filament2

easy breath

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 17:56:59 +0200

slowly someone
has untwisted my neck
let me see
what's infront of me.

slowly the waves have
washed my hands
my tired magic wand.

she has gone for a walk now
talking is so strenous,
we use our minds,

usually we let giggling
be our language.
now we are talking of savings
of words split into two or three
for the sake of clarity

for the sake of togetherness.

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Clay

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 04:36:17 +0200

clay can simulate
merged minds as cigarette ashes as time
between doorways crushed.

the cycle
of seasons in my tea
she wakes up late, when all
dreams are over, when she needs water.

a state of alertness!
words whispered to me
before I sleep.

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A Tune

Sat, 09 Jul 2005 04:24:08 +0200

bright morning
window staring
I will wake her and encircle
her with stars.

let filaments grow
they said, my garden has been
stagnant for a while.

far-flings, peace clings
to her body
like a wet fabric.

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Rudderless

Sat, 09 Jul 2005 04:10:35 +0200

From foloating in the river with maps and guidebooks and adrenalin to calmly wading around. Absence of stress can be stressful

Gujarat, Ayodhya and now London. The last week I have been reading about floods and terrorist attacks. Why are the terrorists boiling over? The world with no resistance feels so flat.

We've been working more on the film than anything else. Spending time in the studio, staring at the timeline, reviewing footage, reviewing voice.

Its good weather, quite cool, not very hot, not much sun.

Why am I drifting away from my friends again? Beware of the mind which doesn't speak too much. "Don't push yourself too much." When anything changes, it feels insinscere, it feels like water passing over a marble floor - easy!

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I am a rock

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 03:56:38 +0200

Allowing myself to be a rock which be shattered easily. How to listen to something fundamentally fabulous and go back to your work after five minutes? Dispassion. Self learning is a dangerous practise. One can keep converting things one sees into alliterations-joined-at-the-edges and draw conclusions. Can one just lie back, relax, listen and put things in the information drawer without thinking of them again? I can't.

I am a charged banana. I beleive in taking things to heart. The heart needs extra barricades here. Why do we seek top be professional - so that our work becomes more important than us. So that instead of nimble someones trying to do something - we become executing agents of a particular agenda. If we select one path and go go go, we are bound to be successful. Selecting one path - me? I am a multi-tasker. I need to let some kites fly loose, else my kites will start cutting the other.

That will be end of destiny. Death would be one dream clashing into another, till you are left absolutely anxious and incurable.

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Direction

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 18:31:38 +0200

I don't where I will go. And maybe, today I don't want to waste my time in finding out.

I can easily just play with magnets, just deal which things, which have a direction and then expect myself to be goaded. Knowing where I am going will not take me there. It will just create illusions in my head which then break down my navaigation system. So maybe it is good to not know? Decide turn by turn.

Rain will drench me fully - I can give up friendships so easily, sometimes I feel it is not these friendsips were coincidences. HAving lunch with women, sharing their food spontaneously and having nothing to share. Why do I have no control on my food? Why do I have to rely on whatever she packs for me, sometimes? Feminism is a strange thing to beleive in, if you are a woman with a wavering mind. You tap into being the best of the women-in-partriarchy and the liberated-woman.

I misplaced time, I asked you a strange question. When I look at you, you cannot weasel out.

Sometimes when we are sitting together, I feel frustrated that our relationship has been reduced to gender-roles, food-gathering, hunting and finding children to rear. What had we talked about, when we had met? Why did we hook-up like long-lost lovers, appearing to talk in synonyms. I have no answers. You do not judge yourself, I feel that is a problem, you feel that is a previlige. I will meanwhile, drive me to misery constantly grading my CV, making bugle sounds, hiding away in the forest like a porqupine.

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Irrationality Is Closely Guarded

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 20:17:17 +0200

If you live in a growing city like Ahmedabad. And you quickly grow out of your friends. Make sure you live far away from everyone else. Make sure you meet noone regularly. Make sure friendship doesn't become routine, drab, a ritual.

If you live in some other city. You can decide. Music, midnight, love in a bottle, confusion, loan of a 50,000 rupees. None of these things let you slip into a state of blissful foretfullness. A street is wavering in my mind. Where is this? Meerut? Where?

Maybe that is why I avoid my relatives. I cannot accept a state of normalcy very easily. I push my perspective onto people. Unless they are those, of whom I do not think in the same context as myself. I think of myself, how?

A struggling, toungueless writer, a starving artist, an over-productive introvert? I think of myself as a fantast on hot wheels and vinegar. When I am in a super-critical mood? Don't mind me tonight, I am in one such mood : )

Well, more bitching. I am this. I am that. I can't. I can. What does it matter who I am when I shit my poetry into the gutter. Find a way to sell into the world or suffer extinction. Annihilation.

She said "don't write on the walls of your room. Sleep when you have nothing left to say." So I will sleep. When I wake - the sun will again shower chargin in my eyes. I will again remember the pile of work I must complete, before I can smile. Why do I take everything so seriously? I feel - the wind is not good for me to fly. I wear a frown on my face as if my digestion was apathetic to my needs. I will hide my face into the pillow - refuse to wake up, until I can manage to work and stop planning the next day, the next day arranging this meuseum of farting governers, trapped in mouse-traps.

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Belly Air

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:39:52 +0200

Clasped tight in my belly - a breath I was not prepared to exhale. Babies are honking the taxi-horns again. They want to come home, come home in a hurry.

Today around 1:50 / 2:00 p.m. I had a stomach-ache. I went out and stood in the balcony, I went downstairs, I fidgeted, I was restless. The earth was rising up from its somnambulation - every particle on the ground was remembering its thirst. Quite intense. And then, sitting across S. at my office, I commented - "It is going to rain today". The sky was overcast anyway. The light was soft and diffused.

It started raining around 2:10 p.m. andI felt, "PHEW".

My stomach muscles relaxed and I breathed deep, taking in as much of the fresh, moist air as I could.

Then it was time to take a break. Should one charge not-for-profits anythig. Sure, especially if you are a not-for-loss trying to piece your bare existence as a writer together.

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The Material of Accidents

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:56:07 +0200

Manju said, "Drive Carefully - humans are meant to be knocked down by trucks."

"Uh?"

"We are soft. Bone and cartilege. Trucks are iron."

"Horses are at least softer."

"They couldn't be mass-produced."

"Lets go back to horses."

It has been a lifetime ambition of mine to own a horse. To ride a horse, instead of the scooter. Sometimes, in delirioum it seems very funny - the way we ride around on steel scooters exhaling shit.

It makes me think - if humans were meant to be knocked down by trucks. Were horses kinder to our condition?

Don't know. The poor horses also hurt when they fell. They are more sympathetic.

"What turns you on?" It is who you are. I can stare at you, numb when you mention racing or working on a brochure for someone like Pramod Mahajan.

Like yesterday. I came back home in the evening and I was breathing in a fine, evenly paced manner. I was sitting in my living room staring at the TV. Happy. Relaxed. The sky was not falling over my head. I wasn't trying to win the war in my head, hunt in the forest, dance in the rain. No. Nothing. I was in the most reasonably sincere kind of silence. Silence in terms of motivation, fire. I had put on some good music and was singing at the top of my voice. "Hey, how does that sound?"

The curtains were drawn, there was no water at home. Yesterday I started the day with the news that the Ambanis had split the Reliance empire between them.

As a story element, I was last evening in the middle of a storm and a fever. I wasn't sure what I was closer to. I have so much work piling up, and I do not want to be a meaningless horse shitting in the same place. So I am pacing myself out.

Some friends, keep reminding me to reply to their mails and I keep procastinating. And then I write back and then they forget and then I forget and then we are all living in forgetfulness.

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Behind the "gender curtain"

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 04:48:42 +0200

My workplace has a strong feminist orientation, the organization takes a pronounced stand on gender equality. I was reading of the journals in the resorce center, I discovered a lot of traumatic things men do, destabalizining, enchroaching upon others, especially women.

Earlier I was quite confused and stiff about everything "feminist".

"The Journal on Gender Studies," (Publisher: Sage) had an article about how the public spaces in our cities are esentially sexist. She quoted someone who said that most women face sexual abuse and harrasment at home by people they meet often and know well. And yet they are bound and restricted to stay at home for "safety". The article talked about the class issues which exist in the degree of freedom which women can enjoy and the degree of freedom with which they can use the city's public space. It had a lot of other interesting points.

The male gaze is unsettling and decisive (in unwanted ways) for most women. It makes "self-consciousness" a part of womens' identity. In some ways I feel, for some women 'the gaze' decides what they wear, how they look because the 'gaze' gives away for men look for in women?

A lot of generalizations here. Will try to post the name of the author soon...

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title-52437

Mon, 20 Jun 2005 04:51:25 +0200

"But the reality of mobility in America is more complicated than the myth. As the gap between rich and poor has widened since 1970, the odds that a child born in poverty will climb to wealth -- or a rich child will fall into the middle class -- remain stuck. Despite the spread of affirmative action, the expansion of community colleges and the other social change designed to give people of all classes a shot at success, Americans are no more or less likely to rise above, or fall below, their parents' economic class than they were 35 years ago."

Friday, May 13, 2005, By David Wessel, The Wall Street Journal
Read it at LostRepublic

Somebody should let the world know this more clearly. The fantasy of what US is and what life there can do is quite grand. It doesn't just give thrust to the flow of immigrants who land up in US. It also guides the national policies and national aspirations of so many countries. It makes America seem like an example to follow and replicate.

The international funding agencies, and financial institutions enforce conditions, adherence to which literally Americanizes the situation. Is the game about - "moulding a world into a similar mistake so that there is no resistance left?"

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Fired By Imagination

Fri, 10 Jun 2005 19:39:33 +0200

Seeing a ghost movie and wondering - if it were possible that everything which had happended for the past five years was a myth, a dream. That I would open my eyes, after the pause and everything would have disappeared.

For example, I put in the CD of "Big Fish" in the CD-ROM drive and it drew a blank. The drive said the disk was empty. I play it on my laptop and lo it is another boring movie.

A To-do list of 25, can life ever be long enough?

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Between Shibaug and Khadia

Fri, 10 Jun 2005 18:53:06 +0200

I don't know how Shahibaug and Khadia are connected. How do I get from one place to the other.

The sky is tender, old friends meet me for newer reasons - shall I suspend judgements and transcripts? I cannot allow pests to lay eggs in my skin - populate my thoughts with needs which number my breaths till the next re-location. Everytime I re-locate I lose friends, I lose friends and I lose memories, I lose jokes which only they could make out, I losr rooms in which we met.

I think of my father and my brother, and I feel they are so charged as individuals, but drained as representatives of organizations and corporate efforts. Why do we do it. Create SuperPersonas which are beyond, grander, larger than us - potent with power and possibility, grinding our minds into nutshells to execute visions we ordain them with. SuperPersonas, Organizations, Companies breathe through minds of their own. Minds need things to think. Thoughts are humans. Humans are rare - soliquays are easy. SO bounce-bounce conversations begin in the mind and charge discharges easily to become a bet, a minor soccer game, a minor sportstar playing cricket.

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habitats of attrition

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 19:35:04 +0200

habitats of attrition.
be pleased - that life has
no meaning has a whole
she understands words
by the sounds they make.
she is insomniac ?
when she looks out the window,
into the sky,
she finds only friends.

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Facing A Forest

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 18:07:18 +0200

When I go down to Khadia - I am tracing a map in my mind. Khadia is the paper market of Ahmedabad. You go up Ellis Bridge, down Gandhi Road and you reach Khadia Char Rasta.

It is quit engaging - every other house seems worth presrving to me, every street corner has remarkably finely engraved buildings. I have funnily enough, not been around much in this part of Ahmedabad.

Waiting for my friend today - I was walking around in the balcony, reading books about how to play with children, appreciating the way they had worked on the simplified-but-relevant communications. Chetna's office is inside Dahyabhai's Haveli which has been renovated. It is absolutely beautiful. Their sitting room has mattresses all over the floor, with round cushions to rest on. While this is common - the reddish curtains, the marroon dari on the ground - gives a very sweet tint to the whole room. The room is quite high, the electric and interior fittings are at least a 60 years old.

I don't know if I will be a part of their team - but it was very intense being there. I had an interesting discussion with Anil Gajjar, who is the designer. We came up with a lot of ideas we could work on if I join.

Comments

Something Which Says Some Other Thing

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 17:18:15 +0200

Something which says some other thing - which doesn't need to mean anything. I was waiting in the office of an NGO all day - for my friend who is the co-director - to know if I am working with them or not.

She was out in a meeting. She came back to the office and went home ! She didn't even know I was around, I guess. Not a very bad day though.

Was reading their newsletters and books and reports. Was cranking up ideas, writing poetry. But I can brood only for so much time. Then it can get slow, insecure and unwelcome.

This ant-war movie is playing on the TV. I am getting the shivers. Its about heroic things! The movie is now over. I hald-done with my dinner.

Feeling less anxious.

The job-money-baby(child) connection is crazy ! How more short term can you get? Now I am getting relaxed. No words are pinning away in my forehead. Will take a break...

Comments

Leaving Home

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 18:32:03 +0200

Leaving home for the day - my shadow and breath lingers on. In my room there are walls which are blank - for no one else except me they have marks. Remnants of the I notes I stuck onto them and took off - these marks overlap and create a myth.

In my room the air as warm and dry and my hands searching for words to toss on to the screen, relaxes when I am not there, waits for me. My fingernails - all over the computer, talk to each other, they discover things I could not afford words for.

Setting up my table in some other room in this city - means the same thing. Breath expands to fill the space allowed to it.

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Walking Out

Mon, 06 Jun 2005 17:42:37 +0200

In the morning if you walk out of your home at 9:30 instead of 11:00 or 11:30, you're driving with all the people who go out to work.

If the roads don't go straight, go around everything on the way - you don't drive fast. If you can't drive fast your old car is just fine. If your old car is just fine - you can stop saving money and get your car converted to CNG.

Our new city's environmental decay has happened because unlike the curved, complex, crooked roads, which are part of our heritage - we have made long straight roads all over.

We have uprooted and cut off everything which has come in the way.

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Evening Opens

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 16:51:22 +0200

Evening opens and I am reading the morning newspaper in my mind. Why did Advani choose to sweet-mouth Jinnah and others in Pakistan. Basically why is it a big issue... because of the protest ? Isn't it an internal issue of the Sangh Parivar. I nover loved LKA, least of all for prodessing to hate J. or something like that. This doesn't break my heart.

The Hindustan Times is rumoured to make an entry into Ahmedabad in a year's time. Divya Bhaskar is slated to launch an English edition. More newspapers. Same news. Find new readers ! Find readers who will read multiple papers, every day - who don't have to go to office anyway...

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Conversation - I

Sat, 04 Jun 2005 19:25:17 +0200

repeat what her mother
said to you,
do not pretend you don't understand
what it means to stand apart
to stand outside
and whistle to the birds.
do not pretend
you never hurt -
though you wear
suits of armour borrowed from
knights unemployed,
knights unemployed.
each flower you put in your hair
will turn to ash
will turn to a curious shade
of yellow.

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Slow As A Story

Sat, 04 Jun 2005 19:16:39 +0200

slowly as a story
which will not repeat itself !
my drawers stuffed to their seams
the radio blaring on,
the time of departure
the way we will
hide all our masks
all our broken teeth
under the bed, she was tiny
as still wind trapped in a broken bottle,
she reminded me of when
I had nothing to say.

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Vastrapur Lake : a history

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 21:23:07 +0200

I am beginning to work on the history of Vastrapur Lake, Ahmedabad.

Vivek at CEE shared with me a map of Ahmedabad dated back to 1867 ! The map spells Vastrapur as Wastrapoor, shows clearly the two small lakes.

As far back as I can remember the lake was swamp, a mosquito-breeding-place for all the years before it was renovated by Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA).

From lakes to swamps to lakes !

The renovation seems to be really good. Vastrapur now has a clear skyline centrally and the lake has become quite a community-space thanks to the gardens developed around it and some care being taken to maintain them.

I would like to work on the directions in which the "Vastrapur Lake Area" has developed and how its personality and character have changed drastically in five years.

I have stayed in Vastrapur for these five years. From searching for houses in the dark - finding no one out at night to having pool tables all around to becoming a universe of restaurants, jewellery shops and cloth shops...

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Adopting A Way To Be

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 20:18:19 +0200

We are adopting a baby girl ! She will be home with us soon, maybe as soon as the 20th ? Maybe we will call her Brijbala.

A child will cry in our numb house. I am sure these walls will wake up, alive. The rain will be ferocious outside and somehow all that is liquid will start moving. All that is liquid, all that was liquid. Inside me. Forget games, remember insults. Thats the tendency of our difficult conversations. Sit on the mattress in the front room, my eye on the window - does it leak ? Does it leak and is the monsoon going to invade our privacy ?

Brijlata will remind me of music I imagined when my voice was young. Young infectious and uninfected. Then the sun used to look like ripe papaya. I used to kick pebbles to each sub-destination in my small walks.

I remember Vibhuti sometimes, she was quite decisively good - positive, well-behaved. She could dismiss any problem...

She would be amazed by the stars I had managed to screw into my lampshade. She is in Uttranchal today ? Chattisgarh ? Husband a policewallah ?

She was one idealist I have known. One committed do-gooder. I drifted away from her - searching for friends who could play with my shades of gray.

Our adopting Brijbala is becoming a big issue - dadi is opposed to it, papa is afraid it will add to his bills, ma is eager ? bhai is excited... a big family-circus all over again.

Comments

Money !

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 20:00:18 +0200

Growing up on my father's money. Has been an entirely frustrating experience. Its like wearing pyjamas, which are held by a cord which is visible and handy. Anyone can pull and strip you naked. Anywhere, anytime.

I guess I know what it feels like to be an entrepreneur and have a VC hammerring you all the time. "Show me the money."

To not be unfair, it is also like gambling with borrowed money, joyriding with loose cash pinched from someone's overcoat etc. etc.

Why, today after 23 years of having been his child am I thinking so much of this? Because today, again I am trying to see beyond the horizon. Do some small things for myself. And today I got a memo from him, reminding me of the money I owe him.

Protective love can be confusing, from being confused for possessive affection, to being confused for a malicious belittling game.

Freedom is the big thing, when you don't have it. When you have it, it is so easy to give away !

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When Will The Introduction Happen ?

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 17:08:20 +0200

Finding teeth to wear before my child's teeth start falling. How will my child know me, begin to recognize me ? What will I be to her ? She will think I am a complete person, at home in the world. When will she start sensing my incompleteness and inadequacy ? Ours will be a relationship which has no conditions ?

My wife can climb stairs, swing on ropes - twisted at the core, yodel ! I and my wife are bound contractually... love is in the season and in the margins, in the line-space. How can I sit here, in the sun and not be overwhelmed, perplexed, confused at the marathon which meaning and fulfillment have become.

If I dance on tiptoe, hop on one of my two feet - music will seem to disappear. I will tap on my drum, be immersed - then someone will knock the door.

At 23, I think I am slowly stepping into the daylight, not sure If I am allowed to be happy, carefree, convinced anymore. Everyone hisses professionaly. Life is becoming more dry, logical ? Each mystery is dissolving into a false story, false lead. A farce, a lie seeking liberty.

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