Literature's Enigmatic Encounter: Tagore and Ocampo

In September of 1924, Rabindranath Tagore received an invitation to attend Peru’s commemorative centennial celebration. A hundred years before, led by Simon Bolivar, Peru had defeated Spanish Colonial forces to become an independent nation. Peruvians wanted the Bengali Nobel Laureate to participate in the festivities marking the historical event.

Tagore, 63, had recently returned to India from an exhausting four month trip to China and Japan. He needed rest but with wanderlust in his blood, the poet found the invitation from Peru irresistible. With family members and friends to give him company part of the way, Tagore sailed on the ship Haruna-Maru from Colombo for Europe. The Diary of the Westbound Traveler is a work from this period, along with several poems he composed on the Haruna-Maru.

From France, with Leonard Elmhirst as his secretary, Tagore boarded the Andes bound for Argentina. He had met the idealistic Elmhirst in the United States in 1920. Moved by Tagore’s vision of rural development, Elmhirst had raised money from wealthy American patrons and came to Shantiniketan the following year to organize Rabindranath's village projects.

Tagore fell ill on the Andes within a few days and became bedridden. But the poems kept flowing from his pen – “Stranger,” “Absent-Minded,” “Hope,” “Wind,” “Dream,” “Sea,” and many others. After three weeks at sea, on November 6, the ship docked at Buenos Aires. Flu had severely weakened the poet; further traveling was out of question. Without prolonged rest he would be risking his life, doctors told him. Reluctantly, he had to give up on the invitation from Peru.



The year 1914 was one of the darkest in Victoria Ocampo's life. Two years before, at the age of twenty two, she had married the man of her dream, anticipating a life of respect and love and free from dogma and prejudice. She had reasons to dream, for in Monaco Estrada she thought she had found a sensitive, handsome young man who considered her an equal and approved of her passion for literature and art. Although born into wealth and privilege, she was not immune to the prevailing social custom where women were treated as chattels, a legacy of Spanish Colonialism that was sustained and supported by Argentina's Catholic Church. For a woman yearning to break free from male injustice meant social ostracism and disgrace. The strong willed and impulsive Victoria had felt like a captive even in her parents’ home. Life with Estrada promised freedom and creativity.

Barely had her honeymoon begun when Victoria’s dream was shattered, for the man of her dream turned out to be as just as tyrannical and chauvinistic. She had traded one form of captivity with another. For over a decade Victoria would live through this loveless and sometimes violent marriage, fearful of hurting her parents, until finally one day she summoned the courage to obtain a legal separation.

In 1914, however, she had begun to despair of life. With no one to turn to and none in whom to confide her sorrow, she came across a copy of André Gide’s French translation of Gitanjali, a collection of poems by a Bengali poet named Rabindranath Tagore who had won the Nobel Prize for literature the year before. The depth and beauty of what she read stunned Victoria. The ray of hope emanating from those poems pierced the darkness around her. The spiritual energy in such lines as

... Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it
Into the deepest fullness. Let me for once feel
that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe ...

lifted her above her personal tragedy. In the illuminating biography, Victoria Ocampo Against the Wind and the Tide, the author Doris Meyer quotes Victoria many years later to describe the effect Tagore's poetry had on her:

"I remember the moment and the exact spot where this took place. I was leaning against a white marble fireplace in a room upholstered in light gray silk. The house no longer exists. Neither do those I was afraid of hurting, or those who were hurting me. Nor does the poet who was bringing me the gift of tears, as not even the closest friend would have been able to do. The images which now live only in my memory will cease to exist together with it, as easily, as irrevocably as all that has preceded them into nothingness.

But the Gitanjali over which I was weeping will remain. "

Not knowing who he was and separated by barriers of language and culture, Tagore nonetheless became her spiritual companion. She had found hope, a reason for living.


That Tagore would pass through Buenos Aires on his way to Peru became known in Argentina in September of 1924. The possibility of meeting in person the poet who had saved her a decade earlier from mental and spiritual abyss could be a momentous event in her life. In preparation, she began reading as much of Tagore's translated works as possible. She had help, for in one of those mysterious ways in which an artist can touch the souls of receptive readers in distant shores, Tagoré had become a major literary figure in South America at the time, due mostly to the translations of his work in Spanish by a remarkable literary couple named Juan Ramón and Zenobia Camprubi, who translated twenty-two books by Tagore between 1914 and 1922. The translations also influenced other major literary figures, including José Ortega y Gassett, a leading Spanish intellectual of the time, Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda in Chile, and Octavio Paz in Mexico.

When the Andes arrived at Buenos Aires on November 6, no one was more prepared to receive Tagore on Argentinean soil than Victoria Ocampo.


Complete rest in Buenos Aires upon embarkation, the doctors had advised Tagore, but where? Victoria was quick to seize the opportunity. Renting a villa named “Miralrio” (River View) in the suburb of San Isidro, not far from the Villa Ocampo where she lived, and selling a diamond tiara as payment, Victoria offered its peace and solitude to Tagore and Elmhirst. Gratefully they accepted. Victoria’s own household staff was to care for Tagore but she was too shy and awestruck to reside in the rented villa herself.

For two months, Tagore convalesced at San Isidro, his home away from home. The villa was situated on the bank of the River Plate and the view from its balcony was spectacular. In Victoria’s own words:

I had instinctively led Tagore to that balcony immediately upon his entering Miralrio, certain that if he was to take anything away on leaving it, it would be this: the memory of the landscape that would meet his eyes morning and evening, with its changing light. That landscape was the only gift worthy of him.

The flowing river and the lush trees and flowers of San Isidro healed Tagore’s body and nourished his spirit. The three of them, Tagore, Victoria, and Elmhirst, took long walks along the bank of the Plate. In Victoria, Rabindranath saw a woman of uncommon beauty and kindness, whose intelligence, sensitivity and spiritual yearning left the deepest impression in the poet. He was thirty years older than her; the odes he wrote to her "Guest," "Fear," and "Last Spring", to name only three were suffused with tenderness and poignancy. Yet there was also a certain tension between the three, as suggested by Elmhirst in a letter written to his fiancée in England:

Our hostess (V.O.) was quite – next to the poet himself – the most difficult person I ever came across … Besides having a keen intellectual understanding of his books, she was in love with him – but instead of being content to build a friendship on the basis of intellect, she was in a hurry to establish the kind of proprietary right over him which he absolutely would not brook … she was a bundle of prides, intellectual, aristocratic, and physical, against which, and their ferocious hold upon her nature, she was constantly at war. For her, then, I was either bridge or barrier, obstacle or convenience as occasion turned out …

During the Tagore birth centenary in 1961 in India, Victoria herself wrote of her relationship with Tagore: “Little by little he partially tamed the young animal, by turns wild and docile, who did not sleep, dog-like, on the floor outside his door, simply because it was not done.”

After two months at San Isidro, Tagore began to feel restless. Driven by an imaginary sense of duty that he was to regret later, he and Elmhirst left Buenos Aires on January 4, 1925 for Europe on board the Julio Cesaro, in staterooms arranged for them by Victoria. But Tagore could not forget her. Memory of Victoria continued to haunt and inspire him in his later years. He composed at least two songs around her: I know you, O maiden from a faraway land! Your dwelling is across the sea ... and On the green bank by the blue sea, I have seen the incomparable while passing by ... From the Julio Cesaro, he wrote to her: “… I believe that your love may help me in my fulfillment … I have lost most of my friends because they asked me for themselves, and when I said I was not free to offer myself, they thought I was proud. I have deeply suffered from this over and over again – and therefore I always feel nervous whenever a new gift of friendship comes in my way. But I accept my destiny and if you also accept it we shall forever remain friends.” And on the eve of his death in 1941, sixteen years after bidding farewell to Victoria in Buenos Aires, he wrote:

"How I wish I could once again find my way to that foreign land where waits for me the message of love! The dreams of yesterday will wing their way back and, fluttering softly, build their nest anew. Sweet memories will restore to the lute its lost melody ... Her language I knew not, but what her eyes said will forever remain eloquent in its anguish. "

Neither could she forget him. Tagore had invited her to visit him in India but time and distance proved insurmountable. Nevertheless, she corresponded regularly with him, meeting him once more in Paris in 1930 where she organized an exhibit to introduce to the art world Tagore’s unusual drawings and sketches she had discovered at San Isidro. She followed India's struggle for independence with keen interest, exchanging lively ideas with him about how to expel the British Raj from the subcontinent. Through it all, she always gratefully acknowledged his deep, steadying influence on her.

Victoria Ocampo went on to become a leader in the movement to secure women’s rights in her country and emerged as a star in the literary circles of Latin America. As an ardent feminist she was clearly ahead of her time. As essayist translator, her work has been compared to the leading twentieth century women of letters. In 1931 she founded the Spanish literary magazine Sur (South). As its editor, guiding spirit and financial backer, she transformed it into the foremost magazine of its kind in Latin America. Through its pages, she launched the career of Jorgé Luis Borges and introduced to her countrymen such writers as Gabriela Mistral, T. S. Eliot, Octavio Paz, André Gide, Aldous Huxley, Albert Camus and many others. By publishing neglected writers and taking on unpopular subjects, her name became synonymous with literary integrity and freedom of thought. She was jailed in 1953 for lashing out against the regime of Juan Peron. International pressure forced the dictator to release her from prison after twenty six days. In 1977 she was elected to the Argentine Academy of Letters, the first woman to be accorded the honor.

The reputation of Argentina’s “Queen of Letters” has grown steadily since her death in 1979 at the age of 88. It is likely that Victoria Ocampo will be remembered long after another Argentine, Eva Peron, has become a footnote in that country’s history.

Tagore composed sixty one poems on his voyage to and from South America in 1924, including twenty six in Argentina that are considered among the most lyrical and evocative of his poems. To these were added sixteen more that he had composed earlier that year and the collection was published as Puravi, which means ‘Easterner’ and is also the name of an evening raga in Indian classical music. To whom did Tagore dedicate Purabi? To “Vijaya,” the Bengali name he chose for the woman “who filled my days abroad with grace and beauty,” Victoria.

Two Movies

You have to have the patience of a tree to enjoy “The Tree of Life.” That’s the problem in this enigmatic and “cosmic” movie. Normally we don’t go to the theater to test our patience; we go mostly to have a good time. It can be a thriller, a comedy, a tragedy, a whatever, as long as it engages and surprises us, makes us laugh or maybe even cry.

But “The Tree of Life” that won the Palme d’Or Prize this year, the top honor at the Cannes Film Festival, doesn’t quite fit any category. It is too arty for its own good and the viewer is left wondering if director Terrence Malick isn’t trying too hard to impress with big ideas.

The story itself is actually quite moving. It follows the ups and downs – mostly downs - of the O’Brien family in the small town of Waco, Texas, in the 1950s. The father (Brad Pitt) is a stern and humorless patriarch who looks down on his three sons because he feels they do not measure up to him. They are not macho enough, intelligent enough and gifted enough. He is, of course, tragically oblivious of his own fundamental failings. The mother (Jessica Chastain) clings to the idea that love alone can conquer all and tries to bring a sense of normalcy to her children’s upbringing with grace and sweetness. When the middle child dies, she looses her poise. “Lord, why? Where were you? Who are we to you? Answer me?” her character asks in whispered voice-overs.

While life at home for the three kids is a fearful drill of taking orders from the father (“Don’t call me dad, call me father”), outside is an idyllic world of grass and sky and stream and meadows and friends. These impressionistic snippets are redolent of universal childhood and Malick captures them with sensitivity. What makes them also poignant is the tension at home.

At the ritualistic family dinner, one of the children cannot take the father’s overbearing behavior anymore and asks him to “keep quiet.” “What did you say?” screams the father. He grabs the child and locks him in a room. “You have turned my children against me,” he shouts at his wife. “You undermine everything I try to do.” The hunter is defending himself by claiming to be the hunted!

The wife has had enough. She retaliates by pushing him away. He immobilizes her with a viselike grip and releases her only when convinced that the last ounce of her resistance has sipped away.

But the father is not a one-dimensional character. He has the capacity for tenderness, even if not realized. As he prepares to play the piano one day, his middle son begins to strum on a guitar in the porch. The father hesitates, shocked by the musical gift of his son, and refrains from playing until the son has finished strumming. What makes the scene heartbreaking is the father’s inability to express his love and admiration. He simply cannot bring himself to say, “Son, that was lovely. Play for me more.”

All this would have made a touching, growing-up story of childhood, sadness, tragedy and ultimate redemption but Malick sandwiches it between heavy symbolism and metaphors that seem to take up the bulk of the movie’s 2 ¼ hours. We are treated to an interminable stretch of the creation of the universe, volcanoes, waves, dinosaurs, planets, asteroids and everything in between, just in case you miss the point that the director deals with heavy-duty ideas of chance, life, morality and mortality. The cinematography is gorgeous (I kept thinking it was the movie version of the great photographer Ernst Haas’s book, The Creation), but what’s the point? Just get on with the story, I wanted to tell Malick, and let us decide what to make of the impenetrable, big questions of life.

I will still recommend this movie because it shows what a father ought not to do to be a good father. Although “The Tree of Life” is a period piece from mid-20^th century, it is shocking how many fathers in our days are still stuck in that mindset. Fatherhood is fraught with tension, indifference, arrogance and often, downright cruelty. With Father’s Day coming up this Sunday, “The Tree of Life” is a movie a father should give as a gift to himself, to become the antithesis of the character portrayed by Brad Pitt.

*

“Midnight in Paris” is a delightful ode to the Jazz Age Paris of the 1920s when heavyweights of literature, painting, movies and music took up residence in the City of Light. It is Woody Allen’s most imaginative work to-date and connects the past to the present to put our preoccupation with money and fame in context. Unlike Allen’s recent movies, heavy with ambiguity and symbolism and the dark currents flowing in the human heart, “Midnight” is a beguiling movie to savor for its romance, charm and humor.

Gil is a disillusioned Hollywood screenwriter (Owen Wilson) who travels from Southern California to Paris with his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) with the idea of settling down there. He is fed up with Hollywood. He has no desire writing scripts on-demand by tyrannical conglomerates. He wants to put the finishing touches to a novel that he dreams will set the literary world on fire when published. He wants this to happen in the artistic center of the Universe - Paris.

His fiancée, of course, has other ideas. Inez is as materialistic as they come, an epitome of conspicuous consumption. Ditto her parents who are also visiting Paris. The clash of the couple’s opposing life-view must be resolved, but how?

Walking back to his hotel alone one night, Gil loses his way in the alleys of Paris. At the stroke of midnight, a magical kind of taxi pulls up as he sits exhausted by the pavement. Its passengers invite him to join them. He is hesitant but buoyed by their enthusiasm, gets in. He is brought to a soiree where he runs into … Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Cole Porter and Ernest Hemingway. He has traveled across time and arrived at the Paris of 1920s!

The seamless way in which Allen does this is itself magical. As the midnight encounters continue on subsequent nights, Gil meets Picasso, Gertrude Stein (who promises to review his manuscript), Matisse, Salvador Dali, T.S. Eliot, Luis Bunuel, Man Ray and many others. Allen leavens the story with parodies of these famous characters. His parody of Hemingway, clipped sentences and all (“No subject is terrible if the story is true and if the prose is clean and honest”), is particularly hilarious.

Stein approves of Gil’s novel and that decides the issue for him. He will settle in Paris to pursue his literary muse. Inez throws a fit but only for a few minutes. She adjusts, the quintessential material girl, and banishes Gil from her life.

The movie ends on a happy note, though, and you find making a mental note to yourself: “I am going to have to see this movie one more time.”

Apple's Ascendance

For Steve Jobs, each Apple product - iPod, iPhone, iPad, iAnyThing - must not only be a marvel of technology but also a work of art. This confluence of function, design, aesthetics, software and hardware has captivated consumers around the globe and transformed Apple into the most valuable technology company in the world.

At the recent Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, the visionary chiel of Apple unveiled another service – iCloud - that is likely to increase the company's lead over competition.

After some failed attempts, Apple has perfected the technology to eliminate the need for manually synchronizing content to smart devices. iCloud will allow users to store content - music, photos, backups, contacts, calendars, email and ebooks - on Apple’s remote servers (“cloud”) and have it automatically pushed to their iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac or PC via WiFi.

iCloud is free. Each user gets 5GB of free storage, more than plenty for most consumers. More storage will require an annual subscription.

The term “automatically” is a critical differentiator. Apple users will not need to manually upload content to iCloud; it will happen, well, automatically. This is where Apple leapfrogs over its competitors. Both Amazon and Google have announced their own cloud services but they require manual uploading, a boring and time-consuming process that looks primitive compared to Apple’s.

The only “restriction” for iCloud to work seamlessly is that the devices will have to belong to the Apple ecosystem, that is, all the ‘i’ devices across the Apple universe. The company has ensured it by integrating iCloud technology into its operating systems – the iOS for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, and the Mac OS for its laptop and desktop computers. All Apple devices will be able to “talk” to the cloud. Users will be able to move content to and from the cloud no matter where they are, as if they are communicating with their local hard drives. iCloud will also automatically backup all your mobile devices.

Will this lock current and future users into Apple products? Steve Jobs certainly hopes so. iCloud will become available in September with the release of iOS 5.

What does iCloud do to the current state of consumer technology? It profoundly disrupts it. As Jobs said: “We’re going to demote PC and Mac to just be a device. We’re going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.” The Post-PC world is upon us.

One company that Apple has completely overshadowed is Microsoft. Every time Apple releases a product or a service, Microsoft comes across as a plodding behemoth and a weak imitator. When Apple launched its wildly successful iPod in 2001, Microsoft followed with Zune in 2006 but withdrew it from the market in 2010. It was a no-contest: Zune was inferior to iPod in every way. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, it took Microsoft 3 years before releasing a competitive product, Windows Phone 7. But the Microsoft phone is a distant third after the iPhone and Google’s Android phones. Microsoft’s purchase of Skype in May for $8.5 billion has left many industry analysts scratching their heads.

In May of 2010, Apple surpassed Microsoft as the world’s biggest technology company based on market value, after Apple almost went out of business in 1990. Apple now has a market value of about $320 billion, more than the combined value of Microsoft ($200 billion) and Intel ($115 billion)! The only other company in the world that has a greater market value is ExxonMobil ($390 billion), the oil company. Industry experts are speculating that Apple may overtake ExxonMobil in the near future.

While for the last 10 years, Microsoft stock has been stuck at about $25 a share, Apple’s stock soared from $11 a share in 2001 to its current value of $330, a rise of over 3000%!

The bulk of Microsoft’s revenue continues to be generated by its two cash cows, the Windows operating system and the Office suite. But as the digital hub moves from the PC to the cloud, and as the iPad relentlessly cuts into the sale of Windows PCs, the top technology company of the ‘80s and the ‘90s appears to be six or seven steps behind Apple.

There is no one with the vision and business acumen of Steve Jobs at Microsoft. Bill Gates, his closest competitor, left Microsoft in 2008, and while the current CEO Steve Ballmer is a talented manager, he is no Bill Gates and certainly no Steve Jobs. Recently, when a respected money manager asked Steve Ballmer to step down and pass on the torch to someone else, Microsoft stock immediately went up. Microsoft sorely needs a new vision and a new style of thinking at the top to regain the glory of its yesteryears.

Apple is on a roll. How long can this last? Just as empires rise and fall, so do technology companies. Today’s colossus is tomorrow’s also-ran. Yet Jobs seems to have found a way to keep reinventing Apple. He is currently battling pancreatic cancer but the vision he has laid out for his company and the creativity he has unleashed among his engineers will probably help Apple continue its dominance in mindshare and market share for several years to come.

As our gadgets become smarter and smarter, do we run the risk of becoming dumber and dumber? After all, if our smart devices can do our work for us and even think for us, what is left for us to do other than to scroll screens and push buttons for titillation and entertainment? Sure, we can create documents and post opinions and search databases and look up references and be connected to each other and to the cloud 24x7, but will our creativity be sucked out of us in that mode of mostly passive consumption? Smart devices may give us instant access to the world’s storehouse of knowledge but unless we set aside time for reflection and assimilation, it is difficult to see how intelligent gadgets can help produce a Fermi or a Tagore.

Justice in an Imperfect World

In a perfect world, justice delayed is indeed justice denied, but we live in an imperfect world and, therefore, justice delayed sometimes has to be considered as justice served.

Such is the case with Serbian commander Ratko Mladic, architect of the slaughter of 8,000 children, women and men in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995. Sixteen years after committing genocide and crimes against humanity, Mladic was arrested in Serbia on May 26 and now awaits extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague in the Netherlands.

Srebrenica has become synonymous with mass murder and ethnic cleansing, comparable in intensity to Nazi atrocities against the Jews during World War II. Together with Radovan Karadzic, currently awaiting his own trial for crimes against humanity, Mladic demanded that his troops use rape as a weapon of war. The siege of Sarajevo that the two orchestrated lasted from 1992-1995 and took the lives of an estimated 10,000 Roman Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims. The cruelty was unrelenting, the savagery unmatched.

Mladic was driven by a sense of himself as a savior of his people and as the avenger of historical events that took place almost two centuries ago when Ottoman Turks ruled what is now Serbia. The death of his 23-year-old daughter by suicide in 1994 only increased his thirst for revenge.

Mladic’s arrest, and that of Karadzic in July 2008, sends a strong signal to the world’s despots that their days are numbered, that the long arm of international law will eventually flush them out from any dirty corner of the world they may be hiding in, and bring them to justice.

This is particularly important for Arab tyrants who, for decades, have been torturing and imprisoning their people at will while looting the national treasury for supporting their sybaritic lifestyles.

The Tunisian dictator Ben Ali fled the country when his people rose in revolt against him in January this year. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and his sons were arrested in April for corruption, crimes and using deadly violence against protesters.

As long as the rule of law, and not vengeance, dictates the fate of these modern-day pharaohs, there is reason for optimism, although much remains to be done in a region where hereditary monarchy and oligarchy seems to have become the norm.

Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi has been killing Libyans with impunity since he seized power in 1969. He has never tolerated the slightest dissent and deployed spies and secret police to subjugate his people. Since the uprising against him in February, he has killed thousands of Libyans with the help of mercenaries. He has gone into hiding as NATO targets him and his sycophants in and around Tripoli. International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis-Moreno Ocampo is seeking arrest warrants against Gadhafi, his son Saif al-Islam and spy chief Abdullah al-Sensussi for crimes against humanity.

In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh refuses to bow to people’s will, adamantly clinging to power that he has held for 32 years. Hundreds of Yemenis have been killed and undoubtedly more will die in the coming days.

The situation is grimmest in Syria where Bashar Assad has let loose shadowy, mafia-style gunmen to kill protesters. The gunmen openly shoot people they think are a danger to Assad’s regime. They confiscate and grab whatever they like, be it cars, houses, or even women. So far, Assad’s loyalists and security forces have killed over 1,000 Syrians.

The similarity between Assad and Mladic is frightening. When the Syrian uprising began in March in the southern city of Dar’a, Assad ordered his troops to lay siege to the city, as Mladic did in Sarajevo, shutting off electricity, water and telephones. The army arrested schoolchildren who scrawled ant-government graffiti on walls and imprisoned hundreds of young men simply because of their age. There's also precedent in the family. Hafez Assad, Bashar Assad's father, laid siege to the city of Hama in 1982 and killed some twenty thousand Syrians as the world stood silently by.

Luis-Moreno Ocampo must urgently seek arrest warrants also against Bashar Assad and his brother Maher Assad, head of the elite Republican Guard. His troops continue to fire indiscriminately on peaceful protesters and funeral marchers in Syrian cities.

What these despots never anticipated was the reach of social media. Confronted with Twitter, Facebook and the likes, they appear frustrated even as the killing goes on. When government-appointed goons fire on protesters, the image is instantly broadcast across the globe. When a prisoner is tortured, the act is caught on camera and becomes instant news.

A young, web-savvy generation has found in technology an enabler that aids their revolution. They have lost their fear. There is no stopping them now as they fight and die for freedom and justice.

Generals and dictators who commit genocide against their perceived enemies or their own people cannot escape justice. It may take decades or it may take months, but they will have to account for what they have done and pay the price in courts of law. That is the new reality.

Rabindranath Tagore

Today is the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the Bengali poet whose protean genius enthralls millions of Bengali-speaking people to this day. That he has been largely forgotten in the West after he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 for Gitanjali (Song-Offerings) is a cause for sorrow, for his poems and songs remain a timeless source of inspiration.

When Tagore was born in Kolkata, India, the American Civil War had just begun. Leo Tolstoy was reaching the heights of his powers as a novelist. James Clerk Maxwell had published his electromagnetic equations. The world was in the throes of a dramatic transformation. Tagore's contributions to literature and the vision he articulated for a world where tyranny had no place and freedom was everyone's birthright hastened this transformation.

Tagore went on to create a body of work greater in scope and power than Gitanjali, His true genius bloomed after he won the Nobel Prize, a fact unique in the history of literature.

A significant amount of Tagore's work is infused with a vision of greatness he saw possible in his native land, a confluence of civilizations due to Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Skihs, Jains, Paris, Christians, Mongols, Dravidians and Aryans. India, as he saw it, was greater than the sum of its parts, a vision that continues to challenge India of today.

Britain in Tagore's time ruled India with an iron hand. But the rulers were becoming nervous. A young activist named Mohandas Gandhi had returned from South Africa in 1915 to lead the nationalist movement. becoming a proponent of Satyagraha (eagerness for truth, otherwise known as passive resistance) to British rule. Although Tagore and Gandhi differed on methods by which to achieve independence, both believed fervently in regenerating their people people by curbing their communal instincts. Both believed that India's hope lay in forging unity among people of different races and religions.

Politics did not interest Rabindranath but that did not keep him from boldly opposing British tyranny.

When government troops led by English officers opened fire on a political gathering in Amritsar in 1919, killing 379 Indians and wounding scores of others, Tagore renounced the knighthood England had bestowed on him four years earlier. As a poet, he felt it was the strongest statement he could make to draw world attention to the crime.

It cost him friendships in the literary circles of Europe and popularity even in America, but he considered this act one of the high points of his life. It was also during this time that he composed some of his most powerful poems against tyranny and injustice. "Question" is a poem that stirs deep emotions in its impassioned plea for understanding sorrow and tragedy in a world meant to be just and filled with grace.

When Gandhi was imprisoned without trial in 1932, he condemned it. In a letter to England's Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, he warned that the British were closing the door on peaceful negotiations with India.

Tagore was self-taught. Attempts by his parents to educate him in schools completely failed. Young Rabindranath found conventional classrooms suffocating. In 1901, he founded an experimental school at Shantiniketan (Abode of Peace) near Kolkata, free from traditional restrictions. Classes were held in open air and joy in learning was the priority.

By 1921, the school had evolved into Vishwa-Bharati (World) University where students from all over India came to study. Tagore saw in it a model of his vision, of an India greater than the sum of its parts. It is a testimony to Tagore's ideal that funding for the University came from both Hindus and Muslims. A frequent visitor to Shantiniketan was a young politician named Jawaharlal Nehru, whose only daughter, Indira Gandhi, was then a student at the World University.

Tagore did not live long enough to see the end of the British Raj and the partition of the sub-continent along religious lines in 1947, He died six years earlier, still nurturing vision of a harmonious India, as riots were flaring.

In "The Religion of Men," a set of lectures delivered at Oxford in 1930, Tagore said: "Freedom in the mere sense of independence has no content, and therefore no meaning. Perfect freedom lies in a harmony of relationship."

From Jalabad to Abbottabad and Back

The distance from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to Abbottabad, Pakistan, is 158.9 miles, or approximately 160 miles. Let's say that half of this distance lies in Afghanistan and half in Pakistan.

This means that the four AH-60 Black Hawk stealth choppers (if published reports are to be believed) that the SEAL commandos used to kill Osama Bin Laden flew for half of 320 miles, that is, 160 miles round trip inside Pakistan.

Typical speed of these choppers range from 140-160 mph. Using the lower limit as the average speed of the choppers over mountainous terrain at night implies that they flew in Pakistan's airspace for just over an hour. Add 40 minutes to that for the operation itself, an additional 10 minutes to destroy the damaged helicopter, and the total time the commandos spent in Pakistan amounts to no more than 2 hours.

Did U.S. forces jam Pakistani radars? Who knows, but the fact is that 2 hours is too long for a country not to be aware that its airspace has been violated. Pakistan's intelligence service and the army probably were complicit in the operation. If so, that was a good thing. After all, if Pakistani forces killed bin Laden or got into a confrontation with the commandos in the terrorist's compound, it would have been disastrous for the Muslim nation.

All's well that ends well. The terrorist mastermind has been eliminated. Al-Qaida has received a debilitating blow. The world is safer. And Muslims can go about toppling dictators in the Middle East for tyranny to end, freedom to triumph and an Arab renaissance to begin.

On the Death of Bin Laden

Justice must be served because, unlike revenge, justice is a moral imperative. Without justice, there can be no peace, no progress and no closure.

With the commando raid in Abbottabad that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, there is now a sense of closure, not just for the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks but for Muslims as well. The violent ideology of bin Laden and al-Qaida held Muslims captive for a decade and created existential difficulties for them. With the demise of the terrorist mastermind, Muslims, especially American Muslims, heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Tahir Anwar, the Imam of the South Bay Islamic Association of San Jose, California, struggled with words to express his relief. “It is actually beyond relief,” he said. “Beside killing thousands of innocent people, Bin Laden damaged our religion and society. Other than a few extremists, his message of violence never resonated with Muslims. He was a marginal figure who inflicted tremendous suffering on people. I am happy that the head of the snake has been cut-off and there is now one less evil person on earth.”

The Quran is clear on the question of justice. “O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be against rich or poor, for Allah can best protect both.” (4:135)

Dr. Rajabally, a frequent speaker in Islamic conferences who also runs a shelter for abused Muslim women and victims of domestic violence in the San Francisco Bay Area, hopes for two developments to occur in the wake of bin Laden’s death. First, that the recruitment of the vulnerable to fanatical causes around the globe will stop and second, that the U.S. government will treat American-Muslims as an ally in the fight against terrorists and not subject them to racial profiling and similar indignities. “Islam is for justice,” said Rajabally. “Bin Laden committed injustice on a global scale. He gave Islam and Muslims a bad name. He treated Muslims who did not agree with his violent methods – the overwhelming majority of Muslims – as his number one enemy. We are grateful that justice has been finally served.”

Bin Laden was no martyr. He created a personality cult out of his feral fantasy and unbounded egotism, even as America helped create the monster that he became. Many impressionable young Muslims unfortunately fell under his sway only to undermine their faith and waste their lives. Bin Laden preached an ideology of violence in the name of Islam that was rooted not in theology but in ruthless political ambition.

The Arab Spring that is currently transforming the Middle East is proof of how insignificant bin Laden had become. One could argue that he still wielded some influence among the Arabs but after the Tunisian uprising, he became completely irrelevant. While he tried to channel Muslim anger against U.S. foreign policy for his own political hegemony, the revolutions by Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans, Yemenis and Syrians are signs that Muslims are taking responsibility for their own condition instead of blaming others for it. In that context, ideologues like bin Laden lose all credibility.

American-Muslims were heartened by President Obama when he said “… the United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam … Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al-Qaida has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”

In spite of these considerations, I must confess to being disturbed by the raucous celebration that broke out when bin Laden’s death was announced. How can the death of a human being, no matter how vile, be a cause for celebration and exultation? What should have been a somber occasion turned into a festival with street-dancing and fist-pumping. There is something morally repulsive and spiritually eroding in taking pleasure in the death of a human being.

With the bin Laden "event" behind him, Barack Obama has all but ensured a second-term for himself as president of the United States. Unless something goes horribly awry, and this president has proved extraordinarily lucky in everything he has done so far to make that possibility remote, look for Obama to deliver his second inaugural speech in January of 2013.

Now that bin Laden is dead, America must get out of Afghanistan and Iraq fast. Unlike George Bush, Barack Obama can claim that the mission has indeed been accomplished. There is no need to linger in those countries anymore. What should have been a war on ideas after 9/11 became two viciously polarizing wars of death and destruction, costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Only in withdrawal can come the ultimate closure.

Wael Ghonim is the 30-year-old revolutionary who helped harness the power of social media to mobilize Egyptians and hasten the downfall of Hosni Mubarak.

Addressing Muslims in the San Francisco Bay Area on a recent visit, Ghonim reflected on his experience and on the unfinished revolutions currently sweeping the Arab Middle East.

“While a small fraction of Egyptians was living the good life, most Egyptians were living without dignity for decades,” said Ghonim, currently on leave as a Google Middle East marketing manager. “That’s what finally forced the Tahrir Square revolution on 25th January. For years, Mubarak and his family and cronies kept stealing the country’s assets while torturing dissidents. Many Egyptians were surviving by eating out of street-corner trash.”

But Ghonim’s message was one of hope and optimism. He believes that the new Egypt will be fundamentally different from the old. But it will require patience, vigilance and more sacrifice, because the battle for a life of dignity and freedom for Egyptians is far from over.

“We need to shock the world one more times,” he said, “by showing that the fall of a dictator can be followed by a government of transparency, accountability and the rule of law. Even if it takes Egypt 2-3 years to succeed, it will send a strong signal to dictators and oppressors everywhere that they can be overthrown by people power.”

The striking thing about the Tahrir revolution was that there was no hero and no leader to lead the masses. Egyptians led themselves. “People often look to leaders to tell them what to do. If the recent events in Egypt have taught us anything, it is that we don’t need leaders for revolutions to succeed.”

In Tahrir Square, Ghonim did not see anyone engaging in self-promotion. Young Egyptians used the Web to harness the wisdom of the people, even as Mubarak’s regime tried to block Internet access. Physicians treated the wounded. Volunteers cleaned the streets. People kept vigil against government goons. Women fed the hungry and cared for the sick. Christians and Muslims joined hands. There was a unity of purpose.

Until the revolution, Egyptians were fatalistic. They were resigned to the Mubarak clan ruling Egypt forever. It all changed in January when, inspired by Tunisians, Egyptians threw away the yoke of fear and took charge of their own destiny.

There is now the urgent need for Muslims in the West to help Egypt move forward. One way, suggested Ghonim. would be for us to sponsor rural areas. “Economy is the priority now. If a laborer, farmer or taxi-driver begins to feel that the revolution has not brought any change to his life, if he still has difficulty feeding his family, he will say, ‘This has done nothing for me. We might as well go back to the old way.’ If you can teach, contribute money, donate useful and usable tools, offer healthcare, if you can help modernize 10-15 Egyptian rural villages through focused effort, that will make a big difference.”

Tourism is another area where Muslims can contribute. There will be fairs and celebrations throughout Egypt in June. Ghonim appealed to Muslims to visit Egypt in the summer and see firsthand the country’s transformation. It is the kind of economic stimulus Egypt urgently needs. One out of 9 Egyptians depends on tourism for livelihood. Over 1 million Egyptians have lost their jobs during the revolution. “We cannot let the unemployed channel their frustration into anti-revolutionary activities.”

To Washington, Ghonim had this to say: You have to align your interest with your values. Dictators dangled stability in front of you while denying people their rights and freedom. You went along with this. Unless there is a fundamental change in your policy, you will lose us. There are signs that changes are occurring but they have to be long-term and based on respect and justice.

“I believe in people, not governments,” said Ghonim. Governments don’t want to change but people do. The Internet is a powerful catalyst for change and people must learn to leverage its tools to bring about the changes they seek.

The military may yet complicate the transition to democracy in Egypt. As the young activist sees it, as long as people are engaged, are not distracted by frivolous pursuits or consumed by partisan politics, those in power will have to respond to the wishes of the people. Otherwise the leaders will turn into tyrants and society will atrophy.

It is important for people to take responsibility instead of waiting to be told what to do, Ghonim said. “Many of you asked me how you can help Egypt and other countries. I have given you some ideas but you can use the Internet to figure this out yourself. Do your homework. Don’t ask for guidelines. I am just 1 of 10 million Egyptians. I don’t consider myself a leader. I don’t believe I have done anything remarkable. It’s the people, all of us, united by a common purpose, who made the revolution possible. We have a long way to go but what we have shown is that each one of us can be an agent for change.”

While Tunisians, Egyptians, Yemenis and others have been brave, the bravest so far, according to Ghonim, have been the ragtag Libyan rebels. Without heavy weapons and with hardly any training, they have taken on the army of a mad and ruthless despot and gaining ground every day, inch by inch.

Ghonim is not motivated by revenge or retribution but he is insistent that the main perpetrators responsible for Egypt’s economic, political and social decline be brought to justice, starting with Hosni Mubarak. “We have to set an example so that future leaders will think twice before abusing the law and doing whatever they please.”

Ghonim asked Muslims not to suffer from “conference syndrome.” This is where Muslims attend well-meaning seminars and conferences, listen to speakers flush with oratorical exuberance, feel inspired, then go home and … do nothing. “Let’s reduce the volume of talk and increase the amount of action. We don’t have to tolerate tyranny and we don’t have to wait for leaders. We can change our own conditions if we have the courage to believe in ourselves.”

Libyan-Americans Urge U.S. to Recognize Libyan Opposition

Libyan-Americans are urging President Obama to recognize the Libyan opposition's National Council as the legitimate representative of Libyans. “I don’t know why our government is dragging its feet,” asks Faraj in frustration. “France, Italy and Qatar have recognized the rebels. Why not America?”

Faraj is an electronics engineer in Silicon Valley, California. He came to America as a student from Libya in 1978. After graduation, he couldn’t return home because of threats on his life by Muammar Gadhafi’s security squad. He had been outspoken in denouncing the dictator.

“Libya used to be a peaceful, prosperous country,” said Faraj. “But now it's probably the most backward country in the world.”

As an example, he cites a visit to Libya by Shaikh Zaid of United Arab Emirates in the early ‘70s. While touring a hospital, the Shaikh exclaimed, “I wish we had a hospital like this in the Emirates! We and Saudi Arabia are 20 years behind Libya!”

"Now the fact is Libya is 40 years behind UAE and Saudi Arabia!"

So what explains this descent?

“One word: Gadhafi. He controls all the oil money. In the 40+ years of his rule, Libya earned trillions of oil dollars nut hardly any of it went into building infrastructure or schools or hospitals. Gadhafi distributed wealth to his family, relatives and cronies and created a police state. He put his sons in charge of security. Libyans were forced to accept his dictatorship. Those who didn’t, he killed them or jailed them.”

Faraj described how Gadhafi sent hit squads to Rome, Paris, London, even to the United States, to kill Libyans who opposed him from abroad. “When he took over power in the 1969 coup, Gadhafi made it clear that Libyans must support him if they expected to live. Otherwise, he would kill them or imprison and torture them. No in-between.”

Other Libyan-Americans in the Bay Area agree with Faraj. “Libyans will absolutely not accept either Gadhafi or his sons remaining in Libya,” said Mufta, also an engineer. “They must leave, or they will be captured and put on trial.”

“It’s just a matter of time,” said Yusuf, a student who was born here, grew up in Libya, and returned to the United States a decade ago. “Benghazi is the capital of Free Libya. It’s terrible that people are dying in Misrata, Ajdabiya and other cities but Gadhafi’s days are numbered. He has killed his own people. He has committed crimes against humanity. He will be called to account, God willing.”

Yusuf doesn’t like the "rebel" label. “Rebel has a negative connotation. Those fighting Gadhafi are freedom fighters. They are the pro-democracy force in Libya.”

Faraj has family in Libya. His cousin was among the first killed in February when Gadhafi’s snipers from rooftops began shooting at people as they streamed out of mosques after Friday’s congregational prayers.

What about Gadhafi’s boast that he will not leave Libya and die fighting if it comes to that?

“Gadhafi is a coward,” said Faraj. “When he sees rebels advancing on Tripoli, he will try to flee with his family.”

Many Western analysts and pundits are predicting that if Gadhafi falls, Libya will degenerate into a civil war because of the “tribes with flags” that comprise the country.

Mufta seethes with anger at this analysis. “Yes, Libya has many tribes but it’s not as if they don’t have a national identity. They are united in putting Libya above tribal affiliations. After decades of Gadhafi’s oppression and misrule, it will take time to undo the damage and work out a national agenda but it will happen. Western analysts are wrong and arrogant to think we cannot bring about and sustain democracy on our own.”

The ragtag Libyan rebels have proven to the bravest among Arabs fighting to rid their countries of tyrants. Without training or weapons, they have taken on a regular army. They have suffered heavy casualties from indiscriminate shelling by Gadhafi’s forces (two foreign journalists – Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros - have also been killed) but they are holding their own. They have even driven back Gadhafi’s forces from Misrata in recent fighting.

What can hasten Gadhafi’s downfall?

Faraj and Mufta identify two urgent issues. “First, the United States should immediately recognize the National Council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people. Second, give the rebels the heavy weapons they need so it’s a level playing field. They can finish the job themselves.”

Ducks of the Same Feather

There's an anguished piece by Timothy Egan in The New York Times about the similarity between Donald Trump, the current front-runner Republican presidential candidate, and Italy's sybaritic prime minister Sylvio Berusconi. If you can overlook shades of their toupees, you will find that they are ducks of the same feather.

Both have embarrassed their nations with vulgarity and stupidity. Yet the public cannot seem to have enough of them. Everyday brings fresh evidence that this duo should be fired immediately and sent into exile in a remote, inhospitable island to plant turnips and practice stand-up comedy on each other. But they march on, feeding on the insatiable desire of a certain section of the public looking for their daily fix of outrageous behavior and buffoonery.

Try to digest this fact: 47 percent of Republican voters believe that President Obama was not born in the United States. That's today's statistics, not last year's or the year before. If you are about to throw up, don't blame it on a bad hair day.

The Birther department is expanding, the newest addition to the faculty being that paragon of propriety, Mr. Charlie Sheen. If this were a big joke, like the one Joaquin Phoenix pulled on the David Letterman show, we could laugh a little and return to our daily grind, but it is not. It is a serious trend suggesting that the nation hasn't really advanced 150 years after the civil war.

Since publicity hounds seem to be ruling the republic, we may see more outrageous 'movements' coming our way. The thing to do would be to hold firm and not despair. On their own, these movements are likely to die a fast and natural death as people finally awake to reason and common sense and reject their architects as idiots and charlatans.

The Long and Winding Trail

We parked the car at the foot of the hills. As soon as we stepped out, a flock of finches flew out of the rosemary bushes and disappeared into the evergreen pear trees. Within moments they reappeared and alighted on the bushes, giving us a view of their yellow breasts and reddish heads and charming us with their playfulness. Against the backdrop of the green hills, they represented the stirring life of spring.

We took to the long and winding trail, savoring each step in the wilderness. The sun peeked from behind the clouds and a misty rain fell as well, but soon it was clear and a light breeze blew, rippling the grass in the meadow. The trail was lined with miner's lettuce, monkey flowers and thistles. Coastal oaks sprouting fresh leaves and laurel and olive trees spread their seductive shadows away from the trail.

Just ahead, we saw a group of wild turkeys meandering along the trail. As we approached, they vanished into the thickets. An eagle, then another and yet another, flew over the trees into the open sky, drifting laterally and then circling and drifting again.

When we came to the familiar opening, we saw the two oak trees within whose encircling leaves we had stood so many times before, listening to the birds. Today, we just looked at them and felt their presence suffuse us. They had grown even more beautiful in all the months that we did not visit but we told ourselves they were glad to see us too. A jay perched on a fallen laurel looked down at the sloping meadow that merged into another trail by which the creek flowed. We moved on.

The wind had picked up speed and the tall grasses rippled with conviction. Wildflowers were everywhere, sorrels and lupines and clovers and a few we didn't know the names of. At one point we stopped to marvel at the grace of the green hills resting against a calm sky. From the undergrowth came bird songs of infinite variety, pure music of earth and sky.

We had never hiked this far up the trail, always resting at the eucalyptus grove from which we could see the valley and the city stretching away in all directions. But we were determined to reach the summit of the skyway trail today. We should have brought some water but the air was cool and the thirst did not pose any challenge. Besides, the creek was not far away, if it came to that ...

We flushed a flock of doves from the underbrush, feeling guilty and thrilled at the same time. Finches, sparrows, jays kept up their twitter nonstop. There had been warnings of wild animal sightings, particularly mountain lions, but the fear only added to our adventure. We came in peace for mankind; that's what we would tell the wild animal were we to encounter one .Surely it would understand and leave us alone.

We were now approaching the end of the trail and soon enough we were there, tired and sweating but also exhilarated.

Along with the regular wildflowers, we were surprised to find many daffodils, tossing and turning just as the famous English poet had come upon them long ago and immortalized them in the poem that we had memorized in our childhood. Must be due to pollination. We didn't see why anyone would plant daffodils here. But then, there is no dearth of lovable eccentrics in this part of the world.

We sat on the worn bench and took in the view. After a while, huge bees began to buzz us, the air thick with them. We had trespassed into their territory. A dove cooed and a jay shrieked. But we had seen what we wanted to see and began tracing our way back.

Near the end of the trail, we met two elderly couples tending to their vegetable patches.

"What are you growing?"

"Oh, just some cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, squash, peppers and mint."

"Wow, that will cut down on your grocery bill!"

Laughter all around.

The finchess were still there. This time, they stayed in the rosemary bushes, frolicking and singing with abandon.

Female Mystery Writers

Kate Atkinson is among the finest mystery writers in the world today. She spins stories that grip readers with their intricate psychological plots. Her prose is brilliant. In a single sentence she can sum up a lifetime of anger or bliss that lesser writers may take chapters to convey.

I have been a fan ever since I read Behind the Scenes at the Museum some years ago. The imagination with which she conjures up the thoughts of her characters and weaves them into her tale of loneliness, bravery, mystery and happiness against impossible odds is breathtaking. Her characters are so believable I expect to run into them at work, in the park or at bus stops.

It's going to be downhill for her after Behind the Scenes, I told myself. I just didn't see how she could follow it up with more richly-imagined books.

Yet she did! In Case Histories, One Good Turn, and When Will There Be Good News?, Miss Atkinson kept me enthralled with mysteries filled with such suspense that I realized I was reading an authentic successor to Agatha Christie, the original "Queen of Mystery" and the best-selling author of all time. Atkinson's intelligence is palpable on every page. Nothing is forced or contrived. The point of view of each character flows naturally and mingles seamlessly with other points of views. The dialogues are natural and concise, just the way real people talk.

Her latest, Started Early, Took My Dog, is the best yet from this brilliant storyteller. Don't be fooled by the whimsical title. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize she chooses her titles as carefully as she imagines her stories.

Tracy Waterhouse makes an impulsive 'buy' from a deranged woman at a London Mall. It's a transaction that turns her life upside down. A horrifying murder of a woman brings a sinister cloud to the sunny sky of what she imagines will be her new life. Complications arise when the reluctant detective Jackson Brodie wonders about a doppelganger tracing his move as he tries to comfort a dog that he had saved from a cruel owner. Corrupt police officials try to cover their misdeeds but the truth haunts them, particularly one named Barry whose moral quandary is fast catching up with him.

All the elements of a can't-put-down thriller are there in Started Early but what really makes it a standout is the lyrical quality of the writing. Each sentence is a surprise, each turn of phrase delightfully inventive. And to think, it all begins when an adopted woman calls Brodie from New Zealand, requesting him to trace her biological parents.

Atkinson's closest competitor is the Irish writer Tana French. French's three books - In The Woods, The Likeness and Faithful Place - are standouts as well. Her atmospheric invocation of place and memories and unfulfilled lives is unparalleled. Frank Mackey, once among Dublin's finest but now scraping out a living as a tough and cynical private eye, is a character impossible not to root for. He is after the truth and will go to any length to uncover it, no matter where the chips may fall.

If there is one thing French lacks, it is her inability to surprise when the 'whodunit' is revealed. The reader expects to be shocked but I found that I could predict the murderer fairly easily. This was particularly true in Faithful Place. But her writing is so persuasive that you are happy to overlook this flaw.

Among Scandinavian mystery writers, Karin Fossum of Norway is unique. She also writes psychological thrillers and her amiable police inspector Konrad Sejer is the lovable and persistent uncle we all know. Fossum reached her peak with the remarkable The Indian Bride but her other books are not as satisfying. She strives for subtlety but in the process has become somewhat predictable.

Another English writer who made a splash with her debut thriller, Raven Black, is Ann Cleeves. Ms. Cleeves has planned a quartet of thrillers based on the Shetland Island off the coats of Scotland. Raven Black, the first, is absolutely riveting. I couldn’t put it down until I read it to the end in one sitting.

Magnus Tait is a dimwit who can be surprisingly perceptive in the way he channels his thoughts. Two pretty girls unexpectedly drop in on him on New Year’s Eve as he nurses his loneliness. He has been lonely since his mother passed away, his only friend. The island is haunted by the disappearance of a little girl some years back. Fear and anger grip the Shetlanders as one of the girls who visited Magnus is found dead the next morning. Inspector Jimmy Perez has to sift through conflicting evidences to catch the killer. Perez? Isn’t that a Spanish name? What’s a man with a Spanish name doing in a sub-arctic Scottish island? Is Magnus as dumb as he appears to be? As the story proceeds, the island’s past comes into focus through the fog, and there is hardly anything idyllic about it.

No question about it, Raven Black is a winner, a worthy recipient of the Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award. Unfortunately the second book in Ms. Cleeves’s quartet, White Nights, is a letdown. It is plodding and repetitive. It lacks bite. Inspector Perez already seems like an old man. You want him to pick up the pace but he just, well, plods along.

No matter how talented, it is often difficult for a writer to follow up a bravura performance with another. Here’s hoping that Ms. Cleeves will regain her footing with at least one of the two remaining thrillers she plans to write.

Kate Atkinson is a master of the genre, as are Tara French, Karin Fossum, and perhaps Ann Cleeves. Of the four, Atkinson gives the most pleasure because of the way she uses language to reveal the dark thoughts of her characters. That she also can hold you in suspense until the very end make her a rare talent indeed.

No Cruelty, Please!

Three years into my marriage, I informed my wife one morning that I was renouncing the materialistic life and moving to a commune in Oregon.

Her expression did not change. As she poured milk into her bowl of cereal, she looked at the wall clock and said, "You are late for work."

I knew this would be difficult. I sighed and told her I was serious. "In six months, I will be moving to an Ashram at the foot of the Himalayas."

"Wow, a jet-set hippie!" She almost choking on her cereal.

I pointed to the suitcase that I had packed the night before. "Look," I said, "the best thing would be for you to come with me but I am not sure you will want to. Life in a commune is hard. Sharing everything and all."

"Oh yeah, I hear they share everything," she said.

She was referring, obviously, to drug and sex.

"It's not what you think," I replied.

"You are late for work," she repeated.

"Look, I am sure we will be together again. It's just that I need to find myself. I have had it with this consumer life. It has nothing to do with you. If anything, it's only because of you that I didn't leave earlier."

Her eyes narrowed. "If this is a joke, it's a very bad one," she said menacingly.

I knew it would come to this. After all, how do you leave your wife just like that to connect with your inner mojo?

Seeing the tears in my eyes, she flinched. For the first time since our surreal conversation, she looked at me with what I thought was anger and fear.

"Have you lost your mind? Are you crazy? What am I supposed to do here alone?"

"I have made arrangements," I said. "You don't have to worry about mortgage and the bills. I will explain everything."

"You are not serious, are you?"

The first wave of desperation was beginning to hit the tranquil shore of her mind.

"I am. This is destiny. You will be okay. I can see both of us in the Ashram one day. Trust me, you will not regret it."

Suddenly, I saw a spoon flying in my direction. I ducked. Barely in time.

"Hey," she said fiercely, "cut the nonsense. If you don't feel like going to work, don't. Call in sick."

"I am not sick. And I will be leaving in about 15 minutes. I want to go over some details with you."

Fear began to fill her face. She kept staring at me intently.

"For God's sake, stop it," she finally said. "If there is something wrong in our marriage, if I have done anything to upset you, just tell me. I am sure I - we - can work it out." Tears were welling up in her eyes.

"No, no, you have done nothing wrong. You have been an angel. I couldn't have asked for a better wife. But that's not what this is about! A month ago I saw a dream. I saw myself in an Ashram. I saw the same dream three nights in a row. After the third night, I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to leave everything behind and go away. My only hope is that you will be with me again one day as we seek nirvana together."

"Really? Did you bother to ask me even once if I wanted to come to the commune with you?"

"No, I did not. There's a reason. I saw in my dream that unless I left you behind, I would never get you back. You know how it goes, give up to get back. Think of this as the test of our love."

"Are you writing a novel or something?" There was sarcasm in her voice.

"I really have to go," I said. "I have written down everything. Can we just sit for a few minutes to go over the details?" My voice betrayed my desperation. I sat down and began to sob.

"What am I going to do alone?" she wailed. "How can you do something like this to me? Life is not a movie, you know! You can't just take off like that! Let's talk this over. Call your friends. Discuss it with them. See what they have to say!"

"But that's the point. I have to leave quietly. No one must know. That's what I was instructed to do in my dream."

"Shut up about your dream, you idiot!" she screamed. She was trembling and crying. "Oh God, this can't be happening! I didn't do anything to deserve this!" She looked at me with murder in her eyes.

I tried to pacify her. She sprang away from me as if I were a leper. "I want to go back home," she said. "I want to go back to Chittagong. I don't want to stay here. Go to hell and find yourself. I want to go back to my parents."

"That cannot be," I said emphatically.

She became hysterical. I tried to calm her down. I sprinkled cold water on her head. I gave her ice-water to drink. I begged her to stop screaming. "What will the neighbors think?" I asked.

When nothing seemed to work, I used my only remaining option.

"It's April Fools', silly," I whispered in her ears.

She didn't understand what I was saying, so I had to repeat myself several times until it finally sank in.

I had to atone for my unpardonable act. After she had regained her self-control, we left immediately for Las Vegas where we enjoyed a show by her favorite entertainer, Tom Jones.

But it took her several years to start treating me like a normal human being. Every now and then, at home or at a party, I would catch her looking at me. It was clear what she was thinking. "This guy is a lunatic, a moron. How did I ever end up with him?"

Moral of the story: By all means, pull an April Fools' on your loved one but make sure it is free from cruelty.