Character #2 (and #3)

how could he have known that civilian life would be so isolating. all those years of youth spent (wasted?) in the army had left him now the oldest student in his classes. he just did not identify himself as one of them. always, always felt left out. it wasn't as if they weren't friendly, and it wasn't only that he himself was quite an introvert - at first at least. it was inexplicable. he didn't share their joy at living from day to day, lacked their enthusiasm for company, conversation, hanging-out as they called it, thought them to be juvenile. in fact, their presence almost infuriated him. and often he felt superior, in an accusatory and defensive way, if you know what I mean. like you do sometimes when you feel like your past, very different from those around you, defines you, and separates you from others, especially if you feel the others have been fortunate in ways that you didn't have the fortune to be.

so he determined himself to just pass through college, get his degree, and wait for life to happen outside, among grown-ups like himself, maybe.

college was fun though, apart from the people. he was doing well in his major, computer science. and the compulsories weren't bad either. economics sometimes felt so futile and removed from real people and markets. and yet there were days where it would strike a chord with someone in class and start a discussion. or when he himself caught the instructor after class to just talk about the economics in the world outside. she wasn't much liked, he felt; not by the other students. she tried to create a hierarchy between herself and the students, probably more so cos she was so small in stature and needed something to separate herself; probably cos she was too young and from a different country and didn't know otherwise. whatever her purpose, she managed to create hostility if not heirarchy; something of a separation at least. but he didn't mind her. maybe because he felt like she was on his side, against these young foolish teenagers.

in fact, even after her course was over and forgotten, he kept bumping into her on campus. and then he saw a different her, a more open, relaxed and friendly person; a younger girl, almost. was it the confines of the classroom that brought out the devil in her? or was it that now that he had successfully completed her course, he was a little more her equal? she always remembered and recognized, and would ask about him beyond the mindless and numb 'how are you's of most people.

he did get his degree one day, a really happy day. and looked at himself in the mirror. he had already nearly gone bald. and his thick spectacles made him look scholarly way beyond his education. could he see in the mirror that most people found his eyes very shifty? that most of those who knew him would never remember what color his eyes were? he saw not a college graduate but a middle aged man, just as lost though as a juvenile young adult about his life ahead. for a minute he was suddenly seized by an urgent need to share this moment with others, to maybe go out drinking with back-slapping guys. but he hadn't made too many friends, none so intimate.

working life absorbed him, almost suddenly and completely. and then one saturday evening, tired of the television and the pizza that he had ordered and unable to think of anyone at work he wanted to spend some time with, he started racking his brain for memory of friends in the city. and then suddenly, he wrote an email to her. to reconnect and maybe get to know her. 'would she mind catching up? just getting to know each other. didn't have to be a date'. he thought about it, it shouldn't be a big deal or anything. he wasn't her student anymore, so no conflict of interest, etc. etc.

I have been reading the epic-sized novel 'A suitable boy' by Vikram Seth for months now. after owning it for a little over six years. it took great determination to start it, not because I did not want to read it - quite the opposite, but because I couldn't picture myself successfully finishing its 1350 or so pages. it is an amazing story though, that seems almost to take over and tell itself, creating images and emotions in the mind's eye, despite its long list of characters. its a good time too, to be reading this, as the world waits anxiously for Seth's sequel to it.

so I picked it up again today, anxious to get to more of the story, to work my way through this universe of people in newly independent India. and within minutes, after a slightly knit brow reading and wondering about the aftermath of the stampede and stabbings (by angry and trapped naga sadhus) in a suddenly stalled Pul Mela procession in the story, I put the heavy book down. there's this section in the story soon after the disaster, that describes the Indian condition and reaction (then and now) so well; I just had to pen it down:


"The newspapers, which had been consistently lauding the 'commendably high standard of the administrative arrangements' came down heavily on both the administration and the police. There were a great many explanations of what had happened. One theory was that a car which supported a float in the procession had overheated and stalled, and that this had started a chain reaction.

Another was that this car belonged not to a procession but to a VIP, and should never have been allowed on the Pul Mela sands in the first place, certainly not on the day of Jeth Purnima. The police, it was alleged, had no interest in pilgrims, only in high dignitaries. And high dignitaries had no interest in the people, only in the appurtenances of office. The Chief Minister had, it was true, made a moving statement to the press in response to the tragedy; but a banquet due to be held that same evening in Government House had not been cancelled. The Governor should at least have made up in discretion what he lacked in compassion.

A third said that the police should have cleared the path far ahead of the processions, and had failed to do so. Because of this lack of foresight the crowd at the bathing spots had been so dense that the sadhus had not been able to move forward. There had been bad coordination, poor communication, and under-staffing. The police had been manned by dictatorial but ineffectual junior officers in charge of groups of policemen from a large number of districts, a motley collection of men whom they did not know well and who were unresponsive to their orders. There had been less than a hundred constables and only two gazetted officers on duty on the bank, and only seven at the crucial juncture at the base of the ramp. The Superintendent of Police of the district had been nowhere in the vicinity of the Pul Mela at all.

A fourth account blamed the slippery condition of the ground after the previous night's storm for the large number of deaths, especially those that had taken place in the ditch on the edge of the ramp.

A fifth said that the administration should - when organizing the Mela in the first place - have used far more of the comparatively empty area on the northern shore of the Ganga for the various camps in order to relieve the predictably dangerous pressure on the southern shore.

A sixth blamed the nagas, and insisted that the criminally violent akharas should be disbanded forthwith or at any rate disallowed from all future Pul Melas.

A seventh blamed the 'faulty and haphazhard' training of the volunteers, whose loss of nerve and lack of experience precipitated the stampede.

An eighth blamed the national character.

Wherever the truth lay, if anywhere, everyone insisted on an Inquiry. The Brahmpur Chronicle demanded 'the appointment of a committee of experts chaired by a High Court Judge in order to investigate the causes of the ghastly tragedy and to prevent its recurrence'. The Advocates' Association and the District Bar Association criticized the government, in particular the Home Minister, and, in a strongly worded joint resolution, pronounced: 'Speed is of the essence. Let the axe fall where it will.'

A few days later it was announced in a Gazette Extraordinary that a Committee of Inquiry with broad terms of reference had been constituted, and that it had been requested to pursue its investigations with all due promptitude. "



Notice how the section is descriptive not only in its content, but also in its length - of just a page - describing accurately, the abrupt end of such post mortem discussion as it always happens in India, with a unanimous call for the capitalized 'Inquiry'. And the narrative of the story moves on, to other things.

a selfish life so far

Having spent most of my life, so far, studying; having quit or left incomplete the random few jobs that I did take up; and in short, having contributed nothing of significance to the world or society in general, and remaining hungrily only at the receiving end, I feel immensely selfish at this point in my life. Unapologetically so, although very conscious of the fact.

I have always wanted to donate, volunteer, or rise up for a social cause. but that's my romantic ambition, more than anything else. my calling in life does seem to be the role of a sponge, to absorb continuously and never-end-ingly. and now I've realized the best way to be a sponge - when I'm alone. call it age or wisdom or an acceptance of solitude or self, but it has lately dawned on me why travelling alone has been revered so. plus, my definition of travel has changed. to be fair though, I always was kinda against the idea of short, weekend-ish trips to new places, but now even the concept of a long-ish trip has changed. I want not to pass through places, but to live in them, and move on to others.

DC has been kind and tractable for an almost slow person like me. its abundant impressive architecture, its colorful peoples, its ease of commuting and culture of walking, its varied culinary scene, the Potomac river, its parks and gardens and the benches within and roadside, its beautiful spring, its greenery, have altogether mesmerized me. and the list doesn't seem to end. for the first time in my life, I have started carrying a little sketchpad whenever I wander the city alone. and there's so much to capture, in details, unlike what a quick click would. Of course, not everything I want to capture, gets attempted; because very often my courage fails me to try and pencil what's in front of me onto my pad. but I am slowly learning to allow myself to try, despite the fear of failure. and it feels good.

It felt good to sit atop the little hill of Bookhill park trying to capture the street corner below me with the park sloping down toward it, to ring the church bell and sit within, first staring at the ceiling and its wooden beams supporting the conical roof and then copying it into my pad (the eventual curiosity of a nun did make me leave earlier than I would have liked to), to sit in the Freedom Plaza and watch (with other strangers) the youth skateboarding around - cheering them, and then drawing the skyline with the beautiful tower-like structures in the background; and then most recently, to walk without a purpose through the National Gallery of Art and finding sculptures so captivating that I just had to dig out the pencil and pad again. the thing about sculptures is (its also the thing about life or still-life for that matter, but not about scenes so much cos you cannot traverse the distance easily) you can revolve around it and choose the angle that you like best. NGA has some crucial Rodin pieces right now, and a beautiful one by Rimmer and a Magni (perfectly located by a window) that I stared at and couldn't resist drawing (the latter especially, very unsuccessfully).

The sculpture by Pietro Magni is in the picture below - The Reading Girl; the clothes, the chair, and the pages of the book look and feel (touch of imagination, because of course real touch isn't allowed) like fabric, bamboo/cane, and real paper (much used); and the girl even has a small tear near her left eye, all carved beautifully in marble.

I'm becoming a fan, of the person that she is. Of course, she is a good actress too

bookstores

My earliest memory of a bookstore is that of Good Books in the town/lil city where I first established my identity as a lil brown girl with a serious face and earnest big black eyes who was boring enough to prefer to be curled up with a comic than play with her cousins or friends. I don't remember if the city even had another bookstore or if this was by choice everyone's 'go-to' place. I remember how books were a luxury those days, and we went there only to buy school textbooks and stationary. the entry aisle of Good Books was full of colorful stationary, those colorful pencils that had lil white black bits that you used and pushed to the back to discard. all those strange shapes and sizes of erasers and sharpeners, and pencil boxes, ... As expected, a trip to the place would often end in tantrums from me or my lil sis and a sharp rebuke or a giving in by my father. Most often over stationary, stuff that wasn't really needed, but desired, because so-and-so in class had something similar, or even better if no one had seen anything like it before.

Like I said we didn't really buy books then, outside of textbooks. And so it was pointless making a fuss over wanting books from the store because I knew there would be no giving in to that. This was also probably because my father doesn't believe in buying books at all. His cliched answer to a request or a desire to buy, is, "Go to a library". A book purchase to him is a wastage because the thing will lie on a shelf at home long after it has provided its one-read use. There were of course other cliches that went along with it, as the demand for a book was almost always that for some fiction, and according to him reading too much fiction made a person starry-eyed and removed from reality. It was therefore not my choice to accept that we did not buy unnecessary books, because that was what I was born into.

My mother however had come from a different setup at her home, and encouraged my enthusiasm for the written word. She would get me comics now and then. Whatever she could get her hands on at nearby multi-goods mom-and-pop shops because Good Books was far to get to without papa. And of course there were gifts of books from aunts and relatives, and prizes from schools in the form of books. all in all I had quite enough in the first seven years of my life in the city that housed Good Books. but yes, the awe of the bookstore is still real for me. All those colorful picture books in the aisles, those Enid Blytons (I think I was just starting out on those), and gloss and color and hardcovers where ever your eye went.

When we left that city when I was 7-8 yrs old, I followed papa's advice and devoured what I could from the library shelves of the schools I flitted between. And yes, I won many more prizes in the forms of books. Looking back now, the good thing then with limited access to books was that I did not own a single book I hadn't read from cover to cover. Unlike now, when I donate unread books to libraries when its time for me to move from a city, and feel sorry for myself and yet elated that it will be available to others like me in those libraries.

To cut the meanderings short, once I owned some money and could buy what I wanted, I started loving exploring bookstores. I'd spend a lot of time in bookstores, weaving through aisle after aisle, exploring unknown titles and names, reading the back covers, getting egged on if I found authors I knew and had read. In fact I re-explored my love of reading in these years because high school and college and the years of explorations of other kinds had taken me away from books. To be fair though, my college yrs brought it back to me, with a lag of some years, because one third of my bachelors degree was English Literature. The age of physical bookstores was exciting because it allowed one to unwind and spend time with multiple covers without the desire or need to buy one. Although till date, I feel guilty if I spend time in a bookstore and then leave without buying a single book. More often than not, I would go to bookstores simply to spend time and read and browse through books, with no clear plan of buying anything. But I'd end up buying one book, because my guilt would overcome my repeated self-instruction not to buy till I had read everything I already owned. A visit to a bookstore was to me almost like going for a walk in a park, to take in all the beauty and smells around me, of rows and rows of books and the smell of fresh new pages. But without intending to, I couldn't come away without paying my tribute of thanks and buying something. so I bought quite a few books then, read many of them, collected more and gave away some. it was all worth it, but yes, like papa would say I wasted a bit, not only in those that I bought and read once, but in those that I never read.

Some years ago I started buying ebooks. This changed my buying and browsing habits completely. I visit bookstores very rarely now, made worse by the fact that many have closed down. I do my browsing on the internet now, and its not active browsing when I want to buy a book. Like before I rarely really want to buy books. But now I follow major sources of book reviews and releases, look out for titles and names if people mention them to me, archive all I would want to buy in my Amazon wishlist, and buy on whim when I hear or read about some book and suddenly want to read it. Auto-delivered wirelessly, instantly available to read, when the whim arises, this kind of buying is new but very attractive. What I do miss is strolling through and kneeling by shelves and rows of books, even virtually. Because I hardly ever even look back into my wishlist shelves; the fact that a title is in my wishlist implies that the whim or urge to buy it was not strong enough. Or else I would be reading it already.

Given this personal cultural shift in the pursuit of books, a visit today to Politics & Prose took me back to the good-old-days. Unlike some other surviving bookstores I have peeped into lately, this is as if the world hadn't changed. As if the discovery of ebooks had been reversed. As if a pity for physical bookstores was a thing for the future, science fiction. Its not just a huge store, it is alive in a way that the bookstores of my childhood and youth used to be. Agreed most of the crowd had come like me to listen to a Nobel laureate promote his book. But even before and after the talk, even with people far away from the crowd surrounding him, there was something that I thought was lost. Those engrossed faces, that seemed to not notice the pain in their arms under the weight of hardcovers precariously balanced, and that strange combination of conversation and silence. And all this at 8:30 in the evening when the neighborhood around had already retired for the day and the streets were quiet, while the cafe in the basement was ringing alive with the sound of live singing and guitars. I wanted to spend hours in a bookstore yet again. I did however come away because home was far and I needed to get home before too late. Of course I bought something, but today I had gone with the plan of buying. I had wanted a blank sketchbook, but I bought two. One lil one to get to know how to hold my pencil again, and the more revered hard bound one as a reward for when in the future I will feel like I deserve it.

Bruce Dickinson: Faith And Music (1999)

The closest words I've heard that reflect my own idea of 'God'

more DC with the much awaited cherry blossoms

DC is a beautiful city

In TX my university was my city for lack of getaways. and now in DC the city is becoming my university as I wonder, stop, study, play.

after days of really hard work, I couldn't resist the city today; more so because it was a golden day.

but so unlike the golden days in the lone star state.

this was TX where you could see far into the horizon for lack of admirable architecture, and cos of those famous flatlands (even more enhanced in this picture cos these were the university soccer fields). where the sky was often the most beautiful thing, with brushstrokes of clouds and color.

and this in contrast, is DC. romancing a young spring.

Corcoran College/Museum of Art

Fountain in the midst of Dupont Circle (where I sat sunning for a long time; watching a random guy dancing to his headphones and a toddler in pink, totally fascinated with him)

Embassy of Iraq (with some municipal inspection going on)

Some church on 18th street

Tulips in a private garden

still don't know the name of these flowers; in pink and white. are these magnolias? I always knew those trees to be evergreen(?)

Blossoms (name unknown) with the House of the Temple in the background

Meridian Hill Park

came upon this

the following, by Joan Naviyuk Kane



In a House Apart




You hurt me, then,
Burnt a bird’s white plumage—
Claim that we are the better for it,
That we will heal in time.

Strident and inaccurate
Despite all proximity,
The mountains no longer
Made me feel better.

The year in its wheel of winter
And its small cylinder of light
In excess. Far pillars could
Resemble human figures

Though only rock rises
From some progression
Of dust, demand, and rotten
Wood. I place my hand on stone
And become stone myself.

small and big news around the world

ugh. Netanyahu again. :(((

on another note, some churches in the western world let muslims pray inside them. St. John's Church, Waterloo deserves applause for this, for bridging gaps between religious groups especially by reaching out to those who cannot find mosques in their immigrant land. although I do not understand why christian idols would need to be covered while such a service was on???

anyway sadly the orthodox devouts step in to stop this, just as expected. http://www.christiantoday.com/article/no.more.muslim.prayer.services.in.churches.says.bishop/50159.htm

I walked into a similar service in a church here the other day. but it was better, nothing was covered, and anyone could join in whatever garb they had on. some people were simply using praying space to pray in the only way they knew. we should open up all houses of prayer to peoples of all religion. in fact I later learned of another church here that allows muslim services. not naming them cos the orthodox hawks can't be trusted to let them pray in peace.

why have people stopped blogging?

I'm reduced to reading my own blog.. posts from the past.

is it strange that I enjoy it a lot??

its like getting to know myself, from outside myself. and I like what I see. vanity, pride, or simply a lack of regret?

lovesong - Ted Hughes

the poem is disturbing. the love making almost violent. and yet it ends with this beautiful imagery.

"Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face"


... and I didn't know whether I was dreaming of sleeping with you or sleeping with you and dreaming.

rape in india

the problem doesn't need more living-room opinions of which people are more likely rapists and/or what a woman's responsibility is to her own safety. so plain and simple I found some statistics,

http://ncrb.nic.in/CD-CII2013/CII13-TABLES/Table%205.2.pdf

and there's more here in the Tables of 'crimes against women'.

http://ncrb.nic.in/

I do understand there are biases due to under-reporting and that those may be skewed in some regions. Till more data and evidence..

philosophy, psychology, economics, ...

I've just started reading Adam Smith's 'Theory of Moral Sentiments' (led to it by Vernon Smith's podcast on econtalk, of course), and I don't know what I'd expected from it, but I am surprised. to think that he wrote this in 1759. phew. its pretty spot on, and I'm just in the first few pages. and although the language is a little rambling, such that I have to reread some sentences and add some imaginary punctuation or remove some unnecessary ones, he does a beautiful job of expression. so here's an excerpt from somewhere in the beginning of the book where he's talking about judgment and empathy although the word 'empathy' did not exist then.

".... it is always disagreeable to feel that we cannot sympathize with him, and instead of being pleased with this exemption from sympathetic pain, it hurts us to find that we cannot share his uneasiness. If we hear a person loudly lamenting his misfortunes, which, however, upon bringing the case home to ourselves, we feel, can produce no such violent effect upon us, we are shocked at his grief; and, because we cannot enter into it, call it pusillanimity and weakness. It gives us the spleen, on the other hand, to see another too happy or too much elevated, as we call it, with any little piece of good fortune. We are disobliged even with his joy; and, because we cannot go along with it, call it levity and folly. We are even put out of humour if our companion laughs louder or longer at a joke than we think it deserves; that is, than we feel that ourselves could laugh at it.

When the original passions of the person principally concerned are in perfect concord with the sympathetic emotions of the spectator, they necessarily appear to this last just and proper, and suitable to their objects; and, on the contrary, when, on the bringing the case home to himself, he finds that they do not coincide with what he feels, they necessarily appear to him unjust and improper, and unsuitable to the causes which excite them. To approve of the passions of another, therefore, as suitable to their objects, is the same thing as to observe that we entirely sympathize with them; and not to approve of them as such, is the same thing as to observe that we do not entirely sympathize with them. The man who resents the injuries that have been done to me, and observes that I resent them precisely as he does, necessarily approves of my resentment. The man whose sympathy keeps time to my grief, cannot but admit the reasonableness of my sorrow. He who admires the same poem, or the same picture, and admires them exactly as I do, must surely allow the justness of my admiration. He who laughs at the same joke, and laughs along with me, cannot well deny the propriety of my laughter. On the contrary, the person who, upon these different occasions, either feels no such emotion as that which I feel, or feels none that bears any proportion to mine, cannot avoid disapproving my sentiments on account of their dissonance with his own. If my animosity goes beyond what the indignation of my friend can correspond to; if my grief exceeds what his most tender compassion can go along with; if my admiration is either too high or too low to tally with his own; if I laugh loud and heartily when he only smiles, or on the contrary, only smile when he laughs loud and heartily; in all these cases, as soon as he comes from considering the object, to observe how I am affected by it, according as there is more or less disproportion between his sentiments and mine, I must incur a greater or less degree of his disapprobation: and upon all occasions his own sentiments are the standards and measures by which he judges of mine.

To approve of another man's opinions is to adopt those opinions, and to adopt them is to approve of them. If the same arguments which convince you convince me likewise, I necessarily approve of your conviction; and if they do not, I necessarily disapprove of it: neither can I possibly conceive that I should do the one without the other. ...."

winter sleep

Heard that roofs have crashed in Boston under the weight of the snow this month. and there's more snow starting today. I couldn't imagine living in Boston. it almost feels as if humans are fighting against nature in places that have become near-uninhabitable. here itself the cold is awful and long drawn, and yet nothing near the reality of humans buried in snow. although the wind does carry the trauma of bostonians into our ears. such that I've taken off my earrings for the entire winter. better unadorned than freezing with cold metal biting into them. and morning runs are painful without my ear-band.

And yet winter is good. it is fresh, and so alive, to be out in the cold hiding from the wind in the hood and in those pockets. it makes me feel so alert. and of course staying indoors while the white feathery precipitation blows around. uncertain whether to layer the earth. for now giving in to the wind and waiting it out. winter is bare and ruthless and yet so far from death or stillness.

it was therefore good timing to go watch 'Winter Sleep'. in an out of nowhere, pop-up Angelika. with about 20 seats, us in the second row, and not more than 5 others filled. sleeping the winter out is such a bummer, why would any animals want to do it? even if we hadn't invented heating and clothing and snowblowers etc. and were forced to stay indoors or rather under-earth, we wouldn't help being awake I'm sure. like me in my unemployed status right now for example. lazy and passive, yet hardly napping. or like the ppl in winter sleep: biting at each other, clawing, snapping, driven by their own motives and convictions of self-heroism or despair.

the movie teetered at the edge of a sopa opera. yet was real enough not to tumble down that alley, allowing forgiveness among and for the characters, saving the conversation within and without from becoming sentimental. sort of like the only kind of hibernation humans are capable of.

and we all are in some sense always like that. supremely proud of our work our achievements however admirable or small, however tangible or imagined, leading to an arrogance that naturally miniaturizes others; those others around us, who can only weaken us, attack us, reduce us. and continue to do so, till they have debased us to such a point where we fight back out of urgency. fight back with self-pity, with self-righteousness, with fists of blame and indignation that help our way back. to "resurface to the top like oil".

someone once said to me how important information was. information from one human to another about the latter. and vice versa when possible. its like what Smith (Vernon) was talking about in the podcast the other day: how a person sees and realizes what s/he is only through the reactions and feedback others give. and yet civility dilutes such feedback and substitutes it with politeness, when the external is deceiving. on the other hand breakdown of civility often results in anger and then censure without information, mutual and tit-for-tat. it is then that our inner voices deceive us. between the two, or probably with some filtering of both lies true information. in both cases, it is information that is sacred, and possibly scarce too. it is information we need, and we must give. yes, with caution, with care but also with honesty. and we should learn to take too.

the more I try to be nonjudgmental, the more I see myself being judged by others.

question 1: why do people hold family as so sacrosanct? and not just their own but mine too, in their opinion of how important it should be for me.

situation: diwali. apparently being alone for diwali is the saddest thing people (south asians) can imagine. really? even if the person being alone is me, and I am not sad about it, but rather seem to like it, to be away from all of that exaggeration and noise and crowd, and over what?!

related question: why does an honest statement that you don't miss your family on diwali dismay people? why does it make them judge me as inhuman and cold?

question 2: religiously fervent people pity people lacking beliefs and look at you with shock and abhorrence. why?

situation: because I have a cartoon of hanuman on my office desk that is in no way derogatory but still a caricature of his mythological strength. and because I'm saying that this country makes one question the very idea of religion and although I still pray I don't know what the target of my prayers is.

question 3: (and I know I've said this before umpteen times) why do women who are also mothers consider other women - who're not planning to make a family or don't seem to care for those questions - to be less womanly? and why do they talk about kids as if its my duty to have some, as if I don't have a life if I don't?

I hope someday Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich will try answering those questions on Radiolab. till then this post was supposed to only say that I love what they're doing. their podcasts are not just informative, they make me feel like I'm there with them, travelling, learning, seeing for myself. and each is heartwarming, and in some ways a revelation into human life and existence.

"one is still what one is going to cease to be, and already what one is going to become... "

its been busy. I know that when I haven't visited online sales on loft.com in a long while. and although because I'm in texas where 'fall' just means the end of scathing heat, I can't say for sure I had time to realize that winter is just around the corner.

so what's been biting me all these months? literally speaking, a small family of bedbugs that I hope is vanquished and dead (but that still gives me bouts of anxiety scanning my sheets for aliens and lint). but more broadly, I really don't know.

I know there are a couple random movies and stories and the ubiquitous phdcomic on our lives, but its still unbelievably annoying how each one of us goes through the same timeline of emotions although all of us stubbornly want to believe we are special. so I'm at that point now, where I'm on the market and about to finish, and well you should know the rest without me having to tell you.

But I do believe I'm different right, and therefore you do expect me to tell you how it is for me.

typically in the last year and a half, my campus and department, my school and its surroundings and the people have become both too new (and different; I mean why are there thousands more students around and why are there houses and buildings coming alive where there used to be fields earlier?) and too unchanged (have I really been living within 3 miles of my first apartment for more than 5 yrs? and did I really tolerate all these people for so long without a reason?) for my liking. I'm having a second life and identity crisis (the first was when I moved two-three jobs before coming back to school here and realized I'd found my calling for then at least) where I keep telling myself that I'm good, but something inside keeps asking in return, "For what?".

and here's the bit that does make me different: although I'm hunting for jobs and making multiple people spend their weekends writing letters recommending me, I am not really praying for a job. or am I but because these last years have made me a semi-atheist, the nature of prayers have changed, unrecognized? maybe that too. but the point is, I find myself instead thinking of what else I could do if that job does not come. I could make a baby while still reflecting on my calling for the next phase of life. or write a book instead. or volunteer for something I'd admire myself for but probably lack the courage to do (or else there wouldn't be self-admiration).

and then today I find (on the internet, where else; I'm an antisocial PhD candidate with no friends remember?) a classmate who was working with me for a brief period of self-searching (probably also for him) 5-6 yrs ago. and he has since then quit the pretense of academic research and is lending his head to creating advertisements, and hang on, is also publishing his first novel very soon, after having had a short story selected for some Indian award! am I shouting, that could have been me?? sort of, but I feel his sketches are way better than mine, and I still have to see his writing. but I am searching out my window at that immaculate scene of suburban america and wondering if its time to take a U-turn yet again. its been a great 5 yrs but now its beginning to sour.

happy diwali, all. I must go get a box of those samosas home that beat anything you find in India (they have Mexican cooks in their kitchen and boy have they beat us to it)!

Beauty

So what is beauty? In the days of Facebook when everyone is beautiful to their friends n family. When an exotic holiday leaves u with pics that receive zillion likes, that make u feel attractive. Make u feel appreciated, applauded.

Is beauty youth, or skin color, or mystery, or desirability, or a smile? Or dark long hair, or blonde shiny hair. Or is it daily highlighted eyes? so noone knows what they really look like.

Or what's behind you, or what ur wearing? Or the country ur holidaying in? Or is it being a bride (fget grooms, one can't talk of beauty with reference to men, right? Unless they're gay maybe. Huh!!)?

Or is it the profile of ur loved one?

No, no its probably a good selfie.

Come to think of it. I haven't known a single beautiful person. Everyone looks good, well almost everyone. But then maybe I'm getting the rules of beauty wrong. Or maybe I need to have more empathy with others, and I'd agree with them that they're each beautiful. At least the lucky ones.

its time to move again. not yet, right away. and not for good. but soon, for the time being.

5 yrs in this place and I'm yet not itching to, dying to, run? it is a sort of a wonder. but I do hate growing roots, that shackle you to the ground. and to the same people. while with more and more time spent nitpicking their faults, makes their novelty to you change to loathing, and then makes the loathing grow.

so then maybe its right, at least for us mortal beings. those who are known and will be remembered by only those they came in contact with, if at all. maybe its right, that for us, who have no larger impact on this world; transcendence is to tug with each other into deeper meanings: physical, political, social, supernatural, metaphysical, critical. with some minimum engagement, enjoyment, trust, honesty and commitment. to a conversation.

that's when you allow those tendrils of roots to grow. entangling with people, with locations, and situations.

au revoir

addiction and binge watching

in the old days, when all you had for eye entertainment was the cinema or the random movie on the tv, one sat down to it prepared. to give time. and therefore, it came as an event to break the routine of one's life. cos, not every Sunday movie on doordarshan was worth the patience or the sacrifice of homework/bed time. then came vcr, and then dvd. and one felt 'cool'er, being able to bring home a movie. being able to choose which oldie one wanted to watch on which weekend, and which pirated running movie one could steal in one's livingroom. but it was still a slight bit of an occasion. with friends and family gathered around. while the big screen lived on, but became more of an outing. more about the popcorn and comfortable seats, and the atmosphere. and conversation.

while all this while, for me at least, sitcoms, tv series, etc. were beneath my time. because those needed regular time-allegiance. and waiting. and giving in to both of those demands meant accepting the addiction. which almost seemed like an insult, given what it required and what it gave back, in disappointing return.

and then netflix happened. watching half a movie a meal, became common for me. and maybe for other single adults living alone. and it opened up the world of movies. from north korea, to japan, to bengal, to algeria, to chile, to .... , from indies to documentaries. and then, came coming around to even the sitcoms, and tv drama series. and that last one, started all this binge watching.

its hardcore addiction, to the drama of the lives of the characters who keep cheating, lying, crying, killing, failing, struggling, dying. and netflix removed that barrier of waiting when one episode ends, and before the next begins. and it removed also, the need to devote a particular weekly/daily date for the drama. now while you saw the credits and listened to the music of an ending episode, the next would threateningly (secretly welcomed) flash in the bottom corner as coming on in the next 10,9,8,7, ... seconds. and one realized, one might as well click on it than pretend that it came up on its own, against one's will.

and some people still reserved this kind of binge-ing for holidays, or weekends, but to me it was never precious enough for holiday time. so it spilled onto weeknights, when half an hour between dinner and spouse's phone-call would anyway not be productive any other way. or the other half hour between phone-call and bed would anyway go away just recollecting where I left off on that last proof in that paper's appendix. and that's how it came about, me watching season 6 of Mad Men in 5 days flat. after having waited months because season 5 left off with pathetic Draper getting back to his addiction of sleeping with others' wives.

and all of season 6 I chafed myself for having been taken in because of the brilliant actors, into this wretched drama of pitiful people. and don't get me wrong, I was addicted yes. but I still knew it wasn't worth it. and so the season began, one episode a day, at the end of each - me wondering what I ever saw in it; and having to watch some comedy after, to clear the bad taste in my mind's mouth. but the last three days, the consumer in me behaved differently. and this is not the first drama that brings that consumer out. I knew this was the last season, and that the drama would then end, either for sure, or for me at least for now. so I clicked on that 'next episode playing' a little too easily, a little less pretentiously. with hope now of ending this trauma for myself, for once and for all. of watching Draper die (in the real sense or at least out of character - no spoiler alerts here, this is just what I was expecting, having been so disgusted with him) and only crossing fingers to uphold Peggy, so as to leave her in my memory as the one reason worth the while for having given in to 6 seasons of this.

and yes today morning I feel free. if addiction brings guilt along with it, and if fight is difficult, I've found my easier way out. to give in, to die with it, and emerge out afresh from the embers of the pyre. it works till I start watching some Indian drama series, possibly the Mahabharata. cos who knows if those ever end.