chaos is good

the strewn boxes
the idea of perfection in my head
contradiction

a broken lamp
an upturned table
the notion of perfect corner
a journey

the decision of left and right
not right
a little left
more left
oh damn!

the stains of fresh paint
the splinters from carved wood
what was
what is
a dream

the broken connection
erratic network
the burst of clarity in thought

a wrong switch
a fuse bulb
natural light streaming through

chaos is good

Movement and Change

We have finally moved into our new house. It still has a long way to go to become a home. And i wonder if it ever will.

It is amazing (and tiring)  , this constancy of change in my life.

All these words that are ready to be written some day , when i have some respite, some quietude, just never seems to happen. I move from one disruptive change to another, in professional and personal space. And every time i feel normalcy would return i am shaken yet again.

I haven't minded it so much i the past. One would think, almost welcomed it. But now, i'm getting tired and would love for things to settle down a bit. Being tired seems to have become my life sentence recently. I wonder if i should go to the doctor. Just in case it isn't just mental tiredness.

In change, one of the things you do while adjusting to change is introspect and observe. You understand a bit f the change and also the context of change. How change impacts people and how people (as well as spaces) respond and adjust to change. If you looked objectively, one of the things that happens, beyond the physical space being changed is the rise of a new order, a new regime almost. As usual , i struggle with the questions that keep coming up. One of the standard ones that i hear in my head are related to power.  Having studied and worked on issues of power and violence for a long time now, it is strange to see if played out, almost in slow motion, every day. It is fascinating and revolting at the same time. The very things people in power say they want to change and how they gain power and become corrupt centers of power would be funny, if it wasn't so shameful.

I had written about this earlier. But repeating them again in this context. When violence and violation is done by mistake it has scope to be corrected, to be changed, But when it is done , with complete understanding , by people who have intelligence and power- it is a corruption of a kind that cannot be easily changed, or forgiven. The repercussions are also huge and consequences have to be borne by both the innocent and the culprits.

I know, i speak in abstracts here. the point being, it's happening in the US, in India, in governments, non-governments as well as little home spaces. It is happening in religions, in politics, in communities and families.

At the end of the day, every thing is about power, or lack of power. And hence why everything is political. And personal.

More of this later. The cartons need to be unpacked. A new order needs to be created. Some normalcy needs to be restored. All the while with Caesar barking away. Sigh.

The burden of my own words

This year, i decided to break my own tradition of writing an year end post and making a wish list for next year. For one, it seems to be the same routine every year and then, i just couldn't make myself write anything. In the past few years, i have stopped writing regularly and i am having to push myself to abide by my own ghost in the past to keep writing, to not allow my words to dry out. But if your heart isn't in it, the brain can only churn out words that have limited meaning and no feel.Strange mood to be in a new year. 

The good thing was being home.


There is something about home. 
about being with family. 

about snuggling your feet together under one blanket 
and talking about random things, 
there's something about Päpä's hyperactivity 
to ensure we get a hundred star treatment always, 
there's something about being stuffed till your head 
and still make space for what mom makes for you, 

there's something about waking up whenever you want to 
and going off to sleep mid sentence 
and then waking up to see multiple snoozing heads around, 

there is something about seeing little ones grow young 
and the old ones older,
there is something about hearing old fights melt away in the kitchen 
and smiling silently in happiness,

there's something about being carefree,
something about getting your hair oiled 
and back scrubbed in the winter sun, 


there's something about visiting your old hangouts, 
accidentally meeting people on the road 
and counting their age lines and wrinkles in the happiest smiles, 
there's something about losing some old landmarks, 
there's something about seeing new ones come up, 


there's something about reminiscing about the past, 
there's something about reliving your life.. 
there's something about home..

Friends and Friendships

Some things hit you when you are least prepared and leave you stunned. 

We were visiting some "new" friends a few days back. I say new  and i say friends because they have come into my life recently, i see and feel a definite connect, a similarity in thoughts and experiences  to some extent but most of all having the feeling that i can talk freely, with the trust that you will have an objective point of view, with least regard for social norms and etiquette of diplomacy and subtlety. Having never been subtle or diplomatic, it's such a great feeling to meet someone who is the similar in approach- and hence probably the difference of opinion does not matter so much. Anyways i digress. Coming back to the point, we started talking about friends at work and friends in general.  I heard her say that she loved Delhi as most of her friends were here and that it provided her with the right mix of aware people, of intellectuals, etc and these people came  from varied backgrounds., some were from work, some from college and school. And we spoke about our favorite and not so favourite cities, the people and friendships. How cities probably end up defining people and vice-versa.

The very next day, i read an article on the time we spend at work and if it is possible to have friends at workplace. 

These two things accidentally put me in a situation where i am forced to think about my friends and my definition of friendships. I remember a time when i thought i had many many friends. There were so many, so many lives that were a part of mine and i was  a part of theirs. It was almost interwoven. Everything that happened to us- seemed to happen to all of us together as we all were influenced by it some way or the other. Maybe , what influenced us then were biding in nature by virtue of being collective experiences, we learnt from each other, spoke to each other. Or may be our worlds were so small, both in size and length that everything became hoarding of stories and memories even if it was stealing moments from someone else's experiences, as if we had been there ourselves. In some ways, we were. We fought, we made up, we fought some more- but nothing ever gave us the indication (though the books we read told us growing up wasn't fun) that we would be a part of the grown up, adult world where friends and friendships and different meanings and that those set that were the world then would become so insignificant eventually. I wonder what i would have done if i knew, if i believed it would all be insignificant, or at least so not" best friends forever" . Would i have behaved differently? Would i have been indifferent?

Moving on, today , i find it so so difficult to make friends. Many times when there seem to be friendships of some sort, they seem to fizzle out eventually. Some become friends despite my wanting to keep everyone away- from strictly acquaintances and colleagues to someone i can talk to, share with. I blame myself- that maybe i don't invest enough, don't give enough, maybe a defense mechanism of finding and losing- but at the end of the day, i do want to have good friends. Don't i?

And that brings me down to the bottomline- who do i define as a friend? That feeling of nostalgia when i speak to my school friends (the first ones to qualify that word), or that part of recognition of mutual likes and thoughts, or is it sharing and trusting (But that comes much later, doesn't it?). Yeah, it seems complex when i want to write about something really simple. How do we make friends? Who do we keep as friends? Do i regret that some people i thought were important aren't in touch anymore? A pang, yes. Devastation- no. I know we have each moved on in our lives and grown up to be very different people.

That is a thought, isn't it? Maybe, we are meant to move on, to become different people. I know some people who feel guilty of change, of becoming new people. Maybe a reason they shy away? Now that i think about it, maybe that is one of the causes with some. I remember some people looking at me with incredulity saying they can't believe i said something today that i would have never said before.  They say i have changed , like almost an accusation. But i can deal with it. I had a certain value system that i have moved from- they no longer remain values for me, and i am comfortable with them. I believe i am meant to change as i should. As i explore the outside world, i dig in deep inside for things i want to believe it, question my own thoughts and values and judgements and change as per my understanding and perception of both these inner and outer worlds . I am definitely not apologetic for that. 

But maybe some are. And i understand that as well.  I don't judge them. I would still be friends , at least i would like to, because only then i would understand a different point of view, a different way of the world. I do not believe we need to like and feel the same things to be friends. In fact today a handful that i have left are so so different in thoughts, geographies, perceptions that it seems surprising in theory that we could be friends at all. And probably those are the friends i look for. The ones who understand that it's ok to be different, it ok to change, to evolve. Ones that are honest to themselves and others. Those that do not hide behind ambiguity of unsaid things. Ones who look beyond .

And i continue to question , in the meanwhile, my role in moving away or falling apart with so many people who i thought were friends or who definitely had a potential.

To my friends and friendships.

Chivalry, Chauvanism and other things.

Two things bring up this post, amongst others.

I usually take the aisle seat in a plane, helps me stretch my legs and walk about, should i want to , without disturbing the co-passengers. As is usual in India, as soon as the wheels hit the tarmac, people open their seat belts and are ready to jump out . My neighbor , one on the middle seat , seemed to be in a bigger hurry than usual. He stepped on me and i offered to make space once the flight had stopped taxiing. And i did. As i waited patiently for him and his father to alight  who were without a regard for other people, i saw a couple on the other side of the aisle . The man was physically showing concern for the safety of his wife by guarding her body with his own, cocooning her. The wife seemed to be grateful. as i stood waiting , i scrolled down my emails and social media- more by habit that real interest- and the first thing on the timeline was this :

http://www.storypick.com/habits-of-chivalry

Got me thinking seriously about a couple of things. Firstly, how men behave or have been conditioned to behave with women, and how that behavior varies from a woman you are related to and a stranger.  This is a general debate and i let you to think about it in depth and have your own interpretation and analysis.

The second one was more personal and hence i would like to delve into it a little bit further. i am a feminist. i wonder if that is a difficult thing to live with. I have a husband who is also a feminist- a fact that is probably at the base of why we are still married. My husband is  feminist in thought but still to traverse the action part and i think i make it very difficult for him  to breathe even at times. I goad him, rile him and simple issues become feminist debates. From simple things like why when both work, housework still remains a female dominion to large discussions on perceptions, moralities and stereotypes. When i saw that couple, i wondered about my own reaction. Would i be as coy and demure as that girl? what a joke, right? i would look at my husband with every bit of sarcasm and tell him to protect the society through his actions than creating a physical wall to protect me. And it would lead to another argument or not. The point being, for men who are taught to communicate to women in that particular way, of being protectors, the hunting gathering men, what happens when roles change and evolve? How do men then express their care to feminist women like me? Same men who have been conditioned to never show the emotional side, be strong, be pillars and the bleh. Must be difficult. I am sure it is.

But i guess it's a struggle that this generation of men will also have to learn to live with. These are the men who made a conscious choice to be different, to be married to strong women with a mind and heart of their own, who refuse to be tied down by stereotypes. And i think, we will find our ways to express our love for each other, that is not opening the doors (for the other), except when it is to a new thought.

Turning Thirty Five

life has indeed come  a long way. long long way in a cycle. every year i reach my birthday , i do a standard introspection exercise and see three standard things. Awe of things that have happened in the past year that i have had a hand in, things i wanted to do and couldn't and some things that never change. every year.

now that this year is another important milestone, i have a list in no particular order till the next milestone (the 40th?)which may fall in either three categories above at that point.

- have  a baby
- climb the everest
- write that stupid book that been in my head the past 20 years
- get fit (sigh!)
- get another furry mad child as caezii
-  not grow up
- grow up a little
- get that passport stamped and the jinx broken
- do something nice for the family
- fall in love (if possible with the same man again and again)
- unclutter and go minimalist
- hoard more sarees
- go bald


and obviously the misc.

Happy Birthday to me! see you on the other side after a week long party to usher in the thirty fifth!

Procrastination

the book i started still to be finished
the words still to be written
sometimes words fail
sometimes i fail

but i get up
to write and make sense of the confusion
sometimes i just let others scribble
let others inspire

i pick up to finish 
that book i started months back
reading the previous few pages
from the bookmark
and then give up

i hold the brush
and brush away the cobwebs
but the illustrations are still not done
my palette is full
the colours not yet right

i leave behind the unfinished post
the unfinished painting
an unfinished thought
a conversation is left hanging

tomorrow i shall complete it
yes tomorrow.

Nepal

somewhere an inch moved
a beautiful world lays in ruins
lost lives under rubbles
a child, a man, a woman
a calf, a pup, a kitten

history that had been created over centuries
lies in heap in present
wiped away from future
in a flash of a second

the petulant children
continue to live in complacence
unbothered about the ruin
they probably caused
they shudder for a second
thank their stars
it wasn't them
and move on

angry nature
crushed a country
lashes it over and over
with tears of anguish
people living under the make shift houses
wince in her fury

but hope still lives
strength still lives
in the pained eyes
in the new crops
lush green
in the background

For love of poetry and other things

कभी वापस आऊं
तो दरवाज़े पर तुम मिलो
उस शायरी की तरह
जो कुछ मौकों पर
वापस आ  जाती है लबों पर

तुम भी यही सोचते हो ना ?

पता नहीं साल कहाँ जाते हैं
कहाँ जाते हैं ख़्वाब
बस लम्हे होते हैं
फ़िर उन लम्हों की यादें

फिर धीरे धीरे लम्हें नहीं बनते
हर लम्हा हम कहीं खो जो जाते हैं
राहों में , दफ्तर में , टीवी में, पेपर में
लम्हे नहीं बना पाते जिसके ख्वाब बुने थे

रिवाज़ों को तोड़ने की फ़िराक़ है आज
लम्हों को बना लें
अब तुम आओ  तो दरवाज़े पर मिलूंगी
सिज़र के साथ 

the hole

i dig and dig
and fill the pit

the digging does not stop
the pit does not fill

i look at my hands
muddy bloody hands
i wince at the rawness
i gag at the stench
of decaying life in the mud
that was once alive and kicking
i find a torn piece of writing
a love letter perhaps
that may have been a smile on someone's lips
it is blotched words
on a fraying paper

but if you want
let's imagine it was a note
a grocery list
maybe something else

and now it lies in layers of mud
what is that smell of decay?
is it human?
an animal?
a bird maybe?
strange how the smell of decay
smells the same

i am digging as a constant
to fulfill my karma

but oh the futility of it all
the digging will not stop
the pit will not fill

A ritual more than anything else.

so another year another year has passed me by. i realize i have become older, calm on the outside, patient and mature as well some say.

but there is a storm brewing inside. a tsunami maybe, by storm standards. it is churning the past few years in a fast pace and is at that point of puking it all out. And do not be fooled by false demeanors. beneath the calm and patient mask, there lurks a highly cynical and sarcastic impatient being that is smirking at everything, including my own responses. if you could tear off the mask, you would see an 'eyebrow-raised-smirk' face that doesn't give a dime to anyone or anything.

i believe we live in cycles. not concentric, more like a venn..some circles overlap with your past cycles, some more than other and some very detached. i also feel that we live in the current cycle more than the others- like if you color coded them- the past would be a lovely lavender, but hazy. the present a bright indigo and the future a soft haze of some color unknown. strangely, either ways you look, towards the past or the future, it's through a purple haze. i digress. the current cycle. yes, it takes over everything else, the bright indigo, making you feel this is life, today is living. not that cycles are bound by years or times, they have their own lives.but year ends somehow are the times you sit down for a short breath before you start on the next leg. circles- when you look at your life in hindsight, it so many different sized circles of lavender, or so many different shades. sitting in your indigo circle that overpowers everything in present you wonder if all those circles are yours, if all those lives are yours.

i also wonder sometimes, if someday i come to a crossroad and suddenly meet myself from years before- would i recognize her? would she recognize me? i know one thing though. if i met her some day i would hold her and cry to my heart's fill. just hold her tight and cry, cry till the warning goes off of another flood.

there i digress again. the year gone by. what have i achieved? what have i learnt? feels a bit empty the last year.usually i stock them up pretty tight. this year, it looks like a house of zen- minimalist. but it does not give me peace. It makes me feel empty. i feel empty of feelings, of doing anything meaningful for myself. i have pretty much lived my life on my own terms. but this year i feel like a zombie that went through the chores without even being a part of anything. i did not write a lot, i did not read many books, i did not watch that many movies, i did not travel that much, i did not do anything that makes me feel good. strangely, even the music was random strains of past songs that i couldn't carry the tune of. quite an empty year. even as i try to carry out this annual ritual , hoping that my mojo in writing will get back, i feel the churning , where words make no sense and bang into each other, creating a cacaphony making me nauseous..

the year will end. the cycle will end too. I hope this feeling of emptiness moves to that of calm.

Tamaso Ma Sad Gamaya. lead me to light from darkness.

Beginners guide to girl child issues in India

‪#‎dayofthegirlchild‬ : 
India has one of the worst under 6 sex ratios in the world, a mere 914 girls to a 1000 boys. What it means is that if this continues (which it will if we don't change it) in a population of 100,00,00,000 there will be about 91, 20,00,000 girls.. a whopping 8.8 crores missing. Some questions that you may want to think about:

1. Why are there less girls? natural selection? Here's a fact. India would kill it's girls- so laws were made to stop female infanticide. Girls started being killed before they were born- India brought in it's Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994 (PNDT). The doctors and parents got smarter and started eliminating the girls children even before fertilization. The country revised the Act in 2003 and with added clauses it came to be known as The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition Of Sex Selection) Act (PCPNDT Act). It's been 10 years and the sex ratio keeps declining alarmingly.

2. It's relation to family education and incomes: You would think that with education and more buying power the families would be empoered. I have heard this. People say only people who don't have education kill girls. Let's get our facts. Refer to the map. Surprise, surprise- hey we have lesser girls in the developed states!! How is that possible, eh? But that's how it is.

image coutesy- Actionaid india

3. Today only 65% of girls go to school compared to 82% of boys. Even after the right to free and compulsory education of every child. And more and more girl children drop out as they grow. They drop out because of reasons that range from taking care of siblings, to no toilet in schools, to household chores to child marriage. ( 47% of girls in India and one third of the world’s girls are married before the age of 18 and 1 in 9 are married before the age of 15. There's a lot of this statistic available , please take a moment to read them )

4. Health Rights and Decision Making: Women rarely have a say in their own well being. Let alone anything, they have no right on when to have children, what kind of family planning (Please look up contraception statistics. ) Even their body does not belong to them. Who takes a call on aborting the child ? Dont go far off, think who takes the call in your family, in your grandparent's , parent's and your generation.
(Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s. Pregnancy is consistently among the leading causes of death for girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. This % is much higher in girls and families with lack of education.)

Let's fast forward to the future- what do you think will happen to the generations then? Let's specifically talk about those 8.8 crores men who will not have a female partner. Let's also take off a % assuming some may like men- a valid choice and great . Let's bring it down to 8 crores who need a woman as a companion and sexual gratification? Will they all turn monks and abstain. We certainly hope so- or else ,

• there will be polygamy- by force, (It's not that distant a future- instances like this are becoming far more common in UP and Haryana than you would care to think)
• they will start borrowing from future generations. Welcome back child marriage.
• More flesh trade, bride price, treating women as mere commodities, gender based violence, rapes?
• Welcome purdah? As we enter this , the vicious circle will keep getting more viscous . More girl children being killed, aborted for fear of violence, kidnapping, rapes.
• Sounds far fetched? Think about it.

#dayofthegirlchild

Goodbyes

i do not like goodbyes. But it doesn't matter, does it?

Sometimes i fly away to the skies while i am still half asleep, still dreaming and look at me. From that distance i can see my life. i have moved ever since i remember, from place to place , from house to house.i have nightmares of moving sometimes. of missing my bus, my train, my flight. of being on the wrong bus, of leaving someone special behind.  it's not something i have control over. i'm like a clueless little rootless plant , tossed around from place to place by the river of life. sometimes i like to think that i am the river. when i meet other plants on the way, we tag along for a while and i tell them i am the river. i don't know otherwise. when the river was young, so was i. i was fast and furious like the river itself. When i spoke of river i spoke of myself. At that point i was moving, looking, exploring , looking, touching, looking, moving, looking. looking for the direction, for a purpose, becoming stronger, becoming weak, fighting odds, making friends, losing friends, moving, looking. finding purpose.

the river had its phases, when it slowed down, when it became fast, when it reached the end of the road and suddenly found another way. sometimes it made its own way. i went along the river. i didn't have any choice. i moved with her, fastening my pace, slowing my pace. saying goodbyes, moving, moving. never stopping.

sometimes i made a corner my home. i held on to it with my feeble little arms that i thought were roots. sometimes i wanted to stop. Foolish me, i didn't know i was a rootless plant. i held on but movement had become me you see. i couldn't stay on. someone told me i could borrow its roots, i could stay. i still hated goodbyes, but i had fallen in love with the river. the river that moved. my love was stronger than my hatred. and so i moved. yet again, with the river of life.

It is strange when your nightmare and dream are the same. i have lost count of the places, of the faces, of friends, of lives lived , of pains, of dreams, of laughter , of tears. i sometimes wonder if it is me, my life i am looking at from the sky. then the alarm goes off and i have to wake up and get ready . ready for movement, ready to say the goodbyes yet again. no point , no time to wait and wonder. but move with -move in the river of life.