Proof that time really flies when you're not noticing... 1 year and 2 months since my last post! Have to confess that there wasn't much to say... I was distressed to realise the stillness of my life and the disappearance of my supposed writing skills. The urge just came back today in the form of a thought that I want to throw into the oblivion of a server somewhere in the world... some days I'm terrified of going to bed... today is one of those days... too many BIG, life-changing things are queuing up at my door and I don't know which one will let itself in when I eventually will have to open the door... but nonetheless it feels good to type again... (deleted a bit of uncomfortable truth here!)

A dear friend lost his father day-before Watching him break down I am devastated

It's shocking to realise that I didn't blog the whole of November! Ironically, my last three posts had been on consecutive days in September and at that time I had felt that I was getting the hang of this thing called work-life balance - famous last words! Well firstly after returning home after 13 months away, I was justifiably lazing around and basking in the familiarity and warmth of the Delhi winter, the attention of my parents and also my man-friday... so days passed in semi-slumber. Then my internship began and the realisation dawned that if I had any plans to apply for a PhD I'd better do it NOW! So basically the past 2 weeks have been 24x7 work-work-work! I suppose it's good that my special someone has been extremely busy with CAT, MAT and BAT - she's also getting FAT! Naheen! ;) But definitely, it's good to be blogging again. Of course I don't know why I do it; reading some blogs I feel overwhelmed at the standards one can reach. I guess one has to have clarity in life to write like that... and in my turbulent 20s, clarity is one thing that exists only rarely...

After the frenzied activity of the last week, life has slowed down - or at least I haven't noticed anything interesting lately. It's basically been books, meeting professors and sorting out the administrative hassles that are a bugbear to the smooth rhythm of an everyday existence. But there isn't much to complain about, life is definitely okay - why wouldn't it be, especially after an excellent doner kebab today... yum!

In this age of political correctness, the 'correct' way to 'address' less-than-perfect issues and situations including the capabilities of people is changing day by day. Read an article in The Hindu today about the problems faced by a disabled airline passenger. Definitely an important article with an issue worth highlighting but what struck me was that she was described as 'a differently-abled person' - now when did THAT one come along? It's so difficult to keep track! In the movie 'Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle' (do watch it, hilarious!), an actor playing an eminent academic wraps himself in knots trying to decide what is the correct way to refer to people who are not 'white'! He stumbles from 'coloured' to 'African American' (I thought that was the current term!) to 'people of colour' before giving up and shutting up! I am sure someday I'll end up accidentally offending someone just because I'm not up-to-date on the 'latest' way to refer to someone or something. While I think 'mentally challenged' is definitely a better description than 'retarded', sometimes this desire to santise goes to the extreme.
And the associated point is that if everything IS sanitised will people realise the actual pain and suffering and the enormity of the problem that people tagged with these 'pretty' labels face? The term 'structural adjustment', for example, so clinically hides the real pain and trouble people face when feeble, uncompetitive businesses shut down, when social services become unaffordable, and when people are totally wrenched from their existence with no alternatives in sight. All in the name of 'higher productivity' and an ideologically-driven, ahistorical belief that the market is the panacea to all ills and the only answer. Of course pure structural adjustment so devastated Africa that they had to re-invent it with great social security and gradualism, calling it 'structural adjustment with a human face'! Terminator is probably more human...

Saw Monsoon Wedding with a good friend for the Nth time last evening.

Great movie, it keeps getting better each time I see it. I suppose that's got to do with the fact that I discover something new, find a new nuance that keeps me hooked onto the movie.

I've been steadily falling in love with Tilottoma Shome (Alice) and yesterday was the culmination of the process - now it's a full-blown malaise! :-) Vijay Raaz's (PK Dubey) expressions when framed by candle light were marvellous.

And Shefali Shetty's eyes... brimming with fire!

There are some personal memories attached with Monsoon Wedding as well. I was first introduced to a picture of Parvin Dabas by a woman I was trying to woo; I didn't look like him and in the end she found someone who did. Bittersweet.

Monsoon Wedding is perhaps the only movie that I've seen with the director's commentary running! I highly recommend the experience, though it would perhaps be best if one first saw the movie as it is, then some day saw it again with Mira Nair's voice-overs, and then again another time just the movie - this time noticing all the things Mira talks about.

What is also surprising is that despite being Punjabi, Mira Nair and especially her nephew Ishaan look so very Malyali! In fact Ishaan even talks like that! National integration by accident ?! :-)

Is it better to pretend that you're lazy
Or confess that you really don't have a life

Lots of things have panned out reasonably decently over the past few days - some expected, some not so. For one my dissertation, in spite of much mental aggravation and hand-wriging, finally decided to call it a day and duly submitted itself yesterday afternoon. I just hope it doesn't get too high on pot before being checked by my professor, it'd better make some sense!

The other good thing was a surprise call by the Italian Embassy (after 5 ultra-persistent e-mails) asking me to get my ass and attached body parts to their visa section on the 2nd of September for an interview! Amazing, I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard that one but didn't for two reasons a) I was standing at the time, and b) I had just bought a ticket to Birmingham to visit a friend on his birthday on the 1st, returning on the 3rd. But well since the tickets cost only £4 return (yup, deal!) I said sc**w them and began preparing for the interview.


Well it happened today, and to put it briefly, I got the visa. The interesting bit was that everyone - from the front-office clerk who checked my application, to the woman in the basement office who finally issued the visa, all knew me, that I was expected, and that I was to be given a visa! Perhaps watching the Godfather trilogy over the past week helped? :)





PS: CRICKET! Australia play Pakistan, and India play England at Lords on the 4th and 5th respectively - and I'm watching both matches in the stadium, oh yeah! :)

My dissertation is slightly stuck.
So far I'm not panicking but I'm walking the edge. Pray that I don't fall off... just 15 more days to go, just 15 more days... yeah, it keeps me alive, this mantra.

I run in place,
still,
back to the womb of
my childhood.
Like the hapless fly
stuck in seductive strands of
a spider web, I am lodged
in the death-stare.
I weep in the silence
of my father’s dry eye-socket.

Copyright © 2000 Pam Patterson

The Italians are trying their hardest to ruin my happiness! The earliest visa appointment date is on the day I am supposed to fly! Can't understand why they can't recruit extra people to deal with the holiday rush. It's institutionalised discrimination all over again; basically their 'cash cows' i.e. the citizens of the EU and the other rich countries like USA, Japan, Brunei, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Singapore, South Korea etc DON'T need visas. So they can afford to give sucky service to citizens of the less privilleged 'third world'! I don't want to immigrate, I don't even want to see their architectural 'wonders', all I want is to see my father who is going to be in Italy then! There is an emergency number 'for cases of proven extreme urgency' - basically I'll have to kiss some frigid semi-educated Brit/Italian's ass and grovel... I think I should stop before I write something I regret... DAMN!
I'm glad the Italians are losing in every football tournament they play, I hope they suck at the Olympics as well! 20% of the economy owned by the Mafia, 59 governments since 1945 and a tin-pot dictator before that, what do you expect? Well the current PM, who effectively owns the entire Italian media, has serious corruption and criminal charges against him, gets his pet Parliament to pass a bill decriminalising false accounting... this during the Enron-style collapse of food giant Palmarat! Incredible! Heck forget the big stuff, even their official tourism websites are full of dead links and their train timetable website is buggy as well! Am I surprised that they can't process visas quickly?! That they are literate and a few stages above the Neanderthal is perhaps the greatest proof of the evidence of God!

PS: Did I just insult the Neanderthals? Apologies to their souls if I did!
PPS: The picture below - India? Nope, Naples (Italy)...