Quote

"But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!""
Jack Kerouac

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to present a post on vulnerability and expectation.

Today I was hurt very badly by someone I realized I care about. Someone I'd like to be tender and special to. I went through the motions of pretending it was ok, then admitted I was affected but that I would be ok, deciding to be cold and unresponsive and then deciding to give the person another chance. I admitted that the main reason I came to the concluding decision is because I have handled all such situations with passivity. I dislike confrontation. I prefer withdrawal.

The pain was hard and almost made me cry. But it passed. I make sure it always does. It has left a nasty aftertaste in my mind and I know I will be less open and adoring with this person. I've thought 'Why must this always happen to me?' and all that other conventional pain-jargon. But then that's passed too. I'll choose to give over to my moods and see what happens.

Thank you.

How 'Indian' is Ray?

Check this out. It's a very interesting perspective on Satyajit Ray.
Thanks Mum :)

I was horrible to S yesterday. Judgemental and bitchy. The alternative was to be intensely loving. Quiet.
I'm not going to ask why I did it.
I want S to.

There's someone I'd like to get to know. Sensually, verbally, intimately. 'I like your sudden smile, the slow, disproportionate, unabashed way you move,' I'd like to say. Yesterday I imagined the beeping tone of the phone connecting us after we hung up. Because we both softened our screaming, crimson images, allowing indigo interaction to spill over.
I sense the childishness and the child-likeness. The former is your uncluttered perception, the latter your candour. You glow among dusty melodies and categorize ruthlessly. 'I'd like to hear you sing,' I tell you.
Much about you is black. Unknown. Uncompromising. A square. A clam.
I like you because you fit my requirements. And because you don't.
But while I keep these things in mind, I promise to remain open to your changing. And to give you your time, and mine.

I've never really thought about my relationship with E. The only certainty I follow in it is that the word-concept of 'step' should be banished. At 5 years and 7 months, he is a confident, inquiring boy who frantically demands attention. I remember when I first heard that I was going to have a sibling....I was indifferently accepting. No anger or insecurity. I expected nothing from my father. It was another thing I took in stride.

I went to the hospital a few hours after he was born. Baba wanted to name him Bhombolnath!! I think it almost went on the birth certificate. I don't remember what I felt on looking at him. This huge bundle of flesh with a ready smile (even then) and memories he had already forgotten. They moved to Pune and I visited frequently. I loved E's physical form. Even after his baby-fat was lost, his face remained round, his eyes huge with inch- long lashes, his smile sudden. With my propensity to touch, we bonded physically and quickly.

Now we're flat-mates and have been roomates for the past 3 weeks. He's loud and can be bratty. He loves touching me. He likes shurshuri. He talks too much. Blood-ties hold no significance for me. I like him because I can listen to Bob Geldof and Mark Knopfler with him. Because he likes hugging. Because I now have someone to watch cartoons and Disney movies with. We share a house, a room, a father. We're possessive of each other.
I think we're ok.

Lost and Tagged

Sorry M, you tagged me over a month ago and I haven't gotten around to doing it. And I confess I'm doing it now because I'm at a complete loss.

7 things I plan to do

Polish up my driving

Keep my word to Geetanjali and write a book for her within this year

Join dance classes (preferably Latino)

Finish 'Bookshop'

Get the highest marks in English in my March exams

Let my hair grow (might change my mind on this one)

Be brave in all my decisions


7 things I can't do

Sit on a bike sideways

Sleep alone on a big bed

Resist my brother

Not get sentimental while listening to oldies

Not touch

'Be with' people long-term

Not listen to Bob Geldof singing 'I don't Like Mondays.'


7 things I say quite often

Listen.....

Array na

EESHAAN STOP THAT!!!!

I don't think so

kirom ekta jano

Mmmmmmmm

That is just not on

There are 10 people staying in the house now. I do not like houseguests for longer than a week. And these ones...the grand-relation types....are good for asking nosy questions and generally getting on ones nerves. You get to hear good old family-stories but...........I hate being under so many eyes. It's so different on stage. I've loved every one of my short stints with theatre.
I am fully aware of every movement I make, conscious of dozens of eyes watching me. And I love the power it gives me. But there the lines are rehearsed. Silences in theatre add to performance-power. I've had silences like that off-stage too. Fraught with feeling so palpable that it touches my mouth and dries my lips. A moment of terror for those who back away from untoward emotion.

We celebrated Janaki's birthday at Green Park yesterday. I rode in the dicky of the Qualis singing 'Que sera sera.' We had an open log-cabin to ourselves with water falling all around and perched over a pool. The music was terrible but we had fun and I took lots of photographs. Vernon and I talked about a lot of things....misguided feelings, the reproductive habits of mer-people, acceptance, flexibility, why I couldn't go on the slide and other such profound topics. I was too restless to really taste what I ate. I basically ran around sampling from everyone and tickling Nandini and threatening Samar with instant drowning. Then I photographed everyone over dessert, with cream all over their mouths.
As of now we're trying to come up with an indecent, Bengali nickname for E. We've come up with Buju, Pocha and....on his own suggestion....Nothing. Suggestions are welcome.

already??

My 31st was pretty cool. All my nice Pune-iite couple friends came over with their kids. Janki, my beautiful boss gave me this book called 'The Map of your Mind.' Dad and Shuchita have gone to Kiva's which is a hip lounge-bar, the rest of the house slumbers. A colleague has emotionally commissioned me to start and finish a book and present it to her on 31/12/06. So I truly have incentive this year.
I am definitely polishing up my driving by the end of this month.

Hope y'all have a very intimate, very personal, very passionate 2006.
Love

Rubble

There is a narrow, winding lane leading up to our building. It is raw and rude, refusing to be called a driveway. On both sides of this lane, there was once subtly hilly, overgrown land. A shortcut to our hill. Home to rats, snakes and such. Now, on one side there is major IT-hub construction happening. Trucks, lorries, cranes filled with brick and cement and other such necessary hardnesses roll up and down the lane and like to park themselves so that no other vehicle may get past. The creatures who had made their homes in the soil now seek human company through the medium of drainpipes and open balcony-doors.
On the other side are makeshift shanties where the builders live. They are fleshless. The women wear heavy, gold bangles, nose-rings with chains and clusters of earrings. They lift piles of materials and deposit them into shape. Their hands are dusty and unafraid. The men are not resigned to their livelihood. Yet they work tirelessly as if saying...one more brick in place...and maybe I can think of a different life. They look tired of this tireless hoping.
I usually walk up the lane around 9:30 at night. Rickshawwallahs in Pune are not known for their industriousness, especially at night. Sometimes there is a watchman positioned about 1/4 up the lane. Sometimes there is emptiness for the first half. I hear a radio in one of the workers homes. I hear a Bengali curse-word and half-turn. There are at least 9 children living in those shanties. They are in constant danger of being run over. At night they are stowed away. As I near our building, the lane is slightly uphill. My breath fragments. I see lights from the shanties. I hear comments about my body. Sometimes there is silence and just before I reach our gate, I feel eyes on me. I enter a void with the eyes on either end and my choice is to be intensely scrutinised or to be erased.
I have been told that the lane is not safe. It shuts out the hills and exposes me to blue-collar sensibilities.
But the two-minute walk is potent. And it's my only way home.

Woke up with a horrifuck cold and aching head. My nose is still leaky and I have a Christmas party at Tnt this evening where I have to be painfully chirpy. Met Ankush for coffee on Wednesday. We have to meet once every 2 months or so since we both suffer from the Syndrome of Acute Randomness. I tried to steal another of his shirts (he was carrying this huge pile of freshly-laundered clothes) but he wouldn't let me :(

I picked up some Penguin Pocket Classics at th TnT sale. Currently am reading 'Summer in Algiers' by Camus. I'm also half-way through 'Conscience Deluded' which is a gorgeous collection of stories by Russian women. I recommend all books published by Kali which is the first publishing house run by women in India. Look out for 'Relationship' which is a series of letters between writer Nayantara Sehgal and E.N. Mangat Rai.

I've been meaning to write about some Bernardo Bertolucci movies I saw in Cal this time. 'Last Tango in Paris' and 'Stealing Beauty.' I didn't watch them with as much care as I should have, but what I noticed was that there is no mere object in his movies. Everything has a purpose, a reason for the camera to slither around it, caress it, worship it. Everything is raw, thrown open. Nothing is too sacred for the camera...in fact it is the camera that makes it all sacred with its touch. I loved them.

Enough name-dropping. Aami ghoom dite jachhi.

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NOW HEAR THIS!!!

Today I walked into an enormous room and fell in love. There were rows to choose from. Some winking coyly, others rugged and deep. I turned to one only to nuzzle another only to breathe in a third. I wanted them all. But I am fickle. One intense session of attachment and love-making and I am done. There are few I can return to. Ah well. I should get used to it.
I never was a book-virgin anyway.

P.S. A confession. I went to the Indian Classical Music section first. Grinning to myself the whole time. Fuck, it's fun having a crush!!

?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!

So another cop-turned-rapist article in today's newspaper. Reaction: People will draw their womenfolk closer to home and remind them of their vulnerability. Plenty of outrage from feminists. Marches and walks and awareness campaigns all waving signs saying 'FOR WOMEN.'
Just a question here. Who are the men we are generally warned about? The driver, the construction worker, the security guard...the blue-collar public. How much of this awareness reaches out to them? If it's education that colours the collar, why not educate them? In fact, why not educate all men-folk? What's the root of rape? Making a patriarchal point? Repressed sexual urges?
I want to know. I want to know if rape is a clear, concise 'to-do' in a man's brain or a reflexive assertion of his superiority. I want to know why, if women are shedding the burden of being silent, men cannot see past centuries of drummed-in culture. There are women who have stood up and said 'I have been raped. It is wrong and I want justice.' Is there a man who will stand up and say 'I have raped. It is my right and I want it legalized?' They don't care if it's legally wrong. Would they say it's traditionally right? What's their story? Women feel defiled, humiliated according to sexual norms. Does the rapist feel satisfied, secure as per his 'maleness' requires him to? I don't know if there's a woman alive who would say she enjoyed being raped. Are there men who think-'Well if one can express anger, frustration, hunger, insecurity, need...all through the penis....why not?'
The ones we're warned against probably don't read newspapers or slogans. The ones we're not warned against probably do. But nobody talks.

I walked away:

A blue shirt
where the collar leaned into
jasmine skin

A little green bulb
Bleeding racous beats
Sawing into sound-proof corners

The gleam of razored sunlight on railroad tracks
I heard the hiss, saw steam
Remembered...

I walked away
With heavy arms
And a breath I could not exhale.

Finally in touch with Roshni! I was really wondering if she'd taken one look at the college...or maybe been accosted by the head of the ISU...and decided to become a dog-trainer in Alaska.
All she says is that she missed me the night before last and that it is snowing where she is. Wherever she is!!!
I'm getting increasingly itchy as my time in Spain comes to an end. My only purpose has been to spend time with my mother...and it is a very nice purpose. I don't want it to end. My mum has grown to be the only person in my life who does not want to shape it. Being apart for almost 4 & 1/2 years has taught us both the importance of small doses. Neither of us are inclined to 'live with.' Aloneness is too fragile, to possessive. And therefore I fight passively against learning to 'be with.' The one choice I made when my brain had prickly heat. I am rude and rowdy and apathetic towards those who might have mattered. I had no conditions for togetherness. Perhaps that is why I now feel the expected conditions pressing on me. Familiarity. Disabled conditions that will allow me to be the saviour. A struggling rag of the 'prince-charming' concept. And above all a need for complete independence from need.
Hugs to those who have loved me/become victims of my ignorance.

I won a prize for Arithmetic in Kindergarten. 'The Musicians of Bremen'...a Ladybird Classic. What I remember most is the word 'Arithmetic' written inside on a card. In broken letters. My love for addition and mental multiplication came up to that word.
Later, when my marks decided that English was to be my chosen path, that I was perpetually the best arranger of words on paper...I did not flinch. I who forever shrugged off labels no matter what the cost, accepted that the written word would be my facist hacksaw, would chop pieces out of me, hang menacingly over my head if I dared to pull away. I chose to choose to obey.
Then came the phrase 'just words'. I foolishly ignored it and down swooped the Dementor Dictator. Just words....JUST words, just WORDS, it was said with a shrug, with palms outstretched signifying disregard, helplessness, comfort...the 'just' with soft stress on the 'j' or the 's', 'words' amplified as much as possible. When I ignored it, I had the pleasure of mass-understanding, once I singled it out, I didn't know what to do with it.
My 16-out-of-20 and 21-out-of-25 marked essays, my mawkish, over-sentimental journals, the fragmented scribbles I consider my forte....words.
Expression, medium, language.....words.
Arithmetic didn't bring me to addition and mental multplication. They brought me to 'arithmetic.'
When I touched the keys of a piano, I thought of the word 'touch.' I couldn't listen to classical music because there were no lyrics. Then I started making up music-word associations and writing them down.
I had 'lyrics' for every composition I heard. When I played, I thought of 'precision' and 'wrinkles.' I loved my 'metronome.'
I don't love words because they give me images. I love images when they give me words.

Now, every situation, no matter how personal is story-material. Not for marking. For arranging and playing with words. I love word-ambigrams. I adore the tight, toxic distance I have with a guy I love because I can juggle adjectives about it.

:)
'smile'