Love and Politics

For the few weeks that I was on dating apps this year, my profile said I was Tory-phobic, which was a little redundant since I had marked 'Left' for political leaning in my bio. Maybe because I was dejected by the recent Tory election win and the exploits of India's far-right government. Maybe it was a form of virtue  and intellect signalling. Chances are it was a bit of  both.
Today, I read an article from an author I admire about love across political lines. To be honest, that wasn't all the article was about but that was the only part of the article I managed to comprehend. IN the article, she narrated a conversation between her and a young woman where she asked her if rejecting someone for the political views wasn't  like rejecting someone on the basis of their caste.
Well, no. Firstly, you don't choose your caste, like you do your political views, as much as they are shaped by your milieu. Yes, most people on dating apps in India are likely to be upper-caste, since if you are on a dating app in India, you are urban and and middle-class at least.
But, this post isn't an argument about how different political leaning and caste are as conceptual categories. There was a time when I thought that most people on the left were nice people, or at least, you couldn't be a nice person unless you weren't at least left-leaning. I don't  believe that any more. Some of my close friends are firmly in the political centre or even skew a bit to the right. I have spent enough time in the West to know that just because someone says they are left-wing doesn't mean they are class-blind, or colour-blind or accent-deaf. Just like it is perfectly possible to love yoga while at the same time viewing South Asians with undisguised distaste. But, all this wisdom hasn't dented my preference for a romantic partner of similar left-wing intersectional feminist political views. It has just made me feel like finding a romantic partner or making a new close friend is  bloody difficult. Alignment of political views is a necessary but by no means a sufficient condition. 

The PhD Experience

When I started my PhD, I was inundated with stories from former and current PhDs about what a grueling and nerve-wrecking experience it is. The contrarian that I am, I dismissed the stories as self-important twaddle from people who were trying to feel special. I was determined to not only enjoy but glide through my PhD. After all, I hadn't lost any sleep over my master's research paper, unlike many of my classmates.
Now that I am in my final year of my PhD, it is time to acknowledge that I was wrong. The PhD is grueling, potentially nerve-wrecking  and unique experience. I was determined to treat it as a 9 to 6 job but its not. What makes it special? Firstly, it is an isolating experience with few clear milestones. It is a continual struggle to keep one spirit's up and fight impostor's syndrome, sometimes on a daily basis. A PhD dissertation is like a book, but doing a PhD is much more difficult. Most people who write non-fiction books have a reasonably clear idea what they want to write a book and have established expertise in the subject, not to mention a decent-sized publishing record. In a PhD, one lacks the training, the confidence, the subject expertise. The only thing one doesn't lack is the ambition to do a stonking PhD. So, yes, doing a PhD is a unique experience and one has to endure unique pressures. 

Disrespect from your own

One of my PhD colleagues came to the office livid yesterday because one of his students had demanded that he repeat an explanation for the fourth time because the student's tution fees paid his salary. The student in question was BME as is my colleague, who was sure that the student wouldn't have dared to be so rude to a white British lecturer. I agreed with him, and my mind went back to two incidents--both relatively minor but one more unsavoury than the other. One was when the resident paedophile of the Buckingham palace was visiting our university to inaugurate a building. A few security guards were checking ids and bags at the entrance. I dutifully showed my ID but was asked to open my bag by a BME security guard. I complied, but then I saw another security guard wave in some white students without checking their bags. It was a relatively minor incident and didn't even register immediately. But a wave of anger came over me when I later realized what had happened. Its true that BME people are often the most zealous policers of BME bodies--that is one of the reasons colonialism was as destructive as it was. Secondly, it is  not easy to put yourself in the shoes of someone who has experienced abuse, so its best not to judge them for over-reacting, which we are wont to do especially if there was no physical violence involved.
The second incident was more annoying than offensive. The room that I was supposed to teach a class in was occupied at the appointed hour, so I peeped in and politely asked them to leave. I waited for a few minutes and when I peeped in again they had made no moves towards wrapping up. They were a group of brown girls, some of them in hijab. I told them to leave with some fairness and started loading my slides. They asked if they could stay while I taught my class, promising to be quiet. I declined and they asked me again at which point I was quite annoyed. First, they had ignored me when I had told them I had a class in that room. Then they were trying to play cute, no doubt thinking since I was brown they could get away with playing cute with me. They would never had tried that with a white British lecturer.  

Foot in Mouth

Over  the past one week, there have been two occasions I put my foot in my mouth, and with the same person. Speak first, think later is a bad strategy and can cause hurt. I have written before on how its best not use humour as an antidote for anger or frustration unless the target of the joke is oneself. And how, if one is displeased with someone, one should either suck it up or tell them about it, not get back at them indirectly through mean jokes. But, the person I goofed up with is someone I am quite fond off, so I don't know what  was the dynamic playing out there. Boredom, I suppose? There was a time in my life I was quite unhappy with myself, which reflected in my  jokes. And, when the jokes caused offence, I hated myself even more. I am not going to go so far as to stay every mean joke comes from a bad place in oneself. Sometimes, one just blurts out the first thing that comes to mind and regrets it immediately. But being at peace with oneself definitely reduces the chances of cracking mean jokes. 

PhD Journey

After fighting it for a weeks I have reconciled with the possibility that my PhD journey will take longer than I anticipated. So, I may realize that I am a much slower writer than I thought and my PhD won't be ready in time for the next job season. And, that won't be the end of the world. This doesn't mean I plan to slack off or take it easy. I couldn't even if I wanted to because I don't have much of a life outside my PhD. But, neither am I going to work myself ragged trying to finish my PhD on the old timeline. Because the little time that I will  save doing that won't be worth the cost to my well-being. I have discovered that I can work for about 5 hours a day, six days a week on a sustainable basis and I plan to stick to that. Yes, I acknowledge am in an extremely privileged position as I don't have money worries and neither do I have a hard deadline to finish. So, I am going to use that privilege without guilt. 

OCD

The closest thing I have to an OCD is fearing that I have left the stove on after I have left home. It hits me about once every few weeks without any rhyme or reason. This morning was one of the mornings and I had visions of a fire in the kitchen of my shared house. I was in quarter of a mind to go home and check, or at least message one of my housemates. But I felt that OCD is a slippery slope. Once you indulge it, it can get out of control fast. It is impossible to doublecheck every single action of yours that could cause disaster, so anxiety must be fought and not given in to.

Labour Party Hustings

I attended te Labour Party Hustings in Bristol today. From past experience, I have come not to expect a diverse crowd at Labour gatherings, but every event falls short of my ever-falling expectations. I was expecting an overwhelmingly white and middle-class crowd, but what I was not expecting was so few youngsters.  I was among people who don't look or talk like me and neither were they the same age as me. Needless to say, they were applauding at all the wrong moments. I suppose today's gathering was not a representative sample of the Labour Party but that is part of the problem. The There should have been active efforts to make sure younger and more diverse members got spots to attend the debate, rather than just the "engaged membership". Today's conference could have been a Tory Party conference if there had been more men in suits. Neither did I see old working class union hands,  or any rabble-rousers or Momentum types. Of course, it is possible many youngsters gave this debate a miss because they don't care about debates, which would be an encouraging sign. That they see it as a pointless pantomime which should not only be avoided, but opposed because it emphasizes form over substance. The aim should be to change the political culture from debates that are little more than entertainment to more substantive discussion. But, public performances do give you an insight into a leader's personality and I came away from it more confident in my choice.