tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2608249193661036432024-03-08T19:52:59.279+05:30noncethat old time religionMomohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-8886501607429429602011-03-14T00:13:00.000+05:302011-03-14T00:13:18.697+05:30for Rhapsody: Story of a Flood<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">N's idea. He wanted to build a story of a flood around some of <a href="http://www.vasudevart.com/">Vasudev</a>'s copper reliefs. I was thinking of them as land and sea already and also eager to write a story. This is what emerged.<br />
<br />
<i>Story of a Flood</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
I woke up early in the morning and it was raining. Mother said I didn't have to go to school because there was water in the streets. The rain was falling everywhere and all our roads were hidden, shrouded, sunk. Nothing moved except the water falling in fat drops, submerging the city, drowning our dogs.<br />
<br />
And still, it wasn't enough. For me. I was jealous of those people in the villages, a flood of their bodies rafting on debris, afloat on their boats. Their boats! What an adventure.<br />
<br />
I woke up early in the morning and there was only the sea. The furrows and the farmlands, train tracks, turnpikes and traffic systems - all gone. The house was afloat but empty. The clothesline swelled with sheets and I set sailing down the street. <br />
<br />
I had a feeling there were others out there. I heard their voices in the wind, I heard whispers of family and friends and I followed. Across a continent I flowed with the flood, seeing shadows underwater and the faces of the future.<br />
<br />
Soon the whispers grew stronger. They tugged at my sails, shook the hand that held the rudder, spoke vainly to the water in an effort to churn it, turn it, to alter my course with a deluge of directions. But the house stood still. <br />
<br />
There were no storms. There was no sun. When the water crept in under the door, I knew I didn't have long. I sat on the roof and waited. <br />
<br />
Everything was all gone. Uncertain, alone, afraid, empty, I waited. What an adventure.<br />
<br />
And then there birds drawing circles in the sky. They were swooping and diving and talking incessantly and laughing and laughing. I must be dreaming. I must be dreaming as the water touched my ankles. I must be dreaming with my arms extended my head afloat. A bird on my head. A voice in my ear. The breath in my body. My body in my bed.<br />
<br />
I woke up early in the morning. I woke up. At least, I woke up.</div>Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-44473969200486936322011-03-14T00:03:00.000+05:302011-03-14T00:07:56.971+05:30for Rhapsody: on change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">More writing inspired by the work of <a href="http://www.vasudevart.com/">Vasudev</a>. K told us a story about moving to another country and suddenly noticing change in herself and her surroundings many years later, triggered by a letter from an old friend. This one was written as homework for the workshop.<br />
<br />
<i>on Change</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
You look different.<br />
You're exactly the same.<br />
Something's happened to you.<br />
Some of the things we say to each other after time apart.<br />
<br />
When I'm close to you, you are much bigger. We are glued together. We sit on each other's shoulders. There is no room between us. There is no room.<br />
<br />
So I wedge things between us to get a better view: jungles, buildings, distance, our differences. You do too.<br />
<br />
I see you whole now, but I see little of you. There is so much more to see.<br />
<br />
Now the land is strange between us. Now the sun above us is changed. The world only turns in one direction.<br />
<br />
We cannot meet through the throng. We will have to find another way to each other. I guess we will have to walk all the way around, again.</div>Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-54271898288075292272011-03-13T23:50:00.001+05:302011-03-14T00:11:22.471+05:30for Rhapsody: on memory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">We were telling each other a lot of stories from childhood with reference to <a href="http://www.vasudevart.com/">Vasudev</a>'s work. It's turned out to be quite a treat that his exhibition is called <i>Recollections, Reconnections</i>. I found an old piece that I wrote during a workshop years ago and reworked it all except the first line.<br />
<br />
<i>on Memory</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Memories are most treacherous things.<br />
<br />
No memory is whole. <br />
<br />
They are all bits and pieces, brushed on by feeling, and feeling never stops. And sometimes we forget what we remember, and remake what we’ve forgotten in the remarkable shape of what must have been. And we forget our inventions, or if we invented anything at all because, after all, all memories are true.<br />
<br />
And often, memories are all that’s left behind and true or otherwise, they are real, no?<br />
<br />
I woke up in a village. Big fields, small farmers, distant trees, clear skies, dirt roads, clean air, common wells, coal ovens, superstitions, robbermen, and lanterns in the night time. It is nothing like that anymore. <br />
<br />
My father says I couldn’t possibly remember anything. Impossible, let alone improbable, for a two year old to retain such early sensory experiences. But he never lived there. My mother lived there, and she says nothing.<br />
<br />
Some things happen to you before you learn to remember. Leaves, mud, sunshine, dogs barking, cows calling, fruit falling, real darkness, rainstorms, and being alone, buoyed up by the beat of my little feet running, running, endlessly running.<br />
<br />
And there is love here somewhere, no? Of the things I've seen and sensed. Of my first burning. Of my mother's fingers. Of being awake. Love is the first thing I remember. I couldn’t tell you anything about it, but it is faithful. It is whole. <br />
<br />
<div>The whole in your heart.</div></div>Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-50053251530481517042011-03-13T20:26:00.001+05:302011-03-14T00:07:44.941+05:30for Rhapsody: fragments<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A few fragments from my writing based on the work of <a href="http://www.vasudevart.com/">Vasudev</a>. These were written together but none of them went anywhere. These are the best ideas from that day.<br />
<br />
All men are farmers<br />
and all we seed is grown.<br />
Our hands are thrown in every direction<br />
and what is sown,<br />
what is sown is everything.<br />
<br />
My face is a fruit of no imagining.<br />
My face is a flower in the future<br />
peeled away like paper<br />
fluttering in the wind but still not free,<br />
like loosened leaf, like boyhood,<br />
like birds, bicycles, and balloon rides.<br />
<br />
I didn't put messages in a bottle and throw them to the sea, but I made little paper boats just perfect for puddlewater. No words. Just the impressions of my fingers. And the rains took my fingered fleet sailing through the gutters and down the drains, to where is unknown. And I would like to know what is shown. What is shown?</div>Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-59646848091462402962011-03-13T20:14:00.000+05:302011-03-13T20:14:07.928+05:30for Rhapsody: My mother's face<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The second piece I wrote based on <a href="http://www.vasudevart.com/">Vasudev</a>'s work. There's a recurring image in his work foregrounding the face of a woman surrounded by a host of little men. This is a true story, if that makes any sense.<br />
<br />
<i>My mother's face</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
My mother's face is in the moon:<br />
the pictures of her young face are misplaced.<br />
<br />
Grown men are weak-kneed in her memories:<br />
heavy-handed and invertebrate, they<br />
admired her every dimension, they<br />
loved her eyes, her hair, her shoulders, they<br />
scribbled passionately about her limbs;<br />
late nights they sent her out for cigarettes.<br />
<br />
She carried long distances in old shoes:<br />
her grandmother did not call my grandmother<br />
by her name, but by those of her children;<br />
even though she rescued her from an empty house,<br />
from kind strangers in a new country built<br />
on fine principles.<br />
She lived in a shed with newspapers piled<br />
with old food and news stories preserved<br />
in jam jars and tin cans.<br />
As a young woman they beat her because she could read.<br />
In her old age she spoke to the ghosts in the bamboo grove.<br />
She listened to the rain on her corrugated iron roof.<br />
She told her granddaughters secrets of real love<br />
to be kept from the world of men:<br />
Men are grim and grusome callous.<br />
Sailors, shopkeepers and tax collectors, they<br />
are beggars, hounds and dreamers who devour dreams.<br />
Merchantmen in the ocean of us, seamen on our surface<br />
in love with mermaids and the reflections in the water.<br />
Buccaneers of our bounty but terrified by our depths.<br />
Why else do you think they murder whales?<br />
The most you can do is keep them clean.<br />
Wash their hair, clip their toenails and clean their ears,<br />
so when their time comes, and come it will,<br />
you can let them sink without fear of pollution.<br />
<br />
My mother's mother told me stories to keep me safe.<br />
She made masks for my baby face, shaped my eyebrows,<br />
pinched my tongue to teach me manners,<br />
cooked my meals to make me strong, and<br />
she grew older than she should have in front of my eyes.<br />
She forgot my name eventually, even though it was important to her.<br />
She taught me how easy it is to unravel.<br />
<br />
She taught me there is no measure<br />
to how much my grandmother loved me.</div>Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-40379376532072434682011-03-13T19:58:00.001+05:302011-03-13T19:58:44.909+05:30for Rhapsody: SUICIDE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i>Rhapsody & Other Movements</i> is a performance based around the works of <a href="http://www.vasudevart.com/">Vasudev</a>, most particularly his recent work, built for his exhibition <i>Recollections, Reconnections</i> at the Lalit Kala Akademi galleries this month. I like working like this: borrowing inspiration from other work and writing serially along different themes. This is the first piece I wrote based on his work. It's a fairly literal interpretation of one of Vasudev's sketches based on the poetry of AK Ramanujan. Ramanujan's poem is titled 'Suicide', as is Vasudev's sketch, as is this poem.<br />
<br />
<i>Suicide</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
this is me at the bottom of the pond<br />
you have forgotten, with the mud and little fish.<br />
<br />
i wish you could see me, <br />
at the bottom of the pond,<br />
looking up now at the arses of ducks,<br />
at the stooping drooping dogs and flowers,<br />
and the village girls undulating above the surface.<br />
oh, how I miss them all when they go away.<br />
<br />
i can see the roof of the temple from down here, <br />
freshly painted with glossy, weatherproof colours <br />
that will stand the test of time <br />
better than all the other freshly painted times.<br />
<br />
i don't hear much down here<br />
but every ripple is an utterance,<br />
a story above me<br />
in music and footsteps,<br />
the wind on the water -<br />
all that does not penetrate here<br />
to me, my arms around my <br />
beautiful bitter boulder.<br />
<br />
and i do not grow older, no,<br />
away from bird song and fox calls,<br />
chicken scratchings and dances,<br />
dark skin, dry sweat and drunkenness;<br />
because<br />
<br />
i carried this weight into the water,<br />
when i thought i was leaving it behind.</div>Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-27771824683416117172010-09-14T01:54:00.000+05:302010-09-14T01:54:51.197+05:30DO YOU MISS METhis is an old acrostic. I write acrostics to keep my hand busy when I don't have the beginnings of anything nor any clear direction I'm heading in.<br />
<br />
<i>Do You Miss Me</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
Don't speak, darling<br />
Outside is alarming<br />
<br />
Years keep no count<br />
Over and around our little town<br />
Under the sea<br />
<br />
Married are the fishes, and free<br />
Is the coral wafting<br />
Sound is surprising<br />
Silence arousing a sleeping mystery<br />
<br />
Mark me in sweetly sweet<br />
Errant memoryMomohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-11443091724002523482010-08-30T18:47:00.014+05:302010-08-30T19:05:25.049+05:30OLD DREAMS IN ORANGEThis is an exercise in translation, my first. It's a translation, quite literal, of <a href="http://kachhikavita.blog.co.in/2010/08/12/%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%80-%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%87/">this poem</a> by Rahul Rai. I do believe the original is the <i>real thing</i>. I thought of this as a technical exercise, but of course, it's emerged well-filtered through my fingers. I mean that it's meant to be the same thing as the Hindi poem, only transposed, but it seems inadequate. I haven't grown entirely fond of this one yet.<br />
<br />
<i>Old Dreams In Orange</i><br />
<br />
My old dreams in orange are<br />
on their way to meet the stars.<br />
<br />
Once upon<br />
I pounced upon a brimming bowl<br />
of sweet cold milk<br />
and drained it to its dying drops.<br />
<br />
The time I sat<br />
my body hugging the pillars<br />
of the courtyard:<br />
<br />
the evening clouds<br />
(so dark that day) frightened me<br />
and ran away.<br />
<br />
And in my fear I ran,<br />
burrowing my body<br />
into my grandmother's lap.<br />
<br />
I am calling the winds again, today:<br />
<br />
<i>Come back, you.</i><br />
<i>Make me take me walking</i><br />
<i>to those distant silent suns.</i><br />
<i>And with my atoms unchained I will kiss you</i><br />
<i>in this sprawling sparkling dark!</i><br />
<i>My sinews distorted, I cannot sit still</i><br />
<i>no more in your memories.</i><br />
<i>No more this pretty world I like,</i><br />
<i>no more give grace to the dead and dissected.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><br />
<i>Oh,<br />
my old dreams in orange, take me<br />
with you, those sundrop stars to see.</i></span></i>Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-29876750704137692632010-07-30T15:40:00.001+05:302010-08-30T19:06:28.387+05:30GRAFITTIThis is the most recent thing I've written, only a about a week or so ago. I worked this one for five hours, from full stop to full stop. I think I'm happy with it. Except the title - almost apt, but not satisfactory.<br />
<br />
<i>Grafitti</i><br />
<br />
Oh, do not grow fond of these fingerprints.<br />
They have travelled far across these pages,<br />
nicked and rough, and ink-stained so ugly;<br />
seasoned by the stench of blood and mud,<br />
by chalk-dust that chokes little children,<br />
and the fluids of my body. These<br />
hands are not meant for your hands to hold;<br />
these shameful, painful peasant frames<br />
that mould and hold and surrender,<br />
with no sorrow, all they've ever made.<br />
<br />
For all young men grown old in their bones,<br />
and all grandfathers alone in their homes,<br />
these fingers tell stories in scabs<br />
and scratches against these city walls.<br />
All their names are sweet secrets<br />
inscribed in the margins and lost<br />
in the safest reaches of memory,<br />
in the realm of forgotten fancies.<br />
<br />
Oh, do not grow fond. Do not get lost.Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-72772270389059480922010-07-24T19:26:00.006+05:302010-07-29T19:48:14.215+05:30ABSENCE MAKING NEWSI watched <i>Inception</i> last night. My heart is still racing. I'm going to go watch it again on Monday, once the fucking weekend price hike is over, and again, if I can afford it. Two-hundred and seventy-five bucks to watch a movie - ouch. But it was totally worth it. (It's ridiculous that I was watching movies a decade ago for thirty-five bucks, balcony seats at New Empire: <i>Deep Blue Sea</i>, thrice. Oh, yes.)<br />
<br />
This poem was inspired by a friend's parents. They have the most enviable way of letting the things in their house hang on to their history for them. It would explain why they seem so youthful: the past just leaks into the little things, and the people stay young. Neat, no? The impression I get is that if the house fell away, the things within would still be exactly as and where they are. But this isn't about them, of course. It's about me. Written mid-April, here in Delhi.<br />
<br />
<i>Absence Making News</i><br />
<br />
<i></i>Within the rages of middle age<br />
with its bodies that need refitting,<br />
its baffled hearts (or so they seem),<br />
its patches, pouts and peregrinations,<br />
I spy with my little eye: oases.<br />
<br />
These bodies they are not innocent.<br />
The skin conceals, the marks mislead,<br />
and two bodies grown old together<br />
carry more weight outside themselves.<br />
(Or so they seem.)<br />
<br />
I find myself jealous<br />
of the letters, fetters, strings and baubles<br />
set aside, to remember, relive, revive<br />
this sleeping keeping store.<br />
<br />
I worry about wrapping paper, love.<br />
So young and not so young, I dream<br />
of grey hair and flowers,<br />
of weathered love, sweet<br />
and familiar, grotesque and graceful;<br />
the smell of sweat and spice and soil and sky,<br />
of cinnamon, and skin.<br />
<br />
My fingers reveal the roads<br />
of rock and sand, ice and ocean,<br />
farm, forest, rainstorms and revelations -<br />
this shadow of my hand on your belly,<br />
your one small toe much smaller than the rest,<br />
the smell of my bad habits, and<br />
the shape of absence making news<br />
in blesséd scars, old scabs and missing clay -<br />
all this and more,<br />
nothing promised, nothing safe.Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-69470601008897350982010-07-23T09:40:00.000+05:302010-07-23T09:38:50.956+05:30THE LOCKER<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">This was written on a plane to Bangalore in March. I find I write compulsively while in transit, either out of boredom or just a sense of weightlessness, of the unsaid but sure knowledge that nothing is required of me until I arrive. I also find I tend to revise poems as I copy them down - from napkins and scraps onto pages, or from dirtied scratchings into a 'fair' version - so, this one has been revised a little bit and probably will be again until I'm tired of feeling imprecise.</span></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><i>The Locker</i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><i><br />
</i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">The face you wear is hairless,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">no grace in your shapes;</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">your relief is no escape,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">your body bends and shifts -</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">this landscape is not made of paper.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Later stones skim</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">over this gleaming mirror,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">skip and shatter.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Ripples collide, rebel and return.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">The sea is a surface where</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">men may read strange thoughts.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">You, sailor boy, don't forget:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">remember that mermaids</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">are sea-monsters too.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">T</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">his face you wear does not care</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">to cast its shadow, </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">but below </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">these gaping waters</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">they all know your name.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Head up, young person. Head up.</span></span></div>Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260824919366103643.post-28196972684591508222010-07-22T12:53:00.001+05:302010-07-27T14:49:03.664+05:30Step OneThis is intended to be a blog of writing. I find myself embarrassed to begin blogging again after such a stretch offline, particularly my own writing, but here I am anyway. I'm doing this because Rahul Rai - poet, philosopher and lighting designer extraordinaire - thinks it's a good idea, and I guess I do too. I'm terrified this entire thing will become sickeningly pretentious, but since I spend most of my time playing with pretense, why deny my own impulses? And anyway, I prefer 'aspirational' (not 'pretentious').<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>So, sufficiently bolstered, here I go.</div><div><br />
</div><div>As I type this out, Mallika Taneja and Tarun Sharma are rehearsing "Milte Hain" from <i>Taramandal</i>, Kriti Pant is flat on the floor on her stomach next to me and dead to the world, Neel Chaudhuri is sitting behind me with the fan off (to help with his hearing) and making notes, and Rahul Rai is caressing his mustache bristles and chuckling to himself. We've had a working morning, and as August approaches, <i>Taramandal</i> is breathing again. Tadpole is at work, and I sense the slow but powerful beginnings of a good feeling stealing over us.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Now, Neel Chaudhuri is playing 'Aaj Ki Raat' and Rahul Rai is dancing. This is home.</div>Momohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11785546073666764009noreply@blogger.com0