lines written for A...

the turbulence of my mind,
written on the scraps left-over
of an old happiness
when i used to harness the wind
on rickshaw rides of love stories and music
the turbulence of my mind, scribbled in loneliness
of a strange kind
growing like a child within
sprouting hands and feet
waiting unseen
for phones that do not ring
of my lover shifting his sand feet
to new postures of power and defeat
the turbulence of my mind,
encountering the days that went
when i played woman, to your penis,
inside my mind..
a turbulence of this kind.....

BACK IN-ACTION

a new beginning. in the whispering cold. summersaulting sleep.
i reach paradigm shifts hastily, in the surprise of your latest political
maneuvering tricks and the very same I the very same rhymes subsist

there is no political action without a spiritual reaction
is what i want to surmise

from mountain cave and forest of the insane
and those who cant rest

we talk of anarchy
we think of an alternate media scheme
we plan knowledge
social engineering

i am an ant still, in a fat woman's swollen blouse
all this can burst me up, the dreams can get so crowded
my days can fill up, with faces i have never seen

and today i can be a delhi middle class woman
visiting an up-town restaurant with her husband and kid

to dine at united coffee house on steak and potato chips

in memory of a great day in college and at home !!! the good phase begins !!!!!!!!!!!!

dream work

manic days end with strangest dreams. a moon boat.

shimmering in a sewage drain. and prithviraj, the film

actor, pretending to be a god-man. but no one takes

him seriously. i am a woman in a water-lily-blue-painting.

and always i stare outside the scene. as he cajoles, trying

to draw me in. row row row ur boat, mr movie star,

gently down the stream. there my daughter lies sleeping..

i don't want to wake her up and force her to watch your next

new film. and my nose starts bleeding. blood like thick honey

made-over with oil paint and water colors. i am not afraid.

i am not in pain. i know that everything is destined to be good.

from the very beginning. then suddenly i turn queen. in ten

acres of green land, with a compound wall that has pretty holes

in it, through which i see my brother on a cycle.  you bought 

us a new house?, he asks. and comes cycling to where i stand.  

yes yes yes. come in. B's mother gifted me this. she stands

behind in gloomy silence. but i trust B to help me, to

save me. and there is this doctor who says that my ulcer

is not a wound. its just a floating foreign object. and he can

heal it in three days. and i can drink again. i come home to a

huge hall to tell B this. i wake up this morning in the happiness

of these dreams. which gives me everything i need. i am kind to
my daughter and my husband. i make them eggs with orange
sunny sides. and for myself a capsicum omlet. what a wonderful life !

i wish i could make J understand how much i am an activist inside
and how little i have to do with academics

i wish i could make J understand how much i still want to change the world
with my tiny life.

my blood stinks of this sin
i grew up for this
i stayed alive for this

in kerala a generation of people live and die like this
with their sexuality and desire tied to the vigor of protest and change
i am one of them - this is the only thing that really turns me on

its the streak of the red left in me, maybe
seeing my father losing his job
building a trade union in the company
where he worked as a minor chemist in a huge laboratory

then watching the red, terricotton ezhavas in my house
the bearded ones,
the very thin, reedy, big-diary and huge-ideals souls
who would go hungry
who would give up anything
who would sell their girl friends and their family
to win a political argument

and my father who always abused us
even as he protested against everything that was wrong, un-fair and unjust

how can i not educate organize and agitate !!

how can J expect me to hold a cinema camp and not bring any activist spirit into it??!!

wasted days

sat, sun, mon - now theres just tue, wed and thursday left. i can do many things.
i can finish all my work. but not only can i bring myself to work, but i am also
looking for all sorts of ways to waste my time - like going online in chat -
and like trying to think that i am indispensable for those who have left me behind.
i dont understand this pattern - this need that i have to waste time
this passion to procrastinate - i really dont understand these wasted days..

yesterday

life was a ball 
i wanted to throw down the terrace 
of my five floor apartment 

yesterday
 

this room was an explosive, 
bursting out in expletives
with which i hated my daughter, my husband, my friends

yesterday

living with me was dangerous 
as dangerous 
as standing at the feet of an elephant

sunday morning

here i am - sitting with this sunday in my hands.
i know i am going to throw it away. need years of healing
to get myself even to feel...

i dreamt strange things. i asked people i hate in dreams
to make me a dream plan - a house, a telephone conversation,
that would burst into fire works in the middle of a sentence
and then i could crumble into peace -



mania is not a disease, its a way of looking at the world
with eyes of endless video streams, running
hot water pipes in a cold snow desert, wanting to squeeze
your heart out in trickles of love

maybe i am ill
but i still want to make the best of my life-

i am hungry. constantly. i am angry. constantly. i am tensed. constantly.

i want a bright pink mobile. i don't know why.

i hate the publicity that comes with taking up any project. i hate any situation which asks me to face a set of faceless people. i am not interested in people. not anymore. everybody is pathetic. this is what i know.

i cant see myself as being capable of any position. i hate myself. i hate myself more than i hate anybody else around.

i dont know how people finish writing books. how do parents bring up children. am i turning the corner into the next phase of my moon???

i hate to be fighting myself all the time. i want to sleep and never get up !!!

can i say abracadabra and would all the earlier posts disappear please ?? presenting me with a brand new blog? in the best colors that anyone’s ever got???

shall i parade myself here, stark naked? shall i shout and holler? run to the edge of the parapet, stick my neck out, sing a song? re run blogger clichés? repeat everything that everyone has always already said? gift myself this new notion of neo-space? which would hide from me the fact that this world is actually so ugly?

anyways going to start writing here again...

mes amis

tous mes amis sont cowards
by god
hiding tails among teeth
lying like fish
she garnered up man, thin,
solid
she knows he going to make it.
he roams seminar stalls
pen in hand
dream in eye -
"the prototype of poverty
in southasia
blah".
me want blank
me want delight
this in deep of night
from fear we hide
such cowardice
tous mes amis sont stingy
silent
they copies
scares
sick.

back

steeped in hiding. away from the luxury of fluorescent words,
those that sparkle in the dark, like i need no streetlights or taxi rides -
i cant publish the drafts about ecstasy, the slow ride
through the streets of paradise, lined with fantasy,
music....i cant speak of the upheaval, with my shovel -
the court-martial of an ordinary woman's life -
and the journey back -
through the thickets of myself, creepers that grow into my eyes,
nails entangled in mush - as i looked for a way out -
through the song- infested streets of a heartless city,
the ever growing markets...
and the endless desires of my insomnia, to sleep -
i am back and this time i will not leave -

nothing matters as much as these jumbled up
moments. of incongruence, feeling powerful,
feeling dead, suddenly enlightened, flying, together,
afraid, alone...

blue and a promise

you walk on a cloud of innocence. auto rickshaws don't touch the ground.
the bed is a water bed. where you float. your husband is a velvet blanket.
your child a priceless doll. the best job in the world, less than 6 hours of
teaching per week. misty, green campus. faceless colleaugues, whom
you dont even have to meet. the song playing is "yellow".
your mood feels so mellow, you want to scream:
-look i have come through!
-i have made it!
-at last!
-cured!

and even as you speak, you notice the first tremor.
the first stab of the first knife of the month. the pain that begins
somewhere beneath your rib bones and breast. in the place
they call the heart, and you call hell.

coz now its burning, its squeezing tight, its beating loud,
red wings, flapping hard, like a trapped bird, in a closed lift..
soon your fingers will start to shake. your eyes will not focus.
you will try to read, but the words wont make no sense.

they would be so wordless, moving about, all over the page.
you will try to blog, and it will not work.. phone calls & emails
will make you cry, and when you open the door,
you will see the stairway, strewn with the shadows of all your
friends.

black is the only lollipop left for the dead child.
she wants to savor it, till she dies.
she loves it so much, she sees it everywhere.
and everywhere there are ceiling fans looking good in
turquoise duppattas, razor blades so sexy inside
silver tank-tops, gaudy terraces with their long trains
zooming down to granite earth.cocktails that mock
sleep and all those dreams, hallucinations and
visions of the unknown, the metro, rash
buses on the road, path-breaking,
epoch-making accidents.....

you may say i am a dreamer, but i am really
waiting for that moment, when nothing can stop me,
and i give in to all my fantasies to celebrate
myself..

coz i am tired of struggling against this violet
of whirlpools that scatter everything you have..
stopping by road side stalls that sell wisdom...
taking the time off to drink from the cup of my
wine-red tears..
looking for a cure and being asked to hold on,

how long can a balloon bear a safety pin,
and how can you still expect it to bubble
and swell..?

and that is the most magical thing - to add a dash
of white, to this blue blue post ...
slowly i will, this balloon will float again

the clouds will start feeling light again, instead of
hanging heavy on my head, and my baby will
be a song that i love to sing ...
but for the time being, let me give in to The Monster.
let me forget and then learn to do it all over again...
how to make tea, tie my shoelaces, how to breathe..
but this time i promise

when i get better, i will come here and
write about blessed things.
i really do promise.

farzana shaithana

this is the most frustrated mother on earth, writing about the worst kid in the universe - farzana shaithana.

i really do hate you. i want to lock you up, throw you inside a well, i want to hit you so hard, you will remember the pain for days together - i want to so badly hurt you and i mean it when i say that i just dont love you today.  coz sometimes you're so diabolic, so un-believably naughty, demanding, screaming, screeching, running around, refusing, spilling things over, spoiling, untidying, bothering..words cant describe how bad you are..

and me and B, we can clearly see that you are feeling that you can get away with anything, just because we are trying to be nice to you  - you dirty, little fiend.

let me put down some of your punch lines for the sake of posterity (and let the whole world read this and elect me the cruelest woman on earth - as if i care :p)

thus spoke farzana shaithana:

> other children eat, because they are afraid, i eat when I feel like it -
> you better explain why you got angry with me first, after that i will listen to you-
> you scolded me, now i'll not sleep, till you say hundred-times-sorry and massage my feet thousand times-
> all your stories are rotten and bubbles and jina and jaffer and clint died in an accident-
> when i grow up i will never even telephone you once-
> this dress is so out of fashion, how can you ask me to wear it !!!- *when there is only 15 minutes left for the school van to reach
> this dress is too gaudy, i wont even wear it to bed !! - *with only ten minutes left for the school van to come
>i don't wear socks of this color !! - when the school van is waiting outside with its unbearably loud horn -
> you are an idiot and baba is also an idiot and i hate you both-
> NO. I DONT WANT TO-
> AND SO I WILL NOT-
> NEVER-
> NO

what do you do with a child who talks like this? was i like this? no never, i remember myself as so sad, always standing by windows and thinking :)


today we had such a horrible day with this little rascal. i lost control and pinched her hard and she was  threatening to call the the police on me for "hurting little children." says she will go up to a police man and lodge a complaint. i am sure she will do it too.


but i am not even feeling guilty today. i just want to put her in a boarding school or sneak out at night and run away and not be part of this whole thing called family and life and raising kids.

yes i am really not feeling any mother-guilt today worrying that i brought her up badly and that i should have been a better mother. i am fed up of all that bullshit rotten crap.

and hey shaithana, do read this someday and realize what a demon you were, ok !!
and know that today i really feel that you were specially packaged and sent to spoil my otherwise so perfect and idyllic life :))

what is creativity

mmmm... the man who makes 9 to 5 tea, in my college staff room,
standing in a small cramped kitchen area, in an adhoc job for the
past fourteen years, with the FM blaring morbid songs,

sometimes i go in and see him putting in crushed
ginger slices into the tea for the teachers he likes..
they haven't asked for it, he just made it up,
and i am sure he spits into the cups of all those bulldozers -
those big ass mouth nose spectacle professors,
who call out to him like he is a criminal.

and my college-tea-man with those automatic arms,
i see him so angry and irritated these days, something bad
has happened to him, i am sure if he could, he would write
poems and put them in a bottle and let it float in the yamuna..
and one day it would reach his sweetheart, and of course that
day he would be made permanent,

and when he comes to distribute his wedding sweets in the staff room,
the quiet and morose looking teacher in the physics department
would smile at him and say, hey, i was in love with you,
but now its too late, congrats anyways..why not?
and i will come here to write these lines...aren't we all creative?.
what is the big deal, friend, i don't understand..

: x

o god i hate everybody so much i want to be on the street with
words in my cheeks...

its not bones i want to break, stab their hot face,
just this ugly mistake, want to squeeze it into
a mustard seed, and swallow this hate,

and when my disease lies at their  feet

they can say

she was just hot tempered, a barometer,
got up in anger, came down like rain
she was so loving, she was our best friend

and then she went out and called a press conference on truth...

o god what did she do !!!!

Why i am still a hindu: as revealed in a bad dream

This is a real dream i had after i went to sleep, somewhere around 8 this morning.

We want to talk. It is really late. But we are feminists. We are not supposed
to be afraid. We are walking down a dark midnight kerala road.  I start getting
more and more afraid. I want to feel safe. Lets go where there are some people, 
shyly i tell her. Did she want to walk on? I don't remember...

We see a huge bulding. And even as i say, lets go in, i realize that it is a temple.
Celebrating a midnight festival. Inside the temple in an auditorium made of granite
stones, there are women in bright blue and pink Benares sarees
(aren't dreams supposed to be black and white? But i am so sure i saw pink).
And there are also those letchy, orange, hindu swamis, reputed to having killed many.
We step in without thinking, and the swamis welcome us warmly, making me feel queazy,
uncomfortable...

We sit down on a cold granite seat, under the thick dark starless sky. We see a
huge temple pond before us. And in it there are these specks of light floating.
Something huge is about to happen and all the rich temple people are waiting.
We start to feel guilty. I feel it most coz i am the one who manoeuvred this move,
away from the rape fantasies of the dark, midnight road.

I know we ought not to be sitting here. We who have renounced our crazy religion,
that tells us that we are second hand citizens. That strips us of our healthy humanity
and yet prods us to hate and kill. We try to read an intellectual magazine, which
materializes from nowhere, in some show of feeble resistance.

She lies in my lap. At that moment i find her way too attractive and
i realize that i want to sleep with her. She plays with my hair. The temple
awaits its festivities.

Suddenly i spot Farida's face in the crowd that has formed before me.
She still has her sweet flick on her forehead. It looks prettier than usual.
But Farida looks like a ghost and she looks terrible SAD. Her face is pale,
and she slants it sadly to one side.  Her eyes are flowing downward with
sorrow. And she sits there refusing to look at me.

I feel i have done her immesnse wrong. Like i am a scrawny, brown,
broomstick man, who can do nothing but hide his face in shame before
his jilted lover. The way i always have felt with her, especially towards
the end. Now that comes back a hundred fold and the dream becomes
a nightmare.

I want to get away, away from the temple. I tell the woman with me that
i want to leave.

We are on the road now which suddenly turns into a long glass-
framed airport corridor, which is endless. The woman with me
becomes a ballerina in a white billowy skirt and stands talking to a man
in a velvet suit. I am left alone in the corridor.

The glass frame is so transparent that it almost feels like i am standing
in the open, looking at the sky. And i almost forget that i am trapped.
Suddenly i remember, panic and wake up -

student politics

i must describe her before i sleep tonight. starting with the huge college tree,
that must be deaf by now, listening to all that noise, for the last half of a century.
we sat under it on plastic chairs..

i must tell you about her muddy chocolate skin, her smooth eyes,
the sparkle of her intellectual spectacles.

she denied knowing bhojpuri, though i never asked her.
she denied that she was an intellectual,
though i did not even suggest it,
and she described herself as a kid of the modern world
she did not want to be dry, grey, stay stuck in libraries

yes she was intelligent and her mind never stopped working
(and her tongue never stopped talking)
but she did not want to waste it on a teaching career
(smart kid) lecturing  students who knew only
to bunk classes.
instead
she wanted to use her brain to bring in the moolah,
yes that is what she said
coz she wanted a great and comfortable live
and help her poor father out

yes i am reading derrida right now
no its not part of the course, 
but  i feel fascinated with the way he talks about language
m'am its true what he says, why should we call this tree a tree, m'am,
we can call it a dog, cant we?

but i am not going to get into all that

do you think event management will suit me?
or should i try and be a radio jockey?
and eventually i can start my own channel,
like anil shrivastav of thodi catty thodi meeti?
or is it better i try for the corporate sector?

what do you think m'am?
am i disturbing you?
do tell me if you have any work, like
preparing the mark lists or attendance sheets,
shall i get you some more tea,
from the canteen?

you know i am very traditional,
i believe in guru dakshina, you
are my guru m'am, i am waiting
for you to guide me through !!!

(oh god, now what will i do?)

c'est la vie

and this is called life..

you wake up to a  morning with such swirling winds

lilting upon the curtains, hesitating near the green door

that opens to the garden that has woken up in haste,

all her yellow leaves untangled, and you read

chapter 12 from book 3 for class 202, in room no

047, to a set of students who don't want to 

listen to anything..and then you come on a 

rickshaw that is so cold and sick, hands like 

ice sticks, and you almost cry reading the story 

of the rajput guard who went mad, not able to 

take shit and the rickshaw mans reminds you

that he has to drop you and go attend

a meeting, you try to whisper to him,

he does not listen. and then in class, where

students get business calls, you control the noise

acting strict.. and they cant believe it, m'am, 

its so cold today give us attendance, let us leave..

and this is called life, the best alone day of the month

is spoiled.. and you just want to get into the sheets 

and sleep, but the metro, the kid..when i meet her 

will i be happier, will the splash of pink on her

lips make me smile..