Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Same day, another post

I just realised how i've wasted the gift of an excellent state subsidised university education (INR 75 per month). I hate me.
I'm here wasting my time, getting fat, letting all those people down. I'm reading everything written by my contemporaneous peers and it just goes to show that i really know not a thing. Time to pull up the pants. [But then the pants stay put over the hips owing to the humongous bulge that my tummy has become].
Damn! Must do something about it. Must do something about everything.

In the other news: still quite worried about the canines. But having written to AC, feel oddly comforted. Ugh...my life now will be a perpetual push-pull between the two cities.

I must admit, against my better judgement, that I like Dilli. No use maligning it so much. I always have something to go to (film shows, heritage walks, qawwali concert, exhibitions, etc etc). Dilli then is a virtual And it provides for so much indignant blustering: the commonwealth games to the migrant labour scene. Dilli generously allows me to bash it to pieces. I won't be able to do that with Kolkata: i can only rip the collective skins off the powers who be in West Bengal. Here it's bash-fest all around: the bangalis, the punjabis, the officials, the rich kids, the ngo wallahs, the intellectuals, the feminists, the film critics--you name it, i can criticise them all. Hah! That's one thing the five years at university has taught me, and taught me well. *smug grin, with double chin*

Dilli then is a paradise for lonely souls like me: I know loads of people here. But i never run into them inexplicably and shout 'small world' incessantly. I can be anonymous in this large city, watch from the sidelines and snigger under my breath.

Yesterday was women's day. Went to a rally. Where everyone else who came were part of some organisation or other or some head honcho activist of sorts who knew everybody else and vice-versa. I was very excited about it: 'At Laaaaassst!', I sang. I'm going to find like minded, no nonsense type women and form fast friendships. Well, I was mostly standing (and throwing warm friendly smiles all around which found little reaction from others) and feeling low(e). It staretd about an hour and a half after it was supposed to. By then i was bored and depressed to tears and my stomach was rumbling.

Once we started moving things picked up: funny slogan shouting, voices cracking, stupid teenage boys walking on the roads ogling, etc, etc. Oh and my camera batteries gave up the moment we started walking. So not much photo-ing.

Anyway, I'm bored with bashing-smashing. So something positive perhaps? Yes.

PC called me up first thing in the morn to wish me 'shubhechha' on women's day. AND I found the card(which i though i'd lost) which she gave me before i shifted northwards here. It's signed "with love and solidarity--PC'". How uber cool is that? Tralala!

I should have a separate positive women's day post. (upcoming). Now let me do some more bashing. So on the 7th and 8th went to IIC for South Asian Women's Fest. It's being organised by Zubaan. Nice posters exhibit outside (which were not for sale). On the 7th there weer quite a few powercuts while the screening was going on. And one of the organiser's said "oh if this goes on, we'll have to talk to Sheila". I thought who the hell is this Sheila, me being a slow-poke. Then later i realised this was the CM, Sheila Dixit, she was talking about. Very gross. These rich elitist Dilli types. I always feel invisible and stupid in their presence (in spite of the fact that I was wearing my best skirt and matching Fab shirt yesterday). I feel my nostrils are too big, my tummy too protruding, my dress too uncool, my smile to gummy, my breath too stinky and so on, in their presence. Should do something about this low self esteem thing, na? (and we're back where we started)

2 comments:

At a loss for a blogger handle said...

just curious, what happens if you wear your oldest, faded shirt and worn out jeans to one of these dos? ora bodhoy dekhtei pay na, na? i KNEW these ngo people were all very pretentious.

Madhura said...

you're invisible in any case. And these aren't necessarily NGO people. They are elite (and elitist) socialites. Being associated with a cause is fashionable these days. So they are associated or not with something or the other. I always wear ridiculous clothes to office. My mum would have a heart attack if she saw my unbrushed hair and crumpled, faded, stained tee shirts: basically my office get up.
The academics in Dilli are often equally elitist, fab-india wearing, air kissing people. Ughhh!
In fact elitist sociailites include everyone from left liberal thinkers and academics to moronic rich people who have upwardly mobile social aspirations.