quiet now

weather in cambridge


it was sunny outside
a bright day, enfin
i thought
and then it rained
even as the sun shone
outside, appearances
deceptive, these thoughts
i was thinking
and lo! there was snow
there it was, snowing
sitting in the warmth
of my room, i felt
like the woman inside
the glass bubble, only
the snow flakes were
falling outside
and then the light went out
and darkness reigned
as i tossed and turned
all night, it is
quiet now


le temps à cambridge, on ne sait jamais ce qui va se passer, c'est pire qu'à paris...ou peut-être pas, je viens de parler à mon père qui est en ce moment à paris, et il me dit qu'il neige là-bas, comme ici, en ce moment.

Pasta for PhD

Pasta for brunch
Pasta post-lunch
Pasta for dinner
Yes, Pasta Queen
They call me
That's right

Pasta with pesto sauce
Pasta with sambar mix
Oh, Pasta, the quick fix
Pasta Queen
They call me
Yeah, that's right

Pasta to break the monotony
Of working on my PhD
Pasta to put me
Out of my daily misery
Pasta to celebrate the luxury
Of living in Cambridge City

Pasta Queen

They call me

That's right

Just in time for supper

For another plate of Pasta

Won't you join me?

this post on pasta is for all those who are forever chiding me, nagging me, laughing at me, and joining me every now and then for eating plate after plate of pasta, day after day after day.

as you may have guessed, i have been cooped up in my room all day, trying to work, and am thoroughly bored now, without a better diversion than to write this post. well, the other option is to go and check out the party downstairs dressed as tart/vicar. how terribly exciting, not! anyway, i'd better go check on the pasta before it gets burnt again ;)

To sleep, to die, to sleep

I'm not too sure what's going on in the outside world anymore. Might be better off that way. Reading the news seems to prevent you from really finding out what's happening in the world, rather than giving any information. So I'm giving up the hope to responding to Radhika's last piece, and will simply narrate my Prospero's existence here in Duino.

This school is the tiniest microcosm. I spent the weekend running things for students, skiing with them, talking with them, eating with them, playing basketball with them, and finally, on Monday teaching them. We went off to a ski resort nearby, in Zoncolan, next to the Austrian border, and spent the day on the slopes. Skiing is usually quite a bourgeois activity, only for rich white middle class people. Our students don't have to pay anything, because the school gets them out for dirt cheap rates, and has its own ski gear. I suppose it's pretty bourgeois all the same, but there are students who can hardly afford a coffee in a local bar, who get to go and experience the mountain.

Being around students all the time is a strage experience. It means that I don't have a teacher-student relationship with them, so much as a sort of family link. When I go home, they are in the next room preparing food or studying. When I go off for my weekend, it's with students. It's exhausting in some ways, because it means keeping up a certain persona all the time. But it's fantastic as well. They're so full of energy, bright ideas and hopes that they really make every day different from the last.

I was talking with one of my English students who lives in my residence, about whether or not I would be here next year. It was very hard to explain why I am looking at alternatives, because it sounds like mere opportunism. It really choked me, to try to explain why I need to find work somewhere where I can have a life outside my school, without sounding as if I was slandering this place. But at the same time, it was very healing to go through that explanation with her. It helped me straighten out my ideas in my own mind.

I had better get going. Got a lesson to teach my second years before sending them off for their trial exams tomorrow morning.

D

reality check

America’s nightmare
Arab dream
Reporting live
Brutal facts
Human warfare
Outfoxing America
Over-rating nationalism
Ben Laden’s mouthpiece
Rumsfeld’s wrecker of peace
Playing with images
While some others play with lives
Distorting information
While others create misinformation
Spreading rumors
While others spread democracy
Threat to America
Pride of Arabia
Welcome to Al-Jazeera
…You’ve got two minutes
And your time starts now…
Democratize or we’ll nuke you
Liberalize or we’ll dupe you
Polarize is what we do
Wars are what we deal in
Everyday affair
Propaganda is real
Rest all is unfair
Marketing democracy
Brokering peace
As long as you’re with us
You can’t afford to be against us
Welcome to America Inc.
…You’ve got two minutes
And your time starts now…
Granted objectivity is relative
But let’s maintain its semblance
True, no war’s without media
But professionalism lets not reject
Agreed rationality is over-rated
But let’s not surrender freedom
Accepted America rules the world
But whoever said we should
Let ourselves be ambushed
Forget the nightmare
Give up the dream
Welcome to Reality
…Life is too short
And we want to live.


i have just returned from having watched the documentary, ‘Control Room’, which looks at the role of the news channel Al-Jazeera in providing an alternative version of the ‘truth’ in the Iraq war. so i'm just putting down thoughts still spinning in my head. i think it's a very very interesting documentary. it not only shows the biases and games played by Bush's government but also the colored reporting of Al-Jazeera itself, in the interviews with its reporters.

this documentary coupled with another controversial documentary "Outfoxed", which examines the truth behind Fox News's claim to be a "fair and balanced"news provider, advancing a compelling account of how Fox leverages its immense size and coverage to engineer public discourse, opinion and what we consider to be news - are brilliant material for looking into politics of media, power, and human lives. well, they worked for me. any thoughts on this, david?

the last word

art for art's sake
some call it avant-garde
some others, sur-real
words for words' sake?
not quite
words, these words
with meanings imbued
apparent, masked
some words
make poetry
others make prose
some words rhyme
some others don't
some words argue
others win the argument
words, these words
i use here
to share the joy
of someone else
having the last word


right. i must be off now. have a date with Al-jazeera. the Politics Society at my college is screening a documentary on the news channel. and i can't afford to miss it!

Woodstuck?

This evening the students were celebrating a Woodstock revival event. There are some fantastic musicians, and they were really rocking it tonight. Somehow AC-DC slipped into the whole Woodstock scene unnoticed (probably the only thing they ever did unnoticed), but it was pretty impressive on the whole.

Our kids here are just ridiculously talented. They are able to put together these shows, where they can perform quality stuff, not your average teenage skit, without even flinching in their work. For the UWCites reading this, you're probably all chuffed and proud now that somebody is finally recognising your hard work. I think it's scary that 17 year olds can handle everything they do here, and not collapse from day to day.

I certainly wasn't as confident as they are when I was 17. Not nearly as confident. I was busy trying to gel my hair properly and find clever things to write on notes to girls in the classroom. Not that it ever got me anywhere, but all that has changed now, of course. I'm an uncontrollable ladies' man. Sitting here in my computer room at 11.00pm writing a blog that 3 people and a computer actually bother to read.

-------

I've only got a few more months here in this school, to work out the meaning of life the universe and everything, and pay off my student loan while I'm at it. Writing random thoughts on a blog journal can help sometimes. And reading. Now that I'm imprisoned in an underground apartment which I'm not allowed to leave on weekends, I actually do some reading. Pretty exceptional for somebody who raves on about literature this and how magnificent the waves are in the glorious sunshine. Reading might help to give the old metaphorical motor a bit of a kickstart. So perhaps I should get to it rather than writing blogs.

Honestly...

My lessons have been lacking in spice and originality (i.e. a bit boring) recently. Has anyone got any ideas that will wake up the classes a little? I teach Theory of Knowledge, so anything to do with consciousness, perception, rational thinking, emotion, or preferably something that hits all of the above, would be much appreciated. And as I say, if you can solve the problems of life the universe and everything, plus chip in a few euros to my student loan, that would be appreciated too.

Better get some rest. A long day of being inspired by brilliant students ahead.

D

PS: Wow! We've been quoted in a major Indian newspaper! I'd better watch what I say from now on. Not that there's anything Sonya Ghandi wouldn't approve of in this blog. Is there, Sonya? I've just edited the settings so you can post your messages, so please let me know what the Indian government makes of my writing, when you get a free mo'

teething trouble?

NEW BORN BLOG IN THROES OF IDENTITY CRISIS

- Blogfinder

New Delhi, 9th February. Two week old blog found on blogger.com, in cyberspace, somewhere above United Kingdom and Italy.

Floating thoughts, shuttling between a mad philosopher and a madder feminist. Alternatively, between an E.Lit Teacher and a PhD Student. "Born with a slightly lost expression on its face", said next door neighbour.

Doctors pronounced blog healthy at birth. "Can do with gaining some color, hearing some laughter. Talk to it," they added.

First time parents seeking second opinion.

(article from Times of India supplement, cyberpolitics section)

Impressions of a Wandering Hind

My father found my writing "down in the mouth and depressing", which is
typical of his subtle, diplomatic manner. But he's right really. I am a
bit melancholy in this blog.

Things aren't as bad I might make them out in this blog. Cynical as I am, the
world is a fairly peaceful place. I mean, besides the natural catastrophes,
wars across the planet, increasing disparities in income, poverty on the
brink of disaster, and AIDS taking over Africa and China, things are going
pretty well for the human race.

Wilde said that art was useless. I wouldn't like to call my writing artistic,
but I think it's useless, which is a good start. Just like playing games, or
listening to your favourite piece of music is useless. When the seagulls
swoop around the cliffs here, chasing each other about and catching the
upward spirals of sea breeze to send them shooting up into the clouds,
there's absolutely no gain to be found. Perhaps it's when we start focusing
on what's useful that we can take at look at what is essential.

I see text as a space where the writer can play around for a while, and the
reader can breathe. Both stop doing useful things, and look at each other.
This blog can't be anything much more than that, but if it can achieve that, it's
already doing a fairly important job. While Radhika picks up on the thoughts
which have been buzzing about her mind in the last few weeks, I have been
obsessing about the sea. I'm hoping that you can wander along with us as
we do what Yeats describes Aengus doing in this poem. Perhaps Aengus
is a reader, getting lost in literature. Perhaps he's a writer like the characters
of Paul Auster's novels, who sinks deeper and deeper into self-sufficiency
and self-importance as he writes.

I've certainly found some golden apples in my wanderings through poetry,
novels, plays and students' essays this year. Would anyone care to share
them?

D

--------------------

THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS

by: W.B. Yeats

WENT out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;




And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.




When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.




Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

The sea, the sea, see?

I'm most of the way through "The Village by the Sea" by Anita Desai, and am finding all sorts of thoughts mingling and brewing, about fiction again. This post will probably take on the pretentious tone my writing adopts when I start talking about literature again, so I guess you'll have to put up with it.

The village in Desai's novel is undergoing a huge social change, with the arrival of 20th century modes of production. The villagers laugh at the idea that fertilizer (which they think of as manure) needs to be produced in a factory, and that anybody would want to set up such a factory in the middle of their oasis of forest and ocean. But of course, the tide changes.

The monsoon arrives at the critical point in the novel when these changes are coming into place and the village is to be changed beyond any hope of return. The descriptions of the palms, the beaches, the vulnerable little huts which families crowd and huddle into, in a pathetic effort to shelter themselves from the elements, convey the revolution in India's social framework. The main character, Hari, is discovering the grimy, bustling world of a capital city while his sisters witness the combined storm of the monsoon and the industrial revolution in their haven of coconuts and fish. Social change, individuals reckoning with their own identities and needs... the whole novel is constructed on a beautiful yet harshly realistic canvas of allegories, metaphors and descriptions of the simple, fragile beauty of rural livelihood.

This is how fiction meets reality. I think Desai hits the two birds with a powerful lyrical stone, sculpting a piece of fiction (which is fundamentally imaginary, aesthetic) into a tool for us to dig into social realities (which are empirical, pragmatic). The Village by the Sea becomes a symbol for what the novel does best: uses the unreal to help us better understand reality.

I've been struggling during this blog to come to grips with the paradoxes of writing, and give some sort of vantage point to my own queries about writing. Why we do it, why we read it, and why it matters after all, when one third of the world is busy trying to feed itself from one day to the next. But none of this is worthwhile if nobody reads these reflections.

Please donate to the Giving-David-the-illusion-his-ponderings-matter fund now by replying to one of my posts.

Yours,

D

taking note

kahatey hain
ek teer sey do nishaan
lekin yahaan to
do-do, teen-teen, chaar-chaar
ho rahey hain vaar

suna tha
chhota moonh, baddi baat
lekin yahaan to
kissa hai dimaag ka
deewaron ka, daraaron ka

bahatey hain
khayaalon ke pravaah mein hum
lekin karna tumsey hai
jhaank kar dekho apney andar
kaun kahaan khadda hai


for want of a better translation:

killing two birds with one shot
they say
but here
two, three, four
the attacks number

small mouth, big talk
one had heard
but here
the story's of the mind
of walls and of cracks

in the current of thoughts
we/i flow
but you steer
look inside your self and see
who is standing where

hmm. i must turn in now. its already morning. i have to wake up early.

Notes from a small mind

This blog is a bit of a mess, but it's alreadly full of pretty interesting stuff. Radhika's been sticking to the poetry so far (I like emphasising her writing, by adding an article before poetry. Not any poetry. Hers is the poetry), and leaving the dirty work to me. Each person in his/her place...

I've taken to reading Anita Desai, after picking up a wrinkly old copy of a novel in the English department. Her prose is so simple and restrained, but yet loaded with symbolism and charged with a narrative energy. A sort of anger boiling beneath a froth of pleasant prose.

The politics poem brought home how cynical I am about politics lately. I have reached a stage where I don't even really read the news much anymore. It takes a huge effort for me to pick up a paper, when I used to do it most days last year. I guess it's so easy to tower yourself away in a school like mine, and have nothing to do with the dirty world of politics. A prison of ivory.

I have been going for walks by the sea as much as possible. Watching the lapping of miniature waves against mossy rocks, and trying to seize what happens when the sun reflects off moving water. I don't believe for a minute that we would be able to build a model of light refraction off waves, using our modern understanding of physics. Not in the sort of detail that you see when you watch the sea. There are far too many variables to be able to model it with any decent accuracy.

Not that this is a big deal for most people, but I think it says a lot about how limited our scientific capabilities are. If we are still unable to sound out the complexities of a neural network, then we are still at a point where the most simple operation of a brain is incomprehensible to us. And brains are things we have been trying to understand for a long time; putting much more effort into investigating them than we have into light refraction off the waves of the sea, for instance.

But then which is more important? OK, we need information on artificial intelligence more than we do knowledge about how pretty the scenery is in Duino's port. But then again, isn't aesthetics a core part of physics? Weren't the best physicists concerned with how harmonious and elegant the world is as it unfolds before them? I think that a real scientist needs to be an aesthete.

I am neither, of course. Because I am a mere English teacher, it is the symbolism of waves which interests me more than their reality. Seeing the individuality of each wave as it travels, both unified with the other waves and separated from them. Waves are a fabulous way of understanding people. If we are seas, then each of our separate identities is a wave. Our selves move, shift, break, and reappear elsewhere as we renew and redefine who we are. Like in Woolf's novel, I think it's naive to assume we are always one identity. We actually become mentally unbalanced when we limit ourselves that way. Schizophrenia, multiple personalities are integral to each one of us. I behave differently as a brother than I do as a teacher, and so every day a wave breaks and another is created.

As I meander my way down to the port each day, I wonder where I could sail to if I had a boat. I wonder how long I could survive if I hopped on one of the ones marooned at the dock, and made my way towards Croatia. Perhaps I'd find something mind altering on the way.

You see, Radhika? It's this sort of time-wasting rubbish you end up with when you study literature. Like the mothers in your poem would say, stay with the practical stuff. Study law or medicine and do something useful for the world. For God's sake at least make a little money, rather than sitting in front of a computer on your Friday nights rambling rubbish about light, waves and boats, na?

D

Tea-time Conversations with the Misses of Dakshin Dilli Colony

My son can recite the tables,
Says proudly Mrs. Chaddha
Bittoo, her 4 year old
Gearing up to enter the mad world
Of blackboards and uniforms
Of Monday morning toothaches

Arrey only public school education
For my daughter, Chinnu
Says Mrs Iyengar
Chinnu, her 3 ½ year old
Mugging up shlokas to impress
The Missus at pre-school

Oh ho my son also ney
Always playing cricket
Good for nothing
Already in class five
Doctor kehvi rite banshey
Drones Mrs Modi

My daughter, varryy diligent
Ghaar mein haath bhi bata leti hai
And even comes first in school
No pressure on her, you see
But one day…she will go away
Sighs Mrs. Chona

Flunking in Maths
And this is just the tenth boards
So much tension for us, parents, you see
Spend so much money on school
On tuitions, on donations
No use, Tublu won’t be engineer
Mutters Mrs Banerjee

Chhi chhi chii
Shame on them, shame on the school
We will never be able to show our face in the biraadari
I am embarrassed to even say it
They were caught having you know what
Those two, after school, in the classroom
Whispers Mrs Rana

No no my children would nevvver do that
You know my son is going to Harvard
Businessman banega
And my daughter
Meethu has got through Law School
Yes yes, the one in Bangalore
Harps Mrs Shetty

You never know
Mine went to Minnessota
And came back with a gora
All this foreign education
What about our culture, our values
Quips Mrs Siddiqui

Toto is in Columbia
Doing his PhD, you know
Says he’ll do post-doctorate also
How much will he study, I say
We are getting old now
Chimes Mrs Pinto

And what about you
Ask Mrs Chadda, Rana and Modi
When is the baby due
Add Mrs Shetty, Siddiqui and Pinto
So much to think about, plan ahead…
Anjana kicks, tosses and turns
Inside me


possible translations from Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati:

Dakshin Dilli Colony: South Delhi Colony
Shlokas: Vedic chants in Sanskrit
Doctor kehvi ritey banshey: how will he become a doctor
Ghaar mein haath bhi bataati hai: gives a hand in house-work as well
Biraadari: community
Businessman banega: he will become a businessman
Gora: white male (derogatory/slang)


Yes, it sounds stereotypical, clichéd. But whoever said there wasn’t even an inch of truth/ reality in clichés! Yes, it depicts a very small minority. Upper-middle class housewives (or homemakers, if you so prefer) living in an urban cosmopolitan milieu. Or should I qualify that by saying Dakshin Dilli Colony, an archetype of South Delhi style of living, educating, aspiring. I attempt to, in no way, belittle the concerns, aspirations, convictions of these women, for their children, and the education of their children. I only present them here as being part of a reality I have known. Yes, I also have a share in it, and surely my biases, my fears, my markers of identity color my thoughts.

politics of perception/ politics of deception

Many faces, one name


Ah, so now we must sully
our hands
at the dirty
game of politics
Alright if we must
May the match begin

Politics
the scoundrel’s last resort, they all say
So must one first be a scoundrel
to qualify
for play?

Politics
is everywhere, say the feminists
Then where do we begin
if we’re talking
fair play?

Scoundrel
Everywhere
Is this really about politics
or empty poetics?

Perhaps
some specifics
are in order
Rules, some would say
definitions, would say others

Where
million voices
poor, hungry, thirsty
beyond propaganda
manipulative agenda
go one way

When
thousand feet
march, run, rush
holding banners
against war, hunger and pain
speak as if one

How
free speech
elections
media
left, rights and wrongs
add up

Which
sometimes work
sometimes don’t
Oh yes, examples
or counter-examples, shall we say

BJP routed in India
Not much changed in America
Justice in Ukraine
Fight still on in Chechnya
IMF, ADB, World Bank still going strong
Peoples’ movements still around

And that is why
I work on what I work
And I write what I do
Voicing, critiquing
Opinions, interpretations
Here

That
Is
Also
Democracy

May the vote begin!

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