Year Three

Every once in a while someone will ask me what it feels like to do a PhD. Most of the time this question is asked by a friend who desires to embark on one. Often the question is asked when I am in a good mood or at least when I am not in a bad one – it is not unusual for me to be having this conversation over a glass of wine – so I respond to the question in rose coloured tinted wined words that suggest that it is a privilege and luxury to have the time and opportunity to develop oneself and one’s ideas. While not untrue, I am sure I will feel like that again, once I pass my exam, but at this very moment I have this desire to prepare my soon to be colleagues for year three.

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Many A Slip

Act I, Scene I:  It is a small room but it has many openings connecting it with other similar rooms. It is seen from the top view. All the rooms are empty but the walls pulsate, sometimes faster and sometimes slower. The set is alive to the rhythm of breath. 

“If it is quite the same to you, I would prefer not being a supporting character in my own story.”

As she screams those words to herself, she sees herself for the first time. A new journey begins which, at least initially, is characterised by loneliness and doubt. Slowly, she sheds off all those people who took her to be a minor character. She stops herself; she catches herself as a player in someone else’s stage directions. Continue reading “Many A Slip” →

Through the Looking Glass

It is an autumn evening I walk into my flat. It is still early, but I am tired. It is unusual for me to return home before seven in the evening. The day in the office was not unproductive – I got what needed to be done, done, albeit mechanically; however, I was restless. I don’t believe that any one at work noticed – the minute the lipstick slid on as I gazed into the mirror in the tiny foyer by my front door, just before I left home this morning, had conditioned by face to smile. In fact, a number of people commented on how happy and even how calm I looked – my laughter even while It was tinged with incredulity was not fake – honestly, more surprised at my successful deception. I dwelled on how the comment altered my mood; how reflections in another’s eyes controls and even forms one. On entering my apartment, the restlessness that I had quietened, resurfaced with additional vigour. I took a deep breath as I allowed the memories of the previous evening to engulf me. All day, I had wanted to quiet all the voices around me and allow myself the luxury of my private thoughts.

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