopped composing music after Webern was shot dead by an American soldier in Vienna. Just as the discussion was turning nasty the dinner was announced and the battle of words did not become a full-scale war.

We separated for the dinner but accidentally met again over coffee. I told Debbie of my status as a widower who lived alone in a modest bungalow in an area that was once fashionable and Debbie told me that she was in the middle of a divorce which was turning ugly. “Imagine having me followed by the private detectives, would you have ever done that?” She protested.
“Of course not, not even if there was foul play. You have to trust each other in an intimate relationship. When you stop doing that, it is over.”
“You hit the nail on the head.”
“Thank you, usually I hit on the thumb.”
“You do have a great sense of humour for a fan of Webern. We should get together and come to know each other a bit better.”
“I can’t wait. How is next Friday for you?”
“Great, I will switch my current appointment and we will meet at Lion’s Den at seven.”
I gulped. Lion’s Den was a notoriously expensive restaurant where the mighty met to decide the fate of global corporations. But one can’t back out after making so much progress with someone who could be an answer to his prayers. “I will make the reservation. Will you like me to pick you up?”
“I don’t know where I will be that afternoon. We will meet at the Den. Don’t be late. I hate waiting, even for a desirable guy like you.”
We parted company. “Debbie is delighted, perhaps at the prospect of an expensive dinner with matching wines” I thought cynically. Frankly, I was not quite sure about what I was getting in to.

I had the blue suit and the red tie cleaned, pale blue shirt washed and hair trimmed. I sneaked out of the office early, had the car washed on the outside and vacuumed on the inside. After resting for an hour, I shaved, showered and dressed. It was just past six thirty when I passed between two life-sized lions, one male and one female, guarding the entrance to the Den. The maitre d’, a middle-aged man in tuxedo, his receding shiny black hair in a pony tail, greeted me with an ingratiating smile and led me to a corner table with two red roses in a vase. I ordered a dry sherry to help me meditate on nothing in particular while waiting for my first date in twenty five years.

Time went slowly, sherry faster. Eventually it was seven, then seven thirty. I was wondering what I should do. We had exchanged a lot of words but not the phone numbers. I had two options; wait longer or have a bowl of soup, tip big and leave. I pulled a loonie out of the side pocket to flip but quickly put it back. I heard the voice I had been waiting for. I looked up. It was indeed Debbie, engrossed in a serious conversation on the cell phone, walking towards me two steps behind the maitre d’. She wore a green silk dress, obviously custom made, and a necklace with a huge sapphire to draw attention to the prominent cleavage. She nodded without the slightest interruption in her speech and sat down. She pointed to my sherry for the benefit of the host and soon was sipping elegantly while listening to the other party. She scribbled a note telling me to order consommé and fish for her with an old vintage red wine. I followed instructions, as is my habit, picking salmon for her and a rare venison steak for myself. A look at the wine list made it clear that the lions don’t go for moderately priced wines. I did what I could to pick a bottle which won’t exceed my credit limit and still please my guest.

Debbie spooned the consommé into her pretty mouth when her ear was occupied instead of her mouth without letting it cool too much. I marveled at her expertise in handling the conversation. She was obviously negotiating with her soon-to-be-ex on the separation deal. One minute she was gentle, next minute firm, sometimes pleading other times ordering. The conversation did not seem to be getting anywhere and neither party was willing to give up. However, there seemed to have been some progress when Peach Melba and cappuccino arrived. With the last sip of her drink her face lit up in a broad smile, “So we are agreed: allowance of a hundred thousand on the first of every month till I am sixty, I keep the car and the house and you pick up all legal fees. I will leave it with you to get the lawyers to draw up the papers,” she clicked of. “Thanks for being so patient. He agreed to a reasonable settlement only after I threatened to send his intimate pictures with Ottawa prostitutes to the media. Thank God it is over. We can settle down to a fun evening now that the dirty business is done.”

I gave her my address and simple instructions on how to get there. She left saying, “I have to make a quick call.” I tipped ten percent instead of my usual twenty and slipped out without tipping the maitre d’. His glare did not bother me much; I did not intend to return any time soon. Just to make sure I could provide Debbie the fun she wanted, I unwrapped a pill and popped it in my mouth.

When I got home Debbie was waiting next to her car, a recent model import. She was on – you guessed it- her cell talking animatedly. I opened the door and turned on the lights. I led her to the living room and poured two snifters of brandy. She sniffed expertly while holding phone next to her year in her left hand. When I picked up the bottle to refill her glass she raised her free hand and mumbled, “Take me where we can rest in comfort.” I understood this to mean the bedroom. Fortunately, it was the day of maid service and the bed was not messed up as it usually is. I held her free hand and we went up the stairs. She expertly managed to get most of her clothes off without any break in conversation. Then she slid under the covers to my left.

I picked up “Isolde’s Dream”, a collection of my favourite stories, but she did not take the hint. It must have been half an hour and I was starting to doze off when I heard, “Thanks for putting up with me dear, we will keep in touch.” Suddenly wide awake I dropped the book and turned towards her with a smile. “It was Monica, my bosom friend. I had to share the good news with her,” she told me. Then the wretched phone burst into some awful tune, John Cage playing food blender perhaps. She looked at it, “Oh! It is the lawyer. I must talk to him. I will be quick, I promise.”

From her explosive reaction to lawyer’s initial words it became clear that all was not well in Debbie’s world. I covered my ears to protect them from swear words in several languages and to keep my mind as pure as my intentions were. From what filtered through my fingers I guessed that the soon-to-be-ex had reneged and was going to court to stop the publication of pictures. I turned to face the wall and closed my eyes as well. It did not take long before I was in another world oblivious of the torrent of words from Debbie and a few bits of advice from the lawyer whenever he got a chance.

I woke up with a start when I heard what sounded like the front door of the house being shut. The side lamp was on but the space next to me was empty and Debbie’s clothes were gone. I rushed to the window and raised the blind. I saw the import back out of the driveway and shoot off. If I were wider awake I would have understood Debbie’s frustration at my falling asleep and depriving her of the ‘fun’ she was so looking forward to. Instead, I must admit to my preoccupation at that moment with my own disappointment for missing it, though I was relieved to see an end to the infernal cell phone. I went back to bed and the sleep of the just.

I got up at my usual hour, glanced at the headlines, made scrambled egg for breakfast and enjoyed a cup of Kona coffee. Saturday is the grocery day and it was time to head to the farmers’ market. I found my keys but wallet was gone from the suit pocket. Where could it be? There was only one possibility and it explained why Debbie left in such a rush. Although no one likes being made a fool of, I did feel rather sorry for her. A few dollars in cash and a near the limit credit card were poor compensation for the most agreeable settlement slipping through those long fingers with perfectly polished nails.

Lesson of Federal Election: One Party on the Centre Left.

The election results may be a disappointment to a majority of Canadians who tend to be a little left of centre on the political spectrum. Once again, the Conservative party with strong capitalist views and a manipulative self-indulgent leader was returned with 40% of the votes, not much more than in the past few elections but with many more seats, because New Democrats with their charismatic leader and Liberals with an academic with no sense of political leadership split the votes of socially inclined voters allowing Tories to win several seats in close triangular contests. Apart from the emergence of a government with a clear majority after three minority governments, there are two other results which have long term consequences. Annihilation of Bloc Quebecois by NDP in Quebec means that the parties in the House of Commons can now truly work for all Canadians rather than be diverted by regional interests of a party focused on the perceived interest of the French speaking Canadians. However, this hope will only be realized if the residents of Quebec have truly moved away from separation mania and hand over a crushing defeat to Party Quebecois in the next provincial elections. If the provincial Liberals are weakened by the defeat of their federal brethren and PQ wins the provincial election, any federalist advantage gained from this election will be neutralized.

Now that he has a comfortable majority and a pliant caucus, Mr. Harper can rule with dignity without resorting to undemocratic practices of his minority days and can be honest with the Parliament and the Canadians. He can concentrate on what he wants to achieve without constantly focusing on keeping the opposition divided. This can only bring glad tidings to Canadians whatever the tinge of their political beliefs.

Even for diehard opponents of Conservatives there may be a silver lining in the dark clouds of Harper government which will last at least four years. This will give them time to reorganize and consider their options. Perhaps they can learn from the experience of their opponents. It was not all that long ago when a right wing split into newly minted Reform with its slogan of “West wants in” from the then ruling party resulted in the decimation of Conservatives, down from a majority government to two seats. Two elections later Reform party absorbed the Conservatives, adopted the established name of the vanquished and, with an agenda somewhere in the middle of the two parties, won the election and formed a minority government. While this election has not decimated the Liberals, it has reduced them to an ineffective third party with only 33 seats and given left of centre NDP a big boost, returning more than a hundred members in the new parliament.. As a result the erstwhile minor NDP is the party of opposition and the traditional governing party of Canada has been reduced to a minor role. It is a very similar situation that Mr. Harper faced as the leader of Canadian Alliance.

Many Canadians with socialist leanings now hope that the two opposition parties who shared the votes of 55% Canadians will have the sense to learn from Mr. Harper and Mr. Mackay and start a process for getting together. The idea is not so outlandish; two of the leaders of the Liberals were NDP premiers of their provinces before switching to Federal Liberals and there is more common ground between the parties than there was in Reform aka Canadian Alliance of Stockwell Day and Conservatives of Joe Clark. The party that emerges from such combination will be slightly to the left, somewhere in between socialist rhetoric of NDP and centrist Liberals. This is also an opportune time because the leader of the NDP is ailing and not far from retirement and Liberals can elect a young and ambitious leader who can mature under an experience mentor. The merger of the two parties, if it does take place, will give Canadians a clear choice between a party with business leanings and one that leans towards the interests of the consumers and the workers. In the meantime, Mr. Harper has a free hand and an opportunity to provide Canadians what they deserve, a good government for all Canadians, not just the one led by the fringe ideologies and the interests of the corporations who donate big bucks to help the reelection campaign and employ the retiring Tory ministers in senior positions.


Decline and Fall of American Empire!

Whether the United States is still a functioning democracy or merely a declining superpower or both is not for me to judge. But one observation can be made without much contest: The middle class that made that country great is shrinking very rapidly, mostly downwards.

Dramatic increase in poverty south of the border is not only financial; it is also intellectual; in level of competence, willingness to work hard, investment in social services and in future benefits like education. It is this all round poverty that should worry us. Financial hardship is merely a symptom of the basic problem; steep decline in a culture of hard work and social conscience that made that country great. Some may even doubt that when the roles are reversed with China, American workers would be able to make for export the likes of cheap and shoddy goods which they have been buying from China for last two decades and which have shifted irrevocably the balance in economy of the two countries.