tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71032596396683830192024-03-19T13:03:06.039+05:30Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-70694957708449742112015-01-07T03:40:00.005+05:302015-01-07T03:40:55.128+05:30A new piece in InPlainspeak<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It has been a long while since I posted here. It feels like it is time to be back to blogging! Thought I'd start with sharing something I wrote recently for InPlainspeak, an e-magazine run by TARSHI - Talking about Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues. Entitled 'A Lingering Tingle,' this piece is about how I see the connections between dance and sexuality. You can read it <a href="http://www.tarshi.net/blog/i-column-a-lingering-tingle/" target="_blank">HERE</a>. </div>
Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-91758363433889107492012-09-02T11:28:00.001+05:302012-09-02T17:21:09.025+05:30Shadow Play<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Conjuring up “friends”<br />
when we feel<br />
what we want to say<br />
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from elsewhere:<br />
Oh, I have a friend who used to…</span></div>
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I mean I am one<br />
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conjured up<br />
by someone somewhere<br />
using me as a proxy,<br />
tentative self.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">a memorable death.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Or, at least, I</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">will be their shadow,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">long and unignorable</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">when they are slanted away</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">from truth, and shrunk</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">and free </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">only when it shines</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">right over them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I am out even on nights</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">when the moon lets me</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">follow them</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">or lead them into caverns of truths,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">where they drink and dance</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">to songs and whiplashes,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">where they howl and cheer,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">yell and scream, and they don't</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">give a fuck. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That's when I love them most.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That's when I leave them alone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And they, me. </span></div>
</div>
Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-16127445241720466142012-08-24T17:42:00.004+05:302012-08-24T17:48:50.043+05:30For gods' sake<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I love how often you think of god. You called Jesus when I spilled non-sacramental wine on your new linen just before we made crazy love.<br />
<br />
You called him again when we made love. <br />
<br />
And once after, while looking for the lighter.<br />
<br />
God only knows, you always say, but you always know everything too. <br />
<br />
You will go get ice cream tomorrow Inshallah, for, why not, when he is god of things<br />
both big and small?<br />
<br />
With you, Rama always defers to Ayyo and is utterly powerless when your palms<br />
don't smack your forehead.<br />
<br />
To sit or stand you need both hands and Kadavule to propel you up or down.<br />
<br />
And I still don't know why I do things for God's sake, when they piss you off anyway.<br />
<br />
When I sneak-eat at night, you catch me sometimes and put the fear of god in me, though,<br />
by your own admission, the hour is not only late but ungodly too.</div>
Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-47153143989869002192012-08-24T10:14:00.003+05:302012-08-24T10:18:56.980+05:30Golddigger Sun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="userContent">A little while ago, the sun was shovelling
gold behind the mountains. It appeared to be in a hurry; perhaps the day
was running out. In its mad, last-minute work, it sent up the gold dust
flying everywhere. They lay suspended in the cold mountain air after
the rains, stuck themselves to the clouds, and even clung to my skin.
Therefore, I glow.</span></div>
Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-48551520662736864612012-08-24T10:12:00.001+05:302012-08-24T10:12:55.206+05:30Like moth to flame<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="userContent">In my previous world, moths went elsewhere to
die. Now they throw themselves with vehemence over and over against
window panes, showing such heartbreaking passion for any little light
they can see. In the mornings, they lie dead in full view, and I walk
past them like a soldier surveying the wreckage of previous night's
violence. And I wonder if I was spared because my unwinged, two-legged
quest for light is far less threatening than their wholehearted
thrashing against the glasses of the world.</span></div>
Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-70277177808696874282012-06-29T22:06:00.001+05:302012-06-30T01:06:26.382+05:30On Feeling Ugly | On Being Miserable<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b style="background-color: white;">On Feeling Ugly</b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">I have been feeling rather ugly for sometime now. I just don't talk about this, because it is simply
impossible to say that I feel ugly without having my friends jump right
in trying to convince me it is not true. Well, as friends, we are pretty
much scripted to do exactly that. If any of my friends broke this code
and said, well, nothing, I'd probably be even more heart-broken. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Then there are the others, who would exhort me to seek comfort in
some notion of inner beauty. At the moment, I could not care less. I am
sure they are well-meaning, but I don't think I need it right now. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Under intoxication, however, an acquaintance of mine managed to
break free of the limits of civility and tell me she wouldn't dance with
me, only with "one of the handsome gay boys." Had I not been swooning
under the influence of a kiss that a much younger man had planted on my
lips barely ten minutes before that, I would have fallen apart.
I'd been dancing happily with him when he leaned over close and said,
very sweetly, "Can I kiss you?" I had said yes before he had the time to change his
mind. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Of course, when I have guys wanting to kiss me, my feeling of
ugliness must be entirely unfounded, right? Yes. So? If you can give me
such evidences to disprove my ugliness as a fact, I can come up with
twice as many to prove it. It is to circumvent this exercise that I have
chosen to speak in terms of my feelings. They seem to exist per se. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">I have seen that even the most stunningly goodlooking people have
some body-image issue going on. So then it all must be crazily
subjective, tweaked only by varying degrees of self-obsession? I am not
so sure. Not everyone who hates the way they look are invisible, are
passed over in silence in everyday parades of eye candies. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">I thought I could write interestingly about feeling ugly. But it
only comes out as pathetic whining. Note that I still do not say I AM
ugly. I have to keep saying I FEEL ugly, resorting to the slightly
assuaging perspective that it might only be my feeling, not reality. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">I am sure there is some radical perspective that claims a rightful
place for ugliness in this world. Until I find that, I should perhaps
disable comments for this post and put my friends out of misery! But
what I cannot avoid is the utter discomfort of having them look at me
closely next time, their eyes tracing the contours of my face, trying to
find in it the ugliness I feel, or looking for what would help them prove me wrong. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<b></b><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><b style="background-color: white;">On Being Miserable</b></b></div>
<b>
</b>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">This only partly follows from feelings of ugliness. At this stage of
overall miserableness, everything gets enmeshed in a chicken-and-egg
conundrum. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">I might cope better if I relinquish my exacting notions of living, which
demand that I live with gusto all the time, that I live life to the fullest, throw
myself in it one hundred percent. Whenever I go through phases where I
simply cope with life rather than live it, I feel like an utter failure. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">The other day I went to meet an older friend of mine. When I entered her home,
she was sitting with a few other friends of hers, and I was shocked by
how disheveled she looked. Not one to ever present herself in human
company with even a string of hair out of place, she shocked me with her
sweat-stained face; faded, old saree; and dark circles ambushing her
lovely eyes. In addition to all these departures from her usual image of
being on top of things, she broke down in the middle of the
conversation, held her head in her hands, and shook in sobs that came
with the force of things held back for too long. Through her crying, she
said she was finding it hard to cope. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Even as I put my arm around her, let me confess, I found some tight knot
getting undone in my heart. I was relieved to see that it was alright
to just cope; that even she, whom I had thought would always be in
control of things, was merely coping. I felt less alone. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">P.S. I am still trying to figure out how to disable comments!</span></div>
</div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-86031147995580745442012-03-15T18:15:00.002+05:302012-03-15T18:38:45.507+05:30No End to Surprises<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">(Originally written for a column in Page Seven magazine. I have made some changes here.)<br />
<br />
You might have heard this famous line from The Philadelphia Story, that Katharine Hepburn's character says: "The best time to make up your mind about people is never." Intellectually, I have always known it to be true, but I have also always gone ahead and made up my mind about people anyway.<br />
<br />
The last place I expected that to be challenged was on the crazy roads of Chennai. But then why should I have made up my mind about what could happen on Chennai roads! <br />
<br />
I have had this ongoing battle with autorickshaw drivers for years now. I know many of you think it is perfectly reasonable to be so. But the sad fact is that after a while it stops being about right and wrong, and it becomes a great source of negativity and anger. At some point, I started using my interactions with the autowallahs as moments full of possibilities for spiritual growth. My reasoning was that if I could manage to not get angry, not shout at them and not create a scene, if I could bargain calmly and, actually, wish them well, I might become a better person. I have been doing this with some success, but I have always judged them a priori, and my expectation of them has been a set one: they are here to rob me! <br />
<br />
One gentleman challenged me on this recently. When he asked me for what I thought was the most reasonable fare, I was pleasantly surprised, but I also grew wary. I thought, "Hmm. He doesn't know the distance. He is going to start off an argument once we get there." My fangs started emerging, so I sat back and meditated and tried to bring to the fore my so-called best self. Also, I checked with him if he had change for a larger bill/ note, and he said he did. <br />
<br />
When we arrived at the destination, to my great surprise, he did not ask for more. Nor did look sheepish and discontented. But he looked in his pockets for change and could not find it. My alarms went off: "Aha! He is going to say he does not have change!" And he said, "I don't seem to have the change I thought I did. Sorry." My best self, that had just started to peep out, went right back in, and my fangs came out again. "What do you mean you don't have the change? It is late, the shops are closed. We could have stopped at a petrol station....." <br />
<br />
He was completely unperturbed, and said, "Sir, don't get upset. It is not so bad. Don't worry. We will drive to the end of the road. There are some shops there that are open late. I will get you the change and drop you back here." He did not have even the slightest urge to entertain my drama. I have never seen such calmness, respect and peace on anyone's face on the roads of Chennai. I cannot distill the brilliance of the moment here, but I can say that he definitely awakened something in me. I bow down to this teacher and his lesson.<br />
<br />
The second instance was even more stunning, since it happened at the infamous Jayanthi signal in Thiruvanmiyur, where the idea of "every man for himself" gets lived out in the most basic and vehement sense. Intrepid pedestrians run across the intersection trying not to get run over by the buses turning in from the East Coast Road, rubbing shoulders with the giant volvo buses that belong to big IT establishments on the Old Mahabalipuram Road. People on motorbikes get sandwiched between the regular autorickshaws as well as the share ones, both of which have this killer ability to take sharp 90 degree turns. <br />
<br />
One evening, in the middle of such madness, I was sitting in an autorickshaw, pretending to be the calm center of it all. That's when it happened. A taxi driver leaned out his window and addressed a motorbike rider in front of him, "Friend, can you move a little please? I turn left here." Everyone in the vicinity looked at him like he was the Buddha himself come down to show that civility was possible even at the Thiruvanmiyur signal in the evenings. <br />
<br />
Well, there seems to be no end to surprises in this world! I am glad I had these reminders not to make up my mind, not to live in a "furnished soul," to borrow e e cummings' brilliant phrase. Others give me the benefit of the doubt all the time. The least I could do is to the pass the kindness forward!<br />
<span style="color: #888888;"></span></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-21665984291859491972011-12-19T18:07:00.001+05:302011-12-20T08:36:00.100+05:30Every morning a new arrival<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">(Written for my column "Monthly Misgivings" in Page Seven magazine)</span></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">I am not always very good to myself. I am talking not only about being kind and gentle to myself, but also about having the discernment to know and do what is good for me even when it is not gratifying right away. For instance, starting my day by logging into Facebook is one of the things that always throws me off balance. Of course, this is not a statement on Facebook or any other social networking site. They are what they are. This is about the use we put them to.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">The other day, I started my day the way many of my friends start theirs - I got the usual morning things out of the way, put the kettle to boil, completely forgot about it, forgot to take my morning medication, forgot my previous night's resolve to start the next day with some yoga and meditation, but managed to remember that the laptop had had very little charge left on it when I'd closed it the night before, plugged it in, and logged into Facebook.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">I think that all of those were very innocent actions that did not, by any stretch of imagination, deserve serious retribution or punishment. But I felt assailed by all the new feeds and status updates, many people's take on those news feed and status updates, and others' opinion on those takes on those news feed and status updates. Then there were those people who, in the little time I stayed logged out to get a decent night's sleep, had somehow managed to orchestrate a campaign, finish their most brilliant performance, won awards, given birth to babies, made most nuanced arguments about a most current issue, published articles that were already 'liked' by 746 people and commented on by 106, etc.</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">My heart raced, and I thought I had been left behind, that the world had moved on while I had done nothing with my life. After all, I could have written that brilliant article. After all, I could at least have read that article so that I could now post an intelligent comment. After all, I could be celebrating that anniversary if only....</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Before I had taken the time to ground myself in the delicious mundaneness of my day, before I had made life-changing decisions about whether to eat peanut butter open toast or aval upma for breakfast, I had let into my unformed, delicate, full-of-potential morning the mind-blowingly diverse energies of hundreds of people, coming at me like supersonic darts pinning a disarmed me on to the dartboard of the lost moment. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">I admit that I am prone to the entire gamut of human emotions, which, of course, include insecurity, jealousy, anger and hurt. Rumi, the great Sufi mystic and poet, puts it most beautifully:</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>This being human is a guest house.</i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Every morning a new arrival.</i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>A joy, a depression, a meanness,</i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Some momentary awareness comes</i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>As an unexpected visitor</i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Welcome and entertain them all...*</i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Every morning is already full of its surprises. I would rather spend time preparing myself to receive, welcome and entertain them instead of cluttering myself with those I can avoid. Therefore, I have now made it a practice to sit with my fragile yet powerful self as soon as I wake up from my night's sleep; to hold this new day and this new me in a bubble of quiet before letting them open for other things to enter. </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">* from Coleman Barks' translation of Rumi </span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-22074619756226002992011-12-02T09:17:00.006+05:302011-12-02T09:30:53.107+05:30My New Website! And a few other things.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Please check out my new website that is slowly shaping up: <a href="http://www.aniruddhan.net/">www.aniruddhan.net</a> ! But don't worry, I will keep this blog going for as long as I can :)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have been keeping myself very busy with some writing and other projects. Going off Facebook for a while, and slowing down the entire online portion of my life, have cleared out a lot of time and mental space for me to get some things done. I am also doing a small arts and crafts project! It will, hopefully, be part of some lovely decorations in a place that is the center of my heart's home, aka Lexington. Working with cardboard, paper, glue, scissors, etc. after a long time makes me feel like an excited kid. But the best part is my fascination of shiny, glittery things! They are cheering me up like nobody's business! What little of my queeniness lay dormant within me is now being unleashed :)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yesterday, I danced as part of the University of Kentucky's World Music and Dance Concert at the Recital Hall, Singletary Center, Lexington. It was, truly, a very beautiful experience. The long applause I received at the end of the solo, pure dance piece I performed was truly gratifying, and so were the things people had to say to me at the end of the event. It reminded me, yet again, of why I do what I do!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another thing: I am headed to India (Chennai) next week, and I am looking forward to several wonderful weeks of dancing and writing. I have many performances in December and January in Chennai and some prospective ones in February. I also have a book project to complete. Exciting!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What have you all been up to? </div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-23234456001055908822011-11-18T08:22:00.005+05:302011-11-19T06:56:10.383+05:30What is your story?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><i>(Written for my column Monthly Misgivings in Page Seven magazine)</i> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">What I take to be my most staggering insights often turn out to be common knowledge that I have been unaware of.</span><b> </b>When I talk about them in my customary, hyper-excited way to people, I leave many of them with a look of disappointment at my naiveté. But I still give myself some credit for arriving at the insights anew, by my own path, and in my own time. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Here's my recent burst of epiphany: we can radically alter our stories about ourselves, our past, by just approaching those stories - our interpretations of the happenings of our past - differently. I know you feel like saying, "Uh, Duh!" But do stay with me. I admit that when expressed the way I just did, my so-called insight sounds like something quoted out of context from a self-help book. However, when you arrive at something from experience, when it is truly felt and known, or, to belabour my point, when it is an insight -- something that is seen with the inward eye, it can lead to profound shifts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Let me give you an example. Recently, I was answering questions for an interview in an e-magazine. There was a question there that I have always been asked in other situations. And I have given the same answer, the truth, but apologetically and trying hard to sound matter of fact and unromantic about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Whenever I am asked how I came to learn Bharata Natyam, I tell this story: when I was six years old, my parents saw me trying to drum rhythm on the dinner table while listening to Carnatic music on the radio in the mornings. They thought that I might be interested in learning to play the mridgangam. So on Vijayadasami, the last day of Navaratri that is considered auspicious for new beginnings, they took me to a wonderful arts institute in Kumbakonam, where we then lived. We walked along a corridor in the rooms along which classes for vocal music, violin, veena, dance, and mridangam were in progress. It so happened that in the room just before the one where mridangam was being taught -- and the idea was that I would learn to play the mridangam, a Bharatanatyam class was in progress. I stood at the entrance to the dance class and watched in rapture bodies moving in ways that my six year-old human self had not seen until then. And I told my parents that it was dance that I wanted to learn. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">That was what happened, and that is what I tell people. But I have always tried hard to make it sound like a mere statement of facts and not as a story that suggests that I chose, as a child, what I wanted to do with my life, that I answered my calling. I have repeated that story to myself and others as just something that happened and nothing more than a happy accident. Thanks to this, my self-talk about my relationship with dance has failed to acknowledge the beauty and conviction of another, more beautiful, interpretation. It is that I really did make a significant choice in that moment when I said to my parents that dance was what I wanted to learn. I wish I had a way of making my words express to you what a universe of difference that shift in interpretation makes to me now. I wish I could make you see what it means to me to re-imagine this incident with a sense of intention, volition and purpose. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">What was more amazing, though not unbelievable, was that just when I was getting a grip at this process of re-writing my past, a very wise and dear friend happened to talk about it to me. Just like that, without any prompting from me. It would only be too easy to dismiss such synchronicity as mere coincidence and to refuse to see everyday miracles for what they are.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">I did not re-write a story of pain and suffering. I do not know how hard that could be. Thankfully, I started with very pleasant memory and bolstered it up by admitting intention, choice and decision to it. In the process, I gained a more nourishing, impassioned self-narrative. Do I even need to spell out the wonders such self-narratives can do?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-88968297802024448382011-10-14T04:05:00.002+05:302011-11-19T06:56:51.268+05:30Snap! Thud!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">(Written for my column 'Monthly Misgivings' in Page Seven magazine)</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Contrary to what some people think about me, I don’t do well at all in confusion and crisis. Actually, I am guilty of circulating this lie about myself in the hope that just saying it out loud would make it true. Turns out it doesn’t. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Some people manage to be like the proverbial eye of the storm and stay completely unperturbed by all the madness around them, or are perturbed but manage to find the inner resources that help them stay calm. Somehow, they become the reliable, rock-solid center that holds things from falling apart. Not me. I usually need a whack in the head from some sweet friend before I can calm myself down.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">I remember reading a lovely analogy for a confused mind in a story about Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. He had likened a confused mind to a glass of muddy water. Nothing comes out of stirring it frantically. But if you let it sit undisturbed for a while, you can hope for the mud to settle down to the bottom leaving some clear water on top. This makes perfect sense, but why is it so hard to do?</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"> I am all zen when everything is perfect. And when I think things are better than perfect, I smell the roses, fall in love with the sky, bask in the sun, and whip out a mushy status message for Facebook. </span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">But the moment something goes wrong, I look like a hen roused from her dozing off while sitting on her precious eggs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">So you’d understand why some people are staring at me right now in this lovely café in San Francisco. They saw me change my mind three times about paying with cash or card; do a crazy balancing act of carrying my coffee in one hand, laptop in another, backpack slung across one shoulder, jacket over another, unable to decide where I wanted to sit, which sunny spot was sunnier than the others, and, in the process, drop my mug of coffee. The sound of porcelain shattering on the floor was what made me snap out of my fluster, s down, hold my face in my hands and close my eyes. And I heard the sweet lady who came to clean up the mess say the most comforting words I could have asked for: “It’s okay. Not the end of the world. I’ll fix you another one.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">---<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is a wonderful, healing work that our memory does. In helping us cope with loss, we can filter out the not-so-good times about a person, or a place, and retain only the ones that help us move on. This is also why sometimes the dead appear in a more forgiving light in stories about them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Some, like me, could really abuse this therapeutic possibility of memory. I, for instance, use it to cope with relationships that have ended, in letting go of people who have moved on from my life. But I don’t stop with it. I push it further. In filtering out the remembrance of times that were painful, I even come to believe, by a circuitous logic, that they never happened. And I start believing that all I had was a lovely time that I have now lost by some stupidity of mine. This belief makes me hold on to the persons in my mind and not let go of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">In such instances, a reality check is good. You can speak to someone who remembers you from those times, who can remind you what an emotional black-hole you were to hang out with, how a certain relationship was not good for you. Or there is a more fall-with-a-thud kind of a reality check – you end up revisiting the person or place for which you have built up a dangerously Eden-like nostalgia. And you get to see how far the reality is from the colourful machinations of your mind and memory. Thud!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Memory can be a good healer, but only as long as you allow it to do its work without thrusting your hidden agendas on it. Like with any healer, you should not start forming an unhealthy relationship of transference with it. If you do, memory, like any ethical healer or therapist, might tell you that your sessions would have to end.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-46614154298004364852011-10-12T08:18:00.001+05:302011-10-14T03:27:45.607+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: left;">இப்பொழுதின் இத்-தனம்</div><div style="text-align: left;">அப்பொழுதின் அத்-தனத்தைப் போலவே</div><div style="text-align: left;">இருப்பதாகத் தோன்றிற்று. அத்தனை </div><div style="text-align: left;">சிந்திப்பில் இப்பொழுது நழுவி </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">அப்பொழுதாயிற்று. இத்தனை </div></div><div style="text-align: left;">வேகமாய் விடைபெற்ற அப்பொழுதும் </div><div style="text-align: left;">இப்பொழுது அதன் அத்-தனத்தைக் </div><div style="text-align: left;">கைவிட்டு விலகிற்று</div><div style="text-align: left;">நினைவின் மெத்தனத்தில். </div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-62794849792134151902011-10-10T22:23:00.004+05:302011-10-11T02:57:21.913+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I was just beginning to get used to death, when it chose to change its ways. Its scent, that once spread as strong as the slapping grin of a jasmined head in a sweaty bus, has ceased to be. It now has nothing to do with the disinfecting grin of hospital corridors, the scent of fear.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Death used to smell of a million things. Of coffee from a half-drunk cup, the soap that smoothed out the fall in the bathroom, the old starch of the saree that strangled, the car perfume fighting the blood-stench on the steering wheel, flesh arrested in it charring by a bucket of water thrown on it. But death is odorless for me now.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It has also taken the voices away. Many dear ones I mourn, I have forgotten how they sounded. I hear them in my own voice now, like I am reading them from a book. They have been muted out. So it is without the voices and the smells now. But hardly silent or unfamiliar. <o:p></o:p></div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-35475732526189845232011-10-04T06:50:00.000+05:302011-10-04T06:50:12.425+05:30To Closures<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Let me raise this glass of spiced tea to new closures, even though they smart on the soul like a hundred band-aids have been pulled out really fast, all at once. The scars make me a spotted creature. A strong, sinewy spotted creature. Or perhaps I am just wrapped in the skin of one. Like the god with the third eye, the one who dances both ends and new beginnings. </div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-50878734990888361802011-10-01T03:39:00.009+05:302011-11-19T06:57:29.274+05:30A song for the plain ones<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">There has to be a song</span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">for the plain ones</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The unaccomplished</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">A song for those who leave </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">not even rhetoric Oh he was so much </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">he did so much he was from so much</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">he made so much he was worth so much</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">he didn't deserve to go this way</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">not him not him</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">not him</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">There has to be a song for those</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">who go unnoticed like a fall leaf</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">among fall leaves lying</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">on fall leaves</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">He leaves she leaves they</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">leave we leave</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">unsung</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">But some are plucked </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">picked folded</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">within pages of history</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">books Some deaths</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">are special They simply are</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">After all no one has tears</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">enough for all deaths not even</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">drama queens Too much information</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">bombards us too many posts</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">too many links updates feeds</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">of deaths of beatings of killings</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">One too many</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">it is hard too hard just</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">too hard to know which ones exactly</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">to cry for to fight for</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">to mourn to burn</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">one's hollow insides for</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">One has to choose</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">be sparing be eloquent</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">about deaths</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">some deaths</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">only some deaths Not all</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Not even all</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">one hears of</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">You got to choose compare </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">worth prices deals</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">It might be cheaper online</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Do what you can</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">but choose See who cries</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">See who else cries</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">with who cries Thus</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">choose the death </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">you will cry for</span></span></div></div><div><br />
</div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-86372225211243888602011-09-29T22:21:00.004+05:302011-11-19T06:58:12.723+05:30Dear Paatti<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I am thinking of you, grandmother. I could just call you. You are alive. But I am thinking of you now like I think of someone long gone. Forgive me for that. I will call you tomorrow, and we will talk about your mother, my great grandmother, the one who had many stories to tell. But someone will have to hold the phone to your ears. And you may not hear me properly. Or at all. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">You always spoke when I danced. I was your trophy. You'd ask me to dance for the guests. And when I danced, you always spoke about something else. "That one's daughter is getting married. Did you know?" And the guests were too polite to ask you to shut up. So I did. Or I think I did. I always wanted to. Forgive me for that.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I remember your stories of America. Your wore like a tiara the fact that you were the first woman in the family to go on an airplane. You went to hold death's jaws open for as long as you could. But dear uncle died anyway. You changed your saree, wore shoes and sweaters, ignored the meat-smeared dishes in the sink, and even overcame the shock of how much curry leaves cost. But you lost one of your sons anyway.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Can you tell me again that story, the one about how you were locked out one night in the snow and how scared you were? I have a similar story to swap with you. It may not have snow in it, but it does have fear and loneliness. I think you will understand.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I will call you tomorrow. And, as always, you will not ask me when I would get married. You have no idea how much I love you for not asking me that ever. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I have many stories of your failings. But I will let go of them like you let go of that vegetable when you went to Kasi and never ate again. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I will call you tomorrow and tell you I love you. It is very likely that you won't hear me, that you won't know that it is love that rolls in my throat. And someone will have to hold the phone to your ears.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">That someone will put the phone down and tell you it was I who called. They will say it louder and closer to your ears. And you will burst into a toothless grin. You will ask where I called from. They will tell you. And your winged mind will soar high above the reach of your shaking arms and hurl its love over the oceans to me. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">I love you, too. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-35528449010160993132011-09-19T10:06:00.007+05:302011-11-19T06:59:28.967+05:30Trust Your Bells<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">For <a href="http://www.shailja.com/">Shailja Patel</a>, a dear friend who reminded me never to judge my work on the basis of how much money it brings, that in this capitalist world, which refuses to value the practice of art as labour (unless done within certain regimes of oppression), our very existence, our persistence at performing, writing and practising whatever art it is that we practise, are important. Of course, our concerns for our material well-being and achievement of recognition are valid and important, but they need have no bearing on how we value our work. </span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(Written for performance)</span> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">You will be told many things.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">For instance, you'll be told</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">that art isn't labour,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">That it comes from sinuous vapours<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">rising from burning, idle hearts,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">That it is not important, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">That it has never ended wars,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">though nor have governments.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">What does not value<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">art's labour<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">or yours<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">likes to hear<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">you judge yourself and<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your artistry<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">for failing to bring in the buck<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">for your perpetual bad luck.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">It smiles when you hide -<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">swallowing your pride -<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your pen and palette.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">You can hear it chortle <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">when you throttle <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your ankle bells under a pillow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">It grins when your scrounge<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">and scrape and<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">grovel and gape.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">But in exchange for your songs<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">about empires,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your dance of wrath<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">about plunder, what tears<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your world asunder,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">or even your hymn<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">for your gods and goddesses, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">in exchange for your truths,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your soul, your heart,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">it will clothe you<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">in its banners. Flex is<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">the new haute couture,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">the fabric of submission,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">of surrender. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">You keep your rage, you<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">lie on your pillow and with your <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">fingers make the bells on your anklet<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">toll. When you put them on,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">implore them to be both<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">death's little doorbells<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">and love's little chorus,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">as they will,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">as they see fit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Let them drag your feet,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">take you to your truths,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">to the dark cave where<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your soul sits in hiding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The bells on your feet<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">know,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">they see, they sing,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">they huddle and conspire,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">they keep in them your fire,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">they remember when you swaggered,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">when your aching feet faltered, and<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">when they stomped to the ground<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">all meanness,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">they remember your gait,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your rhythm, your falling,<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">but they remember too</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your getting up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Trust their buckled wisdom,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">trust even the ones that have lost <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">their beads and are toothless - they will<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">speak anyway. Trust your bells<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">to teach you to dance<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">your dance. Trust your bells<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">and dance. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-4437052493581620862011-09-16T02:23:00.005+05:302011-11-19T07:00:03.782+05:30Pills or Reasons<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">You ought to have reasons for your feelings.</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Or pills. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">You cannot have a cold despair come<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">and sit in your heart just like that.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Not in the middle of a sunny day.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Not without a reason. Have a pill<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">If you will. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">See a shrink.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">I was sad the other day. Just sad. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">For once, sad was the apt word.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">It closed with the airtight click of a tupperware lid.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Language sufficed, and that almost cheered me up.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">But a friend said, "Don't despair." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">He could see clearer than me<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">the weekly forecast to the weather in my heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">A poet suggested I keep myself at arms length.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">It became hard to navigate crowded streets<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">and subway stations. My arm is long<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">and it slams across the faces of multitudes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">I now sit with the sadness,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">the despair and the arm reddened with the slam<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">of faces passing by. Myself sits close by,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">for fall has arrived<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">and a sudden chill makes you want to huddle<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">with whoever's closest. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-38616293911378582312011-09-14T07:25:00.004+05:302011-11-19T07:00:32.809+05:30A Charm Against Things That Have No Place In Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"></span></span><br />
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">"The bells on my feet rage in rhythm</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">against your smallness. They toll</span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">for things that have no place</span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">in me, no walls with crevices</span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">to leave their seeds in</span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow">to grow and undo. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">I stomp to the ground the hatred you throw at me</span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow">to keep, water and whisper.</span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow">I adorn myself to set myself apart</span><br />
<span class="textexposedshow">from your plundering away at molehills of pettiness...</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;">Any darkness there is, lies smeared around my eyes,</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">reminding me to seek</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">to see more clearly. I peel the clouds from my eyes</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">and leave them by the side.</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">What lies in my gut is timeless</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">and it rises and flows through me now.</span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">It comes out not as a cry of despair</span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">but as the dance of de</span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;">ath, of ends,</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">and new beginnings.</span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: #0d0d0d; color: white; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-43087076761897993792011-09-14T01:36:00.010+05:302011-11-19T07:01:06.172+05:30Little acts of healing and coping<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">(Written for my column in Page Seven Magazine) </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: inherit;">Whenever I find myself doing dishes in the sink with too much passion, I know that I am sorting through some issues in my head. I scrub away at the oil and grime, and feel a wonderful sense of healing as I see them go down the drain leaving a clean, soaking wet dish in my hand. Does that sound weird? When I announced that I love washing dishes, many people offered to have me live with them. I think I should not dismiss this as an idea, because I already sort of function in the gift economy mode, trading food for work, work for work, etc. But this may not be the appropriate place to go into what transactions I engage in on an everyday basis.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">One of my friends tells me that spending time weeding in her garden gives her that sense of healing. I know she really means it. A couple of days ago, I finished watching</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">two</span> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">movies on the internet while she was lost to the world, bent to the earth in her backyard, weeding away. To each her own, I guess. I have not done much gardening in my life. My mother used to have a beautiful rose garden, and she took great delight in taking care of them, talking to them, thanking them for their colour, fragrance and abundance. Sometimes, if a plant was dying, she would go to it several times a day and speak to it very gently. And my therapy was vicarious, in that I found great healing and love just watching her talk to the plants.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: inherit;">I talk to gadgets all the time, if that counts. The first printer I had at home was a great conversationalist, but not a very compassionate one. When I had to print out several drafts of my Masters dissertation, I spoke to my printer more than I spoke to my parents or friends. One day, when I was in the middle of a passionate plea to my printer to let me print a few pages before it started wheezing and whining, the phone rang. It was my dissertation supervisor who already had strong misgivings about my sanity. When she heard me shout at the printer, she took pity on my condition and extended the deadline for the submission of the draft. She saw it as emotional disturbance that warranted compassion.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: inherit;">Another task I love is ironing clothes. It is especially so when I have issues to sort out, which is, actually, all the time, but sometimes I don't sort them out. I just let them gain weight and sink beneath the surface so that I can go on with my life. But, of course, they resurface soon with vengeance, and it is not pretty sight. So let's not go there. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: inherit;">But when I do iron clothes, I really get into it. I feel like I am ironing out the creases from my life. It is a wonderful feeling. Of course, when I said this to friends, they were like, "Oh you can iron our clothes, if you want more healing." But that's the thing - it was only recently that I learnt to stick to ironing the wrinkles out of my clothes alone. Others' clothes are their business. They might actually be going for the creased and crinkled look. You never know.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: inherit;">Back to the dishes. It is amazing how quickly they pile up. You want to clean them all before you go to bed, so that you can wake up to a clean sink in the morning and feel like a success in life. But you give into the sloth that comes after that terrific dinner, and go to bed right after that second glass of wine. When you wake up the next morning and come to the kitchen for some coffee, there the dirty dishes are, piled up like the easy debris of your weak will and determination, mocking you.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: inherit;">Should I be going for therapy? Please tell me it is normal to go through these emotions, that some of you can relate to this madness. Help me out here, please!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-46860308663479302162011-08-16T07:05:00.006+05:302011-11-19T07:04:06.023+05:30From Public Humiliations to Personal Victories<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">(written for my column in the Media Voice magazine)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Recently, I popped open a bottle of champagne over completing ten driving lessons. If you don’t know me, it is very likely that you wonder what the big deal about that is. I had reached a turning point in conquering my fear of driving, and it called for a celebration! Actually, to be more specific, I was celebrating my managing not to knock off a poor cyclist with a large stack of eggs on the back stand. I was also celebrating the very backhanded compliment that my surly driving instructor gave me when I wondered if I’d ever be able to drive. He said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can… (powerful pause)… All sorts of morons do.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Generally, I am not very good at making people feel good about themselves, but when someone gives me a ride in their car, by the time I get dropped, they usually feel like epic heroes. I am so keen on letting them know how much in awe of them I am, for the fact that they could drive, that they are usually beaming with self-love by the time I get down. Well, my little service to humanity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">But, seriously, I hope you do celebrate your small victories. You don’t need a bottle of champagne. To be truthful, I didn’t have one either. The booze situation in Chennai is cause for serious depression. That’s for a separate discussion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Personal victory number two: I found a way to make me do things I procrastinate on. Public humiliation. Of course, for this to have its effect, you must be the kind that is shamed into action by public humiliation. I have started appointing people who would call me out on my dithering and laziness on my Facebook wall! And several other trusted Facebook friends add bitchy comments to it, adding to the humiliation. This propels me into finishing whatever it is that I am supposed to be finishing. Also, my friends who crack the whip are smart enough to make their postings when I am fast asleep, so before I see them and delete them, there is a litany of nasty comments by so-called friends.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Personal victory number three: For the first time in my life, I managed to take a powernap in the afternoon, and I could call it a powernap without adding any air-quotes around it. My “powernaps” usually last anywhere between an hour and a half and two hours. This one lasted twenty minutes, and I sprang to action right after. How did I manage this? The aforementioned, self-arranged public humiliation on Facebook acted as a loud snooze in my pretty, sleeping self and pushed me right off the bed in twenty minutes. Also, the vivid image of my friend walking in circles around me and giving me whiplashes for stalling work was not entirely conducive for a pleasant siesta.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Of course, for any of this to work, you need to be the kind that is discomfited by humiliation, and not tickled by it! Also, you need friends who don’t mind being ruthless with you. Trust me, we all have friends who would pounce at an opportunity to play the cruel coach. This week it is my turn to crack the whip on a friend who needs some pushing to get some work done. Oh boy! The things he will get done before I am through with him!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Ah, but what are friends for ;)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Aniruddhan Vasudevan dances, acts, writes, travels, cooks, and does a host of other things that cannot be listed without inviting serious censorship trouble</span></div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-23625804155222513592011-07-14T21:34:00.004+05:302011-11-19T07:04:40.746+05:30The Watched Phone Does Not Ring...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="il"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">(Written for my column "Monthly Musings" in Media Voice magazine)</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="il"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br />
</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="il"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">SMS</span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">romances are at once exhilarating and nerve-wracking, not to mention expensive if you are on the wrong cellphone plan. For some of us who are running around like headless chickens, heart puffed with self-importance (okay, may be that's just me), with little or no time for a relaxed, caffeine-overloaded</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"></span><span class="il"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">romance</span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span">, conducting an affair over text messages can appear to be a tantalizing option. I mean, who wouldn't like the relief of typing out a short, corny message while suffocating in a conference room somewhere debating how well a project is going, how targeted is the intervention under question, does the said target need the said intervention, does the said intervention actually target the said target, is the target too widespread, is the intervention too weak, etc., with tabular columns and numbers swirling over one's head?</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">That was how I got fooled. After some defenceless</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"></span><span class="il"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">SMS</span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span">-romancing, I now realize that I need to have a strong sense of self not only to conduct an actual</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"></span><span class="il"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">romance</span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span">, but even to type out clipped cliches over flaky networks. If you are the kind that would get nail-bitingly anxious when the reply comes a couple of minutes late,</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"></span><span class="il"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">SMS</span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"></span><span class="il"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">romance</span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">may not be for you. It calls for a stronger constitution. I know, because I write this from the local rehabilitation center for post-paid-coital depression (again, it is based on your cellphone plan).It could push you over the edge and make you a full-fledged whacko instead of just the borderline case that</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">you are right now.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">My cellphone bears the scars of all my insecurities and impatience. If it were a computer, I'd probably refresh the screen a million times to see if the reply to my email has arrived. Not that I have done it, not that I have assaulted several mouses by clicking on them endlessly to refresh a page. I am just speaking hypothetically...But since this is a phone, and since I travel a lot and am a casualty to wobbly cellphone signals all over the country, I keep turning the phone off and on hoping that would bring the loving messages flooding in. And in the few-minute long delay that occurs before phone vibrates along the table excitedly announcing a reply, I'd imagine the person has lost interest, is losing interest, might be losing interest, will lose interest eventually anyway, etc. The voice of whoever is speaking at the said conference would fade out and I would start hearing a million voices in my own head: Why hasn't he replied? How can I salvage this? What should I say in my next message? Or should I wait for his message first? Am I acting desperate? The only unequivocal answer is to the last question: Yes.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Then in an attempt to attenuate the edges of my neurosis, I'd bring down my fidgeting by a few notches. This is when I would start staring at the phone, squinting almost, believing, naively, that my poring eyes, which normally have trouble reading small fonts, would somehow make the phone ring, make the</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"></span><span class="il"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">SMS</span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">reply appear when I want it to. But this is where recycled age-old wisdom, albeit originally about pots, gently whispers: The watched phone does not ring.</span></span></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-50161692727443784932011-07-08T20:12:00.004+05:302011-11-30T07:53:30.898+05:30Voices in the Kitchen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;">When I woke up from a nap today, stretched away the sleep from my body, and thought, "Hmm. What can I cook today?" it echoed along the corridors of my veins in the voices of my amma, my great grandmother who put so much of herself everyday in what she did for us that it actually shrunk her, and my aunts who say, for any of your sadnesses, "Come, just eat this, you will feel better." </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"> </span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Oh goddesses of my family, when I cook without exact measurements, I hear you whisper from behind me, "A little more, kanna," or "That's enough," or "Ayyo!"<br />
<br />
I feel you within me. You do me an honour by inhabiting me. You smile when I tell you I cook because I like to cook. I know what you are thinking: you liked it, too, but you also cooked because you had to.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-41406910221900393222011-07-08T20:09:00.000+05:302011-07-08T20:09:34.888+05:30Indian LGBT Activist: We’ll Do Gay Rights Our Way<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=8600965" href="http://www.facebook.com/robojojo" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Joe Erbentraut</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">'s interview with me for his "future queer leaders" series of profiles over at Edge </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14px;">Media Network - <a href="http://www.edgeonthenet.com/index.php?ch=news&sc&sc3&id=121326">HERE</a></span>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7103259639668383019.post-84755198844625355132011-06-28T19:46:00.005+05:302011-11-19T07:05:09.301+05:30Summer in Chennai<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Has summer arrived?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Someone on chat asked</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">From some place far away,</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Where summer arrives every year.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">In here, I said,</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Summer arrived in time immemorial.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Period.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">It plays variations like batik print.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">But always, like thin batik shirts,</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Sticks to the skin</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">And traces ungainly contours.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">When some of us here smile</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">For no reason,</span><br />
<br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Eternal summer's wet embraces are to blame.</span></span></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>Some of us speak in cliches. Some of us love.http://www.blogger.com/profile/10007148165830679717noreply@blogger.com0