January 2012
1 post
on the mooove
Sorry dudes, I moved to a new blog. B/C I’ll soon to be on the move again. I’ll make it more interesting, no worries. http://shingho.tumblr.com/
November 2011
1 post
April 2011
1 post
October 2010
1 post
move along, move along
Hi friends. Since I’ve moved cities, I decided to move blogs too.
I am happily back in NYC, soon to make a short visit to Tennessee (to visit so-treu), Denver, hopefully California, Nevada, Oregon, we’ll see!
August 2010
1 post
July 2010
1 post
(Photo Class W/ 4 Yr Olds)
Lots of things have happened. I just had tea with the director of a lovely organisation that does participatory action research in Bangladesh and secretly teared up hearing about the low-cost community-based early-childhood-education model they created. I get involved with a lot of things I disagree with in order to eventually get access to gold like this. This guy...
001
Grandma is awesome. My Nanu. She picked me up from the airport with her sister and the two of them have a game where they try to out-frail each other. They’re full of crap because my Nanu is a boulder of a lady. She cusses, yells, does way too much work for her age, has a real farmers tan …. damn it she talks about her village getting washed away and LAND. So she goes, Ooooh me,...
June 2010
10 posts
endpoint#1
everything will become rose-colored in a few weeks but just so i remember the reality, I got fucked over this year. in so many ways. i got fucked over and it hurts.
im in shimla right now, in the woods, with internet. with 4 long days ahead of me. im in death-mode and no human contact will be genuine or pleasant. i feel like shit right now and that’s how I should feel.
OH COLONIAL LEGACIES!! (and my participation in...
a few years ago, there was a night we spent at a tea garden in syhlet where i heard some really incredible songs by plantation workers. so the indigenous folks of syhlet include manipuri, shantals, tripura (just mentioning more recognizable groups) and a lot of the lyrics were hard to understand. BUT (and i love this) there was one song that I remember clear as day, that I might have secretly...
Why Did I Just Do That?
.. watch Prince of Persia that is. Why Krishna Pandit Bhanji (I mean Ben Kingsly) whyyyy? Hahaha. At least the ticket was cheap. WAW I WISH I WAS BACK IN RICO’S THIRD CINEMA CLASS RIGHT NOW. I know I know, Hollywood is all about white male fantasy but this was absurd. Allah was wiped from the movie,only being referred to as “the creator above” and “god” and the...
Things I'll Miss
My breakfast route and the fruit-men. I scavenge for food on my way to work everyday. 2 blocks from my house is the tea-walla. I have spilled my own tea, stranger’s tea, brought friends who spill their tea on this poor guy and he never over-charges. Curses, the mostly-milk tea and my guilt has secured my loyalty to his stall forever. When I get to Taratala, there’s Ticked-off Fruit...
You know.. my parent’s house in Queens has a lawn and garden in the back. It would be really easy to convert the roof/drainage system to harvest rainwater to feed the garden. I don’t think we have access to the roof so installing the filtration “system” would have to be done carefully. Big deal. & when it doesn’t rain, if we switch to organic soaps then...
# 22 : Project Perm
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And I say to thee, race is discursive not visual-biological. So, I got a perm today.
Begin shpeil » » » I’ve been changing my appearance frequently and radically throughout my post-adolescent career as a ferocious asshole. The fact that I haven’t at all while in Calcutta (and feeling like I am lying through my teeth...
May 2010
8 posts
crashfreezeflashbam
Hahaha. The results of last nights geekfest were the following: one banging track called “Gnomebody Knows” (?right?) and the cover art for Gregindranath Rocker. On a slightly annoying note, my computer’s started to freeze. Boo. I have to clean this baby up. Good thing I brought my 2002era 20lbs mega-hardrive! It’s the size of a small child. Also, the website is...
ricotta
a big hunk of focaccia
brown bread
left over lychees
2 frozen bannanas
a large eggplant
long beans
honey ham slices
chicken sausage
amul butter lite
black bean sauce
2 boxes of orange juice
kidney beans
canned tuna
5 onions
mustard
vinegar
2liters water
teriyaki sauce
^contents of my fridge … (awesome)
I had a melt down at Spencer’s today. I was actually...
it’s raining in calcutta, and every minute of it is beautiful.
i spent a week in mumbai visiting my aunt in the hospital. i did a lot of reading, a lot of waiting, a lot of plotting on how to eat the cat in the cancer ward. there was a cat roaming the halls (this is terrible since patients are prone to infection, you’re not supposed to be near anyone without a face mask or hand...
April 2010
4 posts
In Summary, 1/5th of The Reason I Packed My...
What should I do? I cannot get tangled in this cycle again. Nearly half the fellows in this year’s class are deciding to stay on. Some of us come from very different backgrounds. I have just not found the same opportunities that suit my interests. No matter how many social business models wearing triple bottom lined fantasy suits parade in front of me on stage, I cannot sing ooo and aww...
March 2010
2 posts
IWD
Lovely.
Happy International Women’s Day. It’s the 100th anniversary the world’s biggest co-opted holidays. Hope you have some time to join in the festivities for commemorating women workers struggle near you.
If you’re in Cal, see you at the march on Hazra More at 5pm (2pm for street theater and some “bhashons”/speeches) and then later on, Jadavpur University is...
February 2010
3 posts
3 tags
45 women and a canal
Nutshell:
My ngo has an SRI programme (http://www.sri-india.net). We’ve been in the community for 20 years and the same issue hampering food security consistently comes up. Folks say “We’d love to try SRI, but we have no water”.
Why no water?
It’s been a largely political problem. According to villagers, the local Panchayat hasn’t spent the 6-10 lakhs...
4 tags
Pre-panchayati mobilisation
So I don’t take photos unless my ngo asks, but these photos are a little insight into how the early days of SRI looked like. They’re screen-caps from film because I was documenting the SRI programme to use in next year’s village-outreach ect.
Side: Continuing on the Panchayat lock-in for the Khaal Digging Campaign (Irrigation Canal Digging), yesterday was bloody amazing. ...
January 2010
2 posts
Leprosy, Lice and The Year of Discreet Napping
Hey so, last year the AIF midpoint was at a leprosy colony. This year it was here:
I’ve been gone for about 2 weeks and holy hells bells, it’s been fantastic. I needed it too. Haha….euh. Before we went to what was the equiv of Club Med/Sandals resort in Kerala, a few of us met up earlier and went to Cochin and Munnar. It was one of those trips where you don’t need to take photos because...
reverse
Jan 4th
Ah, life can still be amazing. There are 4 AIF fellows/friends visiting Cal currently. They are solid. Honestly, feels so good to be with folks and not play a “supporting” role (being a laugh track or just silently disagreeable). AHAHA. It’s making me miss friends in New York. Thanks for e-mailing ya’ll, I really need it. The fellows and I went around Dalhousie and College...
December 2009
5 posts
sharp relief
weekend at the graam.
getting there:
there:
getting out of there:
back in kolkata:
We visited poulami’s graam for the weekend. Hm, if I were a little more whole maybe I could have really appreciated all the frolicking in the teak trees and lying on the rooftop that happened.
I didn’t take many photos but someone else’s will show up here. It’s this...
wai wai
Gender training retreat. It was a glorious, vulgar, bonding week. Also, I have half the mind to put on a frock and rock em pigtails because I feel cough, a little infantalized at work. The last two photos don’t help my cause.
PhDs, Peers, Political Action
Ah, I was thumbing through a book that will remain nameless (as people will be brutal and judgmental if I share) and I couldn’t stop laughing at myself for underlining very specific lines in what otherwise is a long discussion on privatization and “modernization”/industrial development in the global south:
“Empathy would lead to passion, to incandescent anger, to wild...
rediscover my mojo
“lots of little ideas percolating. not yet. still mush. all i know is i have to start ripping these chains, or rather all the dog collars i inherited from the american school system soon. i mean it was great, lots of gold, but goddamn it’s really time for praxis. i dont want to hate myself, or resign or fear. we are too effing bright, i know this.”
Wait, I wrote that? This was...
November 2009
9 posts
erika, lady, sometimes you sing my life.
...
the duchess and the chocolatair (ohno! a personal...
Ooof. That was a tough week. Always been prone to melancholia. Nothing particularly new. I still need to go for a walk. Walk it off, walk it off.. The eternal gym teacher fix-all.
Yesterday I was trying to watch meteors in a.. I guess, high class boarding house. There is an old duchess who lives there and is flat-mates with our friend the chocolatair. This all sounds very literary, right? The...
2 tags
eh
i love the mundane. once in a while i get a kati roll from Sanjays and a diet coke from the bodega next door. “bodega” b/c i don’t know what to call them here. i actually get the diet coke every other day and the guy pulls out a cold one before i ask. i used to do this ritual at a shop a block away and now when I pass by, I lower my coke so they don’t label me traitor.
...
The one thing (besides Brynne) that made my last...
King Khan & The Shrines.
If I could boil down...
Kaj
craftin’ about gendered exploitation ya’ll!
Why yes, we’re playing Human Barometer.
Theater ice breakers.
Well hell. Suddenly I have work up to my ears. & I am shaking with excitement!
This will be the post that answers What An AIF Clinton Fellow Actually Does.
…In the most roundabout way possible.
In general I have dozens of tasks to do for our income gen....
god. how much catholic(school) guilt is in this...
finally beginning to sink my teeth into SRI, the sustainable agriculture project I’m helping with. then again, work has been hard. my enthusiasm comes and goes in spurts because of my floating role in the organization. i am still negotiating whether or not to cross certain lines and fully participate. i should take advantage of this year, i know. i know i should be doing many things and...
October 2009
12 posts
what stipends get you
is it alright if all i want to do is stay home?
considering this is my home:
i ran away from work today and unpacked all my stuff. it’s done. this place is obscene.