Sauce!

Blood and Helplessness in Calcutta

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:25:00 +0000

Just last week The Telegraph (India) carried front page chronicles of a school-boy who had been knocked off his friend's motorbike and had stayed on the AJC Bose Road flyover, bleeding, while the city swerved and honked past him. It took a stranger's illegal traffic blockade -- the man parked his motorbike across the flyover in a desperate attempt to get people to stop and help -- to convince an ambulance to take him to the nearest hospital. By then, the boy was dead.

Before I'm enthusiastically drafted into casting stones, I should admit that I was one such city commuter last month, when I saw a man have a seizure/epileptic fit while on a bike, lose control of it, crack his unprotected head on the road and break his neck. "Shouldn't we stop?", I asked my colleagues in the cab with me, knowing I didn't want to and willing them to emphatically disagree. Before they could, however, the taxi driver sped up. "There's no need to go looking for trouble", he admonished. "It's past ten in the night, you're a young woman, this isn't a good area and his friends are with him. What do you want to go poking your nose for?"

And I sat back comfortably, my conscience assuaged.

It's hard to pat myself on the back for talking the talk, however, when I'm standing in my bathroom with someone else's blood on my hands, without a clue how to make it stop flowing. This morning, our neighbours were unexpectedly out, and their cleaning lady had come in to wash her muddy feet in our bathroom. While trying to scrub the mud off one foot with the other, she lost her balance, caught the sink on her way down, yanked it half off its support, crashed the glass shelf where we kept toothbrushes and things, and finally crashed with a jagged piece of glass in her palm, a gash across her forehead, and a sink tottering above her head.

And then she started screaming.

She screamed and screamed in a high-pitched monotone, refusing to budge as I tried to haul her out from under the sink. I was half in shock myself. I didn't actually think the sink would crash, but thing had gone from normal to terrifying in three seconds. My ears were ringing, there was blood on my hands and, and my brain was lurching in woolly panic. Clearly, we needed help. And I had absolutely no clue how to get it, except from my neighbours. None of whom had come to our door, even after a minute of steady high-pitched screaming. In the end, more in desperation than in kindness, I splashed cold water from the bucket into the woman's face. Thrice. And she abruptly stopped screaming. This time, when I urged her to get her left shoulder out from under the sink, she hastily complied. And it was only then that I noticed that her palm hadn't been pierced by broken glass, as I'd assumed. She was clutching it tightly, without, apparently, realising she was doing it. It took me a few tries to get her to let go of the glass. And then I almost wished I hadn't, because blood gushed forth, and she started screaming again, but this time more of an intelligible wail rather than a scream of terror.

Things went on quickly from there. We washed her hand on the damaged sink, held it in light to check for broken pieces of glass, wrapped it tightly in a piece torn off an old cotton blouse (I realised I had no idea where my parents now kept the medical supplies), made her an ice-pack with the rest of the blouse to stop the blood flow (I actually have no idea if this works, I could only hope) and warned her not to let the melt-water get inside the wound (I have no idea why this seemed so important). I even offered to find one of my mother's old saris for her to wear, since the hem of hers was now wet. She refused the offer, telling me I needn't forget it was our bathroom that did this to her, and if I thought an old sari was enough bribe to keep her quiet, I had another thing coming. She triumphantly declared she couldn't wait to see what happened when we demanded she pay for the damage to our bathroom, damage that we had brought upon ourselves by putting tiles on the floor and glass shelves, and god would see to it that we suffer from them just as she had today. And then she attempted to get up, and collapsed on the floor once again, having sprained muscles in her hip or waist or thereabouts.

Her family was finally located around 1PM, and they helped her down four flights of stairs in a lift-less building, promising to take her directly to the hospital. I had missed a day at work. I had also realised that our neighbours made their help pay for 'damages' incurred during the course of work, but didn't offer to pay for this damage incurred, also during the course of work. And finally, at the end of it all, I am still just as clueless about getting help in medical emergencies as I was before this. I have numbers for two ambulance services, but they charge the sky, have no equipment to hold people with damaged bones or muscles, are not staffed with people who know what to do in case of an emergency mid-way to the hospital, and are very unreliable about showing up promptly. The only local hospital where one would not be in a risk of picking up an infection is a dental hospital, and the private nursing homes hem and haw before admitting one, and then promptly order a barrage of unnecessary tests and procedures. One of them told my mother she needed a pacemaker when she collapsed due to dehydration two years back. They even booked the surgery, and later tried to charge us a cancellation fee. And, of course, our neighbours no longer come running.

Put your hands up, philosophers and theologists. Have we made ourselves this helpless by our collective refusal to help others? Have we put ourselves at the mercy of mercenaries by refusing to hold our government accountable for our tax-funded services? I'm thinking yes. I'm thinking there is a big karmic kick-back here. I'm thinking if there are gods, we have rejected them pretty irreversibly by refusing to use the brains they ostensibly gave us, and following Daddy and Mummy figures about like brain-dead sheep.

And I'm thinking I'm going to have a few pointedly polite words with the neighbours, and see if we can't turn the tide yet. Jesus Christ, people, we have to *live* in this world. I'm going to at least try and make it worth it.

Mythical Beasts: Privilege

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:42:00 +0000

[I was astonished to find, after a day without internet access, that my draft had been published here, instead of the final version. Here's the final version: no changes, just paragraphs moved around]

After nearly a four year hiatus from reading blogs, I've recently returned to them via the very prolific Clarissa, who teaches Latin American literature and has some very interesting opinions about the world. I will candidly admit that what hooked me was this woman's startlingly Bengali-female trait of blunt, devil-may-care speech. She believes what she believes, and you can sod off sideways if it isn't to your taste. It's charming, in a very alternative way.

However, I must say, I find Clarissa's take on the word 'privilege' almost too marvellously amusing for words. With a strong undercurrent of irksome.

And what I find most dangerous about the piece is her complete lack of awareness that she belongs to a privileged culture (the US, not Ukranian), that regularly appropriates words from the common Anglophone glossary, recasts them to reflect its own cultural biases (think 'pro-life', 'freedom', 'piracy', 'fat'), and then makes these recast meanings the global norm via its immense cultural capital, acuqired through resources as diverse as Hollywod, exported television soaps, operating systems set at default to American English, the financial capacity to set up an enormous international network of American ESL tutoring facilities, and above and beyond them all, a very Americanised internet for Anglophone people. So when she dismisses an entire word, she is dismissing an entire spectrum of socioeconomic realities she is not even aware of, because her society has the privilege and power to modify language, actively obscuring such realities as it deems dangerous or irrelevant.

It is her privilege to do so.

However, since Clarissa asks for proof of socioeconomic privilege in particular, let's talk examples. Here's one we're currently involved in at work: consistently below-par performance of Santhali children in Bengali-medium primary schools. This gives our social conscience regular bouts of insomnia, and regular bouts of feel-good for not feeling good. It shows we care. We devise new syllabi, we spend millions on teacher-trainings and workshops and seminars, we buy learning programmes from foreign firms. Yet, despite the proximity of 'Santhali' and 'Bengali-medium' in the problem-statement, the primary cause of Santhali under-performance remained shrouded in mystery for decades, strengthening the Bengali belief that 'these tribals' are 'basically idiots'.

What explains this determined, thin-lipped, repressed hysterical blindness on part of the upper caste, landowning or professional Bengalis? Privilege, and the desire to maintain it.

Bet you didn't see that coming.

'Privilege' isn't necessarily an evil, maniacally misanthropic Bond villian. Neither is a feudal lord smacking his lips at the desire to crack open a peasant's back with a horsewhip. It is the flip side of inequality. If you admit inequality exists -- whether you feel it's justified or not -- then you've admitted privilege exists. It's not rocket science. It's not even cross multiplication. Privileges -- all of which are social constructs, from whiteness to thinness to high castes to the superior 'natural abilities' of European colonisers -- form the structure that produce and perpetrates the kinds of inequality that keeps society at a particular status quo.

And no one actually pretends it's a fair system. In fact, discourses of other people's success is rife with excuses of wealthy and well connected families, influential relatives, little cheatings and big frauds, and prudent marriages -- most of which are frequently true. Plus there is the golden carrot of hard work = success, a formula that ensures maximum participation in exchange for peanuts and glittering dreams. With hard work, a teacher's child can become the next banking billionaire. But it will take a full-scale restructuring of society before the child of a low caste/tribal agricultural labourer from the depths of Midnapore or Purulia merely needs hard work to become an English teacher in Calcutta.

It's an interesting point, that: why would an astronomical increase in a middle-class family's wealth be perceived as relatively unthreatening, while the rise of a particular kind of working class person to struggling financial mediocrity only be possible through bloody, savage class war?

Different kinds of social distance: that's the answer. The urban/suburban middle class' tendency not to realise their financial and social privilege is a prime example of how successfully they've distanced themselves socially from every class beneath them, such that their perceived reality consists only of their own social equivalents, and those above it. Quite logically, therefore, they recast their relative affluences as the underprivileged bottomline, accesible to everyone, and are amazed when people claim they exist at a certain level of achievement because of their socioeconomic privileges. 'Privilege' comes to signify only those capitals that are greater than what they possess -- in Clarissa's case, trust funds and prime real estate. "Do you know how hard I worked to get here?" is a frequent refrain, implying that those who didn't, didn't work hard enough. Or at all. Or, as indicated above, are genetic morons.

Plus, of course, a vital part of keeping one's privilege is not admitting it exists. That which does not exist cannot be taken away, or redistributed, or re-written in different histories. No wonder Billy Dalrymple got so hot under the collar with the the drug and human trafficking that underscores Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies. Damning Ghosh with faint praise at having written 'an enjoyable book', his review proceeds to dismiss Ghosh as an author given to Bollywood dramatics and anti-British resentment, and insists fervently no British privilege existed during the raj... though there were certainly inequalities of power.

And we all had an empty glass of hot milk before bed.

In conclusion, and as a treat to yourself, please read Chesterton's The Invisible Man. For an unapologetic snob and an elitist, Chesterton had surprising insight about his own class's privilege-blindness.

Joy to the World!

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 07:29:00 +0000

No, wait. That was five days ago.

Well then, here's to another year of hard work, poor pay, multiple responsibilities, little acknowledgement, viciously short-sighted politics, rampant hysterical ignorance, rape torture and murder, and worst of all, a bland diet thanks to soaring grocery costs.

And also to small pleasures. Cha on the stairs, adda on campus, people who think, greasy fish-fries. Luck, hugs, solidarity and friendship. And blurry photographs of a city that lives more lives than we can dream of.

All the best.

...makes the world go 'round

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 07:25:00 +0000

[cross-posted on FB, where all comments are: http://www.facebook.com/notes/rimi-n/-makes-the-world-go-round/468949048574]

The trouble with being brought up largely in the company of a wickedly amusing Sanskritophile old man with a little Latin -- who delighted in interrogating the scriptures to understand other people's bumbling search for Meaning, Identity and Truth -- is that I have grown up with at least a fistful more information about the Bible, and scattered intelligence on the Upanishads and the Geeta, than most 'practising' Christians and Hindus. Therefore, nearly all currently-practised forms and parameters, and their hysterical devotion to false ideological idols, irk me no end.

Of course, I'm always happy to oblige with sardonic annoyance at any time minus cause, but some things, I think lend a certain amount of justification to my predilections. For example:

A.
Outside the Dokkhineshwar temple, with a woman carrying the blessed flowers and sweets.
Woman: there's just so much peace in temples.
Rimi: (forbears to comment on the clamour of people, dhaak, kNashor and enormous temple bells).
W: and... here you can bring children.
Rimi: sorry?
W: we were so embarrassed when we went to Khajuraho. Did you see those sculptures? Right there, in front of the children. Who allowed those things! At least there should have been a warning.
R (grinning): like an Adult rating?
W: you're joking. You're always joking. Don't have children na, that's why. You wait and see. Imagine if you lived in those pagan times -- would you be at university? Would you be running a business? You would probably have been sold to some man twice your age. Naked sculptures! Just no taste.
R: in those what times?!
W: arre pagan times. Maane before civilised times.
R: ah.

NOTE: for people who don't know, Khajuraho has some very... imaginitive temple scultures. Of people doing some very... fascinating things to each other.

B.
Rimi: so because 'x' stands for the Greek alphabet 'chi', it isn't really x-mas, it's still Christmas.
Interlocuter: are you serious! Why would Christians have anything to do with Greek?
Rimi: Why wouldn't they?
Int: seriously? Because the Greeks and Romans were, you know, all that paedophilia and man-on-man action? [here he winks at me] And you know how Christians are about gay sex.
Rimi: hm. By the way, do you know what languages the Bible was first written in?
Int: Latin na? Or, wait, Old English?
Int.2: yeah, Old English! Right?
Rimi: right. Achha incidentally, you know they say "Jesus of Nazareth"? Any idea where Nazareth might've been?
Int 1: Middle-East right? He was from that area -- holy land, toh?
Rimi (waits for the penny to drop).
Int2: but back to our question. What are you doing for Christmas?

Mourning humanity, apparently. Wear black if you've read this note :-(

Those with black hair are excused from uniform. Those with golden hair -- just like Jesus Christ's, in fact -- may shave it all off to show solidarity.

Keeping to the Straight and Narrow

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:08:00 +0000

I've never been fond of tags. But I do them frequently, because I am fond of people that tag me. However, there's something about the way tags are interpreted that is -- predictably -- beginning to irritate me (sooner or later, something will always irritate me, as sure as the sun will rise; I am famous for my irritability). This time, it's the way every meme about booklists, no matter how it is phrased or framed, is expected to become a list of one's favourite books. The damn thing's like a gentleman's bloody word: no matter what clever guise any book meme preens from under, the collective mind keeps to the minimum-effort path of 'favourites' that it has worn down to the founding stones with constant, single-minded treading.

And I can say this with some authority, from the response generated by the last two memes I did. They were both booklists, and neither were lists of books one loves more than life itself, or derives more pleasure than sex from. What they were, were, respectively, lists of books that are at the top of one's mind right at the very moment of writing, and authors one reads for leisurely pleasure. For the sake of filling white space, I'll copy the first list below:

Books off the top of my head:
Catch 22 (Joseph Heller), Aranyak (Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay), Jeeves and Psmith (Wodehouse), Hoimonti (the short story by Tagore), Shojohpath, A Change of Skies (Yasmin Goonaratne), Calcutta Chromosome (Amitav Ghosh), Thud! (Terry Pratchett), Cereus Blooms at Night (Shani Mootoo), Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie), nearly everthing by Syyed Mujtaba Ali, the Mahabharata.

Why were these at the front of my mind? It's been a while, but I remember I was toying with Thud!, Midnight's Children, Cereus Blooms at Night and some stuff by Ali because I was writing something about the ethnicisation of urban spaces in multicultural societies, and was chafing at the textual constraints put on me. I would dearly have loved to chuck the mind-numbingly boring task of crafting an essay by copy-pasting from 'primary texts', and actually weave something a little more meaningful from these texts that my professor had likely never read. Isn't that the point of post, and even undergraduate level work? That you give a little back to faculty for all that you receive? Apparently not.

Anyway, but then as the laptop lay abandoned and my wishful thinking rose like a bright yellow balloon against the leaden sky of academic expectations, I thought of the telescope-armed goddess and pigeon-bred virus strains, of the little girl who pretended to be her mentally delicate teenage sister when her drunk father groped for a pliable female body, of life sentences to intellectual isolation, of frontiersmen starving to death in a desert where native groups found enough for a feast all year round. I thought of subaltern systems of knowledge, forgotten because rooted in marginalised or supressed demographies. Of unwritten histories that are lived by living flesh and blood over and over again, yet leave no trace on the history concretised. Concretised, ironically, by fading ink on parched paper. And how this imagined concrete gives us the authority to determine who and what is right or normal or real, and who and what is not. And thereby the right to kill, plunder, or more civilly persecute with impressively dense laws or primly dismissive terms like 'collateral damage'.

And because the brutal New England winter had sent news of an early arrival, I was thinking of the lush, enchanting beauty of the tropical forests of Aranyak, and of a peace we have long since lost forever.

That's what I put into that note, behind a screen of names. I didn't expect people to see through the weave of the screen straight int my soul -- in fact if they did I would be very disturbed, but I did expect them to read the meme-title, and realise that "Books on your mind right now" does not mean "your favouritest books of all time, whee!". Your brain is not an evil stepsister to your eyes, people. Let them harmonise every now and then.

Is god a capital thing?

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:13:00 +0000

Apparently, when gods and goddesses raise waves in one part of the world, reverbrations are felt throughout the globe. They have superpowers like that.

It's hasn't been a full day that the goddess has been sent ceremonially back to her abode via the river (bon voyage, au revoir!), and already there's an email in my inbox from the other hemisphere, enquiring whether the 'right' way to write the divine is with or without a capital 'g'. That is, should it be 'god', or should it be 'God'?

It's a difficult question, unless of course one learns one's religion from the holy books--but let's face it, who does? Silver-tongued men and women with a talent for rabble-rousing and a flair for for-profit organising, who kindly reduce thick, dense tomes into concise little bumper stickers, do just fine for us.

So according to the scriptures, if I remember my lessons right, there is no capitalisation required. All contributors seem to agree that god is indeed a capital thing, democratic dissent not being in fashion yet. In fact, the wonderous awesomeness of god is the entire point of the existence of scriptures, and said point being amply illustrated in vivid, video-gamesque details of strategic wars, smiting, blood, gore, rape, sodomy, incest, earthquakes, floods, tropical romps, non-tropical fornication and drunken orgies, no one saw the need to extract respect by inserting the capitalisation clause. People's who witness the parting of the sea have plenty of respect to spare... and were likely illiterate besides, mass literacy not being in fashion either. Besides, of course, there is the small matter of script to consider. Most scripts do not differentiate between cases, thus rendering the question of capitalisation moot.

However, the evolving mainstream has left the core of the scriptures behind everywhere, except maybe the bloodiest and most populace-inciting bits. After all, there is a reason human beings developed aforementioned video games in aforementione vivid details. This reason is called human nature.

Anyway, the current trend of capitalisation in the western hemisphere, which percolates into the rest of the world by way of cultural imperialism and is now taken as the gospel truth by huge chunks of the populace, is arrived at by this simple associative equation: bigger is always better --> god is bigger and better than us poor mortals (though he did created us in his own image, if word on the street is to be believed) --> upper case is bigger, therefore better than lower case --> god deserves the capital G. There are other theories too: some people, admittedly a small minority, expand on the previous argument and claim that 'god' is a grammatical error, since the word does not visually trigger any awe or wonder or respect that the concept of god should in every human heart (or brain). This, of course, is a believer's argument and a semiotician's delight, and the former's biggest opposition to the lowercase 'g' is that it is a calculated offence mounted against their glowing faith by faithless atheists.

There are two further schools of thought on the subject.

One patiently explains that God is a proper noun, and don't we all know that proper nouns should be capitalised? To which I say no, it is not. Yahwey is a name, Jesus is a name, Krishna is a name, Brahma is a name. I will even accept the Holy Ghost. I will accept Satan and his entire array of names, even if Satan shares root with the common noun shaitan. But 'god' is not a proper noun (and neither is 'devil', unless one adds a 'the' before it to signify the Abrahamic tradition). It is simply used as such by a culture that, for reasons best known to whoever takes an inerest in these things, have forgotten the name their 'god' chose for himself.
The other school of thought militantly declares that monotheistic deities merit God because they are the one true God, while anything in the plural with similar claims are figments of stupid people's imaginations that can at best scrape up a 'god', usually with a qualifying prefix--like Greek, native, tribal, weather--attached, to emphasise its limited scope. Kinder people of the same group say munificently that even polytheistic orders can use God when they speak of any one specific god.

I have no personal arguments at all against any of these theories. Capitalisation of the divine makes no difference to me. But since the question was asked of me I must confess that I prefer the more militant theories of difference ("our God good, your god lame", "athesists are malicious fools") to the faux-tolerant pseudo-logic of capitalisation by numbers. I don't like patronising theories backed up by zero evidence or blatant lies, which is precisely what the last response to the God-god dilemma is. After all, while the 'g' is always capitalised in 'the Old Testament God' or 'the Islamic God'--and those two can have the G since they are decidedly singular entities--it's passed over completely when one very specific god from a pluralist pantheon is mentioned, for example, 'the Greek god Dionysus'. In fact, those with an Anglophone education have internalised the G-g : Christian-nonChrisian bias to such an extent that just seeing phrase 'the Greek God Dionysus' feels odd and wrong, even if we are self-aware enough to wince at the underlying politics of our reaction.

Unfortunately, even the self-aware demography finds it difficult not to reproduce this paradigm of easy respect and easier taboos when writing Devnagari in the Roman script, thus the goddess almost always becomes Devi Durga or Ma Kaali.

The only person to which this discussion might bring pleasure is probably the above-mentioned hypothetical semiotician. Personally, I feel rather self-conscious discussing spiritual matters in public because of the rich, diverse, and therefore slippery nature of the subcontinental spiritual mosaic. One never knows when one might carelessly nick a quiet, pious soul's space of devotion, or stomp on a closet fundamentalist's tail. But even then I'm compelled to say that this entire debate, and a society that enthusiastically grants such debates legitimacy, are sillier than the silliest sillies. After all, no one demands 'bread' be capitalised when speaking of naan because naan is better than sour dough, or declares that a car in traffic is a car but a sole care cruising along the highway is a Car.

And I am firmly in favour of dismissing all silliness.

After I have spoken my extensive piece on the matter, of cours.

Sees, Smirks, and Quirks a Sardonic Eyebrow

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:36:00 +0000

Which, you must admit, is a commoner reaction than Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, although the latter makes the point much better.

This post is and isn't intended for the Red Marker Blogathon started by Sue over at her blog -- go find the post, I'm too lazy to link. Well, I say "started by Sue", but if you've been a reader here for more than a couple of months, the odd are embarrassingly in favour of you coming across a post where I stamped my foot over the use of language, viciously tore apart bad or merely overlooked grammar, and generally acted all superior while failing to notice the typos that inevitably creep into anything I write. So yes, in a way I consider myself the spiritual parent of this blogathon, and like all spiritual parents, I expect my existence to be hotly debated and finally contemptuously denied and dismissed (very likely by myself, because I'm contrary that way).

I have a lot of peeves with language, and oddly enough they seem to throw themselves at my poor beleaguered eyes most when I read Harry Potter fanfiction (I read fanfiction). It's one of the inevitabilities of reading "happily married mother of three" or "full-time university student, part time writer!" that the stories are less attentive to packaging, and more to getting the brilliant ideas Rowling didn't have out in the world. This frequently results in such easily overlookable* errors such as:

'loose' for 'lose' (as in, "Hermione was afraid that she would loose Professor Snape's love if she underlined his books with a pen/tried to pay his house elves/refused to try BDSM"), 'dare say' for daresay', 'none the less' for 'nonetheless', 'defiantly' for 'definitely'... and so on, and so forth.
innovative new verbs, such as 'drug' for 'dragged' ("Draco drug Hermione to the Forbidden Forest and had his wily wicked way with her").
mangled 'Britishisms' ("And why are you smiling like an idiot in my class, Mr. Weasley?" "Oh bollocks, we only won the Quidditch Cup this year and I shagged a couple of your quidditch-groupie bints, you greasy git, pip pip!").
and a general disregard for such mundane things as subject-verb agreement ("the happy couple went down to the Great Hall and ate his lunch"), tenses ("I tried to tell Draco he is my soulmate, but he is refusing to listen to me!") and the careless disinterest in commas which leads to "there's [there+is]" all too frequently becoming "theres", and the non-apostrophied 'yours' often acquiring a superfluous curly dash before the 's'.

*Easily overlookable, that is, by everyone but me, because I'm the Wicked Witch of Languageville and eat mangled words for breakfast.

But lately, it isn't these so much that have been nagging at the edges of my conscience, like a starchy price-tag poking one in the neck. These days, I don't even flinch at the American attachment to extra prepositions ("Draco has been crushing on Hermione, who was sipping on her tea while visting with the Weasleys, who were hating on the Malfoys"). It's difficult to dislike something as innocuous as an ethnic linguistic style without feeling like a horrible grouch, particularly the linguistic style of an ethnic group as friendly and nice as Americans. They will wear down grouchiness with their smiles and acceptance and non-judgemental friendliness... unless of course you live in Iraq or Afghanistan, but that's neither here or there.

No, what has been bothering me is the sheer downturn in the way Bengali is spoken in Calcutta. When we were little 'uns running about, one frequently heard the sentiment that slangs or swear-words were the refuge of the ill-educated. "They use such language because they *cannot* use proper language, and are therefore to be pitied, not copied", was the message sent across from adult quarters. Of course, this argument fell apart if one then accompanied said adult to the fish market and hear him illustratively dispute the freshness of the fish, and consequently the legitimacy of its price, and eventually, should things get so far, the legitimacy of the fishmonger's birth... but it doesn't hold water even without that practical demo. Swearing in Bengali and English, and I imagine in any other language, had till recently been a smorgasboard of wit, quick repartee, a talent for coining puns and aphorisms, and of course, analogies. Swearing, while admittedly not for all ages, was fun. It was colourful, it showed a sharp mind, it showed a sense of humour (although perhaps not a very charitable one), it reflected pop culture, and more importantly, it showed local colour. As one of our professors once said, if there ever was an enclyopaedia of swearing, College Street of the '60s would have a chapter all to itself, and quite a distinctive one at that.

But all that appears to be firmly in the past. Swearing, and I participate in it with alarcity, seems to be the domain of scatological references, largely involving the human posterior or something violently sexual which, frankly, I'm hard-pressed to find even remotely provocative. To "You fucking jackass/asswipe/piece of shit, I fucked your mother up the ass and shoved my cock down her throat!" [quoting verbatim from a Central Square fight last weekend] and it's Bengali equivalent, I merely yawn. If I'm in the mood, I might toss out a few choice words of my own, but it's more from a sense of social obligation. If someone calls me a fucking bitch, I feel I owe it to the social contract to call him a sodding cunt -- an interesting physical conundrum, by the way -- or put on superior amused face and walk away, but there's no heart in the exchange anymore. And there certainly is no mind.

I just wish people would stop being so blasé about their invectives and start taking it seriously again--which is to say, start taking it not seriously at all. Men and boys sitting on 'rocks' trading barbs used to be a fucking linguistic and humourous subculture, not a prelude to fistfights and escalated tension for the next three months. Even sexual harassment used to be funny, and therefore somehow more easily ignored or taken in one's stride. After all, a bunch of boys who get their rocks off by asking you to turn your jaggery jugs at them somehow send out the signal that they are unlikely to zoom past you in a jeep, pull you in, rape and beat you, and leave you for dead by the highway, or slit your neck in an alley. It somehow didn't go with the spirit.

It's like as a culture and a world, we've forgotten to laugh at ourselves and others around us, and this taking-ourselves-too-seriously business has made our egos that much more fragile and prone to violence. There'll be a few words, suddenly someone will declare themselves offended, mothers will come into the conversation, and next thing you know the police are bottlenecking your street and there are black eyes all around. Since clearly we cannot have a world free of harrassment or fights, by every god there is, can we just please have the (relatively) harmless little resvoirs of local wits back? It might just go a fraction of an inch in restoring my faith in humanity.

Epic Fail!

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Sat, 08 May 2010 02:15:00 +0000

Is a phrase I much heart, and am grateful to the United States for it's formulation and mass use. And today, I've finally found a concrete reason to shout it at the idiots who mismanage public schools so spectacularly.

Comment by a member of the public on a Youtube excerpt of the Walking With Dinosaurs series on BBC:

"I dont get it. How did these wonderful creatures become extinct? all the dinosaurs died (i think) but the sharks, crocodiles and other things survived so what really happened?"

I think, like, all the scientists and their geek friends just, like, made them up. Like, totally. Oh, but no! There's a scientific explanation for it! Presenting, another ha'penny expert to the rescue!

"i think it has something to do with their metabolism. crocodiles are cold-blooded so they can go for much longer periods of time without eating whereas warm-blooded dinosaurs need to eat regularly".

Ah, right. That must be why sharks and crocodiles survived from the Mesozoic era, while those poor dinosaurs just died out :-( I take back my misdirected sarcasm. Science has probably never been this grateful.

Truman's Sixty

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 22:47:00 +0000

I just had a blazing row with someone about something that I try hard not to discuss in a social setting--'development' as a concept, and how we botch an already botched concept in implementation. And in some ways my disappointment was rooted deeply in the fact that the person is from my city, from sterling universities that might well be faulted by the ostriches for being "too" political, but never for being too little. Or for that dead-in-the-water escapist standpoint, 'apolitical'. I expect certain standards of people from my city, but clearly--it seemed to me on a depressed, grey New England afternoon of cold soup and soggy french fries--in expecting Calcutta to churn out people with a certain level of cultural and political sophistication, I've been holding the city upto standards it doesn't even pretend to embody anymore. And it depressed me more than this sudden cold spell and this sudden, persistent, chilling rain that simply won't go away. I used to think, in my own emulation of the ostrich, that if I don't acknowledge the reality of Calcutta's thoughtscape, perhaps all that is solid ill melt into air and the city as I knew it, the city as I loved it, the city that took out it's conscience and gave it good long look every evening, the city that mocked its own pompousness... that city would magically come back. Clearly, I was a sentimental fool. And a man whom ironically, I would have expected to be the epitome of such a place as I imagined Calcutta to be, put me right.

"We've got our priorities wrong", he said, midway through the tea. "When I go back to Calcutta I shudder these days..."
"The traffic and pollution and lack of public loos, I know", I was going to fill in while he took a sip of the ridiculous pomegranate tea, but he beat me to it.
"Just the poverty of goods, you know?" He tapped his teacup with the tip of his index finger. "Can yo imagine getting pomegranate tea in your local grocery shop? Can you imagine getting three kinds of lettuce, four kinds of potatoes, extra-sweet strawberries, oranges the size of my fist?"
"Well," I said with my previous friendliness, although I was quite appalled to find a development consultant classifying development priorities in terms of largely superfluous consumer choices, "I'm not sure that having potatoes in three different kinds or fruits as large as your fist really indicates anything other than access to unnecessary food technology. I mean, yellow and brown and red potatoes all taste the same to me, even the pricey little delicate ones that are supposedly good for baking. In fact, American produce seldom tastes of anything to me. Given the choice I'd take smaller, misshapen Indian produce any day. At least the cauliflowers taste of cauliflowers, and begunbhaja doesn't taste paanshe."

And I'm justified in this degradation of American supermarket produce, as can be verified by anyone whose just come/returned to the States from South Asia, or just stepped in South Asia and had a good vegetarian meal there. Just the evening before, in fact, my rainy-day dinner of bhuna khichuri and begunbhaja had clocked several notches below expectations because of blandness of local brinjals and cauliflowers, and I was smarting. However, all my friendliness acheived was the curious cocktail of patronising hostility.

"An organic supporter, eh? I thought you had more sense than that", the Irksome Idiot condescended, delicately cutting a sliver off his lamb shank (we were in a Greek place), placing it carefully on top of a large piece of lettuce, using his fork to wrap the lettuce around it and popping it in his mouth.

Irrationaly, it was his action that depressed me even more, because that is exactly how I eat my lamb shank as well (except that I put a piece of tomato or onion and a french fry inside the lettuce wrap, and dip it in the yogurt sauce before eating). Clearly, this was a man who enjoyed his food and knew how to eat, from which it follows that he has superior tastes and therefore a functional brain, from which it follows that the rubbish he was spewing are the conclusions of a brain capable of logical thought, from which it follows that the man is an idiot. And it pains me to classify a fellow gourmet as an idiot, but life is seldom easy.

I won't transcribe the hour-long conversation here, although I would dearly love to, but suffice to say that the gentleman is question, who has worked for UNDP as a consultant and suchlike, thinks the organic food movement is led by "hippe-type folks" completely detached from reality (and I'm not saying a large number of people who go organic as a 'lifestyle choice' are not somewhat vacuous, but then what movement doesn't have it's ill-informed fanatics?), that not just veggies, but seafood should be genetically engineered because it will increase productuon and thus drive down prices, and "isn't that what your great middle-class always wants?" In India, we should go private because "these third-world governments, they will never change" (apparently corruption is a third-world problem, and exists in a vaccum free of poverty, huge populations, crumbling infrastructure, suspect accountability et al), and we should 'develop' the cities more--more highways, shopping malls, better airports because "I feel ashamed when I land in Calcutta from the US or Europe or even East Asia". Not that I don't share his shudder at the state of most Indian airports, but perhaps we have other sectors that need immediate investment. As long as the airports are functional, I don't see any need to make them altars of tech-worship (and no, Calcutta, I classify smooth runways a necessity, not as a fancy addition, so get working on it). He even praised the Rajarhat building projects, all but calling me a fool when I pointed out that some studies show those buildings have led to the disruption of the water tables and the drainage system in the city, leading to much more severe monsoon flooding over the last few years.

But what really got my goat was this insistance that 'we' have it all wrong, except where we've given way to the ancient World Bank model of development, those being our only saving graces. There's no redeemable quality in us whatsoever, and that the American system 'works'. There's no doubt that the American system 'works' (although I was surpised the last two financial years had made no impact on his analysis whatsoever), the destruction wrecked by the Bush era notwithstanding. But this attitude that anything government-owned is destructive, that markets are "largely" self-regulating, that introducing vast consumer choices that makes the populace spend more than they earn is the only way to have a functional economy, and that technology is the new totalitarian religion that brooks no disagreement, are so alien to my ways of thoughts (and the dominant modes back home) that I was shocked not merely at his opinions, but at how completely he had assimilated into an economic ideology that I've always believed is deeply flawed... and always believed--despite my ideological dissociation from the so-called Marxists of my state--will lead to the collapse of the very structures (liberty! equality! lowest prices!) that it pretends to uphold.

If anyone truly answered President Truman's address from the sixties about 'modernising' the rest of the wretched world, it has been the erstwhile third-world elite, and more's the pity. Perhaps, had our lad taken the trouble to know this country beyond it's centrist and right-wing financial politics, he would have discovered the truth of Mencken's words: "doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with anything to sell."

Shubho Noboborsho!

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 01:19:00 +0000

Antorik ebong lok-dyakhano shubhechha, o preetinomoshkar. Aaj chaar ghonta dhore ranna kore table shajanor por hothat onekdin aager lorry-message mone porlo. "Dekhbi aar jolbi, luchir moto fulbi".

Not that I mean anything by it, of course. Except maybe to Poushali.

Aloo-posto.

Haddocker shorsher jhaal.

Chingrir malaicurry.

Malpoa in rosh.

The feast :-)

P.S: if you want the recipes for these (and other things sporadically cooked and consumed, see this).

Nitpicky Nattering Nut

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:09:00 +0000

Also known as Rimi, she of sloppy fingers and a sharp tongue.

I make typos right, left and centre, but I don't usually speak them (as it were). Because I do know how language--despite its vast diversity of uses--functions. American English, for example, fascinates me precisely because it's so different, and being in a land where it's spoken all the time really brings home this diversity business. I mean, professors drop their 'g's, leaders of the country use compressions freely ('wanna', 'gonna' et al), same words mean different things--it's like a smorgasboard of exotic delights. And also mildly annoying at times, yes, but then difference is famously discomfiting. I particularly dislike using the synonym for a donkey to mean one's posterior, but I accept that they might find my predilections of calling people asses equally strange, so I leave it at that.

There are some things, however, that I simply cannot move past. Some of these are universals in the English-speaking world. "I could care less", for example, when a person really means "I could NOT care less". People these days seem to speak by rote, not stopping to actually think what the words spewing out of their mouths actually mean. I mean, come on, if you could care less, it means you admit that this moment, you do in fact care. You cannot care less unless you already care some. The same goes for the contemptuous "I give a damn!", when the speaker clearly means to convey that she doesn't. And we've become so immune to the act of thinking that when Sue posted about this, one of her commenters said he didn't understand the point of her post.

These little things annoy me, and perhaps they shouldn't. But then I'm a self-confessed nitpicker who can't stop--and indeed quite enjoys--nattering about other people's obvious lack of faculties, so I can't say I see myself stopping any time soon. Especially not when I'm back in India, because the Indian masses sudden capitulation to American English comes across (to me, anyway) as the worst kind of spineless abdication of one's own identity in favour of an abject, puppy-like following-the-biggest-player-in-the-playground approach to self-definition. Which means I'll be back on the subject, and if last summer was anything to go, with considerable more irk than I possess at the moment.

The Cinderella Complex

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:30:00 +0000

There's a woman known to the family, a sort of a friend of a second cousin of an aunt's on the her husband's side, who is uncannily--and I mean uncannily--good at what's commomly understood by 'astrology'. Being a family of unbelievers (to begin with anyway), we were often the focus of her particular brand of brilliance, since she got a quiet, smug kick out of stunning us into speechlessness with an odd sentence or two.

This lady has spoken exactly twice to me in all my life. The first was when she made me a horoscope, and laid out a few stark facts about my purported future. The second was just before I moved away from home. "You watch that Cinderella complex of yours," she said to me sternly, without any pretext. "No one is going to come after you with a glass slipper. You just learn to grease the palms and smile the smile, do you understand?"

I did, because at twenty three I wasn't completely un-selfaware, but just like at twenty three, I pretty much ignored sterling advice.

And she did turn out to be right, once more. The Cinderella complex has proved my undoing, all over again.

It's not the fact that I'm stuck with the grunge-work. Everyone is, and I happen to like mine. It's not even that I am stuck with evil gorgons. I have had more than my fair share of gorgons, true, but to be perfectly honest, I've also had more than my share of absolute peaches, so that evens out. It's not that I'm relatively poor, either. Being a natural penny-pincher, I do quite well on a postgrad's stipend. None of those trip me up. What does trip me is my tendency to actually like being hidden away in the cold cellar--metaphorically speaking--doing the dishes in a dank, dark kitchen. I don't like attending department parties because I spend eight hours a day, five days a week, seeing these people. I don't like attending seminars because I think, what the hell, I've read all the books this person has written. That social events and seminars--particularly the Q&A of the latter--might be a time to impress 'important' people with my intimate knowledge of their work, and thereby to gain a foothold in academia, is not lost to me. I simply don't feel like making the effort. I much preferred to go home early and stay there, snuggled under my cuddly brown blanket with a cup of hot cocoa, the world conveniently close but also reassuringly far away on my laptop (just thinking about it makes me warm and content all over).

This pattern has marked my social life for as long as I can remember, but perhaps it's done the most damage in the last couple of years. I have been at one of the primary epicentres of western learning, littered with illuminaries in my field and beyond, and outside my immediate faculty I've met exactly zero people.

And the crux is not that I am shy. I'm gregarious and a career chatterbox, as nearly anyone will wearily testify. It's just that I was brought up to wait politely till I was noticed or called upon, or introduced to someone by someone else. Particularly if the situation involved elders, for to butt into boroder kotha, or the circle of elders, would be very rude indeed. And given the eminence of most of the people I'd like to meet, or even just their rank as university professors, my instinct to treat them as respectable elders kicks in extra hard. It's very tiresomely Asian of me, but it's also completely organic and hence difficult to get rid of. That I am now in the Best-Shover-Gets-All zone doesn't make me function any differently. If anything, I fall back on an extreme form of my upbringing, perhaps as an unconscious defensive measure, and sit in unspoken condemnation of overt, unsublte attention grabbers. I tell myself that it is much preferable, instead, to sit in quiet intellectual content in a corner, smiling smugly at silly questions and nodding along with the person delivering a lecture (let's say). And if I do this--be the good, unobtrusive, silently efficient child--I will somehow, magically, be rewarded by being noticed. Or, in the rare, rare, rare case that I summon up the courage to write someone an email, expect them to remember my enthusiastic nodding from amongst an audience of several. Expect the glass slipper to chase me, in short.

And of course, it never does. I'm not even the insignficant little flower at the bottom right hand corner of the back cover of a fairy tale book, so why should it? It's just that I didn't realise how easy it was to temporarily fill in the heroine's shoes.

So, word of advice: academia is, amongst other things, a constant PR exercise for yourself. Meet and greet like it's fucking driving you insane. Smile and mouth compliments and 'thoughtful' comments till your bleeding jaw collapses. Grin till the muscles strike. It will serve you well. Or better, at any rate, than will waiting for impractical shoes to be brought to you by people in glossy doublets, riding great white horses (that will likely as not poop at your door).

This Language Bug

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 06:58:00 +0000

I have recently encountered the thesis--from a very well-read and socially-aware person--that language is an apolitical thing that has no connotations beyond communications. "Language is just something people use to get ideas across, and I really don't understand people can politicse something like language", he complained. I'm always charmed by such naïveté, so I paid for his latte.

I realise I'm obsessed with local forms of languages--in particular of English--and quite frankly I didn't spare it a thought earlier, but I'm beginning to think this obsession is becoming a superobsession and slowly taking over my life. First of all, I notice differences between American and Rest-of-the-world English that international students living here for ages didn't notice, and on occasion that they did, ceased to notice them almost immediately. Example: laying (US) and lying (r-o-t-w). Second, given that I can't forget one system and adapt to another completely, these days I feel slightly queasy when I look at a sentence about healthful foods on colorful plates, and ALSO a sentence about healthy food on colourful plates. When I look at "outside of" and "visited with" and so on, I'm definitely bothered by the unnecessary (to me) prepositions. But then, when I read a book with a marked absence of the superfluous prepositions, there's this nagging feeling that there's something important missing. And the worst are the new spellings that haven't been concretised yet, or older people (professors and old American texts) which use some r-o-t-w spellings. 'Glamour' persisted for a while, and Margaret Meade used 'labour', while members of faculty email us saying they'll be 'travelling' and are therefore 'cancelling' a meeting. Students, on the other hand, write in to say they are affraid they cannot make a deadline because they have a young proffessionals' meeting off campus.

It's all rather confusing. And the automatic comparison feature inside my head is driving me a little insane, I think.

And all this came upon me as an epiphany while I was reading Steig Larsson's Millenium trilogy (in succession). The translation was done in the UK, or so it appeared anyway, from the verbs spelt [another verb-form absent in the US. They have no truck--mostly--with the 't' ending] with an 's' to 'programmes', 'labour', 'colour', the usual deal. And then, suddenly, amongst the many hundred pages, one word jumps out at me. Math. Yeah, that's right. Math, not maths. And I knew in an instant, in a bleeding instant, that the chap translating was American. In a few decades American English will become the lingua-franca (the irony...) and we shall be the tiny minority that uses 'tawdry' to mean cheaply or overtly sexualised, while the majority will mean 'gaudy' or 'sloppy', but mathematics is still shortened with an 's' in most parts of the world that doesn't blindly ape anything American (Ninety percent of Indian internet users, I mean you!). And while I'd been putting off getting a bite to eat and going to the loo for the past hour because the book was rivetting and my bed warm and cuddly, I immediatly hopped off it and went to look up the translator online. The link above was the result. He was American. Elementary, my dear reader.

At the end of the day, though, I have to admit: there's an interest in languages, and then there's unhealthy scab-picking obsessive behaviour. Clearly I lack the wisdom to know the difference. Or the tantric arts to reprogramme my brain.

Playing the Indie God, or, My Avatar Review

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 23:04:00 +0000

(Very long, very ranty post alert)

Before my friends jump down my throat--this is not a defence of Avatar. I concur with most or all of you that it is a gorgeously put together missed opportunity, a Sunny Deol film with Hollywood special effects, and a breath-takingly beautiful, heavy-handed ideological failure. I grant you that it is an ode to whiteman-save-the-day ("Strange as it may seem..."Avatar" is being criticized...[for containing racist themes]— the white hero once again saving the primitive natives". Very strange indeed) and perhaps to patriarchal structures. I also agree that the transformation of a handicapped marine--definitely less among equals--into the demigod of the tribals (whom he then leads from certain defeat to thunderous victory) establishes a clear hierarchy between the two races. Earthman becomes a leader of the locals but locals cannot master smallest eathman tricks etc. Granted. All of the above. But there are also somethings Avatar isn't, and this post is about those things.

It's amazing how much power the mainstream media has over people in the US. I'm sure it has so elsewhere too, but the US example startled me especially because when I used to think of the US earlier in life, I thought of the dominant majority being independent thinkers who look at facts, not rabid opinion-mongers on the telly, for their opinions. Which goes to show how naïve I was at 18. But it was a naïveté born of internalising the rhetorics about freedome and so on, born perhaps from the desperate wish that at least somehwhere, there was place for free thought. Which is why the pop media in America, and the masses that follow its every word like a good little baa-lamb, came as such an overwhelming disappointment. Still, earlier there used to some niches which hadn't sold intellect to populism, some niches one could trust. But the New Yorker and the Boston Globe's reviews of the film stormed that last bastion. After all, if you can't trust the north-east to be snobby intellectuals, who can you trust? Both publications have called out the film, yes, but for all the wrong bleeding reasons, every bleeding time. And given how this country makes gods of its media-people, I don't doubt that hundreds of readers are now walking about right now with exactly those opinions inside their head, thinking they thought of it all by themselves. And that is how the "shallow" popular culture of America--you know, that thing the rest of the world so loves to mock?--is shaped. By media people taken as gurus, who couldn't respect this respect--as it were--by doing tiniest bit of research before sending off their glib phrases out into the world.

Given the choice between the two kinds of demagogouery, I'd pick the ex-marine turned tribal demi god. However formulaic, he at least tries to break the mould and go indie. Sure, his entire narrative fits into another dominant, predictable mould, but at least he thinks he's breaking new ground, that chap. Entirely unlike sauve self-satisfied public opinion demagogues one could mention.

For those of you do not know what Avatard is about yet, please read the plot summary first.

Problem #1:
David Denby of the New Yorker, amongst others, have called the Na'vi and their life on Pandora "a blissful fantasy of completely organic life". I am assuming Mr. Denby wrote the review on hear-say or is a man of definite perceptual limitations, because no one could watch the way the Na'vi live and call it blissful. A warrior people living in a hostile jungle is not likely to sing duets with Mr. Bluebird or twirl around pretty flowering bushes with Mr. Rabbit. A healthy respect for life is something most subsistence hunters--as opposed to 'sportsmen' game hunters--have, given how closely they interact with death every day. Perhaps Mr. Denby and his ilk would do well to realise that the custom of venerating/thanking the soul of the animal that provided you with your dinner is a pervasive 'real world' custom, not one Cameron's team made up. Not all people who respect life are ethical vegans because, you know, refusing animal products means voluntary starvation and death in several parts of the world AND an unbalanced increase of a certain animal population. Absolutely astonishing, I know, but that is how the world functions outside our carefully constructed domains, more's the pity.

This inability to see beyond one's own boundaries is also painfully evident when he says Na'vi life is bound to be dull because there's no Raymond Chandler and fine dining and tennis. Talk about idiots. How the fuck does one miss something one has no conception of? Would Mr. Denby say people till the nineteenth century shot themselves in frustration for the lack of automobiles? 1940s tennis stars tore their hair out because they couldn't watch the Wimbledon live on a coloured flatscreen? Did 1950s children slit their wrists because there was no internet or cable television or playstations? Jesus, Denby, moron much?

It also bothers me that Denby calls this lifestyle a fantasy. Perhaps his own lifestyle has completely blinkered him to the fact that we had people like the Na'vi (minus USB ports in their hair) on this very planet less than fifty years back. Look up the Huli, Sambia and the !Kung, amongst others. Of course, such lifestyles no longer exist because corporations, colonisers and imperialist states took over their land, put them in reservations, and began to "civilise" them. Unfortunate, but true. And if the pattern reminds you of the film, Mr. Dee, it's because it has been lifted straight out several, several, several indigenous histories. Not because it is a 'fantasy' dreamt up by the Liberal Story Board. And it is not something the perpetrators would deny, either. Because the 'perpetrators' as we see them were convinced they were doing the right thing, showing the savages the light of day, saving their soulds, bringing civilisation to the wild, etc. And yet we have a bunch of apologists who dismiss reminders of these very real histories and decimated lifestyles as 'fantasy'. You wish, sir. You wish.

Problem #2:
Oddly enough, the other problem has been with how Americans are portrayed in the film. Martha Bayles, who is apparently writing a book on the cultural image of America--bless her--calls Avatar an anti-America blockbuster, basing it on the fact that the film did better outside America than it did inside it. Interesting. Let us look at the rest of her data, shall we?

In her Boston Globe op-ed, Ms. Bayles convinces herself that the Na'vi is modelled on the Taliban and Al Quaida, and having convinced herself, becomes very indignant. "[N]either the Taliban nor the Al Quaida is a tribe of noble savages", she tells us exasperatedly. Precisely. Just like Dick Cheney is not a harmless little cuddle-toy. And I think the toy industry's modelling of teddy bears on Cheney is just wrong!
As Ms. Bayles superciliously says in her article, "Get it?"

Second, Ms. Bee thinks it is unseemly that the US military is maligned at a time when so many of them are dying for the country. I'm not sure where to begin with this one, but let's take a stab anyway.

There was no US military in this film, Ms. Bee. The people employed by the corp. are all ex-marines who are on the market as guns for hire. Try not to emulate Fox News in your attempt at patriotism, all right?
None of the US military not present in this film were "maligned", madame, or were you not watching? This may be a perceptive function of my clearly superior intellect, but those ex-marines in the film? They believed they were on the side of the right. They thought they were fighting the good fight. In their eyes they were the heroes. If you thought they weren't, good for you. It shows there is hope for you yet.
On a related note, it is not possible to mash every idea present in a film to an easily digestible pulp, and spoon-feed it to the audience with brown sugar on top. Sometimes one has actually focus on people who are not the pretty lead pair to get what a film is about.
3. I don't know how to say this without hurting your feelings, but to say one must stay zipped about the military because servicepeople are dying is an incredibly stupid and utterly moronic thing to say. It is when servicepeople are dying should one speak up loudest against the military and the gov't and say, "Why the FUCK are our fellow-citizens dying and why the FUCK aren't you doing something to stop it, you bleeding fuckers?"
Also, let's not glorify every military person as a hero. They keep us safe at home, because unlike us, most of them were too poor to refuse a military job. They don't do it out of the generosity of their hearts, they do it because they need to feed themselves and their families. They "keep you safe" by massacaring poor sods that they have nothing against, and then you cut off their medical aide so they remain locked up in their own personal hells for the rest of their lives. Saying pretty words at their funerals or glorifying them or primly refusing to critique the military in op-ed pages does not make any of it better.
And finally, if you're trying to tell me the current crop of American military personnel are dying in service of the country, I really will bloody laugh at your face. What are you, an imbecile who lives in a hole? When you're done writing that book, be sure to promote it on Glenn Beck's show. He'll love you!

So, in conclusion: the film, for all its faults, is not a reproduction of the emotional sixties counterculture movements: the problems it deals with are entirely legit and far too real. It isn't a vitriolic hate-film against the US. It's difficult to understand how people arrive at that conclusion, since all the good people in the film are also American. And finally: there's no accounting for thin-skinned morons. They are definitely taking over the world.

Between you and me,

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:03:00 +0000

the chances are rather slim. Still, try and make the best you can of this coming year. It won't be easy, but you can take solace in the unquestionable fact that there are bastards out there a thousand times more miserable than you are. There for the grace of god, etc.

Always a cheering thought, that.

And If you insist on being heroic and Making Things Better, deliver us from ourselves, be a shining example unto mankind and all that sort of thing, then please try and encourage local movements in thinking. Insist upon it. Seize the mentally lazy by their metaphorical lapels and give them a good shake. Punch their noses, bang their heads and kick them where it hurts till those grey cells kick in. And then tell them to take a good look at the world they barely noticed in decades. Keep a few boxes of tissue handy, and all sharp objects out of the way.

On the other hand, if you want to party on borrowed money, or sit back and watch the world going to hell, that's all right too. Enjoy the show.

Why I Love My Friends #2

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:07:00 +0000

or, How to Turn My Silly Insecurities Into Massive Problems:

Friend: Rimi! Ohmygod, I have put on, like, one pound! Do you think my boyfriend will break up with me?
Rimi (sombrely): this is a difficult situation, C. Try lettuce and water for a week, and then see what happens.
F: but Rimi, do I really not deserve happiness because I'm half a kilo heavier?
R: No C, you always deserve happiness! If your boyfriend leaves you, then that's because HE doesn't deserve you. He is not your true love, C! You true love will never leave you no matter how many helpings of desserts. The two of you will stay together forever and ever and have many bonny babies!
F: and so if my boyfriend fights with me again...
R (firmly): you will tell him that he is not your soul mate, and that you know he is doing this only because he thinks you are fat. And then you will dump him.
F: because it is an abusive relationship if he thinks I am fat.
R: of course it is.
F: and I don't have to put up with it.
R: no, you don't. Come, repeat after me: I am special.
F: I am special.
R: I am beautiful.
F: I am beautiful.
R: I am a strong woman.
F: I am a strong woman.
R: I don't need a man to be happy.
F: I don't need a man to be happy.
R: I will find my true love.
F: I will find my true love.
R: and I will never live my life by other people's standards.
F: god, never that! I shall always be a strong, independent woman who knows her own mind!
R: yeah!

Why I love my friends #1

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:36:00 +0000

Dry, and completely practical, humour.

Rimi: I love your translation of Jellicle Cats. Hee hee. It is the tewkewt!
Rimi's fraand: thunkoo. I'm thinking of translating the whole thing.
R: oooh, do! That will be funn!
F: yeah, I will. Let's first get the wedding over with.
R: to which wedding I had better come or "I'll have your guts for garters, my darling"?
F (placidly): yes, that one.
R: I've wanted someone to translate J. Alfred Prufrock to Bengali for ages. Will you do it?
F: Well...
R (whiny tone): do it do it do it! Do it or I shall whinge and whine and make your life hell.
F: Fine, I'll do that after the wedding.
R: But...
F (firmly): after the wedding. When self-doubt and existential angst will be available close at hand in spades.
Rimi: Awl right!

How to Identify a Hater

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:23:00 +0000

Genial friend of housemate to Rimi: So! Why do you hate America so much?
Rimi, rather startled: I don't!
Friend: okay, maybe "hate" is too strong a word. I should have said, why don't you like America?
Rimi, somewhatly irately: why do you think I don't?
Housemate, coming out of his room: All right Rob, let's go.
Friend: no, hang on, I'm asking Rimi why she doesn't like America.
Housemate: she doesn't?
Friend: well, you said it's her second year here but she still hasn't lost her accent!

Housemate looks apologetically at Rimi over the top of his friend's shoulder.

Rimi: wait, Rob... Robert? You're the Kansas friend, back from Hong Kong?
Friend: sure am. Five solid years of the East Asian life! Loved it.
Rimi: wow, I'd never know. You sound just like an American.
Friend, confused: I am American.
Housemate: yeah, let's go Rob. Dinner's at six thirty. Come on. Cya, Rimi.

Exit, followed by Rimi's amused look

In other news, the food blog is now up. Expect irregular updates. Advice on decor most welcome.

How we murder Robithakur

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:02:00 +0000

A repost from Facebook, since it briefly disappeared therefrom, rendering me concerned about its well-being. Original comments have been put in the comments section.

***Gurudeb ki chhilen, ki hoiyachhen.

I just heard Brototi Bondopahdyay (I think it is) recite Tagore on the telly. And she was so compellingly awful that I *had* to pop into the television room to see how she looked as she recited.

I don't know how Gurudeb would have reacted to her vocal and visual slaughter of his verses--I imagine he would have smiled tolerantly and tried to make the glimmer in his eyes as obscure as possible--but I can well imagine how another gentleman of advanced years would have reacted to the strident tones. My grandfatherwould have been disgusted.

And it's not just Brototi, it's entire generations of Bengalis who have been trained since their salad days in the fine art of abritti. Except, of course, there is very little that is 'fine' or subtle about the way we are taught to 'elocute'. I remember a girl from my school days--poor thing had rather a high opinion of herself because she took the award for recitation year after year, but when she auditioned for a play in Bombay she was told what I had always felt: her delivery, emoting, body-language et al only screamed "jatra!!!". There was FAR too much nodding and roudding of the eyes and absolutely unforgivable over-emphasis of every single emotion even hinted at in the lines of her piece. And her most painful (to the audience) flaw was that she chose to make her performance a senseless collage of said emotions hinted at or represented by every little word or phrase, instead of taking the tone of the entire poem/piece (or sections thereof) into consideration.

And that is precisely what Brototi did today, much to my utter and complete disappointment. Both in the performance and in my expectations of her intellect. If that is how she chooses to recite, then clearly the woman believes in leaving her brain behind at the greenroom. How else, after all, does she justify in throwing the word "ghor" in a ringing tone and a thunderous voice, when the full sentence is "ghor ghono neel ghuntHon o tobo"? Clearly, "ghor" here does not refer to the threatening quality of extremity (as in, ghor ghonoghota, ghor bipod), but the darkness of the blue in a mysterious woman's veil. The voice of a man describing the attire and adornments of his beloved [or, alternately, of the lord he is devoted to, since, as someone rightly said, "Robi thakurer premer kobita aar bhoktir kobita tofaat kora jaaye na"] is not likely to switch from cooing melodies to a strident, ringing voice, to a low threatening rumble, to a high pitched ear-splitting delivery, and then back to simpering cooing.

It was ridiculously bad, and given Brototi's repuatation and my own love for Tagore, I almost couldn't contain my itching irritation. I wanted to shake the woman, and then lock her up in a cosy little attic room with the suitable selection Sanchaita, and leave her there to actually read the poems as *poems*--and not performance pieces that are memorised and recited one word at a time.

And I cannot gloss over the Bengali audience, either. People actually looked deeply appreciative and were nodding along to this ridiculous showcase of Brototi B's vocal range. One is inclined, in fact, to give up on re-educating Ms. B and merely assert that people deserve the awful 'artistes' they get. And one rather suspects that in this case, at least, one would be rather right. After all, we've never shown an inclination to go for the refined and the subtly nuanced when the loud and bold have offered themselves as alternatives.

After all, Tagore's poetry? Who fucking cares? The bill of show will have Brototi's name on it. Yay!

My neglected childhood, (sniffle)

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:17:00 +0000

I've only recently realised that I was a dreadfully neglected child of selfish, uncaring parents who were far more bothered with putting food on my plate than with my emotional well-being. The evil things.

This realisation came upon me as almost an epiphany, as I wandered about the local pre-school and playground the day after Thanksgiving. A crowd of young mammas and their ickle things had turned the place into a temporary fairground--you could hear the raucous revelry and occasional tinkly mum-laughter from a block away. I was about to park myself on a convenient perch and watch that slice of happiness (because nothing improves a grey mood better than watching a bunch of brightly coloured, shrieking three-footers prancing about... and imagining the hiding you could give 'em if only they'd stray within your grasp), when one of the children suddenly let out a blood curdling howl.

The next few minutes were a bit of a blur, as several mothers ran onto the playground, hauled the nearest child to their chests, and demanded to know what was going on. It turns out--in as much as playground brawls turn out into anything--that one little boy had been challenged to hit another little boy while the latter ran around him in circles. Having nothing on him except a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich, the former took careful aim and managed to hit the latter squarely on the back. The injustice of having his challenge met was a bit too much for the latter, ergo aforementioned b-curd. howl.

Ten minutes later, as I watched the last car drive away, I wondered why we're even surprised that children these days grow up to be... well, not grow up to be sensible, weather-beaten, seasoned young people of tomorrow. If my mother ever heard an evening's play had been broken up because one child hit another with two pieces of stale bread, I'm not sure whether she'd be amused, but she'd certainly be irritated. A great many people from my grandeparents', parents' and even my generation seem slightly bewildered by these new, psychologically-approved methods of parenting, and I can't say I don't see their point. As my friend Lali and I once noted, a large number of contemporary parents seem to give their children a great deal of leeway where discipline and manners are concerned (which, being stern ladies of a certain age in spirit if not in age, we thoroughly disapprove of), while at the same time creating a reality-filter around them such that the harsher aspects of life--which is to say, most of it--passes right under their nose without them noticing it. As an aside, my aunt is certain that this attitude is where the political rhetoric about "protecting" families and children stem from. If you've been following the painfully thin arguments against legalising non-hetersexual unions and sex ed in schools, you'll know what she's talking about.

But the point is, that by throwing in the odd bomp at the back of the head along with the fluffy wuvv, children learn the ropes, learn to deal, and realise that life isn't so much pink cartoon unicorns as general nepotist unfairness. Certainly, in these discriminatory times parents should be careful to interfere in their children's lives to make sure they aren't picking up rabid dogma along their way, but interfering to solve a child's every problem for her hardly seems to be constructive in the long run. In fact, lest I be accused of promoting the beating and starvation approach to child-rearing: the 'uncaring' freedom accorded by old-fashioned parenting is actually far more democratic and attractive than ramming synthetic good cheer down children's throats. It makes totalitarian -- and consequently utterly exhausted -- dictators out of parents, and engenders the kind of deep-seated whiny selfishness in the children that shall provoke people to offer a complimentary punch in the face all their adult lives.

During a picnic many tropical winters ago, one of my peers devised this incredibly fun game where we made (horribly misshapen) balls out of slimy clay from the riverbed and tried to hit each other with it. The moment any one person got hit, everyone else would gang up on him or her, and make a mud-child of a human specimen. The only spoke in this happy wheel was a very distant cousin, considered a relative only because we are Indian. He giggled madly and screamed cheers every time someone else got hit, but when by the law of averages a oozy wet ball of mud landed on his shoulder, he ran off red faced to his mum, wailing that he had MUD on his CLOTHES! His mum, who was busy catching up with her barely-relatives, looked up calmly, observed the other filthy children hovering at a distance, and said, "Isn't that the idea?" And went back to her chat after patting him affectionately on the cheek and giving his clean shoulder a little push towards us.

The little tell-tale stood calculating his odds--which shows that he was an experienced, or at least practical, little tattle-tale. And then, suddenly, he let out a cheerful roar and waved his hands in invitation... and took a running leap into the river (which was really a tiny stream, but then we were barely four feet high). Most of us followed immediately and splashed around for the rest of the afternoon. I was scrubbed red raw under a hot shower after we got home, but it was still a deliriously happy day. However, if we had been broken up in the middle, with wet slimy mud trickling down our faces and bodies, I'd rather not imagine the kind of sulky tantrum we'd have subjected our parents to, how that would have broken up the party, and the kind of animosity we would have borne that little rat for the rest of our childhood.

Which reminds me: when we were young our parents really didn't have to enforce diplomacy on us, or interfere to settle fights. We fought, hit each other, mediated and made up mostly by ourselves. It has, quite honestly, been a very valuable lesson learnt valuably early about getting along with one's peers and making peace after war. When I saw the mothers all smiling determinedly but nonetheless whisking off their own children into the secluded safety of mummy's car and then the secluded safety of home, I wondered whether the next time the kids met, at least some mums wouldn't have to put in extra legwork to make sure their children connected with each other. Rupturing a normal process of socialising only to try and resume it a convenient time later seems to me to make the entire process of childhood friendship synthetic and fake. So if these children grow up thin-skinned and without a great deal of empathy, I really am not sure that I would blame *them* for it.

Indibloggies 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:57:00 +0000

Thanks to my friend Arnab, known and revered as Greatbong, I am now aware that my blog has been nominated for the best personal blog category. Wonders shall never cease. Thank you very much, whoever it was that nominated me (I think it is safe to assume that my fanbase is in limited to one very generous soul). I am afraid, however, that you have picked a loser, since I'm simply not prolific or large or "relevant" enough to win any blog awards any time. Still and all, delightful surprise. Thanks again :-)

As for the rest of you: if you want me to feel better about a sure-fire loss, you might like to take the trouble to go vote for me. I shall still be losing, but with, you know, an actual, proved, stoo-dup-to-be-counted reader-base. So much more cool and romantic to be the lone wolf with a small cult following than the Next Big Thing, etc.

Or, to make it simpler for you: Rimidike Bhowt Din.

Here ends the transmission. Thanks much.

Standardised testing

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:04:00 +0000

I like complicating things, mostly because it makes me feel smart. The trouble with this--apart from the obvious--is that I often arrive at popular (and therefore 'shallow') notions about certain phenomena after much mental merry-go-rounding. And having thus arrived, I feel that my extra mental legwork gives my shallow ideas more comparative depth than other people's shallow ideas (of course, I never entertain the idea that other people may also have arrived at their shallow 'pop' conclusions after considerable thought), and therefore, while my subscription to those ideas shows a resigned concession to messy reality, other people's subscription clearly demonstrate a general lack of grey cells.

Since the above analytical model puts me inarguably in a position of superior intellect to pretty much the rest of creation, I have great difficulty coming to terms with the idea that *I*, Rimi, can actually be subject to the same shallow and hegemonic normalising phenomena that I actually had to grace to briefly think about before scornfully dismissing. A great deal of practice (especially after I moved to the US) has done nothing to ease the process for me.

However, while usually I snort at this individualistic culture's total obsession with meeting homogenising norms in nearly every other aspect of life (in body images and concepts of beauty, for example), I have a genuine problem with the bell-curve approach to testing merit. And not merely because I am subject to it semester after semester, and frequently yield less than satisfactory results. I also mark students myself, and the idea that my grade distribution must conform to a certain "nice middle-heavy lay out" bothers me no end. The potol-shaped narrow-ended and plump-middled distribution simply does not fit actual grade clusters. Sometimes I have students performing rather well towards the beginning--straight As--and then petering off after they're sure they shall get at least a B in the course no matter what. Others take some time to realise that they *will* be marked down if they don't conform to assignment expectations in both form and content, and buck up towards the end to pull up their grades. The unevenness in this case might "look uncomfortable", but it is reflective of the actual performance of the students. The idea that one should 'adjust' this actual data set to fit an unreal norm--unreal because if every instructor is expected to 'adjust' to an ideal, no one actually ever achieves this distribution 'normally'--seems to me both unfair and silly, and quite preposterous besides. I quite understand, unfortunately, the need to have an abstracted idea of perfection against which actual merits can be measured, but somewhere along the line we seem to have forgotten that this abstracted ideal was chosen precisely because no person can meet it... unless of course he/she makes an effort to play the system (which a great deal of non-native speakers of English do with great felicity to the the GRE, for example).

And lest we forget, these 'actual performances' that I'm championing are already being judged on culturally predetermined parameters. And I'm not talking widely disparate systems, for to even think of comparing them is foolishness, but apparently similiar structures. For instance, the 'western' mode of education in various countries. At my old university, term papers were marked down (almost disqualified, in fact) if one used prescribed texts to write them. The idea was that midterms and finals were for textual testing; term papers were to demonstrate how well students could critique the theory learned in class, and apply it to texts outside the syllbus. In the US, or at my uni at any rate, term papers are nearly disqualified if they do not deal almost exclusively with prescribed texts, perhaps because graduate students do not have take textual exams here. Also, there is something called 'class participation', in which students get a small amount of credit for offering their opinions about the texts. But often the actual content of the contribution isn't taken into consideration, merely the fact of participation. This seems to me quite counter-productive, since students often speak for the sake of registering their presence, and not because they have something valuable to add to the conversation. But that is how America works, and appears to work just fine. Except of course for those who come from outside the system and have to undergo periods of adjustment. But even then, the system is more personalised. Normative parameters must be met, but there are professors and advisers and so on who smile and encourage and hand-hold them through it.

Standardised testing, however, is quite another level of absurdity. And yet again I understand it is a useful tool of separating the grain from the chaff without involving the terribly indelicate job of failing or turning down people personally. It would never do, after all, to have unpleasantness about. But I am forced to wonder how much of the grain gets thrown out with the chaff--and consequently how deeply the system becomes populated by mediocre talent--because standardised tests fail to take extenuating circumstances into consideration. It takes into no account illnesses, emotional upheavals, technical failure or alien attacks. When I took my GREs, for instance, I had a fever and a thumping heat-induced headache. Then, the computer I was at swallowed my essay and nearly all of my maths test, and had to be coaxed back while I waited for two hours in a sultry, drowsy, hot little room which nearly put me to sleep. The personnel tried to convince me that my current test was forfeit and that I should pay for a rescheduled test (which I woudn't do and honestly, couldn't afford to), and finally let an exhausted, anxious and very sleepy me take the test, but all over again.

I think I can say with a certain amount of certainty that my scraps from the second exam would not have yielded such mementos as "1129x2=1158" and similar had I been in better shape and been spared the assorted troubles. So if one goes by my GRE score's position on the bell-curve, I'm a right idiot. And I'm forced to say that this 'evidence' is patently false. I am by no means attempting to establish myself as a genius and am well aware that my intelligence is only of the moderate sort, but an idiot I am not. You can take my word for it. And therein lies the trouble, because of course no one *will* take my word for it--to do that would lead to the collapse of the entire concept of emperical evidence. But it's either my flawed initial scores while I was still trying to figure out the American system of grading plus my less than perfect GRE, or my own assurances that I am an intellectually competent human being. I think I can tell which would be treated as an objective evidence of my abilities, and which not. And frankly, now that I am back on the competitive market, it worries the hell out of me.

So much for you, then, Superior Scorn. Don't be a stranger.

See, spot, kill.

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:11:00 +0000

Rimi's friend: and if that wasn't enough, he complains about my cooking *all* the time!
Rimi (incredulously): X complains about other people's cooking?
Rimi's friend: my point exactly.
Rimi: well, this gives me hope. I have been meaning to write a critique of nuclear physics for some time now.

Rimi's friend's annoying flatmate, who had been 'reading' the same page of the newspaper for the last fifteen minutes, decided to give up the pretence and join in.

Annoying flatmate: oh, so you're a physicist?
Rimi: god, no! I wish I were!
Ann. flatmate (shrewdly): so, you want to criticise nuclear physics without actually being a nuclear physics person.
Rimi (complacently): quite right.
Ann. F: and you don't think that is unethical?
Rimi's friend (with an exaggerated sigh): Ann, Rimi was only joking about...
Ann. F: but she isn't a physicist!
Rimi's friend: that's exactly the damn point!
Ann. F (in tones of superior astonishment): you mean to say it is 'the point' for non-scientists to criticise science??? You are going to encourage her to do this?
Rimi: (lets slip involuntary giggle)

My friend set down her enormous cup of latte carefully on top of Ann. F's shiny new copy of a bestselling lifestyle book, and looked at him directly.

Rimi's friend: Ann, I'm sorry. Obviously we haven't been clear enough for a mixed audience... we thought this was a private conversation. Rimi here was suprised that X criticised my cooking, given that he burns water. Her statement about critiquing--not criticising--nuclear physics was an... is allegory right, Rimi? [Rimi indicates she hasn't a clue] Anyway, it was a joke. All right?
Ann. F (getting up to go): anyway, I don't think anyone would have let a non-science person publish a criticism of physics.

A brief pause, while we hear the door open and close.

Rimi's friend (swallowing a hearty sip of coffee): he is moving to Chicago next month. Thank god!
Rimi: new job? Partner? Family?
Rimi's friend: do I care?
Rimi: good point.

Singing praises.

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:16:00 +0000

(Familiarity with Bengali required for some parts)

What does one miss about the vibrant, vivacious, dazzling, crowd-clogged, loud, sumptuous autumn festivities? Well, *I* miss complaining about them. They say in Bengali that one doesn't appreciate one's teeth while one still has them, and this might well apply to the pujas... for some people. But for me, not so much. The first time I got away from them--and I left town a week or so before Mohaloya last year--I had the distinct feeling of a narrow escape. One does not appreciate being woken up by the dhaak at four thirty in the morning after being dragged around town and through an ocean of people on the pretext of 'thakur dekha' till 3AM. And one certainly does not appreciate Reshammiya or Kumar Shanu blaring from the mikes all day.

Actually, I'm being unfair. For the last four or so years, our parar pujo has chosen to play music one wants to hear: Hindi film classics from the sixties and seventies--lots of Asha, Mukhesh, Rafi, Kishore-- in the evenings, and plenty of Hemonto, Shyamol Mitro, Sholil De, Srikanto Acharjo, Orghyo Sen, Konika Bannerjee in the mornings, a nice blend of robindroshongeet and what is still called 'adhunik'. I never quit understand why people leave out Debobroto out of their playlists, incidentally. His renditions of Tagore's songs are often my favourites. In fact, if anyone has .mp3 versions of his robindroshongeets and are willing to share, I would be very grateful. But anyway, so we had these sterling mixed tapes being played for our aural gratification all day, and I would have been pleased... except that:

1. the same songs were repeated ad infinitum on a tedious loop, which, no matter how much one lives listening to Kishore singing Gulzar's lyrics to RD's music, is very, very painful.
2. the next locality had generously strung up two mikes facing our locality, so that Rafi was often superimposed on Alka Yagnik, and Shyamol Mitro on DJ Hot's "KaaNta Lagaa!".

All in all, I was quite happy to fly the nest before the Decibel Assault was launched. But in doing so, I was also withdrawing all claim on the pleasanter sounds of pujo--the call to onjoli on oshtomi mornings, the montropaath interspersed by ghonta bajano during shondhipujo, dhakir naach, dhunuchi naach [tiny video of just the first moves], the broken snatches of private conversations picked up by the microphone, people rushing around overseeing the serving at communal lunches on oshtomi and dinners on nobomi ("Bannerjee kaku ke luchi diyechho toh? Uni kintu chaichhilen.", "Ei ektu dekh toh Uma mashi khete boshlo kina, shokal theke mondope kaaj korchhen. Ei fol-mishtita diye aaye ontoto"). I even like the dhaak at more reasonable hours. In fact, provided I had managed the requisite eight hours, I quite cherished being woken up by the slightly intoxicating rhythm that gets under the skin and whispers to the blood. It gave the peaceful glow of an autumn daybreak a primal undertone of excitement--pujo eshe gaechhe!

There's also perhaps a sensual undertone to the association of the dhaak with the worship of the mother goddess. Feel free to treat this as a pop theory popped out by an amateur (I certainly do), but our goddesses are not pristine submissive vestal virgins in white, spending their days in seclusion. Or, for that matter, virgin goddesses reknowned for their intellect, but lined firmly with patriarchy. Our goddesses are far more sweat-and-blood, far more raw power that smites, far more protective love tempered by firm disciplinarianism. And although we in our psuedo-Victorian way shy away from it, far more powerfully, sensually, playfully sexual. Despite the ridiculously fake blindfold of 'Indian culture' that we wear voluntarily, perhaps this subterranean association seeps into the romantic overtones to pujo celebrations. And not just the sweetly romantic, neither. While the pujo pandals are a favourite first-meeting type place for potential sweethearts in Bengali films and novels, pujos are also the time when, slipping away from the performances like this, lovers go off to... do what lovers are always sneaking off to do. You couldn't ask for a better background score. And if someone raised an eyebrow you could always say you were embodying Shiv and Shakti, and enacting their reunion post-bijoya doshomi :-) (not that I've ever heard anyone use that excuse, but I would love to)

And perhaps that is why the only piece of commercial pujo "music" I'm missing is an ancient Thumbs Up! commercial. It's not on Youtube or Google videos. Does anyone remember it? "Shoptomi te prothom dekha, oshtomi te haashi... nobomi te bolte chaoa, tomaye bhalobashi. Doshomite hothat kaeno aakul holo praan... praan protima tumi ebar jaabe ki bhashan?"

Praan protima, tumi ebar jaabe ki bhashan? Shubho Bijoya.

"Disrespect".

noreply@blogger.com (Rimi) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:25:00 +0000

I hear the word a *lot* around here. It's a novel feeling, because while the society I come from is big on respect, it is a thing that remains largely unarticulated. No one bandies the actual word about. There is little talk about being respectful or feeling disrespected, or even about children being disrespectful--a favourite theme of most grown-ups. On the event that the latter is discussed, the behaviour is usually labelled as rudeness, or more circumspectly, as "a lack of good manners". And I've absolutely never heard anyone say, "I feel disrespected", or any variations thereof. If one has to demand respect, I was always told, that person probably does not deserve it. That respect isn't Halloween sweets. You cannot demand someone give you a fistful of it just because it pleases you to coddle your system with it.

I overheard a conversation on the metro the other day, where an uncle-type was telling off a late teen for disrespecting him... because said late teen refused to buy the brand of tyres uncle recommended. To classify rejection of advice as disrespect seemed ridiculous to me, but to the uncle it seemed perfectly legit. "I have been driving on these roads for more winters than you have been born [sic.]", he emphasised. "I know more about them than you do. I'm trying to share this knowledge with you. But I will not be disrespected in public because your roommate likes a different brand!"
I watched the man closely, and he reminded me of nothing so much as a tiny little frog puffed up with an inflated sense of it's own importance, just at the verge of bursting with a messy wet "PLOP!" He inspired amusement and condescending pity, but never 'respect' (as I understand it).

Therefore I get the feeling this American 'respect' is a different beast from the one we find back at the tropics. It's not the thing we dutifully offer up to our, say, school teachers--the ones that taught us our alphabets and numbers and the ones that screamed us through differential calculus. In fact, I get the feeling school teachers don't command much respect in the US at all. Anyway. The point is that in India there are certain categories of people that command respect by sheer virtue of their categories, and this respect is a sort of public demonstration of "looking up to", even if there is no actual feeling of respect involved. In the US, on the other hand, I think 'respect' has got more to do with protecting one's rights to a certain thing (validating one's ethnic identity, emphasising one's sexual orientation, etc.), and making sure no one points and laughs or gets nasty while said rights are being exercised. Again, such observances of 'respect' do not necessarily demand the observer actually support such rights ideologically, merely that he keeps his toes off other people's territory. Or so I think, anyway. I'm not sure about the 'respect' dynamics here yet. And yet I have already, according to my American acquaintances, experienced this 'respect'--or lack thereof--first hand. This morning, in fact. And at a university office, no less.

So I walk into a campus office for the third time in a row, because I need to put my name down on a list. The first time I went, I was asked for my passport. I went back with my passport, and was asked for my social security number. This was the third time, and I was armed with my passport AND my social. Confident that the matter would be dealt with in a few minutes, I approached the undergraduate student employee behind the counter. She asked to see my I-20. I confessed I wasn't carrying mine, it being a valuable doc. and all, and promised to return (yet again). However, I asked her for a check-list of *all* the things I would need, since I did not wish to carry my passport, I-20 and social security card for a fifth trip. This was when the episode truly began. First, the girl merely repeated herself slowly and clearly, as one does to the deaf or the mentally deficient: "Look. You don't have your I-20. We need your I-20. Just come back with your I-20, and we'll do it."

I should probably have left it at that and left altogether, but one's patience wears thin after three failed trips, especially if they're no fault of one's own. So I asked if my university ID would suffice, since it was issued after my I-20 was scrutinised. At this the girl threw her hands up in exasperation.

Girl: Okay. Do you speak English? Or should I get someone to translate? Because clearly I'm not getting through to you. Before I give you any money [because my father is the University tsar, of course, and all it's money is hidden under my bed], I need to know that you are not here illegally and that you have the legal right to work in America.

At which point I decided I should perhaps seek out an employee actually in possession of her mind, so I gave the girl a friendly nod and started walking carefully away, not turning my back on her.

Girl: uh, excuse me! Yeah, I need to know: Are you already working for the university? Are you getting any money from us?
Rimi (from a safe distance): yes. I draw a regular stipend.
Girl (in a blend of sanctimoniousness and "take that!" manner): you should know that you are doing it illegally. You have no right to do that. If I wanted I could report you.

Unfortunately, I suffer from a secret hero complex. I could have walked away from this without a further word, because the dumb child's crassness rather amused me, but suddenly I pictured another international student who actually doesn't speak English too well, and who doesn't know that stipends are perfectly legal and are paid by a completely different university office. I pictured this person in my place, thoroughly harassed and confused because a minor clog in a major machine was power-tripping by virtue of having access to a daily stamp and a cluster of cheap office supplies. Bullies are my secret button.

I gave the brunette a thoughtful once-over. She looked back at me with--and I could be a wrong--a superior glint in her eye.
"Has anyone ever told you," I said in a slow, largely indifferent voice, "that you are a singularly unpleasant young woman?"
The singularly unpleasant young woman did an exaggerated imitation of dropping her jaw in shock, while managing to gasp out a "What???"
"I know you don't need a translator for that," I continued in an indulgently reprimanding tone, "because I speak rather a classy version of your language. Now, I'm going to be back tomorrow, and you will manage to make yourself unavailable when I am here, because if I have to speak to you again, there might be unpleasant consequences."

And I left, this time turning my back on her, confident that I'd uprooted her venom-sack--if temporarily. I heard her say in a shocked voice to her colleague, "Did you hear what she said to me? Oh my god, she was like, so disrespectful! Okay, now I'm officially upset. Did you just hear the things she said?"

"In my country," I wanted to turn around and say, "respect has to be earned, not demanded. And you fail the qualifiers by a couple of thousand miles, cupcake."

But I didn't. It was mean, not quite true, and ethnocentric. Also, this lily, I felt, didn't need that extra guilding.