I am good.
Watching deadlines whiz past overhead.
Sometimes chasing them.
Sometimes letting them go
At work and words.
Precarious life balance, imbalance
Impatience, tacky, not quality work
Want to hide in the hills
(go home, turn the clock back, but there is no home)
Balance,imbalance
Work and non-work
Empty walls
The words dried out
Till I grit my teeth, pull them words out.

The other day, a mint fresh copy of Reading Hour landed on my desk,
has "Flight from the Bastions".
Earlier issues: 7, Chinar Woods. Shefali Kamdar (trans.)

The nicest part about Reading Hour, other than the rich content, completely thorough crits, is how prompt they are with payment and copies. Rare.

But we have a tough skin.

Word tramp~

what I do then
Bloodhound-like
(private eye is too polite, way too polite)
in pursuit of hints and clues
or a trace, just a trace
of what may be a story, or not
anything for 400 words,
I sniff and scour the air
Wade through stacks
of yellowed newsprint
Stare at page 3 photos mostly,
Or sometimes page 3 types
Overhear conversations quite blatantly
while pretending to read book titles,
shrink,
look into the distance, holding a biscuit or
a cup of tea.
(looking nondescript helps)
while I hunt for chinks,
gauge pauses and cadences
tides and ebbs, in the rhythm of talk
sieve past chit chat
like a prospector hunting for gold flecks
patiently,
the adrenalin thrumming in his veins
knowing that a nugget is in there for sure

I’m not there to clap,
gawk at celebrities
collect autographs
Or make friends on FB
no prisoners taken, no mercies
all’s fair in love and words.
build up a story,
tweak or ignore an occurrence, or blow it up big
master of their fates,
I do as I please

Or, I try.

I’ve never seen “to be continued” placed as strategically as this, and it makes me wonder if all tbc’s are like this. I’m reading “Miskin’s” concise commentary on the Geeta that appears in every issue of Navneet Samarpan, in the opening pages. So in the middle of the battlefield we have Arjun losing heart, wringing his hands, putting forth one argument after another. Arjun here is described as valiant, the conqueror of sleep, and yet.... And we have the charioteer, Parth, laughing at him And one entire month to wonder why. And ruminate as to whether most of life’s tbc’s are as perfectly poised, teetering on an edge.


“I am…” is fantastic. Real, gritty. Not for the squeamish or faint of heart. All the randomness and incompleteness of life.
My take: In the theater, to see “I am…”
http://blueline.goobertree.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=22650

My poem on Holi is in In Focus,the newsletter of the California Writer's Club West Valley.

Yesterday I got my copy of the Mass Review. Finally.


A BOOK perfect~
Yesterday, finally the book got here
From wherever that is,
Red brick and college square, spiffy, in my mind’e eye
(photos in catalogs that dot the road not taken)
Though Belgium is what is says on the brown cover
I stare at the label, trace the masthead
think of caravans, and silk routes and loads of myrrh and spice
And breathe in a whiff of the strange places this must have been.

Yesterday, finally the book got here
After I’d panicked and “If it may please your lordship, may I please …”
(supplicated the editor)
Even as I wondered about the Mayflower and therefore the Bostonian royals and protocol
should-nots,
When patience gave way like the ice on a pond that muff-covered women in an old postcard skate on
I’d fidgeted, mumbled and then asked

Yesterday after the book got here,
I traced my name on the back cover
Wondered with a lump in my throat, at its perfectly bound form
Neat orderly rows of gracious fonted letters, marching down the page
Stared at the index, with section titles in latin, and heavyweight contributors,
Agape

Now that the book is here
I shall begin my day
Touching the pages, tracing the gracious curve of assorted alphabets
Trace the smooth loveliness of the art pages, wonder black crayon can do so much
perfection
a gulp in my throat at the beauty of it all
my personal prayer
of reassurance, backbone.

Routines are good.
I end up setting routines for the most mundane things.
The “what-next’s” keep me on track. On the straight and narrow.
Keeps me from over-thinking, is there a word for that.
Or slipping into brooding.
My voice sounds chirpy, a friend says.
A time to rest and a time to get up, a time to get set, a time to run…
Yet, for the difficult stuff there is no time
For the really life changing stuff. Orbital shifts and all that, you know?
I read through the pages, marvel at the work done.
I know it can matter, life-changing.
But I still stay off. Perhaps digging, unearthing is not comfortable.
Today I looked around blogdom, followed links and realized how inward-looking this blog has become.
So be it

last night
at the concert paying tribute to the reclusive maestro of Maihar
but I was there cause you'd have wanted it
(like I do so many things cause you'd have wanted it)
a shower of musical notes
shook up neurons, long asleep
pushed them into high drive
listening to the bihag play out, expansive
flowing,swirling, adding energy with every turn, like the ripples in a lake
the joy of knowing the words to this classical piece,
satience.
yet the ear is alert, waiting for a voice
despite.
fragile times
yet, satience.

(yday was Ustad Allauddin Khansaheb's birth anniversary. today is baba's b'day, or would have been)

MUST READ:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/print/2011/04/stephen-king-on-the-creative-process-the-state-of-fiction-and-more/237023/

Lessons

You stare at the blank screen
Watch the cursor
Pace its blink
And sigh
the story you’ve just read
is perfection, refined
like an artifact in wood some craftsman has perfected, polished, and gone his way.
The master of gore and vampires
Turned to poetry and golden light
Flawless, with a turn of his wrist
And you’re awed.
A chaotic swirl
Of respect-admiration- wistful
Permeate your brain
A golden wash, satiated
With pokey “I wish I could’s”
All you think of
How layered the story was
Crisp and quick
fine
Characterization jampacked in a few quick lines
You sigh
And push yourself to your humble four hundred.

Sometimes you view brilliance.
Three times three claps, like at school?
Sheer brilliance.
The sort that shakes up your mind.
Dhoosar, the movie, is like that.
Life through a blurred lens.
Forces you to think. Think tough. Pokes you.
Unsettles, asks difficult questions.
What if you forgot? Everything?
And never knew you were forgetting?
If memory were an swirling, dancing mist?
Unfunny joker?
What if all the frames of reference, alphabets, phone numbers, colors, mail passwords
Look like gibberish?
Who’d be there?
What if nobody were there?
When reality crumpled like a house of cards, what would you do?
Cause to “do”, you’d need to know reality from your left foot.
What if the next step was a vacuum? And the one after?
So well etched, you don’t need the subtitles. Not really.
The body language of the dementia-afflicted shouts in mute compound sentences and unspoken underlined.
For all this, the aesthetics are perfect.
And classical runs through, tying it all up like a scholar’s knowledge in palm-leaf .
Its only once you’ve rubbed the tears off your face
That the question barrage begins.
When you look at your face in the echoing mirror.



Dhoosar, which means blurred, is the title of Amol Palekar- Sandhya Gokhale’s new Marathi film.
http://dhoosarthefilm.com/

For long now, one has stayed away from the music, at times its wiser this way; but the rich notes in the deepest classical baritone dip and soar, and play on somewhere in the backdrop of one’s brain,and on and on, they play on the emotions like a master pianist running up and down and all over the scales.
And all one can do is watch.

Just back from a quick 2 day trip to Calcutta.
The before and after poems say it better.

Before :
Calcutta
Sweet siren of endless lanes
matriarch of regal arch and dome
I try aloof, but
my blood quickens at your name
(like the beat of a drummer at a puja pandal)
thirty nine years away
is long
far too long to condense
(how later I learned to push into a bus)
into one spare afternoon and a few more hours
perhaps, this is best.
This incompleteness


http://blueline.goobertree.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=22498

After:
Stern Queen Victoria
Empress of the realm
Still reigns over marble and green
Yet the memory of Mother’s eyes
tugs at me, the many homes
And many lifetimes traversed

My scale changed
Even as the light on the lake
Reflects the shimmer
of many sunsets past

http://blueline.goobertree.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=22520

Rohinton Mistry nominated for the Booker!

(Do not miss that exclamation mark. Yes, I am thrilled. Been smiling to self all mornin’)

*Such A Long Journey* (which is his only book that I’ve read so far, thanks to the Mumbai University ban), is intricate, brilliant, astounding, the kind of book that shakes the heebie-jeebies out of your mind, sets long dusty neuron ends buzzing again, makes you sit up straighter and sigh with hundred-proof envy.

Just the book to read ensconced in the environs of an ICCU waiting room, seated on the bench that forms perimeter of your scared domain, even as the world goes about the ebb and tide of its business. Just the kind of book that transports you in a microsecond from sticky, rexin-covered, shaky bench to the hustle and bustle and social buzz of a Parsi colony in Central Mumbai.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohinton_Mistry

http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/mistry.html

That tax credit that you fought for, and I'd said, let it go?
Well, you got your refund, sir, with interest.
I'm bright eyed. I sit taller.
Looks like a message from beyond the pale. Stand your ground and fight.

Spring 2011 issue of The Massachusetts Review features my translated story, * Lines on the wall*.
The original Gujarati story,* Bhoosavu* is by Shri Pravinsinh Chavda.
www.massreview.org

I reach home-wards, for three days, to handle paperwork.
Must be done before March 31.
Hard road.
What is home? What defines it? And what is not?

from a trip to Tulsi Lake on saturday.
Huge thanks to BNHS. Yes, this is in the National Park in the not-so-distant suburb of Borivli.
I learned to drink in the greens. To breathe again.
Yes, despite the cousin in Tokyo and the mentor in Hawaii.

Sometimes
you keep the words
at a respectful distance
wary.
Of the tricks they can play
watchful
of their moods and whimsies,
And the slips they do on purpose, sly
sound one way and mean another
(when they know you’re not at your best)
Words.
the letters push, pell-mell
a rush hour melee,
of broken font and serifs
mismatched type-families.
yet in the blanks between the letters, you spot
traces of disquiet , forgotten memories
now announcements in bold, underlined,
under spotlight for all the world.
when
the words turn traitor,
Dragging their feet, gluey and reluctant
Sharp, serrated edges stand out like origami
‘Tis wiser to stay aloof

(note: written for the poetry group, I am ok)

A rhyme learnt in kindergarten has taken me so long to understand:

"popat bhookhyo nathi, popat tarsyo nathi
popat amba ni daal; popat sarovar ni paal,
popat majhaa karey.."

A young vagabond parrot, who’s run away from home, trills about the pleasures of the wide world, showing off he is without a care. But ouch, he’s hurting.

Head down, getting on with life
Sticking to a routine helps
Writing helps, the rote of weekly subs and crits at IWW.
But writing poetry, that too a poyemn a day? phew! I’m surprised too.
Walking helps, round and round the park we go.
So much paperwork!
.
Working longer hours.
Getting home after 9 has logic, not much of the day is left then.

Cooking is tough-- the fridge overflows with leftovers.

Anyway, head down and quick march, “popat majhaa karey”

Little one~ I looked hard for you this morning but couldn’t find you; and it’s only sometimes that I spot you now, spinning crazy kathak chakkars in the morning light, or showing off a full velocity,dexterous taan in the afternoon quiet. Peace and hope you’re pampered and happy returns and all that, where ever you are, and where ever it is that we eventually go.

Y’day I grew a difficult notch in my own esteem, a pat on the back is in order, as is sitting up straighter.

A month ago, this very day.

Frostwriting features my essay, a tribute to the Practice group on IWW , (and to my friend Alice in particular)
www.frostwriting.com/issues/article/three-dots-and-a-full-stop

Strong? No, not me.
Pokey-holey; this façade.
Like cardboard. Edgy.
Do not touch.

From the formal quiet of the 34th floor meeting room, the sea stretches to a misty distance, an uneasy sheet shimmering with serene pools and rivers of quiet, past which are lands inhabitated by souls. And the foyer at the Gateway holds an invisible cloud, like a second skin, of all the chaos that once transpired. And Dilli‘s Terminal 3 is fine, only its in the wrong country. And so on.

Somewhere, amidst this schizoid existence, the mind registers.

In the light that flooded past the golden curtains that afternoon.
In the rush of the river carried you ever onwards.
I saw you.
Today, I resumed walking, watching the sun light up your beloved green.
But even the strays were lost

I'm ok in bits and pieces.
Yesterday, I returned to work after a long time. Three months is a long time.
Opening the door to let myself in at home, that was a disconnect.
And my sleep has gone for a toss.
So many "what-if's".
A day at a time.
But ok, I think.

Baba. Papa. Bapu. Appa. Babu. (Amongst the several names I called him.)
He breathed his valiant last this morning.
After a three month long fight.
My life lost its axis.

two months and two days.
time on tenterhooks. ICCU time.
the fight continues.
tough old man, the doc said.
you bet.

like knitting that comes undone
one thing after another
medicines we take at a muscle wince or fever can mess up the innards and kidneys of the too old or too young. So I see, day by day.
words recalled from pharmacology textbooks ditched twenty years ago.
yet.

Week 3 in the hospital begins today.
Toughest thing in the world? To make a disinterested grumpy immobile recalcitrant elder eat. And return to steel will. When cajole,charm, beguile, threaten, barter-- all fail.
Light on the lawn. What a sacred troth is life. And how callous are we.

a week after our arrival at the hosp the opn was done
after 5 bottles of b+ blood
still weak
cajoling the man to eat
recovery slow but ok I think.

the parent's in icu, has a femur frature after a fall, needs to be stablisised bp wise before they can operate.
under control.

It is good to periodically find a metaphorical mountain to climb. To pit one’s will, to stretch boundaries etc.
Now, one may logically prepare to climb the said mountain, practice with trainer wheels, hear the cautionary tales of other trekkers, think of worst and best cases and etc., and put your head down and get on with it.
But then the said, metaphorical mountain can dramatically alter, morph, take on new shapes.
And so we begin anew.
So I’m learning.

At that hour the sky is pitch dark, just the quiet and a dog or cat yodeling; but later, rich pinks flood the sky, usha arun ney kumkum pagaley.. those were the words I remember from a song learnt in class 4, and there has yet to be a better capture for this dawn parade, or the finery of gold spun over the frangipani.

Each day teaches me something new about human nature. Will polish and use in a story, not to worry.

When I walked this evening on the terrace it was later than usual, the sky a darker pastel dotted with a plane and helicopter or two, the billboards on the distant highway shone brighter than usual, twinkling lights and the faint beat of a disco garba heard in the air.
Navratri begins, and to me this is a season of resurgence, of renewal and faith.

The neem are in bloom. As are the flowers I've always thought of as the inspiration for the carving at the Taj. Not quite autumn, and a resurgence of life, and the cycle goes on.

The cloud-laden night sky was a peculiar red at four a.m., much too early to get up. And like a dowager gloating over her garnished jewellery in storage to remind herself of her faded beauty, I let my thoughts rest upon the significance and sorrow of the day, life events that lead to a place that is bleached dry and emotionless in its quiet, and the norm that all life losses would be measured on and found wanting. And almost in keeping with the Buddha’s lesson to the grieving widow, of a single mustard seed collected from a home with no sorrow, one waits for news from a surgery that a cousin has been undergoing all day; yes sometimes it takes so long.
Peace.

Added: She is doing ok, touchwood.

The home city is different every time I visit. But it is as hot, reminding one of the wild swings in temperature the place is prone to, from a miminum of 6 degrees C to a max of 47 C plus. Yet the champa- frangipani-- was generous, laden with white blooms.The auditorium I went to for a meeting brought back so many memories of school concerts and endless rehearsals on this stage with the singing group—even though the audience was only parents. How we worked hard to make everything pitch perfect. Nostalgia also was prompted by the pharmacy class of 87 getting together on yahoo groups. Who’d have thought that the most reticent of the lot would be taking the initiative, and the one with the pictures that reminded one of how thin one was, once upon a time. It takes a chance meeting with a rather fancy couple on a train journey to make one realize how frenzied and compartmentalized a life one leads, but is that a bad thing? A story that first began in I think 2007—and was cut, recut, reframed, pared, cleaned up, rehashed to infinity, till everything in it changed except for a single visual shot, finally found a home. Else and elsewhere, life goes on. The market marches onward and away without a pause—or a sensible reason.

Last night the strains of the arati, the hymn rich and clear, were like a pied piper's song, and I followed the music up unfamiliar steps to a stranger's home.
I can be happily weird sometimes.

The firecrackers, dholak- cymbals could be heard even as the sedate group chanted the Lord's names, like every week. But the jolt of energy that accompanied the palanquin past the threshold to the altar. Amazing.

AND it is good to get surprised at what life throws your way. Even if you lead a quiet, peaceful existence most times.

Last night on my last walk past ten thirty, the plump quarter moon was efflulgent, haloed in a red and black sky, even as the silence of the night was underlined by distant drums and cymbals from festive processions making their way to the sea, and elsewhere the babel of sundry tv sets and air-conditioners humming pinned the day in place.

Scintillating days.
Watching sunlight flood the green past the trees in the morning.
Watching the wind ruffle through colored flags that line the street.
And the twinkling multicolored lights at night.
The adrenalin charged beats of the dholak.
I've travelled east west north south, visiting friends for darshan.
I've taken so many different modes of transport, met so many helpful strangers along the way.
In unusual places, a benevolent, all-giving calm.
Acres of green as far as the eye can see, in Orlem.
A jutting hilltop viewed from a friend's balcony in Thane as the mist rolls past.
A handkerchief-sized farm, stubborn, jaunty amidst tall buildings.
That blessing from the Lalbaug Cha Raja, even if it was via a forward.
His blessing suffuses through my days.

Yesterday, on my way to the local station, I walked through two village clusters, gaothans, that this mega city has encompassed and swallowed whole in its obsessive growing, proper settlements with one-room homes, a main street and a place of worship. As I watched the lights for the festive season reflected in many puddles and joined the throng of commuters wending homewards, I realized sometimes we see only what we permit ourselves to, and that journey to the end of the world can begin with the next step one takes.

When I can scrounge the time, this is what I have been reading, savoring the stories and wondering how a people who are almost us, are not quite, you know, us; and as a matter of fact quite a little different, all said and done sixty-odd years isn’t much when edifices around span a few centuries.

http://inotherrooms.com/post/43849880/in-other-rooms

In the few stories that I’ve read, something seems to happen to the women’s brains once they have a dominant male in their lives. What does being sharp and jabra (which I’ll politely translate as being self preserving, so sue me) have to do with being educated or being rustic? An instinct for this self preservation is inherent to the gender across the subcontinent, but the women in these stories seem positively addled, vacuous by the second half of the story, which almost always leaves them destitute and abandoned. My unlettered grandmother who ran a tight household with her temper and flying missile-tongs, would have laughed.

In front of me is a postcard in sepia.
Showing Bombay of the 1940’s or thereabouts.
There’s the fountain at Fort, and the road divided into two by a central terminus for trams and taxis.
This looks just beautiful.
Maybe I’m in a sepia mood these days.
Maybe it’s the after-effect from reading about the music and films of the 1930’s. And following up on you tube.
Movies that have now been forgotten. Names that are no longer remembered.
But the parent still remembers.
The songs, the stories, the anecdotes about when he saw the movies and how many times did he see some. Even this spot near Fountain which he used to walk down to, to "pass time" as a penurious paying guest.
I use the kinder “courtesan” for some of the ladies when I take the lines to English.
What choice did they have, really?

Isn’t it surprising and a bit of a treat that the best of words and the finest of movies resonates with something deep within, and make us think, forces us to connect missing pieces by drawing upon our own experiences, diverse as they may be, in order to shade in the colors?
Udaan is a treat. Do not miss.
Joan Didion is a treasure.

In The Final Chapter, there is a para that goes:
“With this change in the color of his eyes, he began to view the story of his life differently. If some parts of personal history were set aside, some other parts positioned appropriately, then he traced his lineage to a learned Brahmin.…”

I caught myself doing just this the past week. If the events of the past few years were thought of differently, juxtaposed and rearranged, parts snipped off and extended, one can pat oneself on the back for foresight and veracity and determination, of the unswerving sort, but of course. Waah boss, waah. When the truth is, it was part laziness, part a dread of the unknown, part life instances (what would we do without life instances to shoulder blame, I don’t quite know), and part lumpen inertia. I have not grinned so much to myself in ages.

My translation of a Gujarati short story by Shri Pravinsinh Chavda, * The Selected Works of Pushpak Bhandari*, is published in Brooklyn Rail In translation.

http://bit.ly/9dEY8q

A writer’s identity is a fragile thing, but what happens when two writers living in the same city share the same name?There is a certain terseness in the original, an abruptness, that I've struggled to do justice to.

FB, comments on blogs on hold until the power situation for the home dabba aka pc is sorted, resolved, corrected. Have run thru 2 spikeguards and 4 fuses, collarsup.

Poignant, lump-in-the-throat moment by the banyan tree y’day, singing the national anthem. Strange yearning to travel, to dissect the length and breath of the nation by train,second class, live the allure and grime-dust of the Gauhati- Hapa, Jammu- Trivandrum, such long distance runners. Fanciful, eh.

Shraavan, the holy month. Did my bit with prayers at the temple, reciting the vishnusahastranam with the motley group. Peace instilling, centering.

Caution: not sweetness and light.
At the end, that's all we condense to: fire, water, air, earth., sky
That young man with the million $ smile, and the brain tumor, the man who was on first name basis with the leading neurologists in the country- didn't make it.
Prayers for his family.
For his wife. For his young daughters who will grow up too quickly.
Prayers, for he suffered too much.
Sometimes I wonder how emotionless I am becoming.

Carter Road, Bandra W, for your viewing pleasure...

Another week, with more of the same… rushing to meet deadlines, sitting by to meet deadlines, cooking, reading, writing, scowling at the market, thrilling in the rain, laughing at *Well done, Abba*
And I can only wonder at what, if anything , changes with the years, or in a bid to amuse ourselves, do we learn to find color in variations on the same theme?

Today, I told myself I’d write. At least try. Sometimes it is worse than pushing toothpaste out of a dry tube.
But how to put on paper the relief-pride of pushing a tale to 3200 words, a tale that you’d despaired at ever attempting, and the feeling at being able to type “finish”. Phew. Done. Whether it makes the cut or not, does not matter—a personal victory.
How to put on paper that mixed sense of joy, quizzical unease at “we are considering”, either reject or accept, why keep me in limbo?
And that despair at seeing the walls of the palace grounds back home demolished, what has the city brought upon itself with this rash move?
So this is where I am.

Without fail a shower greets us every morning in the park, this morning I counted five kinds of green before I stopped counting, happy just to revel in the extravagant palette; the rain as regular as the line up of strays waiting for their biscuit treat, and I wonder how little they, and we, need to keep us going.

Minutes carved out of my Sunday, precious busiest day of the week, between the palak and methi that must be cleaned and the fridge and larder stocked and sorted, and I try and stretch and steal every moment I can spend with you, and it isn’t enough; it really never is.

It is good to go ballistic sometimes.
Like I did. And rarely do.
Compassion, giving space is where I try to operate from—ordinarily.
But you set out to be thoughtless, picked a raw nerve and pulled it taut, just to be social?
So I made sure. Where the line is, not to be crossed.
You will not do this again.

Yes, this is the kind of week it has been. But not bad, otherwise.

The Visitor is solidly good.

The last shot--the sound of drumbeat and the image of the middle aged, balding man in an incongruous suit playing a drum on an empty subway platform even as trains clatter by….Unnerving.

Unfortunately, I watched this in bits, the way I usually catch movies on telly—at dinner, after my walk, so bits and pieces really. Missed the entire beginning sequence.Yet.

A story about immigration, racism, political asylum. Good humans in a bad place. Yet simple, neat, no frayed edges.Matter of fact. If you’re an illegal resident, you can get thrown out for traveling ticketless, picked off the street and poof…No matter if your plea for political asylum has been turned down, or you’d be killed the moment you reach your land.

Not at a grand level, but at a you-and-me level.The other world infringing on a straight jacketed, standard-issue life. Not much of sound and fury about this one.

Brilliant acting by Richard Jenkins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGjjx3WMmSE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visitor_(2008_film)

Rain!

I look at the kid.
Bubbly, full of life, tall and pretty with her Julia Roberts cheekbones and slow smile.
I think back. To the way I was.
Not j, not the green monster.
But by this age I had written and crossed out quite a few life chapters.
Today, I like myself more.

The anticipation of a new book, the wonder, the delight...
Of a people so similar but not quite.


Mornings that are green drenched, the water trickling in tiny rivulets down my face, '
and the familiar takes on the mystery of a place unseen, and magical.

The lives people lead.
It is dark, past eight when I hail an auto.
And am shocked to see a child's foot suddenly in front of my face.
On the shelf meant for luggage..."Hey there's a child here!"
"That's my daughter, she travels with me."
The child, Anjali, is almost two. Her mother died when the baby was seven months old.
Since then, that shelf is her creche, day care center, whatever.
No, there is no one else. No one.
The child seems fine, we clap and play a game of sorts, now I see you now I don't.
This is what is.
What was it that I was antsy about?


Waiting at the docs for a routine test.
Waiting in the queue is a girl- child, not more than 22, her head covered with a veil.
An older woman is escorting her.
"Seven months? You don't seem that..."
"The doc was worried too, says the girl frets too much."
"So lucky to be having a baby at the right time."
"That's what I keep telling her.So many women are desperate for a chance.."
"And how many children do you have?"
"Wed at fourteen, twenty years into my marriage, and none.. my younger sister-in-laws often remind me ...."
"And your husband?"
"Mandir or doctor.He refuses to accompany me. After twenty years of being married"
She looks away,trying to hide the moisture in her large eyes.
The lives people lead.

It was a routine paper requirement, but the respect the parent was accorded at the police stn was impressive.

The treadmill of my life. Notched up gradient.
Back home and here.
Cleanup operations set off fires, The fire brigade is called.TG for neighbors.
laborers use the grounds without permission.And are politely told off.
The house next door is being demolished, will an apt block come up?
The w@rk situation is a surprise@ day.

Yet, the focus on what next. Solutions. Damage control.Clarity.
Perhaps the NEED to document in this little white space was never greater.

Rain! Lashing, intent rain, hard hitting and manic-primeval. That late the roads that dissect the colony are magically empty, even the stray dogs have crawled away someplace; and its just you and the rain and gushing wind, and you take a deep breath,draw your rainwear closer, focus on the next step, the lamp lights in the dark looking like distant halos past the driving water that gets into your eyes and seeps deep into your shoes.
And it is good to be alive.

Last night I watched Brick Lane, a story about immigrants from Bangladesh in London.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Ali

Perhaps not reading the book helped?
Perhaps the gritty authenticity of the storyline helped.
I liked this. A lot.
Some of the photography is beautiful. Specially the scenes with Karim.
And the sound is spot on, with all those neighborhood sounds in the background.


Inflation continues to raze
Okra @50/kg.

Kid, last night I sang along as they showed song after song, songs we had grown up with, songs we hummed along to, not quite knowing the words, songs we'd heard from a ancient "borrowed" tape upon an ancient walkman. Always on that swing on the back porch, reaching high and back.
" Billie Jean's not my love.." and "Pretty lady with the high heels on".
MJ, your MJ is now a year gone, and this was a tribute on primetime.
I exulted at every woo and riff, amazed I still remember, oh yeah, I know that one...
And can't help thinking someplace in the ether, you'll be dancing that moonwalk, and someplace in the ether teaching the man how to step nifty to a step and half dodhiyu.

So how often do you correct, re-correct, strikeout, fashion a phrase? Rework that which seems already mirror-finish?
Don’t miss the John Updike manuscript here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/books/21updike.html?scp=2&sq=Updike&st=cse


So how do you reach a point called “Enough”? Is it abrupt, that move—here today, gone tomorrow; or is it by inches, slow and gradual, a mishmash of compromises, let-it-be’s, whittling away, making allowances till you don’t recognize your face in the mirror anymore, you don’t like what you see?
Just curious. I know how I get there. Do you?

Rain and taxes, what more could I ask for?
Wild, mad, energy-on-high rain. Rain that is just- well, Mumbai rain.
A sheet of water. Any resistance is futile.
Of course there is water logging, AND the possibility, always the possibility, of flooding.
You might as well sing a song. And carry on. Quick march. Find a way.
Specially if there is a transport strike, the way it was y'day.

DTC-R. That's the direct tax code, revised.
Still trying to come to grips with it.
Good, bad or ugly? Don't know.

My tolerance for bs is DEFINED by what we live with day in and day out, Bhopal or the many Bhopals-in-the-making, bus-train-air blasts/mishaps, crumbling civil utilities and infrastructure, political and media shenanigans that conveniently milk an episode for what it is worth before maxing out the next disaster. I guess this is what third world or politely put, emerging market reality is all about. Our senses benumbed by real life, so much that the tolerances shift, our scale is different. So yes, blogger impertinence noted, fumed against, and one will continue to prod--but brazen,shameless, live on. AND yet look for a sliver of hope, of something fine amidst this chaos.

The seasons have changed. There is a freshness in the air most mornings.

Sometimes a line of succinct prose leaves you envious, worthless and unsure of your own capability in ever being able to capture a mood:
“In my credulous years—he thought—they told me that evil was a sort of dirty hue, just as definite as a soiled collar, but it seems to me that evil is only a manner of hard lucky, or heredity-and-environment, or ‘being found out.’ “
-- from Dalyrimple Goes Wrong by F. Scott Fitzgerald. from http://www.everywritersresource.com/shortstories/
A story a day mailed to your inbox- go subscribe!

Ok, so the hullabaloo is about the spam bots. Or Spam blogs now.
And Google’s dysfunctional, tizzy-as-a-dowager-with-a-knot-in-her tights response.
Which swept functional blogs and bloggers out with the spam.
Husha, hoosha, you all come down. Boom!
Ham handed.
Eyebrow raised—they could still have asked, right?
This is still so very WRONG, my dear Google.

STOP PRESS: Leni's missing comment copied below:
Leni Qinan has left a new comment on your post "Dear Google, You are not my mother. Even my mothe...":

Austere,

I hope Blogger doesn't remove this comment too, as it did with all my comments -all gone-.

I know you from Mago, who recommended me to visit and read your defence of freedom of speech.

Thank you very much for your support.

Leni.

~
Today I learned an original lesson, one about decimal points.
If I can save on tax by merely using 7 decimal places instead of 2… .
So what did I learn? One: Look at the detail.
Two: learn to look at the obvious from another angle.
Strange where we get our insights.

Dear Google,

You are not my mother. Even my mother would not throw half baked advice at me, or tell me what to do. You tread on thin ice.

Are you familiar with the term, friends of friends?

Well, you-- or your silly censorship system- hurt my fruends. mago- whom I follow- and Leni and MJ, whom I don't. You pulled blogs and blocked gmail, for the record.

Hurt mago, whom as you'd know, is a historian, fluent in five languages, and writes posts that offer content- meat. Is this the kind of person you want access to, or not?

When people are over 18, why would you tell them what to do? Why would you disable access to gmail? You think people are soliciting, selling pot or guns? On a blog?

Who gave you the moral authority to censor blogs? Just because you host them?

Get a life, go see a shrink.

Fuming

austere

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/taking-guard/307833/1
The Ind Express ran this story (again) this morn.
What a shot of pure energy!
Intent. Clean focus.
I walked taller. I'd whistle if I could.
Go, Pruthvi Shaw, GO!



Technology as a change agent.
Tons has been written about that.
But how technology can change lives. Incremental technology, nothing pathbreaking, mind it.
Except that the application, the USE-- is pathbreaking.
Women aloud videoblogging for empowerment. WAVE.
www.waveindia.org
Quite a mouthful.
A 2 member initiative.Sapna Shahani and Angana Jhaveri.
They train women from semi-urban, mostly lower income groups from across the country,
to make short video clips based on what is happening around them.
Open your eyes and you can see.
Train them as in every aspect- story boarding, scripting, shooting.
AND they pay them for their work.
The videoblogs exhibited ran the gamut from documentary type, art and craft and culture, to breaking news, citizen journalism.
Pretty interesting.
More so because of what it can do, in terms of change. And open up new worlds.
Check:
"Weaving Dreams -- Padma, a lady of the Bodo community in Assam, changes her community for the better when she started a weaving society, turning away from their previous occupations of liquor-making. Created by Usha Dewani (4 minutes)."
The audience was mostly NGO types or arty types.
But possibly the best saturday evening I've spent in a long time, watching these clips.
There is so much one can do.
Starting with not too much.

The dichotomy of my life. Our lives.
The deep carpets and hushed voices. Esoteric flowers. Luxury on the tap. Views to die for.
Work, and the numbers that the suits talk of are in millions and billions-- the zeros confound me.
But that's not reality, is it?
The autofella is coughing badly as we turn the corner to work.I'm surprised he took on a short fare.
I ask him how he is, and he weeps.
A grown bear of a man, clearly sixty plus, and he weeps.
His daughter is getting married month end. No dowry, but he has to think of the groom's social status. Hence a 1.5 lac debt.
Yes, a boy from the village in UP--one from Mumbai would be too expensive.
His son is useless, nalayak, hence the need for him to earn. Jimmevari.
I'm shaken.
This is life, too.

As is a Bhopal suddenly come to life after 25 years.
What are you going to do now? And how many more Bhopals are waiting to happen?
And bus-plane-train crashes, explosions we must not forget. Never forget. Where are those answers?
Past the media deluge on the new news.

The dissonance and the dichotomy, and a quiet space within,that perhaps is life.
perhaps.
I put my head down and work.

Phew! Marking the end of another very busy work season.
I think.

Amazing.. flowers that are borne directly on a tree trunk..
What tree is this, do you know?

A roomful of graceful women dressed in finery and gold, singing the chorus to age-old wedding songs for my nephew, and this one song I know the words to because I used to sing the words to you as a lullaby. Once upon a time.

Yesterday, I saw infinity. And man's conquest thereof.
From the T. Land's end, the sea is a glittering, dancing carpet, tripping over the horizon.
And the concrete and steel sealink, as it swooshes into the distance-a conqueror, valiant.

"Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."

More of putting my head down and getting on with it.
So write that letter. Pay all your bills.
Keep your will updated, and cross that T.

Last week was busy season at work.
And then the horrible news on the crash.
Managed to shut myself from the rabble rousers on tv, limited n’paper reading to a quick headline scan.
Until I visited my old landlady last night and saw the grieving crowds and media vans—the co-pilot was a neighbor, apparently.
Hits hard.

And in the unending celestial balance, the solidly good- a friend held a puja for her new home, a lovely apartment up high, flooded with light and air, every square foot and plastered wall paid with the sweat off her brow…some dreams come true, and some dreams tell you to walk tall.
antariksh shantihi... vayu devo shantihi..pruthvihi shantihi..
be calm the universe... calm the air gods... calm the earth
to the witness of the Lord Ganesha and Goddess of wealth Lakshmiji,
the witness of the nine grahas- the nine planets, the mother goddesses, and Lord Visnu in his many forms, her house was sanctified.


I take a deep breath. And try remember sunlight.

So when the stars turn, when saturn crosses the celestial path or so they say, if nothing
you learn a life lesson. Something important that you would not have learned otherwise.
A pause moment. Where you step away from yourself and see.
Resulting in a change in behavior that prevents you from a larger debacle, blunder, mistake.
How true.
And I don't even have a problem.
In a thoughtful mood rather than an upbeat one.

I’ve been grinning all morning.
All you need is one chance, right?
One break.
One person earning and then the family can latch on and then the momentum takes them to another place.

http://www.livemint.com/articles/2010/05/13203709/Umeed-soft-skills-for-the-urb.html

Umeed, a short non-free program that retrains people from the slums for jobs in malls, shops, the new economy. Seriously smart.

Is this a baobab? Not?
For the past several months now I’ve admired this tree, watched the sheen on its almost-silver bark, envied its insistence on standing tall, leafless or not, been respectful of the sap that surges and ebbs in its upright wooden frame, branches held out, bare, stubby twig-like and none the worse for it; even as the many trees around put on their finest greens for spring, then pirouetted and clad for summer.
Drumroll- Leaves! Tender leaves, unfolding. See? Just a day old.
Difficult to say who’s happier, the tree or I.

"Suhana safar aur ye mausam haseen.."
Madhumati. circa 1958.
What is it about the lines that resonate?
Specially the chorus, that sort of echoes?
Or "sa sa ni ni reni pa ni, ma ma ni ma ni pa pa ni" from the Dil Se title track.
Haunting.
I sing this when I'm walking back home.

Prayers for my ill friend, pls.

I drink in this golden profusion every morning.

Earlier this week, someone sent me a slim volume of essays.
Without any message or covering letter.
Like the message that comes from unknown directions?
I can only guess this is for a bhasha anuvaad.
No, the essays are not long- a page, two pages.
But a different kind of writing. Poetic.In taking to English, I’d have to chop. Mercilessly.
At the risk otherwise, of looking horrendously overwritten.
Maybe emotions are different in different tongues? In some language a sigh, in some a drum beat?
Will the cutting not be equal to rewriting?
How correct is that? Fair?
No, I’ve not replied as yet.
Dwidha.

Stunned.
http://karaditales.com/contest.aspx

Thank you for opening up a whole new world.

Do the things external which fall upon thee distract thee? Give thyself
time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.
But then thou must also avoid being carried about the other way. For
those too are triflers who have wearied themselves in life by their
activity, and yet have no object to which to direct every movement,
and, in a word, all their thoughts.
-Book 2, Meditations, Marcus Aurelius.


Marcus Aurelius. As in Emperor, yes?
What brilliance. Sigh.
If only it were easy to determine what is a trifle, and what indeed, an object worthy of attention.

I resolve to limit my twitter time.
No more trivia or breaking news.

The gulmohar are in bloom. Riotous reds.

Frisky. That’s what I called the affectionately mad pup at the end of the road, not that you could call him a stray, for he adopted the road, the chaiwallah and all who walked on the road. Every morning, beady eyed and tail a-wag, he would rush to greet Baba, rush and try to get close, Baba would step back arms akimbo, and I would scold the pup away in the simplest Gujarati. (Dogs like Baba, but he doesn’t like them.) Frisky went the way of all strays last week, maybe he is as curious, and energetic, and joyous, those bright eyes gamboling, hunting, sniffing and playing in some dog heaven. But even the birds were silent that morning.

Perhaps this is in the rightness of things. That unanswered call, that for-always lost part of my history, the over-late news and grieving over the death of the only person, my long lost Aunt, who could possibly have filled in the blanks in my lineage. Did Ma have a temper? Did she swear? Sweet all the time? Now I shall never know. So be it.

Work, and most of life is like a conveyor belt right now. Next, please.
I withdraw to the silence.

Bragging rights:

"The Final Chapter", a translation of the original story in Gujarati by Pravinsinh Chavda titled "Antim Adhyay", is online at 91st Meridian.
Also: An essay, "looking for a patli gali, an urban footpath"

91st Meridian is the journal of the international writing program at the University of Iowa.

http://iwp.uiowa.edu/91st/vol7_n1/index.html

Feels good.

Yesterday I met this young kid swathed in a scarf and with huge glares, a kid who’s allergic-- to the sun. To lovely, bright and essential sunlight that I delight soaking in.
Brown, tough and no-nonsense skin—NEVER thought that’s one more thing to be thankful for.

Watched bits and pieces of two movies over the last two evenings:
“Miss Pettigrew lives for a day” which has a feel good and nice storyline, all happiness and “anything can happen”; until you watch “ I’ll Cry tomorrow”, a true story which is probably a close look at showbiz the way it is, despair, alcoholism, eight husbands and bankruptcy.
I guess I liked the gritty, realistic movie from 1955 much more.


http://www.filminfocus.com/article/production_notes___miss_pettigrew_lives_for_a_day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ll_Cry_Tomorrow

So the earth sighed. And let off a fiery breath, bringing life to a standstill.
Yet again the earth shrugged elsewhere, unconcerned.
Have been watching the ongoing drama about cricket and grease and sleaze.
Reaffirms my intent to remain reclusive. Apart.
Somewhere in the last week and odd of watching twitter, shameless pretties and slander, I’ve regressed well into the 16th C-my home has high walls.
What priorities do we care about as a nation? Is it even one nation?
So one more ambush is ok, one more blast or two – we are too many people anyway-- Malthus was a good man.
Forget Eyja-what’s its name, we have a million upheavals waiting to happen.
Anyway.

Today is special, a bara din.
Yet there is a part of me that is cautious, wary.
Like on edge, right?
A part that watches you breathe when you’re asleep, and frets in the deep of the night.
The same part that relishes your wit and sharp mind…
So we shall let it, the day and all it signifies, pass.
And I shall watch your words for any imminent signs of a slip, a slur or a misplaced word or tone change.
Because there is a part of me that is cautious, wary.
Because I’d be kinder to myself, I think, if I were not me.

I tend to merrily write about knives and business intrigue, and smooth talking conmen who whistle while they transfer millions at the click of a mouse to untraceable accounts on distant shores, and talon-nailed wives who "settle" errant husbands.

Hence was terribly surprised to make the Karadi tales contest shortlist.

Shortlist only, mind it.

Maybe I should, like, think kidstuff, yes? Just maybe, yes?
Extremely surprised, yep.

Sometimes something good happens, the end result of a ton of hard work and persistence-determination and then you just want to wallow in it.

Nothing else matters. For now.

Yeah, cryptic.

I’m quite the strangest person on earth.
How else to explain the fascination with saving 100 bucks.
By shopping at Sahakari Bhandar versus More.
(After netting the transport cost, that’s just about 60.)
But I know I will return next weekend. To pick the choicest tomatoes, touch the smooth velver of slender bottlegourd, and indulge in the freshest greens.
Is there any logic to this?
Is it genetic, a salute to frugal Gujju genes?
A validation of a frugal philosophy that one believes in? Or a subtle brownie point, “I’m holier”?
Because the repeat delight at this idea, the serotonin surge from revisiting it every few hours, far surpasses any notional saving.

Most nights I sit with paperwork, trying to unscramble numbers.
To the company of the ARR number from Zubeida, “mehki mehki hain raahen”
And that adrenalin charge from Monsoon W. “ rabba rabba mee barsa”.

A close friend rushes to Cal to be with her aged father who is in the ICU.
The suddenness of it all.

A profusion of bougainvillea on the wall, and overhead a branch with yellow blooms tumbling over, looking like what I think grape on a wine would look like.

Every season has its charms. or so I told myself, when it was inordinately hot this morning.


Excellent essay on practice, sharpening one's craft:

http://blog.stevenpressfield.com/category/writing-wednesdays/

And I go back to the blank page.

I was thinking about how we read people. How we learn to read them.
And how more or less, people tend to be predictable.
Follow a trend line, like a stock.
Over time, you learn how a friend will likely use any information she comes by—so then you tend to watch what you share
But if your work was to write, would you or would you not use this knowledge?
What if your work area was non fiction? What if it were a shared experience?
Where would you draw the line, what would be ethical and what would not be ok?

Two solid articles, from NYT: Be sure to read the comments.

On self defeating behavior--
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/playing-the-victim/

Losing it--
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/magazine/28fasttrack-t.html?scp=1&sq=Dominique&st=cse

April has begun busy. Happy-busy, touchwood.

An amazing friend’s birthday. Knowing her has been a blessing—that a human could be as good, as pure and strong, despite her fragile and beyond-help health. Sometimes it is good to get one’s cynicism good and shaken.

Roads explored as a shortcut take a surprising turn, lead to complete East Indian villages, crumbling mansions, village square, cross and church, bargaining aunties, in the middle of bustling upmarket suburbs. Leaves you wondering, so often we pass by on the main thoroughfare, unaware and uncaring of the meandering lanes that lie beyond.

Karthik calling Karthik was brilliant. So bright it feels like a knife cut through your brain. Forces you to dispassionately look at your behavior. Yes, I must confess I ditched a tall stack of newspapers post the movie. Obsessive hoarding behavior, that.

http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/2010/02/27/review-karthik-calling-karthik/