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. 
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 Street, had dinner and hung out at Some Place Else. Can’t wait to go to Cochin and Quillon so I can air myself out. Then I’ll be ready for the next 5months.
It’s a strange place, to have access to all the world. I can take this fellowship and really enter into a role, know what I mean? The access to ground level work we have as fellow seems like it will be inaccessible once we specialize and do our masters / have dem titles. I’m not required to produce anything you see. Our NGOs invest in us as social capital / prodigal sons and daughters who will return with bigger and more material gains in the future, albeit extend a sort of AIF empire. Rather it be AIF than others though, blink. We do occupy an interesting /tenuous space as ‘informants’ of this global philanthropic agenda, because programmes and funding obviously impose particular ideologies and stipulations (AIF’s influence is considerable, its the largest US-Indian Philanthropy and i’m here at a local NGO that has no fridge). I’m lucky, this is certainly an interesting space to occupy, or a launch pad of sorts.
In a nutshell the fellows in Cal were: poop, leather jackets and 1dumpling soup.
Jan 3rd
Came back to Calcutta. Went to dinner with three AIF fellows visiting Cal. They look healthy, physically. Makes me want to play tennis and jog or something. Damn. Then we stopped by what we thought was going to be a bonfire party, but turned out to be a smoky room with a bunch of French NGO workers and some DJ who talked about playing at the Gulshan Club in Dhaka.
Jan 2nd
Went to Shantiniketan with Jess and family. Oh dear, rangamati roads, baul songs, 23 cups of chaa and I’m thinking of all the Shohoj Paat pages I fucked up in Bangla class. Her fam is really nice, reminds me of my own. Sort of. However, if it were my parents and I in Shantineketan I think they’d have had 4,000 cups of chai, written an impromptu novel on the lawn, gazed at the mango trees for a day, contemplated retirement, and then made me feel like crap for not knowing Tagore trivia. My boss called me in the middle of the trip and was like “So.. tomorrow.. there is a really important American fundraiser visiting our office and since I’m not here, you’re going to do the presentation on the NGO and take her around. Coolbeans?”
Coolbeans!
Jan 1st.
I woke up happy. I thought about going over to the contemporary art museum, except it stayed an idea. Instead I recalled some of the absurder moments this year and buried my head in my blankets until noon. Walked the city but was too cold to execute my plan of picking up the films and books Shushanta-da recommended. Instead, came home early and made tea. Finished Kureshi’s The Body and The Inscrutable Americans which was probably the first utterly rubbish book, the kind you pick up at an airport lounge before flying to Australia or an equally “tepantorer pare”, in years. It was so horrendous that I finished it in two sittings. Then I watched Charulata and admitted that it was only the idea of Soumitra and not the man, that I liked. Euh, which is symbolic of any/all of my run-ins with Bengali guys. Charulata however, was painfully beautiful. Especially the camera angle while she is swing-singing in the garden while Amul lies on the ground thinking. Must read crit on it. I was never interested in lyrics, so it’s fitting that it took 23years for me to recognize what it was she was singing, a song about as melodically familiar as AmericaTheBeautiful. Listened to Durutti Column and the Blow a lot, made a playlist of the songs I hear while whizzing through Calcutta on autos. Yea, commuting is comforting. Oddly, feels like pulling a warm sweater over my cold arms. Eugh, my limbs are always freezing.
Ushering in the new year was pretty funny, it might actually be the earliest night I’ve had all year. I thought it was charming and it seems that after all the social sludge, the two topics we can really connect on are 1) poop/bodily discharge and 2) anything carnal in nature. In fact, when my Dad called to wish Happy New Years, Poulami said something like “Hain, amra bari phirchi akon. Ar amr paikana kora lagbe.” or Yes, we’re going home now. & I really have to defecate. Ayee, oddly. It might have been one of the only nights with Calcutta crew that I felt like I was more or less MYSELF. Major.
Then I talked to my little sister for hours and we both confirmed that yes, the way we grew up for whatever reason, made us oddly evasive about our Selves. With a healthy slathering of insecurity, guilt but definitely a very present repression of what we want for ourselves. Diti is a musician, she’s got the aptitude for it, she loves it. But she’s going to a performing arts high school for art. Same with me. I know what makes me dizzy and warmth, but I’m not going to do it. As in I’ll take a literature class but make an installation as a final project. I’ll build up venom or bile about Bangladesh, but take a fellowship in Calcutta.
