If i can't get to JNU...


...JNU gets to me...

February 3rd...12th Convocation of Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics...Utsa Patnaik , Professor Centre for Economic and Social Planning, JNU, will be speaking on Poverty and Neo-Liberalism...

so it's back to rage against the system!!

Rang De Basanti...great music...some pretty good camera movements...youthful...at times witty script...

well...let's see...rage against the system has always been a popular choice in Bollywood what with amitabh bachchan in Zanjeer...but then most films then were about fighting the system from within the system...then we came to the glorious period of the underworld..where a parallel system of governance had become acceptable only coz the system had failed...with Ram Gopal Varma...there was even a kind of psychoanalysis done on the underworld...a necessary evil(?)

and then there was Lakshya...all about a super cool generation...searching for...well...searching...let's put it at that...

we had a yuva which was all about idealism...

and now we have Rang De Basanti...again about a generation that is still searching...wants to rebel...but what do we rebel against? after all, we are the generation that has it all..how would i describe the film? well...kitschy, energetic, naive and a little over the top!!

apolitically political...civilian rage against the system...the popular middle class refrain, " sab politicians ko line se goli maar dena chahiye!" and the regular complaints about the system having failed, and the same old problems...and a sense of hopelessness alongwith it...so now we have identified the target of our rebellion which is corrupt people in power...now pander to the middle class sentiment and see how it does at the box office... like the Rj in the film says, " It's all so unreal man!" but it's all so believable and heady thanks to the power of the celluloid!!

on second thoughts... maybe that's the way we like it...over the top!!

If it happened to Dinosaurs...it should happen to us too!! (at least some of us!)

I am talking about extinction...

obviously i am furious...and i am hoping that someday the Fat Punju Kids and the Cleavage Queens of the world who are the ruling power here right now will go extinct 'coz their brains forgot to keep pace with their growing years or bodies!!

second semester in full flow...

and...the happiest part of me at Gokhale are my multicoured- socks- wearing feet!!

... as i set torturous goals for myself...(taking up econometrics again!!) i can't help but admit that classes that are filled with discussions of political economy are most disappointing...

it just shows how theory can disconnect you absolutely from the world outside...and not just because we can't admit to the contradictions of the outside world, but because we'd rather be trapped in the comforting world of indifference curves and unrealistic budget frontiers...

have never felt more out of place...and my hitch is that i will begin to get used to feeling out of place and like remaining there...

Obviously, I don't believe in Moderation!!

...got my entertainment-starved self a cycle yesterday...and rode it till my legs fell off!!

on the brighter side of it...I now know what they mean when they say, "your legs feel like jelly!!"

Prince has company!!

Financial Institutions class...professor decides to jog his memory and recall the names of his students...has a habit of assigning titles to his students such as Mr or Ms...calls out a couple of students after asking a question...

Prof:Mr. Singh?
Mr. Singh: (No response)
Prof: Mr. Dalwai?
Mr. Dalwai: (No response)

Prof. looks around for a while....looks at me and the then unbelievable (but now beginning to become more and more believable for me..) happens..

Prof: Mr. Vibha Iyer?
Ms. Iyer: (am looking towards the ground to swallow me while the entire class is enveloped in raucous laughter)

I give up!!

Tailpiece to the previous post...

Prince for me turned out to be the epitome of existential dilemna when he looked at me for a while and asked in all earnesty, " Tu Bhaiyya hai ki didi?"

New Year Resolution: I resolve to grow my hair at least till my shoulders!!

"Providence created Maharajas to offer mankind a spectacle"...wrote Rudyard Kipling of the Indian princes in pre independence India...

obviously that can be said for others...and i realised that whilst returning from Goa...

had loads of punjus for company...and man were they entertaining or what..

so this big punju family..husband, wife, husband's mother, three kids...two girls of ages 6 and 9 and one boy who is all of 2 and a half...

i wish i could set this whole piece to rhyme...but since i am more comfortable with prose...i will stick to it..

the two year old kid is called "Parth"..decent name i say to myself..especially for a Punju family which is most likely to go for soemthing on the lines of "Lucky", "Goldie" or "Happy"...until the grandmother insists we call the kid " Prince"! Thank God for consistency!!

am trying hard to read a book when the father starts whining to the fellow passengers over how Goa exploited him completely...until he realised that he was the only one in that compartment to have gotten fooled by cabbies and wily hoteliers who charged him a bomb for a night's stay..

and this is what added to his woes...Prince who is all of two is obvisouly the epicentre of all attention...and he shall not be displeased...so the little tyke does not eat a single meal without chicken..so although the entire family is veggetarian..they are obligated to buy chicken for Prince...now Prince favours Chicken Lollipop the most...so no meal is without a plate of Chicken Lollipop!! now a plate of chicken Lollipop costs around Rs. 90 in the hotel they were staying...how much could a two year old eat? so after a few nibbles the rest was fed as scraps to the dogs...the harried father was indeed in a sorry state after paying for three plates of chicken that were fed to the dogs...

Suddenly Prince takes a fancy for me and stands right in front of me ...staring...
to let you in on a little bit of insider information...Prince has been brought up entirely amongst girls..hence he has a twisted gender sense...which means he speaks Hindi only in the feminine gender..

he looks at me for sometime...and then tries to grab my phone..and says, " Phone fek doongi!" I was quite startled...until the parents explain that the kid has a hobby..he generally throws everything in his line of vision out of his sight. in fact he had just thrown his woollen cap in the sea in Goa and when his parents screamed, remarked quite casually , " baad mein aakar le jaaoongi!"

i hid the phone immediately...but i realise that i have many more throwable things on me in his line of vision...he insisted on throwing away my glasses, my book and even my food!!

the parents happily chatted away and insisted that it was a privelege that Prince actually deigned to talk to me because he usually doesen't talk to anyone...

the funniest part was when everytime that Prince threw a tantrum and he wanted to get back at his mum...he would STRIP!! or at least threaten to...

anyway!! i owe it to the Punjus for helping me keep my sanity amidst all the seriousness of the world..in or out of Gokhale!!