sukuspeaks

CHOTA SA BREAK

2010-10-09T06:32:00.000-07:00

13 December 2004
Meeting my Image
I met Hasitha (Shanthi Ma’am’s niece-my look alike) AT LAST today. Boy was it funny…we just kept looking at each other and laughing. She’s like a year older than me. She seemed really nice…unlike me; she seems well adjusted, friendly and naturally social-far more extrovert than me. She said the next time she came over she would bring a camera and we should have a snap together. Shanthi ma’am seemed really tired and I felt in the way. How thoughtless I am and how inconsiderate and uncaring I must seem! Forgot to wish Agasthi and Amarti best of luck, forgot to wish her a happy journey, good night, NOTHING. Just ya ,ya and bye, abruptly. Poor Hassi! Imagine how it must’ve felt being compared to some one like me. All I did was show off about me! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT. How unlike me! But that’s what I did.

25th November 2004
Pre-exam Scrambles
I re-read Muriel Spark’s ‘P….. Street’. I’ve forgotten the full form. And then a part of Mary Stewart’s ‘Gabriel Hounds’. They are both beautiful especially Muriel Spark’s. One because it has such an unusual stories of a woman her life and her death, about the individual, and relationships and human beings and stuff. It’s an AMAZING story beautifully written, but it leaves me feeling depressed. Both these stories relate to my evergreen problem in their own weird ways and somehow the feeling of uselessness eats me even though I did quite well in today’s exam and even wrote an extra answer- all in less than an hour.
But then it comes back to me that I couldn’t help Ambedkar and Kruthika do as well. I spent the whole day yesterday trying to teach them but I seriously don’t know if it was of any use. I guess its ok. I just hope they both scrape through. One of them knew much more to start with and learnt too and hopefully will do much better than that. The other was stuck with ‘regular and irregular’ verbs and wouldn’t let the stuff sink in. Maybe I could have done better. I think I tried my best. I couldn’t have helped in the exam hall ‘cause ma’am was very vigilant!

Dear readers
With this I’m through with the 2004 diary.
I intend to take a break for a few weeks … want to work at getting her project report publishable.
In the meanwhile if any of you want to add to the blog please feel free
Thanks for your sustained interest
Lalitha

HIGH CLIFF DAYS

2010-09-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

6th November 2004
Equal Opportunities
Do all these equal opportunities things in some way break the natural order of the way of life? Free compulsory education pushes such typical stuff down the throats of zillions of children –most of this totally inutile. Where is the specialised knowledge that can be learnt when young? What is happening to all that? Is a whole way of life dying out? Is everyone being cast into the same mould in this age of specialisation? Can we really know so much of everything? What IS a ‘basic idea’? How ‘basic’ is it and how necessary? Can we learn true skills in all this education? Smithy, pottery, farming, fishing, trade? Or any one of these at least? Is it fair to kill lifestyles, to kill culture in the name of equal opportunities?
But then who decides who is born to a weaver, who to a chemist and who to a prime minister? Shouldn’t all of us have some chance of becoming any of these things? Why we are not allowed to truly explore and decide for ourselves? Why cannot we all be provided with some chance of not worrying about whether it is possible? I think that would be egalitarian. But what about the stuff a father teaches a son or a mother a daughter? Do we not in someway lose the respect for our parents and their professions because we have other choices?

20th November 2004
High cliff days
For so long I have suppressed memories of those happy days of freedom walking slipper-less in the slush, running up and down on the ‘rappelling rock’, jumping from rock to rock, sliding down the mud path, avoiding the thorny bushes on the ‘grass –cars’. Climbing first to the top, running fast, fast fast. FREEDOM, FREEDOM ,FREEDOM! Memories of those joyous days cannot be compensated for, no matter what.
The thorny skirts, the doggy smells, leeches, the muddy Chappal, the tall tank, deaf-off tongue, the rock paintings, the Hoopya shirt, hop-scotch, the true friendship, affection, the excitement, the loss of Maami and of Rumple, sorrow.
Of kites, muggus, crackers, colours, Holi, Ganesh, Christmas trees, bank-days, new year eves, walk in the night, playing, playing, playing. Those days are gone, lost in the past, leaving me with no substantial recompense.
I can visualise every portion of the campus-rich in colour, like like-from the light green creepers, pink flowers, beautiful gardens, chitrakut, writing on it, rushing up the rocks, sliding down the railings, sitting under the shed that rainy day, being called boisterous and not understanding.
Dona, Apara, Nivi, Sumi, Deepika, Supriya –Bullu –her farewell party, Valmiki’s pen. Those days of freedom, friendship, acceptance, nature all mixed with no hypocrisy except that of petty politics and fights.
The rainy days, paper boats down the slopes, getting totally wet, the kitchen and outside, throwing away my stuff, the staircase railings, study room, dance, trying to record singing with Akku, writing ‘Rumpy’ on the balcony wall with nail polish, upstairs my bedroom, amma appa’s bedroom, my table in it, the stony baths, my bath room, Swathi eating soap, the broken chair, clothes, dolls, cooler, clothes stand, bed, the books I so loved, opening the door carefully, being scolded fro reading instead of playing, house of Arden, George’s marvellous medicine, grey paint, Bama, building blocks, neighbours houses, their rooms, Captain Planet, Scooby doo, cloud watching with Sumi and Amma,jealousy, chatting with Sam uncle and Rajiva, Aravinda and Anuradha aunty, birthday parties with pooris and laughing competitions, and Ramaswamy uncles Krishna. How can I forget all this? Those days so complete in every aspect with barely a jot of studying…a state of natural social and hence psychological satisfaction!

An Almost Happy Ending

2010-09-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

November 29^th 2004

Rave reviews

Gosh! Seva gave such an amazing feedback about the movie. CANNOT BELIEVE IT! She said if it weren’t for me the movie was unwatchable. I mean that’s amazing feedback for me- -not the movie. Well of course that’s because she is my friend and stuff, but she said she saw it through her usual film critic angle-which of course she DID NOT. But anyways a compliment is a compliment. She went on to say I could be a great comedienne if I ever chose to which of course I shan’t.

Even Navika said more or less what Seva did about me lightening the movie up and making it watchable. Navika’s mom said “The woman carried it off!”

Happy Long Life!

This friend of mien is a great person. She knows so much about so many things. She has immense understanding, insight and intuition. She has tremendous intelligence and sensitivity. Yet she is so ill all the time. It is so UNFAIR. WHY THE GREAT THE WORTHY ALWAYS MADE TO ARE SUFFER? OR DOES THEIR SUFFERING MAKE them great and worthy?

I don’t know seriously. Today she said so many things beyond my comprehension –things which both of us knew I’d never understand. Well she told me of her vision, her ambition, and her thoughts, ideas ways of spending time far more brilliant and unimaginable than mine or that of most others. She knows she’s smarter than most and she knows she is different. She can’t make even me –whom she probably thought she had some chance of understanding –understand her. She wants o tod so many things. But she is certain she will get cancer and diabetes and god knows what. WHY THIS CERTIANITY? I tried to say “No, don’t believe it. Only if you believe it will it happen” and stuff like that. But she threw in her favourite line “he who knows and knows that he knows is wise”. I am trying to be wise.

She knows she is great but doesn’t want to live, why? I don’t know. I really really want her to live a LONG HAPPY LIFE SO FULL OF JOY AND SUCCESS AND ACHIEVEMNTS WHICH CHANGE THE WORLD UNLIKE ANY OTHER SO FAR. I PRAY O GOD, PLEASE. (And I say AMEN to that-moichee)

2010-09-11T02:02:00.000-07:00

19th November 2010

Dubbing …

Hi, at last my part of the movie is over. Poor thing J still has to do his recording on Sunday between his exams.
We did the recording last night. We reached the studio at about 8.15 p.m. and they said it would be free in half-an-hour. Then they said another half-an-hour, another half –an-hour and when they said this once more, since everyone except Supraniti’s brother and I hadn’t had dinner, we went to Swati and ate some stuff. Then we went back and after two or three “ten minutes” and “five minutes”, we were able to start. Supraniti’s mother did her part first, then her brother then the director and then me. Ok in detail…
I left home around 7 p.m. and Akku dropped me at a friends place and we took an auto to reach the studio. After we went and ate dinner and came back, the producer joined us. Boy, he is funny. He kept cracking jokes and kept us all laughing non-stop. When we finally got into the studio, Supraniti’s mom started recording. Then Amma called saying she is outside. We went and had lovely masala chai nearby. We went back and amma and thatha came up to watch the fun. After the others finished finally it was my turn. I went on for ages and in between the producer did one role and kept cracking jokes. We were all literally rolling in laughter. Amma did a couple of voices as ‘Swapna’ and Becky Thatcher. The producer went who is Margaret Thatcher. When we were waiting the conversation in between Supraniti and her brother in ‘shudh hindi” was so funny. Everyone contributed to the giggles. Anyways I finished my part around 3 am in the morning. I felt so guilty at making Amma wait. At home Appa got anxious and Pati could hardly sleep and I had so many takes. I also felt bad since only I seemed to be making a nuisance of myself. I was the only one complaining about exams though others too had them from the next day. Also I felt that only my family was put into frenzy. I was the only one upsetting everyone.
The others, especially Supraniti, were so cooperative and helpful and had so much solidarity and team spirit and comradeship and stuff. I felt awful. I think the best thing about this movie experience was I met someone my age who was as intelligent, sensitive, balanced mature and yet genuinely nice and friendly as Supraniti . She is really great and I have learnt a lot from her though I think it will be AGES before I can apply any of those qualities in my life. She is REALLY great and I admire her. Hope I can adopt a few of her characteristics. I’ll try.

MOVIE DUBBING

2010-09-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

9th November 2004
College News
Poor Prathiksha –her leg’s gotten all swollen up because she had an accident on the day of her marketing practical exam. Its too bad poor thing! Her attendance is pathetic. Maybe its all for the good –maybe she’ll go join some university in the US like her Mom wants her to do. Pray she gets Ok soon. One of our professors also hurt her leg in the accident. (Was it the same accident? Not clear to me though she uses “the”). She has more or less recovered but the break has done her good.
Psycho class on thinking today. Though we didn’t really do much sticking to the chapters we had very interesting discussions. At least I found it interesting and relevant to my life. It was bout choices mostly and that being one of my all time favourites quite killed me. Our Prof is very nice and she seems to have similar ‘basics’ as me. I mean many of her characteristics are quite like mine. Her way of thinking, the examples she gives –so I kind of relate to her. She has overcome her defects SO well that it’s really amazing. I really respect her.

15th November 2004
Prima Donna Stuff!
I don’t understand why this Amma has such lack of interest in any thing that seems important to me and such overly FAKE interest and excitement about everything I so DETEST in MY life. I guess I’m side stepping the main issue, comme d’habitude (as usual).
I have decided to quit eh goddammed movie. I have 2 options.
1. wait for the director to call and ask me if I practices and then say I didn’t and get him a little worked up and stop him when we starts sermonising like so. “Mr. Director, when I agreed to take part in this movie, you told me it will be done in a week or two. That’s why I agreed. You drag it for months so that the recording is just when my exams are approaching and do you expect me to leave everything to do this? My father’s right, I should have asked for a written contract. But NO! You shoot this movie in a week and you believe me, for the time you took, the editing is pathetic and the movie as whole is so unimaginable repulsive. I could go on for days pointing out its shortcomings but I don’t know if you would ever bother to listen. But I must give you some advice for your next movie though I hope you never one-please be professional. Try to work efficiently and give your co-workers minimum respect by at least informing them what exactly you expect of tem and when. Another thing, it’s not professional to call at 10.30 p.m and say do this at 5 .00 tomorrow morning. Ask them if it is possible. Respect their time and I don’t just mean thankyous and sorrys. I have wasted enough time on the movie-I’m done and I’m willing to return your money with interest. Nothing you say is going to change this and the pity appeal has gone far enough. I don’t want to meet you or speak to you and waste more of my time. I’ll give the book and your money to S. Collect it!”
2. Could call and say I’m dropping out. Wait for his predictable response and then blast off in much the same pattern.
I guess I’ll wait for him to call, if he doesn’t then I’ll call and use option 2. Of course option 1 is my personal favourite as it also saves my phone bill. Or maybe I should call ask him to call back and then blast him. I guess that’s too cool. But it is also too cheap. Ramaramaramarama… please God help me and make this happen today!

Its 1:15 in the afternoon. I just called the Director and told him I can’t do it. Hammayya! I sure am glad to escape. But darn it-I didn’t tell him any of the stuff I wrote about and planned to. The entire discussion was far more civilised than I expected it to be. But he wants to know why exactly I want to leave. He want s me to email him today .what do I say?

DARNATION! I actually called back and said I’d do it because I was feeling so bloody guilty for ditching at the last moment in so ruthless a manner. Damn me. But I feel better!

Basic Questions

2010-08-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

28th October 2004
Basic questions
So often in life in spite of the aimless pointless wanderings one comes back to certain basic things.
The ever evasive happiness seems to be one such thing. Sometimes I get to wondering if happiness does really exist or it is just wishful thinking has made folks come up with the concept. I don’t know, but memory takes me back to times which now seem to me to have been happy, fascinating, wonderful and extraordinary (though when they occurred did not seem extraordinary or even happy as such and on the whole were rather prosaic).
Does nostalgia blur memory? But I do remember horrible times too, times which seem totally terrible even now-where’s nostalgia there?

6th November 2004
Do all these equal opportunities things in some way break the natur4al order or the way of life? Free compulsory education pushes down such typical stuff down throats of zillions of children-most of this totally inutile. Where is the specialised knowledge that can be learnt best when young? What is happening to all that? Is a whole way of life dying out? Is everyone being cast into the same mould in this age of specialisation?
Can we really know so much of everything? What IS a “basic idea”? How basic is it and how necessary? Can we learn skills through all this education? Smithy, pottery, farming, hunting, fishing, trade? Or any one of these at least? Is it fair to kill life styles to kill culture in the name of equal opportunities?
But then who decided who is born to a weaver who to a chemist and who to a prime minister? Shouldn’t all of us have some chance of becoming any of these things? Why are we not allowed to truly explore and decide for ourselves? Why cannot we all be provided with the chance of not worrying about whether it is possible? I think that would be egalitarian. But what about the stuff a father teaches a son or a mother teaches a daughter? Do we not in someway lose respect for our parents and their professions because we have other options.

29th October 2004
Seeking attention
I don’t know why I long so much for attention. I don’t know why I want people to notice me ,like me, ado…re me, love me, have crushes on me, appreciate me, think I’m intelligent, think I’m beautiful, think I have a sense of humour, think all nice things about me. I have become a mendicant –begging for attention. Me, who at other times ran away from society to my much treasured privacy, me at other times who decided not to care a damn about them. I shied away from attention and hid in the shadows peeping out slowly. Why this change now?
All through my life I have always had great contempt for people who have actually valued me. But now I want them to. Now I want friends and affection when earlier I fled from every person who was nice to me and distance myself from all my friends to ensure that I got my privacy. Now this is no longer ok for me. There is no other option because once alone I go off into a reverie about me and myself-ALWAYS.
CAN I NOT SILENTLY, GOOD HUMOUREDLY, OBSERVE OTHERS, THEIR ACTIONS –I DO NOT MEAN WITH A HUGE SMILE ON MY FACE WHICH HURTS. I MEAN GENUINELY HAPPY AT OBSERVING THEM. Why am I not interested in anything other than myself or theories so distant from human beings? Why can't I observe and understand others in a quiet way that was innate in me? Why? It pains me but I don’t know. When I watch others being happy, jealousy bites and shreds my heart. Damn me.

Gone with the Wind

2010-08-21T07:01:00.000-07:00

19th October 2004
On Veerappan’s Death
Veerappan was killed yesterday .Its really sad especially since Jayalalitha and the chief minister of Karnataka, people from the special task force (who shot him) and news reporters kind of rejoicing at his death. It is really pathetic that they can display the glee so publicly. Did he not have a cause? Yes! He made money, smuggled sandal wood and ivory. But did that make him so evil. I’ve always kind of imagined him to be like Robin Hood –doing good tot eh rural poor-always evading the police. Even in the end he won. Maybe he died but he was never imprisoned. May his soul rest in peace.

25th October 2004
On Scarlett O’Hara
There’s something that I can’t stop thinking of, but I don’t want to tell you. Apart from that the only thing I seem to be able to think of is Scarlett O’Hara fate in Gone with the Wind. I’m in the middle of doing it when I oughtn’t to be and the last thing I can concentrate on is Attention and Division of Attention. I have to make notes for the practical record and also write a letter fro my French home work and all I can think of is Scarlett O’Hara and Ashley Wilks and Melanie. It’s ridiculous. Maybe I’ll do my letter first.

1st November 2004
Just finished reading Gone with the Wind. It leaves with a feeling of emptiness which I do not want to fill. It annoys me that the blurb does little justice to the book. It is certainly not ‘a love story between Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler set in the background of the American Civil War’. It is more. It is not Rhett who matters. It’s about Scarlett, her life, change whole worlds shattering, her attempts to harden herself and it could have been anyone at anytime. It is not just a historical novel. It is a novel of a changing way of life and people and their feelings thoughts and emotions. It is not a mere fictitious history. It is a complex of things so real it could be applicable to anyone anywhere anytime.

Feeling-Free

2010-08-15T00:18:00.000-07:00

13th October 2004
Freedom and Family
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to open up to people be genuine with them –whether it’s nice or not-at least be remotely honest. Why am I so gender biased and so guys –shy though I put on this farce of being guy-ish? Why am I keen at warding off remotely possible crushes and hence treating guys with ‘no lower motives’ whatsoever with that aloof pretentious fake manner of mine? Am I in some way SO scared of all this ‘love &crap’? Am I really that shy? And is it all that bad? Is it natural? I don’t know since I’ve never felt it. Do I suppress emotions so much that I’ve become in some way unnatural? I don’t know.
I just hate myself fro being so rigid and narrow minded and unreceptive and unfriendly and warding off so many people by my unwillingness to just be friendly. Is being friends so difficult? Why am I so stuck up with imaginary family norms which don’t really exist? Yesterday Amma was telling me indirectly to use sex appeal when I’ve been striving to make myself seem like a human-being- a gender-less entity since that’s my idea of what I’d like to pretend to believe my family expects of me. Yes! There are certain things they are pretty strict, but very often I worry myself that they might worry and I’ll have to answer uncomfortable questions or I suspect that they will suspect me and I try to make sure there is no blame on me.
Akku who is from the same family has so much more freedom because she lets herself have it. She’s not so driven by family acceptance and she doesn’t need to hide stuff so much. May be I don’t need to hide myself either. May be I should let go. But I’ve always been stiff. I remember how everyone who ever taught me to dance telling me to ‘let go’. And ‘relax’. But I always thought I was pretty normal and I never could ‘let go’. In a trust fall, I never could fall freely trusting others to hold me no matter how much I tried. That’s what I’ve always been –untrusting, tense and unable to let go. So I just dismiss it as my ‘nature’ or can I ‘nurture’ myself to be different?
(I wonder who was the chap she was running away from.)
18th October 2004
True Lies!
Every time I meet this auntie in the colony, I feel this guilty awkward embarrassment because she knows me for the lair that I am. That’s the closest she got to knowing me and what did she find? “A goodly apple rotten at the core”. Pretty sad that that’s the only impression she has of ‘the real me’. She can see through all my half hearted attempts at pseudo-politeness and she can see the stupid girl as dull as to not even tell her tuition teacher her marks in a test in school. Well that’s precisely what happened.
In the 11th standard the hunt for another tuition teacher began. This aunty was discovered and a friend and I went to her house for three classes. She taught us like the first and second chapters. We had attest in school and both of us failed miserably. I went out of town and my friend who came to know our marks told her. Later when I came back I found out my marks. She asked me and I lied saying I didn’t know. I really wanted her to think I was intelligent and bright and stuff. Well she probably thought I was-only in the wrong ways. After that every time I met her I felt embarrassed and guilty and behaved weird. So now she seems to have given up hope.
(I could never understand what went wrong with that tuition arrangement. Now a minor mystery is solved!)

Mostly her self !

2010-08-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

3rd October 2004
Hypocrisy
Boy! I’ve gotten myself into yet another hypocrisy in the name of friendship.
It’s always been so with this friend but I’ve never been able to mark it down to this. I’m the listener and she is the speaker and it’s my duty (self-imposed of course) to never speak my mind and tell her just what she wants to hear. Of course this is interspersed with small spurts of honesty and maybe even humour. But that’s beside the point I guess. I dunno. I dunno why I put myself into chains why I block myself, why?

4th October 2004
Appeal to a “co-libran”
Gandhiji , you were a great man .Maybe once ,before you became great you were ordinary-like me. May be you can understand me-all my confused emotions and thoughts and joys and sorrows. Maybe if at all that sun sign stuff is true you will understand me being Libran and all. I know you weren’t some agony aunt listening to peoples woes in life. I know you’d rather rest in peace and so I apologise dil aur jaan. Vande mataram!

5th October 2004
Self Improvement Plans
I guess these no harm in at least trying to change myself. It may not work, but who knows, it might just!
So how do I start? I’ll need a definite plan.
Being true to people is not easy especially when its been so long since I’ve been true to myself. In fact maybe I never have. I’ve always prided myself on being a ‘pure’ self uninfluenced by all social evils and which has been penetrated by none but myself- the ‘pure’ one –everyone else being awful and me ‘acting’ awful to get along with them. Is this really true? When put for the first time in such clear terms it makes even me know that it is in someway false. I dunno. I’d like to believe otherwise. Coming back to self imposed morality, why do I bind myself? Why am I so …tight? I dunno. All I know is I should try to be more human and should feel for people and stuff. But what I’ve noticed during my dance and trust fall attempt was that the harder I tried the less relaxed I was. That’s true. You can’t will yourself to relax. May be I CAN. Maybe that’s what makes physical and psychological things different. I don’t know….
No, I shouldn’t let myself escape without a proper plan. Maybe I should become the old me who was a listener. So my verbal contribution becomes minimum. Yes, respect everyone and greet everyone. Get rid of unnecessary prejudices, talk when you need to. Don’t think you know everything and should therefore go on talking. Give everyone a chance to talk and above all LISTEN. You never know where you will learn what. Change yourself before others force you to.

Feeling,Learning

2010-07-31T11:28:00.000-07:00

Begins to feel again!

16th September 2004
Feels like it’s been ages since I’ve written in you and indeed it has. Of late I’ve been feeling pretty low insecure and depressed and stuff. Actually that stable satisfaction is lost and I have begun to feel stuff again. So it’s like I feel happy and sad and stuff. I’m actually once again affected by what people say and do and search for inner meanings and feel hurt and stuff.
This boy from first year actually gave me chocolates and rachis as gifts. I was pretty shocked. Didn’t expect him to give me gifts and all.

25th September 2004
Why can I not naturally like people? Why do I have this penchant for hating all human beings other than myself? Why is it always contempt or awe? Why not affection? WHY? I hate it but I just do not feel affection towards humans except when I try telling myself that I must and then act like I do. Do all people find it so? Maybe I’ll never know if people are as secretive as me….

On writing
27th September 2004
It is not natural that one writes a story or a novel without a reason. No one can do that. Obviously if I write a story or novel I write it for publication, for money, to become a celebrity. If I write for such a purpose and not for my pleasure I cannot write well. Or at least that is what I think. However, I like the thought of writing a story or a novel and I want to do it quickly. I have lots of things to do and must do them quickly.

On Learning
29th September 2004
Often I feel pathetic that my learning ,my awareness ,my wisdom, my knowledge-they are all so limited. Often I think I must become all knowledgeable and vomit out all the facts and stuff like so many others I know. But there’s something within me which pulls me back –which says I won’t remember anything anyway. Then I realise I just want to blurt out fact just so that people think I’m great. I don’t really w ant to learn and get to know stuff. It’s pathetic really. I must change it.
20th Oct 2004
Everything I learnt so far has been forgotten-even things which I felt I had a deep insight into. All that chemistry I learn is all gone waste. No learning to me is permanent. To what use all this education. I will forget all this book learning of ideas theories and concepts in NO time. Well some things like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle which specially appealed to me may last a little longer. But it is all forgotten too soon. Of what use are these qualifications or these degrees these schools, theses colleges these books when one has no ability to retain for life. But when life itself is so temporary why complain about learning? It’s annoying

Time-less Troubles

2010-07-24T04:54:00.000-07:00

20th August 2004
Priorities
(Written fully in French)
There are so many ideas, so many hypotheses, so many theories and one needs time, space, energy and patience to reflect on. But unfortunately for me I don’t have the time when I have the patience or the desire and when I have both I do not have the space. It is a pity, truly. Every day there are some things that I have to do immediately. There are all these deadlines too. There are those passing things that have to be done within time limits. Then there are those other things which don’t have these pressing deadlines which as important if not more so. One has to always prioritise and take these decisions!

I would also like to discuss another issue. How to accept compliments! I do not know how to do this. When some one gives me a compliment I do not know how to react. Often I think they are mocking or teasing me and are not serious. Then I don’t accept these compliments well-not at all. This is really regrettable because my reactions are really silly. But above all I have to study now! Alors!

French Comedy
21st August 2004
Pre-exam blues
Gosh! I’m kind of sick of French. I don’t plan to join the next level, 400, if I pass and that’s a big if by itself. Maybe I should just give up, but I want to pass and then leave, so it would be a positive end. Hope that happens!
I won’t be joining what ever happens so maybe I shouldn’t even care. But it’s only 2-3 days and giving up now would be ridiculously typical of me. Bye.

27th August 2004
Poster Prize
Guess what? I won the first prize for that poster making competition at Alliance Francaise and I got the course fee for the next level free! Cool! But just when I was having this dilemma of whether to join level 400 or not! Good! It helps me decide. The best part was when the Directeur went on about how it was surrealistic and made it sound symbolic as hell. Too good!

29th August 2004
Post Poster Prize
It’s strange how the way one thinks and feels about a certain thing changes so much with time. Great things in retrospect seem like petty achievements. I dunno –it’s just weird. Actually a part of me still feels real great about being called surrealist and stuff. But this afternoon I realised how it is such a petty thing.
I have earned a level of French free. I want to see my poster on the notice board. This is much an honour as Akku telling me I am creative.

Grieving for her Kitten

2010-07-17T06:09:00.000-07:00

7th August 2004

Grief
This is so horrible. Such a tiny little “Poochi”, such a beauty her tail longer than her body, my little tigress with all her care, affection, love, sense and independence, all her violence and her grace, her fun and joy and life, all gone. One instant so close to me and then no more. I love my “Cheeli” so much; but she is dead and buried and gone. Yet I feel her everywhere. I feel she’s following me down the stairs waiting for me outside the loo, scratching the screen (outside the bathroom door) as she waits to come running in. There will never be anyone like her. Yes, 3 months is not long, but a few days were enough to change my life. It was such a pleasure to love, to “conjify” (=pet), to admonish, to try to train, to try to understand, to imagine I’m being loved, to communicate with, to play with, to protect and to be with Poochi. No matter what happened I still had some love left for Poochi. Cleaning up after her, feeding her even if I’m the hungriest person on earth, allowing her to scratch and gnaw… I adore her from her lovely body to her adorable nature. How she shone in the sun even when she was dead.
What little fuss she made in adjusting to our household. How she won all hearts in no time. My darling Poochi, she could recognise outsiders …so many times I want to callout Pooooocheee….where are you? She’s dead. I buried her myself.

5th August 2004
No comfort
(This is an entry is about a friend who was trying to comfort her, not very successfully…)
I don’t know why thinks she knows MORE every millisecond of her life. Normally it is not tough putting up with her know-all-ness, but when she started lecturing me on what to do to get over Poo’s death and when she started telling me how much she cared Poo and cats in general and when none of this seemed to work she started telling me about Poo like she knows all about Poo because she scratched her ear for 5 minutes one day, I really lost it.
But I was listening to all her theories and stuff when poor Poo was dying on my lap. And how do I go on listening to more of this. I am to blame.

MORE ON COLLEGE

2010-07-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

5th August 2004
Classes
Today we had our first class in social anthropology with JP Sir. Boy was it great! Anthropology includes almost everything that interests me. I must do it. I have to start research where, how? Also the first practical class of psychology. That was fun too. This new ma’am is very funny –her jokes and way of speaking. Kept laughing the whole class and it continued during French class too.

6th August 2004
Complicated situations
Sometimes life can get very complicated. THANK GOD I don’t have such problems. This issue of three friends A-B-C is so horrible. Most of last year they were inseparable friends.-damn close and all. A (male) and B (female) were going round together and all. Anyways they fought and became worst enemies.

Now there are two versions. According to B, a used to keep going home and telling people about B and C all the time. So his mum asked him if he loved B and wanted to marry her etc. So he asked her if she would marry him and stuff and she said ‘no’. They both took it light and thought they would be friends like they were. Then after a few days he told her that wasn’t able to look at her just as a friend and so she started avoiding him. Meanwhile he has gone and written all kinds of stuff about her in his diary-which he used to quite publicly carry around….Well that’s her version.

A’s version according to another friend D is that B proposed to A and they started going around together and had a good time. Then A seriously fell for her and when he proposed she ditched.

Now comes the present. Whatever the truth was/is they all (A, B, C) loath each other and B and C have gone and complained to some student leaders that A is abusing them. Believe he’s threatened to kidnap her, rape her, take photographs and stick it all over college and her home. He denies this of course.

No matter how much we speak to him it doesn’t work! But I guess we should look at it from his perspective too. He was betrayed by her. She denies everything that seems like truth to him. He wants revenge. He may have imperfections but then…why would he write false stuff in his diary? HIS PERSONAL DIARY? WHY? I dunno. Yes he’s aggressive and a little stupid at times, but then taking ‘action’ might ruin his life.

August 14th
Guess what, I met Reshma today. You can’t believe how good I felt. I met another friend too, but the greater glory subdues the lesser I guess. Believe she’s doing her Journalism and masscom in London and is here for her vacations. Anyways since she’s here and lives so close to the Alliance she’s started French. After coming back we all went to Bhongir.

College News

2010-07-03T07:07:00.000-07:00

College News
July 24th 2004
There’s a lot to write about. Briefly:
• Violence in the college the day before yesterday. Usual folks involved. BA vs BSc. Yesterday they sough revenge and the police came in. will explain later
• Yesterday I spoke my mind to my best friend and did some sort of counselling
• A friend thinks I’m now at the pinnacle of my life. If this is the pinnacle then what is non pinnacle? Actually she’s right in a way-better than I was!
Sleepy now ….

July 25th 2004
There are so many times when I want to write so many things in you. But I just don’t. Never mind why, so many thoughts feelings and ideas go unrecorded, unremembered. I wonder if memory does need external aids like diaries. Why can’t I remember my own life without photographs and written accounts? Nowadays somehow I don’t feel like elaborating. Once something is over it’s over and I lose interest. What seems to be the most exciting thing on earth seems dull and drab the next moment!

4th August 2004
I can write at leisure now, only I might ruin my eyes because I’m in a dark bedroom with the light from the hall to illuminate this page. There was lots to say but sanding in the toilet and writing was far too uncomfortable.
Was supposed to be in college by nine but went a bit late. French Sir asked me my marks thinking they’d be pathetic since I’d missed so many of his classes. Well when I said 40/40 he sure was surprised. I had anyways pretended I didn’t know French and never let on that I actually learnt some more too.
In the sociology class, yesterday’s debate about ethnocentrism was apparently forgotten. I didn’t bring it up either. Some friends played the fool as usual. Tej and I then went on a Navika hunt and found her in the basketball court. We wanted her to do the presentation for the GD.
In the psychology class ma’am was on Gestalt and perception. Since I’d read it I contributed quite a bit and as usual she didn’t want me to. But nobody else did and I was bored so I spoke. So anyways, she asked me once again if I was an only child or a younger child. I guess that’s what she’d been…the other day she tells me to my goddam face that she thinks I’m irresponsible and that she saw my mother and thought she was very responsible and that I looked just like my mother. Every goddam class she asks me if I’m an only child. So when I told her “spoilt child” she agreed like it was the most evident fact of life. I most certainly do not think I’m a spoilt child. At least I’m not narrow minded self- centred and bad at communication. I mean, I thought feeling insecure was my forte until I met her!
Prathiksha came in the middle of the class and we went to invite VP and other Sirs arrange chairs etc.
Then the GD. Boy was it fun today. One girl went on and on about how ragging is sinister and another boy went off fulltoo extreme about how if you rag they commit suicide. And this other guy kept saying weird funny things and called someone a feminist and someone else a communist. This set off another debate at a tangent.
Sir came in and changed the discussion a bit and made us focus a bit more on the topic. The whole thing was very funny. It’s on reservations next week.
Went to French class-uneventful except that I saw French sir who was in a meeting there peep out and he recognised me too.
When I came back home my friend taught me how to chat on the net. Can you believe it, I didn’t know how to until now. Anyways while I was chatting another friend called and I had to concentrate on the chat as well. She probably thought I wasn’t happy to talk to her. I should have told one of them to wait.

MOVIE MAKING

2010-06-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

I never heard why it was called Peas and Carrots. i only know that she rechristened it 'Pause and Carrots' becasue most of the time she was being directed to pause! The director was not amused though she though it funny! She got a Calvin and Hobbes annual for her efforts and lolled around enjoying it!

July 7th 2004
Yes …No…Yes….But….
I don’t know why I’m so confused in life….I don’t know if my last decision is right. I don’t know what is right.
I’ve once again decided to act in that movie. I don’t know if I told you, but the day before yesterday I dropped out because Navika had to. I believe they’ve now found someone else for her role but no one else for mine. The lead actor called in the morning and told me that if he was the problem I needn’t worry. Why would he be the problem? I have nothing against him. It’s my other friend who doesn’t get along with him.
That day I lied to them so I could drop out and said Appa Amma wouldn’t allow me and the worst par was they actually sympathised. I dunno. I said I convinced Appa and Amma and they said OK.

July 14th 2004
Gosh! The movie is so goddam irritating. The script is totally pathetic. There are so many parts that can be torn to bits. I have no clue why they are wasting all this money. Honestly! Beats me…

July 16th 2010
Feels like ages since I last wrote here though it’s barely two days. Sometimes I don’t get the time even if I’m dying to write and sometimes even if I have all the time I have nothing to write.
Guess what I’ve been doing this movie for the pas few days. I mean I’ve been acting in it. It’s an obnoxiously stupid and irritating script and it beats me how I actually accepted. What a dumb thing to feel pity and do things. Ridiculous.
When I first read the scrip I was nearly certain that here was no way I was going to do it.
And then I thought. If I do it what am I going to get and what am I going to lose? Well may be I’ll learn how movies are made and what goes into it and I’d probably miss a few classes at worst.
You must bear in mind that at that moment I was getting really fed up of the stuff on TV and didn’t find a gripping book. Anyways I thought, why not? So I accepted.
Of course it’s not all that bad. Sometimes it is even fun. But boy, it is that direction that is killing. It all remains to me a great wonder…the more think about human nature the more stupid it seems. They are all very polite to me...but the politeness itself is killing. Who cares anyway?

July 17th 2004
The movie’s over at long last. Thank God. It wasn’t finished properly and the dubbing is still to be done but it is over all the same. Yeah! Its over. it’s over…
After it was done we had some ice cream and I came back home.

Meeting Supraneeti has helped me realize a lot about myself and brought into view the many things I’ve got to change about myself. Firstly I should behave better with more politeness and ‘decorum and polish’.
Also I should become more self reliant and less dependant ton others for myself image. It’s like when people praise me I feel ever so good and when they don’t I feel ever so low. When they call me cute or laugh at me or admire something I say or do I couldn’t be happier. But otherwise I’m quite glum. But being happy with myself, being independent of others is FAR from my attitude. How can a person so dependent on attention ever be happy on her own? How can I ever be a recluse?

PEAS AND CARROTS

2010-06-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

July 2nd 2004

Bien!
I actually passed the French exam with a “Bien” (good ). Should’ve heard Shanti-she was euphoric. So was I since it was most unexpected. The receptionist 9at alliance) has given me a new name “bien chick”. Darned funny .
Was thinking I must call Shanti and ask if she’d be free sometime today and go to meet her and return her books. Made her a card though I don’t think it’s nearly good enough.

July 3rd 2004
Filmy Chucker!
Shanti ma’am just called.. Guess what? I believe I topped in the ‘production ecrite’ (written test). Enrolling for the next level (300) on Monday!
(Continued the same day)
I have lots to say at eh end of the day. It was great meeting friends Seva, Meghna. Amina Mity. It was real fun. Meghna loved the card. Seva thinks I’m a great poet and she wants us to write a book together. ‘Troy’ was alright. It could have been better though. You don’t even know Odysseus name or that he’s the narrator. The best part was meeting all of them . I do value them immensely.

As soon as I came there’s this phone call asking me if I could go through a movie script and act in it. Gosh! Navika told this person about me.
This movie is anon-commercial romantic comedy with three characters –a husband , a wife and a 2nd woman. Navika’s the wife and I’m the 2nd woman. It’s going to be shot by a digital camera and shown to producers. It doesn’t require great acting expertise. Just to read out dialogues. If the producers approve they’ll get proper actors.

July 4th 2004
Peas and Carrots
Today was a day of dilemmas and indecision. A day in which I had to take a decision. I read the script for the movie I spoke of yesterday. It is called ‘Peas and Carrots’ though I didn’t mange to figure out why. As far as I know it has NOTHING to do with peas or carrots. It doesn’t have much of a story and is mostly in conversation form. The only reason it manages to carry itself is its minor twists . I suppose it could be better than Hyderabad Blues though. Must ask the guy why he’s called it ‘Peas and Carrots’.
I’m going to meet Shanti ma’am tomorrow and enrol for French level 300 if all goes well. Hope it does. “May the day break!”

French classes and so on

2010-06-12T06:07:00.000-07:00

May 27th 2004
French Connections
Guess what? So strange! Of the four trainees at the ad agency –N, S, K and me –all four of us have learnt French at the Alliance and flunked the N200S there! One girl did her 100 and 200 under Shanti but doesn’t like her though! I felt so bad when I realised that my favourite teacher could be disliked and spoken ill of! I kinda made it clear that I really adore her.

15th June 2004
A favourite Student
Gosh! I’m SO HAPPY. Just spoke to Shanti ma’am. I SO LOVE talking to her. She is so sweet and nice. She’s like the nicest teacher I have ever had and the only one who had a soft corner for me...and that too because of my looks. Funny! It’s real good to look like your teachers niece.
Bet u can’t believe it. I actually did some painting today. Not too bad.

26th June 2006
Exam Fever
Just saw part of the film “how to lose a guy in 10 days”. Boy! It was simply too funny.
Had my examen orale today. I did it much better that last time. I think I’ll pass. I was so relived that I have been wasting my time through out. Haven't studied for the written exam at all!
I wanted to call Shanti ma’am, but before I could she did! I don’t deserve all the love she gives me…she gave me some tips on how to study for the exam. She’s sympa, hyper sympa. Hopefully I’ll do well tomorrow. Rama Rama, Rama Rama!
(Rama Rama was a favourite phrase -usually to express mild shock- with the old lady who came home to cook for us. Suku would imitate her to perfection)

22nd June 2004
Gowri @ School!
Just came back from my old school…met everyone and repeated over and over again what I was doing ,what Akku was doing and what Amma was doing. Awful to repeat the same things. Cecily teacher and Anna teacher saved my day by cracking some joke about me and making me laugh. At least they remembered the funny side of me.

The memories came back and I remembered how I felt so alienated from this batch I was supposed to ‘belong’ to by the time I left school. I was nearly the only one who didn’t grow, who didn’t ‘mature’, who wasn’t interested in boys, who was still a child. Plus amma was the principal so nobody wanted to enlighten me since it might reach her ears. So that how I stayed. Well at least a few people apparently knew about my unique sense of humour. Some how on the one hand I’m glad I never grew up. I guess others were right...i was an ‘abnormal’ teenager ,a person who couldn’t accept change and growth , a person who was so naïve as to believe all the stuff that our old principal and teachers said about how ‘children must be children’ and about how grown ups were awful. Strange though it may seem even as a child I never wanted to be a ‘grown up’.
I dunno it was all sad until I sat on the swing. I went back to the time I was two and a half or three and I fell off from that swing and my nose bled. Strangely that made me considerably happier to remember that time of pristine purity-the pain of the bleeding nose now long forgotten. Then Amma was there-I must have been in nursery-and I liked her being there. And when my nose bled she took me to Dawson Sir I think in the old building and I think they gave me sugar.
(I remembered this when I read it – we had taken her and gone to watch a play by Sharanya’s class. I think she hadn’t joined school yet. Poor thing, she was hurt, but bounced back easily)

(This is a separate paragraph-no clue why it’s written)

I find it so difficult to do the right thing and even then, when somebody else doesn’t do the right thing according to me I get so pissed and quite often even go and lecture them!

MORE ON CHOICE

2010-06-06T23:22:00.001-07:00

Sorry folks!
Was travelling thru places beyond the net!
hope to be regular now

27th April 2004
Right choice?
Seriously, I still don’t know what I am going to do in life and I’m worried as hell about it.
Shall I go on to study psychology? If so what in psychology? Abnormal, clinical, counselling, child, para, animal-WHAT? That’s not as much a problem as ‘shall’ go on to study psychology or sociology or shall I go into advertising or shall I do an MBA or shall I do law or shall I try and become a writer or shall I just laze around and depend on other human beings? With all probability at the rate I am going I might just choose the last option. I shouldn’t….
Linguistics and anthropology are other options. Now lets leave ‘what’ for some time and move to WHERE. I think I wan tot go abroad-to Europe or Canada. But why? Yes I too want to like real good quality education and status and stuff so I can have chances of a getting a better job and stuff. But if I wanted to do linguistics or culture studies or something like that CIEFL would be a good enough place. But I do want to get away and see places beyond India. Be Patient! Good night, I must sleep well coz I have to travel by bus tomorrow!

8th May 2004
Interning Blues!
In a way I’m glad that this agency is undoing what Nizam’s did to me. At the end of 1 year at Nizam’s despite my trying to prevent it I had a mammoth ego greater than the Himalayas. At this place, right from the start by behaving all timid, I’ve thinned down my ego and self respect like hell. Once again I’ve become a blind hanger-on, clinging on to the other girl there going wherever she goes and doing what ever she does and to top it all getting insulted by her.
I hate myself and I always seem to make these wrong choices and curse myself later. I should stat remembering my Nizam’s or Alliance self and get more confident in myself and follow my own path. I should stop lying –I’ve started that recently. I never used to lie before. I shouldn’t do this like I do –and that too for no reason. I am so sorry!

19th May 2004
Not the Right Choice
I really do love myself very much. I am perhaps the only person who does so. I also love Amma, Appa, Akku, Thatha, and Pati very much, but none of them as much as I love myself. I think I am special, different, unique, and extraordinary. But I am also dumb, not very talented, slow timid, meek and paranoid when I’m with people I don’t like under circumstances I don’t like.
It’s not like today was bad day or anything but I just don’t see what I’m achieving by going to this office. Today at the end, for no reason known to me I felt so bad that I went to the loo and cried. And its not one thing –it’s a whole combination. The compulsion to go to a place I don’t like and slave for people I don’t like despite my repulsion, nobody to understand me or show affection towards me (even Amma isn’t in town), the realisation that I’m not learning anything from the mechanical work I’m asked to do ,the realisation that today’s youth is as unlike me as white is from black, the realisation that I’m not eh brain-queen that Nizam’s made me believe I was, the realisation that advertising is not ‘it’.
It’s not the kind of job I’d want PLEASE. 9-9 mad rush unsatisfactory work-NOT FOR ME. I’d prefer an interesting part time job giving me enough leisure time to pursue other interests!

TRUTH, KINDNESS

2010-05-23T09:55:00.000-07:00

12th March 2004
Can’t guess the context in which this was written!
Truth – Yours Mine and Ours! Some things which are obvious to one person which seem real –like the objective truth and hence not expressed may just get lost in time until someone expresses it or formulates a theory on it. Therefore there is no objective truth. When many subjective truths intersect the area of intersection is the objective truth. However there might be many other subjective truths which come nowhere near it and many other such intersections which are again different objective truths.

4th April 2004
She was keen to experience working in an ad agency and yet hated missing out on her vacation. And she did feel she was doing them a favour!
Job Search
Have so much to study and I just don’t feel like it. The lady from the ad agency was so goddam mean and nasty. I’m not inferior to her in any way. I hate to have to beg for a silly summer job. All those seniors who didn’t do anything-I guess they had some kind of sense.
Feel like I’ve bloody wasted my life. I must study so much and she has ruined my mood. I’m feeling so sad though this is so trivial.
I’m too sensitive. What am I going to do in life? How will I ever do anything great if all I want to do is to shrink back into a lonely childhood? Am I really getting educated enough? Will I have the guts to go into a forest retreat? When? How am I going to learn and earn up to then? How am I going to pass tomorrow’s exam?
I can’t draw, I can’t sing, I can’t do anything creative. I don’t even know if I can do cartooning because I never practice regularly. I have stopped looking at the funny side of things. I’m just clumsy, dumb and stupid. But I love myself, I do!

6th April 2004
Teaching Kindness
Gosh! Vinita ma’am is so sweet and nice. I really adore her. She doesn’t do anything wrong but doesn’t mind others if they do wrong. And she sure as hell does more than her duty. Just called her because I had a doubt and she’s like you can call me even at 12 if you have a doubt. Why is she so kind to those who don’t deserve such kindness? Guess there’s nothing like deserving kindness. I guess all people do deserve it. Maybe I should start and try being unconditionally kind to people like she is. I’ll try. Must call her tomorrow after the exam and tell her how everybody did. She asked me to. Hope she’s around next year.

2010-05-15T07:48:00.000-07:00

29TH FEBRUARY 2004
French Exams
Today was really a once in leap year kind of day!
Had my French Class exams for N 200. I messed up both the written and the orals more than somewhat. Even got two or three giggling fits in the orals. Got pissed off and came home in a hurry. Didn’t even say a proper bye to my friends and maybe I’m seeing them for the last time. I’m sure will miss them
Anyways came home and had along phone conversation with Seva without getting yelled at by Appa or Amma though they were both home. Luckily they were both asleep.

Then read “The Crystal Cave” for a long time. I adore Mary Stewart for recreating the life of Merlin as a person rather than a legend. How I love her book. More than just a story it is a spiritual eye-opener. It makes me think of myself-my childhood –so ordinary it seems. Too goddam hot –I need a shower.

Then went to the Spykar store where I got a top for the coupon and Amma bought me a pair of jeans. Then to Cauvery Aunties’ place and then to Sumi’s place. Sumi and I played battleship. Met her grandmother after ages. Cauvery auntie gave me atop too. Had dinner out including khubani-ka-meeta.

2nd March 2004
And Disastrous Results!
Damn, Shanti ma’am called me sometime back. Believe I failed in the oral. OFCOURSE I knew I would fail as soon as I had given it. But I didn’t realise it till now that I was not only letting myself down but also letting shanty down. Such a sweet person and she was so sure at I was certain to pass. Boy, am I moody! Just because it was hot afternoon! I believe I can go for a week class before the next N200 exam and then give it again. Shanty doesn’t want me to give up. She wants me to keep in touch and be substitute niece and I’d love to, too.
Its ok life’s tough!

3rd March 2004
And Reactions!
I must remember that the ‘Goa Beach’ t-shirt is most unlucky. I wore it for all the afternoon exams thinking git will be comfy. NALSAR, driving test, and N200. Even before that I’d worn it for a physics test which I really messed up. I MUST NEVER WEAR MY GOA BEACH T-SHIRT FOR AN EXAM.

7th March
(S)mothering!
I dunno where to start. I feel miserable. I’ve just realised that no matter what I do Amma’s gonna be there and try to help me out and be good to me and all. Though she is full of good intentions I want to get away somewhere far where she can’t control me-not control me exactly- even HELP me.
I want to find whatever on my own and I don’t want me to do what they want me to and I don’t want to rebel either. I want to go somewhere far away where nobody can reach me…can trouble me. I’ve always wanted to… after 6 months of ignoring it, it has come back with a bang. I dunno...this strong belief that I’ll lead blocked boring life dictated by her goodwill, I’ll never do anything outstanding, and I’ll never find a crush let alone a true love. I’ll never find magic I’ll never find anything interesting, I’ll fail in everything I do.. This is really eating me.

SELF IMAGE

2010-05-10T01:33:00.000-07:00

SORRY FOLKS! COULDNT DO TEH POST ON SATURDAY!
27th February 2004
Self Images!
All these days when I’ve been busy trying to act out this whole farce of being a ‘bubbly’ extrovert. I’ve failed to notice others –observe them, study them. In this huge attempt to seek maximum attention I’ve lost out on knowing others. Yes I can say I am considerably happier caring only for myself and trying to know only myself and putting on a façade by which I want everyone else to know me.
Well of late all the teachers have been asking about the class’s perception of a person -yesterday Shanti and Swati. Today, Ratna. Weird. Well different people viewed me differently and I was asked about my perspectives of others too. I didn’t have one on most people, except the ones who were slightly boisterous or extroverted. Ratna ma’am thinks I’m ‘bubbly’ and she said it like she really believed in it, too. She said that when she heard laughter in the Psychology Department she knew that I was there and that though I laughed and I was bubbly and all I knew when to work. Of course I really like this impression and am proud of being a good enough “actrice” to have created it. But it came as a shock that it could be considered outgoing.
I mean –Duh where is Gowri? It was similar to the time when Akku told me I was creative and therefore wanted me to do architecture and what amma told me about Akku telling her about how I had made a sensible decision to do B A and all. Also about Tej considering my handwriting to be one of the best she’s ever seen in her life when all my life I’ve heard people literally worshipping Akku's handwriting and either telling me how normal or how bad my handwriting was.
ALL THE TIME. There was the time long ago-I think when we were going to Singapore …no Sikkim for a holiday and we were sitting in an airport. Akku and I were writing to Thatha Pati and I was writing in my very best handwriting. Of course I was a young child then and even my best was nothing to beat Akku’s worst. She is 5 years older. Of course she has a beautiful handwriting, with a lovely slant. Mine was never too even and never had much of a slant. There was this man who must’ve been in his mid fifties and his wife (who I think was a foreigner). I don’t remember too much except that this man had a snuff box and kept smelling stuff. He saw Akku’s handwriting and said it was so great. Though I didn’t realise it straight away that seems to have increased my already existing inferiority complex.

It’s maybe just about a year since I have been able to get rid of this inferiority complex. All my life I have lived under the shadow of my brilliant sister. Though my family did try its best o prevent the formation of such a complex –by treating us as equals –in fact by putting Akku down sometimes to make me feel okay, never telling me that I am stupider than her or less pretty or less hardworking or less intelligent. But stupid and insensitive as I was I couldn’t help noting these facts and develop such a complex. It took me nearly 16 years to realise that in spite of being less intelligent and creative than her I had some amount of intelligence and creativity, some amount of prettiness; I liked my eyes for example- soon I got glasses.
I liked my hair for example –soon I stated balding in the front. I guess my sense of humour helped me a lot. Well I guess I accept myself today as a unique individual who needn’t compete with Akku. This is how Appa and Amma have always treated me and Akku too. She has treated me with considerable amount of kindness and been very nice to me many a time.

I owe a lot to Nizam’s for having helped me to get back confidence in myself and my love for myself in spite of not hating others. In both my schools I started loving myself because I hated others.

FUN and PHILOSOPHY

2010-05-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

25th February 2004 continued
More on Xpressions
I had thought id stop on that note but going by the responses I’m adding the rest of the story. I’m sure some of you would remember the jokes and the events or chaos over the prizes….

We joked around some more and each one had to go away for something or other. I took a friend to Pick and Move (restaurant) and it was 5 pm when I realised about the slow biking race. Masood was there and he was livid. I apologised as hell and went. He came second last in his race. I couldn’t drive without putting my leg down so I lost pretty soon. Anyway he left after some time.
We were hanging around in the basket ball court when someone called us to help in packing the prizes. I even got to choose what I wanted. Meanwhile I was able to get thru to Appa. Told him I’d be late and all. The fashion parade was to start at 7 p.m. The prize distribution started only at 8.30. There was tremendous confusion. Jagdish called me to help others give out the prizes. Navika was announcing. I fell off the stage once by mistake when I was giving the chief guest the prize. Anyways we took back the prizes and things.
Just saw the solos in the fashion show. Had to go off with Navika to search for Jagdish, who had the prizes, because there was this boy from another college who really wanted it. Anyway Shaista, who had the prizes and refused to give it. I don’t yet have my prizes. Hopefully I’ll get them tomorrow. Came home around 10, ate and slept.
(And there is the word ‘Appa’ written and then scratched out. I’m sure her father must have lectured her a bit on the lateness of the return. :))

23/24th /25th February 2004?
Living in the Moment
(This entry is so profound I can’t believe it was written out just like that! Yet it is smack in the middle of her other entries on 25th about Xpressions and the handwriting is clear, steady and more careful than the reporting on the college fest...)
Every moment in one’s life is a moment by itself. A condition totally new-unprecedented and irrepeatable. While we may try to relive many a moment, we can only achieve similarity and not sameness. There are certain ‘big’ moments –say exams as ‘events’ or certain pieces of work-which may involve months of planning anticipation and anxiety. But eh ultimate ‘big’ moment –one’s actions at that moment happen (italics hers) then-maybe due to the anticipation planning and anxiety, maybe despite it.Whatever the reason the thing happens at the instant (italics hers).
Then there are those things one thinks of after it is complete. They may be memories- pleasant, unpleasant. We may be proud of some moments and ashamed of them. But whatever time we spend in thinking about it is futile because I suppose what is done is done.
However, at the same time, each action leads to consequences. What we do at one moment may change people’s lives for centuries to come or just your life as long as you live. But whatever it is every action matters. However once you’ve messed up an action there’s is no point losing your mind over it. It’s best to make the best of ones resources. I guess I’ve realised that what all those people said when they said “Don’t think of the past and future. Just think of the present” -they were right. That way if you are totally into each moment of your life and try your best at each instant you won’t have to worry or grumble or anything. If you do something don’t think about it too much. Later you’ll try to judge it and see if its constitutionally right or wrong and stat regretting it –maybe because everything has both right and wrong. I hope and I pray that I have the strength to put these penses (French=thoughts) into practice.

NIZAM FETE

2010-04-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

I decided to shift to the 2004 diary because this still covers so much of her excitement in Nizam’s college. (The rest of the 2006 diary shifts to TISS.)
24th January 2004
Name For The Diary - Narnia !
You just can’t imagine how glad I am to finally have a diary to write into. I am going to call you Narnia because it says “Narne’ on you and I want you to make as much magic for me as C S Lewis did fro Narnia. I am so glad. Today I am going to give my driving test again and I hope I get through this time.

25th February 2004
X-pressions, Kya Scene Hai!
There’s been quite a bit of excitement in college the past two days because of our college fete X-pressions. I didn’t like it too much day before yesterday but yesterday was too good. Usual starting trouble I guess.
Day before, I was supposed to help in organising ‘Kya Scene Hai’ and with the debate also.
Some of the stuff was hilarious –especially the one where the villain runs off with the hero’s chaddis.
Sat with a friend-he was talking of his life in HPS, at home, in Nizam’s etc. and about how they ragged others. Just then another boy appeared with booze in a Sprite bottle. Other girls and a few more came along too and joined us. All of us were squeezed on to the wall and the boys were secretly swigging off the Sprite bottle. So secretly that even the wiser girls didn’t know! Maybe I wouldn’t have guessed either if this boy hadn’t told me. We then saw one of the group dances and left.
Yesterday morning there was extempore.
Navika got the topic of obesity and she went on about how in poor countries rich people are fat and in rich countries poor people are fat because they can’t afford the gym. Too good it was. I got ‘Sonia and Vajpayee’. I just blabbered some utter nonsense-actually utter sense- obvious things about how they were both great and wanted to be prime minister.
Navika got the first prize and there was tie between Jagdish and me for the second place.
So we had to give speeches again. He got the topic ‘beard’ and managed to impress the jury. I got the topic “Only lunatics love”. I agreed with this and started talking about how everybody was a lunatic because everybody was affected by the moon and started talking about the importance of the moon-how it brings light to the night. To my greatest surprise they gave me the second prize though I deviated so much.

Our team (Jagdih and I) also made it to the final round in the Ad-con. The topic we got in the lucky pick was to make an ad to convince Kantaben (in Kal Ho Na Ho) that homosexuality wasn’t a sin.
Anyway, it all started with me as Kantaben teasing Jagdish about how he comes home each day with a different guy and all. Then he admitted that he was a man’s man. Kantaben gets all angry and asks him to get out of her sight.
In the next scene J acts as if he is getting all beaten up. I come as a journalist (duppatta now worn usual style and not covering my head) and talk about how homosexuality is a natural phenomenon and we do not have the right to punish others just because they are different from us and of a few ancient prejudices. Then J asked (covering his mouth ) “What about our fathers and brothers” and I said gay guys wouldn’t rape them and all. Then the scene changes and I come back again as Kantaben. J asks why I’m happy. I say very shyly that I am a woman’s woman. C’est tout-that’s all!
Other teams did well too… So J and I got the first prize.

Just Another French Class

2010-04-17T10:31:00.000-07:00

8th April 2006
Had a loooo…ng French class this morning. Shanti’s not in town …so it seemed even longer I guess. It was fun...in the pause we talked to Amelie about India places and food etc. but sheesh, my French ahs become really pathetic…I just dunno where the aigu is and where the grave is. The other day I couldn’t spell très. Its pathetic.
Anyways after class Anita Sushant and I chatted for a long time. After that I went to the library and borrowed a movie. The librarian was there and I chatted with her for a while. Amelie was writing an English email. She asked me how to spell biriyani. I didn’t know if she wanted it in French or English and I came up with some weirdo mixture. Strangely she spelt it right.
Then I left. On my6 way to the main road, I saw Anoopa (a senior in Nizams). I was real surprised and stopped to say hi. Was real glad to see her. She said she lived real close and asked me to come home. So we went.
It’s really beautiful. One of those old Marredpally houses with a garden and all. As she opened the gate three dogs came barking welcome. I was so glad to see the dogs it was quite obvious on my face. So she said I could stay and help her bathe them. I wish I had. I did totally intend to. Anyway we went in sat down chatted for some time. She gave me some of that Goan sweet that Amma had once bought and we chatted off happily sitting on wooden stools in front of the table in a large spacious kitchen which had windows opening on to the garden. After a while the dogs started barking. Someone had come to take their fridge which had stopped working. So she emptied it and I kina helped her. Then her mom came and they took the fridge away.
Her mom seemed very nice as well. We chatted off normally like Amma and me or something. All the interiors were somehow very Goan. So Anoopa’s been doing this and that ..some research, part time jobs, some courses, I dunno what all.
So she has got admission plus scholarship in the university of Nottingham. That’s real cool. She’s (from) all over the place I believe-Kerala, Tamilnadu, Goa, Karnataka ..everywhere.
Anyway once the fridge went mother and daughter thought about how they should rearrange the kitchen. Anoopa said later, probably because I was there. So I kinda thought I shouldn’t disturb too much and said I should make a move.
I could’ve asked if she was planning to bathe the dogs. I’d have loved to help. Its okay… though she said we should visit again and I said I would, will I? I dunno. I don’t think so. I didn’t feel awkward today but I hate to impose myself on others. I generally don’t like taking the initiative to visit people’s homes.

(I went with her once again…as she kind of drooled over the dogs once again. I think one of the dogs had littered and the puppies were cute)

Impressions of TISS

2010-04-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

Sept 2006
This is the first published poem of hers that I saw- though she preferred it to be anonymous most people knew who wrote it…because of one famous occasion where she actually jumped out of a window!

Impressions of TISS

The tall green trees
The rainy days
Clothes which won’t dry
Umbrellas unfound
Blessings from heaven
Plonk! On your head!

People everywhere
Oh so many everywhere!
The tiring ‘Hi’s
The painful smiles
So much ‘nice’ness
Somewhat fake

Classes overcrowded
With windows like doors
The urge to jump out
Amidst the tall trees
The thought of attendance
That makes one sit back

Purring powerful cats
Who fight the helpless dog
A family of monkeys,
That jumps from tree to tree
Infinite birds
Infinite shit and pee

Oh what talk!
Big words, Big thoughts
Marginalisation
Human rights
& what else can it be
But HE-GE-MO-NY?

(UNMAAD, The TISS Annual College Magazine of 2006-07,p46)

Joint Study Efforts!

2010-04-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

This is a fair description,typical of the many occassions she resolved she would study! And she would then work herself up into a tizzy the day before an exam.
3rd April 2006

Studying Hard(ly)

Yesterday I went to Tej’s house early in the morning planning to stay overnight and study sociology all day long. While waiting for lunch we called Navika and she said Sukoon their college fest was going on. She wanted us to come and said we could even stay overnight.
We then convinced Vennella also to come over. N said she wasn’t sure if there would be space and then sms’d back asking all of us to come. So we went but didn’t take toothbrush etc. We reached in time for an Antakshari competition that was pretty boring. We thought we’d get back to Tej’s place for the night.
Then Amrita came over and N and A convinced us to stay though there wasn’t enough place to stay saying we wouldn’t sleep through the night. I thought that was sorta crazy at first and wanted to go back since I don’t enjoy dancing or music. But Tej said we’d stay and A said this is the last time we could do something like this together.
Navika did the compereing for the official function. So we stayed for that. There were lots of paintings in that hall and Amrita and I did art analysis. It was fun and Jagdeesh then came along and added his bit of analysis. We saw Rahul acting very busy, organising stuff and all.
After the function was over we went back to the hostel, ate and went for a walk. Navika showed us her old house where my school teacher lives, where another school friend Amina used to live etc. n and T went on a giant wheel and A,V and I did some shooting. And throwing rings. I shot a balloon and A won 2 soaps in the ring throw. We did some more time pass and then we went to the DJ nite.
It was on an open ground …really dark with really bright multicoloured changing lights at one part where the stage and crowd was. They had great lighting effects loud music and IMMENSE crowd. The cool night breeze and the large open space were really good and it saved the place from being like that disco in Mumbai. I guess it was the space and the breeze that actually made me stay and then dance (though I was stiff).
I found it (and still do) crazy that so many people congregate and dance to such loud music and put up with the light and the heat and the noise and seem to actually enjoy it. I wondered if people really do.

Jealousies

2010-03-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

25th March 2006
Jealousies
There is this wee bit of jealousy I feel when I think of the others who are very close to my French teacher and her family. It’s quite strange and surely unnecessary!
I do not know why I am so jealous…jealous that my best friends have some other friends. At each step in my life I went through this. (She names many instances through childhood school and college). Even the relationship between Amma and Akku would make me jealous at times. It’s horrible!
Why am I so jealous? It makes me such an introvert and I distance myself from people. Even a word could make me jealous and make me think that I do not belong in a group. I am too ‘sane’ (though not intelligent) and too capable of jealousy to quickly develop fondness for people. I try to maintain a distance always because I am afraid of relationships…to find that my feelings are not reciprocated or to get jealous if I find that the other person likes someone else more than me.
Why do I suffer from this complex? I do have loving parents. I ALWAYS DID. Wonderfully sweet grand parents and amazing home environment, an extremely nice sister who has always loved me even if she tried to bully me/correct me/teach me…why do I fear being rejected by others.
True I’m not a beauty, but actually my fear of rejection is deeper than appearance. I do not strongly feel that I’m ugly, I just hate the way I look, the way I talk, the way I’m so clumsy and self conscious…I’ve always been as long as I can remember. People always used to say “relax, be free, and let your body go freer…” when I learnt dance and stuff.
I never could do the trust fall. Do I have basic anxiety? But why?
I remember nice loving caring parents always. Can it be because Amma was a working woman? I know I reject the idea...never consider it coz I don’t want Amma to feel bad about it. I know she hated the idea and would go on the defensive like I’m blaming her or something. The fact is I’m not blaming her. I understand completely. Duh! Who’d want to be housewife and she was working in a career she cared about.
She already had a daughter and she’d worked even though she did. So why should she give up her career for a second daughter? There is no need when you look at it practically. Heck! There’s food ,clothing a caretaker during the day and play school and she’d be back in the evening. So what’s all the fuss about? And this kid has a sis too… and a dad and a mami and she’d konjufy the kid in the morning and evening anyway. She was spending quite a bit of time with the kids anyway. She cared for them, struggled to put them in a school without competition, encouraged them to play, sing, draw, paint and have a good time. Gave them positive feedback, what didn’t she do?
And what didn’t Appa do? He took us on picnics was always nice to us bought stuff for us, cared for us. What didn’t they do? I don think they missed out or messed up in any way,
So where does this complex stem from?
Isn’t an individual a product of socialisation? Isn’t the family the primary socialisation? Hey! Let’s think of secondary socialisation…that wasn’t great to me was it…look at your school days Suku, not what I’d call fabulous. That’s probably it. I don’t like thinking about it or writing about it. I should deal with it and get out of it…its now 5 years since I left the place but the complex lives on. Get out of it ma Cherie, Suku kutty you can do it, Gowri, tu peux la faire!

Decision-making

2010-03-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

13th March 2006
Decision
Are my confusions getting clearer or am I getting more confused? Dunno.
Kinda came to a decision today. Decided I wouldn’t try for masscom. as of now coz I’d first like to study Sociology or maybe Anthropology. So I’m writing just 5 entrances. JNU Soico, HCU Socio, HCU Anthro, CIEFL Culture Studies, TISS Social Work. Let’s see what I get into. Even if I get into none, it’s not the end of my world. OK, that’s the order of priority as well. Must try whole heartedly with full effort for all five and then see.
Another dilemma--to join Business French or not? Shanti’s gonna take a Business French course this Saturday. Morning classes …end in June. So the logic? Good to have another certificate. It would keep me active and hardworking to go to early morning classes. But the problem is time. Maybe Alliance will bring back some time management skills. Maybe I need more challenges. If I can’t manage I can just quit I guess. May be I should go for it considering Shanti’s taking it.
Thank god, found my scooter key today. I was so totally HAPPY- ECSTATIC to tell the truth. It was great. Amma, R and I went on a shopping spree.

27th March 2006
Indecision
Early this morning, it struck me that if I had ANY guts I’d try and apply to an ad agency and try to work properly this time. In the creative department, I’d try my hand at copywriting. .. I truly would. It would make a lot of sense in this Golden era of advertising. Maybe I should try. I might actually have fun. I might actually even become rich or famous. I might actually become a writer. I don’t think I’ll need to waste time trying to follow academic pursuits. My mind isn’t really academic and I don’t actually derive that much interest from theories and hypotheses except when they agree with my own. I am far too self -centred to care about the working of society and to understand it properly. I am far too self centred for social service. I really think I should try my hand at advertising. I guess I do have the creativity when it comes to that. Maybe I should try that out.

I cant tell amma this now. She’ll be furious. I’ll have to make my resume, get second opinion from Amma and Akku and maybe Seva and then send it somewhere. Maybe monster .com or naukri.com? Or maybe I should check out the O&M website.
I can just hear amma tell someone “Suku is fine. She’s entirely concentrating on Sociology. How do I tell her? She was so relieved .I was so relieved. I thought I was decided …fixed. … point finale. But no! My mind has to waver more. I won’t tell her or anybody else now. I’ll think about it for a while longer. I will study socio and anthro and do my best in all the exams. We will see…

CONTINUATIONS

2010-03-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

9th March 2006
A Close Call!
Thank God! I believe that this guy (unnamed) never liked me. He always liked another friend of mine. Thank goodness…I escaped imminent embarrassment expecting /believing that he liked me and feeling yuck because of that. Thank Goodness! I escaped.
But it is weird when I think what vanity I must’ve had to assume that he liked me. How did I assume that? I never thought I was that kind of person. How idiotic I am. Anyways, he proposed to this friend and she didn’t mind too much. So that’s ok.

More on Social Strata
Had a long conversation with another friend today. She came up with amore plausible theory about why stratification based on money existed in our school. It is the uniform. Perhaps my theory doesn’t apply in this case but it’s a pretty neat conceptual formulation… though it’s real simplistic and Pareto would have considered it non logico experimental and therefore unscientific.
It’s real cool because human social interactions go on cyclically to satisfy human social needs. Since we are all so similar we have different criteria fro differentiation. We get caught up in these differences that we have a great need to belong. So we from groups with commonalities that in turn differ from other groups within these groups differences and perhaps stratification or group formation again emerges and so on…

11th March 2006
Prof Shanta Sinha’s talk
It was a very interesting day yesterday. At college, I attended a3D max class and then a seminar by Prof Shanta Sinha on child labour. What she said was really touching…she also introduced some ideas which were absolutely new for me. I have never been so inspired by a lecture.
For example she said that child labour is not always because of poverty. On the contrary it is often caused by the argument of poverty. She made us understand that there are several examples of how the very poor children are sent to school when compared to the slightly better off. She also said that children often feel hurt in school. Not just by angry words or violence, but the simple absence of teachers in classes.
She also said that if one wished to boycott products involving child labour, one cannot eat anything or construct anything with a brick in India, because child labour exists everywhere.

Me Meera again
I lost my scooter key – came home by auto.
My friends stayed over because Appa and Amma were out of town. We went to the alliance and saw “Me Meera”. The voice just didn’t go with ‘Meera’ and was too wannabe as Navika put it. I had immense pleasure in telling the director that the voice sucked big time. He said “I know, it’s too local.”
I was like “No it’s not Hyderabad, its Tamilian. And he was like “It’s so tough to find the right voice.” I was outright nasty, not at all sympathetic. It was fun…

A Little Wounded Bird

2010-03-06T06:22:00.000-08:00

I remember this well- often finding the funny aspect was the best way to restore her perspective on things. And usually there was something to giggle .

Friday 3rd March 2006
Of a Bird That Flew Off!
I feel horrible as though I did something really terribly bad. I feel so terrible and guilty.
Today when I came back home from the market I saw this really kutti (tiny) bird lying on its side, bang on my way. If I hadn’t noticed I’d have run over it. I saw that it was alive but struggling to live. So I picked it up, fondled it in my palms praying. Then I realised that there was something wrong with its left eye….half of it was red so I thought it couldn’t see. There were some thuluka pasangal (Muslim boys) playing outside. So I asked if one of them would hold the bird and come to hospital in Padmaraonagar. So they agreed. I handed the bird over to them brought the veggies up locked the house and ran down again. They said the guy who had agreed to come was scared so another one agreed to come. So we went to the veterinary hospital. Everybody there kept asking me what kind of bird it was and stuff like that. I of course didn’t know. When I took it inside to the doctor she examined it while it was still in my hand and said it was ok and that its eye was ok and then I told her how it was lying on its side. She tried to take it and it just flew and clung to my duppatta. Then I tried to take it in my palm and again it flew up over the tube light…oh so close to the fan. The doctor got real scared and asked someone to switch off the fan and light. Then this guy there stood on a chair and caught the bird. The poor thing was struggling in his hands and eh gave it to me. I didn’t want to hold it tight and crush its wings and feathers. So it flew off again this time to the windowsill. Stuck between the glass, the grill and this guy trying to catch her, the poor bird had a tough time. So I dunno, crazy me, I just opened the window and she flew out. I was feeling really guilty that I had ruined stuff and intervened unnecessarily in nature’s way and taken the bird to some strange place away from her kin and left her there.
I felt really guilty and talked to Amrita. She was like it’s not all that bad, at least you tried what you could and it is better than if the bird had died near home and also that the hospital wasn’t some alien land. I kinda felt a little better after that.
Just now I spoke to Amma and I feel much better. That was basically because I told her about how an venerable tamizh auntie who lives nearby gasped when she saw a proper thuluka payyan sitting behind me on the bike…full with jubba toppy and all. She was totally scandalised and was pointing out to her son and daughter thinking i didn’t see her. I said “Namskaram Maami” with utmost orthodoxy and carried on. Poor thing, she just didn’t know how to react. Damn funny to be scandalised by a little Muslim boy sitting behind me…especially when he is at least 10 years younger than me. Amma also found it hilarious.

Tuesday 21st February 2006
Les Mots (Words)!
“Tout les enfants sont des miroirs de mort” (All children are mirrors of death)-Jean Paul Sartre.
Is that true? Do children really reflect death? Maybe I should read about Nachiketa Dialogues with death and also Dialogues with the Dead by Vijllipsky or whoever. There is a lot to read.

Local theory

2010-02-28T02:42:00.000-08:00

Sorry im a day late!

Local Theory on Social Needs

A typical need to build a theory based on her expereince!

Tuesday 7^th March 2006

Human beings in general have two kinds of social needs. One is to identify oneself with others, empathise and belong to a group-the need for belongingness. Another is the need to distinguish oneself from others…reinforce one’s own uniqueness, one’s exclusiveness in one’s own mind…to feel special and different. The two needs coexist. Perhaps when a population is almost uniform and kind of homogeneous …when people in it are nearly similar, the need for distinguishing oneself gains more importance. But when there are a lot of differences…socio economic cultural etc. the need for belonging becomes greater. I don’t know if it is true for greater systems but in my personal experience I guess it is so.

Basically I arrived at this from the seemingly weird way in which so much stratification happened in my school while so little existed in a larger school that my friend went to.

In my school almost all the children came from the same socio economic background...elite, middleclass and upper middle class and upper class. No first generation literates, all westernised having educated parents with TVs, fridges, vehicles etc. My friend’s school had representatives from all sections of society, ranging from children of the poor to those of the rich, from the children of the illiterate to the highly educated families, and yet, at least according to my friend, there was barely any stratification. Even if there was it was none too rigid. Perhaps when the kids are from such varying and diverse backgrounds, there was a greater need to bridge the existing gaps and identify with each other. Whereas in my school, perhaps there was need to MAGNIFY the existing differences to make one feel unique and special. There were socio economic differences, who’s rich, who’s kool and who’s ‘in’. That’s what it was I guess.

12^th March 2006

My theory is becoming stronger and stronger. In everything I read I find it or ideas leading to it and its becoming broader too.

My theory is that when there is a lot of homogeneity to start with people begin to feel too common and their need to distinguish themselves becomes IMMENSE. Thus conflicts are greater in small intimate social groups as (Georg Siramel noted) because they share a sense of belonging, of identity. This could also be because each of us has a part in us that detests what we are …everything we stand for…thanatos. (death drive)

This was my understanding of Vimal Aunty’s explanation about how people tend to get angrier with others when they do something they themselves have done. There is a great sense of indignation when a person identifies oneself with the act. Perhaps this boils down to a need to change. I guess the basic need could be a need to change .perhaps the belonging identity and the differentiation / specialisation need are both manifestations of the need to change.

Anyway coming back to my theory, there is a greater need for identity and belonging in a highly heterogeneous group. Thus as people fulfil their needs a homogeneous groups becomes heterogeneous and a heterogeneous group becomes homogeneous all in cycles, its more or less like the theory of ‘incoherent homogeneity’ to ‘coherent heterogeneity’. In fact IT is that.

Somehow I feel I’ve complicated life…I started off with ‘identity’ as ‘belongingness’ and ‘group identity’ and ended up with it being ‘individual identity’ or the need to specialise. I guess basic needs could then just be identity. Maybe I should leave this obsession for a while, study sociology with an open mind, sans bias and come back to it later if I still want to.

College Tensions and School Days

2010-02-20T09:47:00.000-08:00

16th February 2006
I recall the tension her whole group in college went through over this incident. I hope the ‘contestants’ are now ok with each other.

High anxiety
Oh God! It’s so HORRIBLE. One boy in my class TRULY, REALLY WANTS TO KILL another chap. And who wouldn’t? If I were him and the other chap had done that to me...got me ACTUALLY BEATEN UP by the police for no fault of mine by BRIBING the police…wouldn’t I hate him so much! If I were humiliated and treated as a gunda by the police after all the good things I’d done and got blamed and beaten for the other chaps faults while he sat on a chair and watched. Wouldn’t I hate like that?
WHY WAS I SO INSENSITIVE? I didn’t realise it was so serious a problem…I thought it was a joke and showed it too. How can he be calmed down?
God I hope he forgets ‘coz if he does something as vengeance he'll have to pay for that too…probably spend his life in jail or get killed by gunda politicians.
The worst part is that they’re both my friends. Not so much the second chap-he’s too crazy and unpredictable actually.
But this first guy is a good friend of mine...one of my few close friends at Nizam’s though he’s crazy as well. I hope he has the good sense to keep out of the vengeance mode.
I hope I didn’t hurt him today-guess he won't be bothered thinking of what I said and did. He’s too busy!

17th February 2006
School Reunion
We had a ‘school reunion’ –some four or five of us. Divya ,Neelam, Neha,Amrita and Vidharshana. Never met Neelam after school. We had a real nice time. They were all their usual some times nasty selves….but otherwise ..Actually even that… was very nice. Some strange way we have so much in common. It’s weird the way no two of us is doing the same thing. It’s really weird.
But we still have so much in common. Those memories. The understanding of the people we were the experiences we had and the ‘incidents’ that took place…Oh boy! It felt really good when we kept recalling stuff and laughing at the way we are still just the same. Neelam and I fulfilled our long unfulfilled desire of going up by lift. The teachers were very sweet. I always had a strong bonding with one or two of them. Of course one of them commented on the mischievous glint in my eyes. And Quasar (one teacher’s dog) is fine I believe. One teacher’s little daughter is suddenly so grown up. Another has had a boy cut and looks real young.

18th February 2006
School Recall
Its strange how I told Smriti and Shrae’s mom about one of my earliest memories… so openly though I knew she is not the one to appreciate my type of ‘cuteness'. I told her about how I’d celebrated one of my birthdays with the twins coz their birthday is on 21st Feb and amma had konjified me saying how for kutti babies monthly birthdays are allowed.
I must have been three or four. I remember the music hall and Thomas teacher .It was an assembly and they gave chocolates. I didn’t have any to give and I wondered why and later I realised it wasn’t my b’day and that people had only yearly birthdays. Of course I didn’t tell her in all this detail…I didn’t tell her how Amma had konjified me and told me about monthly birthdays and made me feel that birthday feeling…that special feeling of superiority . I guess it wouldn’t go with the school principal image that people have of my mom.
It’s sad how I’m only remembered as the principal’s daughter. Or even worse as one person introduced me “Amita Desai's daughter, no. sorry Lalitha Iyer’s daughter.”
I mean Amma’s in the genre of the outside woman trying to do Principalling.
And well me, I went to school before her,I’m just her daughter.
And I saw the nursery kids running and hugging their teacher and remembered how she was once the world to me and that reminded me of me..
What I meant to write was “Wow I’ve changed so! I have become so much more expressive that I can share my memories and experiences with random acquaintances. I realise why I normally feel so sad in school. I had this feeling that all the happiness I experienced there was unreal, that nobody cared for me as me but only remembered amma or akka . Talking to all these friends and teachers yesterday made me feel much better.

Friendships

2010-02-13T18:27:00.000-08:00

She was deeply engaged in the ups and downs that her friends were living through -here's a sample of how she felt!

Friendships
Monday 8th February 2006
I met this friend (who loves films and acting) on the road today and had a longish chat with her. Feeling so bad for her, it is so SAD. She’s gotten into debts and stuff. She was disgusted by the way a director was treating her. She decided to make a play herself and borrowed money. The play got cancelled. And now she has to repay it all. Poor thing. This director really exploited her. I believe the whole idea for his newest film is actually her concept. When she’d gone to Mumbai she'd gone on a crazy walk around the town, really sad and all. She’d written about this and asked him to read the stuff. He read it and said it was nice and that he’d adapt it to Hyderabad. As usual the dubbing was before her exams. He told her the recording would be on a particular day. When she called him the day before, he coolly says “Your voice is not good, your accent is not good, I got an RJ (?)" to do the recording”.
CRAP! She wrote the whole goddammed script, he plagiarised it. She was looking forward tot eh voice bit coz otherwise it’s just a girl walking around town. The dialogues were close to her heart.
She didn’t even know about the screening at HCU. He is such a CHEAP BASTARD. I hope that one day she becomes a great actress while this chap remains a nobody. That would be so cool!

Still 8th
Spoke to another friend today. She seems to be feeling so SAD. It’s so horrible…she’s feeling so low about her new college…about the way people treat her there. They think she is dumb and stiff. The way she’s failing her exams and stuff and how they‘d probably think they are right in thinking she’s dumb.
I think after the old college –and the high that comes with it- the way she was respected and valued and admired there-it must be really tough.
It’s horrible even to imagine; poor thing she is feeling lonely and all. She went and watched Rang De Basanti alone.
She was s’posed to meet a friend today at a certain time. And when she got there this chap was still at home! She wants company, she needs friends.
And another chap she liked sent her an email ending that he was sorry about her grandmother and asking if she was very close to her! I believe she started crying and didn’t reply for a week. I can understand the feeling the unsaid part.
I can understand the feeling. I sympathise fully. But I dunno if I conveyed that. I’m such a COLD person .if I am all the sympathy giving source she has it must be tragic. But I bet she has other sources. She is such a friendly person.

Monday 6th February
I’m feeling real bad about the way I treat this friend… how I hardly ever think of her, how I’m goddam selfish, how I’m barely ever true to her. Gosh 1 I hate this. I victimise her the way I believe some others victimised me. I kinda exploit her and yet she is so faithful and nice and concerned and all. She is a very caring person and is equally sensitive. I’m sure I’ve hurt her innumerable times and in spite of that she remains so caring.

Dangers on the Road and More Films

2010-02-04T20:35:00.000-08:00

I do remember how shocked she was,poor thing! Also rememeber how her sister slapped someone for annoying her on the Tank Bund.I felt worried of course since they both rode bikes and came home at all hours!

And for a person agonising over exams she seems to had time for lots of films!
We saw Didier and RDB together.
BTW I am posting on Friday coz I wont have access to the internet tomorrow in my travels.

Tuesday February 7th 2006
"Eve teasing"!
God its DISGUSTING, REPULSIVE. I dunno how to describe it even. I was coming back home on my bike…helmet on my head and all…it would have been tough to realise I was a female and all except for my flowery Salwar Kameez which made it evident I guess. There was this bike behind me, just on the street next to ours…he was coming towards my bike ..I thought it was just plain bad driving. So I moved to the side-that BASTARD had the AUDACITY to nearly hit my bike, put out his hand and touch the breast region of my salwar kameez.
God! Its so HORRIBLE. So DANGEROUS…Right here..one street from home..and this for a girl on a bike wearing a helmet,hardly feminine. DAMN. Its so YUCK. I was SO shocked I just stopped there for two goddam minutes looking back a the moron who drove away. I thought of noting the number ..a moment too late. He had turned the corner. I was so SHOCKED it took me two minutes to think of following and noting the number...by the time I reached the street corner he was nowhere to be seen.
It’s so HORRIBLE and YUCK. It’s DISGUSTING.I FEEL SICK. I WANTED AT FRIST TO CALL Amma and tell her. But then I realised that I’d probably forget it and she will get all anxious and worked up and stuff. It is so horrible.
Why? Was the guy some sort of sex obsessed moron who randomly targeted girls on bikes? Was it a dare? The madness of youth, as I was thinking in the criminology class? Jeez. How sick is that?
I’m gonna change my clothes watch TV and forget it all. I must tell Amma this but I guess ill tell her when she gets back home. God, its so horrid, I have to go to French class library today .I'm scared. This happened in BROAD DAY LIGHT on a deserted road ..

Films
Thursday, January 26th 2006
Didier
Saw this movie (on DVD) called Didier. It’s absolutely marvellous. All of us thoroughly enjoyed it. Even Appa though he doesn’t know any French. ‘Twas darned nice about a lab who becomes human and then dog again. Darned cute and the guy who played Didier acted SO WELL. You could really feel he was a large clumsy Labrador…gnawing his hand, going around in circles before sitting, scratching his ears with his hind foot, it was hilarious especially the stuff he did as footballer.

Friday, 27th January 2006
Rang De Basanti
Saw RDB today-it was really well made. What do I say? It made me feel bad. The camera work, the cinematography, the sounds, the music, the acting ---all that was excellent. So were the basic concepts…very touching the way crazy history keeps repeating itself meaninglessly.
I understood Baghat Singh, Chandrasekhar, Azad… and them dying for liberty. That makes sense. ..not really…its grotesque, HORRIBLE. The little boy watching everybody die at Jallinawalbagh..not just die , MURDERED, KILLED, MASSACRED. Horrible. Growing up...violence is the only answer.
What happened then/ the pilot died. The defence minister was assassinated. Aamir Khan on his bike…Chandrasekhar Azad. The craziest thing is they become their roles, as though they were reborn. Is it heroism in them? Or is it just bravado aggression and madness of youth?
The first part of the movie makes one feel so futile… so bad about how today’s youth has no fire, no zeal left. All we have is virakthi and laziness and being resigned to one’s fate. Just drunkenness, discos, rash driving, bizarre hairdos, tattoos, clothing, smoking, drugs...above all a sorrow at all this…leading to the empty purposeless feeling.
Oh well basically it was a well made film. The past and present blended so well. Its very complex, dunno how to put it into words.

February 4th 2006
Saw Legally Blonde. This made me think of Janet Bond. I should get around to finishing that someday.

Name for the year

2010-01-30T03:22:00.000-08:00

Friday 3rd February 2006 (continued )
What’s in a diary’s name?
She had a name for her diary each year …and here’s how CONFIDENT arrived. and she certianly grew confident that year
The other day I thought law was the answer...thought I’d missed an opportunity for the five year course. I saw NLSIU’s max age was 20 and I’m just 19. I thought maybe I could apply…but five years later at 25 I’d have a BALLB. What problem could I have about that? I’d be the oldest in my class…never mind that aspect…am I cut out for law?
Firstly I lack the confidence. Is anyone ever cut out for anything? I don’t think I’m cut out for anthropology or linguistics either. But at least I could be quieter in those professions…basically what I need to develop and cultivate is confidence. With that will come a sense of certainty and purpose and that is IT. I go on happily, making decisions and not have time to think about what could have been…and publish such amazing stuff that I’d become famous . HA HA HA
But I do aspire for that. That and finding true love though after yesterday’s conversation with two friends, ‘true love’ is becoming less and less appealing. We were just thinking how true love happens when a person is not at all attractive. But when a person is smart or beautiful or attractive in any sense, it’s not true love. So when someone says he/she is in true love with some one else that means the other person is ugly dumb unattractive to the core, HA HA HA. Enough of pethal (tamizh for nonsense).
So my plan ..become CONFIDENT. You know what I’m going to name you CONFIDENT cause you’re gonna help me become confident and I’m also gonna CONFIDE in you. So CONFIDENT, what do you think? Sure? Confident? Lock kiya jaye?computer ji lock CONFIDENT. Aur aap jeet gaye hain do karod rupaayee. Aur yeh hai, kaun banega Bore pathi dvithiya.

Ordinary things…
Thursday January 26th 2006
Happy Republic Day
“Long live the republic!” like that anchor in AIR wanted to say. Funny it was. We went to All India Radio for a talk show on development. Time-pass! Four of us –and my friends T and B spoke real well. So we came on AIR today!
My (another) friend was pissing off today...she always thinks she can make assumptions about me and everybody else on earth, but that nobody should ever draw logical deductions from her behaviour… that would be presuming too much and oh she might just feel hurt! How can anybody say anything to her without seeming unreasonable, unfair, prejudiced and biased towards her? And for her no other perspective has the faintest likelihood of being even remotely reasonable.

Confusion and Responsibility

2010-01-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

Thursday 19th January 2006

Confusions

Today after a long time I realised how interested I was and continue to be in law. Those dreams came back- becoming lawyer, arguing (and of course winning) cases, becoming a judge, chief justice etc. I felt SAD for having given it up after a SINGLE failure, SAD for not having taken the LAWCET seat. True at that time I’d just begun to LOVE Nizam College. For the first time ever, I truly felt at home in and liberated in an educational institution. At that point in time I’d have had to be either crazy or a robot to leave...Nizam College made me feel worthwhile and at that phase in my life I couldn’t have left it. But if I had tried harder, if I had just had a more positive attitude, if I’d just written a better essay and (of this I am CERTAIN) if I had just worn another t-shirt I would have got into NALSAR. But then I wouldn’t have joined Nizam and that would have been sad.

Anyways enough of hypothesising and regretting! What can I do now? Obviously I don’t want to tell Appa and Amma right away. I have a bloated ego. First I should find out about LLB courses and whether they are valued AT ALL ,whether studying law abroad would of any use and stuff like that, whether the integrated courses are just too much competition. Or may be I could end up being editor of a law journal like my great grand father!

Friday 3rd February

Responsibility

There’s so many things I could write about... that I WANT to write about. It is not that I don’t have the time or the energy…but there’s this laziness, this boredom. This feeling of...I dunno...not caring? Not wanting to do anything for doing anything would be making a choice and accepting responsibility.

How do I get out of this? Do I WANT to get out of this? I dunno… guess all I want is to vanish completely. From my life...from people’s memories, from this earth. True that will happen, EVENTUALLY. But I dunno, I kinda want it to happen before I’m forced to take choices and therefore responsibilities. Actually this is just one part of me that dreads decision making…which SEEs how one false decision can change and RUIN one’s life and which DOESN’T WANT THE RESPONSIBILITY of being in charge of its own life. It has no clue what will happen. (She often liked to talk of herself in the third person!)

The other part believes that no matter what happiness success joy glory may be even IMMORTALITY will come …immortality, ∞ in fame for having done something WONDERFUL. It believes in its innate superiority and believes so much in its potential that it tends to look down on everybody else thinking “Hey, I have so much more potential that I’m gonna actualise…I’m great…nobody else is”. And then once in awhile it sees how much it has actualised and feels inferior…but never normal…never sans comparison...never accept itself for what it is without rating itself.

Well I do know what I must do...I must become a carefree person. Not a careless one, but just one who is free of unnecessary worries and anxieties. One who is willing to take responsibilities for ones actions and take decisions without so much worry on whether the decision is right or wrong.

Class Heirarchies

2010-01-15T21:06:00.000-08:00

This is certainly typical of Gowri -to 'apply' what shes learning. I have seen the emergence of heirarchies in many situations!
Monday 16th January 2006
Class hierarchies!
A lot of my insecurities, inferiorities and beliefs in my own inability go back to my days in school.
Our class in school was rigidly stratified. There was a definite hierarchy and unconsciously everybody knew their place in it. Everybody knew who the ‘coolest kids’ were, who the richest were, who the smartest were, who the fastest were, who the least cool, who the least smart, dumbest, least intelligent, least talented and who the in between ones were.
There were numerous groups-one ‘cool posh’ group and many smaller less cool, less posh groups.
I was usually in the least cool group. I SUCKED BIG TIME at sports, and preferred playing the swings. Football, basketball, volleyball, I HATED all of them.
If this stratification system were the caste system I would definitely have been a dalit. I belonged to a group. In our group we all had more or less equal status. We didn’t particularly feel inferior for our interactions with the rest of our class were rather limited. We had our own politics. We excommunicated many people from our groups. None of us played sports or wore fashionable clothes or studied well or ‘flaunted’ our money. Or at least most of us didn’t. We excommunicated those who did one or more of these things (most of the time).
Like all stratified systems, our class did have mobility-group mobility, individual mobility, vertical mobility, horizontal mobility. Within groups, different people gained prominence at different times. People were ‘kicked out’ of groups. Others were ‘taken in’. When one group kicked somebody out another group gave them refuge.
There were a lot of politics a lot of jealousies involved in the whole thing. Whenever a group saw an individual get close to another group, a lot of cheep tactics and/ or direct talk were used to expel that person from the group…and before that there was always a lot of plotting and scheming. A friend and I had to use a lot of mental energy to expel three others. Boy that was weird.
All our interpersonal interactions were characterised by ideas of hierarchy-superiority and inferiority. There was a certain sense of violence and competiveness in each and every one of us in spite of …or may be because of the school’s lofty ideals of ‘no competition’ and equality and learning at one’s own pace. Perhaps the very fact that competiveness was suppressed and repressed made it rebound with a greater magnitude. Perhaps it came like a secret volcano more intense because it was secret.
Or are hierarchies, comparisons feelings of superiority and inferiority just normal natural things that happen everywhere especially if equality is not thrust upon the people involved and they are allowed to do what they want and given total freedom? Is that probably why school had so many of these differences and groups and stuff? Probably!
Probably everywhere except in schools where severe indoctrination of ideals such as equality are carried out, army style, these differences exist. Or probably, in other larger schools there were people from so many people from diverse backgrounds that people actually saw others’ sufferings and got sensitised to it rather than just see other ‘okly’ off / rich kids and see who’s richer.
May be when you see a lot of deprivation, you tend to help rather than flaunt. But when you don’t see too much of differences, you see the tiniest of variations and you magnify them into mountains. Maybe that is why my next school had a less rigid stratification coz when all is said and done it catered to a larger variety of students. Though elitist it was not so elitist.

BOTH ORDINARY AND EXTRAORDINARY

2010-01-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed these bits and hope you do too!

Tuesday 10th January 2006
On extra-ordinariness
I’ve just been reading about Daphne du Maurier and her identity crisis, her desire to be male, her dissatisfaction with her mom and grand-mom whom she calls ‘basic type’ and it strikes me that every artist or writer who’s really shone - out-shone all others - everybody who has made it to ‘immortality’ – to that ‘greatness’ for which I once longed…actually continue to long for in a more subconscious way …comes with suffering difficulty trauma madness …and you know what ? I don’t have that dose of insanity which could lead to ‘immortality’.
Though I am glad of it and I do hope with all my heart that I never have to be subject to such traumas… I don’t think I could survive them, really…there is a part of me that mourns for the fact that I know that most probably I might never attain that ‘immortality’, that ‘greatness’.
Obviously , to get something, one has to give something and only when one has given a lot … when one has suffered a lot and overcome the suffering … can one even aspire for ‘immortality’.
But I still want to write though my logical mind blocks out the imagination that comes so easily to schizophrenics and the other mentally unstable people. I dunno. I’ve always had a fascination for insanity, for madness. I’ve always had a bizarre craving to be ‘different’ and since insane people are different, to be ‘insane’ and therefore special, unique. But I’ve always been normal –boringly so-like ‘thayir saadham’ – curd rice-that’s how I’ve been…mediocre in every sense.
In colour, in height, intelligence, ability...everything except self confidence and self image, both of which are extraordinarily low. Since that I know I try to boost it, so that even that becomes moderate –normal. And the MOST normal thing I have is the desire to be ‘abnormal’ or ‘super normal’ and my belief in my own ‘special’ nature.

Thursday 12th January 2006
On future plans
How can I be such a scatterbrained gitlering (?) idiot! I stun myself.
Now Appa is convinced is so supportive. He tells me to focus on Anthropology MA. He is convinced and so is Amma,that it is my interest. Is it? I wonder…

Wednesday 8th February 2006
On great marks
By the way, I got my marks today. 80% overall. Highest was 45/50 in social psychology. It shocks me to know that I really got more marks in the paper I wrote maximum in!
You know, I always told everyone that it was like that in Nizam’s. But I never believed that it was like that for me…coz I never really wrote very lengthy papers but always managed pretty decent marks. So I thought I was above that rule… that they saw a certain quality in writing. I was naïve I guess. Or I remain a poor judge of myself and my performance…and I don’t quite know which is worse!

Growing Up!

2010-01-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

Dear readers,
Greetings for the new year from Dubai.
Am here for a brief holiday and it is indeed a magical world here. Nice to be with my brother’s family!
Thanks for the responses. It encourages me to continue. As far as I can recall the birthday bash described here was not shared with me and I do not recall any ‘permission’ seeking!
Anyway I’m glad she had her fun.
Bye
Moichee.

9th January 2006
Birthday Bash
It was my friend N’s birthday yesterday. We went to her house and her mom had made chocolate cake. There were five of us (including N). N turned 21.she said she could legally buy us a drink. At first I thought it was a joke. But I have been wanting to taste alcohol for a while now. I wanted to try alcohol and cigarette before I left Nizams. So I was also a little more than willing. Since T was unwilling I convinced her as well. I guess it’s just to feel a little cool. I dunno. Anyways, when T and I expressed our doubts, a said Bacardi breeze is nothing, it has only 0.4% alcohol and it won’t make anyone drunk.
I was afraid since I had to drive back. But I thought 0.4% alcohol couldn’t really do too much anyway. I had already told Amma I was planning to try all this. So I kind of had her permission and Appa believes in experimentation and stuff. So I don’t really have reason to feel guilty. But I did when I came back and I didn’t tell Appa. T actually told her Dad and he just smiled. Guess I’ll tell Appa this evening .Dunno if I should, if it is truly that important.

Anyway we went to this place (park) called The Lotus Pond. It was REALLY BEAUTIFUL. The trees the lake the birds. It was AMAZING. That’s where we tried to booze…we did also. Actually it was lemon and orange juice mixed in some kind of tonic. It wasn’t great or tasty or anything, but it was fun. After that we had noodles fried rice and Manchurian and I came home.

Field Trip
Yesterday we returned from Ranipet. We had a nice trip and I got to take many nice photographs. Saw the Delhi gate at Arcot and the driver claimed that there was a tunnel from there to Delhi! Saw Robert Clive market too.
Went to amma’s friends house for dinner… met a pati there who was real nice. She wrote a cook book for her grandchildren. They were quite nice and normal. Actually, I had developed quite a caste prejudice thanks to thatha and our caste obsession in Nizams. So it was pretty surprising to find them all so nice.
Anyways came to Madras and visited my uncle aunt grand mom etc. Also visited Jai uncles house and met Ved and Hasita.The train was late and am feeling sleepy now.

On Problematic Parents

2009-12-26T08:38:00.000-08:00

Dear readers
Wish you all a happy new year!
With this post I complete the snippets from her diary for 2005. I found some of them extremely tough to read and accept- and some of them gave me great happiness. For me it has been a wonderful way to find solace and support every now and then. I now plan to go to the diary of 2006
Before I do that could you please comment on what this is doing for you and offer your suggestion on how it can be done better.
Thanking you all in advance for you views
Affectionately
Moichee

2nd December 2005
On Problematic Parents
Jeez! I used tot think that my friend S was an exception to the rule…one of the few people who suffered who had REAL problems and troubles from her parents as against my illusory ones. But slowly I learnt that most people have troubles with their parents.
I am really lucky to have the parents I do… and yet even with such nice supportive helpful parents ….who if nothing else does not TRAUMATISE me…I manage to find fault with them and magnify their smallest defects into gargantuan proportions. I dunno. Just look at all the others. They have so many problems and yet they strive to solve them and better their lives. I have everything smooth and easy and yet I tell myself, “Oh life is TOUGH!” Learned helplessness. I wan to be helpless so I can shirk responsibility. I am 19 and behave like at max -12 years old.
Anyways talking about others problems…
No need to go back to middle school and my friend and her Chaachi...dont know much about it.
One friend’s mother ill-treats her –comparing her to her brother, neglecting her, suspecting her, making her feel unloved, all this happening in an INTENSE manner. Her dada didn’t care…too involved in the office.
Another case. Loving mother away from home, dad not understanding, nothing in common, doesn’t speak to her. She wants to go away from home, tries to escape constantly.
And with another friend, closed environment, narrow thoughts, overly conservative, involving her in all the family fights and problems. She has to conform to the conservative norms at home while she comes to school and college.

Oof, it’s horrid and I crib!

FEMININE, CARING AND ADULT

2009-12-19T09:11:00.000-08:00

20th November 2005

On Becoming Feminine
That HORRID worry, that awful realisation, that I am so much like those petite, feminine, motherly, obsessed women…that part of femaleness that I so detest-that cranky fussy obsession that “I am such a good homemaker”
The obsession with people around, that frustration of not having actualised one’s potential, the uncertainty, and therefore the outward “I know everything-what’s right for everyone” attitude. JEEZ, I possess all these traits that I’ve detested in the “pushy mothers”.
God I’m scared I might just be that. …I must prevent such a CALAMITY from EVER striking me. Please make me a sensible, balanced, THICK-SKINNED practical, intelligent, sociable interested and interesting person. PLEASE GIVE ME THE SENSE NOT TO UNNECESSARILY SACRIFICE ANYTHING FOR OTHERS AND BELIEVE MYSELF TO BE HOLIER THAN THOU. I see the roots of those traits in me, Heck! I shall uproot them now itself- verroodu azhtthiduven! (written in Tamizh)☺

22nd November,
On Trust
Caring about others, feeling for others –showing genuine concern and empathy-it is not an easy thing. For being warm AND helpful a comfort one needs within oneself –that self assurance that sense of worth within one’s self which enables one to see things external-things including people- as worthwhile. Caring for one’s self enough so as to be able to care for others. Trusting one’s self enough to trust others. That is important. Can one impose trust? I guess it has to come from within you. Was that what Vanita teacher (in school) was speaking about all those years ago when I switched off my attention? Peutetre (perhaps). That self assurance that confidence coming out of trust –a true confidence ,not something put on-is what makes some people so magnetic-like Navika, Pratima, Anupa,Amma-they have that in them that basic security, its really cool!

8th December 2005
A Balanced Responsible Adult
Who would want to be a balanced responsible adult…it almost seems like a bad word to me. It seems great to be angry, sad, a depressed teenager, a traumatised child, a free child, a rebellious adolescent…anything but a balanced responsible adult. But I dunno, maybe even if it is boring I should try it out.
How boring! And it is not JUST boring…to be responsible is a bloody nuisance. Why should one be responsible? Why should one care? Why should one take the blame? Its crazy. Actually its anything but crazy...it’s crazy only because it is so sane. But when I or anybody else (especially the later) tells me I ‘must’ do something I just WONT. Though I know I must be a responsible and balanced adult I probably wont. But that also means I probably will!

Travels, Self esteem and Imagination

2009-12-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

October 23rd 2005
Holidays and travels (continued)
Early next morning we left for Thiruvidaimarudur (TDR) by car. We went through a lot of places.Poompuhar, Puducheri, Tranquebar, Karaikkal and ate some stuff at Muhtupillai’s bakery.
Thirumaichur –where an Iyengar women (known to a cousin) donated a “golusu” (anklets) to the Goddess Lalithambikai after a dream. When she was in the U S. the Goddess appeared in her dream saying she had everything but needed a golusu. When she actually made the anklets and came to Thirumaichur to offer it, she found there was actually a gap in the idol and she could put on the ornament.
Strange! Why did this Goddess choose a not so devout Vaishnava woman who hadn’t even heard of Thirumaichur ever before! Shiva’s wife chose a Vaishnava woman to extract jewels from-funny.
Anyways we went to one more temple and then to Pattiswaram to light a certain number of lamps and do an abishekam. We also did Annadaanam –Idly and chai daanam to the beggars outside.
In Poompuhar we actually saw the Cauvery with so much water. The museum and stuff was too good and it was great to be on a beach and collect shells.
The driver was called James. I kept thinking “James, coming bloody soon”! The impact of movies on aam person’s dimamkh!
(I am not sure which movie this refers to-LI)
We had dinner on the way and reached TDR by night fall.
Then two days in TDR…there was water in the river...bathed twice with Maami. She cooked all the meals everything right from tea and coffee. That was an AMAZING arrangement. AWESOME food.
(She hasn’t written any more about the trip LI)

October 27th 2005
On self esteem and imagination
That reminds me of my ASTONISHINGLY low score in self concept test in Psychology practical. I got 132 while 176 was the average for women and 179 for men. And guess what, I felt PROUD. I felt WORTHY. I felt like I had more quality. I dunno, it’s a weird thing, how one prides oneself in underestimating oneself. It feels great in a twisted way.

Yet I have the desire to write stories. But not the sustained interest to make one single coherent tale! Or the confidence or the self esteem.
Talking about imagination it, comes at weird times at the slightest provocation. was sitting on the veranda and enjoying the CRAZY wind … saw the purplish tinge behind the leaves and thought of the purple skies pouring rain and raging seas, the fisherman trying to save his life. The image just comes … it a simple thought grown complex as one writes it. I hope I get many more such images and I hope I get stories and write them.

Holidays and travel

2009-12-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

23rd October 2005
Holidays and Travel
It’s great to write again. Was off for 15 days-Madras, TDR, Mysore and Bangalore. Was great. Came back on 20th… There’s loads of stuff to write about.
First Madras. On the train to Madras there was this really old couple and the man kept talking to (Muthu) Thatha. Then Thatha shocked him a little. He was all excited about speaking to Thatha and there was this fat fair lady on the waiting list who totally took advantage of the old man’s chivalry. His wife kept asking him to eat. So he screamed “No way...I’m not hungry” or an equivalent. And the fat fair lady said quickly (before he could change his mind) “Ok, I’ll eat it if it’s going waste” .Guy doesn’t know what to do .Says “Good, that’s a very good attitude”. “Yemi muhamattam lekonda thintarante chaala manchigundi” (written in Telugu) i.e. When people eat without any fuss it feels very good.
In Madras went to Balram Thatha’s house. (Her aunt Mathangi’s father’s house). B Thatha was real glad I returned his John Grisham and said I was the first person to return a book borrowed from him. He had an eye operation that evening.
Then we went to (thatha’s cousin) Thambu mama’s house. It was real nice meeting him after ALL THESE YEARS. He’s just the same. Moham Athai was really nice too.
Then on to Lakshmi mami’s. As we entered we saw Sumi Akka enter with a ‘ching chong’ girl. So I had the honour of meeting Kunya. So Lakshmi mami was like “Kunya, Sukanya, how nice!” This cute little girl is from Arunachal, a tribal, studying VIth standard in Kalakshetra on full scholarship. She has four sisters and a brother, speaks and understands Tamizh PERFECTLY and has an immense affinity for vambu and kurumbu (gossip and mischief). “Vambaaa…?” I’ll never forget that!
Loves Chandramukhi and imitates Jyothika’s huge eyed expression so well in her kutti (small) ching chong eyes. Speaks “proper Chennai Yenglish”. Has watched all the latest Tamil movies sings and dances beautifully, suffers from travel sickness and can’t go home for short holidays. Being a family friend of Vibhu’s she stays with them for short holidays.
Believe Sumi akka’s servant on first seeing Kunya came to Sumi and asked
“Amma, is it our Samyu?” (Samyu is Sumi’s daughter).
“Why do you ask?”
“No, I just wondered how she went there so dark and came back so fair!” (Karuppaa poi veluppaa vandidichey?) Boy, did we laugh, it was so funny…the idea that Rishi Valley could actually be one fairness camp where they’d paint children white and send them back home. Lots of aratti, pethal (silly chatter) and giggles that day.
Went to Kapali temple. The golu bommai (dolls for dasserah) stalls were truly awesome. I’ve never seem so many in one place.
(To be continued)

on sisterhood

2009-11-29T00:36:00.000-08:00

1st September 2005
I am not the ideal sister for Akku. Since she is going to leave in three days I try to be helpful and make up for it… It’s really sad that she is going to leave so soon. I know I’ll miss her. She is suddenly so sweet and nice and I think she is nice and SHE IS but I can’t take the nastiness-after the sweetness. If she were uniformly sweet or nasty or moderate my life would be so much simpler!
My life has always depended on Akku.-she has had such an influence on me for as long as I can remember that its going to be tough with her so far off. I feel this sense of loss this void...

8th September 2005
When Akku cried on the phone yesterday -she didn’t cry, cry but her voice faltered I tried to laugh her out of it. Amma felt so much when Akku left... Me, yes I did, but not so much as Amma.

12th September 2005
Akku left me so many material things…so much material gain but it only saddens me. I miss her badly. She’ll now be on her flight from Dubai to New York. Hope she is ok. Poor thing. Its14 hours, I really miss her.

18th September
It’ll be Sunday morning in Cincinnati.
The first morning Akku’ll wake up in her Cincinnati flat there! Cool! Tomorrow she’ll go to University. I really am glad.

28th October 2005
God! Amma is being awful to me…I dunno she’s just so bored of me and all...just because she is angry with Appa.
Yesterday I had this image of a girl whose parents had fought and loathed the sight of each other and consequently loathed the sight of the girl for she was a representative of the ‘other’ –each took refuge in their ‘porandahams’-their patents’ houses and this girl is left alone with no 'porandaham' to go to...homeless...for each parent loathed her, thinking her to represent the other. Actually it was just a small simple thought…an exaggeration of my probably impending (perhaps...actually NOT impending) state...just like the conversation this girl had with her mom as to where she’d go…and I thought for the girl. What would she do? Whom could she turn to? The mother would ask her to marry, but whom could she trust she’d lost faith in marriages watching parents’ “marital bliss”.
Were, just a bit of imagination…vague unconnected situations, probabilities, possibilities, events which never were people inexistent…they come once in a while. I think “Hey, that’d make a good story. Maybe I should develop that.” But I never write about these things. They’re lost forever...unwritten.

more poems

2009-11-21T07:11:00.000-08:00

Friday 26th August 2005
Finally finished “Sybil” … what can I say? It was wonderful, moving...now I feel nothing.as I read it even when I thought of it in gaps I felt loads of things. I felt like Peggy Lou. I understood her and Vicky and ‘others’. It was a great book though I dunno about the psychoanalysis part…the emphasis was so truly the psychoanalytic perspective…narrow repression, anxiety, guilt, primal scene …but it did work in this case and it was true. It was great in spite of its American-ness-I mean the author, I didn’t like her. I don’t know why. But Sybil and the others, I felt like one of them –especially Peggy Lou (angry)!

More poems
(Undated in separate scarps of paper-the writing looks earlier than 2005)

(1)
Write write write
i must
i want to write
i wish to write
great poems, epics, great stories great songs
happy nice wonderful and long
for oh so long
was it all along?
I wanted to write
I do tonight
Perhaps one night I just might.

(2)
The stories of millions wiped out forever
The past, lost
Drowned buried deep
Never to be retrieved
Their lives once real
Once lived
Now so far away so pointless so meaningless
Like mine will be one day.
In a few years or months or minutes or seconds
This paper will be lost or crumpled
Or cut or lost
It’ll mingle with the earth
From whence it came
Just like I will
With my life
My story
Just like zillions of others
Lost forever.

Sensitivity

2009-11-14T05:58:00.000-08:00

17th August 2005-
Nationalism and Language
(In Hindi ) Saw the movie “Mangal Pandey –The Rising” today. Kaaphi teekh taakh tha! Not wonderful and all but history reconstructed. I haven’t got inspired to write in Hindi seeing the film-it wasn’t that touching or anything. But of late I have been realising the need to use some of our own languages! Truth to tell, I’m not so crazy about all these foreign languages. English has become part of us and we can’t live without it. But why other foreign languages-French? Can hardly say this now just before my French exam…
(In Tamizh) I’m afraid Hindi is the only Indian language I can use to a certain extent. I cannot write what I wan to say even in my mother tongue, Tamizh…

Sensitivity to Others
(In English) My actual purpose of writing was different. Today there was beggar outside and I was sitting in the car and eating chips. Since a chip was readily available, I just showed it to him. He didn’t seem to mind and put forward his tin-he didn’t have palms-and I put it in. Just that ONE chip and I didn’t feel bad about it-it seemed the natural thing to do…. The beggar didn’t seem to mind either….I didn’t observe his face expression or even his face properly.

Immediately Akku said “Chee, How can you do that, Suku? That’s like insulting him.”
That time I did it WITHOUT feeling I was in the wrong. My first response was to argue –to say he didn’t mind. Only much later did it strike me that I didn’t even give the entire packet. I brushed it off my mind. I’m sure I can even now….but what about for him?
I lie here comfortably with two pillows and a full belly talking of my guilt-mild though it may be and soon I’d forget the beggar and the incident.
But what about him-out in the cold, the rain, and the urine drenched footpaths, with barely enough clothes, with no fingers, a rod and a bowl. What about him? How horrid it must be everyday to take little bits of money-50p or 1re from grudging people. And some idiotic bourgeoise kid sitting in a car and munching far more than she NEEDS to...a bloody selfish thoughtless kid had the audacity to him a chip. A CHIP and went off munching, munching, munching. It is unfair, so UNFAIR. I would have cursed her punished her if and only if she were not me. Save me from the consequences of my actions! Yes I feel bad, but so what? What will the beggar get?
And why did that autowallah thank me? I DO NOT DESRVE THANKS. Savaari karne ke liye he said when I asked him, kyaa hua jyaada paisa de diya kya…is it just customer service spreading to auto wallahs? Could he read my mind? Did I pay him extra? I don’t know and I don’t know if I ever shall. I have too much and yet I want more.

nizami zamana

2009-11-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

post 24, Wednesday July 27th 2005
NIZAMI ZAMANA !
Ha! It really makes me LAUGH to think of it all. Psychology Ma’am thinks I think a LOT TOO MUCH of myself.
There were 5 or 6 of us and she asked us to conduct an experiment on logical reasoning on ourselves. So anyways I got a pretty good score and all 57/60 or something since the experiment itself was pretty simple. So I looked up the manual and 55 was 95 percentile and the subject (i.e. person tested) was “intellectually superior”. So I found it quite a jolly thing to be. COOL! ME! Intellectually superior? IMPOSSIBLE!!! No One else got that score in my class, so Ma’am wasn’t overly pleased and had to say “Congratulations”, and give me a disapproving smile. BOY was it funny.
Then she told me to write the discussion and I made a weirdo attempt. So she told me how it was wrong and corrected it. That was pretty normal and she told me how to write a discussion properly.
The phone rang –and I hope it isn’t for me. Someone has picked it up and would have yelled for me if it was for me. Therefore I deduce it is not for me since I’m psychologically tested to be “intellectually superior” HA, HA, HA!
So, to continue, I was all happy especially since I knew she wasn’t too pleased and well, I couldn’t hide my glee. She had to put me in my place and she said “Maybe in this you are good, but you won’t have such a high score in say verbal ability”. This statement was basically to illustrate why I had to add the words “in logical reasoning”. DAMN FUNNY…

And she turned to ‘A’, her new found favourite and asked if he does SUDOKU.. I didn’t know that it was addressed to him, so I just said “Yeah, SUDOKU that’s fun, I used to do it for 2 or 3 weeks after it came but I stopped –got too monotonous. I like it. It’s easy,” or something to that effect since Amma and all consider me such a natural expert- Sukudoo does Sudoku! ‘A’ didnt seem to have heard of any such thing. She glares at me and I continue with my work.

So anyways it looks today’s the day for bitching about this Ma’am or something. Let me go on. A few days ago she was just making general conversation with three of us. ‘A’ her favourite, J and me. She asked us what we wanted to do in future. J declared he would do MA in child psychology. She said, “You can’ t do MA ,there’s only P G diploma in Child Psychology”. THE HUNBLE SELF “In Osmania University”. They both seemed to have understood that already.
Anyway ‘A’ s turn next. “I dunno” and my turn “I dunno”. She gives up on me and delivers along speech full of concern to ‘A’, “But you must know what you are interested in...What do you want to become?” ‘A’ says he is interested in films.
“Making or Acting?”
“Making”
“Don’t want to do acting?”
She seems to think he’s highly handsome and would make a better actor. That’s just my deduction born out of my reasoning abilities. She tells him about some film school or something and turns to me…all interest in students lost by then…
“So when will you decide?”
“Soon enough Ma’am”
“Will you decide or your mother decide”
Boy, she’d touched the wound with a pointed needle! The ultimate insult…
Loud voiced me” “I will”, with an egoistic, narcissistic emphasis on the I.
And she goes on about something else… I just go on yeah yeahing and class terminates. End of episode.
She is probably right about my verbal ability thing. The emails I write to my friends are RIDICULOUSLY BORING, DRAB AND TOTALLY DEVOID OF HUMOUR –vitreous aqueous or any other kind.
And my (Alliance) French Ma’am tells me I have the potential to get a ‘tres bien’ or ‘bien’ in the diploma exam. It takes work to make potential kinetic.

international summer school pune july 2005

2009-10-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

15th July 2005
It’s been two days since I came back from the international summer school, Pune. It was really really cool.
Actually I guess I’ll write later about it –the weather the food the sessions, the movies, the jokes, the people, the learning, and also about Bhaja caves. I guess I’ll write about all that sometime. Anyway my uncle and aunt (Mangal and Neena) came. It was real nice. Mangal mama gave me a digital camera –a really cool fundoo one. YES ME of all people….Must read up some of those handouts I so greedily got from the summer school from Jaya. It was really nice and yesterday when I was bored and all, I did miss it. It was always so packed –breakfast, theme workshops, voices, lunch, skill workshop, presentations movies dinner and some cultural stuff like Dandya, rock, open nite, where participants performed. That closed around 12 midnight and people sat and chatted in their common rooms all night. I used to escape the cultural stuff .sometimes I sat thru it for awhile and then Akku and I’d go off to sleep though Renu kept telling us to stay a while longer. I loved the library at the Mahindra college –and what a view from the ‘mountain’ as Akku and I called it. So NICE!

16th July 2005
Never, never should I lose my little people of Warli. Already my recollection of them is vague. This new found 400year old art tradition seems to have overpowered them. I CANT LET THIS HAPPEN TO THEM. For it’s really happening to me.
The thought of the future depresses me . It angers me, irritates me. Why cant I be a happy kid living in a jungle doing as I please? Why must I go to college, do a PG, do whatever else higher studies, get a job, get married, have children, become older ,work, work work, work, act mature, be social, ,like people, act, act, think so much, live live and go on with a routine grow old lose my job, relations, get bored, lose my health and die? WHY? I don’t want any of it!

on birthday events

2009-10-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

I have pulled out her notings on oct 21 her birthday whenever they were available. its become longer than usual -but o know that will be ok with the readers!

October 22nd 2001
Yesterday was my birthday. Amma came back yesterday morning. Akku and I made stuffed tomato yesterday-was good. We kept kolu yesterday- it was fun. Keerthi (amma’s friend Vara aunties daughter) and I made a park for the kolu the whole morning…and for my b-day lots of people called Pati, Thatha, Divya, Neha, Seva,Melody etc.

October 21st 2002
Have completed 16 years. Early in the morning amma woke me up with a happy b-day and Akku who was sleeping also wishes me. Then got ready for the tuition and Akku gave me this t-shirt on which she had painted : me sleeping, me brushing my teeth, me having a LARGE cup of tea, and there or for pictures of me lying down and reading a story book with Timetable written next to it.
Seva said she’d forgotten to get my gift and Suma acted like she forgot it was my birthday. Then surprise.Suma got me a bracelet and Seva a bracelet and a clip. Suma’d made this lovely greeting card so painstakingly.
During bio pracs we had to dissect a cockroach which was disgusting. Some people couldn’t believe I was just sixteen. They would be 18 soon!
Many phone calls-pati thatha from Dubai, mangal mama from Singapore, vidarshana, Aarti.
After Amma came we went tot eh Sarawati temple in the University. Was pleasant. We were the last people to go there . Nice .no crowd. Pleasant. Good we went there (and not Skandagiri)

(and I can’t resist adding this.. seems to have been triggered by 21st)October 24th 2002
Gosh! Guess what ? I have a fan club…called the Gowri Iyer fan club. Formed by Fareena, Jaideep and the great self. Fareena president, Jaideep vice president, and the great self chairperson-cum- object.
The whole thing was so dumb. Couple of days ago Fareena started calling me cute and all. It was weird and embarrassing coz I know that I’m as far away from being cute as anybody. Even yesterday when we were walking to art class, Fareena called me cute again and I said that people probably called others they found really dumb ‘cute’. Jaideep who was listening joined in and said I wasn’t dumb I was innocent. This stunned me. I still dunno why I was innocent. The conversation went on with everybody praising me (except Amina). At first I was too stunned to speak and then said “basically Gowri is a very nice person” and Jaideep added “who likes being praised”. We all more or less agreed on this –but Fareena went on to say how she’d form the fan club and J added he’d be VP … this was so strange and funny I wanted to write about it yesterday itself. But today there was more of it. Jaideep publicised the fact hat he was VP of Gowri Iyer Fan Club and Meghna and Tanya joined and they are now lady Tanya and Lady Meghna.!! Must be Fareena’s idea of a joke.

October 22nd 2003
Been waiting to write in you for a….ges! Hardly get a private moment. Bunked college because of rain. Most of the day I was lying upstairs and reading “In an antique land” –Akku gave it to me yesterday for my birthday.

October 20th 2004
Gosh! I hate this goddam fuss everyone is making about my bloody birthday. Everyone’s born. Everyone turns 18. Why don’t they at least fuss secretly….I HATE IT. Where is the element of surprise in the whole thing? Why so much whispering about the clothes and so much openness about the rest. It’s enervating.
In a day I’ll be an adult-hardworking enthusiastic and responsible –determining my own destiny and that of others-always in the right, intelligent, courteous, sociable, friendly, yet superior, and amazing in all respects with out any confusions or dilemmas whatsoever.
Or WILL I ? I dunno-I don’t think so.
This is my last day as an adolescent . guess I never had adolescence. I haven’t really rebelled or been a make up/shopping /disco freak. I haven’t had nay crushes or guys in life. So have I had adolescence? I don’t seem to have done what adolescents are supposed to do. But when I look at it I have changed. HPS changed me and so did Nizams….guess that’s it. When, I’m starting to try and turn adolescent, its time for me to become an adult. Frankly life is difficult.

October 23rd 2005 just mentions her birthday in passing. No details of it.

October 18th 2006
There’s this weirdo sense of elation. It’s pure joy. It’s diluting itself as I try to analyse it. It just feels so nice to be packing to go home. And there’s nothing like a good argument amicably settled. It gives me so much pleasure-like the one I had with Poo just now or the one I had with Judith this morning.

No entries around 21st October 2007!

plustrust

2009-10-21T06:52:00.000-07:00

please see the website www.plustrust.org.comments corrections suggestions for changes are welcome

ON A VILLAGE STAY

2009-10-17T04:50:00.000-07:00

2ND June 2008
During my stay at Kothra and Kunda, I got to observe and internalize for the first time extreme forms of discrimination based on caste, religion and gender. I interacted with people who had internalized such forms of discrimination so completely that they thought it was the only way, that it was the right way (dharma) or they were resigned to it and thought it was destiny (karma).
I saw ‘tribal’ people who were staunch believers in and advocates of the hindu dharma, so much so that there were some who were actively involved in the activities of the VHP and were proud of having chased away a muslim family from their village. These believers in Hinduism, known as Bhagats, consider themselves superior to non-bhagats and do not eat or drink in non-bhagat households unless the ritually purify the water and give it to them in copper utensils. It brought to light the fact that casteism is practiced to a great extent in these supposedly ‘tribal’ villages. It destroyed my preconceived notions of ‘tribe’ as harmonious, integrated, egalitarian groups who shared a special relationship with nature.
Perhaps these ‘tribalisms’ are mere colonial constructs as Stuart Corbridge and other scholars suggest. Or perhaps these tribals have been so influenced by mainstream hindu ideology and ways of life, that they have lost much of their ‘tribalism’.
I also got to see man-animal relationships and adult-children relationships, that I didn’t expect. People in these villages did not attribute a very special place to forests, nature and animals as I had expected. They said the forests were too degraded and that they hardly got anything from the forests. The relationship with animals seemed more commercial (for their livelihoods) than emotional. Children were not fussed over and were left to their own devices, to take care of themselves. They also help in household work and other labour.
I learnt of the way in which people need to use a multiplicity of livelihoods in order to sustain themselves atleast to susbsist. I also learnt of the hard physical labour that is an inevitable part of their lives.
My experience in these villages was really amazing. I enjoyed the clean air, the tasty food made from garden fresh vegetables and the experience of sleeping under the stars.

A REVIEW OF "RAMULAMMA"

2009-10-17T04:46:00.000-07:00

‘The legend of Ramulamma’ (by Prof Vithal Rajan)is one of the best works I have ever read- possibly the best.
It is a work of pure brilliance about Ramulamma, an old Dalit dai (mid-wife) who has her own ingenious, quiet and subtle ways of dealing with the social realities of caste, untouchability, oppression and exploitation that so characterize rural India.
It brings out a refreshingly new way of looking at exploitation and oppression. It is neither the remedial perspective of a sympathetic, charitable outsider from above who believes in uplifting ‘harijans’ by providing them with a few facilities and civilizing (or cleaning) ‘them’ to render them touchable, or a radical, revolutionary ‘dalit’ perspective that believes in violently opposing and annihilating caste.
It is the perspective from below, where the person below does not see herself as down-trodden, but uses her intelligence and her wits to bring justice to her people in her own small, simple ways without making a show of it.
Besides being a brilliant read, capturing one’s attention and interest from cover to cover, it leaves one with a sense of hope, assuring one that situations are never hopeless and need not always be battled head on, but can be dealt with, with subtlety and finesse.

2009-10-16T23:37:00.001-07:00

2009-10-16T23:33:00.000-07:00

post 13-art and aesthetics

2009-10-10T02:24:00.000-07:00

Feb 08, 2005
I was really surprised to find that EVERYONE unknowingly liked my card the best. It felt good. Got my marks (very good marks) but some how felt no joy of glory.

July 02, 2005
In French
I’m not such a bad artist as I imagine.
Today I found some of my old pieces; scraps that I’d practiced before my class 12 exam. They are not too bad. I like my compositions which reflect what is typically on the road. It’s very realistic, but for some people who are much exaggerated-their idiosyncrasies and their appearances. I like them too.
But at that time…why did I consider my art so bad, so ugly? I do not know-- my marks perhaps. Also the attitude in that school? That my art was very different from others’, I never had the confidence to accept it.
No, some I loved. I liked my ideas, but the effects were never as I had imagined. It was never perfect and I found it difficult to accept such imperfection-the difference between my imagination and the output.
Perhaps it was also the great admiration I had for the other artists- those I considered better than me. No ‘perhaps’. It is certain.
I adored whatever Akku or Tanya drew. And I wished to paint or draw or shade exactly like at least one of them. But I could never do that. That's a pity. It was the end of art for me till my famous poster “La Terre Est Peu Belle, Si On N’utilise Pas La Poubelle”. And after that there was no longer any art in my life. It’s finished, over!

June 22 2005
There are so many things I need to write about! About the AIR meeting, about how repulsive I found the girls and the teachers from another college, with their fake foreign accents! How good I feel that I do not have a mother like A and am therefore not like him. About another friend’s talk in the bus about her family and the war with the rest of their clan-those petty politics –a different socio-economic class! The thought doesn’t escape me but I feel guilty that I’m discriminating-like a capitalist. Then the long conversation I had with S-does she have psychic powers? Do spiritualism and psychic powers exist-or is it all her imagination?

…have to write about the trip too. Aihole was simply MAARVELLOUS. The amazing staircase and the rooftop and the ceiling carving and the side seat in Lad Khan were too good. Badami was also really cool. Those life size beautiful statues and the Agasthya story and tank and cave. I liked Pttadakal stories about how it was called Rakthapuri. It was truly RED. I felt it in Aihole itself, but the redness of the stone seemed to reach its Zenith in Badami/Vatapi. The red mud the red rock reminded me of TARA in Gone with the Wind. Stupid comparison I know. But it did at that time. Silly Americans with so little history and barely any culture –how they have managed to influence us….I’ve lost my own language my thoughts and writings are in a foreign tongue which has overpowered my own. I am a helpless subject. Our heritage is brought down to a low level by such demeaning comparisons-if demeaning is the word I’m looking for. Anyways I know what I mean!

2001 (post it inside her diary back cover)
My first poem (complete lies)
I oft did try
to write poetry
and failure did I meet.
But gave not up my hope
I continue to grope
But I know that one day
I shall have a poem to say
& though this be a great feat I think it will only meet
To keep trying till I succeed
In this human world of greed.

post 12- rain and self analysis!

2009-10-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

25th January 2005

Its pouring like mad and there’s so much wind-water on my glasses. The trees are swaying as hell –and you should hear the noise and feel the wind to know what i mean. It’s beautiful and I love it. I love such weather when im at home. But there’s probably a cyclone somewhere to add to the Tsunamis power. Probably places are getting flooded and people are getting killed. But heck1 its nice here to say the least!....Somehow don’t feel like reading what others write today. Maybe I should write. But I’ll have to get rid of my evergreen lethargy… evergreen in many ways-it’s always present and it is accompanied with envy when others prosper…the rain has subsided .Everything is washed out and clean-but the leaves don’t look as lively as when they are actually getting washed.
It’s a strange fact how the amount of stiffness, the amount of ‘virtue’/ ‘narrow mindedness’ the amount of social propriety and self consciousness has decreased tremendously from my early childhood. In my early childhood these notions and values were extremely strong and powerful. I was always very shy and even frightened of strangers. I was always HIGHLY self conscious and was constantly worried about what who would think and whether what I did was, good or bad, right or wrong, which of my classmates were good and which ones bad and even what their religions castes and languages were at times. My tendency to want to be in everyone’s good book continues but to a lesser extent. And the focus has shifted –it is no longer Maami, Appa or Amma who all have similar notions of right and wrong-but people as in individuals. Right and wrong are no longer so clearly separated. I am considerably freer. But is this freedom also a pretence to maintain the impression of being a ‘child’ as children are believed to be ‘free’ in general. Happy souls with no responsibility.

Of course children have responsibilities. At least I did as a child. May be I have become much more desensitised and can therefore bear dislikes and criticism better and can therefore be more ‘myself’ and less self conscious and more ‘free’ ‘irresponsible’ and childlike... Which again suits me and the impression I want to make.

3 February 2005
I’ve very difficult to accept that I have a solid ego problem. The fact remains that I do and that I have almost as long as I remember. But somehow the feeling is strong I do not like to accept help and hence inferiority from others-especially those close to me –especially Amma. I am glad my friend pointed it out and brought it into the open. Though I know it was only from my side. Of course that made me angry hurt and depressed at the time and it is still HORRID. And it is not just that. It really troubles me how other people misinterpreted the basic idea (eco stall) and also about how they all take prominence. I was very jealous and I showed it. I showed how I wanted to be noticed and appreciated for coming up with such a brilliant idea rather than attempting to carry it out. I frankly don’t value other peoples conceptions .Why can’t I just accept them? Why should it be MY thing? Why can’t it be OUR thing? Because I want it to be MY thing! I want their help but not their contributions.

I have to deal with it. How do I change it? Heck! Why should I? I think that feeling with some people such as Amma is so strong it can’t be changed. It was deep rooted-may be it began with the 8th class math? Am I blaming her joining school for it? Was the very opposition to her joining school because of it? I do not know for how long it existed or when it first began. Was I born with an ego problem? Even so can I not rid myself of it? I must thank my friend tomorrow. She helped me recognise this consciously. When I want so much appreciation should I not give so much appreciation to others too. I must think about a different approach to the environment issue.

post 11-Some Nuggets

2009-09-26T00:21:00.000-07:00

Date not clear: 2006. Some nuggets
This week I am sharing two bits I found floating around from a writing pad!
As many of you know she loved the inversion of her name and that’s how she signed. She also loved playing on the sound of words spellings and Sudoku. In Tamizh ‘pethal’ means nonsense and Suku considered herself an ace pathologist along with all her cousins.
A piece of pethology
(Found on the back cover of a writing pad)
This book belongs to me. The ‘me’ being Gowri ≠ irwog, where Gowri is my name and irwog is far from the same. How far? The exact distance is currently a matter being discussed and disputed. However the displacement is 1/∞ the distance is zero. Hence though Gowri and irwog may be =, they may also be unequal and the probabilities and possibilities stretch on in never ending elasticity. So while Gowri could be irwog, it could also not be irwog. Also while I could be sane I could also be insane.
So if Gowri =irwog when Gowri ≠ irwog, they are fictitious and so do not exist at all. So if Gowri and irwog do not exist who am I? One thing is certain, I’m not Spider man.

And A Short Story- not titled.
Barunta Khalifa sat on the roof of the pump house that summer afternoon, her hands wrapped around her knees. She loved to sit there like that all day long on top of the pump house amidst paddy fields. Now and then someone or other would stop by for a chat asking her why she sat there or telling her that it was dangerous or sometimes telling her that snakes would slither up. She enjoyed these conversations and love3d the well meaning advice even if it sometimes did irritate her. In the evenings her cousins would come and the goofy dog Ramu would trail behind them and bark excitedly and try to jump on to the roof when he saw Barunta perched on it.

They would switch on the motor and make the preparation for irrigation and jump into the pool for their evening bath. They’d ask her to leave saying they were now grown men and cousin or not her presence embarrassed them. She insisted that the pump house was hers and she’d turn the other way and enjoy the beauty of the sunset which sometimes reflected off the watery paddy fields.
She sat there watching a little kingfisher trying to fish in the little pond right in front of her. The peace, the quiet, the harmony –how nice she felt sitting on the rooftop. She had no duties no obligations, no chores, no responsibilities, no daily plans. She didn’t have to do anything. She was free to do as she pleased with her time and nobody would ask her a thing. There was a freedom here she found nowhere else. She could fly she could just jump off the roof and into the pool anytime she pleased. The thought made her want to jump. She was soon happily swimming in the pool in blissful solitude.
Then somehow she had enough of it and she decided she’d go back home. She walked through the fields. Her clothes dried against her in the scorching heat. She quietly went into the guest room where her suitcase was and began packing. That was it! How long could she go on, escaping reality? She’d have to pack up and go back home to Mumbai that overcrowded city with apace of life faster than the speed of light.
They asked her why? No explanations, nothing! They asked her to stay awhile longer. To no avail. So well, they all walked her to the station. Ramu trailed behind as usual, trying to chew her skirts. A tear filled farewell. The train rolled in. She got in. Ramu jumped in after her barking goodbye to his family. Everyone was surprised. She tried carrying him and passing him over to Zaheer bhai. It was no use. The goofy dog had made up his goofy mind that he was going with her. Nobody could change that. Somehow she was glad that she couldn’t change that.
The train rolled out of the station. More tears, more goodbyes. She looked out of the window scratching Ramu’s ears for him. A passenger came. Ramu was at his sociable best. And tried to jump on to him and lick him a warm welcome. She had a tough time controlling the goofy brute who wanted to embrace every passer by. Soon the train filled up and everyone glare at her once in awhile to show that they disapproved of the canine presence. It wasn’t too tough to ignore them. That evening she saw the sun set from her train window. She thought of her cousins shouting, fighting, screaming, jumping bathing splashing-as they did every evening forgetting Ramu, forgetting her. Probably her absence would make them feel less embarrassed, though they had exhibited no signs of embarrassment except in words.

The next morning they were in Mumbai. She got the train with her suitcase in one hand and Ramu in the other, pushing her way through the crowd.
She’d have to go back to her empty haunted flat and begin job hunting once again. Why? Why this self inflicted torture? She wondered what was wrong with her! Why had she decided to comeback to this filthy crowded hurried cluttered life instead of living happily blissfully peacefully in the pure clean beautiful countryside? Why?
A yelp shook her out of her self obsession. Poor Ramu! He was having tough time taking in the scale of the place the crowds jostling everywhere, the smoke the pollution the buildings the automobiles and the noise. The poor dog needed comforting. She tried to comfort him as best as she could and soon managed to find them a taxi. They drove home. It was Ramu's first taxi ride.

post 10- On Her Inner World

2009-09-19T06:36:00.000-07:00

22nd April 2005
There are many entries reflecting her moods and feelings-leaving me acutely aware of how little I knew of her inner struggles even though I imagined we were close.
Actually it still feels bad that I’m actually an airhead. The very fact that I learnt the violin for so long and yet know so little about it shocks me. Well, yes, lack of interest. But is that a reason? Yes, but why did I lack interest? Why do I still have that same feeling towards so many things I do-like the movie? Why? Why do I feel blocked , forced ,compelled? I put the blame on my parents all these years saying THEY are compelling me to learn music, violin, dance. I had the same blocked feeling towards my studies- math then more than ever, art in the 12th class. Homescience, art –these things I’d chosen against my parents will. So I couldn’t blame them-but the irritation and the blocked feeling were less and the hatred was more. The movie, I felt that blocked feeling-I was driving myself into action. There was this COMPULSION to do something even if it is something I detest, which made me detest it all the more. Why did I compel myself to do it though I thought the script was crappy?

Why did I feel guilty when I first said ‘no’? Because I felt I had to become active and do things and not miss opportunities. But no! I think I’m better off doing only what I want to do really even if I’m inactive most of the time. That’d be ideal, but I should also find ways of breaking these self-imposed boundaries and unnecessary hatred. Somehow I understand my hatred for dance, even for music and the violin and even for home science. I understand very well that feeling that irritation that frustration which I even cannot explain which nobody who has not gone through it will understand. But how do I get over it? The fact is I don’t even want to. I don’t care.

I don’t even want to be good and responsible and happy. But I want to be happy and relaxed. I don’t want to hate so many things and feel miserable. It is not because I have to be happy but I want to be happy. Am I just trying to convince myself? I HATE THAT statement which says “if you don’t get what you like you’ll have to like what you get”. It’s very practical but I HATE IT. Why, why can’t everybody just do what they want to –in my case NOTHING. Why is there so much frustration and irritation? Why is there bad behaviour? OK forget it! I’ll just have to forget it.

Today I have to study emotions motivations and conflicts. Funny thing is I’m just going through it. I’m acting very emotional because of internal conflicts and I’m not feeling motivated to study.

I wish one day I’ll be able to feel universal love and experience happiness. Why do I not have the capacity to feel affection? Even for family? Its just that I want them to feel affection for me. I want everyone in the world to like me and admire me but I don’t want to give back any affection. All I give is hatred. I don’t know why or how I have so much hatred in me. It’s been there from childhood. It’s always easier to hate than to love. It’s so much easier to cry than laugh. Its so much easier to be angry hurt and depressed than to feel joyful and happy.

Never mind.
Once a wrong choice is made
And a wrong path is taken
It can never be undone
Never be retraced
It adds to experience
And is hardly ever forgotten
Let it cause anxiety
Let it cause frustration
But it cannot be repressed
It cannot be suppressed.

post 9 -more reading and self imnprovemnt

2009-09-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

May 10th Tuesday 2005
Yesterday I read this book called “La Petite Fadette”- obviously in easy French! Somehow the basic concept in that is very similar to “My Cousin Rachael”. It’s about twins who are extremely close. One falls in love with a girl when he goes away from home (?) and later the other falls in love with the same girl of whom he was jealous.
Of course the way this is dealt with is totally different from “My cousin Rachael” where it is all from Philip Ashley’s point of view. It’s all in P’s mind.
Here it is more a narrative with no death or mystery. One brother ends up as a soldier and his parents guess he will never marry anyone else.
Both the books are nice and really different but kind of similar in some weird way.

May 21st Saturday 2005
Alphonse Daudet has a unique writing style, very original and interesting. I adore this writing style –Daniel Eysette (?) refers to himself as ‘the little thing’ and speaks of himself in the third person. I just loved this. Perhaps all the French authors write just as beautifully. I don’t really know because I’ve merely read some ‘easy French’ and a novel ‘Cesar” by someone whose name I now forget. That wasn’t so good though. I have other things to do besides talking to you about French stories. Pushpa isn’t here and I should attend to some household duties.

May 25th Wednesday 2008
I have to better myself. I have to study well now –learn as much as I can about as many things as I can with interest and enthusiasm from as many sources as possible. Get rid of unwanted and unreasonable egotism and try to learn genuinely and remember things. It is the only way. Maybe I SHOULD try to become a journalist now-now that I have holidays MAYBE I should try and write editorials and stuff. But before that I should start following up on current event understanding them thoroughly and ten try editorials. Ten I should type Janet bond and proceed with it. Anyways lotsa stuff to do so that one day I’ll earn enough to support myself and worth it... anyway don’t ask me worth what? I guess worth my life, myself, survival, this life. Worth my potential and then perhaps I’ll be truly happy. Dunno. Perhaps.

June 09th Thursday
We met his really interesting communist leader today. P P C joshi. Simplicity thy name is P P C Joshi! He is such a nice simple sweet unassuming person. So well read and knowledgeable with not a trace of egotism =except the inevitable- not unnecessarily is what I mean. He is like the TRUE COMMUNIST and today at dinner I said I wanna be like him and that he is my role model. So Akku goes-“How can he be your role model. You can never be like him. You wan too many things.” That’s how she is with me. Incisive. But the more cuts you get once they heal less likely you are to get hurt. I dunno if that is true or you just become mushier with blood oozing out and susceptible to more and deeper cuts without sufficient stimulus. I really don’t know but id it prefer to be the first. Guess it really depends on the material being cut. I’d like to be made of tough stuff just like Janet bond.

post 8-on friends gals n guys

2009-09-05T06:05:00.000-07:00

March 21 2005
I have loads of French homework which I MUST finish by tomorrow NO MATTER WHAT. Also I’m confused about tomorrow. If my friend A calls I’ll ask her to come along. But my other friend K doesn’t want to do combined studies with A. This is another bloody irritating factor. To start with I have such few friends… I wonder why they can’t just get along and simplify my life? That would be so great. But just the fact that no two friends of mine get along at the beginning unless they knew each other before they knew me is pretty surprising. This got me wondering as to how I form friendships. It seems to me that that until recently I never proactively initiated the formation of a friendship. It’s usually when the other person is nice to me that I am nice to them. Si simple! E.g. D and N in 8th std didn’t get along one bit. Then D and L. Then at HPS –S and Aa,T, M didn’t get along at first. S and T didn’t get along. S and R didn’t get along. I dunno if S got along with N or not. Before that P and A didn’t get along. And T and R didn’t get along and T and J still don’t get along.
It is pretty strange. I think except for one friend who being so sociable, seems to have no problems with anyone, all my friends seem to have problems with my other friends !

April 4th 2005
I really admire this friend of mine for her honesty. Gosh! She says her whole theory of self is based on her height. Can physical appearance totally determine what one feels about oneself? …she says it does to her. That’s pretty alien to me though. True I like some people because they look nice or not so nice. But that is definitely not the only reason. Some people look ugly to me when I don’t like them and nice to me when I begin to like them. This happened with two friends. But I’ve never experienced it the other way around.

Jan 11th 2005
Don’t know why but I’ve always had this tendency to distance myself from and to repel all those guys whom I’ve suspected of having the faintest possibility of having ac rush on me and all those guys who have tried to approach me or even be nice to me. Though one part of me wants to be liked and appreciated and admired the other more dominant part fells embarrassed and uncomfortable and wants to escape.
Why? I think it is fear? Fear of what? My family –what they’d think and feel about it and society? Only that? I think it is more intrinsic. Is it the fear of being revealed? Is it because of the risk involved or is it the fear of failure or maybe even others’ jealousy if it works? But somehow I find all the guys who like me repulsive. Pathetic. It’s pretty sad because they are quite okay until I think they like me. Yes I do want to be ‘normal’ on one side and have crushes and flirt and stuff. But somehow I don’t want to. Why should I? I guess I don’t want to be nice to guys who like me because I don’t trust myself. Maybe I’d get too attached and I’m too young for all that kinda crap. Maybe then I wouldn’t even make a career. I’m just as shallow and dumb as some other girls. Only I’m far more secretive about it. I don’t have the guts they have. I couldn’t say boo to a goose. I don’t have gumption in me. I think THAT is my basic problem. COURAGE.-you are what I need most. Please courage visit me sometime. I wish I were brave and courageous. Seriously. Gods make me brave.

April 3rd 2005
One friend really tried hard to make me fall in love with someone or other. Boy was it funny. She used to look out for all kinds of guys in that Mood Indigo trip so that they could be my bakras. She used to keep saying I was nice looking in spite of everything and I used to try to hide my embarrassment by saying ‘natural clown’ and laugh it off. Of course she was lying but I like to believe I was pretty looking and I’d like to believe loads of guys thought I was pretty looking (like she said so many times) but I do know the truth and accept it. I mean if every female were pretty and had loads of admirers there wouldn’t be any balance on earth. I know that among my friends one is the prettiest another is the hottest and most mature and I am the clumsiest. But it doesn’t matter and I really like myself. She must have really felt sorry for me and said all those things. But why so innocently-may is she was afraid I’d end up like that Lalitha Iyer friend of her mothers-not my mother of course- but another LI who didn’t marry and stuff. That’s what she told me-long back anyways!

more on pasra

2009-08-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

28th June 2005 (continued)
Well I didn’t write yet about the place we stayed in, Pasra. The continuous rain drops, sleeping on the veranda, the orchestra snoring from inside, the roofless toilet where you get drenched because of the rain. The movie we saw “bunny’. How funny it was (so I kept saying Bunny is funny). About Sashi-how I became his fan and ardent admirer. How I intend to call him to college to speak about something or other –at least fro his balanced way of thought and speech.
Didn’t say a bout the jungle stream Padma Akku Madhu and I walked on-about the WONDERFUL tailor bird nest I found ,about the “birabbutti” (?) I found. About the root hanging-a broken branch just hung from a root naturally. About the rocks the little bit of water the mud the paw prints. It really was really great and the weather. How nice it was! All in all I’m really truly glad I went and didn’t chicken out because of this silly feeling of inferiority and insecurity.
And you know? I believe there was no French class on Saturday. So it was all gain and no loss, touch wood.
Must go to Thinksoft tomorrow also. Actually it is a great place to work in. I hope I become good enough to work there even though Amma works there. I guess I wouldn’t mind working there in spite of Amma being there and the perceived terrors of working in the same place –like in Vidyaranya where I was but a child.
I still am like a little thing. But when am I going to write those novels and those poems? If I can’t write them when I am young and free it would never be possible to write them, never. I should make good use of my free time, indeed it is an absolutely must! (This paragraph is in French)

28th June 2005
(This seems to be a narrative inspired by her trip and the many memorials we saw for ML activists killed in encounters)
Hiding behind the bush he sat. Sweat ran, gushed poured out of his back. They could spot him any moment. And no! They wouldn’t care a damn. Bang Bang! And that would be the end. Death.
Breathing unsteadily he peeped out. How many more like him were hiding behind rocks and bushes and trees trying to save themselves and shoot their enemies? People of the same land –fighting for justice and for righteousness-at least in their own eyes.
Well, he was probably shot and a structure –a red painted ‘stupa’ shaped differently erected in his memory –his epitaph destroyed by his enemies the police. Even his name had to be wiped out. Yet the people idolised him. Shaheed –dead for a cause. And nature forgot these killings, this violence-retained her tranquil beauty. The hills, the bushes, the fields-all back to their original hues- year after year. The people came, they came, they fought, they died, they went, they, rotted. But tranquil beauty remained. True, sometimes it was gorily splashed with flesh and blood and burnt. But the rain cleaned up the mess and nature took over once again and basked in the sun and bathed in the rain and shivered in winter and ignored all the pain. Inflicted unnatural pain. –oh the misguided human brain- “durmargullara”

trip to pasara,kamaram

2009-08-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

27^th June 2005

It’ll be impossible to describe the full beauty and wonder of this trip to Warangal District-Pasara, Kamaram and Tadavai-at least in one go. So many of these trips I go to I enjoy thoroughly at the moment and then slowly over the years the details diminish. Everything fades away and the wonder and the beauty is lost.

The beauty of the ancient monuments is one thing –something which fades away faster – a pleasure not FULLY experienced by one like me but rather forced onto one self. But nature-living nature-the forest, the stream, the mountain, the animal, the village, the language-the pleasure comes naturally. Barely forced. True you do find it great, the beautiful temples, and the great sculpture- the lovely temples like the temple near Ramappa lake.

Anyways this trip lasted three days. We (= Nisha, Padma, Madhurima, Sashi, Akku, Amma and me) left on Saturday morning about 8 am or so from Secunderabad station on the Telengana Express. We then went to this NGOs office and then went to the 1000 pillared temple. It was really cool, 12^th century A. D and it was a bit like the Hoysala architecture, the platform and all. There was a dancing floor in between made of darker stone, BEAUTIFUL.

The pillars in the Mandapam were really cool. There were MANY, MANY pillars but we didn’t think there’d be 1000. Thatha says its 1000 including the kutty pillars sculpted on the. As usual later invaders (Islamic) have destroyed many of the carvings and sculptures and stuff and have destroyed the beautiful Nandi’s head and tail.

Then we had lunch and went to Ramappa temple. Wow we drove and drove and we drove. We’ve reached. Off the car. Enter a compound, beautiful garden (sparse) on either side of along walk, leading to a reddish brown temple. Oh what a brown! Not quite the Pattadakal red. But a different brownish red. The carving was beautiful – different stones black have been used inside. Again the central dancing circle, intricately carved pillars and doorways asanas on the side. The whole temple seemed shaken with fallen pillars –seismic activity. Beautiful nonetheless….

After that we reached Pasara-where we stayed the next two nights.

29^th June Tuesday 2005

How does one learn to balance the overall whole with the detail? The tiny little details that bring life and magic with them. I must learn to give a story briefly without concentrating on every goddam detail and hence wasting time. I must learn to make an overall basic design of the whole and THEN fill in the details. Magic before life is of no use. The necessities ought to be FOLLOWED by wonder. True I wan the wonder but what use is it without limbs, bones, blood, kidneys, livers, hearts, brains, nerves, veins, arteries, flesh?

So on the second day what happened? Every detail wasn’t important. Only the most wonderful need be mentioned.

Well we went to Kamaram the Koya village. A BEAUTIFUL village. We kept asking the women from various SHGs to describe their village. An old lady very bright and sprightly said it would be better to just go see the village. So we did…

We walked across the main street to a tank which was a spring and got water from another lake. It was green barely any water and full of leaves and plants like lotus and stuff. Then we waked past fields and fields and fields a stream and finally a check dam. Real nice has bund made of stone sediments which show different colours-pink purple yellow TRULY BEAUTIFUL. Looked like an art piece, a mural or something.

Beautiful houses –don’t know if I described them.

Spacious, clay walls, with wooden rods within. Roof made of thatch . large specious compounds, a separate cooking hut, 2-3 hens, some cattle, and most often a dog. Electricity cable TV a serene atmosphere. Place to grow vegetables and some other plants within ones compound, two or three acres of land to grow rice on, the forest 2-3 kms away –where the cattle graze, where the fires blaze –every summer they set it on fire. Secretly, so the Beedi leaf plants give off new leaves when the rains begin which they collect and sell. Lovely Kayatthu kattil (cots made of rope) can sleep on them in the compound.

Local school, anganwadi. Barber carpenter dhobi Kirana shop (REALLY SMALL) available locally. Health workers and vet visit regularly…superior people the Raasa Koyas.

(will be continued )

everyday events

2009-08-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

when i read what she says about the ordinary events of her day i realise how she lived each moment fully...
i notice the increase in followers and am encouraged by it. keep following and do add comments!
March 28th 2005
(Written in French-translated by me)
It is an absolutely maddening day. There was an exam but many other things to annoy me. In the morning in the ladies room a lizard fell on me. I first thought it was a wire or some such thing. I was scared when it was a big lizard. There’s a belief that this is bad luck. Perhaps that true because it was an irritating day. Full of foolishness. I gave Vinay Rs 50 for the reunion which I am not going to help with. Then it was the exam –during the exam I dropped my Style Parker pen which I adore and the nib broke. And after the exam I was sitting with the others and I felt alone. It was as if they were all part of a group I could not enter. And to get back here (home) I did not have enough money to take an auto and I had to come by bus. Then there was leakage in the gas tube. Grrrrrr…

March 31st 2005
Communities sharing a common territory often influence each other in so many ways without even realising it. Hyderabad is a PERFECT example of this. Just a few minutes ago I heard this Muslim neighbour of mine describing somebody said. “tho me bola ayyo”. “ayyo” is a very south Indian expression in Tamil Telugu and I don’t know what other languages. Ayyo is supposed to be Yuma’s wife’s name. So it is rather funny that a Muslim teenager expresses regret shock etc by calling out the name of the wife of the Hindu god of death. In the same way me Tamilian in Hyderabad find myself saying Kaiko and nakko and the like ever so often and thinking them even oftener. Jalal has to call me Gowri Amma with the ‘ow’ pronounced properly unlike all those north Indian belles who call be gauri. Gori vs gowri –that’s the difference.
I was just saying that even though Hindus and Muslims are supposed to be all antagonistic and sometimes some of the ones led more easily by politicians tend to hate each other, they are rather friendly and influence each other in many ways. To start with –of course- YEARS or CENTURIES after the Muslim invasion they were pretty friendly especially when they knew each other. The British did the kirikiri bit and induced hatred. The common Pakistani Janata they don’t hate us like we hate them. They love India Bollywood and the Indians and have a lot of curiosity about us. At least that is what recent newspaper articles reveal.

March 23rd 2005
It was nice helping out Gita auntie’s mom in French. I hope and pray she does well in her exam tomorrow. I really want her to pass and not only for myself. She’s very sweet
Yesterday she gave me loads of dry fruits, today she gave me whatever I forgot yesterday and chocolates and a bottle of a parfum. When I asked her why she, she says Gita aunty got them for me and I should contact her for further details.
She’s quite chatty and a sociable person. I wonder why she lives alone though. I am sure Gita aunty would take lovely care of her. Maybe she likes to be independent? Maybe she likes this particular flat? Don’t know and it is none of my business. But she doesn’t seem lonely or unhappy or anything.
She’s a really simple person and I admire the way she accepts facts. She's cute and in some ways even like Vanaja pati. When I was there today her other daughter (Kamini) called and she told her how I was teaching so well and all. Boy, did I feel great! She told her I was gentle and nice just like Gautam. But of course she has to say these nice things about me when I was sitting right next to her, even if she thought me a bloody pain in the ass.
She always makes these ‘just like’ comparisons. She keeps saying how Sneha is just like Kamini and stuff and she asked Sneha the other day why she didn’t bring her mummy along for the evening programme .Cute!

on what she was reading

2009-08-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Suku read widely -slowly and carefully savouring each word if she liked the work. She would distinguish very clearly between good and poor writing quite early in her life. and her views were her own....

14th Jan 2005
On “Sophie’s world”
Just finished Sophie’s World. Somehow it’s kinda disappointing in that it now seems totally uncharismatic. Yes! It is an amazing work- a novel on the history of philosophy. Its ideas-contents are SOLID but its total emotional emphasis ,ethos becomes slowly devoid of charm. May be I expected too much because of so many people swearing by it. Akku, Tejaswini, Tanya…I don’t know so many people.
And not only that. When I read the beginning part when it was taboo –boy it was amazing- about Sophie and all her pets and her hideout and her letters and stuff. And the philosophy stuff was real good though I can’t remember who said what. Besides I don’t think that’s necessary. But weirdest end ..where was the mystery? It was just talk of it. What did Tejaswini find amazing in the last chapter? Beats me! And seriously!
The idea is good. Being a part of a book. Then coming out and role reversal with the author. It is an amazing idea. But the way it is written is not in the least bit appealing. Maybe I’m stuck in the aesthetic stage. But heck! Who cares? It was really a great work. it has taught me quite a few ideas. But I dint like the way Alberto dismissed some ideas-just like that and it seemed almost American in its stupidity at that point. But being Norwegian it did 3000 years of justice to western philosophy with some mentions of ‘orient’-like ‘asura’ meaning ‘god’. Which they got totally wrong-actually not quite so wrong. Maybe they were actually of the same level as ‘devas’ Dunno.
I thought wrong about how my masterpiece should be in the Sophie’s world genre. It should be better. I should be able to sustain interest and wonder. Sustainability seems to be the key issue in my life and I don think any amount of planning can achieve a thing. It just has to happen, that’s it!

Jan 17th
Been reading this book called ‘the dangling man’ by Saul somebody. It’s really REALLY nice. I never expected our college library to have such AMAZING books. It’s too good and that a guy could actually be me. It surprises me how every main character in every book I read is at least to a certain extent in certain aspects like me. That just shows how all human beings are so similar. It just shows how we are all so connected and how we are all from the same stardust. It’s pretty amazing.

28th April 2005
I wonder how Daphne Du Maurier wrote. I mean did she start at the start of a book and spontaneously come out with such wonderfully well woven tales-so connected and yet so natural and real. Just out with it or did she get a basic idea and then put parts together add a line here or delete another there-HOW? Did she just add the first part after she’d said the whole tale so that it’d seem coherent or did she start with it and try to reach it again?
Just finished reading “My Cousin Rachael”. What do I say? It is a beautiful book-she really is amazing at taking you into a mood delving into her character’s emotions. You really connect to them and they seem so real. One would have to be really imaginative to do that. When we get transported tot hat world when we read it so casually she must have literally felt part of them. I don’t have that kind of imagination. I can’t go too far from what I believe to be the facts and though at times I feel a kind of regret at my lack of imagination I’m quite glad about it on the whole. I don’t even have Philip Ashley’s or Mary Yellan or the girl in Rebecca’s or the woman in Frenchman’s Creek imagination. I cannot imagine so much from nothing. I don’t have that poetry.
But what I love most about her works are the way most of them begin in such a mysterious way and end with the mystery more or less sorted out but with a trace of confusion or enigma about them all the same.(I haven’t seen it in Jamaica Inn and the Flight of the Falcon moved me too much to notice it). Though they are complete they are not altogether clear. And they
are disturbing and quite emotionally moving. She has an amazing understanding of people and in each book one tends to connect with the narrator. Another reason I liked it. I always liked first person narratives. But I couldn’t connect with Philip Ashley-he irritated me too much. I couldn’t understand his love for Rachel –how he could tear Ambrose’s letters –how he could trust her so when she was robbing and poisoning him. It irritated me. I was glad he didn’t warn her and she died but in the end there was no proof. May be she was good. Maybe he was the ass acting foolishly and he was dead. What proof that she was poisoning him? So I shared his guilt though he hadn’t really murdered her. Again I liked connection-so unconnected at eh beginning. Her style of writing is simply amazing. ok I’m off to have a siesta.

on animals

2009-07-31T19:54:00.000-07:00

All of us who knew Gowri Sukanya remember her paasion about animals- here is just a sample of what they meant for her. samller print in brackets indicates that it is an insertion or correction I'm making or suggesting.

January 19th 2005
I was writing all this (about her boredom and loneliness) when Maami, our cook, was about to take leave. I offered to drop her home because it was dark and cold. On the way we saw Subramani (or some such name), Maami’s dog sitting outside someone’s house. After I dropped Maami he was wagging his tail because he recognised me. So I stopped and konjified (petted) him. Now I feel so much better. The amount of affection dogs can give and the amount of affection you can give dogs (or cats or other animals ) is truly, breathtakingly, amazing. Gosh! Animals especially those which are not human are truly amazing.

23rd January 2005
I got real pissed off and shut myself up and sat alone crying. Then I made myself think about how I’d woken up a sleeping stray dog this afternoon (which was sleeping near the steps where anyone could step on it ) and made it go away so it would be safe and how many people I’d impressed by doing this .Then I felt considerably better and came out.

February 26th
Yesterday I behaved HORRIBLY in French class. I showed off so much I tried to dominate the class screamed ,SCERAMED ,SCREAMED,SCREAMED. It was a debate. But that is still no justification. Madhavi ma’m tried to induce (provoke?) me. But that is still NO JUSTIFICATION. To all those newcomers I must seem so OBNOXIOUS, such a SHOWOFF , SUCH A FIGHTER COCK. But somehow I had fun!
I felt proud of myself. Only when I realised I can no longer be the ‘baby of the class’, ‘the innocent one’, ‘the cute one’ did I feel bad. Because there are so many advantages in that . You’re forgiven. You’re not taken seriously, you’re just cute, a joke. That’s more convenient. It’s ok no matter what you do. It’s safe. That’s what I miss. Also I’m not sure that I want to be taken seriously. It’s such a responsibility.
But she couldn’t say “Animals can’t think” and get away with it COULD SHE?

Feb 28th (this was written in French)
In the last French class there was a debate in class on the theme “ should we adopt animals”. Madame Madhavi was absolutely against the theme and tried to force her ideas. She said that animals are not intelligent and that human beings are superior to animals. She said that because of certain fools who buried their animals there was no space to bury the humans somewhere in the west. She also said that there were certain people who usually insisted that we say “he” or “she” and not “it” with reference to animals.
Obviously I didn’t stay quiet. I spoke a lot –perhaps too much and it became more or less a debate between Madame Madhavi and me. Finally she had head ache. I argued that what humans do and what they say that’s not the truth. The truth is clearly visible in the face and in the actions of animals. I was quite proud of my words because I spoke quite fast and with emotion in my voice. And it was quite something that some people in the class clapped.
And when she declared that animals are needed only for those with handicaps I declared that everybody is handicapped in some way. She couldn’t respond.
Akku said that it was foolish contest, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. When Madame said that animals were not intelligent I explained how Rumpy (her old pet dog) understood what we said in Tamizh. When she declared that he had understood only because of the constant repetition, I retorted that human babies learn in the same way. Just felt rather proud of this, though it is also kind of embarrassing.

childhood

2009-07-25T01:28:00.000-07:00

time flies -the week went past and its already time for the next post-here are things she said about her early school days and sbsc- i'm encouraged by the various messages welcoming the first post. wonder if some of her sbsc friends are in the loop. if any of u can get in touch with dona etc it would be good!

25th January 2005
I need to pee but I don’t feel like getting up. The same lethargy the same lassitude –at least tis not out of fear like in the old days. I actually told Navika, Nihal, and Tejaswini (friends at college)about my early susu-in –the –class days in transition (UKG) and about how my fear of Das teacher actually heightened because of her kindness and her attempt to talk to me in tamil –which wasn’t brahmana tamizh which I was therefore more frightened of. So Navika was like “you did have early childhood trauma” and I laughed it off like a joke and it was funny. But now as I write it strikes me not for the first time but for the first time I this context that I did INDEED have quite a bit of childhood trauma-not unduly excessive-but adequate to have an effect on me. I’ve never been a totally happy child as long as I can remember. I’ve always had a lot of fear –of people –especially strangers –and many other kinds of things.
The question is “why?” there is no obvious reason. Could it be that it is in the nature or the genes for people to feel fear?
I always had certain fixed social values and norms as long as we lived in this house when maami was alive. Because I think it was her ideas about good and bad right and wrong which I first acquired and these were very strongly imprinted in my mind in spite of outside interactions. Appa’s ideas and maami’s were of the same kind so my earliest ideas of good and bad were extremely strong. Then in the campus I actually got to know like and accept so many non Tamil Iyer friends-Bengali (Dona) Telugu (Madhu, Sumi, Deepi the lot…). So many of these ideas got weakened in the name of ‘narrow mindedness’.

5th May 2005
Campus was really an amazing thing. You could say it was the best thing that happened to me though that sounds awfully typically gooey and mushy. For the first time I made friends, I played, I shared ideas – and people were actually willing to try them out. I was less self conscious and was COMPLETELY happy about the games we played the friends I made and the fun we had.
Our little secrets and bizarre games…chappal game, care game, escape bridge, walking barefoot in the fountain and splashing around, sitting on the wall and watching kakatiya hotel’s swimming pool, throwing my chappals in there, climbing rocks, playing fighting going home late…those were happy days.
True there were times when things weren’t all hunky dory –like music classes, fights, emotions. But I belonged. I was comfortable and had no odd shyness that blocked speech itself. True I did feel shy at first. I thought they were all very fancy children, snooty, didn’t like me etc. But later I was the eldest, they called me leader, fastest girl runner and stuff like that…when I was the slowest runner in school.
Guess what I liked best about the games in the campus was their informality, laissez –faire nature. Strange though it seems even to me I was able to create games that appealed to my heart and people were willing to play them. Guess that is the advantage of being the eldest.
Guess no one remembers these things any longer…
Chappal game so appealed to me-it still does. It makes me laugh to think of how we used to kick up our feet and throw away our slippers high and far. I don’t remember the details now but we had to kick them off really far and who ever did would win or something like that.

Giving Supriya a feather and wrapping it fundoo fashion and calling it “valmikis pen” –that appeals to me…
Prehistoric cave paintings and my black Hoopya shirt full of fabric paint, and our secret which became not so secret…
Reading “Georges Marvellous Medicine” and making grey paint with Sumi…
Some of these things seem so fantastically unreal to me now, as though there was another fuller me living life up to her hearts desire.
Does this happen to everyone? Does everyone have to sacrifice and their real pleasures to become adults?
Why? Why have the naked apes created such a situation for themselves? I still can’t get over it. Why can’t I go back in time and space? Even then, things would have changed and change will have to be accepted sooner or later. Memories are one thing and real life is another!

babu/baby rao, crackodile ...

2009-07-19T09:23:00.000-07:00

Will I be a Writer?

2009-07-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

20th January 2005
I haven’t written a single thing after the Janet Bond thing in May 2004. How the heck do I consider myself likely to ever transform into an author of a book. Maybe I should work on the Janet Bond thing. It may not be that bad. But it wouldn’t be a masterpiece. It will be just another book rotting on library shelves leafed through by an unemployed person for some timepass, time waste though it may be. But what do I want? Do I want immortality or happiness in this life of mine/ do I want to make a mark or just live a satisfied life? Not very strange that I want both! AND WHO WOULDN’T? OK I’m being overly ambitious. Yes! I do want to make a MARK. I want to become a GREAT writer unlike anybody before or after me. When I’m dead I want to be remembered. But isn’t it true that great people the immortal ones suffer immensely when they are alive often go mad or wind up in suicide and more often than not know not of their greatness or rather fame? Do I want such fame? At what price? I don’t want suffering. Or is all this suffering just a cliché built on to satisfy unfulfilled ambitions like the fox’s ‘these grapes are sour’. peut etre-perhaps. But what about all my ideas on equality? Aren’t they contrary to this concept of greatness –would it not be infinitely better to accept my own insignificance and that of all others? I guess so. But that would take time. But time doesn’t exist. But to me it does and very much so.

8th April 2005
I want to be a writer. Of course there’s no use just wanting. I must start writing, doing something about it. I like some of the stuff I’ve written in certain moods but think they are pretty pathetic in other times. None of them reach the perfection I long for. My puptipoo poem and the one on people in a hurry are pretty nice. Ballad of the goodly frère now seems stupid and juvenile –at least its continuation does. Just as a joke against the original it is good, but on its own it is crap. Now it has lost its charm.
Somehow when I think of writing I think of the stuff I’ve already written. Now I feel I can never really be a novelist or even a short story writer because I can’t make interesting stories. But I do think I should continue Janet Bond. I could make it into a farce. But when I think of it like that –as a duty it doesn’t come out well. It is evident that its an effort when you try too hard to make it funny it just becomes sad coz the humour is so bad. Maybe I should just give up on stories and try poems. At least rhymes. I have a strange thing with rhyming words and their rhythm and I guess it won’t be too bad. But the fact is I don’t want to be a poet-its too highly vague -but a writer. Writers though crazy are accredited with a little more sense and it’s tougher to be a writer. Rhymes and limericks are much simpler. Maybe I write a story in one go the effort wont seem so evident. But that means I must spend time on it and people will know of it. Then what will happen to my little secret? But can you be a writer secretly? I’d like to try it out secretly and then slowly show it to Amma and some friends and thatha and then appa should know. But he’d boast and that would make me feel disgusted at my own self. But its ok maybe it won’t be too bad.

After I wrote all this in the morning I was having my food. I was just wondering why nobody wrote ‘hate’ poetry and why all of them wrote only ‘love’ poetry. So I came up with something like this

Tall dark and handsome
He thinks himself
But like a hunched ape
does he walk
And in spurts of wild noise
does he talk
thinking himself throughout
to be great.
What pride what vanity what arrogance
does he possess?
And how so?
For his talents are few
But his belief in himself
Phew!
Confidence born out of a lack of sense!
All and some
d’come and agree
that he should be put in a shelf
and wound up in tape.

Actually what I came up with then was much better. I just forgot it. So I made this up, but it’s ok.

1st May 2005
Long back, got an idea for a Janet Bond book
Right shoes are stolen –MANY, not just the Governor’s diamond studded one by a group of aliens? Weirdoes? Why? Their idea of working for Human rights! Human rights forum/ Martian rights forum? Get in some profundity. Spoof-on what? Well anything at all!

Instead of the maid act and all let’s just make her call back John Hicks and insist on getting adequate info from the HQ and get equipped enough. Goes as a psychoanalyst to the governor’s house? How? Maybe like a street vendor psychoanalyst? So wears grey glasses and greys her hair a tiny bit… that in itself would be a bit weird. So any ways finds out about governor’s childhood trauma and fears. Unconscious desire to be always in the right?
Could he have stolen his own shoe? Where was he when the shoe got lost? Latitude and longitude? Could the dog have stolen his shoes? Goes as a maid in a different get up. As a pup the dog had a distinct like for leather and also attracted to all things shining. Housekeeper loses her right shoe while walking home. Some others in the neighbourhood too. J B notices a pattern to it. Every full moon evening 15 seconds before sunset. Next full moon evening she’s there and wonder of wonders her shoes lost too. Just vanishes. Phut! And she just doesn’t know how. Providence divine? J’s not so sure. Underground scanning. Overskies scanning. Cases reported at the exact opposite meridian of the planet. Latitude longitude on no-moon mornings exactly 15 seconds after sunrise. Hidden cameras surround the area. Underground, satellite, ground level, the sky the works. JB discovers that Righteous Rights Association with their space ships have stolen loads of right shoes so that they can shower them on all the major leftists at eh world leftist conference to be held soon. Things to do-check out atlas….

2009-07-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

This blog is to keep alive the memories of Gowri Sukanya Iyer (1986-2008).
I have been dipping into her diaries, enjoying her take on life around her and reliving the precious moments she was with us.
I am sharing bits that will be (I hope) of interest to many of you. I am collecting bits on different themes rather than keeping the original sequence. I begin with her diary for 2005 and may go back and forth later. And I hope to keep up weekly posts.
She took to her diary from 2002, surely inspired by Anne Frank. They were a well kept secret – several volumes locked in her desk. It took me a while to bring myself to read them and they have grown on me. Of course she’s Suku and not Anne Frank. I begin with her dreams about writing and wanting to be known for it. And I hope she won’t mind my sharing this…
I invite all of you to share the link to this post with others who knew her. Also, it would be great if you could also share your memories around the theme in the post.