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

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

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 :)