Life, this endless conversation with yourself
Silent in sanity, audible--
In madness.
Zohra Sehegal, The Telegraph, 2004
Silent in sanity, audible--
In madness.
Zohra Sehegal, The Telegraph, 2004
Showing posts with label spoken words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spoken words. Show all posts
02/04/2014
20/03/2014
28/11/2012
thoughts on waiting
My mother hasn’t travelled much around the city. She’s lived with people who have, she’s often waited for them to come back home. She was born and raised in Dehradun, which used to be a sleepy little town in the north, known for its schools and ‘British’ weather.
When she came to Bombay, it was her first time in a big city after a brief stay in Lucknow with her husband’s parents. She has never been the kind of person who gets excited or disheartened quickly, but she remembers her initial shock at the scale of the city. “Everything was so big.”
In some ways I can relate to this. Having grown up in IIT, where everything is either quiet or a 10 minute walk, going to Sophia was like stepping out of a town into the rushes of a city, with all its constant hammer and din, and big, wide roads which actually looked scrawny and challenged, and people milling in and out of impossibly tight places. (I realized later that not all of Bombay is like this. But bear with my stereotype for now.)
She didn’t encounter Bombay first-hand much. She went out perhaps once in a month or two, always accompanied, and listened to the city that my aunt (then a class 12 student) experienced with her friends. Sometimes she couldn’t shake off her fears when my aunt would go off for a late night film with her friends, and come back home alone at 10 pm. Her husband would tell her it was normal, and although she felt patronised, she didn’t swallow her ‘small town’ fears until her kid sister came back safely every night.
Her arguments with her daughter over coming back late at home were usually about not being informed. That didn’t mean I could come home whenever I wanted: the rule was very clear—be back before it gets dark. In comparison to some of my friends, I felt like she was from the Dark Ages. But I flouted the rule quite a lot, and when I did, it was the fact that I didn’t inform her in advance - and not really my unpuncutuality - that took her anger over the edge.
In retrospect, I knew that informing her in advance meant saving her the humiliation of waiting in vain for someone who was already lunching outside, while lunch at home was wearily put away in the fridge. Informing her in advance would have meant that discussions on the extension of my deadline would progress somewhere, instead of resulting in passive-aggressive displays and loud, hurtful words scarring confidences of the past.
What does it mean to be the person who is left behind? What does it mean to wait for someone’s arrival? Does their arrival make your life complete? Not really. But to not be aware of the delicately excruciating wait for someone, the denial of fears for as long as possible, to not consider this when you have stepped out of the house and you know it’s getting late, that is to tread on someone’s heart. Some of us wait for our daughters, sons, to come back home. Some of us wait for our old, successful selves to return and turn around our mundane lives. Some of us wait for a lover to leave, gradually yet inevitably. Some of us wait for a sign, an indication that things have changed.
Ads for missing people always catch my attention. The awkward bits and pieces of Marathi that I know arrange themselves swiftly when I read a missing person’s ad. Often they are small black and white posters plastered on stations, clambering for attention in an inattentive, transitory space. Behind every description of someone’s face, eyes, clothes and build is the desperation to distinguish this individual from the maddening crowd. I stand precariously close to the edge of making poetry out of someone’s anguish, but these posters make for some of the most moving literature I have encountered.
Perhaps that is why the truth behind the posters about Gauri Bhonsle’s disappearance hurt me a little. The advertisers of the show could have hardly suspected that they would be discomfiting someone but when I learnt that Gauri Bhonsle was a fictional character of a TV series, I imagined the thousands of families who have had their loved ones disappear feeling short-changed in some way. I felt short-changed, and I have never suffered the agony of a missing friend or relative.
Every missing person poster I read reminds me that waiting is hardly passive. You might not sit around hearing the seconds needle tick by. After all, life catches up with you with its ringing mobile phone and cycles of laundry. But you still wait. You still wonder what is happening with someone who ran away, someone who was taken for interrogation by the police, someone who went for a birthday party and hasn’t come back since. Perhaps life is a good distraction against that kind of worry and pain and sometimes, plain curiosity.
I wonder who thought of the term, missing person ad. Does the missing person become a commodity when removed from the masses, and attached very specific attributes? Does the cash reward make it different from an announcement?
A character on a TV show I was working on was in her final month of pregnancy. When her mother asked her if she felt scared, she said, “I just want to get it over with.” It was an insight into her pregnancy for me. It’s a long wait, nine months, and although it is hardly a passive one, do mothers ever get impatient? Do they feel tired of waiting for something which is making them lose control of their bodies every day; do they feel the wait keenly?
My mother said something similar to my TV character. “You know it’s going to take nine months, so you are prepared to wait it out. But it starts getting to you during the last few days. The baby has grown, there’s water in your stomach so you always feel like peeing; it’s difficult to walk, sit down, lie down or stand. You feel old and heavy and watery. You just want it to get out.” I don’t think I’ve ever been referred to as an ‘it’ before and laughed so much.
She remembers those days as difficult and labourious, (pun intended, if you like) but also as a wait which didn’t have a very significant end to it. She waited for her child to be born, then for her milestones, then for her to go to school, and then she waited for her to come back from school.
As I write this I’m beginning to understand that the pressure that society places on a woman being a ‘good’ mother is tremendous also because of this waiting, this gradual swell of time which only stretches into events with higher stakes—sexual maturity, sense of responsibility and awareness, graduation, marriage—our parents wait for all of these things as time passes by, and it is not a comfortable anticipation.
The lack of news is an acutely uncomfortable wait. Being on death row must be a very peculiar kind of waiting. I’m not in favour of capital punishment, but if it has to be done, it seems extremely odd to make someone wait for their own execution. If you have decided they deserve to die, then what are you waiting for?
14/02/2012
"Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.."
One standard reaction I would get from people when I told them about the Jnanapravaha course was, "I don't get Modern Art. It's just deliberately obscure", or "Modern Art is so elitist!", or "You have to be obscenely wealthy and educated abroad to be able to enjoy that kind of art", or my favourite: "One line, dot, or square across a large white canvas and that's that. A four year old could do that."
The problem with a painting is that it is it's own context. You as a viewer must take the initiative to engage with it, struggle with its apparent obscurity, resist the ease of ignorance and indifference, learn the language, battle your inarticulacy, and most difficultly, consume your ego. The painting may or may not relate to your life or your experiences. It may not agree with your opinions on who should be a celebrated artist, who should not. It may even deeply offend you. But there is no denying the fact that it exists, and its self-sufficiency makes you feel lost and unsettled.
Aside: Now that I think of it, most people said "four year old..". Not five, not six, not two - people didn't even cash in on adolescent angst and presume most 16 year olds could make Modern Art. What is it with universally precocious four year olds?
Seagulls and Sails, by Jehangir Sabavala
The problem with a painting is that it is it's own context. You as a viewer must take the initiative to engage with it, struggle with its apparent obscurity, resist the ease of ignorance and indifference, learn the language, battle your inarticulacy, and most difficultly, consume your ego. The painting may or may not relate to your life or your experiences. It may not agree with your opinions on who should be a celebrated artist, who should not. It may even deeply offend you. But there is no denying the fact that it exists, and its self-sufficiency makes you feel lost and unsettled.
The gallery experience of art is something that troubles me a lot, specially because there is a politics underneath the floors and behind the walls, which is not clear but cannot possibly be unfelt while you are in the space.
My TIFR experience comes to mind. One of the projects I was involved in (it had a hand in changing my life - now that didn't sound too dramatic, did it?) was organising an exhibition of TIFR's incredibly exhaustive and exciting art collection. There were over 250 art works that our curator, Mortimer Chatterjee had to select and exhibit at the NGMA. Everything about this project was an electric experience - learning how restoration artists are actually the acrobats of the art world, how the right frame can do a three-sixty to the way you experience a painting.
Our interactions with Mr. S, the gallery manager of NGMA were very problematic. It was difficult to communicate with him because there was an incredibly busy subtext underneath whatever he appeared to be saying. Greasy, translucent words would stream silently from his grey-black hair and thinly film our eyes.
Instead of working with our curator on creating the story which would tie the selected works together, or compiling the essays and pictures of the exhibition catalogue (yes, people do read and publish art crit too! god bless y'all), or taking care that the works were packed, transported, unpacked and hung/arranged properly with gentle, loving care, we were now required to fret about who had to be invited to the opening show, who would sit where, who would be invited for the dinner later and who wouldn't, who would get the flowers, who would give the flowers, who would cut the ribbon, how long would the Minister's tour of the show be (we couldn't possibly do the detailed two hour talk-walk with her, could we?). We even had to make sure certain people didn't bump into each other, because they had separately instructed us on who they got along with, and who they didn't.
It was degrading, reductive and humiliating. NGMA flexed its muscles because it knew we had nowhere else to exhibit TIFR's collection. The only other gallery large enough to house such a huge collection was Jehangir, which was booked for the next two years.
I began wondering about the gallerial experience of art. Many professors and students were left stunned by the exhibition. These were paintings and sculptures they had walked among, waited for the lift by, discussed theories, politics and movies next to. Partly due to bad lighting, poor maintenance, a pitiable budget allocation and partly due to the kind of insulation which institutes of higher learning often develop about anything beyond their immediate academic concerns, these beautiful, provocative and insightful pieces of art had become nothing more than show pieces or shadowy, dusty oblongs on corridor walls.
What a difference big, clean walls, considerate, gentle lighting and context can make! Many people came up to us and said that the exhibition had breathed new life into the paintings. It was tempting to believe that, but the truth was that it was a simple case of taking for granted things that are the closest to you, and also how much you cared about something. As long as Dr Bhabha was alive, he fought to keep aside 1% of TIFR's total budget for collecting and maintaining its art collection. He often paid for paintings or sculptures he wanted for TIFR out of his pocket (but then again, he was quite privileged financially), and his successor, Dr MGK Menon collected many *eyebrow-raising works for that time.
Successive directors didn't quite know what to do. Dr Menon had left TIFR in 1975, and it was only two years ago that the previous director decided that the paintings and sculptures needed restoring. To date there's a tiny strong room opposite the Accounts section, which has paintings stacked together in their packings, not being displayed because, well, actually I don't really know. Nobody seemed to have an answer, but I suspect there wasn't a straightforward way to say, we don't care.
The exhibition changed the way many people at TIFR saw the art collection, even after the paintings and sculptures made their way back home from the gallery. There was no denying that the gallery, in its capacity of being a generous space to exhibit those works, had had a role in this change of heart and mind.
But there was a malevolent superficiality to the whole experience which I could not shake off. What the painting was saying to you, what you could see or hear from it mattered lesser than what they cost. The Husains were eagerly sought out, the Baburao Sadwelkars were ignored. Here I speak of the gallery manager and some of their staff. The power politics played by the art world and those who peopled it - in this particular situation - was disturbing. And this then reflected on to the people who came and saw the exhibition.
Art takes time. To spend an hour looking at a painting is difficult. The public gallery experience is one that encourages art at a trot. There are the paintings, the marvellous speaking works, the definite, independent, each with a Self it would be impossible to ignore, if... if..., it were possible to see it. I do not only mean the crowds and the guards and the low lights and the ropes, which make me think of freak shows, I mean the thick curtain of irrelevancies that screens the painting from the viewer. Increasingly, galleries have a habit of saying when they acquired a painting and how much it cost...
Millions! The viewer does not see the colours on the canvas, she sees the colour of money.
Is the painting famous? Yes! Think of all the people who have carefully spared one minute of their lives to stand in front of it.
Is the painting Authority? Does the guide-book tell us that it is a part of The Canon? If Yes, then half of the viewers will admire it on principle, while the other half will dismiss it on principle.
Who painted it? What do we know about his/her sexual practices and have we seen anything about them on the television? If not, the museums will likely have a video full of schoolboy facts and tabloid gossip.
Where is the tea-room/toilet/gift shop?
Where is the painting in any of this?
Experiencing paintings as moving pictures, out of context, disconnected, jostled, over-literary, with their endless accompanying explanations, over-crowded, one against the other, room on room, does not make it easy to fall in love. Love takes time.
... the only way into the strange life of pictures is to expose yourself to as much contemporary art as you can until you find something, anything, that you will go back and back to see again...
My TIFR experience comes to mind. One of the projects I was involved in (it had a hand in changing my life - now that didn't sound too dramatic, did it?) was organising an exhibition of TIFR's incredibly exhaustive and exciting art collection. There were over 250 art works that our curator, Mortimer Chatterjee had to select and exhibit at the NGMA. Everything about this project was an electric experience - learning how restoration artists are actually the acrobats of the art world, how the right frame can do a three-sixty to the way you experience a painting.
Our interactions with Mr. S, the gallery manager of NGMA were very problematic. It was difficult to communicate with him because there was an incredibly busy subtext underneath whatever he appeared to be saying. Greasy, translucent words would stream silently from his grey-black hair and thinly film our eyes.
Instead of working with our curator on creating the story which would tie the selected works together, or compiling the essays and pictures of the exhibition catalogue (yes, people do read and publish art crit too! god bless y'all), or taking care that the works were packed, transported, unpacked and hung/arranged properly with gentle, loving care, we were now required to fret about who had to be invited to the opening show, who would sit where, who would be invited for the dinner later and who wouldn't, who would get the flowers, who would give the flowers, who would cut the ribbon, how long would the Minister's tour of the show be (we couldn't possibly do the detailed two hour talk-walk with her, could we?). We even had to make sure certain people didn't bump into each other, because they had separately instructed us on who they got along with, and who they didn't.
It was degrading, reductive and humiliating. NGMA flexed its muscles because it knew we had nowhere else to exhibit TIFR's collection. The only other gallery large enough to house such a huge collection was Jehangir, which was booked for the next two years.
I began wondering about the gallerial experience of art. Many professors and students were left stunned by the exhibition. These were paintings and sculptures they had walked among, waited for the lift by, discussed theories, politics and movies next to. Partly due to bad lighting, poor maintenance, a pitiable budget allocation and partly due to the kind of insulation which institutes of higher learning often develop about anything beyond their immediate academic concerns, these beautiful, provocative and insightful pieces of art had become nothing more than show pieces or shadowy, dusty oblongs on corridor walls.
What a difference big, clean walls, considerate, gentle lighting and context can make! Many people came up to us and said that the exhibition had breathed new life into the paintings. It was tempting to believe that, but the truth was that it was a simple case of taking for granted things that are the closest to you, and also how much you cared about something. As long as Dr Bhabha was alive, he fought to keep aside 1% of TIFR's total budget for collecting and maintaining its art collection. He often paid for paintings or sculptures he wanted for TIFR out of his pocket (but then again, he was quite privileged financially), and his successor, Dr MGK Menon collected many *eyebrow-raising works for that time.
Successive directors didn't quite know what to do. Dr Menon had left TIFR in 1975, and it was only two years ago that the previous director decided that the paintings and sculptures needed restoring. To date there's a tiny strong room opposite the Accounts section, which has paintings stacked together in their packings, not being displayed because, well, actually I don't really know. Nobody seemed to have an answer, but I suspect there wasn't a straightforward way to say, we don't care.
The exhibition changed the way many people at TIFR saw the art collection, even after the paintings and sculptures made their way back home from the gallery. There was no denying that the gallery, in its capacity of being a generous space to exhibit those works, had had a role in this change of heart and mind.
But there was a malevolent superficiality to the whole experience which I could not shake off. What the painting was saying to you, what you could see or hear from it mattered lesser than what they cost. The Husains were eagerly sought out, the Baburao Sadwelkars were ignored. Here I speak of the gallery manager and some of their staff. The power politics played by the art world and those who peopled it - in this particular situation - was disturbing. And this then reflected on to the people who came and saw the exhibition.
Art takes time. To spend an hour looking at a painting is difficult. The public gallery experience is one that encourages art at a trot. There are the paintings, the marvellous speaking works, the definite, independent, each with a Self it would be impossible to ignore, if... if..., it were possible to see it. I do not only mean the crowds and the guards and the low lights and the ropes, which make me think of freak shows, I mean the thick curtain of irrelevancies that screens the painting from the viewer. Increasingly, galleries have a habit of saying when they acquired a painting and how much it cost...
Millions! The viewer does not see the colours on the canvas, she sees the colour of money.
Is the painting famous? Yes! Think of all the people who have carefully spared one minute of their lives to stand in front of it.
Is the painting Authority? Does the guide-book tell us that it is a part of The Canon? If Yes, then half of the viewers will admire it on principle, while the other half will dismiss it on principle.
Who painted it? What do we know about his/her sexual practices and have we seen anything about them on the television? If not, the museums will likely have a video full of schoolboy facts and tabloid gossip.
Where is the tea-room/toilet/gift shop?
Where is the painting in any of this?
Experiencing paintings as moving pictures, out of context, disconnected, jostled, over-literary, with their endless accompanying explanations, over-crowded, one against the other, room on room, does not make it easy to fall in love. Love takes time.
... the only way into the strange life of pictures is to expose yourself to as much contemporary art as you can until you find something, anything, that you will go back and back to see again...
- Art Objects, by Jeanette Winterson
I did much of what Winterson describes as "over-literary, with their endless accompanying explanations" throughout the two months our exhibition was on. Initially it was exciting to know and explain to strangers the what, how and why of a painting. And then it began to pale, because the explanations became larger than the paintings, and slowly made them entirely redundant in my mind. When I had repeated the story behind Husain winning the mural competition twenty times, I stopped looking at the mural. It was a pity, because before assuming the role of a 'tour guide', I would spend time alone, just with the paintings and sculptures, and try to listen to them instead.
Saying that Modern Art is obscure, elitist, or that enjoying it requires you to be wealthy and educated abroad, or that it can be done by a four year old, is like hiding under a tree because everyone in the forest says the sky is about to fall. Let a painting speak to you, sing to you. Touch a sculpture and experience it. Take off your blinkers and know that if you reach out sincerely, you will be met half way.
22/01/2012
"I know."
What were to happen if we did have the ability to know everything about something? What if the possibility of knowing everything existed?
Say for instance, I know I need to get to Kanjur station quickly because a usual, I'm running late. It's 6:30 pm, and
the traffic is a mad, ravaging beast of screeching horns and savage wheels, a growling, yelling, vicious, anxious metallic beast, with its guts spilling out in all directions on the road, and
I know I'm going to get frustrated by the fact that the BMC/BEST has shifted the bus stop farther away from Main Gate, and built a road divider in between the lane going towards Kanjur/Eastern Express Highway, in an effort to create a separate lane for buses, but because bikers and company buses choke this lane, BEST buses usually take the other lane meant for everybody else, while I do an angry, dangerous dance from one lane to the other, and
I know that as a result of the frustration and lack of time, I'm going to hitch a bike-ride to Kanjur.
While reading the paper yesterday, I chanced upon an article by Jaron Lanier. He wrote a paper called One-Half of a Manifesto (2000), on opposing "cybernetic totalism". I quote Wiki -
Say for instance, I know I need to get to Kanjur station quickly because a usual, I'm running late. It's 6:30 pm, and
the traffic is a mad, ravaging beast of screeching horns and savage wheels, a growling, yelling, vicious, anxious metallic beast, with its guts spilling out in all directions on the road, and
I know I'm going to get frustrated by the fact that the BMC/BEST has shifted the bus stop farther away from Main Gate, and built a road divider in between the lane going towards Kanjur/Eastern Express Highway, in an effort to create a separate lane for buses, but because bikers and company buses choke this lane, BEST buses usually take the other lane meant for everybody else, while I do an angry, dangerous dance from one lane to the other, and
I know that as a result of the frustration and lack of time, I'm going to hitch a bike-ride to Kanjur.
It is so defeating to know everything. Surprises are lost. The kick you get out of doing something differently is lost. The exquisite angst of an existential crisis is lost, the overwhelming brightness and warmth of an epiphany is lost. The wonder at your abilities to do something you never imagined you could, is lost.
While reading the paper yesterday, I chanced upon an article by Jaron Lanier. He wrote a paper called One-Half of a Manifesto (2000), on opposing "cybernetic totalism". I quote Wiki -
At the end he warns that the biggest problem of any theory (esp. iedology) is not that it is false, "but when it claims to be the sole and utterly complete path to understanding life and reality." The impression of objective necessity paralyzes the ability of humans to walk out of or to fight the paradigm, and causes the self-fulfilling destiny, which spoils people.
Isn't it amazing that we don't know everything, yet here we are, living life, making mistakes, celebrating, waking up everyday?
23/09/2011
21/09/2011
An (re)acquaintance
"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding of a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
18/09/2011
'Sita Sings the Blues'
This film is one of my favourite animation films.
I've had tremendous problems with रामायण. It's possible that वाल्मीकि wrote a रामायण very different from the one we read today. But its influence on our country and the psyche of our people has been tremendously powerful so I'm always grateful when people question, critically examine or even have a bit of fun with the story. Like Nina Paley does in Sita Sings the Blues. It's a delight to anybody who likes a twist, or jazz music, or films with interesting narratives. It's one of those films which you enjoy with your eyes, ears and mind as well.
PS: Youtube Movies, FTW!
05/09/2011
सवाल
तुझसे नाराज़ नहीं, ज़िन्दगी
हैरान हूँ मैं
तेरे मासूम सवालों से
परेशान हूँ मैं
~ गुलज़ार, तुझसे नाराज़ नहीं (मासूम)
26/08/2011
Feminism 101
I just found a very funny and smart web comic via Fuck Yeah! Feminism - a website I've been wanting to explore for a very long time now but haven't for a variety of reasons. Thanks to this lovely web comic called Fudge That Sugar, my down-arrow button is getting a bit sore, but I'm chuckling away in glee! The irony is that the creator of this awesome web comic, AK Tettenborn has just closed it, three months ago. This makes two amazing publications which are closing down in front of me - but that's another story.
For now,
19/08/2011
Emptiness as a Beginning
When I began the course on Art, Theory and Criticism at Jnanapravaha, I thought I knew what I was getting into. Chiefly, I thought that I was about to learn what fascinated me so much about contemporary art. Jeanette Winterson expresses this first beginning into the unknown beautifully in Art Objects, and I would like to quote her.
“Long looking at foreign paintings is equivalent to being dropped into a foreign city, where gradually, out of desire and despair, a few key words, and then a little syntax make a clearing in the silence."
Her essay struck me deeply, because I had found in her words a kindred spirit; someone who desired and despaired of art in equal measure. Oh, what a gladdening feeling to know that someone felt the same! This session went beautifully, and I returned home with hope and excitement.
Over the days, things changed. I would lose track in the middle of lectures. I would suddenly find myself playing peek-a-boo with straying thoughts, shooing them away shamefully. I often chastised myself, “what on earth are you doing, thinking about possible wisecracks and comebacks you could have deployed in past conversations? Listen to what he’s saying!” I would feel miserable and hopelessly lost as I found myself veering towards blankness and incomprehension, three-fourths of most sessions. One day, a guest lecturer asked me about Modernism in literature and I couldn’t say a word. My favourite college professor’s disappointed eyes washed over in front of me, and I died a little. That the guest lecturer and I were students of that same professor, albeit separated by uncountable generations, didn’t help. I had let a legacy down.
I would walk out of the classroom with my mind heaving with incomplete, tentative understandings of terms, concepts, histories, backgrounds, critical analyses and interpretations encountered in each session, and I would discard them as soon as I left the building. I began feeling depressed at my inertia, and despaired over my feeble, wisplike passions. Why wasn’t I fascinated anymore? Why did I not feel wondrously awed? Why did I not feel grateful and eager about being a part of the course, having the privilege of hearing such intrepid, erudite people share their thoughts and work with me? Why did I not want to explore, create, ask or act on anything?
As usually happens, discussing personal crises with others has its limitations. I feel reassured of the support of the people who care for me. I feel relieved to unburden myself for a while. But the search is my struggle alone, and the answers still remain as elusive as ever. These are not questions who become neighbours; it is alright not to know them intimately. Furthermore, some answers exist in the form of doubts. No, these are questions which plague and agonise and disrupt your life – till they are led to the truth.
Trains are vehicles of insight for me. This is true even when I am walking, though not in the fashion of a flaneur, but in that state of simultaneous thought and motion, when you find yourself extracting answers as automatically as you are walking. Being in motion has a curious way of letting you let go. Immediate objectives are taken care of – you are headed somewhere, you will arrive somewhere at some point in time. So now, you are free to exist peacefully in between. And today I realised why I was feeling depressed and reluctant to learn or explore anything.
It was because of my ego – a BA graduate in English literature from Sophia College. This arrogance consists of three tropes:
the ‘BA graduate’ – one who can effortlessly absorb, read, write, understand, analyse, assimilate and express a text of whatever medium/genre
of ‘English literature’ – one who has studied closely and carefully various texts in English, spanning across period, style, intent and form and therefore should have no difficulty in continuing to do so
at ‘Sophia College’ – one who is a part of an institution of higher learning which is not only well-reputed, but has an illustrious history, which bequeaths you with an inheritance of unmatched intellectual abilities, that you have obviously lived up to at all times, and will naturally do so in the future
I couldn't accept the fact that I was finding it hard to understand lectures delivered in English. In something that was so closely related to literature. I refused to accept how much I had left behind, and how much I had to retrieve, and/or relearn. I was worried that thanks to my limited understanding of the sessions, I would submit lacklustre assignments. That my teacher would read my essay and be unfavourably surprised, “this is what she gives to me, the girl who did a BA in English from Sophia?” What I forgot was that I had not done anything towards keeping any of the skills that I developed during my three years of college, from rusting. And they had; they were now useless and required rigourous practise. And that the assignments were not judgments, not ends in themselves, but they were the first steps towards learning something new and unheard of.
Starting from scratch – this is the challenge that Jeanette spoke of all along, but which I now realised requires both humility and bravery. As I begin reading this once again, it starts making sense why our teacher began our course with this essay.
“Long looking at foreign paintings is equivalent to being dropped into a foreign city, where gradually, out of desire and despair, a few key words, and then a little syntax make a clearing in the silence. Art, all art, not just painting, is a foreign city and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar. No-one is surprised to find that a foreign city follows its own customs and speaks its own language. Only a boor would ignore both and blame his defaulting on the place. Every day this happens to the artist and the art.
We have to recognise that the language of art, all art, is not our mother-tongue.”
03/03/2011
"The only good fight there is."
Happiness
- Anirudh Singh Chohan
Few people who can accurately claim to know me can testify that I have tried my level best to reverse-engineer happiness. I’ve tried all the ways to conjure it out of nowhere, but haven’t quite made it happen. That said, I am not even close to give up trying.
Few people who can accurately claim to know me can testify that I have tried my level best to reverse-engineer happiness. I’ve tried all the ways to conjure it out of nowhere, but haven’t quite made it happen. That said, I am not even close to give up trying.
This may be a stretch of my imagination or just a bad approximation of how it would feel to be truly happy, but I will try and articulate it in the best way I know. Times when hours seem to pass like seconds and one is in a pinpoint of focus. Times when the real and surreal coincide and you live in the moment. Those very times when, there is perfect silence inside and one is alone with the gods. And there is perfect laughter. It’s truly what I find to be the only thing worth working towards. The only good fight there is. I see people meander and fumble through life standing up for nothing, growing old, just getting by and it pains me to see that the world around me seems to be too caught up in the humdrum of ‘the typical’ to actually breathe for a minute.
That is the very challenge that life throws at you. The big question: How far will you go?
This could mean not sleeping for 4 days or freezing in the cold waiting for someone. This could mean losing your lover, relatives, friends or even your mind. It could mean not leaving your seat for hours forgetting day and night. And if history says something, it could mean mockery and derision. But the place where it drops you, all of this won’t matter.
So cheers to going the full way, or not going at all.
26/12/2010
Menstruating, and what it means to me
This was originally an extensive conversation with me in the bathroom. For me, most of them either end up as amusing footnotes in Oral Bathroom Literature or in my journal. This is one of the rare times I felt like sharing it.
Menstruating for me has always been in an intense but interesting time. I feel happy, very alive and constantly in tune with what I'm physically feeling. Many times, I take my body for granted mostly because I see it as an instrument to do something, get somewhere but never as an end in itself, something which demands attention and provokes thought - not simply a reaction. There are a few things which make me think of my body, and none of them are insights, doubts, creative, exploratory or questioning in nature. They don't linger in my head for too long because they are reactions. Once they are suitably addressed, they don't raise their heads again until the time comes. There's physical pain, sexual urges, temperature differences and hunger. The most I can extend this physical self-awareness is to fatigue, feeling fresh, urges for nicotine, alcohol or particular kinds of foods/drinks, the awareness of being watched and extreme fear and anger. Another level could be added for addiction but I can't say this for myself - yet. (or maybe, I'm not aware of them)
Comparing this to how sensitive I am to my thoughts, beliefs, perspectives, judgments of people and their own of me or others - and how creative, curious, skeptical, judgmental, saddened, overjoyed, inspired, discouraged, enraged (and a universe of other emotions, many of which I'm sure I haven't experienced yet) I am by them - I feel there's been quite a lot of injustice done! Why do I never dream of my body? Why do I not engage with it as exhaustively as I do with my mind? Why is thinking as an activity restricted only to my brain? Why does society sometimes consider it girly, superficial or 'gay' if some people take extra efforts to take care of their bodies?
Whenever I have been attuned with my body, it's given me a lot of peace. Whether it's breaking out into a run, dancing or walking in the rain. (once I can get over my laziness and go for a shower, I don't want to get out!) I think what's best is having a feeling of fulfillment and release, like a high. I think people who run or exercise often know how this feels, but we've all experienced it, one time or another in our lives. I guess that's why the fascination with hallucinogenic drugs - it's another medium to experience being one with mind and body.
What happens when I menstruate, is that there's a conversation with my body for around five days straight. And since I overlook my body a lot, these days are like getting to know myself all over again. There's a slight pain, very different from any other pain, which makes itself experienced a day before they begin, and that's when I feel my body says, so hey, let's catch up tomorrow. You free right? I could think, it's not like I have a choice, or I could think, when was the last time I was so aware of my body? Let's talk! Taking the latter perspective helps not simply because it means lesser conflicts but also because you get to know so much about yourself, even as a person.
Once, my college friends and I had a long discussion about menstruation and how we felt about it. I realised my physical condition during, before or after my period matters tremendously in being able to be positive about it. I guess I'm lucky that I don't undergo deep pain and discomfort during this time. It's relatively trouble-free and mostly an enjoyable experience. I don't think I could be this carefree if I had to miss going out and stay indoors with a hot water bottle, guzzling fluids and pills to keep sane. I know friends who have to do this and it's no wonder they feel Nature has dealt with women unfairly. But I also feel it has a lot to do with our culture, because that plays an unarguably enormous part in influencing the way we approach anything.
There is an entire culture of negativity around menstruation which is another unfortunate result of living in a patriarchal society. Why 'sanitary' napkins? The whole idea of menstruating being seen as something very unclean is manifested in the fear instilled in girls and women about needing to keep the whole process as quiet and unobvious as possible. Why do we freak out so much about being caught with a 'stain' - can't it be treated with the same equanimity as a coffee stain? I'm not saying, "parade your menstrual stain with pride!" I'm saying, it's okay. Like people have coffee, women menstruate. Anybody can spill, right?
I also feel the way girls are brought up and educated has played a huge part in the way boys and men also approach menstruation. It was made such an embarrassing thing in school - you're in eighth class, a normal class is going on and suddenly, all the girls are told to make a line and walk off to the hall. Oh, it's that again. The biggest irony is that despite all the efforts taken to exclude boys, (we knew that) they knew what it was about anyway. All that this exclusivity did was reinforce the idea that menstruation and anything related was a girl thing, too embarrassing and taboo to be discussed with guys. What fart, really. Would it have hurt to take boys along as well, treat it like another lesson in biology? No, it would have made it natural, a part of a possible conversation with other men and women and a way to better understand sexuality. When we're in eighth, we're anyway looking for ways to talk with the opposite sex. Introducing menstruation to both sexes would have given us lots of food for thought to chew over with each other.
Treating menstruation so oppressively has had other offshoots as well. Female masturbation, for instance. (oh gosh, that needs another whole entry!) With this entry, I'm trying to make an effort to break free of my own inhibitions about menstruation. If you have any and want to break free of them too, let's talk about them now. It could be anything other than inhibitions too: questions, rants, sarcastic quips (though if you know me, do not expect me to get them), observations, reservations, beliefs, anything. Let's have a conversation!
Menstruating for me has always been in an intense but interesting time. I feel happy, very alive and constantly in tune with what I'm physically feeling. Many times, I take my body for granted mostly because I see it as an instrument to do something, get somewhere but never as an end in itself, something which demands attention and provokes thought - not simply a reaction. There are a few things which make me think of my body, and none of them are insights, doubts, creative, exploratory or questioning in nature. They don't linger in my head for too long because they are reactions. Once they are suitably addressed, they don't raise their heads again until the time comes. There's physical pain, sexual urges, temperature differences and hunger. The most I can extend this physical self-awareness is to fatigue, feeling fresh, urges for nicotine, alcohol or particular kinds of foods/drinks, the awareness of being watched and extreme fear and anger. Another level could be added for addiction but I can't say this for myself - yet. (or maybe, I'm not aware of them)
Comparing this to how sensitive I am to my thoughts, beliefs, perspectives, judgments of people and their own of me or others - and how creative, curious, skeptical, judgmental, saddened, overjoyed, inspired, discouraged, enraged (and a universe of other emotions, many of which I'm sure I haven't experienced yet) I am by them - I feel there's been quite a lot of injustice done! Why do I never dream of my body? Why do I not engage with it as exhaustively as I do with my mind? Why is thinking as an activity restricted only to my brain? Why does society sometimes consider it girly, superficial or 'gay' if some people take extra efforts to take care of their bodies?
Whenever I have been attuned with my body, it's given me a lot of peace. Whether it's breaking out into a run, dancing or walking in the rain. (once I can get over my laziness and go for a shower, I don't want to get out!) I think what's best is having a feeling of fulfillment and release, like a high. I think people who run or exercise often know how this feels, but we've all experienced it, one time or another in our lives. I guess that's why the fascination with hallucinogenic drugs - it's another medium to experience being one with mind and body.
What happens when I menstruate, is that there's a conversation with my body for around five days straight. And since I overlook my body a lot, these days are like getting to know myself all over again. There's a slight pain, very different from any other pain, which makes itself experienced a day before they begin, and that's when I feel my body says, so hey, let's catch up tomorrow. You free right? I could think, it's not like I have a choice, or I could think, when was the last time I was so aware of my body? Let's talk! Taking the latter perspective helps not simply because it means lesser conflicts but also because you get to know so much about yourself, even as a person.
Once, my college friends and I had a long discussion about menstruation and how we felt about it. I realised my physical condition during, before or after my period matters tremendously in being able to be positive about it. I guess I'm lucky that I don't undergo deep pain and discomfort during this time. It's relatively trouble-free and mostly an enjoyable experience. I don't think I could be this carefree if I had to miss going out and stay indoors with a hot water bottle, guzzling fluids and pills to keep sane. I know friends who have to do this and it's no wonder they feel Nature has dealt with women unfairly. But I also feel it has a lot to do with our culture, because that plays an unarguably enormous part in influencing the way we approach anything.
There is an entire culture of negativity around menstruation which is another unfortunate result of living in a patriarchal society. Why 'sanitary' napkins? The whole idea of menstruating being seen as something very unclean is manifested in the fear instilled in girls and women about needing to keep the whole process as quiet and unobvious as possible. Why do we freak out so much about being caught with a 'stain' - can't it be treated with the same equanimity as a coffee stain? I'm not saying, "parade your menstrual stain with pride!" I'm saying, it's okay. Like people have coffee, women menstruate. Anybody can spill, right?
I also feel the way girls are brought up and educated has played a huge part in the way boys and men also approach menstruation. It was made such an embarrassing thing in school - you're in eighth class, a normal class is going on and suddenly, all the girls are told to make a line and walk off to the hall. Oh, it's that again. The biggest irony is that despite all the efforts taken to exclude boys, (we knew that) they knew what it was about anyway. All that this exclusivity did was reinforce the idea that menstruation and anything related was a girl thing, too embarrassing and taboo to be discussed with guys. What fart, really. Would it have hurt to take boys along as well, treat it like another lesson in biology? No, it would have made it natural, a part of a possible conversation with other men and women and a way to better understand sexuality. When we're in eighth, we're anyway looking for ways to talk with the opposite sex. Introducing menstruation to both sexes would have given us lots of food for thought to chew over with each other.
Treating menstruation so oppressively has had other offshoots as well. Female masturbation, for instance. (oh gosh, that needs another whole entry!) With this entry, I'm trying to make an effort to break free of my own inhibitions about menstruation. If you have any and want to break free of them too, let's talk about them now. It could be anything other than inhibitions too: questions, rants, sarcastic quips (though if you know me, do not expect me to get them), observations, reservations, beliefs, anything. Let's have a conversation!
19/03/2008
In verted commas
"Love is sweet misery." - Cryin', by Aerosmith
"Reality - a pain for those in touch with it." - Unknown; seen at a raddi-wallah's shop.
"Choose ur own mate in life
Dn't depnd on ur mothr.
She wil bring u sum1
Who secrtly luvs anuthr." - Unknown; next to the window of an Ambernath 4:46 pm slow from VT.
"Deep rich chocolate mousse. So sinful, even your mother will warn you away from it." - Cafe Coffee Day's menu description for one of their chocolate mousses.
"I tried. I tried my best. But best is best only to me, not to them." - Molu in his sleep, a few days before his first Board Exam.
"Ethological research suggested that there was a major difference between the aggression patterns of the mammalian species and man - namely, that animals had evolved mechanisms to control their aggressive instincts, but humans had not." - Atkinson and Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology. (14th Edition)
On a lighter note,
"Freud isn't exactly obsolete. Psycho-analytic images still appear in animated films, with one of the more recent examples in 'The Emperor's New Groove', when a character argues with his angel and devil over disposing the emperor. The devil is the id, the angel is the superego and the poor critter in the middle is the ego." - An Introduction to Psychology by Cicarelli, Meyer, et.al. Probably the coolest Psychology textbook ever written.
"When we speak of setting difficult goals, we do not mean that we should 'aim at the stars.' In fact, a person who aims at reaching the stars may not even reach the rooftop." - Foundation Course - I, by Mr. K.T Basantani. A textbook which is a generic insult to intelligence.
"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won the first prize in the lottery of life." - Cecil Rhodes, a British statesman at the height of British Imperialism. At one point of time, this tiny island ruled one-fourth of the world through her colonies.
"Your nearest alternative toilet facility is located on this level towards the spectator's viewing facility." - Sign at a Manchester airport.
"For NASA, space is still a high priority." - Dan Quayle.
"Got a lot of numbers on it. I reckon it's the Budget." - George Bush.
"Eighteen arduous months later, after a long and agonizing process, Rand and I plunge into a love affair - with the knowledge and consent of Frank and Barbara." - Nathaniel Branden, describing his interaction and life with Ayn Rand. Frank and Barbara were the spouses of Rand and Branden respectively.
"It was while making newspaper deliveries, trying to miss the bushes and hit the porches that I first learned about accuracy in journalism." - Charles Osgood, host for CNB Sunday Morning.
"Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think." - Response given to Dilbert when he asked his senior colleague (who was the President of the local Mensa organisation) on why he worked at their firm if he was so smart.
"The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." - Blaise Pascal.
"Reality - a pain for those in touch with it." - Unknown; seen at a raddi-wallah's shop.
"Choose ur own mate in life
Dn't depnd on ur mothr.
She wil bring u sum1
Who secrtly luvs anuthr." - Unknown; next to the window of an Ambernath 4:46 pm slow from VT.
"Deep rich chocolate mousse. So sinful, even your mother will warn you away from it." - Cafe Coffee Day's menu description for one of their chocolate mousses.
"I tried. I tried my best. But best is best only to me, not to them." - Molu in his sleep, a few days before his first Board Exam.
"Ethological research suggested that there was a major difference between the aggression patterns of the mammalian species and man - namely, that animals had evolved mechanisms to control their aggressive instincts, but humans had not." - Atkinson and Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology. (14th Edition)
On a lighter note,
"Freud isn't exactly obsolete. Psycho-analytic images still appear in animated films, with one of the more recent examples in 'The Emperor's New Groove', when a character argues with his angel and devil over disposing the emperor. The devil is the id, the angel is the superego and the poor critter in the middle is the ego." - An Introduction to Psychology by Cicarelli, Meyer, et.al. Probably the coolest Psychology textbook ever written.
"When we speak of setting difficult goals, we do not mean that we should 'aim at the stars.' In fact, a person who aims at reaching the stars may not even reach the rooftop." - Foundation Course - I, by Mr. K.T Basantani. A textbook which is a generic insult to intelligence.
"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won the first prize in the lottery of life." - Cecil Rhodes, a British statesman at the height of British Imperialism. At one point of time, this tiny island ruled one-fourth of the world through her colonies.
"Your nearest alternative toilet facility is located on this level towards the spectator's viewing facility." - Sign at a Manchester airport.
"For NASA, space is still a high priority." - Dan Quayle.
"Got a lot of numbers on it. I reckon it's the Budget." - George Bush.
"Eighteen arduous months later, after a long and agonizing process, Rand and I plunge into a love affair - with the knowledge and consent of Frank and Barbara." - Nathaniel Branden, describing his interaction and life with Ayn Rand. Frank and Barbara were the spouses of Rand and Branden respectively.
"It was while making newspaper deliveries, trying to miss the bushes and hit the porches that I first learned about accuracy in journalism." - Charles Osgood, host for CNB Sunday Morning.
"Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think." - Response given to Dilbert when he asked his senior colleague (who was the President of the local Mensa organisation) on why he worked at their firm if he was so smart.
"The heart has reasons that reason cannot know." - Blaise Pascal.
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