The two loudest cable TV commentators recently decided to fix America.  This fall, millions witnessed a pair of huge political rallies in support of two equally esoteric principles.  Each rally drew hundreds of thousands of confused supporters where God and Sanity (respectively) were declared vital components to the American political process.  Unfortunately, when all was said and done no one knew what either side was talking about.  This essay is dedicated to Jon Stewart, who should have known better.

Normally he is satirizing an old point, but when Jon Stewart has something original to say, big things happen.  The last time he put his foot down, Tucker Carlson was out of a job and CNN’s afternoon lineup was left wide open.  Crossfire was hurting America, Stewart argued, and America agreed.  Recently, Jon Stewart let his other shoe drop in front of two hundred thousand Americans (and millions more on TV).  It was a major undertaking; restore sanity to the broken American political process.  Three days later, America responded with confusion.  Somehow the Republican Party, boasting the lowest approval rating in recorded history, recaptured control of the House of Representatives.

Holding a rally in support of political sanity is like arguing against a thunderstorm.  No amount of logic will prevent hail from falling or wind from blowing.  There is no counter-argument to a lightning crash.  There is no sanity to restore because there has never been sanity in any political system.  This is an obvious point, but not to the millions of fans of the Daily Show.  What are they looking for and what is Stewart’s point?  Nobody knows.

Jon Stewart is rallying for something that does not exist.  There is no utopian Grecian Senate that deliberates over the issues of the day in cold and stoic colloquies.  He is making a very public and compelling mistake that is dragging millions of potential voters away from the polls.  The 45 million voters who saw a clear distinction between the Republican and Democratic candidates in 2008 decided to sit out the 2010 mid-term elections.  To put this in perspective: if those 45 million voters decided to sit out in 2008, Vice President Palin would be deciding split votes in the Senate today.

Why is the media forgiving Stewart’s confusion?  They remember Tucker Carlson.

Jon Stewart is funny and smart and he is also confused.  He satirizes partisan media for establishing a false equivalency between left and right.  If Obama is for this, the Republicans are for that.  If Glenn Beck is against this, Keith Olbermann is for that.  This equivalency is impossible because neither side is having the same conversation.  Keith Olbermann is arguing that America needs a public option and Glenn Beck is arguing that Obama is Hitler.  Obama is arguing that tax cuts for the richest Americans will explode the deficit while Republicans argue that Obama is Hitler.  This example is real and it reinforces the idea that our political conversations are indeed insane.   But what problem is Stewart trying to solve?

Facts are ugly and divisive and there is no way to sugar coat them.  Stewart recently sugar coated a really ugly fact.  George Bush’s memoir proudly declares that the phrase “Damn Right” officially authorized waterboarding as US Policy.  Waterboarding has been declared torture by US and international law for over 50 years.  Those are the facts.  Stewart suggested in an interview with Rachel Maddow that the framing of those facts spoils the discussion.  ”I wouldn’t suggest [the argument against torture] was that this was bad for the country but that [President Bush] is a bad man.”  We are now off-course and discussing something else entirely; rather than question the ramifications of President Bush’s potential war crimes, we are now concerned by the bad names people might call the President.  Is this sane?  Rarely will the facts be so clear when discussing something so important.  The President’s memoir admits the crime but Stewart refuses to pursue the issue because doing so would be partisan, leading to conflict and perpetuating the insanity.

Jon Stewart gets to argue that the system is insane without admitting his role in it.  That may not be insane, but it is dishonest.  He gets to have his cake and eat his cake.  In the Rally, Stewart created an equivalency between Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck.  Both men are unlikeable, popular, rich, and shout ugly and divisive things to an agreeable audience.  It is a false equivalency; however, as Keith Olbermann doesn’t hold rallies.  The real equivalence is between Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart.  They’re both rallying at windmills with an army of fans behind them.  Meanwhile, the powers-that-be go on about their business undisturbed.

“Aapko kya fayda hoga?”

At first I was a bit taken aback with the question. I was unsure of what was asked of me, and certainly uncertain of what to say to what I thought was being asked.

There was a definite sense of assertiveness along with a clear politeness with which the question was posed. I knew it was not meant to be rude. It was simply more candid and pertinent than I was prepared for.

“Aapko kya fayda hoga?” literally translates into: What will you benefit from it?

And the person asking me this was a nineteen-year-old young man from Agra. We were sitting in his aunt’s bedroom in a one-bedroom apartment in a mostly middle and working class neighborhood in Balkeshwar, Agra. I was there to conduct interviews for my research. My dissertation field-work on reality TV shows in India began this summer in the television studios of Mumbai but also took me to Agra to speak with viewers of reality TV shows. As I sat on the bed next to Kusum’didi (name changed) and explained the particularities of the purpose that brought me to her house and my interest in talking about her interest in television viewing, her nephew, nineteen-year-old Shankar (name changed) posed the question to me: “Aapko kya fayda hoga?”

The question hung in the air for a moment.

And then it flapped its wings and flew around the room;

lingered on the blue painted walls;

gazed at the rain stained lines of dampness seeping through and breaking the vanity of firozi (deep blue) fortifications;

glanced at the flickering television still playing in the background, though now a mute spectator of the unfolding drama in the room;

pondered the close up photographs of Kusum’didi smiling at no-one and everyone, trapped within a gold metallic picture frame with tiny white flowers around the edges;

got distracted in noticing how fair and plastic she looked with the thick layer of make up in the photograph;

and then flapped some more as it circled around the room and re-encountered Kusum’didi face (without make up and intently alive this time) patiently waiting for an answer.

The question was not asked with any malice or suspicion. It was rather innocent in fact; merely an enquiry that could help Kusum’didi and Shankar prepare for the rest of the conversation. It was to define the performance and determine how they should respond to me; what was expected from them; and how the conversation may be used/re-produced (in a film, for a television show, a radio program, or perhaps a newspaper report?). And yet what was underlined in the question was an issue of transaction – of efforts being measured against outcomes.

That was a question I was afraid to answer and my fears arose from many different corners of my being.

At the most immediate and obvious level, I was there as a post-graduate student working on a dissertation research. I did not want to raise their expectation of what might come out of the conversations; but neither did I want them to lose interest in speaking with me.

As a guest who had been welcomed with great warmth and grace, it seemed rather uncouth to cite purely selfish reasons, and yet in terms of field work it was quite simply going to be a conversation from which I was to gain more than them.

And yet, what exactly was I to gain?

It was perhaps a question I should have asked myself a long time ago.

It was also a question I had asked myself many times, though lately it seemed to have become one of those questions that are just too old, tired, redundant and eventually forgotten.

But really, what was I to gain from the fieldwork or the argument-thesis-dissertation it was meant to support?

Mujhe kya fayda hoga? I asked myself.

Why am I doing this? What will I get?

For a moment I was caught up in the performance as well. Was I to provide an explanation of my intellectual aspirations, or how I intended to contribute to the growth of knowledge and social theory? The notion of talking about intellectual commitments somehow seemed very silly, if not superficial. And that itself was not a positive reflection of what I was trying to do with the fieldwork or dissertation, to say the least.

I quickly abandoned that line of thinking.

So what will I get?

A job? A tenure track position?

In the midst of a bewildering, exhilarating and exhausting summer doing fieldwork I was frankly not sure of my professional aspirations either. Did I really want to become a professor? Was that what kept me awake at night, burning the night oil, writing, trying to write or fretting about not writing a doctoral thesis? (To be honest though, it is mostly the latter)

And even if I was to say that is the ‘fayda’ I am aiming for, it again seemed rather ridiculous to try to explain a professorial ambition as ‘fayda-mand’ or beneficial to a nineteen-year-old who had almost dropped out of school and a middle aged woman who never went to school beyond receiving a primary education.

The air-cooler was making a tremendous noise, I observed. And it was not cooling me at all though the damp air that it circulated in the room hung in the hot and humid June air and clung to my skin – as if in anticipation of some response from me.

Fayda. Quick. Think of some fayda, I told myself.

A book.

Yes, that is what this is all about.

I am writing a book.

Or to be more accurate, one-day my dissertation will be published as a book. That is my hope; my aspiration; and the ‘fayda’ that motivates me.

So I said so.

Kusum’didi nodded, more in acknowledgement of the fact that I had said something than of what I had said.

Shankar on the hand stared at me. Then he cleared his throat, and asked hesitatingly but also persistently: A book?…nahi…kya matlab?

(a book?…no…what do you mean?)

His confusion was palpable in the air; Kusum’didi too seemed unsure of what I meant.

I resorted, rather helplessly, to a pantomime act. I gestured with my hands; outlining the contours of a book; and opening an imaginary book to read it.

And then I explained: “A book, you know…jaise kitab ki dukan mei…kitab…” I did not bother finishing the sentence because it seemed so futile.

Neither of them seemed to be remotely familiar with a book. Not even the concept, let alone an actual book.

How could that be?

And then something more awkward happened.

Shankar broke the pause with a further clarification: “You mean…matlab… like… ‘The five mistakes of life’…type ka book?”

(you mean…meaning…like… ‘The five mistakes of life’ kind of book?)

In the flash of a moment I both reeled and recovered from an existential crisis that graduate students working on their dissertation must be intimately familiar with. Indeed, was the dissertation one of the top five mistakes of my life or could all of the top five mistakes of my life refer to my pursuit of writing a dissertation? Personal crisis aside, the moment struck me as particularly revelatory.

Agra, a dusty and ancient city in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India, is etched in imagination as the home of Taj Mahal – the testament to eternal love and splendor. Many hapless hearts and astray souls aspire to such love and such grand expressions, all over the world. And yet, when I found myself in the city for my dissertation fieldwork I encountered aspirations of a different kind – more existential, practical, functional and transactional.

The prevailing sentiment was most prominently about defining fayda, and performing to maximize fayda.

But fayda (as I tentatively understand and seek to conceptualize in my dissertation) refers to more than a cost-benefit analysis. It is about a way of life and learning to live, imagine, anticipate, pursue and perform accordingly.

Shankar and his aunt’s question and confusion were as much about deciphering my intentions as about their preparing to answer my questions and engage in the conversations. With time I began to notice their particular interest in the formal and performative aspects of a conversation – what to say, when to pause, the language or the words to use, how to say, how to look, how to sit etcetera. In referring to a book the most accessible title that Shankar could think of also reiterated the performative aspects of life (of identifying and correcting the mistakes one is likely to make in life). His familiarity with the world of books was defined in terms of ‘how to’ books that serve a function – helping him to optimize any (life) experience; perform to his potential; clarifying the end goal and accordingly identifying the means to carry on (a conversation or life in general). Shankar’s aspirations to be considered impressive and distinct (as following conversations on his life goals, fashion sense, ability to speak English better and many other issues revealed) were defined in practical, commonsensical and handy terms. Life, for him, is about figuring out what is to be done, doing it and benefiting.

Kusum’didi on the other hand referred to books as the magazines she found in the ‘beauty parlor’ she frequented. She got haircuts, facials… “aur jo jo karwate hai” (and all those things that are done) at the salon, approximately twice a month. And during her visits she often looked through the pages of the magazines on film stars and celebrities, observing their clothes, hairstyles, make up, accessories etcetera. She referred to those magazines as books. Like Shankar, for her books were a part of a larger focus on acquiring cues about how to look, how to dress, how to apply make up, and so on. Fayda, or benefit is anticipated and calculated at each turn; and performance that will deliver oneself to the marked fayda or beneficial destination was always in attention.

Fayda (end goal) and performance (means pursued) are tied together; reiterating the connection between ends and means more than the distinction between the two.

This attention to fayda and performance became an enduring feature – recurring in different encounters, places, times and instances throughout my fieldwork – and is at the heart of my dissertation, even if the fayda of the dissertation is still unclear and aflame.

Several posts on this publication have analyzed the normal everyday structure of life in the US.  The way we speak and think, the way we wait, the way we pursue goals and now the way we furnish our apartments.  Technically, and more specifically, the way I just re-arranged the furniture in my apartment.

The normal structure belies a wild, untamed, unexplainable and lonely and quiet unpredictable wilderness of bad grammar, aimless ambition, and unresolved hours.  The incredible weirdness of life – the utterly incomprehensible strangeness of the thing you are seeing or feeling or smelling right now is a controllable force.  It is a wild animal, but not a cool wild animal like a tiger; it is a normal, reasonable wild animal like a water buffalo, or a yak.  It is a boring, brutally strong, single-minded eating machine capable of clearing a field with its mindless chewing while restoring it with its profuse expulsion of shit.  But it’s too dumb to know its power.

It is a beast of burden and the thing that is probably your conscious or your soul and I don’t care if this is too big of an introduction about the interior decoration of my apartment.

The TV, the great tamer of the beast, is no longer the central focal point of my home.  It has been banished to the bedroom where it will be viewed only when demanded.  My living room is now the room within which I live.  Which does not include watching TV.  It includes other things, TBD.

This is not a post that celebrates the demise of TV in the era of Wikipedia.  I hate wikipedia and I love TV.  Especially bad primetime dramas about death and the resolution of crimes that prevent more death from happening.  These programs are the things that tamed the dumb wild animal inside me.

TV – the Empire of Television – drew the maps of my life.  It laid the highways in the wilderness that organized and neatly divided what was something that had no name or metaphor or reason. It gave a history to a place or to a thing or a to a person that didn’t need one, necessarily.  Is this too big a metaphor for interior decoration?  I don’t know – you tell me.

The boundaries that define normal have been drawn by television.  A living room has a couch and chairs that try to face each other (for, you know, conversation) as well as face the TV (in case, you know, no one’s talking).  A workday revolves around the prime time television schedule.  Even if no one is watching prime time TV the way they once did.  Dinner is eaten at or around the evening news.  Sleep occurs at or around the nightly news.   Go somewhere on this planet that has no specific concept of primetime TV and you will find yourself lost.  You will be looking for an axis point around which a day is organized.  Is today a workday or a weekend?  You will consult the TV and you will be confused.  This is the moment when you realize the strangeness underlying the thing you thought was normal.  It’s a thin line.

I crossed that thin line involuntarily.  I am trying to reorient my way around my home without this time-honored focal point.  I do not expect a meaningful transformation to occur.  I am not seeking a new level of productivity or awareness.  I simply cannot go back to unknowing the outside boundaries of TV’s map.  The outer area is bigger than the 3 hours of primetime.  It is wild, curvy, weird, boring, quiet and completely pointless.  Here’s my impression of a yak’s epiphany: “Oh Look!  More Grass!”

An everyday order belies the incredible weirdness of life.   There are phrases and words and compliments and mannerisms and womannerisms and made up words and single and double and triple entendres all like a giant raging river and it’s dammed and controlled by whatisit? our language or our God or our culture or our wommanerisms or our nationality?  I won’t even venture a guess.  But it’s controlled – only slightly, barely, as if a tiny hole would bring the whole thing crashing down.  It’s controlled and harnessed, as best as can be expected by the things we take for granted.  The power of language and ideas and conversations and arguments and confusion and boredom.  It’s all important.  This video plays with language the way today’s child plays a video game.  It’s sure-footed and quick and it comes out of a place apart – let’s call it the shore of the river that’s dammed by God.  Was that a pun?  Dammed by God.  Damned by God.  Does that even have to make sense?  Remember the river is life or truth or something I probably didn’t clarify because I never claimed to know in the first place.

The things I don’t know are probably not answers to questions.  They are things though, I can tell you that – they are items that can be quantified and probably stacked like books.  But books are filled with more things listed on pages.  Those pages are counted and numbered and then read and turned-over.  The aggregate of those things leads to less things but bigger things.  Bigger things are probably more important things; things with weight.  What is the thing of a book?

2666 is 900 pages of things that I’ve read and loved and when you ask me what is the book about? I answer back that it is probably…… probably about life – life like living, the verb part of life, the noun.  It’s a documentation of many things that are semi-related but man, they are barely semi-related.  The only thing linking them is the beating heart and blood and raging stupid sweaty hormonal thoughts of the characters involved.  God are they stupid.  God, did I love this book.  What was it about?  It’s about that god damn river.  Did we even get to the part where we wonder where the river originated and to where it leads?  Do metaphors have myths and origins?

After a while, one recognizes the boundaries that frame a point of view – the things that define normalcy – are keeping other perspectives out.  This video demonstrates how our concept of time is determined by factors that have nothing to do with the seconds clicking away on the wrist watch you used to have but don’t anymore because your phone does it all.

Music is a math problem without a calculator.  Or without a right answer.  Or without a remainder?  I don’t know what music is or how to solve it.  I quit my trumpet 10 years ago like she was cheating on me for my impotence.  It’s not my fault – I was raised on the B flat blues scale and could rif mindlessly on it like 2+2.  Then one day my 2-D world grew shadows and I saw angles that made no sense.  For the first time I was sincerely lost in the room I grew up in.  The piddly little scale sounded like Mary Had a Little Lamb.

This song introduced me to the 3rd dimension.  To shadows.  To real symmetry – that is to say, it introduced me to asymmetry because every note I played was over-thought-out and wrong and slow and behind and did I mention it was over-thought-out?  A7 means A dominant 7 which means A C E G-flat – is that right?  tickticktick G-flat sounds weird, should I think of it as F sharp?  What’s the normal way to call it? tickticktick How can I connect this to an F tickticktick shit.

This is another language problem.  So many problems.  Problems like arithmetic.  Problems with remainders.  Problems with formulas.  Problems with answers and guesses that are right and wrong.  Problems with answers I already know but can’t yet communicate.

I miss my trumpet.  I am sleeping with a 49 key Yamaha so that someday I can come back to her.  But this is going slow.  I’m playing Mary Had a Little Lamb in Bass Clef so that I can someday play the thing I am already hearing in my mind.  Same with Bangla – I am squeezing out elementary phrases so that someday I can say what I mean.  I know what I know but can’t communicate either of them.  It is a math problem – I have the formula.  I have the variables.  I even have the answer.  I have trees and squirrels and bad metaphors and brooks and beavers and beaver dams but not yet do I have a forrest.

That was horrible.

As I finger Mary Had a Little Lamb (single entendre) I listen to Mendelssohn.  I was just handed sheet music to a Chopin song I can play (ostensibly).  Playing it drops me in the shadows of this 3rd dimension.  I am touching the sounds buried in my brain – the sounds I can whistle but can’t play.  I am touching them through the finger tips on those 49 electric keys.  I am feeling the curvature of their geometry and I am surprised and confused by the shape of things.  I am not trusting that feeling yet scared of wasting even more time in this struggle.  Both of my linguistic battles are stuck in muck.  This is why toddlers scream when they can’t say what they really feel.

I want to say more about this or maybe not this – I want to say more so that the output of my aspirations has some sort of weight.  I do not mean weight in the sense that the meaning behind those words generates any value or meaning, I mean weight in the sense that the tonnage of words is a verifiable measurement that can be taken to indicate that at the very least, I’ve taken this energy and put it to some use.  But rather than struggle for a point or a hook, I let the aspiration speak for itself so I can credit my goals for taking me to whereever I am when I stop and look around.  I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, by the way.  I go on runs not to get in shape but to get tired.

There is a 3 month long (or short) performance art piece underway at MoMA.  If you look at the picture above, you will see the representation of a representation of a sculpture made entirely of light that depicts the human condition or probably better yet, human conditioning or even probably better yet than ever, the elimination of human conditioning.

what?

I’m not going to over or under write this anymore.  I’m going all id.

The space within which the user is invited to gaze into the outward gazing eyes of Marina Abramović is bathed in controlled light.  There are no shadows because the space is like a film set without the filming going on (even though this picture demonstrates the fact that there is filming going on, but the medium is not the message here).  The space is fake.  The gazes are  real.  They are empty but they elicit real emotion.  But not in you probably.  What they elicit I can’t tell, but what I can probably say is that the best they can do is answer a question that you didn’t ask or maybe the other way around and ask a question that has no answer.  Not because there is no right answer or wrong answer, but because the answer you would get is so banal and disappointingly true that you were better off not bursting that bubble in the first place.

There is nothing going on here.  If you hate this you are right.  If you love this, you are stupid.  If you don’t know what is going on, you are weak.  If you look at it and get it immediately but realize that once that happens you still don’t know, then you walk away and wonder if the thing that is invisible and dangles like a book on a line in the sun between the eyes of the two participants and the eyes of the 55 observers is the same thing that makes you want to want to want to want.

Ceci n’est pas une [ *blank empty thing* ]

It has been snowing, without a pause, since last night.

And I have been trying to fit my dissertation within the limits of a ‘one page only’ application just as incessantly. Well, there has been some pause on my end, namely a night’s sleep, but the endeavor feels just as unremitting.

There is no clarity in sight, for either the damp and distraught sky or my mind. But it is a race to the finish. Can I finish the synopsis before it stops snowing?

I am competing with the sky – infinity, as it extends into the eternal and unknowable cosmos.

Soon, I will be howling at the full moon.

Yes, I am being melodramatic. And silly.

But indulge me.

A dissertation worth its name should be inflicted by drama.

It is only appropriate that I fight cosmos this snow draped, damp afternoon. And, test the limits of my human, rational, reasoning; defy destiny; scream at the haze above and abyss below; claim my existential realm, build and destroy, write and erase, think and rethink in defiance of whatever that invisible, infinite, eternal power is.

It is what we modern people do – compete with the cosmos.

And this is my modernist quest – this dissertation.

A thesis, a narrative that explains the world – empirically induced; conceptually deduced; reliably argued; authoritatively pursued. Beyond the doubt or force of even a slithering shadow of a snowflake.

A dissertation is, after all, a modernist battle cry: yes, I can; yes, I shall; yes, I will.

(And then, congratulations: yes, you have.

All this for one moment of validation? You insecure bastard child of mine: whispers the cosmos, as the snowflakes smile and slither past my window.)

Sail around the world? Yes.

Trace the shape of the world? Yes.

(Why is it round by the way? A cruel joke played by the cosmos in a sense: leaving us back where we started.)

Convince others of my narrative (by force or wit – and start the colonial-neo-colonial-imperial-neo-imperial-capitalist-neo-capitalist world system)? Yes.

I am doing what others have done, over and over and over again.

Not the hustling in abstractions part, though that too. Rather, the attempt to test the limits of my ability to think-prove-argue and conquer the world, via mind or matter – the modernist part.

It seems petty.

And silly.

Until I make it melodramatic – and find in my quest a modern valor; an ambition to reach the frontiers, trace the horizons, find new lands and open seas in between; shoot a rocket and get giddy over a fluttering cloth on a piece of a moon-rock; and tell stories of the journey (some call it social theory). Then this effort seems all right again – still silly but not petty; dramatic and grand in its self-involved abandon.

But abandonment is everywhere I turn to. The slow sway of the snowflake; the drift of the breeze; the meandering clouds without addresses; the awkward, jaunty waves of tree tops; even, the pit less neon street light.

So what is their abandonment and what is mine? Where do we meet and where do we leave?

Brooklyn sticks out its tongue – a block long series of rooftops stained by thick, sticky, black tar, painted with caring hands of weary landlords – to stop the wet snow in its track.

The mad, ethereal dance of snowflakes, falling with abandon, careless and dizzying, meets the roof top in silent sighs and rushes away to other business in puddles of water through the city streets. The city never stops, they say. Is it competing with the cosmos too? Heartbeat by heartbeat; snowflake-by-snowflake; water puddle over water puddle.

Where does it end?

When will it stop snowing?

And my dissertation?

Ah, that too.

I was looking for a specific book but my eyes wandered. Instead of picking up the book on methodology that I needed to read urgently I found myself leafing through Urdu poems. There you go again, Ms. PhD student: so easily distracted; so fickle. But the scandal does not end there. Bright winter sunshine rushes in through the window and I can almost hear the soft snow on the ground, from last night, melting away – gently melting in the sunny embrace. In the hushed silence of a New York apartment I read aloud Azmi to myself.

I look at the bookshelf again, and see the title: Argumentative Indian. Why do I find the same book on the bookshelf of every Indian friend who lives here in the U.S.? Is it a comment on my circle of friends? What does it say?

Is it meant to be a reminder of who we are, though we live so far away from home, every time our distracted eyes fall on dusty bookshelves? Is it a validation; or a yearning to break the silence of empty apartments and shrill deadlines with some hearty rambling? The endless adda over cigarettes, cha (not chai) and the occasional samosa and jalebi as I remember life to have once been?
I remember moving into the new house; the smell of clean walls and empty floors. My father installed a fancy key chain lock on the main door. Dada and I both observed it to be a rather excellent idea: open the door just that wee bit to satisfy your curiosity about who might be standing on the other side and yet, without commitment. The door was neither closed, nor open.

The key chain broke within two days of our moving into the new house. Just for the record, Dada and I had very little to do with its collapse. Actually, if I remember correctly, the base for the chain dislodged from the wall. And the door was never closed (during the day, and sometimes on forgetful nights). People streamed in and out, through the door, all day long: and adda carried on. It was no environment for children to grow up: Ma reminded us all. We had to study for examinations after all. Such distractions will not do. Only purposeful ones: music lesson twice a week, art courses over the weekend, walk to the library and film festivals when they are on.

Twenty-five years later I am still dealing with distractions. The key chain at our New York apartment is very strong, indeed. Nobody visits during the day; and hardly ever at night. But I am filled with memories of adda and guilty pleasure of reading: Aaena.

I guess Ma won after all.

And the secret desire to rebel, to contest, to ramble and revel in angst…?

Well, it is on the bookshelf now. The Argumentative Indian: on bookshelf after bookshelf of feisty Indian girls and their American apartments.

Though I must admit that beyond questions of becoming a cliché and wondering if one exists – truly – only in distracted, stolen moments, such consensus on reading material is rather disturbing. Sincerely, an argumentative Indian.

It’s back to the methodology book now.

Andrew,

Like I said, I’m a regular reader – going on two years.  It took me a while to understand the format of the Daily Dish.  The rapid fire posts, the jump-links.  The various awards and photos.  You are right, this is a broadcast medium at heart and I climbed the learning-curve because you were constantly refreshing content and I was stimulated enough to endure.  Now I’m on top, so to speak, and the view is a crystal clear vista of a brick wall.

I do not associate your content with the Atlantic Monthly.  I think that’s important.  I do not associate your content with anything other than yourself.  Your friends, your enemies, your opinions, your arguments, your obsessions, your everything.  For a while, I was satisfied with that.  Your perspective offers readers your expertise on various DC goings on.  Additionally your personal story is compelling enough to color several socio-political issues with a relevant point of view.  But your POV is only valuable if it’s directed outward.  But The Dish is an inward-facing organism.  Hence, my shabby view.  I only see you.

So…

This is all about you, Andrew.  Isn’t that weird?  Sit on that for a minute.  As your reader, I’m tracking you in real time deal with too much information.  I know you know that.  You’ve said it before – this is what blogs do.  But that doesn’t sit well with me.  I don’t care that much about you.  Should I?

I started reading Studs Terkel recently.  I see meaningful connections between his work and yours.  Our evolving society has meaning and texture.  Essentially, you both strive to document and ponder our life in this place.  Studs found meaning in the people – their fragments and stories – the things that they did, didn’t do – the fun stuff and boring stuff.  Some of it meaningful and lots of it confusing.  Studs took fragments out of the whole and weaved together a contextualized story.  It took time and patience and editing.  Studs was a hub of information.  He organized it and provided that context.  Your work is on the other end of the spectrum – the boring stuff, the fun stuff, the right stuff, the wrong stuff – the dissents, the back-pats – all of it is from you, about you.

Your expertise is valuable.  It is lost on Chris Matthews’ rapid fire show where fellow pundits pass around a hot potato until the next issue.  It is diluted by the wide-open valve that is the Daily Dish.  It is hollowed out by an echo chamber unto itself, as represented by the blog roll on the bottom right of your page.

This is not an email where I tell you that I’m done reading your work.  I’m trying to make a broader point.  Why does your process matter? Patton Oswalt has a great bit about preventing George Lucas from making the prequels. The punchline (word for word): I don’t give a shit where the stuff I love comes from; I just love the stuff I love.

Well anyway, I’ll keep reading.  This is getting interesting.

This is a language spoken by many many human beings on the planet earth that were not born and raised in Milwaukee, WI.  To be fair, I’m sure there are several such people who can contradict that generalization (I am not one of them…. yet).  It is Bengali (Bangla).  It’s the other mother-tongue of my household and the one I don’t know.  I have been teaching myself this language using the Teach Yourself Bengali book and CD set.  At this point, it’s been years.  I can repeat the same phrases and understand or misunderstand or not understand the same vast expanse of human communication in Bengali as before.  So I’m stuck – but that’s not very interesting nor is it the point of this post.  Every language student gets stuck and the solution to that problem is always the same – talk more.  Listen more.  That’s an easy problem to solve with hard work.  (Side note: if you know of a good Bengali class in the NYC area, please let me know).  The real point of this post is about the neural realignment that is slowly taking place deep inside my brain.  The Bengali neurons are clearing brush somewhere in my brain; cutting down trees, digging trenches, laying pipe for what ostensibly will be a new thought-center.  This foundation is coming at some destructive expense.  Before these foundations are complete, I’m working at half-speed.  There’s a bottle-neck in my brain and when it hits me hardest, I start to feel homesick.

I’m still here (here is not there and there is where Bengali speaking non-Milwaukeans live and work).  Homesickness is probably not the right word because it connotes geographical displacement.  What about mental displacement?  I can’t process thoughts the same way, so I can’t react to predictable circumstances in familiar ways.  The familiar is now unfamiliar.  I blame the grammar.

I’m not educated enough to explain Bengali grammar.  If you happen to speak that language (and English) you will notice that quickly.  But the grammar breaks my thoughts before I can finish them.  Quick example: Bangla does not specify gender in subjective personal pronouns.  There is no ‘he’ ’she.’  It’s all relative.  This makes things interesting in my mind when I consider notions such as God (”He” in English and “Or” in Bangla).  But my Bangla level is not deep enough for theology.  I also had to look up ‘pronouns’ before I could identify my point as specifically: subjective personal pronouns.

The point is this: each successive thought requires strenuous deliberation to complete.  There are no more reactions to things – there are contemplations of grammar rules, vocabulary restrictions, and speed.  By the time a thought is generated, it dies before it can go anywhere.  When I’m robbed of my internal monologue (robbed is too strong a word, I realize), I lose a sense of self.  Then I become unfamiliar to myself.  That’s when I feel homesick.  Is this why it’s harder for adults to pick up new languages?