When I made this blog I knew exactly what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. That made it easier to strive for things, bigger things, important things. Now, lost in a labyrinth of ideologies and critiques, of truth and appearances, of friendship and fame, I don’t know who to be anymore. I can’t get myself to be naive enough to believe that all that I set out to be will be achieved, and in that state, I’m surrendering to let myself become all that life makes me.

I don’t want to be this person anymore.

If the whole point was to go with the flow, what was the point have ever decided to fight? What was the point of having at least tried and what was the point of having failed? If I am ever to do justice to myself, to the fleeting memories of having had an opinion, an ideology and an intellect, I can’t let myself fall into this abyss.

So let’s set out for some redefinition. This is me actively deciding that I need to change and doing something about it. I started by changing what this blog is called, and how it looks. I’m going to start my changing my dedication, mindset and approach to my academics, to my friends, to my family, to the news, to my classes, to assignments and to life at large. Life if too short to be lived entirely with scepticism and thats one thing I wish to remember every day from now on.

Am I going to go back to being naive? No, I don’t think its possible even if I tried. But to think that I have learnt all there is, is in itself naivety of the worst sort. So, I’m going to go back to my sense of wonder, of exploration and belief in something.

I’ll start by being more honest to myself. To the fact that I don’t know as much as I wish I did. To the fact that I need to work harder than I like to think and that I’m a bit more competitive than I like to believe. I should also be honest about being who I am than what I appear to be. And more importantly, be honest about the fact that I don’t really like who I am or who I appear to be most of the time these days. That really, I wish to be none of these people, but a whole different person, who I don’t know anything about.

I want to be better read, better informed, better opined. I want to be able to listen and articulate better. I want to be in constant search of something new, different, real, possible. An idea, technology, possibility. Just about anything that will give me reason to believe in the world around me and create reason for me to aspire for something more from myself. I also want to be in constant search of something that is wrong and pisses me off. Like an injustice, like someone who should’ve had more food to eat, a house to sleep in and a voice that was heard.

I need to look at this as a milestone in a longer journey and not the destination itself. I need to have more faith in having a plan, however pointless it maybe. But I need to have faith in having a plan that is ambitious and makes me wake up each morning with the desire to do more.

This is my redefinition, from what I am to what I would like to be. Of being able to view my world (and self) differently from who I am today. Heres to a new journey.

What’s on my mind today?  A lot of things. But I’ll stick to the theme of “culture is not your friend”. And a lot of you might find this strange if you know me at all, with all my sociology mumbo jumbo.

The reason I think this way though, is because I was whining about some things that I didn’t like about my time here. For example, the inflexibility in what you’re expected to read and quote in academic papers.

I’m not an academic conformist, not by any definition of the term. I’ve never been one in school where we had a rigid ‘culture’ of education. In junior college we didn’t have a ‘rigid’ culture of education, so I thrived (not having teachers really works for me as a student). Then in undergrad I came back to a sort of ‘culture’ but it was flexible and soon enough I carved my own niche in it, and learned how to thrive for myself. Then I did the post grad diploma where I really thrived and I think the primary reason was because I was my own teacher and I was responsible for my own culture of education. And sure, the process may not have been acceptable by a lot of people’s standards, but the results were, and so I guess, I got to keep my process without much question.

NOW, I’m here, in this institution. This institution with its own rigid notions of what need to be read, what needs to be written and what needs to be said. I’ve not had to deal with deadlines like this one – specially on readings, not have I ever been forced into reading a text I find useless. And just so that I make it amply clear, the text may be excellent for someone else, it just doesn’t work for me, so I don’t get why anyone should insist at a master’s level, that I read it.

Basically, I guess what I’m trying to say is, each academic institution has its own academic culture. You know, with a set of rituals, practices, set of acceptable and unacceptable behavior etc and because I haven’t studied in one with a rigid culture in so long (and never conformed to one) I find it very hard to do here. And on top of all that, I’m due to find out my grade on a term paper we submitted earlier this month. Either in the next two days or latest by next week. And I would hate doing badly in it.

I don’t have very great expectations, but I usually like being good at what I do. And I know I haven’t cared much about what other people think, I still want them to think that I’m good. But then, there’s already a paradox here. If I don’t read what they want me to, how are they going to like me.

I’m just hoping someone out there will see the light. Or I will. And somehow, just for this one year, I’ll find a culture that is actually my friend.

And with that I conclude my rant for today. Until tomorrow.

I did everything, youtubed shiv kumar sharma on youtube (the parts i remember are the santoor bits so I figured thats a good starting point) and all sorts of other things, until yesterday, I can’t remember how, I found myself listening to one of the CDs my parents owned online, on raaga.com. They have the whole set of those CDs so I decided to make my way through another one.

And just like that, I found the song. My thrill knew no bounds, because here was a song that somehow stuck with me since I was a little child, and back then with no information technology and audio cassettes and what not, I had no way of finding it but I did.

So I made my mom listen to it. Thinking that its so special to me, it must be because she heard it a lot and so she must have liked it. She heard it. But she could only faintly recollect it, and finally figured out that it wasn’t from a CD she had owned but from one of those home video cassettes you get made of birthday party recordings (and the recording studio thinks its a good idea to start the video with a few images of flowers and a background score of instrumental music). I was slightly dejected.

But this is the kind of dejection I’ve been facing a lot lately. Only yesterday, I was talking to C about things that happened back in the day, and as it turned out, we both had very different versions of “our” story. And I found this so surprising. I mean, you’d think that if you’ve lived this very important part of your life with ONE other person that at least that person would remember it exactly as you do. But I let it pass.

Then I was speaking to K, and telling him about the time we watched a movie in my room, and he seemed to have absolutely no recollection of this time. Just none what so ever.

So this has been a trend in the past few days. But I think I can’t let that take anything away from my experiences. That I loved the song has nothing to do with where it was used and that I treasure a memory to a specific degree of detail is just an indication of how special it is to me. And I am someone who is a master at eliminating things I don’t want to remember. So the fact that I remember it means its special. And I guess, its okay every so often to not have someone else validate your life experiences, as long as they have their own special place in your head.

Okay, now. There was no particular reason to write this blog post. Normally I wouldn’t have, about something like this, but RJ and I decided that we’re going to do this thing where we write something every day till the end of 2011. It could be fun to do (but you might want to unsubscribe from here to avoid spam).  So this is Day 1/32. See you tomorrow.

So I’ll try to update you from the start. I have spent 60 days in the united kingdom wondering to myself – “what on earth am I doing here?” The simple answer is, I’m doing my masters in development studies. But of course, that’s not the answer anyone is interested in, except perhaps my future employer (who I hope to hell is not reading this).

So back to my existential crisis. I’ll tell you where it all started. First of all, you should know that I’m not a particular fan of ‘international organizations’ even less of things like the UN and World Bank and IMF and such. Their multiple levels of hypocrisy are way too vast for my tiny little brain to wrap itself around. So one thing I was clear about when I came here, to do this masters, was that ‘aid’ , ‘intervention’ , ‘multilateral agencies’ , ‘donors’ and the like, were things I didn’t want to touch even with a yardstick. So imagine my disappointment when all the conversations here surround these debates.

In my head I zone out every time someone starts talking about this aid program and that multilateral agency. I keep wanting to tell them, stay the hell away from my country or any other ‘developing’ country for that matter. And I have to admit I’m fortunate enough to have enough classmates who agree with me. But we are still a minority in this larger debate which is still webbed around the ideas of neoclassical and neoliberal development policy and the importance of the role of ‘western’ players in international development. Which to me, is mind numbing.

Now if you’re thinking to yourself “hey, you went there to do a course in development studies, what did you expect was going to happen” in a highly sarcastic fashion, let me clear the air for you.

To my mind, Development studies is ‘supposed’ to be 3 things

1) multidisciplinary – aka – not falling on itself to be validated by economics

2) inclusive – aka – getting over its fascination of western thinkers, western ideas, western ways of understanding the world, and making room for alternative thoughts, ideas and understandings of the world

3) the way forward – aka- we all know we’re at a crisis, with this whole end of capitalism debate and such (about time too) and because the ‘west’ is going to have to get over, at some point, its ‘we’re so awesome’ syndrome, this is the forum for where the next big ideas should come from.

But all that it has been for me till now, is a pathetic final failed attempt by the ‘west’ at maintaining its supremacy at least in (their own) thought. Its a graceless nonacceptance of their mistakes, their dishonest conversations to shield agendas to somehow recreate themselves in the non-western countries.

First of all, what is with words like “underdeveloped”, “developing”, “third world”, and my favorite ” the global south” anyway. I mean get over yourselves with how you think you’re somehow better than these others. Stop thinking that you have *any* solutions to offer and use places like IDS to actually listen to the people that come here to debate.

So, in short, I’m tad disillusioned about what it is that I think I’m doing here. I came here to find a way forward and each and every day, I find myself, in my head, going back to my days in Madhya Pradesh and thinking about the ridiculousness of this whole business of ‘development’. Its not helping that I did my term paper on Post Development thinking and I’m following it up with a term paper on Social Movements. Even though in my papers I’m trying to critique it to balance it out, I know I’m mostly lying to myself, because despite their extremism, what they say or do seems to have much more of an impact than I can ever imagine having through working with a development agency.

So now what?

One thing that’s amply clear, is that I’m not prepared to go back to my romantic notions of Marx, Village life, anti modernity (which is not the same as post modernity) and such. Though these ideas and many others that have been added through the years will stay in my head as a parallel conscience, I don’t think they can dictate the way forward for me.

I will not sit here and blindly critique all of science and technology. I will not come up with these crap narratives of how we need to rid ourselves of all that these past few generations have achieved in terms of technology and start afresh, first because the idea is ludicrous and second, impossible. So to that extent, I am that voice that will say “hey, we have this stuff, how about we use it right”. At the same time, I have a lot of respect for all things non-western. Not simply out of a rebellion of the west but more out of a need to find more variety and vibrancy in ways of thinking and being. That’s what I’m here to find.

So you understand the stems of my frustration. This neoliberal – west dominated conversation of everything is very dated and needs to take a back seat because I honestly will not hear one more word of it. I really hope that once this term ends and the next begins, with our specializations, that I will see these things happen.

But I also need to feel like I’m making most of my time here, which is difficult to do after your brain switches off the minute you start reading a prescribed article that supposedly wants to talk about indigenous people but instead becomes all about the various policies that international agencies like the UN have passed about these people, which have had little to no impact on their lives. Instead of talking about why these people ought to be looked at in greater detail just to understand them rather than change their lives, these articles don’t stop talking about so and so charter that defines these people in so and so way which was later amended in such and such year to include this. *snore*

I’ve never really been a fan of doing what people ask me to do anyway. So its foolish of me to try now. Maybe I should go back to my old practices of finding my own way through this mess and reading what I want to read rather than what I’m being made to read. So THERE – all you people with agendas – I’m cooler than you.

And what am I going to do with my career after this is a question I can’t think of without giving myself nightmares. Honestly, I don’t know. I thought I did when I came here but I don’t now. The ivory tower of academics meets stubborn high headed attitude of aid agencies makes local ngos or grassroot ngos seem extremely appealing, even though I had never thought I would want to work in NGOs before. I just feel like I will not come to terms with my self if I’m not going out into “the field” (another one of my favorite words to hate) and actually doing something directly, albeit little. But I have a long way to go before I decide how I do this. And despite all this, the idea to work at an Indian university as a researcher is ever so appealing.

Another thing I have resolved is that I’m done with western education. This masters will see the end of my pursuing anything academic with a western university. Or maybe western curriculum with non western professors I could work with. But I think that if I do do a PhD, I’d like to do it from India.

Okay. So that’s that I think. A sound (or otherwise) update of my the life and times of me in the past two months.

More from where this came from (sooner than later I hope)

These headaches come often. They put a stop to all of my senses. Its raining outside and I’m supposed to find it beautiful, a part of my brain knows that. But right now, I’m sitting here in front of a computer, numb to any feeling. Except for the throbbing. That doesn’t stop.

There’s this feeling in my head. Like someone really heavy has found its place there. There’s a sense of loom. Like I’m standing in an infinite tunnel with no sunlight. My grasp on time and space is weird. I’m here in front of you but I’m really not. And if you asked me where I am instead, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I am thinking but I don’t know what about. And suddenly I find myself in some place, paralyzed by the throbbing in my head, with no sense of where I am and what I’m doing there.

I know a lot of it has to do with my unhealthy lifestyle and all that jazz, but there’s something else. Something in the underground chambers of my thoughts, slithering through sewers of dirty negativity and feeding off it. Its taking away from me the one thing that’s most important, my purpose and my sense of self.

I don’t recognise myself sometimes when I look into the mirror.What I used to be feels betrayed by who I have become. There is fatigue in all those places where you would formerly find enthusiasm. Hopelessness has replaced optimisim.

And this is true for every aspect of my life. Whether in terms of my career, where I can’t find my feet and where I’ve stopped looking. In my relationship, that’s stagnant and immobile since as far as I can remember, such that I’ve lost hope it’ll ever go somewhere. In my social life, where I neither completely subscribe to or stand out of anything. And in my personal sense of being, which is suddenly more dependent on everything external than anything internal.

And all of this I feel, is because there is just no conversation. Everyone is so emerged in themselves and their lives that there is just no time to step back and talk about something new. Each person is in their own box with a window, big enough only to observe not absorb. Iron cages of rigid ideas and notions among everyone around me. Or is it me who’s being rigid? grappling to hold on to a floating plank of wood in the middle of an ocean in which I could drown.

The throbbing has started again and my heart paces. Its not like I want someone to give me the answers to these questions, because deep down I know what these answers are. I’m just too scared to accept them. I’m too afraid to deal with consequences. And mostly, I’m too lazy to have to go throught the effort of making amends.

So I have one of two options. I can either muster the courage to move ahead or I must learn to live with what I have, and learn more importantly, to be content with it.

What do you think?

If you’re alone, you will be scared of loneliness. If you’re with someone you’ll be scared of losing that person. If you’re with a bunch of people, you might be okay, but you will still wonder if you will be left behind like an outcast. That’s what 4:00 am does.

Life has its 4:00 am phases also. I’m going through one right now. I’m at a place where I can’t justify why I’m here, what I’m doing here and least of all why now. I can’t justify it to myself, so every consecutive person asking me about it just drives it home.

I can’t justify the time I have ‘wasted’ while I was neither out there having exceptional amount of fun to talk home of or doing phenomenal work. Both of which I know I am capable of doing. So now, I’m just scared that I am not going to get out of this dark and murky 4:00 am phase.

But I know if I start walking and focus on the road, that soon enough it will be 5:00 am and the birds will know its time to set shop. They will rub their eyes open, stretch after a deep slumber and start their morning songs. I’m sure a few of them late risers will curse the crap out of these morning birds but they’ll know that morning will be here soon.

The blindness and uncertainty will pass. And a new chapter, a new day will start. I will do something to prove some point to myself. And I will stick at it for long enough and find stability.I’m capable of it. I know.

So dear 4:00 am – I’m stronger than you.

To everything that’s just a tad bit off from what it should be,

To the picture shot in portrait that’s prettier in landscape,

To those faded colours behind a chameleon.

There’s a certain drama to imperfection,

To the meanings of unspoken words,

To every conversation that was never had,

To gratitude that got lost in commotion.

There’s a certain truth to imperfection,

To the freckles that show behind the makeup,

To the disfigured body in a slim-fit dress,

To the hungry mind in a pool of books.

There’s a certain tenderness to imperfection,

To a baby’s first word that is just short of a gargle,

To the first time she  shakily rides her bike,

To the moment she crosses the threshold of herself for the first time,

And finds someone to love.

engulfed by ageless fear and faceless love,

I am constrained by baseless paradigms,

enslaved to my addictions.

Chained to destructive prejudices,

weighed down by infinite mistakes,

mobility was once my reality,

but freedom only a distant memory.

Shackled to relentless demons,

almost as if out of choice,

I tread deeper into dingy alleys,

to be pleasured by the pain.

Eating its way through my existence,

my bigot feasts on my reason,

and my vices burn through my soul,

until only carbon prevails.

Of course, when I say this, I obviously mean those images we see on television or the internet, in films and photographs. I am even talking about things we see in our day to day life that stick with us, like the brain went *click* at a particular moment in time and froze that moment in your memory forever. The images we read about also fall under this category. Who can beat the experience of imagining the entire Harry Potter series way before a movie was made on it, seeing every stone of every corridor in Hogwarts just but the images that Rowlings words created.

Images are powerful things. Whether they are real, artificially created or simply described so thoroughly or so vaguely that our brain takes the liberty to create them. To my mind, however, the most powerful images are the ones we create for ourselves. The images that we bring to our mind, either from the past or from passive observation or simply create from scratch, and then yearn for them. These images drive us to go out our days and get through our nights. These images even fuel that insane fire in us that makes us do extraordinary things every once in a while.

Think of the last thing you did that was extraordinary to your mind. Think about the decision that made you do it. Now think about the image that made you decide it. Maybe it was an image of you being on a fast moving train, or listening to your favourite artist live, or it was of sitting on a stone by a river with your feet dipped in. There was an image – you know it. It was detailed and you knew exactly what goes where and how. And then you decided that thats where you wanted to be. And then you worked at it till you got there.

Images are powerful. They make us do extraordinary things. That is exactly why people in the marketing/ media business will go through a lot of effort to put the right images to you. Images with a propaganda.  Like when someone on TV drinks a huge glass of a black coloured fizzy drink with lots of ice in it, or when a black (excuse the racist use of words) child is shown to be so malnourished that he is reduced to skin and bones, or when a woman is shown to be naturally “fair” and “beautiful” and “young” without having used any make up. Each of these images make someone believe that something is a reality when it may not be, or when it may be such a small part of a larger reality that images will not produce. These images help build stereotypes and aspirations, which often times stick so deep into us that they’re difficult to shake off.

But this is hardly a critique of images. Images are powerful at a micro and a macro level despite and because of how they are used. Some people use images just as they see them, as aspire for things. Other people process images they see and aspire for the end product. Others still create there own images.

I’m from the third category. I make me images to pine for. Images where colours are vivid, sounds are clear and one can almost feel moment. My actions are based on these images. And I like having things, conversations, ideas, concepts that will help build these images. Sometimes when these images are lacking, I feel a lack of purpose. Like I’m losing direction and there is no “Turn Left Here” sign ahead of me.

Then I dig for images. Now I have images. Of traveling. Images that I had locked away for a year. Its almost liberating to have them again. And now I am going to think long and hard about these images so I make sure I get to these places and have these moments.

In the meanwhile, you should find your images also. It feels good once they are found. Its like a map of your mind and what it wants. Try it.

That’s the optimistic version of me. She thinks like that all the time. Every single day for a very long time, ever since the butterflies in my stomach were replaced my that sinking feeling of being alone, she thinks that it doesn’t matter. She thinks she’ll learn to live with it. She’ll tell herself she doesn’t need it. She’ll almost convince herself too.

But she’ll still know she needs the rest of it. So she’ll stick around and slow down. She’ll be warm and cold and somewhere in between all so that she can get whatever little of it that’s being thrown her way. She’s optimistic. She thinks the worst is yet to come, and when it does, this will be over or sorted out. She thinks she’ll have her life of perils and problems with it on her side, keeping her strong, holding her hand and telling her it will be okay.

She’s optimistic. Stupid, if you were to ask me.

I on the other hand think I’m pathetic. I think that anyone with the slightest amount of self esteem should walk away and let people know while she does that, not silently suffer and test the threshold of how much one can take before letting go. I wish I could muster up the courage to just let go completely and be confident that the world of opportunities lies ahead of me, if I let go of this baggage. I wish I could be sure that if this doesn’t work out, something, somewhere else will. I wish I had more faith in myself. But you see, I’m the pessimist. Faith is not my kinda thing to have.

So well, here I am. Do I have sun in my eyes? I don’t know, maybe. But I think its setting. And after the twilight, it’ll be gone. So I may still be here, but the girl with the sun in her eyes will be gone.