Part 2: Weekends

On a more personal note, I’ve had a very nice weekend.  Took Saturday off, coz only Sunday isn’t enough of a break. You wake up Sunday thinking about how you have to go to work the next day, which pretty much spoils any fun you might have had. Sunday is too quiet for me anyway. You’re meant to stay home most of the time, and even if you go out, most places are closed or filled with families and annoying kids; the week is about to begin so you’re filled with this sense of impending doom. You need Saturdays to make you feel like yourself again, instead of feeling like Ms. Jain or Ma’am like you do the rest of the week.

Went to Shalom in GK1 on Friday night. While I find it a bit too pricey to be a regular hangout, its very nice for a special occassion, or even just for an occasional visit. On Friday, it was a friend’s birthday so it turned out to be a lot of fun. Nice lighting, good music, comfortable seating (you gotta reserve the sofas beforehand though), good food and very nice sheesha. It was the perfect ending to a rather taxing week. Saturday visited the campuses, and then went for guitar class. I don’t even know why I’m bothering to learn since I never practice anyway. Got this ’concert’ coming up in April though, that I’m dreading deeply (Well, it isn’t really a concert, its one of those annual shows every school puts up so that parents can show off how brilliant their kid is. In my case, I’m too old for me or my parents to care about how well I can play the guitar, so its pretty much a major waste of time and effort. Only good thing is that by the time our group plays, there shouldn’t be any people left to watch coz the parents leave after their own kids perform and since the other 2 guys im performing with are in their 30s I’m sure their parents would care even less than mine would).

Finally finished Amitav Ghosh’s Through the Glass Palace this Friday, and even though it was 6 AM by the time I was done, I could not go to sleep. It was a very good book, but it got extremely disturbing towards the end, and I couldn’t sleep just thinking about it. I won’t give away the ending, but basically it extended from the late 1800s to the late 1900s and described the impact of the 2 world wars and the Indian Independence Struggle on Indians living in India and abroad. Not only does it beautifully intertwine a number of different issues like the Indian diaspora, colonialism, inter-community marriages etc. but its just so well written that you can’t help reading on even though its getting very sad and you want to stop. I rarely notice the language, writing style, etc. in most books, and symbolism seems to be a load of crap most of the time. For me the story is the main thing, and the characters. The characters should be realistic and I should be able to understand where they’re coming from, if not always identify with them. In this book, it felt like I really knew the people in it, and no matter how right or wrong they were in doing what they did, I could understand why they were doing it. For instance, towards the end they have a 50 years later thing happening (don’t know the literary term for it I’m afraid) and the grand niece of one of the characters goes to Burma to look for him. I couldn’t wait for her to meet him, coz it felt like I hadn’t met him in a while and I needed to see how he was and what he was doing. I don’t know if I’m making a lot of sense here, but for me this is when I know I’m really into the book. 

I’ve studied this subject in detail during university and seen so many videos and movies about Partition, the Godhra Riots*, colonialism in India, Africa, etc., the World Wars etc. but somehow this book affected me in a way these other things didn’t. I’m still trying to figure out why this was, but all I’ve managed to come up with so far is that the situation they describe in Burma could be India, then and now. When I hear of all these other things, I convince myself it can’t happen to me for a number of different reasons- either because I belong to a religion that isn’t very controversial, or because India is a democracy and things like colonialism can’t happen anymore, etc. But if Burma could change from a land governed by autocratic kings, to being part of an exploitative empire, to being ruled by communist dictators all in such a short span of time, then it can happen to any other country in the world, including India, and these things do affect everyone in a country irrespective of their caste, colour, religion etc. We’ve already faced much of it in the past, and things don’t seem to be changing enough for it to stop now. The situation in Mumbai right now is ample proof that we just don’t seem to learn from the past.

Well, enough about the book. Still not stopped thinking about it though and will share any further insights I have about it here soon.I’d love to hear from other people who have also read the book, and have an opinion about it.  Have work in the morning so going to put myself to bed now after watching a bit of Scrubs. Definitely read the HT article about SearchMyCampus, and let us know what you think!  

* Check out this movie called the Final Solution, directed by a man called Rakesh Sharma. It boldly describes the events of 2002 in Gujarat, and interviews many of the people involved-both the victims and the perpetrators. The story of how the movie was made is very interesting in itself. The movie was banned by the censor board so the director promoted it by distributing free copies at traffic signals, distributing it amongst friends who held private screenings at their houses that they opened to the public, encouraging people to circulate it online etc. It was finally allowed by the censor board after this had gone on for a bit. Its a real eye-opener.