Joo

The Spider's Sonnet - Three Quatrains and a Couplet

2010-09-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Spider’s Sonnet

Tricksy bitsy spider, climbing up the stairs,
It follows in your shadow, pretend that it’s not there,
Scuttling in your footsteps, like a tiny dancing bear,
Simple little spider, it’ll follow you anywhere.

You can feed it jitterbugs, and you can feed it flies,
You can feed it bits of flesh and watch it grow in size,
It doesn’t nag about your job, don’t have to tell no lies,
Waits on the mat till you get home, that’s such a nice surprise.

You lie in bed, the room is dark, you watch your spider leap,
Trailing bits of webs and bugs, like Bo-Peep trails her sheep,
You watch it trot around busily, your thoughts get really deep,
Then you and your spider cuddle up, and off you go to sleep.

What happens next you don’t know, and you’d never expect,
Your spider to be poisonous, and for it to bite your neck.

(And then you die a horribly slow and very painful death.)

It's like that, you know

2010-08-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

ENGLISH MADE THE FINALS!!!!!

And once again

!!!!!!

I'd like to believe this was helped along by a cheeky girl who kept heckling numbers two and three of the opposition, constantly expressing a strong desire to marry both of them based on their wobbling tummies.

Also, it's funny how I attend other people's classes more than the ones I actually have. There's a rumour that Tygr might also start taking classes. That should be fun to watch, and heckle if the mood strikes.

I'm doing an awfully good job of pretending to be productive these days. But I will always stay true to my roots, the ones that dictate the core of my lazy fat-assness.

Recently on the ledge.

"Is that birdshit on your hair?"
"It might be." Feels the spot. "I don't think so. I would have sensed it." A pause. "I have a sense."

Things to learn

2010-06-26T10:33:00.001-07:00

How to wiggle eyebrows. How to alternate. How to do so without holding one of them down with fingers.

Singing with a convincing imitation of an Irish accent. Scottish is taken.

Jazz-hands.

The art of lying to one's mother. Essential for any believable actor on stage.

Discipline.

Standing on your head.

Cartwheels.

Welcome to DRiP, people.

*jazz-hands*

Book publikcity happened today :)

2010-06-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100613/jsp/7days/story_12560122.jsp

and earlier

http://www.livemint.com/2010/05/21224447/Little-Wordsmiths.html?h=B

I feel terribly, terribly ecstatic but I can't jump around because I stayed up till five-thirty writing and that was awesome, but then I had to wake up and teach this kid at ten-thirty. And she looks as bleary as I feel. Sitting side by side now,I'm having coffee, she's having chocolate milk, and she's writing a story about a magician's hat. And look at the weather. Today is clearly going places.

Ooooh, earthquake last night. I want to celebrate having survived, 7.7 IS a big deal.

......

2010-05-02T02:23:00.001-07:00

Study leave. Feels like chhuti.

This year's love

2010-04-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

Botanical reminiscences, my fond memories of flowering shrubs. Polo polo polo. Meeting-people-at-airport-week. Professors bowling. Haircuts and ripped skirts. A storm and rain and potato chips. Good night.

Sad Pome

2010-04-04T10:48:00.001-07:00

Lost in the turnip-red depths of despair
I am depressed, like a wet cat on a stair
as lonesome as a single spot on a chair
as sad as that bald patch in your hair.

I have no time to think, only to cry
If only I could fly away like a horsefly
I would flutter and butter like a pretty butterfly
But all the time, I would still be crying inside.

You will never know, you won't understand
Maybe if you were here, we could just hold hands
But since you're too busy, I'll keep sinking in the sand
Of my only home, the land of the damned.

Lyaadhkhor

2010-02-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

While I was busy slacking off.

Classes happened. Some of them were even interesting.

Theatre, debate, quiz society members worked at their respective crafts. People made music, created wall art, constructed beautiful things out of paper, buttons, colours and glue, even went out on rallies, cleaned up the Maidan, then the JU Arts Department parking lot. They were productive, because they care. They care about life, about participating, about promoting culture, being part of something greater than just chilling, just reading and writing sporadically, just being a lazy-ass in general. I'm ok at academics, I do a theatre club once a week, I turn up for other people's cultural events. And yeah, I wrote a book at some point. So fucking what? I've been done for ages, that's an insult of an excuse right now.

Because that's what JU does to you. If you want to, it can be the most instructive, interesting, the most fun place you've ever been. And if you want to end up being a fucked-up loser with no interest in anything till the next fix of whatever does it for you comes along, well, JU will hand it to you on a silver plate with salad on the side. That's the dangerous part - if you mess up, it's because of free will, man.

But it's all cool, man. It's been a while since you last smoked/drank/fell in love/snorted whatever. That's why you're talking shit, that's why you've lost your nerve. Wait it out. You'll be oblivious in a while.

A Serious Pome (to the Joo Dogs)

2010-01-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

Down the smelly corridors of endless time
run the pattering sounds of your nonchalant paws
lazing in the winter sun, you cock a wise eye at us,
and you yawn slightly; we are beneath your notice.
you will only rouse yourself to action
when the tough young thugs from the engineering end of campus
trot over to challenge your territory - then you become a fearsome warlord.
A change from your ridiculously adorable alter-ego,
the one with the lolling tongue and the silly puppy eyes.
Your earnest snifflings around my ankles, the putrid smell of your garbage breath
do nothing to make me love you less.
True, I do not cuddle you, but only because I am lazy;
when you were a pup, I fed you everyday, and I tickled your back with great energy,
but like all children, you became a sullen half-adult who sulks in a corner.
You idiotic bundle of mangy fur, you don't realize that I saw you when you fit in my hand;
and when you strut around campus with bravado, I am not impressed.
Whimper lovably all you like, not a single crumb more,
you can have half this biscuit, however, I didn't really want it.
Don't follow me into class, you canine retard,
you can't hide under damp umbrellas during a lecture, you're bound to start sneezing.
Wait outside, I'll be out in an hour,
and maybe after that, we can sit on the stairs and listen to Elvis for a while.

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milieu

2009-12-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

milieu, indian ocean, some russian-origin joy. delicious bangla food, much laughter, fireworks and music under a crescent moon, iced tea and chocolate dessert, naked sex :). thank you, presidency.

3D Dreams

2009-12-14T11:03:00.000-08:00

The Technicolour dreams of the average Judean feature

Smoky ledges

Charcoal skull-heads on white walls that look like the dead faces of people you know

Old coffee cups

The smell of second-hand books

Trees till the end of nowhere

Laying on your back in the grass looking up at the blurry sky with a symphony in your ears

Extensions of thought. Would you like Byron if he hadn't been a libertine?

Clowns in the middle of nowhere. They giggle softly.

The sounds of a train passing down the line a few hundred metres away. Laughter when it's gone.

A dog's brown eyes, soft nuzzles on your knees. You want to take it home

Hollow corridors, empty of people except for one sad-eared boy reading the notice board. The sound of water falling in the parking lot below

The stairs around the back of a vacuum. There go your friends. They wave and stop.

Smiles through a sunny curtain of cobwebs. A cat curls around your ankle, yearning to be scratched on the back.

Once upon a time, there used to be lovers on that rusted bridge over shallow green waters. The old man at the gate remembers chasing them away.

The library in the summertime. Reading in coolness.

Minds you found and liked. Oh the merry randomness.

Eccentric oblong of affection. Yet we are loyal.

The fluttering of new, crisp pages. Skim, don't read.

Sudden lust. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. In the end, nothing gained. Nothing lost.

Sometimes it's worth it, she wrote. Other times, just let it go.

Happiness. The End.

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The Joo

2009-10-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

Good morning sunshine! I mean you, dear reader. Regardless of the time and place at which you see this, I insist on bringing you the image of a bright, sunny, scorching, sultry morning, offset by the glorious splendours of the JU campus. Oh the jheelpar. Oh worldview. Oh green zone. Oh the birds. Oh the guitars. Oh the sunlight glinting off the bald spots on everyone's favorite librarian's head.

I've become one of the Bad Ones, I'm sorry (and secretly extremely pleased) to say. I no longer study. My competitive zest has disappeared, gone without a trace into the musty storage room at the back of my conscience, along with the low-cal diet reminders and the plot-ideas that have been festering beside my heart for half a decade now. And who cares, as long as there's chocolate? There's always music and half-gone smoke and a little bit on the side, in between long walks and longer talks. And all of you who know what the deal is will get this. Charmed oblong, they call it. Probably because of the odd angles and the awkward corners. Lucky us.

Coded gibberish, you will be thinking. And in nine and a half cases out of ten, you'd be right. I do speak coded gibberish. I live coded gibberish. One might even go so far as to say that I AM, in fact, coded gibberish. And what of it? For once I'm making sense to myself. Is it my fault that my sense is nonsense? And even if it is, who dares to question the irrationality of someone who's clearly unhinged quite a bit already?

I'm mad, I tell you. Bonkers, nutty, oddball-ish, crazy, deranged and loony. I always have been, of course, but for the first time I feel really at home somewhere, and that'd be at the Joo. I love all you animals who make the going-back-everyday worth it. And I cannot believe my luck, come to think of it. Lamp-posts stay lit and upright for me.

<3

Does this make me look fat?

2009-08-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

What is the coolest thing you could wear to your departmental freshers' welcome at JUDE? Vote in the comments section please, for the wacky outfit of your choice.

1. In keeping with the icky-pink tradition.

Perhaps the general fluffiness is a bit much?

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2. Green and chipper, then.

But enough with the animal motif. How about...........

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3. This guy?

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as opposed to this

which I, personally, cannot pull off.

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4. Tradition demands that I go looking like this. And my friends say they are willing to risk being seen like this, too.

.

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Um. No, bleh. But perhaps this?

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I just asked Ma. She agrees that it's hard to sustain poses like this over long periods of time. However, if I want to frizz my hair and wear a strappy blouse she will be supportive as long as nothing falls apart. Which it inevitably will, so screw that.

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5. As an afterthought, how about this?

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It's happy, and freaky, and wacky, and silly, and more favorite words. But does it make me look fat, though, because the pink gorilla was rather slimming.

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Vote please, for

a. The Fluffy Pink Gorilla
b. The Happy Frog
c. The Coolest Action-Figure Costume Ever
d. That Stupid Drape Thing
e. Clownface.

Vote fast, though. I'm depending on you to decide what will ultimately blow socks off.

Literary Insights for New Judeans

2009-07-31T06:41:00.000-07:00

JUDE has its own set of unique experiences, revelations, and wacky one-liners to give to every new batch of undergrads who come in. Some of the funniest and most relevant lines that struck us as amazing are :-

Hardy's novel - 'At all important junctures in her life, it is profoundly astonishing that Tess should always have been either unconscious or asleep.'

In the context of the Marquis de Sade during the French Revolution - 'A hundred years later, that toilet paper was in fact found, with all the pornographic content intact.'

On Romantic poets - 'They were the first rockstars. Sex, drugs, rock 'n roll - they did it all.'

About the Victorian age - 'Organized religion shook on its foundations before Darwin and his madcap theories about evolution.'

On Oedipus Rex - 'The man wasn't stupid. He just had incredibly bad luck.' (condensed for my readers, who would hesitate to continue if I were to show off by spouting terms like hubris and catharsis.)

On Ledge Dynamics - 'Between you and me, I think lollipops taste better than magic pop candy. Monday, we should try lemon.'

also

'Dude looks pretty with the bow-clips in his hair.'

and

'With great umbrellas comes great responsibility. Stop hitting me with that godawful striped thing.'

and of course

'I wonder if you know, how we live in Tokyo' at random moments from phones across the corridors, accompanied by at least three girls dancing down to it.

Ah, the funkiness of it all. And we're just getting started.

Suggestions for more one-liners will be welcomed with multiple smiley faces and lots of love. Good night and good weekend, people.

Weekend Update

2009-07-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

The things I learned at JU this week are:

1. When the teachers say they want to confuse you by giving you contradictory essays to read, what they mean is - 'I will mumble so much you won't understand me, but soon you will learn to lipread and then I will find words to mouth that will confuse you much, much, more than Lovejoy's three-page sentences ever could.'

2. Icky Pink Day - What is it? Why do the seniors do it? The use of the word *icky* suggests that they are aware that pink is, in fact, icky; yet they persist in gross sartorial misjudgments and blot the landscape with splashes of maroon, fluorescent half-red, and baby pink. Pink suits only one out of every six of them, and the worst offenders are those who think that they're that one. Possibly they are trying to out closet homosexuals/revert to the flowerchild age/trigger a sartorial revolution/be funny/scare juniors/all of the above. Or maybe they just like pink. But why?

3. Getting Punk'd - was not so bad. Come on, a fake assignment that everyone except me apparently saw through? Saved me getting politicized, but apart from that.......

4. Library Cards - specifically, getting them, require several hours of training in advance and should be included as an Olympic event sometime in the next couple of centuries, when Judeans take over from the Freemasons (or the Illuminati or the aliens or the Brotherhood of Microsoft Executives or whatever cult you think has it going on) as the shadowy reins behind world domination. And while we're on the topic, fuck you, B*thune website administrators! Still think I'm not good enough for you?? In yo face!

5. Adjustment - Jude was an awakening in many ways, and certainly the unspoken glamour hasn't rubbed off yet; but at the same time the size of the workload and the amount of potential work involved requires some serious thought before I shelve it until there is a test to pass or something. I mean, it's not that I work that well under pressure so much as I don't work at any other time.

So there you have it. Thoughts? I will update again next week probably, and if I stay strong I will hopefully stop myself from buying something in pink with a cute quote about frogs and/or che guevara. Good night, and good week to you.

After the First Day

2009-07-14T05:18:00.000-07:00

You know how I said today would be a cool day? Well, there were two introductory classes, a three-page long reading list and two essays to learn, and a librarian who refused us entry to the hallowed portals of his domain without our cards. *Sigh* At least I was right about the pressure. And at least I had the rest of the day free for a fond culinary goodbye to a dear friend who very considerately picked up the tab.

And now to write/study/loaf. Or possibly all three. Good evening, everyone.

On The First Day at JU

2009-07-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

Being a brand new college student, and also being a part-time whacked-out blogger, I intend to start this blog with a judicious mix of awed respect for JU itself, and my almost-copyrighted trademark of flippancy; or as many like to call it, downright cussedness to the nth degree. Therefore I shall begin with a tactful description of yesterday's orientation programme, and later progress to descriptive accounts of life at Joo, and deep and meaningful insights into the purpose of existence - most of which will be completely and utterly irrelevant to your life, but you'll read it anyway because it's just plain fun to watch someone else struggle like that.

Yesterday, the first year undergraduates were herded into an AC room and told to sit and stay there. Noting the marked resemblance of the seniors' general behaviour to us as compared to that of the trainers to puppies at a canine obedience school, some of us soon grew restless and ventured outside to the ledges. No sooner had the first of us started imitating lemmings, however, than we saw a distinguished looking gentleman heading towards the room we had just vacated. As he passed along the corridor, it became rapidly clear that many of the senior female students have been gently crushing on him for years. Ignoring the languishing sideways glances, he strode in and the orientation started.

Possibly the coolest thing about JUDE, that is to say the Jadavpur University Department of English, is that the teachers look like the composite characters from any given season of CSI Miami, CSI New York, or possibly Bones. There's the authoritative team leader, the two to five responsible departmental seniors, the wacky younger guy who is restless and appears to be a misfit but really isn't, the nerdy female character who is not only brilliant but can also kick ass on the field, and an assortment of consultative experts. JU students will know who I mean, but in the meantime I'd rather not be sued for slander or defamation by an angry student body who are all part of 'Follow-that-professor' cults. There is also a sage/wise man/son of unknown divine entity, who is frickin' well awesome.

The campus is big-ass, naturally, and there are more turnings and ponds and landmarks than a mall architect ever dreamed of. I greatly appreciate the open spaces to breathe, and the library is of course stupendously well-spoken of, but my favourite part of the grounds are the shady walks that look like verdant nature fading into the distant horizon. As a lover of nature, skyscapes, and peace and quiet, I will now take this opportunity to swoon with delight at the very thought.

The academic load is challenging rather than daunting; thankfully I'm as competitive as hell, or I might be crying forlornly at the size of the syllabus and the semester exam system right now. The book shop Worldview is also rather interesting. I will leave in about ten minutes for the first day of classes, where the pressure will be bloody well ON; but hopefully I'll have time to explore further and get back to you.

In the meantime, good day to you all. I'm a Judean now, so I'll have far more fun today than I possibly ever had before; but I don't want you to feel left out, so here's a smiley face :-) and thoughts of chocolate cake to you. So long.