Heartcrossings

Tomes have been written about how the Pill ushered female sexual liberation and fundamentally changed the moral mores of society. Reading about the man who invented the pill and how his religious beliefs shaped it's making is no less than fascinating. Makes you wonder what he may have done different had his beliefs been different and how those decisions may have impacted women's health, sexuality and society at large. We may have ended up having a Pill very different in principle and action. It seems fated that the Pill should be invented by someone whose course would be guided so strongly by his religion, like it were the unseen hand of God guiding womankind's destiny.

As technology evolves, layers upon layers of abstraction are built on it until inner complexity turns transparent to those using it. The user is therefore able to find more sophisticated uses for it than would have been possible in its nascent stages. Often a generation passes between the birth of a new technology and the attainment of wizard driven widget-ization nirvana. The tech geezer knows the innards of technology that is now bleeding edge and yet is not quite the alpha-geek. Quite like how a chemist is not a perfumier -abstraction and imagination are no less important than knowledge in the raw.

Gramit is a new word learnt today. Bangalored jobs could now get Grammited (i.e. outsourced to a rural BPO franchise in India) The potential for this is big as the hinterland is. As the trend catches on and the numbers grow the distinction between urban and the rural India will start to blur. The stress on urban infrastructure and resources would reduce with villagers turning home to work. All of which seems good news for India. In the hierarchy of the BPO world, onsite resources are more equal than the offsite ones. The gramits will form the absolute underclass - the cultural challenges could prove very substantial. I will stay tuned for the first Gramit bloggers to start sharing stories about their new world and world view.

A three month old baby with the most beautiful green eyes in the world smiled at me today when I went to pick J up at the daycare. I yearned for J's babyhood which seems a distant memory now. I felt sorry for the mother who was missing the angel smile. Most of us present day parents have gazillion pictures of our children - it is perhaps our way of making up for the time that we are forced to be absent from their lives. Yet the captured moment never does equal the moment itself. Was browsing through Popgadget - Personal Tech and Innovative Lifestyle for Women , later in the evening. What I would give for innovation that would allow me relive all of the missed moments of J's babyhood.

In the real world we don't ask strangers "Show me what's in your bag " or sneak a peek into their fridges . In the online world it is cool enough to blog images of both, comment and tag. The inside of a bag or fridge could be revealing of much about the person - surprises included. When you see someone's bag populated with much the same things as yours, you could have stumbled upon a kindred spirit. You have to wonder if you could have more in common than what you carry in your bags. To the extent that "You are what you eat" the contents of a fridge speak for the person that you are. A community could come together for having just about anything in common - there could be bag, shoe closet, laundry hamper friendships - the scope is infinite as is the possibility of making connections with like-minded individuals.

Not being a gamer myself for lack of both inclination and aptitude, I have always been fascinated by those have a lot of both. For a few months soon after graduating from engineering school I worked for a team of game developers as a tester. Towards the end of the assignment I was elevated to the rank of a junior programmer. The lead on the project was an absolute whiz and also anal retentive. He would go through my code with a fine toothed comb, expressing shock and disbelief at my appalling programming skills. The little fun I had as a game tester was now replaced by endless re-writes of a few hundred lines of code until "He" deemed it integration worthy. While, I learnt valuable lessons in programming style and practice, I was completely weaned off gaming. Reading about the how computer gaming could do everything from meeting our emotional needs to spreading democracy makes me wonder if I am not missing out on something quite fabulous.

Interesting article on the symptoms of infatuation , it's biological origins and how some of us would have the propensity to turn into "infatuation junkies." I have known more than one junkie and believe they have the capacity to induce the "high" they feel in the partner. "When infatuated, we are thrilled, but not happy, wanting to trust, yet suspicious. There are lingering, nagging doubts about our "partner in infatuation" and their love for us. We're miserable when they're away, almost like we're not complete unless we're with them. It's a rush and it's intense. It's difficult to concentrate. And most infatuation relationships have a high degree of sexual charge around them. Somehow being with them is not complete unless in ends in some type of sexual encounter." From my own experience, I have found taking a break (as short as a few days to as long as several months) to be a great way to come to a realistic ass...

Reading about the Trans Strap Reader Sling , reminded me of the time I was a regular on WMATA It seems such an obvious and elegant answer to the reading commuter's woes, that you wonder why no one (including yourself) thought of it before and instead did dangerous things like leaning against the door to read. Remembering to pick up the transfer before exiting always posed a challenge to me. For someone on a shoe string budget, every dollar adds up so forgetting was not even an option. Maybe the fine folks at TranStrap will think up an ingenious mnemonic device too.

My cooking has always been very hyphenated . Introducing flavors of the places I have lived in India to traditional Bengali fare was my way of preserving the connection I felt to those regional palates. After coming to America, the pan-Indian is now hyphenated with Chinese, Arabic, Greek, Jamaican and Italian among many others. I have over the years acquired a sense for which flavors and spices will work in harmony and yet delicately surprise the taste buds. While the base note still remains steadfastly Indian, the upper notes could be from anywhere in the world. The only time I end up cooking authentic Bengali food is when J misses her grand-parents or I miss home. The "real" thing seems to comfort both of us in equal measure.

Spent a while doodling on Context Free though my creations were hardly worthy of the gallery. Playing without knowing the rules was fun because the outcome was unexpected and surprising. A while ago a mother I met sometimes at J's daycare was complaining that the caregivers just let the kids play supervising only to the extent that no one gets hurt. She expects more structure and organization. At four she wants her child to learn as she plays. She has since found a place that meets her needs better. I was like J today, playing free and unstructured and enjoying it. I hope she cherishes the memories of the few "lawless" and "freeform" years of her life.

This line from the Wired story on Bush's potty break note was interesting even outside the context of the story itself "At issue here is not pixels but context; it's not the manipulation of the image that makes it true or false, but whether we buy the narrative being created by the person selecting the picture for our attention." A picture in the raw no longer speaks a thousand work. It's pixels are tweaked and coaxed until it tells the story the photographer would have it tell the viewer. Very unlike an image formed by a pin-hole camera. The moment along with it's faulty narrative is captured unblemished - the simple truth is told without adornment. Someone I know had an eye-lift done recently. She naturally looks years younger, but the old laughter lines are gone. Those of us who have seen her eyes twinkle when she smiled would miss that about her new unlined face. Her face no longer tells the story of the person she really is. Depleted of old memories, it ...

H my buddy who also happens to be a recruiter has been following my immigration woes with much trepidation. With the latest round of bad news on the green card front she has turned match-maker with vengeance. Her considerable network is humming at this time with the news of a very eligible Indian single mom who in her words "is a prize catch!" I tell her to tone down the rhetoric. She says "Its okay to market some. After all I BS not !" Someone I know in Vancouver has taken the opportunity to propose that we get serious about our "relationship" ( I did not know that we were actually in one even approximately) and consider immigrating to Canada post haste. When I hear about the ungodly salaries of my friends in India, I am very motivated to return. I have long missed the luxury of a domestic help and a chauffeur. With thoughts turning to Mom's cooking I almost experience an epiphany. Immigration is a life changing decision in itself. In Amer...

While I enjoy writing over almost anything else and reading even more than that, the concept of Paragraph does not quite appeal to me, maybe I just don't get it. It seems like Wi-fi enabled cubicle hell driven by peer pressure to be creative. The membership fees are not targeted to the starving artist either - the kind of writer who is least likely to have personal space, peace and quiet and therefore be most in need of it. The vision of writers sitting in long rows of cubicles, writing away reminds me of a productive farming commune. Not exactly where one would expect to see a breathtaking collection of rare orchids.

This evening I had a great conversation with a second generation Indian-American woman in her early twenties. Our parents come from a similar cultural backgrounds. They have tried to hot-house some Indian values into her while giving her the American way of life. R has turned out to be an accomplished, articulate and a charming young woman thanks to her parents. "I am personally conservative yet socially and politically liberal. I often have to struggle to find someone that shares my combination of values" she says to me. I tell her that I face the exact same struggle. In my view social and political liberalness do not have to translate to personal life and there is no dichotomy. Many liberals that I know cannot fathom that. It is like my liberalness is a sham because I don't apply it to my personal life. R tells me there are second generation kids who think like her but they are still a minority. I am not surprised that Anil Dash talks about this unique state as ...

Fascinating read about a law that supposedly did not make a whiff past the Beltway but had too many unintended consequences . Twenty-five years ago a law known as Bayh-Dole spawned the biotech industry. It made lots of university scientists fabulously rich. It was also supposed to usher in a new era of innovation. So why are medical miracles in such short supply? While it sounds a bit like serendipity with the bad far outweighing the good, it turns out that there is such a thing like the law of unintended consequences

When in need of a little retail therapy, I usually go online and without my credit card. A favorite stop is Treehugger - not so much for what is on sale as for the intriguing new concepts in the making - some saleable, some not. While my own kitchen is stark and minimal, I do gawk at kitchen contraptions that I have no intent of owning. Another place I like is Uncommon Goods which carries just that - uncommon goods . A new discovery today was configurable j ewelry using rare earth magnets . By when I am done, I am amazed at the very creative people who think this stuff up. Makes me wonder where get their inspiration from - how their view of the world is so different from someone like me, we could as well be living in different planets.

When told to tie her shoe-laces J will protest plaintively "I can't. I am only a tiny little four year old" However, when she wants to put on my lipstick she will say "I am big girl now. So I can wear listhick too" Tired of her big or little as convenient (to her and not me) tricks, I called her Miss Smartie Pants this morning. She said in an offended tone. "I'm not Smartie Pants. I'm Smartie Skirts". Had she been older she may have bristled against the gender bias and opted for something neutral like a Jacket or Coat. I find consolation in that raising J while tough is not totally devoid of amusement. The sum total of smiles she brings to my face outweigh all the petty frustrations.

Who would have guessed that Katrina victims could be in need of beauty kits ? It's hard to tell if this is farcical, tragic or just stupid and insensitive. Would someone who has lost every worldly good really care how they appeared to the world ? This is akin to "Let them eat cake if they don't have bread" Apparently not much is learnt from history, it is merely repeated in variations of some common themes.

The last poster I owned was fifteen years ago and it said "I must be a mushroom. Everyone keeps me in the dark and feeds me a lot of bullshit". An apt statement of my situation at the time, it never failed to produce snickers. I must have since outgrown the need to make statements. This gender subversion poster is almost as cubicle-worthy expect that I could get branded a militant feminista.

J had a wonderful pre-birthday party that my friends organized for me. We are home tired and happy. Everything about today was perfect except one tiny detail. J's best friend R was not there. His absence was not so much the imperfection as what caused it. R and J attended the same daycare until a week ago. He has since moved to a new place. His mother left me a note in J's cubby with her number and asked that I stay in touch so the kids could remain friends. I called her a few days later and she asked us over. She asked "Will your husband be coming too ?" and I said "No. I am divorced" She said "I am sorry" in a tone of voice that did not bode well for the future of this relationship. I took J to their place. The kids had a total blast. R's father avoided me all evening like a respectable man would a hooker. I figured he was making a strong statement to his wife, assuaging her feelings of insecurity. Back in the day, I would have felt insulted ...

Growing up, I made my own toys with household junk and invented imaginary playmates. I could completely immerse myself in the atmosphere of a book I was reading - an unfamiliar zeitgeist posed no problem in being able to do that. That was the power of imagination, extrapolation of familiar experience to what was not. Kurt Vonnegut talks about what the loss of the ability to imagine means. In my somewhat reactionary style of raising J without any intrusion of media, I am trying to build what Vonnegut calls the "imagination circuit" in her head. I am convinced it is a thing of lasting value, that the body of her life would be significantly diminished without it. I would like her to read a story in a face and not merely see a face. "Those of us who had imagination circuits built can look in someone's face and see stories there; to everyone else, a face will just be a face."

A .S. Byatt is one of my very favorite writers. Her views on the influence of literature on a person's relationships is particularly significant to me. I have been accused of holding back in love, of never having let go and enjoyed the moment and of analyzing too much. I have admitted to being in love with the idea of being in love more than with the person in question. I have savored the notion of a relationship that never really came to be - in any tangible sense. Even after all these years and even after knowing how the other side lives, I don't believe I have missed out on love at all. I have loved differently and in a way that was very fulfilling to me. In her interview to Salon , Byatt says in the context of people who have not been as immersed in literature since childhood as her. And people who didn't become rather hostile to people who did because they feel that people who did had something rich. They try to say, "You weren't spontaneous, you weren't ...

Bartering art for health care may pave the way for other opportunities to exchange goods or services for health care. Each time I go to the doctor's office, I am apalled at the volume paper-work that is produced and retained, inefficient manual processes not to mention the primitive use of technology. A company could offer an end to end IT solution in exchange for free health care for its employees equivalent to the cost of the solution. It could be a win-win situation for everyone. Bartering in the world of small business is not so uncommon.

With so much music around, discovering a new love can be a shot in the dark. Most of my favorites go back ten years or more. Time and great music are clearly passing me by. Sometimes, a hummable something turns up on FM on the way to work but the impression is not deep enough to linger or turn into an earworm. Then I discovered Pandora - the music genome project. I tried out with two random songs that came to mind. Love Is All Around Me by Wet Wet Wet did not discover anything that I feel even remotely excited about. 99 Miles From LA by Art Garfunkel introduced me to Tony Orlando and I liked him. I realize both songs I chose are replete with memories that make them special. There really is no genome to be isolated or analyzed. Pandora is a beautiful idea and a great way to make exciting new friends though true love may be harder to come by.As in real life so in music. Then there is Aurgasm - the beautiful, undiscovered music that if loved will love you back.

Van Gogh's Starry Night recreated by over 200,000 photographic images is a thing of amazing beauty. God truly is in the details. Each speck of color is infused with a multitude of life, form and meaning. I am left spellbound as I discover each image to be a mosaic of other images. There must be something uniquely compelling about a work of art for it to be paid a tribute so rich.

As a woman, any measure to prevent rape is a welcome news. The concept of the rape snare is intriguing to say the least. There is merit to the argument that a device that injures the perpetrator could turn him violent enough to kill the woman. However, in less extreme situations such as those posed by date rape, the potential of that happening may diminish. Thinking that the woman may have a snare device on would be a deterrant. While not a silver bullet this is some degree of empowerment. As with any device, potential for improvement and innovation exists if the idea catches on.

J turns four next week. The bottle of Moet Chandon will not be uncorked this birthday. However, it continues to be my talisman - someday, its time will come to effervesce, to fill our home with many miniature rainbows. I am willing to wait. I realize J is at an inarticulate age. While her vocabulary is substantial it is not enough to keep up with more complex thoughts that she is now capable of processing. She is beginning to recognize patterns, that cause and effect are intertwined, that adult behavior is full of contradiction and does not follow prescriptive rules. Often rules are completely flouted without explanation or apology. The gap between her speech and thought frustrates her. Often she vents it in misdirected anger towards me. She does not want to be disciplined and at the same time is not sure enough of herself to completely disregard my will. I cannot remember what it used to feel to be four - it would have helped me understand her better. The world around her is now disc...

Finding a real life customer service rep can be a finger numbing exercise even after you have made sense of the menu options and how it relates to the problem at hand. Someone has found hacks in the phone system that will take you to a human immediately . Though sometimes the human you end up talking to makes having a couple of molars pulled out seem relatively painless. Technical support jobs are traditionally viewed as low end and attract below average talent. Back in the day when the customer did not know a CD drive from a cup holder that worked just fine. Not so anymore. The customer is tech savvy and has questions too sophisticated for the rep fielding it. Patricia Seybold has the right idea when she suggests "Let customers help themselves" in her book Customer.com

My first acquaintance with Georgia O'Keefe came about through a feature in Reader's Digest about twenty years ago. There was a certain shock value about her paintings that stayed with me. It seemed like a flower could not be turned any more visceral. Much later I read critics thought they were symbolic of female sexuality and even represented genitalia. It's interesting to read the different things she said about the flowers that are her most extraordinary signature. "When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not." "Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time." "I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty....

Sometimes, untold horror is best left that way - untold. When the tsunami struck my first instinct was to thank God that no one I loved and cared about was hurt. With Katrina I have counted my selfish little blessings again. No one I know was in the area. Millions of others have not been as lucky. Next time tragedy strikes I may not be either - it is only fair that we take our turns at experiencing tragedy at a raw, visceral level so when someone else hurts we hurt along equally.