Found this random piece on my comp after a long time. Don't care for it too much but just reminded me of ACJ and the people there. To memory!
Cluelessness
48 students and a large room. "A list has appeared on the server". Laptop owners preach to their congregations.
The word or The sentence?
“Let’s change the name of the paper”
“Suggestions anyone?”
Silence. The WORD stands.
Helvetica , Georgia!!!
Copy/paste these fonts everday. College computers have selective amnesia.
Harsh realities
Lectures in Tamil. Sources on world trips. A week is technically only 4 days long.
Friday afternoon flurries
Who said Friday. We always thought Monday. The last person and piece becomes the scapegoat to push deadlines.
Homage to the language
Fill as many blanks and pages of the grammar exercise as possible two hours before the deadline.
Rewriting become the prerogative of a few
Caspar is a friendly ghost
Who said that deprivation was scary? Enlightenment dawns in unfamiliar terrain
Pandemonium
Hell breaks loose but the valiant finish the race. All pages of the deprivation issue are pdf-ed by 9 pm
Daily war
Engagement columns are man’s greatest gifts and missing reporters the greatest bane.
Nightmares at Nine
Pages in gestation. Intensive labour begins.
You are Shakespeare
Unfettered creativity and onomatopoeia rule the roost. Let the words flow
Information for future students: New police patrol cars are more comfortable than hostel rooms.
You are the future of American journalism!!
Tomorrow goes...
For the first two weeks. But the glossy pages of the tabloid finally appear to be loved and cherished from this time forth and forevermore.
Q and no A
Tracking news and fielding off ignorance is essential only on Friday morning.
The decision of the quiz master is meant to be contested.
Rest conferences
We asked and we got. But who said simulated was hot? Your eyes take a sleepy gleam.
New verb: Dissertate
End of your tether in rough weather. Missing books are your greatest foes.
5000 down, 2k to go. 8000, would be a dream come true.
IP: Information Please
Rouse a few to chase some clues. Raise a hue, the IP is soon due.
Omega and Alpha
A sigh and a cry.
We’d didn’t realize, the year had flown by.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Time hurts
Today I found what time could do
To me
To a trio
To banns of friendship
To comfort in silence
To the taste of hot/cold coffee
To long chats in a parked car
To the tussle for a comfy couch
To lazing on a sports field
To photocopied Chaucer notes
To buying Levis jeans’
To Barbara Ann
To shedding tears over marks
To discussions on life
To deciding on a half plate of chowmein
To weight loss/gain
To seven pups and Dirty
To misunderstandings
To a heart full of promises
To the yearning for a phone call
To speaking our minds out
To unuttered/unattended wounds
To believing that we loved each other’s company
To the best memories
To who we are and where we go
Today I found that TIME hurts
To me
To a trio
To banns of friendship
To comfort in silence
To the taste of hot/cold coffee
To long chats in a parked car
To the tussle for a comfy couch
To lazing on a sports field
To photocopied Chaucer notes
To buying Levis jeans’
To Barbara Ann
To shedding tears over marks
To discussions on life
To deciding on a half plate of chowmein
To weight loss/gain
To seven pups and Dirty
To misunderstandings
To a heart full of promises
To the yearning for a phone call
To speaking our minds out
To unuttered/unattended wounds
To believing that we loved each other’s company
To the best memories
To who we are and where we go
Today I found that TIME hurts
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Beyond nostalgia
So I've been reading this book called The Hindi-Bindi club ( yes, it is chick-lit and I have no scruples admitting that I enjoy the genre thoroughly. It doesn't deem me less intellectual in any way) on the lives of three young women born to Indian parents and brought up in America. And as expected, shadowy images from Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth were creeping into my subconscious, urging me to make comparisons. So what the heck, I indulged myself and here's the verdict, in points.
This is the first time, in the books I have come across, that the protagonists have a heritage that isn't solely Bengali. There is a Marathi family, a Punjabi family and yes, a Bengali one too in the group, so it doesn't appear as though only the Bengalis have a yearning to get back to where they grew up ( I refuse to use the word 'motherland' coz i don't essentially believe in the land and mother correlation that Indians tend to draw). For all those fans of Jhumpa Lahiri who jump at me when I say this, trust me, I'm one of your ilk too and I understand that she probably writes about the community that she knows best. All I'm saying is that you need to occasionally acknowledge that nostalgia isn't only an all-Bong feeling and there are quite a few Indian communities which were represented early enough in the US. As for the aspect of cultural inclusion in the current book, I've heard that the author Monica Pradhan's parents migrated from Mumbai , which by all means has been a cosmopolitan melting pot, while being Marathi heartland and will continue to be so, despite the Sena's efforts.
The second observation is that there is in the book an acceptance of the fact that the second generation is American-Indian and not Indian-American. No doubt, all the mothers in the book at some stage or the other acknowledge that their daughters would be way different if brought up in America, but there is a definite shift towards acknowledging that they are products of the American way of living. In fact, this is validated in the marital choices of all the three daughters Kiran, Rani and Preity. The author actually explores different permutations and combinations vis-a-vis marriage. There is Kiran, whose marriage and subsequent divorce, to and from respectively, a rock musician, draws the ire of her parents not because of his ethnicity but largely because of his profession. Then there is Rani, whose wedding to a foreigner could be explained away, thanks to the fact that Rani is only part Indian anyway (Her mother Uma is Bengali though and teaches English at the University but married a firang in the early days when it was unthinkable). But even the so-called ideal daughter in the book, Preity is also wed to a firang. And when Kiran remarries at the end of the book, despite all the matchmaking that she has submitted herself too via the matrimonial sites online, she marries a foreigner, something that even her father ultimately comes to accept. And mind you , the book clearly delineates that this was something that was not acceptable a generation ago and Uma's act is occasinally brought up as an aberration. And here's another interesting change, unlike the usual novels, where the mother is the repository of culture in a alien land, the mothers in this novel seem to be much more open to being adaptable than the fathers, but I also think that is largely because the book is about mother-daughter relationships. And the fathers still largely subscribe to the code of the highly intellectual fathers who got to the States based on their exceptional performance in studies or work.( You don't need to read much of this genre to figure out that the fathers are always at MIT, or Stanford or have at least studied there) Rani's firang father being the only exception to the norm.
The third and final aspect deals with an element of comparison between those who emigrated to America in the early stages and those who came later, which I haven't seen before in any other book. And while Monica Pradhan doesn't elaborate on it too much, there is a scene where Kiran, Rani and Preity look at the young girls dancing in saris at the New Year's party and comment that "They must be the new immigrants". And while it isn't exactly evident what the feeling are between these groups, this scene firmly establishes them in the role of the pioneers, the early migrant, who were there when too many Indians weren't around.
However, I tend to think that Monica Pradhan had tried to weave in one-too many threads in the narrative when she goes through the long passages on the description of the Indo-Pak partition through the eyes of Saroj ( Preity's mother). These sections seems a bit disjointed and appear to me as the result of research, though I may be wrong here.
There is one more thing that I like the book for, which is its limited mention of clinical depression. You feel the pain when you hear Uma's ( Rani's mother) mention of her mothers' early suicide that probably resulted from a sickness that wasn't identified as depression. You can understand her fear that Rani, has inherited it genetically and may be prone as much to suicidal attacks. I also vividly recollect a scene where Uma's husband takes her to a punching bag and asks her to take her frustrations out..( I've seen this before but there is something different that i can't exactly seem to identify, probably it's to do with an element of guilt that resides somewhere in Uma's mind particularly with regard to marrying a foreigner and being disowned by her father). There are also the funny but poignant passages about Meenal (Kiran's mother) who is dealing with living without her breasts (after breast cancer) and even after years of having lived in the States, is still uncomfortable about lingerie shopping in the open.
I do say that the end is predictable, but yeah if you want a fresh idea of what happens in Indian minds across the Atlantic, this is fun. Though I don't think it would be exactly true of the third generation ( they are almost all American and very little Indian.)
This is the first time, in the books I have come across, that the protagonists have a heritage that isn't solely Bengali. There is a Marathi family, a Punjabi family and yes, a Bengali one too in the group, so it doesn't appear as though only the Bengalis have a yearning to get back to where they grew up ( I refuse to use the word 'motherland' coz i don't essentially believe in the land and mother correlation that Indians tend to draw). For all those fans of Jhumpa Lahiri who jump at me when I say this, trust me, I'm one of your ilk too and I understand that she probably writes about the community that she knows best. All I'm saying is that you need to occasionally acknowledge that nostalgia isn't only an all-Bong feeling and there are quite a few Indian communities which were represented early enough in the US. As for the aspect of cultural inclusion in the current book, I've heard that the author Monica Pradhan's parents migrated from Mumbai , which by all means has been a cosmopolitan melting pot, while being Marathi heartland and will continue to be so, despite the Sena's efforts.
The second observation is that there is in the book an acceptance of the fact that the second generation is American-Indian and not Indian-American. No doubt, all the mothers in the book at some stage or the other acknowledge that their daughters would be way different if brought up in America, but there is a definite shift towards acknowledging that they are products of the American way of living. In fact, this is validated in the marital choices of all the three daughters Kiran, Rani and Preity. The author actually explores different permutations and combinations vis-a-vis marriage. There is Kiran, whose marriage and subsequent divorce, to and from respectively, a rock musician, draws the ire of her parents not because of his ethnicity but largely because of his profession. Then there is Rani, whose wedding to a foreigner could be explained away, thanks to the fact that Rani is only part Indian anyway (Her mother Uma is Bengali though and teaches English at the University but married a firang in the early days when it was unthinkable). But even the so-called ideal daughter in the book, Preity is also wed to a firang. And when Kiran remarries at the end of the book, despite all the matchmaking that she has submitted herself too via the matrimonial sites online, she marries a foreigner, something that even her father ultimately comes to accept. And mind you , the book clearly delineates that this was something that was not acceptable a generation ago and Uma's act is occasinally brought up as an aberration. And here's another interesting change, unlike the usual novels, where the mother is the repository of culture in a alien land, the mothers in this novel seem to be much more open to being adaptable than the fathers, but I also think that is largely because the book is about mother-daughter relationships. And the fathers still largely subscribe to the code of the highly intellectual fathers who got to the States based on their exceptional performance in studies or work.( You don't need to read much of this genre to figure out that the fathers are always at MIT, or Stanford or have at least studied there) Rani's firang father being the only exception to the norm.
The third and final aspect deals with an element of comparison between those who emigrated to America in the early stages and those who came later, which I haven't seen before in any other book. And while Monica Pradhan doesn't elaborate on it too much, there is a scene where Kiran, Rani and Preity look at the young girls dancing in saris at the New Year's party and comment that "They must be the new immigrants". And while it isn't exactly evident what the feeling are between these groups, this scene firmly establishes them in the role of the pioneers, the early migrant, who were there when too many Indians weren't around.
However, I tend to think that Monica Pradhan had tried to weave in one-too many threads in the narrative when she goes through the long passages on the description of the Indo-Pak partition through the eyes of Saroj ( Preity's mother). These sections seems a bit disjointed and appear to me as the result of research, though I may be wrong here.
There is one more thing that I like the book for, which is its limited mention of clinical depression. You feel the pain when you hear Uma's ( Rani's mother) mention of her mothers' early suicide that probably resulted from a sickness that wasn't identified as depression. You can understand her fear that Rani, has inherited it genetically and may be prone as much to suicidal attacks. I also vividly recollect a scene where Uma's husband takes her to a punching bag and asks her to take her frustrations out..( I've seen this before but there is something different that i can't exactly seem to identify, probably it's to do with an element of guilt that resides somewhere in Uma's mind particularly with regard to marrying a foreigner and being disowned by her father). There are also the funny but poignant passages about Meenal (Kiran's mother) who is dealing with living without her breasts (after breast cancer) and even after years of having lived in the States, is still uncomfortable about lingerie shopping in the open.
I do say that the end is predictable, but yeah if you want a fresh idea of what happens in Indian minds across the Atlantic, this is fun. Though I don't think it would be exactly true of the third generation ( they are almost all American and very little Indian.)
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Halfway abandoned
Tell me of those with dreams fulfilled
Of hopes and goals achieved
Of winners on life's racing track
Never impeded by speed
Of those who managed year after year
To wake to those shrill alarms
And worked from dawn to dusk
Sans facebook and the coffee machine
Of those do-it-alls
Who juggled work and applications on time
And rested assure that the call would come
With the passport to a life sublime
Of those who balanced life and love
And managed straight A's in both
Or those who took the early plunge
And made homemaking their fame
Tell me of those who didn't leave the fight
Halfway abandoned
Of hopes and goals achieved
Of winners on life's racing track
Never impeded by speed
Of those who managed year after year
To wake to those shrill alarms
And worked from dawn to dusk
Sans facebook and the coffee machine
Of those do-it-alls
Who juggled work and applications on time
And rested assure that the call would come
With the passport to a life sublime
Of those who balanced life and love
And managed straight A's in both
Or those who took the early plunge
And made homemaking their fame
Tell me of those who didn't leave the fight
Halfway abandoned
The Mass Mindset
What are you doing now?
Seemingly innocuous question
Only two permitted lives
The Medicine/Engineering way
Strike a tangent
Judgment blankets you
Condescension smothers you
Sympathy kills you
Did you survive?
Seemingly innocuous question
Only two permitted lives
The Medicine/Engineering way
Strike a tangent
Judgment blankets you
Condescension smothers you
Sympathy kills you
Did you survive?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
My fallen idol
It's a not a person but this thing called compromise that I've begun to hate recently. Till a few months ago, I venerated this quality, pitching it as the solution to world's problems and mine. So whether it was the question of the Israel and Palestine conflict, or how long I could keep the light on in the room i shared with my cousin , there seemed to be a way out... THROUGH COMPROMISE.
So how did my idol get depedestalized ( if that word exists)? Donno...But what i do warn you against, is the disguise that compromise comes veiled in: practicality. And guess what? I fall for that one...coz i think of myself as a practical, pragmatic creature.
So here's how it works:
Well meaning X says how long will you be able to continue with journalism and come home late at night?
I respond with a shrug and a quiet "i donno dude".
So X goes on : You know once you are married and you have kids, it just isn't practical? Who will after all take care of the kids while you're away at work till midnight? You really need to look for something that will give you time with the family.
I'm practical enough to know that no husband (even if it is one that returns home at 6), no matter how adaptable and easy-going, is going to be willing to spend the entire evening tending to the needs of bawling toddlers or toughie teenagers and that apart from India (where there are still a few maids available), there are hardly any places where you're gonna be able to keep a full time maid or nanny or whatever.
I shrug and agree...." I know what you mean"
The conversation ends there..but the thought doesn't..So what will bring me back home early enough to maintain a healthy balance between work and a family (that I'm very sure that I want to have). I'm racking my brain for all the options and again the practical bit of me emerges with the solution: academics. That's the only way im going get back home in time to be with the family, get some time to myself, get summer holidays at the same time as the family and still be economically independent. And after all, I have considered academics in the past...the only difference being that then that was something that I had reserved to do after I was bored of a media job ( in about 10 to 15 years) and wanted to settle down and I mean really settle down (my equivalent for that stage of a man's life in the Vedas when he was meant to be with the family before he procedeed for Sanyaas). And if i were to continue in India, the Sixth Pay Commission has made it more alluring to take to teaching.
"So where is the issue?", asks my pragmatic self. The problem is that at 22, I have to be practical enought to compromise on my dreams for a family that I may or may not have in time. Where I can go and what I should do today is already being defined by that shadowy illusory vision of what my tomorrow could be like? I'd like to know how many guys out there think of when they will be back home or who will tend to the kids, when they decide on what they want to do in life?
But guess what? Even if I don't compromise today ( thanks to my ultra-supportive family), I know I will eventually....coz I'm a 'Practical' person.
So how did my idol get depedestalized ( if that word exists)? Donno...But what i do warn you against, is the disguise that compromise comes veiled in: practicality. And guess what? I fall for that one...coz i think of myself as a practical, pragmatic creature.
So here's how it works:
Well meaning X says how long will you be able to continue with journalism and come home late at night?
I respond with a shrug and a quiet "i donno dude".
So X goes on : You know once you are married and you have kids, it just isn't practical? Who will after all take care of the kids while you're away at work till midnight? You really need to look for something that will give you time with the family.
I'm practical enough to know that no husband (even if it is one that returns home at 6), no matter how adaptable and easy-going, is going to be willing to spend the entire evening tending to the needs of bawling toddlers or toughie teenagers and that apart from India (where there are still a few maids available), there are hardly any places where you're gonna be able to keep a full time maid or nanny or whatever.
I shrug and agree...." I know what you mean"
The conversation ends there..but the thought doesn't..So what will bring me back home early enough to maintain a healthy balance between work and a family (that I'm very sure that I want to have). I'm racking my brain for all the options and again the practical bit of me emerges with the solution: academics. That's the only way im going get back home in time to be with the family, get some time to myself, get summer holidays at the same time as the family and still be economically independent. And after all, I have considered academics in the past...the only difference being that then that was something that I had reserved to do after I was bored of a media job ( in about 10 to 15 years) and wanted to settle down and I mean really settle down (my equivalent for that stage of a man's life in the Vedas when he was meant to be with the family before he procedeed for Sanyaas). And if i were to continue in India, the Sixth Pay Commission has made it more alluring to take to teaching.
"So where is the issue?", asks my pragmatic self. The problem is that at 22, I have to be practical enought to compromise on my dreams for a family that I may or may not have in time. Where I can go and what I should do today is already being defined by that shadowy illusory vision of what my tomorrow could be like? I'd like to know how many guys out there think of when they will be back home or who will tend to the kids, when they decide on what they want to do in life?
But guess what? Even if I don't compromise today ( thanks to my ultra-supportive family), I know I will eventually....coz I'm a 'Practical' person.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Privately public/publicly private
As a child, when I occasionally wrote down stories or poems, it was on scraps of paper and stored away in a flat Vochelle tin under my bed. I wonder why I left it there, considering that it wasn't the best of hiding places. Or maybe it wasn't meant to be hidden. It was left there to be discovered by anyone who really wanted to see what was in that tin.
Similarly, the many serialized stories that I wrote were stored away in a folder with my name on it. It wasn’t really secret but more in a not-in-your-face sense. It was never password protected. (More so, because I guess because I didn’t know how to.)
Few months ago I found myself writing down my thoughts in a folder, which I labeled hidden. Yeah right…hidden in such a way that anyone who scanned my documents could find it.
Who was I trying to delude but myself? Everything that I wrote was a personal note, personal to the extent that I didn’t want to publish or publicize it but public to the extent that it was left available to anybody who wanted to see it or appreciate it. Privately public in one sense, but publicly private in another. Still doesn’t make complete sense to me. After all, where does the private end and the public begin? Any thoughts?
Similarly, the many serialized stories that I wrote were stored away in a folder with my name on it. It wasn’t really secret but more in a not-in-your-face sense. It was never password protected. (More so, because I guess because I didn’t know how to.)
Few months ago I found myself writing down my thoughts in a folder, which I labeled hidden. Yeah right…hidden in such a way that anyone who scanned my documents could find it.
Who was I trying to delude but myself? Everything that I wrote was a personal note, personal to the extent that I didn’t want to publish or publicize it but public to the extent that it was left available to anybody who wanted to see it or appreciate it. Privately public in one sense, but publicly private in another. Still doesn’t make complete sense to me. After all, where does the private end and the public begin? Any thoughts?
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