Postscript

I never did make it to San Francisco, at least not this time. Instead, I found a job in my field in Bangkok, Thailand, a city you will be familiar with from the Hi-Tech Knapsack. So I will submit my visa application from the States, and then go to my hometown Toronto to schmooze with family and old friends, and also go through all my boxes to prepare a shipment.

And that's it. Skye Frontier was meant to be about India, Middle East politics, Bollywood, and the internal journey that coincided with the gathering of stamps in my passport. When next a new theme comes to me, return here for the appropriate link.

Until then, a very warm and special thank you to my loyal and beloved readership. It's all been for you!

Jodhaa Akbar in Dubai

Dubai was my final stop. I had always wanted to see that particular super-rich Gulf state, and to fly Emirates Airlines. Regarding the latter, it now occupies the Number One position for favorite airlines. Jet Airways is still on the list, too. Singapore Airlines has fallen a notch.

After an all-night flight, I arrived in a rather groggy state and the taxi driver I found was none other than Hassan-bhai from Bombay. He dropped me at my (outrageously overpriced) hotel, and offered me a city tour. I accepted. My day started in Hindi, and was about to continue in that vein pretty much for the duration of my short sojourn in the United Arab Emirates. I had parothas and massala chai for breakfast. Later on, Hassan-bhai picked me up with his friend Atif, who hailed from Pakistan. They took me around to see part of the waterfront, variously themed malls (including one with indoor skiing), carpet merchants, the world’s only 7-star hotel, and a perfectly coiffed beach.

We had a whale of a time. There are lots of Hindi music radio stations, and we cranked up the volume and hit the highway, singing and dancing as much as one can in a car, and generally having lots of fun together.

At some point, our conversation turned to interreligious marriage. The boys asserted that if a Hindu girl were to marry a Muslim man, that would be OK. But if a Muslim girl married a Hindu, that would be pretty much grounds for an honor killing. As I don’t quite agree with that stance, I recounted a brief anecdote to make my point as tactfully as possible.

Nearly half a century ago, when people were even more traditional than nowadays, there was a young woman from a small town in Kansas, Christian by birth, but with ideas of her own, who decided to study far from home in Hawaii. There she met a (lapsed) Muslim man from Kenya, Africa. They fell in love and married. Needless to say, there was consternation on the part of all the parents. But nobody contemplated knocking off either the bride or the groom to save besmirched honor. A son was born of this union. And he is about to become the next President of the United States of America.

For good measure, I just had to add that this difference in mentality is one of the reasons that India and Pakistan are and will remain poor countries. This is not a case of imposing foreign values, heaven forefend. People should be able to follow their own beliefs and traditions. Stay poor if you want if that’s the collective will.

Later on, I went to the Mall of the Emirates (the one with indoor downhill skiing) with a really nice Filipino chap I hooked up with. There was a cinema. And you will never guess what movie was playing: Jodhaa Akbar!! This was the first movie I was in upon arriving in Bombay! I couldn’t believe my luck. It was with Arabic and English subtitles. I bought two tickets for the next show.

Here I was at the end of my trip, reliving the happiest moment of all, which occurred at the beginning. It was like coming full circle. The crowning glory.

Hritik Roshan plays Laluddin Mohammed, the just Mughal emperor. He calculates that he can solidify Mughal rule over all of India by marrying the Rajput princess, Jodhaa (Aishwarya Rai), cementing an indispensible political alliance. Princess Jodhaa agrees to the union on two conditions: that not only must she keep her Hindu religion, but also have a shrine to Krishna, of whom she is a devotee, in her quarters. Laluddin Mohammed agrees, they marry, she becomes Empress, and both make a genuine effort to respect and even participate in each other’s rituals and traditions.

This could only come out of Bollywood. In fact, this is what I love the most about the genre. The intelligent and sensitive manner in which they approach issues of tolerance and modernization. It was also wonderfully poignant to see it in an Arab country. The subtext is clear. India was finally united as a political entity when Muslims and Hindus got together in respect, tolerance and love.

But that’s not all. To win her over completely and demonstrate his sincerity, he abolishes a pilgrimage tax on Hindus. In the speech he makes before his court to announce this momentous decision, we get not one, but several, rather clear shots, although at a slight distance, of yours truly, Skye Frontier, in full Mughal courtier regalia. Following the scene is the catchiest song in the movie, hailing the great emperor for his magnanimity and wisdom.

I set out with a dream. It came true. I saw it with my very own eyes and felt it in my beating heart. It has all been worth it.

And so concludes my journey. Jai Hind! Bollywood Zindabad!

It’s not the fall that hurts…

It’s when you hit the ground.

Phnom Penh’s answer to bhang lassi is a neat little recipe known as Happy Pizza. It is that old Italian favorite, with lots of green stuff sprinkled on top. It smartly does the trick for many hours of contented confusion, and I do need to pull the mental eject lever a bit more than usual these days.

So this is it. Two more days. And a sense of foreboding. Suddenly my optimism has all but vanished.

San Francisco is supposed to be my American Dream. With some help, I managed to get to an advanced stage in the recruitment process as Director of Technical Publications in a rather prestigious Silicon Valley firm. And it was only on a technicality that I didn’t get the actual job – the sitting director decided not to vacate the post after all. Who could blame her? As the economy goes south, people are understandably not so keen on job hunting.

It has been three months now, and what is all the more worrying is that all the jobs I’ve applied to on my own have responded to my application with either stony silence or a brief missive to the effect of “thanks but no thanks”. The only bright spot is a major air carrier has approached me for a rather less than senior post, but it is now the only thing on offer. The upside is that the biggest perk is free air tickets. However, it is far from a sure thing.

Nevertheless, I continue to submit my résumé just about everywhere that I have a reasonable chance. If you throw enough spaghetti up against a wall, some of it is bound to stick eventually. Yet I can’t help but confront the ghosts of my last sojourn in the U.S. ten years ago, when the sum of all my fears came to pass, and basically resulted in a financial train wreck and the crushing of my self-confidence. Older and more resilient as I am, it isn’t easy to face a prospect like that head-on, once again.

Add to this mix the sense of termination of one of the greatest years of my life. Those of you who have dedicatedly followed these pages bear witness to the endless adventures, the happiest moments, and the carefree existence, which of course, is all untenable over the longer term, and that starts right about now. My memory is constantly jogged into conjuring up images of amazing places, fantastic people, and no end to the untroubled fun. I can’t help but feeling a tinge of sadness and nostalgia.

There is an escape hatch. A former colleague put my name forward for a reasonably good technical writing position based in Bangkok. As time goes on, it seems more and more attractive, like the city itself. You know you shouldn’t, but deep down, you really want to surrender to it. It wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of my American Dream, just a postponement, until Silicon Valley’s prospects brighten somewhat. And I could continue doing the expat thing, which I enjoy immensely.

Nevertheless, I’m just wary that I’ll let so many people down, after trumpeting my imminent arrival Stateside for the better part of a year. And I will go. My flight is next week. I’ll at least touch base. And I will make every effort to get that airline job. But in the absence of even a single other U.S. prospect, if the Bangkok job does go through, despite all this hand-wringing, I reckon I’ll take it.

Angkor Wat

I did finally manage to have a successful date in Phnom Penh, a feat more difficult than it sounds. But the following morning, lazing around in bed, I was oblivious to the fact that I was supposed to check out of the hotel and make my way to Cambodia’s second city, Siem Reap, with the goal of seeing the amazing Angkor Wat temple complex. Well, suffice it to say that with fifteen minutes to spare, there was an instant, amusing, and hurried flurry of activity. No breakfast of course, and, more icky given the previous night, no shower. But I piled myself onto the bus in the nick of time and made my way northward.

Cambodia is poor. The parts I’ve seen aren’t quite a destitute as, say, Hampi, but things are pretty basic. As the country was pretty much totally destroyed, even from a low starting point, by instability, genocide, and ongoing civil war, remarkably and admirably, the world community stepped up to the plate and has taken a keen interest in the development and construction of the nation. The international aid and NGO community is here in greater force than perhaps even Aceh. So, during the bus ride, there wasn’t really a lot to see out the window, other than some pleasant bucolic scenery.

It had becoming harder for me to keep my mind on what I’m doing here. The job search is going a lot slower than I’d like, and I find myself giving self-directed pep talks and soliciting more from whoever I think will be convincing. I really am ready to move to San Francisco, on all sorts of levels. First of all, I want to be closer to my blood relatives. Second of all, I want to right the disastrous experience of the last time I live in the US, if only to prove to myself that I can. It helps that the jobs in my area of expertise are almost all located in Silicon Valley. And I really think that to reach for the stars career-wise, that is the most logical place to be. OK, so the weather isn’t perfect, but it’s not so bad, either. Kind of like an eternal cool spring. I can deal with that.

I suppose it was naïve to think that I could step of the plane, basically as a new immigrant (US passport notwithstanding) and sit right down in the Director’s chair. New countries require a minimum of a year to get established. The upcoming recession doesn’t help my case, either. But the more I think about it (and I have plenty of time to do just that) the more I realize that this really is the path to take. None of the alternatives will get me where I ultimately want and need to go.

With all this on my mind, it was a welcome respite to get to some and real exercise walking around the huge Angkor and nearby temple complexes. I covered all the territory, took the requisite photographs, had a nice lunch, and then went back to Angkor Wat itself in the afternoon for a more leisurely discovery session. Even though there were tourists all over the place, I managed to find an enclave where the Angkor kings used to be placed to lie in state before there funerals. I had it all to myself, with a striking view of the grounds, and was able to meditate, in a most suitable environment. The conclusion I came to is that the slower the job search process goes, the greater choice I will eventually have. So, calm down, chill out, and enjoy what remains of this incredible journey. I ended the day by taking some pretty spectacular sunset photos with Angkor Wat as the backdrop.

Check out the recent photos:
• Around Phnom Penh City
• Oudong
• Wats around Angkor
• And of course Angkor Wat – the Real McCoy