EY/Asia Newsletter Submission

Being a foreigner in this country is not as easy as most of us make it seem. We do not see our families every week. Taking vacation time off does not consist of swimming in the beautiful beaches of Hawaii. It means traveling to the other side of the world in a cramped aircraft with four hundred people you do not know. It means twenty hours of torture and patient anticipation of your mother’s beautiful smile. It means submitting TRAX entries weeks in advance and facing the prospect of losing laptops holding twenty gigabytes of client information in a third world country. Being an international E&Y professional also means disguising a rather ugly accent, being asked questions that do not concern your country, and cringing through hours of baseball just to play a part in an animated conversation at the client site the next morning. Being an international student at a small liberal arts college in the flatlands of Ohio is a trivial matter. Being an international worker in one of the largest accounting firms in the world, in one of the biggest cities in the world, is multiple levels apart. I was in two minds because of this very fact. I wanted to work and help pay back my parents for all the financial sacrifices they made sending me to Ohio Wesleyan University. I also knew I wanted to study further, broaden my theoretical financial skill set, and therefore cleverly avoid corporate America for another year. One program made two desires fulfilled. One program made three years a contract. One program made the final four semesters of college make complete sense. One program made my first five twelevemonths in this country an absolute and gratifying triumph. Your master plan, well and truly.

I made a telephone call at three in the morning Indian Standard Time on the 27^th of December 2005 - the day I found out I was accepted into Ernst and Young’s YMP program. The news could not wait – it was four days to January and my new year had already been made. Receiving a letter from the University of Virginia confirming acceptance was the icing on the cake. I was nervous before I started school and for good reason. Four years prior, I was faced with the prospect of making friends in a country I did not know, in an academic environment that was completely different from what I had experienced before, with two diminutive suitcases that enclosed seventeen years of my beloved possessions. And here I was at The University, a campus thirty times the size of Ohio Wesleyan, facing smart people from all over the country who showed up primarily to stake their claim in a dog eat dog corporate world. It took me a little while to make my first few friends because I behave like an introvert at first glance. It also took me a while to get used to the rigor of eight hours of financial accounting drilled into my brain during class, and a further five hours of taxation, business law, cost accounting, and auditing while the sun made its slow summer descent. Soon enough however, I realized why this program was special. I made friends I could trust and relate to all over the country, exponentially improving my Ernst and Young network. I studied under some of the best professors in the country, people whose books I had to work with in some of my accounting classes at Ohio Wesleyan. I lived in one of the prettiest cities in one of the most stunning states in the country. I had to pay not a dime.

I eased into work at Philadelphia because of all the training I had already received at UVa. This made adjusting to corporate life an inconsequential matter. Everybody I have met at this company has been an exceptional teammate, coworker, friend, and mentor. This program defines Ernst and Young in the public accounting world and certainly makes it stand out. I cannot thank Ernst and Young enough for presenting me with an opportunity that made my parents proud. I do not know how long the program will continue but I do know I cannot wait to head back to balmy Charlottesville for the summer and complete the curriculum. I will not miss EY/AWS during the next three months but I will have a loaded busy season to look forward to.

A Nookie day

My eyes open to a bright white light. It's awful enough that I can only see shades of yellow and blue. Does that freakish thing a million miles over my head have to be so disconsiderate? Through all my wonderful fifteen years in this planet, the yellow ball has always been my morning enemy. I tried chasing it once. It stood umoved and unperturbed and unsympathetic. I should have realized that chasing the monster was a foolish task. It was, like I said, a million miles away. Hmm..I digress. My legs ache from all the mud running yesterday. I can barely stand - Easy now old boy - Yeah, nice and easy. Sniff and sniff again. No traces of canned meat yet. The human feeds me the same thing every day, with a slight change in diet every month. She thinks I'm too fat. Somebody should tell her the world is shaped like one of her rectangular ebay boxes. Bumbling idiot. Skin and bones I am, nothing more and a lot less.

I make my way up the wicked flight of stairs. The hunger is chipping away at my inner soul and I need the bloody can. Ah - The wonderful times of yore. I would run up the stairs and down again. And up. And down. The human would follow me and feed me those wonderful treats. The stairs were a source of affection and love then. They serve only a purpose of hunger satiation now. The human isn't in her room. I smell her torrid perfume and I smell her companion's too. So this is why she dissapeared last night. A rendezvous with another human. I am angry and I am a betrayed being. The human had taken all my love and given back an ounce. Just when the ratios were turning around owing to the human's unsuccessful mating attempts, the companion entered out of the blue. Quite literally - I am color blind you see. I digress again - The human must be found, and in a hurry.

Two hours pass and there is no sign of the human. I start to get worried even when I do not mean too. My natural emotions take control of me and possess my throat, resulting in an unwarranted deep howl. I blame my damn mother. She must have been a wolf like the legends of the past. I am not a straight breed, I'm quite positive about that certain fact. Howl deep and howl low, that should get some attention. The white one comes plodding down the stairs. "Nookie!" he shouts. I ignore the fool and continue howling. The only person I care about is the human and the howls will be answered. It always does. It may not be in a few hours, may not be in a few days, but it will be answered eventually. I haven't tried another technique because the howl has never, ever, failed me.

I trot up and down the living room full of the nasty ebay boxes. No wonder the brown one and the white one don't like this place. The human is quite messy and does not care an iota about her own house. I overhear the human arguing with the brown one quite often. The white one too. I do not blame them - the human has to get her act together if she wants to succeed in finding a mate. Yet, I am quite the old dying brain. The human did after all have a companion last night. And the companion took her away. I guess I will want the house in a rampant mess afterall. Fuck the brown one and fuck the white one.

I smell the torrid can. The human must have spoken to the brown one and informed him of her delayed arrival. The brown one shoddily scoops out the meat into my bowl. And sneers. You vile brown man. I hate your kind. You stamp on my tail on purpose and you throw liquid crystals on my face. You stare at my eyes for minutes on end and laugh when I ask for the door to be opened. You demand information and goods from my master and curse with the white one behind my master's back. And you do all this knowing there won't be any retaliation. I wish I had teeth and I wish I had my strong jaw back. I'd tear you open like an insignificant rat. And I will not have to eat canned meat for days. Damn you, vile one.

I sense my master's jeep - It's a few blocks away. The smile comes back and my heart is at peace. My darling human is back - the love of my life, the spirit of my soul. The keys clatter in the hole and the massive doors open wide. I look out with my tongue dripping clean and my tail wagging wild. I howl like the wind beneath the sea and I bark like a monk on fire. My master, the human, is back. She brushes past without a care in the world because the companion follows her. No loving look and no expected kiss. Zilch. Zero. Nada. The companion be cursed. The human race be damned. My head droops to an ungainely low and I fall back to sleep at the same spot where I awoke. Life has no meaning and love has no purpose. I am, after all, only a dog.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Toothy terror

It’s nine o’clock on a saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There’s an old man sitting next to me
Makin’ love to his tonic and gin

Sing us a song, you’re the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
And you’ve got us feelin’ alright

La la la, de de da
La la, de de da da da

My My..Piano Man by Billy Joel. A great way to start your Sunday. I end Saturday with heavy metal and wake up Sunday to a Joel melody. Picture perfect. In other unrelated news, I was to have my impacted wisdom tooth extracted on Friday. I asked my awesome senior at the Charming Shoppes audit if I could have the day off and he relented. Incredible really, considering this is busy season. I made my beautiful co-workers (other "Staff") Jill and Sam laugh with my visualizations of agony, terror, and torture. I missed the paid Friday lunch at TGI Fridays. I bought three gallons of orange juice to sedate my stomach through a weekend of intense hunger. I walked into the dentists office expecting the worst. I came out with a bloody appointment card. Apparently the first visit is an evaluation. They told me what I already knew - Tooth No.17 was fucked up. Gee! Thanks Doc! I wasted a vacation day and you have prolonged my agony. What's worse is they recommend taking out the wisdom tooth directly above though that particular tooth has erupted from the gummy masses like an angel. I need sedation but had to choose plain old local anaesthesia because I will be a lone soldier. All my friends will be at work and my fucking landlady won't tag along. Nothing to do but dream of the future. Try this visualization for size:

I walk down Walnut street with my shiny white teeth. La da di da da. Hum a rythm, skip a beat. I'm like a child with a silver plate. Are you hungry for a little more than you've had before? La da di da da. I haven't eaten in five hours. Docs orders. I am now cynical and gentle, borderline sentimental. Advertising hoardings that promote toothpaste make me cry. Old women smile as they pass me by on the street. No teeth. I cry I cry I cry. It's windy, it's cold, it's a bloody awful day. I walk, pause, and walk again. Gay men hold hands in the city of brotherly love. Ghetto thugs play a "fitty". Pretty women and their lucky boyfriends stare into the moldy sky. Billy Joel - I am in the mood for a melody. La da di da da.

This must be the place. 1601 Walnut street. Morpheus can only show me the door. I will have to open it. Where the fuck is Morpheus anyway? A dimly lit corridor. The lights flicker and show me an enormous man. He must be the gatekeeper. I shudder and take two steps forward and one step back. Rythm and beat. "Dr. Anna Kornbrot". The gatekeeper motions me toward the metallic list. I scan through the names and find Anna. She is italicized - a variable that could show me the future. Input italics. Run regression analysis. Result: "Invalid scope". My lips turn concave. The gatekeeper motions me again. He points toward a massive door. A door that has a slit in the middle and a row of flashing lights above. I press a symbol that looks distinctively like the mathematical ^. The row of lights flicker and flash in a hurry. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. The final "ping" destroys my inner soul and I brace myself for an explosion. None noted. The mighty doors open at the slits and the row of lights turn silent. I enter and enthrall myself with the sexual analogy. Turn around. The gatekeeps points one finger to the heavens. The massive doors close on me, with me, outside me, and around me.

I am lifted into the heavens. Strange doors indeed - I was kept unaware of their gravity defying prowess. Blame the gatekeeper. Ping Ping Ping. A rythm and a beat. Nine pings to be precise. The final ping has me gasping for breath again. I am confounded for the second time with the lack of an explosion. It's just a sun rising. Bright white lighs welcome me to level nine. I am in heaven but it feels like hell. A pale stranger beckons me toward her. A woman with red horns that compliment her lusty blonde hair. She is delightfully frightening. "Read, write, and sign". Three simple tasks and I do not question her reasoning. I do what I am told to do. The pale stranger gets her sheets of paper back. She smiles and I smile. I fail to notice the evil glint in her eye. It's only when I see the other tormented human-people that I realize my final fears. This is not heaven. This is not hell. This is nowhere. This is a silent deserted place that nobody dares to talk about unless they wish for immediate death. This is the place that the myths told us of. A place where the sole purpose is to wipe out a human-person's smile. A smile! Let's reflect on that. Smiles heal the world. They bring only happiness to its recipient. They stop wars and promote peace. They reassure a lover. They make intimate moments come alive from the shadows. This is the place that takes away smiles. A place promoted by the government to fuel mass weaponization, wars, corporate greed, and ultimate destruction.

Take me away! Jesus Christ! Mohammad! Tom Cruise! Hulk Hogan! Help me! The doors are locked from the outside. There is no escape. My mind twirls around and there is no rythm and no beat. Spin and spin again. I fall into the arms of the pale stranger and I finally see the evil eyes. Black. Shallow. And a hint of yellow. Time passes by and I do not know it. I wake up to Anna in a hood. Green masks, green clothes, and green hair. I also see the black in her eyes and this time its far from pretty. Splashes of red give her the touch of evil and the black gives me the feeling of doom. Touch and feel. Skip a rythm and a beat. Chainsaws cut open my lips. Enormous drills chip away at my gums. I see blood everywhere. Streams of red run riot through the white floor. The stench of my simmering flesh makes me nauseous. Anna pulls out a dagger. My mouth is held open by titanium contraptions and I cannot move my jaw. It's probably broken anyway. I scream but nobody can hear me. The dagger is plunged into the recesses of my mouth and white shrapnel flies all around. Bits of my teeth. Pieces of my smile. Shattered. Never to come back. The dagger flies in again. And again. And again. Tears stream down my eyes but I receive no consolation. The black eyes bounce wild with laughter. Anna keeps at the torture and I fall into a deep sleep. My mind has given up and I am better off dead.

Time flies. I wake up in a sudden beat and find myself within the mighty doors again. I smell a mix of bile and the remnants of the little food I had before my journey into neverland. I gag and feel the doors move along with gravity, through the heavens, through hell, and finally onto dry land. The gatekeeper picks me up and flings me onto the street. I crawl my way to the yellow moving machines and make my slow way home. I've lost my smile and gained evil. I have become them. I wonder how many of us live our painful smile-free lives. We do not think of the future. Our only job is to bring other innocents to the gatekeeper. We live on the happiness of the innocents. We bring them fresh and happy and return them destroyed and smile-free. There is no reality.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Death and the heavens

A sleeply little hamlet a little west of Islamabad. It's six in the morning and life in all its present forms wakes up to a new dawn. Ayesha nudges her husband -it's time to go to work. Abdul hesitates, yawns, hesitates again, and forces himself up. Ayesha was late today - she should know better. Abdul needs to go to the city to apply for a job as a security guard in one of Islamabad's swanky new residential complexes. He curses, rubs his eyes, and hurries to take in a cold shower. Water - the essence of life. Heat - what he does not have. Bloody Americans. They keep resources from Muslims. Pakistan struggles because America is consuming all of the oil. The water runs, soothing his mind. A silent patter. A shimmering puddle. A cool drop. Let the water wash away the anger.

The newspaper man brings in the latest from around the world. "More Iraqis killed!", "Americans negociate a billion dollar military deal with Israel!", "Arab woman killed in New York City!", "United States forms nuclear defence pact with India". Abdul scans the first few pages - he cannot read. He can see. Pictures. Everywhere. Iraqi children being beaten by American forces. Women walking around Iraq with no veil to keep away inquisitive eyes. The greed for oil. The hatred in the west. And the pictures are always the same. The cleric told him of the hate. The cleric knows all. The cleric believes American deaths will cause peace. Abdul believes him. The cleric cannot lie - he is the learned one. He can read the Quran and he is true. He has to meet the cleric. The interview can wait- Abbas will understand. The front door opens to a soothing breeze but an angry man. Ayesha looks longingly at the man she loved, watching him dissapear into the valley.

Chaos! The cleric must be having a rally this afternoon. Abdul looks up in astonishment as hundreds of people raise their arms and scream. Allah's soldiers. That's what the cleric calls them. He brushes past and demands to speak to the all-knowing one. The cleric is speaking to someone - calm as ever. Abdul patiently waits and soon enough, the cleric motions him in. "They have pulled out the final straw, my son." This is the final battle and Abdul knows it. He is prepared but he must know more. What did the straw signify? The cleric peers deep into Abdul's dark brown eyes. "They have humiliated our prophet. They are laughing at our religion. The religion we live for. The religion we promised Allah we would die for." Abdul's eyes well up - A picture of the prophet? The prophet must not be idolized! And especially not humiliated! The cleric grabs Abdul's head and tells him his time is near. Ayesha must not know and Ayesha need not know. There will be maidens with fruit and tea in the heavens. He will not miss Ayesha. God needs him and God knows all.

Abdul's job is simple. Put himself in the firing line so the guards at the consulate will be distracted. Rahman and his all-conquering troop can then plant the explosives at the specified locations. He will die. So will Rahman. The cleric knows all. Abdul walks with his fellow soldiers into the city. There will be innocent Muslim men, women, and children who will be killed by the blast. They will also go to heaven and will be thankful to Abdul for taking them away from this world. The cleric knows all. Abdul walks past posters depicting Jews as the cursed ones. American flags being burnt. It does not matter that his fellow muslims are satirizing other religions. It does not matter that his fellow citizens are burning soveriegn flags of other nations. What does matter is that when Islam is humiliated, the world must pay. The cleric knows all.

Gunshots. People running everywhere. Abdul runs too - he follows Rahman upto the consulate gate. Who told the Americans? Who betrayed us? A sniper bullet travels through Rahman's brain and takes away his feelings, his emotions, his life. Abdul runs. "Abdul! Stop right there!". Abdul's stomach turns upside down. A familiar voice, a voice that he used to love. Fury. Rage. Betrayal. "Ayesha! How could you!". Gunshots. Three bullets take away Abdul's life. Three bullets for a cleric. Three bullets for Islam. Three bullets for the heavens.

The cleric grabs another man's head and tells him of the heavens. The cleric knows all.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

The Anatomy of Weather

Very strange things have been happening in the recent past. I look up at the bleak dark sky through my window in the morning. The trees have lost their bloom. There are no joggers on the street. The roads look slippery. The air is still and then the wind rattles my window. The air is still again. I get out of bed, brush my teeth, bundle up in three layers, and walk down the termite-ridden wooden steps to take out the trash. I open the door cautiously expecting a surge of cold air and an immediate self retreat. I walk outside to warmth. Sunshine. The smell of spring but the sight of winter. The touch of summer but the sound of fall. Not entirely unexpected. It was sixty degrees fahrenheit today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Just like yesterday. And the day before. Tomorrow promises more of the same.

[Zoom out into a wide shot of the "city of brotherly love". Zoom out so we watch our cold blue earth from a distance. Pan camera across the globe, around it, until it rests on Northen India. Zoom in to the city of Delhi - the capital city, the metropolis of a zealous nation]

A baby wakes up to screams that scare him. So little, so fragile, but so very peaceful. Papa's been drinking again. But this time the screams are not of a mother facing an abusive wrath. The screams are of a mother who has lost her husband. An abusive husband but bound by religion and her newborn's needs, a necessary husband. He had been walking the streets after a daily shift at the shoe factory down the road. Walking with the bottle that kept him company on every night including this one. This night was special - he had his paycheck. He could pay a prostitute for what his wife would not give. Not because she did not want to. But because her body was in a torrid mess after nights of incessant beating. Sadly, the building is closed - severe weather alert. Zero degrees centigrade. Bah! These officials. With a single t-shirt clinging to his skinny body, he walks the frigid streets with his bottle. He shivers. Maybe a little rest before he walks a little further. His eyelids give up and hugging himself to keep warm, he lies down on the open road. Rest in peace while the cold breeze takes your life. Slowly. Just like you did your daughter's. A baby cries. A mother weeps. A nation carries on.

Unusual temperatures everywhere. I'm not a greenpeace liberal but I can see things are going wrong. And unless something is done soon, the earth will take what we have destroyed. And give back death..and eternal sleep.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Oh Mother, My Mother

The last few days have been hectic. We travelled to Tirupur, Clothes Kingdom of India to pick up clothes for myself. It's dirt cheap yeah? But the journey proved to be my mother's undoing. It all started on a fateful September 1999 evening. My dad had gone on one of his religious piligrimages (thankfully, on my mother's insistence, he has realized that the God is within and it's no use praying to sullen stone idols that represent "God") and I was studying for my tenth grade National Board Examinations. My mother had complained of acute pains in her joints and fingers a year or so prior to this incident but let it be and ignored it (owing to her philosophy of ignoring ailments and thus curing them - the mind affects the body). On that day however, all hell broke loose. My mother started bloating up like a balloon filling up with water and soon she couldn't breathe. She was retaining all the water as her kidneys were failing - rapidly and alarmingly. I immediately called relatives but until my dad came back, she wasn't shifted to emergency (I'm not sure why). She was soon diagnosed however with S.L.E (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus), a chronic, usually life-long, potentially fatal autoimmune disease, just like the dreaded AIDS [Edit: AIDS is *NOT* an auto-immune disease. It is an acquired immune disease. Therefore, unlike AIDS, Lupus cannot be transmitted and has to do with the body's own malfunctioning immune system. Sorry Mom!]. It isn't easily diagnosed because signs and symptoms are so often seen with other diseases - fever, malaise, joint pains, myalgias and fatigue. The body creates anitbodies against its own DNA - therefore it's autoimmunity characteristics! Women get it on a 9-1 ratio but it's uncommon in Asia. My mother has it however and for a year after the diagnosis, she was in significant pain and suffering.

My mother is an astounding woman however. Her illness is one of the worst. But she is the bravest woman I know. Ever smiling, ever positive, ever wonderful. She did not complain an iota and she stuck to her guns - the illness wasn't going to affect her, it would't affect her family. She openly confronted doctors about high steroid doses (she is well versed in British flower/herbal medication - Homoepathy and Bach Flower Remedies) and without regard to incessant outbursts from her mother, she treated herself with eastern techniques. And my mother got better. She proved to the world that natural remedies work and that being negative was simply foolish. And she greeted me with that same beautiful smile on my trip to India this winter.

However, the last few days has seen the re-emergence of that selfish, sinister disease named SLE. It's been three years since the last "re-emergence". When I came to India last. And it's come back again - on my return. Strange but true. My mother currently has high fever too. And I leave India in a couple of days. The days frighten me and the nights are worse. I only pray she gets better tomorrow. And blogging about it has it's sense of prayer.

To my mother.