Arjendu K. Pattanayak

Introducing myself: Many of us assume that you know someone if you know where they lived and what they grew up doing. So I'll tell you all that, and let you work out what this means about my blog.

I was born in Cuttack, Orissa (one of the rare people in today's world born in the same city as both parents) but grew up mostly in New Delhi. I have since lived -- and been associated with colleges and universities -- in Delhi (St. Stephen's), Providence, RI (Brown University), Austin, TX (The University of Texas), Toronto (University of Toronto), and Houston (Rice University). I also spent a substantial chunk of time visiting the California Bay Area (with good incentive -- my wife was living there between '98 and '00). Most recently, we spent a couple of years of living near the lakes in Minneapolis, Minnesota and in the final transition, now own a 'late 19th/early 20th'-century Victorian in tiny Northfield, Minnesota. I am a member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Carleton College, which is a uniquely American kind of institution, a liberal arts college, enrolling only 1800 or so undergraduates.

Sports: I grew up playing cricket and was pretty obsessive about it, as were my friends -- we broke many neighbourhood windows in Chanakyapuri [I played briefly on the same team as Shahrukh Khan at St. Columba's]. I also played a bit of badminton [Shikha Swaroop -- I am not faking this strange Bollywood and childhood sports connection, promise - was part of our badminton playing crowd], and soccer. After I left India, I continued with cricket for the International Cricket Club of Rhode Island and also learned to love squash. I didn't keep up with squash, and then started throwing out various joints when I played only occasionally. I have experimented with aikido, tai chi, yoga, and pilates. I am learning to enjoy cold-weather running.

Books: I grew up on that specifically desi urban kids diet of Archie comics, Blyton, William, Asterix, Tintin, Amar Chitra Katha, Children's World, etc. I read everything I could get my hands on, and that sometimes meant that out of sheer desperation I used to raid my mother's and sister's Mills and Boons, Barbara Cartland, and Georgette Heyers, for instance. At some point I discovered science fiction, and grew up enough to go to libraries. But it wasn't until college that I discovered John Updike, Arthur Koestler to pick two random examples of authors that had a big initial impact.

Music: My daily world was filled with Vividh-Bharati, and more Vividh-Bharati, moving on very slowly to Western pop, Hindustani classical - particularly vocal -- and some Western Classical in late teens. I discovered rock in college and finally the mind-blowing encounter with Jazz in college - the first two Jazz albums I heard were Brubeck's Time Out and some album of Coltrane with 'Afroblue' on it.

Films: Bollywood and more Bollywood, and then the discovery of 'serious' desi film in the 80s. I discovered European film in grad school (I think 'Diva' was the first French film I saw) and I couldn't believe the world I had been missing.

Archived Blogs

Sacred Game March 27, 2007 It was Spring Break recently on campus, and once I recovered from the travails of grading, I thought I'd give myself a break, and ordered myself Vikram Chandra's new behemoth of a book ('Sacred Games') and turned on the World Cup (of cricket, what else, dammit) on BBC. Full Story | Comments (0)

Rohinton Mistry and Bombay July 22, 2006 Do I read fiction written by Indian (or to be broader, desi) writers because I am from there? Or because I think they are among the best writers around, irrespective of origin? Consider that when I read something Rohinton Mistry had written earlier in his 'Family Matters' about Bombay trains and commuters, something sighed in me. Full Story | Comments (1)

Ghosh's 'The Hungry Tide' June 25, 2006 I read Ghosh's 'The Hungry Tide' -- very impressive. Full Story | Comments (3)

Where do you feel at home away from ‘home’? June 17, 2006 That is, other than the physical space in which you and your family live, where is your breathing relaxed, your sense of self contiguous with your surroundings, your guard down? I’ve often thought that home in India is centered on people: family, friends, community. Americans, on the other hand, will usually tell you an enormous amount about lifestyle and public spaces and only rarely about families and clans and kinship. Maybe an Indian sense of home is not that different from an American sense of home, even if it just feels like that. In any case, reconciling these perspectives is important to me as I try to make sense of being Indian and American. Full Story | Comments (3)

Addas June 04, 2006 What makes a home a home? I’m trying to think back on all the places I’ve lived since leaving my parents’ home, in college and thereafter. Let’s see, here’s a random collection of necessities of home for me: personal spaces and ‘addas’, routines and habit, recognition and comfort, and that ineffable feeling of belonging. And for some reason, today addas have my attention. Full Story | Comments (0)

Say it ain't so Kaavya! April 29, 2006 The Kaavya Viswanathan story is instructive: Given a taste for layered and complicated fiction, and an appreciation of life resembling said fiction, this seems a wonderfully paradigmatic story for our times. If we wanted to think about this in the abstract, we could focus on one or many of the several themes running through this morality play. Full Story | Comments (6)

The Pursuit of Happiness March 27, 2006 As we watch India, along with China and others from the world’s developing economies, shake off the sleep of the last few hundred years of history and join in the world’s capitalism race, I wonder as I do for my students: what version of happiness are these countries going to pursue? And are they going to talk about how to preserve their sense of society? Full Story | Comments (6)

Go Brown Young Man! March 06, 2006 Traveling in Mexico, I realized that blending in while traveling was new for me, and very relaxing. It felt like the start of a love-affair with Latin America .. Full Story | Comments (3)

Why I'm not an American Citizen January 24, 2006 I had to deal with getting a visa for Mexico recently and the process got predictably long and messy. Things would be so easy with an American passport, why hadn’t I gotten one yet? Full Story | Comments (3)