Ashish Joshi is probably the most artistic friend that we know. He has been learning Hindustani classical music for the last 10 years or so with a dedication that is admirable. He also writes Shayaari, has hosted radio shows in the Bay Area and in India. He added acting to his repertoire a few years ago. We watched his initial plays and yesterday, we watched what may be his finest hour yet.

The New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco staged a play, Hijra, that has had a successful run. Yesterday was its final performance. In keeping up with my “just in time” image, we managed to see this performance.

The short of it is it was very good. The acting was quite professional as were the stage productions, the audience was diverse, the setting was initmate. The story was more like a good old Amitabh Bachchan movie. Humorous and melodramatic dialogue, but carried out with a panache that allowed the audience to enjoy the performance without feeling like the storyline or characterization was a bit weak.

The story is a study of a homosexual relationship. It is by a playwright from the UK called Ash Kotak. It tells the story of an ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) who falls in love with the son of a Hijra and they want to be together. The boy’s mother is looking for a bride, and there is a willing bride and her  climb-the-social-ladder mother. The boy, Nils, can’t bear to live in India and wants to return to the US, where he currently lives but has a dilemma in that he cannot take his lover, Raj, with him to the US; since gay marriage is not recognized by the US, you cannot bring your gay spouse to the US on a spouse visa. They fake the sex of Raj and his passport and bring him into the US. Living together while hiding the truth from the prying eyes of their Indian neighborhood, how homosexual relationships can mirror their heterosexual counterpart when it comes to living together and allowing each other room to breathe whilst wanting to hold them as close as possible, a minor narrative of the story of Hijras in India and NRI uppityness are all explored leading to the final denouement which is a cop-out. But during the show, the sharp lines, the acting and storyline keep moving at such a brisk pace that one doesn’t need to dwell into the weaknesses, but can just enjoy the show and have a whale of a time. The show also didn’t pretend to be a serious discussion of gay life. The audience gave a standing ovation at the end.

Ashish plays Raj’s parent, the Guru Hijra, who longs for the good old days when Hijras had a free reign on the palaces, were confidants, diplomats and well-wishers during weddings. He did an commendable job playing probably the only serious role in the whole play. There are reviews of the play in Talkin Broadway, in San Francisco Chronicle and in and Beyond Chron, an alternative news daily.

Later on, we went backstage and took pictures with him, as proof that we knew him when he was still young and struggling . On a sidenote, this was the first play where Ashish got paid. He’s turned professional



P.S: I look like a hungry Velociraptor thwarted by his prey’s looks from banishing his hunger

One regular Saturday or Sunday morning ritual is the visit to the local Farmer’s market to purchase the week’s supply of vegetables and fruits. Farmer’s markets are not new to those in India. “Sante” is the Kannada term for the same in Karnataka. The ones held here are smaller in scope than the Indian counterparts that I’ve seen, but are cleaner and have a look of festivity about them. We’ve been going to them for the longest time, ever since we moved to Mountain View. The produce is fresh, locally grown and usually organic or at least pesticide and herbicide free. In a place like the Bay Area, where the weather is uniformly beautiful almost through the year, the produce in the Farmer’s market is one way to track the changing seasons. The cherry season just started and the strawberry season seems to be ending. I recall the winter as mostly a citrus-family only season. Navel Oranges, Tangerines, Mandarins, Clementines, Honey Tangerines, Tangelos.

I saw two kinds of cherries on display today, Brooks Cherries and Bing Cherries. Googling Brooks Cherry, I found out that it is grown in California’s Central Valley. Bing cherries was what we picked since we couldn’t tell the difference between the two varieties. Reading the papers, it seems that cherries got here a month or two early due to the record high temperatures in California and the Northwest in general. There is a bumper crop of cherries this season and people are working to extend the cherry season till mid-August instead of the typically mid-July finish. Studies have shown bing cherries to help those of us suffering from arthritis. They are also rich in substances that are known to fight cancer. Interestingly, I read that the best cherries never make it to the US markets because of the higher prices Asian markets are willing to pay.

The popularity of farmer’s markets may attest to the interest people are beginning to pay to nutrition and to the beneficial effects of locally grown produce. However, they numbers attending such places are smaller compared to those who purchase their produce at supermarket chains such as Albertsons and Safeway. The appeal of farmer’s markets may also be the atmosphere of being there, with some free live music. I don’t know this local musician’s name, but he plays the blues very well and he’s got a beautiful smile. He’s there every so often and we spend a few minutes listening to him as do lots of kids. The crowd was one reason I couldn’t get a better picture.

I can attest to the high temperatures that are apparently one of the causes for cherries to be here sooner. For a while it seemed we had skipped spring entirely and gone straight to summer. The rain is back again, though it seems fickle, shifting from cloudy to sunny without releasing its load. There aren’t any dark clouds, just the fair weather cousins, Cumulus.

Here is Shanthala, exhausted at the end of shopping at the farmer’s market, in need a breakfast and coffee .

To make up for my staying at home on the national bike-to-work day, I completed my first 50 km bike ride yesterday. Unlike running where you can accomplish a pretty good workout in 90 minutes, biking requires much longer times to get an endurance workout. The thought of being away for 3 hours or more on a weekend is not appealing to me especially now that Shanthala has started working. I was talking about this with Atri the other day and he was cajoling me that if I can start riding by 6 am, I can be back by 9 or 10 am and still have a day to spend with Shanthala. It struck me that thanks to Shanthala’s schedule, I do wake up by 5:30 am everyday on weekdays. I decided then that I could try my long bike ride on Fridays instead of on Saturdays. If I managed to do this, I needed to be away only on Sunday for about 90 mins for my long run.

With some trepidation, I decided to try out the route from my house to Highway 9 via Foothill Expressway, Stevens Creek Canyon Road and Mt Eden Road and from Highway 9 to get to work via Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road, Central Expressway, Scott Blvd and San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail. I was nervous whether I’d be able to complete this and still put in a full day’s work, about whether I’d be able to climb Mt. Eden on my recumbent and what I’d do if I had a puncture on Mt. Eden road and so on.

The day started off perfect for my endevour. Rain was predicted in the afternoon and so it was cloudy but without much wind and only mildly cold. I overdressed as usual and by the time I was over Mt. Eden, I was wetter than I’d have been had it rained. But it was glorious. Biking up Mt. Eden was hard, but not impossible since it is very steep but relatively short. I could only manage 8 kmph up that road, but coming down I was doing 45 kmph and all the way from Highway 9 to Central Expressway I must’ve biked at not less than 30kmph. I got into work a little less than 2 1/2 hours later, tired but not exhausted. 50 kilometres on a single ride with about 1200 feet of climbing, most of which is in 6 miles or so. Hopefully, the first of many. I’m glad that I can put in these distances without worrying about long term consequences of long rides that typically accompanies riding on a regular bike.

I may yet like Mark Knopfler’s new album, his duet with Emmylou Harris titled All the Road Running. One of the songs that leapt out at me immediately was Love and Happiness, one of the two songs penned by Emmylou Harris on the album. It’s a sweet song sung by parents to their children. There are so few songs that I know that are a song to children; Beautiful Boy by Lennon, Cannibals by Mark Knopfler were the only two that come to mind immediately. Listening to Love and Happiness a little while back, reminded me again of our loss. A few seconds later I thought again that we were lucky that we had so many close ones to whom we could sing this. So, here’s to looking at you all, Vibha, Noah, Eva, Ananki, Shruti, Antara, Neeti, Skanda, Hil, Jen, Harper, Siddhanth, Shankar, Leo, Francesco, Eashwari, Ananth, Hari, Chinnu, Pranav, Sumedh, Dhrona, Kesini and your sister and many others, known and unknown. And of course to sweet little Kitty, who has filled the vaccuum more than he’ll ever know.

here’s a wishing well
here’s a penny for
any thought it is
that makes you smile
every diamond dream
everything that brings
love and happiness
to your life

This week is the National Bike-to-Work week and today was the national Bike-to-Work day. Of course, as in the past, I worked from home today .

According to the local Mercury News, 100,000 people were supposed to be biking in the Bay Area today and some 36,000 people bike to work everyday. We’re in the minority, but the numbers are steadily climbing. If the gas prices continue to stay high, more people will start to take the idea seriously. Those of us that are close to public transport can ride a short distance and then take the public transport, if the distance to work is daunting or as a gentle easing into the regimen.

Of course, riding to work may take longer than driving, but I think the benefits are so significant that if we can get past the “speed and time” wall, more people would enjoy riding to work. Of course, we’re caught up in speed and the hurried pace of life leaves us little time to appreciate the slower route. Driving to work would take me 15 minutes at best and 30 mins at worst. Biking takes me about 40 minutes to an hour depending on the route. I met a bunch of people on the train who take the long way home. One of them works in NASA in Sunnyvale and commutes from Gilroy. He drives to the Caltrain station, rides Caltrain to Mountain View and then takes the light rail to the Crossman station. He said that driving in peak traffic everyday as far as Gilroy is too stressful. Another colleague at work takes the Caltrain from San Carlos and then the light rail to work because he wants to do his bit in reducing our dependence on oil. Gandhi said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world” and these people are doing just that.

For all my sermonizing, even I was (am) caught up in speed. I was a trifle disappointed when I realized that I had not acquired a speed demon in the SatRDay. Instead of enjoying the bike, I spent the first few weeks in contrafactual thinking, trying to work up a speed better than on my old upright bike to convince myself that my purchase had not been so bad after all. One day when I was biking, I realized how tightly I was holding myself and how hard I was struggling in holding onto my fantasy. I gave it up then and decided to just enjoy the bike, no matter how slow I may be biking that day. From then on, it’s been a lot of fun and I’ve been biking faster than on my upright I’ve been biking longer routes to work in the morning, looking for alternate paths to get from here to there and trying them all out. So far, biking down Central and onto Scott and San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail has been the nicest. I get to destress on my way back from work, listening to some good music on my iPod. However, biking back in the evenings is not easy due to the strong headwind, especially in the summer.

Further good news for us is that Palo Alto, Mountain View and Sunnyvale have been rated among the best places in the country to be able to bike. There are lots of bike paths and many roads have separate bike lanes making it safe for bikers to share the road with faster vehicles. Sunnyvale has 79 miles of bike lanes and 8 miles of off-road bike paths.

Recumbents may make riding the bike easy for a lot of people, if the prices could come down a bit. Right now, they cost a bit too much and the used market does not offer many choices. I was lucky to get the bike that I did, at the price that I did. The main advantages in riding a recumbent are the comfortable seating and the reduced air resistance due to the lowered seat. I haven’t tried a trike (a recumbent with three wheels), but that is supposed to be even faster. There I go again, getting on the speed treadmill. Quoting Gandhi again, “There’s more to life than increasing its speed”.

I skimmed through a book called “In Praise of Slowness” which talks of how a growing minority of people are beginning to slow down the pace of life, to, to drink in the sights, to live with clarity and vividness instead of a blur. Carl Honore, the author, writes that boredom is a modern invention. We’ve become passive consumers, seeing the world as one giant tit. Sucking instead of giving, with no sense of satiety.

So, may this day of bike-to-work be also a celebration of slowness, of enjoying life, of living it instead of merely skimming it. As Simon and Garfunkel sang:

Slow down, you move too fast, you’ve got to make the morning last
Just kickin’ down the cobble-stones, lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy

Feeling groovy

Hello lamp-post, what’s cha knowing, I’ve come to watch your flowers growin’
Ain’t cha got no rhymes for me, do-it-do-do, feelin’ groovy

Feeling groovy

I’ve got no deeds to do, no promises to keep
I’m dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me

Life I love you, all is groovy