They say all you need is love

17/11/07
10:21 AM
I've been getting more and more pissed with people and the good side sends me away from them. I've been to Hampi the weekend before Diwali and to Channarayapattna at Diwali.

Hampi was just bliss for the first couple of days. We were 3 of us soaking it all in. The first time you go there you can't talk. Nothing is good enough, or necessary to be said. You just stare around and stuff your face with Nutella Pancakes. (I'm should be getting some money from this company considering I'm promoting them so often on my blog.)No, you won't need music. Hampi is not quiet. There were too many strange insect calls for me to be sane. We stayed at this shabby place with round huts only because they had two hammocks right outside the door. I spent a lot of time swinging and stoning and talking.

I made a strange connection. You know you keep thinking back at home I had friends like this and here in this city all my friends are different in a way that is not always comfortable. So I met Shilo of the blog. And Shilo and me picked butterfly wings, feathers, tried to draw in this lazy lazy place and at night in bed we were freaking each other out. Shilo and me thought the bed was swinging. But thats not all. She would say the bed is swinging sideways and I would agree. When I said the bed is swinging really violently front and back and she couldn't believe that was true. I share a peaceful coexistence with her. We can sit in the same space and not have to talk and in a good way.

I've realized I'm quiet easily irritated or stoned. There were many times I just wanted to chill and not move. Its the place. We walked around a bit. I figured how to ride a bike. Actually Shilo courageously volunteered but after she rode into the bushes while turning she decided to hand that over to me. Now my ego ,bloating, is proud to admit I'm a natural with these things. I've been riding a cycle I was 4. A lot of my happy Hampi memories are squint eyed bikes rides with the sun in full bloom.

Then we discovered the riverside. Oh! I don't know how God created the world but he did a good job here. The Hampi landscape is half strange half pretty. Rocks, river, bushes, smaller, rocks, pebbles, hills. Its not our idea of desktop wallpaper beauty and thats precisely why you love it. The time spent at the river is not stored in pictures in my head but in a more global sense, with feelings, smell

an old incomplete draft. I wrote this when we came back from Hampi- Shilo, Hari and me. It wasn't published because we decided to post our pictures and drawings together on a blog we called chamflypottamus. Its unfortunate no one will ever see it. It killed itself, probably sinking in the bathtub much like our friendship after O.D.ing. Only the people closest can hurt. It only matters because they are close and you expect so much more from them. One day you wake up having figured out you might have been moody and could have behaved better, they could have been moody etc. You send a text. But its too late. Things die. All I felt was a little less loved, a little less than before. A little left out, a little more than before for nothing I thought I did. Nothing that would make me deserve this. Well, I'm not as good as I thought I was.
Its been a day or two spent in thought with people I've left somewhere back in the calender. The pages continue to turn and they stay only a step or two behind in memory. I had another one of those strange dreams, this one was about my ex. He met me somewhere, somehow (backstage after performing may be) and instead of behaving like its another person I don't know I recognised him, registered his presence with all the history and shook his hand to say thank you. He smiled awkwardly at first unknowing what to do, then allknowingly as if in a flash all was undone. We unwalked back into the green lanes of Khar, met his very much aged mother with her unchanged smile. We shared bright yellow glowing smiles that can make you ache and the feeling of coming back home after very long. The Ex and me sat in the room at the end of the house looking at each other like we've never seen us before and just before he began to speak (with a smile) I kissed him.
And they lived happily ever after. At least in the dream.
I've collected a backlog of unlove, of people not quite forgotten, or dealt with, not spoken to and I don't know what to say, how to begin and where to end. I'm carrying it with me every night into bed.

Mysore!

click image to view large

Mysore is a city where all colours bleed into rain. Armed with a moleskine one can find plenty to draw, paint and ponder about. There are churches, temples, mosques, men, cows and history (the usual indian things that attract firangs- foreigners) not to forget Yoganistas (copyright Akshay) and Indian wrestlers. Dogs are called Tipu after the Sultan and men know their filmstar's addresses by heart. Hotel RRR is extremely popular. At lunch hour it looks like the American Visa Office. The vegetarian meals and andhra style biryani are worth the wait. Tina's Cafe in the posh locality of Gokulam is for the firangee yoga enthusiasts and chatty indians too. There are only four tiny tables but the light is perfectly bouncing off the edges of the walls, and the red floral table cloth is inspiringly picture perfect too. The menu is punjabi, homecooked, blandish and healthy but limited in choice. Tina makes good conversation and generously sprinkles compliments for talented young children of god while her husband heats up the Methi ka parathas. Korean jasmine tea with dried chrysanthemums, many smiles, clicketty clicks, walks in the rain, loads of walks, much fun!

for pictures of mysore click here

I've been dreaming.

I've been dreaming. Awful dreams. Monday it was my father who died in the dream and I wasn't believing anyone. Within my dream I was unbelieving his death by saying I know this time like all the times it is just a dream. It felt horribly insensitive to not believe and worse to believe. Tuesday the family was standing in Surti's balcony, around 6 floors high and looking down at someone's ashes been spread around a grass lawn. Ambassadors were parked around the green patch. Suddenly a woman dressed in a Salwar kameez ran out of the building asking for Ceaser uncle's granddaughter. (There's a background to it. In the dream it was established at some thought that they had been wishing for long for a grand daughter) So the woman was screaming asking for the girl. A splash on the ground beside her. A new born baby girl from the second floor squashed to pulp. Wednesday was spent at Aranyani's place and I didn't get any dreams there. Thursday I couldn't sleep in my dream. I tossed around in bed for hours and woke up feeling exhausted and missed class. Mommy called with news from Bombay. She said my father had suffered a mild heart attack kind of feeling a couple of days ago and Surti uncle's old mother passed away. The building and it's breaking down and rebuilding is still being discussed.

End of May

I wish my journal and I had something to say. But we're just looking around.

So, I've been thinking...

Monday, May 19th, 2008 -- You are in an upbeat phase, but anxiety still runs through you like a brush fire in a dry spell. You are on-edge, as if things won't settle down. The best antidote for you is to get out and do something. You could always sneak away from work to go shopping or head out to a ball game. Whatever you do, keep the fire of spontaneity burning.

drawings of pictures by lecercle.

Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same.

Spending time with myself on a Friday night,
looking back at what the day has been.
For starters I took my antibiotics without eating anything
and no vitamins and had a really bad trip.
Heard of that?
I hadn't.
Everyone was looking at me, accusing me of being a lazy drowsy weakling. The joy of a Subway sandwich brought some relief but then I was back to facebook at the end of the day. Every time I surf the Internet.
I feel like furniture.
Unproductive,
just lying around,
slowly wearing off.
I have nothing to show for me, for who I am or what I do.
Furniture.
Something everyone is so used to around them that they hardly notice the changes. This has been the longest dry patch. Absolutely no drawings that I like, I try but nothing. No writing, no feelings just hallucinations.
Not to self: Forget the beer in the fridge.
Sometimes I think this is how growing up feels like, living on your own feels like, a dancers life feels like, but its just what a life without purpose feels like. This is how it is.

May be, I'm trying too hard.
I want to be able to make something I like. May be I'm making myself something I like. I'm dancing, but a dancer is such a distant person. We touch no stories, inspire nobody. Its pretty selfish. High protein dinner on time, 8 hrs of sleep, 7 glasses of water, vitamins etc. I've had the worst dreams these days and I don't tell anyone because I tell everyone. It feels empty. draining. silly.

I've been to beaches and recreated them in my head, on the terrace. I've sweated my hatred out. I've forgotten how to read in paragraphs. I've bought trainers. I wake on time everyday to jog to class. Ex boyfriends, their appearances, mention etc doesn't bother me. I pushed a guy off the footpath and kicked his chest because he was acting wierd with me. Just a boy on the road. A lot is happening and not happening and I don't know what I want to do with all this information. Thats it.

today in horoscope

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 -- Your moods are less stable today and can stir up insecurities or uncertainties if you let them. Although your feelings are based upon real experiences, they don't necessarily tell the whole story. Let your emotions flow without trying to analyze them for now. They have much to teach you that are beyond the limitations of words.

the insignificant moment over and over

I got this today.I'm sharing this with everyone because we need to know that people are happy. Real happy. Not facebook happy sending fake hug and all. (although I'll be glad with a hug. I just got infected with facebook and am sick and surfing, I mean suffering) I asked Riddhi how she was, you know the usual whats up? She said very good! How often do we hear someone say that? It makes a difference. Somewhere deep down, in a good way. Happyment, goodness, happiness all of it still exists. People send love to random people. At least Randy does. Goodness to random Randy. Thank you.

Today,

I would like to be a nun. I think it would save me from thinking a lot of nonsense. I would think other types of nonsense for sure, but that would be in the next episode of the show.

lusty peasant child

The whole world seemed to melt away when I heard Mahima's voice on the phone this afternoon. I knew not any sorrow, or anything at all. I know now that there are opportunities for people, and people for people who stick to truth or at least try.I don't mean the reality bites, right-here-right-now-TV-news kind of truth but the I-really-don't-need-to-prove-I'm-better-than-I-am kind of truth. I'm proud of my limitations and of my stories, of how I met and grew to love mahima.
Mahima is the sound of spontaneity and comforting warm hugs full of love. She is the mild yellow light that exposes the softness of sharp objects in long patient tarot readings. Mahima is also, the lusty peasant child standing at a stationary store. Mahima is colours gradually blending and completing a book of thoughts. FULL TECHNICOLOUR. Mahima is M for moodiness. Mahima is also afternoons in the sun spent laughing. Mahima is calling me to Nepal again!

and I'm going!

How bad can times be?

The only partner through misery just left me alone. My cell phone couldn't take how unfair life has been to me and in turn killed itself adding to my misery. My lovely pink phone with no great features turned blue just while it rested next to my computer screen. I wonder what could have caused this terrible calamity. Since nothing can be explained it must be suicide. The phone still rings with messages and texts but I can't see them. Today, and yesterday and a few days before haven't been great. In fact they haven't been remotely okay. I got yelled at being ill often, for having no strength for class. Well, I don't really have aching ribs often. Who knew, who cared? only my physiotherapist and my cell phone. This treatment is super expensive as well.
And now I can't even tell anyone. I'd really like to go outside, meet someone, talk with the stars above us. Read some peotry to each other, I've been starving for this for no particular reason. I want to sing in a group and play board games. I'm thinking about giving up my cell phone forever.

these creatures of the zodiac

I wondered why a lion could feel left out with a scorpion and a fish. I guess some creatures belong to the same family and it makes them better for each other.I might have been really off track in my thinking but feelings don't lie. My horoscope makes sense of exactly what I do.
Friday, Apr 11th, 2008 -- First you expect support from your friends and colleagues and then you get disappointed and push them away. It may seem contradictory, but you appreciate the camaraderie while also knowing that you can do it by yourself. There's nothing to gain by irritating others, so soften your stance and graciously take the help, even if you're already doing fine.

What about the salvation of the undigestible onion?

It all began one day when it was fated that I shall uncover the mysteries of lower beings. Krushnaa, who decided to be one of the creatures in my homely surroundings was consuming chicken biryani with me. She had loaded her plate with a heap of rice and realised she had left the sliced onions in the kitchen. I was promptly summoned to fetch them. But distracted by very exciting conversation across the kitchen and the dinning room the unlucky onions stayed where they were. Even as Krushnaa secondhelped her plate with another heap of rice, no attention was paid to the sulking onions that lay beside.
Thus the thought appeared. The salvation of the onions, the aim of their existence, what lies beyond their life.. from the time they are plucked from the plants, plucked from life, processed and carried- being their time in purgatory to finally be digested to become one with all of their kind- must be the secret of the afterlife of the onion.

Alas, these onions suffer the bad luck of an undigested hell.

what to do

As Bombay grows nearer my mind scatters more. I go home to my parents, friends, a life I've known and names I remember with fondness. Its dramatic big city life or the illusion of it. The sea breeze. Several fingers tugging at me are pulling in different directions, a sister who planted the seed of goa in my mind, a known stranger who would like to see me in bangalore, Krushnaa, who wants to me to visit her and accompany her to Trivandrum (I would like to), Kirsten, who says Nepal is the place for the owner of a lonely heart like mine, and me, who would like to stay close to my parents, with everyone around me, my sister, my family, friends, and yes known strangers too. But life's not like that.
I want to go to a place like Gokarna, or to my idea of it. Scorching beaches and bodies roasting lazily in the sun only to take a dip once in a while. I want to sit around in Bombay, at the beach, walking around in Bandra and visiting my private church. Really doing nothing much, more soaking in. I want to return smelling of the sea breeze.But the whole universe seems to be working against it.

nothing of great significance

a lone
like a feild of plastic half a kilometre thick around me
or so it seems sometimes.
It takes as long as thunder takes after the strike of lightening
for me to hear what your lips move to say.
a world in bombay moves faster than I can think in bangalore.
things change while I blink, eat my breakfast and do my laundry,
and my awareness lifts above me and looks down on myself
thinking nothing of great significance.
squashed in a bed with 4 others
packed like sardines in a tin.
with forced touch and warmth of bodies
purposefully asleep.
I saw from the ceiling
myself alone with a wish to be able to
hear.

The mail is playing with my emotions

The only male I choose to keep in my life right now is gmail, and even he doesn't stop from playing with my emotions. If you know me, you would also know about the dream I have about an old lady in Bandra falling in the middle of the road while crossing. I save her and inherit her fortune because she has no children and her husband left her long ago. I nurse her for a few days. Then I inherit her lovely Parsi bungalow in Bandra mostly on Turner road, the one with lovely stained glass green windows. I don't mind the big haunted looking one at Bandstand either. Then one room to artists who don't have studio space, dancers actors, the bastards of the society, lots of space for me and my parents. Lots of creation etc. Big, lavish, in terms of space is this dream.

Today, in my inbox, this:

Dear in Christ,

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am Mrs Mariam Kofi, from (Kuwait). I am married to Mr Edward Kofi, who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast, for nine years before he died in the year 2005. We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days. Before his death we were both born again christians. Since after his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against.

When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of US$850.000 dollars in a bank here in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire. Ever since, my husband died, I became seriously sick including the stroke that have made it impossible for me to walk with my leg again. Few days ago, my Doctor told me that, if I want to live for the next few months. I need to under-go a major heart operation this week, as a result of my kidney and breast cancer problem, which I have been suffering from for many years. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Infact, my sickness has made my life so miserable and am no longer interested in material things. It was because of this reason, I took the final decision to contact you to help me utilize this money the way I am going to instruct here.

Please, am believing that you are a child of God?. I want you to use this funds for orphanages, schools, hospitals, churches and widows propagating the word of God and endeavour to see that the house of God is maintained. The Bible made us to understand that "Blessed is the hands that giveth".

Note: I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband's relatives are idol whorshipers and I don't want my husband's efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don't want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death, hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosoom of the Lord.

I don't need any telephone communication in this transaction, because of my health, and my husband's relatives are always around me. I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible.

I will also issue you an authority letter that will prove you the present beneficiary of this funds. I want you and the church to always pray for me because the lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that Wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and truth.

Please always be prayerful all through your life. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein.

Hoping to receive your reply.

Remain blessed in the Lord.

Sister: Mrs Mariam Kofi

many, many

There hasn't been much honest word on this blog now. I had decided not to talk about myself, my life etc. I've got smallish job assignments- to write for a website, to make up an art class, to do some dancing for parties and the writing which I thought would be the easiest of the lot hasn't been happening. I guess not talking about myself results in silence. I'm no writer. I don't write about the weather (not that writers do, but they can, I mean they can write about anything or are supposed to.) I can write about me and things that begin or end, or cut or touch, or you know bother ME. So, I'm back to talking about what I ate today, how I think silence is music and John Cage can do what he wants, how Star TV's employees party and how I have loads to write as work.

Among many, many things that have passed in this period, one of the noteworthy would be the discussion that sprang in theory class last week. All big discussions according to Chamki's third law of commotion are caused by asking very, very simple questions. What is dance? What is not dance? movement? what about non- movement? So if the lights come on in an auditorium and a person walks on to stage and stays still for 12 mins is that a dance performance? Is movement really movement if there is no stillness? Is stillness movement if there is no movement? Well, I'm not going to discuss this here. The point of telling you this is that my Yoga teacher walked in on this conversation where he heard Yours Truly saying "Krushnaa, Silence is also music is what he was trying to say, or hear the silence. Probably making a statement". Of course, this hit him with the magnitude of a derogatory statement made against his religion, or even more than that. A few sentences later he can't hear me. He said a few things, I don't remember much- How can you say that? Check the dictionary only sound can be music. And then he got hotter and hotter like a little school boy fighting to justify and said I should get myself checked for saying such shit in class. Now, under normal circumstances I would take stuff like this as a joke and laugh it off but the words echoed like they had been said too often to me. I don't know why it should even bother me that another person who doesn't think like me would want me to be observed and solved, corrected in many ways. I know I'm no extra ordinary thinker revolutionizing man's point of view so I cannot bare is how these men, slightly older of age and possessors of scantier hair think it their birth right to jut into conversation and make judgemental propositions. Why can't people remember the subject of the bloody conversation. Anyway, it sent me blood boiling straight out of class and out of college. I was stopped by, well, what can you call her... She's just like one of the many, many nuns in a convent, no real designation but generally is everyone's mother, so I told her what happened and she smiled. You know Divya, there will be many, many people in your life who don't understand your point of view (thank you for blessing me with such favourable surroundings) and you just have to deal with them.
The next day, I was half expecting Yoga Sir, to show up with a printout of the definition of music from Wiki or better still from the Child Craft series. But there was just silence. musical.
I guess he read this on wiki
The definition of music is a contested evaluation of what constitutes music and varies through history, geography, and within societies. Definitions vary as music, like art, is a subjectively perceived phenomenon. Its definition has been tackled by philosophers, lexicographers, composers, teachers, semioticians or semiologists, linguists, scientists, and musicians.

Virgo Horoscope

(Aug 23 - Sep 22)

Saturday, Apr 5th, 2008 -- You will probably say what's on your mind now, even if you aren't being socially or politically correct. You can surprise others with your position, but don't waste time worrying about what anyone else thinks. As long as you act with kindness and integrity, you're not responsible for how others react. Nevertheless, you can be compassionate without becoming codependent.

Thank you very much

Dear Anonymous sender of original Victorinox Swiss knife,

I have received your parcel. May be you should write your name on the packet so I may try to understand why you would send me a knife.

lotsa love,
chamki

kindly note: Horoscope said
expect the unexpected.

Chamki, the paraqueen

These south indians no! They want to add an A everywhere. Rama oh Rama!

you tube, i pod

you tube
i pod
agreed,
our love is a little odd.
you know, the strange sort,
like the feeling of
being caught in the wrong job.
we know we can do a lot.
may be, not here
not now
another time, eh?
somehow...

inspired by my sister's gtalk status message:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?

Virgo Love Horoscope

(Aug 23 - Sep 22)

Attractive Venus entering your 7th House of Partnership this week is a positive signal for love. Drop any ideas about commitment or practicality, though, since pure romance requires faith not facts. Of course, your relationship future counts, but this is a time when the present offers a precious gift.