Saving me with a book

Dear Natalie Goldberg,


I will never forget how I met you at that cramped Cyber Cafe in Aligang, near the Gulacheen Temple in that graceful city of Lucknow where I lived when I was 16. There shuttling on the internet between online romances, smart quotes, and Post graduate courses( to find a respectable career) I found that online version of Writing Down the Bones. I lived with it many days before I felt a sense that couldn't live without a Hard Copy of that stuff(It really was like dope!). It became my Bible and you became the woman who walked in front of me telling me just how real women walked.


There were so few ideals then for a girl of my size growing up in a city without any considerable distractions of male attention. I held on to you like nothing else would save me. And nothing else did. Not the degrees I took. Not the heady work I did. Nor the Company of Television Heroes I was so enamored by. Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai, Sankarshan Thakur, Tarun Tejpal. All of them have lost that slickness in life.Why even real people that I fell in love with did nothing to save me. They all crumbled right in front of my eyes.


In the agony of stony places. In the glint of adoring eyes. In the ennui that lasted and costed me a considerable amount of life...You stayed in my bones. Keeping me strong. I always knew something was gonna grow from it. This writing practice that got into my blood stream gave me the ceremony to mourn my losses. The color to paint blazing colors from the sallow tastes on my tongue. The rhythm that played in my ribs when there were no dances I was dying for. 

Katagiri Roshi The teacher who taught you to watch your monkey mind came to me through you Natalie. I know that man, his straight back, his coldness and wisdom and his smile. I met him on a lot of your pages. I am afraid I fell in love with him too. And I realized how he was just supposed to be a teacher and not a alive presence. I never knew his smell though.( And I know why you kept it from me!) I know all the hamburgers you ate and all the houses you lived in. Your father and your Mom. Your sister and your car. Your divorce too. How did you transcend so many blocks of distance/age/country/culture to hold my attention( AND REVERENCE!!!!) for such a long period of time. Surely you too will pass from my life, wont you?


When I read you I feel I have a life that can be made something of too. You had fallen where I had fallen and you got up looking respectable. I too would. There were no children who had made your existence more profound than mine. There was no soul mate you had met and I had missed out on meeting because of my dumbness. There was no  home where people waited for you, there were no friends which you had which were warmer than mine. We are so same same. Teacher Guru. Mad Women Mad women. Mad women making sense of the nonsense!


You live so far away in Santa Fe in New Mexico. I dont even know where it is! How much does it cost to reach there? How much to just deliver a parcel? Would you mind if I land up outside your door one day? I'll get purple flowers. Just to mark my gratitude. And when those flowers sit on your writing desk..Will you know what you have given to me?

Love and Gratitude
Pearl

PS- I am so proud of myself I haven't married the fly! :)

Learning to lech at women.

I started this learning in a very cross state. I had to give up believing that women were also human beings (like children and men) Its a learning that happened because of an accident that paralyzed me for roughly three years. I was on bed with plasters and I could only see the world through another pair of eyes.(a particular man's eyes) I don't know if I am grateful for this learning. It has given me shameless eyes that zoom into a extreme close up as soon as a woman comes in the visibility range. A lot of my friends tell me that they get embarrassed by this leching. I try to explain that I am not leching for myself. I do it to perfect my understanding of the Maletric system of judging women.

So this man I learned from looked at women everywhere and kept imparting his judgments(maletric offcourse!). At traffic lights, in the plane aisles, at the hotel lobbies, in his office, in his veranda, in the studio. I dont know if the women who passed his examinations did better in life than the ones who flunked it completly. I however know that he was nicer to the ones who scored high on this mailtric system! He gave them better chances, praised them more often and yes he engaged with the hi scorers.I don't know if I failed or passed. I have had to work terribly hard to get over my preoccupation of scoring at (his/our) this test. Every point that I losed broke my heart. And offcourse I lost more points than I could have let go off!

I write this because I dont much like the way I look at women these days. I want to go back to the times when pretty women were just pretty women and not a pair of boobs competing against another!The old way of seeing them was so much more comfortable.But this judging is a trait that came from my old company. It kind of started gaining presence in me. After all it was a well defined universal system of measuring desirability of women.Besides it was goddamn empowering to just look at the boobs and never have to hear and engage with these other human beings!

So I started by copying that Stare ## Scanning 123........Too old*. Too Fat* Big boobs* small boobs* oh wow boobs* Great body* Dumb Fuck* Easy fuck* Rich bitch* Smart Bitch* Sweet girl* Powerful bitch*  Put her in a sack and hand it to me bitch*. Sweet talk kind*  Sad kind*  Eager kind*  Enthusiastic type* Married* Divorced*  With kids* deserves attension*  Ignore*  Vulnerable* Needy* Desperate!* Beautiful*  Ugly* Looked pretteir when she was slimmer*

It seeped into one. Offcourse women werent exactly human beings(They had two dangling boobs, legs and eyes and lips!) The whole (male) Universe had these gradings.The 'Maletrick system'. So the first rule was to figure out women. It wasnt an easy thing to learn. One flinched. A human being of whatever age was being sliced into a woman(boobs legs eyes and lips) And their stories always began with their boobs.(or whatever else flashed first in front of those eyes. mostly it was boobs)

So I remeber the first time those eyes grew warm at a yellow nylon shirt clad dumb bengali chic(yes there are! such ones too!) My eyes saw a being fumbling for words,with no hold on the language,  making silly arguments, pouting too much at lips and chest. Then the alter eyes took over- Great figure, 5feet 6 inches tall. Maroon lipstick. cheap hire. Interseting! Get her on.

That dusky thin girl with a dour smile. The alter eyes saw nothing. Drooping boobs, too much reticence, too much intelligence! Sorry we are closed!

The pretty girl with crooked teeth who smiled everytime she didnt catch sense? Yeah! The alter eyes remeber her. She wore nice transparent white tops and smiled coyly everytime looked at. Now that is innocence!

That intelligent girl with braces?( Hmm nice but you see wouldnt think of kissing her right so 5 marks down!)

That hardworking woman who stayed up the nights with an ill child? (It didnt exactly add to her ageing skin or make her a pleasant presence no?)

The whorish tall one who smelled of hairdye all the time?(Well she was good to sit beside on the sofa you know but she spoke so much that she could have nibbled away one's ear!)

The big boobed dumb one.( Big boobs can get tiring beyond a point!)

So I got on the same page with that man. I have his eyes in me now! It destroyed my eyesight. I wear big glasses now. I have  learnt forever the language of grading women. It has left me with a very low opinion of myself( there are always more luscious boobs and pouting lips walking around on longer legs!) But I can do it to other women, what those eyes did to me!

Dancing with Men

I grew up on the romance of Himalayas with Ruskin Bond. He took me to the Graveyards of the Raj and taught me to smell the marigolds and the sweet peas in my garden. Over endless cups of tea we discussed the love of a writing life. I couldn’t have thought of becoming anything else but a writer, I loved this man so much. Even now when it rains and I smell the mud I take out the leaves from those old love books. The Room on the roof will always be the first room of a boy that I entered. Rusty was the first one who put flowers in my hair and smiled at what a tomboy I was.
Then I grew mad stubborn and wily and Rusty slowly faded away.

I was sandwiched in a crowd of sweaty men in a local bus to Badarpur border when I first met Saint German Exupery. I couldnt have known then that this little man of his book would make me fall head over heels over him. This French pilot lived centuries before me and yet he broke my heart with his most enamouring heartbreaking tale 'The Little Prince'. I sat and wept in the bus. Oh of the misery growing up and parting with loved ones. Of loving little roses with thorns around them, of leaving behind the pretty face of one's rosebush! Only a real man made in the same earth as mine could have understood the cruelty of having the little kid inside us hurt. He showed me how his inner landscape looked after he had cried too much and I remebered the times when I had grown numb from too much crying too.I saw the little loving parts within him withering away as he struggled in the hostile sands where no flowers grew. His love was simple with no unnecessary complications here. I could have lived forever with you Saint German Exupery if only you had disappeared to another planet leaving me with just two of your books.

Then one day I saw Thich Nhat Hanh walking in a red robe and I liked his colour so much that I started walking along..He smiled at me and told me the heart sutra and I became loose as the wind started flying, hugging the trees in this madness of discovering the most valuable power of dissolving and embracing all life. My ears became my hands and my hands turned into my nose and my grandfathers hands and my father’s hands all wrapped my heart with warmth . He sat me down and I felt the earth that held me and the sun that would never fade away no matter what. We ate Tangerines together, slowly mindfully in the present moment. All the pain vanished. All because I smiled at him and he smiled back till all eternity lasted.

Photo Courtesy- Abbas Shamael Rizvi

Sand Wind and Stars~

Dear Dadaji,

When I look at your picture I am amazed at how many parts of you have left around us like the sand wind and the stars. Your hands that live in Papa’s hands, Your gentle presence that Papa exudes just the way you did, sitting hours in the winter sun.

I don’t remember your passing away bringing up any sadness in my 5 year old heart.  The stench of urine that coming from your room cut me off from you. I was so scared to enter then. You were growing old and I was growing young. I was getting the power to make choices to be with people or to avoid them. I would avoid you for days and days when you would call for me. I felt I could altogether avoid the unnecessary involvement with death disease and decay (Although not so consciously!) Sometimes when I could muster enough good sense to enter your room which had Papa’s tools hanging on the walls you would lovingly tell me broken stories. Some stories that I already remembered, some I recognized to be warped some completely drones of your sound breaking.

On clear days you would come out of your room and take a walk. And I remember your lively long stepped walk. You were such a tall man. It was difficult to think that someone so well formed could be falling apart in body.

Its strange I never saw you intensly alive. You were always my old dadaji to me. The most electric I have seen you were in your stories of travels across the world. Your days of fighting the world war in Hungary where you got lice in your hair. Your hundred stories of Raja Ram Chandra of Ayodhya who had a dutiful wife. The stories of your illiterate brothers and  your bringing them to civilization and farming in the terai of Nanital. I still read your books kept in the dingy store room in Bareilly now. Although I find it hard to imagine that you read them too. I still remember your shiny white strong teeth. They lasted you more than mine will! I remember that Tall lanky figure with a flowing white beard and didn’t quite know what kind of a man you would have made for woman around you. But I know the man you were in your bones and blood. I carry you inside me like the sand wind and stars.

Love

Seetal

Be my Calender Boy Mr Kingfisher!

Dear Mr Mallya,

As I stare uncomfortably at the Kingfisher calenders protruding out of nooks of the worktables of offices,I feel a tweaking tinge of irritation threatening to blow up into anger! Scantily dressed Barbie dollish women twining around a creepers, bathing in scanty waterfalls. All women beautifully shortchanged in this whole process(the ones being parading in the calenders,ones who start aspiring to be in these calenders, the ones who will never make it to these calenders(not to be forgetting the ones who write pieces such as on 'the calender')

This heady sense of exclusivity that money can offer, The cameras transforming
penis's into lens! the models exclusive pedigree like some sort of hybrid horses/or bitches. Your Big Idea of harnessing these natural resources in a calender!( boobs bellies and and legs of of pretty young nubile women) Everybody loves these calenders I am told so whats my problem with this kind of exclusive high art? My problem Mr Kingfisher is that I think It is a bad show! And i hate it when it gets plastered around the walls! Why should I be forced to indulge your fantasies(or of those who aspire to be like you?!)?

I am not impressed at all! Why should your constipated art take the place of honour in my terrain? Why should my opinion be held any lesser value than yours? I am the customer king Mr King of goodtimes! I buy your beer, fly your airline,and watch your channel!

My calenders ought to have a certain standard! I don't want these neo'rich babes crowding my breathing space. I like Royalty! I think you would make a very interesting calender boy! That royal ruddy shining on your skin(like burnishing gold! literally!!!) I even think if you were to bare your belly on an exotic location my fantasies may spiral up till the sky! Your smile is so sexy too. I want to see you smile at me on my table top. And those layers of flab on your shoulders never matter to anyone, they are soo big with power. Let me see you stretch for me till the two ends of the horizon just like your property. I soo like you rich stinking money body odor man! Why cant you dance naked on the beach for me(and for those other women who pay for your beer in their hard earned cash!) Lets carve out fair terms of service now! Give me a fair worth for what I pay! Dance naked for me old man I(we) will bathe you in money too, and I dont mind real life blemishes and old age!


Looking forward to some good times

(Not on your calender) woman

My favorite hell

"In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry."

Hungry desolate ghosts walked on it night and day...they had little memories of the the period of abundance. They just remebered their hungers and kept weeping and crying for want of things. Their hungers and broken dreams were the only real things in their lives. No one could have blamed them for their small crying selves.

Then their were the tall giants who walked on that road.

Ben Okri- The Famished Road

Invoking Brahma

The lord divine. With 100 heads...Creator!
How do you create?
Does the resistance of the earth not slow your wheel?
Does the suffering that comes in creation not bow you down?
The cold unwilling atoms of creation ...how do you thaw them?
The hundred other things crying for attention not distract you?
Does the infinite hunger of already created existence not weight down your hands?
Do you create because that's the only thing you know?
Do you create with joy?
Do you create with pressure?
Do you create the unwilling creation too? HOW?
Do you create out of a womb?
Do you complete creation?
Do you create with passion or compassion?
Do you create for happiness?
Will you come into me and create my life too?


photo courtesy - Sushmit Ghosh@http://mentalsyrup.wordpress.com/

Burning away the darkness

Do you know the name of the village where my grandmother lived?
The name of my grandfather scribbled over the iron box,along with his designation. The family that my runaway aunt married into!
The hospital I was born in..
How old was I when my younger sister was born?
What did I feel when I first took her in my arms..
If I have ever seen a baby prettier then her?
How I learnt to be responsible for her one fine day.
The story behind my and my sister's name.
The first thing my dad asked for after he had a freak accident!
What age was my dad when he discovered that he was a diabetic?
What was that one song that he and I keep listening to?
How am I like/unlike him?
Have you ever thought of burning away the darkness of this world by knowing the essential few things of your or my life?

Be very scared of me!

I have nothing to loose except my dreams!

Keeping out the flames?

I am the flame of the forest blooming in your garden now...how can you not look at me!
I am the little chuckle of laughter swirling to awaken you in the mornings, dont pretend you havent gotten up!
Its me the thunder knocking outside your window..you cant not hear me!
I am the fire you are keeping out of you life by this slowburn between your fingers, Drop it now!
I am rain..and I am not going to spain...and you have to see my face again and again.
Stop thinking you can ignore me!~

In Elephant Soup!

When you are in elephant soup floating could be an issue. In fact everything is an issue…you have crossed such boundaries that it would be hard to keep any measurements in place.
Measurements of Of love of freedom of power. Of lust and hunger. Of asceticism and of abundance…of lack and plenty. All the words mingle into complete nonsense and you are left churning this thick bloody soup.

You cant remember what gravity felt like. And you can’t remember standing up straight…anyways you don’t want to do it now.
The soup smells nice and you are Hungry too…that’s why you landed in it didn’t you? But you don’t know here what’s going to happen if you gulp in one mouthful…well a sip you did take in and you remembered heaven that day. And Since then you have been dazed…
When do you get to drink the soup?
Who is the poor elephant who got slaughtered for this?
Is this the whole of it or are there others like you sitting inside tubs filled with elephant soup?
Did your hunger warrant this? Have you made peace with your hunger?
Is it good for the elephants? Do you think elephants would like to have elephant soup in their breakfast?
What are you worrying about? Don’t bother…just keep yourself floating in it till the time you can gulp this elephant soup! You have been really hungry…forget the elephant….have the soup!

Radhe Radhe

I'll make a film.
About Radha of Vrindavan...I dont know when..I dont know with whom..but someday!
It will be a good film..Its been brewing in my blood for sometime.It would go out in the world and speaks to everyone.It will be a film I would want to see.

I fear for the truth!

When my truth becomes so overpowering that it starts piercing into my veins
when I get up at night with clenched fists...holding the promise of my truth in my hand..it draws blood in my nails....its difficult to go back to sleep at nights these days...
Is it truth or is it madness that is growing within me?
I am helplessly blind as i stare into it to find out...
I have no way of finding out
There are growing shouts of slogans inside me...they shout louder everyday...does anybody else hear it too? Am I the only one who is supposed to be awakened by it...
This rowdy truth..this unflincing state of things within me...
What about the the larger world?
What if its just a pink bubble of stupidity....just a lot of my own shit smoking profound suddenly...and I a poor servant at...must carry it out...because it has fallen on my head..because its grown in my stomach..nurtured on my hopes and desires.
Its looks so precious...
What if it isnt the larger truth?
And I will forever fight everything that tries to break this dream...
The largest truth, the gods truth, the human truth...every logic, every rule, every single thorn on its way...
Its the truth of my dream.
Every thorn in its way pierces me like a dagger...every silly thorn becomes like a tank pointing at me...ready to shred me to pieces...because I have a truth growing in my belly.
and I fear for every truth of this world.

There has been a change of plan

is there ever a plan?!

Cutting Through it!

I (think) i am getting over adding I think to my every sentence...
somethimes i dont think,things just ARE!