More Finnerty-isms

Student: Can sunlight cause mutagenic effects in the ovaries?
Finnerty: If sunlight caused mutagenic effects in the ovary, people really shouldn't be wearing those teeny, tiny bikinis, should they?
Student:.....uuuuuh
Finnerty: I'm kidding! I'm kidding!......Most people's bikinis cover their ovaries anyway.

"I was looking for photographs of the XXX karyotype on the internet to show you guys. So I typed in super-female, because fruit flies is all I know. You would not believe what comes up when you type super-female on images. The boots......the whips....its disgusting!"

Finnerty-isms

So here's the deal with my bio proff. She's a horrible teacher, but she's hilarious in a Woody Allen-esque way. Here are some of my favorite things she's said in class.

(On Tay-Sachs disease) "So all you embryoninc physicians out there, just discover a disease that noone else has heard of and it'll be named after you and you'll be famous too."

(On some website she wanted us to read for the next class) "Go to this website if you're interested in cell biology....actually don't. It's full of dirty pictures. And if you do, do it from someone else's computer so no one will know it's you."

(On some random scientist who discovered something really important in 1890...forgot the details) "...and contrary to what alot of you might believe, I was not around at that time...but this dude was."

(On fermentation and the production of carbon dioxide from sugar...and this is my favorite.) "My advice to you is, if you ever make beer, and I think you should, it's fun, store your bottles in the garage or on the deck...not in your kitchen in case you overdo it with the sugar."

Sigh....I love Finnerty.

The Chari Story

Here is an old story from the days of yore when I was but a duckling in the 11th grade. I wrote it one day in a particularly boring physics class. I wish you luck and hope you enjoy reading it.

A textbook description of a student would typically sound something like this,

‘ A true student comes to school in the morning with a fresh face and shining eyes. As he enters his classroom, shivers of anticipation run down his spine. He awaits his teacher, eager to receive the knowledge she has to impart…’

Which just goes to show how pointless it is to read a textbook and how full of crap the writers are.

This is what it should say.

‘ The typical student comes to school in the morning bleary-eyed and yawning. As he drags his sorry butt up the seemingly endless flights of stairs to his classroom, he tends to curse the unknown force that makes him rise five days a week at an ungodly hour just to face eight hours of endless tedium.’

Ok. Maybe that’s exaggerating it a little bit, but you get the general idea.

It was in a mood like this that I entered the 11^th standard class room one bleak Wednesday morning. The sight of my friends standing at the doorway lit a weak fire in the ice box that was my soul.

“Hey Tara. “

“Hey Dhadi.”

“ What do we have first period?”

“Physics.”

The warm glow that had started to fill me was extinguished abruptly. Gloomily, we made our way to our seats.

Enter Chari.

Now Chari, our physics teacher, is something of a joke. Her school uniform consists of the following:

1. A standard issue sari. So far so good.
2. A matching blouse that is always 100% cotton and 100% see-through. Now normally you would assume that the sight of women’s underwear would excite the teenage boys in the class. Clearly, if that is what you think, you have never seen Chari. All the males in her class keep their eyes carefully averted from this ghastly sight. Not out of modesty, but out of a strong sense of self-preservation.
3. Having little or no hair in the vicinity of her eyebrows, she draws her own.

In addition to this, Chari also possesses a general incompetence and complete lack of common sense that can be rivaled only by the legendary South American dodo. The South American dodo, now extinct, is said to have been one of the ugliest, stupidest, sorriest species nature ever had the misfortune to create. Many spiritualists believe that it was the Good Lord, in all his wisdom, that took pity on the earth and deliberately eliminated the entire population.

Anyway, Chari’s entry into the classroom elicited little or no response from the rest of the class who were busy talking, screaming, running, fighting and/or sleeping. After a few weak, unsuccessful attempts to restore order, she gave up and began mumbling and writing disconnected figures entirely at random on the board.

It was at this point that Henc decided to talk to Mamu. Mamu, whose regard for Henc at this point was comparable to his regard for Chari, responded in language too rough to be printed on this page.

Henc decided to reply in a most mature and eloquent fashion by hurling her pen at Mamu’s head. And in an interesting twist of fate, it completely missed Mamu and hit Poop in the eye. Half – blinded with pain and howling in rage, Poop threw a half-eaten cabbage sandwich in the general direction from which the pen came. It landed square on Tara’s head.

In the ensuing chaos, during which the class started hurling things at one another, including paper, two benches, a number of grapes, and infact, Shanty, Chari tried once to restore order, slipped on a few stray grapes, was knocked over by the flying Shanty, and slunk out of the room unnoticed as the bell rang marking the end of the physics period.

“So Tara, what do we have next?”

“Yoga.”

Sigh.

Farewell

Entering the real world is imminent. I wonder if it will be like stepping onto a sunny beach or falling into icy water....or perhaps an intermediate of the two; diving into a tepid swimming pool.

I'm all set. My bags are packed, my farewells said and my schedule tentative. So, goodbye Bangalore. I will miss your crowded streets, your sweltering heat, your pouring rain, your punctuality or lack thereof, your masala dosas, your ready smiles and your colourful insults.
I will miss you in all your uncouth warmth, you, the city I love.

I don't really have anything to say. I just feel guilty that in the last 4 months, I've put up roughly 10 posts; an all-time low in my short and moderately successful blogging career. There's no momentum in my life right now, no direction. The most productive work I've done this month has been to watch both the Beatles' movies - "Help!" and "A Hard Day's Night" (both of which are hilarious, the later more so than the rather cliche former). It's as if I'm in suspended animation, waiting for something or someone to hit play. Like i will now....

Help! I need somebody!
Help! Not just anybody!
Help! You know I need someone!
Heeeellpp!

For those poor souls who don't already know, that was from the Beatles' hit, Help! Fitting, eh?

Also, lately, I've been listening to a lot of songs by George Harrison. But that's neither here nor there.

The Rat and/or Tornado

Why do parents just assume that you love their children?

The small boy comes to my door, screaming at his mother and telling me point blank that he wants to come in.

Maybe later? We're eating lunch.
But I want to.
Come baby, I will get you some icecream. says the mother.
No. I want to!
OK how about you come in another 15 minutes.
Yes baby, they are eating. Come I'll get you a gameboy.
NO! I WANT TO!
But...
Please baby...
I WANT TO! I WANT TO! I WANT TO!
OK OK. Come, come.
Sorry. He's just cranky. He didn't sleep last night.
No problem, aunty.

I grimace as I here a crash and a wicked shriek from within. Hastily I say goodbye and rush off to see what priceless heirloom the little monster has broken. I look at the alabaster shards that litter the floor and up in dismay at the inert little face.

Please don't play in the living room, you will break things.
&%$#!(&%^!!!!!!

And off he runs. I tell him not to shout, he hurls startlingly original obscenities at me. I tell him not to jump around, he jumps on my toes. I tell him to put my book down, he hurls it at my face.

I reach a breaking point. The only thing holding me back from picking him up by his nostrils and hurling him out the 1st floor window is the prospect of facing his mother's considerable bulk and a the jail sentence for murder. I fall to my knees and pray for deliverance. I promise 11 coconuts in the Ganapathi Kovel the next day. And just to make sure my prayer is heard I pray to Jesus...Our Father who art in heaven (crash)....and Allah...I will do namaz. I will do zakhat(smash, dash).

Mercifully, the door bell rings.

Hello beta.
Hello Aunty.
How has he behaved.

I have difficulty expressing my enhanced feelings of anger, hate, resentment and horror. She interprets my silence and twitching face as love for her horrible child.

What a good boy he is. Where is he? Bring him here.

I go in and ask him to leave. When answered only with a shrill No! I bodily carry him to the door bravely risking permanent disembowlement and facial disfiguration.

You had fun beta?
I want to stay!
No beta.
I WANT TO!
Aunty, we have to go out now.
I WANT TO! I WANT TO!
Bye Aunty.

I slam the door shut and lock and bolt it for good measure. Slowly, I crawl into the drawing room which looks as if a small tornado or large rat has swept through it. Slumped on the couch, I thank all Gods for keeping me alive and pray that the little boy moves far away to Nicaragua...or Kashmir.

The Old Woman and the Sea

The waves crashed and lashed on jagged black rocks, the white of the surf making stark contrast with the deep blue-brown of the sea. It was the time of day when the sky was swathed in gold and pink blending seemlessly into grey above.
I sat on the edge of Worli Seaface, admiring the power of the cruel sea and the beauty of the sky, trying to ignore the sounds and scents of Mumbai's teeming millions on the pavement. A warm wind blew about me, gently ruffling my hair. I watched as a man and his child made their way across the rocks to the very edge, where water met land. It put me in mind of the time we went to Goa.

We had gone to one of the dirtier beaches for a swim. A few other families were there as well. The water was very sandy and no one couldn't venture near the swirling water without sand collecting in pockets beneath their clothes. Everyone was eyeing the dirty waters apprehensively, unwilling to risk getting gritty. My brother ran full speed and jumped right in. He didn't even wait for his clothes to get dirty. He took handfuls of dirt and rubbed it into his hair.

A small smile played across my lips. What a day it had been.

Suddenly, a small, white object went sailing over the ledge into the sea. It was a plastic bag filled with all sorts of garbage. The old woman who had thrown it, turned and walked away without a word. I gazed at her receding figure in disbelief. I could have gone a little further to a spot where I wouldn't have had to watch that ugly white bag of death floating away in the beautiful water, but I knew it wouldn't have been the same. My evening was ruined. Quietly, with bitter thoughts, I rose.

Dreams Fulfilled

I sit before a blinking cursor with dreams fulfilled, with arrogance drained, with humble gratitude. I move forward now into realms unknown and though my path may not be easy nor even enjoyable, I go forth with pride and hope. And as I sit now in a watery pool of happiness, I seal a little blue-green drop of it in a plastic bag close to my heart before it evaporates into reality.

Impossibilities

I want to take a chance
roll the dice
because I feel wild
But I can't.

I want to jump higher and higher
run faster and faster
because I am happy.
But I won't.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs.
Let it resound through the night
because I feel free.
But I'm not.

bum /bum/ n A twenty-something sitting on his bike in the middle of Hosur Road smoking a bidi watching lackadaisically as Bangalore traffic goes by.

Melt Down

Today my heart melted.

I visited the animal shelter at CUPA in hopes of taking a small step towards the hypothetical. I managed to achieve absolutely nothing of the sort. I did however have the best afternoon I've had in a long time. This is, in essence, what I did:

1. I walked 5 dogs; Jimmy, Puppy, Blackie, Moti and Unamed in that order.
I really don't know how the CUPA guys manage to recognize all of their 50 odd similarly named dogs. Let me tell you a little about each of my acquaintances though. Jimmy is a three legged veteran who valiantly walked for 15 mins with me. Puppy is the most energetic canine I have ever met. She dragged me along a wheezing adventure as she chased a squirel, ate grass, barked most viciously at an insane white pomeranian as I breathlessly cheered her on and just generally made me feel like I was 50 years old. Earlier this year, she broke her back and was left with a permanent limp. Even after surgery, her back hurts when she runs. Blackie is a beautiful black dog with a white neck. Moti was the most well behaved of the lot. Unamed is a new old dog fresh off the streets. I tried to name him Dan but I don't think he liked it very much.

2. I played with, fed and watered all the puppies in the centre (four of which were less than 3 weeks old). My already liquid heart started to bubble and boil and I'd like to say it evaporated, but that would just be Michaelish. Then I cleaned their cages.

3. I found out that in order to come back again, I would have to take, approximately, six very painful injections. My heart slowly solidified.

Tomorrow, I search for vaccines.

Dhoom 2

..is possibly the second worst film I have ever been made to sit through.

The movie begins with the stupidest fight scene anyone has ever choreographed. The queen of England is travelling with her grandchildren and the crown jewels in a single train car through the Sahara Desert. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a guy dressed completely in black drops out of the sky and attempts to steal them by impersonating the queen. How brainless must he be to attempt daylight robbery dressed all in black against a light blue sky. Even more preposterous, he succeeds. Blessed by some divine force unknown to us, he evades the bullets of trained royal guards by simply flipping back and forth on the roof of the moving train. He then does a mind-blowingly boring sand-boarding sequence holding onto a rope attached to the train. During this time, he doesn't really move, but eludes the guards' shots for a good 5 minutes.

Somewhere between finding out that the robber(Z I think his name was....let's just call him Z) is the most evasive international criminal in the world, and the ensuing song and dance sequences, we are introduced to the heroine.

Enter Aishwarya Rai.
She should have been blond. (For those of you who do not know the meaning of ditsy, I strongly recommend that you watch her first scene.)

It was at this point that the possibility of suicide first crossed my mind.

I could go on and on, but I'll spare you the unnecessary reading. Basically, it's a horrible movie. If you value your intelligence and your self-respect as a human being, don't watch it. Don't go within ten feet of any movie theatre playing it.

The only people that deserve a little credit are the make-up artists. The movie's one saving grace is its sex appeal. The movie is Aishwarya Rai, Hrithik Roshan, and the sweat dripping off their bodies. Of course this is supplemented by random dance sequences where scantily clad women perspire while performing obscene dance moves.

Art

What is it? Is it the curious turn of the hair from which faint glimmers of Johnson's Baby Hair Oil are just barely unnoticeable? Is it the grotesque blob of fat that dangles precariously from the bottom of the chin? Is it the multicoloured balloon outfit?

What is it that makes this baby so mysterious?

Or as my friend and renowned critic of the arts put it, What the hell is that?(laughter) Just look at it!

When Murab Shariff*, a local Dubai photographer shot a standard issue passport-sized photo of a stunningly chubby baby girl, he was unaware that he would, in the future, be credited as the artist of the ugliest, funniest, weirdest baby picture that Kumarans had ever seen.

Hats off to you Mr Shariff*. If not for you, I might never have seen Aditi simultaneously laugh, eject various liquids from her nose and fall over the canteen ledge landing on and thereby distracting two very flushed eighth graders from what had obviously been a steamy make out session and flinging hot oopma over the entire high school in a manner similar to that of the elderly at a wedding. Standing under that warm shower of cracked wheat, struggling for breath due to a cracked rib, I thought, thank God for you Mr Shariff*, thank God for you.

* Name changed to ensure anonymity and hilarity.

Cockroach Obituary and Other Adventures

This is dedicated to the memory of O.N. Longineau III, whose short, unfulfilling life ended abruptly on March 21st at approximately 2am in the morning. I am happy to say that it was I who killed him. I whacked him with a broom as he scurried across the hall, presumably to meet his brother Frank.

Frank, as it turns out, was not, as Longineau had thought, across the hall , but was engaged in blatant fornication atop a bowl of bananas in the kitchen with a girl of obscure origins. Frank! You dirty, dirty old man! said I, for Frank had a wife and many children. I discovered Mrs Frank and the Franks as I rummaged through the shoe closet for a pair of sandals. Stop screaming! You'll wake little Ned, yelled Mrs Frank with silent consternation.

Mrs Frank had a cousin, Francois, who had recently taken residence in a small crack in the bathroom wall. Francois was quite clearly a man of breeding. When he saw, that morning, that I intended to bathe myself, he politely retreated into the dark recesses of his crack.

So you see, when Longineau died on that fateful March morning, he left behind thousands of friends and relatives who will remember him till the day they die.

Of course, I sprayed to house from top to bottom with Baygon the next day.

The End Isn't Near, It's Here!!!!!!

And so ends perhaps the most important milestone in my high school career.

Four Down...


...and the end is in sight!

THREE DOWN

The next two days can only be described as what will be a mental marathon.

two down

One down.

A Day to Remember contd...

The couple of the year

(giggles) Standing tall, bending short...whatever.

Unsafe to comment

The Bio girls

MerDer: This has absolutely nothing to do with Farewell...but I just love it.

For more pics of Mer, Der and the rest of the Grey's Anatomy Cast, click on my Grey's Media link on the sidebar.

Random Observation

I have realized that the reason why I hate physical contact with another person is that I have a very strong aversion to drama of any sort. Drama in this case encompasses every extreme of emotion and action. I like things calm and orderly.

Which is not to say that I don't like watching drama. I most certainly do. Whether virtual or real, drama interests me. But I enjoy it only in the capacity of a passive observer, not an active participant.

A Day to Remember

The Dirties entirely between their element.

The 12th standard Biology class of 2006-07!!

Computers Rocks!!....apparently

The PhD, The Cyclotron, The Green Vitriol and The Improbability Factor

A rite of passage

Posted above are the a few of the many pictures in memoriam. Jeez, in memoriam sounds so morbid. Anyway, the titles are a little cheesy. If you think of better ones, let me know, and I'll change them.

My Farewell Speech

We have waited for this moment all our lives, the moment when we leave our childhood behind and step into the world to forge our own paths in life. We have counted down the years, the months, the hours, minutes and seconds, and finally, that moment has arrived. I find myself not a little sad , for I will be leaving behind people that shaped my life and a place that is as much a part of my identity as the name I bear.

Kumarans is like an intricate mosaic, and it is not the final picture, but the individual peices that I will miss the most. I will miss the familiar feeling of disembowelement as I ride down the road to school. I will miss the stampede that follows the 9th period bell. I will miss the delightful smells from the chemistry lab that waft their way through the ground floor. Most of all, I will miss the very heart of my experience as a student; my friends and my teachers. Thank you teachers, for all that you have taught me - lessons that extended well beyond the four walls of a classroom. Thank you, all my classmates, for two wonderful years - for all the fun, the hysterical laughter and the valuable lessons in Tamil popular culture. Thank you Deepa Ma'am, for providing me with myriad opportunities for growth during my time here as a student.

When we leave here today, we will take with us the memories of these seemingly trivial things. Memories that we will, nonetheless, cherish for the rest of our lives. And I hope that just as we take with us these memories of our school, we will leave behind our own imprint; an echo of the laughter we once shared, a shadow of the students we once were.

When?

This afternoon, while my sister and I kept my mother company in the kitchen, the talk turned to Aishwarya's new found environmentalism. (What can I say? She's my sister. It was bound to happen.)

She was very disturbed by certain statistics she had learnt in school regarding the disposal of plastic materials (the exact values of which prove elusive at the moment). A very large percentage of plastic wastes in India are simply discarded on its roads by the careless and are left to accumulate in a wayside gutter until they clog our drainage systems and result in the overflowing of sewage water. (At this point, I would like to point out that the mushy garbage mulch that is the drainage river outside Ranka Colony on Bannerghatta Road originated in the very same way.) Moreover, that very afternoon, she had seen the campus sweepers cutting down a couple of the campus trees, which are supposedly government protected, for firewood.

I believe her exact words were,

"Mommy, I mean, like, how could anyone even do that! That sucks!"

That does suck.

In any case, she wanted to make a difference and galvanize people to a new environmental consciousness. She wanted our mother to help her get people to start recycling and stop cutting down trees.

I had never been prouder of her.

Inspite of my pride and my agreement with her sentiments, I found myself telling her that her plan would never work. The sweepers have to survive somehow. They haven't the money for a gas stove nor can they afford to buy firewood. IIM is the only place where they can cut down trees for free and get away with it. Secondly, India is too set in its ways to ever change. The very school children who hold fairs on recycling awareness, casually discard chocolate wrappers from the windows of their school bus. The whole cause, is useless, said I.

I was shocked at myself. When did I, who always believed in the environmentalist cause, who believed in teaching by example, become so cynical? Was it when I tried and failed to get IIM to circumvent their construction plans around invaluable, forty-odd-year old trees? Was it when I tried and failed in the ninth standard to get the primary school to plant trees on the school campus in honour of World Environment Day? Was it the during the last four years, when I had repeatedly tried and failed to convince my siblings not to burst firecrackers on Diwali and not to use synthetic colours a.k.a. poisonous chemicals on Holi?

Where did my belief that the world could change leave me? When did the hope that a greener India was possible desert me?

Our Conversations

Me: Hiya
All: Hiii!
Vasudha: So in this Veytriyada Villaiada...
Me: So I was thinking....maybe we should try an eco-friendly diwali this year. No crackers, just lights...
Tara: Ai what this Arundhati is saying ya?
Aditi: Arundhati, we can't do all this Americaana things, OK? We are from India, not India-anna.
Tara: We are...1,2,3
Tara, Vasudha, Aditi: L-O-K-K-A-L!
Me: (weakly) OK...but let's just try and see..

(completely ignored)

Aditi: This Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bacchan have gotten off engaged you know?
Tara: Ya ya. Cha!

(enter Hema)

All: Hahi!
Tara: Wassup? Ai these Americaanas are here.
Hema: Boys suck.
All: ......
Hema: I have come to the conclusion that guys are just the worst creatures ever to have crawled out of the oceans.
Me: OK. Why?
Hema: They just do.

NOTE: Tara, Vasudha, Aditi, please excuse my abysmal tamil spellings.

After a Hard Four Months

I finally finished all my college applications!

I was about to delete all the essays I have so painstakingly (pain being the key word) written over the last four months before it occured to me that they would be an absolute waste if no one ever got to read them. So I've selected the best of them and posted them below. It might also give future college applicants from India an idea of what a typical college essay is like.

Cheers!

Write a book report on a book you recently read.

Feasting, Fasting

By Anita Desai

Anita Desai is one of the new generation of contemporary Indian writers who convey their stories in English. Born of an Indian father and German Mother, she conversed in German at home and in Hindi with friends and neighbors. She first learnt to write in English, and therefore, identifies it as “the language of books.” After graduating as a BA in English from Delhi University, Desai went on to become one of the world’s most celebrated authors.

Desai’s writing deals mostly with the feelings and intricacies of human relations rather than physical occurrences. She aims to reveal “the truth that is nine-tenths of the iceberg that lies submerged beneath the one-tenth visible portion we call ‘reality’.” Her largely feminist writings portray to perfection the hybridization of the west and east in India and western countries. Feasting, Fasting, nominated for the Booker Prize in 1999 has been written in the same vein.

Set in a small provincial town in mid-twentieth century North India, Feasting, Fasting follows the lives of Uma and her family. Middle-aged and bound to her parents in servitude by two marriages put to farce, Uma is no better than a servant in her own home. Blessed with the desire to learn and obey, but lacking in the capacity to perform, Uma is seen as a burden on the household. A failure in school, and later in the most important job of a woman, to make a good marriage, Uma lives her life chained to her family by spinsterhood, despised by her parents.

In stark contrast to Uma, her sister Aruna is gifted with brains, beauty and a good marriage to a fabulously handsome, rich and successful man. She thus fulfills her ambition and moves to Bombay, leaving her small town roots behind her.

“MamaPappa”, different in body but singular in thought and action, rule their little domestic kingdom with somnolent routine. Desai aptly demonstrates the relationship between a man and his household through Papa’s character. Papa is an established dictator. He controls his family with unquestioned and for the most part, unreasonable authority which stems from an all-consuming need to assert himself. This need for superiority pervades not only his domestic but his professional life as well. Mama, in her capacity as consort and mother of his son, performs her daily rituals of serving Papa tea and agrees with his every thought and action.

Arun, Papa’s asthmatic son and heir, is everything that Papa wished against in a son. Abhorrent of weakness in any form, Arun’s frailty and vegetarianism never fail to irk him. Nonetheless, Papa sets about to educate his son with the most rigorous of schedules and the best schools and tutors that money can buy. In effect, from the moment he is born, Arun’s life is chalked out for him by his expectant father. Oppressed by his family’s expectations, Arun longs for anonymity. Ultimately, he is pushed into the University of Massachusetts for further studies where he finally finds what he seeks.

During the summer break, when dorms are closed, Arun goes to live with the sister of a missionary’s wife from his home town. Desai here sheds light on the plight of women in the west and its startling similarities to that of their eastern sisters. Mrs. Patton, Arun’s kind host, trapped in the conformations of middle-class suburbia, finds relief in her friendship with Arun. In him, she finds an excuse to indulge in vegetarianism and escape from her family’s penchant for meat. Mr. Patton’s character can be identified as a western hybrid of Papa’s character. Mrs. Patton’s compliance with her husband’s ritual of making steak is reminiscent of Mama’s observance of Papa’s daily rites. Arun discovers, during his time with the Pattons, their daughter Melanie’s anorexia, a fact of which Mrs. Patton remains oblivious till the end of the summer.

Through Feasting, Fasting, Desai brings out the most disturbing aspects of female existence in feminist India; their lack of freedom and status as independent individuals. Uma, bound to her parents, Anamika, the brilliant cousin, broken in spirit and burnt to death by her cruel in-laws and even Mama, the embodiment of the Indian matron, all serve as illustrations of the plight of women in the east. Desai deals, in Arun’s character, with the pressure of Indian society on the male child to excel. Cornered by expectation on all sides, Arun turns into a recluse of sorts, shunning any semblance of intimacy. Through Papa’s character, Desai portrays to perfection, the mid-twentieth century upper-middle class man’s need to affirm his authority over his women-folk. To him, his home was his castle, his daughter’s were objects to be disposed of with inordinate sums of money in dowry and his sons, vehicles for the attainment of unfulfilled dreams. Desai sheds light on the similarities between the restrictions society places on women in the east and west in Mrs. Patton’s compliance with her husband’s habit of eating meat. She also brings out the prevalence of the problem of anorexia in the west through Melanie’s character. Disturbingly revealing, Feasting, Fasting can be compared in style and substance with period novels like Anna Karenina.

If you could pose for a formal oil portrait in the style of Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors, what possessions would surround you and why?

If I were to pose for a formal oil portrait in the style of The Ambassadors, I would use the shelf to depict my present anchors and future aspirations. Therefore, the lower shelf would carry pictures of my friends, my school basketball jersey, my computer, displaying the first page of my blog (of which I am ridiculously proud) and perhaps a microscope (symbolizing my favorite haunt; the biology laboratory). On the lower shelf, I would display a stethoscope, an electron microscope and most definitely, the northwestern emblem.

What fictional character would you choose as your college roommate and why?

I think Sir Galahad Threepwood; the debonair, old youth from the Blandings series by P.G. Wodehouse would make an interesting roommate. He is unconventional, well-traveled and a gifted raconteur. I think he would be fun to spend time with. At the same time, I would be able to count on his help in a bind.

People tend to accept traditions blindly. Examine a commonly accepted tradition you think needs updating or changing. Why should it be changed and how would you change it?

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.

- Voltaire

India has long been a country of startling socio-economic imbalances. On August 15th, 1947, India ceased to be a jewel in the British crown and became a nation in its own right. India’s leaders then swore that they would remove the wide imbalances in different sections of society and provide equal opportunities to the downtrodden; the women, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (the lowest of castes). Thus, the reservation policy or “quota” in public education and government jobs was born. It was to be a temporary measure to level the differences in education between different societal strata.

Sixty years on, the “quota” still persists, transformed from a remedial policy to an unshakeable tradition. Despite widespread protests and demonstrations, the federal government is now working on a bill requiring all National Universities to reserve close to fifty percent of their seats for people from scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other designated backward classes, regardless of their financial or economic status. In India, admission into a reputed university depends on one’s rank in nation-wide entrance tests conducted for that university. The competition is stiff and selection cut-offs are extremely high. A fifty percent reservation means that the cut-off for candidates in the general (non-reserved) quota will become steeper, and the chances of a meritorious student receiving admission that he or she deserves will decrease significantly. Indeed, by implication, half of the nation’s best universities will be filled with “lesser-qualified” students, who gained entrance by virtue of their birth.

I am all for the upliftment of the backward classes. However, I don’t think that reservation at the university level, particularly a fifty percent reservation, is the way to achieve it. The reality is that most of the candidates who qualify as scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, are under-prepared for a university education due to a lack of a solid foundation at the primary school level. Even if reservation helped them gain admission, they often find themselves struggling in the classroom. To me, it would make more sense to implement the same reservation in the best schools, at the primary and secondary school level. That way, by the age of eighteen, they would be as competent as their general counterparts.

Moreover, the reservation quota has led to the formation of a scheduled elite; mainly rich politicians, whose children already have access to the best facilities India has to offer. Thus, its effect is neutralized as its benefits are availed by those who don’t need it. If the quota were to be modified so it was applicable only to those families whose yearly earnings lay below a certain income-level, it would, perhaps, serve its purpose.

India is a developing country, and at present, it needs a large pool of highly-qualified college graduates to help it along the road to development. Reservation in its best universities would simply push the nation into an era of reverse Darwinism.

In his book Having Everything Right: Essays of Place, Kim Stafford describes the Kwakiutl tribe of British Columbia assigning place-names based on the natural characteristics of a location, the events that took place there, or the feelings that the site instilled. "Where Salmon Gather," "Sound of Dripping Water," and "Where Dzo'noq!wa Cried Out Oh," were among the names the Kwakiutl people assigned to their surroundings. He'lade, translating to "Place Having Everything Right," was of particular meaning, as it was the name universally given to exceptional locations. What is your he'lade?

I held him as he died. My vision blurred as I tenderly pushed a fallen lock of hair out of his eyes. The music reached a crescendo and the curtain fell on scene two.

I love the theatre. I have never been educated in the theory behind the placement of actors or the interjection of color and light, but I love it nevertheless. Whether I fill the role of spectator or actor, the quick interplay of movement, dialogue and sound never fails to delight me. A well performed production is as graceful as a play in basketball. The guard screens the wing, the centre’s eyes dart left as she accelerates to the right and cross- passes to a streak of red racing towards the ring through a sea of green. To the beat of pounding shoes and a roaring crowd, the ball traverses a gentle arc and falls through the net with a ‘swish’. Curtain falls.
I love taking a story and converting prose to conversation, metaphor to music and imagery to movement. This year, I made my first foray into the abstract art of body theatre. Body theatre is a form of enactment that uses no props or costumes, and makes use of verse rather than conventional dialogue. The actors themselves serve as props. I wrote, directed and acted in such a play that revolves around a girl’s struggles with anorexia. What, as a story, might have been plebeian, or even boring, as a play can be spiced, diced and made interesting. Each scene, with the addition of such subtleties as the right music, lighting and collective movement, can be transformed into a single wave of emotion, which after gathering momentum, hits the audience with formidable force. As it was so aptly put by Eugene Ionesco, a well-known playwright, “Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality.” The theatre is my he’lade.
For a while, when I stand before a crowd in the red sari of a milkmaid from Gujarat or the silken robes of a king, time stands still. For a time, I am truly a different person, someone who is never at a loss for words, who acts exactly how she feels and makes the entire crowd feel her pain, her joy and her laughter. After the cast has taken its bows and the curtain falls for the last time, the return to everyday reality comes as rather a shock. It seems a little like the world has suddenly changed from technicolor to black and white.
I have experienced exhilaration in many different contexts; the intense emotion of winning a championship game and the elation that comes with solving a complex sum in calculus. Nothing, however, can compare to the rush of adrenalin that knocks me into a different world when I’m standing on a stage in someone else’s shoes.

The remarkable citizens and numerous pathbreaking scholars who have been a part of our community – such as abolitionist Frederick Douglas, women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony, and philanthropist Joseph C. Wilson – lead us to appreciate the importance of bringing together students from diverse backgrounds and origins. Describe aspects of your personal history that help you understand and appreciate diversity.

I was born a first generation American of Indian parentage in Baton Rouge, right on the edge of Cajun country. Raised on gumbo and the American public school gifted program, I saw myself as American and proud to be one. On an uncharacteristically cold day in fall, when our backyard was thickly carpeted with fallen pine cones, my parents informed me that our family would be moving to India at the end of the academic year.

I was from an ethnically diverse class in the US. Since pre-school, my class typically had a smattering of Asians amidst students of other races. My friends were people who inadvertently taught me world culture through everyday interactions. Six years later, my circle of friends remains as diverse as it ever was. Tara, Vasudha and Aditi together constitute the saambar (a popular tamil rice gravy) mafia. Though they live in Bangalore, their roots lie in Madras, the heart of Tamil country. Tamil phrases and euphemisms weave in and out of their conversation as melodiously as the crass cacophony of the crows that plague Madras. Pranav, Raghav, Avinash and Srinivas are the class’s resident Digs. They make it a matter of honour never to make a joke in any language but Kannada. Their staple diet is oopma (the deliciously spicy South Indian version of….grits!!) from the school canteen. Aishwarya, known otherwise as Lolakutti, hails from the beaches of Kerala. She was the one who introduced Kerala boat-racing music to me. All of my friends and classmates, who come from different states in India, each with a very distinctive culture, add their own unique flavor to our classroom, though they remain, without exception, jacketed in a thin layer of cosmopolitan suave.

I would be lying if I said that before moving to India I had never been exposed to Indian culture. My family made weekly visits to the temple and we had dinner parties with our other Indian friends. However, it was not until I came to Bangalore that I realized that what I had experienced was just a poor imitation of desi culture; a mere shadow of the original, cast against a backdrop of Americanism. More importantly, I realized that the Indian way of life in itself is infinitely more diverse than the Punjabi pop culture that it is largely perceived to be. Experiencing India first hand gave me the desire to learn more about different people and world culture.

I have, since my junior year, run a basketball camp for underprivileged children. I volunteered with Vikasana (a student-run social service organization), with the intention of teaching these children the skills that I was fortunate enough to have learnt. I ended up learning more from them than they could from me; lessons that extended well beyond the boundaries of the basketball court.

For the first time, I understood what a life of poverty in a third-world country is like. It doesn’t simply imply fewer meals and second-hand clothes. It means back-breaking manual labor at the age of ten to support one’s family. It means receiving an education at one of the government’s poorly run state board schools, provided one is not married off by one’s parents at a young age. It means living with ten other people in a ramshackle house in the city slums. The experience helped me gain perspective of my life. I realized how fortunate I was to have been born to educated parents and to have been provided with numerous opportunities to develop as an individual, many of which the children in my camp would never get. It taught me to stop taking things for granted and to make the most of the opportunities that present themselves.


Not only has my move from America to India exposed me to demographic diversity, but to a widely different approach to study. The American approach to learning is, I feel, more flexible. It gives one room for creativity. For example, in America, after reading Macbeth in class, an American teacher might assign an essay like this; “You are planning to murder the captain of your school’s football team. Explain why you chose to do so and how you would go about the deed with reference to the play you have read.” An Indian teacher would probably assign an essay like this; “Explain why and how Macbeth murdered Duncan.”

The Indian approach is rigid; answers must be written in the same format as taught in class. Any deviation in thought or expression is awarded no marks. Moreover, instead of the periodic quizzes I was used to in the US, the Indian system throws a great deal of information at you in a short period of time, on which you are tested at the end of the term. Therefore, students learn how to manage their time and study effectively; eliminating everything but the essential elements of their syllabi.

Exposure to both of these educational systems gave me useful skills. On the one hand, my years in an American school gave me my foundation in writing and taught me how to think out of the box. On the other, India taught me how to manage my time, and study efficiently.

I see myself as an amalgam of two widely different cultural elements. If their properties were to be plotted on an x-y-graph, then the x-axis would represent creativity, uniqueness and extra-curricular achievement and the y-axis, academic rigor, and ethnic diversity and understanding. In my opinion, an outstanding Indian student would lie at a point, say, (40,100) while an outstanding American student would lie at a point say (100,40). I would lie at the point (80,70); a balance between extra-curricular achievement and academics, a synthesis of the east and west.