blank noise

My post for the BlankNoise Project.

remember that guy Madhav who called Diane Rehm to say that in india women are worshipped? where did he live, i wonder.

every time we step out of our homes, sanat finds it hateful that people stare at me. he stares back at them pointedly and they turn away embarrassed. sometimes he says "ey, kya dekh raha hai, abey?" and they hurriedly look away while i am half-afraid of their answer, if they dare give one. he finds it offensive, rude and lewd. and he's surprised at my reaction.

i ignore. a bombay girl, growing up in that melee, hanging out of trains, pushing my way into buses, only we know what that feels like. men, by and large, do not. and stares...? well those were like breathing. you get it everywhere. bangalore is particularly adept at undressing a girl with a look. bombay has the slllsss air-sucking-thru-tongue-and-teeth sound down to a T and delhi? old gnarled hands everywhere.

but more than the actual acts, what lingers is the mental dialogue i have with these characters. i begin to think about what it must be like in their homes. their wives? heaven forbid, daughters? sisters? is anyone spared their leers? my eyes well when i think of girls orphaned in the tsunami and earthquake disasters. men... uncles... all around preying, waiting, letching, leering, sllllsssing.

but in lands where smoking guns are ignored, i guess probing eyes and feeling hands can rest assured.

is perception reality?

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?

Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade
your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
(I love Pink Floyd)

what are you thinking? at this exact moment. are you forming an opinion of me? do you know how i feel? do you know me, now that i've written so much? said so much? can you look inside my head?

writing. reading. knowing. understanding. they are all perceptions. shadow play. interpretations. all protean. i write what i believe... now. i write what i want you to perceive... now.

am i what i write... and what you read? maybe, at that moment that i write it. but isn't it one's prerogative to change, learn, grow, amend and ... just immerse in the moment? be notoriously fickle? flip one's mind.

between writing and reading lives proteus. smiling in the shadows. playing with the words. moulding them like clay. first in my mind and then in yours. and he doesn't use the same dictionary or the same experience set. why, he isn't even himself sometimes.

isn't there beauty in ambiguity?

and just as you think, think again.

mera kuchch saaman

it started with something as serendipitous as a beautiful blog entry i chanced upon.

it reminded me of a ... ghazal? sher? nazm? for some reason, i decided on begum akhtar. now where was the collection of her ghazals? or was it gulzar? yes, yes... pukhraj. did i bring pukhraj with me? drawers flew open, books... papers... slip-sliding onto my lap like autumn leaves. no. no pukhraj. will the web have any of his poems? a furious, anxious keyboard yielded many hits, but not the right one.

darn. where was my pukhraj? "locked away in storage, 9117 miles away, with all your other books." Human Mind answered. how desperate.

maybe it is the milestone that's doing it. maybe just age. with me, it doesnt take much to send a passing thought into a cascade that trips over itself, multiplies and proliferates, barges into the realm of intense emotions and eventually metamorphoses into quiet philosophical musings.

and so it was with not finding my pukhraj with me. at that instance, i knew what i missed. no, not "books" or "libraries" -- no, it was nothing quantifiable.

i missed the trail of my life. collected carefully, sometimes randomly, mostly impulsively over years. like a bee adding to its hive, it all amounted to something. or so i liked to think. small incidences and instances that had come home in the form of random inhabitants... not looked at after that, maybe, but still there somewhere close... when one suddenly rummaged for them.

i missed those breadcrumbs. that symbol of continuity.

but no sooner did i feel that, than did Human-Mind-in-philosophical-mode slide noiselessly under my skin. like silk satin slipping over glass. like white on white. frictionless, almost.

"what breadcrumbs?" Human Mind queried impatiently.

"what trail are you looking for? continuity is a myth. what was, is only what you remember of it. your interpretations. shared memories. imposed influences. and what 'is' is but shimmering shapes on the horizon - adaptable, malleable, effervescent. go make of them what you will."

and so saying, Human Mind moved on... picking her way thru this and that. treading lightly, leaving no traces.

except for one musing nomad...

another year on

the crunch of leaves
on random walks
wet grass, green-brown ferns
bulrushes, daisies, pine cones
collected carefully
stuffed hurriedly
in a pocket
and forgotten.

until suddenly
i come upon them
some crushed, some fresh
but all there.
like memories.