Bah!

There is no excuse for hypersensitive people, least of all for those who cannot control their emotions in the midst of a heated discussion. In short, there is absolutely no excuse for me.

This is what comes of a complete inability to accept my mistakes.

December 2007

This December, life brings me a Christmas Party, an Oracle Certification, a trip to France, a trip to Italy, and another New Year. In the flurry and bustle of the first four, it may happen that I have no time to acknowledge or salute the last and the most important- so dearest 2008, I hope that you will bring me

a) a continued sense of love, security and peace, which, now that I have them, seem indispensable.

b) some ambition, which I seem to have lost in a labyrinth of fun and laziness.

c) lots of powerful poems with which to conquer the world.

d) a Swiss trip for my family.

e) those couple of things that I've been hoping will happen, and I do not mean Cycle 2 of OneSource Conversion.

I have been thinking of a poem on a poem. So I think that I will proceed to write it now.

And if I'm not back here until next January, a very Happy New Year.

The Hungry Tide

Excerpts from The Hungry Tide, Amitav Ghosh

**

How do you lose a word? Does it vanish into your memory, like an old toy in a cupboard, and lie hidden in the cobwebs and dust, waiting to be cleaned out or rediscovered?

**

Look, I’m alive. On what? Neither childhood nor the future grows less…More being than I’ll ever need springs up in my heart.
- Rainer Maria Rilke, The Duino Elegies

**

Then we heard the settlers shouting a refrain, answering the questions they had themselves posed: 'Morichjhapi chharbona. We'll not leave Morichjhapi, do what you may.'

Standing on the deck of the bhotbhoti, I was struck by the beauty of this. Where else could you belong, except in the place you refused to leave.

**

Maybe what's left of us
is some tree on a hillside
we can look at day after day,
and the perverse affection of a habit
that liked us so much it never let go
- Rainer Maria Rilke, The Duino Elegies

**

Postscript: In the reading of a book, in the transfer of the self from the here to the imaginary, there is a skill that is rare. If I told you, I have this skill, I can disconnect from myself, like pulling a plug out of a socket, and connect into the electricity of this book, watch the tides, the Irawaddy Dolphin, the lines of Fokir's body, the tawny eyes of the Royal Bengal Tiger; if I told you this, you would not understand, you would not see it as a 'value add'. And is it a value add? Does it make me a better person to feel a book, to see it, instead of merely understanding it?

That is probably an irrelevant question. If more being than I'll ever need springs up in my heart, what is that to anyone else? They have their own beings to contend with.

I have constantly to remind myself that I am not unique by virtue of my experiences. Only by what I choose to make of them. Which is nothing much.

150 kmph

I think it is only the young who are romantically affected by speed, songs, and their various associations.

Only when you are still young, you feel the adrenaline rush when your car eats up the miles, and you are part of the little world that is listening to the same song, watching the same lights flash past.

Only when you are still young and rushing along in a car, you feel that you are rushing towards all that is still unachieved, all that is still desired, all that is still to come, to be, to touch your life and to shape it.

Only when you are still young, you can be Don Quixote in a car, and it is only the next day that you recognise all the windmills. Power, Glory and the cool version of Happiness.

Yo!

The Many Idiosyncrasies of my Husband- Part 1

Marriage is a continuous process of revelation and realisation. In the six months since I got married, I have discovered many things about the man I have married. For one, he rejoices in any humour deriving from the basic metabolic functions of the body. Give him a joke with enough, how shall I put it, 'pee and crap' in it, and the man is unable to contain his laughter. Mix with this a few references to certain parts of the anatomy, and he is well past the road to recovery.

For another, what he loves to do most every morning, or at least every Saturday and Sunday morning, is to rush to the kitchen, and start cutting onions, a suggestion of mania in every action. Now, any normal human being would get up, have a cup of tea or coffee, watch the morning news. But nothing like a good onion to start off the day for my husband. These onions will then suffice the entire day, for every curry that he makes, and if, in his enthusiasm, he has cut more than he needs, he will eat the onions himself, in watery, passionate joy. He mixes it with anything. I truly believe, if given a chance, he'd garnish his tea with it.

And for a third, and the last for today, he loves to go grocery shopping. Now that may seem like a harmless enough task, but if you saw the mad gleam in his eyes, as he weighs the benefits of one cauliflower against another, you would not be willing to belive in his harmlessness so easily. There is no greater joy for him than to arrive home laden with bags containing things of all descriptions (and what a day it is if he gets something free!!) and to stock our little fridge with it. That is an activity, no, that is an event. This extremely exacting work can be performed only by him, with all the skill and precision of a surgeon, and all the pomp and pageantry of Republic Day. A strict silence is observed by all the other parties in the house, in accordance with the solemnity of the spectacle.

Part 2 is tomorrow. Hold your breaths. We will talk about the Almighty Burp and other such astounding phenomena.

Frantic, Electric Stars

The streets of Zurich have gone Christmassy, a style which they adopt with the same carefulness as their youth adopt body piercing and kohl lined eyes. Everywhere there is cotton pretending to be snow and bare trees dripping electric stars. Everywhere, there are frantic packages, glittering ribbons, desperate glitz.

In Orell Fussli, books jostle with christmas crackers; the Body Shop offers Christmas fragrances (for a price, mind you!); and if your pockets are flush, there is no city that is more seductive, more insidiously entering your veins, more blatantly prosperous, more indulgently vibrant, then Zurich. See how the syllables dance on your lips like Christmas tree decorations. Zu-rich.

What is it to be young and have money? What is it to feel the music in the cold? What is it in the electricity of chance looks? What is it about bare arms in a new dress? What is it about sexy sandals and insinuating perfume?

Do you know? Have you felt it?

I'll tell you.

It's Zu-rich.

Lauterbrunnen and The Married Woman

For the past two days, I have been feeling that I would burst if I didn't write, a feeling that is as infrequent as it is transient. In any event, it is better if I do not believe in its transience, because it was once what I wanted to do as a full time profession, and it does not do to lose youthful passions with such ease, for such cheap substitutes. As for the infrequency, it is convenient to blame that on a world that demands so much of my time and mind, yet even I know that that is such a pathetic excuse, devoid of will, strength of character, and resilience, and these are all qualities that I admire in others.

As to what has brought about these strange flood of words, it is as usual, a book. A book, and the almost sacred beauty that has stormed into my vision. For all my contempt of Wordsworth and his ilk, it is true that there are things that are therapeutic and rejuvenating. Things like a natural abundance of good things to eat and drink; pure, cold air; waterfalls from mountains and fall colours. It is perhaps as fraudulent and momentary an inspiration as one can have, but nonetheless, it serves a sneaking purpose.

It was beyond bizarre to be reading a book about two Indian women (one called Pipeelika! Sanskrit for 'ant') finding love with each other, against the communal backdrop of Delhi, and against the patriarchal reality of (at least one of) their lives, in the train to Jungfrau (Top of Europe, no less!)

It was bizarre to read of the veling of references and the dilemma of sexual orientation and the trap of parenthood and the futility of fighting the jingoistic communalism that is today's India; to be transported, with a gaze, from the whiteness of majestic mountains in Switzerland to the orange of Kar Sevak banners, and then back again to the stupendous freedom of money, its comforts, and its endless permutations with security, love and happiness- that is not an easy thing to give voice to. That is not an easy means, because the end itself is hazy.

Or maybe there is no end. Maybe this is merely the indulgence of a writer in her only skill, merely an orgy of description that was waiting for a subject and the creation of context. Myabe, ultimately, all that I want to write so desperately is to tell of the beauty that I have seen, but being self indulgent, I msut make a hue and cry and write of emotional upheaval and cathartic chaos. Maybe, ultimately, all that I want to write is to say, yes, I identify with the India that I read about, and find my father in her father- and that brought an ache of longing so intense that I can only write of it, a singular nostalgia, an inrush of all the memories and all the love and all the uncomplicated things that I feel for my father. Maybe I only wanted to say to my father- You are a wise and compassionate man, and I love you, beyond these anaemic words- the knobs of your fingers and your bifocal spectacles and your slow, loving smile.

Maybe I just wanted to say to the country that I left behind- I am young and I wonder at this alien country's offerings. I marvel at its comforts, I revel in its beauty, its uncluttered, unfettered lifestyle, I am flattered by its courtesy and sometimes, I am led astray by these things to imagine that I could belong here. I just wanted to say to you- I love you. That there is no other country but you- in all your vast, multiplying, hurrying, tense, dark, colourful, horrifying and awe-inspiring scope. That any other place is a candle to your sun. That having known you, and loved you, you who are old and young and beautiful and brutal and wise and foolish- having loved you, I cannot love a passionless old man, be he ever so clever and successful. These are not the parameters by which passionate countries are measured.

Maybe I just wanted to tell my pen- The force that moves you is still not dead.

"The act of leaving is in the decision, not in the departure."
-A Married Woman, Manju Kapur.

Cry, The Beloved Country

"A beautiful novel, rich, firm and moving... its writing is so fresh, its projection of character so immediate and full, its events so compelling and its understanding so compassionate, that to read the book is to share intimately, even to the point of catharsis, in the grave human experience it treats." - New York Times

I bought this book on 4th September 2005, and it has, for some reason or the other, stayed unread until now. I know that I promised to write a review once I finished reading the book, but for many reasons, I now find that thought mildly presumptuous. This is not a book I am equipped, either intellectually or emotionally, to review. In some measure, I can write about it, try and pay some tribute to what this book has meant to me, for even though no comparisons can be made, Cry, The Beloved Country was as cathartic an experience as Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

Cry, The Beloved Country is a spiritual book, in that it believes in faith as therapeutic, in that it believes in forgiveness as cleansing and in that it believes in love as the only way to redemption. It strips words like 'brotherhood' and 'compassion' of their years of bloody hypocrisy, so that you see them for the beautiful words they once were, and the wonderful ideas that they stood for. It is unafraid to speak, to apportion blame, to give credit where it is due, to look at tragedy full in the face without flinching, yet without losing hope.

Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much.

Without losing hope. The loss of hope is worse even than the loss of faith. But to hope without knowing how or where or when that hope may be realised; to hope wihout reservation, with the certainty of the dawn, the sunrise, the tides; to hope that the limits of human reason and understanding, hide a secret that will ultimately emancipate; that is the secret goodness of this book, the key to its effectiveness, the reason for its relevance in a world where the human life itself has become irrelevant.

Yes, it is the dawn that has come. The titihoya wakes from sleep, and goes about its work of forlorn crying. The sun tips with light the mountains of Angeli and East Griqualand.The great valley of the Umzimkulu is still in darkness, but the light will come there. Ndotshemi is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.

Update

Out of all the things I swore to do here, I have only managed number 5. I think that says a lot about who I have become.

But 10 abdomen crunches is a good thing. In other news, I have read another Georgette Heyer, written a little something about Heyer and also written another poem. So my life in the past few days hasn't been altogether in vain.

Also, at the moment, I am sitting in office in a sari (for Ethnic Day) that took me an hour to wear in the morning and that I would change out of in a second, if I just had some regular clothes to change into! But it looks nice. *sigh* It feels nice to make lists, even if I don't do anything with them, so here's a to-read list:

1. Cry, The Beloved Country- Alan Paton (yes, still.)
2. A Clockwork Orange- Anthony Burgess
3. No Onions, Nor Garlic- Srividya Natarajan
4. The Great Roxhythe- Georgette Heyer
5. The Argumentative Indian- Amartya Sen

I think that's a nicely rounded off list, what?

Georgette Heyer or Why I Go Straight to the Dessert

"But that Cousin Joseph, ignoring the claims of George, and Laurence, and her beloved Julian, should have named Waldo Hawkridge as his heir was so intolerable that had she been of a nervous disposition she must have succumbed to Spasms when she had first heard the incredible news."

-The Nonesuch, Georgette Heyer

It's really very difficult to think of a reason for the pleasant, anticipatory flutterings I feel when I first embark on a Heyer. Heyer is many things, warm, funny, romantic, witty, tolerant, sophisticated, but none of these qualities has ever blinded me to the fact that her books are like dessert. Sweet, desirable, sinful, tempting and addictive. Too much of them is not wholesome, they cannot substitute for an actual meal, and they definitely do not have the moral stature that is attributed so often to, say, Cabbage.

However, cabbages are cabbages, and we are not here to speak of cabbages, worthy though they might be. We are here to speak of Ms. Heyer, to whose faults, as we have already established, I am not blind. Yet I cannot stop myself from reading her books. I am drawn to her books, pulled into them, and when they are over, I feel a sad sense of loss, as though I have lost something incredibly dear, an age, or an era, or an atmosphere, if you like, that was not simple or good, no, not at all, but glamorous and amorous and bare bosomed and wigged and booted and heeled and clocked and fobbed and patched and gowned and breeched.

Then maybe it's just a language thing, you say. The obsession of reading about such curious things as quizzing glasses and duels and mantuas and bonnets and spangled gowns and yellow pantaloons. Maybe I am simply grateful to her for teaching me the difference between a trot, a canter and a gallop; between a quadrille, a country dance and a waltz; between flippant, frivolous and frippery. I could go on and on, but it is not that only.

It is more than just a fancy I have taken to the Fancy. It is the freedom of the Duke who escapes his relations, and the revenge of the Duke who is reformed by his page, and the redemption of the selfish Marquis who discovered relatives he never knew he had, and the fun-loving young Viscount who finds love in his unsophisticated wife, long, long after he marries her. And the heroines! Best of all are the women, young,old, reserved, saucy, dignified, tomboys, whatever they might be, they're always funny, and always, in their inimitable Heyer ways, they are women- shrewish or maternal, innocent or worldly wise. And in all this are the strains of a warm, warm love, like an inviting fireplace or a perfect joke or all things light and sweet and lovely. Like mousse and souffle and cheesecake and icecream.

Or just a piece of fruitcake, warm from the oven.

Brand New blog

The trouble with blog surfing is that it makes me aware of how much is going on that I have no part in whatsoever. People are travelling, reading, writing, playing music, studying music, watching films, becoming junkies, creating new metaphors I wish I had thought of.

I know that this condition is not permanent, that I am now merely in a state of limbo, that I will soon (but reluctantly) break through this cocoon of inactivity and throw myself (with more enthusiasm than purpose) into a fuller life that involves reading, writing, studying, working and working out.

It may be that this is merely a friday morning feel-good-about-myself thing. So, to remind myself that I felt this good, and that feeling good does not necessarily make my existence a cliche, here's a list of things that I will do this week:

1. Read Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country.
2. Write a review once I read it.
3. Re-read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
4. Start with the Math Review section in THE TERRIBLE BOOK. (I was good at math. I can do this.)
5. Do ten abdomen crunches everyday.

Five things is do-able. Wish me luck.