Something of Myself

This is one of the less-popular songs of Kishore Da: I think he deserves this one! Hail Kishore Kumar (and this song has been ringing in my ears for the last 24 hours...may be Freudian Prero might offer some solution?!)

bujhado deepak hoon
andhera kar do,
uthado ghungat hai
savera kar do...

sharam ke maare haathon se
yeh chehera dhaak ke
na dur dur jayo darr se kaap kaap ke,
ke aab ayo paas
meri pyaas to mita do...
koi gam hain to hai
woh mera kar do...

bujhado deepak

badaal lo roop aapna aaj mere pyaar se
sajado meri suni sej o bahar se
khushi ke phool
gam ki dhool pe bichado...
ise khushiyon ka hai
basera kar do

Something Given

The title of this post is taken from an article by Hanif Kureishi on the process of writing (and rather presumptuously on the process of being a writer).

It has no connection with what I intend to write. I have been having a rough day. Yesterday saw the glory of writing about 3800 words and today for almost 3 hours I have managed some petty 800 words only! Its quite amazing how one day your creative juices just floods your brain, dehydrates every grey cell and makes you wish that you had more than twenty four hours a day. Ah, but again on some other days (like today) you keep on pushing yourself and check the "word count" on the blood word processor and simply sigh! Its hurting me, and thus I know its working. I guess part of what we write is not just about the words on page but the thought processes involved to produce those words. That is why, I think, each and every piece of work of mine is precious to me. Yes, of them, the older ones, the ones which I wrote 3 years back or more seem like crap but nevertheless they are testimony to my efforts at attempting to scale the heights and reach a certain level. The process is never easy, nobody said it was going to be...I know that, you dont need to tell that to me, thank you very much!

Moreover, I hate, absolutely HATE being a in a situation where there is no interactive learning. All that is there is research, independent research! Yes, it is true that I love to do research but there is a limit to everything! Do I sound contradictory? Well then, I am like that - I think in more ways than one! :)

Life aisa hi hain sahab rings perpetually in my mind...I know chameli, life aisa hi hain...magar isko hum sudhaar nahi sakte kya? Thoda sa? ;)

Min was right - if it's not hurting, its not working! I know its working but the fucking point is that others need to see that its working - I have submit this godforsaken chapter to my supervisor. She needs to see it on paper and EVALUATE it.

Why does everything in life need to be evaluated? Why cant we live in a suspended state of disbelief?

Never mind - some questions are difficult to answer and others are un-answerable. You got to live with it.

I am. I will.

p.s. "Giving up" is a phrase my parents never taught me. Oh cursed are they who do this to their children! ;)

p.s.2 What tho the field be lost? All is not lost...

No time to write about the highs and the lows... But yes I read this somewhere and I liked it. Its probably Bon Jovi:

Well I'm so far away
That each step that I take is on my way home
A king's ransom in dimes I'd given each night
Just to see through this payphone
Still I run out of time
Or it's hard to get through
Till the bird on the wire flies me back to you
I'll just close my eyes and whisper,
baby blind love is true
When you close your eyes
Know I'll be thinking about you
While my mistress she calls me
To stand in her spotlight again
Tonite I won't be alone
But you know that don't
Mean I'm not lonely I've got nothing to prove
For it's you that I'd die to defend

I want to lay you down on a bed of roses ...

Bonotol phule phule dhaaka
Dur nilimay othe chaand baka
Sudhu ei potho cheye thaka
Bhalo ki laage?

Hemanta Mukherjee (who else?)

Recap

Terribly, terribly exhausted today. Read a gripping book by some bloke called Bhaskara Rao entitled "Kipling's India": not too bad though he seems to be a hardcore Hindutva kind of a person! Also on today's reading list were three papers from different journals! One more paper left on Derrida and Kipling! Yeah that sounds awful I know - Derrida fries my brain. Slowly but surely. Foucault is a hell of a lot better!

After all the erratic style of working that I indulge in, I still seem to believe in the credo i.e. the more you read, the more you realise how little you know!

Baba-Ma's Anniversary coming up on Sunday. Hell, I dont know how they manage to see each other's faces for so many years when they get up in the morning! Scary as hell!

Have a deadline for the 5th. Looks alright but feels shit. It's the fear of the unknown I guess - yes, yet again! For my dear, there is nothing such as "definitive" in the world of academia; UK has taught me this valuable lesson. I wonder what I have taught UK!! Multiculturalism or was it a x-ray vision of the Bengali Babu I wonder! Wonder, says Stephen Greenblatt, is an expression of confusion mixed with surprise...Hmm...Greenblatt will do me fine...

One more confession - I know I have chosen to do contemporary stuff for my upcoming PhD, but in the bottom of my heart lies a deep desire to do it in Nineteenth Century England -the world of Dickens, Eliot, Tennyson, Kipling, Arnold, Wordsworth - its too tempting to be shoved in a lone corner of my palpitating heart - a heart that forever seems to be excited at the prospect of learning - of knowing more - of chasing knowledge "like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bounds of human thought".

I'll drink to that one! Or may be smoke...

Heartbroken, sick and gutted at England's defeat. And please let me know the last time Beckham scored a fucking penalty??? Such a fucking wanker!

This is a quick post as I prepare to meet my supervisor: its been triggered off by Prero's thoughts that she needs to throw away everything and start all over again in order to pursue her exquisite talent. This is not an answer to her thoughts: I respect it, but it got me thinking nevertheless -

Why are we afraid of getting rid of stuff that we hold on to? Its the comfort, isnt it? The comfort of the known, the pleasures of being within your boundary. However, the beauty of life lies in the fact that its worth taking the risks that we do. We take risks everyday - getting up later than usual and still believing we can make it to our workplaces on time. Ah you might say this is a rather mundane example. Career, profession and all the other biggies in life are way to serious to be "thrown" away and then starting. If that is the case, then was Tennyson wrong when he said - Tis never too late to seek a newer world?

If you take a risk there are just two possibilities - either you come out of it in flying colours and the world says what a superb decision you took OR you fall flat on your face and the whole bloody world curses you for being stupid! Well, to me what matters is what you think about the whole idea of taking the risk - if you think the stakes are high and its not worth taking it, fair enough. But, if you feel the unpredictability of the risk can boomerang your life in manifold directions and its worth every grain of salt - then do it god dammit!

I sincerely hope Prero, at some point, decides to take up writing. I hope her talent forces her to write. I hope we can see what she is made of - she has no clue - I do. Why? Lets say because what I have seen in her is fairly unique and it will never be seen in any one again - a Joyce or a Woolf or a Kureishi is born once in a century. How dull life would have been without the wild and wonderful world of literature - Prero can do literature - she can stir us...I hope she does it someday. Soon. Very soon.

Poth harabo bolei ebar pothe nemechi,
Shoja pother dhadhay ami onek dhedhechi.

Nishedher pahad raate chilem rekhe dhekhe
She kokhun geche phire amay deke deke
Noyon mele pabar ashaya onek kedechi
Ei noyon e pabo bolei noyon mudechi
Shoja pother dhadhay ami onek dhedhechi.

Chena shona janar maajhe kichui chini nije
Ochenay haray e tai abar khuji nije
She je gaan shuniye chilo
Hoy ni shedin shona
She gaaner porosh lege hridoy holo shona
Raager ghate ghate taare michei shedhechi
Shur harabo bolei shetha shure bedechi
Shoja pother dhadhay ami onek dhedhechi...

Kim - RK

"I go from one place to another as it might be a kick-ball. It is my Kismet. No man can escape his Kismet. But I am to pray to Bibi Miriam, and I am a Sahib... No; I am Kim. This is the great world, and I am only Kim. Who is Kim?’ He considered his own identity, a thing he had never done before, till his head swam. He was one insignificant person in all this roaring whirl of India, going southward to he knew not what fate" (Kim 101).

I am tired to my bones right now. I have a slight fever too. But I could not help myself save to come up to the laptop and start typing the stuff which "dreams" are made of. So here we go: of course, as stated in my earlier entry - "creatures of purpose" is a term originally used by steve and I want him to get all the credit - I am using it because I find it too beautiful to be unused:

Creatures of Purpose, are we?
What purpose does Love hold?
What purpose does Longing breed?
What purpose does irreristibility signify?

If we are creatures of purpose
Should we abandon purposeless desires?
Should we merely simulate and revel in our simulacra?

I want to take you for granted.
I do not want any purpose between us.
I do not want any relationship to define us.
I want to rest my head on your shoulders,
I want to talk about my dreams,
I want to lose myself in the wilderness of your depths -
And then amidst the unfathomability of your beauty,
I want to listen to what you want to do.

I want to let this happen - forever
Almost in a cyclical way
But never becoming monotonous.
I want both of us to be taken for granted by each other and then start all over again.

Is that possible?
Is it essential to make any kind of START?
Does it need to "start" in order to be purposeful?
Doesn't purpose have a built-in expiration date etched on it?
Are we always to be creatures of purpose?

So be it then.
Let me forget myself;
Let me drown my past in a double shot of Jack Daniel's and coke,
And then let me loose all my inhibitions
And tell you
That --------
I am not here for a purpose.
I am here for you.

I am not a creature of purpose.
I am a harbinger of desire,
Of desire that is lustless,
Of desire that is loveless,
Of desire that is nameless,
Of desire whose only definition is desire itself,
Almost making it selfless.

Here's some of my favourite words (not in any order of liking):

Identity, Profound, Insatiable, Exile, Subversive, Unquenching, Unhope, Unparalleled, Fear, Ambivalence, Hybrid, Foregone, Stasis, Gut, Unputdownable, Killer-instinct, Seek, Betrayal, Hope, Fine, Ghetto, Tender, Vector, Palpitating, Truth, Petrified, Unfold, Sophisticated, Poignant, Ponder, Punch, Rejuvenated, Beauty, Morbid, Placid, Irony, Stagnant, Beloved, Nothingness, Oriental, Burden, Boundary, Grief, Hunger, Painful, Piercing, Self, Bleak (the list is slightly long...and the memory has a funny way of betraying me when I need it the most).

Back from Oxford. It went well. It was great. The more I heard the papers, the more I realised how little I know - and naturally, how much I have to now KNOW. Do you see what I mean?

Anyways, in a state of shock now...there was a burglary in my house. Baba is freaking out cause it happened the second time in about 1 year. It just made all of us realise how much we value life. Baba said - "Praan e beche gechi, ei jothestho." True. But I wonder if God makes these kinds of incidents happen to make us look inside of our insides and tell ourselves - Hell, its good to be alive!

Onek kaaj ache...One strange thing though - got an email from Nitin out of the blue. He will be there when I visit Cal which in short means - AWESOME.

I have been thinking about a phrase which I nicked from Steve the other day - "Creatures of purpose"...He used it in one of his songs...The phrase swept me off my feet (cliches are helpful sometimes, esp when your brains arent working!). Will have to do something with the phrase...can't let it live like that - on its own - it has to be fleshed, clothed and with a bit of make-up I think it can be one of the best phrases I have ever heard! :)

Well, as of now I am wondering what my purpose is....And these lines come up to my mind:
Podashuno kore je
Gaadi ghora chode she...

Prero says lines which come up suddenly have some relation to our subconsciousness...in which case, I have to STUDY. AAARRGGHHHHH! Not that I dont like it, but that given the English summer (or is it Indian?), the draughts of lager, the Euro 2004, the Rooney mania, the elusive lass and the beauty of being alive - makes me LAZY! hehe No, it makes me want to do something, "not to rust, unburnished / As tho to breathe were life..."

Tennyson is God. So is Dickens. Did I not mention Toni Morrison? Ah, there are too many Gods around these days...

Politics and Religion

I saw Dev today - starring Amitabh Bachchan and Om Puri. It was a rather murky film, slightly plotless but it triggered off some thoughts about the central Hindu-Muslim issue in my mind.

I remember when the Gujarat riots happened, it got first page coverage in the British media. The pictures were largely focussing on a young, male Hindu fanatic wearing an Om bandana and carrying a talwar to slit off the next Muslim he bumps into. I saw this picture and read about the riot in a train, on my way back from London to Exeter.

I felt sick.

Dev is right to point out that the trouble lies with the politicians of our country who make this religious difference a centre point of dissecting United India. I have never seen a riot in my life and I wouldnt want to see one. However, from what I have seen in movies, read in books and newspapers, it seems that the affair is too bloody and too violent - unworthy of any kind of "just" cause that it is suppose to seek. My grandmother lost a child during the post 1947 Hindu-Muslim riots. Beads of perspiration are still visible on her eyebrows as she recalls the story today.

I feel sick whenever I hear it.

I wonder if Muslims are as devilish as they are made out to be. Of course, the whole issue gets its additional colour from the anti-Pak bashing that our country is so fond of. I am not saying that Pakistan is fault-less. To say that would be to insult the deaths of innocent people killed over the years, to say that would be to humiliate the pain that the wives of soldiers go through - the soldiers who have died defending (what we call) "India". Kargil was the only war that I have seen during my lifetime (T.V. reports etc).

Kargil has left me sick.

But here's one small anecdote: I had a Muslim friend in school. I dont remember his name. We use to play soccer together. I use to eat his tiffin everyday and he used to eat mine. We used to call him a "Moolah" and he never took it seriously. We had good fun together. I wonder if I would kill him if he was in front of me during the Gujarat riots. I doubt if he would kill me.

We, Hindus and Muslims have been living in India for centuries. We never thought of each other as separate. We were always equal, but different. Political parties like the BJP instill hatred and communalism in the masses. The mob is illiterate. The mob understands nothing but freakish violence. These bastards add fuel to fire. I think, we Hindus are to be blamed for making the Muslims feel as minorities. We make them feel insecured. Our neighbour just makes use of it and channelises this insecurity towards (what they term as) Jihad.

Jihad makes me feel sick.

The Koran doesnt call upon Muslims to slaughter Hindus. Neither does the Gita tell us to bring down a mosque and build a fucking temple on the same site. Such sentiments are ours, the Gita and the Koran are beyond these differences.

Merchant of Venice keeps coming up in my mind. Shylock's outburst at bearing the brunt of being a Jew in a Christian community: "Hath not a Jew eyes, organs, dimensions, passions? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die?" That applies to Hindus and Muslims as well. Trouble is, our society has a very fashionable liking for producing "minorities", for creating situations whereby every Shylock will demand a "pound of flesh".

I am a minority in Britain. Indians here (from my experience) hardly think of themselves as Hindus or Muslims - they consider themselves to be Indians. It suits them best. It works well to fight against racism. Therefore they use it.

Back home our fat cats like to call themselves Hindus - others like to swear by the Koran. Marx was right - religion is the opium of the masses. Trouble is that a slight overdose wrecks havoc. Opium is not a very good thing after all...


P.S. Of course we need to slander the British as well for making the first divide. They are to be blamed for it as much as Nehru or Gandhi. We are what we are because we chose to be this way - we were dumb enough to accept the division. How can you even call Gandhi the father of the nation when he was the key person behind the Nehru-Jinnah controversy? How would it have mattered if he had a Muslim PM? It wouldnt matter the masses. It would matter the Politicians. It is not very different today. We are behaving like marionettes. But for how long?

COME ON ENGLAND - PLAY HARDER!!!!!

(For the teeming ignorant, this is about Euro 2004, this is about the English tea versus the French fries!)

It was such a night
When I first saw who you were.
That night
After we severed ourselves from the group
And tried to give ourselves a new identity
Our eyes met.

I admired those eyes - brown was it?
It felt as if you would lock me in your arms,
But you didn't - you were way too sophisticated for such an impulsive move.

It was such a night
That I got a glimpse of who you were.
I got a glimpse of
Who I was
Who I could be
Who I wanted to be.

It was such a night
When I didnt even consider
What you wanted me to be.

And today is such a night,
As I see the stars outside,
I wonder
If you see them too and wonder
Who you are.

Was it such a night
When I dreamed you into reality?
Was it such a night
When you made me feel yours?
Was it such a night
When I was fooled?
Was I fooled?

Are there any such nights in YOUR life?
Do you feel the same unputdownable longing that runs through my viens
Clumsily, awkwardly - defying all rules of rythm
But running nevertheless;
Uncontrollable,
Inexorable,
Fearless,
Full of passion.

Remembering Nitin

today. As I listen to the songs of Dil to Pagal Hain (DTPH), music by Mr. Rahman, I can't help but think of my oldest (not in age but in years spent together) buddy - Nitin. Nitin Verma. One of our Physics professors used to call him "Verma"..."Arrey Verma doesnt know that he is an idiot!" HA HA HA That was great...
Anyways, coming back to DTPH. Surreal memories...Behala...the sweaty bus ride to 14 Number. Then following the kaccha meander and entering his gulli, with the gutters running on both the sides. I used to love his place - so typical of our Kolkata. Then second floor, bell on top right hand corner. Enter, on your right, the drawing room posing its two sofas, and one brand NEW sony system. We put DTPH. Nitin said I would like it. Went to the verandah. Moonlit night. Pasher badir meye taar silhoutte dekha jacche...and then we just sat there listening to music. Over and over again, same cassette, same tunes...Aunty came in once or twice to ask for food etc and we just told her to go away. That was my definition of peace. A light breeze, cool day, evening time, orangish sky and music! Music IS the food of Life (of course Love is included).

After some years, when I met him by the portals of SXC, we just whistled TOGETHER - arre re arre yeh kya huya! The feeling was un-fucking-imaginable! We hadnt met for three years, but when we met, what did we do? Whistled a tune that we had heard together and just smiled - exchanged glances that meant - "Good to see you buddy! We are still the same." It was an indefinable moment. A moment that is green in my mind. I am sure he remembers it too.

Today when I hear the same song...I am, for a moment taken instantly to Nitin's elaka...Behala..volatile...

Dont know where he is now. Last time I heard from him, he was sailing...and drinking...I am hoping he will do a Google and bump across this site. Bastard, get in touch you fucker! NOW. Sala even Olypub wouldnt be the same without him. I hope he is there in Cal when I reach. If he isnt, I'll whistle anyways. Why?

Dil To Pagal Hain. That's why.

It's all jumbled in my mind...I cant make any sense out of it...seems like the code of Matrix. But never mind, its worth trying to articulate what one is perhaps thinking of...

How do you measure purity? I mean, what do we mean when we say - that person is so pure?

Closely followed - how do me measure naivety? Innocence is a virtue in today's world. Most people today are stained by the ways of this world, but some manage (dont know how) to retain their innocence. They ask innocent questions, they react naively to abnormal situations...its like when she asks - "Does it really work like that? I am so stupid, I never realised that." I feel like saying - "No, you are not stupid or anything...bepar ta erokom...You are naive. I think so. Are you? Or is just your make-up that you wear for me - the make-up to put up with this make-believe world?"

I dont know.

I love innocence. I love it because thats the way I want to be. But I have lost it - somewhere, somehow...it just went away...Can I bring it back? Why do I have to be a "man"? Cant I be a kid? An insecured, vulnerable, scared-to-death innocent little kid? When people refer to me as a "kid" or a "kiddo" I just hate it...but at the same time, somewhere in the insides of my heart, I want to be one. I just dont want people to acknowledge it. It betrays the whole point then! After all we dont tell a child that he/she is innocent, do we? So why with adults?

I am turning insane. I dont know why. I am so confused. I have to get things together...somehow...quickly! But I want to know whats pure! I need to. I just told somebody that she was pure. After I said it, I kept wondering about what I meant. I couldnt find any answers. Its so frustrating when you have this question in your mind that explodes your brain time and again like some time-bombs going off in succession...All you can do is wait for the explosion to happen.

Or, you can simply ignore it.

Amar shonar bangla ami tomay bhalobashi.

Chiro din tomar aakash tomar baataash
Aamar kaane, O go aamar kaane bajay baanshi.

O Ma fagune tor amer bone graanhe pagol kore,
Kori hai,
Hai re O Ma fagune tor amer bone granhe pagol kore
O Ma ograhne tor bhora khete ki dikhechi,
Aami ki dekhechi modhur haashi
Shonar bangla ami tomay bhalo bashi.

Ki shobha ki chaya go ki sneho ki maya go
Ki aanchol bichaye cho pother mode nodir kule kule
Ma tor mukher baani amar kaane laage sudhar moto,
Mori hai hai re Ma tor mukher baani amar kaane laage sudhar moto
Ma tor bodon khani molin hole ami noyon
O Ma ami noyon jole bhaashi
Shonar baangla ami tomay bhalobashi.

O Ma tor choronete dilem e matha pete debo
Tor payer dhula sheje amar mathar manik hobe
O Ma goriber ghor ja ache tai dibo choron tole
Mori hai hai re o Ma goriber ghor ja ache ta dibo choron tole
Aamar porer ghore kinbo na to dhushon bole ma tor dhushon bole golar faashi
Shonar bangla…

Of Aspiring Expats and Exiles

Its been four years now. Four years = 365 *4 = 1460 days in England. Over the years I have seen about 80 odd Indians (Desis) who have come here to take their degrees. One thing among the majority of them has been common - the absolute, uncompromising DESPERATION to settle here. Of course they carried their baggage of prejudices and pre-conceptions about England, but they have always had this burning desire to get a full-time job here and then stay here for good; even if it meant getting a MSc degree and then working at Dominos.

I wonder why.

Every desperation has some reason right? For me their reason is confounded. It is perhaps one of the strangest anomalies of contemporary migrant culture. They say its because of the money, the "quality" of life and the higher standard of living. Agreed that the standard of life is perhaps hundred times better than what they would end up with in India but money and "quality of life" seems rather disturbing for me to accept. Surely money is NOT the end-all and be-all of life, or is it? And what quality are you talking about when you slog your arse from nine to five, end up in the pub during the weekend and follow an almost ritualistic life. Its mechanical out here. Life here in England has no life in it. Life here is lifeless. What else can one expect when you have all your dear ones back home? If I work here and buy a Merc, a mansion, the most expensive surround sound tele - what's the fucking point if I dont have my close ones to share with? Isnt it a bit pointless? Or does it always boil down to your "own" needs and your "own" comforts and your "own" selfish desires?

Have we lost the art of being selfless?

Most desis who come here have loads of money. On an average they spend £8000 - £10,000 a year on tuition fees. Then you have the rent and other living expenses. If they are doing an expensive course like a MBA then you are perhaps looking at £14,000 - £19,000. Sure its their money and its their life and so they have the right to spend it on what they want! But - whats the objective? Here are some of the responses that I have come across:

"Baap ke gaddi pe behetna hain yaar."
"Oh, I have just come here to enjoy and have a good time" (In essence, vacation).
"It'll earn me a good qualification to get married to some IT lakhpati."
"I needed the freedom badly man. India is too cramped man. I needed space."
(And you HAVE to believe this): "Girls. White, blonde, blue-eyed girls. They are easy. They are whores. I like to fuck" (Somebody DID say this to me).

If your aim in life is to sit on the velvety gaddi that your dad has made for you, why fuck around here learning NOTHING?
Having a good time spending £20,000 in a single year??? Now even Bill Gates would think twice! (Does money come easy? Is your dad a smuggler? Or are you one?)
The marriage market surely IS expensive (I'd never want a daughter if this market doesnt die soon).
Come here to shag white babes?? Eh?? Come again?? How bizzarely fucked up is that?

And I shit you not, these are the people who will go through anything (including staying on as illegal-immigrants) to make a living here. These are the people who serve as the breeding ground for the prejudices of the Westerner. These people make the Oriental a living reality. In process they Orientalise India too. Therefore India remains a "developing" a.k.a. third world country from where people just want to get out - a filthy place that would put Coketown to shame!

But hey wait a minute! India is NOT like that. Indians are NOT beggars. We get your jobs because we deserve it. We get it because we want to take this experience with us and then share it amongst our folks back home. We come because the quality of the education is (to say the least) brilliant! We have come here because you gave us scholarships. You paid me to come here. Is this a dream I am dreaming? Or is it my illusion? Maya?

It pains me to see that people claim that India has given them nothing, she never will. They forget that it is THE country which made them. They are here because "once upon a time" they were there. All these things are idealistic they say - real life is about money and sex. Yeah right! Kiss my ass?!

Then these guys will procreate like parasites. They will have children who will boast of a British passport. They will swear by the Queen. But they will eat dal chawal at home. They will be neither British nor Indian. Of them the brilliant ones will write "The Buddha of Suburbia", or perhaps about "The Brick Lane" or may be even "White Teeth". They will win awards, they will rise to a standing ovation, their bank accounts will be clogged with sterling pounds, they will live like a celebrity. How many, do you think, will remember their ROOTS? No matter how strong the branches are, if you sever the roots, the tree will die an untimely death. But we are not trees, we are humans, innit? So we will die an internal death. We will sport the most whackiest hair cuts, pierce our eyebrows, revel in one-night stands but we will not know who we are.

Its about identity. Life is. The Life of an Indian in Britain is. Nobody gives much about it these days. Thats why we call them expats. Thats why when they visit India, people ask "when are you going back?" And when they stay here, Brits ask - "So where are you from ORIGINALLY?"

Toni Morrison mentioned this anecdote in her Nobel Lecture:
There was once an old woman. Blind and wise. One day the people of the town came to her to have a laugh at her. They placed a dead bird on her hands and asked her to guess if the bird was dead or alive. The lady replied: "I don't know whether the bird you are holding is dead or alive, but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands."

She is an African-American. She understands the concept of hyphenated identity. Do we?

zindagi to bewaafa hain ek din thukrayega
maut mehbooba hain aapne saang lekar jayega
marke jeene ki aada jo duniya ko sikhlayega
woh muqaddar ka sikandar janeman kehelayega

It feels a bit weird to be back - back in the same old prison cell thats called Lafrowda. It was good to see Percy after a long time. We did the usual - hit the pub, had the rum, watched the movies, and slept at no later than 7 in the morning! Percy is on his way to completing his PhD...soon he will be Doctor Paul. He might even leave UK if he doesnt get a job - now that'll be truly disastrous for me for obvious reasons.

Anyways, aaj to bodhoy beshi podashuno hobe na. Having said that I have got my hands on some brilliant papers by some top scholars who form the Kipling Scholarship. I had emailed them at Cambridge and they have got back to me very generously. This is something which I like about this country: their professionalism. Jodi bole pathabo, taar maane theek aashbe...Something which India lacks. I cant even dream of mailing some Indian prof at some Indian university and ask for papers that he/she has published. Too far fetched: but then again, its alright - every system has its merits and demerits.

No news from home for a fair bit of time. Hope they are alright. Dad is turning god-knows-what on the 10th of June. Aamar Baba - God I havent seen him for ages! I am dying to get back home, to set foot on the Netaji Subhas Chandra Airport. To experience the first whiff of breeze, the smell, the cops with their suspicious looks...I guess its not too far away now - 13th of August - my DDay.

Sammie is freaking out about one exam which she has to take. Sometimes she really bugs me, but then its alright - its Sammie. No news from my classmates either - post graduate der world ta kemon jeno eka eka...Independent research is what they term it. I like to stick with the isolated-about-to-go-insane approach: it's more accurate.

Sometimes I doubt myself, my capabilities, my aims...in a very Hamlet kind of way (barring the madness of it all). PhD is THE thing that I wanted, aimed at; and now that I am on my way towards it, I have a certain fear of the unknown - terra incognita. Three more years in this godless, mechanical, rigid, monotonous, fucked-up country. It seems like starting all over again. People are right - time does fly...it seems only yesterday that I had come here, to England, to this Phoren land to do my B.A. I have (I would like to believe) grown as a human being during these years - lost some of my qualities, added others and compromised with some of my attitudes. Lekin Life's principles remain the same (not to mention the dont-fuck-with-me principle). Frankly, I have begun to integrate myself in this society. And very surprisingly I am supporting England in the Euro 2004 - a distant possibility I would have thought four years back. But I wonder if England has changed with me too? Will it accept me too? How does it matter? Are we to remain Asian forever - or can we be British with an Indian heritage? I am not saying that I would want to be one but these are questions that demand a politically correct answer in this increasingly diplomatic world. A slip here could well bring doom to oneself. My PhD topic (at some level) is all about the representation of ethnicity in the British culture. Has Britain evolved with the passage of time or has it remained static? Is there any movement? If not, kichu hobe ki? Kobe? How will we come to realise that such a thing is happening? Is there any black in the Union Jack? Is race everything? When will we dispose our colonial baggage - isnt it getting rather heavy and pricey?

I wish I had some answers. I wish I can get into the inner most minds of the white folks and tell them that we are here to stay! That Multiculturalism is as much a sham as Integration is. Britain IS changing - look out - watch the teeming millions walking down Oxford street sporting their Gucci bags. Its just not White. It never was.

God save the Queen.

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

To start off in a Chris-Brooks type of fashion: when I am in this odd state of mind, I often question the good and evil of all things. Our judgements about people, about issues that affect us and of course about our own "selves" (pun intended, point obscured) seem so trivial at times... I dont think something is inherently evil by itself. To measure evil one has to be aware of what we term as "good" (I know this is an incredibly post-structuralist approach). To know failure, you need to taste success (why do we say 'taste' success and 'meet / met' failure?)...So coming back to my point, I wonder why we become so opinionated in this little world of ours? The innumerable number of worlds that we create, build it with passion, nurture it with our undying efforts and then ruin it with our final judgement - its like you conceive this plot in your mind, write it out, edit it, proof read it, turn it into a manuscript and then use it as a toilet paper.

The choice lies with us. We are the ones who make things and people good or bad. More often than not we do it out of a sense of belonging to our own little worlds. What we dont care to understand or reflect upon is the fact that a person or a thing is neither good nor evil. Take for instance heroes - we make a Sachin out of a certain Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - and we even go to the extent of worshipping him. After certain years, when he begins to show his age we are only to eager and willing to crucify him. The hero dies an untimely death. It is the same with ordinary people - you and me. We ruin it by comparing us with others, by setting our own yardsticks, by wanting more than what we have. Its something like this: money is not evil in itself: the greed of money is. Same for our judgements - nothing is what it seems. It is so banal that we need that sense of the extraordinary to keep us going.

Life doesnt work like that. Life is full of banalities. Therein lies the eternity of it all - the stuff that will remain once we return to dust. The stuff of which legends are made of. Our names, our legacies, our children - they will carry not for which we are famous but for which we are what we are - "one equal temper of heroic hearts / Made weak by time and fate."

My final thoughts: what constitutes the immortal? How can we frame ourselves with a fantastic piece of posterity? Why do we need to do it? Is it because the burden of "being" is unbearable? Why do we need to pass judgements - equate - balance - plus and minuses - divide and multiply - add and subtract - now here - now nowhere - what is the price that one has to pay to be un-judgemental? Why cant life be as simple as it appears to be? Is it achievable? Do we need a Tennysonian Odysseus to realise this? Can we - the ordinary masses of the earth do it? Do we need to be a hero? Are heroes judgemental? Do they see with our corrupted vision - or do they have their unique, un-tainted, un-blemished sense of vision? It is perhaps as one of the contemporary writers put it - the unbearable lightness of being - I am tempted to share the vision...

How weighty is the baggage of perception? Methinks its a very difficult question to answer. I asked Shani yesterday if she "read" people as "texts". "Of course I do", she said while I watched the Exe flowing by behind her. "Do you read people just once, in the beginning or do you read them everyday", I asked. She said she read people all the time, until of course, she wanted to give them a night off!

To me, it seems that most people are conscious of the fact that they are being read. Hence, we put on masks. Masks are a very handy thing: yesterday when I walked in to have a drink with my supervisor and Shani, I was in a third-degree pessimisstic (check spelling!?) mood and yet neither of them actually saw through my mask. A job well done I told myself and gave a pat on my back! But now I have two questions battling it out in my mind:
How weighty is the baggage of perception?
Why do we need to wear masks?

Am I opinionated about my friends? Hell yes! Lekin I tend not to pass an ultimate judgement on them...Human beings have an amazing capacity to surprise you when you expect the least of it! Its good to give them a certain space in your world where they can role-play and exchange masks...Its getting more complicated right?

Amar nijer onek gulo mukhosh ache. I dont know who taught me to wear these masks, but I know that they have been a part of my life ever since I can remember. You might even want to call me obssessive in that respect. But life doesnt leave an option for you, does it? If you dont wear a mask, and allow people to see the "real" self, the "real" stuff that you are made off, the stuff that dreams and nightmares are made off, chances are you will invite deception, treachery, and perhaps even d.... I have put down my masks sometimes. Bhalo laage. But then there is this profound sense of insecurity within you that simply does not allow to face the world as you are - raw, naked, innocent, vulnerable, childish, dumb, foolish, a no-gooder steeped in ignorance.

Oh dear God, its time to take the train...I got to think more about these masks that we wear. I mean its bloody fascinating - right from the beggar to the President - masks are ubiquitiuous.

At present, I am not wearing any mask - I dont need one - I wear a caged helmet twenty fours hour a day. My vision of the world is tanned - in fact, its not a vision - its a squint.

p.s. This is a self-reminder to devote one blog to Shani - she is so full of contradictions and masks - I could write a whole blog on her! Imagine the marriage of Hamlet with Othello - thats what you are dealing with...you cannot be off-guard - she lives like a fly and stings like a bee! :)