SILCHAR JOURNAL III

Autumn is here!Mahalaya cassettes are replacing Hindi songs in odd shops!

And the weather is ….Well now hot! Now cool! now dry and dusty! Now wet and muddy!

That’s how the weather works here

By the way, I am still in Silchar...But I wont be for the next few weeks ...Puja vacation :)

Plan to spend it in a distant foreign land called home...Alias Kolkata

Last few days, well months have been sickeningly hectic (literally, I keep on falling sick these days)For some mysterious reasons of which I have no idea, I have apparently emerged as one of the cultural connoisseurs of the university,And come conferences, workshops vc’s meet Teachers association subcommittee And I am always there taking care of the cultural bit (there is always a bit of that bit) along with some colleagues..

I cannot say I don’t find it rewarding.Students here are amazingly talented. And they come from such diverse background, that they have so much to offer..The other day we had a northeast folk dance showcaseAnd it was dazzling !slow solemn Dimasa dance, vigorous Naga dance, rhythmic tea tribe dance in a melancholy tune, fun dance of dhamail…and they looked gorgeous in their traditional dresses..I felt privileged to be among them.

My colleagues… they are also from diverse backgroundfrom kanyakumari to Kashmir

From strict vegetarian to very strict non-vegetarian

From the rightest of right wings and leftest of lefts

From teetotaller to sworn boozers

But they have some things in common. They all, well most of them at least, seem bored and dissatisfied. Of course there is a good explanation. Intellectuals should always be dissatisfied …And teachers are such a boring lot, that they often end up boring themselvesas always,lookng forward to hear from you all

THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Hello all,
Its been a while here, have survived fire, earthquake, and thunderstorms to name a few and, sorry to disappoint Aritra, but things don’t appear so shocking anymore.
Remember the bridge?
First it started swaying dangerously when our bus used to be on it—Did not surprise me at all. Then it became so bad that the bus used to go at a speed of a snail when the crossed it— All in a day’s work.
After a few days it became too risky so it was decided that we would cross the bridge on foot, the bus will go empty and then we will board it on the other side — It happens.
Then it was too dangerous for the empty bus, so were getting down from the bus on this side of the bridge, and the university was sending another bus to pick us from the other — Mundane.
So, I am ok here, people say I look different these days. According to my uncle it is like Swank in Million Dollar Baby, but he is too kind.
It is more like Gollum in Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, let me share a few things that I have learned about life.
When your living alone in a third floor apartment, you will always be unsure about whether you have locked the window or turned the gas off when you have got down to the ground floor.
When your parents know about your memory dysfunction and makes a list on your door of things to take with you when you go out (like torch, umbrella, lunchbox etc) they should also include ‘purse’ in it.
When a lot of people work away from their home, they can be really innovative in their leave-taking techniques.
Your maids will come to work as and when they like.
You can actually synchronize your sleep with power cuts.
When you are expecting a career advancement, you can put James Bond to shame with your spying ability.
When every time you are introduced to a colleague, the third advice they give is ‘don’t trust anyone’ (the first two being always carry an umbrella and a torch) then you should take this advice seriously.
When you wake up in the morning all fatigued because of the noisy thunderstorm in the previous night, then if you look at the end of a dusty road and can see the hills with white clouds at the peak, then you suddenly feel an indescribable peace of mind.
Looking forward to hear about your lives

QUITE AN ADVENTURE!!!

Hello all, Hope you don’t mind this joint mail. But with having so much to tell and so limited net access, this is the best that can be. anasuyadi said that accepting this job would be like an adventure to me and her words were that of a prophet. A lot of people told me it is only a 1 hr flight from Kolkata to Silchar. But few told that I would have to take a two-hour journey through a long and winding road to reach the town and another one and half hour nausea inducing journey to reach the university. One of the professors in the economics department opined that the British people built these roads with vengeance to unsettle our poor Indian stomachs. Honestly, this journey is unbelievable. First you go through the city, which by the way is unbelievably dusty. Just to prove how dusty it is, people sigh and tell how "clean" Agartala and Kolkata (???!!!) is. The roads and in even more wretched condition : not a single road that is not broken,open drainage, no foot path and let’s not get into the condition of traffic. And people keep telling me with a wise smile "wait till you see the rainy season". Last year boat was the only means of transport for most of the time from March through October. Anyway, after going through the city, you enter the villages, then the paddy fields, forests, tea gardens, burning ghats and go through some unbelievably dangerous unfinished bridges on the way. In the meantime you are going up the hill often with stiff mountain on one side and sharp gorge on the other. For the first few days I just sneezed my way up and puked my way down and lost weight and hair rapidly. And my colleagues keep telling me that it was worse. Things have ‘drastically improved’ in the last year. Let me also enlighten you about the modes of transport (when it does not rain i.e.). You have choices between a bus that is so crowded that you will be crushed and a Sumo which will carry14 passengers inside and equal number on top. On the second day itself my Sumo stopped in front of the third of those bridges, there was some commotion. On coming down, I found out that the bridge is broken. The conductor sweetly asked me to go down up to the river (which would be about two-story building downwards) and cross the river and come up on the other side and there will be Sumos on the other side. I must have looked terribly puzzled, so he assured me that the "water is not even knee deep". "this was not in my job description" I thought, " that I will have to swim and trek my may to workplace". Just about that time I met one of my students he said that’s a reasonably regular occurrence. Nothing to worry about, just no classes today and the days to follow. Lets go into the University campus now. It is in a word "breath-taking", both literally and figuratively. Literally because, yes, it is the most beautiful university I have seen — red single storied structures for departments placed on hillocks and vales with one or two bigger buildings for library, administrative blocks etc. it has 100 acres of forest in its compound as well. (However, the university area could use more trees, I have heard they have cut down too many here.) The university is figuratively breath taking as going from one department to another, or from a department to the library and sometimes even to the loo would require climbing up and down uncountable steps and you will end up out of breath*. Among good things my department’s got a brand new computer, no net connection though. As for the rest, the registrar told me to prepare myself for "shocks" and all I can say is that the shock treatment is on. But I am holding on.Hope the rest of you are doing fine .