Life on the singular track-track being all work and no play

She woke up at night breathing hard. Trying not to come awake but even as made the last ditch effort to remain in the world of dreams she knew it was going to be no use. It was going to be one of those nights.

She got out of bed and made her way to the quiet balcony, the dead of the night broken only by the sounds of the grounds of dogs mating happily beneath her window like they did most nights. For a moments she stood there, transfixed, wondering her behavior would classify as perversion…she turned away, she who had gone by the norms of society and family forever, too tired and tied by habit, feeling too guilty of standing at the balcony because she knew her eyes would be drawn to the animals again.

She came back to her room, lit a fag and sat staring into nothingness. The events of the day wouldn’t leave her mind. Today…well it was yesterday now!!! Gosh another year older…hardly seemed likely that she was almost 24 now…TWENTY FOUR!!!

“Fuck man!!! I am old”, she said aloud mumbling to herself. She was a more or less ok professionally twenty four year old. She earned enough to keep herself in relative comfort. She was smart, visibly successful and cute even if she did say so herself. And yet…there was this gnawing emptiness, this god awful vacuum that no amount of work, partying, men or even family was being able to fill. Most of her school friends had married by now…some even had kids and yet she did not find in any of them the kind of fulfillment she knew in her heart she needed.

She hadn’t given in to the pressures of family gotten married. She remained convinced that she would get married not because it was ‘time’ but because one day she would fall so completely irrevocably in love with a person that she would feel the urge to be his forever. Till then she was quite happy to play the game of satisfaction and joy with men that suited her liking.

She knew the feeling she was looking for was the one she had when she was in college…her first love…it had been five years. And yet, she could remember his voice more clearly than she could remember the face of the last guy she had been with. She could feel his breath on her mouth the first time he had kissed her, the way she felt loved, cherished, worshipped in his arms, he loved her when she wasn’t even sure who she had been…a scared kid, eighteen years old and he had loved her and she him.

“Damn it” the cigarette finished and she realized she needed another one…how easily smoking became a habit…a crutch that she leaned on when she was stressed. Heaving a big sigh she told herself that she wouldn’t start feeling sorry for herself. She was a better person than that and yet…the feeling that there was something wrong wouldn’t go away. “Maybe I’m just missing a relationship…or maybe I do need to get married and settle down” she mused aloud.

Shaking herself out of her ministrations, she got up and went to the fridge, wondering about the dream. It had been coming back with some regularity these days. She was an intelligent girl; she knew that dream which woke her up and kept her awake wasn’t good news. She has psychoanalyzed herself a million times and was yet to reach a conclusion.

“I’m just getting too old man”, thus consoling herself, she went to bed, ready for yet another session of tossed and turning kinda sleep.

Beauty is truely skin deep..or is it???

This is a blog post that is pretty close to my heart…and has emanated from an animated three way discussion I had with two of my closest friends- Will call them A and S. The subject matter of our conversation was pretty stilted with both of them taking turns at shouting at me, disagreeing with me and then trying to make me understand a concept so alien to me that I am still having trouble grasping at the tentacles though I think I do get the spirit of what they tried their best to drill into me.

The argument was pretty simple- it was to do with the definition of beauty. I said, my sister cos she is thinner and fairer is pretty and I given the fact that I am not thin or fair am…well…not pretty. A disagreed. The concept of beauty is inside not the outside she said. Not in the preachy tone of “beauty is skin deep’ , but more like its all about how you carry yourself tone. Her belief is pretty simple. The way you look has more to do with your sense of self confidence, the way you carry yourself and a knowledge of your body and what looks good on you.

I still don’t think I agree cent per cent. I mean despite what she said, I know for fact that no matter how good I feel on a given day or how ugly a thin fair girl looks, she would still be fair and thin and I would still be fair and well… not thin. So the point is…our society, the Indian one, or maybe even the world over has certain definitions of beauty. Dark skin is not usually a barometer of that which is beautiful. Ok ok!!! I agree…there are examples like the numerous models in India that are totally dark, even darker than me and are still pretty. But they are thin right??? Im getting all muddled up in my though process, but all im trying to do here is figure out a simple thing. Is beauty about the way u feel…does self confidence reflect in the way of glowing skin? Do we look our prettiest when we are happy and confident and smiling??? Why is it then that all of these women who do not eat at all are still pretty? I mean u cannot possibly be happy on a perpetually empty stomach now can u??? And what about the ‘oh sooo old’ fair n lovely debate? The entire industry dedicated to making us look good cannot just be flying in the dark now can it? There has to be some substance to all of this abuse.

I have way too many questions as ever. But few answers that are most possibly all wrong. Of everything that I have heard about about beauty, the thing that I understand most is that if one is supremely and utterly confident of the person one is, looks and intellect, then no matter what the world (or for that matter mirror) says every morning, everything becomes irrelevant. The idea therefore is the pursuit of that place of utter security, and confidence where one would no longer need validation or approval from others in order to feel good about one self. The idea is to make oneself feel so good about one’s own self that there is no space for anyone else to make you feel inferior. The others including your mirror as well. The idea is to love yourself so fucking much that you would no longer need someone else’s love to feel happy, secure or complete. The idea is to be happy just cos u can. Difficult I know but is it impossible as well??? Im gonna try nonetheless.

The Clones

I’m back…a long hiatus that was…been verry busy. Ok so life is been weird. Pujo came and went, had some amazing moments in Pujo…few romantic ones in there as well actually. J The past month has been pretty happening otherwise as well. Another birthday came and went…a year older and hopefully a little bit wiser. One thing I really felt like doing this was a bitch slap to the world. What this means anyone…any relationship, any event that added extra stress to my already stressful existence is most welcome to leave. I want no jhamela…its just not worth it. The sooner we realize this, the better. Iv quit smoking but I wont lie the urge to sneak a lil one here and there is still pretty strong. As someone told me, the first cig can never be the last. Im only just beginning to understand this. Its tough but I will will quit J oooo and I got my nosey pierced AGAIN!!! It looks sooo cute and I look sooo pretty in it even if I do say so myself...hehehe…next stop tattoo destination!!!

Enough with the updates for those who don even care. I realized I like blogging cos it would allow me to be a narcissist without having to apologize for it. I can talk about myself and all of often random and sometimes weird thoughts without having to apologize for it. This is fun man. I mean I can talk like an expert and ppl wil just have to put up with me they just wouldn’t have a choice…hahhaa!!!

Ok ok! enough rambling about more or less nothing. Coming to the point of this blog, I thought I would write something the nature of conflict that our generation faces on a day to day basis and the problems that this would create for someone like me, a li’l bit of a convert to the so called ‘in crowd’ despite the fact that at heart I think I’m still a little bit of a geek even now.

As progressive as urban society claims itself to be there are still certain targets that each one is supposed to hit for them to be considered a person worthy of a second glance, a conversation or even respect. One would need to dress a certain way, speak in a certain manner, know some amount of English listen to the rock, hip hop, jazz and some other such music. The thinner u are the more sexy u wud be …the more you could throw attitude around the more people would want to be your friend. Despite these there would have to be a ceratin level of balancing, as in attitude which is fake is sooo not happening. Drinking is totally cool, smoking might not be as cool but it is atleast somewhere in the league… someone who smokes up is an intellectual. They are the ones who know the real meaning of life. Im not saying im any better. I feel a certain kind of respect for ppl who can balance the work hard party harder routine, cos frankly im still one of those who would like nothing better to sit at home with a book on a weekend and read and watch TV and just listen my sad music and write some sadder blog!!!

But then that makes me boring. I don’t know the meaning of a good life, the meaning of having fun. Im what people call a ghati… I could not help but wonder however, what about others like me. I mean I could not be the only who in this mad rush called life does not like a mad rush in the weekend or a day off. There must be others who would like to spend time with themselves, cook, clean and just be. And the weirdest thing of all is, if someone was to tell me this, if someone was to come to me and tell me that they spent the weekly off in seclusion, sleeping or doing their own instead of going out and having a ball I would judge the person as being a bore as well. So I am a victim of the same cultural divide that seems to be dividing us all.

We all want to be wanted, desired, look good and feel greater, but in this mad rush of capitalist pleasure are we leaving behind the very crux of capitalist thought-that of being an individual and respecting the individuality that makes each of us different from the others??? Are we becoming clones of one another, programmed to do the same things, members of a crowd, a multitude, programmed to laugh and sneer at the loser who is not part of the gang, feel sad if left out of party invites, like an absolute and total failure if we are not part of a couple but living life as a single in the so called city…I don’t really know how to make sense of all this…but one thing I do know is that it is becoming slowly tougher to distinguish girls one from the other at malls and bars and restaurants since they all dress, act and talk in the same manner. Science is far behind. We are doing the job of producing clones all on our own and doing it well it would seem…

I just wonder at the fruitlessness of it all…I just wonder…

Reservation...starting the debate

The following are the details for one of the cases that I came across while I was reading a book on the history of the American Evolution system. For now I will just post the case and will later try and draw some parallels with the Indian need for reservation and whether or not the judgment in the case actually provides a basis for dealing with the issue of reservation in the educational institutes of the country....many I know would disagree but its definetly worth a thought...The judgment in the case is entitled University of California Regents v. Bakke, 438 U.s. 265 (1978) and the details are as follows....

The Facts: The Medical School of University of California at Davis opened in 1968 with an entering class of fifty students, which included three Asian Americans but no African-Americans or native-Americans. Over the next two years, the faculty devised a special admissions program to increase the representation of the disadvantaged students in each class. In 1971, the size of the entering class was doubled and sixteen of the one hundred places were set aside for students admitted through the special admissions program. The requirements that a student had to fulfill in order to be selected for a program weren’t specified. The application form however did ask students to indicate whether they wished to be considered as ‘economically and/or educationally disadvantaged’.

Allan Bakke, a white male, applied for admission to the medical school in 1973 and then again in 1974 and was rejected in both years. Contending tat his grades and test scores were better than those of the average student admitted under the special admissions program, Bakke, sued the Regents of the University of California, claiming that the medical school admissions process had excluded him on the basis of race in violation of the California Constitution, the Equal protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights of 1964. The Civil Rights Act provides that no person shall be excluded from participating in any program receiving federal financial assistance on the ground of race or color.

The Issue: The issue in essence therefore was whether or Allan Bakke should be allowed admission in the medical school and whether or not the University had done something wrong by refusing admission to Bakke on the basis of the fact that it had reserved seats for others based on race.

The Decision: The Trial Court upheld Bakke’s claim on all three grounds and the California Supreme Court which took the case directly from the trail court, agreed that the medical school had acted in violation of the federal Constitution ordering that Bakke be admitted. The Courts’ decision consisted of six separate opinions, two of which were supported by four judges;. The swing vote was cast by Justice Powell and by a five to four majority, the Court ruled that state educational institutes could not set aside a specific number of slots for racial minorities for which only racial minorities could compete. Going in the opposite direction, the Court also ruled that even abent a finding of past discrimination, race may be given some consideration in the admissions process as part of the school’s exercise of the First Amendment. In other words the judgment concluded that race may be a factor but that it could not be the factor in the admissions criteria in state universities.

The Reasoning: The Bakke decision is best understood as two decisions (Hall and Patrick, 2006). One part of the court preferred to consider the statutory and not the constitutional basis of the issue while the second part of the court believed that the issue should be addressed as a constitutional matter and that it was possible to use race as a basis for helping groups that had suffered discrimination as long as there was an important public purpose in doing so. Race could be used as long a it did not put the weight of the government behind these policies that either stigmatized an individual and spread hatred and separation. Justice Powell, who cast the deciding vote stated that one the first question-whether the special admission program is invalid…there are five votes to affirm that the judgment invalidating the special program. Under this judgment, Justice Powell stated, Bakke should be admitted to the program. Powell wrote, “When classification denies an individual opportunities or benefits enjoyed by others solely because of his race or ethnic background, it must be regarded as suspect. These are serious problems of justice”, he continued, “connected with the idea of preference. Courts maybe asked to validate the burdens imposed upon individual members of a particular group in order to advance the group’s general interest. Nothing in the Constitutions supports the notion that individuals be asked to suffer otherwise impermissible burdens in order to enhance the social standing of ethnic groups”. in addressing the second issue, Powell said that some programs can legally take race into account which meant that race could be used as a basis upon which to rest state policy but such policies would be subject to the most intense review. Powell concluded that state’s goal of educational diversity was the only constitutionally permissible justification. Universities had the power to exercise affirmative freedom granted them under the First Amendment.

Fare thee Well...Miss Williams

Today was one of those days when u feel a lil bit tired and a lil bit sad and yet..theres all of this joy to compete with the feelings of sadness. Rambling again aren’t I…when will I learn…so getting to the point…today I wished farewell to one of my bestest office mates and I hope my frnd for life Margaret…the girl is stupid and weird and strange and yet we gelled…major 377 bonding happening some ppl thought…hehehe…dude only we knw the truth na…hahaa..ok enogh procrastinating. Margaret is one of those ppl u see on the road and the face although not beautiful would arrest many. No lesbian feelings dude but have nice skin and nice hair wic we were supposed to get cut for the past 3 months!!!

It just makes me think about the changes that life has in store for each one of us. Friends that we cant stop talking to one day we just completely forget just ten days later. Is that what life is…just keep moving, one relationship to another, one friendship to the next all in the vain hope of filling a vacuum, a vacuum so deep and dark at times it threatens to engulf the person in each of us…a lonliness so sad we wudnt know where to find companionship…desperate, frantic efforts to fill out lives with noise…conversation, laughter, music, sex., booze, smokes, anything…anything to drown out the scary vacuum, the lonely nights and the lonliness in the day…a life so filled with miseries and deadlines and backstabbing and lies and love and losses and career runs and trying to get right up there with the best…in the hope of pleasing someone…someone u love..someone u hope would love u..someone u can be urslf arnd…100% no questions asked… a bare caricature with ur faults and all ur insecurities…

Why am I talking bout such sadness…this is supposed to be a happy writing…in Mimi’s own words a tribute…to the time we spent together…doing god knws wat…the reason is pretty simple…Margaret and me were to each other the single losers who listened to all our crap about all that was wrong in our existence…she was my hope, my entertainment and my fun at work…no competition, no questions asked, I spent some amazing time wid her being horribly irresponsible…my attempts to convince her to lemme smoke and her attempts to keep me away are the true stuff of legends!!! Will miss u dude…u were…different…loads of love and all the luck…God bless

I wonder...

The driver to the office cab was feeling mighty chatty today...madam ap kahan se ho...kitna umar hai..kitna bhi behen hai...N i just felt mighty irritated...why cant he just mind his own business I wondered...Uff so bugging baba...Just out of sheer irritation and a lil bit of wanting to not talk bout me to a lowly driver I asked him..Bhaiya apka ghar kahan hai...He told me he doesnt go home more than once a week...rest of the time he sleeps in the car itself..."ek hi problem hai ab...pankha rehta tha gadi mein na to neend a jata tha malik ne pankha hata diya hai to thoda problem hai"with an accompanying smile. I wonder where has the human me had gone...is it dead???Could it be that a long fight with a bad illness has made me impervious to anyone's problems but my own...or has the rush of materialism reached such a pinnacle that I can no longer think, see, hear, or feel beyond myself...I just wonder....

The problem with Bengal....

Someone told me today that the problem with Bengal is Bengalis. Interestingly enough I have heard many a people’s takes on what constitutes the problem that is Bengal today. Most are pretty strong in their convictions. The Bengalis themselves are to be blamed for their horrid lot in life cos they’ve elected the same government for the past 30 friggin years!!! All Bengalis are pseudo intellectuals. They think they know it all. The same someone who said that Bengalis are Bengal’s problem also told me that the entire place is characterized by red flag dadagiri- or in the more recent context didigiri.

Why then am I writing this as my first post…I ask myslf the same question even as I start penning this down…I mean its no secret that im no big fan of the place. I am not a Bengali, nor a Bengali sympathizer…I don support the Left or the center or the very non existent right in this place…why then??? Think…think…No reason in special. Just thought I should start my journey back to writing by writing bout the place where I grew up and spent my whole life except a vagrant and lets face it weird year in Delhi.

I realized just a few days back, Bengal is not just about Kolkata. It is not just about the city. It can never be just about Kolkata. Yea so wat!!! Bengal today is about Singur, Nandigram, Darjeeling, Lalgarh and many others like it. What has happened to the state? Its gone to the dogs some say…it went to the dogs some 30 years back say others. It’s a dog eaten state with no industry and no hope…stinking fish eating pseudo intellectual residents who don even know about the good life. I think im rambling a lil bit now…the tirades of a sad soul who is trying to defend something indefensible...

Why then is Bengal different? I am still trying to search for an answer. Lets try and talk about the land acquisition issues…Singur, Nandigram and Mamata. Lemme reiterate, I do not support the lal jhandadharis. Bengal has the lowest private average landholding size in any state in India. Till 2002, the government of Bengal had distributed about 1.045 million acres of land among 2.544 million beneficiaries. This would then make the average landholding size in Bengal as small as .20 ha in size. This would also then mean that over 40% of the farmers in this godforsaken place own land. Small tracts of land..barely enough for sustanence but land nonetheless and their own land at that...I hate numbers, always have…but I needed to understand this in terms of numbers couldn’t do this widout them. So back to the issue at hand. In Singur, the land under dispute was about 180 acres much less than the 400 everyone heard of. And in trying to get back just 180 acres of land, the government had to deal with over 2500 families.

The point im trying to make here in all my ramblings is that it was the government which had through its land reforms given land and thus giventhese ppl a taste of what empowerment could feel like. The problem here therefore is not of land. It was about power. power once given to people cannot be taken away. Power that had been given to them by the much criticized, much maligned Left. The problem was and remains that the Bengali people, the villagers the poor gaw-walas are the most empowered villagers anywhere in India. They are poor yes but an astonishing number are happy in their relative poverty. The issue therefore was the taking away of the power.

Bengal is now a scapegoat. Everyone laughs at either Buddha or Mamata…well who am I to argue I laugh at them as well…hell they bring it upon themselves. But one needs to now understand and accept the fact that this is a norm that will continue for a while to come…Bengal with its culture of extremes…be its academics or militancy is probably all set to become the next most violent state in the nation Iarguably it already is) given the fact that change is bound to come. And this change will not come to Kolkata..it will come to Bankura, to Murshidabad, to Midnapore…to Nadia and many others. Wait, I think I just made an error the change may or may not come. What is bound to come now are efforts at change. These may be made by Buddha or by the verrry eccentric Mamata…no matter who tries and makes these changes, there are many a Singur waiting for this state…cos ppl will not give up their right to their power...Will keep writing it as I see it and hear it…hope there would be at least some who would rise above the pettiness of Red Bashing, Mamata bashing and Bengal bashing in general and read with an open mind….signing off…tata