tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10528891762913999602024-03-14T10:55:15.719+05:30Street of SmilesFor life's little mugshots are worth smiling for. Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.comBlogger119125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-32110657915718108332017-08-09T07:54:00.002+05:302017-08-09T20:30:04.579+05:30Slipping into Columbus | Art, Poetry and Finding the Community I Sought After<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>(I’ve been trying to write this in several ways and forms. I
already two very different drafts of what I want to say but haven’t quite been
able to coherently put together in word. I think I have finally written what I
want to say. It’s a tad bit long but it’s directly from my heart.)</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ve been making art, and mainly, been indulging in
live-sketches for several years now. I have seen myself grow as an artist and a
person, used art as a conversation-starter and indulge in discussions with
people about community, tangible and intangible heritage, and what it means to
have something so significant to themselves stand in a place as a testimony to
their life experiences. Walking around the city and drawing places and
buildings, making art is my way of comprehending how the city functions, how it
lives, the styles and characters it comes to acquire, the way tangible and
intangible heritage, people and stories morph to present an entire picture; it
has been my way of connecting with the city and its people, to feel like I
belong, perhaps? Art for me, as a process, is slipping myself into familiarity
from the unfamiliar. It is my means of putting myself out there, vulnerable and
in public eye; for possible criticism and rejection. Art means pushing the
extents of my comfort zone to make it even bigger, to accommodate the new, and
forge new connections. I’ve been doing these live-sketches for all those
reasons in addition to actually wanting to document the tangible heritage of
the city, its stories and what it means to the community to have a piece of
them in something so physical- as a trained architect with a proclivity to
support conservation and adaptive re-use of historic and community-inclined
spaces. <o:p></o:p></div>
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With all that in mind and hand, I have been actively seeking
community in the last two years of my stay in Columbus. I moved from Madras, a
city I had lived in for two decades, a place I knew like the back of my hand.
Community for me in Madras was a given. I has lived in the same neighbourhood
all my life and I knew every other person in the area, and even as I moved
outside in the city; or sometimes even across state lines. I’d bump into people
on the road: classmates, friends, family, the grocer, the rice-merchant, the
electrician, the flower-seller, my father's barber, the beauticians from the
saloon down the road, the street-side tailor, the guy who fixes my bike, the
mechanic, the auto-drivers in the stand close to my house, teachers,
acquaintances, the dogs...community was a given for me. I was an established
gymnast and athlete and I had different circles of acquaintances: school,
training peers, music class peers, so and so forth. I could stop at any point
in my city and never feel odd about wanting a glass of water from a local
establishment or a public group. That, in fact, was the first thing that was offered
when you walked through anyone’s doors: food and drink, if not anything- some
water. It was a sign of inclusion. I was never an outsider to have to actively
seek relationships, friendships or functioning people of the community because
I acquired them in time—through school, through college, through friends and family.
So, when I had to literally leave everything that I knew and built over
the course of time behind in my coming to a new city and a new country to pursue new
goals- I knew then, that this was my chance to actively seek community. This
time, it was going to be different because America has a different culture than
India. I had to make an effort to reach out, I had to decide who I was going to
be associated with, what I was going to do and where I was going to start in
this entire pursuit. I was excited in a way to be in a city where no one knew
me—it’s a fresh slate. I was even a tad bit happy to be away from the sometimes
prying eyes of the community I was a part of, in Madras. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I want to tell you to be careful what you wish for at this
point, because sometimes you get it. My initial honeymoon phase with
self-sufficiency and independence (different from Madras’s version of the same)
was joyful. I loved the anonymity I had. No one knew me and I was completely on
my own—in full, (Though was I complete? That was another question altogether)
It faded soon though, not the joyful learning in independence or
self-sufficiency but in the lacking of a strong foothold—a space to go to for
more learning, support and sharing. I lacked a community outside of my graduate
life the first six months I was here. I don’t want to beat myself up about it
because grad-life is all-consuming. Every single bit of extra project, art or
poetry I do outside school takes all the remaining energy and sleep I could
have potentially garnered. But those interactions I’ve come to build is also sustenance
I’m grateful for. With a brief interim (not in art though), I resumed going
after what I have always wanted to do in this search for a good community to be
a part of. I started exploring the campus at the time and started doing
live-sketches. See, I’ve done this before—but with different end-results. When
I used to work on the live sketches back in Madras/India, every single sketch
had a story. I had local tea-masters give me free tea, watchmen who gave me his
spare chair to sit on, a badass flower-seller who made me a makeshift chair
from her carton boxes on a temporary bridge outside the railway station, a
savoury shop owner who let me sit in her shop next to her-gave me water and
food, little kids from school scattered all along, conversations with other
street wall painters and church pastors...it's a huge list. I've almost never
sat through a sketch session without talking to the people local from the area
and that was wonderful because I love talking to people about these spaces, to get
to know little anecdotes and share the process with them. I lived in that city
for twenty years and I knew the place, I knew the people: I constantly kept
running in to people I knew; and yet, every time I went out to sketch in a
different area, I saw the city with a new pair of eyes and through new people. Coming
back to Columbus and engaging in the same process here, I met with more nonchalant
reactions. Campus is a bustling space with shuffling feet and no time to stop.
I didn’t exactly get the community I was seeking in this space in those initial
months of my stay in the city. Winter set in and so did the first phase of
disconnect and unrest. I was also living with a roommate at the time with whom
I was not on good terms with and had to return to a hostile environment every
night. I spent long hours in the studio making peace with all the work I
had but something was still missing. I felt like I needed to throw this net out
further in the sea, while afraid of drowning. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After those initial six months, I decided to seek what I had
on my list of things-to-do when I arrived at Columbus: attend poetry open mics,
‘artist’ and be self-sufficient. One Wednesday night, I picked myself up and
went out to the closest poetry night with a poem in my pocket. I didn’t know
how this was going to pan out, but I had to try. It might have been my best
decision and venture ever since I came to Columbus, hands-down (more on that
later). Another day, I hopped on to the COTA bus and went Downtown, randomly
walking the streets with a flask full of chai in my hand. That felt in-sync
with who I was as a person: to seek encounters and spaces, to go after what I
want once I knew that it was what I wanted. I sought this in the most intimate way I knew:
through art. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s been an intriguing journey: to explore a city I’ve moved
to and making art of and in these spaces. It’s been funny too, sometimes,
because I would be standing around a building and sketching it while someone
from the locality would ask me why I was doing it and if I knew the history of
the place. It baffled me that they would ask me, an outsider, about the history
of a place that they have lived in for so long. I had the answers but I still
did feel like an outsider. I was still looking at the city as an outsider, I was still not belonging despite being a part
of two different communities here. I belonged to the community, but did I feel
like I belonged to the city? I wasn’t quite sure of that. So, I kept doing what
I did because most often, art has a way of revealing thought processes and our
seeking in repetition and constant pursuit. I must say the poetry community in
Columbus was an amazing place to have started this journey. I have found some
incredible people I dearly love and a community that has been nothing short of
supportive and in equal parts jestful- they take the time to explain cultural
contexts I don’t understand, have long discussions about the greatness of
PB&J sandwiches (I’m still not convinced of that combination) or apple ‘sauce’,
be there when I have features somewhere else in poetry or at art exhibitions I’m
a part of, a bunch of people being willing participants in my Masters research,
and of course—making fun of my accent that I didn’t think I had, but in
retrospect, what was I thinking! These were people that supported my art too,
and suggested places I could go out and visit, and how to possibly get there.
They are people who are more than willing to drive me to places should I need
it, though it’s not something I am comfortable asking of everyone as I have
always been the kind of person who took care of herself (I don’t always like
asking for help or feeling inadequate, especially when it lies within the
fringes of coming in the way of my perception of being ‘self-sufficient’). <o:p></o:p></div>
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Columbus has its communities intersecting intimately: I run
into people from the design community at poetry readings or art shows or
interesting lectures/talks around the city. Columbus is a large city with a
small sense of Madras that I grew up with, while I still felt like I didn’t
entirely fit in. Columbus was that pair of gloves that had me cozy and warm,
though not completely comfortable. By virtue of many poets being artists
themselves or organizers, by them being interested in a wide range of artistic
pursuits; I found my circle expanding—and still do. I started learning new
things about myself in the way other people perceived me: someone called me a ‘mover
and shaker’ last month. I had no idea what that meant and when they said it
meant I was good at networking, I laughed because it was the last thing I
thought I was good at. I am good with people- but at networking (You should see
me at professional networking events; I’m the one sipping on my lemonade in the
corner of the room)? But I also realized that now, I attend events and know
people there, and they know me. The recognition and friendship was validating. I
realized my art was rooted in physical, tangible means that later translated to
larger conversations and intangible ideas. I learnt that I was trying to
combine worlds in this process. With some people, I learnt to be vulnerable and
open; it’s not my usual way of being. I like being collected and together at
all times, but I have a select few that I go to when I need to be my raw self.
I have seen friendships and a bunch of my relationships in India drift away,
and I am finally at the point where I have let it all go. I no longer hold on
to toxic relationships, I extricate myself from conversations that barge into
my mental space. I have started learning to take care of myself. These were all
discoveries and learning. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Now, I write this as my new apartment lies like a
lava-floor-obstacle-course-pit. I have moved three apartments in two years
adding pieces of furniture, potted plants, photographs, memories, art and
poetry with every move--life is a tad bit different now and, in this difference
lies my growth; in the quality of these experiences and all the learning- I
have seen myself evolve as an artist and as a person. I enjoy this transition
in its occasional turbulence. But until about three weeks ago, I still felt
like an outsider to the city, though not quite to all of its people. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In these live-sketches I do of the city, I learn about
Columbus one neighbourhood at a time. I slowly make my way around localities;
learn street names, bus routes and food joints. I do this as a traveler, as a
resident of the city instead of holding on to tourist-y eyes. It makes me feel
like I belong, I suppose with that last pang of being an outsider to the city
still tugging away on the inside. About two or three weeks back, I went into a
new neighbourhood in this exploration, to sketch a building suggested by
someone at the poetry community—as I threw open the question to them on
Facebook. I wanted to sketch an old, closed building in the Near East side and
I had not been there before. It is an area that is facing gentrification in the
city and I thought it imperative to process what was happening in ways I best
knew how to. I hopped on and changed two buses and got there. I found the
building and stood across the street and later, sat on a patch of grass and
began sketching. About ten minutes in, I had a lady demanding questions about
why I was on her yard. I hadn’t realized I was trespassing and so, I stumbled
with my answers. I told her I came in to draw the building and I didn’t realise
I was sitting in her property and began to move away when she asked me why I
was doing what I was doing. I have had that question asked a few times in
Columbus with hesitation and curiosity but none that demanded answers. The
rightful questioning of the woman to know why I am doing what I was doing in
her neighbourhood and space was interesting and largely protective. I loved
that. As I gave her my reasons for my process, she said I could sit down where
I was and keep doing what I was doing. “You do you”, she said. I had someone
scream from a car, at the intersection that the building I was drawing was
going to be sold, probably to the city. There were no inhibitions or pleasantries
in that exchange—they spoke to me like I had to know what was going on. Minutes
later, a man pushing his baby in a pram crossed the road and came up to me to
talk to me and go through my work. He was an artist, too. It was a pleasant
conversation in the middle of a hot day before he left. An asshole from another
car scared the crap out of me by jolting me with his loud scream, and laughed
in my face; which I have to say is also very reminiscent of India. The woman
whose lawn I was sitting on came back to me as I was finishing up and asked me
if I wanted water. I told her I had some and appreciated her gesture but I came
prepared with enough water that day. I had finished sketching by then and
crossed the road and stood outside the bus stop waiting for my bus to take me
Downtown from where I’d go to campus, and then on- to my apartment. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As I was standing there, waiting, an elderly gentleman broke
my thoughts and meekly demanded—“What did you draw? I saw you drawing. What did
you draw? Show me!” I opened my sketchbook and extended it to him as he took it
in his hands and thumbed it between his old, wrinkled fingers and said-- “Come
in.” He didn’t wait for an answer; he didn’t even think I was going to refuse. It
has been two years since anyone asked me to come in to their space like that,
especially strangers. I nimbly and yet slowly, opened the door and saw two
other men sitting there to whom the elderly gentleman started showing my work
to. One of them was in an apron. I looked around and that’s when it hit me—I was
in a barber shop. I have listened to conversations surrounding the
conversations that begin here, poems about it from my friends and I was there,
in a barber shop. The men there were extremely sweet and looked through my
sketchbooks as I looked at the space and spoke with them. The space also strangely
reminded me of the time as a child. Growing up as a gymnast, I didn’t have a
say in my hairstyle; my coach did. His solution to easy training and practice
sessions was a closely cropped boy-cut. You know where I got this haircut back
in those days, for a good part of about five or seven years? At the local
barber shop. I’d go there with my dad and get almost the same haircut he did.
That space wasn’t too different from this, in Columbus. The men in Madras at
the time welcomed me when I was seven. I never grew up feeling odd in spaces
mostly reserved for men because I grew up in those spaces, as a girl, I never
felt like an outsider in that barbershop I went to with my father. I hadn’t
been to that shop with my dad in almost a decade—and now, I had re-entered one
after all these years and it felt perfect, a wave of nostalgia and familiarity
washing over my senses. The owner of the shop asked me if I wanted water, too—something
no one in Columbus had asked me in my past two years of sketching here across
the city. And suddenly I felt like an outsider no more. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I had finally slipped into Columbus: the community, art,
poetry, and the city. All of it. I have slipped into a familiar comfort I had missed the past two
years. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I love and thank everyone who has been instrumental in that transition.</div>
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All my love,</div>
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Hemu </div>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-64255378457100301372017-04-23T08:17:00.000+05:302017-04-23T19:54:42.478+05:30Culture Diaries: Exploring the Growth of my Identities in Changing Cultural Settings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have been grasping at the idea of identities, discovering and acknowledging them as mine in the past few years, and it is developing in this ever-growing, amorphous and radiant form with every cleared thought, good conversation and life event. It is going to be almost two years since I moved from Madras to Columbus. It's been one hell of a ride and I am learning every single day what I have going for me and what I don't. This piece though, is simply a personal way-finding of my identities in these two very different cultural settings. It's long and I hope you can bear with me in its length.<br />
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A recent introspection ever since I moved here, into what 'home' and 'community' means to me has been unraveling in many ways in modes of inquiry, delivery and affect. I have been asking people what it means to them, what they think it could be, I was a part in conducting an exploratory workshop with two artistic peers on one such hunt on 'home', I am looking at it through my art, I brought it into my own design research thesis work (as I want to work with local communities and on socio-cultural issues in the long run) and spent numerous hours just writing in my journals. It's amazing to see how people have adopted these terms into their lives and what it means to them. For some, it was a place and for some, it was a person or a community that they are a part of. These people and communities are identities, placeholders for what a person is. For some it was a vocation, it was what they do- art, poetry, being a community leader etc. and for others, it was relationships- motherhood, being a spouse etc. I sit here with all their answers in my hands and wonder about what I am really sifting through all these perspectives for, right now. Some part of it is clear already, others would probably emerge.<br />
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One large predicament I am in is of being in-between cultures. It's not easy to float in this space, not knowing where you belong or with whom. This might also be happening simply because of my age and this time I am in. I have friends who think this life I am leading in a developed country is amazingly easy and awesome. Well, it's awesome, I'll give you that. But I have to tell you that it's not easy. I have to dispel any thoughts you may have of me leading a rosy life based on my Instagram/FB news-feed. Different aspects of self-concept (by definition- 'an idea of the self constructed from the beliefs one holds about oneself and the responses of others') are churning like concrete in my belly of a giant mixer, it feels like it hasn't yet had the time to set. But I think it is finally setting at the edges at the least, for now. I had these key moments already mapped out in my head (it's been brewing in there for months now) and when I began to research the terms to articulate this discovery, this charting-- it fell right into my lap.<br />
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'Response of others' in the process of my identity formation has been rather pivotal in figuring out who I am. The aforementioned cultures I am a part of plays a huge role in what I have come to believe, how my interpersonal interactions are formed and the relationships that arise out of it. There are two different cultures I have already been a part of and that which I am having an opportunity to encounter right now.<br />
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India, by and large adopts a collectivist culture. A collectivist culture tends to put the needs of the collective ahead of the individual. In these cultures, selfishness is a vice, you work towards gelling in with the society and in helping one another. It relies on interdependence and an expectancy of largesse in your actions: my neighbours took care of me in Madras when my parents were away, I have taken care of the neighbour's kids when their parents were running late, you invite anyone who arrives at your threshold into the house, you share whatever you have. Growing up, there was absolutely no concept of 'mine' in my household. I am not joking about that. Any toy, chocolates, fancy food or gift that came through to my sister or myself were 'ours'. I didn't realise what my parents were inculcating in us as we grew up. Of course, it was also that we were two girls born five years apart with similar body types- we exchanged clothes all the time. My sister just returned from a trip from India, bought me a bunch of stuff I had asked for. I was over at her house the other day and she showed the clothes she had purchased and said 'take it anytime you want'. Perhaps, the sense of ownership has slightly tilted but the idea of interdependence and oneness hasn't.<br />
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America on the other hand, which is where I am now adopts an individualistic culture. This culture asserts itself through individual independence, by not wanting to 'bother' or 'burden' someone with health/wealth problems. Emphasis is laid on the individual, on their uniqueness and self-sufficiency. I don't know a thing about my neighbours except for a few of their names. Their doors are always closed. Most people I see eat by themselves, commute by themselves and have a large boundary around them for personal space (I am not here to say I think ill of any of these aspects of this culture, just making observations).<br />
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At this juncture in my life when I am still malleable and forming pieces of my self towards a more detailed, organised and acknowledged idea of a personal identity, it is hard to be floating about without any grounding. The concept of personal identity changes from one culture to another. I collect pieces of what people say, do and think out loud in my presence and I am always putting these pieces together. I wonder why someone would say something to me and why they are comfortable enough or not to tell me something. And then, there is this huge, beautiful part of 'individual' and 'relational' selves that plays a key role in identity formations. In short, individual self (as I understand it) talks about personality traits, attributes and characteristics of a person (Example: cheerful, bold, analytical) whereas the relational self talks to our relations with the significant people in our lives (Example: friend, husband, lover, sister). There is also the concept of 'collective self' (from what I understand) that allows us to reflect on our membership in social groups (Example: Indian, American).<br />
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I believe these three aspects are important pieces that we need to ground ourselves in while on the path towards discovery of who we are and with regard to the formation of our identities. I was recently riding the bus with a peer and we were continuing a conversation that had begun earlier. I told her how I usually befriend bus drivers and chat with them during transit whereas she mentioned how it was going to be nothing beyond a nod or a smile of recognition and familiarity. She's from Australia (which seems to have a similar culture to the States). She mentioned how she wouldn't like people entering her space on the bus, that she was on public transport but would be prone to assuming a setting which pretends that there is no one else there. I find that culture exclusionary, that you drop people who are on the fringes of your everyday life that aren't people close to you. I was sitting there and reflecting on how transit times in India, on the other hand, form deep friendships. My culture (and I use 'my' to refer to what I have been exposed to all these years) is about inclusion. It's about inclusion of your neighbour, your co-passenger, the grocer, the bus-driver, the extended family and their extended families. My mother's best friend (Kasthuri aunty) became her best friend because they have been taking the same bus back home for decades. The collectivist culture seems to have allowed and given space for deeper connections with increased familiarity. Here, I find it stopping at mere recognition. You will find co-passengers in India who take the same means of public transport everyday, at a fixed time talk greatly of their friendships there. Transition is a time for interpersonal connections in the collectivist culture and one of silence in this one. This is not to say that I have not witnessed passengers on the COTA bus not recognise one another. But I have not seen them talk beyond that first line of 'How you doing today?' or 'You don't have your hat on this morning!'. Transit is by and large via individual vehicles in this country and of the people taking public transportation, there appears to be a large sense of exclusion; less acknowledgement of the person sitting in front of you or next to you.<br />
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All this was very riddling to me initially. My individual self is that of holding a cheerful demeanour, to be kind/compassionate and to make someone feel included (for I knew from past experiences how it was like to be excluded). I can strike conversations with almost anyone unless they're visibly shutting me down out of a sexist/racist/any other -ist agenda. I know three bus drivers by name, two of whom will know me by name and what I do because we have already discussed that. We have discussed about work shifts, about art in the city, about what we do, about our 'everydays'. One of them, Carl, asked me recently if I am always like this-- always this cheerful with a smile on my face? I told him I have my down-times but I have no reason to frown at someone because I am having a turbulent time on the inside-that's just not right. It warmed me the first time when another one of them, 'Happy' Harold told me that I made his day because I asked his name as I was getting down at my stop. I was elated that day because it dawned on me that people in different cultures still are the same at the basic level- everyone wants to be loved, recognised and most importantly, be seen. It still bothers me that I have no neighbours whose doors I can knock on to give them some food for Tamizh new year or have a cup of tea with. As an individual from a collectivist culture living in an individualistic culture, I am afraid to step on people's toes. What is a sign of inclusion into my personal boundary in my culture is a breach of privacy here. This makes it all the more harder, to navigate through these social situations and relationships.<br />
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<b>It's hard because my ways of making someone feel included or make known as important to me is to risk losing them altogether in this culture. </b>Where does one find that line? I feel rather lonely in this country sometimes. I have kind of lost my sense of belonging to any one place because I seem to be losing friendships in India and not really being able to ground some in America because of the vastly different connotations of relationships between these two spaces. My expectations of a relationship/friendship and cultural norms clash. Of the select few that I have come to love and trust, I tell them beforehand that it isn't my intent to breach into their space. I am only trying to connect in ways I know to and if I withdraw, it's only because I am scared of losing them.<br />
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When I look at my past and about how I have transitioned in the last decade, I see a pattern and a sense of seeking something on the 'other' side. Growing up in a collectivist culture had me guarded and safe. I was always looked out for- by my parents, siblings, cousins, family, road-sweeper women workers during late nights alone, auto and bus drivers, and most other people on the roads. I was fairly certain in my assumption that I would have someone to help me if there was a predator that I couldn't manage myself, and that gave me a sense of fierce boldness to be authentically myself in public and private spaces. The intimate levels of my personal self has lesser borders as I trust someone but I am never something I am not. It's still a part of me. I believed in not giving up my personal self of identity away for the sake of the society, which paradoxically also curbs you from doing/being/saying something that is tangential to societal norms. I don't believe in conformity. I also ended up reading a lot of Ayn Rand as a teenager and it has taken me a while to see large holes in her theories. I think it would be interesting to discuss this with someone from another cultural setting. It appealed to me at a time when I felt society was suffocating me with its ideal collectivist expectations and norms. Now, with the time to reflect in a different setting- everything changes. I was moving towards establishing a sense of increased individual self of identity when I was in a collectivist culture.<br />
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The collectivist culture that I was a part of had assigned most of my individual self itself. I was a tom-boy growing up, rebellious, masculine, an athlete and a gymnast, loud, obnoxious and unafraid. This collectivist culture only managed to pick out what already stood out in the crowd for further reinforcement. I was well-known as a sportswoman. I was associated with toughness and masculinity. My softer sides went largely unknown. I was a trained Carnatic vocalist and I realised only recently that most people didn't know about that side of me. I am a very sensitive person and very few people actually recognised it. My sense of individual self came from the acknowledgement from outside and then, myself. I recently did a <a href="http://kevan.org/johari?view=HemuVenkat">Johari personality awareness mapping</a> and most of the people I invited to take part in it were from my relationships in India. 'Bold' was a recurring word. I also realise now that it might not be the chief word any of my American relations would pick out because my own sense of personal identity took a huge turn here. It became all the things people in India missed seeing, it was beyond educational qualifications and professions. In India, one's qualifications became an easy acquisition into one's own identity. I can very easily tell someone that I am an architect and a designer, I don't think twice nor do I doubt it. But for the longest time, I never claimed I was an artist (until a year ago, to be precise).<br />
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America allowed me to call myself an artist without fear or doubt. Now, I have to introduce something else before I take that previous statement further and that is about relational self identity. Bear with me for a moment. In India, I was always introduced in relation to someone else. I think that is why I felt like I belonged there. I was introduced as someone's friend, sister, daughter, family, neighbour. No one ever introduced me as a writer or a poet or an artist first. Relationship came first, everything about the individual came next. Come to think of it, I miss that in America. I realise that when I speak of someone here to someone else, of the relations I have acquired here, my first impulse is to speak of our relationship. I always say 'so-and-so', 'they are my friend from _____' and then, 'they are a wonderful poet/artist/designer/musician'. I also realise that most of my American friends don't do that. Their means of introducing me is generally on the front of how they formed this relationship with me (Example: she's my classmate) or what I do (Example: she's an artist/architect/poet) but not that of relationship. If I heard more people introduce me in relation to them as opposed to what I do, I guess the sense of belonging would automatically set in (as that is something I am used to). This is not to say that I don't encounter wonderful people in America-- I do. I love some people very dearly. I have just realised what may still keep me away from them. But if my introductions are about my art and not myself, if someone doesn't explicitly state my relationship with them- it's hard for me to imagine that I am what I think I am to them. This can be viewed as a silly problem space- but it's real. India always allowed me inclusion by emphasising on relational identities.<br />
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America on the other hand, has been emphasising on my individual identities. When my friends introduce me here to someone else, they say- 'She's Hemu, she's a visual artist'. Now, I must acknowledge that I have never introduced myself as an artist with the level of confidence that I do right now. I always said 'self-proclaimed artist/poet' (because what if someone came up to me and said 'you call this art?' or 'you call this a good poem?'). By not acknowledging something I could be potentially good at, I found myself searching for who I was all this time. America, this individualistic culture has given me the space to accept who I am- yes, I am an artist. Yes, I am a poet even if I may not be a good one. Yes, I know people have larger problems than I do living in a developed nation but that doesn't mean what I am going through isn't validated. I went on a huge rant one night to a friend in America because I couldn't comprehend sifting through the scale of what I was feeling. I was losing friends in India because they can't relate to me anymore, that my struggles seem like a speck of dust in relation to their own, and I can see where that is coming from. But to lose the only few important friendships I have built, trusted and loved over the last decade come crashing down was a huge shift for me. I couldn't figure out if I was being an asshole to them all these years by talking about my problems, that what I am feeling now are 'complaints' that need to be seen against a larger picture, whether I am 'creating' these for myself. My friend listened and told me that my thoughts and feelings were validated no matter the scale and I am immensely thankful for that. America has allowed me time for myself: for developing my individual self, to carve out identities for myself that would have been harder in my own collectivist culture of upbringing. I reinvented everything when I came to America, especially my wardrobe. People call me 'feminine' in this country and you have no idea how wonderful it is to be seen the way you want to be seen: I was never considered 'feminine' or 'dressed on-point' in my country. Ever after I started embracing my femininity and established my intellectual assertions as a woman of her own free will, thinking and independence, my community, friends and family always looked at me as their little girl who doesn't know what she was talking about or just ended up hurting me by not even listening. <br />
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The third part of this essay talks about the realisation of my collective identity. Some days, this country has my knees hugging at my breasts because most connections are single-tiered. It hits me hard because I have taken my sense of community and belonging in Madras for granted, for 20 long years. I always felt at home at Madras, I felt like I belonged there (even though I was excluded in some social groups). I had a very clear sense of collective identity, I was from Annanagar (the locality), from the city of Madras, from the state of Tamilnadu and lastly, from India. Patriotism was a given. My sense of love for where I come from was unadulterated- here's where I have lived all this time, and the place and its people will have my undying love and loyalty. When that was suddenly uprooted, I had stumbled upon a whole new context for comparison, a new level of reflection to see what something really means to me because I, now, have a much larger picture of what it is I am looking at and seeking. Coming to America and seeing real racial problems made me more aware of my own classist society in India. As a person from a middle-class 'upper-caste' household in India, reservations were never for me. I belong to FC (Forward caste) as mentioned in our official papers by virtue of what religious community I was born into. I think I have borderline resented reservation systems. I felt that they had to be based on economic status and not on socio-religious agenda. But now that I have brought myself out of that system and see much bigger problems of the world, I have come to terms with the benefits of that system, acknowledge that my ancestors were oppressors in the past and that I have to live with that aspect of what my community has been in the past and the privileges I still have till date because of the community I was born into. At the same time, India offered me secularism. I don't understand America's large sense of 'other-ing' some communities, religions and race. I am still learning. My perspective has shifted and I have now, started being a part of a different collective identity. If I had previously called myself an Indian, I also now call myself a 'person of colour'. I am learning every single day about race relations, about privilege and about power. Would I have known about what it means to have lesser socio-cultural privileges had I still been in India? I may have had an intellectual understanding of it but no experiential knowledge and sometimes, the latter teaches one more than the former.<br />
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In short, I guess I wanted to evaluate my growth as a person. Yes, I wish I had a different sense of relational identity in America, I wish I meant more to people in terms of being 'someone' to them. But I also learned what it means to embrace who I am without fearing what other people would think of my interpretations of my own identity. I have moved beyond boundaries I had earlier, towards adopting a whole other collective identity. I realise I am un-learning, re-learning, growing and trying to shape my life everyday. Some days it's crazy hard to not even find anyone to talk to. I find myself sitting in my house wondering who I can call and talk to without fear of losing them and eventually end up making more art, writing more or designing more. But there have also been times I have moved beyond that fear and been vulnerable with someone. These identities are changing, they're setting in and I am growing.<br />
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In the process of figuring all these out in the past few months, I have had different conversations with many of my friends and acquaintances-- some who are international students like me in America, people working here, immigrants, people from the past with whom I have a whole shared history with and some over here, with whom I establish an immediate sense of collective identity with. My closest relationships are with whom I seem to connect on all these three aspects of one's identity. My friend from college recently sent me the link to a very interesting <b><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/taiye_selasi_don_t_ask_where_i_m_from_ask_where_i_m_a_local">TED talk by Taiye Selasi</a>. </b>She explores our multiple identities in this world with an intriguing set of three R's: Rituals, Relationships and Restrictions. She speaks to the intent of a question and it made me think of how it all falls together with these aspects of one's identities I have been talking about so far. It's an interesting talk to see if you haven't already!<br />
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At last, I have lost some, I have won some. I am changing. It's scary. Not everyone understands that and that's okay. But I am glad I am moving forward and that I have acknowledged pieces of who I am, what I could be and where I stand at this point in my life so far. Life isn't easy at all but it sure as hell is beautiful to understand and learn from this journey.<br />
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Thank you for reading all the way till the end.<br />
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Much love,<br />
Hemu<br />
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P.S: I have interpreted these based on my research of these terms and how it fits with my experiences. If it is jarringly wrong, please do let me know though this is largely a subjective account. I would like to learn.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A picture of me at a place that is closest to Madras- A beach in Florida, shot by my high school friend, Vimal Raj.</td></tr>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-85899156654728404372017-01-29T20:45:00.001+05:302017-01-29T20:45:59.592+05:30The Curious Case of Food and Friendships - Culture Diaries: India and Amrikka! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ever since my arrival at the United States, everything has been a learning curve- a learning curve not only in terms of what I learn from this culture but in terms of what I see as weirdly different from my own and, how it probably affects my relationships and interactions. I would venture on to say that my posts, poetry and writing have all been a product of my socio-cultural and economic upbringing- they are my little snippets of cultural diaries and on that front, this topic is something that I have been sitting on ever since I came here. <br />
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Within weeks of having arrived at America,the initial newness of the physical surroundings and people diminished; customs, practices and people's levels of interactions started looming in on my now more-aware mind. I have been trying to keep an open mind to learn about new cultures and ways of interactions but some parts of how India works with its relationships blew me away after I realised just how significant they have been to my development. I keep running simultaneous comparisons between how things are back <i>home</i> and in my brief life here thus far- they have been a very interesting mix of emotions. The last year and a half has made me a more critical person, a more accommodating and a less pampered person. It has made me more of an independent woman that I was than ever before and I cannot stress enough on the importance of some friendships here. My life here has pushed me to discover pieces of myself I hadn't known about before- in some cases in a good way and in some ways, not so much. America, sometimes is the backdrop, a contrast that has been teaching me to recognise different scenarios and different ways of living our lives- how I have been living mine, what this culture has to teach and what really does work in my own culture.<br />
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In this piece though, I want to elaborate on food and relationships. You might not think there is much of a connection between the two, but good lord, there is! I'm not exactly talking about food itself in entirety but in the bonds that are developed over sharing some. Have you heard the quote about 'families that eat together stay together'? I cannot believe in that idea enough. I sit here at 3:00 in the morning writing this with a cup of hot chai and it only reinforces it. It takes me back to conversational times with my friends and family, my own tea-master and our discussions. It's nostalgic, it's beautiful. Food does that to us- it brings all our senses together to that particular time, it helps us be in the moment more than anything else. Think about your last meal together with someone when you/your friend didn't look at your respective phones? When was it? What did you guys talk about?<br />
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I would assume it's easier to remember if the scenario existed because we are completely engaged in the conversation. We remember what we ate, we remember the music and the sounds of the cutlery, we remember the smell, we remember the way our food felt and we remember what we see. All this is logged in to our memory because we decided to have a good, mentally stimulating conversation over something physically nourishing to the body. This is the time for our body and soul combined! This is also one of the chief reasons I have ever invited the few people that I consider to be important to me in this country to come over to my apartment and share a cup of chai with me, if nothing else.<br />
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Eating together isn't necessarily something that builds relationships within family members but it extends to relationships outside home, too. I firmly believe in the concept that people who eat together build better relationships. When I was much younger, family dinners were accompanied by the radio in the background (we didn't have a fancy TV with fancy programmes on it) and absolutely delicious comfort food by my mother. I had this habit of reading books while eating which my parents never encouraged. I think about it now and am glad they did that (Now, I reflect on how televisions are ruining that time together. Me... I was content with the radio). That dinner etiquette stops me from listening to music or cordoning someone off by indulging in a personal activity when I have a meal with someone around me- it's the first space in my culture where I learnt to invite someone in.<br />
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On the large too, the Indian community and other Eastern communities are so organised so as to bring the extended family together several times a year. We have a lot of celebrations each year for which we congregate to have large events and food (which we all eat together). The act of coming together to cook and eat is a wonderful concept, it's personal and it's important. We also have yearly rituals like <i>devasam</i> which are days on which members of the whole family get together to pay respects to our deceased ancestors. We have specific menus for most of these-we have aunts who specialise in each of these recipes and we all await food with the plantain leaf on the ground, all hungry. The men in the family help serve (as in mine) and it's the time where at the least 15-20 people sit together in a batch to eat as a family, jokes running about. In fact, <i>devasam </i>has its own menu in our culture that no one ever changes and we constantly keep telling the elders in our family about a change in menu because we get bored with the same food each year. One of my aunts says every year that she will have it written in her will that she will vouch for pizza and sandwiches for her <i>devasam </i>menu; it's a standard joke we all share each time. Post-death-remembrance is a solemn topic, you'd think. And yet, sitting together and talking about it with a pinch of lightheartedness and acknowledgement of our own temporal states in this world is pretty common and healthy, over comfort food and a congregation of people that care about you and love you.<br />
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And here is the thing, this probably exists in Western cultures too- getting together for meals and occasions, probably a little lesser given lesser number of major festivals that conventionally and culturally demand togetherness. But what strikes me as alarmingly different is what I find in friendship circles and peer networks. My friends from school (KG-Grade 10) and I still are in good touch. Many of us are in different parts of the world pursuing our own careers and we still try to keep in constant contact. I would think that a lot of it stemmed from our relationship blooming with sharing food. You see, when I was in school, I would generally take two boxes of lunch: one was for me and the other was for my friends. My friends loved my mother's <i>rasam sadham </i>and on many occasions, I've opened my lunchbox to find hardly any in it. We didn't ask one another's permission to have some food from the other. We'd all attack each other's lunch. I can still tell you which dishes are the specialty of which of my friends' mother/father. In college, one of my friends could take one look at my food, eat it and tell me if my mother or my father made the food. In a lot of cases where my dad would have made it, she would say <i>'Come on Hema, he has to improve! Tell him'. </i>It was hilarious. I'd recount these tales back home and there is now something that connects my friends and my family before they get to see one another in person. Personalities and familiar affection already builds itself in.<i> </i><br />
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In my culture, you don't really refuse food when someone offers you some, it's rude to do so. I come from a nourishing, feeding culture. My late paternal grandmother used to tell us that when someone arrives at your doorstep, you invite them in irrespective of whether they're your friend or foe. You give them something to eat and drink, and then proceed to discuss matters. For some reason, it has stuck with me after all these years because I saw them all do it. I've seen all the matriarchs in my community nourish those who arrive at our homes. When someone is content and well-fed, you're going to have a more cordial conversation, I would assume. Every time I go to someone's house in India, the first thing I am asked about after basic inquiries about my well-being and my family's is an offer to eat/drink something. With some of my friends' parents it's almost no choice-- you are going to eat no matter what, if you've not had your meal yet. I see it as a manifestation of love and care. No one exactly forces you to eat but you are always offered multiple choices and when you finally deny it to a point where some of them might get hurt- you ask for some water so as to not offend the person trying to feed you.<br />
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What is actually happening in this scenario is that you are taught to accept the love that friends/family offer you. When that happens, you are letting someone into an intimate circle of your life- you are giving them the right to feed you without feeling like you owe them something in return. For me personally, when I let someone pay for my food, it's a step higher in our friendship. I would only do so with people I am comfortable with or trust. I would get the next cheque, I know. But it also means that I have reached that stage in the relationship where I am comfortable at the prospect of someone paying for a basic necessity in life at the time without feeling like I owe them something in return. Friendships bloom when you feel like you don't owe your friend something in return. This isn't a transaction (I still don't understand some of my American friends tell me 'I owe you one'. It makes me feel like an outsider).<br />
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Friendships and sharing food/meals go a long way. Some of my best friends and I bond over good food and amazing chai. Sometimes, I feel very lonely in this country because I don't have anyone to share some tea with. Don't get me wrong, I love my alone time and there are many moments I have been glad for no company but for some piping hot ginger tea and a good book. But there have also been those times when I'd sit on my apartment's porch hoping I'd find some neighbour or even a passer-by to sit down and have some tea with me because it gets <i>that </i>lonely. That is one of the things I have had to come to terms with living alone in a foreign country with its own values and culture. And oh, I wish it was a little more amenable on this front.<br />
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What I also find innately different when it comes to food culture is how rushed mealtimes are in the States. Eating food has to be a calm, relaxed time with your friends/family or yourself. I find the American culture of 'to-go' and 'drive-in's' a little scary as it puts people in a rush-mode. I keep spotting people eating wrapped burritos and sandwiches in their cars or at their desks, alone. I find it odd to sit in a room that has seven people with three of them eating at their desks, alone; because my first cultural instinct is to gather with them and eat together, offer them whatever I have. I simply cannot imagine not offering people what I have before I touch my food myself and even though I know it's nothing personal when my American friends do decline, it still kind of feels hurtful and weird to me-- it's almost as if I am not really friends with them because I have not crossed the borders of having dined with them.<br />
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Almost all my friendships grew with a healthy relationship surrounding food and dining habits. I tell some of my good American friends: <b>in my culture, when you become friends with someone, you don't just become friends with them; you become friends with their family.</b> More so, your closest friends <i>become </i>family. I can drop by any of my best friends' houses without warranting their presence in their own homes and still be treated as family by their own, be fed and have conversations with. You always end up having them. <b>Sharing food is the first step towards inclusion in many communities.</b> If I am seeing a friend's mother for the first time, my first instinct is to bring up something we can both relate to. Most often, it's the food she may have sent through my friend or a story my friend passed on to me. When I am my best friend's house and her grandmother offers us tea and breakfast, it's amazing to see how her grandmother gives it to us every time- she would have made chai with exactly the amount of sugar each of us take in our beverage. She tells us which of the two cups is for whom. Now, that is an intimate detail. Food is an intimate detail, you learn that when you start eating together. My sister has been away from home ever since she turned 18-- going from college to work to marriage and now, here in USA. I am spending time with her over dinner conversations after almost a decade now. She is highly maternal and makes really great food that I love. Sometimes though, we'd be having food-- my baby niece, my sister and I; with my mother on Skype and I'd take a small serving of a particular dish. My sister would insist on me eating more and would start commenting on how little I eat and how it is affecting my health. My mother would suddenly intervene saying that that isn't a dish I particularly like or that that is not how I eat/cook that vegetable. That too, is intimate knowledge. It takes a long time to understand what our friends and family like with respect to food. I finally have the opportunity to catch up with my sibling over mealtimes now and I believe it fosters a good, much stronger relationship. Similarly so, tell me: don't you feel somewhat happy when the waitress at your regular diner knows your favourite dish and how it's cooked, whether you take coffee with milk or hot chocolate with whipped cream? Why do you think that is?<br />
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This isn't just for friends and family. I would even go on to talk about my own neighbours, for that matter. My neighbours in Madras know the dishes of theirs that I like and sometimes make some extra for me. They drop by and give me some food if my parents aren't in town and I need dinner. My mother and our maid would sometimes sit together for coffee and biscuits after the work gets done. At my place of internship during my architecture days, the employees would sit together and have lunch. These are times that bring people together and it bothers me a little bit that eating is a largely solitary affair in this culture.<br />
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Mealtimes are mostly meant to be communal times, in my opinion. We would all benefit from sitting together and sharing a meal or even a cup of tea, once a day. Of some of the culturally different situations I have come to encounter, just trying to schedule times with friends to hang out and have dinners/a quick cup of coffee or tea has been the hardest. I wish there was more space in this culture for more on-the-fly, extempore meetings for breakfast and the like. The people I am most acquainted with and close friends in the country have all been to my tiny apartment in Columbus for a cup of chai at the least because I don't know of any other way to welcome someone into my life and personal space. When you meet someone outside of the conditions in which you would ordinarily meet another, you are planting the seeds to a good relationship.You are opening yourself up to more than you regularly do- more emotions, more trust and more conversations. You are generally less cranky when you eat and you have company, which is almost always a good thing. You tend to be more comfortable, more happy and probably more conversational.<br />
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I hope more of you start eating together or set aside time to have more in-person meetings over food/drinks than indulging in a solo eating affair. Tell me if there is some food from my culture that you want to try and I'll try and make it for you. Let's get together and bake cookies. Offer me muffins if you make some. Eating together is a culture I don't want to forget coming here (I don't mean to say this in any accusatory way, by the way).<br />
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We have little time with one another. I hope we can bond over chai and biscuits, not always emails/texts. I hope we can become good friends. I hope we can be friends enough to let myself ask you if you want to catch some breakfast together, if free, out of the blue.<br />
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Much love and the smell of ginger chai to you,<br />
Hemu<br />
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Also, here are some heart-warming advertisements for you to check out. These ads particularly work well with an Indian audience because these are all some real-life situations. This is honestly one of the best ways we bond. I would love for you all to take a look at these tiny clips and see what I am getting at! :)<br />
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And some interesting articles I found online:<br />
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<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/the-importance-of-eating-together/374256/">The Importance of Eating Together</a><br />
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/18/eating-alone-is-a-fact-of-modern-american-life/?utm_term=.4f6867067fc3">The most American thing there is: eating alone</a><br />
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Would love to know your views! :) </div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-66688484778448409132017-01-06T12:39:00.002+05:302017-01-07T00:54:01.318+05:30The Privilege that Comes with a Penis | Understanding Us (Women) and Your Privilege<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">You've read much about the Bangalore New Year night's incident: inebriated men passing lewd remarks at the women gathered that night for celebrations, groping and sexual assault. You've probably seen the molestation incident at Kammannahalli caught on CCTV camera. You probably saw the onlooking bystanders who did not intervene- there were about five of them. I counted. They saw, some stopped and came back to stare more and did not do anything. It makes me sick to my stomach. You've probably read that a million times now on social media. Women are coming forward with these attacks, trying to raise their voice loud and clear above a drowning chant of men and other women who refuse to see the original problem of the situation. Sometimes it works, it does create awareness. But, I don't know if it has ever been detailed for some of you. I want to do that today. I want you all to crawl into a woman's skin</span><span style="color: #3e3e3e; font-size: 12pt;"> (</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I'm writing this in binary as men and women/femme/queer- I welcome the thoughts of trans and other genders- I didn't write this in entire inclusiveness because I don't know your experiences and didn't want to write something wrong that may offend anyone) for a few minutes as you read this post. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">You think sexual assault is horrible, a terrible act. That's a wonderful start for you to acknowledge it. But it's not enough. Those onlookers in the Kammannahalli incident probably agree with me- they agree it's wrong to molest anyone. But again, it's not enough. I would gamble on one of these being chief reasons for not intervening- fear of being attacked themselves, not wanting to be involved in an issue that could become a police case (and in turn, the possibility of their families being put at risk), nonchalance or of a she-asked-for-it-late-this-night mind-set. Some of them are understandable reasons even, but still- they are not enough for you to merely watch when someone needs help. Now, the woman in the video was brave (that's a default setting in women that I have to explain to you later) and fought till she could get herself away from these people but what if she had been overpowered? I hate to ask of men- What if it was your daughter/mother/sister/wife/girlfriend/friend? Other than hitting an emotional nerve at the thought to simply have you imagine the feeling, it makes me sick that I would have to put you through a fabricated hell dragging a loved woman into the picture in order for you to even see a fraction of what I am talking about simply because then, it is again not about the woman. It's still about you- a man, and what runs in your head when someone close to you is hurt. Step away from your privileged role with a penis. This is not about you. This is about us and our everyday battles and wars. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now, some of you wonder why I would have to sound so crude in saying 'penis' instead of a man. I am sorry, but I am not really sorry. It is true. You have the privilege to be a man simply because of your penis. At the least, a cis man, of the heterosexual orientation. You have a privilege. You have a voice louder than a few people from other categories combined because we are historically still there. We live in a patriarchal world. I am writing things down this crudely because I want you to reflect on this. I don't know who this is reaching.I don't know if it reaches beyond my echo chambers but to the masses that I know to read and agree with this (as I see on my newsfeed), I want you to see even further. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A friend had recently posted about her experience with a stalker on her blog, racing thoughts of what to do, how to react and simply- the kind of fear every woman is acquainted with. Only yesterday, I was one of the two/three women at a poetry night to read poems surrounding sexual assault and molestation. I know of women in my family and my friends circles who have been victims of abuse and domestic violence. This is just what hit me in the span of three or four days. If I have to account every time a man touched me inappropriately, I could give you a book. Almost every woman would, especially if she is from India.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now, you all know this to a good deal. Let's dig a little deeper. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Men: Assume you want to go from point A to B and you don't have private transportation. Say, you'd have to take the bus. What would you do and what would go through your mind? I want you think about it for a second before you read any further. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Done? What was it? Say it out loud, please. Great. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Alright. Do you want to know what we go through? It starts at home with our parents asking us to be careful. <i>An average Indian woman's mother would have asked me (an average Indian woman) to adjust my dupatta if it looks like my breasts are garnering attention; I am asked to be safe (I really don't know what that means- it's out of my control). I go out to the road, I wonder if my clothes are in order. Is my cleavage visible? Are my bra straps peeping? Is that guy across the road a threat? Why is he staring at me like that? Is it my dupatta? There is the bus stop. I hope I am not attracting too much attention. Would that neighbour aunty think I am promiscuous because I am wearing extra kaajal today? Here comes the bus. Oh boy! It looks crowded. Do I wait for the next one? But I'd be late. All the seats for women are taken. I could wear my backpack and keep the men away but I'd be yelled at for taking up too much space. There is the stalker boy. Why doesn't he give up? I can feel someone's groin against my back-wait-is it just a lunchbox? Maybe. No. It's a hand- definitely a hand. Here is this woman making an eye contact with me- she knows. She understands. Maybe if I moved a little? No, that would mean two men at my back. One of them looks harmless though. But are they, really? Why is this bus jerking so much! There is my stop. Let me get past this crowd. Did that guy just touch my waist? Get out. Get out. Ah, air. Let's get to college. Oh, great- I have some sneering, lewd comments. How does that guy know my name? Is he following me? Shit, he's following me. There are not many people on this road either. Wait, oh, I am okay. He wasn't following me. There is destination B. Breathe. </i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(In fact, I wrote to a publication about this 6 years ago- <a href="http://theviewspaper.net/an-open-letter-to-those-opportunist-uncles-who-sexually-abuse-women-on-buses/"><span style="color: blue; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">An Open Letter to those Opportunist Uncles who Sexually Abuse women on Buses</span></a>). </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now, tell me. Was that tiring to read? Yes? That's how we feel every single day. Don't get me wrong, we are not fragile, defenseless women. If a man would try to touch me brazenly, I would now raise my voice. I would try to hit him and defend myself. But more than the physical strain I would ever have to go through, coping with issues of trusting men at all comes to the foreground. I have been sexually molested several times- starting from when I was in Grade 2 or 3 (that is the earliest I remember) and here is the thing- it's not just that preying man on the road. My Grade 3 memory is with a family member! These people are within families- extended and otherwise- people that your parents trust you with. One of my closest friends and I are conversing about this fatigue just as I write this and with her permission I am telling you her story: She was inappropriately touched by her grandfather. She is still uncomfortable about getting physical with her own boyfriend of several years- her heart says yes but the body screams no. She is one of the strongest and well-read people I know with a clear voice but no one but for me and a few others perhaps, know about this-not even her mother, whose father was responsible for this. Can you imagine how deep a disgust has to be if we can all feel it in our mouth after decades? I've been sexually harassed by opportunistic uncles on the bus, a bus conductor, stalkers when I was in school, a coach I loved with all my life- you have to understand how much energy I need to summon in order to write all this so publicly. When I read my poem yesterday at a poetry night I consider to be a safe space, a piece that took me 9 years to write, I saw in the eyes of some women that they <i>felt</i> what I was talking about. It's a kind of experience almost most of you men will never go through (I am not dismissing the innumerable cases of men who have been molested and raped though. Again, our society doesn't validate their trauma either. They ask them to buck up and <i>be a man</i>). </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Do this, my dear men reading this. I know you are against sexual assault and victim blaming. I do. But have you ever sat down to talk to your lady friend or sister about what goes on in her head? I bet you have listened to these experiences but have you asked them to tell you in detail, to trust you enough to tell you how it hit them mentally? Do any of these incidents after decades still have a hold on them; weigh in on their everyday decisions? ASK your wife or your girlfriend. Go on. I would ask you to be prepared to listen to the disgust, though. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt;">Is this post one of those big rants? I would partially agree. But would you learn more about your own stance against sexual assault towards a greater understanding- I would be inclined to say yes. Learn more about consent. Learn more about empathy. I am trying not to hug my own 4 year old niece without her permission- consent is everything. I hug only when she is okay with it. We have a lot of experiences and one kind of physical contact that you deem harmless may in fact, scare a woman to no ends because of her experiences. I read an <a href="http://www.upworthy.com/whats-rape-anxiety-this-woman-explained-it-to-her-favorite-men-and-they-were-shocked"><span style="color: blue;">article </span></a>online that summed up what rape anxiety is-I need for you to read it. Almost every woman you come in contact with has definitely experienced this. Do you understand how real this situation is? Do you understand how tiring it is to be un-trusting and on-guard all the time?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A lot of mothers tell their daughters: ALL men want one thing. Now, I have my qualms about that statement. I would like to think it is not true. I was talking to the previously mentioned friend about this and this is what she said: </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">"That's the problem you know. Remember the uncles you wrote about, in the buses. They are someone's father. Someone's husband. They are men that care very much for their families and this families care very much for them. Love them. Just the way we do our fathers. What goes wrong? Why can't they be trusted? It makes me realise that it's all men. And the futility of that. All men! How does one fight that?[sic]"</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What can I say to that? These are merely some difficult conversations and thoughts we have to have every day. I am not saying I don't trust men. I'm actually on the other end. I try and trust people on the outset, with my own boundaries. I try to let not scarring incidents change my trust in men. But it's something I have to dedicate myself to do- I have to spend time and energy on something I would very easily get blamed for- as a victim. Victim-blaming is way too real. My relatives have implied that of me. Your parents are doing the same when they say 'This is why she shouldn't go out late in the night!' A lot of this is care and concern but it's stifling and suffocating. I can't have a regular life because a boy on the streets can't control his sexual urges? I can't wear comfortable clothes, I have to avoid crowded buses, I can't hang out with male friends, I can't watch a late-night cinema, I can't stand around tea-shops, I can't do this and I can't do that- all of this is for absolutely no fault of mine. I have a curfew because I might get raped. Do you realise how fucked up that narrative is? </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This issue has been misinterpreted in many ways. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The #NotAllMen hashtag in response to the Bangalore's incident is a disgrace. Am I supposed to give you an award for not molesting someone? These hashtags are virtual good-for-nothings. What happens to us is real. The trauma and the hurt is real. If a woman cries when she sees something like this happen, like when you remember Nirbhaya's incident </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQZQF1ip9gM" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: blue; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">(remember this?)</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, it is because we </span><i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">know </i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">this. We can feel it in our bodies- it's a lot of disgust. And I don't even want to start on marital rape which is still not considered a crime in India!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">For starters, we want you to acknowledge this situation we are in. Let's agree that there is still a chauvinistic, patriarchal setting in the country that blames the victim and not the perpetrator under the guise of cultural values and belief systems. Read about it more. Ask people. I want you to understand this inside out to the point where you feel like you can't bear to hear of the details anymore. Then, I want you to use your privilege for good. Next time your parents say that the girl in the shorts was asking for it, tell them they are wrong. The next time one of your peers tells you that a woman is over-reacting, call them out. There is nothing manly about standing there and not saying anything about it. The next time a woman tells you how tiring it is- listen. If you see someone being attacked on the streets- help them. Let's all call out on misogyny and making all this sound normal. It's not! Movies are constantly showing the lead actor as a stalker who pursues a woman until she says yes. (If you know and understand Tamizh- </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHF00-FKwTg" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: blue;">see this</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. It's nicely-explained to some extent) I would assume that the man who hacked a woman (who refused to fall in love with him) to death at the Nungambakkam Railway Station is one such follower. Let's use social media to boycott such movies and raise opinions. What else can you do beyond sharing FB posts and outrage on Twitter? I would love to hear from you. </span></div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1052889176291399960" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1052889176291399960" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">My dear men reading this, I am not saying you're all like this. No. But I am saying that most of you do not really know how much trauma lies under this because you're privileged. You're privileged if you can go out at 2 AM for a run without being worried about being sexually harassed. Now, you may be afraid of being robbed- have you been afraid of being touched without consent? Especially in a country like India where this is happening, it's growing and it's scary. The response to these things are a list of victim-blaming and chauvinistic tones coming from people in power, politicians. Why don't we have a sex-offenders registry in India yet? If I can report every single man who touched me inappropriately, if there is a fear in the system, I would readily do it. (We are going to have a <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/govt-to-set-up-sex-offenders-registry/article8529302.ece"><span style="color: blue;">sex-offenders registry in India</span></a>, hopefully soon) But a lot more of what we have are men and women in positions of power that say 'boys will be boys'. That, I hope never becomes something you teach your kids, even as something that could be interpreted in a matter-of-fact way. It's a shame! </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I have to stop this for this is something that I can keep going on about. All I am saying is you are privileged in more ways than you know, as men. I want you to see to the maximum possible extents that you can, what it is that women have to face every day. Ask them. Make this a breakfast table topic. Learn, educate yourselves. Tell others who might not be on social media, not in your echo chamber. If you don't tell your parents who victim-blame a woman that they were wrong to be wearing what they were, or drinking, or out at 10 PM, you <i>are</i> still helping the oppressor. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">You <i>are </i>still a part of the problem. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Be the change you wish to see. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Much love to you for reading all this! </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1052889176291399960" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Hemu </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Also watch other videos that shed light on the things we have discussed here and the like :</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CvBBhI9f1k"><span style="color: blue;">That Day After Everyday</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1052889176291399960" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1052889176291399960" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><b style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hC0Ng_ajpY"><span style="color: blue;">It's Your Fault</span></a> </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Image Source: A still from the short film 'That Day After Everyday' by Anurag Kashyap. The image doesn't belong to me. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-88747223438527792262016-11-24T05:44:00.000+05:302016-11-24T10:14:41.690+05:30Being Bullied Passively in School : Ten Years Later <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was loved, growing up. Family, friends, an army of brothers: I know I was loved, in a very conventional sense of relationships and situations. But what I remember more than that love is that I was also slighted at almost every turn. As a result of that, I never felt loved. There is this difference between knowing you are being loved and feeling loved, and that is lost in many a friendship and relationships.<br />
<br />
The thought of school yards drag with it happy memories in the mud. I have friendships from Kindergarten that I still cherish and hold dear, and they are also the very same people who have hurt me without their own knowledge. Back then, I thought it was enough to be just loved, that the banter that accompanied it comes with friendship and intimate relationships. But at 14 years of age, I experienced a gaping hole like none other in the presence of the very people I grew up with, for a good decade. Almost all of them don't know about it, even now. It took me my higher secondary education, five years of college, and becoming 22 before I realised that love was not enough, that the assumed 'friendly banter' is not acceptable and the fact that I have, indeed been passively bullied for a good part of my formative years. I vocalised this to two of my friends (from school) about two years ago: one of whom was subject to something similar in our school-life and another (who has been through their fair share of experiences) who looked a little stunned to know how much of what they thought was not a big deal has affected us in our respective lives.<br />
<br />
I was always the person targeted as the 'entertainment' in many groups of people from my school life. I was a fairly popular kid for an interesting mix of reasons: being one of the best sports-persons in school, my loquaciousness and my uninhibited strength to ask silly questions about the things I don't understand. While each of these sound to be independently good aspects of my personality (which I believe they are), it was also what was made fun of at every point. I was (and still am) a tomboy. I talk a lot and in those formative years at school when you are still trying to make sense of life and finding out who you are, trying to accept and wishfully want to be accepted, being passively bullied fell together with me. I understand how my talkativeness could be annoying to someone but it was not like I always blabber incomprehensible gibberish. Every time I had something to say, I was shut off before I was heard, I was laughed at before I finished the sentence and sometimes, left alone to finish saying what I wanted to say because I have even had people walk away from conversations with me. I have been asked to shut up. I have been asked to stop 'lecturing' someone when I would merely be trying to tell someone about my thoughts on a particular matter. My voice was loud, but it was not heard and I want to tell you how much that hurts, even now. These experiences from school form a great part of our lives, it chisels us to be who we are. I think I am finally at that place where I can publicly say this, without anger or sounding accusatory.<br />
<br />
When you are not heard, when you are not seen for anything but as being the person who is prodded to ask questions in a classroom by the other students so that the class could potentially waste time in a boring course, when your talents are not quite acknowledged, or when you're visible only for the times of entertainment for someone else: you learn to build walls. You learn to build walls to keep everyone at a distance, dole out unconditional love for a select few and stay safe with yourself.My own friends have been passive bullies, and they have left me with huge insecurities about myself. I find myself apologizing frequently when I talk to people because I have been made to feel like I am not worth someone's time in the past. I speak quickly so I can speak without being cut off. I learnt to focus on art, writing, reading books, being involved in sports and by default, being in the company of dogs. These skills I built were overlooked for a good deal of time. Even now, when someone compliments my writing or art, it doesn't go into me beyond my skin. These things don't seem to travel far but they definitely do cut deep.<br />
<br />
While I am not an anxious or an anti-social person on the surface, I am left over-thinking a lot of things and conversations. I make acquaintances with people easily. I am easy to talk to. I believe this in itself turned up to be a part of myself because I know how it feels like when you're assumed invisible or looked through. My empathy can definitely improve, but I learnt a lot more quickly (in comparison to my peers) to be kind, to give someone the benefit of the doubt.<br />
<br />
Of course, my intention is not to pull the rug from under my friendships but to bring to the forefront, how these interactions have impacted me. I don't hold any resentment for any of my friends who have hurt me: they did not even realise that what they were doing is actually passively bullying someone. Their intent was good perhaps, but their actions directed by peer pressure and the weight of growing up to fit certain slots put me through rough times. For that reason, I decided not to ever treat someone unkindly. I would talk to everyone in my class, there were no outcasts nor uncool kids in my sight. I played with everyone, interacted with everyone and tried reaching out to people in ways I could. But to this day, it's hard for me to accept an outreached arm at me. I don't accept love easily. I don't call someone my close friend easily. I don't share what is on my mind with someone unless I know to trust them fully. I am always on the edge on the inside of my soul. I am almost always expecting someone to bid me goodbye or ask me to shut up. That, perhaps is the baggage I carry with me from school- like a backpack. I have not been able to set it down since.<br />
<br />
I have been discussing this several times with a good friend from my school who went through something similar. Classmates and my friends used to assume what this person is made up of. They have told me of similar and other issues that presses them until this day. They are in a great position in life, they worked a good job and are now abroad, in a prestigious university. But the insecurity and scars from childhood into adulthood has not faded away. They are still too haunting. I wonder how different this situation would have been had we had counselors in school and more awareness about such concepts. It still exists in a majority of schools, where I am from. Teachers were not sensitized to pick any of these up. I have my first two favourite professors now: when I am now pursuing my Masters degree and that is because they are sensitive and pick up things quickly, they ask me and we have conversations. We need some changes in our own systems of education.<br />
<br />
One thing that kind of seems visible in confrontations I have had recently on this front is the fact that me being hurt about something almost seemed incomprehensible to the other because they were 'only joking'. 'We love you, we were only joking', they'd say. You don't get to decide if someone else is hurt or not, that is simply not an option or a decision of yours to make! Please remember to be kind, please remember to check-in with someone you think you may have offended in any conversation. We all grow up. I am not the person I was ten years ago. My interactions have to, thus, change with time. Sadly, when I do position myself strongly now, it hurts the very people I am trying to tell that have been hurting me all this time. But, I guess that's inevitable right now.<br />
<br />
Being subject to such instances and mildly self-troubling formative years has left me a person most people don't recognise. When I am truly trust you, I speak to you in a different way of which only a few know. I urge you you to be generous with your kindness. You never know when you make someone's day. For, when I have been subject to all this and in seventh grade, I got out of an English exam to have one of my own friends who has been their share of insensitive tell me that the composition passage reminded them of me. It said and I still remember 'Creative people are not afraid to ask silly doubts'. It was a reinforcement of sorts. I never stopped asking questions or being talkative despite what I went through. It hurt, but I tried and pushed through because I didn't want someone else to define who I am, as a person. Please remember that any relationship needs both love and respect. It can't survive on just one of these.<br />
<br />
All this only made me stronger. I learnt to take care of myself. I learnt to be independent. I developed skills that were in part coping mechanisms and a good part, passion. The last few times I confronted someone close to me about this, they were hurt/offended. I had to spell out that it's not okay to hurt someone even though you love them dearly. You don't love someone and hurt them for being who they are or what you think they are. It has been as hard for me as much as it is for them, and I hope they understand that. My intention isn't to hurt anyone but speak up because this is an important message to put out for one to see. I had a draft of this almost two years ago and I'm only getting around to publishing this now, because this time around, I have to let go. I have to write this down and let this go.<br />
<br />
This time, I am still loud and will make sure I am heard.<br />
<br />
Please be kind to one another.<br />
<br />
Hemu<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: Pixabay </td></tr>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-61978710376263333372016-11-07T20:29:00.000+05:302016-11-07T21:09:37.158+05:30I Stand a Cyclical Step Away from Being Everything Else <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I am tucked away in a niche on
the highest floor of the campus library where no one can find me. No one can
directly see me or at the least, I can’t see anyone but for the tree tops slowing
changing colours in the fall of the summer, now gone by. I am amidst everything
that is me: changing colours, a dot of an existence in the infinite and
everything transient. I am also everything that isn’t me: gable roofs, sweaters
and a partial slice of these surroundings. I am removed right now. I am
listening to Chopin’s nocturnes as the sun shines outside the curtain wall
spread of glass and wondering how being stuck in such a turbulent and
delightful place can be expressed in words. I am going to try anyway.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I am bi-lingual. I am actually
tri-lingual, so to speak. I am quadruple-lingual if I consider pieces of other
languages I know enough to have a conversation with a Tea Master for a cup of
chai across almost any state in my country and yet, I need my American friend to say
‘vanilla’ for me because my accent is somehow incongruous to the barista who
can’t understand when I say ‘vanilla’. <i>Vann-nila
Milkshake, </i>I say. How do you read an
Indian woman saying ‘vanilla’? The word itself seems weird to me now that I
have repeated it over and over again. But do you know what is comforting? Vennila.
<span style="font-family: "latha" , "sans-serif";">வெண்ணிலா</span>, is the bright, white moon. The bright moon
under which I sing and write, that which is everything comforting to me, that
which is midnight stories from my mother, books I read under dim lights on the terrace and a constant companion. We hear what
we want to. We listen to our own projections and inner-most calling, cravings and demons. Every time I hear words, I
don’t see just one meaning. I see its mermaid sisters in other languages, swimming
by hand-in-hand. I seem to have gills for pores and wings for fins. I am
familiar. I am unfamiliar. I hold them all in my fist and I can easily switch
between at the least three languages within the fraction of a second and yet, I
am not understood when I say ‘vanilla’. What
then, is my proficiency with these languages? I’d go one step further, what <i>is</i> proficiency itself? What does it mean? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I urge you to listen to Chopin’s
nocturnes in broad daylight. Throw yourself in my shoes, out of context, out of
everything comfortably known. There is nothing as vibrant and melancholic as
these compositions. What do you hear when you listen to a solo piano piece?
What language pops up in your head? You’re surely thinking, aren’t you? What
language do you think in? What language
do you think in when you close your eyes and see your mother’s face? When are
those times your parents call you by your full name? What are the words that
accompany the oddness of being referred to by our entire name by the ones we love, and if it is a language that you know, go deeper. Do you <i>know</i> the language or the inward surge that comes with it? If you
had to tell the story of that inwardly gut, a wrenching pain or an excruciatingly
beautiful joy, what are your words going to be?
We are a race that vastly identifies itself with linguistics, one’s
mother tongue and inflections of a language’s voice and yet, for most things
that strike us, we speak in silence, in pauses and in breathing; in being
understood and experienced. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I talk to you from this place.
The whole globe is cyclical and I am at the edge of one of the poles. Should I
slip, I fall straight south. With a single step upward, I go down. I am walking a tightrope on the horizon. With
each step, I am seeking a balance. I am slack-lining; dipping up and down, trying
not to fall. I am looking for a word in English that comes closest to <span style="font-family: "latha" , "sans-serif";">கண்ணம்மா</span>. I am amazed at how the word <span style="font-family: "mangal" , "serif";">ख्वाब</span> sounds in my mouth and its lyricism in
poetry. One of my closest friends in this country said I was an effervescent personality whereas an angry ex-roommate called me a 'bad person' and that is interesting, someone else's words/descriptions of me: I like that added
to the many pieces of who I am. I like these little bits of donated words to
make me anew and changing but I am also everything I grew up with and devoured ,by myself. I grew up
with <span style="font-family: "latha" , "sans-serif";">கண்ணம்மா</span>, with <span style="font-family: "latha" , "sans-serif";">கண்ணா</span> resounding in my ears. I can’t quite read
anything as quickly in my own language as I can in English. I am auditorily
attuned to the nuances of my language; it’s a meadow with rivers and the
sounds, words come with memory, with nostalgia, with my mother’s face, my grandmother's smile and hot playgrounds. There is
comforting familiarity in knowing what I am hearing and what it means to the
one saying it, in my mother tongue. And yet, I can read English better than any
other language I know. I know what I am looking for. Both of these languages
now, hold me at an arm’s distance in one way or another. I am in-between
languages, I am in the middle of explaining myself to people on either sides. I
am no one story. I am too many of them and based on which side you ask me to
tell you the story from, my narrative is going to change. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I want to layer my stories with the words you don’t know when I tell
them. I want to know what you think they are and what I think they are and what they
really do mean. I can’t translate for you what I viscerally understand. I read an interesting article with the term Shaman in Spanish (by a bi-lingual writer) and I am automatically thinking of the same word in Urdu. Oddly
enough, these words mean close to the same thing in both these languages- one
connecting the spirit and visible worlds. What do you think connects me and you? What
connects a Spaniard and an Indian speaking a language that is a mix of Hindi
and Farsi? How did these words travel? Like me, I’d like to think that language is
cyclical too. It is stuck between familiarity and unfamiliarity. A language is
one step away from falling into another and becoming one or something new. I am
all these missteps; I am something new, something old and a confluence. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%;">
My friend, in a conversation yesterday, told me that all
art is political. This turned up at a time when I independently wonder of the personal and the political in my art, writing and stance. Everything I write, say, make, or sketch is a manifestation
on some level, a piece of my socio-cultural-linguistic environs. You are partaking in a bygone memory or incident that shaped me, now, across time. It is in the way
I say ‘vanilla’, it’s the way I draw the moon, it’s the way I write a poem
about my mother’s and my <span style="font-family: "latha" , "sans-serif";">மூக்குத்தி
</span>and how I have embraced what it
means to me now… to see her in myself as I move away from her, into being
someone else. What do you think <span style="font-family: "latha" , "sans-serif";">மூக்குத்தி</span> is, anyway? I implore you to trace the form
of these words that you may not understand. Try to write these words you see
and write what you think they mean. They have a story that is me and you have
one, too. Do you think these stories can fall together, find some link, a tear
to share or a smile? Stories are what make and break us. Micro-narratives
stitching up a whole picture full of holes: tears sewn up with the sun shining
through them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I seem to belong and flit between everything I know and don’t know. I
fall freely everywhere. I belong nowhere. I talk to you from my land of
in-between's where everything is a simultaneous existence, one cyclical step
away from being something else. I am everything you know and everything you
don’t.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "latha" , "sans-serif";">வாஞ்சை
கதைகள் தரவா? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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Hemu <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GIP84uCkiDw/WCCU6c1FsgI/AAAAAAAAAsA/6SExgeyfagcPp9-1KvMYC4ju6GusermBgCLcB/s1600/Wings%2Bfor%2Bfins%252C%2Bgills%2Bfor%2Bpores.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GIP84uCkiDw/WCCU6c1FsgI/AAAAAAAAAsA/6SExgeyfagcPp9-1KvMYC4ju6GusermBgCLcB/s640/Wings%2Bfor%2Bfins%252C%2Bgills%2Bfor%2Bpores.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">© </span> Hemalatha Venkataraman: Please do not reproduce without permission</td></tr>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b>References:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Latha;">Borderland: Gloria Anzldua (A book
that I actually started reading when I told someone I consider my mentor that I
feel like I am in-between worlds) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Latha;"><br /></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Latha;">Sommers- I Stand Writing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-28686363774949526602016-10-17T05:28:00.001+05:302020-04-11T07:15:06.709+05:30Waking Up Every Morning | My Fondest Everyday Memory from Childhood <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mosaic floors embedded with broken bits of colourful tiles
stuck into its grounded stature at 254/4, Pioneer Colony, shone with the
perfection of a man clad in a tuxedo on his wedding day. They held some
chillness in its flat owing to the modest winter setting in, in the humid
city; bearing the silent imprints of the footsteps walked around, in the house.
Big, Appa-feet shuffling around the hall whose ever-searching eyes pored
through the morning newspapers. A pair of slightly smaller, heavier feet
previously adorned in silver anklets whose sounds resounded through the
enclosed walls, now roamed around bare; making short trips between the kitchen
and the dining table. The sari-clad mother, Amma, held in her hands tiffin-boxes and
vegetables for the day while the wrists bore plastic bangles of red,
auspicious. Oh, then there were these feet one couldn’t see as they were slipped within white canvas shoes gleaming in the tweak hours of twilight, of a young girl
in two plaits whose morning smile was as heavy as her black school bag; whose
prints followed her in a momentous memory till the balcony doors before she
wheeled her bicycle out through the hall and into the lobby of the ground
floor. The un-oiled, rustic lock of the balcony’s grill-doors smiled at her, a
hard smile visible only to observant eyes. Appa stepped out into the dark of
the eons a little before sunrise till the hallway to shoo away any wild stray
that might smell the porridge off the teenager’s scalded lips in an ironed
uniform of blue, and waved her an affectionate bye as he saw her riding away
into the dark void before the first rays of sun could reach
her. Perhaps, she could have waited for the world’s embrace of translucent golden
love before she starts on her journey. Things seem so much simpler then. <br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His steps traced back
with a tiring embrace of the names of his favorite gods for the good
filter-coffee from his wife and, the black and white papers of the nation. It
posed, waiting for him on the <i>teapoy</i>
and the teak sofa by the window. Appa made his way into the house though,
keeping his parched throat in a wait for his nerves had to be satiated with the
taking out of the trash, arranging the empty boxes on the teak-wood table,
bringing down the clothes from the vibrant nylon ropes now that they are dry while calling out to Amma for
the coffee in all obviousness of his day-to-day activities.<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Be right there’, she
hollered and then began calling out to the early winged visitors of the crow community
for breakfast in the backyard, on the concrete luxury of a water motor sump room. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The hues of
the sky changed. The sun decided to wake up from another world, a unanimous
decision of millions of people who took the big source of life for granted.
Life, in their terms always got better when the orange ball ascends. There was
App sipping his coffee from the stainless steel tumbler, relishing it with
words of the morning papers so far favourable. Amma had begun the string of chants and
prayers that would go for at least the next forty five minutes calling out to all the ancestors and gods to protect her family. Gods. Lots of them. Ones with
animal heads, ones with human heads and a divine halo. Gods with several hands
and hour-glass figures. Lovely goddesses in sparkling diamonds on both sides of
their noses and some with matted hair. Amma knew them all, as They walked into
the house, supposedly with an assuring note to kick-start her day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the rays of the sun now streamed and penetrated through the curtain-less windows of the
bedroom windows open to fresh air, a child twisted her bare body to shield them
away from its small self. Her tender feet had yet not met the cold floor and
were still within the flimsy covers of the big bed. Tousled hair fell over her eyes and the beginning of the nape and no more. The skin shone with exuberant
gold as the radiance bounced off the naked back beginning to now extrude
glistens of sweat waiting to be trickled off. Tossing for air, the child
rolled, calling for Appa (who had switched off the fan) in soft tones that her
morning energy could allow. Laying still and waiting for Appa got to the little
one in all the heat the humid city could bundle up. Blankets were then kicked
in slow motion and those tiny eyes tried to blink through sleepy vision for the initial staring of the day. The thin, half-naked body in just a navy-blue
underwear with yellow hot air balloons for a print lay still, breathing. If one saw her from the door of the room, they wouldn't know for sure if that child so cherubic is a girl or boy, at the first
glance given her tiny frame and short hair. But I know her more than she
thinks she knows herself. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She’s a little,
little girl, and I've travelled through time to see her non-conforming looks, innocence and happiness in the eye, again after all these years.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The placid walls
and heavily descended golden transience opened her to an unintentional cosmos of what seemed to be real to the rest of the world. She got down with every whim of a child
and stood up on those short legs. Her
pink lips let out a yawn and her hands broke into the air, fighting with the
angels and pushing them against the rooms’ loft that she now stood under. She
then adjusted her ballooned underwear, imprinting its elasticity on her
delicate navel to view the pink band across its existence. Pouting and pushing
her hair away from her face, she took slow steps with me into the long hallway;
past the long oval wooden dining table and into the living room. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Appa hadn’t seen or
heard her tiny stature pull herself out of imagination and dreams onto the cold
winter morning until she knocked on the leafy portal wide open between his
brown hands. He pulled them close to look at the fair girl with a radiant glow
rolling her fist into her eyes. As her hair set about scattering when it met
with the morning breeze from the window by the sofa, she sluggishly mounted
onto his strong laps. Appa collected her into his magnificent arms as she
twisted and turned to finally roll into a riot of a ball, legs hanging down his
lap; a hand around his back against the red cushions of the sofa, and her round head resting on his chest. He held the tiny, little bundle of a
girl who is all tenderness and love as she swiftly fell into abyss, sleeping to
the creaky, fixed journey of the living room fan in the ceiling, throwing at
her, tufts of air.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thefeministwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/bampw-bed-bedroom-black-amp-white-black-and-white-Favim.com-326537.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://www.thefeministwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/bampw-bed-bedroom-black-amp-white-black-and-white-Favim.com-326537.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Source: http://www.thefeministwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/bampw-bed-bedroom-black-amp-white-black-and-white-Favim.com-326537.jpg<br />
<br />
This image DOES NOT BELONG TO ME </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> Hemu </o:p></div>
</div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-57741669219003438052016-08-07T09:03:00.000+05:302016-08-08T01:10:40.947+05:30Living in the Land of In-Betweens<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today marks a year of being away from my family in India, having embarked on a fiercely turbulent and beautiful period in my life: full of learning, leaving and living. It's been a year since I moved to this country to pursue my higher education. I can safely say I've grown and learnt more outside school than within classrooms as a student or teaching one as an instructor.<br />
<br />
Leaving the streets I grew up in full of mongrels that know me, extended family living a stone's throw away, best friends on the next street, wrestling with brothers, standing about predominantly male occupied spaces like that roadside tea shop where the Tea Master knows exactly how you take your tea but never feeling threatened by any of them, and never feeling lost: this has been a crazy ride albeit momentous. Cultural shocks were always in the little things for me: neighbours whose living room I've never seen, the people who walked away after 'How you doing?' as I was knee deep in replies and, the absence of street dogs and terraces. Not knowing anything was one of the best things that happened to me and I thoroughly enjoy cracking jokes inside my own head, the intricacies of my language playing in my head, and meeting new people.<br />
<br />
Is it all sunshine? No. Living with my parents all this time was a choice I didn't question or think twice about. It was a natural state of affairs. Living like that, I never questioned what home meant. If someone from my own city asked me where my home was, I would give them the name of my neighbourhood. If I was in a different state in my country, I would say 'Tamilnadu'. There are so many layers and social constructs to this sense of home that I never introspected upon. All these variations of answers thus far to 'where is your home' were never unsettling and never did not feel right. They were all culturally and socially understood. Now, in the midst of these versions, I have zoomed out into thinking about those terms across mere geographical entities and into a question of who I am and into a deeper sense of what the term could come to mean.<br />
<br />
There are things I miss about India in this country and that is easily a cultural condition. The sense of a community here is constrained in my world simply because I have only been exposed to one version of what community means. I wonder now, if I miss knowing people on the road I happen to walk on. One of my best friends was forever skeptical to go on walks with me because I usually am familiar with the people on the streets (and their dogs) and I kept stopping to say hi to all of them, and that irritated her to no end. There should have been some sort of familiarity here by this point, I reckon but I am not sure if I have located any. On the other hand, I enjoy slinking away into the background and not being known or recognised. I live in-between ends like these two, swinging between sides and not feeling comfortable staying on either end. There are aspects of living in India that I adore, enmeshed parts of my life here that I am grateful for and enjoy; but neither of them fit anymore. Rather, I don't fit into either of these societies completely. I can't stay in one because I have been in the other, they're different moulds. This has led to living in a land of living in-between worlds. I could call it that or a feeling of not belonging in either of these places. All that said and done, this is not necessarily a bad condition either.<br />
<br />
None of this is associated with sadness in its entirety. These are phases of growing and coming to terms with certain aspects of life that was buried underneath layers of a false sense of security at various points. Right now, to truly be in turbulence is interesting as it helps me let go of weights that make me feel put otherwise. I can now cast some over my shoulders and move a step on (just threw out some toxic atmosphere I had to live with for the last year, there is that progress). I have a wonderful local poetry community to be a part of since the start of my Spring and numerous acquaintances from there to be thankful for. My vulnerability has always been a calculated venture, a fort from my own past but aspects of it see tiny differences. My summer months have turned around to have me encounter some really interesting experiences. I learnt to be vulnerable on a slack-line with a great person, garnered some wonderful friendships (well, three to be precise) that has its own period of waxing and waning, forever plummeting and flying. These relatively newfound but truly close and important relationships have their own roadblocks that I am trying to break through in ways I best know how to. I wonder how they are going to turn out, but here is to hoping only for the best.<br />
<br />
The land of in-between is every man's subjective land, I assume. We all battle with our own sources of discomfort, freedom and independence. I recently had a conversation with one of my childhood friends who is also abroad and she admitted to feeling the same way, though her version varied a little from how I feel at this juncture. We are all lost here. We are all trying to grapple away at the fray ends of the first thing that feels like home, like familiarity and relationships that remind us of our loved ones back home before it manifests into itself. These new experiences shape me as I encounter them and I'm learning of the many ways in which someone loves and prioritizes another.<br />
<br />
It's been a year since I arrived at Columbus. I'm not precisely sure of what I learnt in the last year but that every moment has been a form of growth even if it comes with sadness or pain, every relationship a lesson, and also that I am three truly honest and genuine friends richer with whom I can talk about anything.<br />
<br />
Also, home is no longer a place.<br />
<br />
Home after all this, is a feeling. Whether I shall find it and acknowledge it the way I envisage it, however, is not something I know of. I can't control that.<br />
<br />
Until then, from the land of in-betweens,<br />
<br />
Hemu<br />
<br />
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-59911753283012442652016-08-01T10:49:00.001+05:302016-08-06T09:42:24.036+05:30Universe Aftertastes <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">There is an aftertaste of the universe in my mouth</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">light years away from the crumbling insides of my self.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">They have started pouring themselves into my void</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">and I've been swallowing the vastness</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">they slip through the insides of my breasts, tummy </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;"><br />through my legs and down my feet.<br />My feet.<br />The sand under them have been rolling away with the retreating waves,<br />I'm shorter with each lick<br />until I can see my feet no more,<br />they're buried in sand:<br />the universe is finding its way back to the ocean.<br />My fingertips are atoms<br />and they burst into pixie dust<br />as I try to grasp my galaxies<br />but they slide away into the waters<br />though the pores in the sand,<br />air bubble worlds in the froth.<br />I can't go after it because I can't swim, </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; display: inline; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">drowning actively isn't an option.<br />I can't die like that.<br />Well,<br />It's going to take a while<br />but<br />I can't see my ankles anymore.</span></div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-9134337248014417142016-06-28T04:08:00.002+05:302016-06-28T04:16:41.070+05:30High <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I’ve never lived in homes with ceilings low,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
breathing on me<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
like the open windows don’t belong <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
within the walls;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
they’re too stumped, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
buckling, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
falling,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
pressing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I live now in an old apartment<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and it seems like yesteryears were full of people like me
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
who didn’t want buckling walls ,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
let tall lovers graze their homes with no apprehension,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
believing in the power and beauty of them high ceilings:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
untouchable bases of everyday living,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
a space that lets you move. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It lets you explore. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
It lets you jump. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Jump because I jump sometimes<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
in joy,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I shoot up when someone tickles me<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
an involuntary happiness that I can’t contain<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
it just spills and reaches out of my body.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I shoot.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Shoots, yes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I want a lot of them, green from the top<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
hanging from my indoor skies,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
vines filling for the veins of the walls,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
pots and plants scaling my thoughts, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
upright striving<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and a safe space for their flowers to bloom. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I love high ceilings and I can’t lie,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
not in houses alone<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
nor at work or that breakfast diner on my street<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
but at the psychiatrist’s office<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
or that bar that was once a bank<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and in funeral homes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The soul needs space to leave that body,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
an outworn piece of clothing<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
the music needs to bounce,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
it needs to echo, to want to dance in the presumed void;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
it lets me dance with my beloved I bring home<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and should he want to carry me high up<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
straddle my soul on his hips,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
breasts at his lips<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I want nothing to touch, no ceiling to hold on to<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
except the high cheekbones of his face. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I can’t be put in places with low ceilings, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
they make me seems bigger than I am,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
a giant, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
an illusion of being free to accomplish goals<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and I am not sure that is me. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The high ceilings are a friend <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
long lost <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
walls holding them up for me.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
They meet me with open, blank slates<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
my art has the space to breathe,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
the poems are up on my walls<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
living in sprouting light,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
shadows incarnated. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
When I’m head flat, water in my ears<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
in the bathtub<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
naked and suspended of social intrusions<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I like looking at the light playing with the blinds<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
behind my back;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
a fresh canvas<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
not breathing down on me or pressing me,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
coercing me to be big<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
but a tender look that allows my insignificance to
manifest.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The crown moulding looks at me like a lover,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
the walls let me touch them<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
slow, I write in the air.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I once read this story about a man who filled his walls <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
with art, poetry and words,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
ceiling resplendent with the words of others<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
until he hung himself from the fan<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and I can’t help but think<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
how high his ceiling was<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
because these words can float,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
they need no tethering,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
they are little free lives in themselves<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and if you put them in a box<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and throw a person like me in it<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I can never make peace with those words<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and art, arrogantly mine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I need the volume to love and it’s important that I love<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
because that is when I <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and the colours<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and the words I string <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
are most beautiful <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and should you come to my funeral when I am gone,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I don’t want these words haunting you: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
making you cry, kissing you against your will<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
but makes you rise and pluck words from my space<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
creating your poems from mine already dead, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
streak it with colours <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
to later tell people about me<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
with a smile:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
That funeral was hauntingly beautiful<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and then,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Remember to look up<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
because<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I am probably still there. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/93/17/32/93173274441394347ca86a84835230e3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/93/17/32/93173274441394347ca86a84835230e3.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I do not own this image. Collected from Pinterest.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Hemu </div>
</div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-6679582319987720972016-05-05T09:32:00.001+05:302016-05-05T10:01:04.172+05:30Home? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I woke up one evening to a late summer sun that lives far beyond </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">its days of regular hours of light</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to be situated in movement, in dynamism,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">flitting between my lands of illusion and perceived reality. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I searched for landscapes that I’ve known to see by virtue of comfort</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in between content sleep and momentary awakenings. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I travel,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">there are reassuring dim lights outlining mounds of back-lit mountains</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with their own gaudy colours and early night's chatter.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My father in the front seat:</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> awake and seriously holding a conversation with the driver while</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the speakers float in a language </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I comprehend at the most intimate l</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">evel. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I woke up in a car racing back ‘home’.. Or what I should call home. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It took me three whole minutes to realise where I was</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">after the remnants of deep slumber </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">resting itself in the nooks of my breasts awoke</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">to </span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">transience</span><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ten months in this city </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and I still wake up from every deep slumber </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to unfamiliarity. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why, the dogs here never stop. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They don’t have the time to stop. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They’re smiling and following the tug on their leash</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">following their human who has taught them to sit up straight and act like a dog, </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to not lick the faces of people they love and act like a dog. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Don’t jump on her, those clothes will get dirty!</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Act like a good dog! </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They apologise for their furry companions sometimes,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘I’m so sorry, He loves people.’ they say</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and I want to just strip free of the collars round my neck,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">strained attempts to ridiculous decorum </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and roll by their side and fight in the mud;</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">because</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">familiarity to me is turning into my street </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and whistling to have five street mongrels at my side. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They jump, they paw, they lick</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and I could wash their freaking ticks away if I ever contracted any </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But their love stays on across the seas for all the times they've listened to me </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">with crooked ears and curious eyes. </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so, </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">every single time I see a well-behaved dog outside my window</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">after a slumber so deep that I don’t realise where I am, </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I miss being home where chaos was more unruly with herself,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">flirting with the orderliness of monotony... </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I finally understand what homesickness really means. </span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-a91789ae-7efc-bb37-7914-5af732632f6f"><br /></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But now, I'm not sure I know what home means. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-Hemu </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://static.pexels.com/photos/3351/black-and-white-person-woman-girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://static.pexels.com/photos/3351/black-and-white-person-woman-girl.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-51908761776982772022016-04-03T11:52:00.001+05:302016-04-03T11:52:52.231+05:30Why I'm Not on Tinder <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
A friend of mine recently asked me why I am not on
Tinder.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I paused for a second, a wild stream of visual cues
flowing in my head <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
but no words at that moment to exactly answer that
question. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
There lies no judgment in me for people for whom it works<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
but in my own twisted mind full of second-hand books that
smell like tea <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and library stamps as old as me, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
a digital imprint as that struggles at the borders of my
comfort zone. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I haven’t yet grasped the idea of swiping left or right. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
People say I have to go after what I want but this
doesn’t quite seem like seeking love yet<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
but squeezing possibilities out of the hope and
dreaminess <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
uncertainty has latent in it in such a way that the
tiniest thread persists in you<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
when you call quits. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
No, I don’t think I quite fit in that narrative. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You see, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
before and when I go out with you, I don’t want to have a
safety net of what you do <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
or the weighing insecurity of who you did. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I don’t care if you’re 6’2” or the next fraction of
measurement and <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
neither do I want unsolicited dick pictures in my inbox
floating next to blank ‘Hi’s’ <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
that were thrown in like bait in the sea. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
No. That’s not what I believe in. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I believe in first dates where you can tell me more about
what you do for passion instead of profession.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I don’t want small talk. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I don’t want to know where you’re from or who’s in your
family but<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
how you feel when I say the word ‘home’ and what that
means to you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Would there be kitchen stools, pajamas, little legs and
hot chocolate <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
or a glass of bourbon mixed in parts with fear and dread?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Tell me about your childhood dreams.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Tell me what you wanted to be when you were little and
why you never became them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Tell me why you believed all those people who said that
superheroes weren’t real or that fish whisperer wasn’t on the hot job market.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Tell me what a fish whisperer meant in your little head
and bright eyes, in the first place. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
No, I don’t really want to know which school you went to
but what you learnt,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
un-learnt and re-learned. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Did you smile in your high school year book or were you
afraid your braces would haunt<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
that beautiful broad grin of yours?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I want to know how you talk to your mother <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and if she adjusted your tie on your prom night before
you left into your version of adulthood?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Did you dance that night?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Tell me who that least popular kid in school was and if
you ever gave them company<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
so that they didn’t feel shunned in the cruelty that some
school lives can be…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
….or wait, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
tell me, were you that kid? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I’d like it known that I would rather have you turning up
at my doorstep<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
with nothing more than a smile and enough meaningful
conversation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I fall in love with the small, important things.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Do you like cats or dogs?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
If you have one of them divine beings, did you buy or
adopt them?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Do you like tea or coffee?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Tell me, I need to know exactly what you take in it, how
many cubes of sugar and all<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and where you best like to drink it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
What do you first think of when I say the word ‘fuck’ or
how weird ‘lovemaking’ sounds to you? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
We’re still both strangers here and I don’t judge <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and so, I’d like
to know if you think drunken nights with nakedness are more intimate than<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
sharing a morning breakfast together still clothed in the
modesty clinging to <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
our carnal expressions of the previous night.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I want to know everything I can <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
from how you smile when you blush or if you have deep
dimples I’d want to kiss <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
in a three-dimensional world. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I want to see how you talk about your favourite fictional
character <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and if gym means making an impression or fitness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I want to know what ice-cream flavours you like and <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
how you walk on the crosswalk as cars wait for you to
pass<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and if you ever gesture them thanks for stopping. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I have to know how your grandparents kissed you as a
child and <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
how they looked at each other<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and if you ever think you can ever have that with
someone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
You see, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I want to know when you last sent a postcard to someone <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and if you ever wrote a love letter. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
No, something would seem amiss if I swiped you right on
the best pictures of yourself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
No. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Until I know the rhythm with which you walk, the hand you
wear your watch on,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
how you treat a waiter or a child <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and what tune you may whistle on a sunny day,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I can’t swipe you right. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
In my little twisted mind full of second-hand books that
smell like tea <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
and library stamps as old as me, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
that just <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
won’t <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
be <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
right. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.mostbeautifulrussianwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dating-Couple-Laughing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.mostbeautifulrussianwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dating-Couple-Laughing.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Source: http://www.mostbeautifulrussianwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dating-Couple-Laughing.jpg</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
</div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-28812551252953898382016-03-14T07:01:00.000+05:302016-03-14T07:01:22.066+05:30Where Are Your Curiosities? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I met an interesting lady in the locker room at the gym, on campus.<br />
<br />
Amidst women changing into workout gear and fleets of us just in transit with a towel around our bodies, I met this down-to-earth soul who wrapped herself around with a special kind of joy. I haven't really had much of a conversation here with anyone in the locker room because everyone is predominantly in some sort of a hurry. There are some smiles now and then, quick questions about the weather, workout and fitness, and occasional stories between friends there that comes to float over your head; but there is hardly any time to sit down and talk to someone you don't know. I cherish these kind of dialogues and I recollect having them with random strangers ever since I was young and had started traveling alone for my gymnastics meets across the country. It's a refreshing encounter, every single time!<br />
<br />
In a locker room majorly occupied by young college students, she stood out to me: not because of her age but because of her demeanour that consisted of a special kind of radiating smile. She smiled at me and I did so too, I've missed that in a while. She is easily 60 years older than I am. She had come in to swim because it was 'liberating'. For a person like me who is mortally afraid of deep waters (even after swimming lessons), she was an immediate conversation starter. 'Do what you're afraid of', was what she told me and immediately added she didn't mean to preach. I feel culturally attuned to being open to other people's life experiences and it was strange for me to hear someone as old as her to say that she did not mean to 'preach'. It's an interesting crossover for me, a person from a different culture. I wouldn't mind it anyway. Some of the best conversations I've had are with people with a lifetime of experiences and even though I have come to disagree with some of their notions in the past, I have learnt to listen to them and respond, sometimes to gently disagree. Learning to convey disagreement of ideas in a placid and respectable manner are some of the curves I've come to correspond with at twenty four,I guess!<br />
<br />
I have always had this affection for people with a zest for life and an innocent disposition bordering curiosity in their quest for life, especially if they're much older than I am. Here is this amazing women for whom walking is difficult but swimming is gently easy and embracing. We were joking about how there needs to be water channels instead of pathways on campus. I was extremely curious to know what education she was pursuing and she generated an entire list! She graduated in 1949, if I remember the year correctly. History (WWI, WWII and The Vietnam War), Literature, Music and French are among the studies she pursued and she is now with the music department again. 'I've been coming here for thirty years. I've been doing this for as long as you are alive and I love it.' For a person who sees students pursuing their undergraduate career with a little of a sulk and my own monster of graduate studies and its expectations, she shone with so much optimism for life and learning something new.<br />
<br />
Imagine the zealous curiosity and openness a person must possess to go from one education to the next, sprawling across different fields! She's even learning some Chinese and teaches little children to play the piano. 'I don't have a formal degree for it but I finally feel like I know enough to teach little children.' Listening to her made me question my own life choices, the long way I have ahead and the relative understanding that time and age is, to do anything. Mother of six children, some grandchildren and great-grand-children, this woman is jumping one hurdle after another like it is no big deal. She was so excited when I showed her my sketchbook and the kind of art I make, as it came up in our conversation of about 40 minutes; and I remember her remarking how it is absolutely amazing to come across the talents and skills people have. 'Imagine! Every single person has some sort of skill and creative talent in them, isn't that amazing?' she said. Well, isn't it? In this rat race of a life, that was a gentle reminder to acknowledge the strengths and talents of another person and to stop for a little while instead of trying to power through to simply make it to the 'end'.<br />
<br />
In this fast pacing world, we assume we don't have the time for a lot of things, for our little sources of happiness, curiosities and circles of people. Perhaps, we don't make time for it? I used to write letters to my best friend between fifth grade and almost up until my first year of college. We have both grown up and though we still pick up from where we left things, we haven't been writing to each other because of each other's busy schedules. It was beautiful to me when I heard this lady recount that she spoke to her pen-pal over the phone a couple of days back because she is very sick. A pen-pal in France who was just 29 miles apart from the army during the war, a pen-pal whom she wrote to after a gap of 45 years after high school when she started French lessons again. Her pen-pal wrote to her in three weeks saying she was the one who opened the letter and here are these beautiful ladies keeping in touch with each other. When was the last time we sent a postcard or a handwritten letter to someone we love? I don't mean to romanticise the whole idea but I do wonder time and again, if our correspondences and its associated experiences are losing its tangibility and significance in this digital era.<br />
<br />
She reminded me of my own grandmother back in India. My maternal grandmother is one of the most beautiful, kind and gentle people I know of. Her education consists only up until the eighth grade as far as I know but she's still one of the most malleable and open-minded people. I sometimes wonder if she grew into it or if being that kind and lovely is just in her. What is most beautiful in her is her curiosity. I love her curiosity and eagerness to learn. She doesn't know too much English but she plays the SpellTower game on the iPad and keeps generating new words. Sometimes, she forms words in the process of playing the game and asks one of us for the meaning of the new word she just landed on, learning one step at a time... with no hesitance or feelings of awkwardness.<br />
<br />
Why is it that we don't have time and the countenance for our curiosities anymore? Why can't we be like children and much older folks to whom not knowing or learning something new is exciting? When in the process of 'growing up' did we cease to pay attention to our curiosities and why are a whole lot of us afraid to express them? I'm just wondering out loud here.<br />
<br />
I found so much more openness to conversation, ideas and sharing the excitement of doing something new or simply having a chat with someone they don't know of, in her; the interesting lady from the locker room. We have exchanged phone numbers and I shall keep in touch with her, attend her concerts and perhaps, send a postcard even! :)<br />
<br />
Life is full of curiosities. Strike up a conversation with them all!<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
Hemu<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://memyselfandela.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/old-lady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://memyselfandela.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/old-lady.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Source:https://memyselfandela.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/smile-of-an-angel/</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-66890584208901388122016-03-09T10:05:00.000+05:302016-03-09T10:57:59.979+05:30What is in a Name? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Some nights, days or a sunny noon, living in a foreign country bewilders and astonishes you. I believe I have been fairly exposed to most of the ideas surrounding America owing to an unorthodox, liberal upbringing, migration of ideas from the West in my country and being the generation that is a part of the cultural shift that India is in the midst of an upheaval of. Sure, we have our own boundaries but by and large, I was able to amend and adapt to the cultural setting of The States. I didn't have rude culture shocks nor did I go lamenting about how things are (better) in my country. As far as I am concerned, they're two different countries and have their own socio-cultural setting. While I make observations, my judgments are far reserved for thinking and for the sake of understanding these differences. I arrived here with an open mind and was prepared for pretty much everything I could ever fathom.<br />
<br />
I realised I wasn't prepared for one thing when I did come here though: telling people my name. By that, I knew my name in its entirety (Hemalatha Venkataraman) wasn't going to be easy on people who don't have as many as eight different consonants for the alphabet 't' in their language. I expected that and so, I knew exactly what I was going to say when that question comes by (I say my full name very quickly <i>sometimes</i> just to catch some of them smile in confusion and go 'Whaaaat?'). I was going to tell them and teach them the way to say my name. That was a fairly simple plan of action.<br />
<br />
However, what I was not prepared for was this question: 'What would you like to be addressed as?'<br />
<br />
It is by far the weirdest cultural shift for me and I still can't help but smile at the gentle reminder that I am in another country but my own when this question crosses my radar. You see, it's not a question we frequently deal with in India. People ask you what your name is and you answer them. I've never been asked what I want to be called as in my life until I moved here and frankly, it's not a question that ever struck me. I never thought twice before I uttered my name in response. I have students who prefer being called something else from what their record states. A recent acquaintance said he wished to be called by a different name (that he thought suited him more as he saw it fit on someone else he admired) when he was younger and his family obliged. I have friends who like their name being pronounced only in a certain way and ask to be addressed so and I believe I like the sense of identity that one establishes through that choice.<br />
<br />
We don't really have that concept back home. No one has asked me how I'd like to be addressed and it was very interesting to me the first few times people asked me so. I have been silently contemplating how I would like to be addressed. 'Hemu' is a nickname that only my family uses (and so, I was/am a little uncomfortable projecting it publicly for everyone's use) and 'Hema' seemed too generic for my own conscious disposition. Also, my name offers varied meanings depending on what I may identify myself as. Hemu means 'gold', Hema alternatively means 'golden' or 'earth' and Hemalatha means 'vine of gold'. Another close meaning as a means of the variance with which one may say my name would mean 'Goddess made out of snow'. So, which one do I pick? Now that I am posed with a conscious choice, it's a little weird because I am very consciously disregarding/disrespecting the name given to me by my parents, from my cultural and societal lens.<br />
<br />
On all of that roller-coaster for a cultural ride, I think it's a great question as a means of self-identification and introspection. If I am asked to associate myself with a calling of my choice as opposed to being socially and from a familial front, being assigned a name; I have already been made to think about what I would like to be known as, and that is a means of manifesting characteristics of who I see myself as and what I aspire to be. Gender, personal and social identities are being made clear of and people get to be more respectful of the other person's identities by asking them what THEY want to be known as. It's a concept I've come to appreciate for its forwardness of thought and scope for showing one's respect.<br />
<br />
On a much personal note, I was out dancing one night when I had to explain my name for a full ten minutes to a complete stranger. Amidst all the dancing, here was someone who I didn't know, trying to say my name right. It's strange for me to identify myself as Hemalatha as it always seems to put a distance between me and the person addressing me, formal and full as it is. I eventually give people here options but I must confess all the times I loved them trying to say my common Indian name. It's exciting for me to have someone inquire after my name, something (beautiful in its own way) I've taken for granted this long. I have never been so excited, proud and identified by my ethnic name as much as I enjoy it now, and for that... thank you, America.<br />
<br />
P.S: One of the chief reasons I go by the shortened version of my name that I do currently employ is because it's far easier to explain it to my American counterparts and because it is my pen(cil)-name. What's that you ask?<br />
<br />
It's Hey-Moo! (Like saying hi to a cow!)<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
Hemu<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.womenoffaith.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/HelloMyNameIs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.womenoffaith.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/HelloMyNameIs.jpg" height="244" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image source: http://www.womenoffaith.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/HelloMyNameIs.jpg</td></tr>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-32427631731874035292016-01-02T06:24:00.000+05:302016-01-02T06:24:18.807+05:30Why? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
How many of you have babies? Nieces? Nephews? You'd understand right away what I'm trying to convey here. I have a niece who is three years old. She's the most prettiest, cutest thing you'd ever see. She loves the camera, poses, smiles enchantingly and calls out to you in the most cute ways possible when you're angry with her for any reason. She makes me melt as she hops onto the world where children finally realise that they're not going to be able to communicate with adults unless they shed their godly chitter-chatter and talk to us in a language we can comprehend. She's three and very, very intelligent.<br />
<br />
We have conversations now and then, Baby and I. It takes interesting patterns. Her current favourite conversation fixative is 'Why'.<br />
<br />
<i>No Baby! you shouldn't go there. </i><br />
<i>Why, Chithi? </i><br />
<i>Because it's dangerous. </i><br />
<i>Why? </i><br />
<i>You could very easily get hurt. </i><br />
<i>Why?</i><br />
<i>You might fall down, there is a rough patch there. </i><br />
<i>Why, Chithi? </i><br />
<i>Because you're a baby and that's what babies do. They keep falling down. </i><br />
<i>Oh. Okay! Why? </i><br />
<br />
You get the idea. Her mind is curious and so inquisitive now that she wants to know why, for anything and everything under the sun. You'd think it's cute a scenario to be sitting with her and talking to her, the beautiful relationship between an aunt and her first niece. Well, it is. But it is also very meandering. I lose my train of thought after four 'Why's and something that simple is what makes it so profound. Simple questions and happenings that I've taken for granted in life need to be explained to her in ways she can understand.<br />
<br />
The other day, I asked her to not play behind the cupboards because it's dark and cramped there,standard reason being she could hurt herself. She asked me what 'dark' means. I was stumped. I was at a loss to explain light and shadow right at that point in time. Her nine year old playmate jumped to my rescue and explained it to her. She showed her the sun and she showed her the light on the carpet. She told her that there is no light where that light is obstructed by things and when that happens, darkness happens. She actually explained it way better, I forget the intricacy of her explanation. It sounds simple, right? Try actually answering it at that point in time. I was at a loss for words and a nine year old smoothed through it like a sailor.<br />
<br />
How many 'Why's' can you answer before you call it quits? I ask you this because it's a very conscious process for me with respect to the 'material world' I am a part of, even though not with the intensity I'd like it as I write, I create art and design buildings. I am a graduate teaching assistant and I've seen my students from last semester at a loss to answer the same 'Why' that we asked them over reviews. <i>Why did you choose that colour? Why do you 'like' it? Why not a different line thickness? </i>We've seen them smile in despair after a point.<br />
<br />
I wonder if we lose connection with the basic questions in life after a point. How would a fifteen year old answer the same question? An eighteen year old? Thirty? Ninety? When did we stop and terminate questioning the things we know? How deep can this series of questions get? Do we not do it because we realise the potential it has to turn us insane merely because this could simply mean an abyss of thinking with no end, that nothing is really certain? Would that break us, people who have now 'evolved' into ones with principles, morals and ethics? Have you ever tried looking into the mirror for a good amount of time? Have you seen how you disintegrate as a whole when you selectively see different parts of your face and later on, you don't recognise yourself? Eyes, nose, ears... they start to appear funny and misplaced on you. Have you ever felt that? That's the closest thought that comes to my head currently along this line of thought.<br />
<br />
Would it be a good idea to question layer after layer of accepted (both personal and societal) constructs and thoughts? What would happen if you push yourself? Would it lead you towards excitement or would it throw you into a canyon of futility? And what does that tell you about yourself?<br />
<br />
<i>Why do I ask all this? </i><br />
Just curious. That's all.<br />
<br />
Why am I curious?<br />
<i>It's interesting to see how your minds work and perceive concepts, ideas, boundaries and morality.</i><br />
<br />
Why is that interesting you ask?<br />
<i>Doesn't it make you feel like every person is a world, a universe within themselves? </i><br />
<br />
Why should it?<br />
<i>Because we seem like millions of permutations and combinations put together at the level of neurons, body, culture, social... Wait, I see what you're doing. </i><br />
<br />
You have a good year, alright? I'll go call my niece and tell her that existentialism might be one of the directions she'd lead me to if I kept this up.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><b>'Why, Chithi?' </b></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PymyhJi5suc/Vocb91NTSDI/AAAAAAAAArI/b1mgD6ykKx8/s1600/12240102_10207960569522261_1251754359667554732_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PymyhJi5suc/Vocb91NTSDI/AAAAAAAAArI/b1mgD6ykKx8/s640/12240102_10207960569522261_1251754359667554732_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My darling niece on her third birthday! :) And in case you don't know what 'Chithi' means, it mean younger aunt in my mother tongue, Tamizh. (Mother's younger sister-Chithi) </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i><br /></i>
Have a happy new year, folks!<br />
<br />
Love, <br />
Hemu </div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-19445359739658145132015-12-18T09:22:00.000+05:302015-12-18T10:49:06.721+05:30Hello From the Other Side: America Diaries <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
17th December 2015 | Columbus | Ohio<br />
<br />
My good people,<br />
<br />
It's been a good 133 days since I relocated for my Masters to the United States. One hundred and thirty three days. It has taken me as long to get back to writing here as well. There are those loose, shaggy scribbles in a little poetry book that takes the beating of my ambivalent being that I can't quite share here for it's not the most understood pieces I have ever written, even to myself. I'll get there in a bit and resume that side of writing but tonight, for some strange reason, I thought I'd tell you about the little things of my life here. The little things because they are always the most important.<br />
<br />
This country is beautiful in many ways. I have a great bunch of department friends who have been nothing short of lovely and helpful. I'm biting into this new dessert of independence and as incredible as it is, sometimes I take a step back and stare at the sweet cake for a while because too much of it makes me delirious in confusing ways. This tryst with earning one's own bread, making one's own bed, home, academics and thoughts is overwhelming. I'm making friends across different age-groups and it's absolutely engaging to see how differently they think, design, draw and formulate their thoughts. It's interesting to see their priorities, their opinions and their life goals. For someone in her mid-twenties, it pushes me a step back to rehearse and look through my own life, shuffle through my memories and throw away unnecessary ones and concentrating on my life ahead. I have been advised on how to network, the kind of boots to buy, to get home early and suggested the restaurants with good food. I have people who help me by telling me how many layers of clothes I should wear in the winter because well, coming from Madras, one is clearly incapable of making a rational choice in the face of the deadly cold.<br />
<br />
There are the little intriguingly alluring things about my own self reflecting off of my ethnicity that I hadn't realised is beautiful until now. I had two cops asking me where my accent is from when I was making peace with a personal pizza place down my street. As stupid as it sounds, I didn't think I had an accent when I spoke English in India even as we could make out the state from which a person is from based on their 'accent'. Now, I represent a whole. My downstairs neighbour on the first night that we met on the porch of our apartment, cracked up at the way I pronounced some words (in a good way). He'd type a word on his phone and ask me to pronounce it. And then he'd laugh and I'd laugh at the way he'd laugh. That was a very good introductory night with no airs or complexities.<br />
<br />
A lot of my American friends found it weird that you can make tea with ginger in it and asked me what it was called, the beverage itself. I would say it's tea and they'd go on to ask what chai is. It makes me grin when they say chai-tea, the redundancy tickling me and the great cultural and linguistic exchanges we have had over the last three months is nothing short of adorable, learning cultures off each other and rubbing off each other's minds with so many conversations. I sometimes hit the nearby bar that has a great number of same-sex couple turnout and I've had some very happy and freeing conversations with some of them. There are so many new sights, sounds and happenings! Some mornings, there is a bagpiper on my university grounds playing his music as I rush to my department. He just stands in the middle of the large central grounds called 'The Oval' and plays it in no rush, no hurry and in so much momentousness of an ordinary day. On that note, there is something very liberating about dancing to soul music between 1960-1973 at a bank-turned-club too. Dancing with a random stranger that night, it took me almost fifteen minutes to explain my name to him and you know what? They find the name and its meaning beautiful, fully. I can't remember the last time I felt a new sense of indulgence in my own name.<br />
<br />
As much as the music, sounds and noises make my day, I am also making peace with my own silence and of late, Frederic Chopin has been my most musical and emotional aide. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xgDNhe0nS4" target="_blank">This composition in particular</a> has pulled me through so many nights and I have been cramming my diary with so many thoughts that this new country offers, making so much art as the first Fall brushed by and now, I can't as easily sketch in the cold as my fingers get numb too quickly but I attempt still, as my lines fail to be straight. But since the wavering has a story in itself, I let it be and let myself go ahead with the colours and the imperfect lines. I'm consciously documenting my life here and it's simply amazing to see how different everything is and how it's just as similar too. People care, people love and people are nice. My building's janitor is a lovely lady with a timid smile and it takes me back to times in school where our 'ayahs' would smile at us with so much love and a sense of responsibility. My professors are a fun bunch and I even play soccer with one of them and some other new people of late; and most often, even if I'm probably the worst one on the field, I can't stop myself from smiling simply because this experience is exhilarating and joyful.<br />
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Does all this replace home and India? No. It doesn't. I miss being back home. I miss my parents, my marvelous mongrels on the road and the roadside tea shops. I miss that Cheta and his tea, the Marwari chaat shop and the fresh juice shop at Annanagar Roundabout. I miss Ayyapan temple and my charming grandparents, my best friends' houses I barge into after they tell me specifically not to come and their families. Oddly, I miss that hot humidity too. I miss how I knew people and dogs on every street, Bhai's grocery store and my college mates who are all now in different directions. There are nights here that runs on a thin line between being alone and being in solitude. But tonight is one of those nights I'm thankful for all the newness that has found home within me. I'm glad for the experiences that is chiseling me into a stronger, hopefully better and more evolved person. The word 'home' is going through some beautiful transitions and I can't wait to see its more morphed and understandable state soon.<br />
<br />
A belated 'Hello America!'. Life is beautiful tonight with Chopin's nocturne in the background, yellow lights warming me up even as the temperature hits below zero outside.<br />
<br />
Until next time!<br />
Hemu<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My apartment currently :) </td></tr>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-30012629903895822102015-11-25T04:38:00.002+05:302015-11-25T04:39:39.671+05:30Wings <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-59315334960091548912015-07-31T23:53:00.000+05:302015-07-31T23:53:27.703+05:30Terribly Tiny Love Letters 09: Love Loaves <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There is a lilting memory from my pauses at a bus stop.<br />
The smell of bread loaves being baked travels through the air,<br />
across and around where I stand.<br />
I've never seen this place that bakes this best smelling sweet bread<br />
and I know not the origins and the special ingredients.<br />
I wonder if it tastes as good as it smells: like heaven,<br />
because<br />
I've never tried to follow the music of these loaves;<br />
only content to take in the smell and imagine its taste<br />
during an everyday interim.<br />
Just like how I've had you in my heart and thoughts<br />
all this while;<br />
dreaming in real life and living there<br />
while you, my love, loaf around<br />
outside my reality. <br />
<br />
~Hemu<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i0.wp.com/stjohnstreet.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Panayiota-Paschali.-Woman-waiting-for-her-bus-observing-people-passing-by-in-Shoretich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i0.wp.com/stjohnstreet.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Panayiota-Paschali.-Woman-waiting-for-her-bus-observing-people-passing-by-in-Shoretich.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Source: http://stjohnstreet.co.uk/pictures-next-stop-brick-lane/</td></tr>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-68697141339391791372015-07-16T13:52:00.000+05:302015-07-16T13:56:05.797+05:30Terribly Tiny Love Letters 08: A Nameless Stupor <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When the window panes are raised and the doors are firmly shut,<br />
when I’m locked away in this little world of mine<br />
I shout out your name<br />
because I’ve not said it aloud enough times.<br />
I’ve not heard my own voice<br />
say it such that I can hear it hanging<br />
around me;<br />
and so,<br />
in the silence of a shut car,<br />
I say your name that echoes in my ears<br />
a time or two<br />
to hear how it sounds coming from my lips<br />
and aloud<br />
in difference to<br />
the thousand times in my mind.<br />
<br />
~Hemu<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.reinfriedmarass.com/photos/mrs-columbo-madame-butterfly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.reinfriedmarass.com/photos/mrs-columbo-madame-butterfly.jpg" height="425" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image credits: Madame De Papilon</td></tr>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-20004997224150297862015-07-05T00:44:00.000+05:302015-07-05T00:44:03.091+05:30Power-Cut Epiphanies <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A couple of nights back, the power unexpectedly shut down at around 11.00 pm much to the exasperation of my parents and with an hour in passing, myself too. I am generally the sort of person who spends long hours on the terrace just staring at the moon, content in solitude and away from the blaring noise of the television; happy with a cup of tea and some music. Hence, the power cut didn't quite matter to me as much as it irritated my parents as they both had work the next day and this power-cut was cutting in on their beauty sleep. (I've no permanent day job, I'm a freelance artist and architect and I'm not bound by fixed working hours)<br />
<br />
Madras in June is no easy deal. It's hot, humid and gets you sweating even in the middle of the night. I had my parents join me on the terrace in sometime; my father circling around and looking at whether the power had come back on by peeping from the parapet, restlessly. <i>(Appa, I know you're reading this. You got to slow down and sit down, really!) </i>My mother on the other hand, conveniently sat down without any ado and I quickly settled down next to her. With some time in the passing, it was just me and my mother on the terrace as my father had gone back downstairs again. By then my phone had entirely run out of charge and resigned to the whims of the fellows at the Electricity Board, I spread out a scarf and we both laid down on the terrace, simply with nothing to do but stare at the sky.<br />
<br />
It was a full moon night and quite radiant all around. The light from the moon was good enough for us to see each other, the washing lines flying above our heads and the swaying tree tops. As it has been so with the weather in the last week or two, there were dense grey clouds hovering about, ready to drizzle away with the slightest coaxing.The clouds were different shades of grey and there was one even with a deep hint of red hue. The breeze was to a minimum and attended to our perspiration at its own pace.By then, we'd grown comfortable to being out there under the open skies and had begun to point out to the shapes of the clouds and what we thought we saw.Dogs, ghosts, a lady sitting... it was as if we'd unfurled our inner children from our hearts. You'd be surprised how clouds, the moon and the sky can shift the direction of a light conversation into the heavy thinking zone. Soon, we began speaking about lot of random things. Work, my future studies to come, life, her past, my present, the lives of my friends... and I realised how long it's been since we actually got to do that. It was truly brilliant to bask in the moonlight and have midnight conversations with my mother in an age where technology seems to eat up most of our time, with or without our own knowledge. We only ended up going downstairs after about two hours when it did, indeed start drizzling and I had to prod my mother to get up.<i> (Let's go once it starts raining heavily, she said.) </i><br />
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In the meager hours we have outside of work, much of our time goes in watching television, the everyday serial and soap operas, text messages and Whatsapp groups, laptops and anything plugged to electricity. Some days, my father wouldn't have time because he'd be tending to the washing machine or my mom would be watching something online as she cooked away or I'd be glued to the laptop randomly browsing my time away. In a world this fast pacing, we've reached the stage where it takes something as external as the EB department to put us together with no other option than to talk, to interact and get back to the roots of what we are. I still remember those times when there were mandatory power cuts in Tamilnadu everyday. We had our work planned around it and in a way, I grew rather accustomed and appreciative of those two hours a day.We actually did things outside of technology. But I believe now, that we're back to square one. It's time to set the ball rolling one more time, with attempts from our side.<br />
<br />
This is no great flowery post with fancy words or any poetry but a simple reminder to all of you and myself that we need to keep technology at an arm's length from our personal lives. There is so much to talk about and love. When a phone is out of the picture, you wouldn't be thinking of how nice a shot of the moon would be as an Instagram post but rather be enjoying the beauty of the night itself. I urge you all to let go of your phones, IPads, televisions and computers for some time everyday and do other things you used to indulge in as a child... reading, painting or this real-life interaction called talking with others.<br />
<br />
Get back to real social life, my friends.<br />
<br />
Love,<br />
Hemu<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4e/d9/26/4ed9269da2819465a76fd6643f4e7085.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4e/d9/26/4ed9269da2819465a76fd6643f4e7085.jpg" width="638" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4e/d9/26/4ed9269da2819465a76fd6643f4e7085.jpg<br /><br /><br /></td></tr>
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-70580030576296801432015-06-29T22:09:00.001+05:302015-06-29T22:09:51.290+05:30Terribly Tiny Love Letters 07 | A Flaw SO Beautiful <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://kidim2013.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/tumblr_mq5hp8pota1rimm6eo1_500.jpg?w=714" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://kidim2013.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/tumblr_mq5hp8pota1rimm6eo1_500.jpg?w=714" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Found the image on https://kidim2013.wordpress.com/tag/sahil/</td></tr>
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I like those nights I make my tea perfectly.<br />
I take a sip and realize that it's piping hot;<br />
quite resonant<br />
to a momentary scandal to my lips<br />
when I drink from its deep end.<br />
Like you and me.<br />
Memories of you come rushing back<br />
at the heat of that moment<br />
and just so you know,<br />
you come with all other things<br />
flawed<br />
and<br />
beautiful.<br />
<br />
<br />
~Hemu </div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-69445521822168500182015-05-03T21:53:00.000+05:302015-05-03T21:53:20.975+05:30The Fucking Beautiful Woman <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm a woman, a beautiful one.<br />
<br />
I have no space for making mistakes.<br />
Little peach flaws that fills the heart of a man are allowed but ugly and grossly growing up events that alter me aren't quite permitted under being beautiful.<br />
<br />
I look beautiful if I laugh but chortling mirth isn't one of them. I look beautiful when I cry. Just glassy eyes full of tears stranded like a water droplet on a lotus leaf, waiting for me to close my eyes in a dramatic moment so that it may flow perfectly down in a single line across my immaculate cheek.<br />
Wailing my gut out and wrenching the ache doesn't paint a pretty picture, as you know.<br />
<br />
I look beautiful whether I just wake up from bed or whether I am going to a party. Sleep lines on my face from sleeping on my man as the general consensus go, is beautiful. Wrinkles of age, not so much.<br />
<br />
I look beautiful whether I wear cotton panties or fancy lace ones.<br />
<br />
I don't know if you know but no longer do mere breasts count for representing my gender. It has to be emphasized. They have to be big enough and beautiful enough or I am not woman enough.<br />
<br />
I can't afford to 'walk like a man'.. well, because I am a woman. I can't exercise enough caution on my preferences because picky women aren't beautiful. That strand of hair that falls on my forehead needs to freeze in time till no one can see how not-so-beautiful it can get. There are no provisions for humidity, rain or a lazy day in the life of a woman.<br />
<br />
It's beautiful when I see what my partner wants or if there are stealthy kisses abducted from me even as I am an unwilling party because He knows (best) that I love him. I'm not beautiful if I am vocal about my sexual needs. The minute sex pleasures me, I turn into a slut and we all know that that is not beautiful.<br />
<br />
The society thinks I'm 'old enough to get married' but any knowledge I may possess on the subject of sex and reproduction is because I have a dirty mind that dwells on the carnal pleasures that shouldn't concern me. Oh, it won't be a beautiful thing to do, my dear!<br />
<br />
I'm a beautiful woman. Intelligent, intellectual, sexual or slutty, well-read or wise, warm, funny or humourous: none of these score well in the books of the beautiful. I can't be lazy and unkempt on days of my choosing, eat like a glutton or drink like a sailor.<br />
<br />
Because you see, I'm a woman. And I'm fucking beautiful.<br />
<br />
Nothing less.<br />
Nothing more either.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PvgT9PRftWg/VUZJG_sLv8I/AAAAAAAAAoA/DrfOYt5196E/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PvgT9PRftWg/VUZJG_sLv8I/AAAAAAAAAoA/DrfOYt5196E/s1600/2.jpg" height="561" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image belongs to Hemalatha Venkatraman. Do not reproduce without permission </td></tr>
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~Hemu </div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-23761771237347806702015-04-28T13:25:00.000+05:302015-04-28T13:25:20.825+05:30Calling Bluff <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I see Him building his muscles instead of his conversations,<br />
treading only along narcissistic monologues with a mirror.<br />
I see Her pounding herself to suit her waist to being slim or curvy<br />
or whatever is in vogue,<br />
hoping that a thigh gap will<br />
ironically seal the distance towards Her search.<br />
<br />
In the end, neither eyes meet in an occupied glaze<br />
and if only their gaze meets but for a second,<br />
He dismisses Her for a desultory accumulation of layers<br />
with nothing vulnerable underneath<br />
and She goes in search of an intelligent man in spectacles,<br />
wielding a book and a charming lilt in his words.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kBi5AVb0OPI/VT87vM6-BBI/AAAAAAAAAns/m0cH2ijdA7s/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kBi5AVb0OPI/VT87vM6-BBI/AAAAAAAAAns/m0cH2ijdA7s/s1600/12.jpg" height="400" width="282" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: Hemu's Art Blog<br />Image should not be reproduced without permission </td></tr>
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~Hemu </div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-2796951230856697432015-04-01T21:17:00.000+05:302015-04-01T21:17:17.588+05:30Terribly Tiny Love Letters 05: Abandon <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I had at a point grown into the opinion<br />
that I lusted after you<br />
until<br />
I simply got reminded later on,<br />
what this had initially been.<br />
When I sat loosely next to you<br />
allowing a slouch to live its lazy life in its acme,<br />
letting my head rest on your shoulders<br />
with no regard to the angle of my face<br />
or the countenance's perception<br />
to your eyes;<br />
I let me eyelids droop for that one moment<br />
trusting your presence next to me.<br />
That's when I realised that that<br />
what I really longed and long for<br />
is someone to sit next to,<br />
with abandon.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSetkAAzN1fJHm0VVp6yTYc8fkMRjO3wi45YfCLFAt77BVLK4Pe" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="350" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSetkAAzN1fJHm0VVp6yTYc8fkMRjO3wi45YfCLFAt77BVLK4Pe" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: Watermarked. Image from the internet </td></tr>
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Hemu</div>
Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1052889176291399960.post-28897983973454585222015-03-14T01:09:00.001+05:302015-03-14T01:09:20.659+05:30Penury <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
It has become necessary for you to climb the corporate
ladder </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and quit in time when there’s a safe stack of money ready to
hold you if you fall;</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
when you begin to chase long lived dreams of staring at the
stars in multiple countries</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
from under canvas tents, atop motorbikes and by campfires. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Should I throw away what I shouldn't have had in the first
place</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
with the only means to chase my dreams being the ideal fall </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
of chasing sunsets and sunrises, meeting new people </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
and dining on different tables, settings with wine, tea and
cheese?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Would the world say I followed my dream by deciding to throw
away a luxurious life </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
that I never wanted</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
or that I settled for the penury that I deserve? </div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/travelogues/1002194d1350555729-self-drive-exploratory-expedition-zanskar-unknown-kashmir-off-season-october-2011-tso-kar-camping-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/travelogues/1002194d1350555729-self-drive-exploratory-expedition-zanskar-unknown-kashmir-off-season-october-2011-tso-kar-camping-2.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Image copyrights in the picture itself. </i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />~Hemu<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
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Hemuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11922836316012264352noreply@blogger.com2