Why isn't anyone saying it? Doesn't this ring a bell folks?
Am I the only one who thinks that the boy named Cho who killed 32 in Virginia was a mirror? Showing us ourselves? Showing the world the agony of being cut off from society because he didn't buy in or was in need? Did anyone reach out to him? He was alone. And now everyone is ignoring the lesson that the "madman" has given us. We want to own things. We are an "ownership" society and yet, we do not belong to each other any more. We are alone in our cars, with our i-pods or our cell phones or our macs or our media players or our blackberries. alone. This is the most agonizing pain of all. To be completely alone and to be forced to live side by side with those who do not see you, do not know you and now who see you as beneath compassion, an animal.

I did not know any of the victims. They looked like happy people and I am sure their loved ones will miss them to the end of their days. But it is easy to like happy successful , good-natured people. It is hard to love people who are "cold" or unpopular or disagreable. But regardless, it was the young Cho who was suffering to the end of his life and not the happy young people, who lived good productive lives to the end, (or so it seems).

It seems that compassion is a quality that young people of privilege do not always possess. Perhaps that was the one thing that these young people had "billions" of chances to show to young Cho. Perhaps some people will step forward and tell another story so that we can begin to heal this wound. Making Virginia Tech "safer" does not mean creating another gated community. The US is becoming one big gated community and the more walls we build the more violently those on the outside will tear them down. If we can make people feel that they belong and they are safe inside their hearts as well as outside we may come to a more peaceful place in our schools and places where people work and learn together.

ANOTHER BLACK MONDAY
This stormy morning the alarm woke us up at 4 am so that I could drive Mr. D to the airport to make a 6 am flight. Unfortunately, after checking the status of his flight he was informed that it was cancelled so I fell back asleep until 7 am. He would take the train with me into the city and catch another flight into North Carolina at 10 am.

Once I was at work Mr D. began to call me with bad news of a long delay. AFter four hours of waiting at the airport and no sign of the flight actually taking off I told my colleagues.

"Poor Hemanshu has been stuck at the airport for hours!"

One of my Shambhala art production comrades replied, "At least he isn't at Virginia Tech."

It was then I learned of the killings at the hands of a lone gunman who was finished being invisible.

Later in the afternoon, after bonding with post Boston Marathon T riders I sat with my husband, who had given up trying to leave Boston, at a restaurant above the Alewife stop. Sitting on a large bench waiting for take out were 4 nine year old girls and someone's mom staring up at the tv which was broadcasting the relentless coverage of the shootings. How does one explain?

Yes, darling girls, in other "less priviledged" countries there is famine, civil strife, AIDS, and a crippling war. There are girls your age forced into prostitution and babies being sold or stolen for organs. Here in the United States we don't have any of this we have something else.

It is a sickness of the mind that makes us believe we must have what we want or else. It is a sickness that makes us grow more and more detached from others and depressed. This loneliness stems from our inability to feel for others or to make a sacrifice for the love of another.

Our country is afflicted with the most deadly disease of all, ENTITLEMENT.

There he was, on page 71 of The New Yorker, staring wet-eyed at me. Here was my hero, my Krishna, Puck, back in the limelight again. Accompanying this full page picture was a review of a show by Sasha Frere-Jones. This show took place in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas? Hell on earth? The place where prostitution is legal and the motto is "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."?

Actually, I would go to hell (if I had a round trip ticket) to see Prince. His songs still splash out into my mind and it is no wonder that artists still cover him.

Someone should have been on it lately to sing the seasonally appropriate, especially for this year,

"Sometimes it snows in April.
Sometimes it feels so bad.
Sometimes I wish that life was never ending.
But all good things they say, never last."

Except perhaps love sometimes
and PRINCE :)