Books, books, books!

Books that have influenced us - one of the most interesting threads doing the rounds on facebook. It was lovely to look through the many lists, and with the kind of obsessive love I have developed for reading and writing, I thought a Blog post would do it much more justice than just a status (I mean come on! Who isn't bored of the blue borders by now. At least a little.Whatever).
After much mulling over I think I have tracked down the main books that have influenced me.
Here goes my list :

'The Swiss Family Robinson' By Johann David Wyss
One of the first books that got me hooked to reading and travel and writing.

'And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos' By John Berger
You have to read it!

'Margot Fonteyn - A Life ' by Meredith Daneman.
I owe my affair with ballet to this book. I shall never get over it. Or her.

'Memoirs of a Geisha' By Arthur Golden
It taught me that reality can be beautiful and magical, just like a dream or an illusion. It is only our resistance to reality that makes it lose its spark.

'The Road to Damietta' by Scott O'Dell
Love!

'A Room of One's Own' By Virginia Woolf
It helped me think better. It helped me realize that you do not need to be grand and all over the place. Simplicity would do. It would do great! With both your thoughts and words.

'The Witch of Portobello' By Paulo Coelho.
Need I explain?

'Rebecca' By Daphne Du Maurier
and its sequel
'Mrs. De Winter' By Susan Hill
The best atmospheric novels I have ever read. And the use of language. My Lord! what use of language.

'The Book of Promethea' By Helene Cixous
Honesty can be as bare as bare can be, and still be beautiful. And comfortable.

'The Fountainhead' and 'We the Living' By Ayn Rand
What a brilliant mix of philosophy and creativity.

'On the Street Where You Live' By Mary Higgins Clark
Mystery and murder at its best;
and
'In Cold Blood' by Truman Capote
true accounts of a mass family murder told with such detachment that it makes you shiver.

'Uncle Tom's Cabin' by Harriet Beecher Stowe

'Sylvia Plath - Complete poetry Collection'
Writers can be 'trained' academically and still be natural and not esoteric. Her poems helped me get over this 'academia' mind block.

'His Nameless Love- Portraits of Russian Writers' Essays by various authors
Nothing like a hidden love story or an untold real life saga.

The (more) important reason that made me actually think deep about this post is that I am convinced more than ever that writing is where I belong. Weird happenings and coincidences ( There is an as yet un-revealed reason out there, I know, for there is no such thing as a coincidence in this universe) have revealed myself to me, and now I feel at ease. Nothing to prove, nothing to show off - just my good old books and this aged laptop which is nearing its last breaths, but still holds all my random scribbles patiently. And a candle to create 'the' writing atmosphere.
Now all I need to do, is stop writing so selfishly about myself and let myself dissolve. Into the minds and words of writers like the ones I have mentioned above, and allow my mind to breathe more. Grow more.
And stop trying to be emotional or clever. I don't mind a bit of rust and racket here and there though, but just enough.
And it doesn't seem like a new path, but something that has been taken out of the closet (no pun darlings, not yet).
Everything has gone, yet everything has actually arrived now. Everything is empty, yet nothing has felt fuller before.
So here I am, being (hopefully) me.
If words ever left me, I should cease.
Thank you, dear books, thank you for all the mirrors and the magic.

Much Love!

MID LIGHT - The Prologue

'One voice, hazy and distant yet lavish and pregnant like the last few awkward steps of a journey, sweeps fervently across the sand.

One voice, half-swallowed by the white within, smacks against the roof of the head, manages to trickle out feebly, rueful, and loses itself in the crammed up world.

 One voice, a grand pulse, pounds around bushes and mountain peaks and throbs amidst ripples and hurricanes, cuddled up on the throne of the heartbeat of the universe.

Fastened to the world by other peoples' prayers, a mere justification of their grand attachments,our life is probably not its own intention sometimes. It escapes the iron anchors that hold it in existence through three songs that voice three dimensions - an alternate voice that could have been; the present voice of silence that is, where the rain slides away as if always falling on slippery glass windows; and a parallel voice that should have been. '

'MID LIGHT - The prologue' explores these 3 dimensions of possibilities through poems and short stories.

Publishing it as part of my final MA Fine Art Show; come along to Chelsea college of Art and Design to buy a copy and leave your valuable comments.

Hope to see you all on the 5th of September! 

Ciao!

...

Everything is ruptured, in a very beautiful way.
Like dreams that have lingered for too long.
You know what I mean ?

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.