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 

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

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.

High

I’ve never lived in homes with ceilings low,

breathing on me

like the open windows don’t belong

within the walls;

they’re too stumped,

buckling,

falling,

pressing.

I live now in an old apartment

and it seems like yesteryears were full of people like me

who didn’t want buckling walls ,

let tall lovers graze their homes with no apprehension,

believing in the power and beauty of them high ceilings:

untouchable bases of everyday living,

a space that lets you move.

It lets you explore.

It lets you jump.

Jump because I jump sometimes

in joy,

I shoot up when someone tickles me

an involuntary happiness that I can’t contain

it just spills and reaches out of my body.

I shoot.

Shoots, yes.

I want a lot of them, green from the top

hanging from my indoor skies,

vines filling for the veins of the walls,

pots and plants scaling my thoughts,

upright striving

and a safe space for their flowers to bloom.

I love high ceilings and I can’t lie,

not in houses alone

nor at work or that breakfast diner on my street

but at the psychiatrist’s office

or that bar that was once a bank

and in funeral homes.

The soul needs space to leave that body,

an outworn piece of clothing

the music needs to bounce,

it needs to echo, to want to dance in the presumed void;

it lets me dance with my beloved I bring home

and should he want to carry me high up

straddle my soul on his hips,

breasts at his lips

I want nothing to touch, no ceiling to hold on to

except the high cheekbones of his face.

I can’t be put in places with low ceilings,

they make me seems bigger than I am,

a giant,

an illusion of being free to accomplish goals

and I am not sure that is me.

The high ceilings are a friend

long lost

walls holding them up for me.

They meet me with open, blank slates

my art has the space to breathe,

the poems are up on my walls

living in sprouting light,

shadows incarnated.

When I’m head flat, water in my ears

in the bathtub

naked and suspended of social intrusions

I like looking at the light playing with the blinds

behind my back;

a fresh canvas

not breathing down on me or pressing me,

coercing me to be big

but a tender look that allows my insignificance to manifest.

The crown moulding looks at me like a lover,

the walls let me touch them

slow, I write in the air.

I once read this story about a man who filled his walls

with art, poetry and words,

ceiling resplendent with the words of others

until he hung himself from the fan

and I can’t help but think

how high his ceiling was

because these words can float,

they need no tethering,

they are little free lives in themselves

and if you put them in a box

and throw a person like me in it

I can never make peace with those words

and art, arrogantly mine.

I need the volume to love and it’s important that I love

because that is when I

and the colours

and the words I string

are most beautiful

and should you come to my funeral when I am gone,

I don’t want these words haunting you:

making you cry, kissing you against your will

but makes you rise and pluck words from my space

creating your poems from mine already dead,

streak it with colours

to later tell people about me

with a smile:

That funeral was hauntingly beautiful

and then,

Remember to look up

because

I am probably still there. 

I do not own this image. Collected from Pinterest.

Hemu 

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

Where Are Your Curiosities?

I met an interesting lady in the locker room at the gym, on campus.

Amidst women changing into workout gear and fleets of us just in transit with a towel around our bodies, I met this down-to-earth soul who wrapped herself around with a special kind of joy. I haven't really had much of a conversation here with anyone in the locker room because everyone is predominantly in some sort of a hurry. There are some smiles now and then, quick questions about the weather, workout and fitness, and occasional stories between friends there that comes to float over your head; but there is hardly any time to sit down and talk to someone you don't know. I cherish these kind of dialogues and I recollect having them with random strangers ever since I was young and had started traveling alone for my gymnastics meets across the country. It's a refreshing encounter, every single time!

In a locker room majorly occupied by young college students, she stood out to me: not because of her age but because of her demeanour that consisted of a special kind of radiating smile. She smiled at me and I did so too, I've missed that in a while. She is easily 60 years older than I am. She had come in to swim because it was 'liberating'. For a person like me who is mortally afraid of deep waters (even after swimming lessons), she was an immediate conversation starter. 'Do what you're afraid of', was what she told me and immediately added she didn't mean to preach. I feel culturally attuned to being open to other people's life experiences and it was strange for me to hear someone as old as her to say that she did not mean to 'preach'. It's an interesting crossover for me, a person from a different culture. I wouldn't mind it anyway. Some of the best conversations I've had are with people with a lifetime of experiences and even though I have come to disagree with some of their notions in the past, I have learnt to listen to them and respond, sometimes to gently disagree. Learning to convey disagreement of ideas in a placid and respectable manner are some of the curves I've come to correspond with at twenty four,I guess!

I have always had this affection for people with a zest for life and an innocent disposition bordering curiosity in their quest for life, especially if they're much older than I am. Here is this amazing women for whom walking is difficult but swimming is gently easy and embracing. We were joking about how there needs to be water channels instead of pathways on campus. I was extremely curious to know what education she was pursuing and she generated an entire list! She graduated in 1949, if I remember the year correctly. History (WWI, WWII and The Vietnam War), Literature, Music and French are among the studies she pursued and she is now with the music department again. 'I've been coming here for thirty years. I've been doing this for as long as you are alive and I love it.' For a person who sees students pursuing their undergraduate career with a little of a sulk and my own monster of graduate studies and its expectations, she shone with so much optimism for life and learning something new.

Imagine the zealous curiosity and openness a person must possess to go from one education to the next, sprawling across different fields! She's even learning some Chinese and teaches little children to play the piano. 'I don't have a formal degree for it but I finally feel like I know enough to teach little children.' Listening to her made me question my own life choices, the long way I have ahead and the relative understanding that time and age is, to do anything. Mother of six children, some grandchildren and great-grand-children, this woman is jumping one hurdle after another like it is no big deal. She was so excited when I showed her my sketchbook and the kind of art I make, as it came up in our conversation of about 40 minutes; and I remember her remarking how it is absolutely amazing to come across the talents and skills people have. 'Imagine! Every single person has some sort of skill and creative talent in them, isn't that amazing?' she said. Well, isn't it? In this rat race of a life, that was a gentle reminder to acknowledge the strengths and talents of another person and to stop for a little while instead of trying to power through to simply make it to the 'end'.

In this fast pacing world, we assume we don't have the time for a lot of things, for our little sources of happiness, curiosities and circles of people. Perhaps, we don't make time for it? I used to write letters to my best friend between fifth grade and almost up until my first year of college. We have both grown up and though we still pick up from where we left things, we haven't been writing to each other because of each other's busy schedules. It was beautiful to me when I heard this lady recount that she spoke to her pen-pal over the phone a couple of days back because she is very sick. A pen-pal in France who was just 29 miles apart from the army during the war, a pen-pal whom she wrote to after a gap of 45 years after high school when she started French lessons again. Her pen-pal wrote to her in three weeks saying she was the one who opened the letter and here are these beautiful ladies keeping in touch with each other. When was the last time we sent a postcard or a handwritten letter to someone we love? I don't mean to romanticise the whole idea but I do wonder time and again, if our correspondences and its associated experiences are losing its tangibility and significance in this digital era.

She reminded me of my own grandmother back in India. My maternal grandmother is one of the most beautiful, kind and gentle people I know of. Her education consists only up until the eighth grade as far as I know but she's still one of the most malleable and open-minded people. I sometimes wonder if she grew into it or if being that kind and lovely is just in her. What is most beautiful in her is her curiosity. I love her curiosity and eagerness to learn. She doesn't know too much English but she plays the SpellTower game on the iPad and keeps generating new words. Sometimes, she forms words in the process of playing the game and asks one of us for the meaning of the new word she just landed on, learning one step at a time... with no hesitance or feelings of awkwardness.

Why is it that we don't have time and the countenance for our curiosities anymore? Why can't we be like children and much older folks to whom not knowing or learning something new is exciting? When in the process of 'growing up' did we cease to pay attention to our curiosities and why are a whole lot of us afraid to express them? I'm just wondering out loud here.

I found so much more openness to conversation, ideas and sharing the excitement of doing something new or simply having a chat with someone they don't know of, in her; the interesting lady from the locker room. We have exchanged phone numbers and I shall keep in touch with her, attend her concerts and perhaps, send a postcard even! :)

Life is full of curiosities. Strike up a conversation with them all!

Love,
Hemu

Image Source:https://memyselfandela.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/smile-of-an-angel/

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

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 :) 

Wings

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

Source: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4e/d9/26/4ed9269da2819465a76fd6643f4e7085.jpg

Terribly Tiny Love Letters 07 | A Flaw SO Beautiful

Found the image on https://kidim2013.wordpress.com/tag/sahil/

I like those nights I make my tea perfectly.
I take a sip and realize that it's piping hot;
quite resonant
to a momentary scandal to my lips
when I drink from its deep end.
Like you and me.
Memories of you come rushing back
at the heat of that moment
and just so you know,
you come with all other things
flawed
and
beautiful.


~Hemu 

The Fucking Beautiful Woman

I'm a woman, a beautiful one.

I have no space for making mistakes.
Little peach flaws that fills the heart of a man are allowed but ugly and grossly growing up events that alter me aren't quite permitted under being beautiful.

I look beautiful if I laugh but chortling mirth isn't one of them. I look beautiful when I cry. Just glassy eyes full of tears stranded like a water droplet on a lotus leaf, waiting for me to close my eyes in a dramatic moment so that it may flow perfectly down in a single line across my immaculate cheek.
Wailing my gut out and wrenching the ache doesn't paint a pretty picture, as you know.

I look beautiful whether I just wake up from bed or whether I am going to a party. Sleep lines on my face from sleeping on my man as the general consensus go, is beautiful. Wrinkles of age, not so much.

I look beautiful whether I wear cotton panties or fancy lace ones.

I don't know if you know but no longer do mere breasts count for representing my gender. It has to be emphasized. They have to be big enough and beautiful enough or I am not woman enough.

I can't afford to 'walk like a man'.. well, because I am a woman. I can't exercise enough caution on my preferences because picky women aren't beautiful. That strand of hair that falls on my forehead needs to freeze in time till no one can see how not-so-beautiful it can get. There are no provisions for humidity, rain or a lazy day in the life of a woman.

It's beautiful when I see what my partner wants or if there are stealthy kisses abducted from me even as I am an unwilling party because He knows (best) that I love him. I'm not beautiful if I am vocal about my sexual needs. The minute sex pleasures me, I turn into a slut and we all know that that is not beautiful.

The society thinks I'm 'old enough to get married' but any knowledge I may possess on the subject of sex and reproduction is because I have a dirty mind that dwells on the carnal pleasures that shouldn't concern me. Oh, it won't be a beautiful thing to do, my dear!

I'm a beautiful woman. Intelligent, intellectual, sexual or slutty, well-read or wise, warm, funny or humourous: none of these score well in the books of the beautiful. I can't be lazy and unkempt on days of my choosing, eat like a glutton or drink like a sailor.

Because you see, I'm a woman. And I'm fucking beautiful.

Nothing less.
Nothing more either.

Image belongs to Hemalatha Venkatraman. Do not reproduce without permission 

~Hemu 

Calling Bluff

I see Him building his muscles instead of his conversations,
treading only along narcissistic monologues with a mirror.
I see Her pounding herself to suit her waist to being slim or curvy
or whatever is in vogue,
hoping that a thigh gap will
ironically seal the distance towards Her search.

In the end, neither eyes meet in an occupied glaze
and if only their gaze meets but for a second,
He dismisses Her for a desultory accumulation of layers
with nothing vulnerable underneath
and She goes in search of an intelligent man in spectacles,
wielding a book and a charming lilt in his words.

Source: Hemu's Art Blog
Image should not be reproduced without permission 

~Hemu