P.S. - Blog will be updated regularly. I promise.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Kolkata, ami ashchhi!
As Raza Jaffrey once sang so beautifully in "Bombay Dreams" - "the journey home is never too long..."
P.S. - Blog will be updated regularly. I promise.
P.S. - Blog will be updated regularly. I promise.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Bits & Pieces
---
HOME! and happy :)
Finally managed to wrap up another 25-30 page paper on Kashmir (Faultline Politics and Pathways to Peace) for my Identity, Rights and Conflict class. Huge sigh of relief! It turned out well, I think. I managed to bang out 10 pages at breakneck speed...and then I reached the bit delineating my so-called "pathways to peace"...and all inspiration left me. Go figure. But, finally I followed my natural instincts when doing research and found that really, it all boils down to universal values of insaaniyat (humanity) and insaaf (justice). And more inclusionary politics, an easing of Kashmir-based Indo-Pak nationalism construction, a demilitarization of J & K (in particular the Kashmir Valley) and democratic rights for the Kashmiris. So, yeah...Humanity and Justice :D
Now that that's done. Winter break starts....NOW.
Which means that I can officially start gearing up for our trip to India. Lots and lots of fun things planned - rickshaw riding, park prowling, gaane gaaye-ing (song singing), street store surveying, and all the un-planned/spontaneous madness that ensues when the Bhattacharya cousins & friends are reunited - for the 2 weeks. Spirit, confidence and faith have all taken a marvelous beating during the past semester. But it's nothing that family and India can't cure (thanks Natutu!) :D 4 more days!!
---
Anyway, I did have a few more updates but I have been hogging my Mum's office computer non-stop for the last two days and I'm now starting to feel (slightly) guilty. Also, I want to listen to the new Trance Around The World episode which took...wait for it...a massive 5 hours to download. If you know me well, you'd know that it's the latter which is forcing an abrupt end to this post vs the former. Oh Trance, you have me enslaved...
MUCH more later. Have a lovely weekend, wherever you are in the world!
---
Food for thought:
"The unimaginable sums of public money that are needed to keep the military occupation of Kashmir going is money that ought by right to be spent on schools and hospitals and food for an impoverished, malnutritioned population in India. What kind of government can possibly believe that it has the right to spend it on more weapons, more concertina wire and more prisons in Kashmir?"
- Arundhati Roy, "Land and Freedom" (courtesy of the Guardian UK, 22.08.2008)
HOME! and happy :)
Finally managed to wrap up another 25-30 page paper on Kashmir (Faultline Politics and Pathways to Peace) for my Identity, Rights and Conflict class. Huge sigh of relief! It turned out well, I think. I managed to bang out 10 pages at breakneck speed...and then I reached the bit delineating my so-called "pathways to peace"...and all inspiration left me. Go figure. But, finally I followed my natural instincts when doing research and found that really, it all boils down to universal values of insaaniyat (humanity) and insaaf (justice). And more inclusionary politics, an easing of Kashmir-based Indo-Pak nationalism construction, a demilitarization of J & K (in particular the Kashmir Valley) and democratic rights for the Kashmiris. So, yeah...Humanity and Justice :D
Now that that's done. Winter break starts....NOW.
Which means that I can officially start gearing up for our trip to India. Lots and lots of fun things planned - rickshaw riding, park prowling, gaane gaaye-ing (song singing), street store surveying, and all the un-planned/spontaneous madness that ensues when the Bhattacharya cousins & friends are reunited - for the 2 weeks. Spirit, confidence and faith have all taken a marvelous beating during the past semester. But it's nothing that family and India can't cure (thanks Natutu!) :D 4 more days!!
---
Anyway, I did have a few more updates but I have been hogging my Mum's office computer non-stop for the last two days and I'm now starting to feel (slightly) guilty. Also, I want to listen to the new Trance Around The World episode which took...wait for it...a massive 5 hours to download. If you know me well, you'd know that it's the latter which is forcing an abrupt end to this post vs the former. Oh Trance, you have me enslaved...
MUCH more later. Have a lovely weekend, wherever you are in the world!
---
Food for thought:
"The unimaginable sums of public money that are needed to keep the military occupation of Kashmir going is money that ought by right to be spent on schools and hospitals and food for an impoverished, malnutritioned population in India. What kind of government can possibly believe that it has the right to spend it on more weapons, more concertina wire and more prisons in Kashmir?"
- Arundhati Roy, "Land and Freedom" (courtesy of the Guardian UK, 22.08.2008)
Kul sana wa inti tayyeba!
19th December 2008:
(oh, IMP!)
Hope you have a wonderful 21st birthday in snowy Providence - and a year ahead that sees every little one of your characteristically minutely-detailed dreams come true. I love you so much and am eternally thankful for having you in my life - as a friend, activist, youtube-addict and so much more. Also, I owe you a (legal) Pimm's when we get back :) xxxxx
a very very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Lebanese Love-Muffin...aka Joanna :D
(oh, IMP!)Sunday, December 14, 2008
last Study Break for the day.
Finals have had me unbearably stressed. Apologies all around for not writing, calling or blogging. I am DONE on Monday though - and I shall be seeing most of you (my favourite people in the world) very very soon. Please, if you're going to be in India this December, LET ME KNOW! Even if I don't get to meet you, at least I'll be able to hear the strains of your voice and reminisce about the good and great times :)
Speaking of good times, Christmas is without a doubt my favourite time of the year. Happiness and jingle bells. Reflection and silent nights. And an excuse to have my favourite carol (Carol of the Bells) on repeat for days on end (because, everyone knows Christmas starts in mid-November and goes on till mid-January. duh.). But, ALSO...nearing Christmas day reminds me that it is about to happen. The ONE tangible present I begin every year waiting for...Armin van Buuren (oh, love) releases his annual "A State of Trance Year Mix [enter current year here]" around Christmas time. I got my hands on this year's copy on Friday (shh) and...OK, I know most of you aren't (I can't for the life of me understand why :P) Trance/Progressive buffs, so I won't bore you. But, yesterday, fighting the bitter and angry Providence wind, I ventured outdoors, iPod in ears, hope in my heart. And...it was everything I dreamed of. I might say that this is the best Year Mix since 2004/2005. I know my trademark is hyperbole...but, really, the magic of hearing the opening bars of "La Guitarra" (for CD1) and "If You Should Go (Aly & Fila Remix)" (for CD2) beginning the mix and then being a part of the journey that IS A State of Trance cannot be overstated. Really, even exam stress and life-numbing New England winters can't put a lid on my soaring spirit. People often ask me why I have music in my ears ALL the time - why I walk the streets and don't listen to the sounds of cars whooshing past, college students chattering, grotesquely loud construction monsters reshaping the very face of Providence/Brown University, etc. Why I'm not a "part" of my surroundings. Believe me, I am. Except my reality is found in the 240 layers of sound that comprise every second of uplifting/euphoric/vocal/instrumental trance. So, while I risk being run over by yellow school buses every day (3 times and counting), it's OK. Because at least I'm flying when it happens...
Congratulations to my dearest, favouritest, bestest friend in the whole wide world. You are so beautiful, it only follows that the things that you see and the way you see them will be much the same. I hope this is only the beginning of a very long career in gallery appearances :) Love you!
While trying to wrench my suitcase out of its nook in my miniscule closet in my room (try and find it, I dare you), I had to rearrange a lot my room. And, I realised how much CRAP I have. No, literally. (OK, not *literally* but you know) Ticket stubs, eight packs of gum with exactly 1 piece left in each, 3 kinds of lip balm - all of them half used, notes, posters/fly-cards of events that I had wanted to attend, 2-line letters, cards, post-its about needing to study 320 pages of Economics in 4 days (praise the LORD those days are over)...EVERYTHING. And, it's funny...because I'm really not one to live in the past much. There are those who open up shoe boxes of memories and painstakingly try and put together the days that were in chronological order. I, good reader, am not one of them. It happened...and that's that. It was wonderful...but that's it. WHY then all this stuff? 1) Lift box of crap, 2) Pull bin out, 3) Throw. Away.
[Actually, I lie...there are some things I keep in a special little diary and look at with tear-filled eyes. Boarding passes to Zambia/India, train tickets to New Haven, passes for the commuter rail to Boston, my ticket stub and autographed wristband (eep!) from Armin's Halloween concert. Times when I have left behind what I know to purposefully create days&nights which will become memories I will treasure forever...like sunshine-flavoured charms on an otherwise uniform chain of life's days]
Wow...my square brackets are so emo. Worrying.
Began packing today as a study break. SO SO excited for winter break. This semester's been a lovely one - for the most part, things have gone wonderfully right - but there has been a strange sense of discomfort. An underlying lack...of something. I can't put my finger on it, and it might be absolutely nothing...but it has not let me have the perfect semester (if there is such a thing for reflective, thinking, questioning young people). Being with family in the comfort of maachher jhol-bhaath will no doubt help put things into perspective. Another way of saying - 16TH DECEMBER, WHEN WILL YOU COME?!
I have the WORST exam tomorrow. A final for my History of the Modern Middle East Since 1918 class. You would think that this would be a piece of cake class for me. And, yes - it was one of the most interesting classes I've taken. The material was vast and really helped me contextualise whatever knowledge I had of the region (barring my knowledge of Palestine-Israel and a little bit of post-civil war Lebanon, I really didn't know enough), Professor Akarli was an incredibly professor (even though I disagree with his take on the PKK in Turkey) and one of the few leftover humanists from an era long-gone, and our readings were diverse and so full of useful information. HOWEVER, that does not mean, Professor Engin Akarli, that you should torture us with your exams - it does not mean that we should have to know what on page 156-line 28, word 9 was! We should not have to try and guess what Sadat was thinking in 1977 that one time when he thought of something that related to something else that happened in 1965. Gah! Anyway, major cramming session tonight. And then beautiful, cursive regurgitation tomorrow at 9 in the AM. Sweet.
Excuse me for the haphazardness of this post, by the way. Tried to get as much written down in 30 minutes. Style, unfortunately, had to suffer. More tomorrow after the exam, in between packing, saying goodbye to friends and being a general bum.
Tomorrow. I will think of you twice every second...instead of just once. Sadly, you don't deserve to be the one. You shouldn't. But, you are. What a waste...
Speaking of good times, Christmas is without a doubt my favourite time of the year. Happiness and jingle bells. Reflection and silent nights. And an excuse to have my favourite carol (Carol of the Bells) on repeat for days on end (because, everyone knows Christmas starts in mid-November and goes on till mid-January. duh.). But, ALSO...nearing Christmas day reminds me that it is about to happen. The ONE tangible present I begin every year waiting for...Armin van Buuren (oh, love) releases his annual "A State of Trance Year Mix [enter current year here]" around Christmas time. I got my hands on this year's copy on Friday (shh) and...OK, I know most of you aren't (I can't for the life of me understand why :P) Trance/Progressive buffs, so I won't bore you. But, yesterday, fighting the bitter and angry Providence wind, I ventured outdoors, iPod in ears, hope in my heart. And...it was everything I dreamed of. I might say that this is the best Year Mix since 2004/2005. I know my trademark is hyperbole...but, really, the magic of hearing the opening bars of "La Guitarra" (for CD1) and "If You Should Go (Aly & Fila Remix)" (for CD2) beginning the mix and then being a part of the journey that IS A State of Trance cannot be overstated. Really, even exam stress and life-numbing New England winters can't put a lid on my soaring spirit. People often ask me why I have music in my ears ALL the time - why I walk the streets and don't listen to the sounds of cars whooshing past, college students chattering, grotesquely loud construction monsters reshaping the very face of Providence/Brown University, etc. Why I'm not a "part" of my surroundings. Believe me, I am. Except my reality is found in the 240 layers of sound that comprise every second of uplifting/euphoric/vocal/instrumental trance. So, while I risk being run over by yellow school buses every day (3 times and counting), it's OK. Because at least I'm flying when it happens...
Congratulations to my dearest, favouritest, bestest friend in the whole wide world. You are so beautiful, it only follows that the things that you see and the way you see them will be much the same. I hope this is only the beginning of a very long career in gallery appearances :) Love you!
While trying to wrench my suitcase out of its nook in my miniscule closet in my room (try and find it, I dare you), I had to rearrange a lot my room. And, I realised how much CRAP I have. No, literally. (OK, not *literally* but you know) Ticket stubs, eight packs of gum with exactly 1 piece left in each, 3 kinds of lip balm - all of them half used, notes, posters/fly-cards of events that I had wanted to attend, 2-line letters, cards, post-its about needing to study 320 pages of Economics in 4 days (praise the LORD those days are over)...EVERYTHING. And, it's funny...because I'm really not one to live in the past much. There are those who open up shoe boxes of memories and painstakingly try and put together the days that were in chronological order. I, good reader, am not one of them. It happened...and that's that. It was wonderful...but that's it. WHY then all this stuff? 1) Lift box of crap, 2) Pull bin out, 3) Throw. Away.
[Actually, I lie...there are some things I keep in a special little diary and look at with tear-filled eyes. Boarding passes to Zambia/India, train tickets to New Haven, passes for the commuter rail to Boston, my ticket stub and autographed wristband (eep!) from Armin's Halloween concert. Times when I have left behind what I know to purposefully create days&nights which will become memories I will treasure forever...like sunshine-flavoured charms on an otherwise uniform chain of life's days]
Wow...my square brackets are so emo. Worrying.
Began packing today as a study break. SO SO excited for winter break. This semester's been a lovely one - for the most part, things have gone wonderfully right - but there has been a strange sense of discomfort. An underlying lack...of something. I can't put my finger on it, and it might be absolutely nothing...but it has not let me have the perfect semester (if there is such a thing for reflective, thinking, questioning young people). Being with family in the comfort of maachher jhol-bhaath will no doubt help put things into perspective. Another way of saying - 16TH DECEMBER, WHEN WILL YOU COME?!
I have the WORST exam tomorrow. A final for my History of the Modern Middle East Since 1918 class. You would think that this would be a piece of cake class for me. And, yes - it was one of the most interesting classes I've taken. The material was vast and really helped me contextualise whatever knowledge I had of the region (barring my knowledge of Palestine-Israel and a little bit of post-civil war Lebanon, I really didn't know enough), Professor Akarli was an incredibly professor (even though I disagree with his take on the PKK in Turkey) and one of the few leftover humanists from an era long-gone, and our readings were diverse and so full of useful information. HOWEVER, that does not mean, Professor Engin Akarli, that you should torture us with your exams - it does not mean that we should have to know what on page 156-line 28, word 9 was! We should not have to try and guess what Sadat was thinking in 1977 that one time when he thought of something that related to something else that happened in 1965. Gah! Anyway, major cramming session tonight. And then beautiful, cursive regurgitation tomorrow at 9 in the AM. Sweet.
Excuse me for the haphazardness of this post, by the way. Tried to get as much written down in 30 minutes. Style, unfortunately, had to suffer. More tomorrow after the exam, in between packing, saying goodbye to friends and being a general bum.
Tomorrow. I will think of you twice every second...instead of just once. Sadly, you don't deserve to be the one. You shouldn't. But, you are. What a waste...
Friday, December 5, 2008
The quietest time of day
04:27.
Finished the best paper I have, possibly, ever written
...and have fallen in love with Kashmir in the process.
Read Vishal Dadlani's letter.
And Barkha Dutt's piece.
It's never simple. Never.
Dreaming of dollops of sunshine on the Dal Lake and "Guzarish"
Alvida, for this short night.
Finished the best paper I have, possibly, ever written
...and have fallen in love with Kashmir in the process.
Read Vishal Dadlani's letter.
And Barkha Dutt's piece.
It's never simple. Never.
Dreaming of dollops of sunshine on the Dal Lake and "Guzarish"
Alvida, for this short night.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Bas chal naa mere sang sang...
Music lost its meaning for a while. I would play it, for the first time in my life, just to fill the silence. Sometimes you need to be reminded of what you have loved...to know that your soul isn't scarred...and that the future can be just as beautiful.
When I first heard this, I was struck by how similar the strains are to one of my favourite songs, "Saathiya" (Saathiya, 2002). And also, how familiar the feelings - my heart momentarily experiencing the most beautiful ache, a slight shiver, time stopping for just a minute - were.
"Guzarish" - Ghajini (To be released 25/12/2008)
Week 1.
26/11: We will never forget.
Simply, we can't...
When I first heard this, I was struck by how similar the strains are to one of my favourite songs, "Saathiya" (Saathiya, 2002). And also, how familiar the feelings - my heart momentarily experiencing the most beautiful ache, a slight shiver, time stopping for just a minute - were.
"Guzarish" - Ghajini (To be released 25/12/2008)
Week 1.
26/11: We will never forget.
Simply, we can't...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
