always a tourist

i am a woman of no roots. growing up in the northeast in a project school has some advantages. your friends are from all over the country, given to you for either two or four years. the fixtures form the background--a set of boys you will never really get to know. it teaches you the pointlessness of attachment. it teaches you to hold yourself apart. at a time of unformed ambitions, you are dimly aware that there must be more. you don't want friends so much as prizes. the thing that chills you, that makes you want to leave, is mediocrity. you want to make your peace with it. you are suspicious of standards. you don't know your own strengths. you develop no abiding interests. nothing is reliable. your childhood is a drugged dream. you don't live in the cities you grew up in. there are no vanished safe havens to pine for in an orgy of nostalgia. you have the soul of a tourist. you are always simply passing through.

2011

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

became ABD. gave in to *every* impulse. hitchhiked. walked 10+ miles in a single day, along cape cod. joined a gym. got stoned, thrice. kissed a guy on top of a lighthouse. swam in an outdoor swimming pool in india. took pictures for a fashion blog. internet dating. made friends with a great dane. let someone literally pick me up and carry me around. attended an american thanksgiving dinner. drove a manual transmission car into a wall. drove an automatic transmission vehicle without any untoward incident in an empty parking lot. hunted for decent assisted living facilities in calcutta, which was a soul-parching experience. did the whole running-around-in-short-slinky-dresses-and-high-heels-in-sub-zero-temperatures-downtown thing. got to explore competition yachts. watched a sailing competition.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

no, and no. i resolve to do things as they occur to me, without waiting for another year to pass by.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

well, bodhi did.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

not anyone close.

5. What countries did you visit?

i split my time between india and the US, with long layovers at dubai in between.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

love of work.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

all those enormously fun dates with chris! 

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

ABD.

9. What was your biggest failure?

inability to make any headway on the dissertation.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

nope. i imagined i was severely injured in the beginning of the year. but that was just plain rage and negativity.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

my dutch oven!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

my roommates' and rohit's and ragini's and devika's and chris' and aisha's and of course, shion's!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

adhiraj, early in the year. through no fault of his i suppose.

14. Where did most of your money go?

travel, dining out.

15. What did you get really excited about?

ABD! travel! sriraka's biye! new people! new house! hypersociality in summer! roommates! dating! chris! partying like an undergrad! i was excited about everything!

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

my body is a cage-arcade fire.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

– happier or sadder? happier.
– thinner or fatter? fatter? i am always expanding.
– richer or poorer? poorer, but only financially.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

dissertating, gym, swim, hiking, traveling, dancing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

dine out.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

woke up at noon because i'd returned at 3 after the christmas eve bonfire at hungerford. had a lavish lunch left by baba. met arjun and priyam. took a long and hilarious cab ride to park st, where we were met with an ocean of humanity, nodding santa and elephant figures, an overabundance of twinkling lights and particularly overzealous policemen, but no momos anywhere. luckily we'd had phuchkas in front of vardaan, and after being borne on a tide of humanity towards allen park where usher uthup was singing koi yahan aha nache nache, we decided we'd had enough and wrangled a cab back to golpark (thanks to argon's mad skillz) to indulge in some food-nostalgia at grub club. we ordered mounds of meat and left happy and replete.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

less falling, more soaring.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

american horror story! no wait, game of thrones. was that this year? 

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

no.

24. What was the best book you read?

cronopios and famas- julio cortazar.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

dubstep. i know, right?

26. What did you want and get?

ABD, the ability to let go and just cruise.

27. What did you want and not get?

dissertation, drive, fatloss, good posture, true stoicism.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

nothing comes to mind.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

i taught, took myself out to dinner at a fancy place, shunned company, like every year. i was 24.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

it was perfect the way it was. just what i needed.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

girly. lots of skirts and dresses and tights and soft cardies.

32. What kept you sane?

oh i fell off that wagon several times and then decided to walk instead.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

asma mahfouz.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

nothing stirred me. that's the problem.

35. Who did you miss?

not a person.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

i met so many wonderful people, but i think it's a tie between ragini and chris.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

learn to be stoic.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Où sont tes héros aux corps d'athlètes

Où sont tes idoles mal rasées, bien habillées

Dans leurs yeux des dollars

Dans leurs sourires des diamants

Moi aussi un jour je serai beau comme un Dieu

instant gratification

vice. no forethought, often, only just a sense of, whyever not. the sulks don't seep into the soul anymore. i am becoming a naturally happy person. given to giggles. easily entertained. easily able to hold still, except when unproductive. but these impulsive fancies must cease. one can't have everything, but so much love for the world at large. this christmas weekend was such an unexpected success. 

the holiday cheer infects me

you know what i like about the fag end of the year? rereading my dissertation proposal i think for the first time after i submitted it, i begin to believe in the viability of the very simple question at the heart of it. this thing--the life of the mind--i took an extended vacation from, this life calls to me again. i know i am going to get into it, dissertate in earnest, and have a whale of a time while at it. santa's early this year, but oh lord  thank you for the return of this interest, this drive, this good cheer. 

the age of feeling things too keenly has passed

two weeks left for '11 to end. this is the year of great heartache, acceptance, academic milestones and an almost complete loss of faith. and a loss of something else as well. something i cannot quite put into words. i could perhaps say the greatest loss has been that of purpose. but it isn't purpose exactly. i have come to realise that, at this late stage of making myself, i could not escape the fate of those unfortunates for whom work is just work: neither a yoke to be detested, nor a delight to wake up to each morning. all those churning emotions and questions and anxieties, all that zeal and fervor is long past. this was a year of leisure, of the pursuit of ever more frivolous distractions. boredom must be avoided at any cost. at the best of times it leads to unpleasant entanglements, because one often forgets, so easily, that people aren't things to do.

i am a woman of no passions, no stirring interests, no desire to throw in my lot with the 99%. my heart does not bleed at the injustices of the world, the sight of two dead horses lying on each side of the road, entrails caught between the teeth of stray dogs, the cows crammed on to carts headed surely for slaughter, the jute farmers who surely won't get enough for their bumper crop, the ragged children in my school uniform sleepwalking into a future infinitely dimmer than mine is shaping up to be despite my worst efforts. in these quarters, eaten alive by mosquitoes, heating my bathwater on the stove, sleeping on mattresses on the floor, i am thankful for shampoo, cable tv, and my mother, who insists on cooking for me, who worries about how i am occupying myself. i should be moved. instead there is ...nothing.

i grew up in this way. as cold a fish as there ever was. a storm of passions overtook me when i should have grown up. it started with a dim sense of romance, the desire to know all the secrets of great feeling, to rip someone else open and consume them whole, to own and to belong. five years caught up in this endless pursuit and longing, but this year, those demons have left me. one lets another in, one loses oneself, one goes searching soon after, but it isn't so easy to decide which of one's selves one is to reconcile with: there is a part sloughed off each year one has aged, like so much shed skin. if after peeling off the masks, the aspirations, those willed improvements, one finds within oneself nothing of great import, no lofty ideals, no investment in some great cause, there is perhaps no need to look deeper, farther. perhaps the masks make the man. in essence we are all animals, but good posture is half the battle won. that, and a lack of nostalgia. i was born with the latter. everything else is a matter of perseverance. bring it on, 2012.