My morning lecture was cancelled. Goddamn Udaya. I like him as well…I wish the lecturers would stick to their timetables. It is incredibly annoying when they decide to have a day off and don’t tell you until right before you are meant to be in their class. Met the guy Nitin again and he tried to explain it to me. He told me not to burn my blood over it. Apparently it is a Hindi expression about not getting angry and wasting your energy. He has also invited me (provisionally) to a wedding next week, which would be amazing. But seeing as track records prove so far that if a guy invites you to do something with him then you are automatically his girlfriend, I might try and get him to let Lauren and Amanda come too before I accept. It would be brilliant to go to an Indian wedding though and get the saree out for another night. Perhaps I should let someone else tie it so that I am not wearing it the ‘sexy’ way.
Nitin showed me the English Literature section in the main library, and I have to say I am slightly surprised by how many books there are. It is nowhere near the same stock as at home, but there are a few books in there that look really good. And, unlike home, photocopying the entire book and having it bound in book form costs very little money. Ah copyright laws, how thou art cast away in the face of cheap labour! For instance, a book of 200 pages will cost about 75 Rs to copy, then 25 Rs extra for proper bookbinding. Or, you could leave it at 75 Rs and just get it as sheets held together with spiral binding. There are many books on those library shelves that will become bootleg books in my time here. Nitin says it is because an average student can’t afford to buy books at the real prices, so the photocopy shops are essential. It is strange; because we all appreciate that the books here cost a lot less than they do at home to start with, so the idea that that is not affordable to most puts things in perspective. We are really incredibly lucky to have the resources we do at home.
After the library I went to my imperial controls class. As soon as we got in the two loud girls who always sit at the front proclaimed we should ‘be ready for some talking’. Did not bode well. As soon as the professor got in they started harping on about how the essay dates were unfair and could we not hand it in on a different day and so on. The essay dates were split into three group batches, so the first group is meant to hand their essay in tomorrow. Evidently the first group have not done their essay and just don’t want to say that out loud so would rather bugger the system up for everyone. The poor professor was getting very confused about why people were complaining and so he just decided to hand the organization over to these two girls to sort out dates for essay handing in and discussions. I asked one of them why she didn’t just ask for an extra couple of days and she said she couldn’t do that. She could, however, complain like a baby until the lecturer got so frustrated he gave up arguing and left her to it. they wasted fifteen minutes of class on that. And afterwards on of them had the cheek to tell us all to wait behind to help them sort it out because it was too much for two people to do. What about the poor man you have just tried to humiliate in front of his students? He managed by himself! Idiots. It was all so childish. We left and went to talk to him, told him we would hand the essay in next week and left it at that. He seemed surprised we even wanted to do the essay, and glad that we were sticking to the original plan. Poor guy. Just so disrespectful.
Walked home with Amanda and missed lunch, so I had noodles instead. Tried to write some more of this essay. I am starting to get interested in how the civil service not only created a racial hierarchy but also a social one, transposed directly from the social hierarchies of Britain. It is interesting that there was such a concern about race, but this is almost given, whereas the concern about class status was fairly active. Even when recruiting Indians in the latter Raj, the British always went for men from ‘suitable’ families: ie. old families that were part of the landed aristocracy. This obsession with old landed gentry is really quite interesting. The civil service becomes then not only a racially superior institution but also superior in terms of class and caste values within India in a way that is recognizable as being the British social system. So colonialism is not confined to subjugation; it also has a complete transposition of the dominators social structures and class boundaries.
I ended up in AIM, where I was most depressed to find out that they have run out of pomegranate to make the pomegranate shakes. Consoled myself with a milkshake and some noodles. More noodles. My nutritional content today has been sky high.
Found out Iain has been round to my parents’ for food. This is possibly a bit weird, but if he is happy then that is good. Perhaps they are all missing me too much!
Worked through a lot of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. I now have a far better idea of what I am going to write in this essay on Swift, which is a good feeling. It is very interesting how he asserts that there is no possible form of resistance or escape from any form of social institution of ideology, and that even resistance is in itself an affirmation of the institution it is resisting against. Also, the idea of normalization in everything we do or create is very interesting, and very relevant to my essay. I think I will try to gather information from the text itself next and get some of it in written form. I need to do the essay on Plato and Sidney soon as well! Argh. I need to speak to that professor but he is NEVER in! So annoying.
Why is it so hot all of a sudden? I hope the temperature drops soon. I am having to shower twice a day again. Not pleasant. It jut makes you feel dirty all the time.
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