So I just met the awesomest new person I have come across in a year or so! (Yeah, yeah, the university life gets just as constrained as that. The only other new people I’ve met in the past year are a bunch of puny juniors. Yeah, sorry me.)
But reaching out to the world is such a great thing sometimes. =)
Hmm, nothing to write. Waiting ceaselessly for (several) things to materialise. Zombiefied college-going to fill (kill?) time. With each day we live less in terror of the Lennon line and more in faith of the wisdom from Chekhov. Perhaps that is progress. (Such a one-liner whore we are, dear god.)
Meanwhile the good people at this place have decided to do something interesting or the other with an old poem. Those in the know of the history of said poem may notice why we are amused; but irrelevant ironies apart we do happen to be rather intrigued.
On another (slightly petty?) note, should it feel smug or appalling when popular people start to — as the expression goes — “rip off your style”? We have a suspicion this has to do more with insecurity than possessiveness: the distaste for being eventually thought of as a copycat of people you don’t even particularly admire, rather than the loss of what you cherished as a private quirk. If D happens to notice this paragraph, we must dissect, discuss and absolutely demolish the (ahem) philosophy/psychology behind this emotional response on a particularly insipid college afternoon soon enough, alright? That will show ’em sequin-dripping little ghouls, yes. :|
One
In my opinion, the only goals worth pure respect and ambition are ones that (a) a very brilliant person (b) has to work very hard for. Is it my inherent cynicism or do very few goals in the world seem to fill both the criteria? For example, JUDE (excellent as it may be) fills both (a) and (b) but not necessarily at the same time. (I. e. a very brilliant person can get on at JUDE with moderate-to-zero effort; and a moderately brilliant person can do the same with substantial effort put in. At times it is even possible for individuals to get on with neither (a) nor (b), with a little help from the Google-enabled phone or other comforts of a similar vein. Which disqualifies JUDE from that elusive category.)
Two
I think I was in Class 12 (or 11?) when Günter Grass visited Calcutta and spoke extensively on The Tin Drum. I had even attended the panel discussion at Kala Mandir (where he shared space with Tariq Ali, if my memory does not deceive; I have still not managed to read Tariq Ali though I’ve intended to for ever) but I did it out of sheer curiosity: I had not read any of Grass’s books yet, I knew little about him except the name. Right now, as I read The Tin Drum, I am wishing for nothing more than to be able to rewind to that evening and listen to the discussion with a better receptivity. Right now, I remember how wise and well-spoken and impressive Grass had seemed to my little school-going self but regrettably I remember nothing else.
The internet is for study and not wasting time on Facebook. Repeat till memorised. (And do not waste time on Facebook in the meantime.)
Dissolution of the distinction between the private and the public. Not good, no.
Mimi Mondal 
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