Thank god for girlfriends:)

There are some things that are just so purely woman that NO man can ever do. Regardless of how much he cares- He may be the man that changed your diapers and held you when you puked, or he may be the guy friend you hung out at the college canteen with, or the person who wants to spend his life with you. None of those things matter at some points- they just don't get it.
Having gone through the fights and the explanations and the wiles it takes to get them to understand, I've come to the conclusion that its not worth it. It takes a woman to do some things, and that's the bottom line.

So thank god for girlfriends- the people I can wake up at 6 am on Sunday morning with the panicked phone call- "What was I thinking?! I'm not ready to get married!!", and get a suitably satisfying reaction. If that same phone call had been made to a guy, he would probably have rolled over and gone back to sleep, knowing that I would return to my senses in an hour or so. A girlfriend will talk you through it, sympathise and worry and agonise with you, until you both decide you were being silly and nothing's wrong.

Girlfriends to shop with- NO man, no matter how much he loves you, will spend four hours walking through a store with you, admiring things you have no intention or money to buy.

And most of all, the point was driven home by the long contradictory conversation I had with R last night- Swimsuits and holidays, and her stories about frustration with a two year old baby and flinging chairs at walls, which in some way was supposed to convince me that marriage and motherhood are wonderful, desirable things every single person in the world should get into.

To quote her," No really, it can be so frustrating. You spend your entire morning scrubbing the house and cooking up things so that your baby gets used to new foods and gets a balanced meal. Then she refuses to eat everything you cooked, and when she finally does, she pukes it all over the floor you scrubbed an hour ago. And you spend every single day like that, no breaks since S is working so hard right now he doesn't even take Sundays off."

And according to her, is the most beautiful thing in the world, worth giving up all your dreams of exotic vacations and high-flying careers for.

Huh ?! It probably takes a mother to understand that one.

Home and the world

"Not my daughter, you bitch!" (Molly Weasley, defending Ginny against Bellatrix, HP7)

"Therefore I shall devote myself, my time, my energy, my talents, to the service of South Africa. I shall no longer ask myself if this or that is expedient, but only if it is right. I shall do this, not because I am noble or unselfish, but because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie."
(Arthur Jarvis, in Cry the beloved country)

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From (not-so-)children's literature to books on apartheid, the question remains the same. Where do you draw the lines, between home and the world? When do you choose to cast your voice or raise your wand for what you believe in? Each of us has a breaking point, where we stand up and say "Enough!" - and it's usually when we perceive a threat to 'home'.
...

"For some, home is the world. For others, the world is their home"
(JKB, in Sindhu Bhairavi)

Of words and silences

"Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?" she yelled. "You need to mean them Potter! You need to really want to cause pain.."
-Bellatrix Lestrange (or JKR :) )

"It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!"
-Thelonius Monk, pianist

And that is the meaning, perhaps, of why some silences can be so unifying, while others linger like the undead between the people that share them. What you mean with the silence is what makes the difference.

How terribly strange to be..

Seventy? Nah, not yet- just 26, which seems almost as bad.

I'm approaching the wrong side of 25, and have begun thinking deep dark thoughts on the subjects of age, crows feet, retirement plans, and such-like. People already on the other side are amused by my sudden paranoia about growing "old" (26? You're a BABY !!), but the reassurance of that is quickly nullified by the looks I get from 23 year old friends. More often, its nullified by my horror at the 'stupid' things 23 year olds do, and the knowledge that I once did them and thought I was being really intelligent.

Interestingly, as I discuss this idea with friends at similar stages,I realise that it isn't mortality itself that scares us. None of us are actually concerned with the "End of Things as We Know Them" (aka "I will die"). It's the idea that we are turning into the "old" people- that one day we might be the ones discussing anti-ageing creams and crows feet and ways to keep our energy levels high, by means other than protein bars and caffeine.

When did we start growing old, anyway? It feels like yesterday we were hanging out at the football field in high school, yet I also feel the rigidity of age creeping up in certain ways-

-I'm not fond of sleepovers anymore. I want my own bed, and I want to wake up to my own coffee in my own kitchen, not to be shared with random people who crashed on my couch last night.

-I no longer see a reason to force myself to like things. I dont like eating meat, period. Same goes for horror movies, loud rap, parties with people I barely know, and gossip about people I dont care about- They're not worth the time it takes to like them.

-I dress to suit myself, and I will buy three pairs of jeans when I like them, even if they're not the latest style. Life is too short to force myself into clothes I'm not comfortable in.

While I could probably go on with the list, I'm reminded of something a musician once had to say about his capacity to create- He held out his cupped hands and said, "You have to be able to let go of yourself. If your hands are so full of yourself, how will you ever have the space to pick up something new?"
And that, perhaps, is the essence of growing old- The mental arthritis that makes me so rigid that there is nothing more to add to life, nothing that I want to experience, no arena left where I'd like to stretch my limits a little.

Twenty-six is old, certainly- old enough to know what I want, and have the capacity to get it. And twenty-six is young too- young enough to make lists of things I'd like to do, young enough to foolishly believe I can do it all. (And it's probably just right for some chocolate, too :) )

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P.S: On the list of things-to-do, the latest addition was to check out the Chocolate Buffet at the Ritz, Washington DC- 35 bucks, and the entire buffet is pure chocolate, in every possible form !!:)

http://www.ritzcarlton.com/en/Properties/WashingtonDC/Dining/TheLobbyLounge/Default.htm

Culture

"Anything that can distinguish your group from the others could work to keep hatreds high and resist merger. Other groups, conveniently, are similarly disposed.These non-hereditary differences between one group and another- even arbitrary differences, only distantly connected with any adaptive advantage, but serving to preserve group independence and coherence- are called, collectively, culture."


(From Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan)

Only in silence the word,

only in dark the light,

only in dying life:

bright the hawk’s flight

on the empty sky.

(-Ursule Le Guin)

A good marriage

Four of us in the department have defended our qualifiers this summer- Listening to a non-native English speaker defend a proposal has been an eye opener. I've always been a little biased about this- coming from a state in India where English comprehension can be quite sorry, I have always maintained that I would not trust a doctor who did not speak good English- after all, if they didnt understand the language their textbooks were in, how could I trust their diagnosis?

Yet listening to E. and Y. defend their proposals, I have to do more than just change that stand. Remarkably intelligent, both of them speak heavily accented, sometimes incomprehensible English. Yet, shrouded in an unfamiliar language, their science and the clarity of thought behind it was crystal-sharp. Their understanding wrapped itself around words and gave them new meaning, in subtle ways that no native English speaker could have managed.

So, the "gene of interest" became "interesting gene" - intimate, as opposed to something laid out to be examined on a dissecting table. A personal preference, as opposed to a vague 'of interest to the scientific community'.
And a little later, Y. had a problem explaining how he would create his lines of transgenic mice. After drawing all his genes and promoters on the board, he could not explain what he would do with them. Instead of faltering for words, he simply held up his fingers, intertwined them, and said "marriage", with the cutest of grins.

He couldn't have put it better- The cross of an old culture and a new idea, his country's manners and the ideas of this one, an understanding that is more innate than learnt from a textbook- what more is required for the perfect 'marriage', to make the best scientist?

Almost like any country..

The Long Voyage

Not that the pines were darker there,
nor mid-May dogwood brighter there,
nor swifts more swift in summer air;
it was my own country,

having its thunderclap of spring,
its long midsummer ripening,
its corn hoar-stiff at harvesting,
almost like any country,

yet being mine; its face, its speech,
its hills bent low within my reach,
its river birch and upland beech
were mine, of my own country.

Now the dark waters at the bow
fold back, like earth against the plow;
foam brightens like the dogwood now
at home, in my own country.

-Malcolm Cowley

Cry, the beloved country

Fiction is sometimes so much more true than reality. A non-existent white man in South Africa can sometimes hit closer to home than any real person ever has.
This is probably true of all complex, deep-rooted cultures, but most of what is said about South Africa in the following quote could probably apply to my own country-

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"It is hard to be born a South African. One can be born an Afrikaner, or an English-speaking South African, or a colored man, or a Zulu. One can ride, as I rode when I was a boy, over green hills and into great valleys, One can see, as I saw when I was a boy, the reserves of the Bantu people and see nothing of what was happening there at all. One can hear, as I heard when I was a boy, that there are more Afrikaners than English-speaking people in South Africa, and yet know nothing, see nothing, of them at all. One can read, as I read when I was a boy, the brochures about lovely South Africa, that land of sun and beauty sheltered from the storms of the world, and feel pride in it and love for it, and yet know nothing about it at all. It is only as one grows up that one learns that there are other things here than sun and gold and oranges. It is only then that one learns of the hates and fears of our country. It is only then that one's love grows deep and passionate, as a man may love a woman who is true, false, cold, loving, cruel and afraid. I was born on a farm, brought up by honourable parents, given all that a child could need or desire. They were upright and kind and law-abiding; they taught me my prayers and took me regularly to church; they had no trouble with servants and my father was never short of labour. From them I learned all that a child should learn of honour and charity and generosity. But of South Africa I learned nothing at all.

Therefore I shall devote myself, my time, my energy, my talents, to the service of South Africa. I shall no longer ask myself if this or that is expedient, but only if it is right. I shall do this, not because I am noble or unselfish, but because life slips away, and because I need for the rest of my journey a star that will not play false to me, a compass that will not lie."

The 'right' shade of grey

Think black. The pitch dark of crows' wings descending upon you, pressing against your eyelids until black is the only reality there is. The black of your loved one's pupils, depthless, boundless- Drown in black.

Think white. Pearl-white, blinding sunlight like the light is enough to scorch your eyelids through. White so clear so opaque that you will never see anything but white again.

Is grey the equal presence of those two intensities, or is it the absence of both?
Both might give you the same shade of grey, and how would you decide then? Is there a 'right' shade of grey, or is that a self-disproving hypothesis?

Theme songs

There's a common theme to several stories of art- Right from Shakespeare to a cheesy Bollywood movie, there's this climax where the protagonist has one recurring song from childhood that they perform at the peak of their careers- Right from Twelfth night to Que sera sera to Meri jung, there's always a theme song. Listening to one of those today, I started wondering what mine might possibly be. One song or event that shaped my career, the person I am, held me up in times of trouble, etc etc. You get the picture, I'm sure.

Should the absence of a theme like this make me feel liberated ("Look at me, I don't need no silly Ally McBeal theme song to make things okay"), or should I be feeling like I missed out on an integral part of my formative years ("Ohmygod, what am I going to say when I go up to collect my Oscar?") Both, and neither? Does the fact that I can always find a theme make me shallow and too-easily pleased, or should I feel grateful that I can find solace in the smallest of things?

If a theme song is all the things that have shaped me, that touch my soul and lift my spirits, then this must be it, or atleast, some of it-

Sunsets
The deer resting in the grass by the creek, as we walked last night
The two rabbits I saw in yards
Sunlight filtering through springtime green overhead
Flowers spilling color through streets that were bleak all winter.

So its a song thats easily found- Maybe that makes me shallow, but what the heck, if I must have a song running through my head, it might as well be one that runs all around me, a constant reminder of joy.

"How does one become a butterfly?" she asked pensively.
"You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

The same song

How many roads have I wandered?
None and each my own
Behind me the bridges have crumbled
No question of return
Autumn leaves like discarded dreams
Trampled underneath a tide of callous feet
It's the same song playing everywhere I go
It's like an army marching right through me

Nowhere to go but the horizon
Where then will I call my home?
Nowhere to go but the horizon
Where then will I call my home?

Summers spent in the high grass
Are just fragments, ransacked memories
Dark river snakes across this smoky heart
Boatman sings his downstream melody

Nowhere to go but the horizon
Where then will I call my home?
How many roads have I wandered?
None and each my own
Behind me the bridges have crumbled
No question of return
Nowhere to go but the horizon
Where then will I call my home?

Do I write for myself or you?
When I smile, is it a reflection of you or is just my joy?

Does it matter, either way?:)

Identity

Stand in this moment, when the door just clicks shut,
Before you reach for the light switch.
Dusk's shadows lengthen across your familiar living room,
And no one's home but you.
The shades are drawn, the lights are off
No music, no warm touch to welcome you home.
In that moment- who are you?

What do you do when the lights are off?
Do you dance, or sit with a book
Air guitar, or lip sync silently?
What do you say when no one's listening?
Swear words or intelligent critique?
When nobody's watching, who are you?
Stand by yourself and be comfortable-
Do you care whether anyone's watching?
Uh-hunh, not asking if you say you care-
It's easy enough to toss your head and tell me-
"What do I care what people think of me?"
But when the spotlight fades, when no-one's looking-
Do you care then?

Can you stand by the lake on your own?
Watch the stars and sip your wine, believing in a higher power
Or do you stand and curse that no one sees your greatness?
Speak with yourself, since I'm not here, there's no one here but you.

When there's nothing to drown yourself in, nothing to drown you out
In that moment- who are you?

Double vision

Watching The Namesake felt somewhat like being in an alternate reality, if it can be called that- Imagine being in a glass case that is your life, looking out on a blurred reality, which is just as much your life as the case itself, only a little more out of your grasp than the present. In a darkened movie hall filled with ‘strange foreign voices’, I felt so much like reaching out and explaining, when I heard whispers and laughs over “those foreign customs”. I felt like asking- Do I seem foreign to you, in my Aeropostale sweatshirt and Nikes? I speak your language, with your accent when I need to, and you see no foreign-ness to me then.

Yet I understand the need to wear sindoor, the ululating to cast off evil eyes at a wedding, the mother who expects her son to call her when he gets home, even though he is 35. I see no strangeness in an adult who feels a sense of responsibility towards their parents.

Yes, I hold my boyfriend’s hand in public here, but in that darkened theater, I cringed with Gogol as Maxine reached out to hold his hand in front of his parents.

Too many facets of life can get confusing, sometimes, refusing to blend into one coherent reality. I have been Ashoke, traveling in a second-class railway compartment, reading of English children and their nursery teas and apple trees where pixies lived. I am Ashima, held by the melodies of my land in strange foreign places. The rhythm in my feet when I walk in New York is the dhol and the tabla, not the rap that fills the air of the streets. I have spelt my name a million times, as she did over the phone. I am sometimes Gogol, my American friends impressed with my knowledge of rock music, fast food, and American customs like hot dogs at the ball game, and still, I choose to come home to good home-cooked Indian food.

And through the length of the film, I could hear in my head parallel voices. Firstly, my mother, who once lived Ashima’s life, or something fairly close to it, I imagine. Secondly, my friends, wonderfully open Americans- one read the book before watching the film, and another who so wants to visit India, to come for my wedding. Yet neither of them would understand the depths and the reach of the little things in the movie- When R. asks me if people in India really buy vegetables like that, what answer is there? When I am asked about wedding customs, how hard it is to separate the layers of religion and region, past and present… And of course, my own- a voice that shakes in nervousness with Ashima as she learns to drive, and laughs with Maushumi over the silliness of frying samosas with your mother-in-law every Thursday.

I rarely think about my roots- it would be almost as silly as remembering each step in the Krebs cycle each time I take a breath. (For the uninitiated/ non-biologists, the Krebs cycle is the biochemistry of what your body does with oxygen). While it would be foolish to recite the cycle each time I breathe, it would be foolish also to deny its importance.

Yet random conversations in the lab, and a movie like this one, can call it all into question- And I am left fumbling for my own reality, my own voice, and somewhere, my own country.

Un-slumping myself

Not easily done, but try I must-

Get off my feet and shake up the dust

I can go ride a bike, or become a cook

That should be easy- just out of a book?

But un-slumping myself is not easily done,

The only way to do it is at a good fast run

Though sleeping looks slumpy, sometimes its not

A good long sleep, can even prevent brain-rot..

...

Okay, maybe that was a pathetic attempt at unblocking the words.. but what the heck :)

Another sunset on a Delhi terrace

What bridges this hour? And what marks the boundaries between light and dark? Suspended between day and night this hour stands- part of both worlds and neither. Apart from all else, it hangs like a snatch of music confined forever to this space and hour, yet flowing wild and free within it. Waiting like a song to be plucked out of the sky- if only my hands could reach, if only my words would hold. But I don't even try, and the hour wraps itself around softly around me.

This is no place to dream of beauty- An ancient terrace, a crowded neighbourhood in a crowded city. The view- Broken tile and glass, piles of cement and an ancient commode. Just below are a neighbour's kitchen and bedrooms- All the sounds and smells of a family coming home to dinner fill this space. Yet something holds me up here-disconnected, restless and troubled, trying to put words to my thoughts.

And I don't look down at all. Across the street are a few trees clothed in grey, settling under their covers of birds for the night. Further away- a whole world of green turned grey-tinged-with-red. And in the distance, the cries of a peacock and a pair of lapwings.

Twilight. Day flying out on the dark wings of crows, pigeons crying hoarse farewells, and night stepping softly in, soundless except for the flutter of a stray bat.

All colours fade to black. All light turns dark. And long after sunset I stand here, with the sky screaming night, and my mother screaming dinner. And now, hours later, this-

Maybe there never was a need for a bridge. The span of a bird's wing closing day, and the flutter of the bat unfurling the night are all that the hour needed. My mind wants to label it and hold it and girdle it with a ring of words, but the hour still stands free.

As I do, when I stop chaining thoughts and feeling with words and labels. Complete and whole, all spirits blend if I let them- the one that soars with the birds, and the one that comes in to dinner with the family.

Godhuli

I breathe this light in, revel in it- and it feels so real, the desire to become this light. "The magic hour", most flattering of all lights- "godhuli", the light in which a bride- to- be was 'shown' to suitors for the first time. A wondrous mingling of the elements- dust on the wind at sunset, and it will come down with a night shower in a little while. But for now it is here, and I am a part of it.

It stands like a blushing, shy child, half-touching ugly buildings, beautifying them in its own image, then lingering, as if unsure whether to leave the moment the sun sets.
And now it is gone, and I stand here, wishing it hadn't. Wishing it had stayed just one moment more- one hour- one lifetime.. A light in which everything is glorified in mellow sunset brilliance.. which leaves no blacks or whites behind, just shades of pearl and grey..in which everything is just one tone more lovely- a light worth holding, for a lifetime and more.

But it fades, as all light will, leaving just a memory of colour, and I sleep to the sound of rain on dusty leaves, dusty roads and dusty minds and hearts.

And a new day is here- clear-washed blue skies, and gold light on emerald leaves shines on, not heeding loud traffic and harsh voices. A new day, and it brings with it new colour, tinting my world with all its sparkle- and it is a beautiful world- everything in it. A shade lovelier than my memory of it..

The light is always just right. Just my eyes that sometimes get a little dusty, and need a night shower to put things right.

Thought

"Analysis makes you aware. It doesn't stop you being self-destructive."

(Erich Segal, Doctors)