Extract: - A day from my Daily Journal

I am in the library. It seems to have been my best place in college. What do I do in here I really don’t know, though I come here whenever I am free, I am still trying to figure out as to how I spend my time in the library. It’s a really good place to get some sleep too, not much noise here, so yes, you get your own space sometimes. . Just finished my practical exams went off well, first time I actually knew what I was writing. Been too much influenced by Kurt Cobain lately I guess, life seems pretty much messed up, confined myself in a solitary shell, ‘grunge’ to say the least, read, don’t like nobody right now, don’t study, sleep, food, college, that’s it in life, so ‘fuck you Nirvana’. There is still about ten minutes to go for the bell, currently reading two books simultaneously ‘A hundred years of solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and ‘Che Guevara A Revolutionary Life’ a biography of Che by Jon Lee Anderson. Very thought provoking books, fascinated by Che, an unquiet youth, amidst the dreams and curses of many, uncovers the sacred flame within him, eventually cornered, hunted and murdered by the C.I.A. I like to come to the library at this moment of time, not much people around, I always sit at the fagg end of the library, I like it, no one can see me. Nat is in town today, will meet him later this evening. The bell has just gone got to go back to class.
We are having Add English. I sit near the window I get a clear view of the island and the red benches. Mr. Joushya is taking the class. I can feel the fresh air from the window. One girl from F.E.P. is making a presentation, I tried to read a book I have with me but I am in no mood to read. Though I am sitting in the front bench I have no idea what the girl is talking about, feeling hungry so just waiting for lunch. I am enjoying the wind, the presentation is over, class done. Most of the people are talking, some sleeping, while some are asking for permission to go out. I sit with two sisters, Sister Agnes and Sister Inna Mary, I like them, there are discussing about the practical exam that took place earlier this morning. Sister Agnes is saying that she is worried about the forth coming exams Sister Inna Mary is speaking in a ultra sonic frequency I am not able to hear her. One of my goals in Christ college is to witness the two Sisters bunk at least one class. At least some influence over them is expected. What’s the use of me sitting with them? I am happy, they have finally decided to bunk Prof. Shudhamshu’s class later today. The bell just went off. Have Psychology. The very thought of sitting psycho classes depresses me. I don’t care about the attendance, for all I know they can take my attendance and flush it down the drains. I don’t even want to pass this paper. I am here to listen and learn... copy and conform. This writing my dear readers was created out of no other tradition but that of boredom. Psycho classes are a perfect example of a hundred percent surrender...to the process of tradition.
We are having General English Classes now, everyone in the class is quite (he has threatened to cut attendance) lecturer is in a foul mood today. I am feeling restless, tried sleeping, tried reading, tried listening, nothing works, so now I have resorted to writing. She comes to my mind, different world, different places, never meant to be... Last bench girl was just caught talking, Prof. Is inquiring about her roll number, her attendance is scrapped off but the number which she gave was not her roll number, it was the number of one of the girl whom she had given proxy for, earlier during the attendance. Prof. is telling her to sit straight. No one pays attention in his class, he is asking some question one knows the answer. He has caught one more girl talking, I am hearing the person’s voice and roll number, I can’t make out who it is, I don’t turn back to look. Prof. has stopped teaching; there is still some 25mins to go. Now that the class is over I am feeling even more restless and boring, I look around, almost everyone is talking and almost everyone has a group. The noise is getting louder and louder, I can hear the laughers, the moment you see a person not talking you can make out they are having a bad day. Sister Inna Mary, Shruti, Vaneet are among the few writing essay for Dr. Mathew’s class. I just told Shruti to give her books some rest otherwise her books might end up in NEHAMS. She said that along with her books, I too should go, too. Though I did not say it out loud I guess she is probably right. I turned around, I invited Sister Agnes too, to come along with me, she too needs a mental check up, she turned me down. Sigh. The bell has gone, finally lunch, feeling hungry, will go get some grub now.
Post lunch back in class again. Class has gone haywire, there are deciding where to go for the class trip, half the class wants to go to one place while the other wants to go another place, I personally don’t give a damn, I vote for all the three places. It’s Prof. Shudamshu’s class, I like his classes, both the sisters are missing, very happy, finally managed to achieve something in Christ. Half the class is empty, few are listening, most are talking, he is cool though to put it in his own words he does not give a ‘flying fuck’. In his class, listening to him get me in a trance state, like him. He is making some argument on neo-colonialism, I will listen to him. Bye.
Last period of day, the class is almost surreal, there is pin drop silence and the only voice I hear is that of Dr. Mathew’s. The class is busy jotting down her lectures; I look around almost all the eyes in the class are following her. She is speaking on the caste system, I like her classes, she is very strict, no one talks in her class, she has a very dark sense of humour I find it enthralling. I look outside I can see Abinash going home. I never take down her notes, I never write her essays. Socio classes remind me of (The Joker,) “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.”
The other day, I was walking my way up to college, hot mid-day, middle aged man, walked up to me, very politely introduced himself as a priest from Jaya Nagar. He did not have any money. The priest said that his legs were too tired to carry him and wanted some money for the bus pass. I said ‘no’ and walked on. Just a hundred yards ahead I felt really bad, forced myself to move on. A few steps more, I wanted to turned around go back and give him money. I didn’t, I walked on. I was surprised to find this conflict of mixed emotions within me. Why didn’t I give him the money? Why was I feeling bad? The beggars I meet every day, I don’t give them money but I don’t feel this way. Was I feeling bad because he was a man of God? Would I have felt the same way if an alcoholic or a junkie had asked? Where had my so called “trust” and “faith” disappeared? I have always been critical about the layers of hypocrisy or diplomacy that is prevalent in our everyday lives. I never wanted to be included in this category. This world has shaped me to think like “them”, I hate it. I look back when I was a young, vulnerable, hated, scared kid, innocent to the core, religious as hell. I look at myself now and find myself wicked, obnoxious, cunning, wild and insanely crazy. Damn this world!! Dr. Mathew’s voice struck my ears, bringing my mind back in class again. She has switched over to subaltern studies. The bell just rang classes over for the day.
Back in library again, I have H.R. classes after 15mins, don’t know what I am doing there. Was reading on absurdism and ‘the theatre of absurd’ yesterday, found it quite interesting, and so came here to look for books on it if there was any.
Just finished my H.R. classes, that class is too materialistic, almost six now, I am in the library. Days are going dull, classes dull, that’s how life is sometimes, I am thinking of going back to my place but I have got no work there either. The evenings in Christ is quite pleasant, I always sit just beside the door during the evenings in the library (easier to receive calls or go outside and can feel the cool breeze). The sun is just about to set in casting its reflection all over. Outside I can see flowers of different colours- yellow, purple, red flowers hanging up in the tree, I wonder what the name of the trees are. These trees remind me of home. Some days if I had a book with me and didn’t feel like reading it at home, I would go out early morning, to this village about two hours drive from my place. There is a small teashop there, I would sit the whole day, have breakfast, lunch in that shop itself and just read. Here in Bangalore I miss those places sometimes. Even though we have everything here in the library, internet, newspaper, Wi-Fi, reference, comfortable seats, I somehow long to go back to that teashop made of bamboo and those broken seats. At 7.20 will go watch ‘Dev-D’ with 52 and Megha. I have ‘A hundred years of solitude’ in front of me. I will read it for a while now.
It’s almost two in the morning. Went straight to Abinash’s room after the movie. We jammed a bit, he’s got his music room there, I sang, he played the guitar. I enjoyed it, he enjoyed it, people in the adjacent rooms are probably happy that I am here now, writing. We enjoyed it, that’s all it matters. Wanted to meet Nat today but could not make it, maybe tomorrow. Mohan had come to my room, nice person, if I could I would have found him one girlfriend but I am no good either. He was drunk today, was thinking it was 11o’ clock, while it was 1’ in the morning, rushed back to his place after hearing this, he has office early tomorrow. He is one of my close friends here in Bangalore. May God give him happiness, may God give him peace and if he does better deeds on earth, may God give him a girlfriend too. Saw ‘Dev-D’ today with Divya and Megha. Cinema, a medium of expression, a coherence of unparallel tranquillity, an abyss into the agile escapist mode of reality, didactic sometimes, maybe even nostalgic but a silhouette chimera all the same. ‘Dev-D’ did just that. A fatuous tableau of the contemporary drug culture, adhesive tale of love, the obsession with grotesque happy endings, white horse waiting at the end of every door, something I never really understand. There is so much of fragmented little broken pieces of our lives scattered all around, trapped in the maelstrom of antiquity, yet unity rendered over celebration. There is so much of talk on life going on these days. Blogs, gazettes, lectures, poems, art all glorifying the beauty of life, emphasizing the importance of positive thinking, articles on how the most beautiful things on earth is free. ‘Copernicus Revolution’ according to Kant. A fatuous obsession again to have a goal in life, know what we do, how we do, succeed, control, life-style obsession, fuck that. It reminds me of some lines of Shakespeare, “What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” In one of my treks during holidays, we were out fishing. The river was rapid, flowing swiftly, deep, unpredictable, forests on both the sides. The angry sound of river flowing, the birds chirping, insects, whispers of the leaves fluttering, enveloped under a thick layer of fog, a typical dopers’ day. We normally fish with the generator and I sat on this elevated rock watching the river flow below me. A few steps I slipped I fell down. I tried to hold on to anything on my way down, there were none, the river below was rapid, as I was falling down into the river I found the true meaning of life...... it sucks. For long and in many cultures of the world, poor was not always the opposite of rich. Other consideration such as falling from one’s station in life, being deprived of one’s instrument of labour, the loss of one’s status or the mark of one’s profession, lack of protection, exclusion from one’s community or public humiliation defined the poor. It was only after the expansion of the mercantile economy, the process of urbanization leading to massive pauperization and, indeed, the monetization of society that the poor were defined as lacking what the rich could have in terms of money and possessions. A nation measured in terms of economic growth per capita production of materials.
nothing but a piece of dust that can be kicked around in any direction trapped in conformity.... too scared to care about anyone but myself.

Currently been listening to Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, ‘House of the Holy’ and ‘Abbey’s Road’ is my current favourite. If there is one place I could go back in time San Francisco, 1960’s, is where I would be. San Francisco in the middle of 60’s was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories, can touch the sense of knowing that “I” was there alive, in that corner of the world, whatever it meant. It was madness in any direction, at any hour you could strike sparks anywhere. It was a fantastic sense that whatever they were doing was right, that they were winning and that I think was the handle. The sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil, not in any mean or military sense, they didn’t need that. Their energy would all prevail, they had all the momentum, and they were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. But a few years down the line you could go up a steep hill and look west, and with the right kind of eye, you could almost see the high water mark, that place, where the wave finally broke and waved back. They were all wired into a survival trip now, no more speed that fuelled the 60’s. That was the fatal flaw in the Beat’s trip. They crashed around America selling consciousness expansion, without ever giving a thought to the grim meek reality that was lying in wait for all those people who took them seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks, who thought they could buy peace and understanding with three bucks a hit. What the Beats took down with them was the central illusion of a life style they helped create, a generation of cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the old mystic fallacy of acid culture, a desperate assumption that somebody, or at least some force, was tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s late. I am wide awake. Burning up. Bored. Sad. Happy. Angry. Contemptuous. Sitting in a corner. Feel like tripping. Dazed. Perpetually delirium. Feel like going places. Bad places. Dark places. Great places. Contemplate. Expose it all. Hypocrisy. Diplomacy. Excuses. Self righteousness. Tease. Taunt. See myself. No plans. No shame. No fear. Not a fear in the world. No worry. Nothing hidden. No secrets. Watch. Watch as this insanely tamed iridescent world unfolds. Laugh. Help. Fall. Laugh. Like. Hate. Love. Hold on. Move. Self-portrait. Rendered arcane. Imagine. Sense. A dark club. Loud music. Cornered to ourselves. Anonymous. Shameless. No past. No future. A broken rainbow......