15 Jan 2006

I should not have trusted my ethnography professor.  She convinced me today that good academic writing should make the researcher visible.  By subscribing to this, I have created an existential crisis for myself: Who am I?

I would like to write about my fondness for butter scotch ice cream and denim kurta, or that my grandmother asks me to get married every time I speak to her.  Unfortunately, in academic writing these are interesting but irrelevant details.  I asked myself what could be relevant and one thumb rule comes to mind: I should write only about those things that will influence the reader in how they understand my understanding.  It has to have the potential of giving them some “Ah ha moments” of discovering for themselves new information on the information I share with them.  They should be able to say things like, “Ah ha, he could have missed seeing this being a Brahmin boy”; “it is unlikely that an official discussed these things with an ex-activist”, etc.  A good introduction will make my reader, a co-investigator in my project.

PS: I now have the rule, but the question remains: who am I?

Weighty matters

21 June 2007

I climbed the weighing machine today after two years. I pushed the scales to a familiar position and it remained upright.  I nudged it gently to no avail.  After considerable amount pushing around the scale tilted indicating I was somewhere there – and I had grown a full 20 KGs.  If have been Americanised in any way, it is this, and I seem to have put my deposits just where men in hurry always do – a pot belly.

31 July 2007

Strange things are happening to me.  I reached India 15 days ago and went to a women’s college in Chennai on some work.  I met the head of X department and she immediately called me “sir”.  I am unused to this, that too by a senior person in a hierarchical institution like a college in India.  I begged her to call me Vivek.  “Oh OK Professor Vivek”, she said very sincerely.  Earlier when I moved from place to place even a (low cost) rickshaw wala would not solicit me unless I asked for one.  This time around taxi drivers (the high cost end) rush to me to know where sar wants to go.  I have also had an easy time in getting things done in government offices.  Something seems to have changed.  My friends tell me that I am just the same but for some extra weight. I have been wondering what is happening to me.

I think I got a clue today.  A Panchayat president I interviewed told me sweetly that people listen to her because she’s plump.  Two years and twenty KGs earlier, I would have missed the import of the statement, but now I don’t.  I used to be so thin that I was called a skeleton, stick of a coconut leaf and other colourful adjectives.  Now these adjectives are gone, and I am convinced that my new status is due to my pot belly. I am ok with the status, but I am not sure if I should write about this in my dissertation.  Perhaps I should consult my ethnography professor.

Rose, black & brown

30 Sept 2007

Amma asked me not to spend too much time out in the sun during fieldwork.  She’s worried that I might become darker.  In the darkest person in the family already; after all, Tamil Brahmins tend to be fair complexioned.

I reached the village for fieldwork and had a conversation with a passerby.  He asked me to go and meet his friend who knows a lot on my topic, and telephoned his friend generously to say that I am coming.  Not knowing how to introduce me he thought for a while and then said, “a rose complexioned young man will come to meet you”.  I have now come a full circle.  I am rose complexioned where I do my fieldwork, black for my parents and brown for the American government.  Who indeed am I?

Ps. I think I told you this before, I should not have trusted my ethnography professor.

Disciplinary approach

Feb 2009

I went to a dissertation defence this afternoon.  My friend was candid and bold.  To many questions he answered candidly that he wanted to try a few things, but did not do so because it is not the norm in political science.  He said, “My hands are tied”.  I do not want to bind my hands, but academic culture may require me to write things in a particular way.  I am glad to be in the social science programme, unattached to any discipline so that I do not have to tie my hands.

Making the researcher visible

20 Oct 2009

A lot of people I met talked about communist, Dalit and other village level movements again and again. I also find reflections of these types of movements in many villages.  I guess these must have had a lot of impact. I am not too sure what other movements might have had an impact in the state…I guess I will never know all of them.

My fieldwork reflected five forms of collection action repeatedly giving me a reason to believe that these are among the major forms that had an impact on collective action in Tamil Nadu.

The following five forms of collective action had a significant impact in shaping institutional changes in Tamil Nadu.

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The woman sitting next to me was travelling on air for the first time. She grew up in a small town and there was not much discussion about air travel among her friends. I did my share to make her feel comfortable. We did a round on how to buckle the seat belt, how to turn on the light, how to turn off the air vents and whether she should hold her three month old tight through the flight. After we reached the altitude she asked, “Chal rahi hai kya” (is it going?). I heard it as “Jal rahi hai kya?” (is it burning?). I had never imagined that someone will discuss a plane burning with such a bright smile.

***

We flew over a beautiful winding river that branched off every now and then to reunite again. It was a mighty river, and it had so much water that it must be rough and rapid. From my vantage, the river was one gracious picture, winding in beautiful curves, creating little river islands along the way. At times, long curvy branches led to little curvy branches of water, making it look like the river was stretching out its hand. All around it were little rectangles in varying shades of green. I have read about land fragmentation in India, but the sight of it from thousands of feet above was stunning. I guess I would not have made much sense of it had I not seen those large blobs in varying shades of green in the USA. But then, is it a story of fragmentation or concentration?

***
Landing in Los Angeles at night is an incredible sight. It is a sea of lights stretching for miles and miles, disrupted only by brief patches of darkness in the woody hills of LA. I landed in Ranchi today after the sun had set, and the lights began with barely a minute to land. Between thin streams of light were vast stretches of shadow. It was an eloquent political commentary.
***
The lounge was made lively by a crew of young women. Their smartly tailored uniforms highlighted many an attractive feature and the skirts that went just above the knees revealed beautiful legs. The smiles were effective and economic as they went about their routine. They were invariably young and pretty, and I believe that it is not an accident. “…I am the commander of your flight” said a voice amidst my distractions and went on to introduce the male head of the hosts. I liked the sweet feminine voice of the commander.

***

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Will it be a church wedding, Hindu wedding or both, asked a friend.

Neither.

Oh?!…Will you tie a Thali?

No.

Will you exchange rings?

No.

Oh!? …Will there be ceremonial music at least?

No.

Then what do you mean by getting married?

That was my friend’s reaction when I told him that I will get married in Madras in July. He got me thinking about the meaning of ‘getting married’, to be distinguished from less interesting topic – the meaning of marriage. I guess all of us will agree that ‘getting married’ deals with a transformation in the state of life of at least two individuals, binding them closely together in most spheres of their lives. In our case, it should be easy to distinguish a time when Dr K and I would be considered not to be married to each other, and a time when we would be. He recognises such a transformation, which in my view should be sufficient to say that we are getting married. But then he was confused about my claim.

I guess my friend must have been looking not just for the transformation, but for a precise and a brief moment wherein such a transformation occurs. Traditionally, it could be the pronouncement of the priest, finishing circles around the pyre by the couple, or an assortment of other symbolic moments. One Hindu priest announced during a friend’s marriage that the circling ritual does not complete the process. According to him, marriage happens when a man holds the hands of the bride within seven minutes of a couple circling the pyre. “So, I appeal to all men in this room not to rush to congratulate the bride…you will be considered her husband if you shake hands with her now”!

I guess there are many such symbolic moments in the Hindu traditions and its various interpretations. Let me add to the benefit of some of my American readers that travelling on a decorated elephant or dancing with the commuters in a Mumbai train station do not constitute of such moments in the Hindi tradition. There are of course other religious, cultural and secular traditions that could provide the moment that my friend is looking for. I guess another way to identify such a moment could be when there is a sharp change in what the couple can and cannot do. In most Indian marriages, there is no cohabitation of the couple before the marriage, and so the moment of marriage is significant. It redefines the lives of people.

Sometimes such moments change how the society behaves towards the individuals concerned. I know of a Hindu girl who was in love with a Muslim boy. This was unsurprisingly accompanied by a lot of drama and tension from the families, and the lovers imagined that the familial opposition would change if they got married before the families prevented their plans effectively. Since court weddings require a notice period, they opted for an Arya Samaj style Hindu wedding that would give their marriage a legal status quickly. The priest argued that he could marry off only Hindus and so the groom had to briefly transform himself into a Hindu man. The priest also demanded that the ceremony required someone with the status of the bride’s father to ‘give the bride away’. All the friends who were present in that quick gathering were women and one of them had to ceremonially transform herself into a man to give the bride away. I heard that the story had a good ending with the families accepting them. There were a lot of quick transformations in that case: in their legal status, in their ability to cohabit, how their families treated the relationship and momentary changes in gender and religion of people involved.

In such cases when all such transformations happen together, and they happen under the public eye, one could identify brief and precise moments when a couple get married. In my case, such moments are staggered over the period of at least a year. The decision to date, to live together, to introduce the relationship to our families and friends, the commitment to spend our lives together, a public get-together and the signing of the legal contract are all separate events and there is no brief moment that could be said to have achieved a grand transformation in the state of things. In the truest sense of the word, there is not one date in which we could claim that we got married.

This has some unanticipated advantages. For one, I will not have to remember our wedding anniversary, for no such day would exist. A related advantage is that we do not have to get into the business of celebrating our marriage one day a year; I find the idea of designating 1/365 days in a year to celebrate such things as marriage, mothers, love and birth to be rather silly. One must celebrate these things every day: life must be celebration.

It goes without saying that a life of celebrating each day cannot be based on ceremonies. Religion-inspired ceremonies have not had an appeal for me in years, except for their limited entertainment value. If religion-inspired ceremonies are uninspiring, the industry-inspired ceremonies of giving cards, flowers and gifts are even more unconvincing. My favourite wedding-invitation ever had the statement “please do not bring gifts”. In keeping with the waning power of religion and the growing power of industry, I find it a lot easier to resist religious ceremonies than to avoid gift-giving. One day, we may move into a more rational socialist order.

Marriage then would be, as it should be, about everyday pleasures. It would be about watching sunsets and squirrels together. It would be about unexpected hugs, and the expectation of snuggles. It’s about finding happiness in silence and stillness. It’s about expressions of love that are sincere rather than ceremonious. It’s about the unexpected. It’s life. Love.

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Pandit Ji’s tea stall was the first to open in Delhi University and he was greeted by six of us waiting for him impatiently. I think that my five canine companions were brothers and sisters; I do not know their ancestry, but I get a clear idea from the choice of expletives that were used when they had sex in front of his shop. But for such brief encounters, there was a symbiotic relationship between them and the shop. The university with its adjoining forest cover invited joggers, walkers, laughers and feeders every morning. A brisk middle-aged man stopped by as usual to feed the dogs before he went to his laughter club meeting. The dogs loved him. That day, like most days, he was followed by others who would offer more buns, and packets of milk that would be emptied on a cup that Pandit Ji maintained for the dogs. By 5.20 am the dogs would be full beyond belief, but that is when the lazier of the walker-feeders would arrive.

A stern middle-aged man littered with masculine symbols about him including that stern look and a huge curvy moustache arrived at 5.30. He shouted a crisp “Aa”, a short for Aaja (come here), inviting the dogs to his packet of milk. The dogs had retired by now, tired with eating and all the pampering. “Aaja, aaja”, he said in a more mellow tone to elicit some response.

All five of them were stretched on the ground and one of them lifted its head up lazily with the look that said get lost. Sometimes I feel that feeding stray dogs is not just an activity in Delhi; it’s a part of one’s identity. Somewhat shaken by the lack of interest, he walked back to Pandit Ji’s store to get a matri. Still no response. He squatted on the floor next to the bowl of milk and started imploring the dogs to drink it. “Aaja beta, dhood hai, dhoodh” (come my child, it’s milk).

He, like many others, did not realize that he had missed a window of opportunity between 5 and 5.20 am. The only guy who did not suffer this fate of indifference despite coming late was the one who fed a bunch of bananas to the monkeys. The monkeys that were friendly with him would climb on his shoulders or sit on his legs patiently to get the bananas. But the idea of monkeys climbing on them would ward off most people who preferred to feed the pigeons and dogs instead.

***

A couple lived at Delhi School of Economics or D. School as we fondly call it. It is surprising that they managed to retain the sovereignty of the campus with its not-sure-why-famous canteen. They once littered and the five pups became the most happening thing in the campus that had very little happening apart from classes. I have to admit that the pups were cute, and they got cuter as they got plump with all the feeding they could get. The pups got everything that was served in that canteen including the famous dosa and sambar. Unlike at Pandit Ji, no bowl was maintained at the D.School not infrequently they were fed of the same porcelain cups that were used to serve us. That’s as far as socialism went in our campus lives.

The pups developed their taste and it became a frequent part of campus debates:

“This one does not like Pepsi ya. She only likes Thumbs UP”

“What are you talking about…It’s not a she, it’s a he”!

***

One day a guy from the Northeast of India was playing with one of the pups and he started carrying it towards the gate. This led to consternation among a group of graduate students who were watching the act. They eat dogs in Manipur, went around the word. Should we stop him asked one, half-heartedly, knowing that it could not be done. They looked crestfallen as the pup disappeared.

I do not know why, but he brought back the pup in two days. It turned out that the man-eat-dog world was not true, but it turned out to be a dog-eat-dog world with the returning pup being rejected by its siblings and even the parents. She was repeatedly attacked and eventually killed by the siblings.

***

My friend Eric did not believe me at first when I told him that the dogs have a class consciousness. He got a firsthand view when the normally friendly dogs were not friendly as normal with the candy seller. The short-statured candy seller used to claim that he was the class-mate of the tall Amitabh Bachan, one of India’s most famous actors. It was ironic in more ways than one. Ironies help sell candies.

The dogs reserved their aggressive best for the rag-pickers who occasionally crossed the school. It was not unusual for them to look for stones to defend themselves from the aggressive bunch of dogs. One such occasion, the rag picker heard a vociferous cry of Maro math usko or don’t you beat him! The poor guy was now caught between an aggressive dog and an aggressive graduate student bent on protecting the dog. Thankfully for him another group of students lured away the dog with promises of Pepsi, sambar or anything else he was in a mood for.

You cannot ignore dogs in the social life of Delhi University.

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The day I defended my PhD, my friend Diane told me that Dr. K and I will be a pair-o’-docs. A pair: we are, and docs: we are. But let the reader beware that we are very different kind of docs. Dr. K is the kind of doctor that deals at the micro level, one person at a time, and largely on a little part of the human body. I am the type that deals with the grand scheme of things including the world order, revolutions, development and questions such as how to regulate medical doctors. We are very different people indeed.

Questions about our diverse backgrounds are set to intensify now that we have decided to get married. It is a curious fact of life that those who ponder about unions are really interested in intersections: ‘oh, what do you both have in common? Does she like Indian food? What do you both enjoy doing, et cetera, et cetera. With the union approaching, I too have been thinking about what I have in common with the beautiful-talented-lanky-sweet-smart-blond-girl. I recently learned of the most striking similarity: for a long time Dr. K was determined to remain single for life. I too was convinced of that option for the longest time, and now the two of us have decided to get married. Let’s call it a pair-o’-docs paradox.

Of course, we have a few other things in common. For example, we are both concerned with oil consumption. There is the little difference that I look at it mainly as a public transport problem whereas she tends to look at it as a food choice issue. We are both non-religious in general but create a tremendous religious fervour in each other’s company. Meet us together, and you will not fail to hear invocations such as “oh lord” “Jesus Christ” and “OH MY GOD”. There are even points of commonality in matters of fashion: We often say “wow” at the same time upon seeing dresses. I go, “wow, who would wear that”, and she “wow, that’s so pretty”. As you well understand, what is of critical importance is that we both say “wow”.

As you would have noticed, it is much easier to write about the differences in us. We basically have a different approach to life on all kinds of issues including towels, sports, salt, politics, microwave, and even the conception of time. She lives her life by clocks and calendars whereas I have multiple standards of time. When it comes to eating, I follow the TST i.e. the Tummy Standard Time: It growls and I eat. I have my moods when I have to write, watch TV, read, cook, clean or hang out with friends. Her time seems a lot more amenable to her plans. I can go on about the differences, but the strangest difference is in an aspect in which we are both rather similar: we are both organisers.

We both like to think ahead, make lists and try and ensure that everything that is needed is addressed. The little difference is that she follows it up with incessant discipline, and she has a compulsive need to do everything at least a week before I would have done it. Take the case of a two day trip:

Did you pack your stuff?

No, it’s too early.

She walks off and returns uneasily in ten minutes. At least tell me what you want to carry.

It’s too early to think about it.

Come on!

Honey, there is no way that I can think of what I will take for a short trip one week ahead.

Twenty minutes later…

Ok, I packed two t-shirts, your jeans, the brown pant, one pair of night clothes, a toilet kit and some medicines I think you should have. Did I miss anything?

Honey, it’s still one week to go, and I don’t think I can think about it.

That is how the im-patient-doctor goes about her work, leading to a creeping disability in me. For someone who has been fiercely independent to the point that I could not choose a discipline even for my PhD, the relationship with such an all planning force of love has been an interesting experience. Now-a-days there are times when I completely disregard planning and move on with the religious-like optimism that things would be taken care of. I am glad to say that I have not been disappointed as yet.

I have received much affection in life from family, friends, teachers, and of course, many a random stranger. I used to think that such a life would prepare me for love, and I was wrong. Love, it turns out, has taken the form of incessant attention to my needs, desires, fears, thoughts and moods. Given that the attention is given by someone multi-talented and action-oriented, the attention generally turns to action. It feels great, and it feels scary to be pampered as much. I do try to reciprocate in my own little ways, slipping behind all the time.

I guess that settles the debate of why I am settling for this union without much intersection. I trust she has things that she likes in this relationship, but it is not fair to write on her behalf, even though she has been eloquent on this subject in person. The debate about the union is settled and the debates have started. For one, I suggested to her that I will be the master of the house. “Oh no. Perhaps, you can be the master of the patio, or better the master of the mailbox”, she suggested. That debate, among a thousand others, are yet to be settled…and they perhaps will never be.

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I returned home with my body pulling me in two directions. It felt like there was a layer of glue in my throat pulling the layers of my throat together; I had never felt that parched. My bladder on the other hand felt like the Mettur dam after a heavy monsoon shower: ready to burst any minute unless the floodgates are opened. Do I go left to the kitchen to quench my thirst, or do I first go right to the restroom? I paused for a moment to consider the dilemma and decided to check my e-mail instead.

Checking e-mail is a force of habit that is more powerful than forces of nature. My Gmail had three coupons, thirteen passionate messages on India’s foreign policy approach towards Pakistan, eight notices from friends of friends who had commented on a friend’s picture that I had earlier commented on. A stranger had sent a friend request and long lost classmate had responded to my friend request. I felt thankful for the stranger and the three corporations that had sent me coupons. They were the only ones to send a message with my name on it; after all there is nothing more insulting than an inbox without a single mail addressed to you.

The glue was drying out and the bladder sent a clear message. I opened Facebook. Sometimes I feel that I live in Facebook and periodically visit the earth. I checked out a monotony of that is so cute messages in the pictures and went to my wall to check out the latest happenings in the lives of my friends and their friends since the last hour. It was time to move on, and I opened my official mail of alma matter.

It has been months since I left the university and have not received a mail in the last two months. But then, checking it is a habit that I closely followed for years each time after checking my Gmail. But more importantly, it offers a closure. I know well that I will not get a mail, but never fail to feel a little dejected at not getting one. That’s the point when I decide to close the browser and get on with life. Browser closed and the laptop goes to the standby mode. It’s time for me to decide if I should go left or right.

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“I hid the camera, is there anything else that I should hide?” The preparation for Vipul’s visit started with this. Vipul and Dr. K and polar opposites in two ways. Vipul’s cardinal philosophy is: if I see a button, I press it. Inevitably, he has a history of ipods, laptops and other devices crashing with his interventions. The highlight of this trip being the crash of the ticketing machine at the railway station; he could simply not resist playing with while he waited to be picked up. Dr. K on the other hand has an intense inability to press buttons. For example, it is not unusual to hear things like:

K: Oh God!!! Why is this mail not going?

Vipul: Did you press the send button?!

…

K: This is FRUSTRATING…why is this machine not working?

Vip: did you turn it on?

Naturally, there was paranoia before Vipul’s visit. “If Vipul is going to sit in the front, I am going to remove the window shades and put it away. He will definitely play with it…is there anything else I should put away?” Such preparations were of course followed with due death threats as soon as he arrived, asking him to keep off gadgets – especially while she drives the car. The preparations could not keep Vipul from his discovery trail, and he went on to spot the camera, play with the fridge and learned to handle her Mac.

I guess nature has a way of balancing things, and it did so with another case of opposite traits: Vipul is the perennial non-decider while Dr. K is the do something about it, and do it now kind of an action-girl.

K: Do you want coffee Vipul?

Vipul: umm…

…umm…

…I don’t know…

…umm…

K: Do you want it or not?

Vipul: [intimidated, and wanting to get over it] I think I want to get sunglasses.

K: Coffee?

V: umm…may be…

K: OK?

V: OK.

K: Soy milk, regular milk, fat free milk or lactose free milk?

V: umm…

K: and brown sugar or calorie free?

V: About the sunglasses…

The coffee was had and not long after we were headed to the mall, a favourite hang-out place for Vipul. What he did not expect was that the action-girl would have made a list of stores that sell sunglasses. We visited all of them, and he tried dozens.

K: Do you like these?

V: Umm…

K: Yes or No? I think these look good on you, and the price is good.

V: Umm…

K: What?

V: I wanted to get some shorts for the Gym. The one I have is not good.

K: Sunglasses?!

V: umm…Did you see the sunglasses that the hero was wearing in [some] movie? I want one like that.

K: What do they look like?

Vip: I don’t know, I don’t remember.

He escaped this time, but was whisked away to the cloth store and he ended with t-shirts, shorts and other stuff. His attempts to avoid buying things also led to getting more things including an assortment of medicines and cosmetic stuff. He even applied for health insurance. But he avoided getting the sunglasses.

Next morning…

K: What would you like for breakfast?

Vip: Umm…

K: By the way, I saw a clip of the movie you told me about and found those sunglasses for you online.

The noose was on his neck and he had no way out.

Vip: Ok, I’ll go to Albany and check it out.

Being quick to action, that was totally unacceptable to Dr. K.

K: No. Come here, I’ve filled out your details. Just put in your credit card number.

V: Umm..

K: What’s that number?!

Vipul thus left with a bag of goodies and slimmer purse. He discovered a few new buttons in our house that we had not noticed, and the only thing he crashed was the ticket vending machine. We look forward to having him back, and when the twains meet there will be no dearth of drama for the bystander.

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Love needs surveillance, and nothing escapes the eyes of Dr. K. She has the uncanny ability of retracing my day with telltale details. Within minutes of returning from work she normally recounts whether I ate, napped, read, did the laundry, etc. Normally her account is accurate. So, when she came home and declared that I did not go swimming as I had promised, I was surprised.

“But I did go swimming”, I told her. She looked puzzled and asked me what towel I used and I pointed out the brown towels that we regularly use in the bathroom.

“You don’t use these towels in the swimming pool silly, you use beach towels”, she said. Pointing the cupboard downstairs, she said that I can find them there for my swim the next day. Though I did not understand the distinction, I tried to find the towel the next day in the appointed cupboard and found a monstrous white towel from which I could have cut four towels out. Finding it dysfunctional, I decided to go for our regular brown towel once again.

“What towel did you use when you went for the swim”, asked Dr. K as soon as she noticed that the beach towel was not drying. When I told her the story, she went down and declared that I had found the towel that people can lie on in beaches, but not the beach towel that I could use to dry with. In India, I mainly had two kinds of towels: thin ones and thick ones. Over here we have bath towels, beach towels, towels for the beaches, small long brown ones, small short white ones, paper towels and what not. While I am at ease with the diversity, I find it puzzling that she takes these distinctions seriously.

In fact, I get nightmares when I consider the variety of things available in the American marketplace. Paper towels alone come in dizzying number of forms. You have a choice of the ply, perforations, perfumes, use of bleach, environmental friendliness, softness, size, brand, absorption, strength, how it is folded, how it is dispensed, etc. The choice about paper towels can be so complex that Sixth Sense team decided to showcase it as one of the applications that the technology could be used for in their famous Ted demo.

To take the story further, the search for a towel in Amazon threw up 7571 options, and many of them with further options. These included the Tinkerbell Poncho style hooded towel with LED light, crime scene beach towel and a hundred dollar bill beach towel. Many of them come with their claims of distinction and assert that they are just the right things to use for some small activity of my life.

Let me illustrate why it is scary. I have an embarrassing variety of footwear already – almost five pairs of them. Dr. K declared recently that my footwear collection is not suitable for certain formal occasions and upon her insistence we got a new pair. She gave it to me with the express instruction that I am not supposed to walk around with this pair of shoes. I now carry three pairs of footwear for two day trips: one for the occasion, one to walk around outside and one to wear indoor! Such distinctions have now been applied on footwear, towels, pants, shirts, hair conditioners and what not. For an anti-shopper that I tend to be, these distinctions are mind boggling and beyond comprehension. And if I start taking them seriously, I will soon turn into a highly dysfunctional human being who cannot survive without carrying around a truckload of things. Such a day may happen.

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In his fascinating book, “The world of gold today“, Timothy Green wrote about gold reserves in Fort Knox as one of the silliest ventures taken up by human beings. We slave hard to take out the gold that lies under the earth at tremendous cost of lives and resources. We refine it, transport it across the world and then bury it again under the earth at enormous cost. There can be no venture sillier than that, he argued.

I just had my Fort Knox moment. I discovered that four of the papers that I worked hardest on and got published have been cited once cumulatively in four years. While that is bad, it gets worse. I heard a statistic that the average dissertation is read by seven people in all, and that often includes the mother of the author. We devote years and resources and to burry ourselves into the walls, only to produce something that will be buried in turn, a venture as silly as the gold stores of Fort Knox. It is sobering to realize that the posts I do on Facebook do much better than that, and generally takes only a few minutes to do so.

My recent realisation came when I looked at the software called Publish or Perish. The software helps us to track the performance of various authors, articles, journals and gives us an indication of the “impact” that the author has had. The impact of an author certainly goes beyond the citation that he or she receives: no doubt about that. Such software tend to underestimate the citations one has received since they do not cover all sources, no doubt about that as well. After taking all that into account, it still leaves the work that we do in the academia in very poor light, and life in the academia looks like the perfect route into oblivion: to publish is to perish.

Ps. To those masochistic ones who wish to measure their oblivion or the sadistic ones who wish to precisely estimate the unimportance of your “friends”, you should download and play with Publish or Perish. It costs nothing to download and run; costs to emotions are a different matter.

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With 15 minutes to go for the Jaipur-Delhi bus, I decided to give the toilet a try. I was directed to dark and damp room with an Indian styled pit-toilet. After finding the only dry spot to stand on, I precariously balanced my pants on my shoulders with nowhere else to hang them. Just when I was to get into business there was a loud crashing sound on my door, and the sound repeated itself in every five seconds along all the doors in the toilet complex. It was a muscular man in a hurry.

“Are you mad”, shouted my neighbour.

“Sis f***, one can’t even potty peacefully in this country”, shouted another in solidarity. Sensing our unionisation, the muscular intruder withdrew into silence. Just when I was about to get into the act, my door rattled again forcefully. The suddenness of the sound was shocking and momentarily scary, and it took renewed concentration and effort on my part to get back to business. I was left wondering how wrong the expression, scaring the shit out of someone is. In any case, this banging was not helping our man’s case. When I finally opened the door he rushed into the room pushing me, and I felt thankful that he at least let me out of the room in his hurry.

I had chosen an A/C bus for the summer heat in Rajasthan. Moments after the bus left the air colder was on in full blast. Half the vents in the bus were broken and passengers blocked them with their hankies, towels and anything they could find. When the bus stopped mid-way at noon, thirty of us streamed out to bask in the Rajasthani summer sunshine, and we watched others hurrying into the restaurant to get some cool air. The three hours were full of irony, improvisation, drama and all about mundane things like going to the toilet or travelling in a bus. I guess that’s what makes life in India intense, happening and fun, with something to smile about simple acts that would be consigned to dullness elsewhere in the world.

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