Pause.

At the very least.

Public venting seems to be getting more and more tiresome and useless with each passing day. It is really unnecessary unless specifically reaching out to help people, and the amount of catharsis it used to bring is no longer valid. Will be updating another, private blog from now on, for me and friends -- I'll send out email invites, and if you want to read it please send a gentle nudge.

Time to explore new worlds!

What do you do with a soul that's been blasted to smithereens?

Slide deeper into the gap, give up, give up, give up...

What if you inherited an iron will?

I can't give up, I can't give up...

Play some music, curl up and close your eyes.

(parsely, sage, rosemary and thyme)

Being in the Middle is always frustrating.

Another puzzle?

Another answer.

How much more can one soul take?

Wait for the explosion. The sky will be brilliant with colour and light.

And there will be consequences.

Maa

written in Hindi by Prasoon Joshi, used in the film Taare Zameen Par

Main Kabhi Batlata Nahin
Par Andhere Se Darta Hoon Main Maa
Yun To Main,Dikhlata Nahin
Teri Parwaah Karta Hoon Main Maa
Tujhe Sab Hain Pata, Hain Na Maa
Tujhe Sab Hain Pata, Meri Maa

Bheed Mein Yun Na Choro Mujhe
Ghar Laut Ke Bhi Aa Naa Paoon Maa
Bhej Na Itna Door Mujhko Tu
Yaad Bhi Tujhko Aa Naa Paoon Maa
Kya Itna Bura Hoon Main Maa
Kya Itna Bura Meri Maa

Jab Bhi Kabhi Papa Mujhe
Jo Zor Se Jhoola Jhulate Hain Maa
Meri Nazar Dhoondhe Tujhe
Sochu Yahi Tu Aa Ke Thaamegi Maa

Unse Main Yeh Kehta Nahin
Par Main Seham Jaata Hoon Maa
Chehre Pe Aana Deta Nahin
Dil Hi Dil Mein Ghabraata Hoon Maa
Tujhe Sab Hai Pata Hai Naa Maa
Tujhe Sab Hai Pata Meri Maa

I never say it,
But I'm scared of the dark Mom
I never show it,
But I care about you, Mom.

You know it all don't you, Mom?
You know it all...

Don't lose me in the crowds
That I can't even come back home
Don't send me so far
That even my memory can't touch you

Am I that bad Mom?

Whenever Dad pushes me high on the swing
My eyes look for you, I keep thinking
That you'll come and hold me Mom

I don't tell him, but I am afraid, Mom
I don't let it show on my face
But I am anxious, Mom

You know it all, don't you Mom?
You know it all...

List

1. I have some lovely memories of you. You were gentle and wonderful to me. I miss it all and sometimes I think it's still there. I wish I could really explain the magnitude of your effect on me. I think you know deep down inside. But sometimes I am afraid that you don't know, that life and your own choices have both pushed you so hard that you've given in, given up a long time ago, that the wonderfulness is now just a bitter lingering memory. That you're hollow.

2. I love you. You're everything to me. I appreciate so many things about you. You're a beautiful person.Why don't you see what I see? I am waiting for you to discover it and I want to show you what you are capable of doing. And when you do it, I will applaud the loudest. I love you so much. I am scared that you will die and I will mourn for you forever and never get over you. I am even more scared that I will mourn all the more for the years you didn't live. I am so scared. Please do something. I feel anchorless.

3.Hey, I wish I'd met you. I wish you could have lived. I wonder what we would have been like. Would we fight? Would we play? Would we be close? I'll never know.

4. I will never forgive you. You are an evil person. I don't even want to understand. I can't believe someone like you can exist. I don't care what screwed you up, you always had a choice. Go to hell and don't expect anything from me.

5. I don't know when you will understand that it is time to say goodbye to what we had. I would have done anything for you at one point, but now I just don't have the energy. I also think that you need me more than you want me, and I'm not looking for that. I will always be fond of you, but that's all. It's too late for anything else. I've come too far, please don't pull me back into that darkness. Pull yourself out instead, and believe me when I say you're the only one who can do it. I am your friend, and I hope one day you're healthy enough to understand this. And I hope you will always know that I once loved you with all my heart.

6. Hey, I have so many things to talk to you about, but when I talk to you it doesn't really feel like I'm getting through. I know one day I'll understand why you did what you did, but I have to be patient. I don't know how I got in here anyway. You're not what I look for anyway. Maybe I did because we're so opposite. I think you're throwing away amazing things because of deep rooted fears you can't even identify, let alone face. I feel bad for you because you're missing so much. But I've realized that it is something you need to seek and find yourself, I can't do it for you. But you shouldn't have done what you did.

7. You are such an awesome person. Your brain is all over the place, you're always trying to chase the things you believe in, live the life you want to. You are the reason I have a better life, so fundamentally, just because you gave me a chance to do what I can do well. I would never have been able to move on without your example before me. I was waiting for an opportunity to travel and work and be truly independent and people like you have always helped me move faster and faster on this path. It's taken four years but I'm getting so close. We have a lot to learn from each other. Thank you, thank you!

8. I think you are a star. Everything from your eyes to your brain is a sparkling jewel. I want you to shine. And you're also so complicated (not a bad thing!) and sometimes, disinterested in the people who care about you. I am one of those people and I've felt the bad taste more than once, I stick around 'cause I love what you stand for, whether you are a vociferous misanthrope or not. Wish you'd learn to recognize that.

9. For years I've admired you. But you are going back on your word. I have realized that my true friends will always make an effort to sort things out with me and forgive my temper, no matter how bad our rows get. I tried to talk to you about it but you snubbed me. I feel abandoned by you. I see that this is a bad time for you, and I want to be there, but I won't disturb you when you obviously don't want me around. I will never tell you this, or for that matter most people, but I cried an entire evening because you acted like such a bitch. I didn't ask you to step in to my life, then you did, and then I made the mistake of trusting you, and you skipped back out. Was it that easy? You really hurt me.

10. I am glad I met you. You're gorgeous and our senses of humour match so exactly that it's literally been the only thing that has made me laugh on days I've broken down. It's taken a while but I've come to appreciate your sincerity. I don't expect anything from you but I am glad we keep talking about meeting and know that when we do, it will be joyful. You're gorgeous.

11. You don't even deserve a place on this list. I'd have kicked your ass a long time ago but I can't be bothered. You obviously still bug me to a point otherwise I wouldn't be writing about you. Go away, scum.

12. The two of you are unbelievable. You, I'm waiting for you to come to your senses. And you, don't be such a hypocrite, you're asking for it. Also, there's a world beyond this. Wake up!

13. Don't yet know where to place you on this list. No place seems suitable. You've given me lessons that have taught me immensely. You've been around on the best and worst nights of my life. You are a legend in your own time. There's no one like you. And like you taught me to, I'll hold on to that feeling. Even when I'm gone and you're no where around. It's great to see this side of you. I understand so much more now. Keep it coming, babe!

14. Ay, awesome person. I worked hard at winning you over. I'm not gonna be losing you any time soon. You remind me so much of me earlier. I'm just waiting to witness you blossoming. I will be there for you every step of the way. Don't feel bad about the things you're feeling. They're perfectly normal and natural and I know it's scary but it will all be okay. I promise.

15. Sometimes I feel like you're that person I've told you you are. But when it comes right down to it, are you really getting what I'm saying to you? Why don't I see it sometimes? Anyway, I am so impressed by the way you are considering you had little reason to be except that you wanted to be. And that's impressive. I'm also glad for you, just wish you'd speak up more often because I know it's somewhere inside you just straining to get out. Reach out to me! I'm reaching out to you all the time! I don't care if I get hurt. Please open up. I'm waiting for you, babe. I love you.

16. You girls are each special in your own ways. I am incredibly fond of you. Incredibly so! Stop the self deprecation and explore your talents. I'm here for you if you need me at any point. I treasure your love for me, and know that you have mine.

17. Make that choice. You know you can if you want to. I hope you make it, for your sake.

18. A one off incident raised your guard against me and stopped a new friendship from growing. It's a big lesson about the nature of life. I know you're beginning to finally see it was only a one off incident. I'm glad you are.

19. Welcome back to my life, and thank you for letting me back into yours. You make me happy.

20. I'm sorry it's not as mutual as it could have been. I'm sorry.

21. Write more! Even if it's scary. It's scarier when you don't. Don't forget those lessons. Hug them close.

Sisters

I'm back after a month. There is an unbelievable amount of work to be done. I have three tests in the next five days, and lots of other pending tasks. There is much correspondence to be dealt with, and an inbox waiting for hours of my time.

However, it's about time that I do this. I've been meaning to do it for so long.





I love you both. You mean family to me. I fight with you everyday, I crib and bitch and moan about you all the time to my girlfriends. Except that you are my girlfriends, and have seen the best and worst sides of me and still stick with me. We're still as tight as possible. And today, with music and fireworks, I felt that warm glow of being around you two beautiful girls yet again. I returned with gladness in the depths of my being. You are two of the most beautiful women I know -- fiery, talented, spunky, funny, smart, compassionate. I love you so much. I can't even explain it to you. All I want you to know is that I've been expressing my love through anger and I thank you, thank you for understanding it so well.

Sarah's Words

Oblivion Speaks
by Sarah Manguso

I am not here to ruin you.
I am already in you.
I am the work you don’t do.
I am what you understand best and wordless.
I am with you in your chair and in your song.
I am what you avoid and what you stop avoiding.
I am what’s left when there is nothing left.
Love me hard, pilgrim.

__________________________________________

The Movement of a Caravan over the Landscape
by Sarah Manguso

That we rode harder into the wind,
That the story got told,
That the broken candies were eaten first,
That they were eaten last,
That all subjects grew extinct eventually,
That in the inn I ruined our lives,
That in the barn I tried to save them,
That I failed,
That per Fitzgerald the manner remains intact for some time after
the morale cracks,
That in the interregna all suffer equally,
That the languages we are born ready to speak leave us one by one,
That unless we’re actively procreating we’re acting metaphorically,
That I’ve never been to France,
That I’ve been to Ohio,
That I remember almost nothing I did there,
That it is meaningless to say I liked that,
That emotions accumulate into a few categories,
That each new one is itself plus everything like itself,
That when animals act like people we love them more,
That when they do we want them never to stop,
That we give them the names we wish we had,
That men have children and manufacture new mothers,
That I anticipate escaping my fate or not,
That I anticipate the future by never buying groceries,
That I know the flesh is incidental but keep so many photographs,
That the story gets told,
That it was the reason for these various movements.

Red

Forced to be your one and only
Your one and only one
Nursed a little artery to grow
Into a heart
You waited, you waited
You gave of yourself but
It was nothing
You waited for your one and only

Craving my voice my mirror my
Painted autumn sun dance
Waited for you to teach me
How it was done
But you gave of yourself
Too much, the perfect one
She was always the victim
Always the wronged one

Remember, remember those
Golden days when told
You were beautiful you turned
A bitter cold empty heart
To your only artery
What of it? You said,
What of it?

The perfect one,
She was always the victim
The wronged one
Gave too much of herself
And her beauty
What of it, she said
And her bitter cold heart
Watched her only artery
Turn blue and red and blue
Again

It’s turning red again,
Perfect one
On my knees I beg you
Forgive, be your one and only one
Waited for your reward your only salvation
Nothing comes of nothing
Your lesson is right here

Watch me walk away
Head high, no guilt
For being my one and only one.

.

Today I went scampering off in the rain to look for a room of my own. I can picture waking up there, a place that is not here, not a corner of this room or a corner of this mind -- not cobwebby or cluttered, but a cherished space.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

The more I think about it, the more I realize how the poetry I've come across seems to be representing such extreme expressions. It can't be mild after all; there's no middle ground, there's no warm and cool, is there? The poems aren't always intensely serious, in fact some are intensely funny or intensely sarcastic, but intense they are.

I wonder what this does to a poet's mind. Does he never wish to turn this intensity off, this constant buzz in his mind, this constant ache, this constant high? Does this have something to say about the intrinsic nature of the poet?

_____________________________________________________________________________________

So many people I meet are so intelligent. Then they stun me with their lack of compassion. Makes me want to re-evaluate the whole concept of intelligence. How can someone alert and aware, by that very nature, lack the sensitivity to be compassionate? It seems like such a contradiction.

More than anything I am ashamed of my own lack of compassion. Makes me want to re-evaluate my own evaluation of these stunning people.

A Word

A word to the wise
go home, someone is waiting for you
someone sleeping in a dark corner of a dim room
with the lights off that never come back on
in shackles like ivy, like fragrant flowers

go home, beware
brush the snowflakes off your hair
it is impolite to flush red, to shine
at a funeral -- go home, someone is waiting for you

a word to the wise.
hush,
tiptoe to the end of your rainbow
someone blind to the colours is waiting
underneath it and will not understand
in that black night the twinkle
of your faded star

go home, remember someone is waiting for you
head down, chip up, hush, tiptoe, no rainbow
someone is waiting with a whip and shackles
as loved as smooth as silk
the slightest touch could change things forever
a word to the wise

a word to the wise
don't let the dark close in
on your own mind -- keep the rainbow
keep the shine from the snowflake
keep the twinkling stars and
the endless sky
hush, don't cry, bide your time
go home now
someone is waiting for you.

a word to the wise.

Longing

It’s amazing what thirty-odd days and nights in a row can do to a person.

I feel trapped in this place more than ever, now that I’m back. Every second, every cell in my body is longing in a way that chokes me, holds back every positive impulse I have, makes me pine, pine, pine. I miss the anonymity, I miss the freedom, I miss the absence of pettiness and smallness and gossip, I miss the streets, I miss my balcony, I miss chilli omelette in the mornings, I miss the Causeway, I miss going to work and the trains and the walks and the mad way my best friend smokes and drives, I miss everything. I miss never having the time to blog properly, I miss the sound of the sea and Byculla Zoo and Breach Candy and Andheri and Fort and Town and Theobroma and the beautiful buildings and the beautiful people and the ugly buildings and the ugly people.

Most of all, I miss the sense of infinite possibilities. This place has a way of holding you back, making you small, dragging you back into filth and mud no matter how hard you struggle to wash yourself clean.

I want to run back to the rains. I want to throw my head back and laugh until it hurts. I want to sleep on time and eat my breakfast everyday. I want Moshe’s jam and Churchgate station and apple crumble pie and chatni sandwiches that cost ten rupees, I want to hunt for a pretty dress to wear on an evening out, I want to come back home and find sweet little notes written just for me, I want those fucking frustrating bus routes where the drivers don’t shout out their destinations, I want to break every bloody glass he ever owned, but I want to go back. Run back, as fast as my legs will carry me. I want to meet every stray kitten that roams the fish markets at Lower Parel, I want to float on my back at the pool at Cavala, I want to hold hands with the girls and jump over big waves at the beach, I want to wear my blue bikini and walk like I’m not ashamed, I want to wear my red skirt and dance with him to the live Saturday night band, I want him to turn his back to me and say Jeg elsker deg in his half asleep way, I want that little flat high up on Bandra and the couple that fights like they love each other and our little glasses of wine, I want my laughing best friend to push me back into a crowd of vicious women boarding the local train, I want Marine Drive and the horrible crowds at Nariman Point on Sunday, and every fucking frustrating beautiful infuriating thing about that place.

I want Bombay.

Happy Feet

Bring on the people, places, animals, leaves, rocks, oceans. Outbursts are temporary, chasing peace is infinite.

Outburst

What's the fucking point of this endless cycle?

I should have known better. There's no peace in connections, not even the most innocuous ones. Yet one can't seem to escape them. The very idea of having someone understand -- even only for a short while, somehow tips the balance in favor of the wrong decision, all previous wisdom discarded.

It's like taking a pin to willingly burst your own bubble-wrap, to become a child again, to become open and receptive to everything.

It's dangerous when this is mixed in your blood, when you just don't stop it. I can't be depressed all the time, and I won't, but the lingering uneasiness and suppressed sorrow eventually cause a numb empty dullness that will propel me to a tangent.

I never want to meet anyone I am remotely fond of ever again.

Dissolve

It will be sunrise soon, and the biscuits in the tin are nearly all gone. For weeks and weeks I haven’t had a single night’s uninterrupted peaceful sleep.

On some nights, I’ve been up finishing a journal entry and drifting onto the endless interwebs crawling through spaces. On others, I’ve had conversations that have lasted for hours. On yet others, I’ve tossed and turned and finally given up.

These weeks have been a blurry wave of semi satisfactory afternoon naps that give me a buzz like I’m high on something. It’s funny because I always hated sleeping in the afternoon when I was little. With the sleeplessness I’ve noticed an alarming increase in slips of tongue and typographical errors. May the Grammar Nazi spare me.

Some evenings have passed by the lakeside. Mostly with a friend or two, but sometimes alone – once, a little snake and I simultaneously scared each other. As I backed away, it slithered back into the foliage. Once a woman distracted me and a friend by going right down the treacherous slippery mini-bank with a bundle of clothes and washing them in the water. She took her time, letting the clothes float away a little bit and catching them at the very last minute, beating them against the rocks, washing her face with the lake water.

There are lights in the houses across the left side of the lake, and above there is an endless sky. The stars have disappeared from the night sky a little every year. I barely see any these days.

I have an exam in about seven and a half hours and I’m probably not prepared for it. But I know I’ll go to University by 11 am, I know I’ll write until my left hand is aching from the effort and I know I’ll regret not immersing myself into the course earlier. At least I successfully finished re-reading Hayavadana and actually had a smile on my face in the end.

That’s what happens when you study literature. You end up appreciating why exactly a particular text is taught, if not falling in love with it.

There are Reasons

and there are Reasons, why I love xkcd passionately, love it more than I loved some ex-boyfriends and ex-friends even.
(click on the image to discover one of them).

Reign O'er Me

In the evening, summer rain showered itself all over the city. The thick, almost opaque sheets interspersed with gusts of cooling wind embraced everything. There is something stirring inside me as I write this. I stood on the balcony, and noticed everything. I touched the sounds and felt the sights. Each chilling droplet on each window pane, all the dust freely flowing in and out of houses, trees swaying in the wind. The sky and its gifts are offered to us tonight. I accepted them, the droplets on my parched lips, and one by one I let go of my memories. I've been healing and hurting for so long, it's hard to distinguish between pleasure and pain. All the bittersweet mixtures brewing in me for all this time were strummed. Something about the Universe always soothes the worst suffering. Whether it's a moonlit evening by the lake, or tropical rainbursts. My bittersweetness made a lovely tune. I'm still swaying to the music of the rains.

Of Strangeness

I was at a friend's house the other day, making conversation, when I noticed her staring at me with a slightly astounded expression on her face. Before I could raise half an eyebrow, she said, "Man, you have strange life experiences."

Her words ring true. Just a couple of weeks ago, I stayed up all night working on something or the other while another friend was passed out on my bed, after having roamed the city streets all day. As soon as she woke up, we went for a stroll. We were passing the little market near my house and found a very strange looking fish serenely flapping its fins in very little water. The water by the way, wasn't in a bowl or anything. Just on the pavement, on slightly uneven ground. The people who got the fish sell chicken, so I have no idea how all of that worked out. I just know that I was there.

And don't even get me started on the fish. It looked like a baby crocodile. We stared at it for a while before moving on to discover a huge cage full of parrots, several stray hungry amorous dogs and sleepy cats. More fish, and a little kid who was extremely uninterested in having his picture taken with a fish but bullied into it by his father, the fisherman. I have really interesting neighbors, apparently someone took the weird creepy fish home to keep it as a pet. And how could I have missed the massive cage chock full of parrots? My only defence is that they don't keep the cage way out near the front door (and that way isn't the quickest to the main road).

Since then several people have seen pictures of the fish, been interested/grossed out or combinations of both, and not one person has been able to tell me what kind of fish this is. Is it possible that the chicken people of New Alipore have managed to spot some sort of new species?

I would show you the picture right now, but its 5 am and I have little Dan Savages running inside my brain yelling "DTMFA! DTMFA! DTMFA!" in shrill voices.

But that's another life experience altogether.

Rites of Passage

I grow weary of my own writing, each collection of words weaved together over months and years – the older ones I have stopped relating to a long time ago, and the more recent ones seem colorless, monotonous, uninspired. The only thing I can appreciate in my collected work is my effort to be honest. Even though perceptions are ever-changing, any given piece of writing reflects my reality or my fiction at that point, and in that it is as honest as it could have ever been.

Everything else seems so pointless. I am too emotional, and though the most overused word in all my work is love, it is also the most misused. I am certainly capable of being intense, even passionate, I am capable of feeling strongly and deeply, and I am capable of great attachment and fondness, but love is elusive and incomprehensible. I don’t know the nature of love, and I don’t even know whether I am capable of it or indeed what qualifies one to be capable of it. Altogether I conclude that I am too emotional in my writing, even though I become less and less demonstrative in my life – a process that is scary and stabilizing at the same time.

I find myself criticizing the content and style of my work almost while I am writing it, it seems to me that I have pondered over the same narrow subjects for too much time and beyond that is a great impenetrable abyss of nothingness. At the same time, people in my life increasingly criticize my withdrawal into myself, they complain about my seeming lack of emotion – it is such a drastic change for them. To them, I am completely changed; the same girl who was so vocal about her affection for them is withdrawn and silent now.

The dislike that I’ve developed of my own creations is disconcerting. It used to define my identity in some ways, but now I shy away from calling myself a writer, and I don’t make an effort to show anyone what I write. The only thing I know for sure is that I don’t know enough about the things I want to write about. I’ve been armed with tools to crave out beautiful sculptures but I don’t have the material. The cool marble slabs, the physical mass of a rock to shape – I don’t have it. I have tools and thin air. And the air is tinged with limitations of geography and experience.

My reality is narrow enough to be a prison cell. There are only so many stories I can tell, of madness and neuroses and disillusionment. I grow weary of them all. That’s not completely me, and I hate to give myself and the readers a fallacy wrapped in the trappings of some sort of truth. Yet it’s hard to tap what is beyond. I can continue looking inward, perhaps even continue writing about it, but I’m not content with just that anymore. Just like I am not content with just writing anymore, haven’t been for years. The only possible solution I see now is to immerse myself in something else, something totally different.

Reading, learning and seeking have acquired a new urgency now – I feel an almost desperate need to delve into these things. Any time spent not pursuing a new project or gathering knowledge seems like time wasted. I feel like I was paddling in a shallow pool and am now taking stronger, deeper, braver strokes to the deep ocean. A beautiful, drastic change; I hope that somewhere along my journey I will reach an island where I will find a way to express myself, it is my responsibility now to do some of the most amazing work I will do in my lifetime and it is my responsibility also to see that writing is involved in some way. Two more years where they will continue to arm me with tools and other peoples’ universe and I must read extensively, delve deeper, and seek more: there is a lot of time to find my island and find my voice. Maybe I will be able to say something substantial soon.

I must hold on.

It's been way too many animal friends we've had to say good bye to this year.

RIP Addy. You are loved and missed.

Also Mia, Jhapsha, PMD, PsychoKat, Mishti.

My Mia, you are always with me.



Little baby Nazi, come back. Everyone's worried.

Awe

Oh, fuck. I'm so smitten.

I just heard this here.

"And I can't become my father when it's all been said and done
His completions won't complete me
I've divided me by one, I'm the answer to his riddle
I'm the caution of his wind
I'm the spoon wedged between tongue and teeth beneath his trembling grin
And I dare add my revision for I dare not suffer twice and I dare not reinvent the past
And I dare not be the Christ and I welcome any sufferer
And I welcome any Saul
Sitting in this room, on wooden bench, waiting for Joi to call
And I suffer here alone, Lord
Perturbed by my every thought
How I've tried to strip them to the bone I've struggled and I've fought
Every jealous warped intention, smuggled, sewn into my genes
Every hidden mongrel tendency exploiting me in me


Each time I put them under but still they wanna test me
I cry out through the thunder...
You storm right past me...
I search and I ponder...
I question and wonder... I roar and I thunder, please, let me in


I've been waiting here for what now seems the better of an hour
I've raised every crippled question from the dead and given power to the absence of my sanity
The presence of a fear that lies in between forgotten dreams that pile up every year
Up above the highest testaments, down below the wooden floor
There's a gutted room, pitch black at noon, beneath a hidden door
Deep within, you'll find the attributes of every sunken man
Who must bang his head against the dead each day he tries to stand
And he's standing pressed against the very woman that he loves
Kissing eyes and lips, embracing hips, surrendering to her touch
And just at the very moment that he touches heart to heart
She pulls from his touch, 'cause it's too much to mend what's torn apart


Each time I put them under but still they wanna test me
I cry out through the thunder...
You storm right past me...
I search and I ponder.
I question and wonder... I roar and I thunder, please, let me in


It's so hard to be the man I would be if hatred and fear no longer appeared
I swear I've become the skin of a drum, the heart of a man, divided I stand"

Skin of a drum, Saul Williams

With the questioning and the awareness and the passion and intensity and the calm and the storm and the contemplation and the explanation and the acceptance and the anger and the tears and the uplifting ecstasy, there is closure.

I love you, Saul.

Touched With Fire

...I have a term paper to submit this week. I've been reading and reading and not writing it at all.

It's about this man's work -

http://www.myspace.com/saulwilliams

"Whereas, breakbeats have been the missing link connecting the diasporic
Community to it's drum woven past
Whereas the quantised drum has allowed the whirling mathematicians to
Calculate the ever changing distance between rock and stardom.
Whereas the velocity of the spinning vinyl, cross-faded, spun backwards, and
Re-released at the same given moment of recorded history, yet at a
Different moment in time's continuum has allowed history to catch up with
The present.

We do hereby declare reality unkempt by the changing standards of dialogue.
Statements, such as, "keep it real", especially when punctuating or
Anticipating modes of ultra-violence inflicted psychologically or physically
Or depicting an unchanging rule of events will hence forth be seen as
Retro-active and not representative of the individually determined is."

Saul Williams : Coded Language, Amethyst Rock Star (2001)

I am overwhelmed. I don't know how to begin, so after this post I'll start with random paragraphs that will ultimately tie up with what I want to say. I know it won't be enough. But I hope it will be adequate.

I was looking at his poetry, and inevitably this caught my eye and then stayed on my mind (for two very different reasons):

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/saul-williams/gypsy-girl.html

"C'mon let's see if it fits. Two little boys with a magic marker marked her and it won't come out. "They put it in me!" "No he didn't, what are you talking about? It's not permanent. It'll come out when you wash it." Damn maybe it was permanent. I can't forget. And I hope she doesn't remember. Maybe magic marked her."

It's beautiful when he reads it out.

I have five-hour-power cuts, missing kitten woes, and friends in faraway places to smile at. God-of-Small-Things burstiness to write about.

And hopefully, hopefully -- I can do justice to Saul Williams.

Dreamscape

Summer storms in Calcutta are delicious.
I wonder if I had that dream again last night,
Or whether my mind made it up later or
Whether it’s the same thing either way:
Cherry blossoms falling in Japan
Soft pink fragile velvety bits of spring
Millions of them, like the stars in the
Enormous rural Indian sky I remember
Being awed by

I always forget most of my dreams, anyway. It’s been so long since I had that one about the house. I guess because there’s no man to hide anymore, and because I am more rebellious. Maybe I’ll stop having it altogether, someday. I’ve stopped having that dream where I’m about to die and running for my life. I always used to have the fan whirring over me during that dream, and wake up in an uncomfortable sweat.

I just ignore things now
People who try to tell me
How to run my life are met
With a stone wall of indifference

Throw open the windows, Shreya
You are not going to go alone, I won’t allow it
Have you eaten lunch?
Pay more attention to me

If you’re really special, I won’t give you the stony stare. Instead I’ll make a joke. Let’s agree to be in parallel places, I say to you in my head, because by this very premise you are not supposed to understand. Last week you said I should put on some weight, and why was I looking so much darker? I smiled at you, and then laughed about how no one would marry me because I’m thin and dark. You looked troubled for a second, even though you smiled too. You said, no, because I know your original colour.

What original colour?
I was a snow white baby
Then I fell in love with the sun
The people who gave me their cells are
What they call fair
One of them has a peaches and cream face
The other one has a bi-colour arm
Most of it brown, and then
Half sleeved underexposed
White
I love colours: honey and olive and chocolate
I have many

Of course you know my Original Colour. You practically raised me. I can’t find my baby pictures anymore, but that kid doesn’t look like me actually. I love looking at her. She smiles a lot, she plays with her toys and her little blue cycle with three wheels, she used to bite people’s chins while she was teething, and I know a lot about her because people tell me stories. You took all my baby pictures, including the one that is enlarged and framed in the Other Room. We have many memories together. Benaras, Aliporeduar, Siliguri, Seoni. Each one a chronicle, each one monumental: so much so I can’t even talk about them.

Maybe I’ll have a dream tonight
Summer nights rob me of sleep
Someone ask them to pay me back
I am weary and it is easy to let
Gems slip from between my fingers
Multi-coloured gems of incoherence

Q.

If I mirrored you, could you look me in the eye?

Shiny Happy Fits?

It's funny how things unfold like a plateau for the longest time, but just a few days or hours make life jump to another plane altogether. It's funny and breathtaking and joyful, because there are no full stops. This realization is immense.

I'm going to let my voice jump off the rooftop in complete ecstasy. The moon shone like a mirror back at me a few days ago. I swear I've never seen it like that ever before. It's a mental picture that I suspect will stay with me for a long time.

What is it about a person that makes them take the worst horrors, look them in the eye unflinchingly, stare them down and move forward?

Is it the fact that they are capable of the most terrible cruelty too?

Is it self preservation?

Is it escapism?

Is it freedom?

Is it the way to be happy?

Whatever it is, it seems to be working.

Starry Starry Night

I feel jaded and cynical all week and then on one sleepless Saturday night (or early Sunday morning) I chance upon your clear, honest, smiling, serene face looking straight at me from a picture and I feel like I have some faith again. It's a reaffirmation of all of the things I believe in about goodness and the capability of people to have it. It's very definite, it doesn't give me mixed feelings at all. Can anyone be so good? Please don't disappoint me. I don't expect anything from you, just keep the goodness consistently, that's all. You fill me up with goodness just because you have so much of it. You are it. I love that about you.

x

Peek

I sermonize with/to myself in my journal sometimes. It serves many purposes: I can spill everything out on paper, and then come back to it later and mull over it as I am prone to do, I can advice myself better and just basically not worry about other people/what they think/how they will take it.

Peek:

Through everything, I learn.

I learn that it is important to slow down and stop sometimes. It gives you time to process the information that has come to you when you’ve been out there and going fast and doing everything. It’s like an avalanche of information and it’s great, but ultimately works much better when you sit down and let yourself take it in. Prepares you better for the good things coming up and gives you space to let go of pettiness. When you take some time off and then go back to what you were doing, the experience is more special and meaningful.

*Evil Grin*

I am now updating my Personal Mental List of Cheeky Nicknames with your personal cheeky nickname in my head.

*chuckles*

Literature and the Other Arts Classes

And why I like attending them -

Sick

and reading.

I like Sexy by Jhumpa Lahiri (Interpreter of Maladies)

Colorblind - Counting Crows

I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside

I am ready
I am ready
I am ready
I am

Taffy stuck, tongue tied
Stuttered shook and uptight
Pull me out from inside

I am ready
I am ready
I am ready
I am...fine

I am covered in skin
No one gets to come in
Pull me out from inside

I am folded, and unfolded, and unfolding
I am
colorblind

Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside

I am ready
I am ready
I am ready

I am...fine
I am...fine

I am fine

The Portrait of a Young Artist as a Dead Man

And I wish you'd stayed to see how the Joker lives on...



Congratulations, you will be remembered like nobody else

(Artwork credit - http://faithmouse.blogspot.com/2008/07/joker-ledger.html)

And while we're on the subject

Of loved things and when love doesn't hurt,

let me share with you -

This

by Kelsey Sparkle Rakes

(who writes glittering bits of brilliance like you change clothes)

Three Songs.

Three songs by Cassini's Division about resurrection, rejuvenation and rebirth that I absolutely love.

Higher

life is all about losing and finding
crossing bridges, changing tracks
moving ever onward to newer destinies
yesterday’s bittersweet memories
give way to new forged links
bridge across forever
shaping new thoughts

now we've got to get
higher, higher than we've ever been before
higher on the highest love

the future is hard to foretell
offering endless mystery
finger touching wind in momentary caress
shed the dragon, shed the beast, shed the fang and the claw
move into the vision, gently embracing

now we've got to get
higher, higher than we've ever been before
higher on the highest love

Only for a while

loneliness my friend
emptiness my second skin
when will this be over
and when will i get over it
the pain i feel inside
the pain the second nature
when will i exorcise my ghosts
and learn to make the most of it

tear away these chains
break out of the cage
walk out into sunlight
even if it's only for a while

ugliness i see
dreariness come over me
when will this be gone
and (when) when will i overcome
the loss that has me hurtin
loss that takes all hope away
when will my hurting disappear
when will i beat my fear of it

tear away these chains
break out of the cage
walk out into sunlight
even if it's only for a while

even if it's only for a while
gotta step out, live it up in style
find a little hope and sunshine
even if it's only for a while

even if it's only for a while

loneliness my friend
emptiness my second skin
when will this be over
and when will i get over it
the pain i feel inside
the pain the second nature
when will i exorcise my ghosts
and learn to make the most of it

tear away these chains
break out of the cage
walk out into sunlight
even if it's only for a while

Rumble


you think what you see is real
but it's just a polaroid point of view
you know, the lens is perfect but pictures crack up
one way or another...one way or another…

flying through the canopy of clouds must be exciting,
it's a perfect day for rain, and I can feel a drop or two on my skin
electric eyes, a streak or two of lightning
and begin to wonder why it doesn't rumble

you think what you touch is hot but its not
Its just a melting point of view
the glass is perfect but reflections bend
up one way or another… up one way or another

flying through the canopy of clouds must be exciting,
it's a perfect day for rain, and I can feel a drop or two on my skin
electric eyes, a streak or two of lightning
and begin to wonder why it doesn't rumble

So True.

Don't stick around trying to prove a point to someone who will always see themselves as the victim. Don't live in the false hope that your point of view, pain, time, tears or anger will be validated. Don't think that anger is a bad thing when you can use it in a productive way that will help you to protect yourself.

Because in the end, it won't matter. It will be a whole episode of lost time where you were lying to yourself, bending and breaking to save something that wasn't there in the first place. And don't let them tell you you can't make it alone. If I'd met me earlier, hell I wouldn't have needed anyone else.

:)

PS - Negative people attract abusers. Positive, independent people attract good, sensitive, healthy relationships with other positive people. Life lesson.

(If you don't believe that, then look at the relationship history of any person and see if you can find a pattern - the healthy ones will have broken relationships too, but the reasons for those relationships breaking down will be very different from those with abusive patterns. Codependent people have these relationships on and on, while people with abusive tendencies have superficial non intimate relationships most of the time no matter how intense it might seem to an outsider, the victim or even to the abuser. And see who an abusive person is attracted to or can connect with - someone whiny, or visibly depressed, or really vulnerable. Someone they can control, whether they know this is what they're seeking out, or not.)

Major yellow stage attack.

Affirmation exercises are the best.

I've had it with trying to look at the world through your eyes. It's exhausting and it hurts me.

Look who I met today

Itteh Bitteh Stinkeh Kitteh

Because

And because I love, and because I have to let go,
I write today.
Because the fire that burns when a little air
Touches it lovingly burns out when the strong gust of wind
Turns its fury towards it, and little embers die quiet little deaths
While blinking in the night.
Because the water meets the earth again and again, and the earth will
Not have enough, until it is eroded and lovingly flows into the cruel big waves
That wink so disarmingly in the calm after the storm, lapping gently against
The beaten earth turning around in its sleep.
And because I am the one who loses, and because I love,
I cry today.

Josefina Baez and the Mother Flowers

So many things have happened since I last posted. It just goes to show how you can't be certain about anything, and the only thing you have is yourself, your own guts and brains and sheer strength to help you through anything at all.

But what I specifically wanted to post about is one woman who breezed into the lives of 24 university students and touched every single life. For five days, we learned about theatre and beyond. She would insist that "it's just theatre, it's not a cure for AIDS" but what I took back from knowing her for those five days, from what she taught us will stay with me. There is so much to write, and this time I've actually started. It's important to continue, to keep you here with us, to carry on what you taught us. Until we meet again :)

She laughed and laughed when I told her the blog address - motherflowers.blogspot.com