is going home.

will have a dadu and a dida and mommy and a daddy and a kaka and a mani and a raka and a ruchi

and a bari.

a bari and a room and a bed and a bookcase

and a jude and a campus and a gang

and a city.

oh, calcutta, how i miss you and your pollution and your cacophony and the racous bangla on every tongue.

Of Cabbages and Kings

I froze cabbage today, and we had to unfreeze it by putting it in the water wherein we were boiling corn.

Pulling corn off the cob is harder than it looks. (My thumb hurt for a good ten minutes, after.)

Corn and cabbage, boiled and raw, are exceptionally delicious. Mayo makes everything better.

So does cheese, but I ate a heel of bread with enough cheese to finish almost a fifth of a tin, so I am clearly biased.

Also extremely well-fed. Had gigantic sandwiches last night.

Watched Lawrence of Arabia last night, to the revelation of someone whao had watched it too young to realise how very slashy the film is. (But my print was slashed through and so we couldn't watch the whole thing, oh woe.)

My Lawrence poster is the object of much obsession.

What I find myself obsessing about is Suryaputra Karna. (Read Chitra Banerjee's Palace; did not like it.)

Must go finish the rest of the corn, the laptop's being wrenched from beneath my typing fingers.

Good-bye, sweet gentleladies.

My New Lunatics

Thank you.

Khete Dibi Na?

Yesterday, I sat out in front of the admin. block at EFLU, with a varying mass of students. It was the first protest I've ever been a part of--if you know me (and why're you reading this if you don't?) you know how absolute an antipathy I feel for anything involving large groups, let alone my usual disdain for all things 'political'.

Of course, this wasn't political, even in the sense of the personal being political. We were protesting the appaling mess conditions, and the scarcity of living space. I'm housed quite comfortably, but there are rooms in Basheer, that are smaller than mine, which house three beds + one desk + two chairs + one cupboard + one rack of shelves. There are bathrooms shared by upwards of fifty boys. Basheer is so terrifyingly claustrophobic that even taking a short-cut through it is daunting. The dizzyingly steep stairs have no railings.

And then there's the food. The university does not subsidise the gas used by the student-run messes, and water is often unavailable. The Basheer Hostel mess feeds something like 850 mouths, and has nowhere near the capacity for it. The Mahlakka Bai Chanda Hostel mess feeds over 350, and is attempting to accomodate another 200. There are people who wait in line for 30-45-60 minutes and are then told there isn't enough food.

The Acting Vice Chancellor ran away at 1:30 on the 12th, after promising to meet the students at 3:00. He is yet to show up, though we have hopes for the 15th. Yesterday went fairly well, actually. Better than I'd expected, at any rate, but I'm used to Calcutta, where student agitations are a staple of college/university life, and phases nobody.

It went fairly well, by my admittedly-low standards, but, good gods, in a Central University that has huge buildings being constructed, that can afford to use marble for the hostel floors... in such a place, to have students sitting in protest in order to demand food?

A (half)Room of One's Own

I miss home today. Not very much, excesses of emotion are strangers to me. But I miss home. Very deeply, and with a constant ache that refuses, today, to do the sensible thing and die down.

Maybe that's because I saw Kaka last evening, for rather less than an hour. Maybe it's because people were talking about JUDE. I don't know, I don't know.

It's stupid, and irrational, and rather unpardonably nyaka, but I miss home and uni and Calcutta today with an intensity I cannot deal with, cannot work around, cannot wish or think away. I had things I was supposed to do, and haven't done any. I want to go home, right now, right this moment I want to go home.

And I know, I know it's a passing thing, in a few hours I shall like this place as much as I have grown to, these last few days.

I know, but that knowledge changes nothing. Right now, I miss home, I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss uni, I miss Calcutta. I even miss the peppermint tea at Dolly's.

Nothing to be done, of course, and since I can't fix it, I've got to bear it. I know, this too shall pass. Of course it will, it has to. But it's hell while it lasts.

Nothing to be done.

I think I shall rather like this place.

Oh, but the voices and colours of home.

Ah, well.

Packing

Things that you know you'll need:

Clothes.
Shoes.
Laptop.
Camera.
Books.
Bags.

Things that you realise you'll need:

Combs.

Hairgrips.

Socks.

Watches.

Pens.

Stationary.

Things that your mother tells you you'll need:

Detergent.

Nylon ropes.

Clothespins.

Mosquito coils.

Umbrellas.

Medicine.

in which there is a scream

A primordial scream, of the sort people utter when about to look at potentially scary things, for which parental support is deemed necessary. You know, the scream that goes 'Maaaaaaaaaa.' Yeah, that one.

Parental support proved fairly essential, because I realised soon enough that my name was not on the list. Or on the waiting list. So I was saddened but resigned--I hadn't thought I'd written a good exam, anyway, as everyone I whined at can attest.

Of course, then my mother fulfilled her true purpose as my mother, and pointed out the fact that I had--as bloody usual--been looking in the wrong place; at the wrong list, in this case. Yeah, I know. No, I don't know how I'm going to survive on my own either, thank you for your absolute faith in me. It's touching. Bitch.

But I guess I'll find out, soon enough (tick-tock). The M.A. list, the 'real' list, as it were, the one I was supposed to be looking at (thank you, Mommy, I love you), says I'm headed off to E.F.L.U in a bit less than a month. So, um.

Here goes?