6S, Volume One, publishes today.
Congratulations to all my friends- Crusty, Quin, Babyisland, who've written; this calls for a toast!
For book details, pls visit sixsentences.blogspot.com.

Two sticky learnings. Someone’s long due salute to a writing class teacher who sent her back-“live life, get bruised, then write”; elsewhere a child with cancer celebrates a rare day in school, then sends in her homework.

Nothing newsworthy. Life is even-keel.

Sometimes the shortest way west is to first go east and take the bridge over; you never quite know what particular brand of surprise you’ll find, like that cut-rate second hand bookshop with man-height tall stacks of books, but you buy a train ticket to cross, much to the horror of the auto driver who drops you there.

Blame it on a Mercury retrograde. Two trips into town for one pair of specs, because the opticians forgot one minor measure. Its rather hot already, even with the fast trains the commute is one hour minimum including a fifteen minute trudge through shortcut lanes, but ok, if that’s on the cards, so it is. Did find a new way to reach Crawford market though, a walk that involved some nifty turns past old shops and derelict heritage buildings. Later learnt some personal history- I’d trudged past the now dilapidated office where an uncle once started out in life with shared table space only-law practice; yes, this is the city where anything can happen, anytime.

And for once I have shoes that are not Bata relics.

From the park

After all the social chit chat over dinner, after asking about the health of second cousins whose names one can’t remember, you talked about your work with the salt-pan workers in rural Kutch, teaching them micro-finance, helping them source loans to buy bicycles with, and streamlining age-old work processes; this is REAL WORK, not sitting on a chair in an air-conditioned office, or so I think.

Ah glee! A patli gali, new shortcut, traffic-free- a road that twists and turns, goes up hill and down, mocks the flashy expressway that it briefly runs past but that one’s traffic-heavy, past buildings that perch higgledy-piggeldy on what used to be a hill, tumble-down shanties, a track that goes past areas that are not so nice, repair shops for trucks and tempos, take a left, take a right on to smooth concrete and then viola! home…

Rahman rocks! What a show- tremendous, pulsating energy that holds that thousand-strong crowd mesmerized, clapping and singing along; stupendous wizardry, that variation on the notes. Each time he renders Dil se, its flawless, soul-gripping, different. Only on the telly, alas.

Different rocks too, on the lovely ladies who do dinner; showroom-quality rocks that outshone the strings of lights at the reception last night, lights that shone and glittered with the sea breeze and the quite chatter on an impeccable lawn. I lasted there for half an hour, I’m getting better at the howd’youdo’s.

This year the corner cassia is in bloom, a showy all-gold Monet. Quite unlike the washed out pales last year.
Still, the cuckoo trills pre-dawn to a single star pinned to the sky.

Talking to you yesterday the years magically condensed, talking late into the night over mugs of stealthily brewed coffee huddled on hostel-issue beds, talking about this that and the other, and despite all, nothing has changed, not really.

Glittering purple lights on the tarmac under a pitch-black sky, a single star shines overhead. An evening spent savoring art and the art of conversation by a lush lawn in a perfect home, envy the old-styled swings on the Mangalore-tiled open porch. The big city past midnight is a million points of gold, this makes the two hour flight delay worthwhile. So many colors, so many… on such days I tell myself go get real.

The flames of the bonfire for Holi. A piecemeal bonfire with old furniture and sundry twigs and branches, the way it best is. A red veiled newly wed performs the customary pooja. The chattering crowd is hep- no, I don’t know anyone here and I’m content not to, to just stand back, be a part of the crowd-edges, hear the cackle and hiss as flames leap red orange against a black sky and watch red edged embers float gently to the ground.

Splashes and patches of purple- magenta- red on tar, wild shrieks and laughs of kids playing holi brought back memories of times when one was happy to be a red, green and yellow haired witch draped in kaleidoscopic multicolor, when did all this change?

A saturday off for once, and where does it go?

The colors around are so lovely, I’d rather keep them to myself for a while. Spring.

Colors

A hundred shades of green flutter in the breeze, forming an intricate lace canopy over impatient traffic.
Shiny cars, rattling autos, buses and cycles jostle to a metallic symphony and set off tiny dust clouds.
But by the roadside, dancing jade shimmers against the palest blue.

The season of colors.

Orange-red kesu flowers are stark and extravagant on a distant leafless tree.
The leaves have long withered, leaving the sap free to nourish the buds and blossoms.
Traditional songs, the hori, rave about the color called gulaal, that these flowers are processed to produce.
Colors that are sprinkled to play Holi, the spring festival that marks the change of seasons.
In time, these flowers will drop one by one, leaving a bare-branched tree stark by an orange carpet.

The season for change. The season of colors.

So its been a hectic week.


So the tests from last week are in, after all the prodding, pinching and wincing, and one’s genes being what they are, the results are what they are, and for once one is glad about the four plus year godawful degree one took, one knows how to handle this. Somewhat. Enough already. No comments.


There are three ways into town. Spent most of last week and this week exploring the roads and guesstimating traffic, inkypinkyponky we take THIS one, and cut past like that, and then THAT shortcut... and hopefully get where we’re supposed to. The days were spent in sinful luxury by the sea, talking work, gazing wistfully at the Gateway and envying the milling crowds eating bhelpuri past the high rise plateglass windows and taking trips on double decker tourist steamers cutting a smart arc in the glittering sea . Lunch was served on silver dishes, some of it quite all right, what’s to complain, though they could go easy on the oil and ghee. One learning: the ride does seem all right if one is listening to FM in the gridlock, red tail lights and way too many cars, particularly edge to edge on JJ bridge and one cant help but wonder if the design specs considered these loads. If you take the eastern expressway before eight in the morning, its fascinating to see the contrasts and the changes, from genteel art deco to working class grit, ancient mill-lands under development, swanky glass and steel nestling with single room chawl- type community living. And nice trees, more green than we see in my part of town. No, that’s not correct, possibly the green is more interesting because its unexpected.

Been crazily busy. Will post today.

Brick, mortar,glass cladding and steel do a hotel make. The squat structure by the domestic airport has been transformed from the public sector behemoth it once was, touched by a magic sprinkle called for-profit enterprise; though that path did witness a few eyebrow-raising quick ownership changes enroute. The atrium is beautiful, vast given the frugal norm in this space-hungry city, stunning given the contrast with its ugly cement exterior. Stunned the suits as well, and that’s quite something, since this bunch excels at seen it all-done it all. Impeccable poolside, tropical aviary, rippling stream and envy-invoking rattan for the seating clusters. The meeting rooms have cushioned walls, something even the town biggies have missed out on. One tiny nit– those strings of artificial flowers lining the railings do look plastic.

Decent enough week. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

A friend writes:

Creative non-fiction - which is autobiographical, but
is always dangerous because the images and characters
are so present, so vivid, that when I write I take a
lot for granted - forgetting that the reader cannot
see what I see.

That shower of dust particles dancing in that lazy afternoon light, sepia tinted with gold The timbre of voices, crystal, as they rose in unison, tackling mundane scales, now supportive, now showing off.

The fine wrinkle lines on the corners of my eyes and the laugh lines when I look in the mirror and see what I want to see.

The intricate needle point of a memory that recalls events from five decades ago, but not as much last week, or that important letter in today’s mail.

How could you ever see that?

Charade. A 1963 thriller. Audrey Hepburn, perfect, lovely clothes, and they all stay on. A completely impressive Cary Grant. Witty, laugh a minute. The dialogues are so crisp you couldn’t pare them if you tried. Yes, we finally watched this last night.

Eight things, more or less.
Because Quin said so.

8 things I’m passionate about

Baba, my eightyfour year ole sweetheart.
Colors
The stockmarkets, whattaride...
Words, 3 languages, thankyouverymuch
Street food
My India.

8 Things I Want to do Before I Die

Go to Istanbul. No I dunno why, but I must must MUST.
Have one book of translations published (not PDO or self publish)
write
Take a train that runs cross country, Jamnagar to Gauhati or Cochin to Jammu , where I can hop on and off the train at will, stopping wherever it I feel like
Take a year off to return to “real life”, maybe work in a store, too ivory towerish this life is sometimes
Own my home: glass finish kota tiles, at least one decoupage wall, bookshelves lining the corridor, nice long windows with flowing curtains, yes?

8 Things I Say Often

damn
donkey (gadhedo chey) and its completely colorful variants
oh hell
Really?
On the other hand…
Hmm..

8 Books I've Recently Read

I have very little free time at home. I just about manage snippets:

The Shambhala Way
Van Gogh Blues
Navneet Samarpan, a literary magazine in Gujarati, where I’m trying to read a piece about the autobio of a child prodigy-author
Last Sunday’s Hindu Businessline and a pile of financial n’papers, and this never ever ends

8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over

Dil se/ ARR
Kholo kholo/ TZP/ Shankar Ehsaan Loy
Vaishnav Jan toh / Various
Udi udi udi/ ARR
Send your love remix / Sting
Michelle/ Beatles

8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends

they’re funny and bright
they’re honest and upfront
they don’t give a damn about appearances
they’re real. I cant explain this one. I cant stand fakes.

Four hundred words that were difficult to do, like squeezing out the last bit of toothpaste from the tube after you’ve pressed a rolling pin to smoothen the edges, greedily wheedle paste free of the metal tubing; finally victorious.

Bollywood shining..

The black lady shone bright, our very own Filmfare awards that I’m talking about.

Someday I want to sit in the junta seats at Andheri Sports Complex, cheer myself hoarse and clap red palm-loudly.

Tare Zameen Par is the best movie of the year, Aamir Khan the best director, that cute kid the critic’s award. No doubt about that. Will take a while before we see anything close. On a subject that is as difficult to handle as dyslexia. Such a bright and oh its-great –to-be-alive treatment, superlative!

Tabu, the critics award for Cheeni Kum, I don’t think anyone else amongst the bevy of lovelies that tinsel town features, could carry this April- December romance with such panache.

Kareena for a vivacious true to life sardarni in Jab we met, the best actress award, the movie was a riot.

ARR for the stupendous score for Guru, will take a while before we hear anything close to Barso rey.

This once I’ve seen all the movies, except for Life in a Metro. No way I can sit next to the sweetheart and watch this one, with its tale of parallel and sequential affairs of the heart and whatchacallit, supposedly set in this city.

For all the ppl who’ve been googling for Toshi Sabri and reaching this page- He was on the Star Voice of India show on Saturday, a little thinner but on his feet. Should do ok, heavens willing.

Sweet dreams, little princess.

First babyisland, and then abbagirl, I’ve been tagged once too often on this one, so, here we go:

Page 123, skip 5 lines, write the next 3:

The Secrets of the Shambhala/ James Redfield:

..Even if we wanted to give Tibet its freedom, it would not be fair to the Chinese.”
He waited for me to say something, and I thought about confronting him with the government policy of importing Chinese nationals into Tibet in order to dilute the Tibetan culture. Instead, I said,” I think they just want to be free to pursue their religion without interference."

I’ve learnt quite a bit about intuition, energy fields and outcomes from this book, it has helped declutter my mind quite a bit. Now I just step away from things or people that my mind tells me to avoid.

Nashta?
khakhra (roasted roti) with cheese spread/honey/ sesame masala. And the yellow khakhra is the store-made one, fenugreek flavored. Biscuits, meetha, a citrus fruit called Mosambi (dont know the English equiv) and a glass of guava juice from a carton.

Ok. I admit it. I’m the only person I know who’d walk a kilometer for Okra.
Okra, as in the vegetable? Now paying ten bucks for a quarter of Okra from the vendors lining the road; nice green, slender and dainty ladies fingers, is wrong, is way too much. Not in the winter, when prices are supposed to hold better. How on earth is someone with a decent income or someone with a single salary supposed to manage, I debate as I walk home having spent much more. Strange enough, it costs the same at the shiny supermarket as it does at the vendors where you’re supposed to haggle, cajole and bully your way.

Tare Zameen Par

Amazing direction. Awesome colors. Beautiful. Great pace. No, its not a documentary-ish treatment for a difficult subject. There is no preaching. No dumbing-down.

How the director has managed to enter a nine-year old’s brain is something I’ll never know.

I was/am an dyslexic at math, I tell Papa, reminding him of the times I couldn’t leave the breakfast table without reaching twelve nines are. But numbers now are trends, lines that move up and down when they’re supposed to, and its when they don’t quite, that’s when you zoom in and push them some and turn them over.

But what a movie. Defining. Even if this man doesn’t make anything else, it would be fine. Amazing ease with the medium. I can’t think of any Indian film director who’d have the guts to show an opening so realistic and funny, a kid mesmerized by tadpoles and fishes in an open gutter, watching this strange world upside down.

So what do you do?

At best it’s patch work, a hotchpotch of ragged defenses that you tack together. A, yes; but possibly B as well, don’t you think, you say as you try veer the talk to directions more propitious, but you’re by far too clever. No facades, no charade, as real as real is, but its your sense of humor to appeal to.

Perhaps.

Elphinstone:

Its been a busy time. Dashing about two cities, just glimpses remain. Trying to cook and keep a basic meal for the days I’d be away. The middle aged British lady waiting in the queue for a security check, completely frazzled and desperately needing to talk, getting back after the flight she was on was diverted since she needed to be hospitalized, she was in hospital for five days and doesn’t know what for. The crisp voice of the pilot saying that the temperature on arrival in Delhi was four degrees, which is quite a bit away from Mumbai’s chill ten The young couple on a tour of the cold hill stations,Kulu and Manali all prepared with woolens and suchlike,waiting for their first glimpse of snow. The roads and trees which are as beautiful as ever, just hints of a regal past in places, and one envied the tremendous space they seem to have spare. The meetings which were like any other, but lunch that was served on the lawns, freezing despite sunshine. Being told you’ve been overbooked on the return trip, and pulling rank even though that is something you really don’t like to do. Returning to find that a wicked man has held a giant of a city to ransom. Walking home past rows of downed shutters. Leaving for town really really early the next morning to notice that the city is back on its feet again. Hint of news and learning to say thank you, Mister God. Realizing how beautiful a art deco spire and a silhouetted branch seems against evening ink dusk.

The markets are sloshing with red ink. Benumbed and indifferent, I shrug at whizzing bank headlines, what’s eight billion or ten, give or take a few? A great IPO fizzles out to nothingness and is withdrawn petulantly. Then, another, even the Burj builder has no takers, not at these levels. These are GOOD issues, not your fly by night z listers. I watch that kid of a day trader juggle non stop calls on his cell and blackberry, his face grimmer with every call; three years, I tell him, before it looks up again. Pity he’s never seen the way the markets were a decade ago, pity he’s never been burnt, but there’s a first time to everything, and you may as well lay back and enjoy it.

Yesterday all my silent cribbing about a train journey that took long disappeared in a whiff, when I talked to this young girl whose shift would begin at eleven in the night, selling credit cards to customers in far away lands, so as to support herself through college, a masters degree and hopefully a better life. The city does that, shuts you up and stops you short.

This is interesting for the rough edges and polishable instances, a Gatsby redux: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/books/review/Greenberg2-t.ht

Colors.

It’s a game I often play with myself, traveling to town.
This time too, I have fun.
The colors of the bangles glinting in lazy sunshine, from the huge box that the bangle-seller is carrying on his shoulder.
The trains are wearing a new color, a smart gray- red.
The brilliant blue on the Reliance Mobile Ad kiosks.
So that’s three.
And sun-dappled stone of Elphistone College, what color is that?

I went for the translation workshop over the weekend.
The translation workshop is part of the kalaghoda festival. Read more about it here.
I was there to learn what exactly I was doing wrong.
And learn what I could do to get someone to read.
Even the rejection letters are dust coated now.
The group allowed for personalized attention.
I shall forever be indebted.
I learnt about possibilities.
Now to figure out how to write a synopsis.

Elphistone is majestic. The corridors echo with history.
A plaque in the foyer lists distinguished alumni. Such as JN Tata. Bhulabhai Desai. Setalvad.
A list of Principals of the college goes back to 1845.
The Department Archives, Govt of Maharashtra is in the wing opposite. Or so I learn, just walking past, for a look.
Unsettling, somehow, to see documents with the Peshwa’s seal.
And letters that Subhash Chandra Bose wrote, and Gandhiji wrote.

And the street fair?
A riot of colors, noise- excitement, great installation art, and too many people.
What color is that?

Looking at the mountain
Looking at the sea...
Autumn evening.
- Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)

This morning I’m delighted to host a book tour with Dr Eric Maisel, psychologist and creativity coach, who’s just published a book on Creativity and Depression, Van Gogh Blues. My introduction to Dr Maisel was through his newsletter, creativitynewsletter, on yahogroups.
I shall be completely indebted to Phoebe, the gutsy protagonist of some of the parables, for guiding me through a maze of words, ever- so-gently.
I confess I haven’t customized this, with my internal editor on high, I got myself into a complete frazzle about my questions on culture and creativity, the late bloomer and creativity, self doubt and expression, and latent talent.

INTERVIEW

Q: Eric, can you tell us what The Van Gogh Blues is about?

E: For more than 25 years I’ve been looking at the realities of the creative life and the make-up of the creative person in books like Fearless Creating, Creativity for Life, Coaching the Artist Within, and lots of others. A certain theme or idea began to emerge: that creative people are people who stand in relation to life in a certain way—they see themselves as active meaning-makers rather than as passive folks with no stake in the world and no inner potential to realize. This orientation makes meaning a certain kind of problem for them—if, in their own estimation, they aren’t making sufficient meaning, they get down. I began to see that this “simple” dynamic helped explain why so many creative people—I would say all of us at one time or another time—get the blues.

To say this more crisply, it seemed to me that the depression that we see in creative people was best conceptualized as existential depression, rather than as biological, psychological, or social depression. This meant that the treatment had to be existential in nature. You could medicate a depressed artist but you probably weren’t really getting at what was bothering him, namely that the meaning had leaked out of his life and that, as a result, he was just going through the motions, paralyzed by his meaning crisis.

Q: Are you saying that whenever a creative person is depressed, we are looking at existential depression? Or might that person be depressed in “some other way”?

E: When you’re depressed, especially if you are severely depressed, if the depression won’t go away, or if it comes back regularly, you owe it to yourself to get a medical work-up, because the cause might be biological and antidepressants might prove valuable. You also owe it to yourself to do some psychological work (hopefully with a sensible, talented, and effective therapist), as there may be psychological issues at play. But you ALSO owe it to yourself to explore whether the depression might be existential in nature and to see if your “treatment plan” should revolve around some key existential actions like reaffirming that your efforts matter and reinvesting meaning in your art and your life.

Q: So you’re saying that a person who decides, for whatever reason, that she is going to be a “meaning maker,” is more likely to get depressed by virtue of that very decision. In addition to telling herself that she matters and that her creative work matters, what else should she do to “keep meaning afloat” in her life? What else helps?

E: I think it is a great help just to have a “vocabulary of meaning” and to have language to use so that you know what is going on in your life. If you can’t accurately name a thing, it is very hard to think about that thing. That’s why I present a whole vocabulary of meaning in The Van Gogh Blues and introduce ideas and phrases like “meaning effort,” “meaning drain,” “meaning container,” and many others. When we get a rejection letter, we want to be able to say, “Oh, this is a meaning threat to my life as a novelist” and instantly reinvest meaning in our decision to write novels, because if we don’t think that way and speak that way, it is terribly easy to let that rejection letter precipitate a meaning crisis and get us seriously blue. By reminding ourselves that is our job not only to make meaning but also to maintain meaning when it is threatened, we get in the habit of remembering that we and we alone are in charge of keeping meaning afloat—no one else will do that for us. Having a vocabulary of meaning available to talk about these matters is a crucial part of the process.

Q: How does The Van Gogh Blues tie in with other books that you’ve written?

E: I’m interested in everything that makes a creative person creative and I’m also interested in every challenge that we creative people face. I believe that we have special anxiety issues and I spelled those out in Fearless Creating. I believe that we have a special relationship to addiction (and addictive tendencies) and with Dr. Susan Raeburn, an addiction professional, I’ve just finished a book called Creative Recovery, which spells out the first complete recovery program for creative people. That’ll appear from Shambhala late in 2008. I’m fascinated by our special relationship to obsessions and compulsions and am currently working on a book about that. Everything that we are and do interests me—that’s my “meaning agenda”!

Q: What might a person interested in these issues do to keep abreast of your work?

E: They might subscribe to my two podcast shows, The Joy of Living Creatively and Your Purpose-Centered Life, both on the Personal Life Media Network. You can find a show list for The Joy of Living Creatively here and one for Your Purpose-Centered Life here. They might also follow this tour, since each host on the tour will be asking his or her own special questions. Here is the complete tour schedule. If they are writers, they might be interested in my new book, A Writer’s Space, which appears this spring and in which I look at many existential issues in the lives of writers. They might also want to subscribe to my free newsletter, in which I preview a lot of the material that ends up in my books (and also keep folks abreast of my workshops and trainings). But of the course the most important thing is that they get their hands on The Van Gogh Blues!—since it is really likely to help them.

I’ve watched him the last few days, walking back home from work; not quite staring, but not looking away either. Wrinkled face, a little bemused, he’s seated on a raised platform in front of a shop, watching the night traffic go by. He’s completely incongruous in attire better suited to small village Kathiawad: a white turban, an overshirt called an angarkha, a dhoti, stick in hand. Better dressed to herd a flock of cattle home. But he’s seated by a display of scantily clad, perfectly-proportioned mannequins, with cascading curls, or straw colored blunt cut hair, watching a sea of Hondas and Indigos coast by, and the contrast is quite something.

sub's up on sixsentences.blogspot.com.
dated January 26.
the lastest one, lots and lots of commas. semicolons surfeit.
thanksforreading.

Where and exactly how do values, culture, upbringing shade our reactions? After weeks of detailed reviews which showed much work had been done on the backstory- on blasts, building crashes, land grabbing deals, mill redevelopment and suchlike- I finally mailed across the definitive Mumbai book. Sheer scale and fine writing, nothing that captures the pulse- the pace, the dirt, the grit and adrenalin, quite like this one does. But how will someone far older, genteel and refined, raised in another land, react to these lines? Particularly the lissome, completely fragile Mona Lisa Patel? So sad, so beautiful, and your heart could weep.

Maybe there is something to this theory of filling in the blanks: I build 300 word stories with grand scale, with cunning and deceit, criminal code complexity and conspiracy, where the girls are necessarily not nice, gentle and pretty; but not raving stock market maniacs, and the men handsome, completely complex and unpredictable, but it is the sheer scale that surprises me, not for us a domestic story littered with he said and she said’s.

Red splattered the street today.
A carnage, long foretold.

When US accounts for 50% world consumption
Decoupling is a joke.

An exit far past overdue.
When teenagers play the market for pocket money.

V & V's baby:

Your tiny face grimaces for a bit.
You redden and pout in your sleep.
In an entirely enviable manner unique to three-day old babies.
Miracle baby. That’s what you are.
Born after a decade of waiting.
Born after a decade of well-meaning questions, freewheeling advice and snide remarks.
Born after horrendous treatments for fertility.
Including an ectopic “mistake”, that was near-fatal.
After visits to temples, and special puja's.
Born after systems had stalled, hormones at a standstill.
That’s when Dr UJ stepped in.
Oils, baths, powders, and inhalations.
All herbal.
Horrible diet restrictions.
Over two years of almost daily treatments, normalcy was restored.
And then the “good news”.
Miracle baby. Perfect.
Ten litt-el toes and ten litt-el fingers.
Sonu.. chotu…baaibeegoogaa I mumble in a strange baby language.
Proof that stardust exists.
“ Make a wish upon a star”.
Your mom and I laugh and cry, remembering.
Will you ever understand what you mean?

sub's up, on sixsentences.blogspot.com.
thankyouthankyou.
pushy, ya?

Because its mostly run run run and work work work; because how one has discovered voila! measuring the spices overnight can help save precious kitchen minutes groggy-eyed the next morning isn’t rocket science; and because a newspaper- attack strategy that consists of ripping off select pages for “later!” isn’t exactly a poem with blues, sapphires, deep sighs and onyx; and because the book for the blog tour sits unread past chapter two; because there is a flurry of subs, crits and very interesting ppl in the news you could just spin a yarn about although 100 suits is way too much; because experts sometimes don’t know anything; that I have not been writing.

Khoya khoya Chand is Pakeezah on speed.

Beautiful. Etched. Grand. Cruel.

Dialogue very fine, fast and if you miss a subtle point or two, zoom, its gone!

A 2000’s treatment for a movie about the movie making business circa 1950’s.

This rediff review says it all. If a feel good film is what you were looking for- this is not it.

The characters sound true to life, delineated with just enough, nothing over the top. A sketch in a few swift lines and the rest of the colors you’ll fill in yourself; that fat financier, that aging diva, the hero recommending his current flame as the next Garbo, the starlet taking “everyone does this” shortcuts to becoming a star, don’t they exist even today?

Incredibly complex lifelines, too much at stake. Yet that sepia and lavender- lace feel to it.

Nothing is what it seems. Everyone and everything is dispensable.

Layered characters. Dig a little, and ” What is in it for me” is all that matters.

You think later about the characters, and their behavior, this is the way it is, and this is the only way it can be, there is no other alternative, not really given this background and this lifeline.

The music is period classical and tinsel town chorus classic, both apt in their own place.

Some of the scenes didn’t render too well on dvd, dark blobs on the screen, or a black surface for way too long.

Either you’d like this very much, or not at all.

Worries melt as its tangy contents dissolve the crisp wheat exterior to a soggy nothingness, and then the spicy red-hot concoction that you gulp works its magic, opening up long forgotten centers in the brain, demanding attention as the next serving is unceremoniously thrust upon you. Pani puri bliss: utter confidence and all’s right with the world.

On the movie agenda this weekend: The lost lost Moon (khoya khoya chand). That is, if I can find a reasonably priced dvd to rent. The man who owns the corner shop has a monopoly in the area- and he knows it. Yup, I’m cheap.

An NRI cousin is to visit over the weekend. I wish they'd stay put.

This year, I have a to-do list, somewhat.

What the hell is this?

Toshi Sabri, one of the twelve finalists on the Amul Star Voice of India show, was knifed near Andheri Station at ten in the night a day ago.

Crazy!

At that time, the place is buzzing with activity, buses double parking, people hustling autofellows to take them home, lots and lots of people trying to get home, by bus, car, walking, autos. It’s a sea of people. A crazy hullabaloo. Just mad noise everywhere. You get tired seeing the energy and constant activity.

How can this happen?

The specialist practices in the next suburb. Ghatkopar, or beyond the hills. Only, its not verdant hills anymore, just highrises and shanties and a road that climbs, curves and dips. The auto fellow takes a long road to take a short cut, a sleek new road with a flyover and a road that races past a lake and some fancy riverfront apartments with names of flowers. Only one crawls past in the most horrendous traffic jam, inch by inch, and a “ten-minute only” short cut takes one hour to navigate.

Saturday was interesting. As in a test of patience. After two false starts to register customer names, there is finally one more “ register or take your money back” directive from the government for people who put their money with mutual funds. I spent half the day trying to submit forms correctly filled in.

Watched Jab We Met (hilarious) and Laga chunri mein dagh (schizoid, the two halves of the movie don’t match).

Who is Phoebe?

Dr Eric Maisel, psychologist and creativity coach is a familiar name to some of you, I’ve written about his work and how it helped me-struggling with my internal editor, and feelings of complete inadequacy. Last year was particularly bad, but the poetry was good. At that point I stumbled upon the creativitynewsletter on yahoogroups, and read up most of the archives. Phoebe features in some of the tales, stumbling some, skipping some, and finding her way past issues all of us somehow stare out, deal with, or dive under.

I just received my review copy of “The Van Gogh Blues, The Creative person’s path through Depression”, well in time for me to read and prepare for the interview I will host here early next month. But I’ve said this before- it is as if someone took you by the hand and guided you past crevices and pitfalls, and told you steps 1-2-3 that would help, if you but look at them. You can hear Dr Maisel’s podcast, “How Purpose Heals Depression,” here.

Kenya looks bad. Brought back memories of the Asian exodus from neighboring Uganda in the early seventies, when Idi Amin’s overnight decree caused hundreds of Indians, mainly from my state Gujarat, to flee, with little more than the clothes they were wearing. Suddenly Kinshasa, Kampala and Nairobi became familiar places as my sleepy university town shook itself awake and found space for the returning hordes to settle in. And now its happening again.

It was a pleasure watching you navigate you taxi in the holiday traffic past Mahim, Panditji, yet another story of a runaway vagabond with a hundred bucks stolen from a village home, running away because a parent has been unfair; stretching the money till you can’t pay for even the cheapest streetfood, taking on odd jobs carrying cement-brick loads at a construction site, and then as the contractor notices your dedication, watching your luck turn, the quick rise to supervisor, after a few years changing over to the hotel field and learning about its pitfalls firsthand with one more inebriated Arab to entertain; the realization that this was taking you “ the wrong way”, the simple drivers job at a conglomerate chauffeuring the scions of industry and learning their whims and eccentricities, the forced retirement with pay post-strike, the nine months at the pretty star’s as you watched her metamorphose from refined to foul mouthed, and then your own taxi, short on earnings but high on self respect. Yes,your children go to an English school, you proudly tell me. What a contrast to the chiffon and diamonds clad hi fi lunging for the buffet tables later, yesterday evening.

A flock of black dots a peach sky.
It is colder than usual this morning.
Only a few have stepped out.
A bed of sunflowers slowly unfurls, lazily stretches to greet the sun.
A dewdrop is poised at the edge of a jade bamboo leaf.
Extravagant gold lights up the sky
A new year .

An enriching, meaningful new year!

May it bring much that is good and real in your life.

I shall put your lopsided smile in some story someday, the combat pilot’s sharp gaze that scans miles of empty desert, that completely shrewd infotech brain with a mass of equations and calculations, the smooth professional calm so essential in your current line of work; that, and the color of sunlight on straw bleached.

The old church is at the end of yet another winding lane past a row of spiffy office blocks and a valiant industrial estate for small scale units that hasn’t succumbed to the ever-increasing price of real estate. J says the altar features the same gold leaf design as it did two centuries ago. And you need special permission to reach the other church, now in complete ruins, in the hi tech IT export zone, but its supposed to be the oldest church in all Mumbai, from a time when it stood amongst verdant fields and rolling hills with tracks that meandered about. Some of the old village names exist, with lanes that are shortcuts that only old timers know, and you can find them if you look for them.
Strange how some signs remain even after so many years, and you can find them if you look close enough.

A Joyous Christmas.

Of the paper lamps with intricate cutouts outside the shops that I tried to photograph-three were file errors, one or two are ok shots, nothing like the lanterns dancing daintily in the wind.

Stepping in at the Sacred Heart Church to photograph it, light-festooned trees, lights on the high wall and all, I felt like an intruder and quickly stepped back. Today, I shall try again.

Yesterday’s reception was all aglitter and quite okay, we sat all huddled and put the parade of bling and nice intricately embroidered sarees and glitter thread salwars and flowing shararas into two simple categories, “liked” and “naah”. Got home midnight, but the traffic on the highway was horrendous.

P’s news left me shocked, perhaps ought to think of something apt from the scriptures to quote, light and dark.

So did the BJP win back home, nothing can stop this juggernaut now, and history will repeat itself as liberals shut up. Sad.

NYT story: The US has been funding our esteemed western neighbour’s onslaughts on India.
Blunders and wonders, and the world is indeed a strange place, oh my!

Merry Christmas!

Here is my sub!

So over the last few days you dissect the database into three; for cards, chocolates and calendars, and you wonder, how many are still there, how many survived, so quick shifting and merciless this industry is. And you look at the subprime tally, 10.8 billion at one prestigious firm alone, TEN POINT EIGHT billion and how much is that in rupees or God forbid, the lira or the Turkish currency before they knocked off the swimming zeros? And you wonder what the suits were up to, why no questions were asked, the Emperor has no clothes but are you blind, and someone forced to move, homeless in this mad weather, and like dominoes stacked to collapse, where what next.

Tis the season, but much too much.

sorry but I'm seeing double. am good.

abc's
A page comes back littered with pov’s. I didn’t know so many existed.
Now I don’t know what to do. Toss a coin. Yes, I said thank you.

Trying to think from an antisocial viewpoint is so bloody tough.
Manic, childhood trauma, race, revenge, superiority. Recipe for a madman-loner.
Yes?
Not if you’re the snook your nose and shrug-trot kind.

Terrific, the subs rate. Gush-write it, send it, forget it.

Maisel is so right.
That anchoring is addictive. Meaning- giving.
Like thirst.

Bright lights on the trees, ‘tis the season; a wonderland and wishes-come-true feel to it all.

Fluffy clouds a light streak on a pink peach dawn, sultry seagulls and crows wheel overhead. Clarity.

Taught Aunty y’day how to use rediff bol so that she, too, could send forth a volley of sms’s for free. Mildly amused. Patterns and circles, ring a ring a roses.

And I chanced upon a superb shop, a Spencers’, a real lifesaver.

Abstract, yes?

2 days of assertiveness training.
Maybe a better way of handling stuff than bottling it up, all pickled in brine, and then kaboom! one day with a well placed sock on the jaw.
:)
Perhaps.

Of course the words are dry as a stick, or like a photo, unidimensional; that’s because I am as well, and if you don’t like it you may as well lump it, I shall continue to write of bombs that blink at inopportune moments and casual rambles through century-old bazaars that become life-defining moments; for lissome lasses long-legged (but of course!), that cavort on sun-kissed beaches or sob away when you push a button, you may as well wait ‘nother lifetime. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Dilli shootout. A fourteen year old butchered in cold blood by his own classmates at fancy IB school. No more will we be able to scoff and say, “nah. Not in MY country.” What a licensed gun was doing stored around like chutta paisa I will never know, but then some ppl should have to take an exam to be parents.

Why is this happening?
Not my country. Not my faith. Yet.
The snow covered streets of Colorado are far from bustling Mumbai.
A schoolbus, for heaven’s sake a bus with kids, in the neighboring country to the west I refuse to call by name.
So completely random.
Tomorrow, my home state votes. No way must the genocide of 2002 be allowed again.

Slow down, the forecast says; slow down and listen to the earth move on its axis.
In peace.


She waits every Sunday evening, laptop on the ready. This is aunty, aka my ex-landlady.
Quick with questions, slow to get it.
Taking notes so that she remembers.
Photographs. Sepia. Color. Some thumbnail only.
Of her wedding. In all her finery, that fresh-as-mountain-dew look on her face.
Of the kids.
Of homes moved across the country, three kids in tow.
Of the son’s first birthday.
His graduation ceremony.
Of the son’s first frigate, and its not a toy.
Of the grandkids.
Day one, year one, scrawny baby.
Day one, year twenty-five, stethoscope in hand.
Quite a journey. So much to note.

The stream that flows past point A is not exactly the same that flows there five minutes hence. The current is different; the body of water is different, the ripples and eddies that the wind sketches on the glass-like surface is different. In the flowing, does the river bank change, whittled away bit by bit, deposits of silt, sand and grit carving its course?

Isn’t it strange how we need our little pats, that nice woozy rush of approval? In writing, or in any art, is there ever a dispassionate creator who works for himself alone? So, what does that make me- an exhibitionist? Would I like to write if I were never read? No, I don’t think so.

Damage control initiated back home, doors to be metal-welded shut.
Silver lining: No encroachments. Not as yet.

The translation contest results are out. Some other time, perhaps.
Any takers for a story?

So Omaha has another claim to fame in addition to Mr. Buffet.
What kind of rabid gun control law is this?

In the meanwhile, I stay calm and take it day by day.

It is horrible, this feeling of helpless nasty.
I watch distanced.
Once again, the doors have been sprung open.
Once again, the lock hangs useless.
There is nothing much left inside.
Don’t you know?
There was nothing much anyway, don’t you know?
The people, laughter and fistfights have long gone.
Just old photographs, scraps of paper with an awry doll or tree, some music notations.
Two chairs, dust covered, in case someday we need them. Now gone.
Old photographs, a visit to the zoo in kindergarten, Heidi, Churchill.
That LP record, gloated over, Karen or Olivia or some such.
The tanpura is overturned, broken.
Glassware still there, the domit ovenware-gone,but its users left a long time back.
Books, some brown paper covered, are scattered
Perhaps in poems and philosophy, there is nothing to steal.
The double lock leading to the kitchen is useless now.
They’ve broken the attic door, the fence spikes that it took three grown men to lift
Gone now.
Storeroom emptied out.
My grandmother’s brass vessels, or her grandmother’s, who knows
Awol.
It is horrible, this rage, and cussing the thieves to generations gone and hence.
A repaired door, but for how long?
Had I not chanced to visit, no one would have known.
Detachment, aloof is a coward’s fate.

What do you do when you get the words too late? That particular deadlines’ come and gone, but its only now that the words rush in a heady flurry, so you extricate them from their involved kaleidoscopic dance and string them into six lines or some such, ah this works, for me, it does, you tell yourself happily and pat yourself on the back.

For Monday’s return ticket, Air India in all its wisdom called, and offered to take me to Ahmedabad (2 hr drive, but in the opposite direction) in order to bring me to Mumbai (1 hr flt). Amazing.

I have a cold.
Pronounced gcholdachooo... ! if you please.
I speak and sing from a hoarse bass tone, interrupt every second word with a cough cough.

I'm learning new meanings of old values every day. A year or two ago, the reaction would have been "what??" shreiked, bold all caps underlined. This change, it is interesting to see.

The Great Big Indian wedding.
Song, drama, tears (some), laughter (lots). Somber. Fun. By turns.
The bride (my niece), and groom were from different parts of the country, different customs, languages.
The bride, your typical Indian immigrant to the land of greenbacks, was radiant.
The groom, also the typical Indian immigrant also to the land of opportunity, was handsome.
The festivities were spread over three days. I was there for a day.
Things I’m not likely to forget in a hurry:
The choir like quality of the manglashtak, a poem that is specially written for the occasion, and sung out by all the women invitees. With no prior practice, how is it that it sounds like a hymn, not one word out of tune? Superb soaring notes.
The setting sun, the lush green of the lawns and the Sanskrit hymns rendered by the flames of the auspicious fire, set against the stillness of the countryside around.
Hunting for a blade of a special kind of grass, because that’s the requirement for a custom from the groom’s family, of course this is the first anyone on this side has heard of it.
Shivering in the cold, grimacing at an art deco-ish waterfall, too cold and too hungry to appreciate the glow of light on gleaming water.Family of course eats last, once the guests are done.
Realizing that the next lot of nieces, kindergarten level and nursery rhyme reciting tots not so long ago, have grown into sharp and very pretty young women, oh so confident.
Catching up, all ears, with M’s post retirement success story, and how anything can happen.
Finally touching the feet of the big man, and expressing gratitude for all that he has saved the family from, and how some debts will never be repaid.

Hope I didn’t look too daft, all smiles; but what a marvelous accent, I caught one in five words this Brit spoke.

A day of surprises.
Of laughter. And giggles.
And not knowing quite what to say. Aye.
And family insider-stuff; kidding, teasing.
To top it all, NSDL sent an alert . I almost fell off my chair
Thank you.

Laughing over lunch why how a cycle rickshaw was the most appropriate mode of transport to get to work, and how one with a funny horn would be the best for me, gliding past the bmw's and cityz. This is the sillyness I want to remember even as I feel the moments trickle away, and does that make any sense.

What a nice man.
He’d come to take the rent cheques early morning because that’s the best time traffic-wise.
Now he could have just taken them, and said good day, thank you, but he didn’t.
He checked how we were doing, if we were happy, how many people ask you that?
“The place looks neat! Much brighter! What’s new?”
Nothing is new, perhaps the green curtains are, but I was all smiles.
Doesn’t take much, does it?

Delhi was ok, in a rushed way, which means I passed India Gate twice, looked on proudly at parliament house, enviously shrieked OMG the square footage! outside Lalu Prasad’s palatial mansion, and fretted over why or why not we ought to remain a democracy.

The flights were late. Both to and fro. I’m learning zen meditation, from three hours of idling on the tarmac waiting for takeoff. From waiting four odd hours amidst squabbling children, the CNBC newsfeed and announcements of delayed flights in two languages. Cussing silently till I meet the Tutsi from Rwanda who had his 18 person extended family decimated in an hour of carnage in 2002. It unsettles you completely.

(pics from the hotel where the conf. was held)

Am fine, all sunshine, bright and kicking just a little caught up.
Update in a while.

Two days away from my desk.
Delhi’s chill should be interesting.
I’ve forgotten what low temps feel like.
Today’s begun with a few unexpected boomerangs, like “oh, really?”
Part of the day.

I have a strange sense of disquiet about this year.
Not been able to trace the reason, though.
Spectator- quality distance.
Perhaps all one can do is to remain calm: physically, emotionally, spiritually.

This is what I did all morning.
Fought.
Over these lovely trees.
A green jade poem, in concrete Mumbai.
Cut, murdered brutally, for no fault of theirs.
I’ve run out of cuss words.

Saal Mubaarak!

That’s the wish for the new year. Vikram Samvat 2064, which begins today.
Back home we’d buy rock salt pre-dawn, and shiver in the dark chill as we’d hand over Rs.1.50 for good luck.
May the Goddess of Wealth and Good Fortune light your way!

lights

Diwali!

Voila! last evening, what did I find?
A huge garden with lovely trees and a paved walking track.
Purple orchid-like flowers, a GIANT aloe vera tree.
Lots of wild hibiscus. A jade bamboo grove.
Wild grass that bows to the gentle breeze.
Color. Laughter.
Yes!

From cream-silk covered hotel corridor walls, sepia portraits of kings and chieftains look down upon at the world at large.
Makes you stop a moment and wonder, about kings and the mad march of time.

Lights everywhere.
Pretty white and blue twinkling, lights. A magic carpet, glittering lights.
Gold and red strands of lights outside shops, homes, by roads.
Diyas with flickering flames, on doorsteps and parapets.
Lights that brighten up faces. Soften harsh contours.
Even the potholes and yesterday’s trash look pretty.
Why didn’t I see this before?

I wanted to write about the missing driver, the mad race to the airport in an auto, the almost-missed plane, and young child I saw by the flyover , propah school uniform and all, throwing up her arm in glee..
I wanted to write about the massive billboards with strange squiggly letters, not one hindi film, but all the diwali releases of telegu-dom, heroes and heroines one had never heard of, the poster design, quality was very very good…
About the innumerable gold shops (who ever buys so much jewelry?), with today’s price in blazing red, as if it were the stock market closing price
I wanted to write about the massive consruction, not one old building left standing on somajiguda circle, all chrome and glass, but they forgot to take the zig zag patterned wall down in places.
And lunch on a plantain left, with lots of tear-inspiring chutneys, at a place called just that, Chutneys.
And wheezing yellow buses jampacked, and how its impossible to cross the road.
And how lovely the city looks from the air, a carpet of bright lights on velvet.
But all I’ve been doing is chasing deadlines.
And signing cards for Diwali.
Tis the season.

Everytime I go to Hyderabad, I salute that ancestor in the 1800's who walked all the way from my distant dusty village to this strange city to make some kind of a living.
He was atleast spared the silly traffic, and humongous malls; walkers, beware!

A longer post later.

Quite thrilled! A friend taught me a new word today- ekphrastic!
What it is? A kind of poetry.Awesome, this take is, a kind of tangent, an interpretation of an interpretation, a leap into the blue!





Wheat field, Auvers, van Gogh


ekphrastic?
A salute, of sorts,
shorthand
words mumbled, scatter, trail away
a wish, a sigh
captured for a bit, edgy
black on white.
my eye, distanced, views
past life filters and bills
azure blue, spring sunlight, a field of green
in a grim city night.

Wheat field with crows, Auvers/ van Gogh.

This is so very beautiful.
If only they had the medication to administer. To shut the dark voices out.
All the lovely perazines and dols and the quetiapine and risperidone..
If only they had the insight.
Maybe he’d have been happier?
Maybe not.
Maybe the burnt sienna and awesome blues (just look at that sky!) jade greens and the generous mad shower of sunlight that dances through his work, wouldn’t have been seen, understood and mixed in the brain, for the transfer to canvas to happen.
Who knows!
“Here is an artist literally on the verge of taking his life and filled with a tremendous despondency yet he is still painting with lemon yellows, azure blues and emerald greens. We know that this is a man barely holding on to his will to live, yet he is able to separate his energy and focus on what he sees before him.”- Sotheby's official.

A friend on the writing list emailed me a book she'd written about recent Writing festivals in Australia.
Gratis, and lets forget about the dollars.
Sometimes unexpected kindness shakes me up.

These days I quick march home.
No, the autos wont go short distances.
So I quick march home.
Nice to get back into the pace. leff right leff right...
Better than shouting like a banshee and gesturing wildly.
Fun, high energy.

It is not that I have forgotten.
Looking around the mess strewn in the house the other day, I remembered your word for it, “pasara”, and sort of half smiled.
I still wake up early sometimes, see that still image, and then force-steer my mind to the science of it all, why the cells had to frenzy dance as they did.
I still look across to your cubicle with the Arabic-prayer-inscribed- corner, and wonder at the sigh like traces of consciousness we leave behind in places that have mattered.
Yesterday was a good day.
A marigold string across the doorstep.
Fantastic fabrics from fabindia, a different look for the sofa and dust covers, blue-green- rust, one light and one dark, that should last a decade.
Clothes for the season from Westside, should last me through a few more nieces’ weddings.
The evening arati at the garden, photographing the lights.
I think somewhere you would have understood.
Onward ho, and all that.
No, its not that I have forgotten.

There is another kind of spiritual courage as well, quieter and less celebrated, but just as remarkable: that of making each day, in its most conventional aspects -- cooking, eating, breathing -- an oblation to the absolute.-- Philip Zaleski, "A Buddhist From Dublin", New York Times, July 24, 1994

Dussehra tomorrow.
Rows of marigold-garland sellers line the roads, rich green-orange.
Just awesome rangoli designs in the office.
Looks like the girls on the two floors have tried to out decorate.
Lovely patterns with colored chalk powder.
With salt.
With petals.Lights.
Beautiful.

Navratri.
The festival of the Mother Goddess.
Nine nights of the garba.
With all the different steps, the three clap basic and the heench, the one and half step one, and then all the complex steps.
Never felt a connect to these days.
Maybe it was the two left feet factor.
Maybe because I was never allowed to go out, dancing all night, and return only pre-dawn.
Maybe the memories of not having enough, not the right clothes, rich flaring skirts in satin or silk with mirror work and embroidery, a new outfit for every one of the nine nights.
Lots of maybes.
So, I never felt a connect.
Returning from the old mill-lands (now reclaimed by glittering malls) the other day.
Past the strings of gleaming red and yellow lights strung on the roads for decoration.
Past the decorated stages, the pandals, with consecrated statues of the Mother Goddess.
Amusing to see how the city has modified the festival, so that what was a way of celebrating with origins in the neighboring state of Gujarat, has taken on big city colors.
In the city, they dance on modified Marathi numbers set to the garba beat.
In the suburbs, its disco- garba and disco dandiya all the way.
But as I said, its not me.
So I watch the lights that line long roads, and sometimes sing old garba songs that we learnt for school concerts.
Till yesterday.
Across the landing, the new neighbours are Mangloreans.
Last evening, I followed traces of a hymn in a strange language.
They had brought a statue of Mother Mary home, and were celebrating, and after a day, the statue would travel to another home.
Lights, candles, hymns, song, a clear voice straight to the skies.
Mother Goddess.
She has a strange way of getting to you.
I watched, bemused.

Walking into a completely empty home, realizing that the gutfeel “this is it!” when you saw it the first time, was not wrong. That yes, the palm fronds and the raintree that curves just so outside the window and tiny balcony look magical, as if you are sitting in a sea of green, a leaf curtain from the world outside.

More light. More space. More quiet. The sounds of kids playing cricket in the common garden, a swing squeaking as a kid waves to the skies. Suddenly you realize you miss the rattle of trucks, arbit horns and the wheeze of the buses on that concrete stretch outside your old home, and yes, that time you were almost run over, remember? That the peace is heavenly. That you can actually hear bird calls, fall asleep looking upon a single star in the sky out of windows you can keep open, are awoken by the first call to prayers that some muezzin sings far away, so crystal clear in the clean dawn air.

Unpacking. All that had been carefully packed a few short hours ago. Corrugated sheets, bubblewrap, newspapers, as the efficient packers went about their business. Amazing, but nothing’s broken.

Pictures on the walls, things in their place, more or less. Need an electrician, plumber, the phone fellow, and the tatasky fellow to do their part, I guess it will get done by and by.

I pray and keep my fingers crossed. I hope Papa will like this place as well, and not stay as withdrawn.

So much happened last week. Much too much. I just hope this one’s better.

I got them moving blues woes
The packers were in tday
The house is a mess. Tomrw the apt will be in a mess.
telephone, tatasky still to be sorted out.
Singing Ol Macdonald in a loop.

Dont feel Navratri-ish.

the things I’ll always remember:

the tone of your voice when I asked “you’re getting better bit by bit, right?” and you said “I really don’t know”

the roza you taught me to keep, and how the dawn to dusk fast gets easier with the years

how you’d chase people twice your age and get work out of the most reluctant

praying at Haji Ali and Mahim dargah when your elder one got better from that illness, we would have gone this once too, all the shrines, all the religions, that’s what I’d told you.

that run-in with homeland security over your prayer book

the toss of your head, that power walk

how we went to pier 29 just because even if all you have is four days in SF, you SHOULD see some America, even if you’re completely jetlagged at nine in the night.

Taking that tram back to someplace which seemed close to Union Square, but wasn’t, with all those funny ppl on the street,and how we rushed into a taxi.

How you found it difficult to speak for long the last time we met

sugar coated biscuits from your village, Murud, and the great time we had there; the dhow-like boat we took to the ancient fort on the island

How you’d dress up for events, parties, inaugurations, anything was a good enough reason to celebrate


(more)

I watch you wipe a stray tear.
You have your mother’s eyes
Curling eyelashes and brown
A scary calm, too calm for thirteen

I watch the droves, black veiled women
Their eyes bent with sorrow
A month of dawn to dusk fasts to purify
A month of pleas to bear His will

I sit by the shroud
white, the color of pain at rest
white the glee at first ever snow
white, the color of a cry to the skies

the mayyat: green-glitter, jasmine-lily bedecked
I yearn for that “let’s go!” echo
gray skies overcast
palm fronds standstill
watch this final goodbye

THE FINAL CALL
DEATH BE NOT PROUD/JOHN DONNE
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

In peace, IE.
Killed this morning. Wrathful cancer, heart damage.
Sons aged two and thirteen.

In peace, little one.
Sweet sunshine. Laughter gales.

a sub on sixsentences.blogspot.com

YESTERDAY WAS GANDHI JAYANTI
Dharasana. Bardoli. Chauri- Chaura. Noakhali. Dandi.
I turn the yellowing pages, the leaves falling out of the binding at places, pages fragile and tear at touch. A word cloud rushes, overwhelms.
How did he do it? A simple man, not particularly charismatic unless you call that toothy smile charismatic, tone high pitched and insistence on frugality, how did he hold a country, so many diverse interests, tempers and egos together and charge it to seek the freedom that was rightly its? A sharp negotiator, a great reader of humans, tactful when he wished to be, blunt at times, only too human with his temper.
Such a simple path, “No, you can’t do this.”
Satyagrahis, people like you and I, filled up the jails at his call. Even if their lands were forfeited, jobs lost, years in their lives lost.
The best minds in the country prone to “ jailitis”, a horrible affliction where even the calmest and most placid of men flared up or turned irritable at a whim.
So many that the jails were overfull, so many that had to be divided up into three categories, class A, B, C.
And the elite A class prisoners gladly opted for the worst, C class food.
How did he do it? Tell an entire mass of people, to get up and go for what was rightly theirs. Without violence or untruth.
Who knew that the best way to stop riots was not tear gas and the police, but going out on the streets and lending a patient ear, a big heart.
Negotiating calmly with the British, empire builders and statesmen, on his terms. Even if it meant attending the Round table conference dressed in the poor man’s garb, as equals, on his terms.
How did he do it?
I guess we shall never know.
The strangest feeling in my throat. I guess I’ve been over-reading.
A salute to the Mahatma, on his 138th birthday.

Is it possible to scowl at the computer all day?
Yes.
That’s what I did yesterday, fingers inches away from the delete key.
Feeling awful, inadequate, irritated, put-upon, by turns.
By evening things were somewhat better.
Somewhat.


Italian sauce; the recipe said, but by the time the cutting out and adding to was done with, it was something else all together, not bad.

Palm leaves against gold, a stroll around the block, watching the changes that have crept in over the time we’ve been here, the morphing from ignored suburb to prime commercial space; a prelude.