Aromas fill the nostrils as I read the recipe, the sound of sizzling onions greet the ears. Already the mouth is watering at the sight of the picture though I’m still in bed trying to answer that age-old question: what’s for breakfast?

It’s a curious question, isn’t it? How did the mind’s eyes, the minds’s ears, the mind’s nose manage to conspire and activate the salivary glands to make the mouth water? The actual cooking and the eating will follow soon enough, but first I must get out of bed!

Another curiosity: the recipe is from Pakistan — a country I have never visited and likely never will. Why does this recipe make my mouth water?

Another question: which way to Sialkot from Multan? Our elders would have been able to answer it without even thinking; I have no idea whatsoever! The same ancestors, if told you were from Sialkot, would have instantly known what your food tasted like and how different it was from food from other regions. Not just food, the sound of your speech, your preference for music, the strength and flavoring of your chai.

I chanced upon an article in the 1866 issue of the Atlantic, THE CASE OF GEORGE DEDLOW, the first documentation of the phenomenon of phantom limbs. During the Civil War, there had been many cases of severed limbs — perhaps connections actually survive an amputation?

Among my ancestors is a vivid memory, a longing to revisit those same ancestral lands. My uncle used to speak fondly of having been at the University of Lahore. He never got to revisit his old haunts.

What was once a singular region is now two countries — sworn enemies each poised to nuke the other. Year by year, the lists of grievances on each side grow longer. The schoolyard retort resounds: he started it!

Each side expects the other guy to make the first move. Have we forgotten how to de-escalate?

I have a dream. It’s not to rewind history to a former time, but rather to extend a hand of friendship and love, to recognize that our cells and their cells are made of the same DNA.

Cassandra and her husband had decided to adopt a child from India, you see. It was to be a brief trip — whatever their busy work schedules would permit — to celebrate Diwali with his family in Chandigarh, inquire about adoption while they were there, and return with the semblance of a plan for the adoption.

They had been married 11 years when she got sick in Zurich on her way back from India to the US. Swissair doctors stabilized her for 24 hours before letting her board a plane on to the US.

A couple of weeks following her return, she asked her husband to drive her to the hospital where they made their way to the psych unit, a familiar environment. Numb face, a blank expression, staring into space, perhaps comprehending what she was being told, perhaps not. The word catatonic was part of the chatter, and it seemed to fit. She was admitted for observation.

After bouncing from doctor to doctor for a couple of years, still looking for a cause and a treatment for whatever ailed her, someone pinned it down to JEV, a viral infection that attacks the central nervous system. Two thirds of those who catch it die, and they are the lucky ones! The remainder die a slower death. The risk of being overwhelmed by stimuli is ever-present. Social interactions with friends and family are perilous; the social circle shrinks, only the most faithful remain.

Over the years, the diagnosis of JEV turned into Epstein Barr Syndrome, then into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, now generally known as Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS) or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).

30 years later, Cassandra is divorced, living on her own in a community of friends. The stress of the illness had been too much for the marriage to bear. It brings a smile to my face to think of the child they raised and the delightful and wonderful human being she has turned out to be!

Oh and another thing: a few weeks ago, the story came full circle when PBS published the adjoining Brief but Spectacular connection to Covid-19. The stories go round and round!

We heard screams from across the city. The havoc and mayhem unleashed night after night simply went on and on. We had little sleep or peace in the house. Finally, when we ventured out, the city stood cleansed by the cantonment forces. When we were brought to the city and the railway station, I saw hundreds of corpses lined up against the walls. The whole station resounded with the cries …

Haroon Janjua in Unheard Cries, atrocities in Patiala.

Context: In Patiala state in 1947, the Muslims had constituted ⅓ of the population. Today the city has fewer than 2%. The remainder were virtually wiped out or expelled during this period (Source).

Darsh would have been among the people who were causing the “havoc and mayhem.” His mother described him as queasy about blood and gore. He was a gentle fellow, she said. So during those nights, he was assigned the job of setting fires to Muslim homes. He wouldn’t need to kill anyone — the others were perfectly comfortable with finishing the job once the residents came out of their homes.

The same city, the same set of nights, in the morning one could walk among the corpses on the way to buying vegetables for the family meal for the day. One might meet an older gentleman wailing about the loss of his family, begging all he saw to spare him a bullet, because he didn’t wish to live any longer.

All this history we knew, though no one talked about it, much less painful to focus on the task ahead: economic development of the country. Also much easier to talk about the atrocities of the other side. Like any schoolyard fight, much easier to say he started it, much easier to ascribe evil to the other side, much harder to acknowledge one’s own role in the tragedy.

How do other countries deal with similar situations? South Africa had its Truth and Reconciliation Commission — introspection on a national scale.

The accompanying video by Michael Moore suggests how Germany has dealt with their history and how the US might atone for its original sin. But, you know, Michael Moore isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

Everyone else just muddles along and hopes their memories won’t haunt them.

Good luck with that!

She was a mentor and a lifelong friend.

Little did I know, when we met that day in Syracuse, NY that our friendship would last nearly 50 years! I would go on to consider her and Lew my American family of origin.

I had been 25 when my father passed away. By the time I got the news, he had already been cremated. In the days that followed, I had processed his death without much emotional support. Except from her. I had spent countless dinner hours in their home.

We went on to be part of the changes in each others’ lives — she was the “best person” at my wedding;

Family members are people who are “there for you,” people you can count on emotionally. She took care of me when I needed it, I’ve been visiting Lew in Palm Springs CA this week. We have been recollecting highlights from her professional life.

For someone who had been brought up in a culturally conservative environment, Peggy and Lew were eye-opening examples of supportive parenting. They lovingly supported their kids in welcoming African-American and Japanese-American spouses into the family, then supported a daughter in transgendering, all without the type or degree of angst I might have expected from my background.

Thanks, Peggy, for your example. I’ll miss you as long as I live!

By night this is my aunt’s bed, by day it’s space for her and any family member that wishes to use the quilt for protection against the weather. In early January, the room is cold, in the high 50s (°F).

By mid-morning, she has consumed 3 English and 2 Hindi newspapers — a lifelong habit that she feels no need to give up. Her father was a freedom fighter though she was too young at the time of independence to remember most of what happened firsthand.

Politically, mother and daughter don’t see eye to eye — they are polar opposites — but this is what I find fascinating: such differences would cause most families here in the US to experience a “fissure.” Not these two! Even though they live nearly 250 km apart, they check in with each other several times a day. I suspect they each know what the other had for lunch!

Their love for each other serves as a model for me on how we can bridge our political differences and continue to recognize the deep bonds we share.

The area about 90 km north of Delhi is rich with the history of the Sikhs. My great grandfather had been a landowner in Chamkaur, the site of the battle of Chankaur (1704). Nearby there is Fatehgarh Sahib, site of two sons of Gobind Singh being being bricked alive for refusing to convert to Islam. The area is dotted with memorials of Sikhs and Mughals alike. I had grown up with this landscape, imbibing these stories.

There’s more. This same land, these same people were subjected to the hatred of the partition in 1947. Again, the blood was spilled, this time that of a million souls!

These cycles of revenge have been going on for 300 years, with no end in sight! Perhaps I ought to be outraged about the injustice done to my ancestors but I can not summon the outrage. These stories define Sikhism in opposition to the Mughals. The Mughals are long gone, the hatred is alive and well!

Sikhism was conceived as a loving religion, respecting both Hindus and the Muslims. Isn’t it time for it to return to those roots?

No regret about having walked away half a century ago.

Gandhi had been assassinated just a couple of years before I was born and the legend of Gandhi was large and omnipresent. We took the time to learn and reflect on the theory and practice of satyagraha — passive political resistance.

It was an idealist era in India. The idea of lifting all people out of poverty so the country could “develop” was in the air, we absorbed it well. It would be a “New India.” We had just gotten rid of the British, now it was time to get rid of the fetters of caste and religion.

Science and Engineering, needless to say, were going to be the country’s salvation.

What this old idealist observes is that in 75 years of independence, the political narrative has evolved. Gandhi is still respected, but perhaps not revered any more. His assassin Nathuram Godse is now something of a folk hero for having “rescued” India for the Hindus and put an end to the “secularism nonsense.” A new citizenship law has been instituted. For the first time, India has a law that treats Muslims differently from Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and believers of other religions that make up the country.

The protests against the new citizenship law recently brought 250 million protesters into the streets — that’s almost the population of the US! The protesters are not just Muslims. The lessons of “First they came for the Socialists …” have been absorbed well by the people!

I hope we haven’t forgotten the lessons of satyagraha. I hope the Indian tradition of protest will be revived again.

Perhaps it already has been?

Unlike most cities in India, Chandigarh has lots of green spaces, wide roads and traffic that won’t trigger asthma!

It was created in the aftermath of Indian independence and partition as compensation for Lahore, which had been allocated to Pakistan. Le Carbusier had been commissioned to design the city from the ground up and many of the buildings reflect his style. My grandparents built a house here in the mid-1950s and it’s what I consider my childhood home.

All 9 of their grandchildren spent parts of our summers here and we’re more like siblings than cousins because of it. Our bonds of affection run deep despite our separate lives, geographical distance and divergent politics. My cousin Raman, #7 in birth order, lives here now. The place went through an overhaul recently and looks gorgeous!

To be here is to feel the warmth of my grandparents’ presence.

About a 3-hour drive from Bangalore, at the edge of a forest, is this school. It serves a couple of tribal villages, about 250 families.

The Yanadi tribe have lived here for generations and have made their living off the forest harvesting honey, soap berries and other items the forest provides.

What’s a soap berry, you ask? It’s a berry processed to make a natural detergent suitable for use in washing machines. It’s nano-scale, Proctor & Gamble have nothing to worry about!

But the point is that it helps the Yanadi. These kids are the first in their families to go to Primary School.

The school provides all the benefits one might expect from something like this: free tuition, lunches, … but the innovative part is that the education is self-paced! When a kid returns from a couple of weeks of the family collecting in the forest, s/he hasn’t fallen behind and can pick up where s/he left off.

No focus on scalability here, just a gentle stirring in this environment.

No surprise that he did well academically that year, but that only brought a new challenge: having to share the credit with a god that had blessed him with the “good luck” of good grades!

“What does God have to do with it? I was the one who did the work and earned the grades!” No matter, we must thank God. The family made their way to the Sikh Temple to pray, Tej dragging behind.

Gurdwara Sis Ganj is an imposing structure in the old part of Delhi. The faithful take off their shoes to leave outside, a local businessman charges a few rupees to watch over them while they go inside to pray. The area in front of the temple has running water at the street level so people can wash their feet before entering. It’s a chaotic scene with folks depositing their shoes, washing their feet, others claiming their shoes and putting them on before heading out into the city again.

Once inside, they pause in front of a picture of Guru Nanak. Most open their wallets and deposit money into a donation box, then bow down until their head touches the ground, then erect on their knees, then head to ground again, until they feel they have prayed enough or someone behind them urges them to move on.

Around the corner is a set of steps that take you down a level to a picture of Guru Gobind Singh. Guru Nanak had been the founder of the Sikh religion but it was Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Guru, who codified what it means to be a Sikh. One is supposed to do the kneeling thing again, unless one believes they earned their grades by themselves and Guru Gobind Singh had nothing to do with it!

In front of the picture of Guru Gobind Singh was the scene of the rebellion! Outwardly, Tej* acceded to his father’s urging to pray. Inwardly, he realized something profound: prayer comes from within. It must be heartfelt. Only you know whether you are praying or just acting!

No one can make another person pray!

I was 14 at the time, I’ve never had much to do with that religion since that day. At the twilight of my life, it seems important to revisit the scene of the crime one last time!

* Tej is a pseudonym for my 14-year-old self.