Nafisa grew up in Queens NY, got some sort of degree in Ethnic Studies and Political Economy, worked in youth organizing/nonprofit, then moved to Kolkata as an AIF fellow. Bengali Man Fail
Oh, I’m just going to let it out. I met a pretty attractive Bengali man this week. I shouldn’t get too descriptive but he fit 3 major requirements. Glasses… artist… Marxist… who talks crap about pseudo-intellectuals. Who doesn’t here though? Anyway, this guy was handsome and charismatic but the whole situation was an epic fail. It wasn’t just a fail, it was a continuous fail, sort of like that time I saw that old lady fall up an escalator. Over, and over, and over again.
I ended up going to a group dinner …. and it was easily the strangest experience in Kolkata so far. I did not translate. Literally, everyone was exhausted by the end of it. Humor and nuance became this colossal fortress that rose up like the Himalayas. And no one has the stubbornness of Alexander so I think we all gave up and stewed in silence for quite some time. In fact I think he went home thinking I was some american neo-con, or maybe just an idiot. Anyhow, IT MUST BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT FOR ALL THE FELLOWS WHO DO NOT SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF THEIR PLACEMENT SITES.
Also, everyone was talking about state repression and Maoists, but it felt like a ‘let’s prove how left we are while we drink chaa and biscuits’ game. Egads. 1, I can’t participate in things like that, 2, I don’t want to participate in things like that, 3, atels. Atels is the phrase in Bengali? Pointless masturbatory political monologueing is a global pastime and Kolkata is no exception.
Speaking of Atels
One thing that caught me by surprise was the relevance of postmodern theory at my NGO. There is a lot of enthusiasm around implementing conceptual innovation and using theory to push the NGO forward. At first I waved it off as elite admins who read some subaltern studies and liked making lite use of the lexicon in grant proposals… but maybe not. (Aren’t I horrible by the way?) To be able to conceive power and empowerment is vital to the designing, evaluating and implementing of programs. This is a type of praxis. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but it’s pretty significant for me to find a new form where theory meets community*…. albeit through familiar vertical routes. Hello community, meet theory. They’re not a couple yet, but they’re dating.
Again, the point is relevance. I am just noticing the differences in approach. Whether or not empowerment itself is silencing is just a conversational exercise, but having it and then creating programs that are informed by it… that’s pretty rad. At the end of the day it’s so weird walking around here and hearing folks talk about the need to adopt more discourse in planning. WHERE AM I!?
Peace!
