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One

He caught the metro as always from Kalighat. The one at 8:40, which meant he would be well in time for the first class at 9:30. It was all still new to him, done with school now, finding his feet in a big city (well it was only Calcutta, but then he had never really lived alone and away from his parents). He liked his classmates, though he worried sometimes that he really wasn’t that smart and someday he’d be called into the HOD’s office and be informed that they had made an error with his test results and actually he’d need to leave. He’d get off at Central, like all days, with his favourite jhola, and walk the 15 minutes to the college back gates, opposite the hostel. He was glad that having that bag helped him fit in, giving him something familiar to cling to while also allowing him to melt into the “Bengali intellectual” crowd that populated the campus.

It was more crowded than usual on the train today and he shuffled to the corner at the end of the seats. People didn’t really like standing there, near the passageway connecting the bogies. He didn’t mind, there was musty breeze that kept heat at bay and he’d spend the 25 minutes looking at the list of stations and counting down the 7 stops in between.

The train stopped at Jatin Das Park and he saw her get on the train. She still had that head of curls, untameable as always. They had studied at school together, she always beating him in maths and now she was studying statistics in the same college. They had always been friends, she had the boyfriend-girlfriend thing going with his best friend and he had an unrequited crush on her best friend. But after the boards, they hadn’t been in touch really and he had accepted that they would really not meet again. Then they ran into each other at the college and now they nodded to each other as they passed, and she usually had a smile to spare. They were both busy finding their feet and figuring out this new world they had stepped into.

She had her head down, having garnered the corner seat near the doors. He moved across, she felt something and looked up and then she gave the brilliant smile that she sometimes did. He couldn’t help grinning.

Two

It was a Friday night in Bombay. His second year in the city. They were out in the new bar that had opened last month in the mall that had opened 2 years ago. It was all very polished and chrome-y, the bar smelled of varnish and they still had their opening stock of good beer (it wouldn’t last and they’d only stock Fosters and KF soon enough, and Tuborg (but who drinks Tuborg)).  Both he and his flatmate had acquired a taste for Erdinger (dunkel obviously), almost caramel-y with a dark chocolate smell and the bartender usually served it in these tall ice cold glasses. They ended up hitting the place at least once during the weekend, mostly with the usual gang of batchmates. This time around it was just him and the flatmate, shooting the breeze and moaning about work.

He had noticed the three women sitting together on the next table as soon as they had come in. He was fascinated by the women in Bombay. It was the way they spoke and the way they walked. A casual and yet deeply considered nonchalance which he imagined came from money and worldliness and privilege. To not know a moment of doubt while passing through life. No wonder they have flawless skin. He kind of felt that way about the city itself sometimes, glamorous and cold and un-knowable somehow. And he guessed that the women fit the city and he wouldn’t.

They were on their second bottle when he saw the girl who sat facing him get up. He had been watching her, helpless and fascinated in a way. She walked slowly over to them, studied action and indifference together, her friends whispering furiously to each other. PS, with his track record with girls (he’d even had a French girlfriend), just looked up with casual bemusement as she reached their table. She leaned in and asked him (and not PS).

‘Can I join?’

‘Sure.’ (he was surprised his voice didn’t crack)

Later, much later (on another day and then it was just them), he did ask her why she came over that day. She just smiled and said it was a silly bet. Sometimes, Bombay girls are maddening.

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Couple of quick (but not easy) pieces then. I have been reading a bit and am currently working through a book called, How to See the World by Nicholas Mirzoeff. It talks about how the great explosion of visual media is shaping our understanding of the modern world. A wide-ranging book, it references the Arab Spring and the World Wars and provides a sort of connective bedrock that connects modern world affairs from a visual perspective (this is a wonky sentence). Fascinating stuff (really) – in the age of Instagram and Pinterest and Tumblr (it still exists, right?) and front page photographs of suit clad assassins – trying to make sense of things requires us to interpret the medium in a more critical manner. Often it is the only source of information available to us and we are still somewhat open to accepting pictures as being honest when most news is mostly fake.

Another thing I read recently was a piece in the New Yorker – it’s a humorous piece yes, but it poses a simple but arresting argument (not original certainly, but quite well written nonetheless) that we might be actually living in some sort of computer simulation. Think about it, we all have kind of accepted that artificial intelligence is very much a reality and I think that superintelligence is inevitable (I don’t know about timelines) – how much of a stretch is it to think that we are all artificial intelligences and virtual reality in a simulated world created by some sort of superintelligence. In a probabilistic sense, the possibility that we are artificial constructs is much more likely than not – all we have to do is accept that artificial intelligence can exist (and you know it does).
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I watched Moana – liked it, it’s okay (and better than Zootopia, sorry). Regarding songs, I haven’t got much. Magnetic Fields (well Stephen Merritt) is releasing an album, 50 Song Memoir, and I am quite prepared to love it.

1.      Magnetic Fields – All my little words – unashamedly sentimental and quirky. This is not my favourite song by them, but this is very sweet (we are using sweet as an adjective, I am a little ashamed but it suits somehow).

2.     Beastie Boys – Sabotage – white Jewish guys singing rap-metal-rock (is it called nu-metal? I am hopeless with the categorizations). It’s pretty awesome with wicked guitar licks – one of those songs which makes you appreciate a decent set of headphones. RATM is very much in the same vein – you can easily see the influences.

      

3.     Verve – Man called Sun. A criminally underrated band. I think each of their albums (they just have 4) is pretty great. Again, not putting my favourite song here, because everyone knows (who knows me) that I love it. So, here’s something different – more psychedelic, more mellow. The 90s had some damn good Brit bands and I guess that topic will keep for another day.

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I was more aware of International Women’s Day this year.