Of moody Mondays, veggie Tuesdays and wonder Wednesdays

I've been thinking about this post for a while now. How the weeks are passing by - fast, speedy wooshes of information packed into them. But if i did have favorites, itll be Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Not that i hate the other 4 but its just that by mid week i inevitably find myself in a mix of moods and motivations.

Lets begin the discourse: woo hoo.


moody Mondays:

Now you would think this 'moody' tag is quite obvious. Start of the week, end of the weekend..duh. stop wasting our time Yudi. But no. Mondays i look forward to. Not my nerdy instinct but come every Monday 12pm i get to separate myself for 3 hours into the world i love. Convincing the Theater Studies department to allow me to audit the 'Cultural performance in Asia' class was a task itself. But these three hours, i get to discuss performance - not on stage but in our everyday life. We've analyzed crowds, rallies, spirit mediums, the workers at little india, the hijras from old delhi, the sheer agony of thaipusam. For a few hours every week i get to be my arty farty self, debate on the intricacies of performace and the perfomative (ahem) before tucking in my shirt, straightening my hair and heading back to the business school. Its exhilarating. As if im back from a rock concert, smoked up on a strong dose of freedom.

Although i must mention, from 3pm i get the pleasure of attending a scheduled corporate strategy meeting with my team. Moody Monday? well its like being thrown back into an opera after headbanging on Nirvana.


veggie Tuesdays:

I like meat. I like chicken and all its forms. But come Tuesday's i do my bit for religion and the community. Vegetarian options in the school are limited. Ask my marwari buddies and you can silently hear their stomachs screaming in revolt. Now after a rather eventful Monday the veggie Tuesday's arnt always easy to digest.literally. The choice is between greasy, often sleazy version of Indian food in the biz. school canteen or a rather friendly aunty from the 'deck'.

Aunty is perhaps lesser of the two evils. She'll cook, serve and before you can say Jack Nicholson engage you in her well rehearsed selling pitch. "Beta another lassi? le lo, bahut acchi hain". - Nah aunty thanks, its really heavy for lunch. " accha then a parantha for good measure?" " where are you from?" ...this conversation is fine. Its the bitching and cribbing about the other stalls that are painful " chaval he to udhar manga hain, pata nahi aisa kya paap kar diya", " ye log ke khane me maza he nahi hain na beta, there's really no soul in their kitchen"...baah


Our man at the canteen, distinctly Malaysian i suspect, has some decent lassi ill admit. His hygiene and penchant for using the same serving spoon are definitely not keeping my god's happy.

wonder Wednesdays:


A mix of perhaps two opposites. In the blue corner, straight from the land of sunny palm trees, fish curry and coconuts is Prof. Trichy's brand management class. Engaging, confusing, perhaps a little fuzzy - all at the same time. I've learnt a lot here. Mastered a new accent, an improved understanding of birds and eagles, and not to forget my developed threshold for 'trash-talk'. This last feature is a consequence of a rather competitive simulation game. Our teams took this game seriously enough to lose enough respect for all opposing teams. Popular CEO's, dandy secretaries, brutal China strategies and a rather intrusive JW - none were spared. Im still watching you my friend, Alex. Im still watching.

Now mix this with the man in opposite red corner. A three hour lecture on Asia Pacific Business, by Prof. Mahmood. Clipped accent, gelled hair, shiny shoes and a Harvard Degree. Prof. Mahmood is really quite difficult to ignore. His insights on history, culture, korean drama's just add to the spice. Every now and then, our discussions on asia tend to end with tit-bits on his years in Bangladesh. That too is Asia you know. i have no option but to agree in silence.heh.
But a few things still intrigue me about this wednesday class. I've been working on this conspiracy theory. Every wednesday afternoon, at 3 30pm, in the midst of our video session in Prof. Mahmood's class, with the light turned off, their is a heavy downpour. Every single damn time. I've been tracking this for the last 2 months. It's only making me more sure of this 'legoland' they call Singapore. In all its glory with the manufactured beaches, concrete surfaces and robotic workforce.


Now as is quite apparent, my mood is cribby, stingy, and a discussion on Singapore might lead to some serious repercussions. I think ill stay mum for a while.

adios.

the day i met myself again.

uncanny things happen when you least expect them. Namrata headed to shivpuri, to raft, swim, and forget her woes and questions she's been asking the universe. She found something - something surreal, revealing that makes me write this and look for my own answers.

below is the picture she clicked on a random street, in a random lane, on a random billboard in a very random rishikesh. A friend said things like these happen only in hrishikesh, well they do. i guess.




The man in the black frames, long strands, cheeky smile, the goatie and ofcourse the chic kurta looks like me, or almost to my untrained eye...but isnt .

they say there are seven people who look just like you in this world. And so, a few days back, i found the first. what does this mean? - to suddenly realize that "hell yudi, youre really not unique". This face is just a face after all, a template who's time had come to be reused.

and how uncanny that the yudi i see in this picture could so easily have been me. i love kurtas, i like long hair, but... almost as if yudi 2, the fellow in the picture, is starring at me, laughing at how he did do it, how he managed the transition, how he is my amlost alter ego - the yudi i sometimes urge to be, and sometimes dont. He probably writes poetry, does theater, wears chappals. He likes to smoke, strum the guitar, paint. talks less, drinks whiskey and laughs out loud.

i, yudi 1, try to be him. i try to be a little bit of the yudi in this picture everyday. A little of this, a little of that, mix-match, a concoction of 2 motivations, yet striving so hard to co-exist together. so yudi 1 heads to cornell this august, only to satisfy yudi2's hunger for watching broadway and paul simon live in new york city.

this picture motivates. yudi 2 smiles, and till he does, so shall yudi1. old friends for life.

the pieces fit. this puzzle makes sense.