Dont know what to call this!!! Surrealist Americans???

"So who's the person with a star on the head whose poster is on your door?", he asked.

I stared at him...I was wondering if I was short of hearing.

"Was it Fidel Castro?", he asked again.

...No, I had perfect hearing capability....

I thought to myself, "Baba ke giye jiggesh kor shala!"

I apologized to the great man's soul before answering, "It's Che Guevara actually".

"Oh right...Didn't he die?"

.....mone hoy jeno Bhishwa! ichchhe moron aarki...tor baba merechhe re!

I looked at him and said, "He was killed...by the CIA...and he was chopped to pieces..."

There was a long pause...i ate my toast and they ate their rice and salad and meat for lunch...

"You are not allowed to go to Cuba, isn't it?", I asked.

"Right...But I did go to Guantanamo", he said.

"So what did you think of Guantanamo?", I asked.

"Oh it was great...the weather was great...it was so beautiful...it's like heaven..."

I kept looking at him...then kept munching my toast..It was necessary!

Breaking the short but distinctive silence his fiancee (Australian...hence politically smarter) filled in, "I don't think she asked about the weather, honey..."



Note: The person is in the US Navy...studying International Relations at the moment...The fact that I have not used their names here is cos' I dont know their names yet...

Just Another Post...

I don’t want to talk about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows…but then, I just have…Isn’t it just too revolting? The whole world crazy about this one book when there are a million wonderful books to appreciate…brilliant! I mean, my journey from Dhaka airport to Sydney airport, via the Bangkok airport, involved encounters with about 50 people in total, who were reading the book which just came out the day before in the bookstores…and what’s more, I wasn’t spared when I reached my Hall in campus…I awaited several messages in my answering machine, of which there was one announcement, which invited the residents to join a discussion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

Yesterday, I went out hunting for some jobs in the City…I went to two Indian restaurants and one sandwich bar, and only one of them asked me to come back and get on the horse…but the most interesting of all of them was the sandwich bar…two old men sitting and looking after the shop…one bald and wearing an apron, and the other sitting like he was the older one of the two and had grey hair and two gleaming eyes…I said, “Hi I am Ananya”, to which the older man replied, “and I am Alexander the Great”…and greeted me with a good morning when it was almost 7:30pm…in fact, he also greeted the same to a customer who came to buy liquor…and then we discussed my timings and their requirements, which did not quite match…but the good man offered me a drink which I declined, cos’ my bladder was already bursting…anyway, then I asked him where he was from, since he neither have a good English accent, nor an Aussie one…and he told me he was Chinese…when he didn’t have small eyes and blunt nose. “but you don’t look Chinese”, I said….to which he just laughed a bit and said, “No dear, I am Greek!”…I gave my name and number and left the place…feeling like the history of Don Vito Corleone in Godfather II.

Anyway, now I must get back to Chemistry and then to reading about Western genre of films…finish watching Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch starring Johnny Depp….study a bit of Psychology…then try to sleep…oh sleep…when will I ever get to sleep at night and not in the mornings??? The answer is not blowing in the wind…and I need to go see the counselor, who is, from what I hear from the Janata (not Junta!), kind of worthless, especially when treating a complex psycho like me…

“Is Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row…”

Sunday, May 06, 2007

2:07:53 PM

I am at an all-time low. There’s so much to write, and to read, but it’s all boiled down to dormancy. May be I should start with trivial matters. For example, the dining hall: it’s the ideal place to socialize for an hour and then file back to your respective rooms or work, intact, unaffected. The endless apples and the limited watermelon, and the not-so-limited oranges, which everyone will insist calling mandarins…and a girl who will always sit beside me in a state of eternal PMS…and you are not allowed to hate anyone, which is fair, but boring nonetheless…

I don’t know anyone that much, except one or two…I have a friend, perhaps the only friend I have in my Hall, who would occasionally drop into my room, and have a little chat or two about socialism, life, universe and everything…and a little chat about Bertrand *dash* and a certain Billy Joel (clue: not the singer)…and then get wrapped up in our over-emphasized life as essay and assignment accomplishers. And she being the editor helps both of us to get to know about all those literary enlightened ones living with us…and we contemplate how to go about meeting and being with them...but then, all I said in this paragraph is only exaggeration…

Many of us signed a petition for the Amnesty International to shut down Guantanamo. And still many more think socialism is only a luxury to be discussed in seminar rooms, funded by capitalist presidents. I hang a poster of Dylan and one of Jim Morrison, and I think they are great poets…

I hear the Aussies speak of a certain phrase called ‘dodgy random’ but I seriously have no idea what it means…and am too lazy to ask, and too tired of being sane…

It’s sunny outside today and the candles I kept at my window sill melted, so I had to keep aside the de-shaped candles that were otherwise pretty fancy…I must write about Nosferatu the vampire. The dvd regions in DVD drives drives me crazy!!! I can only watch the region 4 ones nowadays…the rest I must watch in the common room or the library…what a pain…

I go to a little cake shop every Saturday or Sunday, and work for 4 hours. I mop and clean, and I spill some coffee while serving, but mostly I mop and clean and make boxes, garnish cakes and say hello to anyone staring at the show-case trying to decide which cake to take home. And then I go to the chiller, count the cakes and kinda sort them out. I could start running a cake shop myself if I work there for 6 months…

The landscape is so beautiful when I travel by bus…it seems like all the beauty of the mind have been sucked out of people’s brains and placed on the bushes and the roads and the sky…an odd place to drink and vomit…but that’s what people do…

Ifs and Buts...

If sunlight could burn fat, I would start looking awwwwwwsum and get back to weighing 50 kg...but that is not to be...

The Earth smells different here...or maybe it just doesn't smell at all...not even when it rains...something what Mordor would smell like if I were a hobbit and if you took pride in being Gandalf...

Anyway, I overate the Laksa today...you don't know what Laksa is? Or may be, I just spelled it wrong...but then, it's a kind of soup...Thai or Chinese, I can't really tell...but it seemed Thai to me...but it must be Chinese...oh whatever!!!

okay..i get it, the picture seems to have no connection with the writing here...but well, can't help it...Dylan is God...he just has to be there when I write anything...on the other hand, it's blasphemy to call him God...

Australia is a place where you buy stuff and return them within a certain period and get your cash back or get some other stuff...I don't know what else you can do here besides studying and shopping and getting drunk...in a way, it sucks!

Anyway, ppl around me just wonder if I ever sleep....well this is the end...dont feel like writing anymore...

oh by the way, "Desolation Row" and "With God on it's side"......i just luuuuuuuuuuuvvvvvvvvv these dylan numbers...

To go or not to go...

it's such an irony...with so many elements of comic relief around the campus, how can anyone guess about the blood-shed of unarmed men and women in some other part of the world??? Women are getting raped in some remote village of West Bengal, and all these happy people due south can at most munch their breakfast reading about it in some newspaper...or not...there's nothing in the newspapers here anyway...only the arrest of Tarek Rahman in Bangladesh created some comic relief during breakfast today...

and this is Thursday night here...people are busy getting drunk on cheap booze at mooseheads...and i spend my worthless insomniac life blogging...splendid...

well not so worthless after all maybe...the quality of education received is what I gain...who knows, may be I'll only be a wasteful investment of the already sucked out, poor third world...

bar hopping...

indecent exposure...

well...ahem...the only indecent exposure I had was that to UV rays...the cocktail I had from Trinity bar was called indecent exposure, consisting of gin, watermelon, herbs...then we went to a couple of worthless bars until we landed at Mooseheads...not bad for a first night out in Canberra...
my friend who was driving us along didn't have a sip of drink, but still got pulled by the cops to have a 'breath test', which she righteously passed...else she would have lost her driving license...

Reflections

The Door...

Another day in Oz-Land...

Just another day passed…it seems like the sequel of Run Lola Run…every morning, I barely pull myself from bed to the loo…then walk like a zombie to the dining hall…grab myself a quick sandwich, and if I am unlucky, the grilling machine won’t toast my bread enough. And if I am any later than 8:30am, which I always am, I miss the good hot stuff…then I have to go through the same cold tuna fish with salad sandwich…but the Lipton tea is good…I never tried the cereals though…will do it, if I wake up early tomorrow morning…

Today I actually found two really heavy Biology books from the Hancock Library…and I am lucky I got to borrow it for 4 weeks. I would have never bought the books otherwise…oh and today I also went for the BBQ of Ekta- an Indian Subcontinent Students’ Association…again, met a girl from Kolkata…Kolkata shotty pichhu charchena…eikhaneo maobad, eikhaneo naxal…aaro koto ki boshe ache amar jonne ke jane…(ami jani ekhon eta porey ekjoner ga-ta gulachhe…tahole tumi glucose guley khao kutu…energy pabe)…Anyway, I met a girl from Bangladesh also…but she was born and brought up in Canberra…and I met a lot of South Indians…they kept on talking of Dosa…but offered me a fag…it felt good, after so long…since the time of the slogans…

Went to the school of psychology to take part in a PhD research project...this lady is doing "Making Poverty History"...there was a group discussion...it seemed like I was the only person talking...apparently she is concerned about Water for Life projects...it's about supplying safe drinking water in developing countries...had to answer a queer set of questionnaires as well...

I find a very strange trend in some students here…especially those who are from Malaysia and Singapore…they seem to be apprehensive of blogging…afraid of revealing…afraid of being in the wrong after writing about known people around…that’s so weird…I never thought of it this way…that I will be uncomfortable if I wrote something strong about somebody…..phew! the whole thing doesn’t register inside me…I can’t think of a life having to curb my straight-forwardness…or not being able to write openly…

There’s an Italian population genetics researcher in my hall…I met his wife today…she is just too beautiful and speaks in this really lovely spanglish accent…she is Mexican...she offered teaching me basics in Spanish…hope it works out…I wanted to learn Spanish so much…just didn’t take it up as an elective for fear of doing badly in assignments and exams…but if I get to learn the basics, I will be able to take up a second semester course in it….damn, shan’t I write about something else…

But what else is there to write…besides that I am studying…at least trying to…

bal...

Ki-ta boli aar...

I think I will remain jet-lagged forever...It's 2 am here, and am wide awake. I mean, if you have dinner at 6:00pm, you are bound to fall asleep by 7pm, and then ...well, I just woke up at 9pm...So here am I, blogging...

Last week ladh khe khe chhilam...cos Univesity was closed due to the hailstorm...It looked like it snowed...

Anyway, it was fun yesterday at the Biology lab...the building is named BaMBi, short for Molecular Bio or something...(much better than BoZo, botany and zoology building)...saw my own cheek cells under the microscope...and many other plant cells...the most pointless part was, breaking a hen egg shell, putting the yolk and albumen in a petri dish, and drawing the whole structure...

It seems very x-filish to float around the lab wearing a white coat and goggles...in fact the co-ordinator lady looks better than Dana Scully...

just had a bad dream...hence this blog...now, DONT ASK WHY...