Or maybe not...

This year has been a bit strange. Umm actually i take that back, this year has been extremely strange, too much gadbad,, introspection, dealing with a lot of things that I had'nt dealt with etc etc. But in the middle of all, this was also the year i couldnt make up my mind about where I want to be. Having spent 10 years in Delhi I think I wanted to take a break from the city and spend sometime elsewhere in the world, therefore the inclination to move to London for LLM and then the inclination to move to Ahmedabad for work. None of which happened! Still very much in this city, will be winding up work and going home for a break soon. lets see what 2011 has instore pour moi.

Gujju Land here I come

So looks like shifting was inevitable for me, even if I didnt move to London for my LLM, I am moving to Ahmedabad for 5 months on another short research project and to assist in the filing of High Court appeals for our office that looks after around 200 riot related cases of 2002.

Even though I havent started packing physically I have done this packing a couple of times in my head! Yes I know, thats what a control freak does, so where have I denied being one!

Anyway, at the moment I have too many loose ends to tie up and only then will I have time to pack and then move. I will be keeping my place in Delhi so if anyone wants to stay in Delhi for a couple of months please do contact.

Ofcourse the great part (apart from the pao bhaji on law college road) is that I will be a 6 hour journey away from home :) Now that i really like :)

New Crush!!

I saw Once upon a time in Mumbai last night.....not bad, didnt get bored at all in the movie, everyone acted well, I think it is the first Emran Hashmi movie I have sat through etc etc etc... but the bestest part about the movie was RANDEEP HOODA and that too in a well tailored police uniform....gaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Idhar Udhar Kidhar

Have too much going on all together (surprise!!) therefore didnt write in so long..
have 4 different things that I need to concentrate and write on, have 2 different people taking away my attention, have atleast 4 new decisions that i need to take, have 2 places atleast that i need to visit before miss kaur leaves the country (boohooo), have atleast 4 things which i need to clarify with 4 different people, have past, present and future to worry about........ now just blabbering...tata, will return when a bit more sane!

Reading a Novel

Just finished reading Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra an epic literally based on the life of a gangster, police walla, bomb scare and Mumbai. Very very bollywoody fit to be made into a movie. On the other hand, I think it is also a mish mash of a number of Bollywood movies, so there we go...!
But what I wanted to write about was how one can get completly lost in the characters of the novel. Specially a story that has soo many characters and each and every event, character is developed and explained in such detail that it can all individually make a short story in itself. Even though I complain about how the novel is not getting over, I do enjoy reading one, it takes you out of your own life, how ever mundane or interesting your own life would be and you suddenly become a silent observer in the craziness of other peoples lives.
The other part is that after you finish reading it for almost 2/3 weeks there is a complete void suddenly and I am unable to understand what to do... therefore I pick up the next one.
But now, I am surely done with plots based in Mumbai, although I still have maximum city to finish, which is not fiction though. Anyway thats my rant for the day :)

Too Much

As usual.. I dont have time to breathe and therefore I find time to write a post :) But why is it that I dont have time to breathe?? actually i do, its just that my head is filled with too many thoughts of the things to come...what things you may say...so here goes:

• I have finally made up my mind to go to London for my LLM. I had gotten addmission in SOAS last year, but didnt have any funding therefore I deffered it. This year also I did not get any funding, I guess I am not good enough for them to pay for me apart from other things so ya, I am still going with the huge loan to pay for my studies
• I have exactly only 3 months to finish consolidating, analysing, writing, re writing the work that I have been doing for the past few months on communal massacres.. I am so nervous that I am not even thinking about it....
• I have been nominated for the IVLP prog that the US Government has, which entitles me to a paid trip to USA for 3 weeks where i meet other similarly placed persons from US and other parts of the world, meaning thereby complete networking... but the concern currently is I dont know when those 3 weeks happen so it is driving me a little nuts... but i am completely excited about it
• In the middle of all this atleast a dozen people around me are getting married, I am going crazy
• I have to plan my packing of my stuff... I have spent 10 years in this city remember!!! and I am crazy about bags, books, clothes, cupboard, bed, fridge, kitchen, shoes!!!!!! what is to be done yaar!!

Anyway so that is my update for the time

Dreams

Plundering of labour
is not the most dangerous.
Neither is police beating
most dangerous.
The clenched fist of treachery, greed
is also not most dangerous.
Most dangerous is
Becoming full of morbid peace
Loosing rage and passion
Enduring all
Leaving home for work
And from work going back home
For the most dangerous is
Death of our dreams.

From http://krititeam.blogspot.com/

blabber blabber

Ok so I am completely and thoroughly bored! I need some excitment in life yaar. I am bored of getting up in the morning, getting angry at the maids (coz they are late!! and they are always laughing when i am lecturing them) damn it, having breakfast, getting ready, going to office, checking mail, fb etc, doing everything possible to avoid reading FIRs, wait for lunch time, have lunch, wait for disgusting tea to happen, pack bags and go home. then comes the interesting part, coz we always have something to do in the evening... Oh lord what do I do?? I cant be bored like this all the time....waiting and anticipating.... anyway, I will be in court tommorrow so yay to that and I saw LSD yesterday, it was not bad, i like experiments in cinema so ya not bad. We might be going to jaipur next week end!! and Im dying to go home. there is still no response from Mumbai on our RTIs uff!! and now im just balbbering!

Communal Riots and Me

I was 4 years old.... we had come to meerut to get my chacha married, chacha chachi had run away and gotten married side main and then my grandpa came to know and all hell broke loose. My father being the eldest son stepped in and spoke to amma and babaji to let this be and accept chachi. Therefore we were in North India on 31st October 1984. Since there was going to be an arya samaji wedding and there was also a curfew due to Indira Gandhi having been assassinated, there were hardly any people who had come home. We were leaving the same day or the next morning, I dont quite remember that.... all I remember next is that we were at the New Delhi railway station, mausi mausaji and muni were also there, i dont remember if rishi bhaiya was there or not......we were in the waiting room and I remember seeing blood and a lot of hair on the floor, I asked my mom what this was and maa said to me that the sardarjis were being killed and to save themselves they were cutting their hair off. Next I remember we were at the platform and suddenly a huge crowd came running and mom pushed me towards the wall and covered me. I hadnt seen the mob, but I had heard it.. I can still hear it. In the train (rajdhani or deluxe something) the glass windows had been hit and some of them had broken, the route had been changed and i was told by my cousin that it was because the sardars were killing people in the trains...... I do know the full truth of this now
In the year 92, i was 12 years old... a number of things had changed in my life by then, in december the riots in mumbai took place. I was living in Santacruz west and my school was in Bandra west. our school was shut for quite some time and then it was shut for christmas. We all were always scared and I remember that the muslim famlies in our colony had gone completely indoors, cudnt see them at all. Do remember the look on firoz's face once i had seen him outside. I also remember my school friends telling me that they could see mahim burning from their building terraces. We never talked about what happened, never discussed it in school. I remember once we were going to honey uncle's house in amboli, I think it was his bday or sumthing, I remember vandana was there and she was pregnant and we had passed a maha aarti taking place, I was really scared and didnt want to look up and just quickly walked away from there. Honey uncle had an enfiled bullet that he used to ride and he had told us that once he had saved some person because the group of 4/5 people thought he is from the police and they just ran away from there and the person they had gheraoed was saved...... thats what i remember from the mumbai riots
When gujrat happened I was in delhi studying law. I think it was then that i realised how much i have blocked information about riots from myself. I just did not want to accept that my city had altered so drastically and that human beings were capable of such violence...
Here I am now doing an accountability study of the state response to communal massacres, facing my fears, lowering my guard and letting the truth affect me, crying and wiping my tears and going ahead with my work, telling myself that this work will have an impact....

It isnt any trouble just to S M I L E

I remember this song that we were taught in school in class 2 or 3 i guess..... well why do i remember it now?? coz my work is just making me soo angry that i need to remind myself to smile and enjoy the momnet that I am living in....the difference that I need to make I am already on the path to making it...so that should not affect my ability to smile and laugh easily..isnt it??
So smile when you are in trouble, it will vanish like a bubble, if you only take the trouble just to SMILE.......

I am so pissed i cant even describe it

I must be strong and carry on...coz i know i dont belong here in heaven..........

Hooked line and sinker

Ok so its official, I am addicted....... to SATC (Sex and the City to the uninitiated) We i.e. J and I are on the last episode of Season 4 and I do hope and pray that J has downloaded the next season!! We are so involved that we keep finding the characters from the series in our life. I know I have a Steve, I have had a Big who is so not coming back (something that I am extremely proud of!!) I sure am looking for Adian.. dont think I have that one figured out, and by the way season 4 went i do sure hope i am ready to be tied dowm when i find my adian :).. Oh and who am I?? Well a mix of Carrie with loads of Miranda and a hint each of Samantha and Charlette.. so basically all 4 of the lead characters of the series. I also am completely in love with the way Carrie so easily pens down stuff on her laptop at some point in every episode... it so inspires me to blogg... obviously a lot comes in the way and therefore I am writing exactly after a month.. teehee..
A lot of women I know think that SATC just promotes a stereotype of how women should be and of the kind of problems single successful women face and that finally it does end in all of them finding the right men and getting married and that it is so much about sex and dating and multiple partners...etc etc... ok so i do agree that some of the stuff is a bit much from where I look at it.. but who am i kidding, arent we all actually looking for the compatible other, whether we are willing to give it a name like 'marriage' or not.. we all are, and thats what this series is all about... and you can judge me all you want, but i sure am a big fan of SATC !!