Found: A scanner, a letter and a few words to go with that.

 

Long gap between posts, as usual.
I’m not sorry about this fact because if I get less time to write, it means I’m actually doing more things I can write about later.
I discovered  an old, unused scanner while cleaning up the library today morning. The joy in this discovery didn’t lie in finding that it still worked but in finding old pages/letters/photographs that I wanted to scan that ensued this discovery. I love how  inconsequential notes or scribblings in my diary at 4.am turn into such precious keepsakes for me with the passing of time. There is one letter I found, tucked away in a Ruskin Bond Omnibus, that still means as much to me now as it did when I received it. In happiness (no, it isn’t to strong a word) of finding that the scanner worked and in reminding myself of who I used to be and who I’d like to become through pieces of paper, I thought I’d put it up here.

There was an article titled ‘I Want To Be Ruskin Bond’ I had written when I was just out of school (If you haven’t read it and would like to do so, you can read it HERE).  I’ve resisted the urge to edit it when I read it now, there are a lot of places in which I can see corrections are needed. That being said, given I got the letter that I’ve put up a the beginning of this article in reply to it and that too on the day of my 18th birthday(Thank you Ma!) there is no other piece of writing that has meant more to me.

What he’s written and the fact that he took the time out to write a reply to a ramblings of a 17-year-old girl  made a lot of difference to how I behaved in certain situations when I entered college, still does. Modesty, especially from people who have every reason to be high-headed is the quality I have come to admire most. Sadly, it is the one quality I seem to find the most scarcity of. I don’t really know how to explain how I felt after reading this but I do no know it made me feel even more strongly about what I wrote.

I want to be Ruskin Bond.
And though I wrote this before wanting to be as good a writer,  I say this now because I want to be as good a person.

Alright, Exams-books-My break’s over.

Good night.

Let’s Not Talk

I can not write but I have things to say

and talking only takes the magic away

these perfect moments and the purple sky

if not recorded, shall pass me by

 

Theater, music and warring with the spoken word

I have performed and played and plenty heard

but it didn’t take long for me to see

It’s not for and audience I perform, but for me

 

My words are lurking somewhere within me, though 

unless I open up, they shall not show

If I do, be warned, let you into my mind

be careful of what you may find

 

But I’m still not a poet, i have heard

the best of them never wrote a single word

and though I’m not, I have things to say

and talking only takes the magic away.

Exam Fever, Literally.

If you haven’t guessed already, It’s that time of the year again- Exams. My favorite excuse for everything. Down with a temperature so have taken today off to sit at home and stare at my books rather than my lecturers face and then a broken down auditorium stage and I actually have to make myself cups of  chai and coffee rather than have the option to run to the hostel canteen or the hundred other places on campus for it. I hope I get better for that sole reason. Everyone around me is in pre-exam trauma. Most people(including me) have just finished buying all the books we’re supposed to study this year.   Sadly enough ever since I’ve taken English Literature as my honors course I don’t know how to tell everyone else who texts me telling me how nervous they are or how we’re all going to die trying to prepare for these papers- I actually enjoy studying. I admit I may not do that great, given how my preparation is going but I like reading books and calling something that enjoyable  studying. I am still sticking to some of my exam preparation measures from school though- My Facebook badge directly to the right of this post isn’t there anymore because I’ve de-activated that (the twitter widget  below that will show I’m wasting just as much time as before just on a different social networking site).

I’m acting all calm and composed now but this is how I’m going to be one day before my exams-

A big fat great Indian wedding in the family that has just gotten over, plenty of drama in the drama rehearsal space, friends in town for their vacations,  vacations being planned in my head, campus craziness and a whole ton of really interesting people – there has been plenty that has happened to keep me busy just before the exams, so I will have plenty to write after. Not to forget Yogesh, one of my friends who’s working on his own website has made a template for my blog and I think it’s pretty brilliant. That will be put later! Can’t really wait.

 I remember the blog post last year called The Company I have Over For Tea .  This year is so much better(and tougher). Here are the people who i’m spending this week/month/year with -

This is going to be fun =)!
Back soon.

So much for open letters

Open Letter(n.)- A published letter on a subject of general interest, addressed to a person but intended for general readership.

The strangest thing I’ve come across in the past few days of being cooped up at home with a viral is the “Open Letter to The Delhi Boy” blog post.  Despite having gotten to the page only after reading the several angry retorts other people had posted about it,  I started out reading with a clear head. I still had to stop halfway through and convince myself to actually complete reading, I’m not sure if it was a wise decision.

The letter, which Hindustan Times in an article published today says is a ‘Classic case of fighting stereotype with stereotype‘ is  something that left me scared for more than one reason. What an open letter actually stands for has been put up in the beginning of this post to ensure I (or anyone else for that matter) do not end up doing the same thing that I am reacting against. An open letter is not a rant. As aggressively as you feel towards the person/group you address the letter too, it is still a published letter and words everyone will be reading. there is still a major responsibility you have on you to construct your argument right and in a proper manner. The more passionately you feel about the matter, the more reason to ensure your passion does not cover up all the sense your argument might have had in the beginning.

If it was just about taking a letter that laughs at you in good humor it would be a different case and easier for most people to get over. But a letter with liberal use of crass language basically dividing your country into pieces and talking about one state (and once you read the article you realize its not just targeted against the men) in the basest manner possible is harder to humor. Even more saddening then reading the letter is to read some of the replys.  Almost all the ones that say ‘good job, very true’ also include  ’I am a Tamilian too’ . A lot of replys against the article have been written with the same hate that the article has been written with and here I am willing to understand why. There are people who have commented with a more rational minds against the article but I wonder how many people are actually reading these replys with the same levelheadedness.  Besides the replys and the whole north-south debate you could see in them, I had trouble reading the morning newspaper because somewhere else on the very same blog, I read ‘I am a journalist’. If an article so biased  and in some ways baseless could have been written by someone who I might be relying on for free and fair news, I’m not to sure I want the news. Given the fact that I am young and am still considering my career options and what adults are supposed to act like, Well- I’m rethinking all of that.
But given the fact I’m asking readers to not typecast or stereotype all people belonging yo a group because of what one voice among them says, I shouldn’t be doing the same with a profession.

There are two other blog posts that have written in reaction and I actually think they deserve to be read more than the original. If you’ve read the original article, then you’ll need this to get back some faith in people back. If you haven’t read the original, these one’s are good enough to be read all the same-

The Disgruntled Mob-  Bhaiyya…Palika Bazaar ka Kitna?

The Mad Momma-  ‘Tis the season for open letters
They basically manage to encompass the reply that I and a lot of other people have tried to give to the article and in the best manner possible. Another letter basically stating the same is not required. The only part left out and in a way a question that Lavanya also asks in her reply is- ‘Do all army kids think the same way?’

That’s one of the things I hope people would not think after reading the article. Until i read the letter I used to think none of the army kids ever would or even could think like that.  The letter has obviously proved me wrong but like Lavanya states a case saying one south Indians views should not be taken as belonging to the entire community, I say the same, just from an army kids point of view.
Funnily enough most of us have issues with figuring out which part of the country it is to where we belong so we don’t really ever get to be a part of the south Indian versus north Indian debate. Even if we do know that, given we live in a different part of the country every two to three years and it could be the opposite ends of India for all you know, we know acceptance of every place and adjustment is much better than hate- For us and for everyone around us too.
There is a post that has been put up on the very same blog by Shahana  called ‘Daughter Desh Ki’. I liked that article, it stood very true for me and had been written well with an emotion a whole lot of us could relate too. She even has a line in that saying ”We are the only category of children in the country who get very confused when asked where we are from. ’ Which makes it harder for me to understand where her most recent article came from. I’m sure if she had the sense and skill to write that article, this article if it  contained the same wouldn’t have gone so wrong. That you can’t really be the country’s daughter, as she calls herself, if you don’t see the country as a country but as several opposing states that are hostile to each other. Being a person who’s lived in several different states from the moment I was born and currently living in Delhi, the city that is being targeted, I assure you- It is not true.

We’re all allowed to rant, it isn’t wrong. Grab a friend and a coffee and do so or lock yourself up with your favorite books. If writing is the only way of catharsis for you, well and good. But please remember personal diaries aren’t such a stupid idea after all.

An Auditorium, Sylvia Plath and Me.

One of the best parts about doing theater is that there’s something for everyone. The wrong perception that I had about theater being mainly about the ones on stage has changed completely over the past year. The ones on stage I have realized are unluckier. Their exploration is mostly limited to their character, while the rest have the entire world to discover within the four damp, dark walls of the auditorium.  Lights, sounds, scripts- each of them gives you a chance to discover something new, both within yourself and outside of yourself.

I am trying my hand at both lights and sound this year. Given that I have only done a street play last year, which had a charm of its own, coming directly to directing a stage play is scary but it is something I trust myself to handle or at least learn from. It gives to me what I like best about what I do- Words. Bringing something that was written years ago to its last destination, the stage.

I discovered the passage I have published below a few months ago while preparing for the auditions. While we frantically searched for passages to give to people who would be coming to audition for our society, I came across this in a book titled ‘Audition Passages For Women’. I couldn’t find a copy of this on the internet anywhere so I sat at the back and copied it into my diary because I couldn’t get over how similar it was to how I felt, each and every word. At 17 and even now. Sylvia Plath had a troubled life untill she eventually committed suicide at the age of 30. Her first attempt at suicide however was at twenty, three years after this was written (Virginia Woolf’s first attempt at suicide was also at the age of twenty..and they still ask me why I’m dreading my birthday). She’s one of the people I have discovered through theater first and then through her poetry. She is one of the women I would want to meet, want to go over the thoughts that at least at the beginning sound so much like mine. But maybe we will never be able to figure out this  ’dazzlingly, maddeningly fragmented woman as an integrated being’ (as author Kate Moses Puts it). Maybe it’s best that way.

LETTERS HOME- SYLVIA PLATH
As of today I have decided to keep a diary again. Just a place where I can write my thoughts and opinions when I have a moment. Somehow I have to keep and hold the rapture of being seventeen. Everyday is so precious. I feel infinitely sad at the thought of all this time melting farther and farther away from me as I grow older. Now, now is the time of my life.

I still do not know myself. Perhaps I never will. But I feel free-unbound by responsibility, I still can come up to my own private room with my drawings and hangings on the wall and the pictures pinned up over the bureau a room suited to me, uncluttered and peaceful. I love the quiet lines of the  furniture and the two book cases filled with poetry books and fairy tales saved from childhood…

I am afraid of getting older. I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day spare me from thee relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free- free to know people and their backgrounds , free to move to different parts of the world. I want, I think, to be omniscient. I think I would like to call myself  ’The Girl Who Wants To Be God’. Perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. But, oh, I cry out against it. I am I.

I love my flesh, my face, my limbs. I have erected in my mind an image of myself – idealistic and beautiful. Is not my image free from blemish, the true self- the true perfection?

There will come a time when I must face myself a last. Even now I dread the big choices which loom in my life. I am afraid, uncertain. I am not as wise as I have thought.

I can now see, as if from a valley, the roads lying open for me but I can not see the end, the consequences.

Oh, I love now with all its fears and forebodings. For now I still am not completely molded. I am steam.

My life is just beginning.

Pause.

 

The Word
Tony Hoagland

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is as beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,

that also needs accomplishing
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue

but today you get a telegram,
from the heart in exile
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them
who can find the time,
to sit out in the sun and listen.

This is a similar post to a one I’d put up a while ago- A poem and a reason for why I put it up. This is a similar phase too. But unlike last time, this poem doesn’t describe the phase I’m going through but pulls me away from it.Reaching home late every night, working like crazy to get assignments for class and scripts for the drama society ready, running from one place to another. The checklist in my brain and in my notebook for the things that have to be done never ends. There’s so much to do and even if a day had 48 hours it wouldn’t seem enough right now.
Not that I ‘m complaining. Busy is good, busy means you aren’t bored. I recently read a quote by Dorothy Parker that said ‘they sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.’ and kept it in mind to tell myself that even if I did have the time to breathe, I wouldn’t want it.
This poem reminded me why I was wrong. Like a song on loop, the lines “and to remind you that,among your duties, pleasure is a thing, that also needs accomplishing” are stuck in my head. I’m going to get sleep tonight. I’m going to get more sunlight from tomorrow. Though what sunlight is for me changes everyday.

DogTalk.

 ’Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.‘ - Orhan Pamuk

The perfect company for moments in which you just want to sulk…..The perfect company for any moment actually.

This was post dengue, collar bone broken, no energy, low enthusiasm, anti-people phase. One part of the year I’d rather not have back. The picture though is one of this years best.

I have a constant source of comfort in college, when people become too complicated to handle. Her name’s Shiela, a stray who lives on campus but is one of the most spoilt brats I’ve ever seen, she has a 100 different students swooning over her all day. Jealous? well, I am. It’s unbelievable the amount she’s grown in a year. See for yourself -
 My dog at home- Magic, a 9 year old dalamation who never stopped being a puppy  ’andifistartwritingabouthimIshallneverstop’ is the undeniable puppy love of my life, but she comes close.
Look at the picture of her as a puppy, how could she not?

What I Know Now.

This comic strip has had me thinking for quite while ever since I read it. To put an end to it, I’m giving myself half an hour to make a list of what I’ve learnt till now. Making lists come easy, but this one is a first. Here goes-

• If you want to be loved, give love. If you want more friends, be friendly. If you want more money, provide more value. It really is this simple.
•  If you’re going to do something ‘someday’, you’re never going to do it.
• It is okay to be angry.  It is never okay to be cruel.
• Clean up your own mess. Literally and figuratively
• Give yourself a break at times. Sleeping in on a Sunday is sometimes just as important as the rest of the stuff on your to-do list.
• Explore the world but start from your own garden.
• Keep a diary. You never know when the 19 year old version of you needs the 9 year old version to put her back on track.
• Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
• Be nice. Period.
• But sometimes, you’re just going to have to learn to be mean either for your own sake or for others. Regardless of what self help books or men of god say- some people will only listen to condescension not kindness.
• Defend those who are absent or those who can’t stand up for themselves. At some point or the other you’re going to need someone to do the same for you too.
• Never rush through your childhood in your hurry to grow up.
• Your mother is mostly like an older version of you. Tell her the truth when you’re not in class and at a friend’s house. She probably already knows.
• Don’t wear your raincoat in the shower- never close off from the world around you, learn something every chance you get.
• If you don’t give yourself importance no one else will.
• It’s not about getting everything you want, it’s about wanting everything you’ve got.
• You will make mistakes; it will feel like the end of the world but a year later you’ll be laughing at what you did and how you felt about it then.
• Forgive people, everyone from the person who pushed you on the metro to the friend who took an action without thinking of its effect. Even if you don’t do it for them, do it for yourself.
• Forgive yourself- for mistakes done in the past, present and the ones you will make in the future.
• Nobody cares what clothes you’re wearing or what your hair looks like, if they do they’re not worth much of your time.
• Ask for what you want. Even if it makes you feel like a fool for two seconds, if you don’t you’re a fool for a life time.
• To break the rules, you must know them first.
• Drink more water. How you get dehydrated every summer without fail makes for a funny story, but it’s not funny when you’re going through it.
• There is such a thing as luck and good karma might just be another name for it. Might. But it can only take you so far.
• Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
• It’s ok to form opinions on some people, as long as they’re your own opinions, not someone else’s and provided they can be changed by the person themselves.
• Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
• To travel is better than to arrive.
• If you’re wrong, say sorry and mean it. The sooner, the better.
• The internet is the internet. It doesn’t matter if you’re angry of crazily depressed, never write anything on it which you’re not willing to stand by or will regret later. There is no eraser here, most times.
• Create. Whether you do it through words, paper, dance…doesn’t matter. Put something out there in the world that wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for you.
• Do less- I spent to long trying to do too much, I think I still am. Life is not a checklist, I am not a machine
• Playing dumb can actually get you out of a lot of difficult issues (probably not great advice, but its true!)
• You were only given this life because you’re strong enough to live it
• You’re work won’t take care of you when you’re sick. Your friends and parents will. Decide what you’d give more importance too.
• When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
•  If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
• You don’t get chances, you take them
• Having a thousand credentials on the wall will not make you a decent human being, genuinely helping people even in the smallest of ways will.
• Sometimes, regardless of what people tell you, you just have to break down and cry. It doesn’t mean you’re unhappy, it doesn’t mean you’re weak. You’re human.
• Never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart.
• In order to be creative, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
• Thanking people is important. Whether you’re 9 or 90, giving thank you cards feels great and the expression on people face when they get the cards is even more priceless.
• If you don’t respect someone else’s books, don’t borrow them.
• Bad roads make for better memories.
• Always use Spellcheck. Never trust Spellcheck completely.
  

Done.

Half the point of this post is to get others thinking too. Feel like I’ve missed out anything, life taught you differently in some situations? Make your own list or tell me some of your points =).

Summer In My Head.

Originally thought of during a theatre workshop where you had to come up with a story revolving around a prop you were given and narrate it in character. My prop was a pair of spectacles. I failed at that excercise because I played myself not a detached character but hey, atleast I got a story that everyone spoke to me about after. A lot seemed to agree with the last line of it, so i thought I might as well put it up. No harm in that.

And  it’s summer time again.

Summer somehow always seems to be the season for transition. Winter is more static, with the weather making it too tough to really be doing much more than sitting in the blanket and planning out details of the summer months. With the days growing longer the playtime of the children in the park increases, the number of people on the road increases and so does the number of ice cream carts. Strangely, the worse the weather gets, the more reasons I am given to be outside the comfort of my home and braving the sun.

The race for colleges in The University of Delhi has started again. Last year I was a part of the race. After years of reading articles about it and seeing pictures of students check cut off lists and fill forms, I was one of the people those articles spoke about. It’s the same thing that happens year after year, just with a different group of people. And each group feels its experiences are unique.

My first memory is a hazy one, the kind of blurred flashback you could expect to see on a movie- With the voices coming from far away and a five year olds laughter as the soundtrack. But the first summer I can remember is more important.  That summer begun with us moving to a new city. My parents always had spectacles or so it seemed to me then and that summer my older sister got a pair too.   Change was something I was still learning to cope with. Fitting in was an art I still had to master. The exclusion of being the only one different in my family, the one place I ALWAYS fitted into was hard. Yes, so not having specs is not really standing out in a big way or doesn’t mean you’re not accepted but try explaining that to a scared, insecure 6 year old. My mother had told me not to wear the specs because they would spoil my eyes and if I did, I’d need a big pair too. Little did mother know that ever since I learnt this, I would stand on a stool in front of the bathroom mirror, wearing a pair of specs too big for me, wondering how long it would take for my eyes to get spoilt. Funnily enough I still don’t need specs even 13 years later.

I know how it is to have my entire world and everything in it change. I like that.  Facebook, Orkut, BBM are all too recent to have counted for anything in our childhoods. You couldn’t always keep in touch with people like you can now. You couldn’t know every single detail of their existence through their status. You moved and you made new friends. If you were lucky you would run into them years later in a different city when you were a different person. But you weren’t that lucky every time.  College was a new adventure and just the right time period. It would be over before I got bored of it. I convinced myself of the truth of this statement when I was preparing myself for college.

That summer when it started was filled with dreams and expectations of the summers to come. But it was also a reminder of the first one I remember. A little girl on a bathroom stool who only wanted to ‘fit in’. The little girl had stayed in me. I didn’t know it then but the specs changed into other things according to the situations I would find myself  in and what it was that I wanted to fit into.The specs would change into a harry potter book when I was 8, a guitar when I was 13, a cigarette when I was 16…it would change into so many different things later in my life that I eventually stopped recognizing their symbolism.

There were a lot of changes after that summer I had to learn to deal with. A lot of them are yet to come. In a lot of situations I’m the only one comfortable to step into the limelight and it is easy for me to keep to it and ignore the ones in the shadows- All those years of moving have given me the gift of dealing with change in the best way possible. But the memory of the six year old with her mother’s specs never let me do that. The six year old in me recognizes the same in the others. All of us are trying to fit in, all of us are trying to find a place in the world.

I still smile at the memory of that summer.  The summer whose memory guides all the summers that follow.

The specs in my hand have turned into a pen now. But this time, they not only helped me fit in. They help me reach out.

If it isn’t the lost six year olds in us that help each other out and recognize each other in times of need, we’re going to have a tough time being adults.

The Art of Losing

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

- Elizabeth Bishop

Because this poem fits into the prevalent mood very well. Everything happening to me right now – the transition into second year, the prospect of having braces(which basically means a BIG change, i don’t quite know how to explain ), the nostalgia for the cantonment and the shifting base that happened every three years and not knowing which people are going to be staying in my life, just the way they were and which aren’t. Everything/everyone around me seems to be in a phase of transition once again.  ’The art of losing’, as Elizabeth Bishop calls it, is something every army kid has to learn to master, then love and eventually crave.

and funnily enough, i have ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’ by The Script stuck in my head =|