A New House

Three weeks ago, I moved yet again in New Haven, this being my 4th house in this town. And this time, I am almost located back where I started - downtown! Why I am shifting will constitute an altogether new post, but here I want to talk about my current state of mind, anticipations and expectations from the new place!

Before I go on to explaining the situation at present, I must briefly describe my experience of house hunting! I adopted 3 modes of references: 

1. Asking friends to see if they or their friends needed roommates!

2. Asking friends if they were looking for someone to occupy a vacant room

3. Craigslist and other internet groups 

The three channels above took me to various kinds of people, various kinds of places. There were so many factors in the head while selecting a house. While the physical condition of the room is one aspect, the other important criteria was to find a decent roommate. There were expectations that one could move with a culturally similar person, from South Asia. I had an added boundary of my 'vegetarianism'. But I allowed to let that go pretty easily. The other aspects to choose were the distance of the place from my school, the budget (ofcourse) and the area in which it was located, given the notoriety of New Haven with relation to crimes. Being in the north east, everyone goes through pain of finding about added utilities of heating and electricity - whether the house is gas heated, or electric heated! This is the most important concern given the extreme winters that long till March. 

However, most of the times, I was able to decide whether to move in a place or not by its smell! I have realized how important smell is for a place to be adapted to. For me, the room had to smell acceptable. The ideal would be a neutral air, but I witnessed all kinds of smells - rooms with Chinese spice aromas, to food stuff rotting since days, to refrigerators leaking out smells of overloaded meat, to smell of dampness and darkness, airconditioning, of deoderents,  and so on. The only way I used to test was to ask myself whether the new room would be able to take my smell -  or in other words, if I would be able to change the smell of the space as I move in.

I finally decided upon a room here given the amount of detachment it offered me from my roommate, the budget and the amount of freedom it gave me to project myself on it. My new room is a small one, brightly lit by two large windows with white, translucent curtains. The room is bright and white painted - everything in the room is white, like an untouched white canvas. It smells of some weird medicine, which I think will be overcome-able!  The apartment has another bedroom occupied by another girl. The only common space is the kitchen & a large bathroom which will be shared by both. 

And so this new place gave me an opportunity to think about ways of domesticating it. Trying out moving scarce furniture from one corner to the other, I have finally rested upon a layout. Other things got worked out interestingly - I got a foldable sofa bed from someone who was selling it for cheap and it perfectly suited the small nature of my room. So I now have enough floor space for myself since I can fold the bed into a sofa! Further, I got a small lamp (given that there was no light in the room) - and I luckily found one as simple as a white cylinder! I played with its position for a week and I have realized how important it is to avoid movement to switch off lights just when you are about to sleep. That one moment when you get up between finally pulling over your blanket and switching of the light can ruin the sublime experience of transitioning from your conscious to your unconscious moment.

Similarly, it is so important to have your alarm in close vicinity to you in the morning - such that your reverse transition from sleep to awake is smoother. Since I use my mobile as my alarm clock, I also need to have a charging point closer. And since most of the times, the last thing I work on is my laptop, I prefer to have all its assemblage (the charger, mouse, hard drive, etc) to lay as it is around - where everything can be disconnected merely by one single plug! With all these factors in mind, I think I needed to just pull up an extension board with control for all electrical devices at one place! (I also realize how electricity now puts us to, and wakes us up from our sleep)!

Keeping the room like a white canvas is as compelling as the desire to fill up with one's idiosyncrasies. Sometimes I wish I had the money to build my own kind of furniture according to my collection such that this could truly represent me! But it is here that I realize how architects can be so imposing - in a way that we never get into people's archives to structure furniture according to what they would like to have on the walls, shelfs or show cases. Interior design is always about making a space that can be published in a design magazine or architecture blog! But there is joy in keeping one's room "messy" - only in comparison to what the architects would call "clean". But the messy tells much more about life than the clean. Rather, messy is life, and clean is just sterile.

Soren: The Cat

I share my new house with my room mate and her cat. The cat's name is Soren - a black cat, almost 10 years old.

Soren is curious cat. He spends most of his time alone, sitting and gazing at the empty walls of the rooms in the house. Since no one is at home throughout the day, I wonder what he does for himself.

Last night when I came home and opened the door of my room to enter the kitchen, he was waiting there like a statue gazing me as if asking: "So you finally came? I wasn't waiting, but it's nice that you came." It seemed as if he has been waiting for ages. Waiting for something to happen, someone to come. He waits alone, sitting still, doing nothing, without any movement. His eyes tell that he has become weary of waiting, waiting has become a part of his life - like the taxi drivers or the private drivers who spend half their lives waiting for their masters in the car.

I feel bad for him for he does not have a friend he can talk to, that belongs to his community, and secondly in his own language! So I try to tease him in my version of "Meows"! When I did it last, he gazed at me deep, as if asking: "Are you a cat? You don't look like one? Then why are you mewing? Are you trying to fool me? I am too clever to fall into your trap!" And he walked back into his room - throwing away lot of attitude! I laughed.

Soren is extremely curious. When I came to the house on the first day, trying to settle in with all the stuff lying around, Soren stuck his head inside my room through the half open door - looked at me and gestured bossingly: "Can I come in?"

I smiled. He came in and started looking carefully at each object lying around. He tried to smell some things, perhaps, but then going closer to some objects, he checked if there was anything wrong, maybe? He took a round looking at every little object kept around. (Check the video)! And then, he was okay. He stood in the middle of the room and wondered what to do. He went back then.

What was he thinking I don't know. But all I care is to be as curious as him. I also wish to be as patient as him, and as comfortable as he is with his lonesomeness. I dont know what he dreams when he sleeps, since all he sees is the 4 walls for much time. He has a toy box with some funny toys - springs, ball, etc. But I have not seen him playing with them yet. Although I have seen him climbing on the window sill and gazing at the outside world - empty streets, free standing trees and dead houses. That is his life. I wish I could talk to him...

But in this pursuit, I play with him, to find a mode of communication. I touch him, fondle him - he never minds, yet never gives in. He knows it's not going to be permanent. He is much wiser! Guess pets like cats  internalize such psychology. Good for them! I wonder what a life it must be to lead without friends, parents, sex, partner, community, quarrel...Does all of it matter to animals?

Guess there is something to learn here!

Brokeback Mountain

I don't indulge too much in films for reasons unknown. but when I do, I watch them very closely - often become too critical or too involved in them. I haven't taken advantage of the Film Archive here at Yale, neither the popular films collection that they have at the library. I primarily decided to watch films to make use of the facility from Yale. And amongst the three movies  I borrowed last, I saw only one - Brokeback Mountain. And apart from having my own thoughts, I did read about the reflections of film critics and its critical reception at large online. But there were a lot of things that surfaced through the film for me.

[I don't like the act of describing stories or things, rather getting to my theoretical discussion, but in the recent past, I have realized that descriptions themselves are political and hence descriptions embed within them half your theoretical perspective, hence I will have to undergo some of that laborious process of description]

As most know, Brokeback Mountain talks about the journey of two men with their sexual lives. Ennis and Jack first meet while on the summer job (grazing sheep) on the Brokeback Mountain. They are responsible not only for the sheep count (who are prey to wild animals as well as getting lost in the wilderness), but also their own selves. While one takes care of the sheep during the day time, the other readies meals for the two for the evening. Getting bored eventually, they exchange their sole two activities - the 'domestic' and the 'professional'.

The most arresting scenes of the film are the wide landscapes within which the lives of Ennis and Jack are lost - rather floating, when the loneliness brings them together one night in a reluctant sexual encounter. Initially hesitant, Ennis succumbs to his desires and falls out for Jack's acceptance. The loneliness of Brokeback soon becomes a landscape of play. The two men find within each other a part companion which makes them complete. The relationship heals the uncommunicated sentiments of Ennis while satisfying Jack's need for a partner to share life with. Ironically, it is the silence that eventually transforms into an unspoken friendship sealed by a sexual bond. The words that are so hard to utter and express, that are never told to each other only find expression through carnal experiences.

Both Ennis and Jack are eventually separated at the end of the summer. Each of them gets married and have kids - their environments still remain lone - depicted in  the physical as well as psychological landscapes of their lives. While both their lives have progressed, they have kept in touch through the mail. And when after a long time, a communication is made, both the bodies once again seek to complete themselves through a physical unison.

Such occasional meetings become outlets for a life that is "incomplete" without the other. The transgressions from the moral codes of life make them assert their human-ness. Their encounters with each other help them find themselves, take them through turmoils of an unexplained life. Both spend large chunks of their life alone, only to erupt and melt into each other occasionally. For Jack, the uncontrollable cravings of his body over such long spans forces him to go to meet men from Mexico border.

Ennis's wife has found out about his bisexuality in much advance, and she makes way for a divorce, making him absolutely alone again. The news of the newly lone Ennis makes Jack hopeful towards a future he imagines with Ennis. However, with the responsibility of his daughter, Ennis holds back his options. Jack expresses to him his urges, his struggles and the incongruity of his mind and body. Ennis explains that the only way for them is to meet interruptedly - to keep the engine of life alive. The moral choices force them to lead a lonely life.

One fine day, Ennis's letter to Jack is returned with a 'deceased' stamp. The situation brings forth two implosions - one of the end of incomplete life of Jack, while the other is the end of hope for Ennis to find a companion. Ennis drowns in his own silence. The characters lives unite through the shirts which donot have their bodies, but indicate a soul that overlaps with one another.

Brokeback Mountain is a hard story of loneliness encountered by two people who find it difficult to consolidate their sexuality, rather find outlets for their sexual longings. And sexual longings are not merely bodily, but so intrinsic to the mind, thoughts and feelings. The film reveals beautifully, how sexualities are fluid - and the "male" and "female" are only two extreme ends of the spectrum. This fluidity is doubly complex - since our sexual inclinations not only change towards male and female, but also as we grow in age. And yet, male and female are just societal roles, just labels that try to encode your behaviour in the society that is assumed "normal" that is so easily internalized. The loneliness of the grey area that lies between this binary is the central content of the film for me. Loneliness tears apart the body internally, hurting several others in the process. Does one not spend one's lifetime in seeking completion to oneself, in completion to the 'lack' as a Greek Philosopher suggested? The aim of the life is to unite with another life to experience completion - that satisfies biological as well as non-biological needs.

In most cultures, the representation of unison represents the fullness of the universe. However, these representations only depict unison of binaries. But in reality, unisons can be of different types - not just the positive and negative. Brokeback Mountain portrays the struggle of one such atypical unison that is hard to negotiate within the given moral society. It also portrays the search of how life fits with the other, given that they appear to match. It is a hard story to reconcile, it unsettles standard ideas, and leaves you open into the grey area between the binaries.