I also...

...take the liberty to do some renaming. Mister Bengal shall henceforth be known as Paablik Internacional Low. Thenkyewkindly.

When we read..

What happens when you get online one evening, completely prepared to subject yourself to the assault of whatever irrelevant manure law school wishes to throw at you at the moment, but you end up reading Pablo Neruda and Emily Dickinson?

You cannonball into lots of Ogden Nash and Gustave Flaubert and Vladimir Nabokov, and go to sleep feeling like the aftertaste of a Christmas cake... you know, slightly annoyed and dissatisfied with the raisins and figs, excessively sweet, happy that it is well offset by just a leetle orange peel, citrusy and tart. Heady and sated by all those fumes rising persistently (and deeLISHiously) from that solemn, gigantic mass of deep, dark brown, and amused, of course, by the the discordance...the flippancy of the lone red cherry on top.

I always loved poetry, but then I choose to call very little of what I read poetry (hark all ye who write bad sad verse on their blogs) . Poets are great men, and as is the unfortunate tendency of all great men, their poetry is not consistent. Of course, this is the unfortunate tendency of all humankind itself, but the quirks of the everyman have never interested anyone, have they? ;-)

Neruda is all light and fire and touch and naked emotion, sometimes overtly wistful and sometimes not so much... I always thought his From 20 Poems of Love was very similar to Shakespeare's Sonnet 138, and I still maintain that I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You is as much a fine answer to a question as a title for a poem. :-)

You should read only a little Neruda at a time. Just when you think he is going to get cloying, he pulls back deftly, just a little bit. And after a time, you learn to watch for this... he was good, that man. Sometimes even I, postergirl of Why Bother? am tempted to go learn Spanish, if only for the pleasure of reading Pablo Neruda in the language he thought the thoughts I now read, their edges lost, no doubt, in translation.

And then you move from Neruda to Emily Dickinson, move from summer bonfire to antique crystal, music to mathematics. The contrast is very very entertainingly clear. Economical phrasing, tight meter, and quiet, delicious understatement.

Then, for old times' sake you move to Nabokov...Lolita. Someone once described to me Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red as a sort of scene within scene thing....the closest work I find to this description is Lolita. While Humbert is the essential snob, and his sharply contemptuous, unwillingly affectionate observations on everything, not least his "darling Dolores, my Lo, Lolita" are fun in a mean sort of way, they only serve to bring out the author's own contemptuous affection for Humbert himself, and somehow everything comes together to generate an almost sympathetic fascination for the trembling paedophile in the reader...an unusual reaction at best, but then the language is so effortlessly evocative that you feel almost obliged to agree with the aging sex offender's opinion. :-D

And Ogden Nash, himself, the cherry to my cake:

An Ode to a Baby

A bit of talcum
Is always walcum.

-

The case rests. :-D

Becky Bloomwood strangles herself with her Denny and George scarf...

...and DIES.

I wish.

I just HAD to record that my first determined, conscious foray into chick-lit has been absolutely disastrous, and that all existing copies of any book in the Shopaholic series should be pounded up with all the other kinds of garbage and used to generate biogas, in which role they will provide far more entertainment than they do presently, and will be far more tolerable.

The first time I'd heard of the Shopaholic series was when it was described as a second cousin of the other-chick-lit-thing-that-got-plagiarised during the big Kaavya Viswanathan debacle, I think. So I read Opal Mehta when I happened to come across someone who had it, and thought mehh boring shit. But y'all know the big deal chick-lit is, these days, and I thought I wouldn't judge by the one book.

So, full of the happy, warm glow that comes with knowing that I am being fair, reasonable and perfectly amiable , I pick up Shopaholic and Baby from the King's County Library, Bellevue (YOU ROCK......MUAH!!!!!!!) and slowly come to terms with the fact that I have found the one book that I will never read again, even if the all the libraries in the world spontaneously combust and the only three books that are left behind are You Can Be a Winner and Chacha Chaudhary, Hinglish translation.

I mean, lead character Becky Bloomwood is brainless without being entertaining, superficial without being suave, and anNOYINGLY indecisive. She lies at the drop of a special-edition Lagerfeld, but has not one redeeming ounce of wit to save her.

I genuinely don't understand....what is so entertaining about a woman who spends two hundred out of three hundred pages in her book detailing the excruciating details of her inability to make decisions and learn lessons that most of us learn at ten? She's frighteningly stupid and irritatingly childish, so she is 'emotionally giving' and 'childlike', which is why the big, confident business guy wants her? And more criminally, is wanting to have BABIES with her?! I mean, did someone say POLLUTING THE GENE POOL?

One of my friends, a staunch champion of the Shopaholic series brought up this interesting comparison of Becky Bloomwood of O' Hara, pointing out that both are essentially non-intellectual lead characters, yet endearing to readers, in the classic usage of the overly 'human' lead everyone can empathise with. This deserves to be examined.

Firstly, Scarlett O' Hara. While non-intellectual is right, she is not guilty of anything that would be called stupid in a vacuum, in the sense that while her independence, crude forthright mind and tendency to marry frequently may have been against societal norms, the woman was not vacant between the ears. She was honest, clever and a survivor.

Becky Bloomwood on the other hand, is called stupid for a reason. Her conflicts are not with society, they are with her Bank Account Manager. Her problems are not with herself, they are with the rest of the world who just doesnt understand that a Miu Miu skirt can be a household item. She wavers indecisively throughout the book, shows an absolute lack of judgment or wit, and shops like her life depends on it.... with someone else's money. This is a woman to be pitied, if you're in the mood for it (I call it the Jesus mood...ya know...Psalm 3:2 : Let thouest tolerate them retards, for the tolerant will inherit the Lindt factory) or exterminated, if you're normal , so that she won't have babies and ruin all chance humankind has to survive...it's called survival of the fittest for a reason, and Becky is about as smart as Birthday Barbie's left toenail. Maybelline nail varnish, please.

I just want to know why this thing sells, that's all. Do you like the Shopaholic? Why?

Of the night.

Of colder air
and sparkling dust
in a streetlight cone
sharply alone
against the lonely
tired street
bereft of hurrying
daytime feet.

Darkness now; the sun is
a fading memory, a kiss
from a childhood lover, gone
where all memories belong..


--

I love the night. :-)

Face-pack and Big Butt sitting in a tree...K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

So we've been having some exciting weather-variance here in Jodhpur... it isn't hot and dry anymore. It is hot and humid (what did you expect? snowfall?). We're all walking around looking like construction workers. Burnt visage, sweaty everything. You know? The sinewy legs are yet to come... going to take a good long time coming too. Uncle Chipps and muscle don't seem to like each other, apparently. Ah well.... there was never any competition anyway.


Big Daddy gave us 'homework' yesterday. I wish to God he'd call it an assignment, at the very least. 'Homework' makes me feel uncomfortably like I should be doing it on a four-ruled notebook and hoping for three stars and a smiley...

So anyway, yeah. This homework. I'd forgotten all about it last night, and I woke a little too late for comfort this morning. So what do I do? Do I get to class and:

1. cog it from Miss Goth?
2. cog it from Miss Responsible?
3. cog it from the commentary on contract law that Providence has left on my desk?
4. ignore the whole deal and fall promptly asleep? (not the exception, I assure you)

No. I gird up my loins (figurative, ya perverts) despite the fact that i have no time whatsoever and DO the WHOLE thing myself. Every little bit. How cool is that, eh?
And then i tog up and walk to class in a self-satisfied glow of so-what-if-im-late-i-still-did-his-lousy-homework-HAH.
And what sight meets my smug self when i walk into class five minutes late? Is it:

1. the goggly, slightly insane-looking red-veined stare of Big Daddy, to whom, when demanded, I can demurely submit my homework and pretend that it is no big deal for me to do so and that, as usual, i had actually finished it the previous evening and filed it away in my colour-coded binder in the section called Contracts?
2. the lack of any professor, which may yet be excusable?

NO. It is The Dancer. Who politely asks me for my roll number and gives me attendance. Just like that. No drama. Goddam him.

I mean, I love The Dancer, don't get me wrong, but he pisses me off sometimes. He doesn't even ask for the stupid assignment to give to Big Daddy. I stare at my paper and feel stupid.

I always knew it was a mistake to do homework...i just needed the reminder. Thank you, God.

Potential shut-eye time lost between 6.55am and 7.10am. I better go make up for it.

PS: Hey, Face Pack; i understand you resent your job all you want to do is model for facepack commercials and be someone's modest wife, but even if you so desperately wanted to escape from the packs of out-pass seeking students to flirt with a prof, couldn't you have picked someone better than The Butt ? I mean, I would have loved to find you in flagrante delicto with..say..the Hot One, if he weren't gone (BOO HOO!!) or even flirting harmlessly with The Cute One, but noooo. You pick The Butt...Tremendous Tush, Rump Royale, whatever you want to call him. I must say, there's no accounting for tastes.

PPS: the next time you whine to me just because I laugh outside your room, i am locking you in it. I promise you.

PPPS: You're right. I'm being mean. He doesnt look like a Butt. He's just a curvy man. One large, convex curve.

I'm a laboratory rat.

Been an exceptionally long time... then again, I have had an exceptionally uneventful time. Even by my standards, and my standards seem to get lower everyday.

This agricultural commune I call my college never ceases to fascinate me...all right, fascinate is a little bit of an exaggeration, but the fact remains that after a full minute of pondering its eccentrities, i am generally ready to go one more minute doing exactly the same, and not too many things or people can claim this privilege.

I am convinced that the whole deal, this let's-drop-a-law-college-into-an-obscure-patch-of-land-surrounded-by-villagers-who-hate-it is some sort of social experiment dreamed up by a giggly, scheming septuagenarian bureaucrat who has been given a thousand sheets of bond paper and two secretaries and embalmed in his dusty windowless room in the back end of a crumbly red-brick building somewhere, just so he doesnt get in the way of his workmates, who no doubt wish to be left alone while they perform their functions as the Managers of Modern India. (Nobody has determined the nature of said functions yet.. what Government servants actually DO as part of their job is suspected to be a State secret, passed only from one bureaucrat's immediate senior to himself, in a midnight pagan ritual of initiation involving fire, incense, chanting, polyester safari suits and many binder pins.)

Anyway. Social experiment. I'm saying social experiment cos i'm posh that way - you may also call it Survivor, slummed-down.

My college is perfectly placed to conduct the kind of survey my Statistics teacher would have approved of. We:
1. are isolated (and i dont mean metaphysically; i mean the OH-MY-GOD-WHERE-IS-THE-REST-OF-INDIA-OH-GOD druggie-rehabilitation centre kinda isolated.)
2. are thinly spread. (500 people, 50 acres. Go figure.)
3. are gasbags. (We tend to a lot of talk and not much else. Blame the weather - this is the desert, after all. Any revolutionary spirit you have will be soon bored into a coma and buried in sand. )
4. are dying for ANYTHING new to happen, ANYTIME. (OMG did you see that guy?? He's wearing flipflops to class! OMG!!)

The only good thing we COULD, upto some time back atleast, make a claim to, was some decent teachers. (Oh what was that about infrastructure? Yeah, yeah, the single room, LAN connection, etc etc.... all that sells before you figure the sand and the pigeons in. To any pigeon who may be reading this: I resent your attachment to my grill. Take yourself and your bodily functions away. Now.)

I liked some of our erstwhile teachers. I really did. The Hot One, the Dead One and the Old One. (I didnt know the rest. I was busy mourning the departure of the Hot One.) But they are gone...the first casualties in the "Great Indian Social Experiment - Lets See How Long Law Students Last!!"
This experiment apparently involves throwing the pick of the refuse pile of the legal teaching fraternity in India in the general direction of Jodhpur, aimed for the Laa College and seeing how we react to them. I hope they're satisfied, I'm reacting already. They're a collective itch I can't quite scratch.
And this is only the beginning...I have only experienced the Big Daddy, The Face Pack, The Imposter and Mister Bengal so far.

My general reaction to all may be recorded as follows:
1. Big Daddy: wary stiffness, unusual politeness, bad homework and a tendency to avoid 'you hab not understood. Meet me in my chAmber.' moments.
2. The Face Pack: many tendencies, all classifiable under 'murderous'.
3. The Imposter: so far, only a sense of desperation, and a hallucination that she will soon go away and The Nice Smiley Tam will come back.
4. Mister Bengal: a new patience at having my name mauled and spat out, Bengali style, and quicker reflexes at avoiding the famous halitosis.

Anyway...Two weeks. Pulse check. I'm alive. HA!

*plays Survivor theme*

Indian.

As anyone who knows me knows only too well, I am incurably lazy. I have firm opinions on some things, and none on others, and I never defend them. I have them, and that is all anyone needs to know. I also do not believe in expending energy in getting people to agree with me. Mere numbers neither validate nor strengthen a viewpoint.

Sometimes, however, I am forced out of passivity and provoked to express my opinion. This is one of those times.
One of my friends who moved to Singapore for higher education, recently began dating an American, and had him Skype with me for a little while. He was intelligent and articulate and we were settling into happy-powwow mode discussing Lolita, when he said "Damn, you're a pretty good bargain for an Indian!"

End of bonhomie.

After explaining to him clearly and slowly, the full extent of his repulsive racist self, and asking him to kindly insert his head up his anal orifice so that no one would be disturbed by him even if he felt like talking, I hung up. I was slightly distraught.

I love being Indian, and I love Indians. I love our food and festivals, and I love my family. I know there's much scope for improvement and I am the first to admit it. But I love us fiercely, for and yet inspite of all our idiosyncrasies. I love our stereotypes and those who pretend to be above them, yet revert to them secretly in the privacy of their homes. I delight in the way we brutally dissect our politicians and yet leave them in office. I love the way we hold Are Indian Women Truly Emancipated? chatshows on Women's Day every year, and reach the same conclusions (No) every year, and wait for next year's debate with the same sense of expectation. I love our creaking, whining, beat-up, almost human public transport, and the evil, evil auto drivers ("Metre-aa?" *shakes head negatively"). I love how we have a festival only for squirting coloured water on each other and getting high.
I love our showbusiness for being flamboyantly, unashamedly unreal, and our parallel cinema for being alternatively hilariously pretentious and shockingly thoughtprovoking. I love the fact that we dress up a bunch of advertising models as a cricket team, and manage to sell the idea to the country. I love how Shahnaz Hussain can put her face on her beauty products and still manage to convince people that they work. I love how we take our Gods off their pedestals, forcefeed them milk, put mobile phones in their hands and iPhones in their fannypacks and then drown them.

I love how exceedingly alive we are, and I love it all.

To anyone who doesnt like Indians: You all, as do everyone, have the right to an opinion. Just don't stick it in my face.