Something of Myself
Saturday, March 20, 2004
"I am destined by the mysterious powers to walk hand in hand with my strange heroes, viewing life in all its immensity as it rushes past me, viewing it through laughter seen by the world and tears unseen and unknown by it." N Gogol
Friday, March 19, 2004
ok. finally got news from regenia that i should be getting the official letter for my funding and that i am now "virtually certain" of getting the phd and that i am number 1 on the list. hmm....that word virtual never seemed so disturbing until her email. sala looked it up on 3 different dictionaries despite knowing what it means. wanted to know the exact meaning. after all the dean has written it, cant play games! can she?
jani na. karon for me the leopard is not dead until it has been skinned. thats something i believe in and will do so forever. it kind of brings a nice, sweet neatness to the job at hand. contentment pai.
ebar podashuno korte khub icche hocche. giving it shots. looks like a mountain to climb but as soon as it starts to hurt i will know that its working.
baba and ma were very very ordinary with their reactions on hearing about my phd. perhaps because they had not recovered from the earlier shock. percy help na korle would not have got this news either. i know percy is NEVER going to read this. so thank you dada for helping me out yet again. chagol theke siyal hole ki hobe, apun abhi takk babbar sher nahi bana! oh he is just great! sala he will finish soon and if he goes besh dukkho hobe. he is not a friend of mine. he is a bro. almost a surrogate father except that i can openly say behenchod in front of him and address him with the same epithet! gem at heart. lazy like me. gets his work done when his ass is against the wall. quite brilliant in his work. computers and wires run through his body. kindness is his virtue. short temperament is his negative quality. but never angry without reason. very scary when angry. you dont want him to be angry with you. no wonder he has this huge scare-club lead by sammie. haha people say they are afraid of percy and i dont understand why. he is just like you and me. but i guess i can see where they come from. his persona, his attitude towards the general mass makes them afraid of him. but get closer, be gutsy and you will find a very loving and kind person. jai hok onek bole felechi amar bondhur bepare. i pray that he gets peace, love and music in his life.
amar life e ekhun milton cholche. teaching coming up on april fool's day. dekhi ki hoy. jiboner prothom class. prothom lecture. seminar. call it what u like. at the end of it i got to teach kiddos! OMG.
anyways gtg, reading jhumpa. gogol is good, bit dragging sometimes, but makes up for it with its vernacular simplicities.
jani na. karon for me the leopard is not dead until it has been skinned. thats something i believe in and will do so forever. it kind of brings a nice, sweet neatness to the job at hand. contentment pai.
ebar podashuno korte khub icche hocche. giving it shots. looks like a mountain to climb but as soon as it starts to hurt i will know that its working.
baba and ma were very very ordinary with their reactions on hearing about my phd. perhaps because they had not recovered from the earlier shock. percy help na korle would not have got this news either. i know percy is NEVER going to read this. so thank you dada for helping me out yet again. chagol theke siyal hole ki hobe, apun abhi takk babbar sher nahi bana! oh he is just great! sala he will finish soon and if he goes besh dukkho hobe. he is not a friend of mine. he is a bro. almost a surrogate father except that i can openly say behenchod in front of him and address him with the same epithet! gem at heart. lazy like me. gets his work done when his ass is against the wall. quite brilliant in his work. computers and wires run through his body. kindness is his virtue. short temperament is his negative quality. but never angry without reason. very scary when angry. you dont want him to be angry with you. no wonder he has this huge scare-club lead by sammie. haha people say they are afraid of percy and i dont understand why. he is just like you and me. but i guess i can see where they come from. his persona, his attitude towards the general mass makes them afraid of him. but get closer, be gutsy and you will find a very loving and kind person. jai hok onek bole felechi amar bondhur bepare. i pray that he gets peace, love and music in his life.
amar life e ekhun milton cholche. teaching coming up on april fool's day. dekhi ki hoy. jiboner prothom class. prothom lecture. seminar. call it what u like. at the end of it i got to teach kiddos! OMG.
anyways gtg, reading jhumpa. gogol is good, bit dragging sometimes, but makes up for it with its vernacular simplicities.
Monday, March 15, 2004
jiboner otha poday, bhoy na paye je
she jon e paare poth cholte,
aante paare she surjomukhi bhor
porote porote jibone jibone....
tari gaane gaane shishura chokh mele,
protigyo haathguli uurdhe mutho tule
selam kore ei prithibi ke
ma yer o bedona
mukto hoye jhore,
preyoshir aanchole mookh muchaye
jibon juddhe shekhe aapon jonere pathate....
she jon e paare poth cholte,
aante paare she surjomukhi bhor
porote porote jibone jibone....
tari gaane gaane shishura chokh mele,
protigyo haathguli uurdhe mutho tule
selam kore ei prithibi ke
ma yer o bedona
mukto hoye jhore,
preyoshir aanchole mookh muchaye
jibon juddhe shekhe aapon jonere pathate....
Saturday, March 13, 2004
uuufff prochur kheye felechi....chicken and rice. anyways went to london. longest trip to the capital ever. 5 whole days. was GREAT. the tubes, the streets, the smell, the cosmoplitan audience, the london underground, chancery lane, trafalgar square, oxford circus, dingy pakistani retaurants serving equisitely home-made mangsho; byron's london, blake's london, wordsworth's london, vikram seth's london, hanif kureishi's london - surely the city has something for everybody. everybody seems to identify with it in some peculiar way. like or dislike, there seems to be something impersonally personal about london! i am not too high on words right now cause my belly is now a bhuri....yes, i hate to confess but i have been developing a beer belly for quite some time now and people (girls esp) keep teasing me about it. but who cares? will go home on monday. until then i shall stay here. :D
anyways, saw bombay dreams in victoria theatre. good musical (this coming from me who hates musicals, "grease" included), webber-rahman association has definitely done the trick for the british audience. i am told that bombay dreams touched one million viewers this week!
and yes i am happy about india beating pak at the opening one dayer. though i think we should have had a more comfortable win than the stupid nail biting finish that we had. but never mind. dada's tactics paid off and nehra for once kept his cool. couldnt see the match, but percy kept me updated over the phone! called ma/baba after the match, they were glued to the tele for obvious reasons. it feels funny cause both of them were never avid cricket fans, but now all that has changed. in fact, they even understand the game!!
from monday hardcore work coming up. i am looking forward to it.
thats all for now...
anyways, saw bombay dreams in victoria theatre. good musical (this coming from me who hates musicals, "grease" included), webber-rahman association has definitely done the trick for the british audience. i am told that bombay dreams touched one million viewers this week!
and yes i am happy about india beating pak at the opening one dayer. though i think we should have had a more comfortable win than the stupid nail biting finish that we had. but never mind. dada's tactics paid off and nehra for once kept his cool. couldnt see the match, but percy kept me updated over the phone! called ma/baba after the match, they were glued to the tele for obvious reasons. it feels funny cause both of them were never avid cricket fans, but now all that has changed. in fact, they even understand the game!!
from monday hardcore work coming up. i am looking forward to it.
thats all for now...
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
missing chris terribly. dug up the following of my HDD. this was written immediately after he died: the feelings are still the same -
Since hearing of Chris’s death the world has become a surreal place. In part my feelings are selfish – I wanted to learn so much more from this man, grow through further exposure to his vast expertise and unbridled passion. I wanted to hear him recite swathes of poetry and prose in that exuberant, excited voice of his; wanted to come out of more seminars loving texts that I had previously struggled with (or even hated reading). I wanted to continue to marvel at how his long legs wrapped over and around each other beneath the desk, like enormous pipe-cleaners; to watch his expansive gesticulations as he strode around the lecture hall, never needing the microphone (fortunately, for he simply could not stand statically behind the rostrum). Above all I wanted to discover if there were any Victorian writers he could not quote off the top of his head.
Imagine him taking the lecture today, pacing about in his usual excited manner. He probably had an invisible adhesive that kept us glued to our seats. No student will experience his great lectures any more; no more will students, and colleagues alike marvel at the sheer enormity of his knowledge. I’ve never seen such passion for a subject and it used to leave a lump in the throat even then.
Chris was a man of many words, not one of them wasted. How then is it I struggle to find adequate words of my own to express my sense of loss? Maybe because I was so used to looking to him for the effortless answers: about identity and Dickens, about the 19th Century, about Victorianism, about Marxism, about how to roll a proper cigarette in one hand, about the best pub in Devon, about what was wrong with England’s cricket team (and capitalist society). The questions will remain unanswered.
Since hearing of Chris’s death the world has become a surreal place. In part my feelings are selfish – I wanted to learn so much more from this man, grow through further exposure to his vast expertise and unbridled passion. I wanted to hear him recite swathes of poetry and prose in that exuberant, excited voice of his; wanted to come out of more seminars loving texts that I had previously struggled with (or even hated reading). I wanted to continue to marvel at how his long legs wrapped over and around each other beneath the desk, like enormous pipe-cleaners; to watch his expansive gesticulations as he strode around the lecture hall, never needing the microphone (fortunately, for he simply could not stand statically behind the rostrum). Above all I wanted to discover if there were any Victorian writers he could not quote off the top of his head.
Imagine him taking the lecture today, pacing about in his usual excited manner. He probably had an invisible adhesive that kept us glued to our seats. No student will experience his great lectures any more; no more will students, and colleagues alike marvel at the sheer enormity of his knowledge. I’ve never seen such passion for a subject and it used to leave a lump in the throat even then.
Chris was a man of many words, not one of them wasted. How then is it I struggle to find adequate words of my own to express my sense of loss? Maybe because I was so used to looking to him for the effortless answers: about identity and Dickens, about the 19th Century, about Victorianism, about Marxism, about how to roll a proper cigarette in one hand, about the best pub in Devon, about what was wrong with England’s cricket team (and capitalist society). The questions will remain unanswered.
haven't studied since ages. cause i dont feel like it. will get back when my back is against the wall. going to london tomorrow. hopefully. prero ask me to send url. hence writing this up to at least sound regular. kichu bhalo laagche na. do males experience pms? na hole may be pts? will play slow hemanta, "poth harabo bolei..." and then doze off! after all, tomorrow is another day!
