When I write my book....

So, I've finally decided the direction that my life is going to take in the next few years. No, I'm not challenging the Gods, because we all know that if I do that, I'll be doomed. We've all read Greek mythology at some point or the other, haven't we? But, I'm BESEECHING the Gods to listen to my pleas and make this happen for me! Simply because I'm so confused that it took me ages and several headaches to come up with this "final" plan for myself. And, I'm publishing it on the internet, just so that it seems more concrete and so that I don't back out of this one to run amock between 5 other possible plans. Again.

Right. So, I'm going to go home in October, work for a year and then, come back here in October 2011 for my PhD. And, I'll be doing my PhD in Popular Culture. Chick lit and chick flicks, to be precise. I know, I know, it sounds fantastic and all! :D It sounds the same to me and to a few people from various universities, whom I'd emailed my research ideas. So, fingers crossed, my funding application will be accepted and I'll start my research next year! :D That's my fabulous plan for the next 4-5 years.

The hitch: I love chick lit!!! What's the problem, you ask? The problem, my dear readers, is that I am an ENGLISH LITERATURE student. So, my job is to analyse and criticise. Make no mistake, it can be positive criticism. But, popular culture rarely lends itself to positive critical debates. There is going to be a lot of bad blood between me and my favourite kind of fiction for the 3-4 years. I'll be condemning the stereotypes, disapproving it's impact on naive readers, denouncing its high-handedness in dealing with the subaltern and attacking its typical, non-literary style of writing. ::weeps:: What's worse, I might even start believing some of all this to be true!! I've always maintained that you should not write dissertations or thesis on something that you love passionately. That's why I'd never "study" Harry Potter or any other children's fiction that I grew up with. But, you can only go so far with something that you DON'T love. So, when it came to a commitment of 3-4 years, I HAD to choose something that I love so that it'll sustain me for that long.

That being said, I hereby, make a solemn promise to the genre of chick lit, that when I come out of the whole PhD thing, I will definitely write a popular fiction, chick lit book. And, my book WILL have ALL the stereotypes in it: Single city girl, living in either Mumbai or London, working either in publishing or as a free-lance writer, shoe and bag fetishes, 2-3 close girlfriends and boy shopping with them, at least one gay best friend, nicotine addiction, alcohol silliness and hangover stories, at least one weed experience and making fool of yourself, probably at a beach or a pool party, looking for a needle in the haystack of alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, people with girlfriends or wives, misogynists, megalomaniacs, chauvinists, emotional fuckwits or freeloaders and perverts, and because I'm me, a dysfunctional (not in the sense of broken, but just very conservative and scandalized by their daughter) Indian family. There, now that I've made that promise to chick lit (and to myself,) I feel like a huge weight has lifted from my shoulders. :) Yay for Chick lit! :D And all of you, who love me, please pray that this plan does work out for me! Please!

A Defence of English Literature

This post is dedicated to all those people who love English literature, have studied it in the past, are studying it currently and/ or have anything even remotely to do with it. And, it is directed towards all those people who think or have thought studying English Literature to be an easy option or a waste of time.

*RANT ALERT* Don't generalise. Don't judge. Don't compare our field of study with yours. Maybe you think what we study is useless but that is because you lack imagination. There are several reasons why we study this but the most important one is: it makes us happy. We love it. What we do with our lives and careers is none of your buisness. You don't have any rights to judge us. In fact, at least we have the courage to pursue what we love doing. But, most of you on the other hand, are stuck in dead-end jobs that you hate but stay in only because it pays a bit better. However, if you are working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, what are you going to do with all that money anyway? But you won't quit. You know why? Because you don't have the balls to do that.

You argue that most of us don't even know what we are going to do later. Right. So, you mean, you knew? If you say yes, I will honestly beat you up! For lying. Possibly with the book that I would be reading at the moment. Or, more hopefully, with the hardbound copy of my very own book! ::forgets the ranting and looks dreamily into the space:: Oooh, must get back to ranting. Uhhh, where was I? Yea, so, basically, English Literature is great. Okay? Stop irritating me with those looks and questions and sympathetic or bemused expressions. Okay? Right, now that we have that straightened out, ::goes back to day-dreaming::