Joint Study Efforts!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.