The Power of Virginia Woolf - Women's History Month

VIRGINIA WOOLF
Photo from the Peabody Museum Exhibit, January 2016

VIRGINIA WOOLF




Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

“When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”

“I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee’s life of the poet. She died young—alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross–roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here to–night, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. This opportunity, as I think, it is now coming within your power to give her. For my belief is that if we live another century or so—I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives which we live as individuals—and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting–room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton’s bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare’s sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down. Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while.”



Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

“When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”

“I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee’s life of the poet. She died young—alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the cross–roads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here to–night, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. This opportunity, as I think, it is now coming within your power to give her. For my belief is that if we live another century or so—I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives which we live as individuals—and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting–room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton’s bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare’s sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down. Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while.”

Walden Pond - Envisioning a New Year -2016

This is my first post in a long time. Sometimes a respite from an activity brings you back to it with heightened awareness. I recall when my children were toddlers and started to learn a new skill, all of their focus would be on it, and they would regress slightly in other areas of their development, until they perfected their learning of the new skill. I suppose to some extent that is what has been happening with me. Over the past few years, even as I have been zealously advocating for my clients worldwide at KLS, from ensuring distributions and recovery for defrauded investors, to litigating against the government or developing cases and companies for many different clients, I have been mastering the area of biotech, creation of a management team, implementing a skill set as a CEO and Chairman of a therapeutics' company, with pre-clinical and clinical development of molecules to help humankind treat a number of rare and chronic diseases.

Today, on this 1st day of 2016, I took a walk around Walden Pond, not so far from my house in Cambridge down a few highways on this crisp, cloudy winter day. I was surprised and also not so surprised to see that others had the same idea to walk in the footsteps of Thoreau on the woodland terrain surrounding this inspiring pool of water to connect with the mystical, real, and sacred philosophy of being. When I got to the parking lot gate to park my car, a bit of a queue had developed because a machine replaced the regular attendant at the gate. The machine indicated I could pay $8 for this visit or $60 for the annual pass. Since I had tried to partake of the natural beauty of the pond several times the last year to no avail, because of long lines to the parking area, I decided to opt for the annual pass... in 7 walks, I will have made the pass worthwhile... and that would be incentive to come back I thought! A New Year's resolution in the making - nothing wrong with a meditative walk once a month!

I changed into my hiking boots putting my running shoes in the car, and kept my hands free to carry the shiny crotchety dark mahogany walking stick I had acquired over the summer at Zion National Park, and a thermos of hot coffee... and I was on my way. I found myself enthusiastic, smiling most of the way to the beginning of the trail - to have the smiles joyfully returned by most passersby, including small children, with a chorus of 'Happy New Year.' There were a good many young couples from other places on the planet, Russians, Japanese, speaking in different tongues. All were friendly.

I crossed the road, stepped down the incline to the start of the trail. And then, there it was, the pond... I took it in - a wide and deep looking pool of dark grey (because of the clouds) surrounded by a fair expanse of sandy beach in the parts closest to me. In Kashmiri, it is a 'nag'- a small body of water that has an eerie depth, evoking a spiritual reverence. I saw people mostly in twos walking down below on the beach - no crowds and lots of distance between the couples. They were coming toward me and walking clockwise. I am always reminded of temple when I walk like this around an object - it is a kind of prakram - a prayer meditation worshipping nature. I stayed higher up on the marked trail covered by slushy snow setting out counter clock-wise. I focused on breath and taking one step at a time - put one foot out after the other and grasped the slush with my hiking boots. It was easy walking, and so I could drink from my coffee thermos, and keep pace with the walking stick. It was cold enough to need the gloves and the hat - I assessed that I was adequately dressed for the weather as I peered out over the water, and sand below me. I was enveloped by the woods and felt no wind. But the tops of my thighs were feeling the cold, and I appreciated this feeling because I wanted to be refreshed and connect with the elements. I was outdoors after all - what was the point if I could not feel the outside.

I glanced to my left and noticed something strange. I was walking around the pond. But I realized, I could not see all of the water. In fact, even if I faced the pond, and looked to my left, a forest covered tract of land had obliterated most of my view of the pond. Over half of the pond was no longer visible to me! I was facing about a quarter of it now - the part that had a red sign indicated there was an abrupt drop in the depth of the water in this nook of the pond. I had always imagined Walden Pond as egg-shaped for some reason. In fact at the start of the trail, that is what I thought I would be walking around, but now I could see the pond had all kinds of twists and turns around its circumference - far from a neat and tidy egg shape. And in that moment it struck me that this was exactly how a vision for a company unfolds. We start as leaders imagining a future based on whatever information we have been provided by founders/scientific and business, based on disclosures and omissions. The imagination then creates a blurry future because the clarity and specifics are missing at this juncture. However, without some vision of a future regardless of the specifics, no one would venture down the trail.

As a leader, I have had to hold the vision and forward path for a biotech company. I began with an idea of what that would be and as I walked along the path of the vision, I would learn things that would involve making shifts and changes in the vision. The focus or meditation involved in growing a company also means that you have to be completely present in the place you are, and in what you are developing. As a result, because of your present developmental focus, you may not be able to see the point at which you started, and in fact things you learn may alter your ability and your team's ability to hold steadfast to the original vision. There is no way to go back to that starting point, except to hold the vision you started from in your memory and craft the vision now taking into consideration the actual journey. It is mapping while you walk the path of development.

Memory, therefore, is a critical aspect of a leader's job. A great aspect of the leader's value comes from holding the company's history - where it came from and using it to map out where it is going. Because eventually the journey has to be able to lead the development back to the place of vision - the start - and assimilate the changes and learning that occurs along the way - to map out the path fulfilled. I passed a young Japanese couple and they were nice enough to take my photo so I could again get a clear picture as to the extent of pond in my view - behind me. It appeared expansive, but there were parts of the pond still out of view. Being present and focused on that vision of the whole, made it clear that the journey involves not being able to see all aspects of the developmental vision at one time, but remembering all of the path trodden, and the vision imagined, at each moment of the journey. Despite the view of the pond behind me, I was so surprised I could not see parts of the water, because Walden Pond is not that big. I repeatedly took time to review where I was in function to how much of the lake (or the whole vision I could see) and at each point around the Pond, I could see a quarter, at the mid point - half the water, and at times where the land would jut out and obscure much of the water, I could see a quarter.

At the three-quarter point in the trail, I thought I might have been able to make out the start, or where I had come from, but no, there were curves and promontories that again obscured my view of the whole. In addition to this, the trail was icy, and the snow hardened and slippery. In my walking meditation, I began to be proud of the way I had thought about the walk before I started it so that I would really enjoy it. I had taken a walking stick for support for the sheer pleasure of it. But in fact it was necessary. A young woman walking on her own had not thought ahead and almost fell on the slippery ice. She applauded me on having thought about bringing support with me. Also, I wanted to make sure to be sustained and had brought my coffee thermos. A young mom with her daughter of 8 or 9, applauded me on having something hot to drink and her daughter followed me on the walk, because she also thought it was a great idea to have brought a hot drink with me. These are great metaphors for fulfilling a company's vision as well. A company's shareholders are its sustenance (or hot drink) and its management team is the support without which the company cannot complete its journey and accomplish its goals.

Thinking I was almost at the end, toward the last bend, I came upon a very slippery patch, and lost my balance. In the journey to fulfill the entire vision, there will be slippery patches and one is lucky if one does not fall. I was lucky and did not fall because my walking stick helped me regain my equilibrium. Again, I thought about the importance of a stellar and loyal management team always there to support you. I was finally able to make it down to the sandy beach and came upon an older mom giving an American history lesson to her high school-age daughter, just as they were discussing USSR and US relations in the cold war. More Happy New Year's were exchanged as I now finally heard the gurgle of small waves of water lapping against the edge of the pond. The sound was like a song... the pond was singing its Happy New Year too.

I moved on to witness a family that had come out to support their young son (an 18 year old, I would say) take off his clothes and run into the water in his bathing suit and swim for about 3 or 4 minutes. His family was ready with a towel when he got out of the water and he wrapped himself immediately. I congratulated him on his feat, and he said it felt like millions of icy pellets hitting him in the water. But it was refreshing and brought in the New Year. The family rejoiced in his courage! He was shivering but proud that he had done what he set out to do.

I had no wish to jump in that pond in the middle of winter. Nevertheless I too had embraced an active and sacred ritual in my winter walking meditation this morning... filled with thought and action, and smiles to strangers from all over the world, all journeying together for a short while in friendship and peace like Thoreau.

After crossing the road back toward the parking lot, a young woman and I both stopped to take a photo of the Pond and a quote by Thoreau on connecting with the mother earth. She was having some trouble taking in the entire poster in her lens, and I helped her shift perspective so the whole poster was in her view. That was also the point of the walk, I thought. "We are a great team," she said. As I walked away, I had dropped my mitts in assisting with the photo shoot. The mother and daughter, who had been discussing American history, came up behind me, alerted me to my loss, picked up the mitts and handed them to me. 'It takes a village,' I said, 'even when we are all grown up.' "But we never really do grow up, do we?" said the mom. I had been contemplating my meditative walk around Walden Pond as a metaphor for a leader's journey to fulfill a corporate vision, and now realized that another little community had developed along the path.

systems - personal, political, legal - a framework for learning in the new year!

I work within the realm of conflict and in the realm of dishonest communication or action, deceit or fraud, and sometimes misunderstanding, to resolve situations that my clients confront so that they can attain their goals - recovery of money; better relationships, peace of mind, justice and fairness etc. The most useful thing that I can do for my clients is to understand them, and to fully understand the situation in which they find themselves. This involves by and large, a great deal of study - a study of the exchange between myself and the client; of the client, and of the people involved and actions taken by the people involved with my client. Here are some fundamentals to retain in the study undertaken: Human beings are complicated... each and every one. How and why? Each of us is a system. A group of us forms another system around an issue or cause, an identity including nationality or ethnicity, or a margin. But as much as we may form systems, systems form us also, through education, through family values or culture, and through the rules created to conform us to particular structures in each country and also internationally. The study undertaken is a study of the various systems involved...to ascertain what similarities, differences, affinities attract the exchanges and actions that have created the situation to the point of conflict or deceit or misunderstanding. Personal systems relate largely to family upbringing and relationships, values, as well as cultural, religious, and educational background. Much of this study will inform a study of the groups to which a person belongs or simply conforms. Law and the rules that structure identity on a state, national or global level can also be linked to personal systems to some extent, but evoke a greater sense of group dynamics, class or power struggles. But how does this help with the development of a case; or with the process that leads us to make a decision relating to adjudication; or to informing and alerting relevant authorities; or to challenging the authorities themselves; or finally if political processes are engaged - to creating the means and mechanisms to shift legal structures on a wider level? I will not move without understanding who I am dealing with, when I speak with a client, without fully understanding what the problem is, and why it is a problem for this particular client. This requires much back and forth, and compassion/empathy for the client - him/herself. It also requires an understanding sometimes of the wider world or system in which the client finds herself as relevant to the problem at hand - for instance the industry or more specifically the corporation in which the client may be a whistleblower; and thereafter the legal or other systems invoked by understanding the conflict at hand and the process(es) required to challenge or target the injustice. I explicate this in such basic terms because it is difficult for clients to understand that the law and lawyering is not simply an exercise of issue spotting and rule application, at least not at KLS. Here the measure of our success is found in the understanding and learning we obtain in the interface/exchange itself of information gathering by speaking with the client, with witnesses, sometimes friends and sometimes others close to the situation, to have a fuller debrief of the conflict and its causes and the impact, for instance - personal, psychological, financial that has been sustained. It occurs to me these paragraphs are worth writing, because too often our clients like the clients of so many other law firms expect that answers will be swift, and the information they provide about themselves and their problem can be sparse. When I do decide to proceed - a great deal of exchange and understanding must take place prior to the development of the file or case, or strategic plan to resolve the problem or conflict. Three years later... our process has become clearer, as it moves to understand the complexes it encounters. I am sure this year will lead to even further understanding of the systems we engage! Happy New Year to all our clients!

Learning from Loss - the changing weather...

It may be ironic to talk about loss as we make way for spring. Spring rites are now playing out around the world. We Hindus just celebrated our festival of colors, Holi, and uncannily the warm weather (global warming or not) thaws out our bones and makes us flex our wares. Like buds sprouting we suffer from an eternal loss of memory of wintry mornings, and become surprisingly present to nature's change. Other loss in life we carry like an old overcoat, torn and tattered, out of the habit formed of attachment. My 22 year old was just watching 'Harold and Maude' for the first time. I remember enjoying watching it in my 20s. I smile at the attitude Maude has to 'attachment' even though she clearly has an issue with it. She seeks to teach others not to be attached to anything, while she clings for dear life to the idea of letting go as she nears 80 years of age... knowing she will soon have to give up the body in which she has lived them.

I work with clients everyday who have encountered difficulty with loss of all kinds, personal, financial, career, business, sexual, life and limb etc. It appears to me that most litigation is a forum to deal with loss that is difficult to overcome without reengaging the adverse party. If I succeed at litigation, it is mostly because I know so much about loss...and how to recover from it. The experience of loss can engender many different reactions: 1. shock - leading to a kind of repetition compulsion (where one needs to replay, or sometimes worse, reexperience the act of losing similar things in order to process the loss); 2. anger - leading to a situation where someone, sometimes anyone, must be blamed and must pay for the loss ... a kind of negative pay it forward (if I have paid, others must too, which is just a different kind of repetition compulsion; a sharing of loss with others even though it is hard to see it that way); 3. desperation - we all have difficulty dealing with people who have stepped over the edge of any kind of equilibrium in response to their loss. They are unpredictable, angry, blaming, sad, but very close to giving up any hope that they can recover, if not the thing lost, at least their own equilibrium; 4. depression - when there is no satisfaction and much has been tried, people will succumb to the pain of loss turning inwards(depending on various internal resources, a person's resilience will be determined here.)

Loss, like all transition, is as much a part of life as the changing weather. Yet I am caught here because I know the feeling. The loss of control. The inability to change the weather. The inability sometimes simply not to get what you want. Last year, my mother underwent a series of operations to save her life and remove a dangerous growth inside her brain. She came through with much ado... needing time for her recovery; however the recovery is not quite as I had hoped and I know that sooner or later (having an inner sense of how long I have) I must get used to the idea that I will have to let go. There is not much, including my own life, I would not give up... I know what she wants and has always wanted for me, the things she would forbid me to give up as much as I would want to, because she worked hard to get me here. She is a trooper and she is doing her best under the excruciatingly difficult circumstances of her life to battle, never complaining as is her way. A doer and leader, not a follower or procrastinator... her strength in the face of fire and nails is painful to experience at times.

There is nothing one can do but admire the spirit and pray and worship all that she is. And so cheeks wet with the surrender required to honor her spirit, body, heart and mind, I attempt to follow in the footsteps of her strength. Those footsteps beckon my calling to my clients all over the world, to ease their discomfort and provide hope of recovery. As melodramatic as the ubiquity of loss may sound, I believe completely that its experience leaves most of us retriggered fundamentally in aspects and ways that have not been studied, possibly critically undermining our ability for productive engagement with systemic solutions. As such, I do find myself providing support of a therapeutic nature through the law that is at times desperately needed. There is no doubt in my mind that even in cases where recovery of the object of loss is not possible (personal loss for instance), recovery of one's equilibrium is still possible and should be sought:) Legal engagement starts to help with this process.

GDK.

A New Year of Transitions -2012

The past year has had its more than fair share of challenges. For my family, health has been a major issue and as we suffer the temporariness of all that is, the battle continues and it is heart-wrenching. Suffering the passage of time and things brings with it certain boons as well. We start to recognize the value of contemplation and meditation. We start to recognize our position in history,within family and within the world. We start to recognize that we are forever in transition, and change is a habit that we need to adopt, before it adapts us (the latter can be a painful process).

So where are we today according to GDK? We are poised to better understand ourselves as we sit on this lonely planet in the cosmos (recently learning that there is hope of another such planet out there with living characteristics similar to ours). We keep pushing ourselves forward to create and deploy technologies to bring more of us closer together politically and economically. We are learning, sometimes the hard way, the real potential for climactic catastrophe, especially as it pounds against human development (Fukushima for instance). We are running out of energy to sustain us all as the human population sees no bounds. We are at a better place to understand how the social, the technological, the scientific, may conflate to create a space for a socio-economic network to connect us all.

What about finance and trade? We have had to confront the hard truth about the gap between reality and talk; paper is paper after all and we cannot be sure about what it purports to represent; and valuation is tricky if it is manipulated. Perhaps it is time to shift gear and make the rules simpler and accessible to the general public; perhaps popular movements like Occupy Wall Street ask for something when they ask for nothing; perhaps the gains toward popular politics in the middle east push political boundaries beyond their own through a global social network. There is a politics of finance and trade as much as there is financial politics, political trade, and a trade in politics/ideology. Developing nations will become developed superpowers, and superpowers will come full circle to understanding the value of interdependence - economic, cultural, and political. Developing nations have provided resources to the developed and now want to retain some for themselves as they seek to become manufacturing powers... but all are worried about being stripped 'dry'... and strategically that is the rub. What resources are left? greenery, water, timber, minerals... they belong to us all and do not need to be fought over; the demarcation line is not the border between countries - it is where my skin touches yours. This is how close we have become but refuse to acknowledge.

Are fraud and corruption things of the past now that whistleblowing is in vogue and wall street reform a ticket to political office? Fraud and corruption are a part of us still and require our vigilant attention. They are no different than lying and stealing... temptations each of us faces every day. The greater the purse at stake, the more chance a person or a group of persons or an institution will be tempted to shirk moral, if not legal, obligation for pecuniary gain. The fact that there is more social technology to warn others or tell on those who defraud others, may not affect the shaming impulse in quite the same way as litigation on behalf of those defrauded. In other words, despite the Dodd-Frank legislative reform incentivizing whistleblowing to the SEC, and the establishment of the SEC whistleblowing office, there have not been many actions, if any taken to date. The conclusion at this point in time is, we at KLS continue to provide a much needed service, and we even attempt to hold governments accountable. The false claims act cases that whistleblowers themselves may take, and gain government assistance to bring, supply another useful tool against fraud.

Some of the answer lies too in reconfiguring the power to frame the debate around issues of valuation so we can all start to participate in order to regain trust in a system of currency. How exactly are value and contribution/resources linked and what currency exhibits that tie? This is one project that I have taken on for 2012 in a multi-faceted approach. Within KLS, it involves outreach to clients to understand better how their various resources can assist in getting maximum recovery for investors while engaging in dialogue to assist the entire web of relationships regain the trust broken by fraudsters and power mongers.

If there is anything, there is hope that we will come closer to finding the answers.. but there is definitely much to do in 2012! I wish you all courage and the love that supports it, and the great deal of energy, and health, needed to elicit your full contribution!

Tipping our hats as he goes

Steve Jobs left quite the impression on me and billions of us on this planet...his brusque management style; his intuitive genius; knowing the right remedy and understanding truly the problem that gave rise to it...perhaps actually creating the problem that preceded the solution he foresaw. Synching the world with his efforts based on his self-synching with a true and whole spirit, he created a magnetic resonance of hope. We can do anything, anything is possible with the self-trust needed to tap into our inner resources and imagination.

Invention, mass marketing of products that have become commonplace... who does that anymore? Products and inventions are the culmination of years of effort of a team of visionaries nowadays... It is surprising that we can owe such creation to one human being. But we have to remember on this earth today exist the Galileo's, Einsteins, Edison's, Curie's etc. all at the same time. Jobs reminds us with his legacy that if opportunity is provided to all, we can overcome many of the burdens that continue to plague us including those attributable socio-economic stratification. Jobs had the vision to see that computers would become a household appliance if not a workplace basic. I have lived through this evolution. Typing on a normal typewriter, I took typing in eighth grade in '75. Once proficient, I thought with my fingertips even back then through Wellesley and my first two law degrees. The modern keyboard really helps speed up thought and its reflection upon the white (or black if that's your preference) of the screen. I revelled in the PC when it came around in graduate school. What did everyone do before 'cut and paste'? Write much better out of necessity or much worse because of editing constraints? Now you can't get through high school without a computer, preferably a Mac, nevermind college.


Jobs also created and saw beauty in simplicity. Leave it to a complicated man to do that. The insides of his beautiful devices, the accessible and transparent programs were reflected in the aesthetic outside of the product. How to appeal to more with sophistication? Elegance for the masses...thin, metallic opaque, or white sheen envelopes over simple iconic clicks learned when accessing the ipod, the mobile music revolutionizer of our era. And this from a man who ate the simplest food, and lived in sparse surroundings based in some non-materialistic ethos (Hindu-Bhuddhist based) focused on the output of his efforts. It wasn't about the money... it's hard to create and do something beautiful if it is about the money after all. Note the cardinal temptation that has seized humanity in the course of this cycle of being. If we are about running after something, then we are hard pressed to create and we lose our beauty; that beauty that only shines through when we are driven to a purpose of whole-scale execution and we become execution itself. Delivering the ultimate product, one to be marveled at as much as it becomes a marvel. I look for that in the legal domain and keep working on it. In this field it is built on trust; client's trust in the delivery of the product and mutual trust in its deliverability and faith that the system will enable the just outcome for those that stand by right not might. So yes, Jobs is inspiring and can be applied!

Then there are those great movies... not just for kids, these technological pioneers transformed the screen into a 3D vision into which we all travelled willingly. Stories that anthropomorphized somehow more realistically the plight and emotional life of animals or toys suspending all disbelief and took us with them into another world. Perhaps these worlds really exist somewhere else in the surreal realm of the cosmic experience Jobs has now entered. Given his eternal drive and ingenuity, I am sure he continues to conquer...

An iconic legacy!

Ten years ago - 9-11

Ten years ago .... That day, I awoke late, off to the 42nd floor of the Conde Nast Building from across the twin towers, in an apartment rented in NewPort, New Jersey. I was sleep deprived all the time in those days. Trying to tackle that second draft of a doctoral dissertation sometime between midnight and 7 or 9 am in the morning when work started again at Skadden, Arps. By the time I got outside my apartment building, evacuations in the buildings around me had already begun... I was late, it was after 9am.

I went straight into the subway station and had the choice of taking either train on most mornings (one went straight into the world trade center, the other to the 33rd street station). This morning I was told that I could not take the one heading into the world trade center. I saw shock on most faces around me, heads shaking, folks trying to figure out what was going on. I had no coffee in me yet (and I ran on it in those days)... but I quickly came to, perked up at the sounds of 'terrorism'. Thinking this was normal New York paranoia, I scoffed and started to ask questions... until screaming started and more bodies streamed into the subway, fearing that the roads outside were not safe. "Another plane", something serious was going on and people needed help. We were not safe. Planes had been flying into buildings. I could not make out if there were misdirected small aircraft (to my mind, these often crashed) that had accidentally fallen or exactly what was going on. As I pieced together the actual threat... I wanted to get on a train and get into work before I could not move anywhere. This was the last train that left that station to 33rd station. Once I got on it, the subways all shut down and nothing could go into, or come out of Manhattan.

When I got up above, complete pandemonium greeted me... people were running in streams through the streets, and lining up at phone booths. I began to cry... and flashed back to a childhood in which bombs went off all around and we huddled into bomb shelters in the backyards at home and at my Aunt's house in Jammu (in the midst of the India/Pakistan war over Kashmir). There was no way to make any sense of this... then or now. When I got to our building on 42nd street, an evacuation was already under way, but I went straight up to my floor anyway. I thought it was the safest place. Having understood better the threat and knowing that the two tallest buildings in the world had been slaughtered taking with them all they contained and all that surrounded them, I thought statistically, it was unlikely we would be hit... my assistant and others around us, were glued to news channels and tried to piece together all that went on. Soon we came to hear two more planes were headed for and crashed short of targets in DC. Brenda, my assistant, also a photographer, took the photos from our perch... while we all filed into a partner's office directly overlooking the tragic undoing/crumbling of the towers as each one slowly fell in a pile of smoke.

All air traffic had now been stopped everywhere. All flights canceled... no chances would be taken now till security could be assured. All planes were a danger. The second set of planes should never have taken off. But like me, authorities were having difficulty facing an invisible enemy. It was attacking without notice (allegedly, as it appears the CIA had some knowledge but like the SEC with Madoff and other cases, did not act on information). Suddenly there were some helicopters and jets flying outside our windows and we frightened that another one was coming for our building. We rushed to the windows to know the truth (prepared for anything on a morning capable of unimaginable atrocity). Fighter jets circled to ensure our safety and helicopters surveyed the city to assess damage and understand the state of the things.

I phoned my children who were at our home just outside Boston(having been sent home from school) with my mother who was minding them. Friends called from all around the world to check in and make sure I was okay. What became more apparent in these conversations was that there was a targeted attack with particular goals, the first two those towers. But others unfolding before our eyes.

That day, I grew more and more afraid for my children, because of the terrible realization that there was a Boston/New York connection here. These planes were the ones I was taking most every week back and forth between these two cities while I worked at Skadden. I remember Brenda and I looked at each other, and she indicated I could easily have been on one of those planes coming in from Boston. What was even scarier Osama Bin Laden's family apparently lived in and around Boston, and rumors of possible poisoning of water around Boston were circulating. My children were scared and I was not with them. Not a good situation. I stayed with a colleague that evening in Manhattan, we did not sleep. We were glued to the TV for news and went out to greet restaurant owners and others in the middle of the night... it seemed no one could sleep and everyone needed community. The stench from the explosions, the tragedy, the brutal attack/act filled the air, and worry, pain and sadness was palpable in all the spaces between.

At some point that night, I made a decision to leave, and not return to work until I was ready. I simply needed to leave. I thought it was not good for me to stay in this place, and that I must be with my children. So at noon when the subway opened up, I got on, and did not look back. I knew that roads heading out of NYC would be clogged. But I made my way back to Newport, NJ, and to the nearest rent a car and drove without stopping till I got home to our place (few people knew actually existed) surrounded by 8 acres of woods. And there, I felt safe and able to breathe again. And my children and I, and my mom talked and cried, and worried and pained together about this catastrophe. Knowing full well from our time in Kashmir, that these things, these terrible, irreconcilable things happen, across all borders, boundaries, breaching all of our understanding of security and trust. Kashmiri Pandits, and all real Kashmiris (Muslim and Hindu) had been violated by and dealing with these same mercenary forces of terrorism coming over and disrupting life and killing the Hindus (I lost 3 family members to this same hatred in Srinagar) and now it had made its way here to the U.S., a place we thought so removed from this violence, taxing imagination. How, when, why did this conspiracy start? Fundamental to human history and action are cycles. What cycle(s) of action and reaction did this shock belong?

I also understood in tearful frustration that no law firm, no lawyer, no law can stop this from happening. And if there was anything that began my quest to try to understand and learn why, how and what our regulating and enforcing systems of rules are about, it was the fact that I originated in the cradle of such violence in Kashmir. And here I was on the precipice of completing my doctorate but no closer to understanding how I could do something about it. The damage was done and being done all around me and I along with the world stood helpless against it.

I realized that in that most vulnerable moment, when all has been lost, we can only recreate and rebuild by regrouping into each other, into family and into community, with love and care, nothing else. One brick at a time, one namaste at a time, one handshake at a time, one hug at a time, the tears must be shed, and shed, so that changes can occur in each one of us, in our families and in our communities to help us deal with the shock of this horror. The ripples of that love and care will not only transcend and honor those lost, and the losses we bear, but also forge the foundations of a new transformative trust capable of rebuilding the systems needed to change the nature of humanity so that such hatred (an unnecessary crutch for our insecurities) is amputated from the wholeness of our being.