'Yearnings' , my book of poems...a review by Chryselle

"Finally, I was able to give much-deserved time to Yearnings, a collection of poems by Abha Iyengar. Abha is a very versatile and talented writer. This is the first time I’ve read her verse and it is lovely. This book is sensuous, sultry, full of “strange stirrings”. I rather liked ‘Where love has gone’ which reminded me of regrets, of things said and done, of words leaving the mouth irretrievably. “That’s not what I meant at all” is always a whisper at the end of an argument. I also really liked ‘Raktjaba (Hibiscus)’, ‘Arch’, ‘As the Light Dies’ (which could be fodder for a short story…). ‘Everything Natural’ brought a chuckle (“Early morning smells / of cottage cheese underarms /and smoked tongues..), as did ‘Wait’ (“Don’t grope for the easy things”). Abha has a new flash-fiction collection out called ‘Flash Bites’. Read more about it here."

Thank you, Chryselle.

Check out her very interesting blog at : http://thefrangipanijournals.wordpress.com/author/chryselle/

My Flash Fiction collection available online

FLASH BITES by Abha Iyengar is a collection of flash and micro fiction, telling stories in a few words,letting the reader in into a world and allowing her to fill in the gaps to arrive at her own iinterpretations. The stories are sometimes down- to -earth and sometimes surreal. They open a different door to let the light in on what may seem to be the mundane and ordinary. They give an insight into what lies beneath the surface of things, people and places. They are short, pithy, and sharp in their impact.
You can read more about Flash Bites, sample a few excerpts, or buy the book online by visitng this link

To know more about Abha Iyengar and her writing, visit here.
Happy reading...
Abha

Review of Yearnings by Hasmita Chander

thursday, february 17, 2011

Book Review: Yearnings by Abha Iyengar


I'm not a great reader of poems, but as a lover of literary expression in any form, I was drawn in by Abha Iyengar's sample poems from her book Yearnings. Drawn in enough to immediately order a copy of her book.

As the title makes clear, this collection is about longing, love, loss, passion and related emotions and situations. What I admire about Abha's poetry is its impressionist style of communication--it paints a quick, terse picture whose aim is to capture the moment and the emotion, and it does that effectively. In art, too, I have a deeper admiration of Impressionism than Realism. Realism merely portrays what the eye sees, albeit in careful, loving detail but Impressionism carries the heart of the artist as well--it is his choice to capture the subject in that particular moment, angle and light, and this choice and his quick strokes show intense focus and urgency to record and love that person, place or action at that moment.

Yearnings is a collection of 67 short poems that are a pleasure to read and re-read. In these poems, there's none of the embellishment that a lot of poetry falls prey to: the frills and lace that really point to nothing. Instead there's solid content, honesty and truth. For example, here's Travel:

If you give me a look
vistas open up

If you blow me a kiss
winds gather up a storm

If you hold my hand
my fingers touch smooth pillars

In unseen corridors
I travel blind
but belong.

Another one I like is Aroma:

Sometimes it takes just the aroma
Of freshly ground coffee beans
To make me fall into your brown arms.
I am vacuuming
The carpet,
Wiping the sweat off my
Hot brow,
And the whiff comes from across the hall
Of somebody casting the magic spell
With the help of a potent witches' brew.
I switch off the vacuum and
Remove my shirt.

Some of the other poems I enjoyed in this collection are Ice cream, Strange Lands, A Table, Two Poems, Echo, Grief, Shadows, Everything Natural and I Conserve.

Yearnings is available from Serene Woods and Flipkart.

Hash: Frankly Speaking: Book Review: Yearnings by Abha Iyengar

Hash: Frankly Speaking: Book Review: Yearnings by Abha Iyengar

Urban Shots-Short Stories includes My Story 'Slow Rain' - Book Launch

http://www.hindu.com/mp/2010/11/25/stories/2010112550970300.htm mention in the Hindu about the Delhi launch of Urban Shots. Thanks, Poulami!

Short shots

A collection of short stories looks at lives entangled in the hustle and bustle of the big cities


Authors Ahmed Faiyaz, Malathi Jaikumar and Abha Iyengar at the book launch
Life in urban areas is characterised by money, comfort, glamour, complexities and pace of work. These different facets of urban life find meaningful expression in the book “Urban Shots”. Published by Grey Oak, the book, an anthology of 29 urban tales, has been contributed by 13 writers like Abha Iyengar, Malathi Jaikumar, Hasmita Chander and Vrinda Baliga, Ahmed Faiyaz, Rikin Khamar, Biswanath Ghosh, Kainaz Motivala, Naman Saraiya, Sahil Khan, Kunal Dhabalia and Prateek Gupta. Interestingly, Motivala has also been seen in films like “Pathshaala” and “Wake Up Sid”.

Deceptively simple

These fresh, vivid and deceptively simple stories are set against the backdrop of urban metros with their bright lights, sky rises, glitzy malls, tenements, crowds and the chaos that comes with it. Divided into different sections titled ‘Relationships', ‘Love', ‘Friendship', ‘Angst' and ‘Longing', the book contains stories by experienced as well as young authors. Edited by Paritosh Uttam, author of “Dreams in Prussian Blue”, “Urban Shots” was launched recently at the Oxford Bookstore in the presence of some of the contributing authors.

Explaining the title of the book, author Faiyaz who is also the Managing Director, Grey Oak Publishers, and author of “Love, Life & All that Jazz...” and “Another Chance”, said, “Most of the stories are set in the urban background. We have in fact tried to play with the word ‘shot' to indicate snapshots of urban life.”

Reflecting life

Malathi's tale called “Liberation” revolves around a group of slum dwellers.“Each story that I write is embroidered around a core of truth. ‘Liberation' is the story of a group of slum dwellers who move to the city from the village and their experiences that follow. It is based on a combination of two real life experiences.”

Akin to Malathi's narrative, Abha's story too stems from real life. “Slow Rain” depicts a married woman who is a dreamer. The limitations she faces in her married life are realised through her dreams. The formal launch of the book was followed by a panel discussion on issues such as urban life, the varied connotations of emotions, difficulties of marketing an anthology of short stories and other complexities of working in the genre.

POULAMI MUKHERJEE

'Yearnings'- my poetry collection reviewed at Pirene's Fountain

http://www.pirenesfountain.com/reviews-etc/reviews.html#n1

Yearnings
By Abha Iyengar
Serene Woods, New Delhi, 2010
Number of pages: 112
Available at: http://serenewoods.com/book_details.php?id=419
Reviewed by Nabina Das
Yearn for the Body and Beyond

This could have been a collection of usual love poems, love that is intense and physical, but Abha Iyengar‘s shamanic voice take us beyond just the deep sense of longing that her poems transmit. Flipping through “Yearnings” (Serene Woods, Delhi, 2010) one notices the tenor of her poems to range vividly from the soft, muted plea to a coy dalliance, to a voice of aplomb. In the very first blush, a poem that reached out to me was “She” – the ‘she’ with her delicate blue throat, an intrinsically empowered woman who “could have any lover”.

Iyengar’s style is playful as well as pithy, her diction conversational, the kind you’d imagine in an intimate tête-à-tête. Besides the love poems, the other compositions are melodic and philosophical. She, like her poetic personas in this collection, is at once hyperbolic and restrained.

In “Denial” the voice is passionate and defiant. Although the image of a zipper as a “metal snake” is invariably masculine in its evocation, it is not difficult to imagine the feminine voice, confident and aroused. The same voice easily glides along the speaker’s daily humdrum routine:


I wait for you to leave
And sigh with relief.
Do my yoga,
Drink my orange juice
Eat my fresh fruit
And marvel at how I like
Everything natural
Except you. (Everything Natural)

The poet’s oeuvre quite often is that of a soothsayer, made wiser in love:


And as you feel yourself
Split wide open
Your eyes will fail to hide
The memories, the thoughts, the dreams
Within.
One by one they will shine through.
And you thought
I never knew. (Split Wide Open)

Iyengar’s allusion to physicality is bold and wholesome:


At the base of your throat
where your pulse quickens
At the sight of me
This moment. (This Moment Etched)

And at times unabashed:


His tongue under my skin,
His hurt under my bone,
His touch under my collar,
I feel him everywhere.
I will live this life like this. (Wanting)

The ephemeral quality of love presents itself through a stunning stanza such as:


Then bends down to take the picture
Of a green grass hopper,
Waiting for time to pass but
Hoping he will catch her before
The light dies for the day. (As the Light Dies)

Iyengar is comfortable with using mythology as a prop (The Banks of the Brahmaputra) as well as venturing out for metaphors from hitherto unexplored ideas involving even race, color, skin, quite unexpected in Indian poetry:


Cracking like an eggshell
I let out all that I hold
Sticky and yellow the desire
for this man
Of another land, another skin,
Light of an unknown dark,
His sunlight on my bleached shore. (The Dark of Another Land)

The anaphora as a poetic device Iyengar employs well in (A Strange Stirring) with the phrase :


There is a strange stirring
Here.

The line break employs a pause like the speaker’s breath, with the enjambment dropping that one word in the next line like a throb.

One sees that device in the negatives as well – “no” and “not” – where the lyric persuasion wins over the curiously italicized portions in the poem.

Something in Iyengar’s voice and imagery is startling, yet it feels familiar to the Subcontinental ear. A song-like (I am tempted to say a geet or a naghma) quality resounds in the following:


I shall put ittar on my pulse
Sing the song that pulls him
To the red of my palms
And the blood within. (Certainty)

Although she writes in mostly free verse, Iyengar’s poetry is marked by abundant internal rhyming, free-flowing rhythm patters and the efficient use of styles like list poems, refrains and even rhymed quatrains. Satire and humor too dot the pages, that of a wily lover or a sage seeker. Published by Serene Woods this year, “Yearnings” is a highly recommended reading for poetry patrons.
Abha Iyengar’s poetry has appeared in Dead Drunk Dublin, Conversation Poetry Quarterly, Long Story Short,Up the Staircase and others. She is a Kota Press Poetry Anthology Contest winner. Her poem-film, "Parwaaz" (flight), has won an international prize at Patras, Greece. She is recipient of the Lavanya Sankaran Writing Fellowship.Website www.abhaiyengar.com
Blog: http://abhaencounter.blogspot.com

Nabina's novel “Footprints in the Bajra” is available from Cedar Books, India, while her work has been published in North America, Asia and Australia. An Associate Fellow for the prestigious Sarai-CSDS "City as Studio" Fellowship 2010 (New Delhi, India), Nabina has won prizes in the poetry contests organized by UNISUN Reliance, 2010; Prakriti Foundation, 2009; and HarperCollins-India and Open Space, 2008. She blogs at http://fleuve-souterrain.blogspot.com/ when not writing. An MFA candidate at Rutgers University, Nabina has been an editor with literary zines and newspapers in the US.

YEARNINGS: A REVIEW

Yearnings- Poetess: Ms Abha Iyengar, Pages: 112
Publisher: Serene Woods,
D-72, Nivedita Kunj, Delhi -110092
Printing: Thomson Press India Ltd., Cover Design: Hami (www.facebook.com/getyourhami)
Her website: www.abhaiyengar.com, Her blog: http://abhaencounter.blogspsot.com/


Internationally renowned poet Abha Iyengar has brought out perhaps her first collection of poems ‘Yearnings’. The most striking feature of her poems is their freshness and simplicity. These are poems of love and romance in which emotions dominate. They bear a stamp of authenticity in that they give expression to felt experience. The mind and heart of the poet shines through these poems. These poems are hers and hers alone. One of the qualities of good poetry is that it is not a part of the heaps; it stands out for its individuality rather than for imitation of a model big or small. Many a poet who writes in English has been undone aping T.S. Eliot and his ilk Abha escapes that snare and writes what springs from the heart and goes straight to the heart. A few examples speak for themselves.

Time
It is morning
The dew hangs on my lips

This is not one dimensional poetry. Pain and anguish is another aspect of their themes.

Social Misdemeanours

From the goody-goody girl image
The serpent sometimes crawls out,
To take a snipe at civilization
And then retreats,
Shamefaced
And contride
At the heinous act committed,
Hiding itself
From accusing eyes.
So with a quick smoothening of skirts,
The smile fixes on once more,
A momentary lapse, ignore it now
We shall continue as before.


Strange Lands

In Berlin I cried,
My body racked with pain,
I nearly died.
In Boston I cried
My sister in law had cancer,
She died.
In Paris I cried,
Of a heart wounded and despaired,
My soul died.
I have cried in strange lands
And strangers have held my hands.

This collection is quite likely to make its mark in the world of poetry.
- Prof. Kuldip Salil (Ex- Reader, Hans Raj College, DU)
1770, Outram Lines, Kingsway Camp, Delhi-9

My poetry collection published

http://serenewoods.com/book_details.php?id=419

Finally , my poetry collection is published, the first ever, and it is available online and sample poems can be read.
I am feeling like one proud poet. Strutting my stuff.
Loving it.
Please visit. Please read. If you like what you read, you may want to read more.
If your do, please purchase.
Here is the book. My poetry.

THE TRUTH OF A ‘HOT AND HAPPENING’ SCIENCE FICTION WRITING WORKSHOP

Hot- Kanpur in India in June.
Happening-it happened!

A Participant’s Version

I’m on my way, I don’t know where I am going, but I’m on my way…

Sometimes you are led to places you want to go but are not sure about why . And then also you almost don’t make it. And after that, boy, are you so happy that it happened. You kind of wonder why you missed the first few days, but it could be that you were programming yourself for cold feet, and then realized that there was so much hope waiting there for you that you just had to go. If this sounds like rigmarole, let me lay it out straighter.

A friend sent a call to writers per se, for a science fiction workshop happening for three weeks(3 weeks!) at IIT, Kanpur in June(what a joke, who would go to Kanpur in this heat?) at the cost of Rs. 3000/- only but cost of travel not included (pretty reasonable, kind of balanced the heat). I just forwarded the mail to other writing groups I belonged to, saying this is not for me, but there must be others out there who love stories of science and are capable of writing such too, or aspire to write such. Now my aspirations know no bounds, and though I had washed my hands off the whole deal, something nagged. Three weeks of writing solitude. Maybe I could give sci-fi a go. Max what, a no, for which I was well prepared, given that I was pretty scientifically challenged. All I know about science is that it makes living for me very happy, what with the electricity and broadband and automobiles and elevators and everything else that makes life happening for me in this century.

I wrote what I thought would qualify as a sci -fi story. Sent it off with all that I knew of sci fi and why I wanted to attend the workshop. I think it is my adventurer self that makes me wade in unknown waters. And then the waters say, wow, we are sucking you in, my dear. That’s what happened. My story was accepted, and in the throes of excitement, I booked my tickets well in advance.

My birthday is on the cusp of Aries-Taurus with a Gemini rising, and that combination usually deters people from standing in my path (I have to attribute this to something, might as well be the stars). Yet, not people but something else intervened (the stars?). The night before the 13th of June, with the Shatabdi waiting to be boarded by me the next morning, my ankles swelled up. In brief, I had fallen down some stairs, hurt my leg, was taking some painkillers, and I think the painkillers reacted. I did not know at that time what was happening, but I just decided not to go. A couple of days and check ups later, the doctor said I could go, there was nothing wrong. I had lost time and had told Suchitra meanwhile that I would not be coming.

Suchitra is Suchitra Mathur , Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IITK and the organizational ‘genius’ and one of the facilitators of the sci fi workshop at IITK. She donned the avatar of the many handed devi here, or in modern terminology, the mantle of the ultimate multi-tasker.

She said my room was ready and waiting with the computer and net connection and they hoped to see me sometime, anytime that week! The cooler would also be installed once I arrived. That decided it. I scrambled for another train ticket, and was on my way to the first of the All Indian Three week Science Fiction Writers Workshop being held at IITK.
*****

Being Served the Unexpected

The weather served up something unexpected today. A sudden storm. As I shut the windows I smelt the dust enter my nostrils. Against my wish I breathed it in.

Against my wish, a couple of days ago, I had got dressed to go to a friend’s son’s wedding. Duty called, for I hate weddings, largely because of the amount of dressiness it entails. And because of all the artificiality that surfaces in its glitter and proclamation of where one is at.

This friend, staying at The Pinnacle in Gurgaon, was really at the pinnacle of his career and life, one may say. We had called the cab early, a Logan for a little bit of style and more for leg space comfort. My husband did not want to drive to Gurgaon and back in the night. Clever move, but he had called the cab a bit early.

Since this was to be a wedding without hard drinks, my husband suggested we visit my sister and brother- in-law in Gurgaon for drinks before the wedding. Their home was a stone’s throw away from The Pinnacle. I agreed a bit skeptically, but my sister loved the idea. She had not met her brother-in-law for sometime. “Scotch on the rocks,” she said. “Delighted, her husband said,“if that gets over, then we will bring out the champagne.” We began to look forward to Gurgaon.

I was all dressed up in borrowed plumes and glitter. My mother’s sari that was a light chiffon (I possess heavy silks that would make me wilt in the summer heat, and cottons that wilt in the summer heat) with silver embroidery and was just the right thing for a summer wedding. My sister’s diamond and emeralds hung like heavy fruits from my ears, and her diamond necklace graced my neck, diamonds spangled on a bracelet. This was the first time that I had actually borrowed stuff to wear, I usually manage with whatever I possess. So getting ready for this wedding was no last minute lick and polish affair. I had been well prepared to attend the wedding.

So Cindrella and Prince Charming got into their Logan, the chauffer switched on the a/c, thank god! The music also on but one speaker gone, and it went ‘errprrrkhrr’ behind my husband’s ear,so my husband told the driver that he had the radio tuning off, he should put on a CD. Suddenly from “Anchal tera phalak ban gaya hai” we had some strong Punjabi music that went ‘errrprrkhrrr’, as well, but with a more rustic twang. So we told him to turn the music off, much to his disappointment. Every driver likes his music especially on the day he can’t celebrate with anything else. It was a dry day, being election results day.UPA had just won so many seats and they may be celebrating to high heaven in their places, or palaces, but the ‘aam aadmi’s tekhas were dry for the day and the night.

And now we were depriving him of his phata hua (broken)music as well.
One and a half hour of non music and heavy traffic to get to Gurgaon. We arrived, delighted to have reached finally for the drinks. We told the driver to have his dinner, we would be departing in another half- hour. We just wanted to stretch our legs.
Wet our gills.
We did not tell him that. Not that he needed any explanation.

We settled in easily into the drinks session. I kept refusing the namkeens that my sister offered and since I was hungry, kept munching them as well. I had deliberately kept my stomach empty, going as I was to a wedding where I was sure I would get wonderful food of different varieties. My intention was to definitely eat at this wedding. Not gorge, but eat. Since I am watching my weight nowadays, I often do not eat at weddings , limiting myself to juices. My mother, when she had last heard of this strategy of mine, had been appalled. She told me in no uncertain terms that a wedding was a lot about eating. So I shovelled gram flour covered peanuts into my mouth, (they accompanied the scotch and soda) since I was hungry; and kept telling my sister how much I was looking forward to eating the laccha paranthas, the pudhina parathas the soft naans and crisp tandoori rotis. You can figure out what a roti freak I am.

Meanwhile, she kept telling me how beautiful I was looking (the effect of borrowed plumes and her indulgent vision and the drink).In my new avatar as Cindrella dressed for the ball I did not mind this at all. So I smiled and asked her to give me some lipstick to touch up my lips some more, and then reminded my husband that we should be leaving now, we were well past the time to leave and it seemed to me he had forgotten all about our real purpose for coming to Gurgaon. I had to literally drag him out of his chair from which he was still holding forth on politics(well, what else on that day, but that’s his usual ‘fun’ topic in any case) and my brother in law too was matching him in his evaluation process. The way they were comparing seats won by UPA and those lost by NDA, it appeared that they had a personal stake in this.
In a fog induced by hunger, sleep, politics and half a drink, I had no desire left but to get on with it and into bed at home somehow. We had a long night ahead .We did not know how long then.

Out of the door, into the car and on the way to Pinnacle, we went from Gurgaon’s plaza and DT Megamall area to the DLF Golf Club and a little beyond to Pinnacle , a stone's throw away, but it took us 25 minutes to get there, Saturday night traffic does not let up.

No sign of a marriage happening there. Except that The Pinnacle was lit up so bright that it could have guided ships into Mumbai Harbour. I surmised then that it could not be lit thus on all nights, what a waste of much needed electricity, so a marriage was responsible for this wastage. Definitely.

We asked one of the guards, “Where’s the marriage?” He said, “No marriage here.” A ‘baraat’ had left a couple of hours ago from there, though. This he stated as an after thought.

I peered at the card, which fortunately, I had picked up. It had the driver’s parking coupon. That may have been the reason.

While my husband fished for his spectacles I brought mine out and peered at the card. The marriage was at Mithas Farms, somewhere near Tivoli Gardens. My husband kept asking me, “Are you sure? Are you sure?” I asked him to check it out himself ( seeing is believing). The driver, meanwhile, said he knew Tivoli Garden, it was a landmark, and pepped the car around. With the Metro construction in full swing, the roads are eerily unrecognizable, less so in the middle of the night by two middle-aged, drunk and bespectacled individuals. “Where is Satbari?What is the Chattarpur Mandir, is it the Shiv Mandir?” This was the rest of the address of Mithas farms.

“No, no,” said the driver, a trifle put off that my husband was unaware of another famous landmark, that too a mandir! “I know Tivoli Garden, I will take you there.”
My husband peered out at the road, hoping to recognize something.
We made it to Tivoli Gardens. I kept saying “ Thank God its on the way back home.My husband kept saying, “Then why did we go to Gurgaon if it was here.”I kept quiet. No point in telling him it was his idea, his goof up etc.
Tivoli Garden had been reached. This farm was nowhere ‘near’it.
More darkness and more desolation greeted us.
We finally reached Mithas Farms after 45 minutes of driving from Pinnacle, and similar number of minutes of frayed nerves.

Mithas Farms.

Absolute and eerie sannata greeted us. Not a bird quacked, not a car honked.

Four things instantly crossed my mind:
There was another Mithas Farms somewhere down the road perhaps?
The wedding could not have got over so fast with no a trace of anything.
They had shifted the venue and not informed us.
The wedding had been called off, and they had not informed us.
My brain’s earlier fog had cleared. Totally. A new fog had emerged. The mystery of the wedding that…

“Is the date right? Check the card?” prompted my husband.
16th, Saturday, May,it was all gold type on a deep brown surface. Designer card. Confusing card.3 or 4 of them, engagement, sangeet, wedding, dinner…we had them all there. Now these flat, hard rectangular invites fell on to our laps to adorn them instead of the dinner plates with food.
We began to cross examine the two guards who sat outside Mithas Farms in the semi-darkness.
One old, grey, thin, wrinkled, wearing a crocheted cap close to his skull.
The other young and heavy, with a gold wrist watch that glinted in the dark against his brown skin and white kurta. He walked up to us now.
Very much like the wedding card. Hefty, layered, meaningless.
“Where is the wedding?” we asked him
As if he knew. We had taken a shot in the dark
“I don’t know. Not here,” he said.
“This is Mithas Farms?” I asked
“Yes.”
“Wedding?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“I don’t know. Several others came in cars to ask.”
We were not the only woebegone treasure hunters.

“Why not wedding here?” I asked
“These farms have been closed for sometime. Can’t have tamashas here.” This from the older man.
“No tamasha, this is serious, a wedding!” I said.
“Sorry, ma’am, we don’t know.” He was polite.
No luck from him either.
“Where did the other cars go? Any idea?”
“No.”
I looked at the card again.
R.S.V.P. Two numbers were given
“Let’s call and find out,” I said. Such a bright idea.
We called the two numbers. No one picked up.
“They must be busy with the wedding atop some tempo.” My husband was dripping sarcasm now.
“Driver, wapis chalo,” he said.
The driver had also joined in our card gazing and deciphering game a little while back. So he put the useless cards aside and turned on the ignition.
I tried from my cellphone now, a last ditch call.
Nothing.
My husband said, “We tried.”
I did not have to watch my waist. Someone was doing it for me by making sure I missed the dinner venue.

We sat in silence on the way home, till the cell crackled.
Something came to life.
My son, wanted to know when we would be returning since he had to drop his girlfriend home by 12.30 p.m.
“What you doing?” asked my husband
“Organizing dinner.”
“We will join you. We have not had dinner,” my husband told him.
Nothing fazes my son. No questions. “Cool,” he said.
So we returned home to greet his girlfriend and a dinner with pudhina paranthas. I got them at home, but only one variety. Plus gosht korma and choley, dal and curd. It filled our hungry stomachs and laid to rest unkind thoughts directed towards whatever led to this
.
I had been served not what I expected. Definitely not the vegetarian dinner amidst glittering lights and air kissing that I thought would happen. I was served drinks at my sister’s place and a non-vegetarian dinner at home. There was subdued light and more lively talk, coming as it did from my son and his girlfriend.

I had not wanted to attend the wedding. Neither had my husband. I think the universe was just listening too hard to the two of us.

P.S. We found out later that the wedding took place at Chabbra farms. There was another card which we missed seeing that gave directions to it! When people have too many functions and too many cards, simple and straight forward folks like us get lost on the way.

About a Desk

In the midst of all that I am feeling, you know, some general stuff and some not so general stuff which we humans go through at some point or the other, what is happening within me is a surge of happiness to have my desk finally the way I want it. After many years of dithering it took just two days to get it fixed, once the decision was made. This was because I had first toyed with the idea of selling it as it was, and then buying a new desk. This desk was not originally intended for computer work. I had a built-in ironing board fixed into it, at a great expense at that time (many moons ago), which was a drawer that pulled out to reveal an ironing board. The desk had a greater depth then, twenty five inches, more than the standard one of eighteen inches, and its drawer depth was also greater, having to house the collapsible ironing board. The fact is that despite all this hoo-ha, I never used the ‘goddam thingamagig’ (pardon) as an ironing board! So when I got my own computer and needed a desk to place it on, this is what I used for several years. I wanted to change it, it was too wide, but it was working.

The change happened when I bought a new chair, a couple of weeks ago. Yes, that also had a lot of dithering and time pass attached to it. In this case it had to do with the practical aspects of one chair to be lugged all the way from Rani Jhansi road to my place in east Delhi, and the transport stuff always fazes me. Its all in the mind, I have these built-in blocks. But I tightened my girth and did not allow my brain to think too much, and just went and bought it. Pronto, with not too much window shopping and raising of confusion level. It got dismantled and in the car to be easily transported. Nothing to it. Relief. What happened with the chair was that its seat was two inches higher than my previous chair. Don’t ask me about the furniture standards etc. here, that’s something we Indians are not familiar with. What’s a couple of inches here or there in the long run. With the higher seat, my thighs got a bit pressed by the deep drawers of the table, whenever I moved the chair too in. Not very uncomfortable, but still something I could not suffer forever. Change was coming.

Getting back to the table, I had been looking at buying the simple ready made available ones, a dime and dozen kind of computer desks that are available, nothing fancy. I would first need to sell the old desk; then buy a new one. Then I realized that it would be cheaper to get the old one cut (the wood is excellent and expensive), and done to the way I wanted, rather than try selling it with a pull and push ironing board which may be too stylish for the likes of anyone around. The ironing board was removed and packed off to the dungeons (also known as the loft in modern parlance, so the dungeons are now above our heads). The width of the table was reduced, the drawers decreased in depth and viola, it was ready. This happened when the carpenter came to do the kitchen work, and I told him to fix the desk after that.
Even then, a part of me resisted the idea of getting it done! What? Just some left over mental blockages against change.
As they say, the time has to be right for the idea to happen.
I am swimming in freedom now. Alive, kicking happy.
You want to feel this? Just go get something changed, make it more suitable, more comfortable. It may be just a desk.

****

Desperate to be Separate?

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…”

~Robert Frost ‘Mending Wall’

I look at all the sweet, young teenage things, noodle- strapped, straightened- hair and blue- jeaned. Bangles and kohl eyes and nose stud—surely this makes them different; Eastern, Ethnic and Exotic. Non, non. From Madonna and Britney to the occasional girl in downtown London, this is also there now. So we can do a transference of these girls from India to that place in the U.S. and they will be very much ‘chewing- gum happy’. And they will be able to ‘talk the walk’ as well, since we do have the English language as the great binding or liberating force, depending on which side of the coin you are looking from.

So whether it is material girl or metro- sexual male, woman of substance or man of means— identities and their definitions change fast and furious in a world in a hurry. Welcome to the 21^st century, where cultures collide to merge or get submerged in what is termed the ‘globalization’ of the world. Human beings are still human beings, but the world has changed.

What has happened is the advent of communication and connection whence the exchange of both ideas and ideology are no longer limited by time and space. I refuse to cry ‘foul’. Protest has raged rampant about how globalization has made everyone identical, that culture and identity has taken a tossing in the whirlpool of everybody ‘mixing’ together. McDonalds, malls, and Valentine’s Day have besieged our country and turbans, tandoori masala and tattoos their country; but we should stop and think—is this just not what was happening before? The Beatles and Ravi Shankar did play together a long while ago. Fusion is possible. The change has accelerated, and the handshakes are faster across cyber space, that’s all.

Eastern identity feels threatened, but one needs to question why. It is not a one- sided deal. We are also giving a lot to the world, making it available in ways not possible till now. The Gayatri Mantra can be heard on a CD in California by an Indian lady and her American friend and they can both enjoy and discuss it. Not possible if the world were not globalized today. An Indian surgeon in London can advise an American one in New Jersey how to perform a particular surgery through a video conference. Not possible in yesterday’s world. Book your tickets online. Make friends and chat with them free, whether they are in New London or Kalimpong. Strike deals on the mobile as you walk your dog. You can still say your morning prayers in your temple. You can still wear your salwar kameez and bindi. You can still talking Punjabi with your friends. What changes for you is that you can now teach Punjabi to a friend outside your city anywhere in the world, via the net, which has been so instrumental in making the world smaller. In fact it has made the world bigger for all of us, because we now have access to all kinds of knowledge, ideas and thoughts. And people can understand other cultures better, be it Eastern or Western, with this widened knowledge base.

Why should we be desperate to be separate? Decades ago, when people moved from villages to cities, it was urbanization, and it threatened the very core of thinking then. Yet, in the cities, people from different places and backgrounds walk and work together. Globalization is cursed because it brings with it a kind of commercial uniformity all over the world. Have a look at the sized and packaged bananas available at the malls; they are perfect clones of each other. This is just a micro-level example, but it states a fact. It scares us that we humans may some day become perfect clones of one another. Globalization also raises issues of ethnicity and immigration. Should immigrants from Algeria be assimilated into France? Should Sikh boys be allowed to wear turbans in British schools? There are cultural upheavals that take place.

We have to find our answers and make our decisions. But we cannot be static.

‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall’. Humanity definitely does not. The answer actually lies here.

IF TRUTH BE TOLD

I think children find their own truths. Those that work for them.

For example, my daughter will tell me she is dog-tired. She has had a tough day at her summer job, survived on just a cup of milk for breakfast and coffee for lunch, and does not have energy left to fill the water bottles to place in the fridge. In other words, Could I please fill them for her? is the unspoken question.

I comply; the mother syndrome always overtakes me. This is the truth my daughter knows, the truth of the gullible mom; it works for her every time. Ten minutes later I see her watching T.V. in her bedroom, with all the sleep and weariness gone from her eyes. Her work is done.

What is my truth? My truth is that whatever I may say--scold, cajole, persuade, promise, bribe, threaten--she will do what she wants when she wants and that is it. And I will still think of her as my baby, though she is an eighteen-year-old in college, with more energy in her young body than in that of her mother's.

There are consequences to these truths. I grow older and get tired faster, since the body is like any other machine; wear and tear and age will show. And I cannot even claim depreciation. More important is that my daughter finds it is easier to get around people through making excuses rather than telling the plain and simple truth. So instead of saying, "I don't want to fill the water bottles everyday," and face the consequences of making an outright rude and unhelpful statement that shows her in "such a bad light," she plays the card of "poor me, mother, I'm so tired and I have worked so hard on an empty stomach," and gets not only sympathy but also the work done for her.

So what if she gets a talking-to after the fact? The work is over, and tomorrow is another day. That is the way of the world, and children learn these truths fast. If truth be told, we are good teachers of what the consequences of truth are.

[First published online in Mosaic Minds]

PLUNGING INTO PERFORMANCE

It was a late night meeting, in a café in Khan Market, one of the happening places in Delhi. I was nervous as hell.

I had to dress the part, which meant I could not wear a traditional, nondescript salwar-kameez and merge into the environment. My dress had to make a statement, so also my make-up, to go with what I intended doing that night.

I decided, once I was ready, that I looked good in the lacy white top, black pants and red lipstick. My son walked in and said, “It would be better if you draped a stole around your shoulders while walking in Khan Market.” He smiled. He knows how to drive a point home without creating a crack on the surface. Since there was a slight chill in the air, I could carry a stole, and frantically began searching for one. Unable to do so at the spur of the moment, I settled for a colourful chunni, a long scarf worn with the salwar, the purpose being the same, to hide prominent parts of the female anatomy. “I will remove the scarf once I enter the restaurant,” I asserted, and my son nodded, “Of course.”

The café was milling with people, a lot of them youngsters. Amongst them, of assorted ages and professions, were about twenty-five of us. It was our writer’s group meet, but it was supposed to be an evening of ‘performance’ and not mere ‘recitation’. The audience was not restricted to writers alone; anyone could listen, watch and comment later.

We sat around our mochas, cappuccinos, chicken /cheese wraps or one-eyed burgers and individually read, recited or performed to a receptive but critical audience.

When I stood up to perform, I was applauded for being enterprising enough, since many had got cold feet and read from wherever they were seated. Shivering and quaking on my high heels, I plunged into the performance with as much gusto as I could.

I finished with the last line of my poem, “I am not that kind of girl,” and was met with stunned silence and then applause all around. Happiness flooded over me, warming my body and face. My first attempt at performance poetry was a hit.

The amount of effort I had to put in not so much in the performance but into convincing myself that I could do it and I would not know ‘where I stood with myself’ unless I stood up to perform, is unbelievable.

After the fear and the nervousness, the adrenaline rush which came over me at that instant of appreciation is staying with me, encouraging me to do more gigs like this. I have taken another step in conquering the doubts and apprehensions that assail me, especially at my age.

Plunging into performance, I have released another fountain of my youthful spontaneity.

We Have to Do

‘Cry a tear so red

for blood is running like water

On the streets of Mumbai.’

There are blasts at Colaba.

Is it a gang war?

An encounter between the police and criminals?

NO, these are bombs, taking the lives of innocent civilians once again.

People who have been out shopping at Colaba return home and are thankful that they are not out, partying at Leopold tonight.

A 100 year old heritage hotel spews fire in the middle of the night, and innocents lose their lives, in the fire, and through shots at point blank range. Others are held hostage.

Two students from a well-known college of Mumbai have duty at the Taj, they are training there. They get shot, and are no more. Their friends won’t see their faces again, their families will reach out to a void and grope forever.

YES, this is war, a war against India and Indians, a war against peace, stability and harmony.

Who is doing this? What is there intention?

The face of this terror is young, it is 22-24 year olds who tote their AK 47 as come out of the Taj. The face of terror is hideous especially when it is young.

The intention is clear. Destabilze India. And do it through blasts, fire and shootings that rob innocent lives to create fear and terror and hatred. Make living unsafe, instill dread. Start with the metros—Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi and now, this devil gathers impetus, it is emboldened— do it in Maximum City, do it in the Financial Hub, do it in Mumbai.

So, once again, held hostage by madness, this time its Mumbai.

The nation and the world watches in horror, as the audacity of the operation hits home. Each heart, near or far, is crying. We will be lighting the candle of grief— for the brave and the bold; the innocent and the dead and injured. But we need to shed our grief and see what we can do so that this act is the last one in the book. We need an action plan, we need ideas and we need implementation. We need not only to speak but also do and get done.

The loss should not be in vain.

Light the candle.

Take action.

In whichever way possible-ideas, suggestions, however far-fetched, throw them in here, in this space. Something has to work. We have to rid Mumbai of menace. We cannot sit with our hands folded and say, “What can we do?”

We have to do.

First published online here http://bombaytragedy.blogspot.com/on november 28th 2008

Eight Hours of Dance, Three Days of Joy

My body, stiff and uncertain.
As I go through the paces, my movements utterly jerky and perhaps unco-ordinated as compared to the smooth flow of our teacher and some of the more agile students in the class, I still feel happy on the whole. I am a bit self-conscious and a bit sad, that I did not awaken to my body’s movements earlier.
The body needs to speak and has its own language of expression. And this comes through easier if it is agile and easy, not fragile or stiff. Bending, lifting, rising, jumping, folding, spreading, pointing and arching, each movement required a different set of muscles to work.
Sumeet Nagdev of Expressions, Dadar, Mumbai, (EMDC), our teacher, who is young, compassionate, and filled with his love for dance, tells us that there are 7 rules for dance, as per his theory.
1. The BODY is one entity. YOU are another entity, separate from the body.
2. Two basic functions /movements of the body are RELEASE and CONTROL.
3. SPACE determines your movement. If you do not have space, you cannot move. There are three levels of space, upper, middle and lower. The upper level of space is the most difficult to move in.
4. GRAVITY is the reason for this, since gravity pulls you down. You can CHALLENGE Gravity, but you cannot DEFY it.
5. The body has its LIMITATIONS.
6. The MIND can make your body work/move, so there are actually YOU, BODY and MIND at work during dance.
7. When you dance, keeping all this is mind, you achieve SELF-ACTUALIZATION.
Well, that was the theoretical part of it, which I guess counts, but the sheer joy of movement, as individuals and as part of a group, without music and with music, all made it fun and fascinating. We learnt the basics-point, passé, fasse, sashay, adaggio, what the terms meant and the positions they alluded to, how to release and control the body, how to move with patience and determination, to jump in the air and to bend over backwards, to flatten our spines and crouch like a tiger. There were exercises and games like ‘mirror’, chasing the little finger, the moving hands and others, just to improve focus, co-ordination and concentration, and to show how every boy’s body speaks its own language, moves in its particular way.
There is a need to keep the body supple and flexible so that it continues to move with grace and life becomes a celebration of movement.
Blood, bone, muscle, skin, the body suddenly acquired a new meaning!
Step-sashay, step-sashay; step, together/ step-sashay!

Certain Quandaries of a Profession

I recently edited somebody’s novel. My editing was appreciated. Very much. My work as a writer was appreciated. Again very much, by the same person, who read my writings online on my webpage. I was grateful, happy, touched.

I was asked, thereafter, to comment on her novel. Now, as an editor, naturally, I had gone through the novel with a tooth-comb. I knew it better than perhaps my own writing at that moment. However, I do not think it was right for her to ask for me to comment on her novel, nor would it have been right for me to do so. After all, there are so many manuscripts I edit, and some leave me flabbergasted, some impressed, some plain tired of the effort I need to put in. The story kind of gets lost in the language to be worked upon. And I do not choose the novels I edit. So I may like a particular story or I may not like it, still, I will edit it. Every author’s writing is not my cup of tea. If I really liked a story, even then I do not think I would comment upon it, because it should not influence the author into believing that I am representative of an audience. For example, Chetan Bhagat’s writings are the rave, yet he leaves me unimpressed. I can do without his kind of stories. Now if I had perchance edited his work and if he had perchance asked for my comments, and then if I had told him my take on his writings, it may have so deflated him that he may not have sallied forth and got his work out into the market with confidence enough. And then the appreciation of so many readers would have escaped him.

I know how important it is as a writer to get positive feedback. And negative feedback may be well intentioned, but it is destroying, and I do know that it requires more than a duck’s feathered back for it to roll off easily. More than anything else, it is subjective. I may not like sci fi, then how can I appreciate anyone writing it? I have to have a particular taste, a particular inclination. So I think writers should be careful whom they ask for an opinion, and it should definitely not be that of the one who edits their manuscript. Especially if that person is a fellow writer and sympathetic to the needs and aspirations of the one whose work she is editing, but will be hard put to give an objective comment without ruffling feathers.

Some Thoughts on Hopes and Expectations

We live on hope and expectations. We especially bank a lot on our progeny.
My young modern dance teacher, all of 23, said that he comes from a Sindhi business family. He started his own dance company at the age of 19, began to learn dance at 15, with the help of pocket money- his father would never finance the learning of dance at a dance school for him.
His parents would have reared him with certain expectations, and he would be a disappointment for those who think that dance is for the birds, a hobby, a phase, or something not to be taken seriously, definitely not as a profession. He talked of how he struggled because he was often rejected by dance schools where he applied to learn, and then again when he set up his own dance school. He preferred to stay away from home. He went there recently, on his mother’s request, whereupon at the family dinner table, relatives who were visiting from the U.S. asked him what he did.
“You dance? How interesting,” they said, a couple of them raised their eyebrows. “What work do you do otherwise?’’
The eternal question all creative beings are asked, I feel. He runs a dance company, has opened an office of his own, has branches opening up in Mumbai, yet… it does not seem like a profession like being a doctor or a lawyer. And parents, what of their expectations? So, be happy, if your son or daughter is earning a living and happy with what they are doing, making a mark and a place for himself/herself through hard work. It may not be a profession to your liking, yet it is work, and it is something being achieved with pride and a sense of purpose.
It has always surprised me how a family of doctors will want their children and grandchildren to follow that very stream, whether or not they be so inclined or capable to do so.
Another boy, a friend of my daughter’s, belongs to a business family. He wants to be a professor of literature. I have my doubts if he will be allowed to follow his dream, unless he has the guts to break through. The hopes and expectations that parents pin on their progeny is often something one wonders about. It may be an extension of their unlived dreams, it may be a need that the family business continue at any cost, it may be that the status attached to a certain profession assumes all importance, even if the child’s soul dies in the process. I have heard parents say, “Ro peet kar isey humney lawyer banaa hi dia.”(With crying and beatings, we have made him into a lawyer). And they beam with happiness and pat the shoulder of their child, who cringes and smiles sheepishly. But often his eye will be dead.
A girl wants to study aeronautics, but is forced to study architecture since her father is an architect. Another girl wants to study German, is totally passionate about it, but language has a shaky future and no promise of big bucks, so she is forced to study chartered accountancy. That she eventually gives up commerce and returns to her first love can be credited to her parents’ finally realizing the truth - her unhappiness and inability to cope with a subject not in keeping with her own dreams.As parents we need to be more open to what our child wants to do. And as children we have to more assertive of what we want from life. There is only one life. We must help our child live the life according to his aspirations and dreams, not ours. And we must try to live our life as per our aspirations, not project our hopes onto our progeny. And if our child opts for an uncommon path, we must have it in our hearts to not only accept but to support. A bamboo has as much place under the sun as an oak.

Not Nice to be ‘Nice’

Sometimes it is not nice to be ‘nice’. You are actually performing a disservice to the person to whom you are being nice. I had been ignoring the call for comment on the poems of a friend. His poems did not pass muster and hence I was maintaining my silence. However, there is nothing like persistence to get resistance down. I succumbed to his constant requests and gave a comment. It was a positive note that I sent. Really would have preferred to not have said anything. Did not think much of this either, because I think it is necessary to encourage people to do what they want to do.

However, a discussion with another friend brought the disservice I had actually done to the fore. She asked me whether I had really liked the poem and I said no. She then asked me why I had posted a positive comment. I said he did write good poems, some of them were very good actually, (I had read some of them in the past),and this one was not all that bad.

She was not convinced, because she knew from my eyes that I did not believe that this poem was worth responding too, regardless of how good his earlier poems may have been.

I knew she was talking sense.

So I decided from then on to not be ‘nice’. Little did I know that this decision of mine would land me in a soup the next day when I spoke my mind out to a publisher friend. However, wonders will never cease. Though he was very upset at the time when I spoke my mind, he later capitulated and we are friends once again. So if people can take the truth and still be your friend, that’s good. Otherwise, don’t be nice for the sake of friendship. Actually, you are not being the true friend that you should be if you are ‘nice’.

Constructive criticism is necessary. You need not be brutal, but don’t be a sucker in any case. If you can’t say anything good, then keep quiet. And if he persists, then show that you are made of sterner stuff. Continue to maintain silence. And if he still carries on, then tell him the truth as you see it and let him bear the consequences of his pushiness.

If you have to say what is needed, do so, and be done with it. Its better than being ‘nice’, and your friend will thank you for it in the end.

****

A Land of Deep Colours

In October 2007, reality for me was a hot and dusty Delhi. To travel to green and lush Kerala at that time became an escape into magic land. And there was this almost direct flight with just a half-hour stop at Chennai, all the way from New Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram.

Yes, I can write and pronounce that tongue twister name of the capital city of Kerala.

Kerala is green. Rubber, coconut, banana and areca nut trees are what you see for miles and miles. And if you look beyond the trees, you see beaches with the waters a hazy blue, green, grey, orange, and even muddy. It all depends on the time of the day, the location, and your viewpoint. There are hills in the distant, the Western Ghats, not very high and therefore beckoning. There are rivers that flow into the sea and waterfalls like Meenmutty. This has a stone-moss-lined trekking path leading to it overhung with green shade. The River Kallar meanders gently alongside. Here you may be bitten sharp by a mosquito or two, watch a six inch black centipede crawl leisurely by and see an ant nest on a tree. The wonders of the natural world are laid out on a platter.

Kerala is red. Small red bananas hang in bunches from long stalks in roadside stalls and are unbelievably sweet when eaten. Red coconuts have cool, refreshing water to help you beat the humidity and the white flesh scraped from their insides melts in your mouth. Areca nuts redden your lips. Small red flowers are strung in the well-oiled plaits of the young girls like a long forgotten fashion idea. The rows of red tiled roofs shield old-fashioned houses from the sun. There are not many glass-fronted skyscrapers yet on the landscape. The inescapable red communist flags line some of the streets, making their own statement.

Kerala is black. The black soil at Kovalam, rich in minerals, is washed onto the beach. Black boat houses and canoes rock steadily in the waters. There is the black of the mountains, visible where they have been cut away. The gods are black too, hewn out of granite. In the Padmanabhaswamy temple at Thiruvananthapuram, it is a granite Vishnu that reclines so hugely that he is viewed across three doorways, his black arm flung across to bless the worshippers, adorned with a thick gold bracelet that shines in the darkened interior and highlights the beauty of its form. There is the darkening black of the clouds, when the thunder clouds pour forth their bounty with unrelenting fury and make the land what it is. The people have a smooth ebony colouring, accentuated by the stark whiteness of their crisp shirts.

This land of deep colours and deeper tranquility helped me escape from the blinding daylight starkness and neon-lit nocturnal existence of Delhi. Kerala is a return to the basics, where life flows on in the backwaters of beyond.