(Sorry for Cross Posting)
By Ananya S Guha
To catch up with the times I have also now been maintaining my secret Diary. But, what should I say, it is so secret or rather secretive, that I can only talk about it in hushed tones. There are a lot of sleuths around you know, who will impound my Secret Diary and proscribe it. But, I have been maintaining it for the last thirty years. Very soon I will call it My Secret Book and after that I am sure the publishers will run after me for their best seller. They say fiction sells, like hot cakes and my Secret Diary is fiction not fact, or at the best it is fiction intermixed with fact, which, I call ‘fact fiction’ or ‘fiction fact’.
The first thing about me is that I write poetry and that too in English. Aren’t you amazed, writing poetry in the language of the Colonialists, in these Post Colonial days? Everything today is Post Colonial – Literature, Art, Music, Films, it is prudent to talk about Post Colonialism, and have seminars on them. So, I am the moribund (Pre) Colonialist – dead long ago but whose ghost stalks the country still, and very ominously. Now I am also trying to book my Booker.
The second is that I am Bengali. They are not very liked you know. So I hedge this controversy by saying.
“I am of Bengali parentage, but have lived all my life in Shillong”.
People seem a little interested in that fact – cum – fiction which I mentioned earlier.
I love to dream. Whenever I am contemplating on My Secret Diary, a vision, a dream floats across my nebulous, incarcerated mind. No matter, never mind. I have also been putting on a lot of weight (so that I can throw it around). When I was in the University, everyone said you are so thin, now they say; you are obese. I am caught between, these two ‘discourses’ (a post colonial word).
I go to office at 8.30 a.m and return at 7.30p.m. It does not impress my bosses, because in the post colonial context you can work from anywhere – in the house, in trains, in planes, why even when you are on LTC.
What do you do for your family – do you go to the market, do you wash clothes, do you help with your child’s home work, your wife’s house work? No I don’t do any of these, I am a culpable idiot, I believe in dreams and ghosts and of course in my unflagging Secret Diary which has cornered me to such an extent, that everyday I make entries in it – a (pre) colonial habit, not a post colonial one!
I love to attend seminars and conferences, and attack the lunches served with gusto. That is trendy, a post colonial habit.
I too love reality shows. They are so real that they would put Ripley’s Believe It or Not to shame. Sometimes of course they are a wee bit unreal like the judges crying, or the judges hugging the participants with elan.
And, by the way I love cartoons, no matter what the law givers say. But I am told that they may be banned them very soon, oh these poor cartoonists, who will they laugh at? Very soon they will be crying. Oh yes, I forgot, I am very much against Corruption, I think that the subject should be included in all school, college and university syllabi. And I want to be in the Expert Committee to frame the syllabi. And mind you I do not want my TA/DA, for this.
Now I am with a begging bowl, going to all publishers, please, please get my “Secret Diary” published.
It is part fiction, part fact, it is delirious; half mad!
And, this is the last thing about my Diary. I am fifty five years (old). Age is a secret, you must be knowing this by now. . .
