Just a little prayer. Oh blog!

Hello again. Perhaps, I was being overly critical or I meditated so much that I reached stages where I didn't need to talk anymore. The latter being highly unlikely, I was prevented from writing about what I felt, what I thought and what I did.
I don't really think I've ever written on this space for others as much as myself. What I've shared has been extremely beneficial only and mostly for myself. By seeing what you spew out, loud and clear one can witness oneself and hope to edit.
I know this might actually be of little use to the rest of society but it makes one person in the chaotic hippie-lands or crammed cities a little easier to deal with. That person is me.
Yes, in this way I love myself.

In the last year I left my job, the closest I had to routine and wandered in emotions of hormonal happiness, impulse and desperation in Goa and Ibiza. This year I feel a little more open about Bombay again..

Bandra, where I grew up, to return would complete a circle of sorts.
I wake up and spend the sunlit hours debating the good and bad of Bombay and Bangalore.
One offers a fresh fast moving active population, inspired and creative in their own street smart ways, entangled and pouring out of trains, while the other offers a laid back crowd, greedy autorickshawalas and a sense of comfortable confidence of living in a small town (yes, I think social life here is small townish) . I almost know everyone in Bangalore.(at least it feels like it)
The 2 people who inspire me (unknowingly) to come to Bombay again are Paro and Suraag, (also nice to visit home once in a while). As for Bangalore: Shilo, Tapas and a long list of friends similarly confused and jobless.

Perhaps it is easy to be creative and playful as a student bent over homework. The kind of lust for the newspaper and sketches when one should be preparing for the geography exam. It can be very different being your own boss and tiffinwala.

I've been excited by projects and saddened and blocked by myself too many times this year. I've been surprised many times by the sudden marriages of my friends. I've questions my choices watching the progress of others.People have called my life "the dream life" too easily and far too many times recently. Equal number of people have called me flaky, scattered and distracted. I've changed 8 telephone numbers and a part of my hair has turned to dreadlocks. I've swam naked and danced for a music video, danced on the streets, attended an ayahuasca ceremony, sold cold drinks on beaches, given massages professionally, danced in water, made my first choreography, been a non dairy products person, received bio-magnetic therapy, attended tantra workshops, cut my friend's hair, performed in 2 international dance festivals, taught English to Spaniards, screamed in foreign woods, half way illustrated a children's book, learned to speak Spanish, had a decent conversation with my ex, bonded with my family, woken up in different beds 7 days of the week (alone), had a pet pup, lived in a hut, taught Hindi to the Dutch, been shocked to silence for 2 days, been part of past life regression therapy, family constellations and somatic practices. I've noticed my pattern with men and male attention. I've grown my hair to the middle of my back. Changed my mind far too many times. I own 2 cellphones with 3 numbers of 3 different cities.

Now, I want to make informed decisions. Drink coconut water and swim everyday. Draw and dance consistently. Rent a space of my own, which I transform into a studio-temple and love myself.Amen.

**

Another season of Goa wrapped up. Tai Chi, contact improvisation, dances on the beach, dances in video projections, massages given, raw food, reading Mohammad and a whole lot of meditation and listening to the body.
Somehow, the whole experience is too vast for words. The truth sounds corny. Perhaps the drawing does justice.

*

I request the mighty universe to manifest a laptop with a stylus friendly monitor, a scanner on the flip-side of the keyboard and a printer on the top of the screen. Or a screen that scans and is stylus friendly, with a printer at the base of the machine..
JUST SO I CAN DRAW, SCRIBBLE, WRITE, SCAN and print, whenever I want, wherever I want.

print less yes. print less, but more fun!

Kabootar tweet tweet tweet~ (rap for the world wide web)

You tube, I pod.
Agreed, our love at first website,
is a little odd.

From the day I saw your Facebook
and your poodle named Google,
under that billboard, round the corner
that said "Bill is Bored".
A gigantic Yahoo! Linked (you) in to my being.
By God! You flipped my kart!
Asklaila if you are not seeing.
You occupy a very soft blogspot in my heart.

Crystal Chanda Leir,
when your eyes flickr ,
my heart beats quikr.
Good things about you and your infinite grace...
uncountable!
as many words are wordpressed on MySpace.
you tweet , you tube at the speedoffart
I promise, I'll naver leave you,
I'll naver depart.

I'M DB. I have no choice.
ICQ and your sweet voice.

Skype is the limit !
and love is blind.
Let me be your PayPal,
since you are so kind.

Al K. Holik

Kabootar tweet tweet tweet was greatly inspired by
conversations with non-sleeping internet satyagraphees
at Koramangala who tape glasses on their faces
and flip karts for a living.

that which bothers me today

It is extremely upsetting to watch my diabetic father who has just had his blood sugar level tested this morning to walk to the kitchen and unearth that very plastic packet which contains the sweetest thing in the whole house. Why are most popular forms of socializing over alcohol and drugs? Knowing what is the worst for us, why do we walk willingly towards it?
What transformed pleasure and health into pleasure and debauchery? We can condition ourselves towards both. That which feels good, and that which is good.
Our likes and dislikes are truly not our own. Our likes and dislikes are simply the kind of conditioning we have learnt to accept and the kind we are unwilling to accept. The kind of actions and choices that get us appreciated, sometimes they give us pleasure, or benefits. There is no charter of right and wrong hanging above in God's closet to verify if our likes the appropriate or inappropriate.
Taste much like appearance is about craving and pleasure. Its rather confusing because one can't spot these hidden values easily. Everything belongs to a box, and we want all the boxes to co-exist in a peaceful democracy. The box for brand value, the box for alternative, the box for handmade, the box for herbal, the box for popular, the box for cult.
where is the self in all of this. why is it so difficult to say no. why is there so little room for one to discover what is truly good to be put in one's mouth. why is it more important that we use "prediscovered" formulas to find ourselves successfully settled, socially appreciable before we even know what is best for us.
why isn't education about learning to understand what is best for us. and if it isn't when are we truly going to educate ourselves.

*

i had a dream in which i had a dog named Bach.

# 662. the one in which the naked voice emerges..

No. Just writing great words is not enough. Making art is not enough. I'll even say even being a doctor is not good enough. Great! you could inspire people that way, you could perhaps take care of them, but that consequence I think not much for. To live in a body that doesn't just serve as a machine carrying the mind from one place to another. The brain would just be pulp if the whole of you wasn't around. To live the moment you write or paint about, in the presence of your worldy siblings and thus heal. Write with your body, make the whole of you the art and the artist. porous. transparent. Not with an act of pretense with lines rehearsed to create reactions, not within theatre that creates an unreal believable world. But just to experience a certain oneness with the audience, of taking them with you somewhere, because you're going. there. Not through roles. Not through fingers typing on plastic keys, through the wholeness that is you. Don't underestimate the limitless power that you are.

a line from On The Warrior's Path by Daniele Bolelli.

the 63 day cycle

This is what we started 30 days ago. Look deep into yourself with eyes closed. Into the right brain and find nearby truths catching dust while you continue to believe the critics in the left brain.

Test: you either think you're no good or on some special days your self image meets the sky. Perfect, you're the candidate for this project.

List Talents, Qualities, Empowering values and Dis-empowering Values you already posses, and may or may not be aware of. Understand what each of these packages hold within them, translate them into possibilities of actions eg: combining research and performance: self searching lead me to designing a performance of dancers in the dark with lights on their heads.
Observe at the end of each day, whether you did them or not. Merely observe and watch the patterns emerge over 3 sets of 21 days. total 63 days.
Why 63 days? On average it takes 21 days to learn a new habit says a legend in advertising. unprogram your brain of forced programs and watch yourself as entertainment.

disfruta, enjoy madi.

maps spam

you know that the world is going to be a better place when you get spam that says:

Be a LONG - man. Enhance your penis with this Herbal Formula.

this is why we dont have an equivalent of "bon appetite" or "bon profit" in hindi.

for best results: read aloud in sweet and sour sauce.
don't forget to relish and garnish.
bon appetite, bon profit

An afternoon trip
to the wholesale vegetable market
in North Delhi,
could be more adventurous
than looking down at the earth and
finding uncharted plastic islands.
On the carved wooden floor of the local bus
stand many more doers of anatomical grafitti,
than all of the sufis everborn combined.
At the red light
jumps in a man,
in police uniform,
a policeman with a walky talky
antenna raised.
He claims in perfect rhyme and urgency,
holding a cut-out of Krishna from a greeting card
pasted on a beach-ball racket
"a 3 yr old has gone missing ,
and he who finds him will be awarded fifteen thousand."
for a minute you buy into his story
as the new street theatre
but then you hear the bus conductor
talk about his diligent dementia.


At the blessed market,
seas of sweet smelling
rainsoaked
mashed and soiled vegetable spares
await your arrival.
Table fans drying onions of the colour of brinjal,
are being sold at the price of gold.
On such a day,
everybody is looking for onions.
Men lie on mounds of cauliflower leaves
tossing soggy tomatoes into the sea
of uncooked vegetable curry,
splashing sprinkles on your back.
Some claim with all their pride accumulated
that the spinach is hybrid,
joy as wide as their pan-stained smiles.
You decide to alter your menu and leave
out the saag.
Dreams and bubbles of seasonal fruit,
fresh green vegetables,
Gajjarella, sweet carrot halva
burst for ever and ever more.

You return to stitch your grandma's
old and tearing saree into
tiny bags of glee.
tiny bags of lentils
stay
soaking
and
sunbathing
and
sprouting
against the larger picture
of the highway traffic
at Mangolpuri.

feeling good?

Somebody asked me to list 20 things that make me feel good..
when I think about them, talk about them or do them.
Just as a resource. And I began.
But what is 'feeling good' to me? What is the feeling of feeling good.
Perhaps, it has many colours.
Feeling good doesn't feel alone any one of the following:
Feeling good isn't just feeling happy or feeling pleasured.
feeling desired or inspired. feeling cared for, or satisfied.
not anymore.
feeling good isn't being in a good mood. in a state of excitement,
or thrill or emergency. a hint of feeling good still exists in surviving a mess.
or solving a puzzle i battled with. but just a hint.
feeling good isn't about success, popularity or even creativity anymore.
not in the dance performance or the applause after, not even the drawing.
feeling good is not a heightened state of being anymore.
feeling good is not about winning, conquering, progressing, or succeeding despite the hazards, risks, or hardships.
a good feeling not in successfully convincing anyone, selling or marketing myself either.
a good feeling isn't when people think i'm good at what i do, or judge me as good.

a GOOD FEELING is something more constant now. in the plain moments of the day.
when nobody is even there to notice it. or appreciate it. a good feeling is subtle and constant.
i associate a good feeling with nerve impulses firing themselves to be alive. just like when you get a chill down your back. a good feeling is alive, pulsating and so very personal that love even is distant. a good feeling is so natural and so uncalled for, yet constantly present as if it is the very nature of my being. this good feeling, when i understand it in language is just two words, alive and true. this good feeling is a combination of alive and honest, true. and everything can be true. love, emotions, happiness, cities, civilization, money, psychology, family, events, and everything can also be untrue. to itself.
notice your good feelings. is it in chocolate milkshake or lemonade or with lying in the sun with eyes closed, or in reading and gaining knowledge, in a task or in meditation.
what do you associate with feeling good. how does feeling good feel, taste and smell.

recent thoughts

1. Unlearn.
Unlearn images and identities
benevolently gifted as education, as culture, as cuisine, as entertainment.
even love.
See with eyes shut. With eyes own.
No newspaper, no television and no google.
What is it that we know without any learning
How is the baby taught to breathe and cry
unlearn.

2. There are no pegs, no dots.
You are floating about aimlessly.
resting at unmarked spots.
momentary homes.
and then the womb opens and you fall out.

3. conversations are futile.
what the heart speaks, the ear cannot hear.
and that which the ears hear is the word of the art.
that which the skin feels knows no rainbows
and no deep blue sea.

intuitive drawings, Eivissa.

Ibiza was devastating and miraculous at the same time.
One of the good things, I began to make some intuitive drawings. Not guiding the pen.
No idea what I will bring onto the paper. Just following the line till it said something to me.
Sometimes it said, "Look I'm a face" and well.. I added the mustache and sometimes it didnt.
Made first thing in the morning, inviting a person's presence onto the page, visions, memories and object that would be healing, some times fish, some times olives.
I used an old dip pen which makes these drawings more meditative. the pen in the picture is not the one i used.

just today.

Today,
I'm coming back to that part of me in the spiral that began writing this blog. But this isn't a circle, so it isn't exactly the same space. The universe is always expanding and so has my horizon of understanding, my collection of clothes for myself. Just like understanding can collect and direct you to knowledge or cause conflict by bringing together two conflicting opinions, I've battled against the seas asking why I wish to write on the sand. And today, after many hours spent in this dialogue, I suggest to myself to enjoy the grains and the waves . I'm back to this writing, because what I truly love is just writing. The pure act of scribbling, no matter what it says, where it comes from and to whom and how it goes. And yes, I admit, that I like if it goes somewhere, in letter, in words, in voice, in visuals and in movement.
Today,
was spent trying to maneuver handwritten words into an email and collecting words of poets in all shapes and sizes. And Today was hence much enjoyed, now Today can rest in peace and return when the sun does.

a dreamed world

Love. Courage. Little courage.
Little moments of courage. Little tiny moments of courage and truth.
Those we live everyday. Thats what makes love.
Not great poetry, or inspiration,
not a menagerie of muses or
paintings of crushed desires folded as flowers.

love is a kiss,
a soft cloud on lips,
a fleeting feeling so real,
so temporary
that it isn't real today.
just a rich memory.

Just as much as i wish
my words,
these words, would carry what my heart does.
you in the dark.
bottles being passed.
it isn't real today.
just a rich memory.

why live a dreamed world?

after watching Atonement.

Et Vull.

A lazy moon hangs over the city.
Grey on grey.
We play hide and seek in the storm.
The kids and me.
A chronic stomach ache.
A fuzz in the sluggish head.
A tremor with every step.
The bag is open and waiting.
Clothes creased from being
packed and unpacked
several times over.
Time spent in a room
locked,
hushed voices
expressing desire..
how I remember your body,
your breathe on my shoulders,
your smell.
Yes, aunt, I'm meditating, I need some space.
This is a full moon prayer.
Yes, I'll be done soon.
Et vull. Te quiero.

simply existing.

Slowly shedding layers of lycra track suits and stage make up after leaving the performance based dance company I realise dance is somewhere I find myself. One mind-body. The energy I use is my own. The floor could be the sand of the beach, the promenade next to the sea, the bathroom floor.In this non- dependency there is less ego or pride and more joy, of being a candle that burns to give its own light.
I'm glad my life's path has led me to dance, which in itself needs nothing else to survive. I don't need to dance. Nobody needs my dancing. It isn't a byproduct of civilisation.. of society.. like a lawyers job or a meat shop or a news reporter. The body moves. It is made to move, as much as it is made to be still. Energy flows. Energy transforms.
Dance doesn't need society, it doesn't need an audience. It is different from performance. It isn't out there to save anything, to resolve issues, solve problems, build, construst or even inspire. It is just there. A doctor needs his patients, he needs sickness to cure. All by himself, I don't know if a doctor remains a doctor. Just like the Police needs crime, mobs to control. An artist needs his pen and paper. A photographer needs his camera and his subject. A politician needs need. An activist needs need.
But dance, or the dancer, just needs existence, or life, or cosmos, or god, or shiva, may be just one moving atom or perhaps a well functioning body, but thats not true either. Dance is something like meditation is. Something that is. Its a process of feeling, or receiving and responding to energy, a tuning in. Like the song of the heart. Something very simple. Very basic.. that we all share.
Dance and meditation seems to be the way to live life wholly. . using fully everything we are born with,every little muscle, every little bone, every little artery, every layer of my being, all my energy, allowing everything around to inspire, move and pass through - avoiding nothing- simply existing.

strange but predictable

3 years ago I spent a summer in Delhi, deliberating my next move in life and roasting in the heat.
Many battles with family and fate made quick concrete roads leading to Bangalore under the pretext of Aerosmith's live concert. A tiny suitcase and air ticket later I was in his arms listening to "Dream on".
Time passed. In a few months we parted ways because my tooth brush seemed to be sprouting like Jack's beanstalk to the sky and occupying too much personal space in his bathroom. Sure..
Work was found. I danced. I drew. More friends. Dear dear friends, more partings, more love later.. frustration with job become the humm of my life. Another trip to Delhi was made.. next step deliberated. This time, I got a call from work sending me to Korea. I got onto that boat and sailed away for 6 months.
Now, I'm in Delhi again. Deliberating. My heart is in Spain.. a lover on the shores of Catalunia. I've been studying Spanish. Crying at Visa offices. Telling them the truth. This is a question of my marriage.. well, it could lead there, if you let me go. But what is a faceless Visa system? Where is the slot for love on the Visa form? Where is the space for poetry to my lover? Can I sign the dotted line in blood? Is that enough of a motive?

will this lead me to Spain now? Will it ever happen!
I've decided trouble is not worth delving into. Of course when it comes with all its strength its best to surrender and cry, but at times when you feel helpless, its best give up watch a movie or something. Gone are the days when I could dive deep into depression, swim in self pity to find an oasis of friend's help. I'm much more optimistic. Now its the universe alone that can help me. . or not.

it has no real choice

hazey jane.

How many voodoo dolls would I need to make to kill civilisation?

I'm exhausted. Just tired of all the round about ways of living we have created to call ourselves progressed. The amount of barriers to our essence, to simplicity and love frustrate me. I find myself uncontrollable hot in the stomach as soon as someone pushes me to get ahead in the metro, visa office made me cry and phone calls disorient me. I think a world without the notion of "impossible is nothing", "if we can reach the moon, we can go anywhere" would be far more satisfying.

but impossible is nothing.. but the way there is hazey.

This is an open invitation for an invitation. I want to go to Spain. If you are from Spain or know people in Spain.. here's an artist (dancer, illustrator, tarot reader, hindi- english language teacher and a good learner) who will work for you, free of charge. All I need is a letter saying you want me to come to Spain and work for you.

thats all.
Ive sent this message now, into the universe. something will bounce back.

giant thank you in sand.

Today is a giant Thank you
scribbled in the sand
of my heart's beach.
A thank you to the angels
sitting at angles
of the universe, waiting
to help those who ask for it.
Thank you for friends, for hugs,
for the new people I've met.
Thank you for the freedom to bend days
and meet departing friends before they head home.
Thank you for sudden connections and possibilities
in a big city of dust storms and unbearable heat.
Thank you for the music and dance and
metro feeder buses.
Thank you for Paro and her great friends,
her love and inspiration.
Thank you for Abhilash and his openness,
and confidence with help.
Thank you for Chris and Christine's generous
love and care, for the illegal three on a bike riding all over Goa.
Thank you for random hugging people,
conversations in the dark,
and Krishna, the Kerela massage teacher.
Thank you for all the russian massage clients,
and Chris of Ashiyana and Roger of Watsu
for the great discounts at learning and sharing.

Thank you to the Spaniyards
for spreading wings of love,
providing shade
and nurture to the young sapling
of trust in me.

Thank you Xavi,
for trusting my process
while I trust yours.
For being accepting of my love and hate.
For the light and the shadow.

Thank you family,
for being yourself and giving me a little space
to be me.

Thank you osho
for leaving so many of your words in neat recordings behind
for me to listen to.
Thank you old job,
for letting go of me and giving me a new life.

Thank you deybu,
for being around on sad days in Delhi.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

i really want to draw
upload something,
specially to go along with this
but I have no means of doing so,
with me!

today-today

Today,
was filled with long talks about
love and marriage and visa,
sleepy metro rides on seats reserved for women,
and odd-houred naps with the light on.
The tarot card said receptivity,
listen to whatever life brings
without a busy and aggressive mind to hinder
the pure receptivity.
fill, overflow and empty yourself.

reality is what dreams are made of.

Today,
was many small volcanic eruptions of emotion,
shutting down inner airports.
grey mushroom clouds were
pressure cooking my heart's desire,
garnishing it with guilt.
I think I fed it all to my sleep.

your body, my body

the body is a message from the universe.
a quiet message waiting to open up and share its fingers.
a naked voice of smile and cry.
your face is not your body.
your body is your face.

Only love.

5 years ago an astrologer predicted everything about my life.

Pretty much everything, accurately. Not things about the future but about the past. She said I had been betrayed in love and tried to kill myself.. things you couldn't say to everyone. She told me the dates when I would be influenced to do this. She suggested me to avoid all meat, non vegetatarian food and contact with men, no kind of alcohol. At that age this meant no parties, no boy friends, no friends who were men, no late night and a huge amount of tasty food out of my range. Not to mention the amount of guilt this filled my mind with. She added that everything I ate influenced my father's health. Every time I ate chicken, my father would wake up sick. She said there are different types of people, some are solar people, people who should eat satvik, vegetarian, organic food that is light and there are people who can benefit from eating rajsik or tamsik food.. food like meat, fried and tasty.
I trusted her. The state I was in, I could have either trusted noone or barely anyone, but I trusted her. She has large beady eyes and was fairly young and unmarried. I thought astrology was a bold carrier choice of a woman in delhi at her age and family background. I noticed there were days when I went weak and ate a peice of chicken tikka. I'd wake up the next morning and find my father sicker than before. It all made sense.
2 years went by. My friends ate in front of me at places that served non-vegetarian, which was non-vegetarianised by pinchful sprinkles of shredded meat and I would refrain. I wouldn't have money enough to order something by myself, so I'd starve because I couldn't share their food, wait till I got home and eat hours later.
It was good. It was therapeutic. I felt that I had a will and I could exercise it. Then many good things began to happen.. we started to share other things. We began to read tarot cards, play paper games and make art together. Vegetarinism carried on. Friendships grew, blossomed and Mahima invited me to Nepal. I was thrilled. In Nepal, one day before the new year she said to me.. Isn't it strange that you can tell people about their lives by looking at a card and you abstain from things you want and things you like because some bright-eyed lady said so? How is it that you trust the words that come to you when you look at your cards, but can't trust the truth of your own desire? It made me reconsider. I said, once again I will come to a life of living and leave behind this life of abstinence. I will risk my father's health, my final big burden of guilt and eat that juicy peice of meat for it is my hearts desire. We clicked our glasses of Tia Maria and welcomed my new life.

I was never into large amounts of meat, but that occasional chicken I enjoyed very much. Now 4 years later I've been to Korea.. consumed all sorts of seafood, octopus, raw fish, pork, even beef which I didn't like very much.. part of my Hindu soul probably doesn't appreciate the sensation of the taste itself. We haven't let food go clean from moral implications.

A few days ago I found out- just like I had found out then, 5 years ago- falsities of my life.. that this astrologer was paid to tell me all this. All the guilt that I went through,the fat pearl ring that I wore, all the abstinence that I pursued as a proof of my will was all another big lie told to me to deal with the other lies of my life.

Right now, I'm jobless. Most of my male friends are dropping one after another because they believe they "love" me and that I, in keeping them as friends am not valuing their emotions. Which is basically that I should sleep with all of them, or give them all a chance at it, even when I clearly tell them that I'm not attracted to them. I've tried to mend this pattern. Its happening for the 3rd time now and honestly, I'm giving up on male friends, on the concept of gifts of love and the like. A used to like gifts.. sending random postcards, receiving letters.. these are gifts enough. Based on the events I've witnessed I'm beginning to think gifts are ways of saying I like you, I'm giving this to you, so you like me and then I want something back. If you accept it with a smile and the thought that this is what the universe wants you to have, you are a fool who will sooner or later get hate mails from them. and as you can see here I'm not the only one saying this.

Work projects with friends have all been shelved. People are excited by the blog and the drawings and my low financial status. But nothing materialises. Either I do the work and don't get paid, or even before I can do the work people stop answering or returning calls.

At this stage, I'm back to I don't know whom to trust or what to trust. Part of me wants to enjoy life, accept pain but no part of me is able to neglect the big bold bullseye on me and repetition of the patterns.
Meanwhile, love awaits me in Spain. With no visa, not much money, and the guilt of having to take it from my father, I wonder what is possible.

a tiny voice in me says LOVE. only love is possible.

words on god between James and me

a few days ago, James Healy, the famous Irish poet and me got into a heavy email battle sort of discussion about the ultimate. Not that discussing it would make it change or anything, but this is something that has been in my immediate environment, surrounding me and on my mind.
No resolve or conclusion, just a healthy long process and meditation. I'm not looking for any answers. there is just one. it is the question and the answer.
anyway, before I go off the track again this is email that seemed to have been the last email on the matter between James and me. I was hoping it would be something he would say.. something new for me to hear.. but rereading this makes me think I haven't actively thought this before.

From: Chamko Rani

To: James
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2010 12:28 PM
Subject: Re: the wonder of you


James,
I see no falsehood in jesus.
but everything around him is very much full of power games and trouble.
i see no need to fear and hence i fear no satanic concept.
hence, i dont look to a good or prophet for protection from the evils that may exist in the world.
god is existence for me and god is consciousness.
and i repeat god is a celebration for this miracle that is our planet and our life.
god is beyond an identity and which is why it is difficult for me to say jesus is the only true god, or only god or anything.
im not saying jesus is not god.. but everything is.
why is it so important to accept what is in the bible or around as the only truth?
why is it that beliefs are right or wrong and not personal?
the sun and the moon and the earth are not christian or hindu or whatever so why do we have to be?
and these are the creators of strong influences over our lives.

all i know is i wouldn't limit god to something. and exclude something from god.. because this is what comes very naturally to me. i think what is most natural is most closest to god.
like a leaf, like a flower. man has moved furtherest and tried to convince himself that he is the closest because he is "more conscious".
these are merely reflections of the ego.

this is not a discussion about atheists nor about different religions. i'm talking about all beliefs that make us powerless, and following that try to make us superior.
progress and civilsation, power and religion need to be reconsidered.

god is in the small things.
god is personal.
im not waiting for jesus to show up.
he is right here in me.

i have no real words to explain further.. neither am i interested in discussing god in words.. or arguing about him/her/it/everything intellectually.
the mind is a minute part of our body that has gained supremacy over the rest of us, just like the power and finances and decision making of the world int he hands of the few.
i now understand why a completely natural life and a life away from massaging the grey matter of the mind is almost impossible, because religion art, celebration and even communication experience have become extremely mindful- mindless. in all of this the heart is lost.
the heart doesn't reason, the heart feels. and if one wants to know god.. one can't reason him out.. one can't find him in words. one can't understand him.. once feels him, one experiences him. because one is him. this life is a matrix and within this matrix we have symbols for god, we have words for him and jesus christ, allah and ram are these indirect ways of reaching him.
the way to god is with eyes closed. inside oneself, through oneself, through what is most natural and what is closest to god, and away from civilisation and the man-made world.
but god is everywhere and surely you can reach him through music, through prayer, through chanting, through physical mortification, through abstenance, through sacrifice, through religion.
but you can also reach him ways that respect your body, your mind, respect nature, respect your natural desires and instincts.
you also reach him through love.

D

.

found somewhere on the internet

today

the harmony of the heart is hidden
beneath these layers of table manners,
polite excuse mes at every sneeze
and every not required apologetic email.
let go of people who are your life's motifs
and look clearly at the space you're in.
the room, the doors, the corners, the beams,
the chair, the rickshaw.

see the tiny life of your present moment
like an earthworm crawling,
against the mammoth that is your past
like the frozen Everest.

and breathe.
breathe in that which truly is..
around you, over you beneath you.
that which sits silent in your pain,
that which sits silent in your numbness,
that which hides in your love,
that which exists no matter
where your awareness rushes to.
why fight the world's pain for them?
why pity and why cure?
what lies true, lies inside you and you alone.

I feel different everyday.

I notice in your silent stare a question and a blame.
For surely, if i feel truly everyday my changing feelings,
you can call me flaky and fickle.
I notice in my changing feeling a quivering shy need to be true.
And this truth is not in any alignment with any idea, a mental vision of what should be, what must be.. or a judgement.
Not an idea of truth, but the feeling itself, a physical feeling of knowing, of not knowing so much as much as being. May be its as simple as feeling comfortable, having no doubt, or a just an impulse.
And right now, for some given reason that changes everyday.
Just as every breath leaves us and another breath draws in a different breeze, a different scent, we are constantly moving.
To believe I feel the same way everyday about the same people everyday is probably close to living small lies. Why don't we refresh our love everyday? We don't need an old memory to justify why and how we feel for a person. To figure, to calculate whether they deserve our trust or love or company. Why don't we live a string of moments reacting instantly, living ourselves like we want to be, in every little slice of today.
Noticing things around us, knowing and accepting them, living them wholly.
Surely there is something innate about him or her that every changing feeling will also find constant. May be just saying I love you (today) is enough.
We pull the reins of our free feeling horses
to control and predict our feelings every moment, to live as the same person we were yesterday.
To maintain one soul through the many years we live, to keep one identity perhaps.

what is this worth?

the return of the chamko in the rani

I didn't blog for a long time now.. simply because words didn't seem to be my way of communicating anymore. Specially the written word. I much preferred to spend my days in Goa meeting faces and hands, touching and dancing. Conversations charged with presence, instead of this internet absence. But I decide to return to this blog, just as suddenly as I left it.
Perhaps its a place for me to digest my experience. Perhaps not.
I've been watching my uncle walking around the house wearing a t-shirt that says, "I'm blogging this right now" on the back. I'm sure its my sister's doing. She is a net junky and makes money of it too.

Things that have made me think of gargling out blog posts have been in and around Delhi - the family wedding, the family atmosphere, Delhi's civil war situation, the "fantastic" weather conditions and lack of anyone around to talk to. I don't know which part of Delhi is people friendly or inspiring or enjoyable. Perhaps inside your air conditioned room, with you wifi internet and blackberry close by, it is close to enjoyable.. but if one wants to step outside, Delhi is living hell.

I've been reading avidly and have now decided to compile a sex education sort of session for schools in Delhi.. inspired by my facebook addicted little sister. Anyone interested in donating ideas is deeply thanked.

greek love

this love for you I have is
greek love. Because
there isn't one word
to say what this love
for you means,
so I thought better to give away
a few more than one.

this love I have for you is
greek love. Because
you dubbed me Aphrodite
and I wished we were
platonic.
this love for you is greek, definitely.

Agape, a gaping hole that
that consumes us in dark when
we are close
and shines the light on the distance.
Eros, for we love truly , only when
we are away.

this love is greek for sure, says Aristotle.
Philia, a general type love from a bottle
strong enough to suffer for,
weak enough to stay nameless.
this love is love as much love
as love in love can be.
storge or thelema or khaos
this love I have for you is,
greek positively.
(because i just don't get it.)

big spam

due to excessive spamming, comment moderation has been activated.

**

I think I meet great people, even intelligent and talented. The problem is that they meet me

end of chapter

To "gift for him",
sorry if i have been bothering you with random emails.
perhaps it was my unconsious that has been throwing things at me.
but in a conversation I realised may be what began 2 weeks ago.
You remember i wrote you an email about you and your boy.
well, ive been talking about myself,
ive been having more dreams,
even visions while watching TV and things..
and it was talking about me as much as it was talking about you.

i'll cut it short.
that something that popped out of the picture
I saw of you and "the boy who won the moon",
I saw it again today
was this energy..
it felt like what you had found,
what nidhi had found in milan
was a soulmate.

just a simple thing.
like two puzzle peices
that fit perfectly together
very unpoetic imagery i know..

in korea ive thought about **** and ***** a lot.
when i was in hospital
the thoughts that crossed me were
if this is how i would leave the world,
what would i have left my loved ones?
in my love for perfection, for bettering myself
i expect others to do the same as well..
pretty much a kind of plato or hitler.
ive watched TV about chimpanzees and their sexual selection
about selecting superior genes and better mates..
about hitler wanting a superior race.
and im just like them.

but im not perfect.
no way.
i wasnt turning people down.
i can't.
but i was guilty in my heart.
of that unsure reason
that made me say no to the best people ive ever met.

ive always wanted to meet someone
i could spend endless time with
someone with a love of nature
with a song in his heart
not afraid to share his emotions
and then i said no
i dont love you.
and let him slip away.
and it killed me till today..
but today i realised i only said those
because i didnt think i was his soulmate.
because there was love and warmth
and care and fights and issues
and selfishness from my side.

and its the same with *****

there is all this inarticulate rubbish in my head.
but its only an effort to love and respect.
i just wish i would consistently wake up saner and better
and not fall into the depths of my self created hell.

inshah allah.
lotsa love
and thanks for listening,
just felt i needed to tell you this to end the
chapter that began with the email about your picture.

dee

in the heart of the seed.

I want to say a lot of things that may not sound best when written as they are. But this is what my mind wants said so I shall say them . I wonder how important attraction is in our interactions with people. Why it shapes our love and why hormones play such an important role. Why is it that somebody I think extremely precious and close I am not attracted to, as if there is a purity of the love I have for them , like a sibling I want to share all my time and energy but may not share a bed. And those who I very willingly undress for are not the best of people, but their simplicity and smallest effort are enough to convince me.
It is as if someone who is closer to goodness I expect more of, and someone who is closer to a world of immediate gratification can make the slightest effort towards good and be appreciated by me.
Who am I ? some sort of judge or queen?
Why is it important for me to be possessed by you and you alone and why is it that we cannot be individuals who learn from each other each day. If you give me, my free will, without pressure there is no limit to our love and more importantly our friendship. I hope you still think of friendship as a word of value. Why is it not enough that we learn our lessons from each other?
I see love and lovemaking are equally important. I see that attraction is a sign that assures us, or the lack of it is a sign that says something is not as it seems. What the mind doesn't know the body knows. Then why can't we just hold hands and watch sunsets for a while, not expecting a postcard of lovers at the horizon, romanticizing ourselves. Wouldn't we be more true to ourselves and the moment if we let it tell us who we are than defining it ourselves?
I know this is of little consequence when compared to the worlds problems, but this is at the heart of many things. This problem of playing roles in peoples lives, defining how they should function or how we should function in theirs, creates a distance and takes away from the honesty we are capable of.
why can't we speak again and grow old just as we are?
a step ahead of each other, never together.

to you, who is exempt from death

I think always,
of the power that made me
say the last no i said to you.
of the courage sudden and born in me
to push those words out.
I think always,
of how it would be,
if we stayed close enough to touch
but not kiss,
to discover what we loved
and hated before we separated.
I wish in the whiteness of your room,
I found a space next to you,
just by your side
to see the world
the way you saw it.
I wish we could be people who loved.
instead of trying to be the ones
in love.

I wish we helped each other
as much we help those around us.
what is it about us that makes us, us?

stale pizza decisions

some decisions are better
if made a day later..
like stale pizza tastes better reheated
the next morning.

an afterthought to self:

you know how hard it is for you everyday

to find a matching pair of socks

in your cupboard

in a city you have lived only

for six months. now think about the world

and the billion people

and love again.

such rubbish the mind makes

what if you collected everything that makes love,

that you love, that feels love,

would it be love?

and then if someone found it

rotting years later in the box in your bed,

would they find love?

and if you forgot about it

and thought you lost it

and then suddenly remembered

where its been, would it be

lost and found love?

is life like this?

like language?

where a word here or there

makes a huge difference

to the sense it makes.

I want to write today.

Awake early with dreams like the empty of an eaten watermelon.. I want to write about the silence of not knowing what to say, when you want to say a lot and quickly. I want to write today about the many confusions of knowing many and more and more good people and having to arrange them in an order and love them in that order. I want to write about how it is impossible to put a patten onto your life and then live it, knowing the limits. I want to to write about making a choice and going at it head on and not changing, not thinking about the lose ends. Today makes me want to take my life and butcher it up, (like the movie butterfly effect) and make another mess and another mess and leaving it at a mess for I have done enough in this mess I live to experiment, and I'm not yet sure it was something I regret . Today I want to write about the intense dissatisfaction I have being myself, and being myself in the lives of people I love. Today I want to write about those feelings I am that I wish I wasn't. (Tomorrow this writing will be on of those feelings.) Today, I want to write about how much I am willing of forgetting myself sometimes, but waking early the next morning I begin to think and hate and worry again about myself. Today, to write anything, is to put down my worry, my frown, that cold shiver that went down my spine when I thought of how I loved and hated, of how I live in a country with a billion people who similarly love and hate and wake up early in the morning.. and have no teeth and are bleeding internally, or having their breakfast and leaving in a hurry, or just are reading the newspaper . Of these people, the ones I know, what have I done in their lives?

and sometimes

wanting to help someone

I don't know how honest it is.

How much is it a help

to your idea of hope.

but at least it is help to another.

and how bad can that be.

Just a quick one to say what I feel about what I'm doing when I'm performing.

I said a little while back, that you can be an activist, fighter pilot, doctor saving million lives and I could be an insignificant, often injured performer, offering only a few moments of intrigue or beauty.. but we are all here to learn our lessons and there is nothing more real than that.

So I just want to say my very fresh thoughts about the stage and me. I felt, today, sitting in the theatre in Seoul like I was 60 and looking back at what I've done with the stage so far. Although I've just shaken hands with Mr. Stage. really. I could say meeting the stage was pretty much meeting my first boyfriend. I fell in love not knowing what it was really about (with the stage and the boy roughly the same time) At first i was fascinated with this thing called performance, because everyone was and there was nothing majorly wrong about it so why not be fascinated.. then there was a time when the stage was there and I wasn't sure about what I could do with it. Today, when I walked into the theatre I was happy to have all these thoughts melt away. Today, when the lights came on me and my injured body ( not as scary as it sounds.. well so far.. i'm fine) I knew what to do here, I knew I'm here because I can do something with this, and that 6 years of waiting around prompting lines, lifting staircases dressed in all black, putting flowers in green rooms, designing costumes and peering from the light room to hear the cue have not disappeared into nothingness. Today, there was a playfulness. There was no distance between me and the stage, a cold uncomfortable one, or the strangeness of the eyes behind the curtain of light. I was there to say something and it was as real as sitting across you at a table telling you a story.

Making a dance piece or working on a play didn't feel a big thing. I'm always iffy about a new book of white pages. As much as I want the newness I'm afraid I wont be able to go through the whole thing, keep myself consistent and finish it. Just like a dance peice, now I know slowly putting things together isn't tough and I can do it.

No performance can wholly contain a performer, its a slice of what we can do and sometimes like in my case, you can only do a slice.

i tried to refrain..

but I really want to sign off as Peena Ouch.

(like Pina Bausch you know)

Specialization is for Insects

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

Jesse: Do you believe in reincarnation?

Celine: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting.

Jesse: Yeah, right. Well, most people, you know, a lot of people talk about past lives and things like that, you know? And even if they don't believe it in some specific way, you know, people have some kind of notion of an eternal soul, right?

Celine: Yeah.

Jesse: OK, well this was my thought: 50,000 years ago, there are not even a million people on the planet. 10,000 years ago, there's, like, two million people on the planet. Now there's between five and six billion people on the planet, right? Now, if we all have our own, like, individual, unique soul, right, where do they all come from? You know, are modern souls only a fraction of the original souls? 'Cause if they are, that represents a 5,000 to 1 split of each soul in the last 50,000 years, which is, like, a blip in the Earth's time. You know, so at best we're like these tiny fractions of people, you know, walking...I mean, is that why we're so scattered? You know, is that why we're all so specialized?

Celine: I don't know. Wait a minute, I'm not sure...I don't...

Jesse: Yeah, hang on, hang on. It's a, it's a totally scattered thought. It...which is kind of why it makes sense.

random quotes off the internet and the film Before Sunrise which make sense together

with the chat with Suneel.

woof woof

Mahima and me seem to be on something here. sending across words to each other. just a word a day and what we think about it, and what it thinks about us..

when life's a bitch, bitches are friends :P

In Korea a dog barks mung mung, in India it barks bhoa bhao, in the rest of the world i think its woof woof.

the learning matrix called life

You can be a fighter. I can be a dancer.

you can be a writer. I can be a singer.

you can be a poet and I can be a cook.

you can be a gamer and i can be a sports star.

we're here to learn our lessons and we'll learn them anyway. together or away.

What you learn as a CEO might be the same as the security guard.

and thats all that matters - the learning.

in the process, you may create beauty, you may rebel against injustice, you may fill the world with love, feed people or save lives...sometimes I wonder what is the right thing to do. Does filling the world with beauty and saying something about something else qualify as a job? Yes, it may be inspiration, yes it may make life more interesting for people, make us a better civilisation, but does it really matter if I'm a dancer and you are a poet fighter writer cook?

sometimes, i think I rather own roadside cafe, or restaurant and feed people till midnight. where i read tarot and talk to people about things they have given up on.anyhoo, a dancer i am now... so my learning lies here.

..

I think blogs are dying. Blogger is no longer a place you can walk into somebody's life's worth of poems, angst or drawings. Its been ages since I found someone who didn't blog about their day at school.

major pipe minor pipe

We, brilliant human beings are simply a bad plumbing job. What we carry with us as bodies is pretty much a portable, displaceable pipe that begins at the mouth and ends you know where..

Felt like a sink or wash basin as you hear liquid gurgling down your throat or get acidic after eating a citrus fruit?

Everything is a pipe, connected to another pipe. Major pipe to minor pipe, like big river and its tributaries. What is important is not what gets held or is fixed, contained by the body or what is the body, but how it comes in contact and how it gets out, what is the outcome of this process in terms of energy/ learning / experience?

Now think of picking a shade of hair colour, waterproof mascara or kissable lipstick.

I'm interested in knowing how someone who believes idea 1 is supposed to co-exist with someone who believes idea 2. I'm interested in knowing how someone can have both these ideas co-exist and battle against each other every day. And its not particularly about these ideas that I'm interested.. I'm interested in my interestedness.. in what knowledge is, why our opinions are not knowledge and why our instinct is not our knowledge. When I feel, you are cold to me, I feel this, and when you deny it, who is true? When I say black and white for this photograph isn't as good as the colour version, how do you get to decide that what I think is wrong? Who decides which feeling is accurate, or correct or honest? And what if both are?

note to self.

Stage fright can only happen when you are presenting yourself to be liked by the audience. But when you really just want to say something all you have to do it say it, through your medium.. I guess there is no space for fear in this situation.

At the Delphic Competition of Dance, it was the first and only time I've been on a stage with dance all alone. I haven't performed often and even when I do its under the blanket of a lot of other dancers. I didn't tire, or shiver or lose my thought process by the end of it.

remember that feeling. keep it with you. say something with your work.

..

there will be some people who refuse the half apple you offer them, because they want the whole thing. let them be. eat your half.

may be someday they will notice that you offered. happy belated birthday. re-reading letters to the police is not probably the best way to remember someone who doesn't wish to be remembered, but I'm no someone who can hush into the night what i wish to say. I say it, one way or another. somethings i don't understand and you are one of them. Only you, on the other hand, think you understand me too well. Perhaps that is true. You for me or me for you are not a regret. I know. But causes and consequences have their way of being their way. May you have good health and your efforts find their way to their fruit. As always I wish you good, only don't know how to get it to you.

Ive moved

The address to send your postcards has changed. I haven't done anything about it. All my belongings (hopefully all!) have been moved in neatly packed cardboard boxes to my new house that I haven't seen. I might be one of those people who moved house across the street in a city while living in another country. seeing with eyes shut is trusting.

When I come back to the space that surrounds me after watching a film I find myself uncomfortably in a hotel room with a dull light. It amazes how removed from my home I am in this situation. Away from my parents home (which is waiting to be broken and reconstructed), away from my rented apartment which has changed to god knows what now, and away from my dormitory in Seoul to a hotel room on an island with a dull light.

In three months, I will go back H.O.M.E. which is I dont know what anymore. Its not something thats killing me.Unavoidably all the repeats in the story that are yelling to be noticed.

My mother : a school essay

Since the time I've come to Seoul my mother has learnt to use gmail chat and type faster. Next thing I know she will have a facebook account and upload naked baby pictures of me! hehe:D

But staying apart has made us talk about so many things we wouldn't have spoken about. Even simply exchanging information is part of our conversation, gossiping about my sister's wedding or what the neighbour's new secret is to whats cooking at home and the state of dad's health. Things that would just be overheard are now an active part of our conversation. I feel responsible for the words I speak, responsible for the questions I ask to know what I want to know. Mother even came online late according to indian time one night after watching a show about young girls being hurt by their boyfriends and the trauma that hit their parents. She said it made her think of me so she thought she might as well check if I was looming around the cyberspace. Time apart has given us time to consider what comes off our mouths is what we want to say or what it will make the other feel. We've become more considerate of each other's personal spaces and freedom and feelings. I feel she has been able to live a little more thanks to my mistakes, knowing for sure there is someone out there worse off than her, only she wishes it wasn't her daughter. I hope there will be things she can be proud of, I hope there are days she would like to live again because of me, if not yet, there will be soon.

you were born and now you are free, so happy birthday

I guess there must be birthdays you sleep through. I fell asleep for the lack of anything better on the evening before my birthday at 8:30pm. Anything was better than spending midnight watching korean TV by yourself. Akshay called at 11:43 and said the words. Happy Birthday!

I heard the words. I knew they were coming, but they felt nothing. Just empty like a lame "take care". His intention wasn't empty but words can be like that sometimes. My "thank you" was worse, like a vaccum sucking in the next sentence whatever genuine thing it could have been.

Staring at the ceiling didn't feel the same. The minutes leading to 12 were pregnant with disappointed expectations. Expectations that carried within them the knowledge that nothing is going to happen.

The bell did ring. Someone left me a note with 2 balloons and 2 dolls as a birthday present. It was Keya. Her "Happy Birthday" felt a bit more.

Now words are slowing down for all that is happening is the movement of the fan and its gentle repercussion in the lower rims of the curtain. I still occassionally hear the metro skid against the tracks which means its not past midnight yet.

Strangely, whatever moves is whatever happens. If things stay still, the stationery presence of objects in our lives is not much of an event. Like rubbing your toes half buried in the hems of a white sheet on a very pale blue bed writing each second as it passes.

why i like being 16

Its a Sunday morning and it looks like it will rain the whole day. I've made a random playlist and planned to spend the day drifting through a room filled with my aura undisturbed by other people's influences. Except my mother. I may call her.
Thoughts I've been thinking...
1. How did I get here? Not here as in Seoul, South Korea but in life. I know its quiet a pointless question to be exploring.. no one finds gold through. What did I do get so terribly confused with love. Love and trust and belief. Is it because I'm afraid I'll be hurt again? Is it so simple? But I seemed to have convinced myself that Ive already done the worst to myself and nothing can harm me. I believe this time when I love someone I'm armed to hurt them. much against my wishes. Because I don't love wholly anymore, I don't know the head-over-hells feeling of love anymore. I like people but nobody and nothing and no situation feels wholly anything. And I chase that feeling secretly with a rush of blood. With dance, with swimming, with the little alcohol that I consume. And I want to say this to the whole bloody world till they listen and understand but I don't think people are ready to accept your vulnerability yet. What I' d really like is to have a conversation with someone who totally understands this and doesn't judge me and keep it all to him/herself.
2. Uncertainty. At 16 I seemed to know what I wanted to do. A couple of years later I frown much more and can't even trust myself. Yet I can go through a day almost effortlessly. I like the intensity of the teens.. if you were disturbed you howled, you hated, you cried, you sank and then you rose with belief. Now, you bob like a wave feeling like you are moving deeper or higher but you are just where you were, right in the middle of the sea.

PS: I would be perfect to sit this rainy day with Kaushik, Akshay, KD, Hari, Shilo, Shilo's mum, Paromita , vasanta aunty, Dhiren all at the same time. All the people who would talk a lot of things I don't know, great music, art, food, film and this that and the other and inspire inspire inspire.

Mannaso Bhankhap Simmnida = Nice to meet you (in korean)

strangely enough I was asked today if I believe in love at first sight.
Now, we can never think of that statement without all the valentine-red-heart-shaped-balloons-baggage. Only through the matrimonial websites with grammatical errors... through high school movies and boy band lyrics. May be it came from that world of phrases we don't touch anymore.
But I was asked in all innocence, within another context, whether I believe I'm capable of finding love, liking , the beginning of something, the first time I see someone. And I really couldn't give a yes or no answer. I could. Somewhere I believe that I wanted to say yes, but the politically-correct-gone-though-enough-bad-relationships-person in me couldn't say that. So I said yes nevertheless (mustering all my courage and hoping he wouldn't notice it) and supported my answer saying ... I don't think we end up knowing people even after living around them... even when we can predict the colour of their underwear... so liking them after knowing all their facts or liking them by just the look of them, or their bodies, or their presence and may be the hesitance in their smile is perhaps okay..(notice the choice of words..is perhaps ok?! well you can't quote me on this... but this is something like what i meant.) but he said... how many people do you see in a day? how many men? In india 50,000? I said. easily right... we have a population of 1,065,070,607. which is 324 persons per square kilometre. And he said, how many people you see the first time make you want you to know them... make you want to meet them again?

hmm...
and i said,
where did you read that?
or which movie is this from?

thought for the day.

We are all babies. Frail infants waking up each day to learn from what we see around us. Even people we hold responsible because of the name we give them, are just babies. The mother who told you what wasn't OK to touch and what wasn't ok to put in your mouth, the father who tells you what time you should be home, the policemen on the road, the landlord, the boss, the chief of blah, the head of in charge, the department of so and so and the organisation, the institution and the system. All babies. They make the same mistakes as us, all the time. Mothers are still learning to touch, Fathers are figuring out love, the landlord has a person inside him, the boss has a boss, and the organisation, the institution and the system are all structures for people to learn together.
So if you are waiting for the day you will be good enough to show yourself to the world. Forget about it. You are always just going to be learning. One thing or another, life, or art, or a recipe. You can share yourself with others at any point of this process. And its not confidence or skill but honesty that helps you share anything from your art, your idea and your space with another.

life unabridged

sometimes
i feel weighed down by my organs as if the life in me is killing me and my body is holding me down from flying, from floating. a haze envelopes my fingers and i touch through a mist. nothing really. then i move, run, swim, cycle and feel myself again. i am, perhaps a rush of blood.

well, i've lived the not-knowing-when-are-going-to-be-home life and its time to get back home. So I begin to write and draw my thoughts again. i'm ready to be personal again. i have words to put out here, to say to nobody in particular but say nevertheless.

The Bible of Recurrent Dreams, or just Dreams or Whatever.

After a fairly long sabbatical from the process of floating words in cyber space I have found again a purpose, a reason to come back to it. Inspired by the book I'm reading, there comes about a new project of sorts, call it an act of divination or moral obligation or simply the usual madness one has to do for oneself.
I'm compiling a book of dreams. You send your dreams- day dreams dreamt at night, sights seen with eyes shut, felt with hands alseep, sleep walking into the world behind the eyelid- with your name and the date and I put it down with your name and the date into the Bible of Dreams. Well, the Bible of Recurrent dreams, or just dreams, or whatever.
Many many centuries later some creature capable of reading the ancient script of english will find it only to realise the dreams are the same over and over again.

the end.



PS: to see with eyes shut and tapping the infinite power of dreams into our lives are themes Chamko Rani is delving on for her dance pedagogy sessions with her students at schools and pre-montessori.
PPS: The book I'm reading is full of little things that inspire you into doing things- Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

.

this is a city of romance
With couples holding hands.
Where the lonely
Cry their love into the sea
Stir waves of love in heart of fish
That is a city
Encroaching its parks
Where weary souls
Burst red heart shaped balloons and
Stare nights into the moon.
On yellow fizzy water seas
They graze their cattle
Of work and ease
and that fresh green leaf inside
dies before it uncurls to life.

where i stand

i stand at the edge
and enjoy the view
you jump in quick
and jump out
because i stand
at the edge to
enjoy the view
just touching the waters
and hearing the sea
smelling the air
feeling the sand underneath
and the caress of the breeze.
you dive peasant child like
head first heart full.
i stand at the edge.

Today,

i really don't know what to do with sex.

i can't find a place for it in my brain...

whether it goes in the right hemisphere or wrong and i don't know if i believe myself when i say it is affection, an exchange of energy like touch like reiki.

To Natasha Nargolkar and Mridula Divakar

To TinkerBell,
thoughts arise not from deep dark places or the hole in the head
but by looking with eyes shut at the world instead.
dreaming,
feeling,
touching,
imagining
and talking
bring thoughts to you
even when you're in bed.

lotsa love,
the chamki said.

Natasha Nargolkar and Mridula Divakar sent inspiration in emails to my Inbox

And the Lord said, " He who needs you will call again."

We've all thought about it. Every time we leave our homing devices behind or lose the damn things. I'm talking about cellphones. To me it sounds pretty cool, you know, life without a cell phone. The unreachable is rare and exclusive at a time when everyone is trying to make themselves more googleable. But I don't think its possible to live without a cellphone once you've got one. Its your identity, the way to reach you directly (without your mother blurting out that you are still sleeping when you had to be in office.) it saves a lot of trouble.
I left my cellphone on a trip. At first, I was severely affected by the loss, much like the loss of a boyfriend suddenly I didn't know what I was doing, where I was going and had huge amounts of time to spend with myself. I could stand aimlessly in the middle of a street and be nowhere, because nobody knew where I was. I was made comfortable by a friend who found the phone and said he would give it to me. Two weeks later the phone is still with him, I haven't even bothered to get it back. Life's great without a cellphone (contrary to what I first thought.) It gives you a great sense of being here and now. I don't have people calling me from far away places. Far away places seem far away. Once you get out of a room, you leave the people there and meet new people in another room. Nothing carries along with you. No one can call you up and change the way you are going. If you are in a rickshaw on the way to someplace that's exactly where you are and where your mind is. You're not concerned with a friends party,the Irish crossword or the service provider's new set of ringtones. Of course you'll lose out on last minute money making opportunities, the convenience of a torch light in the dark and will have to use the pay phone or other people's cellphones once in a while but that's a small price to pay and a larger decision to make about the limited hard disc in your brain and the amount of pointless information hitting it. Don't forget the annoying ringtones.
the number you have dialed is currently switched off,
Amen.

listomaniac

In trying to do as many things as I can I often overlook the stuff that I've just finished.
So,
I've been to Hampi, Gokarna, Goa, Haasan, Masinagudi and Nepal in the last year.
Begun reading again.
Picked up a percussion instrument.
Made myself books for drawing.
Bought Nutella to make chocolate pancakes.
I found a book at the river in Hampi and left my hat there.
I cook regularly and easily.
I've watched about 35 films in the last year.
And performed for the President and Prime Minister of India.

I finished my first canvas. Its a portrait. (the suggestions are being worked on in my book)

I would like to
discover more poets.
learn music.
and post letters and postcards to people who would like to reply.
postcrossing has got to me. (you can email me your postal address)
sell my books.
to do yoga and meditation.
get dhrupad music.
be able to send some money home.

post # 600

“Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite -- getting something down.” – Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way

”You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” -- Rabindranath Tagore.

We lose our thoughts in our head. Our heads, they seem like big places where loads of memories, songs, pictures, smells, feelings can hide. Sometimes they pile on top of each other crushing a few below. Beneath some such pile of thoughts lies the beginning of this blog. I don't think there was one solid reason or decision to begin chamko rani glitter collection but there was a pile of them. Thought about thoughts, words about words, poems, places, people and the wish to tell people, to hear from people. A chain of inspiration to fill heads with large piles of thoughts and thoughts that connect other thoughts to them and make picture paintings ,and love, all gooey and mushy and fluorescent.

GET INSPIRED TO INSPIRE

I'm looking at a blank canvas and thinking about what to put on it. Painting my first canvas.

Looking down on paper, I think sometimes, just the amount of time spent on it and the thoughts that are thought around it and over it precipitate and add to the painting. Leave a few words to inspire my first canvas. All advice, tips welcome.
lotsa love,
chamki

Dear Santa,

so here is my list.

1. I want some studio space, to paint big, and to dance big.
2. I want a longer christmas vacation and 45 days long January before the big international dance festival the institute is organising.
3. to be able to sleep less and work more.
4. to see with eyes shut.
5. cerelac
6. a xiao
7. and all the things that remain from last years list.

(Vats, my attempt at getting back to blogging. I don't really have much to say.)

8. The earring I lost last night. Its my favourite.

yours with love,
chamaks

In the mood for love

the effects of Wong Kar Wai on single women

Scumble

Rae Armantrout

Listen (to Armantrout read)

What if I were turned on by seemingly innocent words such as
“scumble,” “pinky,”

or “extrapolate?”

What if I maneuvered conversation in the hope that others would
pronounce these words?

Perhaps the excitement would come from the way the other person
touched them lightly and carelessly with his tongue.

What if “of” were such a hot button?

“Scumble of bushes.”

What if there were a hidden pleasure
in calling one thing
by another’s name?

The Dictonary Game

If saveloy
was a floating object
for the sea that
helped save lives,
If embouchure was the act of setting fire
indoors
to protect from the rain
may be a niche in a
gothic church from where the priest
can invisibly oversee the Sunday mass
or the way of applying the mouth to the mouth piece
If pellagra was a four sided agrarian
or the initial form of communication
before the telegram
and after the letter
If isinglass was a type of fibreglass
used in telescopes for better
dissipation of UV radiation
or a sweet wine from
the vineyards of Sweden
If sassenach was
a saucy english person who eats nachos
or a grizzly looking man from northern Canada
or a rectangular fish that swims sideways in cold waters
If owt was a baby owl who had fallen out of its nest
or a nordic game
in which the players attempted to
eliminate each other from the game
while carrying their women on their backs.

The Dictionary Game
Requirements: Players. A Dictionary.
How to play: Make a list of words nobody knows the meaning of. Read it aloud and ask people to guess the meaning and put it down on paper. Collect papers. Read out at the end, a word and the "meanings" and the original meaning. Now ask them to guess which of the ones read out is the correct one.

I want to say many things about all that is happening right now, I just can't figure a way to begin. Tomorrow I will put it all out, the stuff that makes my stomach hurt because I must not contain it.

strange fondly thought

breakfast (work in progress)

the hiss of the rain
is the frail green veins
of your feet
an elusive sense of beauty
than lingers about in bed.
The tip of your fingers is
the smell of coffee
gently coaxing me out instead.
a kiss on my forehead
is mellow like sunshine.

you,
are cookies in milk
spelling good morning
like honey oats.
You know,
I'd love you for breakfast.

as mushy as it gets guys,
as mushy as it gets.
inspired and induced by amoebic colitis.