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.