Genuineness IS NOT EQUAL TO Authenticity
And this is something I had to relearn from ELT. Soon, I think I will even be capable of telling apart midnight from 12.00 a.m. and so on. In the past 24 hours, I have slept for some 10 hours. And in he remaining time, read 4 books. Where I pick up such absolutely true, and mostly useless bits of information. Though, in some corner of my mind, I love critical theory, I love Friere and hooks and all. But that is not what my research is totally about. They are just a tiny part of it.
I think I need to read about 50 more books. In fact, not everything is a fresh reading, some of these titles have to be reread. And then, I have to reread about a 120 research papers. And all this just to write the two chapters: Review of Literature, and Background to the Study. After that, I can shut out all the external world, analyze just my research and be done with everything.
I wrote my 12000 word MPhil thesis in a week’s time. So, this shouldn’t be difficult in the end, but the process is such a damn pain. The list of unreplied emails is continuing to grow. But, the mails are mostly uninteresting. Somehow, the world seems to know that this woman is not someone who will write back immediately, and so it decides to remain silent. I really don’t know.
How am I battling with my two biggest distractions? Regarding elections, I decided not to vote. In spite of all the ToI campaigns. No one’s even visited our ward. Everyone I know is against the Congress and want that party to be shown the door because of what’s happening in Sri Lanka. India supplying radars and arms and training and what not. But, I can’t think of any other party as an alternative at the Central Government. The thought of BJP getting to rule India is like a nightmare, and asked to choose between these evils, I will go for the Congress. I hate the external affairs policy of the Congress with respect to Eelam, but then the BJP is no different on that stand. Which means, I have to judge the parties based on domestic issues. And here, Congress fares a little better. At least, no state-sponsored pogroms against minorities. Of course, in my constituency it is a straight fight between the DMK and the ADMK. And I will go with the DMK. Amma is another face of Hindutva, another face of casteism. Still, I don’t think I am going to go and vote. (Well I will not go on about this).
The next distraction is the cellphone. I put in the silent mode and put it out of sight. Every caller gets angry, but after a point of time, everyone gives up. I think, if I ever finish my Ph.D. I might have to do a lot of apologizing to all my friends. More later.
