Something of Myself

Black British Poetry

"We mark your memory in songs
Fleshed in the emptiness of folk
Poems that scrape bowl and bone
In English basements far from home." (Coolie Odyssey)

"England where it snows and we still born brown
That I come back from to here, home
As hungry as any white man for native gold
To plant flag and to map your mind." (Homecoming)

- Fred D'Aguiar (who methinks to be one more on my hitlist because his writing is beautiful)

I just LOVE the second one. Jesus, these people, out there, writing...God's gift to us. :)

Koshish.

Why is it that everytime I try that much harder, I come THAT much closer to what I want and then fail ultimately? Why?

You do the homework, the groundwork, the field-work, the research, you identify the loop-holes, you see through them, you exploit them, you manouvre them and then just when you are about to put your arms up in celebration - bang, stamped failure, try again! It's a funny feeling this - hoye o na hoya. It is moments during these that I tend to think about things like "luck" - am I lucky? Is there anything called luck (of course there is)?! What can I do to manipulate unseen forces? To be at fault because somebody else screwed up? To take the pain because I was let down? To get up and try all over again (with a bruised ass).

There is a sour feeling in my mouth, a rash inside, a pimple-like protrusion which won't get better unless I stop tonguing it. Problem is, I can't.

Never mind, I won't give up. I needed to sort it now but it's not happening. I am disappointed, not dejected. Life moves on, we all do, but it's things like these that leave an indelible mark on us, like the rough patches on one side of a well-handled cricket ball. The rough patches help the spinners, the shiny one helps the pacers - how does it help me? Where do I belong? Can I bowl at all? Will I get another over?

Two possible outcomes then: 1. I'll get belted all over the park 2. It'll be a maiden wicket over - 0 0 0 0 0 W.

I will come back for another one. I will.

p.s. pai ami kotha theke, kotha theke shahosh?
p.p.s. "money is not evil. greed is." what about necessity? how do you deal with it?

Miles to Go

Sometimes I feel point-blank ashamed of myself - ashamed at how little I know - ashamed of telling people, "I am doing a PhD in English." Hell, I don't know half the authors I should know. I live in ignorance.

Today I feel ashamed, like most other days.

An excerpt

"When I got to Bradford I took a taxi. It was simple: Bradford is full of taxis. Raise an arm and three taxis rush at you. Like most taxi drivers in Bradford, the driver was Asian and his car had furry, bright purple seats, covered with the kind of material people in the suburbs sometimes put on their toilets...The taxi driver had a Bradford-Pakistani accent, a cross between the north of England and Lahore, which sounds odd the first few times you hear it...But hearing it for the first time disconcerted me because I found that I associated northern accents with white faces, white people who eat puddings, with Geoffrey Boycott and Roy Hattersley."

(Hanif Kureishi)

Konark ;)

I know I said this one would be on Gandhi but I am not putting anything down on paper until I
have read "My Experiments with Truth."

Instead, this one is about feeling physical pain, and thinking about death. Yes, oft repeated, but never exhausted topic of our lives.

Actually, no, I just changed my mind.

I don't want to say anything. It's futile anyways. Who is going to read my shit? Why should they? Why should I write? Why DO I write??

I think I need a break from life. I need to get out of this world - somewhere where there is nothing except blue skies and starry nights and nothing but the blazing sun, scorching, burning and feasting on my skin.

I like the sun. I like the way I can't look at it - doesn't ever stop me from trying it. I like his majesty, his singularity, his omnipresence, his rage, passion...the hope he brings, the fear he instills, and the effect he has on the whole wild world.

I want to go near him. I want to stand close and see him right in the eye. I want to touch him. Of course, I want to die - but it will be a wonderful death, a wonderful way to end this morbid life. :)

Fragmented thoughts...

Too much meat on my plate right now - don't know where to begin. Confused to be v honest.

The teaching went well. It was great. The initial 2 minutes of uncomfortableness was brilliantly eclipsed by the smile of one student, and the "but-pele-how-do-we-do-this" question of the other. It was as if, suddenly, within a moment, I had developed a bond with them - we signed an unwritten pact - they trusted me, I was answerable - it was burdensome to begin with but it was wonderful by the end. Teacher-student: yes, a noble relationship - as noble as the word noble signifies.

All of them were great. The best part was when the guys who normally keep quiet started speaking - that really gave me a kick! And I am told that by the end of the seminar they were whispering to each other - "wow, that was good, wasn't it?" (This was told to me by my Professor / "Colleague" who sat there observing my teaching). And if there is an iota of truth in the statement, then I am so delighted that I went through all the hard work that I had put in (including having 12 paracetamols the night before to tackle the flu).

Oh, and the BEST part - this girl walks up to me after the seminar and started asking me questions about her essay. For a moment, for a fraction of a second, I felt like Chris Brooks. And I know Chris is out there, somewhere, looking at me and smiling at his protege. I was doing everything that he did (in my way because Chris was God and you cannot imitate God) - I was striding up and down the class, I was asking people to come up to the board; at times I sat cross-legged, other times I asked them to tell me what they thought about so and so, I cracked jokes, I became serious and most importantly, I accepted them like they were.....

* * * *

OK. Today I dragged myself to town. The streets were full of people - christmas shopping you bet! But it was great to see them - just to be out of your room, your incarcerating dungeon to an empty space with fresh air and loads of people. This is what I like about life - people - good, bad, ugly, beautiful, handsome, pretty, vicious, malicious, despicable, brutes, infants, innocents, sexy sirens, oldies, black, white, brown - the variety is hard to express but there is one thing that is common to them - they happen to be humans. I am not able to write it and express it in the way I am wanting to - perhaps because the soreness of my throat is irritating me - but the point is that each of these faces that I see, nameless faces on the street, they have such an unique expression - some struggling to get back home, some enjoying the excursion, husbands crying about their wallets, wives romancing with their other halves, single mothers pushing themselves to make up for the "daddy", big brother listening to rap, the beggar playing tunes that deserve more than "some change", the teenage girl who has got the job to sell flyers, the paedophile who is watching her, the wrinkled hands of the nanny who reminds me of didu - and in the middle of it, Pele - making his way through, thinking of lost worlds and worlds to conquer, hearts to win, papers to read, money to make, his red blood cells fighting against the nasty viruses that have taken refuge in his system. He stands in the middle of it - in awe and bewilderment, wondering if he can ever grasp the meaning of life - the reason behind our existence!

If I ever said I hated life - I was drunk. This life, with all its realities and fuck-ups (if you will) is worth living.

P.S. Watched Kingsley's Gandhi after returning home. Next post should be on him if I can hold on to my thoughts. I love the man, and I am not too sure about the politician.