The Ocean and Carolina

Yesterday I did my first field trip and went to Dundee, the nearest town. Not much of a town, but with a well equipped Borders bookstore. Bought five books, The Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (short stories by one of my favourite writers), Netherland by Joseph O'Neill (a novel), Ascent by Jed Mercurio (part novel, part historical fact), God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens (on religion, or rather, Hitchens' attack on religion) and The Daily Druckerby Peter Drucker (about management). Ascent was an impulse, but the others were books I've been meaning to get for some time now but haven't for various reasons. But now the gloves are off. My three years in St Andrews will not only be spent on film, but on all the things that interest me. The aim is to expand all my intellectual horizons. (And besides, I got a 20% student discount.)

But I also found the time for an evening celebrating the Bengal film tradition, with wine, dance and a screening of Satyajit Ray's film Devi (1960).

And I bought the weekend's issue of The Guardian, which I will sink my teeth into now. The luxury of living in Britain.

Another luxury is living next to the ocean. I've been going there every evening, when it's dark and quiet, and I stand there and listen to the waves, all alone. It's a wonderful feeling, very relaxing. Soothing. This time I went right after I'd chatted with Carolina. Now that's a way of ending your day!

The photos are from Deans Court where I live. The garden, and the door from the garden to my house.

Neighbours and Novels

One month from today I'm moving, and I'm very happy about that. But one good thing about my present location is that it always makes for good dinner conversation. Here's a priest who gives wild parties every other week, elevators that work at random, plumbing that works even more seldom, weird transvestites who occasionally comes barging in, demanding that I stop walking around without socks in my apartment, and that I stop vacuum cleaning in the middle of the night (my angry denial of such vile deeds was met with the comment "yeah, whatever"). To get to the nearest bus station, please to walk through the underground parking lot of a hospital. So part of me will miss this crazy building, affectionately known (at least in the good old days) as Chlamydia Tower.

I'm still reading The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. I love it, it's so real and nuanced. I feel every breath of the characters, I can see them, smell them, I know them better than I know myself. When I read it I feel like I'm there, with them. I am Nikhil (or Gogol, as he was called when young).

I like to read a book which engage you so much that afterwards you have memories of things, that you only after a little while realises are not your memories, but things that happened in the book that you read. The first part of Fasting, Feasting, by Anita Desai, takes place in India, in a big house, and I feel like I have been there. I have been sitting on that porch on agonisingly hot days, watching the air shiver in the sun.

Jhumpa Lahiri has won the Pulitzer Prize, I wonder when I will.

Being Disconnected

Last Friday evening suddenly I no longer had access to Internet. Today, at long last, I was finally able to get back online. I'm not saying it has been all bad. Felt kinda nice for a while. Yesterday I talked on the phone for three hours with a certain someone for example, and it was ever so nice. She had suggested we talk on the Internet, but I gave her my phone number instead, and it might have been old fashioned, but I loved every second of it.

I have decided to quit my job, or rather, they thought they gave me an offer I couldn't refuse, but I did. So as of the first of 2007 I no longer have a job. At the same time I have a new apartment. Everything changes. What'll I do? I don't know. But it feels great! I feel like I can do anything. Maybe write here every single day. There's a buck in that racket, no?

I'm supporting a project to save tigers in India, maybe I will go there and support them with more than just money. Or I will go back to University, or find a new job, or go to Australia. I might combine all three alternatives, and go and work and study in Australia.

But now I will go back to my book, The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. I've read 50 pages so far and I'm hooked.