La Fille Occupée

Ah, it’s been a busy few days – busy and tiring, but equally satisfying and fun…except perhaps for my weekend class which is beginning to be a royal pain with those stubborn, unenthusiastic students who refuse to get rid off their blinkers and perceive the world beyond their well! Translation assignments, a soirée that was quite exhausting because of the high levels of boredom and exasperation that I experienced (the saving grace was the wine!), Aristera’s weekend visit (I so love that man and it’s been so long since we spent so much time together, just chilling out, that this was the highlight of the weekend! ! The noise I’ve made about this visit has certainly got some people very jealous of his presence in my life – hehehe!), good films( Mon Oncle, Parzania), great meals(Parsi food at Dorabjee’s, Rosti and Pizza at Swiss Cheese Gardens, Chinese at Silk Route and Mainland China, apart from some pretty decent home-cooked food!), greater conversation (be it with Aristera, D, or my students S and J)– all in all the last few days have been pretty good. The one thing that has been irritating me is out of my control, so I’ve decided not to let myself be bothered by it. De toute façon, que sera sera, je n’y peux rien, alors pourquoi agir avec frustration?

Musical Motley

“how do I live without you… don’t talk just kiss… and I hoped all the time you’d be faithful to me… how do I breathe without you…when the night falls, the loneliness comes…all I’m asking you for is for you to be my baby…oooohhhh…let your tongue fool around…i wanna dance with somebody…i wanna feel the heat with somebody…yeah!!”

Hehe…wonder if my choice of music says something about me! Freud sure would have a field-day with the randomly selected phrases that I’ve just thrown together I’ve just posted from the songs playing on my Windows Media Player. Well he can have his fun; moi, all I care about is keeping my spirits buoyant, for I’m going to have a rather awkward discussion tomorrow and I need to feel my confident best in order to do so…que dieu me bénisse!

Current Music:- Dressed for Success – Roxette
Current Book:- Bloodlines – Fred D’Aguiar (an engrossing novel in verse form – the first of the type I’m reading since Vikram Seth’s Golden Gate and I do believe I quite enjoy the style.) Yes Yes I finished Incest on Tuesday – don’t I just rock?
Current Mood:- Not Taking No Shit From Anyone…Not Today

Bonjour Bookworm

Oft have people questioned my habit of splurging my rather meager salary on books, specially since the kind of books I buy don’t exactly come cheap – there are those who wonder at my insistence on buying original copies, instead of the pirated copies available freely on the footpaths and at small book vendors. Apart from that fact that I firmly believe the author deserves his royalty even if he is dead and buried several feet underground, there is the fact that these kind of oeuvres simply aren’t available in the pirated version, since they aren’t exactly consumed by the larger audience, and if I may, common audience! Tell me when you last saw a copy of Marquis de Sade’s Incest, or Ellen Feldman’s The Boy who Loved Anne Frank or Lawrence Durrell’s Monsieur gracing the footpath, beckoning you with open arms, inviting you to pick it up and take it home with you? And then, how do I explain the sheer pleasure of holding an original publication in one’s hands – the feel of those crisp pages, the words on each page staring back at me unwaveringly, urging me to devour each alphabet? I guess this, despite my increasingly regular (not to mention disturbing) spells of inability to read more than a couple of pages a day, is what marks me as a literary snob and a bookworm…

Bookworm – oh how I reveled in that pseudonym, even more so than my other plume de nom, Plain Jane…and how I ache to read once again with that voracity that made me devour books with a ravenous hunger of one who has been starved of Literature, even though reality was that I was always surrounded by it. Yesterday after a really long time I found myself lost in the book, oblivious to other commitments and responsibilities, and I spent a blissful afternoon transported to another world as I greedily worked my way through The Boy who Loved Anne Frank – a brilliant work that not only moved me, but has forced me to question my interest in the Holocaust. It made me wonder how I could possibly pretend to understand or even sympathise with the pain of the victims – me who was born in a society where “war” is something distant, when my only associations with starvation and poverty are with what I see (but not feel) on the roads as I commute in a bubble of comfort in my air-conditioned car (or even that rickety, uncomfortable bus which also puts me several ranks above them.)…

This morning I started Incest, a work that scandalized the readers when first published, with it’s exploration of the most devious and skin-crawling morally evil act. To be able to say that I’ve read one-third of the novel already (and this mostly while commuting) makes me want to gloat and crow in sheer exhilaration.

Welcome back Bookworm – it was real lonely without you…hope you plan to stick around a while! Amen!

Current Music:- Don’t Talk Just Kiss – Right Said Freddie, Be My Baby - Vanessa Paradis
Current Mood:- Indolent and sensuously relaxed, after a glorious body scrub and long hot shower…and itching to get under the covers and finish that book ;-)

GRUMPF

I could just about sink my teeth into someone right now...

Ola 2007!

My first post in 2007 – I hope to be more regular this year, but I won’t promise – the last couple of months have proven without doubt that the best intentions don’t necessarily lead to the promised actions. The year kicked off in a rather sedate fashion – a very calm, lazy vacation in Bangalore spent surrounded by family. Great weather, peaceful days, languid routines, afternoons spent sunning myself like an indolent lizard on the terrace/balcony of my relatives homes and some shopping (though not much when you think of the shopper’s paradise that Bangalore is!)…I’ve returned back to Pune feeling very lazy, but itching to get back into action…and boy does it feel good!

After some initial confusion, I’ve managed to get the batches I wanted, with the timings I wanted – working just in the morning this time, so that I have the rest of the day to plan my next day, read up/study for my DFA course and actually accomplish other things as well, apart from le français! ;-) The Alliance Française (world-over but particularly in India) had changed its text and organization of courses from this year – so it means a little more effort vis-à-vis class planning, but I think I’m going to enjoy teaching the new book far more than the older one! Time shall tell…here’s hoping 2007 is a better year on all counts! Amen!