What are words worth?

"So...what do you work on?" "What's your area of research?" "What do you do?" And there's a pause, a wait, barely a few milliseconds, for me to gather the disparate threads of what makes my academic self, and compose an answer that sounds suitably confident and meaningful. I usually end up saying something that I want almost immediately to qualify, to explain, to fill out, to extend, and even, to retract. But the opportunity for introduction has passed, and I am left having painted myself into a corner with a phrase that lacks substance, is incomplete, vague. My answers are either too broad, or too specific, and either way, fail to capture the questions that drive my curiosity and interest. More often than not, a more fitting answer for that specific context shapes itself in my head many minutes after that opening (and limiting) question, and I kick myself, wishing the words had made the cut sooner. Trouble is, my questions are in fact a...

It's close to midnight on the second full day of my winter vacation--or what is supposed to be one. I find that I am sitting here at my laptop catching up on email, listening to rough cuts of the upcoming shows on Bol Hyderabad (the campus community radio station of the University of Hyderabad), reading student work that needs to be commented upon, preparing for a series of workshops I have committed to... in short, it doesn't look like a promising beginning for a vacation! And I thought University life was going to be a picnic compared to the corporate or NGO sectors! Whatever happened to the life of quiet reflection peppered with the occasional ruminative lecture that academics are supposed to be privileged to have? When I switched jobs last year, I thought I was entering a space where there would be time for some amount of purposeless reading, for writing (things other than reports and promotional materials), and for stimulating intellectual debate (unlike the heated argum...

Such comfort one can take from striking items off a long list of to-dos. It gives you a keen sense of satisfaction, the feeling that you have been productive, that things have been accomplished, that you can get on with life having set it in some sort of order.... So on my refrigerator is a magnet-backed notepad and on my desk is a colorful post-it pad, and next to my telephone is a set of one-side used paper caught into a pad with a giant butterfly clip. And the assortment of pens to go along with these bits of stationery must be seen to be believed. Pencils ranging in length from an inch to 8, ballpoint pens in varying degrees of dryness, gel pens with their refills missing and caps thrown away, markers that don't mark, crayons waxed over with disuse, fountain pens that have stopped flowing many moons ago...so you get the picture! But let's set the tools aside for a moment and focus on the lists themselves. Long lists and short lists, today's must-dos and weekly goals, an...