Aakash has a break from his team swim sessions. In the interim, he goes for classes at the Y pool to hone skills, such as side breathing. For this Sunday class at 1120AM, there are just 3 students. Coincidentally, its a white American girl, an African-American boy and (Aakash) an Asian boy.
This kind of integration is not unusual in the least and I imagine is the norm in swimming pools and soccer fields across the US this Sunday morning. Aakash has been swimming for several years now and is as much the expert, as I'm not. He will sometimes want to show off, and cause the conservative TamBram in me to cringe. That is, he will do tricks in the water (front flip and touching the bottom) that to a novice such as me, feels borderline dangerous. This is of course an example of what you would call a clear and present danger.
There are also the unseen dangers you cannot plan for. As parents, some of us may feel this when we send our kids to school Monday morning so we can get on with our wretched workday lives.
I wonder if any such thoughts were going on in the minds of parents in Columbine that weekend in April 1999 and in Newtown, that weekend in Dec 2012. The week prior to the shootings in Columbine High school and Sandy Hook elementary school that took away their precious kids.
As I see Aakash and his friends splashing and doing somersaults and generally playing the fool during a break between laps, I also think about signs of racial intolerance that are creeping up in America. While there are additional reasons now, racial segregation is back in the South, stifling progress of poor black and Latino kids in those parts. They’re calling it re-segregation, as if somehow that absolves our generation of the crime.
There is couple of news items from the last week or so in the mainstream press. But did not get nearly as much press as is essential, me thinks. Reading those, I found myself sputtering and had to let myself calm down a bit before I could write about it. Otherwise this post would have been just a bunch of random characters from angry keystrokes that would have made no sense.
As if to convince myself that I'm not a Nervous Nellie, I have been discussing with few close friends who are parents, and my fears don't seem to be unfounded.
I hope that with this post I am not making those friends lose sleep. Because that's not my intent. But who I really do hope is losing sleep, a lot of sleep, are those who perpetrate such crimes.
What is my personal solution for this? Cowardly flight away from this country is the easy (but it’s not easy either, right?) and soft option I can come up with. Countries of the third world (and I am convinced the term ‘third world’ was first coined to be partly pejorative) have problems of their own but there’s something deeply disturbing about these problems in the developed world (where drills to be prepared for a shoot-out are part of the school day, just as recess is). As if developed in developed world is supposed to convey only the state of the economy, and not a state of mind.
I do not see myself growing old here, too old at any rate. Because keep in mind also, that I'm just a skilled, bloody, non-immigrant Visa worker here. Someone who like many others sends his kid to school Monday morning with a hug and prayer on the lips, hoping that for kids across the country, life and progress is as normal as it ought to be.
This kind of integration is not unusual in the least and I imagine is the norm in swimming pools and soccer fields across the US this Sunday morning. Aakash has been swimming for several years now and is as much the expert, as I'm not. He will sometimes want to show off, and cause the conservative TamBram in me to cringe. That is, he will do tricks in the water (front flip and touching the bottom) that to a novice such as me, feels borderline dangerous. This is of course an example of what you would call a clear and present danger.
There are also the unseen dangers you cannot plan for. As parents, some of us may feel this when we send our kids to school Monday morning so we can get on with our wretched workday lives.
I wonder if any such thoughts were going on in the minds of parents in Columbine that weekend in April 1999 and in Newtown, that weekend in Dec 2012. The week prior to the shootings in Columbine High school and Sandy Hook elementary school that took away their precious kids.
As I see Aakash and his friends splashing and doing somersaults and generally playing the fool during a break between laps, I also think about signs of racial intolerance that are creeping up in America. While there are additional reasons now, racial segregation is back in the South, stifling progress of poor black and Latino kids in those parts. They’re calling it re-segregation, as if somehow that absolves our generation of the crime.
There is couple of news items from the last week or so in the mainstream press. But did not get nearly as much press as is essential, me thinks. Reading those, I found myself sputtering and had to let myself calm down a bit before I could write about it. Otherwise this post would have been just a bunch of random characters from angry keystrokes that would have made no sense.
As if to convince myself that I'm not a Nervous Nellie, I have been discussing with few close friends who are parents, and my fears don't seem to be unfounded.
I hope that with this post I am not making those friends lose sleep. Because that's not my intent. But who I really do hope is losing sleep, a lot of sleep, are those who perpetrate such crimes.
What is my personal solution for this? Cowardly flight away from this country is the easy (but it’s not easy either, right?) and soft option I can come up with. Countries of the third world (and I am convinced the term ‘third world’ was first coined to be partly pejorative) have problems of their own but there’s something deeply disturbing about these problems in the developed world (where drills to be prepared for a shoot-out are part of the school day, just as recess is). As if developed in developed world is supposed to convey only the state of the economy, and not a state of mind.
I do not see myself growing old here, too old at any rate. Because keep in mind also, that I'm just a skilled, bloody, non-immigrant Visa worker here. Someone who like many others sends his kid to school Monday morning with a hug and prayer on the lips, hoping that for kids across the country, life and progress is as normal as it ought to be.
