Day 3: LSE Library

In the business of words there comes a time when one may have to eat one's own goods. Did I say in the last post that the material on the topic was 'scarce'? Scarce?!!! As if the library is taking revenge on me. I have spent two hours hopping around four floors at the library today. From the much used course collection section to the dusty bookshelves of 'yore' where each book I picked up lead to twenty more on the same topic. I think everyone who has been anything in Indian academia has had something to say on Kashmir, and they pretty much got it published. And if you include the Indian ambassadors to any country in the world, they also have a thick book in their name on Kashmir - and this only on this part of the border. Once you cross the imaginary LOC in the shelves you find Pakistani authors doing just the same. It comes to the point where you can easily guess what the contents page must be covering. And then come the English authors who sit pretty at the fence as they write on Kashmir, some fondly remembering a wonderful summer they spent in the valley sipping English tea. And then some anti-US ones, who point their fingers at US about everything wrong under the sun (and who knows perhaps they are right, too). So much for Kashmir. Then I went on to get me some books on Self Determination. Another deluge. And then on Secession - yet another. I am allowed to borrow 20 books from the library in my name and I think I am gonna have to borrow someone else's library card for all of the stuff I have picked. I have half a mind to focus more on secession now with application on Kashmir. Or may be decide the topic only after I am done with writing. What a horrible idea. But with so little time in hands, it  does make some sense. I think I had better return to my room with all these books, get me a strong mug of tea, sit down and write. Jes.

Day 2 on Extended Essay II

The writing isn't happening. It is not coming to me yet. I know I am a fast writer when I'm surrounded by the right material, but about Kashmir the views are so divergent that you are halfway through an article only to realize that it is not a balanced piece of writing. The material on international legal pov is even more scarce. However much I try, most of what I read ends up in political rhetoric. 

I will go to the library tomorrow and get more books, especially the ones by Crawford, Cassese and Sumatra Bose. I will be better when I have lots of literature with me. It's strange how books can reassure me more than people can at times. There's something about the written word that says "it will be okay, you will do it right". Books. Books. Books.

I will go for a walk now.. try to shake off the jerky nerves.

so much so little

The first extended-essay is nearly done. I will still need two days for fine-tuning, making the bibliography, contents page et al and then have to give it for printing and binding. Today I have also begun work on the other one the topic of which is Self-Determination, Secession and Kashmir. The next two days will be important, because if I dont find enough legal material I might have to give it up and start afresh on something similar yet new. But I think I will pull it through. So much has been done, so little has been done.

It's been raining all day today. And I'm propped in my chair. A long day lies ahead.

...

Sometimes it feels like a long holiday, at others a long sleep, sometimes it is a long journey that I'm making in a train, at others it's crawling realization that the journey will take forever. Then at others I longingly await the end of it, times when I know it will end, making it all bearable. Then I fantasize where I will be. Happy where I am. I don't know where things are going, I am just trying to do my best.

After a lot many days I read a lot today. Downloaded a nice application on the ipad that allows me to read newspapers with ease. Felt good. Felt as if as the time to go back comes nearer, I am again picking up threads from where I had left. Reading a lot of news also makes one angry, and such anger must be preserved.

When I get into this mode, all things that seem so important one moment, start to look insignificant. Abstractions like happiness, love, peace et al. Another kind of freedom takes over - even leading to that what is now insignificant already. And then I'm least bothered by it all. I've begun to understand a few things better than I did earlier. I guess that's the purpose of it all.

A random memory: i don't know from where, but flashes of a school trip are on my mind now. I'm wearing a pair of white pajama bottoms with a white sleeveless top, at a resort where we stayed on the school trip. And I'm looking at the breakfast buffet spread in front, and cool, salty Goan breeze coming from the sea not very far. A little girly consciousness was there. That girl is me. So strange.

That was also the first time I had ever seen the vast sea.

Sigh.

What would I not give. For a lick on the hand, a woof in my ear, a jump and a sudden sprint, a total menace prancing around my toes; nibbling at my ankles, eating away the furniture, running away with the remote, barking like a dog. With the tongue lolling, and the ears crooked, see him running about in circles trying to catch his own tail and a sudden jump on the sofa - and the scared guests. What would I not give. For a bark asking me to take him for a walk, for crazy fights with horrible neighbors, or plain simple showing him off. What would I not give, to have you come home once more. In a little basket may be, as you once did. And to know that you are mine. What would I not give. For your heartbeat that was always so fast, and those paws ever so soft. What I miss about you most are the things I feel I have lost. I want a dog. I want a dog.

I will.

I will make it all right. I promise you, me.

the new place

I'm gonna try writing like old times now. Write for people who read and not just for myself. The self-talk was important too, but now I think it is doing me more harm than good. Writing has always been something I enjoy. I just wanna continue to do that. So anyway, im still in London. Shifted at a different place couple of weeks back. I like the locality but I stil miss the rush of WC2N. Anytime I would get out there would be people around.. laughing people, drunk people, couple people, single people.. I have walked out of the hall at 2.30 am there to Tesco or Co-operative and got me something to munch. Here it is quieter at night. 1 am and the roads are deserted and people fast asleep. But the good part is Shad Thames. All I got to do is walk a little bit to find myself at the bank of Thames and there to my left is the giant tower bridge with the Olympic Rings hanging from up there these days. At night its brilliant, the lights the reflection in the waters, the small food joints, there is also a big broken anchor with giant shackles lying there.. you can't move them an inch if you tried. Yea, it is peaceful here.