How do I begin to explain myself

I think of all the things that would make it alright; this past that we want to recreate, of mango sorbets and french toasts and I can't think of any. There is nothing that you or I could say or do to change what has happened. I mourn the loss of this past as you do too. I seek to reach you that we may mourn together. I pick up the phone to call you. The first four digits, I am sure I want to talk to you. Doubt begins in digit five. What should I say, I ask. By sixth digit I ask Who am I calling? This person who exists or another who existed. Seventh and eighth goes by with nostalgia. I am burdened with memories. Happy memories. Of the moon and starry nights. Of poetry and potatoes. Of the unbearable lightness of being and becoming. Their oppressive weight pushes me from my phone, that portal to you, and reach out for fresh air. I go for a walk and the trees and the birds assure me that the winter is past. It begins to rain. Not a shower as much as a drizzle. Just enough to wet me. Water trickles down me. I return home fresh and renewed. The phone is in the corner and its beckoning doesn't reach me. A month shall pass before I turn towards her again. And she lures me. Her viper-voice. I reach to touch. To pick her up. Cradle her in my arms and coo in her ears. A week goes by before I get the courage. I resist, she lures. I touch, she stirs. And we play our game again. I begin to dial the numbers and the viper-voice changes tone and is telling me I need to break the time-space continuum to make my call. Good luck with that. I checked the journals; we are not there yet. Maybe in a decade. So I drop the phone and walk again. and the trees and birds assure me that winter is behind us. Memories fade. Like the stain of mango pulp on my favourite white shirt. Slowly slowly with each wash. And it is good that it melts for what good is the stain. I cannot taste it. Not anymore. Its bitter sweetness exists only in my head. I think of all the things that could make it alright, this past that we want to recreate, of mango sorbets and french toasts and I can't think of any. There is nothing that you or I could say or do to change what has happened. I mourn the loss of this past as you do too. But even in grief, we cannot mourn together. We are far. We are far. I do not seek to reach you anymore. I simply love.

Where is the outrage?

I kid you not, this is a real advertisement on television:

Open to a beautiful young woman looking longingly at her marriage photograph as she dusts an immaculate room. Cut to a charming young man running through a corridor carrying what appears to be a huge canvas. Back to the woman whose mobile rings. She picks up the mobile and wordlessly goes to the window to open her curtain. And lo behold! on the opposite building is the charming young man holding a canvas with a heart shaped rose petal artwork and waving madly and he had given similar canvases with bold letters on them, to people in different apartments to read M-A-R-R-Y M-E A-G-A-I-N. The girl moved by this romantic gesture, blushes. End advertisement.

The ad was for Pond's Age miracle cream.

Here is this guy who dumped his woman because she looked old and wrinkly and now that she has used Pond's age miracle cream and gotten all young and beautiful, he wants to marry her again. And she blushed.

Excuse me, I have to throw up.

Mini samosas

Opportunities are like mini samosas, if you don't grab them when the tray does the first round, there probably won't be any left for you.

Pragmatism?

He called himself a pragmatist. That is, he believed "What if the Emergency stole your civil liberties, the trains ran on time!"

Shocked, one asked, "How could you possibly say that? Would you say, What if you have cancer and chemotherapy has caused your hair to fall, at least you don't have to spend money on an haircut". No, that wouldn't do. "What if your car got stolen, at least you didn't have to wait in line at DMV to pay for registration"

Not at all. He is just being practical, you know.

What if a million people die of hunger, at least the population reduces

Avatar

My avatar didn't load up in Farmville. I was a faceless, bodyless shape that plowed and planted and harvested.

Pig on a spit fire

You are dead to me. I have killed you from my memory and washed the blood-stained floors with saline water. I cordoned off the area with a 'Crime Scene - Do not cross' barrier tape. I sprayed liberal amounts of room-freshener to remove any lingering fragrance. (I chose Lavender because I am afraid Jasmine and Rose will resurrect you). And sanitised. Sanity. Sanitise. Sanity. Sanitise. Was it really over? Could that be it?

There was nothing left to do but return home and shower. I turned on the shower and tepid water trickled down my chin washing away tears. The water got warmer and warmer until you raised from the steam. Like a ghost but alive. Sure, I was startled, but why was I happy that you were not completely dead? I did not know why you were alive and in my shower. How could you have crossed the cordon? It said 'Do not cross'. Surely you are not allowed to disobey such explicit directives. You looked at me from your perch atop the curtains and smiled. And I smiled back. The last drop of the shower saw you vanish. I do not know if through the drain or through the window. I do not search you. I changed and went to work.

I filled my days with this and that. Honestly, I couldn't say with what but the days were filled and what did I care. And you did not return for days, sometimes weeks. But you always came. The other day from inside the oven. I am no longer surprised when you spring from the CD player when it plays Chopin's Nocturne in C Sharp Minor. Tin ta tin ta tin tin. Or that time when you emerged out of the bucket of popcorn at the movies. In fact, sometimes I know of your coming before you come. My friends are spooked when I tell them of your presence. They pity me, their pity like the excess oil in Eggplant Masala. Horrible, unhealthy and tasty. They recommend exorcism and take me to dinners and drinks. I do not want to be dispossessed but I am too polite to decline them. I go along but I know that it is futile. I don't want to be free of my demons, just in control of them. Not too much control. An illusion of control would do. I rue sharing your emergence with my friends. It should have been our secret. I have learnt/am learning to hide well. Emergence-submergence.

Of late I notice that your features aren't that well defined. Like a blurry picture. A despectacled vision. Unfocussed. Your eyes and that sharp nose. And the lips. You are losing it. The other day, you were irrecognisable. Just dark hair cascading to your shoulders. I wouldn't have known it was you. After all, there are other dark haired phantoms for me. But curiously enough you carried a name board. A nameboard with your name calligraphied Lucida style hung around your neck. I was terrified. I am terrified. What if all I have remaining of you is the nameboard? Maybe the dinners and drinks do work. I lock myself in my room and block the world. I don't want your ghost haunting me but it sure is nice to know that your trace is there. A preserved footprint in a vast and sifting desert. I invoke you. I want to refind refine your memory. I play the songs that resurrect you. Ah! music. Moonlight sonata and SPB singing of the raindrops that fell on him in Dvijavanthi raagam. Still, you do not come and I am beginning to panic. I bake cheesecakes and chocolate muffins but you are not enticed. I go mad looking for you. I look for you in dark haired maidens, the living ones. I imagine that when they smile it is your smile that they smile. That somehow you have slipped under their face. An echo of an echo remains, I think. Or maybe it is my fevered mind that creates this phantom echo. It is fading. You are fading. I go mad slowly, like a pig on the spit fire, roasting ever so slowly. It will glow golden before turning black. I go mad looking for you. I go mad looking for you.

Woody Allen says

In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way.

Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day.

You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby
until you are born.

And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!

I rest my case.

Who am I?

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous --

Almost, at times, the Fool.

Sacred?

I got into a debate with a muslim friend about Satanic Verses, who while not supporting the fatwa felt that it was a reasonable position to hold that Rushdie should never have written the book if it would hurt the religious feelings of millions of followers of Islam. There is the freedom of expression and how it is the bedrock of democracy. There is the freedom from religious oppression angle to it. But that is not the reason why I consider it shouldn't be banned or why it is one of my favourites. I think it is an extraordinary book. A masterpiece. I have had similar arguments about M.F. Hussein. Even moderates who are not incited to a frenzy, advice that he shouldn't paint something if it'd be controversial. Nevermind that very few people understand modern art (and those who do have no problems). And of course there are also hacks, who will do something just because it is controversial.

I understand it is a complicated issue. I swear to God, that everytime I hear a Glenn Beck or O' Reilly speak, I wish they didn't have the rights to pollute the airwaves with garbage. Or that time Ben Stein promoted Intelligent Design in a documentary (if you could call it that with a straight face) and asked scientists if they stopped beating their wives (Roger Ebert has a scathing article about the movie). I am stumped when people say that they should be allowed to call global warming a myth or evolution, "just a theory" because they have the fundamental rights to free speech (But thats for another post).

It is tempting and oftentimes easy to just ban things. Call them protecting minority rights or preventing the promotion of violence through hateful speech. I often ask the question, "Where do we draw the line?".

And clearly, I am not qualified to give an answer.

As I was browsing through the internet for some info about the whole affair and watched an hour long BBC documentary, I also came across an essay by Rushdie himself, aptly named, Is nothing sacred?. Read and enjoy.

As for me, I am perfectly happy to take the position - nothing is sacred. Nothing.

377

I embrace the scores of Indian men and women who have, by the Delhi court ruling overturning IPC 377, been deemed no longer criminals. Besides the fact that it is a regressive, archaic and discriminatory law, I wonder how one would (or did) even enforce such a law. Did the cops break into bedrooms in the middle of the night? (I recall a scene in 'The West Wing' where Sam Seaborn is bemused by the news that a town in Alabama wants to abolish all laws but the ten commandments. He wonders how one would enforce, say, coveting thy neighbours wife)

I admit there was a time when I was... homophobe is too strong a word, and implies active hate/disgust... confused. I just didn't get it. When I was share-house hunting in Canberra, I turned down a place because one of the guys was gay. I have educated myself in GLBT issues since. A certain lack of awareness does breed prejudice. I have friends who have opened my eyes to theories of sexuality, to not looking at homosexuality as deviance, to the fundamental principles of tolerance and human rights. (Max - I dedicate this post to you)

We are all threatened by the unknown, distrustful of the different.
No more.

I guess it is a far way to go to be truly free of social stigma. We need to banish discrimination from our hearts but banishing legalised gay-bashing is a good beginning.

To more victories

Iran

Neruda wrote in his 'I am explaining a few things'

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings

and

Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!

and the final lines that, to me epitomises what Harold Pinter called "powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians"

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!

I have nothing to add.

Addiction

What could have happened
to the world in 20 minutes.
A lot.
News junkie is still a junkie

Paranoid?

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Sometimes it is not just me
People ARE out to get me.

Joyce - Chamber Music

XXII

Of that so sweet imprisonment
My soul, dearest, is fain —
Soft arms that woo me to relent
And woo me to detain.
Ah, could they ever hold me there
Gladly were I a prisoner!

Dearest, through interwoven arms
By love made tremulous,
That night allures me where alarms
Nowise may trouble us;
But lseep to dreamier sleep be wed
Where soul with soul lies prisoned.

Tongue-tied

Observation: I am an uninteresting person. I have nothing to say. Nothing.
Seinfeldian inference: Talk about how there is nothing to talk about

Perpetual doormat

I need to grow a backbone 

one of these days

Wisdom

Sex is like money. The more you have it, the more likely you are to get more. The corollary is just as true. The less you have it, the less likely you are of getting any.

Blue poles

Bourgeois, he thought. The paintings were so bourgeois. Horse races, ballet dancers and nudes in their toilette. Not really avant-garde today. Was it ever? And the crowd was lapping it up. Young couples on their date. Holding hands and nodding knowledgeably at brush stroke or colour or whatever it is that impressed people. Old men and women. Retired. Bored. (And the coffee at the members lounge, well! that was something)

A little girl in the middle. Divine. Unselfconscious of these staring morons. He fought the urge to cover her in a white blanket away from their polluting gaze. She shouldn't be here. He wobbled out. Need some air. What suppressed and suffocated him in this well-aired gallery? What was this scent?

Outside foyer. Pretty girl at the ticket counter. Small talk. And there it was in front of his eyes. A National Gallery flyer. Grey black blue orange. Jackson Pollock. It can't be true. They couldn't possibly have a Jackson Pollock here. Is this... is this Jackson Pollock displayed here?, he asked. She didn't know. This was her summer job. Art wasn't her thing. She hoped to be in real-estate someday. But she was courteous enough to tell him to check with one of the security people. They do the rounds, you see, and they may know what is where. If at all.

He ran in as much as one can run within a gallery. Bespectacled lady disapproved. The first security guard in sight, he begged him, please tell me if there is a Jackson Pollock on display.

Jackson who? Never heard of him. But that painting in the flyer, it is down the hall and to your left.

Down the hall and to his left...

Blue poles

Past?

I am amused at how little of my own past I remember as things that happened to me. I recall them as something I watched... maybe a movie that I watched in a dingy AC-less, bat-smelling cinema hall with a whiny speaker.

It does lend a certain objectivity to see my life with. It is not MY life... it is that guy in the screen's.

Mute

No love can survive muteness