I’ve lived in Manhattan for a year.  I’ve always been fascinated with the city, but money and external forces kept me out for years.  It wasn’t until I saw how godly the people of New York were in the wake of the most macro-tragic event of my life that I decided I had to finally take my naps here.  These days though, I live on an island with equal parts people who tell me war is never the answer, and people who tell me war is “necessary” because “12 years is long enough”.  Regardless of “best” method, it seems as if everyone in the city/country has the same ultimate objective. 

 I grew up in Reading, PA, where open minds are weld shut.  As a devout little Hindu, I hid my family’s religious beliefs and practices from my friends for fear of ridicule, even though those practices never amounted to more than the occasional puja, with coconuts and bananas.  As if childhood and puberty weren’t confusing enough, I was hiding my parents’ answers to cosmic questions from good friends who believed different answers to the same questions.  I was a stupid kid.  Er… I was a kid.  

About the time I graduated from kid-hood, I escaped.  I took my persistent childhood to more cultured areas and the fresh ideas living there.  …  Moving right along, 11 months after I graduated college, I was in a car accident and coma.  I had to re-learn to walk and talk.  I thought… a lot.  Some decisions made while lying in my padded rehab cube are …

-         There may be a God.  But She isn’t anything like the pictures painted thousands of years ago by the sexist racists living all over our flat earth.

-         The only difference between the male and female of most species that isn’t cultivated by society/TV is that the female can reproduce while males knock her up.

-         While I don’t think there is a fat dude named Ganesha with an elephant’s head controlling people’s luck – even if Homer Simpson thinks there is – I do believe certain tenets of Hinduism and most religions define my own personal faith: people should “live right” by others; and if there is/was a God, She’s just a ball of creation-energy.

-         It is pretty egotistical to assume that the creator of all beings looks like us, or even that we are happier (more “evolved”) than, um, cockroaches.

-         I will no longer conform to the religious beliefs of the aforementioned ignorami when there is no reason to think that future generations won’t laugh at the ways of the “flat earth” on which we now blunder.

Armed with new warped thoughts, I took my sorry ass to Boston, where I met Ramsey, a new friend from Lebanon who told of a childhood devoid of future plans “because we didn’t assume we would see the future”.  I spent two years in Grad School with people from all over the geographic and idealogic world(s), including one friend who has since passed on because he took a business trip on one of those damn planes, and another buddy who has been deployed to deserts to avenge him.

Now I am home… in Gotham.  Something in which I pride myself is an ability to get the most out of my Metropolitan experience.  As a Manhattanite, I’m an Actor.  Wouldn’t have happened in Reading.  Another sillier passion surfaced here too.  I started singing Rage Against the Machine songs with the cover bands that would let a drunk, braided-haired Indian onstage. 

Have you ever listened to Rage’s lyrics?  I credit Zack de la Rocha, Rage’s ex-singer, with chilling me to the bone with some of his poetry.  Back in the early 90s, he told me that …

“… Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them …”

… right before screaming “WAKE UP!” over and over.

Thinking about that now takes me back to Ramsey’s stories.  If I had grown up amidst all that destruction, would I hate people too?  Living here, though my love affair with Gotham has not cooled, today I am distraught over conflicting angels and demons.

War is never the answer. 

We must rid dictators of weapons and punish genocidal zealots.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have participated in a reading of Lysistrata for Salaam Theater/Theater Against War.  I’ve also played the part of the Iraqi Interrogator in “3 Kings” who lost his son to DoesItMatter Bush’s bombs.  My mind is a microcosmic mesh reflective of NYC.  And through it all, a different set of lyrics have been resonating through my brain – from Perry Farrell and the song, “Pets”:

… My friend says we’re like the dinosaurs… and here we are… doing ourselves in… much faster than they ever did.  We’ll make great pets…

 God… I hope not.

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