Ta(l)king out the Trash

Once upon a time, (probably in my first year of MA in Windsor, Canada) I was exasperated: at the level of writing of an assignment I was marking and I told my co-TA "She (student) has written rubbish all over!"

Next, my co-TA was almost rolling on the floor laughing...............on my vocabulary. Apparently and understandably, the word "rubbish" was archaic and very British, and pointed to my colonial heritage which even though one possesses, one is not supposed to show; the inheritance of such outdated and misplaced vocabulary should be trashed out.

Even though I knew the word "trash" this is how I remembered to use it.

Of course, when I say the above sentence, I mean that this is how the word "trash" came upon my life with enormous significance. Trash took up a significant chunk of my arguments with some of my roommates, with however, little substantive consequence on the ritual of taking out the trash. It was me who always had to do it; and then thrash out indirectly to my husband at how insensitive and useless rest of the world is.

(Whoever takes out the trash everyday will sympathize with me and whoever just fills in the trash and never/seldom takes it out will feel an increasing sense of pleasure for belonging to the other camp)

But that is not the point. The point is that, many times when I take out the trash I cannot help but remember (very boringly and very predictably) of that one Sociology experiment where researchers went through trash of their targeted houses to see who used condom and who didn't (I think it was the tea room experiment). Bypassing the Ethics people, the researchers were following people to see who was gay, who was closeted gay and who used condom when having sex with their wife.

So it turns out that trash is not trashy after all. It does have its use, isn't it?

Of course, the use is not limited to only experiment! All of us (us=middle class Bengali children growing up in the late 80 and 90s) have made (or attempted to make) something decorative with trash. Taj Mahal from homeopathy bottles or injection syringes, wall hanging from own or others' rejected bangles, handmade greeting cards with pencil shavings off the sharpener......the list can only grow and make me nostalgic....

Which again is told to be trash; the nostalgia......it does no good except make you hate everything you are doing at the moment.

And when you hate the moment, you think you are leading a trashy life. This is what I think though, sans the effect of nostalgia. When moments slip away from your fingers, it is hard to love them, isn't it?

And even though ideas (and dreams) stay in your head, bringing them on to your fingertips can make you being trashed out to others. Yes, even though GIGO (Garbage in and Garbage Out) remains the popular rule according to which the basic programming as well as the universe is supposed to be bound together, sometimes Garbage Out becomes the bottomline irrespective of what is inside, garbage or not.

Like this entry.

The resultant angst of posting entries like this can only give more reasons to pick on the roommate who never takes out the trash and/or to regret ruefully on how one could bypass the ethics people, get an unthinkable work done and get a paper published.

Among all the trash that comes out of AJS, ASR, Social Forces and Social Problems, probably the above one could be true to its roots; to say it in the outdated Herbert Spencer way.....it would be true to its organic roots, compost trash being one of its significant components.

Mehfuz

I was listening to this Euphoria song...."mehfuz hoon" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sJ_9pHTh5A) .....though I've heard this song numerous times, and whenever I hear it I can't help but remember a particularly lecherous guy, so named, of a cyber cafe in College Street seen some 8-9 years back......it made me question:

Am I "mehfuz" in any area of any person?

Well...that is a question which can have the inevitable, predictable non-affirmative answer anyway, so why even bother asking it? Like running a mostly narcissistic blog, questions like these have little utility except perhaps buttressing self-doubts.

For everything else, there is orkut.

The more things change....

There have been numerous songs and poems on September and Autumn, as well as December and Winter. Though...when I come to think of it, December hardly comes around to me (..I mean to my inner psyche) as a winter month. Yes, even in Calcutta....it was somewhat a "feel good" month, complete with new winter foods and circus and enjoyable mellow sunshine. For me, wintry months were January, .........and now it is February. In present times, I hate and dread the snowy, the painfully cold, February. Yet, December, January and February were not perceived to be too different from the season preceding it...Fall/Sharat.

The season of "Fall" was as joyful as our good old "Sharat". "Winter" only extended it with numerous fairs, nolen gurer sondesh, joynogorer moya, several Biriyani biyebaris where you could actually wear the compact and keep the hair open and not sweat, the precious bookfair for which I saved money the year long....where you would go with friends, family (separated by different trips) and meet friends and foes and interesting strangers, get mehendi done on palms, followed by dear-to-heart Saraswati Pujo, and Valentine's Day with Holi to end the unforgettable joyride.

Now,... people who are in the same boat with me (the boat being made of self-chosen iron, formed like a cage of "foreign" material with alienation to feed on) get to experience some of these things, via staged desi flavour of things and orkut albums that give us sneek views of weekends spent in Bijoya, Diwali, and then snowing....

Of course, people who are not in the same boat are often heard to be saying "if you had to sigh...why are you even there? why did you choose to be there?"

To this....we cannot give the reason....we cannot...no....probably, couldn't show them the green money...because confess it...there isn't enough green money to flaunt actually. I'm saying this with full knowledge of the subjectivity the word "enough" entails.

The reason of ending something that was started with active agency and motivation, is hardly digested as reason enough.

The good thing is that, even then...there are some goods to flaunt. Oh yeah...you can flaunt money and milk and honey; only when you belong to Married, International Grad Students.

So what does the single grad students (and pseudo single grad student like me) can flaunt?

In this season?

SNOW.

So here you go.....flaunting you my last winter...

Now, before single students living in....Florida and Houston...come with their usual criticisms of snow being the choicest flaunting thing...I can explain............my choice and position, though....probably not my representativeness.

Being in Canada gives you with little option. Yes...it doesn't matter where you stay....as long as you don't stay near the beach....it doesn't differ and and the rest doesn't matter. You can enjoy the fire inside and listen to "let it snow...let it snow..let it snow..."

Recognizing the fact that one could flaunt whatever the other person has less of (or doesn't have), it is understandable how graduate students flaunt their snow experiences regardless of the amount they receive. That gives me some courage to join the flow and flaunt mine too. Regardless of how unappealing the images are to my own self.

Which brings me to the realization that this year would be no different. Winter/snow photos would just be the same...Hello-s would just be the same, Boxing Day wishlist (and budget) would just be the same, and the regret of not meeting some of the inward "to do-s" would also be there; along with the regret of not being able to go home in December.

In spite of so many things being there....and just being there...things that would change--and I would say, probably change--are hairstyles, number of married friends with children (with an ascending rate), weights (both gaining and pulling/pushing), music talent hunt shows, number of friends getting busiest, significance of the academic ego, Rani Mukherjee's haggard look,



and our ability to put in the ":D" smiley with the straightest face.

(I said ability...not frequency and the ultimate reality)

And then...who cares? As much as things change and remain the same or change forever....we remain as good-hearted, as optimist, as cynic, as funny, as naive, as difficult ....as we find ourselves in our daily frugal moments. Circular reasoning? ummm......is it only me who find life as a complete circle? And hope to travel "the full circle?"

Till we cover and complete that circle, let's enjoy the eggnog.