Thinking Aloud

a very abstract update.

2012-01-17T15:02:00.000-08:00

current location

It's been busy. Actually it's been a complete turnaround since that post in August.

It's interesting, how split up my life has become. back home, people are living, dying and being born. People i used to know well, people who populated my childhood and people who are increasingly vanishing from my present. And what about my present? I feel like one of the pilgrims, stumbled upon a parallel reality, so familiar from all the pictures and TV, but so different in lived experience.

There is gnawing sense of guilt. That for now my life is so good, while those left behind have no place here, except in letters, skype and phone calls. that I'm not there to console or share, except in letters, skype and phone calls. I have always been cowardly, preferring to sever my connection to the past, preferring to restart, and I have restarted many times, from a present moment where everything is new, like a new series on TV, where everyone arrives on the scene in episode one, always, already themselves.

I am a happy explorer of the world. But its so intense, I can hardly keep track. its so complex, i can hardly detangle it into a nice, noodle-like linear narrative. But I am going to try because otherwise, things will get remade in my own head each time i remember it. Chronicling is now a necessity.

I'm going to start blogging everyday again

2011-12-27T16:31:00.001-08:00

JUST BECAUSE THERE IS SUDDENLY MUCH TO WRITE ABOUT.
And this is going to be a story blog because that's everything is a fiction once processed by synapses.

Love,
Aparna

2011-08-28T22:57:00.001-07:00

...the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice...
- Wislawa Szymborska

Another day, another banality

2011-07-30T21:53:00.001-07:00

Art that is very emotional, does not endure. No, I have used the wrong word- not emotional, but sentimental, sentimentality in art is poisonous, it evades actually confronting emotions. Like Yanni’s compositions and Sarah McLaughlin songs and anything you can buy at Precious Thoughts. You come across them the first time and it makes you rise up and think- yes, that’s how I feel! After a while, you realize that you have moved on, those feelings are now mingling with the days in between and the thoughts in between and you feel something else. But there are no songs about these feelings in between, so you keep listening to the same ones- about the banalities of anger and hurt, or about how you’ll find the one, about how you’ll get over him, about how you’re stronger now or all about love, all entirely rubbish. I want a pop artist that talks about the in between, about the limbo feelings. Because that’s what an emotional nature actually carries around- a multitude of limbo feelings that are constantly mixing and mingling into each other, like a sea that’s fed by a hundred rivers.

Of Vidya Balan's saris and intellectual property violations that I'm not complaining about

2011-07-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

A recent saturday afternoon found me with nothing to do but stretch out on my floor mattress and watch a pirated DVD of 'Paa', a rather nice movie which I had somehow missed for two years. During the course of this surprisingly enjoyable exercise, a new resolution dawned upon me. That the day I turned 35, I would make over my entire wardrobe to resemble Vidya Balan's starched sari ensemble. I thought about it; the sublime, cultured sensuality of stiff, deep green, mangalagiri cotton, complemented by a riotous pink kalamkari-work blouse, tied carelessly with string that stretches across the breadth of the shoulders. What a vision! I want to be nothing less than a vision past my mid 30s. Till then it shall be wildness.

But of course, it won't be like that at all. When I'm 35 things will be even more random than they are now. There is no way, that in 2021 I will be in a situation where I can dress like that without appearing to be copying something I saw in an old Hindi movie circa 2009. And it wont even be old enough a style to be vintage, so I'll have to carry it off on the basis of the great Indian fabric tradition's innate timelessness and dignity (which I wouldn't be able to do with, say, Kajol's yellow spandex Speedo from KKHH, which will in fact be vintage by then).

Source: Jones, Owens (1856). "The Grammar of Ornament" Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, Berkshire, England. p. 85.

It'll have to be some sort of fusion trend then. The word 'fusion' itself getting so passe now, as every cultural marker is fast getting assimilated into one Jungian type collective unconscious. This is a beautiful dream- a reservoir of ideas from every culture in the world. Imagine the increase in possibilities for life, for office wear, for dinner! I made Jap-fusion Italian food a couple of days ago. That is, sprinkled my pasta with the sea-weed shaker stuff from McDonald's.

But the truth is that many cultures, the lessons they have learnt and their unique aesthetic sense wont survive this 'fusion' deluge. The prints on a particular $89 Zara shirt I saw yesterday, used to be on the bed sheets my parents bought from Jaipur in 1995, but of course nobody cares where those dancing flower patterns were born. The shirt was made in China.

Once upon a time, the explorer of the exotic wilderness was dressed in starched khaki colored pants and a white shirt. This most un-poetic of ensembles used conjure up the most exotic fantasies of adventure and discovery in mind, even though Khaki (which is derived from Persian and literally means dusty) is the ugliest color in the world, and I rue the day that this ignoble shade of dussssst became a wardrobe staple. Now the exotic wilderness is all over our blouses and trousers, even while we explore whatever is left of it. Is that a good thing right or a homage to diversity?

The Body in Question

2011-06-15T01:52:00.000-07:00

These days, I've been thinking that this is such a body-unfriendly era. It's like our bodies are one big inconvenience that needs to be grudgingly endured, forcefully lived in and maintained like some old house you inherited. If you are female, then there's the additional hassle of having to protect it from the..er... elements, let's just say.

I have observed that people who work primarily with their bodies as opposed to their minds, are either demi-gods or dregs of society, as illustrated below:

Those who do remarkably well with their bodies, like sports stars or item girls, are highly sought after, coveted as national treasures and rewarded handsomely.
Those who are unable to do the same things just as well better have a degree of some sort.
Those who have neither, face the terrible tragedy of having nothing but their bodies to live off.

Most do not use their bodies for anything but for the consumption of food, the expulsion of food and other acts behind closed doors, and the unfortunate necessity of having to heave their physical persons to places so that their mental persons may be usefully occupied.

Sometimes I ponder over that confusing Biblical story of Adam and Eve being cursed by God with the awareness of their own bodies. How tremendously interesting that this discovery led them to- wait for it- shame! Why of all things that? A poor body- their own! Everybody has one, and all human bodies do pretty much the same thing, so why on earth, according to the great book that so defines the world around us, should our first reactions to our own body be shame? Have you ever seen young children react to their discovery of themselves that way? Nope- not until they are told it's shameful to lift your frock up around the drawing room when uncles and aunties have come over for dinner. So I have come to the conclusion that this is all learned and then propped up by many, many lies (yes, perhaps a late discovery).

So evidently, this shame and fear have been hijacked by the powers that be (Not God-at least not anymore. I mean market forces). Perpetrate an unrealistic image of what the body is supposed to look like, so that the ordinary folk, with sunspots and belly rolls develop a deep hatred for their own forms, born out of the fear that that (with curves liquefied on Photoshop and hair woven with needle & glue) is what their bodies should look like.

Why fix imperfections? Who cares about imperfections? I've never cared about the physical imperfections of my loved ones and nor them of mine. The idea that the body's greatest achievement is to produce envy or desire in the watcher, is consistently reinforced in our daily experience, but this is a recently popularized, false notion. Anybody who has been to college is at least vaguely aware of this. But still you see, out of glass windows of gyms in malls, people jogging away to nowhere. Don't get me wrong. Physical activity and personal grooming is important for everyone and we should be thinking about ways to be more healthy and well presented in our individual lives. But body sculpting to achieve size zero- isn't that an unnecessary goal for say, a business analyst or a home maker?

So what is the real nature of this shame? Perhaps it is the shame of not knowing what our bodies are all about; and this not knowing also produces fear. The body's a mystery that needs to be solved but it is also a savage beast that the mind cannot really tame. It often acts independently of the person who inhabits it - it gets sick, it has all kinds of strange compulsions, it brings forth the greatest pleasure and the worst kind of pain, it produces new bodies, it grows old, it dies - all of this regardless of the plans, the goals and even the most basic desires of it's owner. The body is feared because it can never be completely controlled. And we currently live in a society obsessed with control.

The body's purpose is to produce (and perhaps reproduce) and sustain the consciousness within, for as long as it's physics & chemistry allows. Our relationship with the body should be to maintain it in condition to do this job for as long as possible, because, lets face it, we are all drunk on the excellent experience of being alive.

Note: The title is a reference to Sir John Miller's WONDERFUL (of the Beyond the Fringe fame) series on the body by Dr. John Miller, produced by the BBC in the late 70s. The whole series is on youtube here.

Hair

2011-06-07T04:18:00.000-07:00

Have you ever considered your hair as an issue of gender or race? Well it is, if you are a woman.

I have been considering this issue for a long time, because the unfortunate humidity of this torrid tropical island frizzes and wears down my particular kind of South Asian hair. It stubbornly remembers where the rest of me comes from, even though my accent, my wardrobe and most of my tastes have been working very hard to locate myself in a vague, cosmopolitan limbo, where all cultural references are references to pop-culture and certainly nothing that dates earlier than a hundred years; ah, to have been born yesterday, in TV land!

Now that I am in this place, where the majority wears their hair 'naturally' straight or neatly twirly, thanks to a genetic jack-pot of politely shaped follicles, I find myself in a conundrum. Should I fight the tendency towards kink (ohh that word really tickles me) that humidity has on my wavy hair by artificially straightening or perming it?

Every time I go to the hair dresser, he is alarmed by its abominable state- he recommends serums (which I usually buy) and more vehemently, new treatments- ah the people I could resemble, the admiration I could gain- there is hope! Don't I want to look like everyone else? No thank you, I say, I like my hair, it was made for different climes and behaves better there, besides I couldn't bear to kill it for the sake of conformity.

My male South Asian peers dont have this problem. They get to cut it off- they are supposed to cut it off, because it gets in their way of doing things.Women these days are doing things as much as men, but we haven't yet gotten over the vestigial function of being things that are to be looked at. If I cut off my hair it would upset me aesthetically, but more importantly, I would also be saying something with my lack of hair that I'm not ready to be saying yet. It's my hair, but it's bigger than me. So many decades after feminism won the war, women are still expected to improve the scenery with their femininity, with high heels, with big hair. Or else...what? Really, what?

It's a marketing ploy. A colleague once told me that she attended a workshop with the owner of the Singaporean clothing chain BYSI as a guest speaker. I wouldn't put quotation marks on this one, but apparently, something was said there, to the effect of- women's maaney-ah- easiest one to get. Why? Because the lives of women are constantly beset by the utter confusion caused by 1) having to simply live the human life, which is a struggle in itself and 2) having to be mindful of what effect that living is having on their looks. This is to different degrees, in different cultures. If you go to ~~Madras~~ Chennai these days, the menfolk zip around to work on their motor bikes in shirts, trousers and sun glasses. Young women on two-wheelers wear whatever clothing they wear, then they wear arm-socks and a dupatta wrapped around their heads like Bedouins, because while they have to get to work as all fortunate, educated young people do, skin-darkening would lower their value in the ~~meat~~ marriage market. At least this also safeguards them from skin cancer, which is the only good thing about the improving quality of fairness creams.

Of course, there are worse things to be than a woman of Mallu origin with wavy hair. Okay, I am done and I'm not straightening or perming my hair again, that's all.

On the Apu Trilogy

2011-05-17T03:38:00.000-07:00

Discipline, it is said, is finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them in a good way. Self discipline, is to follow them in a better way.

When I consider the force that draws and subsequently absorbs one into Satyajit Ray's films, it strikes me that it is a look at the world, at every age and in every circumstance, through the eyes of a child. Satyajit Ray's beautiful, melodious movies are dedicated to his original vision of the world; a vision of innocence, curiosity and complete acceptance. This is Ray's famous humanism, his discipline, which he adapted from the neorealist and new wave masters of Europe. In in my opinion he did it in a better way. But that might just be me.

Nobody makes movies like these anymore- there are few stories out there now, that do not judge their characters. Consider the character of Apu who ambles through the stages of life over the course of three movies in the Apu Trilogy- Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar. There is not a moment, along the evolution of his complex, blue-gray character- idealist, escapist, brilliant yet unfocussed, morally flimsy, ill-disposed to dealing with both consequence and responsibility - that you do not completely understand his motivations, identify with him and even love him as Apu, the shirtless little tamarind-stealing urchin with an early fascination for trains that go out into the great, wide world.

A still from Aparajito

The great danger of romantics is the expectation of a beautiful resolution to the questions of life, presented in poetry, in pleasing color schemes, with a matching soundtrack. It's not a great time for dreamers; yet as a generation we have the anomalous power of indulging our inner romantic; we can turn all our pictures to sepia tone, crop out the bad parts and erase the scars. It sometimes strikes me as the victory of cynicism over all of us; that we have all, en masse, accepted that life cannot be beautiful without make up.

But take a look at any one of Ray's incredibly low-tech, incredibly beautiful films. In Ray's black and white world, one sees colors. He hides none of the bestial indifference of the world to personal suffering - death, loneliness, illness, abject poverty, the dizzy confusion of the youth, the sudden imposition of fate upon fantasy- all of these are the recurrent themes of the Apu trilogy. Yet what in life we would find unbearable, here it is expected, acceptable, even uplifting. How is this so? How can squalor, sadness and deficiency engage the senses, heart and mind, as would opulence?

It is as Apu himself explains to his friend Pulu in Apur Sansar, as he details the many tragedies that befalls the unfortunate hero of his great, literary effort (oh, how many bells that ring). While his hero fails at his ultimate goal, it is not a tragedy, because the point of life is to traverse it. As in the case of this hero, there is no opportunity for wasted potential in Ray's movies, for every experience, good and bad, offers the chance for for engagement with life. Everything is exquisite in its native essence- the tingling bell on the neck of a starving calf, a devout priest finding death at the banks of the holy Ganges, the abrupt end of girlish anticipation in a thunder storm that had earlier symbolized her own vigorous, burgeoning youth. Ray diverts the crushing emotional response of every sad situation, to the spectacular visual poetry of its circumstance. Sometimes I wonder if reading the original written work upon which this series is based, would evoke a different sensation than what the films manage to bring forth.

Durga, Pather Panchali

I agree with Ray's treatment of the everyday because the humanity he brings to his subjects is far more honest and true to life than stark realism, that takes an objective view and is empty of all sentiment. Real life, in my experience is not flavorless. All that we see and experience is processed through the stuff of our own thoughts, personalities and memories; it is tinged with the flavor of us. Life is subjective and our art would do well to reflect this truth.

Iron eaters

2011-05-09T20:53:00.001-07:00

Last night, as I was listening to raag Bihaag, trying to bleed some beauty into an otherwise excruciatingly drab day, I recalled an earlier conversation with my brother about an Austrian film he had seen called ' The Seventh Continent'.

It follows a seemingly happy family from their picture perfect suburban life up to their chilling mass suicide. Why? I suppose they had hit a wall and there was nothing but day after day of excruciating drabness. Based on a true story.

This takes me back to one morning fifteen years ago, which was totally unremarkable except that our neighbors two houses away, who had bravely attempted to color their modest days with a flush of borrowed money, had found that they couldn't afford it. They acceded defeat by toasting and downing a cocktail of toxic fluids. At least they had a real problem; debt is a real problem. The epilogue to this story is less spectacular; the head of the family passed on to the nether world, while his wife, two daughters and young son survived their ill fate. Happily, they now live a succession of precious, drab days, like most of us.

He was saying, my brother, that as opposed to pulling the plug, there is so much you can do to ease yourself out of the intolerable. Watch a movie, take a walk, plan a party, visit the zoo, call your mother, make a movie, have an affair, join a book club. I read somewhere that life is the greatest monstrosity imaginable; it feeds on itself.

This town, with reflections of reflections on the faces of buildings, has a way of inducing an easy, pleasant kind of schizophrenia; there are mid mornings when the iron eating rain forest inches its way to the edge of the expressways and I slip into dreams of a day when this place lies overrun with flowers.

It's not called the wheel, it's called the carousel

2011-05-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

It's very difficult to get used to weekends. For over a year, I've had work five days a week, followed by dance in the evenings, and then more dance on the weekends, so it feels really strange to have forty eight full hours at my disposal.

I find that there's nothing more injurious to mental health than staying indoors and thinking a lot. One of the cumbersome realities of a (possibly) maturing mind is nostalgia, that ugly-beautiful, human sensation Don Draper so devastatingly defines (on behalf of the Greeks) as "the pain from an old wound."

I think the passage of time is simply not easy for the physical brain to process, so it keeps disrupting your normal train of thought with information from the past. One has to set it down somewhere. Writing and even, performing, helps me do that. But on some days, you've sprained your ankle and are lost for words...

So I decided to doodle. Serious doodling. I used to paint once upon a long time ago.

Sometimes I think that it is the happy and not the sad memories that inflict the deepest wounds. Every now and then while spacing out at work or in a Sunday afternoon's dream, I see images from one lazy summer full of mangoes at ammamma's place. And mango prints on sarees. Mangoes strewn like stars on a sea of flowing silk.

It's essentially nothing, just images of a time of when I could not comprehend the concept of an 'end' beyond the end of the holidays. Those were good times. Then you wake up, as if from a nap and it's been so many years.

Obviously my ability to express myself through images is pretty limited. But it feels light afterwards.

A generation lost in space

2011-05-05T01:16:00.000-07:00

Recently, in the midst of a hazy session of substance induced thought abuse, a friend remarked,

' I am the walrus. We are the eggmen. I know what that means now.'

I was in a different place altogether so I didn't follow.

Yesterday I was trying to study for an impending test when, naturally, distraction presented itself in the form of the original American Pie song... a song that should mean nothing to me, except that it was much enjoyed when Madonna covered it in the 90s and it used to play on MTV Select all the time, which was watched for Chinnappa only and only him.

But it's catchy.

Some time after those culturally muddled years (it was darkness then, more so than now, since today, there is the gift of JSTOR or hell, even Google. Then we were fed by the TV and our schools and parents and private lending libraries that stocked Sweet Valley High Books. I should have read the newspaper but we subscribed to The Hindu), I heard the original, more wonderful version. So I started thinking about the song and what made it so iconic. Apparently the cryptic lyrics have never been really deciphered, but the key is that they contain the potential for both specific references and timeless, personal meanings. I suppose this is what makes a classic.

Don Mclean himself had only so much to say:

"You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me... sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence."

Lake Toba

2011-05-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

Another weekend away and back again...have I mentioned that this perfect city fills me with gloom, gloom, gloom. Yet it offers its perks...such as the possibility of thrilling weekend getways in some of the most exotic escapes in the world. This particular vacation was particularly therapeutic since I'm all but barred from dancing for a while thanks to a pesky ankle injury.

This long weekend we found ourselves in an erstwhile cannibal inhabited island in the middle of a super-volcanic lake. Samosir island is larger than the whole of Singapore and is a pristine (freshwater) island paradise.

If I had a bucket list, I'd tick out swimming in a sixteen thousand foot deep volcanic lake. (To help gauge just how deep that is, consider that a couple of weeks ago, I happened to be at the Indo-China border in the north eastern Himalayas, in the teeth chattering, finger numbing, driving snow and that was 14 thousand feet above sea level.) Naturally, I only ventured so many meters into the water as my signature 'drowning frog stroke' could manage, but it is a personal victory, nevertheless. (Unfortunately, I do not have a bucket list. Now that I'm twenty five and over the hill, perhaps its time to get down to it. Anyway, I digress)

This was our backyard.

Food is cheap (though lacking in variety) and apart from chilling with a book by the lake, or plunging into its dark blue depths, Toba has ample provision for recreation of the psychedelic kind, if you're into that sort of thing. Potential for adventure and eco tourism remains sadly untapped, but the plush natural beauty and the slow pace of the place kind of lulls you into a most deliciously restful experience. ( On another note, I must complain about the severe dearth of Teh Si, which is the Bahasa term for the kind of tea most closely resembling the Nair-tea-stall kind -- evaoprated not condensed milk please!. This caused my highly addicted tea-drinking sensibilities great distress but the chocolate-coconut-banana pancakes were to swoon for and sort of made up for the lack of chai.)

The locals, who run most of the hospitality establishments around the lake, are descendants of the Batak; they are friendly, chatty and exceedingly comely, with the radiant complexion and toned physiques of those who have a crystal clear lake to swim in everyday (ok maybe not everyone, but sufficient enough in number to add to the already much agreeable scenery. ) So its all the more hard to imagine that their ancestors used to eat raw, those people convicted of a very specific set of offenses- murder, treason, sex offenses and theft. Allow me to elaborate.

The drill proceeded as such; the accused would be tried by tribal elders in the presence of the whole community and if found guilty, would be led to the slaughter pole, hands and feet bound by the executioner, who would then proceed to slash up the offender all over, rub salt, lemon chilly and garlic all over his wounds for good measure. Following this, his head would be chopped off, body gutted and then fed to king, members of the tribunal and the viewing public. This much is true, so far as I can tell; however, there are plenty of fanciful stories of the Bataks being barbaric man-eaters, who just eat human flesh for pleasure. These are myths of yore, often willfully circulated by the Batak themselves to frighten away invaders and other unwelcome visitors; ritual cannibalism for the Bataks was the end of a closely monitored judicial process. Interestingly the salt, red pepper and lemons had to be provided by the relatives of the victim as a sign that they accepted the verdict of the community and were not thinking of revenge. Anyway, this grisly practice ended with the advent of the European missionaries (wiping out a lot more than just the grisly practices).

A ritual Batak dance performance, reenacted for the benefit of tourists.

Of late, Lake Toba seems to have waned in popularity as a tourist destination, due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, beginning with the Bali bombings of 2002, which while causing tourism in Indonesia to plummet in general, also tightened visa regulations, encouraging backpackers to spend the precious 30 days allowed by the on-arrival visa in more accessible places (you have to drive about 5 hours from the nearest airport in Medan to get here). But if you're looking to get away from it all, its particularly worth it, since unlike Bali or Krabi, this place isn't crawling with tourists.

So as you might gather, this was one of those benign holidays where we pampered the senses and indulged in some mild adventure- nothing life changing, but that was hardly the point. Most of all this trip was about spending time with the closest of friends- its been seven years and its the end of an era...but we have pictures!

Updated: Stumbled upon India (and recoiled in horror)

2011-04-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: As much as I detest disclaimers, I grudgingly supply one here. The post below is not a commentary on the sorry state of things in India. It is a commentary on the sorry state of things in my mind, which is the general theme of this blog.

Another year, another trip to India and the subsequent return to this city brings with it that familiar feeling of living in exile.

I took a train ride all the way from my hometown in the south up to the north eastern borders. Or At least I was supposed to. I got on to my compartment and found it to be packed with wage-labourers from West Bengal and Orissa, who can be found in increasing numbers, to be working on the roads and construction sites down south. Many of them were traveling on tickets without reservation, so there were twice the number of people as there were seats, hardly any place to sit and certainly no place to keep any of our luggage. The cramped space, the sounds, the smell, their uncouth appearance, the mewling, malnourished babies suckling their mothers dry, the soiled clothes- it was more than my senses could bear and much to my horror, I reacted in the most unthinkable way- I began to cry.

So this is what seven years of living abroad has done to me. Growing up in India means that one is regularly subjected to stomach churning experiences, surrounded by sights and sounds that assault the senses, up to the point that this becomes expected, acceptable, even the norm. Not even these experiences, however could soften the blow of revisiting the worst of it, in one condensed, totally unexpected experience, after a few short years of abroad in starkly contrasting conditions. In India, when faced with inhuman circumstances of 'other people', there are some who roll up the window panes of their air-conditioned cars, who can catch a plane and run away. And then there are some other people, who have no choice in the matter. I never counted myself amongst the latter, but here we were.

And what I am even more loathe to admit is that I did not cry tears of compassion that day. They were indignant tears of offense- some sort of entitled rage at having lost what was 'my space', 'my' holiday, 'my bubble' which was supposed to carry within it the glorious, beating heat of the Indian summer, stretches of open fields dotted with people easing themselves, cups of tea in quaint earthenware, the loud chant-like calls of the peanut peddlers, the idle of three days and two nights with my Jane Austen, much needed time for meaningful conversation with the family and pleasant yet poignant imagery for my camera. And now my bubble was being encroached upon by these... these people! There were twenty in people in a space meant for ten. So,to put it bluntly - I was throwing a classic, spoilt little rich girl hissy fit.

What did I expect them to do? Make room for my royal high-ass? Where were they supposed to go? If anyone was to go, it had to be me. So I got off at the next station, headed back to Chennai Central and in a few hours, was on a flight to Bagdogra, because I could afford to free up some space for those who needed it. Now a few more people would be able to use my berth. This is hardly a noble act, this was cowardly retreat.

Increasingly, there is so much so much that I see on my trips back home that is unforgettable, and so much of what is unforgettable is exactly what we (who’s us? Me? My brother? People like us? Oh what dubious classification) where taught to look away from, to ignore. How does one remain desensitized to the irony of living in high-rise buildings that look over slums? By systematically turning away from what is real and really sad and really terrible so that you can enjoy the fruits of your fortunate circumstance with a clear conscience.

I know from articles like this one that much of the prosperity, vitality and optimism that one sees everywhere in India these days, coexists with desperate, demeaning poverty that drives those who are able to somehow get away, to work for a pittance as unskilled workers in places alien to them. It's all very well to read about this, to watch it in the news and to sympathize; when squarely confronted with it, I volunteered to look away, literally bolted with my tail between my legs and I did it on purpose.

Anyway, what could I have done? Fix the apparatus that has dislodged my fellow travelers of that day from their homes and families? Yes, yes, I could have accepted it and endured it for three days and allowed it to make me a little more human, influence me and shape my future actions. But I couldn't find the gall to do so and I am ashamed for it, but to report this here is to hold myself accountable for my own thoughts.

Certainly this thread of thought and experience is to be continued...

2011-03-19T10:27:00.001-07:00

"There is a tendency to trivialize the world that women occupy because its an emotional world. Because you’re looking at things from within."

- Pragya Tiwari, in her interview with Candace Bushnell, Jaipur Literary Festival 2011.

Why am able to completely agree with that statement when I can barely follow it? What does that even mean? So does this mean men observe the world from without? Without what? Emotional nuance?

I find it difficult to write these days, because my mind is no longer observing or analyzing, it is holidaying. Its taken off, on vacation, because it doesn’t want to see how the world is changing, or how people are changing, it wants to dwell in the halcyon fantasy where love, comfort and security (and attention, affection and pleasure) abound. Paradise.

And Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1 would furnish the scene.

2011-03-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

I love meeting people. I thought we'd graduated from the CQ bridge, but clearly, we have not and I'm glad for it, in a way...this particular bash one was thoroughly entertaining.

person 1: 'O i love your dress. I have the same one'

person 2: 'Oh I'm sure it looks better on you. It doesn't fit me very well, because I'm so skinny... but this was the smallest size.'

person 1: 'Is that right...'

person 2: 'Anyway, I'm glad you didn't wear the same dress.'

And a vignette for you:

Random guy surrounded by group of people:
' I recently met someone and she asked me where I work. I said, BP. Wham! She punched me! On the face! "How could you," she said, "how could you stay...after... the reckless loss of life and property they caused" I was like, lady, its not like we planned it. Shit happens. Then I asked her what she did. She named a private equity firm. So I told her that firms like her's fire people without prior warning causing a reckless loss of life and property. " Ha!" she said, " but its not part of our company policy" As if creating oil spills is part of OUR company policy. So I tried to explain to her again- shit happens. Then she asked me what I did at BP. I said I was an oil trader. Wham! She punched me again! Apparently I was part of the oil racketeering business that lead to wars and natural disasters. But hey, I said, dont shoot the enabler! When you guys stop taking flights on Tiger airways then we'll talk. You think you could get a ticket to Kuala Lumpur at 35 dollars if Tiger airways didn't hedge oil prices?"

Anyway, I took the last train home, seated opposite a girl with pink hair, blue toe nails and purple contact lenses. The disembodied grandmother voice over the platform speaker phones kept reminding me that ' the train at platform A to Pasir Ris will no longer be arriving. The last train to Pasir Ris has terminated at 11.45pm. Goodnight,' just stopping short of saying, 'run along now, time for bedsies.'

Hello Blog

2011-03-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

Hello Blog,

I'm back for an express purpose. To rant. About how much i hate to-do lists.

I hate to-do lists. They haunt me like demons. They never shrivel up and die. They just grow like sequoia trees (but without the majesty or wonder...actually lousy comparison). Hateful, beastly things. You strike one thing at the top and two more appear at the bottom. They're nightmares that just dont end. You think you're done, now you can relax and drift away into a day dream but NOO...there's ANOTHER thing to do. I dont want things to do. I want no more deliverables. I dont want to deliver. To whom do I owe a delivery? Huh? Whom? To whom do beetles owe their creeping on walls? To whom do lizards owe snapping flies? To whom do ducks owe quacking and frogs owe croaking? To whom, I ask? Why do anything? I want to be a Baloo and just do nothing, bear necessities and all that. At this point, Ayn Rand would probably dismiss me as vermin, not fit to inhabit the human body I carry around. But screw that, I believe in a divine right to exist without being productive (for LIMITED periods of time). O god, i need a holiday. bleah.

We walked off to look for America

2010-10-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

A method of artistry is to explore an idea that appeals to you, as it travels through you- through your mind, filtering into your thoughts, then streaming out of your hands and knees as action and rolling off your tongue as words. Clattering heels, nightmares, the smells of memory.

While some enjoy chasing ideas down to their moment of birth in the real world, some others like to follow them down to their logical end. In things and people the end is real, the options are limited- time doesnt go on forever. But for the world it does. In the real world, nothing ever ends- the baton is merely passed from one that is near death, to one that will continue to live a while more. Even when it ceases to exist, the history of the world continues to play itself out as the aftermath.

So the experience of imagining is always exclusive- the world contains all possibilities and imagination refines the idea's path down to one. Its called a narrative. You can make narratives out of words, but also out of gliding hands, out of spreading ink and harpsichords. Narratives are also made of kitchen tiles, of baby names and the way hair is braided.

And so, the imaginer walks down a lonely road, picking choice flowers from people and places along the way. What I'm trying to say, is that the creation of life is like a work of art, but essentially one that progressively distances you from the rest of the world. You open your eyes and the world is young- anything can be. The years go by, you chose your narrative. So dying, exiting the world, is the only logical end, it's the end of possibility- it doesn't scare me, if I can get there by choice.

devolution

2010-10-03T20:11:00.001-07:00

I am turning into a brainless doll. While I get to know my muscles better and better, my mind is draining out all information regarding the state of the world and such as irrelevant ‘trash’. Thus, the evolution of the self obsessed spray-painting-trapeze-artist.

Colored Circles

2010-08-08T09:03:00.000-07:00

Today I feel like chasing birds in my thoughts. Perhaps this blog's destiny is to turn into a sketch pad full of doodle-words.

No matter. Even doodle words need a home.

So much of time is wasted dreaming about the could-be, would-be, should be's, when I could just as well have been making circles of paint on white sheets and watching what new colors the venn diagrams create.

A life worth telling

2010-08-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

My grandmother’s great wish for me is that I become a writer and chronicle our family history. This is also my mother’s greatest fear. Every time I mention the word publish she shudders involuntarily. Let sleeping dogs (and skeletons) lie. So, on balmy summer nights, with stomachs full of mangoes, ammamma and I would remember the ancestors, who still leave ectoplasmic footprints around the old family house (now carved up like the Chinese Melon), muttering to themselves in Malayalam in their flat, pharyngeal voices, and spraying chewed up betel leaves into brass spittoons.

A series of Grandmothers- Mutthis- feature in these stories, Grandmothers who's husbands names are not invoked, as if they were Amazonian queens. Grandmothers coping with tradition, Grandmothers coping with the Raj, grandmothers coping with communism, Grandmothers coping with modernity, Grandmothers battling and overcoming illness, Grandmothers winning their many small wins and suffering their many great defeats. A great pantheon of heroic grandmothers, of an obscure branch of the snake-dynasty, that finally whittles down to me. My mother, naturally not asleep, would sneer and scold us for that sort of nonsense talk, for filling up my head with these stories, polluting my aspirations of becoming a 'serious young woman', with that of becoming a great, story-worthy, story-writing Grandmother.

Who do you think you are? Arundhati Roy?

So the stories were kept in my head, to be taken out when it was time to write them down. It got me into a habit of collecting stories. This is a very simple habit to cultivate; all you have to do is listen and then keep safe. These days I try to spell them out into paper, but thats when I realize, they're no longer in words.

A cheery hello to my favorite manic-depressive writers

2010-08-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

It feels like a bad day. I feel like a bad little girl, in a foul mood, pulling long faces and throwing sullen temper tantrums. Am unreasonably jealous of anyone else's good fortune today. Am sure that today's beauty will go unappreciated.

Ironically, it's Plath and Woolf who offer me comfort on my bad days and a pressing sensitivity on my precariously happy days. These depressed women should technically not be important at all because sadness should not be not important. It is proof of waste, a symptom of loss. Get over it, I say, focus on the future. But we like to meditate on the past don't we? There's so much to learn from sorrow, if one cares to dissect it into its constituent elements. Mostly, however, one does no such thing; one tends to focus exclusively on the pain of it, for the exquisite sense of awareness it brings.

Both of these writers are so empathetic, life must have been one excruciating affair for them, as clearly seen from one's compulsion to test the boiling point of brain by sticking her head into an oven and the other's mid day stroll down to the middle of a rushing river with stones in her pockets. What hell it should be for having no respite from reality! No precious illusions, nothing to quiet the questions, the inability or perhaps the unwillingness to find any answers. The world we see through their eyes is drenched in meaning. A world over which loomed an inevitable darkness. A beautiful world but also a sad world- a frozen moment before the thing of beauty wastes away or mutates into something terrible. In fact, that is just hearsay from Rilke:

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,

and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.

(Duino Elegies)1912 to 1922

So, a thing of beauty, a joy forever? How can it be-sadness is often so beautiful and so many beautiful things are sad?

The latest goodbye

2010-07-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I caught up with someone I met in through work recently. We have a nice connection- telepathic almost. But in fact, we've only ever interacted 5 times in total over the last 4 months. Her tenure here is already over- she's off this Saturday. As we parted, presumably forever, she said, in spite of the general good feel and wanting to somehow say something...important, you know, suited to the gravity of the situation, all that could be said was, 'Well, bye then, nice to know you.'

Rude? In that context, it was the only thing that could be said. Nice to have known you.
Of late, I seem to be meeting people, who in another dimension I might have known better. But in this one, all there is opportunity for is a mere hello, as if we were joggers running on parallel tracks, waving at each other . But like passing planets on their solitary orbits, it feels like this sort of rendezvous is as predestined as it is merely happenstance.

Value

2010-07-27T03:18:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks were quick to go by, rightly so, since speed with which time flies is directly proportional to the happiness contained in its moments.

So this fortnight, in the midst of all that happiness, the following ideas courteously presented themselves in my drawing room, sat down with me for tea and politely conversed with my idealism-fueled angst. This angst is one of my closest and longest friends and I cannot bear to see it thrashed- I rely on it to keep my passions alight. But there it was. Beaten up black, blue and black some more.

First, there was 'the question of following one's dream'. It turns out, there is no question about it after all. Its the dream that follows. Or rather, haunts. Its like malevolence or a beautiful poem, it seeps down to the minuscule windows in the lungs and billows and billows, till one is ballooned. Then one can fly away or float up like a bloated, not to mention dead, fish.

Second, there was 'the question of the evil corporation'. The evil corporation was somebody's dream. The evil corporation makes money because people want to consume the thing(s) they make. The evil corporation,with their evil dream can afford to support thousands of people and their children for the rest of their days. Can your dream do that?

Next, there was 'the idea of 'apres moi, le deluge'. Apparently, rather than be something for the young to fear, this concept is more a hope for the old.The world is just switching on and off, winking as if it were a giant eye, on the face of a giant joke.

And 'freedom'. There is no dearth of freedom fighters, but there is the dearth of a fight. There are no locked cages here. The key is choice, there is always the freedom to choose.

Blogging with Gusto since 2005

2010-07-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, so in a conversation with avid blogger friend, I finally realized why I start and restart blogs every time I shut one down out of sheer frustration. The cause of my frustration is usually the inability to answer this two word question: Why blog? Whats the point of a personal blog at all? What is being showcased? Is it merely a gloat station? A self importance counter? A public portal for anyone not good enough to get to print? What is it?

Well today, it became quite apparent to me that for me there has always only been one real reason to blog at all. Its not to show how much I've accomplished. Or to talk about all that I've done, who I've met or where I've been. Its function may be likened to Dumbledore's Pensive

For those who don't read Harry Potter (I managed to keep with it till Book 4) it's a magical object that can be used to store memories. In Rowling's story, wizards can remove a thought from their mind, and keep it in storage. That leaves them with a clear, fresh mind to concentrate on more pressing matters.

Crudely said, it would be an eloquent mental dump. But it could also be scrap book. Or a photo album. I could just lock up my journal but one can think and think and until one is thunk - thoughts are not even real unless they are shared or recorded to be shared in the future.

Well sure, its not a particularly noble or savvy motivation, but honestly this it- here's me thinking aloud.

Here Sometimes

2010-07-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

Every day includes much more non-being than being. - Virgina Woolf

Angashuddhi in real life

2010-07-01T03:07:00.000-07:00

Three months ago, I was introduced the possibility of there being a 'grand theory of aesthetics' by, of all people, a linguistics professor and a couple of fellow dancers. What does this mean? It means a common parameter by which something can be judged as aesthetically pleasing or not. O yea, megalomania at its maddest.

Now, its a common malady in these democratic, first ammendment days, when freedom of expression means that anyone can express themselves in just about anyway and say- I think THIS is beautiful, YOU just dont get it.

You just dont get it is a creative safe zone for most artists, a nice warm blanket to crawl under, when the big ugly world says in bold letters, you suck!

Well, what they're actually saying is that 'your work doesnt do a thing for us'. This is really crucial feedback. If you're making something for the world outside, you want it do something for them. Make them, laugh or cry or think. Entertain, educate, stimulate, bore, scare. Something.

But what differentiates, lets take dance in this case, a good piece from a bad one? A good dancer from an amateur? Preference is different- some people like pop & lock, some people like ballet and no matter what you do, their preferences aren't really going to change all that much. People instinctively relate to art forms when they have had some sort of cultural initiation to it. We've all been initiated to American pop music, but there might be a subset of people who can also appreciate ghazals or South Indian street music and can relate to it as much as they do to Akon (really? who are these people?)

So now what am I saying? That there is a quality in any art form which allows even to the uninitiated to distinguish good art from bad. A low quality javanese dance performance, would make itself obvious, even to a crowd of Japanese tourists. They would say 'ah, ah!' about the costumes and the gamelan sounds, but it wouldn't really do anything for them. On the other hand, noone at an Andrea Bocelli concert, even opera haters forcibly tied to a chair nailed to the ground, would come out indifferent.

So whats the answer? Surprisingly, the consenses, after running through a myriad possible criteria to judge artistic quality, was that good art is deliberate art. Art that is created with the awareness that it is being created. Movements with motive and a clear vision of its goal. Art with a point, any point, even the perfectly valid point of pointlessness, to make.

In the sense, deliberation begins before the movement is created and continues after it ends, the end point being the reader/receiver/audience/spectator. Good art takes the act of witnessing into account. It takes the consumer into account.

No, not sell out. Noone said sell out here.

This doesn't mean good art no longer permits the impulsive flourishes and curlicues of the artist- no thats not what I mean. If my intent is to create good Rococo, then every ornate, frivilous sweep of shell, dragon and reed should be deliberate, so even the die-hard minimalist may appreciate my intent to celebrate excess.

Even the accidental beauty of chance, incorporated with intention, has a point to make. Like bleeding water colors or improv-acting.

In other words, good aesthetics implies clarity of communication, which in turn means a clarity of expression right down to the tiniest indivisible unit. Its so organic- the seemingly chaotic universe is an elegant dance of atoms.

You know, its like all those times, when your father used to holler over the pounding sound of U2's 'Elevation' (I'm from a small town okay? U2 was the loudest it ever got at my place.)

'Whats all that noise?'
And you said, ' Its not noise papa, its awesome!'

And if he listened to it twice, he'd know it was awesome too.

For Christmas this summer...

2010-06-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, I think 'The Secret' is just about as lame and gimmicky as a book can get, no offense to its die-hard fans out there who insist that the Law of Attraction is all but meta-physics, but I have to admit that these days, the winds seem to be blowing in some nice little surprises straight out of my wish list.

Exhausted (and exhausting) old boss - leaves.
Beatific new bosses (note plural and hence less room for exhaustion)- arrives
Up and coming projects - show promise, rapidly morphing into REALITY.
The bald spot on my temple- finally closes in.
Blogger templates- get smarter and prettier.
My enneagram is the same as some really talented people- Michael Jackson's (RIP) and James Dean's (RIP). Bright future.
A (nuclear) family reunion is being planned. YAYYYYY.
All my nightmares these days are merely logistical.
While excavating the ruins of the blogosphere circa 2006-2009, I tripped over the bony remains of this blog. Hurrayyy, one hundred and seventy two posts of delightful, grammatically perfect flaff for my reading pleasure.

Its a good week, so far.

Sunday Afternoon @ work

2010-06-20T03:09:00.000-07:00

I really dont want to go to that meeting. I don't. Its a Sunday evening dang it, I should be wallowing away in my comfortable little bed- not slogging in the hot, mid-June sun, jumping from bus to train to bus for a job that I'm not even being paid for. Especially not with this snotty, sniffly cold thats been acting up since last monday. Ugh.

But, its for love, so I will go. And there you have the underlying theme of my life. The things that I do, with this blind, fanatic hope that my life will unfurl into something meaningful- as long as I keep pumping the love. Bah.

Is this really going to work? Sometimes I wonder, if it hadn't just all been youthful fallacy- I should have just stuck to something more predictable. Something that could be defined better, more marketable. Everyone's born with a healthy dose of cynicism these days and no body expects you to actually like what you to do, let alone love it. Isn't that messed up?

Well, it remains to be seen, how this experiment is going to work out. I write some of it out here, especially those that are as mundane as hell, for company's sake, as a record of how yet another, supposedly insignificant day of life passed by. Because the blank spaces and the white noise, that seems to be the stuff that life is really made of- not gore and glory and drama. It's for posterity, you know.

Okay, now I feel compelled to wink.

Okay Am Back

2010-06-19T03:50:00.000-07:00

Well, after Bali, Borbobodur, Bratislava packed into two months, I'm full of things to say. I really have less to say about those places- I'm really not a travel journalist, but there's a lingering flavor of journey clinging to me, to my room, my desk at work, the words I choose to use, you know...still have sand in my shoes, all of that. I'm just back to wanting to say something out aloud to the great, gaping void and waiting for the echoes to ring back. Its kind of a lonely exercise but really, nicer to think that your ideas are out of your word processor and are floating around somewhere in the universe, meeting ETs and lost sputniks. Maybe some nice, normal human folk too :P

Bali 1

2010-04-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

Am churning this out in a bit of a hurry so excuse the grammar and spelling and format!

The plane-bus (Air Asia) landed here safely at Bali's Denpasar airport at about 1.30 pm (no diff between singapore time and here) and then we took an hour long taxi ride to Ubud, Bali's cultural center.

Ubud is littered with crude artists gallerias, sculptors workshops and numerous handicrafts unique to bali for sale. The people here are staunchly hindu and when they hear that we are from India, the first thing they ask is - you also Hindu! And if i say yes, they look very pleased. I am put up at a home stay, in the compound of a family of traditional artists. Eddy the concierge-manager, is really the most friendliest, most helpful guy you ever met. Typical balinese homes have a sort of revised 'tharavadu' system- instead of one large house around a courtyard, they have several little little duplexes and line houses inside the same compound, seemingly helter-skelter. Some of thse little houses are now hostels for tourists. The family here is very simple and traditional. The grandmothers sit on the steps of their homes and pluck betel leaves from the vine or shave the coconut leaves into broom sticks, as if this were Telicherry- bringing you to the obvious connection my Mallu mind made, as per the passage below.

The resemblance of Bali to Kerala is just striking. Waving paddy fields, alternating heat and rain, moss growing over gravel, weeds bursting out of cracks in the sidewalks that line the narrow winding tar roads...even the people look like malayalees with slanting eyes. The houses are so similar, with the high walls guarding the face of the houses in the compound, above which only the red rood tiles, stained dark green with moss is seen. Only thing is that the roofs end in corners with ornate flourishes. Actually, its this ornate-ness that characterizes so much of the sculpture and architecture of Bali and makes it so distinctly beautiful, even though Indian themes and styles are often employed. It is so much more intricate and detailed and...for wanting a better word, ornate.

Since the idea was to relax today, I visited one of those spas that Bali is famous for. It was unbelievably cheap, though the beauticians and masseuses were very thorough and professional and the establishment was not at all shabby. I got an hour long balinese massage, an hour long flower facial and an hour long avacado cream hair treatment, all for just IDR 250,000 which is about S$30. In Singapore, this would have cost me $300; in India at least $3000. Amazing! I feel polished and brand new.

Tomorrow morning, I am cycling to Buntur Mount Volcano.For BREAKFAST. Really, am thrilled to bits. And feeling parched as I've run out of mineral water.

Later!

The Human Element

2010-03-18T00:50:00.000-07:00

One of the many lucky things about work is that I get to complain about being forced to watch performances. Each time its Asian Contemporary Dance, I usually wish I'd brought a long a gun. With a silencer, since I don't want to be fired for disrupting one of my own shows.

But yesterday was different. I finally understood that it isn't Asian Contemporary dance I cannot stomach, its their chosen subject- silent suffering. Usually, this theme, a universal favorite amongst local artists here (or shall I say, world famous in Singapore), makes me cringe; I imagine that a slap on the wrist should fix all this whining - really, what are you complaining about? You should try the third world.

But after yesterday's performance, it struck me that for them, it is not a comparative experience. I always have something worse to measure this up against. For them, there is life here and then there is the rest of the world. And no matter where they go, their new lives will always be second to their formative experiences here. They cannot rub it out.

Its all very well to say that the people of this country have a higher standard of living than most of the world, but there is unhappiness here, a feeling of being stitched up and silenced, no matter what the GDP looks like. And the artists of this place, they are recording it in their work. How well or badly it is being recorded, is of course debatable. But later, when the art movements of this time and place are reflected upon, this sentiment of dissatisfaction amidst perfection is going to be resoundingly prominent and there is little to be done about it.

I do not like Asian contemporary dance, because I am not interested in the issue that it is often trying to mediate. I cannot relate to it.

And it is this disinterest in issues that are so real to them, that draws up wired fences. There becomes an Us and a Them. I will never become a naturalized citizen here, because I have never shared their private hell. Maybe that is true for all places and maybe that is why people hate immigrants, to different degrees.

The young choreographers of T.H.E's Second Dance Company, were exceptional, because they were successful in communicating the intensity of their experiences as Singaporeans, not only to compatriots, but also to aliens like myself.

When we started talking about this, Kuik Swee Boon, the director of T.H.E. smiled with his glowing face and his hermit-eyes and said,
'Ah yes, the stage...it is a special place.'

2010-03-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a funny story for you. Its called my life. Usually, its not this eventful.

I had a monumentally ridiculous day yesterday. The first part involved me waking up late at 830am and getting to work at 10 am and earning the ire of my boss. She was pissed. Perhaps she was also pissed about other things, so she took it all out on me. I stood there and faced it like a man. Then I went to my cubicle and caught my breath and officially set the tone for a morose day.

I spent the rest of the day planning my handover since I'm moving to a new department. In the course of this, I couldn't find an important file.

hi lo

up down

I searched everywhere

and despaired the whole afternoon

finally, I called up the person in charge

and asked her to send me copies of the documents

because I had gracelessly LOST them

(this morning when I reached work, the file was sitting at my table. Gerri told me that she had borrowed the file for some reason and had not returned it. She was off work yesterday.)

so I was disheartened

at that point

another person

comes to me

asking me to redo a contract that I had drawn up

saying there was a typo in the amount paid area

I was like argh...because the contract requires my signature and my boss' signature as well. So she would know about my typo. Normally, this is not a big deal, but today, I was finding it hard to laugh at myself. Anyway, I was resigned to my fate, so I went and got it done. Boss didnt make a big deal out of it, because she can be sweet like that. I fancy she felt kind of...bad...for shouting at me. Or maybe not.

After this day I went home. My fridge had stopped working. Vegetables rotten. No food. Stomach and soul both hungry. So I cooked daal and rice with salt and went out to get fresh veggies and fruits. And also to shop for a brighter perspective.

I decided to use the opportunity

to listen to some music i had downloaded day before - Ella fitzgerald and Bob Dylan songs that I've never heard before. That was the nicest part of the day. It was like listening to old friends.

I got back and ate. And showered. And did laundry, did the dishes, hung up washing and folded up the dry clothes. Then I began making my bed. I was feeling much better.

Then there was a sickening metallic crack. MY BED BROKE. One of its legs just gave way. MY BED BROKE!!! It was almost funny. I was laughing and howling at the same time. My housemate Roy rushed to my rescue. He's so always so good humored. He started laughing as well and laughingly fixed up the broken leg.
But the minute I sat down on the bed it went off again.

So now I'm sleeping on a 3 legged bed.

but its a large bed

as long as I sleep on one corner

it holds up

The Book of Changes

2010-03-11T07:14:00.000-08:00

Today is not special to my brother, although twenty four years ago, when the baby form of me arrived, he was pretty excited. He robbed a tiny piece of pink cotton that nested my mother's gold earrings in a jewel box and set it out as a bed for me. He expected me to be very small. But I was not. Now he says birthdays are all fuss, as though they don't happen every year. Its just a date.

My last memory of consciously feeling like I was any age, was 14. We were on a bus, my best-est-friend-in-the-world and I, on our way back from our class picnic to Monkey Falls. We were sitting there, looking out through the window and feeling amazed that so much had happened and we were still just fourteen. It was pouring outside and our heads were dripping wet with rain and waterfall. It was one of those gift moments when time rests for a second in your palm, before it squirms irritably and escapes from between your fingers like a slippery eel.

This happy day, when the world has been so kind to me, hangs like an embarrassment in the face of such indifference it has shown to someone else. It feels vulgar to be happy. Normally, I am oblivious to the sadness of others because it feels distant and unreal, like trailing alphabets on a headlines tab. This time, it has hit home, it has hit at the heart of self centeredness. A cure, shot to the nerve.

Still, it must be lucky to be able to feel lucky. So thank you, dear world.

Processed and Unrefined.

2010-03-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

Nowadays, I find a lot of people, including myself, who enjoy exhibiting the process - marketing and ticketing this participation in the process as if it were an experience denied to those who live ordinary, post-processed, microwavable lives. Perhaps it is exciting for them. For me, however, when I witness another person's creative process, feelings of sickness and humiliation wash over; as if it were me, not them, baring all on that platform. Its like reading the diary of a masochist, as if it living it on a daily basis weren't enough. Why do it? Why be so public? I suppose its a form of generosity... and also a form of appeasing one's ego.

2010-03-04T22:32:00.001-08:00

I was thinking about how people deal with loss. I can only intuit another person's experience by willing myself to believe that it’s happening to me.

It must be like suddenly finding yourself walking through an empty corridor filled with silences. And then there are the noisy, howling sounds of sweeping change.

2010-02-27T07:59:00.000-08:00

There is a dim sensation of reality, as a bus comes hurtling down the road, gulps down and then spits me out into my home, with naked globs of blu-tack sticking out of the white walls. Fallen photographs look up at me with bruised egos.

I'm thinking of the faces people put on while getting on a bus, or a train, or when they say hi to you at the corridor of your workplace. Oh, there goes Mr. Intense, Mr. Top of the Morning, Ms Bitter, Mrs. Serious Journalist and Ms I-Have-one-cat-and-over-200-cat-statues. I put on my Ms. Pastless-who-was-born-yesterday face, so that no one will expect anything smart out of me. Its my defense against stupid. Two days ago, it struck me that I do have a past and it might be very becoming when worn. When you come across as guileless and guilt free, people deal with you as if with a child. That used to be a good thing, an attractive quality for those looking for love and smiles (until the 'condititions apply' tag reveals itself. Then there is shock, disbelief and accusations of betrayal.) But these days, I've been introduced to an unfamilar breed of the intelligent person, who just doesn't trust the twenty three year old picture of innocence. Thats a long time for nothing to have happened.

How do you get the attention of someone who's simply put, above your league?
You close your eyes, meditate and meet them at their level. Thats how Shakti gets her Shiva in every one of her incarnations. You have to be, unshakable, if you wish access to someone unshakable.

Now its going to be a bloody mess tearing out Ms.Stupid-face's face.

In conversation with absence

2010-02-22T07:43:00.000-08:00

It is a strange experience to befriend the silhouettes of things and people. These days, I find myself tracing the walls of crumbling buildings, feeling for fingerprints. As an artist, or rather as someone who's been let loose with the tag of an artist, I have the privilege of writing out the stories of those who once inhabited the spaces between these walls, as per my will. However, the more their lives are remembered out of nothingness, the more I have the responsibility to recollect the truth and discard all those bits of fancy.

I once read a book by Gita Hariharan called When dreams travel, where she conjures up the life of Scheherazade, story-teller extraordinaire. The author sifts through sand dunes and broke down palaces, resurrecting Scheherazade's search for stories that can save her life - and those of many others. I'm given to flowery prose and little wordy embellishments; I can load them on to a page until I get SICK in the stomach, and this book was the end of all my excesses. I mean to say that this is a good book for those who like to listen to stories about stories. And two years later, its coming back to me now as a reference book, a manual, on how to speak to dead people, even if they are fictitious dead people. It is also a good reminder that there is no rule that reality has to have any more bearing than imagination.

Currently, I've been commissioned with a dream-like project; to build a narrative around an ancient ruin. They gave me a legendary place of learning, the Nalanda University and a dance form called Bharatanatyam, and said, go, now make something of this, make the two come together. They gave me an office and a magic wand and shut me up in peace to whisk up some sort of potion, that would let the story of one flow into that of the other. Yes, in my mind, its as dramatic as all that.

But in real life, it involved scouring over journals, books, papers and photographs, surveying facts and examining the remaining proof of life, to sketch a story where there was none. It is at once creative and monotonous; it borders between bull-shitting and actually visualizing a space that truly existed. The unravellings of my search have startled me, because the connections are so obvious, I cant believe they havent been noticed before this. Ideas of move from the minds people, on to the bodies of people and start resembling them- as deities, idols, messiahs and incarnations- that are then immortalized on the hard surfaces of rocks. And then, some day, when enough time has passed, the rocks remind people of what their forefathers aspired to be, so they take a cue and restore the idea back into present.

How do I know all this? I don't. There are two ways to substantiate your hunches . One is to look to history and physical evidence. The other is to recreate the scene in a new space and show everyone how it might have been.

But before I close, let me acknowledge the absent person who has, by merely existing in a corner office, rounded up the essence of my quest, through conversations that we've only ever had in my head.

Plans

2010-01-20T21:53:00.000-08:00

Death Cab For Cutie made an album in 2005 called Plans. The music was enjoyable yes, but it was the semantics of the title that had this earth shattering effect on me.

This is an entry illustrating what sort of animals plans are.

Plan is a simple word, perhaps the most ironic one in the entire English language. A plan, by virtue, is both baseless and absolutely indispensable. because its loaded with this humaneness - it is optimistic, poetic, tragic and beautiful.

This winter I found myself back at home, a place where I had spent 8 years plotting my escape. The consciousness that I wanted to leave home, first verbalized itself at age 10, when I didn't win free airfare to Florida and tickets to Disney world. I was so unhappy about it that I cried alone for hours in my room. I had sent my drawing of Mickey and Friends to Zee TV's Disney hour and had been absolutely certain that I would win. I fished the stamps and envelope out of Papa's study and mailed it myself. I didn't tell anyone about it because the dream was too big, it was too sacred and consequential to be uttered out loud. I was afraid of jinxing it.

Once the mail was out, I spent all my free time imagining I would go to a place where there would be nice little roofed houses with sprawling lawns, arranged along wide, straight cut roads (this is also, incidentally, how my textbooks described the roads of excavated Harappa). There would be people in shorts and they would go to high schools with lockers. I planned to have a sunny day in Florida, wear my jeans and my sneakers, let my hair down and buy ice cream from a man in an ice cream van. I wasn't interested in meeting any of the Disney characters. I just wanted to go to a place where people dressed like Veronica Lodge and I could dress like Betty Cooper.

That's all it was, a simple matter of dress. I couldn't dress the way I wanted to in Coimbatore. Not even as a 10 year old child. When I did, I'd get stared at. Everywhere, all the time. Its not like that now, but it was like that then. So I wanted to go to a nice sunny place, where I could walk down a neat little street, licking my Popsicle stick, wearing my jeans and sneakers. Amma wouldn't stop me because it was safe to walk down the street alone, safe to eat ice-cream that wasn't from a proper shop. I wouldn't have to plait my hair or wear a calf-length pinafore to school or drag a 5 kilo school bag along. All I wanted was two days of this, just to know it was real and entirely possible for me some day.

When the contest results were announced by Vishal on TV, my vision of this life was shattered. And I'd been reclaiming it ever since.

A few days ago, I was walking down from the bus stop to my apartment, in my jeans and sneakers, with my hair whipping in the breeze, when a bicycle bell tinkled from behind and nudged me back to the present. The picture was vaguely familiar. I had never noticed that all my dreams have long since come true :)

The strange thing is, it feels like a part of me has died.

Dying to live

2010-01-17T06:08:00.000-08:00

Everyone's always saying, how crazy it is that you work so hard, you work so hard all day and for what? For money to dress your nest with? For health insurance, because your lifestyle wrecks your mind and body? For travel, even when you don't have days on your calendar? No maybe, I got it all wrong. You work for love. You work for that thick and warm feeling of having changed the world, albeit in a small way. Or maybe you work for that crisp feeling of having conquered the world, albeit in a small way.

You also try some other stuff. Write a story. Take language classes. Ring your mom. Head to town for a party with friends. Make a movie. Visit the sick or the aged or the unfortunate. You fill in the empty spaces of your life with things that aren't result oriented. Tingle your sense of creativity, sympathy and empathy, so that you feel less like a robot and more like a creature that can also feel, understand and inspire. Ultimately, you want to create something thats as alive as the earth spinning on its axis. Perhaps you'll find some joie de vivre in the process. Making a life is nearly as difficult as making a living.

This morning, life imitated art and I woke up from my 17 year old self in a dream, into my 24 year old self. My 17 year old self had in turn woken up from my 14 year old self, in a dream within the dream. All my selves were forlorn. Where had time gone? It had gone off, like a loaded gun.

Increasingly, there's a fretful Djinn in me that's throwing tantrums quotidian. It wants out of the office cubicle. It comes up with crazy, impractical ideas- paint, sing, strum on guitar-sitar, dance. It conjures up phantoms of an alternative life, all bohemian and unreasonable, living everyday on a lark. But what will happen once I get to sunny island central? I'll probably start preparing for my GMAT, because my Djinn is monkey wearing a purple turban.

This is 'how to be unhappy 101'. Aim for something really difficult to get. Suffer the hardships through this quest, with eyes on the prize. Once you've eroded irreplaceable bits of yourself in this mad-match and secured the trophy, be self-derogatory, belittle your achievements, decide that you were all along, chasing a mirage. Then embark on a self-destructive, hedonistic barrage all over town. Don't celebrate your victory, because after all, victory is just a matter of perspective. The only thing worse than your prayers being unanswered is having them answered. Of course, you could abandon your project before completion. That's an even better way to feel like shit.

When you accept the senselessness of it all, it makes sense all the more.

The thing that makes life worthwhile, are goals. I came to this conclusion after years of aimlessly wandering across days and days of nothing to live for and wondering what that elusive thing was that made people get up and go.

Having nothing to live for can happen to anyone. It can happen to someone who has everything. It can happen to someone who has nothing. It can happen to the young, to the old. It can happen to the beautiful as well as the diseased, to saints and to sinners. Its a thing, like say, a cold, that cannot be cured, but it can be silenced - by making a to do list.

India Diaries: Writing in India

2010-01-11T20:14:00.001-08:00

I used to be friends with this guy who hated living in Singapore. By hated, I mean viscerally despised it more than anything else, for its clinical coldness and lack of poetry. A student of linguistics and a talented writer, all his written work would be singed with this frothing fury of being islanded in a place like Singapore, with its one track focus on daily bread graduating to cash, car and condominium. This was absurd to me because growing up, THE AIM had been clear - leave India. To go anywhere else- the US (being the plum), or the UK, or Austrailia, or Singapore or the ‘Gulf’. Anywhere but here. The earlier you leave, the better.

I’ve been home for a week now and this time, my experience here has been different. Coming back home between college was still just a nostalgia trip back to old times. India still never opened itself and amazed me like it has this time. A long time has passed since my old friend last complained about the horror of a realized Utopia and what it does to the left brain. But now I see that perfection is uninspiring. Perfection means stagnation. Once you peak, there’s nowhere to go but down. Not like India, at least not like it is for us upper middle class folks.

Not like India, where the New Indian Express at Rs.3.75/- goes like an espresso shot to your head.

Not like India, where the average advertisement, between the morning-midcap headlines, has the creative quality of a 30 minute American sitcom.

Not like India, where the girls with their beautiful faces, in their tight jeans and embroidered, noodle-strap Kurtas and their horrible, DIY streaked orange hair, eat rice, rasam and avial at home and then sneak out with their secret boyfriends to pubs in 5-star hotels, that close at 11pm.

Not like India, where you don’t need a trashcan or public toilets because that’s what the foot path is for.

Not like India’s ‘rich’ world heritage sites that still house homeless people under its carved arches.

Not like India where you come back home for a 10 day winter vacation from Austin or Cincinnati or U-Penn and the first thing you do is gather your old school buddies, who’re also just back from MIT or Stanford or Virginia, to play cricket at the empty plot by the town graveyard.

Not like India where the women are colorful without a trace of make up.

Not like India where stray dogs swarm in packs around housing complexes, like street wolves.

Not like India’s with its bruised roads, heat, pollution and dust.

Not like India with its blood and terror and stupefying kindness.

Not like India’s mess, not like India’s problems, not like India’s organized chaos and chaotic organizations, that still somehow make people of the highest quality, still makes people who are determined to make it and still makes people who shape the world.

I’m so envious of all those young writers in Zeitgeist, who’ve been here long enough to be acclimatized to this experiential extravagance. It was so hard to write in India because there’s so much to write about. Its like opening Pandora’s box. Its scary for a child; the first short story I wrote at 14, was a horror story.

I find it so easy to be creative in Singapore. Almost all my inspiration comes from the memory or the dream, of life in India. Singapore is my comfortable little jail cell away from real life, where recollection visits me in tranquil captivity. In India, real life is madness and it never ever ceases to stuff itself down throat, petrifying me with amazement. The ink freezes in my pen and my fingers are paralyzed over the keyboard, because I’m looking for beginnings and ends. In India, there’s just flux, the start is obscure, the end point is non existent. In Singapore, everything is cleaner - the beginning is at my departure from India and the end is when I return.

India Diaries: About access

2010-01-11T20:00:00.000-08:00

As far as perfection goes, the mind can be like dark wine; if you leave it aside, in the dark and the cold, and it matures, not festers. But this is not an easy realization to come to, because this is not an age, nor a place that appreciates fine things. Its an age that appreciates fast things, quick things, easy things, flashy things - its like the entire world has gone nouveau riche. Just the other day, I was day dreaming that if someone should call me a splendid woman, I should feel very out dated. What a pity.

'its like the all these people are turning into tribals.’ I complained to my brother.

‘no Aparna, its that all the tribals are turning into people.’

The other day, in the Indian Express' letters to the editor, an offended reader complained after the whole Shashi Tharoor cow-class fiasco, that Tharoor was just another elitist ****** who has trouble concealing his contempt for the common man. I think thats unfair. I think the common man's clique is the hardest one to access, even if they garland you, invite you home and give you tea and parle G. Its because you cant just say sorry and shake off a thousand years of privilege. The meek are inheriting the earth- its only fair and its about time. Hence we eat humble pie on behalf of our great-granddaddies. What fun.

India Diaries: The Great Indian Railways

2009-12-24T20:04:00.000-08:00

I landed in Chennai the next night and for the first time instead of a domestic flight, took an overnight train, the Cheran Express, which goes all the way from Ahmedabad to my home town, Coimbatore. This was taken up mainly to convince myself that its really not a big deal, travelling alone in an Indian train, especially in the ‘safe’ South, where a stolen hand-bag is the worst that can happen. A kind cousin and family helped me through the chaos of the train station. But once I got to my berth, I was ON MY OWN in a compartment packed with strangers.

As usual, I was fumbling around the tiny space, because my enormous Samsonite bag was some twenty kilos too heavy for me to handle. Two men from seats adjacent to mine promptly helped me stuff my bag under the seat. Only once that was done, did I notice that both men were so starkly contrasted, they could have been in a Social Studies text book. One was a middle aged Muslim man, wearing a long beard, poly-cot Kurtas and a lace cap. He was travelling with his elderly parents, the father dressed similarly and his mother totally veiled in her long, black hijab. As luck or drama would have it, the other man was in starched white, with a vermillion cast-mark on his forehead, a beaded rudraksh neklace and yellow threads around his wrists, looking as blatantly Hindu as possible. I blustered a thank you, and they both smiled at me sympathetically and at each other knowingly, since I was obviously an ignorant, NRI fool.

It was almost immediately time to turn in. Of the Muslim family, the son had the uppermost berth while his parents had gotten the middle ones. I asked the son if his mother would like to exchange berths with me, since I had the lowest one. But he smiled and said ‘no, no, no problem, thank you very much!’, before heading to the toilet with a Pepsodent toothbrush. The lower birth on the other side, was occupied by RSS man, who, boisterously insisted on giving up his berth for the old man. Old man took it up gratefully. I followed RSS man’s suit and gently pressurized old lady to switch berths with me. It didn’t take much convincing, of course. By the time, the son was back from the train toilet, he found his parents curled up in the bottom berths like snug bugs.

‘Ah! You exchanged!’, he said to his mother.
‘Yes. But they gave it to us. Voluntary.’ She said the last word in English.
The son grinned at RSS man, ‘Thank you!’
RSS man smiled right back, ‘Inshah Allah’

Gagging on postmodernism

2009-12-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

I take it all back. All that gooey-gushing in the last post about having access to multiple languages and hence their systems of thought- all of that, I take it back.

It would all be so simple if we thought, talked and communicated in the same language. How about Binary? Really, just erase all this word business, rely on the bland absoluteness of numbers and just put up without poetry.

Its almost easy to imagine how and why the Brave New World would emerge- its because people would get fed up of living in pieces.

I wish we didn't have to choke on our accents and on the aftertaste of the Empire, long after its been chewed and digested by history. If you know what I'm talking about. Well, who ever knows what I'm talking about anyway? Need a break from the madness, goodnight.

Modes of Existence

2009-12-13T05:45:00.000-08:00

As a classical dancer I always feel a bit cagey. This irritation, that its not enough to express myself.

I've often wondered, of all the things that I could have chosen to focus, why this? I guess its a means to mediate my existence - the odd genetic constitution that has deemed me chemically more susceptible to feel, than to think. In other words, I choose to focus on the thing that will use this natural tendency for a greater good.

But its not enough. Nope. It becomes gut-wrenchingly clear, when a guitar plays in the distance, or I find myself staring at a perspective-less chinese painting, of cliffs lost in mist. There are things in there that I could never put into mere words or bodily movements.

The medium of expression, the language- be it painting or a type of music, is never limitless. There are just some ideas that are out of its grasp. Take English for example. I began writing when I was very young, into a book that only I would read, because it was the only way to decode my existence. Once an experience or an emotion was locked into a word, and pressed onto a page with the nib of a Hero pen, it was REAL. It was something someone else could recognize and understand. Until then, it was like a dream or a ghost. An unreal thing, a thing with no handle. Unprovable.

The art of a good writer is to present familiar feelings in words that ring true. Then you have to play tricks with it, you have to juggle it into metaphors, spice it up with hyperbole, you have to allude to stories of yore. Of its own accord, the language's scope scope for expression is really limited. How wonderful it would be to have the gift that was stolen at Babel. Grasp all languages and hence have access to ideas that are accommodated easily in one language, but are almost absent in another. Take Zeitgeist for example. Or Bismillah. Or Namaste. There is not one word for it in English, though we can string several to make up the meaning-roughly.

So of late, I've been feeling that Indian Classical dance is not enough. In this dance, all the energy of the universe is drawn from the earth and is centered in the dancer- so bharatanatyam is like advanced yoga, set to song. There's no room in there to express my Conan-the-Barbarian-spewing-fire-and-venom seasons; even if I can get mad on a colossal scale at God Almighty and all, it still seems to require a language, say Tamil or Telugu, and it still requires allusions to stories of yore. I'm in 2010 now. I'm 23. I need another form to allow some room to explode in and its not just Bharatnatyam that fails me. The other disappointments are:

ballet, because ballet is all about flying, there's no grounding in ballet and that upsets me.
contemporary western dance- because that has spun off of ballet and is miserable at keeping time, thanks to all the arbitrariness involved in flying
contemporary Indian dance- its fine, but i still require a fully developed genre.
hip hop- because, its just not me, I can neither make bro' nor ho'. Its not flexible enough to accommodate just anybody's personality.

So while I've been stewing there in this frustration, I happened to find something extraordinary in the show I was running today- a Flamenco performance by the students of Los Tarantos, a local school for the dance form. And there it was, what I'd been looking for- Its well timed and 'earthed', with feet staying on the ground, while the soul soars. The language of song Spanish, is beautiful, but you dont really need to know what it means. While the dance is complex, the complexity is not in technique, its in the expression. And all energy here is centrifugal, it comes from the core of the artiste's emotional experience and spirals out into the world like a phenomenal whip. And balance and beauty here, comes from release.

Perfect.

The 'inter'somniac dreams up a script

2009-12-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

I sleep terribly and remember a lot of my dreams these days. According to my sage-like brother, insomnia passes like the seasons, it comes and it goes and there isn't much to do about it than enjoy it. An acquaintance recently made a film about the writer's insomnia, as I expect he might have experienced it, since he recently also published a book (making him a legit writer unlike some people, say, yours truly). I guess sleep suffers when you cant (or dont want to) switch your brain off.

Goddamnit! had promised myself, never to use parantheses!

Anyway, in between dreams, strange things happen and most of the time, I wake up totally incapable of drawing the line between what actually happened and what was only a dream. In last night's case, it went like this:

I'm looking down at my bank balance on the white slip from the ATM.
Available Balance: $147.50.

I'm hungry. Hungry as frick.

Ha! I think, what the hell, you're here today, gone tomorrow. Live like its your last day.

I head to a five star place, with a creepy, yellow toothed concierge who looks like the general manager at my yoga place.
There's tandoori chicken and raita and butter naan and I polish it off like I've been eating nothing but okra and arrowroot for the last 15 years.

Then I flash my NUS Alumni VISA at concierge who in turn, flashes yellow teeth at me.

Bill says $164.70. I am screwed.

I don't have all of the money, I say. I'll pay you the $20 later. Please. Please. Please.

Conceirge looks amused. I'll just add it to your tab, he says and pulls out a rolled up bill which hits the floor when unfurled.

$944.60. I owe them close to a grand.

Okay, later, on the 18th, I promise. He nods and lets me go.
Thank you, thank you thank you and I break into a run.

I woke up sick with worry, wondering what I was going to do for food and bus fare till the 18th. I didn't realize it was a dream till I was standing at the ATM this morning.

Now if this were a Madhur Bhandarkar Film, the story would be set in Mumbai, the protagonist would be a poor, pretty girl - daughter of a construction worker or something, who'd have come into some money through a game of cards, the largest sum she'd ever had. A lifetime of persistent hunger and ignorance would make her overeat at the Taj and she'd have to sleep with the concierge to pay off the $20. Thus her foray into the world of prostitution. The rest of the film would be an expose, of course.

SVK, of course, had a cleaner reinterpretation, very much a la Srinivasan- aam aadmi from Kerala - the only other person in the world, apart from myself, who can make my father laugh.

This guy... poor guy... maybe a rickshaw driver

His biggest dream in having a meal in a 5 star restaurant

Oh wait!
He's with his friends

and they, 'chalo yaar taj mein khaate hain'

and so everyone's like, 'chalo chalo ... at least chai to peete hain'

and then they go for it... only to realize that a chai costs a few 100 rupees... and they have only a 100 each

So from then on, all rickshaw-walla wants, is to have a full meal at the Taj. It becomes his veri, his vaashi, his personal Mt. Everest.

He works and works and works to save up for that

And the big day comes and he does go and have a meal there

In crisp new clothes and all

After footing a bill of of a few thousand rupees... probably his savings of a year

The End.

So SVK has requested copyright to my dream and plans to turn her version of it into a short film. SVK being herslef, will probably have the film done by the middle of next year, yet another charming addition to her kitty
So anyway, copyright granted. All yours now.

Delicacy

2009-12-05T20:12:00.000-08:00

...many of them recently returned from university abroad as though it were the most natural thing in the world to come back, to return home, no reason not to.
-Kartography, Kamila Shamsie (2002)

And for those of you who've read the book, here's the Nasreen Room of Ali, Zafar, Maheen & Yasmin from Flickr

Advaita- converging musical memories into one great sound.

2009-11-29T22:23:00.000-08:00

The second performance I caught at the Kalaa Utsavam was Delhi based fusion band Advaita.

What can I say, they were interesting enough to warrant shelling out $10 for a (seemingly) baked-at-home copy of their CD.

For all their 'psychedelic' labelling, Advaita's true strength is their firm rooting in Hindustani music- the strong vocals, the sarangi and the tabla, are what delight you between the standard guitar-drum sound of a college rock band. Of course, a very good college rock band, but a college rock band nevertheless.

A lot of inspired sounds- a little bit of U2, some Strings, some Floyd, some Euphoria (remember them? I miss them) some Devin Townsend Project, but this milieu is raised to nearly ethereal levels when Ujwal Nagar, the vocalist, gets on with his aalaap and the mini-ustad Suhail Yusuf Khan (he's twenty years old damnit!) scratches on the sarangi.

So all those erratic musical influences you hear growing up in India in the 90's, start to mingle here - you know, the tapes and records of your parents' youth (I mean Floyd and Led Zep, not Boney M), your first U2 album, the sound of that Pakistani rockband that was so much at home in MTV India, you didn't even think of them as Pakistani- all of this resonating at some level with the classical music you heard at a concert you were dragged to with the adults or the strum and beat of that sitar/tabla you learnt to play as a kid.

This is by no means, a small feat. True to their name, Advaita succeeds in wrapping contrasting musical elements into a single, spirited Indian sound so effectively, that you go, 'Ah! This is both familiar and new!' I personally prefer Indian Ocean in this respect, but hey, the more the merrier.

There's got to be people to do this. Else you loose the best of your cultural heritage, which tends to be too heavy and too loaded to be absolutely attractive to the youth on its own, to the relieving effects of pure pop, aka trash. Either that, or you just participate in and borrow from the cultural treasury of the West. They always do a great job of preserving their past and then letting it morph under the zeitgeist, making it palatable for the next generation.

Anyway, Advaita performed to a PACKED house at the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre on Friday, the 27th. They were good enough to get the crowd chanting along with them towards the end. Great music and great performance. You can listen to their music here. Alternately, if you live around here you can ask me for a copy. Its not piracy, YET.

Clowning around with Hamlet

2009-11-29T06:37:00.000-08:00

The long weekend was broken up by work on Saturday. But still it was a good weekend.
The Kalaa Utsavam at the Esplanade this year had some great shows lined up. Thanks to work, I was only able to catch two of them. And o boy, where they worth it.

The first one I saw this thursday, was Hamlet: the Clown Prince, directed by Rajat Kapoor

So a bunch of clowns- you know striped socks, red nose and all, decide to put up Hamlet. This could be the best thing that has happened to our old, familiar Hamlet in a while. Because, when a bunch of fools, take serious drama and turn it into a circus, the depth and complexity of the original suddenly becomes a lot more apparent. Let me explain.

Over the course of the four hundred years since the play's been written, poor prince Hamlet has been dissected obscenely- the character of a boy who thinks too much, does too little, means well, is good, but makes such a mess of things in the end. Of all the gods and heroes of literature, whats this fascination with Hamlet? Maybe its because he is both fettered by his reason and burnt by his passion. Nothing works for him - not his blue blood, not his beautiful face, not his superior talent and great education, not even his supreme sensitivity to the realities of the world. Very sad, how a man with every fortune is still helpless in the face of his own destiny.

In some ways, the story of Hamlet would do well in a circus, if for nothing else, to lighten the brevity of this awful soup. To illustrate my point, let me take you back to early 2007, to my European Literature class. We were studying Crime and Punishment that week.

Prof: This is the greatest novel in European literature. What do you think the point of this story is?

Us: *blink* then cries of-' god, guilt, religion, reason, right, wrong...'

Prof: No, none of that's it. The point is - Chill out. You've got to chill out. Otherwise, you're going to bring an axe down somebody's head.

What I mean to say is, a tragic predicament is so heavy on our senses that sometimes the only way to see things straight and unbiased is to laugh at it. Like when you see those 'Hitler's mad' videos. Of course its absurd, but the portrayal of Hitler as a horribly spoilt big boy throwing a fit, is probably very close to what 'the anti-christ's' true nature was in the end of his days. Its serious, but its manageable. It doesn't need to happen again.

What if you saw a serious rendition of Hamlet performed or interpreted badly? It would frustrate the hell out of you. But here, you start out with the premise that a bunch of clowns, who dont really get it, are essentially just clowning around, because you know, its a famous play, they want to grab your attention bla bla, so you're much more relaxed and you give into the foolery. And then you have a lot of fun. And surprise surprise, you also gain much insight.

Technically, this shouldn't necessarily be part of an 'Indian' festival of the arts at all, because everything about it, from the premise - clowns performing Shakespeare on the 'street', in french/italian/japanese/takeyourpick gibberish-accented English, to the pop culture references ranging from The Dark Knight to the Moonwalk, was really quite borderless. I mean to say that this idea is not located in an Indian mind or the Western mind, although definitely in a mind educated in the western system. So this play is bound to appeal to audiences unfettered by history and geography, since most educated people in the world will identify with English literature and the rest will identify with American pop culture, far more than an Indian story dramatized in English or vice-versa.

I'm suddenly not sure if thats good or bad :|

Anyway, all in all, great show. 2 hours of laughter and brilliance that just has to end with a standing ovation.

P.S: You dont have to have read Hamlet, ever, to know that he's the one who sits down and contemplates suicide, with the famous - 'Tobeornottobe' line. Its everywhere. Singapore's anti-binge-drinking campaign for the youth, titled GYSB- Get Your Sexy Back has a 'smart' tag line - 'Two beers or not two beers?' - this is very different from 'clowning around with Shakespeare'. Ugh, stop lit-abuse!.

SATC 12 Years Hence: Part 2

2009-11-26T20:32:00.000-08:00

Note: Had to break up the original post. It was too long, even for me.

Incidentally, a few days after finishing the book, aesa pointed me to a little interview on the National Public Radio, by girl blogger eM, who is famous for her SATC lifestyle in Mumbai, and a book she has written detailing a fictitious account of the same. The programme was an interview with three bloggers, from Mumbai, London and Shanghai, who are apparently changing the world.

eM goes first, so while you're starting to get suspicious that she sounds real lame and actually makes her own city sound lame ('bombay's a great city. but only for young people'), its only until you hear the bits with the other two super-bloggers from London and Shanghai, that you get the frivolousness of interview #1.

One line particularly stands out:
'yes, this is the kind of people there are in the country. Get used to it'

Its true. But that's not saying anything. There are a billion people in India. You'll find people in India living in every which way. Some people in India have always lived like that. You mean to say there was no smoking, drinking and sex in India in the 70s, 80s and 90s? No, there was no blogging in those days, so outside of the measly single digit number percentage that 'lived like that', the rest had to get through the daily struggle of life in a complex, developing country and let Hindi Films color their imagination as to what the elite do. Now those excluded from that party, have access to the internet and are insufferably curious, be it with a disapproving or aspirational attitude, about a girl who sits in her room, in her bra and boy-shorts, and blogs about her night out. What a revolution.

I don't disapprove of her lifestyle or anything. As in the case of the Sex and the City series, its just annoying when emptiness is so glamorized. In fact, its actually misogynistic as reflected by critic Stacey D'Erasmo:

'The new girl, tottering on her Manolo Blahniks from misadventure to misadventure, embodies in her very slender form the argument that feminism is not only over, it has also failed: look how unhappy the 'liberated' woman is!'

SATC, 12 years hence - i'm sure nobody cares, but anyway

2009-11-25T19:08:00.000-08:00

I guess am a bit late, but I finally read the Sex and the City book. I almost wish I hadn't. Why? Because it makes it a bit hard for me to detest the franchise altogether. In other words, the book is actually a decent piece of literature.

This book is American Psycho for girls in the 90s. There's even a chapter where Carrie nurses a bizarre cannibalistic fantasy, a la Patrick Bateman. The book faithfully catalouges the litany of the good life in a big city- parties, fashion, beautiful people, oh-so-much-money, exclusive guest lists and an avenue to satisfy every depraved craving of a jaded society. And then Bushnell tries to clinch the nature of the disease that plagues Carrie and the girls- this kind of fattening up with instant gratification affects, as does any kind of obesity, first your heart and then your brain.

And then they made this book into a lame TV show, with all that couture, peppered with Manolo Blahniks and the lovely Mr.Big. So we all watched it and wished we too, could run after yellow taxis, in a white mink coat and seven hundred dollar heels, in the driving snow, feeling sorry for ourselves after being screwed over by yet another great-looking-but-ultimately-evil-fellow.

When SATC was finally aired in India in 2003, it played on HBO after 11,pm possibly to soften the screeches of indignant Hindu fundamentalists, who are usually asleep by then. Consequently, it was also way past my bed time- in 2003, I was preparing for my board exams and was up at 5am every single day, to MUG like my life depended on it (it did), so I didnt manage to actually watch the series until college.

But I did catch the highlights of the 'premier' (for a TV show? that'd been playing everywhere else for 5 years already, by that time?), in which all the beautiful people of Bombay had come to. Some then-famous-now-vanished starlet, was earnestly telling the camera what an important step it was for the Indian audience to finally have access to SATC, and how much in tune with 'young India', the series was. Everybody was so excited- India was finally ready and the series was to be culturally accepted, and while men would watch it, for obvious reasons, the biggest targets were women (source)

Barf.

Why barf? Because the show excluded most of what made the book great, and has mainly capitalized on the fact that lots of women like pink. They like watching stuff on TV every now and then, that paints a utopic picture of possibility, where the clothes are frilly and you can afford them and the guys are pretty and they can afford you. Of course, every episode includes a moment of clever insight, thanks to good writers, that allows it to stay some 4-5 steps ahead in quality of say, the O.C, and then there's heartbreak and cheating and drama and all the usual stuff that makes a great soap, a great soap.

Young India is not about frills and philandering, no?
Please say, 'of course not'.

I loved watching SATC for the same reasons, until one fine day, I happened to write a critique on the show for one of my film-studies classes. Needless to say, there's no better way to spoil a great TV show for yourself, than to try and make logical sense of it.

P.S. I broke up this post into two because the old one was just making my head spin!

the hyperlinked post.

2009-11-24T01:21:00.000-08:00

Today, I found picture of the entire universe.
It looks like a fantastic suspension of gliterring dust.

On one colorful little dot,

I lost my mind over a song and another song and another song

And I was pondering over how just how young and ridiculous you have to be to feel this way.
For a strange person, sitting so far away, lost in all that space dust, to push the blood out of your heart and into your brain, a little quicker than usual.

Someone else was apparently feeling quite the same yesterday.
It was nice to share the thought.

The people use the internet for a lot of things. I use it to discover things that resonate with me.
Its so great to be alive in these times.
Of all the times gone by, these are the only ones in which telepathy is just a part of life.

Boo Hoo Bharatanatyam, nobody loves you.

2009-11-22T01:26:00.000-08:00

Watching yet another Bharatantyam dancer give her debut last night, I briefly looked away from the stage on to the audience.

There were some 20 odd folks with any sort of connection with the dance. Of the rest of the many mothers, grandmothers, fellow danseuses, brothers, cousins, friends of the family, business associates- bla bla bla- in attendance, few were genuinely absorbed. Most looked mildly curious.

Restless kids.

All male members of the audience between 15 and 40 looking deathly bored.

Young women adjusted their saris.

Old men talked shop.

One 70 year old had definitely stayed up way past his bed time and was quietly snoozing in his seat.

And really, none of this is to the discredit of the dancer; she was out there, putting forth the very best from her 15 odd years of training. In the end though, you had to admit they were a polite and well trained audience, clapping at the right places and appreciating some of the more challenging bits with a timely applause.

How depressing. But really, how long can you describe the exploits of the Devi or Krishna in a secret codified language, to an audience that mostly doesnt understand it, and expect to bring the house down?

Actually no, nobody's even expecting that anymore. Nope, its just part of our respectable South-Indian culture to send your girls to dance class around age 4 and if they take to it, hold a grand Arangetram (trans debut) for them somewhere in their early 20s, on the grand scale of a wedding, with 200-300 people in attendance, a performance that none of them understand or enjoy all that much. Everyone's standing there extoling it as a 'vital part of our culture', while many are merely supporting their friend/sister/girlfriend, wishing they were watching TV or at Bhangra Nite.

So its a social thing, not an artistic thing. When the art form is transferred from the temple dancers to the 'daughters of respectable families', what happens to it? It turns into the western equivalent of women who play the piano in the drawing room at family dinners. A sort of desirable quality in good girls, right next to an engineering degree, a sensible, non arts job and magical ability to wake up at 5am and make 'tiffin' before heading to the office.

The high arts are high arts. They require scholarship and an liberal system that supports artists who can take this up full time as a career, as in the west. Whats going on right now is not an entirely bad system; it has integrated something essentially snooty, into the lives of the great middle class. It also gives the really exemplary exponents of the current schools, a job to do as teachers while they further the art. But really, how much 'further' can the art go, when you are catering to the sensitivities of 'respectable families'?

So what do the real artists do? They leave the country. They go west. As usual, the west has gotten over their Victorian obsession with respectability and focus on intellectual freedom, while we are still concerned about what the neighbors think (incidentally, a Victorian hangover). Hello brain-drain101.

I have the luxury of saying all of this because my parents thought it was a respectable thing to do- send your girl to bharatanatyam classes. Now that some of us have this privilege, the intelligent thing to do would be to dismantle this system that has brought Indian classical arts this far, so that it can go further. There are folks in London and Bengaluru and Singapore and to a lesser extent, in Chennai, who're already starting things up in this respect. I'm excited.

Paranormal Activity

2009-11-20T00:14:00.000-08:00

Fatigued. I spent the last two nights feeling horribly glad to have friends on the other side of the globe, who are up at witching hour, like me. Except its daytime there, of course, and dead of the night for me.

I hate horror movies. HATE. The specific problem with this one though, is that

You never get to see the monster and in fact, neither do the protagonists, but it gets them anyway
The protagonist hasn't done anything in particular to deserve being spooked like that, but the thing gets her anyway, since the 'demon' picks you at random,
Its not a localized thing, but its in your 'safe-space'. Like your home. Your door, your walls, your floor, your bed, your girlfriend. There's no ancient curse or unrequited love story. Just like that, because you're unlucky.
It can get into your head and make you do evil things. The real horror is that Katie the damsel-in-distress, is also Katie-the-demon. She's the instrument and the victim. Poor Katie. Anybody could be Katie. O no.
It doesnt do anything significant. Nope. It doesnt write triple 6 on your mirror, or make you spit cockroaches or leave a trail of blood or any of that. It does small, subtle things, that could almost be a coincidence. Like flickering a light. Turning on your faucet. Rapping on your wall. Something that a mouse could do, or a loose circuit. But then you find out, there are no mice and the circuits are fine. Its enough to drive you insane. Oh it can also drag you down the hallway by your foot and then bite you, but it waits a bit before getting into the real theatrics. So until then, your fear of what it can and cannot do, is and is not doing, your inability to trust your self and all those familiar things around you, just drives you crazy.

Anyway, this is a horrible movie. Like one of those movies they make movies about- you know, once-you-watch it-you're-cursed sort of movie. At least for a week. Brr....

So don't watch paranormal activity. Don't.

When your phone falls down the storm drain.

2009-11-15T23:28:00.000-08:00

My phone pouch, the green shiny one which contains both my phones and my EZ link bus pass, had an adventure today.

There is a roaring storm drain, fashioned open air and moat-like around the the HDB blocks where I live. The only things missing are crocodiles and a drawbridge.

It was 8 am. I was on the opposite side of the moat. On the road ahead, I see my bus throttling down to its stop. The patron saint of the pedestrian crossing, the 'flashing green man' is about to turn red. Panic.
I break into a run.
I trip.
I dont fall. The shiny green pouch does. It flies in fact. Out of my hands and into the roaring storm drain.

You know those enormous drains. There's no water in them. Just damp and wide open, always expecting the after-rain deluge, which only lasts for about 45 minutes anyway.

So the pouch wasn't exactly swept away.
and it was just lying there

6 feet below

and I couldn't do anything about it

Because the ladders and stairs had been removed last week.
Because a boy in Bukit Panjang had thought it would be fun to go down those ladders
And then it had started to pour. And the drain had started to fill. And the boy was no where to be found.
(they found him later. unharmed. but the ladders had to go)

and so

I went to the police

who had no idea

what to do

so they called the town council

who directed them to the land transport authority

who directed them

to the Public Utilities Board

The Public Utilities Board
decided not to do anything for 2 whole hours

and I couldnt call work because i had no phone and I didnt dare ask the police if I could phone my boss.
so i just sat there

looking distressed

for two whole hours

The PUB kept saying

wait wait wait

and finally they sent a man

with a ROPE

who just tied himself to the rail

went down the drain

climbed back up

and handed me my pouch

the whole thing took all of 3 minutes

I almost cried.

Eagle Funeral

2009-11-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

Somewhere in Germany, there was a crazy man who was obsessed with eagles. Not eagles per se, but with the image of the eagle and what it stood for. You know, these humanities types, always obsessed with some kind of symbolism or the other.

Anyway, someone gave him a room to put it all up. So he did.

Every single person who went there, was stunned by the story in his room, the eagle and its innumerable associations with power, the Nazi eagle, the eagle in the coat of arms of several European noble houses, eagle headed Egyptian Gods, ordinary thugs who ganged up as ‘eagles’, Gods of Rock called Eagles, the American bald eagle, eagles, eagles, eagles of power, always just a step away from erupting into flames like cousin phoenix.

Spectators of the eagle museum were all impressed yes, but mainly depressed by all the hegemonic connotations associated with this bird, not to mention the oft repeated motif that eagle powers ended the same way- death sans renaissance, totally un-phoenix-like. So the crazy German artist decided it was time for the eagle to ease its iron claw grip on both the spectator as well as from his own imagination. It was time for the eagle museum to die. He buried the eagle museum, six feet underground, in a cemetery of sorts and gave it a grave stone.

And then people forgot all about what eagles actually mean in our everyday world. It went back to being just a bird, apart from instances when someone stumbled upon the grave of the eagle museum and got real curious.

If you google it up right, you’ll probably find a picture. I can’t. And since I cant reference this, the story loses its value as anything more than merely a fable, but it makes a good one, I think.

The Burning School

2009-11-11T07:38:00.000-08:00

Here's another true fable.

Sometime ago, French choreographer Boris Charmatz started a school of dance. Some 16 people were enrolled.

They called it the burning school, because the point was, at the end of the year, you would emerge from the school, with no degree and inheriting no stylistic tradition, except that out of your own experience. Its supposed to reflect the school of life, where everyday is a grueling stew of whatever and whoever you get, and you take that and shape your own dance. There’s no certificate, no measurable results and its not meant to fix any of your personal problems. But you’ll come out a dancer, definitely, and you wont ever again need a stage and 300 hundred people to clap for you. You know, just like people who sing in the shower or write journals.

Deal was this:

you were going to learn how to dance and teach the rest of the school whatever you learn
No teachers.
No fixed campus.
you don’t have to have a background as a trained dancer or an elaborate curriculum vitae of your various dance accomplishments;
you just had to interview with Boris and some others who came up with the idea. If they thought you were a good fit with the spirit of the school, you get signed up for a year
you also get a stipend to see you through that time.

And then, for an entire year, you spent all day and all night at school, and you figure out your dance, whatever it is.

Then the fun starts.
You share 'your dance' with the rest of the school and then you watch as it becomes something more than just 'your' dance . You get homework, assignments and peer evaluation to temper your direction. Eventually, the thing that emerged from your head and through to your body, evolves into a 'style' of dance. After a while, you understand how your dance is also telling a story, something you've been meaning to say but didnt have the words for it, didnt even have the thoughts for it, till someone you hadn’t met before school, watched you dance and picked up on it and then called it your style, your schtick.

Was that long and tedious? Well, its a long process, but for the odd person who just can't stop moving, its a wild, jubilant, its alive!! moment.

Sometimes, the school goes on 'raids' to the big dance festivals around Europe and 'pirates' students into their nameless, baseless school, to spend some days learning and teaching, escaping technique and unraveling the real meaning of a phrase as arbitrary as, “self expression through the body.”

Charmatz wrote about this year of the burning school, in his book titled 'Je suis un école’. It means ‘I follow school’, which in French, is what someone who was in school would say if you asked them what they did. They would say, 'I follow school' not 'I am in school'.

But it also means, ‘I am a school’ because in French, the participle suis has two roots, suivre and etre, one stands for ‘follow’ and the other for ‘be’.

The thing about a school is that at the end of your schooling, you are effectively as institutionalized as the brick walls of the building (where have you heard that before?). Some people say that’s great. Some people say that’s terrible. But school should mainly teach you that the way things were, gave way to the way things are and eventually will become something else. So they should keep telling you that the point of school is to be prepared to get out and change things.

Why would you graduate, and then walk around, a piece of human made of chalk and blackboard, eternally afraid of underlined red marks and then go to work in your school uniform. That’s not smart. You gotta be done with school, you have to finish it, and in your own mind, you have to burn it.

Discoveries

2009-11-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

It took 23 years, 9 months and 30 days of life for me to realize that my favorite colour is orange.

Still, I haven't consciously pondered over the question of my favorite color in over 15 years. The last time I thought about this, I remember clearly, it was a very brilliantly blue skied day, and I was sitting on the steps of our verandah, amma and I, and we were probably doing something very important, like combing the lice out of my hair, before I could go out and fight with Balaji, the boy next door, who would obviously want to play cricket, and I would obviously, want to not play cricket.

So while my mother patiently did whatever she was doing, it struck me that I didnt know what her favorite color was. So I asked and she told me, 'Oh, I dunno. I like all colors.' I persisted, so she said, ' Okay, maybe its blue. Yes, i think I like blue.'

'Why?'
' Because its beautiful.'
'Why is it beautiful?"
' BECAUSE', and now another louse was exploding pitifully between her fingernails, ' Because, Aparna, its the color of the sky. Now look up.'

I looked up and indeed, it was truly beautiful, a gorgeous, radiant, electric, cobalt blue. I now felt uncomfortable. This was difficult to digest... process, even.

' But you are a girl' I whined.
' So what?'

Until that day, I had thought that my favorite color was pink. During my childhood, there was a real scarcity of pink- not like now, when all the disney princess school bags and the disney princess bubble gummer shoes and the frilly frocks and even the school uniforms are all in pink. No, 15 years ago, things were not so, we had to make do with Noddy colored Red and Yellow and Blue, all so primary and boring. Not to mention, we wore those predictable navy pinafores to school. So pink was rare and I wanted more of it, especially, since it was the colour for girls.

Well, a few years after that, when a consistently good report card, earned me some leverage with my parents, I had my entire room painted cotton candy pink, got pink bed spreads, pink lace curtains for the window and even a magenta colored Godrej almirah. I would go into my room after school and my head would spin and my teeth would ache from all the pink.

But still I was determined to enjoy this luxury. I didn't know one other person who had a color coordinated room, let alone coordinated in pink. Oh, I enjoyed the envy. My room had been butter yellow before that and I often missed it, especially in summer, when the walls would radiate nauseating waves of pink heat. But I endured it for the love of pink and because getting my way in anything, was hard-won.

Now coming to the point of all this: pink is not my favorite color. Orange is. And this has always been the case. How do I suddenly know this? Because of the way orange creeps into my sketches. Because I'm never inclined to brashly parade it around on my finger nails or as 23 out of 25 blouses in my closet or as a handbag. Because I do not go buying orange things and because, given a chance to redecorate my room, I would be very, very conservative about the use of orange. Because although its not fashionable, doesn't stand for anything and is not widely popularized in the media, it consistently evokes the same happy drum beat in the chest whenever I see it wedged between green leaves.

Because when its really love, its not gonna take over your life and force you to squint each time you look at it. Its a win-win. It gets to thrive in your world and you feel great about it. There's less to endure and more to enjoy.

Most importantly, when I close my eyes and dream a tranquil dream, it is flooded with orange light. Thats not so gay, when you compare it to a totally pink room.

A September night's dream

2009-11-02T18:02:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a dream that a boy jumped to his death from the window next to mine. The rain was coming down in torrents and it was the dead of the night. In my dream, I was still sixteen and I was happy that night, because the girls were over and we had pop music on, laughing and screaming as in the vulgar manner of unsupervised girls everywhere. We were stewing in our own sweat that hot summer night, until the rain had washed it all down. I was a different kind of happy that night, unlike most others when I am alone, and dreaming all my dreams for life, totally awake for hours before sleep finally forces my eyes shut.

So as the music played and the laughter of 5 dizzy teenage girls rang across the Hall, I stuck my head out into the black rainy night, illuminated harshly by electric orange light of the street lamp. And from the window next to mine, he jumped. And I saw him leap and almost instantly, he was sprawled on the untarred ground three floors below, the blood leaking out of his head in dark brown streams around the mud and gravel.

I went back to the girls, borrowed one of their cell phones and rang the police. I told them a boy I knew had jumped to his death from the window next to mine. They laughed at me and asked me to call an ambulance. I couldn’t although if you asked me why, I couldn’t tell. I went back to the window and peered below. The rain drummed steadily, every fat drop illuminated orange and falling with the same disinterest on my dead friends’ face. The chronology was a bit off because in real life, he and I don’t get acquainted till much later. The slumber party continued in the background, the smell of stolen cigarettes and vodka coloring the atmosphere, wafting out through the window and finally dissipated by the rain. My friends didn’t miss me and I missed only the boy lying lifeless three floors below, who I had never met, but knew when I remembered the future.

I remembered that I would meet him in college, that he would be perpetually dressed for the basketball court and that this would oddly contrast with the sagely beard and moustache that lined his long, thin face. I remembered that he and I would not be friends, although I would certainly find him interesting enough. We would constantly be in separate phases of life, always parallel, always missing each others’ thought waves, until one crashed into the others’ space, like he had done just then, this night. I would be too busy becoming some imagined person, maybe a vee-jay or a lawyer or a dancer- so many of those floating possibilities, each one so glamorous and enticing.

Eventually, I would move on from being just another girl, to someone who was immune to the lies of life. I would think nothing of wearing black jeans and a tank to work everyday, just as I would no longer find it strange that someone should come to a lecture theatre dressed in a red jersy and berms if he that was what he wished. I would stop positioning my youth as my most valuable asset and focus on my mind. I would finally achieve the calm and steady method of someone who was acquainted, both with their powers as well as their limitations. I would strengthen my mind, body and spirit with industry and the spectrum of life’s great experiences. In this future, my kitchen counter tops are laden with fresh vegetables and my days are full of laughing children who have their father’s curly hair, and my magnificent achievements in the boardrooms are embellished in annual reports for posterity. Nothing extraordinary, but all spectacular. The cost of all this would be life itself; my body would slowly erode away into golden dust, leaving a glittering trail across the earth and finally turning into mud and light, a lost thing only provable by photographs.

And while my life happened, somewhere out there, this boy would live the life he had imagined for himself, his days and the end of his days, slowly coming to pass.
As I thought all these thoughts, staring someone else’s death in the face, I become aware that the boy below, was still crouched on the parapet on the wall adjacent to my window, looking so frightened and so unhappy and so horribly young. And I wondered, what my future would be like, now that he was no longer in the world. And I climbed out of my window and sat down next to him and we both watched the pantomime slowly unfold below us.

After a long time, people gathered, first trickling in one by one and then gushing in the dozens. Some screamed, others fainted on the spot, yet others, examined this oddity with a shameless curiousness. The rain stopped eventually, but the orange light still glared over the atrocity of a young person’s self-willed death.

Education

2009-09-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

Can't remember the last time I've had so much fun. I'm really enjoying being in college without being a student. There's nothing like being young and salaried and getting to eat dirt cheap at canteens without having any tutorials to go to afterward. Some people my age complain that working at or being a grad student a University sharpens your age-sensitivity to acute extremes. You feel so old. Yea, whats wrong with that? Every now and then, I find myself gawking at these yeng, pimply boys thinking, what the hell is he wearing or at a gaggle of girls huddled at the bus stop, dressed in that astonishing confidence crossed with that touching confusion, like they don't know what to do with their limbs and hair, at least three out of fifteen of them, utterly color blind. Not that I've exactly graduated from that phase, but still, it is good to be able to see.
Now that I stand proudly separated from all that is cool and hep, the inner grandma in me is singing- I feel so deliriously happy to be able to wear ostentatious, yet classy (yes?) jewelery and bloc print kurtas and ballet flats and pashminas (wheee!), without having to give a damn about fitting in. What could be better! Of course, this liberation applies only to peer pressured personalities like myself, but I no longer gaze longingly at unfashionable yet happily dressed people, carrying around a bit of their personal histories and their unique aspirations, standing out from the rest of the Romans in all their diverse glories.
Aah, to be different! In this awful mirror town!
Hurrah, welcome adulthood.

This just about looks like my life

2009-09-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt the greed to crystallize moments of your own life? Those days worth deep-freezing for those down and out times, when you can just pop them into the oven and relive that glowing good- feeling?

It must be a rare privilege to be able to feel this depth of joy from an IKEA catalogue and from the endless possibilities for life it offers- purple walls against green leaves, stacked bookshelves towering like redwood, snuggly rugs and cherubic children rolling all over the throw pillows. This whooping excitement should be dismissed by declaring it free of substance, save the chemical reaction produced in the brain. There’s something about happiness that makes one foolish. But here I am, so thrilled to bits that I’m nearly in pieces. And can’t really tell why I’m embarrassing myself by declaring it in this way.

I guess it’s the problem with being too emotional. There’s a strong tendency toward stupid. You get stupid when you’re angry, stupid when you’re sad, stupid when you’re mad and totally incapacitated when you’re happy. In literature, these wild, tempestuous temperaments are protagonised (if that’s not a word, it should be). It’s the stuff of fiction, the doing or the undoing, it’s what makes a story. But if my life were a novel, I wouldn’t really want to be Catherine Earnshaw, although she is my favorite invention of literature. It would be far more preferable to find myself an organized, office going, home making, yoga doing, career woman, wife of someone or the other and mother of two (or three). All this romance and emotion is quite unbearable. Real life is so damaging. I cannot recover from its minor tragedies. I can barely recover from its successes.

But that is exactly what I love about the drama as an art form- on stage or on the pages. Its one place where I am allowed to be human in all its terrorizing vehemence. I am convinced that I’m a much better person when a 1000 people are watching, judging and criticizing ruthlessly. Its so easy to exhibit and survive being lovelorn, lost or cruel, so easy to wholeheartedly be that nayaki for two and a half hours and give yourself as an imperfect human being to the world, when it comes with a disclaimer that it’s not you who is out there, it’s just a mask. You’ll be casting that off in a bit and then the real person, the spitting image of 'put-togther' that is me, will emerge. But in fact, it’s the mask that is real; it’s the authenticity of the mask that makes it a mirror to anyone who sees it. They applaud, for they recognize their own reflection there.

Literature aside, Hollywood aside, classical art aside, real life must be mostly gray and steady- care, hard work and meticulousness, punctuated by bursts of color that I’ll shop for over the weekend. What of a bland, boring life, where the greatest romance is sunshine on beaches and glasses of orange juice? I should find that I’ve no taste for a posthumous biography with a grand, passion filled narrative. Real life would be a photo album, a decorated scrap book. Why woo hunger and happiness, when you could just be stable? But apparently, I’m greedy for it all.

happy onam

2009-09-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

For the first time in 5 years, I actually notice that its Onam. It would have been great to have spent the 7 preceding mornings, waking up before most of the old pooja-making aunties of the colony, climbing over their gates, stealing flowers for the poo kalam and just about escaping alive from tommy-the-dog's hungry, gnashing teeth. But no, I've had no such luck. My mornings, as usual, have been spent battling the work force deluge that takes over the city public transport. But I'm getting good at this; last week I actually made it to my weekly 9am department meeting on time and my boss almost cried with happiness.

So anyhoo, Happy Onam, here's to a great harvest.

oopsie.

2009-08-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

Omg. Has anyone seen the the teaser website for the 3 mistakes of my life?
Now just look out for the hiccup (hint: see line #1). Apparently all that Yoga still hasn't done anything for his proof reading and/or spelling skills. For the record Chetan Bhagat and his books irritate the hell out of me, right along side dumb blonds and bankers; not surprising considering Chetan *swear word* Bhagat is a *swear word*- ing banker.

But I'm glad he exists; if nothing else, he gives all those unfulfilled IIT-IIM-Investment Bankers hope that some day, they too might find meaning in their lives.

A matter of Taste

2009-08-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

As a kid, whenever I was on one of those Club Mahindra Holidays with the family, I would consistently find myself avoiding the de-glam sections of the breakfast buffet and gorging on sausages, jellied croissants and for some unknowable reason, corn flakes, and feeling like a blimp for the rest of the day. Of course, my parents heartily encouraged us to stuff ourselves stupid during these holidays, since breakfast was complementary. It was my father’s personal Revenge Against The Resort-Machine to overeat at breakfast, which was the only thing they didn’t charge him the filling in his gold-tooth for. Now add my brother, mother and myself into this overeating bonanza and it was 4XRevenge.

We, the kids, were goaded by threat of no more food till the next complimentary breakfast. We knew even from our limited experience, this was a situation very likely to materialize. But I never hold it against my parents, because while they too enjoyed the occasional sausage, they had seen enough of life to wisely bank on the idlis and uttappams. Hence their tanks were really full till well after dusk. So you cant really blame them if they hardly noticed their children's pathetic faces due to acute starvation and just assumed we looked bummed out because we had spotted nothing but wild hogs when we had been promised tigers. After a few years, brother and I learnt to go half and half on the sausage-idly ratio and we were not sorry.

What exactly makes a breakfast of cured ham, scrambled eggs and buttered toast with marmalade, a side of baby tomatoes and iceberg lettuce for garnish, with some orange juice and coffee to wash it all down, more appealing than say, oh, I dunno, crisp dosas with coconut and raw onion chutney and tangy-spicy sambhar, with a side of baby banana’s, washed down with strong, sweet, filter coffee? What exactly? Now I know, the answer to that question is, to quote – “the seaweed is always greener in somebody else’s lake.” You’ll see why I use the obvious underwater reference in a minute.

What got me thinking about food today was my horrific experience at a pricey Japanese restaurant my boss decided to take me and my team to for lunch. Jerers finished a year at work today so we went out to celebrate her survival. They had to drag me there, kicking and screaming; there is nothing a full blooded mallu woman could possibly be more averse to than non-curried, non-‘mollied’, non-marinated-in-1inch-of-masala-and-fried, RAW fish. No, Jap food, in my mind, is hell food. Bhagwan played a mean trick on the Japanese, giving them all that seafood and no real vegetables except for radish, barely any cooking oil and totally no spices but for ginger. No? Not true? Really? Then why on earth would anyone (not) cook food like that? Are they just lazy? Considering we’re talking about the Japanese, I don’t think so.

But me being me, daredevil and all, I actually tried everything. So there I was watching my boss go dizzy with delight, picking little mini-dishes off the conveyor belt that roamed manically by the side of our table. First she jumped at some raw jelly fish which looked to me like vermicelli. So I picked up my chop stick and gave it a go, thinking semiya upma, semiya upma, semiya upma, to stop my finger muscles from clamping shut in protest. Let me just say that it did not taste like semiya upma. In fact it did not taste like anything at all, although the texture felt like that of dried up glue. Jerers then picked off some raw salmon and innocently offered me some. I accepted- it was soft and absent and tasteless as water. Salmon eggs followed this, which like any decent fish in its larval stage, were clustered together in the hundreds as tiny, glassy beads and these precious looking peach colored beads, gushed out something like yolk when you bit in. Then came milk in steamed egg or egg in steamed milk, I really don’t know, but it was a gelatinous white thing, deceptively packaged in the Japanese equivalent of a matka-kulfi and truly devious to taste.

But I hit rock bottom with the Tako. There, in one of their devious little mini-dishes, lay copper-red and curled up, these delicate little dollies, cute enough to to share screen space with Hello Kitty. They were the Takos. Baby octopuses. RAW. Babies. Octopuses.

“ Why don’t you try one?”

And the devil made me say, “Ok.” And I proceeded to put one in my mouth, crunch and swallow. I had just eaten a fetus. Of an Octopus.

But the good thing is, once again, all of this stuff was absolutely tasteless, so I didn’t throw up or anything.

Then Jerers kindly picked up deep fried salmon and deep fried salmon skin, both coated in corn flour and some sort of spice so it was quite alright and I filled myself up with this for the rest of the meal. I got back to the office and washed down the whole thing with half a liter of good, full sugar, full calorie Coke, because I’ve heard Coke is really an excellent cleaning liquid.

In spite of all the negative publicity, I maintain that everyone should try Japanese food at least once. I did and now I’m done with that.

A really long, possibly dull post about my love for Neil Gaiman (with a brief about my teenage obsession with R.L.Stine)

2009-08-16T09:41:00.000-07:00

Some nights ago, I read a story that put the fear of God in me. It was so scary that it had me knocking on my house mate's door, comforter and pillow in hand, sheepishly but firmly establishing that I wouldn't be sleeping alone in my room tonight

I’ve always enjoyed horror stories. Horror, mind you, and not gore. In my teens, I was a die hard fan of R.L.Stine’s Fear Street Series and secretly worshipped Stine as a god. Goosebumps didn’t do much for me; it involved mainly purple colored monsters, chain-rattling and people being eaten, things that I find quite boring in books and repulsive on screen. But Fear Street was about people who lingered after death, about misplaced curses imposing on innocence, about life vanishing, about fear and envy personified. I like stories that talk about these things.

They really scare me.

There was this story about a girl who once wore a dress she found in the attic. It had obviously once belonged to someone else, but she didn’t think about that, she just discovered it and slipped it on because it was beautiful. What she didn’t see, was that it was soaked in rage, from a hundred years ago.

There was another story, about this boy who died rather suddenly, but for some reason he couldn’t gulp down his last breath. So he found himself in a strange, vaporizing gap between life and death, knowing that he had left off something he had to finish before he could die properly. But he couldn’t for the death of him, remember what it was. As the events play out, he finds that he has returned to his past, to prevent his own accidental death in the hands of a girl. This was before Donnie Darko, mind you. It was such a frustrating and heart-heavy story that I could hardly stand being alternately in tears and spooked out of my wits. It’s the least a ghost story should do.

That was Stine. But this post is about my love for Gaiman’s work. He took up the thread where Stine had discarded it, at least in my world.

Neil Gaiman likes to write about things that are not real. His stories are full of spirits and demons, anthropomorphic emotions, abstractions that are given shape and three dimensions and a name you can call out. While his tales spin around the paranormal, he has a way of closing the comfortable distance between you and the source of terror. He sets that paranormal in the reader’s living room and not in Fear Street or Transylvania. His brand of fear is personal, its something that belongs to everyone of us, the fear that is primal, because it’s a case of survival, a fear that is irreconcilable because it confronts the limits of control we have over our lives and it is fear that makes you better because you see that life and laughter are precious resources. Its not the fear ghosts; it’s the fear of God.

I'm really jaded in many ways. No wars, no famines, nobody's pain really affects me; I can just watch the news and think of everything as someone else's story, even as I sit there and consider by what luck why it isn't mine. I can surround myself with pretty things and clever people or simply escape reality altogether. On some of those days, one of Gaiman’s stories meets me in fantasy land, holds me by the shoulder and rattles me till I’m begging to go back to the boring world of bank statements and laundry. Because once your on the other side of the cracked mirror, real life looks like heaven itself. But the images from Gaiman’s alternative universe still haunt; fear manifests itself in the odd toaster, the deranged woman who haunts my lift lobby and the dull awareness that I might just be a slip away from a darker reality.

The story that froze the marrow in my bones was not a ghost story; it was a love story. Its called The Wedding Present. The wedding present is just a piece of paper in a manila envelope that a newlywed couple receives from an unnamed sender. On it, their marriage is described, word for word, from the wedding vows, to the party afterward. As many happy years of their marriage go by, the couple notice a disconcerting parallel marriage that writes itself out on the piece of paper in the manila envelope. The written marriage is bizarrely contrasted with the happy milestones they have hit in real life. The children, the promotions, the bigger home, the pets, the birthdays and the holidays of the real world, are set against a disfiguring accident, adultery, miscarriage, professional failure, a marriage that has decayed completely in the same set of circumstances that the real couple face. The wedding present becomes the shock absorber, taking into itself every mishap and misfortune, a little blessing to the couple from an unknown benefactor…

This story does not have a happy ending. It doesn’t have an ending at all. In spite of the wedding present, reality exacts its price from the couple; the groom dies a young man, about a decade into their perfect, happy marriage. Before the story leaves us, the bride is reading her wedding present for the last time. In it she sees an ugly world, a despicable world, but a world in which her husband is alive. She remembers that when Dorian Gray’s picture is destroyed, reality is restored and the real Dorian Gray ages to dust in an instance. And so she destroys her wedding present and waits for her love to come back to a life where they do not love each other, but are at least alive.

In real life, we don’t get presents like that. But sometimes we act as if there’s a parchment in our attics, writing away all the realities that we do not wish to be.

So, I’m thinking that if a paperback can bring the dreamer to examine her own life as it happens, then its slightly more than just a paperback.

In other news, I managed to boil an egg just now till it burst in the saucepan.

of the leading lady

2009-08-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

When I think about it now, whats with the heroine anyway? This beautiful, vapid, attention grabbing female, who talks too much, has a girlish mind but a grown up body and after a brief hard-to-get routine followed by a taming-of-shrew act, gives in to the sheer masculine power of our male lead. Then stands by him, through out his lone crusade against injustice, a sparkling accessory to his perfect ensemble.

A Sita for every Ram aspirant. A Helen, worth waging a war for, but free of too strong a personality- thats like sex and violence central, love as an excuse for swords and fighting and BLOOD! No wonder thats a classic.

The leading lady is a shadow defined by the greatness of the guy who chooses her. The First Lady is anyone married to the president. Our Hero picks the prettiest and most loving one of the lot, I mean, what could be better, she will go through any amount of shit with him and still look great through it all. Of course, this is only one archetype of the heroine; the others are either mostly mute, with eyes lowered or are variations of the first two. The thinking woman fits well into the role of the vamp, the other woman, the one who abuses her womanhood to achieve her own selfish ends. Intolerable, I swear.

Now, if by any chance, the female lead has depth, god forbid, then some lovable rascal or the other has to snap her out of it. This inevitably leads to a happy ending, once the megalomaniac villain or the rich, conservative father is dealt with.

Anyway, I was just wondering, why idiocy is so appealing in a young woman. Why innocence, sex appeal and undying loyalty are to the heroine what courage, persistence and the ability to pulverize 15 men alone are to the hero. Not to mention height.
Okay, so they are both fictitious I guess. And yes, this mostly pertains to Indian cinema and Victorian romance novels.

2009-08-10T23:54:00.000-07:00

I'm running really low on endorphins today. Bah, bah, bah. These are the days that should give me a good enough reason to stop blogging, because hormonal swings entail a good deal of weltschmerz, which in turn makes for ugly blog posts.
My dream is to not need to blog. Its like that movie, I can't remember which one, in which this benevolent doctor says that his dream is for his hospital to have to close down due to lack of patients. Imagine the excellent scenario of your life being so wonderful, your work being so fulfilling, that scratching out little snippets to publish on your e-page during major meetings, as opposed to meeting notes, seems absurd. Its not that work sucks; its really alright. It's just that my boss's voice just grates on my ears like claws scratching on black board when I'm on an endorphin drought.
I don't want to write here, but I would probably die if I didn't. I'm a little bummed that life isn't exploding in rainbows and leprechauns. Clicking publish on this site gives me a small, guaranteed high that is far more addictive than anything else.

from where to where

2009-08-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

I spent the whole day watching back to back episodes of Gilmore Girls and then youtubed a Tamil film from the 80's. The latter experience was really phenomenal, I was drowning in the glory of midi skirts, baggy jeans and genius Ilayaraja melodies peppered unnecessarily with synth music. I like this movie, I like the drama, I like the fact that Karthik and Prabhu are so young and (eep) so hot, I like that Nirosha's splashing about in her polka dotted swimsuit, nowhere close to a size zero and totally kicking Amrita Arora's or any other pro-anorexia-bimbette-of-the-day's ass. I like to see that the picturization of 'Hey, goodbye nanba' and 'Snehithane' are just new and improved versions of the originals pictured here. I like Amala's konjified Tamil, so much like Trisha's from Ayutha Ezhuthu (such a copycat). The comic track is quite out of place and pissing off, but I love this movie for how young it is and how much energy is in it and how some 20 years later, there are reflections of my own world in a movie that was made when I was two.

I like watching movies that I used to watch as a kid. It brings back the days from many years ago, when they were watched for the first time, the reigning fantasies that were playing in my head, and the feel of the weather on that day. I especially like watching old Tamil and Malayalam movies because it instantly takes me back home. I can smell the slightly tangy sweetness of ripe rastali bananas mingling with smoky incense of the the agarbathis pricked on them, I can feel the perfect warmth of summer in Coimbatore and the anticipation of cousins. Those are my summer memories. Then of winter, that too, of heaviness in the air, of my brother's royal blue sweater from London that he outgrew in a year but I fit into till I turned 13. I remember feeling a little sad when it was cold, it always felt like death, I remember the sound of our room-heater that would whirr constantly in the night and keep me up, thinking about things beyond the scope of a little girl, things that would make me pray and pray that my parents would never die.

I was a very sterotypical little girl, not the cool kind of girl like Ellie in Up! I liked pink and frills and my ultimate dream was to be able to wear cut-shoes with heels and make-up. My favorite film/story was Alice in wonderland and it was only because of Alice that I allowed subjecting myself the heinous injustice of buckled shoes. My child hood ambition was to be a teacher, who would come to school in midi skirt and frilly white blouse, cut shoes with heels and make-up, like Sabitha teacher, who was my idol. I was determined to vaguely resemble Juhi Chawla once I reached her then age, go to school, pick up my colored chalk, draw two red and four blue lines on the black board and teach my class to write the alphabet. And I hated boys my age, because they were dirty and ate snot, sometimes didnt listen to the teacher (omg!) and liked to hit me with bits of paper launched using rubber-band catapults (extremely painful). Still, the concept of single-sex schools were unknown to me and I was really looking forward to being authorized to slap the palms of little boys with a wooden ruler. (yuck, wat a perv last line). Such ruthless ambition.

Anyway, this is the effect movies that were new when I was small have on me. The people I was before I wound up here, in my living room where I am writing all this, come and sit beside me on the sand colored couch. They drag along with them a young Juhi Chawla, Sabitha teacher, they smell of mangoes and bananas and rain on earth and incense, an entire double bed on which me and my bro are sandwiched between my parents, while a heater from 1989 blows out hot air across 20 years. Its a little heart wrenching, but I believe its healthy, because I'm reminded that I am as young as I wanted to be when I was just sitting there with my dolls and waiting and waiting to bleddy grow up. Soon, I will be out of fashion too, just like my bangs ( with reference to hair), like empire line blouses and most of the music I listen to (barring A.R Rahman, which will just ripen into vintage). It reminds me to have a good time and expect a little bit of melodrama and not kick myself for not being wise because I wasn't aiming for wise, I was aiming for a really pretty picture. Yes, boo hoo, now I must deal with it, again, everything looks perfect from far away or from long ago.

It also reminds me, I shouldnt live in the past like I do in my spare time these days, I've heard thats just an inevitable spiral towards old age.

Through the looking glass

2009-08-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

For all the tags on my cloud, the topics on self centered girl blogs can be generalized into four or five. 1. Childhood disruptions, 2. boy or man hating, 3. stories from the sisterhood, 4. look at me, I'm such a whore aka I got so wasted and did something idiotic, 5. this is my take on the trendy film/movie/book/bar/dress shop I've been consuming, yes I'm so awesome. Eventually, as my pen gets mightier, I hope to have another tag 6. Wish I was an unattractive, socially awkward, yet fairly intelligent boy who could sit around with my beer buddies and discuss self-centered girl blogs and feel good about myself because at least I can comprehend that I've been given a bad lot unlike these sorry sissies.

Maybe I shouldn't publish the above paragraph. But really, why not -everyone loves finding a piece of themselves on someone else's pages, like Balzac who refered to the slim, white hand of his frivolous, young female reader through the pages of his novels. Its like people want mirrors for pages between the covers. But no, they dont really want to see their faces, what they want is an opportuniy to mend their defects and win, they want redemption, a heroic ending, happy or tragic, anything but ordinary. Or a contrast, they want to see the negation of themselves, of who they are not and who they will never have to be, thank god for that. Everyone needs a reference narrative of some sort, prescriptive, descriptive of their lives before they live it, so hey you, whats your personal Bible these days? For me, The Devil Wears Prada is it, but don't let me influence you or anything.

Anyway, I dedicate this post to you for your RSS feed and for upping my sitemeter stats just a little bit. Here's to you, my pretties. Cheers.

So i recently came across some other girl blogs...

2009-08-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

And now this is how I feel about mine. (Of course, you've seen it before, but god, I feel the pain now)

wish you were here

2009-08-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

Today i got a message from Acapulco.
"Sweet dreams" it said.
It was 5 'o clock in the evening, the phone was bleeping and I was nearly dead. I didnt reply.
It was 4 am in Acapulco, pretty late to be going to bed. I find it so sad...that the person you meant to reach kept you up like that. Its also sad that your message didnt reach her. I hope you're not waiting for her to reply before you can fall asleep. Or worse, I hope she's not wondering why you didnt reply to her last message. That would be so awful. Maybe I should reply and say you got the wrong number across the oceans.

Now did that make for pathos or bathos?

Cultural examination is like looking at the world through a rear-view mirror

2009-07-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

Why is the art of a people important? Because it will tell you what their lives are like, a distilled essence of the political, economic and social situation of their era. Its not always truthful, but always revealing. In fact, art is especially revealing in its lies. And its human documentation, it outlives the people who create it. How great it is to have access to the lives and lessons of people from thousands of years ago, right?

It's good to think about the the art of our forefathers; it gives us clues to the present. In the same vein, its also good to examine the art of our cultural neighbors, our former conquerors and their forefathers. Now, for decency's sake, we should create and share the art that is within us today, in order to give posterity some context to their present. Seriously, what a lot of work for a random bunch of 14-34 year olds to manage.

I guess its easier to F it and go join a corporate.
(Some still make short films in their spare time. Applause to them.)

This is the sort of problem that worries me; when the imagination of the so-called new generation churns out a Chetan Bhagat or an M.R.Madhavan, while better minds are working for CTS or ABN Amro or even worse, are lost in the multitude of nobodys, with no opportunities and too many mouths to feed.

But then I saw this wonderful docu-film last week at Sinema Old School about a man who makes spoof movies in a small town in India, with next to zero resources, zero expertise and zero guidance. This poorly educated man, from a communally tense and economically backward part of India, creates an exemplary work of post-modernist fiction, replete with inter textual and self directed references, with a handy cam, his entourage of talented friends and a cast of star struck villagers. The man has no idea that what he's doing is called such and such; his chief motivation is to create something that will have his own townsfolk in splits of laughter, after a hard day's work at the textile mills.

This is it, this is what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people who own their art and hence own a piece of history.

The quandary as i see it...

2009-07-28T08:32:00.000-07:00

The problem with being an artist:
You don’t know as much as an academic does.

The problem with being an academic:
You can’t touch lives like an artist can.

This calls for marriage!

Fear of the dead

2009-07-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the building of work is haunted after 11. The night time security guard swears it is so, as do many of my colleagues. I think its absurd, because I'm often at work, alone past 11 and haven't yet encountered the undead. The head housekeeper also says, matter of factly, that while all buildings in this city are full of ghosts once dark and empty, she hasn't sighted one herself in all her 6 years here. Seriously, whats to be afraid? I'm scared of the dark, yes, but of living people in the dark and of my own imagination revealing itself to me when my eyes are closed. What about these dead people anyway? Even if you saw them, what would be so surprising or frightening about wanting to stay a little longer in our world, about wanting to feel human for a while more, because this life is so beautiful, so terrifically ugly and so addictive, especially when compared to sleeping in mud or ash.

SPEECHLESS.

2009-07-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

Apparently, I cant write when I'm mad. Not that anybody's asking me to, but still, this is a tragic realization. Or maybe not, maybe its good that I can't rant or dish out crap that is too whiny.

See what i mean?!

Find

2009-07-21T23:37:00.000-07:00

Mr. Herzog once lectured, "The simple fact is there are few images left. ...I see so few people today who dare to address our lack of adequate images. We absolutely need images in tune with our civilization, images that resonate with what is deepest within us... even if it meant climbing 25,000 feet into the mountains, to find images that are pure and clear and transparent. ...Because it is no longer easy to find that something that gives images their transparency, the way you could before. I'd go anywhere for that."

Now go here.

Eclipse

2009-07-21T18:53:00.000-07:00

My super powers are a bit stressed today (because a giant, Chinese dragon is swallowing up our sun). So this morning, I would have given anything for a steaming mug of decanted coffee (kaapi) that amma serves at breakfast. In fact she must be sipping on it now, along with papa at our expandable dining table, which is not expanded these days since there are only two people in the house.

Rain is drumming on the glass facade of our building. So I dont feel blue anymore. On the contrary, I feel hearty and bright. This is my natural state of mind. No matter how much things fuck up, I carry the weather with me, or rather the weather carries me around, gives me a ride up above the workday or the weekend, blazing heat or dancing raindrops, cool clouds or a salty breeze. I'm a tropical girl; New York will take a lot of adjusting.

But then again, impossible things happen everyday.

walking with the country folk

2009-07-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

the people in this city are so frail. they are brittle , have skin of paper and hair of spider silk.
delicate and precious. blown from glass, blown by wind, unable to bend or break, they are as tough as tensile steel, stiff as starched cotton and generally oblivious to real life.

Before we talk about my totally rad holiday in Borneo...allow me one more emo post

2009-07-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

On some days, I really miss my mummy-papa. It is a totally selfish sentiment, as only the offspring's need for parental care can be.

I miss having someone to push me out of bed before the clock hits critical time (that moment after which no matter what you do, you're gonna be so late).
Some one to force feed me vegetables.
Someone to badger me to scrub my scabby knees and soak my velakkaari (trans: servant maid) feet in a tub full of warm shampoo suds.
Someone to make me gargle hot salt water when I start sounding like an old man.
Someone to help me organize my sockdrawer.
Someone to drive me to the doctor and remind me to update my contact details on official documents.
Someone to fix the cracked window of my watch or change the flickering lightbulb in my room.
Someone to tell me off me each time I f-up in the kitchen and lament about what my future mother in law is going to say about how I was raised.
Someone who, had I been closer to home, would have forced me to meet some boy with a good job, fairly good height and complexion, without questionable upbringing and with at least one sibling, to discuss my life-plans with and see if we can possibly spend a lifetime together.

After 5 years of rigorously convincing my parents that I don't need them anymore, they finally seem to agree with me. Suddenly, thats just too bad.

To quote a friend, "Why is irony so beautiful?"

But then he also said "maybe i should name my daughter irony," and totally destroyed the cheem (trans: profound) moment.

I apologize, I need to rehearse my lines some more and get into character

2009-07-07T02:58:00.000-07:00

I have an employee (yes, someone I could get fired) who is v.pally at work yet hates being caught as a plain clothes man. Such a fun guy - with a deliberately cultured twinkle in his eye, exhibiting the natural people-pleasing and associated bull-shit skills, that compensate for his lack of diligence and amount to making him a good leader. But bump into him at a canteen, outside of work hours and the man virtually sinks into a puddle of mud on the floor, next to his Bermuda shorts and his flip flops. Apparently, he can't get a hold of himself in front of me outside of work, because I've caught him out of character. Some people take the 'world's a stage' thing pretty seriously.

Anyway, the university (which is also my workplace) is commencing and for some reason, all the male graduands insist on doing so wearing the same crisp black shirt with slick white stripes and pointy black leather shoes, under their gaudy robes. Everyone mirrors everyone in mirror city, since people play their part as fashionable citizens most sincerely. Good thing for me is, this startling uniformity actually breaks the monotony of these otherwise uneventful, feeling-free ceremonies. I'm so v.glad I chose to fly to Amreeka last July and miss my own graduation; I look horrible in pinstripes.

This and that...

2009-07-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

I've moved to a new workstation. Its a nice development, since I'm always one for novelty. What really gives me kicks is the silver balloon I've affixed to new motherboard. Its a party all year round (the kiddy type, not adult partay...since no disco balls to be found. Thankfully, since that would just be lame). A friend has kindly supplied me with beautiful, passion filled Spanish music that's currently playing in the background and colleague got me two packs of dark chocolate Tim Tams on rebate. All in all, I'm having an intensely pleasurable Friday morning. :P

Speaking of :P, nubeals and I had a totally vetti conversation about the power of the :P. Observe:

Nubeals: it's funny how ":P" invalidates anything preceding it, don't u think?

me: yes
Nubeals: ur ugly :P
me: :P
Nubeals: ur beautiful :P

Nubeals: ur funny :P me: you're insane :P
Nubeals: that i am :)
:P

Nubeals: (delayed invalidation)
me: ahahhaha...you're hilarious :P

Anyway, in this relaxed state of mind, in new zen workstation, my mind wanders to the streets outside...

I love watching old people here in the City. It amazes me that they sit around in the coffee shops, drinking coffee all day from the cheap, cream colored china cups with ugly green flowers on them (now marketed as part of City Heritage), in their Rupa banyan type vests and their drawstring shorts, looking so much like villagers from anywhere in Asia, like they're still in 1952. These uncles (and aunties) are really not poor; I've seen them drive up in their vintage Benz cars, with jade Buddhas on the dashboard. It amazes me. This village seems to have turned into town and then metropolis in such a hurry that the original villagers are yet to die out. I mean, imagine that happening to my Palakkad. What a shock it must be for all the grannies and grandpas. Where do they go for old times' sake? Oh yes, to coffee shops.

Spot the ham artist

2009-06-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

Ms.X is a 'photographer'. Her crowning glory is the final year project she did for her MS in Graphic Arts. She designed a series of photo shoots based on the paintings of a Great Indian Painter (lets call him 'Raja' for convenience sake) It's mainly a technical exercise in color scheme, lighting and positioning of the model+set, so as to replicate the exact effects that the prolific Raja captured lovingly, over laborious, back breaking days and nights.

Ms.Y ' I take semi-nude pics of myself, post it on a fancy web page my boyfriend made for me and call it my work' is also a photographer.

Okay, my art is not their art. What touches my soul is not necessarily what touches theirs. In fact, I'm certain that the sight of Ms.Y's nubile, barely-covered-by-the-creamy-silk-bed-sheet boobs, touch people in a lot of places other than their soul. As does the fact that Ms.X modeled as every one of the Raja's subjects herself. And how she was both subject and photographer, I really don't know.

Actually, young artists often do this, they ape the old masters, they make silly spectacles of themselves and barring a few true proteges, most take good time to become good artists. Unfortunately, the rest of us now have to witness this frightening larval stage on FB.
I am upset on my behalf. Some of us would give an eye and a tooth for this kind of chance. Even when they get the opportunity to dedicate themselves to nothing but art, even when they get their bewildered, middle class parents to somehow pay for their expensive design courses in Chicago or Melbourne or Greece or where ever, this is what they choose to do. And they do their stupid shit projects, in between their stupid shit parties and create deep art without ever having cracked open a book that wasn't mandated as course work, alluding to vague concepts they know perfunctorily, to make stupid, shallow gallery art, failing to make the human connection, yet completely successful at making the passing grade. It makes me scoff (but only to keep the tears from flowing).

Maybe its because I never liked them even when we were kids in school. Maybe its because they exhibited nothing of this talent through our growing years. Maybe I'm just f-ing jealous that I didnt take VisCom at MOP Vaishnav or architecture at JJ school, like i could have, and chose to spend 4 good years of my young life doing a course I detested simply because this town's geographical distance from my home town really suited me at that point of time (actually, I still find it v.suitable).

I'm really frustrated by people w/o substance parading their pieces of paper and their shallow perspectives as art. I think as an artist, you have the responsibility of looking deeper than the rest of humanity, collecting more experience than the common man and seriously attempting to understand the world we live in by stepping outside the realm of normal life. Thats the job description. If you are to represent the human condition, you should find yourself a spot on a satellite somewhere and observe, observe, observe until you can see how everything, including yourself, fits into the tapestry of our times.

Then you pick up your brush, or your book or your ballet shoes or your guitar pick or your (ok fine) DSLR and crystallize a part of that vision.
I think, am just stark, raving envious of my former classmates. Its the same feeling I got when I was 7 and saw my cousin, two years my junior, riding my black BMX without training wheels. This was something I hadn't managed to do in spite of my dad trailing after me every evening for 6 long months, holding tightly to my bike, because each time he let go I would turn into Shrieky and crash spectacularly into the chinese balsams. But when I saw 5 year old cousin from Bombay flying on my bike, I was bedeviled by the green monster and by next evening, I was flying too.

So until I put my money where my mouth is, I am the Ham, not Ms X nor Ms Nudie (and dont let me forget that if you care).

Perfect day

2009-06-29T16:17:00.000-07:00

Okay…it’s a WONDERFUL day. Seriously wonderful. I’m sorry, this is going to be one of those, ‘the entire universe is conspiring against me’ posts.
The alarm didn’t go off at 5. It went off at 6.45. there’s a world of difference. The sun is actually out at 6.45, slowly bleeding a pale blue light from its hidden spot in the horizon (thanks to my f-ed up city's standard time having virtually nothing to do with what longitude its at). At 6.45 am its also officially 45 minutes before I’m too late to catch the bus to get to work on time. I was so miffed I missed my morning run, that I decided to cheer myself up with my favorite food in the entire world, Parle-G dunked in milky tea. I try to switch on the lights to further this purpose- but it blinks and dies. Then tries again, but dies again. Flash, flicker and die. Argh.
I switch on the reading lamp and stumble into the kitchen to brew said tea, only to remember that we ran out of gas yesterday. I laugh out loud (yes, i actually lol-ed) and wondered what amount if exquisite non-planning had left me in this dysfuntional state of affairs. I mean, what was I doing yesterday? O yes, I remember, I was at the verge of chewing on tin to get over the restlessness that was seeping into my soul like the black plague. Maybe I should have chewed on tin instead of smoking half a pack and attempting to restart blogging...dang.

Anyway, back to this morning, I proceed to microwave tea and try to lift off the funk by giving blogging another shot, ( I don't want to waste a perfectly nasty morning without dumping my frustration somewhere permanent and public, right), while simultaneously trying not to stain my white keyboard with my Parle-G dunking, tea glazed fingers. However, blog wont- load internet connection seems to have timed out.

Life is constantly posing challenges. How is a girl supposed to get through this on her own? Tell me, show me how.

fear

2009-06-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

O god.

I don’t want to end up like a certain breed of girl i have been encountering repeatedly in the blogosphere. This breed of girl lives an attractive kind of life with much color and sparkle- the glorious abandon, the sex, the attention, the madness, the hedonism. When one is bored, has a lot of energy and cannot focus or expend it on things worthwhile, all of the above mentioned seem very attractive. So you look at those around you, who are so close yet so far and wish you were them. Yet, what is also obvious in the lives of these girls and perhaps it is all the more attractive because of it, is the loneliness, the dissatisfaction, the inability, after a point, to act as per better judgment, even when they can see, with their perfectly functioning faculties of reason, that it makes sense to be a bit more patient, a bit more conservative, a bit more focused on building a life than merely living in the moment. Perfectly good girls, from perfectly good families, instilled with all the good values, blessed with all the advantages of intelligence, reasonably functional homes, comfort, good looks and a shining school record, all of them degenerating into vapid, star chasing, ladder climbing, self pimping bastard women of the 2000s.

However, I find that I am precariously sliding towards that edge and am in severe danger of falling off. There seems to be nowhere else to go.

An observation

2009-06-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

I have noticed a pattern.
I seem to have an affinity for south Indian intelligentia when it comes to IM-ing. Yes, I all my favorite chat buddies seem to be South Indian, mainly tam-brams. All my cross country friends, with an ocean between us, the ones I text international, the ones I email, the ones I say good morning to when they log in, although its nearly midnight in my town- also all South Indian fellows (of both sexes).

In sharp contrasts, the ones I spend my weekends with, the ones I meet for lunch, the ones I share a roof with- all distinctly non-Tam (with the exception of the loverly valaiyosai).
My thinking is that, if kembany were a paper in school, southies are better at the written exam and the others are better at the practicals. This wonly of course, if I were doing the evaluation.

Feel free to pelt stones for my racism.

weekend on a weekday

2009-06-07T20:06:00.000-07:00

Yawn. Welcome Monday, beautiful monday morning, when i can sleep in and sound off the rest of the world.

I plan and run shows for a living. So I mostly work weekends, especially weekend nights. This is one of the job peeves- while the rest of the world unwinds, my job is in full swing. When I work weekends, I get to take corresponding days in the week off. This is one of the job perks- while the rest of the world slogs, I laze. Sometimes, on particularly busy months of the year, my social life is reduced to an enormous gaping void, but I dont mind. I'm not big on socializing anyway; my idea of a perfect Saturday night is one spent with a handful of close friends, music and engaging conversation. And if you have friends like mine, the conversation is always engaging.

On my days off, I like to live like how my mother would never have let me. I wake up past 9, I drink an enormous mug of milky-sugary tea and proceed to junk for breakfast. Now here i am, lifting off, into morning-tea heaven...i'm sorry i'm gonna have to take leave now...in fact i have already left.

Pilot

2009-05-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

When I think of my life, what word jumps out at me? I live in a city which is fun. Lets chronicle that fun. Lets chronicle these ups and these downs, lets remember the past and lets believe in a brighter future. I think I’m interested in writing again, and that has to be good.

I've been working for three days straight. It’s a musical this time and my crew seems to be having a party over the walkie-talkie airwaves. I’m at my desk, ignoring their fun and their gossip; I really don’t care as long as they get the job done. My mind is spiraling with frenetic activity, existing all at once in 3 or 4 different realities. I think it’s the excess junkfood, the tea and the passive smoking. So many thoughts...so many, spiralling thoughts...

Lets do a review of my life in this claustrophobic city so far.
Or perhaps I should start with a description of the city itself.
This is a city of mirrors. Shining surfaces. I see my face wherever I turn- reflected on the doors of the subway, on the glass panes of the tall buildings, on the cab windows, on my desktop monitor, in the sad eyes of the people I meet, even on their shiny shoes and their sparkling jewellery. Life mirrors as well, the same events, the same places and the same people. They're everywhere, like ghosts from the past or apparitions from the future. And time flows like a river here; you cant distinguish one moment from the next. Not because of the lack of change, but because of the sheer, mind numbing rapidity of it- the clutter of events- every one of them trivial, devoid of real hardship, cushioned in temperature controlled comfort that is warm only in the company of good friends. And thankfully, I have friends.
I have grown up quite a bit in this city. Amazingly, I’m still not sour. I still lie down in public spaces and watch the clouds float by. I still stop to smell the flowers on my way to work. No success of maturity there.
But I am hungry. That’s another things about this city- this unbelievably rich city is so impoverished of real life, papered from wall to wall with endless reams of rules and proprieties that paper it from wall to wall. So here we all wander, delirious from all that instant gratification, sinking in stability, fattened with pleasure, hungry as hell, starving in paradise. What does a girl have to do for some chaos?

But I would never say that I’m not happy here. I enjoy the safety, the invisible security blanket that’s thrown over all of us, the omnipotent ‘father’ watching over us, benevolently letting us be so naughty, but not so naughty, as to be a hazard to our selves (and his power). A false move and out, banished turned away from the Garden of Eden forever. I’m sniggering as I write this. Did I mention that its a church musical?