Tomorrow...

Its crazy how hard forgiveness can be
It's crazy how much you are worth
Feel me up underneath my raw skin
Make me remember that you are the earth.

Understand my existance, undermine my warts
Walk with the fears in my handles.
Feel me and thrill me and play me by sleep
Brown babies of sweet ripened candour

Love is a many spendoured angry white beast
The quick fuck is our one horned shy wonder
Please tell me that story, the one with the deed,
the fences, the fancies down under.

Slice me a moon, and pour me your wines,
lets dividend your return from our share.
Silent night, anxious breath and freedom in the air,
I love you through each word and each stare.

Travel.

You whisper hard into my angular bent ears,
forever the delicious little gossip
You breathe in me lustily, claiming tomorrows,
you are always falling right out of pocket.

Untangle my ears, release my white toes.
You free me of every one of my whims.
Unshine my boots and muddy my green heart.
I will love you till the end of sin.

Kiss me again to the music of whores...
teach me how to count with my heart.
Make movies of my dirtiest fantasies and faiths...
Show me what what it really means to be apart

I'll promise you my freedoms and unmend my sexy ways
I'll forget each story from into its middle.
Three coins, a stamp and a fridge magnet for my time.
I'll remember to relearn every riddle.

The very sexiest of them all...

http://akhondofswat.blogspot.com/2009/09/repairing-brindavan-by-ruchir-joshi.html

Repairing Brindavan...

In honour of Hilda...

Would it be better if I didnt know how to sing?
Darling, do you like my new moan?
I've recently discovered a perfectly good candour...
Sweetheart, I've forgotten alone.


With feeling...

Jack Johnson, my brother, my fevered young lover...
Would you do me a favour and goddamn just shut up?

The Grand Girl at Habitat...

Reflections on Ice-Breaking

Candy
Is Dandy
But liquor
Is quicker

-Ogden Nash





This Nash guy is a philosopher. He's on to a lot.

Bye Bye Baby...

Moving into a new apartment...

I'm excited. Its a lovely space that I look forward to calling my own. It's also odd, the way my second flat was, with nooks and crannies that seem inexplicable and fun and the result of an architect's stab at having a good time induging the random quirk in an city that cant breathe. It's also...large. Not large. But feels large. A thousand square feet that will set me free and allow me to have the luxury of us wandering from one room to the other.(Us meaning Jam and I) I cant explain the miracle that is space for me.To have the freedom of defining one corner as my writing desk and the other for my afternoon attempts at yogic fitness. To have a hat stand, with all the hats I've collected...to have a favourite chair where I can breathe in my chai and cigarette...It's going to be the 4th flat I call my own, since I moved out...one for every year of independence...2 cities, four homes...and a truckload of memories...and maybe, I'll stay longer this time...

Goodbye old flat. I probably wont miss you because I'm not that kind of girl. But it was great. I'll always remember you. I've had some incredibly special moments with you. And some pretty extra special, crazy ones we wont tell anyone about. And I learnt how to be alone and not lonely in this city, with you. You're very good looking, and it felt right. Till last month.
It's not you, it's me.
I just need a little more room.

It's lovely, this bit. It makes me want (want) to get up early.

Earlier.
This bit is meant for me to write...but...


There's an orange cat downstairs and they sort of eyeball each other....
No, she never goes out/down.


My cluttered kingdom...


For J, who thinks I'm endearingly psychotic. And who immortalized the couch. Futon. Whatever.


It's very strange, this is the only picture I realize I took in my bedroom...



Ta...



Update : Please read this.

Flashing in my pan...

People interest me. Watching them has been a hobby for the longest time. I meet so many that while it may not have the extreme and evocative consequences that a new, wonderful meal is almost certain to have on me, it gives me great pleasure to discover new, wonderful personalities all the time. Sometimes they’re ones I would never have the chance to gravitate toward in a crowd. If you work in a very cold building with great coffee and large plaques celebrating the single handed inception of the first automated sliding door, chances are, even if we have some bizarrely mutual friend and end up in the same room somehow, we wont head straight for each other to have a fun chat on why I like Indian stir fry on my fusilli. However, if by some second bizarre chance card in my pack or yours, we end up faced with the prospect of small talk and opening lines, I may just discover that you’re the first woman I’ve met who strangely loves absolutely anything made of wax as much as I do. And we may talk for a while and then a lot longer, and realize we speak the same language. Often it’s not about what you do have in common.
Some of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met aren’t nice, just very interesting. Some are friends, dear and distant, some are family. A couple of boyfriends, colleagues, senior professionals, an old teacher, old flame….

I met A a long time ago. A’s ability to get things done is immense. He motivates and manages and manipulates, all with the ease of the performer that knows he is too good to slip for even a second and break that perfect illusion created in that moment. A is a tiny man, and under ordinary circumstances, might have been nondescript. But under no circumstances, is A ordinary. His eyes glitter; his small, imperfect body is so alive it could catch fire. In fact, A is on fire. He loves success and he knows he is the glorious one, adored for all the wrong reasons. There are those around him that see the shrewd, cunning man he intrinsically is and the many masks he has perfected over the years. And they, like me, would work with him (under certain conditional terms born from the wisdom of experience), in a heartbeat. Because A can extract from a performer like no other. Because A knows exactly what you are capable of, as an actor, and I have realized, as a human being. Some strange power dancing in those amused eyes sees through you and knows if you are lying about your lover, your lines or your linen. A just knows. And the way to handle that is to simply let him know and not waste your time and his fabulous energy in confirmations, denials or anything but what he can give and take from you. I hate to admit how devilishly attractive A is. And so is the devil I’m sure.

Pablo's 'Three'...

Somebody explain to me why it takes a swift kick on one’s metaphorical butt to realize that one is worthy of better things? Better everythings. Better music, better hair, better bottomlines, better sex, better life. Even better jokes. Better boundaries. Better definitions. A better body. More logic. Better heart. Better head. Better butt. Hm.


Here’s today's crossword.

A met B. Thought B was just fine. Better than any before B. Best therefore. Without a sell by date. A and B became AB. B was thrilled.

Cut to first 5 years. A and B are at each others throats a lot. A lot. But had forgotten life outside AB. Sailed along. Mostly without much talking to each other.

Cut to 5 years later. AB going strong. A is fatter, angrier, a little brash. B is fatter, angrier, and more than a little silent. Seething too.

AB acknowledges The Boat isn’t doing its smoothest sailing. One conversation occurs. Things are better for a day. Then AB go back to their usual. Squabbles, silence and sporadic sex.


Cut to 2 years later. AB has AB Baby. They’ve also stopped talking, stopped smiling, and stopped doing it. Well, they do smile and talk a little, but both are really angry inside. The other has no idea. They love Baby AB though and coo a lot at the crib.

Cut to six months. A meets C. They discover they fit. Like. Never. Before.

Ct to six more months. The fat is in the fire.

You’d think that it would be a simple life eh? A simple logical set of proceedings?

Nope.

A has had 12 years with B. A has had 6 crazy, kick ass amazing months with C. A discovers life and love, aren’t easy like Sunday morning. A discovers he loves B. More than he thought. More than ever before, when faced with the prospect of A-B. A also discovers he loves C. Like. Never. Before. And now, there’s Junior.

B and C are no wilting asparagus. Just in love. An inconvenient truth. Mean merry go triangle. And A's no macho villain. Just a sad person.

And I thought I was sad.

T s k.

All pals. All good people. Que sera sera guys. Maybe not.

Lola undercover...

I’m on a long-ish flight. The kind I’m usually bored intensely by, and the kind that usually has a very victimized Mother and her indignant Baby on board. The kind I’m constantly looking for anything to entertain my self with. Today, however, is behaving itself. On the way to the airport, I kept thinking highly focused thoughts, all of which I hope to swing speedily into action as soon as I land. I was booked on one of the only 2.5 decent airlines in the country (I have turned into validly bitter snob refusing anything else after much misery aboard the rest, I assure you). No rush at the airport, the latte guy didn’t screw up, boarding happened pretty much on time. Then we hung around the tarmac for an hour politely indulging all aircraft traffic ahead but I still managed to amuse myself with my extra special James Brown and usual fantasies of a yogic bodied self performing to his tunes. It’s still reasonably early in the morning, we’ve taken off, and breakfast was a pretty good bite. I have yet to fulfill my fantasy of meeting someone really interesting next to me on a flight (Not 3 aisles down, thanks very much) and having a fabulous resulting time. However, centre seat is empty and gentleman in aisle seat is not earnestly striking up conversation or reading my screen over my shoulder. Instead he is wearing fancy headgear obviously designed to facilitate some serious shut eye. Also, on my way back from the loo, nice steward (or is it air host?) with charming smile and twinkling manner, asked if I wanted to help him in the kitchen. A little sunshine with that coffee and I think it’s going to be a good day.

These days, a good day is a great day. Baby steps. Kid gloves.

I’m going to be blogging a lot more regularly. And I think everyone should. Especially those of you that I read often. Now that I’ve told you what to do, Zen, Rae, Sourapple, Hari etc etc, tell me to go take a hike. Which I’m doing soon by the way. A real one. With fellow adventurers, all highly superior in their survival abilities.

Sunshine is back, offering me candies before landing. Pity I’m picky. About sweet things. Sigh.

Jam was catching up on some reading. I don’t blame her, my Vogue covers are delicious. As for the snazzy Santa shot above, I was being forced into ho hoing for the birdy, in one of Bombay’s disco autos.

Soon I will be buying my first, probably tiny car. And praying while I relearn the math of driving. Driving in Bombay city. Stop laughing. Now.

Eating my heart out...

So I'm getting hugged a lot these days. And it isn't just online. Although those feel just fine too so thanks y'all. And the coolest bit is, no explanations required. For why I look like my sweatpants gave birth to Shylock.
The truth is, when things happen, they hit us pretty hard. And I'm trying to figure out where I went wrong with security blankets. Without blaming myself or cycling around in vicious circles (since that was so much fun in the first place) and how real, or unreal they can be. This will be my last musing on misery for a while... because sometimes, when something is really painful, you need to grit, grin and get a life. And that is real. That is life. I'm not faking repair but I am saying that it is hard enough being overwhelmed with feeling pain all the time. Healing lies in writing/ talking/ figuring out the rest of what is great about the one life you have. It's quite far from being easy, but it really is the must-do this season. Particularly when I realize that I had been living in a bubble. And I had nobody to blame for the bubble getting pricked, because thats what bubbles (and pricks) are prone to do. I also realize it's hardest to lose a friend. Any other relationship, business, romantic, maybe even family...is simpler.

******

Very few people know how much I love food. Food has changed for me. I’m only just figuring myself out where it is concerned.

I have a bit of a history. Most people gape when I order the most at a table. The most. Enough to feed the next table too. Friends have given up, and try and look the other way or distract mildly amused/surprised company and my usually being a very average eater doesn’t help. My earnest belief in doggy bags seems to not lessen their burdens either. But I cannot explain the connection that I have with food. Menus talk to me, they do. Long after the main course has been ordered and conversation has resumed its usual energy, I enjoy the details of each italicized explanation on which greens lie alongside what fish and what berries line the delicate middle layer of the in house special cheesecake.
I read food blogs daily. And have my favourites. And gaze for long minutes at each glorious photo. And read their archives and wait for updates as expectantly as I watch the breakfast news. I eat at new places constantly. Tiny, undiscovered eateries excite me. Their smells and sights and menus and salt-of-the-earth food meke me happy. I live for discovering and rediscovering different little places, known for the best in what they make. I’ve eaten as happily off tiny carts as I have exploring different cuisine. Japanese food sings to my soul. Sweets make me feel like I may never need to eat them, as long as I can just look. Indian food is like the museum I can never finish making glorious, wide eyed discoveries in… ….I’ve lived my atlas through menus and just writing about how I feel about looking, tasting touching and even creating food makes me feel a deep, warm excitement inside.

Only lately have I embraced and fully respected this feeling. I’ve become more aware of my interest, read about food with more pleasure than I can describe, looked at food more closely. Eating, as strange as it may seem, is an integral but secondary part of what I’m trying so hard to articulate. It’s the food itself that really, really speaks to who I intrinsically am.
It's a big, big part of me, and it's beautiful, not at all wasteful and needs the right company. And happily enough, I have one ally in edible arms. Together, we gaze meaningfully into menus and everything wonderful falls into place. We must, must eat together more often my friend.

I miss Mono. Who loves food like I do, is a true gourmet and never leaves room for people to stare at my overflowing table.

As a present to myself and anyone else who feels this deliciously, I've linked up all my favourite food blogs. These are the best ones and I must have visited, revisited, forgotten, loved hundreds more so I'll keep updating regularly. Secondly, please pass on your own delicious pages that you write on/visit often. Make my day, why dont you;)

Pop went the weasel…

I don’t feel like it at all. Not right now, not in bit, not yesterday, last week or tomorrow. Writing has always been personal, even when it’s about someone else’s something else. However, I don’t feel personal at all. Or rather, I don’t feel like being personal at all. It’s been a sad, stressful time…and I feel like I would like to bury my sand in some cool, clammy sand, legs blissfully stretched out behind me and a martini that I will drink when I wish to, within reach.

The truth is, I’m one of those people who quite hate being miserable. Its quite simple, when someone or something gives me grief (the special sort of heartburn that only the chosen few can inflict), I just cant get it out of my head. Or heart, system, mealtimes, workplace, dinners, drinks, flights, books. I’m miserable. Period. And you would never guess it. Because I’m also talented. And supremely so, when it comes to covering up. Every performing skill that the greats have ever talked, written or thought about, I have watched myself demonstrate with perfect words, a warm smile and a slightly superior tone. It is an out of body, akin to floating kind of dance that you watch yourself execute, noiselessly, formlessly…If I knew how to do the exact same onstage, this might have been chapter two of a bestselling biography.

So right now I’m stewing. Cooked to perfection in a still simmering sauce of bitterness and resentment, and roasted for luck by malignant misery. Dear one, of years of trust and love has turned out to be the royal rat. And things are not black and white as I would wish and pray. No, things instead are every peachy and ugly and honey and brown, all in the same twisted chuckle of the coughing crystal ballerina. Go figure.

So there’s rage. Names that I cannot stop calling in my head. That are making me a sad, sad, lesser person. A tremendous amount of hurt that I cannot begin to deal with. And a desire to leave these images behind. An image of the beloved past having turned into an ugly, cruel present. Images of the laughter shared, the pure, child like quality of the moments. And now images of something that for me, has truly changed. Foe the first time in my life, I have regret and a feeling that I mistook a bad human being for a good one. Because to be terrible sometimes is human, to be devious, is an altogether different proposition. And when you meet that apple in your basket, the idea is to run Lola run.

I do know things are never quite so simple. And that everyone has some good. But I’m genuinely not interested anymore. I’m tired of looking for beauty where there was none. I’m tired of a bicep flexing reflection being a stronger memory than a conversation. And if someone else finds the needle, good luck to them and their roll in the hay.

I’m glad I wrote because I have deadlines for certain other writings that this might just help begin and people who may not feel indulgent of my martinis, cubist scribbles or sand. The past needs to be left behind rightfully. It really is time to change the music and get on with it.

Your Song...

I met two interesting people, that I enjoyed and felt like writing about. With due thanks to Gin Soaked Boy.

I’m the feeling, the old fashioned high collar,
I’m the princess, smiling getaways with murder
I’m wanderlust, the roving eye you never had
I’m wanton beauty, the beast you can’t deny.

I’m the perfect wordsmith, the mighty muse of your moment
I’m pure addiction, sweet hunger and hallucination
I’m the knowing fortress you cannot wait to destroy
I’m the fierce freedom that eludes you every night.

I’m your deepest shallow, the inescapable delicious shame
I’m the drumming rain on your drizzled window pane
I’m the remembered fantasy, that exhilarating long scream
I’m the shot... in the dark of your dream…

I’m the fire in your art, as you grapple to reignite
I’m the inconsistent canvas, the fury keeping you alive
I’m the naughty in the snapshot, that’ll never wink from your frame
I’m the hat that you wear, for the smell of my hair.

I’m the scrupulous irreverence, laughing at your shackles
I’m the simple, in your convoluted complicated
I’m so pertinent especially in the impertinence...
The relevant seduction of your inarticulate questions.

I’m the height that makes you dizzy with fear
I’m redefined rules, forgotten to adhere
I’m the furtive rearview, that forgets to have and to hold
I’m Salvador’s Gala as he sold his soul

I’m the greasepaint dream, stirring violently awake
I’m the beloved crib you can’t make your peace with
I’m the fleeting impression of original sin
I’m the softness of skin against skin.

I’m the well behaved discretion by day
I’m the thrill of a secret memory
I’m the inevitable parting of our ways
The delicious Billie must resume her Holiday.

After all...

I'm supposed to feel a song
Pour fifty five tears down her reel.
The Boss is busy feeling up the fourth in line,
we're out fishing for the driver's wheel.

Complicated and all in knots,
the aftertaste of the unacquired taste.
Love's a bitch and wish you were here,
its fun when we make love in haste.

What's the problem, ask's Doctor Teeth
Would you prefer a life less lived?
Excuse my language, I quite like my frog
especially in his moments of Prince.

Jack tumbled down the hill last night,
Jill suffered vertigo in silence...
True love is far too much fun these days.
lets Bonnie and Clyde this past tense

Rigmarole and Routine eloped,
the last ones expected to pine.
Make tea in the mornings, then dinner past midnight
and retext me that fantastic line.

And what a surprise the Mad Hatter feigned,
a padlocked diary of barter?
Kisses and chants with five coconut bars
We're going to live happily ever after.

H for Happy....

It’s been close to six weeks since The Move. Jam has had several life altering experiences in her otherwise peaceful existence. She wonderfully remains the naughty, intrinsically sunny kitten she is. Being plump does wonders for her disposition. Falling out of my third floor apartment (The kitchen window was open and she who has sat and sunned herself on it a million times, leaned too far forward in an excited attempt towards a mocking pigeon) and being chased by my well meaning watchman looking to score brownie points with me, resulted in a day of sitting quietly in her previously irrelevant basket and hobbling around with a severely strained muscle in her hind leg. She’d never seen the outside world and this unpleasant initiation coupled with a hysterical, tearful me and an unknown (but nice) vet, made for a somber deflowering. I was the traumatized one however. The next day, by evening, she was playing with her ball, using only upper body. Leg’s healing and so am I.

Home is now a nice, warm, colorful apartment. Being alone, feeling alone and wanting company many miles way is becoming a less vehement voice in my head. Despite working late each night, initially I dreaded the days off. Invitations to drinks that I did not want to drink, with people I was determined to not enjoy, were becoming hard to deal with. Secondly, being alone in a house that wasn’t home yet, suffocated me. I missed home and its people and the cool dark drizzle outside my French windows. Work, the reason I’d moved, is great. However I’m one of those people who need play too. So I resented work for being so nice, the same way I had yelled at play last year, for being perfect, for holding me back.

I traveled insanely. I planned the move during a period I knew would be hectic. I’ve done enough packing, unpacking, hotel rooms and room service for a long time. I love the excitement of it, I detest the thought that it’s a bit of me running away from settling into a city that I’m going to have to live in, for a very long time. A city that never sleeps, that makes me afraid of being unhappy. A fighter city.

I’m still not all there. I’m still traveling. I like the people, even though I haven’t met a potential great friend yet. But often these days, when I get home at night, I find myself looking forward to an established, comfortable routine that smells suspiciously like home. Jam greets me noisily at the door, we cuddle for a good 15 minutes, I get myself a shower and something hot or cold. Dinner, emails, television, book, calls, bed….

There is hope yet.

Meet Jam...

Moving to another city has been tough. Jam and I miss home immensely.

Gush...

So Super decided to Karaoke last week. And after many soulful renditions in the living room, to our cat mostly, he goes for it.
And Super was super. All sexy and moves, with Bob Marley. Here’s the review. First article.

http://kroaknights.blogspot.com/2007/04/week-7-lookin-for-fun-and-feeling-gooey.html

Er, note phrases “Marry Me” and “ Pick of the night”.

You are officially a rock star now baby!

For Mono esp.

The much belated pictures from the new year thing. I was too ill to go out so some came in. Lovely it would've been had the illness of a lifetime not preceded the following few days.

Few points of interest.

1. All, and I mean all, candid pictures have Superstar in suspicious pose mode. Even when he is supposed to be taking my temperature.
2. Being married obviously implies constant displays of camera affection.
3. P's attempt at interesting black and white has wonderfully enhanced the effects of modern medicine. I look drugged mostly.
4. Mono is being big, warm, friendly in all photos.
5. The Poet and Mono look happy to be together.
6. Photography cannot capture the drama of Anand beng drunk.
7. I think the Poetry Recital is the most effective one.
8. I like the shaky hand ones so much.












About as candid as Hillary Clinton

Hello

When I was leaving for Delhi, I was asked to eliminate all shawls, sweaters, jacket [note, singular] from my spartan duffel bag. In fact all warmth, all protection. What if it’s a little nippy in the nights? No, I was warned, the city was “scorching”… Okay then, I was nervously prepared for this arid desert with sufficient anticipation, since I burn far better than freeze. And then I went off to the airport. Where I was summarily told that the terror alert was rocketing to the top of its chart, even as I argued, and no moral support would be allowed in. I was going in all alone. Now, I don’t sound this way for nothing. I was going to have to live with 15 people I’d never met before and I had spent a week having premonitions. Besides feeling horribly under qualified for the whole thing, I was suffering the thought of several artistic temperaments bull fighting each other for the next few weeks. Now I like artists. They’re my favourite kind of fascinating people, whatever it is that they do, whether painting, pottery, performance etc. But they are also almost always troubled, dramatic and moody people and I am one of those people mortally afraid of other people’s scenes. My own are not up for discussion right now.

I sulkily bid superstar goodbye. Bombs on planes apparently mean that one’s bags are screened before one even enters the airport. I put in my luggage, my handbag and the organizer that has, for the past 5 years, contained my whole life, career, cash and cards. Also items of sentiment and return ticket on this occasion. Foul mood unchanged, I collect boarding pass and return to pick up handbag. Am told that Terror Alert has made screening a long process and it seemed as though the last set of items would need rechecking.

I cheerfully contemplate the thought of a bomb turning up in my bag or my pots of lip gloss sparking mortal fear, and say so to fellow passenger who is also deprived of his laptop. He looks disapproving of such flippancy yet accompanies me to coffee place, bookstore etc. I remove earplugs as missing flight this time would be of serious consequence. (At some point I will put up post on How to Miss a Flight – Like Never Before) Then security and sitting around. My absconding bag and diary begin to worry me at this point and no amounts of reassuring from officials placate me. Particularly since boarding had begun. I rush around and finally retrieved the bag. The all important organizer has disappeared! Despite being promised that it was definitely somewhere (!) and that I would be the first to know when it was located, I panicked. If I called anyone, I knew they would tell me to not take the flight. And missing this one was not even a remote option. I was the last to board and I have never cursed as much, albeit mentally, as I did the airport and this bewildering madness. A crazy 2 hours with some exceptionally bad food pass excruciatingly slowly and I land. Switch on phone while people rush around as though local bus will restart movement in a few seconds. I have 21 missed calls from unknown number. I am informed upon calling back, by a cold voice called the Bangalore Airport Manager that a black organizer is waiting for me in that city, as I sit in another, trying to imagine what I will do without any money, identification, credit or debit facility etc. The next morning I was to reach Drama School but before that I was on my own.

I did what I haven’t done in many years. I called Dad ( who incidentally lives now in a different time zone) and bawled out my sad victimization by the cruel world. That took about ten minutes, without him getting in more than a sentence edgeways. And then, from halfway across the world, he flashed his magic wand, told me to go collect luggage, and wait outside. Some kind person arrived in 20 minutes, whisked me away to lovely food and shelter and gave me more money than I started out with.

5 years ago, my pride and independence would’ve been severely damaged. Here, I was just plain happy. Kind person in question kept asking if I needed more money, food, towels etc. And I was rescued.

The next morning, after much earnest navigation I found the school, only to be told that the programme was to be at a farmhouse on the outskirts since such blessed work was hardly to be conducted in the middle of the city. I suspect they were afraid of temperamental people as well and wanted to be as inaccessible as possible. In any event, all was forgiven and forgotten on reaching aforementioned farm. It is a sprawling, vast, green haven with peacocks and orange trees everywhere. It was as though Delhi and its swearing drivers and pomp, had disappeared.

Apart from our invasion, the farm was equipped with several studio apartments where artists from the across the world came and lived in for a year or more, to create their work in complete peace. Among the people I met ( Breakfast, tea, lunch, tea again, and dinner were in a common dining hall that one had to walk half a kilometer of beautiful stone path to reach) were a Japanese painter and his visiting American lecturer partner. Both entirely desirable and Tor, my Japanese friend is truly gifted at what he does. The others were Martin an English cartoonist (uncanny resemblance to what a cartoony, stiff version of Prince Charles would be like), Jane, the English writer, Carol, the American painter, Queenie, the Korean tai chi expert and Navjeet, the Sikh, Bharatnayam dancer( I was astonished at the combination of his profession and community and then, later, at his incredible grace and masculinity as a performer) . There were also two Russian women dancers who came to watch our rehearsals but never spoke a word to any of us.

My personal connection though was with Gwyn, the Australian potter. She’s 61, beautiful and can tell the most amazing stories though her work. The fame and money achieved through gallery showings in New York is important to her, and a means to stay in a place like the farm for a year and in that stillness, breathe life into the most exquisite creations I have ever seen. One of her instillation pieces is called ‘Breath’, and is a series of bottles and pots in a pale rose porcelain, that when put together seem to breathe out one long sigh. When she holds a pot in her lovely, wrinkled, mud-stained hands, and talks about its inner movement and energy, it is and was for me, incredibly wonderful to watch.

The first day and night were hard. I missed home and my friends terribly. Despite all the conversation and exciting energies, it took me a few days to really submit to these people, all of who were so entirely wrapped up in what they had chosen to do with their life. And once I did, the joy of being allowed to talk, learn and listen continuously, all day long on the one thing that mattered most to all of us, was a freedom I’ve never had before. It didn’t matter if some of us spoke different languages, except at rehearsal, where it did matter and tempers frayed. But even that was exciting and we tested so many boundaries that in ordinary settings, would be difficult to get past.

The magic was very inspiring. What was not inspiring, wonderful or magical was the bitter cold and freezing rain that schizophrenic Delhi chose to shower on me. After must nastiness over the phone, Super and Anand remorsefully couriered shawls, cap, woollies etc. Braving what was an extreme temperature for me at least, we began going out in the evenings to see the city, and some of us grew very close. It is however, the first time I’ve been in a situation where every one of us liked and respected the other enormously and while I have no doubt that things would naturally change if the situation were to extend to a year, it added an important connectivity to the whole thing. I made personal bonds with two people that I’ll always keep in touch with. And I came back with an incredible amount of clarity for the future, a result of the long walks and unspoilt quality of that perfect place. I’ve tried not to gush but I really do feel so much for my time there.
In a few weeks, I will move to another city, leaving behind all that is familiar, loving and reassuring. And this trip, while certainly not making it any easier, has inspired me to have the necessary strength.

Lets go...

The other day I read an article on guilt. Apparently, it’s the new love. Makes the world go round. Apparently, it’s what the Great Indian Family Bond is based on. A large dose of sentiment, in the right, quavering tone, with a tiny reminder on duty thrown in on the side, is all it takes, assures this well informed journalist. We the people are consumed by our desire to be holier than thou. We even marry people we’ve never met, sacrificing far more interesting partners we may or may not have fallen in love with. Children are forced to eat because there is no middle ground between discipline and domination. Our parents never did it, and instead, Immaculate Conception, or its desi, purer equivalent, is firmly believed in till at ripe old 15, Bollywood or Playboy, whichever arrives first, make things impossible. Sex Ed is off the internet or music videos that work just as well. The article also talked of the sexual stigma that defines our blurred sexual identities later on. Deepak Chopra’s illustrated Kamasutra at Crossword is opened guiltily by a young woman. In fact, come to think of it, the Erotica section is the least visited corner in any bookstore. Same sex partners and AIDS are clubbed together and both accepted as a strange westernized phenomenon that affects “other people”. All this while we evolve from mithai on Diwali to Rocher, champagne and eBay.

Initially, when I read the article, I rubbished it. There are far too many of us who like finger pointing because it makes for intellectual hoo ha. And I know plenty of nice families that have set up new Indian ideals where it doesn’t really matter what the norm is, and if you want to do something, you’re free to do it after or despite discussion. Grudgingly or otherwise, many Indian parents today balance freedom well with authority. This writer kept saying how proud she was of being of Indian origin, which was quite ridiculous given that she seemed to think that as a nation, we symbolize one huge guilt trip.

But I’ll give her this much. The guilt that she spoke of is something we do without even realizing it. I have strong women friends defined by guilt. They’re vibrant and independent and full of pride, but at some grass root level, they’re feeling guilty. Of being independent in a family where women don’t need to work and a job is viewed of as an impediment to the natural duty of child rearing and husband feeding. Of never being able to explain why freedom is important. Of never being able to escape the shame of having felt claustrophobia. Our television feeds complete garbage into the minds of its viewers. The representation of Indian men and women is something I’m fiercely ashamed of. Rae’s post last week was a funny read but has a far deeper truth that despite endless debating, fails to really outrage our accepting sensibilities.
Generation Now is evolving into funny, interesting people that screw up relationships occasionally, find jobs and partners they love deeply, or in the least can live with and suffer stress, smoking and bad cinema. Couples have children after having spent enough time enjoying each other’s company. Marriage has stopped becoming a spiritual goal.

But guilt is still a big deal. I have my own. Every now and then I tend to mumble my way through family weddings where explaining my unconventional career and life is fearful. Suddenly my intense love for what I do, is guilty. I’ve watched my amazing dad try to explain my decisions and cringed. A friend is slowly trying to work his way through a mess of having been the obedient son for too long. Having sacrificed what he’s wanted for a really long time, extracting oneself from well meaning, but suffocating families where duty and sacrifice are synonymous with family honor is a task. Another friend cant get out of a marriage that lasted as long as the wedding because she’s afraid of the literal heart attack back home. A third will complete the mandatory education in the chosen field for 7 years before going on to get a job she doesn’t want. The thing is, we’re still not free. There are very many of us who are stuck in pools of inexplicable guilt that defy logic. Fashion becomes something to be ashamed of in a country where choices are judged in a matter of minutes.

I know I sound a little confused in this post. Its because I am, on the subject. There's a lot to understand where brass tacks are concerned.

I honestly don’t know if it’s more specific to us, owing to our heritages, or a widespread feeling that better masked elsewhere. Whatever it is, it’s too much baggage to grow with.