Can It be Real?

The promise of a lifetime

In the weave of words today

A leader stirred

An authentic deal?

Who feels the pain

Of those who live by a thread

Lest they keel?..........................

          Published in “Chowringhee”, a magazine in California, on the occasion of Durga Puja, 2008, I wrote these words the night of the acceptance speech by then Senator Barack Obama, at the DNC in Denver, commemorating the moment. I was sending it to my friend for publication the next day when the air waves were swamped with another name “Sarah Palin”. Who? What? WHAT?! Frankly I had never heard of her. The next few days were spent in a rush trying to unearth as much about her as the media would give. Everyone went crazy!  Can you blame anyone? I mean look at her! Flaunting the feminity  that many women would hesitate to  wear in fear of not been taken seriously.  

                A million words have been written with her, about her, for her, against her, by her and I have nothing more to add as facts.  Worthwhile pundits have established she knows very little about administrating, history, geography or politics for that matter. It was clear she could speak, okay ……perform, albeit off-key and off the mark! Katie, of all people exposed her lack of erudition and it was downhill from there. But somewhere deep inside me, there was a radar picking up familiar signals. The fighting spirit. The desire to succeed against all odds.  The anger at men and people who had used her for some agenda of their own. Maybe Madam was not ready; maybe she did not have it but was it not the Presidential candidate who should have vetted that fact?  Was it not she who got sucked into it because she has never ever failed before and why should she not have jumped at the opportunity? Is it wrong for a woman to be ambitious or to have high opinions/expectations, however misplaced? As an aggressive Indian American woman, I need to understand this obvious ambiguity in accepted social perceptions. The onus is upon the public to out-vote her opponent, but why is it wrong of her to even try? Democracy does not make the demand of an intellectual as a leader. Does it not rest upon popularity and personal appeal?

              Why is there this nagging feeling inside me of wronging her? She does everything to deserve the tomatoes being thrown at her in Minneapolis today, or the verbal and written abuse and yet one wonders... Professor Higgins would have found her quite a delicious study. Yet, I envy her. This is uncharacteristic, but I really do. It could be because she has succeeded at a level I have not. Is  it because I see her using her sexuality successfully and as much as I cringe at how many years it is taking women back, the  thought about men using their advantages gained over thousands of years keeps haunting me.  I was shocked when Julie, my friend who is a fantastic scientist, claimed that she absolutely loved Palin for being exactly who she is. A brave Christian woman who says it like it is. Huh? Also what did she actually say other than words which meant nothing? Still, she bothers me and obviously everyone else. She writes vacuous (and mis-)statements on her Facebook and Huffington Post is all over it. Even the White House spends precious energies refuting her instead of focusing on the essentials. A much admired co-blogger on Open Salon says he would rather have his daughter be a prostitute than a Sarah Palin! Really?! Do I understand prostitution incorrectly then?

                The other day I walked into Barnes and Nobel and picked up “Going Rogue” and walked over to the seats to read as much of it as I could since I was not going to buy it. I felt the same kind of pleasure reading any story dealing with Princess Diana while she lived. Her death put a damper to that! I digress… An acquaintance from my Cancer Research Institute was sitting in one of the chairs and as I slid into one I ACTUALLY apologized for having Palin’s book in hand. Like it was an intellectual no-no.  I mumbled something deprecating about how I wanted to see what crap she had written.  I was actually ashamed of being seen with the book! Was I becoming a snob?

I started the book and only got through the first few pages of her describing her family’s move from Idaho to Alaska. I visited Alaska this August and I was just wondering if I would/could have EVER done that. Skagway is a one street town of around 800 people! She grew up there hunting, fishing, existing. Being good at whatever she did, she was probably treated as an equal.  The media tells me the rest of the book is full of fluff and nonsense. But I have feeling that I have the Madam Palin-(syn)drome in full and will get back to it someday just to understand this feeling inside me. Palin is the niggling natural politician that appears in the horizon rarely. Pretty, populous, pathetic, powerful and puerile all in one! And on Open Salon, where I can express my inner most secrets I confess this urge to find out all about this women who is swimming against the tide, making enemies of the crocodiles in it and somehow still surviving.

A car rental in Skagway with Palin’s famous usage of the word “Sourdough”.

Alaskans use it for permanent residents of the state as opposed to the newcomers.

  Acknowledgement:

Cartoon by Sunil Adam, Editor. His cartoon characters are based upon two influential experts on international affairs, George F. Kennan, a US diplomat who came up with the policy of containment, and Hedley Bull, a British academic and father of realist school of international politics. He has been a guest blogger on Huffington Post and now here, on my blog site.