coincidence?

My life seems to revolve around the Metro, and I am obsessed about it!

A totally random thing happened today... I was traveling in the yellow line to Vishwavidyalaya, and I chanced to sit next to a girl who was munching away from a tiffin box. I was fidgeting and squirming in my seat as I felt like telling her off about this. "Eating, Drinking, or Smoking in the Metro and station area is not permitted." And they make these announcements all the time! But of course, this girl had plugged her ears with earphones and so she couldn't hear the announcements. I finally decided I'd had it as she kept at it for more than 10 minutes and she was attracting flies (Yuck!!).

I took out my notebook, and wrote her a note saying: "Eating is not allowed in the Metro. You may be doing it cleanly, but others will look at you and start doing it too. Please refrain from setting such a bad example!" and I handed it to her as the train approached the Station before Vishwavidyalaya, and I walked out of the train! I was so annoyed that I couldn't stay in there anymore!

I was already late for the seminar, and the huge platform clock glared 14:44 in a bright red at me. The triple 4s might as well have been 6s as they spelled out doom for me! (my seminars start at 2:30pm) And as I waited for the next train, I wondered why I had been so silly to walk out of the train. I could have waited just before reaching the Vishwavidyalaya station to hand her the note! or why couldn't I just say it to her instead of writing it down?

As the questions plagued my mind, the train approached, and inside, was my really good friend, sitting with her boyfriend whom I had never met, but had seen photos of. She was my first friend at the Hostel, when I started living there four years ago. I hadn't met this friend since I came back from Japan, even though I had made plans but had to cancel. It was so random, to meet her there! If that girl hadn't been eating, I would never get off at Vidhan Sabha, and board a train with my friend in it when I was running so late for class!

I can only say, what a strange coincidence that was!

A Month!

Its been exactly a month since I came back from Japan! Time goes by too fast. To jazz up my life and make it more interesting I am definitely going to try Rachel's idea of 101 in 1001! but I am still making up the list of 101 things that I could do in Delhi! hahahah! so good luck to me!

Delhi Metro

Delhi Metro is my friend and its my enemy as well.

I travel by it to go to the university, it takes about an hour and a half or so to get there. I walk for about 5 minutes to get to the Dwarka Sector 10 Station from my apartment. then it takes about 55 minutes on the Blue Line to get to Rajiv Chowk Station, where I change to the Yellow Line. After another 20 minutes or so I reach Vishwavidyalaya Station. It takes another 10-15 minutes by a Rs. 10 rickshaw-ride to get to the Arts Faculty, where I have my seminars in the English Department. The metro ride costs me Rs. 18, making my commute a total of Rs 28. (less than 100-yen ). I travel in the ease and comfort of the AirCon. and I usually get a seat going as Sect. 10 is the 2nd station from point of beginning.

Yet it is my enemy. You ask 'Why?'? Well, I dont get a seat while going back home, as there are herds of people boarding the train at Rajiv Chowk, and it is just hell. I stand back and let the stampeding crowds in first and then enter squeezing through the jammed pack of people to get a free space in which to stand. But more so coz, if there wasn't the Metro, commuting would be so difficult and tiring that I would just live in the International Students House for Women where I stayed before, and have a far better and interesting life! Plus I would have access to JSTOR on my laptop! And, there would be new people from interesting places I would get to interact with. Currently I am bored to death and wish for something desperately to happen in my life.

Now you ask, "Well then, why don't you go there?" Because, I am sacrificing my wishes to my parents, who sacrificed theirs when I decided to take on the JET Programme. I guess I feel a little guilty too. My mom missed me, and my dad felt that I am drifting away from them. But, I am giving them until my sisters marriage, and after that I am moving out! Until then, I shall suffer the boredom (*shrug*) and the Metro shall be both my friend and enemy!

modern art

Today, a friend and I went to the National Museum of Modern Art in Delhi. Its located in a building that is called Jaipur House and it is very close to India Gate. We went there is search of some of the paintings housed there which we are studying as part of our Modern India in Paint and Print course. It was nice to go there, to New Delhi, where roads are clean and it is only cluttered by the old architecture of Lutyen's Delhi scape!

The fees for the museum for Indians is Rs. 10! and for foreigners Rs. 100! so cheap a price to see Masterpeices of Indian Art! I am so loose with my wallet after coming back from Okinawa, I think its all so cheap, that I just give! Even Autowalas and Rickshawalas (drivers) I can't seem to bargain anymore!.

Cameras werent allowed, but I again managed to sneak in a few pictures on my phone's camera! I shall be put in jail for this if the police search the cyber spaces!


this above is by M. F. Hussain.

these below are by Amrita Sher Gill:

the printed word...

There is certain Joy which I missed while I was in Okinawa... that of reading an enjoyably informative Newspaper in English (perhaps with a cup of tea and cake rusks!) in the morning. Today, being a Sunday, I was greeted by the Sunday Times of India, with the same Editorial columns that haven't been replayed since I've been gone - Erratica by Bachi Karkaria, Jugular Vein by Jug Suraiya, Swaminomics by Swaminathan, Men and Ideas by Gurcharan Das, Shashi on Sunday by Shashi Tharoor, Indiaspora, etc. I usually pore on each word in the articles and their great writing and ideas enthrall me. I am such a knowledge-hog!

chak de

My cousin and I had chosen this day to go to the Book Fair at Pragati Maidan (which is a center where many expositions are held throughout the year). Instead, we ended up shopping for some books (rather, books relating to my courses) in Connaught Place (a major commercial center), and then on the spur of the moment we went and saw a movie. I am usually wary of Bollywood films, for the obvious reasons that you may not be able to name more than 2-3 movies names (unless you are Indian, or really big into unrealistic romantic dance and musical melodramas made in India)!! :)

But this film really was worth it! Its name is Chak De! India. And I am so glad we made that totally random decision to chuck Book Fair and go watch it.

Some pics I sneaked in on my cellphones's camera:

It is the story of a failed ex-captain of the Indian Hockey team coming to the rescue of the women's team to coach them and win the World Cup. And by saying this, I have extremely simplified the movie! It was not the typical dance around the trees romance flicks that have been churned out by the Indian film industry. Nor was an art film meant to be solely understood by the intellectual elite. It was a sports film that appealed to the patriot in us to recognize our national sport and bring attention to the ills in contemporary Indian society through it.

The Indian masses are crazy about cricket. more crazy than the Japanese are about baseball, I would say. And we often forget that our National Sport is Hockey, not cricket. Hockey lives in the sidelines and women's Hockey suffers even more in the misogynistic tendencies of our society. Women must not work; they must stay at home, cook food and make babies. God forbid, if they start wearing shorts and playing sport! This regressive can be seen in numerous females infanticides and atrocities against women. Just today I read in the newspaper of a father-in-law beheading his daughter-in-law because she refused to cook him his lunch...

In light of this, Chak De! comes as a forerunner for Women's Rights and attempts to show that girls can make the country proud just as boys can, that too, in the sports field.

What I really liked about the movie:

• Representation of the role of politics in the degraded state of sports in India. Political leaders are in it for the money they can consume from it, and hardly give a damn whether the teams succeed or not. They don't see India's vast resources going down the drain, only caring if it can go into their pockets.
  
• Representation of the culture shock the girls suffer going abroad to play in the world cup. Most of the girls selected for the National Team come from simple middle-class backgrounds and perhaps they have never been abroad. Going to Australia, and seeing a developed nation in all its technological splendor is of course a major culture shock. Language to is a barrier, some of them not understanding what the referee is saying in English. India and its multi-lingual diversity, has a neat representation in the movie.


• Using soundtrack as soundtrack in the background... no one bursts out lip-syncing the songs!


• Close-ups on the field, to give a sense of what its like being there. While aerial shots would have been much more intelligible, the close-ups brought the movie-viewer onto the field, the confusion tension and chaos we felt is what the player undergoes.


• Representation of media in India today. Indian news channels are going berserk and sensationalization has overtaken every ounce of good journalism that existed. They blast one news item out of proportion and then discard it the next day when people have become bored with it. The most recent examples include the ex-model Geetanjali Nagpal who having lost everything due to bad company was living on the street. Once she was spotted, everyone wanted to broadcast the ills of the modeling world that brings girls of good households into the trap of drugs and prostitution. She was taken to a hospital and medical tests revealed that she was not an addict and after 3 days, she is no longer in the headlines. Why couldn't they let it be instead of directing disgusting and demeaning questions at her?! I hate watching any news channel. In the movie, the Coach used to be the captain of the Men's National Hockey team, but is accused of match-fixing with the Pakistani team; and being a Muslim, his patriotism is brought to question by the media who hype this story up so much so that his career is destroyed.
  
• the fight scene. After eve-teasing one of the Northeastern girl in the team, a guy gets a thorough beating from the girl from Punjab, who has a perennial short-temper. (The film does use the stereotype of a "Punjaban" short-temper and Northeastern sexiness). This beating gets converted to a full-scale fight with all the girls gradually joining in as the fight escalates. Some critics would definitely disagree with me, saying that this scene is a tad bit too much. But they perhaps have never felt the frustrating anger one feels against those sick asshole who feel they can do anything to a girl.

What could have been better:

• acting. while many of the roles were very well done, some minor roles were completely flawed. Like the character of Abhimanyu, who is the vice-captain of the cricket team and boyfriend of Preeti. This character is condescending towards the sport of hockey and wishes Preeti a talented striker to quit her team, marry him and accompany him around the world while he "shows them all how it should be done".
  
• Dialogues. Some jingoistic dialogues didn't work. The content of the film obviously required such a speech, yes. But, the content itself was jingoistic in far more simple and subtle a way. Thus the speeches could have been improved.
  
• Commentary for the World Cup matches in Hindi. they were very jarring, could have been better.

Even so, the movie was highly entertaining and it contained a message that wasn't given in too heavy-handed a way. The movie struck a balanced chord in the hearts of Indians and definitely I praise it as being an Indian movie I didn't come out grimacing after, but wanting to see again. Which, not wanting to be boastful, is saying a lot.. (I am sure Varsha would agree!) Chak De! India is a movie that makes us ask ourself, are we really on a path to compete with the rest of the developed world, when we can't resolve our different State's cultural identities in a National one; when we can't give the girl child a chance at life; when our own profit comes before the country's; when we can't look beyond the superficial to a greater and higher truth? Questions that today's youth of India - above all else - need to ask themselves.

Here I am, once again..

Firstly, this blog must acknowledge Ms. Liz Brooks, on whose requests I felt compelled to write about my life in Delhi. :) love u, Liz!

Next, I have had my first seminars for this semester's two courses. The courses I chose are -

• Modern India in Paint and Print, and
• Contemporary Fiction and Constructions of History

I was nervous at the beginning of each class, but all went well. I got what I selected to present on for the first course and I can choose which ever I want for the second one as well. So, I am glad. I have to get down to studying for it instantly as there is lots of work to be done! my first presentation is coming up in 3 weeks!

Transition into Delhi life hasn't come easily. A year away has changed my perception and each thing is like a vague deja vu. (Though when I met some of my best friends it didnt seem like a year/more had passed since I last gave them a hug!) I feel naive, and I feel I am less street smart. I felt awkward asking rickshaw-walas, and just agreed to whatever price they asked for. The dirt and muck has been a constant eyesore. And, starless skies make me sad. Delhi Metro is a saving grace, but last time I was on it, some woman pushed me about in the most uncivilized manner, and I became very incensed about her behaviour!

And the new youth I see around me at the university shock me more. I see so many pseudo's and so many worthless individuals that its upsetting. I had felt hopeful of the youth of my country before I had left for Okinawa. I thought that their changing perspectives would put my country to its path to progress. But I see young girls and boys dressing up for attention, playing loud music on their cell phones, bursting into dance moves in the middle of the street or metro, and just wasting their time away.

It is bleak, or so it seems right now. Maybe its just a phase. But I have to block my mind from all that and concentrate on my M.Phil. I shall think about India's progress afterwards, when I finish my M.Phil. courses with good grades, when I get a job and when I get my NET qualification (to be able to teach in Colleges).

Tomorrow is another day.