Twilight.

A nebulous time, one that weaves between finite times, creating a magical mixture of anticipation and nostalgia. The day, in its infinite glory is slowly winding down. Surya, after toiling all those hours, controlling his horses and driving his chariot through the cloud decked sky finally moves to repose. The moon flexes his muscles and yawns his way onto a starry sky and Rahu clenches, ready to take his next bite out of his sworn enemy.

Night has come, and it is full of possibilities.

What a magical time it is and yet so full of terror and danger. It is that possibility of excess, that time when Rakshasas are rampant, that gives it potency. Yet the feeling is that of coolness, so much in contrast to the driving heat of the sun, beating down on the weathered earth. The coolness and richness of moonbeams are so delightful in contrast. It is the time of the nocturnals. Owls eyes, rakshasa mantras, and Savyasachi (Arjuna) practicing the twang of his bow sight unseen. Sound permeates where light does not. The olfactories are heightened, as are audibles. The quiet squirrel that scurries over dry leaves to reach his tree now lumbers like a clumsy elephant; in the daytime those same footsteps would be nimble, a surefooted set of light steps.

Most every one is resting. They make their miniature visits with stillness. Perhaps they are emulating death, trying to practice for a moment that cannot ever be replicated. Some will dream, to practice for the next day; others will escape into a series of events that take them away from the nightmare that is life. For those that cannot make good their escape, there is the haunting loneliness of night.

It is an isolating experience to be awake alone at night. For those that do not have the peace of mind, there is always a danger of being consumed by ones own fears and inadequecies. Night time leaves all blemishes uncovered, no matter the minisculity. It is only those that are firmly ensconced in their sense of contentment that can take isolation and gently massage it to resemble solitude.

There is no difference you might say. At the end of it, you are there by yourself, to face the night. In this you would be absolutely right. Yet the attitude shift enables a complete paradigm shift. It must be experienced to be understood. A logical being clamoring to process it cognitively will find themselves sadly lacking.

At so many junctures, we stand at either the dawn or the dusk of a venture. Right before and right after events are when we are moved to ponder and pontificate what might be or what might have been. Dawn bringing the hope of day, or the terror of a scorching twelve hours. Twilight welcoming the coolness of Chanda mama's rays, or harkening impending demise.

Perspective and context are everything.

I seldom write about sports even though I am a man, and I do love my sports. I play a lot of them, but the ones I love watching the most are tennis, basketball and cricket. Of course, in the past I have been known to watch just about anything resembling a sport, including the competition for the world's strongest man.

I just never could tear myself away. When my wife would come in wondering what I was watching instead of doing the laundry I would offer my now famous plea: 'but it is history in the making!' As usual, I digress.

There's a situation afoot. It has to do with spin bowler Harbhajan Singh. You would think it is that he has achieved some sports feat worth mentioning. Sadly it is not. My spin bowling hero Muttiah Muralitharan just achieved a milestone recently by being the only man in the world to have claimed 709 test wickets. Yet I didn't write about that. Why am I writing about this?

Well, because it is about communication (or lack of it) and cultural misfires.

What happened you ask?

Well, during the second test match between Australia and India which was happening in Australia, there was an ugly run in between Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan. They exchanged words. Symonds accused Harbhajan of calling him a 'monkey'. By the end of the test, it was reported to the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Harbhajan was banned. Why is the monkey thing such a big deal? Andrew Symonds is the only player of color. He is of West Indian origin. Calling Ricky Ponting a monkey might be one thing. Calling Symonds a monkey implies racism and derision.

Much has been written about this. Probably the most eloquent and sardonic commentary is by Dileep Premachandran who asked the essential question 'to sledge or not'. Sledging, for the unfamiliar, is psychological warfare that is conducted on the cricket fields. It's when the bowlers and fielders try to get into the heads of the batsman with inciendiary remarks and antagonism. The Australians have the dubious distinction of beginning this form of 'mental disintegration' as Ponting called it. What is unfortunate is that it has taken in many instances an ugly turn, where the antagonism has gone in the direction of personal attacks and racist overtones.

In the States, in other sports, it is called trash talk. It's rife in basketball and football. I'm sure that it is the case in baseball as well. Only the statesmanly sport of tennis does not allow it just yet. The question is when is it all right and when does it cross the line.

In the case of Harbhajhan Singh, it has turned out to be a miscommunication. He was not even speaking in English. He was saying 'Maa ki' which Symonds took as 'monkey'. But what is at issue is that the BCCI, the fearsome cricketing authority of India, went to defend this initial claim by saying that monkey is not necessarily an offensive term. They also countered by slapping Aussie bowler Brad Hogg with a complaint for saying 'bastard'. The Australian response? 'Oh, bastard isn't such a bad word, as it doesn't talk about descent like calling a colored person a monkey does'.

If you say so.

There are two issues here. One is that cricketers at the national level would do well to have an international awareness, given that they are ambassadors for their country. The second is it is fascinating how words like 'monkey' and 'bastard' can have such benign connotations in one continent and such inciendiary ones in another.

Some of the Australian players were heard to have called reporters asking them why they were being hassled. After all, they always win. Tis true. They are the best cricket team in the world in one day and test formats. Many hate it, but not many would argue that. But does that mean that what matters is to win no matter the price?

I am not saying that sledging or trash talk should be banned. I have been known to engage in some myself in the heat of the moment during a basketball game or even a tight game of table tennis. There's something to be said about doing things to sap your opponent of his confidence just enough to edge past. Once your opponent stops believing in himself is when you have started to win.

The other issue is about keeping things inside the walls. When you are on a sports field, it is a battle ground. Both sides do these things. In this case, what seems to have thrown this out of control is Ponting deciding to play the 'class snitch' as it were, and bring in outside authorities. Sanguine the Australian team is not. So I am quite at a loss as to why he decided to go this route.

So the matter is more or less ironed out. Now that we know Harbhajan was not speaking English, what Hayden, Clarke and Symonds heard was not what was spoken. Yet, it is clear that Harbhajan was not complimenting anybody, least of all Symonds' mother.

What a mystery it is when you can bust on somebody's mom but get dragged into a hearing for casting aspersions by other means.

It's just not cricket.

I haven't written about my irascible daughter in a while now. It's quite something, given that as these months go by, she actually changes more regularly. At some point it becomes hopeless trying to record things and so I have given to just enjoying the whirlwind of change as it whips around me.

Rai is now five. As many of you know, she is a November baby. Her birthday was celebrated in India and she had a brilliant time. So I have a couple of stories for this post and one of them is something that Rai carried back from her India trip.

When she was over there, she noticed that her Dadu (grand dad) had a shrine. He had a small table where he kept figurines and pictures of the deities he worshipped. Dadu is a goddess worshipper, and so a picture of Mahakali takes precedence in his arrangement. On previous trips, Rai took great pleasure in demolishing the contents of the table to the extent where the picture was removed and put high above. Her grandfather in who's eyes Rai could do no wrong, never scolded her or discouraged her from having her own unique experience with that space.

This time around, she decided that she wanted to have a 'pooja room' at home. This was somewhat of a dilemma for us as we currently did not have one, because of differing spiritual and religious beliefs in the family (another post for another day). But she was insistent, and so my wife pulled together a very pretty thali (gold plated container) and we put images of Krishna, Madan Mohan and Radha on it. My ever watchful wife had realized Rai loves the panache of ritual, and so had gone and purchased the clothes and baby pillows that are available in Calcutta to cloth the deities.

The first instance of precociousness was when we first set up the space, and Rai took great pleasure in dressing the Krishna and Radha figurines. She particularly likes the Radha figurine since Rai is a pet name for Radha (Krishna's consort). So after they finished dressing the deities, mom asked Rai to give thanks. So Rai did, and it was sweet. She thanked God for a good holiday, and everything she had. She rang a bell and then blew on a conch she brought back from Calcutta. She actually got a semblance of sound out of it.

Finishing all of this, the very pleased tyke says 'and now, God should say thank you for all the nice clothes He got'.

At least she is internalizing all those lessons in school about sharing and saying thank you.

Over the next month, the assortment of additions clambered through the roof. Soon she had an orchestra of instruments to perform for the Gods including a flute from Cambodia, the bell, the conch and a plastic recorder she got as a 'give back' present. I was surprised and amazed to see that they now do 'give back' presents in India. Maybe it has been happening for years and I was clueless. But I digress.

So Christmas came around as did Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, and Rai wanted to celebrate each one because she learned about it in school. She wanted lights, a dreidel, a menorah and a cookie project on Christmas night for Santa. Again a dilemma. How do we honor these traditions and the fact that she is learning about diversity as well as show her what our traditions and cultures are?

The biggest issue was not a religious one but a material one. Both wife and I are agreed that we do not want to buy into the Hallmark aspect of Christmas. Yet there was this naive and transparent joy and delight about how Santa was going to visit.

Mom delivered big time by figuring out how to make lattkes. So mom and daughter made lattkes, which Rai pronounce were the 'best lattkes ever'. She also did a kwanzaa project at school.

We ended up getting her a few presents. Mostly things that were necessary. We got advice that more presents were better than less. So she got lip balm, food bars, bangles and one big present, which is a butterfly garden kit. Once we decided we were going to do it we figured we might as well Santa it up. The presents were wrapped and hidden, then placed in the fireplace on Christmas eve.

The look on the girl's face when she came and saw her cupcake eaten and presents in the fireplace was worth all the tension and the deliberation.

So now we were watching how she was going to take all these things and whether she would compartmentalize them or process them. My queries were answered a few days later during pooja time.

As usual mom and Rai got ready to do their little prayer that mom was taught by her mom. I do not know it but I know that one of the incantations is 'Radha kanto' which Rai loves because she knows that is her. But today Rai wanted a change of plan.

'I think I want to sing Rudolph the red nosed reindeer for them' she said with a thoughtful chew of her lip. 'I don't think they have heard that song because we didn't sing it for them.'

So on that cold day, Radha Krishna, Ganesha and Madan Mohan were serenaded with a lusty rendition regaling the exploits of Santa's favorite reindeer.

I realized that we spend so much time trying to figure out what they will make of it and in the end, they will do what is natural, which is to make it uniquely theirs.

I should have written this a week ago, but better late than never. I hope everybody here had a wonderful holiday season and I wish you all a prosperous new year from every member of our family.

Violet Gold was the kind of person that her friends pitied, couldn't help loving, but also secretly hated. You see, Violet had all kinds of energy, had good fortune shower down on her quite by accident, and had what many would call a dream life. Her stockbroker husband raked in the dough and paid for their mansion like house in the suburbs of Swarthmore Pennsylvania. When he was home - which was eight days a month - he was a dutiful husband who cooked, cleaned and paid attention to the honey-do list that Violet would have prepared for him.

While he was off, Violet threw herself into her activism and volunteer work. When she was a little girl growing up in Upstate New York, she always felt it was unfair that the Mexicans and Indians in the area were so poorly treated. She didn't really know what to do about it. But once she was finished with graduate school and her MBA at the Fuqua Business School at Duke, she decided to understand immigrant conditions and laws a little better. Displaying her characteristic untiring energy, she started working at and then headed up the public relations campaigning and messaging for an immigrant worker rehabilitation program.

While at Duke, she met and fell in love with her husband, who was also at the business school with her. They married and moved to Pennsylvania. So it is easy to see why friends loved her and hated her. When she was in a room, she was a fireball of energy, drawing people along with her about the great inequities of the world and how each person could do their small part to stop it. She was attentive and kind as best she was able. What I mean by that is she knew what she wanted other people to do for her, and very very generous in showing people love and caring the way she understood it. Why did they hate her? Because she had an unbelievable metabolism, so it really didn't matter what she ate, she maintained a toned figure of a woman in her late twenties or perhaps early thirties. Her face yielded greater truths about her time on earth than her lithe body did. Yet it was not because of time at the gym. In fact Violet did not exercise because she just had no damn time. Violet was busy rescuing people in the world one at a time.

I mentioned before that people loved and hated her. After all, it's quite common for those that are on the outside looking in to peek momentarily and be jealous. The ones who worked alongside their husband while batting kids in tow desired her freedom. The ones who were trophy wives who gathered at the gym and spas sporadically to discuss the latest tummy tucks and facelifts craved her achievements. Those that were single wished they had a loving doting husband. Most all of them cursed the fact that she could eat a burger for lunch and fries, then have a tira misu along with her whole milk latte to wash it all down. A jealous cousin who began rumors that she had to be bulemic in order to keep this up was quickly outed and vilified.

Now we come to the key question. How did Violet feel about Violet? After all, is it not an unfortunate but self evident truth that we are mostly the ones least likely to appreciate those things that are going well in our lives. Here again there are those quicksand areas. If you are generally happy with everything then you are deemed to be in denial. If you understand what you are facing but choose not to express it you are repressed. If you worry about your problems out loud you are a pessimist and if you try to control that worry by trying to do something about it you are neurotic. So what was Violet?

An easy answer is not clearly available. This is also something that is the case with complex individuals. Labels assigned to them by friends family wellwishers and enemies highlight but one or two facets of their overall personality. Violet was in fact balanced, happy, nervous, and neurotic. Like all people she had glaring blindspots about herself, and like most, she tried to do the best that she could. Her difficulty was that she had a closet with skeletons. In the depth of her being, Violet carried with her a deep and dark secret.

Violet was terrified of banks. She was comfortable with money, and probably didn't even feel she needed everything she had. It was just that her great grandfather had been a money lender, who was shot during a robbery when he went to withdraw some money at a bank. It was a story that Violet heard as a little girl from her nervous grandmother. Sadly, the grandmother's way of healing was to tell and retell the story so that she could exorcise her grief. In her catharsis she created a deep neurosis in her young and innocent grand daughter.

She had mentioned this to her then boyfriend, who had just laughed outright. Realizing how serious it was for her, he then tried to placate her. But convincing a stock broker husband that they should not keep their money in the country's banking system was ludicrous and absurd.

So when they moved to Swarthmore, Violet decided she would create her own bank. she took a large portion of the .75 acre estate their house was on and created an immense herb garden. She had her husband erect a greenhouse in the backyard so she could grow tropical plants year round. Then, amidst the lavender, spearmint, Thai basil and rosemary, she created pockets of three foot holes into which she buried boxes of jewellery and gold. Inside the greenhouse, she had a shoebox size metal box filled with $100 bills that fit neatly between the curry patta plant and the sturdy banana plant she was trying to grow.

So amidst her daily routines, her PR engagements, her social work and her socializing, Violet scheduled in time to make sure that her assets were not in danger. It was not uncommon for neighbours to see Violet taking a stroll around her house at night with a flashlight. They wondered why she set up external lights that shone on her herb garden, but decided it was because she loved her plants very much. She told them with a laugh that it was because sometimes she liked to go out at night and get herbs from the garden for a midnight snack.

You might be wondering why I am telling you about Violet Gold. It is because she is a side character in this book I'm sort of writing. I say sort of because I write it then I put it aside in disgust because it doesn't seem worthwhile. Violet will be the neighbour of the main character Indumati.

So since you are the readers that first gave me the confidence to consider a novel, I'd love to hear feedback and ideas on how to make this character more interesting. Why might she choose her herb garden to bury her money? What makes her do it? If she has this, what else is she hiding? Other things that she might tend to do because of her constant worry about banks and her poor great grandfather?