I think I'm having one.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Monday, December 8, 2014
A pagan in North America
Thank you, Sun, for shining today and providing a scrap of warmth and a whisper of an excuse to step into the cold, dreary 'day'.
Thank you, trees, for clinging to your leaves for as long as you could, here at the mouth of December.
Thank you, snow, for keeping your distance for now.
Thank you, air, for being fresh and clean while being deathly, deathly cold.
Fuck you, all of you, fuck you for being so very very very very cold.
Thank you, trees, for clinging to your leaves for as long as you could, here at the mouth of December.
Thank you, snow, for keeping your distance for now.
Thank you, air, for being fresh and clean while being deathly, deathly cold.
Fuck you, all of you, fuck you for being so very very very very cold.
Monday, December 1, 2014
buddhi ke baal in the wind
I can't be atheist. Prayers slip out of my heart every now and then, ease this, make this easier to get through, give us strength, thank you
And then I try not to think about where they go
And then I try not to think about where they go
Sunday, November 23, 2014
white classrooms
Stop smiling at me. I understand your language. I understand
your accent. I don’t care that you don’t understand mine, I am angry at my
stupid tongue for moulding to the way you roll your R’s, and my throat for
swaying along to your cadences. I am appalled at how YOU trip over words like 'colonisation' and 'decolonisation' when those words are starting to live on the tip of my teeth, three months in Canada and white academia.
I don’t need you to make me feel heard. Stop this unbreaking
eye contact and stop that fucking smile. Yes I come from a faraway land and
everything is so new for me. You with your three kids and SUV and supportive
husband know that there are cows on Delhi streets, and I feel no need to tell
you more. LGBT rights are sooo important and homonormativity is sooo important and gay white men fucking it all up for you, sooo not my problem. Live in your bubble, I don't want to be the 'global South' voice beckoning from beyond anymore. I don’t want to hear your dawning realisation and self flagellation
over being white and realising there’s more to question in life, you can’t get
away with saying intersectionality and decolonising.
I wish I didn't have to feel bad for you sometimes. I wish I didn't feel the need to help.
I wish I didn't have to feel bad for you sometimes. I wish I didn't feel the need to help.
I no longer want to talk about my family and Delhi roads and
my spicy food to you. I have a crust now. Three months in Toronto and I don’t wear
my migration like an open bruise anymore.
(Except when I make "snarky detached" comments about pronouncing my name, only to have your tongue forget in the next ten minutes.)
*
"It might be a good idea to mention why you chose to come to York knowing there would be financial hardships."
Cannot deal with this right now.
*
You know how I 'deal'? I mock you. relentlessly. I mock you with people who understand me, who are 'brown' to you and to me. I put on a 'white affect' and like, taaaalk like... this? I exorcise my frustration and my bile by screwing up my face and making my voice sound like yours, all your ignorant privileged bullshit. And I hear my anger translated into laughter, over beer and wine and steak and pizza, from people who have endured so much more.
This is how I win.
*
"It might be a good idea to mention why you chose to come to York knowing there would be financial hardships."
Cannot deal with this right now.
*
You know how I 'deal'? I mock you. relentlessly. I mock you with people who understand me, who are 'brown' to you and to me. I put on a 'white affect' and like, taaaalk like... this? I exorcise my frustration and my bile by screwing up my face and making my voice sound like yours, all your ignorant privileged bullshit. And I hear my anger translated into laughter, over beer and wine and steak and pizza, from people who have endured so much more.
This is how I win.
Monday, November 10, 2014
costumes
At Jane station waiting for the 195 rocket, there are no lines. This is pretty distinctive in the Toronto I've been in so far, with people queuing coffee shops and food places which curve in ways that I don't intuitively get. My political science-visible minority brain scans the predominantly nonwhite crowd and interprets the two knowledges and feels a kinship. Yet a discomfort- I don't know this context, since 'everything in advanced countries moves in straight lines' helps me make sense, what should I do here?
Today the 195 stands at a distance from the busstop, waiting for the lane to clear. The bus is empty, its a few steps away from the stop, I'm going to be late for office hours... I am hopping from foot to foot, and yet the impulse to scan everyone else around me, to mimic what they do and blend in, kicks in. No one is in line, and no one else looks impatient like I do. When it's time to get on the bus, a Very attractive man gives me a smile and motions that I climb in ahead of him.
(This is how I eat with people. I watch the way they cut into their chicken with knife and fork, how the dab on hot sauce and pile on some rice. I do it slowly, and I chatter or fade, drawing away attention from fingers that can't manipulate food the way they used to anymore.)
Lately the question of blending in is on my mind. I wanted to wear a sari as fall faded, knowing scarves and gloves and coats would soon be upon me. I did wear it once, to Chinatown and then to a Palestine film festival, a costumed-ally in multiculti Toronto. I could wear it to class maybe? Maybe an an experiment. Catalogue how many looks, how many compliments, beautiful/graceful/so complicated/I could never manage that.
The more I thought about that, the more I feel like it would be a 1000 times more unbearable here than back in Delhi. Saris, my mother's saris that I usually wear, would feel like skin, and these gender studies, intersectional eyes and words would flay it raw.
Or maybe they won't. Maybe I am over-imagining the attention. Maybe, in their own academic multiculti Canadian society women's studies way, they won't give a shit. I can't decide which is worse.
Today the 195 stands at a distance from the busstop, waiting for the lane to clear. The bus is empty, its a few steps away from the stop, I'm going to be late for office hours... I am hopping from foot to foot, and yet the impulse to scan everyone else around me, to mimic what they do and blend in, kicks in. No one is in line, and no one else looks impatient like I do. When it's time to get on the bus, a Very attractive man gives me a smile and motions that I climb in ahead of him.
(This is how I eat with people. I watch the way they cut into their chicken with knife and fork, how the dab on hot sauce and pile on some rice. I do it slowly, and I chatter or fade, drawing away attention from fingers that can't manipulate food the way they used to anymore.)
Lately the question of blending in is on my mind. I wanted to wear a sari as fall faded, knowing scarves and gloves and coats would soon be upon me. I did wear it once, to Chinatown and then to a Palestine film festival, a costumed-ally in multiculti Toronto. I could wear it to class maybe? Maybe an an experiment. Catalogue how many looks, how many compliments, beautiful/graceful/so complicated/I could never manage that.
The more I thought about that, the more I feel like it would be a 1000 times more unbearable here than back in Delhi. Saris, my mother's saris that I usually wear, would feel like skin, and these gender studies, intersectional eyes and words would flay it raw.
Or maybe they won't. Maybe I am over-imagining the attention. Maybe, in their own academic multiculti Canadian society women's studies way, they won't give a shit. I can't decide which is worse.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
coming down
Diwali came and went.
First, I quarrel with all that comes along with celebrating Diwali.
I hold on to my personal tradition, I make my rangoli, I have helping hands, I make something I am proud of.
There are lights, there is food and there is laughter.
I send pictures home. They don't get that my rangoli is Ravan. I am celebrating Ravan and mourning Rama's plunder. They don't get it - all they care about is that I am doing what I love half the world away. Good. This should be family love - live and let live at a distance. I couldn't do this if I lived with them.
After all that franticness, energy levels flag. I have nothing to say in class except wish it was over. I have excuses. My head hurts, it must be the weather changing. My skin itches, it must be the dryness. Self care is what all the QTPOCs are talking about. I think I'll just stay in bed.
Ahhhbu Gharaaaib. Sad-damn Hoosain. Jhoojharat.
I think I'll just stay in bed.
First, I quarrel with all that comes along with celebrating Diwali.
I hold on to my personal tradition, I make my rangoli, I have helping hands, I make something I am proud of.
There are lights, there is food and there is laughter.
I send pictures home. They don't get that my rangoli is Ravan. I am celebrating Ravan and mourning Rama's plunder. They don't get it - all they care about is that I am doing what I love half the world away. Good. This should be family love - live and let live at a distance. I couldn't do this if I lived with them.
After all that franticness, energy levels flag. I have nothing to say in class except wish it was over. I have excuses. My head hurts, it must be the weather changing. My skin itches, it must be the dryness. Self care is what all the QTPOCs are talking about. I think I'll just stay in bed.
Ahhhbu Gharaaaib. Sad-damn Hoosain. Jhoojharat.
I think I'll just stay in bed.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
the chemical life
Moths flutter through our house, our kitchen and our rooms. We kill them with our hands when we can. In my room I just close my eyes and turn off the lights, hoping they go away.
Mice scurry, surprising us in our bathrooms and dropping droppings all over the kitchen and eating away my beloved paapads.
Ants swarm the kitchen counters, the knife left dripping with jam.
Bees wander into the shed, L talks to them with her mind and they leave without a sting.
The bananas sit atop the fridge, perennially yellow.
"When we die, lets hope an animal eats our corpse," says L.
Mice scurry, surprising us in our bathrooms and dropping droppings all over the kitchen and eating away my beloved paapads.
Ants swarm the kitchen counters, the knife left dripping with jam.
Bees wander into the shed, L talks to them with her mind and they leave without a sting.
The bananas sit atop the fridge, perennially yellow.
"When we die, lets hope an animal eats our corpse," says L.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
"POC HAIKU COMICS" - what are your struggles/experiences of being a POC and/or immigrant; how have you overcome the struggles; what makes you proud to be a POC and/or immigrant?
Cars, keys, switches, people
Everything moves the "wrong way"
A hiccup, I relearn
Everything moves the "wrong way"
A hiccup, I relearn
Thursday, September 25, 2014
learning
First I learn the names of the bus and subway stops. Dundas West Lansdowne Dufferin Ossington Christie Bathurst Spadina St George. They sound poetic like that, a reassuring settling sound at the end.
I read a book set in Australia which features a town called Bathurst. So India Canada Australia clearly all have British colonialism inscribed in their bodies. Lansdowne, Uttarakhand, India. Bathurst, Australia. Later a conversation about First Nations and their struggles to reclaim land in Canada leads to the realisation - we are not in the postcolonial moment here, we are in a still actively colonial one. The question of historical reparations and reconciliation is still far away here.
I learn that I will always be a last minute preparer. I learn to be the less-than-amazing teacher I am in my head. I learn to knit.
Breathe, it's only been a month, I tell myself. You have a lot of time before you can have the social life you like.
And I ask questions. What is the deal with hand cream. What is nuit blanche. What are family bathrooms. Why do the binders have three rings and not two/four. Why is it Mississaugas 'of the New Credit'. When is it daylights savings. Where can I buy cheap boots.
And I ask myself - how is it that you, as a so-called actively political person supposedly attuned to racist and sexist conversations, manage to miss the ignorant, masquerading as interest, racist conversation when it is personally directed at you.
I read a book set in Australia which features a town called Bathurst. So India Canada Australia clearly all have British colonialism inscribed in their bodies. Lansdowne, Uttarakhand, India. Bathurst, Australia. Later a conversation about First Nations and their struggles to reclaim land in Canada leads to the realisation - we are not in the postcolonial moment here, we are in a still actively colonial one. The question of historical reparations and reconciliation is still far away here.
I learn that I will always be a last minute preparer. I learn to be the less-than-amazing teacher I am in my head. I learn to knit.
Breathe, it's only been a month, I tell myself. You have a lot of time before you can have the social life you like.
And I ask questions. What is the deal with hand cream. What is nuit blanche. What are family bathrooms. Why do the binders have three rings and not two/four. Why is it Mississaugas 'of the New Credit'. When is it daylights savings. Where can I buy cheap boots.
And I ask myself - how is it that you, as a so-called actively political person supposedly attuned to racist and sexist conversations, manage to miss the ignorant, masquerading as interest, racist conversation when it is personally directed at you.
Monday, September 15, 2014
a life just beginning
We stand in the parking lot of a provincial park north of Toronto, looking to the north sky. We strain our necks and I imagine the greenish tinge, but the aurora never appears. Obnoxious laughter is in the air but I am rescued in the front seat. The lights shine on those beautiful faces, and a lip ring flashes in the dark as we chat about family and alcohol and auroras. I get a tight hug from a tall person (how I miss those) and I walk home alone and warm at 11.30 at night. Toronto is a privilege.
*
We are on the terrace and smoking up but we're just sober enough to say no, we're not going to make out, that would make things so weird. I don't remember how it goes after that, but it's an entirely different person who says later, ohmaigad you're so pretty in the light your lips are so saaaaaft. QPOC SUPREMACY! someone shouts into the night sky. We groove to desi music later, there's dappaan koothu involved, and then I am walking home drunk with anarchist drunks who make rainbows out of flowers and that's my amaanat.
*
The bhindi is loved, fried, crunched, loved, finished.
*
Her smile lights up the room and her voice rings out, her friends are my friends and my friends are her friends. I love her and love her.
*
We are in our warm kitchen, which swallows up the mornings into its many jars in its doorless cabinets. In the evening the rainbow flowers are in the centre of the table, surrounded by wine glasses and so much talking and so much giggling. They hold hands and they kiss, happy and certain and confident, and I ache for my lover, when will we cook and host dinners for our friends and cuddle in the tea-light?
*
I stand in front of my class and talk about home for an hour, how shitty it is for a dark skinned person, how shitty it is because the caste system still lives. And then 23 women blow me away with their candour, broken legs and friends with fatal cancer and family who loves them and family who is fierce and they are mixed and they don't know where they fit in, this is my culture and this is who I am and this is how I care and this is me this is me this is me. I hug the girl who cries and I walk out into the rain with my hair on end.
*
Back home, I heat up the rasam and drink it in a glass North Indian style, and share the garlic with my roommate. We chat, we drink and we go our separate ways.
I could live like this.
*
We are on the terrace and smoking up but we're just sober enough to say no, we're not going to make out, that would make things so weird. I don't remember how it goes after that, but it's an entirely different person who says later, ohmaigad you're so pretty in the light your lips are so saaaaaft. QPOC SUPREMACY! someone shouts into the night sky. We groove to desi music later, there's dappaan koothu involved, and then I am walking home drunk with anarchist drunks who make rainbows out of flowers and that's my amaanat.
*
The bhindi is loved, fried, crunched, loved, finished.
*
Her smile lights up the room and her voice rings out, her friends are my friends and my friends are her friends. I love her and love her.
*
We are in our warm kitchen, which swallows up the mornings into its many jars in its doorless cabinets. In the evening the rainbow flowers are in the centre of the table, surrounded by wine glasses and so much talking and so much giggling. They hold hands and they kiss, happy and certain and confident, and I ache for my lover, when will we cook and host dinners for our friends and cuddle in the tea-light?
*
I stand in front of my class and talk about home for an hour, how shitty it is for a dark skinned person, how shitty it is because the caste system still lives. And then 23 women blow me away with their candour, broken legs and friends with fatal cancer and family who loves them and family who is fierce and they are mixed and they don't know where they fit in, this is my culture and this is who I am and this is how I care and this is me this is me this is me. I hug the girl who cries and I walk out into the rain with my hair on end.
*
Back home, I heat up the rasam and drink it in a glass North Indian style, and share the garlic with my roommate. We chat, we drink and we go our separate ways.
I could live like this.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
hi how are you please thank you have a good day nice to meet you! what a friendly citycountry
My first few days here people smiled at me, and spoke to me unbidden on the street, offered change and directions and advice on cellphone plans, and looked at my TShirt and said, "girl in glasses! you have 4 boyfriends?" [Troy and Abed, oh how I wish to be their Annie.]
Today I am a woman with purpose, I stride into the subway and walk past an eastern european accented woman who asks me where to drop the token. I show her, barely wait for her to mumble anything at me, and stride on. Should I have asked if she needed help? Maybe.
I stride on, making no eye contact, receiving no smiles, no chat, and consult my phone for directions. But the vending machine defeats me, and two people walk past, but someone stops to help and grins, I did nothing at all but there you go, and in my zeal to call out a 'thank you' I miss my packet of chips falling and punch at the machine some more before the bulb goes on.
~~
In the Bellevue park near Kensington market, people of all sorts and colours (skin and hair) gather in the sunshine, frisbee players, friends, families, musicians, weed dealers, starry eyed graduate students and acrobats. A black man strips off his shirt and stomps around in the mini amphitheatre area, throwing down blocks of wood to his beat, rapping and shouting, fuck police! fuck police! fuck you! stop shooting at me stop shooting at me stop shooting at me
Today I am a woman with purpose, I stride into the subway and walk past an eastern european accented woman who asks me where to drop the token. I show her, barely wait for her to mumble anything at me, and stride on. Should I have asked if she needed help? Maybe.
I stride on, making no eye contact, receiving no smiles, no chat, and consult my phone for directions. But the vending machine defeats me, and two people walk past, but someone stops to help and grins, I did nothing at all but there you go, and in my zeal to call out a 'thank you' I miss my packet of chips falling and punch at the machine some more before the bulb goes on.
~~
In the Bellevue park near Kensington market, people of all sorts and colours (skin and hair) gather in the sunshine, frisbee players, friends, families, musicians, weed dealers, starry eyed graduate students and acrobats. A black man strips off his shirt and stomps around in the mini amphitheatre area, throwing down blocks of wood to his beat, rapping and shouting, fuck police! fuck police! fuck you! stop shooting at me stop shooting at me stop shooting at me
Sunday, August 31, 2014
moving
People say when they come back that Delhi smells different. I was told Toronto will smell different, right away, I will notice. Well, not yet. The air is cleaner, maybe? But it feels like I know that only on an intellectual sort of level. The sound levels aren't much lower where I live, where streetcars trundle past and go ting! and buses whoosh and cars zoom and fighter jets fly past in the sky for an exhibition, like no one in this fucking city knows the sinking feeling of impending war. [Most do, but they're not the ones who are consulted.] I can't help it, my house sits at an intersection. Maybe let the city envelop me at all time of the day, now when I can still look at it with starry eyes.
When I hugged my lover at the airport of this city I will forever thank for bringing us closer, I knew his smell immediately, I buried my face in him and nearly lost myself in the intensity of it. It was the only sensory thing of his that lingered on after he'd left, in the cotton tshirt that slowly became just a cotton tshirt so soon. Everything else was pixels and skype; the lovebites faded too soon.
I catch whiffs of it now, six days and one load of laundry [this is where you drop the coins, this is where you wait] later. It can't be from my clothes. It must be me, maybe my skin touching his skin soaked up as much as it could, still viscerally sure that this parting will be for a long time too. I meet new people and hug them but I don't get their smell, not like I have his. Or maybe it was me all along and Delhi didn't let me smell it. Maybe the patina of my old city is falling off of me and I will be naked to this city sooner than I knew.
When I hugged my lover at the airport of this city I will forever thank for bringing us closer, I knew his smell immediately, I buried my face in him and nearly lost myself in the intensity of it. It was the only sensory thing of his that lingered on after he'd left, in the cotton tshirt that slowly became just a cotton tshirt so soon. Everything else was pixels and skype; the lovebites faded too soon.
I catch whiffs of it now, six days and one load of laundry [this is where you drop the coins, this is where you wait] later. It can't be from my clothes. It must be me, maybe my skin touching his skin soaked up as much as it could, still viscerally sure that this parting will be for a long time too. I meet new people and hug them but I don't get their smell, not like I have his. Or maybe it was me all along and Delhi didn't let me smell it. Maybe the patina of my old city is falling off of me and I will be naked to this city sooner than I knew.
Monday, August 4, 2014
tangents
How does it feel to be made so transparent? The text message delays and cadences give him away. I wonder if I will see him in the flesh and see right through to the beating heart and want to pierce it. Feeling contrary.
Rendered transparent - right down to the 'true' 'authentic' 'self'. All these words have turned into poison words. You hear anyone using them and immediately they are suspect. As they should be, no doubt, but there aren't any concessions in the game for those who are in the know and use these words for their poisonous power. You can't get away with saying them.
*insert GIF of Max from Happy Endings saying 'mah niiiig-' while Brad nearly kills him dead with a look*
There's a book inside my head that's taking shape in bits and pieces. I don't want to force myself into writing it, because there's just so little time for anything anyway. I keep imagining that going away will solve all my problems, from the lack of time-to-myself to dandruff. Only actual going away will cure me of that.
But scenes come and go, and most of them will be forgotten when the final thing - if the final thing - comes to life. I am not worried.
No. There will be time, and there will be time.
Like there is time now, in the midst of goodbyes and frantic packing, to gaze at pictures, to Facebook stalk, to feel that strange unpleasant churning in your middle that heralds a crush. To think of witty things to say, to imagine meeting again, to dread the actual meeting-again, to look forward to the moment where it all breaks, or the much-farther moment where you think, him, really? He really had to grow into his looks. What a cartoon.
[the still farther moment where I read this and wonder who I was talking about. Perhaps J will remind me.]
Rendered transparent - right down to the 'true' 'authentic' 'self'. All these words have turned into poison words. You hear anyone using them and immediately they are suspect. As they should be, no doubt, but there aren't any concessions in the game for those who are in the know and use these words for their poisonous power. You can't get away with saying them.
*insert GIF of Max from Happy Endings saying 'mah niiiig-' while Brad nearly kills him dead with a look*
There's a book inside my head that's taking shape in bits and pieces. I don't want to force myself into writing it, because there's just so little time for anything anyway. I keep imagining that going away will solve all my problems, from the lack of time-to-myself to dandruff. Only actual going away will cure me of that.
But scenes come and go, and most of them will be forgotten when the final thing - if the final thing - comes to life. I am not worried.
No. There will be time, and there will be time.
Like there is time now, in the midst of goodbyes and frantic packing, to gaze at pictures, to Facebook stalk, to feel that strange unpleasant churning in your middle that heralds a crush. To think of witty things to say, to imagine meeting again, to dread the actual meeting-again, to look forward to the moment where it all breaks, or the much-farther moment where you think, him, really? He really had to grow into his looks. What a cartoon.
[the still farther moment where I read this and wonder who I was talking about. Perhaps J will remind me.]
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
beautiful things the boyfriend says
There were matchsticks inexplicably scattered in the yard in the morning.
Did you know fireflies in the night turn into matchsticks in the morning?
Did you know fireflies in the night turn into matchsticks in the morning?
Thursday, July 17, 2014
leaving
"You need to get away." "I need to get away." "No, you NEED to get away."
*
"What a loss to us." *silence*
*
"Ohho yeah, ab jaaogi to bas wahan pe settle. Pata hai pata hai. Kitne dekhe hai tere jaise." "But... but. JNU is full of foreign return people."
*
"Are you planning to come back? Oh good. Go, go, be refreshed and come back. We'll need new energy."
*
"I can't wait for you to come here darling, we're going to have so much fun and be together finally!"
*
"Live our dream life, Harshita."
*
"You'll be fine, you know. You're outgoing and friendly, and you have a solid political outlook, that can help actually. I mean, you have to be open to new stuff and all."
*
"I'm going to eat all the food!!!"
*
But actually I'm kinda scared.
*
"What a loss to us." *silence*
*
"Ohho yeah, ab jaaogi to bas wahan pe settle. Pata hai pata hai. Kitne dekhe hai tere jaise." "But... but. JNU is full of foreign return people."
*
"Are you planning to come back? Oh good. Go, go, be refreshed and come back. We'll need new energy."
*
"I can't wait for you to come here darling, we're going to have so much fun and be together finally!"
*
"Live our dream life, Harshita."
*
"You'll be fine, you know. You're outgoing and friendly, and you have a solid political outlook, that can help actually. I mean, you have to be open to new stuff and all."
*
"I'm going to eat all the food!!!"
*
But actually I'm kinda scared.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
postprotestmusings
1. It's definitely time for a new city.
2. I hate that going alone for protests is not a thing.
3. If I don't post about it on facebook am I less than political?
2. I hate that going alone for protests is not a thing.
3. If I don't post about it on facebook am I less than political?
Monday, June 30, 2014
on the straight and narrow
1. You can look, and only look.
2. You dream and dream, urgent and hot and disorienting, yet the prospect of a not!dream cripples.
3. You are starved of touch. You make do with pixels.
4. The world goes on, no one else frozen on the straight and narrow like you. They are happy and they laugh, and you see them through a cloud of smoke in your mind.
5. Are you the only one unhappy? Is the other point moving towards you doing so with no regrets? You can't ask.
6. A beauty has everything you want. Does that mean you are ugly?
7. Never happy. Wear blinkers.
2. You dream and dream, urgent and hot and disorienting, yet the prospect of a not!dream cripples.
3. You are starved of touch. You make do with pixels.
4. The world goes on, no one else frozen on the straight and narrow like you. They are happy and they laugh, and you see them through a cloud of smoke in your mind.
5. Are you the only one unhappy? Is the other point moving towards you doing so with no regrets? You can't ask.
6. A beauty has everything you want. Does that mean you are ugly?
7. Never happy. Wear blinkers.
Friday, May 30, 2014
romance at the edges of panic, and vice versa
Kandaghat, at 9 pm, on the cusp of December. It is deserted, and cold. The bus drives on into the fog, tail lights fading slowly, and a man walks past the light with a bucket. We stand under a street light.
I exhale and my breath joins the fog. We are on the side of the road, on the side of a hill, a valley sparkling with distant lights spread out in front of us. Your fingers are chilly in mine. We see a patch of light in the sky, the moon must be bright tonight. For a moment, I feel like we are the only people in the world.
My teeth are rattling and I clench your hand when you whisper, Did you call her? Is she coming? How long will she take?
The phone rings, terse words exchanged, thank you we are in the town centre, under the streetlights. OK see you!
An hour till she can come here, I tell you and force a grin. Panic is an distant acrid smell on the air.
I have gone too long without romance in my life. The bus ride here, holding hands, heads resting on shoulders, I have wanted this since school trips to Shimla. Whispering together and kissing surreptitiously while watching bad Bollywood movies, I did that in a Volvo bus coming here with you. And at this point, where people move in together and plan lives around partners, I sneak out and lie and pretend you're a friend, and change your name on my phone. I'll take romance where I get it.
We could build a fire, you fret, but these sticks are wet. Fuck.
And so, bodies shaking -- shaking like mine will again next year on a sunny beach, in the grip of fever I will resolutely ignore for romance -- I take out a thin blanket and spread it on the platform at the edge of the hill, sit with my feet dangling, like I like and you hate, and smile at you.
We hug for warmth, kiss to stop our teeth chattering. I wrap my thick shawl around us both. You grip my hands hard, as if to stop me from giving in to my impulse to jump off heights.
Every car snaking around the road jolts us, and my phone screen glows into life in hope. We stand up because our asses are too cold now. Maybe I want to enjoy this -- why not, how many times in your life will you be stranded in a sleeping hill town in the middle of winter, this is the stuff you write novels or trite blog posts about -- and so I hug you again, and offer to sing to you. Panic is whooshing past in the distance, headlights wavering on the road ahead.
You look at me like I have lost my mind. (To be honest, these last two months, I have been wondering when you'll look at me like that.) Yes, this is ridiculous, I know. Part of learning the fragility of the romance myth is also realising that we can say the same words, I love you darling, and be on completely different pages.
Is this the real life, is this just fantasyyyyy, I warble into the cold wind pushing into the gap between my neck and the shawl. I want you to join in, I want you to smile at me, I want to not be this far gone in love with you; I want to give in to panic with a clean conscience. We're kinda lost, the phone glows, we'll take some time.
You kiss my fingers till I can feel them again, and I sing till I forget the words, and hopped up, I ask you to dance with me in a puddle of light, pulling you away from the dark. You oblige for a few seconds, and then look at the town. If it gets any later than this, we should probably start knocking on a few doors.
Wh-h-hh-hy, I say, my face frozen into a grin.
BECAUSE IT IS ONLY GOING TO GET COLDER Panic speaks.
*
We sing in the car, because it's a musical kinda group. The boy driving snaps, what is that lifeless version of Bruce Springsteen back there?, contemptuous of the one-woman-one-guitar-singing-soulful-acoustic-reinterpretations. The headlights click back and forth, from high beam to low beam. Driving in the hills at night is not an easy game. Panic hovers at the edges of the road, the milestones that gleam and fade as we pass.
Later they tell us we looked frozen and we practically fell into the car. Later, what spirit, you two, a day's journey just to be with your friends. We down some rum and cold food and sleep on a hard bed, and then separate, still and forever unable to cuddle. I talk to our friends till late in the night. We enjoy ourselves, and secretly-but-not hold hands in the car ride back home.
You know, I will only remember my cold numbed nose and the lights twinkling in the Shimla valley; Kandaghat asleep in a golden haze, the kid walking by with his father and the musical bus horns, your hair under the streetlight. Somehow, I will only remember that when we were in the middle of an adventure, you kissed me back.
(Because panic sits at the back of the class, and soon I will learn that when it draws attention to itself the others start to leave.)
I exhale and my breath joins the fog. We are on the side of the road, on the side of a hill, a valley sparkling with distant lights spread out in front of us. Your fingers are chilly in mine. We see a patch of light in the sky, the moon must be bright tonight. For a moment, I feel like we are the only people in the world.
My teeth are rattling and I clench your hand when you whisper, Did you call her? Is she coming? How long will she take?
The phone rings, terse words exchanged, thank you we are in the town centre, under the streetlights. OK see you!
An hour till she can come here, I tell you and force a grin. Panic is an distant acrid smell on the air.
I have gone too long without romance in my life. The bus ride here, holding hands, heads resting on shoulders, I have wanted this since school trips to Shimla. Whispering together and kissing surreptitiously while watching bad Bollywood movies, I did that in a Volvo bus coming here with you. And at this point, where people move in together and plan lives around partners, I sneak out and lie and pretend you're a friend, and change your name on my phone. I'll take romance where I get it.
We could build a fire, you fret, but these sticks are wet. Fuck.
And so, bodies shaking -- shaking like mine will again next year on a sunny beach, in the grip of fever I will resolutely ignore for romance -- I take out a thin blanket and spread it on the platform at the edge of the hill, sit with my feet dangling, like I like and you hate, and smile at you.
We hug for warmth, kiss to stop our teeth chattering. I wrap my thick shawl around us both. You grip my hands hard, as if to stop me from giving in to my impulse to jump off heights.
Every car snaking around the road jolts us, and my phone screen glows into life in hope. We stand up because our asses are too cold now. Maybe I want to enjoy this -- why not, how many times in your life will you be stranded in a sleeping hill town in the middle of winter, this is the stuff you write novels or trite blog posts about -- and so I hug you again, and offer to sing to you. Panic is whooshing past in the distance, headlights wavering on the road ahead.
You look at me like I have lost my mind. (To be honest, these last two months, I have been wondering when you'll look at me like that.) Yes, this is ridiculous, I know. Part of learning the fragility of the romance myth is also realising that we can say the same words, I love you darling, and be on completely different pages.
Is this the real life, is this just fantasyyyyy, I warble into the cold wind pushing into the gap between my neck and the shawl. I want you to join in, I want you to smile at me, I want to not be this far gone in love with you; I want to give in to panic with a clean conscience. We're kinda lost, the phone glows, we'll take some time.
You kiss my fingers till I can feel them again, and I sing till I forget the words, and hopped up, I ask you to dance with me in a puddle of light, pulling you away from the dark. You oblige for a few seconds, and then look at the town. If it gets any later than this, we should probably start knocking on a few doors.
Wh-h-hh-hy, I say, my face frozen into a grin.
BECAUSE IT IS ONLY GOING TO GET COLDER Panic speaks.
*
We sing in the car, because it's a musical kinda group. The boy driving snaps, what is that lifeless version of Bruce Springsteen back there?, contemptuous of the one-woman-one-guitar-singing-soulful-acoustic-reinterpretations. The headlights click back and forth, from high beam to low beam. Driving in the hills at night is not an easy game. Panic hovers at the edges of the road, the milestones that gleam and fade as we pass.
Later they tell us we looked frozen and we practically fell into the car. Later, what spirit, you two, a day's journey just to be with your friends. We down some rum and cold food and sleep on a hard bed, and then separate, still and forever unable to cuddle. I talk to our friends till late in the night. We enjoy ourselves, and secretly-but-not hold hands in the car ride back home.
You know, I will only remember my cold numbed nose and the lights twinkling in the Shimla valley; Kandaghat asleep in a golden haze, the kid walking by with his father and the musical bus horns, your hair under the streetlight. Somehow, I will only remember that when we were in the middle of an adventure, you kissed me back.
(Because panic sits at the back of the class, and soon I will learn that when it draws attention to itself the others start to leave.)
Thursday, May 29, 2014
maya angelou is dead
I remember reading her in college, the first 'feminist' poem that I remember. I remember stumbling over 'dance like I've got diamonds/at the meeting of my thighs', and being laughingly asked by a friend to read it aloud, doing so with a hitch and a grin, and feeling somehow grown up, aware of that meeting place in a different way than before. She was brave to write the poem, she was brilliant and poetic and a wonderful writer, and I got to touch a little bit of that bravery.
A second hand copy of 'I know why the caged bird sings' sits in my shelf, perennially on my to-read list, victim to my impulse to not read what I have pegged as gloomdoom novels. Someday.
A second hand copy of 'I know why the caged bird sings' sits in my shelf, perennially on my to-read list, victim to my impulse to not read what I have pegged as gloomdoom novels. Someday.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Monday, May 26, 2014
finally watched 'the fall'
Come back, Roy.
We have wandered after butterflies
down labyrinths and human maps,
looking through bandit eyes
at love gained and love lost,
the cost of swimming through
the sea, slow and gentle,
this is us, Roy.
We jump and leap and fall and hurt
and tell each other tales.
Not for us, the dreamless sleep.
We have wandered after butterflies
down labyrinths and human maps,
looking through bandit eyes
at love gained and love lost,
the cost of swimming through
the sea, slow and gentle,
this is us, Roy.
We jump and leap and fall and hurt
and tell each other tales.
Not for us, the dreamless sleep.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Friday, April 4, 2014
a quiet day at home
A beautiful phrase I read somewhere - 'introspection is slipping away from me.'
Perhaps there are phases where my subconscious doesn't want me to look into it. Perhaps, it knows in its subconsciousy wisdom, that in order to hold it together, Harshita has to keep looking away, distracting herself, going to sleep as soon as she can.
Perhaps it was reading Foucault in class, how confession is a text shot through with power. I was thinking of my first diary in that class. One that came with a lock. I was in class 8 and I wrote things in it that were worthy of being kept under lock and key, or so I thought. Crushes and little feuds and insecurities and bitching about my mother and wishing life was like a movie. Then I was thinking of 'journaling' as a way to reduce stress. How we give so much power to the written words, to the mess of ink and pixels and an intensity of belief that it will alter the brain's chemistry and life's circumstances. Yeah right.
Oh Foucault, what have you done to me. (said many many college students.) (Butler's next.)
Besides, there isn't much time to introspect these days. It seems I spend my life travelling in the metro. I have stopped squeezing my bum into the small spaces in between women who will ALWAYS make more space than they have, crossing legs and shrinking spines, bless their bodies socialised into accepting, and hearts inured to discomfort. I press my nose to the kindle, and prepare for classes on the one hour towards the university, and gobble novels on the way back. I am reading so many novels these days, stealing time from my Legit Reading. I don't care. Women be legit villainesses and grey heroines yo. Thank you Atwood and Flynn and Hardinge.
I get gaspy sometimes, hearing that I've hitched the next few years to something that's not mine to control (like anything is), to something whose nature is fundamentally uncertain. But I flip it around, and assure him, this is just a way for my adventure to begin, you were just a catalyst. And then I breathe again, careful deceit insulating the inside of my lungs.
Perhaps there are phases where my subconscious doesn't want me to look into it. Perhaps, it knows in its subconsciousy wisdom, that in order to hold it together, Harshita has to keep looking away, distracting herself, going to sleep as soon as she can.
Perhaps it was reading Foucault in class, how confession is a text shot through with power. I was thinking of my first diary in that class. One that came with a lock. I was in class 8 and I wrote things in it that were worthy of being kept under lock and key, or so I thought. Crushes and little feuds and insecurities and bitching about my mother and wishing life was like a movie. Then I was thinking of 'journaling' as a way to reduce stress. How we give so much power to the written words, to the mess of ink and pixels and an intensity of belief that it will alter the brain's chemistry and life's circumstances. Yeah right.
Oh Foucault, what have you done to me. (said many many college students.) (Butler's next.)
Besides, there isn't much time to introspect these days. It seems I spend my life travelling in the metro. I have stopped squeezing my bum into the small spaces in between women who will ALWAYS make more space than they have, crossing legs and shrinking spines, bless their bodies socialised into accepting, and hearts inured to discomfort. I press my nose to the kindle, and prepare for classes on the one hour towards the university, and gobble novels on the way back. I am reading so many novels these days, stealing time from my Legit Reading. I don't care. Women be legit villainesses and grey heroines yo. Thank you Atwood and Flynn and Hardinge.
I get gaspy sometimes, hearing that I've hitched the next few years to something that's not mine to control (like anything is), to something whose nature is fundamentally uncertain. But I flip it around, and assure him, this is just a way for my adventure to begin, you were just a catalyst. And then I breathe again, careful deceit insulating the inside of my lungs.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
commitment issues
There's always been this problem. I've consoled myself by saying it's what comes of being a multi-talented person, good at many things. I should have committed to dance, I love it and I could have gotten better at it. I should have committed to English, I love literature and thinking analytically about media and theory. But there's always something tapping at my shoulder - you could sing/you could act/you could become an IAS officer/you're never going to be able to write a novel anyway/you'll have to come home by 8 anyway/you will fail. Result - I've ended up pursuing nothing, feeling like I've ended up doing nothing. I'm just going to be another bleh academic sitting in a corner occasionally thinking she's important in that corner.
I've tried my hand at most things. I've enjoyed them and liked them enough to want to go further, not stay casual. But it's never been feasible, too many things in my head and home holding me back. It's taken awhile in my head to break out of the idea of the straight and narrow life, progressing through officejob and savings and house and marriage and settlingdown and reproducing and dying.
It's not too late, I'm under no ageist illusions of that sort. And I have a chance now - to give my heart and word to something that I never anticipated or dreamed would come to me, and I could take it, but there's a tapping on my shoulder. Maybe there's something better, something easier still waiting; maybe committing will only lead to nothing.
I've tried my hand at most things. I've enjoyed them and liked them enough to want to go further, not stay casual. But it's never been feasible, too many things in my head and home holding me back. It's taken awhile in my head to break out of the idea of the straight and narrow life, progressing through officejob and savings and house and marriage and settlingdown and reproducing and dying.
It's not too late, I'm under no ageist illusions of that sort. And I have a chance now - to give my heart and word to something that I never anticipated or dreamed would come to me, and I could take it, but there's a tapping on my shoulder. Maybe there's something better, something easier still waiting; maybe committing will only lead to nothing.
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