Premature Paranoia

It does not exist if I do not write about it.
It cannot kill me if I do not open the door.
The blood will not trickle out if the cut is sealed with a kiss. 
But the lips are burnt.
The skin might turn into red ash.
Keep away the rituals from me, I say!
Put me not on a funeral pyre;
please just bury me beneath the waves.
Or perhaps inside a casket of gold,
let my death know the shimmer of stupidity.
Too much of sanity is stifling my existence,
Bound in the chains of jabber and pretense.
Cut the chords, and let me float away.
Away from myself.
But look, there s a knock on the door.
Is it the sword of sorrow?
Is it the knife of grief?
Or is it an endless procession of pity hidden behind a mask of smiles?

- A prisoner of Existence

As I Trod Along

I have become obsessed with words, with writing. Any/every experience now gains its true worth only when it is trapped behind words. My diary pages are filling up faster, and so are my frustrations when words form in my mind and then disappear before I leash them on to a paper or a word doc.
Just like how a few days back, while waiting for the bus home, two elderly couple stood next to me chatting excitedly. One couple got into the bus with me, and the other started walking back (home?) on the pavement. The traffic was slow moving - we were caught behind a signal - so every time the bus moved forward and stopped, the couple walking outside would catch up and wave at their friends inside. This happened several times, and I was witness to this gleeful exchange between them. Had the four of them been childhood friends? Had they gone to high school together ? Had they met later on in life ? Or were they very recently acquainted and were probably taking leave after a first evening of bonding ? oh who cares, for those moments of waving and laughing, and then pointing and exclaiming 'oh look! its them' and waving again was so beautifully childish and childishly beautiful that neither the past nor the future mattered. I caught those moments and have recreated them here in words. But my authority over them ends here, for God knows how many people will read it, and how many different imaginative visuals will appear into their mind's existence. I am not only recreating the experience, but also creating similar experiences for others.
Well :)
But more than this affair with words the thing that is making me extremely happy as I make love with life here in London, is the current weather. Not the weather per-se, to be honest, but the fact that I can wear all my lovely tube tops and shorts and dresses without smothering them with thermals inside and then band-aiding them with sweaters and jackets on top, finishing off with a nice little scarf or shawl, like a flower laid on top of a gloomy grave. Oh my!
(Actually, I think my affair with words is stronger).
Another happy thing is that for a change I have not felt that time has flown by. I can still savor the first days/weeks, and have memories of almost every single month.
Also, the best thing about travelling alone - you end up in a place where no one knows you, and your sub-conscious mind is somehow freed of the fear of being judged. And compared to your own past self.
Especially as an artist. Like how people in Bangalore were surprised I was spending so much time and money on Ballet when I was already doing Bharathanatyam full time from so many years (duh). Or some strange thing like that. And since no one here knew what I had been doing all this while, no one actually could tell me if what I was doing now was right or wrong or if it would lead me somewhere and blah blah blah. And now when I actually think back on everything that I've done in the first term at uni, I am surprised myself at how, unknowingly, I have been exploring many different paths which I never would have otherwise. Does it have to 'lead' somewhere? Isn't Art for Art's sake enough ?
What exactly does 'get serious' mean ?
The self, and the artist self, is always in a flux, always in a state of changing and evolving and dissolving. Though there are as many boxes in my brain as there are in a rubric cube, they are all somehow connected.
London hasn't changed me, or helped me grow, or any other weirdly sentimental thing like that - it has just let me breathe. (That was weirdly sentimental as well). All those long train journeys to the countryside, exploring the rain sodden city streets on Saturday afternoons, flying into a different dimension in that glorious place called the library, escaping to Covent garden and browsing through the markets umpteen times - all this, very simply put, have just let me breath. It was more about 'being' me than 'finding' me. Of course, a couple of years down the line I am sure to discover some other seeds that have been sown now, and would have then blossomed and matured.
What I find very amusing in this city is the co-existence of past and present. Like in a time warp where clocks have melted away inspired by Dali's painting. It puts me in a very incomprehensible state when I gaze at the old old monuments and houses looming, nonthreatening, in the background of a very mechanical hubbub.
Wait what exactly did I start to write off with ?
Ah yes. I don't know. A lot of stuff probably.
Frankly, I am not sure what to write. Its been nine months since I left home to find my place in the world. A lot of smiles, lots of tears, lots of joy and lots of memories to sum it up.
But apart from that, all I can write about are those moments, those simple, beautiful moments that catch you unaware as you trod along.
To finish with, the rain spoke to me again today. In a very wonderful language. As I sat in the library morosely, finding nothing that could stir my mind or heart or senses, I had decided that the dryness of summer had seeped in. And then, the skies opened and it poured. And poured. There was lightening. And grave thunder. And as I walked to the bus stop in a very amused state, I drank in everything that this seemingly dull day now offered - The washed blue sky, the reflection of the fresh green spring on the puddles, the almost empty streets with few souls strutting around with umbrellas, and the kiss of the last trickle of rain as you brush past bushes and shrubs bordering the pavement - all captured in my heart (and my camera).

I don't know where this life is going to lead. Where these words are planning their next navigation and where the maps are being drawn.
For now, its just the rain.
Ah no.
The sun is out.
Again.

Moonlight for Supper

Looking in/Looking out.
Breathing in/Bursting out.
The sun might go down in the west, but rises up later in the Northern city in my dreams. I hold it and squish its sticky juice of light. All I want is chunks of moonlight to eat.
Supper has to be sweet, you see.
Because moonlight does not demand hunger, require an appetite; moonlight does not promise satisfaction.
It simply stays on the tongue like a paper boat on a puddle and then dissolves into anonymity.
Like a drop of white blood.
Oh shame be upon my judgement!;
Is it nothing but sunlight in a subtle disguise ?

Mamma Will Never Know

Little Margot had traveled out of the womb of time.
She was displaced. Misplaced. Unplaced.
From the verge of the cliff of ice, she had managed to float.
Above existence.
Above herself.
She had crawled out of the womb of space.
Her sorrows and joys had married each other, and she pitied the anonymous state that was left behind.
How ruthless it seemed to live without a name!.
Trees were neither blank nor green.
It was neither dark nor light.
Neither Margot, nor not Margot.
Where was she?
Who was she?
What was she?
Some relations melted and some froze; and she really couldn't tell which ones she preferred more.
Letting go is not always a sign of strength.
Holding on and on is not always a sign of weakness.
As she had realised, we are all children of circumstances.
Lo! What she had been holding on to did not make sense to her when she was asleep, but was truer than her own existence when her eyelids arose.
Because it went beyond to a meadow strewn with grey violets.
Violets who had managed to trap their tears and give fragrance a chance.
Mamma will never know that her daughter was probably half insane.
Mamma will never know that flying not only gave her daughter wings but also cut off her threads of blood.
Mamma will never know, or probably never understand, that her daughter had lost her own self, had flown up to the kingdom of thunder and lightening, and was happily prancing around in the lashing rain of night.
Little Margot now slept under the waves of sand.
Mamma will never know.

Amanda echoes everywhere

This is a tough post to write.

Bullying at school and at college exists at different levels, for different reasons, everywhere around the world. Having been a victim myself at college (for a completely different reason and a completely different manner than the one shown in the video below though), it is very easy for me to relate to the fear of fear, and the fear of not belonging. Of feeling like an outcast.
At 25/26 we are quite mature; but how do we handle it at 15/16 ? When I look back I see a total blank, for along the years I have found a way to numb the pain and even ridicule it. But when I try to imagine a 16 year old me back in that situation where no one talked or no one sat next to you, it makes me cringe and wonder why I was silent about it. It is easy for me to say that now, but that 16 year old still just shakes her head and cries silently - she had always thought it was her fault, she was not worthy of love, and that what was happening was what she deserved.

I wonder how many more 16 year olds are going through this for whatever reasons and how many 16 year olds are buried inside 20's and 30's and 40's.

Is it possible to ever empty yourself of your earliest experiences? To see with fresh eyes?

Last fall I attended a 'Beat Bullying' Training workshop and was taught the various ways I could handle a situation if a young person were to show signs of being bullied or being depressed.
I SO wish I knew these simple things back then. Unfortunately I could not follow the workshop and become an online counselor because of my college schedules, but it certainly opened my eyes as to how much going on is actually all hidden. And so much of it is unbelievable, the newest being Cyber bullying. In fact even 10 and 12 year-olds have massive depression problems and suicidal tendencies.
Who is to blame?
The new 'generation'? The 'modern' culture and upbringing? The 'too early loss of innocence' age of technology ? The whole system ? Parents ? The educational systems ?
Is there any one answer or any answer at all?
Not new stuff really; but every time you come upon an incident it shakes you up and wakes you up again, no matter for however brief a time.

Reasons don't matter, whose fault it is doesn't matter, what matters is that a young person's vulnerability is taken for granted and misused against them. It doesn't matter who misuses it - for family, friends, the society-  everything matters in shaping an individual and break a cord with even one of them, and you have a person scarred and cut. It doesn't matter for what reason as well, for you cant really compare people's experiences and say 'They have gone through so much more! you should learn to cope up!' - Because that is perhaps the most insensitive thing to say; for peoples reactions to pain are different and of varying intensities.
Some cope, some seek help, some just give up.
Some do not realize they need help until it is too late.
Some just cant fight anymore because it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I will not give judgmental remarks about Amanda and about her particular situation here, but will definitely say that talking about the bad uses of the net and the lost innocence of the present youth is all just crap talk. If only we all can keep our common sense intact.

 P.S - If you see a child or a young person, just smile. Those years are supposed to remain as smiles, not as scars.
One smile of yours could build a child's life; you never know when and how.
And wherever, whenever possible, sensitize kids against bullying.
Please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOHXGNx-E7E

Notes on a young summer day

I have begun to dislike sunshine.
So audocious, Pricking the eyes like silver thorns.
Drying up the oasis in the heart.
Winter is where I belong, below the frozen sky that looms majestic like a cube of ice.
Huddled up in the blanket of chilly winds.
Breathing in the blue tinged breeze.
Savouring the warmth of a hearty drizzle.
I do not want the illusion of color that springs out when you hold a glass to the light.
I want the blandness, the unabashed void that need not justify.
The cold that is not shackled up in acts of sympathy that would make me cringe.
The absoluteness of Nature's dream - saturated siesta.
The whiteness of her heart and the blue waves of her soul.
I want to drink in the origin of all birth.
I want to lie down in the death that is born before birth.
I want to freeze.

Liberate Liberation :)

Of course. Gay marriage was declared illegal in India.
But there was something else that annoyed me (and entertained me as well!) as I sat miles away and read the barrage of status updates and comments on social networking sites and the way they were expressed.

Most read like this :
' Gay sex illegal'
'homo'sexuality'  is banned
blah blah blah
Why is there this misconception that the 'homosexuals' are just possessed of animal instincts devoid of any emotional quotient or intelligence? What about the character or personality of that human ? why cant it be just plain 'love' or 'marriage' or whatever, without the tags of 'straight' or 'gay' or blah blah? cant we get rid of all these labels and definitions completely? Doesn't the segregation and exclusion start with naming/labeling something and deeming it different ?

Second. Many enthusiastic declarations read like this :
I am NOT gay, but...'
'Well I am NOT like you, but...'
Note the emphatic emphasis on proving oneself NOT gay. If they were, or even mistaken to be so, would it be such a cause for guilt or shame ?
It is considered ok to make fun and create 'cliched' gay characters on tv/film/media to make us laugh, but if you have genuine feelings for someone and care about them, then oh Lord save you, my child!

Third. This sounds too far fetched even as I write it down; but I do not understand the whole point of 'protesting' or 'fighting' for freedom or rights, be it women' rights or racial/cultural rights or gay rights or whatever. Doesn't it kind of imply that we have in whatever way agreed to have our freedom snatched, have ourselves shackled up, realized its not a good place to be in, and are now fighting for it?
But of course, we live in a world where we have political systems that makes rules/regulations/prohibitions and so we have no choice but to fight away what stands against us.

Why fight?
Why justify?
Why be ashamed?

Maybe its not just the law that has to change.....