Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Note to Self

It shouldn't take 22 books to write a 5-page concept paper.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Amreek

Monday, August 03, 2009

The last 48

One of the reasons why I started blogging was the need to get away from everything that was happening in my life - the break-up, the resultant loss of a best friend, the loneliness - and I did that by writing humorously about inconsequential things in my doped-up, hazy life.

One of the reasons I have stopped blogging is because now I can tackle whatever is happening in my life by talking about it with DD, instead of pretending it isn't happening and lighting a cigarette. [Gosh, cigarettes. I'm going to miss you. Downside of living with a sensible man. Pah.]

In about 45 hours I'll be at the airport, contending with a knot in my throat, and an obsessive-compulsive propensity to blink.

It's hardest dealing with the faces. So I'm trying to think of mishaps. Like my suitcase crashing itself open and pet bottles of home-made gorom moshla raining on customs officers. Or being held back at Singapore for carrying a suspiciously large quantity of underwear. Or being punished by God for placing my Toulouse-Lautrec print over a packet of shoes.

Which reminds me: thanks be to my friends for giving me thoughtful and fabulous gifts, all of which I am taking with me!

When I'm in pain [waxing, stitches, rage], I keep muttering to myself, "Think about childbirth. This is easier. This is a breeze. Think about waiting to dilate to 10cm." Possible factual inaccuracies regarding childbirth aside, it works. I can steel myself. Not working now, though.

Is anybody praying?

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Educating Rb_P

Me: I'm going to do a Ph.D. in theatre.

British-Indian aunt: A what?

Me: Uhm. A doctoral degree in drama?

B-I A (Confusion. Discombobulation. Total befuddlement.) : Well, I've never heard that one before!

Ladies and gentlemen, that which I call life.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy New Year

There is no way to Peace.

Peace is the way.



May we find the way in 2009.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Archiving

When Barack Obama visited Berlin a few months ago, more than 200,000 of its citizens turned up to hear him speak. Victory is theirs.

Less than twelve hours ago, in Chicago, a similar number of Americans joined him in celebrating an extraordinary moment in their history. Among them was Rev. Jesse Jackson, who saw a man fulfil his own unfinished American dream. Victory is his.

Around the same time, a middle-aged, semi-literate man from a West Bengal village, who follows not a word of American English, stood glued to the live telecast on CNN in my house. He was watching with genuine joy another man, thousands of miles and cultures away, who does not speak his language and of whom he knows precious little, be on his way to becoming the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. Because they share the same name, Hussein. Victory is his.

I have nothing to add to the immense body of commentary that has and will be recorded about Obama's election to the Presidential post. This post is a personal tribute to a moment in history that I am proud to have been around for. Barack Obama has made big promises, and it remains to be seen whether he will deliver. His victory reflects the wish for change more than the conviction that this change can be brought about in any certain way. But that the American people have embraced the need for this change, and welcomed it in so triumphant a manner, speaks of good things to come. This is a victory for the minority voice, a recognition of the fascinating hybridity that embodies the American (and global) life. It is a remarkable moment to be a part of. Victory is ours.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Listmania

Right, so, hullo and everything. Long time n awl.

Here's the deal, you need to close your eyes and think of 3 books that make you happy. The first 3 that come to mind. No thinking hard allowed, tell me just off the top of your head.

Here's what I came up with:

1. My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell
2. Boy - Roald Dahl
3. Abol Tabol - Sukumar Ray

I was a little amazed at what I got. Primarily because the last time I'd read any of these 3 books was over a dozen years ago, sometimes more. Yet these are what came to mind immediately. Now tell me yours.

As an afterthought, maybe we could share some of the less common books with each other, those who are in the same city could, at any rate.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

The way you treat a thing can change its nature.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Rose Aylmer

Ah, what avails the sceptred race!
Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.

-- Walter Savage Landor

I did not know her at all. It feels horrible now to wish I had. May she have left behind survivors.
To think that my last post featured a woman who had fought that same battle. And won. The irony.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

1. There is such a thing as knowing too much. An eventful past to reconcile with. And we haven't even got to my own.

2. I hate this template. But I hate the alternatives more. I also mean the blog.

3. With feeling comes pain.

4. I own 7 articles of maternity wear. My biological clock is set on snooze, apparently. This is costing me more than a baby. Dammit with the bloody hormones.

5. I still can't spell accommodate and obsessive correctly the first time.

6. I am incapable of writing academic papers. I am even less capable of writing chicklit. I have tried my hand at both. Not an hour ago. The paper begins with the myth of Echo and Narcissus. The chicklit began with the legend,"She blew a smoke-ring into the night air and declared, 'I hate tampons and men.'" I have wisely abandoned both. Paper and chicklit, not tampons and men.

7. This means I will never be rich or educated. Looking for one number millionaire male. Single, fat fetish preferred.

7. I have been winking at tiny human things. The response veers from great amusement to heartbreaking indifference.

8. Twice I dreamt of a room without a floor.

9. I think I got tricked.

10. I hate not being able to tell it like I feel it. I think I will do the fashionable blogshift.

11. Long-distance relationships:
pro -- No waxing! Ever!
con -- Right when you begin checking out that sexy geek, he will call and proceed to guilt the shit out of you. Besides, sexy geek can't tell if you're a man or a woman, what with all that virile undergrowth.

12. Bosses. Sleep eludes.

13. I'd written virulent outgrowth back there. I have GRE in a month.

14. Shit, I have a deadline and I can neither work nor sleep.

15. I watch Stacked to take fashion tips from the fat woman behind the counter. I don't know what the hell is going on in that show, and I don't see why Pammy's boobies should be considered ample substitutes for wit and humour. But that is none of my concern, because doods, I'm rooting for the fat chick. [I am not being condescending here, I just don't know her name or that of the character she plays. Or any of those characters. It's a very forgettable show.]

Five minutes later

Okay, googled and hyperlinked. Nobody's gonna call me a weightist. Her name's Katrina on the show. Her real name's Marissa Jaret Winokur, and she won a Tony! I liker.

Ten minutes later

This woman survived cervical cancer, had to get a hysterectomy done and didn't tell nobody about it! PLUS she won a TONY! And she was on one of them celebrity dance shows! Where she swung like a mad momma! She's big and pretty. I liker loads.




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