SAIACS update

This is just an update of happenings at SAIACS.

things are going fine here. slightly too fast for my comfort though.

I had to make a power-point show (along with Jeremiah) for SAIACS as they're applying for accreditation to Mysore University.

It took us the full of three nights. The show was 10:30min long, with 97 slides. We had to record a voice-over, which included a lot of amateur sound editing (a first for me!) While it was a learning experience, it involved me staying up till 3:30am two nights in a row. (and getting up at 7:30am the next day) and no afternoon siesta. resulting in a bit of harsh flu.

But everything went off smoothly, and the presentation has been, well... presented, successfully.

Now I have to get back to my studies, along with flu.

Of course, something else has been stealing my attention these few days.

The SAIACS volleyball tournament. We won yesterday's league match convincingly, and lost today's the same way.

There are three more league matches to go, and all our heads are filled with strategy.

If only we had more than 24 hours a day!

It feels like I'm alive again, and though I may not be explicitly contributing to society in anyway, I am glad to be alive and enjoy God and society!

Until the next post!

Are we born snobbish?

The contents from this post is a result of a few insightful conversations with sensible people. Therefore, thank you, sensible people.You'll know who you are. (The post is not polished, and the chances of me editing it is rare.)

Ever since I got immersed in to the (non-activist) leftist movement at JNU, I have always tried to open my ears to the voices of the poor and the oppressed. I try to look out for those that 'fall between the cracks' by either blending in too much or by being too silent. The orphan and the widow; the bonded laborer, the HiV victim cannot find the words to express their distress. They have been taught to scream silently, so that people like ourselves wouldn't hear them when we walk over them. And while there are a few who take advantage of their weakness and snatch from them what little they have, the rest of us either choose not to look in that direction, or mumble a prayer before deleting the memory off our head. I however, try to keep my eyes peeled and my ears dirt-free so I can catch the slightest whimper to either pray for or do something about it. Or so i thought...

I now realize that I am far-sighted; oblivious to the problems budding in my own college campus, just until a prophetic friend pointed it out to me. There is an entire set of people in my own college that look at me as a hi-fi person. As someone brought up in several urban settings, with (relatively) extensive computer knowledge, and who calls English his heart-language, I get a status of being one of 'those' 'hi-fi' people, while the 'normal' or 'simple' people born in a rural or poorer urban set-ups do not relate with me. There are other people who refuse to converse in English, but  can understand it, and I don't make a move to get to know them. Well, we can't blame anyone for that; we all have our different wavelengths and areas of interest, and it is these that define who our friends are. 

But this obsession with sticking with 'my own kind' is the beginning of the polarization of our campus, where people form different cliques based on their ethnicity and class-status. Everybody has their own comfort zone. But this gradual increase in the chasm between cliques deafens our ears to any cry from help from outside the group. Even Facebook doesn't effectively bridge the class/ethnicity divide between groups in our campus. The Lord, who's eyes range throughout the earth looking for a heart committed to Him and His mission for the 'orphan' and the 'widow' would reject us; who refuse to lift our head outside our comfort-group-huddle and take a look around now and then.

But why is it that we don't look outside our group? Because it involves a sense of insecurity of thinking differently from those within. Thinking differently from the group could lead you to a slow exile from the group itself. But in order to stand between the gap for the poor and the oppressed such small sacrifices will have to be made.

To keep things going

It's been more than a month since I've blogged, and now, I'm back; because of an unintended yet pricking reminder that it's been too long since I've left me ol' blog-desk. We writers generally bump into writers block when we either have nothing to write about, or when we have too much to write about that we don't know where to start. Inspiration comes when we generally have just enough to write about. But it's not because of writer's block that I haven't posted for more than a month now. It's because of the censor board in my head that tells me that my new found yet close friends would not take my rants about them very well. (No guys, you're all nice people... luv y'all!) 

Today we had a great game of lawn-badminton sans the floodlights, wooden courts, competition and resulting tiredness. A few months ago we had a refreshing game of volleyball, again without the angry coaches, scouts and angry team-mates. Just enough to release a good deal of sweat and a lot of endorphin. Looking back at my post-adolescent days when there was this unexplained yet deep desire to prove myself to be better than everyone else at almost every sport/skill, I didn't seem to enjoy sports. But after so many years of physical hibernation, just playing the game for no other reason that just playing the game in itself brings so much joy. Sure, my volleyball game and my badminton game will never be as good as it was 4 or 5 years ago, but who cares? It's not like I'm competing for the Olympics!

Not that I'm aged now or anything, but it's interesting to see how age changes ones priorities. What was once an insecure adolescent who finds his happiness by building his own skills that he can hide behind them, is now one who tries to focus on building up the people around him. (All you cheeky cynics, note the word tries!!) Also this 'letting go' of such obsessions gives me this sense of peace, that I now realize was forfeited when I decided to be 'better' than everyone else.

Moral of the story: Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?

(Hopefully my next post will come out sooner and better. Writer's block still not cleared. the nanowrimo experiment didn't help either)

Negotiating Spaces

This post has been sitting in the waiting-room of my head for quite a while now! (Thanks Subbu!)

I'm writing this post at 6:30am. The only reason why I got up so early in the morning was that I need to finish an assignment by 7:30am. Unfortunately, my mind seems to be interested in other things and my stomach seems to be uninterested in the Tea I just drank, so I might as well play along. (Hope no professor sees this :P)

Fourth month into SAIACS, and back to complete health (thanks for all your prayers! TB has finally said good-bye) I am back in business! 4-5 hours of sleep everyday, and lots and lots of incomplete to-do lists in hand. I'm loving it! Though, interestingly, this was not the reason why I joined here in the first place! 

When I decided to join a Bible college, it was basically to take time off and learn about God and myself. To have a contemplative two years after which I should have figured out which direction I should be headed. So the fact that we get huge single-seater rooms, good food and excellent academic stimulation in this Bangalore periphery made me apply. Interestingly (though not surprisingly) things have been way different than planned.

This being the third campus I've lived in is more crammed than the first two. People literally piling on people. All sense of anonymity is lost. People would come to know how many times you've used the loo that week, and for some sadistic reason, will pass on the information! And though I have a single room, its prime location in the hostel makes it an ideal storage-space for all the day-scholars and a good hang-out for hostelites. This meaning, all sense of privacy is lost! And in the words of a dear professor of mine, we need to learn to just 'negotiate our spaces'. 

Though I'm ripping her phrase off her context, we've been playing with these words for quite sometime, and they have proved to be useful. The fact that we are packed like sardines in a can explains that we need to learn to negotiate our spaces of anonymity; basically trying not to tread on other's toes and sharpening our filtering systems (yeah, the ones that make sure we don't drop our guard let out important secrets). We also learn to negotiate spaces of priority. 'Is my academics more important? or is it that friend that needs my help?' 'Will I lose both rabbits if I chase them at the same time?' 'Or will I get both mangoes with the same stone?' We learn to negotiate spaces of self-images 'Should I care of what people think?' or 'Should I just learn to be myself?' It's interesting that after so many years in closed campuses, I find that I'm learning these things for the first time! With this lack of human 'space' in this huge sparsely populated campus, we have to learn to negotiate our spaces in order to live a sane life. 

 

Paradise

Never thought I'd get back to studying, but here I am, back to unreality. I remember crying myself to sleep on my first day in Delhi. Staying on top of a deserted house in a village that was famous for its dangerous gangs. It was quite traumatic in the beginning, to hear of thefts in nearby houses, and a theft in the very same house that I had just moved into. At that time I did not have any house-hold things, except for a rice-cooker. I tried cooking on my very first night there, and I gagged over and over while I tried to stuff the sticky rice in as fast as possible. I wasn't even used to eating alone! 

2 years (counting 5 months at home) in a life like that, where my worries were about stuffing money in socks when I walked home after 11 in the night, and how I would get up in the morning for work when I was forced to stay up all night because there was no electricity and the mosquitos that swarmed like the locusts during Moses' plague. 

Now, all I seem to worry about is not being able to keep in touch with friends and not being able to organize myself, and not be as productive as I should be. The food, the laundry, security problems and the company ot have fun with is taken care of! I am pampered in many ways. I hope I do well here. Must get my act together.

Where are you from?

Being a campus hopper all my life, I have found that the first few questions people ask you could tell you a lot about the atmosphere you're entering into. When I walked into my Std V class in Chennai for the first time, everybody said. "Which class do you belong to?" "Std V? Sec A? Right this way!" Do you know Tamil?, no? Are you a foreigner? Where do you live? Oh! How much is your rent?..." I got to answer all these questions on my first day at school, all of 9 years. But I (much later) figured out that they were bunch that hadn't seen anything outside Chennai. That last question told me how particular they were about the class-setup. Who was richer than the other, and why. 

When I moved to JNU, the question there was... "Which college did you study in last?" Obviously, trying to gauge your past education, and calculate your IQ based on that information. At Xaviers, it was a more happy-go-lucky kind, where one asks "What are your interests?" hoping you would have the same hysterical love for jive dancing, F-1 racing, or obscure modern poetry as they do. 

At SAIACS, the question is more primordial. "Where are you from?" People like myself, who have been travelling around do not have an accurate answer. I end up telling where my parents were from, which gives them some satisfaction. Somehow, as a person living in cosmopolitan areas all my life, the question shocks me. But it reveals a lot more. The asker, mostly someone stepping into a cosmopolitan environment for the first time in their life would prefer finding someone they could relate with better on a cultural level; mainly to help both asker and askee deal with the crazy cosmopolitan environment. It also helps build stereotypes about places and people. Put strange faces and behaviors into boxes. It is an amazing coping mechanism, helping the person adjust better if not used with caution. Stereotypes could become unproductive and racist if not handled with care.

Since 80% of the campus are exposed to such environments for the first time, much care must be taken to not step on anybody's toes. Just to know what the person's background is will let most people know where his toes are. e.g. whether the person eats pork, or whether he gets offended by sarcasm, etc. During my BA, I was thought about the evils of stereotypes, that could lead to racism, and how mean it is to ask questions based on ethnicity.  It's interesting how a little more basic (rather mundane) knowledge can help build (instead of break) relationships with strangers. 

5 Stages of Settling in

Every new place I go to, I unconsciously go through a few stages of settling in. Have you heard of the 5 stages of grief? Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance? I have my own 5 stages for settling down in a new place. 

Stage 1 Getting a feel 

Being altogether new and all, I try to keep a low profile, while trying to find out as much as possible about the place, and the kind of people that are there. Introvert as I am, I will not talk much, be as polite as possible, and try to not  step on anybody's toes. Doing that in SAIACS was quite the challenge, because like a prof here once said, 'we're all crammed here like sardines'. So getting a feel, which usually takes 2 weeks, took me only one. I got to know many great people, and spotted my potential buddies, and I slowlly slipped to 

Stage 2 Getting comfortable

As the Tamil saying goes, the 'tail came out of the pants' (translated and paraphrased). I started getting bolder, pulling out my usual sarcasm, and getting to know people a little bit more. This is when I slowly stop missing my old friends and try to 'move on' to the new ones. This usually takes 2 months to complete. SAIACS tries its best to be welcoming to new-comers, trying to help us out in any way possible, from faculty to students. The weather speaks for itself, and the campus, with its rough stone railings, huge well-manicured lawn, cheerful people, croquet, cricket, football and music lures you into itself. Days go by quickly, as not much time is wasted. The rigorous academic schedule makes sure of that. After a slight initial complaining, I'm comfortable enough to get to know SAIACS a little more, pushing me into 

Stage 3 Disillusionment

This is where I am now. Since all campuses or places showcase themselves as the ideal spot to be in, and that it's only a closer view that actually reveals that it's impossible to be 'ideal', it pushes you into disillusionment. All those assumptions I made in Stage 1 and 2 slowly break-down when I see the darker reality of what's before me. Virtues I was so used to in other places are absent here. The people here are so different from what I thought they would be like. With SAIACS, it is how stories about you are made and how they come back to you modified and exaggerated. With JNU, it was the dirty dhabas, the disregard for professionalism and usage of time, the slow way things moved POed most of us, city-slickers that learned to split every second in two. This stage is a stage where decisions could be made. (observe the hi-lighted 'could') You could either quit, or, slowly and unwillingly shift into 

Stage 4 Paradigm shift. (Pun -tended)

I haven't got to this stage here at SAIACS, but I will soon get there, don't worry. I've done it before :P. In JNU, when I was so pissed with taking things slow, I learnt how to keep myself occupied, and think and meditate on things. I watched many movies, read many books, learnt to juggle, learnt to play the guitar a little better, made a crazy bunch of friends, danced for the first time. These things I couldn't have done without having all 24 hours of the day with just 2 hours required to stay afloat in class. At Dwarka, I learnt to cope with loneliness at nights with the movies, and random outings with friends, occasionally enjoying the adventure of walking into a dangerous village unarmed at 11pm!

Stage 5 Settling Down

Nothing much to explain here. Ever heard of the phrase "The City grows into you"? It's true with every new 'phase' on the planet! Just let yourself into the experience, while trying to stay away from the parts that conflict with your own values, and 'Bob's your uncle'!

I can't wait for Stage 5.