More Than a Test Score

As almost everyone knows, last week a group of Somalian pirates boarded a U.S. cargo ship. The captain of the ship, Richard Phillips, offered himself up so the pirates wouldn’t hurt the crew. The pirates obliged and held the captain hostage on a lifeboard for five days. The life boat was followed by a fleet of various Navy ships, and President Barack Obama and the government tried to “communicate” and “negotiate” with the pirates for Captain Phillips’ release. Finally, the Navy said enough is enough, and the captain jumped overboard into the ocean and Navy SEALs sniped three of the pirates and captured a fourth. Bravo. The Captain Hook of the Somalian renegades wasn’t too happy with this, and threatened retaliation for the loss of their comrades.

Now everywhere I see, the media and liberals in general are showing the pirates as some misunderstood, discriminated against group of misfits just looking for social acceptance. I call BS. What they are doing is ILLEGAL. It’s not ok to set sail, find a cargo ship belonging to another country, hop on board, kill the crew, and take the goods.

The media is also praising Barack Obama for rescuing Captain Phillips. What did Obama do? For five days he tried to negotiate with these pirates, talked about how they felt, why they were doing it, etc. etc., but in the end, it got NOWHERE. You know what resolved the issue? Good, old fashioned eliminating the enemy. That should have happened on day one. The offer from the U.S. should’ve gone something to the effect of, “Hi, this is the United States speaking. How are you? Good! Ok, so it seems you have kidnapped one of our citizens and iare holding him for ransom. We see you and are aware of your intentions. Release him safely to us now, and you will stand a fair trial in a United States court. If you do not release him, we will kill you. You have five minutes.”

Now we have people saying “Oh no! Now the pirates are just going to take more ships in retaliation! We should’ve just negotiated!” First off, if we had negotiated, Captain Phillips would be dead. Second, there is a simple solution to the problem:

Every U.S. cargo ship should be armed to the hull. Huge guns on each side and a squad of marshalls to operate them. If another ship gets too close, a warning. If they get any closer, they get blown out of the freakin’ water. Problem solved. We wouldn’t have to worry about another pirate except for Captain Crunch. I know Obama wants to set an example by keeping ships unarmed, getting rid of our nukes, downsizing the military, repealing the second amendment, etc., but the pirates aren’t going to say “Aw aren’t these nice and trusting people. Let’s all apply for a job at McDonalds and live happily ever after.”

Sometimes I hear people talking, or I read what they’re typing, and I say to myself “Wow. Are people really this stupid? I didn’t know people could actually be so dumb to believe this stuff. I bet they have to pay their girlfriends just to stay with their sorry, whipped butt.” The day for trying to please everybody else in the world is over. Diplomacy is good, yes, but if you mess with the bull you get the horns. It’s time for America to start behaving like the world superpower they are, and not little schoolgirls trying to get an B+ on their english test by fluttering their eyelids at the teacher. The whole dang world in general needs to stop walking on eggshells to not bother these pirates; instead, go their caves on the beach, and wipe them out. No more pirates, no more killed and captured innocent people, no more stolen goods and lost profit. In short, when the world is without pirates, you win.

Ah, spring break. A time to go to the beach and admire the bodies of whatever gender you would prefer, ignore school for a precious week and sink into a sea of tranquility.

Sort of.

I went back to – where else? – beloved Germany for seven days. First off, that already doesn’t sound like a typical American spring break. I did not get a tan, I did not go swimming… Although I did have some wonderful adventures. Let’s begin.

Day One : Exploring the little towns. Now the lovely thing about Europe is the old, old cities and the old, old buildings. We went into many of those. One the first day, we went into a quaint little monastery to take a peek at the old rococo rooms. (Fun fact – Most monks make beer! I mean, what else is there to do?) It was a lovely place, very plain (except for that rococo room – looked like a wedding cake exploded) and cold. We were looking around, lighting a candle for prayer, and then I went outside to wait because I thought we were finished. After ten minutes of being alone, I went inside to find no one there. I slowly began to panic. Knowing this was the wrong course of action, I went into another room and began to poke around for any signs of anyone. Only after I came across the pews and bibles did I realize that this was probably not where I should be. I went back outside, following the Boy Scout doctrine of “hug a tree” when you get lost. I was nervously tapping my foot until my grandmother found me and lead me into, of course, the giant wooden doors I didn’t go into. I then explained to them my half-hour adventure, resulting in my brother yelling “Oh my God, those monks probably have to burn their eyes out now!” No one saw me, by the way.

Day Three : Schlossing. This is my made-up verb for ‘castle-seeing in Germany or Austria’.  We went to visit two castles of King Ludwig II (Fun fact – he was psychotic!) which were situated on opposite hills. Now, they were both very beautiful, but it was about a forty minute walk to get up one and a twenty minute to get up the other, not to mention the ten minute walk in between both of them. As terrible as it was for some people, the king had his food made in one castle and delivered to the other. That’s right – he made his servants walk down a hill, across a valley, up a hill, to the kitchen to get his food, down the hill, across the valley again and finally back up the hill to his private dining room. I hope he liked it cold.

Day Five : Zugspitze. For those of you not familiar with southern German mountains, this 2965 m tall mountain is right out side of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and pretty high up. So we took two cable cars packed with a bunch of skiiers (that is the correct plural of people who ski, right?) and went up to the top. Let me tell you now – it’s stunning. The sky was blue, the snow was white, and I could not feel my toes. Or my head, as a matter of fact, because I lost my amazing hat on the way to the cable car. Why was it amazing? It perfectly matched my jacket and my scarf. How did I loose it? No idea.

Day Seven : Munich. Now, I love going into Munich. The capital of Bavaria (Fun fact – that means southern Germany!) is a really neat place, with a ton of history and places to shop and eat. (If you’re ever there, go to the Hofbrauhaus for, like, a pretzel or something. It’s not that exciting; just a bunch of old Germans who know what they’re doing, tourists who do not, and college kids getting drunk. Go to say you went. Then go eat somewhere else.) This time, we decided to go to the Residenz (yes, that means residence), because we’ve never been there. The treasury was neat, with a bunch of old and shiny things like crowns and such. The actually Residenz was not. First, half of it has been destroyed, so most of it is not original. Is it still pretty? Yes. Let’s wrap it up on this note – I’ve never seen so much freaking pottery in my entire life. (And what did I do when I got back to the hotel? Bayern vs Barca FTW! And Barcelona tore them to SHREDS, kids!)

It’s so good to be back! I’ve been away from the blog thanks to my big, all-important 12th grade board exams (the last and most important exam for an Indian school-goer). It gives me boundless joy to report that they are over, and went off beautifully, thank you very much. The end of these exams also spells the end of school. Period. In comes the next phase of life: embracing adulthood, and setting up the machinery for life (going to college, deciding on a career…)

I can’t help feeling that there’s so much afoot, but for some reason nothing seems to be happening. Here I am holding the book of life after having finished the enormous chapter entitled ‘my school life’, and suddenly I find myself residing in a set of blank pages; a confusing, frightening, yet relaxed set of blank pages. Each day seems a coequal of the last, and nothing special marks the end of the week – I’m living in a perpetual weekend that shall end the day I get my results (which happens some time in the closing days of May). The first two weeks after the end of the exams were amazing: no more school induced worries, home work, exams, nor anything else of the sort; I finally caught up with some old friends, had some parties, played lots of soccer, turned 18, and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it! OK, Enough! This ‘absolute freedom’ has become unbearable. My mind has become sloppy, and I’m generally becoming super lazy. Time to oil the good ole machinery, and prepare it for whatever lies ahead. Perhaps I’ll read some good books, get into shape, and find out what I’ve been missing out on for the past few months.

For some odd reason Dumbledore’s deep voice booms in my head:

“Dark, and difficult times lie ahead, Harsh. Soon we must make the choice between what is right and what is easy”

I’m not convinced about anything being dark, or sinister, but something about it sure seems sprinkled with some difficulties. Secondly, I’m not one for the easy path. An unexplained excitement seems to show itself every once in a while, and makes me feel happy. I’m ready for the next big thing!

Comparatively speaking, I’m pretty ordinary. Most of my body parts are in tact, I have two parents, I’m literate, and I wear clothes. I have my little quirks like a passion for blues guitar, but I’m ordinary.

While I was filling out an application I was asked about challenges I faced in everyday life. I thought, well, my country’s not at war, I don’t live in poverty, and nothing devastating has ever happened to me. But everyday life? Challenges? And then I remembered one crucial challenge I did face hour by hour, day by day, year by year. My speech impairment! Of course!

Initially, I had considered going mute, or at least pretending I was mute, because it would at least simplify the issue. I’ll put it this way: during that period of childhood when I was supposed to be learning how to speak, I received a tongue implant. My tongue got a bit twisted and was taking too long to go back to normal, so I just received a foreign implant – as simple as that.

That implant allowed me to speak not only fluently but eloquently, poetically, sardonically. And yet, much like movies made out of books, it didn’t quite do the trick. My relatives would all speak with their genetically homogenous tongues and I would find that mine could not elicit the appropriate responses. And so, like the movie versions of books, a lot went unsaid. I’m allergic to parsley. I want to study International Relations. Yeah, but the social issue at hand… and my tongue would continue to automate responses silently because in that community that happened to be my family, my ethnic group, and my entire country, all that came out of my mouth could only be translated as Occidental mumbo-jumbo.

And so I found myself at the hands of said mumbo-jumbo, all thanks to this spare part ill-fitted to the body it controlled. Arab passport? English language. Iranian blood? English tongue muscle. Bahraini family? English homework for which to seek constant help, until that wasn’t needed.

But despite infrequent minor discomfort, how could I purport that this little strip less than two inches long posed a serious challenge? It allowed me to speak after all, which I’m sure was helpful. In the First Language Arabic class it allowed me to say, “Why the hell is this poet talking about cheese?” And then I realised he was discussing cowardice (they’re spelt the same in Arabic). When my granddad called and said, “Salam! Chetori jan?” I said, “Salam, I’m good thanks.” The problem came when making plans as dull as working as a tea-server in an office and thinking of the challenge when translating “tablespoon” literally. Or when making more ambitious plans, like wanting to reform my country, but then having to consider whether or not parliamentary speeches would have to be in a certain language that I didn’t speak very well. The problem came when someone would ask where I was from and would start speaking with their beautiful machine tongues, and although my ears processed this, my tongue would shrink back. The problem came when my mother tongue, or even father tongue, were tongues I longed to have like kids look at bicycles behind shop windows.

If you think of the potential problems if a bee couldn’t buzz, if a bird couldn’t chirp, if an ant did the Macarena instead of moving their feelers – and no other ants would know the Macarena dance, of course – that is the problem that has my spectacular, shiny foreign implant lagging all too often. How hopeless we would be if we could not communicate. To put it simply: it might feel bad to be cursed at – but it’s outrageous to not to be able to reply with some light-hearted, witty Middle Eastern Yo’ Momma joke.

Not so yum.