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