ACDIS Diaries - I

AS a visiting scholar to Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS), a think tank of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), am given a nicely done studio apartment overlooking a church and with a view of the intersection at Goodwin and Green. ACDIS has hosted the likes of Stephan Cohen, Shekhar Gupta and a plethora of South Asian strategic community. Among other furnishings is a land phone with a directory. I wonder what Americans need this relic for in 2006. We are already phasing them out back home.

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Americans seem to be a deeply religious society. There is a church almost on every street. There are actually two on some. The only difference from back home is that they spare the middle of the road to construct takeaway religiosity. Rush for the Sunday mass is to be seen to be believed. It is not uncommon to have street side singing bhajan mandalis, the dhol-manjira replaced by guitar of course. I saunter into one mass and am sprinkled with holy water. The service itself is sincere and has high spirituality quotient. A very different picture of America than the one projected through Bold and Beautiful TV.

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There is a lecture by an Iranian scientist at ACDIS on Iran-US relations. He asks a rhetorical question: “does Iran have a right?” against, “does Iran need a nuclear bomb?” Are we living in some kind of nuclear apartheid? Well, we Indians could have asked these same questions before the nuclear tests of 1998. The Ford administration had actually coaxed the Shah of Iran to go for the nukes. To rub it in he elaborates: Iran government is at least ten times more in control of its people than Pakistan. Yet, Pak can have it, but not Iran. Americans might not buy this, but good that at least the campus is abuzz with debate. (Americans are simply doing the bidding of Saudi Arabia in preventing a Shia bomb).

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A day of Lincoln pilgrimage at Springfield. Lincoln library, Lincoln home, Lincoln office, Lincoln museum, Lincoln legislature, and of course the Lincoln memorial. In the overall simplicity of the Lincoln residence what is worth observing is that the loo is at the other end of the lawn. Eighteenth century America had no attached lat-bath it seems! Or was it that a walk would just help push things errr...further. Impressive Lincoln merchandise is on sale from Lincoln buttons to the Gettysburg address. I splurge in dollars.

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At Springfield I bump into an elderly couple – an African American man and his Filipino wife. Though from Chicago, they are first time visitors to their State capital, and have not come prepared for the tourism. I do not mind becoming their guide in their own country as I get to know a lot about subaltern America through them. They live in a segregated neighbourhood of Chicago, and maintain they like to live amid their own kind. According to the old man it keeps things calm. Chicago has Davon Street as the south Asian quarter as also Chinatown for the Chinese. Segregation is the norm in the USA and frowned upon only for academic purposes.

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It’s a fine spring weekend but to fast pace my research paper I am in my room at ACDIS. Going out for lunch I bang the door and realize only on return that the keys are inside. I have locked myself out. Mercifully, keys to the apartment are in my pocket. So would not need to spend a roofless night in US of A. I get back to the apartment and realize the land phone and directory can help. Find administrative assistant Sheila Roberts’ no. and call her. Bingo there she comes with her husband and opens ACDIS again for me. Now I know why Americans still keep land phones with directories.