The Hills

Quality Only Happens When You Care Enough To Do Your Best

2011-05-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

according to a mug I found in my house after a day of painful procrastination. I fear the end of year exams, I fear the Predicted Grade that will be send along with my university applications, but moreover, I fear 'end of year exams' imply that the end of the year is here.

(and I'm going to smash that bloody mug.)

queensday

2011-04-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

de nederlanders en een handjevol verdaalde noren vierden koninginnenacht rond de shisha - koninginnedag vierde ik rond mijn biologieboek. wat een fuif.
ik mis máxima.

Kaputt

2011-04-26T01:26:00.000-07:00

The sun has intensified and so has life in general. With the IB exams coming up and a hundred farewells impending, many find themselves spending their day either studying in the artificial cold of the library or finding other, more dubious outlets for stress in the heat of a storeroom. As for me, I've been dressing up in my father's flamboyant shirts from the 80's for two weeks now, while playing 'Kaputt' over and over again.

mango rains

2011-04-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

mango rains have fallen upon me - causing clouds of steam to come off me, leaving me trembling joyfully in countless drops of lukewarm water, each delivering the promise of an impending overload of mangos.

well, you know, we all want to change the world

2011-04-07T05:02:00.000-07:00

Partly out of genuine interest and partly out of procrastination, I went to see Angela Davis' lecture in the Pune University the other day. Angela Davis is an American professor, feminist and marxist. It was this very combination of fields of activism and interest that led her to be convicted on grounds of conspiracy, kidnapping and murder. Quite likely as a result of this, she spoke of prison-abolition, linking the institution of prison to capitalism, 'bourgeoisie democracy', consumerism, sexism, racism and homophobia. Although these connections she drew could be considered slightly far-fetched (my God, how I wished she could write my comparative World Literature paper 1) and the social changes she pursues almost utopic (and I shall not mention her misplaced linkage of Indian casticism to American racism), I didn't for the briefest moment consider my visit a waste of time. Firstly, her idealism made me reconsider that of my own. Also, it made me question as to what extent my coming to a United World College has brought me in any way closer to achieving my goal of not leaving this world until I contributed making it a better place. Is there a difference between local and global impact? Do I prefer holistic or specific approaches to activism? Must change at al times start at one's own region, one's 'heimat' (and what/where on earth is my 'heimat'?)? What's the use of idealism if it merely exists in some theorized, platonic form (I would almost say: high up some hill)? etc etc. Secondly, had I not gone, I would have probably wasted my time walking around campus chasing shadows, avoiding the burning sun and, moreover, my philosophy IA.

peepli [live]

2011-04-07T03:35:00.000-07:00

Peepli [live] perfectly portrays the multi-layered society of India, by means of both dark, satirical humor and deeply touching images. The story is structured around the problematic phenomena of farmer suicides due to droughts, exploitation, inflation (last statistic I heard claims 46 Indian farmers take their lives each day). And although Amir Khan's film fails to transcend the limits middle class media face when trying to depict rural India, it succeeds to raise questions of responsibility of the government, the middle class and the media.

तेरी माकी

2011-04-05T23:17:00.000-07:00

= your mom's.

the extent of my hindi vocabulary.

IB

2011-04-05T07:24:00.001-07:00

The IB is driving me crazy. Correction: it's driving me Bollywood.

mulshipedia

2011-04-05T05:07:00.000-07:00

[this is the communicative/reflective bit of Mulshipedia, the CE I'm involved in. I wrote it for the Mulshipedia blog, but I figured I might as well dump it here too.]

Just as Usha was getting frustrated with me for trying to book my train tickets for traveling when only two months are left before graduation, Aman walked into the Triveni office and asked if I had booked a jeep for Mulshipedia. I hadn't. He asks Usha if he can book a jeep. Usha mockingly replies you can't book a jeep one hour before taking off. She asks him where he was planning to go. Aman puts on his babyface and tries to ask for a jeep again while a slightly agitated Usha goes through trains that could possible take me up north after grad. 'There's no one way you'll get to Jaipur'. Aman replies we were planning to go to Bhodos.

Considering this lack of logistic skills of both Aman and I, it was hardly a surprise that at 3.30 no one but me was at the Social Centre. After a minute or two Aman ran in. 'Weren't we meeting at 3? What did you write on the Triveni board again?'. I realized I had forgotten to write anything at all and I prayed this was not a foreshadowing of the rest of the new Mulshipedia year. However, things mysteriously ended up just fine, the way they often do when one is around Aman. As if he had been hiding it behind his back, Aman suddenly presented me with a jeep, and off we went.

When we arrived in Bhodos I made an attempt to ask a couple of men at the temple if it was okay if Aman and I would film. I almost got an egoboost when the men responded it was fine, but I soon realized that 'film tikh hai?' really isn't a very elaborately structured sentence. One of the men walked us into the village. We fed his buffalos. He then took us up the hill to bring the wood he had cut down to his house. His wife was walking behind us. I tried to speak to her but her Hindi wasn't very well and, moreover, mine non-existent. Aman found out the man's name is Dattatziya and that his son Shivaji is in the Akshara programme. Dattatziya had dropped out of school in 4th grade after which he lived with his father. When he was 20, he moved to Pune to find work. After 15 years of transporting vegetables, he moved back to the village, where he spends his days cutting wood, keeping cows and buffalos and hanging out with friends in the night. He sells his milk to Pune.

After taking down some of the burning wood, we went back into the village. We fed the buffalos again (Mulshipedia learning outcome #1: buffalos eat a lot) after which we had some chai. I felt stupid for not speaking any Hindi and so I retreated to stroking the dog as he was chewing on my dungarees.

I feel rather awkward writing about someone whose name I probably fail to spell correctly. For me, Mulshipedia is essentially about indulging in this awkwardness. I do not have high expectations that crashing a village and dragging down some burning wood will reduce the gap I experience between us students and the people living in the valley. (I sincerely hope I am the only one that unintentionally thinks in these awful terms of 'us' and 'them', but I fear I am not.) Instead, we try to explore this gap and through means like the video we started shooting today, make it tangible.

(The video footage will be on soon. Hopefully.)

this fire is out of control

2011-04-04T23:40:00.001-07:00

Suddenly I found myself running to the biodiversity part of campus, carrying a broken (hence empty) bucket. The sun had set fires on the surrounding hills and was, like a true arsonist, watching the flames crawling their way to campus as the Fire Service members called for help. My testosterone levels never quite met the criteria to join the Fire Service CE (= Community Engagement) so to say, and on top of that, I wasn't wearing a sports-bra. Therefore, also considering my asthma and the rather evident limits of my general physical capability, my participation in saving the campus mostly consisted of handing out water bottles. 'Pani chaie?'. I ended up not fighting any fires. Not even my sunburn.

say cheese

2011-04-04T01:26:00.000-07:00

I'd forgotten my friend's birthday so I made her a bouquet of flowers growing out of a boat of gouda cheese. By the time I made it up the hill the flowers no longer stood upright and the cheese had started sweating (and so had I).
(picture by karanjit singh)

kochi café

2011-04-04T01:19:00.000-07:00

bombay awakening

2011-04-04T01:14:00.000-07:00

de staat der dingen

2011-04-04T01:05:00.001-07:00