Outside the Green Zone; India not shining

Turns out New Haven's the wild west. To give you the short version, Rune and I were out Saturday night on Crown Street - essentially the hub of downtown pubs, clubs, and cafes. We left the bar at 1.50am. Wake up Monday morning, I hear there's been a shoot-out. On Crown. At 2am, the night we passed by. A bullet went through the window of a popular restaurant - customers dived to the floor. Two people hit on the street, now in hospital. My friends Steve and Jen, who left the bar 5 minutes later than us, ran from the noise of flying bullets. Their apartment overlooks that very same intersection.

New Haven is a city - some measure of bad stuff's to be expected. But this was a mere block away from campus, inside what's considered to be the "Green Zone" in Yale terms: where it's safe to walk and socialize. Nor was this a lone incident. Someone got killed outside a Crown St parking lot by gunfire less than a month ago. Not to mention the long, often daily, list of muggings. People feel shaken up, there's no doubt. All of a sudden, the town got a lot less friendly.

I'd prefer not to harp on themes blue. But I did want to mention news from the subcontinent. Studying Indian politics, I've been pretty depressed by recent goings-on. The first, more trivial (albeit high-profile) debacle is the Commonwealth Games, set to begin in Delhi on October 3rd. As the front page of the Times of India read this morning - and I'm not kidding - the shit has hit the fan. Over the weekend, a bridge collapsed in the athletes village. A ton of work remains to be done on the venues. There's been an outbreak of dengue fever - a result of holes dug for pot plants left unfilled, providing the perfect breeding-ground for mosquitoes. And the project's ten times over-budget. I'm not alone in reckoning $2bn could have been better spent.

To put it diplomatically, it's an embarrassment for a country with grandiose ambitions and a craving for international respect. The more so because of the Games' obvious comparator, namely, the Beijing Olympics. An optimist might hope this farce will prompt self-searching on the part of Indian officialdom. Corruption has been terrible by any standards; the project's management a case-study in incompetence run amok. Contrary to the BJP's celebrated 2004 election slogan - India Shining - the whole fiasco lends reinforcement to every bad stereotype about the world's largest democracy. The BJP lost in 2004 - its rallying cry rang hollow with voters. With annual growth since averaging 8 percent, you'd predict positive change within state institutions. Alas, no. Six years later, progress on core areas of governance - the goods that will ultimately free India to shine dazzlingly, as it surely must - has proven elusive.

And always there's Kashmir. Last week marked the worst violence in thirty years. The proximate trigger was the threat of Rev Jones and his band of hateful - if media-savvy - idiots to burn Korans in Florida. Back in Srinagar, a wave of street protests flared up, worsening an already fiery situation. (Kashmir has had a horrible summer.) New Delhi is stuck for what to do. An all-party meeting's been convened to "generate ideas". That's when you know things are desperate.

Sorry for being downcast. There's much that's good to report, and I will. Yet occasionally, the world in all its irrationality and wantonness appears a less-than-happy place - especially when its darker side encroaches on home. No jokes today then. But I'll perk up tomorrow.

East Side Story; Moleskine

Too much time has elapsed, I realize, since my last encyclical. What can I say, I've been busy! Reading load now verging on the crazy ridiculous. All gripping stuff nonetheless. My classes this term involve Comparative Politics, Statistics, Intro to Politics, Hindi, and Corruption, Economic Development and Democracy. And the prize for sexiest title goes to... yep, got it in one! CEDD - an acronym I've just coined - is a joint course with the Law School. I'm hoping to ingratiate myself with a few future Supreme Court justices over the coming months, in the expectation, of course, of legal favors down the road ;)

Apart from the lowlights of many hours festering in the library, the week's seen some sky-scraping peaks. Number one: a super-cool-totally-awesome Saturday spent in the City. With Mike, Sharon, Pia and Christoph, I brunched at Beth and Dave's apartment on the upper East side. If you haven't yet participated in a New York Brunch (capital letter mandatory), you, my friend, have barely scratched the surface of living. From banana bread to booze, chorizo to Colombian coffee, maple syrup to mimosa, all of life's excesses come together in one rip-roaring consummation - think Bacchus and Epicurus hooking up on saturnalia and you're almost there. It's - well - a trifle indulgent. Actually, indulgent like a huge trifle. And the best thing ever conceived by human kind.

OK, my stock of superlatives is pretty much exhausted. The Met (bamboo jungle on the roof), Central Park, guitar man, surprise visit by Mike and Jess - these minor-to-major encounters made up the rest of our day. Obviously M&J's drop-by was the X factor on this conveyor belt of happy happenings. Only, it's always painful to say goodbye. As a sign of my affection, our picture together becomes blog post photo.

Last noteworthy event, I heard Karl Rove [*boo*, *hiss*, *throw a shoe*] speak here Wednesday. The subject? "Obamacare". So far so predictable. And he was, mainly. Except for his introduction. We'd just sat through an hour and a half of non-stop pomposity from the student leaders of Yale's "political parties" - selling and strutting their (indistinguishable) ideological goods using what they clearly believed to be inspired verbal gymnastics. Rove, in all his girth, strode to the podium, and, in deep Texan drawl, hollered, "I have ne'er in ma whole GODDAM life come 'cross en-thin' so goddam PRE-TEN-TIOUS as wha' we jus' heard there". At this moment he lunged to the nearby desk of the president and chairman, and grabbed three notepads from these suit-clad Union notables. Waving the offending items in the air, he roared: "Jus' y'all look at this, jus' take LOOK: M-O-L-E S-K-I-N-E, goddam MOLE-SKINE!" We were, I think, initially taken aback by this left-field assault on an object we'd never before considered particularly blame-worthy, or a mark of social distinction. But most began nodding heads, laughing appreciatively, coming round to Rove's side. I couldn't help suspecting, though, that somewhere in the region of 90 to 110 percent of the audience had a cheeky moleskine notebook stashed in a drawer at home - like some guilty secret. In my case a one-time impulse buy at Staples last summer, thinking I'd fill this fine-looking, beautifully bound pad, for which a mole presumably gave the last full measure of devotion, with interesting quotes from the classics (oh the shame). So Rove had a point, QED. Unfortunately, he then continued into his hackneyed healthcare talk. And the rest - so far as humor or intelligent argument's concerned - was silence.

Chicago mafia

Brace yourselves folks, hurricane ho! Yes, in what looks to be a fleeting visit, a Mr Hurricane Earl of North Carolina will be dropping by New Haven tomorrow. In doing so, our guest is expected to knock some Yalies around a bit, zap a few leaves off the elms, and, above all, leave us very, very wet. The severest gale to strike the East Coast since 1991, experts allege. I've started banging old planks of timber to the windows. Come the morning I'll decamp to the basement with canned soup, an old radio set, and a bottle of Scotch. Just like I learned in the movies.

Speaking of blustery things, Chicago. For reasons I've yet to fathom, pretty much all my friends in Yale hark from the windy city. I'd heard before that natives tend to laud the Big Onion in extravagant terms. But my first-hand account attests to a whole new level of adulation. They simply *revere* the place. The people? Pioneering polymaths, modern-day Adonises! Cultural life? Like Medici Florence. The university? Best in the country, duh! The streets? You could eat your dinner off them. And so on.

Now, you might think the city's crime record, comically endemic corruption, and barely-fit-for-human-habitation climate (akin to living, in a freezer, on the South Pole for 10 months of the year) might give Chicago-rooters pause, and invite qualification to these fulsome plaudits. Not a bit of it. Shrugged off like pesky flies. Maybe they're right - maybe Chicago is the city of dreams. I don't know. I guess I'll just have to conduct ethnographic research - social science code for a good long holiday - of my own to weigh up the city's virtues and demerits :)

Courses have begun in earnest. On available evidence, Hindi will be the hardest grind: hour-long sessions every weekday - no time off, even for good behavior - and plentiful homework. We have to keep a diary outside class to build vocab. I considered switching this blog to Hindi for that purpose. But on reflection I decided such a move may dramatically limit a) my ability to write anything beyond listing the items of furniture in my room, their color (so long as they're not brown), and my preference for cats over elephants; and b) audience reach. It stays as it is.

The hurricane and rain will pass soon enough; I hope to be in New York on Saturday, when, in Central Park, we may again salute the sun. Plus brunch with Beth, shop with Michael and Sharon, reminisce with Jess. Much, as ever, to revel in and savor.