JUDE

I have sat up half the night - listening to the incessant rain, watching the lonesome dog - and trying to sum up five years in a few pretty sentences. I don't know why TODAY, when I have two more days left. I don't know why AT ALL, because now there is facebook and gmail and a hundred different ways to fool myself into believing that I haven't really left. That this isn't really true. That I still belong.

I guess it's because when I was sitting on the comp.lit. stairs today, being the usual passive smoker and contemptuous git, I tried to remember one thing from each month that I spent in JUDE. And I couldn't. It was then that I realized that I fear the forgetting even more than I fear the leaving. And maybe that's when my subconscious (or as Arunava would point out, unconscious) decided to write everything down - so that when I am eighty, I can read these lines and dance a little arthritic jig, laughing at other lesser mortals - poor sods who hadn't ever experienced JUDE. Forgive the snootiness, but I DO think I had the best.

I remember the day I walked in for the entrance test. I remember what I wore that day. I remember meeting Arnab on the stairs , and I remember him giving me a superior smile and wishing me luck. He was a coordinator with me before, and I remembered him telling us how they had Beatles in their syllabus. i was awestruck. I was nervous. And as I walked into my allotted classroom (the current UG 2 room), I was taken aback by the intensity with which I wanted to be part of this - THIS place for the next five years. I remember amrita and zainab and NG being the invigilators. I remember someone asking if by 'black' she was meant to write a short note on the colour or the movie. I remember Amrita smirking and saying, 'well, you know. tall guy. deewar. amitabh? write on that.'

This post will have the word 'remember' at least a hundred times. Because, memory will be my best friend these coming days. And well, pretty sentences have never been my forte.

First year was spent trying to get my bearing.I remember speaking to Uttaran on the day of my admission and I remember Swapan da smiling nicely at me and trying to convince me to give up English and study Geography for some strange reason. On the first day of class the UG2's came charging in and demanded that we introduce ourselves. Then Surjo stood up on a bench and announced the ending of the latest Harry Potter book. It was worse than any ragging we could ever have faced. Then I went home with Doyeeta and we spent some time in a random cyber cafe in Gol Park, trying to set up a blog. Rafat Ali took our first class, I think. And said many big words. And recommended we read 'The Mirror and the Lamp'. And I wrote everything down in my copy and thought he was a nice guy. I think so still.

First semester was spent hanging out on the bridge. With some known and some strange engineering people. First year was the year of slippery journeys from the bridge to Moni da's. First year was the time Suchismita insisted on wearing sneakers to college everyday. Even in unbearable heat. First year was the time Arunava poked everyone with his umbrella and insisted that he didn't ever smile. First year was the time I went to watch 'Salaam Namaste' with a huge bunch of random people, most of whom don't even talk to each other nowadays. First year was when we became friends with Ragini. And Guppy. And sometimes we would all go to CCD and play weird games of 'truth and dare'. First year was also, admittedly, the time I hung out with the weirdest of people I don't have any contact with now. I guess I needed to try out several things before finding my niche. First year was when we wondered whether Tess was raped or seduced. First year was when we studied Sandman. First year was the time when PG2 seemed indecently far away.

I would go to Presidency often enough those days. Not as often as Doyeeta, but at least once a week. But JUDE has a way of claiming you. It needn't be a quick love at first sight. But once you've grown into it, you are gone. Fallen. Hook, line and sinker.

Second year was when I finally got into the groove of things, I think. Because during the admission madness, Tintin da assigned me to be in the same room as a certain prof., smiled and said "that should make her day". And that pretty much broke all the ice there was to be broken. I remember Pradipta's strange bonnet on the day of admission, and T'da's green hat. I remember borrowing a denim hat type thingy (was it a bandana?) from Srin on that day, running around like a mad man and stealing frooti from the departmental fridge. Second year was also the time I acted in the only JUDE production I have ever been a part of. At the cast party, I remember drinking the punch and grinning at people and making small talk with rohini. And then I remember tasting the garlic bread and dying and going to heaven.

Second year was the year we started on Renaissance. Second year was the year I got a 4 in an Old English internal. Second year was when I did 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and fell in love with good ol' Will. Second year was the year when I finally grew up.

Things got into a steady routine after this. And the years that followed were pretty much the same. We just shifted from the English ledge to the back stairs, and finally to that place infront of Anita Banerjee hall. Third year was the time we played incessant 29 and made friends with Nandita and the lot. PB would try to force us to go to class and we would beg for one last game of cards. Third year was the time of the epic Tempest classes. It was also the year I graduated.

Masters was not the same as undergraduate years. There were many new faces.
It was a time of brilliant classes. It was a time of some serious bonding. It was the time I finally realized that I would have to go out into the world that day. JUDE would probably never be an end in itself again.

I was watching 'An Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' today, and I realized that if somehow all memories of JUDE were to be erased from my brain, and I could get to keep only one, it would probably be Amlan da teaching Milton in PG1. In this long, rambling barrage of words, I have consciously not spoken about the faculty, because, well...what would I say that has not been said a thousand times before? It just surprises me everyday that these incredible INCREDIBLE scholars chose to stay back and teach US, when they could really have gone and taught anywhere they wanted. Seventy years down the line, if I can remember the goosebumps when Supriya di talked about Rabindranath and Tempest, when PC blew us away with the Shakespeare and the Plath, when Swapan da smirked and proceeded to take a Renaissance drama class full of sexual innuendos, when Sukanta da told us about humanism in the renaissance - then I would really have nothing to complain about. Hell, I was taught Bakhtin on my first tutorial class with Amlan da. I didn't understand a thing, but grasped that I was probably in the presence of some serious greatness. Forgive the gushing, but on his day, that man can actually take my breath away the way no one can.

These people have given us a freedom unheard of anywhere else. Not only a freedom of action, but a freedom of imagination. And as I go out into the real world, I realize that is the greatest lesson I could ever have had.

As I write this, I realize one strange thing. That a couple of years later, if I want to walk in to attend a class in the department, there is no one who could legitimately tell me that I shouldn't be there. That I don't belong. Because I will never NOT belong.
Because once you have been a part of JUDE, you can never fully leave. These past five years have changed me the way nothing else ever has. And even if I am thousands of miles away, there will always be a part of me bumming around the corridors, gushing about ADG classes, having the spicy thai fried rice at Moni da's, having rooti-torka from Milon da's, drinking endless cups of coffee, singing the 'shibani' song, volunteering for the admissions, shouting 'whose Kubla it is?'... because THAT jheel, and THOSE stairs, and THESE classrooms and THAT corridor and THESE professors and THESE seniors and THIS batch and THOSE juniors and THAT bench and THIS place is MINE. And will be. Always.

Thank you Jadavpur University Department of English. It's been an honour.

Just saying.

Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.

- Oscar Wilde

I could be the woman next door tonight. I could rave and rant and clean my house twenty times a day.
I could be a friend. Nice and pretty, with my life all in order.
I could be Boudi-dida. And stay alone for years on end in a tumbledown house, cooking rooti-aloobhaja when the owners visit the village twice a year.
I could be that man around the corner. The one who feeds all the stray cats with the money he gets from Guiness book of World Records by letting his nails grow all the way to the ground.
I could be the other man. The man just across the street. The random one you see walking down the road. Smoking a cigarette and vaguely muttering to himself.
I could be someone I know. A confused boy with Multiple Personality Disorder. I could be hard to figure out.
I could be my dance teacher. And always cloak my talent with a rich layer of innate hot temper.
I could be a professor. The nice one who looks frail. The mad one. The kind one. The arrogant one. The stupid one.
I could be you.

I could be anyone. If I could say the words.
Because, feeling and NOT saying is the hardest part, no? Sitting and letting time do it's work. Never taking the initiative because you would die of embarrassment in case you got rejected.

I have not felt like this in the longest time.
Tobe amar mone hoy, at the end of the day, sob-i bodh hoy hormone er khela. Tai eto bhebe kono laabh-i nei.

Aman ki asha.

The day India and Pakistan sort out their problems once and for all, pigs will start flying and I will turn into a 6 feet tall man.
That, however, does not change the fact that when Amitabh Bachchan sat on a railway platform and recited this poem by Gulzar, it still managed to blow me away. There is nothing quite as mellifluous as the sound that Urdu makes, when Gulzar coaxes it with his pen.

Dikhayi dete hain duur tak ab bhi saaye koi
Magar bulaane se waqt lautey na aaye koi,
Chalo na phir se bichhayein dariyaan bajayein dholak
Lagake mehendi sureeley tappe sunayein koi,
Patang udayein chhatton pe chadh ke muhalley waaley
Falak to saanjha hai us mein penche ladayein koi,
Utho kabaddi kabbadi khelenge sarhadon par
Jo aye abke to laut kar phir na jaye koi,
Nazar mein rehtey ho jab tum nazar nahin aatey
Yeh sur milaatey hain jab tum idhar nahin aatey,
Nazar mein rehtey ho jab tum nazar nahin aatey
Yeh sur bulaatey hain jab tum idhar nahin aatey.
.

This reduced my grandmother to tears. She said they reminded her of her old house and old school and how all her prizer boi got lost when they dashed for safety to a country on the other side of the barbed wire.

Nazar mein rehtey ho jab tum nazar nahin aatey...

Shit. This line manages to turn me inside-out every time I read it.

So what exactly makes me a freak, I wonder.

Rudderless.

JUDE, to me, has always been an end in itself. So when people started drifting away after Masters, I squeezed my eyes and held tight. Because letting go of this place was impossible. Not because of mushy nostalgia, but because I had really not thought anything beyond this place. Ever.
Most of my friends know what they want to do after the next six months. I swing between incredible options and lame excuses for not letting anything materialize. I spend hours on net looking up bizarre facts and watching youtube videos. I read aloud Ruskin Bond to myself. I wake up, take a shower and go back to sleep again. I write one horrible exam after the other, and my results suffer terribly. And yet I come back home and read yet another Swedish short story, procrastinate and make random STD calls to dispel the sudden chill. I take forty five minute bus journeys for some cups of tea and good conversation. I dream of dancing every other day, and never get around to making that call and asking my teacher to take me back again.
I try to learn a new language, and cannot get beyond the first few sentences. Instead of learning French verbs, I watch the news and try to memorise the Sri Lankan batting order. Just for fun.
I make up my mind to take a competitive exam. I get hold of some materials. I study for a month. And then I procrastinate and tell myself there's still time.
And thus I write an incredibly rambling blogpost, turn over and go to sleep.

Because Ghalib said it much better than I ever could.

Dil hi toh hai na sang-o-khisht,
Dard se bhar na aye kyun?
Royenge hum hazaar baar,
Koi hamey sataayen kyun?

Why I want to marry Oscar Wilde (Reason # 572)

"There is a luxury in self reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."


"Modern morality consisting in accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest immorality."


"You come down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find me consoled and you are furious.How like a sympathetic person!"


"One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing."


The last one, especially, kills me everytime I read it.

Ajke kotthao jabo na.
Chayer dokan giye mishti cha ar bishkoot kheye, ek-i kotha pnaachbaar bole, ek-i hindi gaan doshbaar geye pagoler moto hashbo na.
Pray 9ta bajle dhormor kore uthe Deshopriyo Park obdhi hnete, bhir bus e bari phirbo na.
Ajke Coffee House jabo na. Kalo coffee kheye poroninda porochorcha korbo na. Nun na dewa gravy chowmein khabo na. Coffee house expedition er jonyo necessary lokera keu ekhane nei. Kintu seta porer kotha. Thakleo, jabo na.
Ajke Park Street jabo na. Flury's, McDonalds, Oly - kotthao jabo na. Oly'r durwan ajkal amake selam thoke. Kintu tao jabo na.
Ajke BCL jabo na. Metro kore onek dur giye, ekta porar boi ar duto Terry Pratchett borrow korbo na.
Ajke Saat-tolay party nei. Kintu seta kotha noy. Party thakleo jabo na. Ondhokar ghore Beatles ar Anjan Dutta shunbo na. Vodkar peg haate Kolkatar skyline dekhe melancholic hobo na. Matal hoye nach kore, tarahuroy taxi kore bari phirbo na.
Ajke JU jabo na. Milon da theke torka-rooti ar frooti khabo na. Ek tolar ekta ghore boshe ghontar por ghonta adda marbo na. Backstabber der kotha bhebe dukkho korbo na. Brilliant lokjoner class attend korbo na. Ekti bishesh loker proti letch korbo na.

Ajke kotthao jabo na.

Admiration.

My heart bursts with love for someone as I realize that there is still goodness in the world.

Desh Raag.

This is what I am watching on a loop today.
Because long years ago we made a tryst with destiny. And maybe we are fulfilling it still.
And also because, everytime I see this, I cannot help the goosebumps.

Shadebagan Lane.

I do not wish to be condescending. I do not even wish to be filmy. I just wish to say that the last few days have been unusual. Each day has brought with it incredible stories of personal courage and personal squalor. And as I have come back to my clean home, with an AC and a tiled bathroom; a colour TV and concerned parents, I have realized, perhaps more than ever, how utterly stupid my fights about curfew hours and clean rooms really are. And how incredibly, incredibly lucky I have been in some ways.

I only wish my companion would not reserve all her emotions for 2 litre bottles of Pepsi.

Favourite.

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.....

....

- Pablo Neruda

Updates ityadi.

The last few weeks have been a blur. Hot and humid and punctuated by incredibly deep sleep. But a blur nonetheless. My favourite part of the day is when I walk into the air conditioned office after an hour of sweaty auto and metro rides. Which says a lot about the changed sort of life I have been leading lately.

I don't get much time to think. And ponder. Which is good, because many things have kind of taken off, and then fizzled out. And if I actually took time out and thought about all of them, I might just come down with the mother of all headaches.

Dadumoni, on the other hand, is deteriorating daily. A couple of days ago he insisted that he would be sitting for his school final examinations soon. A few hours after that he was ranting against his father who allegedly beat him up for no specific reason. The old man has slowly started shrivelling up. Everyday he resolutely reaches out for the past. Everyday he resolutely lets go of the present. And that is probably how things should be, because, dammit, shouldn't the old always make room for the new?

My social life has been rather strange. I have been frequenting Oly and taking weekend trips and making the right noises so that people who have neatly slotted me into a category might not get too uncomfortable. Yes, I am considerate that way.

I miss certain people as they are now. I miss certain people as they used to be. There is just so much of condescension you can take before you snap. Because, sometimes, you are just too tired for snarky retorts and just fervently wish for a patient ear and a comforting shoulder. Almost all my comforting shoulders live a separate life these days. There are a couple in the US. One in Hyderabad. And one in Delhi. There used to be a few others too. But sometimes one cold shoulder leads to many others and slowly empty places creep in where conversations used to be. There are very few people I instinctively think of, when I suddenly have the urge to bawl my eyes out in the middle of a busy working day.

This hasn't been a very coherent post. But then, I am not a very coherent sort of person.

Calling?

I spent 4 hours in the editing room today. And when everything was done, the rush of adrenaline was just.Too.Much.

I wouldn't mind doing this for the rest of my life. Really.

The question, however, is how.

Probably fiction.

I kept staring at the fingers. Long graceful fingers. Pretty fingers. A little bended at the top. In the light. Across the light. In the shadows. Expressing, resting, just being plain nervous.
Good hands. Nice hands.

I have stubby ugly fingers myself. And I am a sucker for pretty hands. I kept staring at them, and I think I fell in infatuation. A little.

Because it is hard work being a democracy.

In my constituency, I had a choice between

a. A communal and misogynist party.
b. A corrupt and complacent party.
c. A stupid and 'subidhebadi' party.
d. Certain non-entities.

It was not an easy choice to make. But I did vote.

Dhin chak.

Pnochishe Boishakh.

Rabindrasangeet always reminds me of drowsy school mornings when we would belt out incredible lyrics without a clue as to their actual meanings.

Considering the circus that has been the last 4 years, these memories are always, always rather special.:)

Jonmodin, etc.

One of these days, I will invent a time machine, go back in time and marry this man. Until then, I will fantasize.

I deleted the last post because it was too repetitive.
I am sick of the same old, same old.
Fuckitall.