callie on palimpstine

happy birthday, mom!

pictures from qutub minar:


the qutub minar. it's huge! to give you an idea of just how big, here's just a bit of its base:

more pictures!


at humayun's tomb



ME at humayun's tomb! (some other dude's tomb is behind me, though...)






the gate to humayun's tomb


humayun's tomb itself!



humayun's tomb closer up.



the steps up to the tomb...



inside there were several rooms like this.

welcome to callie's livejournal, part 6: india summer 2008!

oh, goodness. i suppose i have to figure out how to write in this thing again.

briefly:
i'm in india. huzzah. i came here for three major reasons:

1. i always wanted to come here.
2. noserings. sweet, indian noserings.

and

3. fieldwork for my master's thesis on the relationship between india and israel.

if you've lost track of me for the last year or so, i've been living in nyc (which is the love of my life) doing my master's in anthropology at columbia. i have a wonderful beautiful resplendent apartment with two oh-so-perfect roommates. if we could get nicole to dye her hair blonde, we'd have a little something for everybody. we have sun, pull-out couches, a full cabinet of tea, the biggest kitchen you've ever seen, and flowers on the table to boot. my roommates are also at columbia: nicole's in a curatorial program in art history, and lisa's doing her phd in french. (although she's secretly also a children's book illustrator!) life in new york is good.

but that doesn't mean that i stay there. despite the fact that new york is the love of my life, we have what you may call an "open relationship" -- other people are allowed to live there too, and i'm allowed to spend as much of my time as possible abroad. hence anthropology.

i kissed my love goodbye for the summer about a week ago, and flew off to my affair with india. a short-lived affair, unfortunately, but a lovely one so far.

i arrived in delhi last monday night, and i'd put these photos behind a cut if i could, but it's been so long since i've posted on livejournal, i don't even remember how:


India Gate


at Humayun's Tomb


also at Humayun's Tomb


a monkey! in front of the israeli embassy... go figure.

more words and photos later. can't upload at this place, and i'm hungry so i'm not going to write anymore.

google "manali" to see where i arrived this morning. my hope is someone can teach me how to cook tibetan food here. yum. food.

oh, and i think i saw a yak today. ROCK ON.

Taking Benedict Anderson’s model of the nation-state as an “imagined community,” I will explore the stage of international politics and alliances, specifically the relationship between Israel and India. Widening the analysis of imagined communities to examine ties between nations – be they economic, military, touristic, or diplomatic in nature – sheds light on the multiple imaginings that take shape as nations turn out towards (or against) one another. In this sense, Timothy Mitchell’s conception of modernity as a mode of representation is only one way in which nations may imagine one another.

In the last ten years, a polysemic relationship has developed between Israel and India, characterized by seemingly unrelated, or loosely bound, multiple phenomena: an upsurge in Israeli tourism to India, largely by young Israelis who have just finished their time in the army; a burgeoning relationship of military diplomacy in which Israel has become an arms-supplier for India; and the increased circulation and popularity of Indian import goods in Israel. Anderson and Mitchell’s theories offer a framework by which one may ask: what makes this relationship thinkable? How are these ties – formed by individual and state actors – part of a plurality of national imaginings, i.e., a multiplication of India and Israel, not only as imagined communities, but as communities imagined by one another?

At stake here is not only a theoretical model of international relations, but, more concretely, the ways in which Israel attempts to situate itself as a nation and its own legitimacy within the geopolitical map of “the East.” Thus, its choice of alliances is key: while it’s clear that Pakistan, for example, would make an unlikely and unsuitable partner for Israel, one may ask why India has become the object of not only diplomatic but popular fixation. From a preliminary stance, two major contradictory trends appear as possible points of entry into this discussion: the ascendancy (and then the loss) of the Hindu Right; and the recent appropriation of India by certain subcultures in the West to stand metonymically for an exotic, peaceful multiculturalism.

These two trends represent a multiple imagining of India – one, by a political community of ethnonationalists, who, like Israel, fight not only a political but a demographic battle against a more or less substantial Muslim minority (not to mention the partitioned Other, or the Occupied Territory/ies); the other, an external imagining, by which a cheerful façade of peaceful multiculturalism simply writes out its Muslim citizens altogether. This is not to disregard the major historical and political differences between the two states – particularly in relation to colonialism – but rather, by exploring the ways in which a relationship between these two states has become thinkable (especially from an Israeli vantage point), I hope to illuminate the ways in which Israel continues a process of nation-building and a self-conception resting not only on an (imagined) historical identity, but through the building of extra-regional national alliances.

-comparative study on muslim fertility in india and israel
-modernity and multiple imaginings of national communities
-approaches to memory and history of traumatic events -- an analysis of ilan
pappe's the ethnic cleansing of palestine and ahmad sa'di and lila
abu-lughod's nakba

highlights of fun things:
-bi-weekly potlucks
-veggie dim sum in chinatown
-karaoke -- first at the gay bar down the street, then at the bar where they
shot the sopranos
-three broadway shows in two days (ave q, the color purple, the drowsy
chaperone)
-bob saget is a TERRIBLE actor
-maybe saturday i'll rent a car with some friends and drive around outside
of the city to see the fall colors
-no school today
-visitors: jen, laura, bridey, bobi
-private backyard (read: 9x9 feet of concrete)

bane of my existence:
intro to comparative literature and society

possible thesis topic:
india in the israeli imagination

number of books read per week:
on average, 2

number of articles read per week:
on average, 6

number of pages read per week:
on average, 500

(all estimates)

best student group:
society for the preservation of jargon
(yes, tongue-in-cheek)

where i'm actually wasting time on the internet:
facebook

halloween:
lecture at the new school moderated by appadurai, parade nearby in the
village (couldn't see anything, really), korean food, beers at some bar,
water at the bar nearby.

happy?
yes, i think so, lately.

friends:
group just congealing. makes me happy.

dated:
one guy. bad idea. maybe someone else? got a crush... never know.

roommates:
two.

glad i'm in anthropology/grad school/columbia:
yes

new york:
best city ever.

there's a woman who works in the anthropology office -- i think she's puerto
rican. she speaks with a really great puerto rican/new york accent.

today, i heard her say, "oy vey. i don't know, they're meshuggenah up
there..."

there's something very special about being at columbia this week. you're
kicked off the steps of the library, a caravan of unmarked cars comes in, a
mess of suits are ushered up those same stairs, and you turn to to the woman
on your right and say, "which president do you think that was?"

then, you find out that it was actually TWO presidents.

(estonia and georgia)

my day today:
8:00am woke up, started reading the book i had to write a paper on
9:00am shower
9:15am get dressed, continue reading
10:30am finish book, begin mapping out paper
11:50am finish detailed outline for paper
12:00pm go to lunch with boy
1:00pm break up with boy because he's not a feminist
1:30pm start writing paper
3:00pm distracted by friend i've neglected
4:00pm distracted by roommate i've neglected and sukkah construction
4:30pm run screaming to library where i can't be distracted
6:30pm take a break from writing, call grandma, return call to friend #2
i've neglected
7:15pm sit on the grass on campus, write my paper until the battery almost
dies
8:00pm return home, eat pasta, start writing again
11:30pm the paper's sort of done... but also 66% longer than it should be.
11:35pm blog so that people know what i mean when i say i'm busy and so that
people don't feel neglected.
11:45pm bed so that maybe when i wake up i won't feel like a ball of snot

my day tomorrow:
7:05am alarm
7:30am hopefully arrive at school, print paper for last edits
7:45am edit paper on paper
9:00am hebrew class
10:00am enter final edits on paper, print out for class
10:35am women and gender politics in the muslim world
12:00pm lunch
1:10pm try out the other hebrew class (and miss ahmadnejad's speech... i'm
so mad... maybe the hebrew class will all watch it together?)
2:30pm read some of the 100 or so pages of reading i still haven't done one
the city in literature for my comp lit class
4:00pm comp lit class
6:15pm dinner
7:15pm pick up a kid from cello and walk him a few blocks him for $15
7:45pm begin reading the book i haven't even started yet for my tuesday
morning class.
12:30am go to bed?

I'm at a loss to even describe this place, and have the urge to spend the
entire day exploring. I have work to do -- reading, writing, studying -- and
I was tired of doing it at home, so I thought I'd come sit in the library.
You have to show your id at the door to get in, but I don't get my id until
a week from tomorrow, so I had to get a pass. Since I'm an incoming student,
they allowed me a one-day pass, with the warning that they will only issue
it once.

This library -- where do I even start? The difference between this library
and Strozier (at Florida State) is the difference between -- I can't even
think of a proper analogy. It's the difference between tin foil and
platinum. The difference between the goldfish bowl you keep in your living
room and the Chicago aquarium. Not only size and scope, but the presence of
the place! I don't think I have the vocabulary to describe the high
ceilings, the moldings, the tiered chandeliers, the original portraits of
such figures as Eisenhower -- not because he was president of the United
States, but because he was president of Columbia.

I don't have the vocabulary because I've never been in a place like this.
And I look out the window and see the original library, a smaller building
that looks like the Pantheon. It's just overwhelming. I don't know how I'll
ever find my way around this place! Or how I'll get over the design of the
building, the tasteful reading desks, and, oh yes, the extraordinary
collection of books. I don't even know where to begin.

The question could be posed -- and understandably so -- as to why I am not
only awake at 3am, but why I chose this particularly desolate hour to write
my first blog entry in about six weeks. If you've been in touch with me in
the few days since I moved to New York City, this may seem even more
unwarranted, given how hard I worked in the last 36 hours, and how ready I
was to sleep by just 10:30 last night.

But before I answer that question, I want to say this: all things
considered, my first NYC potluck was a stunning success, and I couldn't be
prouder of myself. I flew into town Sunday afternoon, but my things weren't
due to arrive until Tuesday, which they did, although not until the latest
acceptable hour, nearly 4pm. Having sat around my apartment all day, waiting
for the UPS man, I was suddently forced into motion. The downstairs of my
duplex apartment nearly filled with boxes, I had just 27 hours, or until 7pm
last night, to not only unpack, but to set up a warm, clean, and welcoming
space for six guests, plus my roommate and myself, as well as to prepare the
foundation for a potluck.

These are not my skills. Cooking -- yes. But unpacking, cleaning, organizing
-- all within a brief set period of time -- these are challenges for me. To
do so in the smallest apartment I've ever lived in, and in so few hours, is
a task those who know me best would probably say I'm not up to. One friend
suggested that I cancel or reschedule the potluck, but just the suggestion
made the very thought impossible.

I unpacked until 1am that night, and woke up again at 7 yesterday morning to
clean. When my roommate left the apartment for work, it was a sea of
styrofoam peanuts, cardboard boxes floating like so many ships at bay. And
yet, by 6:30 last night, it was unpacked, clean (with the exception of the
back hall, where I stored boxes that wouldn't fit in the garbage room), and
there were even rugs on the floors and paintings on the walls. It smelled
homey, at 6:45 I pulled a homemade zucchini casserole out of the oven, and
there was fresh lemon-appleade and tomato-cucumber salad in the fridge,
brown rice in the rice cooker, and store-bought dessert downstairs. I could
hardly believe it. I even had time to sit around the kitchen and wait for my
guests, chatting with my aunt on the phone and thumbing through a black-book
guide to NYC.

My friends arrived, and we ate picnic-style in the backyard. It was nice --
good people, good conversation -- everybody left relatively early, and I
went to bed.

This brings us back to the original question as to why I would be up (it's
3:30 now) and blogging instead of enjoying a well-deserved rest.

It's hard to say what woke me up. It could be the heat. It could be the
cramps. Or it could be the Chinese-water-torture-style phenomenon I
inadvertently constructed over my own couch (where I'm sleeping until I get
a bed). We've all heard of Chinese water torture. A victim sits in a room,
unable to sleep, with an irregular dripping of water over his head. The
catch, or so I've heard, is that there's no rhyme or reason to this
dripping, and the victim spends his hours wondering when the next drop will
come.

Whatever it is that woke me up, I found myself hot and extremely
uncomfortable, when I heard something that sounded like a drip. I thought it
was an air conditioning unit, emptying water onto the patio outside. It was
quiet and unobtrusive, and I concentrated on getting back to sleep, when
suddenly it sounded like a whole bucket of water -- this time right above
me. In that way that sounds can be exaggerated in the dead of the night, I
started wondering what could have fallen upstairs. I calculated my position
relative to that of the kitchen and dining room -- was I directly below the
sink? I wouldn't have thought so. And then I heard another small drip, and
another, and started imagining the growing disaster in the kitchen.

Time passed like this -- minutes? hours? -- until I realized it wasn't water
at all. Above me was taped an extension cord, which snaked up around the
ceiling from the television to the ill-placed electrical outlet. It had
already been taped up when I moved in, but this afternoon, when I was
hanging art on the wall, I moved it over so as to make it less conspicuous
and to place a photograph. I didn't know where the tape was, or even if we
had any more, so I re-stuck the original tape in its new location.

Having dismissed the kitchen disaster scenario, I tried to get back to
sleep. But each time I was about to doze off, another piece of tape would
rip off the wall, with the magnitude of sound generated by the original
"splash" that got me so worried in the first place. Suddenly, new images
floated through my head: the cord falling off the wall entirely and onto me,
or -- worse -- the cord falling at exactly the right velocity to offset the
balance of one or more of the framed pictures on the wall, leaving me the
choice of a lighter but cheaper glass frame splintering over my restless
body, or the heavy and well-framed painting prized by my roommate falling
and performing unimaginable damage, from bruising my legs with its blunt
corners to knocking me out cold by its sheer weight.

Terrified by either possibility, I nearly flew to the light switch,
discovering the situation to be relatively safe, but still not entirely
comforting. A good portion of the extension cord had fallen off the wall,
but in the short run, at least, it didn't look terribly threatening to the
nearby frames (or potential weapons). Unfortunately, I could neither
guarantee that they would continue to be so benign nor stop the sound that
had gotten me out of bed in the first place. I had no tape to replace that
which had given out, so I was left with the choice of taking down the entire
extension cord or grabbing my computer and blogging about it. This being the
internet age, I chose the latter -- an option which has paid off, since a
half-hour ago (it's now past 4am), the cord seemed to hit a steady piece of
tape, support itself on the larger work of art, and stabilize itself
indefinitely.

Of course, like the Chinese water torture, it could always start up again,
(d)ripping away, or even crushing my body under the blunt corners of a
large, framed work of art. For now, I think I'll take my chances.