Forgot

my password today.. that shows how much I have been ignoring this writing space. Also shows how damn busy I have been.

I can’t remember very well the last hol I enjoyed. Thoroughly. I guess it must be Goa in mid-March. I loved Goa irrespective of my disliking the fact that we didn’t see much there. I guess its the effect of being in water. Body-sailing with the tides. Its thrilling. Kashid beach is the best one I have been to so far. Including Andamans. Nevertheless, you cross 25 and you start caring for your life. And so, I prefer those beaches where I see a life-gaurd hanging around. Even though he might not have equipment or facilities to be able to save me if I am in a real danger! I just like the thought that the chances that I drown and die reduce at least a bit.

Yeah, thinking of water brings back the peace. I can’t even seem to remember the mountains. It’s almost like 6 months since I went up to a decent height. I can’t imagine why I do this with myself. I blame Mumbai and late-coming (read No-coming) of monsoons! Every week I dream of going up lush green Shayadris, while getting soaked up in water falls.. and it never happens.

I feel like Aamir Khan in DCH after Shalini lefts him. Its as if the whole world is passing by and I am standing in a corner watching it. I know I am thinking all off-track and if I start thinking morbidly it’s not gonna end. But sometimes you need just a small pause. The music sounds like cacophony right now. My friend who is married with a kid and is usually miserable that she is not working or earning for herself, independent, or in a nutshell would love to exchange her life with mine, usually hears similar woes from me! I feel like I have no time for myself. Much like what she says. I am too tired to do anything at the end of the day. And too lonely to do anything alone anyways! This week I just watched TV for like 4 hours after returning from office. Its just the life which I thought I would never lead. I hate TV. I hate the idea that I just work the whole day and and then spend the remaining time de-stressing myself.  I don’t seem to be able to break this barrier. There is so much to do but either I am v bad at managing energy levels and time or I am not able to break the problem in sub-problems correctly.

Any suggestions?

Surbhi

She died few years back. I don’t keep track of time passed in this while. Had always told myself she is still alive. Only I have lost touch with her. Like with many other ….

But these days whenever I feel lonely, her face comes to my mind. I don’t know why. And it forces me to accept the fact that she has ceased to live. Though I still can’t say that she is dead. She is very much alive in my mind. Nevertheless, I know Surbhi is not there any more – she is not studying nor working, she doesnt have a boyfriend or a husband, she is not ill or well, she is not going to grow old, she doesnt have any remorses nor any memories.. she is herself a memory… 

I miss her a lot. 

She was one of my best friends. An amazing person. Full of energy, curiosity, enthusiasm and love. 

She threw the best party ever thrown for me.

We talked for hours the days we spent together trying to study for competitive exams! I found out so many things about myself while talking to her. She was the first one to ask me sincerely about my dreams. What I wanted to do in life. Sounds very trivial now when it has become a cliched topic. But in teenage, it means a lot to dream.

I just wish I could meet her once again. Just once more to bid good bye.

Wish you a very Happy Holi!

Happy Holi to colour our lives, our dreams and to colour each other with hopes and joys! 

This year I sent sms to all my friends and family saying Happy Holi. And I wished the rest over phone. I usually don’t send such wishes. I usually don’t even call people. But lately life has taught me to keep in touch with friends and relatives. Its not enough to simply feel connected to other person, it is important to show it as well! 

Of course there is usually a set of people in your life who would love you even if you go and murder someone. I am not refering to them. I am talking to about those with whom you can spend your weekend once in a while or pass time with. You don’t appreciate how important they are for you. I have learnt in Mumbai local trains people have made friends to chat with while commuting and who have remained friends forever. There are too many faces of friendship to quantify or to attach a label to them. The idea is to keep the relationship alive by just a hello or a wish. And I am glad I m doing it now!

A note of thanks

I am at the last step of my formal education. It has been quite difficult, challenging, interesting, boring, frustrating period! I have had my highs and lows. But overall I can say I wouldn’t have developed the meta cognition skills so well had I not got into this programme. And my life time (? hehe) search on finding what I really like to do is finally paying off. Whether it might be the art of developing different meta-thinking skills in a child as he progresses in school or whether it might be to understand my own thought processes as I think and speak or the art of analysing any study in the development area particulary in education written by an ordinary school teacher or a hugely funded World bank report, I have gained a lot.  Within first 3-4 pages of any report I can now judge what might have happened and what all is projected. That is thanks to the zeal to travel and explore. And having a company, however tiny, of like minded enthusiastic people! 

It has been a total luck-chance loaded series of events which has placed me at this position. And I couldn’t be more thankful to the workings of universe for this opportunity. I feel its quite some luck to feel empowered and ready for any challenge when you pass out of an education institution. 

Highlighted senses

I m forcing myself to type something right now. So many posts have already been blown away by the fast wind that crashes on my window sill as the bus runs across the city.  I just want to write something which is not a term paper or an assignment or a draft report or a mail or an elementary math question! 

The consciously least used sense is perhaps that of smell. Or touch. For most of us. Who do not live in Mumbai. Or who mostly/only travel in taxi in Mumbai. For the remaining set, touch and smell are just as often used as any other senses. Thats true. The touch and smell senses used or mis-used while commuting for mere 3 hours of the day are enough to last the entire day. 

First 10 days in Mumbai, I started recognizing the different stinks at different locations which my bus would cross at different time intervals. For instance at 6:30 I would reach Vashi Creek which would smell of dirty stagnant water. At 6:40 I would reach Mankrund which would stink of different kind of chemicals. At 8:30 in morning I would reach another place, I don’t know name of which, that would stink of human shit. Like this the places-times and smells are inter related. (Of course, only on the days I catch the bus on time – which is a subset of – only on the days when the bus comes on time!)

Next few days I started smelling people. Of course, I am living in a coastal area, so people would smell of fish. But, there are other kinds of smells as well. Fart. Which distinguishes according to what the person might have had in dinner last day. Perspiration. You live in Mumbai in April and May and you would smell the same. Or else you would smell of some deodorant. You would definitely not smell like you. Alcohol. Who gets drunk at 9 am in morning??!! Oh I m such a naive! This guy is drunk from last night! Like wasted IITians! 

Touch. This is especially an irony in my life because its not even 2 months since I have returned from the US. Where you can’t touch a child as an expression of love or care unless it is a culturally appropriate touch. Now, when I sit on an aisle seat on the bus there are penises touching my shoulder most of the time. The bus is designed in such a way that the crouch area of a  human body of average height would reach the seat. Of course the bus is crowded and over-crowded. There is no space to stand. So what do you say to the guy whose crouch is touching/rubbing your shoulder? As I learnt, you move as much as possible so that you are not touched. Though this is not always possible. Now if crouch area is right in front of you, so would be the butt area as well. Its not much pleasant either. When you are standing you squeeze through two people. So basically now my personal circle of space has reduced to 3 cms radius. Living in the most densely populated city in the world and if this doesn’t happen to you – its a waste. Its like you go to Korea and never taste a snake! 

I miss ya…

 

The happiest child in the world I have ever known

Things I wanna do before I turn 30

This time I didn’t make any new year resolutions or celebrations. But circumstances pushed me to dream harder. To make bigger plans. I don’t see much gay or fun in recent present so making long term plans. Less than five years are left before I turn 30, and there are few things I wanna do/have before the end of the golden years of youth!

- Make out at the top of a mountain, outside in rain and on a beach

- Have a honeymoon in Kashmir, and one in Austria; before that:

- Get Married

- Cook a proper 4 course delicious sumptous authentic Italian dinner 

- Get at least one article (or in worst case: a letter) published in good newspaper (not TOI, HT)

- Paint a wall of my house with graffiti; before that:

- Have a home where I live for at least 2 years at a stretch

- Be able to swim 1 km without stopping for breath or rest.

- Laugh as much as I laughed in last 25 years. Which means everyday I would have to laugh five times more. (sounds cheesy I know!)

- Get into a settled career path (for next 20-25 yrs)

- Own a beautiful evening gown. Wear it at least once.

- Own at least 4 comfortable beautiful pieces of footwear to go with my entire wardrobe.

- Go to some place new with my parents for a family vacation.

- Go on at least 5 one week long treks. One in each year. Hopefully one in Alpine ranges.

Thats all. While writing I couldn’t help thinking of Bucket List (or Dasvidaniya for hindi people). I guess I can’t help living life at the rim. But listing out all these tasks did fill me with lot of enthusiasm which is lacking in life these days.

Class Notes

In a course we were asked to submit a write up describing a symbol important to one. I have no energy right now to explain the detail the word “symbol here”. But I wanted to post this write up on blog and I have linked a bit with theory which might give some clue to the profound meaning of “symbol”. I have written it in a rush as there is just too much to do these days with too little time, and also this wasn’t a graded assignment. So ignore the bad sentence formations at places. Ofcourse, there is a lot to write in this regard. This is perhaps the phase I of 2-3 phases (experienced so far).

“A symbol that is important to me.”

The only subject I recall being taught seriously to me as a child by my parents and elder siblings was Mathematics. Science came in much later and in a different context. Math for me represented “important” stuff in school. This was conveyed to me through different expressions. My interpretation from early childhood experiences was that I do one good (that is doing well in math) I can do all the rest bad (all my mistakes would be forgiven). This was a very convenient solution and negotiation with adult world. In all the classes I would do poorly in every subject while topping in math and at home they would still pat my back!

After primary classes, internal dialogues started playing another role. Math was no more limited as only a ticket to escape from punishment. I would help classmates to solve problems and re-live the experience of being the first one to give the answer which was never wrong. This process of “going back over experience, a way of working upon our representation of events” (Britton 1971) now attached a new meaning to the old symbol. Math was the power to win respect. Everyone around me believed me to be some sort of genius, while only I knew the reality. My parents wished me to be a genius. And so did I. The culture in middle class families is so that there is strong symbol attached to the words like “intelligence” and “genius”. They have shared meanings in the culture. For instance in my case, attaching these words to my personality when I was able to perform in school math better than others was a phenomenon which Edward Sapir describes as: “language is primarily a vocal actualization of the tendency to see realities symbolically”. The fact that one person can solve problem faster and more accurately than other was symbolized by such terms.

Yet, difference in personal experiences result in difference of how an individual symbolizes these terms for themselves. For instance I was always aware of the time when someone called me intelligent that I had to prove it to myself that I was really one and of the distinction between me and those who are not called “intelligent”. This was language created a model of the world in my mind in which there was a distinction between those who are called “intelligent” and those who are not; and in which group does one exist.

In order to justify the term “intelligent” I would do more Math (including topics outside syllabus). I would actually tell myself “I love Math”. This reinforced the idea that I deserved to be called intelligent, since I loved Math more than others. Math was the symbol that I was different from others in terms of being superior. It was the symbol of a secret that I had to keep close to myself to keep the status quo alive. It was the symbol of the struggle to prove to myself that I deserved to be superior.

Musings

Coz I have nothing really to write right now. Its a Murphy-Anu’s law. When you are too busy to type it out there are entire posts, articles which you think and articulate in your mind. And when you sit down to write down something, the words seem to vanish away. I have First Language Pedagogy this sem. Instructor is an American. Which I mention because for the first time in a school I have heard a teacher singing a song in a class to get across a point. That too subtley. And she sings beautifully. She must be in her 70s or above. While listening to her sing all I could think was oh she must be amazing in her youth. Quite a catch for guys of her age. the course starts with a discussion on words. The pedagogic courses aree quite interesting. They make you question the taken-for-granted practices. Like why do you call something a table and other object chair. What are the attributes attached. Say when you sit on a table does it become a chair? Or when you sit on floor and use chair as table, does the chair become table? Or in math, why is 1/(3/4) = 4/3? Say this is the question a child asks you. How do you answer that? Or why do we borrow while subtrating? What does borrowing signify? Its all quite interesting. Or why the Right to Education Bill will not become a law?

I am not here for the sake of writing. My head is full of too many things right now. Its a state when one tries to detach herself from the present frame and gain another perspective. Like perspective of time. It plays a very important role in analysing the present. Its been so long since I have been on mountains. Suddenly I am missing them too much. I am unable to appreciate beauty as such. I only appreciate what it does to me. Like listening to a beautiful piece of music. Or reading poetic prose. ( I dont have a taste for poetry unfortunately) Or explaining the social patterns not easily identified but felt all the time. Or find a pattern in the names children coin for the unknown. But above all most beautiful are mountains. Because they are least effort and maximum results. Quite contradictory to the laws of nature. You just go and sit on the top of a hill and you suddenly gain a different perspective. Its like a magic trick. Everything piece of the puzzle falls into place. You don’t seek answers anymore. Nothing really matters. I do miss the time when I used to march into hills alone. Why do people change seriously…. 

I am too tired to have a cheerful outlook right now.

Top Shots

Be it top IMDB movie rating, Booker Prize for Literary Achievements, or Nobel prize for various disciplines, they all mean the same thing to me. More masala for timepass and information. I watched The Dark Knight after reading its 9.1 and was amazed by the movie. Its diffcult to express how fascinated I was by the movie. I have definitely not watched a better movie on the big screen before.

I read Kiran Desai/Arundhati Roy/Jhumpa Lahiri, bought a Naipaul, plan buying Istanbul by Pamuk – all after the the news of awards/prizes they won.

Now, I am reading all the articles of Paul Krugman one by one patiently trying to make sense of them, coz after all he won the Nobel for economics!

Wish someday I would be able to distinguish for myself the top shots and won’t have to wait in newspapers to find them out!