One's own World

I always feel at loss of words when I attempt to talk about America. I wonder if there is not enough I know to say, or there is not enough the country has to offer to speak about itself. Perhaps neither. I think they have documented their country so intensively that every brick and stone has been written about. In such a scenario, one wonders if there is any thing new one could contribute. Their lifestyle, pace and developed conditions offer them ample time to engage in intellectual activities. I believe most of us in the developing countries work too hard to just makes the ends meet for the day. Our race is for survival. Most Americans have a dream beyond survival, and they can get pretty aggressive in order to fulfill it. America maintains high energy and enthusiasm all the time.

But this is not something that I wanted to talk about at all. And I wonder if what I want to talk about is really related to the above. Or it's just to do with the first line I wrote. I generally am at loss of words to express myself. Am I becoming more and more neutral about things? Am I losing my sense of opinion? Am I maturing to be more accepting of things and to be less "judgmental" (as many people often used to tell me) - I wonder if any of this can be called a change? Have I changed? Did I want to change? I don't know...

Many people here call me "funny" and it's not a new adjective that has been used for me. I have never understood my description as "funny" completely, just like another which people tag along - "cute". It's funny! When I asked one of my friends here about why would she call me so, she thought and answered: "because you say strange things". I asked her to clarify further. And she said - "because you say things which people won't otherwise say..." I did not know what to make of it. But I immediately connected it to what my mother used to tell me all the time - "You live in your own world!" - I think she was disgusted about the fact that I never lived in the real, present world. She would give me instructions while leaving home and I would completely forget to execute them - all the time. I would try hard to be attentive and still overhear. I don't know what happens in my head.

I register words, things, places, actions and completely mix them up? Is it? After the new year hangover, I had an interesting discussion with my friends at Rohit's house. It was about my general weak sense of geography. It all started with me confusing the capitals of states in south India, as well as mixing up the languages. Over a general confusion between the relationships between Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu, Odisi, Bangalore and Andhra Pradesh, Karthik brought up a key question - about how could it be possible for a person to remember quotes from French theorists and not know of one's own geography. This was the first time any one considered it to be a legitimate issue for discussion. I have had similar problems figuring out relationships between Paris, Italy, France and Rome - Generally when I mix up capitals and states, people get disappointed and disgusted very quickly. (I am inclined to believe that they also judge my achievements through this lens). However I tried to decipher if this was because of my attitude to understand my own associations and trajectories with places and knowledge?

Karthik went on to share that his knowledge was a product of the general talks around his social space as well as his interest in current affairs. In the same way, Debashree said that her mother was a key figure in making her realize these small associations like cuisines and places, geographies and states, etc on her travels. We soon tried to trace the logic in which my memory worked - and I realized that I slip into my imaginative world too soon to be able to hold on to a tangible fact like the Capital of a state or the language of a place. I can still broadly compartment ideas into geographic zones, but it could be very difficult for me to talk about such ideas using facts. 

I stay with a playwright in America currently. through him I have come to know of a lot of humanities. We often engage in conversations, but lately, he has started playing with me a game: he puts on a piece of music and asks me to identify the style, and thus the composer and place. I must mention here that it was only recently that I gradually started to understand the principle behind Western classical music (over a night dream, literally) and now I appreciate it much better than I did before. I interpret the music, and my landlord, playwright (Lazarre) builds it up. We paint a scene together through the interpretation of the music, which we then situate in a geography. When the music ends, we eagerly wait for the announcement of the composer - most of the times he is right. I am getting better.

But that is not all, he recently visited the newely extended and opened Yale Art Gallery only to notice that he didnot like the way in which it was curated. I immediately picked up to say my ideas of how the objects must  have been kept - and he, agreeing completely, was almost completing my unfinished sentences. The idea of telling stories in space connected both of us.

But what have these two experiences to tell of? Perhaps we live in our own world. Yes. I do. And it is important to have a world of one's own. This world is not factual, it finds space in the imaginary, more specifically the semi-fictitious. And ironically if I was to bring in Derrida and say that my world is stuck between the multiple layers of representations (sound, visuals, language, word, object, etc.); I would only talk of a world which is filled with infinity. Hence I feel lost. 

Occasionally I have pulled some strings off it, and there remain many ideas to be re-strung together. Why re-strung? Because all reality is perhaps an idea, and so the real is an imagination. Imaginations have already been structured. Like our knowledge systems - in the discourses of factual histories and geographies, where is the discussion for place and phenomena - that resonate across cultures and humanity? Often our parameters for understanding the world around us have become strictly structured through these external knowledge systems. I do not think it is fair to evaluate every one through these systems. Where is other wise the place for a person to think of a falling apple and discover gravity or to believe in the whole universe to be understood through energy and mass?

But given all that, I remain concerned of my world and being able to decipher it. My mother pointed at this world and I must be able to convince of her of its merit. Meanwhile, Lazarre (my playwright landlord) too calls me funny!