Candlelight Vigil

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Mumbaikers React

The MINT newspaper (the Wall Street Journal's partner in India) has published several perspective pieces from their staff writers and freelance writers. They have included an opinion piece I wrote about the attacks. You can find the online version here:

http://www.livemint.com/2008/11/27172532/Mumbaikars-react-Lindsay-Clin.html

I think Bush would Call this Red

Major landmarks in Mumbai were besieged by terrorists last night between 9 and 10 PM. Gun shots and grenade blasts continued throughout the night killing over 100 and wounding nearly 250.

Fortunately, my friends and I are holed up in a different part of town, away from most of the attack sites, of which there are at least 10. Judging from the sites they've hit, the attackers are targeting the well-to-do and tourists. The Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oberoi Hotel (where our magazine hosted a large event recently), Leopold's cafe (a major tourist haunt), a movie theater, a hospital, etc. have all been bombed or affected.

The targets are a central meeting point and gathering place for Westerners. One friend, Nicole, works in the building next to the Oberoi Hotel. She could see gun men on the roof of the hotel and could feel blasts under her building. Another friend was locked in a nearby restaurant for the whole evening--unable to flee and head uptown to safety.

One of the worst parts of this situation is the fragmented information. Last night, friends in the US knew more than most of us in India. The media have given conflicting reports about numbers of people affected, and the imagery from the attack sites has been limited because many of the areas are cordoned off.

Word that the terrorists are targeting American and British visitors is frightening. I am both. A friend of a friend was in the Oberoi eating when the gunmen came in. Apparently, they asked the hotel managers for a list of foreign guests and their room numbers. They kept the Western guests in the hotel, but released those of Indian origin. If the perpetrators are trying to hurt the economy (the markets are shut today) or frighten Westerners, they have succeeded.

The police look completely flat-footed. Skinny men dressed in flimsy mustard uniforms and black leather belts do not intimidate. They have not been trained for this kind of attack. They are equipped with simple construction helmets and wooden rifles. But, there's not a bullet proof vest in sight. Even their stance, their body language, is cowardly.

A list has been started on FaceBook where people are supposed to enter their names to tell everyone they are safe--it's called MumbaiAttack. But, I feel a bit skittish about putting my name on some trackable list.

Mom wants to know if I plan on coming home. I just got back! I can't leave now.

What is it About Mosquito Nets?

There’s something utterly romantic about mosquito nets. There shouldn’t be; they are scratchy, make for ineffective curtains, and were created to protect us from one of the more annoying creatures around, the malarial skeeter (the Texan term for the more commonly known mosquito, presumably from the Spanish (rhymes with burrito, no?). And, yet, they add charm and elegance to the Kenya Comfort Hotel, where I am staying in Nairobi. We, my two Indian colleagues and I, have just returned from a three day safari, and are holing up here for the night before we return to the good old Indian subcontinent tomorrow.

Wait, let me start from the beginning. I’m working. I’m working, damn you! Or, at least, that’s what landed me in “Keen-ya,” as my mom calls it. I run a microfinance magazine, and our most recent issue focused on microfinance in Africa., so we decided to launch the issue in Africa proper, and Nairobi seemed to be our best bet; two of our interviewees—James Mwangi of Equity Bank and Ingrid Munro of Jamii Bora are here. So, we put together a launch event and panel discussion from afar (I was on vacation in New York last week) and then parachuted in (not literally, mind you) for the event the day before. It went surprisingly well, allowing us to meet many of the microfinance practitioners in Kenya, and leave a good impression of our magazine and our company. Then, we left the next morning to experience some of Kenya’s wilder life.

The Masai Mara is Kenya’s most popular wildlife reserve, and home to Kenya’s most famous tribe, the Maasai. The brilliance of the Masai Mara, unlike other reserves in Africa and elsewhere, lies in the fact that the animals live a completely unfettered existence. Unlike Kruger National Park in South Africa, another popular animal-sighting destination on this continent, the lions, tigers, and bears in the Mara roam freely across the savannah. Granted, you have to search for them—it’s over 1500 square kilometers—but that’s half the fun.

I felt like a true explorer (and bit like a groundhog) as I stood in our van, turtling my head out the roof, surveying the plains for untamed beasts. On day one, spotting an antelope felt like an accomplishment. By day three, antelope and all other deer-like creatures were old news. Rhinos and hippos were on our wish list.

Loosely, from smallest to biggest, here’s what we saw under African skies: birds with plump yellow chests, birds with slim green chests, a grey kitten (not on the plains of the Masai Mara, dear reader, but at a roadside bathroom break, en route), puppies of all shapes and fur; a rooster; wild dogs; bigger birds; goats; sheep; a bird with a giant yellow Koosh on his head; baboons with obscene, swollen pink bottoms; Pumba from The Lion King; a hyena; a cheetah breakfasting on a gazelle; a gazelle being eaten by a cheetah; solemn looking gazelles, after the whole kill or be killed scenario which proved that “be killed” is their only choice; burros; impala (not the car, folks) and several other members of the deer family (I will spare you the list); lions and lionesses in all states including enjoying a buffalo buffet, napping, mating, post-mating cigarette-smoking type of behavior, looking ready to chase something, chasing something; buffalo; wildebeest; shy, psychedelic zebras; a family of giraffes and a pregnant lady giraffe; hippos scrambling to get back into the pool after they’d been spotted; a trotting rhino—very rare (the rhino…not the trotting); and momma elephants with their young’un, including a one month old baby.

I expected nothing. We emerged from the reserve having seen 4 of the “Big 5” (no go on the leopard) and many more of the innumerable Medium and Small.

More to come!

A Shadow of Myself

While reading the New York Times Travel supplement yesterday--the thick glossy magazine that adds a pound to the already bloated Sunday paper--I came across a small blurb that reminded me of "home," meaning the place I will head towards today, not the places I've been visiting the past two weeks. "Indian Vogue" it read. I stopped to skim over the paragraph. Seven splashy new shops have opened in Mumbai featuring Delhi designers. "Find them in Khar West (the West Village of Mumbai) on Khar Danda."

Hold your horses. Where?

Khar West is MY neighborhood. Khar Danda is my STREET. When I land in Mumbai I will tell the taxi driver exactly these words. Khar West. Kaha hai? Khar Danda.

These shops, these posh shops which have nothing to do with anyone who actually lives in the neighborhood, are three blocks from my apartment. They opened just a few weeks ago next to a life-size statue of a man many Hindus consider worth praying to and who has been draped with an orange robe that I'm sure these designers think is heinous.

Until you come to Mumbai and see my little street, with it's open sewers and corn on the cob grillers and udder-bulging cows, you will not comprehend how crazy it is that this septuplet of shops unfolded on my street, and how delightfully incongruous it is for the New York Times to be documenting it--like it's 5th Avenue! It makes me cluck like an old man with a good hand of cards.

Not to mention the comparison: "the West Village of Mumbai." All along I've been thinking I am an alternative hipster for living in the Brooklyn of Mumbai. Au contraire, says the New York Times, putting me in my place. As much as you deny it, you are merely an approximation of your formal self. Yes, you moved across an ocean. Yes, you left all your belongings in 11 boxes in the basement of a Marriot hotel in New Jersey. Yes, you sometimes wear Indian clothing and a bindi on your third eye. But you are the same.

For 5 years before I moved to India I lived in the West Village of Manhattan. And here I am again, living in the West Village of India. If I was looking to escape myself, I've failed. Some things change, but most things stay the same.
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Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Nothing like a high school football game to get you back in the groove of Texas life and times. Last weekend was my ten year high school reunion, which not so conveniently coincided with my trip home, so I had no excuse but to go.

My friends in New York sometimes compare my younger days to the TV show Friday Night Lights. I haven't seen it, but I probably don't need to--any show about high school football fever is probably a fair approximation of my former lifestyle at Austin High. After all, every Friday night of football season was spent in a stadium. And we loved it.

It should come as no surprise then that the reunion revolved around a big game: AHS vs. WHS (for those of you that don't speak Texas football, that is code for Austin High (my alma mater) competes against Westlake (the enemy). Drinks were had at a bar near the stadium which was filled with devoted mothers wearing representative school colors. Although our school colors are maroon and white, many mothers, long-legged daughters, and boyish boys from our side were wearing camouflage and face paint--ready for war.

A few words about the enemy. They are bigger, faster and richer than we will ever be. They were 25 years ago, they were 10 years ago, they are now. Ever since I can remember, we've wanted to beat Westlake and beat them bad. It's always been the most anxiously anticipated game of the season.

But, usually, a rivalry connotes some sort of competition. What's funny/sad is that our season-on-season scorecard is something like 2-72, i.e., Westlake has beaten us nearly a million times.

Lo and behold, on Friday night, I found myself under the white glow of fluorescent lights as we watched Austin High get slaughtered by Westlake. What can I say? We weren't that surprised.

The next night was spent watching another loss but on a much larger scale--Texas (the team that should always win) played Texas Tech (the team that should always lose). We watched it on several big screens at a bar downtown. Up and down the street people were hooked to the game inside bars, inside restaurants, outside on the flat screen of the mobile taco truck. It was absurd.

You needn't have watched the game to know the play-by-play; the screams of excitement and woeful groans were indicative. We lost that one too.

In between the two games, I caught up with people I once knew, some of whom I remembered, and some of whom I was thankful had remembered to put on a nametag. Nothing much to report. The 4th grade bully is now an attorney that represents fat cat insurance companies. The sweet high school missionary is still a missionary, but now a mother of two with another on the way. She and her husband are building their own house from scratch on an Indonesian island. The little blond metal mouth is now a slightly taller blond man who speaks German and a smattering of Czech--much easier without braces, I would imagine. There's only one divorce that I know of. And many marriages and small babies (left at home with grandmama). The whole experience was rather bland--I confess, I was hoping for drama.

The only cringe-inducing moment occurred near the end of the night when a certain girl named Amber, cursed with a long, unrequited 14-year crush on a boy named Brandon, got on the microphone and asked him to marry her. He had anticipated as much, and had already left the building.