lambs to the slaughter

10 days revising, 6-8 hours per day. All for nought. Nothing could have prepared any of us for that exam. The moment the invigilator ('proctor' for Americans) said 'time's up', I burst out in laughter, the kind borne in the face of absurdity. This is not that typical overachiever reaction where I say I did horribly when in reality, I probably did great. No, never before have I thought (in the midst of writing), 'I'm not answering the question, I'm not answering the question, but if I stop writing, I've got nothing!' Nita was a bit hysterical and Trygve was red with frustration. Suroor left immediately. I wandered around the hall, waiting for us to congregate for commiserating drinks at the SOAS bar.

There was definitely a moment where I wondered, 'have I just wasted a year?' I've noticed that there seems to be an inverse relationship between my academic grades and the amount of life experience I acquire. Nothing's free.

the List

For posterity, lest I ever think of going back to school.

Gender and the Nation:
'Marginality, Women and Shame', Inderpal Grewal
'The Question of the Other', Luce Irigaray
Recasting Women, ed. by Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid
Sexual/Textual Politics, Toril Moi
Clear Light of Day, Anita Desai
Shame, Salman Rushdie

Migration and Diaspora:
'Diasporas in Modern Socities: Myths of Homeland and Return', William Safran
'The Diasporic Imaginary: Theorizing the Indian Diaspora', Vijay Mishra
'Relocation as Positive Act: The Immigrant Experience in Bharati Mukherjee's Novels', Carmen Wickramagamage
'Nostalgia', Bharati Mukherjee
'Squatter', Rohinton Mistry

Partition:
'Landscapes of Memory: Trauma, Narrative and Dissociation', Laurence Kirmayer
Stories about the Partition of India, ed. by Alok Bhalla
'Lajwanti', Rajinder Singh Bedi
'The Peshawar Express', Krishan Chander
'Toba Tek Singh', Saadat Hasan Manto

Urban Landscapes:
The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de Certeau
The Idea of India, Sunil Khilnani
Death of Vishnu, Manil Suri
Mothsmoke, Mohsin Hamid

Less than three hours to exam time...prepared, yet not...

Regurgitation is not my forte

'His three works of fiction, Tales of Firozsha Baag (1987), Such a Long Jouney (1991) and A Fine Balance (1995) are widely acclaimed to the extent of the last named work being nominated for the Booker Award 1996. That [Rohinton Mistry] did not finally get the award is as much a comment on the system of selection as on the quality of the other novels that figured in the final judgement. It is a case similar to that of V.S. Naipaul, that great West Indian writer of the second half of the twentieth century, being nominated for the Nobel Prize but not getting it though some writers of lesser merit have secured the award. Boris Pasternak, the Russian dissident writer with just one Doctor Zhivago to boast of, would be a case in point.'
- M.L. Pandit, 'Fiction across Worlds' in The Fiction of Rohinton Mistry ed. by Jaydipsinh Dodiya
(A bit dated, this book was published in 1998. Naipaul won the Nobel Prize in 2001.)

All award systems go the way of the Oscar - political, overly-touted, and often given to those not deserving of the spirit of the award. Not to say that Pasternak wasn't amazing (I don't know, I haven't read either A Fine Balance or Doctor Zhivago). But it's wonderfully hilarious that M.L. Pandit can make such a bold statement with such...nonchalance? No doubt, (assuming they would allow themselves to read something authored by a person whose name they couldn't pronounce) it would have lit a fire among the faculty members at UCL - 'reactionary' as that dumb-ass second examiner stated on my feedback report. And yet, if uttered at SOAS it would have hardly raised an eyebrow. Is subversivity (not subversion) the norm at SOAS? Which strikes me as absolutely ridiculous for the French philosophers that are so hallowed at UCL are so much more subversive, flaunting - in complex syntactical structures - their contempt for existing power structures. But then, they are European.

Is transgression still subversive if it is institutionalised and racialised?

Regularly shuttling back and forth between the enemy camps - UCL and SOAS - separated by less than 100 metres, it's hard not to sense the psychological clash of civilisations. Nothing is devoid of politics anymore. But given the choice, I would have opted for that of SOAS. I dislike UCL more and more everyday. Or maybe it's just my department. Regurgitation is not my forte.

eternal sunshine

I haven't thought about him in a very long time, perhaps a year. Ironic, considering the dating frenzy. But something, someone, reminded me of him. Someone and a conversation with a friend who told me she didn't get involved with a man because he couldn't give a clear answer with respect to his ex. I paused. I thought. What would I do if that one came back into my life? It's not healthy to wonder such things. But he has come up, like a memory inscribed on a piece of paper, floating to the surface of a pond, black inscrutable script on stark white fragments.

I dreamt of him last night. He asked me to come away with him. Despite everything I have promised myself, despite having sworn to myself that that chapter of my life was closed, that I wouldn't allow myself ever to be with him because it had hurt too much too many times, I didn't hesitate.

I didn't hestitate.

Damn.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but a dream is never just a dream.

throw your hands up in the air...

A result of this Islamization, and of the state repression as well, is that many laws detrimental to women have actually been passed. In 1979, the Hadood Ordinance was ratified. By this ordinance on rape, women are convicted rather than their rapists, because rape is confused with adultery, and the raped woman has to produce four witnesses to testify to the occurrence of the act...

- Inderpal Grewal writing about Pakistan under Zia in 'Marginality, Women, and Shame'

As my token Paki friend (I love you!), WOB can perhaps let us know if this is still the case.

Excerpts...

...of the last report, which inspired frenetic mental spasms I don't normally encounter. Because I didn't finish it until 3 hours before it was due. Perhaps only WOB really understands what that means...

On Theory
Both personal belief systems and theory – in a sense, one and the same – are under attack. If every individual has his/her own personal belief system, what truth-value could any single system possess? It seems that theories are nothing more than simulations, their conclusions simply contributions to a growing body of hyperreality. If we think logically about an experiment from beginning to end, it entails mimicking the ‘real’ conditions of phenomena and then observing, as variables are added or taken away. It is not reality per se; it is a simulated real, engendered to discover the ‘truth’ behind phenomena. However, the resulting ‘truth’ is hyperreal because it is evoked by simulation.


On Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Despite this disenchantment with simulation (itself, ultimately a reflection of the sad state of society), the conclusion is that it is not easy nor desirable to separate simulacra from the real. At the end of the novel, after a violent day that shakes Deckard’s core, he finds a toad, the living being most sacred to Mercer. His joy is real and fulfilling, but when his wife reveals that it is a simulacrum, he is ‘crestfallen’ (Dick, 207). This reaction is extremely unnerving because maintenance of the sovereign difference destroys his joy, but that joy was not fake simply because the toad was fake. If the simulated is so real that we take it for real, and the simulated gives us the same pleasure that the real provides us, then there is no point in making the separation for it only breeds disenchantment.

moshi moshi?

Damn! Hoy fue un dia excelente. After holing myself up in the flat for the past 72-some hours to churn out my last non-thesis report, I finally emerged from the building and went beyond the twenty-metre radius. Rewarded myself with an unplanned book-spree. I intended to delve into some sci-fi, particularly Le Guin and Ballard. Instead, I left with Barthes' Mythologies and a selection of Japanese writers - Banana Yoshimoto, Yukio Mishima, and Haruki Murakami. I've waited too long to read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

Banana.

Could you imagine the scolding? Some petite, fifty-year-old Japanese lady screaming the name across a field or a supermarket in that staccato Japanese accent. Ba-NA-nah! (Followed by an array of words I can't even begin to transliterate).

What a great name. I think I'm going to name my first dog Banana. And my cat, Kiwi. Or Coconut.

real politik

Ahhh, The Fog of War. It appeared on basic cable (which, BTW, would NEVER happen in the states) this evening. I can't believe I had forgotten this little gem! Without a doubt, the best documentary I have seen and one of the best movies overall. Deeply irritated at my flatmate's comment along the lines of - 'you would think they would have surrendered and the bomb wouldn't have been necessary' - I was slightly vindicated when he was mollified by the following scene, the one where they flash the names of Japanese cities, followed by the proportionally equivalent American cities to reflect the level of decimation BEFORE the a-bomb. That one always hurts.

Sometimes I want to scream at his naivete and ignorance, which have been played out in so many other forms - colonialism, the great British empire, his voting strategy (if it could even be called a strategy) - and by so many other people. Of course the a-bomb was unnecessary. CHRIST, OF COURSE it was unnecessary. A wonderful act that combined realist politics and racism in a symphony of genius. It's in the past right? Whatever. Anime suffices to show that the bomb has severely screwed up their collective psyche. No apologies from me. No one can ever convince me that it made sense, that it was the 'rational' thing to do. It wasn't rational at all.

Damn. I'm so angry now, I can't sleep.

notes to self

In reading for a class, I write little notes to myself when I come across something particularly illuminating, particularly bizarre, or particularly frustrating. Now I'm reading Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation.

I'm officially boycotting the French. But not their wine.

'Thus everywhere the hyperrealism of simulation is translated by the hallucinatory resemblance of the real to itself.'
ok. great! so everything LOOKS real but it is really simulated and we cannot discern that everything is simulated. do i believe this? do you? and who am i talking to?

'we are in a logic of simulation, which no longer has anything to do with a logic of facts and an order of reason. Simulation is characterized by a precession of the model, of all models based on the merest fact - the models come first, their circulation...constitutes the genuine magnetic field of the event. The facts no longer have a specific trajectory, they are born at the intersection of models, a single fact can be engendered by all the models at once.'
WTF?! is it even possible for him to sustain a line of logic for more than 2 sentences?

Baudrillard in Chinatown

All in all, not a bad day. But feeling like a busy housewife. Watched a lame American sitcom with a cup of chai to warm my hands on this chilly London morning. Read Baudrillard until I was distracted by the wonderful beeps that signal a new text. Had dim sum at the Crispy Duck in Chinatown with a classmate from Hong Kong - it was culture shock. Nowhere else in the world can I have culture shock with such frequency. She guided me through the Chinese grocery store and I felt 5 again. I would just point, crinkle my nose, and she would provide me with a wealth of info. When she said they burned paper money, I had no idea that they actually bought stacks of cheap paper printed like money, JUST TO BURN IT. It's hyperreality manifested! Baud-boy is seeping into everyday life...

After reading a bit, I made marinade. I'm telling you, housewife. For the lamb. Which I'm cooking tomorrow. For my flatmates. It's going to be awe-some. Still can't explain why I love cooking meats that I don't particularly like the taste of...something about flesh charred on the outside and bloody on the inside? Of course, of the varied convos I could have ended the night on, it had to be the one with el Sueco. Yeah. Let's hope the dreams are good tonight.

Scoring Deconstruction

You get maximum style points for being French. Since most of us aren't French, we don't qualify for this one, but we can still score almost as much by writing in French or citing French sources. However, it is difficult for even the most intense and unprincipled American academician writing in French to match the zen obliqueness of a native French literary critic. Least credit is given for a clear, rational argument which makes its case directly...

Chip Morningstar deconstructs literary criticism here. For anyone who wants to understand what I study. Feel my pain.

paranoid android

Long days mean short weeks. Made a pact with myself to work like a normal automaton during the week and have the weekends for myself. See, I can be a functional member of society.

The other day at the gym, I felt myself in 'Gattaca'. Running, not in-synche, with 9 others on our respective treadmills, the platform reverberating, listening to Thievery Corporation and staring at the short man's head in front of me. Or the other runners in the mirror. Or the news. Or sports. Or a woman photocopying her butt. Too much stuff to look at. The air is thick with invisible air traffic - sound waves, tv waves (gamma?), cell phone signals - and sweat. Staticky.

An atomised existence. I watched everyone around me, struck by the sheer movement. Why was this so funny and so weird a la vez? But maybe I was thinking subconsciously about androids. Whether there was really any difference, that is. I had just finished Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Schizophrenics should get published more often.

Today, a woman bumped into me in the library. I was looking at different editions and critiques of Shelley's Frankenstein. She apologised and then stopped to tell me she was on special diet, just so she could wear pink (I was wearing a pink sweater). I smiled, she turned around and began to walk away. She turned around again, and began to tell me how she had stopped eating carbs and she had already lost one stone. I thought about telling her that her brain would rot if she stopped eating carbs for too long. I decided against it and smiled when I thought she was done.

It's reassuring to know that there are people out there as random as I.

London-la?

6 days back in London. More eventful and less productive than usual? Perhaps. A little deflated upon arrival. The last saturday in Austin was one of the best days in memory. A sacrificial feast, Guatemalan rum with old friends and new acquaintances. Surreal, but wonderful-throw-caution-to-the-wind surreal, not I-want-to-run-away-and-throw-up surreal. The highlight was Kirk and Surya performing what I could only describe as the drunken monkey school of capoeira. And seeing Mel. And Cel. And Tata. And all those other faces. The party that followed was a swirl of vodka, laughter and kieszona ogorka. A group of us stared at the moon, trying to figure out the distance in miles of the halo of clouds surrounding it. Yes, this is my Austin group. Until Agnieska waltzed up and asked if I was ready for the next vodka shot. It was my fault for starting it. She was getting me back for Berlin!

Slowly slipping into my London skin, readjusting my lenses (and ears). Was it always this noisy? Lamb kebabs, karahi chicken and saag aloo with classmates in Whitechapel welcome me back as I learn the Northern line's pseudonym - the 'misery line'. Dawdling along Farringdon, I meet a Jamaican buddy at a latin-style sports bar, replete with football penants, team emblems, foosball, and a Portuguese bartender. A few days later, more Pakistani food comes my way as Cameron invites his team (bankers bankers bankerrrrrrrrrs) for lunch, but only because Farah is cooking. I don't complain. I'll take free home-made lamb biryani any day. Yesterday, yet another new outing - Hampstead Heath (a heath, I learn, is 'an extensive tract of uncultivated open land covered with herbage and low shrubs; a moor'; a moor! I say). Zone 2 North London. I never knew suburbs could be so cool. Not quite suburbs, but we're away from the bustle of London. Sardine sandwiches and handball, la-this and la-that with a group of Malaysians. How cool would it be to live there? Where Asians of all types converge - good food, good vibe la?