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 for a fellowship. Somehow she ended up in Atlanta, getting a masters in development practice. 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 apartment our friend stays in is pre-furnished and hoards all sorts of dusty books and orientalist miscellanea as well as an …. elephant’s foot. An elephant died by the train tracks, and they sawed off one of its legs and preserved it as a show piece. The chocolatair by the way, is a wonderful person.
[if i had photos I would insert the elephants foot here]
I think I need to withdraw from folks. The most laborious thing in the universe is having to introduce myself over and over and over again because of course, everyone here is new. I like work. A lot. Intensely these days. But I’m so disinterested in myself and the thumbnailing process when I’m interacting after work. I don’t meet anyone earnestly, I don’t think I ever have. I’m used to making friends through shared and coded language. Which has the effect of fast forwarding small talk and thrusting a hand straight into the person’s internal life from the beginning. I like the mutual accession that passes between people, saying something like ‘getting here (as in: who I am today) was hard and deliberate, so yes, it is nice to meet you’. I appreciate people. I mean at the end of the day, I just like being in politisized communities, I like when folks are down. And there is infinite diversity after making these friends, tiers of intimacy ect, all of that. Calcutta isn’t like that. In fact, I bet I seem boring to folks here because I find the simple things laborious. Effort. That’s a big one.
Apparently I’m also ridiculously difficult to read, and angry of course, can’t forget the angry. It’s certainly fair to say I’m not a person who makes pleasure their principal motivation in life. Instead I have a methodology and an energy that comes with it, in the way that I problematize the world and produce responses. I mean that’s when there is love. When I’m processing, it’s both a validation of where I’ve come from and who I am. I have to be playing or attacking or eating ideas and spaces, I have to be in this dynamic form, to be happy and healthy.
I feel like I have existential diarrhea here. I can have very full, tactile, heavy nights. But I’m not able to hold on to any of it. I feel like there’s not enough of me here. Really, I feel my presence getting dimmer. I know the solution, I should just read more books and go to grad school and start some shit.
The other thing is, the dynamism that I will shortly try to recapture by feeding myself more substance instead of the shit-fodder I am stuck with now, will become pretty alienating pretty fast. The shit-fodder zone I’m in right now is social and buzzing and I get to encounter elephant feet and mashis in peacock mumus and terraces ect.
But I’m letting the shit-fodder zone become a distraction. & its succeeding in alienating me from being in Calcutta. I think it’s time to withdraw from all my current stimulants and you know, walk it out.
Another fantasy that I totally lived happened this morning. I was eating tea and toast and reading the Adventures of Feluda in the paper! When these things happen, I like to stop and recognize them. I was reading Feluda damnit!! I am after-all an American living in Calcutta. And it made me think of early Baldwin writing about how being bastard of the West, which is so esoteric now. We’re not bastards or calibans. Particularly when you complicate it as a South Asian American.
The point is, I’d rather be eating cereal and reading Feluda comics all day, than … what i’ve been doing.
