Living in the Land of In-Betweens

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Also, home is no longer a place.

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.

Until then, from the land of in-betweens,

Hemu

What is in a Name?

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.

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 sometimes 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.

However, what I was not prepared for was this question: 'What would you like to be addressed as?'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

It's Hey-Moo! (Like saying hi to a cow!)

Love,
Hemu

Image source: http://www.womenoffaith.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/HelloMyNameIs.jpg

The Words You Say

 | If the words you spoke appeared on your skin, would you still be beautiful? 
I found this quote, so far shared as an anonymous one on one of my Pinterest browsing days. I can't even begin to express the kind of impact this single line has on me, never leaving my mind; only permitting me to constantly picture myself with all the words I say everyday, on my skin. Would I still be beautiful?  | 

We live in a world that is extremely fast-pacing, with more faces unregistered as we pass by everyday and words that escape us without any filter that we don't really pause to think about the effect we have on another person's thoughts and image of themselves.

   I can't probably explain this better unless I bring my case into the picture. I was (and still probably am) a very loud child in my days of growing up. I spoke to everyone without inhibition, believed that everyone I meet are my friends and that this world is a lovely little place. This optimistic outlook on life was not met on the same terms with everyone. I loved talking with people about anything and everything. I'd ask doubts during classes at the silliest levels if I didn't understand a concept. I didn't think it was a big deal, really. Why else were we in school? Owing to this, I was thus called the 'Doubt-mistress' of my class, not to forget 'Chatterbox'. During extremely boring sessions, my classmates used to nudge me and say, 'Hey! Ask some doubt and pass some time. This is getting really boring'. To that, there have been times when I have obliged and had my own share of fun. It's all very nostalgic when I think about it now.

   While all those happy memories live on, the problem arises when the invisible boundaries are crossed and kids or anyone for that matter, don't realize the impact of what they say. Sometimes people shrug off insults and name-calling with ease on the outside while it would tear them up on the insides. Being branded talkative wasn't something that got under my skin but the lightness with which everything I said was. It was/is hurtful to have people ignore, override and consider what you say to be unimportant without even listening to it. It still hurts me. I have been through it and so do so many other children and adults who in everyday of their life, undergo their own such battles.

   We fail to comprehend the impact our words have on another person's life. Bullying,stereotyping, limitless teasing and condescending attitudes are all a part of this spectrum of failing to grasp this simple working of the world and people. When I look back at my school life, I wonder if my own friends have been passive bullies in a way, forever scarring parts of my memory. I have learnt to live with it and accept the factors of age and maturity with it but it would not be true to say that it doesn't have any impact on me. After all these years, it still does. I believe that I have matured into a different person because of and despite all these occurrences, but who is to say that everyone will get out of the pit of name-calling and being slighted?

  We have no filtering system in our heads, most often. I have had my friends tell me how hurtful it is to be stereotyped on looks, mannerisms and characteristics. A very close friend of mine told me how it gets to her that everyone she meets comments on her physique and not on her lovely character that I personally know of. Gay. (I still don't understand why it grew into an offensive word) Fat. Ugly. Pimpled. Talkative. Duffer. How quick we are to categorize people into slots and call them so in a jiffy! Do we realize that it could potentially create low self-esteem and confidence, depression and other psychological effects for the rest of the other person's life?

  A lot of you may think that you know when you cross the bounds of your 'good-natured' humour. Honestly, most of you might not be aware of the subtle but strong impact your comments and sarcasm creates in your own good friends from work or college. Maybe you could ask them once in a while. Even the strongest of people you think aren't affected by the world's perception of them are at some level,are indeed affected by it. So, before you unleash some laughter for yourself at another person's expense, you could think about it again and see in retrospection, if it might hurt your friend in some manner or the other.

 I tell you all this because I have been subject to much of this and know how it hurts. I have known other strong people in my life very close to me describe how it goes with them. I'm sure you know what I mean. You may be bullying someone else without your own knowledge, creating such a deep impact that hurtful words from decades back still ring loud in their ears, after all this time. But so do the really good words. They stick around from the most random times in your life. Small words create a great impact.

I ask you now to think of all that you say to people on a daily basis. Think. If all of that appeared on your skin, would you still be beautiful?

Beauty is not skin deep.

Next time, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

P.S: Don't confuse all of this with a dogmatic attitude or a person who cannot accept constructive criticism or good-natured humour between friends. There is a huge difference between what I'm talking about and all of this.

Original Artwork by Hemalatha Venkatraman. Copyrighted. Do not reproduce without permission.
 Find it on : www.hemusartblog.tumblr.com

Home

  How could I forget that night? It was exactly ten days since my grandfather had passed away. I was close to 1400KM away from home at Bombay, unable to sleep; merely staring at the wall a little before midnight. There was a sense of melancholy and wishful dreaming over my head. My teammates were fast asleep, heads buried in makeshift pillows. It was January; the floor was as cold as ice but yet, vaguely comforting.

  Silence screeched as the wall suddenly lit up to life, reflecting the warm hues of an oriflamme presence somewhere. The sound of the crackling rose up to the second floor apartment where we lay as the fog lifted, disintegrating into nothingness in the face of the bonfire built out of all which held people back.

   Bhoghi, the harvest festival, had dawned. It was midnight as heavy drumming began to sound, awakening the sleeping souls to stare out into the dark; where below, there lay a mound of light and lilt. Smiles cast invitations even when we couldn't see. We ran, our flip-flops slapping the bare mosaic flooring. The sound of the dholaks and laughter intensified with every step of ours, the excitement building. I rolled out only stopping to a reckless halt before the fire. The flames, a feet away leaped about, taller than I was, a fourteen year old girl in disarray. A Sardar, otherwise camouflaged by his beard and black turban smiled through it, holding out sweetmeats to me.The flames blazed higher, smoke spiraling into the vast sky charring the past and ready for the future.

    Slowly, the other state gymnasts descended the stairs and gathered around smiling, laughing and chattering away. Girls who would otherwise be dressed like dolls before the floor exercise performances began to dance in baggy pajamas and disheveled hair holding hands. My hands slowly slipped into theirs, strangers I didn't know in a place I wasn't really acquainted with. All I knew then was that the sound synced with my heartbeat and that the dance came from within.

It didn't matter that midnight in a strange place that I was holding hands and dancing with strangers. It didn't matter how close I was to the fire that night because I didn't feel any heat, only the warmth. It didn't matter that night that my grandfather was dead. I learned to laugh out loud again after a ten-day hiatus. It didn't matter that I was celebrating the festival away from home because, that moment in the dark when all our eyes met lingering with joy, shining in untamed light, I felt at home.  

Source: GOOGLE IMAGES. I do not own this image.  

~Hemu

Broken

We are all but broken women 

pieced together by the joyful memories 

lining every heartbreak,

every belied relationship 

and all of the hidden sorrows

behind fallacious, colourful smiles. 

We are but broken girls 

sprouting out of our own wombs,

further broken with every push;

standing out of monotony 

as a lovely mosaic of our own mess. 

We are broken.

But oh, the shards are just too beautiful 

to comprehend,

to surpass 

or to be neglected. 

Just remember to piece yourself together.

You'll be spectacular. 

Original Artwork by Hemalatha Venkatman | Copyrighted  | Do not reproduce without permission 

|In connection with my art blog Hemu's Art Blog's ongoing Inktober Challenge and the Facebook page of this blog where I have been putting up a poem a day. | 

~Penned and sketched by Hemu 

The Girl Who Catches Stars in Her Hair

I know a girl whose hands are always full
with misery and poetry, love in vain and abyss infinite.
Yet, she settles down to catch the evading stars every night
and because her hands are full,
the stars perch themselves on her hair
so that she may smile.

Original Artwork by Hemalatha Venkatraman | Copyrighted | Do not use without permission 

| I have been going about with pet projects on my art and writing blogs where I put up one inked sketch as a part of the Inktober Challenge throughout October. On this blog's Facebook page, (Street of Smiles) I've putting up one poem a day for as long as I can. I collaborated both the projects for the day, combining my art and poetry. Please do let know what you think of it. :) My art blog can be found at Hemu's Art Blog! ) Thanks and cheers! |


Penned and sketched by
Hemu 

For a Mere Twang of Joyous Life : Education and Learning

| These are but a fraction of my ever-pursuing questions, thoughts and ideas about the vast gap between learning and being educated, a pause to acknowledge the idea of life rather than chasing it. Predominantly, these are questions I would like you think about and I would absolutely love to know your thoughts about the same. Cheers! | 

After having gone through battles in examination halls, memories good and bad at institutions and officially now, a graduate still on a break post-undergraduate studies; it's safe to now indulge in these thoughts that I have been a participating member of in my head all this while. All these years, as I aggressively tried to approach the idea of it, I was only but a passive phase all through it. Had I contemplated more on all of this, would I have been happy or eternally in a state of chaos? (Though, sometimes, chaos is a lot of happiness)

     What a safe life we all lead! Kindergarten, 14 years of school, 4-5 years of undergraduate studies and some more on graduate college and so on and so forth.Most of our parents never considered homeschooling as an option. We just settled into a life of grade after grade of education, of math that makes one's head reel and biology classes where the chapter on reproduction was very quickly skimmed through. There lies no immediate goal, no quest in a child to pursue something in life on the broader sense of it. This hit me massively as I just finished my undergraduate studies because that's when people finally started asking me, 'What next?' Even for that, there are definite set of expectations and options that they'd like me to be a part of that they approve of. Apparently, taking a lot of time to decide what one wants to do for the rest of their life sounds foolish to many because there is a comfortable life ahead of everyone if they choose the path of higher education, a job, marriage, babies and a settled life. How unsettling can it get?

  If at the end of 22 years of age, I take a commemorative step to reflect on my past; there is nothing there but for a well-scheduled life full of classes, exams and 'extra-curricular activities'. The main aim was to do well in the annual exams so that we can move on to the next grade. No one asked me, 'What do you think about taking a day off from school and do something on your own?' Our earlier generation's probable struggle with receiving a decent education has thrown the coming ones into the shackles of the pin-pointed rat race with no finish line, ever. How different would life be today if we were to appreciate kids and people for who they actually are, their understanding of the world, their short term and long term goals?

  What would be the result today if I was asked 'What next?' when I was 8 years old? At 13? At 17? (Assuming the general mode of education is off the table) How different would it have been if I just went to the park one day and slept the day after. While it is true that we would be possibly 'immature' to make the 'right' decisions and not really know what to do, thus 'ruining' our lives; isn't it also equally possible that we would end up discovering more about ourselves in ways we never envisaged we could? Would world peace and contemplative questions ever be accommodated in the current system? Imagine, if we could do wonders after two decades of dealing with authority that knows which direction you have to go by, merely by being pushed to make a decision of our own after say, 3-4 years of being allowed to think for a bit; how would life be if we were allowed to be whatever we are from the very beginning? Life experiences would be a word with immense depth, will it not then?

  Being driven to 'settle', forcing our way through a vivid journey along beautiful sights so that we could enjoy our the visions to assimilate, years later just so that we can sit and take it in... strikes a wrong chord in me somewhere. It is not my opinion that the education system that the world is currently subject to is wrong, but I'm merely wondering why another path would be scandalous to anyone who feels good parenting is the perfect high-end English medium schools, tuition and  extra music or art lessons that can always, only be a sidetrack? Or is it a concern of the fast-paced society we are in where our credentials lie in degrees earned, money made and the house we buy? Will parents have the time to home-school their children, will children be appreciated for the schooling they give themselves in a community?

 For, I sure as hell don't know what I've been chasing all these years. I don't quite know why I studied what I did. I don't know why I'll have to know what to do next when all these years, I was told what to do. Why do I have to 'settle down'? (Boy, do I have a tough time getting that!) Have I been restricted by education and its circles of tight authority or was there much more of a learning there than I am giving it credit now?

Schools without degrees, learning something merely because one loves it and not to enroll in contests to win recognition, putting otherwise exorbitant fees to build a workshop or a place for children to live their lives on their own terms and a life full of travel.. is that too much or too Utopian ask?

I can only hope I have the answers when I become a parent and if I end up where I think I will end up siding with, I can only really hope I have the courage to not put my child in a school at two and a half years of age.. but ride bicycles with her and spell out poetry or whatever the hell she wants, however overwhelmingly beautiful and scary.

Image source: Google pictures: Courtesy Indian Health Service/U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

Image Source: Google pictures :photo by Stephan Jouhoff)

~Hemu