I always thought that she was beautiful. In a pinched, strained sort of way. Like something was holding her back, gnawing at her insides.
Now I know. I know because sometimes, I feel it, too.
Atleast my cruel mirror doesn’t talk back to me. Instead, I bear my pain in sapphire silence.
My poem, “Snow White’s Stepmother,” is now in Spudgun Magazine. You can read it here (see pages 30 and 31).
Filed under poetry
You did.
*Poison Cup by M. Ward.
You meet a stranger for coffee. It’s not a date.
Coffee leads to dinner.
Dinner leads to Saturday night plans.
Saturday night leads to Sunday morning.
And a few more meetings.
And then, you say your goodbyes. You fly off to another country. A month later, he will be gone too.
There are six months to kill.
There are no promises made. No commitments. Zilch expectations.
But you guys keep in touch. Talk often (He doesn’t want you for a pen pal). Skype for hours and stare at each other’s faces.
Then he says something and messes up. Makes you angry (and breaks your heart). You slip up just to get back at him.
Then you guys become strangers. Formal and superficial.
You miss him. But you seal your lips (and try and seal your heart too).
There are four more months to kill.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Two of my (love) poems, “In Transit” and “Respectable,” are in the February issue of Red River Review (To read, click on February 2012 issue, and check out #73 and #78).
DISCLAIMER: If you are expecting gooey declarations of undying love, mush, butterflies in your stomach or happy endings, this is not it.
Love is cheap. As disposable as toilet paper. Even underwear has a longer shelf life.
Everyone wants to be in love. Liars, all. What they are really after is the idea of being in love. It’s a game, really. The Love Game.
My flash fiction, “The Love Game,” was published by Daily Love today (you can read it here). I don’t know why. There is nothing love(ly) about it.
Filed under fiction
When I was a child and couldn’t make up my mind, I would close my eyes and resort to the popular eenie meenie minie mo. It was easy for my pre-adolescent self to let chance decide for me.
Of course, these days, even grown ups indulge in the occasional eenie meenie minie mo.
My flash fiction, “Options,” is now in Crack the Spine. Read it here (I am on pages 21 and 22).
Filed under fiction
Ok, fine. It’s true.
I am pregnant.
With an idea for a novel.
What did you think, god-damn-it??
So, after much arguing and shooting down of parental objections-
“How can you go alone?”
“You will be bored in two days!”
“Wait till you fall sick…”
“Is this how you waste your hard earned money?”
“What are your plans for the future? When do you plan to get married?”
and so on it went- I bought a ticket to the city of my birth for a four month stint.
With Calcutta, there is no method to its madness. There is no modus operandi waiting to be cracked.
Winter is not cold. The streets are choked with dust, screaming in silence for the monsoons due to arrive six months later. Cars honk without stopping. People stare and spit, obnoxious and devoid of shame. Mosquitoes serenade you after dark (right before they deliver their love bites). And, the volley of questions… oh the questions.
My mejo jethu asked on our first meeting, “I just don’t get it. How did your father allow you to come alone?”
“I was planning to run away, in case he didn’t,” was my pensive answer with a polite smirk. I am becoming quite adept at these polite smirks.
My maid asked, “What time did you go to bed last night?”
“Late,” I answer again, my polite smirk popping up undeterred. Who the eff cares? You are being paid to clean the house and cook occasionally.
My friend from my nursery days, “You guys are so forward. Your parents are really liberal, aren’t they?”
Just the smirk this time. Oh, if only she knew.
And after being hit by a bout of fever, vomiting, cough and cold, and delhi belly (which should be rightfully renamed to India belly)- all in the span of two weeks after my arrival- I rolled up my sleeves and got down to work.
Work meant research. Work meant reading. Work meant revisiting my thesis ordeal last summer.
Flashback to last summer:
I am trudging through a hundred page Master’s thesis on religious identities of Indian women through fictional representations. In other words, I am screwing myself royally, while the saner of the grad students are taking the easy way out through summer courses. There are nights when I cry myself to sleep, reminding myself constantly of my trip to India that lies beyond those hundred pages.
In the present time, I stare at the books I have ordered. They are filled with academic essays on the time period I want to research.
Smile, dear child, my muse mocks. This is what you wanted, remember?
*I am currently in Calcutta, India, until the month of April, researching and working on my first novel tentatively titled, Blood Red Sky.*
Filed under anecdote, fiction, Travel, Writing about writing
When I was a little girl living in Calcutta, I learnt how to make paper boats. I suppose it was one of those things you pick up as a child. You become adept at making boats and aeroplanes from notebook paper in-between classes. My fascination with making “art” out of paper extended to the point where I became slightly obsessed with origami at some point. I suppose the fleeting nature of such art attracted me greatly. Just like one becomes enamoured with the short-lived rose.
Nowadays, I play with words in the hope that they will last beyond the page. Beyond the reading. And perhaps, beyond me.
My poem, “Paperboat Promises,” was published in The Montucky Review today. You can read it here.
Filed under anecdote, poetry, Writing about writing
*For the lack of a better title (and also, I am a bit lazy today).
I read Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of the Sublime and Beautiful in my third year undergrad Romantics class. For the misguided, no, this was not a class on love. The Romantic era refers to a time period in literary history that saw a reactionary revolt against the industrial revolution in the latter half of the 18th century in Europe. Most noted poets who come to mind are Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth.
But back to Burke. His concept of sublime never quite left my consciousness. The idea of extreme ecstasy coupled with extreme pain. The ultimate moment of sublime. To me, unending longing can create this moment in infinite loops.
So, I wrote a poem. Deconstructed sublime, as I saw fit.
My poem, “Sublime,” is now in Red Poppy Review. You can read it here.
Filed under poetry
A taste for the morbid. That is what I have. I entertain fantasies of death (your’s, not mine). But this one was written in a moment of delirium. That’s all I can tell you for sure.
One of my flash fiction pieces titled, “A Death Fantasy,” was published in Corvus Magazine’s launch issue. You can read it here (It’s a pdf. You might need to download it. Look for the piece under the ‘Table of Contents’.). And, feel free to comment and criticize. I won’t end up fantasizing your death. Promise.
Filed under fiction
A still from Sita Sings the Blues (2008), directed by Nina Paley
An edited version was published by Helter Skelter Magazine on 22nd October 2011 .
“You know your Lakshmanrekha. Don’t cross it.”
Err, mom. Where exactly are the boundaries again? Spell it out, will you?
Any Indian (Hindu) woman growing up will attest to being subjected to this refrain. The meaning of the Lakshmanrekha of course, depended on how “liberal” one’s parents were. It could mean anything from not talking to a guy, to PDAs, to dressing in a certain way, to indulging into sexual activities, to taking drugs, to… anything that symbolised that a nice Indian girl was going out of control. For some reason, the rekha, or line, is mostly seen as a reference to interaction with the opposite sex, and only applies to women. None of my guy friends have even heard of this rekha business.
Yesterday at lunch, Mom was grandly telling me, “Sure, date. Just don’t cross the Lakshmanrekha.”
“What is the rekha? What is it that you don’t want me to do?”
“You know.”
“Umm… no, I don’t.”
“Well, you should.”
See what I mean? The actual boundaries are never spelt out. I mean, honestly, where does the damn thing begin and end? The ambiguity of the rekha is rather baffling.
I think the trouble started when a bunch of Indian Hindu men decided to come up with the Ramayan (Yes, I believe it’s a myth. They call it Hindu mythology for a reason.) that spelt out ambiguous rules and regulations to overlook the Indian Hindu women’s behaviour towards the opposite sex.
[Insert Indian accent]
Man 1: We must do something to protect our women’s chastity.
Man 2: You are absolutely right!
Man 3: Our women must be under our control!
Je-sus.
Think about it. Lakshman, Sita’s brother-in-law, draws this protective rekha (a boundary, if you will) around her to protect her from the lustful nazaar (or, eyes) of unknown men (here, Raavan). Not only is it a warning tale to young women about the consequences of defying the rekha (I mean, poor chick gets kidnapped, then disowned in a pregnant state despite proving her chastity through fire acrobatics… twice!), but the rekha itself symbolises the many boundaries imposed upon female sexuality while growing up.
In my case, the “rekha,” or the allusion to the sacred line drawn by Lakshman to protect Sita, changed meaning as I grew older. In fact, even as recently as 2007, I was not allowed to stay out all night. Even though it was on New Year’s, I remember cabbing it back from Niagara Falls all alone back to my suburban home, just because staying out all night would have been crossing the rekha. And yet, I have been at a crazy bachelorette party at the same Falls in 2010 doing things that would have certainly fallen outside the sacred line. Irony ahoy!
I think parents forget that just like boys, girls will be girls. Seriously, now. Do you think we do not get up to mischief? That we do not cross the goddamn rekha that you have not specified for us? You are wrong. We do. All the time. We are just too damn clever about hiding it.
But why should we go undercover? Why pretend? Why is it such a taboo to flaunt our sexuality? Why can’t I kiss a boy openly if I like him enough to? Do I become a slut? A whore? Such tired comparisons. Why can’t I be compared to a classy courtesan for a change? Or, one of those talented geishas? Hats off to those women for owning their sexualities.
So, when my dad said, “We should not have to spell out your boundaries for you. You should know them by now,”
I said, “If I can face myself in the mirror unflinchingly and without shame, I have no one else to answer to.”
I draw my own rekha. Lakshman can keep his.
Filed under article
Dadu and I
It’s five years to the day. That’s how long it has been since he left.
I remember the day I got the news. I was in Professor Ruth Knechtel’s satire class. I received a call from dad, and ignored it. Later, when I called back, mom gave me the news. Dadu had passed away the night before.
A lot of people don’t know this. But it was Dadu who instilled in me the love of storytelling. The earliest stories I can remember were told to me by Dadu. They were tales of his childhood in his ancestral village, located in current Bangladesh, formerly a part of British India.
Dadu is the reason I am who I am. He dared to follow his dreams, and broke away from the family business. My ancestors were traditionally traders of paan, a leaf that is popular in India as a mouth freshener post-meals. He came to Calcutta as a young man to become an artist. And today, I can dare to follow my dreams of becoming a writer, thanks to him.
Paan
He worked for Bombay Photos, and perhaps, his most popular art piece is the Nirma Washing Powder dancing girl.
Nirma Washing Powder dancing girl
I was his favourite grandchild. And, I am not even the youngest. He had an unshakeable belief that I was his mother, reincarnated. Sure, it’s true that my face shape and bone structure bear an uncanny resemblance to my great-grandmother, but that could very well be because we share the same genes. That is what I tried to tell him. He brushed it off. Apparently, when my mother was pregnant with me, my great granny came into Dadu’s dreams and told him, “Son, I am coming to your family.” That’s the story he firmly stuck to.
We were close. I dreamt of him often after he passed away. He would come into my dreams and impart bits of wisdom to me. I wonder whether those dreams were a projection of my own desires, or whether it was Dadu coming to give me a sort of closure. I would like to believe the latter.
But he hasn’t been coming into my dreams for over two years now. I think he has either passed into that place where all souls go to, or if there is reincarnation, then he has been reborn already.
I know I will feel a familiar vacuum when I visit Calcutta this year.
I miss you, Dadu. A lot.
Filed under anecdote
