lifeofaphd - battle of one and eighty minutes

In a hyperbolic adaptation the entrance exam would be interpreted in the lines of Homeric battles and quest. Proto-consciousness was the quest - this is the full on suiting up of battle armor complete with its own portents, strategies and of course the cry of conch shells.
The night would have been spent restlessly - pondering over victory and preparations. And if those preparations have been patchy or the battle comes hard on heels of another one the night can be hellish. Snatches of sleep caught between waking hours and trips to the laptop searching once again to be sure of differance and spectacle are very precious indeed. Even paralyzing nightmares are welcome if only to be sure the mind has finally sunk into a somnambulic state.
You pay homage to your patron gods and goddess in the early hours of morning. You pray for survival and subsequent rewards. And with the raging sound of battle horns you step to face the music. In the lines of cliches the battle has just begun.
Waiting is done in dark buildings either horrifyingly stuffy or wafting with draught. You look around gauging ground - people bored having decided nothing to do have entered this unwittingly, people frantically going through pages of revision, and the others parleying most annoyingly around your ears. Keep aloof, do not open your mouth and wait until the doors open.
Imagine the belly of the beast, Harry's final battle with Lord Voldemort, Middle-earth's stand against Sauron, Luke Skywalker duel with the Emperor - all dark, endless and necessary. Combine all of them together you have an entrance exam[this is a hyperbole after all!]. You do the quick survey, line up the strength and weakness - you take a moment of pause to gather your courage. At that time you can almost feel the cry for blood ringing in your ears - almost.
The you charge - head on, no holding back, the last stand till the next one. At that moment all doubts vanish - it is you versus the dragon and you have to slay it. The pen finds itself mightier than the sword, fighting against overwhelming odds and a clock that refuses to be kind to you.
The reward of victory will be sweet indeed - just hang in there. Odysseus did return home and so did I to fall flat on bed hoping fervently never to do it again. The fates just weren't listening.
The next day:
Ding dong
The tentacles of sleep threaten to drown you, however with supreme effort you do get up and drag yourself to the door. The khaki clad man has an indifferent frown.
"Delivery for Miss Rijuta"
You sign and then turn the envelope over - Hall ticket for JNU-Delhi. It is just not this day - is it. 

Notes from a much loved class

In a world deferred of meaning, the presence of literature becomes not a luxury but a necessity. It is that site of truth conjured by the human consciousness that can enable the human beings to overcome their aporetic understanding of the world and hence escape the rubric of horror that is the actual life. A novel is not just a mere binding of pages. It entails disturbance. Disturbance in this context is understood as the tear in the fabric of the metonymic mode of existence of life. It is the method through which the impossible can be achieved. The modern world has today become resigned to practical living. The eyes do not look up to reach for higher ideals but focus instead on living “as it is and not as it should be”. A book however is un-resigned, it doesn’t accept rather meticulously engages in the creation of another life ensconcing truth, dignity and beauty – all things subordinated in the apparently not the brave new world. In this regard there is another term that begs definition and that is the imagination. The imagination of Coleridge represents the unifying faculty of the human mind that can form a synthesis of the dissipated forms in a focused march towards meaning. It is from this “laminated singleness” that novel arises from. And where does non-fiction fit into this picture? Non-fiction functions from the intellect that can discern the temptation of the impossible. It sifts through the carnival of nonsense to contribute knowledge to the world. Entailing informed reading of several fields this form rises above the narrow denominational stupidity of the lived world and embarks upon the journey to surrender to the impossible.                                      

Train-ing

If there is a transport universally acknowledged in the huge subcontinent of India, it would be the train. During the days when the Raj was still strong, this form of transport brought the Indians closer together in a single unifying track by narrowing distances. Perhaps this fond remembrance leads to them making the train their universal mascot. I know there are several of my friends and acquaintances who absolutely love traversing the distances in this metal snake.
Which I admit I don't understand at all.
I don't understand the whiff of the rotting world, the coalescing of elements of utter degeneration in a single platform that is an instant hit when you enter the station. There is something about the smell. It is unique, subjective to this place, telling the travelers to enter at their own risk. For not only the journey that is at stake but their own sanity as well. For being so close to the festering heart of the nation, the revelation are inevitable and they are not of the epiphanic kind. The smell melds into that train itself blending into its amorphous identity the scents of stale piss,smoke,farts coupled with weak, sickly freshener. It is like an invitation for man to descend into fetid licentiousness.
I don't understand the minute bunks that would suffice as both a sofa and a bed which until it is time to rest in boredom you have to share with more people than it would carry. Then of course you would have to make your bed with packaged sheets and a blanket that you know carries the dried sweat and god only knows what else of legions before you. And that is just the scene of the AC compartment. The sleepers do not have that luxury. You sweat buckets during the excruciating heat of the day and freeze during the night[they have the wonderful thing with open windows that do not regulate anything].
I don't understand the way they defy the logistics of time. They seem to exist in a loop, an anomaly of time where everything slows down. You literally start begging for your watch that was so faithfully runs on time back home to move a bit faster. I mean there you are pleasurably absorbed in the book listening to some good music thinking that you can get through this time without any lasting scars. You finish the book and then glance at the time. An hour and half - you check again in growing disbelief - but the watch stubbornly shows the hands at the same time. And at that moment the carefully planned strategy come crumbling down. You wait in miserable limbo in the cramped carriage as you wait for salvation.
I don't understand the food. What is it about transport and the general crappiness of food? The dry rice, tasteless curries or the sandwiches can traumatize your taste buds into a coma that require a few good days of good food to coax them back to experience. Not to mention the bad cramps you get after a sample of that glop.
There are a dozen other things that I would never understand. And could extrapolate and argue about it ad infinitum. But that's all I shall say for now. Maybe it is sentiment or a necessary evil or just the sheer pleasure of the advantage of walking around that you would not have in any other mode of transport. I have had the advantages of traveling in various species of this same genus and yet the memories of journeys past in the train have stuck. The clichéd remembrance of the bad living on while the good is 'oft interred'. I tremble and hide my disguise in a quick wince but I cant escape them. Necessity makes me take them when I cannot absolutely ignore them. But I cant wait for the day when they might improve and I might look forward to the experience[that would be the day but if it came about - a good day]

lifeofaphd

Proto-consciousness.... The life of a phd is fraught with really high sounding words and concepts. I mean you should see the looks we get on the metro or even sitting outside of the cafeteria sipping inordinate amounts of chai. But we have become immune to it. We have learned to find analogies and interpretations to pretty much anything - virtual, literal, real, imaginary etc etc. And we digress - a lot. What I meant to start with was the term proto-consciousness. The study and the proposal writing that comes before you actually get down to business - let me tell you it is no cakewalk. They expect a lot from their students don't they? I mean not only do you have to study the background of the area of your research[english lit, commowealth lit, american and carribean lit, social exclusion, aesthetics and philosophy, film studies, cultural studies.....and I could go on endlessly] but also come with a topic to study in that area of research. It is no CAT prep but it is no moonlight walk either. The pre-entrance study is the dark origins of the PhD program. The genesis, the proto-consciousness begins with morbid depression. There is just too much to study. And any foray into the theory sends you spiralling. The MBAs, IITians, medical people would probably read this post with amused disdain. Yeah, whatever - read 50 pages of Derrida and you would forget any sort of lip curling. Digressing again.... The study time is a dull experience of monotonous reading and reading and more reading. There is also the matter of the nagging whys from peer pressure. And the ever insistent question of uncertainty. But then proto-humans weren't pretty either and the phase is necessary. We lay the groundwork for the work to come and we are better for it. There's no point cribbing about it.