It is the Hidden and the Impossible that excites a Soul

There is something we all live for. And it takes some of us twenty years in a life-time to realize it. We could realize it sometime when the Muslim priests next to our house starts their first Namaaz. It could be after shutting off the television set after a movie marathon. It could be because we watched Autumn Spring and The Thomas Crown Affair back-to-back on two consecutive nights. It could be because we see the empires we are building for ourselves.
It all boils down to one thing. We live life relentlessly for the passion inside us that we need to challenge. We do this to believe in an adventure we created for ourselves when we were children.

Inside the Green Wine Bottle is the Core of My World, or where is it?

It is six and early in the morning, but my night is not yet over.
I am awake in my sleep, for my eyes have not yet winked.
I have wiped cleaned the paint, that spilled off my first canvas,
On which sits a bright red strawberry, hidden in my blue world.
This is Core of the World. The Core of My World.
The Core of the World is what you see.

Task finished: I have finally painted my first ever canvas in my entire life. The Canvas is the core of my world. I used acrylic paints, fingers, old brushes, and torn up sponge. No techniques, probably no skill. But, my painting on my canvas. Then, washed the brushes and my hand with a strong Lifeboy handwash, and scrubbed the floor clean with Pril. Energy is beating its way to my heart.

The Waste Underneath the Garbage Bag

It's pure shit to procrastinate, but the idea is stalled. I got past the title, three lines, and then ideas came. No ideas to do with Vedic Mathematics. I am sitting here all alone in my big house missing my allies: Arun, Git, Mary, Nina, kitchi, and Karan. Mistakes can be made, but were they worth it. Why am I not regretting anything? Because, you stupid crow you have some numbers to compute, some words to conjure, some thoughts to sort out. Leave.

Summary: I am suffering from Writer's Block. I am missing my friends.

If you are a circle, you live in a square

Everything I've read for the past couple of years has brought me to back to two of my favourite poems, dramatic monologues: Ulysses by Tennyson and Journey of the Magi by Eliot. However, here is my attempt at verse writing, after a very long time.

Some Lives

I.

Morning is awakened, by the pungent robes

Of rain, dropping dew and dancing clouds.

The empty window frame calls out

To his slit vision of words, thoughts, and pens.

The writer looks beyond the succulent

Red of bright extinct roses, through the beady rain,

A girl sits there with an umbrella.

There she sits, in a transparent and scary

Loneliness. One believes in her emptiness,

Lays a God, but even a lack of purpose.

Black cloth sewn on the cane matches her suit,

Perfect, elegant, and strangely alien to him.

Catch her with a purpose in those empty eyes!

Perhaps a new maid, the mistress of Mr. Timberland,

The mother of the abandoned twins in the dustbin,

Or a passerby lost in her passage. Why?

She is not a rhodora, rose, or cloud, but

A mere woman of a history, past, and hazy present.

Contemplations burnt to the buds,

Packets of Camel cigarettes lie done.

Alarm rang – alert, appointment, meeting, run!

The writer ran down the stairs,

Missing every second one in a forgotten question. Why?

Unprotected he ran into the dance of the clouds,

Into a slushy street, but did not get wet.

There she stood the girl with the umbrella,

With her eyes like water and her breath like the sea,

Protecting him and the rest under it -

Purpose is one of simplicity.

II

Rain clears to a sunny dome,

Fog opens a lattice window, through which

One’s watery eyes can watch.

A maiden rejoices in her reflection,

Her brush blushes her cheeks,

Shapes her eyebrows, and reddens her lips.

Luscious and barren, the day lies open.

She wears the silken dragon robe

And steps out in grace to struggle.

The divine waits feel her sinews

And feed her the bitter wine.

Why is she? Who is she?

She hangs onto the last warps and wefts

Of her robe, cutting her tender, fine fingers.

Her hips and loins hurt in the brutality

Of this struggle and the many to follow.

Speeches and resolutions, systems and papers,

Nothing saves her from this vulnerability.

She could be gay, coloured, transgender, lesbian,

Straight, mother, sister, wife, male or female. Or merely, she is that person,

Staring at a lucid mirror, showing her

Red translucent beauty.

She, the prostitute, mistress, courtesan

Of struggle, is us – you and me.

For all, life, a struggle,

Offers us threads and strings

To hang on to and cut,

But also eventually transcends,

Weaves into a fine dragon robe.

Here, struggle is one of beauty,

One of grandeur and of colours.

But it lies undone on a fragile loom

That bellows every time

The shaft heftily weaves.

Struggle is one of vulnerability.

III

From any struggle sprouts an overgrown potato,

Like the one that lies forgotten in your fridge.

Now, turn your heads swiftly, her feet are too dainty

For this meandering, sandy path.

Is she too young or already too wise?

Gilgamesh plays on her toes,

Pushing her to search for answers…immortality…peace -

But even to wish for peace

Is peaceful, and to look for an answer

Is satisfying.

But she does the mistake as any other,

She makes an ascetic of herself.

Productive, reproductive, political and social

Are abandoned. She is new,

But definitely not herself.

What could it be that she started?

Was washing dishes all she did,

That her past was so distant now.

As ascetic, she had to accept all,

In a pilgrimage, nothing becomes distant,

A residue of her past, she is

But from a struggle, she has bloomed.

She lives tiny and single on her rose bush.

No teacher, no answers, no definite

End or beginning.

Tougher than the worldly struggle,

The path is rugged and uncertain.

Will she reach? Will she let of herself?

Will she let go of every kind of herself?

After every struggle, she waits,

And that is the plain point of it.

Pilgrimage is one of stillness.

IV

A life leads to a beautiful black hole

Of pondering ideologies, thoughts, and a life.

Questions seem to stream out

Of our eyes, ears, and all senses.

Withdrawing she becomes the ultimate,

The end of all, the beginning of the unknown.

Again, who is she?

Like every woman, she lays a mystery,

To be buried in a coffin.

But there her greyness covered in white,

The symphony of cries around her,

Young widow in her death.

Stark cruelty of life, to take all

And just keep taking.

Does not the divine know to give?

He gives the life, the struggle,

The brain to think of purpose, and

the heart to think of valour and Love.

We roll on the crust, and rip the leaves,

Then fall in a pit – Hell.

We take a pilgrimage of Sins,

The sweetest, the best, and most fruitful,

In some vain hope that we shall,

Yet again, be born to live this again.

Rather, in this purity of life and death,

One understands the story,

The pure feminine fable of the May fly.

Living for a day, to copulate,

Not to eat, digest, or excrete,

But simply born to recreate,

And then to die without an answer.

Where is the purpose, struggle?

Pilgrimage, thought or death?

Does not one have to start out

A life and then deal with that death?

Is that young widow’s life full?

Disappearance is one of inevitability.

Windows

an old speech (and some comments) I had to make in School. I was quite happy to find this. Written on 5.12.2004. Forgive the standard of English in places. I did not want to edit.

Good morning! For today, I was asked to speak about windows. While preparing I looked up a lot of books on the architectures of arches, wooden joints, window frames, and so on. Then, one of my teachers came along and gave me a book of zen quotes. Hereby, I will be referring to symbolic windows; those that our minds possess. Not to worry, they are very similar to our house windows and that easy to understand. But think about closing all these windows and sitting inside. The house will become claustrophobic. Now, understand the mind as house, a home that harbours thoughts, feelings, opinions, contemplations, criticisms, emotions and views. Close these windows! Imagine never letting anyone of these getting a breath of fresh air: the company of expression. We're left with suffocated minds. Heads that hurt, and lives that are entwined. Very early in our life, we learn hard to put bolts on these windows when confronted by certain concepts. Let it be politics, friendship, sex, or even music, dance and paint. Then, we keep strengthening these bolts keeping an eye all the excuses that make this right. We refuse to speak to people darker than us. We refuse to speak to people shorter than us. We refuse to listen to people who speak too slow. We refuse to look at people with short hair. However, one has to realize that we are social beings and we have to keep 'interaction' and 'expression' an alive part of our lives. We have to break down these bolts. It is a personal effort. We need to ventilate our minds. We need to use the windows. A person who is 'open' will be able to receive and therefore give better. (And I actually said: to make sure nothing too terrible happens in this vulnerable position we could fit mosquito nets). Windows are basically frames through which one can look. These windows are special. Though open enabling us to look out, it has a reflective quality attached to it. It looks back into the self. Life is a changing path. Both mistakes and successes have to be taken at stride, with openness. If we are insecure, it is because we have suffocated ourself. We need space to think. We need to open this windows to become secure creating a stability and willingness to learn.

A poet named Donovan Holtz said, "Through a window, I watch, windows are, for watching - Square pieces of life, ever changing." These frames provide two contrary needful aspects: confinement and openness. There are times when we have to take the lead, and there are times when we have to step back and wait. One should be attentive and then they can learn to not get hurt, and not hurt. It is very important to create a free space. It gives one a strong choice. But, one will think more, because they actually 'listen' to more versions of life. Then one becomes open to even criticizing statements, just because we waited and listened. It bends everything to make it constructive, and gives the power in the self to construct the truth and belief of life in a sensible manner. It is in our hands to not take advantage or be taken advantage of.

Thank you.

The Postmaster by Rabindranath Tagore

I've figured that it always helps people studying literature, when there is a comprehensive set of ideas they can start from. I've always loved studying literature and spending detailed, organized time analyzing my readings. It helps! The insights it gathers and presents to a person is invaluable.

In the small village of Ulapur, an Englishman who owns an indigo factory near it manages to get a post office established. A postmaster from Calcutta gets separated from his family and transferred to this village. From the noise of the city, he comes to a deserted village with just scattered glimpses of people.

Tagore, a lover of nature, uses it to describe the surroundings. The postmaster’s office has a green, slimy pond, surrounded by dense vegetation. The way he describes this shows that postmaster is not in a position to appreciate his closeness to nature.

There are three central themes to this story.

Firstly, the story revolves around ‘longing and separation’; starting and ending with this. The postmaster is taken away from his family and brought to a remote village. He was in a village, where its busy people were no company, and he was left with not much work to do. He tries to pacify his longing emotions by writing poetry. However, the fact that he tries to write something external to him, like nature, makes it an impossible venture.

An orphan girl of the village, Ratan, helps him with his daily chores. He speaks to her about his mother and sister in the evenings, and would keep enquiring about her family. He would speak with sadness of all those “memories which were always haunting him”.

Secondly, ‘companionship’, and thirdly ‘dependency’ can be seen through how the relationship between the postmaster and Ratan grows through the course of this story. Ratan did not have many memories of her family to be recalled. There were only fragments, like pictures, of her father coming home in the evening, and her little brother whom she played with, fishing on the edge of the pond.

Once she met the postmaster, ‘Dada’, she spent her days with him. She would sit outside his shed, being only a call away from him, and doing all the small chores. Dada would share his meals with her. Then in the evenings, she would listen to him talking about his relatives and in imagination make them her own.

Tagore translates the longing ringing in Dada’s heart to nature, when he says, “A persistent bird repeated all the afternoon the burden of its one complaint in Nature’s audience chamber.” A man, who initially failed his attempt at verse, thinks of this as parallel to his emotions. Poetry is something that comes from the inner overflow of emotions. He hopes for the presence of a loving human being he could hold close to his heart.

The same theme of longing is discussed in Kamala Das’ poem, “Hot Noon in Malabar”. However, the situation is flipped. She is ripped from Malabar, a town life, to the noises and solitude of a city, Bombay. She says:

“To be here, far away, is torture. Wild feet

Stirring up the dust, this hot noon, at my

Home in Malabar, and I so far away....”

The postmaster can’t stand the quietude of Ulapur. He longs for the noises of traffic and life in Calcutta.

One evening, he tells Ratan that he is going to teach her to read. She grows closer to him. She sees him as her only relative. She grows dependent.

But, as the season’s rain seemed like it would never end, like the constant patter on the roof, Dada was troubled by his heart’s exile. He falls sick in his solitude. Ratan takes care of him, and he recovers just taking her presence for granted. But, he then decides that he has to leave this village. He writes an application of transfer, based on the unhealthiness of the village. The transfer is rejected.

He tells Ratan that he has resigned and will be leaving the village. She asks him to take her with him. He thinks of it as an absurd idea and she is haunted by his reaction. Next morning, she fills a bucket of water for him. He bathes and waits for the next postmaster to arrive.

He consoles Ratan saying that he would inform the postmaster about her. He even offers her some money to keep. She refuses both and expresses that she doesn’t want to stay there any more.

Ratan has lived a life of loneliness. Dada was her only companion, and the only one who seemed to understand her. She is broken, when he has to leave without her.

He leaves as soon, as the new postmaster arrives. He hesitates for a moment as the boat leaves, but it is too late for him to take her with him. Tagore illustrates the two ways a human mind works. The postmaster uses the element of philosophy to console himself. He tells himself that meeting, attachment, and departing are all part of life. It will all settle with the passage of time. The wind that fills the sails of the boat indicates the reason the postmaster fills his heart with, as he separates himself from the village.

However, Ratan stands outside the office “with tears streaming from her eyes.” She has succumbed to a common human folly, as Tagore expresses, of hope. She has been separated from her only bond and now longs for it to return. Tagore ends by saying that humans often fall into hope than seeing the reason, and long before we realize, disappointment becomes too hard to handle.

This short story was eloquently presented in Satyajit Ray’s Teen Kanya (three short stories on two girls and woman, by Rabindranath Tagore).

The Postmaster

1. A Post Office in Ulapur: A remote village, with no need for a post office. An Englishman, owner of the indigo factory near the villages, manages to set it up.

2. Postman transferred – a man from the city, is brought to quiet village. He becomes lonely because he has not company or much work to do.

3. He tries to write poetry, but fails. Because he is not writing about what he feels, but something outside of him.

4. He meets a small orphan girl, Ratan. Both of them give each other company. He shares his meals with her. She does all small chores for him. He talks to her about his family.

5. One day, he decides a good way to use time is to teach her to read. Ratan grows closer to him, but he is still longing to go back to the city.

6. He falls ill, and she takes care of him. He then decides to transfer and get away from this village. He applies for transfer, on the pretext of his unhealthiness and the village’s lack of hygiene.

7. His transfer is rejected and he resigns his job to return home. He tells Ratan this. She asks him to take her with him. He shuns the idea. She gets hurt.

8. She fetched bathing water ready for him in the morning. He tells Ratan that he would tell the next postmaster to take care of her. But, she is deeply hurt and asks him not to tell anyone. She even refuses the money he gives her.

9. He leaves. And when on the boat, for a moment he feels that he should go back and get her. But, he philosophizes and says that people meet and have to depart.

10. Ratan is in no position to reason. She stands outside the office in deep hope that he will come back. Finish with Tagore’s opinion on hope, and the human mind’s mistake. He says that humans will keep hoping, and disappointment becomes harder to handle.

Themes:

1. Longing and Separation: The story starts and ends with this, The postmaster is taken away from his family and brought to a remote village. He spends his evening with Ratan speaking about his family: “memories which were always haunting him”. He also falls sick from his heart’s exile and loneliness. The story also ends with this. Ratan gets separated from him. She stands with streaming tears and longs for him to come back, “wandering about the post office with tears streaming from her eyes”.
2. Companionship, explain about the postmaster’s and Ratan’s relationship.
3. Also explain how they depend on each other.
4. The contrast between the city and the village, best from the postmaster’s point of view.

Ideas:

1. Philosophy – abstract study of life, reasoning the happenings. He consoles himself saying everything is part of life.
2. Hope – she is no position to reason. She sinks deep into hope. Tagore states this as a common human mistake.

Also add that Tagore is primarily a nature writer. So, bring out the references of how he uses nature to illustrate the emotion.

Ego is a funny creature and I attribute a 'he' to him. He has bright blue eyes that blind with simple tears, and that burn with victorious laughter. My Ego is blue, sleeps in my palm, and has very quick feet. We all own him. We all own a kind of him. When he takes his morning run he hurts my thighs and arms. I try to hold him back, but he flies. His wings are ferocious and hard. They hit me when he needs, wants, yearns. Ego taught me love, because he loves wearing pride as a cloak.

Moon Songs

Midnight pen and paper love stories have been on a long humid vacation. Tonight, it's raining. I will write. The spiral in my head wants a rest, but it keeps on spinning, singing to the vanishing eye. My heart is palpitating like the pushing and pulling of tides in a vast ocean. The dim bulb is flickering, and humming: when what I cherish dies, love alone stays. For the miles we are apart and the trains that drag us closer to each other, there is a song. The moon usually sings it to us when we take a break from the road and sleep on the shore of our tides. The beat bellows into our deaf ears. Tonight, I am learning to listen to my tides, and the spiral in my head. I am learning to restart a childhood and eat mangoes in the middle of a night. I am learning to climb and fall off bunk-beds. I am feeling alive. I am breathing. I can hear the purple sky dance with the moon and the dark green mango leaves. I can sleep and snore. I can sigh. I can love. Lovely!

A lookout somewhere far

Read the peice on your right by Haruki Murakami. That is the piece of writing which is keeping me sane nowadays. I have finally acquired a nice job. Looking forward to creating a new house with my parents. I will not be able to move out of their place for quite sometime. I don't want to. It's hard to ask anyone to understand you. Everyone is human. It is in our power to learn and grow. Comfort zones have now tied me down. Therapy! The next step...

Back home

A new place is always old to me. After many homes that were created for me, I walked into the arms of my own family. It is a good feeling, but I am really torn apart from a lot of other people. Planning for another getaway, soon! Now, Kolkata had the people, the books, the colours, the traffic, the markets, the walks, the tea, but no sea. And Mumbai had the people, the books, the colours, the traffic, the markets, the walks, the tea (I hate it), and the sea (which likes to think it is a beach). I am packing bags again...moving out of this house! Creating homes, spaces, getting jobs, losing time..new lives. Loving it. Want to travel. Get out of this city soon.

the song of solomon

pedestrian chronicle

The walk, the click of my heels and the thoughts that melted like old icecream into milk, took me home. We saw into each other's eyes, my shadow and I. The afternoon high was lowering itself to a simmer, still severely toasting foreheads. I drew out a small camera and decided to see the world move, spin and happen. With the feeling of owning the world, a part of it, with every image and thought that transpired in the time being the few minute walk seemed an hour. An eon long journey! Let this sink on you, colours fly. I forced a glass of rose milk on myself to taste some childhood again. I did, some memories rushed back as I swallowed pink. Pink milk! Rose milk! Milk! Neighbours and paati. The blueness took me over and swirled me out on to the road. Everyone seemed so nice and I seemed like the kid, the one who never understood the world and yet had all the answers.

Some men are creepy, women too. Some people are creepy. They have the weirdest things to say and do not care about appropriateness. Yesterday, I met a man, in the bus, who decided to talk about women's stuff (oh! he was apparently refering to breasts). He kept on telling me that I have good "stuff" and that guys would be following me around like ducks. Well, he even offered a talk over coffee and a transparent suggestion on him being my groom. Yuck! Going through this is not new, but to know people like this exist creeps me out. I am talking about those who are open talking about bodies and desires, but those who impose it on others with the hint or rather the highlight of pervertedness.

If this doesn't cause irritation, I don't know what else will. There are some people, even if you're compulsively nice to them, one never wishes to meet. This man met a category and for once I felt happy in stereotyping. The rest of the bus ride, after the man declared he was getting off the bus half-heartedly, I stared out of the window with a blank stare. The blankness stared back. The road grew wider and wider, more people seemed to crop up. A river of thoughts seemed to flow above my head. Money seems to feature a very big part of my life these days. It's sad and I don't know it kind of has this nice flavour of responsibility added to it.

No money has the ability of making you feel abandoned from yourself. Especially, after getting a taste of what that piece of promise note is capable of, one can't think further but for the want of more of it. It flies, and it makes you flies. Nothing to deny. With no money, I wouldn't write, blog, or take photos, or be what all I am about now. The essence itself, if created by the activities I indulge in, will disappear the minute my pockets go empty and lose the hope of getting filled. Such is the morbidity and materialism of life, and much ado about nothing to simply deny things and put on collared white coats. Goodness is far more than just morality, a personal ethics goes futher.

The ruggedness is a good thing to cultivate. One must allow themselves to watch the rugged messiah sleep under the tree with koels flying around him, sometimes in dreams and mostly in reality. Watch the messiah sleep and you will wake up. Wake up the messiah and you will sleep.

This is the problem with people. They forget they can fly and search for the wrong cliffs or just forget to search the last pocket, always the best. We end up settling, obsessively. What a world?

I sign off with just some sporadic images. Some studying has to happen in this world. I get this egoistic pleasure when I top my exams, more than competing with others (though, this emotion exists), I just like telling myself I'm smart. Muaahahahha. I am sad in many ways. I traumatize people. I laugh at people's plight when it doesn't really hurt them. I can incessantly argue about nonsense. I just need good sleep, lots of water, and proper food. I must add that Vasanth Vihar next to college, a small vegetarian hotel, does give a very nice meals for just Rs. 25. I am a compulsive eater. I eat food. And food has no barriers. It is the flavour of enjoyment, only surpassed by words, music, and colours. Bye.

Update

Metro Theatre Festival 2007 Boardwalkers Theatre Company The Immigrants: Backstage work Fall on Thursday Aug 9, 2007 Labelled Accident Prone Fool Doctor Visit on Aug 13, 2007 Diagnosed as Torn Ligament Prescription spelt R-I-C-E R - Rest I - Ice C - Compression E - Elevation Doctor's humour praised Back home on yellow matress Four days bandaged right leg House arrested for four days Let you know if there are any updates in the above matter. I'm bored!