Clinging to the point of Origin

No One Killed Jessica

2011-01-08T18:49:00.006+05:30

Wow. What a disappointment. The movie was empty. The acting was bad. The story was monotonous. The struggle was already known. The emotions didn't seem real. The tragedy of it all didn't come across. And given that it was publicised so much by the media, one hoped to see something more than what the media has already told us. Nothing.

Rani Mukherji played the stereotypical aggressive journalist (somehow that translated into being a self proclaimed 'bitch') who swore (even the overdone spurts of 'fuck', 'F.O', 'son of a bitch', 'bastards', 'fucking' sounded all too fake), smoked (but never really inhaled) and had a lot of 'meaningless sex' (a badly lit make out scene that ended with her leaving the man high and dry just as things could have gotten 'steamy'). Vidya Balan was too subdued, her character remained static through the years...but she was definitely better than some of the others in the cast.

The lesser known actors did a better job than the leading ladies. The actor that I liked the most in the film was the police officer who was investigating the case. A pock-marked, pot-bellied man who seemed like the only genuine character in the film.

The only interesting part about the film was the glimpses the audiences got to see of the relationship between Sabrina and Jessica Lall, depicted in the form of flashbacks.

But on the whole, the film failed to display any sense of injustice, loss, sadness or anything. In fact, you came out of the theatre feeling pretty...blank.

Again and again, Delhi rapes its women

2010-12-13T19:06:00.007+05:30

Once again, its in the news. A woman in Delhi is gang-raped in a moving car even as 600 cops are on the lookout for that car. Yes, many of us feel - 'Ehhh...Nothing new about it'. It's true.

But looking at the front page of Times of India today really sent shivers down my spine. Below the chilling story were some statistics. It turns out that there have been 5 instances of rape, of which four were gang-rapes in Delhi in the last two weeks.

The media has given a lot of attention to what Chidambaram had to say about the rapes resulting due to a large number of migrants in the city. While Chidambaram claims he has been misquoted/ misunderstood, the opposition and other politicians are opportunistic as ever, trying to get one up on the Congress party.

And once again, the real issues - the deeper and more disturbing issues - are becoming secondary. I don't blame parents for being completely paranoid about their children in Delhi. In late november, a 7 year old girl was raped and a week later, a girl was gang-raped. Then again, a week or so later, another gang-rape. And another. And today, yet another. The gruesome reality of the situation is that Delhi is still not safe.

Moreover, what seems to be an extremely alarming fact is that apparently six-hundred policemen were apparently looking for the car while the girl was repeatedly raped in it. What is the Delhi police doing? Also, I admire our Chief Minister for all that she has done for Delhi. But what is the Chief Minister of Delhi doing about this?

Finally, I have to say - What are the people of Delhi doing?? 433 rapes in Delhi this year. The average statistic indicates that a woman is raped in Delhi everyday. Why are we so silent about this? Why are we so mute?

Amritsar, and Bharatanatyam in a village

2010-11-23T18:45:00.011+05:30

Amritsar 15.11.2010– We got onto the train at 4.30 in the afternoon. I was writing an article for my other blog when my mum, who was dying to visit Amritsar as well and decided to come along, struck up a conversation with someone behind her. The lady had a cute, plump 7 year old with her -Khyati. She turned out to be my first Amritsari fan - a kathak dancer. Upon hearing that I had performed outside of India, she wanted a photograph with me. I awkwardly obliged. Anyway, on we go - the hotel was five minutes from the train station, amidst a lot of promising punjabi dhabas, one of which I was to visit the next day for lunch. Meanwhile, in the hotel, I examined the menu – Slim and Trim Breakfast, fluffy omlettes, 'macroni' and cheese, 'singapuri' chicken, and rolls and titsbits (!!) were among the amusing dishes on the menu. And to drink? Cocktails made of domestic liquor 60ml – my favourite was called ‘Slow Comfortable Screw’. Another one that caught my attention was ‘Suckers Punch’. The management had a note at the end of the menu which had sentences such as – ‘Every efforts will be made to execute your order and full course meals’, ‘Room service facilities are restricted to orders from the Room service’ and ‘Kitchen, where hygienic conditions are strictly enforced.’ Yes, the sentence ended there.

Amritsar 16.11.2010 – Breakfast in the hotel – Fluorescent green aloo tikkis and pink jam. Colourful start. Then we headed to the Golden temple – handsome sikhs all around, I couldn't help but think we are a good looking people! What amazed me even more was the hospitality and general concern for complete strangers - I was told every once in a while that my dupatta might get caught in the wheel of the rcikshaw, and I was warmed to know that the Golden Temple provided wheelchairs for elderly people. The Golden temple itself was a sight for sore eyes. It was a surprisingly solemn and moving experience for an agnostic like me. Besides, the kadha prashad was absolutely delicious.

Moving on, our next stop was Jallianwala Bagh. It was disturbing, but I think they should have kept some of it the way it was then. It was too sanitized and too much like a neighbourhood park now.

People would argue that it may not have been a particularly comfortable memory to preserve. Understandable of course, but then, why preserve it at all? If it was a place where a snippet of gruesome history took place, and if that is what we want to remember that place for, then there should be a proper memorial for it, I think. None the less, it was chilling to see the bullet marks in bits of the wall. Lunch was at Kundan Dhaba – not particularly great, but I had sarson da saag and makki di roti.

The next stop was Wagah Border. The line to enter was insane. Once we got in, the madness began. The official man egging the Indians on made the 'official' statement that no derogatory slogans are to be used, but the aggression of patriotism was obvious. I felt uncomfortable that we outnumbered the Pakistani spectators, but was later told that it was perhaps because of Id that people had not showed up. The whole ceremony made me want to cry, as soldiers on both sides aggressively marched towards each other, the gates were opened almost reluctantly, and shut with gusto. Perhaps the only moment that made me smile was when the flags came together and people on both sides whistled and cheered. Bewildered foreigners looked on and mumbled 'Hindustan zindabad' every once in a while. I was looking beyond, across the gates into Pakistan - what could've easily still been where a part of me came from.

Amritsar 17.11.2010 – Headed to Preet Nagar, a village about 20 kilometres from Amritsar, where the performance was to take place. Got there, got ready, performed. The performance was an interesting experience. It was actually a intriguing change from performing for delhi audiences who know how to behave, how to sit, when to clap, what to say. The performance at Preet Nagar was a riot! Children were running around on the stage while I danced, they laughed at some movements I did, and looked with utter fascination at others. I also had a bunch of drunk spectators who were rushed out, much to the embarassment of the organisers. There was much hooting and cheering. An experience that initially frustrated me, it later made me smile. I loved dancing for an audience that didn't give a damn about what I was trying to do - there was an innocent rawness about it. Those that couldn't care less, walked out as and when they pleased, they talked loudly and roamed around, but the ones that did care - their appreciation showed with as much rawness as the disinterest did. Some of the spectators, particularly the chidlren - were trying to understand what I was trying to say, and other adults told me that I had done a wonderful thing by bringing this dance form to the people. Frustrated at first, towards the end, I was happy. All's well that ends well, eh?

The next day, we returned to Delhi. Amritsar, I'll be back soon!

Photographs - 1. Migrant share-croppers waiting to go home after the harvest, at Amritsar station; 2. Golden Temple; 3. Bullet marks at Jallianwala Bagh; 4. Wagah Border; 5. The three organisers of the Preet Nagar performance. For more photographs, click here.

Bake your cake and eat it too?

2010-02-19T01:30:00.001+05:30

A spam message I received on skype (I don't think its advisable to open the link, most likely to be a virus) -

"There are thousands of unhappy married women and men in every city, but they DO NOT want to leave their spouse. They want to stay married, but they want to have an affair without ever being caught. Our dating community is extremely popular!

Having an affair can be stressful because you never know if the other person involved is going to get attached to you. You just want to have an intimate encounter and nothing else.

A great thing about this Discreet Dating Community For Married People is that there is no cost to join. You can check it out, see if you like it, and then begin contacting married people for secret intimate encounters.

Press here if you want to have an affair with a married person:
http://www.treatyourselftonight.com"

Unbelievable. Pathetic.

"The way you make me feel" and "Bad"

2009-06-30T15:01:00.003+05:30

Notice my sister's hairstyle, and the flick of her arm every now and then, my parents and grand parents' paranoia about me dropping her on her head, and our fancy moves!!! (specially in "Bad")

Presenting, 1 year old Vanya and 4 year old Aranyani, dancing in the living room to Michael Jackson....

So, why Obama..

2008-11-06T10:02:00.006+05:30

There are lots of reasons...call me pseudo-liberal, call me naive, call me an idealist...but today I heard a disappointed and dejected American woman say "Upon Obama's victory, I learnt not to be cynical and depressed." I went to Columbia University in NYC to listen to an election analysis by the common people of New York, and by some of the highly respected teachers at the University, and by contributers to papers like "The Nation" and "The New Yorker".

A white american woman sat there, beaming from ear to ear. For those of you interested in politics, this would be of interest to you. For those apathetic to it, I think you will still enjoy hearing what she had to say...

She started her talk by saying "Back in April, I'd placed a bet on McCain, and each time I was challenged, I only bet higher...I didn't have faith in the american people, and I believed that Republicans are geniuses of the manipulation of stupidity." She said she feared that not enough white people would vote for Barack Obama.

"But enough white people DID vote for Obama," she said. She continued by saying that Obama was a wonderful politician and communicated being a good person. He gave her faith that he had the ability to bridge the gaps between the people he agreed with, and those who didn't agree with him.

About the expectations the world had from him, she said "We've been a rogue-elephant country for the last 8 years...I don't expect the next 4 years to be as flawless as the campaign was. I expect him to just be a good enough president. I expect that he will undo or repair the bad things that Bush did. No one can know what's going to happen in the future. But WE have a duty to steer things a certain way too. We have a duty to make ourselves be heard to him. It's not just him...if we disagree with something, we have to make a big fuss about it. "

Other panelists spoke of the republicans like Colin Powell standing up for Obama being unprecedented, spoke of how his grace and poise capture the attention of everyone and put everyone at ease. "I'm surprised that I lived to see the day a brown skinned man becomes the president of our country," said Hendrick Hertzberg of the New Yorker, "We are very lucky to have stumbled into a presidency of the highest calibre we've ever had."

He's right. Obama is a Harvard Law Graduate. He learnt the law, as opposed to George Bush who only broke the law.

There are many reasons why I think Obama becoming the 44th president of the United States of America is a historical moment.

First, he is an inspirational figure to many. He's intelligent, he writes beautifully, intelligently and compassionately, he listens to what people have to say, he communicates well, and his oratory skills are remarkable (as opposed to their last president who said things like "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we" and "I promise you that I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here" and "I am here to make an annoucement that this thursday, tickets and airplane counters will fly out of Ronald Reagen Airport").

Secondly, he has changed the face of racial america. It's not that he is the first african-american president of America. It's the fact that he got the votes of a large percentage of the "race conscious" population of America. In other words, he forced the average mellow 'racist' to look beyond racial lines. He transcended race.

And yes, there will be 'black pride' in America. But why not. He earned the respect of the white people, despite the still existing racial undertones in the country. He had to watch every move of his to appear to be the perfect black man. Had he had Palin's family history, things wouldn't have gone down too well for him. (It was said that if Obama had a pregnant teenage daughter, it wouldn't have been met with the same understanding as Palin's situation was given. "That's not how they react to a black teenage mother", she said, "We don't say - Oh, its understandable. We say - You're the reason our country's going to the dogs!") Moreover, Obama becoming president has broadened the chances of other black presidents or a woman president, because we thought this was unthinkable and its happened!

His name - Barack Hussein Obama is also important. This sort of name, "which was a political liability will now become a diplomatic asset". He's not a 'secret muslim' as some Americans think, but even if he was, they elected him despite that. And that is also something!

Moreover, these elections were historic for America also because the youth proved to not be apathetic, the proved that their vote counts.

I know that many of us in India have been made wary of this man by certain remarks he made about Kashmir and Pakistan. For those still in doubt, you should read this - "Militants, not India, are the biggest threat to Pakistan" Either way, only time will tell how he shapes Indo-US relations, but everything about him points to the fact that he will listen, and won't unilaterally make a hasty decision. As Indians, we shouldn't fall into the trap of looking things from a narrow-minded perspective. EVEN if we don't like his policies about India and Pakistan, we can't withdraw support on that sole cause. That's being really selfish. This is the reason why Modi gets into power again and again. Because people are not looking at the greater picture, and are looking only at their own immediate gain (or what they perceive to be their immediate gain). We need to look at the greater picture here too. Obama is better for the world and better for America than anyone else in power in that country.

In the end, I have to say, being in the midst of all the apprehension, all the tension, the anticipation, the excitement, I see a new energy in America since yesterday. A happier and more hopeful America. For the first time, I've seen America as a victim. A victim of its own state, that is finally liberated from a reputation it has worn like a noose around its neck. A reputation of being a "rogue-elephant". Many of them hated themselves for 8 years, felt responsible for war crimes and felt disgusted and hapless and powerless. And today, I saw the hope of a new beginning in every American's eye that I met, on the streets of Manhattan.

You've been selected!

2008-11-03T00:21:00.004+05:30

I don't know what it is with America wanting to encase me in glass boxes.

My performance in Washington was the first time I was almost encased into a glass room, asked to perform in there while people watched from outside. That was just ignorance about Bharatanatyam, I guess. I politely refused and they obliged.

I had a choice there though. As I was leaving from Washington to come to Ottawa, I faced the glass box again.

After a lot of confusion at the check-in counter with tickets on account of their failing systems, my father and I, the last remaining passengers for the flight to Ottawa, rushed towards security. The last call for boarding had been made, and our luggage, which could've only just reached the plane, would be offloaded within minutes if we didn't arrive at the gate of boarding.

When we reached the security inspector, she was playfully joking with one of the elderly ladies infront of me in line, saying "let's let this little girl go through first". The elderly lady being the little girl. How endearing.

Then the inspection officer asked for our "passports and boarding pass please". She took one quick look at us and looked away, and said "You've been selected.. (for an upgrade? a free ticket to vegas?)...for additional security..please pass through that way." A fat red marker slashed two huge red lines on the boarding pass diagonally, slicing through my name and my seat number. I'd been marked.

"But we're in a rush, we..."
"Go and stand in that line, please" The nasal voice of the officer stung my ears.

Initially confused but getting increasingly infuriated, I walked to the 'terrorist' line and started taking off my shoes, my bangles, my earrings. I hurriedly put everything into the trays and started walking through the metal detector.

Another African-American female officer held her hand out, motioning for me to wait.
"Where's your boarding pass?"
"It's in the tray with my passport"
She looked irritated. I became even more irritated.
They fished through my things and eventually produced the boarding pass. Upon seeing the big red lines, they exchanged a look, and asked me to step forward.
I came through the metal detector. Nothing beeped. I started walking towards my things.

"No..you can't go there. Please step into the enclosure, ma'am."

I hadn't even noticed the glass enclosure that stood slightly ahead of me. I saw my father already in there. I went inside and they closed the glass door.

I looked at abba and we saw realisation dawn in each other's eyes. This wasn't a simple random selection. We were in here for some other reason. We gave each other a sympathetic look as my father whispered, "They're going to do this once we get off at Ottawa too, aren't they.."

I looked around for about a minute while we waited. I was in a glass cage, and everyone outside of it was looking inside. I felt naked, humiliated and outraged. Other passengers with toy guns and lighters passed through, escaping the glass cage, looking at US as though WE had something we shouldn't be carrying. The lighter was left behind, but the passenger carried on to his destination. We were selected for additional security for carrying books on philosophy and political thought, and a dance costume with bells. Because we were brown. And my dad had a beard.

A white middle-aged officer walked up to me and frisked me. I had no problem with that, but maybe I should've. Yes, frisking passengers was airport regulation. But wasn't that neccesary only if the metal detector beeped? I believe that is the protocol in the rest of the world. I'm well travelled enough to know that. I started to walk out of the enclosure..I'd been in there long enough.

"No ma'am..please stay in there. I need you to point to your things"
"From in here?!?!"
"Yes ma'am."

I looked at her for a while, searching her face for some sort of discomfort or awkwardness. There was none. I stoically pointed to my things.

Then she moved aside and seizing the opportunity, I got out of the "enclosure". My dad was already somewhere else. I didn't know where. She walked to my things.

"Is this yours?"
I walked towards my laptop bag and reached for it.
"No, please don't touch anything...just point to your things"

Don't touch anything??!? Those were MY things! What the hell...I felt the urge to adopt the method of civil disobedience. I stopped talking. When they asked questions, I angrily pointed or nodded or shook my head, not making eye contact and without saying a word. Not that they cared, but I felt the satisfaction of fighting for my dignity in my own little way.

They carried my things to another enclosure. My dad was there, his hand luggage open and all its contents upturned. A fourth officer took my small suitcase and put it on the table and reached for the zip. It had a number lock on it. I smiled to myself.

"I need you to open this ma'am."
"I was told not to touch anything by that lady over there."

She wasn't too pleased by the defiance. But what could she do? Arrest me for obeying her senior? Hah.

"I need to look inside your suitcase ma'am. You have some bells in there?"
"Yes, I have some BELLS." She knew what was in there, but she still wanted it opened.
I opened the suitcase. She started rummaging through my things. I saw my toothbrush and one lone sanitary pad being tossed around. I saw curious by-standers peeping into my bag as well. A pang of hatred for the woman shot through my spine.

I turned to my father, "On what basis do these people decide who to select for additional security?" I said this loud enough for them all to hear. And they heard. I saw them averting their gaze from mine.

My dad told me to keep quiet, or we'd miss the plane. He did have a point. They had the power to make us miss our flight. And we had no authority to question theirs.

Once they were satisfied, they handed me back my boarding pass...a thick black line had exterminated the two red ones. My boarding pass now looked like a battlefield.

We don't see things as they are, but as we are.

2008-10-29T20:18:00.005+05:30

The world is built in a particular way. But the way we see it is different.

Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher who is considered to be the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment, talked a lot about things in themselves, and things based on experience. He called his theory “Transcendental Idealism”.

“Everything intuited or perceived in space and time, and therefore all objects of a possible experience , are nothing but phenomenal appearances, that is, mere representations, which in the way in which they are represented to us, as extended beings, or as series of changes, have no independent, self-subsistent existence apart from our thoughts.”

– Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.

Kant was a philosopher who mediated between Empiricism and Rationalism. Rationalists say that all knowledge is without experience. They call this a priori knowledge. It is a theory in which the knowledge is not sensory but intellectual and deductive. They believed that reason is the unique path to knowledge.

The Empiricist view, on the other hand, says that all ideas come to us through experience, either through our five senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste, or through inner sensations such as pain and pleasure, and therefore that essentially, knowledge is based on and derived from experience. Empiricists therefore say that all knowledge is a posteriori i.e. it is based entirely on experience.

Kant said it was both. Kant said that things in themselves are not knowable. And he said that everything that you experience is partly created by you. He acknowledges that something comes from the outside through our sensory experience, but we cannot know anything with that alone. We receive senses from outside, but not passively. We modify them and therefore they are partly our own creation. If you see a table, according to Kant, when described as “a table for us” rather than “a table in itself” then you aren’t really talking about the world the way it is, but the kind of creatures you are, for who the world appears to be a certain way.

Another example – If a person is born with pink glasses, the entire world appears to him or her to be pink. That, for this person, is knowledge. He or she absorbs what the outside world gives him or her, through the senses, and because of the pink glasses, he or she modifies the world to make it seem a certain way. i.e. Everything appears to be pink. But just because he or she sees the world as pink does not mean the world is really pink.

What I’m trying to say is that we see the world through our own eyes and our experience. Therefore, as Kant says, absolute knowledge must include internal reason as well as external experience.

Also, “we” is never constant. There is no permanent state of “we”. We constantly change with the times, due to the changing external conditions. Hugely revered in many parts of South-east Asia and India, and now even in many parts of the west, the great thinker and philosopher Gautham Buddha said, “The only thing that is permanent is change.”

Furthermore, there is also no uniform “we”. So when we say we see things as we are, that is still a generalization. A classical musician might think of ‘hard rock’ as pure noise. But does that tell more about the object i.e. Hard rock, or the person i.e. the classical musician? Rock remains Rock, and each individual sees it differently, according to their own experience, upbringing, choices, preferences and social conditioning. Another example of this is the ancient erotic temples of Khajuraho in India. They portray sexually explicit but extremely graceful sculptures all over the temple walls. Victorian Englishmen saw and conservative Indians still see the sculptures as vulgar and crude. But today, most of us see them as objects of beauty. Again, the sculptures have remained the same since the time they were built between 950 A.D and 1050 A.D. It is our perception of these objects that has changed and our perceptions are different because we are all different. The way we see them changes because ‘we’ are neither constant nor uniform. This is another proof that we see things, not the way they are, but as we are. Our character, dispositions, influences, upbringing, social surroundings, and political beliefs - all affect our experience of knowledge of the world. We make a judgment about the world, and that says more about us, and how we are, who we are, and “as we are.”

This train of thought also got me thinking about the question about the distinction between high art and low art. That is also a question of who we are, rather than what the art is. Though the difference is not redundant, the distinction between high and low art is constantly changing as we change. Something which was considered low art earlier becomes high art. e.g. Isadora Duncan’s dance was very unpopular and criticized when she first started to dance, but over time and especially by the time she died, she was one of the most revered dancers in the world. Today she is referred to as the pioneer of Contemporary dance, an inspiration to legends of contemporary dance like Martha Graham, for whom she paved the way to survival, great appreciation and fame.

Since I am on the subject of high and low art, the other thing I feel is necessary to point out is that the culture of the masses has never been perceived to be high art. This is wrong. Very often, what is elite has been derived from the masses. A prime example of that is the form of dance that I do. Bharatanatyam is an ancient south Indian dance form that was danced by devadasis (servants of the gods) in temples. It wasn’t respected. And over time, it was brought out of the temples and became a staged art, watched and understood mostly by the elite who changed their perception of it. Now it is considered a high art. The object which we call art in this context has remained constant and unchanging. Yes, it has evolved and developed, but its nature has remained the same. It is our experience of the art, and our personal opinions and inclinations that have changed it’s perception as a high or low art.

The very concept of High art was brought about by the constant changing of people i.e.“we”. It came about in the Renaissance and the romantic period. Before this period, Michelangelo was just a painter who painted buildings and ceilings. In India, importance was given to Brahmans (priests) and Kshatriyas (warriors), rather than Vaishyas (artists). It was during the romantic period that the distinction came about, because of our changing perception of the object. i.e. art.

High art became a skill that required imagination and an internal standard of excellence whereas low art was not considered to be that skillful. Of course, if the world considers high art to be elite and low art to be associated with the masses, then I disagree with the above definitions that I have put forth. In that case, I don’t believe in high art and low art, but rather good and bad art, which exist both in the elite and the masses. Here itself, I have redefined the meanings of High and Low art based on my own points of view, my own social, political and personal understanding of the world. The nature of the art remains unchanged. It is my perception of it that changes. It does not change as an object in itself, it changes because of the way I see it. So metaphorically, I could say that I see it differently because I am wearing a certain coloured glasses.

Jean Paul Sartre, a well known author, philosopher and existentialist, is another revered man who talks about objects as seen by the mind. In his article “The Work of Art”, he says there are two kinds of objects – the real object and the aesthetic object. He says that in a picture, the ‘real object’ is the object that appears to us in physical space. But he says that it also occurs in imaginative space as an ‘aesthetic object’. And though when we observe the real objects of the picture, the aesthetic object will not appear - we must realize that the aesthetic object has not hidden itself. Sartre says that it’s just that it cannot present itself to a ‘realizing consciousness’. The aesthetic object will appear at the moment when our consciousness undergoes a radical change and becomes imaginative.

He goes on to say that the ‘real object’ constitutes the result of the brush strokes, the stickiness of the canvas, the polish over the colours and so on. But all this does not constitute the object of aesthetic appreciation. So when we see a painting, we ordinarily see paint, colours, and the canvas. It is when our consciousness undergoes a radical change into the imaginary from time to time, do we see the aesthetic object of beauty in art.

He, too believes that the real object itself is just an object that can be seen as beautiful or not beautiful by the person who perceives it after undergoing a change in his mind that makes him imaginative. Depending on the person’s imaginative conditioning, he or she will see the object as either beautiful or unappealing. This imaginative conditioning that determines the final verdict of the quality and appreciation of the art is nothing but who we are, and “as we are”.

To conclude - by applying the philosophical theories and ideas of great philosophers such as Kant and Sartre, and by giving several examples, “We see things not as they are, but as we are” appears to be true. Perhaps if we were all one big unit of identical individuals with the same upbringing, conditioning and the same points of view on everything, we would really see the world as it is – objectively and uniformly the same for everyone. But because we are all different and unique, and changing all the time, we all see things differently and see things based on our own personal experience of them.

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.

This is an article I wrote to send to universities where i'm applying to do an MA in Art History.

Terror, Chaos and Confusion

2008-09-27T17:12:00.003+05:30

Here I am, sitting in Delhi after the nth bomb blast, and I'm numb. For some inane reason, I think I have bigger problems to solve.

I wish I could be 5 again..everything was so simple. No complicated lifestyle, no complicated habits, no complicated relatives, friends and relationships. No complicated plans. It was all so simple.

I've been spewing for the last four days. You're thinking - Gross.
I know.
I haven't the faintest idea why. I've ruled out some possibilities, thanks to modern medicine, but I still haven't the foggiest. Looking it up on the internet is NOT a good idea. Its better to go to a doctor (stating the obvious).

The internet says I could have ulcers, or kidney stones, or cancer! Hahaha. The doc will probably tell me its a stomach bug.

Got an email from my Guru today. Guru....I don't know what that means anymore..

Bleh.

Mental note - Get a life.

p.s. oh, and i know i've done that whole pretentious blog writing thing right now,by the way...i'm not quite sure what i'm doing back on my blog, today of all days.

Hmmmmm.

What is Dance?

2008-04-20T23:46:00.006+05:30

Dance...what is dance? In a philosophy class that was conducted at Attakkalari, this question was raised. And the end result was an assignment we had to submit. We were given a week or so to complete the assignment and hand it in. I spent most of that time wondering how the hell I would ever manage to answer this question - What is dance? How was I going to define something so large? Why was it so difficult to define something that meant so much to me?

Artists are sometimes so aware of their creativity and so confident about their creative potential that they disregard the need to address things from an intellectual perspective. I think it's very easy to say - Dance is life. Dance is energy. Dance is birth and death. Dance is everything and in everyone.

But really...what is dance? What have the wise ones who dedicated their lives to making sense of so much in the world that we take for granted? What have they said about dance over the centuries of methodical, logical and philosophical thought?

Can you imagine...Dance as a topic of aesthetic concern first appeared in philosophical literature in Plato’s Laws, where it figured as an educational device – a way in which public dance festivals are to celebrate and enhance civic order. Plato’s idea was that dance was that sort of body movement which should be expected to confer an improvement of physique, manners or morals.

Writing a little later than Plato, Aristotle observed that dance steps can be used to imitate emotion and character as well as action, and the question how this can be so became a part of the resources of aesthetics through the repeated revivals of his work.

In the early 18^th century, the system of fine arts found little room for dance. In the pure aesthetic that Emmanuel Kant developed in his third Critique, dance hardly appears, perhaps for the same reason that he denied true beauty to the face tattooings of the Maori, saying that one cannot separate the patterning from the human reality of the face, so that the aesthetic judgment becomes confused with sentiment. Kant clearly did not think much of dance!

A quite different way of looking at art developed in late 18^thcentury romanticism. Art and language, according to this train of thought, could have only arisen among humans through the development of significance in undifferentiated body movements – in effect, in dance. A Cartesian thought, at some level. This leads to something else that I have doubts about. Are other beings, e.g. animals like monkeys, sea mammals like dolphins, insects like butterflies - incapable of dance? But this calls for another whole different blog entry!

In the 19^th century, dance was seen as exploiting the movement potential of bodies whose beauty comes from health and efficiency, as opposed to an enhancement and celebration of social graces. By the end of the century, athletics, gymnastics, movement education, and dance went hand in hand. This convergence gave rise to an alternative tradition in artistic dance, and the rival claims of ballet and of this alternative were vigorously debated under many ideological guises.

The central figure of this alternative tradition was Rudoplf Laban. In terms of immediate artistic impact, the key figure was Isadora Duncan(one of my idols...for those of you interested in dance, read her autobiography!!! One of the most inspiring reads ever!), whose practice and writing combined a body liberating aesthetic with a powerful ideology of democracy, nature and feminism(and by feminism, i don't mean the pseudo/hyper feminism we associate some forms of feminism with, today).

The next transformation in dance in the West came about when dance achieved a recognizable identity under the figure of Martha Graham. Graham had a method and theory that were dance and nothing but dance, radically opposed to the whole theory of human movement and motivation of which ballet rested.

In the years since 1940, the shifting relations between ballet and modern dance in America have continued to be a many sided topic for profound aesthetic reflection.

In the 1960s, Merce Cunnigham emerged as an important figure, who was reacting specifically against the way Graham’s technique could become as constraining as ballet. Cunningham’s work explored questions such as whether a movement is a dance movement because of its character, its context, the attitude of its performer or spectator, or all or none of the above.

The testing of the limits of the arts in the 1960s tended to dissolve the distinction among the arts, and what emerged and survived could not contribute in any special way to the aesthetics of any one particular art, such as dance. Meanwhile, teachers, students, performers and spectators still continue to concern themselves with what is distinctively dance.

Having spoken about the west, I’d like to talk a little about the history and evolution of Indian dance too, briefly. Being a Bharatanatyam dancer, I will confine my exploration of the history of Indian dance to this particular Indian classical art form very briefly.

Just as the west made an evolution from Ballet to Contemporary, from Isadora Duncan to Martha Graham, Bharatanatyam too, evolved greatly over the ages. The earliest accounts of Bharatanatyam seem to point towards the fact that it was first performed in temples by men and boys dressed up as women.

In the 16^th century, the Tanjore Quartet edited the Bharatanatyam format into its present form. By this time, Bharatanatyam was performed by women in temples. These women were called Devadasis or the servants of god. It was in the medieval times that devadasis came to be known also as courtesans but not before that. Prior to that, they were dancers who performed in temples sometimes as a sort of offering to the gods.

E.Krishna Iyer was one of those who raised the social status of Bharatanatyam and greatly popularized it. Rukmini Devi Arundale was also instrumental in modifying mainly the Pandanallur style of Bharatanatyam and bringing it to the attention of the West. Rukmini Devi raised Bharatanatyam to a puritan art form, divorced from its recently controversial past by "removing objectionable elements" from the Pandanallur style. This was publicly criticized by Balasaraswati, one of the last devadasis and other representatives of the traditional devadasi culture.

In any case, Rukmini Devi brought the dance form out of the temples and onto the stage. Rukmini Devi founded Kalakshetra in 1936, a school in Madras for Dance and Music. Out of this institution emerged many great dancers, including such as Leela Samson, my guru. :)

Today, Bharatanatyam is performed by people of all genders and cultures, after rigorous training. There are dancers who used Bharatanatyam and explored it differently, like my own Guru Leela Samson. Others fused it with contemporary styles to create vocabularies of their own. Chandralekha and Shobana Jeyasingh are amongst them. Chandralekha used Kalakshetra trained dancers to create her own vocabulary that used elements of Bharatanatyam, Kalaripayettu and Yoga. Shobana Jeyasingh fuses Bharatanatyam with western Contemporary Dance.

Being a philosophy student, I would love to share Wittgenstein's theory of family resemblances with you. He provies a philosophical mechanism - the theory of family resemblences - that I would like to apply to this discussion about the definition of dance. Wittgenstein did not believe in essences. He opposed Plato's theory of forms, because Plato's ideal form and in his theory of forms, form refers to essence. The form is an ideal essence of the natural object. Wittgenstein belonged to the tradition of "Antiessentialism". He didn't believe that patterns, forms and resemblances cannot be found amongst different things labeled as say "dance". The problems arises when we try to see one of these patterns or common features to define dance. A single commonality is impossible to find.

At the same time, we cannot deny certain resemblances. So we can apply this theory of family resemblances. Taking the example of my own family. My mother and father gave birth to me and my sister. Other than the genetic resemblance, people say I look like my father and have the mannerisms of my mother. Some people say that my sister looks like neither my dad or my mum. But the same people say that my sister and i look almost identical. My sister and I do not have a single feature that is common between us. Our hair is different, our skin is different, our noses are different, her lips are fuller, my eyes are bigger etc etc. But we call this a family resemblance. So some characteristics, but not all, serve the ground for my relationship with her. I cannot point out one single characteristic and expect to find a commonality there.

Its much the same with dance. To define dance is very hard for me. But using Wittgenstein's theory of family resemblances, I can understand a little bit about how to answer this question - what is dance. While I may not find a resemblance between a contemporary dance performance I saw in Israel where four naked women stood on stage and moved, and Bharatanatyam. I may find a link between the Israeli performance and Martha Graham, for instance. In turn, i may see a resemblance between balletic movements in Martha Graham's style, and the aramandi (plie) in Bharatanatyam. So through the theory of famiyl resemblances, I could put them all under the same roof, although through the naked eye, i would see no resemblence between that contemporary performance and a bharatanatyam performance.

Having said all of the above, I must end with this - From a non-philosophical/non-intellectual perspective, I still find it extremely hard to define Dance.

You see, at the end of the day, from a personal perspective (we all know about the common notion that artists are so sensitive and they take things so personally!), I have to say that dance means different things to different people. A contemporary dancer might have broken away from Ballet for the very reason that he/she did not consider ballet to be dance anymore, after having explored contemporary dance. Similarly, a Bharatanatyam dancer may find the Israeli dance performance to be 'making a statement' rather than dancing, and a contemporary dancer may say making a statement is dancing. A ballet dancer, in turn, may say making a statement has its limits as far as dance is concerned..and so on. The argument could go on forever. And it's because we all, as individuals, are different. And as dancers, we are different.

Moreover, there are so many different forms of dance in so many different parts of the world, I think it might be difficult to find one common characteristic amongst them that can be the essence or defining factor that makes something one calls dance, DANCE. To really define what dance is, might mean exploring ALL of these millions of classical, tribal, folk, contemporary, creative, commercial and other forms thoroughly, and I can safely say this is not possible to do.

Also, Dance is not a static entity. How are we to DEFINE something that is never static? It's definition, significance and meaning are forever changing and evolving. Its beauty lies therein.

2008-01-09T20:58:00.000+05:30

I wonder what it is that has driven away my motivation to write on my blog...it's something I used to do religiously!

I hope to tackle this problem and get back here soon.

Troubled today

2007-11-06T20:25:00.000+05:30

"You can only love others once you learn to love yourself"

How do you help someone who is clearly on a pathway to self destruction? I don't really want practical answers to this question..I'm just here to vent. I know that what people will say to me are things I've already heard.

I'm so frustrated! I've met a lot of people in my short life, and I'm happy to to able to say that I was able to help a fair amount of them selflessly whenever they needed my help..but today - I'm absolutely flummoxed. I don't have a clue!

How do you help people who i'll admit have had it tough (but haven't others..many of us!?) but are drowning themselves in the catastrophic whirlpool of alcohol consumption, blaming others for the fuck ups in their lives, giving up things that are good for them, replacing those things with things that are the yellow brick road to absolute disaster?

Isn't it the height of irony? We say we drink to get high and happy, but alcohol is a medically certified depressant, we say drugs help us escape from gruesome realities but they actually make you paranoid and open doors to your life that you might've dealt with and closed years ago, and we say smoking relieves stress, but actually it increases your blood pressure?

How do you try to tell someone that they're ruining their one chance of getting back on track? And how do you prepare for an answer to the question they might ask you 5 years later - why didn't you stop me?

How do you stop someone from ruining their own life? do you just say - hey its his/her life/choice? Or do you go out there and do something drastic? Do you wait for a tragedy to occur that might alter that self destructive lifestyle and force a change? Or do you try to avert that disaster before it happens?

How do you sit back and just watch them getting consumed by negativity and consuming intoxicants incessantly? Do you sit back and watch? Do you take action? Is it your business to do so? Or do you walk away? How do you walk away without looking back? How do you know with absolute certainty that you couldn't have done ANYTHING to help?

I've never been one to give up on people, even when in retrospect perhaps I should've given up on some before they pulled me into their world of ugliness. Is that what I should be doing? Should I just give up knowing that I now have the strength I didn't have 7 years ago to stand my ground without getting sucked into the bullshit? I just don't know what to do.

Absurdity or Advancement?

2007-08-11T16:00:00.000+05:30

Is this outrageous or a stroke of genius? Ridiculous or a great vision by mankind?

Hotel opening in space in 2012

Woof!

2007-08-04T16:48:00.001+05:30

HAHAHAHAHAA..why are the little devils so hilarious sometimes??

Am I going to get into trouble for this?

2007-07-28T11:46:00.000+05:30

Watching Mel Gibson's 'Passion of the Christ', I suddenly thought of something, and I'm sure I'm not the first person..

Watching it, I was seeing how the people who crucified him viewed Jesus Christ. It's not that outrageous for them to have thought Jesus Christ was a bit of a nutter, really. After all, he was a carptenter's son who claimed to be the son of god, who claimed to perform miracles, who wanted to change the existing order into something quite different, in accordance with rules of conduct that he had come up with himself...

I thought to myself, let me look at this from both sides. Being a regular person from that time and era, I might've thought this man was a bit of a lunatic, though I probably wouldn't have thought he was dangerous and fit to be nailed to a cross, left to die. But I can see why they did that. He was a huge threat to their power, and in those days, that's how they punished people.

And from Jesus Christ's point of view, I would've felt very alone. Maybe he really did believe he was the son of God. Maybe it was a sort of madness. Or maybe it was a ploy he used to teach his beliefs and spread his word. Maybe he was just a regular good guy who used being the son of god to make people listen, and whose greatness lay in the fact that he wanted to change the bad things in the world. And maybe his disciples recognised that he was a wonderful, kind, gentle, self-less person with good intentions for the world, and loved him for it..and stuck with the whole "son of god" story because it seemed to be working in order to get to the people.

They say that history hints at the existence of people like Jesus Christ, Ram and Sita etc. If this is true, isn't it possible that they were just great people, like Gautham Buddha, or Gandhi. Not gods but simply great people. Maybe 2000 years from now, Gandhi will be considered a god, someone who "purified untouchables" when what he really did was try to give them a respectable status...I dont know if I'm making complete sense, but d'you know where I'm coming from?

Just a thought.

Twist, Random and Music

2007-07-05T08:11:00.000+05:30

Life's a twisted tale of deception. In many ways.
It's like I m standing at a crossroad, watching people I know walk past.

How does one stand by the shore and watch silently as someone drowns?
Or worse, how does one look away when someone else is drowning someone you love?
And amazingly enough, how does one forcefully hold a loved one's head under water?
And how does one surivive it all?

Just things I've been thinking about. No, its got nothing to do with toto. Although, I got a start today when I saw someone walking on the street who I thought for a second looked exactly like Toto.
It was one of those insane moments of complete delusion and denial..It lasted just a second..a fleeting split second of..."Could it be..?" Heh. Obviously not.

I hate moments when you think back on the past few years and realise you might not ever be able to trust a friend again..and then you think of one person you can still trust..and that's supposed to make you feel better. It doesnt, you think. But then again, of course it does! Its a constant mind duel..I hate those! I'm constantly battling with my own two minds. Why can't they just be at peace with one another?

I think music is one of the most uplifting things in the world..listening to Bittersweet symphony on full volume made me feel more energised than I've felt in days. And it's just a song. And then I listened to Lazarus by Porcupine Tree, See you on the other side by good ol' Ozzy, and then some Spiritualized.. its a band Rich introduced me to. Quite a soul-seeping band, if you know what I mean.

Music really is a universal language. Along with movies and mathematics, that is. It's been around since the beginning of time, and it has the ability to move people - whether its moving them to tears, to laughter, to dance..whatever.

There's a song for every situation, every feeling, every outcry of anguish, every feeling of tranquility..
"Go find a place for your own shame" - Alice in Chains
"When the tears come streaming down your face, When you lose something you can't replace, When you love someone but it goes to waste, Could it be worse?" - Coldplay
"I survive against the will of my twisted folk" - Porcupine Tree
"The Street heats the urgency of sound, as you can see there's no one around" - Smashing Pumpkins
"Ain't no Sunshine when you're gone" - Bill Withers/Marvin Gaye/Buddy Guy/Tom Jones
"So you lost your trust, that you never should have" - Coldplay
"...that it only takes a minute of your precious time to turn around and I'll be two steps behind" - Def Leppard
"She wishes for wet, verdant grass..Meadows, where she used to lie imploring stars...So dismayed she's lost, yet elated 'cause he's gone, Her misty stolen eyes narrate the horror that once was" - Kryptos :)
"I know it's easier to walk away than look it in the eye, But I will raise a shelter to the sky and here beneath this star tonight I'll lie" - Dream Theater
"I'm the one for you, cos I know all the dirty things you like to do...I'm the fear in your eyes, I'm the fire in your flies, I'm the sound that's buzzing around your head.." - Third Eye Blind
"Reality held its breath too long...its disgusting what dreams can do" - Evergrey
"If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you..Mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me" - Led Zeppelin
"No one dared...disturb the sound of silence" -Simon and Garfunkel
"I want to feel your flesh enrapture me" - Nevermore
"I'm in love for the first time, Don't you know it's gonna last, It's a love that lasts forever, It's a love that had no past" - The Beatles
"Your momma told you that you're not supposed to talk to strangers,Look in the mirror tell me do you think your life's in danger here, ya" - Ozzy Osbourne
"Outside the rain fell dark and slow, while I pondered on this dangerous but irresistable past time" - Pink Floyd
"I got a place where all my dreams are dead" - Porcupine Tree
"I hurt myself today, to see if I feel...I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real" - Johnny Cash
There's SO much more...and of course then there's also... "what goes around goes around goes around..."
CHEE.

Stooopid

2007-06-28T15:17:00.000+05:30

Watching a youtube video sent to me about how women are airbrushed and distorted on advertisements to look "perfect", I started to think about how many people in the world wish they looked different in some way or another. And I began to wonder if this was merely a desire to change their appearance, or whether its a desperate and pathetic want to change what lies beneath the surface.Unless you're a model, i think beauty doesn't lie in the sharpness of the nose or the roundness of a breast so perhaps it is something internal that women all over the world change to supposedly increase their self-esteem.

I drifted onto thoughts about the world, and once again, to my view of it. My stupid naive view of the world. I think about the numerous times that I have watched the world and it's people, and marvelled at the superficiality and stupidity of it all. And the times that I have deliberately overlooked all that, foolishly and desperately convincing myself that there is something more to the world than all that. The times that I have forcefully driven cynicism out of my thoughts, and have been called naive. The endless times I have trusted people blindly and suffered because of it. The numerous occasions on which loved ones have let me down. Perhaps I am no different. Maybe I'm just as selfish and fucked up as them, and just can't see it because I'm me.

There was a time when I felt happy when I was called naive and innocent. At any cost, I would rather have been naive and happy, than cynical and bitter. Innocent and carefree, rather than shrewd and tangled up in the fuck ups of the world.

I'd remain happy in my little world. And that's all I cared for. Selfish, perhaps. I saw atrocities committed, and they upset me, but I strongly believed justice would triumph, sooner or later if not immediately. I tried to play my tiny role in the justice of it all. How naive even that is! I saw myself hurt again and again, but instead of giving up on the idea of friendship, I chose to see the light...another friend, somewhere else in the world who seemed to be different. Against my better judgement and the advice and warnings of people I know who look out for me, I trusted people too easily and too much.

What gave me that ardent faith in people and goodness, I don't know. But I stand here today, defeated in the face of cynicism and reality. Once again. It isn't the first time, or the second, or the third...it is the 100th time, maybe more. The hopeless thing is, I'm hopeless. I think I need help. How does one change everything they ever believed in? Hasn't enough happened in my life to naturally change it all? But why haven't I changed then?

I sit here, moaning and complaining. What a pain in the arse. Deep inside the depths of my soul or whatever, I know that no amount of complaining will help unless I choose to help myself. But then I'm faced with another dilemma..will transforming myself into a cynical, bitter and faithless person help me? Or drown the real me in this sea of superficiality and cynicism that the world demands of people today?

I'm constantly trying to find that equillibrium between what I have chosen to be or not to be, and what the world requires me to be in order for me to survive in it. I don't know if I should change because I don't know what will be left for me in this world if I have no hope of faith, trust and friendship in it...but if i do change, what will be left of ME?

Like I said, there was a time when being called naive and innocent made me smile. But a part of me wonders...am I mistaking naivete and innocence for stupidity? I've done this whole ridiculous self-reflection thing over and over again, and drawn the same conclusion...that either I need to change and adjust to the world, or I need to accept the consequences of being naive and innocent in a world where innocence is not a quality, its a curse. Or maybe I am not naive and innocent at all. Maybe I'm just dumb. A wise friend once said to my sister - there's a difference between being nice and being dumb.

I can no longer use innocence and naivete as an excuse for not seeing blatant signs staring me in the face. That's just stupid.

So I hereby claim to be, not naive and innocent...
.....but just plain old stooopid.

The End of an Era

2007-06-09T18:15:00.001+05:30

My year at LIPA comes to an end today. It's been a year full of so many things. I learnt a lot, about dance, about living alone, about friendship and love, about competition and surviving in the performing arts industry.

I've learnt a whole range of western styles of dance..Martha Graham technique. Nikolai technique, imporvisation techniques, ballet, jazz, street dance and a little bit of tap dancing(although i'm not quite sure the tap amounted to 2 weeks worth of classes, so I won't count that as learning an art form, but rather learning the theoretical history behind tap dance, which not surprisingly is similar to kathak).

But what I take back with me from here that I will really really cherish and remember forever is not anything LIPA taught me, but what LIPA inadvertently brought into my pathway. The people in it. What never ceased to amaze me every single time I went out with my friends from LIPA was that at any given time there were people from different nationalities there. On the way back from the beach the other day, there were 7 of us, each from a different part of the world - Cataline from Argentina, Snorre from Norway, Nick from England, Graham from America, Richard from Ireland, Luis from Brazil, and me from India. There was so much to learn from all these people. Such tremendous cultural exchanges happened..Linda from Latvia taught me how to cook latvian couscous. Richard taught me Irish. Oh, and the way Richard and Luis proudly wore the kurtas I gave them..it was too sweet! I explained Indian classical music to them, we talked about the social and cultural problems in India at the same time as the situation of women in Egypt and the Magdalen laundries in Ireland which only completely closed down in 1980.

I learnt about how the dance cultures in India and the west are so different. In india, on the day of a show, you don't rehearse. infact, sometimes even on the day before a show, you rest. here, you're in from 9 in the morning for a show that starts at 7.30. In india, a week before the show, you just do 2 hour run throughs and go home and take a hot bath, here..you're still devising and changing things around till the last minute...loads of things like that.

I made really close friends in my dance class..three in particular..Becki Heath (Brown haired becki), Becky Smith (becky blue hair) and Georgia from Greece. They always encouraged me
when the unfamiliarity of the styles got the better of me. I love them dearly!

I also made friends outside my dance class..Richard and Luis, my two best friends and 'babies', Sibel and Nick..two very talented musicians and wonderful people..many many others..I won't be able to name them all..but people like Linda(Latvia), Ulysses(Switzerland), Nadya(Egypt), Josh (who's coming to India in August)...so many people. I have a friend in almost every part of the world now! I think that's amazing!

I'll also never forget the friends I made outside LIPA..my flatmates. Hannah, my twin who I share so much with (Led Zep, Movies, similar mishaps, Forrest Gump and family guy, intoxicated blabbering, COLDPLAY!), Emma who provided support at the most unexpected times (e.g. she cleaned my bloody foot when I couldn't reach it because of my knee injury), Mike who;s gay antics will be etched in my memory forever (I'll NEVER forget that catwalk in the living room!) and Rob, my partner in crime as far as alcohol consumption is concerned (don't be smothering youself to death by passing out on stale pizza again!)

Liverpool has been good to me. I'll miss it.

2007-05-24T18:38:00.000+05:30

And I could write it down
And spread it all around
Get lost and then get found
or swallowed in the sea

And I could write a song
A hundred miles long
Well that's where I belong
And you belong with me
Not swallowed in the sea

You belong with me
Not swallowed in the sea

Contretemps

2007-05-11T16:33:00.000+05:30

con·tre·temps (kŏn'trə-täɴ', kôɴ'trə-täɴ') n. pl. contretemps (-täɴz', -täɴz') An unforeseen event that disrupts the normal course of things; an inopportune occurrence.

In medieval times, when a person brought ill-luck to someone else, or brought it upon themselves often enough, they were considered to be a witch or a heretic, and burnt at the stake. Mostly women, they were considered to practice black magic and were called Sorceresses. If they weren't burnt at the stake, at the very least, they were outcasts. They were ignored, secluded and alone.

In today's times, witchcraft is mostly not believed in, and heresy and burning women at the stake is considered to be a heinous crime. And no one believes that someone who's been through a lot of bad luck is a witch. Heheh.

But I think the stigma that existed back then which made witches ignored, secluded and alone was just a more medieval way of not going through the trouble of dealing with such a person. Today too, people don't want to deal with people like that. And oddly enough, I am one of those people today.

No, I don't feel like a witch. And no, I'm not depressed or upset or wallowing in self-pity. I'm in pretty high spirits, given the circumstances. I'm just making an observation.

I find myself asking someone for help but feeling guilty about it. I walked up and down 3 flights of stairs 6 times this morning, to do my laundry. I asked one of my flatmates if they could help me. They said yes, but when they didn't call me when they were ready to do it, I just went and did it myself. It took me 2 hours and 45 minutes. Something that usually takes only an hour and a half.

I needed to know if I was going to be able to take the lift upto the 5th floor at LIPA since it's been out of order for the last week, and on tuesday I had to painfully hobble up and down the 5 flights of stairs. I asked my teachers, I asked the dance office, I asked my classmates. No one responded. So I stayed home and missed another day of college.

I'm feeling like I'm making too much out of this knee. Maybe I am. Maybe it's not a big deal that I split it open and needed 7 stitches after losing about a litre of blood. Well, no. I'm not feeling like I'm making a big deal of it. I'm hobbling around on my own, going out, cooking my own food, doing my own laundry, going to the doctors on my own...the day after it happened though, a friend of mine wanted me to come to the cinema. I said I couldn't walk. She said "oh!take a taxi" so matter-of-factly(bless her, maybe she hadn't seen the state of me, that's why) that I actually felt like I was making too much of a big deal out of it by not wanting to do that. I was in so much pain I couldn't walk without either tears streaming down my face, or at the very least, wincing so much that no one at home let me move! How would I have sat in the cinema hall with no leg room? What if someone had bumped into my knee in the dark? Am I being paranoid?!?!

Don't get me wrong. No one's doing any injustice to me. My friends here have been fantastic. They've looked after me. Well, at least Rich and my flatmates have. Rich was with me during the whole ordeal, he changed my dressing the other day, cleaned my wound and bandaged me up (because the NHS refused to make a house visit, despite the fact that I couldn't walk). Emma wiped the blood off my feet because I couldn't reach it. Hannah cooked me prawn curry, and Emma cooked me pasta. Mike and Rob have been helping me to sit by lifting my leg up for me and putting it on a stool with a pillow under it. They've been great.

So, I don't know what's wrong with me.

Maybe it's all this contretemps -

Another Narrow Escape

2007-05-08T12:34:00.000+05:30

I'm sitting here with my leg propped up on top of a pillow, a knee the size of Sri Lanka and in a lot of pain. On saturday night, I fell onto shards of broken glass and split my knee open. Yummy, I know. I was rushed to hospital in the wee hours of the morning in an ambulance and after opening up my knee to see that there was no bits of glass in it, after an x ray and after a series of questions, I was given 7 stitches and sent home.

Rich was with me through this ordeal and I don't know how I'll ever thank him enough. He sat with me in the ambulance, while paramedics made sure I had no bone or nerve damage. He was by my side when I was on the stretcher in hospital and he squeezed my hand back as I crushed his, while I felt the nauseating sensation of needle and thread pulling at my knee. He brought me home in a taxi, consoled me as I cried like a fool (I'm very squeamish about blood and needles), carried me upto the third floor and tucked me into bed.

Three days later, I'm still in agonising pain. But I keep thinking to myself, even though I've been pretty unlucky these past few months, I've had two narrow escapes which I should be thankful for. The escape bit, that is, not the narrow bit. Heh.

Knees are so vital. When you stand, or walk...your whole body weight is on them. There are tissues, tendons, ligaments, bones, cartilage and fluid in it. I thankfully damaged only a bit of tissue and flesh. The cut is about 6 centimetres wide, across my knee and quite deep. It's higly uncomfortable and a very awkward place to get hurt, but at least there's no tendon damage, at least there wasn't any glass lodged in my knee and at least, I will walk away from this in a few weeks, reasonably unscathed.

These past few days, I've also been wondering..why is the cosmos at war with me this year?

Poisonous Snakes

2007-05-02T20:38:00.000+05:30

Here I am again, talking about the poisons of fanatacism and fundamentalism..You must be wondering how I can go on and on talking about it, without ever tiring of it, giving in, or resigning myself to the fact that fundamentalism, hatred and communal friction are a part of today's reality.

Well, here I am again, anyway. I will never stop talking about it, and I'll never stop criticising it. It's the very least I can do.

Many friends and family have come under attack from fundamentalists in India because of their liberal thoughts. I, myself, have fought with accquaintances and peers, over communalism in India, the Gujarat riots, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the Bombay riots and blasts that followed etc etc. I am nobody. So when I get into arguments and even outrightly fight and shout till the point of tears over issues like this, it doesn't become a big deal. Because, thankfully, I'm just Aranyani.

But people like Shabana Azmi are in the news over this all the time, my father has been in the news over this, and now it's my Guru, Leela Samson.

I came across something in the news online about her, and followed it up, and found myself on the website of the Organiser, the RSS online website.

Before I say anything further, my Guru has dedicated her entire life to Bharatanatyam, which I would see as an Indian art form, but which many do also see as a Hindu art form. She's not a hindu. She's half Christian and half Jewish. But she's definitely Indian - she's from Tamil Nadu and Kerela. But for me, she's the best kind of Hindu you could be. She doesn't perpetrate violence against other religions, or insist on being superior because of a stupid sacred thread. She tells, through her dance and her magical expressions, of hindu gods and goddesses, of hindu myths and stories. She respects and even celebrates the Hindu festivals, as well as Muslim ones and Christian ones. She's a Hindu and a non-Hindu in the best way. She's modern and open minded but in tune with tradition. She's a wonderful teacher and an extremely beautiful and talented dancer.

On this online so-called "news"letter, she has been accused of being "anti-hindu". Now I don't know what the entire story is behind all this nonsense, because I'm still far far away, in Liverpool, safely tucked away from the poisonous snakes that are these fundamentalists. But she's not "anti-hindu". She's secular, she's modern, she's multicultural and pluralistic. And these narrowminded conservatives can't handle that. The fact that she's not a Hindu by birth just makes it easier for them to lash out at her.

She has been accused of stopping prayers at Kalakshetra, her own Guru's institute in which Leela akka herself grew up and which she is rightfully the director of now. If this is true, I know she did it for secular reasons. Not to further some Christian conversion propaganda like these RSS freaks think!

She has been accused of dissing idol worship. That's not anti-hindu either. Many sects of hindus themselves don't agree with idol worship, and idol worship is relatively new to Hinduism, given its ancient history.

She's been quoted as saying "The festival is on Hinduism, so you need not go there." about Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's festival. Errrm...right. First of all, I've known my Guru for 16 years, and these people don't know her at all. I can safely say, and you can chop off my left thumb (Bear in mind - I'm left handed!!!) if I am wrong, that she has been misunderstood and misquoted. And secondly, who the hell made Sri Sri Ravi Shankar the epitome of high hindu culture?!

She is also termed as anti-hindu for removing the clothes off the idols in the Kalakshetra campus. Anti-hindu? She's just being an accurate historian by doing that! Hindu gods and goddesses didn't wear clothes!! They walked around adorned in jewellery and flowers, mostly. Temples of Hampi, Belur, Halibedu, Khajuraho, and the temples in Orissa are some of the few places in India which testify to this naked truth about our divine gods and goddesses. Perhaps these ancient temples are considered to be anti-hindu too, and vulgar.

Speaking of vulgar, Leela akka's rendition of the Geetha Govindam is considered to be vulgar by 'the Organiser'. Well, she's only expressing what the poetry says. So they're basically calling Jayadeva a crude and vulgar poet.

Leela akka has a gift to express love, sexuality, pain, fear, hurt, longing, devotion in very real ways without making it "lokadharmi"(Lokadharmi is realistic and literal, as opposed to stylised also called Natyadharmi by some). When you watch her, you can't help but really feel what she's expressing. In my opinion, these fundamentalists are sexually and emotionally repressed and can't handle the reality and intensity of these real emotions that akka has the natural gift of so beautifully portraying.

She's been accused of attempting to demolish a temple in Kalakshetra. Again, I don't know the story. But I know akka. She would never "demolish" a temple. Apparently, she has commented that she is merely restoring the roof but the person who she allegedly spoke to, then went on to say that she is a christian and therefore a liar. Such people make me so angry! No wonder our country isn't progressing forward. It's got pigs...no, pigs are intelligent animals..its got monsters like these people, in it!

And they're making a big deal out of akka's relaxation of rules for boys' and girls' hostels. This made me laugh. Trust akka to do this! I think it's great, though! More open-mindedness!

I think the people who wrote this article seem to have deliberately overlooked the fact that Kalakshetra is an institution that started to promote music and dance, not hinduism. They also overlooked the fact that it was started my Rukmini Devi Arundale, herself a woman who 'broke' tradition by bringing the dance form out of the temples. Moreover, they ignored the fact that Leela akka is one of Rukmini Devi's prime shishyas, knew her well, and was with her, looking after her, throughout her life right upto her death. I think she'd know better than these ignorant fools, how her own 'Attai' would've wanted Kalakshetra to develop, flourish and evolve with the times, in the 21st century.

Here's the full article in the Organiser
or Here's another link to the same article

There are some bits in it that are so petty that I didn't think were even worth mentioning, but have a look at the article.

This article, in another website was met with comments like - Kill Leela Samson.

Please tell me that it's ok for my blood to boil over this!

Or tell me that I'm just plain nuts.

Luis and Rich

2007-04-26T20:57:00.000+05:30

Luis Santos and Richard O'Flynn. My two best friends from LIPA. We've had some of the most memorable and mad times together this year. I can't look them in the eye when I talk about going back to India. And my heart sinks when they look sad that I won't be here next year.

I know this isn't goodbye forever though. Hopefully, I'll visit them while they're still at LIPA in the coming years. And they've got plans to come to India..if not sooner, at least for my wedding!

It's still weird though for me to imagine their lives in Liverpool without me. I don't even really want to. Heh.

I'll miss Luis and Rich's laughs..both explosive in different ways and very contagious. I'll miss Luis' "Hey Cuddly! Wanna watch a movie?" and Rich's "Oh Ari, I'm so fucked!" Hahahaha. I'll miss all the nights of inebriation, and I'll even miss them bullying me into watching the scariest horror films on the face of this earth! I'll miss pulling Luis's curly locks (I can't believe you chopped them off!), and I'll miss teasing Rich about how his face feels like a baby's bottom the day he shaves! I'll miss sitting in silence while they played their guitars and sang. I'll miss Luis' enthusiastic hug when he's not seen me in a while, and how he lifts me off the ground while hugging me cos he's so tall! I'll miss Rich tossing me over his shoulder while playing football and even dragging me across the grass till my jeans were full of grass(you cheated, rich! hahaha)! I'll miss Luis's salmon and broccoli, and Rich's delicious stir frys! I'll miss their music. I'll miss how they like to hear my opinions on things like songs, even essays in the past. I'll miss mothering them (hahaha)!
I'll miss their enthusiasm and zest for life, and their affection towards me.

Tsk. I'll miss them SO much. They're such "legends". ;)

Bob

2007-04-20T01:52:00.000+05:30

This entry, I can safely say, will not be an accurate enough description of how I felt and how it was, but this is atleast the tip of the iceberg of emotions and excitement of April 11th 2007.

This day will be etched in my memory forever. It's the day I saw the legendary Bob Dylan live in Glasgow. I got to Glasgow on the 11th afternoon, and a few hours later, I found myself walking into the SECC theatre that read the illuminated sign at the entrance: "Bob Dylan 11 April"..My heart wasn't pounding, but there was something unusual going on in there. I got into the theatre from the side entrance and that's when my heart leapt. There he was, in a white cowboy hat, merely 10 feet away from me!

I can't really describe how it was. And how I felt. I must sheepishly admit that I behaved like a stupid fan by trying to get closer and closer to the stage, and first politely and then rudely being told to go back to my seat repeatedly.

I found myself swaying to the new stuff, I felt goosebumps on my bare arms whenever I heard the harmonica. And all the slack he got for "selling out" because of "going electric"...it sounded fantastic. I was hoping he would play Hurricane,Blowin in the wind, The times they are a-changing, Mr Tambourine Man, and Just like a woman...but even though he didn't, I enjoyed every minute of it. And he did play one of my favourites... :)

More than anything, I had this overwhelming feeling that I was witnessing history. I was watching Bob Dylan live. Overwhelming is the right word. I was completely and utterly overwhelmed. He sat there singing, right infront of my eyes. I jumped, I cheered, I screamed, I swayed, I smiled..and when, completely out of the blue, without any warning, they started to play "Like a Rolling Stone", I bit my lip sheepishly..desperately and barely successfully trying to stop tears. His rendition of the song was new to my ears. I'd heard the original version, and this was very "modern". But it was amazing. He didn't change the song, he didn't ruin it..he evolved it. It was a beautiful feeling. Choking on my own breath and tears, I sang along with him. He ended the gig with "All Along the Watchtower".
When I was talking about going to watch Bob Dylan, a lot of people told me that he's old and past his prime, people told me he was no longer the musician he used to be, and that his previous concerts in the recent past had been "shit".
I say - Bollocks.

Despite the fact that he is 40 years past his prime, despite the fact that he is 66, despite the fact that he went electric, and despite the fact that his voice has aged with him, he was absolutely brilliant.

I mean, would you expect any less from a genius like him?

Monkey taunts tigers

2007-04-02T05:20:00.001+05:30

Hahahaha this is too FUNNY!

Baby Tiger Cub

2007-04-02T05:12:00.001+05:30

Hahaha...SO CUTE.

Slapdash

2007-04-01T19:42:00.000+05:30

When I compare how I felt a month ago, to now..I feel so much better!
Everything seems great now.
Yes, its 4 months till I'm back, but a month ago it was 5 months.
Also, its 4 months till I'm back. And only 2 till the LIPA term ends. Only 2 months. After that, I might never see a lot of these friends of mine again! So I'm living every moment and enjoying it!
I have easter holidays now. 15 days of fun! A month ago, I thought it'd be the loneliest 15 days of my life..but -
I'm going to Whitby to be with Becki for a weekend. I'm very excited! I'll see her home, meet her family, walk around on the beaches.
I'm also going to watch Bob Dylan live in Glasgow and have yet another mad few days with Guru.
I've been reading Isadora Duncan's autobiography. It's brilliant.
I'm cooking an Indian meal for friends tonight.
And last night, I fell into a hedge. Ahem. That was fun. :D

Inhuman humans

2007-03-28T14:00:00.000+05:30

Don't watch this if you dont have a strong stomach..on the other hand, do watch it...But just a warning - I nearly threw up after I'd seen it.

See this: A video of a dolphin Massacre in Japan

Sign the petition to stop this here

Tata

2007-03-26T12:57:00.000+05:30

Pratap Singh Bhandari a.k.a Tata is a man I've known ever since I can remember. He's not a cook, he's not a cleaner, he's not a sweeper..He's like my surrogate father. He's a part of the family. Has been for the last 35 odd years. As far as I can remember, I've known him as long as I've known the rest of my family. He washed my bottom when I was a baby, he stuffed food into my mouth with his big rough fingers, he sent vanya and me to bed when our parents were out for dinner by massaging our heads. He called it "champi", and till this day, if someone plays with my hair, I eventually fall into a deep comfortable sleep.

When my sister and I were growing up, Tata wasn't just tata. He was superman. He could do anything. He could make us eat stuff we wouldn't normally even go 10 feet near, he could stop us from crying by cracking a joke or doing something funny, he would sing in the kitchen while concocting the most delicious innovations you could ever think of, he named our dogs Nimboo and Imli, "Johnny" and "Julie" respectively, regardless of the fact that both are female!!

When people ask who he is, I say he's a part of the family. He cooks delicious food. That's his passion. And if someone dares to retort, "Oh he's a servant?", they're pretty much written off my book. He's a member of the family. I love him as much as anyone else in the family. And he has a right to be a part of it. He's been a part of all it's joys and sorrows.

His son, Monu a.k.a Madhav Singh, was like a brother to me. Vanya and I tied rakhi to him for years and years, and he was our playmate till him and i both hit adoloscence and became too shy to play. But we remained somewhat close. He was a shy and goodlooking boy. And we didn't talk much since we both hit our teens, but we had huge memories in our pasts, to acknowledge the bond. I was with him, through his Leukaemia when he was 19, taking him to and from hospitals, talking to him, comforting him, researching on the disease. When he died, I cried bitterly. I wept even more when his mother looked at me, sitting beside his cold, dead body, "Monu was so proud that you are going to China and Japan to dance. He told me he's very proud of you."

Tata has not quite been the same since Monu's death. I remember hugging him while he wept for his only son. We shared something there. A common grief that transcends class or culture or region. That's one of the reasons why I think such distinctions are so futile. We all feel the same things - the same emotions, the same hysteria and calm, elation and devastation. So why create boundaries?Over time, of course, Tata came back to his normal self. Well, as normal as he could be, after such a catastrophic nine months of watching his son decay away, completely enslaved by this disease he didn't understand. But he slowly began to smile again, and then one day, I heard him singing again in the kitchen, and I cried. Despite his efforts to be normal, however, I can still look deep into his eyes, and sense a sadness and a feeling of loss emanating from deep within his gut.

When I was leaving for Liverpool after the Christmas break in India, my heart clogged up with tears to see that Tata was crying. He was crying while saying goodbye to me from outside the car. It was amongst the saddest I've felt in a long time. I called him from the car and asked him if he was ok. He was still sniffling a bit, but said he was going to be ok.

Since then, I've spoken to him many times on the phone and he seems like his normal, mad, cheerful self. Vanya tells me he misses me a lot. I spoke to him a few days ago and he said "bahut yaad aati hai bhai...ghar kabhi kabhi khaali khaali lagta hai" (I remember you a lot. The house seems empty sometimes without you).

Tata is a very important part of my life. My childhood would've been incomplete and too normal and mundane without him and his jokes, his pranks, his singing, his food.
And I'd imagine, so would the lives of all the people he's come into contact with! They all love him! It's difficult not to.

You'd know if you met him.

Bharatanatyam and me

2007-03-21T13:22:00.000+05:30

Whilst rehearsing for my upcoming performance in London, I sat back and thought about Bharatanatyam for a while...What drew me to it as a child? What kept my passion incessant once I grew up enough to look beyond my childish passions? What draws me to it even today, to drive me to risk an obviously precarious career in it? Why do I love it so much? Why do other people not love it as much as I do? Millions of questions that were begging to be answered. Questions that I'd attempted to answer before and drawn different conclusions for, each time.

When I was little(nearly 5 years old), my parents took me to several dance performances, and there was one that I didn't fall asleep in the middle of (its not that the other performances bored me..its just..most performances were past my bed time then!). It was my guru, Leela Samson's performance. I watched her, entranced. By the colourful costume, the shimmering jewellery, and the sheer grace, though I obviously understood little or nothing of that grace.

I pointed to her and said "Mama, I want to do that!" And so it all began. Years and years of struggle and learning. Till I was about 12, I unquestioningly loved it and danced it - in class, at home, even on the beaches of goa in a tiny little swimsuit.

It was when I was 12 that peer pressure stuck it's head out and I began to open my eyes. My friend said to me - We all have something - I've got my basketball, shes got her golf, she's got piano, and you...have your Bharatanatyam. I wasn't impressed. I didn't like the label at all. In school, I had other things I wanted to be passionate about. I wanted to be "cool" too. And I thought for a brief period of time, that Bharatnatyam was not. Because no one did it. I felt like I wasn't a part of my peer group anymore. I wore kurtas, while others wore tank tops. And nobody wore saris! I had unmanageably long hair while others had swanky haircuts. I had kajal(eye kohl), while others gave me slack for it for having the remnants of it left in my eyes at school. I was going to dance performances, while the others went to the latest movies. I had to leave in the middle of day long 'parties' because of dance class, while the others played truth or dare. I missed all the fun, I thought!

It wasn't long before I found out that that was my identity. I became proud of what I had become outside the dance class, because of what I did, in it. And I began to symbolically show the finger to what people considered to be cool. I liked my long hair, my bindi, my kajal, my kurta, and the values I'd inherited because of dance classes three times a week for the last 10 years. And it wasn't long before people caught on. Or perhaps the trends changed for whatever reason.

I began to perform 'professionally' with my guru at that time. Whatever little money I made (which was a lot for me!), I used to hand over to my parents to put in the bank account. I didn't spend it. It was around this time that I also started really doing Abhinaya. Dance pieces that had a story to it, and that required 'acting'.

My Arangetram was one of the most important days of my life. I remember every minute of it, from the moment I woke up, till I moment my head hit the pillow at night. And without sounding too arrogant, I was relieved and happy that it went off well. And without sounding too proud, I knew that all the hard work that I had put into it had paid off. It wasn't a perfect Arangetram. I was nervous at the start, and obviously my abhinaya wasn't as mature as it would be 5 years later, but at the age of sixteen..I still felt at peace on stage. And I was happy that I didn't make any mistakes, get nervous and blank out, or fall flat on my face.

And over time, I wondered why such a beautiful art form, and others like it were being completely taken over by Shyamak Davar and Bollywood. While being a Bharatanatyam dancer was now considered oh-so-cool, I wasn't happy. Because still, no one tried to understand it. And that's when I started seeking answers.

Bharatanatyam is an ancient dance form that started off in the temples of Tamil Nadu, performed by men dressed as women, and then Devadasis(servants of the gods). Legendary dancer Balasaraswati was amongst the last devadasis. It was brought out of the temple onto the stage by my guru's guru Rukmini Devi Arundale. And soon a new era of dance began. Today it has many forms and styles, and many dancers to show it. It was taken to different levels by different dancers. My own guru, Leela Samson used it to create her troupe "Spanda", that explored Bharatanatyam in ways that not only made it enjoyable to watch, but also gave us dancers a deeper understanding of the movements that we did.I had the tremendous fortune of being a part of Spanda for all of my adolescense. Chandralekha fused it with Kalaripayettu and Yoga to create her own grammar.

Bharatanatyam is very stylised, and so I understand when people say that they can't understand it. But it's like any other art form. If you follow it for long enough, the grammar becomes familiar, and you can understand it deeper. It's not an impossible task. It just requires a bit of interest. And that's not very difficult. The movements require only an understanding of beauty and an appreciation of geometry. The hand gestures aren't infinite. And moreover, the feelings and emotions we display on stage are real emotions that we feel and express every single day. And that's why I think Bharatanatyam trascends time, and is not a 'victim' of stylisation. Rather, it is a stylised expression of what we all have felt before and will feel again, from the time we are born till the time we die.

I don't know if I will ever be good enough to take the stage by storm. And just last night, someone in a LIPA studio asked me if I was going to make it as a dancer, considering that there are millions of other dancers just like me, with the same aspiration to dance. I just said - "I don't know..but I'm going to try!"

I don't care much about fame at all, and I know that Bharatanatyam as a means of livelihood is a luxury only a few exceptionally talented dancers can afford. But I know how I feel when I'm on stage.

I'm not looking to be a "famous dancer". I just hope that one day, some day..I will perform on stage, and someone sitting in the auditorium will be moved by it.

Iris

2007-03-18T23:22:00.000+05:30

It's a film I've been wanting to watch for a while. "Iris" starring Kate Winslet as the young Iris Murdoch, Judi Dench as the old one, and Jim Broadbent as her husband John Bayley, was a moving story about her struggle with Dementia in her later life, her drive and passion for writing in her youth, her boundless faith in love, and unaltered connection with her soulmate, John Bayley.

The entire film was speckled with little nuggets of knowledge and wisdom, about the simple and yet complicated things in our lives - like love, sex, justice, temperance, wisdom, inspiration etc.

She said to her husband, over a pint of beer - If there is a choice between two evils, choose the one you haven't done before.
To students at a lecture, she said - We need to believe in something divine, without the need for god. Something we call Love..and Goodness.
And then, hinting at being influenced by Plato, she said - We experience, sometimes even before our births, pure forms like justice, temperance, goodness. And in our lives, its the shadows of our experience of these pure forms that drives us to be good. And that is when we are at our most pure.

She was a wise woman, that Iris.

Untitled

2007-03-13T21:42:00.000+05:30

Love is enough: though the world be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the skies be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter:
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

- William Morris

Dreams

2007-03-11T14:54:00.000+05:30

Someone who's alive, died in my dream last night
Another who's died, was alive in my dream tonight
Dreams and illusion sometimes bring to light
Your most ardent hope and biggest fright...

My Walk to Buddha

2007-03-10T23:40:00.000+05:30

Last night, I was walking down to a pub nearby called 'the Buddha', a quaint, quiet place where they play live jazz on sundays - a relief from the noisy, manic bars teaming with students, wanting to get a drink and possibly someone to go home with, when I saw a man walking towards me.

Instant panic went into overdrive, as I said to myself, "I should really cross over to the other side of the road"..but I continued walking, wary and suspicious, ready to lash out in case something happened. "Prepared" for everything, thinking I was not going to let fear get the better of me.

And when he passed me by with what seemed like the sweetest smile that almost resembled my grandfather's, I felt so ashamed.

He looked like someone who had a little but wonderful life, a beautiful wife, and children he was proud of.

As our eyes met, he gave me a little nod, the corner of his middle aged eyes creased as his mouth stretched into a hint of a smile, and he walked on, probably eager to get home to a warm meal and his kids, after a long hard day of work.

I walked on, feeling very ashamed and terribly guilty. This man's eyes got stuck in my head, as deeply embedded in my memory, as that of the man that night. These eyes were as friendly and gentle, as the other man's were, diluted and bloodshot. I got into the pub, had a drink and forgot all about it. Until now.

What is wrong with me. I, the queen of naivete, mistook innocence for savagery.

This has got to stop.

The Northern Lights of Norway

2007-03-06T22:38:00.001+05:30

These are the Northern Lights..I was at my singing teacher, Kaya's house one day, and she's from Norway..she showed me pictures of the Northern Lights and then showed me this...I was amazed. I'd heard of the Northern Lights and their grandeur but never seen them obviously. And when I saw this, I was stunned. I'd never have imagined such a vibrant play of colour and light! It's all just natural light and gases of the atmosphere.The Northern Lights reveal themselves dramatically in the skies of Northern Norway in the winter months.

...This world is really something, isnt it? :)

I've let go

2007-03-01T18:15:00.000+05:30

I was just dozing off on the train on my way to London this weekend that just passed us by, when I found myself thinking that the last 3-4 years have been so incredibly full of difficulty and loss. And suddenly it dawned on me - this is what growing up is! The older you are, the more loss you're bound to feel, because you know more about everything in general. Was it for that reason that someone said ignorance is bliss? I thought about how Ganesh deals with loss and how strong he is. I suppose the more you grow up, loss and death and difficulty become more and more frequent, and over time, instead of being so horrified and shocked, which is how I've been, perhaps you start to learn to live with it all. And smile your way through it, conquering it. And perhaps that means that once you've accepted all that to be a part of life, it doesn't horrify you and terrify you the way it horrifies and terrifies me right now!

Suddenly, I felt comforted. I fell asleep.

Teachers at LIPA have been telling me to go and see a counsellor about the attack, and I've been resisting it because I think I'm strong enough to deal with it on my own. But I did eventually go to London to visit the counsellor that has always resulted in the best counselling I ever got. My father.

Talking to him about everything that was worrying me, arguing with him, reasoning with him, hearing what he had to say left me with a clarity that I haven't felt in weeks. I tackled one problem at a time, and found that I was letting go of each of them. I could feel the burden of each problem lifting itself off me and floating away, as I sat with abba in a pub, or in the hotel room.

Of course, it doesn't mean that all the trouble has just gone away just like that. I still have to deal with Personal Mitigation Circumstances forms, and not being able to do assessments, and visiting doctors, and the pain.

But what I feel now is bigger than all these problems. I feet at peace.

I feel stronger. I feel positive. I feel unconquered. I won't let the bad guy win. I won't I won't I won't. If I continue to feel dejected and upset, then he's won.

Thinking on the train to London, talking to my father in London, and thinking by myself since I've been back from London..I realised that I have let go. I've realised that I'm so ready to fight.
I realised that he's not going to win.

Thom Yorke - Analyse

2007-02-24T22:29:00.001+05:30

A self-fulfilling prophecy of endless possibilty
You roll in reams across the street
In algebra, in algebra

The fences that you cannot climb
The sentences that do not rhyme
In all that you can ever change
The one you're looking for

It gets you down
It gets you down

There's no spark
No light in the dark

It gets you down
It gets you down
You traveled far
What have you found
That there's no time
There's no time
To analyse
To think things through
To make sense

Like cows in the city, they never looked so pretty
By power cuts and blackouts
Sleeping like babies

It gets you down
It gets you down
You're just playing a part
You're just playing a part

You're playing a part
Playing a part
And there's no time
There's no time
To analyse
Analyse
Analyse

The sound of silence

2007-02-24T19:17:00.000+05:30

"People talking without speaking........And no one dared disturb the sound of silence"

A friend of mine once told me, "I could never understand how the two of you could sit across a table in silence, just looking at each other - smiling and talking through your eyes"

I miss that soooo much.

2007-02-22T21:33:00.000+05:30

I wish I could feel nothing. Just for a while.
I'm tired of feeling things, I'm tired of crying...
I'm tired of hurting, I'm tired of waiting.
I wish I could just...disappear for a while.

The Apologist

2007-02-21T23:12:00.000+05:30

I'm not quite sure what R.E.M meant by that song 'The Apologist", but I sure as hell have something to say.

In my previous post (which I have deleted), I spoke some truths, but they were harshly and cruelly spoken, due to incidents that I'm not going to go into again. No justification...I hurt some of the people who meant and will go on to mean a lot to me in my year here in Liverpool.

This is an apology.

I'm really sorry that you had to read that. Given the fact that I hadn't spoken out before, it must've been a nasty shock and a betrayal for most of you, specially for the ones it wasn't directed towards at all. For those of you I spoke to, I told you what I meant and why I said it...but specially for those who I havent spoken to yet....it basically all boils down to the fact that...well, despite everything, I love you guys..and I'm really happy and relieved that you have been there for me, in whatever way you can.

I was frustrated and annoyed and upset about everything, and I was trying to defend a fellow classmate in a stupid manner. That's no excuse..but by judging me by the 6 months you've known me, you have the liberty to decide what I meant. And I will totally understand your decision, whatever it is.

Thank you, those of you who've been there for me even at this rough time, and thank you to those who didn't misunderstand me, and thank you even to those who kept the fire from spreading to other areas.

"I'm just a fucked up girl looking for my own piece of mind" - 'Clementine Kruchinisky' in 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'

2007-02-14T22:30:00.000+05:30

Nope...decided not to post anything. No point. Nothing to say. Too much going on inside my head...I can't even find the words to put down in writing.

Hoping for better days.

The scent of a --man.

2007-02-10T18:15:00.000+05:30

Woke up in the morning and started my daily ritual...Got out of bed, sat with my razai wrapped around me in front of the computer, logged on to msn to talk to Ganesh, checked the weather on the BBC website, went to the CNN-IBN website to check on news back home...browsing through it, I came across this rather strange bit of news -

Why women love men's sweat smell

Hmmm interesting.

Lessons learnt

2007-02-08T17:37:00.000+05:30

Thought I'd write a new post...to distract from the last one...

Again I am reminded about why I ever entered the blog world, despite being against it my entire life previously. I am reminded once more, of a conversation I had with Robin on the subject. He said it perfectly.."Sometimes I just want to vent."

There is a reason I didn't allow comments on my blog about my toto's birthday..because I would hear well-intended but reduntant gyaan about it without anyone knowing what it's really like for me to go through something like that. Perhaps I should've done the same with 'Why didn't she scream'...While I know all the comments on the previous post were all well-intended and heartfelt...some things were said that are the easiest things in the world to say. But if you're actually put in that situation, it doesn't seem so easy anymore. Nor does it seem rational.

And panic should never be under-estimated. It's a very powerful thing. It can make a victim weaker, but it can also make an attacker stronger. A scream, or a badly aimed kick in the balls could have left the attacker panicking and that could've led to a physical assault as well as a sexual assault, said the police. Due to panic.

I'm writing this for the women (what the hell..even the men) I care for and worry about, here in Liverpool and back home - a few tips from the Liverpool Police.

If you suspect an attack - Don't engage with an attacker. Avoid eye contact. Cross the road over to the other side if you suspect someone on the pavement.

If you're going home and you're being followed, take the busiest streets and walk into a shop or a restaurant.

Don't carry a weapon with you. A thug will almost always be physically stronger and capable of overpowering you. Pepper Spray, Shock guns, pocket knives...you bringing them out could lead to a struggle, and you might be the one ending up with burning/blind eyes, in shock on the floor, or stabbed.

Don't hit your attacker unless you've been trained in self-defense by a professional. In all likelihood, your punches and kicks will only anger the attacker and he could retaliate. You might end up assaulted and beaten up, as well.

If you can, without engaging with the attacker, just run. Scream only on busy streets where you know you'll be heard. If you scream when there's no one around, he'll just bash your face in.

If you are mugged, let them take what they want. Nothing materialistic is worth your life.

Report it to the police immediately.

I suppose all this doesn't count if you know you're going to be killed or if you are actually being raped...then the best thing to do would be to scream your lungs out, hit him wherever you can, put up a fight..

All cities have good areas and bad areas...but unfortunately every once in a while, incidents happen in so called good areas as well. Please be careful everyone.

Oh, and the most obvious but also the most taken for granted rule - dont walk alone at night.

Why didn't she scream?

2007-02-05T23:48:00.000+05:30

Nightmare on Hope Street. It began at around two. She saw him staggering towards her. He'd had a drink..a few. And as he walked on closer, her worst fears came true. He looked her straight in the eye. In that instant, she knew. She froze in space and time.Paralysed by fear. She could not move a muscle, even as he drew near.

He threw himself right at her. "I have no money" she said. He said he didn't want it. She thought he'd strike her dead. And then he crumbled to the floor pretending he fell down. "I'm sorry, love" he stammered. And groped her all around.

In pain, she muffled her cries. In fear of being silenced forever. Her fear of death had never been stronger than it was during this endeavour.

With a deep intake of breath, she pulled herself together. She pushed and ran, till her baited breath had reached the end of its tether. She ran and ran till she reached her room, feeling her fear so deep. Shocked and dazed, she crawled into bed, and simply went to sleep.

The morning came, and with it hurt and pain..."What could I have said, what should I have done?" But really, all she could do was feel stupid again.

But..
What could she have done?
What should she have said?
Why was she so muffled?
Why wasn't he dead?
Why didn't she strike?
Why wasn't it a dream?
Why was she so passive?
....Why didn't she scream?

Wonders of a camera phone...

2007-02-02T18:08:00.000+05:30

I wish I was with you today, baby. :)
But I'm sure you're having a blast in Bombay, so...Have a wild weekend!!
Missing you like mad...talk to you on monday!
Love you.

Happily depressed?

2007-01-31T20:43:00.000+05:30

Strange...I consider myself a happy person and yet..I am drawn to depressing films, depressing songs, depressing books...They move me in a way that happy things don't always touch me. Not never, but definitely not always. But a sad song, a tragic film, or a heart wrenching book almost always draws my attention and I get hooked.

I'm troubled, and puzzled.
What does this mean?
Does this mean I am a depressed person?
I don't think so! It can't be - I am so happy!
Does it mean that we feel sadness and tragedy with more intensity than we feel happiness?
I'm not sure...I've felt sadness with the kind of intensity that I wouldn't inflict on my worst enemy...but I've also felt so much happiness that it's actually brought tears to my eyes.
Does it mean I've not let go of things that happened in the past and that the past has marred me with scars that haven't yet gone away? Perhaps I do have trouble letting go of certain things, but I certainly don't consider myself marred and disfigured with scars from the past.

I'm very confused. So I've decided to call it 'Happily depressed'. It's not a permanent state of being, like manic depression. It's a bit more transitory, like euphoria. Except it's not euphoria. It's being happily depressed.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Happy Birthday Ma

2007-01-27T21:13:00.000+05:30

Nothing that I can say will ever be enough...I'd have to write a thesis!
So I'll just say Happy Birthday to the best mama in the world! Yay!

Round Indian chappathis

2007-01-26T21:20:00.000+05:30

I just watched Bend it like Beckham. I found it in the video library at LIPA while browsing through the shelves, and decided to pick it up.

I realised something while watching it. As Indians, sometimes we feel ashamed of how backward we are in terms of social customs, traditions and attitudes like "there's nothing better than respecting your elders". Yes, the Indian family in Bend It Like Beckham was a stereotypical sikh NRI family, where marriage is of primary importance, marrying a white person is out of bounds, a black person - it's horrible, and marrying a muslim - well, that's unthinkable! Where a woman is defined by who she marries and how many children she bears her husband and how many cars he provides for her. Where a woman's life is restricted to making round indian chappathis and living her parent's dream of becoming a doctor or lawyer. Eventually of course, Jess in the film gets to do what she wants..and that's what makes the film stand out for me.

But as I was watching it, I caught myself thinking - What must the English people think of us Indians? But then I began thinking otherwise...A realisation hit me. We Indians make the mistake of thinking we are exclusively backward.

But then again, we came up with the kamasutra didn't we? Sexual teachings.
We also have the Khajuraho temples. Eroticism at it's best.
Our gods and goddesses wear nothing but jewellery to cover themselves up. Elegant nudity.
That's pretty forward, I'd say.

Another thought struck me...The west is equally backward about some things, if not more. I saw the way Juliet's suspected homosexuality completely freaked out her mother in the film, and how once it was established that Juliet was not a lesbian, her mother said "Oh, I have nothing against it, love!"
I thought about my Greek friend, who's father refuses to talk to her because she gave up her career as a lawyer to come here and study Dance.
I thought of my flatmate who keeps his sexuality a mystery to his parents, who's mother only suspects that he's gay, and who's father doesn't have a clue.

Maybe we aren't more backward than other countries. Maybe just as backward. And maybe we are forward in ways they are not, and backward in other ways. Vice-versa.
Maybe it all isn't just black and white. Or grey.
Perhaps it's all just a jumble of colours that just needs sorting out.

Big little things

2007-01-23T02:55:00.000+05:30

Sometimes the littlest of things can mean so much...

A pleasant look in the eyes of the passer by.
A phone call from someone you thought you'd never speak to again.
A twitch in the corner of your teacher's lips when you know you've done something right.
The ordinary words of an extaordinary person.
The smile on someone's face.
An unexpected visit from someone you haven't seen in a long time.
A letter.
The memory of the smell of a person.
A little message left for you, saying "Hope ur doing ok"
Two lines of a poem.
....An mms sent by a friend...a picture of a loved one playing cricket.

I'm smiling, Recho.

Happy Birthday

2007-01-19T04:10:00.000+05:30

Ah...Happy birthday, 23 year old! I just wanted to wish you..this is just one of the ways. I'll go have a beer later, I promise!

I just didn't want to sound all sad and upset, you know. I was thinking of printing the lyrics of 'Lazarus' on today's blog, but I have a feeling you'd scoff and say, "That's so gay, sylvan goddess!" So I decided against it. :)

Hope all's well up there. Did you meet some of the people who really inspired you? I don't know why this one name's stuck in my head cos of the funny way in which you said it - Chuck Sculdiner(is that how you spell it?Or is it Schuldiner?)..You bumped into him yet?

I bet you're having a blast there, and also amused by all the happenings here, with us all. I can see you smirking at some of the things that have happened, and also smiling mischeviously at others.

Heh. It makes me smile to think of you. I was just telling my friend, Stian about your birthday a couple of days ago(all my friends here know all about you!) and he said I should celebrate it the way you would've! Haha. I don't think I could do that, though. I'd either have to start drinking whiskey at 8 in the morning, or I'd have to stay up all night.Or both! And you know how I'd get if I did either!

But sure, I'll celebrate. Ganesh, in his own way, taught me to do that, actually. It's Krishnaswamy, by the way, not Krishnaswami :P..but then again, you always spelled my last name wrong too. ;)

So much is changing in my life - I'm consolidating my career, I'm learning to accept a lot of things I didn't before, I'm so in love..you'd be in tears with laughter seeing how hopelessly in love I am... I'm all grown up, tots. And happy.

All said and done, I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss you, your stupid phone calls(I was going to quote you, but I think you'd hate me for it, so I won't :P), your stupid promises to come visit (I know, I know..I promised too), you flipping your eyelids to freak me out, and giving me 'life lessons', and telling me about your EVS classes and how I should listen to metal, about your constantly-in-turmoil love life, and about how your friends aren't a bad influence on you(I'm sure you know how much I know of that now!). I'd also be lying if I said I haven't cried. If you are watching us all, you'll have seen the sadness and the tears, so I won't lie. But I also know it would've made you feel awful, so I intend to SMILE.

And here...I'm sending out a message for you, and just in case you do get it - I don't want to be it to be all sad and stupid.

So with a big smile, I'm sending you millions of really tight hugs, and lots of kisses, and uhh..I hope you're sensing my state of absolute euphoria at you having been such a huge part of my life! mWah!

Happy Birthday again. I love you, you stupid fellow! :)

p.s. I found one of your websites! Now you can go on ahead and continue to annihilate! Hehehe.

Life's too short

2007-01-15T18:11:00.000+05:30

It is. There is so much that needs to be done, so much we want to do with our lives, but theres no time. I know it's stupid to think this way, but it's true isn't it. 21 years of my life have already gone by and I've not really done anything with it.

Hmmm...well, maybe I have..I have loved. And I suppose that's a lot. I have loved and lost, lost and learned, learnt and unlearned, unlearnt and re-learned, re-learnt and consolidated, consolidated and loved some more, I've loved some more and gained immortality through it.

But then I still fear the short span of time we have on this earth.

And I dread the day I will lose yet another person I love.

Jesus Camp

2007-01-14T18:52:00.000+05:30

A documentary on Evangalists. I saw clips of it on the internet, and was quite literally jaw-droppingly horrified. American children as young as three are rambling nonsense, a little nine year old girl ages as she speaks of spreading the word of the Lord to adults. Watching her I felt like I was seeing a 35 year old person talk. I felt like telling her - "You're nine years old! Go play with your toys, and read Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton for fuck's sake!"

Here's a few links. Be prepared to see some really fucked up stuff -

Google Video - Jesus Camp
Jesus Camp - Nine year old Rachael
and.....Here's the trailer!

Watching this made my skin crawl.

Fucked up night

2007-01-11T22:35:00.000+05:30

Last night was a weird night. Jetlag forced my eyelids to pry shut at eight in the evening. Succumbing to the welcoming sleep, little did I know what I was in for.
In absolute darkness, in lucid sleep I heard noises outside my door. As if someone was scratching against the door. With a key or something. Hannah heard it too, she said this afternoon.
Outside, the wind blew with a fury, whistling..drawing strength from the uneasiness that oozed into me.
Somehow, sleep came to me and whisked me away on a ship of dreams. Of horror.
Everyone I knew had died.
Everyone that I loved, was gone. But not quite. An almost identical clone of theirs still existed. But it was not them, and I knew this because I knew them. There was only just a hint of a difference, but it was difference enough...a very slight difference in skin colour, the ever so subtle alteration of their personality, the little tinge of evil in them.
And suddenly I heard something snap. Was I awake? Did I hear something?
Before I could think, my dream conquered my consciousness. Vanquished in my sleep, I was the slave of my twisted subconscience.
The hell I was in continued, undefeated. A bitter ghost of my real past came back in my sleep to haunt me, to torture me, to violate my peace of mind.
In my sleep, I wept. I didn't just weep. I sobbed. Uncontrollably.

In my sleep, I forced myself to open my eyes. Anything to end the misery, somehow.
I felt my eyelids stir. I tried harder to push out the evil images from my head. My struggling eyelids gave in enough for my retina to take in the blurry red light that was the flashing numbers of my digital alarm clock.

A sudden rush of adrenaline hit me. I was awake. I opened my eyes wider, trying to see through the sleep, and the tears. The clock said it was 4.20 in the morning.
I didn't care. I would not sleep again. No way. I was not going to get sucked into that desperately hideous dream again.

I leapt out of bed. I washed my face. I looked around. I had known all along, it seemed to me then, that I had been dreaming. Yet while I was dreaming it, it was real enough to make me cry, to make me feel ugly when I woke up.

I came out of the bathroom. My eyes fell on something lying on the carpet. I went close to it. It looked like a mangled piece of metal. I picked it up, and amazed, perplexed and yes...definitely frightened, I looked at my bedside table. There stood the feet and ankles of the little metal figure I had stuck onto my bedside table with blue-tak. I looked down again at the mangled piece of metal...yes, it was the legs, the hips, the torso and face of that metal figure. How on earth did that happen???? What could make a metal figure the size of a walnut, just snap into two in the middle of the night? Was that the loud snap I heard in the middle of the night?

I came online. And there was Ganesh. I talked to him, vented and cried. About the resurfacing of evils of the past, about the pain of the death of loved ones, of the fear of the death of the ones that are living, of someone who hurt me beyond explanation. More than hurt me.

I feel better now, but I still feel weird. It was just an extremely bizarre night. I hadn't felt this weird and fucked up since I hallucinated about Toto two years ago.

Victor's Justice

2007-01-02T12:42:00.000+05:30

On December 30th, at the crack of dawn, Saddam Hussein was swiftly executed. The sentence on the basis of which the Sunni dictator was executed, was this - Killing 148 Shias in Dujail in 1982. How specific. 148 shias. Hours later, a massive car bomb exploded in a Shia town, injuring about 45 people and killing 35. This divide and rule policy was followed even over an issue as sensitive as Saddam Hussein's execution.

Also, the number - 148. Why shouldn't Bush and Blair be the next ones to face the gallows? They, by invading Iraq, have already taken the lives of 3000 innocent Iraqi civilians. Is that not worthy of the death penalty? And What about our own Narendra Modi? He massacred over 3000 people in Gujarat over a span of 2 days in February 2002.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending Saddam Hussein. In the words of an Iraqi who was interviewed on CNN, "Of course he should've been executed. But he should have been executed by the Iraqi people, not by the Americans."

Even the vulnerable Iraqi people cannot be fooled. What George Bush calls an Independent Iraqi government and an Independent court consists of puppets, and the puppeteers steer their actions from Washington DC. Everybody knows this. Who are they trying to fool?

What was the motive behind the execution? Even George Bush didn't claim that it would end the violence in Iraq. Everyone knew that it could only excacerbate the situation. Iraqis were said to be "dancing on the streets" according to american television. And sure, some of them were. Saddam was a nasty piece of work. But more and more news reports say that Iraqis are apprehensive, fearful, worried and disappointed. The Iraqis fear ethnic and sectarian violence. So why does Bush call it a "great milestone"? Iraq is no less disorderly or chaotic. It can only mean that the Americans want disorder and chaos. They obviously feel that as long as Iraq is unstable, they can continue to justify their occupation of Iraq. The truth is they don't want to stabilise Iraq at all. They want to keep it as unstable as possible for as long as its possible, so that they can stay there. That was their goal from the beginning anyway. It wasn't weapons of mass destruction or 9/11 or wanting to rid Iraq of a dictator(who gave them the authority to do that, anyway?). Their goal's always been to control Iraq.

It's pretty obvious that his execution is considered unfair by many. And if Bush doesn't expect some sort of retaliation, he's a damn fool. He has angered many many people, and made the world an unsafe place. By his stupid moves, he increasingly endangers the lives of more and more people. What does he want? Another 9/11? Of course angry extremists and hardcore Hussein loyalists will react. I'm getting more and more convinced, that Bush doesn't care if he's endangering the lives of people in his own country. He's even endagering the lives of people in the UK, the other member of the "coalition" during this whole invasion of Iraq.

It's all a big mystery...why was the execution done so quickly after the sentence was upheld by the appeals court? Why was it done on a holy day? What about the UN? Was it revenge or justice? What has the world gained by his death?

Everything that I know about the execution of Saddam Hussein leads me to believe that the motive behind his 'murder', was not justice.

I think they hastily and thoughtlessly executed him in a rush because they felt that the momentum of public opinion would catch up with them if they waited. They knew that most of the world would not approve of the execution, and I believe they finished him off before public opinion gained momentum and put pressure on the Americans to act differently.

Also, it was a deliberate decision to kill him on a day considered holy for muslims. Eid. Have we ever heard of anyone, however cruel and evil, being executed on Christmas or, say Diwali? Why did they choose to kill him on that day, if not to bring about some sort of provocation?

What really horrified me was the breaking of the promise that the tape would not be released for public viewing. Not only was the tape of his execution released to the Iraqi television, but also to the world. Everyone who wished to, watched the last few moments of Saddam Hussein's life, sitting back on their couches, in their living rooms. What's worse is, I believe the entire footage of his execution is available on the internet. Quoting a friend who saw it, "It was horrible! You can actually see his body falling through the pit, his neck hanging on one side, obviously broken, and his body swinging from side to side." How did they let such a thing happen? It would be unheard of, if a President of any other country, or any other political figure was to be executed. How did they let someone with a camera phone tape it all and put it up on the web? There's a deep-rooted lack of care and sensitivity about this whole thing on behalf of the Americans, who we all know, control everything in Iraq.

What happened was a new form of Medieval Barbarism. That's what occupying forces did in Medieval times. If they occupied a country, they'd overthrow and execute the king of that region. That's what the Americans did. They used lies like the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and Saddam's involvement in 9/11 as excuses to occupy Iraq, and once they succeeded, they overthrew and killed the ruler of the region.

What the Americans are calling a move to stabilise and rebuild Iraq, is in reality, a war.

Crimes against humanity are meant to be tried at the International Court of Justice. Saddam was tried by an "Iraqi court" in an American occupied Iraq, and everytime the judges showed reluctance, they judge was changed. And unfortunately, Saddam was justified in saying that he doesn't recognise the legitimacy of the court. He wouldn't have said so if he was really being tried by an Iraqi court, because the world would've shut him up. But here, much of the world was silently agreeing with him.

There are some international standards of justice, and there are International bodies unanimously created for these purposes. But the Bush administration is sending out a loud and clear message to the world. They don't want the world to believe that they are working within a global democratic setup. They disregard the UN, they don't believe they need to listen to anyone. They want to establish ultimate supremacy. They are not showing obedience to any international agencies. They want to dictate terms to everyone. The UN is powerless to do anything, though it does make noises every now and then.

When America dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, the war was already over. Japan had already surrendered. They dropped the bomb to send out a message - Dont fuck with us. And that's what's happening now.

So despite the fact that Saddam was a man who deserved to really suffer, losing him has not just been good riddance. His execution was a breach of international standards of justice, a message to the world, and the demolition of the last obstacle in the path of American supremacy in the middle east. It has only instigated more instability in Iraq, more anger in and outside Iraq, and made the world even more of an unsafe place!

Moreover, by being so hasty, thoughtless and insensitive, they've actually made people sympathetic to Saddam's cause. Saddam deserves no sympathy. He does not deserve martyrdom. Gandhi was a martyr. Saddam Hussein today, stands in the same place as Gandhi. They've turned a cold-blooded killer into a Martyr. He refused to wear the "naqab" during his execution and faced his death with calm, they said. By executing him without a fair trial, and because the world knew the motive behind his execution was not justice, but revenge and other things, he's attained martyrdom.

So all in all, what has the world gained? A horrible man who should've been subjected to rigorous improsonment for life, or harrassment for life like General Pinoche from Chile was harrassed, has become a martyr in the eyes of many. The world has become more unsafe, and will live in constant fear of retaliation where more lives will be lost. More British and American families will lose their children. Recently 20,000 more troops were sent to Iraq. The world stands with no faith or hope. The UN and other international agencies have lost their legitimacy. The world faces an opposition-less bully in the form of America.

As for George Bush and his administration...ah well, they're grand!!

Will it ever....?

2006-12-24T10:19:00.000+05:30

Will it ever happen that my flight to Bangalore is not delayed? Here, I sit, twidling my toes, wondering what to do with myself.

I've been up since six in the morning, even though my flight was at 10.

But we called the airport at 8.. "The scheduled departure for this flight is 12 noon, madam"

Groan.

And now its delayed by a further 25 minutes...I was to reach Bangalore at 12.30. Now I'll reach at 3.

Why doesn't the world understand that every minute is precious, every second counts, with every delay my heart sinks further...

Well...I suppose I should be grateful the flight's not been cancelled.

:S

Drunken Farewell :D

2006-12-18T17:18:00.000+05:30

"So how was your last night in Liverpool?"

"...I Don't remember..."

Here are more pictures from last night

The way it ought to be..

2006-12-16T12:25:00.000+05:30

I was lying in bed this morning, listening to jazz, and just looking around the room smiling to myself.

Don't know why. I'm feeling so relaxed. And happy. I haven't felt this relaxed in Liverpool before. Always been so hectic! Nice, but hectic!

I thought of my performance, and how well it went despite my tonsilitus! It was so sweet of Rich and Luis to come despite the fact that both needed to be at the airport that night!
Thought of Luis. He's on his way back to Brazil. Back home to his beautiful home with huge gardens.
Thought of Rich, and how excited he was last night. And his girlfriend Aideen. She landed in Liverpool last night. What a reunion that must've been!!
Thought of how I'm going to be on my way home soon - Sleeping in my bed, cuddling family members(that includes doggies!)
I'm going to be home soon, and I'm going to see everyone so soon!
And I'll be in Bangalore soon, giving and receiving the much needed hugs and kisses and cuddles to and from my baby!

Oh joy!...everything is just the way it should be. :)

Don't let me down!

2006-12-13T12:56:00.000+05:30

Oh Boy...I've got my last two days here at LIPA and my performance in two days, a christmas party tomorrow, and a WILD weekend planned ahead..BUT I'VE FALLEN SICK.

Dammit. I was looking forward to a MAD week with all my friends, out drinking, getting pissed. Now it's just "Tell me when your rehearsal is over, we'll come nurse you back to health" VERY sweet, but not what I had in mind for my last week in liverpool, for the year!!! Hehe.

Why oh why didn't I listen to that doctor 11 years ago, when she said, "I think we should surgically remove your daughter's tonsils." Then I was like - "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" even though I was promised loads of ice cream. Now I'm suffering. Every year! Grrrrr.

When Jo from class got tonsilitus, I was thinking to myself - OH NO. She's got tonsilitus.I've been dancing with her all term. And I just knew it would catch on to me. Tonsilitus seems to love my tonsils. Happens almost every year. Sometimes it happens twice a year. Uffff!!!

Hehehehe. Venting, that's all. I should be fine in a few days. It's just...at the moment I feel like I'm dying. It feels like I'm swallowing a ball of thorns every time I swallow, my neck is sore where the tonsils are...

Oh please please pray that I get better by day after tomorrow. I can hardly stand straight at the moment. And I think you could fry an egg on my forehead.

Countdown

2006-12-11T22:35:00.000+05:30

It's begun!

The christmas concert at LIPA is on friday. Four days away. We're doing 7 pieces. That means 7 costume changes! I've got solos in a contemporary piece, and Bharatanatyam solos in the street dance piece(don't ask!!).

Friday is also the last day of term one!

I'm leaving this lovely, but cold, dark place on Monday! The Simon and Garfunkel song 'Homeward bound' makes me smile from ear to ear at the moment. I'm coming home!!

I can't wait to be home, sleep in my own bed, sit in just a sleeveless shirt all day, feel the sun on my skin, eat baingan ka bharta and chapathis, meet my family, chill with my friends back home! Chonas, American diner...here I come! Keep the Kingfishers chilled!

On the 24th, I'm off to Bangalore! Yippeeeee...Simply can't wait. My heart palpitates just thinking of it. Everyone pray that I don't have a heart attack when the plane lands at the Bangalore airport, or some sort of seizure out of trembling with excitement. I'll be laying my eyes on the chompie(haha) after nearly four months! That's 118 days to be exact. It's a long fucking time.

YAY! That's 4 days to the performance, 7 days to get home, and 12 days till I see Ganesh!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! :D

Innocence Revisited

2006-12-09T21:00:00.000+05:30

Last night I had dreams about school, about sports week, about picking costumes for my show on friday, and about my childhood. I relived a lot of my past last night in my sleep.

I was running around on my 7th birthday...my mum was showing everyone a trick where she peeled a banana and it was sliced on the inside. Everyone was in awe. Toto, however, was not impressed. Thinking about it now makes me smile. He never was one to be deluded. Not as a child anyway. There was a lot of innocence in him, despite that.

I dreamt of the time I got my first barbie doll, and was horribly disappointed at not having gotten something else. I dreamt of little Vanya, Toto and me cutting its hair, drawing a moustache on it and making it wear strange clothes. We destroyed it! We even drew all over the barbie's naked body. So innocent. Hahaha. And then we took it with us into the bathtub into which all four of us comfortably fit and splashed around.

I dreamt of Mahi and Radha, my first friends in school. When I woke up, I thought it was strange to have dreamt about Mahi. It was her 21st birthday yesterday.

I dreamt of sports week, and in particular of running the 1500 meter race, and how it felt to run that last lap of the school field. The desperation you feel to reach the finish line. The exhilaration you feel when you realise you nearly broke the school record. The slight bitter pang of disappointment that you didn't. The way the little toddlers looked at you as if you were some god, when really you were only the sports captain of their school house.

And randomly, I dreamt of picking out clothes for my performance on friday. It must've been on my mind even while I slept.

When I woke up, I felt strangely nostalgic. A little low. But then that would be the alcohol, I think. It's normal to feel low when you come down to normalcy from being high the previous night. Isn't it?

I miss Ganesh.

Hmmm...strange bit of news.

2006-12-08T21:30:00.000+05:30

Check this out.

BBC link

I have to say, in defence of the men in my country, that surveys aren't a 100% accurate. And a survey of a thousand men out of a population of over a billion..even if it's accurate, that's a big generalisation.
All the sexually active Indian women that I know seem to be pretty satisfied. On all accounts - size, girth, technique whatever. I see why the west have so many women of the same social standing, the same opportunities for sexual encounters and the same hopes of true love as us, who've never had orgasms. They only look at "bigger is better". Sheesh.
On the other hand, I agree with the article when it says smaller condoms should be manufactured worldwide. It's only fair. I mean bras come in all sorts of different sizes, why shouldn't condoms?

p.s. take this post with a pinch of salt, please!

14 Years later..

2006-12-06T13:17:00.000+05:30

Today, 14 years since the Babri Masjid was demolished, news reports say that both the houses of the Parliament are expected to be disrupted. The Left parties plan to boycott the house "condemning the government for its failure to convict the people responsible for the demolition of the Babri Masjid structure."

The Babri Masjid was said to be constructed by order of the first Mughal Emperor of India, Babar, in Ayodhya in the 16th century. Before the 1940s, the mosque was called Masjid-i Janmasthan .The mosque stood on the Ramkot hill (also called Janamsthan ("birthplace"). It was destroyed by Hindu activists in a riot on December 6, 1992.

It was alleged that Babar's commander-in-chief Mir Baki destroyed an existing temple at the site, which Hindus believe was the temple built to commemorate the birthplace of Ram. Interestingly the mosque shared a wall with a Ram temple. Although there were several older mosques in the city of Ayodhya, an area with a substantial Muslim population, the Babri Masjid became the largest, due to the importance of the disputed site.

Although we have a detailed account of the life of Babar in the form of his diary, the pages of the relevant period are missing in the diary. But it is possible that the mosque already existed before Babur, who may only have renovated the building. However, the construction of the mosque must have been between 1194 and 1528.

Hindu partisan historians say that in the year 1527 the Muslim invader Babar came down from Ferghana in Central Asia and attacked the Hindu King of Chittodgad, Rana Sangrama Singh at Sikri and with the help of cannons and artillery (used in India for the first time) overcame Rana Sangrama Singh and his allies.

According to the Hindus, after this victory, Babar decided to spread terror among the subjugated Hindu population. Apparently, Mir Baqi built a mosque at the site of the destroyed temple. This was called the Babri Masjid named after King Babar.

The only remaining question about the site was its status in the period 1192-1528. In 1192 and the subsequent years, practically all the Hindu temples and Buddhist monasteries in North India were demolished by Mohammed Ghori and his Turkish invaders. It is impossible that the medieval temple at the site could have survived until 1528.

Muslims and Muslim partisan sources claim that neither history nor fact can come to prove the Hindu case as claimed above.

They claim that it is clear that the allegations, on which, the demands of RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad & Hindu Munnani are based, for laying claim to Babri Masjid are biased against Islam.

The attack on Babri Masjid on December 6th 1992, was not the only attack. It has been repeatedly attacked by Hindu fanatics in 1934, and again in 1949. Finally on December 6th, 1992 they finally managed to demolish the entire mosque.

It all seems to me like little children fighting over the truth in a fairy tale, or over pieces of Lego. Except a lot of people have gotten hurt, gotten killed, and terrorised in the unfolding of this trivial immature game of "It's mine!"

Why? Why was there such a huge fight over it? First of all, it's a matter of interpretation whether it was the birthplace of Ram or not. Besides, there's an Ayodhya in Indonesia as well, as well as in other parts of South East Asia who follow the Ramayana. Who is to say that Ram wasn't born there? And what about the Kamban Ramayana from South India...that has its own differences. It's a STORY. We're fighting over a myth.

I suppose people could argue that it's easy for me to say that's it's a story because I don't believe in God. I'm not religious and for me, the whole Ramayana is just a beautiful story with colourful and magical characters, that I sometimes depict on stage while doing Bharatanatyam. But I have something to say for people claiming this as well. I've read enough about Ram, played his character enough times on stage, to know what kind of a character he was. Even if Ayodhya, and in particular the exact spot of his birth, lay where the Babri Masjid once stood - he would be so ashamed that a beautiful historical structure built years ago was destroyed in his name. He would feel used, and ashamed of his own people.

And for God's sake...the temple that existed there was destroyed centuries ago. Nothing that anyone does can bring it back. And no one is justifying the destruction of that temple. It's just that it was done by invaders in the 16th century! And for years after that, hindus and muslims co-existed. But suddenly in the 20th century, people started getting fanatical. We now live in the 21st century...has modernity, better education, more resources done nothing for the mentality of people over 4 centuries? So the invaders were petty and stupid, insulting and violent in destroying the temples of India (wasn't everyone in that era who were invading places like that?). But is retaliating by stooping to that level, a sign of maturity or of stupidity?

Can you believe that a building can cause people to become so violent and brutal? People are still only just recovering from the Mumbai riots that followed in 1993. People are still seeking justice, they are still waiting for lost loved ones to return.

All this for what? The birthplace of a God that may or may not exist? A god that would be ashamed of what was happening anyway?

It makes no sense to me.

Pan's Labyrinth, and mine.

2006-12-03T15:28:00.000+05:30

"Innocence has a power evil cannot imagine"

I watched this film the other day. It was called Pan's Labyrinth. A film by Guillermo Del Toro, friend and colleague of Alfonso Cuaron, creator of Y Tu Mama Tambien, Pan's Labyrinth was screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.

It is a spanish film, set in the era of the world wars and Nazism, and in particular, in the time of the Spanish civil war - it was a story of a little girl who attempts to live in fantasy, in order to survive the harshness of reality. The reality is that she doesn't know who her father is, and that her mother is pregnant with the child of a Franco-Nazi Captain. And the reality is what's happening all around her. Violence and brutality of the spanish people at the hands of the right wing 'Franco-ans'. Her fantasy is that she is a princess of the underworld and has to complete three tasks before she can return to her world where she will reign as princess. Reality and fantasy entwine at very significant junctures of the film. The sheer innocence of the girl is a stark contrast to the grotesque brutality of the Captain. And as the film proceeds, the death of innocence and the triumph of evil seem more and more apparent. The end...while I don't want to give away too much, because I really really think it's a film worth watching, is bittersweet.

But it devastated me. For days I sat up thinking about the film. I think I saw something of me, in that film. The film spoke to me. Reality was so harsh and so real. I became acutely aware of the number of times I've been told that I live in a world that isnt real. That I live in a happy place where things happen in a way that they don't, in reality. That I live in a world much much less cruel than it really is. And that sometimes I deny reality because in my world, it isnt like that. It's true...I do live in a world that is, in some ways, far from reality.

But reality is reality isn't it...And I do realise that for brief moments like Ofelia in the film does - that reality is different from her fantasy world, but even as she lies beside the labyrinth, bleeding...her thoughts are of being reunited with her father, the king of the underworld, because she has spilled the blood of an innocent(herself) in the labyrinth..which was the final task before she can be accepted as the Princess again.

I thought about how my world is different from reality. There are some differences that make me afraid. A lot of reality makes me lose faith in a lot of things. And perhaps that's why I hide from it. Accepting those bits of reality means forcing myself to be someone I'm not comfortable being.

I thought of what I thought of friendship, and what friendship really is today. I think friendship goes deeper than facebooks and orkuts(sorry to keep harping on that point), I think friendship goes beyond the "good times". But here I stand, facebook acquaintance to many, wondering what it takes to be a friend in the only way I know how to be, and in the only way other people don't. How am I to fix this disruption of the mundane equillibrium? Should I change? Or should I expect the world to change? The latter seems too much to ask, but the former seems like an injustice to myself and to who I have fought to be, for years now.

I thought of how easily people give up on eachother in the real world. And me, silly me, I still will not. Despite everything. I don't believe in giving up on people. And yet reality triumphs over my world again. Because when I let myself open the doors of denial, and actually look out, I know that sometimes giving up is all you can do. But I can't bring myself to do the same. And it hurts. But no one is to blame for that. Not the person who I refused to give up on, not the other people who warned me to give up. I am to blame. Because I do eventually close those doors of denial upon reality.

Watching the film moved me, but it scared me. As I shed tears, grabbed the nearest person's arm when something sudden happened, closed my eyes tight when there was too much blood, and jumped out of my skin at other times...I was still just an audience. A spectator. But as soon as the film ended, a panic started oozing into my gut. By the time I came out of the cinema hall, I was completely panic-striken. The word I used then, was "Depression". I was depressed!!

And it is only over the next few days, as I pondered and reflected upon the film, that I realised why.

Being alone

2006-12-02T13:50:00.000+05:30

Living alone, travelling alone, sleeping eating and walking alone - all this puts life into a completely different and new perspective.

I feel like I've grown a lot older in these three months, but I also realised that when it comes to certain things, I'm not as 'old' as I think I am. I feel older than I am, and at the same time, I feel younger. Its the most stark and blatant paradox at this crossroad of my life.

I've learnt things about myself I didn't know before, I've also reaffirmed things I did know. I've instilled deeper faith into many of my 'beliefs'. I've made mistakes and learnt from them. I've also made mistakes and not learnt from them.

When you feel the sense of being alone so acutely, you value the people you love and care for, even more. You also realise that because they aren't alone, they don't value you in quite the same way.

The best thing about being alone is the amount of time you get to yourself. The endless hours spent in self-reflection, in mind-wanderings, in philosophical and rhetorical questions, in quests to seek answers, in finding your own answers.

The worst part of being alone is being so acutely aware of it.

Being alone makes you more vulnerable, more susceptible to hurt, trickery, loneliness (although loneliness neednt have to be something you experience only when you're alone)...the slightest hurt seems immense. If you're ill, the slighest fever feels like you're dying.

But being alone also makes you stronger, then. You know you have no one to nurse that hurt or that illness, and that you have to stand back up on your own feet again, by yourself.

Confusing eh? It's a labyrinth of contradictions. Well, all of the above does make it a bit flexuous to be alone..I like it, and I loathe it.

High on Vodka

2006-12-01T09:38:00.000+05:30

Vanya and me in a swimming pool in Delhi, summer of 1990.

No, no...not the alcohol. I'm talking about my soft-cheeked, insanely funny, beautiful little sister. Vanya Vodka.

By some miraculous stroke of luck, she was able to come and visit me for a few days. My father got invited to Norway to give a talk. And I guess they wanted him pretty badly, because my mother and Vanya travelled with him, for free.

Us, lazing around in Kerela, December 2004.

After three long months, I met my mum and sister. The family was reunited in Vanya's birthplace Oxford, last weekend. We celebrated my father's birthday on sunday and then Vanya came with me to Liverpool, while my parents travelled to Norway.

Vanya and me, holding hands in the sea, June 2005

Oh boy! Was she a sight for sore eyes! I don't think I've talked as much in these three months, as I have this week! We had so much to talk about, so much to laugh about. We laughed to the point of tears, sitting in the middle of a crowded pub...we talked for hours and hours about endless things.

Sharing a secret on the London Underground, May 2006.

And I spoilt her silly! Chinese meals, Pizzas, a movie in a cinema hall (a luxury I usually can't afford), posters, Beatles stickers, yummy snacks - I'm totally broke now, but I don't care! It was completely worth it!

Her coming here has made me so much stronger to deal with the coming remaining days of term, on my own.

In Hawaii, June 2005

When she was here, I didn't care that the sun didn't rise until 8.15 in the morning and set before 4 in the evening. I didn't care that the chinese meal cost 18 pounds and that a south park poster cost 3.99! I didn't care that my flatmates were being stupid or that I had an acting assessment that I would fail if I didn't practice this week!

We didn't do anything SPECIAL, but seeing her after that long was very,very special.

Love you Vannu! Miss you already! :(

At home, the day of my departure to Liverpool, September 200
But aha...see you in 18 days! :)

Communication Breakdown

2006-11-23T23:45:00.000+05:30

In the modern world of quick and technologically advanced modes of communication like sms, skype, msn, facebook, orkut and google chat, I find we communicate less and less.

I prefer phone calls from phone booths.
And letters in the mailbox.
There's a real effort there. To communicate.

Facebook will never be as personal, Orkut never that intimate, an sms never long enough, msn never real enough...

I suppose Emails are an answer to all the orkuts, and facebooks, and gazzags...but even those are too tedious to write because the orkuts and facebooks and gazzags are quicker. Soon couples will be fighting over facebook, and making up on orkut. What has the world come to??

Letters have a charm that msn and orkut will NEVER have. Have you ever opened an envelope and smelt a letter? You can't smell someone's words in the virtual world. And you can't read someone's words either. Here, you can only read letters of the alphabet, not someone's words in their handwriting.

I think I'm hopelessly old fashioned in some ways.

Cold and Miserable...and I miss loved ones..

2006-11-22T13:29:00.000+05:30

That's what it's like here...Walking back from LIPA today, I thought to myself..it's only going to get colder, and more miserable. Yesterday when I was walking to class at 8 in the morning, I was repeatedly pinpricked by the rain which was freezing on its way down into little hail stones..

It's probably going to snow this year. That will be nice. I'd love to see some snow. It would make the cold worthwhile.

This afternoon, as I was walking back, drenched from head to toe, trying to fit under Georgia's umbrella with her, I was thinking about my friends back home, and here. After hugging her goodbye, I walked back to my flat - my eyes vacant, mind blank.

Then suddenly people's faces started flashing up...

Ganesh's laughing face..I thought about how he was laughing at me this morning while watching me on the webcam. I thought of how he playfully proposed a difficulty to me morning, only to see me look so confused and troubled...And then to see me look sheepish as he laughed, while I smiled in bewilderment. His laugh was full of love. The thought of it made me smile to myself.

Hari's face fleeted across. I thought of his health and hoped he was feeling better. I thought of what I'd say to him when I mail him...Nothing serious, just thoughts...

Anupam's goofy smile distracted me from thoughts of Hari. Anupam, my stupid best guy friend back home, who's been there for me no matter what. Not like sometimes there, sometimes not. Whether I've been bored, upset, confused, terrified...he's always been there. Sometimes he's not even known why he needs to be there, but he's stood by me, not asking questions or seeking answers. Just by my side.

Then Mayanka's white round face came up. Mayanka who rather endearingly lets me know every now and then that she misses me. That much sought after email that I open with desperate happiness, comes from her every now and then. And I thought of how sweet it was of her to call. Her gruff voice saying "Dude, I miss you too much ya! Enough is enough! Now you come back! I haven't been to Chonas since you've left yaaa! It's just not the same without you! I can't wait for you to come back so we can go partyyyy together!" I thought of how all these sentences were said so quickly that I didn't even have time to put a word in!

I thought of my Guru, Leela Samson. I wondered about the recent exchange we'd had on email, and whether that misunderstanding had spread to the rest of the dance troupe. I decided not to care. But I do. Anyway...

I thought of Vanya, and how much fun we're going to have when we see eachother next. I can't wait to see her. I'll have lots to say about that a few days from now.

I shoved the key into the keyhole and pushed open the door to my apartment...Noisily and clumsily, I came and plonked on the bed, and looked around. I sat on the computer and started typing..

And now suddenly, my eyes fell upon my list of things to do today - Buy bread, practice Paul's choreography for tomorrow, do laundry, learn lines from the play "Miss Julie" for friday, go see doctor...

Ooooops! I have to go to the doctor! Thoughts disrupted, poof! My mind goes into fast forward...so much to do, and it's going to get dark soon!

How did Jaco die?

2006-11-18T15:40:00.000+05:30

It's strange how so many celebrities have died in weird and unusual ways. And moreover, the deaths of musicians has been by far the strangest...Here's a short list of some unusual deaths.

Cleopatra killed herself by taking poison from a venemous snake in 30 BC
Attila the Hun bled to death on his wedding night because of a nosebleed in 453 BC
Isadora Duncan, one of the world's most legendary dancers, died by strangulation because her scarf accidentally got caught in the wheel of her lover's convertible in 1927.
Conor Clapton, little 5 year old offspring of Eric Clapton, fell out of the 53rd floor of a building in 1991.
Charlotte Bronte died of dehydration during pneumonia in 1855.
Ernest Hemingway committed suicide by shooting himself with a shotgun in 1961.

What about our famous musicians?
Marvin Gaye died in 1984. He was murdered by his father on his birthday!
John Glasscock died in 1979 because of a heart infection caused by an abcsessed tooth!!
Kurt Cobain killed himself in 1994.
Jimi Hendrix died of a drug overdose in 1970.
Ian Stewart and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones died due to a premature heart attack and drowning respectively.
Elvis Prestley died of a drug overdose in 1977.
Bon Scott of AC/DC died in 1980. Cause of death - Alcohol.
Hillel Slovak of RHCP died in 1988 due to a drug overdose.
John Lennon was murdered outside his apartment in New York by a fanatic in 1980.
Janis Joplin was yet another one of those who died due to a drug overdose in 1970.
Jim Morrison slipped away in his bathtub in 1971, while having a hot tub bath!! His heart failed.
Stevie Ray Vaughan died in 1990. His helicopter crashed!!

Richard, Luis and I were watching a DVD on the box set of "Weather Report" with much excitement one evening. When Jaco Pastorius came on, we all listened intently to the "world's greatest bass player"...

Suddenly I asked myself aloud, "How did Jaco die?"

Luis turned to me and said, "You don't know?"

I then learnt of his death. It's a well known fact that in the 80s, Jaco began to go mad. He showed symptoms of manic depression. He was basically clinically insane. And this was obviously worsened because of heavy drug and alcohol abuse. He suffered, his musical performances suffered.

On the 11th of September 1987, he sneaked onto stage during a Carlos Santana concert, and from what Luis tells me, started messing about on stage and was ejected from the venue of the concert. He then went to a pub where he wasn't let in. Some say he created a scene by smashing the glass doors, others say he did absolutely nothing.

But it was there that he came face to face with Luc Havan, the bouncer. This man was a hefty guy trained in the martial arts.

My eyes widened as I heard this. Could he, the world's greatest bass player, have actually been beaten to death by a bouncer outside a pub?!!?

Jaco Pastorius was hospitalised with multiple facial fractures, disfigurement of his face, probable loss of his right eye, and sustained irreversible brain damage. He slipped into a coma and was put on life support. When he showed increasing signs of "brain death", his family removed him from life support. Apparently, after the plug was pulled, his heart continued to beat for THREE HOURS!!!

Havan was charged with second degree murder and went to trial, but ended up serving only 4 months for the crime.

So that's how Jaco died.

Us: The tip of the iceberg...

2006-11-13T22:30:00.000+05:30

"But without you, I can't breathe!
You're the air to me!"

I can never really know why fate brought us together. It works in mysterious ways. But if I may be presumptious enough to know my own fate, I believe it brought us together for a reason. It's simple, repeated indefinitely since the beginning of time, etched into existence forever by writers and poets alike, and it's cliched...but it's true - We complete each other. Without each other, we can't breathe freely!

"Touching your face, I feel the heat
Of your heartbeat echo in my head like a scream"

From the moment he spoke his first word to me on the phone, I felt different. We'd never met, and yet I felt drawn to him inexplicably. We only talked for a few seconds. But I felt we connected. Beyond description, beyond explanation, beyond reason even. And over the coming days, we felt more and more connected to each other. A connection we couldn't explain even to ourselves, let alone each other, or the rest of the world...And now, two years later..we can feel eachother's heartbeats even though we're miles apart. I know from his first word to me everyday, how he feels. I feel it instantly. And he knows, from the moment I say "hello" on the phone, if I am happy, or sad. His heart beats within my chest. I know when he's happy, and I feel ecstatic. I know when he's sad, and I feel depressed. That's just how it is.

"Everytime I cry your name at night,
You pull close and say it's alright."

He's stood by me, unconditionally. Through everything. And I hope I have, too. We make eachother feel better, whenever we're feeling down. We've seen eachother through the best and worst times. I know my day becomes better instantly, the minute I speak to him. And when I'm with him, I'm never sad. Sure, once in a blue moon, we might've gotten a bit miffed with eachother (angry is too strong a word), but it's always ended either in laughter or in a serious talk followed by laughter. He's sat up nights with me when I've cried. And when we do cry, we cry to eachother. Long ago, I once cried from 3 am to 8 am, a bit intoxicated and terribly upset, and I know in retrospect that he must've been dying to sleep, but he stayed awake with me, talking to me, telling me it's going to be alright, until I fell asleep. When he says "It's going to be alright" or "I won't let anything happen to you", it's the first time I've actually believed someone. We try with all that we've got, to make eachother feel safe, and comforted, and protected. I want to protect him from anything bad that comes his way. And for me, the safest place in the world is the space between his chest and his outstretched interlocked arms, where I so perfectly seem to fit. When I'm with him, everything really does seem alright. I don't see any ugliness, I don't feel anything but happiness, and I feel like I can cope with anything.

"Whenever I'm alone I'm thinking,
there's a part missing from my life.
Wonder where I'd be without your love,
Holding me together..."

When I'm without him, I do feel incomplete. I feel like there's a part of me missing. As for contentment...I believe the time that I really really feel it, is when I can see him, feel him, touch him, talk to him face to face, sit on his lap, slip my hand into his. I would be a different person without his love, today. And I don't really think he'd be the same, either. Without his love holding me together, I'd have fallen apart a long time ago. Or at the very least, I'd never have known what it is to feel true, solid love. I would never have really loved. And never really have lived. We would've been just another two humans "depriving the others of their oxygen".

"Waited so long, I can't wait another day without you!"

We don't see as much of each other as we should, I don't think we'll ever get enough of eachother.We feel like we've waited too long and that we just can't wait another day, just can't go on without eachother...but something keeps us going..I guess it's the anticipation of the absolute comfort, safety and security we feel when we're together. But there are days when I feel like I'm going to explode. There are times when I feel like I'll suffocate if I don't see him now. And I know there are times when he's pulling his hair out, wondering why on earth he let me go so far away...But we pull through. Together. I'm strong when he feels weak. He lifts me up, when I'm feeling down. We balance eachother out.

"Hold on, just a little bit longer!....
.....No more nights alone, I'm almost home now."

It's just a matter of a month or so, now. I'm going to see him next month. And it won't be long before this seperation comes to an end, for good. I can almost see the smile in his eyes, when he sees me at the arrivals at the airport, I can feel my cheeks burn with happiness when I see that smile, I can almost feel myself shaking, when he takes me into his arms, holding me with so much care, as though I were made out of glass. Oh god, I can't wait!! But I've got to hold on, just a little bit longer.

Love is said to be one of the most complex emotions. People shy away from it, people are afraid of it. There are so many complications where love is concerned, they say. Love is overrated, others say. Some would say none of us even know what love is.

Well, whatever name you give it, however complicated you say it is, however frightful and avoidable it may be for some, I'm in it. We are in it. And its...it's beautiful.

Jet City, baby.

No, the 13th of November is not the day we first met, or first said "i love you" to eachother, or first kissed, or started going out. We don't really have a 'special day' like that, as such.(although, i must sheepishly admit, I do remember when all that happened). Don't need a special day. Our enthusiasm to celebrate "us" never waned since before the day him and i became an "us".
This is just a random post, on a random day, about a very important part of my life.

I googled "Aranyani" and look what I found..

2006-11-12T03:09:00.000+05:30

Was getting extremely bored since my friends seem to have ditched me on a saturday night! Arrrrgh...so...I googled "aranyani" for a laugh, and found some really interesting, and some really odd stuff..have a look.

http://moonspeaker.ca/Amazons/origins.html says - These Amazons may also have worshipped Aranyani, a Goddess of the forest who was usually heard rather than seen due to the bells she liked to wear. She may well be an earlier version of Kali, because she also avoided villages, was most active in the evening, and although Aranyani never killed without provocation, once aroused she was merciless and absolutely just. Aranyani tended the forest and all wild things, providing uncultivated foods. Later Indian traditions refer to Yakasis, women who lived in Aranyani's forests and kept away from villages. They were believed to have curious features and powers.

Aranyani The Courtesan's Lament (http://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/IDF376/)
About the Book:A tale of a hunter and a courtesan: the brave, noble Vanu, huntsman of the forest and the beautiful, graceful Aranyani child of the mountains. Theirs is a love that reverberates through time, a story that remains s eternal as the waters of the Ganga.

In their escape from Chromius, the callous Greek Yavana, and the proud Prince Harisena, and their search for Kashmir, the land of thousands of blossoms, the lovers encounter a place and its people that are vibrant in the sheer diversity of language, landscape and religious benefits.

This was a time of transition and change, of journeys and wanderings, of mysticism and spirituality. Set in an age of lush colours and exotic fragrances, strange myths and noble honour, the world of Aranyani and Vanu in Ancient India.

At http://www.lotussculpture.com/parvati1.htm, I found this -

The Birth of the Celestial Warlord

Parvati gave Shiva’s aura to the gods. “From this will rise the warlord you seek,” said the goddess.

The gods gave Shiva’s aura to Svaha, consort of Agni, the fire god. Unable to bear the heat of the auro and the god Agni for long, Svaha gave the aura to Ganga the river goddess who cooled it in her icy waters until Shiva’s aura turned into a seed.

Aranyani, the goddess of the forest, embedded the divine seed in the fertile forest floor where it was transformed into a robust child with six heads and twelve arms.(FUCKING HELL!)

The survival economy and forest conflicts

In the Rig Veda, forests are described as Aranyani or mother goddess who takes care of wildlife and ensures the availability of food to man. These ashramas and forests, not urban settlements, were recognised as the highest form of cultural evolution providing society with both intellectual guidance and material sustenance.

http://www.ahste.com/?q=gallery&g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=31 - here, I found a mug shot of me!

https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no18623.htm -
XIV. Deities Connected with Forest and Vegetation: 1. Vanaspati. 2. Sakambhari. 3. Tree Goddess. 4. Aranyani. 5. Vanadurga. 6. Vindhya Vasini Durga. 7. Katyayani. 8. Vanasankari.

http://www.bedandbreakfastscotland.co.uk/bbsco/private/search/search_results.asp?location=East+Dunbartonshire

I am a bed and breakfast somewhere in England. Charming.

Found bits of real me too...lists of dance performances I've had, an article I wrote on Iraq...hmmm. How interesting.e.g Le débat sera suivi d'un récital de danse (Bharatanatyam) par Aranyani Bhargava,Jeudi 18 mai 2006,à 18h30 Reid Hall

Ooooh...check this out -

In 1975, Leela joined the Sriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, Delhi and started there a department of Bharata Natyam. When she left the institute in 1990, there were over 60 students learning this southern Indian form. Since then, for the next fifteen years she has taught privately in the tradition of the guru-shishya parampara and has trained several dancers who have graced the Delhi stage with their particular sense of grace, knowledge and adherence to the best traditions of the Kalakshetra style. Among them are Aditi Jaitly, Aditi Rao, Aranyani Bhargava, Meenu Venkateshwaran, Priti David, Kapil Sharma, Bilva Raman, Nithya Raman, Amrita Lahiri, Mitsouko Takahashi and Yukiyo Kubota from Japan, Mohammed Anisul Islam from Bangla Desh, Alexis Chen and Justin McCarthy from the United States, Zhang Yun, Zheng Yun and Jin Shan Shan from China, Boun Phone from Laos and Sonia Galvao from Brazil.

My blog's on google too! Hehehehehe.

The Aranyani Institute
107 South Main Street
Fairfield, IA 52556......

uhhhhh? What is this?!

Completely Unproductive Day

2006-11-11T19:51:00.000+05:30

Woke up at 1 in the afternoon. I was very proud of myself. I haven't slept till one in the afternoon in YEARS. Anyway, that was refreshing.

It had been a long night. I got to bed only at around 3 am. And I would've been out later than that, had it not been for that son of a bitch who started gyrating against me at the bar. Sometimes I get into a mood where I can't handle so many people so close to me. I mean, sure, it was a gig..what else did I expect? But I just couldn't handle the cheek of that man. And I couldn't handle the fact that I'd just dealt with something similar the previous night with five brazillian men...Two nights in a row!?! The so-called civilised world is worse than Delhi! I was seething with anger.. How dare he fucking think its ok to just grab my waist and start grinding?
I mean, WHAT THE FUCK.
I was so tempted to turn around and WHACK him, but there was no space to even turn around. So I pushed forward. I literally fought my way through the crowd, feeling invaded...bad memories from the distant past rushing back to my head like lightning...I walked out of the pub, without even saying bye to anyone. I felt like throwing up.
It's funny how things that happen so many years ago, can still make you feel so fucked today.

Anyway, I got home, ate the leftovers of the Dal Chawal and aloo that I'd made, drank some juice, and went to sleep.

Ahhh...and now we're back to the beginning of this post. I slept till 1. Yay!

But that wasn't the end of the sleeping escapade..I always tell Ganesh that he's like a lion. Lions sleep for about 20 hours in a day, and so could Ganesh if the circumstances would allow it! Hehehehe.
And today I was the lioness. I got out of bed at 1.30, made some lunch...vegetable fried rice, which turned out to be quite nice actually, sat with Hannah while she made her lunch. It was nice talking to her. We havent seen eachother much at all, even though we're in the same flat! And then both of us went back to our rooms...and I went to sleep again!!!!

I dreamt all sorts of strange things...something about getting lost in a huge game park, on one of those tram things with my mother, looking for my sister who seemed to have gotten lost. It was quite eerie really. And only by the end of the dream I realised that I was actually some secret service agent, and funnily enough, so were my mum and sister...and we'd recovered loads of guns from this game park. Sabotaged some terrorist plan. I love the way we can be such heroes in our dreams.

I woke up and it was dark. I thought to myself. What an unproductive day. But I felt full of energy having slept so much!

Spoke to Ganesh on skype. He sounds so happy since he's back in Bangalore. It makes me almost explode with joy! I'm just relieved that he's back home, where he wants to be, with the people he loves(except me, that is...but not for long!)...Big hug, baby!

Am now "going on the piss" as they say. It's a saturday night!

Cheers everyone!!

Nimboo Pani

2006-11-10T20:02:00.000+05:30

I remember the day I got her home, saw her 'lemon coloured' ears and named her Nimboo. The whole of her fit in my little 11 year old hand. I read through an entire dog book to see what she would need. I got her milk in a little bowl, and then she scrambled onto my lap and went to sleep.

We've been through so much together since then.

I've sat up for hours on end completely immobilized because she was sleeping on my lap, I've trained her to sit and calm down, wait patiently for her food and not pee in the house, I've cuddled her and spoilt her and loved her, I've made sure she's had an active sex life(!!), I've delivered her babies and helped to look after them, I've cried for her when she's been in pain, sat up nights with her when she was uncomfortable and in pain after her operation, I've shared a bed with her when she didn't feel like sleeping alone.

She, in turn, has been my friend and companion since she was carried into my main door ten years ago. She's shed tears with me when I've cried, she's jumped on me and bitten me in gentle anger when I've been away too long, she's given me so much joy, so much love, relieved me of loneliness many times, kept me warm in the winters by sliding under the razai and curling up under my arm like in the photograph above, she's slept with me like another human being - under the covers, head on pillow(haha), she's sat by me when I've been depressed and scratched me with her paw lovingly, she's known when I'm going out of town and sulked, and seen me through everything.

I know...everyone must be thinking - for fuck's sake, its just a dog. But for those who have and love their pets, you'll know..they're not just animals. As for Nimboo...she's almost human. And we connect. Even as dog and human. She and I...we know eachother inside out. I know her moods and how to deal with them just as she does, mine.

I love her so much!

Today she is 10 years old. Happy birthday Nimbooli!

From worst to bad to better to good to great to fucking fantastic!

2006-11-09T18:33:00.000+05:30

Woke up in the morning, wrote an email. Wept. All the Blue Funk just came gushing out!
I felt the worst I've ever felt since I got here.

Went to class. Shed a few tears there, too.
Fuck, what is wrong with me!?!? I was thinking to myself.

I decided not to skip rehearsal, though I was very tempted.
It was a good decision.
I felt much better having gone to class. It got my mind off things, and I did some solid dancing.
Three hour rehearsals are pretty solid, don't you think?

Then we had a Contextual Studies class.
In class, we were studying SWOT analysis. We were to tell our partner their strengths and weaknesses.According to Georgia, my strength lies in my thinking, the fluidity in my movement, in improvisation in contemporary dance, and in flexibility. And she thinks I've improved massively in Ballet.My weaknesses - Street Dance. My movements arent jerky enough. They're too graceful.
Phil, our lecturer contested my strengths. "All dancers are meant to have flexibility..so that's not really a strength."
I started to nod.
I heard a voice from behind me..Caitlin's voice "She's flexible in different ways!"
I just sat there, frozen, looking from side to side.
And then it all went MAD.
"She can do plie`s in second position without her bum sticking out. we can't do that!"
"She can touch her nose to the floor when we're exercising!"
"She can bang her feet while dancing with so much control!"
Oh GOD...and then they all asked me to demonstrate. In a class of 20 classmates and 20 other strangers(acting and singing diploma students), they told me to get up!!!
"Do the Lisi Perry step..."
"Do that thing with the Plies"
"Do that thing when you're on your side with your leg stretched out!"
"Do that bending over backwards thing and touch the floor!"
"Do that thing where you open your feet out.."
I did it, confused and embarrassed.
"See...now that comes naturally to her"
I was burning.My face must've looked like a monkey's bottom.
"Oooooh! Do your Indian dance...come on!"
So I did. A tiny bit.
Hehehehe...this is the part, by the way, when the day started looking good. I admit, I was feeling very chuffed. And I admit, I feel sheepish writing about it here...but I had NO clue that they all thought all this about me!!

Then we had singing class. It was great! A lot of fun.

But something was still missing. I was walking back home after a long long day..I just got to the gate of the student houses. My phone rang.

It was Ganesh!! Yay! My day just went from good, and satisfying and productive to fucking fantastic!!! It totally made my day! I can't live without him! I just can't. I realise that again and again. Talking today to him, was just like breathing fresh air after being in a claustrophobic stuffy room. It was like really living again. I felt so alive!!!

I can't wait to see him in December.

I spoke to him about 10 minutes ago, and am still feeling like I'm in heaven. :)

Blue Funk

2006-11-08T21:27:00.001+05:30

n : a state of nervous depression; "he was in a funk" [syn: funk]

....And that's all I have to say.

Random news.

2006-11-08T02:43:00.000+05:30

My december performance has been fixed for the 15th of December, so I'm not coming back to India on the 15th. More on that once things are confirmed.

I am sick and tired of eating western food. I need chapatthis.

I cleaned my whole room today.

I cried in class on monday. Was feeling "Ganesh-less" as my greek friend aptly puts it.

I decided that I want to work with choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh at some point of time in my life.

I got a strong reference from my teacher here which I am very happy about.

Ganesh is in Goa and mostly unreachable, its driving me insane! I want to talk to him and be with him!!! I miss him so much, all the time!!!

I uploaded more pictures on Flickr of Wales. What a beautiful place it is!

It was my grandfather's birthday on sunday. Missed him a lot. :(

I met Champa in London!! That was fun.

I'm going to bed now.

2006-11-04T02:42:00.000+05:30

Solitude and Loneliness

Tonight I sit by myself, I feel alone.
The darkness feasts on this desolate seclusion.

Where’s the sun? Where’s daylight?

It seems to be playing games with me.
Let's see how long you can hold onto your sanity,
without catching a glimpse of me, Aranyani...
I sit in my room, absorbing the false light
Outside its still dark.
And I’m still alone.

My mind drifts to places I’ve felt safe and loved.
The room with the creaky single bed.
Serene monastries on majestic mountains
Ancient ruins by the riverside
Thick forests where a tiger saunters
Beaches, and hidden musical waterfalls.
In the kind of solitude he speaks of.

But now, I’m here…
Still alone.
Not a soul in sight.
The hollow wind whispers of loneliness.
The cold bites into my untouched flesh.
The empty mailbox tells of empty promises.
We’re all in different worlds of our own
Selfishly absorbed in our own little troubles.
No time for anyone else.
Why am I so shaken by this?
This is the world we live in.

But I want to go back to our world
of mountains, ruins, forests and waterfalls.
In that world, I’m never alone.
Not alone, but in that solitude he speaks of.

In solitude with him.

All photographs (except oil lamp) taken by Ganesh Krisnaswamy.

It happens only in India....?

2006-11-03T13:33:00.000+05:30

Walking down the road alone, she wrapped the coat around herself. It was bitingly cold. Waiting outside the theatre on the pavement, she wondered "Where are these guys?" It was almost time for the show to begin, but they were nowhere in sight.

Her phone buzzed. She pulled off her glove and reached into her pocket for the vibrating mechanism.

"Hello?"

It was her sister. Chatting with her about the show she was just about to see, she stood by the road, walking back and forth.

A car pulled up. Two windows rolled down. Five heads stuck out. All male.

She looked ahead and behind the car, stealthily. No sign of a traffic light. They had just stopped in the middle of the street.

They were looking at something. Her.

They snickered. She looked away, wrapping the coat more tightly around her as if that would protect her further from undressing her in their minds.

She didn't dare look back. The cops had said, "Don't engage, walk away". But she feared that walking away was engaging. She stood still, leaned against the fence and continued talking on the phone.

After what seemed like a long time, but was probably just a couple of seconds, the car started to move slowly, and the snickering heads turned back as the car passed by.

She stood there momentarily vexed. She couldn't really understand what had just happened. Here? On a crowded street? Where people follow rules, and laws, say please and thank you for everything?

How naive of her! She thought it happens only in India.

My first halloween costume

2006-11-01T07:50:00.002+05:30

The Zombie Indian Bride...Or...Have you ever seen "The Grudge"??

Make up : Emma
Concept(The Grudge): Hannah

Oh! You're very beautiful!

2006-10-31T21:54:00.000+05:30

Walking up the four flights of stairs to room D7 where my Dance class was to be held this morning, a young man I'd never seen before caught my eye, smiled and said, "Oh!You're very beautiful!" A bit wary, but admittedly pleased, I smiled at him and walked on.

Having had a wonderful class, I was "cooling down" (before dance class we 'warm up', after class we 'cool down') when one of my classmates came and joined me for the stretches I was doing. Complaining about how cold and windy it was, and how our muscles ached, our conversation drifted from one topic to another, when suddenly she said, "The weirdest thing happened to me today...some 'randomer' just walked up to me and said, "Oh! You're so beautiful!"

I didn't feel so beautiful anymore.

Hehehehe.

Munna Bhai, Gandhism and all of us today

2006-10-29T20:02:00.000+05:30

"Lage Raho Munna Bhai" is possibly one of the greatest films on Gandhi ever made. I watched it a few days ago, on my computer. My father brought the DVD with him when he came to visit.

Initially, I thought the film was going to be humane but comic, like the prequel - "Munna Bhai M.B.B.S". And of course, being a hindi film, I know I needn't dig too deep to find faults..for instance, the actress Vidya Balan. I think she was awful in the film.

Arshad Warsi was fantastic, in his slapstick, crude humour that the junta must've ADORED. Sanjay Dutt was heart rendering. His character was humble, gentle, morally good and good-hearted.

So where does Gandhi come in? Gandhi was a quirky, but great man. Yes, he slept with naked women as an experiment, he was a terrible father and husband. But we all know that nobody is perfect, and it is undisputable that he gave his life for the country, and he gave a lot to us. Aside from his quirkiness, there was a lot he taught about truth, and about being good human beings.

Many books have been written about him, and by him. Many history teachers lecture on him in their classes. And many films have been made on Gandhi, and about Gandhi.

'Lage Raho Munna Bhai' was not only about Munna Bhai's love for Jhanvi. It wasn't just about Circuit (Arshad Warsi) and his mad sense of humour. It wasn't just about being funny. Above everything else, it was a film on Gandhi. And quite possibly, the best one made, on him.

Gandhi's beliefs and values were so beautifully woven into the otherwise very light story line, that it made his beliefs accessible to all. This film brought Gandhi's teachings to those people who don't have the luxury of going to a library and picking up a book, going to a bookshop and buying his work, or even going to a school and learning about him. His easiest teachings - Be nice to people, speak the truth, lying doesn't lead you anywhere except to trouble, violence leads to nothing but pain and sadness; these teachings of his were put into practice by a gangster. It made those teachings look like the easiest things in the world.

Munna Bhai, a gangster learns about Gandhi, and begins to hallucinate about seeing Gandhi. He applies Gandhi's teachings to his own life, and helps other people...all the while thinking that Gandhi is guiding him. But all along, its actually everything that he has learnt from Gandhi. It's not Gandhi that's telling him to be non-violent, and truthful and kind. It's Munna bhai, himself. It's a beautiful realisation of the audience, but Munna himself thinks he is going mad, because he's told Gandhi isn't actually there, and there are chemical imbalances in his brain that make him see Gandhi. The truth however, is that he has become the ambassador of "Gandhigiri", in theory and practice.

There is one scene in the film that made me add "and all of us today" to the title of this post. Munna Bhai has to go and learn something about Gandhi. First he tries to threaten university professors, he tries everything but realises that if he really wants to convince his love that he is a professor who has some knowledge about Gandhi, he'd have to go into the Gandhi Library and read. He enters the library and is shocked at what he sees - It's completely empty. It's dark, you can almost smell how musty it is in there. The smell of abandonment, of unopened books and unopened doors.

The film hinted that today, we don't appreciate Gandhi at all. I've heard people talk about him a certain way. I myself have spoken about him as being a bit of a weirdo. I remember saying something nasty about his experiments with the naked women. And yes, maybe what I said wasn't entirely wrong. But if I have the courage to say something derogatory about a man so great, I should also have the gaul to appreciate and acknowledge all the good he left behind. All that we have forgotten.

He was probably, the least "matlabi" person in the world. His only "matlab" was for the country. It's often said in his defence, "He was a bad father to his children, only because he was busy fathering an entire nation." His principles of truth, non-violence, and simplicity are priceless. His role in our struggle for independence is so significant - the non-cooperation movement, the civil disobedience movement, his fasts, the dandi yatra. His fight for equality, his non-violent aggression against untouchability. His selflessness cannot be denied.

We are all products of an Independent India. An India that has been unmistakably shaped in many ways, by Gandhi. But we don't really have the time, or patience or energy to follow most of his principles. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all of you who read this will feel like I'm doing an injustice to you by saying that you are matlabi, you are self-centered and you don't really care much for the truth, or for simplicity.

But let's look a little deeper into ourselves, and each other..

Can we really say that we're Gandhian from any angle? Can we really say, without lying to ourselves, that we've been selfless, kind, truthful, non-violent, and simplistic consistently?

I was told by someone who's always looked out for me, that I like to live in my little happy place, and that's why this world makes no sense to me sometimes, that's why I get hurt again and again. I was told that if I want to continue to live in my happy place, this world isnt for me.

My little happy place is a world where people care for eachother, are there for each other, don't use eachother for ulterior motives, dont think only about themselves. I genuinely believe that such a happy place can exist. But the truth I learn again and again, but foolishly and incessantly refuse to accept, is - it doesnt.

And perhaps the reason it doesn't, is because we've forgotten the simplest teachings of Bapu?

Dreams to not remember

2006-10-29T17:17:00.000+05:30

Aghast in panic.
Bacchanal revelations.
Cacaesthesia seeps into me.
Deafeningly loud.
Eating me from the inside.
Fragility is revealed.
Gasping for breath.
Hating the truth.
I am forgotten.
Just me, i'm in darkness.
Killing the light.
Lightly fading away.
My heartbeat is erratic.
Not stopping.
Or beating.
Pulse racing.
Quite frightening.
Realizing I'm fading.
Scared to move.
Tortured soul.
Unleashes the madness.
Veracity dawns as I awake.
What a weird dream.
Xenogenous in nature.
You're the reason I dreamt this.
Zephyrs reveal in whispers, who I talk about.

Dance

2006-10-28T17:42:00.000+05:30

That's me dancing in one of the Dance Studios at LIPA!

The piece is choreographed by Paul Win and some of us dance students.

It's going to be performed at the end of term Christmas performance in LIPA in december.

I have a self choreographed solo in this piece at the beginning.

I hate Goodbyes.

2006-10-28T16:23:00.000+05:30

I'm Feeling Alone.
(by the way, this picture is outside my dance building at LIPA)

My father came to visit for a few days. And he left today. He's gone to Toronto for a conference, and will be back in England on the 5th of November. That's merely a week away. I'm going to see him next sunday for a day. But still....the goodbyes seemed so difficult.

I dont know what it is. It's not like I'd prefer someone from home to be with me in Liverpool all the time. I'm vaguely getting used to being alone. I've formed some sort of balance in my life here. A rhythm that's entirely mine. So anyone entering this space here permanently would disturb the equillibrium. I know that.

Then why do I feel like Atlas holding up the world on my shoulders everytime someone leaves? Everytime this happens, I feel acutely aware of how the people who love me must've felt when I left to come here.

Uffff. I think its just a phobia of goodbyes that I have. And I think it goes deeper than I think. I think its a fear of never seeing them again. I think that part of childhood where you fear that you'll never see your loved ones if they leave you for even a minute, is in some subconscious way, still alive in me.

Digging even deeper, I think fearing goodbyes is directly a result of my phobia of death. Not my own. But of the people I love. And man, have I experienced a lot of that in the last few years.

Ehhh...feeling weird. I think I'm going to go heat up some lunch, and head out for a walk.

Bahadur Bharat

2006-10-22T19:08:00.000+05:30

Reading the news on ndtv.com, I thought to myself...we are a brave country. We've been through so much as a country. We've jumped over so many hurdles, and those that we've not been able to overcome, we're living with...so bravely.

There is so much terror in our lives. More than a New Yorker could ever feel. And yet we go about our day to day existence. Every time there is a festival in Delhi, I remember being told "Avoid market places, avoid cinema halls". Independence day, Republic day...the word "bomb" always lingers around the mention of these days.

Diwali just passed us by. While everyone was eating delicious food, consuming alcohol, and bursting fire crackers, security forces in Jammu and Kashmir killed 7 terrorists, and a jawan was killed too, in three seperate encounters. In the Muzaffarnagar district of Western UP, one person died in a clash between the two religious communities. But the festivities went on.

Every single Republic Day that I've lived to see, there's been terror in Delhi about going out, going to public places, high security. On Independence day, its unsafe to travel on a train or a plane. But millions of people go to the Republic day parade, regardless of the terror. And millions of people travel on Independence day. I did.

We've been terrorized for years and years, but look at us! We're doing great! I know this might be my naivete talking, but I genuinely feel that despite all the trouble, we ARE co-existing...whether it be the hindus and muslims, or the civilian and terrorist, or the government and the people. Life goes on. It is.

We have a long way to go, but we will get there, I feel. Look at us! We've survived wars, terrorist attacks, state sponsored terrorism, communal violence, riots...the works! And we still find ourselves going to the market places on the day of the terror attacks on sarojini nagar market..we still find inter-religious marriages.

I know there's LOADS our country needs to be doing. It is, in no sense, perfect. I myself can tell you countless things that are wrong with it. But in the daily irritants of life that make us feel like our country is shit, we forget how far we've come.

My contextual studies teacher said - "India is a boom country. In about 20 years, the purchasing power of an Indian will be 8 times the amount of an Englishman."

In 20 years...yes, that's a long time away. And the reason i put this down as an example is not because our purchasing power will be greater than that of Britain, but just as an analogy to how our country is progressing.

Despite my own cynicism about this country and it's people, I'm being optimistic.

Remembering a brother

2006-10-20T22:04:00.000+05:30

I wrote this a little over 2 years ago..I was instructed to read a poem in class today.I almost read this. Didn't though...was too afraid to expose such a vulnerable side of me. When I got home, I read it to myself..the pain came rushing back like a bitter memory..I felt sad, I felt afraid, but I also realised...this poem - It says it all. In the year of 2004, I lived his life, and kept him alive in my mind..

Part 1

Lying in bed, I thought

'I just can’t move on'

My world had been altered

Since you’ve been gone.

Tenderly, each night I urged the

Pain and grief to fade away,

I held my head in desperation

I had no strength left to stay.

I tried to “move on”, “let go”

Yet, memories I wished to keep,

I gathered them lovingly one by

One, unable to sleep.

Wherever my lifeless eyes looked,

I saw a part of you,

I couldnt quite fathom your death

Was it really true?

I awaited that drunken call,

I awaited that random mail,

I waited in silent hunger,

I fell apart. I grew frail.

But then…dawned realization,

I realized then that you’re still here

I felt a ray of hope shine through

You're here in me, so near.

In frailty, I sought my strength

In sleeplessness, I found sleep

I strenously guarded those memories of

You that I would keep.

Part 2

You called me your soul mate

And I called you mine,

We will always be together

Because our thoughts still entwine.

I still feel your feelings,

And I can speak your mind,

I will live your life for you

While you're released from the bind.

I'll read the books you wanted to

In the dead of night,

I'll watch those works of art for you

I’ll give you back your sight.

I’ll eat the food you liked to eat,

I’ll try to quench your thirst,

I’ll listen to your music so loud

The speakers almost burst.

I’ll cry for you when you feel sad

I’ll flash your smile in mine,

And I tell myself, fear not.

Everything’s going to be fine.

You made me who I am

It’s you I’d do this for,

I let you live inside of me

I let you live some more.

We unite, in silent satisfaction

We united, darling brother

Till the day I die and beyond that,

We will be together.

People can still hold you, feel you,

In me, it’s you they see,

Rest in peace, my brother

You are alive, in me.

Missing Toto again. I wonder where he is now, what he's upto...can he still see us, feel us, or has he left all that behind on some journey towards where we all ultimately land up? Are we in this world, just some distant memories or some sort of deja vu? Or is he watching every move of ours?

Wherever he is, whatever's become of him...I hope he knows I love him and miss him.

p.s. Did i ever thank you baby, for saving me from self destruction during this time? I wouldn't have survived without you.

Colder, darker.

2006-10-17T22:06:00.000+05:30

It's getting colder and darker here.
I don't really know what to make of it.
These days when I wake up at 7 in the morning, it's still darkish.
I'm tempted to pull the covers over me, and sleep till its daylight.
The alarm rings periodically.
I press the snooze button, peep out of the window.
Still dark.
I crawl back into bed.
The alarm warns me that I'm going to be late for class.
I bravely kick off the covers and sit up.
Rubbing my eyes, I put my warm feet onto the cold carpet.
Brrrrrrrrrrr.

Are my feet warmer, or the carpet colder, than yesterday?

9th October - Happy Birthday!

2006-10-11T20:46:00.000+05:30

John Winston Ono Lennon
(9 October 1940 - 8 December 1980)

This good looking, cheeky face is known to all..He's THE guy from the Beatles, as someone here said. John Lennon was born and raised in Liverpool. And I was here on the 9th of October, two houses away from where he was born!!!!

Lennon was a cheeky, rebellious, iconoclastic and quick-witted bugger. He was an artist, a peace activist, an author, a husband, a father and a HERO.

This is what I know about him today.

In the BBC poll "100 Great Britons", the British public voted Lennon into eighth place.

Lennon was considered the "leader" of The Beatles, because he was the one who founded the original group, inviting Paul McCartney to join later, who in turn invited George Harrison.

Musically, Lennon most often played the "rhythm guitar" role, while George Harrison played lead guitar.. Lennon also frequently played keyboards!

Lennon abandoned his leadership role in the mid-Sixties, under the influence of LSD and Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience.

John Lennon hated the album "Let it Be"!!!!!

Lennon was the first to break the band's rule that no wives or girlfriends would attend recording sessions. He brought Yoko into the studio.

Lennon :"I started the band. I finished it."

He once wrote a song called "How do you sleep?" and it is rumoured to be an attack on Paul Mc Cartney...obviously, I'm not sure whether this is fact or fiction..but heheheh!

Of the four former Beatles, Lennon had perhaps the most varied recording career. While he was still a Beatle, Lennon and Ono recorded three albums of experimental music, and also the Wedding Album.

His first 'solo' album of popular music was in 1969(before the Beatles split up) at the Rock 'n' Roll Festival in Toronto with Plastic Ono Band(what a name!), which included Eric Clapton in it. Apparently, they learned the whole set of songs on the plane from England to Canada.

And we all know "Give Peace a chance", his anti-war anthem. His other singles were "Cold Turkey" about his struggles with heroin addiction) and "Instant Karma!"

1971 was his first solo album "Imagine", which was hugely successful!

1972 was "Some time in New York City". It was the antithesis to "Imagine". It was loud and political. Songs about British politics, Northern Ireland, racial and sexual relations.

He even released an anti-sexism song "Woman Is the Nigger of the World". It was banned almost everywhere, and the radio refused to broadcast it. It implied that just as some people of darker skin are discriminated against in some countries, women were discriminated against on a global scale! Quite the feminist he turned out to be!

1973 was "Mind Games". It was satirical. In this year, he also wrote "I'm the Greatest" for Ringo Starr's Ringo Album.

1974 saw the release of "Walls and Bridges".

1975, we got "Rock and Roll" and "Shaved Fish".

In 1980, the year he died, he released his album "Double Fantasy". It just so happens, that Lennon's first encounter with his murderer, Mark Chapman was earlier in the day, on the day of his death, when he approached John Lennon for an autograph on the cover of this very album.

On December 8th 1980 at around 11 at night, he was shot by Mark Chapman, right outside his apartment in New York City.

Three witnesses (a doorman at the entrance, an elevator operator, and a cab driver who had just dropped off a passenger) saw Chapman standing in the shadows by the arch.

The Lennons walked by, and after Ono had opened the inner door and had walked inside — when Lennon was the only person outside, Chapman called out, "Mr. Lennon!" and shot Lennon four times. According to the autopsy, two shots struck Lennon in the left side of his back and two in his left shoulder. All four caused serious internal damage and bleeding. The fatal shot pierced Lennon's aeorta.

Oh you know something eerie? Apparently, after shooting Lennon, Chapman calmly sat down on the sidewalk and waited. The doorman walked to Chapman and said, "Do you know what you've just done?" And Chapman just said, in a matter-of-fact tone, "I just shot John Lennon."

.......................................

Well, 9th October was the birthday of a legend, and I wanted to share some bits of his life that I have recently come to know about, as a tribute to the memory of one of the world's greatest and most loved musicians.

Moments of Clarity

2006-10-08T19:56:00.000+05:30

I was told it happens to alcoholics. Well, I guess that makes me an alcoholic then. Hmmm maybe I won't go that far. But its been a pretty alcoholic weekend.

When you're extremely drunk, there are sudden and quick flashes of sobriety. Usually they last about 30 seconds, and they're unpleasant jerks of reality amidst all the drunken oblivion.

Oh god. Maybe I should go home now. What am I doing!?? I think I should stop drinking now. Maybe climbing that wall wasn't such a good idea. How am I going to get down? Where am I? Who is this?

These aren't the little moments of sobriety I'm talking about.

In the moments of clarity, you notice things about yourself, about the people around you, about situations and circumstances that you didn't recognise before. Sometimes they're quite unpleasant. And its just for a flash. Then the mind switches back into the drunk mode...except you dont quite feel the same. Its like a nagging dot on the TV screen that just doesn't go away. And you can't enjoy the movie you were watching quite like the way you did before the nagging dot appeared.

That happened to me last night.

Luckily for me though, I was too far gone..to remember much this morning.

Falling in love is so hard on the knees

2006-10-07T21:36:00.000+05:30

Is it?

Nahhh...I love being in love!

West is East.

2006-09-30T23:40:00.000+05:30

Warming up before dance class one day, not so long ago, I was pondering over everything I had studied in the previous class...the choreography, the freedom I had been given to create something, the feeling of pride at having given birth to my very own style of dance, and warm up exercises at the beginning of the class..and a thought occured to me. But I kept silent.

On friday, we had "Voice training" class. In this class, we simply breathe. We learn how to breathe. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Its meant to be one of those innate things in all living things. Breathing. But we were being taught how to breathe so that we can utilise our energy in the best way possible. It was shocking to see how many people breathed the wrong way. I don't, but I'll get to that later. Again, the same thought occured to me that had struck my mind in the Choreography class. Again, I didn't say a word.

But a strong belief in me was slowly born, and was gaining strength and conviction everyday.

And then my mind wandered to the countless and varied Indians I come across, in India, and outside of it.

There's the "East is East" variety. Like the characters in the film, East is East. These are some of the Non resident Indians. They believe India is the way it was when their ancestors left it three decades ago. They shun any sort of westernisation, believe in sex ONLY after marriage and that any other kind of sex is wrong and immoral. They create their own little ancient India in the heart of Western civilisation.

Then there's the "East is West" variety. They are the numerous Indians living in India who want to be more western than the west. The westernised, modern Indian, ignorant and intolerant of Indian culture by choice. It's Pizza vs Roti, Madonna vs Bombay Jayshree, Jazz dance(Shyamak Davar) vs Classical dance. The former wins the vote more often than not.

Getting back to my thought. The thought that surfaced again and again during my classes. To my amusement, I discovered that outside India, there is a "West is East" clan.

Let me explain - Chicken Tikka Masala is Britain's National Dish. China town in Liverpool serves more people in their restaurants than any "chippy" (place where you can get french fries). Pashmina shawls are the latest trend. Bindis with jeans, toerings, anklets. You name it.

But coming to what made me post this blog in the first place...In the Choreography class, we were warming up, and as the exercises seemed more and more familiar to me, my mind raced back in time to my yoga classes back home. And as I went from one movement to the other, one stretch to the next, I realised. I'm doing yoga.

Two days later, I found myself in the same mindset, as I lay on the floor in Voice training class, learning to breathe from my diaphragm rather than my chest. I was one of the few who was breathing from my diaphragm. And as Chris explained how to breathe, again I thought - I'm doing yoga.

To my sheer amusement, they were calling it voice training, and body conditioning. Not a mention of the word Yoga. So the following week, I raised my hand in class. Upon my mention of the word, the teachers smiled. Yes, we borrow a lot from Yoga.

Yoga means union in Sanskrit. Images of a meditating yogi from the Indus Valley Civilisation are said to be 6 to 7 thousand years old. The earliest written accounts of yoga appear in the Rig Veda(codified between 1500 and 1200 BC).

Yoga is a family of ancient spiritual practices, and also a school of spiritual thought that originated in India. In other parts of the world where yoga is popular, notably the West, Yoga has become associated with the asanas of Hatha Yoga, which are popularly considered there as fitness exercises.

Modern yoga practice often includes traditional elements inherent in eastern religion, such as moral and ethical principles, postures designed to keep the body fit, spiritual philosophy, instruction by a guru, chanting of mantras, pranayama(breathing exercises), and stilling the mind through meditation. These are sometimes adapted to meet the needs of non-Hindu practitioners, who may be attracted to yoga by its utility as a relaxation technique as a way to keep fit.

The Natya Shastra, a guide to Dance in general and to Natya Yoga(dance yoga) was written by a muni called Bharata (according to some scholars, bharatanatyam got its name from this man). Natya Yoga was practised by the medieval devadasis and is currently taught in a few schools of Bharatanatyam and Odissi.

Voice training and Body conditioning?

Hmph. :)

Glasgow. Hmm.

2006-09-28T23:27:00.000+05:30

Its been a long time since I posted. It's been a busy busy busy week. Last weekend, I went to Glasgow to meet Guru and Rohan. I have never been that inebriated for that long!! Almost 56 hours! However, it's not a blur. I got to Glasgow last friday. Guru picked me up.

Rohan (aka Nem) was also there. We went straight to a pub. At the pub, we met the bartender...Shilo. Well, his name is Sandeep or Sunny, but I think he looks SO much like our little Shilo in Bangalore, that I can't seem to call him anything else. His new name on Orkut is "Sunny is my only name". Hmmmm. NO.

That's Shilo, by the way.

We had a pint there, and headed for Guru's home. Mmmmmmm...what awaited me for Baingan and rice. Yummmmmmm. Proper Indian food. Not packeted, not cooked by me (although I must say, I'm not a bad cook!)....it was delicious.

After the baingan and rice, the only thing I consumed was Alcohol. LOTS of it. At a charming narrow little pub called "Waverly Tea Room". A pint of beer, a cocktail with gin, mint and lemon, followed by a shot of Tequila, chased by a Sambouka shot on fire..called "Purple Rain"...then more Beer.

Swaying back to Guru's, I was desperate to sleep. But no...Says Shilo - "Aranyani! You can't sleep! Get up! Here...smoke this!" This...was actually 4 of them. That was followed by a shot of whiskey, which Shilo tricked me into having.

And this is not the night of the Mogwai concert. The next morning, I was shaken awake at 10. Ten in the morning, on a saturday! After a friday like that!!! We went for a chinese buffet lunch. I ate so much, I couldn't walk.

And then we staggered (I didn't seem to be walking much there!) to "13th Note" and had about 4 Diesels (As Guru says, "It's half a pint of cider, half a pint of lager, with a dash of blackcurrent...and you can get fucked on it!")

I met a lot of Guru's "mates" and all of them were lovely! We were all planning to go to the Mogwai concert, and we were all quite hammered before we got there!

Once we got there, it looked like there were more Diesels going around inside the venue. But in reality, they were just purple beers. I swear. It was beer with a "dash" of blackcurrant" in it. Left a Jamoon like feeling on my gums and tongue, but I think I'd reached that stage of intoxication that no sensation really bothered me.

So we all drank till we were beyond numb.

And then..... the concert started!!!

It was awesome! We were just swaying from side to side, and it wasn't because of the alcohol!

After that, we somehow walked home. Singing, walking, talking, and stumbling...we got home. And my my, a party awaits us there!

You won't believe it...there was more booze. And more madness. About seven of us stayed in guru's room...But after a while, this was me -

Heh.

Blinded by Light.

2006-09-21T04:18:00.000+05:30

As I walk in, I take in all the black. My pupils enlarge to accommodate the darkness. I squint, my hand blindly reaches for the switch. I try to focus. It’s too dark to see, to cold to feel. I find myself standing in the darkness for just an instant. This is what blindness must feel like.

A little uneasy now, I search for the switch that’ll end my encounter with blindness, with a renewed desperation. Where is the goddamn light?

I feel wool. And warmth. I go closer to it and a familiar aroma engulfs me. It’s my grandfather’s shawl. I can still smell him on it. It plunges me into memories.

Remembering, and devouring them, I reach out with my hand, my sole guide in the dark. My eyes don’t seem to be adjusting to the darkness as they usually do. Perhaps it’s the Guinness I had.

Reaching under my pillow, my hand recognizes a material different from the rough softness of my bedsheet. Scrambling uncomfortably, I get out of my jeans and slip on the shorts. I slump on the bed. I feel it’s uneven-ness. I’m momentarily puzzled. And then, I remember that my jacket, my jeans, my trackpants from the day..were lying in a heap in the middle of the bed. Cursing myself, I dump them on the floor, and smile longingly as I feel the now smooth surface of the bed.

I’m still pondering over my thought…This is what blindness must feel like. I think of colours, I revel in the memory of brightness, I see faces of loved ones in my buzzing head. My mind conjures beautiful images of beautiful faces, spectacular places and stunning monuments.

I can hear music playing somewhere, cars zipping past on the road that otherwise seems out of earshot. I even hear the edge of the curtains rustling against the wall.

I reach for my bedside drawer, and slip the earrings off my earlobes. They seem heavier in the dark. My palm recognizes the handle, I pull it open. A whiff of Vicks Vaporub fills me.

It’s so strange how when you’re blinded, your other senses are so significantly magnified. The sense of smell, of touch, of hearing.

As I try to set the alarm for tomorrow morning, I find the switch to my bedside lamp.

Click.

Instantly my eyelids recoil into a locked eye-shut. It’s a new kind of blindness. I can feel the harshness of the light, even through tightly closed lids.

I think I preferred the other kind of blindness. It’s so unpleasant to be blinded by light.

Another week..

2006-09-20T04:03:00.000+05:30

I've been here for 3 weeks. I can't believe its been so long already. It doesn't seem so long when I moved into what was a bare empty lifeless room, which is now splashed with colours that only India would dare to bare! Not to mention the newly acquired posters of Miles Davis, John Coltraine, Salvador Dali, Pink Floyd and Audrey Hepburn.

And my room has been inhabited by another being. This is my roommate.

Eeeek. Simply refuses to go away! Sits there by the window, or swings from my curtain like Mogli, or takes a "stroll" around my room in the dark, and startles me with its unnerving buzzing noise. But living with someone, or in this case - something...it's all about adjusting isnt it? Am getting used to it.

Dance classes are challenging, but the work out is as satisfying.

Two of my dance classmates are still being a bit "snotty"...As Georgia, my greek friend, so eruditely put it, "They very very snob!...And we, we so open...both us..but they...Ohhhh! I should tell them- I dont want talk you either!!!"

The others are warming up to our darker skins and different accents though. Its a slow path, but its pretty straight forward. Be nice, invite them over for dinner. Offer to teach them some Indian dance...and they are ready to come over on sunday with a bottle of wine!! Yay!

I've learnt a lot even about myself by being here.
I've realised that I respond terribly to alarm clocks. The concept of a snooze button should NEVER have been invented.
I've realised that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and strenuous exercise on an empty stomach...makes you ill.
But on a more moralistic tone, it dawned upon me that being myself is my biggest strength. And no matter how much those english girls look through us international students in the corridors, not an ounce of my blood will ever start turning british. And no matter how many times I smile at them with not a twitch of their mouths in return, I'll just keep smiling at them. Because that's what I do.
I realise that when you live with people, they become your family. As Em said, "If you have three meals in a day together, you are family...so Han, Joan...you're my family!!!"
I suddenly see why family is so important and that you can take them for granted as much as you want, but when you have that headache that's killing you, you want to go lie in between your folks on their bed or squeeze into a single bed with your sibling!
I recognise that when you love someone deeply, it's just beyond everything. Nothing matters..not time, not money, not other men or women(?), not the distance...everytime I talk to him, the rest of the world just melts into a blur.

The last two days have been tough. I've been a bit sick, and have had to continue dancing. Just sitting in class makes me feel like I'm wasting the money I paid to come here. So I've danced, coughed , sniffled and danced more.

Ohhh...I'm so tired. I'm going to bed.

But for the cold, hard fact...He's not alive.

2006-09-16T01:40:00.000+05:30

I miss him

A Lot.

First day at LIPA.

2006-09-11T23:29:00.000+05:30

A strange day, I'd say.

Oh, but before I go into that...Breathe, Robin...Breathe..In my last post, I meant Steve Irwin, not Owen(thank you baby...don't know what I was thinking!)

Now LIPA....Got to meet a lot of new people...some nice, some not so nice. We arrived at LIPA at 10am for a talk on our prgoramme leaders and course leaders. Then we had lunch. And then more talks.

No dancing at the moment. Only lots of talks, and lots of "getting to know each other" kind of activities.

Had a bit ofa panic moment too, but that's a journal entry topic, not a blog one...if you know what I mean ;)

What else what else...well, i learnt how to link people to my blog! Yay!

I've just returned from a pub called the Pilgrim. Nice beer. A guinness copy called "Murphys"...its quite yummy, I'd say. Was there with Emma(not my flatmate...this is another norweigian girl at LIPA), and Catalina from Argentina and another very pretty girl from Norway whos name I can't remember. And a boy from a metal band. Hmmmm... damn. I'm really bad with names!

Going back to LIPA in another half an hour or so. The LIPA bar! mmm hmmmm. Tonight is a pub quiz. Don't know what that means...but I know if they ask about beer, i'll know enough! Hehehehe.

Cheers!!

A wandering mind on a lazy Sunday.

2006-09-10T19:39:00.000+05:30

Its the last lazy day here. Tomorrow is my first day at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts(LIPA). In the silence that almost always accompanies solitude, I can hear suitcases being rolled, doors being opened and closed, vacant houses being occupied.

Students are moving in, all around me.

It's been a nice day so far. I woke up at noon, and came online. Spoke to my darling on the phone, through the computer...for free!! Brilliant. Less money spent on phone calls to India means I'll go hungry on less days.

I felt so happy talking to him. They're usually the best 45 minutes of the day.

Now its back to solitude. And reflection.

Was thinking again, about why I never had a blog all these years, and why I have one now. Got reminded of my very first post here, the one previous to this, my conversation on google talk, with Robin. And more recently, with Ganesh.

Blogs are judged in a way that journal entries are not. Journal entries are stupid scribblings sometimes, and they're usually written as and when you feel what you feel. So it's fresh, raw and spontaneous. In a blog however, I suppose the virtual world weighs you, judges your spontaneous emotion...and why not? You're writing, not for yourself, but for it.

My mind drifts. I look around and think to myself, that it's quite something to live on your own. Everything is the way I want it, and its all where I left it. Even the mess. I know where to look when I'm looking for something.

I cooked a meal for a few friends a couple of days ago. Rice, potato sabzee and an Indian dish called Chicken in fried onion sauce. I also put some stuffed red chilli pickle on the table. It was a feast for me. But for their tastebuds, poor things, it was quite a shock. I'm assuming they liked the food though, because they're coming for another meal tonight.

I showed them Rang de Basanti. And for the first time, I watched it from the perspective of a foreigner. They simply adored it. Not being able to discern flaw from brilliance, but they were in love with it. Even days later, they were talking about it and saying "What does that guy sing after his friend falls into the water? Was it...'Tim Luck Luck'?" Hehehe.

But seeing Rang De Basanti through their eyes strengthened my resolve that it isn't as bad a film as I'm constantly being told it is. Yes, it's not flawless, and it goes completely overboard towards the end. But it has a few disguised lessons, and some subtle messages that it gets across on Indian secularism, multiculturalism, Indian fundamentalism, the present Indian youth(good and bad) and even love. Was reminded of quite a heated conversation Ganesh, Prashanth and I had at his Prashanth's place on another lazy afternoon like this one.

A few days earlier, my flatmates and I watched Kamasutra. Han is a die hard fan on Navin Andrews, the guy from 'Lost' I'm told. So she was just dying to see him naked!! Interesting film. But I can see it was made for a foreign audience. And Rekha, beautiful though she is, didn't act well at all. Watching her was a bit dull.

Both films led to healthy informative discussions about my culture and theirs. They learnt a lot about Indian customs, social traditions, the youth, the transformation from tradition to modernity, and the difference between mordernity and westernisation. While I learnt about Norweigian culture and English food(whatever that is!) ! :)

The last two days, Emma and Hannah have been at home. I mean, their homes. Not here. I actually miss them. It's strange, how quickly you get attached to people when you're living with them.

But ahem, sine qua non...worry not, for I miss you more!!! :) Oh, that's a dangerous path to tread at the moment. Am missing home a lot today. Not in a sad depressing way, but I miss it.

I briefly spoke to Vanya, my little mad sister. She is one person I would simply die without! She's not just my younger sister, she's always also been my best friend. Not the kind of best friend who somtimes slips out of the inner circle and disappears for a while, even if it might be the time when you need them the most! She's been with me, through everything, all my life. No one else has had that misfortune! :)

I miss my mum. She is, as usual, stacking up one odd errand after the other in order to 'fill the vaccuum' my absence has apparently created. My dad is in London, with my uncle. I spoke to him a little while ago.

I'm suddenly reminded of everyone back home. The doggies, Tata, Sunita didi, Kesar Singh, Mohan(who stayed extra late the night of my departure so he could hug me goodbye!), Hari, Nishi, Sammy, Anupam, all you other crazy adorable bangaloreans!..the people here are no match!! I keep looking for qualities of you all in them!

Speaking of my friends here..I've made lots. Big relief, considering that on first meetings, I usually sit as though I have an invisible gag on my mouth. But they're lovely. I've met so many people from so many different parts of the world - Norway, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Zimbabwe, England, Scotland, Ireland, Lithuania, America, Sweden..Its such a mix of cultures..It's wonderful.

Yesterday some of us went to a park with lots of beer and two guitars. We just sat on the grass, and sang songs, made instruments out of logs of wood, sticks, beer cans and beer bottles. We talked about music, about magic mushrooms, about Steve Owen and his dramatic death.

The last two nights have been madness at the LIPA bar!

FUCK you, Delhi Times.

2006-09-08T04:20:00.000+05:30

OH MY GOD.

Nishi told me I was a celebrity today, perhaps not realising the extent of damage an ignorant insensitive 'journalist' is capable of. I laughed it off and decided I'd see it on her blog later.

Then I stumbled upon it. How? You'll soon know.

Celebrity...yea, like...Oh, look! There's Janet Jackson's boob!

Seems like I'm a dead man...woman. Whatever.

This...THIS is all over Delhi.

Me. Smoking a cigarette. At a rock show.

Brilliant Aranyani. Well done! Your parents must be so proud.

Isn't there some way one can sue Delhi times for printing a photograph of someone without their knowledge?? There I was, blissfully listening to wonderful music, and smoking a drag of Anupam's cigarette...

And THIS is the outcome???? Holy fuck.

Am completely panic striken. My dance classmates, my parent's friends, dance reviewers, dance critics, dance teachers...EVERYONE will have seen this.

My parents...Fuckk. My mum. I got mail from her today. It was a 4 word email...Check this out cuddly, it said.

Attached, was this monstrosity.

As I said before - Well done, Aranyani!

My career as a dancer in India could be ruined. Destroyed. By a stupid paparazzi idiot who thought she'd make a quick buck by showing a girl smoking a cigarette in public.

My fault, I guess. Even common-folk should know that they never know when they're being photographed, documented, tracked, and shamed.

Be warned, y'all.

So...Can I call ye Joan, then?

2006-09-06T06:31:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, Hannah asked me "Is there another name I can call you by?"...I told her she could call me what she wanted...And she said, "Oh...isn't there a shorter name by which people call ye?"...So i said, You can call me whatever you want..I know my name is difficult to pronounce.She retorted, Don't give me that option, my imagination goes a bit wild. I said it didn't matter. This was met with absolute silence.

Two minutes later, Hannah looked at me and said, "So, Can I call ye Joan then?"

And thus, everyone who knows Hannah and Emma in Liverpool know me as Joan. But I'm not Joan...Far from it. I'm not a a national heroine of France and a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. I didn't assert that I had visions from God which told me to recover my homeland from English domination.

But still...to all those who know Emma and Hannah, I am Joan.

Emma and I were sitting together talking about her studies. She's studying computer science but doesn't really want to. I convinced her to study something she wanted to do...like radiology or forensics...and we decided together that she was going to take up another course next year...and i became her best friend.

Soon, Hannah walked in, and said "So what d'you do all day, Joan?" Hehehehe. I told her and we discussed emma's plans for the future.

Then we decided to go out, and get drunk.

Emma, Hannah and Me. Otherwise known as Em, Han and Joan. Hahaha. WHY??? I have no idea why Han thought Joan would be the name for me. When I asked her, she said - No particular reason. If anyone asks, just say I'm a really really....random girl.

So, we went to The Font, and then this place called Busters. Too hammered to say what it was like. On the whole- Quite Brilliant.

Em and Han love Gans ALREADY!! They're tremendously fond of me, and I love em!

Ok, Enough!!

Aint no Sunshine..

2006-09-05T05:35:00.000+05:30

I know its been a long time since I wrote. I've been a little busy. This is the Liverpool Sunset. There's hardly any sunshine here, so when there is...you learn to cherish it. Even if it gives you sun burns and freckles.

Liverpool is a small little town in northern England, far far away from the intimidation of London. The accent is almost indecipherable(but I'm learning to understand it) and the city is full of beautiful architecture and friendly people...

I got here, with much difficulty on the evening of the 1st of September. I moved into my apartment and it was bare, and small..and as Guru says - Like a matchbox. It is literally like a matchbox..This is what my room looked like before I made it my own...

It was a small empty room which looked naked and inhuman, with just a mattress, a dirty carpet and an ugly set of curtains...

I decided to make it a little better, but have apparently failed to make it look as nice in a photograph as it seems in real life. But it does seem closer to home than it did initially.

I spent two days setting up the room...things from crafts museum, pictures of home, of loved ones, posters of the Beatles and Led Zep...I'm told by my flat mates that there's soon to be a poster sale on student prices in about a week so my room will be fuller...but this is what my room looks like as of now...

Speaking of flat mates...I met some of them...well, two of them. Three, if you count the brief hello I had with Mike. The two girls are Emma and Hannah.

Emma is trendy. She's got painted nails, streaked hair, an eating disorder and a steady boyfriend. She wears tight clothes, and giggles a lot. But she's a LOT of fun, and a great flatmate!

Hannah is cool. She's plump. She burps. She eats a lot, and anything. Smokes more than cigarettes, and loves beer. Listens to the same music as me, and guffaws at my not so funny sense of humour. She's a riot to hang out with!

I like them both. A lot! We are all so different and yet we seem to be getting along quite well. That was a big relief...but no, nishi..they've not replaced you and sammy, so sit back and relax.hehe.

Mike...hmmm. I've met him only once, and instantly thought he was....well. He's very sweet, and as Emma said, he goes on and on about how he hates Robbie William's music but thinks "Robbie's soooo hot"! AND he visits all the clubs that are otherwise known as "gay bars". hmmm enough said about that. Verrrrry interesting.

Rob is the fourth person we are supposed to be living with. But we haven't met him yet.

On the whole, these last few days have been interesting...

I'm missing a certain someone a lot. But coping with it. I know things will get a lot more difficult in the coming week, when I will have settled down and will have all the time in the world to think of how being away from him is just the worst thing conceivable..but right now, I think I'm in denial. I'll leave it at that. I love you, Gans.

Oh, I had dinner at a chinese restaurant today..and my fortune cookie said - "Now is the time to further your career - ingratiate."

Hmmm...now there's something to think about...

Meanwhile, here are some more pictures -

Sunset at Liverpool ...

Here's a more dramatic one ........

This is me outside my apartment, pointing at the apartment number ...

Alright then. More later. Long day ahead. :)

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane.

2006-09-01T01:12:00.000+05:30

Strange day. I've been happy, sad, excited and scared. Completely contrary collision of emotions.

But it's comforting to know that I've experienced this yo-yo syndrome before. And that eventually things stabilise.

Today was my last day in Delhi before I head out to Liverpool. As it hits me hard once again as I type this, I manage to deep breathe into serenity.

It's been a difficult day in many ways, mainly because I've had to say a lot of goodbyes. I hate goodbyes. They make me uneasy. And I've been saying it since noon. I'm still not done yet.

It all started with Anupam who came to see me off on an empty stomach and a huge appetite. Nishi joined us halfway through lunch. And then we went out. Beer. We headed home, and Sammy trotted up the stairs, as I climbed down them to see Anupam out to his car. Then Sammy, Nishi, Vanya and I went out again. The Big Chill. Penne with Vodka. And then Chonas. Beer again. Girija joined us there. Then we came home.Sammy said bye. Giri said bye. And Nishi's mum came to pick her up and said bye, Nishi and I said bye(Silly girl...in the words of Ozzy Osbourne - No more tears!!). I got home, met my cousins, my aunt and uncle, my grandmothers, and then Mahi and Rohan bid me farewell. I know I'll miss them dearly.

Saying goodbye to my grandmothers and my four year old little cousin was particularly moving. My grandmothers, for obvious reasons. I hope I see them soon. And my cousin, because she just couldn't understand "buth whyyyy" I was leaving her and going away for so long. I'm definitely going to long to hear "Cudddeeee didiiii"!

I spoke to Hari on the phone. My 'soul-brother'. That was nice. Reassuring, comforting. I'm going to miss him a LOT, but I know I'll see him soon.

Being hopelessly, unconditionally and madly in love makes it a little bit more difficult to say goodbye, and to leave. The last thing I did for the day, was to speak to Ganesh. It's difficult to measure the love I feel, so I didn't try. We talked. About how happy he was that I was finally going to do what I wanted. About how I'm going to be so close by once I'm back. But as usual, a lot of things were said that I'd rather keep to 'ourself'. We didn't say goodbye though. I can never get myself to do that. Because well..him and goodbye - they just don't go together.