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.