My Very Special Birthday Wish
Today I'm writing to celebrate my birthday. But today is not my birthday. It's tomorrow, 25th April.
I'm writing today because tomorrow I won't have any free time. Birthdays here in the U.S. do not wait for a free day (or a day when you can make yourself free), and just like some other days I love to celebrate — such as Durga Puja or Tagore Jubilee — they often fall on a busy day in the middle of the week, and I cannot celebrate them the way I want to.
That's not what I call a free country. (But that's a different story.)
I also want to celebrate those days I love to celebrate with a lot of people and family and friends, and that don't ever happen either.
(But that's a different story too.)
I really love to celebrate my birthday. I've always loved to do it. I've done it in our small, limited-means way both inCalcutta, Kolkata — where I spent the first half of my life when Ma cooked some of the best Indian-Bengali dishes you could ever get anywhere in the world; and then here in the U.S. — where I spent the second half and where my wife cooked some of the best Indian and Bengali dishes you can ever get anywhere in the world. Believe me: I'm not making it up.
So, great food is not a priority no more on my wish list. I've been blessed with great food — homemade and heartfelt — all my life. I seek something else. My mind asks for something more. It's a spiritual yearning.
Perhaps, my very special birthday wish this year is: would you be mine? (Now, I know that's Mr. Rogers cheesy 
This is a very special note at this very special time. I want to smile. I want to chime.
Would you remember today to smile and chime? Mr. Bright? Ms. Bright? (That's also perhaps again not so cheesy, right?
I need to see a lot of smile. I need to hear a lot of laughs. I want to hear a lot of songs. Happiness has been in seriously short supply. Seriously. Recently, it's reached a critically low level.
Yeah, that's it!
My family and friends — especially those who I know deeply care for me — often tell me these days that I have changed slowly but surely from a sprity, forthrighty, frothy, fizzy, frolicky, fun person always with a big smile and grin and loud laugh and sense of humor to a rather sad, glum and grumpy old man. Now, that's major bad news. I want to change it.
This is a major tipping point.
So, on this very special day (like, starting from tomorrow), I want to remember the good things that happened to my life and be happy thinking about how lucky I am that those good things indeed, actually happened to me — things that do not happen to most people I know (and I know a heck of a lot of people — like, thousands, literally). I've sort of decided to come to a resolution that I shall, in my mind, focus on those positives and ignore, delete and de-focus the negatives.
Now, I know it's easier said than done.
I also know it sounds like one of those Deepak Chopra books — comics that people actually buy and read and make-believe they are happy now. But Deepak Chopra or not, I know I ain't got no more choice. Or, it's gonna be fast and painful death for me. I don't want to die fast and painful. More importantly, I don't want to die and be remembered a sad and glum and grumpy man. Oh, no no no, man! Because, I am not a sad and glum and grumpy man. I never was. I never will be.
I've actually thought about it long and hard: what is it that pulls me down and makes me sad and angry?
I could perhaps post a long laundry list of those things in layman's terms — events, experiences and feelings all of which happen to be true and raw and depressing and dirty — that could pull any human being with a heart and brain down. Like, deaths of loved ones — and way too many of them too untimely. Like, leaving India practically for good — out of compulsion. Like, being born too poor and seeing too much poverty and starvation too up close. Like, going through a hell of a lot of physical and mental injury and insult. Like, extreme verbal and physical abuse…like, sexual abuse. Like, hiding them all…way too many of them…and pretending they didn't happen.
Then, there is more. Like, being forced to go through a social, educational, economic and political system that absolutely, totally, unquestionably cheated you. Like, not being able to use your delightful, lovable, warm personality and sprite, blotting-paper-like desire to learn and respect for your teachers, God-given talents, knowledge, experience, analysis and proven leadership to put to use to change the society and system in a significant way…and at the same time helplessly witnessing one of the darkest and dumbest and most exploitative and violent chapters in human history unfolding in your own life…one event at a time…like a bad, obnoxious movie…acted, directed, produced and promoted by some of the most corrupt and inefficient-yet-arrogant crooks in human history. Compared to them, yes, Caligula or Nero or Kissinger is like child's play.
I've come to a major resolution. I can never be president of the United States. Heck, I know I can never even be the chief minister of West Bengal. Only people with tons of money, a Bush-like one-of-a-kind predecessor, a major-media-sponsored genocide or a despondent-hopeless-pathetic regime and equally hopeless electorate could make you a president of the U.S. or a chief minister of West Bengal. I've therefore given up on those secretest desires.
That's sarcasm, as you can see.
My parents-in-law became destitute refugees, overnight. Thanks, Gandhi.
But truly and cross-my-heartly, I've resigned to believe a few other not-so-idiosyncratic thoughts. Like, the two Golden Bengals will never be reunited and Bengalis will forever be blasted and looked-down-upon by the West and East alike as a failed race (and nobody will read the history book and know either the Pala Dynasty, Sri Chaitanya's Bhakti movement, Raja Ram Mohan Ray, Derozio, Vidyasagar, Lalan, Swami Vivekananda, Tagore…and of course, the British barbarism). Nobody would ever know how prosperous Bengal was where after the Battle of Plassey, Lord Clive and his women looted so much gold and jewelry that they went absolutely wild and crazy.
I've resigned to believe that at the London Olympics of summer, 2012, there will be no demand from the millions of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi immigrants-turned-British citizens for an official apology and reparation for the British Raj's two centuries of occupation, brutality, mass-killing and mass-looting. I've resigned to believe that in India, the same illiterate and feudal-chauvinists who were responsible for a bloody partition, riots, refugees and famines will keep in power for many years to come. I have resigned to believe that very few people even in the so-called enlightened West would ever care to know exactly how many hundreds of thousands of Bengali women were raped and killed by the Kissinger-backed Pakistani army in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
I have resigned to believe that people who I thought would care would not care. I have a number of examples of that disillusionment. Obama has been the latest example on that list.
My Alma-Mater Speaks Loudly.
I have resigned to believe that Tagore's Nobel Prize, stolen from his own Vishva Bharati University's national museum, would never be found. I know the British monarchy would never return Koh-I-Noor and numerous other treasures they looted from India. I know the British government would never tell us how Subhas Bose — whom Gandhi sabotaged — perished in exile.
I know now that nobody in the elite academia in the "free-thinking" West — especially those in the seat of power — would ever care to learn or promote philosophers and intellectuals outside of what Harvard, Columbia or University of Chicago asks of them to freely think. They would not want to know Tagore. They would not know Bengal Renaissance. They would refuse to know or teach anything majorly un-Euro-American.
I know for the fact that none of the above would ever read my blog.
So, as you can see, I have my reasons to slowly but surely transform from sprity, fun, frolicky to sad and glum and grumpy. But at this rather critical juncture of my life, I refuse to be a victim of their doing and die and be remembered a sad, glum and grumpy, bitter man. I shall not give in to their grand plan: destroy the thinking mind, dumb-down the non-thinking others, keep the trouble makers on the edge, and kill all the smiles.
No, I won't die their prescribed death.
I want to celebrate this birthday. I want to celebrate it with a smile. I shall live on the many positives that happened to me.
I hope you do too.
Smile with me.
Let's celebrate life. Let's celebrate it together.
That is my very special birthday wish today…and tomorrow.
Sincerely Writing,
Partha
Brooklyn, New York
Another Reason to Celebrate: Teaching American Labor Rights!
Trayvon Would Still Be Alive…If Zimmerman Had No Gun. Simple.
Scared? You should be.
Trayvon Martin would still be alive today if his killer Zimmerman had no gun. It's simple. As simple as the bullet that killed the poor kid.
As Bill Cosby said just a few days ago, and I am paraphrasing: "It's not about race. It's about guns." That is where the debate and action should be.
I know what I'm talking about. It's very real for me.
My uncle Buddha — my mom's youngest brother who was like a big brother to me — was shot and killed by a gun.
I don't want to spend a lot of time and words on this subject. I don't have to. It's pretty easy to get.
Did you read the paper, watch the TV, or follow the news on the radio? In the last few weeks, almost every single day, some people — innocent people including children — got killed here in America because of guns. Somebody found a gun. Somebody bought a gun from Wal-Mart or some place like that. They brought the gun to school. They brought the gun to their workplace. They brought the gun to a shopping mall. Then, they shot and killed people. They blew skulls out. They destroyed lives. They destroyed hopes and dreams.
Let there be no illusion. Let there be no confusion.
Guns kill. Guns kill the innocent. Guns kill children. Guns can kill my children. Guns can kill your children.
I'm not here to scare you for no reason. Guns are scary. Let's be afraid of guns. Let's be afraid of people and groups behind the scene.
Let's be afraid of people who're pushing guns. Just the same way we should be afraid of people who push drugs. Or, those who push pornography. All three forms of vicious killers — guns, drugs and pornography — are abundant now in America. They are beyond control.
They can all kill us. They can all kill our children. Some do it slow. Some do it fast. But, they all kill.
Guns kill fast.
Does the above sound like a sermon? So be it. I have no other way to put it. I don't have to spend a lot of time and words on this subject. I don't want to. It's pretty easy to get. (Even though watching American media, you wouldn't get it. They don't mention guns much, if at all.)
Killed by Legislation and Profit.
The so-called Stand Your Ground law in Florida and other states here in America is stupid, primitive and motivated by profit. (Update: even the Norway mass-killer claimed self-defense — the theme for Stand Your Ground law). Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York, in his new crusade against the gun violence and gun lobby and National Rifle Association, used a lot of good logic against the powerful NRA. But he did not mention the gun industries' motivation of profit and the big Wall Street people and politicians behind passing the law. The same Bloomberg is using his NYPD to arrest peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters every single day. (and I have yet to see a major coverage in major media).
Without mentioning the drive for profit, and that too at the expense of hundreds of innocent lives, the big Bloomberg talk against NRA is meaningless.
If you talk about NRA, you talk about the gun industry. You talk about the war industry. You talk about the pervasive culture of violence — promoted by media and TV and Hollywood. They promoted it in USA. They promoted it all across the world. Guns and bombs and grenades and mines and remote-control explosives and computerized drones are big business.
Let's face it: you cannot talk about one element and exclude the others. They are all connected to each other.
I have no sympathy for the culture of violence. I know Obama frequently talks about Gandhi and his so-called non-violence. Good. But Obama never speaks against the all-powerful NRA. He's afraid to upset them and lose the Southern conservative votes (and Northern gun owners). Neither does Clinton — either the man or the woman. Republicans and conservatives and American feudals and cave men and women tout the Second Amendment to tout their God-given right to carry a weapon. Good. At least we know they are primitive. But Democrats — the so-called civilized, modern people also never take on NRA and the gun lobby. I believe they are either hypocrites or stupid. I don't care. Either one is bad.
Guns kill. Every single recent, blood-curdling episode — Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, San Francisco, Trayvon Martin, the Colorado Congress woman, Ohio, Pennsylvania…just name it. Guns were the single-most important factor in the killings. Yes, baseball bats can kill too. Yes, knives, swords, poison, drugs and pornography have killed thousands of men, women and children over the couple of thousands of years of recorded human history. But never, ever one single weapon of destruction has been able to destroy lives so fast, so massively and enormously — before the gun was invented and marketed.
You think. You decide. You act.
In 2009, guns took the lives of 31,347 Americans in homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings. This is the equivalent of more than 85 deaths each day and more than three deaths each hour. This is U.S. government's data.
Think about Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, San Francisco, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Trayvon Martin. It's simple logic. Had the killers carried a baseball bat or knife or sword or poison or drugs or pornography, would they be able to kill so fast and so massively? If the guns and ammunition were not so easily available, would the killers be able to use them so easily?
Think about how these innocent young men, women and children would still be alive. They were somebody's children. They could've been your children. They could've been my children. I wrote about it before. I shall write about it again.
The same NRA and gun lobby and conservatives and feudals and primitive, pre-historic profiteers and politicians and press often tout God especially during election times. Would God — any God — approve such massacres? Would Jesus approve it? Would Moses approve it?
I don't want to spend any more time and words on this subject. It's fairly simple. Guns kill. Nowhere in the civilized world outside USA people carry guns, or buy and sells guns at Wal-Mart and such places. It's unthinkable. And those countries and societies do not lose their children every other day because of gun violence at a shopping mall or school or day care center.
I do my part. You do yours. Stand Your Ground.
Shun the Gun.
Or, one day, just like my uncle Buddha, somebody in your family might get killed. It's a very real possibility.
Believe me, I'm not making it up.
Trayvon Martin would still be alive if Zimmerman had no gun. It's simple. As simple as the bullet that killed the poor kid.
Sincerely Writing,
Partha
Brooklyn, New York
Koch-ALEC-NRA-trinity
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