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.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Confusion and Responsibility
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.
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.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Class Heirarchies
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.
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.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
BOTH ORDINARY AND EXTRAORDINARY
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!
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!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Growing Up!
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.
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.
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