Bech is back

This blog is indeed back, this time with the Lady returned and comfortably ensconced in the flat. This, of course, being a rather pretentious thing to say, I apologize.

I feel like an absolute loser at the moment, and face the prospect of 2 1/2 years of single-minded hard work getting flushed down the drain, because of a collaborator's utter, callous irresponsibility. So the analogy is probably apt. I should be mad, but I just feel....blank. I have no idea whether this too, will pass (the Lady says it will). Right now, all I can think of is winding up and going back to a village in India and just........treating patients. At least you make them feel good and they make you feel good in return. Maybe I'm not destined to be an academic. Maybe. Maybe...Maybe. Maybe. Shit. I am soooo fucked. Sorry.

At least she's back. Anyway, I'll know by tomorrow whether I'll be believed or crucified. That should be a bit of a steep learning curve.

Anyway, one of the first things she said on walking in was that the living room stinks. I’d noticed; in fact I’d stopped sitting in the armchair by the window because of the vaguely cheesy smell. However, a multinational operation involving sober men from 3 different continents had failed to find the source of the stink. We’d located it’s origins to the corner with the music, but then, music doesn’t stink (exceptions notwithstanding). I’d scrubbed and vacuumed the room from top to bottom, but the stink wouldn’t go away. Turned out it was the water in the jug with the Feng Shui bamboo shoot. I’d forgotten to change it. It was right on the table next to the music.

She then looked out of the window and said, “Look at the quadrangle, all the flowers are out! It’s so pretty!” I hadn’t noticed, really.

Funny thing is, sleep’s not been too great all these weeks. So she came, had breakfast and collapsed into a jet-lagged stupor. I did the same, though this was probably a lady-lagged one. Grown men can be like children sometimes.

The Spring’s finally coming in through the curtains. I should cook something before she gets up.

this blog is on hold

this blog's on hold for the moment, due to an unexpected computer error which caught me completely unawares. it's best that i stop blogging for the time being. i deeply appreciate the encouragement of all my readers, especially the five/six regular commenters who were so extraordinarily gracious. it made my month:-). many many thanks. i don't want to lose this blog (this hurts like hell:-/, unexpectedly, and in unexpected places). i hope to sort things out in about 10 days.

In Jen the grass is like green silk threads,
in Chin the mulberry bows beneath its leaves.
Now while your thoughts are turning home,
my longing heart is already breaking.
Oh the spring wind is a stranger to me,
how does it dare to enter my gauze bed curtain?

- courtesy Li Po, 754 A.D.


such is life.

Increase the size of your penis! 2 weeks free trial. Satisfaction guaranteed. Or your money back. Conditions apply.

I get loads of this in my mailbox, as am sure most people do. This, however, is a cunning ploy to get you to read this, which, I think, is so glaringly obvious, that I wonder why one doesn't see more people writing about it.

Also, anyone who loves this town as much as I do (and anyone who intends to visit) should check out these fabulous photos. The bonus is a dreamy, drifting, Marc Cohn meets Bruce Springsteen take on London.

STOP!

Though the idea had been simmering in my mind on sleepless nights, I started this blog on a rare idle afternoon at work on impulse, out of a deep sense of outrage. Now, I am a liberal and often unpleasantly libertarian, but I am hopelessly old fashioned when it comes to certain things. A profound respect for women is somewhere on top of that list. A sense of everyday courtesy is other e.g. holding doors open for people, respecting others’personal spaces, taking virtues like loyalty seriously, being nice to old people etc. Surfing blogs that day, I came across this, this, this, this,and this, and , as outrageous examples of regressive, crude misogyny masquerading as politically self-righteous criticism as any. I am a fierce advocate of freedom of speech, but there’s a difference between the blatant abuse of public spaces (think repressed, ‘harmless’, exhibitionist near a school with something hanging out); the wanton violation of someone else’s private space; persistent, creepy, predatory preying, and exercising one’s right to one’s opinion. The former is the germ of all the evil that is perpetrated on the vulnerable, on the pretext of self-righteousness, ‘traditions’, ‘history’ and the oft quoted ‘she/they asked for/deserved it’. This includes sexual assault and mass murder.

So I did something which I don’t do often. I signed myself into blogger (and so a blog was born!) stopped by and lost my temper. I probably said things I shouldn't have, and my comments reek of the worst kind of tabloidesque, reactionary, provocativeness, but hell, was I mad!! So did others, and that appeared to have stopped this sleazeball for a while. But as with all such specimens, he backed off the more intimidating of his targets and focussed on the slightly gentler one (who also incidentally, had the courtesy to engage with him consistently). Now I try to help victims of violence for a living (among other things), from different parts of the world, and I can recognize a pattern when I see one. As bloggers inhabiting a common space, creating social norms for that space as we go along, I believe we have a responsibility to stop the abuse of that space when we see it. If the blogosphere, which is a child of the twentyfirst century, cannot set an example and break away from exploitative and abusive attitudes, which were products of so called less enlightened times, we can hardly expect this century to be any better than the previous ones.

Or let me put this another way. Today it's some strange person's blogspace that's being violated, tomorrow it may be the blogspace of someone you love, and then it may be the person you love, who becomes subject to the violation. Me, I am not going to sit around and wait until that happens.

This is crude misogyny, under cover of a faux anti-elitism, seeking to abuse and violate. It is often the precursor of more unpleasant acts of violence. It is the germ of attitudes that lead to Jessica Lalls, Meher Bhargavas, Priyadarshini Mattoos and Teena Brandons. Stop it. And stop it now. Tell this stalker what you think of him.

The End.

IT? cheap shit.

Observe the new links on my blog. This, my dear discerning readers, means that this funny lingo which they use to make all this shit appear on the screen (HTML, binary, duuhh?) is cheap shit. I figured it out, though on top of some long island iced tea, in like, an eureka moment down at Freud's and I know shite about IT and stuff (IT, Iced Tea, savvy? See, that's all there's to it.) And this is what these geeks get paid bloody murder for. This is the revenge of the nerds, I tell you.

surfer chic(k)!

Go lady! Look who's doing the big I.

vicarious satisfaction

The 20th London Lesbian and Gay Film Fest is on, at venues across the city and country. I desperately wanted to watch Ligy Pullapally's acclaimed Sanchaaram (the club night of which is at Club Kali, one of the hippest venues in London) and Between the Lines, but tickets were sold out weeks in advance. Sanchaaram , incidentally, gets a gala screening. Besides, the sudden onslaught of unaccustomed responsibilities around the house, esp. cooking to feed my embarassing appetite, precluded trying really hard. If I had wangled some tickets, I would've been watching Sanchaaram right now. Anyway, tough luck. At least I get to blog about it. Maybe I'll go up to Manchester in May and watch it. The place is full of Ligys, Lilies, Liceys and Lousys, being home to the largest expat community of Mal nurses and their hirsute husbands in Europe, so at least that should be fun. Not that any of them are likely to turn up.

Btw, Transamerica rocks.

What is Indian architecture?

Chitvan Gill, writing about architecture in independent India, says we have failed to develop a unique, instantly recognizable architectural signature that is at the same time inspiring and beautiful. I agree on several counts , especially with respect to the grotesque kitsch of the temple complexes at Akshardham and Chattarpur, smaller copies of which have sprouted as far afield as Neasden and L.A, and the fact that post-colonialism distorted the worldview of an entire generation of Indian architects. But then, it did in so many other disciplines, as far afield as medicine and local literature.

As for le Corbusier, one may or may not view his obsession with his own sense of destiny with sympathy, let alone the things that he did in the pursuit of that. However, whether one likes the way it looks or not, there's no denying that Chandigarh achieved what it sought to, to clearly state the intentions of a new nation, which was to make a clean break from the past. Fifty odd years after independence, as a nation finally coming out from the angst of adolescence into the infinite possibilities of adulthood, we finally have the luxury and the confidence to say that our ancient architectural past was indeed, something manifestly beautiful. That is a confidence an uncertain, infant nation could hardly have been expected to instantly assume. So, le Corbusier's Chandigarh had a purpose, as had Nehru's flawed centralized, socialist vision, and both served their purposes well. What the army of armchair critics of post-independent, Nehruvian India, who seem to have sprouted overnight, courtesy the web (yours truly included) don't appear to recognize is that we would probably not be in the position we are in today (on the threshold of a sensitive kind of greatness, if we can manage to pull it off) if that generation had not made the brave choices it did. And that included making that break with the past, striving to be 'modern' in every sense of the term, and choosing social justice over the free market.

But enough of that. I believe we do have a unique Indian architectural sensibility, though some of the pioneers of that sensibility have come from other shores. Louis Kahn started the trend with the lovely IIM buildings in Ahmedabad, a tradition that continues in the brick and tile of Lawrie Baker, inspired by traditional Keralan architecture. Gerard da Cunha has picked up where Baker has left off. If those Russians had walked half a kilometre north by northeast, they would have been assailed by the raw power of Charles Correa's imposing chunks of concrete piled on top of each other, off the Post-Office circle. Sure, it's clunky, but so were we, those days.

Chitvan says, "Traditional builders and craftsmen, the mistris and shilpkaris were not trained to grasp the new idiom and their skills were inappropriate for the underlying scientific principles of engineering and building that constituted the new architecture. The disjunct between the architect and his builders has become even more pronounced now." I fail to see why this should be an issue, unless one has a remarkably patronising view of what the mistris and shilpkaris are capable of. Louis Kahn built his masterpiece and swansong, the Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban, the National Assembly of Bangladesh, with no earthmovers, no forklifts and practically no money, the work being done entirely by local artisans, carpenters and manual labourers, who built it, shovelful by loving shovelful, brick by loving brick.

But these are famous names. What about the hundreds of young architects out there designing structures that are both sustainable and rooted in local traditions? Some of them do so in their spare time, churning out malls and multiplexes in their day jobs, in order to fund their less-profitable professional passions. I know at least three such people, working in different parts of the country. We are a mongrel nation, a melting pot of races, identities and sensibilities. For a nation that celebrates this cultural chaos, developing a unique, monolithic architectural sensibility is as impossible (and absurd) as imposing one language on all its states (or one ethno-religious identity on all its people).

My views, are of course, entirely subjective. And as for competing interests, I have lots.

the women's list

thought i should link to last year's findings on women's favourite books and the letters the male top ten attracted. i suspect that there are more women out there who might now be facing a gender identity crisis.

The indifferent male's guide to literature

The novel that means the most to us men is about indifference, alienation and lack of emotional responses (We Pricks!) . Those that mean the most to women is about deeply held feelings, a struggle to overcome circumstances and passion, research by the University of London has found. Professor Lisa Jardine and Annie Watkins of Queen Mary College interviewed 500 men, many of whom had some professional connection with literature, about the novels that had changed their lives.



The book named most frequently by men was Albert Camus's The Outsider, followed by JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Women, by contrast, most frequently cited works by Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Margaret Atwood, George Eliot and Jane Austen. They also named a "much richer and more diverse" set of novels (as evidenced by the above remarkably diverse list) than men, according to Prof Jardine. There was a much broader mix between contemporary and classic works and between male and female authors.

The results showed almost no overlap between men's and women's taste. Awww, now how can that be? On the whole, men (who were all, presumably, white men, given the study sample) preferred books by dead white men (they like average white bands too, ask Chris Martin): only one book by a woman, Harper Lee, appears in the list of the top 20 novels with which men most identify. Lotto moment: spot that live rappin' black dude in the women's list!!

"We found that men do not regard books as a constant companion to their life's journey, as consolers or guides, as women do," said Prof Jardine (Sigh........ those women!). "They read novels a bit like they read photography manuals." Prof. bloody Jardine, is of course, a woman. Kiss my arse. I object, your honour!!! The honourable prosecutor, no, professor ( now that's a Freudian slip), is speculating.

"Women readers used much-loved books to support them through difficult times and emotional turbulence, and tended to employ them as metaphorical guides to behaviour, or as support and inspiration." "The men's list was all angst and Orwell. Sort of puberty reading," Hey lady, when the f....k do women start reading Charlotte and Emily Brontë, George Eliot and Jane Austen? During menopause? Bollocks.

Ideas touching on isolation and "aloneness" were strong among the men's "milestone" books. Now, that's a point. We do lead emotionally deprived lives and we don't know how else to f....ing live it. Believe me, its not for want of trying. Lotto moment: Spot the alpha male confiding his 'emotional turbulence' to his much-loved old school mate, while they do a spot of heavy benchpressing in LA Fitness.

Frankly, men use women 'to support them through difficult times and emotional turbulence, and tend to employ them as metaphorical guides to behaviour, or as support and inspiration.' We don't need books. Everyone knows that .

The researchers also found that women preferred old, well-thumbed paperbacks, whereas men had a slight fixation with the stiff covers of hardback books. Now we're getting really Freudian:-)

Prof Jardine said that the research suggested that the literary world was run by the wrong people. Jokes apart, that is true.

The list in full

The Outsider by Albert Camus
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Ulysses by James Joyce
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
1984 by George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn??? Jeez. And the Grapes of Wrath ? Everybody, including Jesus Christ, Mother Mary and all the angels gets shafted in that one, and it's a favourite?? And what is it with guys and Catcher in the Rye ? Unbelievable.

All you who sleep tonight

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right,
And emptiness above-

Know that you aren't alone.
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.

Vikram Seth. Copyright Vikram Seth 1990. All you who sleep tonight. Viking. Penguin Books India. 2005.

houston has contact

There is a mobile phone mast in the village.

for my love

words fail me, my sunshine,
and a very indian embarassment hisses,
but anonymity braces me;
so may poetry gird my prayers.

as you walk, expectant,
into the heart of darkness, and the heart of a continent-
holding your hand out to the birthing,
teaching them to kick-ass, and wield pins at close quarters,
this prayer goes out into the ether-
may there be a mobile phone mast in your village,
a fan in your room,
no bugs in your bed,
warm water in the bath
and good company to be had.
have fun, wine at will, and dream of me;
please take care of yourself,
may the force be with you,
and bring you safely back to me.

hi there!

thanks for stopping by.

this is a maybe blog, which means that i may/may not blog depending on my mood, the weather, the availability of time, the Lady's mood, whether my current boss is being nice or a pain in the arse, whether the admin does my typing on time, whether the parent's doing okay, whether colleagues are getting on my nerves, whether i'm getting enough exercise, whether i'm studying enough, whether i'm on top of paper deadlines, whether i'm getting enough sex, whether its raining in spain and then, if it does , whether it's mainly on the plain etc.

yup, that's it.

c ya soon. maybe.