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.

The night sky, 28th July

The yellow flowered tree
swaying in the wind
makes delicate sound
like a piano piece,
its leaves plucking tender notes.

The palm tree is
the sound of the sea
cello and gloomy.
A small soft sheepshaped
cloud floating about
in the vast dark empty
is comforting unlike
the all-encompassing white
sheet of bright that slithers
across thick and chocking
outlining limit of sight.

helpless you wait till it passes
at the speed of sigh,
descending like a roof
lovingly
engulfing
collapsing

there are no stars


Leo Horoscope:
For the Week of Jul 28th, 2008 -- The New Moon on Friday is a Solar Eclipse in your sign, which can have a major impact on your future. Right now, though, you may feel a loss of status or enthusiasm. You may need to let go of something important to make way for something better. Be brave and release the beliefs that could hold you back.

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.