It was almost 3 years ago that I was working on a college magazine article and had the privilege of speaking to the father of a very brave girl who is no more. But I still remember what he said then. He said, " your true strength only comes out when you are really tested", and "at those times, even you'd be surprised by how strong you are". At that time , I was impressed by what he said. But today, I can finally appreciate the truth of it. of course his words were for a graver time, and a more important time. But I'm being selfish enough to use them for my own petty little woes.

Just because something happens, and lets be fair to life- we can hardly hope to control everything that happens, that doesn't mean we cannot control anything at all. Sure, you're thrown off-balance, sure it isn't ideal, sure you want to blame people, and you want everything to go your way- but guess what- it doesn't and you cant make it. So here's what you can do- you can reassess the situation and you can adapt, in fact, you can even grow at times like these. And that is because your future has still not happened, and therefore you still have some say in it.
That is point one.
Point two- love yourself.
Sure they talk about giving, and they'll tell you that takes you to heaven, and that that's the best feeling you'll ever have. They're wrong.
You cannot afford to put yourself out. Do and give only as long as you've done for yourself and given to yourself first. We can't help it- so its best that we give in to our most basic element- we are the centers of our own little universes, and if you change that you'll be sorry.
Don't underestimate this funny little universe of yours- point three
the universe does balance itself. You are only given as much joy as you deserve and no more, and you're only given as much pain as you can take and no more. So if you feel that fate just gave you the short end of the deal- its probably because you're strong enough to deal with it. So get on with it. And on your way to getting on- you'll be surprised at where all you find the strength from and the support from. More often than not it comes from the most unexpected places.

This is what Ive learnt in the very recent past- and so its been blogged. There!

So when I joined VOA and on my third day, the edoitor gave me a practice piece to do, I thought ' Piece of Cake' - writing is what I do and of course I pooh pah-ed it. I sat at teh computer, my fingers flew across the keyboard and I typed out my first practice piece, proudly printed it off and handed it in to my editor. She- did not seem as impressed with me as I had been with myself. She basically thought my piece was fairly boring, bland, complicated and full off technical nitty gritty wrongs- only she was too kind to sya it in these many woprds. POint of teh matter I sucked! But wait a minute I thougt, I've had all this expereince interning and stuff at Mint newspaper and all, then what the...!

What I clearly missed out was that VOA is broadcast. Newspaper writing doesnt work here. To top all that my really nice professors had further corrupted my writing. Handing in all those academic essays at uni and having teh profs tell me taht I need to write in a more formal, academic way, basically kicked bits of teh little miserable half baked journalist within me. what I ended up with was a blah style of writing a news story taht nobody in tehir right minds would want to listen to. Broadcast is sooo different from anything Ive ever done. Of course now I totally kick ass at it ( or so Id like to beleive), but it took me a month and several frusterating practice pieces where I jsut didnt get it right, to finally get there.

10th September- confirmation of (thus far improbable seeming) employment, 21st September- start date... ten days to look for a house and move. So I began my search at google- the first point of information, and after my potential participation in Internet accommodation scams, I finally decided that estate agencies are the way to go... and by the 19th I had the perfect apartment (which is where I stay now). What makes it so perfect you may ask, after all it is in zone 3 of London and clearly not as savvy as what zone one Londoners boast of their places. It does take me 35 minutes on the tube and 5 minutes on the bus to reach central London... and I do have to clean the place myself. BUT, walk out of that apartment... take that bus, and reach the tube station and just round the corner you'll find a small shop that serves the best waffles in the country (better than covent garden ones by the way). That, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes the place so perfect. A perfect warm waffle with thick chocolate smeared on its surface and loaded with fresh sliced strawberries- you know life cannot get better than this.
It was a year ago that I discovered the joy of waffles at the Tocil kitchen: I'm drawn out of my room and to the kitchen thanks to this amazing sweet warm aroma emanating from the kitchen. The culprit- Omer Ali- conveniently standing in front of the toaster removing these delicious smelling but plain waffles and loading them onto a plate. The love began at first bite and has been going steady since.
And now at this tiny Belgian waffles shop, waffles get a whole new meaning.... with their marshmallow, nuts, sprinkles, fruit, chocolate, jam, ice-cream, and so many other awesome toppings. Even though there are no chairs or tables so you have to keep the disposable plates on the trash bin's granite top.... its all so worth it down to the last bite.
And THAt is why my place is perfect :) So there Zone one-ers!!!!

The same old familiar feeling is back again... I really wish there was a name for it, because it's happened so often now and I have no idea what to call it. If there was a word or a phrase fro it it would probably be a synonym of 'life moving on'. The warwick year is coming to an end, and people that were thus far together in one place, are very soon going to dispersed in all corners of the world (which is actually a strange expression given that the earth is round...). When I first landed in England, got the keys to what was going to my room for the year and I opened my first suitcase, I felt alone- homesick, I missed everything that was not with me here. And now when I am shutting off my suitcases, once again I get that same feeling. Only this time the difference is that I'm staying on while others are leaving. Its a strange feeling, because you reminisce about things that you'd hardly heeded when they they were for real, and you miss experiences that you probably vehemently disliked (like walking from tesco to heronbank!), and most of all you miss the people that made it all part of your life. But then as a wise man said last night (Shivi)... "life is long enough for you to meet these people again.. and you most probably will". So well, Amen to that, and I'm leaving for the Duck now.

We officially get kicked out of campus accommodation on the 12th of September. As rationality would dictate, I am spending hours at end house hunting (or in my case, room hunting thanks to property prices in London). But this wasn't the case two days ago. Because two days ago I seemed to have found the perfect place- with the perfect rent. It seemed that I was the only lucky soul on earth to have got it all. Then I found another prefect place, and then another,and then another. This was insane. I knew someone was watching over me. Little did I know, I was in the middle of a potential internet scam as a potential victim. I like to believe it was my special sensibilities that it didn't take me long to figure out these were all fairy-tale apartments that never existed. The series of events that led to this rather intelligent conclusion would just take too much space, time and effort to explain here ( plus they would uncover some of my own embarrassing unthinkingness as well). Lets just say, I could've been robbed of my (very very little) money.
While I was lucky, some others haven't been so, and BBC just yesterday devoted some time letting us know of those other unfortunate souls who as a matter of fact did get cheated.
Sadly, what is also true is that a lot of these 'victims' end up being students who barely have anything to begin with.
I hardly know whether to blame the internet, the people of this world, or London ( after all I have been robbed of a handbag in London as well, but that's another story), but the fact is- WE NEED TO BE ON OUR TOES ALL THE FREAKING TIME... and it is not fun!!!

Yesterday, the Financial Times published news stating an apparent shortage of skills in the UK. I, a postgraduate at the university of warwick, sitting unemployed (technically), am reading this and wondering why me and all the very many other fresh graduates are invisible to the job market. It is understandable of course in a away that we are unemployed, considering we just decided to graduate at what is clearly a hard time world wide, but this still appears as a paradox- we have skilled unemployed and a shortage of skilled workers coexisting. So where does the problem lie? The problem, from my (student) point of view lies with the fact that employers would rather keep a vacancy unfilled than hire someone without or with minimal full time work experience. And to be fair, why should they- training costs, and its preposterous if a 'rival' firm benefits from your investment. And for the fresh graduates, they are just stepping into the labour markets, and would obviously like to get to their pareto optimal place, which would mean job hopping, discovering themselves, and developing their skills , for them. But in this, the expectation of the employer that the vacancy shall soon become vacant again, leads to them not hiring out of the available pool of workers and thereby keeping the vacancy unfilled.
This is part of the story. The other part pertains specifiaclly to international students, who unfortunatley, not only have the recession to deal with, but also their lack of English nationality an 'student' visa status. Invariably, the first thoughts in an employer's mind are- OK, so this guy/ girl does not have full time work ex, and to top it Im not even sure if they can work here on their visa status. Some of them choose to cut out on the uncertainty and simply hire someone with a proper work permit. While the fresh international graduate waits on to get a job, so that he/ she can afford to pay the Post study work permit fees (out of their expected income). It almost seems that if life full of ironies, most of them happen to be in the labour market.
I've been here for eleven months now, and the next 15 days is a black uncertain box for me.

The titles are in, the countdown is on and the deadline is near. The deadline for our dissertation plans to be turned in. I chose to cross into the "other side" - the theoretical side of things, the historicist analysis side, the 'discourse' side. I chose to write about Marx adn Smith and labour. This does take me away from ftom I liked calling teh practical side, the real issues that matter. It takes me away from debates that are current, taht are relevent. After all it is " history" of economic thought that I shall now be getting into. That by virtue of its own subject field makes it an archaic discussion. Or does it? Is it really irrelevent. Dr Watson insists untiringly on 'theory', how tehory is important, how perspetives are important, an how debates in literature are important. I would be lying if I said, I did not roll my eyes half teh times, thinking " ,I am studying political econoy fro crying out loud. Im doing this for one year. Do I really haev to bore myself to dealth with theory.". Often I would add sullenly- ' besides, not everything fits into these alleged tehoretical perspectives'. But now as I read of Marx and Smith - one and half and two and half centuries ago work respectively, I am forced to think back. I am almost compelled to agree with Dr Watson. Theory is as a matter of fact teh issue itself- one drafted out so it may not remain relevent to the year alone, but may continue to hold its relevence in teh years andin our case centuries to come. The debate between tehory and practicality is not a debate at all. When Marx wrote he wrote from within the contemporary English, german, Fresh and Belgian society and it was very much practical. Today it is hardly dead either. When Smith wrote it was very much contemporary economics that he wrote of. When he wrote, if television existed, teh Americanb revolution, the navigation laws and corn prices that he writes of would have made headlines. Today, too his work stands far from irrelevent. The matter is merely oneof adaptation. Where, however, we perhaps to lack in studying political economy, is in believing that we could use one theory to explain our point of view. That we must decide on our leanings and then follow them through so as to not expose ourselves to allegations of any implied contradictions. These need not be the shackles that a political economists works bearing. It is not pertinent at all to be a liberalist or a marxist or a critical theorist or a nationalist or a globalist or any other 'ist' for that matter. It in fact is pertinen that we understand all the ists together. That we see tehir complementarity. Becasue the reality of the world is not gridded out so that we may only fall within one grid at all times, nor is it so simple and unchanging that we can follow one line of thinking all through. I think it is myopic to believe that. Just as it is mypoic for a feminist to never agree with teh hard core economist or the 'evil' banker just because her stand syas so. Or for the free market liberal to never agree withe the Marxist jsut because he has proclaimed his belief once. To adapt is not be fickle minded. It is to grow. Theory is important. A theory is not.

"So now you're saying Im stupid?" The subject that hereafter shall be described as the "jerk" said indignantly. Inwardly I thought, " it really took you that long to figure out".
It was 1:30 am, and not the most active times of a day, at least fro me. I was sitting at teh welcome desk at the library ( my livelihood for now), reading a nice michael connelly, and sipping cranberry and orange herbal tea, and going about my business of being a library steward. This was the moment when the Jerk enters without a card or pass and expects me to let him in. I refuse. He insists. I still refuse. He becomes rude. I ignore him. He becomes ruder still.I tell him that people are usually smart enough to get their cards. This is the precise when the question in context was asked.
The point this brings me to ( over and above the obvious bickering that I'm doing), is interpersonal interactions.
Why is it that we take every arbitrary person in teh world for granted. Why is it that we believe that it is everyone's job to wait on us. If we are standing in a queue to get a ticket, we curse the tickteer for being so fdamn slow. If we're waiting at a helpdesk, we curse the assisstant for not doing their job. And if noone in particular wold listen to us whine, we would just start talking in really loud voices about how bad the "service" is and terribly teh "system" sucks. Whatever happened to interpersonal respect?!
While Im collecting books off tables, a lady gestures with her index finger for me to come over and answer her numerous queries. One index finger?! Really? Whatever happened to the good ol' " Excuse me, I have a question."?
The issue is however, not just left there. Our sheer neglect of people around us, our utter lack of consideration for them and respect for teh work they do leaves us in an alien world, detached from our surroundings. Not caring. It would sound silly to take a library incident to a global scale, but lets be honest here- Our oblivion stands us disregarding the humanity we are part of, the world we live in, and teh people that make up the world for us. Another person's life doesnt seem as important as ours, nor does another's grief, and nor does his work or aspirations. Where are we headed then? Where is such a world headed?Where do we belong anymore?

"Political Economy".... think about it... Political comes first and Economy comes second. Now if it was Economic Polity, that would give it a whole new meaning. Unfortunately, I hadnt thought of this six months ago while enroling for the masters programme.
It is just inherently asssumed in Political Economy that the order of the words is to be the order of importance, the direction of flow, the core and periphery respectively.
Political Economists, intrinsically and by virtue of being political economists subordinate economics to politics,and if an infidel is bold enough to proclaim otherwise... well.. he/she bears the consequences of infidelity.
Unfortunately (or not), I am one of "them" infidels! There I come out and Ive said it. I am not loyal to PE. I am an Economic POliticist in the garb of an political economist. My soul purpose is to corrupt PE at its very core and work from within it to corrupt it into EP- almost like a computer virus, or a mole, or a Quisling.
But the question I intend on raising is- am I supposed to be restricted to politics and keep the economics within check in my work? Am I supposed to attempt to not "stray into the field of Economics" while writing of Political Economy? If so- then whatever happened to academic freedom?!?
If not, why is it that I am warned repeatedly by my "mentors" to not stray away from the field of politics into the field of economics?!?
MY answer would then be- I am not straying at all. I just never really was all in the field of politics. i am simply attempting to drag political variables into my chartered territory of economics.
It is the woe of the political economists that they are the jacks of both disciplines and masters of neither. BUt they are better jacks of politics than they are of economics ( I am taking the liberty of generalizing, even though this may not be true for a few in the field).
When I sit in this class of political jacks, being the sole economic jack, and worse- a liberal economic jack!!! ( sheesh, noone but the bloody Americans can be that.), I do feel the alienation.
Often I feel the controversy, and almost always I am made acutely aware of stringent disagreement.
Now that is fine. disagreement after all, among academic circles is given teh distinguished term "academic discourse". So I engage in discourse. But is it all just "discourse"?
Not quite. If you are a realist, you'd understand power asymmetries. And I dont hesitate in saying that these power asymmetries are seldom as pronounced as in a classroom. The professor almost always has teh last word (literally and metaphorically), the discourse is at his mercy. If he/ she is 'academically kind', your deviant (rogue) opinion/stand might be accepted, if not- you are doomed!
But whether or not it is accepted, there shall be a constant attempt to mould you/ to change you, the way you think, and to change, as my professors would put it- your epistemology.
I do not have the absolute freedom as a student of political economy to have economics as my epistemological basis.
This is not true of all my professors (and thank god for that!), but it is true for a third.
Back in the days, being liberal was the way to be. Today if I go out as a (deep breath) liberal economic politicist, I am almost seen in myself as the "axis of evil". Believeing in economism, means being simply- unsensitive, avariced, money minded, inhumane, and a critical ally of the evil faceless corporations!!!
How did so many identities get attached to me? I am all of 20 years old (21 tomorrow)... how did I simply by virtue of my thoughts become all those things? I never will really know.
At the end of teh day my professor is still disgruntled that I believe in economics far more than I do in politics.... and I scored the pits on my essay!!!

While Im sitting at my laptop happily playing work challenege on good ol' facebook, I hear this funny (apparently melodic??!!?) music just outside. It happens to be the new ice cream van that has decided to make its way into our uni campus. I'm about to shut my curtain on it, but behold!... its not any ice cream van... its a Kwality Walls van. Good ol' Kwality vans. Why its so special?- coz it reminds me of home - only back in India we didnt have vans, we had ice cream thelas.
I seem to have become more Indian than I was back in India, and it is perhaps understandable.
I crave chappatis, I crave for home food, I crave for even the weather, and my god do I crave for the prices we had back home. ( GBP... sheesh.. 2 pounds for 1Kg potatoes, thats 160 ruppees, where we get them for 5 Rs back home!!!)
My classmates, glod bless all them angelic souls, have only been too kind to not have shut me up when I go on giving examples and instances and analysis from India one after the other. It was really my flatmate Omer who made me realize that Im 'romanticising' about India just too much. I hated to admit it, but the man was right- I was a walking advertisement flier for India.
It definitely isnt exaggerating if I said that I completely love teh country for all Ive lived of it- to me its home. But home comes with all its flaws too. And I wish I could negate them all, but I just can't!
I never did go out past 9 at night by myself ( or actually even with anyone other than mum and/or dad). I just couldnt. It didnt seem worth it to take the risk. I hated travelling by teh 764 bus, where I didnt even have place to stand, where teh crowd seemed to breathe away all teh air available so that suddenly there seemed no air left for me to breathe, where all those feminist claims of the gendered society and commodifying women arguments suddenly became so real. I hated it when we had curfews, and I hated it when we had those blasts- every single one of them. I hated it when people were reduced to numbers on death toll headlines, and I hated that I knew so well that none of this was going to end any time soon.
I heard President Patil's Republic day speech right after she was sworn in, and I hated that I didnt find even one sentence in teh entire hour long drudgery that inspired me or made me sit up.
I do sound like a pessimist, and in certain respects maybe I am one. Deepali says I take it too far and things arent so bad. maybe they arent. But then if they arent, I hate that they seem to be to me.

Micheal called me a trade Nazi today. The fact that he's German might have something to with it, but I think he was really provoked by my ardent defence of the WTO. hehe. Im a social outcast at PAIS for my liberal leanings.
But be honest, it isnt really my fault that economics has most if not all the answers. I think Tom was tryin g to take a dig at me and my likes in class today when he quoted Krugman, " Unfortunatley, Economists don't rule the world"... they may not rule it, but they still dictate it, and it gets dictated, oh yes it does.
But while the political scientists and economists remin at loggerheads beating around the bush, the guys who'll really take the final prize are the in betweens- political economists- I did choose well. On hindsight, it worked out better than I thought it would.