Slipping into Columbus | Art, Poetry and Finding the Community I Sought After

(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’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.

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.

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.

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.

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’).  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I love and thank everyone who has been instrumental in that transition.

All my love,

Hemu 

The Curious Case of Food and Friendships - Culture Diaries: India and Amrikka!

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.

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 home 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.

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?

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.

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.

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 devasam 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, devasam 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 devasam 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.

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 rasam sadham 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 'Come on Hema, he has to improve! Tell him'. 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. 

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.

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).

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 that 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.

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.

Almost all my friendships grew with a healthy relationship surrounding food and dining habits. I tell some of my good American friends: in my culture, when you become friends with someone, you don't just become friends with them; you become friends with their family. More so, your closest friends become 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. Sharing food is the first step towards inclusion in many communities. 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?

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.

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.

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).

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.

Much love and the smell of ginger chai to you,
Hemu

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! :)

And some interesting articles I found online:

The Importance of Eating Together
The most American thing there is: eating alone

Would love to know your views! :) 

Waking Up Every Morning | My Fondest Everyday Memory from Childhood

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.

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 teapoy 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.

‘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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

  

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.

Image Source: http://www.thefeministwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/bampw-bed-bedroom-black-amp-white-black-and-white-Favim.com-326537.jpg

This image DOES NOT BELONG TO ME 

 Hemu 

Universe Aftertastes

There is an aftertaste of the universe in my mouth
light years away from the crumbling insides of my self.
They have started pouring themselves into my void
and I've been swallowing the vastness
they slip through the insides of my breasts, tummy 
through my legs and down my feet.
My feet.
The sand under them have been rolling away with the retreating waves,
I'm shorter with each lick
until I can see my feet no more,
they're buried in sand:
the universe is finding its way back to the ocean.
My fingertips are atoms
and they burst into pixie dust
as I try to grasp my galaxies
but they slide away into the waters
though the pores in the sand,
air bubble worlds in the froth.
I can't go after it because I can't swim, 
drowning actively isn't an option.
I can't die like that.
Well,
It's going to take a while
but
I can't see my ankles anymore.

Home?

I woke up one evening to a late summer sun that lives far beyond

its days of regular hours of light

to be situated in movement, in dynamism,

flitting between my lands of illusion and perceived reality.

I searched for landscapes that I’ve known to see by virtue of comfort

in between content sleep and momentary awakenings.

When I travel,

there are reassuring dim lights outlining mounds of back-lit mountains

with their own gaudy colours and early night's chatter.

My father in the front seat:

awake and seriously holding a conversation with the driver while

the speakers float in a language 

I comprehend at the most intimate level.

I woke up in a car racing back ‘home’.. Or what I should call home.

It took me three whole minutes to realise where I was

after the remnants of deep slumber

resting itself in the nooks of my breasts awoke

to transience.

Ten months in this city

and I still wake up from every deep slumber

to unfamiliarity.

Why, the dogs here never stop. 

They don’t have the time to stop.

They’re smiling and following the tug on their leash

following their human who has taught them to sit up straight and act like a dog,

to not lick the faces of people they love and act like a dog.

Don’t jump on her, those clothes will get dirty! Act like a good dog!  

They apologise for their furry companions sometimes,

‘I’m so sorry, He loves people.’ they say

and I want to just strip free of the collars round my neck,

strained attempts to ridiculous decorum

and roll by their side and fight in the mud;

because

familiarity to me is turning into my street

and whistling to have five street mongrels at my side.

They jump, they paw, they lick

and I could wash their freaking ticks away if I ever contracted any

But their love stays on across the seas for all the times they've listened to me

with crooked ears and curious eyes.

And so,

every single time I see a well-behaved dog outside my window

after a slumber so deep that I don’t realise where I am,

I miss being home where chaos was more unruly with herself,

flirting with the orderliness of monotony...

I finally understand what homesickness really means.

But now, I'm not sure I know what home means.

-Hemu

Why I'm Not on Tinder

A friend of mine recently asked me why I am not on Tinder.

I paused for a second, a wild stream of visual cues flowing in my head

but no words at that moment to exactly answer that question.

There lies no judgment in me for people for whom it works

but in my own twisted mind full of second-hand books that smell like tea

and library stamps as old as me,

a digital imprint as that struggles at the borders of my comfort zone.

I haven’t yet grasped the idea of swiping left or right.

People say I have to go after what I want but this doesn’t quite seem like seeking love yet

but squeezing possibilities out of the hope and dreaminess

uncertainty has latent in it in such a way that the tiniest thread persists in you

when you call quits.

No, I don’t think I quite fit in that narrative.

You see,

before and when I go out with you, I don’t want to have a safety net of what you do

or the weighing insecurity of who you did.

I don’t care if you’re 6’2” or the next fraction of measurement and

neither do I want unsolicited dick pictures in my inbox floating next to blank ‘Hi’s’

that were thrown in like bait in the sea.

No. That’s not what I believe in.

I believe in first dates where you can tell me more about what you do for passion instead of profession.

I don’t want small talk.

I don’t want to know where you’re from or who’s in your family but

how you feel when I say the word ‘home’ and what that means to you.

Would there be kitchen stools, pajamas, little legs and hot chocolate

or a glass of bourbon mixed in parts with fear and dread?

Tell me about your childhood dreams.

Tell me what you wanted to be when you were little and why you never became them.

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.

Tell me what a fish whisperer meant in your little head and bright eyes, in the first place.

No, I don’t really want to know which school you went to but what you learnt,

un-learnt and re-learned.

Did you smile in your high school year book or were you afraid your braces would haunt

that beautiful broad grin of yours?

I want to know how you talk to your mother

and if she adjusted your tie on your prom night before you left into your version of adulthood?

Did you dance that night?

Tell me who that least popular kid in school was and if you ever gave them company

so that they didn’t feel shunned in the cruelty that some school lives can be…

….or wait,

tell me, were you that kid?

I’d like it known that I would rather have you turning up at my doorstep

with nothing more than a smile and enough meaningful conversation.

I fall in love with the small, important things.

Do you like cats or dogs?

If you have one of them divine beings, did you buy or adopt them?

Do you like tea or coffee?

Tell me, I need to know exactly what you take in it, how many cubes of sugar and all

and where you best like to drink it.

What do you first think of when I say the word ‘fuck’ or how weird ‘lovemaking’ sounds to you?

We’re still both strangers here and I don’t judge 

and so,  I’d like to know if you think drunken nights with nakedness are more intimate than

sharing a morning breakfast together still clothed in the modesty clinging to

our carnal expressions of the previous night.

I want to know everything I can

from how you smile when you blush or if you have deep dimples I’d want to kiss

in a three-dimensional world.

I want to see how you talk about your favourite fictional character

and if gym means making an impression or fitness.

I want to know what ice-cream flavours you like and

how you walk on the crosswalk as cars wait for you to pass

and if you ever gesture them thanks for stopping.

I have to know how your grandparents kissed you as a child and

how they looked at each other

and if you ever think you can ever have that with someone.

You see,

I want to know when you last sent a postcard to someone

and if you ever wrote a love letter.

No, something would seem amiss if I swiped you right on the best pictures of yourself.

No.

Until I know the rhythm with which you walk, the hand you wear your watch on,

how you treat a waiter or a child

and what tune you may whistle on a sunny day,

I can’t swipe you right.

In my little twisted mind full of second-hand books that smell like tea

and library stamps as old as me,

that just

won’t

be

right.

Image Source: http://www.mostbeautifulrussianwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dating-Couple-Laughing.jpg

Why?

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.

We have conversations now and then, Baby and I. It takes interesting patterns. Her current favourite conversation fixative is 'Why'.

No Baby! you shouldn't go there. 
Why, Chithi? 
Because it's dangerous. 
Why? 
You could very easily get hurt. 
Why?
You might fall down, there is a rough patch there. 
Why, Chithi? 
Because you're a baby and that's what babies do. They keep falling down. 
Oh. Okay! Why? 

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.

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.

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. Why did you choose that colour? Why do you 'like' it? Why not a different line thickness? We've seen them smile in despair after a point.

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.

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?

Why do I ask all this? 
Just curious. That's all.

Why am I curious?
It's interesting to see how your minds work and perceive concepts, ideas, boundaries and morality.

Why is that interesting you ask?
Doesn't it make you feel like every person is a world, a universe within themselves? 

Why should it?
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. 

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.

'Why, Chithi?' 

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) 

Have a happy new year, folks!

Love,                                        
Hemu 

Hello From the Other Side: America Diaries

17th December 2015 | Columbus | Ohio

My good people,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. This composition in particular 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.

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.

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.

Until next time!
Hemu

My apartment currently :) 

Terribly Tiny Love Letters 09: Love Loaves

There is a lilting memory from my pauses at a bus stop.
The smell of bread loaves being baked travels through the air,
across and around where I stand.
I've never seen this place that bakes this best smelling sweet bread
and I know not the origins and the special ingredients.
I wonder if it tastes as good as it smells: like heaven,
because
I've never tried to follow the music of these loaves;
only content to take in the smell and imagine its taste
during an everyday interim.
Just like how I've had you in my heart and thoughts
all this while;
dreaming in real life and living there
while you, my love, loaf around
outside my reality.

~Hemu

Image Source: http://stjohnstreet.co.uk/pictures-next-stop-brick-lane/

Terribly Tiny Love Letters 08: A Nameless Stupor

When the window panes are raised and the doors are firmly shut,
when I’m locked away in this little world of mine
I shout out your name
because I’ve not said it aloud enough times.
I’ve not heard my own voice
say it such that I can hear it hanging
around me;
and so,
in the silence of a shut car,
I say your name that echoes in my ears
a time or two
to hear how it sounds coming from my lips
and aloud
in difference to
the thousand times in my mind.

~Hemu

Image credits: Madame De Papilon

Power-Cut Epiphanies

   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)

   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. (Appa, I know you're reading this. You got to slow down and sit down, really!) 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.

    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. (Let's go once it starts raining heavily, she said.) 

   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.

   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.

Get back to real social life, my friends.

Love,
Hemu

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