My Name as an Albatross

In the more than two decades that I have been working at various high-tech companies in Silicon Valley, I have never encountered any prejudice at the workplace because of my race or religion. But lately a thought has been steadily creeping into my mind: If I were to run for public office even, say, at the local school board level, would my name become an albatross around my neck?

I have been thinking about this since John McCain and Sarah Palin began encouraging the use of Barack Obama’s middle name – Hussein – in their rallies to suggest that he was the Other, and therefore is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” I find attempts by them to associate Obama with terrorists and America-haters a smokescreen for the real accusation: Obama carries a Muslim middle name and that is reason enough to bar him from contesting for the highest office in the land.

This is the mindset that says: American Muslims can rise in their profession and shine in their fields, but if they to aspire to high public offices, they must be prevented by any means necessary since they pose a threat of one kind or another to America.

You can count on your fingers the number of Muslims holding high public offices in America. One of the most notable is Keith Ellison, a converted Muslim Congressman from Minnesota, who is known not for the legislation that he helps frame and pass but that he is a Muslim who took the oath of office holding a Quran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson.

I find the desperate tactics of John McCain in the last days of the 2008 presidential election particularly disappointing. In his book “Character is Destiny,” McCain wrote that “It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy. That is all that really passes for destiny.” He gives us glimpses into the lives of Gandhi, Lincoln, Mandela, Joan of Arc, Leonardo da Vinci and many others from the past and the present to teach us what constitutes character: qualities like honor, purpose, understanding, forgiveness and love.

As the harsh and ugly rhetoric of McCain and Palin show, however, occupying the Oval Office trumps the “Character is Destiny” stuff. When the presidency of the United States is at stake, winning at any cost, including encouraging your supporters to call your opponent a “traitor,” a “terrorist,” a “liar,” even approving with silence the threat by some in the crowd to “kill him,” is fair game. This is hypocrisy.

Barack Obama is a more practicing Christian than John McCain is but that does not prevent millions of Americans into believing that he is a Muslim, not just because of the fake stories circulating on the Web but because that's what they want to believe. The implication is that being a Muslim is somehow un-American, a real show-stopper to running for the presidency. It's a reincarnation of McCarthyism in the 21st century. Does it say anywhere in the U.S. Constitution that even if you are born in America, you cannot run for the presidency if you happen to be a Muslim?

Still, I am thankful that Obama’s candidacy has forced this issue on the conscience of Americans. I am optimistic that we will come to grips with it in a way consistent with the vision of the founding fathers. Many Americans forget that the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965), giving full citizenship powers to African-Americans, passed less than fifty years ago. (It is also worth noting that the hero of the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, opposed both these Acts). While racism still persists in subtler forms in America today, African-Americans are not fighting for a seat at the table but are focused on reducing the achievement gap with whites. The goal is loftier because the majority of Americans made the difficult sacrifices in the past to banish our baser social and political institutions.

So I am hopeful that whether it is Ashoka or Ahmed or Aparna or Almaraz or Ming or Nguyen who may be contesting the presidential election, a time will soon come when race, religion or name will matter as much to the voters as the brand of toothpaste that the candidate uses. I may be reluctant to contest in any election now but my children may not think twice about running for public offices if they choose to when that time comes. When that happens, we Americans will learn to appreciate the wisdom of one of our greatest poets, Walt Whitman, who said in his “Poem of Salutation” in the timeless “Leaves of Grass” (1856): "I hear the Arab muezzin calling from the top of the mosque, . . . / I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches, / I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms, . . . / I hear the Hindu teaching his favorite pupil."

P.S. (10/19/08) - This morning Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican, forcefully endorsed Barack Obama as president of the United States. His endorsement included these words: "I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is: he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion: he's (Obama) a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America."

Gen. Powell also cited the death of a 20-year-old Muslim soldier named Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan of Manahawkin, N.J., who was killed in Iraq on Aug. 6, 2007, who was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star, and who was buried in Arlington National cemetery. “He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could go serve his country, and he gave his life,” Gen. Powell said. “Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way.” He was moved to comment on Sultan Khan after seeing a picture of the young soldier's mother pressing her head against her fallen son's gravestone at Arlington.

The larger implications of Powell's endorsement can also be read in this excellent review.

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American Literature Second-Rate, says Swedish Noble Judge

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Nobel Prize Literature, Swedish Academy, Wendell Berry

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American Literature is Second-Rate, Says Swedish Nobel Judge

The 2008 Nobel Prize in literature has just been announced and – surprise! - an American did not win it. The prize went to Frenchman Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio for his “new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

What has provoked strong reaction on both sides of the Pacific and the Atlantic is the comment last week by Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature. "Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures,” said Engdahl, “but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world ... not the United States.” He asserted that American writers are "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," which drags down their quality. Any other shortcomings? "The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," said the honorable judge. "That ignorance is restraining."

In a news conference in Stockholm after the announcement today, Mr. Engdahl described the new Nobel Laureate as a cosmopolitan author, “a traveler, a citizen of the world, a nomad.” No American writer shared these qualities, you could almost hear the secretary as saying.

Unlike physics, chemistry, economics, and physiology or medicine in which they dominate, the literature prize has proved elusive for Americans. The last American to win the prize was Toni Morrison in 1993. Before her, the list comprises Sinclair Lewis (1930), Eugene O'Neill (1936), Pearl Buck (1938), William Faulkner (1949), Ernest Hemingway (1954), John Steinbeck (1962), Saul bellow (1976) and Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978). That’s it, a total of 9 out of 107 since the awards began in 1901.

So is there anything to Mr. Engdahl's observations? Are American writers, in fact, provincial, as the Swede said in so many words? The notion is laughable. The great American writers have been great precisely because they were universal in their outlook, and also because they not only resisted the trends in their own mass culture but showed us how to turn away from its toxic elements through the power of their imagination. While names like Philip Roth, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates and a few others come up every year around this time as possible recipients of the prize, no American, in my opinion, is more deserving of the Nobel than Wendell Berry.

In weaving magical, redemptive and engrossing tales around the fictitious town of Port Williams in Kentucky, Berry has shown how literature can not only take us beyond ourselves but also restore sanity in an increasingly insane world. Whether you are basking in the warm glow of the Coulter clan or remembering with Andy Catlett or rediscovering the true meaning of fidelity or crying with Jaybar Crow in his heartbreaking loss (more poignant, again, in my opinion, than Henry's in Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms”), Berry’s voice is unique and unforgettable. His work reminds us why we need and read literature in the first place. But how likely is it that Wendell Berry will win the literature prize? About as likely as Sweden asking Finland to take over the responsibility of deciding who gets the award and who does not.

Fact is, the Nobel Prize in literature has often been driven by politics than by the recognition of genuine talent. In physics, chemistry, economics and physiology or medicine, the charge could be made that some worthy recipients have been ignored but it is also undeniable that all recipients have been worthy winners. You cannot fake your contributions in these fields or cater to some ideological imperatives of the day to win. You have to make contributions that your peers recognize as fundamental and trailblazing. Not so in literature. Other than some of their countrymen and perhaps some ideologically-persuaded fans, who really has read the novels of Dario Fo (1997), Gao Xingjian (2000) or Elfriede Jelinek (2004), to name only three in a long list?

The literature prize has acquired a bad reputation for its dubious awards and, to reuse Mr. Engdahl's words in this context, its isolated and insular criteria. It is time the Swedish Nobel Academy reviews its record and bring the same credibility to the literature prize that it brings year after year to physics, chemistry, economics and physiology or medicine.

P.S. In a recent interview, John Updike was asked about Horace Engdahl's comment that the U.S. was too insular to produce great writers. Updike's response: "I thought there was something in what he said. This is a non-European country. We're a cultural island and our canon, our masterpieces, are unlike the European masterpieces. "Moby Dick" and "Huckleberry Finn" are the two great 19th-century American novels, and they're about marginal characters drifting around. We're fascinated by heading west, there is a Puritan religiosity that haunts us. European novels want to show you society as it exists or existed, whereas American novels would rather get away and dwell on the inner life of the character, which is another way of being insular. I thought it was interesting that he said we weren't up on things, that there is an accumulation of knowledge about how to create art. I don't think that is true. I don't think European clubbiness helps their art. There has been a falling off of American winners of the Nobel. There was a spate after the Second World War that reflected the importance of the U.S. in the global picture. Now we don't project quite that magnetic image."

Obama Needs to Step it Up

Americans are looking for passion, not cool. They are currently more concerned with where the next month's mortgage payment will be coming from than with the global implications of a distant war. To be unflappable maybe a virtue but when you are taking on a war veteran in front of a national audience, you better rid yourself of timidity and start using words that are bold and a vision that is clear. In the debate last night at the Ole Miss, Obama did neither and that was disappointing.

Watching the lackluster give-and-take, I found the images morphing into this exchange:

Sen. McCain: Sen. Obama does not understand ...
Sen. Obama: Sen. McCain is absolutely right ...

What's this with McCain being right, no less "absolutely," in a debate where so much hangs in the balance? It looks like Obama is determined to win the congeniality contest that McCain vows not to.

The best that can be said about this debate is that two more remain in which the senator from Illinois can learn from his mistakes and become more sharp and incisive. He has to be far more convincing in projecting a presidential image, in not straining to prove that he can be magnanimous (he will get plenty of chance for that later) and in decisively proving to Americans that McCain is nothing more than an extension of Bush and his failed policies. One more thing: Please avoid the Kenyan narrative. Plenty of ink has been spilled on the topic. You are not going to persuade swing voters with that. In fact, you might just turn them off.

Come out swinging, Barack! Show some more passion!

P.S. (2 weeks later) Looks like "cool" in the face of provocations goes a long way. Obama's cool has been a huge plus for him. Now I understand what Hemingway meant when he defined courage as "grace under pressure."

Two Brilliant Opinion Pieces

Read two brilliant opinion pieces over the weekend. The first was by Randall Kennedy, a professor of law at Harvard University, who speculated on the possibility of Barack Obama losing to John McCain in the November election. “If that happens,” wonders Kennedy, “then what? How will I feel? How will other black Americans feel? How should people like me feel?”

The writer plumbs his soul to answer these questions, having fled the Jim Crow South of the ‘60s with his parents to escape racial abuses. The answers are poignant but also uplifting. Kennedy finds in Obama a potential president who could do wonders for the United States both at home and abroad. But his hope is tempered by reality. What is that reality? Race, which continues to plays a significant role in 21st century America, “not the hateful, snarling open bigotry that terrorized my parents in their youth, but rather a vague, sophisticated, low-key prejudice that is chameleonlike in its ability to adapt to new surroundings and to hide even from those firmly in its grip.” If Obama were to lose, “I’ll conclude that a fabulous opportunity has been lost. I’ll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake.” Kennedy speaks for many Americans across the racial divide. They yearn for a new dawn after the perpetual darkness of the Bush administration but if the republicans return, then after the initial heartbreak and anger, “I will find solace and encouragement in contemplating this … a major political party nominated a black man for the highest office in the land … he (Obama) will have bequeathed to all America something that should bring comfort and pride to even the most disappointed of his followers. He has reached the edge of the pinnacle. And shown that we can stand atop it.”

The other piece was by Paul Theroux, the renowned travel writer. What has really “electrified” republicans about Sarah Palin is not the quality of her Alaskan governorship (non-existent) but her image as a fearless hunter of … moose. The big bad moose has made Palin big too, at least in the minds of diehard republicans grasping at anything to excite their flagging spirit. Theroux puts all this in perspective: “It is as though, because of the animal’s enormous size and imposing antlers, bringing one down is a heroic feat of marksmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth.” This is where Henry David Thoreau steps in. Thoreau (1817-1862) observed the moose closely in Maine. Killing these myopic creatures was more “like going out by night to some woodside pasture and shooting your neighbor’s horses.” He found these gentle creatures to be like “great frightened rabbits.” Felling them, he felt, was no less than a tragedy.

Thoreau was a subversive fellow, intolerant of pretensions and hypocrisy and “business as usual.” (It is “business as usual” that is at the root of the current Wall Street meltdown). Theroux writes a telling sentence: “American politicians seldom take notice of American writers, especially the boldest one, such as Thoreau, whose every word is at odds with their groveling and grandstanding and their sanctimonious cant.” This is as incisive a summary of the majority of our politicians as you will ever read. Theroux points out that in Thoreau’s mind, the moose and the pine tree were linked. “Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve life than destroy it.” Sarah Palin notwithstanding, can a majority of Americans take Thoreau’s message to heart and vote with their conscience in November?

Unveiling Nature's Deepest Secrets

Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny," said Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.

Mankind took a significant step toward understanding the universe this week. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that began its first tentative operation on September 10 at CERN is our most ambitious (and most expensive) effort yet to understand how the universe came into being and why nature is the way it is.

The origin of the universe is echoed in the smallest of particles and the fiery fragments they create when colliding at or near the speed of light. In late fall of 2008 or early spring of 2009, when the LHC is fully operational, protons will be slamming into protons at 99.999999 percent of the speed of light, and scientists and interested laymen alike will hold their collective breath for what ensues.

Whereas in nuclear fission or fusion, mass is converted into energy according to Einstein’s famous formula, E = mc2, at the LHC energy is expected to be transformed into mass (m = E/c2), creating particles that will test the most successful particle physics theory called the standard model. At the heart of the standard model, formulated in the 1970s, is Higgs boson, a particle that has never been detected, but without which this theory remains just that, a theory.

Some scientists, including English physicist Peter Higgs who came up with the idea of the particle that is meant to account for an object’s mass, worry that the LHC may not be able to detect the Higgs boson. That can very well mean, of course, that there is no Higgs boson to begin with, and you cannot detect something that doesn’t exist. Would that mean that for 40 years scientists have been chasing a red herring?

I think that is the wrong way to look at it. If the LHC confirms the existence of Higgs boson, wonderful! If it doesn’t, that’s wonderful too! Why? Because while the complex intellectual edifice called the standard model may come down like a house of cards, it will most likely open the door to a yet deeper theory whose beauty and predictive power will surpass the standard model. Nature gives up her secrets only under torture, it would seem, but when she does, we can only marvel at the fact that her imagination always proves richer than ours.

The LHC experiment is also expected to shed light on the validity of string theory. According to its detractors, it's a vast wasteland where bright young physicists have gone to seed for almost four decades. For now, though, string theory is the leading candidate to unite the four fundamental forces of nature - gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and nuclear. Can it prove to be the fabled "Unified Theory" that eluded Einstein? Can the LHC discover "sparticles," the supersymmetric particles predicted by the theory and represented by higher vibrations of strings, the visible universe being the manifestation of only the lowest vibrations? It is not to a scientist that we turn to but to a poet - Tennyson - for insight into the elusive nature of truth: "I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move."

Be that as it may, the success of the LHC is assured one way or the other. Even if most of us cannot follow the enormously complicated calculations and interpretations that will occupy LHC scientists for years to come, we can still rejoice when nature reveals her mysteries. Scientists toil for decades to clear dense undergrowths that stretch into forever and suddenly a vista of breathtaking beauty opens and we look at each other "with a wild surmise - Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

The silly talk of tiny black holes that may be created at the LHC that can gobble up the earth (Switzerland first, France second ...) has brought rebukes from reputed scientists but I find such fears humanizing. An $8 billion dollar experiment designed by thousands of scientists working for 14 years that has not some scare built into it isn't worth its name.

The micro black holes are expected to disintegrate far too quickly to do any damage, as predicted by Stephen Hawking's theory, but let's say that something utterly unimaginable and unexpected happens and the black holes begin to act on their voracious appetite.

What then? Well, can anyone imagine a more honorable way to exit the earth than in our quest to understand our destiny?

You can also read this blog here.

Falling off the "Bridge to Nowhere"

Concerned Americans are worried that John McCain's V.P. choice, Sarah Palin, may snare enough women voters, particularly from among Hillary Clinton supporters, to deliver the White House to the Republican Party in the November election. While the possibility exists, it is remote and likely to get remoter as Election Day approaches.

To suggest that women will vote for Palin because she is a woman is an insult to all women. Gender issues may make headlines but is never the deciding factor in any election. "McCain must think we are idiots," was a refrain heard from Clinton camp around the country.

With soaring prices of essentials and lack of affordable healthcare for millions of Americans, suggesting that voters will line up for Palin because she "electrified" a partisan crowd with a prepared speech is condescension at its worst.

Critics and commentators invariably underestimate the sturdy commonsense and the fundamental fairness of ordinary Americans. The average American can distinguish between style and substance with a clarity he or she is rarely given credit for. Palin's speech did not sway voters whose elemental concerns - food, housing, job, healthcare - the governor of Alaska found too lowbrow to mention in her speech. Her mocking, sarcastic remarks on Barack Obama may have drawn laughs at the convention laugh but outside, it angered and alienated many Americans.

Right-wing outlets like The Wall Street Journal and Fox News would have us believe that a single speech written for her by Republican operatives has magically transformed Sister Sarah into a combination of Margaret Thatcher, Joan of Arc and Laura Ingalls. This is laughable. Americans are not only not falling for it, they are finding it breathtakingly arrogant and offensive.

McCain's choice of Sarah Palin ("a bridge to nowhere", in the words of columnist Ellen Goodman) was a cynical and ruthless attempt to grab women voters. The ploy has failed even if the polls show a temporary surge for McCain-Palin. There will be a new dawn in America on November 5 and Democrats will be cheering.

Barack Obama and the Promise of America

Expectation was high, the symbolism heavy.

Forty-five years ago, on August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his profoundly stirring “I Have a Dream” speech on the Mall in Washington that changed America. Surely Barack Obama, a champion of change himself, would seize the moment with soaring rhetoric of his own to connect with King and inherit his mantle during his nomination acceptance speech.

In one of his wisest decisions, Obama chose not to compete in the rhetoric department with King, an impossible task anyway. Instead of soaring, he was down-to-earth. He had judged the mood of the American people perfectly and that sensibility turned his good speech into a great one.

America is hurting. Millions are out of work. Bankruptcies are multiplying. Families are selling off their possessions on eBay to put food on the table. Meanwhile, George Bush’s failed presidency continues to pour $54 billion dollars every six months on the Iraq war.

Against that backdrop, Obama made his case. He defined the American promise as one “that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect. It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road …”

Obama attacked McCain for being out-of-touch with ordinary Americans and with the crisis the country is facing. “I just think he doesn’t know.” “… John McCain doesn’t get it.” Tough, uncompromising talk. It will be interesting to see what verbal calisthenics McCain performs to respond to Obama.

Even before he was done with his speech, the conservative chattering class was attacking Obama. Leading the pack was columnist Charles Krauthammer who has been recycling his obsessive notion that Obama is a narcissist “devoted to crafting, and chronicling, his own life.” The junior senator from Illinois has apparently nothing to show in terms of ideas and experience. What Mr. Krauthammer conveniently forgets is that the worst presidents in U.S. history came with hefty resumes (James Buchanan (1857-1861), Richard Nixon (1969, 1974), to name only two). Barack Obama has not walked the corridors of power in Washington long enough to merit the appreciation of neocons. How dare this black pretender to the throne rise to the highest office in the land, whines Krauthammer.

However, in this defining moment, America needs a president who maybe poor in Washington experience but rich in life-shaping experiences. From Hawaii to Jakarta to Los Angeles to New York to Nairobi to Chicago, Obama acquired a sense of purpose in life that sets him apart from politicians the pundits revere. He is uniquely qualified to bring about the change the country desperately needs. Voters are finally beginning to get it, even as John McCain and the conservatives and the chattering class don’t. Call it destiny, call it cycle of history, call it what you want, but after eight disastrous years, America is ready to move from the darkness of despir into the bright sunshine of hope, with president Obama leading the way. November cannot come soon enough.

London Calling

Wow!

If one word were to sum up the Beijing Olympics, this is it. China put its history, culture, modernity and athletic prowess on display and a dazzled world, for the most part, willingly forgot about politics and basked in the extravagant glow of the host nation’s Olympian dreams and ambitions.

A thought came to mind as the curtain fell on the 29th olympiad: England must not try to duplicate China when it hosts the 2012 Olympics in London. No other country, especially among democracies, can afford to spend $45 billion dollars to host a 2-week sporting event, however prestigious.

Instead of Beijing, a good model for London would be the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Peter Ueberroth, its architect, gave us the first privately financed Olympic Games. He raised $500 million from corporate America and through wise planning, (securing, for instance, the donation of Southern California's playing fields and dormitories and saving the cost of constructing an Olympics village), produced a surplus of nearly $250 million that was later used to promote youth and sports activities throughout the United States. In contrast, the former Soviet Union spent $9 billion for the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Imitation, Emerson said, is suicide. London will do well simply by being itself. If it can provide the color, food, music, and all the heartaches, improvisations and exhilarations of a messy democracy, and avoid going into debt, the 30th olympiad should be a resounding success. The newly-built venues and stadiums must be converted into usable space - housing, office, hospital - within a month after the Olympics is over, with hopefully green technology leading the way. London must show the world that the host city doesn't have to be saddled with white elephants when the athletes and the visitors leave.

A final observation: Many sportswriters and journalists sent dispatches from Beijing not just of the games and the athletes but also of ordinary people and cuisine and landmarks and the land, but no one captured the spirit of the Olympics more eloquently, and with more pathos and humor, than Anthony Lane of The New Yorker magazine. His “Letter from Beijing” deserves a gold medal of its own.

A Cheetah Unleashed

Usain Bolt reminds me of the young and brash Muhammad Ali who could electrify a crowd with his mere presence. Track & Field needed a shot in the arm; it got more, a lightning bolt. Three gold medals, three world records (100-meter, 9.69s, 200-meter, 19.30s, 4x100-meter relay, 37.10s). What an accomplishment! If anyone had suggested last week that Michael Phelps could be eclipsed in "mindshare" among Olympics viewers around the globe, he would have been laughed off. Yet that is what has happened. The Bolt phenomenon is real and here to stay. He is a cheetah unleashed. Against his grim and "purpose-driven" competitors, Bolt's breezy supremacy is a joy to behold.

Back in Jamaica, Bolt's father attributed his son's success to the nutritional (some say magical) value of the lowly yam, a staple in northwestern Jamaica where the speedster was born. Aspring sprinters here will probably ensure that in grocery stores throughout America there will be no more "silence of the yams."

Phelps and Destiny

If there was any doubt that Michael Phelps would fulfill his Olympic destiny, it was dispelled by his margin of victory in the 100-meter butterfly. One one-hundredth of a second. Try to divide the blink of an eye into one hundred parts and then try to visualize one part. Impossible, you say? Precisely. Nine times out of ten, Serbian Milorad Cavic would probably have beaten Phelps in the 100-meter butterfly but this particular Olympics was meant to be the venue for that one time out of ten. Destiny.

It is strange how destiny can be different for two great swimmers. 41-year-old Dana Torres lost her 50-meter swim by one one-hundredth of a second. And she and her team missed out on the gold in the 4x100m medley relay by the slimmest of margins. It could have happened to Phelps but it did not. Destiny.

Phelps has won eight gold medals, surpassing Spitz's record of 7 in the '72 Munich Olympics. Phelps stands alone, breaking a record many thought could never be touched. What about Phelps's? It seems impossible but maybe 36 years from now in the 2044 Olympics ... Well, perhaps another generation will marvel at how the unreachable was reached and surpassed by a new Phelps.

If Phelps competes in the London Olympics in 2012, as he is expected to, he should break Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina's haul of 18 medals (9G, 5S, 4B) from three Olympics ('56, '60, '64). He has 16 (14G, 2B) from Athens and Beijing (2004, 2008). But that is a story for another day. At this moment, let us simply recognize that from now onwards and in any language, "Phelpsian feat" will mean the epitome of superhuman excellence.

Fastest Man on Earth

In just a few hours, we will know who can claim the title of “fastest man on earth.” The men’s 100 meters final in the Beijing Olympics pits three of the greatest speedsters in history: Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell of Jamaica and Tyson Gay of the United States. Between them they hold the 8 fastest times in the race, under 9.8 seconds.

This is not to say that others cannot pull an upset. Any number of factors could propel an unknown or unheralded sprinter into gold medal and history. But if we go with the record, it is most likely that the winner will be from among Bolt, Powell and Gay.

Men’s 100 meters is the most glamorous track and field event in the Olympics. It is over in a blink but its hold on the imagination lasts for years. Who has not dreamed of running as fast as the wind, outrunning foes real or imagined, outrunning inner demons, outrunning adversity, into a realm of bliss? At some point in our lives, we all have.

My sentimental favorite is Tyson Gay, if only because I cannot shake off his image of collapsing on the track and writhing in pain during the U.S. Olympics trials in Eugene last July. What can be more stirring than coming back from an injury and wearing the crown jewel of the Olympics? In reality, though, Usain Bolt appears unbeatable.

Stars Aligning for Phelps

I still think it will be a monumental challenge for Michael Phelps to win eight gold medals in the Beijing Olympics but I also think the stars are beginning to align for him in his quest to break Mark Spitz’s record.

If Jason Lezak didn’t pull off the impossible, anchoring the 4x100-meter freestyle relay to a win over the favored French team, Phelps could only hope for equaling Spitz’s record.

But now it looks as if fate is lending Phelps a hand. The toughest obstacles are behind him and maybe, just maybe, he will pull it off.

I do not recall cheering as lustily for a sporting event as I did at what I was seeing on TV last night. Was it comparable to the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” in the Lake Placid Winter Olympics game when a ragtag bunch of American hockey amateurs beat the mighty Soviet Union 4-3? Who can say but the ancient and powerful joy one feels in seeing the impossible occur in front of one's very own eyes is unforgettable.

Everyone is buzzing about Lezak, and rightly so, but we should not forget the performance of Cullen Jones who swam the third leg of the relay. This African-American swimmer not only helped smash a world record and keep Phelps’s dream alive, he also smashed stereotypes.

About those eight potential golds by Phelps, we hold our breath and hope for the best but I will make a fearless prediction: By the time he is done with the Beijing Olympics, Phelps will have won more Olympic gold medals than anyone in history. His haul will exceed nine, currently held by the quartet of Paavo Nurmi (Finland – Track & Field), Larissa Latynina (Ukraine - Gymnastics), Mark Spitz (U.S. - Swimming) and Carl Lewis (U.S. - Track & Field).

N.B. The funniest and most intelligent ad I have seen so far during NBC’s Olympics telecast shows LeBron James as a defense attorney. The story line is hilarious. Too many ads are pretentious, pompous or just plain silly. The LeBron ad should open eyes.

The Olympic Spirit and Us

Olympics for me began with the summer games in Rome, 1960. I was in 7th grade then and I remember my dad excitedly telling me that Pakistan had beaten India in hockey 1-0 after six successive Olympic failures. We were in Bangladesh (East Pakistan then) and it seemed a big deal, particularly because I played in my school hockey team and knew the rules of the game. I wasn’t aware of Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) and Rafer Johnson at the time but I do recall seeing photographs of Wilma Rudolph, winner of god medals in 100 and 200 meters and the 400 meters relay, and telling myself: she has to be the most graceful female sprinter ever. My opinion hasn’t changed in 48 years. Another athlete who captured my imagination was the Ethiopian Abebe Bikila who ran barefoot in the streets of Rome to win the Marathon gold.

I was keenly interested in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics because of the inevitable clash between India and Pakistan in the field hockey final. India regained its supremacy by defeating Pakistan. But I was also expanding my horizon and began to follow other sports with equal passion.

Pakistan beat Australia in the final in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics to win the field hockey gold but that was more or less the beginning of the end for both Pakistan and India. Other countries were rapidly catching up. Although the two nations enjoyed some success afterwards, they would now be lucky to win a bronze medal.

But my interest was already shifting and what I remember reading about the Mexico City Olympics was the long jump record set by America’s Bob Beamon. The guy almost jumped out of sight, setting an astonishing record of 29’2½”, one that stood for 23 years until another American, Mike Powell, broke it with a record of 29’4½” in the World Championship game in Tokyo in 1991. But the dominant story of that Olympics, the Black Power salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos, passed me by.

On my way from the newly-independent nation of Bangladesh to Halifax, Canada, in 1972 for higher studies, I stopped by in Munich at the invitation of a friend from Dhaka University. The Munich Olympics was the first that I attended in person and I was awed by its sights and sounds. It felt unreal, to be at the center of the sports world where the fastest and the strongest were competing for glory. I had never seen such affluence and even the big moon that hung low at night seemed to be acknowledging the spectacle on the earth below. I was able to catch only one event, a soccer game between West Germany and United States on a warm night. U.S. lost the game 7-0 and my vocal rooting for the underdog brought curious glances from the Germans around me. But I was in sports heaven and was convinced the magic would last forever. I heard about the impossible performance of an American swimmer named Mark Spitz but could not register what it was all about

I left before the Munich massacre. When I landed in Canada, the closing ceremonies were taking place and the shock and horror signaled that Olympics and politics and tragedy would become inseparable in the years to follow.

By the time I came to the United States in 1974, I was a bona fide sports fanatic. I was studying at Temple University in Philadelphia. In August of 1976, I took a train from New York to Montreal – the Adirondack – passing through Hudson Valley and the lush countryside. I was at Montreal from beginning to end and saw several track and field events and, of course, field hockey. The world awoke to a Romanian wunderkind named Nadia Comaneci who scored seven unheard of perfect 10s in gymnastics on her way to three gold medals. I would get up at dawn and take the subway to the main Olympic stadium and start taking photographs right and left, trying to capture as many faces and events as I could. I saw decathlon champion Bruce Jenner in action. But after two weeks of nonstop Olympic excitement, I was happy to return to my apartment at Temple.

After moving to San Jose, California in 1979, my sports fever continued unabated but I was content to watch successive Olympics on TV. Sure, that feeling of being there was irreplaceable but it was also physically demanding, and I was happy to trade immediacy for comfort. Besides, I could see more, even if it meant late-night vigils.

And here we are now, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. The Web and the papers are full of pundits lamenting the commercialization of Olympics, the doping scandals, the mercenary attitude of some nations to win at the expense of dehumanizing their athletes, and so on. But they are missing the point. For two weeks, the Olympic spirit, however flawed and frayed, will reign supreme and the world will applaud the winners and lend the losers a shoulder to cry on. There is honor in trying to do one’s best, and a Bangladeshi athlete can rejoice equally in having taken part as an American athlete standing on the podium moist-eyed as the Star-Spangled Banner plays. China is expected to dominate the medal count and showcase its emergence as a superpower but that is nothing compared to the ties that will unite the athletes and the fans for a few days and make us believe in our common humanity.

I will be rooting for Michael Phelps to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals but it will be tough. He will have to be as perfect as Nadia Comaneci was in Montreal. Actually he will have to do her one better. If that’s not asking for the impossible, I don’t know what is. But it is in the Olympics that the impossible happens. And therein rests its magic. The Olympics reminds us that the impossible is only a limitation of the imagination, that we have it in us to overcome this limitation and discover the hidden gold within. Long live the Olympics spirit!